Truro Conference: 2019
Table of Contents
1 John 2:1-6
Reading
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Sweet.
Change.
Gracious.
Last year.
You are.
Nervous, she said. Nervous.
Our gracious, loving God and Father, we are here gathered together. You have a word from Thee. We pray that the Spirit of God might have liberty to use whosoever He will in order to bring out those things from Thy Word, which is food convenient for each one of us. All of us have different needs, and we just pray that those needs might be met by Thy grace.
And we pray that we, first of all, would sit in the seat of the learner and we might have our hearts opened so that we might receive, that we're so that we would be on distracted, that we would concentrate upon those things that are spiritual or are good for our building up or comfort, exportation, edification, whatever the need might be. So we commend these things to thee. Pray for those who take part.
Who might be led by the Spirit of God? Pray in Jesus worthy precious name.
Amen.
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Perhaps I could make a suggestion for a chapter that we might look at.
Many years ago now, back in the 1800s, a well taught brother amongst us on his deathbed made the remark, Let not John's ministry be neglected in favor of Paul's.
Which was a good remark, and I wonder if the brethren would consider taking up a second chapter of First John.
It's a chapter that brings before us our relationship to God as children.
We're all children and it addresses us as such, but then it also addresses those who are in different stages of Christian maturity, with instructions for each one.
That command itself.
First John, chapter 2.
My little children, these things right eye unto you, that ye sin not if any man sin. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous.
And He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
And hereby we do know that we know him, that we keep his commandments. And he saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments.
Is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoso keepeth his word in him, verily as the love of God perfected, hereby know we that we are in Him, and he that saith the abideth in him on himself also, so to walk even as he walked.
President, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which he had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you have heard from the beginning. Again a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness has passed, and the true light now shining. He that saith he is in the light and hated his brother is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling intent but he that hated his brothers in darkness and walketh in darkness.
And knoweth not whither he goeth, because the darkness, that darkness has blinded his eyes. I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His namesake. I read unto you, fathers, because you have known Him, that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because you have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because you have known Him, that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because you're strong.
And the Word of God abideth in you, and you have overcome the wicked one. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away and the lusts thereof. But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. Little children, it is the last time. And as you have heard that Antichrist shall come. Even now are there many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time.
They went out from us, but they were not of us, For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest, that they were not all of us. But you have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ.
His Antichrist.
That denies the father and the Son.
Whosoever denied the Son, the same hath not the Father, that he that acknowledgeth the Son, hath the Father also. Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that He have promised us, even eternal life, These things that I've written on to you concerning them that seduce you.
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But the anointing which He had received of Him abideth in you, and He need not that any man teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things and His truth, and is no lie. And even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him. And now little children, abide in Him, that when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. If He know that He is righteous, you know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of Him.
We might just make a couple of remarks as an introduction to this chapter.
First of all, we need to remember that John doesn't write the way Paul does. John doesn't give us the truth of the assembly. In fact, I'm not aware that in his ministry he ever mentions the church.
In its broad character, where it includes every believer.
Maybe a local assembly. He does mention that once or twice, but the church in the sense in which Paul consider considers it, John doesn't even mention it. Rather he looks at us more as part of the family of God. So it's a different line of ministry. He gives us the that new life which was of course displayed perfectly in Christ when he was here on earth, and then, as it ought to be displayed in US.
And also John often writes in the abstract.
So that he just makes a statement without all the if we could use a common expression, all the if ands, buts. Maybe he just simply makes a statement as to the character of things without any corollaries that might be connected with it. So we have to understand that and realize that when John writes that way, we have to see it from his point of view.
But having said that, it's beautiful to see how that all believers are addressed here as children.
That expression? Little children.
Is really not properly translated. In the first verse here it should simply read My children. So also in the 12Th verse it should read My children and also toward the end of the chapter, verse 28. And now children abide in him, that is, every believer is looked upon.
As a child of God in John's eyes.
But then of course there is, as we mentioned earlier, the expression.
In verse 13, at the end of the verse, little children, and that is correctly translated, and in the beginning of verse 18, little children, meaning those who are young believers, new believers, not necessarily in age but in their Christian maturity.
So it's important to realize those things and enjoying John's ministry, but at the same time, it's wonderful to see how that God has given us a new life in Christ, eternal life to be lived out in the power of the Spirit of God. And John simply says, here it is and here is the display of it as it should be.
In you and in me, in this world.
It's good to notice, too, that John is the last writer in the New Testament of the New Testament epistles and Revelation as well. So he wrote the Gospel and then first, second and third John, and then the Book of Revelation. So he writes.
After Jerusalem was destroyed and after Judaism ceased really in essence to exist and cease to be practiced, and he looks upon the Christian profession.
As a mixture and those that professed to know Christ and those that were real all mixed together. And so he gives different tests in these passages that we read. I think there's seven of them. I don't know if I have them all here, but.
That he notes those tests of reality. You say you're a Christian, you say you belong to Christ, notes those tests by some little expressions. And so in verse chapter one, verse six, he says, if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness.
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While he's giving a test and if there's darkness, darkness is the absence of light, the absence of true light. And then he says in verse eight, another profession, he says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. So there were those that claim that they didn't have a sin nature. And he said, you can I'll tell you how to how to how to identify one who is a professing believer but not real.
He says he's he no longer sins. He has reached sinless perfection. And then in verse 10, chapter one, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar. And then a little further on in chapter two, he that say it, I know him and keepeth not his commandments as a liar, and the truth is not in him. Then verse six, he that say it, he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked. And then a little later on, verse 9.
He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother is in darkness.
Even until now. And so there, as you say, very abstract statements, But God used the apostle John to show that there was such a thing as professing to be a believer, professing reality, but really not having any light at all, not being a real believer. And so John's ministry shows the absolute distinction between a believer that does have life is part of that new creation race in Paul's terminology.
But those that are not real are identified.
Might be helpful too to say that Paul terminology he uses different terms and John uses perhaps the same word but it doesn't mean the same thing. And I was just thinking of Ephesians chapter one and just as an example.
Ephesians chapter 2 we could look at verse two. We're in in time past he walked.
According to the course of this world. So that's practical walk and we walk in a practical way. And Paul takes that word up in the practical sense of the our testimony and how we walk through this world. Well, John uses it a little bit differently. He says in verse seven of chapter one, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with another. So he says in essence that.
If we are in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. So he's not really talking of practical, the practical fact of walking in communion, but being in the light, being in the place, in the position of being a believer and being in the position of being in the light and knowing the light. And so there's some distinctions and you'll get confused if you try to apply Paul's terminology to John's ministry.
I remember there was a brother years ago that used to tell us about various keys to various epistles, and I've enjoyed.
In first John chapter 2 There where it says in the eighth verse which thing is true in him and in you as being sort of the key to the epistle, because in John's Gospel we have what's true of him, right?
But then in the epistle of John we have what was true of him should be true in US. And so I have enjoyed that little expression which thing is true in him and you as being sort of a key to what John is bringing out in this epistle.
Yes, you could summarize John's ministry in a simple way by saying that.
John's Gospel is the eternal life come down to earth in the person of Christ, and that of course is also referred to in the first verses of this epistle. And then John's epistles are the blessed results for those who accept Christ.
The revelation is the awful judgment on those who reject them.
And I think it's very important what Robert has mentioned, because by the time John wrote his ministry, probably around 30 years after the Apostle Paul had passed off the scene or at least was practically finished his ministry, things were already starting to show their signs of declension and, sad to say their word, mixtures of believers and unbelievers.
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Christian profession, it was amazing how quickly the truth was given up after the apostles passed off the scene. And John's ministry recognizes that. But I think it's important too to realize the proper use of the word if in John's ministry. I think that's what Robert was alluding to in the English language. Not to get complicated about it, but.
There's the if you might say if condition. I can say, for example, to use something that's very appropriate At the moment, if I go to the general meetings in Truro, I won't be able to go to the general meetings in Kirkland. That's the if of condition, because I can't be in two places at the same time.
But I might also say if I am a Christian, I ought to act this way. It's not implying that I'm not a Christian. It could simply say, in other words, since I am a Christian, there is a way that I ought to act. And it's that that is the case in the seventh verse of the first chapter. Since we walk in the light, every believer is in the light. But then there's the if of condition in the seven verses that.
Brother Robert was mentioning and I have to ask myself and apply those tests, am I real or is there merely outward profession and a going on with something that has no inward reality?
On the ninth verse of chapter one, we have a nip of obedience there, don't we?
If we're obedient and we have sinned, we're going to confess that sin.
If we have sinned and we're not obedient, we don't confess it.
But.
The blessing is in the confessing of the sin were forgiven.
The blood of Jesus Christ is cleanse. Cleanse us from all sins already cleanse, but for our communion with the Lord is evil for the sin to be confessed. And we have a choice. We can either confess it or not confess it. But the blessing comes through confessing it. So it's an if of obedience or disobedience.
Choice is like saying A level of choice.
Not to spend too much time on it, but that ninth verse of the first chapter, in its broad sense is really a general statement. One who was an unbeliever could read that verse and be saved through it. He could say, yes, if I come to Christ and confess that I'm a Sinner.
Then there's forgiveness for me.
And also I can be cleansed from all unrighteousness. That is the work of Christ not only cleanses me from my sins, but there's also deliverance from the power of sin. But as Enos is mentioning, those of us that are believers read that verse and we can see in it restoration to communion with the Lord and not merely restoration to communion for that time.
But the dealing with the roof that caused me to do it in the first place.
Very often when we come to Christ and confess a sin, it's a good thing. But perhaps I speak to my own heart. I hesitate to deal with the root cause of the problem. That allows me to do it again, to deal with the root. Then I'm not so likely to do it again.
But in the first verse of our second chapter.
In connection with that, we have Christ as our advocate.
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And that's a large subject, which could entail the rest of the reading reading if we took all of that time. But the word advocate in Scripture is really the same word as is translated comforter in John's Gospel. And anyone can look this up because I'm not a Greek scholar. But the word has no definite equivalent in the English language. It has the thought of one who takes charge of.
And looks after all of your affairs. And what a wonderful thing that is. The Spirit of God is here on earth to look after everything for us. Christ is up there in glory looking after everything for us. And the same word is applied to both of them.
And this the Lord never assumes that we're going to sin. But as we had brought out, if we try and pretend that we don't sin anymore, we're only deceiving ourselves.
And we never need to sin, but how thankful we can be that there is one who is our advocate, who is there to restore us. And in Hebrews chapter 4, we're told to approach the throne of grace because there's a high priest.
There, who is there to keep us from sin?
But it's beautiful to see that we do not have to come and ask the Lord Jesus to act as our advocate, because if we sin, we're not usually in a state to think we need help. We're away from the Lord. We sin.
But the Lord acts for us without our asking Him in order to restore us. He saw it coming. He saw us getting away from Him.
If I could speak to my own heart, He saw wrong thoughts being entertained in my mind. He saw those thoughts being turned over and matured, and he saw the tendencies to where that translated itself into an act of sin. But before all of that happened, the Lord is working to restore them, to bring me back to Himself. Sad to say, sometimes it takes a while. It doesn't always happen instantaneously.
But He's there on behalf of us with the Father, in order to restore us to communion. How beautiful that is.
We would never be restored to communion if it depended upon ourselves. No, but the fact that.
When we sin and we have to acknowledge that we do it, the Lord's advocacy comes into into operation for us and leads us to confessional that sin. That's right, there is a ministry about advocate and.
They they liken it to a lawyer.
That an old earthly lawyer, that word is used to advocate, but nervous lawyer, they will take on somebody's case and we know a question of his guilt and they'll try to get him off with whatever he did, try to get the sentence reduced or he would try to get him off completely from the crime that he committed. Well, that advocacy here is not.
That way with the Lord.
If we do something wrong, the Lord isn't there to plead for us that he might get us off with it. Whatever we did. He knows what we did. He knows we're guilty. He's there to plead with God that God may bring circumstances into our lives that we repent of that which we've done so that we can be restored. So the Lord Jesus is there to restore us, but He doesn't make excuses for our sin. So it's different than a earthly lawyer.
I think that's why Brother Bill mentioned it, that it'd be good to maybe read Mr. Darby's note on it. It's very clear because he uses a different word in the translation.
He says that he may not sin and if anyone sin, we have a patron with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And so as you say, he's not going to gloss it over, but he says in his note, he gives the Greek word and then as comforter John 14 verse 16261526167. Christ manages all our affairs. Forest above, the Holy Spirit below.
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I use patrons in the sense rather of the Roman patron.
Who maintain the interest of his clients in every way. So Christ on high the spirit here for the Saints. And so there's a difference. As you say, it's really not an equivalent to think that an advocate is similar to a lawyer goes way beyond and none of us, as has already been said, would ever confess our sin except that Christ advocates for us.
And the reason we confess is because he did.
For us and he does exercises as to the need to repent and So what we have in verse nine of chapter one is really restorative or governmental forgiveness. There are different types of forgiveness in the in the Bible and so at the cross of Christ at the cross the Lord Jesus or the judgment governmentally, judicially God dealt with Christ judicially for my sins and so God.
The Lord Jesus faced God as it were as and God as a judge. God judges sin and so judicially I am forgiven forever for all of my sins. My sins were dealt with on the cross. God dealt with the Lord Jesus about my sins. So judicially I'm forgiven. But there's he speaks of brotherly forgiveness. I think that's different passage of scripture, but you can look at Matthew chapter 18. It's one of the similitudes of the Kingdom.
And here really it's governmental or restorative forgiveness. And so if we sin and we refuse to confess it, we refuse to admit it, the Lord may have to exercise some discipline upon us to bring us to our knees to be able to to want to confess it. And so we have examples in the Old Testament, don't we, of how David sinned in connection with Bathsheba. And he went on for quite some time.
But the Lord brought circumstances into play so that David bowed the knee and David confessed his sin, and David was restored. And so that sin was dealt with. And so there's restorative forgiveness. And we also have the forgiveness of the assembly, don't we, in connection with the administrative decisions that are made in the assembly and in the fear of God for His glory to maintain cleanliness in the assembly.
Why there may be sin that needs to be dealt with and sin bound upon a person. And then when there's repentance and there seems to be personal restoration and those that are in oversight and assembly particularly notice this and become exercise, then the assembly itself is responsible to forgive. And so there's administrative forgiveness. So here it's the entrance. It's necessary for us to identify when it speaks of forgiveness.
In the scriptures as to which type, I might just say this as well. When it speaks of forgiveness, it speaks of no longer being guilty before God. On that matter, isn't that nice? The children of Israel, they could offer a sacrifice for sin. One sacrifice for one sin.
We could read it in Leviticus chapter 41. Sin one sacrifice, another sin another sacrifice. They were never finished.
But you and I are judicially forgiven. We are forgiven. We are no longer guilty before God. All of our sins are cleansed.
In the precious blood of Christ.
They only had atonement and so the blood covered the sin.
And so, on the one hand, the work of the Advocate is to bring us to the time or the place of repentance and to exercise our souls about what we have done.
On the other hand, it says Jesus Christ the righteous, He goes before God righteously as an advocate. Why? Because as we've already heard, judicially, the sin has already been paid for, and so the advocate can go before God.
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In the person of Christ and plead our case, if we could use the thought, and it is, it is a good thought. The word avocado is the Latin word for a lawyer.
And.
He can go before God and plead our case on the grounds of what He has done on Calvary's crops. But then there's there's need for that. There ought to be the exercise before God. How serious it is for me to sin in the presence of grace. How serious it is for me to go and commit a sin when I consider the price that was paid for my redemption. That means you brought before me, doesn't it?
But then I find out that the grace of God is greater than all my sin because He knew ahead of time that I would do that.
And He saved me anyway. And so that brings the grace of God only in the even greater way. And that I believe, ties in with verse two because it magnifies the grace of God, because not only did the Lord Jesus suffer the punishment, as you might say, my substitute on Calvary's cross, but He made propitiation, which is a big word but.
It satisfied the claims of God's holy nature.
So that God can come out and offer a free salvation to whosoever will. And in that way our King James translation is somewhat remiss because the last clause of the verse and in my Bible the words the sins of are in italics and they should be. It should read. And He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only.
But also for the whole world.
It's erroneous and wrong to say that Christ bore the sins of the whole world.
If that were true, God would be unrighteous to put anyone in hell if the penalty had been paid. And that is not true. But God made propitiation for the whole world so that a gospel preacher can go and say to anyone, Christ died for you, You may come and be saved because Christ has satisfied all the claims of God's holy nature by his work on the cross.
And you may now come and be saved through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
After we're saved, we learned that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, but on the grounds not merely of having paid for my sins as an individual, but having satisfied the claims of God's holy nature of God or God in Christ. Or we better say it this way, Christ can go before God as our advocate.
And plead our case and say I have done everything in order that this individual.
Might be able to be restored to community. What a blessing thing that is. No Israelite, as we've just heard, ever had anything like that.
Brother Bill, is there a connection between?
Pricing propitiation for the whole world and the failed the temple being ranked in the top to bottom whereas Nanny now has access to God through Christ. I believe so yes, I believe that the rending of that veil showed that.
God could now come out in blessing to man, and man could go in. Whosoever will may come is the ground of is on the ground of propitiation. Yes, this is perhaps what John was saying in the middle of verse 2. Not for ours only.
But also for the whole world. So it's not only applicable to the Jewish nation and to those that were in outward relationship with him as the children of Abraham, but it was really for all of the nations as well. So the whole door was open. We might look at Hebrews Chapter 9 and verse 26. It's a little bit, you might say that of a definition of.
Propitiation verse 26 down to verse 28. For then must he often have suffered?
Since the foundation of the world, but now once in the end of the world or the end of the age, he had appeared to put away sin for the by the sacrifice of himself. So he's satisfied the righteous claims of God.
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Because of the sacrifice on the cross. And so sin is done, dealt with, the root has been dealt with and is appointed under man wants to die, but after this the judgment. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.
Now he can go out to you and I in blessing unto them that look for him. He shall ye appear the second time without sin or without dealing with the sin question unto salvation. So we're going to be saved from if that's our final salvation that's being spoken up there. So salvation also is spoken of in different ways in the Scriptures. We have the salvation of our souls very few times the word of God mentions that particular aspect of things, but the salvation of our.
Uh, bodies, the final salvation of our bodies at the resurrection and at the call, at the shout will be finally saved from the power of sin. Our bodies will no longer be subject to the ailments and well, our bodies will be glorified, will finally be delivered, will be saved from the effects of sin and the presence of sin. So yes, we've saved from the penalty of sin.
In the work of Calvary.
Received from the power of sin as we walked in obedience to the Word of God.
And keep the old nature in the place of death where God is put it. We're not saved from the presence of sin in this world. We're going to have that old nature as long as we're in the body and the results of it. Some of us are part of, we're all part of the groaning creation, and we feel it more as we get older. So the presence of sin will be completely obliterated.
When the Lord returned and we got to receive.
Not a new body, but a body of Lord by Christ.
The word propitiation is connected to.
The sacrifice for sin.
And when the Lord Jesus said on the cross, it is finished, the temple bell was ran from top to bottom.
There was a finally a sacrifice that satisfied the holiness of God.
Against sin in the person of the Son, we read about the Old Testament, a little bit about officiation.
Really means mercy seat and so.
When the high priest went in with the blood.
He had to go in and make atonement for himself and then for the people. He spread the blood on the mercy seat, and atonement in the Old Testament means covering, so it covered the sins of the people.
For a time, but then it had to be repainted every year.
So it was never a complete atonement or a complete covering, but the blood of Christ did more than that. It not only covered her sins, but it cleansed them away from the sight of God. So there's a one time cleansing that took place.
Upon her sins by Christ for all time. That's that's the beauty here. So I like to look at that word officiation if he does put cleansing in there.
That makes it clear because that's what it really did. The blood of Christ upon the mercy seat cleanse us from all sins, and that's how we're looked at today by God in this present day. That blood has made that atonement and that cleansing were covered for all eternity by that that one sacrifice.
Might be helpful to look at Romans 325. There are two aspects to propitiation though. 1 Satisfies 1 aspect. Gods, holy and righteous claims.
Are satisfied, but then it allows God to go forth and grace to the Sinner. So you have both, I believe in Romans 325, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation or could be a mercy seat. I believe that's how Mr. Darby translates it set forth to be a mercy seat through faith in his blood to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. So as you say, those Old Testament Saints, they sinned against God. They knew that they sinned and they hoped that God would not hold them accountable for those things. They didn't know how it would be possible.
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And they wondered if they offered enough sacrifices. Job offered sacrifices for his sons and so on. They had no security, no sense of peace with God, no purged conscience. But you and I, we have purged conscience. We know that our sins are gone. God will never. The Lord Jesus at the judgment seat of Christ will never point to you and say, well, you know that one sin. I want to talk about that sin.
And no, he's going to review our lives. He's going to give us the rewards that are due and so on that he sees from his perspective, he'll review our lives. But our sins are gone, absolutely gone. So the IT was according to his righteousness for the remission of sins or the forgiveness of sins that the they're gone. Those sins are forgiven. You're no longer guilty. God looks at you now is no longer being guilty.
But on a righteous basis, God's holy claims have been satisfied. Now God can go forth for the Sinner. And so it was through the forbearance of God that he could go on with the children of Israel. And he was looking forward to the cross, to the work that would be done in the blood would be applied and their sins would be gone, would be dealt with. And so the blood, as you say, the atonement in the Old Testament was a covering. The sins were not gone. They were still there. The God on credit could say I'm looking forward to the cross.
You don't know about it, but I'm looking forward to the crop. No sins are going to be dealt with. David didn't know. Abraham didn't know, but you know.
How it should reduce praise and Thanksgiving in our hearts to think that God looks at you where you're sitting today, he says. Not guilty.
He looks at you and says you're not guilty. He doesn't see you as a Sinner. He sees you as a Saint of God, blessed as a son, and as we're reading here in first John, as one that is in relationship with him as a child of God, blessed.
Is there a thought in this second verse also that might be connected with original sin? Let's go back to Adam, sin and sense of being the mercy seat of appreciation for the whole world that there will be none and lost eternity because of Adam's sin, right? What we, we are sinners by birth. We sin because we're sinners. So it goes back to heaven that way, but none of us will be a lost eternity because of that.
I don't seem at our own, so is there a thought that that was taken out of the way here?
The door opened. I wasn't worried like we were all captives. I think it's amazing. Is it the thought maybe that he's made provision that all of our sins could be dealt with and so.
It's on.
I don't think so brother. I don't think that's what comes in there. Thought it would be and said God, God has sinned, have been paid for.
No.
What Adam did still results in there being the old man. You and I by grace have put off the old man, having put off the old man with his deeds, but that remains. I believe now the work of Christ will eventually result in that according to the verse Robert read in Hebrews 9, will result in sin being removed from this entire universe in the coming day.
No sin at all in the eternal state, it's all gone. No sin will ever rear its head again. But that is not strictly Speaking of appreciation.
Is cleansing with appreciation. The cleansing is only for those that accept price that has gone out to the whole world as an invitation. Whosoever believeth on on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved.
But not everyone accepts that gift. It goes out. The blood of Christ is powerful enough to cleanse the sins of everyone in this world.
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It's powerful enough to do so, but.
The responsibility lies with each individual to take advantage of that offering the crisis made to us.
Anyone has to consider themselves and either accept it or reject it. So perhaps grown in three.
Verse 22.
Like The Doctors 3 verse 22.
Of God, which is by faith that Jesus Christ, I'm too old, and upon all that the police.
Is available to all, but it's only effective on.
That precious, you know, because when we preach the gospel, the grace of God is already being said. We need to be careful not to say that Christ died and paid for all of the sins for all those that are in the world. You just need to accept it. No, He didn't bear the judgment for all of the sins of all that are in the world because God would be unrighteous then to cast any into the lake of fire, but He made provision for all.
You know, the Jew, he was told he couldn't go outside the nation of Israel, he couldn't eat with the Gentiles, he couldn't do those things. But you and I don't have those restrictions.
There's not a soul on the face of the earth that you and I couldn't go to, don't have the liberty to go to and present Christ as the only Savior for sinners, and that God has made provision for you that you could have your sins forgiven because Christ went to the cross of Calvary to make provision for you if you would accept it.
You can have your sin forgiven. And so if an individual thing, God saves souls individually. And so he was dealing with Israel as a nation and it showed that even under perfect conditions that they would never receive it as a nation and as a company. So that's why he said in verse 2, not for ours only, but also for the whole world. What grace, what love and so.
We need to be accurate and to just present the gospel of the grace of God to individuals. God has made provision for you as an individual if you will accept Christ, isn't it Marcus?
It says in the verses we're looking at in Romans verse.
Where it says that he sent him forth a propitiation, it says through faith in his life. And in verse 26 it says to declare, I say at this time his righteousness, that he might be Jobs.
And the justifier of him which believeth on Jesus.
So what it's saying is that the propitiation enabled God to be just when he justified us who believed.
And so it's what the propitiation is, what made God Johnson. It is pouring out and flowing out Grays and forgiving us, giving us new life. All these things were based on that particulation. Is that right? Yes, and I asked a further question on Hebrews 2.
Let's verify first the Hebrews 2 and the ninth verse.
The end of the verse really don't read the old verse. We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, called the suffering of death crown of glory and honor, that He by the grace of God should face death for every man. How does that come into play?
Well, that should read everything.
And the thought there is that again, through the death of Christ, God has made a way that sin will be forever removed from this world. John the Baptist proclaimed it when he said, behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. I don't believe John the Baptist entered into it all as to the significance because I doubt if he realized everything that was going to happen, including the eternal state that had to wait for Paul's ministry.
But in essence, the work of Christ on the cross and the Lord Jesus going into death has resulted in God being able not only to come out in blessing to you and to me, but eventually, as we get in Romans 8, for the creature to be.
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Taken out of the ******* of corruption. And in the millennial day we'll see that blessing come about. But then in the eternal state, we'll see the entire removal of sin.
So in that sense, Christ tasted death for everyone. That's the thought. And behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
That is in its broad sense, that.
That every race of sin from this universe will be obliterated forever.
Through the work of Christ, I had to stand up and speak sometimes.
Every trace of sins marvelous to concentrate every trace of sin and all the results of it in the creation. The creation is is defiled by sin. Now the heavens are not even cleaned, but through the work of Christ.
Every particle of sin will be put away.
On the ground of his finished work, on the ground of the work of Kelvin. We don't have to wait to eternity to have that.
Truth, do we? When the Lord Jesus returns, maybe even this day, we know that we'll be with him and like him and glory. That old nature that causes so much trouble with us now will be gone completely then, so we'll be in the full enjoyment of that sinless creation.
But it's going to take another thousand years after that, or before the world will realize that work of crisis.
Has obliterated sin for for once and for all, but we'll have the enjoyment of it as soon as we leave this scene.
Well, the thing that we that we notice now, of course, is the feebleness of her bodies and the old nature that is within us. Both of those things will disappear when Christ calls us home. We will receive a change body fashioned on the like, His glorious body.
And that old nature will be gone. What a day that will be for us when we're finally home with the Lord, and those things will be a reality for us.
Wonder if might help to make clear propitiation. Also if we look at it someone could tell us where is when the wards talk about the tube that came before God and one was a Pharisee and he prayed and said I do this and that and then he said the other one you know.
Beat on himself and what he said there was be propitiated.
And I think if we look at that, it might help a little for us to understand what it was he was asking. Say forgiveness isn't what he said. He said if you. I think that the proper translation is deprivation. Luke 17.
18 storage.
Luke 18 and verse 10.
Yeah, here it says Divergent have some cash on me, but I believe the literal translation would be proficient and which also brings in in this translation. But it really is for God to be asking that God would be satisfied regarding his send his state whole thing that God would be.
Would be satisfied in that regard. So that's what's officiation does. It satisfies the righteous requirements of God concerning sin.
It's not, it's not a matter of individual forgiveness or any of those other things that's been brought out, but it is on God's side. God has been paid. The initial aspect has been taken care of and all of we receive of God is because of that.
It has to do with believing in your blood, believing that the efficacy of the precious blood of Christ is sufficient to cleanse my sins. The moment that you were you heard the gospel of the grace of God, or you were alone in your room, and you said Christ died for me in the blood of Jesus Christ.
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His Son, His blood was sufficient to cleanse me from all sin. You immediately were sealed with the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God came to dwell within you.
You received a spiritual gift at the time and the work was finished, were sealed with the Spirit and you have a a clear conscience as to the fact that sin has been dealt with and your sins are gone. We might just turn to Hebrews again. I think it's Chapter 9, verse 26. It's something that is a blessing that you and I have that the Old Testament Saints didn't have.
So Hebrews Chapter 9 and verse 14. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God?
Purge your conscience from dead work to serve the living God.
You have a purged conscience. You recognize that your sins are gone and it's the blood of Christ that has dealt with those sins.
And so you're not relying on your feelings as to whether you're, you feel saved today, you are saved by the grace of God. The blood has shed, was shed and the blood has dealt with your sins, your cleanse. And so the judicial, judicial, your sins have been dealt with, but now you're justified. I know we're going a little beyond, we're going to Paul's doctrine here, but justified God put you into a new legal position, a new legal standing before him.
You're now no longer guilty of all those sins forgiven, but now you have a new standing before him.
And he sees you in that new standing as a Saint of God. He does not see you as a Sinner. Yes, you do have the old nature. And his brother Bill pointed out, in a future day he will take away the sin of the world, and there is going to be a new heavens and a new earth wherein righteousness dwells. But during the tribulation, during the Millennium, there will still be sin, and it will be judged.
And but the Lord Jesus made provision at the cross that God's holy righteous character would be vindicated, and that all sin might be on a righteous basis put away from holy God, and that you and I could exist, live in His presence, and sin would never ever disturb us for all eternity. But a good conscience is not the same as a purge conscious. But Robert has been speaking about that.
A purge conscience is the judicial aspect of the work of Christ, no doubt. But I can have a first conscience and yet not have a good conscience because I'm not walking in self judgment.
Maybe something in my life that I'm allowing that is dishonoring for the war and I have a bad conscience, but in God's side I have a first conscience. Is that right to do? I think we better get back to our chapter.
Not that it's wrong to get straight on propitiation, but we could go on all all meaning out of this verse three says and hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments.
And then, as we've said before, there's a test. He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
We don't have commandments in the New Testament as we did under law in the Old, but the New Testament commandments are simply.
The thoughts of one with whom we have been brought into relationship as to what would please him.
Let me use an illustration.
I read some time ago that there was a young man who got married and.
They moved into a home that they purchased. It wasn't a new home, but they moved into it. And one of the first things his wife said to him was deer. Would you paint the kitchen white for me?
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What's that a thing that he would have said to you? Well now, dear, is that a request or is that a command?
Of course it was a request, but it had the force of a command. And he painted the kitchen white. Porter.
That was that's a little illustration of how the commandments of God are. It says in this same epistle of John, his commandments are not grievous. Why? Because we now have a new life that delights, depletes him.
But this third verse, I believe, brings before us that.
In walking before the Lord and in doing that which He has revealed to us will please Him, we have the sense, the enjoyment, the inner knowledge that we are in that relationship. Nor are we always in that relationship in the true sense of the word. Of course we are. I can't get out of it.
Unless I apostatize and go off into a false religion or something which would prove that I was never truly saved at all. But if I am a true believer in one sense, I can never leave the blessed position into which Christ has brought, but I live in the conscious knowledge and enjoyment of it. By doing those things which God has shown you will please him.
How important that is and how nice it is. Now, does that mean, though, in verse four, that a believer can never do something that displeases the Lord? And if a believer does something that displeases the Lord, does that mean he's an absolute liar and that the truth isn't in him? Again, John talks to the abstract. He talks of what is normal and properly characteristic of a believer.
What is characteristic of a believer that he keeps his commandments? What is characteristic of the family of the devil? They're liars and they break his commandments. They don't do what pleases the Lord. They have no interest in it. And so John gives us what is characteristic in order that I can judge my heart on that basis.
Very sensitive what he said, you know, that's the Lord's commandments, what he said to do. And you know, he said to somebody says, why do you, why do you call me Lord? Lord, don't do what I say.
I mean, to keep his commandments is to do what he said. That's pretty simple.
It wouldn't be over something fine, but it just to say that.
As it says here in verse 5, keepeth His word.
Commandments are words that that we have that that were given.
Given to us to keep and what I would think it would include all of the word of God.
I thought of it as divine instruction. The Lord gave instructions. He, he didn't hide what would please Him. He told us what would please Him. And there are principles that apply from 1 dispensation to another. The principles that were given in the Old Testament are the same principles morally that we have in the New Testament and so on. We know what pleases Him, We have His word. And so Brother Gordon, he used to remind us oftentimes when we're young.
But obedient to the word of God and happiness go together. You cannot have a happy life and set aside the word of God. It's not possible. And so here he's bringing this out. I was just going to refer to John 14. John speaks this way in his gospel as well. And John 14 verse 21, he says he that hath my commandments and keepeth them, He it is that loveth me.
That's evidence of our love. We're expressing our love to the Lord Jesus by keeping His word, by loving His Word, keeping his. He that loveth me shall be loved with my Father. Now we have a relationship brought in with the Father. I will love him and will manifest myself to him. So there's a sweetness of communion that comes in if we have a high regard for the Word of God, a love for the Word of God.
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The commandments I mean. Even in the whole testament he starts by saying first commandment.
Your dog, that's where it all starts and it all flows from that. And it shouldn't be difficult for us to understand that love breeds trust. And if you trust that, you obey, you don't question, you know, if you're told what to do, you just do it because that's what love would do.
Trust and obey. There's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.
I would suggest though here there is a deeper thought which we need to grasp.
Keeping His word goes further than keeping His commandments, and that's why there's a distinction made. God doesn't repeat Himself just for emphasis. In this case, keeping His commandments, I believe, entails doing that which is explicitly set. To go back to my illustration, the wife asked particularly that her new husband painted the kitchen white.
She asked for more than that, by the way. She asked later on that he trimmed it in yellow. He didn't like yellow, but he turned it in yellow because it was her kitchen and because he loved her. But keeping his word. Not to get into Greek because I'm not a Greek scholar, but the word here used.
Translated word I believe is logos, and it goes much deeper than simply the actual thing said.
It goes behind the scene.
To everything that is implied and no one in that word. Not only what is said or what is written down, but about the person.
So that for example.
If I were to ask a husband who had been married in a good marriage for 25 years if I could do something for his wife?
In many cases, he would not say, let me ask her, what would he say? He would probably say no. I don't think she'd care for that. How does he know? Because he's lived with her. He knows her. He doesn't have to ask her. She doesn't have to say no, dear, I don't like that. I don't think that would be good.
He knows what would please her.
And God has left many things outside the pale of a direct command in the New Testament. The Old Testament was a book of law. Everything was laid out in black and white. You simply did it, whether you understood why. In most cases, they didn't know why. But in the New Testament we have principles that have to be carried out and lived out in communion with the Lord, because now we're involved with the Spirit of God.
Now we can know the one who is the commandments, not merely know what the commandment is. And I believe the thought of keeping his word.
Entails the full knowledge of the Lord in the sense that we understand what would please him. Even if we can't point to a definite scripture that says that's the way we should do it. We know from knowing him and knowing what his Word says and the whole tone of Scripture. He say no, I don't think, I feel I don't think that would be a good thing to do. Is that commend itself?
Yeah, we're pleasing a person. The motive is exactly person. And so that's what they lacked, didn't they? In the Old Testament? It was. They had to obey the law. They had to obey.
The commandment, and in most and many of the commandments, I think there was something like 613 of them, some of them you disobeyed. The consequence was dead. It wasn't very there was.
There was no wiggle room, we'd say in today's terminology. But now you and I have a person before us, and if He's won our heart, he's told us what pleases him, and we have a sense of what is due to his honor, to his glory, then would you like to give him the joy in the conduct and our conduct and how we communicate and how we interface with one another and all sorts of things? And so the person.
He's given us a motive now.
Just add two questions that I really appreciate going through this chapter and just looking at it from the context of relationship that has been brought out many times. I think back to the Gospel of John where Mary Lord addresses Mary after those directions says I ascend to my father and your father's something that was new there as you brought out Robert. And as we go through these verses, there's something when I was in my early 20s, the vagina, they were taking up this doctor and I had been recently discussing.
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Internal security with a Christian friend who has become very good friends with and one of the verses just meant so much to me was this passage of any man saying we have an advocate with the father. The relationship is still there. It can't be broken. When we talk about propitiation a very complicated topic and we spend a lot of time on it this morning, but.
The complete coverage that our sins are completely covered when we talk about commandments. You know, I think about this as a father myself.
You get into difficult conversations with your children. It doesn't bring me any satisfaction as a father just to force my child in what I say to ask them to do something. I want them to want to do that because they're my child. The same thing is true in our relationship with the word. These verses can be cold if we look at it just from a commandment or from a technical definition or but if we look at all of these verses in the context of relationship has been brought up in many times this morning, it becomes incredibly rude. People, I can't I can't lose that position.
Behold, their love, her Father hath be so upon us that we should be called the Son of God. That is just. It is incredibly powerful thing that flows through all of these verses in the chapter and as we'll find out later in the chapter as well.
And that's why it says in that fifth verse, in him, verily, is the love of God perfected. Could we doubt the love of God after we take a look at Calvary's cross? No, I don't believe we could. How could anyone look at the cross and doubt the love that is there? But to have the love perfected is to know the one who died on Calvary's trust.
And as you mentioned, Mark, to know God is our Father. What was the first thing the Lord said to Mary Magdalene? I ascend unto my fault, your Father to my God. And your God, yes, he was still gone, but primarily now he was fought. And so the Lord brings us into that relationship with God as Father and with himself, and we have that love perfected in US in the sense that we know Him.
And if we could say it, I trust in my own soul with all humility. It's a challenge to all of us. How much do I really know though? I can go through the motions of the Christian life. I can even read the Word of God. I can even seek to carry it out. I can know the truth and I can seek to walk in it. But do I really have an ongoing?
Relationship which I am enjoying.
With the Lord, that all depends on keeping His word, doesn't it?
In the 8th chapter of the Gospel of John.
John chapter 8 and verse 7.
So it's 29 going to 329. The word Jesus says I do always those things that please.
Can't please support it?
So I'm back to.
The illustration that Bill gave us, the husband knew what was major way, so he did it. Now the word Jesus himself, it was impossible for him to do anything.
Other than losing father.
But the light that the Lord Jesus had had, He has now given us in our new nature.
So our new natures that we have can't do anything else but please over here is the father.
If I start to.
If I start to try to do my own will or question what the Lord has asked me to do or what or anything along that along that kind of Rd. then it's my old nature that during that question. If I if I know the word Jesus is my Savior and then I know my new nature knows that will only do what is pleasing to actually.
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Say that someone's word carries weight, right, We use that expression and if you love someone and where it carries weight with you, it's these scriptures, as it's been mentioned are we are being challenged to ask ourselves right and.
So if the Lord's word doesn't carry a lot of weight with you.
That's something you gotta pay attention to.
That's what's been brought out is. It doesn't even matter whether it's a direct command or not.
As Bill pointed out, is if you love someone, their word, their every word, bears wait with you and you pay attention to what they said.
They don't have to say, you know, I'm bring me some supper. It's enough to say I'm hungry.
It's an illustration in the Old Testament they were commanded to eat the Passover. There was no option. You had to eat the Passover. But in Christianity it's the heart is appealed to the infections, the motives to please him and he says this dude in remembrance of me, he doesn't say I command you to be gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus. He says let us therefore go forth unto him because we can't.
Very good approach. He doesn't say I command you to worship. He says, let us offer therefore the sacrifice of praise and Thanksgiving and God continually. And so there's the appeal to the heart so that to use bills illustration, the brother didn't say, well, how white do you want it? Like is this white enough?
One coat of paint, or two, or three.
I just enjoyed the, you know, forgive me for for saying it the further Norman Berry.
Used to use a little illustration, a little expression that he had used to say the day you got saved, you gave up your right to choose.
He said you acknowledge the Lord Jesus as Savior, you took him as Savior, you acknowledge him as Lord. He has the right to choose. And so we don't, often times we just say I have a right, I have rights, and I want to choose, I have rights. And we try to exercise our own wills. Well, the Lord Jesus never exercises will. And So what? John's praying before us is a characteristic of new life, of one who is real.
Is that he does keep his word.
In him, verily the love of God is perfect that you can identify a Christian. You can identify someone who has new life, life determined in the fact that the word of God carries weight with him and he's not trying to get wiggle room. He's he's wanting to please the one who gave him life.
I'm wondering if the perfecting year has to do with our response.
A person may show love to me in a very kind way, but I don't respond.
They make sacrifices for me. They express in a tangible way.
Their love. I don't respond.
Isn't that the fact that love is not perfected? It regards me. It's not my friend who's showing love.
But I'm not responding to it. Is that the thought? Said Bill.
Well, I believe that's included in it. It's perfected, It says in him. So God's love is always perfect, isn't it? There never needs to be any change in his love. But my love is in, as you say, in response to his. That's why it says later on in this same Thistle, we love him because He first loved us or it should read to Him, shouldn't be there. We love because He first loved us.
And then it translates just to finish up in the sixth verse, because our time is nearly gone. But then there's a walk. It's one thing to have in a relationship with the Lord, but my walk is that which is observed by others. It's observed by first of all, other believers. Secondly, it's observed by the world around and.
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It says ought himself also so to walk even as he walked.
Which one of us would like to stand up and say, and I've arrived.
I'm there.
I don't think any of us could say that, nor will we ever get that to that point till we get to the glory. But God never ever sets any example before us less than His beloved Son. Christ is the standard. Do we attain her? No, and it humbles us when we realize how far we fall short. But abiding in Him will give us the ability to walk.
Even as he walked. And there had been those whose character was like that.
I understand that there was one man who knew one of our dear brethren and well instructed writers in the 1800s, George B Wigram, who as I say, was well known by another individual. And he said, you know, every time I see that man or I am in his company, I am reminded of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Quite a commendation.
Another man whom I never knew, but he lived in Ontario, gathered to the Lord's name and apparently when he was in his coffin in the Funeral Home, one of his neighbors came in and in conversation with some there pointed to his body in the casket and said, you know that man, he never sinned.
Well, of course we know it wasn't true, but what a what a commendation to come from one's neighbor who had obviously known him and lived beside him, or at least close to him fairly well. So there is a character that you and I are to display to this world.
Is it something we try to do? Scripture never uses that word in connection with the Christian walk.
It is simply letting that new light which Christ has given us, which God has given us in Christ, to display itself. That's what it takes. All I have to do is remove all the hindrances to it and let that new light be the actuating force in my walk down here.
Thing #61.
This commander sounds our God and Father, We come before you this morning and we thank thee for the meditations that we have had before us. We thank thee that we are members of thy family. We thank thee, blessed God, that we can probably our Father. We thank thee for thy beloved Son, that one who is not only our intercessor but also our advocate.
Lord Jesus, we would just pray that as we wait for Thee to come, it might be our desire to walk in obedience to Thy precious word when we think of Thy love and what that was done for each one of us, that it might be the motive to walk in the path. That's blatantly not arguing as to whether something is right or wrong, but Lord to discern my mind. So He asked me for these things. Bless our time together.
In the name of all our Jesus Christ.
By Faith
Address—Bill Prost
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Or perhaps we could sing a hymn together, one that's familiar to us 276.
Guide us, O thou gracious Savior, pilgrims through this barren lamp. Sometimes interesting to know where hymns come from. If you look in the back of the hymn book you'll see the name W Williams, 1774.
William Williams was a young man who grew up in England, but as a young man he intended to go to medical school.
Kind of comes home to my own heart. Want to go to medical school. But then after a while before he got there, he came under the gospel preaching of a Welsh preacher by the name of Howell Harris, who was, along with John Wesley and some others in that day, responsible for turning England completely around from the godlessness that characterized it at the end of the.
And so William Williams got saved, never did go to medical school, but spent his life preaching the gospel and serving the Lord.
276.
Let's look to the Lord for His help.
Loving God our Father, we thank Thee for the hymn that we have sung together, and we do trust that it is the prayer of each one of our hearts.
We thank Thee, our God, for each one who knows the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior here this afternoon, and we thank thee, Lord Jesus, that we can count on thee to bring us all the way home safely.
We thank thee too, for the hope of thy near return. Perhaps today keep that hope right before us, we pray.
But now we ask for Thy help as we open Thy word together and pray that Thou wilt encourage our hearts, stir them up if necessary. Bring Christ before us once again. We ask all this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen.
Turn with me, please, to the 11Th chapter of Hebrews.
Chapter 11.
Well known, probably to most of us here as the faith chapter, that catalogue of those Old Testament servants and faithful people of old who walked when they did not, as we had this morning, have the same light and the same blessings as we have. And yet we're very faithful concerning what they did know.
And you and I are now in the last days, which were referred to in the prayer meeting this morning.
For those that were here.
And it tells us that perilous times shall come.
I don't suppose we need anyone to remind us that those perilous times are indeed here and we don't want to be pessimists, but they are going to get worse if the Lord leaves us here. But at the same time, the Lord, I believe, would encourage each one of us here.
And particularly to have faith in him. And that has what has kept believers going all down through the ages, whether in New Testament terms or in the Old Testament. There was that faith that trusted God, that believed in God as to who he was and what he could do.
This morning our brothers stand to my right ear, quoted an old brother.
And I knew whom he was quoting and I'm going to quote him again.
All our failure, whether as Saints or as sinners, stems from our unbelief of the goodness that is in the heart of God.
That's true. It's very true.
Do I really believe, even in the midst of all the difficulties of the day?
God, if we could put it bluntly, has my best interests and your best interests in his heart. Can we doubt it? It says in Romans 8. He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all.
00:05:16
How shall we not with Him also freely give us all things?
Now we want to add that that does not mean that God is automatically going to give me everything I want or make everything nice and smooth down here for me.
No, I'd miss out on the best things in the Christian pathway if there were never any trials or difficulties. But here in Hebrews 11, I have been impressed lately with the history of Abraham and his family.
Prior to what it says about Abraham, it says in verse one of Chapter 11.
And it tells us not what faith is. It's not a definition of faith, but rather what faith does.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
And then it mentions three men, Abel, Enoch and Noah.
And those three men cover, you might say, the whole panorama of God's dealings with man.
Because Enoch brings before us, first of all, redemption.
He was the first one, as far as we know, who offered a sacrifice.
He was the first one. I don't say that Adam and Eve didn't, but Abel in a special way, laid hold of what it meant to offer a blood sacrifice to the Lord.
Enoch is a type of the church first in God's purposes and blessings.
Caught up without having to go through death.
Noah is a type of the godly Jewish remnant being brought through those terrible waters of the Tribulation to repopulate a millennial earth. A panoramic view, so to speak. I'm in trouble with these panoramic view, so to speak, of all of God's purposes.
But then the Spirit of God launches into a discussion of Abraham and his family.
And I'd like to look at that practically for each one this afternoon.
There are younger ones here, maybe there'll be something for you in it, I trust. So there are those with young families, those that are middle-aged and there are people in my age bracket who are getting past the three score and 10 that God has allotted us. Some of us are living on borrowed time as we say.
I think there's something for each one of us here, and if you're the kind of person that likes numbers.
There are 7 by faith connected with Abraham and his family.
Verse 8.
By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
We're going to make some practical applications of this to today's world.
Abraham lived in a place called Urba Caldes, which was a relatively well developed city of those days according to history.
And life probably was, in a measure, more comfortable than it would have been living in a tent in the desert of Canaan.
But here God tells Abraham to come out of that city and does not tell him exactly where he was going.
And it was a real test for a man who prior to his call by God, it tells us in another scripture which we will not turn to, but he worshipped idols. So God called Abraham right out of idolatry to worship him as the true God. And he said, I want you to leave everything behind.
And go to a place that I'm going to tell you about.
Permit me to say that in my lifetime I have seen the world turned practically upside down. At least the world that we know, the world in which I grew up, especially the Western world, was pretty stable when I was growing up. Oh yes, it was right after the Second World War, but everybody thought.
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We'll get back to normal, and of course, those of us that grew up in North America didn't feel the war very much.
I certainly didn't, because I was born toward the end of the war and I didn't know much about it, and life went on pretty peacefully. But then things started to be turned upside down to the point now where everything that once had stability seems to have been brought into confusion and difficulty.
When I was going to school, you could quit school if you wanted to at the age of 16. Go and work in an industrial plant, make enough money to buy a car, buy a home, raise a family, have a reasonably satisfying life. As far as it goes, yes, you weren't rich. You maybe didn't take exotic holidays. You maybe didn't have a cottage up in the Lake District or somewhere like that. Maybe you didn't do everything a few others could do.
The light was stable. It's not like that anymore.
And you young people, I don't envy you growing up and trying to decide how to make a living, how to make your way in the world of today. And I freely own that we who are older in most cases, don't have the answers for you. What I want to emphasize today is that God does, and He knows how difficult the day is.
And you may have to in some cases be like an Abraham and go out not knowing whither you are going.
The point is, what am I looking for?
What is before me? Is the Lord before me, or his interests before me? Or is it selfish interests?
You can make a lot of money in the world today if you make the right moves, if you do the right thing in business, if you get the right education.
I read some time ago that at a recent commencement which was presented at Well, rephrase that, at a recent commencement which concerned those graduating from law school at Yale University in New Haven, CT, the man who gave the commencement address said you young people are going to enter.
What is now known as a meritocracy, you are going to be some of the elite who will be able to do very, very well in this world because if you use your brains correctly, you will be able to get wealthy. And he was right. But is that what you and I are looking for? I hope not. Know the Lord's coming is very soon. We see things beginning to implode in this world.
But if you and I have the Lord before us and his interests, we can count on him to lead and to guide.
But it was one thing for Abraham to leave her of the colonies, but what happens next in verse?
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.
He didn't have all the comforts that he might otherwise have had.
He didn't have all the trappings that other people might have had.
Now if we read the history, was Abraham a well to do man?
He was, and when those who lived around him in the land of Canaan addressed him, you'll remember when he went to buy a plot of land in which to bury his wife Sarah, after she had died. They said to him, Thou art a mighty Prince among us. Oh yes, the Lord did bless him abundantly, and the Lord looked after him, and the Lord may bless you and me abundantly in this world.
Despite all of the things that I had mentioned a few minutes ago.
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Canada and the US are still the lands of opportunity.
Trust me, I've been around other places in the world, and so have others here, and they would agree with me in many other countries of this world. You cannot break out of the mold into which you are born if you're born in a poor situation.
That is where you stay unless some wealthy person chooses to help you. Somebody chooses to help pay for your education or give you a bit of a.
An encouragement and help you to get on in this world.
Over in North America, here, if you really want to get ahead, in many cases you can do it. And Abraham did become wealthy.
Did it go to his head? No, it did not.
Abraham continued living in a tent. He never, as far as we know, owned any property except a burial ground.
But he was able to provide very well when it was a question of providing. In fact, they couldn't help noticing, and this was brought out at a reading meeting many years ago, that when the Lord himself, along with two angels came to visit Abraham, the Spirit of God records that Abraham served meat that was tender and good.
What kind of a meal was Lot able to serve those same angels a little while after?
What? Living in a city like Sodom, which was a wealthy city? And there's every reason to believe that Lot was wealthy too. What did Lot serve them? Unleavened bread.
Yeah. Ever tried it? Not very good. No, you wouldn't want it. Poor lot. What was the matter? Oh, he lost his bearings. He lost his spiritual discernment.
By thinking that he could somehow reform this world.
What kept Abraham gold? He looked for a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Now we want to say this, not to dwell on it. I don't believe that throughout his lifetime Abraham knew that he was going to have necessarily a heavenly portion. I would suggest that he probably looked forward if he was looking forward, and he was.
To an earthly paradise, it says further down in the chapter in verse 16. But now the desire a better country, O Abraham knows better. Now he's up there in glory with the Lord, and he knows that he's going to inherit the Kingdom on its heavenly side. But the point is Abraham gave up present advantage for future gain.
I say to my own heart, as I say to each one here.
Do I live my life in view of eternity?
And perhaps if it wouldn't be out of place, I can speak very plainly.
And I hope this doesn't offend anyone, but it's true just the same.
In the last few years.
There have been a lot.
Of what I call horror stories and they're true, that have been told about those who were true believers in many cases gathered to the Lord's name, and yet who deliberately went into sin that they knew was soundly condemned in God's Word.
Because they believed that somehow present advantage was better than future gain.
It hits close to home so don't think I don't know about it.
But those who are believers have broken up their marriages because they thought that present advantage was better than future gain. Dear believers have gone out into the world and committed unmentionable acts because present advantage was better than future gain. People have done things that were morally wrong, not only in the realm.
Of sexual sin, but of sin in the business world and many other things, and to do with addictions, alcohol and drugs and all the rest of it, dear believers, because present advantage somehow had a grip on them more than future gain. Oh, I say to my own heart, as I say to each one here, may the Lord keep us from that. And if we're tempted to do it, and we can be tempted.
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May the Lord give us to remember that first of all, He is worthy.
Yes, its not merely what's going to happen to me, but he is worthy And secondly.
Am I living my life?
With a long term view.
Everyone today wants you to take a long term view. I see all kinds of things. I, I don't particularly look for them on the Internet, but they, they pop up there because everybody wants to get you involved in things, trying to say what are you doing for your retirement?
Are you going to have enough money for your retirement? Suppose you've got $1,000,000. Is that enough to have for retirement?
And all the rest of it. But I've never yet seen a pop up on the Internet that said.
Have you made provision for eternity? Have you got what you need for eternity?
That's what counts, That's what counts. Yes, it may be well and good to plan for retirement, but am I living in view of eternity? Well, let's go on here. That's number two. By faith, he sojourned in the land of promise.
Verse 11 and we don't want to dwell on the details but simply those 4 words.
Through faith also served.
Why does it mention Sarah here?
Many, many reasons perhaps, but the one I want to dwell on is this, that here was a man whom God called from ur of the Caldes to leave a place of relative comfort and prosperity.
And go out not knowing whither he went. But what did the Lord do? Provided a helpmeet for him who shared his faith.
You know, today there are many young people who very much want a life partner.
And don't think that we who are older did not go through that, and don't think that we did not earnestly desire the same thing when we were your age.
Through faith also, Sarah. And sometimes if the right one doesn't come along as quickly as we think they should, then we resort to human beings, don't we? And I'm not going to go into it, and I'm not going to condemn human means altogether. That's a matter of individual faith and personal exercise before the Lord. But I do say this, that it is far better to trust the Lord.
And wait on him than it is to resort to human means.
Having said that, there are two problems extant today. On the one hand, there are young men and I blame them the most and don't think I'm pointing the finger at you because the tendency.
Even when my day was there, although not in the same way.
Too many young men are failing to step up to take their responsibilities. Today 30% of the young men in North America, I understand still live in their parents home. Why? Because it's easier, no responsibility, don't have to look after all the problems and difficulties of running a home, stress and strains of marriage and having children and all the rest of it. When you're at home, of course your mom does the cooking pretty much and maybe you pay some room and board, but.
Life is relaxed, life is easy.
That's not what you were made for, young men. That's not what the Lord called us to. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife. Now again, I don't say that marriage is for everyone. That again has to be a personal exercise before the Lord. But when young men are doing that, what are the young women doing? Their biological clock is ticking and they say, well, I need to provide for myself.
So then sometimes they, and it's not at all wrong, but sometimes they go out and get a good education in order to look after themselves and then the guy that doesn't have quite as good an education gets spooked by them.
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Everything's out of whack, isn't it?
Young men, you need to take the position of leadership and responsibility that the Lord gave you. Young women, you need to remember what the Lord has given you to do. And again, I'm not speaking against education. I'm saying remember that all the hype you hear in the world today about you can have it all is not true. You can't have it all. No, God has provided for proper roles for both men and women.
And happiness results, as we had this morning, from obedience. And here was Sarah, who followed Abraham, who was a helpmeet to him, who sometimes gave him good advice when he didn't perhaps appreciate it. Sometimes, of course, she led him the wrong way when she suggested that he take Hagar as his wife. But nevertheless, God provided for him. And I say to each one of us here.
The Lord will provide for you and for me, as He did for Abraham. Remember, as we said a few minutes ago, He has your best interests at heart.
And what was the result of Abraham's faith? Oh, it says in verse 12.
From him.
As many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and the sand which is by the seashore innumerable. You notice the stars are mentioned first. Why? I believe that speaks of the heavenly company. They have the 1St place, the church. But the sand that is by the seashore speaks of an earthly company.
God has in His purposes the blessing of the Church in heaven and the blessing of Israel on earth, and all of that came from Abraham in the sense that his faith proved to be an example for all that came afterward. And it was through him that the Lord Jesus Christ was born, his seed, through whom all this blessing came.
Well, we go on now, verse 17.
By faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac.
And he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten Son, of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called accounting, that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure.
I don't expect that those here who have never had children, and I say this very kindly because I was the same, would be able to enter into this in the same way.
But when you have had children of your own.
You perhaps can enter into at least a little what kind of a trial was for Abraham to go through.
And especially because this was not a child that he had along with many others.
This was the child of promise.
This was the child that had been born to them.
Supernaturally, when, humanly speaking, both he and Sarah were too old to bear a child in the normal way.
And God gives Abraham Isaac.
And what must it have been to a father's heart?
To take that three day journey.
To that mountain.
And there go right to the brink of offering up. That's a.
I've tried to imagine myself, if I could say it, as a father.
Taking up that knife, ready to plunge it into my own sun.
And offer him first sacrifice.
You know, it wasn't the first thing that the Lord required of Abraham. If the Lord had said to Abraham 25 years before, or maybe more, Abraham, I want you to offer up your son. Abraham, I say it reverently, might well have failed the test.
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But what gave Abraham, shall we say, the faith to do it? He had learned by virtue of walking with the Lord for some years.
That the Lord was as good as His word and that He could trust Him. And how do we increase our faith? By exercising. Exercising it. Sometimes we may complain that we don't have the faith for something. Well, it's good if we're honest. But we get more faith by exercising our faith and believing in God.
And trusting him.
Will you allow a personal story?
Back when I started university.
I pretty much needed a car, although everyone didn't have one, but I didn't live close enough and it wasn't suitable at that point to take public transportation, so I had a car.
Whatever the rest of you might think about insurance, and I don't know how others feel, but in those days it was not necessary to have insurance on your car and I decided to trust the Lord.
No insurance, none at all. Not even for the other guy. You didn't have to have it. No mistakes.
Not too long after I started university, I was trying to navigate Toronto traffic and anyone that knows anything about it knows that it's a bit of an interesting place to drive.
And sure enough, I rear-ended somebody.
I can still remember what it felt like, Lord now what I thought I had faith.
I trusted and now look.
If I tell you how much it costs to fix the other guy's car, and by the way it was a brand new one, you'll know how long ago it was.
$50.
Yeah, I know, you laugh. Cost $50.
I can tell you that was a lot of money in those days. It hurt. It really hurt.
Ikar wasn't damaged. It was an old beer. It didn't matter.
I was really cast on the Lord.
In about two or three weeks later, I got a letter in the mail.
$50 checked in it.
From the high school from which I had graduated.
Sit inside. We gave you a $50 scholarship when you graduated from this high school, but here's the 2nd installment.
Never heard of such a thing. There was number second installment. I knew about that $50 scholarship. They gave it out every year. There was no second installment. It was a one time thing. Why did I get another $50?
Those little were told them to.
And I paid for that, you know, it restored my faith. Lord knew that I needed that little shot in the arm. The Lord was saying, you're going to be tested.
But the Lord tests her faith. He doesn't disappoint our faith. There's a difference.
Why did Abraham have to go and OfferUp Isaac? First of all, it was a beautiful type of the Lord Jesus. But there's more than that in it.
And I don't know if I can get the point across, but let me try.
When Abraham received the promise of God that he was going to have a son.
It seems that Abraham really believed God, he was just so happy. But we know that Sarah in the tent laughed with a mocking laugh because she thought what? Me, I have a child. No way.
And she was reproved for it, and I believe she profited by that reproof.
And finally, when they got that child, they had the grace of God to name him Isaac. What does Isaac mean? Laughter. Laughter.
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Referring, no doubt, to the fact that.
Abraham laughed with joy when that child was born. He laughed before, too.
But then if we're not careful, sometimes when we receive something from God that He has given us, perhaps if we're not careful, our thoughts consider on what He has given us, and it can be something that is very, very good.
Suppose the Lord gives you a home.
I can be very thankful for it, but I can get taken up with it. Or let's make it even more difficult. Supposing the Lord gives you a Good Wife or a good husband, Your heart can be taken up with it, and so can mine. Or if the Lord prospers my business, my heart can be taken up with it.
Or if the Lord gives me good health, I can be taken up with it.
And the Lord doesn't want our hearts to be taken up with anything but with Himself.
And so the Lord, I believe, says to Abraham, you go and sacrifice that son. And Abraham's thoughts were turned away from that son of Proms to the Lord himself. And what's the result? Abraham says, if I kill my son and sacrifice him, God has told me that that is the son in whom all the promises will be fulfilled.
He'll raise him from the dead, and that would have been, in one sense, an even greater miracle than having a son born to a man and a wife who were too old to have children.
The Lord doesn't want our focus to be on anything but Himself.
And sometimes he may strike at something that is so very near and dear to us, and something which he has given us.
In order that we might be focused on himself.
I hesitate to mention it because I don't want to speak about that about which I don't know. God doesn't tell me why He allows things in other people's lives, but a dear brother and sister whom some of us here know in Fremont, MI had to stand and watch their home burned to the ground a few weeks ago.
A godly family. I know them well.
And I can only try and put myself in their shoes, thinking that perhaps here the Lord had given them that home, and now it's gone.
Yes, I was insured and it'll be rebuilt, but a lot of priceless things will not be able to be recovered. And everyone here that has a whole knows that knows what it feels like to think of things that could not be replaced.
But God stops Abraham short here. But I believe Abraham learned.
The Lord is to be before me. Not even that wonderful son, Isaac. Well, let's go on.
What about Isaac? Is he going to have faith as well? Indeed he did. But Isaac's faith was in one sense different from Abraham's. Abraham, if we could represent him by one word, we might say Abraham typifies before us, calling the calling of God.
But Isaac he might bring before a sonship.
Isaac didn't have to go through all the exercises his father Abraham went through. He was born into a family of faith. He didn't have to leave idolatry.
He didn't have to leave a city which was relatively well developed. He didn't have to travel a long distance. He was already there. He grew up with tent life. He grew up with a father who didn't own anything.
He grew up in that Pilgrim character, Sonship.
And there was Saddam, say, failure in Isaac's life.
Part of it we have to lay at the feet of his dear wife Rebecca, who was a woman of faith.
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But she brought some baggage with her into the marriage from a family character and a family background, and I may say that just in passing.
If we can digress for a moment or two on the subject of marriage.
It's become, rather, shall I say it, fashionable today.
To break up marriages if things aren't working out very well. And the most disappointing thing about it all is that the statistics for divorce are not much better among those who profess to be Christians than they are in the world at large. At least not in the Western world. A terrible blot on the testimony to the name of the Lord.
But when we come to marriage, we all bring things with us. Sometimes good things, sometimes things that aren't so good.
We sometimes bring outlook and character and family traits and personal things.
That we perhaps need to deal with. And we bring them into the marriage and our spokes brings them to. And pretty soon we start, as we say, to strike sparks off one another, don't we?
A marriage out West a number of years ago, a brother who's now with the Lord made this remark. I found it rather interesting, he said to the groom. Both of them gathered to the Lord's name, the bride and the groom, he said to the groom.
He said. Right now you probably look at that girl and you just feel so enamored with her that you think you could eat her.
He said. But you know, it may well be that six months down the road you'll wish you had.
He was, in a backhanded way, saying that things might not always go smoothly.
But here's the point.
Very often the Lord uses the stresses and strains of marriage to not the rough edges of us to make us deal with issues in our lives that we haven't dealt with. Because when you live with somebody as husband and wife, you get to know them pretty well.
And the Lord uses that to enable us to deal with things.
And all too many today are saying I'm not going to deal with it. I'm going to find somebody else who won't bother me in the same way. The trouble is, the next one usually bothers you just as much. Maybe in a different way, but just as much. Second marriages fail more frequently than first ones do.
No, the Lord uses it all.
But anyway, what about Isaac? It says he blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.
Did Isaac really do that by faith?
Think about the circumstances.
Think of how it happened, Isaac, who favored Esau, says Esau. Go hunting and get me some of that good venison that I really like.
Rebecca, for her part, says to Jacob, Listen, trust me, I can. I know how to cook, and you do too. We can fake that venison pretty well. We'll get the blessing before Esau gets back.
And Isaac unwittingly blesses Jacob.
By Faith Isaac. Really.
Yes, she did. Isaac had really, I believe, laid whole of what was said to Rebecca before those two boys were even born, that the younger would serve the elder.
And poor Isaac.
He knew that, and yet his own desires got in the way of things.
His own enjoyment of Esau's food got in the way of what he knew was right, but thank God, he overruled. Did Isaac do it by faith? I believe he did. And when he understood what had happened, Isaac doesn't say, oh, dear, I bless the wrong man. He doesn't say that. He says yeah, about Jacob and he shall be blessed. Oh, he realized that the Lord had intervened.
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Albeit in a way that didn't do any credit to Jacob and Rebecca. Oh no, Jacob had to suffer the consequences of all that, and so did Rebecca. But the Lord overruled. And I say in your life and mine, we sometimes look at things in our lives and perhaps looking back on the way we've acted and perhaps on failure, we may say, oh.
I failed. I did it wrong. I messed up, to use a current term. I didn't use wisdom from the Lord. I allowed human feelings. I allowed my own thoughts to get into the mix, and I did things in a wrong way.
All I say is, let's remember this verse. The Lord accomplished His purposes in spite of Isaac's failure, because deep down inside the Lord saw the faith now again.
Isaac suffered on account of it all. He suffered.
Jacob suffered, Rebecca suffered, there is a government in the House of God and thank God for it, but at the same time the Lord overruled for blessing and I think many times when you and I have failed.
We will see in the coming day.
How the Lord overruled?
Again, pardon a personal story. Maybe I say that too often.
But I will remember being on an airplane traveling over to India.
It was a long time ago, almost 30 years ago.
And it was a Middle Eastern airline that allowed smoking.
And like most Christians I abominate smoking and I ended up right in the middle of the smoking section and then they all came back from the non-smoking section after the meal of the smoke till it was like having to find your way through a fog to get out of your seat and I complained about it.
And a feisty stewardess got into a verbal battle with me, and I'm afraid I wasn't.
Happy with the situation and I reminded her that they had armed guards on the plane to prevent hijacking and why couldn't they enforce the smoking regulations?
Then it ended up, and I say this in humility, I'm telling a bad story on myself, she said. What do you do for a living?
How do you answer that when you've given up your practice to go out in the work of the Lord a few years before?
Oh, I was embarrassed.
I said, well, I'm a Christian.
And I serve the Lord. That's what I do. That's that's what I do for a job.
Did the Lord overrule? Yes, He did the most humbling experience. Her eyes got big. She said, do you know something about the Christian religion? I said, well, I think I do. Yes, when you talk about it. I said yes, I will.
Come to the back of the plane please when they turn the movie on.
I did.
I'm not telling you this to.
Put any crown on my head was failing. What happened? The other four flight attendants came back. There were five of them for an hour and a half at the back of that plane in the galley, we had a gospel meeting on a Muslim aircraft.
Wonderful.
Does the Lord overrule through our failure? Sometimes He does. So don't be too discouraged. Judge your failure. But remember, as with Isaac, the Lord overrules for blessing.
Verse 21 by faith Jacob, when he was a dying bless both the sons of Joseph and worship, leaning upon the top of his staff.
If Isaac is sonship and Abraham is calling, we might say that Jacob speaks of government or discipline.
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Oh, Jacob was a schemer and a planner. Did he have faith he did.
Did he want the blessing? He did. But he felt he had to do his bit to get it. And his bit he did. And you know the story. We don't have to go over it until it became first of all, after.
Doing his best to get the blessing from Esau, it becomes a battle of wits between Jacob and Laban to see who could outwit and outsmart the other.
Poor Jacob.
And then after a while, he judges it, at least partially, and goes back to the land of Canaan. But what happens there? Oh, the Lord teaches him an awfully difficult lesson by turning the tables on him. And his own boys, who had learned all those tricks from him, do the same thing back to him. Yes, they deceive him about selling Joseph into Egypt, persuading their father that he had been killed by a wild animal.
And then, in hypocrisy, all of them rose up to comfort him. Can you imagine we're going to come for dead now, after we've been the ones to deceive him and sell his favorite son into slavery? Imagine, poor Jacob, you know sometimes the Lord has to teach us a hard lesson, and sometimes He does it by giving us a dose of our own medicine.
But you know, the thing that impresses me here is that Jacob profited by it. He profited by God's discipline. He profited by what God put him through. And what happens when Jacob gets to the end of the pathway?
Joseph.
Brings his sons to Jacob to be blessed, and of course Manasseh being the eldest.
Joseph naturally assumed the nuts still the way in Eastern culture that he would get the 1St place.
And he brings Manasseh there and places him on Jacob's right side, so that he would get the blessing with Jacob's right hand. And he puts Ephraim on the left, Jacob's left there is.
But Jacob had learned through his own experience how the Lord worked.
And what does he do?
Crosses his hands. Why?
Oh, he knew that the blessing rested on the younger son. Isn't that beautiful? Jacob had learned. And he worships at the end of his life.
Oh, it's too bad that he had to wait till the end to worship, isn't it?
Jacob no doubt went through a lot of difficult experiences, but the Lord worked. The Lord helped.
The end of his life there was worship. Oh, how good if we can deal with those things when we're younger so that we don't have to go through a life as Jacob did for many years with a bad conscience. But how wonderful that he did that.
Why did the younger son have to get the blessing though? What's the significance of that?
Oh, the 1St man is of the earth. Earth. The 2nd man is the Lord from heaven.
And if there are children here, I challenge you to look in the book of Genesis and see how many couplets you can find.
Where the younger son was the more godly one than the older son. Sometimes there's more than one in the same family, but in a number of cases throughout the book of Genesis you will see where the younger son is more prominent in a spiritual way.
Than the older son. Oh yes, the older son could be blessed as well, no question about it. It's not that God wouldn't bless, but the older son speaks of the first man. The younger son speaks of Christ, the 2nd man.
Well, finally we come to Joseph.
By faith, Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel.
And gave commandment concerning his bolts.
If in Abraham we have calling, and in Isaac sonship, and in Jacob discipline or government.
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I would suggest in Joseph we have glory.
Joseph was a type of Christ, perhaps the most beautiful type in all of the Old Testament of Christ himself. And Joseph, though when he was there in Egypt, he had everything at his feet. Joseph was governor over all the land of Egypt. Joseph's brothers go back to Jacob and say, Joseph, my son is yet alive.
And he is governor over all the land of Egypt.
I'd rather selfishly would like to have been there though.
Because when those brothers went back and told their father that scripture doesn't go over that scene, but evidently there was a real work of grace in their souls.
It all had to come out, didn't I?
No doubt, Jacob said. Oh, Governor, overhaul the land of Egypt. How did he get into Egypt? What about that coat of many colors that all had all the blood on it? What about that, boys? Where did that all come from? Oh, it had to come out. It all had to come out. They couldn't hide it. But Joseph, he's there in Egypt. He has everything at his feet.
But no.
He gives a commandment concerning his bones. Why? Oh, because?
His heart was in that land of Kingdom. His heart had laid hold of those promises that they worked to stay in Egypt.
What had God told Abraham way back in the 15th of Genesis? I think it's the 15th. Just turn to it to make sure that I'm right there.
Think it's Genesis 15.
Yes, Genesis 15 and verse 13.
And he said unto Abram, No, of a surety, that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them 400 years. And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge. And afterwards shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace. Thou shalt be buried in a good old age, but in the 4th generation they shall come hit her again.
For the iniquity of the amorites is not yet full.
That prophecy no doubt, had been passed on down the line from Abraham, Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Joseph. And Joseph realizes that I don't belong here. When you leave this land, he says, take my bones and make sure you bury them in the land of Canaan.
What does that mean for you and for me?
Are we looking to be buried here? No, we're looking for the Lord to come. Where are our hearts?
I'd like to turn in closing to a verse.
In Joshua, I believe it is.
Joshua.
But I'm not 100% sure.
Maybe. No, it's in Judges. I beg your pardon. Judges Chapter 2 is the verse I want.
Judges, Chapter 2.
And verse 8.
And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died being an 110 years old, and they buried him in the border of his inheritance.
I will remember quite a few years ago now, quite a few years ago.
Standing in a Funeral Home as a teenager.
And lying there in the casket was an older brother.
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Who in his early 80s had been taken home to be with the Lord. He had been a very faithful brother from a faithful family.
And I well remember his wife who was standing there, whom I knew quite well, because she outlived him for a number of years. She was his second wife and she outlived him for a number of years. And I will remember standing there.
And another brother came up, looked at the body lying there in the casket, and then said to his wife.
He said. You know.
That reminds me of Joshua.
He said, and he turned to this verse that I have just read in judges to he said your husband, I believe has been buried in his inheritance.
What did he mean by that? He meant that that brother had walked with the Lord and had enjoyed much of the precious things of Christ, much of the precious truth which has been committed to you and me as believers.
All those blessings that are ours in Christ, blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ.
The blessings that you and I have in Christ.
Are in type. Or let me rephrase that. The blessings that Israel had in natural things in the Old Testament are in tight. The blessings that you and I have as a result.
Of Christ going up there to glory and bringing us into all those blessings in the heavenlies.
And that brother who made that remark meant that the one who laid there in the casket was being buried in his inheritance.
Again, we say you and I don't look to be buried in this world, so the type falls short. But there will be an inheritance of those things which you and I have appropriated to ourselves and made our own in this life down here, which in that sense will be our inheritance, the things which we have laid hold of, enjoyed and walked in down here.
May the Lord give us grace to value.
Let's close in prayer.
Our loving God and our Father, we thank Thee for Thy word which we have had before us, and we pray that in these things which have been mentioned concerning Abraham and his family, we in these last days, as strangers and pilgrims too, may be able to walk through that this world. In that same character. We thank Thee for those things which have been brought before us, different things that characterized each one in the life of faith.
And yet all of value to thee are God.
Commend ourselves to thee and give thanks and ask all this in thy name, Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen.
1 John 2:7-17
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We didn't get too far in first John chapter 2 This morning. I suppose chapter 2 and verse seven. Would that be about right?
First John chapter 2 and verse seven. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which he had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which he have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is past, and the true light now shining. He does say it. He is in the light, and Hateth his brother is in darkness even until now.
He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brothers in darkness walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. I read unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because you have known him, that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because you haven't known the Father.
I have written unto you, fathers, because you have known him, that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because you're strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in hand.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away and the lust thereof. But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. Little children, it is the last time, and as you have heard, that Antichrist shall come. Even now are there many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time they went out from us, but they were not of us.
For if they had been of us, they would no doubt continue with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. But you have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things.
I have not written unto you, because you know not the truth, but because you know it, and that no law is of the truth, who is a liar. But he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ, He is Antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father, that he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.
Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning, and that which He have heard from the beginning shall remain in you. He also shall continue in the Son and in the Father.
And this is the promise that He had promised us, even in eternal life. These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.
But the anointing which you have received of Him abideth in you, and you need not but any man teach you. But as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is true, it is no lie. And even as it have taught you, you shall abide in Him. And now little children, abide in Him, that when He shall appear, we may have confidence not be ashamed before Him at His coming. If He knows that He is righteous, he know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born in penance.
Though there had been the commandment by the Lord Jesus, which as it says here in verse seven, they had from the beginning the word which he had heard from the beginning, and I believe here the context is.
A concerned, loving one another.
But now it is a new commandment. Why? Because the believer with new life in Christ has a capacity for love that does not exist.
That did not exist before.
Love is of God, we read in chapter 4 of this epistle. Love is of God. And so the capacity for divine love can only be from a new life that we have in Christ and of course, lived out and energized by the power of the Holy Spirit. So this is a new commandment and as Brother Stan brought out this morning.
In him and in you, what they saw exhibited. What you and I see in the life of the Lord Jesus down here is the pattern of divine love that is to be seen in our lives. And how beautiful it is to see the way the Lord Jesus acted under very difficult circumstances.
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We read, for example, that when things were so busy and the crowds were so large.
That it says they had no leisure so much as to eat. They take a boat and go across to the other side of the lake, the Sea of Galilee. The Lord says, Come ye apart into a desert place, and rest a while.
But the people very typically figure out what's going on, and they run around the shore of the lake, and when the Lord Jesus and his disciples get there, there are the people waiting for them.
I say to my own heart, I hesitate to say what I would have done under those certain stances. Did they ever get the rest that they were looking for? Not as far as we know. People wanted blessing. They wanted to hear the Lord. Jesus graciously accommodates them because he says they're just like sheep with no shepherd and so the love of God.
Manifested in the heart of the Lord Jesus is the same love that we can manifest his life, and it's a new commandment because now we have a new light which is able to carry it out in a new way.
Christianity always goes way beyond what they had in the law, and I think it's Luke's gospel chapter 10 you have.
The Lord speaking to that rich man, that young man.
Luke chapter 10 and.
Well, the lawyer.
He says verse 27. Well, let's read verse 25.
Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, really provoked him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in law? I'll read this, though the answering says, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, with all thy mind, with all, and thy neighbor as thyself.
Thy neighbor as thyself. So under the law they were to love their neighbor as themselves. But what does the Christian do? I think it's John's Gospel chapter 15. We have there. We go way beyond this, it says.
In the verse.
9 Let's read verse 9 John 15 Verse 9 As the Father hath left me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your love, your joy, might be full. This is my commandment, that He loved one another as I have loved you. So we're going to love as Christ as love, not just to love our neighbor as.
We would like him to love us, but we're to love US1 Another as Christ.
Love them. And so in that sense, isn't it a new commandment? But it was an old commandment as well, because the Lord himself had given it years before. I don't know how many years, but perhaps maybe 60 or 70 years. The Lord had given that commandment, and it still stood. And in all of its perfection. The Lord desired that his people would go on in that character, be characterized by loving one another.
As Christ had loved them.
I was wondering if in first John if we look at chapter 3 and verse 23.
Perhaps it it would remind us of the Lord's commandment, if you will.
Says this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another as he gave us commandment.
Then in chapter 4, this is maybe more like the new commandment in verse 11. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in US and His love is perfected in US. And verse 19 we love because He first loved that.
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And he who is in the light is characterized by love.
Verse 9 Ye that set is in the light and made of his brother is in darkness even until now.
What does it say in verse 8?
The darkness is past, or it could read more accurately is passing. The darkness is passing, and the true light now shining. And so the Lord had come into the world as that light. Now those who followed Him were carrying it on, and gradually, gradually, that light was having more and more influence in the world.
It took a while, but the light that you and I are enjoying today is the fruit of what the Word of God has done in this world. And in lands where there is not that light and where the Word of God is not truly circulated, you do not find.
Love, even in, if I could say it bluntly, society at large, you do not find people particularly caring for one another.
People particularly concerned about those that are in difficult circumstances or.
In poor health or would have been injured or something like that.
It's an interesting story, but I remember reading about a woman who had spent much of her life in a foreign land, and every time she heard the siren of an ambulance when she came back to North America, it filled her eyes with tears. She said, see how much they care.
For people. And when a siren was going on in North America, here in an ambulance was coming along, she couldn't help but be impressed with how traffic pulled over to both sides and made plenty of way for it or for a fire engine or whatever it might be to get through. Oh, she said. See how much they really care for someone that really needs help. Why did it impress her so much? Because it wasn't like that where she had been living.
And so that has had its effect on society in general, and we can be thankful for it. But with you and me, how beautiful that that love can be perfected in our lives wherever we are living, and be manifested as that which speaks of Christ.
How does this connect with Hebrews 6 verse one? Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection. What is the meaning there?
As compared with our verses here that we have in first John.
Well, I would suggest that in writing to the Hebrew then, while we don't know for sure whether it was Paul, but bears his footprint, that we could say that the author by the Spirit of God in Hebrews is seeking to bring those Jewish believers.
Out of the, shall I say, the simple belief in Christ for salvation that some of them had enjoyed and to bring them into the full blessing of Christianity. They were being held back by the trappings of Judaism, being held back from the full enjoyment of all those blessings that we have in Christ, because they were clinging to all of the rituals and to much of the.
Carryovers from Judaism that were harming them and so Paul says.
Let's not lay again just the simple foundation of salvation, repentance from dead works, and so on, so that in that sense it doesn't mean that they weren't to love one another or anything like that, but they were to go on under perfection and to enjoy the full liberty and blessing of Christian positions.
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I think that's right, brother, because they really, God intends that the believer not only enjoys the fact that his sins are forgiven, that he's no longer guilty before God judicially, but enter into the blessings of sonship and the inheritance that is ours, all the blessings. And so it's just really to enter into the door and to shut the door behind you to be safe because you're saved and to enjoy that position.
Safety is just the beginning. So that's really what he's beginning the first principles really of Christianity and Hebrews chapter 6. But really here he's Speaking of the contrast between darkness and light. And so there was only a partial revelation of God in the Old Testament. They didn't know a full revelation. And so even Solomon, I was thinking of the first kings chapter 8 verse 12. It says then spake Solomon the Lord said.
That he would dwell in the thick darkness. They didn't have a full revelation of God.
And so the high priest can only enter in once every year, not without blood.
Into the very presence of the Lord inside, the holiest of all. And so it was. The Godhead was not fully revealed. They didn't know the Father, they didn't know the Son. They weren't indwelled with the Spirit of God. The Spirit came upon them and so on. And so really he's Speaking of from a position now they walked from a position of darkness. They didn't have very much light at all In Judaism. They had more than the heathen did. But now we are.
Characterized by light. Our position is a position of light, and we have come into the light of Christianity, and it's because we're brought into relationship with the Lord Jesus. He that saith he is in the light, that's his position of light, and hateth his brother.
Is in darkness even until now. So it's a false profession. There's that expression again. He that say it. He says I walk in the light. He says I am in the light.
And really he's not in the light at all. He has hatred in his heart. So, you know, we all know that the Christianity ought to be characterized by love. And as you say, in the Western Christian world, it's very common when there's a a catastrophe, a hurricane or something, all kinds of aid pours in. It doesn't matter whether it's in the.
Europe or whether it's in the Muslim world or something like that. It just seems to be the heart of those that God has allowed Christianity and influence that they see the need and and love for mankind. If we could use that term. They supply resources now.
They come into their profession of Christianity, but here there's reality. We want to have reality. God's always testing to see if they're reality. So if you and I say we walk in the light, we are in the light means I'm a believer.
Characterized by darkness.
I don't know where it is but.
It says if one hates his brother, he's a murderer. That's very strong, strong language.
Let's write in the next chapter. Is in verse 15 of chapter 3 what you're thinking of?
Verse 15315 Yes, whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer, he knows know that no murder has eternal life or body, even a near sentence the first time. Thank you.
I think this has a very practical application to us too, because in the assembly we get to know each other very, very well and our and our differences and.
It's very easy to get into a situation where we can't get along with our brethren. I remember a brother years ago saying that the measure of love operating in the soul can be measured.
By the response to the most contentious brother in the sphere of our acquaintance. And I think the Lord often put someone in the assembly that sort of irritates us to give us the opportunity to show divine love to our brethren. And so I think it has a very practical application to us in the assembly. Would you say yes, just as the Lord sometimes gives us that in a marriage partner, which.
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Helps us to deal with our own fault. So he also puts people in the local assembly to enable us to show divine love and it's an exercise.
To be more like Christ. Because if there were nothing that rubbed us the wrong way, loving would be very easy. And then that's just natural love. We naturally gravitate to those who get along well with us and with whom we can interact in an easy and relaxing way.
But it's another story when someone doesn't actually appeal to us.
Now, right here, we're getting to very crux of the matter in what we call ecclesiastical evil.
That's why I want to stop right here if you have a choice as to who you're going to meet with.
Then you can just erase Christianity.
There's no need for long-suffering and bearing, for bearing with one another in love all the things in the basic teachings of Christ.
You can just dispense with them if you can meet with whoever you want.
So there is a relationship between John's ministry and Paul's ministry at this moment with this where we are right here.
Because.
Not only is God glorified in our loving one another, but loving one another is like nothing else deals with self.
It deals with self and.
Scripture speaks of us that the Lord died for us. We ought to give up our lives to the present. That is a very practical.
Has very practical affections and I am going to tell you that you can trade out I would.
But can I say absolutely, Obviously. But I believe you betrayed every division that has ever occurred.
To some brother or brother, it couldn't get along.
They just grew impatient.
Irritated with one another and just could not bear and they make some excuse of darkened excuse or excuse about practice or this or that. But if the crux of division, it always seems to be this issue of brothers just don't want to go on yet.
We look back even in the New Testament, where the troubles first began.
I believe the first mention of any issue of trouble was that our widows of being neglected. You know, where there's this idea that there's some evil intent here on widows, they're not getting as much as their widows or whatever. And then when you see the first split, actual split and get all environments.
It seems like they were really tight, right?
They get broken up over what? Over an issue with family? Family relationship?
So it isn't just that it's wrong, you know, that that there are systems and there are divisions and all these things that album say is that, you know, the elder testimony has been ruined. But where did it all come from?
And why aren't we together?
And divisions among brethren, why did they occur? And so this is this is of the moment when we see this that loving one another, we can talk about it, but it's not just having warm fuzzy feelings.
That's the world's love. It's warm, fuzzy feelings. That's all the word needs. But you can love whether you feel like it or not. The word says to, and it has to do with you taking the cross against yourself, being willing to be done with self for the sake of your brother and for the Lord's sake and what he desires to see among his people.
It is shown out in obedience. Isn't it love?
In John's Gospel, chapter 17, the Lord's Prayer there.
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The Lord said in verse 26.
And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it.
The Lord and His obedience perfectly displayed, didn't He, if he was the express image of the Father?
To perfectly in love here as a man. He perfectly displayed that character of God to us.
And then goes on to say.
That the love we're in, wherewith Thou has loved me, maybe in them, and I in them.
And so he would have us to display God's character here in this earth. And God is working to the warmest more to the image of his beloved Son every day.
But so that our light, we're talking about light that the light that we have made shine out to others and others might see in the believer something different.
From what they know and they may desire that difference and they they give one an opportunity to speak to someone about the Lord of the hope that is within us. And so we do. That would be love. I think the definition of love for us is to display before the world the character of God. That's what the Lord Jesus did when he was here as a man and we know that let him to the cross.
Where God's love was perfectly displayed to us there.
And so He would have us do the same here. It's more that we have what's necessary to display it. We have the divine nature here. Speaking of, it doesn't mention anything of the Spirit of God indwelling us, but we have that too. We have every provision that God could possibly give to us to equip us in this day in which we live to display to the world.
His character.
It's because of the flesh, isn't it, that that's not being done. We all have it. We allow it to have its way. It's going to, it's going to take away that testimony. It's going to rob, rob the Lord Jesus of what he deserves from us. And so love is really obedience. That's really doing what God asked us to do.
He's and I think if John's Gospel says if you do these things.
Happy are ye if ye do these things? Happy doesn't. Happiness doesn't come by disobeying, it comes through obedience.
There's a consequence to not walking in light. It says in verse 11 That walketh in darkness and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness has blinded his eyes. And so look, we are in the light.
We're real believers. We our position is a position of light. We are in the light. We can't get out of the light. But if we harbor ill feelings.
And here hatred. I guess that's another one of John's terms. It's he doesn't say you have a slight dislike for this brother.
You either love him or you hate him, and so there's nothing in between. But it has a blinding effect if we allow that kind of thing in our souls. And so positionally we can never get out of the lake. But it's an awful thing to be characterized by.
Darkness and allowing darkness to have some foothold, you might say it doesn't change our position. We're still we can still address God as Father and we still have all of these blessings that are ours. We still are children, but it hasn't blinding effect.
So self will entering into the family relationship we might say will just cause discord.
Anything in there in chapter?
In chapter 4.
And mention some things in chapter, sorry chapter 31 I mentioned some things that are undesirable in our Christian pathway, but it says in verse 32.
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Of Ephesians 4 and be kind one to another, hinder hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ sake have forgiven you. That brings across it of you, doesn't it? That's where where God's forgiveness was.
Shown out there for us. So we think of that in view of someone else that we may not be happy with too much. Some brother may annoy us or or something. We just need to remember how much we've been forgiven ourselves.
We need, we need to go back to Calvary's cross. We need to have our minds go back there in our thoughts and to realize what Christ has done for us there.
You see that there? Are you finished?
Go ahead, John.
The Lord chose disciples that were not all the most attractive characters.
There needed to be.
Forbearance among the disciples and.
That had brought everything for bearing one another in love. I can remember times without number.
In the Ottawa meeting, because I was brought up under the ministry of.
Gordon Hales, Father.
A gifted teacher and very decisive in the way he mentioned things and repeated that he says I'll never know.
How close you walk to the Lord until someone steps on your toes?
And I see how you react. Well, it's rather mundane, but.
There's there's truth in that, There's truth in that and everyone is unable. It's not difficult to learn, but we have to.
As we used to say also, there should be two bears in your marriage, fair and forebear, and I think we all find that to be the truth.
So this is John's way of Speaking of brotherly forgiveness, isn't it? And so, and we were just reading in Ephesians chapter 4. And so we forgive, we're tender hearted forgiving one another that brotherly forgiveness, because we have been judicially forgiven. We're all $50 billion debtors we could never pay back. And so if someone offends, why we ought to be able to forgive.
Our brothers, such a small trespass, whatever it might be. But it's interesting that word tenderhearted in that verse. It's the only time of youth in the New Testament, and there's a few once in the Old Testament as well. And it's really the opposite of being hard and hearted. And so the Lord looked at you and I and you so tender hearted towards us. You couldn't be any more tender hearted towards you and I. And His desire is that we would with affection treat one another with tenderness. Apartments.
The affections engaged for one another.
And it's an awful thing to see darkness blinding someone's eyes, isn't it? It can happen to any one of us. And that comes from allowing these thoughts in our hearts that blind us to the light. And how many times I agree 100% with your remarks, Ted, about divisions and so on, because that is often the case that a dislike and the word of God uses a strong word, hatred, because it carries it to its logical conclusion.
The Word of God uses that strong word and it blinds our eyes to be able to see straight and to be able to deal with issues. Yes, there may be and there always is a path for faith in the midst of it. And there may be those that, if we could say it technically are wrong. But at the same time.
The attitude and spirit ought to be that of divine love, seeking every possible means of dealing with the matter according to the light that God has given us, but according to divine love as well. Not only does discord funk brethren in pop relationships.
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Christian, but it also impacts our ability to worship the Lord, create our fellowship with him, and there's a principle and after we fought.
Matthew 5 and verse 23 It says, Therefore, if they'll bring my gift to the altar, and they remember us, that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer their gift. There seems to be a recognition that.
Our offering of a gift to the Lord or praise can be hindered by the fact that we hold some time resentment or hurtful with the brothers. So first he reconciled, so that fellowship of the board can be from a pure conscience and unhindered by strike irritation among Saints.
That's very, very true because anything in my heart can hinder the liberty of the Spirit of God in the whole assembly Canada and.
There are times, of course, and it's sad when it happens when a reconciliation can't be affected because the other party doesn't want it and refuses any advances in that direction.
That's a different thing, but.
Sometimes we have to do our best and then leave it there, but in the vast majority of cases it seems that it could be it could be affected the other were approached in the right way.
In that connection, I believe that's why, or at least one of the reasons why our next verse occurs where it does verse 12 I write unto you, and it should read sent with children, which means all believers.
Because your sins are forgiven you for his namesake.
That makes us, as Robert has said, to realize that we're 500 pence debtors, aren't we? We are debtors beyond the reach of anything. And now we have been forgiven all that.
That doesn't mean, of course, that we can overlook everything. That's why it says in Peter that love covers. It should read not a multitude, but the multitude of sins in the Old Testament. We won't take time to look it up, but there's a verse that says.
Thou shalt not suffer sin upon thy brother. And there is sometimes a need to go to someone and to lay before them something in his or her life that is a real dishonor to the Lord and a real hindrance perhaps to fellowship with them. There is a need not to suffer that sin, and so we cannot just gloss over everything in the name of love and pretend that it doesn't matter. Sometimes the honor and glory of the Lord is at stake.
But his tent is brought out all too often. It's my honor and Lord, it's at stake, not the Lord's.
And then I can always translate that into spiritual terms and bring a scripture out that shows why I ought to be acting the way I am. I can still remember my late father-in-law saying once that, and he said, Thomas, in the same way. He said most of the time when difficulties arise in an assembly, it's not because one brother is more spiritual than the other. It's so because they don't like each other. And.
That all too often is the case.
But again, we have to .3 fingers back here before I .1 finger at anybody else because I am capable of it too. But if we remember what we have been forgiven, it tempers everything that we have been talking about.
That verse is that Leviticus 19 and Leviticus 19 and 17. Thou shalt not take thy brother in thy heart.
What thou felt in any way through you find it and not suffer sin suffered sin apartments for whatever balance.
True love would not overlook.
Something in my brother's life that is dishonouring to the Lord.
And some might say, well, you need to pass over those things.
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But as Bill is mentioned, the glory of the Lord is at stake.
Rebuke is is in order.
Well, that's just what we were saying, that there is sometimes a need for that. Once again, it's a matter of discernment as to whether it's necessary or not, or whether it's, it's, it's always a real test as to whether it is the Lord's glory, which is at stake, or my honor and Lord. And all too often it's mine.
Give that next verse in Leviticus. So thou should not avenge himself.
Well, these things were written to believers.
And necessary to believers, I write unto you children, real children of God, real believers, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. And so it's something of a revelation to those that belong to Christ in the day that we live in, in the day of grace, you and I don't hope to have our sins forgiven.
We know that they're forgiven and we can say very categorically, without a doubt that our sins are forgiven judicially, all of our sins are being dealt with. They are forgiven. We're no longer guilty before him. And so the he's Speaking of children here. All of the children of God are in that same category. And then he writes to those fathers that have more light, they have more teaching, they have more responsibility because you have known him that is from the beginning.
And so he speaks to different groups here, the fathers, the young men, and then the little children. I think that's dominion in that part of it. So those that don't have much light, those that are young in the faith, we might say, because you have no other father. So they don't know very much. Those that are more mature have more responsibility. And so I write unto you, young men, because you have overcome.
A wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. And so there is responsibility and there is instruction for each one. And we have different levels of growth spiritually. We're not expected to have all of the same amount of maturity spiritually as soon as we're saved. And so it's necessary to grow in the things of God.
Yes, and its interesting that he takes up Father's first and says the least about it.
He says more about young people and our late brother Eric Smith used to put used to remind us that the term young men there and he was a Greek scholar really included both sexes so that it was not merely to be taken up by young men but also young women. And there is more said about young men or young women, but then when he comes to children.
He says more than joy, either one of the other two.
But when it comes to fathers, he can say no more except that he had known him, that is, from the beginning. And so that is simply repeated in the 14th verse, because that encompasses everything.
I may know the Word of God very well, and there's a place for that. And that's why it says to the young men, the Word of God abideth in you. And it's the Word of God that enables us, as it says there, to overcome the wicked wood. But when it comes to fathers, what do they know? Do they know the Word of God? I'm sure they do, but they know more than that. They know if that is from the beginning. And just to make it clear, I don't believe the beginning. Here is the beginning that's mentioned in John's Gospel chapter one.
Because we couldn't possibly in that same way, have known the Lord Jesus in a past eternity.
We know now that he was there in the past eternity, but we could not know him until he became a man and came into this world in parliament. And so when John talks about the Lord Jesus and knowing him from the beginning, it's the Lord Jesus as he was.
When He revealed Himself and revealed, or I should say revealed, the Father revealed God to this world. And John says we have known that which is from the beginning. Our hands have handled it. We knew Him personally and the Father knows Him. That is from the beginning. Now none of us of course, have had the experience of knowing the Lord in bodily form down here, but we know Him in an even greater way because of the coming down of the Spirit of God.
00:45:23
And so knowing the Lord Jesus is really what characterizes a father being able to walk with him, being able to enjoy his company, and that encompasses everything else. Will a father neglect principles? Oh no. How could he do that for the Lord's honor and glory? Will he be casual about where he goes to meet on a given day, whether Lord's Day or any other day? No, because he will not dishonor.
That blessed name will he want to learn more of the word of God Indeed, because they testify of Christ and so knowing.
Him that is from the beginning is to have it all.
Really. From the beginning of Christianity as well.
I was just going to mention that at home we were reading in the book of Philippians and.
I thought there was an interesting connection perhaps to our little passage here, 12 to 14, those verses and something that we noticed in Philippians. But first of all.
A verse in Romans chapter 5 verse one well known says being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I'd like to pair that up with the those that are younger in the faith.
It says here, with respect to them, you have known the Father. You know it's a wonderful thing to be saved.
And know God is our father. That's a that's a beginning, isn't it? It's the beginning of joy in our hearts and so on. And might even look at verse 12 in that regard. Your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. So there are a lot of Christians perhaps don't get too far beyond that, but they enjoy it nonetheless. And so.
They, they go on, they want to please the Lord and so on. What the Lord wants so is for us to grow. He wants us to mature. And so going over to Philippians now in Chapter 4.
I was thinking with respect to the young men, perhaps this is applicable. Verse six. Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving.
Got your requests being made known unto God and the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. What does the wicked one want to do? Discourage us, cause all kinds of anxieties, troubles and so on. And So what does this verse say? Don't be anxious for anything he said. Bring it before the Lord is there basically, and so as we.
Go along in our Christian pathway, we should grow to the point where we trust God in cases where we are tried and tested and so on. And I believe those that are younger, they know the word of God. And notice further down there in verse 14, I've written on to young men because you are strong and the word of God by within you, you have overcome the wicked one.
And so they've learned to trust the Lord, and they know what the Scripture says, and they grow in faith.
But going back now to Philippians chapter 4 again and verse eight, it speaks about those things that are true and honest, just pure, lovely, good report says if there be any virtue, there be any praise sent on these things.
Those things which you have both learned and received and heard and seen in me do. And the garden piece should be with you.
00:50:02
Now we know that Paul would be classified as a father, I'm sure.
He walked with God and he often said, you know, be followers of the world, as I am with Christ. And so Paul came to know God in a much fuller way.
Being completely mature as we could be, I suppose in this world a lot of us are going to be perfect. But he was mature and as a result he valued the fellowship of God.
As it says in Romans 5, we joy in God. You know, that's a wonderful statement. Do we ever just set, perhaps quietly, and think of the God that loved us, the God who who saved us?
Imagine I, I often look at all my window in the morning and we overlook a, a body of water there and so on, just to see the breeze and so on. What a marvelous thing that God has done, you know, the creation. But then I think, well, he even found me here in this unknown place and he saved me. And that is more marvelous than anything. And so we can come at times at least.
To joy in God.
So I see here when it says for the fathers you have known him as from the beginning, it's like just joining God, joining in the God of peace, in that beautiful character. He's the God of love, he's the God of hope and so on. But in that particular character, it's a peaceful feeling even in hard circumstances perhaps.
So those that are very young in the Bay, they rejoice in knowing their sins are forgiven, they know the Father, and so they have peace with God. But those that are younger, they experience the peace of God in bringing their problems, their difficulties, and so on to God. They've learned that and they know the Word of God and they believe its promises. But I believe that when it comes to fathers, that's more full maturity.
And it's just, you know, joying in the fact that there's a God who made us and made everything and and he loves us and revised for us, even in whatever our circumstances might be good or bad, whatever they might be, we can still just join him. I have to say for myself, I'm not always in that attitude of things, but.
It is nice to be able to come to that point once in a while and just enjoy.
At one time we were afraid. We wanted to hide from God. But I was just thinking too, brother, that there's no one standing still in the Christian life either. We are.
Progressing.
There's no knowledge of Christ and His Word or retrograde so.
Along that line were either a help in the assembly or were a hindrance so.
Growth is the normal process in the life of a believer. We might ask the question, why is it that there's more growth in some believers than there is in others?
Is there a reason? Is it because of their more intelligent or?
They have a higher ability. Isn't it a question of communion with the Lord? Keep yourselves in the love of God and.
Look into the Murphy of our Lord Jesus Christ and the eternal life growth. There needs to be diligence. The diligent soul should be made fast and you know scripture decries.
Lethargy.
In the things of God.
Mr. Jardin said I don't write for lazy readers. Well, thanks.
I'm afraid I'm one of those lazy readers when it comes to Mr. Garvey, but doesn't there need to be the exercise, the diligence to be found of him and peace as we have in Peter there?
00:55:23
Our second quarter chapter one.
Two Peter 3 and 14 John, I think is the verse you want. Yeah, that's the one I had in mind wherever, beloved seeing that you look for these such things. Be diligent that you may be found of him in peace without spot. And then we we had pardon we had in the open meeting or the address.
The honor roll mentioned there in Hebrew, but if you the Old Testament Saints mentioned there, but they they didn't make that honor roll because of what they do.
They made it because of their faith. They acted upon what they knew. And so it is with us. If we're, if we're going to grow, we've got to act upon what the word of God tells us to do. And.
Of course, faith is taking God of this word. So when God gave an Old Testament saying a commandment to do something, he went ahead and did it. That was faith. You may not have known what the outcome might be, but he went ahead by faith and he and he obeyed God.
There is a verse in Romans that says that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God will never know what God wants from us.
Unless we read His Word, that's how He speaks to us. They cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. If we're going to grow in faith, we can't skip our family readings. We can't skip the weeknight prayer and reading these. We can't skip all those things that would help us to grow integration, knowledge of Him.
And expect the same blessings.
Perhaps, as we see another brother may be getting, we need to be diligent to mention in the things of God. And so it's a doing. It's a doing that gets the blessing, not the knowledge.
I might just add one thing is that is that when he says verse 14, I have written unto you Father's because he has known him, that is from the beginning or really I think it could be said from the outset, it's going back to first principles, going back to the beginning really of what the apostles taught about Christ and his deeds. This person is holiness and all the things in connection with the character and the work of Christ.
And so go back to the beginning. Those fathers knew the Son, they knew his work, they knew his character. And So what was happening in John's day, even at by the end of the 1St century, is there were those that were denigrating the person of Christ and blaspheming and saying that he was just an apparition and he didn't have a physical body like a man and so on. They all kinds of imaginations. But John says no.
One who is really a father, one who has maturity in the things of God, knows those first principles, knows the character of Christ, knows His deed and values the person, the work of Christ. He adds nothing to it and he takes nothing from it. Then he goes in and he says in verse 15, he gives an exhortation. And I think we know that there are only something like very few exhortations. I think there's 8 exhortations in that first John.
So it's not.
An epistle with a lot of exhortation. But this is going to be a hindrance. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world. The lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but it is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the less thereof. But he to do with will of God, abideth forever. And so he gives this.
01:00:04
Aggravation. There is something that will hinder the believer.
Whether it's a father or a young man or a child.
And that is the love of the world system, world system of manufacturing, the world system of medicine, the world system of commerce, the world system that is designed to keep man in a state of contentment while he's alienated from God. And so he says, love not the world.
It's a system of things that is designed to oppose Christ and oppose the work of the Spirit of God in this world.
Particularly mentioned isn't a connection with those that are younger, although as you've mentioned it, it has its effect on all of us, but.
It's particularly written to young men, starting in the middle of verse 14 and going down to the end of verse 17.
And it really brings before us the answer to John's question as to why some believers grow better than others. Yes, diligence is me. No question about it. If I don't know the word of God, I can't use it. I can't use what I've never read and meditated on and walked in. But ultimately.
Some will recognize the source of this, but there was a young man who wrote to a much older brother.
And asked him, do you have any advice for a young man who was just starting out on the Christian pathway? And his advice was very shortened to the point he said learn well for words which are found in John's Gospel chapter 6. The flesh profiteth nothing. And if we can learn those four words well, then we remove the hindrances.
To the Spirit of God using the new life within us to display Christ.
And what characterizes a father, I believe in knowing him, that is from the beginning, is that he's learned the absolute ruin of the natural man and the fact that there is nothing good in the first man. Yes, there needs to be diligence, but that will come because if there is really a desire to follow Christ, He will work it in US. He will help us to do that. He'll bring circumstances into our lives.
If we could use the expression reverently to make us deal with the flesh, we will bring that which will, as we have often noticed before, break the earthen vessel. And not that the earthen vessel is necessarily the flesh, I don't mean that. But He will bring things into our lives. He will deliver us to death in order that we might let that light shine out more and more. And so.
While we all have a tendency toward the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye and the pride of light.
It's probably more of a difficulty when we're younger.
And that's the time when our decisions are made, when our course is set, when perhaps we develop good habits instead of bad ones, where we hopefully make right choices instead of wrong ones, and where we set the course for our lives. Yes, there's always space for repentance. There's always time for turning around. And thank God for that.
There have been dear believers that have wasted part of their lives to their shape and who have turned around and been used of the Lord. But I can't regain the time that I've lost. And so all of this, I believe, brings before us the fact that whose will am I doing, my will or God's will? If it's my will, it's of the flesh. If it's God's will, it abides forever.
We can't get back that which we've lost in we, but we push on towards the.
The race to push on hard, we may overtake somebody that slows down or gives up. And so there's always encouragement to just push on, to do what the Lord would have us to do. We can't, we can't take back the things that we lost, but we can certainly be diligent day by day, can't we? And.
01:05:06
So that's important to see that there's 6 words, Brother Bill, that was ahead of that 4 words you posted there. John the flesh prophet was nothing. It is a spirit that quicken it in contrast with that what, what could we do to give ourselves life, you know, and speak some quickening there goes right to the very beginning, doesn't it?
It gave us life. We were we're quickened to Ephesians to Ephesians 2 dreams, I doubt. And so the flesh prophet is nothing. What could it do? What could what could we do to to have any?
Benefit that we enjoy today with nothing that we could do and there's nothing that we deserved to get what we have. It's all grace of God that has given to us life and has places where we are and has given us the truth to enjoy and has given us the ability that we have to be able to enjoy it. Some way may have more ability than others, but you have some ability to enjoy.
What God has given to you or he wouldn't tell us to be perfect, full grown so we have the ability to grow.
We might just make another remark or two about the world, because the expression in Scripture, the world is used in different ways, isn't it? For example, in First Corinthians 5, Paul says al she must needs go out of the world, meaning the planet on which we're living, and sometimes the world means that.
And when it says for God so loved the world, that refers to the people in the world, all those that are in the world. But here the thought is the world system that goes all the way back to cave.
And the character of Cain's world has not changed even in all those thousands of years. Yes, the outward trappings are different, but it's essentially the same world. And I would suggest there were four things that characterized the world that Cain set up, first of all.
Cain sin and as far as we know, never repented of it. He complained that his punishment was too hard. He argued with the Lord. He denied knowing what happened to his brother.
There was no repentance for that sin.
Secondly, he goes out from the presence of the Lord. He didn't want to have anything to do with God. Goes out from the presence of the Lord.
Thirdly, he goes and builds a city which.
I believe was designed to make him as happy as he possibly could be, but in a world that was blighted by sin, he had to live with that. He had to live with the curse that God put on the world. He had to live with the effects of sin. But he says, well, we'll keep God out of the picture, but we'll make things as comfortable and as good as we can.
That brought home to be one time when I was witnessing to students when I was in university and they were saying it would be nice to be rich. Well, I said what good would that do you? I said, if you don't know Christ as your Savior?
You're like a man in a prison that's got a little better sell than somebody else, and he's boasting about how he's in better circumstances when the man than the man next to him, but he's paying no attention to the fact that another individual.
Is offering a way to get out of jail, and he says no, I don't want that, but I'd like to. I'd like to have a better cell than somebody else. Well, he couldn't see the point. No, he said. I think I'd be I'd be happier having more things in this world than somebody else.
But that's what Kane wanted, to make himself comfortable. And thirdly, or rather 4th, he names the city after his son. What does that say? He was occupied with self occupied with his open glory.
Occupied with everything that he was and leaves God right out of the picture. And the world in which you and I live and move today. Yes, as we said earlier, we can be very thankful for the influence of Christianity in the Western world.
Everything that we have in that sense is the result of the Word of God and is rather remarked back in the 1800s concerning all that he said.
01:10:04
Modern infidelity argues from the effects of light to deny its necessity, which is true. Man says, look what we've got. Why do we need God? Why do we need the Bible? When in fact it's the light from the word of God that has produced all the blessing and the prosperity, and we see it in lands where people have gone nothing.
Point the finger particularly, but I happen to be most familiar with India, this John is, and just about everything they have in that country was the blessing of missionaries that came there, including their national language. Before the missionaries came, it was just a spoken language, never written, never codified, never standardized. And missionaries did all that so they could translate the blindness. Now they're saying get out of here. We don't want any missionaries or anything like that.
Schools, the universities, the hospitals, the political system, the rail system, the postal system, the irrigation system, we could go on and on. What was it built by? People who wanted to bring the word of God to it. And it's not just India. And now man is saying in the West, what do we need this for?
That is the world we live in, and so we need to be on guard. We get constant warnings about it in John's Gospel and in John's epistles. And John uses the word overcoming more than any other of the New Testament writers because there is a need to overcome that in which we find ourselves. Naturally. The world is such an insidious thing. You know, there's everything.
There to appeal to the natural man. There's the immoral world out there. There's lots of that, but there's the cultivated.
Clean side of the world. We have education. There's something there for every taste of the unsafe. Don't want music? You want education? You want sports or whatever it is.
It's all there.
To be taken and it's very insidious. It gets into our hearts.
At the time, least expected, as Mr. Darby said, the world appeals. It doesn't really have anything solid, but we have a heart that answers to its appeals. Just make the the prime example, I believe is.
Is the history of law he was a man, a true childhood God whom we are going to meet in the glory there's no doubt a righteous man who.
Was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked every day. But Lots vision was never above this present horizon. Present advantage was the object of Lot and.
He really wasn't a man of faith. He followed Abraham, but as we know in his history, more and more he gravitated to the world, picked up a woman in the world that wasn't saved, ended up in as a judge in the gate of Sodom, lost his family, nearly lost his life, ended in shame. That was what the world gave to what?
Maybe we could sing?
320 Not all of it, but just a few of the verses. How does the first three and then verse 8:00 and 9:00?
320 versus 1238 and 9:00.
Gospel 1
Gospel—Robert Boulard
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Good evening. I'd like to welcome everyone to the Gospel meeting tonight. Maybe there are some that have never heard the gospel of the grace of God preached tonight. And we trust that by the word of God being read and the power of the Spirit of God applying that word, that there might be fruit for God tonight, that you might know the Lord Jesus as your Savior. Let's sing together #24.
Let's ask God's blessing on His Word.
Our loving God, our Father.
We thank Thee for the good news of eternal salvation, for any who are lost in this room tonight without God, without hope, facing a lost eternity in the consequences of sin against the holy God. And we pray that they might hear of the love of Christ tonight and that mighty work that was accomplished, and the love behind that work on the cross of Calvary, and that the blood of Christ has been shed to cleanse them, to make provision.
That their sins could be cleansed forever in the sight of a holy God. And we know that the time is almost up. We're in the last hours of the day of grace. And we ask thee to bless thy precious word here this evening, the St. and Sinner alike. So we ask thy blessing our God and our Father in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
I'd like to look at the last book of the Bible just read in chapter 4 of Revelation. I'd like to read the end of the story.
We know what the beginning is.
The beginning is that God created. In beginning God created.
The heavens and the earth.
It was brought God's purpose that he was going to have a bride for his son. We didn't know about it. The Old Testament Saints didn't know about it.
But God has revealed that I want to read the end of the story. For those of us that are in this room that know the Lord Jesus as Savior, this is the end of the story.
Verse 11 Well let's read verse 10. The four and 20 elders fall down before him that sat on the throne and worship him that liveth forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord.
To receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are.
And were created.
That scene is just about to occur. That scene is just about to happen.
It's a historical fact. God has written it in His Word and it will take place and I will be there. And if you know Christ as your Savior, you will be there too.
Now how did it happen that there would be these the symbolic 24 elders 4 and 2012 elders really symbolized those 12?
The Old Testament Saints, all of those in the Old Testament that had faith.
And that had life, divine life given to them of God. They're going to be there, not one missing.
And the other 12 elders symbolize all of those that have been saved by the grace of God since.
The Lord Jesus went to the cross.
A new creation race.
Those that have new life, the very life of Christ. Those that have their sins forgiven.
Those that are made members of the body of Christ, those are part of the bride of Christ, there they are.
They're in the presence of the Lord.
Sins forgiven, no longer guilty before God, but better than this.
They're there in relationship to the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus, and it says this is what they say, Thou art worthy, O Lord.
To receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things.
00:05:04
For thy pleasure they are and were created. Now I want to look a little bit.
Who it is? Who is it?
Is at the very best of those that were living in the world the very best in the earth? Is that who is here? Were they worthy of their own merit?
We don't have a lot of time, but let's look at some little portions of scripture.
Let's look at Romans chapter 5.
Romans chapter 5, verse six. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died.
For the ungodly.
The.
Just picture it.
Those of us born into this world, sinners, we could all hang a sign around our necks, Sinner.
From among the Gentiles, the most wicked of those of those of the human race, you know, the Jews had the law of God, they had the New, the Old Testament, they had the word of God. They had some light, not a lot of light, but they had some light. They knew the God.
The eternal One they tell now, the eternal 1 Jehovah. They knew him. They didn't know him intimately, but they knew him. They had some light.
They knew they were sinners.
And God gave them a religion, perfect religion. He gave them a religion that they could offer a sacrifice for sin, and one sin could be forgiven one sin at a time.
And he told them he loved them, but they didn't know how much.
But you know in the day of grace he tells us, it says in verse 8 of this. Let's read verse seven. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet prevention for a good man some would even dare to die, But God commendeth his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
The source of your blessing, the source of the blessing of those that will sit on those four and 20 seats, symbolically, you're going to sit. If you know Christ's Savior, you're going to sit in the presence of the Son of God.
Your mouth will be open to praise Him, to thank Him for your eternal salvation, to thank Him for His love, for His grace, for His mercy, to thank Him for your relationship with Him forever. You'll never forget what took place at the Cross of Calvary.
And you'll never forget.
That was his love. The source of your blessing tonight is the love of God.
Doesn't come from here.
It's the love of God, the grace of God, the kindness of God, and he wants to bless you and he wants you to be a part of that company.
That sitting in his presence.
Sees him in all of his glory.
And without any fear, the mouth is open, the heart is open.
There's praise and Thanksgiving to God. Are you a Sinner?
If you don't know Christ as your Savior tonight, you're a Sinner.
And Christ came into the world to save sinners.
I sat across the table from a young lady. She was perhaps 3132 years old.
At a restaurant, we spoke of the Lord.
And she said I've never sinned.
I said, well, God says all have sinned and come into thee, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
She said I've never sinned.
I said, well God says we're born in sin and shapen, in which he says I never sinned.
I said after 5 minutes of conversation, I had to say, well, you don't qualify for salvation.
00:10:01
The qualification is to be a Sinner.
The company of those that sit in the presence of the Lord Jesus at that hour.
After the rapture takes place, the Lord Jesus is going to come for his own. Those that earn the graves going to be raised.
Incorruptible.
Your body is glorified if you are here tonight and you're saved by the grace of God. You have your sins forgiven. You've trusted the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse you from all sin. You're going to be in that company.
The Rapture will take place.
There will be a brief review of your life by the Lord Jesus at the judgment seat of Christ.
Rewards given. You will come to this place. You will see the Lord Jesus and all of His glory.
And as a company?
We'll cast our crowns at his feet. We'll say we had nothing to do with it. We didn't deserve it. We don't deserve it.
If we did anything to please him, it was because He gave us the grace. He gave us the desire. He gave us. He gave us the energy, He gave us the life to do anything to please Him. We'll cast our crowns before, but that's just the beginning.
That's the end of the story as far as what it is to leave this scene and find ourselves in the presence of the Lord, we could go into more detail.
What kind of material sinners?
But you know, the Sinner was so bad, the material was so bad, God says he needs to give you a new life.
A new nature He makes you a new creation in Christ.
What a wonderful to think that the flesh in you is going to be eradicated at the time of the rapture. If those of us that are here are alive at the time of the rapture, we're going to be taken out of this scene.
We'll have our final redemption. Our bodies will be redeemed, will be changed into the image of the Lord and sense that we'll have. Our bodies will be glorified. The very body that you have and you're going to be there. That's the end of the story. That's the beginning of the end of the story, if I could put it that way.
Are you going to be there?
The qualification is that you have to acknowledge that you're a Sinner.
A Sinner without God, without hope, but to plead for mercy.
Now let's look at Ephesians chapter one or chapter 2.
Verse four. Chapter 2. Verse four. But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love.
Wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead, And sins hath quickened us together with Christ, By grace are ye saved.
Now he's speaking to believers but will apply these verses of Scripture. They do apply to an unbeliever.
That believes the Lord Jesus takes Christ as Savior, and it says that God is rich in mercy.
And it speaks again of his great love.
Do you know this word? Love is mentioned 20 times in this epistle to the Ephesians. 20 times. God reminds those that belong to Him of His great love. You're going to find yourself in the presence of the Lord Jesus.
You're going to sense his love, it says. He nourisheth and cherisheth the church.
Christ also loved the church, and gave himself forth that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that he might present it to himself. A glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.
The Lord Jesus will look upon you.
It's going to be fully satisfied. It says in the book of Isaiah chapter 53, he shall see the fruit.
At the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. He's going to look at you. He's going to say I have everything that I ever wanted.
She's going to be satisfied and you're going to be satisfied too.
But if you are sitting here tonight, you've never acknowledged that you're a Sinner.
00:15:04
Sit up.
Pay attention, you're a Sinner.
There's another end.
We don't like to read this other end, but we need to read the other end.
We could read different passage of scripture, but let's look at Revelation chapter 20.
I saw in verse 11 a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was no place found for them.
And I saw the dead, small and great stand before God, and the books were open. Another book was open, which is the Book of Life.
The dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works. Death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of Fire.
Now where did these people come from?
Why are they here?
Why aren't they in the other company?
Why aren't they singing and praising?
Why are they here? How did they get here?
Did they hear about the love of the Lord Jesus?
Well, some of them did.
Some of them had the testimony of the creation, it says in Romans chapter one, so that they are without excuse.
They had the testimony of the power of God in creation.
And they refused it and they left this world.
I was sitting in the car with man not too long ago. We used to work together.
He's in his mid 70s and not in good health.
He's been to a gospel meeting before in Hammer Bay when he worked with us.
He's still an unbeliever.
I said Mike.
God loves you and He sent His Son into this world because He loved you. He sent His Son in this world so that you could have your sins forgiven. And God has decreed that every man, woman, and child is going to leave this world. Not one body of one person that is created in the image of God is going to remain in this world. Not one baby.
They're all going to be.
Removed from this world before it's destroyed, not one that is going, that has been created in the image and glory of God will remain in this earth.
And there's only two destinations. One destination we just read of in Revelation chapter 4.
We could have read it in different passages of Scripture. Another destination is the Lake of Fire.
Well, I said to Mike.
Here it is, springtime, and here it is. The trees look dead. Just a couple of weeks ago. Dead is doornails. Dead, but they're alive.
It's a picture that God has given us of resurrection. The leaves come out on those trees, the grass comes up.
And he laughed in my face, he said. You don't believe in resurrection, do you?
I do believe in resurrection and God's Word has said.
That everyone will be raised. Every man, woman and child was going to be raised from among the dead, from the dead.
Everyone.
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Some will enter into life, some will be cast into the Lake of Fire.
We don't have time to go into the details of the first resurrection or even the last resurrection and those ones that are cast alive into the Lake of fire. There are those you know that are going to be cast alive into the Lake of Fire.
Whosoever was not found written in the land in the Book of Life was cast in the Lake of Fire.
Who's going to be there?
We know some that are going to be there. Cain is going to be there. Judas is going to be there. They're different ones. I can't see into your heart tonight. I can't see whether you've put your faith and trust in the finished work of Christ.
God sent his Son into this world because He loved you.
He wanted you to have the richest blessings of heaven that is possible for God Himself to think of and to provide for man that was born into this scene.
Those that accept Christ as Savior today in the day of grace receive the highest blessings possible that God can possibly bestow upon a creature.
Brings you into relationship with himself as a child of God.
As a member of the body of Christ, as one that is a part going to be a part of the bride of Christ, will be in relationship, nearest relationship with Him for all eternity.
And it says in the Word of God, Ephesians chapter one, that He hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ. He has it, He has done it now. And you have forgiveness of sins as a present possession. You have redemption.
As a present possession you have the justification from all sin.
Presently.
You have the gift of sonship, a Son of God eternally. You have it now. If you've accepted Christ as Savior, what a blessing, what a God we have that loves us and wanted to give the very best. And if you're sitting in your seat here tonight and you don't know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, you have another opportunity just at the last hour, just before the Lord is going to come for his own.
You have an opportunity to acknowledge that you sit in your seat as a Sinner.
And to sue for mercy.
God be merciful to me, a Sinner.
I don't need to put the words in your mouth.
But you can cry in your heart to the Lord Himself and tell him that you're a Sinner and that you want to have your sins forgiven, and He'll receive you.
So let's look at this verse again.
In Revelation chapter 4.
Verse 10 The four and 20 elders fall down before him that sat upon on the throne.
Worship Him that liveth forever and ever.
And cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord.
To receive glory and honor and power. For thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
I say again, that scene is just about to be unfolded before our eyes. This world is growing in its wickedness and its departure from the moral characteristics. God created the moral laws, you might say.
This world is departing from what God has set as order and is rejecting the Creator, is rejecting God, is rejecting the light of the Word of God, and it is sinking into the darkness of heathenism again.
God is going to remove us. If the Lord Jesus was going to come tonight, would you be ready?
Would you be sitting here in this seat?
The rest of us would have this scene soon unfolded before our eyes. Let's commend ourselves.
Our loving God and our Father, we thank thee for Christ Jesus, the Savior of sinners. We thank Thee that thou art not willing that any should perish, but that all should be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth. And so we pray for any here in this room tonight.
00:25:16
Who are sinners?
Facing judgments.
But who have been told of the love of God?
The grace of God. The mercy of God.
We pray that Thou worked by Thy Spirit and that our young might hear Thy voice and cry to Thee, blessed Savior, for salvation.
Have their sins forgiven tonight, be cleansed, perfectly cleansed in the precious blood of Christ. And so we thank Thee, our God, for thy word. We pray for Thy blessing upon thy precious word tonight that it might bear fruit for Thee, and that we that know the Lord Jesus as Savior might rejoice.
In the fact that we're going to see the Lord Jesus face to face in all of thy glory very shortly.
We thank before it in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Hymnsing 1
Kiss the Son
Talk—Ted Porter
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
To God and our Father.
If this burden is one that you've laid upon the speaker's heart.
And dependent upon you to help him to deliver that burden, that message you have for your people this evening. So we commit this time to you. And we do say it was a happy day when our sins were washed away.
We thank you above all for our Savior and it is our desire to please Him while we are here on this earth awaiting His return. We commit this time to put that in mind and is worthy and precious name. Amen.
Well, I've got about two minutes.
And I believe that probably that's all it would take.
But I would like to read some scriptures.
Not necessarily in any order, and I don't intend to expound them, but they're really the basis of my thoughts.
First one is Psalm chapter 2.
Just the first part of verse 12 suffices.
Kiss the sun.
Then I want to go right over to Revelation chapter.
Chapter 2. Verse 4.
Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because I was left thy first love.
Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen.
Matthew, Chapter 24.
And verse 12.
Because iniquity shall abound. Or another way to put it, because lawlessness prevails.
The love of many shall wax gold.
If you think of the assembly for a moment as.
A plant.
And each of you as a root of that plant.
And just picture that in your mind, then I will tell you.
Each one of you.
Individually.
That.
Your practice of intimacy with the Lord Jesus.
Will determine the life and the state of your assembly.
We can talk about all the benefits we have as individuals from being saved and knowing the Lord.
But if we see ourselves as part of a a broader, greater plan, a marvelous plan that God had to glorify his Son now at this time.
Through a corporate expression of his life.
And nature.
It kind of.
Takes our Christianity out of a selfish kind of mode.
That being said.
I want to encourage, especially the younger ones, while you're young and when we're young.
Our emotions tend to be.
A big part of our life and.
There's a lot of excitement and there's a lot of that physical, chemical action that's taking place in us that causes our emotions to be a big part of our life. I want you to remember that.
You were created for the Lord.
00:05:03
Your body was created for the Lord, your spirit was created for the Lord and your soul.
And particularly my burden is your emotions were created for him.
He created you to love him.
There's a widow in our assembly which some of us try to visit on a regular basis.
And I've heard this from others too in my experience, but.
I was speaking with her and without going into the context of the conversation, she made this comment, she said I don't pray as good as you do.
And I stopped her.
And I said sister.
You only hear me praying in the meeting.
Right.
Or when I've had readings with you and some others.
So how do you know you don't pray like me?
I said to be honest, I won't name her, but I'll just use the term sister. I said be honest sister most of the time.
When I get on my knees before the Lord, I have very little to say.
And most of my prayers consist of two or three words, such as.
Oh Lord.
Help me.
Lord Jesus.
And I may repeat those several times.
Because many times when I get before the Lord and and I believe others know this.
The burdens of our heart can be so heavy that we just cannot articulate them.
I hope this is everyone's experience, but I'm speaking, I believe, mostly to the young.
We we are often led to that state by adverse conditions in our lives, and yet it ought to be a regular practice.
To be intimate with the Lord.
It doesn't go too far to say that.
You know the scripture in Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 13 says all things are naked before the eyes of him with whom we have to do nothing's hidden.
And I would recommend that you read Psalm 139.
And read it not with just your mind, but with your heart.
And understand that the Lord your Maker, he knows you in and out. He knows everything thought you have. He knows every word you're going to say before you say it.
There's nothing but he doesn't see.
So why would you get before him and pretend there's something he doesn't see?
The sisters comments and another brother once said the same thing. I'm not like you. You don't know what I'm like. You only see me in the meeting. You don't see me at work, you don't see me when I'm doing things around the house. You don't see me in my interaction with my wife and my family.
Brother, we're all cut out of the same rug.
We're all made of the same stuff.
But we get fooled and we only see each other in the meeting. We get some idea of the way we are.
And so it's very simple. I just want to encourage you.
You need to practice on a regular basis and I'm speaking to everyone of you.
As an individual, I don't care.
Whether you think much of yourself or not, or what brethren think of you.
It doesn't matter. Every one of us who belongs to the Lord Jesus, we owe him our hearts.
And we owe him our hearts on a regular basis.
And.
This, I think it was this morning, our brother Clem, he pointed out that he said the root of the problem.
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Was.
Lovest thou me?
You know we read that verse in Ephesians because that was the beginning of what we call the Church age.
And you read what they did, and the works were really wonderful. You read their works and you say, well, what's left to do? What's left what? How could you be any better?
Well, you know, if you take a plan and you cut its roots, what happens?
You can keep dressing it up.
You can do whatever you want, but if you cut the roots, what happens? What happens?
It dies.
And assemblies die.
Because the Saints.
Perhaps because iniquity abounds, they get discouraged and weary.
Maybe it's even iniquity within the assembly. You know the principle. I I don't want to go into the doctrinal application of Matthew 24. I know what the context is, But it's in principle there that when lawlessness abounds, it tends to make us cold.
And we should be aware of that.
But if we cease as individuals.
To be going before the Lord in private, when no one else can tell whether we're using Old English or not, when we pray, when no one else sees anything.
There should be no inhibitions.
How intimate can you be with God? You know I want to look at one more verse. Revelation chapter 2. Sorry, I'm going right longer than I intended to. Revelation chapter 2.
And this verse, the context of this, is what we call the darkest time in church history, very darkest time. Revelation 2 at verse 17.
He that hath an ear lit him here what the Spirit saith unto the churches, to him that overcometh. While I give to eat the hidden manna, I will give him a white stone, and then the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it. How about that?
Do you know what the hidden manna is? They were told to take manna and put it before the testimony and eventually you find out from Hebrews.
Believe is Chapter 9.
That the manna they put it into ark.
The Ark Even the high priest could not look into the ark, am I right?
In the old dispensation off limits.
Yet here it says.
That those who would overcome would be able to eat.
Of the hidden manna. You couldn't be more intimate with God. You couldn't be more intimate with God than this.
Again, I'm speaking to each of you as individuals.
You need to be intimate with God.
And not just when times get tough.
And the Whitestone?
That only the receiver knows the name.
That speaks of experiences. That speaks of a relationship with God that only you know about.
Only you. It's that secret you don't tell in the world, they say. You don't kiss and tell. You know we each, each of you has a relationship with the Lord that is unique.
Think of it, it's your prize and you should take advantage of it.
Not only for your own enjoyment, but for the life of the assembly. That's all I have to say.
Abraham's Faith in his God
Children—William Hayhoe
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.
Good morning, everyone.
I'm glad some of the kids are sitting up front here because after we do the songs and we, any of the kids you want can say the Bible verses, we're going to talk about a Bible story and we're going to act out a little bit of it. So I'm glad you're sitting up here and you'll be able to see what happens. And I, I know it takes some bravery to be up here because I can remember, believe it or not, when I was your kids size and my mom and dad told me I had to go sit in the front row and I was really scared. So I'm glad you're up here.
And I'll tell you a secret.
Even though it might not look like it, I'm really scared right now too because it's a there's a lot of people looking at me. So we're in the same boat if if you're feeling a little bit scared. So thank you for coming up here and sitting up front. We can start off by singing some songs together. There's some kids songs in the back of the hem sheet. I know that maybe all of you can't read. And so if you just know the name of a song and even if it's not on the hymn sheet, if we know it, we can sing that song too.
What would you like?
#46 #46 glad tidings glad.
He calls and he calls all the GIRLS and he wants all to be aligned as soon as.
Since I washed away.
Do you mind if I ask you a question? Do you know what the word tidings means?
It's OK if you don't, because I don't think that's a word we probably ever use.
Anyone also want to venture a guess as to what tidings means?
It means news. So the song is saying glad news or good news. I bring that Jesus has come to save me. And that's what we'll talk about when we talk about a Bible story in a little bit. The good news that God sent his Son, the Lord Jesus to save us from our sins.
Does anyone else have a song? Yeah #11.
Will your anchor hold?
Will your anchor hold in the storms of life?
We have made her like this soul.
Love.
Your anger hold in the states of fear, in the crapers roaring.
While searches break and the wild winds blow.
Your arm.
Health, we do have an anchor.
Said by secure while the pillows grow.
Fells into the rock, which cannot grow. Related fermentation and the same girls love.
00:05:25
And you mind if I ask you, do you know what an anchor is? What does an anchor do?
That's right. So if there's a storm and if the people on the boat are going to go to sleep or they want the boat to stay somewhere, they put the anchor down to the bottom and it anchors into the bottom of the ocean and it keeps the boat from moving. It keeps it safe if there's a storm as well. So this song is talking about how.
We can think of the Lord Jesus as our anchor is if anyone has faith in the Lord Jesus and what he did for us at the cross when he died. We have faith in the Lord Jesus and believe in him. Then he is our anchor in this life. If things in our life are scary or afraid or difficult, we can trust in the Lord Jesus and his love to take care of us and even one day if what happens to everyone until the Lord, until the Lord comes, we die. We can have confidence that he's our anchor because if we have faith in his blood.
Then that blood cleanses us from our sins, and we don't have to be afraid to die, because we know that if we die, we will go home to heaven to be with him.
Anyone else have a song?
And even if it's not a number on here, if you don't name this song you sing in your Sunday school, we can try and sing that one. Yes, Emily.
#4 Okay.
Christ.
This is a savior for me.
Now I can say I am part, I am justified free so they hit my glasses every evening.
This is the savior for days.
So this is the savior for me.
Judgment to play now. There is no condemnation.
This is a savior for me.
Say it in your house.
Say, with girls and girls like me.
There is one for my ransom. This is a savior for me.
Change.
This is the savior for me.
Shedding this blood for my grandma and so this is the second for me.
So this song talks about how Christ, that's the Lord Jesus, is the Savior of sinners.
So a center? What's a center?
Do you know what a Sinner is, Emily?
That's exactly right.
Who does bad things?
I do. I've done bad things. I think everyone here has. But guess what? That means that the Lord Jesus came to save everyone here. If we've all done bad things, the Lord Jesus came to save all of us. And that's some happy news, The glad tidings.
00:10:08
And yeah, how do you other kids have a song that you'd like to share?
Yeah #3.
OK, my hope and.
Show the darkness.
Until the same heart changes grace.
And everyone again Stormy can face a girlfriend in the bell.
Oh Lord, grace the soul, and grace of the soul.
Very good. That first that song talks about how we can be saved. Says our hope is built on Jesus and the blood he spilt. Because when Jesus went to the cross and after he died, the soldier took a spear and put it aside and blood came out. And the Bible says that the shedding of blood that makes atonement for the soul. So because Jesus.
The only one who had never done anything wrong shed His blood for us. Through faith in His blood, anyone who believes can be saved.
Anyone else have a song that they like?
What would you like running over? OK, we can do that one.
It's always fun to have an action song to sing together. It's fun to do actions, isn't it?
Anyone else have a song?
Here, Do you have a song tonight?
No, it's kind of hard to give it a song with a lot of people looking at you, isn't it? Yeah.
How about we sing #47?
When he comes.
Love and his own.
Soul.
All the same ones on the bright one.
Like the morning it's right now.
00:15:06
It shall shine, this beauty, bright and sore, his crown.
Very good. Anyone else like to give out one more?
#43 OK, very good. One door.
Which side are you? One door and only one. You have a sight or two.
So that song talks about a door and there's people on one side, the inside, and then there's people on the other side of the door, which is called the outside. And what that song is talking about is everyone who has put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus, they're the ones that are inside. And I think inside the door, maybe it's because they're safe.
Because no matter what happens, their sins have been washed away in the blood of the Lord Jesus, and they're safe. OK, Emily, you had your hand up. You have another song.
#40 very good.
Jesus.
Jesus loves me.
The Bible tells me strong.
Sons made her die. Heaven's sake to open.
Why he will wash away my sins, let away full child come in.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Loves me. Yes, Jesus.
Tells me so.
Yes.
Shining Oh my God, he will watch me where I am.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
Loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.
All the way. If I trust him, shall I die? He will Take Me Home on time.
Yes, you just love me.
00:20:02
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, thank you for singing. I know that maybe some of you kids, every week you learn a Bible verse and often say it in Sunday school. So right now, anyone who likes, if you have a verse that you've learned that you would like to say, you can raise your hand and say it for everyone. Go ahead.
A soft dancer turneth away wrath, but breathless words stir up anger. The 10 of the wise uses knowledge aright, but the mouth of the foolish used poureth out foolishness.
The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and also the good.
The A wholesome tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit. Proverbs 15 one to four Very good job, those four verses. Those verses are talking about our tongue.
It's pretty easy to say things really fast that aren't kind or not very nice, isn't it?
You know, when I was your age, I had two brothers and two sisters, so I didn't always say kind things to them. And even as an adult, I still don't. Not versus talking about how it's very important to be careful what we say with our tongue to be kind.
Anyone else have a verse they would like to say?
Sure, go ahead.
Very good. Thank you. William, did you have your hand up?
There's one that we did today, OK.
You try, and if you can't remember, maybe your dad will help you.
Romans 10/9.
Now the Lord Jesus notable in my heart that I have.
Right. Yeah.
Your sister trying to help you.
If God has raised him from the dead.
Very good job, Very good job.
Emily, you have one too? Yeah.
OK.
Now shot, Confess.
The heart of God has raised dead. Thou shall be saved so we can die. Thank you. Very good job.
Anyone else?
And Tricare.
Yeah.
One God, one God in one mediator between God and the mirror, and Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom frog.
First Tennessee 25 and six. Very good time.
OK.
Anyone else on one it's OK.
OK, thank you for saying those verses. I know it takes, it's hard to get up and say a verse when everyone's looking at you, right? It's a hard thing to do, but they're they're all cheering for it. You just don't. You just don't realize it.
OK, well before we look in and talk a little bit about a story in the Bible and we'll just pray to the Lord Jesus.
Our God and Father, we thank you that we can be here this morning and have a little bit of time where we look into the Word of God and thinking especially of the children here and try and learn a lesson of your love for us and what you have done for us in sending your only Son to die for us. And we pray for each of the kids here. We is trusted. Each of them would put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus and what He has done for us at the cross of Calvary.
00:25:05
And we pray that each of them that have believed on you that they would just have confidence and the love that you have for them and continue on and and want to serve the Lord Jesus for the rest of their lives here. And we pray the same thing for those of us who are older as well. Let me just ask for your help now and and being able to explain it in a way that all the kids would be able to understand and pray this in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.
OK, so I have a Bible story that I would like to talk about this morning. And I think God must have wanted this story to be talked about to the older people and to the kids, because it's the same story that Mister Prost talked about yesterday in the meeting that we call the address. So I'll ask maybe some of your older kids can remember yesterday in the meeting that we call the address.
Do you remember what person that Mister Pross talked about? Maybe that's a hard question. If you don't, that's OK.
And I can give you some more hints. There was a man in the Bible and he was married and him and his wife, they wanted to have a baby. They wanted to have kids. But for a very, very long time, they did not have any kids. And I'm sure that made them very sad because they wanted to have kids.
Anyone know do you think it's I'll move by that name in the Bible?
You think you know?
That's right Abraham, and you know his wifes name.
Sarah, that's right, Abraham and Sarah and they for a long, long time, they, they like kids. They wanted to have one, but God didn't give them a kid. And I'm sure that made them sad and maybe they didn't understand. But then one day three people came to see Abraham and he was sitting by his tent. And one of those people was the Lord Jesus himself. And they came to Abraham and, and Abraham got them some food to eat.
And you know what they said to Abraham? In a little bit of time, They said your wife, Sarah.
Is going to have a baby boy. Do you think that made Abraham Happy to hear?
Yes, for a long, long, long time he wanted to have a baby. And now the Lord Jesus and I think probably 2 angels promised him in a little bit his wife Sarah was going to have a baby boy. And you know what? It came true in a little bit of time Sarah was pregnant and then the time came for her to have a baby and a little baby was born and his name was Isaac, did you know that?
Yeah, Why did you know that?
How did you know that?
Oh, I thought that might be the case. I couldn't remember whether your Isaac or Caleb, but now I know it's Isaac. That's right. So Abraham and Sarah were so happy. They now had a little boy named Isaac. And Isaac grew up and he got a little bit older and he was the only boy that Abraham and Sarah had. So they loved him very much. Now you kids this morning, I, I know you all have mommies and daddies today. Do they love you?
How? How do you know that your mom and dad love you?
How did you know that?
Is it because they show it? How do they show it?
By taking care of us, that's right. Feeding us, that's right, it's right. Your dad probably goes to work so he can earn some money to be able to buy.
Food and clothes to take care of you and they probably sometimes sad things happen. And your parents, they try and comfort you and help you if there's something wrong, feed you, maybe play with you sometimes. And you know that they love you. Well, Abraham and Sarah, they love their boy Isaac very much too.
One day God came to Abraham again, and he spoke to Abraham and he said, Abraham, I want you to take your son Isaac, who you love very much, and I want you to take him into a faraway land, and I want you to offer him there for a sacrifice to me.
Oh my. Now what does it mean when God said that offer Isaac as a sacrifice?
That's something that we don't do today. But that meant that Abraham was going to have to take Isaac and he was going to have to kill him to offer him up as a sacrifice to God.
00:30:09
Oh, that would have been a very hard thing for Abraham to hear. Very hard thing, because he loved his boy Isaac very, very much. But Abraham believed God and he trusted that even if he obeyed God, that God would be able to bring his boy back again. So he obeyed. He did what God told him to do. So this part of the story I was planning to maybe act out a little bit to help all of us here understand it.
So I don't have a boy, but I have a girl, Kiera, and she's going to help me out here. She agreed to help out. She's going to we're going to pretend that she's Isaacs. You can come, you can help me, Kyra. Thank you. So we're going to pretend that I'm Abraham and Kira is Isaac. And just like Abraham loved his boy very much, I love Kira very much too. And so God had told Abraham and Isaac to take.
Take your boy Abraham, and you go to this faraway country, and I'm going to show you a mountain. So away they went. Abraham, he was going to obey God and do what he said. So they went away to a very far country, and they got to the mountain that God told them to, and then they had to build an altar. So we'll use a couple of chairs here.
And Abraham built an altar. Now he would have used some stones to build an altar.
And then Abraham had to take his boy that he loved very much.
He took his boy.
Isaac and he had to put him on the altar.
All right. Good job.
And then Abraham. This is a very sad part. God told them they had to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, so Abraham had to take, we'll just pretend a knife.
And he had to raise it up in the air. Abraham, Abraham. Oh, what was that? And Abraham said, here I am.
Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him. For now I know that thou fierce God, seeing thou, hast not withheld thy son, thine only Son from me.
Oh, and justice like that, That's what happened. Just as Abraham was going to do what God said, he was going to take that knife and he was going to kill his boy Isaac. God spoke to him in a voice just like we heard there and said, stop now, I know that you love me and you will obey me. So Abraham could take Isaac and take him off the altar. OK, you can go sit back down. Thank you.
And the rest of the story God showed Abraham, and over in the bushes called the thicket, there was a lamb or a ram caught by his horns. And Abraham went, and he took the ram, and he put the ram on the altar instead, and he killed the ram, and he offered the ram as a sacrifice instead of his boy Isaac.
So.
Now with every story in the Bible, God gives us these stories for a reason. He has something for us to learn from them.
And that's the case with this story. Did you know that there is someone else who has who had an only son? That someone is God the Father, God the Father.
And only son what was What's his name?
Someone know Isaac? Jesus? That's right, Jesus.
The only begotten Son of God. And just like Abraham loved his boy Isaac very much, just like your mommies and daddies love you very much. And I love Kira very much. God the Father, He loved his Son Jesus very, very much.
But you know what? God also loved us very much too. And He loves all the people in the world very, very much. And He loves us so much that He would like one day to have us all to share His home in heaven.
Now in heaven, heaven is a perfect place and there's no sins allowed there. And in one of the songs that we sang, remember when we were singing, we said Christ is the savior of sinners. And we talked about how everyone here, I've done bad things. Have each of you kids done some bad things?
00:35:04
Yes, yeah.
And God says no sin is allowed in heaven. So if we were sinners and we were still lost in our sins, could God let us into heaven? No, he can't. But so God knew this. And you know, God loved his son Jesus. He loves him very, very much. But just like Abraham had to take his son and put him on the altar, God says, I'm going to send my son the Lord Jesus down into the earth.
And so God sent Jesus, and Jesus was born as a little baby.
And he grew up as a man. And then one day, wicked people, they took him and they hated him, and they went to kill him and put him on a cross. And you know, in the story of Abraham and Isaac, when Abraham was about to take the knife and kill Isaac, and God spoke and said, Abraham, Abraham, you can stop. And a lamb took Isaac's place for the Lord Jesus. Was there anyone else to take his place at the cross?
Is there someone that could take his place? No.
He had to go all by himself to the cross, and there God the Father, even though he loved his Son very much, he sent him to the cross, and there he punished him for sins that I've done and you've done.
And he said, And the Lord Jesus bore the punishment for the sins of all those who will believe in him, and there was no one else to take to take his place, like the Lamb took Isaac's place on the altar. There is no one else, the Lord Jesus.
He bore the punishment of those sins all by himself, and at the end of the time on the cross.
He said it is finished and he died and one of the soldiers took his spear and put it in his side, and the blood came out and the Lord Jesus died. He laid down his life for you and for me. And do you know what God says in the Bible? This is a verse maybe all of you kids have learned at some point. He says for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever.
Believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. That's in John 316. So just like Abraham, he loved his boy very much, but he was willing to take him.
Yes, that's right, you did learn that verse. Yes, just like Abraham was willing to obey God and offer his son, God the Father sent his son Jesus to die at the cross. And now because of what the Lord Jesus has done.
Because even though we're all sinners, the Lord Jesus, he never did anything wrong. He was perfect, never did anything wrong.
And now God says that anyone who believes in him believes in the Lord Jesus as the Savior and puts their faith and trust in him. God says you are safe and washed from your sins in the blood of the Lord Jesus. And that's the lesson that God has from that story in the Old Testament of Abraham and Isaac. It's a little picture of how God, even though he loved his son, he loved us too. And he was willing to give up his own son to make a way so that everyone here.
Could believe in the Lord Jesus and be saved now.
I hope that each of you kids has believed in the Lord Jesus for himself, for yourselves and are saved. And I, I think perhaps some of you have. So I'd like to talk a little bit about something else having to do with this story because you know how we talked about the start, how your parents, your mommy and your daddy, they love you very much.
Well, I think each of you here is in a family with a mommy and a daddy and maybe you have a brother or a sister. Did you know that God made families? It was God who who made it so that we would all be born into families with the mommy and daddy. And did you know that there's there's several reasons that God made it that way, but one of the reasons is so that we even little kids can learn about God and how he loves us.
Because.
Does your daddy love you, Emily?
You know he loves you, doesn't don't you? And each one of you kids, you know your daddy loves you and he takes care of you, right? Well, do you know that if you put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus?
That just like you're a child of your parents, that you become a child of God. I'm going to read you a verse.
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In Romans.
Romans chapter 8 and verse 16. This verse is talking about everyone who has believed in the Lord Jesus and it says the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.
So just like you're a child of your mom and dad, if you believe in the Lord Jesus, you're a child of God.
And God put you in a family with the mommy and daddy that love you and take care of you. And He made it that way. He made families and designed them to teach us about himself. Because we know that if God is our Father, then He loves us and He protects us and He takes care of us and He would do anything for us. You know your mommies and daddies, I think they love you so much that they would do anything to keep you safe and help you and protect you and if you were in trouble.
They would do anything they could to help you. And if you have put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus, then God is the same to you. He loves you and you know what? He loves you even more than your mommies and daddies. Because mommies and daddies, they can make mistakes sometimes. They love you very much, but they still make mistakes sometimes. And I know this because I'm a daddy. But God, he never makes mistakes and He loves you and He will do everything to protect you and keep you safe.
All the way until one day the Lord Jesus comes back and he'll give a shout and everyone, every child and adult who has put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus and believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sins will be taken home to heaven.
So I want to talk about that. Any of you kids who have believed in the Lord Jesus, we can understand that we are a child of God and that He loves us and He'll take care of us all the way through our lives.
OK, that was all I had to talk about this morning. If any of you kids have one more song, we could sing one more song before we ended.
Maybe we can sing too. What was your song #5?
Well, this is a good song to sing.
Oh, happy.
My God well name is slow and heartbreak until it's right and it's all abroad when Jesus was my sins away.
Transaction.
I am my Lord and He is mine. He trimmed me and I followed on, glad to confess. No one came by, I believe when Jesus was my sins away.
Away now rest my long divide it hard based on that glass and center grass, nor ever from thy glory deep heart.
Rain in my head bring good possess happy days, happy days.
When Jesus was my sins away.
He let me know too much and pray and the prejudice sing every day.
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Happy day. Happy day when Jesus was my sins away.
OK. And we had a request too for Man of Sorrows. That's number 13. I'll sing that as well.
Man.
In my place.
Helplessly.
Trying to sneak one more in there.
What song?
OK, this is the absolutely last one.
Into.
Allegations.
Of the children of men, nobody ever has told me before.
Boy stand under me and the tiger need I not perish. My hand will be hold. Nobody having the story has told.
No 1 can say of the children of men. Nobody ever has so many people.
Last words of his friends, just as he entered the palmy of death, the authentic sunken so badly so ever sent me.
And I am sure that he sent him for thee.
Again, tell it Again, salvation story. Ignore and go.
The children of them nobody ever has told me before.
Thank you kids, for listening and singing and saying your verses as well. And before we finish, we'll, we'll pray again.
Our God and Father, we thank you for this story in the Bible that.
Speaks to us of how even though.
Who loved your son, who loved us and would send him all the way to the cross.
And there to lay down his life on our behalf. And we pray for each of the kids here that they would.
Have faith in the Lord Jesus and what He has done that they would consider the story of Lord Jesus and His love and laying down His life for us and that they would have faith in the Lord Jesus as their own Savior and be saved. Pray that for each one here.
And just thank you again for the love that you have for us and pray this in the early and precious name, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Ground of Gathering
Open—Robert Boulard
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157 Jesus gracious.
187.
Oh, Jesus, gracious.
Savior.
'S.
Was that 187?
187.
Oh, Jesus, gracious Savior.
Strong, who is waiting this song? Redheaded.
And may not cause.
We speak the rest.
Of the day, then swearing through.
Once fully tried and taken.
Home.
Our God and Father, we come before thee this afternoon, and we thank Thee for another Lord's day and the happy privilege we had of remembering Thy beloved Son and his death for us. And we think now, as we've come together this afternoon, we pray, Lord, that that will guide by the Holy Spirit, and that what is brought before us might be for our blessing and encouragement. And Lord, that we might.
Just go on in the few days left before thou just come. We know thy coming is so very near.
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And so he asked thee for thy help and guidance, for surely without Thee we can do nothing. We ask in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
I just have it on my heart to look at Luke's Gospel chapter 22. Just read a few verses of scripture there and somewhat follow.
The burden of my heart in connection with giving the Lord his the desires of his heart. My brother Ted brought before us a little portion last night, and I had this little portion of Scripture before me for several days and.
I feel letter of the Lord just to read it and to bring out some thoughts here. Chapter 22 of Luke verse 7.
Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the Passover must be killed. And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare us the Passover, that we may eat. And they said unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare? And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you bearing a pitcher of water. Follow him into the house where he entereth in, and you shall say unto the good men of the house.
The Master saith unto thee, Where is the guest chamber? Where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples? And he shall show you a large upper room furnished. There make ready. And they went and found as he had said unto them, and they made ready the Passover. And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the 12 apostles with him. And he said unto them, with desire, I have desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
For I say unto you, that I will not anymore eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God. Verse 19 He took bread, gave thanks, and break it gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you.
This due in remembrance of me likewise also the cup after supper saying this cup is the New Testament in my blood.
Which is shed for you?
Well, I'd just like to bring out seven little points here in connection with this passage of Scripture. We know that it was the last Passover that God would recognize, and it was the Lord Jesus himself was the Passover lamb. And so it was the last Passover. And the Lord Jesus was there in that upper room, the large upper room with his disciples and.
He instituted the remembrance of the Lord. So the Passover looked forward to the death of Christ and the suffering.
The sufferings of Christ as the burnt offering sacrifice there and that Passover lamb was roast with fire and it made provision so that the children of Israel could be redeemed from Israel. They were set free from the power of Pharaoh, a type of Satan, and they were set free from Egypt and they could serve the Lord. They didn't serve the Lord in Egypt. They served him in the wilderness. And so the believer, you know, is seen not only in Egypt, He's seen in the wilderness. He's also seen in the promised land.
So you and I are in all three positions, but the remembrance of the Lord now looks back to what took place at the cross of Calvary. So this is the first time. And it was the Lord Jesus himself with his disciples that instituted this remembrance. And so he says here in verse nine, they said unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare?
And this is the first point that we need to remember is this is when we come to remember the Lord Jesus and his death. There are some things that we're not permitted in Scripture to choose for ourselves. And you know what we think of? I'll just name a few. One of them is we don't choose our parents. God chose our parents. He made a perfect choice, wasn't perhaps the way we would have chosen things, but he made the choice.
And he's the one that chooses the way of salvation. There's only one way of salvation very exclusive. There's one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
Gave himself a ransom for all. And then when it comes to the place of worship where I'm going to remember the Lord Jesus and his death, it's two. It's not my choice. And so we have the principle of it given in Deuteronomy chapter 12. And that was such a help when I was a young man.
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Deuteronomy chapter 12 Says, Take heed unto thyself, that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest, but in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose.
You know, I came home one day from school, high school, and I said to my father, I said.
And I said, we were brought up among the McDowell brethren and we're with some group of brethren here and, and he had brought us to a church and different things. And I said, Dad, what's the difference between all these places?
Where should we be going?
And he said, well, you know, you just kind of have to get comfortable with a group of brethren and kind of get comfortable with them and go along with them and so on. And, you know, I didn't answer them. I kind of thought, you know, that doesn't sound like an answer that the Spirit of God would give.
And so I began to read the Scriptures and discover some of these things for myself. Read for the first time Deuteronomy chapter 12. I can remember reading it on my father's sofa, and I read it probably the day that I first time I read it, I read it maybe four or five times. Read the whole chapter. There is a place in principle that God would provide for his people to meet with him. And so in Israel's day, it was the temple, it was the Tabernacle we know, and it was God's choice.
And so this is the first thing that we want to bring out here in this passage of Scripture was a comfort to my own heart, still is.
They said unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare? And they had a good reason for asking that question.
Because it was his choice.
Are we willing to let the Lord choose for us?
Really, it's a place of submission to the will of God. You know what characterizes the life of the Lord Jesus was submission to the will of God, obedience to the will of God, love for his Father, and he he always went and those.
There were different characteristics of his love. Let me see if I I think I have a little note as to those four things.
Was dependence upon his father prayer. He was a man of prayer and he was a man of obedience. He was a man of submission to the will of God and a man who loves his God, loved the Lord Jesus loved God his Father and and so he walked in communion with the Lord. Well this is the first Test you know in connection with.
Where to meet and where to be found gathered by the Spirit of God.
And to the precious name of the Lord Jesus. Are we willing to let the Lord choose? Are we willing to set aside our own rights, as we might say our own desires, our own preferences? Set aside family.
Ties. Set aside those things that might be a hindrance to us, and let the Lord choose. Well, they asked that question. It's a good question to ask. He said unto them, Behold, when you are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you bearing a pitcher of water. Follow him into the house where he entereth in. So we have a few little instructions given here. It's a little picture, a little type.
And the next thing is that are we willing to follow him? It says follow him into the house, follow him. Are we willing to follow the directions of the Lord? Well, he said you're going to enter into the city. Now, a city in Scripture oftentimes speaks of a place of confusion. And you don't have to go to too many cities and there's places of confusion go to a turn around, turn about and people coming in and out and.
You just it's confusion different places.
20 million people in the city of Sao Paulo. Is it a confusing place? It's a place that's confusing to drive through.
Well, it's going to be confusing in the aspect of Christianity. There's all kinds of stripes and flavors, you might say, in the Christian profession. And you'll remember that in the children of Israel, among the children of Israel, there were two kinds of high places.
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There was the temple where the Lord had chosen to place His name. There in Israel there was a divine center, but then there were high places where they practiced Judaism.
Some measure, but not at the divine center. And then there were other high places set up that they practiced idolatry had nothing to do with Judaism. And so we live in a day when there's been a departure and we live in a place and a time of history when it's possible for us to be gathered to the Lord's name and to remember the Lord Jesus and his death and simplicity and.
It's going to require us to follow the directions of the word of God to follow him to follow the Lord Jesus to follow him and is really the here in this case the directions of the Spirit of God. And so we're coming to the city place of confusion. There's all kinds of different.
Systems of men that have been raised up, some of them in direct opposition to the person of Christ and the work of Christ, as we'll read perhaps in Second John, in the second chapter of First John.
Later this afternoon, but then it says there's going to be a man that meets you bearing a pitcher of water. Now bearing a pitcher of water is an earthen vessel, and it's perhaps a man, perhaps a sister and is bearing.
A picture of water and so the picture the earthen vessel is filled with water speaks of the word of God and so.
When I was a young man.
And had searchings in connection with this question of the divine center and to be gathered to the Lord's name. There were those that sat down and went over the principles of the Word of God and that were the help to me and encouragement to me just to sit down and to go over the principles in the Word of God. That it is not a matter of personal choice. It is not a matter of personal aspirations in any way.
But to follow the clear instructions of the Word of God and the Spirit of God always magnifies Christ, always will exalt the Lord Jesus.
And the Spirit of God will always lead us to where Christ is in the midst. And so.
There needs to be the desire to follow him, the willingness to follow.
It's difficult sometimes to follow and to follow directions and to follow the leading of the Spirit of God.
He shall say unto the good men of the hosts, The Master saith unto thee, Where is?
The guest chamber. Where is the guest chamber?
Where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples, and he shall show you a large upper room furnished there. Make ready.
You know, this little word, gas chamber is the same word that's translated the inn in Luke's Gospel chapter 10. And I think it's translated slightly different in a couple of different places. But Mr. Willis in his little book The Hid Treasures, goes over this little word in very nice way.
You want to read a little ministry on it?
So it's a guest chamber.
You know, when we come to remember the Lord in his death, we're heavenly citizens. We don't belong to this world.
We're just traveling through.
We don't have a permanent dwelling place and instead of remembering the Lord in his death in.
Palace or something, a fabulous building and so on. Why we remember the Lord Jesus in a guest chamber, little hotel room like this, a guest chamber. You know, in the French translation it speaks, it uses a little different expression. The dwelling place, the dwelling place of the Lord. Not nice. We come to be where he is in the midst and where he dwells among in the midst of his people and so.
Here he shows the large upper room furnished. There's room for everyone.
All those that are believers, all those that are going on in a morally upright way, all those that hold doctrine that's consistent with what the Scriptures teach is the deity of Christ and the finished holy work of the Lord Jesus, there's a place for them.
He's going to show them a large upper room. It's going to show you.
00:20:04
Are you willing to allow the Lord to show you from the scriptures?
He shows those that are willing, those that are willing. The Spirit of God opens up the word of God and shows us the truth in connection with what is pleasing to him as to coming into his presence and remembering him in his death and coming in his place into his presence to read the scriptures. You know it says in Acts chapter 242. It says they can continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread.
They continued steadfastly.
They had the Apostles doctrine to teach them about the doctrines of Christianity.
And the doctrines in connection with person of Christ, and they came into the presence of the Lord then to read the scriptures to.
Remember the Lord in his death and to make prayer.
And so they came. They were willing to be shown. It's a large upper room. Why is it a large upper room?
It's an upper room because it speaks of separation from those things that are going on at the street level of this world, whether they're religious or moral or political and all those sorts of things. And so there's, you know, to get into an upper room, you climb the stairs to get up there. And so there was.
In the room.
They were morally going on for the glory God, and they were going on in practical separation. I just named a couple of these things. You know what it says in First Corinthians chapter five? I think it is. It says a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
And so that is in connection with moral defilement, moral evil. So they went on in separation from that. And then it says in Galatians, I think it's chapter 5 again, it says a little 1111 at the whole lump. That's doctrinal evil. They were separated from doctrinal evil. So they climbed the step, you might say, of moral separation, doctrinal separation, doctrinal evil, and then ecclesiastical evil. They went out from all those things that.
The religious systems all around them and I know in Hebrews chapter 13.
13 It says, Let us go forth therefore unto him, without the camp, bearing his reproach. And so there is a reproach connected to being identified with the Lord Jesus, and it's going to take spiritual energy. And he says, Let us go forth unto him under the person without the camp.
Bearing his reproach. And so we need to as well. It says. I think it's in Second Corinthians chapter 6.
It says that we should go on in separation, in connection with our personal lives.
And so there needs to be cleanliness in that way, it says.
Verse 14, Chapter 6, Second Corinthians 6, Verse 14, Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with darkness? And so there's separation that's needed.
So it says in verse 13, They went and found as he had said unto them, and they made ready the Passover. Now as I said, this was the last Passover, but the principles are the same. In connection with the remembrance of the Lord. They went, there was obedience.
The Spirit of God is going to work to use the Word of God to show you the truth, to bring you into the knowledge of the truth and.
Then there's going to be a requirement. Are we going to obey? Will we allow ourselves to obey the truth, obey the word of God, and to go?
Isn't it nice? They says they found as he had said unto them.
You're going to find that as you follow the instructions of the word of God, you're going to find it just as he said it was going to be. And there's a blessing, there's a comfort, there's just the communion with the Lord as you find the teaching of the word of God is true and his what he brings before us in the Word of God. The principles have a comfort of heart to us. Then it says in verse 14, the hour was come. He sat down.
You know, I used to read this, maybe you've read it this way as well, but.
The hour has come. We all sat down and then the Lord came. Noah says he sat down.
00:25:00
And the 12 apostles with him. And so he came.
And he was there in that room. You know what I just point out in Mark's Gospel, chapter 14, verse 14, same incident, it says.
In the new translation, the Lord says, Where is my guest chamber?
It's the only place in the New Testament he calls something his own. Where is my?
Guest chamber was his place, and he had the 12 apostles with him. He sat down. They submitted to his authority. They submitted to his.
Directions And there he was, and they sat down with him, Are we willing to just walk in submission with the Lord in that place? And then it says in verse 15, he said unto them with desire, I have desired to eat this Passover with you before.
I suffer.
And so he had a desire for them to be there. And the point is this, are we willing to give the Lord?
The desires of his heart.
He's there, he's in the prayer, he's desires to have his people in his midst.
With Him as He is in their midst, He desires that.
The price was paid at the Cross of Calvary. There is a future and you are going to be as one who is redeemed. You will be in that heavenly scene that we read of last night. You will be there.
But his desire is in this scene of his rejection, that you would be there where he is in the midst, remembering him in his death and going to the assembly meetings, to the reading meeting. You know, it's a little bit different to reading the scriptures in your own home, a reading meeting.
A ministry meeting like this is an assembly meeting and the Lord is in the midst.
An address is not an assembly meeting. It should be addressed. It should be led. The Spirit of God is capable of leading the brother to give an address, and so on. Sunday school is not an assembly meeting, but the Spirit of God is free, at liberty to lead the brother that has that responsibility.
But when we come into the presence of the Lord, he's there and he's leading by his spirit and an assembly meeting. It's the Spirit of God that leads.
But wonderful to just give him the desire of His heart, His heart's desires to have you in His presence, to do what He asked you to do. And so he sat down. They ate that Passover. He speaks to them of His heart's desire. And then in verse 19, he instituted that feast. He took bread and gave thanks and break it and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you.
This do in remembrance of Maine, and so his desire is that we would do this.
In remembrance of him now.
This is really.
Historical, you might say in you have in Matthew's Gospel, Mark's Gospel, Luke's Gospel, the remembrance of the Lord instituted, but in First Corinthians you have it, we read it this morning. And why did we read it in First Corinthians Chapter 11 This morning? Well, in the Gospels, the incident, this whole.
Experience of disciples had with the Lord Jesus at the institution of the remembrance of the Lord was given from a historical perspective and you might say even from a Jewish perspective, they were still Jews. They the church had not yet been formed. But when Paul speaks, he says in verse 23 First Corinthians 11/23 I have received of the Lord. He had a revelation from the Lord.
And he tells us something more than what the Lord Jesus said to the disciples in Luke 22 and Mark's gospel and so on. He says that he got this revelation and he was delivering this truth to the Saints at that time. And he said the Lord Jesus took this on the same night which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he given thanks, he break it, said take, eat. This is my body. It should say, which is given for you. This do in remembrance of me.
And then he speaks of the cup after the same manner he took the cup supposed, saying this is the cup of the New Testament in my blood.
This do ye as OFT as ye drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death.
Or announce the Lord's death till he come.
00:30:04
So Paul tells us that we're going to be able to do this until the Lord Jesus comes.
Not wonderful. I sometimes wonder if the Lord Jesus is going to come on the Lord's Day. Maybe you think the same thing. I wonder if the Lord Jesus is going to come when we're gathered around him. We'll be taken from the presence of the Lord into the presence of the Lord.
We'll see him face to face. We come by faith on the Lord's Day morning into His presence, but will soon be in his presence, but while we're here in this world.
In the scene of his rejection, we have the privilege of announcing to this world.
And announcing to one another that he died. If there's one thing that this world wants to forget is that he died and the way that he died.
But you and I come together like this into the presence of the Lord, with a loaf and a cup. We remember the Lord in his death, the way he asked us to do, and we announced to the world that we belong to Him and that he died.
And we now know that he's resurrected Savior. He's on high.
Now Paul tells us as well what these emblems mean. And so if we turn back to Chapter 10.
He speaks of the cup first one Corinthians 10 verse 16, the cup of blessing which we bless.
Is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?
So he speaks of the cup 1St and he speaks of it first because it is represents the blood of the Lord Jesus and the reason that you're brought into blessing and have liberty in the presence of the Lord Jesus as a priest.
Is because of the blood of Christ.
You know.
I don't think we think of the significance of it enough.
But under the old economy.
The tribe of Levi could come a certain distance within the presence of the Lord Aaron. The high priest could go once every year into the holiest of all, not without blood, and so on. But you and I this morning could come into the presence of the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, the Creator of the universe, the one who went to the cross.
And who paid the price to bring us into his presence, to make us sons and heirs, heirs of God? Join heirs with Christ to make us a part of the new creation race, to make us a part of members of His body, to make us a part of His bride in the future day, to give us the best place in heaven.
He paid the price, the blood was shed. And so when we see the cup on the table, it's a cup of blessing. It doesn't represent the judgment that Christ bore on the cross. It doesn't represent the judgment that He was thinking of as He was in the Garden of Gethsemane and sweat great drops of blood. That's not the point. The point is that you and I are brought into blessing on the principle of the blood of Christ that has been shed. His life was given so that you would have.
A place of blessing, a place of communion with God.
Forever a thick state that you would never be afraid in the presence of God. You would never be afraid in the presence of the Lord Jesus.
That you would experience His love forever. It's a cup of blessing which we bless.
But then he speaks of the basis of the loaf. He says, for we being one bread or one loaf and one body, we are all partakers of that one bread. So when we take we see that loaf on the table, it does represent the one body of Christ, mystical body, and.
Every member there on the face of the earth is represented there.
But when it's broken state, as we break it, it represents the body that the Lord Jesus.
Took as the Son of God.
And his body was given in death.
He took a body so that he could die. And that bread, we break that bread and then we pass it from 1 to another, and we take a part of it and we eat it. And as we eat it, we're professing that we're members of the body of Christ.
That's what we're doing. So this is what Paul is teaching. We being many are one bread or one loaf and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread. How is it wonderful to think that the Lord desired that we would enter into these things intelligently? So like I say, the apostle Paul spoke of the remembrance of the Lord. So you have Matthew. It's brought out in the Gospel of Matthew, brought out in the Gospel of Mark, and brought out in the Gospel of Luke.
00:35:15
Mostly from a Jewish perspective, a historical perspective, we might say.
But now from a Christian perspective, in First Corinthians Chapter 11, from a doctrinal, from the Christian doctrinal position perspective, we're taught the truth of what these emblems mean. And it's the Apostle Paul's part of the apostles, Paul's doctrine. Now we just might just say this. He mentions a covenant and you know that the church is not the subject of a covenant.
So why does he bring in the New Covenant or the New Testament as it's spoken of here?
It is that in the future the Lord Jesus will make a covenant.
With Israel, let's look at it in Jeremiah chapter 31.
Isaiah chapter 31.
And verse 31 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant.
With the House of Israel, and with the House of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they break, although I wasn't husband unto them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Well, we could read right to the end of the paragraph, but.
Forsake of time. We won't read it, but there's a new covenant. There was an old covenant with Israel.
They had an old agreement with God, and that agreement had to do with keeping the law, and they would be blessed on the basis of keeping that law.
And if they broke the law, they would have suffered the consequences. Well, we know that they have suffered the consequences.
But God's ways are never going to be thwarted.
God, in the end, is going to get his way.
And God was going to have the nation of Israel blessed.
God was going to have a nation of Israel, a nation on this earth that would be a testimony to His grace, his glory, his.
His love, his power, and God was going to make sure that there was going to be a nation on a righteous basis.
That would be in this world that would displace something of his glory. He would have an earthly people, he says. It would be He made an agreement with them and it was like as an husband to them. It's always a figure. He had a close relationship with them. It was as a husband.
Christ is only going to have one bride, but he will have a nation, and the nation of Israel will be the center and the focus of God's energies and testimony in this world during the Millennium.
God will have his way and the basis of that covenant that He makes will be the blood that was shed at the cross of Calvary.
Not wonderful.
Because of that blood that the Messiah shed upon the cross, they're going to be brought into blessing that nation, and the covenant is going to be made with that nation. So God isn't going to make a nation a covenant with the church. He hasn't made a covenant with the church.
But we come into blessing because that blood that has been shed.
Now I just want to touch on one more point in.
The book of the Acts let's look at.
Chapter 20.
Acts, chapter 20, verse 7.
Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the moral. Well, here they came together to remember the Lord Jesus on his on the first day of the week. And you'll notice here that a little bit later on it speaks of how they were in the third loft, or the third story of the.
Building. It's at the end of verse 9. Let's read verse 9. They're sat in a window. A certain woman, pardon me, a certain young man.
Named Eudicus being fallen into a deep sleep, and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep and fell down.
From the third loft and was taken up dead. Well, the third loft really has brings before us the thought of Paul's doctrine. And so the highest truth given to man we might save in the has often been spoken to us and told us from the time we were young. Is that epistle to the Ephesians, perhaps Colossians as well? The heavenly side of the truth. The truth is that the church is a heavenly Organism doesn't belong to this world.
00:40:29
And all of those blessings that God has given us, we have presently. We have them. Now, we're not going to get them. We have them. As to whether or not we enjoy them, that's a different thing, but we have them. We have present possession of eternal life. We have the present possession of the sins forgiven, present possession of redemption, present possession of justification, all those things.
But isn't it nice on the first day of the week to come together to break bread, to give the Lord his heart's desire?
So let's just look at those seven points again. I don't know that.
Have brought them out very clearly, but I trust to be an encouragement to all of us here.
In the first one, verse nine, they said unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare? Where wilt thou? Have you asked the question, Where wilt thou that I prepare? Where wilt thou that?
I remember the Lord in his death. It's a good question to ask and it's a necessary question. So we need to give him, let him choose for us. The second thing is that we need to follow him at the end of verse nine. Are we willing to follow the Lord Jesus, follow the directions of the Spirit of God using the word of God and to take that direction to find this place? And then it says in verse 12, he shall show you a large upper room furnished.
And so he has the ability to show us if we have the desire to be shown.
And then there was obedience. Verse 13 they went found, as he had said. And then in verse 14 they 12 apostles, he sat down, and the 12 apostles with him. So they submitted to the authority of the Lord, and to the arrangements that he had made. Then they gave him the desire of his heart. He said unto them with desire, Have desired this Passover with you before I suffer. You know sometimes we come to the remembrance of the Lord.
We come to the meetings, we say, I wonder what's in it for me? What am I going to get this morning? I hope I enjoy something of the Lord this morning. I hope I get something. I believe the Lord will give us something for us. But you know, we come into the presence of the Lord to give him his portion.
His portion What does God want to hear? He wants to hear about the glories of the sun. He wants to hear of how wonderful His Son is and how mighty a work was done. And he wants to hear about the obedience of the sun, the glories of the sun. That's what he wants to hear about.
Are we willing to give him the desire of his heart and to just?
Magnify Christ in this way and then in verse.
19, he says.
This do in remembrance of me, are we willing to respond? Are we willing to respond to his request? It's a personal response and it's an individual response. I think we mentioned already in these meetings that in the Old Testament there was no option. They were to eat the Passover. It was a command and they absolutely had to and there were penalties if they.
Didn't eat it, and they were capable of eating it. But that's not the way it is in the New Testament, in Christianity. Isn't it lovely? The Lord appeals to the heart.
He wants the hearts affections and he says this do in remembrance of me. And so I just would encourage you, perhaps some that are young here in the room and others, if you desire to remember the Lord Jesus in his death, make it known to your brethren in your home assembly. And I'll tell you this that your older brother or on your side, if I could put it that way, it's an encouragement as they see that you have the desire to respond.
To the Lord, to the Lord's request. They're encouraged. And umm.
00:45:01
They may ask you a few questions and so on, but they desire your blessing and they desire to.
Have the Lord glorified as you give him his heart's desire. You know, the someone has written and said the Lord's Table isn't a closed fellowship, and neither is it an open fellowship. But it is a guarded fellowship. And so they'll ask a few questions. They'll ask perhaps if were you baptized.
And they'll ask you perhaps, are you saved? Maybe you were saved as a child and you don't remember the day that you were saved and that sort of thing. But that's OK. You tell them you believe in the Lord Jesus. You believe the Lord Jesus died for you, and you believe that the blood of Jesus Christ his Son was cleansed, has cleansed you. You love the Lord. And maybe.
They'll just want to know a couple of things like that and then what a privilege.
To come into the presence of the Lord.
And given the heart's desire, give him what he really wants. He doesn't want your money.
He doesn't want your service. He doesn't want anything from you but the heart's response. And if he has the heart's response from you, he has what he wants. He has what he desires all through life. And it begins by giving him his proper place and his proper portion as we're young.
Jerusalem
Open—Mark Allan
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.
I'd like to share just a few thoughts this afternoon.
You know, I, I've been struggling since last night and I thought there wasn't a chance at all that I would be saying anything today.
But you know what?
What I want to speak about.
It impresses me that it's not. It's not about me.
And I just want to add a little bit to what Robert Bullard spoke about.
Because it ties into it.
Earlier this year I was in I went on a trip with my daughter.
To Israel and I was in Jerusalem.
I just got to thinking about that place.
And the significance of it. And the more I thought about it, the more.
It impressed me and you know, we've been talking in Luke 22 about where the Lord would have us meet. And what I want to talk about just in the remaining time is.
About the The physical place Jerusalem in the Old Testament.
And then how that translates a little bit over into what we've been having before us just now. So I'd like to to 1St read a verse in Ephesians.
Because I find it very helpful to look at things sort of from the big picture and.
Take it from there.
You know the ultimate goal of God is to glorify.
His Son, and I just would like to read the verse there because, you know, when we go to consider a physical place on earth like Jerusalem and its significance, it all gets tied into the Lord Jesus being glorified. You know, we get pulled into it as believers and get tremendous blessing from that. But I just like to read a verse.
There are few verses in Ephesians. One verse five it says having predestinated us under the adoption of children.
By Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace, were any heth abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence.
Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him. So we've been chosen to praise, it says, to the praise of the glory of His grace. Well, I want to go back and just take a look at Jerusalem. Let's go first to Genesis.
Chapter 22. We had this spoken about by Doctor Prost and also by Will.
And what impressed me about this chapter?
It wasn't Abraham who picked the place where he was going to offer his son, you know, God. He didn't even make known to Abraham the details of it.
But he had a specific place.
Were that where he was asked to offer his Son, and the reason was because that is where Jesus.
In that area was where Jesus was going to die, that was where he was going to be rise again, and that is where his excellence will be on display to this world for 1000 years in a time that is not very far away.
That's what makes it such an incredible place.
And you know, just as you go through the Old Testament, you know, we don't, we don't read about the Lord Jesus because he hasn't been born yet, although.
The Lord himself starts at the beginning and goes through the whole Old Testament and explains himself to the two in the Road to Emmaus from that.
But we have hidden the fact of how much it means to his heart that.
There, his son is going to die. He's going to rise.
00:05:01
And his excellence will be on display.
Before this world the way it should be. And so it says here. Let's just read the verse, it says.
In Genesis 22 verse two, he said, take now thy son.
Thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of.
And then down a little bit further.
It says.
Left, forgive me. In verse three it says in Abraham rose up early in the morning and he saddles us, took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son, and claved the wood for burnt offering, and rose up and went under the place which God had told him of.
Very specific place chosen by God. He didn't Abraham didn't know the significance of it. He's his faith was being tested here and it was a long time to get to this point is we had yesterday before us, but a very specific place.
Jesus in a future day was going to die, he was going to raise and he was his excellence will be on display. You know, just to realize the heart of God as he looks, he's testing Abraham and he's asking him to take his son and kill him. You know, we can't even naturally.
Comprehend what that you know. I have children. They're here. The emotions that your children put you through.
In good ways.
In other ways.
Are beyond comprehension your father.
Is asked to take his son and kill him. Just a reminder to the heart of God, to that specific place and you know.
We'll just go to the next place here. Let's go to first Samuel.
Chapter sorry Second Samuel, chapter 2. So it's on the mountains of Moriah and there was a Canaanite city that was.
Built in that place.
And David?
Becomes king.
And.
He decides that he wants to.
Have that as his capital city and I don't know, and maybe I can be correct in this, but I don't think David had any idea that that that was where Abraham or the area that Abraham had been in when he went to.
Offer his son, but Joab goes and conquers the city. If you just read this is in Second Samuel 5.
Verse 8 David said on that day, Whosoever getteth up to the gutter.
And smiteeth the Jebusites, the lame, and the blind, that are hated of David's soul, he shall be chief and captain.
Wherefore they say, the blind and the lame shall not come into his house. So David dwelt on the Fort and called it the city of David, and David built roundabout from Milo and inward. This is a a difficult story to understand. I appreciate it now to understanding a little better, but this was a fortified.
Canaanite city that had a spring, the Gihan Spring that was the source of water is needed for just about everything. And there was outside of the city there was an area where they had fortified and there was a huge pool of water there.
And obviously a very good place to have a city.
And David sends Joab to conquer the city. Did David? David didn't know that. Just within spitting distance, perhaps?
Was this place where Abraham offered his son and you know.
He you can go there today and just across the street from the old city, there's a place called Warren Shaft where they think Joab probably climbed up and conquered the city. So David sets up his Kingdom there. You know that David wasn't allowed to build a house for the Lord, although that was his desire he's given. He's given the plans he puts aside.
Money and materials for it, but his son Solomon.
00:10:01
Is actually the one to do it. And you know, I've often wondered, if David did it himself, where would he have built that temple for the Lord?
To dwell. I don't know the answer to that, but we know that later on in David's life.
He sins in numbering the people. Let's just turn to it.
This is in Second Samuel chapter 20.
4.
David sins in numbering the people and there's a plague that comes. I'm not going to go into the story. I think most people know it.
A whole bunch of people die as a result of David's sin.
Verse 15 it says so the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel from the morning even unto the time appointed, and there died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba 70,000 men.
But you know God in his grace.
Still thinking of his son.
The place where his son will die.
Where he will rise.
And where his excellence will be on display very shortly.
And you know David?
Is told.
To go.
And it's interesting. It struck me when I read it, and I don't know that I had appreciated it.
A prophet comes to David in verse 18. This is not David's own volition, it's the prophet. It's coming directly from God. It says in God is verse 1824 verse 18. God came that day to David and said unto him, go up.
Rear and altar unto the Lord in the threshing floor of Arona the Jebusite.
You know, as I get older.
I realize more of my failures and perhaps even when I was younger.
David sinned, but there's grace there. You know the whole theme.
Undergirding the whole New Testament, one of it is just grace.
It's easy for us to forget that when dealing with our brother and God says.
Here to David go and build an altar in this place. I don't think David knew the significance of that place. He buys it, as we know he builds an altar there.
And what's in God's heart?
That is the place.
Where his son will die, he will rise again.
And his excellence will be on display.
Probably.
With everyone here who knows their Lord and Savior.
As part of it in a not too distant future.
Well, if we go over to Second Chronicles and this ties it together.
To show.
This is where Solomon builds his temple.
Says in Second Chronicles chapter 3 and verse one it says then Solomon began to build the House of the Lord.
At Jerusalem, in Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father.
In the place that David had prepared the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he began in the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign. So Mount Moriah is mentioned there. That's where it says Abraham went. Or an answer rushing floor, you know, as I was in Jerusalem just considering that.
00:15:03
This was a physical place dear to the heart of God.
Because of his son.
And to realize that we as believers would be brought into that.
Is an incredible, incredible thing. So here and we have through the whole word of God, God's desire.
To be with us in our You see it in the Garden of Eden, you see it in the Tabernacle, you see it in the temple. We see it all through the New Testament. We see it through into the eternal state. It's it's a beautiful theme. You see it in the Millennium. Here Solomon rears up this temple.
Have the Shekinah glory come the Lord dwells among his people and yes, they they fail, but I just just think about God's heart. I don't think the Lord, of course, was completely they didn't understand.
At all exactly what was going to happen in the future and you know.
Recently I've been going through with my Sunday school class.
Just an overview of the New Testament and you know, the whole New Testament, it starts first verse of the New Testament, it's about the Lord Jesus. Last verse of the New Testament, it's about the Lord Jesus. The start and end of just about every book in the New Testament, it's about the Lord Jesus. You know, finally we have this revel or this opened up. Who is this person that was on God's heart from eternity past? We had this place, it's Deuteronomy 12, as mentioned, this place where Israel was to gather.
Physical place. It's the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
You know, it's amazing to me, You know, Israel failed.
His presence leaves, the temple goes out.
Israel fails completely. The authority of government is handed over to the Gentiles. There's a remnant brought back there, but we get to the New Testament and you know it. It gives me such an appreciation for the New Testament. It's the Lord Jesus is introduced, starts off by proving who he is.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John rejected Messiah, perfect servant, Son of man, Son of God, a history of how that change happens. Then it goes into a detailed explanation of the gospel in a beautiful way, and then instructions for how we're supposed to meet in Corinthians. You can go on just it's all about the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know in the New Testament, it's not about a physical place like Jerusalem, it's about a person.
It's about a person. You don't have any more mention of a fancy.
Not a fancy building, but the details of the temple like you or the Tabernacle like you have in the Old Testament. You don't have the details of the measurements that you have in Ezekiel of of the Millennial Temple. It's about a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, from beginning to end.
You know it's.
All of the trappings that went with the system of the Old Testament that failed are gone. It's a person.
Were gathered.
To the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 18 says, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. You know, it's a remarkable thing for me to consider to just to think about what Jesus means.
To the heart of the Father.
And you know what? What struck me? And we only have 5.
Minutes left, but, you know, just little things impressed me, just considering, you know, it was in Jerusalem where the Holy Spirit, they're told to stay in Jerusalem today at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes and indwells the believers there. You know, God chose a physical place to put his name in the Old Testament, in the New Testament.
We're to gather in his name, but you know, his Holy Spirit comes and dwells inside us as believers, and that's an incredible thing, too. You know, I was thinking in Corinthians, in Ephesians, the verse that I read at the beginning of the meeting, He actually chose us.
00:20:01
That he would indwell us he's not the Lord and I need to make the Holy Spirit would involve. Let's just read in First Corinthians chapter 6.
In verse.
19 It says, What know ye not that your body is the temple?
Of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own.
For ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God.
In your body, in your spirit, which are gods. It's all about the Lord.
Being glorified, His excellence being on display. To consider that myself as a believer.
My the Holy Spirit comes and indulge us, but you know I, I don't even begin to understand that the way that I should.
But it's an incredible thing, particularly if you consider in the Old Testament about the physical place.
You know, I think it's, it's good for us to think about these things. It helps me understand.
Why getting bogged down on a building?
And.
All of the things that characterized Judaism where it says let us go therefore unto him without the camp bearing his reproach. And you know, it just gives a little bit more meaning to that. And you know, it's easy for us to make that the focal point. Be inward for that. But you know, it is all about the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, I just I leave those few thoughts with you to think about. It was exciting. And I'll say this. I don't know how everybody gets to go there. Well, we all will.
In the not too distant future, just to be there.
In Jerusalem and to consider its significance.
To the heart of God, but then to consider.
In the Lord Jesus.
That I've been brought into that is an incredible, incredible, incredible thing. You know, I hope that each one of us can appreciate it just even a little bit.
And to realize that, as we had, it's not these things aren't our choice.
It's God's heart being revealed.
Well, that's really all I had to share, but I just share those things with you for consideration. They were an encouragement to me and continue to be. And it's exciting. We can get bogged down in this world, and this world is where the Lord will be put on display in all of His excellence in a very short period of time. You know, we have pretty messed up.
Politics all the way around the world right now, and I've had long discussions with my daughter about what the best.
Form of government is and should be. But you know, I've been thinking about how's the Lord going to rule for those thousand years when his excellence will be on display? It's not going to be a democracy.
It's not going to be libertarianism. It's not going to be it will be something far better. And to know that we will be brought into it is amazing. And it's not very far away. It's not very far away. You know, I remember from a boy hearing Dad say I thought the Lord was coming soon. But you know, it just it seems like that soon is getting sooner. And I know that maybe and yet at the same time you go to work and and.
Satan tries to blot our eyes away from it, but it is his coming is near, and it's an incredible hope to have ahead of us.
Let's just look to the Lord and and really think about how dear he is to the heart of God and how much that should mean to us to.
Shall we think 300 and 33130? Oh God, the thought was fine. Mine only could be fruit of wisdom, love, divine, peculiar under thee.
00:25:11
What raised the world?
So.
The Lord Will Come and Fight the Nations
Open—Stan Allan
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.
I just thought I'd make just a couple of closing comments based on what my son was talking about.
The first verse, I can't even remember where it is. Someone maybe can help me. But you know, in connection with Jerusalem, it says aha, the enemy says aha, aha. Even the ancient places, high places, are ours for a possession. And you know, if you went over to Jerusalem today, you would find that really the Muslims have control of the.
Can I say the ancient high places, in other words, where Solomon's temple used to be?
And.
Israel would love to have control of that, but I don't believe that the Lord will allow them to have control of those ancient high places until they acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as their Messiah.
And I was just thinking in connection with.
What is happening in the world today if you just look into Zechariah for a moment I just is just a couple of comments I thought might be of help.
Zechariah chapter 12. Notice what it says about Jerusalem in the second verse of chapter 12. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling onto all the people roundabout, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem, and in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people.
All that, all that burden themselves with it, shall be cut in pieces.
Sorry, though, all the people of the earth be gathered together against it in that day, saith the Lord. I will smite every horse, and so on. And so we find here that those who interfere with that city where God had chosen to put his name in the Old Testament.
He's going to make it a burdensome stone for all those that interfere. And so any nation even today, I believe, that tries to interfere with what's going on over there. They're going to pay a price. But you know, the wonderful thing is the day is coming very soon when the Lord is going to come. If you read the latter part of that 12Th chapter of Zechariah, you find the day comes when the House of Israel will acknowledge that the one that they have rejected.
The one they've despised is their true Messiah. Notice what they say verse 11 of the same chapter. And that day shall there be a great morning in Jerusalem, as the morning of Haydat rimmen in the valley of Magidan. And the land shall mourn every family apart, the family of the House of David apart and their wives apart. The family of the House of Nathan, the part and their wives apart, and the family of the House of Levi apart and their wives apart.
The family of Shimmy Eye apart and their wives apart. All the families that remain, Every family apart.
And their wives apart, that's when they acknowledge that the one that they rejected as their Messiah.
Is truly the one they own as their king. And you see in the 14th chapter of Zechariah.
When he comes and you know, the wonderful thing is we're going to come with him. We're going to I believe that perhaps it'll be what we have there in Revelation 19 when those armies come out of heaven with the Lord Jesus and knows what it says here in the 14th of Zechariah, a verse.
3 Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations, as when he fought on the day of battle, and his feet shall stand.
In that day upon the amount of olives which is before Jerusalem on the east.
And the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the West.
And there shall be a great valley, half of the mountains shall remove toward the north and half of it toward the South, and ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains, and so on. Well, this is the day when the Lord comes out of heaven and he judges his his enemies, and he takes his rightful place. And you know, I believe we're going to be with him. What a glorious future we have ahead of us. And.
00:05:06
We just think of how did he spies and rejected.
He's hated, he's not wanted in the schools, in the government. But the day is coming when every knee will bow and every tunnel confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
We just give thanks.
Our God and Father, we come before thee this afternoon and we thank Thee for such a precious privilege.
Of being gathered around the person of the Lord Jesus this morning. For Lord, thou hast said, where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them. And Lord Jesus we know without his desire to be with thy people.
And we know in the Old Testament, without its place, the temple there without us dwell among white people. We think of how much they failed.
And Lord, we have to acknowledge that in this day there's much failure amongst us. We have to acknowledge it. But we thank thee for the privilege that there is a place where we can meet the Lord Jesus and we look forward to that moment when we will be with the enlightening. And Lord, thou have thy rightful place.
We just commit ourselves to thee now, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
1 John 2:18-29
Gospel 2
Gospel—Stan Allan
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.
Maybe we could open our meeting this evening by singing.
A number 19.
Oh Christ and thee, my soul is found, and found in thee alone. The peace, the joy I sought so long, the bliss till now unknown. Now none but Christ can satisfy none other name. For me there's love and life.
And lasting joy Lord Jesus found in thee #19.
Oh Christ, and they.
So has found and found him thinking I love you, love me, the joy I sought so long, the blessed. Till now I know.
No love but Christ and satisfied.
Another name for me.
There's love and light and love saying joy.
Lord Jesus.
Found in the.
Einstein.
And happiness.
I yearn more than nothing.
On your life has my mistake there by this love lay hold on me.
Oh God, but products can't say.
Ancestors.
I will now.
But Christ and satisfy.
Another day for me. There's love and life and lasting joy. Lord, Jesus founded me.
Pleasure is lost my sadly morning but never went or leave.
The sightless sights racing volleyballiness to save now, No, but crying.
Satisfy my mother heading forwarding. There's love and life and lasting joy, the Lord Jesus.
Founded me we just look to the Lord, ask His blessing our God and Father.
We thank Thee for this little hymn that we have been singing, that now none but Christ can satisfy.
Oh Lord, how often we have tried those broken cisterns and all of the waters failed. And Lord, we just pray tonight if there's someone here in this room that has never tasted of thy love and Thy goodness, who do not know Thee as the one that gave thyself.
To put away their sins, We pray that they might come to know thee tonight, before it is forever too late. We think of the children of Christian parents who have perhaps heard the gospel over and over and yet never have made that.
00:05:09
A step to accept the Lord Jesus as Savior. We pray they might do so tonight. We ask it. And we pray for the gospel not only here, but wherever it might be going forth without. Blessed thy word.
We ask it in the worthy and precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
I was wondering tonight, I know our time is short but if we could just look at a few verses in First Samuel chapter 22.
We were talking a little bit about David and Jerusalem this afternoon, and I was wondering if we could just look at the story of David here in this 22nd chapter.
David therefore departed thence and escaped to The Cave Adalam. And when his brethren and all his father's house heard it, they went down thither to him. And everyone that was in distress, everyone that was in debt, everyone that was discontented, gathered themselves together unto him, and he became a captain over them.
And there was with him about 400 men. And to save time, let's skip down to verse.
Six when saw, when Saul heard that David was discovered, and the men that were with him now saw abode in Gibeah under a tree in Rama, having his spear in his hand, and all his servants were standing about him. Then Stahl said unto his servants that stood about him. Here now ye Benjamites, will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards.
And make you all captains of thousands and captains of hundreds, that all of you have conspired against me and there is none that shows me that my son has made a league with the son of Jesse.
And there is none of you that is sorry for me, or showeth unto me that my son has stirred up my servant against me to lie in wait, as at this day. Then answered Doig the Edomite, which was set over the servants of Saul, and and said, I saw the son of Jesse come coming to knob to a himalek, and to a high tub. And let's skip over to verse 18. And the king said to Doeg, turn thou.
And fall upon the priests. And doe egg the Edomite turned, and he fell upon the priests.
And slew on that day 85 persons that did wear the linen ephod and knob. The city of the priests smotey with the edge of the sword. Both men and women, children, sucklings and oxen, and ***** and sheep with the edge of the sword.
And one of the sons of Ahimelech, the son of Ahichib, named Abiathar, escaped and fled after David. And Abiathar showed David that Saul had slain the Lord's priests. And David said unto Abiathar, I knew it that day when a Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul, I have occasioned the death of all the persons of thy father's house. Abide thou with me. Fear not.
For he that seeketh my life, seeketh thy life, but with me thou shalt be in safeguard.
Well, I'm sure that most here in this room are familiar with this story. We know that David, at this particular time was the one who had been anointed king over Israel. But he wasn't reigning. He was rejected. He was the rejected king.
And Saul, the one who had been.
Really dismissed as king, he was still reigning. But you know, Saul here, he lived in the palace and David, where did he live? He lived in The Cave. And so we see that he was despised, he was rejected. And how it makes us think of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who came into this world.
A long time later, I suppose 1000 years later, he came into this world.
He was the Creator, the sustainer of all things, but born in a Manger because this world had no room for him in the end. And we know that he was rejected. We know that the crowds cried out, crucify him, crucify him. We will not have this man to reign over us. And you know, the world is no different today, is it? They don't want Jesus in the schools. They don't want them in the courts.
00:10:22
They don't want them in business or in government. They just want to leave him out of everything he's rejected. And you know, it says of him, it says of him when he was here on earth, He said foxes have holes and the birds of the air of nests. But the Son of man has not where to lay his head. And so we see David. Here is a little picture of the Lord Jesus, and here he is in The Cave.
And he attracts people to him. You'll notice it says first of all in the first verse that his brethren and all his father's house heard it. They went down thither to him. And so we find that Davidde family, I suppose Jesse, many of his brothers, they were there in The Cave too. And you know, the Lord Jesus, the very first ones that responded to the gospel, Massachusetts worthy. They were the brethren of the Lord Jesus.
When I say that, I mean that they were the Jews. They were Christian Jews who first heard the gospel and they came to know.
The Lord Jesus as their Savior, and they were willing to join with him in his rejection, but you know he wasn't, they weren't the only ones, although I will say this, they set all their hopes on, on, on the Lord Jesus. They turned aside from what they were familiar with and they accepted him as their Lord and Savior.
I wonder tonight if you have accepted the Lord as your Savior. You know what, you've probably come to gospel meanings like this. You've heard how to be saved, and yet it just sort of goes in one ear and out the other. But let me say that there's a day coming when you will wish that you had been saved, that you had taken that step of salvation. And that's why we have the gospel meeting. Well, you'll notice here it wasn't just the family of David.
Or his kindred that joined with him in The Cave of Dalam, it says here in the second verse.
Everyone that was in distress, everyone that was in debt, everyone that was discontented gathered themselves unto Him. And so we find here three different groups mentioned. First, there were those in distress. And you know for the last 1920 centuries people in distress have been coming to Jesus and you know every one of them have been accepted.
And if you come to the Lord tonight, you will be accepted, you know it says.
Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. Another verse says, Come unto me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
So the Lord tonight is inviting you to come to Him, and you know He can righteously invite you. And why is that? Because He went to the cross, He shed His blood, and in those three hours of darkness He took upon Himself the sins of everyone who put their trust in Him.
And if you take your take him as your Savior tonight, you will know that your sins are gone. And so he says to you and to me, all of us come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. And so we find here that those who are in distress, they came to they came to Jesus and you know.
In a certain sense, all of us here go through trouble in our lives.
You know there's a verse in Job that says man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.
So we all face trouble. But you know, there are some people, they're very distressed about their health. There are others that are distressed about their wealth. And there are many, many things that people get distressed about, but very few are distressed about their soul. And you know, we forget sometimes that we're a triune being where body, soul and spirit and, you know, our soul.
And our spirit are going to continue on for eternity. And when I'm getting older now.
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And the time is coming very shortly when I will be gone. My body will be put in the in a grave if the Lord doesn't come, but my spirit and soul will go to be with the Lord Jesus. What's going to happen to you if you were to leave this world? You might say, well, I have lots of time. I'm just young. My whole life is ahead of me. Dear friend, let me tell you, none of us know.
What? How long will be here in this earth?
It says, Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
And so the best time to come to Jesus is now. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. And so we find that some people, they distress about things when it's too late. You all know the story of the rich man in Luke 23 who fared sumptuously every day and ignored Lazarus, who lay it as gate full of source.
He died, but what does it say in hell? He lifted up his eyes being in torments.
It was too late. He was distressed, yes, but it was too late. And so, dear friend, tonight, if you are distressed, when's the best time to come to Jesus now? Not wait until it's too late, as that man did well.
Sometimes, you know, people may say, well, you know, you're getting worked up about something that really isn't that important. Well, you know, there was one time a man.
Who was living in the States and he was walking along a country Rd. and he found a.
A farmhouse on fire and there was nobody. This was before cell phones, of course, or anything like that. And when he saw what was happening, he shouted out as loud as he could, fire, fire. And he showed it so loud that people a half a mile away heard him and they came running to help put out the fire. Well, you know, they didn't say to him. Well, you know, you shouted too loud. You shouldn't have been bothered making such a big thing about nobody would talk like that.
And yet today if you talk about going into eternity, they just make a joke of it. They don't, they don't take it seriously. Well, you know, today you're going to you go to a church sometimes. I'm not saying all of them, of course, but you know, there are some of these big mega churches. They attract 16,000 people on a, on a Sunday. Can you imagine 16,000? Do you think they're up there preaching the gospel?
You know what they are often telling people how to feel good and how to.
Make life easier and better for themselves, but they forget the gospel. But you know, when Peter preached the gospel, it says they were pricked in their hearts. Steven, when he preached the gospel, what happened? It says they gnashed on him with their teeth and you know.
Felix as a brother John mentioned in his prayer. Felix, it says he trembled.
When Paul preached of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come. And so there was real, there was a real desire on those part of those people to think about what was being said. Well, we trust tonight that you will take these things seriously. Well, there were not only those who were in distress, but there were those who are in debt. And you know, I believe that the only ones that ever came to David were those who really felt.
That debt, and I just might say this in passing, I just read recently.
That 55% of the people in Canada are $200.00 away from bankruptcy, 55%. In other words, debt is a real problem in this country. But we're not just talking about the debts of, of everyday life. You know, there was a, let's just turn to Psalm 40 for a moment. Psalm 40.
There's a verse there.
I think I have the right chapter.
Yes, Psalm 40 verse 12, it says in the second part of the verse mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. Just think here's a psalmist that understood his condition. He said his iniquity's.
00:20:11
More than the hairs of my head. I understand that some people who were in the know say that we have at least 100,000 hairs on our heads. You know how many sins will keep you out of heaven? One. God is holy. He can't have any sin in his presence. He can't have one sin. And yet, if you have sins like the hairs on your head, that means that you have over 100,000 sins. And I'm sure that's only a a small number.
What a debt you owe, and so how Solomon is, but you know the wonderful thing is that the Lord Jesus has done everything to pay that debt. You know it says there in Acts chapter 13. It says, be it known unto you men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins and all that come to him.
I'm sorry.
I'll have to read the verse, I know it, but I just, it's gone from me. Acts 13.
It says, Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, verse 38, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which he could not be justified by the law of Moses.
So how wonderful that forgiveness comes through the Lord Jesus.
You know, another verse says he was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. And so how wonderful to think that the Lord Jesus has paid the penalty for our sins and now He can offer forgiveness. You know, we signed that little hymn this morning, didn't we? Himself? He could not save for justice for.
Um.
Sorry, let me just see.
Yes, it says.
For justice must be done, our sins full weight must fall upon the sinless ones. For nothing less can God accept than payment in payment of that fearful debt. And so the Lord Jesus, he gave himself to pay that debt that we owe. And I think of that little Him too, that we often sing in Sunday school, where it says He knew how guilty man had been, and knew that God must punish sin.
So to pity, Jesus said he would pay the penalty instead.
I pay the judgment instead, and so the Lord Jesus.
Has paid the penalty and he's offering forgiveness from sin. Well, we come to the next one and time is running out. But it says here.
Those who are discontented, you know, in a certain sense we're all discontented, aren't we? You know, we often think, oh, if I could only have $1,000,000, I would never be discontented.
But it doesn't matter. I believe that Princess poppers, millionaires, mendicants, philosophers and fools, they're all discontent. If you had $1,000,000, remember my father used to say that there was a man he knew in Winnipeg. There was a millionaire and he said that I was He was working hard to make that first million, but when he got to a million, he was then figuring out how to make his second million. He was never contented.
And so that's often the way it is. And I once heard a story too, about a a man who was very well off and he decided to take his life, commit suicide. And before he committed suicide, he took a pen and he wrote down, I'm tired of life. All I do is eat, drink and sleep. What a boring existence. And he took his life. It didn't, it didn't give him contentment.
And there's another story about a Quaker, maybe you've heard it, where he owned a large tract of land and he put a sign up and he said whoever is content with what he has, I'm offering my farm free of charge.
And his next door neighbor, who was very well off, he saw the sign. He said if there's anybody that's content, it's me. I have all my debts paid. I have children who are all doing well. I have good health.
00:25:15
I have everything I want. I certainly am content, so I'll go and ask for it. And of course when he went up and asked, said to the Quaker, I'm I'm your man. I'm perfectly content.
You know, the Quaker said to him. Well, if you're so content, why are you asking for my fire?
So he wasn't content just like everyone else? Well.
You know, there's a little hymn that says that we often sing Jesus, thou art enough the mind and heart to feel. He's the one that can fill and satisfy our hearts. And so the Lord will receive. David received those in distress, those in debt, those who are discontented, and these are the kind of people the Lord receives. Take a look at First Corinthians.
Chapter One.
I Corinthians chapter one. We can only just read the verses.
But you know what they are.
First Corinthians chapter one and verse 26 For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.
And these things of the world and things which are despised, has God chosen. Yeah. And things which are not to bring to nothing, things that are that no flesh should glory in his presence. So there's the kind of people that the Lord attracts. Someone one time gave this illustration. You know, if you had a a giant magnet and you put it up to gold or silver, it wouldn't be attracted at all.
It might be worth a lot, but it's not attracted by the the magnet, but it put it up to some common nails or steel or whatever, and immediately it it, it's drawn to it. And so the Lord draws those who perhaps in this world are looked upon as common.
But he loves them and he wants to save them. So if you're here tonight, dear friend, the Lord Jesus, no matter what your circumstances, he says, come unto me and I will give you rest. Well, I just want to finish very briefly by saying that, you know, there was one, we, we read the rest of that story and there was.
A by Arthur, he had just discovered. I shouldn't say discovered, but.
He escaped from Doeg, this Edomite. I'm not going to go into the story, but Joy had gone in there and he had killed 85 priests because they had given food to David and by author had fled. And who did he flee to? He fled to David. And you know, I think of that wonderful verse at the end where David says to him, abide thou with me. Fear not.
For he that seeketh my life, seeketh thy life, but with me thou shalt be with me in safeguard. And so, you know, when a buyer fled to David there, what did he get? He got salvation. He was safe. He didn't have to fear. You know, if a buyer had gone back home, what would have happened? He would have, he would have fallen under the sword of Saul and he would have been killed. And you know, there's a day coming if you don't flee to the Lord Jesus.
The day is coming when judgment is going to fall in this world, and you will be cast alive into a lost eternity. What a solemn thing it is. And so how wonderful that we can come to Jesus and find safety. But besides that, it says here, for he that seeketh my life, seeketh thy life, but with me thou shalt be in safeguard. So not only did He have salvation.
But he had security and how wonderful. You know, there are many people, they come to the Lord Jesus.
I know we give the gospel to dear children in skeleton. You know, sometimes they say to us.
Well, you know I asked Jesus every night to save me. Well, you know, if they only understood, if they come to Jesus, they get eternal security the very first time. You know it says there in John chapter 10, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand, my Father, which is greater than all.
00:30:19
My father, which gave them me, is greater than all, and no man can pluck them out of my father's hand. So we have that double security, that double security. Well, we trust if there's any boy or girl here tonight that doesn't know the Lord, that right now as you sit on your seat, just bow your head and say, Lord Jesus, I know I'm a Sinner, but I accept you as my personal Savior. I believe that you died to save me. Will you do that tonight?
It says, behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Let's just pray our God and Father, we come before thee and we pray for each one here in this room that knows thee not a Savior. We think especially of the children. We pray, Lord, that if they've never accepted thee as Savior, they might do so tonight. We know that these men that were in distress and in debt and in.
Discontentment.
They found safety and joy by being with David. We think of how he became the captain of their salvation. And so we would just pray that I would save boys and girls, men and women tonight. We know, Lord, that Thy coming is very, very near. This could be the very last time the gospel would go forth. And we pray that souls might be saved for Thy glory and for the blessing of the lost. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Hymnsing 2
Fear
Talk—Ethan Porter
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Thank you for this nice conference.
Unable to have.
Thank you for all the work that.
People that hosted it.
Ask that we'd all be able to take something home from the conference for ourselves and maybe even something to share with others. And so we thank you for the.
Good reminders. We've had the excitation and they just ask for your help in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
So.
The topic that I was thinking of, it sort of came to me just before the plane took off in Philadelphia and.
Anybody that knows me well knows that I'm kind of an anxious person by nature and I've never liked flying. And so as the engines are turning up to take off, there's always kind of like a little jump in my heart rate and now that I wear this.
Fitbit and it tracks my heart, so I can actually see how much of a jump that is. And The funny thing is I had a.
One of the, I guess one of the biggest moments professional life. This past Wednesday, I had to turn in.
And I did the estimate for the construction for.
It's a huge job and I spent a month.
And then finally it was time to put the number in and I got there at work early and we're still finishing everything up. And during that time, I checked my heart rate and I found out that in the mid.
Of the stress of working on that bid and then taking off, my heart rate was about the same. It was probably a gift of 20 to 25 feet.
Higher than my.
Resting heart rate.
So.
Especially when I was younger but still today.
I fear is it's a part of our lives or it comes in as a part of our lives. And so I just wanted to talk a little bit about fear and the things that I was afraid of when I was younger are a little different than that.
Now, but I think that.
The solution to fear is the same regardless.
So I'm just going to read.
Some verses real quick.
This is in Philippians chapter 4 verse 6 and I'm reading from the NASB.
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving let your requests.
Be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
So I was just thinking that, you know, fear, it's a natural response to.
Maybe a reaction to what's around us or what we know is coming.
And it's not meant to be a big part of a Christian's life. And yet we do fear sometimes, And maybe especially when we're young, we might feel a little guilty about being afraid because we know maybe we shouldn't be.
Paul told Timothy that we weren't given the spirit of fear.
So oftentimes I find when I'm anxious, it's because maybe I haven't been reading like I should be, maybe I haven't been trained every day and the way that I ought to be, you know, really.
Like my dad has side note to really get down on your knees, you know, it's I I find myself praying a lot throughout the day, but.
You're not always diligent to actually get down on my knees at home where it's quiet and really be before the word. And I think that that's a different kind of prayer that's real needful. And when it's not in my life, that's when I start to be afraid. So it says be anxious for nothing.
00:05:02
But like so often, follows up until it's 13, but in everything by prayer.
And supplication with Thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known to God. So there's three things there. There's prayer, supplication, and Thanksgiving. And so.
To pray is to to make a request.
Supplication I think of as fervent prayer, things like prayer, but it's, it's really, really recognizing God's lordship over all of creation and that he, he can provide an answer. And then there's Thanksgiving. And so we recognize what he's done for us. And I think of that verse that.
He who spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all.
Thou shalt eat, not with him.
Really good. Thanks.
And so we just when we were able to consider that he spared not his own son.
Then of course, He's going to take care of every aspect of our lives. He's already saved us through this life into each. So it says, if you do that peace of God which surpasses all comprehension, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
And you know, the thing about being a young person today is even in the world, I think issues with anxiety are are probably in an all time high. It's something like I heard that.
Sleep aid, including medications and devices, is now a multi billion dollar market in the US because people are just so anxious they can't get to sleep. And it shouldn't be that way for a believer. But we're not untouched by that and so I think it's especially an issue.
That, you know, young people face today and it's, it's probably going to get worse, you know, the whole creation.
Is groaning and you know even.
Even the you know after the fun and said that the the dread.
Man was going to be upon all of them and so it's that curse and it exists until the Lord comes and there will finally be peace so and I think it's only going to get worse until he comes but.
In contrast, the believer has this promise, the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds of Christ Jesus. And then it says, finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence, and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. And so that's.
You know, all those adjectives that kind of, I think you find every one of those things.
In the Scripture. And so that's the other side I think of how to approach fear in our lives is to look to the Scripture for answer and not just to sit there and be afraid, but to look to the Lord and to his Word for Scripture and so for answers. And so that's just what I would encourage you to do if you have fear about school or what you're going to do in the next stage of your life.
Or really anything.
It doesn't matter how small we can admit before the Lord that it makes us afraid. And be honest with Him and be before Him about it, and look to His words for answers. So.
Just closing prayer.
Our grandfather, we just thank you again for this time and.
Again, ask for help for.
Each of us in our lives.
From a time like this conference, which maybe it's easy to have thoughts of you and to to focus on you and to.
Live a good Christian life but we just asked for help too when we.
Go away from a place like this that you would have the first place in our hearts and in our lives, and that would be drawn to you. So we just asked these things in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, you know.
1 John 2:18-19
Singing