Vestal Conference: 2008
Table of Contents
Philippians 3:1-4
Reading
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Our gracious God and our loving Father, we thank Thee for thy grace towards us. We thank Thee for the Lord Jesus our Savior and what He's done for us. We think of His love and how our hearts toward Himself. And so as we sit here this morning, we ask though it's guide and directed to a portion of scripture that we would have before us, We pray that as we sit here, we might have our thoughts and our spiritual sight.
And our eyes open to see the glory of the Lord Jesus, our Savior.
We pray that our hearts might be warm towards Him, that there might be nothing, no other object before us. We ask for Thy blessing and help now. Thank Thee, our Father, for Thy goodness and love to us, and ask for Thy blessing in Jesus precious name, Amen. Amen.
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Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord to write the same things. You to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.
Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision, for we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and in rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.
Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath, whereof he might trust in the flesh I more.
Circumcised the 8th day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, and Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee concerning zeal, persecuting the Church, touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless. But what things were gained to me? Those I counted lost for Christ ye doubtless, and I count all things but lost for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and to count them but dung.
That I may win Christ and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness.
Which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness, which is of God by faith.
That I may know him in the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his suffering is being made conformable unto his death. If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already attained either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do.
Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore as many as be perfect, be thus minded, and if any, and if in any other thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
Nevertheless, where to we have already attained? Let us walk by the same rule. Let us find the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us as an example.
For many walk of whom I have told you often, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.
Whose end is destruction, Whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame? Who mind earthly things. For our conversation is in heaven. From once, we from once also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body?
According to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
Well, this works in nicely whether him doesn't it rather than that we had have I an object Lord below which would be by my heart. But see well here we have Christ as the object.
Of every true believer and.
It's a wonderful thing is that finally, my brother, rejoice in the Lord. What an encouragement it is when we see a fellow Christian that is a happy Christian rejoicing in the Lord. That's a marvelous thing for each of us. On the other hand, maybe it's discouraging to see a Christian that is always damned and maybe kind of sad. Well, how great it is.
If we're really rejoicing in the Lord in our hearts, it's really going to show in our lives and in our faces, isn't it?
There's another text in chapter 4.
They might just read it in connection with that. UH-44 says rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say rejoice. Uh, we have a lot to rejoice about.
But it's mainly in the Lord.
It's, uh, someone that asked a brother one time, I guess. Someone.
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He was asked a question many times, how are you? And one time, uh, I heard him say he answered it said, well, you asked me how I am. He says, uh, God is my loving father. Christ has shed his precious blood on the cross. He rose from the dead. My sins are great. So many all in his precious blood have been washed away. Heaven is my home and the Holy Spirit is my comforter. And you asked me how I am.
He, he said. I am rejoicing.
And I think what what we see here is we have a lot to rejoice about when we think of what God has done for us and we think of the enormous price that has been paid to redeem us. Can we not rejoice? Our hearts be full with joy. Now the script, there is a scripture that tells us with joy, with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Have you ever had that experience? And I think that's what a normal experience that God would have us to have.
Sorry to say that sometimes we lose sight of that.
And it's always good to see people rejoicing. I love to see the people rejoicing. And I'm gonna tell a little story that my wife sometimes and I have little, uh, private conversations that we were looking up on this person and he was so sad looking. His face was downcast. And I, it just seemed like he was so miserable. And uh, I said to my wife, I said, look, everything I said that man smiles. You're gonna break his jaw.
Well, you know, there's so much for us to smile about.
There's much for us to rejoice about If the blessed Savior is my Lord and Savior, a the Holy Spirit dwells within my heart and the great salvation that God has accomplished for me, I have a lot to rejoice about.
And there's another text just mentioning this in connection with First Thessalonians, where it says in the 5th chapter, rejoice ever more. And I think it says pray without ceasing and so forth. Well, that that's rejoicing. There is that. In fact, I think it goes on to say, and everything, give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. So rejoice every more. Even in tragedy we can rejoice. We still have something that our hearts may hurt.
Pain may flood our souls.
But there's still something above and beyond that we never lose sight of. And that's the what the Lord's love and grace that has reached down and saved us.
Just another verse on the subject of.
Of rejoicing is in first Peter chapter one and verse 8.
Where it speaks of the appearing of Jesus Christ at the end of verse seven, whom having not seen be loved.
In whom so now ye see him not yet believing, he rejoiced with joy unspeakable until the glory.
There's a rejoicing that not even words can express.
I suppose that when we read this scripture, our minds might go to hymn 135, which happens to be one of my favorite hems. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I sing it and I'll tell you one of the reasons is that I'm, I'm very bad on tunes. But I do know that tune and I love that Him. We joy in our God and we sing of that love so sovereign and free, which did his heart move. We've lost our condition or ruined, undone.
He saw with compassion and spared not his son. I love that him, but like I say, a very few hymns that I I'm not much on tune, but I do know that tune and I love that him. And I wake up laying in bed sometimes and sing that thing two or three times. So precious to think of his love.
This verse brings before us that.
It was a very, uh, introduction of Paul and Silas to.
Those who had come to put their trust in Christ at Philippi.
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Because it was in Philippi at midnight, their feet passed in stocks and their backs beaten that they sang praises.
To the Lord they prayed and sang praises, and, uh, what a wonderful work was wrought of God in that city.
By those who sang praises at midnight. And so rejoicing in the Lord has him as its objectives. We sung not earthly comfort, not earthly objects or things, because all those will disappoint us and there won't be any rejoicing whatsoever. There's only one object that can really fill and satisfy the heart that can really. We can rejoice and everything else is going to disappoint us. Everything is going to come short but one. And it's not rejoicing Jesus, but rejoicing.
The Lord, isn't it that owning that He's in control, who did they serve? They serve the Lord Christ when their feet were fast in those stalks. And so not only as the object of their souls, but as the one that they served, the one before whom they bowed. And this chapter takes up the energy that carries the believer.
Through the Pilgrim pathway and the right object before his soul to carry him in that pathway, You know, the flesh, all that we are by nature has no, uh, no resource, nothing in itself to, to, uh, carry us in the path of faith. And, uh, it's that Newman in Christ, that new creature that we are in Christ with a new object. Peter says that, uh, we're kept by the power of God.
And that's not where it ends. It says through faith. How does?
The power of God keep us in the path of faith by setting the objects before our faith that are proper to that faith. Christ Himself, the blessed hope that is ours as believers of Him.
Catching us up to be with Him, He keeps us by His power by setting.
The objects before the Newman, that new life, that new nature that we have, we have not only have a new life, but we have new objects for the faith that he's given us for that life. And so rejoice in the Lord is irregardless of circumstances, irregardless. We know in our experience that, uh, often it's our circumstances that drive our present state of soul. And, uh, as one said, you know, if, if.
You've been out after the rain and, uh, there's puddles out there and you, you walk along and I did it often as a boy. You look and it seems nice and Clearwater, but put a stick in there and give it a stir and you know what comes up? All the mud comes up. And so when circumstances are nice and clear, everything can be all right. And, but, uh, God changes those circumstances. He uses that stick and he stirs around and what comes up sometimes.
Always find what we're made of. We find if we really have Him as the object before us presently, or do circumstances drive us up and down in our state of soul? Well, here's that which, uh, lifts us above this scene and is the vehicle to carry us through this scene with the right objects before our heart. Christ himself in glory.
Let's see, that's a very important principle because if we get our eyes upon one another, it doesn't say don't make the mistake of rejoicing in your brother and apart from the Lord, because you're gonna be disappointed. Uh, it doesn't.
There is in every assembly, every congregation of Christian, there are those who are difficult to get along with. And you know the the old saying says to, to to draw above with the Saints I love that will be glory. But to draw below with the Saints I know well, that's another story. But we have to love one another and we do love one another. But there is sometimes there, there, there, the human nature being what it is.
Uh, every person in this room and every person in any assembly, we have all different levels of understanding. We have different levels of, uh, dedication. We have different levels of spiritual understanding. So we're not all the same. There's much weakness in all of us. So we have to be able to lovingly put up with one another. And I say that because if we're, we're going to put the brethren as the main object to which we're going to rejoice in, and that's wonderful.
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There's nothing wrong with that, but if we're gonna you, you're gonna find it. If you put your main force up on rejoicing in the brethren, you're gonna be very disappointed. Rejoice in the Lord and then he'll give us the grace to go on. And that's why the Scripture and Peter says to love, add a brotherly love. Other words, I mean to love. We love one another. I'm sure that that word is a general word and, and, and means that.
Uh, uh, the, the higher form of, of love, that's it. It's, it's the different things, but.
When it uses that word to add to love, brotherly love, that word is really Philadelphia. And it's the love of of that you can have, you should have, we ought to have for one, for another. But of course, personality conflicts come in. And I've been lived long enough to know and I've seen some of the human nature, not only with the gathered Saints, but also in other organizations. And when you have people come together, you, you have conflicts of personality.
That we have to be able to adjust and to go on.
And if we rejoice in the Lord, as we should, you'll give us the grace to do the rest.
Changes all the flippians. I may need a surprise and.
Uh, disheartened. And then he says terrified by the difficulties it came, uh, in being associated with the Lord, especially seeing how Paul was treated. So there's much set in Philippians about to them about, uh, false treatment and how they work the, uh, the car can buy that. So, uh, I'll use himself as an example and then even.
Saw that this was normal.
For us to realize that there is.
Difficulties that we enter into and we're, uh.
Say Holland and associated with the name of Christ that we wouldn't experience otherwise. And so fall, uh, encourages them to just to accept this and to rejoice in it to grow. But you know where?
Dangers too. There's open underwear of dogs and either workers beware of concession.
It's easy for us to just try and settle down and get along with who's around us.
I was really judging what is around us.
Try and avoid that difficulty I have to.
So there's lots of encouragement and there's warning here, too.
They can help you like to go through the chapter in an orderly way, but just to refer to verse 12, if we have the attitude that I, uh, Paul says neither as though I had already attained either were already perfect, but I follow after we all have that attitude of we are not perfect. We haven't detained. We're just followers. Then when it says, uh, in verse 15, if, uh, we're, we have that mind and if there's anything.
Than were otherwise minded. God shall reveal even that's unto you. It was a balance there of, of recognizing those things which have to be uh, we have to receive the warning against in these next two verses, but in the spirit of the verses which follow that we haven't attained, we're following and we count on the Lord to make us in the same mind.
And to sing the second part of the first first, there is the same things to you, to you, to me. Indeed, it's not a Trevis, but for you it is safe. Well, you know, uh, we need some repetition, don't we?
We don't get things that say the first time all the time and maybe we need to be reminded.
And so repetition, a certain amount of repetition is good.
But I was thinking of the warnings here that are better methods.
It suggested it's funny. In verse two it says beware of dogs.
Umm, to be aware of evil. We're cruise beware like some fish and so about they're on scene earth days and the dog will always be a dog. And so, umm, hopefully this isn't in the assembly, but it may be a person that's on the plane. They'll have a very bad effect. And then it says beware of evil workers.
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Well later on the Apostle Paul said beware of wolves that will enter in not.
The crafts the worst of all, and beware of the concessions.
And there's only these individuals believe that the flash is all right. All you have to do is trim it up a little better and the flesh is all right. There's so many people in Christianity Today that believe that. And, uh, that's really bad doctrine, isn't it?
But it says in verse three that we are the circumcision which worship God and the Spirit that is.
We, we believe that that the place is really bad. It isn't just nothing, it's really bad. There's nothing good in the flesh. And so we need to curse the new life, the divine life that the Lord gives us and the Holy Spirit to work on the divine life and applying it works. We're alive to get anything good at all.
I think a dog in Revelation there says without her dogs, her peripheral and they're under the table and can't leave anything out. Leave a sandwich on the table and they'll peel it. Leave your shoes where they can get at it. They'll shoot them. Sometimes they're something to be watched or at least have them in our houses and train them. But the dogs and dogs and I, and often as Lord never calls a believer a dog.
For a swine.
But, uh, there is.
That which is around us and or in contact with that character sort of being there the past we watched.
Thinking how easy it is to.
Judge things by just making a rule about it, just cutting it off.
Perhaps rules are necessary sometimes, and I was growing up, my parents had rules because I didn't understand the principle of why they were denying me something. But there was a rule about it, which is good if I don't have that understanding, but I I should circumcision really take judgment and and.
Discernment concession, when I think of that, I think is just cutting a thing off just.
To, uh, sort of with a rule without really judging what it is 'cause they're gonna have to pay them later. I don't really judge it.
Graham, you referred to uh, dogs into, uh, swine. Might be worth looking at second Peter, the, uh, second chapter and the last verse, verse 22.
It says, but it has happened on to them. According to the true proverbs. The dog has turned to his own vomit again. The salad was washed through her wallowing in the mire.
Umm, you also mentioned the that other place where I think the word dog is used in the same way in the end of Revelation, because I think you're the character of a dog in particular, like you've been mentioning in particular here is that they go back to what they were cleaned up from.
You know, they go back to what made them ill and in a spiritual sense, that's one of the things that we're to guard against. Or as it says in the Mr. Darby's translation, see two dogs. Umm, so.
Dogs are those who would go back, who take a place as being Christians and would go back into.
What, uh, they had turned their backs on. So it was turning back to, uh, thin again and uh, going after and chasing after their Luts.
Then, uh, he's mentioned too, there's new workers here and those would be those who in a sense of, uh, wanting to build something or to construct something would do that, which is evil. Perhaps to increase the numbers, perhaps to, uh, increase their own power base, whatever it might be. We're to, uh, see to those as well to be aware of them. And then, as uh, brother Norm mentioned, I'll be aware of the, uh, concision, Uh, that's those who would try and change what we are naturally.
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And, uh, and make it acceptable to God. And all three are those, uh, categories of people that we need to be on guard against and that kind of teaching that we need to be on guard against as well. And so it seems he has either written or said these things to them before him. So he said he's going to say it again because it's safe and that we do well to keep that ourselves. We sang about grace. We talk often about love. And it's important to, uh, pay attention to the fact that it's not necessarily great and it's not necessarily love to put up with evil.
In fact, that, uh, it's a thing to be on guard against in the past of, uh, true love. In the past of grace is to, uh, is to deal with evil.
In whichever these forms it, uh, it shows up. We need first to judge ourselves and then to be careful with those who we associate as well.
There's no confidence in the flesh.
I suppose that one of the leading sends that all of us are prone to is pride.
Too high opinion of oneself.
Listen, we're all affected by it. I used to play handball with the captain of the state Police Department, and he used to tell me that when he stopped some people and they would say to him, do you know who I am?
I suppose that happened quite frequently with many people, but you know, really, we're beggars off of the dunghill.
That's who God deals with. You don't wanna go up.
Go down.
Someone has said glow as low as air you will. He has gone lower still. The way up is the way down.
And even jealous of Christendom. Now there is a foot a program that is teaching Christians erroneous ideas of self esteem, self worth.
We that I haven't explored it, but I have. I've been familiar with slightly with it and I've heard evangelical teachers who have said that this is actually contrary to the word of God.
The Lord alone, if any man glory, let him glory in the Lord. We have no confidence in the flesh. If you wanna go up, you go down. Remember, God takes the beggar off of the dunghill. You wanna take that place before God? He, he, he can deal with you. But if you can have this pride about who you are or what you deserve or things like that, I mean, we all have to contend with that.
And I like the phrase, of course, Paul later on is going to give us a, a running description of himself who had all of the, the, the the potentials that that they have pride. And so we gotta be careful with that. No confidence in the flesh. Let us remember if we go from these meetings, no confidence in the flesh and let us rejoice in the Lord.
Reference was made to Act 20 by Brother Norm.
And I wonder whether you're aware of dogs would be that which comes into the outside. It's already been mentioned the dog never represents a true Christian.
Then we have the evil workers stop that's working from the inside. And uh, perhaps you just read those couple of verses and Acts 20.
Take heed, therefore, uh uh, Act 20, verse 28.
He, He therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers.
To feed the Church of God, which he had purchased with his own blood.
I know this, but after my departing shall grievous wolves.
That's dogs enter in among you, not sparing the flock at.
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Those who would come in from outside unsaved never were saved.
They've acted and there's Rob has already mentioned they go back to just what they work really are, but they come in from outside. We have to be aware of that. So we have to be in guard and we've been in our verse says beware, we're driving on the road and there's a sign up. Beware. We better pay attention or we're going to get into trouble, but then seems more serious. The 1St 30 we have also of your own self shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after themselves.
How dangerous. And so we're to beware of that too, to be careful and uh, that which is said, I trust even here we will uh, search it out to see what is the truth of God, otherwise the lead people away after themselves.
I think rather you hit a form of a nice word there to give attention to it, because I suppose the original force of this word be beware, it could be translated. See you to fact. That's the basic basic etymology of the word in the original the language. See to it, give it. Like our brother mentioned, give attention to it. We we come in contact with dogs every day. Not 4 legged dogs, two legged dogs.
Shameless evil.
People engaged in things. That is disheartening, frustrating.
Beware of dogs. They're shameless. They've been, they've, they've, uh, in, in, in incorporated practices that are just honoring and blasphemous to God. We have to be aware of them, see to it, avoid them. That's what we have to do.
In the thought of evil workers, it just is a.
Little exhortation for us.
Than one's experience that, uh, growing up in the assembly time comes as, as, uh, we mature that, uh, what we are becomes manifest, you know, and we're all little children running around and, uh, often we say we don't know, especially in connection with children who saved or who not, who's not. But as you grow up, it becomes manifest, you know, who's going on for the Lord and who's not. The Lord knoweth them that are his. The ones experience has been that those who are not Christ, who are not going on for the Lord will positively labor.
To corrupt.
Those who are.
And the only remedy is a separation from it. It'll be a positive laboring to corrupt those who are going on for the Lord. It's been one's own experience and I think others.
Would feel the same way and so there's AC to it. Beware.
Beware, and only by separation from that can we be preserved and kept.
Your other half and mix them together.
And we find this in, uh, just in the especially for that they give you some truth when you open up the Bible when they come to your door. But then again, they mix the other half, which is not true.
And this is where we need to be careful and have these disturbance.
To know what history.
Because if we mix half and half, if I take a half a glass of white milk and fill the other half with chocolate milk, it's not a white milk and it isn't chocolate milk, it's half and half.
And this is what we have before us is some truth.
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But also a lot of air. And this is where we have to be careful that we only see what is truthful and not to swallow what is bad for us or unfruitful to us. We want the pure milk of God, not a mixture of white milk and chocolate milk. But they want the truth. But they need to have that discernment.
So really what the apostle was dealing with here was the influences of those who sought to mix Judaism.
Oh, a the efforts of the first man to be accepted with God through ordinances in his own works. And really, I believe the, uh, influence of paganism out of which the Gentile believers came mixing together and coming to bear on Christianity. And really that mixture has been the bane of Christianity down through the ages and forms what we have.
Come to term and I believe scripturally so the camp.
When Israel came up out of Egypt and came into the wilderness, Moses went up into the mount to receive the law from God. And the children of Israel corrupted themselves. They made idols and uh.
They fell into wickedness.
And Moses pitched the Tabernacle outside of the camp and any who would come.
And want to be where the Lord was would have to leave the camp and go to where he had pitched that Tabernacle. And that's where the Lord met with Moses. And so there's a little picture there without going into all the detail of that mixture of things of Judaism and the Pagan, uh, background out of which Gentile believers came called the camp. And so Christianity has become infused with, uh, keeping.
Of the law and works for salvation and all the customs and rights that once were held in, uh, the Pagan religions that they came from and idol worship and blended together and the name of Christ put upon it. And really that's what I believe is considered in these verses. And many doctrines in Christianity have been concocted up from that mixture. And Mr. Darby had kind of a.
Way of putting things, you know, very concisely. And he said the problem with all those things is they produce, seek to produce results in the first man. And that's really what it was. Judaism sought to produce results in the first man. It proved he was completely bankrupt. Wherefore did the law come in between the promise given to Abraham and the gospel preached in Christianity? It came in to expose what man really was.
And show that he could produce nothing for God. All that the pagans sought to do and worshipping their gods and, and uh, Buddhism and Hinduism and all those things. Steps to enlightenment, self improvement has been mentioned.
There were things calculated to produce results in the first man. They never will be. The first man can produce nothing for God. And so the apostle goes on here saying.
Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, and that's what that confidence in the flesh is, that my flesh, I myself, as I am by nature born in this world, can produce something for God. He said no, nothing. And if there is anyone who thought they could produce something for God, he said who more than myself, look what I had, look what I had. You know, the pagans couldn't say, well, we got the oracles of God, we had the word of God, we had given to us the law of God and all they couldn't have.
Boasted of anything like that, but he as a Jew could, he could say, well, God gave us that perfect law for the first man, if he could live up to it, he would continue to live in this earth, and he had much to boast in after the flesh. And so the apostle lists all those things that he might have confidence in, that might be for his own credit, that he might come to God and say, Look what I am, I ought to be accepted.
Of God.
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But all that is left aside for what's presented to him later in the chapter, what he saw in Christ.
It eclipsed it all.
There are three warnings in the second verse and there are three items in the third verse that are characteristics of reality. Uh, we've talked about not having confidence in the flash. We've talked about rejoicing in Christ Jesus, but there's a third one. It's the first one in the list that is characteristic of reality and that is worshipping God in the spirit and by the spirit. And that's, uh, an important part to get straight, umm, a lot of people talk about worship today, but they don't understand what it is.
And when we talk about worship, what we're talking about is worshipping God in the Spirit. Like in John 4, the Father seeketh touch to worship Him in spirit and in truth. And the point that I want to make here is that worship is not.
Music, not instrumental music. It's not activity. What real, true worship is. What God is looking for is a response when the Spirit of God works in the heart of a believer to, uh, to Himself.
And to what he's done and to who he is. And so, uh, when you come together in the breaking of bread and let the Spirit of God lead, what he's working to produce is worship in our hearts. Thankfulness to God for who he is and what he's done.
And a true worship is created in our hearts as we consider the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father, what they've done for us and who they are. And it's our response to that. It's what comes out of our hearts. It's not just the sound that comes out of our mouth. It's not that activity. It's not the prayers, but it's what comes out of the heart. It's expressed perhaps through our mouth, expressed perhaps by our actions, but real worship comes out of our hearts.
It's very important, brethren, that we never get carried away with a high opinion of ourselves and I know that I've been fighting that thing for quite a while, but thank the Lord, I believe he has given me some little bit of victory of it. I used to teach navigation and the boating safety for the state of Delaware and whenever they decided to write an article in the paper on on the voting safety or something, they the Fish and Wildlife who were my friends that used to tell them to call me.
Reporter had me on the phone.
And I guess I came across a little too authoritative. So anyhow, he said, and I guess, and, and uh, he said, uh, I guess you're an expert on these things. I said, let me tell you, Mr. I'm not expert in anything. I picked up a few things along the way. And that's the same with scripture. I have meticulously read William Kelly's lectures on a revelation five times at least. Do I know a lot of revelation? Not, not, not much. I forgot most that I read. We're, we're no authority. I'm no authority in anything. I've been studying the scriptures for over 50 years.
Am I authority on it? No, I know a few things. I have to look up things. I know how to find the answers, but none of us let's not get carried away with ourselves. Some of the biggest divisions among brethren have come because laboring brethren have got this big highfalutin idea that they were somebody and they just set forth some kind of a doctrine and oh, you have to listen to this now we're nobody if if we would just remember that no confidence in the flesh and don't have a high opinion. That's AI think the worst thing that plagues.
The Christian Christianity because people have too high opinion of themselves, too much pride in who they are and so forth. So I I think what we're gonna learn here from this is that a little bit of humility low I thy feet, Lord Jesus, This is the place for me. Here I have learned the lessons truth which has set me free, free from myself, Lord Jesus, free from the ways of men. Chains of thought that abound me can never bind me again.
None but thyself, Lord Jesus conquered this wayward will, but for thy love constraining I hide, and wondering still. Let us take that little place at his feet, and and it'll serve us good.
Nsnoise.
Oh, they were just give thanks for what we've had this morning. We thank you for the warnings, especially against the pride of our own hearts and we pray that as we realize what it cost the in order to bring us into that relationship with the his Father and Lord Jesus that thou in giving thy life that's taken upon thee all that was so contrary to thy Father. We pray that as Lord and Savior now Lord of our lives, Lord Jesus, we might be subject.
To that which?
Is brought to our hearts by Thy Spirit, and that the rejoicing and the worship and praise might ascend to thee and to Thee Father. And we ask it in Jesus name, Amen.
Our Responsibility for Things the Lord Has Given Us to Do
The Lord's Resources for Us Are Unbounded
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Philippians 3:5-11
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Father, with another hour before us, now we just pray that now we'll continue to feed our souls with that which is convenient for us, and give us the grace to walk in obedience to Thy Word with Thanksgiving and joy, until we see His face and we ask Him in His name, Amen.
Philippians, Chapter 3.
Verse 4.
Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh. I more circumcised the 8th day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, in Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee concerning zeal, persecuting the Church, touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless. But what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ, Yeah, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.
For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.
That I may know him in the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death. And if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already attained either were already perfect, But I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I'm apprehended of Christ Jesus, rather than I count on myself to have apprehended. But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth into those things which are before.
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore as many as be perfect, be thus minded, and if anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
Nevertheless, where we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example for many walk, of whom I have told you often, and I'll tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. For our conversation is in heaven. From once also we look for the Savior of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working, whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself?
Don't want to attempt to direct things in an improper way, but I just suggest that if we spend a lot of time on 4-5 and six, which are things that need to be addressed for sure, we won't have a lot of time to consider all the positive, encouraging things that follow in the verses 7 and on. So let's just keep that in mind perhaps that we have a lot in the rest of the chapter.
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One of the things we might want to keep in mind is.
Is that from what we gather from these verses that of Paul lays before us? Of course, no confidence in the flesh. God can use empty vessels.
But I, I think, I think you probably would agree that uh, uh, he cannot use vessels that are full of self.
And if if if you're a nobody.
God can use them, but if we think we're somebody, I don't think the Lord's gonna do much with us. Some of the greatest, uh, uh, Christians that I've done the great things for God have been men who have had nothing to begin with. I was just reading recently the a little biographical sketch of AAW Tozer, and he was a man, really. They might give someone is rightly said. You could probably put it all in his academic learning.
And his biblical understanding of things on the back of your thumbnail that God used this man and a mighty way because he was dedicated to the Lord. And I think that's what the the message that God would have us to understand that Paul here though he had all the credentials he had all of the background, but it meant nothing to Paul because the the subject of which Paul could would excel in and what was called to do.
Was to exalt the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and I think that that that's what we find when he's saying verse 7. But what things were gain to me those I counted lost for Christ. And so the great subject that Paul was he was absorbed and the glorious person of Christ, as he later on will say in this very chapter. We haven't come to it yet, but he said that I may know him.
This was Paul's great obsession.
So I just thought I'd make that little comment on that because we finished up whether I might have no confidence in the flesh and the oth the others think that they have something. You know, Paul had it, but he laid it all aside.
And just to make back that up with another man that I had in mind was John Bunyan. John Bunyan was an illiterate man, having no background, no qualifications. But what did God do? He took a man like John Bunyan to write one of the great Christian classics, The Pilgrim's Progress. And John Bunyan also has written a lot of other good things. Uh, he's written a lot of good poetry. He's, he's, he's given us a few sermons and so forth, but God used him mightily.
He took some something, a man that was nothing, and he made made him something.
I was thinking the list that, uh, Paul.
Includes here between 4:00 and including six. They're easily understood that I just have a question about the last one. Just simply, umm, touching the righteousness, which is, which is in the law, blameless and, uh, how could Paul, umm, claim that? I wonder if somebody could explain that for me.
Let's see like the whole outward form of what men could see or.
Judaism was a religion it someone could go and worship uh in quotation marks, but not.
They can do that in a note word way, but uh, uh, all does say that the commandment that flew and was also on that covet, which was something I wasn't seeing from the out outward that wasn't apparent, but Paul knew it in his own heart and.
I just wonder if just referring to what he could glory and what he could, uh, show for himself to manage and his nation and to those that.
Respect them, but Lord looked into his heart before his new thought. He was in reality.
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Uh, looking at him, you know, like a rich young man that came to the Lord and he was blameless. I mean, he could say that he kept those things from his youth. Overlord, uh, touched inside of him and about what was in his heart.
So what he really was?
Hmm.
For that is Romans Chapter 7.
And verse 7, all referring to himself, says, I had not known lust, except the law has said, Thou shalt not covet.
I wonder if it could be viewed in the light of of Group One where it's.
Zacharias and Elizabeth were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless.
In other words, it's not hey, that he obeyed the law to the T or kept the law, but he kept the ordinances of the law. He was he did what was expected to send you got a sent off from if ties were expected, he brought the ties whatever the law of the ordinance is called for.
Starting to do it. That's that's how I've taken it. It's it's.
Up and he was able to actually keep the law and love the Lord his God with all his heart and soul. And that whatever the ordinances or the law was that that was expected of an Israelite, he was diligent to to seek to do it.
Connection with Paul, it says here, uh, in our chapter in the uh, sixth verse concerning zeal persecuting the church.
And, uh, interesting that connection. He did many things that we would not consider to be good, but in.
Connection with Walkie, actually with glory and the first verse he had. The fifth verse is basically things he was born into, but starting with being a Pharisee and these other things that those were things that he did himself. And in the first Timothy, the 1St chapter and the 13th verse we have his view of what he was.
Umm, after he was saved, it says in verse 13, because who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious. But I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly.
In unbelief.
So we looked back at all those things from God's point of view instead of from a Pharisees point of view. From a Pharisees point of view he had no fault, but from God's point of view he was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious. But he found mercy because he did it in unbelief.
And so that's part of, uh, what leads him, uh, to the rest of this chapter is the realization of how great the mercy of God is in his life.
You go out on a starry night and look up. Each of those stars has a has a beauty, and it's a it's a fascinating thing to look up on a clear night.
But you know, all those stars are there when the sun's out. You just can't see them because they're really eclipsed by the glory of the sun. It's so much brighter.
Than, uh, any of the stars in the sky. And so with the apostle Paul, you might say, is the man in the flesh. He could look at all these things and list them off all these bright points. You know, it says in Acts when he was on the road to Damascus here the crowning thing was that he was persecuting the Church of God. How much more could he show his zeal than to seek to stamp out everything that was contrary, as he thought to the law of God?
Everything that opposed what God has given, and he had God's authority in his mind.
And there's nothing more persecuting more awful than its persecution than religious man. Cain was a religious man. He brought his good things too, just like Paul could list these things that he thought were good. And what did he do? He slew Abel. He slew the man that was accepted by grace. And so the man who seeks to be accepted by God on his own works will always persecute the true child of God.
Who stands, uh, by grace alone in God's sight? And so he persecuted for what happened? That light shone from heaven around him. And you know, it says that light shone from heaven. And he fell to the ground. And that voice came. Saul saw wide, Persecutest thou me?
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It's hard for thee to kick against the ******. And he could say later to the Pharisees. I have lived in all good conscience before God.
Till now he was persecuting the Church of God with a good conscience. He thought he was doing service to God.
But as soon as that voice reached his ears, he knew it was Jehovah that was speaking to him.
And when he said, why persecute is thou me? It must be Jesus Christ.
And he realized that the very God who he thought he was serving was the one that they put on Calvary's cross.
The very one who he thought he was doing service to and persecuting the Saints of God were one with him.
And then his conscience became engaged for the first time in connection with what he was doing. Why, it's hard for thee to kick against the ****** of conscience. And you know later when the apostle recounts that, he says a great light from heaven shone. And then he recounted again, he says the light above the brightness of the sun, it eclipsed everything else, everything that he might have as a credit for himself.
It was just he faced like those stars are gone and the brightness of the sun. He saw a glory that was far beyond anything, anything he might ever have for himself. And so these things that are listed here.
You might say in a certain sense, outside of persecuting the church aren't bad things. They're the things that the flesh can glory in. Good things, religious things. Man's religious, he has things he can boast, and this isn't the sins of the flesh.
Being recounted, it's the religious things, things he can boast in.
Even those are eclipsed by the glory that shines above the brightness of the sun.
From ascended Christ. And that's what filled his soul on the road to Damascus. And you know, as he spoke about it, it just kept getting brighter. Every time he talked about it, it was brighter until it's above the brightness of the sun when he recounts it later in the book of Acts. And so it should be with us. That should just be a glory that ever grows before our souls, brighter and brighter until it eclipses everything.
Of ourselves.
We all have things that the flesh would glory in.
That there might be something we can show or.
Be religious about It's not religion, as we probably often heard. It's a person.
Man has religion. That's not what's offered to us in the word of God, a person, the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
Far different than religion Paul had. Saul had religion. He had more than anybody else and plenty to boast him. But he didn't have Christ.
And when he saw Christ, really, And he said, I don't want all the rest.
I suppose we could say that the the great reality of God and of a risen, living Christ and the great salvation that has accomplished captivated Paul's heart.
That he found then that something that would cause him to see no value in the earthly things.
There's a that little hem we sometimes sing well, we're only pomp and glory. Your charms are spread in vain. I've heard of sweeter story. I've found a truer gain for Christ. The place prepare it. There is my blessed to vote. There shall I gaze on Jesus? There shall I dwell with God?
So the Apostle Paul was spoiled, and we should be too, because we know our destiny is to be with Christ in glory.
Time is short, earthly life soon flies by, eternity is long. So why do we live so much for the world? Why don't we do like the apostle Paul? Here I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Now this world doesn't have anything for the Christian. And I think of the words that we find that Paul writes in Galatians.
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God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified in the May. What Paul is saying, the world is like a crucified man.
A crucified person was a person that was an all scouring of all things was nothing. And Paul says the world.
Is crucified into me. I look at the world the same as people who look at a crucified man. It's a terrible sight, and I am crucified unto the world.
Paul had the opposite view too. The world was crucified unto him, but the world looked upon him and he, Washington, and the world didn't have anything. Well, didn't want him either, because he belonged to the Lord Jesus, holy and solely. And so it's wonderful to see that, that Paul.
Here finds his right priority. You know, we've heard that saying people say, well, they they haven't got their priorities in order.
Well, maybe that's something we ought to think about. What is our priority? Is our priority the Lord first, me second, or other people second? Me third? Or is it me first?
We grow in our souls and these things line upon line, and then our apprehension.
As the Spirit of God unfolds the word of God to us, and the apostle says, I counted all things but lost.
You know, and if your house burned down, you'd say we suffered a great loss.
But if you said we had a dung pile Outback and the Creek overflowed and washed it away, I'd say, well, no great loss.
What a growth and a soul to say I counted all things but lost and he says no, I do count them but done. I counted them but lost. I don't count them a loss anymore. I used to think it was a loss. It's not a loss. It was just done, had no value and so there it's the work of the Spirit of God to.
At the glory of Christ would grow in our souls in that way that.
When something comes up and the Spirit of God speaks to me and I know it's not right, maybe something I'm going on with or something I hold on to and and I asked the Lord for strength to give it up and I feel like it's a loss.
But you know, walking that path, be obedient to what the Lord has to say, counter the loss, get rid of it, and eventually you'll count it as done that it had no real value anyway.
I guess some of the things that we think in this life are so important. And the final end, that'd be like the Apostle Paul says here, it's done. I remember when I was stationed in Germany and I, I had bought a very beautiful Motorola radio. It was a real big, it was shiny and so forth. And anyhow, I was detailed to another city called Witchburg.
And, uh, I was in a hospital there for a while and, and I left my radio up there and I got back down to Nuremberg. I had orders to ship out, so I asked someone to bring it down to me. I put great value on that thing. And it was something that a 19 year old soldier of, you know, at that time, I thought it was just wonderful. And for years I, I lamented the fact that I had lost that thing. But you know, today.
It matters little.
It wasn't important. So you know, many of the things that we think are so valuable and so important aren't really all that important at all. So to me that thing means absolutely nothing. If I had it, I could dump it in the river right now. So, you know, The thing is that that Paul had his priorities in in order. He knew what was most valuable and he knew what was not. Everything that pertains to the Lord Jesus and our growth in him.
00:25:21
As we seek the glorifying on our hand for what He has done for us, that's the important thing.
Damon was a man.
Like Saw.
And when the prophet sent a messenger out to them and said go dip in Jordan, he went away furious.
And so man clings to nothing more, far more even, than his earthly possessions.
He clings to his religiousness and what he thinks it gives him.
Above other men.
What he thinks it gives him in the sight of God.
And so Naman went away and rage, and you know the servant came to him, and he said, if the Prophet had bid thee do some great thing, who thou not have done it? Something to give credit to the flesh, something you could boast in Naman. Climb the highest mountain, go, conquer a city, go. Whatever it is, wouldn't you have done it?
But Grace says just wash and be clean. Grace says you have nothing to bring, you've got nothing to boast him. All you've got is filthy rags. It's worthless. And so religious man hates Grace.
Because it makes nothing of him and all his vain boasts.
And so the apostle Paul, it was just a great work of the Spirit of God and his soul. And so with each one that's brought to Christ to count all those things lost and then done, to let it all go.
What he saw so captivated his soul that he would not let anything come in between him.
And the Excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ his Lord, he wouldn't let anything come in between him and winning Christ or possessing Christ to be found in Christ is a is a standing before God that we have and in Christ we have the righteousness of God to win Christ, I think is more the thought of the practical possession in my heart and it's in the enjoyment of the person.
And enjoyment of the person who is sitting at God's right hand in glory, a glorified Christ, that I may win Christ, it's so captivated his soul, he said. I don't want anything to come between me and the possession of what I've seen, and by any means I want to attain to that. Don't let anything get in the way.
And he can only speak for himself.
He cannot speak for you and I in this passage.
He can only speak for himself. This is very personally individual for each one of us.
All is different than the other apostles.
The other apostles followed the Lord in his earthly pathway. They had high hopes of the Kingdom being introduced and they saw the Lord rejected. You know, those hopes in a certain sense were dashed, and they saw the Lord.
On Calvary's cross they saw the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ, they bore witness to it, and then as well as resurrection and being caught up to glory, And Peter said that he was a witness of the sufferings of Christ.
And he looked for the glory that should follow. And that's a theme through Peter's epistles.
Paul did not witness the sufferings of Christ, but he was caught up to the 3rd heaven and he witnessed his glory and he said that's where I want to get to, that's what I want for my own soul.
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And if it means passing through suffering to get there, then that's what I want to do. Peter said we saw the sufferings that we look forward to the glory. Paul says, I saw the glory. I'm going to go through the sufferings to get there, no matter what it takes, no matter what. I've got to count, but lost. And you know what humbles our hearts when we read this portion, when we realize what we cling to?
And what we are willing to.
Disabled the Lord Jesus for in our lives that we might have something for me.
It's easy to talk about those who suffer for Christ and maybe sort of Daydream glorious thoughts about ourselves of what we do for the Lord in foreign lands and the gospel mission field and this and that. And then it comes to a little thing to give up in my home.
Or the way I dress.
Or my associations in life and I say it's too much to suffer for Christ.
No, I can't be like him in that. That's too much to give up. Well, we haven't seen the glory that he's in. I caught his right hand. We haven't had the vision that Paul had for his soul.
He can't speak for us, he says. I want it for you. I'm going to tell you about it.
I want your heart to be enraptured too. It's gotta be. You can't do it for you.
So he doesn't say we through here. This is me.
You know when you think of that verse, verse 10, that I may know Him.
The Apostle Paul had the most unique experience. He met the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. Paul was caught up to the 3rd heaven. He saw and heard things that he couldn't communicate.
Paul was taught the gospel on the backside of a desert for three years personally by the Lord.
Paul had all kind of revelations. Paul had the great certainty that the man who died on the cost of Calvary was alive.
Didn't he know him? Sure he knew him. Do you know him? I know him if we put our faith and trust in him. But what does the apostle say here? That I may know him?
That is the move.
It it's not the indicative mood. He didn't say I know him that I may know him. There's more more of Jesus. Would I know more of his grace to others show so the there is a way that we should make this our goal in life. Have you ever prayed Have I ever prayed, Lord, that I might know thee better. I might have a deeper appreciation of myself.
That you would be more more real to my soul today than you were yesterday. Then he goes on to say and the power of his resurrection. Well, the Paul knew he met the risen Christ. What does he mean by the power of his resurrection? I believe he means now, of course, it it might be far a little more more than not. I might not be on the right track here, but I think that Paul says here.
That the power of the resurrection might be more of a reality to me. It's not just an academic thing that we say, well, yes, Christ rose from the dead, but let me ask my own heart and yours, Has it gripped my heart?
So I think of that Blessed One who has conquered the power of death, come forth from that tomb. I think Mary Magdalene knew something about the the power of that resurrection.
'Cause when she came to that tomb, and the Angel said, I know you seek Jesus, for he is not here, He is risen as he said.
Come see the place where the Lord lay. I don't know if Mary Magdalene, she probably did in that tune. Come see the place where the Lord lay. That blessed man that died for you and me is alive today, and may the power of His resurrection grip our hearts, motivate us.
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Comfort us, sustain us in all of our trials and problems that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection.
In the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead. He breathed on the disciples and said, Receive thee Holy Spirit.
And that verse was fulfilled that had been spoken by the Lord earlier and John, that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. And so the Lord Jesus, risen Son of God, he as a life giving spirit imparts a character of life to his own that.
Is characterized by resurrection. I should should put it.
So we call it resurrection life, and that resurrection life was his own life, having been raised from the dead by the power of God, by the glory of God.
And that life was.
To be lived in the power of the Spirit of God. So he says, receive ye Holy Spirit.
And so, as each one of us, our new creatures in Christ, we are in possession of the life of Christ raised from the dead, the Spirit of God being the power of that life, and Christ himself and glory raised from the dead.
The object of that light. And that's what the apostle says that I may.
Know Him in the power of His resurrection to know and walk day by day, and the power of a life that will never taste death.
In a life that.
Is only to be able to be walked in by the power of the Spirit of God that rises above everything in this scene, every obstacle.
The power of his resurrection.
The mighty power of God, when He raised Him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places, and He seated you and I there as well, by that same power, and by that power that God raised Christ from the dead, is the.
Because it was by the Spirit of God as the same power by which you and I, and the only power by which you and I.
Can walk for Christ through this world, and that's what he wanted in his walk.
To know the power of that resurrection, its practical effect on his walk.
By any means.
I might miss the garbage translation. I might arrive at, umm, the resurrection from among the dead.
I would suppose that means that of course when Paul is home and glory, the old nature is completely left behind, and the only thing that is left is the new nature, divine life. And so this would be the.
Shall we say perfection?
So he's aiming for that, isn't he's gonna fall short, but this is his target. I think that's what that means.
If by any means.
And so he died at the hands of the executioner, didn't he? If by any means.
I might be like Christ.
Then so be it, whatever the cost.
I heard his account that years ago Brother Gill was asked to the conference. Brother Gilly said, uh, the question was asked to him, if you knew the Lord was coming tomorrow, what would you want to do today? And he said, I'd like to die so that I might pass through what the Lord passed through and experience the power of resurrection that he experienced when he was raised from the dead. And that's what the apostle sang, if I should die, then so much the more like Christ, for he died.
00:40:06
And went into the grave. And I'll be raised from the dead by the same power of God. So much the more I'll be like him.
By any means, I want to be like that one who has become the object of my heart and who, as we know, the heart's object.
Forms us were formed by the object of our hearts. We love money and we want money. We're going to look like money if we want.
Hollywood. And we want to attain to that. Then that's what we're gonna look like, or whatever it is in this world. We want power. We're gonna look like that. We want Christ, we're gonna look like that.
A man is formed, a woman is formed, Boy and girl is formed by the object of their hearts.
And that's what he's saying. This is my object and if it even means death.
And so much the more like Christ.
There were two, there were two things that, uh, Paul learned on these two things on the road to Damascus. One was what we've been talking about, the fact of what he saw the Excellency of the glory, and he wanted to know that more fully.
The other thing that was revealed to him in, uh, Damascus was what the Lord Jesus was going to communicate to him, what great things he must suffer for my sake. And I believe that that ties in with the thoughts of what Paul wanted to do is to, uh, win Christ, to have that relationship with them. In Hebrews 13, we know the Lord has said, I will never leave thee or forsake thee. And he told Paul, my grace is sufficient for thee.
There was the Lord Jesus is looking for with us is of course a relationship, a friendship with each one of us individually.
And I believe that what we've had brought before us to commend itself to me in connection with verse 11, remember that one of Paul's hopes as expressed in First Thessalonians 4, would be to be, uh, taken alive to meet the Lord in the air. And I believe what, uh, this verse is expressing is that his part of his willingness would be to, uh, face death. So that as it's expressed here, you can see it in more clearly in the, uh, Darby translation. It's a resurrection.
From among the dead. It's not just the resurrection of dead people all at once, but it's those like Christ raised from among the dead. And that's exactly what's gonna happen to those who are asleep in Jesus, as is described in First Thessalonians 4. That there's a resurrection from among the dead. The rest of the dead live not until 1000 years was finished. So Paul is willing to take his part in this resurrection from among the dead.
If part of the suffering that the Lord Jesus has for him bleep to death, which of course it did.
He was willing to go there to be like Christ.
There's an account in, uh, Second Kings that.
I feel, as an illustration of these few verses, that it's.
To me, every time I read it, it just seems to uh.
Grow and it's and it's preciousness, but it's second Kings chapter 2 where we have the account of Elijah and Elijah walking together and the Lord was going to take Elijah up to glory and as he goes along, the sons of the prophets come in and they say to him, thus do you know that your master's head is going to be taken from you today? You're going to lose your master. He says I know hold your peace. Get out of the way. I got my eyes fixed on Elijah and you're just getting in the way. Don't let anything come between us.
That's all. I don't want anything coming between us.
And so they went on together.
Instructional to see the different cities they pass through and the thoughts connected with them. But they come to Jordan and cross and uh.
Verse 8 Elijah took his mantle and wrapped it together and smote the waters, and they were divided, hit her and thither, so that they too went over on dry ground.
And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elijah, Ask what I shall do for thee before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me not.
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The thought isn't twice as much, but that it would be the portion of the first born. First born had the double portion, he says, as it were to Elijah. If I'm going to have to walk in this path, I'm going to need twice as much as all the rest are going to get. You know, the first born got twice as much as the rest of the sons. Not saying twice as much as Elijah, he says. I'm going to need twice as much as anybody else is going to get.
And so it was a hard thing. And Elijah said, if you see me be taken up, then you'll know it's come to pass. And they say are walking along and talking. Verse 11.
Behold, there peered a chariot of fire and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven, and Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel.
And the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more.
And so it's a little picture to us, just like we have with Paul and his vision is up.
It's a man ascended to glory that's occupying him.
And in a little picture here, the relationship that we have in the New Testament of Sons and he says my father, my father, you know, in the beginning of his pathway, when Elijah cashed that mantle on him, he said he let me go back to my father and mother.
But he's traded everything that might come between him and the one who's occupying his gaze. And he says now my Father, my father, he's given everything up. His relationships are only with glory, with heaven. Nothing else matters.
He sees them caught up.
And the mantle falls down and he takes it up. It just kind of enjoyed reading these verses kind of intertwined between Philippians three and 2nd Kings two. And I'll just try and if I can read them that way, maybe you'll get the the thought.
And Elijah saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more.
And he took hold of his own clothes and rent them in two pieces.
Philippians 2.
But what things were gained to me, those I countered lost for Christ.
Yeah, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.
And he took up the mantle also, the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back and stood by the bank.
Of Jordan.
And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters.
And said.
Where is the Lord God of Elijah?
Can be found in him not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law. He takes that mantle up.
Verse 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and he takes that mantle and justice like Elijah, He wraps it together and he smites the water.
And he passes through that river that speaks to us of death.
The death of the believer with Christ.
And he went over, and Elijah went over. And so in that way, here he is looking up, gazing on that man in glory. He tears his own clothes apart, he leaves them aside, everything that he might have of himself. He takes the mantle of Elijah now for his garment, and then he takes that in. The very power that Elijah had walked through Jordan, he and that same power now walks through that river.
And so the apostle wanted to win Christ, to know the power of his resurrection, to walk in that power day by day as he went through this scene with his eyes fixed on a man in glory.
And Elijah goes on in his ministry as a ministry of blessing and grace, this whole pathway through.
And so that was the Apostle Paul's ministry as he had his eyes fixed on that man in glory. It was a ministry of grace.
00:50:12
OK, I'm saying.
Oh OK oh MOV down.
1575910 You are always Oh my God, Oh my God, it's beautiful and it's being crowned.
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Gospel 1
Children Your Parents Want You to Come to Jesus
Pray Ye, Do Ye, Go Ye
God Searches the Heart and Exposes the Root of Sin
Philippians 3:12-21
Reading
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Saying 83 in the back of the book, 83 in the appendix. Behold the Lamb. His Hebrew bore my sins upon the tree. I look until His precious love my every thought control, His vast constraining influence prove our body, spirit, souls. He may look while still I run my never failing friend. Finish. He will the work begun, and grace and glory, and 83 in the appendix.
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Great God bless you, God and our loving Father, we thank thee through once again all gathering us here in this manner this afternoon of opening and enjoy Thy word together. We thank Thee and praise Thee that Thou hast set life and good before us and Thou has spoken to us in these last days. My life son, so now we just again when crazy that we can.
Fully relieth on Thy Word for all issues and matters that arise on our pathway here. Let me thank You too, that we are not less comfortless. We have Thy Spirit make this Word real and living to us. And so now we just would give me the honor and glory for this wonderful privilege that is once again ours. And we commend this time into Thy hands for guidance, direction, and keeping in the precious, worthy name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.
Continue in Philippians 3, verse 12, maybe 12.
Libyans, chapter 3, verse 12.
Not as though I had already attained.
They were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do for getting those things which are behind, and reaching forth under those things which are before I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore as many as be perfect. Be thus minded, and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
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Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule.
Let us mind the same thing.
Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as you have us for an example for many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.
Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and who mind, and whose glory is in their shame, and who mind earthly things? For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
We shall change our vile body, that may it may be fashion like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto himself.
Yesterday, yesterday we were talking about the, uh, verse.
11, which says the chain on to the resurrection of the dead. And today we start with verse 12 where Paul takes up the subject about what that means. And uh, the Lord by the Spirit is working in each one of our lives to make us to be conformed to himself, to be like himself. And uh, our whole life while we're here on earth, we're in the school of God all through our life, through experiences, through reading the word of God, through interaction with our brethren, we learn to be more like the Lord Jesus Christ. We learn more of the love of God.
And so here it says, uh, not as though I had already attained either. We're already perfect. So it's not that he is already a fully mature, It's not that he has nothing else to learn. Even the Apostle Paul had more to learn each day in his life walking with the Lord.
He had a goal before him and that was to please his Lord and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what he was trying to apprehend, the Lord Jesus on the road to a mate. Emmaus had then laid hold of Paul's affections and Paul was learning more and more about them every day. And uh, and that was what, uh, Paul was striving after me more and more like the one that he loved.
I really enjoy the rendering that Mister Darby has of verses 1213 and 14. It says uh, not that I have already obtained the prize or already perfected.
But I pursued if also I may get possession of it, seeing that also I have been taking possession of by Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I do not count to have got possession myself at one thing, or getting the things behind and stretching out to the things before I pursued looking towards the goal.
For the pride of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus.
It all seemed to have a good idea of of where he was in this race for the prize, didn't he? And.
It's a good idea if each of us have an idea of where we are in the race, Umm, good for us to be evaluate, umm, time and again, umm, let's say in the last month, where, how has Norm been doing in this race? Has he been making progress or slipping back? Well, uh, it's a good thing to take a look, uh, in the mirror sometimes and.
And I have a good idea of where we are. So for stepping back.
Then we need to be more diligent and be closer to the Lord.
Temperatures and other needs too.
I read as an account one time.
The but it was a failure on the race track.
It would start out from the starting gate with the rest of the horses and it would just pour everything, every bit of energy it had into that race and it would pull ahead of the rest of the horses.
And once it had pulled ahead, then it stopped.
Because in that horse's mind, the race was all about getting ahead of everybody. And once he proved himself, he got ahead of everybody, well, then there's nothing more to prove. And he didn't have the goal in mind. And so the rest of the horses would just rush on by him. And you know, this is a race that isn't a foot race between Christians at all. But this is a race you might say we run alone with a goal before us that we press towards. And that's Christ and glory. That's.
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The man at God's right hand in full perfection. And that's what we're looking to attain to, and that's what perfection here speaks of. You wanna know what the perfection is that we're pressing towards? Look at the man at God's right hand. It's nothing less than that, nothing less. And so in that sense, perfection here will not be fully attained until we're with the Lord.
It's the very reason we've been laid hold of. We've been apprehended. A criminal gets apprehended in a bad way, arrested. We were arrested too, in a downward course, but in a good way, and now we've been taken into possession by Christ.
Were His possession, now we belong to Him and He has a purpose in taking us into possession, that we would be exactly as He is, as He is a man at God's right hand in glory. There's another perfection that's mentioned a little later that Paul says speaks of himself and others as being perfect or full grown. It's a little different thought that I believe than what we have in verse 12.
There it's more having laid hold of the truth that are proper to us where we are in God's purposes as part of the Church of God, having laid hold of those truths of what we are in Christ.
And as sons of God and as members of the body of Christ, part of the Church of God and the truth that flows from that, there he speaks of being perfect or full grown or mature. But in the sense here, it's looking onward and it's not going to take place fully until we're with the Lord and the flesh is gone. And, uh, he'll present us to the Father, bring us out as it like Joseph brought his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh from between his knees and presented them to his father.
Jacob. So he'll present us to God his Father. Will there be any blemish? No, God the Father will look on us in the same perfection that, uh, he placed us in His purposes. We have an Ephesians.
Brother Norm brought out the, you know, having a look backwards on the path, and it's good for each one of us to ponder the feet, the path of our feet before the Lord, and always comparing ourselves to Christ, never to one another.
Then they'll be self judgment in the right way before God. But he says here forgetting those things which are behind, I don't think.
That is exactly what brother Norm was bringing out. That is the healthy looking back on our path and seeing are we getting off the path, you know, and, and, uh, there's something I could have, could have, uh, done better for the Lord, But really this is dwelling on past achievements. Well, I, boy, I did this, I did that. And, you know, kind of stopping in the middle of the race and just dwelling on what's passed. Like that horse, he's remembering the things behind him and all the guys he passed up, all the other horses he passed up.
That's what he started thinking about and the race stopped for him. And so his past achievements, whether it was what he possessed, uh, as a Hebrew of the Hebrews, or whether it was what the Spirit of God may have used him for. And the path of faith is that the apostle one said, the most eminent servant that ever stood in the vineyard of Christ, He says, I'm not going to dwell on past achievements. I've got something before me. I'm not going to let.
Anything like that distract me from what's before my soul.
It's not just the achievement, is it? It's also he wasn't going to let him pass failures, distract him, or turn him aside from following the Lord.
Because it's important for us to remember watching, uh, a biker in the Olympics once shoot Canadian and she, uh, wiped out on a corner. Uh, she didn't have much chance of winning the race at that point, but she got back on her bicycle and she kept going.
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And I think that as Christians, that's kind of the attitude that we need to have, uh, whether we're leading the pack or whether we've, uh, had a wipe out. We need to get back on the bicycle. We need to keep going and pressing towards the mark.
Oh, Paul never forgot. It's failure, though, and it's it's healthy and healthy things that.
Recognize on the sale and remember that.
Uh, guard is not just in itself, but we have to remember Paul remembers why he was and it was humbling to him and it was helpful to him and then.
He didn't leave that behind, so to speak.
My head he just counted in here.
Other times when he recalled his own history, very.
Ty Sweden accurately without calling on it, and he remembered that, and it was a good thing for Paul.
I think that's the point I was trying to make. What he remembered was the grace of God that was extended to him in spite of what he was. He didn't let it stop him from performing in the future, did he?
And because all that was red, uh, Mr. Derby's translation, the I'm thinking of verse 14, I pressed toward the March. He mentioned the goal and, uh.
Another translator is.
Translated that down to the goal I press.
Of course, being Canadian, I think of hockey.
And uh, let's say, uh, forward passes to another forward and the forwards in the clear.
They passed all the defensive players. There's nothing between him and the goaltender and he's racing them at the There's only one thing that hockey player is thinking about and that's to put the puck past the goalie of the net. He's he's not concerned with the fans or maybe one of the defensive players he slipped past.
Said something nasty to me. It doesn't matter at all. Right down the ice and he shoots the puckers as he can.
Well, that's a bit of a picture where I fall short, but I need to, uh, make that admonition.
We can get distracted on our heavenly journey yesterday.
But this is a much worthy prize. This is not a prize for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. There's no greater prize than that, is there?
Hi Colin. Doesn't mean just a lofty calling.
It means called on high. A lofty calling might be something here in this Earth, a lofty calling, but here in this earth. But it's not. It's out of this earth. It's called on high.
Because there's our goal and that's where the end of the race is going to finish.
It's not gonna be finished here in this earth. And so he says, therefore let us therefore, as many be per perfect, be thus minded. Continue in that race. If there's an apprehension of the truth of Christianity that you're dead and risen with Christ, then run the race and keep running. It doesn't end till glory. It doesn't end down here. It's a calling on high.
What is the correct to say that that's the name of the race we're in?
The calling on high of God in Christ Jesus.
15 let us there for as many as.
The full grown be less minded.
For the things that I call is just written.
I'm not sure about the next uh, and if in anything you'd be otherwise minded, then God revealing the it's up to you. And if and anything you'd be otherwise minded, I wonder if what that would mean?
I think it would be those who had not.
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Really seen the full truth of a Christian's place is dead and risen with Christ and now really running that race, pressing towards that goal. They know their sins forgiven, but they don't apprehend much more than that. And uh.
They're otherwise minded and.
There to, uh, there's to be patience and, and labor if the Lord allows, God shall reveal even this unto you. God's bringing them along. He wants them to come into the good of their inheritance and enjoy it. The, the blessing of the place that, uh, his purpose for them. Kind of like that woman we had earlier with just the two sticks. You know, Christ is my savior and beyond that, I don't know much of the blessing and place that he's purpose for me.
And so there's really three classes here. There's those two and then.
The reverse, uh, those in verse 18 who are enemies of the cross of Christ to mind it says earthly things.
Take a picture to us here, perhaps some who weren't even saved, profess Christianity or a state that I think Christians can fall into, worldliness, carnality. And we get in the book of Joshua a picture of these three states of things, and it's instructive. Canaan was the land of promise and a picture to us of our spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ.
The position that God has brought us into in Christ, umm, the proper hope of the Israelite was to enter into that land. And so they went in. They fought those wars of Canaan and by the time Joshua died.
3 tribes had entered into their inheritance and uh, Judah I believe it was and uh, Ephraim, perhaps Benjamin was the third. There were 7 tribes that had not really possessed any uh.
For inheritance in the land, they were in the land, but they had not laid hold of their inheritance yet.
Still had to be possessed. There are 2 1/2 tribes.
Ruben Gad, half tribe of Manasseh that remained outside of that promised land and never, uh, had a possession there. There was one in the purpose of God for them, but they didn't want it. They said, oh, over here on the other side of Jordan, it's a nice place for cattle. Uh, and you know, they were all concerned about their earthly.
Possessions, I believe in type. And they said, we'll build, uh, cattle pens here. This is just just perfect for us. And it's a picture of that state of soul that's just settled down in this world, that's living for this earth that mines earthly things, says, oh, I really have no use for that heavenly inheritance, that God's purpose for me. Everything's fine down here. And God is a God of my circumstances. And I pray that he'll bless me in my business. I pray that he'll bless me.
In my family and I pray that it'll bless me and this or that and it's all earthly mindedness.
No thought of what they really possess in Christ and spiritual blessings. And so we have, I believe, those three states of things here. Those who have really entered into in a mature way, and what's proper to us in Christ. Those who have not yet entered in, and those who are just worldly or perhaps know not Christ at all, only profession, mind, earthly things. Their God is their belly. No different than, uh, the beasts of the earth in that way. They don't look upward, they look downward.
I think it's important to understand in verse UH-15 where it says.
This thus minded.
That it's, uh, I believe it's referring back to what the, what Paul's mind was and how he was connected with trying to know the power and the Excellency of the Lord Jesus and to share in his sufferings and to achieve what the Lord Jesus wants, wanted to achieve on earth. And, uh, it would be in contrast to that, uh, were those who have a different mind that would show up just like he's been saying. And I think, uh.
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That it's important to.
Understand what that what that is and what it means because Paul holds himself up as an example in verse 17. Brethren be followers together of me. Mark them which walked so as you have us for an example and so there's a a principle here that we ought to look for examples of those who are were like Paul and those who have a heart to know Christ and deserve Christ.
In their lives, and that's really what I think.
When I talked about the mind.
The call has that. That's what it's looking for, is to know price and to be able to serve price intelligently.
As soon as there are many believers that are upright that they really haven't.
Missing and understanding or.
Acknowledge that they want to please the Lord and.
All right, well, we can all look back on our own history. When I was first gathered and really realizing how I really didn't know anything.
The Lord kept me in.
Trust, so they need to keep bases in these things with tall earrings. As we mentioned last time, that he wanted to be conformable into the past. He wanted to be like Christ even in the way he died, passed through the resurrection. But then there's the practical application of it in his life.
In his life, he wanted to.
Exhibit that too, and approximately when a moral and spiritual league.
Day by day. And so that's all was running the race. He was conscious of it and.
Suppose that there are many believers, I'm sure there are, that are sort of doing the same thing without having the understanding of it, and the Lord can reveal that to them and make them intelligent about it. No, we only have to look back at our own history, everyone of us, and realize how patient the Lord has been with us and how patient's brother has been with us.
Umm, maybe even have ideas that need to be corrected. But if we're upright, it's like, uh, thinking of a policy. It's not exactly the same thing because.
Different there with a Polish, but he was preaching and he was very zealous with the Lord and the Lord was using them. But he he needed some more planning dungeons, so to speak, and if his heart is upright, it was he received it.
And then he'd be far more intelligent now on how he preached and supposedly more useful to the Lord. It's not that he was useless before the Lord was using it.
But it was more useful when he was in.
Instructed and, uh, he was aware of what he was supposed to be doing and more intelligent about it. So that's, uh, what, how it's thinking about it. I don't know that's the right thought or not about the anything. He'd be otherwise minded. I don't think it's referring to those that would be opposed. Umm.
I think we're all in one way or another wise otherwise minded about.
Exactly the right thing, and Lord can make that known to us if we.
Upright.
There's many ways that we can go on.
Intelligently, uh, communion of things that we do hold together and we.
00:30:16
Two minds put before us here in Philippians, isn't there?
This is a this epistles written by a man in the good of Ephesian truth, I think we can say.
He's enjoying his position in Christ. He's enjoying moving with the Lord. And that's why this epistle is so beautiful. It's the breathing and sentiments of a heart that's enjoying Christ.
And he one thing that a man like that wants to do is he longs to bring others there. He longs to lead others to that join them.
And on the way there, there's the assembly where we where we need to deal with each other.
You know, we all recall in in chapter one where Paul.
I think we can see that chapter two really begins in chapter one in a sense.
Verse 27 of chapter one he says, let your conversation be as becoming the gospel of Christ. Then whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, and so on one mind.
So he's looking for unity among them in the assembly.
And in chapter two, he brings the humbled Christ before them in order to produce this unity.
And there's one thing we all contend with itself, some form of self, the different ways in which we're self seeking could be a I could be seeking a reputation, I could be seeking money. I could be seeking a lot of different things. And it's the different forms of self that often hinder us in our walk with the Lord. So he puts the selfless one before them in chapter 2 and says, let this mind be in you. That was also in Christ Jesus.
For being in the palm of God and so on.
The Lord Jesus, I think we can say that he didn't have a self. His self was the father. And I'm not trying to be dogmatic, I'm just trying to express something about the Lord Jesus. He was not a self seeker, He was a father seeker. We always did those things that that pleased his Father. So in a sense, we could say his self was the Father. He wanted to please the Father every moment of every day. So he was void of self in the way that we have self to contend with.
So the apostle puts puts the selfless one before them and says, let this mind be in you. And that would that would produce unity in the assembly because self would be put out of the picture in any issue that came up, self would be out of the picture.
And now for the, for the personal walk that, that which energized the Christian motivate him to carry on. He puts this mind before us that he has expressed in these verses in that we've had before us the, the counting, all things, but lost that he might gain price. Uh, he had mentioned that in chapter one that for him to live with Christ, to die was gained. Remember, he said that he had a desire to depart and to be with Christ, He'd rather die.
Than to live here. That's that's the kind of faith he had. He had laid hold of his calling. He'd rather die than live here because then he'd be with Christ. He would have gained the prize, the Lord Jesus and he.
He puts his own mind here. He expresses what's in his heart. These verses here, you know, verses 8 through, uh, 14 we could play especially and, and I believe that's what he's talking about. And he says, if in any, if in any of these issues, counting things, but lost pressing toward the mark, if in any of these things you're otherwise minded God, God will straighten you out. You, you, if you're, if you're after the Lord Jesus, then you'll come to see what your mind, what your heart's mind.
Should be so.
There's two really critically important minds in in this epistle, the mind that that he had, which possessed his heart. And it's it's what it's what motivated him daily. Sometimes you talk to a Christian and they cite Paul as the great evangelist and he was.
But the primary focus?
Well, just to put it in a little different way, remember the Lord Jesus in John six, he said.
Oh, I don't want to. I don't want to misconduct.
Something to the effect of as the father.
Rather not Discord misquote that is.
Chapter 6.
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Yeah, you're on 657 as the living father has sent me and I.
Is set up as assemblies gathered to his name. These two minds are, are very important, uh, one for, for unity going on together in the assembly and the other for, for pursuing our, our heavenly goal, uh.
It's, it's a blessed thing. That's epistle because it expresses the heart of a mature thing. If I, if I could just make another point, I'd rather read Darby's, uh, translation.
And there's a, and this is an important point to in his translation, he, he uses this phrase, I have been taken possession of by Christ Jesus. And every one of us, every believer can say I have been taken possession of by Christ Jesus. We didn't even know about it. We were, you know, in Proverbs 8, it could be said of the Lord, the Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way. Well, he possessed us in his own thoughts before the world.
And in his own time in man's history, he took possession of us.
We don't belong to ourselves anymore, but to think that the Lord of glory would want to take possession of, of me or or of of anyone of our system. It's, it's such a wonderful thing. And Paul had laid hold of that truth that that he'd been taking possession of by, by the Lord of glory himself. Just a precious thought from the heart.
Other place the apostle says, Be followers of me, as I also am of Christ, as our brother brought out. The Lord himself is set before us. As an example. Here Paul speaks of himself and says, be followers together of me.
And there's a reason why sometimes the apostle.
Set the Lord, or himself and the Lord He was, to be the representative man. That was one of the things he'd been apprehended, possessed by Christ for in First Timothy 2.
Or chapter one.
That well known verse where he speaks of himself as the.
Chief of centers, of whom I am chief. Verse 15. But he says in 16 Howbeit for this 'cause I obtain mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering for a pattern.
To them which should hereafter believe on Him to everlasting.
Life everlasting. And so in a certain sense, he's a patterner, a sample, an example and purpose to be that way. And not only that, in the same way he was.
Apprehended on the road to Damascus and brought down is the same way. Israel in the coming days is going to be brought back to God too.
But there are things in which we.
Ten I'll be.
Follow the Lord in because there are things that the Lord never had to do.
Paul had to run to attain. Did the Lord have to run to attain? No.
Paul had to strive to keep down and judge his flesh.
Christ never had flesh to judge. So there are things that the apostle passed through in this thought of a race and a goal and perfection that the Lord never had to do. And so the Lord in that certain sense, uh, can't be set before us in that way as an example.
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So the Spirit of God takes this man as a sample man, and he passes them through these things, and he lays hold of him and possesses him, and that's part of his purpose and his apprehension of him, and he makes him a sample man for us.
This reaches right down to our day, doesn't That's in two ways. Number one, we of course have the scriptures here about Paul.
And #2 There are those in our day. I believe that, uh.
Are attempting to walk as Paul walked and uh, so that I can look on them too as an example. Can I in this present day?
Mark sandwich box so.
And we have asked for an example, whereas Mr. Darby says instead of Park picks your eye on those.
Find the right ones to look up and when you're doing, it's not just anybody and it's not running a race and I guess they're.
Any way we can?
Clinical group called by any means necessary, not like that we have to.
One at the rate 12 and the right example and the right pathway is a warrant is the one.
Their enemies of the cross of Christ. Because the cross of Christ has separated us from this world. All that we were by nature before we were Christ was crucified in Calvary's cross, and now we're dead to sin. We're dead to this world. The world is crucified to us and we to this world. And so to be an enemy of the cross of Christ is because we don't want to be separated from this world.
We still want to take up those things that belong to the first man. Well, I say we it's a danger for us to fall in that we can fall into.
This book takes up normal Christianity. What is the normal path for, believe it or not, the average path. An average across a group of people might, uh, Christians might be something far lower in character than what's presented in this book. It's not average Christianity, it's normal Christianity. What Christianity ought to be.
For us, and the opposite of that is to be an enemy of the cross of Christ.
The cross of Christ that separated us from this world, it's really worldliness. And you know, in this day that we live in, I think far more than evil doctrines and some things that afflicted the Saints of God in the past, It's worldliness that really has, uh, just decimated the Saints of God in this world. And, uh, Satan has been so successful with that. It's something we need to be on.
Guard of at all times.
To be transformed, not to be conformed to this world and our thoughts and our ways and our dress and our associations, but to be transformed to have this mind that's presented in this book and us.
00:45:03
Heavenly minded, knowing where we belong to where our citizenship.
It's not an enemy in the sense that they were preaching against Christianity.
That's not the thought, but it's what the real effect of the cross is for the believer.
That they were against.
The men at verse 17 were to be followed because their.
Join heavenly things, not earthly things, you know.
Join.
Union with Christ their their place with him.
Verses 18 and 19 are in Francis's, so the actual plot flows from verse 17 to 20. It would read brethren be followers together of me and mark them which walk so that you have us for an example for a conversation or a Commonwealth is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.
And that really puts our eyes back away from those who are enemies of the cross and back on the man in the glory, doesn't it?
On the Lord Jesus, whom we expect today, they will meet him even today, maybe before supper in the cloud.
Yesterday the example of the brother who wanted to die before the Lord came.
Was mentioned, but, uh, for myself, I'm very interested in that transformation that's going to happen to me. Uh, it'd be a very unique experience. Uh, very, I mean, hopefully all of us in this room will experience it that to, to have these bodies that humiliate us on a daily basis for different reasons through sickness, through just the limitations and effects of sin.
And have that body changed to be like the body of the Lord Jesus has?
That glorious body that we have in verse 21 to be changed in a moment to be like Him.
We wait for.
The end of life.
And everything will cry on my own blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Nsnoise.
Our God, our Father, we thank Thee to be able to close this meeting.
This little him to set the hope that is proper to us in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ before our souls.
We do look forward to that moment when that, uh, shout will be given, when will be changed in a moment twinkling of an eye.
When we'll look into the face of our Savior and that, uh, work of the Spirit of God in each of our souls will be complete and we will be like him in full perfection. All may that moment be before our souls in such a way and.
Be the motive of everything we do in our lives. Maybe these lives us given us in this little time that remains we devoted to the service of our Lord Jesus Christ.
To be, uh, occupied with him.
And so we just pray that we might, uh, be kept with thee in the path of faith. We.
Think of that wondrous power of resurrection when all those who are in the graves that will hear the voice of the Son of God will come forth, that out resurrection from among the dead and all of us to be changed.
Those uh.
Whose bodies are sleeping in the grave?
Uh.
Nadasen, death to be.
Gathered up, who can count the dust of Jacob?
The Dawkins counted Now gather it up. Change those bodies and ours together. Be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. All that wondrous power of resurrection.
That is ours even now. For the path of faith we thank thee for.
And so we do thank these for.
Afternoon that we've had and we look forward to.
00:55:00
Uh, meeting this evening as a special blessing upon it of our brother's strength and, uh, word for thyself, for our souls. Thank you for this happy few days that we've had together. And so we just.
Pray that our conversation, not only the sense of manner of life, but in what we say, might be in heaven, and so we just commit our fellowship one with another to Thee as thy blessing on it.
Giving thanks in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ and.
Buy the Truth and Sell It Not
Open Mtg. 2
Open Mtg. 6
Open—C. Roberts, S. Stewart
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.
Could we sing hymn #166?
Heart, you know, whatever it is.
I felt our home. I saw.
You in time.
200 and 500.
Miles and hours here.
No worries and $1000 and $1000 here.
Alright, can I get anything? But I don't have any training. I don't know why. We're having some parts left around on the other line. 2 numbers here. Uh-huh. I can't breathe.
Oh, my brain. I can't Shame. I understand. I understand. I'll go.
Nsnoise have anything like a Nsnoise?
I don't know.
Pass thy house as we start another hour with uh, my word open and My Spirit free to lead. We trust the devil instruct us and guide us and teach us in the way that we should go and bring glory, Lord Jesus to Thy name. And we ask it, Father, with Thanksgiving in Jesus name, Amen.
I'd like to bring a few scriptures before hearts this afternoon.
Hoping and praying that.
God would touch our hearts and bless us, but before we do, could we just unite our hearts and prayer together?
Our gracious garden and our loving Father, we are so thankful that we have been able to come apart a while to be together over Thy word. And especially we are thankful, Lord, that we can and had the opportunity of remembering our blessed Savior once again and to unite our hearts together in worship and praise and adoration on to that blessed One.
00:05:16
Whoever lives seated at Thy right hand in the glory. So this afternoon, Lord, as we open up thy precious word.
We pray that thy Holy Spirit.
Would take it and open up our hearts, Lord, and that we might find instruction whatever the need might be comfort.
Encouragement. Whatever Lord, thou does, see each one of us have various needs, and so we look to Thee, and we commit ourselves to Thee, and we pray that that would undertake and lead and guide us and speak to our hearts and also our conscience as Lord, and may we profit from Thy precious word.
This afternoon we asked these things, and we give thee our thanks now. And that ever worthy name of our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
I'd like to bring us a few thoughts.
If you turn to Matthew the 6th chapter and we're looking at verse 5.
And I'm gonna read down, I believe, until.
Maybe verse 8. Verse 5.
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as a hypocrite Tsar, for they love to pray.
Standing in the synagogue and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men, verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret.
Shall reward thee openly.
But when ye pray, use not vain repetition, as a heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before you ask him.
The Lord says when you pray and then it tells us in Chapter 9 of this book, we won't look look for it right now, but it says pray ye.
And there's three commands that I'd like to bring our attention to.
And it's one of them is here. Prayer the Lord commands us, pray ye.
Then there's another text in which we had before us this morning. When remembering the Lord, The Lord says in the 11Th chapter of First Corinthians, Do ye?
Then if we turn to the end of Matthew's chapter, which we won't do, and you're very, very familiar with it, the Lord gives the Great Commission. He says all power and heaven and earth is given unto me. And he tells them, go ye. So I want to just focus in this afternoon on those 3 words. Pray ye do ye go ye.
The first one is the Christian at the Lord's throne, pray ye. The second one is the Christian at the Lord's table where he said do ye. And the third one is a Christian at the Lord's service and work. He says, go ye. Now I suppose I've never looked these up, but I suppose they're in the imperative mood.
Which is the, uh, mood of command, even if they're not well.
That to me they are, You know, you've heard of that saying, I suppose, that sometimes men say to their lady folk, uh, your desire is my command.
Well, this is what we can feel here. The Lord says, pray ye, but it warns us here. Now this is a really the words of the Son of God on the face of this earth with his disciples gathered around him. And he says here when you pray, do not pray as a hypocrite. They put on a false front. They pray for the ears of men and may the Lord give us grace never to do that.
00:10:19
You know, a hypocrite basically is a person who plays a part. He's not sincere. I think the the image comes from the Greek place when they used to put on a play. The key actor in that play had a mask on. He was the hypocrite. He was hiding his true identity.
So the Lord warns here that we need not be as as a hypocrite, but also he says that be not as a heathen. Now the heathen thinks they could be pray for their much speaking and you and I are both familiar and I am not going to go over that. But you know there's some people who just pray over and over and over with their beads, the Hindu and so forth. And they think that does the more they speak, the more God will hear.
Well, that's not true. Now on the word, pray you hear the Lord gives us.
So I'm pretty good instruction and I think it would do well if we take it to heart. He says that when you pray, enter until I closet.
Or until your secret compartment, whatever it might be, and that's important for you and I.
To get a loan with God.
The public prayer and the prayer meetings is nice. Your prayer and family motion is nice. But this is what the Lord tells us here. The secret prayer, get along with God.
Talk to him.
You know, a man that I once knew, it was a Pentecostal brother and a lovely brother. And he, I was teaching him a little bit about Greek grammar. And one day he come to me and he said to me, he said, can you get me a book on prayer?
I said, where do you wanna book on prayer for? Oh, I wanna learn how to pray.
But you know what prior is? It's talking to your heavenly Father, to your God in heaven is talking to the Lord. That's what it is. So what he's saying here is shut the world out, get along with God.
Talk to him.
That's the most secret thing. It's not the length of prayer, it's getting alone with the Lord.
I heard of a case where now Chris we don't believe in a one man ministry, but I I heard a preacher one time was saying that when the church.
Was choosing its minister they asked them a lot of questions because they want to get a good godly man there a man that walked with God, a man that knows the word of God and they asked him a lot of questions. He said, but there's one question they don't ask him and they they should ask him. He said you should ask that man how long do you?
Spend a day in prayer.
That's important.
As important, he said that he felt that if a man didn't spend 2 hours in prayer, he wasn't a very good person to have as as in as their pastor or whatever. But that's, that's something we don't believe in a one man ministry.
But anyhow, the Lord here tells us about getting a loan with God.
Get to shut the world out. Shut yourself in with the Lord. That quiet time. How many times that we, we, we don't do that. How many times that we have rushed out in the morning? I have done the same thing, but take time as we, we spoke about establishing priorities. Now you might say, why should we pray?
Why should we pray?
We got asked a few questions. We could say when should we pray, if you want to put it that way. Well, I think the better question is when should we not pray?
A secret prayer with God and what it does, it brings us into a relationship, communion. Now it tells us in other places in Scripture. I think it's in Hebrews. Let us therefore offer the sacrifice to praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name, but to do good and to communicate. Forget not for such sacrifices.
00:15:14
God is well pleased with.
We don't just come to God, I don't believe, to get things.
We come to the Lord first to praise Him. Praise and worship is a vital part of your prayer. I think we should feel bad every time we come to the Lord. We want something. We ought to come to the Lord to give Him something and give him the worship and the praise of our hearts. Uh, I remember, I think that prayer, sometimes it can be looked at.
In, in a way that it, it's mechanical, uh, like a lot of people in a prayer meeting will say, well, how long should I pray? How much scripture should I bring into prayer? And do I have our pray long enough? I don't think that's the point. I think the point is we should be brief in prayer. We should pray often.
But we should be brief in prayer. Charles Haddon Spurgeon said that he only spent one night, all night in prayer.
He said. But uh, I think he said he put it this way, he said. Then when he did pray, he said I never spend more than 10 minutes in praying.
He said but, but on the other hand, he said, I never go without 10 minutes without praying. So pray often, pray brief.
But pray in a secret and I think one of the things that we should pray for.
Well, if you say what should we pray for, well, there's many things, tangible things perhaps the Lord does tell us, and later, later on that we should pray for our daily needs and we should pray for the ministry of the gospel.
Uh, but one of the things that I wanna focus in on today is what we had.
In Philippians, where Paul says, and I think I mentioned this, I might have to repeat it, it's good to think of it, that Paul was a mighty servant of God. Here was a man who was an enemy of God on the road to Damascus with papers in his hand. He had just held the the clothes of somebody that killed one of the greatest servants of God that ever preached.
Steven But here he is on the road to Damascus, and a light above the brightness of the sun strikes him down on that road of Damascus he hears a voice from glory, and that voice is, is Jesus. Who art thou, Lord? I am Jesus whom thou persecuted. And Paul, as I mentioned before, had the greatest revelation that a man could ever have. He heard the voice of the Son of God, the Jesus who was on that cross of Calvary that he tried to wipe his name out.
The Lord of glory from heaven spoke to him and you know he was caught up to the 3rd heaven.
And heard things that no man had ever heard. And Paul was given all kinds of revelations. But why did he say that? I might know him. There was more to knowing Jesus than just accepting him as one Savior. And you know, we read this morning when our brother was reading in that in the Samuel that the Lord revealed himself to Samuel. I'm gonna read that. That's in First Samuel, the third chapter.
And the last verse, I believe in that chapter, it's a precious verse. The Lord appeared again in Shiloh.
For the Lord revealed himself to Samuel.
And Shiloh, by the word of the Lord, you know the Lord can reveal himself to you. The Lord can be more precious to you than anything.
Would you like the Lord to come up to you, throw his arms around you like He did in the little children that we read about? He held him in His arms, and I was noticing that in the original language is that He folded them in His arms. He folded them.
He drew them close and I think we clips translation way back in the 13th century, he said he scissors. Then he brought him in.
The Lord loves you and He loves me.
00:20:02
Equally, eternally, there's no respect to persons with God.
The myriads of the those who've been redeemed with Christ, He loves the mother and eternal love. What would you think if you met the Lord and he put his arms around you and says, I love you?
It's wonderful to think about. But anyhow that I may know him is not knowing about him. And I remember my dear brother, Don Hindley, must have been 50 years ago. I heard him tell the story. You probably heard him tell the story about this young boy who was a baseball fan and he told all of these little companions about Joe DiMaggio.
And he got to the point where they assumed that he knew Joe DiMaggio. So I guess he did not tell him any different. So when they went to the the the big league ball game, all of his little companions, they kept saying, hey, introduce us to your friend Joe DiMaggio. And I remember that Don giving this illustration many times. And the boy said, well, he said, I know all about Joe DiMaggio.
But I really don't know him.
And you know, there's many Christians, I think professed Christians, they know all about the Lord. But did they really know him?
I had an embarrassing situation one time I, I used to have, I used to make Nets for commercial fishermen. I had AI had a net shop before they in impose laws and all when I, I no longer could do it. But I was at a flea market one time I was walking along and just a vendor had some net down there. I, I, I feel net maybe 100 foot long. And I looked down and I had it, you know, and I said, what do you want for your net? And he told me and he said that at, at that I gotta give you a little background.
But the newspaper had run in quite a bit of articles about me having a nut shop, so my name was pretty well spread around that I made fishing Nets and so forth. So I asked this man about this and that and he said, yeah, this is a good net, he said.
Clyde Roberts made it here. I'm standing like this. He's sitting here in the chair. I never will forget it. I said, do you know him? He said, yeah, I know him.
It's an embarrassing situation. I did not have the nerve to tell that man that I was Clyde Roberts. I recognized the net.
I recognize it because I know the other netmaker. I know, I know the what he made, how he made his net. But you know, there's some people be like that they're gonna say, you know, uh, I know I know Jesus, but you know something and you've heard the text. It's been many times before you when the Lord Jesus and the glory he says, not everyone that says unto me, Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom, but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven.
Then it goes on to say, many shall say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? Have we not cast out devils in your name? Have we not done money, good wonderful works in your name? Get the picture? Here's a judgment seen in in the glory. These people are before the Lord and they're saying, Lord, we, we taught the Bible in your name.
And Lord, we cast out devils. We did everything we could, the betterment of of the society, whatever they had, whatever they meant by casting out devils. And we did many wonderful works. They may have given money, they may have done a lot of good things with their money.
That's the sad thing the Lord said, depart from me. I never knew you. That's a solemn text in Scripture. I know of no other scripture. So Solomon, so sad.
To see the Lord say to these people. So I just want to take the occasion. I don't know everyone in this room. I hope that everyone here has been born again. I hope that you'll put your faith and trust in the precious blood of Christ that was shed, which can cleanse from everything. But I don't know. None of us know. I don't know your heart, but God knows your heart. Have you ever come to that place?
That you have asked the Lord Jesus Christ to be your Savior.
00:25:01
And asked him to save your soul from a lost eternity. Well.
I, I, I wanted to go a little bit further on that, but I, I just wanted to touch on another subject too.
I said that one of the things that we should pray for and that that's what we had in Philippians that I may know him, we might know him better as we go along here in in this journey here below. Introducing to Jesus the Savior is one thing, but to knowing him and realizing and then he also says in that text and the power of his resurrection, the power there is 2 words in scripture used for power. One of them is more of authority.
The other is an energizing force. So I think that's the one right here. The energizing force, the power. Other words, the power of the resurrection may grip your heart, as we mentioned in the Reading movie. It might not just be a head knowledge, a doctrine. It might get down into the heart. And you know, someone has all said that the longest journey ever mapped out was from the head to the heart. People know many things in their head.
But they haven't made them a vital part of themselves. And you know, I would say the second longest journey is from the heart to the feet. The only truth that you and I know is the truth that we walk in we walk in the truth. Now that's something we can pray for. And another thing I just wanna mention briefly. It tells us the Scripture that we we might know the the breadth, the length of depth and the height and the know the love of Christ, which path us knowledge.
Oh, have you ever prayed that? Lord, help me to know the love of Christ? That path is knowledge. Have you ever prayed, Lord, help me to know Thee better?
To know the Lord.
Is to love the Lord the more you know the Lord, the more you love the Lord. The more we realize of the love of Christ to us, the greater will be the capacity of our love to to to Christ from our hearts. May God and give us increase the capacity that we might loving more deeply more sincerely more in reality. I mentioned a few other scripture here. I just wanna know. I don't wanna take too much time, but I wanna just wanna just touch on the other the the subject that I mentioned in first Corinthians 11/25.
I mean, I'm sorry, umm, First Corinthians 11 OK, verse 24 I'm sorry. And when he had given thanks, he break it and said, take it. This is my body which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. How wonderful it is the Lord's Supper the first day of the week.
The churches, the denominations do not have the Lord's Supper the way it should be. They remember the Lord's Supper. Maybe they'll have it every two weeks, maybe they'll have it every month, maybe they'll have it every three months. And they tell me, well, the Lord hasn't said exactly how often you should have it. Well, history tells us that the Lord's Supper, even though it was in corruption.
Was from the 1St century all the way up until the Reformation period. Now in the Reformation period, the reformers were so liberated by the gospel of the grace of God that a man is justified by faith alone, without the the law, that they set aside the Lord's Supper as a central worship service and they brought in the preaching. Now preaching is wonderful.
Instruction is wonderful.
But it's not worship. Worship goes from the heart up to God.
Ministry comes from heaven down to the man. So there's a distinction there. Now it's wonderful to be able when we come together the Lord's Day. It's not primarily I mean sometimes you have a word spoken, but are the the Christian should come together.
A script it's it's the first day of the week to do what obey what the Lord has said this do Remember Me. I cannot think of any reason other than a greater reason for Christians to come together on the Lord's day than to remember the Lord where worship may go up to him and praise go up to him and you know we had this morning when you think of the Lord at at when you look at the ambulance on the table.
00:30:14
You think of his body and his body was shed. There's other things that we can think of. We can think really of the wonderful salvation that the sins that that would have condemned us and placed us in an, uh, lost eternity have been forgiven, have been cleansed. That's wonderful. You can think of that. But you know what the Lord said, Remember Me? So what we remember not only the price he paid.
Not only the great salvation he has accomplished.
But we remember Him in his suffering and our brother read that chapter this morning, precious chapter about the Lord Jesus Christ going on the cross and went to Psalm 22. And let me tell you, that will draw our hearts out to worship and praise Him. When you by the eye of faith can look back to Calvary's Hill and you can see those 3 crosses there.
And you can see the blessed Son of God hanging in that middle cross with those nails in his hands and in his feet. And you can see all of the physical sufferings that we want one of you over them this morning in Psalm 22.
There was something deeper than that. You and I both know what it is. It's the Lord Jesus Christ when he was made sin. The word of God tells us that he hath made him sin. Who knew no sin.
That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He knew no sin. Only one person in this world knew no sin. And I sometimes I tell people that when I'm talking to them, witnessing to them.
I tell them the only man that ever walked a perfect life in this in this world, the only man that ever did it could say, I do always those things that please the Father.
He died for me and he died for you.
He lives the day and the Lord's Supper.
This do ye?
And then I wanted to just touch upon briefly up on the last chapter that I mentioned to you, not only pray ye, not only do ye, but in Chapter 28 it tells us here.
Go ye therefore. Well, let's read that whole verse.
Chapter 18 Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Now this word power here basically could be translated all authority. There's two words for power. And this word here means all authority is given unto me in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you alway.
Even until the end of the world. You know, I've been re recently exposed to some of the, uh, the, uh, bookmarkers and the calendars that the, some of the sisters in the meetings are making and I've learned to appreciate what they have done. They're carrying out something of this Great Commission. Go ye. How many people have we ever spoken to about the Lord and his salvation?
That's what we're to do.
Now, everyone can't go out and be a missionary. Everyone can't, uh, preach perhaps, but everyone can have a part in the Great Commission. I think of those, uh, bookmarkers that go out with our personal scripture on them. And we have a brother in our meeting. Dear brother Ruben, you Fast forward his day. He went out with 400 of the little pamphlets that said this was your life.
Put them on the windshield of those cars. That's a service that can be done. There's many ways that we can fulfill what the Lord says here. Go ye therefore, and preach, and we shall preach the gospel. Spread the news that others might come into the reality. That's the wonderful thing about our salvation. We'd love to share it with other people. We see other people who are perishing. We see people in this as a sad thing when you think.
00:35:06
Of an eternal hell and there is there is an eternity for every soul our brother was bringing before us here. Everyone passed into eternity. You'll either meet the Lord Jesus as your savior and Lord, or you'll meet him as your judge to be cast into hell and and one of the saddest things with me is I know people who are what much, much better than I am have lived a more a a better life than I have perhaps.
And I hate to see these people it it breaks my heart to see the no that when they die.
They're not going to be go to heaven and you know where they belong. They belong in hell. Anybody, anybody who hears the wonderful message of the love of God.
And looks at the cross of Calvary and rejects it.
That's the only place God can put him, and that's the place where he belongs.
I'll close with just a little story I was witnessing one time in a nursing home, and usually people in nursing home are very incompetent and sometimes very senile. I might be moving on to that direction myself pretty soon.
There was a man in a wheelchair and he looked pretty spry, so I went over to him. I began to talk to him.
And he, he wasn't senile. He had a very active mind. He was incapacitated physically. And when I began to talk to this man.
And that's the love of God.
And he looked at me in very, very bitter, bitter.
He said where's the love of God? You're telling me about the love of God? He said, look around you, look at these people in a wheelchair, some of them can't even lift their head up and you're telling me worth of the love of God. Where's the love of God? Well, the love of God is on Calvary's cross. You look at that crucified man that hung on that cross. There's the love of God. He did that in order to bring you and to bring me into a relationship with himself.
That's what He did it for. And so when we think of the Great Commission, let's get active. Go ye, let's spread the word. I'm not telling you how to spread it, what to do between you and the Lord. You might want to give out tracks. You might have a different motor doing it. But I'm saying one thing. Let us try and listen what the Lord says. Go ye. So these 3 words I think that we might just take to heart this afternoon, pray ye.
Do you and go ye. May God bless his words for horse.
I'd like to read a couple of verses, one in Hebrews.
Hebrews chapter 12, verse 14 Follow peace with all men.
And holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.
Looking diligently lest any man fail.
Of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. And then first Corinthians chapter 6 verse 19. What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you would you have of God, and you're not your own, for ye are bought with a price.
Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
I'd like to turn over to first Second Samuel for a little account there Second Samuel and Chapter 11 verse one. And it came to pass after the year was expired at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him in all Israel.
And they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David tarried still at Jerusalem.
And it came to pass and an evening tide, that David rose from off his bed and he walked upon the roof of the King's house, and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself, and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. You know the rest of the story.
David fell into fornication.
00:40:02
And.
We might look at this account in David's life.
And say, well, it was the time that kings ought to go forth to battle, and.
And David ought to have gone out and to have fought the Lord's battles, and he tarried it home, and.
And you know, that's how we got into this trouble.
We might say you went out and you know you allowed his eyes to wander where they shouldn't.
And, uh, instead of judging those thoughts, he he allowed them to, uh, bring them into sin.
But when God is going to deal with David, he sends a prophet called Nathan named Nathan.
And Nathan?
Brings before David.
Something different.
Then those two things turn over to Chapter 12.
Verse seven. And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel. I anointed the king over Israel. I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul, and I gave thee thy master's house, and my master's wives, and to thy bosom, and gave thee the House of Israel and of Judah. And if it had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee.
Such and such things. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and has taken his wife to be thy wife, and has slain him.
With a sword of the children of Ammon.
Just.
In the ways of God, he does not take up the outward things. There's not a rebuke from Nathan by the Spirit of God that oh, you didn't go out to battle when you should have. Oh, you shouldn't have been out walking on the rooftop looking around in that way. Oh, you shouldn't have sent someone to fetch Bathsheba. No, he said. You forgot.
Something so important, David.
And it's at the root.
Of the sin you fell into, David, you failed. You fell from grace.
You forgot that you're not your own, that everything you are and everything you have.
Everything you owe to God.
And when he forgot that.
Then he began to live for himself.
And then he fell into sin.
It's been a burden on one's heart that.
Much of what we see in our lives when we look.
And amongst us, I believe collectively is gathered to the Lord's name.
Has that.
A falling from grace. A falling from the sense that everything we have.
And everything we are.
Is from the grace of God alone. We bring nothing to the table. We add nothing to the transaction.
It's all of themselves. We're not our own. Why does the apostle says, say to the Corinthians, know ye not because they were living as if they didn't know. They knew they were bought with a price, but they were living as if they didn't know.
But they owed everything to the one who bought them.
I just want to bring those thoughts out as a little background to another scripture.
In the book of Titus.
And another Old Testament account.
There are in chapter 2.
Exhortations to Christians and all different areas of our life, Stations of life that God has put us in, and in the end he says in verse 10 that we may adorn.
The doctrine of God our Savior in all things, for the grace of God that bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men.
Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous.
00:45:24
Of good works these things speak and exhort, and rebuke with all authority, that no man despise thee.
Just would mention this briefly.
Two men I know that I'm recalling scripture that were sent to straighten things out.
And a local assembly, Timothy and Titus, and I don't think any of us could ever claim that. And so as I read these, that verse at the end, rebuke with all authority that was for Titus. We can seek to encourage one another, but Titus and Timothy were sent to straighten things out. None of us were ever sent to straighten anything out in any assembly.
And if we thought so, then we'd be as much as saying we were sent by one one of the apostles themselves, or the Lord himself commissioned in that way. But nonetheless, we can take these exhortations to our heart and profit.
Buy them now. I'd like to turn to an account in the Old Testament in the life of Elijah.
And seek to apply.
The verses in Titus.
To that account.
First Kings.
Chapter 17.
Verse 8.
And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to which belong to Zaiden, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee. So he rose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks. And he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.
Now she was going to fetch it. He called to her and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruise.
Behold, I am gathering 2 sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it and die. So the prophet of God, he sent to this place Zarephath. It means the place of the smelting furnace. It was in this terrible drought that God had brought upon his people the land of Israel, and it even spread to the land of Zidane.
Where Zarephath was.
God was judging his people because they had taken up the worship of Baal and those 10 tribes in the northern part of Israel, and the worship of Baal came from this very land of Zaiden came through Jezebel Mary. They have that wicked king, and God sends the prophet to the very place, the source of where that wickedness came from. All everything is contrary to nature here. And a widow woman would sustain and reason would say it's impossible.
But he obeys and he goes.
And he comes to that place, the last place one would expect the Prophet to go.
But God had, as he had earlier commanded the Ravens to feed him at the brook chair, so he had commanded this water woman to sustain him. What her intelligence was in that command we don't know.
But God had put it in her that when this man of God appeared, she would receive him. And Elijah appears in this time of drought, and what kind of a condition does he find her in? She's outside the city and she's gathering up some sticks. She's gonna make a little fire in her oven, and she's gonna take that handful of meal and that little bit of oil that's left and make a cake and bake it, divide it between her and her son. And that was the end.
She's going to die. She's facing death.
Going to get 2 sticks.
Two sticks. You know what I put before you? That this is a picture.
Of a believer.
00:50:04
In a certain sense now, the grace of God has appeared to all men. We read in Titus, not just the Jew, but to all men.
And so the grace of God was going to go out beyond the bounds of Israel.
And it reached this poor woman. But I'd like to present it in a picture.
Of a believer. The grace of God has reached you and I where we were unasked for. We didn't ask for it. You didn't ask to be born in the family you were born in, to bring you out to meeting to hear the gospel, to have parents to give you the gospel. You didn't ask to be brought to a gospel meeting. You didn't ask for the grace of God. You didn't look for it if you didn't want it.
But it appeared to you.
Like the Prophet just sort of appeared out of the blue.
But now what have you done with that?
Oh, you know, she was going to get 2 sticks. You know, if you were down in a hole you wanted to get out, you could put a ladder up the side and that reminds me of those two sticks, like those two rails on a ladder. You know, sometimes Christianity, salvation is nothing more.
To our souls, then, a fire escaped from the pit of hell.
Just enough to die on.
Just enough so if I die I'll go to be in heaven. I won't go to hell just to get 2 sticks. Make that cake and we'll die.
That's it.
Is that all it is for my soul? For you, the grace of God? Just two sticks.
How much more?
He has for us.
Then two sticks.
And so the prophet says to this woman.
Fake me thereof.
A little cake first.
And bring it in to me.
When we're first saved, I suppose we really have ourselves in in view and it's the way of the Spirit of God. He presses the need of the sin of our souls on our hearts brings before us God's answer.
Atonement, Rod on Calvary's cross by the Lord Jesus Christ.
But you know, there's an aspect of the cross of Christ in which God was satisfied, and it comes first.
Because unless the throne of God was satisfied, could you and I ever rest with any security on the work of Calvary? No God was satisfied 1St. And therein we truly find our rest Gods.
Demands of His Holiness and His glory, of His nature, come before the need of the creature, no matter how great that need.
And so on the work of the cross, there was, as it were, that little cake for God first, but now for you and I as believers, there is really no blessing.
For our soul to continue to grow in the path of faith unless it is a little cake first for the Lord, unless he has the 1St place.
And so it might be looked on as a selfish thing that Elijah sang, but the lesson here is so important. There is no real blessing for us except the Lord has his rightful place first.
But when he presents that request to her, he also says something else.
For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meals shall not waste, neither shall the crews of oil fail till the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. She was the first one.
Not even of Israel, outside of Israel to hear that rain was going to come that that awful.
Famine would be brought to an end by blessing from heaven. She heard the secret.
Ahead of time that relief was coming and you know, the grace of God has appeared to all men.
And connected with that and Titus, we have looking for the blessed hope, glorious appearing of our great God and our Savior Jesus Christ that reign that is yet to come on this earth. A blessed hope to be caught up to be with the Lord, but the glorious appearing that time when blessing will come on this earth.
00:55:12
Like that him we sometimes sing.
About that day of glory appearing dawning upon the scene where darkness had been deepening still.
To bring relief.
She heard that before the day that it happened. But in between that we get this, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, godly. All that barrel of meal and that cruise of oil were not going to waste. Until that day a blessing came.
And day by day, she would go to that barrel of meal and reach in, and there would be enough for that day, and she'd pour out of that cruise of oil and there would be enough for that day. And that's how she was going to live.
And she and her household.
Verse 15 did eat many days.
In the company of Elijah.
You know, if Elijah would have asked her first, what would you like? I suppose she would have said, well, if you could just fill my back room there with barrels full of meal and, and vessels full of oil and pack it right to the top because I don't know how long this famine is going to last. And she did that and he did that for, you know, she would still be trusting. And what was going to fail eventually it would run out just like the first that she had ran out.
But what he gave her was something that would never run out. But she had to go by faith. She couldn't say. Open the door and say, look at the backroom. It's packed full. I'm set for a long time. Like that rich man that we had the other day whose barn was full. I have goods to last for many days. No, she'd have to reach in by faith. Oh, it's there every day. Pour out of that cruise. It's there every day.
That's how we have to live as Christians.
Is coming to the precious word of God and prayerful dependence upon him and find there every day that handful of meal. Christ, the Spirit of God indwelling us is the power of that new life that we have to live for him and live on that until that day of the blessed hope comes for you and I.
But I want to make one more.
Point here before we close.
She has a son.
And in the end of the chapter, her son dies.
Verse 18 She said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee? Thou man of God, art thou come?
Unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son.
Oh, she had a son, and that a son was the hope of every.
Godly Israelites She was not an Israelite, but a son would have nonetheless been her hope as a widow woman, one who would sustain her in her old age.
One who could care for her, and she had no husband. But when she comes to the man of God, she says, Art thou come unto me to call my sin, to remember my sin? Oh, the Scripture silent as to what that sin was but one.
Would take from these scriptures. It was connected with this son.
How did that son come into this world? Under what circumstances? What sin was connected with it? We don't know. But you know, there was something on her conscience.
Undealt with unjudged.
And she couldn't possess the blessing.
With a bad conscience.
She couldn't really enjoy what God had for her in the flesh.
In a carnal pathway. And so there's something there in her life that has to be brought out and judged, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, oh, we cannot possess the blessings that have been brought before us in these meetings.
And go on in a worldly pathway at the same time. We just cannot have both together.
01:00:00
And so this boy dies.
And.
The man of God.
Prays he stretches himself on this boy, and the child's soul came into him again.
He takes this child down to his mother.
Verse 23 At the end, See thy son liveth. And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth. Oh, something had hindered her soul.
From a full embracing of the truth that Elijah had to present to her here and type, and it was that sin.
Now she has this son in possession again.
But if somebody said to her, where did you get that boy? Oh God gave him to me.
I have a possession now of the inheritance in a clean conscience.
In a clean path.
Sin is judged and behind. I'm living day by day on Christ and in the power of the Spirit of God.
Separate, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, and she can possess.
That blessing?
That God had for her.
In a real way.
Way that she could not before.
#5 in the appendix.
Greensboro.
City.
I'd like to see anything.
Like the sun because of dragon.
Hey, Cortana.
Nsnoise.
01:05:23
All their paintings are great supreme questions about.
Sufficient and every trial and fibrillation of life. It's above our circles and thank you for our time together.
Over the words, our holy words.
Fellowship together.
So they continued keeping over us as the day progresses.
The name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and our freedom.