Walla Walla Conference: 2008
Table of Contents
Ephesians 2:1-22
Reading
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Oftentimes we've taken up the 1St chapter and the 4th, sometimes the 5th.
I'd like to suggest the 2nd chapter.
Thought that is very seldom what I heard. Conference seems to be very nice.
Ephesians chapter 2.
And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time passed. Ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace you are saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace ye are saved through faith.
And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them.
Wherefore remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh.
Who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hand.
That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.
But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
For He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain. 1 Newman, so making peace.
And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body, by the cross having slain the enmity thereby.
And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
For through Him we both have access by 1 Spirit unto the Father.
Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the Saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are builded together for inhabitation of God through the Spirit.
The setting of this chapter. We need to see it in connection with the 1St chapter.
And the first chapter really brings before us the councils of God with regard to Christ. And the church in the first chapter is divided in two parts. The first part we see the apostle blessing God for his incredibly wise plan to bless it, to glorify rather his Son in two spheres in heaven and an earth in the world to come through a specially formed vessel for that purpose, the church.
And then the latter half of the first chapter we have the apostle praying to God that the Saints would be found in a spiritual state of soul to enter into and to apprehend, shall we say, their part in this, and then accord their lives in relation to it. And so the first chapters I say it's got two parts to it. We find the apostle blessing God in the first half.
00:05:16
Of the chapter of down to about verse 14 and then from verse 15 on we have the apostle praying to God.
About these councils that they would be made good in the hearts of God's people but in the second chapter we see God's work in time. If the 1St chapter we see the counsels of God in eternity. In the second chapter we see God's work in time to form this vessel of testimony. And it's very interesting to me and I like to see some exposition on this particularly in this chapter because.
We see here in this chapter 3 great obstacles that stand in the way to God fulfilling His purpose.
Three, shall we say insurmountable barriers, things that are humanly impossible to overcome. God has purposed that there would be Jews and Gentiles that would be believers, that would compose this, this vessel of testimony to the Church.
And yet we find in this second chapter first of all a condition of death, and God rises above that and imparts life to those subjects of His purpose, that they may be fashioned into and brought into the church. And then we find also in the middle of the chapter, another insurmountable.
Barrier or obstacle, and that is the fact that.
These ones are found at a moral and spiritual distance from God, but they're overcome too.
Not to overcome as well by being brought nigh by the blood of Christ.
And then a third difficulty we meet with in the latter part of the chapter, and that is?
That that which God has purposed, that is, those believers from among the Jews and the Gentiles to be formed together in one body, naturally have a dislike from one another. There's been a history of of prejudice and ill feeling among the Jews towards the Gentiles and vice versa. And this is a seemingly impossible thing that stands in the way to God fulfilling his purpose and bringing them together. But we find he overcomes that too by.
Breaking down the middle wall of partition and forming of the twain, 1 Newman, making peace. And so we find here in this chapter God carrying out his his and in his ways.
To fashion that vessel the church, and by the end of the chapter we find the completed thing, a holy temple in the Lord.
I think that's a little bit of an outline just to give us a little direction as to where we're going.
What we have in the chapter, if I could just summarize now, that is the formation of that new and heavenly vessel of testimony, the Church, which is His body.
There is so much in these first two chapters of Ephesians, and I appreciate very much what our brother Bruce has said. That's excellent. I have enjoyed another dimension on it too, that in bringing out the blessings in the first chapter, it's perhaps more individual in emphasis and.
Perhaps more individual privilege. But then as he comes to the end of the first chapter, it brings out the church. And in the second chapter, as our brother has mentioned, it's God working in time to bring believers into collective privilege as well as individual privilege. And that's a wonderful thing. And as we've already heard, not only does he bring individuals into collective privilege.
But he brings together those that naturally couldn't get along with one another, and we well know that that not being able to get along with one another isn't limited just to Jews against Gentiles.
God puts individuals from every nation, every tongue, every part of the world into the church and brings them into that marvelous blessing in Christ and brings them out of the most utter ruin where there's nothing but death. So it's, it's a wonderful work of God and it's beautiful to see how the Lord through these scriptures and by the pen of the Apostle Paul, brings you and me into the full realization of all that blessing that he has for us in Christ.
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It summarized these three conditions that we've pointed out in the chapter as being death, distance, and dissension, all beginning with the letter D. And as they say, humanly speaking, they're impossible. But yet we find the power of God and the wisdom of God and the grace of God working to overcome each of these obstacles that there might be that which God has purposed, brought into.
Reality.
In the formation of this new vessel. And so the chapter divides in three parts. The 1St 10 verses really bring before us the work of God. The emphasis is God's work. In the 1St 10 verses we see Him quickening and creating us in Christ Jesus.
And then in verses 11 Through, well perhaps 17 or so, we have the work of Christ redeeming and reconciling us.
And then in the latter part of the chapter, perhaps from verse 18 to 22, we have the work of the Spirit giving us access and building us together for habitation. So we see all three persons of the Godhead here at work in the fashioning and the forming of this vessel of testimony of which we have been privileged to be part of.
And so at the beginning of this chapter he takes us back to, what shall I say, the raw material, what He had to begin with in the chapter before has been mentioned. We have what we are in Christ, and positionally where we are as seated in heavenly places in Christ.
And we read this and when we it ends with the fact that the church is the fullness of him that filleth All in all tremendous truth to get ahold of in our souls as to, as I say, what we've been brought into the vast panorama blessings and what we are and where we are positionally and so on. And then it's almost as if there's a jar to it you almost like he brings you back to reality, if I can put it that way. And he says.
Having said all that, this is what I had to start with, you who were dead in trespasses and sins. And brethren, if that doesn't touch our hearts at the beginning of meetings like this, I don't know what goes on within our hearts. To realize what we are is tremendous, but we never want to forget, as it says in the Old Testament, the pit from whence we were digged. And so the psalmist in the 40th Psalm, he said, he brought me up also out of an horrible pit, set my feet upon a rock and established my going.
He's brought us as beggars from the dunghill, we who were lifeless, dead in offenses and sins, not one step toward God, not one breath or thought toward God. And now He's going to show that it's all the work of His grace that has imparted divine life to us and brought us into this tremendous position. If I can just illustrate it this way, not long ago my wife and youngest daughter and I were invited by.
A artist, a young sister who's an artist in a pottery shop, they manufacture and sell pottery. We were invited to tour that facility and when you go through the door, you're first taken into the showroom and there you have all that beautiful pottery painted and fired and on display there it was a beautiful array of pottery and some of it was for sale at great cost. We simply looked and admired and and passed on. That's Ephesians one. We're given that display first of all.
But then we were taken behind the scenes and there were some pretty ugly looking lumps of clay lying on some benches and some Potters wheels. And you say, can this actually be what became some of that beautiful pottery that we first saw in the showroom? Well, you stand there a while and you watch the experts, the artists, the Potters. They take that clay and they begin to form it. And as the wheel spins, their hands move just right. They have little.
Tools that they use to make different designs and so on. I was absolutely fascinated by the Craftsman ship they took this ugly Gray lump of clay.
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They formed it into a vessel. Then the artists took up their brushes and they painted, and still it didn't look very beautiful because paint on clay doesn't really show color or anything like that, any beauty. Then it was taken and fired, and when it came out, there was that beautiful vessel all in its completion, ready to be displayed for the for the enjoyment of others.
And really, as a tribute to the Craftsman and the artist that had formed it, well, that's really what Ephesians 2 take. Ephesians 2, if I can put it this way, it takes us back into the Potter's shop. This is what I have to begin with, and this is what I'm going to do with it. And you've read in the first chapter what the end result is. But God always gives us the end of the thing first, doesn't He?
For you, do you fit into these first three verses? Oh, absolutely.
I was dead. I was dead in trespasses and sins. Were you?
Certainly was, and I think that's important for us to understand because we tend to look at those verses and say, well, I don't really fit there. I was brought up in a Christian home. I was brought up in the meeting. I don't really know that I relate to that. But I think in time rather than if we're going to appreciate God's purposes of blessing, we have to come to that in our souls. That's a picture.
Painted about.
Us. Yes, we do. Naturally speaking, we can thank God for Christian homes.
Thank God for an upbringing where we are taught the word of God. But naturally speaking, this is talking about the raw material. Like you said, that is us.
Dead in trespasses and sins, walking according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. We need to understand that. Then we will appreciate.
What God has brought us into, and thankfully many of us have been spared getting into the awful consequences of what these first three verses speak about. But naturally speaking, this is a picture of us.
Apostle Paul verse three also, I believe he says we among whom also we all have a conversation. So you really.
And singling the Ephesians as being those. But the Ephesians, the pagans, the Jews, all were dead in trespasses and sins. Some had the privilege of being part of the Jewish nation, but that didn't avail anything good for them because they couldn't deserve the blessings of God. But in Christ they're all going to be made good. I was thinking of the first chapter and the ninth verse.
What has already been said?
Seasons one and nine, having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in himself, that.
In the dispensation of the fullness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth even in him. So here's God's counsel and purposes that He hasn't himself to gather all things together in one in Christ. And it's going to be unfolded to us as we have in the second chapter here, those that were dead and trespassed in sin, associated individually with the Lord Jesus.
And then associated collectively with the Lord Jesus and with one another and associated with the Lord Jesus individually, collectively with Jew and Gentile in the Lord Jesus. When the Lord Jesus reigns on the earth, when he establishes and king his Kingdom, he's going to be head over all things to the whole world.
And it's going to be that unity that we read of Indiana Ephesians chapter one.
I think it's important to distinguish those pronouns that you brought out brother. In the in the chapter you notice it uses the expression you and ye when it's speaking oftentimes to the Gentiles, to the appeals you Athenians. So in the 1St 2 verses, you who were dead in trespasses and sins were in time past ye. You Gentiles walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air.
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The spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, but now he switches and he says among whom also we we Jews all had our conversation in time past into the lust of the flesh. And as you go through the chapter, you can see him using the apostle, using the second person pronoun to speak to the Gentiles, but then bring in the weed being Jews. So I think that's helpful what you pointed out for other Fayette to see that distinction.
When he says you or ye is often speaking to the Gentiles and when he says we speaking to the Jew, Is that right those Bruce?
Scene of death.
Before us in this chapter, and we find that there are these 3 Shelby State controlling or opposing forces that lay on the scene of the material on which God is going to use to compose the church. And these three opposing forces are the world, the flesh, and the devil. It's all brought together in two verses there versus two and three. We have the course of this world, the Prince of the power of the air, that's the devil.
And then it says in verse 3, the lust of our flesh. So you have the world, the flesh and the devil. 3 opposing forces dominating and controlling the scene of death. You say it's impossible that God could bring something out of that, that anybody could bring something out of that. But all things are possible with God. And so we find in the.
4th and 5th verse that we have three divine motives.
Of mercy, love and grace acting to bring something out of this scene of death. It says in verse four the rich in mercy and great in love, and then in verse five His grace. And so God works on this scene and we find that out of it He brings 3 tremendous results. That's brought down in verse, brought out in verses 6 and seven. And there you have been quickened together with Christ.
Being raised up together with Christ and being made to sit together with Christ.
And so God overcomes this incredible obstacle that stands in the way of him fulfilling his purposes by his power and by his grace. And there is a people that are for himself seated with Christ in that very place where Christ is now and high on high in the glory.
Before you get away from the 1St 3 verses, Bruce, I'd like to ask a question. I noticed in Christian circles quite often the matter of free will is addressed and how does that matter fit in these first three verses.
Jew.
Well, most Christian.
Teaching will tell us that man has a free will.
And.
I would say that before the fall, man had a free will and he exercised that free will and became a Sinner. And since then he is no longer a free moral agent. He is captive to his sins and under the domination of the devil in the course of the world. And that we're Speaking of in relation to spiritual things. We're not saying that a man cannot choose to sit on this chair or that chair or to go to the store today or to go to the store tomorrow.
But in relation to things toward God, he is captive to his sins, and he will never.
Choose the things of God He is. He does not have a free will in relation to divine things.
And so he is completely shut up to the grace of God and the mercy of God and the quickening power of God to give him the capacity to hear the voice of the Son of God and to respond and to believe and to be saved.
Would you add something to that bill?
Really, I think that's a very good and I think we need to be on guard because there are books being written and individuals who we won't name them, but who you and I perhaps would recognize as being fairly sound people in the Christian world who in seeking to combat, for example, the error of Calvinism, which takes God's sovereignty to an extreme, they have practically.
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Denied the sovereignty of God and emphasized man, as you say, as a free agent.
And I have seen the very verses in this chapter twisted and distorted to try and support that point of view. But the fact remains, as you say, that man is not a free agent. Man is either a victim of the devil and his lusts, or he has been brought into freedom and liberty under the name of Christ. And there cannot be any middle ground, can there? It's either the one or the other. Pretty well really. Means that a person is free from outside influence to make the right choice. Doesn't.
And it's not that way. It is not that way. There are things that it speaks of here in these first two, first three verses, the Prince of the power of the air, the course of the world and the lusts of our flesh and of our mind. These are very real things. There is a course that this world is taking, and there is one who is working in the course of this world to bring souls into destruction.
And they think they're free. They think they can dictate which way they want to go.
But they can't, because they're under the slavery of sin and of Satan.
Sin enslaves and I often give the illustration and especially in verse three when it speaks of the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. So often souls have a little packed sin.
That they like to just protect and practice. And Satan knows how to get ahold of that in the human breast and guide the person to destruction, even those who take the place of believers. And we have a vivid illustration of it in the Scriptures in Judas Iscariot. What was it that he nurtured in his heart?
It was the love of money, and the time came when he had an opportunity to sell the Lord, and perhaps he thought that the Lord would walk out of that trap just like he had walked out of so many other times they had come to take him.
And it didn't happen. And the devil took that man.
To a lost eternity, even though he was a disciple of the Lord Jesus, perhaps had preached the word, done miracles.
Solemn thing to think about. Oh how important it is to realize that that's what Satan uses in the soul.
And brethren, we need to judge ourselves constantly. Do I have those lest of the flesh in me? Yes, I do. But I need to be constantly willing to judge those tendencies in myself because that's what Satan uses. And I say the illustration I sometimes use is a horse and a rider that gets on the horse. Before the rider gets on the horse, he puts.
A bit in the mouth of that horse and that horse is looking forward. He's not looking at the rider.
And that horse thinks he's going where he wants to go, but the rider has something in his mouth.
And he pulls on the reins and he guides that horse where he wants it to go.
Not where the horse wants it wants to go. And that's the way Satan works in this world. It's an awful picture that we have in these first three verses. Satan, the Prince of the power of the air, is using his means and he uses those lusts that lie in the human breast to guide a person to destruction. If it were not for those first 2 words of verse four, brethren.
It would be all over for us. But God, God in the sovereignty of His grace, steps in to interrupt the process. Thank God for that. I think we can say too, about Judas Bob. I've been enjoying this recently. But it was of course, with him, wasn't it? He was covetous, the Scripture tells us that. And then he kept the purse, didn't he? I suppose he probably volunteered, although Scripture doesn't tell us exactly, does it?
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But apparently he was what we called the treasurer for the disciples. And then it tells us he was a thief. So I suspect he was covetous first, and then over the course of years, I suspect he was stealing from that purse because it tells us he was a thief. And then the time came where he thought he could make some big money.
But it wasn't an overnight thing, was it? It was, of course, and he was quietly and and.
He was quietly bound by the cords of his iniquity, wasn't he? And then Satan himself entered into him when he left. He could have not been Judas that night when the Lord warned him that night of the Last Supper, the Lord gave him distinctly that one would betray him, and it was the one he gave the sock to. And the other disciples didn't understand what the Lord was saying, but Judas did.
He could have at that point turned, couldn't he? But he didn't. He left, Satan entered into him, and it was all over them now. What did he get for it?
He got despair, didn't he? He committed suicide and he went to a lost eternity. What a sad thing that is. But it's so true what you say about our lust being, of course, and that's what the Lord will deliver us from. And I just wanted to make a comment too. We speak about the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. We have to understand there's a balance there, isn't there? Because people have gone to the extremes on both sides, as we've mentioned.
Calvinism on the one side, Arminianism on the other side.
And we have to understand that one is God's side and the other is man's side. Now the book of Romans takes up men and his responsibility, doesn't it? And as it's often been mentioned, those who understand the original language tell us that Romans is really a court scene. Many of the words used in the early chapters of the books of Romans are actually legal terms. And they're the type of terms that would be used as, as a criminal was brought before the the the bar of justice.
And so that's what we have in the book of Romans. Man is seen in his responsibility, not dead is here, but he's seen in his responsibility before God. And we want to emphasize that too, don't we? Man is responsible because some would say on the Calvinistic side, well, if God is sovereign and if I can't make, I don't have the ability to make the right choice as such, then I'm not guilty. I'm not responsible. But the Scripture plainly teaches.
That man is responsible. And so that's the teaching of the book of Romans. When we get to Ephesians and we might say it's often been said that Romans is the book of justification, the great epistle of justification, how a man could be brought into a new condition before God, how man is guilty and lost before God and God has A2 fold remedy in the in the the as concerning man's sins and is concerning the root sin.
But in the book of Ephesians, and maybe somebody can expand on this a little bit, the word justification is never mentioned, is it? Man is not seen as responsible here so much. He is responsible, of course, but it's a new creation, isn't it? Man is seen as dead and is having no right thoughts towards God. I remember our brother Gordon Hayo used an illustration that was such a help to me. I'll repeat it because perhaps not everybody's heard it, he said.
Suppose that.
I love oranges and hate apples. And I know some have heard this before, but many perhaps have not. And he says, somebody comes to me and, and says here's an apple and an orange, which one would you like? Well, if I love apple, if I love oranges and hate apples, there's not really any decision in my mind, is there? I'm not going to take the apple because I hate apples, but I love oranges. And that's really man's condition as we have it here. Is it man is responsible. That's true. That's that's man's side.
But what we have here is really man seen as dead. And it's God's sovereignty that picked us up. And so some have often said it's a it's like a door, isn't it? And outside that door it says, whosoever will may come. And God holds me responsible to respond to that. But once I'm inside that door, I find out that I was chosen from before the foundations of the world. So this is teaching to Christians, isn't it?
00:35:07
And he's telling us what we really were. In Romans we have man being dead.
In rely live in his sins, he's alive in his sins, but in Ephesians and Colossians he's dead in sins. Just looking at it from two different stance points as brother Eric has been saying, and it's very interesting to see that in Romans men being alive in his sins, what he needs is death.
And so identification with Christ and his death is brought in, and deliverance from his sins is given there. But in Ephesians and in Colossians, where a man is looked at as being dead in his sins, what he needs is life, not death, life. And so there is deliverance as a result of the quickening power of God, and there is life. Getting back to Bob's question about free will.
If man is not a free moral agent and cannot choose in the things of God, how is it that the gospel preacher entreats his audience to choose Christ?
Is it not the elected or those who would respond?
Is that the answer?
But you don't know who the elect are, do you? No, we don't. And at the same time, when the command was given to take the gospel, it was to be preached to every creature. God gives the opportunity to all. No one will be able to say I didn't have a chance, No one. And that's the point, because God never judges without giving a warning and without making a way of escape. And so there'll be nobody in a lost eternity who will be able to blame God.
Everyone who enters a lost eternity will realize that beyond a shadow of a doubt, they had an opportunity, may not have been the grace of God or a clear message like many in this room and in this land have heard, but they will realize that they had some testimony. And so everybody will.
In a lost eternity will have only themselves to blame. So tonight there's a gospel meeting scheduled.
And the brother who stands up to present the glad tidings presents it to whosoever will may come and take of the water of life freely. The Lord Jesus stood on that last day, that great day of the feast, and said, Whosoever will come unto me and drink, and so on. The appeal was to all. It's only as we, as Father said, the elect that are going to respond. But we don't know that. And our responsibility is to sow the good seed in whatever sphere and opportunities God gives us.
And to leave the rest with him. I'd just like to say, too, it's illustrated with the children of Israel. When they were in Egypt, we spoke of the ******* of sin. And the children of Israel, when they were slaves in Egypt, they were not free agents. They were slaves. And they groaned because of the ******* of Pharaoh. A very graphic picture of Satan. And they were under the slavery and ******* of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. And there was nothing that they could do to deliver themselves.
If they were going to be delivered, it had to be in a way that made them realize two things, their guilt and God's provision for them. And brethren, if we've been brought by grace into the wonderful position that we've been Speaking of, we must never forget that it's all the work of another. We had no ability to take one step or breath toward God. A dead person lying on the floor doesn't respond. You can get down and bellow in his ear for an hour and he's not going to respond.
And that was our condition without Christ and born into this world, we were dead in trespasses and sins and sin is lawlessness, talks about disobedience. Disobedience is doing our own well in independence of God. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to His own way. That was our natural condition. And none of us ever would have sought God. None of that if the choice had been left to us.
None of us ever would have come. I think the more we realize that in our soul, the more we are going to have an appreciation.
Of the grace of God and the work of God for us and in us. We can't, as someone alluded to earlier, really have an appreciation of that until we realize our own inability to take one step toward God as to responding to the gospel. And brethren, our inability to take one step in the path of faith without the grace of God and the work of God in US. And when you and I stand at the judgment seat of Christ and our life is reviewed.
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We're going to realize whether it was coming to the Lord Jesus for salvation or whether it was any response in our hearts as a believer in following in the path of faith and service. It was God that worked in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. We sit in these seats.
At a Bible meeting this morning with the Word of God in our hands. Why are we here? Because of anything good in US.
Thank God we responded, but when we get to the judgment seat of Christ, we're going to realize that it was by the grace of God that we responded and had any desire to sit under the sound of the Word of God. This day. You gave out a gospel tract to the gas attendant or somebody you met on the way to conference. Why did you do that? You're going to realize in the coming day it was the grace of God that provided the opportunity. Put the desire in your heart to do it. And so this is what He's going to go on to take up where his workmanship, It's His grace.
That not only worked in us to bring us to himself, but works in us afterwards to give us any desire and any response.
We don't preach the gospel so much from this, do we? I know occasionally it's heard, but.
It's really a family secret, isn't it? And I, and I think that's important because again, that's what's led to the confusion and Calvinism, hasn't it? Person says, well, if I can't be saved by myself, if I have no free will, then I just wait around and wait for God to save me. But no man is responsible. That's the teaching of Romans. I think this is illustrated in the Old Testament in the Tabernacle. They have to push their way into the tent of the Tabernacle.
And they're the first piece of furniture they found was that great brazen altar. And that's really what we have in the book of Romans, isn't it? The work of Christ and my response to that work of Christ. And then the priest could go beyond that and they had to wash their hands and their feet. And that's really a picture in my mind, at least, I've seen it as a picture of what happens, particularly in the wilderness as we're learning our needs and the and the grace of God that meets our needs as we walk through this world and all its trials and difficulties.
But then only the priests and only the priests that were clean could go into the tent of Tabernacle itself. And there they learned that family secrets, didn't they? There was the golden Candlestick, there was the table of showbread with the 12 loaves there in perfect water. And there was the the golden altar of worship and of praise and prayer. And I feel that in a sense, if I understand it right, that in Ephesians that's really what we have.
Is those family secrets? And so there's no question of discouraging a soul who's undecided as to Christ, is there? These are family secrets. Once we get in, we'll learn this, and God wants us to learn them. But you weren't allowed to go into that tent of Tabernacle, the proper 10, until you are a priest, until your hands and feet were clean.
Lord Jesus said.
He will not come unto me.
There will you will, the Lord Jesus says, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
If there was not the working of the Spirit of God by the Word of God in our souls, nothing would ever happen. I don't believe. It's a question of of doctrine. It's a question of God in love reaching out to you and me. And when you set your will aside and you let the Word of God reach you, you can be drawn by God to the Lord Jesus. Somebody goes out in the field. He has seed there. He doesn't look at his and say, man, maybe this one's going to grow and I'll put that one on the ground. He just sews that everywhere.
And you look at that, the countryside this time of year, it's green everywhere with corn and everything. It's just prospering because there's a power in that seed. God has given us the seed of his word, and we preach Jesus Christ and him crucified. We're responsible for the sowing. God gives the increase. He visits the soul. He quickens the souls as we have in his verse, you know, and I think this is a challenge to our souls as we consider this, do we really participate?
In the yearnings of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ for lost souls, is this the energy in your soul and mind as we think of these things? Perhaps I've enjoyed this very much. If you have been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, it's not that I was chosen before the foundation of the world. I was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. So it's all association with the Lord Jesus. So today men are dead in trespasses and sins, and God quickens them by His word when they hear about the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:45:24
And this is our responsibility. If I go in the field and I put that little seed in there and I watch it, do I really know what happened? And then it started growing. This is God's work. It's a wonder why we're sitting here thinking about the Lord Jesus and speaking about Him. This has been God's work in your life and mine. And He's willing for all men to be saved at the cometh along with the truth is that the energy in our hearts when we meet men that are not saved because God's will is that they would be saved and come to the laws of the truth.
We should, brethren, and leave the rest up to the Lord.
That's why it's important that we preach the word of Paul told Timothy to bring the word of God out and to use the word of God because the spirit of God will take the word of God and impart life and their soul has capacity to to receive the Lord Jesus as savior you get that in John chapter 3 when it says except a man be born of the water and of the spirit.
Yeah, and so on. That's John three, I think verse five. Those are the two agents that the Spirit of God is using to communicate life, the word of God.
And the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God takes the Word of God and applies it to the soul, and there imparts life. And the word is used in John 35 under the figure of of water, because it goes beyond just the communication of divine life, but to speak about the cleansing action that takes place in the soul whereby a person is clean.
Peter confirms that when he says we're born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible.
By the word of God, that liveth and abideth forever. And that's why, as you say, when we preach the gospel, we need to use the Word of God. We need to use the good seed. It's true that there is always room for preaching and exposition. You get that in the book of the Acts. They preached and they expounded and so on.
Room for illustrations. The Lord himself used story, liberal illustrations, a certain man, and so on. But my telling a story about somebody that almost drowned in the gospel isn't going to save anybody. It might try, it might help to make a point, but bring in the Word of God, because it's the Word of God applied in the power of the Spirit that God is going to use to impart divine life to a soul. But I just want to say this too to the hearer when a person hears the word.
They're really not in a sense a free agent either. What are they to do? They're to obey the Word. He commandeth all men everywhere to repent in that He has appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, and so on. And so. And it talks about obeying the gospel of our salvation. And so when we preach the gospel, we want to impress upon souls their need as far as their responsibility.
To preach the gospel. I want to say this about this third verse before we go on to in a little different context. We read this verse and we realize that in its context here, it refers to what we were by nature. But brethren, we need to realize it's been mentioned about Judas, but we need to realize that after we're saved, the flesh in a believer is no different than the flesh and an unbeliever.
And I was thinking of Brother Eric was bringing before us the illustration of Judas, that there's another story that runs parallel with Judas, and that's Peter. And the flesh in Peter was no different than the flesh in Judas. The difference was that Peter was really one of the Lord's own. He was wheat. Satan had desired to have him, that he might sift him as wheat, while all the disciples that were real, really, but Peter left himself open as a special target.
Because of a course of things as well. And just very quickly that course of things that led to Peter denying his Lord was to some degree this. First of all, he didn't know his own heart, and he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool. And brethren, the flesh in you and me is just as bad in the flesh, as bad as the flesh in our ungodly neighbors. It hasn't changed. In the third chapter of John, it says that which is born of the flesh is flesh.
00:50:07
And the Old Testament proves that it couldn't be improved upon. Nicodemus needed a new life, not just good teaching, not just a patchwork of the flesh. And at the cross he condemned sin in the flesh. But Peter trusted his own heart. Then he followed afar off. He followed the Lord, but he followed afar off. In one of the Gospels, he stood and warmed himself with those who had no love for his Lord. In another gospel, he sat down with those.
At that fire, and it led to the flesh raising its ugly head. The work of Satan on the flesh and Peter caused him to deny his Lord. When Israel was delivered from the ******* of Satan, that we were saying later, they still had an enemy in the wilderness. Amalek.
An Amalek is a picture of Satan's working on the flesh. Amalek was a grandson of Esau, who sold his birthright for momentary gratification of picture of Satan's end at work on the flesh. And were they free of that in the wilderness? No, they were no longer under the authority of Pharaoh and the ******* of the Egyptians. They were redeemed and delivered from that completely. But there was an enemy that was working. And brethren, you and I, if we're not careful, we have that enemy working.
I know it's a little part, but I think it's helpful because we read these verses and we apply them to others. But brethren, let's realize as Bob said, these verses apply to you and me too. By nature. By nature, yes, right. In verse two, it speaks at the end the children of disobedience. Interesting because those along with what you're saying, Brother Michelle, that.
The natural.
Heart of man is against the will of God. Ye will not come to me that you might have liked the will is said. It's not so much a matter that they don't understand. It's the will has been set against God. I think that is important to see. And then at the end of verse three, you have the children of wrath, because that's the end of the course of disobedience.
Israel, there's a course, and if you pursue that course, if there's somebody here who is still not a believer.
You are cherishing some little favorite sin, and you don't come.
To surrender to the Lord Jesus because you want to nurture that little sin in your life. It's a question of your will has been set against what God says about it. You need to judge that. You need to let the Word of God penetrate your heart and conscience. Oh, how important it is to let the Word of God in, in its simplicity. Sometimes you know when you're preaching the gospel.
You notice how people are listening around the room, and it's interesting to me to see sometimes people are sitting there very respectfully, maybe even listening, but you can tell that there is a barrier up there. There's something that's hindering the word getting in. I just want to say to anybody like that here in this room today, if you are that way.
Let down that barrier, let the Word of God penetrate your heart and conscience because it's going to be tremendous blessing for you. And I agree with what has been said about the quickening power of the Word of God. To me it is most wonderful simply to use the Word of God. And I have been impressed, brethren, with the.
Verses that God uses sometimes to impart life, perhaps not the verses, the normal verses, gospel verses that we've learned which are so clear, but it's sometimes another verse because God is sovereign and He uses any part of His word. I like those verses. In that verse in John 5 verse 25, the Lord Jesus says the hour is coming and now is.
When the dead shall hear the voice.
Of the Son of God, and they that hear.
Shall live. Are you hearing or is there some barrier?
00:55:03
And that's the dead and sins in that verse, isn't it? And so they hear the voice of the Son of God. And Bob, my great comfort has been that when we preach the gospel, it's the blessing doesn't depend on our ability to present the gospel. Now it's true we need to all be exercised to so speak. They so spake that a great multitude believed and we need to speak 5 words that with our understanding we might instruct others also. We don't want to speak into the air as Paul said in the 14th of First Corinthians.
But in the final analysis, it's not our ability to present the truth that is going to bear fruit. It's the seed in all its living power. And that's why we stress that we need to use the Word of God. Whether it's a setting like this evening, whether it's speaking to your neighbor, whether it's interaction with fellow students at school as you have opportunity, always use the Word of God.
If blessing depended on our ability to present things, that's a burden we couldn't carry around.
We need to be exercised about it. But in the final analysis, the blessing depends on the Word and its living power and God in his mercy and grace. And isn't it beautiful that this next verse says, but God?
We've had before us a powerful enemy, the Prince of the power of the air, and every time the gospel is presented, Satan is right there to seek to hinder. I believe Pharaoh is a picture to us of Satan seeking to hinder souls from coming under the good of redemption and deliverance. Pharaoh didn't want the people to go, he wanted to keep them as slaves. And every time a verse of Scripture is quoted.
The devil's right there, the enemy's right there to seek to hinder souls from coming under the good and blessing that God has for them. But God, aren't we thankful there's a greater power at work and one who desires the blessing of souls far, far more than we do? Maybe we're burdened for souls. Some of our family ones we've worked with were burdened for souls that sit in this room. And that's why there's a gospel schedule this evening. But brethren.
We can take heart and be thankful that there's God and He is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loves that loved us. And His desire is that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. He's long-suffering to us. We're not willing that any should perish. And I think this gives us confidence and boldness to just simply present the Word as God gives us opportunity and ability and then leave the results with the One who desires the blessing of souls and the one who has the power to impart divine life.
I'd like to add one more thing in connection with.
That I think is good to remember in Second Corinthians chapter 4 it mentions something here in verse 2, the apostle Paul.
He says we have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, and not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but this part, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. Somebody has said that when the Word goes home to the heart properly, it passes through the conscience.
And I think it is helpful to when we give the gospel not merely to speak to the mind of people as to their conscience. And you see the Lord Jesus in his earthly pathway here when he addressed souls, that's what happened. Remember when they brought the man or the woman taken in adultery in the very act, and they said to the Lord.
Moses commanded us to stone her. What do you say? The Lord didn't answer. He stooped down and wrote in the earth. They kept on asking, and finally he stood up and he said, He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.
That wasn't an answer to their question, it was an answer to their conscience. And it went through and they all started leaving and until there was no one else there but the woman and the Lord Jesus. And I think that is a helpful thing because man's conscience is what he got at the Garden of Eden when he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
01:00:18
And man's conscience will tell him that what you say, if you are giving him the word of God, is the truth.
So aim at the conscience, I think that is important for you. Diverse Bob is Act 2.
Telling us as to the conduct of the preacher in second Corinthians for the manifestation of the truth, if I'm.
Known for being one who lies and cheats or beats my wife or whatever. And I preach the gospel. Well, I'm not commending myself to every man's conscience. I'm not really an obstacle to the gospel And you know, even if.
You're living a life for the Lord, the enemy, and those that listen to the gospel, they'll try and find fault with you and everything you do. You're a Christian, not supposed to talk like that. You're not. How come you know they're like that all the time? Imagine if you're giving material to the enemy, then we're being an obstacle to the gospel.
So, verses four and five, we see God bursting in on the scene of this impossible scene of death.
And with these three divine motives of mercy, love, and grace, we find Him working to carry out.
What he has counseled and purposed in eternity. And so we find that there are souls that are saved by his grace and were quickened together with Christ. You see the word quickening in verse. Quickened in verse one is an italics and I understand that it's not in the original text there. It really should come in in verse 5 where it speaks about being quickened together with Christ. You know, the believer has two quickenings. Every believer has two quickenings.
What we have in this chapter is the quickening of the soul, and we've spoken of it as being the being brought to life and having a new divine life communicated to the soul. But the other quickening is in Romans chapter 8. And just turn you to that in Romans chapter 8 and verse 11.
This is our second quickening.
And if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Now that's a quickening we haven't yet received. We're looking forward to that. When the Lord comes, He's going to quicken our mortal bodies in the sense of, of glorifying our bodies so that we be suited to enter the courts of glory. We'll have the fallen nature eradicated and we'll be.
All the effects of what sin has wrought in our old bodies will be gone. And so there's two quickenings. This chapter is talking about the quickening of the soul. Romans 8 talks about the quickening of the body.
And it's all because of the mercy and the love and the grace of God.
It's playing like clicking Yes brother.
Being brought to life, it's really the communicating of a life, a divine life to the soul.
It's an old English word, isn't it? That is used to mean life, quick and the dead, the living and the dead.
And it's a sovereign work of God, isn't it? No one can else can, can give life. And we don't know when that life is imparted either. The fact that someone responds to the gospel shows that they've been quickened. They wouldn't, as we said earlier, the man who's dead on the floor here, you can shout in his ear forever and he'll never hear. But if someone could impart life to him now, he now he hears what you're saying.
And so a person responds because they're given life. And it says the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. So is everyone that is born of the Spirit. You've never seen the wind, and I've never seen the wind. But we see the results of the wind. And so we see the results of the imparting of divine life. A person responds. And so you drive down the highway and you know it's windy because the trees are responding. They're bending down their leaves, their branches, their leaves are blowing.
That's you don't see the wind, but you see the result of the wind. And we look for that in souls, don't we? I rarely ask someone if they're saved. I look to see some result in their life. And if I see some response in their life, then I'm pretty sure that that person has life.
01:05:04
Now we sing #200.
#200.
Once we studied.
Condemnation.
Right here.
What salvation?
For God.
Praise him from.
You.
Rangers, thank you all, we will.
See.
Our souls from.
Happy I sleep freely.
Glory.
To them all of us live.
All day live.
So.
Every.
The.
Path of Blessing 1st Kings 19:1-8
Address—Eric James
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.
Shall our comfort be thyself, our hope, our soul desire?
I'd like to look first at a verse in First Peter chapter 4, just for one verse there.
First Peter chapter 4 and verse 10.
As every man hath received the gift, Even so minister the same one to another.
As good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
And then for two verses over in First Corinthians chapter 4.
First Corinthians, chapter 4.
Let a man sow account of us, as of the ministers, or we could read servants of Christ.
And stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards.
That a man be found faithful.
And then I'd like to turn back to this passage. I really want to cover today some and that's in First Kings.
We can start with the 17th chapter.
I'm sorry, first Kings chapter 16. I want to read a verse there first.
Verse 33.
And Ahab made a Grove.
And Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger.
Then all the kings of Israel that were before him.
And let's skip over to chapter 17, verse one. And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand, there shall not be due, nor reign these years.
But according to my word, and if you'd skip over to the 19th chapter of First Kings.
And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and with all how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by the Morrow about this time.
And when he saw that, he arose and went for his life.
And came to Beersheba, which belonged to Judah, and left his servant there.
But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree.
And he requested for himself that he might die and said.
It is enough now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my father's. And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an Angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and behold, there was a cake bacon on the coals, and a cruise of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid himself down, and laid him down.
Again the Angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said.
Arise and eat because the journey is too great for thee.
You know, I read those verses first in first Peter and then in one Corinthians.
Because I believe that we have a highly privileged place, ministers of the grace of God, stewards of the grace of God.
Not a wonderful truth. You know, young people, this is a young person's meeting. And I'm, I'm glad that we have some young people's meetings.
I know I've sometimes wondered.
That if, and I don't suppose it's of God, but I've sometimes wondered that if I was a young people today, if I was one of you young people today, whether I'd have the faith to walk in the pathway of faith and blessing. Well, that's looking at myself, isn't it? But what we do know is the Lord has the grace and the strength to carry us through. And that's what I'd like to talk about this afternoon.
00:05:05
The path again, of faith and blessing.
Difficult day and I think we have some lessons particularly from Elijah. I'd like to speak about Elijah and how we see an example, an illustrations of the path of faith and blessing in a difficult day. You know the Lord has called us to this high calling stewards of the grace of God, stewards of the mystery of God, but it's required of stewards that a man be found faithful and you know that is.
The path of blessing to walk close to the Lord as we were singing in our hymn.
You know, I got a call from a gentleman here last week in my Home Office. I workout of my Home Office, not a very fancy place. The man who called is probably the richest man in Spokane, a very, very wealthy man. He's he's, he owns properties throughout the Northwest and in Canada. I'm sure his net worth if that's what we were to look at.
Would be numbered in the hundreds of millions of dollars without doubt.
And he called me up. I'm not quite sure why. I suppose that's why it's so rich. He doesn't pay too much for what he the advice he gets. But he called me up and wanted to visit about some things and talk. And, you know, I thought it was interesting as I was visiting with him, I happen to know two of his sons a little bit too. I've done a little bit of work for them. And I was talking to this man and he was telling me about some of his holdings and it was obvious, of course I'd read about him.
And so on and so forth. Knew how wealthy he was, at least in a general way. But as he was talking about a project he wanted a little bit of advice on, he says, you know, I don't have much time left. And I thought, well, here's a man, he said, I think he was 71, in his 70s. And I was struck, here's a man that's gained great wealth, at least by certainly any kind of standard I've ever known.
And he recognizes that his life is coming to an end.
He has his tremendous wealth, but you know.
I wonder, is that something to seek after?
By a lot of people think that that's the standard we should live by, that that's the measure of success is to have great wealth. But you know, I thought it was interesting as I was listening to him talk, I said, well, I know something about one of your sons and I mentioned some conversation I had with one of his sons and I said, you know, he says he wants to be like you and this man said well.
I don't know that that's a good thing.
Here he is a very wealthy man and he had to admit that maybe being like him.
Wasn't really a very good thing. I happened to know that the son I spoke about and the father haven't spoken together for years.
They live in the same town. They do the same kind of work. When the Sun said he wanted to be like his father, he meant he wanted to be able to accumulate wealth like his father. That's what he told me, the son, when I visited with him. I also happened to know the other son of this man.
And he too, I worked with him a little bit and I know for a fact that he hasn't spoken to his brother for years in the same business and the same town, and yet they don't even have.
Don't even have enough wealth, if we can put it that way, moral wealth, to even be able to visit with one another, father and sons and brothers. Isn't that a sad thing? And so when I thought of the purpose that God has for us, he doesn't have that purpose for us.
He doesn't want us to be strive to be wealthy in this world with all the power it seemingly gives them. This man can do all kinds of things. In fact, they're known as being ruthless. They do what they want, and they are quite happy to hurt other people if they possibly can. That's of no account to them, and sometimes they do it purposely. But I thought, for all this man's wealth he has, he's really a very poor man, isn't he?
You know, you people that have families here, you're young people.
With children, you're much wealthier than this man is. But the greatest wealth and the true path of faith is what we're reading about, that we're stewards of the manifold grace of God.
We're stewards of the mystery of God. God has a purpose of blessing for us and he wants us to walk in that pathway. And sometimes we get so confused about this. And so I was thinking we could look at these chapters here for a few minutes. We have.
And get some light for the path of faith and blessing today. You know, it says about Ahab that he was a man of this world. He was an apostate. Really. He was the head of the 10 tribes of Israel. But he only used his power and wealth for his own pleasure. He was a worldly man. He married a woman. Jezebel will talk about her a little bit later, but she was the real influence behind the throne.
00:10:27
I think that Ahab's only desire was just to have money and to have power.
And to please himself, he didn't seem to have any greater purpose than that. You know, young people have often said this.
But I hope that it means something to me, and I hope that it that you'll take it to heart.
I hope you all listen. I hope you'll stop your texting or whatever you're doing right now. Young people and justice listen to this if you don't get anything else.
You know, Satan whispers in our ears, and he tells us if we can only please ourselves.
Will be happy.
That's what Satan whispers into our ears. If we can only please ourselves. If we can only get our own way.
That will make us happy. You know, Satan is a liar and the father of it. That's not the pathway of blessing. That's the pathway of heartbreak and sadness. Those of us that are middle-aged now, we've seen it over and over and over again, haven't we? Those who have sought to have their own way, perhaps insisted on their own way gone off in their own way.
And where does it lead?
It doesn't lead to true happiness. It doesn't. It's not the path of blessing.
But there is a pathway of blessing, and God has entrusted us with a tremendous privilege and responsibility.
And that is, as we mentioned, stewards of the manifold grace of God. What a wonderful thing to represent God in this world, that we might say, you know, I just wish I lived in a different day. I wish I lived in a day when there was big meetings all around. Haven't you thought that sometimes I know I have to confess that I'm guilty of.
Entertaining that thought at times. Wouldn't it be nice if we lived 120 or 30 years ago, you know, in London there was 20 assemblies and that one one that one town at one time. And some of those assemblies, as we're told, were over 1000 people apiece. Tremendous assemblies. We sometimes think, well, wouldn't it be wonderful if we lived in a different time and life would be so much easier?
You know, young people, it's not true. The Lord has placed this in His infinite wisdom.
And for our learning and blessing in this time, in this place.
He wants us to be a light in that. And in the little corner where he's placed this. Isn't that how the song goes? This little light of mine? I'm going to let it shine. And that's where He's placed this and He's placed this for a pathway of blessing and a pathway of happiness. It's the pathway of faith. It's the pathway of obedience and submission to the Lord because He loves us so much and wants our blessing. But I just hope you will listen for that, young people.
Pursuing your own will will not make you happy. It'll make you unhappy, and ultimately it'll lead to a life of unhappiness and a lost eternity. Or, if you're a Christian, it'll lead to a lost life. We've often heard it, haven't we? But we can have a safe soul.
And a lost life. We don't want that pathway. The Lord has a pathway of happiness and blessing for us. Well, Ahab was one of those people. He hadn't. He was just a worldly man. He was.
I suppose outwardly we would say he was a Christian, he was the head of the 10 tribes of Israel, but there wasn't much depth to that. And then we have Elijah. What a different person he was. And we read about that in the 17th chapter. And what does Elijah say? As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand, there shall not be, do, nor reign these years, but according to my word.
Elijah stood before the Lord, didn't he?
He was a true servant of God, a blessed servant of God. And we read in the book of James that he prayed earnestly that it might not rain. This didn't happen overnight. Here he prayed for it earnestly. He had read, no doubt, what Moses had written, that when the people of God sinned and went their own way, that the Lord would send in government and his governmental ways. He would send drought.
00:15:04
And so he prayed earnestly. It tells us in the 5th chapter of James.
That it might not rain? Did it rain? Not for the space of three years and six months. It's a long time, isn't it? You farmers particularly?
Know what that means? If you didn't have any rain for three years and six months, it'd be absolute disaster. And so it rained up for three years and six months. And then what happens to Elijah?
Well, we're not going to go through these in detail. We don't have time. And I do want to get to the 19th chapter in a little more detail. But what what happens is.
The Lord tells him right away in verse three. Get the hints and turn the eastward and hide thyself. What does he do with Elijah?
He's going to continue to put him in the school of faith. He's going to pass them through the exercises of faith. He sends them to a little Creek, little brook called Cherith. Now I tried to figure out exactly what the meaning of cheerith was. We had several sources to look at. Apparently comes from the word for cutting off or to cut.
Some think perhaps it means gully, or another suggested that perhaps it means separation.
And I suppose that's probably the thought here. He was hidden in a place of quiet separation, you know, young people.
I know that I'm not real good with a lot of electronics. I can work the computer OK. I still haven't figured out how to use my MP3 yet. My kids gave me for a birthday almost a year ago, but one of these days I guess I'll figure that out. Vernon Clark has so hopefully I can do it too. But but nonetheless, one thing I want to say is that it seems like people never spend time with alone anymore.
It seems like people are never quite anymore. You see somebody out on the road.
Jogging or riding their bike, they always have something in their ear and they're filling their heads with certain things. You see people even at work a lot of places they, they have their their earbuds full and their ears and they're listening to their own music or whatever they happen to be wanting to listen to. You see people walk down the street and hear somebody talking and you think, well, maybe he's talking to me and here he is talking on a cell phone and it seems like people.
Never spend time in quiet anymore.
And we need to do that. We need to spend time with the Lord in quiet, with the distractions away.
And spend time in the Lord's presence because that's the he's the source of blessing and we need to spend time, quiet time in his presence. Set that time aside at least and set that time aside to spend quiet time all the other distractions. I know some of you sisters that have families and how busy that can be when I remember when our children were younger and I know some that get up very.
Very early so they can spend some quiet time with the Lord before all the activity of the day. Once the day starts, it seems like it never stops.
And you have to make that time. You don't, you don't. You don't find that time, do you? You make that time. And I want to encourage you, dear young people, if you want to be blessed by the Lord, to spend quiet time with the Lord, make a time to be quiet with him. So the Lord put the Elijah chereth, fed him by Ravens. You know, God's ways are not our ways, Raven.
Unclean bird, A Raven would normally eat any meat if there's carrying around to eat it, but nonetheless, they brought meat to Elijah every day, twice a day, and they also drank out of the brook. And then the time came with the drought ongoing.
That the brook dried up. So we have in verse 7. And it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up. But God's mercies are not God's mercies.
May be withdrawn, but God remains and is faithful. Faithfulness remains. He sends him to a place called Zarapeth. And it's interesting, Zeropath was actually in Zaiden. That's a very, that's a Gentile place. The very, the very province from which Jezebel came. As a matter of fact, she was a Sidonian Princess. And so of all places, he sends them to a Gentile place. So God's ways are not our ways. We can't predict the Lord all the time.
Many times he surprises us by the means he uses. But we have to wait on the Lord for that, don't we? Zarapeth means a smelting place, a place of smelting. And so the Lord is passing us through the trial of faith. Sometimes again we wonder, well, why does the Lord allow all these trials? I know some people.
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And my heart breaks when I see what's happened to them in their lives.
They thought they made the right decisions and it appeared that they did. And yet things have turned out so badly. And we just, we just wonder, can can that really be the Lord's pathway? Well, there are trials of faith.
And so Elijah was led to the place of smelting, you know, where they refined or the refiners place where they refined silver and gold. That's what Zarapeth means. It's a place of smelting. And so the Lord leads us through smelting, doesn't he? You know, he has a purpose, a blessing for us. I have a little comment I just like to read to you. I read it from Mr. McIntosh wrote on this and it really impressed me. Sometimes we think, well, why does the Lord?
Passes through these trials of faith. We're going to get to heaven anyway. Why do we have to go through all these trials? Why can't he just give us an easy life and then we get home to heaven? Well, first of all, I suppose the answer is that he wants us to be a testimony for him. This world rejected the Lord, and so we're going to be rejected too, or for faithful. So we need to expect that.
But there's also another reason.
We're in the school of God. He's preparing us for the place he wants us to occupy when he takes us home from this place. I want to read a comment that Mister McIntosh and he's written a very helpful article in Elijah. You might read it on your own. Here's what he says it. It was a help to me and I thought I'd pass it on. It said the Lord sees our need.
Of being exercised by roughness and hardness.
Not only that we may find the rest the more sweeter at the end, but also that we may be the more affectionately trained and fitted for the place we are yet to occupy. True, we shall have no need for trials in the Kingdom, but we shall have need of the graces and habits of soul which.
Were formed amid the trials and sorrows of the wilderness.
Isn't that good? Let me just read that last sentence again, if I may. True, we shall have no need for trials in the Kingdom, but we shall have need of those graces and habits of soul which were formed amid the trials and sorrows of the wilderness. The wilderness is God's school. He's preparing us to take the place.
That He's prepared for us during the Kingdom, and for eternity for that matter too.
We don't just automatically become spiritual giants, but He's preparing our capacity. He wants us to be a blessing and to be well suited for the place that He has prepared for us. And sober in God's school. When we think it's rough, let's remember that the Lord is preparing us for a place of of great honor and great privilege and great responsibility, and He wants us to be diligent students.
Well, I know it's it's true that it's difficult, but Elijah passes through that time. It's interesting. We won't go to the details, but remember that Lady that that widow of zeropath, she was just about out of meal, just about out of of her food there and a little bit of oil and a little bit of meal. And it didn't fail, did it?
Meal speaks of Christ, doesn't it? There was a meal offering we read about in Leviticus, sometimes called the meat offering.
That speaks of Christ in his humiliation. That's a subject. He's a person that always feeds our soul. He always feeds our soul to occupy ourselves with the person of Christ and the oil. That's the Spirit of God. Again, not seeking to find our own will and force our own will in this world, but to act under the direction of the Spirit of God.
And then we know that what happened was the.
This woman's son, she had one. This would a woman had one son, and he fell sick and died. That's a heartbreaking thing, isn't it?
And there is real heartbreak in this world.
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As I say, I have experienced in my own immediate family some real heartbreak.
And.
It's hard to imagine. We don't know. We don't understand it. But the Lord has it all under control, doesn't He? He has a purpose of blessing and encouragement for us. We can't understand it now. What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. The Lord will explain it to us someday. But there is real heartbreak, isn't there? Well, there was with this lady. She was a widow, had one son. The son dies.
And that was a great turning point in her life. She says in verse 18. And she said unto Elijah, What have I done unto thee? O thou man of God, art thou come unto me to call my sins to remembrance, and to slay my son?
Trials often bring out the state of our soul, don't they? I suspect this woman hadn't really turned to the God of Israel yet.
And so this broader sins to remembrance, and trials often do that, don't they? They bring our sins to remembrance.
They test our state before the Lord. And so she was going to find something wonderful, and so she does. And so Elijah, as we have, he cries to the Lord in verse 20 and verse 21. He stretches himself upon the child three times and cried unto the Lord, and said, Oh Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come again unto him. And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came unto him again.
And he revived.
They had to learn, didn't think that our God is a God of resurrection. It's not in this present scene that we're going to find happiness and blessing by looking for those things that men seek after, the way of this world. But it's in the God of resurrection. It's in the heavenly places where Christ dwelleth. That's where true blessing is. God is a God of resurrection. And if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation.
Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new.
That's where the path of faith and blessing is, is in that new creation, not in the present creation which is under the curse of sin. Well, in the next chapter, not to spend too much time again on it, but we find that the word of the Lord comes to Elijah and he tells him to go show himself to Ahab again after 3 1/2 years and he meets this man Obadiah. You know, Obadiah's name is interesting.
It means Jehovah's servant.
You have to read it a little bit more to see if you agree that he lived up to his name or not. But I think he was a believer, but he was a believer of mixed principles.
He served. He was the what does it call him here? He was the governor of Ahab's house. How could a consistent Christian be the governor of Ahab's house? Ahab was an apostate. He brought bail worship into Israel under the influence of his wife. How could how could a man that was a believer be be the be the governor over his house? Well, he was.
And his main name means.
A servant of Jehovah or Jehovah's servant. He did serve the Lord in some small ways.
But he was not a consistent Christian. He was a Christian of mixed principles. You know, there's a great contrast here between Elijah and Obadiah, isn't there?
Elijah was going through the trials of faith Obadiah chose even though he was a true child of God, I believe.
He chose not to go through the trials of faith and as a result.
He missed all the blessings of faith, too.
Isn't that an important lesson? Perhaps we can insulate ourselves from the trials of faith.
Perhaps we strive to live just a comfortable life in this world. I know too many people who do that. And I know my own heart well enough that that's a too often a motive is just to get through this world and live a comfortable life, not have the trials of faith. But you know, that's what Obadiah did. He lived close to the king. I'm sure he had a comfortable lifestyle. He was right next to the throne of power. And yet he was a man that was as, what do they say, as skittish as a cat on a hot tin roof. You could just read.
About him, he was almost afraid of his own shadow and Elijah. Elijah says to him.
Your Lord is Ahab.
What a sad thing to be said to a Christian.
Your Lord is an apostate man. Your Lord is Ahab. That's what he says in verse 8. And he answered.
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This is Elijah telling Obadiah, and he answered him, Go tell thy Lord. Behold, Elijah's here. Well, you can read about Obadiah and how skittish he was. He had no faith in the Lord. He had no trust that the Lord would bless him. He thought the Lord would. He would go tell Ahab and the Lord would. Spirit of God would ****** Ahab away and then oh, but I would be killed.
Ahab would cut his head off. That's what he was. He see all these things he had dreamed up, that would be a problem. What faith was there? He didn't have any faith, did he? He was perhaps prosperous in this world. If that's what we want, that's where we'll probably end up. But because he had not gone through the trials of faith.
He didn't receive any of the blessings of faith either, and as a result he had a bankrupt life. Well, Elijah does meet Ahab. Remember the great challenge there was between the between the prophets of Baal and the prophets of and the and the and Elijah.
You know, we sometimes hate to go against the flow, don't we? I know there's a great tug in our day to go with the great crowd of Christians.
You know there was 450 prophets that came at the call of Ahab, Prophets of Baal.
There was one prophet on the other side. That was Elijah.
The path of faith is sometimes a lonely pathway, isn't it?
One prophet on one side, on the other side 450 But we know what happened. The Lord vindicated himself, and Elijah is his true prophet. All the 450 prophets were killed and as a result, Elijah. Look at verse 42. Elijah now is going to pray again that there would be blessing.
Sent and he did four things. Elijah verse 42 of First Kings 18 So Elijah so Ahab went up to eat and to drink. That's what Ahab was all about.
Eating and drinking a comfortable life. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel and he cast himself down upon the earth.
He went by himself. A quiet place.
And put his face between his knees.
He fell on his face before the Lord.
That's what we need. He didn't want his own will, but what the Lord had. These, by the way, are the means of effective prayer.
First, holy retirement with God.
2nd, humility. Thirdly, we say in verse 43, go up, now look toward the sea. And he went up and looked and said there is nothing. And he said, go 7 * 2 more things that are means of effective prayer watching.
And perseverance.
And so we know the rain came. Well then in verse chapter 19 that we read, all of a sudden things seemed to change 180°, don't they?
Jezebel comes to the scene. Who is Jezebel? You know her name Again, it's a little bit difficult to find out exactly what her name means, but one meaning is chaste.
Somebody else said the meaning was unchanged. So I suspect when it says chaste, it's somebody who really was not chased at all but makes that pretension. And so Jezebel is a figure of wickedness in Scripture, a figure of religion from which there can be no repentance. We have her name mentioned in the New Testament, don't we? Revelation chapter 2. I gave her space to repentance. She repented not.
Jezebel is a figure of a religious system which will not repent in the church history. We had that period, didn't we? Church history went on and there was possibility of a recall back to the first principles, back to the original condition of of Pentecost. But the time came when Jezebel was so deeply entrenched that there could be no repentance anymore.
And you know, that's exactly what we have here.
Elijah's mission. Let's just look at what Elijah's mission was. Let's look at the last two verses in the Old Testament.
And we'll find out what Elijah's mission was. And I think this explains why he got so discouraged.
Malachi chapter 4 and verse 5. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and he shall hears his mission. He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, in the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
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You know, I believe that Elijah in that quiet time he had with the Lord, his prayer would that his prayer was that Israel would be restored to the Lord, that they would truly turn again in repentance back to the Lord. And here he exercised his faith, and they had this great choice between the Lord and Bale. All the prophets of Bale were slain 450.
And yet, Jezebel.
Is unmoved. She's still in power. She's still in control. The power behind the throne. And Elijah gets discouraged. That's the way we feel sometimes, don't we? We feel like the whole world's against us. Even other Christians are against us. Why is it? Isn't there a pathway? Sometimes we feel like giving up, and that's what Elijah did.
And so she sends to him in verse two, she was going to take his life just as the life of the.
Prophets that a Baal had been slain. Notice what it says in verse three. And this is we're not by any means pointing fingers at Elijah.
These things are written for our learning. They're not written to criticize some dear saying of God, but they're written for our learning. And here's what it says in verse 3. And when he saw that, he arose and went for his life.
Elijah does what we do all too often, doesn't he? He walked by sight, not by faith. Remember we were saying in our meetings earlier today, was it in a prayer meeting, that our danger is that we look at the darkness of the day rather than at the brightness that's just about to happen? Remember when David was pursued by Saul? Remember what? The last thing, I think it was the last thing before he was raised to the to the throne, last thing that happened.
Was they went out on his men spoke of stoning him. That was a low point in David's life.
They went out and all their children were carried away by the enemy, and he came home and they were their goods and their children were all gone. And the men wept and they were, they spoke of stoning David. They were about to give up, just just at the time when the Lord was about to raise David to the throne of Israel. And brethren, I feel that is a great tendency today. We're like Elijah, we look at things, we walk by sight, not by faith.
And when we do that, we get discouraged.
We look at the darkness around just like David's men did. We say, what's the use? Look how bad things are. They've been like this for a long time.
But we walk by faith. We know that the Lord sits as ruler on the throne and doeth all things well, as the poet says. And so we sang this morning in our prayer meeting about the victory that the Lord has already won at the cross. And very soon he's going to enforce in the government of this world.
And we're living in the very last hour. Let's not give up.
Let's walk and be faithful as he's called us to be. And so we walk like Elijah, don't we? Too often? When he saw that, he arose and went for his life and came to Beersheba that belongeth to Judah and left the servant there. He was running as fast as he could. He was like Peter. Remember Peter when he walked on the water in Matthew 14? Peter walked on water. You can't walk on water.
Naturally speaking, that's a miracle. That's what life is, is a miracle for the Christian.
But then when he saw the waves in the wind and started to look around, all of a sudden he started sinking. And that's exactly what we do, don't we? We walk too often by sight, not by faith. And so that's what happened to dear Elijah here. He walked by sight now, and he noticed what he does in verse four. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness.
And came and sat down under a juniper tree and requested for himself that he might die.
And said it is enough now, O Lord, take away my life, I am not better than my father's.
Notice what it says there.
He asked for himself.
You know, I think the motto for the Christian.
Is what we have in Galatians chapter 2.
It's not I, but Christ.
That's the secret. That's the model for the Christian, not I, but Christ. And so often we fail, just like Elijah, don't we? We ask for ourselves. We start to think about ourselves and what we want, what we hope to gain, what we hope to do during this lifetime, and so on and so forth. But no, the real secret, the Christian's motto, is not I.
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But Christ.
That's the pathway of true blessing. And so he asked for himself that he might die. He was tired out. He'd fought the battle too long. Why is that? Well, I believe again that he had thought that all of Israel would be restored, that this great moment that he had waited for all his life, this great contest between bail and and Jehovah would end up in a great triumph, and that all Israel would be restored. And it didn't happen.
His mission was a failure.
He was prepared for a lot of things.
But he wasn't prepared for the failure of his mission. And so he is tired. And he says, Lord, I'm not better than my father's, I suppose. I'm not sure exactly what that means. I suppose they failed. And he says I'm going to give up too. I'm not any better. Who? Why do I have to work so hard? Who says I have to be an overcomer? And sometimes that's the way we feel too, don't we?
He asked for himself, What did the Lord do?
Well, he lays down under this juniper tree, and again, we could identify with this, can't we?
And he just wants to die, you know?
Elijah asked to die.
But he's one of two men.
In the Old Testament, who never died, he never did die. He was taken home.
To heaven and a chariot of fire. And that's often what happens to us. He didn't know the blessing that the Lord had for him, but he asked to die. He got his eyes on himself. He walked by sight, not by faith. And too often we do the same thing, don't we? But the Lord took care of him. You know, the Lord is gracious. He loves us. He knows we get discouraged sometimes. He wants to encourage us.
If we only look to the Lord he will and so that's what happens. They prepare him and then in verse eight, I guess we didn't read that and he rose and did eat and drink and went in the strength of that meat 40 days and 40 nights into Horeb, the amount of God that was Mount Sinai, remember?
Where the law was given. That's what Elijah wanted to do, was recall the people back to the law. He wanted to see all of Christendom come back to the original days. And isn't that what's happening today? Isn't that probably the greatest trend in Christendom today is to bring all Christians back together into a great mass movement?
But it's not of God because Israel had sinned. Jezebel was behind the power of the throne.
She's corrupted religion that will not repent and the Lord could no longer.
Identify himself with that corrupted system. So Elijah has to learn that.
Verse nine And he came thither unto the unto a cave, and he lodged there. New paragraph. Behold, the word of the Lord came to him. And he said unto him, What doest thou hear, Elijah?
When we have our quiet times with the Lord, sometimes does the Lord ask us that we followed our own way? We kind of forgot about the Lord, and it's good when the Lord asks us that, isn't it?
What are you doing here?
Didn't get there by the Lord's direction. He got there by his own will.
And he's in the wrong place.
And so he says, What doest thou hear, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous of the Lord God of hosts. True he had been.
For the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword, And I, even I, am only AM left, and they seek my life to take it.
And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord, and behold, the Lord passed by in a great strong wind, rent the mountains, and break in pieces the rocks before the Lord. But the Lord was not on the wind, and after the wind an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a still small voice.
You know.
We like to see God's power manifest, don't we? We like to be part of a group that fills a stadium with 10s of thousands of people and shouts the name of the Lord. We like to be part of that kind of thing, don't we? Naturally speaking. And that's what that's what Elijah saw. He would have liked to have seen that. He would have liked to have seen the Lord's power demonstrated again. He had seen it some. That's what he liked. He was enamored with God's power.
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But you know, there was a great earthquake.
There was a great fire, there was a great wind, but it says the Lord was not in those things.
Same thing in our day, dear brethren. So often there's great outward appearance of power, and we're attracted to that naturally, aren't we? But what we need to do is listen to the still, small voice.
That's how God speaks in a day of our own and a day as ours is, in a still small voice. It's not in the great powerful movements where men have not sought God's mind, really.
But it's a still small voice. He speaks through His word and by His spirit, but it's in a still small voice. That's how he works in a day of ruin. Our brother Bob Tony mentioned the ruin of the church. That's the ruin of the outward testimony of the church. He speaks now in a still, small voice. It's not in the great movements of the day.
It's in quietness.
And stillness. And so we hear Elijah in verse 13 again. And it was so when Elijah heard it that he wrapped his face in the mammal and went out.
Stood in the entering of The Cave, and behold, there came a voice unto him, and said same question.
What doest thou hear, Elijah?
He still was in the wrong place.
And he gives the same answer. And verse 15 Now the Lord says to him, notice how gracious the Lord is to him. The Lord is gracious with us.
You know, we see others that have disappointments in life. We see others that go down a bad pathway.
And if we're honest with ourselves, we have to say, as has often been said, but for the grace of God, there go I. We know there's times when we were following our own will.
Seeking our own happiness.
And the Lord and His grace stopped us, didn't He?
We know it's true.
And so it is here the Lord is gracious with us. We don't have anything to boast about.
But the Lord is gracious.
You know God is not only light, which is true, He is holy and he is going to judge this world in righteousness.
By that man whom he hath ordained, but at the same time God is love.
And he was not going to let the prophets impatience determine when he was going to judge Israel. Israel deserved judgment. Elijah wanted to see him judged. It was time the rejection was complete. But God is gracious as well.
Remember in the meal offering, we talked about the meal offering in Leviticus? It's a beautiful picture there, isn't it? It speaks of the fine flower. God is love and God is light, and there's a perfect balance there. So often we get that out of balance, but the Lord Jesus Christ as He walked through this world was a perfect manifestation and perfect balance.
That God is light, that's true.
But also that God is love. God is love.
He wasn't going to let the prophet dictate to him when he was going to judge, but rather he was going to show grace for a time. And here's what he says. Verse 15. The Lord said unto him, Go, return on thy way. He had to go back where he came from. That's the path of blessing, isn't it? Judge what we've done wrong and go back. It's humbling, but that's the path of blessing. Go back, by the way, to the wilderness of Damascus, and when thou comest, anoint has ailed to be king over Syria.
Isaiah was going to be a great thorn in Israel's side. There was going to be judgment on Israel. Not the final judgment yet of the Assyrian, but there was going to be judgment on Israel.
Secondly, verse 16 and Jihu, the son of Nimshi, shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel. He was going to judge Ahab in that wicked Jezebel.
And Elisha the son of Shaphat, of Abel Meholith, shall be thou a point anoint to be prophet in thy room. And it shall come to pass the hymn that escapeth the sword of zail shall ye who sleep slaying, And him that escapeth the sword of Jihu shall Elisha's slay. Yet I have left unto me Notice this verse, yet I have left me 7000 in Israel.
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All beneath which have not bowed under Baal.
And every mouth which hath not kissed him turn, if you would, to the.
Spirit's commentary on this in Romans Chapter 11.
When there's failure of the great outward testimony, what does God do? Well, let's read what the Spirit of God says. Elijah thought that the Lord should judge all Israel right now. But no, God is gracious, even though that's what they deserved. God has a path of grace. It's the path of faith, the path of blessing.
Romans Chapter 11 I say that hath God castaway his people. That's what Elijah wanted.
God forbid I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not castaway his people which he foreknew.
What's he not? What the spirit of Scripture saith of Elias. That's Elijah, the Greek form of Elijah, How he maketh intercession to God against Israel. We dare not do that. Our brother Hail used to tell us that the only failure of an Old Testament St. recorded in the New Testament was Elijah because he spoke against God's people. Let's not be guilty of speaking against God's people.
Verse 3 Lord, they have digged down my, They have killed thy prophets, and dig down thy altars, and I am left alone. He was wrong.
There were 7000 still, and they seek my life. But what sayeth the answer of God unto him?
I have reserved to myself 7000 men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. I don't say that they were had a very bright testimony. They must not have. But in the following chapters in First Kings, you'll see that there are other prophets to come out. Elisha is one, Micah is another. We see a various prophets. We see the the schools of the prophets. There is a much more brighter testimony among this remnant that comes out.
And then notice in verse five of Romans 11 Even so then at this present time.
Also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
So when the outward testimony is in ruins, God maintains a remnant that's faithful to 1St principles. That's a powerful principle, brethren, but that's how God acts. That's the lesson that Elijah had to learn. And so he starts in verse 19, back in first Kings 19. So he departed thence and found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with his 12 oxen. Here's one he didn't know about.
One of the 7000.
Plowing is a brother. Lundin says that his little book on Elijah is a picture of repentance.
Here's a man that was plowed up in his soul, ready for the service of God.
Elisha 12 yoke of oxen before him, and him with the 12. What's that mean?
Well, 12 is a picture of administration, governmental administration. It's the most divisible of the number. 7 is the least divisible of the prime numbers. 12 is the most divisible. It shows administrative completeness. Elisha is with the 12Th. The way God had been governing Israel was about to end.
He was number longer going to try to restore all of Israel back to their original condition.
But he was going to bring out a new thing, a remnant testimony. And that's what we have in the following chapters, begins with Elijah. The Lord has called us to a remnant testimony separated from the Mass. And so he's done it with Christendom. So he did it with Jeremiah. Jeremiah's a parallel passage. And Elijah passed by him and cast his mantle upon him. And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said.
Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go back again.
For what have I done to thee?
Perhaps there was a question as to his full devotedness. But then in verse 21 we see light, Elisha's full devotedness, his consecration. And he returned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose and went after Elijah.
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And ministered unto him.
While our time is gone, I hope we can learn that there is a path.
For faith and blessing in our day. It's not in the great movements of Christendom. God gave up the great testimony of Christendom in the days of the Roman Catholic Church back in the 15th, 16th century.
And since then it has actually had a remnant testimony, been a remnant testimony in one form or another. God doesn't call us to form this great ecumenical movement. He calls us to be a separate part from it and to be faithful to Him as he's called us to be stewards.
Of the manifest grace of God, and of the mystery of God. What a privileged position, what a Lord Grant that we might be faithful to him. Brethren, His coming is right at the door.
And as we mentioned this morning, it's always darkest just before the break of day. We live in that day. The Lord wants to encourage us to go on, to be faithful to Him. He wants to bless us abundantly, not just now, but in the time to come. Let's bow in prayer.
Ephesians 2:1-22
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Thy grace you're saved and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
By grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God.
Not of works, lest any man should boast, For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them.
Wherefore remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh, made by hands, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off, or made nigh by the blood of Christ.
For He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances.
Or to make in himself of twain 1 Newman, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body, by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby, and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by 1 Spirit unto the Father.
Now, therefore, you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the Saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord, in whom, in whom ye also are builded together for inhabitation of God through the Spirit.
We mentioned this morning in taking up this chapter that we see three great conditions lying over the.
The material that God has counseled has chosen to use to fashion and form this vessel of testimony, the church.
And we mentioned that death is one.
Condition of death we also mentioned in verse 11 Through 14 or through 13 we have a condition of moral and spiritual distance. We find that is overcome through the reconciliation that God is affected by bringing us nigh by the blood of Christ. And then the third is found in the fact that there is a dissension that has existed for centuries.
Between them, those ones that He would by grace save the Jew and the Gentile, and naturally speaking, they would never be able to dwell together in unity. But he's overcome that too, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God in forming 1 Newman making peace.
So we might just say that to summarize this, we have in the first section from death to life. In the second section we could say that we have alienation to nearness, and then the third we can have from enmity to unity.
Perhaps we could put it this way another way, and that is that in the first section we're made alive, and the second we're made nigh, and then the third we're made one.
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There's another order of things that is brought out here. The apostle brings out and it's nice to see in a special way. It's the very first verse of chapter one. It speaks of the will of God. And then in verse chapter one and verse 13, it speaks of the word of God, the word of truth. And it brings out in our chapter verse three, the children of wrath and the in verse 2, the children of disobedience. And so you have particularly brought out in the.
Official for the Ephesians I believe, and have enjoyed in my own soul, is the will of God, the Word of God, and the authority of God. And so we have this brought out, and in a very practical way, in the last three chapters of the Epistle. He brings out that which would help us to overcome in connection with the opposition of the enemy. The opposition of the enemy is to the will of God and to the Word of God.
Into the authority of God. And so here we have in this chapter how He makes us alive, and makes us alive to hear the word of God, and to desire even to walk in the will of God and to submit to His authority.
Before we have mercy.
In verse five and seven and eight, we have grace. What's the difference?
Well, I suppose, as we've often heard, that one is not receiving.
The just consequences that I do deserve. But grace is receiving the undeserved favor of God in a positive way, isn't it? That right, Bob?
Brother, late Brother Chuck Hendricks, who used to make this statement. Mercy is great because of the greatness of our need.
Grace is great.
Because of the one who supplies the blessings. I like that.
Focus is different, and mercy is the greatness of our need.
The grace is the greatness of the giver and all that he's given.
And that's brought out here, isn't it? If we could make another comment, that mercy, as we all understand, would have saved me from the consequences of my sins. But God had far more than that, didn't He? The hymn expresses it well. Trembling, we had hoped for mercy, some lone place within his door. But the crown, the throne, the mansion?
All were ready long before. And so, as has often been mentioned, what we get in this chapter is probably the highest truth as to Christian blessing in the whole of the New Testament, isn't it? Because not only is the believer given you life, not only is he quickened, but.
That same power that resides in a risen Christ has raised us up together.
And made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ. It's been mentioned before, but it bears repeating that you don't find the Lord's coming mentioned in the book of Ephesians. Now of course, it formed a very prominent part of Paul's ministry, but he doesn't mention it in the book of Ephesians. And I believe the reason is in these verses that we are already seen as seated in heavenly places in Christ.
Now that in no way takes away from the blessedness of the Lord's coming or the proper hope of the Christian, but it does make us realize that God intends that we might enjoy down here, even now, what it is to walk and live in that risen life and in those heavenly places with Christ.
I don't know whether we can bring that out the way we ought to. Have you got a further comment on that, Bruce? No, that's good, Very good.
00:10:09
Mercy and grace, where would you be? Where would I be without it? We would be back in verses 1-2 and three.
On our way to a lost eternity.
The prodigal son returned from the far country. If there had been just mercy alone, that would have kept him from ever getting back to the pig pen. If there had been mercy alone, it would have given him a bed in the servants quarters and a job to do around the the estate.
But it went a lot farther than that, didn't it? Grace comes out because of the heart of the Father. And Grace gave him the best robe, the ring, the shoes, and all the things that were bestowed on him. Grace brought him in back as a son and sat him down at the Father's table in communion to feast on the fatted calf. A Grace provided the music and the dancing and all that it speaks of. And so it wasn't just mercy.
He would have been happy, perhaps, or somewhat content at least, with just mercy. But the Father showed him grace. And brethren, we're more than forgiven sinners. It's true we are forgiven sinners. Thank God for that. But we're far, far more than that as we get here in this book.
The first verse of chapter 2, Mr. Darby in French, he has verse 2-3 and four in sort of a parenthesis where the conclusion after he's described the condition of what we were and how we were disobedient and children of wrath. And any contrast that with verse four. God who is rich in mercy because of the great love wherewith He loved us. So there's that love of God who could look at these objects that were so hateful before him.
But yet I enjoy the word in French misery called His mercy. It's really a heart that is touched by the misery that it observes. So God could see us, though we're children of disobedience and deserving His wrath, yet His heart was disposed toward. I say, we're fellows, and then He acted towards us in love, in mercy, because He's rich in mercy, so that the depth of our condition is answered by the richness.
Of the touched heart of the Lord in connection with our misery.
Hebrews chapter 3 or chapter 2, we read the expressions, so great salvation, don't we? And that salvation embraces. I think it's a maybe a simple way to put it. It's been helpful to me. And it's not only what we've been saved from, that's mercy, isn't it? But it's also what we've been saved for. That's grace.
Along this line you have in the first chapter 2 expressions. You have in verse six the glory of His grace, and then in verse seven you have the riches of his grace. It's been put this way. The riches of his grace is God's ability to meet us in all of our need as sinners and to forgive us to bring us out of that condition. But the glory of His grace is to bring us into a position so supremely blessed in Christ that.
Our hearts would never have dreamt of such a place of blessing. If you could use the prodigal son again to illustrate this, The riches of His grace would be when the Father put his arms around him and gave him the kisses. But the glory of His grace is when he took him into the house and fitted him as a son and gave him those things that would bespeak the son's place. You know that's where we have been set before God. We're not just forgiven sinners, brethren, we were. We're before God right now.
As sons where you're in the sons place.
You need to continue on verse in verse seven of chapter 2. Please come in on that as well.
You're referring now to the in the ages of to come that he might show or there could read display the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through or in Christ Jesus. Well, this tells us a little bit more of the purpose that God is is working and forming this vessel of testimony and that is that he might use it to display the glory of his grace to the millennial in the millennial age.
When the world is going to look on and see what God has formed for His own glory and for the enhancement of the glory of Christ. Oftentimes people read in this seventh verse that in the ages to come that the Lord is going to take all eternity to display the riches of His grace to us and explain how much He loved us. I'm sure He'll do that. But this verse is not talking about Him displaying to us His grace and riches, but rather the display of His riches to the the wandering world.
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And he is going to display that glory through redeemed persons such as you and I that have been formed together in this one body and bride of Christ. And so that's the riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
And thought is there in Two Thessalonians chapter one.
In verse 10, when he shall come to be glorified in his Saints, and be admired.
In all them that believe so that time of manifestation of the glory of the Lord through the manifestation of his Saints, he's going to be the one that's glorified and admired in the believers.
We'll never understand the Epistle to the Ephesians if we're looking at it, it's just as far as.
Seeing what our blessings are.
The point of it is to show us that God has a purpose to glorify his Son in two spheres, in heaven and in earth, in the world to come. And He's going to do it through a specially formed vessel, the Church, which is His body and bride. He's going to use us in that coming day on our glorified state to display the glory of His Son to the wandering world, and he's going to get from the world praise to Himself when they learn and understand.
The workmanship of God's grace in US isn't that wonderful and think about what I just said. It's incredible that he is going to get from the the Gentile nations of the millennial earth and from Israel praise when they learn of the glory of his grace and what he has done and saving sinners like you and I and bringing us into such a place of favor and blessing. I think that get that in a hinted at it the Lord's Prayer in John 17, is it not?
I'll just read that in John 17.
Verse 22 it says, And the glory which thou has given me, I have given them.
That they may be one, even as we are one, I in them and Thou in me. That they may be perfect in one, That the world might know That Thou hast sent me and has loved them as thou hast loved me. See, there's a day coming when the world is going to know something of the grace of God, when they look at the finished product and see the glory of Christ shining through it. What a wonderful day. But brethren, the marvel of Ephesians is we've been brought in to know those things now.
It tells us in chapter one that it says here that He has bounded to us in all wisdom and intelligence, and we have been let into the counsel of God even now before that coming day of display, and so we are to be the depository of all counsel of God.
And should have intelligence in divine the divine workings today and be able to walk according to that for his glory even now. But that's more the Colossians side of things when the mystery is worked out in the Saints here on earth. Christ and in you the hope of glory. And in that regard we are to now, as the third chapter tells us, we are to be a display of these things to the heavenly company. The angels are looking on and the heavenly company is looking on and they are to see.
Displayed in the church, the manifold wisdom of God. Sad to say, as they look on, what do they really see? Sometimes they don't see that perhaps, and we have to all hang our head, at least I do and say they don't see that perfectly reflected or displayed now. But brethren, isn't a tremendous to think that there's a day coming when from the other perspective, earth is going to look up and as our brother read us that verse in Thessalonians, we are going to reflect fully and perfectly and unhinderedly.
The glories of Christ, when their world looks at a Saint of God in that day, they're going to see perfectly reflected Christ. There will be nothing to distract or to take away or hinder those glories from shining. What a tremendous thing. And this ought to motivate us now to enter more into these things and live for His glory. I'd like to just read in that regard a little verse in Revelation in connection with that future day that we've spoken of and in Revelation 21.
He's describing here the church in her millennial glory and her administrative function in that day as she comes down out of heaven from God to reign with Christ and so on. But just a little comment in chapter 21 and verse 11, this is again describing the church having the glory of God. And her light was like unto a stone, most precious, even like a Jasper stone, clear as crystal.
00:20:20
You know, sometimes we don't reflect very clearly the glories of Christ now or the manifold wisdom of God. But isn't it wonderful again to think that there's a day coming when earth is going to look up and see reflected in the church, brethren in the church, everything is going to be reflected clear as crystal, those glories of Christ. Well, again, this ought to thrill our hearts and motivate us to live for his glory now.
When the Lord was being tempted, Satan showed him all the kingdoms of this world in a moment of time and their glory. But when God begins to display, says here, the exceeding riches of His grace, it's going to be for the ages to come. Through that millennial day, it will be on display. What a.
Rich God we have. Rich in mercy, rich in grace, rich in every way you can think about him. Brethren, God is going to display in that day the fullness of His glory as it has never been seen before. What a wonderful thing to that we can enjoy here and now.
Together three times. There we have verse 5, Ephesians 2:00 and 5:00.
Had quickened us together with Christ.
And that raised us up.
Together.
And made us to sit together in heavenly places.
In Christ Jesus.
Just a thought in connection with that word. Together we can understand it to me.
That individually associated with the Lord Jesus and being quickened with him and resurrected with him and seated in him in heavenly places. But perhaps we can extend the thought and to say as we get it later on in the chapter that this togetherness includes the church, those that have been brought into oneness with him and one another. It's been all done for us by and the Lord Jesus through his work on lacrosse.
And I was thinking as our brother was speaking in Revelation 21 and the manifestation of the glory of the Lord Jesus to the world, I was thinking of that verse in Revelation 21 in the beginning.
Of Chapter 21 of Revelation.
Where it says there.
And verse two, I believe this, what we read later on is, as brother said, it's the Lord, a church in the Millennium reigning with the Lord. But in the beginning of the chapter, I believe it's the eternal state.
And verse two it says, and I saw John the holy, and I, John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband.
So there's a reflection of the thoughts of the nations beholding the glory of the Saints and of the Church and.
Seeing the glory of the Lord in there, but this thought here of the Lord beholding not one who is adorned.
For Him, and this is our privileged dear one, that's what we're going to be. And when we're going to be manifested there in that heavenly state, in the presence of the Lord Jesus, adorn for him, made beautiful just for him. And I was thinking of that connection with that word together. When we get on to the 4th chapter, we'll get these exhortations as to how we should have compassion with one another and seek to walk in that unity and togetherness before the Lord.
And that the Lord Jesus, who is going to behold that bride adorned for him in the coming day, could be looking down now.
And finding delight in the way we behave individually and how we behave together as being members of His body. Because He died that we would be one. He died that you and I would be in the glory with Him. But He also died that they would be that perfect unity and reflection of His character. So may the Lord help us as we consider just that little word together. He has brought us together into one body in relation to Himself and each one of us who belong to Him.
00:25:05
Are precious in his sight. May the Lord grant us to have this exercise of soul to never trouble.
This wonderful togetherness he brought us.
Too that the.
Quicken together is with Christ, but the raised and seated is in Christ.
The the quickened with Christ is the new state that we are in, the new condition. We are as identified with Him as in the new creation. But to be raised and seated together in Christ in the heavenly places, there you have the new position. One's a new condition, the other is a new position before God.
To be in Christ is to be in Christ's place before God. That's where he has put us. He could have put us in A at the place where the angels were, but he didn't. He put us in the very place that the Son himself.
Sits before God. We're seated together in heavenly places in Christ. Now you'll notice at the end of chapter one that.
Says in verse 20 that he has set him down at his own right hand.
In the heavenly places and then our verse six and chapter 2 Says that.
We are seated in heavenly places, but we're never said to be seated at the right hand of God. That is a place that is reserved for him alone. We are seated in heavenly places, yes, with Christ, but he is seated at the right hand of God. There is that distinction. And I would also just mention when it says has raised us. This is not resurrection here. It's the thought of putting us in that high place there at the with Christ in the heavenlies.
It can completely out of the position of death, isn't it? Yes, it's just right out of that position.
I'd like you to speak a little bit more, Brother Bruce, about what it means to be seated together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
I know some young people and I must say I puzzled a bit over it as a young person.
We're sitting in Walla Walla, WA. What do you mean by seating and seated in heavenly places? Are you seated in heavenly places right now, Bruce?
That's my position.
Before God.
It's so sure it's fulfillment that God sees it as a reality right now, and we are to enjoy it in that way.
That's our position, brethren, Wonderful. Not brought out particularly as to the practical application in this chapter, but it is a very practical thing, isn't it? It's not just some esoteric expression that's meant to transport us, you might say, to heavenly places. But God intends, as you say, Bob, that it should be a present, living reality in our souls.
Now it's sometimes hard to get across and I admit the same problem. Not so much even when I was young. Maybe I still have it, but.
In the Old Testament, you had Israel in the wilderness, and in the wilderness they were dependent upon God for everything. And in one sense, believers are in the wilderness down here. That's what we might call Philippian truth.
But in another sense, we're already in the land of Canaan, aren't we? Now someone would say, well, how can you be in both places at the same time? And it's obvious that as to the type in the Old Testament, the Israelites couldn't. They were in the wilderness at one point and later on in the land of Canaan.
And perhaps at various times in our lives, we may be in one and then the other.
Because there are times when we have to deal with the trials and difficulties down here and learn first of all what we are, and then learn what God is in the various circumstances of life. But the real position for the Christian is in the heavenlies, isn't it? That is by faith. I recognize that I don't belong here, that my head, the one in whom my life is, is up there in glory. And if he is up there and he's risen and seated there.
Then it's peculiar to Paul's ministry that we are in Christ, not only in respect to salvation, but in every other way. And so that does more than, shall I say, bring before us the way that God can meet us in our need down here. That's wonderful. And we wouldn't take away from that. But to be risen and seated in heavenly places lefts me above it.
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And that's something I have to confess that I don't know much about. But the little they have known of it, it's a wonderful thing to realize that.
I don't belong here and positionally I am up there and everything, every hope I have is up there and the one that has given me new life is up there and I am in Christ. Well, what a what a difference that makes to our walk through this world. Now there are more difficulties in that sphere and that's why the armor is needed at the end of this epistle, because there are.
Kinds of opposition in those heavenly places that we don't find elsewhere.
But nevertheless, God intends it to be a very real.
And practical thing that by faith I lay hold of that which will be a reality when the Lord takes me home.
We have a hard time understanding what eternity is, but God inhabits eternity in that place, His eternal purposes.
Involve you and me and His. The complete fulfillment of those eternal purposes is that you and I are going to be in association with the Lord Jesus.
In that glory, it's so sure that His purposes are going to be fulfilled.
Down here in this world, we live in man's world, where man exerts his will.
And they thrash around, and sometimes we thrash around.
Trying to get done what we want to do, but oh brother, and to get his view of it. There he is in that eternal glory, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He has completed the work and we are in Him, we are seated in Him, and the more we can enjoy the reality of that truth, the more it's going to deliver us from worldly mindedness.
Occupation with things down here, it's sad to see that so many believers, especially in this election year, are so involved in the political process. And I found that if you do not get involved, you are often looked down upon. You are.
They say you're not doing your Christian duty. Brethren, we have lost the sense of what we are called to, called to association with the Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Son of God in heavenly places. That's our eternal portion and we need to enjoy it here and now. So with what we've said, we can have an enjoyment of heaven before we get there.
We can enjoy the land of Canaan now, that vast panorama of blessings that are brought before us in these in in this book of Ephesians. We don't have to wait until we're physically and fully there in a coming day to enjoy what is ours, our position and portion in Christ now, and maybe I'll just repeat a little story. It's not an original story and others have heard it, but it did help me in this regard. There was a young man one time and he was visiting in a hospital in convalescent home, and he was giving out some gospel tracts and visiting.
Souls and speaking to them about the Lord.
And he came to one lady, and as he laid a gospel tract beside her bed, he said to her, are you on your way to heaven? And she was lying there on flat on her back, had been evidently there for some time, was no doubt experiencing some pain and discomfort and chronically I'll. And she looked up at him with a glad smile when he asked her if she was on her way to heaven. And he said, she said, I've already been there today. So he thought she must be deaf. And so he bent over a little closer.
And he said, I asked you if you're on your way to heaven. And with another glad smile, she looked up into his face and she said, I've already been there today. Well, now he was sure she was really deaf. And so he got right up to her ear and it was louder voices he could. He said, I asked you if you're on your way to heaven. She said, I know what you said. But she said, you know, I was just lying here looking up and enjoying the fact that my Savior, the Lord Jesus is seated at the right hand of God. I'm linked to him by the Spirit of God. I'm seated in heavenly places and I have a portion up there.
00:35:12
Well, he didn't have to bring her the manna. He didn't have to sympathize with her in her circumstances. Not that she was indifferent to her circumstances, and they weren't very real, but she had risen above that in enjoying the fact, in enjoying a glorified Christ at the right hand of God, and that positionally she was seated there and all was hers in Him. Well, maybe that little illustration helps us to understand how we can have an enjoyment of these things, brethren.
Positionally, we're not seen in this world. The only thing that connects us with this world is that we're still here physically.
We have, we're waiting for the rapture and the change of the body to be taken physically out, but otherwise positionally, and as far as our hopes and goals and aspirations, they're not connected with this world. They're connected with another world. That's why, Jim, in the book of Ephesians, the heavenly places are connected with conflict, like you were mentioning, Bill. It's a sphere of conflict. When we get home to heaven, in actual fact, in our bodies, there will be no more conflict.
But.
We in the measure that you want to enjoy heaven here in this world, you're going to find that there is an enemy that wants to take away your joy of those position, that position. He cannot take away our heavenly blessings, but He can take away the enjoyment of them. And that's his purpose in our lives down here. He does not.
Wants you to enjoy that, and I have noticed rather than so often that when there are souls who are truly enjoying it, the enemy oftimes throws a left curve to try to get them away from their enjoyment. Remember in the Dominican Republic one time we were enjoying Ephesians chapter one and the brethren really seemed to enter into it and enjoy it. I was staying with a brother.
Who is still single and.
He lived in A1 room home and during the night, about 4:00 in the morning, somebody.
Knocked on his door and said.
Jago, come quick, they've robbed your store.
And I watched him get up out of his bed and he didn't go out before he knelt down and prayed first. I think I would have probably run off down the street, but he knelt down, prayed first, and then he went off. And a couple hours later he came back and I said, brother, that's too bad if they robbed your store. He said, brother. And I think of those things we were talking about in the meeting last night, those heavenly blessings. That's nothing.
That's nothing. The enemy had failed to take away his joy in the things that are real and eternal. And brethren, it's the same for us. You might use other circumstances, other trials, but it's a fear of conflict we live in. And the conflict is to take away your joy of that position that has been won for us in Christ.
Explain a little bit more the illustration that was mentioned in the Old Testament. I think that would be comfortable.
The book of Ephesians corresponds to Joshua, doesn't it? In the Old Testament and the book of Philippians and the book of Hebrews and the book of Second Corinthians, for instance, they correspond to the wildernesses our brother Bill mentioned earlier, and the the book of Romans, of course, in a certain sense, corresponds more, at least at the beginning, to.
Israel in the land of Egypt. But I think it's properly been said that in the wilderness, the Israelites had nothing to gain. They were there to learn what they were and to learn that they could trust the Lord, but there was nothing to gain in the wilderness for them. And so that's true in a sense. We have Christ before us in the wilderness, but it's not our proper portion. It's not what we've been saved for. So, so often Christianity ends there for people.
Think we go through this world and we're just here to struggle and strange. And that's not all the thought, is it? What were they saved for? They were saved out of Egypt to be brought into Canaan. That was their proper place of blessing. And so that's what Ephesians is, is the Joshua of the IT corresponds with Joshua in the Old Testament. And how important it is that there now they had a portion to gain and to win. It was it was the Lord's land and he had given it to them.
00:40:16
And yet they had to win it. And that again is why we have the conflict in the end of the of the book of Ephesians, because it has to be one, We have to make it our own. It is ours. That's true. We're all seated together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. But it's a present thing. And I don't remember the quotation exactly, perhaps somebody does, but I think an illustration of this was given of Lady, Lady Powers Court.
Who some have heard of lived some 150 years ago and was influential in encouraging the brethren to come together. And of course as some notion was actually engaged to Mr. Darby at one point. But nonetheless, it was said about ladies Power court. And I don't remember the quotation exactly, but something on this line that she lived not as someone who looked from earth to heaven, but rather is one who lived in the heavenlies.
And look towards earth. That's the difference between the wilderness and Canaan, isn't it? We look at things from God's perspective, not looking just to God for help, which is very important in its place. That's the wilderness. As Bill said, we're in both at the same time, but looking at things from God's perspective with from God's thoughts, consistent with God's counsels and God's purposes. What a difference that makes.
And one last comment. It's been a help to me, the comment that was made that says as to fact, we're in Egypt, we're in the world, we live in this world, we have to make a living, we have to go to school, we have to eat meals and so on and so forth. As to fact, we're in this world. As to experience, we're in the wilderness. We have pain, aches, we have trials of faith and so on, we're in the wilderness.
As to faith, we're in heavenly places.
And that brings us back to.
What Bob has been saying, and I'm glad that you mentioned that, Brother Bob, with regard to the heavenly places, it's difficult to understand what this is, but you'll notice as it comes up various places in the epistle that the word places is found in italics. Like for instance, in chapter one and verse three it says blessed us.
Be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who have blessed us with all spiritual blessings.
In heavenly places, but notice the word places is in italics, which indicates that the.
The word is really not in the original language, but it's put there by the translators to help us. But sometimes those things have been put there. Give us a misleading, mislead us sometimes, and you'll get it elsewhere. Get it in verse 20 of chapter one, Heavenly places. You get it also in our chapter and the verse that we're now looking at, verse six places. But as Bob has said it, I just want to under score this. It's not a place exactly. It's a realm or a sphere. The King James Version makes it a place. And you start imagining, well, there's this place up there somewhere.
That's not the thought, it's just the realm of spiritual things.
That's where Satan is at work and you find in the second chapter in verse two as we've already had.
He's there to oppose the counsel of God, trying to dominate and to control.
That material that God has purposed to be saved and be brought into the church, but in the 6th chapters there to spoil our enjoyment of our place in Christ, as He's been saying. And so the enemy is at work in heavenly places or in the heavenlies is the way Darby translates it. Getting rid of the word places because it gives you the wrong answer. I just passed that on. It's important to see that it's the realm of spiritual things.
Fear or a realm rather than a place. I just mentioned too, this expression is, I think first used in the book of Daniel, isn't it? The Saints of the high places or heavenly of the heavenlies. And so it's interesting when we read in the book of, of Revelation, we read about a group of people, they're called dwellers of the earth. I believe it's mentioned 10 times in the Book of Revelation. That's a awful class, probably perhaps done exclusively, but probably those who had heard the Christian testimony.
And it turned their backs on it. All their hopes, all their thoughts. They all lie on earth. They have no thought of heaven. But when it comes to on 2nd class, it speaks in Daniel. I'm looking, for instance, at Daniel #7 Chapter 7. But the Saints of the high places shall take the Kingdom. There's a second class. And those are people who belong to heaven, and they're going to possess the Kingdom well.
00:45:24
That's our place too, isn't it, brethren, We're the Saints of the high places. We belong to heaven, and what a mercy it is. If we can look at things from God's perspective, consistent with God's counsels and purposes, that's being a Saint of the high places.
Now it's mentioned here by Grace. Are you saved twice?
Verse five and then in verse 8, nothing is redundant in the Word of God. He's Speaking of grace and how we're saved in verse five with regard to the beginning of the work and the soul, and that's why quickening is mentioned. But in verse 8, he's Speaking of grace with regard to the completing of that work when a soul comes to rest in the finished work of Christ.
And there is the ceiling of the Spirit and that new position before God and so on. And so it's not something that's just put in there redundantly. It's referring to the beginning of the work and the completion of that work. It's all by grace from start to finish. The very place of blessing that we have before God is absolutely by grace and grace alone.
And even to the point, isn't that of bringing the Force as we had earlier?
Today the faith to believe is a gift of God as we said earlier. Sad to say there are those today that have taken this verse and distorted it to try and make it look as if.
What is referred to there when it says in that not of yourselves is salvation and not faith, but it's very clear. I believe in the way that the verse is written that the faith itself is a gift of God. And so, as we had this morning, it doesn't take away man's responsibility.
No man will be able to stand before God at the great white throne and say, well, you didn't give me any faith, and so how do you expect me to believe? No, He's responsible for the testimony that was rendered. And there won't be any back talk like that in that day. But nevertheless, you and I realized that every single thing that had to do with our salvation ultimately originated as grace in the heart of God. And I believe that's brought in here in order to make us never forget.
That it is all a work of God because when we get into those heavenly places and when we get that precious truth that we get in Ephesians here and realize the position we're brought into.
Am I right in suggesting that the apostle realized that there was a danger in being puffed up? There was a danger in taking pride in a position that we had nothing to do as far as getting ourselves there, But there was that danger, and we know that we are continually in need of being brought back to the fact that everything is a result of the grace of God.
I suppose that's why when the you have the heavenly scene in Revelation 4.
And the rewards that are given that the judgment seat of Christ for faithfulness, those crowns.
What do the redeemed do? They simply cast those crowns back at his feet. Because we'll realize, perhaps in a way that we've never understood before, the grace of God, and that grace was the way. Grace is the way, and faith is the means here. And so we're going to have an understanding of the grace of God in a way that perhaps we've never understood before. And brethren, there'll be nobody able to look around in heaven and say that they deserve to be there more than somebody else.
That they had more to do with their salvation or even maintaining their salvation or did something that was noteworthy for the Lord above somebody else. No will realize that has been said. Even the faith to believe was a gift of God. Do you realize that you and I would never have accepted the message. We would have never by faith laid hold of what God had for has for us apart from he imparting that faith to us.
Because in Christianity it leaves no room for man whatsoever.
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The Old Testament proved that there was number response nothing good in man. He was rotten and not just rotten, but rotten to the core that even without God he couldn't reach out and by faith lay hold on anything that God had for him. And so we're going to realize this the coming day. But in the measure in which you and I enter into the import of these Scriptures now it will cause our hearts to go out to himself, to the person of Christ.
It will cause us to lay hold of what is ours in Christ now. It will cause us to live in the very breath and aura of heavenly places. It will detach us from this world and its hopes and its goals and its aspirations, because its grace that teaches us, as Titus says, to live soberly, righteously, godly in this present age. The appreciation of the grace of God in our souls does not give us liberty to live for ourselves.
It lives us above this world and above ourselves and gives us the proper character of those who are on their way to heaven. Because the verse I just quoted in Titus doesn't stop there. It says, and looking for the blessed hope and the glory is appearing and so on. What's going to form our character now? It's an appreciation of grace in our souls and the end in view.
We have 3 works here.
We have works in verse 9.
That are are useless works. And he's saying that this salvation, this great salvation of God cannot be obtained through those works that be works of men, works of righteousness, whatever then you have in verse 10, God's workmanship. There's God's working and he creates us in Christ Jesus. Isn't that marvelous? Look what it goes on to say unto good works or for good works. Now that's the good works that a believer would do as he's saved.
And so we don't do good works to get saved. We do good works because we're saved. And so you have the the fleshly work shall be saved denounced in verse 9. But you have good works that God has ordained that we should walk in, in verse 10. And we can know because we are in that new creation. That is the new creation race of men. We belong to a new creation race, brethren. Our head of this race that we are in is Christ himself. And he took that place as head of the race in resurrection.
And we are now created in Christ Jesus. And it says in Second Corinthians chapter 5 that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation or a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things have become new. And so it's a wonderful race that we are in that we can do good works for the glory of God even now while we live in this world. So what you see here in these opening 10 verses is the condition of death being overcome by the power and the grace of God. It goes from dead man walking.
To living men sitting in a place that they couldn't be more supremely blessed by God Himself.
What a marvel and occupied in good works.
It's really.
Interesting to see how.
Large a place good works, as in the New Testament teaching.
But it is on that grounds of grace.
It's not the sense that I'm obligated to do something.
It's the sense of gratitude when we consider the very Son of God is the one who hung on that cross to pay the price of our redemption. Brethren, is there not a response of gratitude to Him? I don't know why, but it's so natural for our hearts to think that we're under obligation. Remember meeting with a lady down in South America?
And she said to me, you must gain a lot of favor with God doing what you're doing.
I said lady, I don't do anything to gain favor with God.
I have favor with God because of what Jesus did on the cross. Now my life is the response of gratitude to him and to do all I can to show him the gratitude of my heart. So brethren, we're living in a needy world and we need to be occupied with those good works and I like the way it says it here in verse 10 he's.
00:55:02
Before.
Ordained these good works that we should walk in them. When did He ordained those good works in His eternal purposes? He thought of the doing good to mankind. You and I now are brought into a position where we can be instruments in doing those good works. Young people, be exercise the Lord uses.
People oftentimes that are you would least expect to bring blessing to others.
Lay yourself at his feet.
Ask in the presence of the Lord, as Saul of Tarsus did when he was saved. Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? There's lots to be done in this world, lots of good works.
And we ought to be occupied in good works. We are called to that. What's the epistle of good works?
Itis 7 times I believe.
And if I could just add to that, that has been something that has been much before some of our hearts, because there is a danger of perhaps having all of the knowledge that we are risen and seated in heavenly places in Christ and yet not being occupied with those good works. Isn't there? It's brought out later in this epistle because as I've sometimes said before.
You would wonder why, after telling souls that they have been raised up together, aid to sit together in heavenly places in Christ.
That then the apostle would have to tell people like that. Not to steal, not to tell lies to one another, not to get angry and lose their temper and various other sins. Why did he have to say that?
For the same reason that was brought out this morning, that the flesh and the believer is no better than the flesh and the unbeliever, and all of the knowledge of these things will not keep me but a sense of the grace of God.
And what took place at Calvary's cross and a sense of the grace of God in a past eternity.
Choosing me in Christ and bringing me into that wonderful blessing. Essentially a sense of the richness of His mercy that more than anything else, if it has a grip on my soul.
Will give me to do what we have here in this tenth verse, wander in the first verse of our chapter. We found that in our natural condition we walked according to the course of this world. But he goes on in this epistle and it's interesting. He talks in this epistle 7 times about walking, starting with the verse in the first chapter, first verse of the second chapter of this or the second verse of this chapter where he speaks of how we once walked. But the second exhortation.
Is in the 10th verse that we should walk in them? We're not to walk according to the course of this world anymore.
And later on in the Epistle, just notice the verse in chapter 4 and verse 17. This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord that she henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. As Bill said, he has to go back and remind them not to return to what they once were, not to follow the course of things that they once followed. And so we need those exhortations.
But I was thinking in connection with this expression and some of the comments we've made of the illustration we used this morning of the Potter shop. You know, when the Potter sits down at that wheel with that ugly looking Gray lump of clay, the Potter already has in their mind the purpose for which they are going to form that vessel. They don't just haphazardly take that clay in their hand and start to make a vessel. Now, maybe sometimes that does happen, but I would say more often than not.
That there is a purpose, a preordained purpose in the mind of the artist. And so the Potter is going to make a jug, and the purpose for that jug is going to be to hold liquid and serve milk or water or juice at the table of somebody when it's formed and sold. A bowl is for other purposes and different vessels. The artist, the person that forms it, has a purpose in view and forms it according to that purpose.
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And so, brethren, we've been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. He has a purpose for us, something in our lives. He's forming us every day for that purpose. He has something for you and I to do. We're not all the same. We all have the same goal and view the same purpose as far as what is ahead and the display of His glory. But He has something for us to do now.
We have been created unto good works, and we have talked about faith, but faith without works is dead.
And James talks about justification not before God, but before man. And there's to be that manifestation of the work of God in our souls. There's to be the proof of faith. And what is that? Rahab proved that she had faith by what she did. The book of James tells us that. Well, are we exercised as to why we've been saved, why we've been created, why we've been saved, why we've been brought into this wonderful position?
In Christ, are we exercised about that, brethren, or are we just content to know these things and to know that there's a future day of glory when we're going to be on display with Himself? That isn't enough, brethren. We need to be exercised as to why we have been created and what purpose He has for us in our lives down here in view of the glory He exercised in whatever your circumstances of life are.
There is if we can.
Shake ourselves a little bit from our American way of thinking to do everything for ourselves. And I must say, rather than going from 1 Country to another in Latin America and the United States, I I notice a tremendous amount of people in the United States totally unsatisfied with their circumstances of life, even though this is a country.
That probably has more affluence than any other part of the world. Young people that are downright bored with life, they don't know what to do. What are you thinking about? You're thinking about yourself. Get your mind off yourself. It's Satan robbing you of something that could enrich you. Think about others. Think about enriching others. Think about the glorious Son of God.
Rich in glory. And what did he have down here in this world?
Absolutely. The only thing I can think of that he physically owned was his own clothes and that was what was taken away from him when they crucified him. Think about giving up thinking. Think about sacrifice. It's enriching to give it away. You set it on to another sphere so that you will enjoy it for that eternal day.
The apostle Paul spoke of the deposit that was reserved for him against that day. I really believe if we can shake ourselves, dear young people, if you're doing some secular job, you are doing it for the Lord. If you're doing it properly and there's other people, have an exercise in your mind to think of the needs of others.
And to see if you can be a help in some small way. You will be a blessing that will enrich others and enriching others. You will be enriched yourself.
12 verse one, where after the apostle presents our position and such truths as in Romans 8 and verse one, there is no judgment to those that are in Christ Jesus. So we have this position that we're in as being Saints of God. You know the Corinthian Saints, when he wrote to them, we know that they were carnal and going on with things that they hadn't judged and he had to bring in correction.
But he addresses them as the Saints, and how wonderful to realize our position as being Saints of God in the word. You don't have us referred to as sinners except historically, you know of whom I am Chief Paul says. But historically. But God looks at us not as dogs, not as the swine, but as his sheep, as the Saints of God. But there's a therefore and a beseeching.
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Romans 12, verse one. I beseech you, therefore, by the mercies or the compassions of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.
Holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable or intelligent service, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove that which is good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So after he gives the.
Position of the Saints. He exhorts them and beseeches them to walk. And again, in our chapter or in our epistle that we're looking at in chapter 4 and verse one alluded to by our brother Jim, I therefore another. Therefore they'll be prisoner of the Lord. Beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.
You know that therefore is therefore because of what he shared in the earlier chapter again giving our position, you know, Ephesians one through 3 tremendously high position. But if we only dwell on our position, we're missing the point we need to read on. We need to allow ourselves to be exhorted to walk and have a practical effect in our lives of true Christianity.
Would you say?
Sometimes we wonder why we don't enjoy Laura, but they expect.
When God was going to bring the children of Israel into the land of Canaan, he said He was only going to do it a little by little, because if He gave them all the land at once, they wouldn't be able to live in it and enjoy it in the wild. Beasts would multiply there, and they would have more problem with the wild beasts than they would with their enemies.
And I don't doubt it's the same way with us. Our lack of enjoyment is often caused by lack of living and letting it work itself out on our feet and our lives.
And so God doesn't give us more because he knows it would harm us if he were to give us great enjoyment, but it never made a difference in our lives.
I think that's good, Steve and I know our time is up, but just to lay a bit more emphasis on that because there is that very real danger, isn't there? And they were told very specifically in Deuteronomy is at chapter 8 or 9 not to gather up the land and conquer it too quickly. What are the beasts of the field? I would suggest that the beasts of the field bring before us the.
Energy of the flesh as a result of a discrepancy between what is in our head and what is in our walk. And that is all too easy to occur. And so, as you say, the Lord sometimes doesn't give us more because we don't walk in it. And those verses in the Gospels, which is repeated, I think at least five or six times, says unto him, that hath shall be given.
But unto him that hath, not even that he hath or seemeth to have, shall be taken away from Him. And so if I refuse to walk in what I have, I won't get any more. And ultimately over time I will lose it, won't I? But if I walk in it, then the Spirit of God is going to give me more. So that's intended both as a warning, but also as a real encouragement.
200.
Vol.
Can somebody repeat that #212?
Fall from above.
And have my men, my boy.
My way I sinned as far as I had gone.
We are a strange.
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Mirror tearing it to God grace.
We will hear you.
My voice and I always have sinned together, and I'm never mind the heart.
Gospel 1
Gospel—Josh Costron
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Or I turn to the verse that I would like to read tonight. To preface our remarks in the Gospel. I would like to just mention one thing.
When we were up at the prayer meeting here a few moments ago, I believe a brother had mentioned that we need to be on guard about being a hindrance to the gospel.
And you know, it's solemn to think that whether saved or lost, we can be a hindrance to the good seed of the Word of God. And so I would ask tonight, that, dear friend, that you would open up your heart, that you would open up your ears, that if there be any barriers or walls that you put up between your soul and God.
That you would listen because the Bible says that faith cometh by hearing.
And hearing by the word of God. And what a solemn thing to think, dear brethren.
That there might be someone in this row tonight who might not be saved, and we can be a discreet distraction to that person. Young people, speak to your hearts tonight.
Don't be a distraction. The enemy can use you to pluck the good word deceive that may be planted tonight.
You know, the enemy is so subtle and so ruthless, and he can use each and every one of us, if he so choose, to be a hindrance to the Word of God. And so I would plead with you tonight that you would open up your ears not to necessarily what I have to say, but what God has to say. Because that after all, is what really matters, is what the Word of God has to say about.
Man in his lost condition. And so you know, the Bible says of Satan, this enemy that you and I have.
This enemy of our souls, it says that he is a liar.
That he is a murderer from the beginning, and that he abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. And so, dear friend, tonight open up your heart to the Lord Jesus. We would plead with you tonight, Today, if you will hear his voice. Harden not your hearts, harden not your hearts.
I say, is there a barrier between your heart and God? Let it down because God desires your eternal blessing and Satan would rather see your eternal destruction.
He hates you and has no use for you. He would seek to make your life a misery and He does not want your blessing. But oh, what a message we have tonight in the gospel where we have a Savior as we've been singing, that's on high in the glory who is willing to save now as ever.
This Lord Jesus, our loving Savior, loves you.
More than you could ever know. God loves you more than you could ever fathom.
The Bible says that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
The gift of God, which is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What a message, what a message. Let's turn, please, to First Timothy chapter 3.
First Timothy chapter 3 and verse 16.
And without controversy. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh.
Justified in the Spirit.
Scene of angels preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the world.
Received up into glory.
What a message tonight that we have in the gospel that the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
God, who is blessed forever, would stoop and take a stoop of grace so low that he would leave heaven's height, that he would pass angels in the meantime, that he would take a place amongst man, as we will read later on.
That he would walk amongst his own creatures, displaying the heart and the love of God to this lost and groaning creation. For the whole world groaneth and travaileth in pain together. Until now, isn't it? So you look outside today and there is nothing but death, destruction, disease, violence, hatred, mourning, weeping. It's a sad state of affairs outside of this building tonight.
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But God has salvation. God has provided a way of escape.
God has provided a remedy in the in the Son of God, his beloved Son.
He was received up into glory.
The Lord Jesus came into this world. For what cause? For what reason? The cause was love.
The cause was love.
You know man, Man is a Sinner. This is why men stand in the pulpits this evening. This is why we preach the gospel of the grace of God, the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God. This is why we preach the good news of salvation.
Because there is a need out there, and God has seen that need. And in His compassion, and in His mercy and His love and His great grace.
He would see man in his ruined state and say I need to provide a remedy.
So I'm going to come and I'm going to visit man. I'm going to die for him.
So that they might escape by wrath.
Oh, man is a Sinner. Behold, I was shaping in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me, the Bible says.
Job says that behold, the heavens are not clean in his sight. How much more abominable and filthy are men which drink iniquity like water?
No, there is none righteous, No, not one. There is none that understandeth, There is none that seeketh after God.
They are gone out of the way. They are together, become unprofitable.
There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre.
And with their tongues they have used to see the poison of ASPs is under their lips. In the way of peace they have not known. Destruction and misery are in their ways. There is No Fear of God.
In their eyes.
Is that not quite a graphic description of the heart?
Of man. You know what the Lord Jesus said of the heart of man. He said that therefore out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, deaths, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness and evil eye. Blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and they defile the man.
So if you're in your your seat tonight, dear Sinner friend, know this for sure that God has declared that each and everyone of us in our natural condition are ruined sinners. That we have no hope that we are without God in this world. That we walk according to the course of this world, according to the course of the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that thou worketh in the children of disobedience.
He says as we read this morning, that you are dead in trespasses and in sins.
Isn't it so?
And you know, the beautiful part of the gospel is that it takes man down to the same level.
The same level, you know, there are men in this world who seek to puff themselves up, who because of the measure of success that they've experienced in life, feel as though they are one step above, perhaps a cut above the average Joe.
No, God says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We are all equally bankrupt before God.
All you have to do is go back to the start of this book that we hold in our hands tonight.
And their man in his disobedience disobeyed God, and man brought in sin.
00:10:00
Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Oh dear friend, tonight.
Don't you feel, in light of all that, pretty small?
In light of all that.
Pretty hopeless, but what a message that we have tonight in the gospel that there is hope, that there is life, that God offers you joy and peace, and He offers His love to you tonight if you'll only have him, If you will only have the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.
The Lord Jesus said, That Verily, verily I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent Me, hath everlasting life.
Are you going to hear it tonight? Open up your ears and hear the good news that God has for you. You know, out in this world tonight we can pick up a newspaper and it's probably the majority of the content that's found in that newspaper is somewhat negative. Usually there's not much good news in this world.
If you turn on the radio, the music of this world is filled with.
Rebellion, mourning, a broken heart.
It's not a very happy place, is it?
Really, if we're honest with ourselves, this world really isn't a happy place. But Satan would seek to dupe men to think that this is where they belong.
They would seek to all. He would seek to occupy your heart with the pleasures of sin, which only lasts for a season.
But then after that you left groping, left with nothing, looking for the next best fix.
Having you experienced that, that this world cannot offer you anything but nothing at all.
How solemn.
This world is a wilderness.
Have you found that the water of this world just cannot quench your thirsty soul?
Have you found that you've been left empty?
Have you been left with a broken heart?
Point you to the Lord Jesus tonight, this man who loves you.
Gave himself for you.
This man who went to Calvary's cross.
Who laid down his life as a ransom for all to be testified in due time?
Oh, what a savior is Jesus the Lord.
Turn to Romans chapter one.
Romans chapter one and verse one.
Holy Servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle.
Separated unto the Gospel of God, which he had promised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection.
Of the dead.
The Gospel of God Here was a man, the apostle Paul separated unto the gospel of God.
And you know, we hear this word gospel, but what does it really mean? And I alluded to it earlier, the gospel means glad tidings, It means good news. God has good news. In spite of all the bad news in this world, in spite of all the wickedness of man, God has provided a remedy to save him, to draw him out from his lost condition.
The Gospel.
Of the grace of God.
Oh, what a message we have tonight. But you know, it's not only a message of good news, but it is a solemn message.
00:15:04
It is a message of urgency tonight, because tonight God calleth all, every man everywhere, to repent, because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, and that he hath raised him from the dead. It is a solemn message.
And dear friend, tonight if you're in your seat, lost, if you know not this Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The wrath of God abides upon you.
And so I say it brings urgency to the message of the gospel that you would not put it off, that you would not harden your hearts, that you would hear the word of God, that you would invite the Lord Jesus Christ in as he's knocking at your heart's door tonight. And if you're in your seat tonight and you're the only one who is not saved here tonight, God looks down into this room and this meeting is especially for you because He is giving you.
One last opportunity. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. God only gives you now because, dear friend, you know not when you will take your last breath.
You may draw your last breath in your seat tonight, and then it'll be all over for you. Then you will be cast into a lost eternity where there is no hope, where there is no love.
How solemn.
Where the devil and his angels, his fallen demons are going to spend the rest of eternity. God has prepared that place for him, but how solemn it is.
That human beings will be cast into hell, into the lake of fire, into the blackness of darkness forever, where the worm dieth not.
Oh, how solemn. And so, dear friend, tonight the Lord Jesus is calling to you.
He's saying, Come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Are you looking for rest in your soul tonight? May I point you to the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who filleth the hungry soul with goodness. He satisfies the longing soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.
He is the only one that can satisfy your heart.
I enjoyed what one said one time, that when God made your heart, he made it so big that this world cannot fill it. And so God sent an object into this world which was so large that your heart cannot take it all in, and that is Jesus Christ.
Oh, what a savior. Do you know the Lord Jesus as your own personal savior? If you don't, dear friend tonight, don't wait until you leave this room tonight.
Do not wait.
Invite them into your heart. Now ask him to come in, say Lord Jesus, I'm a Sinner. I want to be saved.
He'll save you.
It's another beautiful part of the gospel is that it's not complicated.
He's calling O2 tonight, dear friend. Don't put it off.
The Bible says that if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?
Are you neglecting to come tonight?
Do not neglect, do not put it off.
Because there's wrath that lies at the door tonight.
The gospel of God, the good news which he had promised before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. How beautiful that God could go back and he could see man in his ruined condition.
And you go back into the word of God, and there in Genesis chapter 3 we have the first promise that the seed of the woman would crush Satans head.
And in turn, he would crush.
The seeds heal and that happened at the cross.
00:20:04
The Lord Jesus Christ gained the victory at the cross.
He led captivity captive.
Gave gifts to men.
This blessed Savior.
And from Genesis 3 all the way to the end of the Bible, we have a promise.
In the Old Testament of a coming Messiah to redeem his people, and in the New Testament and in the Gospels, we have the life of the Lord Jesus and the Gospel brought to a further light to encompass whosoever will, whosoever will.
You know the gospel God is no respecter of persons. The gospel goes out to the best of man, and it goes out to the worst.
It goes out to the rich, it goes out to the poor.
It goes out to you.
The Word of God does not prejudice anybody.
The word of God is to whosoever will. Whosoever will may come, and so do your friend. God is calling you tonight that you would come, come while there's time.
Come while he gives you breath to do so.
This one who holds your breath in his very hands.
Job says that who knoweth not in all these things, that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this, and whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.
He holds your breath. He gives unto us life and breath and all things.
And so it's amazing that man can go off in independence of God tonight without referencing God. And so I suppose that's why the scripture says that the plowing of the wicked is sin.
Even just the plowing of the wickedest sin, because he does it without reference to God.
He cannot please God. They that are in the flesh cannot please God.
And without faith, it is impossible to please him. And so again I say, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God tonight, and then as our desire that you would exercise faith towards God, repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ tonight.
Dear friend, come come while there's time.
And the gospel concerns his Son, Jesus Christ. It does not concern me. It does not concern you, but it concerns the Son of God. Although you should be concerned about the gospel message, the gospel message should concern you tonight, but the gospel of the grace of God concerns his Son Jesus Christ.
Not a system, not a religion, but a person, a man who loves you and gave himself for you, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And this person was made of the seed of David, according to the flesh.
And declared to be the Son of God with power.
According to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
Yes, the Lord Jesus.
Left his throne of glory.
And he came into this world because God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.
And that every thought of the imagination of his heart was only evil continually man needed a savior. No man by any means can redeem his brother, let alone himself. He cannot extricate himself from his lost condition. And so the Lord Jesus Christ answered that call in eternity passed when God raised the question, who shall go for us? And he said, here am I, send me.
Your question if God loves you?
In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
God loved this world so much that he would give up the Son of his love, and the Lord Jesus loves you so much that he would descend from heaven's height, lay aside his form of God, and take his place amongst men sent apart.
This one who is wholly harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners, the perfect Lamb of God, the sinless Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:25:09
Scripture reminds us that you know that He was manifested to take away our sins.
And in him is no sin.
It says of him who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, who when he was reviled, he reviled not again.
When he threatened, when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself unto him, that Judith righteously.
God hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Turn in connection with that thought to Matthew, chapter one.
Matthew's Gospel chapter one.
Verse 18.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise when, as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. And Joseph, her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream.
Saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife.
For that which is conceived in hers of the Holy Ghost, and she shall bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.
Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us.
The Lord Jesus.
Came into this world just like you and I come into this world.
As a little baby.
Think of it.
God who inhabits eternity. I believe it was Solomon who said that the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee.
And yet.
God the Son.
Would come into this world.
And come into a Manger.
To be wrapped in swaddling clothes.
What an incredible thing that God would become a man. God was manifest in the flesh.
He came into this world as a little baby and you know, if you were to turn to Luke's gospel, we would read.
That there was number room for them in the end.
No, this world had no room for the Lord Jesus Christ when He came into this world, and they have no room for Him today. Nothing has changed, and so the heart of man is just as bad as it was as it ever was.
What grace, what great grace, and what a great salvation we preach tonight of a great Savior who accomplished a great redemption.
He came into this world Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form of a servant. Was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.
Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?
Oh, the Son of God came so low, I say, he passed angels. We see Jesus, the Bible says, who has made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death.
What a stoop of grace that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for everything.
What a stoop of grace.
For verily he took not on himself the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
00:30:02
The Lord Jesus was made.
And the likeness of men. But again I say, he was sinless.
You and I have a nature, an evil principle of sin within each and everyone of us that loves to sin. It craves sin. But here was a person, the God man, the Lord Jesus Christ. God manifests in the flesh, sin apart.
The Lord Jesus said that the Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me.
No, Satan could not find one thing in the Lord Jesus whereby he might tempt him.
To sin. And you know, there are those out there tonight who are in the pulpits who preach the Lord Jesus Christ that he could have sinned. And if that's the case, then we don't have a savior tonight.
No, that's not what the word of God says. Again, I say, the Lord Jesus Christ was wholly harmless, undefiled, and said, excuse me, separate from sinners.
He walked this world sin apart. He was the perfect Lamb of God and so He was the only one in God's counsels. He was the only one who could satisfy a holy God as to the question of sin and sins. He was the only one that could pull you and I out of the ditch. He was the only one that could redeem our souls because He was sinless.
And for the very first time there at Calvary's cross.
The sacrifice consumed the judgment, and he could cry out out of the darkness. It is finished.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Word, was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
This blessed man.
Would come lay aside his Godhead form, so to speak.
And walk amongst men.
And he would walk amongst men to show forth the heart of God, and in doing so, He dispensed blessing on every hand.
He healed the sick. He gave sight to the blind.
He cleansed the leper.
And man loved him for what they got, but as soon as the Lord Jesus exposed to man what really lie within his heart.
For the Bible says that this is that true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the light.
He is the light. He exposes man for who He really is. And as when when the Lord Jesus did that in His earthly ministry, man sought to kill the Son of God because they liked their sins.
But what solemn is the Lord Jesus said, that except you repent, you shall all likewise perish? I say again, there is judgment, and the Lord Jesus came out of love for your never dying soul, to make a way of escape for you tonight, that you might come from darkness into life, and from the power of Satan to God.
That you would no longer be holding with the cords of your sins.
And bound with your own iniquities.
Dear friend tonight.
Do you know that your sins are holding you captive?
They're holding you captive.
Why don't you come to the Lord Jesus, that he might untie those cords of sin, that he might set you free, and then you will know a love and a peace that you've never known before. You'll know joy like you've never known it before. I promise you this. You talk to anybody who is a Christian in this world, walking with the Lord.
And they would never.
Ever take what this world could offer them?
You know the Bible says.
Ask this question, What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world?
And lose his own soul.
If you had everything that this world could give you tonight.
And you were to die. What would it profit you?
00:35:05
Know our life is even as a vapor which appeareth for a little time and vanisheth away. Life is like that. I suppose if you were to talk to some of the older ones in this room, they would say I don't know where the time has gone.
In my short life, I'd like to consider that I'm a young man and I look back over my 26 years and I just really wonder where has the time gone?
No, this world has nothing to offer you, and life at best is very brief, like the falling of a leaf, like the binding of a sheaf. Being time, Time is gliding swiftly by. Death and judgment both draw nigh to the arms of Jesus. Fly, be in time.
Dear friend, tonight flee to the Savior while you have a chance, and I say you will experience a life that is satisfying. Now, I'm not saying tonight that if you come to the Lord Jesus Christ, it's going to be a rosy bed of flowers all the time. No, to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ sometimes to entails a little bit of hardship.
Some persecution. But dear friend, I tell you through it all.
It's worth every moment.
It's worth it all because we will know. You will know a piece that you've never known before and a joy that you've never experienced. And you will be on your way to heaven. You will be on your way to the Father's house, where there's a life of bliss and blessing awaiting you.
If you'll only have the Lord Jesus tonight.
This blessed man, the Son of God, he would walk amongst his own creature.
And again I say he would dispense blessing on every hand. And at the end of his 33 years, man said away with this man. We will not have this man to reign over us.
Crucify him was their condemnation towards this blessed Savior.
They chose Barabbas. When offered Barabbas or Jesus, Pilate asks the question what will ye then that I do with Jesus, which is called Christ, and the world says crucify him.
We will not have this man.
It's because the Lord Jesus.
Expose man for who he really is as a Sinner.
But the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners.
He went to Calvary's cross and they took those arms.
They stretched forth those arms.
That comforted the morning. They took those hands which touched the eyes of the blind to give sight, which blessed the multitudes, and they would drive nails through those blessed hands.
They would take his feet, those feet that would trod the miles and miles and miles to go visit in this plant's blessing upon the lost, this lost creation upon man. They would nail it to a Roman cross. They would take his back. The Lord Jesus said I gave my back to the smiters and to those that plucked, to my cheeks, to those who plucked off the hair.
They tied him to a whipping post.
And they would whip the Son of God and plough upon his back.
This blessed Savior.
Oh, they would take a crown of thorns and press it into his blessed brow.
A brow which should have been reserved for earth's highest honors. A crown of thorns they awarded the Son of God.
That's what this world thought of the love of God.
That was the world's estimation of Jesus of Nazareth.
And they would nail him to a Roman cross.
And there suspend the Son of God between heaven and earth.
And you know God would blanket this scene in darkness.
And as bad as all the torture that man could heap upon this blessed Savior.
God would cover this dark, this this world in darkness.
00:40:02
He would blanket the scene in darkness, shut out the sun and take up with his son.
But the question of sin, for he hath made him to be sin for us.
Who knew no sin?
God.
Would pour upon the Lord Jesus all his wrath.
Because.
There needed to be a way made so that you and I might have life, the Lord Jesus who is the way, the truth and the life.
There at Calvary was made sin, the sinless Son of God.
Bore my sins in his own body on the tree.
Greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends.
The Lord Jesus laid down his life.
For sinners.
He laid down his life for you, you as an individual and dear children tonight.
You cannot get saved through your parents. The older one, younger one, whoever.
You need to come as an individual to the cross and lay down your life at the foot of the cross.
And take sides against yourself with God.
Because God has told us that there is none that doeth good. All have sinned.
You need to repent and come to the Lord Jesus tonight.
Will you have him? Are you seeking the Lord Jesus?
He's seeking you tonight.
There, at the end of those three hours of darkness.
The Son of God would cry out. It is finished.
They would take him down, put him in a grave.
And on the third day, the Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. We preach a crucified Christ, but this Christ crucified is a risen Christ. Tonight he sits at the right hand of God, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. The Lord Jesus Christ was raised again the third day according to the Scriptures.
God raised his beloved Son and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places.
What a wonderful thing it is that Jesus lives tonight.
Jesus lives.
And eternity is a reality, dear friend. Tonight you are going to spend your life.
The rest of your never dying life in one of two conditions.
In heaven or in hell?
What will you choose tonight?
Enter ye in. Are you going in to the broad Rd. that leads to destruction? Are you going to choose the straight gate, the narrow path which leads to life?
Choose the path to life, and that path is through the Lord Jesus. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me, the Lord Jesus said.
He is the way, the truth and the life. If you're looking for truth, if you're looking for life tonight, if you're looking for the way, it's found in the Lord Jesus, the Son of God.
You know what? Solemn.
Is that there is coming a day.
When the word of God will go forth no more.
No, the Bible says that they will run to and fro throughout the whole earth and shall not find it.
What a solemn thing it is tonight.
To think that when the Lord Jesus, he said he is coming back, the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are saved, which are alive and remain, will be caught up together to meet them in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. The Lord Jesus said that He is coming back to this world to take His own out.
And perhaps that might be before the end of this meeting.
00:45:00
This world will not see him then.
And what a solemn thing it is that you might be left in your seat tonight.
Lost.
The Son of God as this room vacates.
And there you sit alone, and you will know what happened.
How solemn.
Dear friend, make the decision for Christ now. The Lord Jesus loves you. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. He wants you to be saved right now because He does not want to judge your soul. But he will have to, because he is a holy God, because He is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
God does not give you a second chance.
If he comes in your left here in your sins, you will have not a second chance. You will be outside the door when the master of the house will rise up and shut to the door, and you will be without that door knocking, saying, Lord, Lord open to us, and he will say, Depart from me, for I never knew you.
Oh dear friend, make the decision before that happens, before it is too late.
The next time this world sees the Son of God, he will come back again, but this time with his Saints in flaming fire, taking vengeance upon all them that know not God and who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is coming in flaming fire.
He is coming to judge this world, and next time this world sees the Son of God, it will not be on a criminals cross, It will not be in all the shame and humility, and they will not be in a way in which they dishonored Him. But He will be coming with the sword of judgment, in flaming fire, with a crown of glory on His head.
God's beloved Son is coming back to judge this world.
This world is reserved for judgment.
Dear friend, tonight flee to the Savior.
Before we close, I want to read one verse. Job chapter 36.
Job chapter 36 and verse 18.
Because.
There is wrath, beware.
Dear friend, tonight the gospel is good news, as I mentioned earlier, but it is a message of warning. God is giving you a chance to flee from this wrath. God has said that you are the children of wrath, even as others, if you know not the Savior, if you know not the Lord Jesus Christ.
Beware, because there is wrath. Beware lest he take thee away with his stroke.
How solemn.
But then again I say, the Lord Jesus is saying, Come unto me.
Whosoever will may come, the Spirit and the Bride say come, and let him that heareth say come.
And whosoever thirst, let him take of the water of life freely. The gospel is free tonight. Oh, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters and drink. And he that hath no money, come ye by and and eat. Come buy wine and milk. Without money and without price. The gospel is free, but it was not cheap.
It cost God His only Son, and God is offering you salvation tonight.
He's offering a way of escape. Will you have the Lord Jesus Christ tonight as your own?
And be on your way to heaven, dear friend. It's a solemn thing God is giving you. Now let's just pray.
Ephesians 2:1-22
Purpose and Direction in Our Life
Address—Bill Prost
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Are familiar with.
If you look in the back of the book, you'll see that this hymn was written by a woman by the name of Mrs. Cousins and a Cousins. But the inspiration for the hymn came from a man who lived way back in Scotland in the 1600s, a man by the name of Samuel Rutherford. And although he didn't know much of the truth, that you and I have often enjoyed.
Yet there was a devotedness and a godliness in his soul.
That I have to say I covet, and although he didn't share many of the precious truths in the same way that you and I do.
Yet there was a devotedness to the Lord that you and I may well go after.
What we have here in our Little Flock hymn book is only a small sample of the original hymn. I think there are something like 19 verses in the original hymn. If anybody is interested in them, they're available from Bible Truth Publishers or I would be very glad to send them to you. So we'll sing together the 1St 3 verses, thinking particularly of the third verse.
With mercy and with judgment, my web of time he wove.
And I, the dues of sorrow were lustered with his love. I'll bless the hand that guided. I'll bless the heart that planned.
When throned where glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's land. 77 In the Appendix the 1St 3 verses.
The sands of time are safe.
Before we start, I'm going to mention that there's a bottle of water right down there under my seat by my wife, and if some dear brother wouldn't mind bringing it up, it'll be easier to ask for it now than when the necessity becomes obvious.
Thank you.
Well, this afternoon I'd like to speak on something that has been very much on my heart lately.
And there are one or two people in the room here who will recognize that exercise because we have spoken about it together. But I would like to speak this afternoon on purpose and direction in the believer's life. And this is a meeting especially for young people. And so let's turn to a couple of verses right in the book that we have been going over in our readings, Ephesians chapter one.
Ephesians, chapter one.
Again, I say this verse has already been quoted in the course of our meetings, although we haven't been in this chapter. Ephesians one and verse.
Well, we'll read verse 9, but we'll get the antecedent to the verse in.
Verse 3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now skipping down to verse 9, having made known unto us the mystery or secret of His will.
According to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times.
He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him.
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the council of his own will.
And now one more verse in Second Timothy, chapter one.
Second Timothy. Chapter One.
Verse 9.
Again the antecedent in the last word of verse 8.
God, who hath called, who hath saved us, and called us within holy calling?
Not according to our own works, to our works rather, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who have abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light.
00:05:23
Through the Gospel.
And one more verse in Jeremiah chapter 10.
Jeremiah, chapter 10.
And verse 23.
Jeremiah 10 and verse 23.
Oh Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself.
It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
There was a well known atheist within the lifetime of many of us who are here.
By the name of Bertrand Russell.
His name is well known even in the world today.
And he was one of the most outspoken and severe opposers of the Word of God and even of the existence of God.
But you know, he made a rather perceptive statement at one point which has stuck with me. He said unless you believe that there is a God, any question as to meaning or purpose in life is utterly pointless.
Unless you believe there is a God, any question as to the meaning or purpose of life is utterly pointless.
And you know, you young people today and also to some extent all of us, but you young people particularly.
Are being brought face to face with that kind of mentality.
Because over the last 50 years in North America and in Western Europe.
There has been a general giving up.
Of the idea that we are creatures before God and that we have a responsibility to him. Oh yes. If you ask individuals if they believe in a God, many will say yes. I read a statistic the other day and I can't remember the exact figure figure, but a very high percentage of people in North America said yes, I believe there is a God.
But when the questions went deeper, it became very evident that many did not feel.
That the God that they believed in was relevant to their own life or to their responsibility toward Him.
And so consequently, what we are seeing around us in the world today is what one brother described in the reading meetings yesterday, a frantic amount of activity.
But without any real sense of purpose.
I was talking a few years ago to some of the brethren in Japan when we were visiting there, and I raised the question of whether there was much response to the gospel or I said, are people pretty imbued with their own religions, whether it's Shintoism or Buddhism or something like that? Oh, the brother said, I have to tell you that for the most part.
The religion of the people in Japan is money.
And material possessions and that is their.
Not too long ago.
I was in Europe and I got the same reaction when I spoke to believers there. I said, what is the situation with respect to the gospel here? Oh, a brother said to me, and this is no reflection, mind you, on Europe versus any other part of the world. But a brother there said, oh, he said people in Europe aren't even apostates because in order to apostatize you have to have something.
From which to apostatize? And he said people in Europe basically have turned atheistic.
Why do I bring that up in a Bible conference of Christians gathered to the Lords name? Because you and I, if we're not careful, are influenced by all of that, and the whole effort of this world is to have you find your direction, your purpose in yourself.
00:10:04
To have you look into your own heart, into your own mind and say, what do I want to do? Where do I want to go? What do I have that I can build on? And so the world around would say, take stock of your abilities, take stock of your resources, make the most of the opportunities that are presented to you, know what you can do, and then go for it.
And while I'm not being critical, you and I have all heard the expression.
I know where I want to go and nothing is going to stop me. But equally true, we have seen others who seem to go here and there. Try this, try that.
And pardon me, young people, if I say that it has disturbed me over the last few years sometimes to see young people who have been brought up not only under the sound of the gospel, but under the sound of the precious truth of God, and who yet seemed to lack purpose and direction in their lives.
It's difficult, and I don't deny that the world is far more complex than when I was going to high school and going to college.
And the complexities of the modern world.
Or something else?
A few months ago I stuck a cassette tape in the car and was listening to it. And there are a good many here who will remember the voice of our late brother Ernie Wakefield when he used to preach the gospel. And I can I was at that gospel meeting that was over 40 years ago, and it did my heart good to hear his voice again. But one thing he said.
In his own way that I won't attempt to mimic, he said. The world is crazy tonight.
The world has gone crazy tonight, I thought. Ernie, what would you say today?
The world has gone crazy.
And as Scripture has predicted in the last chapter of Daniel, many are running to and fro. But I say to you, young people, as I say to my own heart, it is possible to have purpose and direction in your life. But if you don't get anything else out of this meeting.
I want all of us to get hold of this.
You will never find the right purpose for your life by looking within yourself.
Oh, you may get some idea of the direction in your life. Brother Eric was telling us yesterday about a very wealthy man there in Spokane who evidently had a certain amount of purpose in his life and had become extremely wealthy through various means, even if it meant trampling on other people in order to do it. And we all are seeing that happen in the world.
But is that real purpose? No, it isn't. No it isn't, Timothy says. And this is from the Darby translation, he says.
Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high minded nor trust in uncertain riches and so on.
And he ends up by saying that they may be willing to communicate, ready to distribute.
And in our King James it says that they may lay hold on eternal life, but the Darby reads that they may lay hold on what is really life. And I say to you, as I say to each one of us, and my own heart, to what we have had before us in the readings is what needs to lay hold of our hearts. And that is that in order to have purpose and direction in your life and mine, we need first.
Of all to lay hold of God's purposes.
God's purposes. Oh, when I see God's purposes, then I find that I can work with God and have a purpose and direction that works In Sync if I could use that expression with His purposes.
Some years ago.
There was a woman.
Who had spent most of her life in Canadian politics.
I happen to know who she is quite well because she represents a constituency right in our local area, in the city where I live. Or she did represent it, I should say, and her father was the mayor of the city where we live.
Very well known man and she followed in her father's footsteps as a young woman. Got into politics in her 20s, Rose all the way to become a member of parliament, then to become a cabinet minister.
00:15:02
But then what happened?
Oh, some things started to happen in government, and we're not trying to make a judgment of any right or wrong.
But the point was that the ideas and things that she had in her mind were at cross purposes with the man who happened to be the Prime Minister and with some of the higher ups in the Liberal Party. What happened? Oh, they engineered things when it was coming election time. And they did what is known in political circles as a bit of gerrymandering, switch the boundaries of her riding around and.
Effectively booted her out the door.
She made an awful fuss, but it didn't do any good. And now nobody even remembers hardly who she was, why, oh, what she had. And her agenda was at odds with the people that were in power. And as a result, she didn't get anywhere. And you know, I say to my own heart and to each one of us here, young people especially, you may spend a lot of time and energy with certain purposes in your life.
Or alternately, you may try this, try that, go here, go there, and maybe never arrive at any settled purpose.
The devil doesn't care.
As long as you aren't working with God's purposes.
But God has revealed His purposes to us, and as we've had in our readings, you and I are in a wonderful time of God's grace.
Because we have been brought into a place where we know these things.
Do we realize it and are we willing to work with God?
In his purposes.
I don't want to be misunderstood.
There are many dear believers today in this world, and some have a great deal of understanding of the purposes of God. Others have very little understanding of God's purposes. And there are many dear, devoted Christians in this world who do not really have a full understanding of much that has been the privilege of those in this room to sit under.
But they're living up to the light they have and to the extent that they understand what God is doing.
They are working with God and seeking to go on with His purposes.
But you know, the more we know, the more we're responsible and the more God has given us, the more God expects of us. And I say to you and me, if God has revealed His purposes to us, what are His purposes? All His purposes take us right out of ourselves because God tells us, as we have read here in Ephesians chapter one, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, what is He going to do?
Gather everything in one, things in heaven and things in earth, under His beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. But that's not all God says in the following verses, In whom also we have obtained an inheritance. Oh, He wants you to be part of those purposes.
And if you and I are going to live in this world for God's glory, and if we're going to have a sense of direction in our lives, I say again, I'll never find it by looking within myself.
Or you say. What's wrong with that?
Is there anything wrong with having a sense of what God has given me? Is there anything wrong with having a sense of what abilities God has given me? Not at all. In fact rather we are told to do that and the man for example that was given 5 talents was responsible. More in the excuse me.
The man that was given 5 talents had more responsibility in that sense than the man that was given to. And the man that was given five and the man that was given two both had more responsibility than the man that was given one, because God had given them more. But God required according to what He had given. And so there's nothing wrong with recognizing your natural ability in recognizing your gift and recognizing what God has given you.
Sense of what we are talking about is this, in which direction are you going? And I say to each one here, On the one hand, it is possible to use all your energy and all your talents in a wrong direction and have everything that lives only for this world. Or on the other hand, it is possible to go this way, go that way, try this, try that, go here, go there.
00:20:13
And yet never seem to have a settled purpose.
In your life.
You and I in North America, and particularly you young people, have grown up under unprecedented prosperity.
And don't think that some of us that are a little older haven't sat where you sat and felt the effect of us. I can still remember as if it were yesterday. And it was 45 years ago when a chemistry professor when I was in college ripped into our class. And as we would say in modern language, Taurus, strip up one side and down the other because we were so careless and flippant in his eyes. And why can't you grow up and.
None of you ever had to live through a depression or through a war, and life has just been a bowl of cherries for you. And on and on he went. And we kind of rolled our eyes and thought, oh boy.
But you know, he was right and more and more now I appreciate the truth of his words because he was saying you have privileges that some of us had to work hard for. And I want you to take them seriously. And I believe young people today, God is looking at you and he says, I want you to take life seriously.
I think the first Walla Walla conference I ever went to was in 1972.
And I can still remember the brothers that sat here and took part. And I can tell you that I never thought I'd see the day, wouldn't have believed it if someone had told me then that I would see the day when brothers in my generation were having to take the part in the meetings. I would have said, oh, no, no, no, no, no. The Lord's going to come long before that. That's not going to happen. But it did happen. And how long the Lord will leave us here, we don't know and I don't expect to see.
Young people get to be my age. I hope it doesn't happen, but God wants to give you a sense of purpose and direction in your life.
Turn over to a verse that comes to mind that bears on this. It's in the 144th Psalm, Psalm 144.
And there in verse 11 it says Psalm 144 and verse 11.
Rid me and deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood. Now here's the verse that our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth.
That our daughters may be as cornerstones, polished or sculptured after the similitude of a palace.
What does that mean? Does that mean that God is wanting young people to be old beyond their years?
Does he mean that he wants 20 year olds to act like 40 year olds and to have old heads on young shoulders? No, that's not what it means. That never does anybody any good. Nobody gets any blessing or help from that kind of thing. What does it mean then? It means I believe that God wants you and me, even when we're young, to have a sense of the seriousness of the times in which we live.
Now everybody that knows me well knows that.
I have as much joy in having good fun as anybody else.
But there is a serious side to the things we're talking about, and there's nothing wrong with having a good time.
But God says that our sons may be as plants growing up in their youth. And I want to speak particularly to the young men this afternoon because young men, if you are prepared to take the lead, I venture to say that the sisters will follow. And despite the fact that sometimes in the world today, and maybe not with God's mind, but at least with some justification, outwardly women are saying, men, you're doing a bad job, get out of the way and let someone else do it right.
The fact remains that God has put you in a position of leadership and responsibility.
And the sisters are looking to you to take that place of leadership. And many times I have been grieved when I have seen young men who ought to have been stepping forward and taking a place of responsibility, but who shrank back from it. Young brothers, I'm not saying to do it in the energy of nature, but in the strength that God gives you. There is a greater need today for young men that are growing up in their youth and any other time and when you are young.
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You have the strength and ability to absorb these things, to read our written ministry, to get into the Word of God.
To make it your own to get a grasp of those things. But even more important.
To let it get a grip on you, let it get a grip on you. It's one thing to get a grip on the truth.
But it's another thing to let it have its grip on you, because when it gets its grip on you, it's because Christ is the object and not yourself. And so here we find that our sons may be as plants growing up in their youth, that our daughters may be as cornerstones, or perhaps corner columns polished or sculptured after the similitude of a palace.
Young sisters, the world is trying to take away your birthright today. The world is trying to say go and do everything that men are supposed to do.
You have just as much ability. That may well be true, but I say to you.
If you take the place that God has given you, you will be far more in keeping with the purposes of God.
And do far more good than if you try and take a place that God hasn't put you in.
Does that mean the woman's inferior to the man? Absolutely not. How could a woman be a helpmeet for a man if she didn't have the same kind of brains and everything else?
It's true, but at the same time God has put each of us in the proper position.
To do what he has given us to do. And so we're not going to say anymore on that. Let's turn over to another verse though.
In the book of the Acts.
The Book of the Acts, Chapter 11.
Acts Chapter 11. Now here was a blessing that started out in what we might call the first real Gentile assembly. We've been talking about Jew and Gentile being brought together, and I don't mean to talk about a Gentile versus a Jewish assembly, but in those early days the work had begun in Judea, then branched out to Samaria, and then there had been a man by the name of Philip that went down to Antioch here.
And preach the gospel.
Or not Philip, but those that were scattered on the persecution that arose about Stephen.
And there was blessing at Antioch. And notice what it says here, verse 22 of Acts 11. Then tidings of these things came under the years of the church which was in Jerusalem, And they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch, who, when he was, when he came and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all that with purpose of heart.
They would cleave unto the Lord.
Purpose of heart.
That's what we've been talking about. How do I get that purpose?
Maybe you say, but I want a purpose in my life and I don't have it. I can remember a young brother back home quite a few years ago now that I talked to, and he had no sense in his soul of the Lord's purpose in his life, no sense of what the Lord wanted him to do, no sense of which way the Lord wanted him to go. Could I tell him no? God doesn't tell me what he wants you to do.
But I could say to him with confidence, if you look to the Lord.
He will give you, I believe, a purpose of heart if you really want it.
And if you are prepared to give up your own thoughts and your own ideas.
In order to have his thoughts, as someone else has said, in order to cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart, I have to look at the whole picture with eyes that are bigger than my own.
Can we understand that expression? Eyes that are bigger than my own. What does that mean? That means that if I look at the situation only through my own eyes.
My thoughts will tend to be focused this way and I will tend to think in terms of what will make the most benefit for me or what will help my family or my loved ones or whatever. But you know, if I can get it, the whole picture from God's side. And that's what God wants us to do. He wants us to come around to his side and look with Him over the whole picture.
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Now he can say here's what I'm doing, here are my purposes.
And I want you to be associated with them.
I want to make another remark here, and I hope I can make it in a way that isn't misunderstood.
It was mentioned in our reading meetings that there are a lot of opportunities in the world today, and there are.
Travel is unprecedented. Communication is unprecedented. The ability to reach people, especially with things like the breakup of the communist world and the gradual opening up of boundaries, has given opportunities that have seldom existed before.
And there are many Christian organizations and dear believers out there who are responding to those opportunities.
And doing much for the Lord.
And on the one hand, I can say with all my heart, I'm so thankful. May the Lord bless every opportunity where Christ is preached, where He's held up as the only Savior of sinners, where the Word of God is put into people's hands, and where they are turned, as it says in Scripture, from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.
But there sometimes is the sense.
And I'm going to speak very plainly now. There sometimes is the sense among young people that are gathered to the Lord's name and maybe in.
The minds of those that are not so young that if I am gathered to the Lord's name, I am shut out from those opportunities. And that I cannot do some of those things for the Lord that otherwise I could do. Because I am restricted by the fact that I can't go along with some of those things that are not according to the Word of God, and therefore I have to be content with doing little or nothing.
Because unless I'm prepared to give up some of the truth.
I can't be involved with all that kind of work.
Is that true?
Is that fair?
There are two angles to it.
On the one hand, and I've said these words before, but they bear repeating, I can remember.
Boy, 50 years ago I was pretty young.
Maybe more than 50 years ago, a brother made a comment about these things in a reading meeting.
And he particularly mentioned the name of a prominent evangelist who is still alive and gave a warning as to the compromise that was coming in.
And our brother Harry Hayhoe spoke up and anyone that remembers him knows.
That he was a very faithful man who never stood for compromise.
And he said something like this. He said, brother, that warning is needed.
That warning is needed and I support it.
Said let's remember that in the early days before all this came to pass.
He said, My father used to tell me that in the early days all the gospel was in the hands of those gathered to the Lord's name. And when they began to fail and spent more time squabbling among themselves than in preaching the gospel, he said, then God began to raise up preachers out there in the camp to reach the masses.
Now, he said, don't be depressed or discouraged by that, but bear in mind that some of this is going on because of our failure.
That is very true, and we need to hang our heads as we see sometimes how little we have done in living out the precious things that God has given us, whether in the gospel or in the truth.
But what I want equally to emphasize is this, beloved young people, if you have seen from this precious book the purposes of God, the things that we've had before us in our reading meetings, and if by the grace of God they have laid hold of your soul, never, never entertain the thought that if you are working synchronously with the purposes of God, that that is going to restrict you.
Allow me to say, if I may, on the basis of personal experience.
It is the most liberating truth there is, and the widest possible scope for all your energy that there is, so that Timothy can say in Second Timothy chapter 2. If a man therefore purge himself from these meaning vessels to dishonor, what happens? He shall be a vessel that has to sit quietly in the corner and not do very much.
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Absolutely not, he shall be a vessel into honor, sanctified, and meet for the masters use and prepared unto every.
Good work and if you speak to those.
Who have by grace sought to follow the Lord and respond to what they felt in their hearts according to God's purposes.
I venture that you will have to. You will get the response from them. Oh, there is more to do than I can possibly reach out to. God has given far more to me. I don't mean God gives us too much to do that. I don't want you to go away with that impression. And I don't mean that God gives us so much to do that we have to go around frantically, as we say in conventional language, like a chicken with his head cut off. No.
But you will find that there will be ample scope for every dimension.
Of your abilities, mental, physical, spiritual.
Because you're working with God's purposes instead of a cross purposes with Him.
But remember this.
And I'm indebted, and I don't mind saying so to Brother Bob Tony there for this remark in Second Timothy chapter 2. It says, remember, and this is from the Darby Jesus Christ raised from the dead according to my gospel. One reason why Paul puts that verse in there is because the vindication and reward of a life lived according to the purposes of God may have to wait for eternity. It may have to wait for resurrection.
The Lord Jesus was never vindicated in this world and outwardly men would say he was a failure.
But he accomplished the purposes of God. Let's turn now for a few moments to the book of Daniel.
Because there, I believe we see a young man.
Who got a grip on the purposes of God? Daniel, chapter one.
Daniel chapter one. Now we're familiar with this, but let's read it again, verse 8.
We all know the story of how Daniel was uprooted from his home country of Israel, taken captive to the land of Babylon.
And what is not often emphasized but must have been very hard to take, deprived of the ability to bear children.
And then here he's faced up with the issue of whether he would eat and drink what was forbidden by the law. Verse 8. But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the King's meat, nor with the wine which he drank.
Purposed in his heart. Now we want to emphasize that if there is any purpose in your heart and mind to follow Christ, it's all of grace. And Philippians chapter 2 tells us that it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. So that if there's any desire in your heart and mind to follow Christ, the purpose to be faithful to him.
We can't take credit for it, but at the same time that does not do away with responsibility.
And Daniel here felt that responsibility.
Young people, you're living in days of upheaval. You're living in days when the world is in a condition of upheaval. And perhaps what is even harder to bear, in many cases, you're living in days when the Church of God is in upheaval. And you and I well know some of the difficulties that have come about, not only in Christendom, but among those gathered to the Lord's name.
And some of us have failed.
At times in our responsibilities and have added to the confusion which makes us hang our heads.
But it's nothing new. Daniel had to respond to a condition of things that must have been a terrible upheaval. Here was a young man, godly young man too, and with a lot of ability. And there he is, seeing himself jerked out of his native land and taken away to Babylon, and eventually the temple destroyed and everything that he held dear laid low, and his nation carried into captivity. What is he going to do?
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I've heard brethren gathered to the Lord's name at one time say, well, it's all over.
I had a brother tell me that on the phone. He said it's all over with brethren. I said to him, it may well be, but thank God I hope it's not over with the truth of God. And it's not a question of individuals, but it's a question of what God has given. And our eye and our energy and our hope and everything comes not from ourselves but from Christ. And all of the upheaval cannot destroy.
What God is and what He has given.
And so Daniel purposes in his heart, and there was blessing.
Now I don't want again to be misunderstood, because if you read the 11Th chapter of Hebrews, you will find there that there were men like Daniel.
Who were victorious along with his three friends and many others. And it says they quench the violence of fire, stop the mouths of lions out of weakness were made strong and all the rest of it. And we could say to ourselves, wonderful, I can identify with that. But then it says and others and it talks about those that were tortured not accepting deliverance and those who gave up their lives rather than be unfaithful to the Lord.
And I say to you, as I say to my own heart, that when Daniel purposed in this way.
He had no idea how it would end up which way, either in victory or in well, let me rephrase that, either in life or in death, because it would always end in victory. And when Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar's image, they did not know, and they said so, whether the Lord would deliver them or not. But their attitude was Whatever happens, O king.
We are not going to worship your God.
And I want to say to you, beloved young people today, God is looking for young people that.
Like Daniel will have purpose of heart in changing circumstances.
Think of Daniel's life for a moment and what he went through.
Here he is as a young man brought into this position, and very rapidly he rises to a very high position in Nebuchadnezzar's Kingdom, and he's used of the Lord even to give Nebuchadnezzar the very, very bad news of what was going to happen to him because of his pride.
I sometimes wonder, and I don't want to put a construction on it that isn't there, but when Nebuchadnezzar was there for seven years out like an animal.
Who looked after the Kingdom in his absence? How was it that Nebuchadnezzar, after seven years, was able to come back?
And be king again? Would that ever happen in natural terms, where a king would lose his reason and go out and live like an animal, and yet seven years later come back and get back on the throne? That would never happen, would it? Somebody else would fill the vacuum pretty quickly. I sometimes wonder if it was Daniel that administered and looked after the Kingdom in the meanwhile. Now, Scripture doesn't tell us. Maybe it's wise not to speculate, but I've wondered because it seems almost.
Incredible from the human side that that could happen, but he came back. What was that? The end of Daniel's life. This is a young people's meeting, but I want to speak to those of us that are older, and there are those here that are a lot older than I.
How old was Daniel when he was thrown into the lion's den?
Have you ever thought of that?
I often used to think of him as a young man. But think of it for a moment. If, and we'll throw a few dates around here from your ancient history, if Jerusalem was conquered about 605 BC by Nebuchadnezzar, and Daniel taken captive about that time as a young man, I suppose it's not unreasonable to think that he was in his late teens.
How long did that captivity last?
70 years. And by that time it seems that Daniel was probably in retirement because he would have been in his late 80s. But what happens? Belshazzar's queen pulls him out of retirement, as it were, and says there is a man right here in your Kingdom that could tell you that dream.
And then when that Kingdom was destroyed, within hours we find that the Kingdom that was established afterward.
Darius recognized a man who was going to be useful to him.
And Can you imagine that man in his late 80s brought out and not only placed in a position of responsibility, but pretty much in the highest position in the land? I think if I'd have been Daniel, I would have said, oh, King, you know, I just sooner live out my retirement in peace and quiet. I don't need to be shot at anymore or take that responsibility. But he took it. And what happened?
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Faithfulness once again lands him in the lion's den Why?
Because of that age-old human sin that's almost worse than any other. Envy. Envy.
Course, as we well know, the Lord allowed that it turned right around so that the very ones that conspired against Him.
Were put into that lion's den. But Daniel didn't know when he was cast into that lion's den what was going to happen. He didn't know whether the Lord would shut those lion's mouths or not. I don't know what went through his soul, but he prayed the same way as he did before. And I say this to my older brethren as I say it to myself, because I'm getting along that road now. Let's not give up. And if the Lord throws a responsibility in your way.
Let's not shrink from it. Let's not turn back.
As they days, so shall they strength be turn over to one more verse in the time that's left to the New Testament.
Second Timothy 3.
Second Timothy, chapter 3.
And verse 10.
There are many other verses we could turn to, but if we've talked about a young man and the person of Daniel, here's an older man in the New Testament.
Verse ten of two Timothy 3. The apostle Paul speaking to Timothy.
But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions, and so on.
Paul was encouraging Timothy.
Think of the circumstances under which this was written.
Paul was in prison, a real prison this time, not just a hired house in Rome, but a real prison. And he had been, I believe, shown from the Lord that he wasn't going to be released this time because he says later on, I am now ready to be offered up and the time of my departure is at hand.
And more than that, he was already beginning to see the breakup of all of his labor for whatever number of years it had been.
And I can only think of what must have passed through his soul when he penned those words in the first chapter of this book. All they which are in Asia be turned away from me.
Oh, Paul could have died a broken man. He could have said, Timothy, it's all over.
And the seeds of that are in my heart.
And they were in the hearts of some of our beloved brethren I can still remember.
And you can read them for yourself if you want.
How did dear Mr. Wigram back in the 1800s, in the 1870s, when trouble and difficulty were coming in among the Saints of God?
And great man though he was, he became discouraged and he said in so many words, it's all over, it's all over.
I thank God it wasn't over. I thank God it wasn't over and that you and I can sit here today and enjoy the same precious truth that he enjoyed. And by the grace of God, I don't think it'll ever be over till we get to the glory. And so Paul encourages a young man, and don't think for a moment that Paul was trying to occupy Timothy with himself, but as the standard bearer of this dispensation, he was saying, Timothy, you have seen.
How the Christian life is to be lived.
You have seen me as a heavenly man, but sent back into this world as a witness walked. And you've known those nine things, Doctor, and manner of life, purpose and so on. And Paul had a purpose.
Turn back for one more verse that I didn't intend on referring to, but it comes to mind. Second Corinthians chapter one, Second Corinthians 1.
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Now here's Paul talking about what we might say is the very nitty gritty of life.
And he's talking about coming to visit in Corinth.
A decision that had to be made. And what does he say in verse 17, Second Corinthians 117?
When I therefore was thus minded, did I use lightness or the things that I purpose? Do I purpose according to the flesh?
That with me there should be yay, yay, and nay, nay, But as God is true, our word to you was not. Yeah, and nay, for the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
Who was preached among you by us, even by me? And Sylvanus and Timotheus was not yay, and nay, but in him was yay, for all the promises of God. In him are yay, and in him Amen unto the glory of God by us.
All beloved brethren, I say this to my own soul.
God wants you and me so to walk before Him. That the very simplest decisions of everyday life are tied to the purposes of God.
Now, does that mean we don't make mistakes? We sometimes do.
I still smile and I'm going to pick on poor Bob again told us the story of a young.
Man in Bolivia who liked to race cars and sometimes they raced on a rough terrain.
And one time he hit a bed of sand and things went haywire, as they would under those circumstances and.
When he got going, what happened? He'd lost his bearings, he'd done what we would call a 180 and he was heading back the same direction he came from.
What did he do? Did he say, well, that's the way the car is pointing now, so let her go? Oh no, he very quickly realized his mistake and he did a turn around. That happens in our lives. We do sometimes make mistakes, but the point is when Paul purposed, he purposed according to God's purposes because before him.
Was a larger picture than just what he wanted to do and where he wanted to go.
But he said, I want to work with God and for his glory. And you know what? The Lord looked after his happiness too. We often say what will make me happy, but the Spirit of God does not occupy you and me directly with our happiness. It occupies me with an object right out of myself, Christ himself. Well, that's all I have.
May the Lord bless His word and may He give us in these last days to have a sense of purpose in our lives.
I tell you without any question, without any shadow of doubt, that it is possible, even in these last days where everything seems to be upside down and backwards and there is confusion everywhere, that God can give you that sense of purpose and direction and In Sync, if we could use that expression with His purposes.
A life of joy and happiness, and with the full use of every ability that God has given you for His glory.
Let's sing the last two verses of this hymn 70.
Independence.
77 in the appendix.
My beloved.
Ephesians 2:14-22
Reading
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Ephesians 2.
Verse 14.
For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.
Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances.
Or to make in himself of Twain. 1 Newman, so making peace.
And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body, by the cross having slain the enmity thereby.
And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
For through Him we both have access by 1 Spirit unto the Father.
Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the Saints and of the household of God.
And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
In whom all the buildings fitly framed together.
Groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.
In whom ye also are builded together for inhabitation of God through the Spirit.
Well, in these verses we have the overcoming of the problem of dissension among those who would be saved by the grace of God, the Jew and the Gentile.
In the latter part of the chapter you have two figures that are brought before us in describing this.
New thing that God has formed for himself. The church and the figures are the body and the house, and these are two figures that are used.
Predominantly in the New Testament to describe certain aspects of the position that we've been brought into and the blessing that we've been brought into, and they're brought out here. I would just mention though, that the the figure of the body is only used in four epistles.
It would be Romans, Corinthians.
Ephesians and Colossians, whereas the house is in a number of epistles and not exclusively Paul's writings, but the body is exclusively Paul's writings. And having said that, it does say down in Hebrews 13 that we should remember those who are in bonds because we're in the same body or because we were in the body. That's not talking about the body of Christ there, it's talking about the fact that we have a connection with the groaning creation because we are in.
Our physical bodies which give us to sense and feel the things that others are going through and they're suffering.
So that verse in Hebrews 13 probably about first, well, about 3, but I think it is.
Although it does mention the word body, it's not the body of Christ.
We did mention a few things about verse 14, but a question now about verse 15. When it says that he abolished it could be translated an old in his flesh, the enmity, the law of the commandments, what exactly does that mean?
In what way did he? I'll know the enmity.
To me the thought is that.
Was a law that God had given to Israel in the Old Testament, and it was a requirement that God put on man. But what does Peter have to say about it when he's rehearsing the matter in Acts 15? He says it was a yoke that neither we nor our fathers were able to bear.
But the Jew gloried in that law and looked down on the Gentile because.
They didn't have it and because supposedly they were at at enmity with God because they didn't have it. And up to a point, yes, Israel was given those wonderful blessings, but ultimately, what does God have to say? As we mentioned earlier, when he takes matters up in the book of Romans, he takes the Gentile to court. He takes the Jew to court and you're both guilty. The Jew is guilty.
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Under the law, the Gentile was guilty without law. So what does the Lord do?
He deals with man on an entirely new principle by annoying that law, not by doing anything in that sense to the law itself, because the law was good, but we've died to it. And so I have died to the law. And if a Jew comes along and accepts Christ as Savior, he is dead to the law. That's one of the problems. And we don't want to get into a big discussion about it with trying to have that expression Messianic Jews because.
There you have those that are recognizing Christ as the true Messiah and claiming they're saved only through his work, and yet feeling that these ordinances somehow still have a place and a meaning for them. Can't do it, can we? And I suggest that what we have here is the annulling of that enmity by putting the Jew and the Gentile on an entirely new footing outside of the law, and in that sense that you can't boast that he has the law and the Gentile doesn't because.
There are no Jews or Gentiles, but they're all one in the Church of God. Is that the thought? Bruce? That's very good.
That's the same thought as Colossians 3 or Colossians 2.
14.
Colossians 214 blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross.
Here, doesn't it? Because it says in Romans seven, I think that we're dead to the law by the body of Christ is the blood of Christ puts my sins away, but it's through his going into death that I am dead to sin and ultimately dead to the law too. And so it brings before us the cross here, I believe, to show us how it happened, but also to make us realize that there was a cost involved.
I can well remember back home, and this is quite a few years ago now, there were a couple of families within the sphere of my acquaintance then that had been at odds. They were members of the same family, but a couple of families within an extended family that were at odds with one another and had all kinds of trouble and difficulty and in some cases weren't on speaking terms. But then the Lord allowed a very tragic thing to come in where a young girl belonging to one of those families was.
Rather suddenly killed in a serious car accident. What happened? Those families came together at the funeral. And what was it that united them? The fact that one of their loved ones lay there in death. Well, if you and I realize the cost that God has given in Christ to bring us into blessing and to bring us into this position, it's going to take away any pride that I may have either as a Jew or a Gentile, to try and raise that enmity again.
Rather I say, look, we're all responsible for this. We're all guilty, and that's what those families said. They said the Lord is speaking to all of us and we're not here to put the portion of the blame, but God is really speaking to us and we need to patch this quarrel up and not do this anymore.
In the.
13th chapter of Proverbs. We have something that I think deals with that very thing Brother Belichere Speaking of.
Leave his 13th chapter.
And the tenth verse, and I'd like to couple that with another verse. Here we read only by pride.
Cometh contention or I believe the new translation says by pride cometh only contention but with the well advised is wisdom but over in First Corinthians chapter one.
I was struck with this and to see something of the effect of that treacherous thing that we all deal with.
As to self our pride, but in this chapter we read in verse 11 of first Corinthians chapter one. And it has been declared unto me of you, my brethren by them which are of the House of Foy, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say that everyone of you says I'm Paul, I'm Ophelis, I'm of Cephas, I'm of Christ. And then notice that 13th verse is Christ divided.
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Where did the divisions? Where do these sorrows come from? That wretched thing called pride?
What is it that will enjoy remarkable your brother used to make familiar to many of us?
And they've been repeated many times, but maybe not enough. I need it.
Be occupied with Christ. It'll make you humble because you're so little like Him, but it'll make you happy because He loves you so much.
Good words for us to remember.
That word enmity in French has a sense of the opposite of friendship and.
Not sure of the route in English, but is the thought there an enmity of making us enemies?
Rather than being friends.
On the practical side, Brother Michelle, isn't it true that that enmity still comes in today if we bring legality into Christianity? Responsibility, yes. Care in our walk, yes. But if there's ever the thought of bringing in the principle of legality, inevitably it's going to bring enmity in. Because if I think I'm walking at a higher standard than you are, then I'm going to look down my nose at you. And if I think that somehow I can gain God's favor by living a stricter life than you do.
Then I will tend to have that attitude which brings in enmity. And so I believe we need to remember that. I know that, shall we say an application of this verse? It's not primarily what it's there for, but it's something that that bears repeating. Because the Lord saw fit to take away that enmity. Why? Because there could not be any good in man on the basis of what he could do for the Lord. It had to all be on the ground of grace, didn't it? And so God wants us to recognize that.
And then there is the desire, thank God to live for His glory, but not on the graces of thou shalt, thou shalt not, but on the basis of the heart being drawn out after Christ, and wanting to do His will.
Best of the Law proved that man in the flesh was totally incapable. They that are in the flesh cannot please God. So we have one nature that cannot please God. We have another nature that cannot sin. What use is the law?
It is only to condemn. That's all it comes in for, and Christ is the end of the law.
For righteousness sake says in Romans that.
I think it is important what I think you've mentioned, Bill, that the law is not dead. The law is alive, it's good, but it's we that have changed our position completely. Sometimes I say, here's a man lying dead on the on the floor, try giving him the law.
Is the law not applicable? Not for a dead man, for if he was alive he'd be applicable. But that's our position in Christ. We have changed positions. The law is still valid in its sphere, but we have changed positions completely and brought into a new place in Christ.
Well, it seems to me that the law proved man to be proud, and anytime a person kept better than someone else the law, he tended to look down on his neighbor. And this is what produces the enmity. And This is why the Jews despise the Gentiles. They have the ordinances and they they in the measure that they kept them, that they thought the Gentiles didn't, they despise the Gentiles.
Looked down on them when really it should have proved them humble to see how little they kept it. But it didn't do that.
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Chapter one, that the law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And so there's the higher principle now that he brings out that it's the the law was good, but the highest principle that God could act upon was the principle of grace and the finished work of the cross of Calvary. And So what he brings out here, I believe and we can enjoy in our own souls is that it's the principle of unselfishness that brings blessing to man, and it's God's unselfishness as it were.
Man in when he had the law, the Israel, they were characterized by selfishness and wanting the blessing for themselves and not allowing the branch to flow forth over the wall, as it were Joseph's branch. And and so they continued in selfishness. But here we have the unselfishness of Christ and going to the cross, and then he takes both the selfish Gentile and the selfish Jew, and he puts them both together.
And one Newman absolutely disconnected to anything that was created.
Anything that was testimony for God before, it's an entirely new testimony and it's to be characterized by love and affection and unselfishness. And so that's why in the 4th chapter he begins the way he does, and he beseeches that they might walk worthy of the location wherewith ye are called. And then in chapter 5, verse one, be therefore followers of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given himself an offering in a sacrifice to God.
For a sweet smelling savor. And so the whole thrust of the direction that He brings at the end of this chapter is the unselfishness of that principle of grace and that lovely that we have an unselfish Savior. He spared absolutely nothing to bring you and I in the blessing, and it ought to characterize your life and mine unselfishness.
We know the lack of understanding of this caused some dissension in the early church.
Because we find in the 15th chapter of Acts, they had to take up a difficulty that had come in. And we very quickly see the error there because the Jews felt that they had to, that the Gentiles who had been saved needed to be circumcised. And when Peter makes declaration there, he speaks of a yoke which neither we nor our fathers were able to keep. And he says, why are we going to press that on them? And if that error had been allowed to fester and propagate in the early church?
There would have been great enmity and probably a division because of it, but thank God, God raised up men with discernment and it was very quickly taken care of. I would just like to say this too. We talked about the Jew being under the law and so on and how he utterly failed. But what we need to realize is that the Jew was a sample of humanity placed in the best of circumstances to show what was in the heart of man, generally speaking.
Because whether it was the Jew or the Gentile, all are declared to be, to have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The whole world in the end stands guilty before God. The Jew, as I say, was simply a sample of humanity to show what was in the heart of man, generally speaking. And so we can't shake our heads as Gentiles at the Jews and say, well, they utterly failed. If I can put it this way, and I want to be very careful, if the law had been given to the Gentiles, they would have failed just as utterly. They would have been a reflection of what was in the heart of Gentiles and Jews as well.
And so the whole thing concluded that they couldn't, nobody could keep the law and the whole thing at the cross. He condemned sin in the flesh, and it was the end of the law for righteousness sake has been said. But we see how this very quickly rose in the early church. And the enemy tried to bring in that dissension that could have festered, but it was very quickly taken care of, thank God.
What would you say rather in connection with the?
In our King James Version, we read sin is the transgression of the law. But now I'm thinking of both Jews and Gentiles. Their sin is lawlessness or the well of man at work applies to both, doesn't it?
Well, in independence of God.
The cross of the Lord Jesus put an end to the law for the justification of man.
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And can we say too, it put an end to me and put an end to you? So if we keep acting in the flesh, that's what we're going to use. We're going to use legal principles to get personal justification. But as has been mentioned, and it's the end of the law for justification to all them that believe and to them that believe, the cross is the end of them. When Christ died, I died with him. Now God has given me a new life. And in the power of that new life and fellowship with him, and powered by the Spirit of God, I can do things that please the Lord.
That go beyond the law and the fulfillment of the righteousness of the law is accomplished in them who walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh. Romans chapter 8 So there's a power for us. It's in the Lord Jesus and you and I who know the Lord Jesus our Savior.
Kyle was on the outside, but now, through the work of Christ, he's removed that wall and there's unity.
It's not really the failure of the Jew, it's God raised that wall.
Gave the ordinance.
I'm just asking.
Band on that a bit, brother. Vern, I'm not sure I follow your thought. Big. Get up to a mic if you would.
But what I'm saying is that it wasn't the failure of the Jew.
He gave the ordinances. They were to keep them. The Gentiles couldn't. There was a barrier there in the death of Christ. He took down that barrier and now there's unity.
Whether they didn't, is that true?
That's true, but the fact is that they couldn't keep it and neither came the Gentiles. So now.
When the Lord Jesus came.
He according to Romans 8 and verse.
I think it's verse three. It says what the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh. God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. And so now the whole principle of blessing to man on the grounds of law.
Is done away with and necessarily if that's the case, there can be no longer a wall of partition. I think that's true that you say is that God raised that wall of partition, the Jews from the Gentiles, but now it's gone because of the failure of the Jews. Yes, but it's the failure of mankind in general. Like Jim was saying, we would have done just as bad.
If we were put to the test, but God sent his Son, if there was something in man that was good, it certainly would have been shown in the life of the Lord Jesus. And what do they do with him? They took him and they nailed him to the cross, gave him the worst death possible. God says the tests over, I'm done with man in the flesh, it's over.
Now there's a completely new ground of blessing, and that's what we have this chapter. But it's beautiful, brethren, to see the unity that's the result. Verse 14 He has made both 1 broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinance to make of himself of twain, Jew and Gentile, one new man.
So making peace and that he might reconcile both.
Jew and Gentile into unto God in one body.
By the cross having slain the enmity thereby, and came and preached peace to you.
Which were afar off the Gentiles and to them.
That were nigh the Jews, for through him we both Jews and Gentiles have access by 1 spirit and to the unto the Father beautiful, the uniting that has taken place. And we enjoy it brother. And when we get together lots of variation of social status. Maybe not so much here in the United States, but when you go into other countries you notice it.
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The poor and the rich.
The different races of men and brethren, I must say when I travel, when you're you have your bags and you're traveling, you got to be careful you don't lose stuff. But as soon as you get with the brethren, you can dump your bags in a room with them and you feel a oneness that is of God.
It is beautiful experience and something those of us who have traveled enjoy, but it's something we can enjoy amongst ourselves. None of us have the same background even, but these are realities, brethren. The one nest in the body of Christ is a present reality.
And it's not on the grounds of any compromise. These verses that you just read to us show us that God hasn't compromised His Holiness.
Or his position in any way to accomplish this. So often in the world today, two factions or two nations sit down at a table. the United States may bring 2 factions or two nations to Camp David and sit them down and they may sign an accord, but it really doesn't solve the problem. And it's often on the grounds of finding the lowest common denominator. They are there's, there's arbitration, there's, there's compromise takes place.
To bring people to an agreement. And there are many accords today in the world that have been signed, but they're just on the surface. They really haven't solved anything underneath. And there's hatreds and enmities underneath a brethren. I don't want to bring politics into this meeting, but I was struck by the last time I was in Egypt. The brethren told me that one of the things that keeps Israel and Egypt living parallel is that under the Clinton administration, he sought both parties down and made them sign a trade agreement.
With each other in the United States. And that trade agreement says that if any, any goods coming into the United States that have both an Israeli and an Egyptian stamp on them are duty free. So if it says grown in Egypt and sown in in Israel, it's duty free. If it just says one or the other, there are the appropriate tariffs. Well, that keeps the Egyptians and the Israelis living somewhat at outward peace and parallel. But that hasn't changed their heart, as we said this morning.
You're not over there very long till you realize there's very real enmity, nationally and racially speaking, between those two countries, those two races of people. But brethren, isn't it wonderful that this isn't just a superficial thing? This is something that gets right to the heart of the matter. It's not on the grounds of compromise. So it's not on the grounds of any compromise on God's part. And it's not just a superficial thing on our part. The heart of the matter, the root of the matter, has been taken care of. We sit down with brothers and sisters, Jews and Gentiles, different national and racial backgrounds.
There's some of us here in this room that have been brought up with different racial backgrounds from different countries and so on. Is there enmity? Not in Christ, Not in Christ. He's made of himself, of Twain. 1 Newman, Jew and Gentile have been brought into this wonderful place. And I say again, it's not a superficial thing like this world does when it reconciles, but it's a very real thing.
It's nice to connect that 61St that you just quoted again, brother, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross and then go to verse 18 for through him. That's the Lord Jesus we both that's Jew and Gentile.
Have access by 1 Spirit, the Spirit of God under the Father. We have the Trinity there, don't we all in that 118th verse.
All part of that. And it's something new. As we said this morning too, it's one Newman.
I just want to say this in connection with a comment that was made earlier that wasn't developed, I think in the last reading. And that is that in the book of the Acts where you have the formation of the church on the day of Pentecost, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, you do later on have in the 8th chapter the Samaritans brought in and in the 10th chapter the Gentiles brought in. But if I can put it this way, and I want to word this carefully, the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Was something that took place once on the day of Pentecost, if I can put it this way. There was a little addendum to it in the 8th chapter when the Samaritans are brought in and in the 10th chapter where you have the Gentiles. But not really a repeat of it. Because I believe the Spirit of God is very careful to guard in the scriptures lest we ever think that there was more than one church formed. Not only was it something new.
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But it's summed up at the end of the second chapter of Acts. The Lord added to the church that which was formed by the baptism of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. He added to the church daily, such as should be saved, and that's been going on ever since. So the Spirit of God is careful to guard lest we ever think there was a Jewish church, a Samaritan church, and a Gentile church, or even with A-A Jewish Gentile church or a Jewish Samaritan church. No, what took place, what was formed on the day of Pentecost, that entity, that new entity.
The Church of God, the body of Christ, referred to in different ways. That was something that was formed once.
And that which has taken place since in the 8th, 10th of Acts and then right down to this day is an adding to that new unit, that new entity that was formed, that covered.
Where it says here 1 Newman, it indicates the regeneration process, being born again, that it's only when we're born again that we are part of this new one new man, whether we're Jew or Gentile or whatever nationality. So it's we, we have to remember this applies only to born again Christians. If you're not a born again Christian, that is you have the Spirit of God dwelling in you. You not are not a part of this one. Newman.
And if you try to make relationship with your brethren on natural terms, you're outside still, you're not in, you're not a part of the new man.
A new birth is not enough to make us part of the one new man. We need the seal of the Spirit of God. That's what brings us into the this new entity, As Bill, as Jim has mentioned, the one Newman is a mystical man, is it not? Of the members of the body on earth in union with Christ, the head in heaven?
And the only way we get into that is not through new birth. We must have that, of course, but more than that, the seal of the Spirit of God, whereby we are linked with every other member to Christ the Head.
It's good.
Bruce, can you explain?
Well, it's just the same as quickening. It's the communication of a divine life to a soul. When it's spoken of as new birth, it's more dealing with the corruption of the fallen nature in man and how he needs a new nature and a new life that is clean every whip before God. But when it's quickening, it's more the fact that there's no faculties working in the individual toward God and thereby needs life. But both are referring to the communication of a divine life to soul.
But.
As we see here in this chapter that that's just the beginning of God's work in a soul.
The completing of that work is when the person comes to understand the finished work of Christ and rests in that in faith and he sealed with the Spirit of God and the Spirit of God comes in and indwells that individual at that moment. He's linked with every other member of the body of Christ in that one new man.
Connect Ephesians one and 13 with that. Is that because in Ephesians one and 13.
We have the description there of the specificity, if I might say so, of the gospel. Now, when the disciples were with the Lord Jesus, they didn't understand the gospel as we understand it now because the Lord hadn't died or rose again. But in Ephesians one and 13 it says.
In whom also he trusted that Christ.
After ye heard the word of truth, there have been other words of truth communicated to man in other economies. And so with the Lord Jesus, when he was here, everything he said was absolutely true. It was the word of God, the word of truth, and then it says the gospel of your salvation. Now the word of truth specifically speaks about salvation, the message of salvation, but here it doesn't say the gospel of salvation.
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It's the gospel of your salvation, so you hear about it, but you have to believe it for yourself. It's when you receive the Lord Jesus your Savior, and you're lost in His precious blood that the Spirit of God can come and dwell in you. He's been working in you before that because you're attentive to the Word of God and you're attentive to the seed of God.
And he's pointing me to Christ all the time, and I'm interested, but there's a point in my life where I see in the sacrifice of Christ and his shed blood, the answer to my salvation. And when the blood has been applied to my soul, God sees me so clean, so perfect. Because of the blood of Christ, He can come and dwell in me by his Spirit. Would that be correct? Amen.
This peace that has been made between Jew and Gentile is very beautifully distributed.
Illustrated Illustrated in the very fact.
That here was one the apostle Paul, who, as Saul of Tarsus, had been brought up a devout Jew.
And in Philippians chapter 3 and so on, we find those things that he once counted as credibility before God and his standing and so on. And so here was one that was saved of the nation of Israel, the Jewish nation, writing to Gentile believers. And so beautiful to see at the beginning of Paul's epistles, when he writes to Gentile believers, he says grace and peace. That's very remarkable because.
In those days, grace was the Gentile greeting, peace was the OR Shalom was the Jewish greeting. And so the two things are brought together, just as we have in the beginning of this epistle. So it's a wonderful demonstration of what Paul is writing here. And so we see it exhibited very practically. And who had more love for his brethren than concern, and laid down his life more for his brethren? Paul, who again was raised a devout Jew.
Saved and brought in as a member of the body of Christ, and his care for the whole church is beautiful.
And when it speaks in verse 17 of how he came and preached peace unto you.
Which were far off into them, which were nigh. That's a present work. Now that the.
The members of the body carry out on behalf of Christ because we are looked at as one.
And so God is Christ that one Newman is preaching today, but it's through the members, and we're preaching the gospel to the Jew 1St and to the Greek also.
You've turned back to Acts chapter 10 when the Lord Jesus came into this world. It's first coming. It says that he preached peace.
But let me just read that Acts 10 and verse.
36 and 37, The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ, He is Lord of all. That word, I say, you know, was published throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee after the baptism of John was preached. And how God anointed Jesus and Nazareth of the Holy Ghost.
And with power and so on he went about doing good. So in his life he preached peace. But now we find that this new man, and which we are part of the one body, we find that the preaching of peace continues. But it's because of what Christ has finished on the cross and has brought into being now. And it's all by grace alone.
When it says in Second Corinthians chapter 5 that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, it takes in both Jew and Gentile, doesn't it?
Well that verse is referring to Christ life in his ministry in life, is it not? That's second Corinthians 519 to what God was in Christ, that is when he was here on this earth reconciling the world to himself and not imputing their trespasses unto them and but now he's committed unto us the word of reconciliation. We carry out that same ministry as.
Representatives and ambassadors for Him. And so even though Christ was cut off in death, that ministry of reconciliation continues on today through the members of the body.
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It's wonderful to see too, isn't it? Just a small point to be noticed here, but it's very precious that it wasn't merely bringing us back to God, but bringing us into relationship as God. We needed to be reconciled to him, if we could say it reverently. God needed to be propitiated. Man needed to be reconciled. And so we get in this 16th verse that.
Christ might reconcile both, that is Jew and Gentile unto God.
In one body by the cross.
But God had far more than that for us, didn't He? He brings both Jew and Gentile into a relationship that none had ever known before, and that is the relationship He fathered. And so now both can approach God, not merely in freedom and liberty, because all the claims of God's holy nature have been met, but because He has brought us by 1 Spirit to be able to approach Him as Father. Well, as has often been mentioned before, that's peculiar to this dispensation, isn't it?
Man had not known God as Father prior to this, and even in the Millennium, in that wonderful day of blessing, he won't be known to the earthly peoples and nations as fathered. But you and I are brought into that position of nearness, so that when the Lord Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, he could say, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.
And so he brings us into that same relationship with the Father as he enjoyed, and it's not merely a matter of being reconciled, but a matter of God wanting to have us in the warmth and love of that relationship.
There was number reconciliation to God possible was there without the cross of Christ?
Because we were at enmity with God, we were dead in trespasses and sins, and none of man, God, God's creature, ever could be reconciled to Him without their sins being taken away. So we have in Second Corinthians chapter 5, we just alluded to that verse there, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. He can only do that, couldn't he? By the fact that the Lord Jesus would go on the cross and take away that which was the.
Difficulty between God and man taking you in our sins. The second transition 5 and verse.
21 For he made him as Christ to be sin for us who knew no sin.
That we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So we beseech God beseeched by us. We pray in Christ stead, be ye reconciled to God. There's reconciliation. That's our responsibility now. Ambassadors for Christ, be ye reconciled to God. The reconciliation work is done now. Now we can be brought back to God. And the sin question dealt forever. And first Peter chapter 3, we have three things brought together.
That's very nice. First Peter chapter 3 and verse 10 of 18, it says for Christ also hath suffered for sin. There you have propitiation, the just for the unjust. There you have substitution that he might bring us to God. There you have reconciliation, which we're now speaking. And when we speak of reconciliation, there are two sides to it. There's God's side and there's our side.
In Colossians, one you see reconciliation is from God's side.
And that says bringing back the creature into a place where he can take pleasure in him, and it's for God's pleasure.
That he has affected this work of reconciling both Jew and Gentile, that's Colossians side. But in Romans it takes up reconciliation from our side and that is that he would make us at peace and comfortable in his presence so that we joy in God. So Romans 5, it talks about reconciliation there from what the believer gets from it, and that is that he's at ease and comfortable in God's presence and because the enmity is gone, he delights to be in God's presence.
And so much so that he joys in God, he exalts in the relationship that he's been brought back into.
So it's very beautiful to see that each pistol taking it up from a different standpoint for God's side and also for the blessing of this creatures by faith.
But the church is seen in three ways, three primary ways in the New Testament, isn't it? Of course, that's the only place we find the church, so I guess that's redundant. But these three ways we have in the book of Ephesians, we've had the one body. Now in these last verses, verses 19 through the end, we have the House of God, don't we? And then in the 5th chapter, we have the 3rd, and that's just the pride of Christ. And I know there's variations, no doubt, the end and Candlestick and many things, but they're really variations of one of those 3.
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And so we have the House of God here in in verse, in verse 21 particularly, and it's brought out in two aspects, isn't it? It's that which God builds and then that which is man's responsibility in verse 22. So first that which God builds in verse 21 and then in verse 22, that which is built on the foundation, but then it's left a man's responsibility.
Like to hear some more about that in the last 20 minutes or so we have.
Well, when it says that we're built on the foundation, the foundation being the apostles and prophets, that is the New Testament writers were those that lay down the foundation truth concerning the church. Now it's true that the meat of this truth was given to the apostle Paul to develop that which he received much of it perhaps no doubt, when he was caught up to the 3rd heaven, not even in this earth. Because again, this truth disconnects us, as we've been saying, from this world in every way. And so the apostle Paul speaks of himself in Corinthians as a wise master builder, and it was given to him to lay the foundation.
But it is true that all the epistle writers, New Testament writers, bring in the church in some way, and you need to go to these, the different epistles, different writers, to get different variations or aspects of the church which Brother Eric has alluded to. John brings out the church in connection with his future day of glory is the bride of Christ and the Lamb's wife and the city and so on. But it is Paul who was given the meat of this truth. But I think it's important to realize, brethren, that the foundation has been laid and there's nothing more to be added. In fact, the apostle Paul who was given this truth, said that it was given to him in the book of Colossians, given to him to fulfill or to fill up or complete really is the thought.
The Word of God, Now I used to struggle with that because John wrote later than the apostle Paul, but I believe the thought is that there's no, nothing given beyond what Paul was given. There's no truth concerning the church and its heavenly calling beyond what the apostle Paul was given. He filled it up. And so as to the Church of God and its calling and so on, its position and so on, that truth was given to Paul and there's no further revelation.
And so, brethren, to look for some fresh revelation today, and we can always have a fresh enjoyment of Scripture, but to look for some fresh or new revelation today, I believe is wrong and it's dangerous and it's unscriptural. The foundation has been laid, and on that foundation the Church of God is being built.
Living stones as we get in the book of Peter. But I say again, nothing touches the foundation of God stands sure.
And nothing touches that. You know, if we give up the truth, brethren, if we don't walk in it, that doesn't change the truth of God. The foundation is sure, and it can't be shaken. I may give it up, I may misapply it, I may look for something new, but that doesn't change what was established at the beginning.
In First Corinthians 3 it says that other foundation can no man lay. Then that is laid which is Jesus Christ.
So here's the.
Rock upon which the church is built. Isn't he here? It's called and it's interesting. It's called the foundation of the apostles and prophets because it is in New Testament doctrine that we have the person and the work of Christ, which are foundational in the church. And so it's the apostles and New Testament prophets. Luke, I don't believe is called an apostle.
But he was certainly a prophet because what he gives as to the church in the book of the Acts is extremely helpful for our understanding what the church is. And I think it's really important, especially for young people to get established in New Testament doctrine. Not that we discount the Old Testament. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and his profitable.
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But it is the New Testament doctrine where we stand rather than where we are grounded, where we rest. And it's so important to understand the New Testament doctrine. We get pictures in the Old Testament that are helpful, but we're not based on Old Testament pictures. We are based on New Testament doctrine. And I found in my own soul that.
When brethren give an outline of New Testament doctrine, it really has been something that has been a blessing to my soul. I remember 1 Conference back in Toronto when Gordon Hayhoe gave in one address an outline of the book of First Timothy. It was a real blessing to my soul. I found there's a place.
That I am built. We are built upon this foundation and that verse you quoted in.
Two Timothy 2.
Jim is written when the outward testimony as to the churches in ruins. In fact, it's not even called the House of God there. It's a great house, but it says and that's been a tremendous consolation to my soul. The foundation of God stands sure you cannot change it in the Old Testament when the temple.
Was destroyed. Even the foundation was broken up. And when they came back, they had to relay the foundation. But in the New Testament, there's been ruin in the outward testimony, but the foundation has never been destroyed. It's there, it stands. Sure, sometimes I feel that in my own mind I've had to dig down through the rubble of my own thinking.
And men's thoughts.
That you'll find that the foundation is there.
And it stands, sure. Thank God for that.
So it's important to realize, just so we are clear, that these last two verses have different meanings, don't they? That is, there is the church that is built through the power of the Spirit of God.
Through the new birth, bringing souls into relationship with Christ, and they're built into that house. Peter brings that before us as lively or living stones are built up, a spiritual house. When God builds, all is reality. Thank God for that. That building will not be complete until the last one is saved. But thank God there will come a time when that will be true.
But then, as we've been mentioning, there is responsibility committed unto man, isn't there? And man has been given the privilege of building. And Paul speaks of himself in First Corinthians 3 as a wise master builder. Why? Because he especially, but others too, had been used of God to lay a foundation, as Bob has been saying. But then Paul says, let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon. Why?
Because man, sad to see, has brought much bad material in and built, if we could say it, not according to the blueprint He's built much that is not according to the mind of God. God is sovereign. He works through it. We're thankful for everything that is done for Christ to the extent that it is done for Christ. But sad to say, there is much perhaps in my life too, that will have to be burned up as wood, hay and stubble, because it hasn't been done for the Lord, hasn't been done according to His Word.
And So what we see perhaps going on in Christendom today of which we are a part, let's not forget that may not all be according to the mind of God, and in fact much of it isn't. Does God still own it as his house? Yes. Does the Spirit still dwell there? Yes. Our men responsible in that sense, if they name the name of Christ. Yes. Let everyone that nameth the name of the Lord. It says in Timothy 2 Timothy 2, depart from iniquity.
And so the Spirit of God dwells in the house, and believers are responsible to recognize His presence. But everything that is going on in the house in respect to man's responsibility isn't necessarily according to the mind of God, is it?
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Through expressions in connection with the building. And here it's built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophet Jesus Christ. And similarly in First Corinthians chapter 3, how they were going to build upon that foundation, they were to take heed. But then it goes, and it says, in whom not on whom? In whom all the buildings fitly frank together grow it unto an holy temple in the Lord, in whom he also are built it together for an habitation of God.
Through the Spirit, so not only is the Lord Jesus Christ the foundation, He is the one through whom.
All this building can be done now and the increase can be given in working in fellowship with him. He works it through the members of the body. We have that in the 4th chapter and he says there.
16 That's referring to the body there rather than the house. But from whom? The whole body. That's him, the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint suppliant, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, make it increase of the body onto the edifying of itself in love. So we might not get too much into the 3rd, 4th chapter there, but it does say there according to the effectual working in the measure.
Of every parts, every part of the body of Christ, every part of your body has to work in a measure. It's contributing to the whole. And everyone of us who are part of the Lord's body are contributing. If we're in fellowship with Him and doing what we're supposed to do in functioning as we should be, we're participating that edifying of the Lord of his body and love.
Just to summarize now a little bit.
God has formed this vessel of testimony in view of the display of his Son in a, in a coming day, which we call the world to come, that millennial scene. But in the meantime, we see that God is using that very thing as a, a testimony here on the earth, as a public witness. And so the figure of the house is used here in the last three verses. And as we've mentioned already, the verses 20 and 21 gives US1 aspect of the house.
Verse 22 gives us another aspect. There are two aspects of the house before us in verses 20 and 21. It's really the thought of the house being under construction, and each person that is saved is formed or constructed or built into that house, and it's really looked at as from Pentecost to the Rapture. So the last stones have not yet been put in.
But then when you come to verse 22, it's looked at it as a completed thing and God is inhabiting it there by the Spirit. But this is it takes in man's working as Bill has mentioned and profession in this second aspect.
And so both are seen as you follow it out in the various epistles, these two aspects of the House of God.
And we don't want to confuse the two because what you have in the first aspect, verses 20 and 21, is every person is real and part of that house. They're real believers. Whereas in the 22nd verse in the house, which we might say includes profession, it has those who are real, but also those who may not be and only making a profession.
So the verse 20 and 21 you could say as well, it's something that is in view, it's growing to what is going to be completed in that final day, right? And verse 22 is what it is presently today too. It is the habitation of God in the Spirit so that the the Spirit of God dwells in the house.
Like you say, it may include profession too, but he dwells in the house and that's why we have meetings like this, brethren.
Who's in charge of this meeting? Who's directing here?
Brethren, we believe that the Lord Jesus is present, and we recognize the Spirit of God as the one who directs. We all make mistakes, Brethren, there's carnality in us all, and I think it's important to recognize that. But in the measure that we can, brethren, we ought to give place to the Spirit of God, to use whom?
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He will, and I think this is a very important thing for us to recognize.
When we come together in what we call assembly meetings.
It's where we give the Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
Liberty to use whom he will. And as we were speaking the other day about the prayer meeting or when we come together in the breaking of bread, it's not a question of gift in those meetings. It's a question of priesthood. And if you sit there and say I'm not taking part, you are hindering the Spirit of God in the meeting. Don't do that. You that are sitting back there in the back row, are you exercised?
To take part, just like anybody else, sitting up closer to the front, you ought to be. That's what we're talking about here. The Spirit of God dwells in the house, and He should have liberty. Sometimes we have the idea when we speak of the liberty of the Spirit that anybody that has a nice thought can say it.
That's not what we're talking about, really not talking about everybody has liberty. There's one that we should give liberty to the Spirit of God. And if he speaks to you, brother, in a prayer meeting to get up and pray, I hope you'll be willing to be an instrument to express a need to God through that spirit. It's it's really important. It's something I have found amongst our Latin believers.
They're very strong on that point in giving liberty.
To the Spirit of God in our public meetings, they make mistakes down there too, brethren. But I what I've noticed is when they make mistakes, they don't get all discouraged like we do. Sometimes we have what we call an open meeting and we get discouraged because somebody took too much time. OK, we make mistakes. Maybe there should be somebody that would go in a nice way and say brother.
Give place to your other brethren too. But don't get discouraged, brethren. Let's judge ourselves and let's go on seeking to give the Spirit of God liberty in our midst. He dwells in the house. There were three outstanding things that took place in connection with the descent of the Spirit of God on the day of Pentecost. One is that the Spirit of God came to indwell each individual believer.
And so the 6th chapter of First Corinthians tells us our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost. But we find too that as you say, the Spirit of God came to dwell collectively in this new entity that was formed, the Church of God. And in First Corinthians 3, where we've already read, if we were to go down, we'd find that collectively where the temple of God.
So our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost. Collectively, we are the temple of the whole of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit.
The other thing was that the Spirit of God then became the link between the members of the body here on earth with their glorified head, the Lord Jesus at the right hand of God. And so as a result, now we can have worship in the Spirit, we can have ministry in the Spirit, We can have prayer in the Spirit. We can carry out assembly, administration and discipline in the Spirit. And it's interesting because in the first chapter of Acts, where there was a matter that needed to be taken care of, Judas needed to be replaced.
They cast lots, you say, why did they cast lots? The Spirit of God hadn't been given yet in the way that we've been Speaking of. But it's significant to notice that once the Spirit of God was given in the second chapter, they never cast lots to make a decision or come to a conclusion in the church again. They always look to their head, the Lord Jesus, and so often you read the Spirit said.
And they act in the Spirit. No doubt the Spirit used a human instrument, a brother, and so on. But the direction then came from the Spirit of God. Because I say the Spirit of God came to indwell us individually in the church and to become that link between the members of the body and the head in heaven. And the Spirit of God won't leave till we leave the Spirit and the Bride say, come as long as we're here as members of the body of Christ.
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As long as the church is being built, the Spirit of God is here.
Were builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit, and that work isn't done yet. When it's done, then the Spirit and the Church will be raptured out of this world.
And that ought to encourage us. Brethren, we're going to go back to some very weak situations. You say we've got situations facing us in our home assembly. We're weak when it comes to the Reading meeting. There's lots of silences on Lords Day, morning and so on. Well, that might be true, but be encouraged, brethren. We're building together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. The Spirit of God is here. And when you go back to your home assembly, remember the Word of God hasn't changed.
The Lord hasn't changed and the Spirit of God is still here so that we can act under the direction of our head in the power of the Spirit of God collectively.
We sing 210.
200.
Three R's
Gospel—Michel Payette
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Like to welcome everyone to the Gospel meeting.
And I would like to start this meeting this evening by singing hymn #1 on the hymn sheet that was on your seat.
Hymn #1 almost persuaded now to believe.
Almost persuaded Christ to receive.
Now some soul to say, Go spirit, go thy way. Some more convenient day on the out call.
Almost persuaded. Come, come today. Almost persuaded. Turn not away. Jesus invites you here. This to his voice so clear.
Now falling on thine ear, come wandering wanderer, come and #1.
Have a word of prayer together.
So we'll be reading verses from.
The Word of God this evening.
And we'll start with a verse in Psalm 49.
The 49th.
Verse 7.
Psalm 49, verse 7.
None of them can by any means redeem his brother.
Nor give to God.
A ransom for him?
For the redemption of their soul, His precious.
And it ceases forever or as another has translated.
You can never operate that ransom yourself.
You have to accept that you can't do that.
The subject I'd like to speak on tonight is redemption and ransom.
And this verse tells us that.
No other man that you know in this world, your brother, anyone in your family.
Can be a help to you.
To redeem your soul.
We can't redeem our brethren, we can't redeem our friends, and they can't redeem us either.
We have to accept that for precious.
Is the redemption of their soul.
So precious, none of us could pay the price. We're too poor for that.
But the same Psalm it tells us in the 15th verse.
But God.
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But God will redeem my soul.
No one else can, only God. I can't redeem your soul. None of us can. Even if we got all together, we couldn't redeem your soul.
But God.
Can redeem your soul. God can pay the ransom. We have another verse in Job chapter 33.
Verse 24.
Job 33 verse 24 Then he is gracious unto him, and say it deliver him from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom.
God needed a ransom.
You're a soul in mind. You could not give him that ransom. I could not give him that ransom. Nobody else could.
But he has found the ransom.
And I'd like to speak tonight.
On that ransom we find in First Timothy chapter 2.
We'll turn to the New Testament, the first epistle to Timothy.
We'll read a verse in chapter one to begin.
First Timothy, Chapter One.
Verse well known to many of us.
Probably most of the kids who go to Sunday school in this room, they know this verse, verse 15.
This is a fateful saying and worthy of all acceptation.
That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
It is a fact.
That the Lord Jesus came into the world. It's an undisputable fact that there was a man named Jesus Christ who walked on the face of this earth in the land of Israel some 2000 years ago.
Jesus Christ came into the world.
To save sinners.
In order for you and I, dear ones, to be saved.
We need to be qualified.
And I wonder tonight if you're qualified to be saved.
The Lord is graciously allowed my wife and I to have access to some therapy houses where we live.
And the people that have been assigned to these houses either come from jail.
Or other facilities, similar facilities, drug addicts, people with ruined lives.
People overcome by sin characterized by deceit, theft, violence.
And I tell you.
They might be better qualified than you to be saved.
Because when we tell them that they are sinners.
They don't have a difficulty with that. They know they are sinners.
And they have this qualification that they are accessible with the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ, because that's who he came to save. He came into the world to save sinners.
So I ask you tonight, dear one, young person, young boy, young girl, are you qualified tonight to be saved?
In order to be saved, you have to be a Sinner.
Now God tells us that we're all sinners, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. In the sight of God, nobody here is disqualified to be saved.
But maybe you don't think you're bad enough.
Maybe you think you've had privileges because you've been brought up in a Christian home. Perhaps so. You go to meetings, you read your Bible, you go to Sunday school. These are all good things.
But in order to be saved, it's not going to Sunday school.
It's not coming to meetings. These are good things. You have to be a Sinner.
So tonight, the first thing I'd like to convey to you, dear ones, is to accept a fact from God's Word that you're a Sinner. You might not find too many things wrong in your life, but God, who sees in your heart says you're a Sinner. And if you accept the Word of God for what it says, you can go to the next step. You can get saved by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Because if you're a Sinner, you can stand before God and repent of your sins, those things that you've done that you shouldn't have done, and ask the Lord to forgive you by the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. Well, let's go on to our second chapter. I want to read from the end of verse three, First Timothy, chapter 2, the end #3 it says God.
Our Savior.
A Savior God. A God who is willing to save. This is why we have gospel meanings not of our own. We didn't devise this ourselves. God wants us to tell you that he wants to save you tonight.
Our Savior, God, God, our Savior, verse four, who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, The man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all.
To be testified in due time, whereunto I am ordained a preacher and an apostle, I speak the truth in Christ. And why not a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and Verity.
So we find out in this, in these verses, that God, our Savior, he wants.
All men to be saved.
We can take a subset of that and say God our Savior wants all the people in this room tonight to be saved. That's what he wants.
If you read.
To verse six, the end of verse five, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom.
For all.
God wants all men to be saved. He wants us all to be saved. And in order for you and I to be saved, God had to have a ransom.
It said in job I have found a ransom.
There's a ransom that has been paid.
And by this ransom God is satisfied forever as to the sin question for those that are called sinners.
But he gave himself a ransom for all.
So I have a question for you tonight.
If God wants all men to be saved and the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself a ransom for all.
Then will all men be saved?
The answer is no.
Some will be lost.
Of all that God wants to be saved. Of all for which the Lord Jesus gave himself a ransom.
Some will not be saved.
And tonight, my question to you, dear ones, are you going to be one of the ones who's not going to be saved?
That's quite a question, you know.
You know, some people in this world, many people in this world have never heard about the Lord Jesus.
And when you leave this room tonight, you will not be able to say, I never heard about the Lord Jesus.
Perhaps I'm not doing a good job. That's that's all right. But you're going to hear and you can hear from other ones here in this room and in the book that you have in your hand. If you're reading these scriptures with me, you're hearing about the Lord Jesus.
It's written right here in God's Word. He wants all men to be saved and that the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself a ransom.
For all.
How can it be then?
That someone who's a Sinner, who's qualified to be saved and God wants them to be saved, and the Lord Jesus has paid the price to save him, but he's not going to be saved. Where is the difficulty? Where is the obstacle? What's keeping him from being saved?
It's not God, it's not the work of the Lord Jesus, it's not the fact that he's not a Sinner.
Where does that difficulty lie?
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It lies right here.
In your heart.
Because unless you believe in your heart, in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're not going to be saved.
God wants you to put your trust in Him. That's why he gave him a ransom. We're all.
Now if you turn with me to Mark's Gospel chapter 10.
Mark's Gospel, chapter 10.
And the 45th verse.
Mark 10 and 45.
For even the Son of Man, that's the Lord Jesus. That's another one of his titles.
You don't believe us? You stay after meeting and we'll show you from the scriptures. The Son of Man is none other than the Lord Jesus. For the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.
And to give his life a ransom.
For many.
Somebody says that's a contradiction. It just said he gave himself for all, and there he said he gave himself for many. Which is it?
It's actually both, you know.
He gave himself for all.
But the many, they are the ones that believe and they're going to get the benefit.
What he did?
That the Lord Jesus came into the world, sent by the Father to be the Savior of the world.
And every human being in the world is not going to be saved, not because it's not God's will.
But because of the wickedness of our hearts, the hardness of our hearts, the rebellion of our hearts, because of the refusal to obey the gospel and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
So everyone in this room tonight who doesn't know the Lord Jesus their Savior, you are in great peril.
There are a lot of perils in this world tonight, you know, as the climate changes, as they say, and all these turmoils on the face of the earth and people crossing into eternity and difficult circumstances, accidents, storms, floods, whatever war, it's happening every day all around this world. And we're getting close to that time of the judgment of this world.
By God himself, through the Lord Jesus. And tonight, my friend, dear ones, because you are dear to the heart of God, if you don't know the Lord Jesus your Savior.
You're in great peril.
Tonight you're one of the ones that God wants to be saved. You're part of that all that he wants to be saved, and you're part of that all that he gave himself a ransom for. But are you part of the many?
From John 1045, those that have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their own personal Savior.
If we go back to First Timothy chapter 2.
In verse five it says there is one God.
And one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
Man in his.
Wisdom.
Intelligence, whatever he has devised in his mind between you and God.
Are all sorts of mediation.
Could call it religion.
Ways and Means by which?
We humans who are imperfect, we could reach.
This perfect God.
But the Bible says that there is only one mediator.
Between you and God, there's only one that could be in that position and ask the Lord Jesus.
And you know, he's a perfect mediator between God and man.
In one way, you know himself if you know more about the person of the Lord Jesus. He wasn't just a man.
00:20:03
He was God manifest in flesh.
And man and God can meet in the person of the Lord Jesus. And you and I, we can meet God through the person of the Lord Jesus. We can meet him tonight.
Under the question of mediators, a question of ways of being brought together. You know, sometimes they have difficulties in industry and between labor and the owners of a company and they call in mediators, they call in people to try and, and our brother was speaking about that earlier today, I believe as to trying to find common ground where we could agree on.
But you know, ask yourself the question, what does God have to change?
What's wrong with God? What did God do that he shouldn't have done or should have done differently? The answer is nothing. He is not going to change, He is ever the same. You and I are the ones that need to be reconciled to God, and there's only one that can stand between God and you and me, so we could be reconciled to Him, and that's the man Christ Jesus.
Not only because of who he is.
But because of what he has done.
The Apostle Paul, when he wrote to the Corinthians, he said I would know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners and to save sinners. He went to that cross to bear the punishment for our sins to die in our stead. There's that verse in Isaiah chapter 53. Just like to turn to that for a moment.
The 53rd chapter of Isaiah and the 12Th verse.
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strongest is prophetic of the Lord Jesus, because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of men.
Doesn't say he bear the sin of all, He bear the sin of men.
I can tell you tonight from the Word of God, first Peter chapter 2, it says he bore our sins in His own body on the tree. It's in the plural because he's referring the apostle Peter. There is referring to others with him who had put their trust in the Lord Jesus, and he could say with them who bore our sins in his own body on the tree. And tonight I can tell you from the Word of God that the Lord Jesus bore my sins in his own body on the tree.
Can you say tonight the Lord Jesus for your sins in his own body on the tree? Are you part of those many?
That he bear the sin of on the cross.
You're part of the oil.
But you got to be part of that many. But he gave himself a ransom for it's not a hard thing. It's so simple. You know the apostle Peter when he asked the Lord to walk on water?
Lord allowed him to get out of that boat and to walk on water, which nobody can do. Saved by the power of God.
But then when he got his eye off the Lord and started sinking, he cried out. Lord save me, Lord save me.
He had a sense in his soul that he was perishing. He was afraid, he was concerned. He didn't say, Lord, teach me to swim. He didn't have time to do that. He told me something to help me float. He said, Lord, save me.
And the Lord put forth his hand right away, pulled him out.
Tonight, dear ones, if you'll call upon the name of the Lord.
Call upon him realizing that you're a Sinner and that you're lost, and that if nothing happens, you're going to perish.
You can understand Peter, he was in the immediate circumstances that he was going to perish.
But our peril is even greater.
And it's absolutely sure, because if you don't know the Lord Jesus your Savior, you're going to perish without Him.
And be estranged from God forever and ever. And this is the last thing God would want for you.
So in order for you not to be lost and not to be in that distress forever, the Lord Jesus came into the world.
00:25:02
Became a man. The Son of God became a man, and he walked this earth, and he proved in his life who he was. A perfect walk from the time he was born to the time he died on that cross. A perfect man in everything God manifests in flesh. He could command the wind and the waves. He could heal the sick, the blind, the lame, the death. He could even raise the dead.
But when it was time to choose by those men there that were just like you and me, that had hearts the same as us.
Had a choice set before them one day by Pilate. He set before them the Lord Jesus, the perfect man, the one who could feed crowds with five loaves and two fishes. We call them The Tempest and heal everyone.
We wouldn't need hospitals, supermarkets or whatever if the Lord was reigning. They had a choice between him and another man, Barabbas.
Who was a murderer?
And they said, you know what they said, not this man.
Not this man.
Anybody else? Not him. What about him? He's a murderer. We'll have him instead, but not this man.
Tonight, my friend, you have a choice.
What are you going to say about this man Christ Jesus? Are you going to say not this man?
Who's going to pay your ransom?
Who is going to take care of those sins for you if it's not this man?
Well, this word, this world had its choice 2000 years ago. They made a wrong choice. So if you look around this world today, is it full of happiness and joy and peace? Is that what characterizes this world?
It's sorrow, grief, sin, corruption, violence.
And it's getting worse all the time.
If God can open your eyes tonight, you can see this is what's happening. This world has rejected the Son of God. They will not have this man to rule over them.
So who's ruling over them tonight? It's not God in heaven.
Prince of the power of the air, Satan himself, the God of this world, is he your God?
It's either one you want to follow. Not this man, but listen to the other one. To the enemy of your soul.
One who lies is deceitful, a murderer from the beginning. Here was one who was a murderer. We picked a murderer, one of the descendants of the devil. I don't know about this man, Barnabas, but later on in his life, maybe he realized that he was set free because another was delivered in his stead. And I hope he got saved.
But tonight my friend, young person, young boy, young girl.
What do you want to do with the Lord Jesus? What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called a Christ?
Did they have second thoughts about it?
Away with Him, crucify Him, and they delighted in their souls at his rejection and suffering, and they gaped upon Him with their mouths.
God has recorded that, you know, hasn't forgotten anything.
But he's just so patient. He's patient with this world and he's patient with you tonight.
There's a day he's appointed, he's going to judge the world, and the one who's going to be sitting on the throne of judgment is none other.
Than the one they did not want to rule over them. They're going to stand before him, this one who has marks in his hand and his feet in his side. Because he was on that cross, hanging there for you and I at ransom for all. A ransom for these very ones who hated him without a cause, but he gave himself for them.
Imagine when they stand before him as a judge.
They wouldn't have them.
To rule over them. These men that mocked him there and laughed at him, laughed him to scorn. When they stand before him, every Moat stopped. You can just imagine a terror in their souls.
You say I've never done that.
But you've been there. If I'd have been there, I would have been one of the ones that rejected him or sold him or whatever. I wouldn't have done any better. Neither would have you, would you have?
00:30:07
God is speaking to us tonight about the Lord Jesus because He wants you to be saved.
He wants you to say tonight, Lord Jesus, save me from my sins. I want you as my savior. I know they didn't want you to rule over them. I want you to be my savior. I want you to be the ruler of my life. I want to open my heart to you and receive you as my savior. Would you do that tonight? Then you won't stand before him in terror and fear which your mouth stops.
I was in Walla Walla 2008. I heard the gospel.
Maybe 50 times you've heard the gospel.
You'll remember then.
You'll be sorry forever. Sorry. It'll be too late.
And maybe you think.
Well, maybe next year. I'm only so. So I've got a few things I want to do and.
I don't know about next year, dear ones.
I don't know about tomorrow.
You don't know about tomorrow. Tomorrow doesn't belong to you, doesn't belong to me. I don't know where you're going to be tomorrow.
What's going to happen to you? I don't know.
But I know the Lord Jesus coming soon. He's coming any moment now, and the last one is brought in.
A lot of people are going to disappear.
Anybody going to be left in this room? If he came right now and called his own unto himself, would you still be in your seat?
But if you are, you'll be lost forever.
Because you're not one of his. He's not going to leave one of his own behind.
Are you one of His tonight? Are you part of the many that he paid the price for? That He bore the sin of on the cross?
Well, it says in verse six, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time.
This time is now. This is now that God is giving the testimonies been for 2000 years, bringing the testimony before our souls of the one who he sent into the world, the Lord Jesus to be our Savior. And the apostle Paul was a minister. He was chosen for that. We're reading the very words he wrote to Timothy so many years ago for us today.
He was ordained a preacher and an apostle.
There was authority from God himself for what the apostle brought before others. He says I speak the truth in Christ and lie not, you know.
The devil said in the beginning in Genesis, there God said to Adam today that thou shalt eat, thereof thou shalt surely die.
The devil says you're not going to die. God said you're going to die. The devil said you're not going to die.
Do men die?
Death is a terrible thing. It's a sad thing.
Being so much sorrow in this world.
Is death in this world?
Yes, death is in this world.
The last enemy the Lord is going to take care of is death. But what a source of sorrow, even for those of us who are believers. And we know that when people crossover into eternity, they go to be with the Lord, absent from the body, but present with the Lord. But that's only for believers.
The enemy said you're not going to die.
He's a liar from the beginning.
There's no truth in him. Here's a minister of the gospel, the Apostle Paul.
You say, well, that he was a special man, the apostle Paul. Yes, he was. He was a persecutor of the church. He was an enemy of Christ. He deserved the wrath of God, perhaps like no one else.
And the Lord, in his grace he saved him, revealed himself, the Lord Jesus revealed himself.
To the apostle Paul, Who art thou, Lord? I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. He was an enemy of the Lord Jesus.
Direct enemy of the Lord Jesus, and he got saved. The Lord forgave him his sins. He's willing to forgive you your sins tonight.
When you pay a ransom.
Can be pretty expensive.
This is something that's being done more and more in the world because a lot of people are poor.
The coast of Somalia, they do that. They have pirate ships and they take people as hostages and they ask for a ransom and when people pay the ransom, they let them go.
00:35:10
First Peter chapter one.
Verse 18.
How much to redeem your soul?
How much to redeem you? How much to redeem me? What's the cost?
God has found the ransom.
The Lord Jesus gave himself a ransom for all first Peter one verse 18 whereas much for as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your Father's **** with the precious blood.
Of Christ.
That's the price that has been paid by God Himself.
To redeem you, to pay the ransom for you. Those many.
How precious.
That precious blood of Christ, God alone knows how precious.
That bloody?
It is precious, and it should tell you, dear one, tonight how precious you are in the sight of God.
That the Lord Jesus shed his precious blood.
That God could have you.
As his child.
That God can save you from your sins and keep you from the horror of hell, judgment, weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth forever.
And people say, oh hell, it's so cruel.
There's no cruelty in hell, there's righteousness.
And it cost the Lord Jesus His very life, His blood on the cross, for no one to go there. God wants all men to be saved. He gave Himself a ransom for all.
Makes you and I responsible now.
We spoke a little bit about that in the meeting. As to the responsibility of men, I trust the Lord with his help, I'm acting responsibly here before you and setting these things before you. Now you're a hearer and I trust you're going to act responsibly too. And you're going to say tonight in your heart, you don't have to tell me. You just tell God I accept that I'm a Sinner.
Perhaps I didn't do like this guy or this other guy, these people, but I've done things and I thought things in my mind that I shouldn't have been thinking of. I'm a Sinner and I accept what your word says about me and about the Lord Jesus. And I want the Lord Jesus to save me, to be my Savior if you call upon him tonight in your heart.
God is going to save you. There's a book in Revelation chapter 20 I believe.
Call the Lamb's Book of Life.
We're just going to read that revelation, chapter 20.
Verse 11.
That's Revelation 2011. That's in a day to come.
When there's no more heaven and no more earth, no place to hide, no mountains to fall upon you, no cave you can crawl into, no, none of that, It's all gone. All that's left is you before God.
And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened.
Another book was open, which is the Book of Life, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.
And this sea gave up the dead which were in it, and the death and hell delivered up to dead which were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works, And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And verse 15.
And whosoever was not found written in the book of Life was cast into.
The Lake of Fire.
God is writing names down tonight.
00:40:04
Some 30 years ago, he wrote my name down.
In the book of life, when I trusted the Lord Jesus, my own personal Savior.
Is your name.
In the book of life tonight.
When you leave this room tonight, perhaps, as we sang this hymn in the beginning, almost persuaded. Are you going to leave this room tonight? Almost persuaded but lost. Are you going to leave this room tonight without your name being written in the Lamb's Book of Life?
He's going to be looking for it here, but if it was not found written in the book of life.
Was cast into the lake of fire. They were judged according to their works.
If I simply ask you a question, why were they cast into the Lake of Fire?
Because of their sins. It doesn't say that.
They were cast into the Lake of Fire because their name was not in the Lamb's Book of Life.
God is writing names out tonight.
In a coming day, perhaps tonight, perhaps later this evening, he's going to close that book. The time of grace is over.
We're going on the next step now and those that have heard.
And believe the gospel which are saved going to be with the Lord Jesus and those that have heard and have not believed.
Their name is not going to be found in the book of Life. Well, tonight, my friend, is a wonderful good news. God is taking names down tonight.
You know, it says that the books were opened, many, many books. You know, men, we're so intelligent. We can get millions of names we could say on little chips, little pieces, little, you know, I have a digital camera. There's so many millions of characters that can get in there, so.
God has books too.
And he's got every detail in there.
We have books, we have computers, we have gigabytes, all sorts of information. God has all the information, not missing anything. You think you can get away with something, It's in the book.
It's written in his book. Every thought, every word, every action, Nothing missing.
And his books are not in computers. They never crash.
When men stand before this great white throne, when these books are opened, it's all going to be there, nothing missing.
And that one on the throne, that great white throne.
Is that man the Lord Jesus, with holes in his hands and his feet in his side, the one we spit upon?
Wouldn't have him to rule over us. He's going to rule over all things.
I trust you're going to be part of the blessing when the Lord Jesus comes, that no one in this room will ever stand before this great white throne to be judged for our works. That's why Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners so that wouldn't happen to sinners, That these books be open and their lives reviewed and their names not found in the book of life and be cast.
Into the lake of fire, to be tormented forever and ever.
And ever.
Two Corinthians, chapter 5.
Verse 11.
2nd Corinthians 511.
Knowing therefore.
The terror of the Lord.
We persuade men.
I know some of you, maybe many of us. We were drawn to the Lord Jesus by His love as we considered the beauty of His character, and God used His word, His Spirit, to touch us that way.
00:45:08
Tonight, my friend, even if it's the fear of God, the terror of the Lord that makes you uncomfortable, we pray that as we understand ourselves, the terror of the Lord, we want to persuade you.
We want you to persuade you tonight that you would in simplicity call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. You'll be one of the ones that he gave himself a ransom for power to that many.
That He gave Himself for. So He gave himself for all that's available for you. But you want to be part of the many. You have to call upon His name tonight. You have to trust Him as your Savior. You have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart tonight and accept Him as your own personal Savior.
Knowing therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.
Later on it says, We beseech you, in the name of Christ, be ye reconciled to God.
The Lord Jesus Himself.
Beseeching is like supplication. God would have us to supplicate you. Be reconciled to God. Don't put it off.
Sometimes we say use the expression Don't play with fire.
Scripture speaks of everlasting fire, never to be quenched, not to be played with.
The terror of the Lord, we persuade men don't go there, don't end up there. God doesn't want anybody to go there, but some will.
You be part of those many that the Lord Jesus gave himself a ransom for.
I have another little mini I want to look at in Matthew Chapter 7.
Matthew Chapter 7, verse 21.
Matthew 721 It says There not everyone that said unto me, Lord, Lord.
Shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven.
Many. There's that many I want to speak of now, another kind of many, not the many that he gave himself a ransom for. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works, and then will I profess unto them.
I never knew you depart from me.
Ye that work iniquity.
Here's a company called Many.
That you don't want to be part of.
You want to be part of that many that you gave himself a ransom for.
What characterizes the many here?
Is when they talk to the Lord.
Notice what happens.
Lord, Lord.
Have we not?
Done this and done that and done this.
They're talking about what they have done.
God will tell you what you have done.
You have sinned and you need a Savior.
They're talking to the Lord about what they have done for Him. They know nothing but what He.
Had done for them.
Do you know tonight, my friend, what the Lord Jesus done for you, or do you want to stand before the Lord and tell him what you've done for him? You've been a good boy. You've been going to Sunday school, you know verses by heart. It's wonderful, it's not bad.
But you can't stand before the Lord unless you know what he's done for you. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. You're a Sinner tonight He came into the world. He gave himself a ransom for all. The work is finished. He'd grown on the cross. He said, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Not because of anything he had done, but because of what I have done and what you have done and what many, many, many have done. That's why he grown upon the tree and God is satisfied with Jesus. He rose him from the dead on the third day.
00:50:06
He's at God's right hand right now. He's coming back momentarily to get all those that have put their trust in Him. Are you one of those that have put their trust in Him? Are you one of those many? Not the menies in John and Matthew 7 who talked to the Lord about all these wonderful things they've done for him? He calls them workers of iniquity.
But as to those who know the things that He has done for us and for us individually, well, one last verse before we close. It's in Job again, Chapter 36. My brother read that verse yesterday, and it struck me as he did because I had some of these thoughts on my heart.
Joel Chapter 36.
In verse 18.
Because there is wrath.
Beware lest ye take thee away with his stroke.
Then.
A great ransom.
Cannot deliver.
No one's going to say when they stand before that great white drone, OK, I'll have the Lord. I want him as my savior. I'll have him as my savior. I want him to wash my sins away. I want to be safe.
A great ransom.
Cannot deliver them, they can deliver you tonight.
The ransom has been paid. The Lord Jesus died and rose again. He shed his precious blood. He's paid the price of redemption. He's knocking at your heart's door tonight and saying, let me in. Let me be your Savior. Let me save you. Let me forgive you. All those things that I have to judge you for, I paid for them on the cross with my precious blood. I died for you.
But tonight, my friend, if the Lord Jesus comes and you're without Christ.
Or you cross into eternity without Christ. You're going to stand before God.
And a great ransom, that great ransom will not be able to deliver you then, but it can tonight, my friend. So boys and girls, older ones, I know many of you have already trusted the Lord Jesus your Savior. But if you haven't and I don't put it off, don't wait 5 minutes more. You just ask the Lord in your heart. Lord, I want to be saved once. You're my Savior. I want that ransom to be available.
And efficacious, if that's the right word for me. I want to be part of those many, not the all. I was already part of the all. I want to be part of those many.
That you died for, that you bore their sins on the cross in your own body. I want to be one of those tonight. I want you to my Savior. I want to thank you, my God and Father, for giving your Son for me. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son for you. That you should believe in Him. That you wouldn't perish but have everlasting life. Well, dear ones, I trust you're not going to perish. That tonight you have everlasting life. That even as you rise up from your chair tonight, when this meeting is over, you'll be one of those.
That Jesus saved by his great work.
On the cross, you'll be one of those that he's washed in his most precious blood.
Let's sing a hymn in closing.
Verse #32.
And what?
00:55:06
Why can't you get one of me not to come out for love for me?
I shall see a clock and all my dreams in my life. That's not long, no.
Imagine someone who was a captor and there was a ransom requested and the ransom was paid.
And then the person who was a captor refused the freedom that was offered them.
They would remain captive forever. Those of us who are captives of sin and Satan, the ransom has been paid. You can be free tonight by running and finding refuge in the Lord Jesus. Do not stay captive to sin and Satan. Let's bow our heads.
How Will You Be Judged?
Children—Mark Debu
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.
Song that they would like to start with.
OK, right here on the corner.
What's that 33?
Somebody will have to help me starting out these #33.
None.
Jesus did it? Did it all flow?
Weary working?
So these guys can bring all the God flow. Come on, come on.
Everything and indeed be faking. And we've been in Henry Duncan and we've gone, resigned, resign.
Ed Listening.
This is all you need.
Tell me, is it not?
Yes, your deadly. Do we know?
Speak standing here in in here, my Lord, gloriously holy.
Sin is yes indeed.
Hidden Standard Time.
Say this is all you need.
Tell me, is it not?
#41.
From some solid words why our fingers plowed.
Around.
A birthday.
Party.
Glory.
What brings them to that world?
Where love is his hand growing and last night.
Glory.
00:05:05
And why we see glory, Glory.
Figure of God.
Anybody else?
OK, go ahead.
#32.
Jesus.
Christ makes me life and struggle.
No, I know nothing but the blood.
Jesus.
Fire, fire and the Empire season. Nothing like the bloody Jesus.
Like my friend, many friends, my grades, nothing but the lie on Jesus.
Oh, Christmas tree from the glad breaks me. I can snide.
Jesus.
Before we sing some more songs, let's look to the Lord. Let's pray.
OK, who else has a song? OK, Josiah, you'll be asked.
#3 #3.
They're not frozen.
All of the only way that you want a man's last name.
For the rise of Saudi right first and God.
The same things and.
00:10:02
Darkness.
I think Christy, yeah, change his grace.
In every.
Morning started.
Where they thank her to hold twin in the prayer.
On the right.
Sinking sand.
God was very proud.
And sinking sand.
Eternally.
From this and my name is Grace.
On his hands.
All around.
By Solid Getaway.
If you stand upright. My last week savior.
Did you have a song?
Number #42.
Oh, it's actually 47. We'll do 47.
When he comes in.
The world.
Like the stars of the morning.
Is right Crown of the morning?
My sunshine in this beauty. Bright jumps for his crown.
OK, go ahead #46.
00:15:11
Let's do one more.
I think he was first. Go ahead.
#30.
He drowned out and stayed in.
Faith and prayers will save me.
Jesus.
Bless, die for me.
Jesus, I saw a bird on the tree.
She can't switch to make me free.
He alone can save me.
Is there anyone who has a verse that they learned would like to say, we won't be able to do everybody, but we want to say a virtual site. You want to come up to a microphone and say a verse. You think you can do that? Does that scare you a little bit? You can just say it. Go ahead.
Very good. Very good. There's somebody else. Hey, Jamie, come ahead.
And come up to the microphone.
I am come. I am come.
I don't come that they might have lessons, that they might have it more abundantly. John, 1010, Julia.
I am come that they might have my life and that they might have it more abundantly. John 1010 very good and more okay Paul, you want to come say it.
I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.
Very good. You wanted to say it.
I am come that they might have life and that they might have a more abundantly John 1010 Very good. All right, OK, we'll do those two boys and maybe at the end we'll do some more. But OK, you want to do it, Danny.
00:20:15
I am calm that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. Drunk tan, 10.
That they might have life and they might have it more abundantly. John 1010. OK, very good. Maybe we'll do some more at the end, but thank you for everybody who wanted to do it. But what I wanted to talk about this morning, I've been thinking about that for a little while, and then it came up several times during the meetings. And I want to talk a little bit about the Lord Jesus as a judge. Now that doesn't sound very pleasant, does it?
But when we know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior.
You don't have to be afraid. It's a very good thing. And I'm going to start by reading a verse that was already read. Let's turn to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5.
In the beginning of verse 10, Second Corinthians 5 and the beginning of verse 10 it says For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.
I'm going to ask you, when you hear the word judge, what do you think about what does a judge do? Who's a judge? Does anybody have an answer to that, Jonathan?
Can you come up to microphone so we can hear you?
What does a judge do?
People like, like, there's a judge at the police office. Yeah. And then the courthouse. Yeah, that's exactly right. Thank you.
So probably all I've heard about that or seen it or whatever, that there's a courthouse and there'll be a judge and he'll be sitting up a little bit on a bench and somebody has done something wrong. And they come in and the judge listens to what's going on and then he hands down a sentence as what they call it. He gives them their punishment. And that might be a fine. You might have to go to prison depending on what they have done.
That sound very pleasant, no. Is that the only kind of judge there is?
And somebody think of another judge.
Who's a judge to who does something different then good? Jeff? Lord Jesus. Yeah, Well, the Lord Jesus, he will be a judge like the one we just talked about. But think about here on earth, are there people that are judges that do different things, that sit in a courthouse and judge people?
Have you ever heard maybe of a, let's say, a music competition? People come up and they play their instrument and who's sitting in the front row fits a competition?
The judges, do they tell him to go to prison after they're done playing their piece? No, I hope not, unless it's really bad. But what they do is they listen. And it might be different things. It might be, you know, in sports, there's some sports, too, that somebody does some gymnastics and there's judges there and they look at what they're doing. They give them points, they give them a score. And at the end of the competition, the first, you know, people get prizes, right?
So there's two different kinds of judges.
There's those that sit in the courthouse and they have to do with people that have done things wrong. And then we have the judges too, that may be Sadat competitions or fairs or whatever it may be, and they give people rewards.
Which judge do you want to face?
You'd rather go to the courthouse and talk to that judge? Or would you rather talk to the judge who has the ribbon or the trophy or whatever it is? What do you think, Julia?
The second one, I think that's the right choice. OK, so now we have two kinds of judges.
And it speaks here of we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. And I'm going to talk about another division. All the people in the world, they belong to one of two categories 2.
And the category that they belong to depends.
On what they think about the Lord Jesus.
Now I was thinking that as we go through life, if you're young or old, we make many decisions.
And a lot of the decisions we make are not that important. You know, I saw some people kind of looking around which chair they want to sit on, make sure they sit by their friend, and that's a decision that we make.
But it's not that important. It's important right now that when we're done here with the Sunday school and he will go back to your world where your parents are. It didn't really matter that much what seat you were on. It was only for a little while.
00:25:07
But there's some decisions that you'll have to make, especially as you grow older, that are more important and the results last longer. You know, if you grow up, you have to decide what work you will do, where you will live, if you will marry. Those are important decisions, but still.
The consequences are the results of that decision only last for a certain period of time, but there's one decision that everybody has to make that lasts forever.
What decision do you think that is?
Anybody know?
What question do we all have to answer in the result last forever? What is it?
That's it, that's it. He says if you want to go to hell or to heaven, or to say it differently, if you want to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior or not. So we have two kinds of judges that we talked about and we have two kinds of people. We have those that have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ and we have those that have rejected the Lord Jesus Christ.
And what we have done with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Will make the decision how we will stand before the Lord Jesus as a judge, as the Lord Jesus will judge in those two characters either as a judge in a courthouse that tells the person his his his punishment or as the judge at the competition that gives him the reward. And so here it speaks the verse that I read, I think it speaks about those that have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ.
And they?
Will come before the Lord Jesus Christ, and they will be with him or face him in that character of the judge that gives reward. Let's turn to a verse in First Corinthians chapter 3.
In verse 11 it says for utter foundation can no man lay, then that is laid which is Jesus Christ.
And then it speaks of what we do in the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ. I would talk about us accepting the Lord Jesus Christ and it speaks about what we do in our lives. And it says in verse 14, if any man's work abide which he had built their own, he shall receive reward.
That's what the Lord would like to do when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And I would like to have somebody volunteer to come up here with me for just a minute. Somebody don't have to do anything.
Major, does anybody you want to? OK, come on.
I used to know your name, but I forgot. Will. OK, Will you love the Lord Will? Yeah, I know you do. OK, so Will here. He knows the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior. If we know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, what are we waiting for?
For the Lord to come, Exactly. We wait for the Lord to come and to take us to heaven, right? So when the Lord comes, all those that have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ will go to heaven. We'll be with him. There will be a time when we are in heaven there that will all come before the Lord Jesus Christ.
In what is called the judgment seat of Christ.
Does that sound scary to you? Are you a little nervous about that?
No very good because it says. I mean I should probably read it in second Corinthians if we go on the net verse.
2nd Corinthians 5 there the second-half of that first.
Ten it says, For we must all appear before the judgment. Seat of Christ are everywhere. Everyone may receive the things done in his body.
According to that he had done, whether it be good or bad. Now let's quickly turn to John 5.
John 5 and.
Verse 24 It says, Verily, verily, I send to you He that here at my worth, and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.
Now will that verse that I just read, the first one, it says that when you will come before the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven, everything that you have done in your life.
That will come open.
That kind of scary says the good and the bad. Does that make you a little nervous? But you know what? You don't have to be a sound scary, doesn't it? But we don't have to be afraid because you know what? When we stand before the Lord Jesus, I wouldn't even call that stand before when I imagined a judgment seat of Christ for the believer's children. It's not like a judge who's sitting in the courthouse. I cannot see that the Lord will come and he'll put his arm around us and say, let's go over your life.
00:30:18
And you know the one that is going to look at her life with us.
Is the one that loved us so much that he died for us. And So what I think will happen is we'll stand there with the Lord Jesus and we won't have to be afraid of at all or all nature will be gone. We'll be like the Lord Jesus Christ and he'll say now will do you remember that day? You know you want it to go out and play, but you're almost kind of busy because there's company coming and you really want it to go out and play, but you decided to help her.
He said. I didn't forget about that.
I appreciated that.
But then he might say to you, remember that day, and the Lord doesn't forget anything.
You did something that was not so good. Maybe you told a lie. Have you done something that's not so good in your life? Yeah, me too. Even after you got saved. Yeah, me too.
But you know what he'll say?
That thing that you did that was not so good.
I shed my blood for now. I died for that. So you won't have to bear the punishment. You know, God is a holy God and every sin that has ever been committed in this world by man will receive a punishment.
But if we stand before the Lord Jesus or with the Lord Jesus, and we have accepted him as our Savior.
He died for everyone of those sins. He already suffered the punishment.
And God is just so you don't have to. Nobody has to suffer twice for a sin. It's in the Lord. Jesus already took care of it, so we don't have to worry about it. You know, something else I think the Lord will talk to us about? Maybe he'll say, well, remember that somebody in your assembly or somebody in your family got really sick and you prayed about it for a long time that they would heal and it didn't happen. And he'll explain to us why he allowed that. And we'll think about it and say what we didn't understand.
While it was happening, but now we see why you allowed it, and it was for our good. And so the Lord will go over all these things with us, and you know what the result will be when we're done. We'll even love Him more, and we'll appreciate His love and His grace more. Because at that time, when we stand before the Lord's children, we will have a much better understanding of what sin is. Because now we live in a world and there's sin all around us.
And sometimes we don't even hardly know if we do something that's not right because we're so used to sensing it around us. But at that time, it says that we will be like the Lord Jesus. There won't be any sin in us anymore. And we'll understand how bad we really were. And we'll understand how loving and how gracious God was that the Lord Jesus would come down to die for our Saints. So we don't have to be afraid. And you know, after that is done.
The judgment seat of Christ, after we've all been there with the Lord Jesus and got that much greater appreciation of his love than we'll go to be with him for eternity. And nothing will ever become between you and the Lord Jesus, any of us and the Lord Jesus, that will make him sad. That will disturb our communion. Everything will be perfect. Isn't that nice? You can go sit down. Well, thank you. So how beautiful that is.
But now there's another side, too. You know, we talked about the other judge and.
I'll go up there. And in the meantime, let's turn to Revelation 20.
Didn't think anybody would have a great white throne around his house. So you'll kind of have to imagine that this is the great White throne. Let's read in Revelation chapter 20 and verse 11.
And it says, I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them.
Now here the Lord Jesus will be again as a judge, but now it will be in a different character. He will be a judge now like the one we talked about in the beginning at the courthouse.
All the people that will appear will come before the great white throne, will be people that reject it, the Lord Jesus Christ. They will all have at one point in their life heard the gospel or maybe had witnessed in creation, whatever it be that they all will have had a chance and I would think chances to accept God, to accept the Lord Jesus, but they didn't want any.
00:35:15
And now the Lord.
Has to hand down the punishment. Like I said, God is holy and He cannot forget any of those sins. He cannot Passover it. Every sin deserves a punishment. And if the Lord Jesus didn't die for that sin because he didn't accept it, somebody will have to pay for it. Jeff, can you come up here?
I talked to Jeff.
And he was willing to just stand there as an example of those that have not accepted the Lord Jesus. Now we know that Jeff loves the Lord. I've known Jeff for a long time and he loves the Lord. So don't get anything wrong. He's just here for an example. But it says in verse 12, And I saw the dead, small and great stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.
Now the first thing you'll notice is that I'm not standing next to Jeff, putting my arm around his shoulder. There's a distance between me and Jeff. You know, if you read in the Gospel, it speaks of the great men and the rich men and Lazarus, and it says at some point there was a great goal fix between them. I believe it's a little bit the same here between the Lord Jesus Christ as judge and those that will stand before him at the great.
Own that have not accepted him. There's a distance there because they wouldn't accept them. They wouldn't accept him and his work that he has done. And now it speaks about some books. And the first thing that seems to be open is that one book that's called the Book of Life. And her brother talked about that a little bit in the Gospel last night. And it's the book where all the names are written of those that have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's kind of interesting, isn't it, Children? Because all the people.
That have not received the Lord Jesus Christ and that will stand before the great White Throne. None of their names will be written in there.
But if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, he writes your name in that book and will never be blotted out.
So now here's 1 standing who has not accepted the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Lord opens the book and he looks. There's no Jeffrey Jacobson in there.
How sad is that? And then it says that there are other books, and in those books.
The works of everyone are written.
You know, just like the Lord doesn't forget anything that a believer does, He doesn't forget anything that's somebody that does not accept him does. And so it says that they will be judged. Everyone that will stand there will be judged. It will be according to their works. And so, you know, I talked to Will and there were some things that we pointed out that the Lord explained and there was some he said good, well done and so on. But now when the books are opened for.
Believers, there won't be anything good found in them. Know what the Lord might open the book and he says just like he said to will, He says on that day you told a lie.
And you'll have to suffer for it.
I would say, well, that was the same thing as Will did. Why didn't he have to suffer for that? Because he had that the Lord Jesus had taken away that punishment when He died on the cross. Will belong to those that have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ and we know as soon as we receive Him that his blood washes away our sins. But Jeffrey as an example, he hasn't received him. So that sin, that lie is still there.
No punishment hasn't. Nobody has paid anything for that sin.
So he'll have to pay for that.
There might be something else and this is I want you to think about this children because I believe and it's sad to say, but there might be some that stand before the great white throne. And the Lord will have to say, you remember the 1St 1520 years of your life. Your parents loved you so much, took you to Sunday school and he sat in the front row and he sang those songs and it all looked good, but you never accepted me. How solemn would that be that the Lord.
As a judge would have to say that to somebody that stands in front of him.
You might have to say, and later on in your life, I didn't let go of you at that time and at that time and at that time I brought somebody along your pathway to talk to you about the Lord Jesus Christ, and you never accepted it.
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How sad would that be? And it says too, that all those that stand there, that their mouths would be stopped, there won't be anything that they would have to say to argue against it.
How sad is that? So children, we have to think about that and remember that important decision we talked about. If we accept the Lord Jesus Christ and decide for Him, we won't have to stand before the Lord as a judge like that. And what does this story end here with Jeff as an example of an unbeliever? It says in verse 15 and whosoever.
Was not found written in the Book of Life.
What does it say? It says he was cast into the lake with a fire.
How sad will that be, children? That will be the last thing that an unbeliever sees about the Lord Jesus Christ. It's him telling him about his punishment. And he'll go to a place forever where it says that there is darkness. And you know what? I think the worst thing will be in hell is that the people that are there, they will realize, They will know that the Lord gave him many chances to accept.
Their savior.
So.
We have the two judges, we have two different groups of people, and what we do with the Lord Jesus while we're here, while we're sitting here. You heard about the Lord Jesus many times. And this weekend we'll decide how we will face the Lord. He might be as a judge as Will was, and how nice that will be that the Lord stands with us and there's nothing that makes us afraid. Or you'll stand there if you don't accept him as Jeff did, and it won't be pleasant.
Now I talked to you about that to make you think about that, how important it is to accept the Lord Jesus Christ.
But there's one other thing that I had in mind when I talked.
To talk about this and let's go back to a verse that we have in Two Corinthians.
Chapter 5.
So everyone must appear before the Lord.
In different characters, but everyone must appear before the Lord, but now, especially now. This speaks to those that do believe the Lord. It says in verse 11. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade man in order to say it simply. I think what that means is since we know what will happen to the unbelievers.
We should become gospel preachers. That's what it says. And I think it wasn't the second reading, meeting their brother Bob Tony here, he made a comment when we spoke about the grace of God and the goodness of God. The fact that we will be able to stand next to the Lord and not be afraid, that's proof of his goodness and his grace. But what he said is that that's not something that we should just say, oh, that is great, and then go on our way.
What her brother talked about is that when we think about how good the Lord Jesus was to us, it should make us want to go and serve Him.
And correct me if I'm wrong, Brother Bob, but you weren't talking to it, especially to those 40 years and older, were you?
Now, to serve the Lord Jesus, children, you don't have to be old. As a matter of fact, I think when it comes to preaching the gospel, you children.
Have a really good opportunity to do that. You know, sometimes when you get a little older, we start thinking a little too much and we start getting nervous about giving the gospel because we think, well, if I say talk about the Lord Jesus, maybe by boss wouldn't like it. Maybe my neighbor won't like it so I might not do it and that's too bad. But that's that's how it sometimes happens with us. the US children have a great opportunity to talk about the gospel to your friends.
And what is really nice to do, your friends or people at school, whatever it is, they're usually your age. So their hearts aren't hardened yet like the hearts of a lot of older people. Because as we get older, people get older and they don't accept the Lord Jesus, their hearts get harder and it's harder for the gospel to go in. Let me ask you a question, Danny. If somebody would come up here from an old O'Brien says, well, Danny, do you think you could stand up there tonight and preach the gospel for an hour? What do you think?
Think you could do that?
What's that?
If you were older, well, that's good, I hope that comes true, but probably not. You'd probably say no, I can do that and that's OK. But do you know how to get saved? How do you get saved?
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Just believe them and that's what the gospel is. So when it tells us here in this verse and what Paul tells us, you know, Paul knew about how bad it would be for unbelievers to stand before the Lord as a judge. He says, well, he wasn't afraid of it because he knew the Lord, but he knew how bad it would be for unbelievers. So he says we persuade men, we talked to men about the Lord. And you see, it doesn't have to be standing. We're thankful for those that can't stand up there and preach the gospel, but US children.
He said you have to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and that's the gospel. And that's what you all can do. Children, first of all, we need to believe ourselves. But then second of all, the Lord wants us to be a light and wants us to be a light to other people because it's a Dark World and there's many people there that don't know the Lord Jesus Christ. OK, thanks for listening. Let's pray now.
Our Access to God
Address—Bob Thonney
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I'd like to start the meeting with him. We sang this morning in The Breaking of bread #213.
Nothing, brethren, like getting back to the cross.
Nothing that touches the soul, the heart like that.
Let's sing #213.
On Calvary.
We've heard.
Rain stood.
And gazed on that wondrous crime. Start singing the 3rd or the 4th and the 5th versus. We pay particular attention to it because it's what I have in my heart this afternoon to speak about.
It's one of the most wonderful things to think of.
Just let me read it. The gates of heaven are opened wide. At his name Jesus name all the angels bow, the Son of Man, who was crucified as the King of glory. Now we love to look up and behold him there, the Lamb for his chosen slain.
Soon shall his Saints, all his glory, share with their heads.
And their Lord shall reign. And now we draw near.
To the throne of grace for his blood. And the priests are there. And we joyfully seek God's holy face with our sensor of praise and prayer. The burning mount and the Mystic veil with our terrors and guilt are gone. Our conscience has peace that can never fail. Tis the Lamb.
On high on the throne, could we stand and sing these last two verses, please?
The gates of heaven.
It was frustrating in the sleeping mind.
And there are shall rain.
Let's pray in the Bible. I think it's the only book that starts.
With the word God.
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I think most of you know where that is. That's where we're going to speak from this afternoon.
Yesterday in the reading meeting we had a verse.
That we didn't really get to develop very much. But I think, Larry, you mentioned it, that we have the Trinity in that verse.
For by him the Lord Jesus Christ.
We, both Jew and Gentile, have access by 1 spirit.
And to the Father, that's my desire this afternoon is to speak.
On the access that we have to God.
Oh, to me it is the most wonderful thing. I don't know if we're aware. Young people, maybe even older people, we need to be reminded about it if we are not aware of it.
Or if we are aware of it and sometimes we forget, but this morning when we came together.
To remember the Lord Jesus and his death in the breaking of bread.
This was a convenient spot for us to get together, but really where we went was into heaven itself. I'm not talking about just mere doctrine. We were in heaven this morning in spirit. That's where we entered. And to me it seems like such a wonderful thing to get a hold of. And what I fear is that.
The enemy, little by little, is trying to rob us of these truths that are characteristic of Christianity.
Judaism was a system of religion adapted. Yes, it was given of God in the beginning.
But it was adapted for man in the flesh. It was a worldly.
Sanctuary. It was an order of worldly ordinances and services.
All given of God.
The Christianity, as has been mentioned in.
Our meetings is not an improvement on Judaism. It's something completely different, completely new, and far exceeds anything that was known in Judaism. Judaism, yes, the nation of Israel had knowledge of the true God, but brethren, they were held at a distance.
And you and I.
Have access to me, it is the most wonderful thing. Before we go any further, I'd like to just ask if there's anybody in this room.
That has access to the Oval Office in Washington, DC. Would you please raise your hand if you do?
I suppose we're 5600 here, not anybody.
I don't suppose there is anybody that has access to the office of the most powerful man in this country.
But now if I ask, who have you have access to the throne of the God of the universe? We all who are real believers in the Lord Jesus can raise our hand. You and I have access. How is this possible? You know, I know many of you know this.
But you know, what comes home to my own soul is that we're not living.
In the enjoyment of it and it shows in our lives individually.
And collectively.
Christianity is where we have access to the very throne room of the universe where we could put it into the holiest of all. We go right into the presence of God in the Old Testament.
Of the nation of Israel, there was one tribe that was chosen to do the service of God, the tribe of Levi. Of that one tribe there was one family that had access into the holy place, that first compartment where there was the Candlestick.
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The altar of incense and the table of the showbread.
But of that one family, there is only one person, and that only once a year that could go into the very presence of God beyond that veil that separated the holy place from the holiest of all. They're the Holy of Holies, as it's sometimes called.
The way into the holiest.
Scripture says was not made manifest.
But when the Lord Jesus hung on that cross.
When he suffered there not only from the hands of man.
But we know the story that in those three hours of darkness as he hung there.
In abject misery physically. But then God clothed the scene with darkness. And God laid on that holy sin bearer our sins. Every single one of them.
In chapter 10 of Hebrews it says their sins and iniquities. I will remember no more. That indicates that he did remember them once. Where was that? It was in those three hours of darkness every sin have ever committed, laid on the head of that holy sin bearer, and God took the rod of his judgment and.
Theory of divine wrath fell on him.
Until he exhausted it completely, he could say it is finished. There is no longer any wrath towards those who believe.
And as Jesus died, the veil of the temple was rent entwined. It was, I understand, a thick veil. It would have been very difficult to rip that veil. But the hand of God ripped it open. God now can come out because of what Jesus has done on the cross.
In the fullness of his character and make himself known.
And we redeemed sinners, cleansed from every stain of sin, now have access to go right into the holiest of all, not at just once a year, but any time of the day or night.
In prayer, in praise.
That's where we enter to present our prayers and our praises. Well, I want to go to the book of Hebrews. You've probably guessed that by now. This is the only book I know in the Bible that begins with God.
And my purpose is not to take up the first part of the book, but I'd just like to mention that.
In this book, the focus is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
His person, his work in the first chapters, I suppose you could say.
It's more a focus on his person. So important to be clear in your soul.
As to who Jesus is, who is he anyhow? God's eternal Son in the first chapter, in the third verse says who being the brightness of his glory, the full outshining of the glory of God, that's who he is and the express image of his person.
You know man in the beginning was made in the image and likeness of God.
But man sinned, and when he sinned, he lost.
Some of those characteristics, yes, there still is something of the marks of God's creation in man, but the Lord Jesus when he came in the world.
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He was not made in the likeness.
Of God because he was God, but he was made in the likeness of men. It tells us in Philippians chapter 2. But he was the image of the invisible God images, visible representation. Can we know God now? Yes we can, in the fullest sense of the word, because the Lord Jesus is the image.
Of the invisible God. To me it is most wonderful that in Christianity.
We have the full knowledge of God. We live in a world, brethren, where people have given up the knowledge of God.
One of their world religions, Mohammed Isms.
Over 1 billion people.
Say in their doctrine God is unknown and unknowable.
Isn't that tragic? Tragic. Terrible?
And you know God.
Isn't that wonderful to be able to say, yes, I know God because God became a man in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have the record of it in the four Gospels. And going through those four Gospels, I can know God. Oh, how wonderful it is.
But I'd like to go not so much to talk about his person here.
To go to the 9th chapter to talk about the work that he accomplished so that we could have access. And I'm going to read a number of verses and want you to follow with me, please, in Chapter 9. Let's begin with verse 11.
Christ being calm and high priest of good things to come.
By a greater and more perfect Tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building, neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered in.
Once into the holy place, having obtained.
Eternal redemption for us. Doesn't that thrill your soul? It just thrills my soul rather than.
He obtained eternal redemption. It's an accomplished fact and you and I, if you are believer in the Lord Jesus, stand in that position that he won for us of having obtained eternal redemption for if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctified to the.
Of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Yes, the God we know in Jesus is a living God.
Now let's go over to the 10th chapter.
And let's begin reading.
In verse 4, for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith sacrifice.
And offering thou wouldest not but a body hast thou prepared me in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin. Thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come in the volume of the book. It is written of me to do thy will, O God. That's the Lord Jesus speaking prophetically in Psalm 40.
Verse 8 above when he said sacrifice and offering and burnt offering and offering for sin, thou wouldest not.
Neither has pleasure therein, which are offered by the law, I just want to point out here.
That we have the four major sacrifices of the Levitical order.
00:20:04
In these four that are mentioned.
Offering or sacrifice is the sacrifice of peace offerings which you get in Leviticus chapter 3 and offering that's the meal offering that you get in chapter 2 of Leviticus and then burned offering is what you get in chapter one of Leviticus and sacrifice for sin is what you get in chapter 4. So you have summed up the.
Four major.
Sacrifices of the Levitical order in those in that verse.
So the Lord Jesus is a fulfillment of the mall. I'd just like to say if you'd like to remember it, think of this order 3214. That's the order that we have in Leviticus of these sacrifices that are mentioned here. They all reflect in some way or another, the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're not going to get into that right now. But then verse 9 says then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God, he taketh away the 1St that he may establish the 2nd.
Now notice verse 10 by the which will the will of God, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And you notice this word once mentioned again and again because that's what it was, and the sacrifice of Christ it was.
A sacrifice that satisfied all God's holy claims.
Forever.
Once for all. And here it says that through that offering we have been sanctified.
Sanctified means set apart.
And you and I, you've got to understand that young person.
When you got saved, you are sanctified.
Through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Don't look around at the older brothers and say, well, they kind of the ones that take the responsibility. No you.
You have been set apart for God. That is important to understand and that's why sometimes I really believe that young people that don't understand that maybe older ones too, have the same problem.
We don't understand that God has set us apart for Himself.
We are not at liberty to do what we want to do.
With our own body, with our own material possession, we belong to Him. We have been set apart for him. He paid an awful cost to make it a reality. You are sanctified.
Oh how important it is to understand these precious truths. It's not your choice. If you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have been put into this position of being set apart for God.
Verse 11 And every priest standeth daily, ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away. And of course that's talking about the Levitical priesthood.
Some years ago I was in the Dominican Republic.
In a little place where it's called Mata Bonita.
Matt is a word they use sometimes for a tree, and there's a big beautiful tree there, so they call it the place Mata Bonita.
But in that town we stayed with a sister who, before she got saved, was.
A very zealous Catholic.
And she had in her purpose to convince those evangelicals that they were dead wrong. And to be able to do that, she said, well, I'm going to have to get the same book. They're using the Bible and, and understand where they're coming from so that I can, I can convince them. And she got reading and she read in chapter 10 here and she came down to this verse 11.
Every priest standeth daily ministry and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins.
This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God.
00:25:03
She could not understand that she of course thought that was talking about Roman Catholic priests.
Which it really isn't, but it's the same principle because that system says that the Mass is a continuing sacrifice for sin. So she went to her priest and said, can you explain these verses to me? I can't figure it out. I've got to understand to convince these people.
Well, he could not convince them either, or he could not explain it either. So the result was that she was saved and she was gathered to the Lord's name. Wonderful to let these things get a hold of our soul's rhythm.
That was the case in the Old Testament 1 Sacrifice after another after another. It never ended.
You sinned. You had to bring an animal to die in your place.
Get done with that sacrifice. Oh here comes another one, and here comes another one. It has never ending the stream of animals that had to shed their blood because of sin and an issue that was never fully resolved. It was just for the time.
At that time.
Solomon offered one sacrifice of peace offerings at the dedication of the Temple. Do you remember how many animals?
We're in that sacrifice. I got the numbers right. It was 120,000 sheep, 22,000 oxen. Can you imagine that amount of cattle?
I can't even imagine that many cattle together in one place, and yet that was one sacrifice of peace offerings. Of course the meat of those offerings was eaten by the people. There was part of that animal that was taken and put on the altar and burnt for God, and the rest was eaten by the people. But it was a continual.
Sacrifice for sin. But now the contrast verse 12.
This man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins.
Forever sat down on the right hand of God, and I think it is correct to say that the forever really means he sat down forever.
In other words, Jesus having accomplished that work of redemption, he went into the presence of God and sat himself down on the right hand of God, never to get up, to take up the question of sin again. It's settled once and for all.
Oh, at peace it gives to the believer to realize that the sin question has been settled.
Once and forever, sometimes I meet up with believers who seem to have questions about their acceptance before God. I just want to say to you, if that's the case with you, I want to repeat the end of that hymn we sang.
Our conscience has peace that can never fail. It's the Lamb on high on the throne. If God can question your acceptance now, he's going to have to question the presence of the Lord Jesus on the right hand of the throne of God. Is that possible?
Impossible completely.
That's your position before God. Oh, how wonderful to enjoy it. Let these truths sink down into your soul. We're living in a world that calls in question everything that God has given to us in Christianity. But let's keep on going here, verse 13. From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.
Four by one offering he hath perfected.
Forever. Them that are sanctified, perfected. Forever.
And you and I look at each other, and I'm sure if you looked at me very long you'd say, well, you don't look that perfect yet, brother. And it's true as to my condition, I got some things to be ironed out, and the Lord's still working on me like he works on all of us down here. But what we're talking about here is not our condition.
00:30:22
But our position?
And God himself could not improve on the position that belongs.
To the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, perfect forever.
Oh, to let that sink into your soul, to enjoy it. That's my place before God, perfect forever whereof the Holy Ghost also is witness to us. For after that He had said before, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, that the Lord I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember.
No more. We've already mentioned that he remembered all our sins.
And iniquities at the cross when they were laid on the Lord Jesus. And now we have a promise. I will remember them no more.
Sometimes, you know, on poems, it says.
They're lost in the sea of God's forgetfulness. Well, that's poetic license, I guess you'd call that. But God is not afflicted with human weakness to be forgetful. He doesn't forget.
And even if he said I'd forget him, well, you know when you forget something, maybe later on you remember it.
And that would be something that would might cause consternation in your heart. Maybe sometime later he's going to remember those awful things I did. No, we have a positive promise.
I will remember no more. He's not going to be thinking about those things when we come into his presence. Oh, isn't it wonderful, brethren, the place that belongs to us now let's keep on here. Verse 18. Now we're in remission of these is there is no more offering for sin.
Verse 19.
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
I love that verse having therefore brethren, boldness. How do you explain that word? Boldness? That's a strong word, but that's the word that Scripture uses boldness to enter right into his presence.
I remember when John F Kennedy was president of the United States.
And his son?
Who I think is already.
Dad was a little boy. I don't know how old he was, remember real well, six or seven, but they told about sometimes.
President Kennedy would be in the Oval Office, taken care of heads of state, business, and all of a sudden the door would open and the little boy would run in, run right up to his father's desk. Who is that? Who gave him the right to do that?
That was his son. He had the right to go right in there. He had boldness.
Brethren, that's the word that's used, and I want to speak to you, young brothers, in a special way when it comes to prayer and praise, because that's what we're talking about, especially in connection with entering the presence of God. We go in in Christianity, in prayer and praise, and we go out with blessing to others.
That's the.
Holy priesthood, where we go in to OfferUp sacrifices of praise to God, and we go out in as royal priests to bless others, be it our brethren in the Lord, in ministry, or be it the lost in the preaching of the gospel. But that's the order, go in first and then out.
You know, brethren.
I just feel it a tremendous privilege that we enjoy. We come together in the breaking of bread. As I say again, dear young brothers, may the Lord grant you to enjoy this in the depths of your heart, so that you too will enjoy this liberty, this boldness to enter, to present prayer and praise.
00:35:27
It's not because of what you are.
In yourself, it's because of what He has done for us, that place of acceptance and boldness that He has won for us.
Let your mouth be opened in his praise.
It distresses me sometimes to sit and see in the breaking of bread people sitting there with their mouth closed.
Maybe they think they don't have a very good voice.
Well, join the crowd. There's a lot of others that are that same way. It's not a matter of how it sounds to us, it's a matter of how it sounds to God. And God is pleased when He sees a heart that is full of gratitude and expresses that in praise to God.
You know, there's a verse in the Gospels that has often searched my own heart, the Lord Jesus said.
When he was coming into Jerusalem and the children were saying hosanna, hosanna.
To the Lord Jesus and the Pharisees and the scribes were distressed.
And they said, tell these to be quiet. And the Lord Jesus said if these.
Should hold their peace. The stones would immediately cry out.
God is going to have His Son. Praise brethren, and if you and I are not going to occupy ourselves in doing it, He will raise up others.
He will. So if you're going to keep your mouth shut, be careful. He might raise up somebody else to take your place because he's going to have his son praised. May the Lord help us, brethren, we sit in His presence.
I must savor other than being going down into Latin America sometimes.
The brethren sometimes go to the other extreme, in which they.
Stumble over each other and giving out hymns and getting up and praising the Lord and reading the Scripture and they need to be helped to understand what is the leading of the Spirit of God in prayer. There is a worship leader, if we could put it that way. The Spirit of God is here.
We need to wait on each other, but sometimes our weights get so.
Long and painful, that it is evident, brethren, we are not.
Enjoying the place of acceptance and access.
That we have into the very presence of God and are you and I going to go into his very presence and not.
Sound His praise. Is that possible? Oh, may the Lord grant it that we would enjoy that privilege. I don't think there is a place of more privilege than when we come together to collectively, in spirit, go right into heaven itself to present our prayers and praises.
I just want to pause here to say.
Maybe a word of explanation that might help somebody. You know, sometimes people.
Use the expression Heavenly Father or our Father, which art in heaven.
That's used.
And that we have in the Gospels.
And sometimes people wonder why it's not used more. It's because exactly of what we're saying this afternoon is that we're going right into the very presence of God, and therefore we do not have to use a term which denotes distance. It was for an earthly people as they were addressing a heavenly Father, and it was proper at that time, but for believers in the Lord Jesus, who now.
Prayer and praise go right into the presence of God. It's not necessary to use that term.
So you after the Lord Jesus died and rose again and went back into the glory, you never find that expression used again. I sometimes use this simple illustration, maybe it helps.
00:40:11
When my dad was living here in Walla Walla, maybe I wanted to communicate with him. But if I was in South America, I had to write a letter and on the envelope I put the name of my father. In Walla Walla, WA. That was necessary because I was at a distance.
That the time came when I came to visit my parents here in Walla Walla.
Now there's my dad sitting on the other side of the table. I'm sitting there too. How am I going to address my father then?
I can say Father in Walla Walla, WA.
No, I'm right there. I'm just going to say Father.
Right in his presence. And that's the case for us who are believers in the Lord Jesus.
That's why we don't normally use that. It's really not true understanding of our Christian position. Saying that I want to be patient because sometimes people are not instructed as to those things. And so we need to be patient when we hear it and not be critical.
But here we have in verse 19, brethren, having therefore brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
By new and living way which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, there it is, that rent veil, that is to say, His flesh. In other words, that rent veil speaks of the Lord Jesus and that work on Calvary. And as we go in, we should never forget the cost. Yes, we go in in boldness, but it should be.
Holy boldness.
Recognizing whose presence we are in recognizing as well.
The terrible cost that made it possible for us to go in with such boldness and verse 21 having an high priest over the House of God because we are compassed with infirmities in this world, but He is there for that very purpose.
He is there to help us in our infirmities, so that should not be a hindrance when we think I might make a mistake.
Made a mistake? I sure have. I made a lots of them. What happens when I make a mistake in addressing God?
To all our prayers and praises, Christ adds his sweet perfume and love. The sensor raises those orders to consume. He's there for that and He corrects those things so that they when they reach the eye ear of God.
They are improper order. We have a high priest over the House of God.
Verse 22 Let us draw near. I love this. Don't stay at a distance. The price has been paid so that you two young believer, older believers, sometimes there are just certain ones who seem to take part in assembly meetings.
I'm talking about prayer and praise meetings. We need to be exercised, brethren.
You know, we're not going to have time to go to the 13th chapter, but there is another exhortation there.
That tells us, let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, that we seek one to come. What is the camp here? In the book of Hebrews it is Judaism. It's the system of religion that holds men at a distance, and we're called.
Out of that.
The camp is not Christendom, brethren, because we're called out of it and we cannot come out of Christendom. Seven said that I want to say that Christendom in many sectors have adopted principles of Judaism.
An elegant building that they call a temple. That's the principle of Judaism.
Elegant music to entertain people, to make them feel like they're worshiping God.
And we're not going to criticize others. There may be true hearts there that really truly worship the Lord. But I'm saying the system that we're called out of is that and a separated priesthood.
00:45:17
But in Christianity we have that every believer is a priest.
Capable of offering sacrifices of prayer and praise to God.
Now to give that up and this is what concerns me. Younger brethren, an older brethren perhaps too this applies. We need to be exercised about it. When we come together in assembly meeting, are we, like we were speaking yesterday, giving liberty to the Spirit of God to use whom he will or do you just always sit there, Mom?
You don't give yourself, you don't present yourself there in the presence of the Lord.
As an instrument for him to use if he wants to. I'm not saying you will always take part.
But you need to be exercised to take part if the Lord lays it on your hearts. I have to confess that at times I've been guilty of quenching the Spirit of God. The Lord put something on my heart.
Saying, not going to say anything. I like to kind of put the brakes on because maybe I'm a little too impulsive.
But remember, not too long ago I did that, and a brother on the other side of the meeting room gave out the very same hymn that was strongly on my heart.
So let's be exercised.
I want to say this to those who are older and who normally take part. Let's try to put the brakes on a little bit to give opportunity to younger brethren. But younger brethren, let me say this to you. You understand what we've been talking about here, that everything's been done so that you can, with boldness, enter right in there to the presence of God to offer prayer and praise.
Be exercised.
You don't have to pray a long prayer. It can be short. Better if it's short.
That the exercised in the presence of God, because if you're going to just sit there with a decision, I'm never going to take part. You know what you're doing, You are going back to a principle of the camp. Let somebody else do it. That's the principle of the camp of Judaism.
Lord, help us in this brethren, I really believe we need to be exercised.
The public testimony is declining seemingly, but it's because we are not enjoying these things and practicing and walking in the reality of them. The Lord grant us to do that. We are called out of that system that kept man at a distance from God. We are called into the.
Nearness of Christianity. Somebody has put it this way.
That Christian position is within the veil outside the camp, so may the Lord help us to enjoy that. But there's a few more exhortations here that I want to touch on before we stop here, brethren, verse 23. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering.
For he is faithful that promised.
Sturdiness in the things of God is so important, dear young brother.
Be consistent in your testimony.
Is it a question of our faithfulness? No.
It's a question of his faithfulness. I love that.
In this verse 23, let us hold fast the profession of our faith.
Without wavering, for he is faithful that promised am I faithful? I hope I am to some degree anyhow.
But I can't count on my faithfulness.
I can count on His faithfulness. God is faithful. You can count on Him if you have some tough areas in your life.
You can count on him, trust him.
Next one is verse 24. Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.
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Sometimes we provoke the other direction, don't we?
We provoke to anger offenses.
Rather than consider means to look at that person and say now what would?
That person really liked what would help him in the right direction.
May the Lord give us, brethren. God has done so much for us.
That in our relations, one with another, we provoke in the right direction to love and to good work. What provokes love, Love does. Don't think that nobody shows me any love. You know, the character of divine love is love that loves when there's nothing lovable.
Sometimes I hear people complain there's no love in this meeting.
And I say the person that's complaining is the first one guilty in that part, because the kind of love that divine love is is a love that loves when there's nothing lovable. So there's no love there, you start loving.
Start provoking to love and to good works. Oh brethren, we need to be exhorted about this.
We have time for our own business, we have time for our own affairs, our own family, our own house, our own car.
Maybe somebody else is having trouble with their car.
If they're having trouble with their house.
Let's provoke unto love and to good works.
And then verse 25, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.
It's often been mentioned that this day is the day of apostasy, that it's contemplated in the book of Hebrews.
Yes, the day of apostasy is approaching, and a true believer can never be an apostate, but a true believer can be affected by the apostasy that's all around us. That's why we need the assembling of ourselves together, not merely the breaking of bread, but the other meetings too. Brother and I value, I treasure in my heart the things that I've learned in reading meetings.
Times in weakness sometimes it doesn't seem like we get much out of reading meeting, but just to sit there in the presence of the Lord Jesus to have this book opened to give the spirit of God's liberty to use whom he will and I say maybe you young person, are kind of discouraged about going to the.
Reading meeting he exercised there sometimes a younger brother asking properly in the right spirit a question is a real help in a reading meeting. It gets things down to the level where we can understand perhaps better.
Be exercised, but don't give up the reading meeting. Don't give up the prayer meeting. These are important meeting scripture.
About it, it says in the beginning of the Church's history they continued steadfastly in the Apostles doctrine.
Apostles doctrine is teaching.
And fellowship.
Because fellowship is based on the apostles doctrine and in the breaking of bread and in prayers. What does steadfast mean? Does that mean you do it for a while and then you kind of leave off and then maybe do it a little bit later on? No, Steadfast means going on steadily. And I can say in my own soul, maybe I picked up just one little thing in one meeting, one little thing and another meeting here or there, here a little, there a little. But.
The treasure I really value in my souls. Oh brethren, let's not give up the assembling of ourselves together. One more thing before we close. I'm not going to even read it, but at the end of this chapter it speaks about the Lord's coming. He that shall come, will come and will not tarry. Brethren, it's a burden on my heart.
That God is speaking to this world.
We are getting down to the wire. Major changes are just ahead for this world. The political system that we are so used to in the United States is going to come to an end.
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We can't set dates, but there's evidence that we are getting close. And what concerns me? So look around as the world is completely asleep and a large percentage of those that profess to be believers in the Lord Jesus or asleep as well. Oh brethren, if you see that I'm sleeping, please come over and give me a shake.
I want to be watching.
Sober for that glorious moment when the Lord Jesus comes back again.
We are in a serious world, world that is in serious trouble and things are not going to get better. U.S. dollar has taken a nosedive and I don't expect it to get much better, but things are going downhill. Let's live, let's be awakened to live the rest of our time with the rest of our energies. The rest.
Our means to make a difference for that coming day of glory.
To lay up treasures in this world now does and make sense.
Don't say that we shouldn't provide for our own. We should. The scripture is very clear on that.
But may the Lord awaken us to use our energies, our means, for the advancement of God's Kingdom here in this world. Let's pray.
Gracious God our Father, bless thy precious.
A Living Sacrifice
Open—Robert Boulard
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I'd like to speak this afternoon just briefly on a couple of portions of Scripture.
But to open up the subject, let's turn to Exodus chapter one.
Have Romans chapter 12 and verses 1-2 and three particularly on my heart this afternoon. But I just want to paint a picture, as it were. In the book of Exodus, we have a little picture given to us of man in his condition of hopelessness.
And the Scriptures give us that picture not only hopelessness, but impossibility of his situation and how in sovereignty and divine goodness and grace of God He intervened that there might be fruit for himself, that his people might be delivered and that they might be delivered to his praise and glory forever. Well, let's just read from Exodus chapter one and verse eight. It says now there are rows up a king.
King over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come on, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them.
With their burdens and to they built for Pharaoh, treasure, cities, Python And Ramses.
But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew, and they were grieved because of the children of Israel. Let's just turn to chapter 3 then, and verse 7.
Perhaps we if you just hold your page there, I'd like to read chapter one, verse 13.
Exodus One, and verse 13. The Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor, and made their lives bitter with hard ******* and mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service wherein they made them serve was with rigor. And then chapter 3, verse seven. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.
And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land, and a large unto a land flowing with milk and honey. And then to Exodus chapter 21. We're being referred to several times in these meetings, but never read, I don't believe.
Exodus chapter 21 and verse two. If thou buy in Hebrew servant six years, he shall serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons and daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters, and he shall go out by himself.
And if the servant shall plainly say.
I love my master. I am my wife and my children. I will not go out free. Then his master shall bring him into the unto the judges. He shall also bring him to the door and unto the door of the post doorpost, that his master shall bore his ear through with an all, and he shall serve him forever.
And then in Romans chapter 12.
Verses 1.
Two and three particularly.
I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
For I say, through the grace given unto me, that every man.
To every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. Well, we have this little picture given to us in the book of Exodus, and it is a hopeless condition. And we've read in our reading meetings in Ephesians chapter 2, and we've had there in the very first verse a picture of the.
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Degradation of man and his hopeless, impossible situation. And in the grace and the sovereignty of our God there was in the heart of God and love for His people. He saw His people and he saw the rigor and the distress of His people as they served a taskmaster that hated them and desired to destroy them. Their lives were bitter and there was hard *******.
They served with rigor and it says that he afflicted them. It really that word affliction oftentimes brings before us the picture that he abused them. And you know, those that are in Satan's world, those that are without God, without hope in this world and are living to please themselves are being abused by Satan. And God saw the this in this little picture.
These slaves that could never deliver themselves.
They were slaves and they were serving Egypt, serving Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, a picture of Satan and the God and the Prince of this world. And it's the Lord himself in chapter 3 and verse seven that says I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters. For I know their sorrows. I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians. And then I read in Exodus chapter 21, we get that little.
Picture of Christ. And it's already been mentioned. It's the only point, the only time in the Scripture that we really have a fulfillment of this judgment. The very first one of the judgments that is spoken of here in chapter 21 is about this Hebrew servant. It's a picture of Christ himself. And so he came into this world. He was born into this world.
And just turned to Philippians chapter 2. We often read it.
But I just want to bring something out that Christopher Willis brings out in his little book called I believe it's hidden treasures. He says in Philippians chapter 2 and verse. Let's read verse five. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation.
And took upon him the form.
Of a servant he makes the comment that this word could be translated slave.
He took him upon him the form of a slave, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also has highly exalted him, and give him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven, things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus.
Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Well, I read these portions of scripture to paint the little picture of the hopelessness of man's condition and how our blessed Savior saw us and our need and came down into this scene and took our place as it were, and became a slave. He became a slave to His Father's love, to his Father's desire that there might be those that are in this scene that would be.
Out of that scene, brought out of that ******* to sin and ******* to corruption, ******* to the enemy of our souls who wanted to continue to oppress his people. And the Lord Jesus himself came down and as I say, became a slave. You know, I just give you a little illustration, a feeble illustration, but.
When my some of you know that I'm allergic to dogs and cats.
Quite allergic. There are some dogs that I can tolerate, some that have hair and instead of fur and my daughter wanted a little dog and so she looked through the newspapers and.
Several weeks there was an advertisement in the newspaper for a little dog that fit the description that I might be able to tolerate. And after several weeks they went the the price kept dropping and they finally they went and they saw this little dog. Little.
I think they call it a lapse of who Little white dog. And they came to see this little dog and it was in the front hall of a home in an enclosure, a wire enclosure. And it had to be abused. They picked up that little dog and.
They were outside and speaking with the previous owner and the little dog had.
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What's put down on the ground and the owner, after the discussions of price and delivery and so on, they left the the scene and went into the house and closed the door. And the little dog stood on the grass there with my wife and with her daughter. And it didn't know where to go. It didn't know whether to go back into the house or whether to continue to look towards my daughter or my wife.
And finally, you know, my wife picked up that little dog.
And they cradled it, brought it home and cried all the way home. And the first time I saw the little dog, it, it was so afraid of a hand. Put the hand towards the dog and it lay down flat on the floor and and screamed. I never heard a dog scream before. But that dog was afraid, deathly afraid of a human hand. Deathly afraid. I can't even use a, a fly swatter anymore. But that dog was enslaved.
And was abused and I want to just paint this picture that that dog now.
As.
It's at the house in Hammer Bay, and there's one master that that dog has. It's Janet, my wife. And that dog follows Janet. She'll do her ironing and she'll sit right there. She'll lie down by Janet. She'll go downstairs, do the laundry. She'll walk down follower. She'll follow her all over the place. She'll be cooking supper and that dog is just right at her heels, just following her from one place to another. She will not.
Even in his Janet goes shopping. She sits at the front door and she waits and she watches. She diligently watches and she waits for Janet to come back home. Oh, there was a picture. I just paint that little picture of 1A little animal that was abused. And now there's that desire of heart in that little animal to be right where Janet is. Well, here we have in Hebrews or in Romans chapter 12.
This picture given to us. I painted this little picture in Exodus chapter one and chapter 3.
In this little illustration of this little dog, and you know we have in the book of Romans the picture of the depravity of the human condition and the hopelessness of man before God, and that God himself has delivered man because of the work of the Lord Jesus. And here.
The language of Scripture says I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. I just want to comment on these each of these words you know it's a very strange to me that.
The language of Scripture is like this. I beseech you. You and I have been delivered from slavery, from ******* from the ******* of corruption of sin, and from ******* to Satan himself. We've been set free, taken up out of the House of bond, as it were, and set outside of that House of *******. And it's as if we're.
We're standing on the grass looking back at the world that we've just been delivered from.
And looking forward, perhaps not knowing maybe what the future brings. We don't know what the future brings, but there is that.
Hesitancy on our part.
Because the Spirit of God would strive with us. And in Christianity, God is not going to demand your heart or mind. He's not going to demand that we follow him. He's going to beg. He's going to beseech. In the French translation, it says, I exhort you. He just would encourage and exhort, he says.
What does he do? He says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, wasn't that nice? Brethren, You know, it's just a picture of our relationship as sons of God to the Lord Jesus himself with and with one another. And so he doesn't address this to the world. He addresses it to those that belong to the Lord Jesus. And he says, brethren, the Apostle Paul, he says, you know, you've been delivered from slavery.
There was a hopeless situation.
And now you've set, been set into freedom and freedom to please the Lord, to live for him, and he begs us and beseeches us as brethren, those that are in relationship to himself. Isn't that lovely? You there, as you sit in your seat, are seen in the dignity of a Son of God.
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A daughter of God, heir of God, joint heir with Christ. What a dignity, what a position of blessing and favor that we occupy. But then he says here, by the mercies of God or by the compassions of God. I often think you know of Mark's gospel chapter one, in connection with the compassions of the Lord. It speaks there particularly in Mark's gospel of the compassionate Savior.
And it says.
In chapter one.
And, umm.
Verse 41 Well, let's read verse 40. There came a leopard to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will be thou clean. All this man in a hopeless, impossible situation, because of the compassion and love of the Lord Jesus came right where he was.
And set them free. You know, there's a man in Jericho that was just outside of Jericho.
I think it's Luke chapter 19, maybe 18, and the Lord came right to where he was.
It's right at the end of.
Chapter 18.
Blind Bartimaeus. It doesn't give his name there.
But it says a little bit into the story in verse 42 or 43. Well, let's read verse 42, Luke 18 and verse 42. Jesus saith unto him, Receive thy sight, thy faith has saved thee. And immediately he received his sight and followed him. Well, it says in Mark's gospel that they went up to Jerusalem. He followed him.
You know the Lord Jesus is seen in Luke's Gospel as walking all the way.
From through the land of Israel and walking towards Jerusalem. And this blind man was healed. The Lord had compassion on him too. And as soon as he was healed and set free from the ******* of what sin had wrought in his life, as soon as he was set free, he followed the Lord.
That lovely, what a lovely picture for us as soon as we're set free and have an understanding that we're set free from the ******* of sin and the Satan in this world and the effects of what sin is brought into this world. What a lovely attitude it would be if we saw those compassions of Christ and enjoyed them and followed Him. Well, it says that you present your bodies a living.
Sacrifice.
A presentation.
Is going to be made in your life and mine. And God is beseeching. He's asking, He's exhorting, encouraging that you might make a presentation to him.
He's not going to demand it, you know. That brother told me a little story I'll recount to you as a little illustration. There was a young lady.
About 90 years ago. And she was.
Perhaps in her teenage, early, early teenage years and she.
Had a desire to please the Lord. Brother said that he went to a class reunion and this woman.
Was a teacher at a school that he went to and she stood up at the front of the room as 100 years old.
100 years old, she stood up at the room at the class reunion and she told her story. And she began by telling the story of how she had dedicated her life to the Lord, that she had presented her life a living sacrifice to the Lord. And she said that she had made two decisions in life as a young lady as she was just beginning her Christian life. And that is.
One would be that she was going to present her life to the Lord.
And that he was going to be able to use it any way that he wanted to. And the second thing is that she was going to read the Word of God and she was going to bow to the truth of the Word of God as he brought it before her. And so she stood there and she said that. And so, you know, this presentation brings before us, you know, a sacrifice. And it's a presentation of that.
A sacrifice speaks of that which is of immense value to us.
And we present it to another. We take of what's exceeding precious, exceedingly, precious, exceedingly fragile exceedingly. It's just going to pass away so quickly. What is your life but a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanishes away? Well, this girl could tell the story almost 100 years later that she had presented her life to the Lord Jesus. And you know, dear beloved brethren.
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Your life and mine will be a loss for eternity if we don't present our lives to the Lord.
There needs to be a presentation, there needs to be an act, a decision, as it were.
An actual event, if I could put it that way, of coming into the presence of the Lord and saying.
I present my life and offering a living sacrifice. You know a brother used to say to us when we were young brother Gordon Hale used to refer to Leviticus chapter 27. I just want to read a couple of verses there. In Leviticus chapter 27 it says it gives an estimation of the value of the sacrifice of human sacrifice. If I could use that terminology and it says here in verse chapter 27 of.
Leviticus and verse three it says thy estimation shall be of the mail from 20 years old even unto 60 years old even my estimation shall be 50 shekels of silver. And then drop down to verse seven and if it be from 60 years old and above, if it be a male, then my estimation shall be 15 shekels.
And for the female, 10 shekels. Well, I just want to say this.
Don't wait too long to offer your sacrifice, a living sacrifice, your life to the Lord. And he doesn't want. He's not a hard taskmaster. You know, the Lord came into this scene and he came to be a slave. He came to be a servant, and he's a slave forever. He's going to sit down. We're going to sit down in his presence. He's going to serve his own.
Forever, and you know when the Lord was young.
It says in Luke chapter 2 That Mary and Joseph came to present the Lord. They came to present him to Jerusalem. They came to present him to the Lord. Is not nice language. They came to present him to the Lord, and so he was presented to the Lord. Our young ones, oftentimes we have that influence in their lives that we can bring them into the presence of the Lord, present them to the Lord, as it were, for a blessing.
But this is something that everyone of us needs to do, ought to do, and it's what the Lord wants. Could I use this terminology? The Lord doesn't want your money.
He perhaps doesn't even want your service. He wants your heart. He wants your life. He doesn't want a part of the life. He wants all of it. And he wants it as soon as he can get it, as it were. And unless it's not, unless it's given to him in its entirety, then there won't be that fruit for him, and there won't be that happiness in your own soul that there ought to be. Well, just continue here. It says holy.
The sacrifice he desires is holy, and holiness is a separation from sin.
And a delight in that which is good, not nice. He wants us to have a separation from that which is evil in his sight, and a delight in that which is good. And then it says acceptable unto God, acceptable and acceptable, acceptable sacrifice. He wants that from us. How are we going to know what's acceptable to Him?
Why? We're going to read the Word of God, and we're going to know.
And discern what is acceptable unto himself. And it says here what is it's your reasonable sacrifice, your reasonable service, intelligent service. And so there's the the discernment as to what is actually reasonable, actually in intelligence, spiritual intelligence, what we ought to do with our bodies, with our lives.
Oh, isn't it lovely that the Lord Jesus came? It says.
And we read, we perhaps referred to it several times during this conference that.
He bear our sins in His own body on the tree, in His own body on the tree. Oh, wouldn't it be nice if every one of us in this room this afternoon would make a decision to present our lives, the remainder of our lives, just present it to the Lord and to desire that He might have His way with us. So it says here, be not conformed to this world.
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And so the world has a mold, and it wants to press the Christian. It wants to press the unbeliever into its mold.
Some of us have dealt in the manufacturing industry with the injection molds and so on. And you have a block of steel, a base, and then perhaps a couple of slides. And if you wanted to mold something, you, you carve into the steel the impression of the object that you want to manufacture. Well, you Satan, the God and the Prince of this world, he wants to manufacture those images that will not represent Christ, that will not reflect his glory, those that will.
Outwardly manifest the systems of this world and that will never glorify Christ Oh God wants us to be conformed to the image of his own son. It says conformed be not conformed to this world. So you know I just point out in verse one there's a call to action there but now he tells us in verse two how he would desire us to do it to accomplish it so be not conformed that's the.
Expression of our faith in Christ. Don't it can't be. It can't be formed by the image of this world. It says be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And so there's an inward, the outward is the conformed. And I understand that the transformed is the inside. And so God wants your inside, your innermost feelings, your innermost.
Your soul.
The Spirit to be formed, transformed into the image of his Son. And so it says, the renewing, or perhaps you might say the renovation of the mind. That's what it means to be renewed. A renovation. No longer thinking the way the world thinks, no longer satisfied with what this world has, but having Christ before us as an object, bright and fair to fill and satisfy the heart.
And having the mind renovated to think just.
Like Christ, then it says that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Well is the will of God.
Something that we're proving out in a practical way in our lives.
God wants us to prove out practically in our lives day-to-day what is his will. And it says here it's a goodwill good. You know, I think of that in connection with.
The 84th Psalm at the end of the 84th Thomas says no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. God is good, and he desires the good of his people, and he will not withhold good from you or for me. His will is good. And then it says.
Acceptable. His will is acceptable. It's acceptable to God and it's acceptable. It ought to be acceptable to you and I, and then it's perfect. As for God, His way is perfect, but the will of God is perfect. And God in his love for us and His Son. And it was his will to send his Son perfect will. And now He desires us to seek and to prove out practically in our lives.
That good, that acceptable and perfect will of God. And so.
I just give this.
Little illustration I just want to read a little poem. I was in Rio Ferry not too long ago and I mentioned just a line at this little him.
And I'm going to read you this hymn.
Brother and sister in Los Angeles in Shadow Hills gave me a CD and it had this little him in it says This is your all on the altar. You have longed for sweet peace, and for faith to increase, and have earnestly, fervently prayed, but you cannot have rest or be perfectly blessed until all on the altar is laid. Is your all on the altar of sacrifice?
Your heart does the Spirit control. You can only be blessed and have peace and sweet rest as you yield to Him. Your body and soul would you walk with the Lord in the light of His Word and have peace and contentment. Alway you must do His sweet will to be free from all I'll on the altar. You're all you must lay. Oh, we never can know what the Lord will bestow of the blessings for which we have prayed.
Till our body and soul He does fully control, and are all on the altar is laid you can who can tell all the love He will send from above, and how happy our hearts will be made of the fellowship suite we shall share at His feet. When are all on the altar is laid? Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid? Your heart does the spirit control?
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You can only be blessed and have peace and sweet rest as you yield Him.
Your body and soul, beloved brethren.
Let's make the decision this afternoon to present our lives a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto our God. He set us free from the ******* of sin, from a cruel taskmaster, from a wasted life. He set us outside of that city of destruction. And now he's looking to see as to whether he's won our hearts. And there is nothing more that God could have done to win.
Heart or mind and to have us willingly.
Yield our bodies a living sacrifice in this scene while we watch and we wait for him. Well, may we do that. May we wait and watch and make that offering.
Which Ephesians?
Open—David Esau
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I'd like to continue a little bit with some thoughts that have been before us this weekend. I'd like to quickly.
Think a little bit about what we've had in Ephesians because I've been thinking about it a lot lately how that we've been having Ephesians chapter 2 before us.
And preceding Ephesians chapter 2 is Ephesians chapter one. We have seen in these two chapters that God laid out the councils of God in eternity, how that he would have his Son glorified.
In that we would be blessed, but our blessings were going to be such that when the world sees us, when in our white robes, we finally appear at His side as His bride, they will look at us. They will realize that we were the worst of the worst, and they're going to look at him and praise Him for it. To see that in Ephesians touches my heart so much. And finally, which is hard for me, gets my eyes off of me.
And gets my eyes on him. But I'd like to turn into the second epistle of Ephesians that some people call it in Revelation.
Revelation chapter 2 And verse one says unto the Angel of the Church of Ephesus, right these things say, as he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. And here is the Lord speaking, I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou cats not bear them which are evil, and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are not.
And has found them liars, and has borne, and has patience. And for my name's sake has labored, and has not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against me, because thou hast left thy first love.
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the 1St works, or else I will come unto thee and strike out that word quickly, because He won't come quickly in judgment. I will come unto thee, and I will remove thy Candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. But I was thinking how that I don't want to say that this applies to anyone else here, but I know that for myself.
I can go through the book of Ephesians, the highest Christian truth that's been given to us.
And yet I can know it, and yet still be living in this part of Ephesians.
I could know what I am doing is wrong. I could look at another brother and condemn him for what he is doing because I know it, that that's what I'm doing. If we lose communion, all that we've had this weekend will be nothing. It'll just be knowledge. We'll be able to say that he knows our works because we might continue on in the works of the flesh. He knows our labor, the things that we try to do. He knows that we're maybe a little patient.
We can't spare them, which are evil, because we can't do that.
Especially if we're not going on well.
But I don't want to dwell on this, but I was thinking how easy it is for my heart when I walk out of this room.
When all of this wraps up and we get in our vehicle and we drive home, what am I going to take with me back to our assembly? Am I going to take the knowledge? Am I going to, am I going to go back, not pray and not read and end up like those in Ephesus in this portion, or am I going to be like the one the apostle wrote to in Ephesians?
Who could actually dwell in that truth? They could think about that it's Him that is going to be glorified, not ourselves. He was the preeminent person in all of Ephesians.
We are simply one of the instruments used to glorify Him. That's all we are as an instrument. We ourselves are nothing.
But what I wanted to quickly turn to as well is first and second Timothy and just see that.
In one Timothy chapter one and verse 3, Paul speaking to Timothy, says, I be thought I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine.
From the book of Ephesians that was written into Revelation chapter 2, there had to be a decline. There had to be something. The instrument started thinking that they were special.
Do we do I? When I leave, am I going to think that I'm something special because I've.
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Got the truth? Because I've listened to brethren that the Lord has raised up to instruct me and teach me and show me things. Am I going to think I'm better than others?
But Timothy, Paul thought, was going to be able to be a help there. And I just want to encourage each and everyone of us when we go to the place that the Lord would have us to abide.
Does he have you to abide still in an assembly that might be small?
Might be as you think it might be weak.
When you get there, you are going to the place that God has placed you to be a help in the body.
So am I, but I think what am I going to be when I get back there? Am I going to be like Timothy? It says that.
In first Timothy 4:00 and 12:00 he says, Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in Word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the gift that is in me, which was given to thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.
Meditate or occupy upon these things.
Give thyself holy to them, that thy profiting may appear to all.
That's a lot of what our brother just previously up here was saying. Let's lay our, our bodies and our all on the altar for the Lord, that the profiting may appear to all and be a blessing to all. But he leaves also this for Timothy. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Continue in them. For in doing this thou shalt both save thyself. That's a daily salvation, practical salvation, and them that hear thee.
We can go back to these little assemblies. We can go back to the place where the Lord would have us to be, and we can be a blessing to those. It's hard because we look around this room. One of the things I've enjoyed has been watching troops of little kids run and tumble and stumble upon each other. What are they doing? They're making friends. They have come here in a place that when my daughter says, Daddy, can I go and sit over in that row with that couple or with my friends?
Over there, I know that when my daughter sits over there with another little friend, she's met.
That that family wants to honor the Lord and if another little girl or a boy wants to sit over in another row.
They're sitting with someone who wants to honor the Lord. That is a privilege we have right here, right now that when we go home.
The children, the children our kids see all during the week may not be the same if they go to the neighbors house and enter in the doors is out of place where the Lord wants to be honored.
But when we leave here, what are we going back to? Is it a place that's going to be hard for our children?
Tiresome. Lonely.
John 15, says.
In verse 14, ye are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you.
Now, if you have to go back to a small assembly, if you have to go back to some place where there's not much and it only feels that way, I don't believe there is an assembly where there's not much.
But if it does feel that way and you look and you think your children are just, they're not going to make it. They need friends. Well, here's a scripture that says we can have a friend no matter where we are, no matter how alone we feel.
But I think as parents we have to live up to this part or to everybody, even the older ones, they might still be.
In the assembly single, we can live out the part that says ye are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you. I don't believe that if we don't do what the Lord commands, He won't be our friend. I just don't think we're going to live in the enjoyment of it. We're not going to get the blessing of that friendship if we're not going on in what He commands. But if we do, if each and every one of us that are a little older than these young ones do go on that way, they're going to see that they'll always have one that sticks closer.
To their side than any friend they'll ever have, no matter how great a friend they have found at this conference, when they go back to their assembly, we can build up our little ones that the Lord.
Is the best friend they will ever have.
That's hard because I don't know if I live up to this verse, but I want to.
Maybe I'm going to need my brother to help me, but they're there. That's something we've had Ephesians chapter 2 as our.
Brother Bill Pross brought out it started off individual, because individually, each and everyone of us have to have our sins forgiven.
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But it ends up being collective.
It ends up with unity in the end, that unity only takes two, and that might be all the Lord leaves someday in some places. But two is still unity, and even with one, they're still the one that sticks that close. If we do whatsoever He commands, He is still our friend. And we can teach that to our children, not by the words we speak, but by the lives we live and when our children see us and they think, Daddy, who are you talking to? Wouldn't it be nice to say I'm talking to the Lord, my friend?
Purposes of God
Open—Doug Buchanan
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Let's turn to Second Samuel 7 for the remainder of the time here, Lord willing, and we've had a lot in our meetings here about the purposes of God.
And understanding his will.
Spiritual understanding and I would like to turn here and notice a few points in the life of David of one who I believe as he went through experiences, learned the will of God.
Let's read in Second Samuel 7, beginning with verse one.
And it came to pass, when the king sat in his house, and the Lord had given him rest about from all his enemies, roundabout from all his enemies, that the king said unto Nathan the prophet, See now I dwell in an House of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains.
And Nathan said to the king, go do all that is in thine heart.
For the Lord is with thee.
And it came to pass that night that the word of the Lord came unto Nathan, saying, Go and tell my servant David.
Thus saith the Lord, shalt thou build me and house.
For me to dwell in.
Whereas I have not dwelt in an anyhow since the time that I came out of Egypt.
Even to this day, but have walked in a tent and in a Tabernacle, in all the places wherein I have walked with all the children of Israel, spake I a word with any of the tribes of Israel whom I commanded to feed my people. Israel saying, why Bill Jean, not me and House of Cedar?
Now therefore, so shall thou say unto my servant David.
Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, I took thee from the sheep caught from following the sheep, to be ruler over my people, over Israel, and I was with thee whithersoever thou wentest, and have cut off all thine enemies out of thy sight, and have made thee a great name, like unto the name of the great men that are in the earth.
Moreover, I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them and.
That they may dwell in a place of their own, and have no more, and move no more, neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them anymore.
And as since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel, and have caused thee to rest from all thine enemies, also the Lord telleth thee that he will make thee and house.
And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee.
Which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his Kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his Kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the children of men.
But my mercy shall not be part away from him.
As I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee, and thine house, and thy Kingdom shall be established forever before thee, thy throne shall be established forever. According to all these words, and according to all this vision. So did Nathan speak unto David. Then went King David in and sat before the Lord. And he said.
Who am IO Lord God, and what is my house that Thou hast brought me hitherto?
And this was yet a small thing in thy sight, O Lord God. But thou hast spoken also of thy servant's house for a great while to come.
And is this the manner of men, O Lord God?
And what can David say more unto thee? For thou, Lord God, knowest thy servant.
For thy word's sake, and according to all thine own heart, hast thou done all these great things to make.
Thy servant know them, whereas thou wherefore thou art great, oh Lord, for there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears. And what one nation in the earth is like thy people? Even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to Himself to make him a name.
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And to do for you great things and terrible for the land.
Before thy people, which thou redeemest to thee from Egypt, from the nations and their gods. For thou hast confirmed to thyself thy people Israel, to be a people unto thee forever. And thou, Lord, art become their God. And now, O Lord God, the word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant and concerning his house, establish it.
Forever.
And do as thou hast said, and let thy name be magnified forever, saying.
The Lord of hosts is the God over Israel, and let the House of thy servant David be established before thee.
For thou Lord of hosts, God of Israel, has revealed to thy servants, saying, I will build thee in house. Therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee. And now, O Lord God, thou art that God, and thy words be true, and thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant. Therefore now let it please thee to bless the House of thy servant.
That they may continue forever before thee. For thou, Lord God has spoken it, and with thy blessing, let the House of thy servant be blessed forever.
My beloved, this is very touching chapter.
We won't be able to say very much about it, but it brings us into the presence of a man who.
Wanted to do something for the Lord.
No doubt David in the early verses. Here we notice he dwelt.
In a House of cedar, and he considered that God dwelt in a tent or a Tabernacle.
He made a comparison and it was a right comparison.
But there's something that is.
There's a mistake here.
He started with himself.
He started with where he was at that moment and began speaking to the Lord.
Compared to where the Lord was to where he was.
It's a little bit like Joshua when he met the Lord when he went into the land of Canaan the first time and he didn't know who that man was. And he says, art thou for us or art thou for our adversaries?
He had to learn something.
He had to learn to not start with himself.
The Lord answered him, nay.
You started out on the wrong basis.
And then he proceeds to show who he is.
We see that in this chapter.
So David is brought to realize who the Lord is.
David had wonderful good intentions.
It's wonderful when we find in our own hearts a desire like David had.
Very commendable and it's very gracious how Nathan deals or the Lord tells Nathan to deal with the with the King David.
First of all, Nathan says, go do alts in your heart.
That part was right, his heart was right, He wanted to do something for the Lord.
How can we who are creatures that have been picked up from the dust?
And as we had in Ephesians, dead in trespasses and sins, how can we begin to think to do something for God Can't start that way.
Have to start with what God has done for us first.
And this is what David is to learn in this chapter.
And so the Lord tells him.
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Verse 8 Thus saith the Lord God of hosts, I took thee from the sheep caught, and from following the sheep, to be ruler over my people, Israel.
God chose that man.
He had his reason to choose him.
No doubt he chose him because he was a Good Shepherd.
And one of the reasons I believe David was such a good king is was he never left his character.
As caring for the sheep, you see it all through his life. He loved the sheep of Israel. He cared about them.
He was a good king.
The Lord cares for his sheep.
Some of us were talking here at the beginning of these meetings about the need of shepherds.
Brethren, there's a great need of care for the sheep.
The Lord has something for you.
If you care for your his sheep. And so that's what you see developed in this chapter.
You see?
How that?
David cared for the Lord and his people, and the Lord cared for David.
There were two people that were thinking alike.
And therefore they could work together.
Well, we know the prophetic meaning of this chapter. David wanted to build a house for the Lord.
I believe the reason that the Lord told David that it was not time yet for him to build that house.
I believe it was because God's first desire was not to build a house here on earth to dwell.
God's first desire was to build a house to inhabit heaven, and that's where the book of Ephesians comes in.
God is going to fulfill what David wanted to do in a still future day in the Millennium, and he's going to build a house here on earth.
But God had another motive.
Higher and better.
We entered in their brethren this morning.
Our hearts went up to heaven and we dwelt there in praise and worship. We belong to that heavenly house. It's being formed now here on earth. The book of Ephesians develops that dwelling of place of God by the Spirit. This was God's first desire. It's a wonderful thing to live in this dispensation that we live in now.
David is going to participate in that sphere too.
As one of the Old Testament Saints.
In that coming day of glory, he's not going to be a king here on earth.
He's going to have the better part. God was so gracious to him to reveal something of that in this chapter.
And that was to build a house for God. God to build a house. It was really.
His son, Jesus Christ, the Son of David. David wanted to do something for the Lord. The Lord took him up and used that progenity to be.
The human instrument of Christ's birth here on earth, and that Jesus Christ.
Has built that house and David is going to dwell there in glory, and you and I may enter into enjoy that place where God dwells. It's his first desire. After that house is filled, the Lord comes and takes his own home. Then the Lord is going to fulfill what David asked for here on earth.
And that's why he told David he couldn't build the house then.
There was a better thing first. And so it's so wonderful how God taught David something of that.
Here in this chapter, our hearts in the unfolding of the New Testament, we have a fuller description of it. It's all opened up and revealed the mystery of God to even bring the Gentiles in and make them members together in one body.
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To dwell where God dwells and enjoy his fellowship.
Gospel 3
Gospel—Jim Hyland
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I'd like to begin the Gospel Meeting this evening with Hymn #7 on the gospel hymn sheet. God loved the world of sinners lost and ruined by the fall. Salvation full at highest cost. He offers free to all, owe to us love.
Wondrous love. The love of God. To me, it brought my Savior from above to die on Calvary. I'm going to suggest we stand up to sing this hymn number 7 and if someone could please start it.
The world of sailors lost and grew, and by the fall.
Salvation.
For highest cost.
Your first name to all.
What was love was my dress love.
To me.
It brought my savior.
From.
Calvary.
Love brings us glorious warmness in and to the Lord makes no.
Soundation from the power of sin through faith and Christ alone.
Oh my God.
One to me.
And from my Savior, from my heart to die on Calvary.
He now.
Exemption by himself, by my hand, planting from the world.
It brought my Savior from.
Above till die on Calvary.
When the word of God to the third chapter of John's Gospel.
John's Gospel chapter 3 and verse 16.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. I'm going to read that again. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have.
Everlasting life.
I realized at the beginning of a gospel meeting like this this evening, that this is a scripture. This is a verse from the Bible, God's Word that perhaps everyone, if not most, in this room learned from the very early days of their childhood. It's a verse that has been read and quoted over and over and over again on occasions like this. My father, in his lifetime kept copious notes and lists.
If you had been around after his passing to clean out the family home, you would certainly agree with me. But one of the lists that my father kept throughout his lifetime was a list of verses from God's Word that gospel preachers used on occasion like this to begin a gospel meeting.
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And close to the end of my father's life, he told me that he had calculated that more Gospel meetings that he had sat in in his lifetime began with this verse than any other verse from the word of God. And you know, it is a joy to our souls tonight to be able to open to a verse that the Spirit of God has used time and time and time again, and read it with joy once again.
To know that this verse is powerful. To know that the Word of God lives and abides forever. And I want to encourage you tonight, if you don't know the Lord Jesus as your savior, to open your ears, if not to what is said in exposition or explanation, at least open your ears to what God says, because we're born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible by the word of God that liveth and abideth forever.
Faith cometh by hearing.
And hearing by the word of God here and your soul shall live, because tonight this message is a voice from God himself.
I suppose if myself or anyone else stood up here tonight and announced at the beginning of this meeting that they had a message from the President of the United States or the Queen of England or any other famous person or dignitary in this world, I dare say that everyone would be all ears tonight. That you would want to hear what that person had to convey to this audience.
But all tonight we have a message from the God of the universe. We have a message from heaven tonight. Not from the White House, not from Buckingham Palace, not from Beijing. Not from any. Not from Ottawa, Canada. But we have tonight a message from God himself. And God looks down into this audience tonight. And God loves you. God desires your blessing.
Far, far more.
Than anybody else. I realize that if you're hearing your sins tonight.
There are people praying for you, a mother, a father, a grandmother, a grandfather, someone who invited you to this meeting tonight, praying for you because they're concerned and they love you and they desire your eternal blessing. But I want to tell you above anybody that is praying for you tonight, either in this room or anywhere else God desires your blessing tonight.
And so we hope.
With the Lord's help to speak a little bit from this verse that has been spoken on so many times before.
And in the few minutes that are allotted to us this evening for this Gospel meeting, we can only hope to scrape out a very few things of what God has to say to us.
In this verse, this profound verse, and yet the simplicity of it is so real and so precious.
Edgerton Young was a missionary.
In the early days.
To the native Indians in Western Canada.
And he went to the Nelson River, District of British Columbia to bring the message there to those who were steeped in the traditions.
Of Indian religion? Native religion.
Steeped in darkness, the darkness of heathendom.
And when he got to that area.
And made his purpose known.
There was a day set by the chiefs of various tribes in that area.
A day set when the natives were gathered together in great numbers to hear the message that this man had to present.
And you can just imagine the thoughts that must have gone through the soul of Edgerton young as he stood up and faced those who had never heard of the love of God, those who had never heard of the Lord Jesus Christ, God's beloved Son.
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And for three hours.
For three solid hours, he never turned the page of his Bible from this precious verse.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
And when he was finished, he sat down and every eye in that audience turned.
To the principal chief.
Sitting there.
Listening to who had listened to the message.
And as the story goes, with a great deal of pomp and ceremony, this principal chief stood up.
And he faced his fellow Indians.
An Eggerton, Young wondered what he was going to say. But as he looked into the faces of his fellow Indians, he said.
For years I haven't believed in the beat of the TomTom Drum. I haven't been satisfied with the Great Spirit and our gods and that which we worship from day-to-day. There's been an empty aching in my heart.
And then he pointed to Edgerton Young and he said, But you have brought me a message today that has finally brought peace to my heart. Stay as long as you like and preach your message here amongst us.
All the power there is in one gospel verse. Before we embark on this verse, just another little incident to show how God has used this verse time and time again.
I have had opportunity over the years to visit some of the famous battlefields in Europe, Vimy Ridge. I've been to Passchendaele. I've stood at the Mening gate. I've had opportunity to drive and walk through Flanders fields. It's awesome to realize how many have fallen in battle, fallen in the service of and freedom of humanity as far as this life and world is concerned.
But I remember well a story.
During the First World War, when it was man to man combat in the trenches, and as I have been taken through some of those trenches, I have wondered how the human body could stand.
The abuses and the lack of comforts and the cold, as well as the trauma of being at war with the enemy. But I remember well a story of a line of soldiers who were facing the enemy and falling 1 by 1.
And one man in a certain line was struck by a bullet.
And he fell back into the trench, and his comrade next to him jumped down beside him.
To see if he was still alive and if so, if he could be made a little more comfortable there on the cold, damp floor of that trench in that European battlefield.
He found that his friend, though he was bleeding profusely, and though he was weak, he was still alive.
And as he rolled up his coat to put it under his head, his friend opened his eyes and he said, Can you tell me the way to heaven?
Just put yourself in the position of that comrade at that moment. If a dying friend looked into your face tonight and said what is the way to heaven?
Would you be able to tell them?
Well, you know, I suppose, if it had been peacetime and they had been home in their own country.
This comrade might have had many suggestions as to how to get to heaven, but those things just didn't seem to count.
In the reality of their situation.
And so he looked into the face of his friend and he said, I don't know, but I'll try to find out.
And he went back to his post and he passed that question on to the man who was next to him. Can you tell me the way to heaven?
The man beside him shook his head. But he said I'll ask and he asked the next man. Now these were men that came from so-called Christian countries.
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And that question went down the line.
15 men and nobody knew the answer.
Finally, it came to the 16th Man.
And as he was asked the question, he reached into his pocket with a glad smile, and he pulled out a New Testament, and he opened the New Testament to this very verse. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
And he read it to his comrade.
And he put his finger on it, and down the line it went 15 men with their finger on John 316.
With the enemy firing.
And finally it came back to the first man and he jumped down beside his dying friend and he found he was very weak.
But he leaned over to his friend and he read this verse.
And he read it again, and his friend opened his eyes and he said read it again.
And his friend drank in those life, giving words in his dying moments.
And with his final breaths he confessed Christ, and he went from the horror of a battlefield in Europe to the presence of the Lord Jesus in the language of the Word of God, absent from the body and present with the Lord.
We're not under fire from the enemy here tonight as we sit in this Dome in Walla Walla.
Let's suppose you were to take your final breath as you sat in these seats.
Would you go from the Dome in Walla Walla to the presence and light of the Lord Jesus Christ?
We're going to talk about something else in a few moments. Very serious.
But all tonight, at the beginning of this meeting, you can know with certainty that when you take that last breath, you will be with the Lord Jesus, I've often told.
About Michael Faraday.
Reputed to be the father of modern electronics, and as he lay on his deathbed, a friend came to him and said, Michael, what are your speculations for eternity?
He looked up into his friend's face. He said Speculations. I'm not resting on speculations, I'm resting on certainties.
Oh, tonight as we preach the gospel, we preach it with certainty. We rest on certainties tonight because we have the living and sure word of God.
God hasn't left us to speculate.
About the future, you know, there's a lot of speculation in this world tonight, isn't there? You know, if we were to pull a newspaper tomorrow and read the financial section, in the business section of that newspaper, we find a lot of speculation and people speculating on oil and speculating on real estate and speculating as to what the American dollar is going to do against the Japanese yen and the euro is going to do against the Canadian dollar and all that kind of thing. But we're not talking about speculation.
Uncertainties tonight. No. We're talking from the precious word of God that we can rest on with certainty.
For God. This is the source, isn't it God?
I want to impress upon our souls at this juncture.
That God is the creator and sustainer of life.
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
And not only that.
But he breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And as such you and I are responsible to God. You know, when Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden, he was there, given everything to enjoy.
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All the fruit of the trees and so on. But there was one thing he was not to do. He was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Because the the fact that he was not to eat of that tree was to be Adams recognition that he was enjoying.
All that was there.
At God's disposal and that as such he was responsible to his Maker. You know, Adam failed to recognize his responsibility to God, and he reached out and ate of the forbidden fruit. And it says by one man's disobedience sin entered.
And death by sin. So death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
Do you realize tonight, first of all, that you're a Sinner, and secondly that you must answer for your sins? The wages of sin is death. There's consequence, there's payment for sin. God told Adam that the devil said thou shalt not surely die, but death came in as a result of sin.
You are responsible to God. It is appointed unto man once to die.
And after this, the judgment. And I suppose that man would like to propagate the theory of evolution in The Big Bang and all that kind of thing. Because if man can convince himself that it all just happened, and if man can convince himself that when it's over he dies and passes out of this out of existence.
Then he has no responsibility to his maker. But we're going to see from this very scripture.
That that is not the case.
All the wonderful thing is that this verse is not only a warning, but it unlocks the heart of God.
Because it tells us here that God so loved.
We read in Ephesians 2 during these meetings.
Of that great love of God.
God has a great love for you tonight.
As we said at the beginning of this meeting, he desires your blessing more than anyone else.
But you know, the marvelous thing is that God has manifested His love. God has shown His love in the giving of His Son. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. If you were to go to a dictionary tonight, you would find that the word manifest means to clearly show.
You know, sometimes people say they love us, but they don't act like it. We like somebody to prove what they say. You say, well, that person says they're my friend. That person says they like me. That person even says they love me.
But they sure don't act like it. They surely don't manifest it.
In their actions toward me, but all when we look to the cross tonight, can we doubt God's love? He has clearly shown his love in the giving of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
David Livingstone, that renowned Mish pioneer missionary to Africa, has the distinction of having his tomb in Westminster Abbey in London, England.
They're buried with the elite and nobility of Britain.
But you know David Livingstone, When he went to Africa, he really went for two reasons.
He was, it's true, an explorer for the British government. And he mapped out a good deal of that continent before anything was known of the continent of Africa.
But David Livingstone went to Africa with a far, far greater motive.
Than just being an explorer for the British government, David Livingstone went to Africa to take the light of the glorious Gospel to those who had never been exposed to it before.
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And they tell the story how he and his wife and their baby were staying in a certain area.
And preaching the gospel.
And helping, in one way or another, the natives who lived along that part of that particular river.
But you know, David Livingstone had a burning desire to take the Gospel further down that river to a tribe that he knew had never been reached before.
But he was warned by those he was living amongst not to go any further up that river, that if he continued up that river he would not come out alive.
David Livingstone was a man of prayer and a man of faith, and he and his wife prayed much about it.
And a certain day came when they got in their boat to travel up that river. David, his wife and their baby. There are some babies in this room tonight. I've been thrilled to see so many babies and little ones here at these meetings.
And I think those who have had or have.
Babies and children will perhaps enter in.
To this story a little bit, and the emotion of it.
But they got in their boat and they traveled up that river, and as they got close to where these people lived, they were startled.
By screams and cries and natives running through the jungle brandishing all kinds of weapons.
And as they approached the banks of that river.
David tried to make those natives see that he had not come to harm them, but that he had come in peace, but nothing he did.
Seemed to calm those natives down or make them understand.
And after a time he turned to his wife and he said to his wife, give me the baby.
You can just imagine the emotions that must have passed between a mother and a father, that scene on the shore, the natives ready to do them in. And David says to his wife, give me the baby.
After some hesitation, she handed him their child.
And David stepped out of that boat into the shallow water, and with the outstretched, with the child in his outstretched arms.
He approached those natives on the shore. They say the effect was amazing.
That child held out in David's arms was a symbol to those natives that David had come in peace and love, And they immediately settled down and they received them. And as the story goes, there was much blessing in that area. But oh, tonight God has held out his son. God sent his son, the Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world.
And when it says the Father, isn't that more than if it just said God sent Jesus? It's true that God did send Jesus, but first John 4 tells us that it was the Father who sent the Son.
You know, there are many beautiful types and pictures in the Old Testament of the Father and the Son.
I suppose two of the most complete types.
Are Israel sending Joseph to his brethren, and Jesse sending David to his brethren? But I have pondered in reading those accounts, if Israel had had any idea when he sent Joseph to his brethren, if he had had any inkling of how his brother brothers were going to treat him, and that he wouldn't see his son for many, many, many years.
Would he have sent him on that occasion? I dare say he would have kept him home within the veil of Hebron.
If Jesse had had any idea?
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That the rest of his sons were going to even judge the motive of his heart for coming down to bring those supplies.
To the camp of Israel, where they were fighting the battle with the Philistines.
And that David, with just five stones and a sling, was going to go down into the valley and meet the champion of the Philistines, Goliath. Would he have sent David on that occasion? He may have kept him home feeding those few sheep in the wilderness. Israel didn't know, Jesse didn't know. But all the marvel is that when God sent his son into this world, he knew exactly what would happen.
He knew the heart of man. He knew how they would treat his son. He knew that for his son there would be no room in the inn. He knew that he would grow up in a carpenter's shop in Nazareth. He knew that from the beginning of his public ministry he would be rejected. He knew at the end of it all.
He would be taken from Gethsemane to pilots judgment hall, and that he would be shuffled back and forth that night and abused.
That he would have deep furrows plowed upon his back by the scourge.
That they would pluck the very hairs of his cheek. You know, any of us who have a beard know that the cheek is the most tender part you can pull on the chin, almost pull the hair out without really hurting. But it says they pluck the hairs of my cheek.
They took a crown of thorns, that which was the result of the curse.
They put it on his blessed head and they weren't content with that. They beat it into his blessed head. They mocked him, saying, Hail King of the Jews, did they believe that he was the king of the Jews? Indeed they did not. They said we have no king but Caesar.
They slapped his blessed face.
To add insult to injury, they spit on him.
And then they took him out.
And I love these glorious words, because on the one hand they led him away to crucify him.
But immediately it says there in John 19.
And he bearing his cross, went forth.
He went forth? Yes, he did. Did God know that such a moment was coming when he sent his Son?
Indeed he did.
They nailed him to a cross.
Some sat down and watched him in his agony.
Others heaped other abuse on him. They gave him vinegar to drink, mingled with Gall.
Others passed by at that crossroad where he hung a spectacle for men and angels.
And they reviled him.
But you know all those sufferings as awful as they were.
They never atoned for one sin.
But a moment came. Yes, it did. A moment came.
When the sun was shrouded in darkness.
A darkness I suggest, that no eye could penetrate.
And the Lord Jesus, I am so very thankful to say, bore my sins in his own body on the tree.
Did God know when He sent his son?
What the end would be, indeed he did. After those three hours of darkness, the Lord Jesus cried. It is finished. He bowed his head, and he gave up the ghost, He could say of his life. No man taketh it from me. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
Loving hands. After his side was pierced and that blood and water came forth, Loving hands took him down from the cross, put him in a new tomb.
But the Lord Jesus died, he was buried and thank God he rose again the 3rd day according to the scriptures.
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Because if Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain, you are still in your sins, but he was raised again for our justification.
God so loved the world. I like that.
You know, if it just said God loved the world, we'd rejoice, wouldn't we? But the word so gives intensity. He so loved the world.
That he gave.
You know, that's the heart of God tonight. God is a giving God.
If you're not saved tonight, you need to realize that Satan is not your friend. Satan is not a giver.
Satan is a taker. He's a destroyer, but God is a giver.
We were reminded this afternoon of the children of Israel when they were in Egypt and you know, really Pharaoh and the Egyptians and Pharaoh is a very graphic picture to us of the enemy Satan in the Old Testament.
And say a pharaoh really wanted them only for what he could get out of them. As long as they could build his cities, he was glad to have them and use them.
And you know, the time even came when the straw wasn't provided.
For the bricks, but they had to keep up their tally. You know, the way of the transgressor is hard.
Sin is *******. We're holding, it says in Proverbs with the cords of our sin. Man thinks he has liberty. Man thinks he's a free agent. Tonight. He's not. He's under the ******* of sin and Satan.
But God is a giver, God is a Liberator, and God has given his Son the Lord Jesus.
Oh, gift of love, unspeakable, oh, gift of mercy, all divine. We once were slaves of death and hell, but in Christ's image we shall shine for every gift a song we raise. But this demands eternal praise.
Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift, every good gift and every perfect gift.
Cometh down from a from above, and cometh down from the father of lights.
With whom There is no variableness nor shadow of turning. You know we enjoy God's gifts and mercies every day. Even the unbeliever. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. Solomon said twice in Ecclesiastes, For a man to eat and drink and enjoy the fruit of all his labor, it is the gift of God. And yet you know, how many people do you see bow their head before a meal and thank God for that, the gift of their food.
Not very many, do you? In fact, when you're in a restaurant or a public place that's outstanding, to see somebody bow their head a moment and thank God for those temporal mercies, those gifts.
There's another gift that God is offering tonight. It tells us in the book of Romans. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
I want to pause a moment here to ask you a question.
You've accepted God's temporal gifts today. I doubt there's anybody here who hasn't eaten something today at some point.
Or enjoyed some temporal mercy as the gift of God.
From a loving hand of God.
But have you ever reached out and in faith, taken God's gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ?
It's free. What makes a gift a gift is the fact that it's free to the recipient. But as we have already heard in these meetings, while the gospel is free, it's not cheap. It cost God his Son. It costs the Lord Jesus the laying down of his life and the shedding of his precious blood of which blood we weave. The blood of Jesus Christ his Son, cleanseth us.
From all sin have you received that gift? God so loved the world that he gave his only.
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Begotten son.
I don't have any sons.
But I do have two daughters whom I love very much.
And if on some particular morning, I knew my daughters were going to go out the door and face some real danger or even death.
Would I let those girls go that morning? Not a chance.
Not a chance, but God sent his son into this world.
To die and the Lord Jesus when he came.
When he came in obedience.
To God the Father, He knew what the end of the course would be. Did Joseph know how his brethren were going to treat him? When he said to his father that he would go, He had no idea. Did David really know what was going to happen when he was sent by his Father to his brother? No, he really didn't. Would those men have been so willing to go on that occasion? I don't know, but I wonder. But the Lord Jesus?
We read of him prophetically. Lo, I come to do thy will. Oh God, He could say I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
That Will was a path uncheered by earthly smiles that led only to the cross.
Oh, tonight I want to plead with you in the presence of God and the Lord Jesus.
Don't turn away from so great salvation.
How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? You know this world is going on in a mad rush to eternity.
Faster and faster. The treadmill of society in the Western world. It's being cranked up faster and faster every hour a man is going on in rebellion against God and in his own will over the precipice.
Sin is lawlessness. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way.
I had the opportunity to visit and Regina, Canada this winter and while I was there I was driven by.
A tattoo and body piercing shop in the city of Regina.
And in big letters, the name was over the door.
House of Custom Rebellion.
Shocking, isn't it?
House of Custom Rebellion.
But isn't doesn't that sum up the world today? Rebellion, You know, sin is not just practice today. It's always been practiced from the Garden of Eden down. It was disobedience, rebellion against authority that ushered in man's history of sin. But sin is not just practice today. It's preached and glorified. It's ingrained in us to do our own thing that nobody's to put restraints on us.
Rebellion.
Was there ever a day when rebellion against authority on every level is preached and propagated and practiced like the day in which we live?
But God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever.
You know that's a universal word, isn't it? There is no one can go out of this gospel meeting tonight and say that the message wasn't for them. Because the message is to whosoever. I like the way a little girl put this at the end of a Sunday school. As she was going out the door, someone asked her what does the word whosoever mean? Why? She said that means you and me and everybody else. It's a universal word. And the message tonight is to whosoever.
Whosoever will may come and take of the water of life freely, does that exclude you? Not for one moment, not for one moment. If you're excluded, you've excluded yourself by turning away.
Whosoever believeth on him.
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Have you believed you know the gospel is repentance toward God?
And faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. It's to realize that we are sinners and that there's nothing we can do to get rid of one sin. And to realize we have set our will against God in rebellion, but to turn completely around and to put our faith.
In the Lord Jesus Christ, you know there was a man in a prison in Philippi, and he was concerned about his soul. And he came in to two evangelists who were locked in that prison for preaching the gospel. And he said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And what was the answer? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
You know you can believe in many things tonight, and you can be sincere, but you can be sincerely wrong.
I won't try to pronounce his Siamese name, but King Rama, the 7th, was the last absolute monarch of Siam, which is now Thailand.
He was a retiring sort of person, shy, reticent and not a very likely candidate to sit on a throne and rule a people.
And he ruled just a couple of months, less than 10 years, when he was forced to abdicate and flee the country.
But, you know, as the story goes.
He no doubt had some indications earlier on in his reign that this wasn't going to last.
And history records that he is the only known king or ruler of a country.
Whoever took out unemployment insurance. But he had insurance policies, unemployment insurance policies, with a British underwriter and a French underwriter in Britain and France.
And when he was forced to abdicate and to flee.
His country, He lived in very considerable comfort in Britain until the day of his death.
You know, as far as this life goes, he was a very wise king. I don't know about his soul, but tonight we're not talking about having an insurance policy. We're not talking about having confidence in something in this life, but we're talking about confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ resting on him. John Patton was a pioneer missionary to the South Sea Islands.
And when he went to take the gospel to those natives, one of his first and arduous tasks was to translate part of the New Testament into the language of the South Sea Islanders. So they had at least part of the word of God in their native tongue. And as he was going through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, he found it difficult to come up.
Some word for trust or belief, something that was to the natives way of looking at things.
And finally, he came to that verse we quoted a few moments ago. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And thou shalt be saved. And he translated it like this. Lean your full weight on him. Are you leaning your full weight, your soul's weight, on him for eternity tonight? If you are, you can have full confidence that you're going to leave this world to be in the Father's house when the Lord Jesus comes, because the Lord Jesus is coming, and whosoever believeth in him should not perish.
You know the Lord Jesus is coming, and I want to impress this upon our souls.
Because the coming of the Lord draweth nigh and when the Lord Jesus comes.
Every believer, everyone who is washed in the blood of Jesus.
Is going to leave this world. It's going to be changed in the moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and snatched away to be with the Lord Jesus in the Father's house.
And everyone that is not ready who had opportunity, is going to be left behind for the judgment of God. Everyone who had opportunity is going to be left behind for the judgment of God.
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They're going to perish.
I remember looking up this word perish in a Random House dictionary one time and it said this perish to pass out of existence. You know, I wasn't very satisfied with that explanation or that definition. At home we have a large Webster's dictionary and it's an older edition.
And I looked up the word perish in that old edition Webster's dictionary, and this is what it said, to die spiritually.
You know what? So awful is it to pass out of this world without Christ into a lost eternity. So awful will it be to stand at the great White Throne judgment, and to be bound hand and foot, and cast into the lake of fire.
That the Word of God calls it the second death.
You know death and Scripture always denotes the separation of two things.
We're dead in trespasses and sins because your iniquities have separated between you and your God.
Physical death is the separation of the body and the spirit. The body without the spirit is dead.
But the second death, oh, how solemn, how serious to be eternally separated from God.
In the lake of fire.
No hope, Indiana. Hell, I think that's going to be one of the most awful things about a lost eternity.
No hope.
No hope.
You know, there's always hope you're sick. There's always hope that tomorrow things will get better.
You're going through a difficult circumstance. There's always hope that things are going to turn around tomorrow and you can get through today because we live for hope. We're saved by hope. We get through today because there's hope things will be better tomorrow.
But in a lost eternity no hope, when once the master of the house hath risen up and shut to the door, they begin to knock. And they say, Lord, Lord, open unto us, but from the other side of that closed door.
Those words come to ring in their ears for eternity depart from me. I never knew you. The message tonight is come unto me. The message in that day will be depart from me. Solemn contrast, isn't it? God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting.
Life. Are you going to reach out and take that gift tonight, as we've been saying?
Everlasting life.
Eternal life.
Offered to you by God. You know, the gospel tonight is so very simple.
I think sometimes at the end of a gospel meeting.
People are not sure how to get saved. They've heard that they're sinners. They've heard that God loves them. They've heard that the Lord Jesus died on Calvary's cross and shed his precious blood. They've heard that there's an invitation.
But it is this simple.
In a few moments, I'm going to pray and close the meeting. And if you do not know the Lord Jesus as your savior, quietly where you are, you can speak to him in your heart because he'll hear you even though you don't utter one word aloud. And you can speak to him in your heart, confessing that you're a Sinner.
And accepting, receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Does that sound easy?
It is easy. The way of righteousness is so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, may not err therein. You know there was one of the major.
Cake mix companies here in the United States. Betty Crocker, one of those that some time ago put out.
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A cake mix.
And all the instructions said was to add water.
Pretty easy, wasn't it? You know, they couldn't sell it.
People thought that's too easy.
You know what the company did? They recalled it and they changed the formula a little bit, so you had to add an egg as well.
Sold tremendously. People thought it was too easy. But all tonight, we're not going to change the formula because the Lord Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. We're not going to change the formula, but we're going to tell you it's as easy as just receiving the Lord Jesus as your savior. Oh, don't go out of this room unsaved tonight. Don't go out of this room lost tonight.
God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him.
Should not perish but have everlasting life. Let's pray our God and Father. If there's someone still lost in this room tonight, we pray that.
Isaac & Rebekah
Ephesians 2:1-13