Walla Walla Conference: 2023
Table of Contents
Matthew 5:1-5
Reading
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Shall we sing 200 and 18218?
Eternity.
We stop in.
He knows that dude was to the Mississippi.
Along with that, may we sing number one 74174?
Good.
Morning.
And we make friends.
Loving God and our Father, we have sung that we shall see Him.
Soon we look forward, Lord Jesus, to seeing Thee, and we have also sung that there aren't enough to fill and satisfy us. We pray that we might see the Lord Jesus and that which we take up this morning, we ask for Thy direction. We pray that distractions would be removed.
Be able to enjoy.
That which is brought before us, we just look to Thee for Thy help. We thank Thee again for that blessed One, that patient, spotless one that we can have before our hearts this morning. And so we just cried to Thee for Thy help. And we give thanks for affording us this opportunity for the kindness of our local brethren here and inviting us to be together. So we just pray for Thy help and the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
May I suggest a passage that I've had on my heart and Brother Harmon just read the part of that Matthew 5 I remember years ago. Stan Jacobson.
Giving a lecture on.
Our attitude adjustment.
And I think perhaps it would be profitable and practical that we look at some of those attributes which were modeled by the Lord Jesus. It really is the Lord Jesus characteristically, all of those attributes that you find in 1/5 of Matthew. I, I don't know if somebody else has something more, but but I've thought about it and the Lord has had that in my heart and we've driven over here and, and before.
I.
Think that.
The attitude of Christendom and Christians as rebellion.
And I think we need an attitude adjustment and maybe some of the some of the attributes that are missing will be brought back to our remembrance in the 5th of Matthew does that.
00:10:05
Somebody else has something that there's on your heart that be fine, but.
I think that would be very good, Brother Vern, because as.
Brother Harry Hayhoe used to remind us the wisdom of God is always the direct opposite of man's wisdom. It's not an improvement on man's wisdom, it's just the opposite. And what we get in Matthew 5 is the exact opposite of what we see in the world around us today.
Matthew, Chapter 5.
Matthew chapter 5 and verse one. And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain. And when he was set, his disciples came unto him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. You're the salt of the earth. But if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?
It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid, neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a Candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before a man, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you to help it. Till heaven and earth pass. One jaw or one title shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, that accept your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.
But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Rocca shall be in danger of the council. But whosoever shall shall say, thou fool shall be in danger of Hellfire. Therefore thou bring thy gift to the altar, and their remembrance that thy brother hath aught against thee. Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way. And 1St be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Agree with an adversary quickly, whiles that were in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and they'll be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost Farthing. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
And if they right I offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body shall be cast into hell.
And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her, that is, divorce committeth adultery.
00:15:15
Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time. Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shall perform unto the Lord thine oath. But I say unto you, Swear not at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is His footstool, neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
But let your communication be Yay, yay, nay, nay, for for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. You have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you that you resist not evil. But whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
And if any man will sue you at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain, give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away. You have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. For he maketh his Son to rise on the evil and on the good.
And sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the public ends the same? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more than others? Do not even the public in so be therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect?
Well, this passage is really referred to as a Sermon on the Mount, isn't it? These chapter 5-6 and seven. And we know that Judaism really gave God's minimum standard, you might say, of righteousness, of of man's conduct and so on. But here in this chapter and these, the Lord begins to reveal the name of the Father to them and so.
It's really the the Kingdom that's announced and the features, the moral features that would characterize those that are a part of that Kingdom. And so it goes way beyond what they had in Judaism. They were to hate their enemies. We don't hate our enemies. We pray for them.
And so there's the bringing out of these things. And it was the Son of God himself.
That was going to reveal the name of the Father and bring out these characteristic features of those that would be a part of the Kingdom.
Yes, what the Lord brings out here, as Robert has said, goes far beyond the law. The law could only judge what a man did or what he said. But the Lord here goes right to the root of the problem, doesn't he? And eventually deals with the inward thoughts and intents of the heart.
And.
As you say, Robert, it was the character of God's Kingdom that was being presented.
But could Israel inherit that Kingdom? Could they be part of that Kingdom?
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In their natural state, no, they could not, and neither can you and I. And if a man were to listen to the Sermon on the Mount?
Man or woman?
They would have to say to themselves.
I need a new life in order to carry this out.
Because I can't even keep God's minimum standard and hear the Lord's going to be excuse me?
Hear the Lords going beyond it.
Reaching right into my heart and into the thoughts that I have.
I can't carry this soda. I can't do it. I need a new life. And that is, of course, what had to be done. But nevertheless, all these are very profitable for us, aren't they? Because you and I as believers have that new life, we have the ability to carry this out with the Lord's help. And so it's, it exemplifies what ought to characterize the Kingdom of God. What is.
Here it's called the Kingdom of Heaven, of course.
And that has a little different thought, but nevertheless, it's God's Kingdom that is in view here and what ought to characterize those that are involved in it.
We say that the Lord Jesus modeled these things in his life.
Yes, fully.
Brother Bill mentioned the Kingdom of heaven and the Kingdom of God. It might be helpful to get a distinction between what the Kingdom of heaven is and the Kingdom of God. And there is a little definition given. I think it's in Romans chapter 14 is it That speaks of the Kingdom of God verse 17? Romans 14, verse 17. The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink.
But righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, for he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men. So it's really by faith that the moral features of the Lord Jesus are formed in US. And so we reflect what is suitable to being a part of the Kingdom of God. So the Kingdom of God is not something that's tangible, but it's really the fruit of Christ, the fruit of his.
The moral features of the Lord Jesus being reproduced in the believer. But then when it comes to the Kingdom of heaven, it's really a term that's used in Matthews Gospel, I believe exclusively. And it's used to denote the fact that the Lord Jesus is has a Kingdom and it's going to be ruled from the heavens. And so right now we the Kingdom is in mystery. It's divided really into two parts, isn't it? The Kingdom and mystery and then the Kingdom and manifestation.
So the Kingdom is in mystery right now. You can't see the king, his territory, it doesn't look like he's got any territory, there's no borders and so on. But it's really the the Kingdom is comprised of those that profess Christianity. They profess to know the Lord Jesus, they profess to acknowledge his authority. And so really, you might say it's the Western Christian world and it forms what God is.
Working in this scene and so it's really the Lord Jesus is the king he's rejected and so the Kingdom is in mystery. It's not visible to us but here he's referring to the Kingdom of heaven and that's what he's referring to. They didn't know at the time but he would be rejected, he'd be crucified and then he would ascend into the heavens and he is ruling he is reigning but it doesn't look like it but those that.
That acknowledge his authority. That acknowledge the authority of the Lord Jesus in their lives. Acknowledge that he has rights.
We are a part of that Kingdom, and so he speaks of these different aspects that would form our thoughts and moral features that would reflect that we belong to Him and that our thoughts are in line with those that acknowledge his authority.
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Lord Jesus can veil.
Some of his glories and he did as a man here.
They couldn't ever be less than what he is and the moral virtues of the Lord Jesus. The character of the Lord Jesus remains consistent throughout eternity. And so here he is on earth. I was enjoying the hymns that we sang. The first one said the Lord's coming soon.
But I thought, where's the Lord Jesus this morning?
He's sitting at the right hand of God. The 2nd hymn was patience. That's one of the virtues that we like to see in people. We like to have it ourselves. He's sitting at the rod's right hand this morning in perfect patience.
That's His character and it can't change. He's not agitated, He's not upset. He sits quietly at God's right hand this morning in patience, waiting for what the first Him said. Soon the Father will say it's time has come. You may fetch your bride and set the earth right.
But that character is something I think that in keeping with our brother's exercise of sometimes we need an attitude adjustment.
Is that we see in this chapter manifested some of the moral features of the character of the person of the Lord Jesus, and here he's presenting something to them as in its setting that I'm not going to take too long and comment on, but the thought is that he was manifesting to them.
That which was in himself a moral character, and they were being told, blessed are they that partake of this same character. He doesn't bring out what was going to be necessary in order to do it.
He did say I'm here to fulfill the law. What I'm saying to you doesn't set the law aside, and he did not at that time as he says in verse 18.
Not one jot or title of the law will be put aside until it's fulfilled.
Does his character.
Those his moral virtues that he fulfilled the law and himself perfectly. He's the only man that ever did you and I can't do it. The ones that were addressed in Matthew 5 couldn't do it. They were taught what was desired and necessary for the Kingdom of heaven or in his broader character, the Kingdom of God. But it took the work of the cross and it took resurrection life.
And the coming of the Spirit upon those that accepted what He said, and then they too were able to truly live in the character of the Kingdom of God. And so everyone here this morning has the capacity, if you have life in Christ and if you have the Spirit of God which you do, dwelling in you, if you have that life, to have the right attitude.
To live this morning in a way that the Lord Jesus, as he looks down upon you and I, can find pleasure.
Wouldn't it?
Give joy to your heart to think that as the Lord Jesus sits you, sees you sitting in this room, and your seat is finding pleasure in you this morning as a child living according to the Kingdom of God with the right attitude.
Might just say and a little bit that the attitude adjustment is not just saying that I acknowledge the authority of the Lord Jesus, but acknowledging it in practice, acknowledging in practice that I own the authority of the Lord Jesus in my life. And we could ask, I could ask myself, we could all ask ourselves, do we?
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Practically.
In practice.
Profess to acknowledge the authority of the Lord Jesus in our lives, but do we in practice?
Allow him, the authority in our lives, to act.
Struck by the two lines in #250.
With him is all our business now.
And those that are his own.
And that's.
Where?
The practicality comes in.
Not only acknowledging it, but it is my business, is my interest, the Lord's interest, what his desires are, That's where it starts. And then what's His interest for his people? What's his interest for the lost?
It's all about his interests and and that's where we're conformed to his image.
Remember Brother Clarence Lundin saying that he oftentimes tried to read the Gospels every week? He was trying to read the Gospels and it's striking that it says in verse two he opened his mouth and taught them saying, and so you and I can learn, can't we? As we read the Gospels, we can learn and see how the Lord Jesus reacted in various circumstances for the glory of his Father.
And he acted in obedience to the Word of God and recognized the authority of his Father in his life.
And so we can see from his life as we read of it in the Gospels. So he opened his mouth. Isn't it blessed thing to read of the Savior, those four gospels that we have? And here in this gospel, he's presented as the rightful king, the rightful king of Israel. And he was rejected as his, as the king, as the Messiah of Israel. And so his Kingdom is in mystery, but he will come, He will appear in glory.
After the rapture there's going to be a time of judgment we know called the time of Jacob's trouble. The the Lord Jesus himself in Matthew 24 called at the beginning of sorrows the 1St 3 1/2 years and then the last 3 1/2 years. He calls the great Tribulation, but at his appearing.
He's going to manifest his Kingdom. He's going to bring with him all of those that have delighted in his authority, delighted in his love, delighted in his instruction, and have in some small measure manifested his character and his moral features. So he begins to teach them something that is beyond what our brother Bill said is beyond Judaism, beyond the law. And so it goes far higher, so he says.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
For theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
And so it was that which characterized the Lord Jesus, His poverty, His in spirit. He didn't. He came unto His own. His own received Him not.
And nevertheless, those that received them unto him gave you power to become the sons of God. And so there's not the pushing forth of ourselves in even in the things of God. And it's the poverty of spirit. It's the humility that the Spirit of God delights to honor. And so there are going to be those that are part of the Kingdom, those that are identified with the Lord Jesus, and not because they were so bold in this world and so popular in this world. And.
Successful, you might say, in this world, but those that identified themselves with the humility of the Lord Jesus and in spirit they manifested His grace in this scene.
So this has been called the Magna Carta of the Kingdom of Heaven, isn't it? In other words, the Lord Jesus was introducing the character that would be evident during the Millennium. And that's a wonderful thing, isn't it? It's also the character of the remnant we see in the Book of Psalms, isn't it?
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There it falls short of Christianity. The Magna Carta of the of the of the Christian are the Epistles.
It brings a higher standard, but nonetheless, this is the Magna Carta, the Kingdom. We might just summarize the main elements very quickly. We've touched on some, but just to give an outline, it's the remnant position. It was the Lord's character, of course, but it's the character of the remnant in that future day, and it was the character of the remnant in the Lord's day. We know that that was.
Set aside.
When the Lord was rejected and then Christianity came in. But this is going to come to light again after the church is gone. But we have the remnant position. They're separated as that's what it means by being poor in spirit. They were not the great ones of the earth. They were the ones that were cast out in the earth and they were persecuted as we see in verse verse 10. And secondly, as we've been mentioning, it's moral.
Not merely external reality. So many Christians today think that the rule of life is the 10 commandments, but that's not true, is it? There is a moral content to it, but this goes much beyond the 10 commandments because there must be moral reality and not merely external.
Consistency with the 10 commandments. And then righteousness is raised. That's an important consideration. Grace is also brought in and then finally.
A new, new relationship is introduced and that is the Heavenly Father.
They don't know him with the same intimacy that we do, of course, but there is that relationship with God in a general way as the Heavenly Father.
And I might mention too that so often we have parallels in Scripture, don't we?
And so this was written right at the end of the period of what we call the law.
And it it's a parallel to our own day because we live in the end of a dispensation as well. We live in the end of the church dispensation. And so these are things that in many respects would characterize us morally, wouldn't they? Poor in spirit. It's not that we seek to be the great ones in the earth because that's not characteristic of Christ. He was rejected in this world.
Persecution. Well, we don't face that immediately so much in this land, but we may. Many of our brethren do already. And so the rest of these two would characterize those who, in the end of a dispensation, have their heart set on that which is spiritual and not merely temporal.
Proverbs 20 says the spirit of a man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly. And three times in the epistles we have the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Be with your spirit. It seems very significant that the first phrase of the Beatitudes mentions the Spirit.
I was thinking the same thing. It's seems to stand right at the top.
It's been said that we edify one another more by our spirit and by our words.
And to kind of Fast forward as as brother Don Rule was doing.
From what those disciples position was then to where we are now as children of God and also sons, indwelling spirits and all the rest.
It's humbling to realize that the God of glory is occupied himself with our moral growth.
You would think that the one who spoke and made galaxies exist and sustains them right this moment throughout this big universe would have bigger things to occupy himself with. But no, he he's begun a good work in US.
And he's going to complete it right up until the day of glory, the day of the manifestation of what he has done.
In your heart, in your life and mine. I appreciate the comment made because it strikes me it's so central that the Lord Jesus Christ be with our spirit. In Proverbs we read about rich people and poor people, among other things. Literally rich and literally poor, but we apply them spiritually. It's really unbecoming of us if we act in a in a in a with a rich spirit rather than.
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Poor and spirit.
And it takes what do we we don't have to get up in the morning and say, OK, I'm going to work at being poor in spirit today. But as these beautiful hymns that the brothers have given out and we've sung together by sitting at his feet, being occupied with himself, Lo and behold, we end up morally being more like him while we're still down here. The wonderful work of the Spirit of God day by day and hour by hour in our lives, in our hearts, that we might be more conformed to the image of his son.
And so in Proverbs, the rich answereth roughly, but the poor useth entreaties. That's just one of many of those examples that show the contrast. And as we interact with each other, we we, you know, it's, it's been said, it's not hard to see the flesh in others. It's really, it's really easy and not that we're occupied with it, but it's it's there harder to see it in ourselves.
And so we need to be before the Lord and close to the Lord that we judge ourselves, and when we do, then this Christ like character will be more reproduced than us and we will be those that are poor in spirit.
Or in spirit lifts up and he looks around and he sees nothing material that attracts him.
We don't belong here, do we? We're strangers and pilgrims. We ought to be strangers and pilgrims. And the Lord Jesus didn't belong to this world, and so he was poor in spirit. It's interesting that the last words of the apostles, the apostle Paul, Apostle Peter, the apostle John, each have to do with the Spirit. And so it might just refer to them in the Second Timothy chapter 4. Paul says in verse 22, the Lord Jesus Christ, we'd be with thy spirit.
Grace be with you. Amen. And then in Peter the second Peter, right at the end of the epistle, he says in verse 18 of chapter 3.
He says, but grow in grace in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory. I'm sorry.
Grow in verse 18, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever. Amen.
In John's ministry Revelation, really right at the end of the word of God, chapter 22, verse 20, he which testified these things says surely I come quickly, Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, Amen. And so those apostles that saw the decline from the power and the glory, you might say of the the testimony at the beginning of the testimony, they saw the decline.
And yet they instructed the Saints of God to be careful as to the spirit that they had, that it might manifest the Spirit of Christ in the last days. So it's an appropriate word for us, isn't it?
A meeting on each one of these beatitudes, we might say in thinking of how our Lord Jesus characterized them. But I just wanted to refer to chapter 20 of this Gospel of Matthew where the Lord speaks of what it is to be poor in spirit.
He says in verse 25, But Jesus called them unto him and said, You know that the Princess of the Gentiles exercised dominion over them.
And they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it should not be so among you. But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister. I think another word for that would be servant, and then the next verse. And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant. Or you could say bondman. And so you might say, the Lord is going lower and lower servant, and now bondman. And then he says in verse 28.
Even as the Son of Man came not to be served or ministered under, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Just think of that, brethren, servant to bondman to giving his life.
We read of those that hazarded their lives for the sake of the brethren lay down their necks. And I just think what a wonderful thing if we could lay hold of of each of these and see these.
00:45:11
Exemplified in the Lord Jesus and then seek seek to be like him that's.
This is real greatness. This is real being chief, if you will, is to is to go down, down, down like the Lord did.
Those who were the leaders.
At the time the Lord Jesus was presenting the gospel of the Kingdom.
Where the scribes and Pharisees and they aspired to honor and glory and power.
And authority.
They saw the Lord Jesus as a threat.
To them, and to the place which they wanted and had.
Again, going back to the theme of attitude, it's as natural as breathing to be proud and to aspire to be something or to be somebody in whatever sphere of life we're called to be in.
And.
Yet the contrast is the Lord Jesus.
The only fit one to truly reign that was on earth at the time he was here and yet what was his moral character that God was going to use to make him reign over all the earth which hasn't yet come but will he then says in Chapter 11 I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls and so when we.
Occupy our souls.
The Lord Jesus, we see in Him sometimes that which is the very opposite of what man would think is suited to some particular person or position among men. And sometimes we aspire to things because we think it fits us for something that perhaps we desire, and in doing so it's easy for our attitude to get wrong.
And so the Lord Jesus recognized the need of those.
That he spoke to later in Matthew 11 and he says, I like, I sometimes add a little word to it. You'll know what word I'm adding. Perhaps come down unto me.
And you shall find rest.
And if we come down unto him, we'll learn what it is to be meek and lowly in spirit, and that's the place where our soul will find rest. But it is also that place in which is suited to the Kingdom of heaven.
Following verse four, we get something further, don't we?
And again, this is not something that is natural to us unless there's something that is really bothering us.
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
And I believe the thought here is that one who is seeking the Kingdom of God and wanting to appreciate it will feel things in this world as Christ felt them.
It's interesting, and I don't say that the Lord Jesus never did laugh, but there's no record in scripture of his laughing.
But there are records in scripture of his shedding tears.
Again, I say I don't make a pronouncement that he didn't laugh. But whenever you see pictures in this world, generally they are people who are happy and with a big smile on their faces. You and I should certainly smile. You and I should certainly not have a long face. That isn't what is meant. But to mourn in this world is to feel the condition of things here.
As Christ felt them, and because of His love, not only because He was the Creator, although that was true, but because of his love, he felt the awful condition in which the world is. You and I are saddened as we hear of the results, for example, of the war in the Ukraine, or of extreme poverty and famine in some part of the world, or of war and bloodshed in various places, whatever it might be.
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And perhaps to a certain extent we mourn about that. But do we mourn as the Lord Jesus would mourn as to what he saw and what he felt in this world?
But then what's the answer? They shall be comforted. How is that?
Comforted. I believe in the thought, and it isn't brought out in this chapter as Dawn was mentioning to us. But they shall be comforted in knowing that there is a day when the finished work of Christ is going to reverse all of the awful effects of sin. It hasn't happened yet. We aren't going to see it totally until what we might call the eternal state that comes after the Millennium.
And so now is a time when we mourn as we see what sin has done in this world.
But that was the heart of our blessed Savior, wasn't it?
Truth is brought out when the Lord Jesus.
Went out.
To the grave of Lazarus.
And when he went out to the grave, says he groaned in spirit.
In the shortest verse in the Bible, Jesus wept.
There was a morning in his soul, and a weeping that went beyond simple compassion.
For Martha and Mary and the death of their brother, but it was his entering into.
That which sin had brought into the world, and all its consequences for man.
And he felt it in his soul.
That he could, he says to his father. I'm saying this for their sake, you know.
And I know He could look on to that day when there would be the peace and the joy that would come when all such things had been removed from the creation, and when His Father could rest in His love. But He entered into it, and it's well for us to enter into that same spirit that we recognize and feel that which sin has brought into the whole of creation.
That isn't going to change and even in until the eternal day, but it's certainly way better in the millennial day here on earth. And for us, we will enter into the joy of what it is to be in the Father's house with the Lord Jesus and have all that's presently behind us. But the spirit of his own attitude was that which it.
He more than we because he doesn't have.
In him sin that the sin in US limits some of our sensitivity. We don't fully feel things as the Lord Jesus felt them because of the working of what is in US hinders us from a full sensitivity to things. But that'll be removed when we get to glory and then we will be able to be fully sensitive.
And feel things more perfectly as the Lord Jesus felt them here as a man, and to look back and feel them in that way. And so it's important to recognize though, that the Lord felt these things and the attitude of our hearts, or can I say the desire of our hearts should be more to enter into things as He feels them rather than simply our perspective of how it affects me.
I say that in a summary way.
We do far better if we seek to see things as the Lord sees them, then as our natural heart see them.
You have an example of these things with Moses, don't we? He was providentially brought into the favor of Pharaoh's court, and he might have thought, well, from this vantage point I can really serve the Lord. But we read in Hebrews 1124, by faith, Moses, when he was come to yours, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin.
00:55:11
For a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ, greater riches and the treasures in Egypt. For He had respect unto the recompense of the reward. And there's the key, isn't it? He had respect unto the recompense of the reward. If we have our goals set on Christ and on the end, we will be with Him. That will determine our whole walk through this world on it.
The Lord came out of heaven.
None of us did.
He came out of that place where he was for all eternity and walked here as a stranger.
And was morally separated from.
All the sadness that was all around him. The fruit of sin as brother rule saying.
And to the extent that we enter into that same spirit of things, we too will be in the character of mourners.
Mourners makes us very separated and people don't.
Generally want to be around somebody.
Bus are really close to them that has tears running down their face. It's just a certain you just feel.
A little bit like you should leave them alone.
I remember when I was working.
In New York City.
We were an hour and a half or two hours away from closing out a bid. You have to have it in by 2:00 sharp. Not two O 1 or months and months of work is thrown out the window.
And around 10:30 or 11:00.
I got word that.
One who had, really.
Been closer to me than my own father had just gone to be with the Lord.
So.
I couldn't leave my work immediately.
But there were tears.
Nobody could understand it. Who was this person? I just, I can't tell you. Lives in Palmyra. ME. I need to leave.
So I asked the colleagues, I said Kenny take over, I need to leave. And so I did.
But those kinds of experiences, you know, that touch our hearts like that.
They affect us, Abram, when Sarah died.
He stood up in front of the sons of Hath.
And he said he didn't share with them a eulogy, he said.
I'm a stranger and a sojourner with you in the earth.
Give me a place to bury my dead out of my sight.
And they said, Oh no, you're a great, you're a great man. You're a Prince among us. But that was his feeling. I'm a stranger and a sojourner.
So as we enter into the sorrows, sorrows of our own immediate circle, disappointments of life in the local assembly or the brethren that we know all over.
And in the Church of God that we're part of at large in this world, this Western world.
It has a very feeling that has a separating effect upon us, and that's good and wholesome.
To walk in that way.
And this, this is something that the believer understands that the world doesn't. They don't understand why you would drop everything at a moment's notice and and go to be with a brother.
But we everybody in this room probably understands that.
Another aspect that's helpful to know and that is and to enjoy is that we mourn because the Lord Jesus, his name, is despised in this world. We mourn when we hear his name used in ridicule and as a swear word. We mourn that he's not acknowledged as the rightful Lord and heir of all.
And so we mourn. And the Jews, as they go through the Tribulation period, our brother Eric has mentioned, they're going to mourn that they're going through that process, and they're going to mourn that the apostate Jews have received the Antichrist and so on. And they're going to long for the true Messiah to come and to reign and to assert his rights and to be honored in the nation. And so you and I mourn that.
01:00:16
The Lord Jesus hasn't come yet, and we mourn that he is dishonored, but we will be comforted. We shall be comforted. We're going to come with Him. We love his appearing, and we're going to be comforted, no doubt at the rapture, but at His coming, at his appearing.
We will be comforted as we have mourned in this world that he has been so dishonored. We're going to be comforted. He's going to be glorified. He'll receive every honor and every dignity that God could bestow upon that blessed man publicly. And you and I will be with him, will be comforted.
One of the keys, isn't it what is it that separates us from this world Well, it's in part of it's in the end of verse 5, isn't it for they shall inherit the earth Well, why is it why is it that we're strangers in pilgrims because we belong to a different world. Remember Gordon Hayes speaking so many years ago about two worlds. I never forgot that such a help to make we live in this world we look around us and we see the world of which.
Satan is the God and Prince. He is the head of the religious world.
He's the head of the political world. It's one of the reasons why we stay out of politics, because Satan is the head of that. Let's remember that, brethren. I think we have gotten too close to the edges of that, particularly in recent years. But Satan is the God and Prince of this world. The Scripture tells us that Christ is the center of a different world, and he's the world of which to which we belong now, because we're dead and risen with Christ. And so we look forward to that time. They shall inherit the earth.
Well, this again is the Kingdom of heaven. We're going to inherit both heaven and earth. That's both heaven, both heaven and earth. That's even a greater privilege, isn't it? Because we're heirs of God and Co heirs with Christ. The more that gets a hold of our souls, the more it's going to separate us from this present evil world, isn't it? And so I think that's one of the secrets here. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Sometimes we wonder what what, what do we do when we go to heaven?
Well, we know there's going to be a great greeting when we get to heaven.
The Lord is going to welcome us, each one, and then we do have the judgment seat of Christ in the first half of the Tribulation period, no doubt. We don't know how long it lasts, but it does last for a certain period where the Lord will take us aside and He'll go over our life story with us. It's our report card, so to speak, isn't it? Not a question of whether we have a right to be there or not, but our report card as far as our life is gone.
Because we have to be reminded that we can have a saved soul in a lost life.
So the Lord is going to go over our life with us, but also we're going to be in sympathy as as represented by those four and 20 elders. I know the four and 20 elders in Revelation includes not only Christians, but also all those that were, were, were a part of the rapture going all the way back to Adam. But we're going to be fully engaged with what's happening on earth, aren't we? We're going to look at our brethren there that are still on the earth.
And we're going to see these that have this spirit that pass through these trials as we read about, especially in the book of Psalms and so many other places, and we're going to be supporting them as well. So we're going to be busy in heaven. We can be thankful for that. We're not just going to sit around playing harps like some people say. But if we understand this principle, for they shall inherit the earth, that's what's going to happen. The Lord is going to have his rightful place in this world, and what a wonderful place it's going to be.
Just think how wonderful it would be if this was the character that characterized men today. It's nowhere near that. I read the other day that this year is not very old yet. I think it was a couple weeks ago. I already read in the United States, there's been 123 mass shootings in this country alone. Well, this is far different, isn't it? We look forward to that time when the Lord Jesus is going to have his rightful place.
This is going to be the character that's going to be prevalent in the world, and we're going to be rejoiced. We're going to rejoice for it, aren't we?
01:05:06
Eric, we'll ask a question. I have a friend who feels that his wife has died and she's looking down on him. But we know that in the disembodied state, you're conscious, but you don't see what's going on in the earth. But you, you just spoke about being able to see. Is that when we're glorified, then we will be able to see what's going on in the earth? Well, certainly we will then, won't we? But remember, the rich men knew about his brothers still alive, didn't he?
What was that? The rich man and Lazarus, when he was in his disembodied state, he knew about his brethren that were still alive, but how much, how far that goes, I wouldn't be prepared to say.
We might make a comp. I'm sorry, did someone else?
God was so pleased with what he saw, He opened heaven.
To declare this is my son and whom I'm well pleased.
God wants.
His children.
Just like his son.
He said I'm meek.
And consequently, God is doing a work that.
When you and I are in heaven will be just like him.
Because that's what God wants. He wants children that are like his Son. And you and I, I look around and I see you, that I'm going to see people that maybe it's not quite true yet, but you're going to be just like him, meek.
As it says in, it says here inherit the earth. He wants the remnant.
Those who have faith in the coming day of the Millennium to be like His Son, and He will do that work, that they too inherit the earth as meek because God's interested not only in the heavenly company, but in those who are of His Son on earth. That He can look down upon the earth when His Son reigns here and see a people that are inheriting the Kingdom who are also meek.
It might be helpful to just clarify that point, Brother Vern, that you brought out. I'd like to just refer to Ecclesiastes Chapter 9, Ecclesiastes Chapter 9, and let's read verse four and five. It says for to him that is joined to all the living, there is hope physically alive and living. For a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know not know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything.
That they don't know anything really that's going on on the earth. They're dead, they're their bodies are in the grave. Neither have they any more. Reward for the memory of them is forgotten. So the scriptures are clear. Those that are in the disembodied state don't know what's going on on the earth. They really they're occupied. If they're believers, why they're occupied with heavenly things. They're in the presence of the Lord. They don't see the Lord yet. That we're all going to see the Lord at the same time.
At the rapture, but they don't know what's going on here, they're not occupied with that, but when we at the appearing of the Lord Jesus.
When I should say at the rapture we're going to have our bodies will be raised.
Glorified and reunited to our souls and spirits. And once again we will be occupied with what the Lord is occupied with. And I believe that there's going to be some sense of what's going on on this in this world. So you see that in particularly in Revelation chapter 6, where and seven Chapter 7.
I believe that the scripture is pretty clear that those that are in the disembodied state are not occupied with what's going on on the earth.
Just one more comment, too, on that word, Meek.
We sometimes tend to associate meekness with weakness.
But Scripture never does that.
The Lord Jesus was meek. That did not imply that he was weak.
I remember once, many years ago, a sister in our local assembly.
And she's with the Lord now, and we knew each other pretty well.
01:10:00
She said to me, Bill, scripture says that a woman is to have a meek and quiet spirit. She said, I'm sorry, but that just doesn't work for me. I can never be like that and there's no use my trying. Ouch.
We had a bit of a discussion about it, and I pointed out to her that meekness did not constitute weakness, but rather that it was strength. But it was under God's control and I believe if we could say it with all reverence.
That's what we see in Christ himself. Was there absolute strength there? Indeed there was. There was power to rebuke the wind and the waves. There was power to pass out between those who would have arrested him and sought to kill him before it was God's time for him to suffer on the cross. There was power there to call down the scribes and Pharisees and what they were doing.
To take up a scourge and drive the animals and all those.
In the temple who were profaning the place and making it a House of thieves, there was plenty of power there, but it was all under God's control. It was in perfection, under control of the Spirit of God and doing nothing without the will of the Father. And so I just suggest that that let's not associate meekness with weakness.
But rather with real strength, but clearly and definitely under control of the Spirit of God and working and dealing according to God's mind. And so now it's a day when we don't seek to take the place that we will have in the coming day. Paul could say to the Corinthians, now ye are rich, now ye are full. Ye have reigned as kings without us.
Was it wrong to rain?
Not in the future, but they were, as we would say, jumping the gun. They were going ahead of God's time.
It's a time to be characterized by meekness, but as we've had brought before us, to look forward to the day when we will inherit the Earth.
Number two 34234 We are not of the world which fadeth away, We are not of the night, but children of the day. The change that once bound us by Jesus our ribbon. There are strangers on earth, Our home is in heaven, and soon we shall enter our own promised land. Around his bright throne and glory shall stand our song then forever and ever shall be.
Glory and blessing Lord Jesus to be 234.
We're not.
Always.
We're not children.
Of them.
I think that one's found.
Our son and forever and ever.
Shall be.
Our glory and whilst the Lord Jesus.
It ourselves.
And.
Our blessed God and Father.
Our souls are lifted up.
In worship.
As we consider.
That it was thy sovereign will.
That thy beloved son would enter into this world.
In poverty.
And as a mourner.
We worship, we praise.
We thank our God and Father.
That thou hast revealed us.
Revealed thyself to us.
In such a full and wonderful way.
We think the.
We praise Thee.
In his alone worthy name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Lessons from Experience
Address—Bill Prost
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Could we begin by singing together Hymn 274?
274 Oh, Lord, thy rich, thy boundless love. No thought can reach, no tongue declare, and so on.
I've always enjoyed who wrote hymns. This hymn you'll notice in the back, little boy. Now it's double s or nothing. Thank you very much.
This hymn was written, if you look in the back, by a man by the name of Paul Gerhart, who lived in Germany back in the 1600s. And life was tough in those days because the Reformation was just beginning to have its effect.
And true Christianity and the true Gospel was not popular.
And so he had to learn the hard way what it cost to follow Christ.
And one day with he was a man with a young family and a wife and children. And one day he was ordered by the government in his area of Germany just to get out. I don't want you here.
And he had to go out of the area with nothing but the clothes on his back and what they could manage to carry. And he had a rough day.
That night he got to an inn. His wife was tired, his children were crying.
He really got a little bit discouraged.
But while his wife was putting the children to bed and he was kind of asking the Lord what to do, he went out into the.
Garden there to be alone with the Lord. And I don't know that this was the hymn that he wrote at that time, but he wrote a hymn at that time and I'm not sure which one it was. Later on his wife came out and he tried to comfort her. He said don't worry, the Lord's going to look after us.
Well, they went to bed, went to sleep in the middle of the night, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang on. The indoor innkeeper got up and went to the door. And what's wrong? Who do you? Who are you? What do you want at 3:00 in the morning? Said I want Paul Gerhart.
Well, he sound asleep in bed. I don't care, get him up.
So Paul Gerhart roused himself, and of course, thinking it was going to be the worst, that more trouble and difficulty was going to await him. But it was just the opposite.
Another ruler in another part of Germany had heard what had happened.
And he sent this messenger, he said get ahold of that man, whatever you do, and tell him that if you'll come to where we live, to my section of Germany, I'll give him a house and I'll make sure he's well looked after as long as he'll preach the gospel.
And that was the story of the rest of his life. He preached the gospel. I don't think he lived to be that an old man. I forget now how old he lived to be, but this is one of the hymns he wrote from experience.
274.
Oh, Lord, thy re.
Ed.
S next time.
Let's ask the Lord's help. Our loving God and our Father, we thank Thee for the precious words of this hymn, written so long ago by one who experienced many of the trials and difficulties of the Christian pathway. And now, our God, we look up to Thee this afternoon.
In very different circumstances and yet needing.
God, the same grace, the same help, the same guidance as did Paul Gerhard and those of his age.
And we look up to the particularly for the beloved young people here for whom this meeting is especially designated. And we ask our God for help that they especially may be encouraged with what we have before us this afternoon.
But we do not leave out others our God, for we know that we all need grace and help.
And above all thy strength, Lord Jesus, in these last days.
So we commend ourselves to the now and pray for Thy help, looking to the independence and asking all Lord Jesus, in Thy precious and worthy name, Amen.
Well, this is a meeting for young people.
And whenever I'm asked to have a meeting for young people.
I'm always, if I can be quite blunt about it, a bit concerned.
Because so many things have changed since I was a young person.
And you young people know that just as well or better than I do. For those of us that went through life a while ago and grew up in a very different age, sometimes find it very hard to understand and realize the difficulties and the problems that you young people are experiencing today. And usually I try to get down to that level as much as I can and to understand.
And what you're going through?
I trust it's of the Lord, but I'm going to do something a little different today.
You'll get a smile out of this, but I'm going to act like what I am, an old man.
Is that all right?
Because what older ones have?
That others don't have is experience. When I was young, I always appreciated an older brother who spoke to us either in a young people's meeting or a reading meeting and told of some of the things that he had had to learn and some of the struggles that he had gone through in order to go through the Christian pathway.
00:10:23
And have some of the truths of the Word of God hit home?
I'd like to do some of that this afternoon if that's OK. And there are a number of things that I have on my heart this afternoon that I'd like to share with you and maybe an experience or two, although I don't want to talk about myself, but at the same time, sometimes it's helpful.
So let's turn first of all to where we were in our reading meeting, but one chapter further on Matthew chapter 6.
And here we'll find the first thing that I'd like to emphasize.
To you, dear young people.
And the reason I emphasize it is, and it's to do with all of those things we're going to talk about.
I don't pretend to have learned them the way I should, but many of them I think I can honestly say I have learned to a degree. And as you may guess, some of them I had to learn the hard way.
I remember my mother telling me once when I was young, she said experience is a hard teacher, but is it ever a good one?
She was right.
And so we'll read there in Genesis, sorry, Matthew, chapter 6, verse 31.
Therefore take no thought saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek? For your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Here's the verse.
But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
And all these things shall be added unto you.
You young people haven't had an easy time of it the last few years, and believe me.
Many of us, including myself, have earnestly prayed for you.
And we continue to pray because you were growing up in a much different world than some of us had to grow up in. And I won't start talking about what so many older people talk about the good old days, because that's that gets pretty boring after a while.
But you are having a much rougher time than some of us had and it is not easy. Many young couples today are finding it extremely difficult to own a home. That wasn't a big problem when I was young. Many of you have had your education interrupted by COVID and other circumstances. You have perhaps had your careers interrupted.
Some people, and I have high respect for them.
Have not felt free to take the COVID vaccine and as a result have been denied travelling privileges and sometimes jobs in certain areas.
It has not been easy for you.
But what is so good is that this verse holds true for all time.
And I have found it to be true in my own life.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
Now, does that mean that God is going to give us everything we want? No, it does not.
Does that mean that God is going to give me the kind of lifestyle that a lot of other people have? No, it does not. But what it does mean is this, and this is what's important if you set out in your life to put the Lord first.
You will never be the loser, even in temporal things. That is blessedly true.
I have seen those in my day who felt that they had to give up some of the things of the Lord in order to get an education to have the career they wanted. And I don't mind mentioning that I knew a medical doctor.
00:15:14
And I won't mention his name because some of you might know who I'm talking about. He was a very, very clever doctor, and I knew him fairly well. But at one point I had an opportunity to spend some time with him and it became very clear that medicine was his mistress, if I could use the term.
But he knew very little about divine things, and I'm not pointing the finger at him because he knew everything about medicine. Very, very clever.
Remember once when I was in practice and I had a sticky problem, I called him up once and in 5 minutes on the phone he settled the whole problem for me and told me what to do. Amazing.
What is going to count for all eternity?
Whether someone was good in his or her career. Now don't get me wrong.
We should be the very best that we can be in our careers.
But I have also known those.
Who put the Lord 1St? And they knew far more about divine things than they knew about their own career.
And yet they were still exemplary in what they did.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
Give the Lord the first place in your life.
And you will never be the loser, even in this life down here.
You will find that the Lord will bless you in a way that you never could have realized.
And make provision for you in a way that you never could have thought of.
One time when I was in medical school.
Again, this is a personal note.
And an exam was coming up.
And there was a very tragic car accident in the United States.
And I knew the individuals involved and I badly wanted to go to the funeral.
And the Lord seemed to say, Go.
Lord, what am I going to do about that exam that I'm going to miss? You go. I'll look after that.
I missed the exam.
When I got home I went and told the Prof I said I had to miss the exam because of an important funeral. What can I do to make it up?
Oh, he said. Really what happened? I told him about the accident and how four people had been killed instantly in it. That I knew.
Oh, he said really. Well, he said don't worry about it. He said. We'll just sit you down here and we'll just conduct a brief oral exam to see if you know your stuff.
Well, you know, you can't fake it on an oral exam. They they'll get you, you. It becomes very evident whether you know your stuff or not. But he gave me a quiz and thankfully I was able to answer the question. He said that's OK, don't worry, you're all right. The Lord looked after it very easy way.
And I don't say that in a boastful way, I just say it give the Lord the 1St place. Because true Christianity is not about you and me, it's about Christ.
Let's go on.
#2 And we're going to have to go through these a little bit quickly because we only have an hour.
#2 That I would really like to stress, and I stress it mostly because it is one that.
I confess to you I have probably found.
It's at least one of the hardest that I had to learn, if not the hardest.
To go back many years ago.
Long before my time or the time of anyone else here.
Well over 150 years ago, there was an older brother gathered to the Lord's name who had a lot of experience and was very well taught in the word as well. And some will recognize the source of what I'm going to say. But a younger brother who is just starting out on the Christian pathway came up to him and engaged him in conversation and among other things he said to him.
00:20:09
Pardon me.
Do you have any advice for a young man that is just starting out on the Christian pathway?
And the brother's reply was very brief and to the point.
He said learn well 4 words.
The flesh profiteth nothing.
Let's turn to that verse. It's in John's Gospel, chapter 6.
John's Gospel, chapter 6.
And here the Lord Jesus is speaking.
And in verse 63 he says John 6 and 63.
It is the spirit that quickeneth the flesh.
Profiteth nothing the words that I speak unto you. They are spirit and they are life.
We had it before us this morning.
That God's wisdom is not an improvement on man's wisdom, because that would imply that there was something good in man that could somehow be improved upon and as we might say, fanned into a flame that could do something pleasing to God, and it does not work.
And those of us that are saved have in one sense realize that otherwise we wouldn't be saved, because how did we get saved? We had to be brought to the end of ourselves, didn't we? We had to realize that we could do nothing to save ourselves. We had to realize that it was all of grace. We had to realize that in the eyes of God.
All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. We had to realize that only by the finished work of Christ.
And the precious blood of Christ, could we be saved?
We know that, perhaps.
In a simple way.
But if we are not careful.
We bring with us certain things that are part of our character, part of our natural makeup, may be part of our genetics.
That are very hard to let go.
And I had that experience. And sometimes the Lord allows something in your life and mind and in our makeup to go on for a period of time.
But then there will come a point in your life, young people, when the Lord will lay his finger on that thing and say.
It's time to judge and deal with that.
And then you and I can do one of two things. We can say yes, Lord.
Yes, Lord.
Or we can get her back up and say, but I'm all right and that characteristic is OK and it's useful at some time and some places.
And so we don't deal with it.
Or we start blaming circumstances or blaming other people and all the rest of it.
And what we do by doing that is we really put the cap on our spiritual growth.
And maybe that goes on for a while until finally the Lord gets through to us. And sometimes the Lord has to put us through an awful experience in order to make us realize what we are capable of. One of our good writers back in the 1800s expressed it well. I think it might have been FG Patterson, but I'm not sure.
He said sometimes in order to get us to judge sin in our lives as Christians now.
Not as unbelievers, of course. The Lord has to, as it were, take us by the collar and hold us dangling over a Cliff to let us see where we're headed if we do not deal with that sinful tendency. And yet we may not see it as sinful.
00:25:02
I remember a story told by my late father-in-law, Albert Hayhoe.
This was many years ago and I have absolutely no idea.
Who the brother was who was involved?
But he was visiting in a city somewhere in North America, and a brother had invited him out for lunch.
But the brother was in business, so Albert went down to his place of business at lunchtime and at the agreed upon time, perhaps 12 noon, he turned up ready to go out for lunch. Well, the brother in question was engaged in conversation with a business associate or from someone there in his office. So his secretary told Mr. Hey, oh, you just just have a seat here. He'll be with you in a couple of minutes.
And Albert told me afterward how that he could not help but overhear the conversation as it went on in the adjoining office. And there were some high words on both sides, and some strong expressions, and some things said in a way that were rather unbecoming for a Christian.
Needless to say, when the brother came out and saw Albert sitting there and realized that he had overheard the conversation, was somewhat embarrassed, but he covered it all up by saying, well, you know, Brother Albert, Christianity is one thing, but business is business, isn't it?
Was that right?
No, no.
The brother thought that's the way you had to deal in business. Somebody's rough with you, you rough them up back.
We have to learn that the flesh profiteth nothing.
Well, let's go on one other thing.
And I freely confess, this was something else that I had to learn the hard way.
Is dependence dependence.
To have a verse for that, let's turn to First Peter, chapter 5.
I.
First Peter, chapter 5.
And verse 7.
Casting all your care upon him.
For he careth for you.
Now that's one side of it, but then to see another side of it, turn back to John's Gospel Chapter 15.
And I know we're jumping around a bit with scriptures, but there's no other way to do it. John 15.
And right at the end of verse 5.
For without me.
Ye can do nothing.
Nothing. Nothing.
This is especially important for us to remember when we're young because when we're young we have energy and more power to it. I've always loved being among young people because I enjoy their enthusiasm and their energy and what they can do and accomplish.
And I still marvel at it, especially in the technological field today, the way young people can do things so easily and so quickly.
I'm old enough to have grandchildren that are in their 20s and it just amazes me what they can do in modern day with things that I just well I don't mean to make a pun out of it, but they try to teach me how to text and I finally tease them. I said I'm just all thumbs when it comes to doing this, meaning I'm awkward at it.
When we're young, especially if we're in good health and everything is going for us, we think we can go out there and look after ourselves.
And ultimately that energy is good. Nothing wrong with it. I'm not speaking against it, but we have to learn even when we're young. Without me, ye can do nothing.
It's a very hard thing to learn sometimes, and I've really confess that I had a hard time learning it.
00:30:06
The story was on my heart before I got up here, and I very much hesitated to tell it.
Because it could be taken the wrong way.
But I'll tell it anyway.
When I was in medical school in pre Med second year.
I had to take a course in psychology, a whole year's worth of it.
And I hated it.
I couldn't get interested in it. I didn't like it and I thought, well, come on, Bill, you can lick this course. Just work hard at it and you can do it.
And I just couldn't seem to do it.
And I was just barely passing all year long.
I don't know if you've ever had that experience any of you. This is a true story.
Toward the middle of the year, the professor said, I'm willing to give six extra marks on the final exam out of 100 to anybody that will volunteer for an experiment.
And it will be a simple one, just involving helping one of my graduate students who is working on a doctorate in psychology.
With an experiment which is very simple and it will mean one hour for three nights.
And.
Or two hours rather, each night for three nights for a total of 6 hours. And you'll get 6 extra marks on the final exam. Well, I thought, I don't know, every little bit helps. I can do that, so I volunteered.
And it involved looking in an apparatus that had lights in it and could flash across a screen a word only for a split second and to see whether you could recognize it or not. And sometimes you knew that it was one of 10 words, and sometimes you didn't know what kind of a word it was going to be.
But all fairly simple English words.
And I did fairly well at it.
But on about the third night, as we were halfway through it, all of a sudden there was a **** and the whole apparatus went down and the lights all went out in it.
Well, the woman who was administering this and who was working on her doctor was in her late 20s, I would suppose I was about 18 or 19 at the time. And she was literally panic stricken. Oh, my experiment. It's all just going to go down the tube. This is terrible and it's probably lost all my data in it. And so on and on and on she went.
Well, I said just a minute, let's wait and see.
Maybe it's not as bad as we think. Having grown up on a farm, I was roughly familiar with a few bits of electricity. So I pulled her apparatus to pieces and found out that it was nothing more than a bulb that had burned out. But it was a rather unusual bulb. She said, well, where are we going to get that in the evening? I said, that's probably not hard. We'll go out and get in my car. And there's a big lighting store about a couple miles away here in downtown Toronto.
Have the bulbs for. Down we went. Sure enough, they had. The bulb came back, I put the apparatus back together, she flipped the switch and low everything was back to normal.
As you can well imagine, she was so grateful.
I know what you're going to. You're already anticipating the end of the story at the end of the experiment. I kind of grinned at her, and I was honestly joking. I said, well, now does this get me a pass in psychology?
You know, to my surprise, instead of joking, she turned immediately sober. And she said, oh, really? You're not doing very well. I said no. I said I just can't get interested in this stuff, and I'm working hard at it, but I'm just barely passing.
I said I want to be a doctor, not a psychologist.
Oh oh.
Well, I can't promise anything, but I'll see what I can do.
The final exam was an absolute nightmare. Hopelessly long, hopelessly hard. I saw some of my classmates who were good students tearing their hair out and going berserk in the exam room. I had an awful time with it myself, and when I handed in my paper I thought, well, there it goes. I'm going to be writing a supplemental exam in August for this.
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When the grades came out.
People that had A's and B's all year long went down to C's. People that had B's and C's all year long wrote supplemental exams.
And I ended up with AB.
Did she have something to do with it? I had no idea.
Dependence.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should try and cut corners on our courses and pass it by doing things on the side and getting someone to pull strings for us. I'm not saying that at all. All I'm saying is learn to trust the Lord in every circumstance, casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you and it works.
Let's go on now.
There's something else that we need to learn.
And this is more on the opposite side of things, more for the heart than for the conscience.
And to see that, let's go back. Well, we're right here in John 15. It's right in this same chapter.
John 15, verse 9.
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love.
Earlier in the reading meeting, some of us, at least I was mentioning.
Our late brother, Harry Hajo. I say our late brother, he's been gone more than 60 years, so you have to be old to remember him. But at the lunch hour, I overheard another brother quoting him. He was old enough to remember him, too.
And he used to tell us, memorize this verse and say it over to yourself every day of your life.
I can't say that I've done that, but I've done it frequently, maybe not every day.
Why is it so important?
Because the love of God is something that never changes.
God's ways witheth may change. His ways may change.
We were talking about the government of God this morning and this afternoon too, and God's government in your life and mind doesn't always, how shall I put it, seem very pleasant.
God's ways with us may have to change, but never His love.
And sometimes when we have failed, sometimes when things have happened between US and the Lord that put a distance between us, perhaps we doubt the Lord's love. Never do that.
Whenever we have to do with the Lord, we have to do with love. And even if you have failed, and we'll talk about this a little more in a few minutes, but even if you have failed.
If you come to the Lord in honesty and uprightness, He will always meet you where you are in love.
But here's the key, and we'll talk about this more later on. We have to admit where we are. We can't pretend with the Lord. I can't come to the Lord and pretend to be what I'm not. That won't work. I may be able to, excuse me, I may be able to fool other people. I may be able to fool even my brethren, but I can't fool the Lord.
I have to admit where I am, I have to admit my failure, but then when I come to the Lord, I have always to do with love.
But.
Suppose that I haven't particularly failed. Suppose that I haven't particularly put a distance between myself and the Lord.
Do I allow?
The cares of this life and things in this world to disturb that enjoyment of God's love for me.
God wants you and me to go out into this world, to earn our living, to witness for Him.
With and here's how I even enjoyed it, with that warm blanket of the Lord's love wrapped around you all the time.
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He wants us to enjoy His love.
Do we love the Lord? Yes, we do. But Scripture never occupies us with His love or with our love for Him. It mentions it, but it's always based on His love for us. And so we should never try and love the Lord any more than we do. Rather, just think of how much He loves you.
And so here the Lord says those wonderful words. It's almost more than we can understand.
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.
The same love that God the Father has for His beloved Son.
Is the love that the Lord Jesus has for you and for me.
Well, you say, I know that. I know that God loved the world and sent his Son.
I know, John 316.
Blessedly true, but here it says, Continue ye in my love, continue ye in my love. How precious indeed that is, and we so easily forget it in the.
General Millet of circumstances that we have to go through and it is a difficult world we live in, very difficult because we process, we process so much information.
I read some time ago that the average individual in business in the United States of America, and it's probably much the same in Canada too, the average individual in business.
In North America.
Probably processes.
As much information in one week.
As the average working man did in a lifetime in the 1800s. Mind boggling, isn't it?
But let's always go out there wrapped in the sunshine of God's love, because that's the only way.
That we can grow about our Christian pathway and have that warmth and love that protects us from everything that's out there in the world.
But then there's something else and that scripture was brought before us this morning, but I want to emphasize it again and to see that turn to second Peter.
Second Peter, chapter 3.
And the last verse, verse 18.
But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To him be glory both now and forever. Amen.
As was mentioned earlier, I think Brother Bruce Conrad mentioned at Peter's ministry.
Tends to take up the government of God, a very necessary thing, and Peter brings before us in that sense, the House of God, in which responsibility is important, very necessary.
And toward the end of this third chapter, we are given some exhortations.
Seeing ye know these things, seeing ye look for such things, and so on.
What manner of persons are ye to be responsibility?
But how do we get there?
How do we get there in responsibility before the Lord?
Peter, I believe, sums it all up in this last verse.
Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
He goes right back to what he starts off with in the first chapter, and we won't turn to it, that in the knowledge of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
We never need anything more than the knowledge of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
To be able to go through this world and live for God's glory down here.
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Of course, that knowledge eventually comes through the Word of God, but we don't get it simply by reading the Word of God as if we were studying a textbook.
And again, I speak for myself when we're young, we can sometimes do it that way.
Don't read the book of God simply to *** **** knowledge. Read it as if it were the Lord Himself speaking directly to you from the vantage point of all that He did on Calvary's cross.
If you see an older brother or an older sister that seems to be enjoying the Lord.
And I used to see that when I was young. And I used to think, why? I don't think they ever have had any real problems in their lives. How little did I know?
And if you speak to any older one.
Who really seems to know the Lord?
You will find that they had to go through experiences to bring them to that point.
And they had, above all, to grow in grace.
What does it mean to grow in grace? It means I suggest two things. Number one, that I realize more and more.
Not how bad were all the things that I have done.
But how bad my old sinful self is and how much I've been forgiven?
A believer was once asked, what's 1? What's the worst thing you've ever done in your life?
He said. It's not the things I've done that bother me so much, it's the things that I thought of doing and never carried out.
Not true. Most of us have thought of many worse things than we ever did.
Thank God we didn't do them, but it shows what we are by nature and we realize that more and more as we go on.
But then we realize more and more the price that was paid for our redemption. We realized the grace of God that reached out to us in love and that took our Savior to Calvary's cross, the grace that takes as Him 77 in the appendix says a poor, vile Sinner and brings him or her into his House of wine.
And where are we going to end up?
In the Father's house. Unbelievable. And the more that wonder takes hold of our souls.
The more we grow in grace and the grace of God understood properly.
Is the strongest force to keep us from going into sin wonderful.
Well, there are a couple more things that I wanted to talk about and our time is going so we won't, we won't go on with too many more things here, but.
There are two more that I specifically want to mention.
One thing is I have a hard time keeping them all straight and I want them in the right order.
One thing is.
Take a long term view.
You know, it's hard when we're young to take a long term view.
Because everything looks so bright and so sunny and so good, and we're in good health and this world looks so bright and so nice.
It's not easy to take a long term view.
But you know God lives and moves in eternity, and everything in this world is limited.
By the horizon of time.
And you and I were made for eternity, not for time.
To see that, let's turn to another verse in Second Peter. Here it's found in the.
1St chapter.
And Peter talks about in verse eight, chapter one of second Peter.
The knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But then he says, But he that lacketh these things is blind.
And cannot see afar off.
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And have forgotten that he was purged from his own sins.
What was it that made the unfaithful servant?
Go out and fall into sin. It was saying, My Lord delayeth his coming.
And if you and I don't take a long term view of things.
We are going to fall into sin.
Turn back two to First Timothy. No Second Timothy, chapter one.
Paul says in verse 12.
For the which 'cause I also suffer these things, nevertheless I am not ashamed.
For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
What's that day referred to? It refers to the judgment seat of Christ for believers.
It refers to that time when God is going to review your life and mine.
When rewards are going to be handed out.
Is it going to be worth it in that day to have lived for the Lord's glory? Is it going to be worth it to have taken the long term view?
Or are we going to be like those to whom Peter referred?
When he said they cannot see afar off.
If you and I live and move in this world, you find that the horizon of this world's thoughts.
Ends with everything down here.
And when I have spoken to people about that, sometimes they will admit in an outward way that it's true.
But most of the time they just dismiss it.
I have a neighbor whom I know not too well, but reasonably well, and I went down to talk to him for a few minutes several months ago because I knew that his wife had been very sick and he was very glad for me to chat with him. And thankfully his wife was improving and she's back home now.
But I ventured to hand him a gospel tract and to talk to him about the Lord.
Oh, he said. I don't put much, don't put much emphasis on all those things. I don't worry too much about that. I'm not a religious man.
Well, I said, and I addressed him by name because I knew him well on a first name basis. I said, you know, the Scripture says that this world and this life is not the end of everything. And it tells us in the Word of God that it is appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgment. And I couldn't get any further. He said, I don't believe that. I don't believe that. No, no, no, I don't believe a word of that.
Very sad.
A neighbor I had a number of years ago was just the same. This was back probably 20 years ago. He lived right across the road from me and he was a good neighbor, Very good neighbor.
There were farmland around them and some of his family owned part of it.
And they were very much afraid that it was going to be taken over by some other people in the family. And he told me one day, he said, Bill, I got it all sewed up. Our family's got this property all sewed up. We're going to get it. We're going to get it.
Did he ever get it? No, he didn't. He never got it.
Old age and disease overtook them long before he ever got that property.
Anyone out of this world, I'm sorry to say, as far as I know, without Christ.
He had that property all sewed up.
But eternity he didn't want to think about.
And I could have multiply stories like that and you know them as well as I do, and you've had the experience yourself. But sometimes even as Christians, we don't take a long term view.
We're going to go over another verse in Second Timothy here, but.
The seventh verse of the second chapter, and we'll have it before us later on.
And I'm going to quote it as it is on the Darby translation.
Because it makes more sense that way. Second Epistle of Timothy, chapter 2, verse 7.
Consider what I say and the Lord give the understanding in all things, and then here's the verse.
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And here it is, as it is in the Derby. Remember Jesus Christ of the seed of David.
Raised from the dead according to my gospel.
It wasn't that Paul wanted Timothy to remember the fact of the resurrection.
But to remember that all of the reward.
For a faithful life is going to be in resurrection, and it was so for the Lord Jesus. What did he have when he was crucified?
His own nation had rejected him. The Gentiles took up the theme and abused him.
His own followers for suicom and fled. 1 follower betrayed him, rejected of his life, looked as if it were a total failure.
Where was the reward Resurrection.
You may not see the rewards of faithfulness down here, but take the long term view.
To someone else seem to be getting ahead, even another Christian take the long term view.
Follow the Lord faithfully.
As dawn was bringing out this morning, God always balances the books.
But it may have to be in resurrection.
Now our time is nearly gone. One more thing I want to mention.
And to see that.
First John, chapter one.
First John, chapter one.
Well known verse Verse 9.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And then connect that with another verse in 2nd Corinthians 2.
2nd Corinthians, chapter 2.
And verse.
11.
We'll read verse 10 to get the connection To whom ye forgive anything I forgive also. For if I forgave anything, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes, forgave I yet in the person of Christ.
Now here's the verse.
Lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices.
The message I want with these verses to give to you is.
Get up again and go on if you fail.
There are no qualifications or restrictions on 1St John 1:00 and 9:00.
If there's true repentance, and I emphasize that, not a glossing over sin, not a making of excuses, not pretending that it wasn't as bad as it was, Oh no, that won't work. But true repentance before the Lord brings full restoration.
Now once again.
God's grace does not abrogate or do away with God's government.
And there may be governmental consequences to sin. If it's serious, that may last.
But get up if you fail and one of Satan's devices.
And I don't mean to limit this 11Th verse to what I'm going to say, but it's one thing that Satan does.
If you fail, if I fail as believers, Satan will whisper in your ear. Look how badly you messed up. Look what you did. You can never walk the Christian walk anymore. You can never do anything for the Lord anymore. You can never be a credit to the Lord anymore. Look at the mess you've made of your life. You better just give it all up and go out into the world and forget about it.
And I have no and dear believers.
Who did that?
Very, very sad.
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Again, I say there are consequences to sin, and sometimes very serious consequences, and sometimes lifelong, but.
As we said earlier, God is always a God of love.
And if I came back to him and approach him?
Fully admitting where I am fully.
Looking to him and telling him where I am, He will meet me there in love and grace. Get up if you fail. And that is something that some of us have had to learn because I have certainly failed and had to realize the failure that went along with that and how serious it was.
But the Lord is willing to lift you up again.
And as one brother put it, and this is one of our old writers back in the 1800s, he said, you know, sometimes a broken vessel is even more useful to the Lord than one that is still in one piece, he said. Because when we have been broken, we learn not to trust ourselves any longer.
That is true because sometimes we tend to fail.
In the very thing that is our strong point, Abraham failed in his faith, Job failed in his patience, and so on. They failed in what was their strong point. But just the same, did the Lord continue to use Abraham? Indeed He did. Did he continue to bless Job? Indeed He did. Why? Because they got to the point where they repented and fully realized their failure.
And you know what is interesting in in Abraham's life is.
That there is never any direct rebuke from the Lord in spite of his failure because Abraham got back into communion with the Lord and that dealt with everything most precious. Well, our time is gone. May the Lord bless these remarks. I know they have been very real and definite, every one of them to my own soul, and I trust they will be to you young people as well.
Let's pray.
Loving God our Father, we look up to Thee this afternoon with thankful hearts for thy love and grace.
And we thank Thee for the way that Thou dost teach us as we walk through this world. Teaching us is in thine own way, and with an individual tuition for each one. And so we pray for all our dear young people, here again we say, who have a very difficult day in which to live. Blessed Lord, for thy glory.
Thy grace, we know, is equal to all that they may find themselves in, and we pray for Thy special help and encouragement for each one, for we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Matthew 5:6-7
Reading
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And close.
Every song.
Step early.
And close us in all the heavens light.
We ask Lord's blessing.
Our loving God and our Father, we thank thee for our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank thee, Lord Jesus, for thy love and that thou hast acted our God in sovereign love, to draw our hearts after Thee. And now in our responsibility in this scene, we long to follow as those that are disciples, true disciples indeed, and that have the person of our Savior before us. So we pray that thou make him precious to us this afternoon.
Give us that instruction that's necessary and stir up our hearts, our consciences, that we might follow undistracted and with affection for the blessed Savior. So we ask you to bless thy precious Word, and that we might be encouraged and refreshed this afternoon. We ask it and give thanks in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.
For those that might not have been here this morning, we had Matthew 5 before us and we didn't get very far. Would verse six be about right?
Or yes, first six is that, is that about right?
I just might make a suggestion that we've heard the whole chapter read once and it's a long chapter maybe if.
We could read maybe down to the end of verse 26 rather than reading the whole chapter again. Is that would that be OK?
So Matthew chapter 5 and verse six. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
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Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Ye are the salt of the earth. But if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted. It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
You're at the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid, neither do men Light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a Candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass one jaw or one title.
Shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of heaven.
For I say unto you, that accept your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment, and whosoever shall say to his brother, Rocca shall be in danger of the council.
But whosoever shall say thou fool shall be in danger of Hellfire. Therefore, if if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remembers that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst our in the way with him, lest any time the adversary deliberately to the judge, and the judge deliberately to the officer.
Officer and they'll be cast into prison.
Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by number means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost Farthing.
Brother Vern, can you hear me?
Yes. Was it your purpose to take up the entire chapter of possible? No, no, it wasn't OK. I think we're doing fine. Some of these things are worse for when the Lord was on earth with those disciples offering the Kingdom of heaven in manifestation. Now that's that's not what we're as Christians. We're not looking for that. But this thing is kind of segued over into.
The Kingdom of heaven in mystery. And all of these things apply now, except we're not going to. We're not looking to be raining on the earth. I think maybe.
This would help the 15th of John. It's the Lord says I am the vine, you're the branches. Well, we know that Israel at one time was the vine.
And when the Lord was on earth, he said, I am divine.
I heard not. I read not too long ago in an old reading meeting where Mr. Darby was there and Mr. Walston and Mr. Walston asked, He said, when he says I am divine, how long does that last? Mr. Darby said 24 hours. But the principal remains. The Lord was going to be crucified.
And he would no longer be the vine of the earth. But the principle of the fact that without me you can do nothing abides. So maybe that helps.
In applying this to.
What we're our our situation today. We have every right to do that right. There's some things here that.
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Like the 25th or as he's really talking to the the the remnant.
And some other verses that he using like 21 and 22.
But the principle remains that this is the character of the Lord Jesus and it's to characterize us in this day. And, and somewhat my exercise was we're not, we're not all the believers, the Christendom and then the real believers in the world. They've been taught to fight, to resist, to be a rebel.
And the word of God.
Condemns that and I I think we were all born rebels, so it's natural for us to do that, but the word of God would say submit to the powers of E submit to the will of the Lord, not.
Act in the flesh, which the flesh wants to, and if one can speak for others, that's the first reaction. I want to resist this.
And I would suggest, Vern, that this sixth verse is a very after fold of what you're saying because.
Doubtless there were those at the time the Lord said this.
Who had life and who hungered and thirsted after righteousness? But if I could say it, perhaps you and I as believers even more so because we have a new life in Christ. And when we see the unrighteousness and it's increasing rapidly in this world, we want to see it straightened out. And what is going on today, and it's been mentioned before.
There's a very strong movement in Christianity, in Christendom, if we could say, and we're part of Christendom. But there's a very strong movement that we can call either Reconstructionism or covenant theology, which is sweeping North America and not only North America. And it says the very thing that you've been describing, that believers need to jump into the arena.
And in so many words, get the world ready for the Kingdom.
And so the word Kingdom is what we are hearing, and it is distorting the whole truth of being strangers and pilgrims here with a heavenly calling. And Satan knows very well that if he can destroy the practical sense of the heavenly calling of the Church, that we have, humanly speaking, as believers, lost everything.
And we've lost our ambassador character. We've lost our Pilgrim and stranger character. And.
We are no testimony in the way that we should be, and so to hunger and thirst after righteousness is right. But it says they shall be filled. Shall they be filled? Indeed we shall. We read in second Peter three that has already been referred to, that there's a day coming.
In the Millennium we're in dwelleth, or when righteousness will reign, and there's a day coming in the eternal state wherein dwelleth righteousness and new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. So righteousness will come. We need not fear, but it will be brought in, not by the gospel, not by your efforts and mine, but ultimately by judgment.
And so we have to recognize that, but at the same time to hunger and thirst after righteousness is something that the Lord Jesus did and the unrighteousness in this world certainly.
Was something that.
Reached, if we could say it, reverently into his soul. Very, very much.
I think there's a.
Online, a brother took this up and he used the illustration of lock, you know, lock.
00:15:09
Pitched his tent towards Sodom and pretty soon he was sitting in the in the gate and his thought was to make Sodom great again.
And what happened, you know, he didn't. It didn't succeed. And that.
And that's not our place to seek to make this world great again. It's never been great. It still won't be great. And like we're waiting for that. I I enjoyed your thoughts with Mr. Hayhoe, that it's not the natural thought, just higher. It's a lot of Christian thought is absolutely opposite to that.
That you could you want to quote that again?
Well, he used to say, and it was.
In very strong language, as he often used, he said God's wisdom is not merely an improvement on man's wisdom, it is the direct opposite of man's wisdom. And and that is, that is absolutely true in every case.
If God's wisdom could improve on man's wisdom, it would mean that there was something good in the natural man.
And there is nothing good in the natural man because of sin.
I don't want to be misunderstood though, just to make it clear. And I don't want to do all the speaking here others in a minute or two, but something that is important to emphasize is it doesn't mean that.
That if we hunger and thirst after righteousness, that we don't amount to any influence in this world. No, I remember well a brother years ago, and I can mention the issue that was brought up to him. It was back when, sad to say, abortion on demand was just beginning to be legal, first of all in certain parts of the world and ultimately in North America.
And this brother was asked by someone, what's your opinion on this whole thing, this whole issue of abortion, what's your opinion on? And I thought he gave a very good answer. He said, well, if I give my opinion, it's not worth any more than your opinion or anybody else's. And there can be all kinds of different opinions, he said. But I'm here in this world as an ambassador, and I'll be very glad to give you my government's position.
On the whole matter and you turn to the word of God.
Carried weight because he wasn't just shooting off, if we could say his own ideas, he was supporting it from Scripture. And so the believer is to be a force for good in this world. But as an ambassador, and I've used the illustration, there's an ambassador from the United States to Canada, but supposing there were a demonstration on what is generally called Parliament Hill in Canada.
And some issue was at stake, and there were people there with placards and shouting and all the rest of it trying to make their voices heard.
Do you think the American ambassador would be up there with them doing it?
No, he might agree with what they were saying, and he might think that the cars that they were defending was worthwhile, but that isn't his place. But does he Clary clout? Indeed he does. Or she is the case may be. And if he or she were to approach the Canadian government?
They would carry not merely their own opinion, but all the weight of the American government behind them.
So that is the believers position in this world. It's not that there's they have nothing to say, but it said in the right way.
This is a very chapter tells us that this is the word of God. And the old brother used to say that when you say I think you think wrong unless it's according to the word of God. And that's some of these arguments, you know, even for that subject of abortion and things like that, they sound plausible. You know, well, this, this child doesn't he's not wanted. He'll grow up to be a criminal. We'll have to take care of him the rest of his life.
00:20:04
All these things sound plausible, but this is I think the word of God says that life belongs to God, so that.
Illustration of a woman one time her her son was complaining about taking care of the animals and he said we don't need these animals, there are no good, we just have to take care of them it's just a problem and he went on and on and she said son.
You have, we have a problem here, he says, what is it? Your thoughts don't count. And the same thing is true in the word, in the things of God. Our thoughts don't count. The word of God counts. And so if our thoughts are not in In Sync with the word of God, they're wrong.
I mean, what a wonderful thing it is to stand up a brother. One time he he stood up for young people and he just said this is the word of God. I thought, boy, that's so simple, but it's so profound. We hold in our lap the words of God. That's no small privilege.
This verse six says that blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness. So there is a God-given hunger and a thirst. And why would a man or a woman hunger or thirst after righteousness? It's because they have divine life. The natural man doesn't hunger and thirst after righteousness. He might desire the effect of righteousness in government and so on, but really he's thirsting after the corruption of this world.
He's hungering for those things that satisfy the flesh. But the reason you and I hunger and thirst for righteousness is evidence that we have divine life. And so it's really Ephesians chapter 2 and we need to remember it's the sovereignty of God that we do hunger says let's just read in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 5. Even when we are dead in sins.
Have quickened us together with Christ by grace are you saved, Has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places or in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. So the reason you and I, hunger and thirst is because we have divine life. It's evidence that we have divine life. Now we can suppress that by being occupied with what this world is occupied with. And so this word bless, it just means happy, doesn't it? Happy.
You and I will be able to walk through as those that are disciples of the Lord.
And that's who he's speaking to in verse one. His disciples came unto him. If we're truly following the Lord, we're sitting at his feet as learners. We're traveling lightly through this world, forsaken all for Him will hunger and thirst after righteousness. And he did. He brought great sorrow, as was said this morning, to his heart as he walked through this wicked scene. And so you and I have the capacity, the spiritual capacity, because we're indwelled with the Spirit of God.
And we have divine life. We have the spiritual capacity to hunger and thirst after righteousness. We're not going to get it here.
But we will get it. It will. During the time that the Lord Jesus reigns, we are going to be filled.
I think, too, that it might be a help to young people.
To just elaborate a little bit on that, that people tell you, well, you just, you just think this way and the Muslims think this way and they worship a God and you know, Buddhism and all these other religions, There's one thing that sets Christianity apart from all others.
And it's this that it's the only religion that offers you a new life. It does not seek to overhaul the other. It does not seek to clean up the old man. It gives you a totally new life that cannot sin, that has never sinned. That's the difference. It's a great difference. God can't never be satisfied with anything of the old man and every other religion.
Just the things that they offer you, that they say in heaven, it's all fleshly things.
Because that's only no, they do not have. So Christianity is the only religion.
That offers you a new life.
00:25:03
A new life and a new nature, yes, suited to that new life.
Hey.
I mentioned that the the lack of seeking after righteousness is what will bring the ecumenical movement together, isn't it? It's when there's really no fundamental differences that the great ecumenical movement comes together. We have to be very careful about that because in the world, the great principle today of toleration, but that's toleration of unrighteousness oftentimes, isn't it? And that's what's going to bring the ecumenical movement together.
And it's 11 Christianity. We have to be so careful about that. But the so much in Christianity they talk about unconditional love, but in the improper way. Unconditional love does not apply to the government of God. Grace does, that's true. But unconditional love does not apply to the government of God. It does apply when God is seeking out the lost Sinner, but that's a difference, isn't it? But it doesn't apply to the government of God.
And yet most of Christendom has accepted the the principle that you can have unconditional love with regard to sin. And that's what's going to bring the ecumenical church together. So the remnant will stand apart from that. And Vern, you mentioned earlier about Lot. I think we should bring in the other side of that. It's Abraham, isn't it? Because you're right, Lot was the wrong position. Abraham's was the right position, wasn't it?
That's really the Christians position. He was in Hebron, the place of communion, and he was communing with the Lord himself and he was given, he was called the friend of God because God gave him the secrets of what was going to happen in the future. That's the Christian position, is it not?
Ye that cometh to God must believe that He is.
That He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
Solomon, when he wrote Ecclesiastes, tells us as far as man can go in his own efforts of wisdom, and how to live, and how to satisfy the desires of his soul.
But God does work in man.
To have that thirst to know Him. But if we come to know God, we must know him as He is, according to the way he reveals himself. The only possible way to know God.
The only way you know anything. Everybody in this room only knows things in two ways. You either know it by personal experience, or you know it because God has revealed it.
And.
A personal experience will never bring you to know God, but God has revealed himself by His word and through His Son the Lord Jesus, and any other way of seeking to know truth, to know how to live. But that way is going to lead to eternal death, to eternal separation. And so when God made himself known to man.
The sad result when?
For man was I don't want him.
He does not want to retain the knowledge of God, as Romans one says. And so the thirsting after righteousness is comes after that the person who truly wants to know God. And it's a work of God that he does want to know him. And God worked in you and I.
Is God that worketh in you both to will and to do his good pleasure, that we would want to know him, and then he reveals himself to us.
In the person of his Son, who is the living Word, and he's given to us the written word as well. And consequently, as has already been said, the the revelation of God by the Word is the only way to know him. There is no alternative way to know truth, as the Lord Jesus said is the living word. I am the way, the truth and the life. And so anyone in this room that truly wants to know the Lord.
00:30:18
You know him.
By the way, God has chosen to make him known to you by His Son and by the Word. Any other way is going to end an eternal separation from God.
Appreciate an example that we and McDonald gave in this regard. I think you're talking about what the fact that we're lost, and I appreciate this example, he said during World War 2.
They wanted to impress on the pilots that when they're in the rarified air where the oxygen level is very low, their senses deceive them. They can't believe their senses. They have to believe their instruments. And so they would put these men in a decompression chamber and they give them some mathematical problems. And they warned them ahead of time. They said, you know, nobody has ever successfully answered all these mathematical problems, but we're going to give them to you and put you into the decompression chamber.
And, and see how you do. And he said the pilots would go in there one after another, and they would make a mess out of the mathematical problems because their thinking was all wrong. And I mentioned that once to her brother, Tim Clark in Oakland, and he said, yeah, we did the same thing when I was in Graduate School. We did it to Stanford medical students. We put them in a decompression chamber, gave him simple mathematical problems, and they failed. It's the same thing.
And so man, left to himself, is lost. He needs a savior, and that Savior is the Lord Jesus Christ.
I want to add a comment to on perspective that in the morning reading.
A little bit was talked about about the having a perspective. That's right.
But this is a different application than what was given this morning about disembodied spirits and so on. And that is, when the Lord wanted to communicate with John about what's coming in the future, he had to have the right perspective. And so the Lord says to John, come up hither.
And I will show thee. And so in vision, he's taken up to glory in Revelation chapter one so that he can have God's perspective on what God is going to do. And if we want to know the mind of the Lord.
And to have his perspective, then, if the thirst is for that, God will bring us into seeing things as he sees them. And God's perspective always begins from a heavenly view. Ours, naturally, even as believers, begins by looking around and checking the newspaper or the Internet news or something to see what's going on and then try to interpret it.
But the only real way to interpret what's happening now or what's going to happen?
Is when we are able to see it as God sees it and he can show it to us as he sees it. But we need to be like the apostle John, the apostle Paul taken up to the third heavens was given the vision that gave him to see what the church was because it was a heavenly.
A heavenly body. And it's from that perspective that the truth of the church was given to Paul.
And for the truth of what's coming on the world in a prophetic sense and on to the end. John likewise needed to get to heavenly vision so that he could see it from the come up. Hit her perspective. And so it's an encouragement to us to seek to know God's will and mind about things by asking Him. Lord, let me see it as you see it.
00:35:03
God is merciful.
It's part of his nature that will never change.
And having brought us to himself, he reproduces that in you and me. And so blessed are the Merciful.
You and I are vessels of mercy. Individually, we are that. We have been shown mercy when a Israelite was brought into the land.
I think it's in Deuteronomy 26 he was to offer the first fruits of the land.
And he was to bring it in a basket and give it to the priest, and he was to stand before the Lord God.
And he was to retrace his own, his National History, as if it was his personal history. For you and I, it's a personal history. And he was to say a Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he brought me out and brought me into this good land. And then it goes on to say, you shall rejoice before the Lord your God. You and I are vessels of mercy, and it ought to be natural to the new nature, and it is to show mercy to one another.
And so in Matthew, if you keep going through Matthew, we went through these 10 similitudes of the Kingdom, Kingdom of heaven in Matthew with a bunch of Saints back east over the past year, year and a half. When you get to the, I think it's the 7th one of the 10 in Matthew 18, the Lord puts before them the parable of the man who owed 10,000 talents.
Which is, in today's terms, I'm sure, millions and millions of dollars. It's a figure for a debt that could not be repaid.
And he asked for mercy, and he receives it.
And he's happy to have the mercy. And he goes out and you know the story. Somebody owes him, what, 100 pence? I think it is 100 pence.
Which is a very achievable debt to repay and in in in.
In hardness of heart, he goes and grabs him by the throat. Pay me that thou owe us and so on. What happens is the other servants, they see this. It's interesting how it says that in Matthew 18, the other servants were think it says they were, they were very unhappy. They're very displeased. And this spirit is, it's ugly when we, if we descend into that lack of mercy towards towards others, especially towards our brother, and they come and tell it to the master and you know the rest of the story.
The forgiveness that that man had was revoked, no longer forgiven and he was held accountable because of his hard and harsh spirit. Eric referred to the government of God and these are issues of the government of God that we all happily.
Are the recipients of takes a personal interest in US, whether it be chastening that is hard and difficult to receive.
Or other kinds of training that he gives us. But this was a this was a training that that man had to receive. And so to be merciful is to be like him. And says here, and as we move on to that seventh verse, blessed are the merciful, they shall obtain mercy.
We have become so accustomed in Western countries to the showing of mercy.
That sometimes I believe we don't realize how much of that is due to the external influence, if I could use the term of Christianity.
Some of us have had the opportunity to travel to foreign lands where false religions are in the majority.
And you do not see mercy exercised in the same way. It's more or less that's your, that's your, that's what's happened to you. That's your karma, if you want to use their term in some cases. And I'm not picking on any particular nation, only pointing out that mercy in a general way is because of the influence of Christianity. And we can be very thankful for that. We can be very thankful for the existence of.
Places like public hospitals and things like that.
There are countries in the world today that never had a hospital until Christianity arrived. Why? Because if you got sick, you were on your own. Your close relatives might look after you, or maybe the odd good friend, but the whole idea of showing mercy to people was just.
00:40:09
Not common in one country today, and I won't name it, but it would be well known to you if somebody's in trouble and you're driving along on the road.
You would hardly dare to stop and give them any help, because if the police came along, they would probably arrest you and accuse you of being the cause of the problem. You and I say how utterly ridiculous. If somebody in a Good Samaritan type of mode stops by to help someone in trouble, to arrest them and charge them with having gotten the individual into trouble. Is that early ridiculous? But that's man's natural heart and so.
We can be very thankful for the atmosphere which pervades most Western countries, but let's be clear about where it came from. It came ultimately from our blessed Lord and Master and from those who have by grace followed Him.
This is a little contrast as well with Judaism, isn't it? Under the law, a man sinned, he died, it says, without mercy. But the Lord Jesus here was bringing in this principle in connection with divine life and principles that would characterize them in the Millennium and in the as they go through the tribulation period, there'll be a period of time of judgment and there won't be mercy shown. They'll be cruelty and father betraying son, mother betraying daughter, so on, so forth. What sin does?
Is it hardens the heart, it hardens the affections, it cools the affections for Christ even.
And so we need to bear in mind that the grace of God, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And so we live under the influence of the mercy of God and we are recipients of the mercy of God. And that scripture that Brother Bruce Conrad mentioned in Matthew 18 shows that if we are not merciful, if we do not reflect the moral features of mercy in connection with others.
That we could come under the governmental dealings of God. And so it says in that 18th chapter of Matthew that in verse 34, his Lord was Roth. Lord was angry, it says, and delivered him to the tormentors. It doesn't mean that he lost his salvation, but rather that he had a tormented conscience. He had.
A wrong spirit towards someone and because of that he had the Lord allowed his conscience to be tormented every time he thought about that person it just.
Tormented his conscience. Tormented him. Didn't want to think about it. And so.
So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother their trespasses. So what a mercy it is of the Lord that we have. We can cultivate a forgiving spirit and a merciful attitude towards those that perhaps we might consider wrong. They wronged us, and that's not be injustice collectors.
And injustice collector, somebody wrongs them and they have an unforgiving spirit. And they, you crossed me in July the 20th, 1969. I remember the time and I put that I collected in my little bag. And then I, I have another injustice and I you, you, you did me wrong that I've got that injustice in this bag. You carry them around and it's, it's not happiness so blessed.
Are there merciful? It's a happy course to have mercy and have a forgiving spirit towards our brethren, towards others that might wrong us.
In the parable that Bruce mentioned it says the man that had owed him 100 denarii which I believe is 100 days wages which would be like $30,000 forty $1000.
And it's not that we aren't hurt. And I think that we look at 10,000 talents, we could never repay that. When we understand that people do hurt us, we can be hurt by other people. And what God is calling us to do is to forgive.
It says he frankly forgave him. He just wrote it off. And somehow in our flesh, we think if we forgive, then they get away with it. Whatever happened happened. It's it's history. You can't change that. But you can be free. When you forgive, the person you really free is yourself. As our brother was just saying you, you take that injustice and you take that injustice and you put it in a bag and you put it with other injustices and pretty soon you got this whole bag.
00:45:15
That's slowing you down. And God wants us to be free. He wants us to walk in love and in peace and in joy. And it says blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. This universe is a universe that's an echo. Whatever we sow, we're going to reap. And the law of the harvest is we're going to reap more than we sowed. And we want to be that people. And it's not like we feel like doing it.
Somebody says something bad about us, what we want to say something bad about them. Somebody cuts us off in traffic. If somebody hurts us, what do we want to do? Just naturally in our flesh, we want to get back. But we understand. You know what? That's God's department. My job is to forgive, and forgiveness is not reconciliation. Reconciliation is being right with that person that takes two parties. Forgiveness is my determination that I'm going to let go and let God take care of it.
And it sets me free and we get to obtain mercy.
What's just been said a little bit and repeat, making sure a little easier that we get it.
God has natural laws. We're all familiar with something. God works in a certain way in the natural realm, and man even understands a lot of them and calls the law of gravity the law of gravity and so on. And that's the way it works in the moral realm. God works like that as well. And one of the moral features, just like gravity in the physical realm, is you reap what you sow.
And consequently, in verse six, it's an illustration of it, or verse seven, blessed are the merciful.
And how does God work in that realm? Those who are merciful receive mercy.
And it's there are many other moral ways in which we reap what we sow in moral things, because that's the way God is and that's the way God works. And so verse 7 illustrates one of those ways.
God is merciful to those who show mercy, and that extends to all men.
Not every I remember from the conference one time or brother commenting. Not every man is cantankerous and cross grained. There are naturally speaking nice people in the world even though they're not a believer. And sometimes they are kind to their neighbors. And there's the law of kindness, those which are kind. God in his moral ways shows kindness to them in his government in the earth. But to expand just a little bit on the opposite.
Side where we suddenly say yes, but I know somebody that was kind or merciful and you know what happened to them Well, let's look ahead a bit and get the other side of it and verse 10.
Verse 11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Oh, then what?
Is that the principle of receiving mercy for being merciful? What if you show kindness to someone and present the Lord Jesus to them along with it, and the result is they persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake?
The next verse is the answer. Rejoice.
You naturally rejoice when somebody treats you that way.
Here is the instruction Rejoice. Why?
And be exceedingly glad.
For great is your reward in heaven. The other principle that is a companion to the moral laws of God is God always settles his accounts.
In the end.
So that he balances, as we would say, the books, and so the one that is persecuted in the present and receives.
00:50:01
Bad for the good can if he looks up to God and recognizes the character of God can say I rejoice in the realization that there is they persecuted the prophets that were before you and so on.
But there is the settling of the account, another way of saying it with respect to the perfect example of it, the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus was merciful to men, and there's a record throughout the Gospels of others responding, many of them positively to it.
But not all and some, as Peter says in the Darby translation, in first Peter 2, the Lord Jesus was cast away as worthless.
Think of those words castaway as worthless by men.
To me, I I can't hardly say those words without paying right. There is pain to think that this world castaway God's Son as worthless.
Will gods square the books?
Did the Lord Jesus?
Rejoice in any way, He said Even so, Father, for it seemeth good and thy sight as to what happened and was going to happen to Him at the cross. He accepted it, He submitted to it. But we look on to the day when God will square the right. Now He's not seen by man.
But he sits to our eyes at God's right hand in patience, and the day is coming when the Father says, Now, son, return to the earth, and the books will be squared, and the whole world will recognize what preciousness that he is to God and to his people, and that he will be recognized throughout the world and so everything.
Ultimately, God brings into balance so that His principle of justice is always maintained in the eternal perspective. We just have to be sure that we get the right time frame, which is God's time frame and not always our own.
As I hope, not too far of a digression, but.
This is a.
A reason why Peter says who Peter so taken up with the principles of the government of God is in his epistles in second Peter 3 verse 7, the heavens and the earth, which are now by the same word the word of God, are kept in store.
Reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
And so on.
When I was a little boy in kindergarten and 1St grade, we had to line up and go down the basement of the school and sit in the concrete hallway and put our heads between our knees. And it was some sort of a practice for nuclear.
War, nuclear obliteration, or what? As if that was really going to help. But anyway, that's what we did.
And of course, that situation unfolded in the world of governments, God being behind the scene. But today it's not just an interruption like recess where you go down and sit in the, but young people's minds are filled with this.
Extreme fear that the planet is somehow going to become dysfunctional and it's not going to work and man is going to be able to blow himself up or pollute himself so badly that this world will, will, will not continue.
And so you hear even little children, my grandchildren are exposed to this coming home and and saying the most absurd things because they come from these crazy conclusions. That man feels that he's in control, that he has his hands on the lever. He does not. And I can remember my earliest days as a believer of the brothers in the meeting saying God will preserve this world as a platform until that day when he sends his son back into this world in power and glory.
And it's not just, it's not enough in answer to this, it's not enough to to God that he give him the highest seat in heaven. He's going to bring him here. And it's imperative with God that he come back here and that that same entity, 2 entities really that's fat in his face, will have to give a count and they will see the Lamb and want to be hid from his face.
00:55:26
As we were speaking yesterday, it's an imperative with God that that happened. I, I enjoy that, that God always closes accounts and we rejoice in the passages that say you must be born again. And we say, thank God, I have been born again.
And in order to give us life and righteously do so, the Son of Man must be lifted up later on in the same chair. And he was and God has been glorified by that work and the foundation laid for our eternal blessing. But then later on it says he must reign. It's imperative with God that he come back here. I'm not sure we have a guarantee on how the how the rivers are going to flow or how clean the water or the air is going to be, but it's going to be here.
Because God has an appointment with this world and with every entity in it, and his Son is going to come here and he is going to be honored and extolled in this very world where he was hated without a cause. And so we look forward indeed to the rapture, to the snatching out of us as believers, which could happen today. There's a crown, Paul said in his last epistle, for those that love his appearing.
And that's beyond that. That's when he comes back and there's a crown for the boy or for the girl. You walk through the hall at school. You walk home from school and on the sidewalk or in the green grass and you say, soon he's going to come in. This world is going to be filled with his glory from the river to the to the to the end of the end of the world, end of the sea. And you walk along with your hands in your pocket saying, this is going to be a wonderful day when the Lord Jesus reigns, the Son of man. We're all this thing.
That's loving his appearing, that's living in advance in the enjoyment of that day that is not yet come. And there's a crown connected with that. Yes, the rapture will be will be a result in our glorification, but the renewed heart looks forward to the full vindication of God's Son in this world, because it's here that his blood was shed and he was cast out.
Have to remember that we have two inheritances. We have a heavenly inheritance right now. The spiritual blessings we have as believers and there are many, we often read about those in Scripture, but there's also a material inheritance that we look forward to as they're not. And that's where we're heirs of God and Co heirs with Christ. So some people I know, my brother said to me once, he said I'm not interested in prophecy. He doesn't have anything to do with me.
Even if it didn't, it's important because it has to do with the Lord's glory as we've just been listening. But on the other hand, it does have to do with us because that's the inheritance we're going to have. We're going to inherit this world and this heavens. We're going to reign over both of them with the Lord Jesus. He is the heir and we're coheirs with Him. We need to remember that. So the Millennium is a very important thing to us as the believer.
The tribulation is an important thing because that lays the foundation for it in judgment. The only thing we would say we're speaking about the government of God with the accounts being settled, aren't we? In the Old Testament when it speaks of the government of God, if there's no redemption, that has to be answered. But if there's redemption, that's the end of it, isn't it? The Lord Jesus has answered and fulfilled the accounts, and we can be so thankful for that.
Mercy and truth are joined together, righteousness and peace of kissed each other. We can be so thankful we could never answer for our sins. The Lord has settled that account. But when it comes to the government of God, everything needs to be balanced out, doesn't it? It is balanced out and redemption, the Lord Jesus has answered for it. We can be so thankful for that. But as far as government goes, and we often see that in the Old Testament, why is judgment called down on people's head?
Because it has to do with the government of God. The only thing that can stop that is redemption and accepting God's proffered offer.
When you speak, the government of God does that. Something that just lasts until you pass out of this world is that.
01:00:06
Temporary goes on through the Millennium, doesn't it?
Well, if you're if you, I'm talking about individual.
What would you say, Vern? You tell us.
Goes on into eternity.
Like David, he David, he suffered the government of God but didn't last beyond his death. And so there were some people who the Lord healed and he said go and sin no more. Well that sin that they were under the government of God, it was alleviated then, but if it had, if he had not alleviated, it would go on to their death, but not beyond that.
I just want to clear some people don't understand that the government of God doesn't go on until eternity. Is that right? Correct that.
Yes, that's correct, Brother Vern. It's only for our lives down here, for man in this world. And so the Lord is dealing with us in a governmental way as a father, for those that belong to him. He deals with us in kindness and mercy, but as a father.
And he will discipline us. But that's during the time that we're here in this scene. I was thinking of Brother Bruce, his comment in connection with the prophets, you know, and Brother Eric, we have false prophets today. There are false prophets. Peter speaks of it in Second Peter chapter 2. But there were false prophets also among the people. I won't go into the whole passage, but this world has its profits and it's profiting the prophets are Speaking of.
Drought they're Speaking of.
Nuclear war, they're Speaking of all these things. That's not what we ought to be occupied with. Let's read the prophetic scriptures that the Lord has given to us. We have an opportunity to read the the book of Isaiah. We can read the different minor prophets and so on. We can see things from Christ's perspective. That's the prophecy that we ought to be occupied with. And so the Lord Jesus was desiring that they would.
Have His perspective as He brought these things before them. So verse 8 says, blessed are the pure in heart. They shall see God. And we ought not to be taken up with the impurity of this world and the impurity of its thoughts, the impurity of its prophecies of doom and gloom, and whatever, even in connection with the political scene in this country or any other.
Our prospect has to do with the man Christ Jesus.
His glory. The Spirit of prophecy is the testimony of the Spirit of prophecy or the Spirit. The testimony of prophecy is the Lord Jesus has to do with Him.
Well, we could say that I may do something in my life that the government of God is is on me yet.
It will and it will pursue me to my death. I mean, you can pray and everything you want, but the government of God might go along. You can repent and and and the Lord will walk with you in it. You can restore communion, but your circumstances may never change. It just says there about divorce. I was thinking about that being one thing, you know, and something that I do in my life.
And the government of God will follow me on that thing to my death Doesn't mean that he can't go on with the Lord. There's no, there's no reason why I can't repent. But that does not take away the government of God. And I might pray as much as I want, but he'll never be removed.
The government of God has to do with earth and life on earth.
To illustrate the point you made, that it can follow me if I commit a crime and it puts me in prison and in prison I get saved, I'm still in prison.
It's the government of God. I'm reaping what I sowed in whatever I had done.
On the other side of it, as Eric was bringing out.
When I come to redemption.
I come to a place of death.
And I can be, in regard to redemption, delivered because I'm brought into a new creation still as the government of God on earth. When I'm on earth it the principles apply, but in redemption I get to belong to a new creation. And that creation in heaven there is no government of God. It is a there won't be the government of God as we are talking about it.
01:05:22
When we get to glory and in the enjoyment of our position with God.
In our place before him, in redemption, we are free, we are clean, we are sanctified, we are justified, and so on. And those I have forever. They can never be lost. The government of God doesn't apply to them. They are mine, and they're mine because.
Of the place I'm brought into, and so it's a wonderful thing to be.
This may take the point a little bit too far. I hope not. But in any event, when we talk about the way things work in the natural realm and man gets all worried about what's happening and if the world's going to fall apart because of doing this, that, or the other. The way God has designed this world, He's designed it for a purpose, for His duration.
And in fact, when that duration is finished in what was read in second Peter.
He's going to.
He's finished with this world because even in the Millennium it will still bear some of the effect that sin had brought upon it. And so it's a ruined from God's purposes eternally. So for a people in the coming day, beyond the Millennium of glory, there'll be a new earth.
Wherein dwells righteousness and sin will never come, and never spoil it, but man's fears.
If from a believer standpoint about what's happening on the earth and man's messing it all up.
They have no scriptural foundation.
If I could illustrate it this way, suppose this afternoon God took everybody off the earth.
He just took everybody off the earth and you left the earth to sit for 10,000 years.
What would you find when you came back? The earth would still be operating exactly as God had organized it. There would be sea time and harvest and so on. In terms of the earth would be operating, the only thing that would be as everything man had done would be out of the picture. Everything that man had created, everything that man had brought unto the earth to make life a great place to live, would have begun.
None of it would be functioning or existing anymore, but the way God created the earth, it be gone along just fine.
It won't work that way. That's not going to happen. But that's the principle that we don't need to have any kind of fear that the earth is going to get all messed up and man's going to be able to destroy it. He will not. He cannot. God will sustain it until His purposes for it are accomplished, and then he'll replace it because it does have and will have the effect, if left of the sin that man brought into it.
I'd like to ask a question if I could.
We began the discussion this morning with the Kingdom of God, Kingdom of heaven, how his subjects ought to respond and, and reflect the character of that Kingdom or that king. And now we're talking about this government of God that comes and it's includes the earth and mankind.
Satan has a part in this something. Before man was put here, there was an enemy who was cast here with his company, if we understand scripture correctly. And somewhere at the end of this earth.
That Satan and that enemy or his cohorts are going to be.
Have a final judgment. Can somebody speak to more than man on the earth? There's this disputed right for who reigns here on the earth.
It's bigger than we are is what I'm trying to bring out.
There's something went on before and there's something that will go on.
After and if I can just say it that way.
Satan.
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Creature of God, as you say, and his, as we call it His fault, appears to have taken place before the earth.
Was created and yet what we call.
Health was created for him, not for man. It was for Satan. Man will go there because of refusing the grace of God. Satan and those who fall with him are never offered redemption or any reconciliation to God, but rather again.
In in the tribulation period, God is going to say to Satan you can't be her anymore and those that are with him will be cast out and have no more access to heaven.
And that will be Satan's last great stand, if you will, of opposition to God. But at the same time, Satan will still be around during the millennial period.
But the time will come when, as we have in the Revelation, He will be cast into the lake of fire, and so even He has his eternal destiny. And after that will God will create a new heavens and a new earth.
In which everything connected with sin, Satan included, will be forever removed from before God and every man who did not accept redemption. And you and I will only have one evidence that sin ever existed.
And it'll touch our hearts to worship. And that evidence is we. The only evidence that will remain an eternity that that sin ever was will be when we see His hands and His feet.
Lord Jesus personally in his hands and His side will bear the marks that we will see forever, and it that work of redemption will have that one aspect to it that we will know that there had ever been sin.
And our hearts will be touched to worship the one who did it, as we see that.
His personal body.
I guess our time is up and I wonder if we could sing the last three verses of #170.
170 beginning with verse 4.
Israel's race shall now behold him.
Full of grace and majesty. And then our place in verse five. Tis thy heavenly bride and spirit.
Jesus, Lord, that did thee come #170 the last three verses.
Yeah.
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Oh Lord Jesus, come over to his eyes.
But we also see.
Stanza #3 maybe stand and sing.
Same number, but the third verse.
The blessed God and Father, we thank thee for such an one as thy Son.
Who waited, and always did thy will?
We think the.
Here's our great example.
To reign when it is not our time.
Help us to be like Thee, blessed Lord.
To be patient.
Help us to.
Be thy disciples, look unto thee to see where you would lead us.
Help us to be interested.
And prophecy, because thou are God art interested.
We commit the time to Thee. We thank Thee for the blessing.
Leading of thy spirit in these things.
We give thanks and rejoice that we are thine blessed Father and thine Lord Jesus, thy most precious and worthy name. Lord Jesus Christ, we pray, give thanks, Amen.
Gospel 1
Gospel—Ted Sester
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Free, woke up, sad, dear, loving, sane.
You're crazy and this whole money and peace shall be aligned.
And dear love me, say no good days in life glory.
This world, one stranger.
To the tree.
Of the world.
All right.
Now he's on.
The throne.
Oh no, she is outside here in the morning saying no, praising, and that's all.
But I mean, I'll be alone.
I received.
Shannon and ****.
00:05:00
I'm sorry #13 Man of sorrows #13 Man of Sorrows. What a name for the Son of God who came ruined sinners to reclaim. Hallelujah, what a Savior, bearing shame and scoffing, rude in my place, condemned He stood, sealed my pardon with his blood. Hallelujah, what a Savior. Guilty, vile and helpless. We spotless Lamb of God was He.
Full atonement. Can it be Hallelujah?
What a savior #13.
Man of Saul.
Let me shame and swallow.
In my place.
Surroundings.
Till my heart.
Wake me up.
Jesus for help tonight.
Our God and Father, we give thanks for the Lord Jesus. We give thanks that thy spirit is working in this world, and we give thanks that thy spirits working in this room tonight with any souls that have not come to know the Lord Jesus as their Savior, not come to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And made laid their burden of sins down at the cross. We pray tonight that if there's someone that has not come.
To the Lord Jesus that they would come tonight. Our Father, we pray for the work of the Word of God through the Spirit of God that would be directed to any soul tonight. We give thanks that we have Thy word and not man's ideas to turn to. We pray, thanks for the speaker. We pray for the audience, that thy word.
Not the speaker's word, but thy word by the Spirit of God would have its effect.
In Jesus name, Amen.
Well, tonight I want to welcome you to the Gospel, meaning the Gospel means good news.
So there's, I don't know, a lot of people in this room. Some I do, some I don't. You could have been invited here by a friend of yours. You could have been invited as.
Maybe an invitation went out, but we're happy that you're here tonight and you know nothing falls underneath the eyes of God.
He knows your heart. He knows every heart in this room. I don't know the hearts in this room.
If I could do something to make you saved, I would do it, but there's nothing I could do. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And tonight I want to start with a verse in John 4. You don't need to turn to it if you don't have a Bible, just a part of a verse in John 4 verse 29. Come see a man which told me all things that ever I did.
Is not this the Christ?
You know, there's been a lot of self reflection. Satan does not want the gospel to go out of this pulpit tonight.
A brother came to me and he heard of a sermon that was going to be preached. The man that was preaching that word that night had done some things that weren't very well good. Someone came to him. They wrote all those things on a piece of paper and they brought him up to him.
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And what did he do? He read that.
He read everything that that person had wrote on that card and he said by the grace of God I can stand here.
And tell you that the Lord Jesus Christ died for my sins, and that's why I can stand here and preach the gospel.
There wasn't anybody that unkind in this room.
But I could write this list and this paper would not be long enough to write.
You know Satan does not want the gospel he preached, but the grace of God is bigger than all my sin.
If you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ your Savior, you're lost and you're on the way to a road called hell. That's a road of destruction and, you know, unpopular.
To men's beliefs today, the Bible is the Word of God and the Bible is the last word.
On every subject. There's not a subject in this world if this book does not touch, and it's the authority.
By which I can stand here and preach the word of God. If you looked at my life and you knew every thought through my head, you wouldn't say you should be here. But by the grace of God, my sins are gone. My sins were laid at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And as Paul could say, the grace of God was exceeding abundant.
Those of you that know the Lord Jesus can say.
Taste and seed of the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusts in Him. Tonight. If you have tasted of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't tasted His love, you're lost.
You know, I want to turn back into Genesis.
Just for one or two verses in Genesis. It's the very, very beginning. And tonight I want to let you know that you have to believe the verse was quoted. It's in Hebrews.
And it says that will turn to it before I misquote it don't need to turn to Hebrews, but you have to believe that God is and then he's at a rewarder of all them that diligently seek him. I believe that is in Hebrews Chapter 11 and it says.
And verse 6 Without faith it's impossible to please him, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is.
Tonight, you have to believe that there's a God.
And you have to it says, And he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of him, that diligently seek him. You have to believe that God is and that God is good.
You can trust him, he's good.
God is good.
Men question God's goodness all the time. It's the goodness of God that leadeth men to repentance. If you don't trust that God is good tonight, the Spirit of God would like to change that in your heart so you can taste and see that the Lord is good. I want when you leave this hall tonight that you know that God is good. God is for me.
And if God before me, who can be against me?
But God is holy and God cannot look on sin. God cannot look on sin. He cannot look on your sin. He can't have fellowship with sin. Your sin has spoiled it. And that is what I want to look at in Genesis.
In Genesis chapter 3 and verse one.
It says, now the serpent was subtle, more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yeah, hath God said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Here we have Satan, that serpent, Satan, and he's questioning God, He's questioning the goodness of God.
Hath God said?
You shall not eat of every tree of the garden. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the tree of the garden.
But of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest he die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die.
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Did man die? We say. Well, man didn't die because we're still here.
No man did start dying.
There's body, soul and spirit.
And maybe their body did not.
Disappear and they didn't die right there on the spot, but men started to die.
And sin came in this world, and it's ruined things. And sin causes pain and sorrow. Everywhere you look, there's stains of sin. You get out, you talk to every family in this room and there's somebody that's broken, some pain and that family.
That's the stain of sin.
Everyone of us, if we're honest, we've all been under the effect of sin.
And so this was the fall of man. That's what taught My Bible says the fall of man. And this is not a fairy tale.
You know, if you talk about this outside this room very far, men and women, boys and girls, they call us a fairy tale. This is not a fairy tale.
Men don't die. Women don't die like dogs.
Men believe.
They know, they know there's.
They know there's a fear in death.
And they convinced themselves that they're tough enough to face eternity without the Lord Jesus Christ. And they're fools. God says they're fools.
And many of them.
Except the Lord Jesus Christ or want to on their deathbed.
What's the problem with accepting the Lord Jesus Christ one minute before you die?
We had a Sunday school teacher would ask us that what's the problem with that? The problem with that is you don't know when you're going to die.
But why would you want to use the Lord Jesus just as a fire escape? Does the love of Christ not constrain you?
Do you? Does there nothing about the Lord Jesus going to the cross of Calvary to pay for the price of your sins?
That attracts your heart.
You know, I must admit, when I was six years old, I got saved at a gospel meeting.
I don't know that the love of Christ attracted my heart, but I was scared to die in my sins and I knew that that man, I don't even remember what his name was. I knew he was talking to me.
Because I knew I was a Sinner and I knew if I died I would be going to hell.
Maybe you are just like me.
And maybe the love of Christ does not. You're not attracted to that.
You know.
There's firemen in the room. It doesn't matter how you get through the door. Some people are pulled, some people are pushed. You got to get through the door.
Tonight you can't stay outside the door. He compels you to come in. He compels you to come in Tonight. If you do not realize that, you're lost.
You're in the worst spot ever.
Do not.
Think that the Spirit of God will always strive with you.
One time I was preaching a gospel and a man came up to me afterwards and he says, you know, you said there was only two things that could happen. You might die and the Lord might come. He says a third thing that's scarier than that.
It says right here in Genesis and a couple more chapters, my Spirit shall not always strive with man. That brother was right. Can you imagine if you've been in a gospel, meaning you've heard the gospel?
You can't get saved because the Spirit of God stops knocking on your heart's door.
That's the scariest place to ever be.
Think of that first. My spirit shall not always strive with man.
God we sing, God be seeking man, refusing to be made forever glad. Are you a gospel hardened boy or girl or man or woman?
Got a man tell me one time that he liked coming to evangelical things and liked to be scared and dangled over hell.
00:20:07
Isn't that sick? That's my heart.
That's my heart without Christ.
Is that your heart right now?
So let's continue in verse 5. For God does know that in the day you eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as God's knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also under her husband with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves.
And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto them, Where art thou?
Perfect fellowship.
The Lord God walking in the garden with them, and now they are hiding from God.
What has happened? They've sinned, and tonight, if you're in your sins, you cannot have fellowship with God.
And if you're hiding from God, it's not going to work.
Why would you want to hide from God? God is good. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. He's seeking.
Verse 10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.
Adam was right to be afraid.
Sin comes with fear.
Anxieties.
All kinds of things. Tonight you can have your sins to be gone. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And thou shalt be saved.
It's so easy to be saved, but what did Adam and Eve want to do? They wanted to do something. What did they do? They wanted to make fig leaves. What that is, is they took leaves off the trees and then made themselves close coverings. They wanted to do something. And that's a little picture of us. We want to do something. We want to bring something. And later on, they had a they had two boys.
Cain and Abel and one of their boys. He wanted to do something. He wanted to bring.
The first fruits.
Sounded like a nice idea. He wanted to bring something, he wanted to do something. And tonight God does not want you to do anything. The work is done, the words of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, it is finished.
The Lord Jesus came.
To Washington, away our sins on the cross. You see, this is the beginning of the Bible.
And the same thing happened to Adam and Eve. That happens to each person that's born in this world. We're born in sin and shaping in iniquity. I was born lost. My mother was born lost. I was born lost. What do you call a lamb that is born from a sheep that's lost? That lamb is born lost.
You can look at the cutest little small baby and they're born lost.
You look at this innocent, what looks like baby, and it's born lost because this curse of sin goes deep. It goes all the way through the human race. Men fell. Women fell.
And so because of Adam's transgression, we all are born in sin. If I was a first man, I would have fallen. The point is not that Adam, that we're better than Adam, but that stain of sin has gone through and so now.
The Lord Jesus comes in, sent from his Father to be the sacrifice for sin. The sin sacrifice, the soul that sinneth it shall die. Men and women over the ages for thousands of years have sinned, it says once in the end of the age.
00:25:04
Hath he, the Lord Jesus appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself?
At the cross.
That was the sacrifice for sin that God has looked upon, not all those sacrifices in the Old Testament.
Those sacrifices.
Or a picture of the one sacrifice that would come, the perfect, holy, spotless one, God's lamb that would go to the cross of Calvary. God gave his best. The Gospel of John and chapter 3 it says for God so loved the world that he gave. God is a giving God. God gave his best. God could not give more. There's nothing more God could give.
God gave his only begotten Son.
And God punished Jesus so I could go free, it says in 2nd Corinthians 5 and 21. For he God hath made him. Jesus sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God. In him God put our sins on Jesus.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Those words were uttered on the cross by the Lord Jesus. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? It was my sins.
God could not look upon His Son.
Man would not have him think of that side.
There was 3 crosses there. My friends. Sometimes we think about just one cross. There was 3 crosses.
And there was two malefactors, 2 Thieves on either side of the Lord Jesus. And tonight?
You have to identify yourself as one of those thieves, one thief.
Said, Remember Me when thou comest into thy Kingdom. There was one of those thieves whose heart.
Was attracted to the very person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He knew that that man on that center cross.
Was God's son.
He wasn't just an ordinary man. Think of those men.
Listening to the words coming from the Lord Jesus Christ, think of that.
But the other thief?
Would have happened. And what were the words that the Lord Jesus said to that thief?
That thief became a St. that day. Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise. Did he say go and do some good works? No, there's nothing that man could do. And that is proof tonight that you can come in your sins right now. You can be the worst thief in this room. You can have the worst thoughts. You've kind of done the worst things. It doesn't matter what you've done.
The Lord Jesus, The blood of the Lord Jesus can wash all your sins away.
If Adolf Hitler would have come, his sins could have been washed away. The most wicked, cruel man.
The power of the blood of Christ would cleanse their sins completely.
Tonight you can come and be clean and it says.
In Romans 8 there is no condemnation.
To them that are in Christ Jesus.
Now there's no condemnation for me.
God would not be just to condemn me.
God, when he sees me, he sees his Son.
You know, have a friend kind of love my friend, but he thinks that you could get unsaved if you really wanted to.
Every gospel I've listened to at a conference, every time I'm sitting in a meeting, I think about a verse that shows you can't be saved or lost. I text him the verse, finally run out of verses.
Then it hit me the other day. I think maybe something I was reading.
I.
For God.
To not let me in, he would have to leave.
00:30:00
His Son outside the door, because I am seen in Christ. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanse us from all sin. You are seen if you're clean as in Christ. The same righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ He's clothed me in.
If he didn't let me in, he could not let his son in.
There is absolutely no way now are we become the sons of God. There's nothing I can do to be to revoke that sonship.
I'm seen in Christ, I'm seen as his Son. Once you're saved, you're always eternally saved.
We can read those verses.
The blood is either on the door or it's not on the door if we were to turn a little bit further.
We would see.
That the children of Israel had to take that blood from a lamb and they had to put it on the door and they couldn't see it. I was the oldest in my family, and that story was scary. You're not saying that's a scary story.
If the bloods not on your door. If the blood of the Lord Jesus has not been applied to your heart.
You should be scared.
That is the scariest thing. That's worse than having cancer. That's worse with any terminal disease. That is the worst.
To be in your sins is the worst position a man.
Or a woman or a boy or girl can be in. I am covered with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know that's a fact. It's a fact. The blood is either there or it's not there.
I used to doubt my salvation.
And those verses were very clear and I was pointed those verses many, many times. The blood is either applied or it's not. You either are saved or you're not. This is not a feeling. Now you can have the fact of being saved and have the feeling to know and to feel that you are His. What a wonderful thing to be in the sunshine of the love of your Savior and to know and feel that you are His.
Does the love of Christ constrain you? Does the love of the Lord Jesus? Does it mean anything? Is it nothing to you, All you that pass by?
I want to turn to a verse in Exodus chapter 15.
In Exodus chapter 15 we have a picture.
With a little picture that I want to read.
The Old Testament.
Has pictures.
This is a real account.
Want to be clear, this is a historical account, but there's also a meaning here in Exodus chapter 15 and verse 23.
And when they came to Mara, they could not drink of the waters of Mara, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Mara. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried unto the Lord. And the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, The waters are made sweet. There he made for them a statue and an ordinance, and there he proved them.
Verse 25 The first part. And he cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree.
If you don't understand that story, let me explain that the waters were bitter. There's the children of Israel.
This is a lot of people and there's no water.
There's no water that's not bitter. Your life might be going haywire right now.
You might have a lot of bitterness in your life. You can't see anything that's good.
Neither could the children of Israel with his water. It was bitter. Nobody likes bitter water.
And the Lord told him to cut a tree down, and he put that tree in the water, and the water turned sweet. And tonight, if you put the cross of Christ in your life, you'll take the bitter water and turn sweet. If you come to the Lord Jesus tonight, he will take the bitter water and turn it sweet.
The cross of Christ will take your life and justice. Turn it around.
Is he going to take all your trials away? Is he going to put money in the bank? That's not what I said. He's going to take the bitterness and turn it sweet.
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There's a lot of bitter people in this world.
It's very sad when Christians are bitter.
Because when you're a Christian, what is your Christ? One. And you have the Holy Spirit indwelling your body.
He's promised to indwell you.
And your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
And I shouldn't hold any bitterness because I have a brand new life.
That only wants to please the Lord, just Christ.
And if you're a Christian tonight and you have any bitterness, you need to judge that because that is not a trait of the Christian, of a Christian.
That is not what that new life, you know that new life, all it wants to do was please the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know tonight if you don't love the Lord Jesus.
I hate to say this because it seems so crude, but you actually hate him. If you don't love him, you hate him and you're serving Satan.
Says no man can serve 2 masters.
You are either. You either love the Lord Jesus.
Or you do not love Lord Jesus. You don't kind of love the Lord Jesus.
You can't ride the fence. You either are saved or you're lost, because that's what the Bible says. And what does the Lord Jesus say? I am the way, the truth, and the life.
He's the truth and the life. And what does he say in the Gospel of John? Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
You know God, grace and truth.
Light and love. God is not just love. God is light and love. He was the only man.
That grace and truth were in perfect balance.
Tonight, I am not here just to tell you that God loves you.
That would not be fair to tell you that God just loves you and we just want everybody just to love God.
And we want you just to come to the Lord Jesus Christ, and there's no consequences if you don't believe. And you could don't have to repent of your sin. That is not the word of God.
Tonight you have to forsake your sins. You have to be sorry for your sins.
You have to change course, but you have no power to do that.
I want to look at a verse in Ephesians.
We'll look at a few verses in Ephesians chapter 2.
Ephesians chapter 2 and verse one it tells us how we are without the Lord Jesus Christ. It's and he's writing this to Christians and he's telling them what they were before they were saved and you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. That means you has he made alive who were dead in trespassing sins where in times past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air of the spirit and now worketh.
Spirit children of disobedience, among whom also we had our conversations in times past, and the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of our mind. And we're by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
I was that if you were saved, you were that.
But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith you loved us, verse 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, we're dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace are you saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Why, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness.
Towards us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved through faith. And that's not of yourselves, the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. There's nothing you can bring, there's nothing you can do. The work has been done. The Lord Jesus, the words on the cross, it is finished.
Here, you can't even drum up the faith to believe.
Tonight if you want to have faith, it says right here, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that's not of yourselves. It's the gift of God if you say Lord.
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I don't have enough faith to believe. If you cry to the Lord and ask Him for the faith to believe, He will give it to you. It's His gift, He'll give it to you.
A seeking Savior and a seeking Sinner are never far apart.
I'm not going to ask anybody to come up to the front of the room after I'm done. You can get saved right now right in your seat. All you have to do is just bow your head and say, Lord, I believe God, be merciful to me, the Sinner.
Don't worry about the person next to you. God be merciful to me, the Sinner.
The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
That's what Paul could say. Paul used to persecute Christians. He said he's the chief of sinners. You know what that verse means to me.
The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I really believe that the Lord Jesus would have come to this earth just to save Paul, just to save me. It's that's how much he loves you.
He loves you, He wants you, He wants to have fellowship. You remember when we looked back in Genesis, if we were to go back a few chapters, we would have seen that God walked with man and He talked with Adam and He wanted to have fellowship with him.
But sin broke that.
You know God is so happy with his Son that he wants to fill heaven.
With a family just like his son. But he can't have you there in your sins.
You've got to have your sins washed away.
You can't come to God's house your way, you've got to come to God's house his way.
Let's turn to Luke chapter 16.
Luke chapter 16 and verse 19.
It's a solemn warning if there's someone here.
That just says, well, we've got just a couple more minutes and we'll be done. And they're always talking about that stuff. But the Lord Jesus never comes. That's what Satan wants you to believe.
Luke chapter 16 and verse 19, there was a certain rich man. That's when it says a certain rich man. That means it really happened. It's not a parable which was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared selfishly every day. And there's a certain beggar named Lazarus which was laid at his gate full of sores and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom.
The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in that lifetime receive us thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things. But now is he comforted, and now we're tormented and besides.
This between you, between US and you there's a great goal fixed. So they would pass from hence to you cannot, neither can they pass to us that would come from fence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that would send him to my father's house for our five brethren. And we testify unto them, lest they also come in this place of torment. Abraham said unto him, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear him. And he said, Nay, father Abraham, but if.
Went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though 1 rose from the dead.
Well, the point of the story, there's a rich man and there's a poor man.
That's not the parallel here.
Just because you're rich doesn't mean you go to hell and because you're poor go to heaven. That's not what the story is talking about.
It says, and it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom, and the rich man also died and was buried. One man had faith and the other one didn't have faith. Without faith it's impossible to please God. And you know, you might have a good time on this world, but there's not any good time. That compare time is so short compared to eternity.
00:45:13
And.
And you know that man is in hell right now.
And if you go to the last verse that I just read, this is what it says.
And he said unto them, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither would they be persuaded the one rose from the dead. So if that rich man came here to this pulpit, and told, you, do not leave this world without Christ, you wouldn't believe.
If you don't believe the word of God, it says if they hear not Moses and the prophets, that's the word of God.
You don't believe the word of God. You cannot be saved.
Even if someone came from the dead.
Is that unbelievable? Our hearts, our hearts are so hard.
You know the Lord Jesus walked this world 33 years.
Did everybody believe on him? Everyone did not believe on him.
You think of that, the Lord Jesus walking through this world, God in the flesh.
Walking through this world and men, and when you read the gospels, there's two groups, those that believed and those that believe not. Which group are you tonight? Are you in the group of those that believe or are you in the group of those that believe not tonight? Hell is real. Heaven is real.
God does not want to put anyone in hell. Hell was never created for for men and women and boys and girls. It was created for Satan, for the devil and his angels. And tonight there's no reason for anyone to go to hell. You have to say no to the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's been said the road to hell is blocked with a cross of Christ. You have to say no to God's Christ to get to hell. It's hard to get to hell. You have to not want to believe.
Tonight, I beg you.
Bend the knees of your heart.
And surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Is it nothing to you when you think of the Lord Jesus on that cross?
He gave his life up.
He was a willing victim.
Yes, there's the man's responsibility, Peter says. You killed the Prince of Life.
But the Lord Jesus says I'm the Good Shepherd.
The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. He laid his life down willingly so you might come tonight. The door of grace is just about ready to shut.
The door of Grace the Cross was approximately 2000 years ago.
How do we know that there's a verse in Revelation at the end of Revelation? Revelation 21 Behold, I come quickly.
Read that in closing.
Revelation 22.
Verse 20 He which testifieth these things saith, surely I come quickly, Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus, give thanks our God and Father. We give thanks for such a savior. We give things that the Lord Jesus was that perfect, holy, spotless Lamb of God, that one that stood in the breach between a holy God and the Sinner. We give thanks that many of us can say tonight that we.
Been redeemed with a precious blood of Christ. We pray for anyone in this room that has not accepted him that they would not put their head on their pillow until they've asked him into their heart. We give thanks for such a Savior in Jesus name, Amen.
Jonah
Talk—Dragos Nicoara
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.
Regarding our Father, thank you. Thanks for this opportunity.
Reminder that I love for us.
Continue pray for a clear message.
For the speaker and for a lesson that we can learn by word.
And for the remaining of the evening, I mean, we pray for Jesus again.
I was going to.
Read about Jonah tonight. In fact, there's two of us that I want to mention.
Let's turn the book of Jonah.
When my brother Raul asked me to have a word this morning.
I enjoyed Robert Ballard's statement.
That that the young man have to step up and take up the responsibility in the assembly.
And a young man doesn't doesn't have to be over 30 or over 20.
Of course, there's the work of the sisters also supporting prayer.
But we have a duty to go on. I remember it was like yesterday, and I'm not that old, when I was sitting at the bleachers and I thought, boy, so I'm actually behind here and I hope I'm never going to go behind that. Mike, here I am.
Well, the book of Jonah, I'm not going to read it for the sake of time, but just to bring it out a few things in history, Jonah was around and durable on time, durable on the 2nd. And this is before the Syrian empire got so big and so powerful. And we all know the story of Nineveh. And this is more of a message for those that are saved. But if you're not saved.
You better get saved and.
So what happened is that we see in Second Kings 14 that Jonah appears in the scene. So Jonah is a man of God. And So what happens is that?
God tells her to do something.
The word of the Lord Jonah wine, the word of the working and to Jonah the son of media saying go to nine, that's in Syria 911, which is kind of like almost.
Northeast from where he was at, For the wickedness has come up before me and I thought I wonder if they were more wicked than the society wearing today.
And Jonah said no problem Lord, I'll go and I can get on the 1St train and go up there.
And tell them about thee, says that Jonah rose up.
To flee.
To Tarsus, which is kind of like N straight up north. So you went on, got on the road in the Mediterranean, took up north and you think, man, this is a man of God. God asked him to do something and here he's taken off, you know, running the opposite direction. Remember I started out tonight saying I'm going to tell you a story of true Jonas and I'm one of them.
And you could be one of them too. And which is fine, you can be a journal.
Humanly speaking, we're afraid of responsibility, and that's the bottom line. And you know the Lord and you know each one of you in your hearts. You know a friend in school, you know your neighbor, you know somebody from work. You know that all I got to do is just open my mouth. You don't have to travel all the way to Nineveh.
Something interesting while I was reading this.
He's on the board.
And the people the Mariners in the boat is asking them.
What is an occupation? When is converse now? What is that country?
And what people are now.
In other words, they're saying, who are you?
Jonah And you know, in my life I often ask myself, who am I?
00:05:06
We have a privilege that we, as you grow older and you get into life and you go out with the Lord, you realize.
Very simply, but with the sons of God.
And Jonah is not saying, oh, I'll tell you why. I'm a prophet. I'm a man of God. He keeps his mouth shut.
And just tell them I am a Hebrew.
And I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which made the sea and the dry land, but he doesn't tell him I'm a man of God. I got to deliver a message, but I'm a big chicken and I'm not going.
No, he doesn't say that. In fact, later on in the book we know exactly that. He knows the heart of God. He knows that God is so loving and gracious, but he doesn't agree with God's plan. I don't want those serious to be saved. No way. He wants things his own way. And that's how we are in life. Not too long ago by the young people, young people we had over in United States in Tennessee.
We looked at Neiman.
Where Naman wanted to be healed.
His own way. I want to jump in this film to the Jordan River.
Where is that guy that supposed to come out of the house and put his hands over me? So a lot of times in our lives, we wanna, we want things to go our own way. And if God can come in and kind of hover above us and help us out, fine. But I want this, this and that. And that's probably not how it works. And so we see that he gets thrown in the water. Throw me because otherwise they're gonna die. And he knew it's like, I don't want, I mean, here's this poor guy. He's and I don't want him to die. He's throw me in the water. He.
Zip so I can die. You can imagine the stubbornness that you have or rather die than just and you know, preach the message and that's how we feel. Sometimes it's like I'd rather die get you over my mouth enrichment. This guy might laugh at me if I tell him about the Lord and I said these are getting darker and Romanian issue Communist Romanian if you were to tell me your Christians or just laugh, laugh like crazy.
But it's nice because he is the man of God. He knows the God that he believed God trusted in chapter 2. And Jonah, remember his in the, I think he's in the storm swimming over there. And you know, here comes the fish and swallows him up and he's in the dark. And he prayed unto the Lord his God. So he owned God as his Lord.
And said.
I cry by the reason man affliction unto the Lord.
Do you hear me? Not with the belly, he cried.
And out of the belly of hell, you imagine it was like feeling like it was in hell. I cried. And that hurt is my voice. Now we got to remember who's telling this story. This is Jonah Big Rocky.
He's looking at what happened, at the situation.
But it says I've heard this, my voice.
A lot of times when you go into life, you think like we had rather cost today.
Is like a brick wall there's no way for me to go through.
But the wardrobe is providing.
Chapter 3. The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time.
How many times did God speak with us and we just looked? The others pretended we didn't hear anything.
Look the other way, got busy with something else.
And so the Lord is saying, arise, go to nine of them.
The Gray City was like, let's try this again. I think that's what kind of like, what does this illustrate this again? And the Lord by his mercy picks us up. Let's do it again, let's try it again, let's try it again. Stop being stubborn.
You have a calling.
But this time, Jonah rose and went to the ball.
And we know what happened. He's going through the streets.
He's yelling out to repent.
And then verse down and God saw their works.
00:10:02
That they turned from the evil way and God repented the evil way has said that He would do unto them.
And in chapter 4 it starts by saying.
And John was happy.
He doesn't say that.
Says it displeased Jonah immensely, exceedingly. Can you imagine? I mean, here you have an opportunity and you preach the love of God and the repentance. You tell people repent and they repent and instead of being happy, you're sad.
So we see the stubbornness and he's like, for one reason or another, obviously you've got the Syrian empire, he's a Jew.
It's like I don't want those guys. I want guys. We have to come on them but.
You know it just it just shows.
Sometimes I would say our character.
Is really easy is to just well yeah, Jonas Jonah that's why he's just stubborn guy but eventually you get it. But I have that no.
With the same.
Do this please. He makes you. He was very angry. A man of God should be very angry for so many people that got you might say spare it or say.
I'm sure that probably if God wants to tell Jonah, hey, go there, preach the gospel, and you're going to be so popular. People are going to love you and your obedience and everything, and they're going to read about you thousands of years from now and you'll be just an awesome popular guy. He'll say, sign me up. I'm going.
And so a lot of times with us, it might just seem like.
I don't understand God's plan. How can I do this thing without understanding? Don't send me there till I know exactly all the details. That's not what God wants for us. He wants us to really trust them.
So we know what happens.
With Jonah and and of course we know because he wrote the book of Jonah.
Energy Management.
Jonah, here you were, angry for the for the goer, the plant that was bringing you shade.
And you care more about that plan and you didn't care about the people that were going to be destroyed.
And of course you realize what we've got now that's kind of weird, so.
God is known and should I not spare Nineveh that grace you were there more than 64000 which is like 120,000 people. They cannot be served between the the right hand and the left hand and also much care. So we see the king of Nineveh and everybody just repented which is by the grace of God.
Let's turn to Matthew 1238.
That's worse.
Lord Jesus is talking about John, so we know exactly that it did happen. It wasn't a fairy tale. It wasn't a story. When the Lord Jesus speaks, he speaks. He is the truth. He speaks the truth.
Matthew 1238 Then certain of the scribes and the Pharisees answered, saying, Master.
We will see a sign. Give us a sign. How do we know your God?
Or the Messiah and the answer said. I'm sure though.
00:15:01
And even adulterers generation seekers after the sign and there shall no sign be given which way?
Interesting.
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's barely soul, shall the Son of Man be 3 days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
The men of men shall rise in judgment of this generation, shall condemn it, because they repented it at the preaching of Jonah. Behold, a greater than Jonah is here.
I'm sure the people of Nineveh.
We're happy.
And probably some of them wanted to thank Jordan for coming and doing God's.
Work, they have work and see if it arrives, but the Lord Jesus is saying there's a greater than Jonah here. So we need to be guide and rose again and we're all here because of the Lord Jesus.
You know.
Perhaps just.
All of you have heard how I got saved because they started out saying this true Jonas and I was one of them. Sometimes I can fall in that character character very fast.
But I remember I was 12 years, 11 years old, 12 years when we took out five economies.
He was a brother that kept, you know, Speaking of revelation. And I was afraid because I knew it was real and it was kind of judgment was kind of, you know, make sure.
And the time came. I was 12, went over to Daniel River.
Took over, took after Italy, went on the first plane. Pan amps flew over the Atlantic Ocean. Never thought about the deal I made, the promise I made. You got totally forgotten. Kind of like Jonah. Don't care. I'm going in the opposite direction.
And.
Time passed. It was about a year later.
I was in the Griffin Assembly. We just moved from California a year later.
In Washington state.
And guess what? The reading meeting was on in the Kirkland Assembly at the time.
Revelation, I was like, my goodness, I did not get away from that. Judgment is coming and I remember what am I doing? God held his part.
And God, by his grace, Jerry and I got saved.
And I was almost 13 at the time.
You know, I, I kind of feel like I kind of ran away. You know, of course Jonah was a man of God. I'm not saying that, you know, I was just a lost Sinner. If you're, if there's a lost Sinner and you're a lost Sinner tonight, don't wait. You'll never. What if the rapture happened before we landed in the United States?
I live in hidden arts The journey.
And if you are saying.
There's no one the opposite direction.
And don't let's not make God to play my own plans.
You know, sometimes we think I'm going to somehow see if God can be part of my plans. No, God wants us to be part of his plans. And he works in our lives in different circumstances that we may not understand, but ultimately.
His plans are still for our best interest for our plans.
And I was thinking.
When Jonah was writing the story about himself.
That's why we're thinking, boy, what was I thinking? Why would that suffer? Why the big whale or whatever the fish, why do they have to suffer so much because I was so stubborn?
Instead of just doing God's will.
Gospel is very simple.
And so I just.
Pray and urge, maybe, whether you're a girl or a boy or.
00:20:03
We have a responsibility. God's judgment is coming.
And we got to step up and we, you know, the Lord doesn't say well, once you get your PhD.
Once you finish this school, once you get married, then you can do this work for me. Once you reach a certain age, no.
You know, God knew exactly was what Jonah was capable of. He knew he could make it too. He wasn't in a wheelchair. He knew he could make it a minute, but just fine.
And so we have to.
Just listen to God.
And let's step up.
You recognize our responsibility. We have a response. We have been given a talent. We know what we know. We know the truth. Let's not hide it. Time is short. Let's pray.
God, my Father, we give thanks for this thousands of years about Jonah, and we recognize that, each one of us.
Can see ourselves as a Jonah running from our responsibility.
Help each one of the young people and we may be a light fortress on the Hill. A testimony for the US world that is heading for judgment.
So we pray tonight again, if there's somebody that is.
Nasir.
The demeanor boroughs will work a deal with thee that they may see their condition and come to thee and recognize that there's a living Savior that is begging and knocking on each of our.
And for those that are believers, we pray that you will help us, Lord, to recognize our responsibility.
That we are to tell of that great love of mankind and what that has done and is doing in our lives.
In our in our precious name we pray, Lord Jesus, Amen.
You Are a Vessel Jesus Wants to Fill With His Love
Children—Jonathan Blake
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Good morning, children.
Excuse me, Great to see you all up here in the front row. But I love it if there's children to come up to the front.
And there's still seats, there's still books, and I'm not real comfortable up here. So it's fine if you join me and not be comfortable either. All right? We are using the normal Sunday school books. And as it was mentioned last night.
Phone for the adults. You can look up the songs on your phone, but I think there's enough books for the children and if anyone wants a book for their back, raise your hand and we can get it to you.
All right, somebody have a song to start with this morning? Yeah. What number?
59, Thank you #59.
Let's talk about dreams.
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, and everything change.
The history of the mainstream glory and God's Word. Anderson taking such, my Lord, Wonderful, wonderful.
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful Jesus.
I'm so busy smiling. God is feeling.
Everything give me problems and shame. Wonderful is my dreamer. Christmas Day. It's all he is Lord.
Reached out, we shall say wonderful.
All these names, these titles of the Lord Jesus.
Says bow down to him.
Praise and adore Him.
Albany, That's what we want to emphasize this morning. That's the most important thing, that you bow the knee.
Receive him as your savior. Somebody have another song.
00:05:01
What number do you got?
#82 Thank you. What was the other number here? I saw another hand, was it you?
Great. We'll see #82 and then number 86.
Story.
Tell me the story.
Slowly and lightning.
I wonder for the night sun God's ground will be always in the.
With a story.
Of Lord thy Lord again so soon.
The night of all morning, as I saw it, I could do.
Blah blah blah and.
Tell me the same old story.
When you are close to me.
And this world.
Empty Lords of saving me.
I'm sorry. I see. I see.
No.
Tell me.
Your story.
To help me with so sorry.
I'll be almost.
The old, old story, but it's the same story for 2000 years of Jesus and his love, isn't it? You know, if you're here for the duration of the conference, you'll hear the gospel three times.
00:10:04
There's also a lot of the rubber wise that build his house on the rock and the rain came over there. Now they stand down, making the fire stand up. Rain came down in, the floods came up, the rain came down and the fudge came up and the house on.
Down stand down. Never the bus stand up. The rain came down and the bus came up the rain stayed down and the bus came. And the house on the Santa.
If you now like Christmas around, so if you build on Christ, you miss the rock. So if you build upon Christ, who is the rock, you'll be saved when the judgment comes.
You will be saved when the judgment comes, will be saved when the judgment comes. You will be saved by the judgment from if you build on Christ the Rock.
Children here, my wonderful grace, my soul mate.
Good morning.
I.
They both have 104. Why don't we sing the first and last verse of 104 and then we'll sing 88?
As I say, here is about you.
Can strengthen you.
Swelling to the gym in every new fruit.
To him that are coming.
On here at the ground.
00:15:03
All right. And number 88?
There once was a while ago.
He he had to be tied to my dream and to yourself singing about him. He said no man, bring him to me.
And when they have gone into Jesus.
I pray we are Saturday God.
When Jesus was riding upon him.
It went just the way that he showed.
A right submissive we can't be made so I love the Son of God.
Thank you. I think what I want to talk about. Thank you for giving out the song, Ezra.
What I want to talk about is these last lines of the song.
And Jesus is able to make you whatever He wants you to be. He loves you and longs to forgive you and make you both happy and free. Before we get to that though, I'd like to hear some children say their verse. So you may have learned a verse from the Sunday school paper or any other verse would be fine. So any volunteers to say the verse?
I knew whoever was not foundering in the Book of Life was cast into like a fire. Revelation, 2015.
Whosoever, whosoever has.
Whosoever was not found in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire. Revelation.
2015 very good. Thank you. All righty.
Whosoever was not found written in the book of Life, life was cast into a lake of fire. Revelation, 2015. Thank you.
He said was not found in the Book of Life, was cast into the Lake fire. Revelation 2015.
He's Whoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire. Revelation, 2015. Whosoever is not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire. Relation, 2015.
Thank you. Do you want to say it?
So ever, when not written in the Book of Life, shall be cast in the Lake of Fire.
Revelation 2015. Very good.
His whoever was not founded in the Book of Life was cast into a lake of fire. Revelation, 2015. Thank you.
His silver was not found. Written in the Book of Life. Was cast into the Lake of Fire. Revelation, 2015.
Whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire. Revelation, 2015.
However, was not unwritten in the Bible.
I was casted into like a fun relation 2015.
Whoever was not found written in the Book of Life was kept into the Lake of Fire. Revelation, 2015.
Whosoever was not found written in the book is was cast into the Lake of Fire.
Revelation, 2015.
Life into the Lake of Fire.
00:20:08
Thank you.
Whoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire. Revelation 2015. Thank you.
Whosoever was.
Not found.
Written in the Book of Life.
Was cast down.
And into the lake of our.
Revelation, 2015.
Whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire. Revelation, 2015.
Do you have a verse, Gracie?
Whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire. Revelation, 2015.
So every was thought out in the book of life shall be cast into the lake of fire.
Revelation, Revelation.
Thank you.
Do we have some more over here?
Whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire. Thank you.
Anybody else?
Whosoever.
Was not found written in the Book of Life.
Was cast into the Lake of Fire. Revelation 2015.
Whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire. Revelation, 2015.
Yes, Sir, but we're not in the Book of Life was cast so like a fire.
Revelation. Revelation, 2015.
Whosoever was not written in the Book of Life shall be cast into the Lake of fire. Revelation 2015. Very good. Anybody else?
Whosoever wasn't.
Written. Written.
In the book of life.
Shall be cast into the lake of fire.
Relations.
20/15/2015.
Thank you. Got a couple more.
Whosoever was not written in the Book of Life, shall we cast into the lake of fire? Revelation 2016. Thank you.
Whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was passed into the Lake of Fire. Revelation, 2015.
Thank you.
Somebody.
That's all right.
Now you all said the verse that was in the Sunday school paper, and that's OK.
I was thinking maybe there would be a variety of verses, but you know this verse.
Might be the most solemnizing verse, most serious verse in the Bible.
To consider what it's saying. A fixed destination for those that are not found. Written in the book of life.
And their names are not found, and they are cast not by their choice. They have no choice in the matter. They've lived their lives for themselves. And the end is being cast into the lake of fire. That's very solemn.
I brought some objects with me.
Wanted to pull out.
I'm sorry, I'm going to have to have my back turned to somebody, but anyway, I'm gonna put these out.
00:25:23
You know each one of us.
Is made-up of.
Three things. I think we had that in the gospel last night, Body.
Soul and spirit.
Can anyone see what these things have in common that I'm putting here on the table?
What do you see?
What's that Cups? Anything else you see? How about this? This is included.
Yeah, what do you see?
They're all made out of ceramic or glass. Yeah, other than the bucket. That's right. Let's read a verse.
In Genesis chapter 2.
Genesis chapter 2.
Verse 7 The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.
Other than the bucket, there these each.
I believe are made out of the ground and they're formed and one thing that they have the ability to is to hold something. They have capacity.
And that's what I was thinking of is you can call them a vessel.
And that's what I was thinking of. Vessels, this is tiny.
It won't hold much.
But we are vessels, We are formed out of things of this ground. Adam was formed out of the ground, and then God put into him a soul and a spirit breathed into him the breath of life. In each of us have that natural life that has been given to us.
You know, I met a little boy for the first time yesterday. Henry. I think he's less than three months old. He's like this little vessel.
There might be a younger one here in the audience, but they're cute. This is cute.
They're a little vessel, they have capacity. Not much can be filled. Come to the other end.
This has lots of capacity. It's not cute anymore.
It's useful, has a The lid is starting to peel, the handle still in place, but it's loose. If I leave it out in the sun, it'll.
Grow faded, it'll want to crack. But right now it's useful. Well, in the normal course of life, we're born as a baby, right? And we grow up.
And we grow.
Very quickly, quicker than our parents want us to grow, and pretty soon we go to school and we learn.
We come, we get bigger physically, and then our minds continue to learn and we gain what's called capacity, able to retain things. We have a memory that takes things in and stores them. So we keep on growing as we go through school, and then pretty soon we reach an age where it's time to get a job.
Maybe 18, maybe later.
And we enter the workforce and no longer are we learning.
In a school setting, but we're learning by experience.
And that experience grows.
Until the end, we learn by experience.
So you want to have a favorite age?
That they would like to be.
When I was six or seven, I remember thinking 4 years old was pretty fun.
00:30:00
Could I be four years old still?
Nope, I can't do that. I can't go back.
I think if I went around and asked you what age you'd like to be, you'd say the next age older than what you are, right?
No, you're at least my children. I know you joke. Well, I like to keep you foreign for another year and they say no, I want to be five. Well, we always seem to want to get older until we reach a certain age, then we'd like to stop.
Let's read. I'm thinking of this in Psalms chapter 90.
Psalms chapter 90 in the middle of verse 9 says we spend our years as a tale that is told.
The days of our years are three score years and 10:00, and if by reason of strength they be 4 score years, yet as their strength, labor and sorrow for it as soon cut off and we fly away.
That's what the natural life views itself as. You know, those that are 75 and 80, that's three score and five.
That's let's see here.
Yeah, 3 score years and 1070 year olds old or four score 80. You know men in this world, they talk about leaving a legacy. All they can leave behind. They hope they can leave behind a memory.
Because the years fly by and before they know it, their time is up.
But it tells us in verse.
12 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply hearts unto wisdom. How important it is to take account of the days that we're given, and not just let them go by so quickly.
To do.
What's right in the sight of the Lord and not our own will?
Let's see here. I have two vessels here. All of these are unique. Let me say that first. All of them are unique, but I have two that look similar. Anybody have a guess why they might be different?
I'm going to show you.
Is there a difference?
There's a difference on what each one contains.
You know these two vessels look the same, but what's in them is completely different.
You know, it says man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart.
One has dirt. I would have put filthy rags in them.
But I think my wife would like to use them again.
And I can clean the dirt out.
The other one has what looks like treasure.
They look alike from the outside. Again, man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.
Inside they're completely different.
So you know the 1St.
We read about Adam.
Being formed of the dust of the ground. And he was part of that creation. That was good, very good in fact. And in Jeremiah 18 we read about the Potter's wheel. But the Potter, the the vessel that was being formed was marred. It was marred by sin. And we had it last night. We were all born into this world as sinners.
So death pass upon all men, for that all have sinned. That's like this vessel with dirt in it.
There's sin on us. The sentence of death is on us.
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This other vessel, you know, I was thinking though, of a story.
The first time that the vessel Word is used in the word of God, the children of Jacob, the sons of Jacob. In chapter 43 of Genesis, it says the famine was sore in the land.
They were there in the land of Israel, and the famine was sore. What happens when there's no when there's a famine, what is there a lack of?
Food. Yes. Joseph was down in Egypt. You remember the story? What did he have?
He had storehouses of food, you might say gyms this size full of food. You know what Jacob told his sons? He said.
Middle of verse 11, take of the best fruits in the land, in your vessels and carry down the man. That's the man. Is Joseph a little present? He said take the best fruit that we have and carry it down to Joseph. What good was that?
What good is what we can bring to God? By our natural abilities, by our good works, what can we bring to God?
Nothing. God wants to pour us out. Grace beyond measure. Much like Joseph, He wanted their hearts. He didn't want their rotten food, their fruit. That was no good after traveling through the desert that came from a famine. He didn't have any use for that.
He wanted their hearts. He wanted to bless them.
Well, we can't bring anything to God but our sins, isn't it? Isn't that true? We can't bring anything to God but our sins? Well.
Let's move on to the vessel with treasure.
These are gold coins. They're just gold colored chocolate pieces, but they picture to me picture of treasure. To me, treasure in the vessel speaks of eternal life. You know, it says who can quote John 316 for me? Someone help me out with that, OK?
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Very good. Thank you.
God provided the best that he had.
Sent his Son into the world that we might have eternal life so.
Speaks about he that takes the water that the Lord Jesus offered shall have a spring, the water of life springing up into everlasting life. He'll have eternal life. If any man be in Christ, He is a new creation. That's what He wants to give us. That's what He wants to put in our vessels.
How important it is to make sure we have treasure in our vessels.
I'm running a little short on time, but I'm going to tell you a little story.
And it's not to scare you, but it's to make you think, you know, A few months ago at our house.
Some of us were watching events outside our window.
And a white truck came down the road. A white truck came and stopped in front of our house and backed into our driveway.
And the man got out. He opens, there's a canopy on the back, opens a canopy and it's lit in the back of the truck because it was the middle of the night.
That man.
I kind of expected him to come.
On the side of the truck was his official position, Grant County Coroner. Do you know what a coroner does?
A corner picks up.
The dead bodies.
After an accident after an unexpected death picks up the vessel.
You know.
It was a sad night. Our neighbor had tragically died.
In a fire in his house. Fire. You know what I didn't tell you? The street was lined with emergency vehicles and there was an ambulance there.
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Do they put dead people in an ambulance?
They put live people in an ambulance, ones that still have life in their vessel. You know, if you're here sitting in the front row or in any row in this building.
And you still have life, the natural life, but it's all you have. You don't have the treasure in your vessel. You're in need of an ambulance, in need of being put in an ambulance because you're in a serious condition.
And so we would plead with you to make to come to the Lord Jesus and accept Him as your Savior.
He died for you. He gave his only life. He gave his life for you.
You know Mr. Dell as we knew him, they worked on him for some time.
To try and see if there was a response and there wasn't and so.
They had to call for the coroner, you know. I'm thankful to say though.
That as his body went, his empty vessel went.
I was confident that it was the happiest day he had experienced because his soul and spirit were present with the Lord, absent from the body, present with the Lord.
To be with Christ, which is far better. What a difference to be cast into the lake of fire in a coming day.
Those that are saved though, are going to be with Christ, and the moment they die, if the Lord hasn't come, it'll be the happiest day of their life.
Well, let's move on with our example here. So this is a treasure that's concealed. You can't see it.
We had a verse in our chapter, Matthew 5. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good work.
And glorify your Father, which is in heaven. He wants our light to shine out, doesn't He? He doesn't want to be hid.
Can anyone not see what's in here? It's more treasure you know we had.
The need to be broken vessels. I wasn't going to break a vessel here to let the treasure shine out, but here's a transparent vessel, one that can be seen through.
That's what we want to be.
Just to let our light shine. Treasure.
In our vessel, you know, men, it was said yesterday that pride.
Is as easy as breathing, I'm afraid. When our vessel grows, so does our pride. Grows right alongside of it, and it hinders.
That treasure that's within us, you know, in the workplace, you realize that everyone wants to be identified or defined by something, and usually it's their hobby.
Fishing, sports, politics. I have a I had a boss in the past that there were three things he liked to talk about. His hunting dogs, his fishing boat in Cougar football. Well, that's what defined him.
You know what defines us?
I hope it's a treasure.
That defines you.
That you.
Are not caught up with yourself, but that the treasure is free to shine out. All right, I had one more thing and I need 3 volunteers.
OK, looks like.
We'll go here in purple. We got three girls. I'm going to feel bad about this, but come on up.
What I want you to do?
I'm going to give you each a bag of modeling clay. Come on up here.
Go ahead. OK, I'm not much of an artist, so I'm not going to make you do much with the modeling clay, but I want you to take it. Roll out. Don't touch it yet. Roll out, you might say, a worm and form a circle. All right, so on your mark.
It's that go.
00:45:05
That's good enough. OK, hold it up to see show how well you've done.
Can you hold it up high? Shoulder around? All right, so one person was able to form a worm. The other two just have balls like how I gave them to them. What's the difference? Can I have yours? You can put it down and return to your seat. Well, they didn't know it. That's why I didn't let them touch it. This one was sealed up in good condition. It could be formed.
This one I put in the freezer overnight. It's cold, you can't do it'll warm up.
This one I left out all week. This is air dry clay. It can't be formed. Well, that was. I apologize for those that got tricked, but you know.
Can we become cold in our hearts? Cold like a stone? Maybe from not reading our Bibles, not praying, we start thinking that our God is a hard taskmaster, that he requires too much our consciences.
Are we have a bad conscience? That can happen, can't it? Well, this will warm up and be usable again. Thankfully this air dry reminds me you know it's we're told to keep.
A to keep our vessels sealed, this one was left out to exposure.
It's no good, but you know, we can be left out in the world to absorb all the things in the world and our vessels become hardened. There's a verse that says today, if you will hear his voice, harden, not your heart. We need to be soft.
In the Potter's hand, be moldable, be formed into what he wants for us because he wants.
Our spiritual capacity, not just our physical capacity. He wants to grow our spiritual capacity.
And make it usable in his hands. You know, there's two things I was thinking of the steel in this room. There's two things that form steel, maybe more, but heat and pressure. Do we like pressure? Do we like the furnace in our lives? No, it's not enjoyable.
But.
We need to be moldable, easy to be impressed with Christ's image.
All right, well, I used up my time, let me tell you. Well, I'll I'll pray and then I'll say a little bit more.
Our gracious God and loving Father, thank Thee for these children. We know their souls are precious, and we pray that each one would come to Thee by faith and accept Thee as their Savior. Thank Thee for all Thou hast done for us and pray that we would have tender hearts, consciences that can be reached by Thy word.
And by thy Spirit. So we just pray for help in this.
Thy name we pray, Lord Jesus, Amen.
The Lord's Possessions
Address—Don Rule
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
We're going to begin our hour the.
By singing together.
#68.
But I want to make a comment before we start singing then somebody.
We'll need to start it.
It's in.
For our souls to recognize that we're not singing a song here.
We are speaking in musical form to the Lord Jesus.
Thy name we bless Lord Jesus and throughout the whole hymn, and it's an important thing when we are singing out of this particular songbook that when we come to something, we are addressing the Lord Jesus, that we are in our thoughts and in our hearts addressing the Lord Jesus, speaking to him.
So I trust.
That as we sing it, each one of us will individually be singing to or speaking to in musical form to the Lord Jesus. With that #68.
Children all my God.
Our sins were all the way.
God.
Has sinned through it was for us.
Outside Christmas and the Star, please see it Glory.
Right hand in hand.
00:05:27
Continue to speak to the Lord.
Lord Jesus.
We desire that. What is in thy heart this afternoon?
What thou hast want us to receive from thyself.
We will.
That thou, Lord Jesus.
Might find the satisfaction that thy heart desires.
In relationship to each one of us.
We do desire our Father, that the Lord Jesus.
Might be glorified this afternoon in the heart of each one of us. And so we look to thee, our Father.
And for the namesake of thy beloved Son, Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Let's turn together.
To the 14th chapter of John. John 14.
Life's all about, or we all know about anyways.
Something we call possessions.
And very generally, when we talk about possessions, we often stop and say my quite properly, my, this, my, that or my, the other is something that belongs to us.
And I'm going to stop for 15 or 20 seconds and I request you to do a little prep work. I want you in the next 15 or 20 seconds to stop and think in your mind about some of the things that you call your own, that you can put the word my, this, my, that, or the other two.
So why don't you do that for the next 15 seconds or so?
That's also only as little contrast to you.
Because now we're going to talk about what the Lord Jesus calls his own.
Started to think about it a little bit ago and.
It didn't take about a minute or two to come up with a nice list.
Of what the Lord Jesus refers to as His.
I don't know how many of his things are on your list similar.
That you have, that he has, you'll find out. This is by number means an exhaustive list, just a suggestive list.
My love.
My peace, my joy, my father.
My friends.
My life, my death.
My brethren, my children.
My this is one that.
We don't get very well. A lot of the times there's only one person that can really say it's his.
Even though we sometimes talk in a different way, there's only one person that's ever lived that can properly say, in the scriptural sense of the word, my Church.
OK.
We're going to probably limit ourselves pretty much to John 14.
But the desire I trust at the heart of the Lord Jesus.
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To give you a sense of what the hope is that the end of the hour is that in some small way.
Or maybe a little larger way?
Your heart.
Will be attached more.
To the heart of the Lord Jesus.
For his sake first.
And then for yours that your heart.
Will become more attached to the heart of Lord Jesus as you may enter into.
What's important and precious to him?
Because when you really love somebody.
You can turn away from focus on yourself.
And enjoy what's important to that person.
And we'll see that expressed over and over again in the heart of the Lord Jesus, even in the one chapter, John 14 that we'll look at.
John 14.
Verse one. Let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God.
Believe also in me.
In here's the first one.
In my father's house.
Are many mansions. If it were not so, I should have told you I go to prepare a place for you.
My father's house.
Most, if not everybody in the room lives somewhere.
Majority probably live in a house.
I'm gonna make a distinction. Your house is where you live. Your home.
Is where your heart is, and your house and your home can be together. But what truly makes a home a home isn't the physical building at all.
It's the people.
Dwell there.
And what makes a home a home concerns people.
And the Lord Jesus.
Had spent eternity with his Father in his father's house.
And it was his home.
He never really had on earth something that took its place.
Yes, he had a place. He was raised, and in this limited sense, perhaps.
Where he was raised with his mother.
With the father.
With brothers and so on, siblings in the family, he experienced something of what we experience, but not in the same fullness, at least of what he could speak of as my father's house. That was something that he could look at as he doesn't say my house.
But rather, he was in his father's house.
Did he appreciate it?
Well, let's put it this way.
What is the most frequent statement of the Lord Jesus in the whole of John's Gospel?
With respect to anything or everything.
What did he say more times than any other?
About what did he refer to?
Between I didn't count them carefully, doesn't matter.
But between 35 and 40 times in John's gospel, he says.
My father.
Sent me.
My father sent me.
He had lived. He had, from an eternity in his father's house, his home, and what made it his home was his relationship with his father.
A perfect.
00:15:00
Shared love and fellowship and communion and interest and joy to the point where he could say I and my father are one.
Did he know his father's heart?
Perfectly.
Perfectly.
So what does he say here to his disciples? And this afternoon you're his disciples.
He says.
I go.
To prepare a place for you.
I know my father's heart.
And it's in my heart that you come and live with my father and I, and that our home become your home.
And so I go to prepare a place for you.
I know it's my father's desire. He loves you as I love you.
And please don't take what's being said as some if you want to get what I believe God wants you to get in this hour, listen to these words not as coming from my heart, but from His heart.
Listen to what his heart says to you this afternoon.
I want you.
With me in my father's house.
So that you can come to enjoy what I have enjoyed.
Because I love you.
And so I go to prepare a place for you.
There's.
Several aspects to that thought I prepare a place for you. The first is.
When you were born, were you fit for the Father's house? No, you were born in sin.
You were shaping an iniquity. You were not fit.
Have a place in the Father's house.
You didn't know the father is your father.
Lord Jesus went to the cross.
To make you fit.
For the father's house and he paid the price.
To make you clean.
To make you fit.
Because it was in the Father's heart.
The father sent the son.
To be the savior of the world.
To be your savior.
In a personal way.
The Father sent the Son to be your Savior.
And so in that way, that was part of the preparation.
Another aspect to the preparation was he was going to the Father's house.
In resurrection, in his own as a man, he was going to enter the Father's house.
In resurrection life.
And that's eternal life.
That's life over the power of death.
To go to the Father's house was to go where sin could not come, where death could never enter.
And so I go.
To repair a place for you.
He doesn't say it's my house.
But his union with his father was such.
That he could.
With perfect confidence.
Know what the Father's heart was to have you.
Share in his home.
Verse 7.
If ye had known me.
You should have known my my father.
00:20:02
Henceforth ye know him.
And have seen him.
You ever love somebody?
In a way that you wanted others to know that person.
Sometimes you have to stop and think about a thought like that.
But sometimes there is someone of a character.
That we wish others to know them.
And enjoy them as we have come to know them and enjoy them.
Sometimes a little child.
Will be playing with the neighborhood child or somebody else they know and they want to bring them home.
To the home.
Where there's love and joy and those things that are precious to them as their little hearts take things in and and they want to bring someone else to be there.
The love that the Lord Jesus has for you this afternoon is.
He wants you.
To know his father as he knows him.
That's his desire.
His perfect, complete, eternal satisfaction and joy.
Is founded in his relationship with his father and he wants you to enter into it as well.
He wants to bring you into the same joy of fellowship and oneness that he enjoys with his father.
And so he emphasizes.
If you had known me, you should have known my father. Why could he say that? Because.
If they came to know him.
They would know his father, who was in this way perfectly like him.
The beginning of John, He comes forth from the Father.
And he can say he that has seen me have seen the father, because he was a perfect expression.
Of the Father.
Sometimes it's an imperfect illustration, but sometimes you'll see a little kid.
If you know the family wealth and you look at the child and you'll say he's just like his dad.
Or he's she's.
Just like her dad or she's just like her mom.
Because the child is showing characteristics that are seen in the parent.
The Lord Jesus was that perfect expression.
Of his father.
What's God's heart for you?
What's the Father's heart for you?
He wants you.
To be just like his son.
That's God's desire for you.
If I can speak for God, God could say I want you to be just like my son.
And to use a comment.
Of our brother in the previous meeting, he has the power.
To bring it about.
He has the power and the wisdom.
To make it happen.
Verse 13.
And whatsoever you shall ask in my name.
That I will do.
That the Father may be glorified.
In the sun.
My name.
My name.
Everyone in this room can claim that you can say my name. What's that mean?
00:25:05
What's the significance? Is it just a word?
No students a lot more than just a word.
It's an identity.
When people hear your name, if they know you or know about you, it immediately brings certain or can, if they desire it, bring certain thoughts about who you are.
What you are?
In days gone by particularly, that's not so much that we see it in present day in our country anyways, this country.
I don't know if it's good to use the word our country, but in the sense of the word.
There was a days gone by when if someone came to a place.
And they?
Were from the government.
Representing the king, they might say to the people, open up in the in the name of the king.
They were saying that name, that King's name, represented authority.
And a name can represent authority. It does.
Represent that.
Why do you pray? Why do I pray very often?
It can be a habit.
That loses its meaning.
At the end of a prayer, when we say, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Is there a sense in which that name is being used?
If we are addressing God.
And we end a prayer within the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What are we saying to God?
We are bringing if it's a matter of requests or asking.
We're not asking in our own authority or name or what we are. We are coming.
To God.
In the name.
Of His Son or Jesus Christ.
Does God respond to that?
Does he want to do what's asked?
If it's in his sons name.
He says here.
Verse 14 again.
If ye shall ask anything in my name.
I will do it.
There's lots more that could be said. Why we certain things.
We get the answer No, that's not my point. Our purpose and what's before us at the moment.
It's rather.
The father and the son together.
Desire for us that which is for our blessing and our good.
And it is special to the Father's heart when someone comes to Him in his.
Son's name.
We know what it's like we who have had children or have children.
To have one of our children express a desire.
For someone else.
We want if we can, if we think it's good for them.
In our adult wisdom.
It's a delight. It's a joy to satisfy their heart.
By positive response.
To that which is asked.
Verse 15.
If you love me.
Keep my commandments.
00:30:05
I'll go out on a limb in the 15 seconds you had.
I suspect there wasn't a single one that.
As your possession said my commandments.
I doubt that there was. Correct me if I'm wrong afterwards.
My commandments.
That's one of these things that he could call his own.
My commandments.
I had a father. I had a mother.
And my father and my mother both had some of what could be called.
They could say my commandments.
And they?
Sometimes insisted on them too.
And sometimes there were consequences.
When?
Their son Dawn or one of their other children.
Decided that they didn't want the commandment.
There's consequences.
But why are their commandments?
Because the one who has the power to say my commandments and the right to say my commandments has commandments that are for the good and blessing and benefit.
Of those to whom they give the commandment.
A commandment has the character of do it.
Whether or not you know why.
Or why not?
My father and our household sometimes to teach us that lesson.
When we.
Were boys.
Would give us a commandment and we're our response.
At least for a little while was we learned it didn't do any good to ask it anymore.
Our response? Sometimes our question was why?
Why?
And our father's response was because I said so.
Because I said so.
He was saying.
He was teaching us.
To submit.
And obey without the question of knowing why if he said something.
He was teaching us God, our Father's way.
And many things.
And I'm thankful for it.
Later on, if we have the time, we'll see where the Lord talks about my words.
And the difference between my commandments and my words.
Verse 16.
I will pray the Father.
And he shall give you.
Another comforter.
That he may abide with you forever.
Lord Jesus as a man, even though he was the Son of God at the same time.
Kept his place properly, perfectly as a man.
And so he wants something for you and I.
But he isn't going to do it on his own will.
He's going to do it by asking his father to do it.
I pray to the Father that He shall give you.
Another comforter that is the Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, the.
To come and abide in you.
How did he answer that prayer? How is that prayer answered?
In me this afternoon is the Holy Spirit.
In you this afternoon is the Holy Spirit. I'm speaking to you as a child of God.
00:35:03
Here's a person that prayed as a man.
Fully, perfectly, in fellowship with his father and his father's will, in such a way that there was no question in his heart.
Of what his father would do.
Why did he want that?
Multiple reasons.
But the Spirit in you.
Takes the word of God.
And makes it good.
In your soul.
It gives.
To you on understanding.
Of what God says and who God is.
I appreciate a Carmen that's connected with this.
I think it's Mr. Darby said it.
He said in spiritual things.
We learn the thing first and then the meaning of the words.
Becomes evident.
That may take a little thinking about, but in spiritual things.
We learn the thing first.
And then the meaning of the words becomes evident.
A child.
Gets to know father and mother.
And the relationship they have with father and mother.
Probably long before they know what the word father means or the word mother means in a dictionary.
They learn the thing and then later on the meaning of the words become evident to them.
The Spirit of God works in you and works in me to learn the truth, the reality of a thing, very often before we could put words to explain it or define it.
In a dictionary sense of the word.
Verse 19.
Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more.
But you see me?
Because I live.
Ye shall live also.
The Lord Jesus says, because I live.
He shall live also.
Why is that?
Because in resurrection.
Imparted to you was abundant life.
His life in resurrection, that is. In resurrection, it's past death. It's past the possibility of death. It's eternal now in its character.
He lives, he passed through death, he rose from the dead, and he rose in the power.
Of the results of the work at the cross.
No more.
Ever to have anything in his own person to do with dying or death.
And.
It's called my life.
But to you, he imparts that life. And I want to bring out a point that to me is wonderful. And it's true of a number of things that he calls my.
This morning.
Terrible at names, but I guess it's Jonathan.
Started the morning with some a bowl of.
Treasures.
He ended the morning without any of those treasures. You didn't have them anymore.
He had given them, but in the very process of giving them, they were no longer his.
They were, some children could say, look at my gold.
Dollar or whatever was proper. Look at my molds.
00:40:02
It's mine.
If Jonathan had gone to try to retrieve it, if the child was a certain age, it would have said that's mine.
It's not Jonathan's anymore. It's mine.
That's true of physical things in their character. If you sell a car, you could, before you sell it, say it's my car. But after you sold it, it's not your car anymore, It belongs to somebody else.
But the wonderful thing in many of the things that belong to the Lord Jesus is He can share them with you and with me.
Without giving them up himself.
So Christ, as Colossians says, who is our life?
I have eternal life, the life of Christ.
In resurrection in abundance.
And I can still say it's my life.
But it's his life.
It's united together.
And when it comes to the father and the son, there are many things that.
You'll find that when they're referred to the Lord at times will say.
I'll give a wonderful example.
I say.
I'm a child of God.
Lord Jesus.
Well, it can say that's my my father gave that to me. It's my child.
They share together in one.
And so I'm a child of God.
By the Father.
I'm a child of God by the sun.
Verse 21.
Yet hath my commandments, and keepeth them.
Getting back to commandments, it is that loveth me, and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.
Perhaps the overwhelming point of this.
A number of chapters together, of which 14 is in the middle of them.
Is.
The Sun.
Came sent by the Father.
To bring you and I into a common relationship with them.
To share with them.
What they love, what they enjoy, what they purpose.
What satisfies?
Lord wants you.
To be perfectly satisfied as he is.
Are the same things.
Not only satisfy him, but that he and the Father enjoy.
Together in perfect unity.
And so.
He goes on in verse 23 to say, If any man love me, he will keep my words.
And my father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him.
Any man loved me, you will keep my words.
As I grew older.
In the household in which I was raised.
I didn't always need my father's commandments.
Because eventually I understood my father.
And his thoughts and his heart.
In a way that sometimes I could say no, I don't want to do that, My father wouldn't be pleased with that.
His words expressed his thoughts without a commandment in different matters that came through the conversation and the fellowship of the household, and there were times when it wasn't necessary.
00:45:10
For my father to even say anything, or my mother, and often a longer time my mother than my father. We got to know what mother loved, what she didn't like, what made her happy, what made her sad, what made her unhappy and so on. And so the Lord Jesus is bringing us here.
Into a closer, more intimate.
Relationship that if he says something.
We start to take in what his heart means by that, so that we don't even need a commandment that may involve not even understanding or knowing.
Lord Jesus.
Could say as he's the only one that could perfectly say it.
But he always did the things that pleased his father.
Because he entered perfectly into his father's heart and thoughts and shared them.
And so he knew what he was doing was that which pleased his father.
I look forward.
When the Lord can say that of me, and he will.
Well, I'm in glory.
But I would desire, and you would too. You share with me the same desire that we enter more and more and grow.
In being able to hear his words.
And comprehend his heart and what pleases him and what doesn't.
Verse 24.
He that loveth me not keepeth my sayings, and the words which you hear is not mine, but the fathers which sent me.
As a man, the Lord Jesus always was giving expression to what was of His Father rather than Himself.
Is that not a good pattern?
Do you not desire to learn?
That what you desire is an expression of his desires.
That was seen in the Lord Jesus.
He lived in a way that was an expression of what was the will of his father.
And perfectly, that will.
I delight, he could say, to do thy will, Oh my God.
May the Lord help us to grow that that is more and more true statement of ourselves. I delight to do thy will, Oh my God.
Verse 23.
If any man loved me, he will keep my words.
And.
We've done that first 27 I want to go to.
Peace. I live with you, I live with you I live with you, my peace.
I give unto you.
Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
My peace.
My peace.
He wants you to have his peace. He won't lose his own by giving you his peace.
Again, like some of the other things that we've already talked about, there is that sense.
What peace did he have?
Did he ever wake up in the middle of the night wondering what was going to happen tomorrow?
Driving out here, it's on a freeway and.
Car broke down.
Would that have disturbed his peace?
No.
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No possibility of disturbing his peace.
His heart.
Was in perfect fellowship with his father.
And his Father's power and wisdom and will and love was perfect.
And as such, he could walk.
In that fellowship.
Do you want to enjoy that piece? Walk in fellowship with the Lord Jesus.
And you?
And you have it.
My peace I give unto you.
Verse 28.
Is well, we'll read it first. You have heard how I said unto you, I go away.
And I will come again to you if he loved me.
You would rejoice because I said.
I go to the father.
Imagine yourself to be one of the disciples that heard these words.
A disciple who had just spent 3 1/2 years on a daily.
Presence of the Fellowship and the Care of.
One who could say I my sheep?
My friends, my brethren, that's how he referred to them, and you, you can enjoy the same.
As he would say of you, my friend, my brethren.
My sheep.
And here the shepherd is saying to his shape.
To those he called his friends, to those he calls his brethren, he said.
I'm going away.
And then he tests, he tests it, he said.
In the saying it.
If you love me, you would rejoice.
If you love me.
You rejoice in what I just said to you.
If you had been a disciple there and heard those words that day, would it immediately have turned your heart to joy?
To test.
What he was, he was depending in the if you love me, that you love me. And if you love me, you will appreciate having learned my relationship with my father, that you'll rejoice. So I'm going to have the joy of being with my father.
And I'll add the little and you won't be thinking about yourself as first or what's in it for me.
Because of your love for me, you'll be thinking about what's in it for me, the Lord Jesus.
And the joy of anticipation that I have after being here for 33 1/2 years to get to go again to my father and his father's house.
You'll rejoice.
Rejoice.
Talking to a brother for this meeting.
About we have those that we love, that we are not with us anymore.
On this earth.
Can we honestly say, in view of the words, to depart to be with Christ is far better that we rejoice for that person?
But they now have the more enjoyable, the more full enjoyment of the Lord Jesus than we do.
If it's not a focus on our love, but it's a focus on what's for their good and blessing, there is that same spirit of.
We can rejoice.
OK, verse 31.
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Our times about up.
Verse 31 Jesus said, Do you now believe?
The hours coming and now is.
You shall be scattered, every man to his own, and every will. Leave me alone. I'm not alone.
Because my father is with me.
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace.
In the world be of tribulation, but be of go cheer.
Because I overcome the world. And so he is again reinforcing that importance.
Of peace, he also says, My joy.
Not one in the list here in this chapter, but in this series of chapters my joy I given to you.
Do you? And are you enjoying his joy this afternoon?
Are you experiencing the joy that He wants to give? And how does give, if you accept it? My joy I give unto you.
If you have learned.
To value the same things that he values.
If you have learned to love what he loves.
And that's in perfect fellowship with what the Father loves and what the father cares about.
In fellowship with that.
You can say his joy is my joy.
His joy.
It's my joy.
I want to summarize.
This way.
When the shout comes.
And you're caught up.
What's the first thing?
You're looking forward to?
I'm looking forward.
To seeing the Lord Jesus.
Face to face.
To see the look of joy.
In his eyes as he looks at me.
And opens his arms to embrace me.
Let's pray.
We thank the Lord Jesus for the measure of dialogue. We thank thee, Father.
Well, that perfect common desire with thy son.
We thank you for giving us to thy son.
We thank Thee, Lord Jesus, for the work without its due. We thank thee for.
Accepting.
What we would have to call my sins.
Being placed upon thee by the Father.
Take what was ours and bear it for us.
We thank you for that tremendous love and work.
And.
This desire that.
Each day, more and more our hearts might reach out to Thee, Lord Jesus.
To get to know the better.
To get to enjoy my love and I peace and I fellowship and my interests and I will, and my word and all that thou hast given to us to share with thee.
Each day.
And in anticipation for eternity.
We love.
Because Thou did put that love in our hearts.
And we thank Thee for all things, our Father, that Thou has given us through thy Son.
And father and son, we bow before thee with.
Thankfulness.
Bless the Lord Jesus, blessed Father.
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Amen.
Attributes of God: Power, Wisdom, Love
Open—Conrad Troyer
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.
Lord Jesus.
Come.
Come forward to Blast.
Lord Jesus.
Come.
Your voice say.
Yeah, Lord, thy word from thy not crying from.
00:05:00
It is joy.
That's strange.
Best for God's blessing upon the meeting I'd like to read.
Verses that we just ended the hymn with that's found in Revelation 22 verse 17.
And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come, and let him that heareth say come.
And let him that is athirst come.
And whosoever will let him take the water of life freely drop on down to verse 20, he which testifieth these things. Seth, surely I come quickly, Amen. Even so come, Lord Jesus.
Our blessed and Father, our God, we're thankful.
For this thought, this hope for our Lord Jesus coming back for us.
And we're thankful to to have the Holy Spirit here to comfort us, to guide us, to direct us. And we do say, Even so, come Lord Jesus. But while we wait for the Lord Jesus, we have this meeting here before us.
Where there would be words of encouragement, words of expectation, words of uplifting in this very late hour that we're in, we're thankful that we have the freedom to be here this afternoon with a spirit guide and direct and lead during this hour. Lord Jesus, my name, you pray, Amen.
Let's begin this afternoon in Genesis chapter one.
Genesis chapter one and verse one.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, And God said, let there be light, and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good, and God had divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And the evening on, and the morning were the first day. And God said that there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament.
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And it was so.
And God called the firmament heaven in the evening, and the morning were the second day.
Verse 10 And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he sees, and God saw that it was good.
Verse 13 In the evening. In the morning or the third day.
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years.
Let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. And he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light up upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good in the evening, on the morning or the 4th day.
21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every wing to fall after his kind. And God saw that it was good. 23 in the evening, in the morning were the 5th day.
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and God, and God saw that it was good. And God said.
Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea.
And over the fall of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he, Him male and female created he them.
Verse 31.
And God saw everything that he had made and.
Behold, it was very good, and the evening and the morning were the 6th day.
I really hesitated to share today.
Some things that have.
But on my heart for.
Several months and then.
Our brother got up.
Spoke about life and about vessels in the Sunday school and I really enjoyed that and I felt that I felt more compelled to share and want to say at the onset of the meeting that.
I have really serious concerns about.
The word choice and the semantics of the subject we want to talk about.
I have serious concerns about the lack of understanding on the part of the speaker.
But the second component that I'm much more confident in and much more comfortable with.
Is the indwelling of the Spirit, and through God's Word in His Spirit.
We'd like to look at several attributes of God.
His power and His wisdom first, followed hopefully by some thoughts and some verses about his love.
And you may be sitting there saying, why is that such a difficult subject?
And contemplating it.
I realized that I certainly wasn't qualified to speak on the subject.
But I quickly realized that anyone who would be qualified to speak on the subject or thought they were.
We'd probably see their arrogance pooling at their feet. It'd be sad for anyone in this room to claim to have.
Lots of authority about a subject about the attributes of God.
Our human minds are.
One of the single biggest limiting factors we have in understanding God and His being and the English language is completely inept at creating word choices that help us understand that. It seems our minds can gather more of this understanding and greater appreciation than our words could ever convey.
The verses we read intentionally trying to be concise.
We have.
In my words, the largest construction project.
Ever to occur in six days.
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And it's so exciting to me so many times at the end of the day when there's a summary 1St and it says what day it was and it says everything was good.
That's that's something we as man know nothing about.
I remember some years ago at work.
We're involved in a project and it's a small hospital.
Any of you that are familiar with projects like that know there's a lot of Saber rattling and a lot of. We got to get the schedule going, we got to go fast, we got to build this thing, we got a construction project, we got to get this done. All of that usual stuff going on and.
I went out there to visit one day after it had been what I thought mostly complete. I walked into the building and outside looked pretty good. Most of the inside looked good. And then I walked down this white corridor to go to a nurses station and one wall has been torn out, part of the ceilings torn out. The floor is rough.
And it's a disaster. It looks terrible because the rest of the place is essentially complete. Was none of my business because of our scope of work, but I had to too curious to not ask. I said what happened? Well, we built the building and the corridor was too narrow. We got to tear this wall out. We got to make this corridor wide enough.
So didn't we just say we were building something for 90 or 120 days and then we got to go fix a mess? It's exactly what happens when we build things. We have another term in our industry where we talk about completing a project and we get a list of the things that need to be cleaned up at the end. And it's called the punch list. And I'm Privy to some of those lists, and it's embarrassing to see the scale and the length of those lists. There's nothing perfect about any of that work. It's horrible.
But we're comparing our economy.
With God's economy.
And.
As a speaker, I'll quickly say that's a, that's a dangerous proposition, That's a dangerous thing to take on. And that's why I have really a lot of concerns about.
Attempting to share my thoughts on the subject like this.
What God did, He did perfectly.
So when we attempt to understand God's power and.
We're really forced to bring in his knowledge and as a wisdom at the same time, because if any of us look at a person that possesses maybe significant or lots of power, we don't have to look far in our economy and corruption follows that power very quickly. In some cases, the power is is essentially useless because there's so little knowledge accompanying the power. It's just.
Wheel spinning, it's just things going on and we see that all the time in the world right now.
That's not how God is. That's not his being.
When we speak about His attributes in our human mind, we want to talk about one, but in fact, all of the attributes that we're going to mention are inextricably connected in His being. And we think about people doing things and this action happens and this action happens. We miss so much of what His essence is, power, wisdom, all of those things. Those are not just things God does. They are His very.
They are a very.
They are the very essence of who he is. Let's take a quick diversion here.
Chapter 2.
Verse 21.
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone in my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.
Was Adam less of a man after his rib was taken out?
We'd say no, he was just as much of a man. I think most of the married girls in this room would say no. No, he was not less of a man. He was much more complete after he was there. I'd agree with that.
Man as a being is.
Body, soul, and spirit, by definition, components. Our bodies are components.
We think of building things and putting things together and taking components to create what we do. That's not God's economy. God is not a being of components.
One of the challenges with studying a subject like this is for my own small mind. Sometimes I have to think about what I understand, and the closest I can get to understanding God for who He is, is I have to say, He's not that. He's the opposite of what I can see and what I can understand.
00:20:15
God's power, God's wisdom.
When the earth was formed made, where were the structural engineers?
There were none.
Where were the civil engineers? We can't get too close to the sun. We've got to be aligned with this. What about the force of gravity? What about friction?
There was nobody telling God what to do with that. He knew everything. He knows everything.
When I was a youngster.
My my mother had a large garden, much to my chagrin. Was not impressed by that garden.
We grew a lot of vegetables.
And the difficulty for me was.
My agenda of riding bicycle and.
Tracking down rodents with pellet guns and things like that was.
Frequently interrupted by my mother coming out on a beautiful sunny summer day and telling me.
Let's head out to the garden.
We go out there and there's these lines of vegetables and.
She'd look at a line of vegetables and there's some little weeds there. And she'd say, you know what? Today we're going to focus right here. We need to, I need to have you take these weeds out. Just stick with this row.
And the sun never seemed hotter than it did when you're pulling weeds like that. And I would sit there as a little boy and I wished Adam had made better choices and thought about all kinds of things I wish were different and.
Next day, same thing, go out and do some more gardening.
What's the moral of the story? I don't consider my mother to be a powerful person. I love her dearly and I respect her.
She recently turned 80 years old.
And I had the privilege.
Of telling her in person.
How much I appreciated.
Her wisdom primarily more than her power.
As a youngster.
The lesson she taught me and in my mid 40s.
I still think back about that and it would say I probably really didn't truly understand what she was doing for me until probably the last 10 or 15 years.
My mother is a weak example, as fabulous as she is. But that's wisdom and power put together, working and moving in our lives in a way that we may not now understand. We may understand in 10 or 15 years from now. Maybe we won't have 10 or 15 years from now. Maybe we won't understand.
Until it is how it is with the song we sang when he comes back to take us.
To continue in Genesis.
Let's look at one more intimidating example of God's power.
I'm sorry, I'm showed on notes I.
Exodus 19. I'm sorry, Chapter book of Exodus chapter 19.
Verse 10 And the Lord said unto Moses, going to the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes, and be ready against the third day. For the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai. And thou shalt set bounds upon unto the people roundabout, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that you go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it. Whosoever toucheth the mount shall surely be put to death.
There shall not in hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned.
Or shot through, Whether it be beast or man, it shall not live. When the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount.
Verse 16. It came to pass on the third day in the morning.
That there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at another part of the mount. And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire, and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.
00:25:09
Can you picture that?
You fathom that a little bit. Standing next to a mountain, you've been given life or death instructions not to touch that mountain.
I enjoy spending time in the mountains. I have yet to see any of them shaking or smoking.
It's pretty intimidating, isn't it?
These people had no access. There was number access.
There was number way.
For them to enjoy, be comforted by, or have access.
To the power they were witnessing.
Epistle of John.
First, John.
Chapter 4.
I'm sorry, I'd like to go back, read two more things in the book of Deuteronomy that relate to God's sovereignty and it's really touched by our brother Sunday school and don't want to miss these verses. I'm sorry, Deuteronomy 32.
This this relates back to God breathing into Adam the breath of life. Life begins and ends in God's power.
Deuteronomy 32, verse 39.
See now that I even I am He and there is no God with me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. Neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
That verse, to me personally, has been such a value and such a blessing.
May seem scary to you if you're on the wrong side of things, if you don't have a, if you don't, if you don't know the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
Maybe you're saved. Maybe you're at a distance. That verse might be intimidating to you.
I find it to be comforting.
Because my life is entirely under the control of God's hand.
And how, how does he do that work, the work that he does? We talk about executing. And when we say we're talking about executing, we talk about getting work done and accomplishing things, getting done, what we're obligated to do. How does God execute? Always in perfection. Verse four. He is the rock. His work is perfect for all his ways or judgment, a God of truth and without iniquity.
Justin, right? Is he?
Is he sometimes wrong about the timing of life? Is he sometimes wrong about disease and difficulty that comes in?
Never. It's impossible.
Epistle of John chapter first. John chapter 4 Shifting to the Lord's love. God's love for us, subjects so dear to my heart, has become much more so.
Over the last several years.
As I've understood God's sovereignty.
We think we're so smart.
And we think we have such a good idea about how our life should work.
We come up with lots of good plans.
And it's interesting. Sometimes we come up with a good plan and it executes and it does pretty well. We're proud enough to stand back and say we came up with a pretty good idea that worked out. That's how we are. That's our heart. That's my heart.
So many things have been taken away that have helped me understand that's not how it works anymore.
First John, chapter 4.
And diversity. God is love. It's not something he does. It's his essence. It's his very being.
Verse 9 This is the gospel story, and 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 here in His love. Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
So why are we in a different place than those Israelites who were at that mountain that was thundering and rocking and so intimidating? The answer is right here.
00:30:01
God's Son.
Only one who could take away those barriers give us access to that power.
And that wisdom.
And every time we remember the Lord, like we did this morning.
Is touching.
That he would love us.
Me, a sinful creature.
Broken down.
Wretched manifestation of humanity.
Why would he do that?
Because he desired fellowship. Let's go back to the book. Let's go back to the book of Genesis.
Genesis chapter 41.
We all know the story well.
An attempt to be concise all.
Go to the verses that convey the thoughts that.
I've been interested that I've been enjoying.
41 verse 54 in the seven years of dearth began to come, according as Joseph had said.
And the dearth was in all the lands, but in the land of Egypt there was bread.
And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread.
And Pharaoh said unto all Egyptians.
Go on to Joseph.
What he sayeth to you.
Do.
Very profound words go into Joseph. What he sayeth do you do?
And the famine was over all the face of the earth. And Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold them to the Egyptians. And the famine wax sore in the land of Egypt. And all the countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn, because that the famine was so sore in all lands.
I want to make one thing perfectly clear before we continue.
If you have not come to Joseph.
If you have not accepted the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
You have no access to the storehouses.
The famine is going to rage.
You will be outside of the resources that are available.
Go to Joseph.
Would he say it to you? Do.
Very profound, very succinct.
Maybe you're a believer.
And you're just not close to the Lord.
And maybe you have famine.
Chapter 45.
Joseph's brothers have arrived. Verse one. Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him. And he cried, 'cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brother.
And he wept aloud.
And the Egyptians and the House of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph doth my father yet live. And his brethren could not answer him, for they will trouble that his presence. And Joseph said unto them, Come near to me.
I pray you. And they came near, and he said, I am Joseph, your brother.
Whom he sold in Egypt now therefore be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me. Hit her. For God did send me before you to preserve life.
And these two years have the famine been in the land, and yet there are five years, and the which there shall neither be earring nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So it was not you that sent me Hitler, but God, and he that. And he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and Lord of all of his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.
We're talking about God's love.
Naturally, we say these brothers show up.
They conspired against him, threw him in a pit.
00:35:02
That wasn't bad enough. Let's just sell them. That's what they did.
Did it look like God's sovereignty wasn't there for Joseph? Did it look like things have really gone wrong in his life? I'm sure he had days where he was.
Debating about that. We don't have that recorded force, but humanly speaking, I'm sure it happened. His brothers show up. These are the words that touch me so much.
Verse four come near to me.
Then he goes on to explain to them.
What is hardest toward them?
Because he, Joseph, knew something about human nature.
He knew his brothers would blame themselves.
Probably knew they would be intimidated by him.
God's sovereignty.
Doesn't take famines.
Whatever that famine might be in your life.
Maybe you're a believer. I've spoken to those who are not believers. I've spoken to those who may be believers but not be close to the Lord. Maybe you're a believer. Maybe you're close to the Lord. Maybe your heart is warm, you're on fire. But maybe there's a famine.
Maybe your marriage is rotten. Maybe your job is not what you want it to be. Maybe the degree you want is elusive.
Maybe there's disease in your family.
Maybe there's been death in your family.
All of those things could be famine.
And I enjoy thinking about famine.
Using a different word, the word subtraction. When we think about famine, typically we're thinking about something that is taken away from us.
And speaking again to human nature, sometimes we're so fixated with what's being subtracted from us.
That we don't even recognize.
The blessing.
And the work that's going on around us.
And God's economy works in a completely different scale than ours does.
When we see one thing happening.
The effect level is not just those ripples. The work is happening simultaneously across so many people and in so many ways. Your mind can't even understand it. You have no knowledge of it. If you had knowledge of it, you can understand the full effect of it. That's the scale that he works at when he's doing things.
And as I said, sometimes the subtraction is so difficult and it's so painful.
There are people in this room that have lost spouses.
There are people in this room that have lost children.
I'm medically in a place where.
There's a lot of uncertainty around my life.
And I was surprised by that when I found it out, and I shouldn't have been.
Because really, we're all the same.
Life can end very abruptly, very shortly, but it doesn't end beyond God's control.
But to go back to the subject of subtraction.
Death, disease, many forms of subtraction.
Are brought about by the fall of man by sin.
And it's God in such a way that when those things come about, that he's incapable of doing a great work around. And Despite that, though he's not, absolutely not, He's just the opposite. He's a God who uses those things and he completes a work that we can't even begin to understand. And my personal testimony is that through the process of subtraction.
Since we're talking about math equations, God doesn't work in an economy of simply adding. We think we're pretty wise sometimes as parents. We want to work with our kids and we say, well, we're going to take this away from them, but we're going to do a trade and we'll give you that back. We subtract and then we add. God doesn't subtract and simply add. God subtracts and he multiplies. I want to quickly say God does not work in math equations.
But for our small minds, if we can understand that the subtraction process.
Can be.
A path to blessing that you could barely understand. One more passage.
Staying in Genesis?
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Chapter 49.
The last verse of 49. And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.
Chapter 50 and 15. And when Joseph's brethren saw their father was dead, they said, Joseph will perdenture hate us. It will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him. And they sent a messenger to Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall he say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin.
For they did unto the evil. And now we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy Father.
And Joseph wept when they speak unto him.
And his brethren also went and fell down before his face, and they said.
Behold, we be thy servants.
Guilty fear.
If you ever experienced guilty fear as a young man, I experienced many, many nights.
Of guilty fear.
Was it because I wasn't saved?
Or is it because I didn't know God for who he really is?
Was it because I was choosing to hang on to the mistakes that I had made?
And as it's hard to say.
But if you're experiencing guilty fear and you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, it's probably on you. The devil wants to use guilty fear to keep you at a distance, to have you send messengers to Christ.
Do you understand the seriousness of this metaphor? They didn't work. Going to go face him.
Verse 16 They sent a messenger unto him. Are you sending messengers to the Lord Jesus because you have guilty fear? It's not his desire.
All the power, all the wisdom we read about, it's not his desire.
Do you ever question God's motives for you?
Do you ever question his intentions for you? We talked about a subtraction process. Subtraction process is, humanly speaking, so difficult, can sometimes be so intensely painful.
We can hardly see past the pain.
We can't stop thinking about ourselves.
Whose fault is that?
Whose problem is that?
Is it because of a lack of God's resources? Absolutely not.
The enemy of our souls wants to use guilty fear to keep us at a distance. Subtraction and famine comes into our lives.
We question God's intentions for us.
And a person may logically ask, why is it so important to know about God and who He is? Why would we study his attributes?
There are many answers to that question.
One of the easiest answers is.
If you truly believe.
The Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
Why would you simply take the gift of eternal life and live your own life?
And believe that you are smart enough.
And competent enough to execute that life in a way that was going to be.
Good for yourself. It's not in you. You don't have it.
Nobody in this room is smart enough for that. Nobody in this room has enough power to make that happen.
Beautiful response from Joseph in verse 19.
Joseph said unto them, Fear not.
For am I in the place of God?
But As for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good to.
Bring to pass as it is this day.
To save much people alive. God's grand economy, one man, Joseph.
We have no idea how many souls.
He delivered from that famine.
One more point about the storehouses I find interesting. Find any record that there's an inventory of the storehouses.
So if you know the Lord.
And you're going to be close to Joseph and you're going to access to the storehouses. How would you know what's in there until you start receiving those things? You would have no idea. Sometimes we think we know so much. Verse 21 Now, therefore fear ye not. I will nourish you and your little ones.
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And he comforted them.
And speak kindly unto them.
So whether you're near or far from the Lord.
Whether it appears to you that he's subtracting or that he's multiplying in your life.
These verses.
Are written in a way when Joseph speaks that we can all understand.
Fear not.
God mentored unto good.
Fear not.
I will nourish you and your loved ones.
He spoke words of kindness and comfort.
Teaching Our Children the Word of God
Open—Robert Boulard
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
To hear we love to stay in this world.
It sounds like you're mistaken.
Just like to turn to an Old Testament passage as well, but we'll read in the New Testament as well. Doing Armani Deuteronomy chapter 6, please.
Deuteronomy chapter 6, and let's just read from verse four, says.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is 1 Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children. Let me read it in the new translation. Thou shalt impress them upon.
Thy sons and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way.
And when thou liest down, and when thou risest up, and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and thou shalt be, they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the post of thy house.
And all thy gates it shall be, when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he swear unto thy father, to Abraham, to Isaac and Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities which thou build us not, and houses full of all good things.
Which thou fillets not, and wells digged, which thou digest not vineyards and olive trees, which thou plan us not. When thou shalt have eaten and be full, then beware lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt from the House of *******.
Let's read in Luke's Gospel chapter 10, right at the end. We can hold our place there in Deuteronomy chapter 6.
Verse 38. Luke 10. Verse 38.
Now it came to pass as they went, that he entered into a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house, and she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus feet and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister had left me to serve alone?
Bitter, therefore, that she helped me.
Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things.
But one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen that good part.
Which shall not be taken away from her then just in Luke's Gospel chapter 24.
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Luke 24 And let's read verse 29. But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them. And it came to pass, as he sat at meet with them, he took bread.
And blessed it break, and gave to them. And their eyes were open, and they knew him. He vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another. Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened unto us the Scriptures? They rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the 11 gathered together, and them that were with them.
Well, read these little passages of Scripture as an encouragement, you know.
To us, as I see these, you young families here, young men, young sisters that have been married perhaps recently, or you have young families, and trust me, it's an encouragement to your older brethren to see you here with your young ones. And the sound of little ones in the assembly is a sound of joy to those of us that are older. Don't ever think that your children, as they cry, make a disturbance and the older ones don't like it.
They.
Very, very thankful for that sound of young ones. I'm not talking about ones that are throwing a temper tantrum and that sort of thing. But you know, generally speaking, these young ones are a joy to our hearts.
But I feel the necessity to just encourage you to read the Word of God in your homes with your young ones. It's your responsibility as those of their parents to impress upon your little ones the reality of divine things. And and so it says, as I read here in verse seven of Deuteronomy chapter 6 in the Darby translation, thou shalt impress them.
Upon thy sons or on thy sons? I was recently in a home.
One of the young men that married one of my nieces.
And.
He is, you might say, pretty close to illiterate. Not quite. But he's a believer, a simple believer, not gathered to the Lord's name, but he seeks to raise his family for the Lord.
And so is there visiting my mother and we had a nice visit, had a nice meal. And then he pushes back his plate, went and got his Bible.
And he struggled to read a chapter of the Word of God.
He read it himself, and he read it with reverence. He tried to make a few comments on that little passage of Scripture.
But I had tears in my eyes at the end of that time that he read that passage of Scripture. He struggled to read it.
You know you don't have to have a gift a particular gift you just need to sense the responsibility and trust the Lord for grace to be able to read the word of God with your own family and to the Lord will honor that and you'll bless your home as a result. There's a brother in our home assembly won't say it is, but he.
Is perhaps just a little younger than I am, and very little. It takes very little part in the assembly meetings but has some young people in his home.
And.
He reads the word of God at night with them every night.
And sings a hymn.
And there's fruit in his home. There's the young ones that have a desire to go to the assembly meetings and to sit under the sound of the word of God. And so this is necessary. You know, it's speaks of how they were to use diligence to have the word of God before us in the family.
And we find that there's homes that we visit in different places, and the Word of God has very little place.
And it's a sorrow to the heart. Maybe you have the habit. I have the habit. Perhaps I go into a home. Sometimes it's not home on the Saints, but I still, I go into a home and I look for signs of life.
I look for gospel texts on the wall. I looked and I checked to see what's on the bookshelves and those sorts of things. Sometimes my heart leaps with joy.
Other times, there's deep sorrow in the heart.
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That's wonderful to be able to have passages of Scripture before our young ones, perhaps every night, every morning. It says, I shall teach them diligently unto thy children. But we won't do it unless we have a hearts affection in verse six for the things of God ourselves. So you and I need to read the word of God to feed ourselves and to feed ourselves on a regular basis to have the affection for the word of God, and then we'll be able to pass it on to the next generation.
Just the affection for the things of God and the principles of the Word of God. Desire to have our children know what those principles are. Read the Old Testament passages and they understand the principles and the stories and they'll learn those things from you and they'll remember. I just ask you, some of us grew up in Christian home. My father and his youth, the 1St 10 years of my life, read the word of God.
Home regularly and I still remember the stories that he read.
I still remember some of the comments that he made.
I still remember where those passages are in the Bible because my parents read the word of God.
And they read them in the home. So they taught me themselves. So it says when I sit us in thine house. When's that? Well, we sit at meal time and it's a good time to read the word of God, push back and perhaps, you know, just discuss things.
As they went along during the day and so on. But bring the word of God into it. And when you go and visit your brethren, bring your Bible and just sit down after a meal or even before a meal and.
Sit and visit in the sofa in the living room and whatever. Sometimes in the kitchen you'll see sisters visiting and they have the word of God open and it's a refreshment will remember those times. But this is really written in chapter 6 and particularly in connection with young ones in the home. When thou walkest, by the way, you know the Lord Jesus. We didn't read it in Luke 24, but he was walking by the way, what?
Conversation, that was.
It says that he.
Spoke.
It says.
Let me see here chapter 24 of Luke.
Verse 27 Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them, in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
And so we can, as we go in our journey, we can listen to recorded ministry, we can listen to the word of God. You know, I'm not a good example and I'm not saying I am. And, but oftentimes when I'm traveling, I'd like to listen to one book of the Bible and you get more different, different perspective. Perhaps you get different, the Spirit of God can use that in a different way if you're listening to the word.
And you listen to the whole book.
And you get something. The Spirit of God gives a little portion. And so we can do that as we're traveling. When thou lie us down. Bedtime is a good time. I like to read in bed. I read the word in bed. I read different material in bed. But you know, our young ones, when they were young, used to come to bed with us in the evening. Sometimes they would come in the morning and we would read to them in the morning.
And it was. Those were happy times to read something of the word of God or read Christian stories, read Bible stories.
With them in bed. Well, it says that they were to bind them upon the sign upon the hand in verse eight. This front lifts between nine eyes. They were to have everything that was done with the hand was to be guided by the principles of the Word of God. And then they were to have the word of God and see things from his perspective and use the word of God to show your children what's right according to the principles of the Word of God.
Well, in chapter 10 of Luke I just read this in connection with the Lord Jesus being in this home.
What a blessed thing it must have been to have the Lord Jesus in the home in Bethany and open up just what He had on His heart and to instruct.
God is no man's debtor and if you have the word of God and you have the desire to have fellowship with the people of God in your home and have the word of God open, there's going to be a blessing. They're going to be fruit for him. And what the Lord Jesus says here, I'm not going to expound this, but it says in verse 42, one thing is needful, there's different.
00:15:06
Passage of Scripture in the New Testament that speak of the one thing. You might want to search those things out. It's instructive, but one thing is needful.
Mary hath chosen that good part.
So there was a time for service, there was a time, there was a meal, there was an opportunity for Mary I. It doesn't say that she didn't serve. She probably was serving before. And then she saw an opportunity to sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus and the opportunity was going to pass. And she took that opportunity. She stopped what she was doing. She sat in the presence of the Lord.
It says.
That good part which shall not be taken away from her.
What did she get? Her capacity to understand and enjoy divine things was expanded. She got more capacity, spiritual capacity, to enjoy Christ and enjoy divine things.
And your capacity to enjoy the Lord, your capacity to enjoy divine things and divine persons and fellowship. But the divine persons is being formed now your capacity to enjoy the Lord.
Is being formed now and what you enjoy now, what capacity you have.
Will not be taken away from you. Isn't that wonderful? You're going to be in heaven with the Lord Jesus. You're going to be in the presence of the Lord. He will have.
Ministered to you personally with the Word, you perhaps have helped your children, I hope you do, to understand something of the Word of God and they'll develop a little capacity to enjoy the Savior.
They'll run around the house singing little children's songs like we sang here this morning. They'll rejoice your heart.
But be sure to take that responsibility seriously.
In the home, I just want to encourage you in this way. And so we have this little instruction that's given to us in the Word of God. I'd give one more little bit of advice and you'll forgive me, I'm an older individual, but I'm going to give you some advice in connection with.
Those you might send them out of the home. I think it's First Corinthians, First Samuel. I'm sorry, chapter 13.
You're going to have your children will grow a little bit older and then you're going to have to send them to school. Perhaps you didn't lead to some sort of an education as part of the legal system in North America is they have to be educated.
So.
You're going to need to send them somewhere. You know when I'm just going to give you a little bit of an indication as to how things have slid. You know what drift is. We have drift in the manufacturing process. You set the standards and the quality specifications and then start up the factory. And then pretty soon somebody decides that they're going to change the process or not use this part or change the part and pretty soon the quality slides and then you have what we call an automotive recall.
Somebody didn't do something right.
Quality drifts, but there's been a drift in the Christian world.
When I was going, when I first went to school in the part of Ontario that I lived in, the French schools were Roman Catholic.
And my father was saved out of Roman Catholicism and he wasn't going to send us to the Roman Catholic school. The English schools were technically Protestant schools.
And part of curriculum was that they were to. I'll give you an example.
Eight what? 5th grade?
Had a fifth grade teacher, I don't know her name.
Came into the classroom and we were in a portable. The school was growing, the neighborhood was growing. So we are in portable classroom. Young teacher, she just graduated probably from teachers college not too long ago. And as the children filed into that classroom, she handed them a little children's hymn book. Every child got a little children's hymn book.
And so we sat down and we sang some children's hymns for the 1St 10 or 15 minutes.
Than that young teacher, that young sister and the Lord open up her Bible, and she read the word of God and passage of Scripture, and she just expounded a little bit upon that little passage of Scripture.
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And she prayed for those students every day, cried to the Lord that they might be saved by the grace of God, they might have useful lives not wasted in this world, that they might be preserved.
Then we had to stand up, sing Oh Canada, God Save the Queen, and say the Lord's Prayer, so to speak.
Then we could start our day.
It's not like that, is it today.
You and I need to be careful to bring the word of God before our children in our homes to teach them the truth, the principles of the word of God. They're not going to get it in a in a school system. I'm not saying that I I got much out of the school system religiously, but I'm thankful even in high school, my last year of high school teacher, we stood up.
The whole school.
The principal had a teacher read a passage of scripture, a chapter of the Word of God.
Over the intercom system while we were standing the.
He read that chapter.
Then there was the Lord's Prayer.
And whatever else that the teacher in that particular homeroom desired to do.
Then we could start our studies, we could sit down after the Scriptures were read and after there was a prayer offered for the day. This was in the mid 1970s, but it's not like that anymore. Let me just read this in verse. First Samuel, chapter 13, verse 19. There was no Smith found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistine said, lest the Hebrews make them swords or Spears.
But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen every man, his share and his Coulter, his axe and his matic.
Yet they had a file for the Maddox and for the coulters, and for the forks and for the axes to sharpen the goads. So it came to pass in the day of battle that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with Saul and with Jonathan. But with Saul and Jonathan his son, there was found. Well, I just read this passage of Scripture because, you know, we need to teach our children the truth of what it is to be gathered to the Lord.
Name and what it is to the Christian values and the fundamental principles of Christianity. We need to teach them ourselves.
They're not going to get it in the school system and.
We need to teach them ourselves. You see the Philistines, they just, they said, you know, these Hebrews, we, we kind of have to keep them. It's, it's unpopular. I don't know, in the school system today, you don't even have Bibles in the American schools, right? No Bibles.
Well, I went to school. There were Bibles in the school.
There's been drift. And so there's a suppression of the truth of the word of God in the world that we live in. So I just want to say this, that our young ones, let's encourage one another to read the word, to have the Word of God open in our homes, and to feel the responsibility of bringing the truth of God before our children, before our young people. And I would say this, I'm not going to.
Forgive my boldness to say it, but I would rather not see you send your children to Christian School.
And I'm going to tell you why. It's because it's sending them back into the camp.
It's sending them to it says in Hebrews 13. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp bearing his reproach. It's better to teach your children yourself in the home. I'll say this as a bit of a warning is those generally that have gone among the gathered Saints and have gone into the religious school system the.
Christian School system often times.
Will despise the truth, will despise the word of God, will despise the principles of what it is to be gathered to the Lord's name. And so we have a family. I know there's an assembly. They have all of the children go to a Christian School. And some of those children, young people coming to the meeting and you can tell that they don't want to be there. They don't want to hear this, they don't want to be there.
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I just wanted to encourage you to.
Teach your children in the home the principles of those, the word of God, and homeschool them if you need to and that sort of thing. But it's better. I don't believe it's appropriate. It's better not to send them into the camp to get their education. Obviously, our time is up. Perhaps we would close in prayer. Our loving God and our Father, we thank thee for thy precious word. We thank Thee for the privileges that are ours and the day that we live in.
To be in the very last hours of the day of grace. We know that we live in historically significant times, that thou art working in this world to prepare things for the time after the Rapture. And so we ask you for grace and for strength, courage, to go on in a faithful way and with a delight in the Word of God, and to bring it before our little ones and our young people as well.
That we might train our young ones and read the scriptures ourselves.
And that we might have a capacity expanded to enjoy the things of God, and that thou is to be delighted to bless us, We ask thee to bless our time together. We thank Thee for thy precious word. In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Gospel 2
Practical Lessons from 1 Samuel 7
Talk—Marc 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.
What I would like to do is.
Can I get some practical lessons from First Samuel Chapter 7? So if you're going to turn there to First Samuel Chapter 7. But before I start there, I'm going to give a little setting here. You know, in the early chapters of the book of Samuel, we learn a little bit about the House of Eli and his two wicked sons. And then Simon comes on the scene. And what happens in the chapters before this, there's the war with the Philistines.
And the people are not in a good state. Israel is not in a good state.
But they think if they get the arc into the camp, then for sure they will win the battle. But it doesn't go that way because people's heart is not with the Lord and the Lord wants reality in our hearts. And so the art gets taken by the Philistines, get put into the temple of their idols. But you know, God is sovereign. And we see how the idols are just dumb idols, powerless idols and they fall over and so on. And the Philistines that we need to get this out of the.
And so they send the arc back to the people of Israel. But what's interesting is that the people of Israel really hadn't even asked for it back. And it tells us in the first few verses here that the ark is put in the House of Abinadab, and somebody has sanctified his son for the ark of the Lord. And then it says that 20 years long the ark was in the house.
And finally, there starts to be an exercise in Israel to bring the ark back into their midst. And what I would like to do from the lessons we get in this chapter to kind of make them personal. You know, the Lord gives us these stories in the Old Testament that are, you know, very interesting stories in themselves, but we can apply them in our lives both individually and as assemblies collectively.
So here I think we get a picture here it's a nation, but we can take it personally to of a person, you might say.
Who belongs to the Lord? These were God's people, Israel.
But for a long time, their heart was far from God. But what's interesting is we have a nature, a new nature, that cannot be satisfied unless there's some type of communion with the Lord. And so sometimes there might be times in our lives where we're not close to the Lord, but we'll feel that. And here it took 20 years for the nation of Israel to feel their loss, of not having the ark in their midst. And so they want the ark of the Lord back. And they turn to Samuel.
Very faithful man. And Samuel shows him what to do. And the first thing they need to do is they need to get rid of some things in their lives before the earth can be brought back. And so often we'll find too, that if we're not close to the Lord, we start allowing things in our lives that are adding to a distance from God, that are hindering or commune with the Lord or hindering coming back. And so Samuel say, put out the idols. That's the first thing you have to get rid of.
Which is country to the will of God. And so they do that. And then in verse six, it says they gather together and Miss Ben will talk a little bit about Miss pay at the end. But they do certain things and I think it's very good for us to meditate on these things. The first thing they do is they draw water and they poured it out before the Lord. And I think that it's it's it's a picture of kind of showing their own weakness.
Now usually when we're not doing well and we're not close to the Lord, it's because we're self confident, we trust in ourselves, we can do this.
But they realize they can't do it. Things were not going well and so they realized we need to confess before the Lord.
That we have no strength in ourselves. You know, during this time the Philistines were ruling over them and then they do the second thing and it says that they faster than that day. You know, if you want to return to the Lord, we can't keep feeding the flesh because that's usually what gets us.
In, you know, away from the Lord. In the 1St place, if we allow the flesh within us to act, it will desire things to come in our lives that hinder us from having communion with the Lord.
And then they do one more thing. They say we have sinned against the Lord. They confess their sin. And that's vital if you want to be restored to communion with the Lord. And the beautiful thing is, no matter how far we have gone from the Lord or how many times that has happened, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin. And that's forgiveness in the sense of being restored to communion. Why can He do that?
Because there's the blood of Christ. There's the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And no matter how far we have gone out of communion from God.
Because of what the Lord Jesus did, God can bring us back in communion. So it's beautiful. But then.
What happens next is very difficult. So we might say there's a work going on here amongst the people that might be work going on in individuals of Restoration and it says in verse.
A No in verse seven. And when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together to miss thee, the Lords of the Philistines went up against Israel.
As long as you're far away from the Lord and not doing His will, the enemy is going to leave you alone.
Because that's exactly where he wants you. The enemy knows very well that if you truly belong to God, he cannot do anything about your salvation. He can't do anything about that. And that gives us peace and security. But the best he can do is to have you as a Christian walk far from God and not walk for the glory of God. And so it seems like those 20 years, we don't have any record of the Philistines coming.
Up against the people of Israel. But as soon as there's this work of restoration going on, the Philistines come up and right away it's like they're being tested. They're putting their trust in the Lord. Now, what are you going to do? And so if there's one here that you know, might look at themselves and just because of what we heard in these past two days, said, yeah, I'm farther away from the Lord that I should be. I want to walk closer with the Lord, expect the enemy.
To immediately come up and try to hinder that work of restoration. But we don't need to despair.
They turn to the Lord, they travel, they ask Sano to pray for them. Samuel offers up a sacrifice and what happens? Verse 10 the Philistines do near to battle against Israel that the Lord thundered with a great Thunder on that day upon the Philistines and discomforted them and they were smitten before Israel. How wonderful is that? They didn't even go out to battle. The Lord took care.
Of you might say, Satan the enemy, trying to hinder that work of restoration.
And you'll find the same in your lives. Yes, the enemy will rise up and will try to say, hey, it's not worth it to go back to the Lord. It's not worth it. Do what you, what you were doing, you were kind of comfortable there, but it is worth it and the Lord will take care of you. And then let's read when verse 12, it says Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mispy and Shan. You know when you read in the Old Testament of a stone or a heap of stones or a pillar or something like that.
It's a reminder, it's so that people could look back at that and say remember what the Lord has done for you. You see that several times, quite a number of times in the history of the people of Israel and even before that, you know, with Jacob and so on that they would put something there to remember. And that's good for us too. Every time we go through life and there's difficulty and the Lord shows that he's at our side and he helps us. Let's not forget about that because if we remember that the next time a difficult.
Life comes, we can have that experience and say, you know what, this looks very hard. This looks terrifying sometimes the trials that come in our lives. But I know because I've experienced it not once, but probably many times as you grow older. The Lord is very capable and he's very willing to help. And so there was this reminder for the people of Israel here. The Lord took care of the Philistines. You didn't go out to battle. It's very interesting because you go back a few chapters.
They go out to battle and there's complete defeat here. They don't even go out to battle and there's complete victory. So when we trust in the Lord, that's what will happen in our lives. And then in verse 13, so the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more into the coast of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. And the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel.
From Ikron even to gas.
And the coast thereof did Israel deliver out of the hands of the Philistines? Isn't that beautiful? You know, people of Israel, God, God's people, they were an earthly people. And so their inheritance was the land that was promised to them. And now when they trust in the Lord, they get more of that inheritance back to enjoy. Our inheritance is not a piece of land. Our inheritance is our spiritual blessings that we have.
In the Lord Jesus Christ.
When we walk with the Lord and trust in the Lord, we'll be able to enjoy those things because when we're not walking with the Lord, we don't enjoy the fact that we're sons. We don't enjoy the fact that we're justified. And there's many more spiritual blessings like that. The one who walk with the Lord, those things mean something every day to us. And so it's beautiful to see that here in the picture, the Lord gives them the victory and as a result, they enjoy more of their inheritance. And it can be the same for us.
00:10:27
But I didn't read the last few words of that verse, and I'm going to say until a few months ago, and I read this story many times. I always kind of read over that. And a few months ago I was reading this and it really struck me because it seemed so out of place. Here's this chapter of Restoration. Everything seems to be going well. They get, you know, the cities back. And then it says this at the end of verse 14. And there will peace between Israel and the Amorites.
Seem like a strange phrase. It seems kind of out of place.
But nothing is out of place in the Word of God, and nothing is without a reason. And so I pondered upon that, Why is that there? What does it mean? And I think we get the answer in the next chapter. So if we go down to chapter 8.
A problem arises and it has to do with Samuel sons who are not like Samuel.
They're not good judges. They're not faithful like Samuel. And the people say we need to change this, this is a problem, but this is what their solution is. They say at the end of verse 5, now make us a king to judge us, like all nations. And I think that's an answer to what we have in that phrase where it says and there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.
Are you guys probably all remember that when Moses took to the people of Israel just before they went into the land over and over, he says.
Destroy or defeat the enemies that are in the land. Don't make peace with them. No treaties, no nothing. The Canaanites and the Amorites were part of those. I think there were like seven people, Jebusites, highlights and so on. They were supposed to get rid of them because there was nothing that they had in common. And here it says there was peace between Israel and the Amorites. And then when a problem comes.
Their thinking for the solution is let's be like the nations around us.
And I think if we want to apply that, what lesson can we get from that is I think if we.
Willingly or or knowingly in our lives allowed things that the Lord has said. Those are not good. We cannot expect to have clear discernment. So in the New Testament we get expressions like flee youthful lusts. We get expressions like mortify the members of your body in connection with immorality.
We get expressions like putting off malice, lying and old things like that. Those are clear instructions of things that we should not be occupied with whatsoever.
It even tells us those are things that it says to separate from those that do not walk orderly. So it's things and people will get clear instruction of that. What if we say we do pretty good in our lives, 95% but there's this one thing, the amorite, whatever that might be, that we know it's not according to God's will, but we're OK with it. There's peace between us and that very thing.
Can we expect blessing from the Lord?
Could Israel expect blessing from the Lord here when there was peace between them and the MRI's? The answer is no. And so when a solution, a problem comes and will always get tested in our lives, when a problem comes, their spiritual discernment is gone. Instead of saying your sons are not doing right, let's turn to the Lord, see what solution He has. They say let's become like the nations because they were living at peace with a nation that had nothing to do with God.
And to them probably made a lot of sense. If we're not in communion with the Lord, we can reason and make things very plausible. Maybe the nations around them, it worked well with kings, but that was OK. They were not God's people. We're not the same like the nations around us. And so people in the world, and we had it in one of the songs that we sang that seems like people around us don't get bothered. They're not walking according to the.
They're not God's people, and they seem to prosper. Well, that might work for them, but that won't work for us because we're God's people and God has standards for his people. And so if we.
You know, have peace with the amorite, whatever the amorite is, if it's something that's God tells us not to do or not to be occupied with, we cannot expect blessing. We cannot expect to have discernment in the decisions we need to make. And I was thinking this too.
00:15:16
You know it leads to soul becoming the king, right? Because God tells Samuel. Tell him what it will be like with a king. It's not going to be a good time.
But they said we still want to do it. And I was thinking, what if there were some people there that are your age?
20 you know, whatever 1525 and they said we want a king like the nations, and God says OK, for the next 40 years Saul ruled over Israel.
Was not a good time for Israel. We might allow things in our lives that cloud or discernment and we make decisions.
For the next 40 years are going to bring misery in our lives. How sad is that, that there would have been people there that their whole, you know, best time of their life.
They lived under soul, and soul never ever defeated the Philistines. He was a man of the flesh, and he could not once defeat the Philistines, the enemies of God's people. You know, later on, when David, the man of God, was made king, he never lost to the Philistines. Isn't that interesting? So let's be careful with that. But now I want to go back just for a minute before we're done here.
You know, look at this scene that we have here and again, it's it's a low state.
Seems like in Chapter 7 it kind of went up and it was positive. There were some restoration and then it all goes down again. Because they want to be like the nation, so there's a low state.
But there's always a path for a faithful man. And let's go back to the last two verses of of Chapter 7. Here's Samuel, the faithful man. He grieved because of what was happening. It really affected him and so much so that God almost had to tell him stop grieving because he wanted the people to do well. The Samuel himself, even though he's kind of from now on, he's not the main figure anymore. Saul is the main.
Still shows up, does the work of God, he anoints David, he rebukes Saul, he can in a way kind of passes into the background. But what did he do as the faithful man? What can we do as the faithful man here at verse 16 of Chapter 7? And he went from year to year in circuit to Bethel in Gilgal and misbehave and judged Israel and all those places and his history. Stern was to Raymond, for there was his house.
And there he judged Israel, and there he built an altar into the Lord.
You know, you've probably all heard many times that names in the Old Testament have a lot of significance. And so here was the circuit that Samuel took every year. Battle means the House of God. That's where he spent his time, the House of God. Gilgal, we know, is that where the people went when they went to Milan. It means the rolling away. The rolling away of the reproach of the of, of Egypt has to do with the cutting off of the flesh. So he walked in the sanctuary, the House of God.
Apart from the ways of the flesh, that's what we need. What does Mr. mean? It means watchtower. It's a high place because he was close to the Lord. He had good discernment. And in a watchtower you see the enemy coming. And so he was aware of what the enemy was doing and he wasn't caught up by it. The people, they had no idea what the enemy was doing, and they fell for it all the time.
But he did not, and then where his house was. Rhema means the high places.
I love that. That means that most of the time where his house was, he was in that which signified closeness to the Lord. He was in the high places and he had an altar there, which in the Old Testament that was the way of approach to God, the way of communion. We don't need an altar there because because of what the Lord Jesus has done, the veil is read and we have permanent access to the throne of grace.
But how wonderful that is that Samuel, you know, he was able to make that circuit every year.
And it all had to do with places that were significant of closeness to the Lord.
You know what here and thinking about that in the Northwest, a lot of us kind of make a circuit too on a yearly basis and not everybody does it or not all. But you know, a lot of us are here now in Walla Walla and that's kind of our, you know, beginning of spring.
And quite a few of us, maybe in a few months we'll head over to Aberdeen for the conference and then some might be in Stillwater. Scam. I know in the beginning of fall, usually here in Walla Walla, there's a harvest party.
00:20:01
And some of us in winter time, we head down to Burbank. That's a beautiful circuit, isn't it, to make every year. And in between maybe we visit some other assemblies, some all day meetings and so on. How wonderful that is. But if we in the meantime, when we go back home, it's not, I mean it's always kind of a little bit of a let down when you have to say goodbye to the friends and so on. But.
If our home is a little bit like Rhema, the high places where we live in communion with the Lord, where we have that approach to God because as believers we have access into the holiest we can be, like Samuel, Israel was in a low state. And in the New Testament, in the epistles, we get plenty of indications that that will be the state of Christianity in the last days.
But there's always a path for those that want to walk with the Lord, and I would encourage you to really look at Second Timothy, because that's the epistle.
That talks about the path for the faithful person in a day of general ruin. And you'll see it talks there about separation quite a bit. But it also tells us that we can walk with those who are not alone. Will we find those that want to walk in that path? But so let's as much as we can, as much as we're able to seek for fellowship with the Saints. You know, when Samuel went from place to place, I'm sure there were faithful ones in those places that he met up with.
But when he came home.
It was not a downward course. He stayed on high, he stayed in the high places. And so I trust that.
You know, the lesson we can get from this is that let's be careful not to allow things in our lives.
That the Lord tells us, don't be occupied with that because it will hinder us. We might not think that people of Israel, obviously they didn't think it was a phone in the flesh. They were at peace with it. They were okay with it. But then as soon as this problem arises, you can see that it really hindered them and actually set them on a path of 40 years of a low stay, of a lot of sorrow for the people of Israel. And we don't want that in our lives. We don't want that in your lives.
So let's, when the Lord gives us these exhortations, don't do this or separate from this, let's heat those because He's all wise and He knows what best for us, and that's why He wrote those things. So let's look to the Lord.
Adam, Father, we to give thee thanks for thy word, and we need it so much daily in our lives, the guidance that we get from it.
But especially Lord, that Thou has to reveal thyself to us, and Thy word help us to learn more of thee and we think of.
The Lord Jesus and.
Always doing thy Father's will. There were no Amorites in thy life. It was the separate man, the holy man. And we pray that we might be like thee. 2 Lord Jesus, walk in communion with thee. Be an encouragement to thy people. Be one that are pleased in from day-to-day. Lord Jesus, we just thank you for this time. We thank you too for the refreshments that are provided Lord, and just pray for the rest of the evening.
Fellowship, it might be pleasing to thee. Lord Jesus, we pray this and my worthy name, Amen.
Matthew 5:8-12
Reading
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While we friend.
Our soul may be in life.
Be by side of her gracious save your.
Cleaning close things to the high side.
Still alive on the.
Strange.
Take away.
Eat the Lords help.
Our God and Father, we thank Thee that as we begin this morning, as we could sing this prayer, that they'll guide us.
Now who art faithful? Our God?
Those of us who the least in our measure feel our unfaithfulness.
We think of those in Ezra's day.
Who were trembling.
They felt the elements of the rain and the matter before them. And our God, we realized that even in the elements. Let us give us to.
To feel that indeed, we are strangers and pilgrims. We're not home yet. We are passing through.
Ever increasing.
Hostile world the.
Or Jesus that cast thee out.
And in any measure we're like thee. They don't want us either. So we we pray that we might be fortified by what's before us this day. We pray our God that they'll guide us if we should stay in this portion or to another. We we look to the aid that our souls might be fed and that we would be instructed and built up and encouraged. Our God we could sing. And I faithful love again.
00:05:16
What a comfort it is to our hearts and so we we look to the in anticipation.
Give me any thanks again for.
Wonderful food let us give us for our souls even thy beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and whose precious name we ask it. Amen. Amen.
Brother Vern, do you think we should continue on with the passage? What is your thought? You suggested it.
That's what I don't have any.
The idea?
If you want something else, as we find and.
I'd like to see us continue with it, but that's only my thought.
I.
Sounds like two of you have agreed on such a thing.
Would verse 9 be about right? Is that about where we left off?
I don't think we talked about verse 8.
But we gently referred to it. But we could use a little more discussion on it.
Matthew chapter 5 and verse 8.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
You're the salt of the earth. But if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted. It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. You're the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid, neither do men. Light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a Candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before man, that they may see your good works.
And glorify your Father, which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jaw or one title shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of heaven.
For I say unto you, that accept your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment, and whosoever shall say to his brother, Rocca shall be in danger of the council.
But whosoever shall say they'll fool shall be in danger of Hellfire. Therefore, if they'll bring thy gift to the altar, and their remembrance that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst they were in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge delivery deliver thee to the officer, and they'll be cast into prison.
00:10:16
Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost Farthing, we'll just stop there.
We were talking with Queen of Meetings and.
Just something along the line of this verse, pure in heart.
Every believer has a nature. One is higher than an Angel.
And the other one is lower than a snake. And so it's very interesting and it's, it's very profitable to realize that because it, this is what this verse means. Blessed are the pure in heart. So we have a, we have an enemy in the camp, a traitor.
Who's trying to bring us down? I was thinking of our our sister Dorothy. What? What must it be?
To be in the presence of the Lord without the old nature. Nothing to hold you back, nothing but the new nature.
Your brother asked what is what, What is your hope when the Lord comes? And immediately I thought to get rid of myself.
Set me free.
Good Vern when I read this, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. I think how important it is to remember that we can't walk in darkness and abide in the light. In first John one verse six, it says if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth.
And I know a young man and he really struggled with looking at dirty pictures. And he was able with the Lords help and with other people's help, he was able to overcome. And he said to me, said Matt, I cannot believe how much energy I have, how much time I have. This enemy of our souls is dangling all these things for us to see and participate in and and use our time and energy in. And this right here speaks if we're pure in heart.
And obviously, I appreciate you bringing out the thought of our two natures, Uncle Vern.
Obviously that would be the flesh that would be my shadow that would respond to that because my new nature can't bless it on the are the pure in heart, for they shall see God and we think, oh, this isn't going to make a difference. We think, oh, you know, I can enjoy this and enjoy the Lord and for whatever measure that we get taken up in it, we lose the blessing of seeing God and being in his presence and knowing who he is and the wonders our brother talked about his power and his wisdom and his love. It's worth more than anything.
This world has to show us.
There's a danger to the.
Believer and those that are professing believers, you might say in chapter 6.
The Lord takes up hypocrisy and to appear to be pure, but really not to have purity. He says, Take heed that you do not your arms before men to be seen of them.
Otherwise you have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. And so he gives instruction in this way that they they do these things in part verse two that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But the Lord delights in purity and.
He delights in that which is holy, and it was mentioned yesterday, I believe in the Gospel that holiness is a delight in that which is.
Good and a hatred of that which is evil. And so you and I have those of us that know the Lord Jesus as our Savior. We have a new life, the divine life, the very life of Christ. And we have a nature that is suitable for that new life. And we are indwelt with the Spirit of God and we have the capacity to be able to live in purity and to enjoy pure things. And so it's necessary to exercise ourselves as our brother Matt has mentioned that.
00:15:14
Not all things are pure. The natural man just allows all kinds of things to come in and his vessel is not covered.
And so it becomes defiled. Let's look at that. I think it's Numbers Chapter 19, these little pictures that we have in the scriptures give us.
Instruction as to how we can remain pure Numbers chapter 19 and verse 15. Every open vessel which hath no covering bound upon it is unclean, and so we need to be careful what we allow to enter into our vessels.
Brother had in the Sunday school here might just say that this verse that we just read in Numbers 19 verse 15 is one of the reasons why the brethren cover the cup on the table. You might wonder, well, is this just a tradition? Is this something that the brethren just they cover the cup so it looks nice. It's got a white cover on. No, that's not. And some of us have been to Mexico and other places, perhaps India and.
Cuba and there's flies all over the place.
And so there is a cover on it. But the brethren, when they first began to gather, and were remembering the Lord in his death, they put a cover on the on the cup, because of this verse of Scripture exercise them. An open vessel, which hath no covering bound upon it, is unclean. So they covered it up on the table.
Keeping the flies out is more scriptural.
It's a but maybe if she could tell us, you know, why did the Lord leave us here with an old nature?
To become like Christ.
Did he have an old nature?
No. Oh.
And we're supposed to become like him.
Was it I? I've heard in some place that he can't. He gave. He left us here with the old nature to humble us.
What do you say, Dawn?
It's true.
Not a good job.
In a in a broader sense of the word, the.
Law.
That the people who were being addressed in this chapter knew the law required them to be outwardly righteous, but it didn't. The law didn't directly deal with the nature itself, and these verses deal with the Lord is bringing something really new to their understanding. Not to the condition man was in. But God wants purity.
Inwardly. And if what's inward is correct, then what's outward will be done properly. So the Lord is introducing something new in these verses that has to do with what's inward. And it's the motive. Is is often been said, it's the motive, it's what's inward that gives value to the action itself. Two people may do exactly the same thing outwardly.
But one is sinning and the other is acting according to God's will, because one is doing it with the wrong motive and the other doing it with an inward motive, which is correct and proper. And as a consequence, the Lord said, I've come to give life more abundantly. And that more abundant life is the resurrection life that the Lord Jesus has that he shared with us.
And it is absolutely perfect in every detail and you have it.
If you are the Lord's your sit here this morning with the capacity to be pure, because you have a pure life, the life of the Lord Jesus, their hindrances to it, and those hindrances, Vern comments, humble us because we still have three primary hindrances to that life. One is inwards, the old life, if I could put it that way, the old nature.
00:20:07
That is completely sinful in its motives.
We also live in a world that is motivated by principles and practices that are totally contrary to that life that God has given us, the more abundant life. And finally, we have a quite same problem to deal with that Adam and Eve had, and that is Satan comes into the garden of our lives with the same activities that he was acting on Adam and Eve. And so we face that.
Same character as well, but he's bringing out the fact that the Lord is bringing something in for us to recognize. There's not just the negative, but there is a capacity given to us that in the natural things the Old Testament Saints did not have because while they had some of them had life from God, they didn't have it more abundantly.
They did not have it in its resurrection character combined with the Spirit of God dwelling.
In each one of us. So you and I ought not to make excuse when we sin, because within us as a pure life and acting in that life is the Holy Spirit that dwells within us. So the end result, Vern, is, yes, we're very humbled, but we should be anyways.
Matthew 23.
The Lord was addressing the scribes, the Pharisees, as hypocrites.
Verse 25 He may clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within or they are full of extortion and excess.
If you want to help your wife clean up after a big meal and you are going to attack the big pots, you don't scrub and scrub on the outside part. You go to the inside part. That's where the food has been and that's where the the next meal the food is going to go. The outside, not so important in that in that analogy, but it's interesting. In the next verse they were trying to be clean outside with filth inside. Then in the next verse, thou blind Pharisee verse 26, cleanse that cleanse first.
That which is within the cup and platter at the outside of them may be clean also. And so a young Christian may get the impression in Christian circles today that, well, it's my heart that matters. It's what's clean inside. My spirit is right. And then outside you see confusion in the life and you see chaos and things of that nature that are not according to the word of God. You say, no, yes, you want to have a right spirit. I think we had that before us.
The day before yesterday.
But it works its way out, and it manifests itself in the life and the grace of God that works in me, which is a wonderful privilege, that God works in us while we're still here in this world. But he has begun a good work in us. He'll finish it and it works its way out. And so we read in Titus the grace of God, which brings with it salvation at the peer to all men, teaching us and denying ungodliness and worldly lusts. We should live soberly.
And righteously and godly in this present world. And so it works its way out and we we see that in one another and it leads to oftentimes when we see purity in the New Testament or pure, the word is sometimes translated about half the time clean. Something's clean because somebody it got cleansed. And so there's some some spiritual energy there to make that happen and the reward here just like.
The other day the merciful obtained mercy. What are the pure in heart get not just not just some satisfaction that well, I've I've got the inside. I got the outside going. No, you see, God because he is the pure one, and it's wonderful to think that his desire and love is to bring us into the enjoyment of the same things that he enjoys and he works in our hearts to that end. And So what a wonderful result.
The pure in heart they shall see God.
It's leading somewhere.
To the highest privilege.
This is something in the new and the annals of the universe really, isn't it? It never really occurred before, if we think about it. God is God, of course he's deity. And then he created the angels. Either they were elect or they fell. There was no redemption, but God had redemption. Has provided the resources for true liberty, hasn't it? Where?
00:25:22
There can be a choice, a desire for to overcome evil, and that's a wonderful thing. And that's new in the annals of eternity. It never existed before because the angels weren't that way. Either they were elected or they were not elected. They fell. But in humanity then God has overcome evil with good, and men that have a pure heart are doing the same thing.
And that's a tremendous testimony. Isn't it wonderful that the angels observe, don't they? And they see in the church, they they wonders of what God has done. So I wanted to mention too, we've often read it, but in Second Timothy, I know this is Christianity going a little beyond what we have in our chapter, but we've often read those verses and verse 22 of chapter two of Second Timothy. Flee also youthful lusts, but follow righteousness, faith.
Charity, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
Well, that's very important, isn't it? This is the basis of Christian liberty, is it not? That word has been confused and misunderstood, and many people think that Christian liberty simply means that once we're Christians, we can kind of live the way we want. It's not what it means at all, does it? The true Christian liberty is to have a pure heart that is walking in the new nature, isn't it? And that's a beautiful thing. And again, that's a new thing.
In the annals of the universe that God has given us the ability to rise above evil, to triumph above evil, and that's what we ought to do. And it's a tremendous thing. Now in our chapter, it's interesting too, because this is not Christianity. But the Spirit of God is going to be poured out during the Millennium, isn't he? And men then will also be able to walk with a pure heart. But Christianity is even greater, isn't it, because we're in dwell.
By the Spirit of God. But it's a wonderful triumph of good over evil, is it not?
Which the universe has never seen before, where men make a positive choice to do that, which is right. And I just want to make another comment very quickly. We're reading in Colossians recently, and I was so impressed with one of the commentators that was speaking about the introduction. There were Paul's rights to the Saints and faithful and Colossi. Many people say they're Christians. They take up Christianity.
And it seems to fail him. Why is that? Well, they may be real believers, they may be Saints, like we have in the book of Romans. A person who's saved as a St. But it's only those who.
Are consecrated that are faithful that enjoy the blessings of Christianity? Yes, all Christians have equal blessings, but only those who are pure in heart will enjoy those blessings in this lifetime. Isn't that true?
So it's a tremendous truth, isn't it?
Proverbs tells us as face answers to face and water, so the heart of man to man.
If you look in water and it's.
Quiet.
You see your reflection in it. It's a mirror.
That's what it's implied in that verse. And so if I look at you and.
As a man in the flesh and I see your behavior, lying, cheating, stealing and all the rest, I'm looking at myself.
In my own nature.
However, now that you and I have a new nature, the life of Christ in us, there is a very practical exhortation to us concerning that, and it says we all with open face be holding us in a glass. The glory of the Lord are changed into the same image. That is the purity and the now that we have the opportunity to see God as He is.
00:30:09
Expressed to us in the person of the Lord Jesus.
Were encouraged and exhorted to keep our eye on him and God when we put our eye on that perfect object, that perfect expression of purity. God says I'll do my part by the Spirit in you. I'll change you to be more like Him. The process will not be complete until we're at home in glory.
But if you and I go home this weekend and some of us see each other.
I'll pick a number. I hope the Lord's come before. But let's say we were here a year from now.
I would expect, and you should expect as we look at each other to see more of Christ.
We should look more like Christ in in that process that is going on in us that God is doing because in the end result of it all, He wants every one of us to be perfectly inside and outside like Christ as we had the other day. Every single effect of sin, even outside in our bodies will be completely eliminated.
When we are raptured.
Total depravity was not taught in the Old Testament I've.
Been taught that there's just one scripture that speaks of that, of having a old nature, and that's when David said and and sin, my mother conceived me. But the rest, it was all transgression. It was sinned. Man was under probation, but it's in the new name. It's in the New New Testament that we see that we man is totally depraved.
After he.
Placed the Lord on the cross.
Verse nine it says blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. The only reason people fight is because their feelings get hurt.
The only reason there's a verse in Proverbs about the wrenching of a nose bringeth forth blood.
So forcing an issue bringeth forth wrath. And I just want to say on Rob Morrell's toolbox in his shop, it used to say only by pride cometh contention. So if I'm at odds with a brother or a sister, somebody's got pride. It may be me, it may be them, it may be both of us, and we can go before the Lord about our own side of the table. In Romans it says as much as it lieth with me.
Live at peace with all men. We can't necessarily fix everybody else, but we can show up as light in love. Blessed are the peacemakers. And one of the things that's so helpful in this, and I am the guiltiest person in the room, so it's I'm teaching this out of experience by fault is listening. If you listen to what the other person is saying, they will more likely feel heard. And often people fight simply because they weren't heard.
Not even about the issue and the issue isn't the issue. How we deal with the issue is the issue. And when we give people room to be themselves and not try and force them and push them around, then it says right here they shall be called the children of God. And it's so beautiful when you talk to somebody who isn't shoving people around, who's open in James three, I think it's verse 17, it says the wisdom that is from above is first pure.
And peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated. Am I easy to be entreated? It's these things are so practical. They're so real. Like our our brethren are saying what's right when we're right on the inside, then we're going to have right behavior on the outside. The Lord help us in these things.
I wonder if we could step back just a little bit to our brother Burns question about why we have the old nature.
It is wonderful to be occupied with our blessed Lord and to be changed from glory to glory, but often there's an intermediate step and we have to realize that God is revealing Himself to us. And necessarily it has to be most of the time by contrast and not by comparison. And I believe in Romans 7.
00:35:22
We have a very important lesson. Here was a man with the new nature and he wanted to do right, but he couldn't. He couldn't find a refuge, he couldn't find the strength. And what happens at the end of the chapter is he owns his own wretchedness. Now God doesn't delight in peeling off the layers so that I can see.
The wretchedness that's within me and I believe that we can thank him for his mercy, how he protects us and how gentle he is, but in the end, we we must learn more of himself and often the path.
Is laced with our wretchedness, recognizing and as someone put it, I think 2 afternoons ago.
Very beautifully. It's not what I've done, it's what I look in my heart and I see what I'm capable of in the flesh. This is real wretchedness.
And what happens? It is the realization of what I am Helpless, hopeless, without strength.
That brings me to the Lord as the refuge, and that's what he says. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And what happens in chapter 8, we have the fullness of the liberty of the gospel made good to the soul. And so it is God teaches us. By contrast, he doesn't delight in this process of showing me up to myself.
That he might reveal more of his beauty and his grace. But it is part of the process. And I say this for the young people.
These these lessons, they are important and it is something that we should not insulate ourselves against. When we open the word of God, it needs to speak to our conscience, it needs to speak to my heart and then it will find its way down to my feet.
And then I will be in the good of the glory of the person of Christ and be able to be free of myself and to be changed into His image.
And so when it comes to peacemakers, then I believe it's connected with that, isn't it?
I respectfully match suggest that.
All contention does not come from people being offended.
It's a very practical thing that happens, but if we could say it reverently, were God's feelings hurt when sin came into this world? If we wanted to say that reverently, we could say that. But sometimes the difficulty comes from that which is not according to God's mind. And so there can be, for example, bad doctrine brought out, there can be bad practices brought out.
And it may not offend anyone in the sense of causing their feelings to be hurt, but it disturbs the peace.
And blessed are the peacemakers, and I know this is a Jewish setting here, so we have to remember that. But a peacemaker ultimately in divine things brings God's mind into the picture and brings it in in the right way.
And so we find, for example, when Israel was in the wilderness, there were real difficulties. And it wasn't so much that Moses got his feelings hurt. It was that which was contrary to the mind of God. It's what it was that which disturbed and ultimately addressed and dishonored the Lord. And that was what caused the problem. And so blessed are the peacemakers, yes.
00:40:06
In a practical sense, a peacemaker can come into the picture without any feelings of his or her own in the situation and seek to deal with the problem according to God's mind. But it's a paradox, isn't it? Because we find, for example, in Jeremiah he has to say twice over they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people, likely saying peace, peace when there is no peace.
And we can do that in a way that perhaps sweeps a problem under the rug and glosses over it, but does not really address it in the right way. And so.
Here a peacemaker, I believe ultimately brings God's mind into things, but addresses that according to with reference to God and not simply with reference to man. And so further on, here we get.
Things like being persecuted for righteousness sake. Is that peace? No, not really. There, there, there isn't peace. We go. We go further on and find out that.
You're to be exceeding glad because the prophets were persecuted and sometimes they couldn't bring peace in. We get in Isaiah at the end of chapter 49, I think it is, and at the end of chapter 57.
The very same words. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. Ultimately that is from God's side. No matter how you slice it, there can be no peace to the wicked. But what a wonderful thing it is to be a peacemaker by bringing in God's thoughts in the matter, by bringing God's mind into the matter, and of course, bringing it in in the right way.
And that, if we could go on a little, as we said a moment ago, leads into what we have in verses 1011 and 12, and ultimately, of course, into what we have in verse 13 concerning salt.
How many dear believers in this world have been persecuted? And it tells us in Second Timothy three that all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But ultimately, many of those dear ones were able to bring about peace in the whole matter. Why? Because first of all, they submitted to it, and then they brought God's thoughts into the picture.
And in that way they reach the consciences of those who were doing wrong.
And I know we had that before yesterday about.
Seeking to hunger and thirst after righteousness and submitting to unrighteousness in this world. But I believe here it's if we look at the scripture carefully, we see that there is the reaching the conscience of the ones that are persecuted or persecuting and.
That's part of what the Lord Jesus did in his life.
When he was brought before Pilate, he submitted to what Pilate did, but he reminded him, Thou couldst have no power at all against me, except that were given thee from above. He reminded Pilate that everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice, and Pilate was more afraid.
Way back at the time of the Reformation, or actually even before the Reformation, when Jan Huss was brought before the Council of Constance.
The early 1400s.
The Roman Catholic Church persuaded the emperor a man by the name of Sigismond.
To tell him that he would have a safe conduct to the conference, but then he broke his word because they said you don't have to keep your word to a heretic. You can break your word. And he did. And Huss was arrested and put in prison and eventually burned at the stake for his faith in Christ, but in front of the whole conference.
00:45:07
Excuse me, has reminded them at the conference, he said. Sigismond, you granted me a safe conduct.
And you broke your word.
And cigar splint. It's recorded blush to the roots of his hair, realizing that as the Emperor, he had broken his word.
Fast forward 100 years.
To Martin Luther.
And they tried to do the same thing to him. They tried to persuade the emperor, they said, grant him a safe conduct.
And then break your word or we'll get them.
In spite of the fact that it was 100 years later, the emperor at that time said Oh no, Oh no, I don't want to stand in front of a man of God and have to blush the way Sigismund blushed when Hussein binded him that he'd broken his word. And so here we find peacemakers who submit perhaps to that which is done to them, but reaching the conscience of those who persecute.
And they're going to say all manner of evil against us that was going to be the result of following Christ. But at the same time, the Lord says rejoice and be exceeding glad. Your reward will be in heaven. But as we find in the New Testament in connection with being persecuted, it will make your face shine as an Angel. And so it's a wonderful thing in that sense to be persecuted for Christ.
But that one could still be a peacemaker.
Appreciate that Bill. I think there's a there's an aspect where persecution is good for us. I remember a couple different times when something happened and I was just thinking the Lord is in charge of everything. He allowed this to happen. He allowed this person to attack me and it's I think it's good for us when that happens to just take it before the Lord and ask the Lord instead of my dad said instead of saying why, why did this happen? Say what are you trying to teach me?
Because we're in this, we're in the school of God to grow, to be made in the image of Christ. So when we're persecuted for righteousness sake, when men revile us, when they persecute us, when they say evil things about us, it's an opportunity for me to grow in my soul, to judge the flesh, to face what the Lord might be teaching me. And, and it's so beautiful. I remember one time I talked in a conference and this brother that I love dearly came up to me and he kind of.
To our end, to me a little bit and it it hurt and I was like, what's this all about? And I just felt like the Lord was just saying, you know what? I just want to make sure that you did it for me.
And I think the Lord allows things like that. I knew the brother loved me. I knew there was no doubt. And I just took it from the Lord. And I was just like, OK, Lord, it's not about me. And to understand that life isn't happening to us. It's happening for us. And we can rejoice in verse 12 and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven and realize that our life isn't supposed to be easy.
We're not people who want everything to be easy, miss the opportunity that's right in front of them. The Lord wants us to grow. He wants us to love and serve the people around us.
Might notice that there's two different the attitudes here verse 10 is one of them and verse 1112 is another and they all begin these beatitudes with blessed are or not expression and so the first one in verse 10 sounds like very similar to verse 11 but really there is such a thing as suffering for righteousness sake persecution and as a brother Eric has reminded us this is a bit of a Jewish context and so they're going to.
Be in a scene of unrighteousness and there's going to be a scene of apostasy during the Tribulation period that these righteous Jews will face as they go through the persecution of that time. They'll seek to do the right thing. They'll walk in righteousness before God according to the truth of the word of God, and they will not go in a a path of wickedness. We could read some of the Psalms to refer to that, but in verse 11 it appears that it's a little bit different.
00:50:09
Because, umm, now they're not. The reward in verse 10 is that theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. But in verse 12 it says your reward is in heaven. It appears that the persecution will be such that it could involve martyrdom. And so I, they shall persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. And so it's the person of Christ identifying with the Lord.
Himself will deepen the persecution. So here in verse 10, we're doing the right thing. We're saying the right thing. We're trying to obey the word of God and walk in the course of righteousness. But really, when we identify with Christ, that's a different story. And so for my sake, rejoice and be exceeding glad. So there is a joy that is consistent with persecution. If we identify with the Lord Jesus, it's a joy that's unique.
For those that go through that persecution identifying with the Lord Jesus, it's wonderful to in a world that has cast Christ off to identify with that blessed one and to walk in fellowship with him and to suffer as he suffered the rebuke and the reproach of men. So the he says be glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you so we could read if Steven man heavenly man.
As he spoke on behalf of the Lord and identified with that man, Christ Jesus, and he saw him standing, heaven opened and he saw him there and expressed that heavenly vision. Why you and I can as well identify with the Lord Jesus and thank God that we have our associations are with that name. We're blessed by being able to identify with the name of Christ and the person of Christ.
The ultimate peacemaker is the Lord Jesus.
The ultimate example of a peacemaker is the Lord Jesus.
And verse not ten, we have the peacemaker.
In verse 11.
Think of the Lord Jesus, when men reviled and persecuted him, and said all manner of things of evil against him.
And.
The.
Falsely in verse 12.
We have hidden. I'm Speaking of Him in these verses, rejoicing.
Pretty tough to rejoice. This has already been commented on in multiple ways. How did he rejoice?
Father.
I It says he rejoiced in spirit, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them under Braves foresow it. And this is a key. For so it seemed good in my sight. He could rejoice because he accepted what was happening, as according to the will of God.
In his life at that point in the circumstances in which he was was in and he said for so it seemed good in my sight.
To enlarge a little. And that's how we find our joy.
If we follow with that new life in the same pattern, and can say, Father, for so it seemed good, and I seems good in the present circumstance and thy sight. But to take the peacemaker thought a little step further.
The Lord Jesus acted with a perfect peacemaking spirit in all the circumstances of his life, but he came into conflict.
With particularly the scribes and Pharisees, who were fearful that if He were given a place and the people were starting to follow Him, that they would lose their place and nation. And in that there was pride, there was a desire of motives for self that was included in it. And here was arrival. And so there was conflict. There was not peace between them, but as a perfect.
00:55:09
Presentation of God to man. The end result was.
Could there be peace on Earth?
When he, the perfect peacemaker was being rejected, no, there could not. And so the Lord Jesus perfectly understanding where things were. Scripture says in John now is the judgment of this world. That is, there could not be lasting peace among men even with proper peacemaking, and there will not be in the world.
In which we live were exhorted among ourselves that all have the new nature as to there should be ought to be peace among us, and will be if there's submission to the mind of will of God and his word in the doctrine in it. But just to finish the thought.
There is coming peace.
And the perfect peacemaker is going to make it.
But what is it going to take?
It's going to take what's given to us in Revelation.
6.
To 19.
And that's not a very pretty happy picture. If you read Revelation 6 to 19, what's coming for this world when the King of peace comes to establish peace? There's going to be war and there's going to be a the end of that war will be peace, and there will be then peace for 1000 years. And there will be automatic peacemaking and keeping during that thousand year period because he will be the king.
And will reign in righteousness, and the attributes of this chapter will be fulfilled. But again I say as to us it gives. And I want to put it this way.
The Father and the Son.
Find joy when they see in you and in me.
Submission to the will of God in the circumstances of our life that may be difficult or troubling or even involve conflict if we are submissive to His will according to His Word. And so we have an opportunity to give the Lord joy. Let's do it.
Now make one more comment.
Lord saved you.
Where are you?
According to Luke 15, you're on his shoulders and he's one of his sheep that the father's given.
To you, he's taken you home on his shoulders. Don't make the job more difficult that it needs to be. Let him carry you without bringing it unnecessary conflict in your life with others.
John why does he switch here from they in the former blessed and like the tenth verse it says blessed are they and there for theirs is a Kingdom. But then he switches and makes it more personal.
It says blessed are you.
So it's not they, but it's you right now and and then.
That same verse goes down. It says persecute you and say all manner of of evil against you. And then he says rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets. It seems that he goes for the more general to now personal. I know when Luke he does he he uses it personally, but why would he?
Make these things more personal than the ones before? Or is there an answer to that or not?
I have a thought. Well, I'll be happy for others to share their thoughts as well.
Bringing out two things here, Salt and light.
And he's anticipating at this point the church had not been formed. But he's speaking to those who will. Some of them form the church that now existed.
01:00:02
And the church has the ye in verse 13 and 14 and what follows on by having the light.
The Church has these present responsibility to be what is described here in this world.
Salt is a preservative.
And the life of the Christian should be a have a preserving effect.
Upon everybody that's about them, by their own character of life, and by living according to the principles that are described.
The Church is ye are the light of the world, and our present responsibility in this world is to be light.
In Revelation 2 and three, where we have the history of the Church on earth, it is brought before us in a way that would say that it is our responsibility to be the light and the salt of the earth. And sadly, one of the reasons this period of grace is going to end is the failure of the Church to be what is described right here.
In the responsibility is being given right here as to what it should be. Ye are the light of the world.
Is the world full of light today?
If not, why not?
No, I not.
Why isn't the world full of light? Spiritual, natural, the light of moral things?
The answer is the church has failed. The church has failed. That's why the world doesn't have its light. We look and say the governments this and the governments that and it does the other and how bad man is and so on. But the truth of the matter is the testimony of God is in the church for mankind general at this point in time. And if the world is full of darkness, where does the responsibility lie?
That lies with the church and you and I know why is.
Our Christians in every land, I think in the world there's another brother once said God doesn't put all the street lights on the same street corner and so we get spread out. But wherever we live, whatever St. you live on, morally speaking, you're the light on that street.
You have a nice right St.
Well, the responsibility is that.
Salt and its character and a Christian character is a preservative. That's the purpose of salt. It's preserved. And if there is that walk in which the proper moral character is seen in the life of the person, it has a preserving effect. And this is true. I don't care where you work. Everybody works. Everybody interacts with their neighbors.
Life should be a light where you work, and it should be a have a preserving character on the moral activity of what's gone there, because a positive moral character does affect those that are around it.
And as as so in in that sense, I think that's why it goes to ye because it's anticipating those that are being spoken to who are going to have these responsibilities that are described here.
And carrying it on into the period in which we live, these are statements of responsibility that you and I have, where we are, where God has put us, wherever we may be, and sadly.
As it says in Revelation 2, they're light bearers. It's the life of Christ, the life of that he has put in US. That should be a light. We're light bearers for God in the world today.
And if we fail in that, and sadly as a coal we have, then the Revelation Two and three is a preface to say why the Church age comes to an end and to bring about the peace by the peacemaker beginning in Chapter 4 Revelation and to the end of it, he has to take it into his own hands directly and bring peace that will last forever.
01:05:05
Salt comes before light here.
And so it is that in Mark we read that expression Have salt in yourselves.
And so there's a primary exercise in a believer.
To be close to the Lord.
To have our feet daily wash by the washing of water, by the word.
And to be maintained in communion with him.
That's the effect of grace in my life.
It leads me.
To be devoted to Him. It's been said that salt is the is the work of grace in my heart that leads me in devotion to Christ and then on to holiness. But sometimes maybe we're all guilty of this. We run around our assembly with a salt shaker, salt and everybody else. This leads to a lot of problems.
And then we don't understand where the problem came from, because aren't we right? Isn't salt good? Yes, it is good.
It needs to be salty, but it's so interesting I find in Mark at the end, have salt in yourselves and then interesting. What is it going to say and be at peace one with another very interesting connection there and so salt comes before light. I wondered at times. You know, it's easy to for me anyway to.
Berate myself for not being more of a testimony, not being more light where I am. And I've marveled sometimes where I'll be in a work group when I was still working.
And don't recall saying anything about Christ.
And someone will use bad language and they'll look at me and say I'm sorry.
How did they know that that was offensive to me? I don't know, but there is in a believer.
A character of things when, when it's normal, when we're walking in normal Christianity, the character of things and we sense it in others. I know brethren who've seen somebody in the store and you could just tell how they were, how they were cashing out the groceries and say, are you a Christian? How did you know that? And there's a certain, there's a certain odor, a good odor, a saver.
That comes from those that have been with Christ. And so salt is first applied to myself, and then there could be light, whether we realize we're a light or whether we don't. You're more of a testimony than you think you are. Don't be so discouraged about that if you're walking with the Lord.
So when I make a brief comment before we close an application, perhaps of these verses, it is an application because we're applying it to the church. But sometimes young believers especially ask, why do we meet as we do? Why don't we meet like all the other Christians? Isn't there a great movement in Christendom towards unity? But based on what we've been speaking about, the only true unity, God-given unity.
Is where Christ has his rightful place and that's why we meet as we do, do we not to be gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ is really the only possible way there can be peace among Christians. And so that's why we meet there. I just want to make that application because I think it's appropriate to what we have here. If I meet in division, there's no peace there. If I meet acubanically, that's a human.
Piece, and that's what Bill was speaking about earlier. I think that's there's a difference between compromise at any cost and an honorable piece, isn't there? And the only true honorable priest, peace is to be gathered to the Lord Jesus precious name, bowing to his authority, his person and his work. That's the calling of the Christian.
It's interesting that in Mark's gospel, Chapter 9, verse 50, the salt and the peace are mentioned together. And so it says salt is good. But if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith shall he season it? Have salt in yourselves and have peace one with another. And so it's not that we sacrifice the salt for peace, but that we can have both.
01:10:01
But it requires discernment.
174.
For patience, Father's one.
Lord.
And the strange.
To.
My heart and glory of me.
Closing Prayer.
Our God and our Father, we thank Thee for this precious privilege.
To be under the sound of thy word, We thank thee for this object.
That we have before our souls.
Lord Jesus.
We ask for help.
That we would go under the yoke with the.
Learn thy blessed ways.
We pray.
That whatever time we have left.
We would walk.
In quiet peace with thee.
That we might have wisdom discernment.
To carry out what we've learned today.
Where to use that salt?
Where that light might shine forth like glory.
To our brother, our sister, to our fellow man, not for anything in us, but rather that thou might be glorified.
We just thank thee for this privilege, the kindness of our brother here locally to.
Put this on and we accept it. Our God, the blessing that we've experienced from my hand, we thank thee. We praise thee in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen.
Elisha
Address—Bruce Conrad
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Good afternoon everybody out there.
Let's start our meeting this afternoon with singing part of.
Hymn #270.
5.
God is light.
Though we go across the trackless wild.
Our Jesus footsteps ever show.
The path for every child.
Some brother could start that and let's sing just verses one through 1, two and three.
Forever.
Grace, come.
We grow.
Ask for God's help, Blessing.
Our God, our Father, we thank Thee for these few days we've been able to be together.
And to have thy word before us, which draws out our hearts to thee.
To thy beloved Son, and to the things which concern himself.
We thank Thee, our God, for setting Thy love upon us when we had no thought towards Thee.
And bringing us into such blessing. And we find ourselves here still in this world.
On our way home to heavenly glory.
And we feel our need.
We feel our weakness so often, young and old.
And we are encouraged, Lord Jesus, by the words of this him. Our Jesus footsteps ever show the path for every child we find ourselves in such positions on workable, sometimes untenable. How did we get into this place? How wonderful. Lord Jesus, there's always a path for faith. So we asked this afternoon as we open thy word.
I would guide us with I don't divine.
Editing by Thy Holy Spirit into that which would be for our prophet, our encouragement.
And we ask it, our God and Father, and the worthy and precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Well, I hope what I have on my heart to take up.
Is not a descent from the wonderful things we've already had before us.
Left to myself.
I would love to take up the the things in the high places that concern.
God's counsel for us.
In the Word of God, as we read it over the years and decades, for those of us older, we see these two threads of things we see.
We see God's counsel worked out.
In a large way, in a unique way for you and me in our lives. And then we see the other side of our responsibility.
00:05:06
I'd rather take up the former, but I have very much on my heart to take up that second part. That is our responsibility here in this world and I I think about every.
Every passage I've thought I should take up has probably been mentioned two or three times in these various readings, so you'll probably hear some repetition.
But just as a as a kind of an overarching verse verse.
We read in John 15 and we don't need to turn through it. Herein is my father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.
And so I would like to speak this afternoon about our pathway through this world on our way home to to our to the Father's house in a way that would bear fruit for God our Father. And first of all, I'd like to turn to Romans 15 just for a verse that I think is good to read.
Because I have on my heart to just speak of three different incidents in the life of Elijah.
In the Old Testament, as we are prone to call it.
In Romans 15.
And verse four for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning.
That we, through patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope.
You can think, I'm sure, of a number of scriptures in the New Testament that give you solid scriptural.
Precedent for looking in the Old Testament scriptures and understanding that these things that happened unto them happen. For examples for you and me and think of the millions of us believers in in recent decades or in the past couple centuries that have pondered the sacrifices in the early chapters of Leviticus.
The meaning of the Passover in Exodus 12 we've we've perused over the book of Genesis.
With the New Testament lens that we've been given and these things, it's not just an afterthought with God that we should do this. It's it's a manner in which he teaches us. And so when Paul wrote to Timothy, he said all Scripture, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for teaching or for doctrine and as a late brother.
London not. Not this one, but the.
Two steps up when used to say all scripture is not doctrine.
But it's profitable for doctrine, and so rather than turn to Romans 6 or Romans 7 or Colossians.
Chapter 3 or some of those passages and take up things in a kind of a technical, factual way. I thought it best to turn back and to use the structure of these types.
To remind ourselves.
Of much of a large aspect of our life here while we wait for the Lord's return. So with that, let's start by turning one other New Testament verse in Luke Chapter 9.
And then we'll go back to kings.
In Luke Chapter 9.
And it came in verse 57, Luke 9 and 57. And it came to pass that as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.
And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not were to lay his head.
And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the Kingdom of God.
And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee, but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.
Now turn with me, please, to 1St Kings Chapter 19.
Well known portion I'm sure, even to the younger children perhaps.
First Kings 19.
00:10:02
We are here at.
In a chapter which is.
Very striking for the way.
The Lord is dealing with one of his servants.
I'm not sure if it was in the meeting or between the meetings. I think it was between the meetings. A brother mentioned to me how how remarkable that the apostle Paul should be, go through all this experience, have all this, this, this stewardship that he had of the gospel of the grace of God, and also as one of the stewards of the mysteries of God.
And yet he should be apprehended in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem.
Spend a couple years in in restraint, a long boat ride across.
The Mediterranean to eventually to Italy and up through there where?
We suspect he wrote his epistles that Brother Don mentioned in the last reading meeting.
Those mountain peaks that we read about in Ephesians and Colossians and Philippians and Philemon.
But here we have with Elisha, who as you all know the story, and he stood valiantly for Jehovah in seeking to bring the people back to the acknowledgement of the law and its claims over them, and that what what should have been their blessing under the King's.
And at the moment of perhaps his greatest and most striking accomplishment, a little bit after that, a woman says to him, you're going to be, as we would say you're going to be dead. And he flees for days and days and days back to Horeb of all places. Why he would go back to to Horeb where the law was given.
Is a little bit puzzling, isn't it, because his ministry was to bring the people back to the law?
And he no doubt felt he had utterly failed in that. So he goes back to the place where it was given. He's not going to find any rest there. But how gracious God is with His servant.
He says to him twice after nourishing him along the way, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he tells him in verse just before where I'd like to read. He tells them there.
In verse 15 the Lord said unto him, Go returned on my way to the wilderness of Damascus. When thou comest anoint Hazel to be king over Syria, and Jehu the son of Nimshi, shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat, of Abel Mahola, shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room. And it shall come to pass at him that escapeth the sword of Hazel shall Jehu slay, and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall.
Yet have I left me 7000 in Israel all the needs which have not bowed unto bail.
And every mouth which hath not kissed him. So we departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphan, who was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen before him, and he with the 12Th. And Elijah. 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 then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go back again.
For what have I done to thee? And he returned back from him, and took the 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, and ministered unto him. Let's just get the other passages before us in second Kings.
Second Kings chapter 2, verse one.
And it came to pass when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind.
That Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.
And I'd like to skip down to verse.
Verse six Elijah said unto him, Tarry, I pray thee here, for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan. And he said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they too went on.
And 50 men of the sons of the prophets went and stood to view afar off, and they too stood by Jordan.
00:15:03
And Elijah took his mantle and wrapped it together and smoked the waters. And they were divided, hit her and thither, so that they too went over on dry ground.
And it came to pass when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee before I be taken from the away from the. And Elijah said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, Thou hast asked the hard thing, Nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee. But if not.
It shall not be so, McCain to pass as they still want on and talk that behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire.
And parted them both asunder, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
And Elijah saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more. And he took hold of his own clothes and rent them in two pieces. He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back and stood by the Bank of Jordan. And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smoked the waters, and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah?
And when he also had spit in the waters.
Hit her and thither and Elisha went over.
We'll stop there, tempting as it is to go on in Chapter 13 of the same book, Second Kings.
13.
Verse 14 Second Kings 13 and verse 14. Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness, whereof he died. And Joash the king of Israel came down unto him, and wept over his face, and said, Oh, my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And Elijah said unto him, Take bow and arrows, And he took unto him bow and arrows.
And he said to the king of Israel, put thine hand upon the bow.
And he put his hand upon it, and Elijah put his hands upon the King's hands.
And he said open the window eastward and he opened it. Then Elijah said shoot, and he shot.
And he said the arrow of the Lord's deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria.
For thou shalt smite the Syrians in effect, till thou shalt to thou hath consumed them. And he said, Take the arrows, and he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite the ground. And he smoked thrice, and stayed. And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou should have smitten five or six times. Then hath thou smitten Syria, to thou hast consumed it.
Whereas now thou shalt smite Syria.
But thrice?
Let's just stop there.
The transition between Elijah.
And Elisha, as most in this room would be aware, is a transition between a ministry of repentance.
And a ministry of that which follows repentance in our lives individually, repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
When?
I receive the work of God in my soul to turn me.
To lead me to repentance.
I reevaluate everything.
When my younger sister was saved and she had a little Cham, my father had a little, my father was not saved at that time, had a little chance to to see her and to be around her for a while. And he said to me, you know, she's really taken AU turn. And I thought, my, what a classic definition of repentance to take AU turn. And so we see here with Elisha, he's busy.
12Th.
Oxen, if you've ever been to Pennsylvania, where I'm from, the Amish people still to this day.
Plow with wide plows and multiple horses through these beautiful, beautiful soils there and one after another and they follow along. I can't imagine what it would have been like to see 12 Elijah with the last one.
In Elijah.
Never fulfilled the the command of the Lord to to anoint Jehu or Haziel, but he goes right to Elisha. I don't want to get bogged up in too many of these these wonderful details, but but to move ahead a little bit, what he does immediately go to Elisha because he's told Elijah is going to be prophet in thy room.
00:20:19
Throws his mantle on Elisha and.
Now, Elisha, he doesn't. He doesn't force him to come. He throws his mantle upon him. Elijah says to him, let me just go back and handle a few things. He says they're literally.
Let me I pray, they kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go back again, for what have I done to thee?
It's leaving him to his own judgment. Elijah had done what he was supposed to do. He had thrown his mantle on Elijah. Now it was up to Elijah. And I believe that we have a picture here, not only of salvation, not only of the grace of God that has come into our lives to bring salvation to us, turn us from darkness to light, but now are we going to follow him?
Because as we've had before us in these meetings, that's what he desires. We we all were quite struck by that comment.
Not just come unto me all either heavy laden, I will give you rest, but come down unto me. And so Elijah says, I want to go back and kiss my father and mother, but there's no record that he ever did it. Perhaps on the way he evaluated things. And he said, if I'm going to follow Elijah, it's the end of all of that plowing and of all of that work and of all of that stuff.
And he goes back and he, as we read, and he, he takes that instruments of his.
Livelihood of his, his plowing, and he burns them, and he turns those oxen into food for the people of God, and then he goes.
After Elisha and so young people, nobody is going to stand behind you and push you into following Christ.
Nobody can stand behind you and push you into the Kingdom of God. Nobody can push you. As much as as much as we would love to pick you up and bring you into the Kingdom of God and bring you into a place of being saved from the guilt and power of your sins, we can't do that. It has to be you that turn from darkness to light in your own soul when your own responsibility.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And I warn you that there's been people who have been decades at the Lord's Table.
And finally, in their 50s or 60s, they came to their brethren. They say, I I'm saved now.
Yeah, we know you're safe. No, I just got saved. And they said what? Yes, I just got saved. Even though I'm. I know I've been at the Lord's Table for a long time, and I don't fault such people because they don't know what they don't have.
They just feel perhaps they've made an intellectual assent that, well, I'm not going to be a Hindu, I'm going to be a Christian. And this is what Christians do. And sure, I, I believe this, that and the other. And so I'm going to, I'm living an upright life like the others anyway. So I'm just going to, I'm just going to go along with the Christians. And they don't know what they don't have.
And with this particular man whom I never met, I'm sure there's been more than one. They realized through the work of the Spirit of God that they had nothing, and the goodness of God LED them to repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And they happily resume breaking of bread at the Lord's Table as real members of the body of Christ and those for whom the blood of Christ.
Brought redemption.
But here with Elijah, he starts out very nicely, doesn't he? Goes back, makes a clean break.
Follows Elijah's we have in the last chapter, but we don't read of him for many verses.
But when we get to 2nd Kings, when the time comes for Elijah.
Elijah's ministry to end here, we have a tipping point.
In Elijah's life.
And they leave from Gilgal, which is not the Gilgal, as I understand it, down by the Jordan where they were circumcised after coming across Jordan at the end of the wilderness journey that Gilgal is, is down there, as I understand it, in that low, low valley. There's another Gilgal apparently up in the high place. And that's where they started out. They started out from the high place to Gilgal and they came down to Bethel.
00:25:15
Which is that precious place where Jacob learned a wonderful lesson and and loved to tarry on those details. But but I don't feel I should. And then down to Jericho and then across Jordan. And the point I want to bring out in this in this in this picture here is that Elijah is following along with Elijah. Elijah is the established prophet and Elijah.
Is certainly a picture of Christ.
And he comes to the Jordan River, a well known picture of death and he.
Takes his mantle and he strikes the water and the water stop and across he goes and Elijah follows him there. And if you're a believer, you're like Elisha and you've crossed those rivers of death because of the virtue of Christ, not only not just living a righteous life here in this world, which he did as that holy one of God, a righteous man, the Son of God.
But he had to die.
It was through death he destroyed him that had the power of death and he had to die to deliver you and me from the ******* we were in. So Elijah goes across and now things get a little bit tighter between Elijah and Elisha and as we read there in in the second chapter.
The two went on at the end of verse 6.
And Elijah took his mantle as we just spoke about smites the waters and they go over on dry ground.
That's where you are if you're a believer, if you put your trust in Christ last night.
You're on dry ground today.
You're on dry ground, you're on the rock, you're safe, and you have Christ as your Savior and your destiny is to be with Him and to share an eternal glory. But now we have something else here. It came to pass when they were gone over that Elijah said unto Elijah, Ask what I shall do for thee.
And Elijah said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing.
When Matt was asking those hard questions in the reading, I was thinking of how the rich?
The rich young, godly, rich young man came to the Lord Jesus. Maybe I'll stretch it by saying godly, but he clearly was an upright man.
And he came, and you can just picture the disciples, these guys that were traveling from place to place to place.
So they were, you know.
You know how you get when you travel a long time, you're in the same clothes all day after day, and they were not wealthy men anyway. And here comes this rich young guy, probably really well dressed, got it all together.
Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And the Lord says sell everything you have.
Take up your cross and follow me. Oh, it's the last thing you wanted to hear.
He went away sorrowful, but then my point in bringing it up, as the disciples said.
Let me, let me just, I think it's Matthew 19. I'll just quickly grab it here.
If I can.
When his disciples heard it, the Lord's response also included It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.
And for a rich man to enter into heaven, into the Kingdom of God. When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed.
Saying who then can be saved?
But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible, but with God?
All things are possible.
He's asking you to do. He's inviting you to do. He's setting before you that it is your.
Intelligent service and responsibility, as we heard today, to do that with naturally speaking is impossible. And that would have been my answer if I had to answer you, Matt, in a smaller setting with God, it's with man it's impossible, but with God it's possible. So Elijah asked for a double portion of the Spirit and and young people.
One of the most wonderful things that ever came into my mind.
00:30:04
With respect to the gospel of the grace of God, as you can know so little and have so much.
Our late brother Gordon Hey ho when when when he met my sister and me when we were first saved, he marveled. I told him what I knew when I accepted Christ and he marveled. He he quoted that verse. Almost all things in the law are cleansed by blood because there's one little detail where someone who is really poor can bring a tenth part of an ephah and it can be a sacrifice for sin. You can find that I think in.
5 And so some of us knew nothing. I knew nothing about the blood of Christ. I knew nothing about what you learn in Sunday school. You had a wonderful children's meeting here the other day. Knew nothing. But when I laid hold of Christ as my Savior, which by the grace of God I did all these things, we have been talking about everything that he did and every glory that's associated with what he.
It is mine and yours. You don't have to understand it to have it.
But it's wonderful as you go along in your Christian life to begin to understand it more and more.
Some of the brethren in here for over 50-60, maybe even 70 years we have been studying the gospel of the grace of God to learn about his work and to learn more of his person. It's a lifelong, delightful, delightful process. But to me, it's wonderful that I see something I never saw before as a as an old man reading the scriptures.
This is true of me when I was 23, true of me then. These are wonderful things.
And what was true of Elijah?
In figure here a double portion. That's what you have.
I don't know if you picked it up in the reading today, but Old Testament Saints who had faith, they had that faith. They followed the Lord according to the light they had because they were born again. They had life.
But the character of life that the believer receives today is the different quality of life, because a man has now crossed Jordan, so to speak, and entered into heaven. And he has, he has, he has communicated to you and me what the Scripture calls eternal life.
And that's the life that is in his Son. At one time it existed solely and only and eternally in the Son himself.
But after the work on Calvary's cross and after his resurrection from among the dead.
That life is now communicated to you and me through faith.
And you have that life. It's called eternal life, and you presently possess it.
In most of the passages in the Word of God, sometimes it's looked upon at the end of the journey.
But.
You have it now. You have that eternal life. And so in John 20 when the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead.
Before he ascended up and sent the Holy Spirit down.
He says to Mary.
Whole nother beautiful subject.
Go to my brethren.
And tell them I ascend to my Father and your father, and to my God and your God.
And then he breathed on them and said, Receive ye, Holy Ghost.
I've pondered that for years.
The laboring brother who I won't name when I was young, young and poor.
And he came to our house for lunch and I was pondering it.
I said, what does that mean? What? Oh, that's a shouldn't call him out this way. He said that's just a picture of a picture. That's just a picture. He says, yeah, you get the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2. It must just be a symbol of it. I, I couldn't, I didn't, I couldn't, that didn't commend itself to me in, in in brethren language. And so I just kind of kept it there.
But I've come to see that it's a very special thing.
We have a double link with God in Christ. We have the same life and nature of him. And it's as a brother was saying this afternoon, it's resurrection life. And if you've put your trust in Christ, that's what you have. You have a life that's on the other side of death. You have a life that sin has never been attached to or never can be attached to.
00:35:16
And Matt isn't going to get any more of the Spirit of God if the Lord comes in 5 minutes.
You have the divine person in dwelling and you have a life that does not need to be augmented or added to.
5 minutes after the Lord comes. It's amazing, isn't it just an amazing thing?
The life that we have is going to be in its proper sphere.
It's going to be at home.
And it's hard for all of us to imagine what it's like to be somewhere for the first time and to feel at home there.
That's the place that is suited to the life that we have. And this place is not doing a tarry too long on this, but we share as individuals in this new creation of which Christ is the head of a new creation as a risen man, and he has communicated that life to us and you have it.
You have it, you have that life, but beyond that, as we as we more commonly understand in Acts chapter 2.
When the Lord Jesus ascended up on high, he received the Holy Spirit, you might say, a second time to give unto men. And so the Spirit came down and indwelt each of those believers personally and united them together. And God formed one body. Every believer united together by the Holy Spirit, indwelling to the head in heaven. And there is, and there still is one body.
And so if you're a believer, you're a member of the body of Christ, not because you have faith, but because the Holy Spirit is indwelling you.
And he's united you by 1 spirit, by that one spirit to himself as head in heaven.
And you have a life, that eternal life, the life of Christ.
And so in a certain sense, you have a double portion. Elijah wanted that.
And Elijah said you've asked the hard thing and.
Elijah goes up and he sees them because Elijah the the requirement was, if you see me when I'm taken up, you can have this desire and I don't know how many was it 5 times or six times or eight times? In our readings, different brothers quoted Second Corinthians 318. Most of us have a verse through which we got saved. I'm a Revelation 320.
There are John 3 Sixteens in the room. There are all kinds of believers. When you meet somebody, they'll tell you.
What verse the Lord used to bring them to himself. But Second Corinthians 3/18 was a verse the Lord used with me.
To get me into the place where I'm like a normal Christian.
If I I don't know exactly how to express it, but maturity in a Christian is walking along here in the earth with an object in heaven, which is Christ himself. And so to quote it one more time, we all with open or unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord.
Are changed into the same image from glory to glory, like being poured from vessel to vessel to vessel. The practical reproduction or or conforming.
Of your life, practically the boots on the ground part, the practical side to really what you are is through occupation with Christ in glory. People often say, or you hear people say, well you have to go back to the cross. And we do remember the Lord Jesus in his death.
But when we come for nourishment, for refreshment, for strength, for wisdom, we come to a man that is in heaven.
Not on the cross anymore, he said. Glorified man.
And so in picture when Elijah.
Comes across.
He sees him when he's taken up, and now it's like, OK, I've got it. And he goes to the water and this is the moment of truth, and he takes Elijah's mantle. He got it a second time, didn't he?
And he strikes the water. What's going to happen? Is it going to work?
It worked.
00:40:00
I think one of the most discouraging things.
To young believers.
Is we that are older.
And what I mean by that is through.
Perhaps being complacent.
Or lacking diligence.
We don't display in our lives that Christianity, if I could use that term, that it works.
Young people.
It works.
It works. I could give you we could go on till 9:00 at night.
On that it works.
It works. Elijah smoked the water and it worked.
You can get all wrapped up in apologetics.
Some people do. You can get all wrapped up in.
What we might call theology.
But there are people that were headed down the Broad Rd.
And they've been turned.
Now they're totally different in every way.
Except these same vessels, same Social Security number.
And all the rest. Same name most likely, but totally changed it works.
When we were over in at the Belgium conference.
Afterward we went pretty much straight over and afterwards we took one side trip before we started heading home.
To the north of France to Normandy. Normandy is the place.
Where?
So-called allies.
England, Scotland, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia.
Came across the English Channel and landed in Normandy.
To invade, to, to go.
And confront.
Nazi Germany that had taken over pretty much all the continent of Europe.
I'd heard about it from my father, who was a World War Two vet.
And other older people and read about it. My son read about it as a boy and I wanted to see it.
Who's ready?
Very touchy.
But the one thing that I came away thinking about that pertains to what we're speaking about today.
Is this one officer?
They had. It was a museum about the size of this room, but we spent hours in there. We went through everything.
And read all these statements and comments and testimonies and histories.
And this one, commander, and they're coming and these boats and the thing.
The front of the boat drops down and they come out and they get decimated.
And some of them make it to the beach.
And this guy, that was the.
Leader of some I'm not sure, I'm not an army guy but.
I don't know whether he's a Sergeant or Colonel, but he said I kept telling him get off the beach, get off the beach, get off the beach.
Because they had all these plans, as the boxers say, you have a strategy until you get punched in the face.
And they had all kinds of strategies, but then they get there.
And it's chaos and they're on the beach and they're young kids. 18/19/2022 he said. I kept home, get off the beach, keep going, keep going. And I sometimes think it's good advice for us older Christians. We have to get off the beach. We have to keep going.
Not just not only for our own enjoyment and the fruit in our own lives, but these younger ones behind us.
They need to see that Christianity works.
That it really does bring love to our brethren. It brings joy. It brings peace.
Brings all those aspects of the fruit of the Spirit. It works.
But we're so prone. Let me speak.
00:45:00
I know it's supposed to be young people to the older ones. We're so prone to get complacent.
And to stop pressing. And to stop pushing forward.
In following hard after Christ.
And the Apostle Paul, in the third chapter of Philippians, he expressed his personal exercise.
He wasn't pushing the Saints of Philippi from behind. He was saying basically, this is how I tick.
I was apprehended, and now it's my life to apprehend that for which I've been apprehended.
And I'm pressing for the mark of the high calling of God.
In Christ Jesus, he was getting off the beach. He was off the beach, clearly pressing ahead.
It's helpful to young people to see.
That even though we're way older than you, we're really the same people inside.
And we have the same needs, and Christianity works. I want to leave you that message. Christianity works.
Really. Does you read something in the Word of God? Believe it.
And if you walk in it, you'll see it works.
Off the beach they went because there's got to be room for others and everybody.
I know we're not to follow others in Second Timothy 2 That our brother read in the reading meeting, it says.
Follow after and it gives certain things with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. You don't follow others, but you follow with others. The difference isn't there. Christ is the one you follow. And Paul could stand up overseers in these new assemblies, but then he would say to the Saints, not I commit you to the oversight. I commit you to the Lord. I commit you to the God.
In the word of his grace.
Well, let's turn now. Time is going to.
1St chapter 13 where we read.
I won't reread it.
Elijah's at the end of his.
End of his life.
And the king Joash.
He appreciated Elijah, whether by legend or by hearing about him or how personal it was, I don't think we can know.
But he was Elijah was connected with that.
Exclamation. My father, My father.
Chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.
And the king quotes it, lamenting the death of this beloved man. Because Elijah's ministry is a ministry of grace as we all know it.
And so he says to the king, take bow and arrows.
Put thine hand upon the bow.
Elijah puts his hands upon it. He shoots. He didn't know what he was doing.
Why am I doing this? But here we go, shoots an arrow and Elijah says the arrow of the Lords deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria. That's good. It could have been something different, right? When he shot the arrow. It could have been something that you didn't want to hear some bad news about what was going to happen.
But it's not that. It's the arrow of deliverance. And then he says.
Take the arrows. And he took them, and he said unto the king of Israel, smite upon the ground.
Now, if you're the king.
And he said shoot an arrow and he's and then he interprets what you did.
In such a positive way, when he gives you the arrows, what would you do with them?
This, this is the one of the chief failures of my life.
She failures in my life.
Looking back, I wish I had taken those arrows.
And destroyed them, smashed them so many times that they were unrecognizable.
But instead he stopped three times.
I don't know why.
And I'm not sure, but this isn't the first time Elijah Elisha had to bring bad news to Gahesai.
But generally, Elisha's ministry.
Was a ministry of grace and and blessing and.
00:50:02
And as you think in your mind of the various incidents that are recorded, you clearly see that theme.
But here as it says here.
And the man of God was wroth with him.
And says you should have smitten twice as many times, five or six times, and then all this, then you would have then hath thou submitted Syria till thou hats consumed it, whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice.
The arrows are in your hand, young people.
They're in my aunt. They've been in it.
What are we going to do here?
We were reading in second Peter.
And one of the meetings we were at traveling.
They wanted to read in second Peter.
And that's the chapter where where where Peter says add to your faith virtue.
And I never really particularly studied that epistle.
And what I do sometimes is what does that word mean there?
What does that word mean there? Let me go to it.
Verse five. Beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue.
And so I tend to look up words first, and I was really taken aback that the word for virtue, if you have a concordance in your phone, you see it. The original word there for virtue is the word for a man. Not just man, generic, but man, a mailman, a male, masculine man. It's the word for masculinity.
Add to your faith.
Virtue. Masculine strength.
And I know I'm speaking to women as well as men, and to young ladies as well as young men. Doesn't matter what your gender is.
There's an aspect of things where we're all one in Christ Jesus within either male, more female, right bound or free.
And whether we are female in this earthen vessel or male, we need to have in our faith this masculine energy.
Virtue. We've got to get off the beach.
And show that spiritual energy.
And in the context of your lives, we, we, we know.
That the the culture around us in the West is going, you know what we older ones consider and you probably do to a crazy direction.
But all things work together for good.
To them that love God, another call according to his purpose.
And as painful as it and awkward as it is for you, I think it's going to work good. We know it is.
We know it is.
And so masculinity in the, in the current culture that we live in is not the way it used to be when I was a boy, this is what the boys did. This is how the boys behaved. This is how men, upright men lived. And this is how upright women lived. And the, and the girls and everything, the, the swim lanes were pretty clear.
And because these natural.
Relationships that are ancient relationships for men.
Are now taken up by the children of God.
With the added element, as one of the brothers was saying, it takes it up to a higher place, not just women.
Not just wives submit to your own husbands, but as it is fit in the Lord, not just children obey your parents.
But this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Oh, there's a we can take up these natural things.
With an added element that it pleases the Lord to conduct ourselves.
With grace and in holiness in these relationships that we're all in.
And so masculinity is spoken of where you in school or you young guys that are working, It's toxic masculinity, right? Toxic masculinity.
You've all read, you've all heard that that stuff.
And so people are starting to realize even in the in the culture at large, what damage they have done and are doing to the male element in society and to males by gender particularly. And they're starting to scratch their head and say maybe this isn't a good thing. And on the other side that it's the same with the females and traditional conduct of a female.
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Is looked upon as something old and archaic and no longer indeed good.
Spiritually speaking, we are not male nor female.
And spiritually speaking, we all need to have in our faith this masculine.
Drive and spiritual energy.
My wife has been reading a book.
About a lady.
Who lived in the early part of the 1800s? I took a picture of it here.
And her name was, she only lived 36 years or so, maybe 35. And.
Get this thing.
And her name was Theodosia Ann Howard.
And perhaps you've heard of her as Lady Powers Court.
And my wife has taken a long time to read this book.
And, and she carried it all around the world, matter of fact.
And it's I got other things I'm reading, but I did grab it one day.
And there's other sisters here reading it too. And I read the introduction and the appendix the.
The very front and the very back.
And I was really struck with this, this assessment that the editor of her letters.
She wrote a lot of letters. I should have said that to the younger people. This sister was married for a short. She got saved in early 20s. She was married for a short time and her husband died.
And then she was a widow at a very young age and she was very involved and instrumental when the early 20 somethings that you heard, their names came together and started to get real light in the Scriptures, especially about prophetic subjects. And it led to all kinds of understanding about other subjects. And she was part of that.
And lent her estate to facilitate many, many of those meetings.
Any rights of and she wrote these letters in their evidence of a spiritual mind and the editor is explaining that he doesn't want to.
He doesn't want to, didn't want to edit things because he felt he should not do that.
And he says here in the introduction.
About not editing, he says. I like those strong expressions. I would not wish to alter one of them. They bring back to my recollection the image of the strongest mind.
Uncommon masculine strength combined with the extremist feminine gentleness.
And so on.
Very interesting comment.
When I was pondering this issue of maleness and femaleness.
In Deuteronomy 22, as most of you probably know, there's a verse that says that a man shall not wear that which pertains to a woman, and a woman shall not wear that pertains to a man.
Because God made two genders, not 3 or 420. He did that for a reason. He could have made any number, and there's a glory associated with each.
And each is to be inhabited by us in a way that is for His glory and his honor.
And so wrath for me, rather than apply that verse and it says it's an abomination, so I take it it's not just a ceremonial thing, it's a moral thing. And today we see this craziness of that, what that verse was prohibiting to a ridiculous extreme. We all know that.
But I would submit to you that it has a spiritual interpretation for you and I that look back through the New Testament lens that we have. Just like not sowing your field with diverse seed or or the other injunctions, there have a rich spiritual meaning and that one does too. That one does too. There is to be maleness and there is to be femaleness.
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And spiritually, the apostle Paul referred to both when in First Thessalonians he wrote to these young believers, and he said I was.
Like a father to you, as a father, nourish encourages and nourishes his children.
So have I done to you. And then a few verses later, he takes the place of a nurse.
I was gentle among you as a nurse nourishes and cherishes her children. So whether we are male or female in our gender, we all know we stay with that. But spiritually there is to be both modalities in us. The sisters, just like Lady Powers, court the spiritual energy to run after Christ and the gentleness with one another of a traditionally feminine trait.
The world is closing in.
In its chaos, the Lord knows all about it. He's gathering out of people for his name, meanwhile.
And in due time, he will turn all these upside down things right side up.
Meanwhile, it's our glory, our glory to be.
Like Elisha wished that man had been just strike it multiple times. I wish As I look back in my life, I think, you know, I never left the Lord's Table. You're up in a minute, John. I never left the Lord's Table. I always went to meeting.
I always read the scriptures. I had a prayer life that wasn't.
Great.
But for large portions of my life, looking back, I think I was sleepwalking. I really think I was sleepwalking.
I'm ashamed of it. I was just going through the motions, as we say, mailing it in.
Stand up here like old Jacob.
And I would encourage you, don't be like that. Don't mail it in. Get off the beach. Move ahead.
Show that masculine strength in a spiritual way.
To follow hard after Christ. It's going to bring you present happiness and joy, and it's going to be for eternal reward.
And it's going to glorify him.
So don't coast. All of us, young or old, don't coast. So easy for us older ones to coast.
Pass us if you need to in your spiritual life. If we're coasting, pass us.
Hit the horn, let us know we need to.
Wake up and follow hard after Christ. Well, few scattered thoughts here. Let's just.
Pray and there will be the gospel in a moment.
Our God and our Father, we thank Thee for the richness.
Of my precious word that.
Speaks to our hearts.
We thank the our God for lighting up the end of the path for us.
And giving us assurance that we shall indeed arrive home.
In thy house to be with and like thy son. In the mean time we look to thee for grace.
That we would not be barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, but that we bear fruit. Fruit.
Our God and Father for thee, for thy glory, and Lord Jesus for thy glory, we thank thee for thy love.
We thank thee for the great work on Calvary's cross. We thank Thee we can look up by faith through the open heavens, and to see thee is that victorious man.
Who has completed the pathway here? Help us, Lord Jesus, to keep our eyes upon thee that we would follow hard after thee and we just commit these Scriptures that we've had before us before the of the encouragement of our hearts and for our stirring up and our most holy faith, we give thee thanks, blessed God, in the worthy and precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Matthew 5:13-16
Reading
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The.
Symptoms cross night.
And walk.
So.
Those Dark Souls and.
Everything.
Love Grace, I must have wondrous working of.
Shut up Brown with glory when it is quietly work.
In home.
Bless the God and Father, we thank thee.
Are not fleeing from the.
Mowing fig leaves and seeking to hide from God, we have been brought nigh unto thee.
Have the righteousness of Christ which covers us.
Help us to learn more of the position we've been brought into and how to walk.
It's children of God as sons of God.
Being conformed to the image of Christ, we give thanks for the Thy Word, give thanks for Thy Spirit. Help us to walk in the Spirit and we rejoice in Thee once again, our Father, the relationship we've been brought into by the Lord Jesus Christ, and in His precious and worthy name, we pray for help as we open Thy word. Amen.
Would verse 13 be all right or did we cover 13 and 14 enough?
Harry, carry on. Eric, what do you think? It would be good.
Think 13 would be good to start with. Thank you.
Matthew chapter 5 and verse 13.
You're the salt of the earth, But if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted. It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. You are the light of the world, as today, that a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid, neither do men Light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on the Candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before man, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jaw or one title, shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of heaven. For whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of heaven.
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For I say unto you, that accept your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Raka shall be in danger of the council.
But whosoever shall say thou fool, shall be in danger of Hellfire.
Therefore, if they'll bring thy gift to the altar, and they'll remembers that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly whilst they were in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and they'll be cast into prison.
Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence.
Till thou hast paid the uttermost Farthing ye have said, ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right I offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
And if they right hand offend, they cut it off and cast it from thee.
For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and that not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
We didn't bring it out last meeting, but it might be nice to helpful to see that there are two things that the Lord Jesus was bringing out here. Verse 13, verse 14 unique. The salt really has to do in connection with the people of God being a preservative, having a preservative effect upon those that they are amongst. And so we know that this is Speaking of that time during the time that the disciples were there.
In verse one, it speaks of this disciples, he came unto him, he opened his mouth and taught them. But it has a similar we have a similar effect in this world. We're a preservative. We're allowed to be here in this scene and we're a preservative against the corruption the that's coming in moral corruption. And so a believer that walks in a testimony that is for the Lord Jesus identifies with the name of Christ and the principles of Christianity.
Why we are a preservative in this world and so in connection with the light where really we illuminate this world and really the world walks in moral darkness. And so we shed the light as we walk in the light of Christianity. And there's a testimony presented. That's why it's the Christianity we can apply it to Christianity. You see that is set on a hill cannot be hid. So the reason that you and I are here as a testimony.
It's set upon a hill. There is a purpose God has displayed, and I believe Brother Dawn was bringing this out in the latter part of the meeting this morning, that there's a purpose God has for the assembly and it's to be a display to this world of the order that He has and the desire to bring man into blessing. So the light really illuminates, but when the light dissipates, when it doesn't shine brightly.
And there's reasons why it won't shine brightly. We have a little bit later in this passage, then moral darkness comes in. So we need to have the light of the truth of the word of God before us and to walk in the light of the revelation of Christianity so that this world has light. It has a testimony of light. And when the Lord Jesus was here, he said I am the light of the world. But now he's in heaven. He's on high, in the right hand of the majesty on high. And so you and I are here.
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And we are to be lights in this world, so we have that responsibility.
The difference between the word Earth and world.
It's important to recognize that you look in the Mr. Darby's translation, you see that the earth could be the land. In other words, the salt of the earth here has to do with the preservative principle among the general profession. So remember that the Apostle Paul had two ministries he speaks of in Colossians chapter one. The one is the gospel.
The other is the mystery of the Church. And so the point here is that ye are the salt of the earth we have as Christians. I know this is a little beyond Christianity, but still the principle applies. We have the privilege and responsibility to be the preservative principle within the wider profession. That's an important thing the Lord said when He was on the earth. But when the Son of Man cometh, shall we find faith in the earth?
And so he asked us to be faithful to him till he comes to take us home. So that's the earth, the salt of the earth. Mr. Kelly says. I have a footnote here. Salt is the guard of holiness, the preservative energy of God's rights in the midst of corruption. And we know that there's corruption and Christendom all around us, but we're called not to compromise with the correction, but to be true as we read the pure in heart, to be true, to be the salt.
Of the of Christianity within the great profession of Christendom. But the world is a different term. The footnote here says the cosmos, which is the wide world as we generally speak of it. God so loved the world. So that is the evangelical outreach that we know the Jews will will certainly take upon them in the last days when they preach the Kingdom of heaven. And the believer has the responsibility and the privilege as well.
But there's that clear distinction between the term earth, which could be translated land has to do with profession, and the responsibility to the world as a whole, which is all the men of the world.
And it's beautiful to see, isn't it? How the Spirit of God?
Through our blessed Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ brings out both the Jewish side of things and yet in anticipation of the church. And so here we have the Lord Jesus essentially presenting himself as the rightful King and saying, here are the principles of my Kingdom.
But yet he doesn't go all the way with it because he knew very well that he would be rejected. He knew very well that he was going later on in the same Gospel of Matthew to bring in the Prince or the truth. Upon this rock I will build my church. And so you and I can look at it, and we can see on the one side how that in a coming day the godly ones will.
That is the godly Jews during the Tribulation.
Will preach the gospel of the Kingdom once again and they'll recognize all these principles, but at the same time the Lord Jesus puts out that which you and I can look at. Yes, they are the principles of his Kingdom, but they also represent what we are to be in the earth. So that's and in the world. So that's I really appreciate that Eric that on the one hand, we are preservative in the earth.
In that part of the earth that has, at least in an outward way, recognized the rightful king. But then there's a testimony to the whole world too.
If somebody likes some more help on that, it was Mr. Kelly in his book on Matthew.
That brought that out when I first heard of it, so it's very helpful, isn't it?
Might be helpful to notice that there are a couple of other preservatives and they're spoken of the apostle Paul as part of Paul's doctrine. I believe Second Thessalonians, he brings it out that there are the governments of this world are preservative as well as the Spirit of God is a preservative in a we are preserved from judgment. The world is.
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Preserved at the particularly the professionally Christian world is preserved from all out corruption because the Spirit of God is present. So that's Second Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse six. And now you know what withholdeth, that he may be revealed in his time, for the mystery of iniquity doth already work. Only he who now letteth will let, or he who now hinders will hinder, until he.
Be taken out of the way or be gone. And so there are two things. One is earthly government. God has put government in place to withhold evil, to restrain evil, and to.
By laws and governance to restrain the all out corruption that would be evident in this world if there was no restraint. And so government is one thing, and then the Spirit of God will be taken out at the time.
Of the rapture. So it's he who now letteth will be taken out of the way. And I might say that the why do we see all this violence and corruption in the day that we live in in the Western Christian world is because the Spirit of God is grieved and he's not restraining as he once did as much as he once did. He's grieved. And so there's he's allowing things God is allowing things to develop more in the mystery of iniquity.
Continues.
Judaism was not a full revelation of what God is.
God did not fully reveal Himself and all that He is even to the favored people, the Jew, when they were separated from other men and became a nation, the most favored nation on earth and purposed of God for blessing. But you can't in Judaism, looked at in the Old Testament, you don't see the heart of God.
Revealed in its fullness.
The Lord Jesus came and he came to that nation here in Matthew, and He presents himself with the King. But he could not be less than he was. He had to be and was exactly what he was. And that is more than Judaism. And so he could say, when I am in the world, I'm the light of the world. He could not be less than light. And as such, that's why what we have here is the beginning.
To us of a fuller revelation of what God is, we don't get the fullness of it until Christ dies and rises again and returns to glory. And then we have an even more full revelation of God in the New Testament, particularly by Paul's epistles. But if you and I are real.
Then we're encouraged here to be what we are.
The Lord was the light of the world. What light does the world have today? Your life.
Is where the world's light is to be found. And you are and I am responsible to live according to what we are. And we had this morning some of what we are. We have the nature of God in new life and we have the power of God in the spirit that dwells in US. And so we are to act what we are. And if we do.
We will be preservatives, we will be lights and is. So he's bringing out that which to those who are his own here, that He's bringing them into the beginning of the understanding. They don't get the fullness of it here in Matthew 5, but the truth of it is here. And it's important for us to recognize that today we have the responsibility even though we live in a different dispensation, as it's called.
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We we have that responsibility to be what God has made us. It's a serious responsibility.
Take it one step further. Turn to Revelation.
Chapter.
Two, I believe it is.
In Revelation chapter one, the last verse of chapter one of the Revelation, it's just an amplification on the principle of what I've just been saying.
Verse 20 The ministry of the seven stars which thou sawest in thy right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. Here we're talking about light bearing the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches. And then in that is those who have light, or are the Candlestick of on which light is.
Have a responsibility to be light.
To the world. Here in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, we get a moral history of how well that responsibility has been carried out.
Has the church been the light of the world? Has it in practice been a preservative?
Well, when we read what's written here, we find the very sad and whatever measure you and I have contributed to it, don't look at don't use the words Christendom to say well, that's Christendom and that's not me, that's not my life, etcetera. Take it to heart and ask your own soul before the Lord have I individually have we together.
Walked as the light of the world.
The testimony of these two chapters is a sad one. What the Lord is saying is you have not.
And now I can't use you anymore.
I must put you aside. And he himself in chapters four and five establishes his own right first as creator and four and and chapter 5 Redeemer to set things right and bring light into the world that will last throughout the Millennium. And so there's a voice to our conscience as well as understanding to our minds in these chapters is.
Sometimes the Lord speaks to our conscience to ask us, are you being what I have made you, given you the responsibility in the community, on the street where you live, in the assembly where you are? Is it bearing the light that you are responsible to be while in a full sense of the word as a whole? No, it hasn't. And that's what's being set aside here, that what is being exhorted in Matthew 5.
Will be carried out, but the Lord himself will have to do it.
And when he does it, then he will work with the Jewish remnant during that seven-year period when he's working, he will work with the Jewish remnant to bring the things that we have here to them that they themselves might learn how they as the Jews had failed. And then they will become the salt and light of the millennial period.
And suggested that there's seven great witnesses that God has given to men and we have two of them in the chapter that we've been reading. I'll just briefly summarize some of the others. Creation, of course, we're well aware of we have that of and and Psalm 19 as well as Romans one. We have conscience, the testimony of conscience, the fact that we have a sense that there's a difference between right and wrong.
And that there's somebody who's the arbiter of that, which of course ultimately is God. That's also in Psalm 19 and Romans 2, and Scripture of course also.
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In Psalm 19 and of course many other places a great powerful witness or God's testimony to man and then of course Christ. This is also would be a good gospel message for others. Some might might appreciate that.
But then there's three more that are not quite as clear, perhaps one of circumstances. The Lord used circumstances to witness to Job and Jonah, to the apostle Paul before he was a believer. But then in our chapter we have two, two different ones. One's been called the law of complementarity. And that's what we had in the Beatitudes by and large. In other words, if the Lord gives us a longing, he puts that longing in our hearts because he intends to fulfill it.
In his proper way.
And so in our chapter we've been reading blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted and so on. So that's been styled the law of complementarity and I appreciate that. And then the last one is what don't been speaking about a well lived Christian life when we apply it to Christianity and how important that is the the.
Do we? Are we the salt of the earth, the light of the world? So there are 7 testimonies at least and witnesses that God has given to this world and how important it is for us to to recognize them and to do what we can.
Which is according to our privilege and responsibility.
In verse 15, it says neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel. And a bushel speaks of work. A bushel is what holds apples or or corn cobs or something. And I think how important it is that our words match our actions. Or maybe I should say, do we walk the walk? It's easy to talk the talk. I remember once we had a conference here in Walla. Walla wasn't in this building and the brothers blessed their hearts were literally tripping over each other.
They would interrupt each other. They weren't letting them finish their thought. And dear, beloved brother, he says, Selah, we should wait on one another. And somebody, he wasn't even done talking. And somebody started talking. And before he was done, the same brother that had just said that, he jumped in again. And I was like, dude, you should have just saved your words. Sometimes we live in such a way that what we say is just washed out.
And it happens way more often than we would like to admit. So let's help us, as our brethren have encouraged us, that we would walk.
To be a blessing and a help. Don't put it under a bushel. Don't hide God's light by what we do. So our walk would meet our talk. You put it on a Candlestick and then it says at the end of the verse it giveth light to all that are in the house. And what I used to do is I would carry my flashlight and I'd shine it in people's eyes.
Here, this is the truth. Look here. Well, no one appreciates that. And and our brother was talking about me when I was younger, going around the meeting room and shaking salt on everybody that was me. I'm so sorry. I appreciate everybody's patience. It's so freeing when we understand that light works best when it's shining down from up above and it lights our pathway. And it says in in this verse, verse 15, it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
And the best use of light is when it illuminates our path and then other people can see the light and they can see to walk to we get into like a pocket of freedom and other people can see that and see the love and grace of God and they can come and join us. And then in verse 16, it's not about me, it's not about us. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. Our job, our mission is to glorify him.
So when we do it right, we're just saying, OK, Lord, it's, it's all you. It's, it's not about us. And that's so freeing.
The Lord Jesus was really revealing to us, to his disciples, that there were some dangers involved in connection with the demonstration of that light and the clarity with which it would.
Really go forth. You know when I was younger didn't lived in a place and didn't have electricity, so we had coal oil lamps and you had to adjust the Wick. There was a little knob and you had to adjust it so that would burn properly to have enough oxygen.
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And have enough fuel and it was bright and it wouldn't smoke and then.
The smoke would.
Accumulate upon the inside of the globe of the glass, and then you didn't get the light that you needed. And so there are different things. And so the Lord Jesus was just saying here that there are some dangers, There are some things in responsibility that we need to judge in our lives that might come in and detract from the light that should be bright.
And it does need to be trimmed that we do need to exercise self judgment. And so the bushel really is a vessel. I think it's called a vessel in Luke's Gospel. And it would refer to really perhaps earning a living and being involved in mercantile activity. While it's necessary to provide for our families and a man that doesn't provide for his own is worse than infidel. He's denied the faith practically, but we need to.
Recognize that our careers are not what God has put us here for. We are here to render a testimony, a light and a testimony for him. But we will need to be exercised about how we conduct business and how much time it takes and whether to be in that particular business because it's so time consuming and so on. And so he speaks of this, putting it on a Candlestick, making sure that it's visible. And that's individual responsibility for a disciple.
Just like to make a suggestion. I know that this room is full of young people and you're hearing a lot of older brethren talk.
And if you are like me, and I pretty sure you are.
I have been here too, I'm behind some of my older brother that have been doing all the talking but enough experience to know that.
We don't change as we get older.
And we've read about this and it was suggested that these beatitudes and we needed an attitude adjustment. These beatitudes are perfectly displayed in the Lord Jesus as he walked here and we can look at him as an example.
And then if we read the rest of the chapter.
We would find 7 times that the Lord Jesus says, and he quotes something out of the Old Testament, He says, and then but I say, and he takes that thing that's written and he raises it so that there is absolutely an unquestionably no way that I can ever measure up. It's impossible.
And so sitting here and we need to be a light, we need to be tender towards one another. We need to love one another. All these things that that I look at inside of me and I find, Oh my goodness, this is just never going to happen. Or if it does, it's so inconsistent that it's like I'm just a failure. I might as well give this up, throw it over. I'll never make it.
But as I'm sitting here listening.
I'm wondering at what Jonathan said yesterday when he started to speak. He said this and Jesus is able to make you whatever he wants you to be. We've read about the Kingdom of God and the King coming in and little later we can read about the king that comes into Zion. He says meek and lowly and riding upon an *** in the cult.
The full of an *** and I know this this verse in math in 1128 that we all know so well.
And it was said, Come down unto me.
And the rest of that verse?
We sang.
O patient spotless one, our hearts in meekness train to bear thy yoke, and learn of thee, that we may rest. Obtain you know these, these seven things that are perfection, that there are just completely condemning.
How can ever those things be?
Typified in my life for those beatitudes that I find that I fall so short in.
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And I think of the invitation of the Lord Jesus. Take my yoke.
My yoke? You mean he's already there? A yoke is for 2A collar and a harness is for one.
And that's just so like the law.
It's impossible. I can not do it on my own.
But he invites me into his yoke now, he says I'm with you.
And I know many have heard the example of the young oxen that was put in yoked with the old one so that he would learn. And so when he lunges ahead, that old one that's always plodding on steadily, it would slow him down. Or when he starts dragging his heels, he would feel the pressure to come forward.
And the Lord Jesus says, take my yoke upon you.
I want to walk beside you.
And I think of the word surrender. I think it might have been alluded to submission yielding.
What is that?
Surrender, I give up Lord. I can see this is impossible for me.
And he says I'm going to help you do this.
One step at a time.
Just trust me, count upon me, and we'll get through this together.
I think.
And I'm asking this is a question again to my older brethren, is this the way that these things can be fulfilled in my life, be characterized by my life by surrendering to the yoke that he invites me to come into?
And he's going to show me how to do it one step at a time.
Well, I believe that's very important from a practical side because we can set out in our Christian pathway and this is a practical application of what we have here and say I want to be better salt in this earth, where I want to be better light in this world. And that's a good thought that if I set out to do that.
Ultimately, if I'm not careful, it ends up occupying me with myself.
And as a brother used to remind us years ago, the one who is occupied with him or herself is never happy. And nor will I be a good light or be good salt. Because ultimately I will either end up being too much salt or too little. Or I will end up being so occupied with how much of A light I am that, as I said a moment ago, it occupies me with myself.
What we really need to do is to be more like Christ.
And we had that. I believe Brother Don mentioned it in his address in 2nd Corinthians 3 where it talks about we all with open or unveiled face beholding and leave out as in a glass. It shouldn't be there beholding. The glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory. And then the salt will come naturally and it'll be as we get in.
Colossians, chapter 4.
Where it says let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt.
Every cook here knows that salt is important in cooking.
But the right amount of it is important. Too much Oh my, makes it unpalatable. Too little. Equally unpalatable in the other direction. The right amount, just perfect. And so we need that. But it's great seasoned with salt. And then the light. I don't need to worry about being a light any more than Moses asked himself when he came down from the mound. Is my face shining enough?
How much is it shining today? What's it like?
I see my brother Dan smirking over there.
He didn't do that, did he? No.
He didn't even know his face, Sean, but others did and they saw it. And so it is what the believer, isn't it? Anything that is of salt or of light in your life and mine is ultimately a reflection of how well I know my Savior and how much I have been in His company. And it will show.
00:40:14
And I don't need to be occupied with it.
I remember your father-in-law telling the story of meeting two young sisters at a conference or somewhere and he asked them how they were doing when they came up to greet him. And they said, oh, we're really doing well. Can't you see how our face is shining?
And I knew your father-in-law. Did I know him well enough to know that he didn't quote this verse, but he quoted it to the rest of us years later, and I'm sure he thought it in his mind, Moses whisked. Not that his face shone.
And so, as you say, our proper occupation with ourselves is when the Spirit of God brings something before us that we need to judge.
And when we judge, it is self judgment, self denial, self sacrifice are good things that are attached to self. And if we judge ourselves and the Spirit of God will be free to bring before us in Christ as you quoted in 2nd Corinthians 3, will be occupied with him and his people and we'll leave the rest with him. Often we're the we're the most testimony when we have not the slightest thought that we are.
The opposite is sometimes true.
We think we are. Maybe we're not so much.
Being the salt of the earth.
And a light is a responsibility, but it's not an object.
Significant importance between the two.
The Lord Jesus, when He came, was sent from His Father. Here on earth, was truly the salt of the earth and the light of the world, but it was not His object. His object here as a man was to please His Father.
This object here of a man was not to glorify himself, but to glorify his Father.
And so he could say, I do all, I do always those things which please the Father. He could also say, I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gave us me to do. But he, incoming the perfect man, was not occupied with himself, and he was here on the behalf of his father, and he was occupied with that which would please his father.
And fulfill his father's will and sending him. We too need that same focus.
And if that focus is there, if I could put it this way, if the Lord Jesus is a man, the Father gave him everything that was necessary for him to have to fulfill the reason he had been sent. And so he was up to the task of doing what was given to Him to do. But again, I say, and it's already been said, I'm just using a different set of words for somewhat the same thought. We need to be occupied.
With the one that we are called upon, as it says in our chapter.
Verse 16, the end of the verse, the light, your light so shine that they may see your good works and glorify you. Is that what it says?
That absolutely does not that they may glorify whom your Father, which is in heaven. And so if we're motivated in being light love, whatever you want to say is a good and a virtue. If you're being occupied with that, you won't be.
As it says in First John Four we love.
Why? Because He first loved us and He put that love in us. It's not something we put in ourselves, it's not something that we even aspire to or aspired to, but rather for His own purposes. He creates us for His own will in to fulfill and the end result, If He is the object, He will use the life to glorify Himself.
Glorify in the sense of the display of honor and majesty that glory is, and he, God, would have Himself glorified on this earth today at this point in time.
Because his son is not here and he's taking his son home, and yet he has. The son has left us here to do that, which he was doing in that way, not redemption.
00:45:11
But rather to glorify the Father.
This chapter introduces the the Lord Jesus was introducing the name of the Father and introducing the person of the Father and it really the Jews had in a Jewish context. It was at a bit of a distance. So their Father which is in heaven. But it wasn't until the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus that he could say that he would to go to his brethren and to say I ascend unto my God.
And your God, my Father, and your Father and so.
We don't pray to our Father, which art in heaven. That's a bit of a distance and it's beneath the dignity of the position that we occupy as those that are sons. And so we address God as our Father. And it's I, I just enjoy Galatians chapter 5. And I think it's Galatians and maybe it's Ephesians chapter 5.
He speaks there of prayer.
And he says in verse 20, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so we have the revelation of divine persons, and we have communion with divine persons. Brother was speaking this morning of abundant life, and abundant life is to have eternal life, is to be brought into relationship with the Father and with the Son.
To be indwelled with the Spirit of God and to know it and to enjoy divine relationships. Here they were being introduced to the to the Father. But the Jews, even on earth during the Millennium, will not have as near a relationship with the Lord as you and I have.
That is not a subtle difference.
It's a new and living way.
And.
Speaking of younger folks, you're you're already no doubt encountering this in Christian friends in your school or your university or your workplace because your brethren that are in the denominations or in the independent churches.
Are under the sound of ministry that essentially makes no difference between the faith of an Israelite and the present faith of a Christian of a believer.
And the more you learn about the special character of your present position and privileges as being those that have been initiated into the mysteries of God and the great mystery of Christ in the Church, the more you learn about that, the more you will easily see.
That as the Lord Jesus heard his or the governor of the feast and John two said, truly you've kept the good wine until now. So it's not that you need to study covenant theology and get all kinds of books and get all prepped up on error, but I would encourage you to steep yourself and your Christian privileges that you presently possess. Most Christian blessings are presently possessed.
The blessings promised to the Israelite were generally future.
And they are future today, certainly during this time when lo, I mean not my people has been written over the nation.
But once you begin to see the heights to which God has glorified his Son and you in him, it's the the distinction and the vast contrast will be obvious. It's not as if there isn't that which we share in common with men and women of faith. Hebrews 11 brings that out. But the special place of a believer is a mountain peak, as the old brothers used to say. It couldn't be any higher. And those are the things that we need to be to school ourselves in.
You say, well, I'm in a meeting. I've been traveling lately, I'm in a meeting. There's only two people, three people. There's five or six or seven. The Lord knows that could have put you in a meeting of 500. Take responsibility for your spiritual education. It has never been easier to have access to very good Christian ministry.
00:50:13
And exposing ourselves to the nourishment that comes down from Christ, who's head of the church.
Doesn't mean that it has to be somebody who's living the same time as you.
Lord has raised up gifts and some of them are now with the Lord, but their ministry remains in written form. Mostly you can avail yourself of it and it's the fulfillment of Ephesians 4, if you know what I mean. That nourishment is coming down through the joints and bands with the purpose of growing you and me up in our in every facet of our Christian life unto Christ. And so that's like in between meetings I've.
Had discussions with some of you that are younger and I know you're encountering this all the time. And just as an aside, I would suggest that that's what you focus on and the distinction will be obvious.
Much to your own enjoyment and and encouragement.
So the Lord Jesus.
While he looked ahead here and definitely brought out principles here, which although written within a Jewish, spoken, I should say within a Jewish context, and in that sense will be good for those in the coming day, yet he didn't, well, let me rephrase that. He recognized that ultimately he was going to be rejected.
And that the only way they could be brought into blessing would be through his death and resurrection.
And that ultimately too, He was going to bring in, as we have just heard, the precious truth of the assembly, that highest truth that God ever gave to man. But in the next few verses, beginning with verse 17 and going on to the end of 20, we find the Lord making it very clear that nothing He said or did set aside the law. Absolutely nothing. They accuse the apostles when they preached.
They said.
They're teaching us contrary to those things that Moses commanded us. Was that true? No, it was not. But it went beyond what Moses commanded. And so here the Lord Jesus reinforces the law as that which was of God. And to teach the law, that is the moral principles of the law, was certainly in every way in keeping with everything the Lord Jesus said.
And it's in keeping today. If a man sins, I am entitled to, let's say a man steals, I am entitled to tell him. The law says thou shalt not steal. And it's true. And it's true for all time. If a man goes out and or a woman either and commits adultery, I can tell them. That's what the law says. But as we well know, the law reveals the condition of man's heart.
Doesn't do anything to change it. And so here the Lord reinforces the law. But he points out that the mere keeping of the law in its letter was not enough. Your righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Of course, we know very well that they didn't really keep the law. They had all kinds of loopholes and ideas of their own to get around it. And as we've already had brought before us previously in Matthew 23.
The Lord calls them out pretty severely for that, but nevertheless he reinforces the law, but then proceeds to tell them that if they wanted to be part of his Kingdom.
They had to go far beyond what the law said, and that could only be, as we know, through the work of Christ.
The Lord Jesus uses an expression in verse 22. I'll just quote it at the beginning, but I say unto you.
So here he is speaking with his disciples in verses 1718, and he says that till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one title shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. And then he adds, But I say unto you, it gives us to understand that it was the Lord Jesus himself that gave the law, and the Lord Jesus himself that had the authority to go beyond what he had given to Israel. And this is really what he's doing here.
00:55:24
Is giving the principles that go beyond what they had under the law. And so in that the grace of God, the kindness of the Lord to give us something better than what they had in Judaism. And I know, as we've said that this is in a Jewish context, but it's the the going beyond and in grace and favor, mercy, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. So he goes beyond what?
He gave them in the law. And so as I say, it just gives us to understand that it was the Lord Jesus himself that delivered the law to Moses. And he says, now I'm going to tell you something that I didn't say to Moses. And it gives light, further light as to the character of how we can bear testimony in the day that we live in.
Hud's revelation has been progressive, hasn't it? It builds and builds, goes higher and higher. And just to support what we've been speaking about, if we remember church history, we know that these highest truths that God has entrusted to any of his creatures was lost for most of the period of church history.
It was lost very quickly after the 1St century. We just read a little about that and it's not hard to see that. In fact, I just was impressed. I mentioned to several people that it's remarkable that about 360 AD, just to give an example.
At a council at Laodicea, the powers that be decided to dictate that there would be no congregational singing, only the professionals would sing. Guess how long that went on?
1000 years until Wickliffe Day and some of the other pre reformers. So the truth that were truths that were speaking about were lost and yet they've been gradually recovered again and that's where a lot of covenant covenant.
Truth or teaching came in was because they were emerging out of the darkness that had come.
They were coming out of the darkness and they were still mixing Judaism and Christianity, but now the light has gotten brighter. And so as Bruce was saying, the the truth of God as to Christianity, the highest truths that God has entrusted or will entrust to mankind have been brought out again in these last two centuries. And we can be so thankful for it. We don't need to have 1000 books.
In our library either because we can get them online. Our brother Wes Fitting had over 1200 lines of books and many of them were multiple books. In that one example, probably over 2000 books altogether. We don't need that many books, but we can go online and and get these valuable resources. BTP brother Don is here, but we can be very thankful they've got an excellent free online library, biblecenter.org.
Is one of my favorites, STEM publishing and so on. So these things are available. The question is, are we going to take advantage of it? And I think the real issue is not so much us as we've been saying, because it's often been said, the Christian motto is in Galatians 220, not I, but Christ. The real issue is that God, by allowing sin to come into the world is going to show that he's going to triumph over sin.
How does He do it? By a life lived for His glory and honor. That's really the issue. It's not what I get out of it. Now we get tremendous blessing without a doubt because God has deigned that His glory is connected to our blessing and that a wonderful thing. But we don't need to worry about our blessing except to learn what the Lord has entrusted to us. But what were our great concern is His glory. And if we're occupied with His glory, then we'll get the blessing. We don't need to worry about our blessings so much.
Except to understand what the Lord is entrusted to us. But if you're occupied with the Lord's glory, then that's that's that's sufficient. We get the blessing, He gets the honor. That's the right order.
01:00:10
But one of Satan's most common tactics is to mix dispensations. Isn't it? Mixed dispensational truth. Things that were true in Judaism, he mixes them with Christianity. That's what come The tourism is in a nutshell.
Let's not get confused about it. That's all it is. When we have the full light of Christianity, we don't have to worry about mixing Judaism with Christianity because it falls to the ground. So we need to learn our proper Christian position and realize that the real issue is God's triumph over sin, and he has made us, by his grace, some of the vehicles of that.
Allow me to read.
Some of the blessings we have in Christ.
Find out chapter one.
We've been given grace, peace, all spiritual blessings, chosen, made holy, made blameless, predestinated, adopted, made into children, accepted, redeemed, forgiven, given wisdom, prudence.
Reveal the mystery. We have an inheritance. We've been sealed. We've been purchased. We've been given understanding and power. That's just one chapter from the Word of God.
Uncle Dave, Tony asked a really good question. How are how are we supposed to do this as we read these things as our as our brother mentioned, it's like the ante. If you could use that word, it gets raised and raised and raised and raised. There was nobody who keep the law and Jesus is but I say unto you and he raises the bar. I don't know how many people in here ever did a high jump.
You you see the bar and then you're dislike.
Run, run, run, run, run, run, run. And you turn over backwards and you fall backwards and throw your feet in there and you just barely make it and they raise the bar. Now what are you going to do? There's no way you're going to make it.
Some of these things in our chapter, it talks about one of the things that I know is a difficulty for us as humans. And verse 27, you've heard it said about adultery, but I send you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery with her. Like no way, How am I supposed to do this? Supposed to look at a sister and say, wow, she's pretty And that's the end of it. You go and think about something else and these these different things. It's this is what I said.
But I say unto you, don't do this, do this like how are we supposed to carry this out? The answer isn't in a set of rules. The answer isn't trying harder, telling people that is mean. The answer is the power of a brand new life. In 2nd Corinthians 517 it says if any man be in Christ, he is a brand new.
Creature, all things have passed away. Behold, all things are become new and I feel that in my body and what we, what we don't understand, what we struggle with is the flesh is still inside of me.
That's true. That's 100% true. However, I still have the flesh and I can choose to operate. As our brother said, God's given us the opportunity to obey, to submit, to honor the Lord and get that blessing. I have two natures and I have the opportunity to live in that new nature and to experience the blessing and to be an overcomer. And that's what he's calling us to. And it's so beautiful how Jesus does this.
And he's the perfect example. And he says, if, if greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. And what does he do? He gets up and he goes, and he lays down his life.
What a beautiful example and these things are so.
They're so useful and practical in in verses 21 and 22. Don't kill. Don't even be mad at your brother. Like it's our natural tendency. We want people to do what we want them to do. That's where all friction.
Relational friction comes from when people show up differently than I want them to. And he says if you have a trouble with your brother.
01:05:07
This is so practical. Leave your gift at the altar in verse 23 and go fix your relationship. We spend so much time and we think, oh, this doesn't matter. It starts vertically with Jesus. We get our life, we get our power from the Lord, and then He calls us to love and serve those around us. That's horizontally.
But brother, maybe an illustration would help on this. There's been difficulty many times. I have someone used to say if you're you don't keep the law, then you're lawless. But the law, the scripture says we're dead to the law. And I think an illustration which my brother.
Will be sick of but let me just try. There was a there was a town where they had speed traps. That's the way they made their money.
Nobody ever went through there without getting a ticket. Many tickets because the things you could see, but they were you didn't go a certain speed, you got ticket. If you if you went too slow, you got a ticket. And so it was impossible to get through there. 10 years goes by, nobody's ever gone through with a ticket. But I go through there and when I get through, they say how many tickets you get. I didn't get tickets. It's impossible.
How did you do it? I knew the person who made the tree tree trap. So he says, don't even look at the signs. You follow me when I stop, you stop when I speed you, you speed up. When I slow down, you slow down. Don't don't be occupied. You be occupied with me. And I went through there and never got a ticket. The last illustration of it, the righteous, the the righteousness of the law.
Is fulfilled in US who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. So the spirit is never going to lead you to break the law. But that's I think that's the secret, how we can say that we're dead to the law and yet the righteous, righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in US. And I think it's a little illustration. So it's the walk in the spirit.
We have that ability.
So I think that maybe help some of the young people when you, when you say, well, you can't keep the law and and we're not under the law. Well, but then the Scripture says that the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in US. And I think that's a little illustration of how it is you follow the spirit.
You'll never break it.
Like to make a couple of comments on Hebrews chapter 13.
Starting in verse 20.
Now the God of peace that brought.
Again we have trouble saying what I want to say, The God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, the God of peace make you perfect, and every good work to do His will according, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.
Amen. Brethren, we've had in the last hour so on that which is brings before us on one side human responsibility, to be salt, to be light and so on. And the God by his wisdom and by the Spirit, we talked about the life that gives the desire, the true power is in the Holy Spirit in us working in that life.
And so on.
And it's God's way to give us these things, to exercise our conscience and many things that would enable us to fulfill the responsibilities that are given to us. But I want to make this.
Funny comment on God's behalf.
When it's all said and done.
The end result is God working in you. He is the one.
That will fulfill the fullness of all that we've had before us in the last hour. It's not a one of us, whether you're 5 or 20 or 50 or 100, that will get to glory and say you did it right. The end result of it all and the reason why it will all come out to the end is it is God that worketh in you to fulfill His purpose for you.
01:10:23
And his purpose for you goes beyond Matthew 5.
It goes beyond the principles of the Kingdom of heaven. God's purpose for you and I is He wants us to be just like his Son in his family, and that purpose and that work of the nearest possible relationship to himself that it's possible for Him to bring His creature into. He will finish the work.
That he's been given to do. And I want to just give one brief example of the sense of God's grace and responsibility. The highest truth that's given to the church in the New Testament is was given to us by one man who doesn't bring it out until by his failure, he's put in prison. The truth of the church comes from the epistles that were written by Paul after he had failed.
And was put into prison and in prison God then revealed to him in that state of his life where he was because of his own life is where the revelation of the church is found in the epistles of Ephesians and and and Colossians and so on is the highest truth we know of in in the word of God in revelation as to bringing us into blessing, but he used a man that failed.
And he brings out, and I believe that's to show us that ultimately everything depends on the heart of God and His work. And we do well not to put aside responsibility, but rather we do well to, in spite of it, recognize where the end result comes from.
Yo, brothers used to say there's no substitute for communion and so there is no substitute for communion, but that that is a responsibility that we spend time with the Lord, isn't it? And I remember brother Lynn Junior used to say you become holy by spending time with him. That is holy. So we have to spend that time. And when Paul was put into prison, he had nothing to do but sit there and have communion with the Lord.
And his state of soul was such that he could reveal these truths to us, so we cannot.
Not have communion with the Lord. There's a, there's A and I'm taking time, but I'm, I'm not going to take that. I'm just going to tell you that I met a man who was saved out of the Catholic Church and he said, I get up every morning and I spend 1/2 hour just in the presence of the Lord, just just enjoying the Lord and let him enjoy me. That was a real rebuke to myself. But I think that's where power is. There's no substitute for communion.
112.
212.
Second verse that all the height of lifts my Lord.
Be to owe it all and share it all with the 212.
So no curse of all.
Here was sovereign grace.
And.
Glory in my unwilling.
Really love.
Us away, I send those scarlet on.
Watch us from every snake and.
Run of snow.
We are a stranger.
Here we do not pray.
Of honor which gave me 1000.
Thyself are treasure in.
A bright.
01:20:01
Skin.
Spray.
Father.
We thank thee.
That thou hast taken.
The treasure of thine own heart.
And brought us to know Him as the treasure of our heart.
We thank the Father that Thou has purpose, that we.
Together share with thee.
The enjoyment and the eternal joy of that shared treasure.
Forever.
We bless the Father in my precious name, Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen.
Gospel 3
Gospel—John Bilisoly
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Want to welcome everyone to the Gospel meeting and for those that might not be aware of it, this is a 15 minute meeting and I will.
It's my desire to to hold to that. So let's let's first begin by asking for help loving God and our Father. We just thank thee that we can close out these wonderful 3 days of meetings that we've had together with again considering thy love to thy creature man, so much so that thou would send thine only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus into this world. And we thank thee, blessed Lord.
For the sacrifice of thyself that was made at Calvary's cross, so that poor creatures as ourselves.
That have been drugged under the weight of sin that we can come and have redemption through the blood of Christ. We can have liberty and peace. So we just ask for thy help as we look at thy word for a few minutes in the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. I'm going to ask you again for the third time.
In the gospel meetings that have taken place at this conference to turn to Genesis 3.
And our brother Ted. On Saturday night he turned us to Genesis 3.
And read a few verses. Brother Dave Harmon last night turned us to Genesis 3. And this was laid on my heart a while back when I was contacted about having this meeting. So I'm going to ask us to turn there again. And David and I were talking about this yesterday. And we were talking about, yeah, it's a little difficult when someone stands up ahead of you and they start reading and talking about the same verses you were going to talk about.
And maybe you've never experienced that. I know you sisters probably haven't, but maybe some of your brothers have. But I like what he said to me said, well, if the Lord lays it on your heart to say the same thing I said, that's fine. And you know, I got to thinking, it is like our God, isn't it? To establish things in the mouth of two or three witnesses. That's a principle in the word of God. So if I repeat some of it has already been repeated then.
That's OK, because I've asked the Lord to just help me to say what He's given me to say.
So I just want to look at, you know, there's some very searching.
Exercising and powerful questions in the word of God, and I just want to look at some of those and I want to look at some of those that have come from the lips of God himself. And so, dear one, tonight if you're in this room and you don't know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, I want to direct these comments in these first few questions that we're going to look at coming from the mouth of God. I want to direct them to you, to your conscience.
And the first one is in Genesis chapter 3. And we know the story of the fall of man, how Satan tempts, even they fall and they sin against God and they hide themselves because now they have a conscience that says that they've done wrong and they've disobeyed. And this is the question that I want you to think about this evening.
The end of verse 93 words Where art thou?
Are we considered in our language today? Where are you?
Well, I'm not just saying where are you physically sitting? I'm asking you, where are you in relation to this question of your sins? Where are you in in relation to the demands that God is making that and the pronouncement because of sin that the soul that sinneth it shall die? Where are you considering that question? You know, that's a solemn thing to think about.
Think about a holy and a righteous God.
And a voice from heaven coming to your heart and saying, Where are you?
It's a serious thing, isn't it? It? You know, that that statement, that question, I should say from God, it proves at least two things, doesn't it? It proves that man was lost and that God was seeking him. Isn't that wonderful?
Beautiful to think in that question. God is telling us you are lost.
But I'm seeking you. And So what a wonderful message we have tonight that yes.
Even though you have sinned and you have, God is seeking you and He wants you because God loves you. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. He wants your companionship. He wants your fellowship. I'll just tell one real short story about my grandson because it touches my heart.
00:05:18
He's 2 1/2 and he likes to, he's starting to string words together into sentences. And he'll say something like, he calls me grandpa and calls my wife Gamma, something like that. And he'll say, we'll say, what do you want to do? And he'll say hide and seek. So translation is grandpa, let's play hide and go seek.
So we'll tell him to go hide.
And then we'll say, OK, ready or not.
Here we come, where are you? And he'll say.
There will be a very short silence and he'll say he'll make a noise like he'll hide, but then he'll make a noise like so like revealing where he's at. Or he'll say.
Right here. So then he'll stand up from where he's hiding. And what, what makes me touches my heart about it is he doesn't really want to hide. He wants to be with us.
He's playing the game, but he doesn't want it to last very long. He doesn't want to stay in that that condition of being hidden from us because he wants to have fellowship with us. And you know, dear ones, I can't help but believe that there's a longing in every human heart that wants to have fellowship with God. And it's only the the enemy of our souls. It's only Satan that would keep a soul from.
Not desiring that. So if you are in your seat this evening and you are hiding from God, don't keep hiding.
Just come to him.
Or acknowledge your need.
God wants your company. OK, let's go to the next one, just a chapter over in chapter 4 of Genesis and down in.
Verse.
Ten God is speaking again.
And this is what he asked. This is his question.
What hast thou done? We know the story concerning Cain and Abel.
How able and jealousy and hatred rises up and he takes the life of his brother. He kills his brother.
Our can does kills Abel and God comes to Cain and he says, what hast thou done? I want to ask you this afternoon, if you're without the Lord, if you you're still in your sins, I want this question to burn into your conscience, your heart. Just picture again, if you will, a voice from heaven saying to you to your heart.
What have you done?
Well.
What have you done? You have sinned.
Maybe you haven't killed anyone, but you have sinned.
And that sin is separating you from a holy and a righteous God.
Don't try and deny it, don't try and make excuse for it. Just acknowledge it. That's the only way for blessing is to acknowledge that you are a Sinner.
And OK, so let's let's go to the New Testament now to.
Luke's Gospel, chapter 20.
So we have this situation where God, as we had in these meetings, he create everything that he created in in his creation initially was very good. It says that, doesn't it, at the end of that?
The second chapter I believe it is, or the 1St chapter of Genesis. God looked at it and he saw that it was very good. Sin comes in and spoils all of that and man is put at a distance from God. Man tries to hide, man tries to deny what he's done. He doesn't want to face the reality of the fact that he has sinned against.
A holy God God looks at his creation spoiled.
And this question is raised. The Lord is speaking here and he's telling a parable in Luke 20. And I'm not going to read through it, but it's the parable of the man that plants a vineyard. And he, he has servants that are taking care of it. And it comes time for him to receive of the fruits of his vineyard and he sends those to receive it and they're treated shamefully.
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And so it says that finally.
After he sent servant after servant.
We have this question here. This again a question from the mouth of God. He says in verse 13, What shall I do?
And so we could trace through man's dealings with this creature or God's dealings with this creature man, how he has has dealt with him in various ways and sent prophets to them and so on to try and recall their hearts and draw them to himself. And they're shamefully treated. So what does he do? He says, what shall I do? Couple that with another question.
In Deuteronomy six, I think it is.
Where he says, Who will go for us? What shall I do?
Who will go for us or whom shall I send? I'm sorry, what shall I do? You know, it's, it's, it's touching to me that God looks over his creation and he raises this question, What shall I do?
Whom shall I send?
Well, we know the story, don't we?
What could he do?
It says here.
I will send my beloved son picture of the Lord Jesus.
It may be they will reverence him when they see him, but when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, this is the heir, come, let us kill him.
That the inheritance may be ours.
So he sends his beloved son, and what do they do? They take him.
And they nail him to a cross. But oh, and God gains the victory because.
In that work of Calvary's cross, the blessing can finally flow out to you and I God can now bring us into relationship with Himself through the work of His Son. So what a wonderful thing that has taken place there at Calvary's cross. It's the only way, dear One, tonight that you can have.
Salvation is through the the finished work of Calvary's cross. I want to look at one more question that.
Again, it comes from the mouth of the Lord Jesus in John chapter 6. And I want to speak now as we close this meeting to those of us that know the Lord, that have accepted the Lord as their Savior. We've heard a lot in these meetings about pressing on our brother Bruce. I want to echo what he said. We need to press on. We need to continue on. And so the Lord had been speaking to.
Those around him.
And he says.
In verse 65.
Therefore I therefore said I unto you, No man can come unto me, except that were given unto him of my Father. From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. This said Jesus under the 12. And this is the question that I want to leave with us this afternoon. As we close out this meeting, will ye also go away?
Will ye also go away?
Just picture if you can, in your mind the Lord Jesus standing before you and saying, Are you going to leave me also?
And perhaps.
There's that thought in some of our hearts.
Is it worth it? Am I going to go on?
Well, I want us to just think about that, the Lord Jesus standing before us.
And.
For us, if he were standing before us and we could see his wounds in his hands.
And his feet.
And hear him say, Will ye also go away? What effect would it have on our hearts?
May the Lord encourage us again. I would make that earnest plea to anyone that's not the Lord's. Don't put it off. Don't continue to try and hide.
Or deny the fact that you are an undone Sinner before God. Just come to Him in simple faith.
And be saved. And for those of us that know him, may he encourage us to continue on.
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A little while that we're left here, let's just pray. Loving God and our Father, we again thank thee for the simplicity of the gospel and we pray for anyone. Maybe there's a a child that's the age of responsibility that needs the Savior. We pray for them. We pray for a young person, perhaps even an older one, our Father that has never made that decision. We just ask that that would come in, in thy mercies and work in their hearts that they might.
Come to thee. So we just.
Give thanks for this time we've had together in the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Talk 3
Proverbs 3
Talk—Robert Boulard
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And then we'll read a few verses of Scripture together.
Our loving God and our Father, we thank Thee for the happy weekend that we've had together. We thank Thee for thy precious word. We think of how in thy sovereign love and grace Thou hast acquainted us with Thy well beloved Son that was given us a life that's worth living. And now it's brought us into the knowledge of the eternal Council of the living God that we might have just hope in this scene.
That's filled with sin and corruption. So we just pray that these few words that are read.
Out of Thy precious word, this afternoon might lodge in our hearts and consciences.
And that we might have a desire to live the rest of our time for Thy glory and for thine honor. So we pray for thy blessing upon our brethren who are traveling to and ask you for safety, and that they might rejoice as they go on their way, thinking of those things that we've had before us. So we just ask thy blessing our God and our Father, and the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Well, I just have on my heart to read a little passage of scripture. It's in the Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 3.
And in this series of proverbs, there's a little bit of instruction given.
By the Lord and then he gives a little bit of an indication as to what the reward is if we hear that instruction and we act upon it. So we'll look at five of those. There's seven, but we don't have time here to to look at them all. But it says in Proverbs chapter 3, verse one, my son, forget not my law or my teaching, but let thine heart keep my commandments.
For length of days and long life and peace.
Shall they add to thee? Wasn't this nice that this expression that the Spirit of God uses my son, it says really, I believe it's 24 times in the book of Proverbs he uses this term, my son. And in the book of Proverbs, it's the thought of building upon the family name and honoring the family name, honoring the Lord. And so if you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
You're a son and heir of God. Join heir with Christ.
And you have the privilege of conducting yourself with the dignity.
A conduct of dignity and honor in this scene to honor the Lord, but it says forget not my law. And so this is really in connection with the word of God.
This passage of scripture is a young father, a father and mother, perhaps instructing their son before he goes out into the world, but we'll take it as an instruction given from the Lord Himself.
And so he says, forget not my teaching and my law, the word of God.
And so we're so apartment to forget it. But he says, let thine heart keep my commandments or my instructions, and so to keep it in the heart, the affections engaged. And so the word of God read, and then having affection for the Lord and what he has said to us.
How many here have read through the Bible right from the front to the back?
Well, I'm going to tell you something. Some of you haven't done it. If you read the word of God from the front to the back, it'll do something.
It'll change how you think. It'll change your life.
It will.
If you take and to take note and have affection for those words that he's written.
You know, I was helping a young fellow young man move from one apartment to another. He just finished college and we were moving little bits of furniture and all that kind of stuff. And I had my little truck out there and under his bed he had boxes and boxes, heavy boxes of things that he wanted moved. And one of the boxes was open.
And I said to him, what is this?
Looked at a notebook and I start reading. I can't remember if it was Ephesians.
Handwritten.
Pick another one up, Galatians.
Picked some others up. Deuteronomy.
The young man had come home after school and the very first thing he did was go up to his room and he would hand write for an hour.
Out of the Word of God, so that he was copying out for himself all of the word of God for himself.
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Took him quite a while to do it.
But what's the reward for having affection for the Word of God and listening to the instruction that the Spirit of God gives us? It says verse two is the reward for length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee. Now that's quite a reward. What's the difference between length of days?
And long life. There are three rewards, length of days, long life.
And peace.
Peace in your conscience, peace of heart, peace to walk through this world.
With the peace of God, which passeth all understanding to have a sense that the Lord is in control and that things aren't out of control, that he knows what's going on but length of days, you know it's if you look at some of the commentaries and some of the Bible dictionaries, you'll see that it means.
Long, youthful, productive days.
Long, useful, productive days.
You know what happens in life is often times there's rebellion against the Word of God and then the life isn't filled with long, useful, productive days.
And the life of those that are rebels, you'll notice.
Are very short. Generally the days of a rebel are cut short. And the Lord knows how to give long, useful, productive days if we abide by the principles of the Word of God. Because the principles of the Word of God will give us to understand how the Lord Jesus lived and what's pleasing to him and will live in a righteous and a godly way. What a reward to have long, useful.
Productive days.
And there's some here, you know, the Lord gives us 3 score in 10 years. That's 70 years if by reason of strength they're more than it's with labor and sorrow. But that's 25,550 days.
70 years.
And I've wasted a lot of them. And I'm sorry, I regret.
How many days I've wasted? But you young folks are younger, and you can use the days that you have.
To be long, useful and productive in the things of God. For the blessing of your families. For the blessing of those that are the Saints of God.
For the blessing of those that you know.
Well, long life is.
Necessary for to be productive. Well, he's going to add those things to us. Now the third one is this. Let not mercy and truth or loving kindness and truth forsake thee. Bind them about thy neck. Write them upon the table, thine heart.
You know this world is a cold, cold place. It's a wicked place, godless place, and the affections for Christ are and for the things of God. The heart grows cold. It says in the tribulation period that because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. This world has a cold and a soul deadening effect upon us, and we need the word of God. But he says here he's giving us instruction.
To have loving kindness and truth.
And not to forsake them, not to make exceptions and say, well, you know, under certain circumstances I need to lie. Or under certain circumstances, you know, I can be unkind.
No, loving kindness is what really characterized the Blessed Savior all of his life.
You know he didn't have to touch that leper in Mark chapter one.
He didn't have to touch him to heal him. He could have said you're healed. He had the power in his voice. But no.
The gentleness and the kindness of that Blessed One, he touched him. You and I have the ability to express kindness, the kindness of God to one another and to those that are in this world. You know, Mr. Haiku, maybe you've heard me say this before, but I've enjoyed reading his little book on Ruth. And he has this little expression, he says part way through the book in his commentary, he says, you know, kind words are so scarce.
Among us that you'd think they cost $10 a piece.
You know they don't cost $10 a piece. We need to be kind to one another and loving kindness, I think is expressive of how the Lord would desire to have us in truthful. He is the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Well, what do you get? You know it's a loving kindness and truth. And he says, bind them about thy neck. So how do you do this?
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Well, I've thought of it this way, that some of the sisters like to have a Pearl necklace or something like that. And so it's a link of loving kindness, a link of truth, a link of loving kindness, a link of truth.
And it's visible.
You're kind.
You have a kind nature, you have a kind, you have the capacity, if you're indwelled with the Spirit of God, to show kindness.
You have a characteristic of truth. Someone comes, asks you something, they know they're going to hear the truth.
That's how we ought to be. And then, you know, it becomes an ornament. People will see it. That's what it says. So shout, there's a reward. Thou shalt find favor good understanding in the sight of God and man.
So, you know, you have an expression, you have a reputation, if we could put it this way, you have a testimony in the neighborhood, in the world.
And.
It shows whether there's loving kindness.
And whether there's truth, there's a display and it's before the Lord, it's going to be in the sight of God, in the sight of man. So what you're doing, how you're living is being lived in the sight of God.
It is nice to be have a sense of being doing what you're doing in the sight of the Lord. Well, the next one is to trust in the Lord with all thine heart. Now I'm going to give you this little term. The word here, trust in the Lord means to confide in the Lord and the Lord here is Jehovah. If you look at a new translation says Jehovah, but in the French translation.
Mr. Darby uses the word the eternal 1.
The name the eternal 1L apostrophe eternal, later the eternal 1. So when you read Jehovah in the new translation, you could put it in there, pencil it in if you want. The French version, the eternal one. Can you trust in the eternal 1?
The eternal One who brought you into this world made only one person just like you.
And has the desire for your blessing. And He longs for you to trust His word.
The trust is instructions. You know, chapter Brown used to have this little expression. He would say this.
None of us are ever any wiser than the Word of God.
None of us. We are not wiser than the Word of God.
And so we have the responsibility and the privilege to trust the Eternal 1 implicitly trust the Lord in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding of thine own intelligence, natural intelligence. And what we heard this weekend is that the wisdom of God is not an improvement on the wisdom of man.
It's directly opposite. The wisdom of God is directly opposite.
To the wisdom of man and wouldn't you want to walk and live in your live your life in the wisdom of God, in the wisdom of the Eternal one? Why do we need the wisdom of God? It's because when the man fell into sin, he lost his ability to know where the boundaries were. And the law gave man a boundary and he needed to know where the boundaries were morally.
And spiritually, he needed to know.
Where the lines were drawn and it's in a sense the Lord says here's the lines and stay inside the fence, so to speak. And things are going to go well. And so that's how he dealt with the children of Israel. But with you and I, his love is such that he desires us. He desires our confidence, He desires our affections.
Some of us are married in this room and isn't it one of the things that we like to have is to have?
I like to have my wife trust me when I say something.
No, I say. Well, you're not just saying that, are you?
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We like to have we like to be trusted, while the Lord Jesus loves to be trusted.
And he is capable and powerful to be able to bring about what he needs to.
Bring about well, it says, in all thy ways, here's a reward. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and then in our prayers we can acknowledge his rights.
His authority?
Not skirt the authority that the Lord has.
Put into our lives.
And he says he shall direct thy paths, or he shall make plain thy paths. You don't need to walk in a place where you don't know where you're going, you don't know what the direction you're going. You don't know you an aimless life. And a lot of people in this world have an aimless life. But if you have Christ before you, you have the object before you, the object bright and fair to fill in, to satisfy your heart.
And to please him, he's going to direct your paths.
I'll give you a little illustration. When I was going to go to college, I.
My dad never went to college. So he said, you know, you don't need to go to college. It's, it's all right, just get a job and you'll be fine. And well, he was a railway worker and he was a salesman and so on. And he made a good living, decent living, and he was a believer. And I learned a lot from my father about the word of God in the early part of my life.
But I felt that I needed to get a little bit of training.
And so I wanted to design, I wanted to not only work in kitchen cabinet factory, but I want to be able to design the cabinets. So I asked the Lord. I got down on my knees and asked the Lord, can I please find something that I would be able to design cabinets, design different objects and then they could be produced in a factory.
And so I got up on my knees from my knees and went over to the nearest college.
And I sat in a man's office and he said, well, you know, in this program.
We'll teach you not only how to use your mind, but how to use your hands and so on, but we'll teach you how to use your mind and how to develop product to be manufactured in factories and so on. He almost used exactly the same words as what I prayed to the Lord.
I'm not a very good example, but.
I don't pray enough in that way, but the Lord is capable of directing you, and what I'm trying to impress upon you here is that the Lord will give you that reward if you trust in Him. Just trust Him for the direction in life. Well then we have the next one is be not wise in thine own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.
So it's easy for us when we're young.
To be wise in our own eyes and it's easy for us when we get older.
To be wise in our own eyes. But we need the word of God. We need the wisdom of God, and none of us is any wiser than the word of God. The wisdom of God far exceeds the wisdom of man. But what we tend to do is to try to rely on our own wisdom and what we can see and what we think we can perceive. But it's not the path of faith.
The path of faith is to trust the Lord and to trust His Word.
And to fear the Lord, You know what it means to fear the Lord. It's not to be afraid of the Lord.
But it's to be afraid to displease him.
You'll forgive another little personal illustration. Maybe you've heard me say it before, but when I was first married, I.
Mary Janet May the 2nd, 1981 I was so happily to be married, married a wonderful girl and I wanted her to be the happiest wife and I came home.
Several weeks, maybe a couple of weeks after we were married, and she asked me to put up a rack of spoons and, you know, some stuff right by the stove. Told me where she wanted it. And I ran downstairs, got my level and drill and I got things all measured out and put this thing up.
15 minutes later the job was done and how she was so happy.
And then a couple of months later, I came home and she said, you know, honey, this chair has fallen apart, needs to be glued up and.
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It's just, it's just a mess. And I said, well, you know, I'm kind of tired tonight and well, you know, maybe Saturday if I'm not too tired, I could probably look at it and see if I could do it. And immediately my heart smoked me.
I said, oh, here I am. I'm married three months or four months, and I'm not even afraid of displeasing my wife. I just want my own way. I want to be comfortable. I want things my way. I ran downstairs and I got my clamps, I got my glue and I had that thing put together pretty fast. It didn't really take that much time. But it's to fear the Lord is to be afraid to displease the Lord.
To know what pleases him and to want to just.
Return your affections to Christ by just obeying His Word and trusting His Word, not walking in your own sight. So what's the reward? He says.
It shall be health to thy navel. You're going to have divine nourishment. You're going to have marrow to the bones. It speaks of strength. You want to have spiritual strength. You want to have strength nourished in your soul. Feel fed with Christ.
Try to please them, don't please yourself, please the Lord.
You know the Lord, Brother Gordon. We were talking about Brother Gordon a little bit. He, Gordon Hale, used to have that.
His little cottage up about 20 minutes north of my house. And he used to.
Oftentimes tell us.
About the fear of the Lord. And he used to tell us about the threefold cord. He said young people, and I heard him say it at many weddings, say young people, a Christian marriage is a threefold court. It should be the husband 100% for his wife, the wife 100% for her husband, and both of them together 100% for the Lord.
And he said, be sure if you marry that you marry in the Lord.
And that your marriage is a threefold court.
Well, let's look at the last one here that we're going to look at.
Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase. So shall thy barns be filled with plenty. Thy presses shall burst out with new wine.
Well, honor the Lord.
We might use we read this weekend, Me First in Luke's Gospel. I think it was chapter 18. Was it maybe 19 Me First.
But really it should be Christ 1St and I'm not a good example. Forgive me for even trying to speak about it. But when I get up in the morning I try to spend time with the Lord first before I check my cell phone. I digressed a little bit on a three hour time difference here and my wife is wanting a little bit of information here and there so I've broken my rule but.
I try to spend time in the presence of the Lord first.
Before I get busy.
It's gathering up the man at first in the morning before the sun is hot and before things get out of control and you don't have time to go back to the word of God. But here he says honor the Lord.
With thy substance.
In 1982 my father-in-law had built himself a house on the hill overlooking the the lakes, a nice brick house, and he had the old house for sale and it wasn't very moving. It was an old household.
Wooden house, no brick on it and everything, and it needed a lot of work and Janet and I were just married and so we made an arrangement and bought the house from them.
And the day that we signed the documents, we came back from the lawyer's office.
And, umm.
I said dad.
We just bought this property from you and I know we have different ideas and that sort of thing, but is there something, something that you would like me to do with this property or some instruction that was particularly needful that you want to communicate to me?
He said, Son, I only have one thing that I want to tell you.
That I would like to see done with this property.
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I don't care what you change, how you do it, what do you do but just do this one thing.
Use this property for the Lord and for the Lord's people.
So Janet and I prayed and asked the Lord for help to be able to do that, to give him his request.
And young people, I want to just say this and perhaps say it to us who are older as well.
When the meeting room needs some new utensils, you need some new utensils at home.
You go to the store, you buy some utensils and so on, and then you take the old ones to the meeting room maybe.
Let me just say it should be done the other way. You buy some new utensils and you bring them to the meeting room and then the old one stay at your place.
Give him honor the Lord and make sure that he gets the best.
Not the leftovers.
Don't give the leftovers to the Lord, give him the best.
And you won't have any regrets, you won't be sorry later that he got second best. God gave the very best of heaven. He spared nothing for your blessing. And for all eternity the Son of God will delight in His bride. And God has given his best. And how He longs for us to return in our affections and give him, honor him and give him the best.
Honor the Lord with thy substance, with a first. Fruits of thine increase. Well, what's the reward? So shall thy barns be filled with plenty. Thy presses shall burst out with new wine. Now this is in a Jewish context. So they expected an earthly blessing. They expected to have a good reward, good crops, all those sorts of things if they walked in obedience to the Word of God. You're not going to get a new Mercedes.
You're not going to get the biggest house and you're not going to get all those.
God didn't promise you blessing in the earth as it were, but he's speaking in a spiritual sense.
God is no man's debtor, and if you use your resources for the blessing of God's people for the honor of Christ Himself.
In this world, he will see to it that you are honored.
That your resources are provided and that you will rejoice in your heart. That's really what it speaks of, the new wine. You will have joy in your soul.
Things may be difficult, you may have trials and those sorts of things, but he's going to provide for you and give you the joy in your soul. So I just encourage you this afternoon, young people and those of us that are older.
Just to give the Lord the best, don't give him the leftovers.
Give him the best.
So we have these rewards, have the word of God before us.
Make sure that you read the word of God. His wisdom is necessary to walk through this life.
And He'll give you length of days, He'll give you long life, and He'll give you peace. And then it says that we should really have a tender heart, loving kindness and truth. What will we get? Favor good understanding in the sight of God and men. Then He wants our implicit trust.
In verse five and then.
What will we get? He'll make playing our paths. You'll walk in a plain path in this scene. He'll guide. And then it says be not wise in thine own eyes. And so we need to have unfailing fear of God and to just walk in his favor as we seek to please him, and then to honor the Lord. And the reward, the rewards are all well worth it.
Well, that's really what I had on my heart this afternoon.
To just bring before us as we leave this conference, that we might not go back home the same way that we came, that we might have a desire heart to have the word before us daily ourselves, and to honor the Lord. So let's commend ourselves, our loving God and our Father. We thank Thee for Thy precious word, Thy love that has sought and found us.
And we thank Thee 2 That we have the eternal 1 to guide to instruct us, and we thank Thee for the love behind that work of Calvary, blessed Savior.
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We think of how Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to himself. A glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. So we looked at thee for Thy blessing our God. Help us to walk in a clean path, in a path that would be pleasing to be so preserve us. We pray as we part, and as we go to our separate homes. We pray for Thy.
Safety Thank you for the time together and the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Gospel 10