Address—David So
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.
Let's look to the Lord in prayer first.
It's rather difficult.
To know what to say when one was asked to come up with words of encouragement as our closing remarks, as if it were.
I was just thinking of this hymn as we began. It's a wonderful hymn.
Perhaps even there's a prayer, because many of us know that it's easy to encourage someone else. It's easy to tell others that there are miracles.
But when circumstances of life comes to us, then we will say we believe in miracles. But I'm not sure what happened to me, you know? Have you ever gone through those ceilings?
Satan knows how to discourage our heart. We, we spoke of the faint hearted and in the Hebrews chapter 12, you remember the phrases about after faith. It sets, uh, uh, let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus. What do we have his mind or in Hebrews there they talk about how, uh, they faint in the minds and often find that, you know, when someone has a.
Problem. We see someone coming up with crutches. As our brother mentioned, some you should catch someone falling. Well, we know what you do. That's easy in a sense, although there's nothing we really can do, but yet.
When someone is fainting in the mind.
We don't recognize that, at least. Perhaps I shouldn't use the word we so carefully. I don't recognize it. We come to a conference like this. Everyone dressed well. They smile. We ask how are you? The answer is we are well.
And we often miss that, don't we? And it does take special help from the Lord to recognize that.
Some of us perhaps come with heavy burdens and we need help. We're calling for help, but yet, well, we really don't want anyone to know that we need help. It's a difficult situation, isn't it? So this film is kind of nice. We we sang this our times in thine hand. In fact, time is short, so I just mentioned it briefly. If you if you look back at him 209, you'll find that the first Enza.
Really, look at the words. It speaks of dependence.
That's not the word we use much today. We're in a country that we're told you should be #1 you should look after yourself first. We don't need to depend on anyone. Well, him writer said, Father, we wish them there. What do we wish into the Lord's hand? We independence of Him, our life, our soul, our all we have.
Entirely to thy care. Do we really believe in that? Now remember you saying this him and I trust that you mean what you read. Now before I go on the second Stan, Sir, I'll scare you. Let's look at the last stanza that wouldn't even sing. I'm afraid of saying that because I don't know if I can sing that truly from my heart. Our times are in thine hand we.
Always trusting thee? Oh, I have difficulty with that, do I really? Can I truly say I always trust in Him?
Let's go back to the second stanza.
Some. In other words, we don't use often. I believe that word is called submission.
Well I see many husbands here. We learn a word, we may look at our wives and say you should be submissive. Well we forget the other part, the duties that the husband should perform, but here we need to be submissive to our Lord. We can say our times in thine hand, whatever they may be. Do we really believe in that? Pleasing or painful, dark or bright?
As best may seem to be, do we really believe we should submit ourselves in our Lord? Now, it's not my thought to go through this hymn, but I would encourage you to encourage you to read through that. The third stanza really speaks of confidence in the Lord.
The 4th stanza speaks of protection we seek from the Lord and the 5th stands that we find we we found sympathy from our Lord and the last dancer. Really when we sing it is we have the faith that we have in the Lord.
With a few minutes left now, I trust that we weigh about 6-7 minutes behind. I'm not sure what does that mean. I lost 6-7 minutes Or do we take the liberty to have 6-7 minutes longer? I'm not sure. Umm, I don't have a speech written now so I have to go what the loan may lead. I hope you would excuse me if I did go over a couple of minutes.
00:05:13
I was on my heart when I came and I was so glad.
Phil made a comment that a lot of things that we took up is something he had on his heart, and I felt that of course we exercised lately differently than each other.
I have that on my heart. The word is not a scriptural word, but the word we face worries.
I don't know how many of you can relate with me without worries. We worry about a lot of things. I'm not going to ask a show of hand. I can already see the expressions on the faces, either eyes drop face down or various so-called body language tells me that.
Many in this room have worries.
I know his husband, who often get accused and you don't worry about anything. Well, we have worries, don't we? So I came. I was thinking about certainties.
Worries and certainties. Neither one are from the scripture but principles we find in scriptures.
In business, they tell you you need to be in control. How do you take control? Well, you list all the problems, things that you expect to happen.
And you make sure you take care of things ahead of time because as they say, there will be many unexpected events to happen during the course of whatever the plan is. And if we can take care of the and of the expected, then obviously the unexpected is easier to taken care of. So we find in our lives we worries about things, but yet there are many things to me.
As a redeemed 1 uncertainties before God.
And I know that's somebody's word. Now let me begin with one.
We know this first, and we use it in gospel a lot. You can turn to it if you want, but I'm sure you know it as I say it as it is written. I'm sorry. As it is appointed unto man once to die there, though it's not a gospel meeting. But what does that say?
I see Brother Lomoyne Smith here. I say, brother, you're going to die.
I just don't know when.
We know that. So here's one end of the spectrum. From the time we're born into this world, it is appointed unto men once to die. It's a fact, isn't it? It's a certainty.
When you go to the far spectrum in First Corinthians chapter 15, there's one very short verse. In fact, let's turn to that because when we turn to it and see it, we remember it more. Now we read this chapter a lot, and I'm not sure.
How many?
Notice this word First Corinthians chapter 15. Oh yes, verse 20.
4.
Than the end.
It's like watching a short movie, isn't it? It is a pointer and a man wants to die. Then by the way, I skip the word cometh. If you notice, that's in italic. So really it emphasized the thought even more than come at the end. These are two certainties we have, don't we? So we know that once we are born, it is a point and demand wants to die then at the end.
Now, we're not going to spend time on this. I know many of you know what is the end means this is not the end of life.
This is the beginning of God's time, isn't it? The end of time, the end of man, when Christ was to do all things and he handed back to God the Father, and then we go into the eternal state. But that two bookends as if it were so. What are your worries?
What do we worry about?
Well about death, I think many of us do. What have I died tomorrow? What if I got sick and died? Well, he's a verse even Umm, we know. Well, I'm just going to quote them for property of time there in Ephesians. We know the verse is that even when we were dead in sins had quickened us together by Christ.
Oh, we cheat the death as if it were We have been redeemed. That's a certainty, isn't it?
00:10:01
Do you believe that you have overcome the power of death, not death itself? So what you worry here is another certainty that we have. We know it is by grace that we are saved is nothing to do with you. It is through faith and not of yourselves. Oh, so we have nothing to do with salvation, is there?
That's a certainty. There are many things we really can't do or control.
A look around. I have children, I have grandchildren and I look at myself and they said.
My grandchildren didn't choose to be my grandchildren, did they? They didn't choose to have that Lady to be your mother.
We couldn't choose our parents could we should be 1 less thing to worry about because there are many things that we couldn't choose is beyond our control. Can you choose to be saved? We just talk about is by grace that we are saying you couldn't even choose how to get Pennsylvania past the power of death. Can you choose what you will spend eternity.
No.
We don't even know what eternity looks like, but we're reminded that is where He is. That's good enough for us, isn't it? And this world talk about going to heaven. Well, how come the Word of God doesn't talk much about what heaven is like?
Oh, it's not just a place. It's where he is. It's where he is. We want to be forever with the Lord and.
Did you choose to be the bride of Christ? Did you have a choice? No, He told you certainties. Do you believe that in your heart? Those are the certainties. So we find these two bookends with lots of things that could happen in between and then we'll often quote, and I believe this verse was mentioned before and we know that. Do we know this? Now keep in mind we say this and we know that all things work together.
For good to them that love God. Do you believe that? That's a certainty, isn't it? It should be in our lives we know. For we know that all things work together for good to them of God, to them who are called according to His purpose. Romans 828, where the book of Romans before was quite a bit yesterday.
Another certainties in between these bookends. So what's your worries?
He he was by theory, and I know it's not good to speculate a man's theory. This is what I have learned. As we get to a certain age, if we sometimes use the phrase, we've been around the block a few times and some of us are fast learners, some of us are slow learners, and we have to run around the block a number of times to learn something. Here's what I'm beginning to learn.
None of you matters in my mind.
It's me. Do you ever find that?
What do we pray for? Oh, I'm sorry, we know how to pray carefully, use the right word, but deep down I will really say, Lord, what about me?
I'm sick. I need help fix me. Oh no, no, I'm not that selfish. My children, my family, my friends, do we find that sometimes. We're so me centric.
How often do we have in the prayer that we can say, Lord is not my will, but thine be done?
We have children.
How often do we sell? Our children say to us, we want this and in their mind it's the right thing to have and as a parent we will say no, this is not good for you. Do we try to understand the father's heart?
Sometimes we think it's for the Lord. Look, look how dark this world is around us. Look. Look how the Christian churches have degraded. Look at the other religions all coming in.
Do we think that the Lord perhaps is blessing other country more? Do we look and say look at how brethren in Brazil, not only are the word of God being spread quickly and widely and those many are gathered to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do we only think of our own backyard. I I leave that with you as a question because.
00:15:05
We should believe that all things.
Whether we get what it is for me, whether what it is for you. God has a bigger picture and bigger purpose behind it. I was thinking about brother, He's not here now that gone into Second Kings with the Shulamite woman.
Not quite the way he was expressing it. I was thinking more in this country we feel we have two major issues.
To sum it up with I call it health.
And wealth.
Uh, we had before us, we didn't have time to go through it. How we asked the Lord to bless our spirit, soul and body. We're in a country that knows the opposite is the body, soul and spirit. My body has to come first. Look, I need to exercise. By the way, I don't we say we need to exercise and build a body, spend hours in the gym.
Eat the right thing because the body has to come first because as they say, without the health, you can enjoy the wealth. Those who worry about wealth have to work the extra time.
At the end of the day, either way, do we have the Lord before us who provides?
The wealth who provide the health.
We don't have time. Look in the Book of Haggai, it's interesting. They had it good and then the Lord said it's time to build the Lord's house.
And Haggy, I had to remind them, you're so busy working. You live in good houses, but it's not good enough. You're so busy working, you put money in a bag and didn't even realize there's a hole in the bag. The more you put in the bag, the more it comes out. If we ever find that with our lives, that may not be a certainty, but we do know and believe that the Lord.
Will provide do we believe that in this country we're too occupied is back to the Mee syndrome?
The health and the wealth.
Another problem. We want more time to talk about all these problems, but these are just some. Perhaps I'm saying it to encourage you.
As Americans, and I know it's Canadians too.
One of the problem we complain is we pay way too much taxes.
Don't we? And the government we have is no good. You know, it's funny. I caught my brother, my father, a while ago when you folks were having your trouble with your President Trump. And my father said to me, oh, I don't like that man. I he was caught up with it. And I remember saying to him, I said, dad, there's nothing you can do. What do you mean? I said, you're not American.
You can't even vote. Not that he would, because oh.
He said, did you pray for him? Oh, he's a terrible man. Did you pray for him? I would. And then he, he knew.
I enjoyed this thought and again, we don't have time to turn through it and I know you can find these verses. A brother expressed this in the conference not long ago. He said it's very simple, Don't let that bother you. There are three things when it comes to government or taxes, He said very simple. We pay, we pray and we obey.
Could you keep that in your own mind, in your own heart?
We're not of this world that fadeth away. We have nothing to do. This is from the word of God. We pay too much taxes. That's a good problem. You made too much money.
You pay.
We pray for the authorities, you find their first and first Timothy too, that we can have a peaceable life and we obey. Now of course we'll always quantify that we rather obey God than man, but those 3 principles are laid out for us from the Word of God.
Now we still have a couple of minutes, I'd like to turn to Jeremiah. Now here's another thing, and you may say you can chalk it off and say this is your opinion.
I'd like to share with you another thing we worry about our children. Let me share this with you before I go into the verse.
I remember when the children were younger and here to encourage many of the young parents. I remember the day that the crying doesn't seem to stop.
00:20:02
And I remember someone older would say enjoy them now. They will be gone before you know it. In between those cries and tantrum is like, yeah sure.
Today we look back. We have an empty house.
Those problems looking back didn't seem so bad, so bad, but back then?
Trust me on that. It was big. I remember going home that my wife was saying here he's yours and walk away.
How big are problems? How do we and I hear somebody say don't even raise children in this evil world? I just want to encourage parents. Jeremiah chapter 29.
Now, Jeremiah, this portion is talking about submissions to the Word of God is a very interesting book to go through. And I think a brother back there yesterday mentioned the earlier portion of that. They were told that this terrible man named Nebuchadnezzar is going to come in, is going to overtake them and going to take them into captivity, not for a year or two, but for 70 years. They will be captive.
And they are told beforehand what they are to do.
In that land of captivity, which to me I believe we can take that as an example for us in this land that is not ours, as we're ready to go to our Father's land. I just read a few verses. Verse 5. Now you should really read a few chapters before and after to get a full connections for yourself. Verse 5. Build your houses and dwell in them, and plan gardens and eat the fruit of them.
Take your eyes and bigot sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands that they may bear sons.
And daughters that you may be increased there and not diminished. Wow. But they're going into a land of captivity. They're going to be slaves. God said. Trust me, you need to continue on with life.
You have to carry on with raising families.
But I left the verse out. Oh, I shouldn't say that. I didn't read the next verse. And I believe this verse is what we have to take to heart.
Verse 7.
Seek and seek the peace of the city, whether I have caused you to be carry away captives. And here's the portion of my heart, and pray unto the Lord for it, for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.
Uh, we like the captives in a land that is not like ours. I I believe we are.
Are we to shy away from what God has set us here in this land?
No, there's a reason why the children of Israel were sending the captivities and there are blessings that will come out from it afterwards. But while the in captivity they are told to stay obey. In fact there is a couple of other passages in there tell them don't run away. We see example of the false prophet to tell them to to run away and they were told you flee because of sword. You're going to be killed by the sword if you have flea because of.
Famine, you'll be killed by famine. And those came true and you can see that in history. And now remember, it's a side comment a a family very close to us.
20 some odd years ago when we had that one of the major division, they said we know this is the right place to stay, but because of our children there are very few left with children. We're going because of our children. Well, I don't want to say too much on that set result afterwards. So we are told these are certainties that God has given us.
Do we believe in that? Now I won't have time to comment what the other thing that was on my heart. Let's turn to Ephesians chapter 2.
And I will have to run over a couple of minutes here and I won't have much comments on it. The book of Ephesians is interesting. Sometimes if you read from front to back, you don't always understand it. Sometimes it's good to go back a bit. We quoted from the 2nd chapter for by Grace, are you saved? Well, I'm gonna go backwards as if it were now as many of you know that verse 10 as many. So that's the key. That's the key to the whole Bible.
So let me start with the key 1St. It's a start in the dispensation of the fullness of times.
He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth even in him. Oh, that's going to happen. That's a certainty that God of the Lord himself and the dispensation of the fullness of time in that millennial time. He's going to gather about all and then verse 11. It says in whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestinated according.
00:25:26
To the purpose of him who worketh all things after the council of his own will, that we should be to the praise of the glory who first trusted in God. Oh, that's a certainty. They're saying we should be the praise of his glory. But wait a minute, that's not us.
It says we the Apostle Paul used the word we referring to we the Jews, the Jewish nation. The Jews will be to the praise of his glory, who trusted in God.
That's a certainty. They're not forgotten, as we mentioned. But hold on, where are we next verse in whom ye you guys? Well, I should say we because I'm not a Jew neither in whom ye also trusted after ye heard of the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
Uh, in whom after that ye believe you were sealed with the Holy Spirit? The promise?
I'd go to umm wherefore which? Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchase, possession unto the praise of His glory. We don't have time to go through that, but we too as a certainty to be the praise of His glory.
You still need to worry.
Now I'm going to spend just a couple of minutes. I'll start. Then he have his first prayer. We know that in the following verses, verse seven and part of the prayer have a few questions in that There's a lot more someone can comment on this, but I'm gonna, umm, read verse 18. This is part of the apostles prayer. The eyes of your understanding being in enlightened that you may know what is the hope of uh, I'm sorry.
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened as you stop there. Well, what is it? Oh, I do want you, brethren, to be enlightened as God would want you to be, and many of you know that. And then think of this as three questions afterward, that you may know what is the whole of His calling.
What is his hope of his calling? Second question or remark? What's the richest of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints?
And the third thing.
And what is the exceeding grayness of his power to Oswald who believed?
Is it not more certainty that we have, in fact, our time is gone? I'll just tell you that there. He told us that already. We know. Want to know about the hope of Our Calling? Read through it. He already told us in verses 8 to 18, and you'll see that in those previous chat and in those previous verses, He told us, oh, all this thing that He has for us, that we didn't do anything. We didn't have a choice.
He set those certainties out for us, that we were chosen before the foundation of this world, predestinated to sonship, to share His glory, to be His bride, and to be forever with the Lord. What more do we need? I just want to sing that finished singing about Him. 209 Let's just sing the last three verses.
Verse four as we sing it, remember it talks about protection we have from the Lord.
Verse five, he's a sympathizing savior. Verse six, the faith.
Our times are in thy hand.
00:30:14
Nsnoise June, 34 hours is on Wednesday.