YP Address—R. Thonney
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Our poor son in the age of God.
To come.
Where all the.
Way and he will fall.
And share it all.
Where it is.
Come from heaven.
God.
Is love.
All thy word made me.
Honored where? The wind itself?
Lovely glory's way.
The Lord.
No.
Worry.
Hear my eyes now pray.
The holy God.
Lord to the earth.
And.
The walls to save.
Scarlett died.
What?
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From everything and.
Brought us.
My.
We are a strange.
Oh, earthquake gave me by the grave.
The process.
And ties with.
Founders here life.
So far, treasure.
In a bright.
Curse me.
That's great. Gracious Father, Thanks so much for that calling with which we've been called. And this afternoon we have a few brief moments to open thy precious word, and we confess, Gracious Father.
Our incapacity to be able to speak in an adequate way when we consider the vast place we've been brought into.
That, gracious Father, may there be the liberty of thy spirit in what is said, so that something of fruit, something of profit, may remain for thy people. Pray especially for our young.
Commend ourselves for these minutes together in the name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.
Let's read first of all from Luke chapter 22.
Just a couple verses here.
Luke chapter 22 and verse 52.
Then Jesus said unto the chief priests and captains of the temple, and the elders which were come to him.
Be come out as against a thief with swords and staves. When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hands against me this part. But this is your hour and the power of darkness. This is your hour and the power of darkness. Now let's go over to.
First Corinthians, chapter 4.
And verse 3.
But with me, the Apostle Paul speaking, it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you.
Or of man's judgment, I'd like to refer to the marginal reading. Many of you have your margins.
Man's day, yeah, I judge not mine own self, for I know nothing by myself, yet am I not hereby justified? But he that judgeth me is the Lord.
In Luke 22 where we read it speaks of man's hour, he said. This is your hour in the power of darkness.
The Lord Jesus was being taken, he had presented himself to his people and he was being taken to be crucified and he said to those people, this is your hour and the power of darkness. Here the apostle Paul comes to makes reference to something of the same thing when he speaks of.
Man's The marginal region is man's day.
This is the day we live in, and I think it's important to understand it. Young people, if you and I are going to understand our position in this world, you're going to have to understand that we're living in a time which is characterized as being man's day.
God sent his son into this world and they said we do not have any room for this man in this world, religiously, politically, any way you want to think about it out. And they took him outside the city of Jerusalem and nailed him to the cross. It's man's day. Sometimes people say, why doesn't God intervene in all the human suffering that there is in the world today?
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It's because it's man's day. Man's.
Has taken it upon himself to refuse God. It is man's day.
And what is becoming increasingly evident, especially here in the United States, it's interesting to go between countries and to see the effect that the United States has on other countries.
Going to Bolivia and other countries of South America, you see the effect of the media, the United States in South America, and you can see that the thinking that is so evident up here in the United States is permeating the world.
What is that thinking?
The thinking is that man is the center of his own world.
Man is the reference point in his own world. It's sometimes called humanism.
It's also known as the New Age religion.
So sure, some of you may have heard of it, but basically it isn't anything new. It's the same basic lie that Satan told Eve.
Right in the second, the third chapter of Genesis, where he said ye shall be as God's knowing good and evil. In other words, you take charge of your own life. God has told you not to eat that of that tree. You don't know what you're missing. Go ahead, do it.
Be your own reference point. And so Eve ignored what God had said and and took of that fruit of that tree.
And the ruin is evident on every side in this world. But this principle of things is developing, and to me it's a tremendously.
Scary thing to see the way things are heading here in the United States. We are on our way down to South America and we stopped a day or two in Florida to visit a bit.
And then Daytona Beach, we happened to meet up with a man.
I thought was very interesting. He wanted to sell me something, but I wasn't really interested in buying. So to turn the stream of conversation, I just said, do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior? Oh, sure, sure, sure. I know him. Yeah, I've known him a lot of way, a lot of a long time. I I've got a lot of faith, he says. I was raised a Methodist, but he said.
I haven't been to a Methodist Church for many years, but.
I've got a lot of faith.
You know, the way he talked might have.
Fooled a lot of us that he was a real believer, but in the course of conversation.
He said to us, you know, there's a man alive in the world today that's going to save this world.
And he says the Catholic Church knows who that person is, and they won't tell us he's in the United States somewhere right now.
And I said, Oh yeah, I know who you're talking about. You're talking about the Antichrist.
He said yeah, but you know what?
The different religions paint him as evil, and you know, he's not evil, he's good.
But that thing of making man the reference point in everything has permeated the thinking of the United States. And I'm going to go a step further and say it has permeated.
Christians far more than they realize.
Brethren going back and forth between South and North America, to me one of the greatest.
Veins to the Christian testimony is materialism. It's not that there's anything wrong with material things that we may possess, but it is the basic thought that I order my life. You want to talk about Christ? Sure, no problem. Go ahead and talk about him.
But if it's a question of anything that deals with my life, don't you put your finger on me.
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I'll determine my life. That's the principle of the new age.
That's the principle of humanism. It's making man the center and God, you stay out of the picture.
That's what's developing in the world today. I don't think we realize.
How much it permeates the media, how much it permeates educational circles where our children have to go many times. I don't think we're aware of it. I really believe that the majority of believers in the Lord Jesus are asleep as to the development of things. It's the spirit of Antichrist.
And I really do believe that it is a very real possibility that Antichrist is alive and well in this world today.
It's clear to me in Scripture.
From Two Thessalonians chapter 2 That it is.
He will not be revealed until that which hinders is taken out of the way. But that spirit is permeating this world.
Now what I want to challenge you young people about is.
That general idea that I'm speaking about, it is not that you have material things or you don't have them. That's not the point. The point is that you take it upon yourself to determine your own course in this world. That is the spirit of humanism and that.
Affects believers in the Lord Jesus.
Far more than we realize.
Is there any area of my life?
That I control myself? That God in his word has no dictates about. Is there anything that I dictate?
And I will not listen to anybody else, no matter who it is that speaks.
That's humanism, and I say the spirit of it can affect you and me. Let's be a little more Frank has affected you and me as believers in the Lord Jesus.
I have to confess, brethren.
When I come up here to the United States, when we move back up here five years ago.
I find it a snare to go into a Walmart. Why? There's so many good bargains that I can use. I got to have this and I got to have that. God doesn't enter into the picture. It's my own desires that I want to satisfy. Comes to eating out. Got to eat out, OK?
Where I'm going to go?
Brethren, where is Christ dictating in this?
Where is Christ, Lord of all in our lives?
We've been affected by humanism that I realize, brethren, that we recognize these principles that we've been speaking about precious principles to hold. And it's easy to sit around and speak about them, but then go out and live our lives like we were in command and that Christ is not really in the picture here. We may not say that in our in our with our mouths. We may not say that even in our hearts.
But that's the current of things in this world, and it's sweeping Christians along as well.
So several things I want to challenge you, I want to exhort you in the name of the Lord Jesus.
To change your thinking about these things.
To repent is what scripture says.
Like to go to Romans chapter 12.
Romans chapter 12, beginning with verse one. I beseech you therefore.
Brethren, by the mercies of God.
That ye present your bodies a living.
Sacrifice Holy.
Acceptable unto God, which is your.
Reasonable service and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
That ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly.
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According as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith, here's the exhortation from Scripture itself. Paul says. I beseech therefore, by the mercies of God, he just got through detailing in Chapter 11 some of the tremendous.
Counsels of God for blessing, and he ends up, when he views it all, with a tremendous doxology in verse 33 of Chapter 11.
Oh, the depth of the knowledge, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out.
For who hath known the mind of the Lord, and who hath been his counselor? Who hath given to him? And it shall be reckoned unto him again. For of him and through him and through him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen.
When Paul views it, then comes the exhortation view of it. Brethren, what God has done in sending His own beloved Son, the Creator of the universe, come into this world as a little baby.
Born growing up and then offering himself without spot to God on that cross of Calvary.
Now, he says there's a response that's due from you.
Young people, I'm speaking to you, but I'm speaking to us all and I'm speaking to my own heart here. Please don't think I'm just got the finger at you.
What's the response to say Lord Jesus, here's 50% of my time, but I'd like to have 50% for myself. I'd like to determine something. I'd like to have a good time yet.
Is that reasonable to say to him?
No, not really. How much did he give the creator of the universe, the one who's greater than the whole universe and his glory?
What's reasonable to say?
Shall we up the percentage? Shall we say 90%? Now that's given a pretty good slice of my life to the Lord, surely? Wouldn't mind if I had 10% to dictate for myself to do the things I like.
Is that reasonable?
99% not reasonable.
Until you come to 100%, there's only one thing recently.
To say, Lord Jesus, you gave everything for me, I'm all yours. There's nothing else reason and that's what Paul is saying here. Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. The word in the original understand is the same word. We take the word logical. It's the only logical thing you can.
When you consider how much he's done for us, I'm no longer the focus here.
The person of Christ, what he has done is the folks, there's been a complete change here, a complete change. And then he goes on to exhort here in verse two, be not conformed to the world, this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
It's interesting to me to look through the New Testament and see how many times.
Our thinking, our minds are touched on how important it is to be careful about your thinking procedures.
As a man is in his heart, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
That's why it's important you are what you think about if a man would never think about something that he did not possess himself.
That he would like it. He would never become a robber.
The man never thought about a woman that was attractive and that was not his wife. He would never become an adulterer.
It's because he thinks about it. He allows that to occupy his mind, that he comes to those extremities.
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Be careful what you allow to occupy your mind.
There's an apparatus that fits into the homes very comfortably today.
Television.
It's man's thinking completely.
Fill your mind with man's thighs.
And there may be some good things on there, not saying they're not all wrong, but I say it's going to be the ruination if you let that machine control your thoughts. It's not only that machine, your magazines that you allow to occupy your mind. Be careful what you allow. Be careful of your thought patterns. I remember as a young person how I struggled with my thinking at times.
It would run off in One Direction and another in areas I knew were wrong.
And I had to try to bring my mind back to the scriptures, to the Lord Jesus.
I love what it says in Hebrews 12.
Verse.
1-2 and three in the Spanish. The way it renders it, we're not going to look at it right now, but the Lord Jesus is presented to us as the object of faith. There we're told to lay aside the weights and the sin that besets us, and to run with patience the race set before us. And then it speaks about the Lord Jesus, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
And then it says in our English translation, it says consider him.
Spanish translation says reduce your thoughts to him.
I love that.
We go on weight reduction programs. Let's have white or thought reduction programs.
If your thoughts go helter skelter, reduce your thoughts to him. That's what it means in first Peter chapter one, when Paul says gird up the loins of your mind. Don't let your mind go all directions. Control your thoughts. Gird up the loins of your mind, Paul, Peter speaks. Peter exhorts. But what is this conformity to the world?
Member.
Brother that helped me quite a bit commenting on it and he connected it with verse 3.
What is worldliness?
It's thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. It's basically that it's making ourselves the reference point in any detail of our life, even if it is in connection with the things of the Lord. If I make myself the reference points, that is the characteristic of worldliness.
Now God has ruled out man in the flesh. I don't figure anymore before God as a man in the flesh.
God has another man, and in him I stand. I'm accepted perfectly in him. We're seated in heavenly places in Christ, we're accepted in him. See, young people who want to be accepted with their schoolmates, with other people, they strive to be accepted. And who you can understand why a person wants to be accepted.
But what are you thinking about when you're talking about being accepted? You're thinking about yourself.
When in Christianity we are already accepted at the highest level possible, accepted in the beloved. I don't have to strive to be accepted any longer. I already am. I can transfer my thinking of myself to thinking of Him in the glory. Oh, how important that is. I'd like to in the free remaining moments.
Focus just briefly misses the subject. We could go on and on about so precious.
But have two cardinal truths. We've spoken about this at times.
I'm not going to apologize for going over it again, brother. I can't.
2 Cardinal truths of Christianity.
Number one, there's a man of flesh and bones at the highest pinnacle of glory.
In the heavens.
The Lord Jesus Christ Never before in the history of the world was that the case, as it is true in our dispensation.
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#2.
The Spirit of God is down here in this world.
Indwelling believers.
And occupying them with Christ in glory.
We have the two things brought together.
In.
John 7, which was mentioned this afternoon in the reading.
Where it says the Holy Spirit was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified. When Jesus was glorified consequent upon his death and resurrection and exaltation, then the Spirit of God was given. We have the two things brought together in an example, a brilliant example of faith in the 7th chapter of Acts.
In Stephen, Stephen was.
The first martyr, and it says he being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, said I see heaven opened and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. That's those two cardinal truths of Christianity.
That's our reference point.
You know, the other day I was talking to one of my girls and in her physique I already needed one of her classes at college, she said the professor.
Upset her by saying nothing can be proved by scientific investigation.
And it upset her.
I said that's relativism and that's what permeates the world today. And the reason why is that man is at the center of his own thinking. If I am the reference point, I will have to say that I can't prove anything to you.
Why? Because we're relative in our position to this Earth.
Where we live in our relationships, one with another, it's all relative if you're going to make a statement.
That will be firm. That will be unchallengeable. You're going to have to start with the absolute.
The first verse that was read this morning gives us the only absolute that I know, Paul said. I commend you to God and the word of his grace. I know of no other absolute universe.
I sometimes say to the young people, I can stand up here in front of you and I can point up and I say that direction's up and you can prove me wrong because that direction on the other side of the world is down.
I'm reasoning from myself when I say that direction is up and that's why you can prove me wrong. That's relativism. I reason from a relative. I cannot get to any conclusion, any firm conclusion.
Dear young person, you and I are in a world where that's the way people think. That's what controls their thinking. I want to challenge you not to think that way, to change your way of thinking, if that's the way you are thinking, to repent. Repent means change your thinking.
And to think based on what God says in his Word.
And I want to say here what I believe is extremely important for young people.
It's not what I say about Scripture here this afternoon. That is absolute. It is Scripture itself. You may be versed in what brethren say about Scripture. That is not a right reference point.
Now remember when I was brought up in the meeting too? I learned these things that I remember when I went out into the world to seek my living and I got challenged. I knew what brethren taught, but I had never set my own feet down on these rock bottom principles.
And I felt terribly shaken in my soul when I got challenged and laughed at, but it made me scramble and start searching the Word, not because brethren said that and this and that. It may be helpful what they say, but it's because God himself says it. And that settles it. The Lord Jesus said heaven and earth shall.
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Pass away, but my word shall not pass away. Everything we see down here.
That is visible to our eyes, things that look so strong and firm.
And solid are going to be shaken to bits.
If you're founded on those things yourself, you're going to be shaken too, dear young person.
I want to challenge you to get into scripture for yourself.
Now, first of all, to just take that first cardinal truth of Christianity.
This is the reference point dear young person. Not myself but Christ. I marvel at how strong a following the self esteem movement is found amongst Christian circles.
And even amongst some who have been gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus.
Why? Why has that happened? It's because we've become affected by the spirit of this age.
Where man is the center.
Whereas scripture teaches that we are dead.
And buried and risen, agreeing with Christ. Can I esteem something that's dead and buried? No, we bury it because it's not to be esteemed, it's to be put out of sight, out of mind.
In our life, where is it with Christ in God? It's hidden there. Oh dear young people, let me direct your tension above. Don't look at us as brethren. Don't look at any of us. We are not the reference point. Christ is and can be the only reference point. He is our life. There He sits in highest glory.
And I just want to mention some of the titles that he has in that position.
In the glory.
Spoken of in chapter 4 of Ephesians as the head of the church.
Tremendously tremendous truth to get ahold of. There he is. Everything that touches you, he knows about it. Maybe somebody slighted you, Maybe they've wounded you. Maybe nobody knows about it. You haven't told anybody.
He knows about it because he's head of his church.
When Paul learned this truth, it was the very moment he got saved.
He was laying his hands on believers in the Lord Jesus out of heaven said.
Saul saw why persecute us thou me Paul never forgot the fact that in touchy believers he was touching that one who was exalted in heaven. Tremendous truth. But here in Ephesians 4, just to get the picture, little Betty Speaking of the gifts that are given from.
An exalted Christ and the.
In verse 13 on he speaks of the purpose of those gifts.
From verse 12 on, for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith.
Verse 14. That we be henceforth no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, in the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. Those gifts are given, so that we would not be carried away with all these winds of doctrine that are blowing.
But speaking the truth in love may grow up into Him in all things.
Which is the head, even Christ? In other words, what does it mean to grow up spiritually?
It is to have him as the reference point in everything, in all things. Grow up into him which is the head and from which the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every.
Joint supply, according to the effectual working of the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body into the edifying of itself in love.
There we have it. Growing up spiritually is to have Him before our souls.
How important that is, dear young people, we tend sometimes when we have questions, to run to one brother, to another brother. Nothing wrong with getting good counsel. Nothing wrong with getting.
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Asking questions, but what is our first response?
To go to him, he's growing up into him in all things.
None of the titles that the Lord Jesus has in his exaltation and glory we find in chapter one. It's a little different than what we considered in chapter 4.
But I want you to notice it because I think it's important.
In verse 22, he says he hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body. Here's a little different connotation of the truth. He is not only head of his church, He's head over all things to the church. In other words, everything that affects you and I as believers in the Lord Jesus, He is head over that circumstance, over that person.
That affects you.
How, if we would lay hold of this truth, dear young Pearson, how this would liberate us from bitterness one with another?
No trial ever comes your way without at first coming from him. That is head over all things to the church. He controls it. That person that you think has so much trouble in your life, he is head of that person.
Those set of circumstances that you think are the reason why you messed up in a certain situation in your life, he has head of those circumstances. I love the way Apostle Paul took it in the 4th chapter. In the first verse he says I therefore the prisoner of the Roman empires. That the way he puts it.
He looked beyond the Roman Empire. The Roman authority was the one that took him prisoner, and he could have well said that.
That would have been true, but Paul looked beyond the Roman Empire. He looked to him, that is not only head of his church, but head over all things to the church, which is his body, though the tremendous impact that that truth would have on us if we'd lay hold on.
Our times gone, young people, we haven't really had much time to really.
Reflect on those reference points, but my purpose here this afternoon was to challenge you.
To not be affected by the thinking of man's world.
And if we have been, and I have to confess that I'm one that has been affected and I had to challenge myself constantly, is this my desire or is this the desire of the Lord for me? I belong to Him. Not only 99 per cent, but 100 per cent. He has rights over my life. I have no rights in Elon. He has all the rights.
Have you come to grapple with that situation? Have you made that decision, dear young person?
Or are you still dictating your own life even if it be in that 1% still? I exhort you.
I plead with you.
I beseech you.
That you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. It's the only reasonable thing you can do. Let's just pray, gracious Father, bless thy precious word. We pray, commend ourselves to thee now for the remainder of the afternoon and the name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.
4:15.