Let me remind you of the purpose that Peter, the apostle,
was writing concerning. In chapter 5, remember, he said
in verse 12, and by Silas, that is, he sent this letter by him,
a faithful brother of you, as I suppose, I've written briefly
exhorting and testifying, urging you and testifying that this
is the true grace of God wherein you stand, true grace of God. We've been looking at that in
these studies. I have greatly benefited, I hope
you have. But we looked at chapter one
on grace bestowed upon us, grace bestowed. The grace of God and
choosing of people. He begins with the elect. Sovereign,
electing, grace of God, choosing people, making us saints to the
saints, sanctifying us through the gospel, through the Holy
Spirit, putting us in Christ, redeeming grace, keeping grace,
preserving grace, inheriting grace. This is the grace of God
for every sinner. We are saved by grace. began
to tell us about grace that's tasted, grace that's tasted,
and grace that is lived. And here now tonight,
we're going to look at grace exhorted and grace exhibited. Grace exhorted, that's what he
said, the this epistle and testify that this is the true grace of
God. This is the grace of God. This
is what grace does to God's people when He saves them. This is what
grace teaches us, like Paul told Titus. It teaches us to deny
ungodliness and live righteously in this world. But look at it.
Begin with verse 11. I beseech you, as strangers and
pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul."
Oh, I need this. Do you need this? I need this. Brother John, knowing what we
were going to look at tonight, read to us in a study on Colossians
3, and it sounds just like this. as does Ephesians 4 and 5 and
other scriptures. Dearly beloved, I beseech you,
strangers and pilgrims, that you abstain from fleshly lusts
which war against the soul. Believe us, the child of God,
the saint, has this ongoing war with sin, indwelling sin. This is the thing that gives
us the most pain and suffering and sorrow. Charles Spurgeon,
I asked him one time, if the Lord could grant you any wish,
any wish, right now, what would it be? He said that I might never
sin again. I might never sin again. Now
that is going to be granted us someday, but right now we have
this Paul said, in Romans 7, I have a law, a rule, warring
in my members constantly, O wretched man that I am. But here, Peter
exhorts us to abstain from these things that war against our soul,
fleshly love. And he exhorts us by calling
us dearly beloved. The children of God, sons of
God, that you may, as he said in another place, in Philippians,
I believe it is, sons of God without rebuke, holy, harmless,
undefiled, like our Lord. Like our Lord. And he went on
to talk about our Lord being the example here, holy, harmless,
undefiled, no malice in Him. No guile in him. That's what
it said there. Oh my. What about doing good? He said, you do the same. Do the same for the glory of
God. For the glory of God. He calls us dearly beloved. Made me go back and read the
story of Daniel. Made me want to preach from at
least Daniel chapter 10. The Lord said to Daniel twice,
oh Daniel, greatly beloved. You know, all of God's people
are greatly benevolent, greatly benevolent. Behold what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called
sons of God. Because we were, even as others,
children of wrath, even as others, but God, for His great love,
were with us even when we were dead and sinning. That's quick
enough to get it. Oh, it's by grace are you saved.
sovereign, elect, and grace, redeeming grace, dearly blessed. You don't rebuke and reprove
and correct and exhort and admonish and chasten those you don't love. But God does. You see, He's talking
to us. God speaks. And these are words
of conviction. Is it conviction you're reading
this? Because we've come far short
of it. But like a father teaches his children, like a father exhorts
his children, urges them, dearly beloved, my dearly beloved sons
and daughters, I beseech you, that means I urge you, I implore
you, not beg, he's not begging us, he's telling us, he's commanding
us, but he says this is urgent, this is so necessary, for your
own good, for the glory of God, for the good of others. I beseech
you, as strangers, remember that you're strangers here, and pilgrims,
strangers. Remember, he started this book
out that way, didn't he? To the strangers. Our Lord said
of his disciples, of us, he said in his prayer, Father, I've given
you, I've given them your word, and the world hates me. Because they're not of this world.
Even as I know of this world. Now, pray not that you should
take them out of this world, but keep them from the evil. And this is how He exhorts us
through His Word. This is how He speaks to us.
This is how He restrains us and teaches us about His Word. I
beseech you, estrange us. You remember chapter 4? Go over there. Chapter 4. He
says now, The time past of our life suffice us to have wrought
the will of the Gentiles, an ungodly, godless world, when
we walked in lastidiousness and lust and excess of wine, reveling
in banqueting and bombarding with idolatry. That sounds like
Ephesians 2, doesn't it? According to the course of this
world, the prince of the power of God, the children of And verse
4, but now he's born again, new creatures. Now he says, verse
4, they think it's strange that you don't run with them with
the same excess of right. They speak evil of you. They're
going to give an account. Strangers. And, you know, our God, the God
we believe is strange to this world. The doctrine we believe
is strange to this world. Our faith is strained, our ways,
and the worse this world gets, this present evil world, as it
gets worse and worse and worse, and gets farther and farther
from the truth. Paul told young Timothy, time
is time, the last days are going to be, turn away their ears from
the truth. And as time goes on and it gets
further and further from the truth, and as men begin to twist
and corrupt the word of God, make so many different perversions
of scripture where it doesn't even resemble the original word
of God. Our belief is going to be so
strange. It already is. What a strange
God. What a strange God you believe
in. What a strange doctrine. But I defeat you as strange.
That's okay. You don't want to be like the
world. You know, contemporary means like the modern world. There is no such thing as contemporary
worship. Worship is as old as God. Worship
means to be just like Moses worshipped, not modern, not like the world,
as strangers and pilgrims. We're passing through Moses. Don't you love Hebrews 11? Men just keep begging me to preach
from this again. It's just fine with me. It says,
Moses, when the Lord revealed himself to Moses, he refused
to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. And refused to be a
partner. I'm not an Egyptian, he says.
I'm an Israeli. I'm a Jew. Choosing rather to
suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures
of sin for a season. And he has seen the reproach
of Christ's greater riches and all the treasures in Egypt. Can you say that? If you're a
pilgrim? We say sincerely, beloved, I
beseech you, I urge you, as strangers and pilgrims, like our Lord.
Our Lord was a stranger here, wasn't he? He wasn't, I beseech
you. I beseech you as a stranger and
a pilgrim that you abstain from fleshly lusts which war against
the soul. There are lawful, legitimate
desires, human, fleshly desires that the Lord puts in us that's
good for us. It's good for our happiness and
our health and so on and so forth. Legitimate and lawful desires
of the flesh, like hunger and thirst and passions. These feelings like a man has
for his wife and his wife for the man. It's got to be that.
It needs to be that. It must be that. And these legitimate,
these lawful desires. But when they become consuming,
when they become controlling, when they completely engulf us
to the point, he said in chapter 1, be sober. That is, don't be
intoxicated. Don't lose your head. Don't lose
your mind. And that's what happened when
these things began to control us. Then we lost our mind. We become intoxicated with these
things. And then they become lusts. Lusts. They become cravings, insatiable desires. that you
do anything to, well look at James chapter 4, which caused
us great grief and caused wars within us. James chapter 4, we
just looked at this not too long ago. He said in James chapter
4 verse 1, from whence come wars and fightings among you? And
within you, come they not hence even of your lusts that war in
your memory? These insatiable desires, your
lusts, and have not, and kill, and desire to have, and cannot
obtain, and fight, and war. You have not because you ask
to live. You do ask, you receive not because you ask for the wrong
thing. You ask for things to fulfill these desires that we
don't need. in moderation and lawfully. And you know what's so interesting?
It's saying from fleshly lust that war against the soul. Paul
said this is that war that makes you not be able to do what you
want to do and not do what you want to do. He said, the flesh lusts against
the spirit, so that you cannot do the flesh, the flesh, the
flesh lusts against the spirit, so you cannot do the things that
you would. Well, Peter, how do we abstain? You know, the scripture doesn't
teach abstinence from certain foods and drinks. It doesn't
do that. All things are lawful. Proverbs 14, 14. The Lord said
that didn't, said nothing from without can defile you, nothing.
The Lord didn't teach abstinence from anything like that. But
how do we abstain from these things, from these lusts? How
do we get rid of these lusts? Well, a separate way. First of
all, Christ said without me, you can do nothing. You can't
resist. one single temptation. And when
lust is conceived, it brings forth sin, and then when sin
is finished, it brings forth death. That's how serious it
is. That's why this is so serious. That's why I said I beseech you.
If lust is conceived, it brings forth the actual committal, and
when it's finished, if it doesn't kill you spiritually, it's going
to kill your communion with God and kill all your peace and kill
everything. Kill all your relationships and kill everything. Kill your
witness. We call on the Lord. Our Lord said to his disciples
in the garden, to us, he said, watch and pray that you enter
not into temptation. We're going to be tempted, that's
never going to stop. It's never going to stop. He said, watch
and pray. You can't resist in your own
strength. But I can do all things through
Christ's strength in me. He said, I'm in ever-present
health and time of trouble. This is why Danny says, pray
without fear. The consequences of our sin are terrible. The pain and the suffering we
can cause It's terrible. Not just for ourselves, but for
everybody. The reproach it brings upon our
Lord is terrible. Terrible. I had to stand. And
we abstain by, you know, reading God's Word. David said, Thy word
have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee. This Word right here. Let the
Word of God, John, you read that, dwell in you richly. This Word right here. Commit
this to remembrance and keep reading it. I've been reading
and reading and reading and reading this, and you know what? There
have been times when temptations and lusts enter my head and my
mind, and there's a temptation to indulge those thoughts, and
this Scripture came to my mind. It helped me. I beseech you,
abstain from blessing the war against us. We pray unto him, Lord, lead
us not into temptation. Read God's Word. Hide the Word
in his heart, in our heart. Hide that Word in my heart, O
Lord. Think on Christ. Think on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Every sin we commit, Christ suffered
on the cross. Every sin of ours added to the
suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ. Think of it that way. How, Joseph
said this, and it's servants of God. Joseph said this, how
can I do this stuff? And sin against God. That's what
Joseph did. Oh my. And put off the old man. All through the scriptures, through
the epistles, he tells us to put off the old man. That means
resistance. Resistance. I told a man, he
was talking on the phone the other day, and he was having
trouble with something, a particular problem in the flesh. I said,
get in Romans 6. I gave him a book, a commentary
on it. I said, get in Romans 6 and don't
get out until the Lord answers you. Don't get out until the
end. And I tell us the same thing.
Put off the old man, put off the old man. All right, look,
read on. He says, having your conversation
honest, your conversation, remember, it's our life, our walk, our
talk, our speech, our life, our character, conduct, honest. Just read a wonderful article
by Brother Maurice Montgomery on this. He said, honesty is
not just a good policy, it's the only policy. No truth of the lie. No lies of
the truth. No lies of the truth. No truth
of lies, but honesty. This is what you read there in
Colossians 3. Lying on one another. Honesty,
up front. Our Lord, guile is the opposite
of honesty. Our Lord had no guile. Honest among the Gentiles. Why
do you talk about the Gentiles? Because they're ungodly people.
They're people that don't worship God. People without God. Israel is called the people of
God. They worship the true God. Well, not all Israel is, but
he's talking about spiritual Israel. That's who we are. New Jerusalem. Have your conversation
honest among the Gentiles, whereas they speak against you as evildoers.
The rest of this book is going to talk about this. The rest
of this book is going to talk about how the world is going
to call God's people evil. Because of who they believe,
because of what they believe, they call what we believe evil. And he says they're going to
do that, but if they see your good works and find no fault in it, they
can't say anything against you, can they? They're going to glorify
God in that way. God is glorified by you bearing
fruit. Fruit of the cherry. You don't
produce fruit. The Holy Spirit is the fruit
of the Spirit that he puts within God's people, love, joy, gentleness,
goodness, meekness, faith, and so on. But God is glorified by
that. People behold your good works
which they behold. Our Lord said that, didn't He?
In the Sermon on the Mount concerning God's people, He said, You're
the light of the world. You're the salt of the earth. And He said, let your light so
shine before men, this is our Lord Jesus Christ,
that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which
is in heaven. In other words, be like Christ. I love, and I wrote down, and
by the way people, there's nothing wrong with writing in your Bible,
but this is what I do. I write scripture verses. Scripture
is the best commentary on Scripture. The best commentary on Scripture.
And the marginal references that you have in this new Bible are
wonderful. But there's so many others. But
I thought about this. I thought about when our Lord
stood before Pilate, and Pilate in John 18, I believe it was,
and 19. He said four times, I think,
he said, I find no fault in this man. I want to preach on that too.
I find no fault, he says, at all in this man. Doesn't that
make you love him? Admire him? I don't get like
that. I told Mandy concerning Brother
Cody. I said, we need to live in such
a way that people will miss you when you're gone. Huh? Hmm. I beseech you. Let me read to you Pastor's comment,
Terry, if you don't have these. I'm sorry, they're out of print.
But no, they've got the big works by him. that you can buy, but
this is outstanding. Listen, conduct yourselves before
your family, your fellow workers, your neighbors, your friends,
in an honest, righteous, and loving manner, so that even though
they speak of you as fanatic, radical, hypocrite, occult, yet
when real trial, this is visitation he's talking about, and the Lord
visits His people for their sins or in trials and tribulations
or whatever. When these things come or put
upon you and God visits you with affliction and trouble, they
must admit when people see this, they'll admit you're different. He's different. You remember me telling you about,
well I'll tell you who it was. Brother Clare Sharon, remember
Clare? Clare Sharon was here. He was working as a doctor, called
a doctor he was working for, called Brother Todd and said,
I want to know what you all preach there. Because anything that
produces a man like Clare Sharon, I want to know what it is. It was wonderful. Somebody called about me, I said. They'll admit that you're different,
that you have something that they do not have. Sometimes God visits in prosperity. That's a trial. Prosperity is
a trial. You're not generous with what
God gives you. If you're worldly and covetous,
people don't take your religion seriously. Prosperity, sometimes in disappointment,
sometimes in joy. Sometimes in sorrow, how you
conduct yourself under different tests will determine whether
those who observe you glorify God or laugh at your profession."
That's good. I couldn't have said better. Verse 13, Submit yourselves to
every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. Oh, is this so necessary
now? Is this needful? You know, I
didn't... The Lord put on my heart to start
studying through this book. I was reading, and I was in joy.
I thought, we need to look at this. We always need to look
at the epistles as a church. This is so relevant. This is so needful at this time.
Read on. Submit yourself to every ordinance
of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king, as to the
queen, unto governors, as unto them that are sent by God, by
him, by the Lord, for the punishment of evildoers, for the praise
of them that do well. Go over to Romans 13. Romans
chapter 13. Paul the apostle expounds this
even more. Romans chapter 13. Submit. Submit. Submit. Submit. Submit. He's going to say that
several times. Wisely in subjection. Subjection. Subjection. Oh my, is that ever
foreign to that? Is that ever hated to that? Submission
to authority. Subjection. The Lord calls that
meekness. The Lord says, take my yoke upon
yoke. When you wear a yoke, that means
you submit. You submit. You bow the head. You take on the yoke of service.
And we're all the Lord's servants and fellow servants of one another.
Our Lord said, take my yoke upon you, he who was equal with God. Took upon himself the form of
a servant. He said, if I, your Lord and
Master, have done this service, you wash your feet, oh, how much
more should you do this? He said, if you know these things,
happy are you if you do them. A wild rebel, the way of a transgressing
heart, but I'm telling you, submissive, a meek and lowly person. Peace. He said, take my yoke upon you
and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you'll
find rest for your soul. Look at it here in Romans 13.
Let every soul be subject unto the higher power. Do you know
who was king at this time? Emperor? Nero. Nero. You know how many people
he killed? Christians. They say the guts
of the Roman Colosseum were the bones of Christians that he killed.
You know the story. He's the one that finally burned
up Jerusalem. Evil man. Paul said, submit. God's people aren't rebels. Submit. There's no power, verse
1, but of God. Boy, do we ever need to hear
that. The powers that be are ordained of God. Do you believe
that? If they're not, close this book.
And let's all head to the hills and start packing guns. But since he is, let's just stay
right here. I'm going to read something to
you from Jeremiah. I need to close this thing. Verse
2, Whosoever resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God.
And they that resist shall receive of themselves damnation. Rulers
are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Wilt thou then not
be afraid of the power that is the law? The rulers do that which
is good. Thou shalt have praise of the
same. He's minister of God to thee for good. If thou do that
which is evil, be afraid. He bears not the sword in vain.
He's a minister of God, a revenger that executes wrath upon them
that do us evil, wherefore ye must need to be subject not only
for wrath, but for conscience sake, that is, toward God. Pay
tribute, he said. Pay tribute. Render due. Tribute
to whom? Tribute. Custom to whom? Custom.
Fear to whom? Fear. Honor to whom? Honor. See
that? Never been a time, well, yeah,
times have been the same. It's always been the same. The
reason they seem so much worse is because there's more people
now and then. That's why, because it's more widespread. The whole
earth, like before in the days of Noah, the whole earth is corrupted
this way, and full of diamonds. Nevertheless, the Lord says to
us, so be it. Wait a minute, preachers. Should
we go against the Word of God? No. No sir. Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. When the king said, now everybody's
going to fall down and worship, and you better too. We'll throw
you in the burning fire first. And they said, no. They won't do it. Like Daniel. Daniel, if you're going to quit
praying, nobody can pray to anybody but me, the king said. Daniel
said, no. Now I won't jaywalk. I won't,
I'll keep your ordinances that you, I'm a lawful abiding citizen,
but when you say something that's against my God, my God's commandments
to me, you can't do that. You know the Lord's not saying
that. But he says here, submit to every
ordinance of man, it's not against God's law, whether it be the
king is supreme, as unto governors, and unto them that are sent by
him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that
do well. For so is the will of God, that
with well-doing he may put to silence the ignorance of foolish
men." Like Pilate, who said he wanted to find something wrong.
He wanted to find something wrong whereby he could condemn our
Lord. He said, You know Daniel's just a man, you
know that? There's no fault mentioned of him, is there? Is there? Those of you who know, Gordon
doesn't mention any fault. Joseph, just a man. He's just
a sinner, like that. But there's no fault mentioned,
none. Noah, Daniel and Job were in
the earth, men, just men. God said of Job, listen to this,
by the grace of God, Job, the Lord said of Job, there's none
like him in the earth. He's upright, he's just, he's
upright, he fears God and he eschews evil. He resisted. I want to be like that. He tells us that. How? Same God. Same grace. We started out by saying this
is the true grace of God. What grace? Restraining grace.
Constraining grace. Keeping grace. Strengthening
grace. resisting grace. He said, God
of all grace, oh Lord, by your grace I'll be saved from sin. The punishment of it, the penalty
of it, and the power of it. Lord send grace. Let me fight
this fight. I can't do it in my mind. Verse 16. You're free. That's free. Oh my. Free from the law, oh
happy conditions. The Lord Jesus has bled and there
is remission. Cursed by the law, bruised by
the fall, but Christ has redeemed us once for all. Paul wrote in
Galatians 5, stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has
made you free. What a glorious thing. Free,
free, free, free. The Lord has freed me. Free from
the law. Free from the requirements of
it. Free from the bondage of it. Free from the yoke of it.
Free! But don't use your freedom, verse
16, for a cloak of maliciousness, but as a servant of our God.
Don't use his liberty. In Romans 14, Paul said this. Listen to him. He said in Romans
14, I'm persuaded that by the Lord Jesus, there's nothing unclean
of itself. For him that esteemeth the things
that be unclean, to him it's unclean. But if your brother
is greed with whatever, don't do it. Don't let your good, your freedom,
the evil spoken of. He went on to say, if you have
this faith, this liberty, have it to yourself. I remember early on, you know,
Pharisees, there are a lot of Pharisees out there, and the
Lord, now, the Lord never did anything precise, and He knew
who was His, who were His, and He could do things and say things
that we can't. But it's saying He provokes them
that we're not, we can't do that. He tells us to avoid them. Every
appearance of the Lord. He says, let not your good be
evil spoken of. The kingdom of God is not in
need and drink. It's freedom that he gives you.
It's not just so you can just live it out. But in righteousness and peace
and joy. That's what it goes on to talk
about. Even more, as free, not using
your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness. I guess what I was trying to
say, there were times when I just wanted to flaunt my liberty in
the face of these people, these self-righteous religious people.
That's a bad attitude. That's a bad attitude. Because they wouldn't hear a
thing I said today. The Lord has power over the rule
of people's will. Not us. Look at verse 17. Honor all men. Honor all men. All men. Oh boy, this is such a disrespectful
society. Let not that be said of us or
any of us. Honor. Render honor to whom honor is
due. Love the brotherhood. Love the brotherhood. Did not
Peter begin this letter by saying, You have this unfeigned love.
If you're born again, you have unfeigned love. You don't have
to think that. It's true. It's true love. If
it's not there, it'll come out eventually. To see that, he went
on to say, to see that you love one another with a pure heart,
fervently, actively. Our Lord, one of the last things
he said to his disciples before leaving this earth was, this
is my commandment. That you love one another as
I love you. How's that? Completely. With no grudges,
with no bitterness, with no forgiveness. He said, if you don't forgive
your brother, you won't be forgiven. Is this needful? You need forgiveness? You're not going to get it if
you don't forgive. That's serious, isn't it? Serious. Love as I love you, Christ said. Love the brotherhood. Love as
brothers. As we said, I think, Sunday,
you know, brothers can get in a big brawl and mad at each other,
but the next day, it's over, isn't it? It's over. I would
like to think, and I do believe this, that if some brother, no
matter what he did to me, and honestly, I've been hurt more
by my friends and my brothers than my worst enemy. I'd like
to thank you if they came up to me and said, Brother, I'm
sorry, I've done you wrong, I'm sorry. I'd like to thank you.
Then it's over. Over. That's exactly what our
Lord does. Exactly what our Lord does. I
need unconditional forgiveness, don't you? Then he says, you
do the same. Love the brotherhood. Urbanly, actively, show it, prove
it. Get over whatever it is. Get over it. If you don't, how can you love God? John wrote a whole book about
that. How can you love God if you don't love somebody just
like you? Not possible. Love the brotherhood. Our Lord doesn't give good counsel.
He gives commands. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Oh, is this needful. Don't ever put
fear in God. The fear of the Lord is clean.
By the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. We don't abstain
from fleshly lust. Fear God. Fear bringing reproach
on us. Fear the consequences of our
actions. Fear God. The Lord said, I was
the Lord of my homeland. He's watching. Fear. Fear God. Honor the King. Honor the King. You mean I'm
supposed to honor that? Yes, you are. Keep your mouth shut. Turn with me to Jeremiah
42. Let me close with this. Jeremiah
42. This is so, so relevant to what's going on right now. You
know, I was afraid of either one of these candidates being
an Irish leader. Honestly. Because one or the
other is going to be one, okay? Look at this, Jeremiah 42. Now,
the Lord said in chapter 40 that he brought evil upon Israel because
of their sins against God. They were in captivity. Society
was in a mess like ours because of their sin against God and
because of false religion. That's why the society was just
like it was. There was no fear of God. And so God sent bad men to rule
over them. God did. And that's what the Lord said
in chapter 40. He sent this, and in the same way God entertains.
Alright, now look at Jeremiah 42, look at verse 7. Now, the
people came to Jeremiah, verse... Oh, I want to read the old chapter,
but we don't have time. The people came to Jeremiah,
he was their prophet. Verse 2, look at it. They said
to Jeremiah, we beseech thee, our supplication be accepted
before thee. Pray for us, unto the Lord our
God, for this remnant. It was a remnant that came to
their path, Jeremiah, he was their man, the man God raised
up. Now the sad thing is, after this story, after he told them
what to do, they rejected him. Verse 3, the Lord God may show
us the way wherein we may walk and the things that we may do.
Jeremiah the prophet said unto them, I hear you, behold I will
pray unto the Lord your God according to your word. It shall come to
pass that whatsoever thing the Lord shall answer you, I will
declare it unto you. I'll keep nothing back from you.
Like Paul said, I've not shunned to declare all the counsel of
God. I've kept back nothing from you. Jeremiah said, The Lord
be true, and a faithful witness between us, if we do not, even
according to all the things which the Lord thy God shall send thee
to us, whether it be good or whether it be evil, we obey the
voice of the Lord our God, to whom we send thee, that it may
be well with us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God.
And it came to pass, that's today, the word of the Lord came unto
Jeremiah, and he called Johanan, that's John, that's the old name
for John, he called John the son of David. And all the captains of the forces
that were with him, and all the people from the least to the
greatest, said unto them, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel,
unto whom you sent me to pray to you, to present your supplication
before him, if you will still abide in this land, stay here,
he said. Stay put. That every man abide
in the calling wherein he is called, as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians
6. Stay put, you're a part of this
family, a part of this body, a part of this membership, a
part of this... That's why you're here. Stay
put or you don't. Then I will build you up and
not pull you down. I will plant you and not pluck
you up. I repent me of the evil that
I've done unto you. Be not afraid of the king of
Babylon. of whom you're afraid. Be not
afraid of him. Are you reading it? Sayeth the
Lord, I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand. Stay there and I will show mercies unto
you that he may have mercy upon you and cause you to return. When it's over, you're going
to go to your land. the promised land. Now, just
stay put. They didn't know. They said, no, we're
going to Egypt. And they did. And they ended
up in captivity. He said, fear God and honor the
king. Don't fear the king. Don't fear
the king. God said, I'm your king. And I put this king in power.
Honor the king. Honor the king. I put him there
for the punishment of that society. You fear God and you don't need
to fear the king. It's all going to be over. And
this whole thing, and you stay put. You abide where you are
as a supporter of the truth, of the gospel, praying for it,
loving one another, supporting one another. I'll build you up
on this most holy faith, and you won't be afraid of anything.
You won't need that. Now, believe. Believe the gospel. I end up like a worm, I end up
like a worm. Dearly beloved, I beseech you
as strangers and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lust and war against
the soul. Thank you. Oh Father in heaven, keep us,
keep us by your power. Thy word is thy power. Christ
is thy power. Keep us, oh Lord. Keep us to
thyself. Keep us cleaving to Thyself and
still believing. O Lord, may we give diligence
and make our calling and election sure. And may we look unto Thee
and be saved. And may we look to Thee as our
Lord and our Master, our Keeper, our Example. O Lord, to be like
Thee, O to be like Thee, precious Redeemer, pure as Thou art, stamp
Thine own image. deep on our heart we pray. Send
thy Holy Spirit. Give us thy Holy Spirit. Let
us not grieve thy Spirit, or quench the Spirit, but walk in
the Spirit, even as Christ walked. Oh Lord, help us. Keep us from
this evil world. Keep us. Keep us. Let us be a
light. Let us be a witness. Let us be
a servant of our God, that we might
glorify our God in this present able world. So much more as things
get worse. That is our prayer. Oh Lord,
help us, help us we pray. In Christ's name, amen. Thank you.