Oh, how we'll sing and how we'll
dance. It's been a year and a half. to have the judge with us this
week. We have enjoyed every day, every
minute of every day. I hope you feel exactly the same
way as we do. We truly are honored to have
both of you. Don't ever come again without
being Christian. But we've enjoyed you and Well, needless to say, we are
having a thoroughly I don't know how you say it here. Thoroughly
enjoyable time. It's really good. It's been excellent. Excellent fellowship with all
of you. So good to be here. So restful. Such interesting
different things to see. So much space to enjoy. It's
been such a good time. It really has. I don't think
it will be ten years. No, it's okay. It's okay. It'll be fine. We won't leave
it ten years next time, and don't worry, I couldn't possibly come
with Asda. Anyway, let's turn to Genesis
chapter 26. This is a favourite portion of
scripture of mine, and I hope my own experience of it doesn't
show through too much to the detriment of what I want you
to see in this, and also I realise it's a Wednesday night and I
must resist the temptation. You know when you first... any
of you that do any preaching, you know when you're first asked
to preach, you think, how on earth am I going to fill five
minutes? Never mind, forty minutes. And then you do it once or twice
and your big problem is, how on earth am I going to learn
to shut up? So I hope I do that tonight. You know, just start
yawning or something like that and I'll get the hint. But I
want to bring you to this place here in verses 23 to 25, Beersheba,
finding the right place, and a picture here of the church
in the Old Testament. And as I said, very much something
which mirrors our experience as we wandered through a wilderness
knowing the truth of the Gospel and finding it so difficult to
find fellowship, to find true fellowship, and then finding
what was to us via Sheba. And I trust many of you will appreciate that sentiment and
have experienced very similar things. So why should we be interested
in this man Isaac searching for water? in a dry and thirsty land
thousands of years ago. Since I've been here, I've begun
to take an interest in the American Civil War. Some of you will say,
shame on you that you didn't take an interest in it a lot
sooner. But I've started to take an interest in it and I've started
to read a novel about it I've been to look at some of the memorials
of some of the heroes of that conflict. And in terms of effect
on life as it is today, no doubt that conflict has a profound
effect on, you know, it's ordered this society. And many of the
things and the lessons that were learned in that have been taken
up by civilizations all over the world. And I must admit,
it's a piece of history that's not well known to me, but I intend
to become a lot better acquainted with it. And so you say, well,
let's have a sermon on the American Civil War, because there's, you
know, this is more up to date. Why are we bothering with this
man in the Old Testament, thousands of years ago, digging holes in
the desert looking for water. What's he got to say to us today? Well, of course, he's talking
about spiritual truth. He's talking about spiritual
principles, and they apply in all ages. As I said on Sunday,
the people are the same then as they are today. And when he's
talking about digging for water, we can apply that to spiritual
water. this water that we come, this
fountain of living water that we come seeking. This is the
Word of God. These are spiritual truths and spiritual principles. And what it says here in this,
it very much mirrors the believer's experience. Isaac, you see, he
got no peace. He and his people, they didn't
have any peace. They're searching for water.
Verse 18, look down there. He's departed, he's had a conflict. Well, he was prospered by God. In verse, where was it? Verse 13. The man began to prosper
and continued prospering until he became very prosperous. He
was being blessed by God. He really was. He had possessions
of flocks and possessions of herds and great number of servants. So the Philistines envied him.
and they stocked up the wells of his father Abraham. They stocked
them up, the wells that Abraham's servants had dug in his days. And Abimelech said to Isaac,
verse 16, Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.
Go away, you're prospering too much, the people are envious
of you. So Isaac left there, went to
the valley of Gerar, and Isaac dug wells there. And he dug the
wells that had been dug in the days of Abraham, his father. You see, he's searching for a
settled condition. He's searching for a settled
place where there's a well of water. And where does he start? Now, here's a good spiritual
principle. Believers searching for spiritual
water, not knowing where to go, where's a good place to start?
Dig those old wells. Dig down those old wells. Search
for that well-known truth. Not like the Athenians of Paul's
day. What was it that didn't impress,
but he noticed about them? They were a people who were always
searching for something new, some new thing, some latest fad. Tell us something we've never
heard before. But believers searching for truth, a good place to start.
It's not that we're stuck in the past. It's not that we can't
be relevant to today, because we must be relevant to today.
The message of the gospel has got to speak to every generation.
But a good place to start is those old wells, that those saints
of old dug and found treasure in. They're good places to start.
You know, some of the old literature, the language is very old, but
it's very rich, and it's full of Christ, and it's a good place
to start digging. And so that's what they did.
They were looking in these places where Abraham had dug years before. And it caused strife, it caused
enmity. Those two words there, isek and
sitna, mean quarrel and enmity, disagreement. And you know, worldly
religions doesn't like the wells of God's people. They don't.
You know, you can get mixed up in what you think. There's so
much, isn't there, today that calls itself Christianity. It
uses the language of Christianity. It uses the terminology, and
you think, hey, this is, this is, they're sounding not too
bad. I can't hear much wrong with what they're saying. And
you go along with it. but then you discover there's
not true grace there. There isn't grace there. And
they discover that you've found true grace, and they don't like
true grace. You see, you know, as Isaac appeared,
a prosperous man, that the child of God who has found grace, and
all God's children have found grace, have found true spiritual
prosperity. And the world, worldly religion,
doesn't like that. The prosperity that flows from
grace. The liberty in Christ that flows
from grace. It's a prosperity that we enjoy
in Him. And worldly religion and legalistic
religion doesn't like these things. and it causes persecution. And
just as these herdsmen caused quarrelling and strife, and Isaac
didn't want quarrelling and strife, so he moved on to somewhere else.
And he finally found a place, because he was moving around,
not settled. It says of Abraham and his descendants
in Hebrews chapter 11, you know the faith chapter? What were
they seeking? They were looking for a city
that has foundations whose builder and maker is God, not for a worldly
city, not for an abode here in this life, looking for a heavenly
city. So they carried on, looking for
somewhere to settle. And they came to this place,
Rehoboth. spaciousness. And what we're
told here is that they dug a well and it didn't cause quarrelling
and they had space. He called its name Rehoboth because
he said, for now the Lord has made room for us and we shall
be fruitful in the land. And you may think, well fine,
why didn't he stay there? Because he moves on from there.
The very next verse, then he went up from there to Beersheba,
and I was wondering about that. I thought, why didn't he stay
there? What was it that caused him?
You know, he had a settled condition, there was no more quarrelling,
why did he not stay there? And he went up to Beersheba,
and I started looking back at where Beersheba appeared earlier,
and if you look back at, we won't do it now, but if you look back
at Genesis 21, Abraham there made a covenant with Abimelech,
this man who's still here. He made a covenant with him and
he dug a well there. It's another one of these wells
that his father Abraham had dug. So he went up there. It was a
symbol of peace between them. Let's go to the place where his
father Abraham had made peace, so that he could live in peace
with the surrounding people. And Abraham there in Genesis
21, he planted a tamarisk tree and he worshipped, and in my
Bible here in Scott, he worshipped the Everlasting God. Capital
letters, the Everlasting God. He met with him there. And so
Isaac comes to this place where his father Abraham had been,
to Beersheba. He went up from there to Beersheba. And verse 24, these are the two
verses, 24 and 25, that I want to concentrate on in the time
that we have. And we read there that the Lord
appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of your
father Abraham. I know the words are different
from your version, but as I said on Sunday, you know, follow along
and see how they compare. I am the God of your father Abraham.
Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply
your descendants for my servant Abraham's sake. The Lord appeared
to him there. Who is this Lord that appeared
to him when we know from scripture that God has said, no man shall
see me and live? Well of course it was Christ.
It was Christ that appeared to him. It was He could only see
God in Christ. We, today, can only see God in
Christ. Jesus said, he who has seen me
has seen the Father. It is true that nobody can look
on that glory of the eternal God outside of Christ. And people
try in our day. People think that they can come
before God. They think that they can call
on the name of the Lord. They can come before him outside
of Christ. You know, I remember some years
ago, a church we were in at the time, a neighbouring church,
had lost its pastor, and some of the men of the church were
asked to go and provide ministry, and they wanted to organise this.
And so they said, well, get together. So four or five of us who were
nominated to do this got together and it was... come up with some
sort of a theme. Well, I wasn't too keen on this,
but I went along with it. And they said, well, what should
we do? And nobody seemed to have much
idea. So I said, well, why don't we do pictures of Christ in the
Old Testament? If you want a theme, let's do
some pictures of Christ in the Old Testament. And I remember
one young man who was training for the ministry. He was going
through college to become a pastor. And he said, oh, there's so much
more in the Old Testament that we could preach on outside of
Christ. I mean, I know that's a horrific
thought to you people here, because you wouldn't You come out on
a Wednesday night, you come out on a Sunday morning. I don't
know about you, but if I wasn't going to hear Christ preached,
I wouldn't be bothered. Nobody would persuade me to come
out. I've got all sorts of better things I can do than listen to
somebody preach a religious talk that doesn't include Christ.
Because I know I can't meet the Eternal God outside of Christ. Just can't do it. So the Lord
appeared to him. It was Christ that appeared to
him. All of these All of these appearings are Christ. They're all the pre-incarnate
Christ appearing to his people. And what's he called? He announces
himself. He says, I am the God of your
father Abraham. You know, there's so much richness
in the scripture. Every word, you know, we need
to weigh it. I remember Bill Clark used to
say about your scripture readings, he said, you know, it's not the
quantity that you do that matters, it's the quality. You know, pick
a verse and dig into it, meditate on it, chew it over and get some
goodness out of it. You know, you can skate through,
it's a good thing to read large chunks of scripture, but you
can think you're doing so much good and you can just skate over
the surface and never really dig down and see what's there. and Scripture is so rich and
hear these words, I am the God of your father Abraham. Does
it just mean your daddy's name was Abraham? Is that all he's
saying? No, there's much more to it than
that. He's the God of the covenants. You know all those covenants
that were made with Abraham? The promises. The things that
Abraham was told by God and Abraham believed God and it was accounted
to him, credited to him for righteousness. Faith. Faith. He saw things What
is faith? It's spiritual sight. It's the
ability to see things that the natural man cannot see. For the
natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God,
neither can he know them, for they're spiritually discerned.
We need faith to see, and it's a gift of God. And Abraham was
given that gift to seek God's eternal purposes. And they were
eternal purposes of election, of covenant grace, to be worked
out in history. And his descendants, he talks
about his descendants, and those that were physically his descendants
were just a picture, in a small sort of way, of those that were
his descendants by faith. It's about election. It's about
God having an eternal purpose. I am the God of Abraham, of your
father Abraham. He's saying, I am the God of
election. I am the God of covenant grace.
I am the God who chose a people in Christ from before the foundation
of the world. And in time, in this way, in
these types and pictures that fulfilled in Christ, he's going
to redeem and save those people. These words are rich, they're
full of this meaning. Hebrews 2 verse 16 says this,
that God does not give aid to the angels, but he does give
aid to the seed of Abraham. These are his covenant people,
the people chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the
world. He's this God. This is the God that's speaking
to Isaac, the God of his father, Abraham. He's the God who chooses
in Christ from before the foundation of the world. He's the God who
redeems in Christ in history. He's the God who calls you in
time. There was a time when you knew
nothing of Christ, you knew nothing of his gospel, but he called
you at that time. He's the God who justifies you
in Christ and shows you that you're justified in Christ. He's
the God who seals you with his Holy Spirit in Christ, who glorifies
you. You know all of those steps in
Romans 8? wherever it is, 28 thereabouts, something like that,
the one true God, and the one way to know the one true God
in Christ. And he says to him, I am the
God of your father Abraham, do not fear, do not fear. Now again, we trip over these
words so quickly, but you think about it, this is the eternal
God, this is the eternal God, who is saying to a man, do not
fear, do not fear. I don't know how to give an example
of what it means to be told as a human being, as a sinful human
being, by the God of the universe, that we don't need to fear. Can
you imagine a fearful situation? Say you were in a war situation,
say it was the Second World War, and you've been captured by a
German firing squad, And, you know, they didn't have much mercy.
There was not much mercy dished out. And you knew that you were
going to be put before them and you were going to be shot by
firing squad. You knew that was going to happen. And you'd be
in a fearful condition. You'd be in a dreadfully fearful
condition. That's a small picture of how
we should be facing the Holy God. And yet the word comes,
do not fear. Do not fear. He says to Isaac,
I am this covenant God, therefore do not fear, because I've made
promises to Abraham, and they're being fulfilled through you,
and there's no need to fear. And he says that to us today.
Do not fear. Do not fear. These covenant promises
still apply. with the seed of, if we're in
Christ, with the seed of Abraham. These covenant promises still
apply. Do not fear. Sinai was all about
fear, wasn't it? The mountains smoked, and the
fire, and the people were... These were ordinary people. There'd
be some rough people amongst them, and they were terrified.
They were absolutely terrified. They asked Moses to veil his
face when he came down. They said, we're exceedingly
afraid. They couldn't look on him. But here is the word. Do
not fear, because it's the covenant God that's speaking. He says,
I am with you. Do not fear, for I am with you.
I'm not against you. I am with you. I'm on your side. And we know that in our Lord
Jesus Christ, who is Emmanuel, God is with us. The virgin shall
conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.
God with us. God with us. The passage I love,
I have a feeling I mentioned it Sunday morning, is John 16,
where Jesus is speaking to his disciples and he says to them,
I call you no longer servants, but I call you my friends, to
be called the friends of God. This holy, this glorious, this
majestic, eternal God, tends to call sinful people his friends
in Christ. I am with you. And he says, I
will bless you, and I will multiply your descendants for my servant
Abraham's sake." There's blessing coming. Now, how do we apply
this to us today? Because you would say, well,
yes, you did. A great nation, a physical great nation, came
from them. And within that, there was always
the remnant of grace. And the Gospel has been preached,
and Christ has come, and Christ has accomplished all his purposes.
And the Gospel is preached in our day. And there are countless,
you know, as God said to Abraham, come out on this starry night,
clear starry night. He said, now look up. Now, can
you count them? Now remember, this was a long
time ago. No telescopes, no radio telescopes,
no means of probing in deeply into the deep space. And Abraham
said, no, I can't count them. Well, just in that same way,
you won't be able to count your descendants by faith. They'll
be just as innumerable as that. Just as innumerable. Just as
innumerable as the grains of sandal. You wouldn't attempt
to number them. And you think about it, there's
all sorts of things that you would say, well, with the progress
of technology and Hubble space telescopes and radio telescopes,
surely by now we can number them. No we can't. All we know is that
there's far more out there than we ever thought there was before.
And who, even with all our technology today, would attempt to number
the numbers of grains of sand on the seashore? Just unbelievable. You couldn't do it. God's people
cannot be... Isn't that an amazing thing that
we so often see? Like, what's the population of
Rocky Mount? I don't know. And how many are here wanting
to hear about grace in Christ? It's a small number. It's a tiny...
Where we are, a town of 50,000 people, and if 30 to 35 gather
on a Sunday morning, we think that's a good turnout, you know,
out of that many people. It so often seems like that.
But in God's purposes, you know, as He numbers His people, as
He adds them all up together, He knows His 144,000. He knows
that perfect number that are His. And these are the blessings
that are being talked about here. It's a people chosen in Christ
who will all be saved. They'll all be saved. I think
the last time I was here, Paul asked me to preach on Ezekiel,
wasn't it? Ezekiel, the Valley of Dry Bones. And I don't think I made a good
job of that at all, but we won't go into that now. But there's
a part of that that talks about the bones, you know, when they
get clothed in flesh and they stand up an army. And what is
it you notice about an army? You know, you see them standing
in ranks? And you probably don't notice any particular one, but
you notice the one that's not there, don't you? That stands
out like a sword. There's a gap in the ranks. That
stands out. Well, there isn't, you know,
this army of God's people that will stand up. There won't be
one missing. Not one missing. They'll all be there. Like the
bricks in the wall of the temple, which is another picture of the
people of God. There's not going to be any holes.
They're all going to be there. They're blessings in Christ.
He's going to bless Isaac and his people and all who come to
him in that way that Isaac came, through Christ. God was saying
to him, in Christ I'm saving a people through faith, like
Abraham's faith, and it's all for his glory. Now what was Isaac's
response? We see four things in verse 25.
Four things that Isaac did in response and that Isaac's people
did in response to this situation that here at Beersheba where
God had met with Abraham before and where they came back to this
place where God had met with Abraham and God met with Isaac,
he revealed himself to Isaac and what was Isaac's response
to it? Well, four things. He built an altar, he called
on the name of the Lord, he pitched his tent there, and his servants
dug a well. Firstly, he built an altar, he
built an altar there. Now, what is an altar? Well, you know, I don't know
if they have them in the Episcopal churches, well I know they do
in the Catholic churches here, but in the Church of England,
you know, there's the altar, the altar in this big symbol,
this big table and nobody's allowed to go there's a there's a fence
it's sort of a fence with a gate in it and it's fancy you're not
allowed to go in there because you know it's like a picture
of the holy of holies and there's the altar there it's it's not
a communion table it's an altar it's an altar and they they have
this this thing in their in their churches these days well in these days in Isaac's
days the altar had a purpose It had a distinct purpose. It
was a purpose of sacrifice. It was a purpose of shedding
of blood, of burning, of burning of the animals that were killed
as sacrifices. It was a place of meeting with
God as a result of that sacrifice. It was a place of worship, because
only in that way were people permitted to worship God. the
people that gather together for worship outside of Christ and
outside of His sacrifice, outside of the true sacrifice. And all
of these sacrifices in Isaac's day and all the way through the
Old Testament all pointed to that great sacrifice of the Lord
Jesus Christ and the shedding of His blood, those perfect lambs. You know, Isaac knew all about
altars, didn't he? He knew all about altars. A few
chapters earlier, Boy, he'd had a close-up look at an altar.
He really had. Because God had said to Abraham,
I'll give you a son. And Abraham had said, well, maybe
God needs a little bit of help in this. And he went and got
Ishmael. And there was some other relative, part of his house,
and he said to God, shouldn't this one be my descendant? Shouldn't this one be the one
that you're talking about? And God said, no, there'll be
one that comes from your own body, one of your own descendants.
You and Sarah will have a son, and he'll be the one in whom
the promise will be continued and worked out. And this happened. And of course, Abraham must have
been He believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness,
but, you know, there were phases, we read of them, these phases
of unbelief, or maybe thinking, maybe God needs a bit of help
with this, and then this son is born, this son of promise,
Isaac, and oh, God's fulfilling his purposes, and what does God
ask you to do? Take your son, your beloved son, take him to
where I'll show you, to Mount Moriah, take him there and sacrifice
him there. You know, such a picture of Christ,
only beloved son. And he takes him there and Isaac
says, Father, I see the wood and I see the fire, but where's
the offering? You know, and Abraham says to
him, oh, God will provide himself a sacrifice. And, you know, he
gets to the point he's bound and he's on that altar. And Abraham's,
you know, he knows that, what does Abraham think? By faith
he's seeing, he's seeing things that natural eyes could not see,
that even if he plunges that knife into him, even if he does
that, God is still going to raise up a people for himself, a people
of faith. Through that boy that he's just
about to kill, he could see by faith, he's still going to do
that. And Isaac's there submitting. I mean, why did the boys submit?
No doubt he was a sizable strong boy. Was he going to do that?
I can't imagine wrestling one of my boys down and tying them
up. I just can't imagine. They wouldn't let me do that
easily. Why? Because Isaac must have seen
that too. He must have seen those purposes. And then Abraham is
told, don't, stay your hand, don't go through with it, here's
the sacrifice, here's the substitute. And so many pictures of grace
and redemption and of that sacrifice on that altar. He built an altar
there. Without the shedding of blood,
Hebrews 9, 22 tells us there is no remission. It's the only
way that we can come. You can't. You know this. I know
I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. You can't
come to God. You can't come to God. What's
the chief end of man? To know God and enjoy Him forever. I forget which catechism it is
that says that. And people try to do that outside
of Christ and it's impossible. You cannot do it. He will not
meet with you outside of Christ. He will not speak with you outside
of Christ. You know, like the Ark of the
Covenant and the Mercy Seat on it had to be sprinkled with blood,
and there God spoke with the priest, the High Priest, representing
the people. Again, such a picture of Christ.
Now, what about us today? Well, do we have an altar? No,
not like the Episcopalian churches, we don't. But Hebrews 13.10 tells
us that we do. We have an altar. And who is
that altar? It's Christ. It's the cross of
Calvary. It's everything we... As we gather
together for worship, as God... It's only in and through that
cross, that altar, that place at which sacrifice for sin was
made, that perfect lamp, the Lord, our righteousness, that
perfect lamp, without blemish and without spot. You know, one
of my favorite verses, and it's one that, you know, you just
love the words of it, but you can't get your head around it,
that He made Him, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him. That's an amazing
statement. What a transaction, what a tremendous
transfer that he made him who knew no sin. Paul was saying
Sunday morning about him taking on that sin and how he recoiled
from it and how he sweat drops of blood because it was such
a terrible thing. We live, don't we? In this flesh
we live so easily with sin, but not him. It was repulsive to
him, but he bore it. He bore it, that the punishment
of God might fall on him. You know, I love that illustration
of the fire falling. You've had forest fires out in
the West. And I guess, you know, the fire's
gone through and it's burned your home to the ground and it's
burned everything around. That's probably the safest place
to stand. If you survive it, that's the
safe place to stand. Because it isn't going to burn
there again. It's already been there. And we know that the justice
and the wrath of God against him is burned there, at Calvary,
on him. made sin for us, delivered up
for our transgressions, raised for our justification. He built
an altar there. And all the worship centred on
that altar. He met with God there, and so
it is with us. We say that we're determined
to know nothing else other than Jesus Christ and Him crucified,
and this is the reason why. It doesn't mean we never say
anything else, but everything is coloured by this. Everything
is seen through this perspective of Christ and His cross and this
altar. So Isaac set up an altar there,
and you know, you say, well, why did he set it up there? Well,
he was being obedient to the pattern. It was a pattern that
was given. But I'm sure, I'm sure that he knew that this was
foreshadowing Christ. He knew this. He had faith. He
could see this. He'd been given this gift by
God to see that this was God's eternal purpose and this was
the way God was going to save his people. And he set up the
altar there. He knew he couldn't worship God
without that. And then he called on the name
of the Lord. This is the same thing. He called on the name
of the Lord there. What is it to call on the name
of the Lord? Well, name speaks of character,
doesn't it? Name speaks of... especially
in scripture, name speaks of character. And the name of the
Lord speaks of the glorious God. whose supreme glory is grace
in Christ. I love that passage in, I think
it's Exodus 33, where Moses says to God, please show me your glory. And he says, you can't see my
face. Stand here in the cleft of the
rock and I will cause all my glory to pass by you. And then
what does he say? I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious and have compassion. That's God's chief glory, that
I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And that's the characteristic
of God, and it's to call on that, he's calling on the name of the
Lord. It's to call on the name which is above every name, that
of our Lord Jesus Christ, Philippians 2.9. It's to call on that more
excellent name, Hebrews 1.4. He's given him, Christ, a more
excellent name than all the angels. It's to call on that name. In
Matthew 18, 20, Christ said to his disciples, gathered together,
where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the
midst. God is present. Gathered in his
name, calling on his name, calling upon the graciousness that's
in him. God is present. We know because we have his word
to tell us that as we gather here, like this, with this altar
before us, calling upon the name of the Lord, as we do, that God
is present by his Holy Spirit, taking of the things of Christ
and revealing them to us in our souls. It's public worship, this
is what it is, calling on the name of the Lord. You know, every
time you meet together here, you're calling on the name of
the Lord, and it's a public witness to all around. This is a calling
on the name of the Lord, gathering together, services Sunday by
Sunday, services today, He called on the name of the Lord. Then
thirdly, he pitched his tent there. God revealed himself to
him, God appeared to him, said who he was, told him not to fear,
told him that he would bless him and multiply him, so he built
an altar there. He called on the name, he gathered
his people together, they called on the name of the Lord there,
and he pitched his tent there. He stuck around. He was planning
to stay a while. He made his home there. You know... I've heard it said that you can
only really effectively minister something when you've experienced
it yourself. And I must say, I've seen in
our church back home, people come and go, and they've gone
for all the wrong reasons. I'm sure they've heard grace,
and I'm sure they've been touched by the grace that they've heard.
And then they thought, well, there's this particular job,
and I must get this job because it will be for the prosperity
of my family. And so, well, it takes me to
the other end of the country, so off I'll go to the other end
of the country. And you know why I can talk like this? It's
because I was such a person, I did that, I did that when 20
years ago, 20 years ago, and I'm so thankful that I have a
wife who was so much more discerning than me at that time to know
that we'd ended up in the wrong place. We'd ended up in the place
where there was nobody calling on the name of the Lord. There
was no altar, no true altar. There was a lot of warm, human
sociability. You know, you can have that,
can't you? You can be as friendly as all
you guys are with one another. You can be just as friendly as
that and just be a social club. And there'd be no altar there.
And no calling on the name of the Lord there. and no appearance,
because, you know, this God appeared to him. Doesn't he to us? In our souls, in our spirits,
we see him by faith. He appears to us. The Holy Spirit
takes of the things of Christ and reveals him to us. We see
him in his word, in the preaching of his word. Where to live in
this life? Area of a good job? A nice area
where you want to bring your kids up? Family? Well, all these
things are good and may God grant them to us all in an appropriate
measure. It's not a bad thing to live
in a nice place. You all live in a very nice place.
I think this is a beautiful area. Lots of space, lots of... it
really is very nice. But to choose to come and live
here when there's no church here, you know, that would not be a
good thing to do. That really would not. What about
education for your kids? Or, we must go and live in this
other town, because... We know a family that... Oh dear. They were so... The guy particularly,
Christine knows who I mean, they were so... they really fed on the grace
that was preached. But they got to an age where
their daughters, you know, they needed the better school, they
needed to be in the town where they could go to a particular
private school, and they've gone, they've left, and they're only
10 miles. I know you think, well, you know,
people travel a lot further than that, but there seemed like a
long distance, and they started coming less, and now we virtually
never see them, you know. Because that's taken priority.
Where you need to be is not even where there's a big lively church,
is it? Oh, where are we going to go to church? We've got young
people coming up on teenage. Where are we going to go? Well,
we've got to go where there's a good youth program. We really
must go where there's a good youth program. Otherwise they'll
get tired of it and they'll go away and they won't stay. No,
not that. Really not that. Where Christ
is preached. Where God is worshipped in Christ.
And leave the rest. to God. Leave it to him. He'll
take care of it. I remember many years ago, Bill
Clark telling me what Henry said about somebody asking the question,
what do you do for your young people? Expecting the answer,
well we've got a club on this night, we've got some organised
activity this night, we preach the gospel to them. That's all
we do. Preach the gospel to them. They can take care of other things
themselves. Preach the gospel to them. That's the important
thing. That really is. You need to be somewhere where
you can keep topping up the oil in the lamp. Back home we had a sermon from
Edgar Andrews the Sunday night before we came away, and it spoke
powerfully to me on the parable of the wise and the foolish virgins,
and the need to keep that lamp topped up. And do you know how
you do that? You need somewhere where grace, where Christ is
preached, where you can go and keep that lamp topped up. Keep
coming. Don't neglect it. Keep coming.
And then, finally, his servants dug a well there. His servants
dug a well. They helped him to get water. Now, How do we interpret this? You know, they're there, they
dug the well. Some of them dug, no doubt. Some
of them hauled the spoil away. Some of them shored up the sides.
Some of them cooked to make sure that they had the strength to
do it. Some of them repaired it where it started to fall back
down again. You know, they were all helping. I interpret that,
they got together, they supported a pastor, they made it possible
for him to dig and get water so that there was living water
there, they helped out, they did the things, you know, that
one man on his own can't do, they helped out, they supported
the work, they had an interest in it, you know, they pitched
their tent there and they had an interest in it, and they settled
down there and they said, well, As for me and my house, this
is where we're going to be, and this is what we're going to do,
and this is what we're going to support. The objective was
water for thirsty souls, spiritual water. And, you know, we all
have a part to play. You know, you say, oh, what do
you do in the church? Oh, I don't do anything, I just
go on Sundays and Wednesdays and I just sit in the pews. I
just listen, that's all I do. No, you do more than that. You
do more than that. You can do so much more than
that. I'm not talking about loads of activity. Just coming is a
tremendous blessing. Just being here. I'm sure, Paul,
you know, you miss it when people, for whatever reason, are not
here. You know, it's a contribution, it really is. And, you know,
we just had a series on the Song of Solomon, and I was asked to
preach on the first five verses of chapter three, and I found
this in verse four of chapter three, that when When she, when
the Shulamite, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but
when she had found, she had a traumatic time, she'd lost him. She'd lost
him, and she went all over, she went to the watchman, and she
still didn't find him there, but straight away, she found
him, and she held him tight. And what did she do with him?
She brought him to the house of her mother, to the one who,
what's the house of our mother? It's the church, isn't it? It's
the church, it's the place in which we were spiritually born.
And she brought him there. And you know, when we come to
meetings, when we come to services, you know, we should bring Christ
with us. We really should. Steve Bignall tells an account,
and I can't remember it. I shouldn't really start. If
I can't remember it properly, I shouldn't really start trying to tell it,
but it's of some old Scottish preacher. And the people used
to come to the services on the Sunday morning, singing as they
came, singing in the carts as they were coming. And, you know,
one man was visiting and he said, what's that? And he said, oh,
that's them coming and they're bringing Christ with them. They
were singing, they were prepared for worship, their hearts were
being prepared for worship. It's a supporting ministry of
just being here, of bringing Christ with you and just being
here, and strengthening the fellowship. Well, that's about it. I'm about
done. That was Beersheba, an altar,
calling on the name of the Lord, pitching a tent, digging a well. We found our Beersheba. We could
be very tempted to find another one. I tell you, this is a delightful,
delightful Beersheba. I trust you've found yours here.
Alright. Yes, I'm appreciative of your
message and your comments. I've heard the comments on the
message, and I've said, I don't mind that at all. I'm called
for it. The Lord is here to manage the
message for us. Nothing needs to happen. And I would not retract my message.
I hate to accomplish anything that can be done. But I do want
to tell you, Senator Patrick, that you just heard one of the
finest messages you'll ever hear. I've heard a lot of messages
now. I really have. And you just heard one of the
finest you'll ever hear. And I strongly urge you, if you
did not have the faculties tonight to hear this, you have to take
and listen to it again. But more than that, to take these
verses and look at them, and chew on their skin, chew on their
senses. Again, I thank the Lord for that. And I didn't preach at the time,
but I'm so glad I didn't preach. But I may. I wasn't expecting
that. And above all that, I'm glad
I was born after you. I pray. Thank you for that. Let's stand together. Our Father, we thank you. Thank you for this blessed fellowship. that we enjoy the beauty of love,
the soul of Christ, the message we are going to follow, and the
messenger. At the end of the day, it's a
lesson on, you know, and his holy wife, the church there. These words you've given him
for us, Lord, but not bowed in the air, taken away on the thorns,
choked him out. May we dwell upon him for at
least a few days, and may we be gathered again in Christ's
name. Thank you very much.