It is where we have come to in
our studies in the book of Deuteronomy on chapter 22. We have been working
our way through this book sort of slowly. We have not been in
any hurry and tonight we are just going to read a few verses
and go as far as we can and we will quit. Now let us read the
first four verses to begin. We are going to try to get down
through verse 8 if we can. Deuteronomy chapter 22 and verse
1, Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go astray, and
hide thyself from them. Thou shalt in any case bring
them again unto thy brother. And if thy brother be not nigh
unto thee, or if thou knowest him not, then shalt thou bring
it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee until thy
brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again.
And like manner thou shalt do with his ass, with his donkey,
and so shalt thou do with his raiment, his clothes, and with
all things lost of your brother, which he hath lost, and thou
hast found, thou shalt do likewise, thou mayest not hide thyself. Thou shalt not see thy brother's
ass or his ox fall down by the way, and hide thyself from them. Thou shalt surely help him to
lift them up again." Now, I'm always reminded, and I think
it's good for all of us to be reminded, as we read in the book
and study in the book of Deuteronomy, as in the epistles of the Lord,
that this is written to God's people. It's always helpful to
remember that it's written to Israel. You find that in chapter
1 and verse 1, that these be the words of the Lord by Moses
to Israel. And why do we make that distinction
of who this Bible and who these epistles and so on is written
to? Because these are principles for the Lord's people to live
by. And lost men cannot live by Christian principles. It's
impossible for a man to do that. Until a man is born again, he
cannot see, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. He cannot
love. He cannot love. A Christian principle
is out of love. He that is born of God is born
of God, for God is love. and this commandment that we
have from Him that he who loves God loves his brother also. So you can see how this principle
here that we looked at of finding your brother's donkey or his
sheep and keeping it until he found it or returning it to him
is done out of love. You do it because you love your
brother. But the natural man can't be
governed by spiritual motives. It is impossible. The natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. They are
foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they
are spiritually discerned. So until we are born again, we
have no capacity to know God. We have no capacity to love Him.
moved by the motives of love and grace. So Christian principles
of living in this world are useless for lost people. You must be
born again. Now here in verses 1 through
verse 4, we're taught this, that our brother, our brothers and
sisters in Christ, has certain claims on our sympathy. and on
our attention and on our help. This is the very basic, it's
a very basic and practical principle, but it reveals some deep things
of the heart. Principles often do that. The
most basic of commands that we're to live by so often reveals what's
in our heart. Listen to these two things here.
What's revealed in these words that I just read to you? As you
think about Here's an ox or here's a sheep and it's your brother's.
It's your neighbor's and you've seen it go astray and you get
it and you take it back home to him. Or you find someone's
donkey or his sheep and you don't know whose it is. He's a brother's,
but he lives afar off, and you don't know him. And you keep
that, and you feed it until he comes looking for it, and you
give it back to him again. Or a little donkey has fallen,
and the brother can't pick him up, and you stop your wagon,
you get off, and you help him pick it up. Now what's revealed
in those simple principles of doing that? It's love, isn't
it? It's love for the brother. It exposes these two things then
and reveals these two things in the heart. The love of God
that's implanted in the heart to sympathize with and protect
the interest and well-being of that brother or sister that's
in Christ. That's the first thing. And the
second thing it exposes is this, the selfishness that is still
in the heart. We see the need but we pretend
we don't, and therefore we hide ourselves. A blatant turning
away. It hopefully exposes and reveals
both of these things, because if you're here tonight and you're
a believer, you've got both of these principles in your heart,
flesh and spirit. And I can say of myself, when
it comes to self-interest, and you can probably say this about
yourself, when it comes to self-interest, I'm very much alive. I'm very much concerned. I cannot
forget my own interest. But it's a difficult matter when
it comes to the interest of others. And don't that fill you with
shame? Don't that sometimes bring tears to our eyes that we are
so selfish and so self-centered? And yet when it comes to others,
we almost have to make ourselves remember the needs of others. Listen to this. You know the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Boy, if we're going to have our
brothers and sisters' best interests and well-being at heart, we're
going to have to be motivated, aren't we? And here's one of
the best ways to motivate ourselves. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Though He was rich, yet for your
sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might be
made rich. Being conformed to the image
of Christ is the best way. to have our hearts set on the
best interest of our brothers and sisters in Christ, and not
so much on self. Hold our text and look, and let
me show you that in 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 15. 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 15. John has already
found this on his phone, I bet. I tell you, there is an advantage.
You found it too, Connor? 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse
15. Look at this. There's an advantage
I guess of having those gadgets. I just can't use them. But even
unto this day when Moses is read, the veil is upon their hearts. They can't find Christ in the
Old Testament. Not even in that serpent lifted
up. They can't see Him. A veil is over their hearts.
Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be
taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit,
and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Liberty
from the curse of the law, liberty from the dominion of sin, liberty
to serve God, and liberty to serve one another in love. And look at this, but we all
with open face beholden as in a glass the glory of the Lord,
are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by
the Spirit of the Lord. Changed into the very image of
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the best motivator that
I know a man can have. And the best way to grow in grace
and knowledge and love is to look to Christ. and look into
Him, we're changed into His image. So if we're born of God, we see
these two things. We rejoice that we love God's
children. We love them. We love those in
Christ. And we sorrow because of the
great degree of the self-interest that we have in ourselves. And I see both of these things.
One of the reasons I looked at this, because look back over
here at our text again in Deuteronomy. We see both of these things.
We have the commandment here that secures our interest in
taking care of our brother's cattle and so on. And then we
have something else here that exposes our self-interest. Did
you know Three times here in these four verses, did you notice
this? Thou shalt not see thy brother's ass or his ox-ball
down by the way, and hide thyself. Did you see that? And hide thyself. We've got two commandments. One
is positive and one is negative. One is positive. He commands
us to attend to the interest and well-being of our brothers.
And the second commandment is this. Don't hide yourself. Don't
hide yourself. Do you see that in you? Oh, that's
called Spirit. That's called walking after the
Spirit to meet the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ,
their entrance. And then you have the flesh that
always wants to hide itself. Do you have any problem with
that? Boy, you do, don't you? You're just like your poor pastor.
You've got problems with that. Cain asked, Am I my brother's
keeper? I think these verses pretty much
answer that, don't you? They pretty much answer that.
We are our brother's keeper. In verses 1 through 4, the brother's
interest here is very obvious. You see the poor old cow coming
down the road? It's obvious ain't it? I'm going to catch that old
cow. I'm going to lasso him. I know who his owner is. You
see an ox out. You see a sheep out. You don't
know whose it is. It's obvious what you're going
to do. So obvious. But you know it's not always
obvious, is it? Some people have needs, and we don't know how
to meet them. We don't know for sure if it's
real needs or what. We don't know how to meet the
need. But sometimes it's obvious, and that's the ones that you
and I are not to hide ourselves from. John said, if we see our
brother have need, If we have this world's good and we see
our brother's need and we don't supply his need, how dwells the
love of God in us? And James said, and you brought
this out Sunday I think, Wayne, about faith without works. Don't
say to your brother that's naked, depart and be clothed. Don't
say to your brother that's hungry, go your way and be filled. But
supply his needs. Don't hide yourself. Don't hide
yourself. Well, we see that a lot though.
And this commandment, this word of John where he says, if you
see your brother have need and shut up your bowels of compassion,
and that's the same word I guess as hide yourself, and you shut
up your bowels of compassion from him, how dwells the love
of God in you. But this command here to supply
his need, boy, that's the whole person. his physical needs, his
mental needs, his spiritual needs. It may not be my ox that's fallen. It may be me that's fallen. I need help. I need help up.
It's not my sheep that's lost, it's my comfort that's lost.
If you find my comfort, would you restore it to me? Maybe my
courage that I've lost and not my dumb ox. And I may need to
be encouraged. So it applies spiritually, doesn't
it? It applies spiritually. And that's what we're doing here
tonight. I haven't studied for a couple of days and come here
except I'm doing it in love and concern for your soul. And you're
not here tonight but to learn and worship and be encouraged
and encouraging one another. That's what we're doing here,
isn't it? That's what we're doing here. So some needs are obvious. Look over at another place. Hold
that Scripture again. We are coming back to it. Look
on Philippians. Look on Philippians. I think here probably would sum
up this portion of our text in Philippians chapter 2. I think
here is what our text is really saying. Philippians
chapter 2. Look in verse 1. If there be, therefore, any consolation,
any comfort in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship
of the Spirit, if any vows of mercy, if these things be there
in your heart, fulfill you my joy that you be like-minded,
having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind, Let
nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness
of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look
not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things
of others." Let this mind be in you that was in Christ. Boy,
he was concerned about our interests, and he still is, isn't he? He's
concerned about our best interest. He's got our best interest at
heart. Let this mind be in you. Let your brother's best interest
be at heart in everything, in everything that he has need of
that you're able to help him with. So that's got that portion. Let's go on to verse 5 in Deuteronomy
22. Deuteronomy 22. I don't know how to apply all
of these passages and sometimes it seems like it's a little bit
confusing to me the way the Holy Spirit's inserted them in here.
Because this verse 5 seems so out of place. I still to this
very day don't know how to sit it in this context, but here
it is. So let's just look at it as we find it here in verse
5. The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man.
Neither shall a man put on a woman's garments, for all that do so
are abomination unto the Lord thy God." Now if you'll talk
to the old-time Nazarenes, bless their hearts, and some of the
old-time Baptists even, they'll take you to this verse to prove
that women shouldn't wear pants. and so on. But most of the dress
in a country, I know in our country, is culture. We had an older lady
that lived next door to us, but we knew her for 25 or 30 years.
She wasn't a religious person at all, but she never would put
on a pair of pants. You just didn't catch her in
a pair of pants. It's a cultural thing. This is not speaking about
you ladies wearing slacks, It goes deeper than that. There's
a distinction made in the sexes. There's a distinction between
a man and a woman. And a man is not to dress up
or act like a woman. And a woman is not to dress or
act like a man. Now, we got these silly cross-dressers
in our day, and that's what they try to do. You can tell it. I can't tell it. I can't discern
these things. I've got some friends of mine,
when they see a guy, they say, that person is one of these crossovers. They can tell by looking at them
the way they're acting. I don't know how they do that.
But that's what he's talking about here. In the beginning,
in the beginning. But when God made Adam, He made
him a man, didn't He? He made him a male. And when
He made Eve, He made Eve a woman. And God put a distinction between
those sexes. And aren't you glad He did? Somebody
said, well, there's not much of a distinction. Well, there's
enough that I appreciate. I'll tell you that right now.
And I'm glad that God's commanded us to keep those sexes distinct. None of this crossover junk.
And we've got a lot of that today, haven't we? We've got a lot of
that today, and I don't know why this is put in the place
it is, but there it is. There it is. And I don't think
this will ever change. I don't know if it'd be a shame
for me, it may be in my own mind, to wear a long gown of some kind. The Jews used to do that, and
some in the eastern, I saw a picture not long ago of a whole street
full of Jews, and all of them had their gowns on. Even some
today wear gowns. So it's a cultural thing. But
it's when a man begins to think and act and want to be a woman,
and a woman wants to look and be like a man, that's it. That's
what he's against. Keep these things distinct. Keep
them separated. Now let's look at verses 6 and
7 right quickly. Now, I want you to look at this.
Ain't this amazing how technical the Lord gets with His people?
Now, just know this. And you think, what in the world
is this about? We'll look at this and meditate on it in a
few minutes. If a bird's nest chanced to be before thee in
the way in any tree, I guess they must have been clearing
it out. I don't know. are on the ground, whether they be young
ones, or eggs, and the dam, the mother, setting upon the young,
or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young.
But thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, let the mother go,
and take the young to thee, that it may be well with thee, and
that thou mayest prolong thy days." Now let's learn some things
from this, and your mind may may wander and find more of these
than I found, but let's think about it this way. First of all,
and I'm not much of an environmentalist, I'll be honest with you, but
I'm more so than probably I realize, it's not wise, and it wouldn't
be wise on their behalf or on our behalf to destroy the whole
family of birds, to destroy the whole species of birds. Everything
that God has made has its place. And everything that God has made
in nature has a balance. There's a balance to it. We've
destroyed a lot of species and we've lost a lot of species.
And it's sort of like taking out your appendix or your tonsils.
You can do without it, but you can't do as well without it.
And so these are species and these birds, there are birds
that's very helpful. There are birds that were helpful
back then, especially large birds. Kept them from being overrun
with poisonous snakes. You ever seen an eagle with a
big snake in his mouth? I have. A chicken hawk, eating
up insects and things like that. It would be silly of us not to
be careful with God's creation and God's creatures. His living
creatures, His water and His soil, Aren't we wise to protect
all of these things? I tell you, they learn well.
Boy, back in the 20s and 30s, out in the far Midwest, out in
Kansas and those places, they learned very well, we better
learn to take care of our soil. Because when they abused it,
they had what we know as the dust bowl, and they lost all
of their crops and places to plant. So that's the first thing
we see here. Why wipe out a whole family of
birds? and go to the next tree and wipe
out that family, and pretty soon you've lost the whole species
of birds. And if we keep doing that, it
won't profit us. Secondly, this teaches us to
have compassion on the least of God's creatures, even little
birds. Not to be unnecessarily cruel. Does God care for birds? Well,
He made them, didn't He? And I tell you, He feeds them.
And there's not a one falls to the ground without His knowledge
of it. Somebody asked Martin Luther one time, said, Who's
your favorite preacher? And he said, Oh, I don't have
to hesitate to tell you who my favorite preacher is. I see my
favorite preacher every day, and every day he teaches me a
good lesson. And they said, Who is that? He
said, The little robin that comes and lights on my windowsill and
eats the crumbs that I leave there for it. Every day, he said,
he lies there and says, O ye of unbelief, if my Father cares
for me, will He not much more care for you? And Luther said,
Every day I learn from my little bird. Now, I'm not as bad as
Wayne and Colleen. I'm not going to catch my mice
and take them down the road and turn them loose. I catch them
all right, but I bury them after I catch them. Doesn't it show
compassion for the little creatures that God has made? This is my
Father's world and He's made them all. And to be unnecessarily
cruel to His creatures is not good. I don't think it would
be pleasing to our God to breed dogs or roosters or anything
else and train them to fight one another. That's just in my
life, and I was guilty of that when I was a kid being raised
down south, but I just couldn't do that anymore. Couldn't be
cruel, unnecessarily cruel, to any of God's creatures. This
is our Father's world. Compassion on the smallest of
creatures. And thank thirdly of this, How
are we disposed? How is our hearts disposed to
treat anything or anyone that's inferior to us? Doesn't this
teach us a lesson? We're to be tender-hearted and
kind. And if it begins with the smallest
of creatures, and we have compassion on the smallest of God's creatures,
then wouldn't that work its way up to the more important of creatures? To man? And then wouldn't that
work its way on then to the Creator, being compassionate to the smallest
of creatures? I think if we're that, then surely
we'd be compassionate to one to another. And think of this. This may have been the smallest
commandment of all God's commandments to the children of Israel. But
notice here in the last portion of verse 7 the importance that's
attached to it, that it may be well with thee and that thou
mayest prolong thy days." What a little commandment! To have
compassion on the mother bird and turn her loose when you take
her young and let her hatch some more eggs. That's a little commandment. But yet this great importance
attached to it. Why is that? Well, there's no
insignificant commandment with God. They're all important to
us. Well, that's not that important.
Oh, yes it is if He said it. if he said it. Somebody asked
Spurgeon one time if baptism was essential, and he said, well,
did God command it? Now, he's probably more of a
camel out lawyer than I am, but that shows the importance of
his word, doesn't it, his commandment. Here's what David said in Psalms
119. He said, blessed are the undefiled
in the way. who walk in the law of the Lord,
blessed are they that keep His testimonies, that seek Him with
a whole heart. They do no iniquity, they walk
in His ways. Thou hast commanded us to keep
Thy precepts diligently, carefully. Oh, that my ways were directed
to keep Thy statutes! Then shall I not be ashamed when
I have respect unto all thy commandments." A man that is faithful in that
which is least is faithful in much, ain't he? The little things,
the little commandments of God. Now let's go quickly to verse
8. Let's deal with this one just for a few minutes. We can look
at these in different aspects, the moral aspects and then I
think they have probably a spiritual aspect. But look now in verse
8. when thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement,
now that's a rail, make a battlement for the roof, that thou bring
not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence. Now, back in those days, not
so much now, but back in those days, when they built houses,
they all had flat roofs. That's the way they built them,
with flat roofs, and they used that for entertaining. They slept up there on those
hot nights over there in the summertime in those countries.
They'd go up on the roof and sleep. They ate up there. They went up there to meditate
and pray. Remember Peter? He went up on top of the house
to pray and he fell into a trance. And if they hadn't had a rail
around the house, he may have fell off of the house. And that's
what this rail was for. They put it around the house
and the family was up there or the children were praying. or
somebody got up of a night in his sleep, he wouldn't fall off
of this house. It was for the safety and well-being
of people. If we lived in Israel back in
these days, I think we wouldn't need building
inspectors. We'd save a lot of money on that,
wouldn't we? We wouldn't have to have any
large agency as OSHA to come and inspect our building and
force us to follow the rules and regulations. Every house
that would be built, they would have people's safety in mind. And if they did this on their
houses, I bet anything they did it in their factories, in their
industry. And what the Lord was teaching
them was to be careful. Be careful and have people's
safety in mind when you build your house. You don't want a
kid to fall off and break his leg or worse. You don't want
to get up in the night and sleepwalk and walk off the edge of the
house. Now there are some spiritual lessons and let me give you some
of them and we'll close. I want you to think about this.
God has a house. The Lord Jesus Christ is building
the house of God this very day. And He has been now for hundreds
of years. The Bible says this, that Christ
is a Son over His own house, whose house are we. And Paul
was writing to Timothy how he should behave himself. And he
said, I'm writing to you, Timothy, and giving you these instructions.
as to how you should behave yourself, conduct yourself in the house
of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and
ground of the truth. So the Lord has a house, and
you can bet if He commanded Israel to put rails around the top of
their house for people's safety, He's put rails around His house
for people's safety. And let's look at some of them.
There's a rail around the church's doctrine. The Lord has given
the church these great truths, and some of them are such high
truths. And if a man fell off one of these, he'd break his
neck. And the first one that we want to think about is election.
Boy, that's a high doctrine, ain't it? And that's the doctrine
of the church. The Lord has given it to us.
Election is particular. It doesn't concern nations. It
concerns individuals. He hath chosen you. to salvation. It's eternal. He's chosen His
elect before the foundation of the world. It's unchangeable. It's fixed. Nothing can be added
to it. Nothing can be taken from it.
The election of God. And since this is such a high
doctrine, the Lord has put a rail around it, a battlement lest
any should fall and do themselves harm in his church. I was preaching
one time, I never will forget this, I was preaching on calling,
election and calling. And there was a fellow from a
particular denomination came in and I was preaching on election
and boy, he got so happy, he was calling amen. And I got off
on calling and he wouldn't say a word. And come to find out,
he believed election was salvation. He's in that denomination that
believes that if you're elect, God elected you, and someday
you may just wind up in heaven. You never heard the gospel, you
never even believed in Christ here. But because you were elected,
you'll go to heaven. Boy, I tell you what, that's
an awful fall, ain't it? That's dangerous. But God has
put a rail around this, you see. And when you think of election
and when you see election in the Scripture, what's it often
associated with? Salvationism. He has from the
beginning chosen you to salvation. So election is not salvation.
It's unto salvation. And it's connected with holiness.
He hath from the beginning chosen you in Christ that you should
be holy and without blame before Him in love. It is connected
with calling. He hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the
truth, whereunto He hath called you according to His gospel. When we think of election, We
just don't sit down and say, well, what will be, will be.
If I'm one of His elect, I'm going to heaven. If I ain't,
I won't. Boy, that's dangerous, ain't it? And we won't find that
in the Bible. He's put a rail around that.
How do we know that we're one of His? All that the Father gives
to me shall come to me. And if a man hasn't come to Christ,
no sense to him being concerned much about election. Because
he can't know he's one of them. That's the rail that he's put
around that blessed doctrine. And it's a high doctrine. And
think of that high and blessed truth of God's everlasting love
in Christ to his people. Somebody asked me not long ago,
do you believe God loves everybody? Not with this kind of love. Not
with this kind of love. I ain't telling God, and I'm
not about to presume to tell God who He can love and how He
can feel about anybody, but He tells us in His Word that He's
got an everlasting love for His people. I have loved you with
an everlasting love. That just blows my mind to think
about that. That God, the eternal triune
God, could love me from everlasting to everlasting. But there it
is in the Bible. But here's the rail that the
Lord has put around this everlasting love. We have to know it. And here's the way we know it.
It becomes reciprocal. If God loves you with an everlasting
love, there's a coming of time in your life where He's going
to win your heart to Himself and you're going to love Him
back. We love Him because He first loved us. Do you love Him? I mean, do you really, really
love the Lord Jesus Christ? Then I tell you, He's loved you
from all eternity. David said, I love the Lord because... I love Him because He heard my
cry. I was sinking, David said. My
eyes were full of tears. Death had engulfed me, and I
cried unto the Lord, and He heard me, and I love Him for it. He's
won my heart. That's the rail around this everlasting
love. And here's another high doctrine
too, boy, in the Lord's house, He's got in His house. All things
work together for good. And boy, it does. It does. It's
amazing to me. I was talking with a man just
this week. He said something about Genesis
chapter 15 verse 20 where Joseph told his brethren, you meant
it for evil? put him in a pit and they sold
him down to Egypt and they got afraid after Jacob had died that
he was going to punish them for it. And Jacob and Joseph said,
you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. You know what
you should think in your life? Everything in your life is working
for your good. Everything is working for your
good. Now listen to this and I know that you will You won't
condemn me or falsely accuse me over this, even your sins. While you take the blame for
them, and you shed many tears over them, and you weep over
them, yet your sins are working together for your good. Now you
figure that out. You figure that out. All these things work together. for good. But here's the fence. Here's the rail that He puts
around that to those who love God, to those who are the called
according to His purpose. There's been a lot of men that
got over there on that edge and fell over to the side. You talk
to lost people all the time that have no interest in Christ or
God or salvation. And they say, well, after all,
everything's working for my good. That's a dangerous thing. This
is for the house of God and He has put rel in it. A couple more
right quickly. The perseverance of the saints.
I love the doctrine of security. We do. We love it here, don't
we? There are two sides to it though. We love that side and
sometimes we love to think of that side that is just, I call
it just unconditional security. I give unto them eternal life
and they shall never perish. I mean, there's not even any
conditions applied to that. And no man can pluck them out
of my hands. My Father that gave them to me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
my Father's hands. Eternal life given, and He'll
never take it back. And then you've got your other
side, and here's the rail. Here's the rail. He that endureth
to the end shall be saved. the righteous shall hold on his
way. You won't find him out here for
20 years living in sin. I just don't believe that, brothers
and sisters. Wayne quoted this verse a week or two ago in Hebrews
3. If we hold the beginning of our
confidence steadfast unto the end, we're not of them who draw
back. But them who believe to the saving
of our soul. So we have this security, and
we have this perseverance, and they both go together, don't
they? They both go together. My wife's family, they were in
a United Baptist Church, there where they were raised up, and
my father was one of the most, my father-in-law was one of the
most wretched, and I wouldn't say this to my wife, but she
knows it. He was one of the most wretched men I've ever met in
my life, and died that way. And yet he and his mother both
held out this hope. Oh, he made a profession. I remember
when he made a profession, when he was young. And he got over there too close
and fell over. He didn't have a rail on his house, did he?
The Lord's put a rail on his house. And lastly, think about
this, the sweet fellowship of the Lord's house. Lord, this
week we sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. I know
this is the highlight, even though it's a burden to me. It's laborsome
to come here and open the Bible and try to teach the people and
study and get these lessons. It's a burden to us. But I tell
you, the most delightful part of my week is to meet with you
folks. It's the most pleasant part of
my week because it's heavenly places. It's unity, it's strength
of soul. It's just the foretaste of glory
divine is what it is. And I enjoy this part of the
week better than I do any other part. But here's the rail. God puts a rail even in our fellowship
and there's a cause for it. God is greatly to be feared in
the assembly of the saints and had in reverence among all of
those that are about Him. We gather in sweet communion,
but we gather in fear and in trembling of God. Serve the Lord
with fear and rejoice with trembling. While you and I are gathered
here tonight in unity and peace one with another, it's awesome
to think about that there's tares among the wheat, that there's
those who feed themselves without fear. Christ comes looking for
fruit in His church. and He tells us all to be subject
one to another. How many people have gotten lifted
up right in the congregation of the Lord and they fell into
pride, into condemnation? There have been pastors, there
have been teachers, there have been helps that got lifted up
in pride and fell over the edge to their own hurt or worse. One thing I've noticed, I've
noticed in myself, I've noticed especially in pastors, when the
Lord is going to use somebody, He puts a rail around him. And
one of the rails is affliction. Afflictions. And He afflicts that person in
so many ways to keep him from pride. He brings you low. Human nature
will never be converted. It'll never be any better than
this life than it is right now. It can't be trusted in. It gets
exalted so easy. I've noticed in myself, if I
preach a message that I think is good, I get so lifted up. Preach to 25 or 30 people and
you get lifted up like you just preached to 10,000. Ain't that
amazing? And then if you feel like you
haven't preached like you should have, you almost get down into
despair. The best thing we can do with
human nature is just keep Him beat down. Keep Him low. This old flesh is flesh. I don't
care where you find it at. You find it on the barstool or
you find it in the church pew. It's flesh and it's no good.
And He'll get you in trouble. And the best thing you can do
to flesh is keep it crucified. Keep it upon the cross. And some
men and some women have forgot about this. And boy, they fell
over the side. We've seen it happen, haven't
we? We've seen it happen to our own hurt and brokenness of our
hearts. But God has put a rail around
His people, and one of them is afflictions. David said this,
Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now have I kept Thy
Word. It's good for me that I was afflicted. That's the rail that's kept me
from falling over the side. Another rail, as you and I gather
here to worship the Lord and fellowship one with another,
when we think that our Lord, our gracious and sober Lord,
is in our midst. He's right here in our midst. Let me close with reading this
to you. It's just a portion of the way
He introduced Himself to every church. in the first three chapters
of the book of Revelation, seven churches of Asia. And here is
how he identified himself as he spoke to each church. These
things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right
hand, and who walks in the midst of the seven candlesticks, I
know thy works. These things saith the first
and the last, which was dead and is alive, I know thy works. Here is what he said to the third
church. These things saith he which hath a sharp sword with
two edges, I know thy works. These things saith the Son of
God who hath his eyes like a flame of fire and his feet like fine
brass, I know thy works. Here is what he said to another
church. These things saith he that hath the seven spirits of
God, I know thy works. These things saith he that is
holy, and he that is true, he that hath the key of David, and
nobody opens, and he shuts, and nobody closes, I know thy works. And he says to the church of
the Odysseans, these things say, Amen, the faithful and the true
witness, the beginning of the creation of God, I know thy works. But He that is sovereign as well
as gracious is in our midst tonight. And I think if we will keep that
in mind, there will be a fence around us to submit ourselves
one to another, not get lifted up in pride begin to think that
God has called us to straighten everybody out. We commit ourselves
and subject ourselves one to another in the fear of our abiding
Lord. And we'll not fall over the side
if we'll keep that in mind as we teach, as we preach, and as
we sing and encourage one another. I hope that was a blessing.