Deuteronomy chapter 1. I want
to ask you to begin reading through this book, if you will. Some
of these chapters are so very long that we can't hardly read
the whole chapter. It's going to take up quite a
bit of time. There's 46 verses in this chapter. So I ask you
to read, maybe through the week, read chapter 1 and chapter 2.
Get familiar with some of these chapters as we go through this
book. I'm not for sure yet what chapters we're going to concentrate
on or what subject. But it would be good for you
to read this book. We said last week there was two titles that
appealed to me of all the titles that this book is identified
by. There's two titles that I like very well. Last week we looked
at one of them. We find it here in verse 1. And
this is the Hebrew title, they tell me, to this book of Deuteronomy.
These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on this
side of Jordan. That's one of the titles given
to the book. These words. These words. And you may remember I told you
last week, as you read through this book, you'll find very little
of the priesthood. our sacrifices, our ceremonies
in this book. If they're mentioned at all,
it's just in passing. What you'll find in this book
are the words. The words. And you know it's
impossible to estimate the value of words. I mean, the Lord uses
words. Especially when you're talking
about His words. The words of our Lord. If I had
one verse out of all this book to quote to you to prove the
value of words, it would be chapter 8 and verse 3 of this book. And
you remember we read it last week. This is the words the Lord
Jesus spake when He was being tempted of the devil. And He
said, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Now, when you and I think
about bread, what do we think about? It's something that sustains
our body, isn't it? It nourishes and sustains our
body. But what about our soul? What
sustains our spirit? His Word. We live, we are nourished,
we're sustained in our hearts, our bodies, and our soul by every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. The Lord Jesus,
in chapter 6 of John, He said, the words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they're life. They give life and they sustain
the life that they give. And that's why Peter said, Lord,
when I heard you preaching, your word went home to my heart. I
can't leave you. I've got no place else to go.
The words that you speak, they're spirit and they're life. They
speak life to my spirit. They nourished my spirit. So
that's the importance of words, isn't it? You remember when Cornelius
sent for Peter? The Lord said, you send for Peter,
the Apostle Peter, and he's going to come down and he's going to
tell you words whereby you and your house can be saved. Now
that shows you the power of words. The Lord uses words, His words
to save our souls. Of His own will begot He us,
with the Word of Truth. And that's what we find in this
book. That's what it's about. As we go through this book, the
emphasis is going to be placed upon the Word. The Word. Not ceremonies. Not the priesthood. Not even the sacrifices. But
the Word. I love that title too. But there's
another title here that we'll look at mainly tonight. And it's
really found here in verse 3. And it's called the Book of Remembrance. That's another title to this
book. And it's a very appropriate title.
Here in verse 3, It came to pass in the fortieth year, in the
eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses
spake unto the children of Israel according to all that the Lord
had given him in commandment unto them. It's called the Book
of Remembrance because Deuteronomy is looking back over 40 years
of their experience. Chapter 1 deals with the time
that they came out of Egypt until this present time. That's why
it's called a book of remembrance. It's looking in retrospect of
what they've experienced, and it's dealing with their whole
life's experience. If the Lord touched you back
to the beginning of your Christian experience, it may be five years
ago, ten years ago, it may be forty years ago, but if He showed
to you every aspect of your Christian life, the negative things and
the positive things, how would that make you feel? What would
you learn if the Lord took you back over your Christian life
and impressed upon your memory all the different places that
He had brought you through. And all the different things
that you had experienced. The good things and the bad things. Would you learn anything from
that? That's what this book is about. That's what this first
chapter is about. Retrospect. Looking back over
their Christian experience. Over the time He brought them
out of Egypt until this present time, 40 years later. I tell you about myself. I relate
to these folks because they had some experiences that were very
humbling. We'll see that in this chapter.
Humbling is probably an understatement. Humiliating. Humiliating. And the cause of it all. But
they also had victories. They defeated Sihon and Og, these
two great kings of the Amorites. So they had victories too. And
that's what this book is about. There's an old saying, and it
used to be on the wide, wide world of sports, and I think
probably it fit right in here, the thrill of victory and the
agony of defeat. That's what the Lord was teaching
them in the book of Deuteronomy. The thrill of victory and agony
of defeat. Now let's look at it. Let's look
at it. First of all, let's look at the negative aspect. The Lord
takes them back now, remember this, forty years, and brings
them up to the present time. And let's look first of all at
the agony of their defeat and the cause of it. You know it's
been my experience, and I think as I get older, and I hope I
don't get too bad for this, but I have noticed as I'm getting
older, I'm telling you a lot of my experiences. If some of
you get tired of that, please let me know. Would you come up
and say, Bruce, get on with the word, please? We don't want to hear all these
things that you've been telling us. But I've noticed in my own
lifetime that some of the things that I've experienced, I have
had, so to speak, right on the tip of my fingers, my spiritual
fingers, there have been times And I can put my finger on somebody,
one or two especially, when I have had the blessings of the Lord
just ready to grasp them. A deeper peace, a greater joy,
a closer walk with Him. You know what I'm saying when
I'm talking about blessings? And I've let them slip. They
just slipped away to my own grief and years later I'm still grieving
about it. And I look back on that life
and it's an agony to me. It grieves me. It's a burden
to me to think about what I have lost. What I could have gained. What I had gained and lost. What
I could have gained and never gained. And it comes back to
this one thing with me in my Christian experience, and that's
my awful, awful unbelief. The agonies of my Christian experience
comes back to that. A true believer is a saved person. A true believer is a safe person. His soul is saved. His soul is safe. We stress that,
don't we? And you and I ought to believe
that because the Bible teaches that. But a true believer may,
through neglect and not walking by faith, lose so much of what
he could gain. That's what this chapter is teaching
the children of Israel. Almost every sin that we commit,
all the bad attitudes that we fall into towards one another
in our own hearts and towards the Lord, if we'll follow that
to its root, to the cause, it comes back to this one thing.
Almost every sin we commit, the root cause of it is unbelief.
It's unbelief. unbelief in a lost person, it's
devastating. I mean, it will ruin you. It
will ruin you. They that believe not on the
Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on them.
Now, that's a devastating act. To sit here tonight and not have
a heart, faith in the Son of God, that's devastating. That's
devastating. And that's where lost men are.
But saved people, the Lord's children, by their unbelief,
bring themselves into so much agony. The agony of defeat. Look here in verses 20 and through
verse 25. Look here at what I'm going to
say. Deuteronomy chapter 1 and look in verse 20. Look at this. And think about this. I'm talking
about the blessings now. I'm talking about the blessings
being right there on the tip of your finger. And losing them. Losing them. Look at what he
says in verse 20. And I said unto you, you are
come unto the mountain of the Amorites, which the Lord our
God doth give unto us. Now, this was 40 years before.
He's bringing them up. He's reminding them where they
were. It's the second generation, but he's speaking to them as
if they're the first generation. Behold, the Lord thy God hath
set the land before thee. Go up and possess it, as the
Lord God of your fathers hath said unto thee. Fear not, neither
be discouraged. And you came near unto me, every
one of you, and said, We will send men before us, and they
will search out the land and bring us word again by what way
we must go up unto the cities which we shall come." Now you
remember that. That's the spies. They're going to send the spies
in. And the saying pleased me well, and I took twelve of you,
one of a tribe, and they turned and went up into the mountain
and came into the valley of Eskol and searched it out. And they
took of the fruit of the land in their hands, and brought it
down unto us, and brought us word again, and said, It is a
good land which the Lord our God gives to us." Now imagine
this scene. Here they stand waiting for the
twelve spies to come back. They've searched out the land.
They've found fruit that these people could not even imagine
the ground could grow. They found clusters of grapes
that they had to cut huge beams to stick through for two men
to carry one cluster. Can you imagine a cluster of
grape it takes two men to carry? Jo sometimes at Walmart, she
gets those big grapes for me, about the size of a quarter.
I've never seen such grapes. But it doesn't compare with this. The fruit of the land, I don't
know what they brought back. But they could smell it. They
saw it. They handled it. They thought,
man, this is wonderful. It's a good land. It's good fruit. Isn't it amazing to be right
there? To be right there, to have it in your hands, to smell
it, to feel it. But look what happened in verse 26. Notwithstanding,
you would not go up. but rebelled against the commandment
of the Lord your God? You murmured in your tents and
said, Because the Lord hated us? He has brought us up out
of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the land of the Amorites
to destroy us? Where shall we go up? Our brethren
have discouraged our hearts, saying, The people is greater
and taller than we are. The cities are great and walled
up to heaven. And moreover, we have seen the
sons of the Anakims there. Then I said unto you, Dread not,
neither be afraid of them. The Lord your God which goeth
before you, He will fight for you according to all that He
did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness whereof
thou hast seen how the Lord thy God bare thee as a man bares
his son, and all the way that you went until you came unto
this place. Yet in this thing ye did not believe the Lord your
God." Man, they had the fruit right there. They saw the evidence
of what a good land it was. The Lord said, go possess it.
Man, I've given it to you. Go take it. It's yours. And what kept them out? We've
stressed this so many times, haven't we? They believed not
the Lord in this matter. And you know, if it would have
stopped there, if it had stopped there, And they said, Lord, we
realize we've made an awful mistake. We realize how we've grieved
you. We repent of it. And now we're going in. And the
Lord said, OK, then. You've learned your lesson. Go
in. But that's not what happened, is it? That's not what happened. Look what he said in verse 34. And the Lord heard
the voice of your words, and was wrong, and swore, saying,
Assure me, there shall not one of these men of this generation
see that good land which I swore to give unto your fathers, save
Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it to him will I
give the land that he hath trodden upon, and to his children, because
he hath followed me fully." He has followed the Lord fully.
Also, the Lord was angry with me for your sake, saying, Thou
shalt not go in hither. And why not? You know what Numbers
20 and verse 12 says? Remember what the Lord said to
Aaron and Moses? Because you believe Me not, to
sanctify Me as the waters of strife. Neither of you fellows
are going in. Verse 38, But Joshua the son
of Nun, which standeth before thee, he shall go in thither,
encourage him, for he shall call Israel to inherit it. Moreover,
your little ones, which he said should be a prey, And your children
in that day had no knowledge between good and evil. They shall
go in thither, and to them will I give it, and they shall possess
it. But as for you, turn ye, and take your journey into the
wilderness by the way of the Red Sea." And then in verse 45,
"...and ye returned, and wept before the Lord. But the Lord
would not hearken unto your voice, nor give ear." Well, that's a loss, ain't it?
That's a loss. For 40 years, they wandered in
this wilderness. They were right on the border.
Kadesh Barneau is right on the border of the land that came.
And the only thing that kept them out was their unbelief. Unbelievable. I said, Bruce, that discourages
me to death. I thought you were just going
to come here and get some encouragement and feel your burden in my poor
heart talking about these negative things. I hope it does. I hope how they felt, if the
Lord opens our hearts, to take us back through our Christian
experience, and we'll see how unbelief has treated us, how
unbelief has grieved Him, what they've robbed us from, the things
that we could have gained we lost. I hope if the Lord is pleased
to take us back over our Christian experience, and we see this,
what He showed to them, I hope we're grieved. I hope our hearts
are burdened. If these folks here, as Moses
reiterated their history and brought them to this point, if
it had not aggrieved them, if it had not aburdened them and
awoken them as to what they had done forty years early, when
they come here now to this same border, you know something? They still wouldn't have went
in. They still wouldn't have went in because they still had
the same giants to fight. They still had the same walls
to overcome. Why did they go in this time
and didn't go in the last time? You know what they said? Here's
what they said in effect, by the grace of God, we're not going
there again. We lost it last time because
of our unbelief. That's not going to happen again.
And sometimes when the Lord takes us back and shows us the agonies
of our defeat, it so makes such impression upon us, we say, not
again. Boy, that ain't going to happen
again. By God's grace, I'm not going
there again. There's times, there's things
that you and I have done in our lives, brothers and sisters,
that should grieve us very much. Because we learn a lesson from
that. We learn never, never, never to do that again. Never
go there again. I remember when I was in eighth
grade, I've told you this I think before, but I tell you this made
such an impression upon me. We were in a basketball tournament.
Eighth grade. Biggest tournament I was ever
in in my life. They invited us to this tournament. One of the
biggest in the state. We didn't think there was any way we could
get to the finals, but we did. Beat some good teams. Got in
the finals. There was ten seconds to go.
You say, Bruce, you remember that that long ago? Ten seconds
to go. We had the ball, and we was down one point. We called
a timeout. The coach said, Bruce, you bring
the ball in. There was a guy over to my left. I know exactly
where I was standing. I was supposed to throw the ball
to him. My mind went blank. I tried to throw it over this
big guy's head to one of our little guys, and the big guy
jumped and got it. They beat us by one point. I've
agonized over that ever since. Now, ain't that silly? You say,
Bruce, that's the silliest thing I ever heard. But you know what
I learned from that? I learned how to inbound the
ball. I never remembered throw another
ball away. I lost that game. Biggest game
we ever played in in my life. What am I saying? What am I saying? Retrospect. The agonist of defeat. When the Lord puts His finger
on things in our lives that grieves us, where we've grieved Him,
where we've lost what we should have gained, and when we agonize
over It brings us to repentance. It brings us to sorrow over it
doesn't. But if it does, we won't learn
a thing from our past. Let me show you a couple of scriptures
right quick. Hold Deuteronomy chapter 1. Look over in 2 John. Look in 2 John. Look in verse 8. Look at this. 2 John. Go to 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John,
then 2 John in verse 8. Look to yourselves. Look to yourselves. In other words, keep yourselves
in the love of God. Look to yourselves. Keep your
heart with all diligence. Look to yourselves. Be sober.
Be diligent. That we lose not those things
which we have gained, wrought, but that we receive a full reward. How are we going to receive a
full reward? I tell you, it's going to take some soberness,
diligence, carefulness. I want a full reward, don't you?
I'm not talking about out yonder now. I'm talking about here.
I'm talking about a full reward here. The full assurance of understanding. The full assurance of hope? The
full assurance of faith? These words have I spoken unto
you that my joy might remain in you? Is it possible for His
joy not to remain in us? I'd say it would be, wouldn't
you? Have you ever lost the joy of your salvation? David did,
didn't he? And that your joy might be full. A full reward. But I tell you what will strip
us of that. You can feel it right on the end of your fingers and
it's gone. It's gone. And that's unbelief. That's unbelief. And Peter said, and Larry's going
to cover this in 2 Peter 3, he closed with this very thought
in mind. Be careful. Be sober. Be diligent. Look to yourself.
Look to your ways. that you be led away with the
error of the wicked, and fall from your own steadfastness,
but grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. So that's the first thing. That's
a negative thing. But you know negatives help us,
don't they? Negative things help us. We know that because that's
what we see in Deuteronomy chapter 1. I imagine as Moses was relating
this to these fellows, boy, their hearts were so burdened. Don't
you think? But they determined this will never happen again
by God's grace. Look back over again in Deuteronomy chapter
1, right quickly. Deuteronomy chapter 1. Let's
look at something else. Something else. And this is the
positive aspect of it. This book of remembrance. They
need to learn this lesson. Learn the negative aspect, the
agony of defeat. Let it not be repeated. But here's
something else that they needed to learn, too. Strengthen their
faith. Comfort their hearts. And I tell
you, get rid of this attitude of mistrust towards the Lord. They had an attitude of mistrust.
Every time they got in trouble, what was that one favorite thing
they said? You brought us out here to kill us? Do you ever
mistrust the Lord when you get in trouble? Do you ever doubt
Him and think, He brought me out here to kill me? He brought
me out here to slay me? The disciples thought that when
the Lord said, Get in the ship, we're going to cross to the other
side. They got out in the middle of this storm coming, they woke
Him up and said, Don't you care? You're the one that told us to
come out here and you don't care? We're about to perish and you
don't care? Do you ever get in that attitude? Maybe this will help us get out
of that attitude. Maybe this will help us. Remember
now, this is 40 years later here that Moses is speaking to these
people. He's took them back, leaving out of the land of Egypt.
And he's going to remind them of all the agony. He's going
to remind them of some of the victories they had. All the ins,
all the outs, all the ups, all the downs. And all the way, here's
the first thing, all the way, right down to this present time
that he was talking about, the Lord knew exactly where they
were. The Lord knows exactly where
they are. Now, look in verse 1. Look here
in verse 1. Deuteronomy chapter 1 and look
in verse 1. These be the words which Moses
spake unto all Israel. Where was he at when he spoke
that? On this side of Jordan. Can you get a little bit more
specific than that? Okay. He was in the wilderness.
He was in the wilderness. On this side of Jordan in the
wilderness. Can you get a little bit more specific? and the plain
over against the Red Sea. Can you even get more specific
than that? Yes, it was between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban,
and Hazeroth, and Dezahab. Boy, that's pretty specific,
ain't it? Where were these people? They
knew where they were, but more importantly, the Lord wanted
them to know that He knew were they were. What have some of you gone through
in the last five years, or the last forty years, or thirty-five
years? You a child of God? If the Lord pressed it up on
your memory to show you some of the ups and downs in your
Christian experience, how would you feel? I'd say there'd be some griefs
as well as joys, wouldn't there? There'd be some tears as well
as laughter. But here's the thing to remember. Sitting here at this very present
moment, our sovereign Lord and Redeemer knows exactly where
you are. He knows exactly where you are. Bruce, after all I've been through,
all of this, he knows exactly where you are. He knows what
country you live in. He knows what state. He knows
what county. He knows what city you're in
right now. He knows what building you're
in. Shannon, he knows the very chairs you're sitting in. You and your ways, where you
are, are not hid from Now, there's some comfort in that. I can't
explain all that, but there's some comfort in that. Where shall
I go from Your presence? Where shall I flee from Your
Spirit? In heaven? You're there. In hell? You're there. Take the wings
of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the earth?
You're there. And here's what else He said about that. behind and before, and you've
laid your hand upon Me. There's not a word in My mouth,
but lo, you know it. And you are acquainted with all
My ways." He knows where you're at. Exactly where you are. And when you leave this building
and go your way tonight, He knows exactly where you are then. He
knows where you are. Now, that's got to be some comfort
for us, isn't it? After all we've gone through,
all we've experienced, all the ups and downs, the good and the
bad, He knows exactly where we are. That's the first thing. The second
thing is this. This is something else they need
to know and remember. The Lord knows all the way they
take. He knows the way that they take.
He knows the way they took. He knows the way they take. He
knows when they left some place. He knows where they're going
to. He knows how long it's going to take to get there. And look
what He says here in verse 2. There are eleven days' journey
from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir unto Kadesh I wonder why
would the Holy Spirit put that in there? I mean, why does that matter
to us 3,500 years or so later? Well, here's why it matters to
them, and here's why it matters to us. The Lord know knew exactly
where they left from. He knew the way that they were
going to take. And he knew exactly how long
they would be in going. Why is this so important? Well,
look over here in verse 19. They left Horeb, going to Kadesh
Barnea. What was between Horeb and Kadesh
Barnea? What do you think was between
those two places? Well, look what he said. And when we departed
from Horeb, We went through all that great and terrible wilderness,
which you saw by the way of the mountain of the Amorites, as
the Lord our God commanded us, and we came into Kadesh Barnea." Why was it important for them
to know that the Lord knew which way they were taken and exactly
how long they would be in taking? This was a bad wilderness, brothers
and sisters. We're told that there were pits, there were pits
in this world, slime pits. There were scorpions hiding in
the sand. There were these fiery serpents. There was miles and miles where
there was no water, there was no food to eat. This was a waste,
howling, waste-bearing wilderness. And don't you think there had
to be some comfort when they knew that the Lord knew the very
way that they were taken? And just exactly how long it
was going to take them to get there? What if some of you go
right back to this again? What if some of you went through?
What if some of you suffered in your Christian life? Doesn't
it comfort you to know that the Lord knows the way that you're
taken? and how long you're going to
have to be where you're at right now. You don't know. You don't know how long it's
going to take to get out of this valley you're in. You don't know
how long it's going to take to get to the top of this hill that
you're climbing. But He knows. He knows. Ain't that confidence? I don't travel as well as I used
to. I used to, I could take off late in the evening and drive
all night. Stay up all the next day and sleep the next night. I can't do that anymore. I've
come back from Don Fortner's not too many weeks ago. Left late from the meeting on
Sunday night. And I said, man, I ain't gonna
make it. I ain't gonna make it. But I finally got to Madison,
Indiana. And I know exactly how many miles
it is from Madison to my house. I know exactly how long it takes
me to get from Madison to my house. And because I knew that,
I said, I can make it. If I didn't know how far it was,
I think, well, I can't make it. Because I don't know. But I know. I know how long it's going to
take me. I know how many miles. Isn't it comforting, brothers
and sisters, though we don't know? We don't know exactly the
way we're taken. He leads the blind by a way that
they know not. And He knows exactly how long
it's going to take you to get from one point to the next to
the next. And if He knows, though I don't
know, that's enough for me. That's enough for you, isn't
it? The Lord was riding to the church
of Sermon. And He said, the devil is going
to cast some of you into prison. I'm going to give him permission
to do that. Satan is going to cast some of you into prison.
And you're going to be tried. And you're going to have tribulation.
Boy, that's a rough road there. That's a wilderness. He's going
to put you in a desert in a wilderness. And you shall have tribulation,
listen to this, ten days. They wouldn't have known that
if the Lord hadn't told them. And they wouldn't have known
He knew it if He hadn't told them. But don't you imagine it
was comforting to them to know this was going to happen? And
the Lord knew this was going to happen? And He knew how long
it was going to last? If the Lord hadn't told them
that, my, they'd have been so confused. The first day, they'd
have thought, well, I can't take this. I can't take this. Who
knows when this is going to end? But ten days? Yeah, I can take
ten days. And the Lord says here in verse
30 that He knew the exact time, He knew the exact time, the month
and the day, Boy, he knew all about them then. And it came
to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, and on
the first day of the month. In other words, he knows all
about us. He knows the way we take. He
knows who we are. That knowledge is wonderful for
us, but it's very comforting to us. And since our Lord knows
all of these things, and He's so careful to watch over us,
and watch over our ways and knows our time, and looking back as
these Jews did, here is our plain and simple duty. And I don't
know the better word to use. Here is our plain and simple
duty. In all of this, here is the conclusion that it brings
us to. Simply to obey the Lord, in a
childlike trust and dependence upon Him to lead us all the way
of our Christian journey. This is why I've come to the
conclusion of this. What if they had leaned upon
the Lord in a simple childlike trust? They'd have never wandered
in that wilderness for forty years. They'd have went in to
begin with. There are young Christians, there
are older Christians that are filled with doubts and fears.
They don't have the peace, they don't have the joy, they don't
have the assurance that they could have. And the reason they
don't have it is because they have not brought their hearts
to fully and a childlike trust rely upon the Lord Jesus Christ
and take His Word for their rule of faith and practice. That would have solved all their
problems, would it not? And He said, look in verse 6
and verse 7, and I'll close with this. The Lord our God spake
unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this
mount. Turn you and take your journey,
and go this way, and go that way. And what was their duty? Simply to believe Him. Simply
to trust Him. Simply to obey Him. If they did
not, when He spake to them, if they said, I think we want to
stay a couple of more days around this mountain, you know something? The pill is gone. The cloud is
gone. They're there by themselves without
the manifestation of His presence. So what is the remedy? What's
our duty? What's our joy? It's when He
speaks to us in a childlike trust, obey Him and follow Him. Trust and obey. There's no other
way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. You say, Bruce, we don't have
a pillar of fire to lead us. We don't have this cloud. How
in the world are we going to follow Him? Brothers and sisters,
I cannot believe that God, who guided them by these means, is
not able to guide us today. I think the means that He's given
to guide us is much better than the means He gives to guide them.
What means do we have? How does He speak to us? How
does He guide us? Don't He do it by His Word? All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God, and it's profitable for doctrine, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness, that the man of God, the children
of God, may be perfect, thoroughly furnished in every good work. There's not a time in your life,
in your situation, the Word of God cannot guide you. It's an infallible rule of your
faith and your practice. Just open it up, read it slowly,
read it proudly, and ask Him for grace to be so convicted
of the truth of it that you won't even think of going contrary
to it. Everything He tells you, you
believe it and you obey Him in it. He gives us His Word. He
leads us by His Holy Spirit, does He not? He said, when the Spirit of Truth
is come, when He's come to your heart, when I send Him into your
heart, crying, Father, Father, He's going to guide you. He's going to lead you in what?
All truth. He's going to guide you in the
truth. If you be led of the Spirit,
you're not under the law. We have the Spirit of God in
our hearts. Brothers and sisters, haven't
you found Him to be a sufficient rule, a good rule? And there's another good rule
too. And that's the rule of this divine nature, the instinct of
this new nature that God has put in our heart. If any man
be in Christ, he's a new creature. I will give you one heart and
one way that they may fear me forever. Haven't you found that
there is something in you now, since the Lord has saved you
and made you a new creature, haven't you found there is something
in you that loves the truth and loves to walk in the truth? What
is that? It's just divine nature. And these three, the Word, the
Spirit, and this new nature, They're in harmony. They never
go contrary to each other. You don't get some kind of a
silly impression and hear voices and go off and do something stupid
contrary to the Word of God. The Spirit rules us by the Word
and according to the Word, and this new man, this new creature,
He submits. So we have a rule don't we? The
Lord guides us. He leads His dear children. I
hope that was a blessing to you. If you'll study the second chapter
next time, read the first chapter again and study the second chapter.