Jack Jurgens's Ministry Library

Panel discussion.

[0:01] We’re going to read together from 2nd Timothy by way of reference and I think every meeting should be a Word of God meeting, so it would be odd if we didn’t read something from the Bible.

[0:33] So the Apostolic Age was really coming to a close and with the end of the Apostolic Age there was a great emphasis going to be made on the Word of God.

[0:46] So let’s just read first of all in 2 Timothy 1.13 where he says to Timothy to whom he was committing this great trust, hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

[2:08] The Word. And the Lord always blesses to us, of course, the reading of His Word.

[3:35] But I have to tell you that’s not exactly what Paul is saying when he says, hold the traditions. When he says hold, he’s using a word take hold of, possess, the, handing down, which I suppose what a tradition is, but of course in apostolic literature, it’s the idea of apostolic instructions. So what he’s saying is, hold apostolic instructions, hold the ordinances, hold the traditions. This is 1 Corinthians 11 2. And in 1 Corinthians 11 2, we’re to keep the ordinances. It’s a different word, the idea is we’re to retain them, we’re not to let them slip. So what he’s emphasizing in each of those is this, the absolute importance of apostolic teaching for us to keep, to hold, and not to let slip. And in actual fact, we’re to withdraw ourselves, he says in 2 Thessalonians 3, 6, we’re to withdraw ourselves from every brother who walks disorderly, and not after the traditions, the ordinances which he received of us.

[4:46] And so in those passages where he speaks about ordinances, and I’ve just picked those out, they are the three in the New Testament, but I’ve just picked them out as a useful start point, the absolute imperative of the Word of God, the imperative of keeping the Word of God and holding to it.

[5:48] For accurate gospel doctrine. So, if you read in church history and you read all that’s gone on, what you’re reading about is the fact that there were great divisions over what the Bible meant, when it spoke about justification by faith, what it meant in all those areas of gospel truth that we love. And we say, quite rightly, that it’s important that we have that, as it were, nailed down. That’s not a biblical expression, there are no Greek words for that. But to have the doctrine of the gospel firmly in our mind. But if we just say, we must have the doctrine of the gospel firmly in our minds, and it doesn’t matter too much about other stuff, then in actual fact, we’re not doing ourselves any favours. Now, I’m talking a lot, I don’t really mean to.

[7:10] I don’t know. No, thank you. Anything on that? Yeah, no, I like the way how you introduced it, and I would add, you know, Jude speak of the faith that was passed, and Paul in 2 Timothy speaks of good things, or good deposit, chapter one, so that is the apostolical tradition, and what today we called scripture.

[7:34] Now, maybe I’d like to go to a next step and then maybe see if we agree.

[8:35] We consider them secondary issues.

[9:08] Guns at the ready.

[10:09] Do we do that today? Well, I’m not sure what you’re suggesting.

[10:17] From Acts, I see that, yeah. Okay, I wouldn’t see that. Now, for all that, it wasn’t until the Apostle Paul came along that the foundation of local church truth was laid.

[11:45] Where the believers at Troas met together on the first day of the week to break bread.

[12:54] A person may be Christian and not hold to the view that we see taught in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy, but it would be very difficult to be in the same.

[13:55] My truth, your truth. So people say, oh, well, that’s my truth.

[14:50] Which might be somewhere around here on display, if I remember correctly.

[16:13] So you come out at the end of that concert, not that I’ve ever listened to it or whatever you do, I don’t know what you do to that, but you come out at the end of the concert.

[16:24] And you say, what does that mean to you? And someone would say, oh, it means peace.

[16:40] Everybody’s right. Nobody’s wrong. So you can’t judge me. So people talk about you need to be non-judgmental. That’s an atheistic mindset, to be non-judgmental. We do judge ourselves and we know there are standards by the Word of God. Now the great… sorry about for that big diversion, which is not really, it’s now coming back in, which is this, that it’s ever so possible when we come to the Bible to say, well that’s my truth. That’s the way I see it. And if you don’t see it, say, well that’s okay, or this is my truth, or this is your truth. And we end up thinking what that is, is that one opinion is as good as another. Actually, that isn’t true.

[18:08] It won’t really do to come to scripture and see it as a Monet artwork, just impressionistic.

[18:22] Because of this, this, this. We compare this scripture with that scripture we recognize.

[19:51] The Bible speaks to us about our personal lives, we’ve been thinking about that, so when it comes to our personal behavior, our living, we need to accurately to understand scripture in relation to that. But then there’s a whole range of truth regarding the local assembly.

[20:09] And as it is that we read about the local assembly, so it is that we really will want to understand what the Bible has to say in relation to it, because this is also really, really important. So we’re living in a day when a whole lot of Christians don’t think twice about where they go to church. They like the pastor, we’ll go there. We like the singing, we’ll go there. They’ve got a great band, we’ll go there. There won’t be anyone coming to Midland Park for that put. Not at the moment, hopefully never. You weren’t there last night, must be. I was. Fantastic.

[21:25] Say that the whole of God’s word is important and therefore those same things, those same principles of understanding, we apply to our understanding of the local church. So we take notice a thing like this. This is God’s house, not the building. But the local church is in character house of God. So what that means is that we’re not here just for us. We’re, secondary in the whole event. Actually, the local church is for God.

[22:12] The local church is firstly for God.

[22:16] At the local church is of course comprised of his people, saved and baptized.

[22:36] Yeah, I think it’s just an important point like, you know, you Many of us have heard ministry like Shammah defending the lentils or earnestly contending for the faith or Naboth refusing to sell the field.

[23:48] There are certain things that we do in our house and there are certain things that we do not do in our house. And I bear in mind that one day I’ll be responsible to the Lord for what we allow, what we don’t allow in our house. So if you, If you come to my house with your muddy shoes on, as a stupid example, but if you come to my house with muddy shoes on because you’ve been walking over what we call the South Downs, just outside my town, the highest chalk cliffs along the south coast of England, don’t say it’s nowhere near as high as the Grand Canyon, it’s not, okay?

[25:01] So it’s not just simply that I live there. Now I might say to you, oh come and stay with us.

[26:15] So, you come to the Bible, and that’s how it is, and you recognize therefore that what’s important is not what you want, and it’s not your own personal predilection, but the thing that you earnestly desire is that which glorifies God. And how do you know what glorifies God? You know what glorifies God because Actually, it’s revealed in his word. Mm-hmm.

[26:49] Yeah, very good. So you read the Bible and you see there are certain things that are to pertain in the local church.

[27:17] The local church must be a place where it is possible for spiritual gift to be exercised.

[28:22] And the women didn’t look like you women are dressed.

[29:16] You see, I moved from Albina to Northern Ireland, and I told them that the sisters don’t wear hats in our meeting.

[30:00] Yeah, so that’s an example of that. I did preach in Northern Ireland once that I thought a veil was actually better than a hat. I’ve sat in meetings and I’ve had hats in front of me where I thought there might be a bird nesting in them. And it seems to me that doesn’t quite have the spirit of head covering teaching, that they didn’t quite appreciate it, to be quite honest with you. But this is a serious matter. I don’t mean to make it light. The point being that the head covering, the head is covered in Albania in that way. And so.

[30:42] That might be a difference and a distinction. I travel to Sri Lanka and in Sri Lanka, you know I’m traveling from the rich West and I’m traveling to a totally impoverished country. I’m out with believers where they have nothing, I mean they have nothing. We were preaching the gospel three years ago probably now, at a man’s house who had fairly recently been saved. It was a brick house that had been built by a charity. The night before we got there wild elephants had, got to the house, they’d smelt grain, they tried to get the grain, they tried to push the house over to get the grain, suddenly realized these elephants that there was a grain store down the road and they went and demolished this brother’s grain store. So, we’re preaching the gospel and I had to tell you, you know, he was… I didn’t think for a moment about what he was wearing. I, actually do at home, but I didn’t think about what he was wearing because actually all he was wearing was all he had.

[31:45] I looked at the man and I thought, this is amazing, he was as happy as today and tomorrow and eternity that the gospel was being preached under his awning of his house and all these Muslim and Buddhist and Catholic neighbours were all there hearing the gospel.

[33:00] At every time, in every generation, in every circumstance.

[33:58] So, under that you can’t pick and choose what biblical principles to uphold.

[35:04] The other thing, I think this is diminishing, but the other side of it is that biblical principle can be applied in a very iron-fisted, legalistic way. And what that does is diminish the principle that you’re seeking to uphold. So here’s an example. There was a great brother, he’s with the Lord now, called Mr. Fred Clulow, and he was in the Cloughfern Assembly in Belfast, And he had a great Belfast sense of humour.

[36:05] And I think that’s probably not just in Belfast, but that’s happened.

[36:24] But they were insisting beyond that. And what they were doing was insisting that women should have their heads covered on the way to the meeting.

[37:42] Well, I’ll tell you one. I think you both got wedding rings on. I don’t. That’s because…

[38:17] Yeah, please. And if you’d come in Albania without a wedding ring, you’ll be considered a very dodgy man if you’re married, because you’re not trying to tell others that you’re married.

[39:23] A big one that maybe gets used and then undermined is the one on order. Perhaps you’ve heard that quite a bit that everything needs to be done in order. Like I know cultures where that is applied to mean that the men and women should sit on opposite sides of an auditorium because it will be distracting and if they’re together. And I’m not saying that shouldn’t happen in certain cultures, if that’s what they do, but you can understand why bringing that over to a culture where, or enforcing that on another, you could see how that’s going beyond whether it’s order or, that principle, 1 Corinthians. Yeah, so legality is not obedience to what is written, but it’s an insistence on going beyond what is written. So what that means is this, that we have a duty to obey God in all that he’s taught but to do so in a balanced manner. So we make sure we don’t fall short.

[40:24] So if the Bible… just come back to this matter of head coverings because it’s a, bit of a hot potato in certain parts and in certain circumstances. If we come back, to what the Bible says about head coverings, which by the way apply to the men as much as to the women, that the men are not to have head coverings, the women are to have head coverings in meetings. If we come back to that, it’s, possible to say, well, hmm, yeah, okay, but I feel very uncomfortable wearing a head covering at a gospel meeting.

[40:59] But there’s a principle underlying all of this, which is that whenever it is that we gather together in the presence of God, that’s the principle, that when we gather together, in the presence of God, that men should have their heads uncovered and women should really have their heads covered.

[42:23] So I’m just stating it as I see it. There is an undergirding principle on 1 Corinthians 11. I believe that to be the case.

[43:49] Because maybe we’re directing here, but you’re rooting here.

[44:13] They took up polos, and they were expounding scripture to him.

[45:04] Now, let’s go back to the wedding. Okay.

[45:48] You have a couple, right? And they get married and to the gospel hall, right? She’s from wherever, he’s from wherever, come together, all the assembly come together, visitors and whatever.

[46:14] In the New Testament, or in Google Fox, or elsewhere.

[47:28] And that means we have the liberty. So brother so-and-so and sister so-and-so who got married in registry office are as married as myself who got married in the Gospel Hall.

[48:53] So to me, a letter of commendation is a very good practice.

[49:00] But if anybody says we cannot receive anybody without a letter of commendation, they’re going beyond what the scripture teaches about letters of commendation.

[50:04] Because the principle is not that you’re received only with a letter of commendation, the principle is that you are received on the basis of who you are, the life you’re living and all those sorts of things, a letter of commendation just makes that easier. So what I’m saying is this, it is good practice, but if there is an iron insistence that you cannot be received without a letter, you’re going beyond what Scripture says. Now, not many people are nodding on that, but I want you to think about that. I am not trying to diminish the value of a letter of commendation. I really am not, but it can be diminished by insisting on something that Scripture doesn’t actually teach as a principle. So it’s good practice. Do you Do you want to say anything on that?

[51:12] Today, we have emails, we have phone calls, we have, I don’t know, And that letter was there to make sure that the brother or the sister or the person was going to be accepted in this new place where he was going, that he was a real Christian and he was not there as an imposter.

[51:37] The same principle applies. So the way of communications have changed today, have improved, so why not use them?

[52:20] Good. Now, examples could be multiplied. It’s probably not a good idea to do it, but examples could be multiplied.

[53:46] And those things that I won’t do, it’s not because there’s a law against them.

[54:23] And where it is that there is loyalty to Christ, there’s a desire to please Him.

[55:40] Well, I’ve got one more point, which is this, let us make sure that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[55:49] So, are we living in a changing world? We are. Are things likely to change in our outworking of principle as time goes by?

[57:14] It seems to me that like, it seems to me, just if I can understand the balanced spiritual believer, that person would probably be called both a liberal and a, legalist, because they’re in neither camp, right?

[57:41] So it’d be a very uncomfortable position to be a balanced believer.

Stamp eternity on me.

[0:00] Close out my little sketch on godliness. I admit that that’s what it’s been, an amateur sketch, but it has been a burden on my own heart personally, and hopefully it will be a blessing to especially those of you who are younger.

[0:54] But refuse profane and old wives’ fables and exercise, discipline thyself rather unto godliness, for bodily exercise profiteth little.

[1:47] If godliness, as I hope you would have agreed with me, is a great need, a crying need in our country for godliness, and yet if it’s a very difficult thing as we try to look at, like, if we take some of those things on board, it’s going to mean practically making real changes in our everyday schedule to make time for disciplines of prayer, Bible reading, and loads of other things that we didn’t mention.

[3:02] And then the incentive made him make radical changes in his life.

[4:16] 4, verse 8, because bodily exercise, perhaps referring to some of the things being talked about in the background here in 1 Timothy, some of those fastings and don’t eat these foods and keep these holy days. He said bodily training, bodily discipline profits. It has some benefit for a little, but godliness is profitable unto all things. Then he’s going to explain that.

[5:38] Were you intended to live for your family? The Bible says we were made by Him, through Him, for Him. Godliness frees a person to live as they were intended to live.

[6:13] That’s ridiculous. In fact, that’s probably ungodliness. You should be a good steward when you’re a biology student, right? Nor am I saying that when somebody is godly—I would never want to give this impression. I hope that the challenge has been heard, by the way, during the conference, that there may be, young men, young women, families here who the Lord is calling, and if they were to take godliness seriously and see themselves in the sight of God, the Lord is calling to devote themselves to serving in a different way. But please understand godliness has far more to do in preaching and teaching. Godliness comes right down to how you go to work on Monday. Says the Apostle in Ephesians 6, he says that when a person goes to work who’s godly, they don’t do it with eye service. As a man pleaser, they serve Christ when they’re going to work from their heart. So please understand that godliness is far more than just preaching and teaching, which is a very specific group of people who God is so gifted to do that. Please understand it has to do with the wife, and has to do with the mother, and has to do with the person who’s going to work, or the student in school. And it has a promise for the life that now is, that I will be what would change my marriage, what would make my marriage the marriage it was intended to be.

[7:36] It would change greatly if I was more godly.

[7:43] And it would change greatly if you were more godly. And we sacrifice that, and we fill that, and substitute that, and supplement that with, all the other things to our own detriment.

[8:31] But then imagine if you were more godly, in your assembly, like imagine how it would change our conversations.

[9:50] And then they’re all worried about this giant, this man of war from his youth.

[10:26] And David said he’s so big, I couldn’t miss.

[11:25] He understood that Christian life, and you read through the New Testament, Christian life must be lived through the lens of eternity, with an eternal perspective.

[12:17] But if you’re wrong, you’ve lost everything.

[13:38] We preach eternity. Honestly now, I don’t—I wonder if we were to take a poll.

[14:21] But you’re still going to have to preach the word, because there’s one who is ready to judge, and you’re preaching ultimately for him. And this is about eternity, Timothy. And the apostle, as he faced all kinds of things, the Apostle Paul, judgments that were coming. Are you really an apostle? He said, listen, it’s a small thing if you judge. I don’t even, I’m not even the final judge myself. It’s almost like the Apostle Paul consistently was living like this thing from Jonathan Edwards. Eternity imprinted, stamped on the eyeball. That’s pretty vivid, right?

[15:35] And Paul says, no, it’s not about this life. It’s about eternity! Eternity!

[17:03] You see, we’re all going to enjoy heaven, but we’re not all going to enjoy it to the same extent.

[17:11] Please understand, like I can’t live the way I’m living and one day get to heaven and say, Paul, you and I are going to enjoy heaven the exact same.

[18:32] Someone has said, five minutes inside eternity. Now again, I don’t know how much shame we will have, but he put it like this, five minutes inside eternity.

[19:17] Are you happy with how you’re living? Says the apostle, godliness has profit.

[20:32] But, but, ah, I just don’t know how to bring it up. Now, I don’t want to come up with just some simplistic answer, but one thing that’s helped me is thinking about eternity, that my neighbor is actually going to a place where the fire never quenches. And the worm doesn’t die.

[20:57] And a co-worker and a friend. Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.

[22:16] Yet. You know a great perspective to see trials? Eternity. Says the Apostle Paul this in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4, therefore we do not lose heart. Though, our outer man is decaying, the trial of persecution, yet our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but the things which are unseen.

[23:20] And you can see how the hymn writers could say that they’re sweet, the trials that the Lord sends.

[23:53] And you never thought you’d get a little bit more pat on the backs. You thought you’d have a little bit more encouragement for what you’re doing. But no, you haven’t had that. And maybe you’re thinking of just of just letting it all go. None of the results are happening. More people are leaving. Nobody’s being saved. Those who are saved are not being taught. They’re going other places.

[25:12] And so we live for eternity, brothers and sisters. That’s what we live for, not for here and now.

[25:35] It says, I’ll just read it to you here. It says that he was a faithful missionary who the Lord over in Africa for 40 years. He recalled an emotional day when he and his wife boarded a ship on their way home to the United States. His mind was flooded with memories of the wonderful experiences they had enjoyed on the mission field, and he began wondering what it would be like to return to his Midwest hometown, and will anyone be there to remember us and speak with us.

[26:46] With a heavy and discouraged heart, Henry Morrison went to the hotel room that day, and he told his wife this, Honey, for forty years we have poured our lives into this ministry and service.

[27:25] Eternity. It’s going to count in eternity.

Christ looked to the things.

[0:00] Now, I want to read two well-known verses and to indicate this afternoon that the one is the answer to the other.

[0:59] And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. Now the Lord has blessed us the reading of, his Word. I want to make a general point before I come into the particulars of Philippians 2 first of all, which is this, that whatever the difficulty amongst believers, whatever the problem is in assembly life, and they do arise from time to time, the answer is always found in the person of Christ.

[1:46] And that what you find in New Testament epistles is that the greatest Christology, the greatest teaching about the person and the work of Christ is found in the most practical, of passages. This indicates to us that Christian doctrine, theology if you like, Christian doctrine.

[2:09] Is not some high-blown, far-off, distant thing that we’ll only grasp if we’re that way inclined, so much as we are discovering that the greatest, highest, most glorious truth about the person of Christ will speak to us in our circumstances, whatever they be, and in particular where there difficulties in assembly life. In Philippi there were difficulties, they weren’t as great as they were in Corinth, for instance, or in the Galatian churches, but in Philippi there were two sisters, you may remember, and I don’t know what the problem was. I’ve been in many discussions where people were saying, I wonder what the problem was? Of course, the fact is that the Bible doesn’t reveal what the problem was between Euodia and Syntyche, and I suppose that if it was important to know we’d be told, but the point of the matter is this, that there was difficulty between them who had previously worked well together. And the great possibility was that there would be people lining up in cliques or in party spirit behind the one and the other. So Paul’s writing from prison in Rome and as he’s writing to them, these believers whom he’s been amongst and who he dearly loves, he wants to encourage them not to be like that.

[3:39] It’s a poor thing when as believers we’re like that, if that’s the case.

[4:31] So the mind that he’s encouraging his people to have is not to look on our own things, not to look to our own advantage, not to look to my own furtherance.

[4:45] Nor to look to the furtherance simply of those who are in my little clique, God forbid that there should be such a thing, but in my little clique or my little party.

[5:27] How it was that this was Christ’s mind to look not on his own things but actually and also to look, on the things of others. By the way, you ought to be interested because we are the others, isn’t that something? We are the others. He’s going to tell us that he did not look to his own things, but he looked on things for our advantage, for our benefit, for our blessing.

[6:25] Now, I want to ask you to really try to concentrate on this because the next bit is fairly tightly argued.

[6:45] And what he’s saying in that verse at the beginning, in speaking about Christ Jesus, he says of him who being in the form of God. And there are two great matters, two great words that we need to consider in that expression. The first of them is the word being. Aren’t Bible readings wonderful places, by the way, where lots of words come up that our brethren use and none of us have a clue what the word means, in normal circumstances, but they are seemingly Bible-reading reserved words, and a brother says something, and everybody says Amen, and if you say to them at the end of the meeting, what did that word mean? They’re likely to say, not sure. Did it add clarity? Hmm. Was it in the aorist? That’s a cracker. Which aorist?

[7:57] Thank you very much, brother. That was really helpful.

[8:03] Whether or not it’s true, well, it is true, really. But this is the word I want us to think about first, being.

[9:09] So what Paul is marking, as he’s going to speak on the matter of humility and thinking on the things of others, is this simple yet really profound point, that our Savior knew no beginning of existence.

[9:48] And not only does being, subsisting, also point back the way, but what it’s saying is that this actually was true of Him in time.

[10:13] When our Savior was walking up the main street in Nazareth, or in the carpenter’s shop, or standing in Jordan, or whether it was that he was prostrate in Gethsemane, or bearing our sins in his own body on the tree, our Savior was subsisting in the form of God, who being in the form of God, it looks to the past, it speaks of him in time. It’s true of him now. We realize this, that, Colossians, in Paul in Colossians 2, he’s going to speak of the fact that in him dwelleth, all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He’s really saying that’s true now.

[11:40] Now, the idea in that is not just mere appearance. That won’t really fit, for a variety of reasons.

[12:50] Can I just ask you all, on matters like this, on matters like sovereignty and responsibility, that those sorts of areas where there is an interface between time and eternity, Let’s not try to reduce that to human logic. Let us not rationalize our way through that. There are things in the Bible you will not understand by, endeavoring to comprehend them in your mind. There is a principle in the Bible, that it is that by faith we understand. Now that’s a really important thing. Do, know, every conjecture that was made about Christ was wrong. They supposed him to be the son of Joseph, wrong. They supposed him to be in the company, wrong.

[14:00] Apart from amazing grace, he wrote, what think ye of Christ is the test. To try both your state and your scheme, you cannot be right in the rest if you fail to think rightly of him. Listen very carefully.

[14:23] Not only did he never cease to be God, but deity remained undiminished in him.

[14:45] Also means this, that our Savior became really and truly man and the fact that he was God did not elevate in any way his true humanity. So don’t try and explain that, I’m just telling you what the Bible teaches. So here’s one glorious person, from Bethlehem onwards two whole and perfect natures were found in him. Now what Paul’s saying here in Philippians 2 is this, who being in the form of God. Now what about it? When he says look, who being in the form of God and he’s now looking back to an eternity past, he says who being in the form of God, he says he thought it not robbery to be on, listen carefully, to be on equalities, it’s a plural word, to be on equalities with God. So then you say, well what on earth does that mean? Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be on equality

[17:06] And you say, yes, we know that. Well, think about it. He was in a place that was proper or appropriate for the outshining of all his glory. I think it’s Bishop Lightfoot, in his commentary on Philippians who says something like this, that there belonged to him all the outward insignia of divine glory and majesty. And you.

[17:36] Think about that and you say, yes that would be true. Well good, we’re on the same sheet here, it was true. You see, and the fact that our Savior was there with the outshining of Godhead glory, because he’s in the form of God, he’s truly God, because our Savior was there and there was all this outshining of glory, don’t, think for one moment that that wasn’t proper. It was his, it rightly belonged to him. So when Paul says, he thought it not robbery to be equal with God, you do pretty well if you just stick with the text of the King James Version, because, it’s exactly expressing the idea. Let me put it to you like this, suppose at the end of the meeting you were to walk off with your Bible in your hand into the car park and away you go. You know, no one is going to think a thing about it.

[18:41] But if at the end of the meeting you picked up my Bible by chance, or not, not that I want to, suggest any bad motives with anybody, suppose you picked up my Bible, I wouldn’t worry too much in the sense that this is not my noted Bible, there are one or two notes front and back, as you’ll see in an hour and 20 minutes or something, but suppose that was my noted Bible at home, and you picked it up at the end of the meeting and you walked off with my Bible with any number of notes in it, I would be out in that car park and I would be chasing you and I would be calling after you and I’d be throwing myself on your vehicle because what had happened was this, you had robbed me, you had taken something that didn’t belong to you. If I was carrying that Bible out at the end of the meeting, that you wouldn’t raise an eyebrow, because it’s mine, you wouldn’t think it was robbery that I was taking what was really mine.

[19:47] So what the apostle is saying here is this, that our Saviour thought it not robbery to to be on equalities with God, because the fact of the matter is this, that rightly belonged to him.

[20:57] And it was. But he didn’t say that and he didn’t think that. So the mind that was in Christ Jesus was this, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be on equality with God, but he made himself of no reputation. I’m really glad now that this isn’t a Bible reading, because somebody would say, what do you think Think about kenosis, brother.

[21:32] That’s a Greek word by the way, something like that anyway.

[21:52] And then the question would arise, what did he empty himself of? And somebody would say, no it’s what he emptied himself into. Do you know what we’d end up going right round in circles as sometimes happens in meetings and you end up going dizzy and you went out and you thought you understood the passage before the Bible reading but now you’re sure you don’t. Been in Bible readings like that? I have been in Bible readings like that. So now what this is saying is this, just keep it as translated here. What he’s saying is this, he made himself of no reputation and the thought in the passage is this, that our Savior left a place that was proper to the outshining of all his glory and he came into a world that was not such a proper place for the, outshining of that glory. Now I want us to understand, our Lord did not walk up the main street in Nazareth, I was going to say with a halo, that wouldn’t quite be sufficient.

[23:08] Which leads us to another conundrum.

[24:02] Or what about when we sing hymn number, whatever it was, the old number in believers was 1 2 2 and the first verse of 1 2 3, Lamb of God our souls adore thee, thou didst lay thy glory by.

[25:29] He did that for the benefit of others. Can I just ask all of you, seriously and in the fear of God, what are you doing for the benefit of others?

[25:45] What price am I prepared to pay for the advantage of my beloved brothers and sisters, fellow children in the family of God, fellow saints in the assembly, fellow subjects in the kingdom? Look at what our Saviour did, He left that place, He came to this place in order of course that He might become obedient to the extent of death, even the death of the cross, and He went there for others, He went there for us. Praise God in your heart this afternoon, imagine if we were Pentecostals and all the hallelujahs that would arise, at this moment when we consider that in actual fact our Saviour exchanged that for this, and he did it for you and he did it for me. If your heart ever gets over that, you’re in trouble as a Christian. Oh the wonder of his love, see him coming from above to atone and die for thee. Praise him, praise him, cheerfully.

[27:05] I have seen assemblies riven and divided and destroyed by people looking on their own things.

[28:04] He did not look on his own things, says the Bible, but he looked also on the things, of others. And so our Saviour lived and died and he rose again.

[29:28] To which the undiplomatic answer is, read your bible, which wasn’t exactly the answer I gave. But remember this, that in 1 Peter the apostle says, in Peter’s epistle, the apostle Peter says this, that God raised him from the dead and gave him glory. Brothers and sisters, there is a man on heaven’s throne today and he has now all the added glory of the finished work of Calvary.

[30:41] If you don’t have a Newbery Bible, as my teachers used to say on my school reports.

[30:47] Could do better. If you’ve a Newbery Bible and you’re looking in the middle between the Testaments you’ll discover a diagram which is Mr. Newbery’s diagram of Greek prepositions which if you don’t know a word of Greek is really helpful. If you look at that you will find that there are various Greek words that are translated with the one word in our language, with. So it’s like this, we are with each other, in one word, one preposition, the idea is we’re looking at each other. I’m sorry about that, it’s the way I’m born, I can’t help how I look, you’re looking at me, and by the way you can’t help how you look either, I’m looking at you, but the point is we’re with each other in that sense, that’s the sense in John 1, the Word was with God, the Word was regarding God, the Word was face-to-face with God, is sometimes put, is the idea that the Word and God, were eternally in communion, beholding each other, so that we’re with. But then I could say to you, there’s another word and it means not that we’re face-to-face with each other but we’re in the company of each other, that’s another word and And that’s true. Here we are.

[32:12] Then there’s another word, which is the word in John 17 and 5, which we could only use if in fact somebody, one of you, more of you, all of you, were actually up here alongside me. So there’s our word.

[33:36] As one who is divine, glorify thou me alongside thine own self.

[34:38] In the interest of others, for their advantage and all that.

[35:33] And we who are sitting in the seats this afternoon in this meeting, we are one day going to appear with Christ in glory, how remarkable, and as we were thinking on one of the previous meetings, every eye shall see Him, but that’s not the glory of verse 24. The glory of verse 24 is His non-communicable glory, there is glory that he shares with his people and there is glory that he cannot share with his people this is his glory look at what he says that they may behold my glory it’s uniquely a wonderfully and gloriously his because of who he is ah but more than that if we ask what is that glory which his people alone shall see it is, the glory of the man of Calvary, sitting in a place that is reserved to deity.

[36:40] Our Saviour bearing mortal wounds. John sees him as a lamb as it had been freshly slain.

[37:41] Dead to the world in thee I live is, in thee is bliss without a loy. Tell me this, who are going to appear with Christ in glory, is there anything else worth living for? Says the apostle in the Colossian letter, not another thing. We who are going to have the great privilege of beholding Christ, his glory? Is it worth living for earthly fame or earthly possessions or, earthly advancement or earthly applause, is it?

[38:18] Oh, that our hearts might be filled with Christ, taken up adoringly, worshipingly, worshipfully, even with our glorious Lord, and to be careful for nothing but his interests, and to yield to him all that we have and all that we are, because that’s exactly what he did for us, when he did not look on his own things, but he looked also on the things of others.

Ministry after the breaking of bread.

[0:01] Shall we turn to the scripture please in John chapter 20, just a few simple thoughts.

[1:09] To understand this passage, we have to keep in consideration the background of the event.

[2:24] The people mocked him. The Romans mocked him. The high priest and all the religious leaders mocked him even the crucified together with him, mocked him and that was what they were experiencing their master the messiah dying there on the cross alone and they lost every.

[2:57] Hope there are two actually on the way to Emmaus and they thought that he was the one and they are hopeless on the road to Emmaus.

[3:34] And they were together because of the fear of the Jews and the reason the Lord appears to them.

[4:35] And here Jesus come and He stood in the midst. The first thing that He did, He wished them peace. He gave them peace.

[4:54] And as the Lord was saying that beautiful word of Shalom is not just peace.

[5:55] You see, Paul will write to the Philippians and he’ll say, do not be anxious of anything, but in everything, prayer or supplication, have to be going up to God with thanksgiving.

[6:24] And when Paul is writing that, he is encouraging them to go into the God’s presence, to look for His presence, and to get there, to receive not the circumstances being changed, but our heart being changed.

[7:32] His compassions fail not, they are new, they are renewed every morning.

[8:30] Scars. What they saw was just something in his hands and something in his side. The risen Lord were in midst of them. He was in midst of them. And he saw his scars and in his hands, the fact of the death of the Lord is undeniable historical evidence, and he was dying there outside Jerusalem 2,000 years ago and whatever we can do today we cannot change that fact, we cannot change those scars, and the scars coming again this morning, as a sign of His love for us.

[9:22] There’s nothing else, more than that, that He can show us. Actually, somebody says, there is the only thing that has been made by man in heaven, are the scars in the hand of Jesus.

[10:24] And as they were glad, they saw him and they were filled with joy.

[11:17] Disciples came out of a month of outreach in a foreign country and they were full of joy.

[12:36] Actually, there is a great joy that all who are parents know is the joy of bringing your, child home from hospital.

[12:56] And actually, as a young man, I never experienced it before, but it’s a great joy.

[14:08] The Lord has given us, has given them, and he has given us a purpose to live.

[15:31] The Lord was saying to them that as the Father hath sent me, I start to build my image in you, so you might start to build, to call others that I can build the same image in them.

[15:48] It says Thomas was not with them when Jesus came. He missed the peace, he missed the joy, We miss the purpose, but let’s come together this morning as we remember the risen Christ, to get from him peace, to get from him joy that comes from those hands that are scarred, and still are, and that purpose that come from the Great Commission as the Father have sent me.

Gospel from Joseph Baker.

[0:01] Revelation chapter 1, and we will break in here at verse number 5.

[0:47] Just a phrase in verse 5 that I’m thinking about for the next 20 minutes or so, unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his blood.”.

[1:05] This is a very special song, really.

[2:26] It is the distinct song of heaven. I want to ask you just here at the beginning of my remarks tonight, can you sing this song?

[2:40] Are you going to heaven?

[4:05] Unto Him. Listen, there are a lot of good, nice people here. Listen, the only people who will be in heaven are people who will be pointing to Him. If tonight, if tonight you point to anything in yourself, if you point to your good works, if you point to your church attendance, if you point to any ritual you went through, even if you were to point to your own faith, or your own believing, or your own repentance. No, friend, everyone who will be in heaven will say this, I am not in heaven because of some great amount of faith I exercised on such and such a date.

[5:13] And then they would tell you, you can’t know either. Listen, if I were to look at myself, I couldn’t know either. If I were to look at my experience that took place March the 22nd, 2003, I would have many questions. If I were to look at my repentance, I would have many questions.

[6:07] You see, everyone who will be in heaven, they won’t be there because they loved God, and they just loved Him enough, and they maybe even gave their heart to Him out of how much they loved Him. No, everyone who will be there will all unite. Now just think of it.

[7:29] He loved me in my sin. He loved me when I was just completely helpless.

[7:55] His love. His love that did what? What did His love do?

[8:04] And washed us from our sins in His blood.” The description in this verse is very interesting.

[8:51] There are a group of people, the Gentile people, that would be you and I today, but back then there were people who had no real relationship with God, and yet whatever light they had, They just ignored it, they suppressed it, and in rebellion, they continued doing the things that they wanted to do.

[9:36] But we have shaken our fist against God. We’ve gone against our conscience.

[9:42] How many people are weighed down by the sins of a conscience, and they take something, and they take it, and no one knows that they took it, and they think they got rid of it, and they got it for free, and then years later, they didn’t get it for free. A guilty conscience weighs on them. Years later, and we sin against conscience, and we sin against God’s law.

[10:12] And everyone who is saved, everyone who will be in heaven, not all of us come to great theological understandings when it comes to the depravity of man.

[11:07] I’m thankful for that, because all it took was one sin on earth to make earth the way it is today.

[12:09] God says that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

[12:32] And this is how the description of sin. Strange thing that people are singing about that.

[14:01] His blood. This is the great deliverance, the great deliverance in the gospel. Let, me ask you something tonight. I don’t know very much about washing. I don’t know how soap works to take out stains. From what I understand from those who do know something about the subject, soap has to work almost like a key and the stain in your shirt or in your clothes is like a lock. That’s what keeps it on your clothes and they come up with this composition in soap or in detergent or whatever and it, works as a key that unlocks the stain and then it breaks free when water washes it away.

[15:22] Do you know any church that’s stronger than sin?

[15:27] Any ritual that’s stronger than sin? Any preacher that’s stronger than sin?

[16:54] To meet the claims of sin. You see, if you were to understand tonight, just to be very simple, if you were to understand evening that sin is your problem. It’s not so much that hell’s the problem.

[18:21] God would say this, that’s why I sent my son, that’s why he shed his blood, and unto him that loved us and washed us from our sin in his blood. You see, when he died under sin’s penalty, that is the penalty for sin, the wages of sin, is, death. The Bible, the law of God says the soul that sins must die. Now remember, if If you’ve followed my little analogy, a stain is locked to a shirt or a piece of clothing, right?

[19:17] You see, when the Lord Jesus went to that cross, sinless, and when He died, and He shed His blood, He did it as a substitute, and He did it toward God, as also we heard about today, to satisfy God.

[20:02] His soul was made an offering for sin. And what a person understands when they’re saved, what I understood was this, I didn’t know very much, I thought I did, I had heard the gospel and I thought I was Sunday school, pupil, you know, chief of the class, but you know, when I was saved, what I understood was this, because he died, I’ll never have to die in hell.

[21:20] We’re not even offering a verse it’s Christ and it’s the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses from sin.

[22:09] Do you know what it is to have your sins washed away? To see them gone? Not because of anything you’ve done. Remember, it’s not unto me who worked, unto me who believed, unto me who figured it out.

Panel discussion.

[0:00] I’m just going to read a verse from 1st Timothy in chapter 4 where we get the basis for the topic, this afternoon. I’ll make a couple of remarks in opening and then we will just be having more of a conversation, a conversation on this important topic of spiritual disciplines for the purpose, of godliness. But we’ll read from the from the Word of God here in 1st Timothy chapter 4 and beginning at verse 7. But refuse profane and old wives fables and exercise thyself or train thyself, discipline thyself rather unto godliness. For bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.

[0:55] We were talking this morning about the need for godliness, and I hope we would all share, those of us who are born of the Spirit, a greater desire for personal godliness in our lives, that it is a felt need, even as we were talking this morning, that the Lord would intervene, for godliness seems to be so lacking.

[2:23] By this rather careless or, you know, if godliness happens it’ll happen.

[3:22] And there is no godliness without discipline.

[4:22] And the disciplines necessary with the Word of God. My prayers and I, my prayer life and I. And then lastly, my body and I. I’ve chosen those three because those three are all found in the Word of God. When it comes to the subject of spiritual disciplines, we can get kind of, you know, gardening could be a spiritual discipline to somebody. Or mowing the lawn can be a time where people, you know, and we can get really vague. So I’ve tried to limit it to things that we find in the Bible. My Bible and I, my prayer life and I, and my body and I. Three areas in which a godly person will have to be disciplined. But just as we begin, that’s just my brief introduction. Maybe if any of our brethren here, thankful for them, being here and their help, if you can better define or explain what godliness is, or if you’d like to just jump right in in 1st Timothy 4 and explain this word for exercise and what the Apostle has in mind to Timothy.

[5:22] Joe, I thought that the point that you made in the meeting this morning about godliness not being godlikeness, but a disposition, an attitude towards God. I think disposition is my word, but you were using similar descriptions. It’s a really important thing. And so, just to recap for anyone who wasn’t there, one of the big points that you were making was, that ungodliness is forgetting God, it’s leaving God out of the equation, whereas godliness is bringing God into the equation.

[6:38] Yeah, it was very good what you said this morning, yes. I don’t want to repeat, Ian.

[7:51] What do I mean by bringing God in our lives? We mentioned a bit of, you know, a bit of legalism.

[8:49] So in all these four elements, you have to be careful that as we speak to others, or we as teachers and preachers, we have to tackle the worldview.

[10:02] As God sees it. What is the difference between a Godly, a Christian, who has God in his life, and a non-Christian, or an atheist, who doesn’t have God?

[11:16] His will, his mind, his purpose. I have a notion there might be a slight difference in that. And so when you’re coming to 1 Timothy 3, not 4 but 3, great is the mystery of godliness.

[12:39] Maybe I could just tell you what I think before you jump in. It’s the idea of, it’s where we get the word gymnastics from. And I understand, you know, every day in the United States, it’s National something day. Well, today’s National Gymnastics Day, believe it or not.

[13:23] It’s not going to be by osmosis. You’re not going to sleep beside your Bible and wake up godly.

[14:20] So here’s a question, maybe you can help us with this, Henry.

[14:51] So, that’s a very good question, that challenges me, challenges everybody. Why worry about it?

[15:14] How to put it?

[16:30] And that means that I’ll know Him as He knows me now. But the enjoyment, I don’t want to say that, you know, don’t get me wrong on that.

[17:19] But the first thing is, we’ve been saved for the Lord.

[18:31] So some people react or reject against the word discipline because they think it’s going to, hamper their freedom. You know, I’m free. I have, and I’m already stretched. I’m a very busy person.

[19:43] You can be what you want. People actually think this, that you can be what you want.

[20:35] We use discipline to go to school. We use discipline to go to work.

[21:22] Yeah, I know like say an instrument like the piano or the guitar, I am bound because I don’t, know how to use the five strings. But somebody who’s practiced for thousands and thousands of hours and disciplined themselves, they’re free. Now, they weren’t free for all the work they put, in. All the time that they spent practicing was really tied them down for all the things I could do. But what you see when they have those strings in their hand, they’re free and I’m bound. And so, you see, there’s people you meet. And I think one of the things I would just pass on for, and I, And I think you might agree with this as far as godliness or training for godliness.

[22:14] Godly, that’s a great person to get their ear and figure out, like get close to that person and figure out how, and I’m sure if they are godly, they’d be more than happy.

[22:25] To help you along, right? Because we all need help and training on these things.

[23:45] Oh, you’re looking at me. Go ahead. Okay.

[25:04] Of one kind or another. I think what Paul’s saying in Romans 8 is, it’s not just a question of self-discipline, not just a question of, training the flesh to deal with it, but in actual fact, it’s if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh. You’ll live the kind of life that God wants you to live in terms of the enjoyment of sonship in Romans 8. Or, if you go to Galatians 5, where the works of the flesh are something that any one of us could fall into at any time.

[25:57] It is this, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

[27:04] So maybe we’ll just move in, just 20 or so minutes left, if I understand the time there.

[27:46] may help us.

[28:29] For personal Bible study. That can be, if you are inclined, waking up in the morning, that can be in the morning.

[29:46] Very good, thank you. And it always seems to me that unless you have a system, for reading your Bible, you’re not gonna read it as much.

[31:07] And we’re to desire the sincere milk of the word in order that we might grow thereby.

[32:19] Thanks.

[33:16] Is so important. It’s so important that you really need to be prepared to sacrifice just about anything else in order to do it. And nothing can take its place.

[34:20] Have to be some sort of protected time. Yeah, okay. Okay. you know, that you take, you know, from…

[34:27] 10, you know, or whatever it can be from 8 o’clock to 9 o’clock if you are a student.

[35:52] I was young and using notes in the Bible. So if you read, this is not the Bible study, this is more a personal Bible reading.

[36:30] On the margin of your Bible. I’ve developed some sort of system.

[36:57] That you think, oh, that’s really precious, okay?

[38:20] Yeah, and the difference between yoga or transcendental meditation that the Beatles used to be on about, Is it I think that all that’s to do with emptying your mind, isn’t it?

[39:25] And I didn’t know what they’re on about. I said, what works? So they’re saying about this conference. And I said to them, if you read through the Bible, if you read through it, it’ll become a new book to you. And they had just retired and together they read through the Bible in a year and they were full of it. So I just want to encourage that.

[40:00] Yeah, meditation, someone has compared it, I think one of the Puritans compared it to lingering by a fire.

[41:21] And to spend the time in it, I mean, that is such a time consuming exercise to study the word.

[42:43] Can I add, you know, as Ian was saying of responsibilities, you know, in 30 years or so, in 20 years, whatever, I’d like to underline even the timing.

[43:21] And, you know, strangle your muscles and pursue godliness and train yourself into, you know, Bible reading and then we’ll have to pray, speak of prayer, you know, meditation.

[44:45] Um, difficult it is to really pray, you know, not just bless my family, bless my kids, bless my grandkids, but pray.

[45:32] So when I was 13, he was staying in our house over the weekend for the Saturday Bible reading and the Sunday.

[46:12] Wow. So, you know, that’s one way that might appeal to people in the discipline of prayer.

[47:18] So, we knelt at the side of his bed and Peter started praying.

[48:17] So it goes with that Bible reading, where we’re hearing God, but in prayer, God is hearing us.

[49:25] When I am in my car, when I am in the bus, you know, when I have a free moment in a way.

[49:45] So there’s like the idea of living in prayer, and so you’re talking about living in it.

[51:09] So yeah, the need for prayer. We’re not going to get to my body and I, uh, that’s okay.

Personal and practical godliness.

[0:02] Now, good morning, I’d like to read the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, please.

[1:00] And it came to pass after these things that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph.

[1:59] And verse 15, and Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream and there is none that can interpret it. And I have heard say of thee that thou canst understand a dream to interpret it.

[3:17] We will begin with a bit of a lament. It’s not meant to discourage anyone, but hopefully it’ll get our eyes fixed for this weekend.

[3:57] I want to talk in this message about the desperate need. That’s really what we have in this 12th Psalm.

[5:06] And where there is a real need in my own heart, first of all, and in the need, I think, for all of us, for practical godliness.

[5:39] He might be a conscientious parent, a zealous worker in the assembly, a dynamic spokesman for Christ, a talented leader.

[7:06] I guess I am one, but I think they’ve been giving a bad rap.

[8:24] Godliness is not intelligence.

[9:25] Godliness, we’ll learn, is not optional. It’s a command. It’s a command for me.

[10:35] I was thinking about this last night in the prayer meeting. The number of addresses that we would become more like the Lord Jesus Christ.

[11:06] So what is godliness? Well, we’ve read an example that we’re going to come to in the life of this man Joseph, but let me give you a definition. We kind of know what manliness is, right? We can see, when somebody’s not manly, right? Manliness, be like a man. Godliness, sometimes we can think, is to be like God. Now, strictly speaking, I don’t think that’s an accurate definition of godliness, at least not the word that’s used here over and over in 1 and 2 Timothy and the book of Titus, and even in your Old Testament, godliness is not so much to be like God, although that is a result of godliness. A person who is godly will become, in a greater degree, more and more like God.

[11:47] But godliness is to be toward God. Godliness is a God-towardness. You say, great, you’ve just explained something we don’t know what that means.

[12:41] You see, a godly person is God-toward. Their life is toward God, is centered on God.

[13:23] Your vacation will be governed by bringing God along with you, by doing it in fellowship with Him. Not by doing it and saying, oh God, I know you care about Sundays, and I know you care about ministry meetings, but like this is a vacation, great deal, I’m going. No, no, no, that’s ungodliness.

[14:13] So let’s just look in the remaining time at this example. You know, I think when it comes to, any word, any word we learned, I have children all four and younger, and when they learn a word, it’s not because I open up a dictionary and tell them running means to vigorously extend your right leg in front of your left leg. No, I mean, you could say that and they’ll know, but you just, watch somebody, that’s running! And they clue in, that’s running. And I think for us as believers as well, if you want to know what godliness is, you could listen to what Mr. Vine’s dictionary is, and you could have that definition and do you good in a Bible reading somewhere, but you might not know actually what it means. That piousness, that God-to-word attitude. Yes, it’s okay to say that. What does it mean? And I think we have an example in the life of this young man, Joseph.

[15:18] We have read in those verses that we took the time to read of Joseph referencing God. That’s godliness.

[16:03] We notice, first of all, it’s a young man.

[16:35] Go in for godliness. Go in for it. Understand this, that your success, whether or not you will be pleasing to the Lord, will not matter so much about how gifted you are, or how successful you are, or how influential you are. Go in for godliness. Go in for living for the eye of one.

[17:29] If there was ever a man who would think, why live for God? It’s Joseph.

[18:13] And it is not my intention to make anyone overwhelmed with feelings of guilt at the, same time, would you like to know how to face temptation in godliness?

[19:37] Please understand, it’s not a small thing. It’s gonna affect your mind. It’s gonna affect your life. Bring in God. Greater is He that is in you than he that is in this world. Bring him in. That’s what Joseph did. He understood this, I am accountable to God and he brings in God and then he flees. Moving to the next part, then he’s put into the prison. Things just seem to be getting from bad to worse. He has a revelation from God in his hometown.

[20:33] I say there are times in our lives where it’s like, God has let me down.

[20:45] And Joseph understands this, that when it comes to anything, I’m going to do for God.

[22:05] Then he gets put into Pharaoh’s palace, this young man, and it’s been a bit of a while, right?

[23:19] And Joseph says, this is only done by God. Right in the midst of success. Can you imagine?

[24:14] When the promotion comes, when the new house comes, when everything’s going well, everything’s just great, we forget God.

[25:30] And it’s all successful. And Saul’s gone. And the armies are conquered.

[25:44] And no mention of God.

[27:07] God, the Lord, has made me fruitful.

[28:04] It’s self-eating, destroys a person, bitterness, discouragement, taking pot shots at people.

[29:04] Put into a pit, stripped, sold, and now here comes bros. There they come.

[29:53] And in a time where bitterness could take over or discouragement, he turns to those boys and he says, you meant it for evil, but God, he brings in God, God meant it for good.

[31:23] Save, Lord! Help us, Lord! Intervene, Lord! The godly are nearly extinct!

Sent to spread the gospel.

[0:01] Book of Acts, Acts chapter 1, and we’ll break into the passage of verse 4. This is thrilling reading, isn’t it, in the book of Acts and the great history of the spread of the gospel, as the Lord begins to call out of the nations a people for His name. And in this opening section of the book of Acts we learn some very pertinent things in relation to that.

[1:14] And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which, the Father hath put in his own power, but ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.’ And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight.

[2:35] And when you’re reading in the book, you learn in the first seven chapters of the way in which the gospel spread in Jerusalem and in all Judea.

[2:47] And at that time the gospel was preached in those environs and not beyond and indeed in an amazing way, the kingdom was offered again to the nation of Israel, but that nation that refused our Saviour while he was here, the king in their midst, refused him when he had gone back to heaven.

[4:14] I know you all think that America is the sort of center of the universe. I have news to tell you, it’s in the far reaches of this verse in Acts chapter 1 and verse 8. I’m glad for the fact the gospel went to Albania earlier on, Illyricum, and I’m glad of the time the gospel came to the shores of my country and to England and how it was spread and through a lot of British history, into the far corners of the world, the Lord taking up that in His providence.

[5:42] And they having fear of the Jews, he’s telling them that he’s sending them and, he’s sending them on the same mission that the Father had sent him on, and as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And it may be that the voice of Christ, risen and powerful, might resonate in the heart and soul and conscience and and spiritual experience of somebody in our meeting today.

[6:48] Christ has no feet to go except yours. Christ has no hand to work save yours.

[7:20] You are willing to say to the Lord who saved you that in actual fact I am willing to lay down my life for thee that wherever thou descend me round the corner or round the world Lord I am ready, I am willing, I am prepared, to do as thou wouldst have me do, as Saul of Tarsus when he was saved.

[8:09] And it will only shine as his people stand and count the cost and out of love for Christ, are prepared at whatever cost to make him known. And so thrilling when we come to the beginning of the book of Acts and what the Savior is saying is this, that the great mission of the Father on which he had been sent and the continuing mission that these men were given now would go not just to the limited regions of Jerusalem and Judea but to go to Samaria, what a read that is, about Philip in Samaria and ultimately to the uttermost part of the earth.

[8:54] There’s a very interesting thing in the book of Acts at the beginning here which will help us to understand what was going on and help us in our day.

[9:45] You remember that they had great difficulty in realizing that their Lord whom they were following in the Gospels was actually going to suffer and to bleed and die, because here was the king in their midst and the idea would have been this that they would were thinking that he had come to establish the kingdom and to rid them certainly of the Roman yoke and to set up that messianic kingdom of which the bible is full in the old testament in his predictions that a king shall reign in zion and of course that was the hope of israel, that’s contained in the abrahamic covenant it’s contained in the palestinian covenant, it’s contained in the davidic covenant that is to say in promises unconditional given to abraham, and given to David about the land and about a king who would reign.

[10:42] Isn’t it wonderful, by the way, to read through some of those Old Testament prophets? I mean, it’s a bit hard going sometimes. I know you all prefer the New Testament section of Isaiah to the Old Testament section. Well, I guess everybody does, but it’s far easier to read about comfort ye my people than woe unto Jerusalem in chapter 29 or wherever. And you plow through some, but you come to those wonderful sections in the prophets that speak of the fact that a king shall reign in righteousness and a king shall reign and prosper and you read in chapters like Isaiah 11 and elsewhere and then in Romans 8 how that the whole creation is going to be delivered from the bondage of corruption and it won’t be that wolves and lambs and sheep and asps and lions and all and children are all going to be at odds with each other. The wonderful fact is this that the bondage of corruption into which creation was placed at the beginning will be, they’ll be delivered from it and a king shall reign and Edenic conditions more or less will return in the millennial kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and if you were a Jew in the Old Testament this was your hope, this was your hope, it still is the hope of orthodox Jews.

[12:06] In North Manchester, near where Stephen and Carol used to live. I remember sitting at traffic lights, in North Manchester one day and it was on a corner and right the way around the corner on a wall, there was painted, beautiful inscription as I remember and what it was saying is this, that the Messiah is coming. It’s a very Jewish area of North Manchester in England.

[12:32] Messiah is coming, Moshiach is coming, and that was their hope in the Old Testament, and the disciples, this was their hope. So now Christ has died and is risen, and they’re asking this question, will thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

[13:57] God is not now dealing in that way. God now is dealing in another way and it is this, that he’s calling out of all of the nations, a people for his name. Isn’t that wonderful?

[14:35] And here God the Lord is forming that body which is the church, but the fact that God is doing that, does not mean that God will not fulfill His promise to the nation of Israel. Now follow this carefully. They say, wilt thou restore again the kingdom to Israel? No, they had no doubt that God would keep his promises. Now I’m amazed that people take an amillennial position, where they say that actually that whole program of the establishment of the manifested kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ will not be fulfilled. It’s being spiritually fulfilled now in the church.

[15:58] And the Lord didn’t say to them no, but the Lord did say something different was going to happen.

[16:07] So instead now of a king coming in glory and a king coming in power and in might, to Jerusalem, instead of that from Jerusalem they would go out.

[16:22] So what he’s going to say to them is, look, actually the Father has put in his own power the times and seasons and it’s not for you to know that. This expression times and seasons has always to do with the nation of Israel and it always has to do with that which is on earth.

[17:47] I want to talk to you about that just for a moment because we’re living in an age when there’s whole heaps of confusion about the baptism in the Holy Spirit and I want to put this to you, that the baptism in the Holy Spirit was a one-off historic never-to-be-repeated event, that happened on one day in history and that one day in history was on the day of Pentecost, And whenever anybody is saved, they come into the benefit and into the good of that which happened on that one day in history.

[18:57] So on the day of Pentecost, Paul’s speaking about it in 1 Corinthians 12, 12, and he says that in one spirit are we all baptized into one body whether we be Jews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free. I remember well Mr Jack Hunter speaking to us on this the baptism in the Holy Spirit he used to put it like this that in any baptism there are four elements, At the first is the person who’s going to do the baptizing.

[19:37] So in any baptism this is the case. If someone’s getting baptized in connection with your assembly, someone has got to do the baptizing. Somebody who hopes the immersion heater for the water is working, especially in winter baptisms. But someone’s got to do the baptizing. Secondly, there has to be the candidate for baptism.

[19:59] Thirdly, there has to be the element in which the baptism took place.

[21:26] But the thing is, they were actually a representative company.

[21:51] And what that was unto was this. It was unto one body.

[21:55] Jews and Gentiles, we read in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. So the idea is this, that on the day of Pentecost the body of Christ was formed. When you were saved in practical experience you of course were added to it, you came into the good of what happened on the day of Pentecost. Now don’t be sidetracked by charismatic teaching, it’s all over the place. The idea is not that when you get saved, you need to pray and wait in order to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

[23:23] From the nations a people for himself, by the way, a people for his son. Isn’t that.

[23:30] Wonderful? Don’t you love to think about divine purpose, the design of God in all he’s doing. Brothers and sisters, one day there will be a people surrounding his son.

[24:23] And eventually Adam came round from it. That was a busy day, day six. Adam came round from it.

[25:25] Do you ever wonder what Adam said to Eve when he opened his eyes? I often wonder what what a moment that must have been. Did he say good morning or good afternoon or will you marry me or perhaps perhaps in the divine mind they already were. I’m not not too sure these are these are amazing things but in any the event term. The thing is that Eve was everything that Adam wasn’t and she was everything that Adam needed. So he could speak to her and she would understand him and she would speak to him and he might understand her. And they could love each other. So everything that Adam needed intellectually and for purposes of communion and companionship and of course reproduction for the race, the woman was made for the man, we know this, she was the complement of Adam, she was the fullness of Adam, so that’s taken over into Ephesians 1 and the church is the complement of him that filleth all in all. This is an amazing thing, Christ in glory is incomplete without his church.

[26:39] I know you got a blink about that one but it’s true, Christ in glory is incomplete without His church. So what God is doing is this, He’s bringing her to His Son.

[27:06] So you see, it’s marked at the beginning by the baptism in the Holy Spirit, but then he’s also going to mark out in this chapter that this era in which we’re living is going to have an end.

[27:20] So later on in the verses that we read, they’re looking steadfastly up to heaven.

[27:28] And as they’re looking steadfastly up toward heaven, he’s taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight. Isn’t that just the most wonderful thing?

[28:52] I think the normal line is this, that when they speak about him coming in like manner as you’ve seen him going to heaven, that because it was from the Mount of Olives, people say, well he’s coming back to the Mount of Olives, which he is, and that this is actually speaking about Christ coming in glory.

[29:40] But when he ascends up here, it’s in the act of blessing them. And not only that, but when he ascended up into heaven here, he was unseen by the world. Of course, when he comes in power and glory, every eye shall see him. They also which pierced him. I have a notion, it’s only a notion, I have a notion that the eyes of every living person who has ever lived from wherever they are, will see him on that great day. Every eye shall see him when the heir of all things comes to claim his inheritance.

[30:36] You know when the Lord’s speaking about coming in power and glory, it’s always third person.

[31:57] Because once the Lord comes to the air and receives his people to be with himself in that personal unseen moment of great blessing no longer will the gospel of the grace of God be preached on earth and no longer will there be opportunity for people to be saved as we have been saved the Bible teaches no second chance for those who reject the gospel in this particular era. And in the meanwhile, people are still being sent. There came a day when our brother Enris and Sylvia, they heard the call of God for Albania and they obeyed.

[32:43] You will know people who in their lives in a very definite, real and powerful way heard the call of God and they went.

[33:57] The Lord meeting his every need along the way. I love the story of Arnott’s boots.

[34:40] When you come later into Acts, Philip heard the call and went to the desert. There was one man that he had to go to.

[36:05] And Acts chapter 10 to Peter, arise and go. And he arose and went and what Peter was doing was this. He was speaking to Cornelius, the first fully fledged Gentile in the book of Acts to get saved. They arose and went.

[36:26] What a day it will be when the story’s told in glory, of all that God has done through His servants whom He’s raised up and sent, of the gospel going to the darkest places on earth, and gospel light shining, and in places where Satan reigns supreme, it would seem.

[37:48] Will it be that you will rise up and say, Lord, all I am and all I have and all I ever hope to be is thine and thine alone. Let me have grace that thou mightest use me in all my weakness and need, to further the interests of the Christ of God and His wonderful gospel.

Report from Albania.

https://media.jjministry.org/Conf2022_04ENase20220917.m4a

To be thankful to the Lord, but even to the sisters who had prepared, and we feel thankful, about it.

Now if you want to, the lights are dimmed, and so if you want to follow with closed eyes, I don’t have any problem.

I fully understand that. So, we can turn to the scripture.

1 Corinthians chapter nine, or you have the verse on the screen.

1 Corinthians chapter nine.

[0:50] Verse 22.

For sake of time, we can’t read all the passage, But verse 22, Paul is writing to the Corinthians, and he said, “‘To the weak became I as weak, that I may gain the weak.

I made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.'” I’ve made my things, Paul says, myself, all things to all men, that I may save some.

I’m going to speak about the work of the Lord in Albania. My report is going to, you’ll see, in just three parts, some just general information about the country, some information about the assemblies there, and then our ministry and where we fit with the wider view.

So where is Albania? in the Bible Romans 15 Paul says I went preaching from Jerusalem unto Illyricum. So that Illyricum is Albania of today is in southeast of of Europe right you are you’re here somewhere And we are just on the other side.

So.

[2:11] It’s just next to Greece, maybe you have heard, or Italy. It’s a small country, it’s relatively small, so this is our map. Its population is 3 million. Now, it will be 3 million Albanians speaking in Albania within our borders, but there are up to 6 or 7 million of Albanians speaking, in the region, in the Balkan region. So, there are 2 million that they speak in Kosovo.

They speak the same language. There’ll be almost a million in Greece.

There’ll be good numbers in Macedonia, or Republic North Macedonia now, and Montenegro as well.

So, and the Balkan region, which is the third peninsula in Europe.

[2:57] There’ll be, I said, up to seven million speaking Albanian.

So the language is Albanian, religious by tradition.

Now it’s a Muslim country, has been, we used to, or the Ottomans, Ottoman Empire came, the country used to be nominal Christian, so Catholic and Orthodox, but after five centuries, you have 70% of Islam, so it’s an Islamic country.

And Albanian Orthodox has 20%, and then Roman Catholic, 10%.

That’s to have a general about the demographics and religion.

So capital Tirana approximately is a million.

Now, as you saw on the title of my presentation, it says, Albania, new work, new challenges, new opportunities.

[3:51] And this is a big challenge. You have a country of 3 million, a million lives in a capital.

So a third of a country is in Tirana, the capital.

And that is a big challenge, especially for people who have moved from north and south, east and west, who have come there.

They’ll come from small places, small villages, obviously for a better life.

Or they will come as students and at university in Tirana and they will stay there.

So it’s a big challenge to them in a way. Why is that? Because when you come from your own town or from your own city, everybody knows you.

You come in Tirana, you lose your identity.

[4:36] And that is in a way a big challenge. But we as Christians have to get that challenge and make it as opportunity.

When we talk of the challenges, we have to be fully aware. The challenge is a relatively new word.

The use of it came from this land, from America.

In Europe, people, or everywhere, people used to talk of problems.

See, nowadays, you don’t talk anymore of problems, you talk of challenges.

Have you ever thought what is the difference between a challenge and a problem?

Now, a problem is there, and you say, I have a problem.

A challenge is there, and the question that comes into your mind is, how I can get over it?

A problem is a wall, and you say, the wall is there, I cannot move it.

I can’t do anything, I feel helpless.

The challenge is, how can I get the other side?

[5:31] And as we all live our Christian lives, we have to see our problems as challenges.

How are we gonna get on the other side?

Now, there were three, again, three brothers, and they were going to hunt for wolves, because the fur of the, you know, the skin of the wolves is going quite expensive.

So they went there nighttime with their guns ready to hunt for wolves.

[6:06] The night came, they all fell asleep. And here in the middle of the night, the youngest brother woke up and woke the other.

He says, Do you see we are circled about… there are loads of wolves around us. Keep quiet.

But he woken up the other brother. He says, wake up, we are rich now.

[6:32] Obviously they were hunting wolves and they got the wolves. And that’s the difference between a challenge and a problem.

A big challenge in Tirana, a million of population there, is a crowded city, but that is a good opportunity to share the gospel.

As they come, as I said, with no identity anymore, you are no one in Tirana, in this big city.

You don’t have friends, you can make friends.

And Christians are there to make them friends, to befriend them, and to invite them into gospel meetings, and to share the gospel with them. So, I go on.

Tirana is a country of contrast. Albania is a country of contrast.

When I think of Albania, you might think it’s a poor country.

It is a poor country.

It’s a country, or they call it today, like a country in development.

It’s a poor country, but it’s a country of contrast. You hear of reports, a poor country, not everywhere is poor. Here we go, two pictures.

First picture, you can see here, a Merc. People love massive cars out there, And then you see a public transport donkey.

And then another picture shows a big contrast.

Now, when I show this picture, people think that contrast is the big mama and the thin lady. No, it’s not that.

[7:50] A contrast is, you see where these people live, and then that’s the town, the city.

So it’s a country of contrast.

How the assemblies have started, yes, there is always another side, that’s a beautiful north.

That’s Sais, and that’s Tirana, and that’s our beautiful Sais again.

So it’s a beautiful country.

Tourism, tourism is coming over there. We have actually this year was the best ever that we had.

So it’s a nice country.

[8:26] Remember why I spoke of Barnabas, that he went and took Saul, right?

So young guys, I can come and I can recruit you.

So be aware of it.

So, right, work of the assemblies in Albania have started in 1991.

Nah, before that, there was nothing.

When we say nothing, there was nothing.

Remember, you have read in Matthew, the people which sought in darkness, they saw a great light.

And that was Albania.

After the Second World War, in Albania was established one of the fiercest regimes ever we saw, right?

You have heard maybe of reports on Romania of Ceausescu or, I don’t know, Soviet Union of Stalin and persecuted church and all that.

There is no persecution of church in Albania, because there’s no church at all.

[9:31] For 50 years, more than one generation, the communists established a very hard core communism in the country.

They wiped out everything that was there.

[9:46] And the young guys, you that I see, the privilege that you have to be grown up in a Christian family, We don’t realize that. I didn’t have that. Anyway, in 1976, the government had a new constitution, and it was a specific article saying that we don’t have any religion we do not believe, and atheism is our official ideology.

The first country in the world atheist by constitution.

A total darkness. I’ve been raised in an average Albanian family.

I have to come tomorrow to hear that.

But in my childhood, I never heard the name of God.

God didn’t exist, you go to school and all that. No, it’s all myths.

Anyway, and that was Albania. In 1991, the light of the gospel came into my country.

And that was this man who came from Italy.

They were praying for Albania for so many years. Albania was such an isolated, and then democracy came, open up.

[11:12] They came with a team of 10 people, only 10 people. They didn’t know any language, they didn’t know anything.

And then they established themselves in Tirana, the capital.

[11:25] When you speak of the Lord’s work in Albania, you have to speak of the Lord’s work in Italy, actually.

Because in March of that year, there were Albanians who left Albania, went to Italy, migrating by boats.

And then the assemblies there welcomed them, giving them shelter, shared the gospel with them.

And then when Albania opened up in November, they came to visit the families of those immigrants and refugees that they give shelter.

So they had open homes everywhere.

And the testimony started slowly, slowly in the main cities in Tirana, in the center, You can see, and from Tirana, and Vlora, and from Tirana, and Skoda, from Skoda to Al-Basan.

And this is how everything started. Remember now, you all remember the strawberries?

Here’s some strawberries now.

[12:22] There are today 15 assemblies and testimony. By testimony, I mean a place where they don’t break bread, it’s not assembly, but they still can have the preaching of the Gospels.

And this is the situation today. People would start in darkness, total darkness, but they saw a great light of the Gospels.

The Lord’s people is there. So this is our family. Actually we have the up-to-date photography.

So this is our family. We all know now.

Luke is 16. Luke is 16. Luke is 16.

Luke is 16. Luke is 16. Luke is 16. Luke is 16. Luke is 16. Luke is 16.

Oops, went too far. Benjamin and then Esther. So, as you might gather, my accent is a bit different.

Luke is 16. Luke is 16.

[13:08] I’m, you know, it’s similar to the Hamiltons, and that is because my wife is from Northern Ireland.

I moved to Northern Ireland in 2004, and I stayed there for some time.

As I said, I was involved in the assemblies in Albania, I saw them, loads of assemblies starting up and growing, and then we met with Sylvia and moved to Northern Ireland.

When I moved to Northern Ireland, I have to say that everything is nice there.

You know, you have a nice house, you have a nice assembly, have a nice job, and everything is nice, but the weather.

But you can cope with it anyway.

And as we were there, you know, trying to do our best for the kingdom and in our local assembly, a burden came to our hearts.

Sylvia was very still, it’s a mission-minded, she has been to Zambia, to Africa more than once.

And so we were praying, and as we were praying where the Lord wanted us, and a burden came to our hearts.

When Nehemiah, when he was in exile, now, in exile in Babylon wasn’t like slavery in Egypt.

[14:32] They’re well off. Daniel, civil servant, Nehemiah, civil servant, and all that.

But there was one day when the king, emperor, asked Nehemiah, he said, why your face is sad, Nehemiah?

And Nehemiah said.

[14:50] How my face cannot be sad if I see my people in distress, and I see the gates of Jerusalem in ruin.

So, and that was the burden that the Lord put in our hearts, and that is in 2008.

And as we were praying, and I want to make a long story short, as we were praying, we shared this burden with our elders.

And we said we feel that the Lord wants us to go back to Albania.

And there they were more than happy to commend us to the work of the Lord.

And that is October 2008.

Luke was two and a half. Benjamin was just a few months old.

And then we went back to Albania.

And they said they were more than happy to commend us.

Maybe they wanted to get rid of us.

Anyway, so what is our ministry? Teaching, preaching and training ministry.

Now a big challenge over there is everything is new.

I’ve been to Northern Ireland and I’ve been so much encouraged by the elderly brothers and sisters.

You see in Albania you don’t have that. You don’t have a 60 years old or 70 years old or 80 years old Christian.

[16:11] Everything is brand new. And I remember coming back, you know, and the dual carriageway from a Bushmill Bible reading.

And as we were flying on that dual carriageway, we overtook a brother.

He was maybe 80, and his little car, you know, going back to Belfast.

And it dawned on me, I said, if God has been faithful to him for so many years, the same God will be faithful to me.

[16:42] And if he has been faithful to his God for so many years, that means I can be faithful to God, same as him.

And as I said, it’s a big challenge to him.

Oh, everything new.

Why is that? Because people are not used, everything is new.

You have to translate the hymns.

You have to, you know, when I got saved 30 years ago, there was no Bible, there was just a New Testament.

Everything started by scratch.

And that, as I said, is a big challenge. You don’t have, you know, brethren that you can call them and say, Listen, what about the Ezekiel 37 and Ezekiel 38, is it?

[17:27] No, you have to do it yourself. You have to go to the scripture and read it on your own and find it out.

[17:35] And that is as a teaching and preaching and training ministry. So as you can see here, this is not an assembly gathering. This is on Saturday morning when we do Bible classes, when we gather the young people and others and we open the scripture and we go same as in a class or here with nurses.

Sylvia, she is involved in a Christian clinic and what they do, they organize seminar for the nurses, you know, on a medical basis.

But every time that they are there will be a section, one will be the preaching of the gospel.

And that’s me there. Now, because of COVID, we have learned Zoom.

Everybody’s learned them. Everybody has learned to go online and all that.

So we’re developing a website, and Moodle, for those who are in education might know what Moodle is.

And then we are trying to put a Bible lesson structured so people can go there, can learn there about the Bible, New Testament, Old Testament, and all that.

So teaching and preaching ministry takes a lot of our time. And then publishing ministry.

I’ve started to publish the Emmaus courses.

[19:01] I would encourage the young guys to do them. I’ve done in 1991, 1992 from Italian, What the Bible teaches was eye-opening to me.

[19:11] You know, and I started to do them in Albanian, translating them and printing them.

That’s before I moved for Ireland. And then when I moved in 2008, we’re doing some outreach, but we realized that there was no many leaflets.

So we started to do leaflets. There’s no proper bookshop. There’s just one, actually, we can go, but there’s no, a lot of materials.

So we started to do, to write leaflets and to print them, hundreds, thousands of them.

And now this is the latest one, as you can see, it’s COVID-19.

Calendars, calendars, we started to do them for, it’s 15 years now, we’ve printed to the country and hundreds and thousands of them.

As Paul says, by all means, by all means, as we give out calendars, not only in Tirana, but we give calendars to other assemblies around the country.

There are people who are asking, and you get, because we put a phone number, We put a contact detail.

There are people who ask questions.

And it’s quite good to see that people read not only the calendars, because especially the latest years, we have done some more interactive calendar with a question there, with a short story or so.

And then we started to do books.

Now, I like books.

[20:31] And as I like books, because I can read them in English or Italian or other language.

And then you say, I love this, so people can have that, can read that.

And then another thing, another question is the question of legacy.

If the Lord does not come for a hundred years or so, nobody will be here.

What is the legacy? we have left.

The brother talk of a library, 1800 writings.

[21:03] Although we have them in Albanian. So we started to do books, and slowly, slowly.

[21:09] That is our books that we have done so far.

And as you can see, you can, this is David Gooding’s, and this is John Lennox, Determined to Believe, and this is If You Want to Go Far, or From Now On, Ralph Charles, from assemblies in France, and so on.

So books are a good legacy.

And as I said, we’re trying to do the translation as a very long process.

I don’t translate personally, I do the copy editing. So I get the material and then you go, almost paragraph for paragraph, word by word to see the accuracy of translation.

And then after that, you read it again for a second time, full book, to see how the thought is flowing, if it makes sense in Albanian.

And then again you print it, for a third time you read it again.

And to see maybe grammar mistakes and so on.

And then came the laity.

So a part of the translation, these other processes, I do them personally.

So publishing ministry, we have three books, Israel and the Church, a very good book, Ronde prose, he was from New Zealand, he’s with the Lord now, he’s a missionary in Italy, and it’s a very good book between, tells of the difference between Israel and the Church.

Can we trust the Gospels?

[22:37] It’s a very, very good book. Again, the challenge that we have there, in Albina we are like a sandwich between Islam and Atheism.

[22:48] So, can you trust the gospels, answer to both, to Islam and to atheists as well.

And then the later one was almost done, has to do with eschatology.

So it’s the first book of that kind in Albania, I’m quite excited, and soon we’ll have it to print. So I have to go on.

A Bible exhibition, I like, I love history.

And as I love history, I want the people to know that our faith is based on historical facts.

So, the idea of it started when I was in the book fair. I’m going to mention book fair again, but just this is a Gutenberg press replica and it works.

You see, I’m showing them, I just printed here and just showing them John 3, 16.

Try this, you know how you print?

You go to file, you go to print, and you print.

[23:49] 500 years ago, it wasn’t like now. So it was quite a complicated process.

But anyway, so, and this became the idea of the Bible Exhibition, to show people how the Bible came.

And again, this are some, this is a Jewish scroll, and there’s some new texts and manuscripts.

Now, there’s nothing original or old replicas, but they work.

So, and then we started to prepare panels, how the scripture came, and this is, the Jews in Egypt, how they’re making bricks and all that.

[24:23] So how does it work? It’s like a small museum. Here’s my van there, and you put them, everything on a whole, a bit like that, like this one here, and then you assemble it, and here it is.

We have almost 40, a bit more than 40 displays, and it takes you, first part is how we have the, how we had the Bible, and then the second will be a longest one, you know, from Genesis to Revelation, and it will be a lot of archeological site pictures, and actually we wrote to museum, British Museum to get some high resolution, of their material as well.

They’re more than happy to send them to us.

So, and what you do, you go to a place, and we hire, you hire a hall, And then you put up the exhibition and you go with the billboards, go on the local radio and you announce it.

And then you have people coming.

[25:22] Now, because of COVID over there, it stopped this last two years.

We didn’t have any of that, but we plan to have soon a Bible exhibition.

So sometimes it can be an event. If you go in a small town, it can be an event.

The mayor will come there and they will have an opening ceremony.

And so it’s a good way to present the gospel, to present the Bible, the scriptures, to people.

So I was in the book fair last November, and there was a young guy who came, and he said, you know, he shook hands with me, and he said, do you remember me?

I said, I’m sorry, I don’t know you.

I’ve been to your Bible exhibition, and that was the first introduction, my introduction, he said, to the Bible. Now, he’s saved, he goes somewhere else, doesn’t matter, by all means, Paul says.

[26:08] ABC Christian Clinic. Now, she’s a doctor, she’s a family doctor, she’s a GP, and then she has a license to practice in the UK, she has a license to practice in Albina. There’s a lot of bureaucracy to get that license, but anyway, so this is how they start their day. So all staff is Christians, and then they are there to serve people and to show the love of God. And they do a lot of training as well for young doctors, young nurses, and that is a great opportunity. As I mentioned before that.

[26:40] Lot of them have come to the knowledge of truth through those seminars. We had a girl in our assembly and then as she came to one of them, she was from a nursing faculty and then she was listening and she asked the question, I never heard this, how do you get saved? And then she, got saved, baptized, and fellowshiped in our assembly. So please pray for the ABC clinic, that’s during COVID, as you can see, and that’s the star. And I have to run. What’s the children’s home in Jurocastro. Now our God is the father of the fatherless. This ministry has started more than 25 years ago by a sister commanded by the Dutch assemblies. She came in Albania.

Whoever you are, if you are motivated to serve the Lord, brother or sister, you can be used mightily by a great God. She came on her own, commanded, the elders commanded her, they didn’t know much, you know, how she was going. Today there is a well-established ministry, 15 children, 13 at the moment, but full capacity, almost.

And we have them, there is.

[28:08] Let me show you, here it is, it’s a home, it’s not an institution, it’s not an orphanage. It’s a home.

When they do homework, when they play together, it’s just a lovely environment.

So please remember that the children’s home.

I’m one of the trustees and I’m actively involved. I go there, visit them, not only to see the well-being of the children, but everything that has to do with legalities and with the staff and all that.

So please remember Children’s Home in Jiricaster.

[28:39] And then as the new outreach, the last but not the least, this is into my heart, right?

In 2009, somebody asked me to take a youth camp, and that was in August of that year.

And here I am, I’m here, you can see more darks here and I’m getting wet.

Anyway, one guy got saved there and it thrilled our hearts and then I said, is there any follow-up?

They said, no, we’ve just moved.

We were in, you know, a year or so, we’re fellowshipping another assembly there, but this was the other side of time.

So at the same time in November, I was at the book fair. The book fairs are a massive family event, it’s usually a third week in November.

And the first time on that book fair, I went in 2008, we were just in the country.

I took my son, Look, and visiting the stalls, as I said, a lot of publishing houses, they’ll bring their books and there’ll be a lot of advertisement and all that, as I said, it’s very family orientated.

And as I was there, I noticed that every other stall

[29:53] A Muslim stall. So I said, right, we have to do something. We have to be here.

And then this is how it started. In November 2009, we were at that big fair.

Here it is, giving out tracts and presenting people with the gospel literature.

And as that developed, we said, why don’t we do something else? A kind of outreach.

Now, people are not churchy there. If you ask somebody, do you want to come to church? No, church doesn’t mean anything to them.

But if you tell them, do you want to come to a conference or do you want to come to a seminar?

And I say, yes, okay, it might come. So the first seminar that we organized was, has man created God or God created man? Because that is a bottom line question.

If God has created us, that means we are responsible, accountable to him. So this is how we started we gained a bit of momentum and the people the young guys they were coming they called themselves explore uh people are great you know are modern english there they want to speak english and everything like that they called expo they said we are here to explore and as we explore we find Christ.

[31:14] EXPLOSION, stand for explosion also, as we have found Christ we want to affect others, that they may come to the same knowledge and that is our motto still is in and out.

[31:33] And as i said we we gain a bit of momentum that time we started to have this kind of seminars and And from every fortnight start, almost every Saturday night, and then we’re having, preparing leaflets and people starting to come.

And we started children’s meeting that time, the same time. And there were four couples, but two couples moved again because they got married, moved to Tirana.

And we were having, as I said, Bible studies together, and we’re having a prayer together, When we’re having fellowship together, you see, something is missing, isn’t it?

And then in May 2011, we said, right, in fellowship with other assemblies in the country, we said we’ll establish ourselves as a new assembly.

We’re only four couples. Out of those four couples, we’re just left two.

Migration is a big challenge, a huge challenge. As a small assembly we have seen couples with children left for abroad, obviously for a better life.

Now we can’t stop that, but we are asking people to think about their dimension in eternity.

[32:54] What is going on? How much am I investing for heaven? How much am I investing for when I’m going to be there on the other side, when I’m going to see my Lord as we read, as we sang together.

So there’s us working as a new assembly. So there’s a tent, Sylvia and the colleagues having a medical tent there, and what is that?

That’s a youth meeting, the teenagers actually, and then this is one of the Christmas dinners before COVID. So please pray for the new assembly. Now last year we celebrated together 10 years, we have retreats, usually happens in September, last year we had it in May. So assembly in lockdown, you are all familiar to that, that Zoom, we discovered Zoom, we never knew Zoom before March 2020 but anyway in the middle of lockdown in the middle of of COVID there are some light there. We had two couples getting married and they, whoops.

[34:08] Here it is. And one of them, they’re taking responsibility with the youth and meeting that we have. So please pray for the for the assembly. Ten years. This is a historical picture, at least for us. One, two, three, four. These couple here, they were not baptized at that time.

Now they’re baptized, but they migrated as well, unfortunately. And ten years after, here we are. We’re almost 30 in fellowship and we’ll have the children and teenagers and all that. Now before I close I’d like to speak of these two very dear to my heart. Now they’re, all dear to my heart and these two in special. In 2007 I was in Albania in Vlor and I was taking, some sort of Easter conference and after one of the sessions somebody came to me and he said, He said, I want to give you, I want to thank you. He said, why?

I said, he said, I want to thank you. I said, don’t think I know you, but he said, I’ve heard you on the radio.

Said, speaking. And because of that, he said, I got saved. He said, praise the Lord.

Now, this guy who got saved in 207 is his cousin, okay?

[35:24] And he shared the gospel with him. That time, he was engaged to her.

Not interested but her.

She started to come to the English classes and then she got saved.

And then after that we are having a dinner with all the couples and they were married that time and then we said, why don’t you come bring your husband and he came for the first time and then later on he got saved.

And they got baptized just three years ago.

And then he spoke to her, who was a sister of him.

And she got saved. You see, when she came for the very first time in our meeting, it was just Sunday morning.

[36:15] And I said, we are not a big crowd, you know. We don’t have this kind of gathering over there.

As she came on the Sunday morning, she thought that we were faking it.

[36:26] Because people are so nice. People are so lovely to each other.

And she said, oh, maybe they are faking it because I am here.

And then after two, three months, she got saved. She got baptized just last December.

By all means, all sense, it can be an English class, it can be a couple’s dinner, it can, be just by visiting the assembly.

So be encouraged.

The Lord wants us to be used and you can be used if you allow yourself to be used.

The last verse I’d like to leave with you is this one here.

Paul says that we may all strive together in prayers for what I will be delivered from, them who do not believe in Judea. We will be delivered from the dangers.

There are a lot of dangers over there.

And then that our ministry may be accepted and that we all may find ourselves in the, will of God. And that’s the most important thing.

Wherever you are, here in the States, back in Albania, in Europe, in Ireland, everywhere, important is that you may be in the will of God.

And that is what we want all to be. Amen.

Ministry on our Great High Priest from Ian Jackson.

https://media.jjministry.org/Conf2022_03IJackson20220917.m4a.

And I want to read with you at verse number seven, the epistle to the Hebrews chapter five and verse seven.

Christ, in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplication with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard, in that he feared.

Sometimes that is rendered, he was heard for his piety.

As we’ve been thinking, a word closely connected with that idea of godliness, a proper disposition and attitude to God, was heard in that he feared, though he were son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.”, Now some verses please in chapter 10, secondly and finally, Hebrews chapter 10.

And reading of verse number 19.

[1:25] Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his flesh, And having an high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart, in, full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”.

[2:09] Now the Lord has blessed us, as he always does, the reading of his word.

It was a very difficult thing to be a first century Hebrew, a first century Jew, converted to Christ.

And as the writer to the Hebrews is writing to them, he recognizes this.

And he knows that there is so much against them.

Is so much persecution, so much misunderstanding. And the great thing in the epistle to the Hebrews when you read it is to remember that these are great encouragements to those who were, in need of encouragement, they were weary, they were fainting in their mind. We read later in chapter 10, in chapter 12, and he wanted to bring them great encouragement and you could understand, it that if you were a first century Jew now converted to Christ, that maybe some in your Your family would come to you and they would say, why are you doing this?

[3:18] What have you got? You’re following a man who was crucified, that’s the last thing that the world saw of him.

He was crucified in weakness, they might say to you, and you follow him? Yes, we follow him.

And in this newfound faith that you have, what do you have? Do you have a temple?

And they would say, no, no, we don’t have one of those. We don’t have any building at all like that.

Do you have a tabernacle? Not even a temporary structure like that, not one of them.

[3:52] And do you have a priesthood? We have a priesthood. It was ordained by God. Do you have a priesthood?

And they look around and they say, well, no, no, we have no distinctive priesthood. We have no people who represent us in the presence of God with distinctive clothes and a distinctive position.

No, we don’t have that at all. And do you have any grand choirs? No, we don’t have those either.

And do you have big orchestral music with which to worship God? And they would say, no, no, we haven’t got any of that either. And they would say, well, what have you got?

And these believers might be just stretched to tell them exactly what they have with any advantage over what they had in Judaism. And the writer to the Hebrews, whoever he was, I think you know who he was, the trouble is you might all know differently who he was, but you know who he was. Anyway, the writer to the Hebrews, he’s going to write to them and he’s picking up his pen and his paper and he’s going to say to them, listen I want you to be encouraged because what you have is far greater than anything and everything you ever had in the days of of your Judaistic faith.

He says, do you know something? The Son of God is greater than angels.

[5:19] You Israelites, he say, the Israelites might well have boasted in the angels and angelic ministry, and they did. There was angelic ministry at every significant point in Israel’s history. But says, the writer to the Hebrews, I want you to know something, that it wasn’t to any of the angels that God said, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. And when God brings again his son into the world, it shall be to the angels that he says, this is my son, worship him.

[5:51] I want you to know, he says, that in the world to come it won’t be angels that have the governance of that age. They are the dominating influence in this present age, but in that age to come, no, no, this will be God’s son. And those connected with him, but this will be God’s son, greater than angels in that millennial kingdom. And he says, and by the way, by the way, he was greater than Moses. Moses was a servant in God’s house. Christ is son over God’s house.

Just bear that in mind for a little later in what I want to say to you. Christ is son over God’s house. And by the way, says the writer to the Hebrews, I want you to know he’s not only greater than angels, Israelites boasted in angels, and not only greater than Moses in whom they also boasted, because I want you to understand he’s greater than Aaron, and.

[6:52] Not only is he greater than Aaron, but he’s also greater than Melchizedek, or by the way, he operates in a far greater tabernacle, and he’s going to say the sacrifice that Christ offered at the cross is far greater than all of those sacrifices in Old Testament times. He said, I want you to understand something, that the Savior who is your Savior and the great High Priest who is your great High Priest and the great Priest who is your great Priest, is now somewhere where angels will never be and Moses will never be and Aaron will never be and Melchizedek will never be, in a scene really nothing like the, the scenes that you have ever known in your Jewish history.

He says he’s at God’s right hand, a place reserved uniquely, entirely, and wonderfully for the Son of God.

Chapter one, he’s at the right hand. Chapter eight, he’s at the right hand.

Chapter 10, he’s at the right hand, all because of a finished work.

Chapter 12, he’s at the right hand of God because he’s walked the path of faith and he’s done it perfectly.

This is the outcome, this is the issue, he’s at the right hand of God.

Well, that would surely make you want to be a Christian.

[8:16] And when the people came along and said, thank you very much, but we’re going to spoil your goods, you would take joyfully the spoiling of your goods. And if they came along and said, we’re going to take away your business enterprise, you would happily lose it for the man of Calvary.

Now exalt it. This is what we have. We have such a savior. This is God’s son. This is who we’re connected with. And by the way, isn’t it a wonderful thing to be a Christian? And you and I living in the world in which we’re living, with so much against us, the tide of gospel testimony going out, the rise of wokeism, the rise of godlessness, the rise of secularism and atheism all around us, and the pressures it brings upon you. Just remember the greatness of the privilege and benefit of belonging to a man in glory who gave himself for you.

[9:16] And so the writer to the Hebrews writes to them. Hebrews is not the easiest book in the New Testament, but I think this just for those of you beginning your Bible study, if you’re studying three books to begin with, you would do worse than make them Romans, that will establish you in the gospel, Ephesians that will establish you in church truth and dispensational truth, and Hebrews for the reasons I’ve just said.

[9:49] When you come to chapter 10 of this epistle, you have three things at the beginning of the chapter that lead into the verses that we have read, and it’s not the only chapter in the bible where this happens and in this order. Firstly, the writer to the Hebrews in the first 10 verses or so, he’s going to speak about the will of God. Then the next verses down to verse 14, he’s going to speak about the work of the Son. Then in the remainder of the verses to where we began reading down to verse 18, he’s going to speak about the witness of the Spirit. You get the same by the way in Ephesians 1, you get it in 1 Peter 1, and here’s now the writer to the Hebrews, and he’s, going to speak about the will of God. He says an amazing thing. He says, you see the will of God, You see those sacrifices? In Old Testament, how many sacrifices?

There was an article in the Believer’s Magazine about 30 years ago, or thereabouts, where somebody attempted to calculate the number of sacrifices, animal sacrifices, that might have taken place in Old Testament times. And I’m not sure how he worked it out because it seemed to me a totally impossible thing to work out, and I can’t remember what the answer was. But if I said to you zillions, you’d understand.

[11:18] But the amazing thing, because when you’re reading in Hebrews chapter 10, it says not one of them accomplished the will of God and not one of them pleased him.

This is the writer to the Hebrews quoting from the Psalms. He says in verse eight, “‘Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings “‘and offering for sin thou wouldest not.'”, That’s to do with the will of God, thou wouldest not.

He says, neither hath pleasure therein.

Isn’t that amazing?

All of those sacrifices are not one of them, accomplishing the will of God or pleasing him, but contrary, in contrast to that, he says in verse 10, by the which will, the same will of God, he says by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

He speaks about the will of God.

Then you’ll speak about the work of the Son, and you’ll say, you see all those Old Testament sacrifices.

By the way, did you ever think to yourself when you’re reading through what a dirge and a drudge it must have been to be a priest in Old Testament times?

[12:26] Like seriously, day after day, you’re offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which cannot take away sins, says verse 11 of our chapter. Repetitively, continually, impossibly, and here Here you are standing in the priesthood and you’re doing this day after day.

[12:53] My dear brothers and sisters, thank God for verse 12 of our chapter, that in contrast to all of those priests and in contrast to all of those sacrifices, this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down. The idea is this, he sat down to perpetuity.

[13:18] And you might say, but surely he’s going to rise again because he’s coming to the air.

He is. And he’s going to come again and praise God he’s going to sit on the throne of his glory.

He is. But the idea in Hebrews 10 and 12 is this, that he’ll never need to rise again from where he is seated in respect of the question of sins. So it’s not that he sat down unconditionally, but he sat down forever, the great’s once for all sacrifice for sins having been accomplished, praise God, it admits of no repetition. And in the good of it all our Saviour sits today on the right hand of God from which he will never again rise in respect of the matter of sins.

And says verse 14, that by that one offering he’s perfected forever them that are sanctified. Now bear all that please in your mind. Sorry to be cracking on at a bit of pace. I’m having an argument with the clock already.

[14:27] Then he speaks about the witness of the Spirit, and what a wonderful witness.

Dear child of God in the meeting today, will you grasp this and live in the good of it, will you really? Because what he’s saying is this, quoting of course from Jeremiah 31 and New Covenant matters, which I’m not going to go into just at the moment, but what he’s saying is this, there’s sins and iniquities. Well, I remember no more. I love that verse in the Bible.

[14:57] For all of us who are saved today, and for those of you who are not saved, would you grasp this as a possibility for you, even in the conference, to come to Christ, and to know the value of this. God says, their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.

Sometimes at the end of meetings, by the way it’s very interesting what people say to you at the end of meetings, when you’re shaking hands at the door. It’s a terrible experience, because you never know what people are going to say to you.

Sometimes they’re a wonderful word, brother, and you know in your heart that it wasn’t.

[15:40] Sometimes people think you’ve said the opposite of what you have actually said, so they go away saying, I really agree with that point that you made, and the point you were making was the very opposite and you think to yourself, am I really such a bad preacher and communicator, that that’s the case? Sometimes people just go out and say absolutely nothing. Sometimes people say to me at the end of the meeting, it doesn’t happen often, but sometimes people say to me at the end of the meeting, oh you’ve got a wonderful memory and all I always say, talk to my wife about.

[16:09] It. Because sometimes I’m going from our house into town to the shop and so I get into town And she said to me, would you get, would you just pop in and get this and this and this?

So I say to Sue, my wife, sure. And I get into town and there’s a bookshop in town.

So I get waylaid in the bookshop. And suddenly my mind is filled with all sorts of other things.

And the thing that I would most certainly not forget to get for my dear wife is still in the shop and I get home and she said, did you leave those things in the car?

She knows full well what goes on. Did you leave those things in the car?

No. you’ve got a terrible memory.

You see when you come to this verse, this is nothing to do with God’s forgetting.

This is God as judge. This is God coming to a judicial view of things and what he’s saying is this, their sins and iniquities will never again rise before me. I want you to grasp this because it’s really important for where I really want to get to. He says their sins and iniquities will I remember no more and if you’ve heard the brethren quote this and add the words forever, It’s a misquotation but it is the truth. He says their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Isn’t that something? That your sins that you might still remember.

[17:35] Your sins that might trouble you from the past, God has said I’ll remember them no more. This is God as judge. He’s put them away from before him. We praise his name this morning that that’s the the case that God has said their sins and iniquities will I remember no more and where there is remission of these there is no more offering for sin because there’s no need for any more offering for sin. It’s a done deal, it’s done, finished, sorted, their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now it’s on the back of that that the writer to the Hebrews says having therefore.

[18:17] Brethren. Having therefore, you know the old thing, when you see a therefore, you’ve got to see what it’s there for. Well we’ve just seen what it’s there for. So, what the writer to the Hebrews is saying is, look, look we have a great privilege in being able to enter into the very presence of God and he says the reason why we have that privilege.

[18:40] Well he says, I want to talk to you a bit more about it, but the reason why we have that privilege is this, there was one who accomplished the will of God and by that one offering, in accordance with his will, we are perfected forever, and sanctified forever, and God remembering our sins no more forever.

[19:03] And therefore he says, in the light of that, we have boldness, and we have boldness as we enter into the Holiest. We read about our Savior praying in Gethsemane, and our Savior was the only person ever who lived on earth with a, right to be heard. Yes, in the epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 5, he was heard in that he feared. There was a godly reverence, there was a piety in our Lord Jesus Christ. And the idea in chapter 5 is this, that because of that piety, he was heard. He did in fact have the right to be heard, which you and I do not have, apart from him. And yet now what he’s saying here in Hebrews chapter 10 is this, that we have boldness to enter into the holiest. And not only that, but he.

[20:12] Says we come by a new and living way which Christ himself consecrated, inaugurated for us, and that new and living way is his flesh given in death, and by it we enter through the veil. Now there’s some stuff to unpack here, I really want us to understand this. I said to my wife one day, I have got two problems. She looked at me and she says, you can’t count, Ian, as wives kind of do, you know. But the point about this was this, that your two problems and mine are, number one what you do and number two what you are. But that’s fairly comprehensive. Romans speaks about this, you see in Romans we have guilt before God as sinners, that’s as a result of what we do.

We’ve missed the mark, we’ve fallen short of his standard. We have guilt, that is legal guilt, not feelings of guilt, but legal guilt. We stand before God as guilty and the only thing that will answer for your guilt and mine is the blood of Christ. That’s why the basis of justification is not substitution, it’s propitiation.

[21:34] So the idea is this now, that Christ by the blood that he shed on Calvary, has met the demands of the throne of God. This is a most wonderful thing.

[21:45] The righteous demands of God’s throne have been fully met in the blood of Christ.

He’s an infinite sacrifice of infinite worth.

He’s paying an infinite price to satisfy the infinite demands of infinite justice.

He did it by His blood, beloved brethren and sisters, the sacrifice that He rendered to God at the cross. We thank God for it. That’s why Romans 3 speaks about propitiation in His blood.

The blood of sacrifice was always first for the eye of God. We saw that in passing last night.

The blood on the doorpost was for the eye of God. When I see the blood, I will pass over you.

The same thing is on the day of atonement. His blood sprinkled on and before the mercy seat.

It’s blood for the eye of God. Listen, I know you’re happy that Christ died for you.

And I know that you’re happy that Christ gave himself for the church.

And I know that you’re happy that Christ gave himself in a special way for the nation of Israel.

And I know that you’re glad that he gave himself a ransom for all without exception, but the first direction of the cross is Godward.

[23:07] By that precious blood he satisfied every single demand of the throne of God, against sins. He’s the propitiation for our sins, says 1 John 2, the things that we’ve done, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

Listen, I want us to grasp this again. By that precious blood, every single one of your sins and iniquities has been absolutely obliterated from before the face of God. In our gospel preaching, let us make much of that sacrifice, of that precious blood. Do not be ashamed to lift high the banner of the cross in the, preaching of the gospel, because the basis of all our blessing, and any blessing at any time, is the blood of Christ. Grasp it, believe it, love it, adore the one who shed it. Because after all, by Him, says the writer to the Hebrews, we, have boldness to enter.

Imagine saying this to Old Testament Jews, that in time to come, all those in God’s house, We’ll find out who they are just before lunch.

[24:35] All those in God’s house, not only are able to enter into the presence of God, but they have boldness to enter. Imagine if you were the high priest in Israel’s history, and you’re in the tabernacle now, and it’s the day of atonement. You remember that it was on that day only that he went into the presence of God. He went within the veil. The language in the Old Testament is within the veil, the language here is through the veil. He went within the veil, so the idea is this. If I was Aaron, or one of those subsequent hybrids, if I was Aaron.

[25:16] I would stand there outside the veil with my teeth chattering and my knees knocking, for this very reason, that within the veil was God.

Here’s the mercy seat, the lid of the ark, with cherubim beaten out, each end of the mercy seat, looking towards each other, looking down. That mercy seat was the throne of God. The New Testament speaks of it, the Old Testament speaks of it rather, as the throne of the God of the whole earth. It’s where he was, he was between the cherubim. And Aaron going into that presence God would discover this, that if he went in without the incense, if he went in without the blood, that would be no throne of mercy, no mercy seat, that would be a throne of judgment, because he was going in to the very presence of God. And would any of the other Israelites think of entering into the holiest of all in the tabernacle? Not on your life they wouldn’t.

[26:21] It would never occur to them that they might be able to enter into the holiest of all, where God is. Praise God for this, my beloved brethren and sisters. This verse is telling me, and you this morning, that we have boldness to enter on by the way. When we enter, we enter through the veil, not a rent veil.

Remember that bit? You know sometimes we sing that, we sing, maybe you do, the veil is rent, lo Jesus stands and all that, and sometimes it’s taught that the veil of the temple was rent from the top to the bottom in order that we might enter in. This is not true.

God is not behind a rent veil.

[27:10] The point about the rent veil was that God was going to come out in grace and in mercy to Gentiles. Praise God he did.

Now the imagery here is the tabernacle, the veil standing. This is in the wilderness.

Here’s the veil hanging in the tabernacle and just as the high priest went within the veil, So now, says the Lord, not in an earthly material tabernacle, but in that of which it spake, the very sanctuary where God is now.

Using this imagery from the tabernacle, He says, we have boldness to enter and we enter through the veil, says verse 20.

And why do we have boldness? We have boldness because of the blood of Jesus.

Praise God. That blood that has dealt with everything that I have done, which was a huge hindrance to me ever entering into the presence of God.

Grasp this. We have boldness. It means we can speak freely.

We’re not like the Old Testament priests who came into the presence of God with remembrance of sins.

[28:23] We now come into God’s presence, as we have done this morning and in prayer, whenever it happens.

We come into God’s presence with this wonderful recognition that all of our sins have been forever dealt with.

And we therefore come with boldness.

Anyway, the other limb of this is this, not what I’ve done, but what I am. What you are.

[28:49] The Bible, well when you read the Bible, you really realize what you are.

[28:57] So the idea is this, that when you’re reading in Romans 5, there is a fallen head of a fallen race, that was Adam. And everything that issued from Adam, okay, is marked and characterized and governed indeed by words like this, sin, offense, death, death reigning, it’s a whole range of really awful words, of things that are true of those who came from Adam.

[29:28] And I have a problem and you did as a sinner before God, which was this, not only what I’ve done but what I am, a sinful child of Adam’s race. So the second inhibition to me entering into the presence of God was not now what I’ve done but what I am and as a child in Adam’s race, I’m an enemy of God, I’m alienated from the life of God by sin and wicked works. You remember, you are a sinner not because of what you do but because of what you are. So that needs to be dealt with. Now listen carefully, by the blood of Christ what I have done was dealt with once and for all. Christ died for me, he gave himself for me but another thing happened at Calvary which is a wonderful thing and not often preached which is this, that when he died I died. The man that I was as a child in Adam’s race was.

[30:30] Brought to an end in death in the death of Christ. So in other words, he died not only on my behalf and he died, this is the language of faith, not only as my substitute but he died as my representative. So when he died on my behalf or as my substitute, he went to Calvary alone, he died alone. But when he died as my representative, he took me with him.

That’s the teaching of passages like Romans 6, Romans 5 on reconciliation.

It’s the teaching of all the major reconciliation passages. It’s to do with his death. He’s actually entering into death and he took me with him. The man that I was in Adam was brought to an end in death, in the death of Christ, before the face of… Have you ever recognized that?

To me, that’s one of the most liberating truths in the New Testament.

I don’t know what the name of your polish is for your furniture here in America, but We have Mr. Sheen.

[31:41] And see when you got saved, there wasn’t some kind of application of a spiritual Mr. Sheen, and a yellow duster. Don’t you polish up well? It’s just an old sinner underneath all of that, but you polish up well. That’s a second-rate view of salvation, let me tell you. I praise God that the man that I was in Adam was brought to an end in death, in the death of Christ. That’s why in In verse 19 it speaks of his blood in relation to my sins, but in verse 20, the new and living way which is consecrated for us is, listen, it is his flesh.

And the idea in that when you read it in the New Testament is his flesh given in death.

He dealt entirely with the man that I was.

[32:30] In Adam, in his death, as in his death I died before the face of God. So what that means is this, that everything that hindered me, everything that was an obstacle for me to enter into God’s presence, has been cleared in the work of Christ. Isn’t that just tremendous?

Nothing left undone, nothing outstanding. I have a list of things on my desk at home, outstanding. It gets longer every week. It’s terrible. I read that list sometimes I’m ashamed at what I haven’t finished.

Praise God for this finished work. Nothing to add to it. Nothing can take from it.

This is the work of our blessed savior. He’s cleared the way for us, not only to be saved, but now as we have done in the meeting this morning and shall do, to enter into his very presence.

Will you grasp this?

Look, by faith and in spirit, We come into the very presence of God.

[33:36] In other words, that is our place of worship. So our halls, buildings in which we meet, they’re not our sanctuaries, they’re not our tabernacles, they’re not our places of worship.

You don’t need a building for that. You can be in a forest.

I was meeting with the believers in Ukraine and they all gathered just in the open air, in the place where we were.

And our place of worship isn’t here, brothers and sisters, it was in Old Testament times, the place of worship was the tabernacle, the temple, but our place of worship now is this, the Father seeketh worshipers, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit. That’s, not just in the power of the Holy Spirit, but it is this, that by faith and in spirit, when we pray, when we’re engaged in worship, we enter into the very presence of God.

[34:44] Isn’t that something? Oh, by the way, we’re not strangers there, we’re encouraged to be there because this is saying that not only have we boldness because of all of these things, but he says we have a high priest, a great priest over the house of God, and he’s great not so much because of the office he bears, that’s chapter four, but he’s great because he encourages us to enter in by faith and in spirit to, the very presence of God. It was said of the late Mr. W.W. Faraday, none of you heard him preach, he died a long time ago. It was said of the late Mr. W.W.

Faraday that he was lying ill, he was known for his terseness. He was lying ill in bed and somebody came to see him, brother came to see him. So after a little while he said to Mr. Faraday, Mr. Faraday perhaps I’ll just pray and then I’ll go. So he begins to pray, he says, our Heavenly Father, oh stop it says Mr. Faraday.

[36:02] He said, look, if it is that you pray in those terms, Matthew 6 teaches to pray, our Father which art in heaven, it assumes that you are on earth and there is a distance to the Father, but he says that’s not the case in the dispensation in which we live.

He says the case in the dispensation in which we live is this, It’s not that we’re here and he is there at a distance.

He says, by faith grasp this, that by faith and in spirit when we speak to God, we enter into his very presence.

There is nearness because not only that, but he says, let us draw near with a true heart, not like the evil heart of unbelief earlier on, with a true heart he says, and in full assurance of faith as to our acceptance. He says, and in full assurance of faith, our hearts being sprinkled from an evil conscience, that’s the action of blood, our bodies washed with pure water, that’s another subject in itself by the way, but what he’s saying is we draw near, we don’t just enter, but we draw near. I want to ask you a question, see that privilege that we have, did you use it this morning?

[37:20] I said it was a busy morning, I understand. We were rushed, I understand. Did you use it yesterday?

[37:29] Is it on the agenda for tomorrow? But, brothers and sisters, there is a thing that goes with godliness hand in hand and it’s seen in the person of our blessed Saviour who was heard And in that he feared, and that is the presence of God, communion with God, sanctuary experience with God. What do you know about it?

When the things of earth recede, alone with thee, O Master, where the light of earthly glory dies, misunderstood by all, I dare to do what thine own heart would prize.

Shut out from friends, shut out from relatives, shut out from your phone.

That’s a big thing. Shut out from everything that might intrude and intervene, alone in the presence of God, where you are privileged not only to be able to enter, but to enter with boldness, and not only so, but the great priest who is over the house of God, every single believer in this present era in the house of God, whoever they are, wherever they meet, every single believer in the house of God, ours is the privilege to enter.

I want to say to you, there can be no godliness without the sanctuary.

[38:59] There could be nothing of God-fearingness, nothing of piety, without us being often.

[39:10] And more often and more often taking up the huge privilege that is ours in this dispensation, and may I say in no other, of entering into the very presence of God.

You’re great to be saved! All of this, and that’s just touching the borders of the land!

May the Lord help us to be in the good of it, for his name’s sake.