Address—R. Thonney
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Grace is the sweetest sound that ever reached our ears.
Conscience charged and justice frowned. To his grace removed our fears.
I thought when check started yesterday he was going to take the theme that I had on my heart. But I think what he had to say was very good background for what the Lord has put on my heart. So let's sing #10.
Is the sweetest sound.
The Replication Soccer nation.
What function started across the was?
Great with our tears.
Demonstration without pursuit of sledge.
It is like I remember seeing.
Grace.
Is thy spot grace? Praise my God.
Here's my way forever.
Our grace and we never have to stay.
I feel all day we're all going through speech.
Seven and sing that one as well.
To pray I.
Mean I want nothing.
May your name Grace. Grace, Grace, grace.
Soul strengthening heart murderer.
We're not asking the agency.
Perhaps like that's what I.
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Deserve.
You know, it's nice to be able to sing sometimes more than one hymn at the beginning of a meeting.
That there's one thing I've learned, a Latin brethren in South America, they love to sing. And what the spiritual contact we have in our hymns is a way to get it into the soul. When you sing it, you're enjoying what you're singing. If you're thinking about it anyhow, and.
They will often at the beginning of a reading meeting, sing for 1/2 an hour. Of course they have three hour readings so.
That leaves a little space, but it just encourage singing. It really is a happy thing. Let's pray 3 Scriptures want to talk about grace this afternoon. Kind of a follow-up, maybe more on a practical level.
Of what the brother Chuck gave yesterday on the book of Galatians, which was so helpful but.
To get the picture of where we are, I want to take 3 scriptures. First one is the present age in which we live.
The second one will be the coming age, which is the Millennium. We've talked about that in these conferences, in these meetings. And the third one, third Scripture is a scripture that.
Deals with God's eternal day. Let's go first of all to Romans chapter 5.
This was a.
Part of one of our Bible readings down in Salta, Argentina last weekend.
We had Romans 567 and eight in the readings. Really enjoyed it, but this stood out as we came across it. Romans chapter 5 and verse 20. Moreover, the law entered that the offence might abound, but where sin abounds.
Grace did much more abound. Now notice verse 21, that as sin had reigned unto death, this part, Even so might grace reign through righteousness.
Unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. In a certain way you can say this is what characterizes.
The age in which we live, this present day, we call it the dispensation of the grace of God at times. But I like to put it this way, grace reigns through righteousness. If God is going to act, he always acts in consistency with Himself. And if this is a day of His grace, he's not going to do it in a way that compromises the question of righteousness.
This is the day in which grace reigns through righteousness by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now let's look at the one to do with the Millennial day, Isaiah chapter 32.
And verse one.
Behold.
A king shall reign in righteousness.
And Princess shall rule in judgment.
This is describing the millennial day. This king that is spoken of in verse one is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's going to ring. It's not grace raining through righteousness.
No, in that day it will be righteousness that will reign.
And I don't know that we really have an appreciation with how it's going to be in that day. We are so used to the fact that we live in the day of grace that we kind of take it for granted that it will always be that way. But in the millennial day, it's going to be different. It will not be a day of grace in the Millennium. It will be a day in which.
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Righteousness reigns. It tells us in the Book of Psalms that every morning he's going to cut off the evil doers out of the city of the Lord. And a person during the millennial day, Satan will be bound in the bottomless pit.
And a person that dares to sin will know it. You will not be deceived by Satan. He will know that he is acting in direct rebellion to the Lord Jesus Christ. And then next morning, what he's out of there, he's gone.
People will learn fast that they can't get away with stuff. I mean, everybody does it today, and even Christians sometimes get into the rut of just taking liberties. It won't happen in that day. It will be righteousness raining. But now let's go to a verse that speaks of the eternal day.
In second Peter chapter 3. Now when I say the eternal day, I'm talking about eternity.
Time. I like to think of time as a little bubble.
In eternity, God inhabits eternity. We live in time, and God came into time, and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, that God in the fullness of his being, inhabits eternity. I don't know if we can grasp that very well, but it's interesting to think about. God inhabits eternity.
But the time is going to come when every created thing is going to pass away.
And.
Then it will be God's.
Eternal day. Remember, eternity is just one day.
Because there's no night there. It's one day.
But it's a day that is never ending.
Fact. Even to use the word never ending, we are Speaking of it from our viewpoint in time.
So it's it's difficult for us to think in any other way, but let's read this verse in second Peter chapter 3 that talks about the day of God verse 12, second Peter 312 looking for an hasting unto the coming of the day of God. We're in the heavens being on fire shall melt.
Shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.
Nevertheless, we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
Each one of those three time period or three verses we've spoken about, it talks about righteousness.
Because God is righteous and his character, He cannot be anything else.
This is the day of His grace, but it's the day when grace reigns through righteousness. In the millennial day, righteousness will reign, and in the eternal day, righteousness dwells because there's no longer any sin present.
In all of that new creation.
No suggestion of sin in it at all. Righteousness dwells no longer any need of raining.
Because there will be no sin there at all. Wonderful to think about.
Well, today we live in the day of grace and going back to.
Romans chapter 5, just to comment a little bit more about that because I think it is helpful. Grace reigns through righteousness. It's because of what Jesus did on the cross.
In satisfying God's holy character, sin had called into question.
All that God is.
And the Lord Jesus so fully satisfied the holy claims of God as to the whole question of sin.
That now God can come out in the fullness of his being and show grace to a lost world. It is not the day when righteousness will reign. People say. Why does God allow so much sin and sickness and suffering in this world?
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You know it should touch us, brethren, I really believe it should touch us more than it then it seems like it does at times. The awful misery of this world.
It's happened over in Pakistan.
Over 80,000 now dead from that bad earthquake.
Whole schools just leveled with the children inside. Thankfully many of those children went straight to the glory because Jesus died. And if they were not at an age of responsibility, they are in the glory. So grace.
Abounds where sin abounded. I've heard of places in the world where.
Children 90% die before they attain the age of 1 year. Think of that 90% of the population going direct to heaven.
Isn't that beautiful? His grace abounds. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Thank God he's not limited and he can show grace because of what Jesus did on the cross.
Grace reigns through righteousness. It's not a day when righteousness reigns and people want sometimes for God to execute righteousness.
Sometimes I've spoken to some of them. I say be careful what you're saying. You want God to fix up that guy over there that's doing stuff that's wrong.
When God starts fixing this world up, He's not going to just stop with him. He's going to go all across the board and it's going to hit you just as much as Him. Be careful.
Though we're so used to just accommodating sin.
God does never accommodate sin. He's going to be gracious, but it's because that's in question has been so fully addressed by the Lord Jesus and the cross and taken care of.
Still remember when I first we first moved to Bolivia and they required me to get a Bolivian driver's license.
Well, that was quite an ordeal. It took me about two weeks working on it and about $100.
After I got done with the process, they told me that I could have just gone into the office and laid down $200.00 and they would have given it to me right across the board if I didn't know how to drive or not.
That's the way this world is, you know, accommodate situations.
God isn't that way, and it's important to realize that. God shows grace, but he doesn't accommodate the question of righteousness. It has to be satisfied. It will be satisfied. It must be satisfied.
Remember one part of the test that I had to take for the drivers was a parking test at the parallel park and for some reason they made you take it with a truck. It was a six wheel truck.
And they measured the length of your truck and they said we're going to give you one extra meter and we'll put the barrels at at those places, one extra meter in the length of your truck and you have to park it in those four barrels.
But if you like an extra meter, it'll cost 50 pesos. If you're like two extra meters, it'll cost you 100 pesos.
That's the way man accommodates himself, doesn't he? Isn't that wonderful, brethren, that God's righteousness He does not accommodate Not the least thing. And I think we need to have our thinking adjusted sometimes when we speak of grace, remember it's grace reigns through righteousness by Jesus Christ our Lord. He's satisfied all the holy claims.
Of God. So God is gracious. Thank God he's gracious. There wouldn't be much space for many, many of us if it were anything else. But God will never show his grace compromising his righteous character. Let's go back to John's gospel chapter one.
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John's Gospel chapter one and verse.
14 The Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, was made flesh and dwelled among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Verse 17.
And the law, for the law was given by Moses.
But grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
Just to show that there is a contrast with the principle of law and the principle of grace.
Law is focused on what men can produce.
Grace focuses on what God is now because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think we all realize that grace is a word that means.
Undeserved favor. God shows his undeserved favor because of what Jesus did on the cross like was brought out yesterday. That doesn't leave any room for you and me to be boasting about ourselves.
Not one iota can we boast of ourselves.
The law as was brought out yesterday. I'd like to turn to Romans chapter 10 just to show what the law basically says, that principle of law.
And even in the Old Testament under the dispensation that we sometimes call the dispensation of law, it really was never pure law, because men could never have survived it. But here is the principle of law, verse 5, Romans 10, and verse 5. For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law.
That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.
So the principle of law is you obey it, you will live by it.
Problem was nobody.
Could obey it.
Only one, that was the Lord Jesus Christ, that one who could say thy law is within my heart, the only one. So that's the principle of life, you do something.
You get what you do. If you obey, you will live. If you disobey, it will be death. That's the principle of law.
Principle of grace is completely different. The law was given by Moses.
Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, so it's a completely different principle.
As we've mentioned, it's not.
Foregoing God's righteousness. But it is a completely different principle in which God, because of what Jesus did on the cross, can show His supreme favor to us. Wonderful thing.
Like to look at a verse in Chapter 11 Romans to show that you can't mix those two principles.
Laws on one side, grace is on the other. You can't mix those two things. Notice in Chapter 11.
In verse five, at the end of the verse, he's talking about a remnant according to the election of grace, and then he says clarifying what he means by grace. If by grace, then it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace.
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But if it be of works, then it is no more grace. Otherwise work is no more work.
It's got to be one or the other. You can't have it both ways.
If you want to be on the ground of your own responsibility before God, you can't embrace grace. People like to do that. You know, say I'm going to try to keep as much as the law as I can. And you know, we all fail, but God is gracious. You can't do that. You can't mix those two principles. God doesn't know how that they are two distinct principles. And so you stand before God.
On the groundwork of your own responsibility or you stand before God on the ground of his sovereign grace and He can do that, but not if you embrace your own righteousness. The apostle Paul had to learn that he had a righteousness according to the flesh, which was admirable. He could say as to the righteousness which is of the law was blameless. Nobody could point his finger at Paul and say hey Paul, you've messed up in this part of the law. No, they couldn't do it. He was blameless.
There was something that really got to him, but it was something inward that others didn't see. It was Thou shalt not covet that got him, but it was not something that others could see.
So Paul had that that, you know, when Paul was on the way to Damascus, he was Saul of Tarsus then and the Lord Jesus appeared to him and he realized that he could have the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ. He says that righteousness that I used to have, that I used to boast about.
Get out of here. I don't want to have anything more to do with it. I've got something so much supremely better.
In the Lord Jesus.
And so he didn't want that any longer. He realized he couldn't mix those two. It was either law or grace. You cannot mix those two principles. Some people like to think that the law is a rule of life. It is not the rule of life For a believer in the Lord Jesus, the law is holy, just, and good. We're not speaking against the law, and the law is as valid today as it ever was.
What's changed is my position to the law in Christ. I have died. And what does the law have to say to a dead man? Sometimes I give an illustration. The brethren down South, there's a criminal in the prison. He's condemned to be executed tomorrow morning at 8:00 in the morning.
730 the guards go into his cell to get him out and get him ready to be executed, and they find.
That during the night he died, there's a dead man laying there. What are they going to do now? You're going to take him down to the execution cell and execute him? No. Why not? The law doesn't apply to a dead man. It applies to a living man. And so it's us who have died. The law continues in all its validity and force.
But my position has changed because Christ died for me.
And I accepted him as my Savior and identified myself with him in baptism. The law has no longer anything more to say to me. We are free from the law. Sweat Scripture says. Sometimes people say, well, if you're going to say that, then you can do anything you like and get away with it. I say to them, have you ever seen a dead man doing anything he likes?
If he's dead to the law, he's dead to sin as well, and you will not see a dead man doing anything he likes. That doesn't happen.
Well, those are principles that we need to realize. I must say, brother, and this is where I want to get around to the practical side of it.
I just found in my own life.
And it seems like the principle of law is what kind of prevails in our way of thinking.
And I, as I study the life of the Lord Jesus, I marvel.
I desire to be more like him. I don't think I'm very far yet, but I marvel at the grace that there was in his person as he met people and dealt with him. Let's go back to the back of John again just to notice a couple people he meets up with.
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And the gracious way he deals with them.
Never compromising sin.
You know.
The law condemns.
And the law repels.
Grace attracts and draws souls, and when the Lord Jesus met up with different ones in his life. Let's go to John chapter four, we have the Lord Jesus.
Coming.
From Judea and he's going towards Galilee, and he passes through the province of Samaria, and there he sits, wearied with his journey in this beautiful.
The eternal God, there he is sitting there as a man.
Wearied with his journey.
I find that so beautiful. You ever get wary?
He understands what it means to be weary. There he was sitting there, and here comes a woman of Samaria.
And this woman was not the best of characters.
And he knew it. He knew everything about her. She wasn't going to even talk to him because she thought.
That Jews don't have anything to do with.
Samaritans, that was the law. There were to be separate, not to intermingle at all. And yet he asks her, Give me the drink.
And we never read that he got his drink.
But.
They got into conversation and the Lord Jesus in the course of conversation.
Offers her living water beautiful. Verse 14 Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman has necessarily attracted, and says, Sir, give me this water.
She was attracted, but there is something that had to be addressed.
It was her life. How is he going to do this in a way that doesn't repel her?
You know, I've often addressed the question of sin with people and I can tell immediately they.
They feel like running. They want to get out of there. That was not the case of the Lord Jesus.
She never felt that way.
But he says to her, because the story of her life had to come out into the light, God is light.
And if there's something in your life that is hidden nobody knows about, it's going to come out in the light sooner or later. Because God is light. He knows every bit of everything about you.
And so he says, go call your husband and come here.
Don't have a husband?
Kind of 1/2 truth, you know, we like to answer that way, don't we? Get away with a half truth.
The Lord Jesus a beautiful, beautiful grace. Thou hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands in the one you have now is not your husband that you said truly?
She realized she was in the presence of someone who knew everything about her, that she could not hide a single wit, but at the same time she is not repelled.
I just, I just covet that for myself. What beautiful grace.
What beautiful grace did he make light ever sin? No, you know what he does? He simply brings it out into the light.
So that she can realize where she is in connection with the light. He didn't come to condemn, He came to save. And in His grace, he attracted these people.
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And so they begin a conversation, and it ends that.
She says, I know that Messiah's cometh, which is called Christ. When he has come, he will tell us all things. And isn't this beautiful? What he says? Aye, that speak unto thee am He?
She was in the presence of the Messiah. He revealed himself to her.
And she goes right into the city, now liberated from having to keep everything undercover.
You know, a person that tries to have that has to try to keep everything undercover is not a free person.
They're a person that's in slavery.
But she goes in, she realizes he knows everything about me. Now there's no sense trying to hide anything. What liberty of conscience that gives. And she says to the very men of the city. Evidently she'd send with some of those men. She said, come see a man that told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ?
Had he told her everything she'd ever done? No. But she realized she was in the light and she couldn't hide anything.
Instead of being repulsed, repelled, she was drawn, She was attracted. That's the power of grace.
Law would condemn her, but grace attracts her. That's Christianity. Let's go over to the 8th chapter briefly. There he meets up with another woman.
And.
The Pharisees he was teaching in the temple, and the Pharisees bring this one.
What hypocrisy.
Sin of adultery takes a man as well as a woman, and it was in the very act. Why didn't they bring the man as well as the woman? The Lord realized the hypocrisy that there was there.
And when they said?
Moses and the Law said we should stone this woman.
What do you say? They thought they had him trapped because they knew he preached forgiveness of sins and if he said forgive her then?
That would set Moses Law aside.
With the Lord Jesus.
The perfect Son of God, what beauty there is, he doesn't answer. You know, sometimes we think we have to answer everything right now. Floor Jesus sometimes didn't answer right away. He Stoops down and writes in the dust, doesn't say what he was writing there.
But they keep asking him, what do you say? Finally stands up and he says.
He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.
Did he condemn them?
Not really.
They were condemned by their own consciences. He just brought them into the light of his presence, and they realized that they were as guilty as that poor woman.
One by one they go out.
Because they didn't want to face the light.
Until just the woman there, and the Lord Jesus, and he had stooped down to write again, and when he stands up again, only the woman left.
Yes, there was one without sin that could have cast the stone at her, but he had not come to condemn, he had come to save. What does he say to her woman? Were those thine accusers as no man condemned him?
No man, Lord.
Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. You know what it costs Jesus to be able to say. Neither do I condemn thee. It cost him having to go to the cross and to pay for those sins that she had committed. That's what it costs. God couldn't lay his righteous character. Decide to say, I don't condemn you.
He said I don't condemn you, but be so that would be possible. He had to go to the cross. That's grace. Grace doesn't condemn. Grace saves. You know how long moon?
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Soul to be more like that rather than the Lord give us to be more that we live in a world where they have the idea that God is this austere someone out there in space that's ready to strike him. Dad.
Is that a fair picture of God?
Not at all. The God we know in Christ is a God.
That gave everything he possibly could give his only son that we might be safe.
I'd like to just mention one other case of grace working in an individual and.
We can't go to because our time goes too fast. It's.
David in the Old Testament.
He met up with Goliath in the Valley of Eli in the 17th of First Samuel is the story. Remember for 40 days, Goliath, that giant, had shouted his challenge to the Israelite troops, and even though Saul was head and shoulders above all the people, he didn't want to take him on.
And David comes at shepherd boy.
And David goes down into the valley to meet the giant.
And in his simplicity of faith.
He kills the giant, comes back out of the valley with the head of the giant in one hand and the giant sword in the other. What a victory. There was somebody on the Israelite side that was watching it all. His name was Jonathan.
The son of King Saul, the one who was in Direct Line to inherit the Kingdom of Israel.
But when Jonathan saw what David had done, he comes up to Saul. The next chapter talks about it.
And he says, Jonathan.
Here's my sword, my bow. Here's my robe. Somebody say you have to give it all to David. Was there somebody there forcing him to do that? No. Why did he do that? It was grace working in his soul.
And he did it because what David had done.
If we can apply the picture now, go back, dear brethren, to Calvary, not talking about David, talking about the Lord Jesus Christ who went down into the valley of death.
They nailed him on a cross.
His head crowned with thorns, His face marred more than any man's, His hands and his feet nailed to a cross.
Hanging there, an abject pain and suffering. You know, sometimes we focus on the fact that the most intense sufferings were the three hours of darkness. And I have no question that that's true. Sometimes we don't realize the gruesome awfulness of crucifixion. It was awful. I think we'd be shocked if we'd see it. We'd be shocked. We come in to remember the Lord and we sit on nice, comfortable seats.
You're comfortable in here, nice air conditioning and everything and.
And nothing wrong with all that. Thankful for it that they say we don't get the picture of the gruesomeness of what crucifixion was.
There's God's eternal Son, the Creator of the vast universe, hanging on a cross to rescue this poor Sinner from eternal hell.
And then not only the physical sufferings which were awful, but that part that we have to stand at a distance. Rather we can never grasp it properly, those three hours of darkness when God laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all, and then he picked up the rod at his judgment and poured out unmitigated judgment on Him for three solid hours.
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Mr. Darby's little poem The Man of Sorrows.
Puts it beautifully.
O'Day.
Of mightiest sorrow day of unfathomed grief, when thou shouldst taste the horror of wrath without relief.
Lustended across the sea.
Suffering for me, it captivates my heart breath.
Nobody is standing over me with a club and say hey, you got to live straight. It's not that. It's a totally different principle that operates now. It's a principle of His grace.
He won my heart, I love him. I want to do everything I can to please him.
Jimmy Smith used to have a little saying that he liked to quote, he said.
I could not work my soul to save, but I would work like any slave in love to God's dear Son. That's the principle of grace. That principle is far stronger than the principle of law. And I see brethren putting themselves under legal codes. I say, Oh brethren.
Don't we understand what happened on the cross? How can we ignore it?
Like to read a few verses in the New Testament that talk about grace and what it does. Again I say.
Grace is a principle that is far stronger than the principle of law.
Let's go to a verse that was mentioned during the meetings. Ephesians chapter 2A, well known verse.
Ephesians 2 and verse 8.
For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
Grace is what saves the soul his unmerited favor.
So there's no one that's exempt here. The chief of sinners is already in heaven.
Nobody can claim I'm too great a Sinner. No, because it's only by God's unmerited favor that we can stand before Him.
Like to go to another verse that was read in these meetings, Titus chapter 2 and verse 11.
The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.
Teaching us that.
Denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God in our Savior Jesus Christ.
Here we have that grace teaches us. It's not a legal code of the law that teaches us that there's certain things that are not right. No, it's grace that teaches us. Isn't that interesting?
Something to meditate on. Let's go to Hebrews chapter 13.
And verse.
9.
Be not carried about with diverse and strange doctrines, for it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace, not with meats which have not profited them which have been occupied therein.
Grace.
Establishes a soul.
He's talking here about diverse and strange doctrines, and there are a lot of what Scripture calls winds of doctrine in the world today.
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Naze say out on the street there, there's a piece of paper somebody dumped there, and here comes the wind from one side. Whoo carries that paper off over in that direction. Comes the wind from the other side and wow, he goes off over in that direction. Let's not be like that.
Going any direction at any specific time according to the wind of doctrine that we may be listening to at the time.
You know, where that kind of people, that kind of paper usually lands up, ends up in the garbage.
Let's not be that way. It is good that the heart be established with grace, and grace will establish you. Go back to the 12Th chapter.
In verse.
15.
Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up, trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.
What does it mean to fail of the grace of God? It is, brethren, to lose the sense in our souls that we stand before God on this groundwork, and that we are debtors to God.
And that all are standing as in the ground of his sovereign grace, and we lose the sense of that. And we think, oh, this brother should act better than he's acting, and that sister should do better than what she's doing.
We're losing the sense of grace. We're not saying we can accommodate just anything. No, sometimes there's need of help reading the scriptures together. But let's not fail. Let's watch diligently that we don't fail of the grace of God.
In the end of chapter 12, we have one more verse that I'd like to read.
Verse 28 Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. And if I had written that, I might have said, let us have zeal. No, it's not zeal we need. All we need is grace to serve God acceptably with reverence in godly fear.
Another verse, Second Timothy, chapter 2. This verse was mentioned during the meetings as well.
And verse one.
Thou, therefore, my son, be strong.
In the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Here he is addressing Timothy.
Right down at the end of his life in the 4th chapter, he says I am ready to be offered. The time of my departure is at hand.
And he talks about the last difficult days in Chapter 3.
What is it that's going to make a strong brethren to continue on in these kind of days that we're living?
It's not any legal code. It's the sense of grace and the soul that will make you strong. Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Another verse in First Timothy. I'm sorry, First Corinthians chapter 15.
First Corinthians chapter 15 and.
Verse 9 he's talking about all those who saw the Lord in resurrection and.
He says in verse.
Verse eight and the last of all he was seen of Maine also as one born out of due time from the least of the apostles and not meet to be called an apostle because I persecuted the Church of God. Verse 10.
But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain. But I labored more abundantly than they all. Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Isn't that beautiful? Wasn't Paul? He doesn't create credit for laboring as he did. Nice. This is the grace of God working in me.
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If there's anything I will set you to work for the Lord Jesus, it's.
That principle of grace, we live in a world that is a tremendous needs. I just wish sometimes I knew how better to challenge you young.
Brothers and sisters to use your life for eternities day.
Don't strive for big things down here.
Keep your sights set on God's eternal day. You won't be sorry if you do.
Remember an old preacher?
That used to pray to the Lord. He said Lord in grave eternity on my eyeballs.
We forget about it. We think about present advantage. So much is taken up with material things down here.
I live in a world that's needy China.
1,300,000,000 People.
Forget I saw the other day the ratio of Christians to how many Bibles. I think there's maybe one Bible for every 100 Christians in China.
Is there nobody here has it on their heart? They could take some Bibles over to those Christians over in China.
Think of the misery over there in Pakistan now with that earthquake.
Is there nothing we can do to help out?
I know it's such a vast problem that you don't know where to start, but I say start by praying about it. The Lord told His disciples to pray, the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into his harvest, and then the next chapter He sends out those that were praying. So start by praying if nothing else. Never know what God will do with you if you just put yourself at His disposal. But live young people.
This life is too short. Don't live for present advantage, live for eternity's day.
Grace of God will set you to work for the Lord Jesus. I just want to mention our time is just about it.
First, Peter chapter 5 and verse 10, we're not going to look at it, but it says the God of all grace, who has called you into his eternal glory by Christ Jesus.
God is the God of all grace.
You're feeling you're kind of at the end of your tether. You don't know what to do.
Go to him, he has plenty to give.
Never be ashamed to continue to go to Him. And one more verse before we close Hebrews chapter four. We read this earlier in the conference.
The last verse of Hebrews chapter 4.
Let us therefore come boldly. I love that word boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy. Find grace to help in time of need.
Let me encourage you to pray.
The needs are tremendous everywhere you look. Do you spend some serious time in prayer?
That God will work in His grace.
Do it, we're told, to come boldly. There's no ranking in God's family, some that have more privilege than others.
No, as we were mentioning in the conference, all believers are priests equally.
Able sisters as well as brothers, to come boldly to the throne of grace to present.
Our needs.
To obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Never be ashamed to keep on asking. He is the God of all grace.
Oh, brethren, I just want to confess the end of this meeting. I don't feel like I'm a very able person to address this subject and I just find increasingly the Lord has shown me.
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That my thinking has been more in the lines of law so often.
In my relationship with my brethren.
And it hasn't pleased God.
Lord, help us brethren to emulate.
The blessed person of our Lord Jesus Christ, that one through whom grace and truth came. Let's pray, Father.