Hebrews, Part 3 of 6

[00:00:00] I saw the last time in Hebrews 4.13 that God's eyes see everything. He can look into our hearts. We can't pull anything over on God. The Old Testament has so many illustrations of every Christian point that you can mention. For example, in 1 Kings 14, there's a story told of a wicked king in Israel named Jeroboam, and he had a very sick son. His name was Abijah, Ahijah. [00:00:34] So he said to his wife, this king, you put on old clothes and disguise yourself and go to the prophet Ahijah and ask him whether our son is going to get better. So she did so, and the Lord told him that she was coming. This spoiled all the fun. so when she got to the door the prophet who was about blind said come in wife of Jeroboam [00:01:07] he said I know all about your coming and furthermore he said the child is going to die and so on and she went home a very chastened person that's just an example of how the eyes of God see everything and how we can't pull anything over on God now tonight we have five main topics according to my count and we start out in 414 with our [00:01:38] high priest and the first thing we see about this high priest is how great he He was. He says, since we have a great high priest who has gone into the heavens, the King James has it correct as far as the Greek is concerned, the NIV is probably a little closer to our idiom. We don't ordinarily talk about the heavens, we talk about heaven. And the NIV says heaven, but the Greek and the King James say the heavens. [00:02:12] so this high priest of ours this is a look at our Savior is now in the heavens so he says what's the consequence of this what is the outcome well he said we hold firmly to our confession the faith which we profess the faith which we profess in our baptism the faith which we confess every time we say the Apostles Creed or [00:02:42] We are making a confession, so he is saying, let's hold fast our profession or our confession, the faith that we profess. In this connection, there's something very interesting said about our Lord, and that is, he is our intercessor. He is our representative with God. He's there in our behalf. [00:03:17] And if you're a typical Christian, you don't think much about this. You're aware that that's the case, but it's not a very lively hope for you. And I'm pleading, it ought to be. We ought to remember every day that we have an intercessor with the Father. and he's saying to the father please have mercy upon this child of mine because he or she is weak [00:03:49] and human and fallible and as a as a background for this meaningful priest he tells us in 415 He knows our weaknesses. He knows what it's like to be human. He knows what it's like to be tempted. In fact, the book of Hebrews says he was tempted in all points like as we are, yet he never sinned. [00:04:26] The only difference is, not in the temptation, but in the victory which he won. He remained sinless. We have the story of three temptations of our Lord in Matthew 4 and parallels. A long time ago there was a teacher here at Goshen College named Noah Oyer. He was the father of John Oyer and Mary Oyer and Verna Oyer. and his wife Sitty outlived him a long time. [00:04:57] And Noah Oyer said the three temptations were as follows. First, the devil said, if you're the son of God, and by the way, the Greek does not mean if you are, but since you are. He attacked him head on. He said, since you're the son of God, command that these stones become bread. That was, said Noah Oyer, underconfidence. Underconfidence. It's something we all have to look out for, that we don't underestimate what God can do for us. [00:05:34] We tend to think that God can arrange small things for us. I remember one time one of our sons, who was a student at Cornell University, got a scholarship, I believe, of $800. And I said to him, now let this be a lesson to you. If God wants to provide it, he can provide 8,000. Do you believe that? I do. I met a man that I had gone to EMC with on the train one day. [00:06:04] I hadn't seen him for 20 years. And I said, Kenneth, how are you getting along spiritually? Well, he said, for a long time, my experience was about like that period between the Old and New Testaments, sort of dim. but he said I then had a spiritual awakening and I entered the ministry and the congregation did not respond very well and he said in the course of time I really was hard up and I sat down one day he said and made a list of the things that God that I needed and a total of thousand dollars [00:06:40] and he said I went to my wife and I said Catherine are you willing to get on your knees with me and ask the Lord, if it be his will, to provide this thousand dollars. A few days later, Kenneth was riding in a car with a brother from the church who was pretty well fixed. And the brother said, how are you off financially? And he could have told a sob story. Instead of that, he said, oh, so-so. And the man said, could you use a thousand dollars? He said, yes, I could. [00:07:12] The man reached in his pocket, handed over a cashier's check already made out for $1,000. And Kenneth told me, he said, I can hardly wait to get back to Catherine to get on my knees again before the Lord and thank him for providing this gift. So Jesus was tempted here in underconfidence. you'll starve if you don't if you don't betray your humanity and use your deity to provide your food [00:07:42] and then then the devil took him up to a high point in the temple and said jump off because God would not let you dash your foot against a stone there's scripture for that and Jesus said you forget there's another scripture it says you're not to tempt the Lord your God. This is, said Noah Oyer, this is overconfidence. We are guilty of overconfidence whenever we presume on the mercy of God and the goodness of God. And the third step, the [00:08:16] devil said, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a vision, and he said, now I'll give all these to you. I have the power to do it if you'll fall down and worship me. Jesus said never he said the scripture says thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve that's very definite and clear so our Lord won the victory not only in these three temptations because it says at the end of the story then the devil left him for a season it meant it means that he came back from time to time and [00:08:56] you and i have our discouragements too we have our trials and i tried to think what are the temptations that are most real to christians and i thought at least two of them are discouragement and weariness maybe we ought to add a third one and that is grudges we're tempted all of us To hold grudges against a brother or sister for things that they have done or at least which we think they have done and so on. [00:09:31] And it's a terrible thing. Weariness, discouragement, grudges. 4.16 Hebrews, the writer says, Let's seize our resources confidently in prayer. The Christian ought to be a confident person. He ought to have the assurance that God is greater than any problem that we may face. You'll forgive a personal illustration. When I first came to Indiana, I used to go to ministers' meetings. This is 1938. [00:10:10] And I sort of got the impression that many of those men who attended those meetings seemed to think it was a mark of spirituality if you could wail a good bit. Wail about this and wail about that. Lament this thing and lament that thing. And the first person, mind you, the first person that I heard say Jesus Christ is greater than any of our problems was Milo Kaufman [00:10:40] when he was elected moderator of General Conference he preached a powerful sermon which just turned this attitude of discouragement this attitude of unbelief clear around and gave us all a strong assurance that Christ is worthy of our confidence I think the key word here is confident He bestows, Christ bestows mercy as needed He gives grace for our human weaknesses Do you know what Luke 18.1 says? That Jesus spake a parable to them to this end that we ought always to pray and not to lose heart That's a powerful statement We ought always to pray and not to lose heart King James says not faint but he's not talking about a physical fainting [00:11:34] He's talking about losing heart. Now the second theme which we have here is what God requires in a priest. This is a bit of a new topic. What God requires in a priest. We had looked at our great high priest who has gone into the heavens, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a reference to his ascension. And now he goes back to Israel and says, let's review a little bit. What kind of gifts does God expect to see in a priest? [00:12:08] What kind of qualifications? And he mentions six of them. One, the priest has to be human, has to be a man. How could a person who was not a human being feel for his fellow believers? He couldn't. He wouldn't understand why they behave the way they do. Whereas we have a priest that can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. First, the writer says this priest must be human. [00:12:40] Second, he intercedes with God. That's very important. Christ is our intercessor, just as the Old Testament priest was. And there's something so beautiful in the Old Testament When the high priest went into the Holy of Holies once a year on the Day of Atonement, he took off all his regalia and he put on simple linen out of respect for God. He wasn't worthy to wear all that regalia. [00:13:14] And he went in and he sprinkled blood on the mercy seat, first for his own sins, do you remember that? And then for the sins of the people. so he took his place in interceding with God for the people thirdly it says the priest offers gifts and sacrifices now our Lord Jesus was so exceptional in this respect he offered himself he was both the priest and the sacrifice but the Old Testament priest offered gifts and sacrifices [00:13:49] fourthly if I may change the wording a little bit This high priest in the Old Testament must have a shepherd's heart. A shepherd's heart. I think that's so beautiful that you and I should look upon our priest as having a shepherd's heart. And I think that the ministers in the church ought to be the same. I remember so well how a certain woman was chewing out our pastor. [00:14:23] He had ventured to try to help her daughter because she was keeping company with a drunkard, at least he thought he was, and he did not approach her in a harsh, judgmental way. He just asked her to think about it and so on. and the mother lit into him and I came there when it was going on so I got some of it too and she gave us both the works and she said I used to think if somebody didn't toe the line you just told them off but she said now that it's my daughter I see it different [00:14:59] now I'd like to propose that the same attitude that that woman had toward her daughter is the attitude which all ministers ought to have toward all the members of the flock. A nonjudgmental, a forgiving, a loving attitude, a shepherd's heart. Five, the Old Testament priest atoned for personal transgressions and for national sins, the sins of the people, personal transgressions and national sins. [00:15:31] And six, it says that only God can appoint a priest. And he uses it as an illustration how God appointed Aaron to be the high priest for his people. Now we come to the practical application of this. Christ as priest, beginning at 5.5. Christ as priest. He also did not appoint himself. The scripture says, but God appointed him. God called him two things. First, he addressed him as his son. He said, Thou art my son, we us in Greek. Today I have begotten you. This is a reference to Psalm 2, 7, which is the way the New Testament always does. It anchors everything in the permanent elements of the Old Testament. [00:16:28] So God addressed Jesus as his son. Do you remember how during his earthly life he said, I am well pleased with you. This must have meant a lot to our Lord Jesus. And then, secondly, it says that God called him a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now, we won't go into that tonight, but next time, the Lord willing, We'll look back at Genesis 14, but there are three references in tonight's lesson to Christ being of the order of Melchizedek. [00:17:07] Let me just say this much at this point. The Aaronic priests were a certain family, a family of Aaron, and they ministered to Israel. Melchizedek was a sort of a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ in that he did not minister only to Israel. He ministers to the whole world, right? He ministers to the whole world. And in the record, are you getting it? [00:17:39] In the record, he was without beginning and end of days. That is to say, his birth is not recorded, his death is not recorded. He just appears in history. And the Lord Jesus fulfilled that literally in a way that Melchizedek didn't. That is to say, he had no beginning, he'll have no end, and so on. So he's a priest after the order of Melchizedek, not after the order of Aaron. This is discussed in Hebrews 7, 1 to 10, and we'll look at it in greater detail the next time. [00:18:17] In Hebrews 5, 7, it says that Christ suffered intensely. If you read this passage, I think it's pretty clear that the writer has in mind what happened in Gethsemane. Our Lord Jesus Christ took Peter, James, and John, as usual, with him. And he said to the three, you stay here while I go yonder and pray. and he knelt down and his sweat became as it were great drops of blood [00:18:50] and he always said at the end of each petition Father not my will but thine be done that's the very essence of prayer not my will but thine be done in other words we in prayer we yield to God and we ask him to work it out for God to work it out as he sees best Anabaptist, Anabaptist, Anabaptist, Anabaptist [00:19:45] to send a little money to the MCC along that line. But Christ suffered intensely in Gethsemane, and he cried mightily to God. And the scripture here says that God heard his submissive son. That's beautiful. God heard his submissive son. The son prayed in line with the will of God for the will of God to be done. And in 580 says, although he was God's son, he learned to obey God. Did you hear that? He learned to obey God as he suffered or as he matured. You can look at it either way. As he suffered, this suffering led to maturity. [00:20:37] It's translated in the English Bible by perfection. But perfection is not quite the meaning of it in modern English. It's a little bit the difference between a baby. The baby might be more perfect as a baby than the man of 50 is as a man. But the difference is the baby is very immature and the man is now mature. Are you following me? so Jesus was made mature by his suffering he came to a state of spiritual growth and maturity because he was a man we forget that sometimes he was both Son of God and the Son of Man he learned obedience as he suffered about 19 I'm just guessing 35 [00:21:33] Some young friends of mine in eastern Pennsylvania said there's a great Baptist preacher preaching in Delaware today, it was a Sunday, named George W. Truitt. And since that time I've read a biography of Truitt by his son-in-law. This George W. Truitt, T-R-U-E-T-T, lived 1867 to 1944. He was chosen as a minister when he was just a youth. [00:22:06] He was 19, I believe, and he saw how things were going, and he fled the meeting house. He ran home, and his mother came home and talked to him and said, You can't do that. You are subject to the church, and if the church calls you, you've got to respond. I'm not arguing that point. I'm just telling you what she said. So he accepted ordination, and I don't know how long he was a preacher. First at Waco in Texas, 1893 to 1897, and then at Dallas beginning in 1897. [00:22:43] And there he had a very close friend in the city, and George W. Truitt, the Baptist preacher, and this close friend went hunting quail together. and Truett did something which we should never do he had his gun in readiness to fire so that all he had to do was pull the trigger and he took it off of the safety are you understanding what I'm trying to say he took it off a safety and had it ready to fire and I don't know what [00:23:14] happened but the gun went off and his friend was walking ahead of him and the birdshot landed in and the guy's calf of his leg. And Truett was just mortified. I've shot my best friend and somehow he seemed to realize that this man was going to die. And the friend said, don't take it so serious. This isn't anything very important. And they took him to the hospital for the surgeons to pick out the shot. [00:23:45] And about a week later, blood clot went around and killed him. So the very thing that Truett feared took place. and this happened I think on a Monday and Truett thought he didn't sleep all week I don't know whether he did or not but he was so upset he said I'm not worthy to be a minister I can never face a congregation again because I've killed my friend dare I tell you what happened? on Saturday night, during the night [00:24:19] the Lord Jesus Anabaptists in a dream appeared to George W. Truitt and he said, I don't want you to fear. From now on, you're my man. And they said that Truitt took fresh courage and he strode up the aisle that Sunday that the people knew something was coming. And he preached like he had never preached before. Do you know what he did? He took over a church that had 700 members. And when he retired, that was 1897, when he retired 47 years later at his death, the church numbered 7,800. He built the church up from 700 members to 7,800. But first of all, he had to be broken. [00:25:09] Am I communicating? This is not pleasant. But God wanted to make of this man, God is not the author of the shotgun incident, but God used that for his glory to bring the man to the place where he wanted him to be. Truett was president of the Southern Baptist Convention for a while. He was president of the Baptist World Alliance. He was a big man. I would estimate, it's a long time since I saw him, but I would estimate his height at least six feet if not more. He had pink cheeks, white hair, snow white hair, blue eyes, a very suffering face. You could see that that man had gone through a lot. [00:26:02] and he had enormous experiences. One time, for example, he was holding meetings in a certain city and there was a 16-year-old boy that he saw in the audience was deeply under conviction and yet the boy would never respond. So one time he stopped the boy as he was leaving the church. He said, what's the matter with you? He said, I can see you're under conviction. Why don't you give up to Christ? and the boy said my father is the best father in the world and he is not a [00:26:40] Christian and if my father can be that good a man without being a Christian I will do Truett said who is your father and he gave the name of a physician in that city so the next day Truett went to see the doctor the doctor took one look and more. The doctor said, you're not sick. Truett said, I didn't come here to talk about my health. I came to talk about your son. Then he told the father what his 16-year-old boy had said the night before. [00:27:15] Then the doctor turned a little pale and he said, thank you, Dr. Truett. He said, I'll seek him at my first opportunity. In the night when Truett gave the invitation, down the aisle came the doctor and behind him came the Son. This is the kind of a God we have. We have a God who first, sometimes at least, breaks people, and then he uses them for his glory in a wonderful way. [00:27:47] Well, he repeats again in 5.9 that suffering perfected Christ. and this Christ he says gives eternal salvation to those who obey him now you'd expect that to be to those who believe in him but he wants to be sure that people understand that giving yourselves to Christ is not holding a different attitude toward him a different idea about him but it is actually living in [00:28:22] Salvation is given in Hebrews 5 9 to those who obey him and God designated him 5 10 as high priest after the order of Melchizedek. I take this to mean that to be a real priest like Christ one should be tender, mellow, grave, kind, patient, gracious. You can add more. Now in 5.11, he's afraid that the dullness of his readers is going to affect them. [00:29:06] It's translated in the NIV, you are slow to learn. The King James is a little closer to the Greek, seeing you are dull of hearing. The martial interlinear says, since dull you have become. in the hearing. Since dull you have become. You have become dull. And he's saying that's too bad, 5.11. He said you ought to be teachers, 5.12. You've been Christians long enough, you ought to be teachers by this time, and yet you need elementary teaching. It's a shock. [00:29:47] then he uses an illustration he says a baby who is immature craves milk that's the way you folks are you're spiritually infants you cannot teach righteousness because you're spiritually in infancy but he says in 514 the mature those who are perfect, the King James the mature eat solid food and by practice, they've had a lot of experience along this line, they can distinguish good from evil. [00:30:23] So in 6.1, he tries to bring this down to their level. He says, let's move on. This does not mean we give up these basic doctrines, but it means we take them for granted. Let's move on from elementary teachings about Christ. and let's go on to maturity and then he gives three classes of things that we should have accepted long ago one is repentance and faith that's a [00:30:58] description of conversion repentance and faith when I was a student at Gershon College we went to a mission in Elkhart I don't quite know where it was It was called the White Cross Mission and Brother Rife was there if I'm not mistaken, the father of Vernon Rife and so on. And anyhow I gave a little talk and then Brother Rife followed and gave a sermon and gave an invitation and a man named Mabie, if he wouldn't have had such an unusual name I'd have forgotten it long ago. [00:31:39] and so on. But his name was M-A-B-I-E, maybe. A man named maybe accepted Christ. And then he came to me, and I'm not worthy to tell you this, but he said to me, I just want to tell you, it was what you said that made me decide to become a Christian tonight. I'll tell you when I come back to Kauffman Hall that night, I walked on air. I've heard people talk about that. That's the only time in my life that I know [00:32:09] I can hardly feel the floor. Are you understanding me? It was such a tremendous lift. So let's go on to maturity. Let's take repentance and faith in our stride. We're not giving it up, but we're building on it. That's conversion. and then he talks about baptism and the laying on of hands we would call that commissioning we commission missionaries or we commission a minister [00:32:40] or we commission a deacon or whatever these are ceremonies and he says you should be straight on the ceremonies you don't get straightened out every other Sunday on this subject because long ago you straightened yourself out on that you were made clear and then he talks about resurrection and eternal judgment the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment we would call that if we dare use one big word eschatology the doctrine of future things so he says don't just stay with conversion don't stay with ceremonies don't stay with eschatology and all of us are in danger of this [00:33:30] He was a specialist on the covering. He knew all kinds of names of materials. Persian, what did he call it? Persian goods or something like that. And finally, Bishop Jonas Minninger, who was a good, sound brother in the faith, got so fed up with it, he came to him and he said in Pennsylvania German, sell gate, dear Nick Saul. Do you understand that? That's none of your business. in other words stay with important things and not small things so in 6.3 he says if God so permit we will go on we'll do so God permitting we'll do so now how do you like the idea of standing up once in a while I think it would be time to do that right now we'll take a few minutes off [00:34:30] Now, Hebrews 6, 4 to 8 is one of the most disputed passages in the New Testament. So, all I can do is hope that the Holy Spirit will illuminate our hearts and minds as we look at this passage and that we will be able to get what we should out of it. First, he gives a description of true disciples. disciples. Because the word taste is used here, some people have said, well, these weren't real disciples, they were just tasters. I don't believe that at all. Because look what he says. They were once enlightened. The Holy Spirit gave them illumination. They tasted the heavenly gift. That's the gift of salvation. They were sharers in the Holy Spirit. They tasted the good word of God. They [00:35:26] they knew by experience how sweet God's word is and they tasted also the powers of the world to come this is a description of full-blown Christian experience this is an individual who has really come to know the Lord he was enlightened he had the heavenly gift he had the Holy Spirit he knew by experience how sweet the word of God was [00:35:56] and he had experienced the powers of the world to come so we have here a description of true disciples now it says if they shall fall away it's impossible to bring them again to repentance then the sentence goes on and before we go on I want to talk a little bit about that this is not Genesis 6 3 God said to Noah in Genesis My spirit shall not always strive with mankind. This is not teaching that God has limited patience. [00:36:44] That's what we human beings are guilty of sometimes. I heard of a cowboy one time. He knew that a terrible storm was coming and he tried to get all the stock into the buildings before the storm arrived but there was one young heifer she just put up her tail and ran and she outmaneuvered the horses and they couldn't catch this animal and finally the cowboy said okay freeze yourself now that's not the way God is [00:37:15] there are some hymns that say he is there's some hymns that talk about the line maybe even now you've crossed the line I don't believe that, that's not fair to God God is a God of patience, he's a God of love God always rejoices when a sinner comes home it doesn't matter how bad he has been, right? absolutely Jerry McCauley was so low he would take the shoes off of his own child who was a corpse and pawn them off to get liquor [00:37:48] because he wanted more of the strong stuff Anabaptist, Anabaptist, Anabaptist, Anabaptist [00:38:22] Let me contrast two pictures for you if if you have to get up every morning at four o'clock or whatever and you get up the moment the alarm clock clicks you turn it off before it even starts to ring really ring you can you can train yourself to do that you can hear that click but if you would start reaching The Bible says that if you don't know your God, you will not be saved. [00:38:58] When you are reaching out and fumbling in your half-sleep and turning off the dumb thing, finally, after enough weeks, you can say, I never heard it. And that's true. You can train yourself not to respond to the alarm clock, right? I was at Pleasant View one time and there was a man told this story publicly. [00:39:33] He said one Monday morning the Holy Spirit laid a burden upon him. He ought to go see a certain brother. And he said, I didn't want to go. I had plenty of work to do that day and I didn't want to be bothered but the Holy Spirit kept prodding this man he ought to go so finally he jumped in his truck and drove over to this man's farm and as soon as the man saw him he started to cry the man said how did you know to come now that's this man became more sensitive because he obeyed am I communicating [00:40:14] So, this passage can be a warning to all of us not to become deaf through inattention, not to become spiritually deaf to the voice of the Spirit of God through not obeying. Now, the next phrase which says, It's impossible to renew them to repentance because they are crucifying the Son of God over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. [00:40:53] But the Greek can be translated two different ways. And that's what I want you to try to remember tonight. 6.6 Hebrews Because they are again crucifying the Son of God or as long as they are again crucifying the Son of God so the NIV says while you see that in the footnote while they crucify to themselves the Son of God so this can either be causal or temporal and I'm proposing that it makes more sense to make it temporal and what follows confirms that [00:41:37] What scholars call epis-egetical. In other words, the following verses explain the previous verses. He says there are two kinds of soil. On the one hand, there's good soil that drinks in the rain and produces crops. That's the kind of farms we all want to have. But he said there's some land that doesn't do that. All it produces is thorns and thistles, and the only thing that can be done for such land is to burn it off. Now, which are we going to be? [00:42:08] Are we going to be good soil? Or are we going to be bad soil? Are we going to respond when the Spirit of God calls us? Or are we going to crucify the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame? Now, 6.9 also confirms the optimistic interpretation that we have here He says in 6.9, we are confident, beloved, that you'll be like the good soil, you'll go on to salvation. [00:43:02] and that's the hope that we have for every one of us who are in the church. We'll go on to salvation. 610, God is righteous and he will remember your Christian work and the love you showed to him. The Greek says to his name, but that means to him. The love you showed to him as you gave help to his people and continue to give help. The last thing I want to do is run down our good leaders from the past [00:43:40] because many of them really became mature in Christ and were strong leaders and did a marvelous job with the church. But D.D. Miller of Middlebury would have been the first to tell you this himself. I heard him tell this publicly, that there was a time when he didn't see much need He had a need of cards, like birthday cards and condolence cards and so on. He thought people ought to just be strong enough to bear whatever comes. [00:44:14] And then he had a period of sickness as an old man. And do you know what he did when he got better? He bought a box of 24 cards, and he tried to think of the 24 most neglected people in the community. and he sent a card to each one of them now that's what you call progress that's that's becoming like it says here we give help to the saints we gave help in the past and we continue to give help in the present 611 we desire each of you to show the same it's translated in the King James and in the NIV as diligence but it would be a little more [00:44:59] Eagerness. To show the same eagerness to the end of the full assurance of hope. The full assurance of hope. This is the hope that you and I will reach the glory world. It's the hope that our loved ones will reach the glory world. It's the hope that even the weaker members of the church will also, by the grace of God, repent. If they need to. And reach the glory world. That's the Christian hope. And we want to have that hope. I want to have that hope and you want to have that hope. The full assurance of Christian hope. We do this with eagerness to the end. [00:45:46] 6.12. Don't be dull, but follow those who through faith and patience inherit the promise. And what's the promise? The promise is eternal salvation. So he says, see to it that you reach that. Now the fifth and last item for tonight is God's Word is Reliable. God's Word is Reliable. A number of years ago I was much inspired by reading the life story of George Muller. [00:46:23] The name had been in Germany, Müller, M-U-L-L-E-R And when he was a young man, he was kind of a careless guy and used to get in jail for minor transactions and his righteous father was mortified that he had a son who would get in jail and so on And finally, one day when he was ready for it, a person, a Christian said to him We have a small group that meets together just for Bible study and prayer [00:46:56] And we don't even have a minister come Would you like to come to this meeting? And he was so miserable he decided he'd go And he said, I discovered a quality of fellowship that I did not know existed And he said, I could hardly wait for the next meeting Well, you can guess what happened He soon became a believer And he moved to England then for the rest of his life and in a short time he was a minister in the Plymouth Brethren group. Do you know that body, the Plymouth Brethren? [00:47:28] I think these were the open brethren. That means they gave the communion not only to their own members but to anybody who was born again and wanted to take it. And this George Muller lived in Bristol, England and he got a strange conviction that God wanted him to show help to the orphans. It says here that they gave help to the saints in the past and they continue to do so. Well, George Muller got the conviction that he ought to establish an orphanage. [00:48:02] So he prayed about it. He said, God, if you want me to establish an orphanage, I've got to have money to buy land. So the money rolled in. And then he said, God, if you want me to establish an orphanage, I have to have money to build buildings. And the money came in for that. And then he said, God, if you want me to have an orphanage, I've got to have orphans. And do you know how many orphans he sustained during his lifetime? He fed and clothed and educated 10,000 orphans. [00:48:37] And he never made any appeals except to God. He never made any public appeals for money. Now, I don't agree with that. I think our mission board ought to make appeals. MCC ought to make appeals. I'm not taking the oddities of the story and elevating them to major principles. I'm just saying that in his case, he felt led only to pray about it. And then it occurred to him one day, maybe some people are giving so they see their name in the reports that I get out once a year, telling who gave how much each person. [00:49:15] and so he didn't issue any reports for a few years and the money just came in the same as before and so he resumed the practice of issuing reports. He wrote a great big book, it's real thick, called 30,000 Answers to Prayer but I was so glad that he put in the appendix that there was a certain prayer He's been praying for 30 years and he doesn't have the answer yet, but he said sometimes my assurance rises to such heights that I give God praise in advance for the fact he's going to give me this blessing. [00:50:01] So this should be an encouragement to all of us if any of us have been praying for something that has not yet taken place. Now 6.13 When God gave his promise, that is to say his promise of blessing, to Abraham, since there was no one greater to swear by, he swore by himself, 6.14, saying, now the King James is unduly literal here, it says blessing I will bless and multiplying I will multiply, that's the Hebrew way of saying I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you. [00:50:40] That's the meaning of the Hebrew, which is taken very literally here. And it says in 6.15 that Abraham waited patiently, and eventually he received the promise that God had made. This is a reference to the fact that Sarah and Abraham got old together, and finally, when they were almost a century old, sure enough, Sarah got pregnant, and had a child, 90 years old. [00:51:15] 6.16 says that people, the English Bible says men, but I looked it up in the German and the German says dimension. And that's not males. Mention means human beings. So people, anthropoi in Greek, swear by one greater than themselves and an oath is as far as they can go. The way it's put here is that it's an end-of-all dispute. The oath settles it. [00:51:47] 6.17, So God declared on oath to his heirs his unchanging will, now try to get this, to bless us. God has sworn that he will bless us. That's the promise. And he says there are two unchangeable factors or realities that we're dealing with here. And what are those two things? The nature of God and the word of God. [00:52:22] The nature of God or the intention of God and the word of God. God is minded to bless us. and he won't withhold any good thing from us. George R. Brunk, the first, he died in 1938, published a magazine called The Sword and Trumpet and he tells a story of how a certain man that owned a little place [00:52:58] Anabaptists sent a lawyer to evict an old couple who were living in this house and the lawyer knocked on the outside door but the old people were dull of hearing and they didn't hear it so he just went in. He went in to the next room and then from that where he was standing he could see the old couple and the woman was in bed with her white hair and the old man had just read scripture to her And she said, I'm ready, Papa. And so the old man got down on his knees and he began to pray earnestly to God. He thanked the Lord for the many blessings that he had brought into their lives. And he thanked him for the promise that he was going to watch over them. He says, it is a little bit hard that we should be put out of this house. And if our children would have lived, why, probably that wouldn't happen. [00:53:54] but he said I want you to bless the man that owns this house and if he puts us out why I know that you'll provide for us and the lawyer was so moved by this prayer he went back to the guy that sent him and he said I just couldn't I couldn't evict him and then he told what had taken place God has promised by two things his nature he He cannot change. And his word, he cannot lie, that he is going to bless us. God is going to meet our needs. Are we getting this? God is going to meet our needs. We don't have to worry. [00:54:43] and he says in 618 again about after these two unchangeable things he says that we may have firm comfort I compared the different versions and the Greek and I thought that was about as good as you could get that we may have a firm comfort we who have fled, that is to God we have fled to God and we who have seized the hope which lies before us. [00:55:15] Those are the two characteristics of believers. They have fled to God and they have seized the hope that lies before them. Now he says in 619, This hope is the anchor of our soul, sure and steadfast, or safe and firm. Those would be two other possible translations that we could make. Do you have any idea how big the anchors are and the links of the chain that bear the anchor on a modern ship? [00:55:56] In 1937, I went to Europe on a ship called the Europa. and there was an anchor on the deck and the first links of the chain were there too and these links I would estimate as I remember them were about six feet long each link and as heavy as a man's body in thickness and then there was a cross piece on the link yet so the link wouldn't break are you following that's how big the anchor chain was for the Europa which had a displacement [00:56:33] in the water of 50,000 tons now in the days when Hebrews was written they they often had what was called a sheet anchor and when a captain would see a storm coming up He would go into a kind of a cove and he would send a forerunner. Remember this? In this passage? He would send a forerunner with a sheet anchor. [00:57:04] And he would anchor that thing to some immovable object. Like a great big tree. And so on. So that no matter what happened to the ship in the storm, that ship was safe because of the sheet anchor. Now, he says, this hope enters the Holy of Holies, I'm interpreting, beyond the veil, where Jesus, who is our forerunner, that's the man that carries the sheet anchor, where Jesus, our forerunner, has entered. [00:57:39] And he reminds us again for the third time, he's the order of Melchizedek, and he's a high priest forever. I'm going to give you opportunity for any further comments or questions in just a moment. Let me close with a story of a man that really had an anchor for his soul. His name was H.G. Spafford, S-P-A-F-F-O-R-D. He lived 1828 to 1888. He was a businessman in New York City, and he had a wife and children. [00:58:14] And for some reason, the wife wanted to go to London. and he said well I just can't go he said you take the children and go so she did and on the way over the ship was wrecked and not everybody got in lifeboats and when she got to London she sent a cable to her husband in New York she said saved but saved alone in other words our children have They all perished. And this Spafford, the businessman, Christian, sat down and he wrote a hymn. [00:58:51] When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll. Do you know that? And then the chorus says, It is well, it is well with my soul. Now that man had an anchor. He had an anchor. And you and I can have an anchor. We can have an anchor when a loved one dies. We can have an anchor when everything seems to go wrong. There was a Baptist minister in Dallas, Texas. I haven't found out yet whether it was the same church that Truett ministered in or not. [00:59:27] But they have a weekly attendance there of 6,000, and the meeting house holds only 3,000, and so they have two church services to make up for that. did I tell you this story before? I can't remember and the pastor's name is Criswell Baptist and Criswell told how a man lost all his wealth in one day I suppose he was talking about the stock market crash and he came to the pastor he was all upset [00:59:59] he was wringing his hands and he said pastor I've lost everything and the pastor pretended he didn't understand and he said The pastor said, you've lost everything. You've lost your good name. No, no, he said, I didn't lose my good name. He said, I still have that. And then after a bit, the pastor said, you've lost everything. He said, your children have turned against you. No, sir, he said, my children now come to me and they put their arms around me and they say, Dad, we're going to stick to you. [01:00:32] The pastor made no comment. After a bit he said, you've lost everything. Your wife has left you. No, sir. He said, I didn't know that a woman could be as loyal as my wife is to me at this time. After a bit the pastor said, you've lost everything. Christ has abandoned you. No, indeed, he said. In fact, he said, I don't think Christ ever meant as much to me as he does now. And after a while, this began to have its effect on the man, and he said, I guess all I lost was money. [01:01:14] Now that's something for all of us to learn, that financial reverses are not the end of everything. We still have the most important realities to fall back on. Have you any questions or any comments or any testimonies you'd like to share with the audience tonight? I'll try to repeat this so that it gets onto the tape if you ask a question or say something. Is that so? [01:01:51] Isn't that interesting? It reminds me a little bit of the man in the Wakarusa community. His name was Oliver McDowell. He was a great-grandson of Bishop Jacob Whistler, who was the first active bishop in this community. And Ollie McDowell drank all his life until he was at least 70. And Will Lechleidner, who's still living in the Olive Church, he's about 92 years old, Will Lechleitner said to him one day, he said, [01:02:24] Ollie, I'm going to ask you to make me a promise. Ollie said, what's that? He said, promise me you'll never drink again. Okay, he said, I'll promise. Not long after that he saw him drunk. And Will Lechleitner said, Ollie, I thought you promised me that you'd never drink again. Well, he said, I'm going to hell anyhow. I might as well have a good time while I'm here. But Clarence Schenck, who was a minister in the Olive Church, was the most successful winner of souls of old people of anybody I ever knew. [01:02:58] And Clarence Schenck led this man to Christ, and his wife too. And he sent word to me that they're ready to be baptized. And we had a beautiful ceremony, I'll never forget that, in the home. And Ollie McDowell and his wife sat on two chairs and their family had pretty much come home for the ceremony and this man was pretty feeble because of age and I said to him, listen, if you can't kneel for the baptism, I can baptize you seated. [01:03:31] No sir, he said, I'm going through with it. And with great effort he and his wife got down and knelt and I baptize them and then if you remember the ceremony the minister says in the name of Christ and his church I give you my hand arise and like as Christ was raised from the dead so you shall also walk in newness of life and so on and I said to Ollie I said now as a symbol of full acceptance [01:04:03] in the Christian church I give you a kiss and his son who goes to the it's now Methodist I think church in Dunlap. Do you know where I'm talking about on the left hand side? He was a Sunday school worker in that church. The tears were streaming down his face and he came running across the room and kissed his father and mother also. This was beautiful to me. Now this was a result of somebody caring. [01:04:36] Clarence Shank cared and when you told that story about George Muller I had to think of um do you know Catherine Leatherman she works here as a nurse her sister was married to a man named Bergie David Bergie I believe and this David Bergie fell from a 40-foot silo a board broke Thank you for watching. [01:05:34] I had three people in the other world, and I knew that two of them had died, but I couldn't understand why the third was there. And they said, oh, that third one has died too. So he learned it from the vision that he had while he was in this coma that he had. Have any of you any other thoughts or questions? I read when George Miller was coming across in a boat, and he had an appointment, I think it was on the third day. This is about two of your weddings and they had a great big storm and the captain said we just can't make it. No way that we can make this. [01:06:12] The Lord said let's pray about it. So we went down and prayed about it. The Lord prayed and the captain was going to pray. The Lord laid his hand on the captain's arm and he said, Lucy, you pray and you don't believe. How did it come out? He got there undying. Well, a few days ago, Ruth and I had a visitor from Lancaster County. We have a bishop in there. He's a first cousin of Howard Charles, who teaches New Testament in the Associated Seminaries. [01:06:45] And this man's name is Raymond Charles. His wife was Anna Lois Bucher. They both went to Goshen College. And I didn't ask him his age, but I suppose about 65. and something over a year ago he suddenly got a lot of pressure in his abdomen and he went to see his doctor and the doctor said it doesn't look good. He said I'm going to send you to the hospital and I'll call the surgeon so that he comes to the hospital and sees you there. So the surgeon used such big words that Raymond Charles couldn't understand him. [01:07:18] And finally, Raymond Charles said, are you telling me that I have cancer in the liver? Yes, the surgeon said, that's what I'm trying to say. The surgeon asked him, do you want to know the truth? He said, I want to know all the truth. So he told him he had cancer of the liver. And Raymond said, how much time do I have? He said, is it years or months? The surgeon said, months. and Raymond Charles, I'm not offering this for anybody else's guidance, I'm just telling you what he said. [01:07:58] Raymond Charles decided he's not going to have surgery or any other medical treatment. So he called all his ordained brethren, ministers and deacons together and he had an anointing service which was very meaningful and then soon after that he went to a certain church and he met with the primary children 25 of them and he felt led to tell the children that he was a dying man and he said maybe you children [01:08:30] would like to lay hands on me and pray that God would be pleased to heal me and he said 25 little hands came on this bishop and he said five of the children led in prayer and he looked as healthy Thank you very much. You're excused.