I had
an elderly gentleman who was well into his 70’s, say, "I have
just all of a sudden, as a result of your postings, gotten a hunger
for the Word. It’s the first thing I do when I get up in the
morning and the last thing I do before I go to sleep. To think that I
wasted all those years with no interest in spiritual things."
To this I said, "You know you remind me, (and we’ve shared it
with some of those people) of something that Winston Churchill said.
You’re going to smile because you’re going to remember when he
said it. He said, "Youth is wonderful. But what a pity that it
had to be wasted on young people!" My grandfather use to say,
“so soon we get old and so late we get smart.” Now isn’t
that exactly what we’ve done? They've wasted all those good
productive years just simply spending them to satisfy the flesh and
then when they get older they suddenly realize that, "Hey, this
is far better. Why couldn’t I have experienced this for the last 40
years?" Well, it’s one of the questionable things, of the
human experience. And this too we can a test to also had we
understood the Words of our Lord back in 1966 or 1985 when He first
told us to come out from among them, no, we would not have wondered
around the mountain again. But we did not and therefore we do what we
do and say what we say because we to wasted His time and ours or so
I feel. Thank God He is recapturing the time lost in His way. Paul
put it this way in Titus where we find this statement in verse 14 of:
2:11-15
“For the Grace of God that brings Salvation has 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 and our Savior Jesus Christ; Who
gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and
purify to Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no
man despise you.” (Look at Numbers 25:13 again in this light and
then Titus 3:8 and when we do Ephesians 2:10 will mean more, as will
1Peter 2:12.)
2Corinthians
5:18b
"….who
hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ (It doesn’t
stop there. As soon as we are reconciled what has God given us?) and
hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation."
In
other words, we are to help others to be reconciled. And there’s no
more thrilling thing you can do. Like I’ve already mentioned, if
you can bring an estranged husband and wife together, and maybe
there’s some little kids at home that are torn between all this, is
there anything more thrilling than to reconcile those two people and
save the home and recreate a joy and happiness? That makes you feel
pretty good. Well, it’s the same way if you can do this with a
lost, believing unbeliever who walk in wickedness. If we can be
instrumental in bringing that kind of person to a true knowledge
Christ and His Salvation and to be able to say, "I’ve
reconciled them, or have had a part in reconciling someone to God."
And this is our ministry, that we are to be reconciling both lost and
professing believers who are actually in unbelief as unbelieving
people to their Creator God. Any one who knowingly or unknowing makes
light of Christ and this Gospel have a second chance just look at the
Lord's own Words, “seventy times seven” was His expression in
Matthew 18:21-22 and Luke 17:1-4.
Now
we are looking at righteousness which comes through being reconciled
and we find this in:
*This springs
form Isaiah 46:13 where it states beginning at verse 10 with:
“Declaring
the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that
are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all
My pleasure: Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that
executes My counsel from a far country: yes, I have spoken it, I will
also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it. Hearken
to Me, you stouthearted, that are far from righteousness:
I bring near My righteousness; it shall not be far off, and My
salvation shall not tarry (be
delayed):
and I will place Salvation in Zion for Israel My glory*.”
*This is seen in what 2Thessalonians 1:12 reveals through Paul which states this: “That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” This springs from what Jesus Himself stated in John 17 verse 10 where we find this: "All mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.” Again Paul bears this out in Romans 3:21-26 which states: “The righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ to all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely through His Grace through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God has set forth a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him (those) which believe Jesus.”
To
this Jeremiah states this in 33:16 beginning with verse 14: “
Behold, the days come, said the LORD, that I will perform that good
thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house
of Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of
righteousness to grow up to David; and He shall execute judgment and
righteousness in the land. In
those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely:
and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our
righteousness.
For thus said the LORD; David shall never want a man to sit upon the
throne of the house of Israel; Neither shall the priests the Levites
want a man before Me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat
offerings, and to do sacrifice continually. The word of the LORD came
to me, Jeremiah, saying, Thus says the LORD; If you can break My
covenant of the day, and My covenant of the night, and that there
should not be day and night in their season; Then may also My
covenant be broken with David My servant, that there should not have
a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, My
ministers.” To
this it can be said this,
From the destruction of Jerusalem to the present time, a period of
nearly nineteen hundred forty-six years have passed. And the Jews
have had neither a king nor any form of government whatever; nor have
they had the office of a high priest, or priest of any kind offering
sacrifice, been exercised among them during the same period. Because
this must all be understood of the spiritual David, Jesus Christ, who
is both the king (for spiritual Israel) and High Priest of His
Church, "the Israel of God," (Galatians
6:16).
In Whom the covenant of royalty with David and his seed, and that of
a priesthood with Aaron and his seed, have received their full
accomplishment; and all the sacrifices of that old now dead
dispensation were superseded by His "one oblation of Himself,"
the efficacy of which remains forever as witnessed to in Isaiah
9:6-7; Daniel 7:14 and Luke 1:32-33 and Revelation 5:10 all disclose.
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