Departure within the local church is a serious issue that affects individuals, families, and the entire assembly. The sermon uses the vision of Jesus in Revelation 1 to illustrate his glory and authority, highlighting the seven churches as symbolic of different states of the church. The primary cause for departure is identified as leaving one's first love, as seen in the letter to Ephesus, which serves as a warning to repent and return to original devotion. The message emphasizes that hindrances to the church's spiritual welfare are not external factors like education, buildings, or poverty, but internal issues such as neglecting God's Word, independence from Christ's headship, and a lack of love for fellow believers. Ultimately, restoration is possible through honest confession, repentance, and a renewed commitment to God's Word and Christ's leadership.
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that covers what it means to depart from the Lord, how an individual may be restored to the Lord, how a family may seek restoration to the Lord, and tonight we want to talk about departure from the Lord in the local assembly of believers. It's a very sad thing that whatever happens in your own heart and life will likely affect your family, and what happens in your family will very likely affect the whole assembly. No man live unto himself. No man die unto himself. I often use the illustration my grandmother gave to me one time. She said when she was a girl, it was considered to be very unspiritual to put a heater in the church building.
And she belonged to a certain group that was very strict about everything. And they thought that if you put a furnace in your church building or a stove, you were really pandering to the flesh. So you should just take it as it comes. But she said, somehow, it was not considered unspiritual to carry a hot brick or a jug of hot water. And when this was put at your feet and a blanket over your knees, and not only kept you freezing, but she said it's remarkable how fifty or sixty bricks, hot bricks, would warm up that whole building. And if you bring the cake of ice to the meeting, it'll cool it. If you warm it up, you'll warm it up yourself. It'll help warm up the meeting. So what we're going to talk about tonight is departure in the local church and some of the sad results of it and how it may be a remedy.
I want you to turn to the first chapter of the book of the Revelation, where we see the Lord Jesus, the first vision that John had of him in the glory. And here he appears as the Son of Man. He appears also as the head of the church. The description given of the Lord Jesus in the last part of Revelation one, is very similar to that given in the book of Daniel, where he's called the Ancient of Days. Of course, the Lord Jesus is the Ancient of Days. Jesus of the New Testament is Jehovah of the Old Testament. The book of Revelation, incidentally, is not the revelation of St. John the Divine.
I'm sure you know that. That's just the heading somebody put on here. The very first verse says, the revelation of Jesus Christ. which God gave to him to show unto his servants, things which were short to come to pass. So the book of the Revelation is not a revelation of strange happenings. A revelation of St. John is a revelation of the Lord Jesus. And seven times in the Revelation of John you find him in the glory. And when you read the revelation, always look for Christ. This is true of any book, of course. Always look for Christ. Don't look for strange and... mysterious appearances and events and all of this. Look for the Lord heath. And so he's presented in this first chapter, in his glory, and I want to read the description and then just say a little about the close of this chapter.
Verse twelve, I turned to see the voice that spake with me, and Dean turned. I saw seven lamps, or lamps fan, certainly not candlesticks. A candlestick is a candelabra. with branches, and there's no such thing in the church at all. No such thing as a central church, and then branch churches. Each one is an individual, and autonomous, and totally dependent upon the Lord Jesus, and totally responsible to the Lord Jesus. So he saw the seven golden lamps, and in the midst of the seven lamps, one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and gird about the paths with a golden girdle.
His head and his hairs were white like wool, white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire. And his feet likened to fine brass as if they burned in the furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters. He had in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. Now John was the one who had leaned his head on Jesus' bosom. He was the one who referred to himself over and over as the disciple whom Jesus loved. He probably knew the Lord as well as anyone. Tradition says that he was even a cousin of the Lord Jesus, as was John the Baptist.
We don't know about this, but we do know that he knew the Lord Jesus well and was right at home in his presence. But when he saw him glorified, and he himself was still in his natural state on this earth, he fell before him as one dead. And so was you and I. if we suddenly saw him in the glory of the night. Only when we are in our glorified state ourselves will we be able to be at home in his presence. When I saw him, I felt that his feet is dead, and he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not, I am the first and the last. I am he that liveth and was dead. And behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And have the keys of hell and of death. Like the things which thou hast seen, that's the vision that's just described here, and the things which are, This is the church order of the church history that's given in preview chapters two and three, and the things which shall be hereafter.
That begins with chapter four in verse one. And the same phrase is used there in the first verse of chapter four. The things which shall be after this or hereafter. The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand and the seven golden lamps. The seven stars are the angels or messengers of the seven churches. And the seven lamps which thou sawest are the seven churches. Under the angel of the church of Ephesus writes, These things have he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand. That is, he controls the messengers of the churches, who walketh in the midst of the seven lampstands. I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them that are evil, and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars, and hath borne, and hath patience, and for my name's sake, hath labored, and hath not fainted, He says, I know all this.
I know all about you. I know you through and through. I know your history. I know your attitudes. I know your motives. I know your actions. I know you. Nevertheless, I have against thee because thou hast left thy first love. First in priority. Not first chronologically. The Lord Jesus himself, our first love. Thou hast left thy first love. Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works. Or else, I will come unto thee. This is not the second coming.
This is coming to them in judgment. I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy lamp out of his place, except thou repent. But this thou hast, that thou hateest the deeds of the Nicolaes, which I also hate. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says under the churches. To him that overcomes will I give to thee to the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. Now each of these seven letters tell us something about the church and the Lord's knowledge of it, and their responsibilities to him. They are called upon to repent when there is something to be repented of. They are comforted when there is trouble and sorrow, and they are helped along when they are in ignorance.
Now here in the local church, the local assembly of believers are of many kinds. This is a partial list on the board of departure in the early church. Actually, we have letters to more than this, but I just included these, and I didn't leave Ephesus in the order in which the letters are written, because it's only the second letter to the Ephesians where the Lord corrects departure. I've just read that, do you? The first letter to the Ephesians was written by the Apostle Paul. The second one was written by the Apostle John. Crete has no letter addressed to them, but the letter that's addressed to Titus has to do particularly with the conditions of Crete, and the other churches there are the ones where there was some correction made among the seven churches.
Five of them had to be corrected. Only two of them, Smyrna, which was a suffering church, a picture of those that suffered a great deal in the persecution under ten of the Roman emperors. from Nero to Diocletian. And then the other one, which is Philadelphia, which is the ideal state, and no church has any right to claim that exclusively. No company of believers can say, we are Philadelphia, and all else is Laodicea. That's what I was taught when I was a boy. It's all a conceit. It's simply not true. Most of us have to admit the more of Laodicea than the Philadelphia about it and about the local assembly where we are.
If you want to copy these all, fine. You're not copyrighted. It's just a few things that I jotted down. Maybe you would add to the list. Maybe you would see some other things that are wrong. Maybe some of these you would question. But in any case, these are some of the things that I saw that were wrong in the early church. When I showed this list of a lady, she said, you need to tell me all those things were wrong in the first century? Well, of course they were, because they were human beings. Wherever you have human beings, you have problems. Wherever you have Christians, you have departure. And when we get away from the Lord, there's only one thing, and that is restoration. And the Lord wants to bring us back to himself. And I'm going to comment on those, but I do want to turn from that to say a little bit about conditions that do not hinder the local church, but which a great many people today are making much of.
I saw an article in a magazine, Christian Magazine recently, in which they stress the tremendous need. That's what they call it. What they call it. The tremendous need. for better education among those who minister the word. Now the Lord knows that we need all the education we can get, but some people are over-educated, some people are overemphasizing education, and certainly this is not the overwhelming need of the hour. It isn't that we need a better educated ministry. It's that we need a more spiritual ministry, and you know it, and I know it. We need a more spiritual ministry. It isn't a matter of how well educated a man. He can be the best educated man in the world and just be full of hot air.
There's nothing at all, no value at all, in just education per se. Education is a tool. So are many other things. There are a lot of people who think that the big problem is to get a good location and a nice building. And how many times I've seen people put up a nice building and then sit there and wonder why the people don't come in. They thought that because they were so pleased to have a new building that everybody in the neighborhood would just be delighted and they'd all flock over there to see the wonderful building. Well, if they're really looking for nice buildings, then they're going to come to ours. There are much more expensive ones, much more modern ones, much better decorated ones, much more impressive ones than anything we'll ever be able to put up.
Now, they have put up a building in the East that costs a third of a million dollars. We're headed for the Cathedral of Sage, I guess. And I understand that they're going to add a quarter of a million dollar addition to the third of a million dollar building. I think this is a crime. I'd like to see them burn the place down. I'd like to see people get out of those big barns and divide up into smaller groups where they can reach the people all over the community instead of packing five hundred people into a meeting so that you get fifty people doing the work of four hundred and fifty people who are just dead with. I know because I've done that. I know exactly what it is. Brothers and sisters, we do not need better buildings.
We do not need better locations. These conditions do not hinder the local church. And I defy anybody to prove that it ever has hindered the local assembly of believers. If Christians can't get out and reach the people in the community, regardless of where their building is located, they're not going to do it after they get a building. Now, I'm not saying a building isn't a good tool. It is a good tool. I'm not saying that we ought not to have a good tool. I used to be in the jewelry business. And I was not a very good engraver. I taught my brother Rex all I knew about engraving the first three months that he was serving his apprenticeship under me. After that he passed me out. But I know good engraving when I see it, and I was on the street in our hometown one day, and I saw a tramp sitting on a little folding stool.
And he had an old dilapidated suitcase across his knees. And on that suitcase he had a little pad, and he was holding a piece of lead... type, you know, from the machines, I can forget what you call them, these machines that are septic types and little lead slugs. Anyway, he had one of these resting on this thing, and in his hand was a graving tool made out of a three-cornered file with a corn cob for a handle. And he was doing absolutely magnificent work. You never saw anything that's beautiful, as he could put on those lead slugs. Of course, lead is very easy to engrave, but he was doing a beautiful job of engraving. He didn't have any kind of tools at all. I think he was really showing off. I'm sure he could guess something better than the cob handle.
But he just wanted people to know that it's in me. It's not in this tool. The tool is just something in the hand of a workman. And whatever we have ought to be tools in the hands of the true workman and then of his fellow workman, those who labor under him, who are fellow workmen together. These are the tools that ought to be used. But they should not be considered to be hindrances if we don't have the right kind of tool. Now, not only is, if not a hindrance, to lack some of these things, but it's not a hindrance to lack anything. Poverty among the Lord's people is not a hindrance. Some of us can remember the Depression, and we remember that souls were being saved regularly.
In fact, if I had a week of meetings anywhere during the Depression and didn't see souls saved, one or more... I got on my face before the Lord to find out what's wrong, because souls were being saved right and left. Christians didn't have a great deal of else to do, even those who were farmers. There wasn't any moisture, they couldn't raise crops. They just got along the best they could, and then they used their spare time to get out among the neighbors. They go into town. It was not unusual. I stayed in one home with a man. It was not unusual for him to go to town on Saturday. Not to spend money because he didn't have any. He'd take a case of eggs in and trade it for a few essentials. and then spend the time talking to the farmers. And they were wondering, what's ahead? What's going to happen?
And it was not unusual at all for him to come back home and say, well, I saw so-and-so led to the Lord today, or a certain other person led to the Lord. The Lord's people were not hindered by poverty. We never had been hindered by poverty. To the poor, the gospel is preached. And by the poor, the gospel is preached. And don't you think it isn't. The Lord's people are getting up and doing for the Lord. in their poverty. You know, if you remember that the Apostle Paul was led by the Spirit of God to write in the second letter to the Corinthians that the Christians of Macedonia were serving the Lord, were giving to the Lord above their ability, beyond their ability. They were giving out of the abundance of their deep poverty.
This is the way they were giving. And they were giving liberally. And he uses some superlatives in those two chapters, the eighth and ninth chapters of the second Corinthians. He uses twenty-four superlatives to describe the giving of these consecrated Christians, these loving Christians who wanted to see the word of God go to others and wanted to see other people help. So poverty is no hindrance to the work of the Lord. And this would be poverty of possessions, it would be poverty of numbers. Some people think, well, if we had an assembly of two hundred people, then we could hit the town, you know, and we could really make an impression. But do you know how the work was built up in Colorado Springs? There were twelve of us who sat down together in the back room of the hotel.
That's the way they worked out it back in nineteen thirty-eight. They didn't start with anything big. We've got four assemblies here in the city and another one in Woodland Park now. But we didn't start that way. Twelve people meeting in the back room of the hotel. He thought it was a secret society. If you had to know how to find the place, because we didn't make enough noise for anybody to hear the street. But the Lord blessed the poverty of numbers. He blessed the Lord's people who wanted to reach out to others. And then I think we need to understand the persecution for Christ is not any hindrance to spiritual welfare. In fact, you might almost say that it's a blessing. When the Lord's people are persecuted, they are much more spiritual.
They go on nearer to the Lord. You take the fifth chapter of Acts. When the apostles were put in jail. When they were suffering as they were there. and they got released and came back to the disciples and told them how that they had been threatened and they've been told not to preach the word and says that they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for the namesake of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then they got together and prayed. Not once did they pray that the Lord would ease their suffering. Not once did anybody say, now Lord, stop these people from being so mean to them. But they prayed that they would be faithful to the Lord and that they would have boldness to speak the word of God. And they went ahead and preached it. I'm not spiritual enough to pay for this, brothers and sisters, but if you are, I say amen to it.
I think that we need another good dwelling from the world. I think that we have been favored and exalted. Christians have been given too high a place by the world. He says if a man will live Godly in Christ Jesus, he shall suffer persecution. And I wonder, where is the persecution? I don't think we need to go out and hunt for it. I think we may get it one of these days and we may get a double dose of it. But I think that it would be a good thing if we had another real persecution. It would certainly weed out the hypocrites, wouldn't it? And it might strengthen the rest of us. It might stir us up. It might make us believe that the world still hates us as it hated the Lord Jesus and would make us draw near to the Lord Jesus.
Oh, no. Persecution for Christ doesn't hinder at all. Lack of an educated ministry doesn't hinder. Neither does lack of organization. Now I believe in order, but I make a distinction between godly order and organization. I think that organization is purely human and is carnal. And I think that the minute that the Lord's people decide, that the cure for our problems is to organize another committee, I think then we're down the drain. And this is what's happening. You know it's what's happening. You get some of the magazines that come out of the larger cities, Christian magazines, and they're just filled with all kinds of methods for doing the job better.
They have what they call workers' conferences held around the various parts of the United States. I think they've outgrown their usefulness long, long ago, if they ever had any usefulness. That's my private opinion, public express. And I'll tell you one thing. They occupy all of the time, three or four days. They occupy all of the time. with methods, methods, methods. What's the best way to do this? What have you found is the best way to achieve this? Is that what they need? It is not what they need. We need restoration. We need to get on our faces in the dust. Mr. James Arby wrote a tract a hundred years ago, our faces in the dust. A friend of mine had a lot of those printed up and distributed them.
And he got a letter from a man, a very prominent man. A man who takes quite a prominent place in one of the larger assemblies. Not in this part of the country, thank the Lord. But he got a letter from this man in which he said, I think you ought to destroy any of those tracks that you have led. It was a mistake that Mr. Garvey wrote it in the first place, and it's a mistake to circulate it today because it discourages the Lord's people. Discourages the Lord's people to tell us that we ought to put our faces in the death. Isn't that exactly what the Lord has told us to do? Haven't he told us to humble ourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that in the end he had called us in due season? Hasn't he told us that as individuals and as the family that we ought to get before the Lord in honest confession? Hasn't he? There's no hindrance at all.
It's a hindrance not to have this kind of teaching. But more specifically, I'd like to talk to you a little bit about what I see in the twentieth century hindrances. Now there are many of the Lord's people who do not believe that our Bible is sufficient for this day, because they say so many things have come up. Changes have come. We live in different times. You can't apply the rules that were given in the first century because these are different days. Let's just examine a little bit. You know what's going on in the world. You know what's going on in the assemblies of God's people, where you have visited. What do you believe is the hidden in the world today among the local churches, among the local assemblies? Well, I would put as number one the neglect of God's word.
Would you buy that? I see a head nodding once in a while. All right. I believe that this is the number one problem, the number one hindrance, the reason for departure in any company of the Lord's people, it neglects of the Word of God. Notice I did not say rejection of the Word of God. Thank the Lord that has not yet struck where we are. It has struck in many other places. You know, of course, that many churches have adopted the liberal viewpoint, or at least members of those churches have. You know, of course, that association with the National Council of Churches results in taking a lot of literature that is denying the truth of the Word of God. And you know that even in the old line denominations where when I was a boy, there was good clear teaching and certainly clear gospel preaching, that even in those places this is being rejected now to a large extent.
So I know that this condition is true. But I'm talking now about those who meet as we do. In fact, I would like to just break down this outside. This is where we live. This is our home meeting. Do you believe that there has been a neglect of the Word of God on the part of individuals in this assembly? Well, that's a foregone conclusion. Nobody would question that, but I know of. Of course we have neglected the Word of God. Of course we're too busy. Of course we do not have men who are studying the Word of God as we once did. I grew up among Scottish people. I don't know one man in our meeting when I was a boy who didn't consider his responsibility to try to be a real theologian, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof.
Every man in the meeting thought it was his bounden responsibility to gather the Word of God so that he would have a good clear grasp of the Scriptures, whether he ever ministered the Word publicly, whether he ever preached the Word or not. He thought, I've got to know what that Bible teaches. I've got to be ready to give an answer to everyone who asked for the reasons I hope it is within me. Here about five years ago, I was having a weekly Bible study with a young man. He's not here anymore. He was enjoying the Word of God for the first time in his life. He had been saved about five years, but he had never done any studying when he was going. I was able to get him started on studying, and he was just thrilled with it. He was working long hours, but he found time to come to my home. and to study with me for an hour or two once a week.
One day he came to me very crestfallen. He said, I'm all mixed up, John. I don't know what to do. He said, I went to see Brother so-and-so. He didn't hear any more either. I went to see Brother so-and-so, and I was telling him how much I was enjoying the study of the word. He said to me, what are you doing there? And I said, well, what do you mean? Well, he said, well, Why do you want to study the Bible? He said, I said, well, brother, don't you study the Bible? He said, no, of course not. I read it through. I have a general idea what's there. I've got a concordance. I'll look something up. I do. But he said, I'm not going to be a preacher, and you're not going to be a preacher. There's no reason at all for it to study as much as you're doing. He said, it'll just get your head stuff on. It won't be any real good at all.
He said, now, is that right? I said, what do you think? Well, he said, it doesn't sound right to me. And I thought you'd get more discernment than he is. That's all I said. I didn't have any comments about it. What can you say about a character like that? If he really thinks that you're wasting your time when you study the Word of God. Well, you don't believe that. You believe that God studied the Word of God. All right, now let me ask you a question. Let's be honest tonight. We're not going to see any restoration individually or as a family or as an assembly if we're not honest. Let's be honest in the presence of God. Are you studying the Word of God as much as you did a year ago? Are you studying the Word of God as much as you studied it five years ago or ten years ago? Some of you can go back farther than that. Are you studying the Word of God as much as you did when you were first saved?
Is the Word of God as fresh to you? Does it mean as much to you as it did at one time? If there's any hesitancy at all in saying yes about that, then you and I need to get into the presence of the Lord and honestly confess to him that we have neglected the Word of God. Now don't tell me you're busy now in the Word of God. You still got twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. That's the same as your grandpa had. If you don't have time, it's because something else is more important. You're still eating, don't you? Anybody here quit eating because you got too busy? Well, until you quit eating, you have no reason, no right to say that you're too busy to study the Word of God. Because if you feed your carcass, you ought to be able to feed your spirit.
You certainly ought to feed that part which is most important about you. And you do have time. And if you don't have time, then you ought to get rid of some of the things that are taking up that time, because they're not as important as the Word of God. Now, the neglect of the Word of God is, first of all, as an authority. There's no other way to read the Word of God except to read it in subjection to it. I don't do this. I can't do it. But I have known people who read their Bibles on their knees. A lady told us about her husband after he was gone home to heaven, that he made a practice of doing this, even as an old man. He would go alone into his room after breakfast. After they had read together as a family, he would go alone into his room and put his Bible on his chair and get down to his knees and read the Bible on his knees for a couple of hours.
Now, I don't believe that you have to be in any physical position in order to be in the right spiritual condition. But I can appreciate that man's attitude. And I wish that we had more of an attitude of dependent upon God and the subjection to God when we approach the Word of God. If you approach this argumentatively, critically to saying, well, I don't accept that, but I think I can accept this, then you do not accept it as authority to me. And it is authority. And then you ought not to neglect the word of God in teaching. Well, you say, I'm not a teacher. Well, now we have several men present tonight who are taking the place of elders. And you believe that God has called you to shepherd the flock. You ought to be apt to teach.
You do not necessarily have the gift of a teacher. Happy is the assembly that has elders among them who have the gift of teaching, as well as an aptitude for teaching. But you must be apt to teach in order to be an elder, in order to be an overseer among the Lord's people. Elder applies to the person, his age, and overseer applies to his work. Are we being taught the Word of God? I have listened... to some people, not here, because I haven't been here very much. We were gone for ten months, and I was home only two months last summer. There was less than that. But I have attended some places, and I have heard people get up, presumably, to teach the Word of God.
They never read a text. They never quoted the Scripture. They started out with a story, preferably a funny one. That gets the attention. That's good psychology. Mind how the Lord's people have suffered from psychology. And after he told the story and got the attention of the people, for why I don't know, because it isn't anything given that they got the attention, then proceeded to tell him something that he believed that the Bible taught, and perhaps referred to a scripture or two in the process. No exit Jesus. No breaking down of the word of God. No expounding of the scriptures. The Lord Jesus expounded to them in all the scriptures with things concerning himself. He's the supreme teacher.
If you want to feed the Lord's people, point out Christ to them in the scriptures. Get their eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Get them to see the head of the church. Get them to see that he's in the glory. That he's responsible for us and we are responsible to him. This is God's way of teaching. We must teach the word. We're not giving enough of the word. We're not teaching as we ought. We're neglecting the word of God. And then we're neglecting it as a standard of both morals and practice. You believe that the Bible standard is still right. Well, I'm sure if you're a Christian, you say, yes, I do. Well, do you believe it enough to examine it? Do you believe it enough to try to follow it?
Do you believe it enough to insist upon this high standard? You know what's going to happen to us one of these days, brothers and sisters? Immorality is sweeping the country. You know this. The new morality they call it, the same old immorality. Situation ethics and all the rest of it. You know what's happening? The divorce rate is just zooming. And they're not all unconverted people that are getting divorced. I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't want to insinuate that it's your fault if you've had problems in your home. I'm simply saying that the divorce rate is zooming. And more and more people are letting down the bars. More and more people are saying, well, we used to say there was only one ground for divorce and remarriage, and that was immorality.
But maybe some of these others would be a legitimate ground for a divorce. And maybe we ought not to be too hard. And many companies of the Lord's people are letting down the bars, and they're receiving people on this last trip. My wife and I visited a meeting where one of the elders is divorced from his wife for no scriptural ground at all. Both of you and his wife say there was absolutely no scriptural ground for the divorce. And he is remarried, and he's still an elder in that assembly by his own profession. And I talked to some of the others. I said, well, what are you doing about it? They said, what can we do about it? He started the whole thing. He started this work here. Seventy-five percent of the people in the meeting were led to the Lord through him.
He's been a useful man in the past. And he is so strong, he's so powerful, that nobody can do anything against him. One of the men says, I raised the question about this, and he informed me that if I didn't like it, I could go elsewhere. And he said, I don't live close enough that I can get to any other meeting. Now, the record's diopty, he's telling the people the way it's going to be. And they're taking it. Now, suppose that that man would come here, move here to Colorado Springs. And you didn't know anything about this. And he would come with a letter. He'd come with a letter, all right. He'd see the page that they signed it. He can force them to do it. Or put them out. They're under his thumb.
People would sign that letter. And he would come here with a letter. And you would receive him on the ground that he had a letter from another meeting. Then what? After he's in here and well situated and participating because he's a pusher, and he has a prominent place in the meeting, then you find out that he has two living wives. So what do you do? You see what we're faced with? Because the word of God is not being accepted as divine authority, as a standard for morals and for practice, we are faced with breakdown, moral breakdown. among our assemblies. And we've got to be on our faces before God, that he might keep us from these things. I beg of you, brothers and sisters, be alert, be awake to the awful implications of neglecting the Word of God as our only standard of morals and practice.
Now, the second thing that I see that's causing a great deal of trouble and departure from the Lord is independence of Christ as Lord and head. He is the individual's Lord, he is the head of the church. Do you believe that Christ is the head? Well, you say, of course we do. And I thank the Lord that I could believe it. I believe every person who meets in the name of the Lord here really believes that Christ is the head of the church. I don't believe that you believe that Dr. Koupa in New York is the head of any church. Somebody has made an organization and they put him in that position. But I don't think any of you believe that he's the head of anything. I think that you have been educated in the word of God enough to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the head of the church.
All right, now let me ask you this. Do you believe that the head of the church has sent the Holy Spirit down into this world to be his vicar here on earth? Do you believe that the Holy Spirit presides in the local church? And I think you would still say yes. Yes, I do. I believe that the Holy Spirit is here acting for Christ in the local church. And do you believe that the Holy Spirit raises up men and fits them to be overseers over the flock. You don't believe the self-perpetuating board, do you? I don't need it. You believe that the Holy Spirit raises up men and fits them to be elders. They are elders, but he fits them to be overseers.
When he's of Acts, in verse twenty-eight, take heed to yourselves and to the flock among which the Holy Ghost have made you overseers. You believe that? Let me ask you another question. Are you subject to the elders? We say, well, that's another thing. Now, that's how he... Wait a minute. Wait a minute. In the last chapter of Hebrews, he says, obey them who are your guides. Obey them who have the rule over you. That's the way it reads in the King James Version. Obey them who are your guides. But you say, I can't consider him a guide. When did you get so spiritual and so smart that you're able to decide who is an elder and who is...
And usually these decisions are made by somebody who has very little maturity. Mature people are pretty slow to speak critically of elders. They know what the Scripture says. They know that the Bible plainly says in First Peter five, ye younger be subject to the elders. They know that First Thessalonians five says, Know them which are over you, which labor among you and are over you in the Lord. That is recognize them. That's the word for know that. Recognize them. Spiritual people are very slow to see critically of those who are in the place of leadership in the local assembly. But you say, suppose the man isn't right. Well, let me tell you, the Lord is still heading the church.
And the Holy Spirit is still his vicar on this earth. And he's perfectly able to take care of his own church. And he doesn't need any of your help or money. The Lord will soon see to it that a man who is in the wrong position will be straightened out. Didn't he do that with diatrophies? John said, I'll take care of that as soon as they come there. And he did. I'm sure. See, we do not really believe that Christ is the head. Because Colossians, too, says that some are not holding the head. That means they are not subject to the head. If we're not subject to the elders, we are not subject to the Spirit of God. We're not subject to the Spirit of God. We're not subject to the head of the church. I speak more freely than men who are elders here in this local assembly, because I am not.
And I'm traveling. When I was here, when I was nailed down here, seven years, I wasn't able to travel at all, except maybe on a weekend occasionally. And I did meet with the elder brother. And I know the exercise of soul that they have. I know the long hours that they put in in prayer. I know the discussions that run into the wee hours of the night sometimes, because they are concerned about the Lord's people and who's going on to the Lord. And then somebody who's put nothing into the building up of an assembly. can very offhandedly say, oh, well, he's nobody. Who cares what he thinks? You see, if we believe in the headship of Christ, we've got to believe that he has raised up men.
Now, if you believe one man is not raised up to the Lord, I say you have the benefit of the doubt. You don't need to go to that particular man to talk to him about needs. But don't tell me there isn't anybody in whom you have confidence. Don't tell me there isn't anybody in this assembly that you believe is spiritually minded. Don't tell me there is anybody here who isn't trying to do the work of the Lord and by the power and might of the Spirit of God. You know very well they are here, and we are not subject to them. Some of these have not been. And then I think another way that this shows up, our independence of Christ as the head of the church, is that we do not recognize and love all the members of his body. Now, when you love a person who love all there is of them, You don't love a man and hate his ears, even if they're big as mine.
You don't love a person and not love every second of it. And anyone who has ever been in love knows exactly what I'm talking about. You love the Lord Jesus? Well, of course you do. We love him because he first loved us. Then you love every one of his memories. I didn't say you'd like them. I don't know if anything in the Bible tells me that I have to like anybody else. I don't even like me. I don't expect you to like you. If you're hard to live with, you're hard to get along with, if you've got some thinking characters and thinking traits in your character, don't expect me to like that. Why should I? That's carnal. And you ought to be trying to get rid of it, and then I ought to be trying to help you to get rid of it.
I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about loving the Lord's people. We know that we have passed from death and the life. How do we know it? How do we know it? Because we love the Father. If you don't love the Lord's people, you're certainly not giving the head the right place. We are too independent of the head of the church. And this is what makes us independent of the members of that head. And then I think that another real problem that we have is our independence of the Lord. in expecting from the head of the church to minister to us the things that he wants to give us through the gift that he has given. Now that's kind of a complicated sentence. Let me back up and say, we don't believe that the Lord is able to give teaching or shepherding or whatever we need through the gift that he has given.
We think that we have to have maybe an educated ministry. We think that we have to have a man who graduated from seminary. We think that we have to have a man who has had Bible school training at least. There's nothing wrong with training. I don't care where you get it. There's nothing wrong with training if it's training according to the word of God. But to make it a necessity? To make it an imperative, a requirement? Well, it isn't just yours. What's the matter with us? Have we degenerated to the place where we're simply educating a man for a business? This is what's being done, and the clergy lay the heresy all around us, of course. They don't know any better. They wouldn't think of letting a man get up to preach unless he had a, unless he was educated for it.
But do we believe that the head of the church is able to give gifts to men, and then give these men to the church? Do we believe it? Then why are we looking for what kind of degrees that he had? There's a magazine called Christianity Today. I took it when it first came out. It had some good things in it. There's another one that's put up by Dallas Theological Seminary with a Latin name to it. And that's what's happened, too. It had lots of good things in it. Both of those magazines have changed where they used to give the name of the man and tell what he was affiliated with and where he had served the Lord. They now give you one thing. There's a little box on the title page of each article.
One thing. You know what it is? One thing, you know what it is? His degree. That's the whole story. And the more he's got, the bigger box he gets. And the bigger box he gets, the more, the better headlines he gets. And the better headlines he gets, the farther he gets pushed up toward page one. What a shame. What a shame. He actually did not believe the ability of the head of the church to feed this lot through the gifts that he has given. And then we have, this is part of this ignorance, we have this stress on material quote success, unquote.
I visited in a certain city. I didn't think anything about the first place that I visited. There were several meetings in that city. The first place that I visited, they said, you know, we have brother so-and-so here. He's a very successful business man. I said, oh, is that right? Is he a businessman? Oh, he's a very able man. He manages a big business. What do you say is business? And then I went to the next meeting, and they told me something similar, only better. And I went to the third one, and they said, Well, you know, we have brother so-and-so here. He's even a millionaire. He said, That's awfully, you know, with great reverence. He's even a millionaire. I said, What does that have to do with his feeding the flock of God? Well, he said, Don't you think that dozens of men make the bed elders?
I said, No, I make Swedes do. She said, what in the world is that being a Swede has to do with it? I said, not anything. Any more than being a businessman has to do with it. Not anything. You're talking about something that isn't germane to the subject at all. That difference would make whether you ever made a duck in his life or not. Have you got any spirituality? If you have any, I'll take a nap. Because that's absolutely no value at all. But there's another thing, Brother Joseph. It shows that we do not depend upon the head of the church, and that is our failure to train young people in our own assembly. Mr. Bill McDonald, who's a reputable brother, and most of you say the very few of them around here, he speaks here, he's a good bit.
Brother McDonald said, if the local assembly was doing its work, there would never be any need for a Bible school anywhere. And he was president of a marriage Bible school for a number of years. He went out to California and set up a kind of a training program out there. What he told me was intended to be for the help of Christians locally. This last year, only one third of the people came from the local area, and the rest of them were coming from out of state and all sorts of places. And he said, I want to get away from this and get into something else.
He wasn't able to get anyone to take over the work that he's doing. He didn't want to leave the class, so he agreed to stay on, but only for this one more year. In fact, he does not believe that this is God's way. It's not God's way to send people off to a training field where they get their heads shut full. And it takes two of the years to knock it out of them when they come back from a place like that. I know because he sent four or five of them from the Christian homes of children, including my own son. And it didn't do him any good at all. I'm not blaming you, too. It's just simply an unnatural situation. It isn't God's order. The Lord intended you to do certain things herself. He intended fathers and mothers to teach their own children.
Now, that doesn't mean that nobody else would teach them, but he did intend us to teach our own children. And he tells us in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Now when we fail to do this, we have failed in our duties. And we had the children's home over here because there are a lot of parents that didn't do the job. A lot of them that couldn't do the job. Some of them were sick. There were other reasons. But they couldn't do the job, and therefore we were trying to supply a need. And this is why Bible schools have been studied, because the local assembly has freaked out. They copped out on their responsibility. The local assembly is not doing the job. And when we don't do the job, somebody else has got to do it. And this is why we have Bible schools. Well, that is what it is.
You who are leading the clock have a responsibility either to see, either to teach them yourself or to see that there is somebody capable of teaching. And don't use your platform, your teaching platform. Don't use your teaching platform as a practice platform. There are lots of ways where a young fellow is starting out the tree. Can, and I'm talking about... absolute knowledge. Now, I'm not talking about those who have developed a measure of width and can be used locally. I'm talking about those who are absolute knowledge. There are lots of places where they can practice preaching. The jail is a fine place. The congregation never gets up in need of. That's where I got my practice. I preach every other Sunday for seven years in jail. And it was a wonderful practice.
And I preached on the street. And there are all kinds of places where they can preach. But when you call the Lord's people together, you see through us what they're saying. He took it for sale. If you can't do it yourself, invite someone in to do it. It's not the preacher's responsibility. It's the right thing you to say, I want to come there and preach. It's your responsibility. You are the ones who are to feed the flock of God. And let me say to the rest of you, you have a responsibility to accept. And to take part of that which is served at the table. I mean, the feeding is given. The food is given. The food is given. In the local agenda, you have responsibility to be there and get your share of it. Now, if you don't attend the meeting, if you're a picky, if you're in your attendance, the meeting can say, I don't like to listen to him.
I'm just going to go and go below the seat. Well, if you do that, you're decising prophesying. First, that's the one in chapter five. Reprise not prophesying. When you decise the word of God, when you reject the word of God, because it doesn't come in the right cup. You know, you want it, you want it straight up and it goes right away. And the Lord wants to go through you in an old mud. And you don't want it that way. When you do this, you're rejecting the word that the Lord has to give to you. So we have a responsibility to see that the word of God is developed, his thought, and that the gift is developed. Now, let me say a word about outreach. There is a definite lack of outreach. We are selfish and in wrong. You see, God has given us some truths that are not generally known, not generally understood by many of the Lord's people.
How many people in this town, in old-line, standard-brand denominational churches, really understand the priesthood of all believers? Very, very, very dear. How many of them really understand the coming of the Lord and for them it is the Blessed Holy? Not very many. How many really understand the headship of Christ? Not very many. Now you've got a lot of things. and your stewards of these truths, of these other knowledge, what are you doing to see that it gets to others? As an individual, as a gifted brother or a sister? Because the sisters have a responsibility to teach the younger women, you know?
Well, some are not doing it, but they have a responsibility to do it. What are we doing to reach these people about it? Who are Christians? What are we doing to reach the end phase? How much outreach do we really have? Our Sunday school is the smallest that it has been in, I don't know how many years. It goes back a great many years. Our Sunday school is the smallest. I don't say it to encourage you. I'm glad for you, brothers and sisters, who are still working at it. But too many are just dragging their feet. You're not only riding on the tailgate, but you're dragging your feet. You're not contributing to the pollution of the problem. You're part of the problem. And you know it. Now, why are we not reaching out to the people around us?
Our brothers and sisters, we have become keen grown. I said to a man who was raising cherries, how in the world do you tell where to eat these prunes? How do you tell where to prune each cherry? He said, very simple. I just, anytime I see a branch turning in towards the throat, I just cut it off. Because they never produce anything. The cherries will be in where they don't get any sunlight. Anything that grows in, it gets cut off. Only the rapid reaches out, did I say. The good thing the Lord doesn't leave ever left. Someones get pretty badly locked, wouldn't he? We are not reaching out. We do not really share about the souls of those around us. When the man's praying to you, and I, who am I to say, because I can't get there, I've got to fight in the last month, try to make it in the morning, but I couldn't make it.
One brother, one brother, a lone brother, has been there praying to me several times, and sometimes only two brothers. But we need to pray. Don't we have any needs in this assembly? By the way, he'd be glad to meet any other time. He'd want to meet any other time rather than seven o'clock on Wednesday morning. He said he'd be very glad to meet any time. And I think any others of the same would do. And I'm told that only three, four, five, not more than six or seven of the most, you'd show up in the afternoon for the lady friend, the sister friend. Why? Oh, girl, isn't that good?
Don't we have anything to pray about? Aren't we in desperate spiritual conditions? Aren't we away from the Lord in harm? Of course we are. And the sooner we get on their faces and confession about this, the sooner we're going to be an assembly resource as well as individuals. I'm not saying these things are cold. God knows I'm not. But unless something is done, the Lord said, I will come and remove your cable stick out of its place, and he will. He will. I've seen it happen. I'm here at Canterbury to Canterbury. One of the biggest assemblies in the West. The largest assemblies between Canberra City and the White Coast. For years.
And there isn't a thing there today. Not even a fence. It needs to be around the building. The building's been moved away. The whole thing's been wiped out. It wiped out because immorality came in. I'm sure this is the reason. Immorality came in and nothing was done about it. And they didn't even have a prayer meeting about it. I said to my brother-in-law, I was there. Well, at least you could have gotten together and prayed. He said we couldn't do anything because so-and-so wouldn't allow it to. And the Lord just let it go on for a little while. He just grinned and grinned and grinned and grinned and little. Well, that plan is removed out of the place. You think that couldn't happen here? You don't want it to happen here. I don't want it to happen here. The Lord doesn't want it to happen here.
His name is associated with this place. You meet in the name of the Lord Jesus. And Moses prayed to the Lord, What wilt thou do for thy great name? And we ought to be praying the same thing. Lord keep us from the necessity of the Lord taking the last band out of this place. Well, the final thing that I wanted to say about the twenty-century hindrance is that we have lost the blessed hope. Do you know what really caused the revival of a hundred and fifty years ago? It wasn't rediscovering the truth. of meeting in the name of the Lord alone. It wasn't rediscovering the value of the Lord's suffering. The great truth of the early nineteenth century that rallied God's people all over this world was the truth of the return of Christ.
And that's the thing that shilled the Lord's people, and that's the thing that put them right out in the forefront of the battle, and made them want to shed the gospel all over the world. This is why the great revival of mission took place at that time. And I believe that this is a great truth. It was rediscovered. It was the cry of the bride, of the virgins. Behold, the bridegroom coming. Show you out the meeting. But now we've got all kinds of strange teachings about mid-tribulation and post-tribulation raptures. We've got all kinds of strange teaching about the post-millennialism and armillennialism and... anti-dispensationalism and all kinds of garbage.
That's all it is. I don't hesitate at all to say it. That's all it is. You can't be a sincere student of the Word of God and knowledgeable student of the Word of God and believe this kind of stuff. Let's get to the Word of God and see if the Bible teaches that the Lord is coming and may come at any moment. Of course it's still there. But not only are these wrong doctrines hindering us, but just plain word. Who wants to go home to heaven when we never had it so good as Truman Day? Who wants to go home to heaven when we've got everything that hearts have raised here on this earth? Now that we're having a little depression and a little inflation and a few other little things, maybe the hope is going to brighten up.
Maybe we're going to get to where we go again and say to each other, when we bring each other, when we write to each other, man, after. When I was a boy, that was a common salutation of Christians. And my brother made me a tie clip with the word manath on it in my request. And I quit writing it because people say, manath, are that the name of the camp? Old people don't even know what manath means, many of them. But we are not really looking for the Lord to come back. You can't tell me you're looking for the Lord to come back when you're getting your roots down deeper and deeper and deeper. No. I want to begin, I want to end where I began.
I said, we believe that the Word of God is sufficient. Now I want to raise a question about it. Do you really? Do you believe that the Word of God has everything you need to correct anything's wrong in any local church? Wouldn't you correct all that long list of things, things that were wrong in the first century? Didn't the Lord correct those with the scriptures? Can you think of anything that isn't on that list that's causing us trouble now? Well, if there isn't one of that lace, you'll find it in the New Testament anyway. There are three things that I think we need to understand. One, the Holy Spirit is omniscient. He really knows everything. And he believes that because he believed the Holy Spirit is God.
The Holy Spirit really knew what was going to happen in nineteen seventy-five, didn't he? When he dictated the scriptures, when he caused people to write these scriptures, he knew what was going to happen now. He knew what needs we were going to have now, didn't he? All right, then he was provided for us. Can you imagine the Lord's Knowing these things are coming and not providing for them? Well, you can't think of any situation that the Word of God isn't sufficient for. And then we need to understand that he was sent by the head of the church to do the things that need to be done. He is here. If you believe that he is here and that the Spirit of God is able to open up the Word, then you ought to be ready to hear it. And then we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit has raised up men in every church, in every local assembly.
so that there is no such thing as the company of the Lord's people where there isn't someone whom the Holy Spirit of God can use to oversee that plot and to help the Lord's people to get back to himself. You prove to me that there are no God's ordained overseers in this assembly, and I'll pack up and leave it. Some are. I don't want to be in the place where the Spirit of God has deserted it. And the Spirit of God never deserves an assembly of believers. It's only the Lord who can remove the table set, and he has not yet removed ours. So we know that there are those who are able to help. Now the sheep does not choose a shepherd. The sheep do not choose a shepherd. But I tell you what we are told, we are told to obey them. And when we do that, then we will find that they are willing to help us, that they want to help us, that they do love us, that they do share by us, and we will find help.
Oh no. And one more thing you need to understand, and that is that the Lord still walks in the midst of the Golden Ranspan. The Lord still knows all of our needs. He still knows our problems. He still knows our labors. He still knows our failures. He still knows our hearts. He knows when we've left our first love. He knew that Ephesus had done this. Ephesus was a glorious church. Ephesus was a great church. It was a powerful church, a useful church. But how they went down, how they know died by the end of the first century. The Apostle Paul wrote to them probably around the year sixty, or in the sixty, by the ninety-three years later, he had to write to them and say, I have this against you that thou hast left, not your leave, thou hast left my first life.
I don't know what the Lord's going to say to us here, brothers and sisters. He said some pretty strong things to me. I spent a good many nights lying away thinking about these things, praying about them, and praying for the individual as far as I could mean the name. I do care, and that is care, and the Lord cares. This is what counts. Now the thing is, do you care? Do you want to be restored in your own soul? Do you want to be restored in your own home? Do you want to be restored as an assembly? Would you be willing for the Lord to correct anything in your life? If he shows you something that needs to be corrected, will you take steps toward correcting? Do you mean business? And if the Lord gives you something to do for him, whether it's to pray or to whatever it is to do.
If the Lord shows you something that you can do, will you do it? Will you? Will you? I think these are the questions that have to be answered. Each of us can answer them for ourselves. But there's no way, and I say this reverently, there's no way for the Lord to restore an unwilling person. He can chastise you. He can discourage you. But he will not restore you. until you're willing to acknowledge your need in honest confession and self-judging. Well, I've run over again, but you've got to respect that I guess by now. Glad to see our brother, Ken Bantus, here with us tonight. If not, he's had most of the right direction, you do. Well, I was thinking, Ken, would you close the meeting, prayer, please?
Father, we thank you in the name of the Lord Jesus and the Lord in the Church. And we pray that our bodies obey our heads, our heads, literally, that he shall obey that given head of the church and be subject to him. We thank him that the word of God, as if our guidance and guard, we pray that that words may have the greater faith in our consideration that it will be indeed descended by victory in her head. We pray that thou wilt let our effort so there is more of the word of God. That the word of God has been taught to us. with the fact that this name Peter has lifted the vision for the heart of the shepherd.
In greater this meaning indeed, a light bulb of the opportunities that we have to listen for our Lord Jesus, for we do feel that the coming of the Lord is very, very near. Let these considerations be made free. Let this very needy that our hearts might be stirred up as what we can have in Christ. justly ask that we commit ourselves to be. We thank the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.