The book of Philemon illustrates God's grace in receiving repentant sinners, mirroring the father's embrace of the prodigal son. The sermon emphasizes the significance of Christian fellowship, using the Greek word 'koinonia' to highlight five aspects: fellow laborers in God's work, fellow soldiers in spiritual warfare, the sharing of faith, walking together in agreement, and being fellow prisoners in Christ. True fellowship involves mutual support, obedience to God, and active participation in ministry, leading to spiritual growth and resilience against life's challenges.
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Turn with me to the book of Philemon. Philemon. And we'll read beginning at verse one. Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy, our brother, unto Philemon, our dearly beloved and fellow laborers, and to our beloved of fire and archivists, our fellow soldier, and to the church in thy house. Grace to you, and peace. God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ I thank my God making mention of thee always in my prayers hearing of thy love and faith which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus and toward all saints that the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus for we have great joy and consolation in my love because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by these brothers Wherefore though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient, yet for love's sake I rather beseech thee being such in one as Paul the aged is now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.
I beseech thee from my son Anissimus whom I have begotten in my bonds, which in time passed was to thee unprofitable, now profitable to thee and to me, whom I have sent again. Thou therefore receive him that is mine own bowels. whom I would have retained with me that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel. But without thy mind would I do nothing, that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly. Or perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him forever. Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, especially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him, as myself.
If he has wronged thee, or o'er thee ought, put that on my account. I, Paul, have written it with my own hand, I will repay it. Albeit I do not say to thee, I thou o'est unto me even thine own self besides. Yea, brother, let me have joy of thee in the Lord. Refresh my bowels in the Lord. Having confidence in thy obedience, I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou would also do more than I say. But with all prepare me also a lodging, for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you. There salute the Epiphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellow laborers.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. At the conference just concluded, It was remarked how that God grieves for man who is away from him in sin. But also how God receives the sinner when he returns. And that's the fundamental lesson of this lovely letter of the Apostle Paul to Philemon. The name Philemon itself is very significant because it means the one who kisses.
We remember that in Luke chapter fifteen, that when the son returns from that far country, the scripture says, A father ran to meet him and fell on his neck and literally smothers him with kisses. And the hymn writer says, Returning sons, he kisses and with his robe in bed. His love is perfect love, is Mrs. Altair from our breath. Tonight I want to speak of one Greek letter that in various forms occurs five times in this letter. It's the Greek word koinonia, and it means fellowship, communion, translated partaker, sometimes in the New Testament, or partner.
There is nothing more lovely to God and to those of us who are his people to see God's people living together in happy Christian fellowships. How sweet of a soul is communion with saints. And the psalmist says, Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. In his high priestly prayer in John chapter seventeen, the Lord Jesus suggests that it is the most convincing argument that we can give to the world still lost in sin. He prays, you remember that they may be one, but the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
Somebody in the Bahamas once said to me that this word fellowship is like fellows, in a ship. The only problem with that is you might have a mutiny on board. But ideally, that's a good way, I suppose, of expressing it. Let me call your attention to the five mentions of this word in this lovely epistle. First of all, in verse one, Philemon, our dearly beloved and fellow laborer. There it is, fellow laborer. And this calls attention to the work of the saints. the work of the things. In verse twenty-four he refers to Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellow laborers, the same word, the work of the things.
In verse two, shall I beloved a fire an archipus, some believe that this was the son of Philemon, our fellow soldier. There we have the warfare of the things. Thirdly, in verse six he speaks of the communication of thy faith. There's the same word, the fellowship of thy faith. And there we have the welfare of the saints suggested. You see, God has committed to each of us a certain gift, a certain knowledge of the Word of God, and we are responsible to share what we have spiritually, not just materially, but to share what we have spiritually.
In First Peter chapter four it says, As every man hath received the gift, even so that he ministered the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. We are to share what we have. Verse seventeen says, If thou count me therefore as a partner, receive him as myself. I'm going to think of this tonight if you permit me as the walk of the same, a partner. The scripture says, How can two walk together except they be agreed. That's true in relation to marital life. That's true in relation to assembly life. That's true in relation to business life. How can two walk together except they be agreed?
And that's why God warns the believer not to be unequally yoked together with the unbeliever, whether in a marital relationship or a business relationship. How can two walk together except they be agreed? And then in verse twenty three, Paul refers to epipras, which I understand is just an abbreviation of the name Epaphroditus, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus. We might say in connection with this, this is the world of the same. We live in a world that is opposed to the child of God. Marvel not to the Lord Jesus that the world hates us. Not a surprising thing that Paul is in prison, nor epipras, nor is it a surprising thing that God's people will receive persecution from the world.
if faithful to Christ. God's Word says, all that will of Godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Let's think of these five tonight a little bit together. First of all, the work of the saints by Lehman are fellow laborers. God never intended that believers should operate as lone rangers. The work of the Lord is to be done in fellowship with the people of God. fellow laborer. When we came to Christ, we came to Christ with the knowledge that none of our work would amount to anything as far as our salvation was concerned.
A favorite verse of mine is Romans four and verse five. It says, To him that worketh not, and some brother that I know always quotes it, to him that doesn't do a blessed thing, to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness. There's a Hebrew Christian years ago in Chicago taught at Moody Bible Institute. He was in the assemblies. Wrote a lovely little book called The Sweet Finger of Israel, in which there are a number of his poems. And one of them reads like this, I do not want an epitaph upon my grave. Oh, well, I know that death levels off. The wine, the fool, the king, the slave.
But if you think it well, then I am gone. Write this alone. He fought a losing fight until this truth he learned that life in Christ is God's free gift and never earned. Isn't that lovely? That's what the scripture says. By grace ye saved through faith that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works with any man should boast. But we don't stop there because the next verse says, For we are his workmanship. created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in that. And while we are not saved by good works, we are saved unto good works. And so the apostle, first of all, calls attention to the work of the saints.
Why stand ye idle? Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? There is work to be done. And there is no unemployment as far as God is concerned. Today, we live in a day where a lot of people are out of work. this country but as far as God's work is concerned we're never out of a job and it's the only work that pays eternal dividends it's vain to serve God they said in the book of Malachi but the Apostle said my beloved brethren be steadfast I'm movable always abiding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord what a tragedy it is when we spent our old lifetime occupied with the things that are so soon to pass away.
Paul writing to the Philippians, he mourns, he speaks of those who are enemies of the cross of Christ. He said, whose God is their belly, whose glory is their shame, whose mind is earthly thing. I know we have concern for the things of this life, but let's not forget our responsibility for the things that are eternal. The Lord has a word for every believer and he has called us to share with others in the service for God. It's not and independent as somebody says we're an independent Bible church independent of who certainly not independent of Christ independent of fellow believers of course not we're bound up in one bundle of life with the Lord our God and so Paul speaks of fellow laborers and how important it is that we learn to work together with God's people you know you go and you watch some of these sports programs perhaps, and here's a football team or a basketball team, or a baseball team, and their success is conditioned largely on the fact of teamwork.
If everybody decides they're going to be an individual star, nothing much is going to come. We are workers together. We are workers together with God. How important that is. I was in the Bahamas two years ago, and About six o'clock in the morning, I heard a lot of people shouting, and finally I discerned what was being said, and it was that the electric power plant was on fire. I went down and stood and watched as this power plant burned to the ground. They had very primitive firefighting equipment. They got some pump finally hooked up, and they were pumping sea water on it.
But I watched these men. Some of them hadn't spoken to each other for years. But they've worked together. They've worked together for one common end to put that fire out. And we need to realize that we're living in a world in which there's a fire. We need to work together to put the fire out. Labor's together with God. The scripture calls attention to the fact that when our Lord Jesus Christ arose from the dead, he met with his disciples in that upper room. group twenty four mentions that they gave him something to eat two things to eat actually a broil fish and a honeycomb if you ever thought how many bees have to work and how many bees have to work together to produce just one pound of honey how many trips they have to make mile after mile after mile and it seems to me that in symbols That which was so sweet to the taste of the same was the fruit of a teamwork of many.
That which produces sweetness for Christ today is when His people are working together. We are labors together with God. Secondly, we have called attention to the warfare of the same. Our fellow soldier. We're not only involved in the work, but we are involved in the warfare. And the Bible tells us that we wrestle not against flesh and blood. Our warfare is not against men in this world, nor is it against our brethren. We're told to strive not with one another, but to strive together for the faith of the gospel. We have a warfare, and we're told that we're to contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to the apostles.
Is that the way it reads? For the faith which was once delivered to the saints. Every believer in our Lord Jesus Christ has a responsibility to pass on that which he has received. You have the responsibility of passing it on to your children, and so do I. Time to come your children will say, what mean ye by this service? We should be able to tell them what we mean by this service. We have a responsibility to share the Word of God with it. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. The Christians Battle is not a matter of struggle so much. It's a matter of surrender. The victory comes not through struggle, but it comes through surrender.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the Apostle Peter takes that sword and he begins to chop off the ear. That's what we do sometimes with the sword. We chop people's ears off. We forget that we wrestle not against flesh and blood. The Lord said, Put up thy sword into sheep, the cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink. And the greatest battle that was ever fought in this world was fought by a surrender. Not my will. Let thine be done. He could have called twelve legions of angels, but he didn't. He should have prayed, Father, save me from this hour, but he didn't. He said, for this cause came I unto this hour. And the victory was won in Gethsemane when he said, Father, not my will.
for thine be done tis thee the victor's name who fought the fight alone triumphant saints no honor claimed his conquest was their own in meekness and defeat he won the meeting crown throughout all our foes beneath his feet by being trodden down blessed blessed the conqueror slain slain in his victory who lived who died who lived again for thee his church for thee We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers in heavenly places. How is the victory won? This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Simple dependence on what God says.
In Ephesians chapter six, you remember, it says above all take the shield of faith, wherewith he shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. a fellow soldier. Well, you know, there's one thing that a soldier should know how to do, and that is how to keep rank. You read, I think it's Zebulun in the Old Testament, that they were not men of a double heart, but every man knew how to keep rank. I heard a story one time of a woman who was watching a parade go by, a military parade, and she says, every one of them out of fifth, except my son Johnny. Well, you need to know how to keep rank. You need to know how to get along. with others.
You need to not always insist on having your own way. I heard about one brother was in a certain assembly, and he couldn't get along with anybody very much, and finally he left this assembly, and about ten or twelve other people went with him, and he couldn't get along with them very well, and left them. And finally, after several leavings and cleavings, he got down to him and his wife. He claimed the scripture that said, if we're two or three or gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst. The first Lord's day they met together, he got up and read the scripture. And he asked the rhetorical question, why did we meet in the name of the Lord alone? And his wife answered him, and he put her out of the meeting for not keeping silence in the church. You know, there are some people that are constituted in the objective case and the kick in his mood.
They can't get along with anybody. We shouldn't be that kind of a Christian. Our Lord Jesus has left us an example. The servant of the Lord, and we're all servants. must not strive. He's a soldier, but he must be gentle unto all men, says the trip, as it be. Fellow soldier no doubt it keeps rank. Second thing that a soldier needs to know how to do, he needs to be obedient to his commander, obedient without question. And it doesn't make any difference whether you go in the army or the Navy or the Marine Corps or whether you're at West Point or Annapolis, One of the first lessons that they want you to learn is to learn to obey orders, the orders of your superior.
Unquestioningly. Not have a debate about whether you're going to obey them or not obey them. A fellow soldier must be obedient. A fellow soldier must be loyal. He must be strong. My son be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And he must endure. He must recognize that he must keep on going. He must be separated. It says, no man that warth entangles himself with the affairs of this life. Why? That he may please him. That has chosen him to be a soldier.
Yes, we're in a battle. You know, one of the things that the Roman army did was that when they went to battle, they would literally burn their bridges behind them. And that cut off any chance of retreat. They had to keep on going. They had to endure. They had to fight for their lives. And so they fought on the victory. Not so long ago, someone was telling me of one of our brethren who was near the end of his days. And I guess, like most of us, he felt how little Our lives have been used for God, and he just felt that he'd done so little for the Lord, even though he's been involved for some fifty years in preaching the word among the Lord's people in this country.
And this Christian lady said something to him that I thought was very good. He said, well, brother, you've never turned back. You've never turned back. Isn't that good? Maybe not doing what you should be, but you're heading in the right direction all of the time. You haven't gotten off sidetracked here and there along the way. You've never turned back. You know the wonderful thing is to know that a soldier that's in the army of the Lord is assured of support. The Lord says, go and lo I'm with you all, even under the end of the age. We're assured of his support. We're assured that he's going to be with us.
We read in Mark chapter sixteen, rather, in obedience to the word of Christ, going into all the world and preaching the gospel to every creature. It says, they went forth with the Lord working with them. As we step out in faith on his word and seek to carry on his word and to battle for him, we can be assured that he is going to be with us. And then thirdly, think of the welfare of the saints. That's what I've called this. In verse six, this is what the new international version translates this verse this way. I like this. It says, I pray you, I pray rather, that you may be active in sharing your faith so that you will have full understanding of every good thing that we have in Christ.
Now I know we're responsible to share of the material things that God has committed to us. Scripture says, honor the Lord with thy substance. And so shall my barns be filled with plenty, and I press this verse forth with new wine. And I believe that God materially blesses us when we're faithful to him. I don't believe because you put a dollar in, you're going to get ten dollars back or any of that. But I believe that God will honor you if you're faithful to him. And it isn't a question of how much we have to give or how much we don't have to give. A verse that's always encouraged me along that line is this. First Corinthians eight and verse twelve. It says, There be, second Corinthians chapter as well, rather. If there be first a willing mother, it is acceptable.
Not according to what a man has. Not according to what a man has, not, but according to what he has. We see that illustrated for us in the story recorded in Luke chapter twenty-one. The poor widow had only had two mice. And the Lord Jesus said not only that she cast in more than any of the rest of them. He said that she had cast in more than all the rest of them put together. So it shows that God doesn't measure things how we measure them. But that isn't what it's speaking about primarily here. I think it's speaking about sharing our faith. Now if you give me a dollar, you have two dollars, you give me a dollar, you've got one dollar less and I've got one dollar more. There's no way in this world that you can share material things and have just as much before after as you had before.
There's no way that can happen. Now the Lord may bless you and you may get more. But if you've got two dollars and you give me one, you've got one less and I've got one more. That's the way it is. But the wonderful thing about sharing things spiritually is that you give it away and you still have it. You give it away and you still have it. In fact, the more you give it away, the more you have it. John Wesley said, what I gave, I have, and what I kept, I lost. I remember Bill McCartney, and I was the Lord saying to me one time, he says, the Lord gives you some thought or something that blesses your soul. He says, Give God's people the best that God gives you, and you'll give you more. And that's right.
That's blessed with strength. I had an experience some years ago. I was up in Chicago, and I was speaking from First Peter chapter one, where it says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection from the dead to an inheritance that's incorruptible, that's undefiled, that fate is not away. And I preached, you know, on that text. Adnaud got on from the platform and a brother gave away something that he had to me. He said, have you ever thought about this way? The inheritance is incorruptible. He says, death can't touch it. It's undefiled. Sin can't touch it.
It fades not away. Time can't touch it. I said, that's good. And I jotted that down up here and down on the piece of paper, too. And it was some months later that I was preaching somewhere on that same text. And I gave it away, what he had given me. And I hadn't got down from the platform very, for a moment or two, and another brother came up to me and mentioned about death can't touch it, and sin can't touch it, and times can't touch it. And then he says, it says in that text, we're kept by the power of God. He says, so the devil can't touch it. You see, the more you give it away. That's the way it was. The more you see. I've often said that one of the reasons why I like to preach.
One of the reasons why I like to teach Sunday school was it made me study the Word of God. And I had to get something to give. And as I was given away, just sort of accidentally, I got something. That's the wonderful thing about sharing with faith. And you know the thing that happens is that when I don't share what God gives me, there are at least two people I cheat. I cheat that brother. I don't share it this. And I cheat myself. Because I lose it. If you don't give it away, you don't keep it. Sometimes people say to me, how do you remember so many jokes? You know how I remember them? Keep telling them. Keep giving them away. Keep giving them away. And that's the way I remember it.
You notice that's a very practical variance on our life. When I was in the service in World War II, I always say World War I, I'd fall back. But anyway, back in those days, I got into a little habit. It was a real help to me as a Christian. I used to have a little notebook. And I headed that notebook thought for the day. And you know, I'd read the scripture. And I would never let a day go by that I didn't write some thought that the Lord had blessed my heart with. And I wrote it down. And I don't know where that book is now anymore. But it blessed me at the time. Just writing some little thought. You know, the Lord gave it to me. And I wrote it down. And then I had a little custom. I found it very easy to write letters in those days.
I don't do this anymore, but this is what I would do. I'd take a sheet of paper and I'd write down on it September the twelfth. And anything that was in interest that happened a day or anything from the Word of God that gathered them that it was interest, I'd make a little note of it. And the next day I'd write something else. And the next day, well, then I'd get a letter from John Smith, whoever. And I'd say, well, let's see. I haven't written John since September the tenth. So anything beyond that, I knew I couldn't have possibly written it. So I looked down here and I said, well, this might interest John. This might interest John. I didn't write them all, everything that was there, but I selected things that I thought would be the interest of him. And it made it easy. And by doing that, by giving it away, I correspond, I guess, with about thirty or forty different people when I was in service, by just giving it away.
I think it may. I just share this because I believe that as we share, we ourselves, are blessed. As every man has received a gift, even so let him minister the same one to another. There's a brother that I know down in the south, and I've never had the nerve to do this, but maybe it's a good idea. You know what he did? He was a very capable brother, too, preaching the word. But if he was here tonight and he heard this message, and it interested him, when he got back to Augusta, Georgia, he said, you know, I was out in Lyman, and I heard Brother Van Ryn, he was preaching on this, and And then he was just giving them a message. He said, this is what he said. And you know, he just shared with them. He made no bones about it.
He told them where he got it. He shared it. And over the years, as he heard different of the Lord's servant, he shared it. But as he had received them, he was a blessing to them. And let's think about the walk of the saints, a partner, a fellow member. When I think of the idea of a partner, Whether it's a business partner or whether it's a life partner, you don't want somebody exactly like you. I have no idea, no sense of cloning and getting enough of you in the world and me already, you know. And I'm glad the Lord only made one of them.
But your wife in your home is not to be your competitor. She has to be your completer. She's to provide something that you do not have. And you're to provide something she doesn't have. And I've observed this in successful businesses. Sometimes this one fellow, he could sell refrigerators like they say to the Eskimos. And the other fellow, he couldn't do anything at all. But, boy, you see him in the office. He can take care of books. He knows how to take care of towns. The other guy, he couldn't do that if you shot it. But he's a good salesman. One man takes care of the books and the other man's a salesman. And they make it successful. opposite God made them at the beginning it says male and female and when the Lord Jesus Christ sent out his disciples both the seventy and the twelve he sent them out two by two there's a verse in the book of Ecclesiastes chapter four and verse nine it says two are better than one and it gives a reason why two are better than one several reasons in fact first of all it says Two are better than one.
It says they have a good reward for their labor. One person can only do so much, but two working together. They can do more. A father and a son working together. A husband and a wife working together. Two of God's servants working together. Two are better than one. They have a good reward, it says, of their labor. Secondly, it says, in verse ten, if they fall, one will lift up his belly. That's one of the problems as people get older, for instance, in the home. Here's a person, a widow, or a widow, a living by themselves. They're getting up in years, and they stumble and fall. Maybe their hip is broken.
There's no one in the home that they can appeal to. Maybe they can't even get to the phone to ask for help. Some months ago, I was working on the car, our car at home, and I jacked it up, and there's a very, very slight incline. You can't even hardly notice. You can hardly notice this. But a jack up the rear end and putting on the brakes wouldn't have helped anyway. But I didn't think it was any problem. And I crawled in under there and that jack tilted and the car came down on top of me. Fortunately, it didn't do anything but pinch. It didn't break any bone. But I'll tell you one thing. I was glad I wasn't out in the Sahara Desert somewhere. I was glad that there was someone with inhaling difficulty.
Because by myself, I could have never gotten out from under there. Few are better than one. If one of them falls, then the other one can help the other. That's the way it is. And that's the wonderful thing. You know, there are times in every one of our lives when we fall and we fail. The theft of a good man, the scriptures are ordered of the Lord, and he delighteth in his way, though he falls. Good men fall, yes. Peter fell, David fell, good men. He shall not be utterly cast out for the Lord holds him with his own right hand. What a thing it is in our experience when some brother God uses to lift us up when we're down.
Later on, perhaps, we can do the same for another. Two are better than one. Then it says in Ecclesiastes four in verse eleven, if two lie together, they have heat. I heard a story some time ago that illustrates it very well to me. It's all about a preacher over in England, the English and are kind of slow about catching on to stories, I don't know. But anyway, this preacher and his wife, they were lying in bed this night and she said to her husband, I'm cold. So he jumped out of bed, got a blanket, threw it over the bed, crawled back into bed. She says, I'm still cold, John. So he crawled out of bed the second time, got another blanket and put that over the bed.
And then she said, you know, John, when I was a little girl, When I got cold, his mother would crawl in the bed with me and warm me up. He jumped out of bed. He says, now that does. That does. He says, I've been out of this bed twice tonight to get you a blanket, and I'm not about to go and get your mother at two o'clock in the morning. But do you know that there are many Christians that have never learned that it takes two to keep warm. I don't care who you are. If you stay away from Christian fellowship, you'll get cold. It doesn't make any difference how long you're on the road.
You could have been saved fifty years or sixty years or seventy years. If you don't meet with God's people, when God enables you to meet with them, you're going to get cold. Two are better than one. It takes two to keep warm. While often in our lives, I used to think when I was first saying, you know, when I've been saved a few years, you know, boy, I'll be really on the mountaintop all the time. But I can remember times in my early Christian life when my heart was far warmer to the Lord than it is at this moment. We need two to be four. When I went to service, my grandfather, and I never will forget this, said something that was a help to me.
My mother thought it. He said, Elliot, you're going into service. He said, I want to give you a verse to remember. And he quoted a verse from Proverbs twenty-seven. He says, of iron sharpens iron so a man the countenance of his plan. That didn't mean much to me until he explained it. He said, you know, he says, if you take two pieces of iron, you put one here and you put one over there, what's going to happen? I said, they'll get roughed. He says, but if you take those two pieces of iron and rub them against each other, what will happen? I said, well, it'll knock the rust off. He said, that's right. If you want to get rough in your Christian life, he says, just don't meet together with God's people. He says, sometimes when you get together, he says, you know, as iron sharpens iron, there's a little friction.
He says, sometimes your brethren will rub you the wrong way. He says, I'll tell you this. It's rubbing you the right way because it's getting some of the bumps off of you in the front. I've never forgotten that. As iron sharpens iron. Two are better than one. I'll tell you this, we live in a very cold world. And there's nothing to be compared. In this world, there's a warmth of friction felt. And then it says in Ecclesiastes four in verse twelve, if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him. Remember when you went as a kid to school and maybe, you know, there was that bully, you know, he was going to beat you up?
And boy, you walked along and... with your brother, with you, with your big brother. Remember what a difference that name? He's not going to take us both on and maybe you thumb your nose at him as you went by. One of our boys, Ted, I think it was, I never will forget a little thing that he did one day. My dad lived five doors down from where we lived in Hylia. And we used to go down there quite often. And there was a big dog, a big black dog. he was a harmless mutt but he would come out barking for all he was worth and my son was terrified of him he just a little fell about two or three at the time and this particular day we were walking down there and sure enough just about a time we got there I could see that dog coming and my son lifted up his hand for me to pick him up and I picked him up and held him in my arms and we went by that by that dog and I never will forget what he did as we came alongside that dog that dog was standing right by my feet barking for all he was worth my little son went You know, what a difference.
What a difference it makes. Two. Two. He just felt so confident. Daddy, I'll take care of this. Those matters. Two. No, if one prevails against him. You know, we come against things that we can't handle alone. What a difference it makes. There's another. Of course, I know we always have the Lord with us. But to have some human Christian fellowship in a trial is one. Paul writes rather sadly, in Second Timothy chapter four, he says, they also sent me. He says, notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me and delivered me out of the mouth of the lion. And then he says, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus.
My fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus. It was good to be, not too good to be in prison, particularly in those days or in any day. You hear that jail door slam shut and you're in, as a sort of a funny feeling goes through your bones, even going and preaching into jail. It sort of makes you feel funny when they slam the door. Well, you know you're going to get out, but still it makes you feel funny. My fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, Paul speaks of that. He speaks of himself in verse one as a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I like to think of that. I like to recognize the fact that whatever circumstances that we're in, the Lord holds the key.
He says he's the one that's shut. No man opens. He's the one that opens and no man's shut. He doesn't say he's a prisoner of Nero. He doesn't say he's a prisoner of Rome, but he says, I'm a prisoner of Jesus Christ. And then in verse twenty-three, he speaks of Epiphras as my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus. Years ago, in fact, the first time I ever spoke on the radio, I used an illustration. This was in Charleston, South Carolina during World War II. There's a brother there. His name was Walter Nelson. He later moved out to Kansas. I don't know if any of you ever met him. I think he associated himself with the Baptist group in somewhere in Goodland, Kansas, I believe it was.
He sent his son to be with the Lord. But he actually, I speak on his radio program, which I did, and I said something like this. you go to the zoo and as you're there in the zoo you see these little monkeys and they're doing all these double somersaults you know and you're laughing yourself sick at all these ants and monkeys they're going through and you say you know isn't it terrible that they went down to South America or Africa and they captured these little monkeys there they were free in the wild and now they've locked them up taken them out of their natural habitat and locked them up and poor little thing, start feeling sorry for him.
And meanwhile, the monkey he's looking at. Look at that fellow's there. He doesn't look like he smiled in ten years. You know, a miserable fellow. And you know, he's behind bars, too. You know, they got him all locked up in there. He said, he's a miserable looking fellow. He starts feeling sorry for him. And he said, you know, I've really got his name. I have got his name. He said, you know what, I would do that with him. Every day I had to run for my life. He said, lions and panthers, they were coming out after me. He says, now he says, I've got a keeper. And they got me all locked up in there. And every day they bring the food. I don't have a hunt for my food. They bring it in. Every day if I need a shot, they give me that.
That feels a little sick, you know. No work to do. And then he swings through the rubber tire again. He's having a ball. What a lot. And I like him that, the Christian one. The world looks at you and says, you're all locked up. You can't do this. You can't do that. You can't do the other. And the Christians on the inside of our lives. We watch the only day. And he's having a bar. And he says that the old colored boy said, I'm happier now when I'm sad. And I used to be when I was glad. We've got the best of it now. And we've got the best of it now. And we've got the best of it first.
First. That was it. Father, we're thankful for thy word. We're thankful for these truths that are very familiar with us, to us, that we pray. That thou has impressed them upon our hearts, the fresh. Privilege that we have of sharing. Sharing in the work of the gospel. Sharing in Christian warfare. Sharing the truth that thou givest with us. Sharing our faith with us. We're thankful that we've been lost in fellowship. with those of like-precious faith, and be assured that some days, Lord, that this life will be over, and we'll look back, and then we'll bless the hands of God, and bless our hearts of God.
We commend us to thee, and thank thee for this time together this evening, and the worthy and precious name of our Lord Jesus.