I had asked, uh, my two brethren, uh, before the meeting here this afternoon started if they'd like me to go first, and I think I should have. But it's been a wonderful, wonderful time here this weekend. I would like to read in Acts chapter two. and what I'm going to say for most people here is very simple, the charter of the church, but I'll tell you why I'm reading this. Chapter two of the book of the Acts, and Peter just spoke this wonderful, glorious sermon of his, and he says in verse thirty six: Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now, when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and to your children, and to as many that the Lord, uh, that are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourself from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they const- continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, in fellowship, and breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together and had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need. And they continued steadfast- er, and they continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. Now, this I know is very familiar, and as I look at the faces of the people down here that have known this for years, but, you know, yesterday when I was up here, I looked down, and I don't think I looked too far out there, but I looked at all these young people, and it just thrilled me too to see them here, and they're here today, and uh, I want to just speak of some new things. And uh, if I can just speak in such a way that would implant something in your heart for the assembly of God, to put that truth of the assembly in your heart, if there were just one, I- we want them all, but if it could be the means of some soul saying, that's what I want. Now these new things I want to speak about, I know if you just got saved last week, well, you're just going to get the first one. But as we go down the list of them, you claim them for yourself. Don't just read them, but make them part of you. And as I think of this, I want to just see the immediate results of this wondrous sermon that preach, uh, that Peter preached, and it brought conviction onto the hearts of these Jewish people that heard this. And he tell- he told them, he said, you crucified him. You did it. And when they heard that, it says they were pricked in their heart, and they said, and they said to him, what shall we do? What shall we do? And those are the, uh, the words of conviction of sin and conviction of who the Lord Jesus Christ was. And Peter said to them, repent. That's the basic thing for salvation. You must repent. And he said, repent and be baptized. For salvation? No, but to break with them. And look at, he just accused them of crucifying him, and in the very next verse he says, you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, the one they crucified. Can you imagine what that would have done to that crowd that day of the unbelieving Jews and these men that had convicted of their heart, and now they have to break from that crowd and come over and get baptized in the name of the one they just crucified? That's what that means. And then what's he say to him in verse four? Now he says, you go live a clean life. You live a clean life. Now I want to speak about some new things now. And the first thing that we're going to read about, then they that gladly received his word in verse forty one, They that gladly received his word, they took it in. What did they have? Why, they had a new life. They were born again, a new life. You know, there's four different kinds of life in this world. The slowest form of life there is, is plant life. It's, it's dead out there. But you know, it's only going to be a couple, three months, and you're going to see the blossoms started to come. And that which was once dead is going to, you can look at it and see that is alive. That's life, but it's the lowest form of life. Then you come up a, a notch, and you come to animal life. And there you can kick the dog, and it'll bark, and it'll, it'll run away from you. You can stroke the cat, and it will purr. You see, now you've got feelings, and you've got pain, and things like this. That's animal life. And then you come up the chain to human life, and I'm not going to say a thing about that in the sojourn to human life. But there's another life in this world, and I lived for twenty seven years without it. I didn't even know anything about it, and that's spiritual life. And you never get spiritual life until you get Christ, and when you get Christ, you got spiritual life, and these people, have you got it? When did you get it? I see you here, and I trust as I look at you that you're saved. Isn't it wonderful to have this new life? But then, you know, there was something else here then. It says they that gladly received his word were baptized, were baptized. What's this? A new identification, a new identification. They were, you know what this did? This both s- united them, but it also separated them. From what they once were, now there's, they're united to each other. You know, this, this baptism, I hope you got it. You know, it's a, it's an act, uh, it's an act of obedience. To obey the Lord Jesus Christ in baptism. But, you know, it's an act of loyalty. It's an act of loyalty. You know, I, I think of this, and I think of my father. You know, my father, he, God's salvation came into our home, and my mom and dad both got saved, and they're in heaven today. But you know, uh, my dad never went to church. And there was one time in our life I never liked, and that was election time. My dad was a very rabid... in a, in a polity. We only had the two there in Canada at that time when I was a boy. And you know, where we lived at Oil Springs, dad was always on the losing side. Not once did he ever vote all his life and win the vote. Uh, they were all against him, and you know, I used to, he used to buy pigs and cattle around the country, and I had to quit school at sixteen to drive the truck for him to get him home because he drank a lot, and I'd get him home at night. And we wrote he had that three-quarter ton pickup with the wooden racks on it to buy the cattle and things, and near election time in that little village of Oil Springs, all his cronies, and they liked dad, and they, but by election time they rubbed it in. And we would get out in the morning, and there would be all over the sides of the truck the opposition's big posters with his picture on it, and and Dad would just go, and I'd say, Dad, they're he's don't get mad. He'd rip up them off, and they had somebody watching, and they'd go tell the rest of the cronies, what do we got Andy today? But election day come, and you know, my mother never voted because he'd always accuse her of killing his vote. And, uh, you know, he got to the election place there, and there was just five hundred in town, and it was over in a few minutes and lost. And my brother Don and I tried different times to get away, but we couldn't. And we, Dad had come home, and we had to get in the truck with him and go to Petrolia where the election headquarters for both of these, uh, uh, uh, candidates were. And, you know, we would go down, and the whole streets of Petrolia were blocked off. You couldn't drive, you had to park on the side road or the side street and and get down, and we'd go into the election headquarters of Dad's man. And it was a pretty glimpse. They always lost. And we wouldn't be there too long, half hour, and it was all over, and they had to go and concede and walk down that street to the opposition and congratulate them on the victory. And Don and I, we didn't want to go. There was only just about thirty hardcore ones, and, you know, they would come out on the street, and there was my school friends and Don's chums, and Don and I would get in the center of that thirty and we'd get in the center, and we walked down that street, ashamed, ashamed. You know where my dad was? I'll tell you where he was. He was in the front row, in the center of the front row, and he stood behind, beside his man, and he had his head up and his chest out, and he walked down that street in defeat, but you'd never know it. He was loyal to his man. Would you get baptized and be loyal to him and love him enough that you'd win the water? On Ap- uh, October the thirty first, nineteen sixty, I was saved on April the fourth, and in the Sarnia Gospel Hall, I was, I was, there was five that got baptized. I was, I was the last one. You know why? I was the youngest. When I got in that place, I was the la- I could, I was in the basement saying, come on, come on. I couldn't wait to get in. You know why? I said to myself, for twenty seven years, everything I ever did, the Lord Jesus didn't like it. But tonight, when I got in that tank and I looked up at Big Bob Kemmer, and he put me down, I had a smile on my face, and I said, I'm doing something, I'm doing something tonight that all heaven's going to be rejoicing. And as Big Bob was putting me back, I looked, I looked up, and I could just, I just thought he's most likely smiling, and I just smiled back, and I went down in the waters of baptism. Do you know anything about it? Oh, you young, I don't know where you are. I don't even know your names, but I trust, by the grace of God, you would know what it would be to go into the waters of baptism with them. And then what do we read? And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine. Now what do they got? They got a new standard. They got something new they never had to work. They got the apostles' doctrine. Now, you know, this is Acts two. All the other, uh, epistles weren't written yet. So what was the apostles' doctrine? Well, in my simplicity, I, uh, you know what I like to think about it is they met together to speak about the Lord Jesus. You know, one time I was in an assembly, they invited me to go and speak about Ukraine, and I was invited to the one of the Christians home for supper, and he had quite a family, maybe six or seven children, and as the meeting or as the meal was going on, one of the children asked me a question about Ukraine, and by the time the the meal was over, I think I had told about twelve stories about Ukraine. And that night in the meeting, I went through and I had an hour, and uh, it was getting about ten minutes to the nine. and I saw the man look at his watch, and you know, in the meeting he, he said, Max, tell him about the little uh, uh, orphan girl up there in the Ural Mountains. And I said, uh, oh yeah, uh, yeah. And I told the story, and just as soon as I finished, he's get- tell him the story, and he's said times he went over that. Now he heard those stories, but why did he want me to tell him? He wanted to hear them again. And I've wished for many a year, I wish I could have had Peter's ear. You know what I like to say to him? What- what did his facial features look like when he said to that poor widow? What, like, tell me more. And if he'd have told me twenty times, I'd say, tell me twenty times, I want to know about him. Oh, I'll tell you, it was, it was something. I remember out at Lethbridge there, I went out there, in fact, I was invited out there to talk about Russia, and we stayed with some of these Hutterite people that had just come out of the colonies. And my wife, if you knew her, she had a unique way of putting her hair up, and those Hutterite women, every one of them, their hair was, I think by their law, that was flat and pasty down, and and it just, it was. And they saw my wife, and they said, uh, would you show us how to do your hair? And they'll said, sure. And we stayed there for about five days. Every morning at seven thirty, eight o'clock, there was five women come over and to get their hair done and watch how it's done so they could do it. And they'd say to me, can we have a Bible reading? I said, sure. We had a Bible reading. And the last day where they were there, there was about ten came. And they said, can we have a Bible reading? I said, sure. Where do you want to read? And I'll never s- forget this. This one woman that just come out of the colony into a liberty she never knew existed. She looked at me and said, just tell us about Jesus. That's a good Bible reading. And I had the joy to going through some of these things in the off- in the Gospels. But then, you know, I want to go down here, it says, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and the fellowship. What's this? A new bond. A new bond. They came together to share. What were they going to share? They were going to share Christ. And every place I go, that's what we have in common. We have one thing in common, and that is we share Christ. No matter where you go, it's the same thing, it's the s- same person in a different language, but it all meets to the same place. And then I want to take a look down here, and it says, they continued fast- steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and a breaking of bread. What's this? This is a new ordinance. You know, I was saved on April the fourth, nineteen sixty. And on April the ninth, nineteen sixty one, we sat down in Oil Springs in a little portable hall behind Pen Founds House, just a little thing that Dave and John Kember had made together, put together, and that's what we had. We sit down for the first time, and I remember there was just a few of us. Dave Kember had moved out, and he was part of the fellowship, but that morning we had John and Alma Kember and Philip and Steve and Paul and all of them sitting at the back. And uh, Brother Norm Crawford from over here came that Lord's Day. And as we sat there and it started at ten o'clock, and Brother Dave got up and prayed, and Brother Norm got up and prayed, and John prayed, and I looked at my watch, and it was quarter after ten. And I said, what happens now? And I was in fear. It wasn't a big crowd of us, but you know what it's like the first time. And we had to get up. And I'll never forget trying to get up, and I had nothing rehearsed. I never even thought about it, but I got up. And I remember trying to just quote some scripture, that when they took them to the place called Calvary, there they, and I couldn't get it out. There they cr- and it wouldn't come. And I just sit down. And Lauren got up. We broke the bread. They gave a word, and we sit there for fifteen minutes and never moved. And everybody was silent except the sobs. And the only time it got broken was when Edna Mitchell opened up her mouth and she, the tears, she said, can we come back this afternoon and do it again? I hope you know something about sitting at his table, and don't take it for granted. I sit here this morning, about here, and this is a little personal, this isn't part of my message, but I sit there and I watch the emblems go round, and sitting about here with my grandson. He was received in to his assembly last Sunday, and I never took my eyes off him, and as those emblems come around, I watched him take them. And the tears came to my eyes, and you know my mind went back to about forty nine years ago, about this time. I was saved on April the fourth. but Brother Dave, I met him at work, and I was cursing God, and I was swearing in a pump house, and Brother Dave walked in, he rebuked me, and he, for the first time I heard, he said, did you know you had to be born again to go to heaven? I said, no. I thought I was done with him. And that night he came out to Oil Springs, to my home, and I didn't want him in the house, but I wasn't going to throw him out. I'll get rid of him. I highly answer his questions, and then I went and got a bottle of beer, and I was watching the, the, the hockey game, and he was sitting over here, and he moved his chair about there, and I got another bottle of beer, and finally he put the chair right in front of the TV. You got to know Brother Dave. I needed him. Some pantywaists out of threw them out, but not Dave. And I sit here this morning, and I said, Max, if you'd have put him over the limit and he'd have walked away, where would I be? I got a daughter here in the meeting, and I got a grandson. Where would they be? And if you were to turned it down, where would your children be? This is the most precious thing, to have your sins forgiven and gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus in an assembly. What a wonderful thing. I hope you take part. I- I- I hope this assembly, y- y- you just do it. I can remember Dan Harding telling me he would work, he was a, if you know Dan, he's a boilermaker in construction. He works in the steel mills, and he saw a man named Guy Thibodeau get saved. And Guy was just like my father, never didn't know anything, and he got saved. And Dan said, would you come on Sunday morning? He said yes. And Dan told him on the way, you know, we don't have a pastor, and when you get there, people will just get up, the men can get up and and pray. And so Dan took Guy, and they, after the meeting, they got in the car and they're driving back to Welland, and he looked at Guy, and Guy was pretty silent. And he said, is that all right, Guy? He said, Dan, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He said, for what? Well, he said, it was my first time at your church. And he said, somehow I just didn't think the first time I should get up. And he said it was so obvious they were all waiting for me. Well, you know what that's like too, don't you? There's a, a good pause and there's a bad one. It's a remembrance meeting, and it's about him. It's not about the preacher, not about a message, it's about him. And I remember my son-in-law here, John, telling me down in Kitchener, where they built this beautiful big gospel hall in a new area, and people come to visit the first time and see what there's in there. And I remember, I think it was John that told me this, or one of the other ones. This man came in and they back and greet them, and how's things? Fine. It's your first time? Yeah. They said, you know, one thing about this place. We were at a place last week, and they named it, and it's bigger than the Gospel Hall and beautiful, built big building. He said, I was there last week, and twice they mentioned the Lord Jesus' name. And he said, this place, that's all you've talked about. Isn't that a good commendation? That's all we talked about, he said, is the Lord Jesus. But then it says here, the breaking of bread and of prayers, and I'm not going to say too much about this because I'm like Brother Shad. What do I know about it? What do I know about coming? If there's one lament in my life that I wish was so different, it was the prayer life, was the prayer life. But then what's the re- result of all this? In verse, um, forty four, and they all, and all that believed were together and had all things common and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need. What was it? A new way of life. They had a new way of life. You know, I see Brother Clark's son, and I was with him last week, and he's in Florida alone this year without his dear wife. We shared some nice time together, and I said to him, Don, is it hard being alone? He said, Max, you know something? He said, I've been only been a home a- alone twice, and he named it with nine nights. He said, the Christians are so good to me. The Christians are so good to me. I'm not alone down here, and that's the way of my life. I'm not alone. I have wonderful, wonderful, wonderful friends, and they're like that all over the world. I remember when I first got saved, and I thought that they were just, just I'm like Mr. Stewart. He said, I don't think, I didn't even think there'd be weeds grow in their garden. And, you know, I, they said, did you ever go to Boston? I said, no, I've never been to Boston. Oh, they said, you've, you've never met Christians. Do you go to Boston? I said, really? And I looked at these people and I, ah, I, I got to go to Boston. And you know, I did. I went with Frank and Pat Procopio after St. Thomas Conference to Boston and got a flight back. And you know, I went and met those Christians in Boston. They were exactly like he said they were, they said they were. But you know what he said to me? Have you ever been to Iowa? And I said, no. You've never met Christians, team Woodhive. in Iowa. And you know, I did that two or three times, and I said, look, you know what they are like? Jackson Christians, Oil Springs Christians, Sarnia Christians, Detroit Christians, and the dear Christian, one of my dearest friends, is up in the Ural Mountains in, in, in Russia. Dear Conrad, and he was a communist, an atheist, and a drunkard, and God came in and saved him, and we can't say goodbye to each other. We tried it once. A dear friend, and they're like that all over the world in every language. They're in Mexico, and Chad could break down, and he talks about them. They're personal to him. What a wonderful thing, a new way of life, a new joy. They had joy. When I think of this, I just think of Ken Miller. Anybody that knew Ken Miller, if you didn't know Ken Moore, you missed something. I never saw the man of the frown. No matter if you met him on the street or he was preaching, he had that million dollar smile. That Christian smile was right there. What a way to be. Thank you for your time.