I'd like to turn to the Old Testament
book of Leviticus, please.
Leviticus chapter 23, to start the readings this
morning.
So we've been challenged in the very first
message of living for the kingdom and what
we put into it, and then we've been
reminded of carnality and being spiritual, and maybe
there's a young person here and you're wondering,
well, where do I start?
Where do I start?
It starts with the heart.
With the heart.
As Scott was preaching and talking about older
brethren being jealous of younger brethren, I learned
something as an older brother physically that has
been good for me spiritually.
If your younger if your younger sibling isn't
better at you than in everything, you didn't
do your job.
Because you should know, you should teach them
everything you know, and if they don't learn
one thing more, they didn't do their job.
So you look at it that way.
If the young if the young people that
the older ones are taking along, if they
don't know everything that you know by the
time you're gone, you didn't do your job.
And you younger ones, if you don't add
something to that on your own, you didn't
do your job.
And so you see the progression as as
the assembly testimony carries on and as you
grow in your spiritual life, it should be
a crescendo.
But it's not.
It's not.
And that's because of carnality.
So what I'd like to just look at
simply here in just a few moments is
is where do we start?
And we start with the heart.
And I want what's on my mind is
really examining ourselves.
Really being honest.
And there's different places in in the Old
Testament and even in Corinthians.
But we'll just try to look at these
just very simply.
And then we might get the idea of
how this all starts.
Leviticus 23 and verse number 26.
And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Also
on the tenth day of this seventh month
there shall be a day of atonement.
It shall be a holy convocation unto you,
and ye shall afflict your souls.
That's the word I'm looking for.
That's the idea.
Afflict your soul.
Stan Wells, if you've ever preached with him,
he'd say, Oh boy, we'll go home and
we'll afflict our soul.
I wondered what in the world did that
mean.
All right.
I've done that to Stan's face so I
can do it here.
All right.
What does it mean to afflict our soul?
Now we'll keep reading here.
He shall be cut off, or that's too
far down.
Verse 27 we were at.
Ye shall afflict your soul and offer an
offering made by fire unto the Lord, and
ye shall do no work in that same
day.
For it is a day of atonement to
make atonement for you before the Lord your
God.
For whatsoever soul it be that shall not
be afflicted in that same day, he shall
be cut off from among the people.
And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any
work in that same day, the same soul
will I destroy from among his people.
We'll take a reading now in 1 Chronicles
chapter 22.
1 Chronicles 22.
David says now to Solomon in verse number
19, he says, Now set your heart and
your soul to seek the Lord your God.
Arise therefore and build ye the sanctuary of
the Lord God to bring the ark of
the covenant of the Lord and the holy
vessels of God into the house that is
to be built to the name of the
Lord.
We'll go a little further to the book
of Hosea.
Hosea in chapter 10.
Hosea 10 and verse 12 for the sake
of time.
Well, we'll read verse 11.
And Ephraim is as a heifer that is
taught and loveth to tread out the corn.
But I passed over upon her fair neck.
I will make Ephraim to ride.
Judah shall plow and Jacob shall break his
clods.
Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy,
break up your fallow ground for it is
time to seek the Lord till he come
and reign righteousness upon you.
And we'll likely look at a book or
a reading in 1 Corinthians in a moment.
First one, set your heart to seek the
Lord.
David is an old man.
We've been reminded of an old man and
a young man, and it's time now to
pass it on.
And David is telling Solomon and we read
earlier in the chapter that David has accumulated
all the things for the temple, for the
house of God.
It wasn't God's will that David would be
the builder.
And David understood that.
And David understood that because he was a
man of war and that he wasn't going
to be the one, but his heart's desire
was to do it.
And really what we have here is an
example of what Scott has just brought before
us.
It's time now to pass it on to
the younger man, understanding that he wasn't the
one to do it and that he wasn't
capable of doing it because it wasn't God's
will.
He does everything he can so that Solomon
will thrive.
He does everything that he can and in
his power and in his conquest to make
this possible, what was in his heart, even
though he would never see it done.
That was a heart that was seeking the
Lord.
And that wasn't a heart that was seeking
his own glory.
And so David now, a man after God's
own heart, he goes and he prepares all
of the things that are needed, the gold
in abundance, the timbers in abundance, all the
materials in abundance.
And now he's telling Solomon, Solomon, this is
the key.
Set your heart to seek the Lord.
Set it there.
You know, when William started off the conference,
I was smitten in the first message and
I was smitten in the second message.
You see, this is the whole problem is
we're not seeking the Lord with our whole
heart.
We're not seeking the things of God.
We are so distracted.
We're so preoccupied.
We'll get to that in Leviticus that that
we miss out on everything.
And I shouldn't say everything because we get
a little bit.
We miss out on most things that God
has intended for us to enjoy.
We miss them.
Our hands are busy with other things.
Our mind are distracted with other things.
And David is just simply telling Solomon, son,
set your heart to seek the Lord.
Go in for the Lord.
Build his house.
Build it up.
Raise up a place for the dwelling of
God.
Now, you might be in a local assembly
and we're not looking at local assembly.
This was Solomon's job was to build God
a house on this earth, even though God
doesn't dwell in temples made with hands.
But let me put the challenge out to
you as an individual.
If you're saved here today and the spirit
of God dwells in you and you are
the dwelling place of the spirit of God,
build it up.
Build it up personally, your heart, set your
heart personally to seek the Lord, never mind
everybody else's heart, never mind everyone else's motive,
never mind everyone else's success or everyone else's
failure.
You set your heart to seek the Lord.
That's what David's telling Solomon.
Build it up.
Cause it to grow.
What advice from an older man?
Dear young people, it starts with the heart.
You can fill your mind with all sorts
of things, all sorts of good things and
all sorts of truth.
But if it doesn't touch the heart, it's
nothing.
It's information.
That's the extent that it goes.
You can be so full of information.
And if it doesn't touch and change the
heart, you've missed it.
You've missed it.
And so David is telling Solomon, and we'll
repeat it again and again, set your heart
to seek the Lord.
Does what does that mean?
That means Solomon, you know, Solomon was in
a privileged position when everything was provided.
We might think, well, that would be a
tremendous, that would be a tremendous position to
be in.
You're in the same thing.
You're in the same position.
Everything that you need to thrive spiritually has
already been provided, provided by the redemption of
the blood of Christ, indwelt by the spirit
of God.
You have the word of God in your
laps and in your hands.
Everything needed to build the house of God
is provided.
It's provided already by God himself.
Set your heart to seek the Lord.
And then the second one is in Leviticus
where we started our reading.
And it's the affliction of the soul.
This is all in context in Leviticus and
in numbers when this is mentioned with the
day of atonement.
And the day of atonement was a very
special day.
And we're not going to get into all
the meanings of the day of atonement, but
it was a holy convocation.
And that convocation is a, is an interesting
word.
It is, it's got different, different types of
meanings in it.
And it's called something that is called out.
And so on this day of atonement, it
was for the whole, it was for the
whole nation, for the whole nation.
And it kind of reminded me of the
assembly.
It's something called out.
It is a public meeting.
It could be a reading.
It could be a rehearsal.
And that's all in the definition of a
convocation.
But it was something that was there for
the, for everyone that was, everyone in the
nation of Israel.
And so this is the solemnity of what's
taking place.
And just to make the application to the
assembly here at this point, we are a
called out company.
We're called out by God.
We're gathered by the spirit of God.
What would have happened if an Israelite would
have missed this day?
What would have happened if an Israelite would
have worked on this day?
Well, we read it.
They would have been cut off.
No, I don't know.
But do you look at every assembly gathering
that way?
We're not under the law.
That's why this is a heart thing.
But if your heart was genuinely set to
seek the Lord, I see people tell us
and they say, well, I want to serve
the Lord.
I want to see a gospel work started.
I want to, I want to, let's go
preach in somewhere.
But they're only at half the meetings.
Their heart's not set to see is not
seeking the Lord.
They're not at the Bible study.
There's no time for the prayer meeting.
When they take their vacation, they go someplace
where there's no assembly.
No problem missing a meeting on vacation.
Is that heart seeking the Lord?
We got to be honest because this is
what it means to afflict our soul.
To be honest, to search the soul, to
search the heart.
Honesty with God is priority.
You can fool me and I can fool
you, but raise your hand in here if
you can fool God.
And so this day was set apart and
there's different convocations and with different related to
different things.
But just to get the point, that they
were to take this time and they were
to take this day and have a day
of rest for the purpose of self-examination.
Am I, why are we doing what we're
doing on the day of atonement?
Obviously it was a day of atonement for
sin.
And so they would be stopping and searching
their heart.
Now you can imagine, we think people weren't
busy back then as busy as us.
Everybody in every generation is always too busy.
All right.
Can you imagine when you get the Lord's
day and the Lord's day is not the
Sabbath day.
Sunday is not the Sabbath day.
But how hard is it to take a
little time and just give it to the
Lord?
Since the introduction of the cell phone, it's
gotten worse.
You have to shut the thing off if
you're going to get along with God.
My attention span went from that of a
field mouse, I think to a grasshopper.
Your mind is this like mine with distractions,
things shooting here and there and everywhere.
And you just looked at the news and
then all of a sudden, 15 minutes later,
you're going to look at the news and
you go through the whole thing and it's
the same stories.
It rewires our mind and it's very hard
to concentrate.
And so here are these people, they're not
supposed to work that day.
And there's always something that you could just,
I could just get this done.
If I just did this first, then I
could have some time with the Lord.
It never works that way.
So the challenge here is this, as God
sees me, who am I?
Not who am I at meeting, not who
I am at conference, but as God sees
me, who's the real me?
You ever ask yourself, I ask myself this,
would the real Brandon stand up here?
You ever find yourself that way, pretending to
be something that you're not?
Sure you do.
And so the day of examining and afflicting
of the soul is to confess their sin.
It's a day of atonement to get alone
with God and just to tell God what
I've done.
You ever ask God to show you what
you've done that has offended Him?
Sometimes we do things we don't even know.
Today is a time to afflict the soul.
And God shows you what has happened and
God shows you where the problem is and
God shows you why the scriptures have been
silent to you and why prayer has been
flat and why the heavens, it's been like
stone.
Lord, there's something wrong.
I don't know what it is.
Has that ever been the desire of the
heart?
It is if you're searching the heart, seeking
the Lord with all your heart.
Lord, what is in the way?
Afflict the soul.
God shows us what's in the way.
We confess it and we forsake it and
that is the beauty of the blood of
Jesus Christ.
His son cleanses us from all sin.
We forsake it and we go on.
We go on.
So they're to search their heart.
They are to confess their sin.
They are to be still in the presence
of God.
And it is indeed a time of great
searching and affliction.
Afflict your soul.
To browbeat it.
That's the word.
To browbeat yourself.
Well, if you've ever done that, you've come
away, I hope, a little humbler than when
you started.
Because what takes place is this.
As we're afflicting our soul and as we're
asking God, what is the troubles in my
life?
What is the hindrance in my life?
And God starts to show us and we
start to confess our sin and a change
starts to take place.
And it's called humility.
Humility.
My grandma had a sign.
It's hard to be humble when you're perfect
in every way.
You see, we think that way.
We think that we're the spiritual ones and
we're like the Pharisee.
I thank you that I'm not like that
person.
Other men are.
That's all others is really the Pharisee.
I thank that I'm not like anybody else.
That's how proud he was.
And so we're searching the Lord and we're
afflicting our souls and so Solomon is going
to build up.
He's going to search the Lord and he's
going to build the things of God up.
He's not going to tear them down.
If you're really searching the Lord, are you
tearing down Christians?
If you're seeking the Lord with all your
heart, are you backbiting?
Are we rumor spreading?
Can't have them both.
You can't do both.
And so we'll go on.
We come to Hosea and there he tells,
the prophet tells him from God to till
up the fallow ground, to till it up.
Seek the Lord.
It is time to seek the Lord.
Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy,
break up your fallow ground.
Now I had to look that up too,
because I always had in my head that
fallow ground was just ground that wasn't being
farmed.
It was just lying dormant.
But the word here is to break up
the already plowed ground, to till the plowed
ground.
So it's taking it really the next step
according to the wording.
And so there's been a work that has
been started.
The ground has been plowed, but it's not
yet ready to receive the seed.
And you plow the ground, at least in
the old days.
Now there's the no till and that messes
this all up.
But when they plowed the ground and they
turned over the soil and you had your
furrow and it just kept rolling it over
on top of the next round, it would
roll it over.
Then you'd go over with the disc or
the field cultivator or whatever, and you're tilling
it.
And what you're doing is you're taking that
which is rough and that is clumpy and
large, and you're breaking it down so that
the soil is fine and it can receive
the seed.
And this is what he's telling these people
to break that fallow ground up, sow in
righteousness and reap in mercy.
And what you sow is what you reap.
To sow in righteousness and to reap it
in mercy, to break it up, break up
the ground, build up the things of God,
but to break down the soil so that
it can bring forth fruit.
And so then we look at the heart
and we look at the hard heart.
You ever get so hard hearted that the
seed can't grow?
Yeah, you have.
You want to seek the Lord, but the
heart is hard.
It's the stony ground.
It's the wayside ground, but the seed can't
grow.
You ever wonder why you can't put into
practice what you've learned?
You know it in your head, but it
doesn't bring forth, it doesn't, it doesn't work
its way out in everyday life.
Well, if you're genuinely saved, and sometimes people
aren't saved and they hear the word and
they wonder why they can't, why it never
produces, reproduces itself.
And that is a reality.
It'll be a greater reality on the way
out as William already brought.
Sinners that are dead in sins cannot spiritually
please God.
It's impossible.
And as the age moves on, and I
agree with William said about the fowls, that's
the fowls that stole the seed.
And it's, you just think about it.
Just to make the application to this day
and age.
The false teachers that come in to the
assembly.
The false gospels that are being preached.
And the, I could probably say billions of
souls that think they're saved.
And they're on their way to hell.
And they can't work out what they've learned.
But for the Christian, it's different.
With the spirit of God and with everlasting
life, and the seed comes in, and although
it's not growing, what's going on?
Well, there's a problem then with the heart.
The truth has entered into the mind, but
it can't be lived out.
It can't be worked out.
Why is that?
Because the heart, the heart is hard.
There's been a work of God that has
already been established, it has already been started,
but the seed's not growing.
And the prophet's saying, break up that plowed
ground.
Break it up.
And sometimes, sometimes God breaks our heart.
That feeling where your stomach is, or your
heart is in your stomach, and it's all
in the middle of your throat, and you
just can't hardly, you can't hardly breathe.
And you can't eat.
And you're pying away from a broken heart.
What's God doing?
He's making our heart usable.
Without going into any details, I remember a
time well, when God broke my heart.
And it was the best thing that ever
happened to me.
Because we get set in our ways, and
we get set in our thinking, and we
get set with our heart, and our heart's
desire, and all these things.
But he says, break up the plowed ground.
Are you really seeking the Lord?
You see, if you have a broken heart,
and your heart is in his hand, he
can turn it wherever he will.
He can do that anyway, but he's looking
for a response from your heart, and from
mine.
So you've got, set your heart to seek
the Lord.
You've got the affliction of the soul, the
examination of really what's going on inside.
The soul searching, as it were.
What is it that I'm really looking for
in this life?
What is it really that I'm striving for
in this life?
What is it really then that my heart
is set upon?
Is it to be set upon to be
rich?
Set upon to be famous?
He says, break up that hard ground.
So we're going to just, I know these
are just applications.
We're going to go to 1 Corinthians now.
I'm in that awkward stage of ministry where
you just have a little bit left, and
a little more time than you can probably
take up.
But we'll do it.
We can do it, and we'll sit down.
1 Corinthians in chapter 11.
Verse number 28.
Context here is the breaking of bread.
And then verse 27, we'll start.
Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink
this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be
guilty of the body and the blood of
the Lord.
But let a man examine himself, and so
let him eat of that cup.
For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth
and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the
Lord's body.
For this cause many are weak and sickly
among you, and many sleep.
For if we would judge ourselves, we should
not be judged.
But when we are judged, we are chastened
of the Lord, that we should not be
condemned with the world.
The examination.
The self-examination.
This word is used again in chapter 13,
and we'll get there in a moment.
But here in the context of the breaking
of the bread.
To examine oneself, is there anything in me
before I break this bread?
Should be done before the breaking of bread,
I would assume.
But is there anything in in me that
would bring defilement into this situation?
Anything that I have done where I shouldn't
be here?
That's an examination, isn't it?
Oh, for when we all get up and
when Sunday morning we'll say and we do
our, we have our little morning devotion or
our prayer or whatever comes first, and then
we we think, okay, I'm going to remember
the little Lord.
Is there anything this week that I have
done that I shouldn't be here?
Is there anything that I have done that
I need to confess before I go there?
You see what's taking place.
It's really a New Testament aspect of affliction
of the soul.
It's really the searching out of of the
reality of the week and the solemnity of
I'm going to have, going to a meeting,
I'm going to meet with the Lord in
the midst, and we're going to, we're going
to remember the Lord in His own appointed
way.
And I'm a member of this assembly, and
I'm accountable to God.
Is there anything in me that could hinder
the Spirit of God from presiding over and
from blessing this gathering of God's people?
You've been to breaking of breads where something's
been off, haven't you?
Where you couldn't, where you had thoughts that
you enjoy, but it didn't seem like there
was any continuity.
It was helter-skelter.
It was here and there, and there was
everywhere, and there was just not a unity
of the Spirit.
And we've felt the grief in it, haven't
you?
Like what was wrong today?
Is there not a cause?
And so the reality and the solemnity of
you and I examining ourselves as we come
together, you see, I believe, and this is
scriptural, that as we're gathered together in the
name with the Lord in our midst, it's
His desire to speak at every meeting.
It's the desire of God to communicate to
His people in every gathering without a doubt.
It is God's desire in whatever way we
need the communication, whether it is chastening, rebuke,
exhortation, whatever it might be.
Every time we come together, we should leave
knowing God has spoken to me.
Every conference, every preacher that gets up.
Now, we don't always say, well, Brandon sure
wasted half an hour this morning.
But even in this, the reading of the
scriptures, there should be something for every one
of us in every speaker if we're listening.
Whether you like the speaker or not, it's
the Word of God.
And so to examine myself, and it says,
this is the solemn part.
For this cause, many are weak and sickly
among you, and some are dead.
This isn't the sleep of a boring preacher.
Are we seeking the Lord?
So are we setting our heart to seek
the Lord?
And Paul says, listen, in Corinth, this is
a problem.
There's a lot of problems in Corinth.
We won't go into the list.
But the point is this, we're not immune
to those problems.
We are prone to those problems.
So to seek the Lord.
Chapter 13, verse number five.
Examine yourself.
Here it is.
Examine yourself, whether you be in the faith,
prove your own selves, how that Jesus Christ
is in you, except you be reprobates.
Let a man examine himself.
Examine yourself, scrutinize yourself, whether you be in
the faith, prove or test your own selves,
how that Jesus Christ is in you.
How does a person test himself if the
Lord is in him?
It's kind of a mystery, isn't it?
Well, I'm not going to test myself by
my feeling, my feelings, because my feelings are
going to change.
They're going to come and they're going to
go.
And sometimes I'm going to feel spiritual and
sometimes I'm not going to feel spiritual.
And sometimes I'm just going to feel just
plain bad in every way.
How do I know?
How do I examine myself?
We examine ourselves by the word of God,
by the truth of the scripture, by the
promises of God.
Do I examine myself?
Has there been a change in my life?
This is hard for some young people that
are saved because they were saved little and
there wasn't a whole lot of change in
their life and they weren't living a deep
life of sin at the age of eight.
How do you know you're saved?
Is there any desire whatsoever for the things
of God?
Now, I've met people in the few little
travels I've done that have say they're saved
and they have no desire whatsoever for anything
of the things of God.
Examine yourself.
Examine the heart.
I've met people that say that they're saved
and they've never ever had a power to
say no to a sin.
Never any power over sin.
Now, we all still sin, but you know
that the great reality is this, that if
any man be in Christ, he's a new
creature.
The searching of the heart.
A new desire than we had before we
were saved.
A new life.
Really, that's what we display really on baptism,
isn't it?
I'm not what I used to be.
There's a new life.
There's a new desire.
There's a new reality about us.
And you see, Paul says examine ourself because
sometimes we get to the state where we
need to examine ourself.
And so maybe this morning as we've been
encouraged to live for God and to spend
all for Him, it's a morning just to
examine ourself.
We've examined ourselves whether we're spiritual or whether
we're carnal.
And Scott has given us good examples on
the indicators of which one we are at
that particular time.
But I believe that everyone here come to
this conference to hear something from God.
It's time to seek the Lord.
Set your heart to seek the Lord.
Break up the fallow ground.
Afflict our souls.
Examine ourselves.
That the channel of communication between us and
God might have no hindrances.
That we will know the mind of God
and the will of God and have the
power to carry it out.