Zechariah.
I wish with all my heart that those
books had never been called the minor prophets.
That's not what they're supposed to be, minor
prophets, but it's what too often they are
in the lives of the Christians.
I think that they're perhaps the most neglected
part of the Bible, don't you think so?
The minor prophets.
Praise God.
We find His blessed face wherever we look.
Would you turn with me now to Ephesians
chapter 3, and what we're going to speak
about this afternoon is rather linked chronologically with
what we've had before us.
Brother Carl has been describing most vividly the
rejection of the Lord Jesus by the nation
of Israel.
But God wasn't frustrated by that one thing.
God had a secret in His mind all
the time, the secret concerning the Church, to
bring in consequent upon the rejection of the
King by Israel.
And that's what I'd like to speak to
you about this afternoon, the assembly.
And before we ever read this portion of
the word, I'd like to ask you for
every one of us to answer in our
hearts, what place does the assembly have in
my life?
How important is God's assembly to me?
This is what I'd really like to think
about with you this afternoon.
Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 1.
For this cause I, Paul, the prisoner of
Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if ye have
heard of the dispensation of the grace of
God which is given me to youward, how
that by revelation he made known unto me
that I am of the same body, and
partaker by the gospel, whereof I was made
in Christ.
And I was made in Christ.
And I was made in a new society,
and in many ways the most privileged society
in all of God, that he was formed,
made up of all, and ultimately
would head up a redeemed church with this
church as his bride, sharing forever.
And it really is marvelous when you start
to think of it that God would ever
take over
a redeemed universe.
And I'd like to suggest to you this
afternoon that this which was, we're
believing, as we read in verse, something
that was never, members
of the part
of God.
And I'd like to suggest to you that
in an evangelical, but it isn't taboo among
us, praise in
the New Testament.
I believe not only in the inspiration of
the Bible, you're
not building with God, and you're marching to
the beat of a different drummer.
And you know that's all too possible.
And then God says, he's
in your life.
Then I see, and
I see something else about it, and I
suggest to you today, we've lost.
And it's very significant.
And to me, in
other words, there were two, and it's the
second.
If he had just gone and
fill up that in my flesh, oh
certainly it doesn't mean that this was, there
were other books added.
Fourthly, I read in the name
to the, and they looked down, men
and women, I
often think of that little as, imagine,
wonderful when the angelic beings look down, and
putting, is
the only unit on earth to which God,
he said, but
in, to the extent that that organism, I
really missed God's best for my life.
Because God never promised perpetuity.
Is the assembly really, I'll
break in in verse 20, well
really it beggars human language but in
his mouth, I'm
going to just tear that piece of paper
in half.
If this is Christ, and this is the
church, that
you and I, saved by his matchless grace,
and united in him, in the body, all
in all.
I tell you, I wouldn't believe this.
They're just two, I read that the assembly
is the body of Christ, of greater nearness.
And not only the body of Christ, but,
and if the body speaks of nearness and
intimacy, the deepest affection.
Christ also loved the church, and gave himself.
And I try to, and
that brings me to say this, and I
read, means more
to him than the greatest empire in the
world.
He said, oh brother our assembly, and
I read there that the nations to him,
are a drop of, doesn't
carry any weight, it really
humbles my heart, and
has many members.
Remember the weakest representative, and I'd like to
suggest something else to you this afternoon, that
the elder, any particular elder, is more important,
won't find very much instruction in the new
testament.
What does it tell me?
It tells me, and really, it's time we
recaptured that, in our own thinking.
Honestly, you know very well, just as I
do, or the education doesn't
have more glamour to God, and it's just
about time.
By the world, and by its, I'd
like to suggest to you that the local,
is the unit on earth.
It's taken me years to come to this,
and I, but I really believe, as I
stand before you, E.
H.
Lange says in his book, The Churches of
God, in our service, and
this is what we have, but
we have a, organizational Christianity, an empire building,
a very, now
that brings me to say this, we live
in a tremendous day, we live in a
day, when people oppressed by ritual new
testament pattern, and the books are coming, they
want to get back, they want, people
have never heard anything, movement
towards, but
I'd like to suggest just a few things
to you as we close, things that we
ought to wait, we must as Christians be
willing to, generally speaking, I feel we,
and when a, when a, a people about
us, or did companies
that, uh, they
did, and the sales began to boom, well
that's to believe that
we should get away from this terrible tendency
to, in that sense, but
in that sense, Jehovah's Witnesses don't spend money,
they don't spend, I'd
like to suggest that what we need is
a new love, and loyalty, and faithfulness, really
I do, but on the other hand, when
we come to put the same effort, the
same energy, and the same devote on
the table, and serving the Lord in the
context of God's looking for men today, you
want your life to, you'll have your heart
broken, you'll have to be, remember,
the man who aspires, the
assembly is, I
ask myself, are you