Truth Archive

After our conventions last year, I had two companions and we studied in the First and Second of Corinthians together. There was one verse that was especially real to me. It is found in II Corinthians 13:5 and in this verse, Paul gave these people a final message, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves, Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates.” This taught me that if I do not have Christ dwelling in me, I would be a reprobate. We can believe the right thing, believe in the right ministry, and we can go to meetings, and we can take part in the meetings, and if Jesus Christ isn’t in me, I am no good. Paul wanted to impress these people with this thought.

He asked them to examine themselves. When I went to school, we had examinations. In our class, the teacher usually taught us the lesson; then we were given an assignment, sometimes it is called homework and then there was an examination. Do you children have them here – examinations? You do. That is the same in our country! You can notice that is in the scripture, also. I never liked examinations very much. It took the pride out of me. I never was as good as I thought I was. The teachers had different ways of examining us. Usually, the teacher examined our papers, but sometimes we had to exchange with our fellow pupils. I didn’t mind that if he liked me because he went as easy as he could for me, but if it was a boy who didn’t like me, then everything counted against me. But I liked it best if the teacher let me examine my own paper. But I’m sorry that I wasn’t always honest when I examined my own paper. I was always poor at spelling. They told me that if I didn’t know how to spell it, I should look the word up in the dictionary; and when you don’t know how to spell, how are you going to look it up in the dictionary? Look at all the time I wasted just because I didn’t learn well at school.

In this chapter, Paul wanted the people to examine themselves. God wants us to examine ourselves. This is a life and death matter with us today. Either Christ is in us, or we don’t have any part in His Kingdom. So that is why it is very important to examine ourselves. I would like to be very honest with God because we don’t want to miss His eternal reward. We don’t want to miss the joy and peace we can have today.

I like the thought that Paul gave in 1 Corinthians 1:1–2. These people were called to be saints. They were called to be separated just for God. God wants a people just for Himself. That is spoken of in the Bible as the Bride of Christ. When a man betroths a woman, that is for him, isn’t she? The gospel went forth in Corinth to call out a Bride that would be betrothed to Christ. They were not to play with the world. That teaches us we are called to be betrothed to Christ. God is watching you and me to see if we are honest.

I would like to read another verse in II Corinthians 11:2, “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy for I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” Paul was a little distressed, when he went to Corinth these people were betrothed to Christ, and Paul wanted to present them to Christ as a chaste virgin, and he was afraid that these people were going to be defiled. They would not be acceptable to their Bridegroom, to Christ. The devil was trying to beguile them like he did Eve in the garden, and then they would be defiled. That same thing could happen to us today. We are the Bride of Christ, and the devil would like to whisper to us to get us defiled with the world. Then we would miss this privilege of being the Bride of Christ.

Let us look at I Corinthians 1:2 – that is how we were betrothed to Christ. We listened to the gospel. Our hearts were moved with love for Christ. Then we declared to others we are going to be the Bride of Christ. What happened? God gave us His Spirit. Then that sets us apart from the world, doesn’t it? There are some things we enjoyed in the world we don’t enjoy any more. Some company we once enjoyed, and we don’t go there anymore, and they don’t want us. God has just set us apart, and now we are betrothed to Him. That is what happened to these people, the same as it happened to us. Then Paul wanted to wake those people up. Sometimes we go to sleep. Sometimes we should sleep. When we go to bed, that is a good time to sleep but sometimes we go to sleep in meetings or when we are praying. That is terrible. Then sometimes we are wide awake, and yet we are asleep.

I will tell you about one of our sisters. After Convention, she noticed a little bit of a growth on her leg and she went to a doctor. The doctor said, “I am not experienced enough. You had better go and see a more experienced doctor.” So she went to see this experienced doctor, and he told her she had to have surgery right away. He said he might be able to save her limb if the growth had not touched the bone, but if the growth had touched the bone, then he thought it was a bad, growing tumour and then it was a bad thing. It was a terrible shock to her. Even a shock to all of us but terrible for her. Our sister was asleep to the fact that there was something working in her body that was going to take her life. Some of us were with her at the time of surgery, and I will never forget how the doctor broke news to the family. He said, “In order to save her life, we had to remove her limb.” She could live without her limb but if it was not taken away, her life would be taken. It was a life and death matter. Paul could see some things working in these people, and he wanted to wake them up.

Let us look at I Corinthians 3:1-3. Paul was trying to nurse them along like you nurse a little baby. He was feeding them with the sincere milk of the word, but they were not growing. Why? Because they were not letting the spirit of God work in their lives. What was the matter? There was no death taking place in their lives. What are some of the marks of Christ? Jesus taught in Matthew 5:44-45…those are the marks of Christ. If Christ is in us, then this is what we practise. That is terribly hard to do isn’t it? Love your enemies. Remember, we told you we have two natures. There is the human nature and the divine nature. “Love your enemies,” Jesus said. That is the divine nature. What is the human nature? Fight your enemy! How do we do it? We demonstrate one of the two natures. If I get up in the morning with a fighting nature, I am demonstrating the human nature. If I get up with a pleasant nature, then I am demonstrating the divine nature. It is not easy to bless people who curse us, is it? That is terribly hard for me when people curse me. But that is why we need to have the Holy Spirit – to do it. How do you use the people who hate you? Or who despitefully use you and persecute you and make it real hard for you? Can you pray for them? That is hard to do, but that is what Jesus wants us to do. This is the way we are supposed to use the people in the world. How should we use the people in the church? They are our brothers and sisters. If we like Jesus taught here, then we will only have love in the little church. These people were set apart just to do what Jesus taught.

Paul wrote to them and he said, “You are carnal.” Why? They were acting just like ordinary people. They were sanctified by the Holy Spirit to be Christ’s. That is why this scripture was so impressed upon my heart. Examine myself and see if Christ is in me. While we are talking about love, I would like to give Jesus’ words to His own disciples. Just before He died and it is found in John, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another.” It is one thing for us to love people when they love us isn’t it, and when people do nice to us and do nice things, we like that. My sisters always wanted to have a cat. When you fed the cat, it purred nice. When people feed us, oh isn’t that nice. That is no test. But how do we use people when they don’t use us nicely? Jesus gave me this message that I am to love you no matter what you do to me. Jesus loved me even when I didn’t give Him any room in my heart at all. Now I am supposed to love other people like He loved me; that is why I beg for mercy every day. I would like to keep it as an ideal before my eyes, so I can grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord. In the 5th chapter, Paul told them there was fornication among them which should not have been at all. They were supposed to love one another like Christ loved them and in the 6th chapter, they were going to law with one another.

In the 7th chapter, they were having trouble at home – matrimonial problems. The husband wasn’t doing right by the wife and the wife wasn’t doing right by the husband, and here they were going along to meetings. Paul was trying to wake them up because if they were going to continue to do that they were going to miss out as the Bride of Christ. I want to tell you right now that there is always cleaning for the people who are honest and who will acknowledge their sin. If we are humble enough to admit that we are wrong and beg for mercy, God will cleanse us from every stain of sin. If we do wrong to other people, are we humble enough to acknowledge it to them? If we are, then we can have cleansing. If we are not, we cannot have cleansing, and we get more defiled all the time and the next thing, we are gone.

I may draw your attention to another verse. I Corinthians 11:28, “But let a man examine himself.” If it wasn’t for this meeting today, you people would be gathered in homes for your little Sunday morning meetings. A memorial service in honour of the resurrection of Jesus. In the 11th chapter and the 14th chapter of I Corinthians, Paul tried to help those people with regard to their presence in the meeting. They were not meeting together in the right way. Outwardly, you would know much different. But when God looked on them, Paul said they were coming together for the worse and not for the better. That was a shock to me a number of years ago when I read it. I Corinthians 11:17-18. These people were coming together on the first day of the week and it was for the worse instead of the better. Paul was trying to wake them up so that they could redeem the time that was left.

There are four special parts in the Sunday morning meeting. First part of the meeting is singing hymns. Every hymn that is in your hymn book is there because of a message in that hymn. In the 14th chapter, it tells us how to sing and it tells us how to pray – in the 15th verse. Now when we sing, do we think of the message in the song? When I am with you, if I don’t have my English hymn book, I could not sing with my understanding because I cannot understand what you sing, and wouldn’t get the message. I need an interpreter now! But even when I am at home in California, sometimes I don’t sing with my understanding. Some of these hymns I have heard since I was a boy. I sing along and I watch the people who come in and I am not thinking of the message.

Now when we pray do we pray with our understanding? Do we have a certain petition that we want to hear? Do we have some praise from our hearts to give to God that is genuine? Or are we just going through the form of prayer and hardly know what we say? This is important – sing and pray with our understanding. Then we have a little time of giving our testimony and that helps us when people have a little praise for God and maybe they have a little verse that has helped them through the week, and they express that, and that feeds our hearts. If we have something from God that has fed us then it will help others also. When we come to the Sunday morning meeting, every person, from the youngest babe in Christ to the oldest, has a responsibility. We have a responsibility to have bread. The elder of the church or the one who leads the meeting has a responsibility before God to feed the lambs and sheep.

Perhaps we can turn to Acts 20 for you elders here, and then we will go back to this letter again. Paul was visiting with the elders of Ephesus at this time – from verse 17. Let us read from verse 28 through 32. Paul was trying to wake these people up to feed the flock of God, or the church of God. The church, or Christian is likened unto sheep. I am talking about sheep, not goats. I notice you have goats here in Korea, but so far I haven’t seen any sheep. I want to talk about sheep. A sheep is an animal that God created to demonstrate a Christian. Sheep don’t fight. Sheep don’t cry when they are hurt. They don’t resist when they are going to be killed. It is the only animal that doesn’t cry or resist. You remember that scripture that is in Isaiah 53:7, that was prophesied of Jesus? “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth.” It is also mentioned in Acts. That is why we have Jesus spoken of as the Lamb of God. Don’t forget now He is led as a lamb to the slaughter. He was not dragged, He was not resisting. I see some of the mothers take their children and they are dragging their feet. But that is not the way Jesus did. Let me tell you a story and it may help you to understand a little about sheep.

Three years ago in California, meat was scarce and one of our friends lived on a farm. On their farm, they had a little slaughterhouse. So this man went to the butcher and he asked if he would come out and kill some animals for him. The man said, “Yes, I will come out but I cannot do it by myself. Will you help me?” Yes, he and his boy would help. As they hadn’t seen it done before, the family wanted to watch. So they killed two beef, and didn’t they fight! They didn’t want to die, but they died. Then they killed two pigs, and when they got hold of the pigs, they squealed! The neighbours could hear! Then came two lambs and our friend said again to the butcher, “What do you want me to do here?” He said, “I don’t need your help, I can do these on my own.” He went over and put a little rope around the lamb’s neck and he led the lamb over to where he was going to kill it. He leaned it against his leg and he stuck the knife into its heart, and the little lamb died. No bleat, no struggle.

When you read about Jesus now – He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers, so He opened not His mouth. If Jesus Christ is in us then we have the nature to suffer and not cry. We have a nature that we won’t squeal, and neither will we fight – just accept. That is why I feel so unworthy just to talk about it, but I don’t know any better way to describe what Jesus was. We have already heard about His crucifixion. When they were looking for Jesus, He just said, “Well, here I am.” When they were looking for Jesus to make Him a king, He hid, for He was not governed by His human nature. If a person is sought for to be made a king, by human nature, He will rise up, and if it comes to dying, human nature wants to hide. I like to think of Jesus the Lamb of God. All right now, these elders, what were they to do? They were to feed these lambs and sheep. They belonged to God. They don’t belong to us, they belong to God and that is the responsibility we have of feeding. How are we going to get food for thee?

I will tell you one little illustration and that is regarding my father’s sheep. When we lived on the farm, my father had sheep when I was a boy. When we came off the farm and went into the city, that is where I went into the Work. After the depression, my father went back to the farm. I went home one time and my father’s sheep looked terrible. I said to Dad, “Why are your sheep looking like that?” I never saw them looking like that before. My father said, “It rained too much and the grass grew too fast and there is no food value in the grass.” We didn’t have any money to buy grain and that is the reason the sheep looked so bad. Did that ever bring a message home to my own heart! When God’s people are not as good as I think they are, what have we been feeding on? It was not the sheep’s fault. It depends on the person who is feeding the sheep. My father had a reason but we don’t have a reason in God’s house. There is bread and to spare.

How do we get this food to take to the meeting? The secret is in Luke 11. The disciples came to Jesus and said, “Teach us to pray.” Jesus gave them a little sample prayer…”Our Father.” After Jesus gave them little outline to pray, He told them a story. He was talking to His disciples and they are the ones who were responsible for His sheep. Everyone is responsible for that little Sunday morning meeting. Jesus said this, “Which of you shall have a friend…” What do you do? They are hungry, and it is midnight, well, you go to your friend, don’t you. Of course you hate to wake him up at night, but because your friend is hungry, you go and wake him up. You say, “Give me three loaves, for a friend of mine has come on his journey and I don’t have a thing to give him!” What did his friend say? “No, I cannot do that, I am in bed with my family.” No, he did get up. Why? He wouldn’t go away. “Just give me three loaves for my friend…I must have three loaves for my friend.” He wasn’t asking for himself, but for his friend…and finally he got up. He couldn’t sleep anyway so he gave him enough to get him away. What did Jesus say? “Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened unto you.” That means we must labour when we go to pray. Whom are we praying for? Our brethren, because they might be hungry. We don’t have anything to give them. He will give us what we need. Many times we go to meeting and we feel we don’t have anything for the meeting at all. We will always have a little if we beg, “Just give me a little bread for the meeting to feed my brothers and sisters.”

Now this little thought. Sometimes dogs attack the flock, or wolves, and the sheep don’t fight. That is why you have to have a shepherd. One time, I went home and just as I got home a neighbour called and said to my father, “The dogs are in your sheep.” We hurried over to where the sheep were. The saddest sight I ever saw. These two dogs were having a good time and they bit great big pieces of meat right out of the sheep’s throat and they were laying down dying, some of them. Some great big pieces of meat out of their sides, and they stood trembling. Great big pieces of meat taken out of their legs. No crying, just take it – the sheep nature.

Do you know what scripture that opened up to me? “Beware of dogs.” Not four-legged dogs, the two legged dogs, and what are they like? Hate in their hearts, and what do they do? They bite into their brothers and sisters that they are supposed to be a brother and sister to, and they take pleasure in it. Why? The love of Christ has gone out of them, and all they want to do is hurt the flock. Paul says to those elders, “You keep that flock and you watch that flock of God.” Within a few years, there are going to be some with the wolf nature rise up among you. We are to help one another, and that is feeding the flock of God. I should tell you this little thing. In Ohio, there was an elderly lady who was faithful in coming to the meetings all the time. When that lady died, people wrote this to me, “No one can ever know how we will miss our sister. Every Sunday, she had just the morsel to feed that little flock. The elder wasn’t what he should have been, but this woman never tried to take a big place but she always had bread.” I hope you will remember your responsibility as you come to the little meeting. It is not to have a whole lot of things to say. It is getting something from God to give something to your brothers and sisters.

The next part is the breaking of bread. I hope you will read the 11th chapter of I Corinthians when you go home, for I don’t have much more time. When they were to break bread they were to think of Jesus – it was a memorial service for Him. As often as we do it, we are to do it in remembrance of Him. That night when He broke bread and gave it to His disciples, He told them to eat all of it and then He took the wine and He gave to each one of them and He said to do this in remembrance of Him. These people at Corinth were not doing it right. They were not examining themselves and they were not forgiving one another and what was happening? Some of them were sick and weak and some had died. Why? They did not take it the right way. They did not examine themselves. If I was in the Sunday morning with you and I took a little bit of bread with you, I would be telling you this, “I am willing for anything that is in this word of God, in my life.” Don’t forget – Jesus was the Word made flesh. He was the Bread of Life and when we take a little of that bread, we are showing to one another I am willing for all His word.

You know what Jesus taught about forgiving one another. These people were not willing to forgive one another. They broke the bread and it was worse for them than if they had never broken bread. Sometimes I have gone to meeting and I have felt like not breaking bread. I just love the order of our meeting. We sing and there is a message in the song. We pray and if we listen to our brethren, there is a message in the prayer. The different ones speak and there is always a message for me in what they mention. Then here we come to break bread and I know I have not done right in the past week. Do I break bread? There is one condition. Am I sorry for what I did wrong? If it is necessary for me to make it right with other people, I can tell the Lord I am sorry and I will make it right with them when I leave the meeting. If it’s just between the Lord and me, I can make it right, right there in the meeting and I can purpose to put this thing away. I have examined myself and then I can go ahead and break bread.

When I take the wine, whether it is fermented or unfermented, we must be careful also. When I take a little of that wine, I am telling you, “I am not my own. The Lord has redeemed me by the Blood of Jesus, and now I am not supposed to do what I want to do.” I purpose in my heart I am going to do what He wants me to do and then we can take it rightly and there will be blessing, too. Maybe before we close this meeting today, I can tell you if you ever get discouraged you can remember this – just think of the price that was paid for you. You are redeemed by the Blood of Jesus, you are God’s possession. We are not our own anymore and when we were no good at all, God paid such a tremendous price to bring us into His Family and Fold. So don’t let anyone tell you, “You are not worth it.” In the sight of God, we are priceless. We are the Bride of Christ and we have been betrothed to Him. Let us keep true, so we can be presented to Him – a chaste Bride, pure and clean.