Truth Archive

Graham passed away suddenly at the end of the Cape convention 2020.

This was Graham Adams’ last message at Cape Town convention

A kind sister typed these notes and passed them on recently ……..

Not verbatim.

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Mark 8:36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

It tells us about, profiting, gaining and losing in this verse. I appreciated very much of the hymn that we sang, it says in the second verse;

Help me to know that in Thy will

I shall but gain, not lose.

I long that the Lord would be able to show us that again at this convention. A few months ago we had the subject of Spiritual investments, and I thought about that a great deal the last months. Since convention started, these words have been very, very much in my mind. Spiritual investment

I think when people make a natural investment, the thing that is most important to them or the thing that they worry about the most and that they are concerned about the most, that they want to make very sure about, is that they don’t lose. We don’t want to make an investment with that thought in mind that we are going to lose; we all want to gain, when we make a natural investment. And you know when we make a spiritual investment, may it be in our hearts as well, that we don’t want to lose, we want to gain. That is why I love the words of that hymn, in the Will of God we will never lose, but we will only gain. Isn’t that wonderful? You know that there are so many avenues in life, there are so many things of life, so many choices that we can make and it is going to lead you to eternal loss. As we were hearing about the main event in eternity, we want to consider eternity; we don’t want to lose for eternity. It doesn’t matter if we lose for this life and it doesn’t matter if we don’t gain all the things of this life concerned, but we don’t want to lose for eternity.

I felt so grateful again as I thought about our Lord Jesus; and what it tells us about our Lord Jesus praying in the garden, it was a very, very desperate prayer of our Lord Jesus, He prayed take this cup from me, nevertheless not My will but Thine be done. Our Lord Jesus understood that, in the will of His heavenly Father He will not lose but He will gain.

And He wanted to at any cost; our Lord Jesus was going to be willing for His Father’s will.

As it appealed to me this past year and I often speaking in the mission, I may have mentioned it at December special meetings here in Cape Town, this is the first time that we read of our Lord Jesus, saying these words, not my will but Thine be done. Our Lord Jesus conducted His whole life with that, with those words, with that message, not My will but Thine be done. There was never a time in our Lord Jesus life, that that wasn’t the conduct of His life. It was in the Spirit that He showed, not My will but Thine be done. Because our Lord Jesus had lived with this assurance, in the will of My Heavenly Father I am not going to lose, I am going to gain.

Abraham and Sarah they tried to help God with His plan, we often hear that, they tried to help God with His plan, with their human reasoning. We want to remember with our human reasoning we are going to lose. We are never going to gain in the Kingdom, there is never going to be the joy of God, never going to be the peace of God, never going to be the blessing of God, with our human reasoning. But our Lord Jesus taught us and showed us the way to the blessing of God and the way to the joy of God and the way to the peace of God is simply but saying, not my will but Thine be done. Even today, we worry about different things, we have to think of so many things, much human reasoning is going into our daily lives, but we have to remember it is not the best. We want the blessing of God, so we have to say not my will but Thine be done. In His will we will not lose, wonderful if we can go through life remembering that that we will not lose in the will of God. There was a time when Abraham was asked by God to offer up his son. Abraham could’ve used his human reasoning as well, but we read of Abraham not using his human reasoning, it was in the heart of Abraham not my will but the will of my heavenly Father be done. Maybe Abraham felt in this situation there is going to be a loss for me, but Abraham was willing for the will of God and he took every step in the will of God, he found rich blessings of God. As we often hear Abraham could’ve died a miserable old man, if he said no to God, but wonderful that Abraham could die a man blessed by God, a man who knew of the rich blessing of God, because he was willing to obey God, in Thy will I shall not lose but gain.

We heard yesterday about Job, and I appreciated that very much indeed. I also thought in respects of Job, as far as his spiritual investments were concerned, Job understood so well, I am only going to gain in the will of God. It is not what my wife says, it is not what my friends say not what anybody else would say, but the will of God is going to bring victory in my life, I am going to gain in the will of God. I loved the thought this past year as well in the beginning of Job’s life, we can read that he was a man who was blessed by God, very, very blessed by God, but as we were hearing yesterday, God wanted to continue His work in his life, and God wanted to enrich his life even more. At the end of Job’s life we read that the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning, Job understood well that in the will of God I am not going to lose but gain. It is very sad that Job’s wife didn’t understand that, and you know she said to Job now when that experience came out, you curse God and die. But Job did not do that. Job understood that in the will of God, we must be willing for evil as well, wonderful that he had that kind of spirit. Wonderful when the Lord sees it in our lives that we understand in the will of God we are not going to lose, we are only going to gain. There are many things that we can do in this life. We were hearing this morning of having the mind of Christ, we will not lose when we have the mind of Christ. Often we lose it and often we lose badly if we have our own mind, our own strength and our own reasoning, but not when we are in the mind of Christ. I appreciate what Dickson was telling us as well about the brotherly love, we never lose when we have brotherly love in our hearts. We can be taught of God about brotherly love, we always lose when we don’t have brotherly love. I appreciated what Estelle told us about being willing to die; we never lose when we are willing to die in the Will of God. I appreciated thinking as well of certain ones who prayed to God, and we want to understand a little better in these days we are never lose when we learn to pray and when we are praying to God. There was a time in the book of Joshua, when God’s people went out to fight a certain battle and it was a very minor enemy, and maybe they thought that as they were going out to fight that they were guaranteed to win, but you know they failed against that minor enemy, and then it tells that the Lord spoke to Joshua, and Joshua understood the reason why they failed, why they didn’t have a victory, why they lost the battle that day, because they didn’t consult God, because they did not pray to God.

We want to look at our Lord Jesus, look at the example of our Lord Jesus if we want to have victory. For our spiritual investment we don’t want to lose; we want to gain. It is wonderful that God can help us in our spiritual investment that we are going to gain and not lose. I wonder if we measure our spiritual investment, maybe last convention of this life and we know what it is like at convention, to be honest with ourselves, just to apply, it will be wonderful if we can make just a little profit, just a little gain, maybe a loss. Maybe we have found that we have lost, but it is wonderful that God wants to show us how we can gain. I appreciated thinking of those who submitted to God in life. And we want to remember again that we never lose when we submit to God. We always lose when we don’t submit to God. Adam and Eve, they were there in the garden, and God gave them a very definite message of what God expected of them, just simply obey him and to submit to what He has asked of them, but they didn’t obey God, they didn’t submit to God and we know that they lost their place in the garden and they lost their liberty with God. None of us would like to leave from this convention having lost our place in God’s family and none of us would like to go from here and lose our liberty with God and all that God asks of us, simply to submit to Him and simply obey Him. Is it so hard for us, is it so impossible for us to just simply submit and simply obey God.

I appreciated thinking as well that we never lose when we are humble. We never ever lose when we are willing to be the least, when we are willing to take the lowly place. Abraham and Lot there was a time in their lives when they had to separate from each other and someone had to be the least, someone had to take the lowly place, Abraham was the one who was willing to be the least, Abraham was the one who was willing to take the lowly place and maybe with the human reasoning, Lot thought, if I choose first, I will be the winner, I will gain, I will profit if I choose first. But you know Lot found because he was not willing to be the least when he wasn’t willing to let Abraham choose first, he was the loser. It is wonderful that Abraham allowed God choose for him. Lot chose with human reasoning, it tells us that he lifted up his eyes and as we often hear, he lifted them not high enough. But Abraham was willing to be the least and Abraham was the one who was abundantly blessed by God. It is wonderful that he invested in being the least. Can we invest in being the least? I know it is not easy, I don’t like to be the least and I don’t like to take the lowest place, I don’t like to take the humble place, but we know there is blessing there. We want to choose the place of blessing, this place of joy and this place of peace. I felt so grateful as I thought of our Lord Jesus again that He chose the humble place. And our Lord Jesus all his life understood that in the will of His heavenly Father He wouldn’t lose. So He chose the humble place. Delia was already telling us this morning that our Lord Jesus took the lowest place, He took the lowest place in all, making the disciples know what wonderful blessing could have been their portion if they had been willing to take the lowest place. Could we go from this convention and just be willing to take the lowest place. Maybe with our human reasoning we think we are going to lose if we take the lowest place, we think we are going to lose if we are going to be humble, but the blessing is there. It tells us of Moses when his brother and sister spoke against him, and Moses just kept quiet, he didn’t defend himself. I love the thought that Moses was so close to God, that he didn’t need to defend himself. The woman when she anointed our Lord Jesus, there were many who found fault with her, but because she was so close to our Lord Jesus she didn’t have to defend herself, Jesus defended her and God defended Moses. I love the thought and I often mention it; that whenever I find myself in the place that I feel the need for self justification, if ever I feel myself in the place where I have to defend myself, it just shows that I am too far from God, too far from Jesus. Just get a little closer and we leave the justification to Him, He can do a far better work than what we can do. So, Moses’ brother and sister spoke against him. Moses trusted God, and God defended Moses. I just enjoyed as we read a few weeks ago in our Bible study about Moses, the Lord said to Moses you can go see the land but you cannot enter into the promised land, it was beautiful to see Moses wonderful acceptance. He could’ve said, but Lord this and Lord that, but Moses accepted that from God. I have enjoyed just this little thought, well I remember as a little boy we grew up in the truth and the wonderful privilege always going to the meetings, I often heard as a little boy, that meekness is submitting to the will of God. So later on in life I often measured my meekness by that. An elder once said that meekness is submitting to the Will of God, but he added two words without resentment. I understood that day, that my prestige idea of meekness itself for me really is little. Can we accept the will of God, can we fit into the will of God and can we submit to the will of God without resentment? That is what Moses did and he was one of the meekest men. We never lose when we are meek. We often hear about meekness, and it is something in the world that is seen as weakness, but meekness is power under the control of God, we would like to know a little more of just simply following in the footsteps of the great men and women of the Bible, but more so follow in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus, we know in that we can never lose, but we can gain in all eternity.

This thought as well, that we never lose when we forgive. Sometimes when there is a big problem with yourself and someone else and maybe you find in your heart, I can’t forgive, you are going to lose and you actually going to lose for all eternity. When we do forgive, we are not going to lose, we are going to gain, we profit so much by just being willing to forgive. One of the reasons why we should forgive is simply because our Lord Jesus forgave. We think of Him as we heard in this convention already of our Lord Jesus on the cross, this morning we heard about it, He could say Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. We heard about Joseph and his brotherly love this morning, that wonderful brotherly love and that aspect of that brotherly love as we were hearing as well is forgiveness. His brothers that came to him, they said now forgive us. An old brother worker told us once; it wasn’t a problem for Joseph to forgive his brothers he didn’t have to think about forgiving his brothers, because he had forgiven them long ago. If Joseph hadn’t forgiven his brothers, even though they haven’t come to ask him for forgiveness, he would have lost his liberty with God, but Joseph knew, Joseph thrived in his liberty with God because he could forgive his brothers in his heart, even though they never came to him, even those people who never came to Jesus they didn’t ask him for forgiveness, but our Lord Jesus forgave them. Our Lord Jesus understood, I want to retain my liberty with God and die to forgive these people. We want to remember we never lose when we forgive.

When we have compassion we never lose when we have compassion. It tells us our Lord Jesus said to His disciples that the people have been with them all the time and they had nothing to eat, He said, I have compassion on the multitude, but the disciples, their attitude, their feeling was; just send the people away. We have nothing for them in anyway, just sent them away, but our Lord Jesus said to them, no, you give them something to eat. Our Lord Jesus understood that when we have compassion, we just never lose we only gain. We experience that it is not only ourselves that lose but the Kingdom suffers loss, when we don’t forgive, when we don’t have compassion, when we don’t pray, when we don’t submit to the will of God, when we don’t obey God, when we can’t understand His will and we are not willing for His will we lose, but it is a loss for the Kingdom as well. But when we have the victory, when we do pray, when we are meek, when we are humble it is a wonderful victory for ourselves, blessings for ourselves, joy for ourselves and peace and it helps so much in the Kingdom as well. We want to remember that God wants to help all of us today and God wants to speak to all of our hearts at this convention and wants every one of us to go from here and to profit. He wants every one of us to go from here that we are gaining in our lives spiritually; he doesn’t want anyone of us to lose out spiritually. All we can do is we can think of our Lord Jesus and think of all that He was and all that our Lord Jesus did for us I appreciate it so much. As we sang in that first hymn this morning Lord an offering I would bring, as I remember, when I go away from this convention as well that we will not lose when we offer the best to God. We are going to lose when we don’t offer the best to God, when we don’t give to God our all, but we will never lose if we offer the best to God. Ananias and Sapphira they lost out badly, because they withheld from God, they probably didn’t think much of God himself, thought nothing of the offering that they brought. But what I bring to God is a very serious thing to God, could I remember in days to come that if I withhold from God, it maybe doesn’t seem a very big thing for me, maybe my time in just having quietness with God, spending time with God, if I don’t think very much about it that I withhold time from God, it is a very, very serious thing to God.

Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus it tells us that they came and there was our Lord Jesus and they came for the burial of our Lord Jesus and there were those others too, because of the message of the gospel, because of the seed that was sown in their hearts, because what was working in their lives, they understood we are not going to lose if we give the best to God. They provided for the burial of the body of our Lord Jesus, and they found blessing and joy and peace.