Jim Styles - Living as a Member of God's Family - Class 2 - Elevating our life to God's Moral Code

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1. 0:00

   So the goal today is to look at elevating our life to God’s moral code. That’s hopefully what we will get to. So it starts out with some of these things where people sometimes challenge us as a community about, well, why do you even need God? And these are answers that we have to be able to give to our our teens as they’re growing up when they get challenged in their world today of like, you can be an atheist and you can still be good and all these different things that you’ll hear. So you’ll see things like this about, you know, just be good for goodness sake, right?

2. 0:30

   We don’t need God or. You know, are you good without God? Millions are right. And you know, these are things we see in California all the time. Our kids see them online. And so they get challenged about this whole idea of do you really need God to be good, you know, or can you just be good in yourself? Or millions of people are good without God? You don’t need.

3. 0:50

   Religion to be a good moral person and and this is something that this society today is challenging us with and the atheists are are certainly doing that and our kids they’re being exposed to this and we have to come up with ideas. You really need religion to guide you morally. Couldn’t you figure out that murder is wrong by yourself and what happens is these think they sound great to our our teenagers. It’s like yeah we don’t need we don’t need God we can just be good.

4. 1:17

   But the problem is when you start looking at them is that they they start to fall apart. When you get into the specifics it sounds great as the general principle sure want a better world? You you don’t have to pray about it. You just have to be. Better. People, but we understand as Christadelphians, as God tells us, that look, man is not morally good when it comes right down to IT.

5. 1:40

   People might be good in some areas, or they might want to do things to help somebody else. But when it comes time to other things, what are the answers in humanism for? Well, should we pay taxes? Is, is that something? Is that, is that being good? Or should you have the right to just decide, well, I don’t want to pay taxes?

6. 1:58

   Or what about? Divorce and remarriage or gay marriage or premarital sex and nudity, polygamy, war and ISIS and vengeance and stealing from the rich and slavery and abuse and all these things. Who’s going to define what is good? That that’s the problem you’re into? So what are you going to do, like government decide then? Is government going to be our decision about what our morality is and we have to encourage our kids that? No, we’re going to turn to God to find out what our morality is.

7. 2:24

   Because who’s going to define these morals? And what we do is we can thankfully turn to our Bibles and and be assured that God is going to give us a good moral. Way to live. When you’re you’re talking to people that have this kind of philosophy, I think it’s really good to expose him to the idea that all of that stuff about being good and treating people nice and all, it’s all about this life, this life. If you’re only living for this life, sure, go ahead and define good whichever way you want.

8. 2:56

   But we’re not living for this life. We’re we’re aiming for the life to come and then the life to come. That’s a whole different story. God has to train us for the life to come. We aren’t going to naturally be the kind of people that can just grow up and be a part of his Kingdom.

9. 3:12

   Oh no, His family involves suffering. As as Jack’s been going through with us in the second period. God has to bring trials into our life to shape us and to mold us into different people. He’s trying to change us into somebody else, trying to work on our minds and and and change our minds about. How we actually live and function, we’re not living for this life.

10. 3:34

    And sometimes we need to be right reminded about that because we can get all caught up in this life. You look at the young people today, you know you’re you’re being asked to make decisions about where you’re going to go for university, what job are you going to get, who are you going to marry and where you’re going to live and all these different things. But it’s not about.

11. 3:49

    This life. You know, I used to watch the counselors at my school. They would encourage kids. They’d bring them into the counseling office and they would tell them, what do you want to be, go out there and be all that you can be. And they’d say, well, I. I want to go into to the NFL and they’d think, yeah I’m going to be a football player and and and they realize.

12. 4:08

    Wait a minute. Hardly anybody makes it to that. You’re going to have skills to do that. You can’t just be all that you want to be or somebody else goes into drama. I want to be an actor. And then you find out, well, how many jobs are there out there and that, or maybe you’re not a good actor.

13. 4:22

    But we’re not into this life. This life is just a mechanism to get us to the next one. It’s a training ground. So you don’t get to go out there and do all the things that you want to do in this life. And that’s OK because God wants you for the future. This life is about training for the future. Not about just being happy in this life, doing all the things you want, having all the toys of this life and you work, work, work, work, work, so you can have all these great things of this life and you watch your spiritual life just fade away. That’s not really what it’s about, but humanism is. It’s all about this life, all that stuff that you hear on those things.

14. 4:59

    While you can be good and everything, it’s just about this life and what God’s trying to do is train us for the life to come. His morality is is really designed for a much higher purpose. He’s training us to learn to live like him, our Heavenly Father and and we have. To get there, brethren and sisters, you know, some people have this idea that they can just get through this life right now and, you know, just sort of work on things. And then, oh, when Christ returns, where people are resurrected from the dead and the judgment occurs, I’m just all of a sudden God’s going to give me immortality and I’m going to be a good moral person just like that. That isn’t how it.

15. 5:36

    Works. This is the training ground. This is where we’re practicing righteousness right now. I love the way John writes that in the first John, if you use a modern version besides the King James, you’ll see the the words that he uses of instead of just sin and and righteousness, he uses the words practicing sin in the Greek.

16. 5:55

    You’ve got to practice those things. And that’s what this is all about. You come here to a Bible school and we’re practicing righteousness on how we treat each other, how we behave this week as well as we’re learning things as up for the future. But God is really designing us for His future, and He’s told us that we have to become holy. We.

17. 6:14

    Must be holy, he said. For I am holy. That’s not just. Jesus in the New Testament saying you want to be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. That is the bar right there. He is holy, and we have to aim to be that way as well. And he is the one who defines all these moral terms. He’s the one that defines goodness. It’s all about God.

18. 6:33

    And so all these things go on in life and people get challenged with the wars that are going on and all the persecutions that are happening, all the abuse, the abuse that goes on in life today, slavery that went on for years and still goes on today. And you know, the guns that are out there at in the United States, it’s become a big problem in gun violence and racism and all these different things.

19. 6:54

    And I’m. Sure I’m not. Sure. Who those guys are up there, but they they must be people you would recognize. I just googled some Australian politicians that. So hopefully that’s not Jack up there, is it? No, I can’t be jacked. I’ve got to get the accents right. So you’ve got politics. That’s what people in politics, they’re living for this life only it’s all about now. And they’re so influenced by all the constituents and the people that are buying their votes and all this stuff. We are not.

20. 7:27

    Like that, Brothers and sisters, that is not what makes us work. We are in it for God. And our goal is to be part of God’s family. And if it takes suffering like Job is going through this, we’re looking at our second class. If that’s what it takes to help everybody get there, it’s worth it. And just remember, Jesus Christ is always the model. Look at what he went through.

21. 7:48

    Look at what God put his Son through to win the victory over sin. To put all those principalities and powers under him and destroy them all. And he won a great victory in the Lord Jesus Christ. But it was all done by suffering, A suffering that taught Jesus to learn obedience by what he suffered a.

22. 8:08

    Cross that reminded him that that’s where he’s headed. But all the way through life it was for us. He always did it for us so that we could follow in his steps. He left us an example, as Peter says, that we would follow in his steps. So God has guidelines for us. God is the one who defines our morality and one of the the famous verses that they use a lot at young people’s gatherings in North America. I don’t know if you guys get them here, but we go to these Bible camps and you see this where there is no vision that people perish.

23. 8:39

    And so they tell all of our young people you have to have a vision of the Kingdom. What is your vision of the Kingdom and? People go around and say, well, my. Idea the Kingdom is I’m going to be doing this. I’m going to be playing basketball or whatever, you know, Yes, little kids that.

24. 8:51

    And that’s what they come up with and they come up with their vision of the Kingdom. That’s not what this passage means though. You know it’s if you if you use a different version besides the King James, it actually comes out a lot clearer. But it’s not about. You creating your vision of the Kingdom.

25. 9:07

    If you look within the context of the Proverbs, the modern versions have caught it right. They say that where there is no revelation from God. The people cast off restraint. It’s not about us creating the vision of the Kingdom. It’s about God. Revelation. He’s the one that sets the boundary. He tells us about what the future will be.

26. 9:27

    It’s about God. It’s not about what we think or what we want. And without. God in our life. In in bringing these moral values into our life, the people cast off restraint. You’ll see that if you read the verse before it. And correct your. Son and he. Will give you rest. Yes, he will give delight to your soul. It’s about correction.

27. 9:48

    It’s about moral restraints that we bring into our children. And it ends. Verse 18 with happy is he who keeps the law. In verse 19 a servant will not be corrected by mere words. It’s all about correction instruction. And that’s what God is trying to do with us all the time. So when we do our Bible readings, when we’re. Bible marking.

28. 10:09

    We go to gatherings. It’s all about learning these things and getting God’s instruction about putting parameters into our life where he’s trying to guide us into a way of life. Or. When you look at I, I really think the story of Job’s a great one of that he he sometimes he’s trying to get us to see issues that we don’t see. We grow up in a culture sometimes like maybe those three friends, they had this culture of thinking that you know God will get you in this life for what you do wrong and they had this fear based relationship that God’s going to get us. And later on you see that coming out in Job that he thinks God’s shooting arrows at him and all these things and it’s like that’s their that’s their understanding of God. And God doesn’t want us to have that. He wants us to have a love based relationship with him and he wants us to have the right stuff, the right understanding, so that.

29. 10:59

    We can make good decisions about how we live ourselves and how we treat one another. Look at how God’s family members behave. I I’m really impressed. I love studying the angels because I finally came to realize that God has revealed enough about angels in the Scriptures and how they behave. That he’s showing us through the angels. Look at my family members already behave like this. This is what my family members do. You want to be one of his children? Here’s what.

30. 11:26

    Here’s the way God’s children behave. You look at Psalm One O 3. It ends there with the Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His Kingdom rules over all. Bless the Lord, you His angels, who excel in strength. Oh, they’re they’re mighty all right, but they do His Word. They heed the voice of His word.

31. 11:45

    They. Obey him, which is what he’s always been after is obedience. Bless the Lord, all you His hosts, you ministers of His who do His pleasure. They’re those ministering spirits. Sent forth to Minister for. Us who are the heirs of salvation. That’s how God’s family members behave. You’re you’re not going to just get this. When you receive immortality, you just all of a sudden become like that.

32. 12:12

    This is what we are aiming for in this life. This is why we are in families. This is why we come to Bible school. This is why we have jobs and God has us work with people. We are learning how to heed His voice, follow His ways, trust Him in everything, and do His pleasure. That’s how God’s family members behave. You can trust the coach when he says something and he and he says this is the right way to live and he brings these moral values into our life.

33. 12:39

    He knows what he’s doing and he loves us so much that for 4000 years after Adam and Eve sinned, and even before that, when he knew it would happen, he planned to watch his son die on a cross and go through all of that and and for us. And and it’s not like, you know, we were he’s saying and seeing me one day that hem out of what was it?

34. 13:02

    The Praise the Lord book. I think it was 177 and and it talks about, you know, Jesus at the end when Jesus is on the cross and he’s bearing our sin that God turned away because he couldn’t. Look at it. Those are things that come from the Christian Church, Brother and sisters, and especially young people.

35. 13:18

    Those aren’t Bible concepts. God doesn’t turn away. He loved his Son. He was watching the greatest victory that had ever been accomplished in the history of mankind. And God is the one who orchestrated it so that he could save his son and save all of us. He’s not an angry God like Christians will teach.

36. 13:38

    He doesn’t turn his, his his face away and and punish his son and he can’t even look at it. That isn’t the God that we worship, brothers and sisters and young people. And we do have to be careful that we don’t get caught up into the Christian philosophy today of who our God is.

37. 13:54

    You look at David. And how he. Felt the power of God’s counsel, the influence of God’s morality into his life, that he would write, oh, I how I love your law. It’s my meditation all the day. You, through your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies. You know, this is David’s feeling about the law.

38. 14:14

    And for those of you that end up thinking. Oh, the law. Was all bad. The law. The young Jesus took away the law. No, the law was good. It brought guidelines into people’s lives, parameters it. It was misused by the Jewish. People, they misused the law and thinking they were going to use it to establish their own righteousness. But the law itself, in its design was good. It brought good things restrictions into people’s lives.

39. 14:39

    It told us how to live good moral lives. You look in verse one O 1 of Psalm 119 that I have restrained my feet from every evil way that I may. Keep your word. This is the influence of the law. If if it was done properly, it could bring restraints and guidelines into our lives to elevate our life to God’s moral character.

40. 15:03

    Verse one O 4. Through your precepts I get understanding and therefore I hate every false way. This is what God’s Word can do for us. It can change the way we live and guide us into living like God’s family members live. I remember one time listening to a class on Acts by Brother John Martin, and he went through Acts 3 at this point. And it’s just, it really blew my mind that I had for all my life. I had misunderstood a huge component of the promises to Abraham.

41. 15:34

    I don’t know about you all. When you grow up and you go to these places and they ask you like what? What do you think the promises to Abraham were? And we learned these things well, you got the land right. And you know, you, you, you. Memorize these components about the promises to Abraham. It’s got to have a son and and all these different components. But the the blessing of Abraham, the the real blessing of Abraham.

42. 15:54

    When Peter talked to the Jews of what they had done and crucified the Messiah, and they come to listen to him in Acts chapter 3, And he tells them you are sons of the prophets in verse 25 and of the covenant which God made with our father saying to Abraham, And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. But that’s the blessing of Abraham, the promises that he was given.

43. 16:18

    But Peter says to you first, God having raised up his. Servant Jesus sent him to bless you. What? With land, with immortality, with all that kind of stuff? No, the blessing was that he would turn everyone away of you, every one of you away from your iniquities. There was a huge component of the promises to Abraham God’s going to change your life.

44. 16:43

    He’s willing to work with you and work with your children and God says I’m going to take Isaac and I’ll work with him. I’m, I’m not going to do that with with with with Esau. I’ll I’ll take or with with Ishmael. I’m going to take Isaac and I’ll work with him and later on with Jacob. He says no, I’m going to take with Isaac is I’m going to take Jacob and.

45. 17:02

    I’m going to work with him and I’m not going to do that with with Esau. It’s all about God turning us away from our iniquities. It’s not that we’re better people than anybody else out there. We we didn’t start out better than the people in this neighborhood out here. We we started out like Jacob.

46. 17:19

    We started out like all the rest of these Bible characters, and God is turning us away from our iniquities. That’s the blessing of Abraham. Did you realize that is the basis upon which God can forgive our sins. He doesn’t just forgive our sins because we joined the Christadelphians. We got baptized and we answered all these questions in an interview and we went into the water and came back out. We don’t get our sins forgiven because we just joined the right church and the other people didn’t. We have our sins are forgiven because we we have joined with Christ in his death to sin.

47. 17:55

    We want God to work on our life. We want him to to turn us away from our iniquities. And he says wow, you’ve joined my family. This is what my family members do, and now I can righteously forgive your sins. That’s how it works, brothers and sisters and and young people. It’s not some mystical thing.

48. 18:15

    There’s a basis behind the righteousness of God at which he can forgive us, and it’s because we joined the family, really joined the family. We want his eternal way of life. We love it. And we’ll hold on to that. No matter what happens to us in this world, no matter how low he brings us, what troubles we run through, we’re going to hold on to that. Like like Joseph did when he was sold away to slavery. He’s out there, he’s falsely accused, he ends up in prison. He’s holding on to the fact that God is righteous and I love his way of life.

49. 18:50

    I’m not going to take Potiphar’s wife. I’m not going to, you know, yell at these people. I’m not going to, you know, do all the things that the folks of this world would do. I love God’s way of life. It’s my life. That’s what I want, no matter what happens. That’s the kind of character that God can establish in people.

50. 19:07

    He can change how we live, and that’s what he set out to do. As Peter says in Acts 3, the real blessing of Abraham was that he will turn. Us away from our iniquities. Then I’ve watched. This a lot in doing baptismal interviews back in North America. But a lot of times I’ll start off with questions with the young people and I’ll say, well, why do you want to be baptized?

51. 19:26

    Why do you want to be baptized? And that the common answer I always get from my young people is so I can be forgiven of my sins. And maybe that’s what we said too, and that that’s true. That is part of the reason we want to be baptized. But oh, that’s not the big reason really. What we really should want, brothers and sisters, is angels working in our life.

52. 19:47

    God involved Jesus directing and controlling it all to where it will turn us away from our iniquities. That’s what this life is all about. It’s a training program to become a different person. And because of that our our commitment to that when we go down into the waters, when we come out and and we want to live a life after the resurrected Jesus, because of that, he can righteously forgive our sins within the righteousness of God.

53. 20:16

    So God’s morality, it really does have a higher purpose. He’s not just worried about this life, He’s training us to fight the weaknesses of our flesh because he’s preparing us for a future life. I I think that whole question of suffering Why does God allow suffering? Why do the righteous suffer Why why do all these things happen we we so often focus on? It’s not fair.

54. 20:39

    I I shouldn’t get this. I have to go through this problem. I look at other brothers and they don’t have the same. Problem that I have, they’re not experiencing in their lives the same troubles and trials that I’m experiencing, but brother and sister. We have total faith and confidence that when God sends out his angels to work in our lives, they are bringing the right circumstances to save us and and and to accomplish bigger things beyond us in all of this. And we learn to trust them like Joseph must have in being sold off to slavery or like Jesus did. I mean, imagine if Jesus had said to God in the prayer in the garden.

55. 21:16

    Not just is there any other way, but I I shouldn’t have to go through this. I didn’t commit any sins. How can it be just and righteous that you require me to die on a cross and go through all of this? How can that be within the righteousness of God? Jesus never said that, but Job did, didn’t he?

56. 21:35

    See, Job got pushed into that corner. Jesus realized from Job’s experiences. Oh no, I’m not going to focus on me. It’s not just about me. It’s about the others that God has come to save. That’s all a part of it as well, and he understood that. And and for those of you that are listening online, I think it’s good to realize today we’ve been challenged by COVID. Some people just stay home now and they think, well, this is great, I can stay, stay home and watch online and I can get my spiritual life together.

57. 22:04

    I just, I don’t need to hardly get dressed. I’ll wear my pajamas and I can have my lunch sitting there while I’m watching. And we do all this for ourselves. But think about it. What are you doing to help anybody else in the community here today? I mean, that’s what fellowship is all about, isn’t it? It’s about God’s program is about turning us into angels and angels, they are ministering spirits that are set forth to serve others.

58. 22:31

    It’s all about service. So God’s morality. When he when he says don’t steal, it’s like you accept your situation in life and you accept what God has given you. You don’t look out there as covetous as people do today. And they want stuff, so they take it. Or there’s no other gods before him, because he knows if we worship other gods we will become the God that we worship.

59. 22:53

    And if all those other gods have no morality to them, the people of this life, the pagans, they loved it because they got to practice all their. Sexual immorality, as Paul was dealing with in Corinth, you become the God that you worship, is the sad thing of life. Don’t divorce or commit adultery. We we practice faithfulness.

60. 23:11

    That’s what God wants us to do. We we faithfully take care of people. He wants faithfulness to be a part of our character, as it is in His in in Exodus 34, we learn submission to one another because God’s training us to submit to Him, and we don’t. Take vengeance. We don’t take vengeance in this life like so many people do.

61. 23:32

    They think they’ve got to go out there and take their vengeance. We trust God to take care of it. He’ll bring the right circumstances into people’s lives. He’ll take care of it all. And we try to get rid of pride because God’s children all day, they all humbly acknowledge God’s hand in every aspect of their life.

62. 23:49

    And forgiveness and mercy and compassion. Those are characteristics of our God. Our. God is that way, and we have to become like him. We have to have compassion on people. When we see people struggling in life, they may have made a mistake, they’ve done something for which it it was wrong. But now that’s cost them.

63. 24:10

    We we don’t just look at them and say, well, you know, you made bad choices. You get what you deserved. You, you know you. Dug your own. Grave there. We go out there and we help them. What can we do to help? How can we get you out to this or get this, get you through this? That’s the spirit of the angels, that’s what they do and that’s what we should be doing as well.

64. 24:30

    So. God’s morality isn’t just for this life. He’s really preparing us for immortality. Look at how Paul deals with this in Colossians chapter 3 when he says if you were raised with Christ, if you really have come out of the waters of baptism and you’ve been raised to this new way of life, seek the things which are above where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. And set your mind on things that are above, not on the things on earth.

65. 24:56

    For you died and your life is hidden with Christ and God. And when Christ, who is our life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory. You see, he Paul realized it was all about the future. It’s. Not about now. We may be asked to do all kinds of things in this life by God right now, and and suffer through those things and and work.

66. 25:17

    Our way through. Them. But it’s because he’s preparing us for when Christ, who is our life, appears, then all these things will be fixed. I just think you’ll see that even as we’re. Going through Job, Job came to that conclusion as well. You look at the natural world today so often, at least here in in Australia, I think in California we can too.

67. 25:37

    You can walk outside and you can see the sunrise in the morning. You see the the the sky in. In Michigan, probably half the days were cloudy. So we sometimes saw the sun, a lot of times we didn’t, but in California we do. But when you gaze up into the sky and you see that blue sky up there, you know God was hoping that the natural things just waking up and seeing the sunrise every day would remind us about resurrection from the dead. You.

68. 26:00

    Slept all night. It was like going in the grave and and the day will come when the sun of righteousness arises with healing in his wings. And it will be a day in which all things are finally worth it and they’re made right. It’s not just this life right now that’s one of the great lessons in Ecclesiastes I think you’ll see too.

69. 26:20

    So look further on in Colossians 5 when he in Colossians chapter 3, when he says therefore he says look it, we got to put to death our members which are on the earth fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil, desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience.

70. 26:41

    You see? You see the difference in the New Testament of how this is handled. And in the Old Testament, God’s wrath was always on the nation of Israel. They’re a stiff, necked people. And in the New Testament, when people volunteered to join the community, he, Paul, can write to them and say, all right, I know you have these problems, but look, let’s get on top of this and put to death these evil things, because the wrath of God is going to come upon the sons of disobedience.

71. 27:09

    And he says in verse 7 in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them, Don’t make the mistake of of taking our community today and thinking that we are just like national Israel of the past and whom God is always angry with the community, always disappointed with the community. Call them all just stiff. Necked people that is not us, brothers and sisters. We are children of God.

72. 27:33

    We are sons of light and and don’t get so discouraged and don’t discourage the young people. And end up saying it all, Everything’s going downhill. God is changing us day by day, you know, incident by incident into his sons and daughter. And so he put on that new man. That’s what he’s really after. So what God did is he carefully designed a way in our natural life where he could teach us some of these principles about his character.

73. 28:01

    He put us into families. And you didn’t really get a choice, did you, about, you know, you look at the people that are here today. Did you choose your parents? No, you don’t get to choose your parents, right? You get to choose your spouse, maybe, but not your parents. So aren’t you glad you didn’t live under those days when you know I still watch some of the Muslim community?

74. 28:19

    They pick out their spouses for them. There’s other areas of the world that do that, but you you get to choose that. But there’s a lot of times where you just have to accept what God has given us. We’re born into a family. You look at the parents around here. Did all of you choose your children? No.

75. 28:36

    See, you didn’t. Did you? You ever had that feeling where you looked? Around and said, wow, I wish my kids could be like those kids, Look at them, sit there at the table they’re using. You know, they they’re not yelling at each other. They’re not jumping out of their chairs. They actually sit. Down for a meal.

76. 28:52

    I had a son who just like, couldn’t sit down. He’d stand at the edge of the table and eat there, moving around all the time. He was just like, so active. But you know, we can do those kind of things, but. It’s all within God’s God’s operation. These are all in God’s control. He’s given us parents, you can be assured. He’s given us the children that are right. For you and and for children.

77. 29:15

    He’s giving you parents that are right for you. Everyone gets challenged, we all do, But God is using that to fine tune us so that he can train us for his family. I still remember as as as a teacher, a school teacher in in at least in the United States. I’m sure here in Australia you get the same thing and more and more as time went on they pressured us to like, get to know all of our students individually, find out what their learning style is and then make. Sure.

78. 29:41

    When you get to class for those thirty kids that you teach each one of them in the learning style that they need, and we’d look at them like, wow, is this ever a theoretical. Class it’s like. Who’s who in the world’s ever going to be able to do that? I had 150 kids and it’s like maybe by the end of the year I might at least know what they need, but I I can’t. Teach each one by their individual needs. But you realized what in God’s family, when he sends angels out to work in your life, you are getting individualized, custom made experiences to train you for his family. And so they’re going to be different from somebody else. You don’t get the same experiences that I did. I don’t get the same ones that you did. God brings all the challenges with with our children and parents and ecclesias and all the ecclesial members. They’re all custom designed by angels. And we are, we can be.

79. 30:35

    Assured, he’s in control, and he promises that if we cooperate with the program, we will win the race. You will get the prize at the end, but if you fight it. You say that’s not fair. I shouldn’t have to go through this if if that’s our approach, you may not make it. You’ve got to keep that faith with us until the end, all the way through. Look at how God he, you know, when he made our families, he, he could have used communes if he wanted to, could have used polygamy, Not although you see polygamy in the Bible. It really was never the divine ideal. And you see that.

80. 31:11

    Like, look at with Jacob with his four wives. I mean, if you think any of you guys think that’s the way you want to go, read Jacob’s life story again and see how well that worked for him. I think he probably had the most dysfunctional family in the Bible. It’s like, so don’t don’t think that’s going to somehow solve all your problems. You just get more wives.

81. 31:31

    It doesn’t work. Look at Solomon and look at what it did to him. But you look at how in Genesis 2 and verse 18 the Angel said that it is not good for man to be alone. Well we looked at Genesis 18 where they said those 3 angels said we’ve known Abraham. We have intimately known him as our friend, that he might command his children that that’s what that’s how the relationship that they had with him. Or in Ephesians step chapter three, that when he talks about the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. The whole family is named that way, and but God put us in families so that we could learn these family principles that are so essential to become part of his family. Don’t resist them.

82. 32:17

    Learn to cooperate with them. Learn to work with God and with the angels that are bringing these things into your life. In the lives of others, this is how you can be effective counselors to people who are going through problems. Not like Job’s three friends. Oh no. When we’ve talked to people today, we try to explain to them that there there are reasons for these things.

83. 32:37

    God is working with you like he worked with Joseph. And it may be for the sake of other people, God is working with us. As Elijah will later on say. He says, look at God uses suffering as a preventive maintenance program. He doesn’t wait until we go off down the pathway and then try to bring us back.

84. 32:54

    He sometimes uses suffering to make sure we don’t go down the pathway in the first place. That’s what God does with us. It’s it’s a different way of looking at life, but it’s all designed by God. So marriage was a big part of that. Look at how many of you here, here today are, are married. And when you get married, you know, all of a sudden you have to merge characters and cultures together. And it’s not an easy thing.

85. 33:17

    But we learn how to submit to one another, as Peter would say, when when we marry and what God has joined together, we we don’t want to separate. We don’t fight it and just say, well, this one didn’t work. I picked the wrong person. That that isn’t the kind of life we want to have.

86. 33:31

    And for young people, I I do think that’s one of the problems with picking our spouses today is that you go out and you pick a spouse and then later on in life you look at your wife and your your husband and you think, well, maybe I picked the wrong. 1. Do you believe God’s working in your life? You pray about it.

87. 33:47

    You pray that God will bring the right person to you trust them for the rest of your life. He he is working in this we we don’t just walk away from it. We work through it and and others help us work through that. Or you look in Malachi chapter 2 when Malachi says what when when the angels were making Adam and Eve, when they were creating Eve for Adam and and did he not make one?

88. 34:11

    1. Yet he had the residue of the Spirit. And. And why one, You know, see, see the argument there? It’s like when the angels made Eve, couldn’t they have made two Eves for Adam? They could have, but they made three. Could have made ten. What do you think? The angels. Were out of. Spirit like they ran out of juice and the batteries were dead and and that’s why no, they made one and and why did they only make one?

89. 34:36

    Because he’s seeking godly. Offspring and God realized the best way to raise children and the. Truth. Is to have a mom and a dad working together, illustrating the principles of God’s character and raising those children. It’s another one of those things you can see with with Joseph’s family that when you have more than one wife, look at the the, the envy and the jealousy and all the confusion that that caused, it’s not really a great way to raise godly offspring.

90. 35:06

    So take heed to your spirit. And none of you deal treacherously against the wife of your youth as they were at that time. So God is the one designed this way, a man and a wife to illustrate to the children. Our goal as parents is that we have to learn God’s character so that we can treat our children the way God treats us, so that as our children grow up through the teen years, they’ll realize that all they got to do is transfer that relationship they have with us as mom and dad to the Heavenly Father.

91. 35:39

    It’s just a simple transfer of relationship, but they don’t have to learn some something about, oh wow, now I have this God that that loves me and he and he treats me mercifully and Mom and Dad didn’t. I mean, that’s not easy to adjust to. A lot of times when when we treat our kids judge mentally and we’re always punishing them and we use those words, you’re going to be punished.

92. 36:00

    And and our children grew up thinking, well, that’s what God will do to me. I think that’s what Job’s friends thought. They thought they were going to get punished by God, and they used that word punished a lot. Did you realize? Think for yourself, run your, your, your mind through the New Testament passages?

93. 36:15

    Where in the New Testament does it ever say that God is punishing us? Have you ever noticed that or does it say in the New Testament that, that God punishes us? It does, all over the place in the Old Testament with Israel, because they were national, they were a nation and he punished the nation. But when he punished the nation, was he punishing Caleb and and Joshua when he punished the nation? No, he was punishing the nation.

94. 36:42

    They were a stiff, necked nation. But in the New Testament, you’ll find the word punished does show. Up in our Bibles. A few times. But who is it he’s punishing? The wicked. When the Lord Jesus Christ returns in First Thessalonians one, he will be inflicting vengeance on those who know not God, who disobey the the, the Word of God. Don’t Those are the wicked.

95. 37:04

    He’s not. Coming back to punish us? That isn’t the God who we worship. And don’t raise our children that way. Don’t. Don’t talk about punishing your children. What the Bible uses is training, instruction, discipline. They’re positive things. They’re they’re working towards a better goal. Punishment is like, you’re going to get what you deserve.

96. 37:25

    You did this. You’re going to get it. But we know God doesn’t punish us according what our sins deserve. That isn’t how he treats us. And so we shouldn’t be treating our our children that way and arranging brotherhood and ecclesial members that vote. We shouldn’t be treating our membership that way either. When young people make mistakes or somebody commits adultery and they’re sorry and they come back to us, we should be treating them like God treated David. We can forgive them.

97. 37:54

    We can treat them in a in a whole different way of thinking that I have to bring the punishment on them for what they’ve done wrong, that that isn’t what we find in our scriptures. Sure, we might, we might protect people against consequences if somebody is an an abuser of children or something like that. There might be restrictions put out there, but we have to have the spirit of our God, the spirit of Jesus, of forgiving people and moving on.

98. 38:19

    And if we don’t do that with our children? Our children will grow up and never understand God without a lot of Bible reading on their own. It’s just one of those areas we really have to work on. So we need to, as parents and grandparents, We have to give our children good Bible counsel. We have to.

99. 38:38

    Understand our God like that’s, you know, Job’s three friends. That’s what they’re going through. They’re learning about God. And so is Job through this whole process. I really believe when he says at the end that, you know, I I heard about you. Oh yeah, I read my Bible and all those things. I listened to classes, but now my eye sees you.

100. 38:56

     He came to understand how God works. We wanted to do that for our kids. And so that they’ll understand our God and that we’ll treat people the right way. That’s what we’re really after. So yeah, we do give counsel that yes, our marriages should be in the Lord, as it says there in the RSV in in 2nd Corinthians 6.

101. 39:14

     Do not be mis mated with unbelievers, because what partnership has righteousness with iniquity and so on. You know we. Want to be different. We want to get marriages that both partners are working for the same goal. They’re raising their children to be godly children. And then God will be a father to us, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. That’s what we want to do.

102. 39:37

     That’s the kind of council because we want to be raising godly children. That is the goal. That was the goal in Malachi. That’s why he only made one. So yes, somebody needs to be home instructing our children. Our focus and our family should be on when we make decisions. When you when young people when you get married and you’re.

103. 39:56

     Trying to decide where are you going to live? What kind of job are you going to take on? It’s. All. Within the framework of not just oh, I’m going to go out and do what I want to do. It’s within the framework of what can I do to where if God gives us children, they can grow up with other children and we can be near an Ecclesia, near an active ecclesia with young people in Sunday school and CYCS and things that that help our children become godly children.

104. 40:20

     It’s not just I’m going to go out and move and go somewhere and just follow my job. It it it’s a challenge and we may have to make some tough decisions but keep the focus, right. It’s on raising godly children and what we do with our children. You’re going to find out as parents.

105. 40:35

     It’s so similar to what angels do with us now. It’s I think it’s really unbelievable to watch angels in the Bible and and watch how they how they do things. And I now read Genesis like totally different because you know, when it came time for all the earth becoming bad in Genesis chapter 6, I I think, you know, they they probably decided to to bring the flood, destroy everybody.

106. 40:56

     And then they realized when it was all over that, you know, we’re never going to do that again next time around when when things got bad, they tried changing languages. Well, that didn’t work so great either. And then they finally decided in Genesis 12, why don’t we just take one minute, we’ll pick Abraham, we’ll work with him and and God gives them some flexibility to try different things to see what works. And I I think you’ll see that when in terms of like watching how angels operate, I know my tendency when I was younger to read all these things.

107. 41:24

     He just said God did this, God did that. But look, look at God already knew what was. Going to happen when he did the flood. He knew about the languages. He knew about picking Abraham. He knew all those things. But the angels didn’t. These these are things that they long to look into.

108. 41:39

     They’re learning as they go along, and isn’t that fun to realize that that’s part of what we will be doing in the Kingdom Age. God willing, when you are made equal to the angels, you’ll be working with the mortals and you’ll be learning. You’ll be talking to one another. What can we do?

109. 41:53

     How do you think we can solve this, you know? One Angel says. Look, I’m working with Jim, and he just doesn’t see this idea. I’m trying to get him to see it, but he still can’t figure it out. You got any good ideas? You got any good ideas of how I can bring circumstances into his life that he’ll finally get it?

110. 42:07

     And I I. Really. Do believe that is what angels are doing right now. Today they’re trying to figure out how do we train these these mortal people to to to get the character of God to understand God. What can we bring into their life to challenge them. And this is our practice time brothers and sisters. This is when we practice, we practice righteousness today and and the way that we treat each other and we learn to work. So you look at examples of this in the scriptures. Look at how this worked out.

111. 42:36

     Zechariah chapter three, you remember these stories. So he showed him in verse one. He showed him Joshua the high priest. He’s standing there before the Angel of the Lord who we find out in June 9 is actually Michael and Satan who is probably the Samaritan standing at his right hand to oppose him and the Lord.

112. 42:53

     So this is the Angel now who’s standing there because it told it was the Angel of the Lord, And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is this not a brand plucked from the fire? All right, so this is all about standing there. And he sees his vision of the Angel of of God standing there. And this is what the Angel says.

113. 43:13

     Now that story comes up in the New Testament. And what, what I’m just fascinated by what Jude does with this. When this comes up in the New Testament, Jude brings up this incident to show us how archangels behave. This is the Archangel. This is not just some Angel. He is the Archangel. He’s the top one up there. He’s the one who has all the power and all the authority. He could do it, you know, God has empowered him already to do things.

114. 43:41

     Like when when the Angel told Moses, You ever watch this guy, he’s going before you, this Angel, and my name is in him and he will not, you know, hold you let you go when you when you sin, he will hold you accountable. You know this Angel is powerful. Well, when when Jude looks at this in Jude five, he talks about how afterwards, you know, God destroyed those that did not believe.

115. 44:03

     And he talks about Korah’s rebellion in verse 6, the angels, the messengers with Korah who did not keep their proper domain, and so on. And he reminds us that these angels, they were supposed to learn something from them. So when you get to verse eight, he says, Likewise these dreamers in a collegial life today, these people that are causing all this trouble, look at these guys over here of Jude’s day.

116. 44:26

     They defile flesh, reject authority, speak evil of dignitaries, look at how they behave. These ecclesial members who yell and. Scream. And just act like they’re they’re top notch dogs and they they they mistreat people. And he says in verse 9. But look at yet Michael the Archangel in contending with the devil when he disputed about the body of Moses. This is Zechariah 3 all right in contending with the devil, he. And shooting about the body of Moses dared not bring against him a reviling accusation.

117. 44:58

     Do you find that fascinating? I I just was dumbfounded when I realized that Jude is using the. Behavior of an Archangel to exhort all of us about how we behave. That’s what finally opened the door to me to realize I got to be more careful about reading about angels. They’re there to teach us how God’s family members behave.

118. 45:19

     They don’t yell and scream at each other. They don’t. They don’t do things like you might see in some business meetings and arranging meetings and all this, and husbands and wives having arguments and disputing that’s not how they behave and they have a lot more power and authority than we do. But instead, what did the Angel do? He didn’t bring a reviling accusation. He just said the Lord rebuke.

119. 45:40

     You let God take care of it, That’s what he did, and they’ll but these people, they spoke evil of what they do not know. And so on. Have you ever thought about the angels being an example to you in this life of how to behave? Be more careful in the readings when you watch angels interacting with Gideon and with all these different Bible characters. Watch.

120. 45:59

     How they behave. And try to mimic their behavior. Do you remember the angels with Lot? Remember what they did with Lot when they brought Lot out of Sodom and Gomorrah? They were so patient. You know when you look back in Genesis 19, they came to Sodom, the two angels, the other one’s still over there with Abraham.

121. 46:15

     And they they they come to there and they’re they say look a lot we’re going to stay out there. We want to stay out in the city. We’re we’re here to find out how bad things really are And lots insisting with them. You know come in the house, come in the house, come in the house. They don’t just say it a lot in the end. Well, look, you know I’m not going to come in the house. We’re angels.

122. 46:31

     You know we we can do what we want that that isn’t what they do. They say it a lot. OK. He strongly insisted in verse 3. So they turned into him. They accommodated lot in this case. And he said they say to him, look, have you anyone else here in verse 12, sons in law saw your sons, daughters, whoever you have in the city.

123. 46:49

     Let’s get them out of here. Go collect them. The angels waited all night for a lot to go find whoever he could to get out of that city. They are so patient. Brethren and sisters, they don’t just. Rush people through it. They waited all night. And then when it came time to go in the morning in verse 15, the angels, they urged lot to hurry saying get your wife, your daughters, you got to get out of here so that you don’t get consumed into punishment and. While he lingered, just picture this. Two angels grabbed Lot and his wife and his two daughters. They grabbed them by the hand and they literally walked them out of the city.

124. 47:27

     That’s the kind of compassion that God’s family members have for for brothers and sisters that are struggling. They walked them by the hand. They didn’t just yell at them and say, I told you, get out of here, hurry up and get going and all that. That’s how they behave and we that’s the way you got to behave with our kids.

125. 47:45

     We have to treat everybody this way, brothers and sisters. And so they say, look, escape your life and get out of there and and so they get going. Did you? Ever notice in verse 18 that Lot said to them, Please know my Lords, indeed, that your servants found favor in your sight. That word for Lords in in our Bible is this lowercase. But if you get online sometime and and research the 137 or 136 places that the Sulfurum changed the Hebrew text and they wrote notes in the margin because they couldn’t understand how Yahweh could be used there about these two angels when Yahweh was still back there with with Abraham standing before Yahweh. It’s one of the greatest.

126. 48:21

     Examples is how when you have the Yahweh name, it’s not just one Angel. It’s not one Angel like some of our brethren think. There are multiple angels who are called Yahweh. And this is one of the clearest cases of it that even the Jews couldn’t understand. That’s actually the Yahweh name. So I’ll just leave you with that one because it’s it’s sort of fun to watch that when he says please let me escape there, look at how the angels accommodated him. And they say, look, I favored you in this, I won’t overthrow. And they waited until he got to Zoar. Brother and sisters.

127. 48:53

     We’ve got to be more patient and compassionate with one another. We’ve got to learn to behave like angels because they’ve left us an example of how to treat one another in ecclesial and family life. Thanks.