Glorifying God in our gathering

First Peter, please, chapter 4. I have to do this morning what the preachers have said publicly. Cut out the first part, nip the end, and just give the center. First Peter, please, chapter 4, reading at verse 16.

Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf. I came to the conference with one particular thing on my mind, and that is that the Father is glorified. If time would have permitted, and I am not embarrassing my brethren for taking too much time, because we can all say amen to what we've been hearing.

I just want to tack on just a little, if the Lord will give me a bit of help to express something that I hope that our dear young people will become very, very convinced of. We thank God for the older ones. We thank God for the middle-aged ones that have borne the heat of the day and have stood for what God has given to us.

I have been rejoicing that the assemblies in Iowa and in Wisconsin have had perfect, not perfect, enjoyable, enjoyable fellowship one with the other. When we can travel from one state to another state without any difficulties as far as fellowship is concerned, there is something that, there is something that we hear as a result of being identified where two or three are gathered together in my name. There am I in the midst of them.

There is, there is something that is rooting and undermining that rooting at that wonderful truth. I look at God's assembly and I thank God for it every day, and perhaps maybe the older I become, the more I am so engrossed in the fact that I'm not, not in any way, shape, or form sticking up my chest as you know, but we are not in the systems of men blinded, blinded by tradition. The Father was glorified as far as the city that was hid on a hill, the city that was on a hill and how it was illuminated.

The Father was glorified in the giving of fruit. Herein is my Father glorified. Marvelous to think of a Father to be glorified.

It is, they give honor to acknowledge Him for what number one, what He is. Number two, of the work that was accomplished and whether I'm talking about God the Father or whether I'm talking about God the Son, I can acknowledge and give Him that which is so essential. In 1st Peter chapter 4, the Christians are going through difficulties.

They are going through persecution. They are going through times when they are being assailed, and this persecution that has come upon them, I am wondering if there aren't some that perhaps might wonder, might have the weak knees, the downing of the the weary hands and so on as Hebrews is a chapter 12 or chapter 13 would tell us. Peter is, Peter is exhorting the suffering saints.

No need to feel shame by suffering for the person of the Lord Jesus. No need to run and hide by suffering for what Christ has done. No need to feel ashamed of me, your prisoner, as he says to Timothy that he's in bonds.

No need to feel ashamed. I want to come and and and apply this this morning to the assembly. There were some that were saved in the Hebrew epistle.

They were encouraged to go forth unto Him without the camp. They were encouraged to forget the temple sacrifices, the ritual that an obsolete Judaism system represented. They were told to forget that, and then they were told to go forth unto Him without the camp.

The camp, dear Christian, is simply very, very simple. Man-made, it is a system in today's world, a system of salvation by works. It is a pastoral, it is a system that has the clergy system in view, where one man seems to take the reign and seems to do it all, setting aside the priesthood of believers that is so precious and so beautiful.

I stand back some morning, and I, well, I guess I sit down, don't I? We sit some morning, and I just marvel, I just marvel that here's a brother here, and perhaps maybe he's got the spiritual capacity of only giving a little, maybe just a turtle dove. But here's a brother, and he has the spiritual capacity of maybe offering an oxen. And here's a brother, and he gives out a hymn.

And the all three dovetail together, and here's a brother, and he gives out something else. And here's a man, here's a brother, and he stands the rise, and he reads Psalm 22, or Psalm 69, or whatever. And I thank God that there is a company of God's people, a company that is willing to simply be identified outside the camp, bearing his reproach.

These people that were saved in the book of the Hebrews, as the writer writes to them, how can I leave Jerusalem? Jerusalem where the temple was. Jerusalem where there was worship. How can I leave that? I have relatives there.

I have connections there. I can't leave the Judaism system. There's only one way, dear brethren, that they could leave.

It all hinged on two words. And that word is in Hebrews chapter 13. Therefore, going forth without the camp unto Him.

Unto Him. My dear young people, can I ask you this morning, how much are you in love with Him? How much do you look at the assembly and say, I'd like to be a part of that. If you're not in it, dear Christian, why? I have little patience with those that are not in it, but can find fault with it.

I have, I consider, and I can listen to men who find fault with it and are trying to help it. But men who and women who are sitting on the outside trying to find fault with God's assembly and don't care to be a part of it. There is something wonderful, dear Christian, and being a part of something, being a part of us, of being a part of a local lampstand that God in His great infinite mercy has seen fit to bring us in.

To be associated with the people of God. To be able to say, take the world but give me Jesus. All its joys are but a name.

And to be able to sit down on a Sunday morning and to take the loaf and to take the bread and on a Wednesday night or whatever night it is, to simply gather unto the name of the Lord Jesus Christ without any other name attachment. No need to have something else. No need to have another name.

And because of being associated with the Lord's beloved people gathered to the Lord's name, I believe it's possible that we suffer. Going to school, you college people, high school people, perhaps maybe they're made fun of. You go to the gospel hall.

They don't even have, they don't even have a pastor. They don't even have a parking sign up front. The pastor's parking lot.

You don't have a choir. You don't have a, you don't have a, you just, you're just so plain. You're the hat people.

What do you go there for? Never tell them, dear Christian, we don't believe in an organ. Never tell them that you don't have music. We don't have music.

We have, when Ankeny started, we have a dozen organs. A lady came into a Chinese restaurant one time and was talking quite loudly over, over the other side of the, of the restaurant, introducing their pastor that he had just come to, had just come to pastor of that particular gathering. And I could tell that she was very, very proud of the fact that this new man and all of his college education and so on had come, had come to, had come to be their particular leader.

Well, if you know me well enough, I can only listen to that so long. And on the way out, I said something about, congratulated him on his pastoral work and hope that he had success and, and so on. By the way, sir, in all of your training, you probably know that there is, that there is no music as far as an organ is concerned.

But I said, isn't it wonderful that every person is that organ? Every person that can sing with the understanding and sing with the spirit. And of course that section there in 1st Corinthians chapter 14 is singing with the instrument. It is singing with, it is singing with an accompaniment.

And the accompaniment is the spirit and the understanding. That is why I told him that when Ankeny started, we had 12 organs and some were a little wider than others, but we all sat in a circle and, and we put them all together and we all sang. Being identified outside the camp bearing his reproach.

We've been hearing about the households. I want to tell you about two households. Household of George.

Household of George number one, household of George number two. Household of George number one was saved in 1925, gathered to the Lord's name in 1927. Household number two, George number two, saved in 1929, stayed where he was in the religious system.

The household of George number one, my grandpa. Three children born into that household. Three kids saved.

One married Roy Weber. Now those three kids had several children of themselves. Now those grandchildren are saved.

And now the great-grandchildren are getting saved. Household number, George number one, gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus, seeing the majority of the family brought to Christ. Can I tell you about household George number two? Why have I paused such a long time? Because there's nothing to tell.

Household number two, saved man, my first boss. Dad says we'll get you some more land and we'll get you started farming and you can use my machinery. And I said thanks dad, but no thanks.

I didn't tell him that all I saw in 18 years was work. I found a job in town. I worked for a man that was George number two.

A happy man, going to heaven, saved in meetings where George number one was saved, but decided to stay in the systems of men. And the reason why I can't tell you, friend, about their three children and their grandchildren is because the world's system of religion swallowed them up. It breaks my heart, and I mean it, it breaks my heart when I see, and I see it, and I see it sometimes too often, a young man with potential, a young man that's got everything going for him, a young man that comes from an assembly background and a home, and grandparents in the assembly, and now he takes a wife to try to raise their little children in the systems of men, trying to have a bit of spirituality.

I said to a young man several years ago, I said, will you be able to resist her advances? And he says just relax, Al, I can handle it. Can I tell you where he's at today? Can I tell you how many children he has and raising them in the systems of men, when he knows exactly, come out from among them and be separate, gathered, simply, precious, named unto the Lord Jesus Christ. Dear young people listening today, may the claims of God, may you feel the claims of God in your soul.

May you understand that two cannot walk together except they be agreed. May you understand that gathered outside the camp, where the presence of God is, where the ark of God is, where our brethren have been trying to woo and to woo us in view of safety, and gathered simply, scripturally, to the name of the Lord Jesus. It's a place of beauty.

It's a place of honor. It's a place of blessing. May God help us all to be preserved in this day in which we live.