Anna

I'd like to read three verses in the second chapter of Luke's Gospel, verses 36, 37, and 38. Luke chapter 2, verse 36. And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher.

She was of a great age and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity. And she was a widow of about four score and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord and spake of him to all them that look for redemption in Jerusalem or Israel.

Now these three verses, beloved, are indeed, I believe, very precious. And I believe if we just consider the life of Anna and these words about Anna, we may learn about Anna, but we wouldn't get very much for our own souls. But I believe that there are at least probably eleven things in these three verses we can consider tonight and meditate on and learn something of God's truth for you and for me in these days.

So with God's help, let us consider together these three verses. Notice first of all, there was one Anna. There was one.

Isn't that lovely? There was one Anna. O beloved Christians, are you and I, Annas, are we like this woman? There was one Anna. Isn't that nice that God tells us there was one Anna? The Lord Jesus had just been born a few days before this, and here was a woman among a very small group, I suppose, of those who were waiting for the Messiah to come.

And there was this one woman. Now I understand that her name means gracious. Well, I like that, isn't it? Gracious.

You know, we might ask ourselves, dear Christians, are you and I gracious? I think of those wonderful words in the fourth chapter of Luke's gospel, and they all wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. The Lord is gracious, and as Christians, as the children of God, as members of the body of Christ, you and I should be, in our walk and ways, gracious. O beloved Christians, are we gracious? There are some, sad to say, who like to pride themselves in the fact that they're rough and tough, and nothing gets by them, and they just don't miss a thing.

But I like to think, beloved friends and brethren, that we should be gracious. As we go through this cold and godly, Christ-rejecting world, as believers in God's beloved Son, you and I should be, with our brethren, with our families, with our neighbors, we should be gracious. Well, then, I learned something else here about Anna, that says she was the daughter of Phanuel.

And I understand that means, turn your face to God. Isn't that nice for you and me today? Turn your face to God. Young people, if ever we needed this, we need it tonight, right now, today.

When everything in the world is attracting us away from God, we need this exhortation. Phanuel, turn your face to God. We don't have to learn about the corruptions in the world.

We haven't got to study what dope does to the body. We haven't got to study what liquor does to a man's stomach or his liver. We don't have to learn all those things.

It's the truth of God that sets us free, not learning of evil, not learning of evil systems, not learning about cults around us and their false teachings, no, beloved. God would have us learn the truth, and thus avoid the pitfalls of evil, because it's the truth of God that sets us free. Jesus said, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

So we say, dear young people tonight, learn the truth of God, read your Bible, find God's mind in His word concerning you, and never mind the false cults, and never mind these demon-led spirits that would turn you aside from the word of God, but rather learn about Christ, learn about Christ. In 2 Kings 4, when there were these wild gourds, they were shred in the pot, where did they turn to in their difficulty? They turned to the man of God. Now is there a man of God tonight? We know there is a man in the glory, and that's the man we can turn to tonight.

And the remedy for the death in the pot was this, then bring meal, that is to say, then bring Christ, then bring Christ. And I believe, dear young Christians, and we who are older, that God has one answer for His people tonight in this world, and that answer for every problem in your life and my life is Christ. Christ is God's answer, God's one answer, and God's only answer for you and me tonight in this Christ-rejecting world, growing darker and darker all the time, is Christ.

Because Christ will make us happy, Christ will fill our hearts with praise, Christ will give us joy and confidence. Oh, we're taught in the world to have self-confidence, but God doesn't teach us that. He teaches us to turn our face to Himself, to have our confidence only in God.

Oh, dear young Christians, we feel tonight for you, I feel in my heart for you tonight, because we seek by the grace of God to love the young people. We know that people run down the young people, sad to say, some Christians are always picking on the young people. Tonight I would like to say to you, young Christians, make everything of Christ.

I like that verse from Mr. Darby's translation in Colossians 3, verse 11. Christ is everything, and you and I are nothing, but we have Christ, and all our blessings are found in Christ. Everything we possess for time and eternity is found in the Lord Jesus, that glorious person.

And so we have the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. Isn't that nice, the tribe of Asher? Now, I understand that Asher means happy. I looked up my Bible dictionary at home and enjoyed meditating on these three verses.

It means happy. Now I want to ask you something. Are there happy people around us tonight? Are there happy people? How can people be happy? How can they really be happy? Now I mean, when I say happy, I mean real happiness.

I mean a happiness that the world knows nothing about. How can a man, for instance, without Christ, buy the paper and read it, and after he gets finished reading it say, oh, I'm so happy. When he finds the whole newspaper filled with gloom and misery and death and corruption and sin and everything else, how can a man be happy when he sees the world going down quickly and he finds in the United States and Canada, our great leaders losing control of the people.

How can you be happy in this world? Well, there's one answer, and that is Christ. Christ can make us happy. The Christian life is the happy life, and the Christian life is the winning life.

I remember when I was a young man, we used to play hockey and other games. We always liked to win. We always liked to win.

But we didn't always win. Sometimes we lost. But dear young Christians, listen to this.

If you are a child of God tonight, you are on the winning side. How nice. Oh, you say, how do you mean, the winning side? The whole world is turning against God.

There's very, very few Christians, you say, in our town. They're hard to find. But nevertheless, we're on the winning side.

God is going to have the last word. Never forget that. God is on the throne tonight.

Don't let the devil fool you that he's taken over because he hasn't. God is on the throne tonight. Not the devil, God is on the throne.

How nice. And so we can be happy, can't we? Well, we often say the Christian is happy if he lives. The Christian is happier if he goes to be with the Lord, for the Christian is happiest when the Lord comes and we're all taken up to meet him in the air and enter into the Father's house.

So no matter what happens, the Christian is on the winning side. And God says that we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. And so, dear young Christians, while you see everything in the world, you see going to pieces and corruption and sin all around us increasing, listen, look up.

Look up. Don't look down, but look up. Abraham lifted up his eyes to heaven.

Isn't that nice? And the Lord Jesus, when he was here, he lifted up his eyes to heaven. Oh, there was nothing in this world. So the Lord lifted up his eyes to heaven.

Isn't that nice? And when Stephen was about to be martyred, what did he do? He didn't look around to those who were picking up the stones. He looked up to heaven. What did he say? I see the heavens opened.

Oh, he was going to lose the earth, but he saw the heavens opening and he saw something else besides that. He saw Jesus at the right hand of God. And so he died.

He died happy. He could say, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. He died a happy man.

Isn't it nice to see a happy Christian, to see a bubbling Christian, to see a Christian that's just overflowing, a happy Christian? Oh, dear Christians, let us be happy. May the world at least be able to see as they meet you and me, that we have something in this poor, sad world to make us happy. Yesterday, our beloved brother took me to the prison or the county jail over here, and I saw a poor man whose heart is broken.

He killed another man, and he said several times to us, why did I do it? Why did I do it? I sent a man to hell. Just imagine. I sent a man to hell.

Well, we told him that God is on the throne, that God is able to turn what happened to his blessing, to bring him to Christ, to get him to see that Christ is everything, and he can take even that terrible sorrow that now faces this man in the long prison term awaiting him. He can fill his heart with joy and peace and can make him happy. Why the world says that's unreasonable to talk like that, but when you know Christ, it's not.

Because the Lord Jesus can take that dark cloud, and he can shine through it with his love and his grace and his kindness, and we can always remember, Christians, that we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. Then we find something else. She was of a great age and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity, and she was a widow of about fourscore and four years.

Now I believe we learn something about the widow, and I believe we learn this. We learn dependence. If a woman loses her husband, what does she do? She has to depend on somebody.

She's lost the one who supported her. Where can she lean? Well, if a Christian, she has the Lord to lean on, the Lord to depend on, because the Lord is always the same, so she learns dependence. The widow learns what dependence is.

Isn't that beautiful? And so as Christians today, you and I learn what dependence is. And I would like to say here to the young brothers who preach the gospel, you can lean on the Lord. The Lord will never let you down.

I always like to think, when I'm asked to preach the gospel, of the last verses of Mark 16, the end of Mark's book of gospel, where it says, the Lord was working with them. Isn't that wonderful? The Lord was working with them. Well, that's a wonderful joy to any Christian, to think that as he stands up to preach, right beside them, the Lord is there.

The Lord is working with them. And who are we but imperfect servants? And at the very best, as a brother told us the other night, we are unprofitable servants. But the perfect servant is working with us.

Whether you girls or young Christians teach Sunday school, whether you men, young men teach Sunday school, never say, but I'm not qualified, you know, I really can't do that. Oh, you can lean on the Lord, and the Lord will help you. The Lord will give you your message, and the Lord will never fail you, because we can depend, we can lean on that mighty one.

And as you know, somebody once said, during a great thunderstorm, as he sought shelter at this rock, he said these words, I trembled, but the rock didn't tremble. Isn't that nice? And, beloved Christians, no matter how much we may tremble, let us remember the rock never trembles. And the Lord Jesus is the rock of ages, and while we may well tremble today, as we pass through this dark world, unfriendly to Christ, thank God the rock never trembles.

Then we find something else about Anna, verse 37, and she was a widow of fourscore and four years, and we learn this, which departed not from the temple. Wasn't that nice? Now, the temple was God's center at that day in Jerusalem. That was the place where the Lord had said his name.

There was the temple. Let us suppose there were some men there, very clever men, and they built another temple half a mile down the road, and another little group built a third temple down the road, and a little bit further there was a fourth temple built. Which temple would God own? He'd own the original temple.

He'd own the first temple. Not man's copies, not man's duplicates, but he would own the original temple. And that's where Anna stayed.

She departed not from the temple. And I'd like to encourage you young Christians tonight, we believe by the grace of God, and we can't emphasize that enough, the grace of God, nothing to do with us, but by the grace of God, that we are gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, not because, as our dear brother Eric Smith told his sister in Montreal, he said, you know, every time I talk about these things, they say, do you think that you are the only ones? And he said, sister, let us forget you and us.

Let us forget you and us. We have nothing to do with it. He said, it's God's ground of gathering, not ours, it's his.

And he said these words, I'll never forget them. He said, if every one of us who profess to be gathered to the Lord's name in the world today all withdrew at once, and there wasn't one left, what would God do? He said, he would, by the Holy Spirit, gather others to the name of the Lord Jesus, because it is his ground. Well, I like that, it was his ground.

And here it was, his temple, though I know that Israel was failing and the Lord had left the temple, we know, nevertheless, there was, I believe, up to the very end, this little testimony here, this temple, and there it was that Anna stayed, even though it was broken down in all its failure, and I believe by faith said, it's God's, it's God's. And though, dear brethren, we have failed, and this we must confess, we have failed as a testimony. And we sometimes meet Christians who are not gathered to the Lord's name, but they seem to have a real happiness and a real joy.

You know, I have often thought of this, why are they so happy? Well, they haven't got the exercise of soul that you and I have, who have learned the truth of the epistles and the doctrine of the Apostle Paul. They have Christ, they have salvation, they have the forgiveness of sins, and they know they're going to heaven, and so they're happy. But because you and I have been brought into a place where I believe the Spirit of God has unfolded to us the truth of God, and we have not walked in it, then we are unhappy, are we not, many times because of our foolish ways and our failures, and because the Spirit of God would lead us to judge ourselves and to return to that first love.

You know, I'm sure that we all can look back over those early days when first we came to know the Lord. Do you remember those days when you first came to know the Lord? How happy you were, how happy I was. Brethren, I don't say this to boast, God forbid, but I can remember when I was only a young Christian, I didn't know anything about the Bible at all, but I knew the Lord Jesus, and by the grace of God I loved him, and by the grace of God I longed to see him.

I longed to see his face, and many, many nights I knelt down in true earnestness before God. I said, even so, come, Lord Jesus, and I meant it with all my heart, by the grace of God. Those were happy days, weren't they? When Christ was everything, and we saw the world falling away from us, but sad to say, beloved, and I speak especially to you young Christians, the world has got nothing for you, absolutely nothing.

It promises nothing, and it keeps its promise. The world only has six feet of ground for you if the Lord doesn't come, and you pass through death. The world can never satisfy a born-again Christian, and when you meet a Christian that's away from the Lord, and he says or she says, well, I'm away from the Lord, but I'm happy, you know they're telling a lie, they're telling a lie.

Because once you receive Christ, then you're really spoiled for this world. And we pray God, we pray God that if we forget him, if we get cold in our souls, that he will take away our happiness until we return to that blessed one whose priceless love led them to the cross of Calvary, and whose matchless grace has won our hearts. And so we find this dear woman here, she stayed right in the temple.

Young Christians, you may say, well, you know, I was talking to a young believer one day, and he told me this, and he's gathered to the Lord's name, by the way. He said, you know, I do a little bit of wandering around, he said, and he said, when I come back to the meeting, I don't know, I don't feel the same, he said, I don't seem to sing with any pep, and he said, you know, the singing is dull, and he said, the preaching is kind of dull, and he said, I don't know, I find that when I go other places, I find they're happier. Well, we were able to tell this young Christian, the Lord is in the midst, what is it that brings us to the prayer meeting? What is it that brings us to the Bible reading? What is it that brings us here on Lord's Day morning? Is it because it's on Sunday morning, we go to church, so-called? No.

We go to meet the Lord, isn't that nice, the Lord is waiting for us, the Lord is in the midst, and if our eyes could be opened, and yet by faith we can see the Lord in the midst. Oh, dear young people, have we seen the Lord? There was a preacher who stood up one night, and he gave a long, dry discourse, nothing much to say, and when he got there the next week, and he stood up to speak, there was a note on his, on the table, and it said, Sir, we would see Jesus. Well, that touched his heart, touched his conscience, and so he changed his sermon, and all he did was present Christ, and he spoke well of Christ, he lifted up Christ, and when he went back the next week, he saw another piece of paper on the table, and it said, Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.

Oh, have we seen the Lord, beloved? When we walk out of these doors on the Lord's Day morning, can we say to our other brothers and sisters, we have seen the Lord, we have been in the company of Jesus, we have seen the Lord. Oh, when I was a young Christian, I think of my beloved older brethren who really preached fearlessly these things, they were not afraid of men's laughter and men's mockings and sometimes bitter attacks by maybe young Christians on them for their faithfulness, they stood for God's truth, they stood for the truth of the Bible, and I thank God for them, I thank God for them. Oh, dear young Christians, you, if the Lord doesn't soon come, you are going to be the ones who must stay at the temple, you are the ones who must stand for God and for God's truth.

I was speaking to a clergyman in Smith Falls, and I said to him, Sir, tell me, why don't you preach the gospel? Why do you deceive the people? Why do I go to funerals and hear you men talking about everybody going to get into heaven, when the man in the casket or the woman may be the most ungodly unbeliever in the world, may have been a person who denied Christ, yet you talk them all into heaven. And I said to him, if you were to get up next Sunday morning, Sir, and face your congregation and say these words, there is one way to heaven, and that's through the Lord Jesus Christ. Through his precious blood, you would be laughed at, you would be fired out of your job, you would be scorned by your congregation, but you would have the smile of the Lord's approval on you.

Well, thank God, that young man, thirty-three years of age, in the darkness of the Anglican system, he has asked me, by the grace of God, to continue to write to him. And he said, I need your prayers, Sir. I need your prayers.

Oh, beloved young Christians, don't sell out. Don't sell God's truth. God will bless you if you stand for his truth.

God will bless you. Not the brethren's truth, but God's truth. It's not our truth, it's God's truth.

Dear young sisters and young brothers, stand for God's truth in this world, and God will bless you. You may have trials and difficulties, but the Lord will be with you in the trials and the disappointments and the discouragements and maybe even the mockings of other born-again believers. But the Lord's approval and the Lord's smile will be upon you if you stand for the truth of God.

Your older brethren haven't got many more days in this world if the Lord doesn't come. One by one, they're being removed. One by one, God is calling home the older brethren.

You young men and young sisters will be left here, being happy, gracious, turning to God, Christian, holding the truth of God and standing for God's testimony concerning his beloved Son. The incomparable Christ, God's full delight, is found in the Lord Jesus. And so may you stand, young Christian.

Don't give up. Don't sell out. Don't allow the devil to try to point out that the crowd is small.

The numbers are small. Remember what the Lord said, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Well, you know, we're liable to despise a little number of two or three, but the Lord doesn't.

He doesn't despise those two or three so weak, maybe the singing is so poor, but the person in the midst is the one to whom we go. How blessed, how wonderful to be able to say we have seen the Lord. Then it tells us something else here in this 37th verse, that she served God with fastings and prayers night and day.

Notice now, she served God with fastings, that is to say, self-denial. She denied self. Now, I find it hard to talk on that because how little I know about this subject.

But it's to deny self, self-denial, to put Christ first, self-denial, how little we know about it, dear brethren. We think of some who have gone away to be missionaries and they have no beautiful homes like us, no luxurious cars and all the pleasures and comforts of life. Oh, they've denied self for Christ.

And so we have the fastings here. And also notice the prayers, the prayers, isn't that nice to pray, oh, we need men and women of prayer. Dear young Christians, maybe you say, but I can't preach and I certainly can't teach, I have no gift to preach, I have no gift to teach.

But there's no gift really to pray, is there? You can be a praying Christian, you can be a servant of Christ, like Epaphras in Colossians 4 verse 12, and be a man of prayer. We need today men and women of prayer, men and women who will be on their knees in agony in prayer to God, never giving up, but beseeching God. Notice day and night, we're night and day, isn't that nice, night, but this is the night season.

I think it was brought up at the meeting the other day, how God always speaks of the night first. I always enjoy that, because this is the night season, it's dark, morally and spiritually. We believe that these two countries that God has so wonderfully blessed, this country and the one to the north, is in darkness, moral and spiritual blackness has come over these two nations.

But there's a day ahead, isn't it wonderful, night and day, with fastings and prayer on our knees. Oh, young Christians, may God give you to pray. Don't go to work without prayer.

Don't go to school or college without prayer. If you do, you've lost the day already. Start the day with God, kneel down to Him in prayer.

Remember the first four words of the Bible, in the beginning, God. Make time for God. You have time to eat your breakfast, time to brush your hair, time to clean your teeth, time to shave, time to wash, time to shine your shoes, but no time to read God's Word, and no time to pray.

Make time to pray. Meet God in the morning. When you get out of bed, fall on your knees and start the day with God in prayer and dependence upon Him for blessing on your young life.

And then it tells us here, in the last verse, the 38th verse, and she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise. Isn't that nice, to be a thankful Christian? Well, how many of us pray, and when the answer comes, we forget to give thanks. Well, we should be thankful Christians.

We have so much to be thankful for. Oh, beloved, when we think of our temporal blessings, that should make us thankful. When we think of our spiritual blessings, that should make us thankful.

Anna was a thankful person. Are you and I, Christians, of thanksgiving? Is there thanksgiving and praise in our lives? Are we always asking for things? But when we think of a child who always came and said, give me, give me, give me, and we kept giving and giving, and they never once said thank you, wouldn't we be surprised? They were so unthankful. And I believe the Lord teaches us in the 17th chapter of Luke, when He says, were there not ten clans, but where are the nine? Only one came back to give thanks, to give thanks.

The Lord expects us to come back and say, thank you. And so let us take this lesson in our Christian lives from this dear woman here in these verses. She gave thanks likewise, notice, unto the Lord, unto the Lord.

Oh, she knew the Lord, and she was able to give thanks unto the Lord. We know the Lord, don't we? We know Him personally. Do we give thanks unto the Lord? And notice next what it says, and I think this is very, very precious.

She spake of Him. Isn't that wonderful, beloved? Who is this Him in this verse? It's Christ. She spake of Christ.

She spake of Christ. And notice what she did, too. She spake of Him to all them that looked for redemption in Israel.

The margin says Israel. Isn't that wonderful? Anna knew all the Lord's people. She knew them all.

How unlike Elijah. He didn't know that God had 7,000 who had not bowed the knee of the veil for to kiss Him. He didn't know what a great prophet He was, a prophet of God.

But he didn't know the 7,000. But Anna knew them all. And she only had one message for them.

And that message was Christ. Oh, dear young Christians, don't allow legality to swallow you up. Let Christ be the model of your life.

Let Christ be the object of your heart. And Christ will keep you. Christ will give you the desire of your heart to follow Him, a rejected, an unpopular Savior in this world.

But Christ will give you the joy in your soul if you make Him your object. Many today are giving long talks and writing all kinds of books on what we should do and what we shouldn't do. But that's not God's answer.

God's answer is Christ. If we remember the Lord's love, as our dear brother Hale used to say, don't try to be occupied with your love for Christ. Sit down and think of His love for you.

It will make you humble that you love Him so little. It will make you happy that He loves you so much. Oh, I am convinced in my soul, beloved, that Christ is God's answer.

And we cannot make our young people make up a court of rules and regulations. I don't believe it's of God, beloved. We have the book of books here that corrects us.

The book of books that advises us. The book of books that gives us an object. And what is the object? It's Christ.

And so we often have said and enjoyed that while God is in heaven enjoying Christ, God allows you and me on earth to enjoy Christ. As the little hymn says, Heaven below, my Redeemer to know. And all these things will fall in line if we follow Christ.

Judas Iscariot sold the Lord, betrayed Him for 30 pieces of silver. We know he was not a saved man. But Peter was a saved man.

He sure was. We learned that in Luke 22, I believe, seven things that prove that Peter was a born again man. He failed.

He failed. And, beloved, what happened to him? Oh, he had a look, didn't he? He got that look that he'll never forget. That look that broke his heart.

And that look, beloved, not only that broke his heart, but that look that gave him such confidence that in the 21st chapter of John, the boat wasn't fast enough to get to shore. He just jumped into the water to get to Jesus. Why? Because he looked at Him.

And, you know, he met Him in a private meeting. And, you know, it's so reverent that God doesn't tell us one thing about it. The whole business is hidden from our eyes.

And we can only imagine what happened when the Christ of God met the beloved Peter in that private meeting. I believe there were many tears shed. And I believe that Christ was never more precious to Simon Peter than that day he met the Lord in that private interview.

And He assured him again of His eternal love to him in spite of his failure. And in public again in John 21, He restored him and said, Feed my lambs and feed my sheep. And on the day of Pentecost, Peter preached and 3,000 souls were saved.

I often think you and I would never have allowed Peter to preach on the day of Pentecost. We would have said, No, sir. Let John preach.

John has not failed. But such is the grace of the Lord. He would use that poor failing man that was brokenhearted from one look of Jesus.

That's what we need tonight, dear Christians, is that look of Jesus that will touch our hearts and touch our souls and bring us to that place where the Lord would have us on our knees before Him, knowing our nothingness, but knowing that He is everything to God. And God would share Him with you and with me. To speak of Him to all of them that look for redemption in Israel.

Are we doing that?