Written for Our Learning

I'd like to read one verse first before looking at our subject, in the 15th chapter of Romans, in the 4th verse, Romans 15, verse 4. For whatsoever things were written afore time were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. I'd like to speak this afternoon in some of the families in the word of God, remembering this verse, beloved, that the things that God has given us in the past were written for our learning today. So let us turn now to the first family, the 12th chapter of Genesis.

And I'd like to come, as we go on in these verses, starting to read in verse 1 of Genesis chapter 12. Now the Lord hath said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee. Now, we know in the 7th chapter of Acts that Abraham had received a direct call from the God of glory.

For the God of glory had called this man out of his idolatry, as we find in Joshua chapter 24, and brought him out as a direct call from the Lord, or the God of glory. Now, this is exactly what's happened to us, beloved friends. I trust that everyone in the room today has heard this call from the Lord, or the God of glory.

And that you and I today are called out of this world by the God of glory, and separated, as Abraham was here in Anubis, and tells us his country, his kindred, and his father's house. The 7th of Acts tells us that he didn't obey this call until his father died. And I'd like to think in that connection, maybe you and I have been hindered from hearing this call of the God of glory by something.

Maybe somebody in our home, somebody that is dear to us, is hindering you and hindering me from obeying this call of the God of glory unto separation to himself. Now, we know that separation, as we mentioned the other night, I think it was here, I forget, is a very unpopular thing in this world, and unpopular with many of God's people. They don't like that word separation.

But you know, you can't escape from it unless you put your Bible away, because God teaches separation. God teaches us. And he teaches us very early in the Bible, the fourth verse of the first chapter of Genesis.

Only four verses are written in the word of God, and God immediately brings in separation, where he separates the light from the darkness. And that's what God's been doing ever since. And you and I who are Christians, we have been separated from the darkness around us, moral and spiritual darkness all around us.

The God of glory has separated us from that darkness. This is what God would have you and me remember. Oh, dear Christians, don't argue against separation.

It's in the Bible. And you and I don't belong to this world. Abraham was called out by the God of glory and separated, separated to the God of glory.

And you and I today who belong to Christ must always bear in mind that we do not belong to a popular Christ. And I'd like to tell the young people today that the world attempts and threatens them to make the Lord Jesus, or Jesus as they call him, a popular figure, is not the Christ of the Bible. For the Christ of the Bible is rejected by the world.

And the world has never changed its decision. They have rejected the Jesus of the word of God, the Bible. God's beloved Son is rejected.

And if we belong to Christ today, we are following a rejected, an unpopular Christ in this world. And only the grace of God, the matchless grace of God, has made that Christ precious to your heart and mine. And that's through his death and resurrection and his precious blood that has brought us into the very presence of God.

Now Abraham received the call, and God tells him he's going to make him a great nation and so on. And in the fourth verse, notice, So Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him. And Abraham was seventy-five years old when he departed out of Heron.

And Abraham took Sarah his wife and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Heron, and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan. And into the land of Canaan they came. But everything was going fine here.

In verse 7 we find that Abraham had an altar. Unto thy seed will I give this land, and there buildeth he an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. This is a wonderful truth, beloved.

And I'd like to draw your attention, especially to the young Christians. Because, you know, when we look back over our lives, we were young too once. And young people like activity and they like excitement.

And many young Christians, they like service. They have before them man's soul. I'd like to encourage everybody to speak well of Christ, to preach the gospel, to tell of the Savior's power to save poor sinners, how precious that is.

But there's something ahead of them, and that is himself, and that is worship. And dear young Christians, worship is always first. Always first.

I remember when we were working in the winter station in Montreal, a Christian came to me and he said, and he was with another meeting, but he said to me, and all the people in our meetings say that there's nobody coming to our gospel meetings. And they say the reason is that in the morning we break bread. And he said, in the evening, all the people are watching their television sets, and they just don't come to hear the gospel.

And he said, some of the brothers in our meeting have suggested that we put the break in the bread second. We put it at night. And he said, brother, I'm very unhappy about that.

And I just come to ask you what you think about that. And I said to him, listen, brother, the Lord must be first, and worship must be before service, and the result must be left in God's hands. In God's hands.

And these things creep in among us. They creep in, and dear young Christians, don't try to introduce into the assembly of God man's wisdom and man's method, instead of by going by God's word. The first thing we find here is the augur.

Then we find in the 8th verse, the tent. Notice, he pitched his tent, and he moved from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Pai in the east. And there he built it.

Here's the second augur. An augur unto the Lord, and call upon the name of the Lord. And here we have Abraham.

Mark says, this is exactly what you and I are supposed to be today. Exactly. For these things were written, not just as a history book of the life of a man in the Old Testament, but they were written for your learning and my learning.

We learn here that Abraham was not only a worshipper, but he was a pilgrim. His augur marked him out as a worshipper. His tent marked him out as a pilgrim.

Now, are we like this? Are we settling down in the world, in this great country, in this country to the north, of prosperity and money all over the place? Homes with three and four and five automobiles. Just imagine the money that's just floating around. And all these things are only dragging us down to this Christ-projecting world.

We need to be reminded that we do not belong here. And the Lord Jesus said those words twice in the seventeenth of John. He said, they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

And what person would dare to say that the Lord Jesus was part of this great world system? We know he was not. He was in complete separation from us. And you and I, as Christians, are called to follow that rejected Savior and to be worshippers and pilgrims as we pass through this world and move on to our Canaan, which is the glory above.

Now, I want you to notice what happened here. Verse 9, Abram's journey going on still towards the south. And there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was grievous in the land.

Now, this is a remarkable thing, that this famine came. I'd like to suggest that God sent this famine. This famine didn't just happen.

This famine didn't just happen by chance. God sent this famine. And there are famines that come into our souls.

We all know this. And there are famines that come into our homes. We all have experienced this.

And there are famines that come into our assemblies. But they only come when God allows them, for God is over everything. And nothing happens by chance.

Nothing happens by chance. Now, the world talks about good luck and chance and fortune. But the Christian does not use those words.

For God is over everything. And nothing happens by chance. And all things work together for good to them that love God, for He makes everything, by His matchless grace, work together for good to those who He calls.

This famine came. And when famines come into our assemblies, this is this famine that came to Abram here. It had an effect on that Abram.

And we like to draw your attention to what it did to this man. It drove him down into Egypt, a type of this world. So this is what happens.

And especially to young Christians. When famines come, allowed of God and sent of God to exercise us and to turn for our blessing if we accept it from God's hands, then something happens. And many people say, I'm going to leave the meeting.

I absolutely am going to quit. I'm not going to go back anymore. And that's exactly what the devil wants.

That's exactly what the devil wants. And if you do it, you're following the devil's idea. For God would use these famines to draw us closer to Himself.

Independence upon Himself. To lean on Him and never on ourselves. And I'm not talking about you here below.

I'm talking about myself. We all need this. Not you or not a special group or a special circumstance or anything of that nature.

But this is what happens. We've seen this in the last five years happen. In our meetings, in the United States, in Canada, in other places.

God has allowed a famine to come because of our state of soul. Because of our carelessness. Because of our worldliness.

Because we're really not sincere. We say these things, but we don't really, down in our hearts, believe them. For instance, we say the Lord has permitted.

Do we really believe it? Are we honestly convinced? Are we really and honestly convinced that the Lord is in the message? I wonder. I often wonder. Beloved friends, if we really believed that, how many more would be at our prayer meetings? How many more would be at our Bible readings? We wouldn't say, business first and God second.

We wouldn't say, let the others go. We'll stay home. We'll work at night.

We'll make more money. If we really believed that Christ was here, in the very midst, and as we walked into the room, if we had spiritual eyes, we'd see the Lord Jesus Christ himself in the midst. What would keep us home? Would the magazines and the newspapers? Would business and studies and all these things keep us home? Now, I know that's important to study.

I'm not hitting on education. My friends, if we really believed the Lord was in the midst, there wouldn't be as much family in our souls. There wouldn't be long pauses in our prayer meetings.

We come here to meet the Lord, not to meet the brothers, not to speak to the brother outside, even though fellowship is nice, but we come to meet one person, the Lord. How wonderful it is we can see him and he can say to us, I'm glad you're here. You've left and come in from outside in the world.

You've come to meet me, a person. Oh, dear young Christians, are we gathered to a person, to the Lord Jesus? Well, this man went to Egypt. Now, there was a result.

Something happened to Abraham when he got down to Egypt. I believe the same thing will happen to you and to me if God's families drive us back to the world. Notice what happens here in verse 11.

When he came to pass, he had come near to enter into Egypt, and he said unto Sarah his wife, Behold, now I know thou art a fair woman to look upon. Therefore shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife, and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Now, when Abraham tried to escape the God-sent famine, and second, when he went down to Egypt, then thirdly, he became a man of reason.

This is exactly what happens to the Christians. When they try to escape the God-sent famine, the God-loved famine, then they start to reason. Oh, dear Christian, if we only believed the word of God, how much confusion we would miss, how much sorrow we would escape if we bowed to the word of God instead of bowing to man's poor foolish reasoning.

You know what he did in the next verse, the 13th verse? Say, I pray thee, that thou art my sister, that it may be well with me, for thy sake, that my soul shall live because of thee. You see, Abraham denied his relationship with his wife. Actually, she was his half-sister, we read in the 20th chapter.

So he told half the truth. You know, if you go down to Egypt, if I go to Egypt to the world, then we will have to deny our relationship with Christ because this Egypt world will not tolerate us trying to bring Christ into the world. No, my friends, the Lord Jesus is rejected by this world.

And if we go to Egypt, then we have to go and deny our relationship with our rejected Savior because the world won't have this kind of talk. So Abraham told half the truth here. Let's turn to the 26th chapter.

Here we have another famine, verse 1. And there was a famine in the land besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham, and Isaac went unto Abimelech, king of the Philistines, unto Jerusalem. And the Lord appeared unto him and said, Go not down into Egypt, dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee for unto thee, and unto thy seed I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I swore unto Abraham my father.

And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries, and thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Because if Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws, then Isaac dwelt in Jerusalem. And the men of the place asked him of his wife, and he said, She is my sister.

For he appeared to say, She is my wife. Lest, said he, the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah, because she was fair to look upon. And here's another famine that comes in the days of Isaac.

And Isaac now attempts, this is as father did before him, he attempts to escape this famine that God allows to come into his life, into his time, into his history. And we notice that the Lord told him not to go unto the land of Egypt, not to go there. What did he say? He said, Dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of many promises to be with them.

You know, friends, isn't it better to be with the Lord in the famine than me? And here are which I believe would speak of world boarders. World boarders. Because Egypt is a world, and this place is the borderline, the world boarders.

And how many Christians are doing this very thing? How many young people are keeping bad company? And they say, well, you know, I'm getting tired of my father's house and my mother's training. I just feel this is a narrow path, as big as it is. I just feel that I want more room.

You know, it all would depend upon the devil is right with you to help you. He's ready to drag you down. And I'd like to say to you young Christians today that fellowship with this world and these ungodly men and women will only drag you down.

And you'll find that soon you will lose everything that you've enjoyed of Christ, and you'll be dragged down into the world, and before you know it, only God knows where you'll go. Only God knows how far you'll get away from him. You know, on the 24th chapter, look, that well-known chapter, the Lord measures the distance between Jerusalem and Amman.

He tells us exactly how far it is. And I believe there's a wonderful principle in that measurement that tells us this, that if we get away from the war, the Lord always measures that distance. And I'm talking about born-again Christians.

I'm not talking about people that just nominally are Christians without Christ. Because there's many Christians tonight in the world, many people who say they're Christians who are not, who don't know the Lord, they're not saved, they deny the very truth of God. And some of them, by the way, are the leaders of religion in the nation.

They deny everything that's true of God and God's Word. But I'm talking about those who know the Lord. And dear Christians, if you're a child of God and get away from the Lord, you won't be happy, neither will I. And God help us if we are.

When you see a backslider that tells you he's happy, he's telling a lie, it's not true. You can't be associated with Christ and be away from him and be happy. Oh, the sorrow, the sad faces of the people of God who get away from the Lord.

And you know, eventually, that hand of the Lord reaches out. Isn't that good? God will bring you back. The Lord will bring you back, beloved, and me too, if we really belong to him.

And he'll bring into your pathway, in the mind, if we get away from him, sorrows and circumstances that will show us the emptiness of the world without the enjoyment of Christ, because God loves his people and he wants his people to be near unto him. Near unto him. And how near are we today to walking in the truth and the word of God? How far, even in my short life, and when I came, and pardon me, personal reference, but when I came to be gathered to the Lord's name, forty years ago, by the grace of God, all what changes have taken place in the little meetings we're connected with.

How the standards been lowered and lowered and lowered, because some will not stand for God's truth. They're giving it up, beloved. You can't deny it.

They're giving it up slowly. And you and I, who are older Christians, we must stand for God's truth, regardless of what the young people say, how unpopular we become. We must stand for God's truth or lose it.

Years ago, in the so-called Methodist church, there were faithful men. Men who tried to be faithful. Men who preached the gospel.

But the young people said, we revolt. We don't want it. They said, we want to introduce into our Sunday school, a tease and other social events.

We'll introduce dancing. And the old men just bowed their heads. They didn't know what to do.

They were flabbergasted. Dancing in a place that's called a church? And this is how they reasoned, beloved. This is what the devil wants to reason.

They said, it's better to have the young people dance in our building than have them dance in the dance hall. And that was of the devil. And that was man's poor reason.

And you know, dear Christians, if Christ doesn't satisfy your heart, you'll go away and go back into this Egypt world. Now, I don't know if you're a Christian. We know that if we're Christians, we're saved by the grace of God.

One of the sheep of Christ will never perish. But you'll lose the enjoyment of your soul. Now, what happened? You'll pardon this personal reference.

What happened in those days? Well, to gain the young people's favor, they brought in dancing. And they brought in cards. And what happened? When those old men died, up rose the young people to take the place of their old fathers.

And what did they do? They brought in the modernist preachers who tickled their ears and said, there's no hell. There's no judgment. There's no damnation.

The Bible's not true. And they liked that. This is what's going to happen if we listen to the suggestions of the serpent and don't detect his kiss as the angel of light coming to deceive us and to drag us down to the world borders.

And I want to say to you young men today, especially, that we have the young men on our hearts. Break up from these ungodly young men. You don't belong there.

Break up from these ungodly young men who will drag you down and you'll lose all your happiness. And, oh, dear Christian, young man, young Christian, young lady Christian, break away from these who are living in darkness and who are dragging you down. Down you're being dragged to be the world border.

And there we find that Isaac denied his relationship with his wife like his father did, but his was a complete and a total lie. She was not his sister at all. Oh, Abraham told half the truth.

Isaac told no truth. Both of them denied the relationship with their wives. And if we go into this world and we will deny our relationship with Christ the Beloved, the Son of God, the Head of the Church, the Lord of Glory, we'll have to compromise and deny our relationship with our rejected Savior.

Oh, beloved friends, we live in very, very dangerous days. They're becoming more dangerous all the time. And we see Christians and what are they doing? They're flocking around Jesus.

They're flocking around Jesus. And I know this is very, very seldom you see the name Lord Jesus. We see in the back of cars, if you love Jesus, blow your horn.

And we see these young men like we saw one in the south. He had in the back of his car, if you love Jesus, blow your horn. And our brother got ready to blow the horn and we saw with a long beard the cigarette sticking out of his mouth.

Oh, I tell you, the devil's clever. The devil's clever. But the Jesus of the Bible is the Lord.

He's the Lord Jesus Christ. God has made that Jesus whom he crucified as the Holy Spirit through Peter, both Lord and Christ. He's the Lord and he's the Christ and he's the Son of God.

And he is rejected by this world, by Christendom, by religion. More and more we find that Christ is being rejected. All of you are Christians.

Israel was called later on to go a three-day journey into the wilderness. In complete separation from Egypt and its land and its perilous God and head, you and I are called to be three days in resurrection ground and others, the queen, will be skipped over. I want you to notice in the end of Judges a verse that tells us something that characterizes the day in which you and I are living.

Now, I think it's three times this verse or these words are found in Judges. I'm going to read the last one. Verse 25 of the last book of Judges.

In those days there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Now today, the Holy Spirit is here.

God's Holy Spirit, unseen by human eyes, he indwells each one of our bodies. Our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. Are you a Christian? Are you a believer in the Lord Jesus? And according to 1 Corinthians 6, verse 19, your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.

We find today that every man does that which is right in his own eyes. And they say, go to the church of your own choice. I say that is unscriptural.

It's not according to the word of God. You and I have got no right to choose where we go. Absolutely no right.

It's God himself who chose us. For the Lord Jesus said, you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. He's chosen us.

And he's also chosen how we, the way we should worship him, the way we should come together, and the way we should obey his word. And we have, again I say, we have no right to our own choice at all. It's all wrong.

It's unreasonable. It's all man's wisdom. It's man's false ideas.

We have to go by the word of God. Now here was a famine in Ruth chapter 1, verse 1. Now came to pass in the day when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land when a certain man, Bethlehem Jew, that went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. Now they're going to try to escape a famine.

It's interesting, this man, Rimelech in verse 2, his name means God is my king, I believe. God is my king. Here was a man who acknowledged that God was his king.

And there's many of us in this room today who are happy to acknowledge that the despised Nazarene, the despised Savior is our Lord and our Christ and our God. And we worship him. We own him as our king, not the king in the way I can have said that.

We own him as our Lord, as our sovereign, as the one who loved us and gave himself for us. We belong to Christ. But when these famines come, you see not only now was this man affected, but also his wife was affected and his two sons.

What you and I do in the assembly not only affects us, but it affects our wives, it affects our sons, it affects our daughters. And he dragged these people down where? Not to Egypt, but to Moab. Who were these Moabites? The enemies of God's people.

The enemies of God's people. And there he brought them down. And what happened to this man? It tells us, in the third verse, in Limelech, Naomi's husband died, and she was left and her two sons.

Now the Lord took this man away. The one whose name meant my God is king, now he's removed from the scene. And there, the God of glory, the God of heaven, now it moves in and he's going to show his matchless grace.

Takes away the man, leaves this woman. The woman stands for weakness. Her two sons stand, I believe, the two for testimony and the sons for hope.

Let's put them together. Weak, the woman. Two, the testimony.

And three, the sons hope. And I believe today, beloved friends, in this day of weakness, when everything is declining, when the truth has been given up all around us, that in our weakness, in the fact that we're weak, may God grant we'll know how weak we are, what a weak for testimony we are. You know, the brothers said, my dear brother from Montreal, many years ago, he said, you can put down on a piece of paper six nothings.

You can add them up and you'll get nothing. He said, that's exactly what we are. But he said, put a one in front of those six nothings and you have a million.

I'll never forget that. And he said, brothers, we're nothing, but Christ is everything. It's because we belong to Christ and we're God's people.

Let us never forget that, brothers. Let us not boast of our position. Let us not glory in the truth that God has given us, except by His grace.

Because of our failure, the most responsible people in the world today, the most responsible, because God holds us responsible according to the truth that He's given us. And the more life He gives us, the more we're responsible to walk in the light. And if you say, outside Christians do this and go here and go there, maybe they haven't got the truth you have.

For many of God's people today are deprived of God's truth through false teachers, through modernism preachers, through those who deny the Word of God, and these dear saints of God who are saved, healed, glory-bound, just like you and I are, all I say, we just tell it. By the grace of God, we're being brought up in a Christian home. Dear young man, your father and your mother and your grandfather and your grandmother were brought up and gathered to the Lord's name.

And I want to tell you, and I sincerely say this, and God knows I'm telling the truth, that that is better than having the Rockefeller fortune at your hands. You young people who've got Christian mothers and fathers, some of them in the glory now, that didn't sell out, they stood for the truth of God. And I look back to our Montreal meeting, I was a young man then, when the amalgamation question came up in 1940, and I revere the memory of those dear old brothers who did not sell out, though they were laughed at and mocked at and scorned by many of the so-called loose young people among us in those days, who were in the tent, who didn't go by the Word of God, but those old brothers stood like the rock of Gibraltar, and they were laughed at and they were mocked at, but they stood for God and His truth, and as a result of their faithfulness, today we have the truth of God.

How wonderful. All young people, do you praise God for that bringing up you have? Are you in rebellion? Do you wish to go into the world Do you wish to be where you wouldn't be bothered on the Lord's Day to get up and go to the meeting? Would you like to be in the home of an ungodly man and ungodly woman who would turn the Lord's Day into a day of sport and pleasure and picnics and car rides and joy rides, instead of having that blessing? Oh, dear young men and young women, young Christians, you can never praise God enough for that Christian upbringing that you have that has kept you, by the grace of God, in a place, I believe, by the grace of God, where the truth is taught according to the word of God. I don't say that to both, but I believe that those who are gathered in the name of the Lord Jesus have been given the truth of God.

Now, we know we've failed. That's beside the point. But God has given us the truth.

And if we sell out, if we sell out, beloved, what will happen to the truth? Well, God will keep it. God will keep his testimony. God will look after his testimony.

But you and I will lose the blessing and the reward of standing in these last days for that which is so precious to the heart of God. You know, Nehemiah, when he was challenged to come down from the wall, he said, I'm doing a great work. I'm doing a great work.

And you know what was that great work? It was to build a wall to separate Jerusalem from the outside world. To build a wall around it. And he said, it's a great work.

And you know, there's many in Christendom saying to come here and sit here an hour and 15 minutes to break bread is a waste of time. And I mean, I don't believe that, but I've heard them say it. They say far better that we preach the gospel.

But you see, we're doing a great work. And this is the building. This is the church.

The church of the living God that the Lord Jesus that I will build my church. And Christ loved that church and he gave himself for it. And you and I are part of that church, members of his body.

And the truth of God has been given to you and to me. Not to give up, not to throw it over for, but to stand for that which is so precious to the heart of Christ and to the heart of God. What is that? His truth.

His truth. How blessed. The limberlock was taken away.

What happened now to these three that were left? Well, we know that another one dropped out of the picture. Orpah dropped out. But the grace of God brought Ruth back.

Isn't it wonderful? Oh, the grace of God, beloved. The grace of God picked this girl, brought her into blessing. Where does her name appear? Her name appears in the first chapter, or at least her record appears in the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew associated with the Lord Jesus Christ.

How wonderful. And we were singing with the closing hymn about our worthless names. And as we sang that verse, how it touched our hearts, our worthless names brought into association with His glorious name, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our name is worthless. His name is worthy. God has exalted His beloved Son to the very highest place in heaven.

And so we have this family. It's the result of the grace of God bringing back to Bethlehem Naomi. And as she comes back, they say, Is this Naomi? And dear young Christians, when we get away from the Lord and the Lord brings us back, how the world has marked us.

The world more than marked Naomi. And they said, Is this Naomi? How many Christians have gone down to this Egypt world, down in the Moab, back into all kinds of things. And the grace of God brings them back.

Oh, how different they are. How different they are. Brought back by the grace of God.

And we say, Is this the brother that left? I'd like to tell a true story, our time is passing. A few years ago, two of us in Montreal attended a funeral service. And there on the platform was a young man.

I suppose he was probably 50 at that time, 48, going on to 50. He had been gathered to the Lord's name for many years. But he had given up.

He had given up. He had gone back, gone into the world systems, and there he stood. When I saw him stand there, I knew he had been a great preacher.

He was an outstanding evangelist. He was a powerful preacher. I suppose one of the best preachers that Montreal ever had in the Assembly of Montreal.

But as he stood there and preached, oh, how different it was. How different it was. And going out of that funeral chapel, the brother that was with me made this comment.

He said, do you mean to tell me that that young man was once gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? I said, yes, sir. He said, you know, when he was praying, I opened my eyes and looked up, and he was reading his prayer. Just imagine, he was reading his prayer.

Now, we know by the grace of God that's wrong. To read a prayer, the Lord looks at the heart, not the words, the heart. The words may sound good.

They may be correct English. They may be absolutely flawless in the king's language or the queen's. But it's not what the Spirit of God is.

Think of it. Think of it for a moment. So, we come to our last fountain of the many, in the word of God.

Let's look at Romans chapter 8, verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or storm? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep to the slaughter.

And the last two verses. Well, notice now there are seven things here that are mentioned that cannot separate you and me and God's people from the love of Christ. But in the last two verses there are ten things that cannot separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Can a famine separate us? If famine comes to our assembly, as they do, come to our assembly, is that going to separate us from the love of Christ? No. No, beloved. The famine, aloud of God, is sent by God to test His people, to bring them into blessing.

What will we do when the famine strikes? Will we go away? Will we go down to Egypt? Will we go down to Jerar? Will we go down to Moab? Will we try to escape God's bounds? Or will we stand in the place where the famine is, aloud of God, and allow God to feed us with Christ? Where God would feed you and me with Christ, the living bread, the bread of God. And Christ will satisfy us. As I wrote to the young man who was saved at the prison in Walla Walla, I said, dear brother, he was a child of God, saved by the grace of God in the prison.

I said, dear brother, it's better to be behind prison bars with Christ than to be free in the world without Christ. Oh, how blessed. God's families, God's families, aloud of God and sent of God, are going to affect every one of us.

An old brother who's been with the Lord for 25 years, I believe, in Montreal, he made this statement that was passed on to me. He said, before the Lord comes, our means are going to be very, very small. Many are going to leave discouraged, disheartened.

They're going to leave. The Lord's going to shift us, he said. Now, this is a prophecy of an old brother that walked with God.

An old brother who, I believe, had the mind of God. He fed on the word of God. He knew the truth.

He valued the truth. He said, our assemblies are going to be small and weak because God's going to shift us. He's going to shift us.

And he said, those who are really not in heart gathered to the Lord's name are going to leave. They will not continue. May God grant that the families that he allows to come may only draw us to the feet of Christ.

May only draw us closer to the Lord so that the devil will be defeated and God will be glorified and that that precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be exalted. Brethren, we're not gathered to the Plymouth Brothers. We're not gathered to Brethren, capital B. We're gathered to Christ.

We're gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're gathered by the grace of God, by the Holy Spirit, to himself, to the one who can keep us. This is the one who died for us, whose precious love, whose priceless love lends to the promised.

That's the one who can fill and satisfy our hearts and we can say in the words of our little hymn, Whom have we, Lord but thee, so thirst to satisfy. May God today exalt and glorify only one person, our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is worthy of any and all praise.