Watch your love

Shall we turn to Mark's gospel, chapter 13? The gospel by Mark, chapter 13, and we'll come down to verse number 28. These are the words of the Lord Jesus. Now learn a parable of the fig tree when her branch is yet tender and put it forth leaves, you know that summer is near.

So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh even at the doors. Verily, I say unto you that this generation shall not pass till all these things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

But on that day and that hour knoweth no man, know not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray, for you know not when the time is. For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey who left his house and gave authority to his servants and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.

Watch ye therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even or at midnight, or at the cock crowing, or in the morning. Lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping, and what I say unto you, I say unto all, watch. And the Lord will bless the reading of his word.

Now before I begin, I want to say this. I came to this conference with a burden. My brother's been talking about a burden.

And as I've been thinking about what I want to present to you, I feel keenly that my message is for me first of all. For how could I possibly preach to you or at you if the message doesn't affect my own soul? But I feel it keenly. I feel that I need what I'm going to give to you just as much as maybe you need it as well.

I was enjoying Psalm 139, a psalm of David. He said, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me.

And David knew that in his life, in the past, there was a wicked way in him. And he never knew what that would turn out to be. But thank God, David was a man who got restored to God.

And Psalm 51 is the bleeding of a sheep, isn't it? He felt keenly what he had done. And thank God, David went on to please God. No wonder he's a man after God's own heart.

At the beginning of that psalm, he says, Thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down sittings and my uprisings, and my thoughts afar off. Thou compassest or winneth my path.

Now God had searched David previous to this. But now David is looking back in his life, and he asks God now to search him. Now that's a courageous man, isn't it? To allow God to search him.

Well, he has a right to search every one of us. But he's asking God to search him, lest there would be a wicked way in him. For he has not finished the path yet.

His service is not over. None of us know how we're going to end. As one brother said, he prayed that God would not... that he would not end up being a wicked old man.

And we have all the capability of destroying our testimony. Now this will lead me to what I've been reading with you. And it has to do with watching.

The Lord Jesus, before his approaching death, spoke to his disciples about his coming again in power and glory. That's the second aspect of the... or the second phase of his second coming. He mentioned that because they don't know the day nor the hour when the Son of Man cometh.

Therefore, he said, thus coming suddenly he find you sleeping. So he emphasized the importance of watchfulness during his absence. In fact, in that reading with you, four times, Jesus mentions the word watch.

So it must be very important for him to remind his disciples of watching. And that is true of any age or dispensation. This may apply... does apply to another age, but it can also apply to our age today in which we're living in, the age of the day of grace.

How needful then it is to watch because the Lord Jesus is coming. We should be like the Thessalonians who waited for his Son from heaven. They were really... were watching, weren't they? Their hearts were in love with the Lord Jesus.

And so therefore, they were waiting for him to come. In Matthew chapter 25, he spoke again about watching. The ten virgins all went out to meet the bridegroom.

There was not much to differentiate them. They all had lamps. Only the five wives had oil for their lamps.

But when the cry came, behold, the bridegroom cometh, then there was a difference because the five were conscious now they were going to meet the bridegroom. How sad it was that the five wise slumbered and slept along with the five unwise. So that's why the Lord is telling us how important it is not to sleep for we are children of the day, not children of the night, of the light and not of the darkness.

But like myself and you, we tend to get lazy and complacent and lethargic. And we just coast along in our Christian life. I believe this conference has stirred our hearts, has stirred my heart.

I felt the ministry was for me as much as it was for you. There's no sense in me standing here and saying it hasn't affected me. Then what's the point of me coming? I just didn't come just to preach the word of God.

I came to get food for my soul as well. For our hearts are prone to wander, are they not? So as Paul said to the Thessalonians, these words, therefore let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch. To the Romans he said, and that knowing the time, that is now high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed.

The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness.

So therefore we can get in a state that may be very dishonoring to the Lord Jesus. And so all around us today there's so much uncertainty. There's so much unrest in the commercial and financial world.

And there's confusion and corruption in governments. Religiously there's tremendous departure, spiritual indifference, even among believers today. The promise of his coming draws nearer.

So therefore the importance then of watching for the Lord Jesus. And without question today we are experiencing rampant materialism that has anesthetized us and made us fail to realize how near the Lord Jesus is coming. And we must be about our Father's business.

I feel it, you feel it. In this materialistic world in which we're living in. Now that's why we need to be diligent watchmen.

Be on guard, to guard our hearts. Now there's a number of things we need to watch. But I'm only going to focus on one.

And the most important one of all. Watch your love. That is, watch your heart.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave, O God, I love. The man who wrote Psalm 139 knew what it meant to leave his God and get fixed on that which would bring a terrible testimony to his life and family.

But that was a man who said in Psalm 119, I love thee, O Lord, with my whole heart. Six more times in Psalm 119 he talks about the whole heart. And five more times he talks about his love for the Word of God, for the statutes, for the commandments, for the ordinances.

David knew how important it was to love the Lord with his whole heart. And to love the Word of God with his whole heart. And so it is for every one of us gathered here today.

Isn't it interesting that of the seven churches of Asia Minor, the Lord who is a searcher of hearts of these assemblies, of those assemblies, he speaks to Ephesus regarding their love, didn't he? And let me read just what he said to them to refresh our memory. Here's what he said, in combination, I know thy works, thy labor, thy patience, and thou knowest how, sorry, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil. And thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are not, and hast found them liars, and hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast labored, and hast not fainted.

But here comes the arrow, that they never least expected, because they were diligent in their labors for the Lord Jesus. But nevertheless, he said, I am somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. They never expected that to come from the lips of the Lord Jesus, the searcher of hearts.

Despite all the duty and all that they had done, which is commendable, there was one thing that was lacking. They had left their first love. It was not as it was at the first.

Now that first love means simply that, first love. For the most part, it's always translated first, that is that word, and sometimes chief. So their chief and first love had been left.

Something else had come into their life. Duty replaced devotion, and there wasn't the same worship as there used to be. They got involved in duty, and that is right in its rightful place, but there was something dreadfully lacking here.

I believe the words of the Lord Jesus in Luke 14 are basically saying the same thing. About a person's first love. If a man come after me, and he not his father and mother, wife and children, brethren, brothers and sisters, and his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

And whosoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. In other words, the Lord Jesus was saying, you must love me first and foremost above everything and anyone else. He will not take second place.

If he's not Lord of all, he will not be Lord at all. How important it is then to check and see my affection to the Lord Jesus. Has our affection left him? He's no longer the object of our affection.

Now that was not always true of the church of Ephesus, because 30 years about before that, that was not true. They loved the Lord Jesus, and here's what the apostle Paul said about them. Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus cease not to give thanks for you.

And the epistle closes with grace be with you all and the love of the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. But things changed, something come in, and their affections had shifted. They were not what they used to be.

Remember when God saved you? There wasn't anything you wouldn't do for him. There was no commandment too great that you would not obey. I remember the night that God saved me.

The things of this earth mattered nothing to me really. I remember I got rid of everything I possibly could get rid of, only the things I needed, because only one person occupied my life, and that was the Lord Jesus. But that has not always been true, because things have crept into my life, and I have to say candidly, my affections have moved more than once.

How sad, with this materialistic age. How about you today? Is there any commandment that you have not obeyed? Have you obeyed the Lord in baptism? How many years have you been saved, and you're still not baptized yet? How long have you been sitting back as a believer, and yet are not in God's assembly? You're missing out. I know a man who's been sitting back for over 40, nearly 50 years, and he's still not in God's assembly.

A lovely brother, but he's never broken bread. How sad to leave this world, outside of God's assembly, when he could have been enjoying the Lord every Lord's Day in the breaking of bread. What a privilege we had this morning to remember the Lord Jesus.

That's what draws our heart to the person of Christ, isn't it? When we remember his death, what he did for us, what he delivered us from. We'll never be in hell, but we're in the presence of God. That's all been taken care of the cross.

And now we appreciate the one who died for us and gave himself for us. That should draw our hearts to him. How often, and maybe you have too, sat in a minister meeting, and you criticized their brother, and didn't like his style, the way he preached, faulted his grammar, or other things, instead of receiving something for your own soul, and saying, well, what has that man got to say to me? What is God trying to say to my soul through that brother who's preaching the Word of God? Has it benefited me? Or will I go home and criticize him and say I'm not going to listen to him again? That just shows that we have left our affection for the Lord Jesus.

How sad, isn't it? Remember Israel, in their youth, God said, I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness. How wonderful, how it pleased God that the nation that was delivered from bondage soon turned from God to idolatry. And here's what he said at the end of that verse, My people have committed two evils, they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, the broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

They got their eyes onto idolatry and the nations ran about them. They settled for peace at any cost. But they were not prepared to fight the battles and enjoy the inheritance that God had given to them.

And slowly but surely they left the God that had delivered them. What a sad history for the nation of Israel. How sad.

How sad it has been in many believers' lives as well when their affections have turned from Christ to something or some things in their life. Indeed, a conference like this should draw our hearts back to the person of the Lord Jesus. Solomon in his early days loved the Lord, the Bible said.

But the end of his life, having loved many strange women, his life was blasted by idolatry. David recovered from his sin and perhaps Solomon recovered in some measure from his idolatry toward the end of his life. But how sad that man who at the beginning loved the Lord later began to love many strange wives who led his heart from God and he turned to idolatry.

That was a man who wrote the Song of Psalms, isn't it? Song of Songs, rather. And in chapter 3, I've enjoyed reading a little bit of that chapter. There the bride is waiting for her bridegroom to come.

He didn't show up as usual. It was night. And so she was conscious of his absence.

And so she gets out of bed and she goes into the streets, inquires of the watchman where he might be. And she found him. And when she found him, it says, she held him and took him.

Now that's a woman, the Shulamite, who really loved her lover, her beloved. But in chapter 5, that is not so. Things have changed.

Something else has come into her life. She became lethargic and careless. He comes at night.

He knocks on the door. She's in bed. She doesn't want to be aroused.

For she said, I put off my coat. Shall I put it on again? I washed my feet. Shall I wash them again? It's going to take too much time.

But that wasn't true in chapter 3. And so he reaches in by the doorknob and he places a little bit of myrrh on the doorknob. And she smells a sweet-smelling myrrh and he leaves. Finally, she arises from the bed because she knows now that he's left.

And when she rises up and smells the myrrh, she goes out to find him. And it took some time to find him, by the way, because it's going to take some time to get restored back to the Lord again. Restoration doesn't happen overnight often.

It takes time. We may be forgiven of the Lord of our lukewarmness, our carelessness, but it may take time to get restored to the Lord, to get back where we left off. That's true in a husband-wife relationship as well when the affections are not what they once were.

And we need to be on guard, my beloved brethren and sisters today, for there's everything about us to cause our hearts to turn in a direction that could cause severe damage, whether it be on your electronic devices or your computer, laptop, or whatever it may be, magazines. There's everything there to destroy and defile your soul. Shame on some of the things that are put on Facebook, some of the pictures, and the way people are dressed is absolutely shocking and disgraceful.

You might make fun of them, the Mennonites, but one thing you cannot make fun of them is you'll find none of them. From a little girl to a teenage girl to a young married woman to an older woman, you'll never find them in modest. But you will find them in God's assembly.

And you will see it, and I don't look on Facebook that much, but my wife has pointed out it's rather shocking, even some of the weddings, how they're dressed. It shouldn't be so. Spirituality is missing.

And when spirituality is missing, love is missing. We notice again here what the Lord Jesus said to the church of Ephesus. He didn't say that you have left, sorry, lost your first love, but you have left your first love.

See, when you lose something, you don't really intend to lose something. It's not your intention to do so. I remember a young brother telling me a couple years ago that he just got married and he gave his wife a beautiful set of rings.

They weren't cheap by any means. And she was cutting the lawn. And next thing she knew, they were missing.

Now, she didn't want to lose those rings, and he certainly didn't want them seen lost, and they hunted and they hunted to find those diamond rings. But they hunted in vain. They went through all the grass bags and they couldn't find it.

So he up and had to buy some more rings. She never intended to lose them. But the Lord Jesus said here, you have left your first love.

That's intentional. The word means to abandon, to forsake. It's even translated divorce.

That's how serious it is. They left their first love. They set their affection on something else.

Certainly not on the Lord Jesus. And so that's why the Lord said, except you, if you don't repent, I will remove the candlestick or the lampstand. So he wanted them to do their first works and by repenting to get back where they left off.

That's what you and I have to do. And maybe in our hearts today there is a measure of leaving Christ and his affections for us. It's just not what it used to be.

Just like the church of Laodicea. They didn't realize he's outside of that assembly. There he is standing at the door.

They say, does anybody in there miss me? How long have you missed me? Do you hear me knocking? Do you hear my voice? No answer. Is there any individual in Laodicea recognize their difficulty, their problem? Rich and increasing with goods and needed nothing. But you're wretched and poor and miserable and poor and blind.

I'm going to spew you out of my mouth if you don't do something about it. And maybe you today feel that way in some measure. He's been knocking at your door and he wants admission.

Wouldn't it be a sad thing that we could break bread, quote Matthew 18 and 20, and maybe the Lord is not in the midst at all. We just go through the ritual. Could be, you know, because quoting Matthew 18 and 20 doesn't guarantee he's in our midst.

No, it doesn't. What about our hearts? Our affections? How much do we love the Lord Jesus? We sing, Lord Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine. My rock and my fortress, my surety divine.

We sing it so lustfully. But really, in our hearts, do we really love the Lord Jesus? I know you do. Of course you do.

You wouldn't be here today. But there could be the tendency that you haven't been watching as you should have been watching. Peter didn't.

Well, he boasted that he would never deny the Lord. I'm willing to go into prison as a death for thee. But the Lord had to remind him, Peter, before the cock crow thrice, three times, you're going to deny that you knew me.

And you remember when Peter did deny the Lord and when the Lord looked at him, it all changed, didn't it? Peter wept bitterly. You know, I think the Lord is looking for something like that in our hearts. I think it's a good time to weep.

Get down by our beds and weep. Lord, I've been so occupied with my business, with my home life, and that is important, but I have not spent time with thee. I spent time, as our brother said yesterday, on Facebook, on the computer, but I haven't been spending time alone with the Lord Jesus.

Too busy. That was Martha, wasn't it? Martha, I have something to say to you. You're a comrade about many things, but one thing is an evil, and Mary has chosen a good part.

They both love the Lord Jesus, but that particular time, Martha was all caught up with her duty, her serving, well and good, but she didn't see the importance of seizing the opportunity of sitting at his feet where Mary was, and learning from him. I remember when God saved me. I remember my heart going out to him.

Lord, what thou had me to do. Nothing else mattered. Sold my car, got rid of my clothing, and willing to do anything.

A lot of zeal, not much knowledge, but the point was, my heart went out to Christ because he saved my hell-deserving soul. I deserve to be in hell. If you knew the sins that I was guilty of before God, you'd be ashamed and ready so.

But he has forgiven me of all my sins. He's washed me in his precious blood. And now, I belong to Jesus, and he belongs to me.

Our journey is soon to be over, beloved. We don't have much time left. Don't waste it on the tinsel and the toys of this earth, please.

Young person, bury yourself in the word of God. Take time to be alone with God, and God will use you in whatever sphere that he chooses in your life, and make you a blessing for his name's sake. Now, there's much more that could be said, but I want to leave time for others this afternoon.

But remember what the Lord said. Watch your love, your affection. Set them on things above, not on things on the earth, for your life is hid with Christ in God.

Before I sit down, I'll just mention this. John Bunyan, a man who spent 12 years in prison, who knew what it meant to suffer for the name of the Lord Jesus. But from that prison, he gave us pilgrim progress.

Next to the Bible is the most important book to read, and everyone should read it. But here's what he said. My life is to live upon God that is invisible.

That's how the man lived. He set his affection on things above. Like Moses, he endured as seeing him who is invisible.

And so today, young person, set your sights on the man at God's right hand, and you will never be disappointed. But if you don't, you're going to allow things in your life that you'll regret the rest of your life. Believe me.

The devil, the world, and the flesh within has all the power to destroy you. We need to fight the good fight of faith and keep our hearts in tune with our blessed Lord Jesus.