The local assembly, assembly meetings

Now turn with me to the book of Acts chapter 9. I want to cover a number of not only meetings of the assembly, just very briefly to give an overview of them, but I also want to tell you how I came into the assembly. I didn't grow up in a Christian home, and my father was not saved when I was growing up. We didn't read the Bible, I've told that in my testimony here, but a number of things, I'm going to use this passage a little bit, quite different from the background of the Apostle Paul, and yet I want to notice in verse 26, Acts 9 verse 26, And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple.

But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, his salvation, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus, his conversion, his convictions, and he was with them, coming in and going out of Jerusalem, his continuance. So you have those three elements as Paul, or Saul, is received to the assembly here. Now, keep that in mind, we're just going to look at a few other passages, Acts chapter 20, because we'll touch on these later, Acts chapter 20, and verse 7, And upon the first day of the week, and it's interesting, that word week is actually in the plural.

In other words, this is not a one-off. This is not something that they did that week, and they said, let's get together, and it's the first day of the week, and what can we do? Well, it would be a good thing to break bread, the Lord said as often as you do this, you show the Lord's death, or the apostle Paul said that, so maybe we'll just do it once, no, the word week is in the plural, so in other words, upon the first day of the weeks, in other words, this was the usual expression that was seen in the assembly here. When you went there on the first day of the week, you saw them do this.

And so it says, upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow, and continued his speech until midnight. Now, you remember, this is where Eutychus falls out the window, he falls asleep, and he comes down, and so on, so we're not going to read any further than that, but let's go over to the book of Romans, chapter 16 now. Romans chapter 16, and we're going to look at a letter of commendation here.

This is when one assembly commends an individual that is in the fellowship of that assembly to another assembly. Verse 1, I commend unto you Phoebe, our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Sancreia, that you receive her in the Lord. Now, that is different than what you will read of when you come to the previous chapters of 15, and so on, because he will say, receive ye one another.

And he's talking there about internal reception of the fellowship of believers in that assembly. That's not assembly reception. This is assembly reception.

This is in the Lord. So, we've tried to stress that in nights past. Carefully read, when you read the expression in the Lord, or having to do with the Lord, it involves submission and lordship.

So it's receive her in the Lord as becometh saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you, which is her reputation, for she hath been a sucker of many, and of myself also, and so on. Now, let's go over to 1 Timothy chapter 2. 1 Timothy chapter 2, and we're going to read in verse 7. Verse 7, Paul has brought before them his apostolic authority earlier in the epistle, and now he says, whereunto I am ordained a preacher, or a herald, and an apostle. I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.

That's a very, very impressive resume. And as he's telling them this, now he goes on, I will therefore, on that basis, that men, the males, pray everywhere. Everywhere.

Lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. In like manner, also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array. Notice there's an or after those, so they are distinctive, actually, from one another.

I know there is a group as far as they're grouped together, but it's or, or, or. So that, basically, what he's stressing is this. Do not dress in such a way that you will draw attention to yourself by not only your ostentatious dress, but as well, the whole package.

The whole package is to be one that is to represent Christ. Not to represent you. Not to draw attention to you.

In fact, the word here, when it says, adorn themselves, that women adorn themselves, is actually the word cosmos. It's the word cosmos, and in John 3, 16, you remember that God so loved the world, and the word cosmos has to do with an arrangement of things. An arrangement.

So if you'll allow me to say that her wardrobe is the cosmos collection. She is representing, her wardrobe is representing Christ. So the way she dresses, the way she carries herself is really reflective of Christ.

So you can see really here where it would be unbecoming, a sister to dress in such a way that would be fleshly, would draw attention to the eyes, whether it's a short, the shortness of the skirt, the lowness of the neckline, things like that, as well as being adorning in such a way that really is drawing attention to herself. So he says that they adorn themselves this way, with modest apparel, shamefacedness, sobriety. In other words, be sober.

So the attitude is brought before the attire is brought. So he's bringing the attitude first, then the attire. Because if the attitude is right, the attire will match.

Shamefacedness, sobriety, not with brighter hair or gold or pearls or costly array, but which becometh women professing godliness. With good works. This is what you adorn yourself with.

With good works. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection, but I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. There's a lot of other passages we could read, but we're not going to.

I was thinking of the Apostle Paul today. And he was persecuting the church. And the Lord reaches and saves him.

And now you could understand, coming from this background, a background where he was a persecutor, where he really believed what he was doing was the will of God. And now all of that changes. And now he goes from a persecutor to a person who's no doubt perplexed.

And as he looks at those things, we read other passages where basically what he had to do was unlearn what he had learned. And he had to learn what God would have him. And the people that he had been against now, they were his brothers.

And the companies that he had persecuted now, he actually wants to be part of that. What made the difference? You say salvation. Well, obviously.

But it was love for the man that saved him. It was love for the Lord that had saved him. And that's what drew him now.

And so he goes. And now the disciples are afraid of him. So he's asking questions.

He's coming in, but he's doing what he can. He's preaching boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. And he's doing what he can.

And we look at him in the synagogue and a number of things. And I was thinking about his life. And I was going back a little bit to some of the things that I experienced.

And I just share this, especially for the sake of younger ones. Someone encouraged me. They said, you know, people could actually identify or at least people who have grown up in the assemblies could appreciate maybe where you came from a little bit.

I was an outsider. Like I said, my father not saved until 1994. I grew up in a home where the Bible was not read.

I had a Bible. I read it myself, but the Bible wasn't read. We never prayed.

We never gave thanks for our meals. There's nothing like this. But there was a time when my mother, she had been saved as a young girl.

And later on, she was restored. When she was restored, there was a place that people had contacted her. It was not a gospel hall, but it would have an open reception.

It was a chapel, Bible chapel. And so there were men that visited and they encouraged her to come back. And she did.

And I went along with her. Now, I was in my teens. We did not know and were not taught because they did not believe, really, in the seed of the unlearned and aspect of separation.

There were dinners that they would go in, denominational dinners, that they would have their own table with and they would sit with other groups and other companies. And I have no doubt that some of those people were genuinely saved. But I didn't learn any of the truths that I've been telling you about this past week because they didn't believe them there, really.

Well, there were a few things that they believed. It wasn't that they threw away everything or they didn't believe anything, but they had certain things. One of the things that they would have had is they would have had what I would call a modified backseat.

And what that simply means is that if they knew you, they would let you break bread. So not only did they receive to the breaking of bread, which the Bible doesn't teach, the Bible teaches reception to the assembly fellowship, but as well, if you were in a denomination, in other words, there were people in that place in the denominations, and when they came, because they were family, they were allowed to break bread. So they made allowances.

They modified the backseat, so to speak, the seat of the unlearned, to make exceptions. But if you were to come in off the street, someone, and they didn't know you, then they wouldn't have let you just take part. So there would have been some form of restriction, but it would have been nominal.

That's where I was baptized, and that's where I joined in my teen years. A time came when I had to go away to school, to college. I actually came to school in Iowa, and if you wonder why I picked Iowa, well, I had a double scholarship.

Don't laugh. I had a football scholarship, and I had an academic scholarship, too. But that's neither here nor there.

Came out here, and when I was coming out here, I asked the men in that place, I said, look, I would like to go to church somewhere where my school is. Do you know any place? They didn't even direct me. There was no real shepherding.

There was no care. And when I asked them, they said, well, we'll get this address book, and we'll just flip through the pages, and, you know, Iowa. So they said, are you near Cedar Rapids? And I said, Cedar Rapids, yeah, I know.

I know Cedar Rapids. I know that name. And so they said, okay, here.

So they said, here's a place you can go to, Cedar Rapids Bible Chapel. So I went there. And I didn't have a car, so it made it a little more difficult.

But there was a man there in the Cedar Rapids Bible Chapel, and, you know, he was a gentleman. He was a great Christian. That man, I contacted him because his name was in the book, the address book.

His name was Bill Moore. He was the upcoming president of Emmaus. And he drove two hours, because I went to school in Mount Pleasant.

He drove two hours to pick me up. And he says, you can stay with us for the weekend. And he opened his home.

And here I was, this college kid that was staying with him. I couldn't go every week. I went when I could, and I felt bad for this man coming to pick me up.

But that was my, and there were a few things different. There was, and head coverings were optional. If you had, some had head coverings, some didn't.

But he was a very nice man, and he really went out of the way to make me feel at home. I went home for the holidays. Let me just back up a little bit here.

I went home for the holidays, and as I went home for the holidays, I am trying to find now a way to get a car, because I felt bad that this man was having to pick me up. To get a car. But just before that, there was another fellow I had met at school, and he was a Pentecostal fellow.

And his name was Charles, Charles Young. He was from Blacksburg, Virginia. And I really believe he was saved.

I have tried to find this young man since then, and you know how many Charles Young's there are in Blacksburg, Virginia? I mean, there's a lot. I never have found him since. If this ever goes out on the web, and he ever hears this, I hope he tries to contact me.

So I went home. He had a car. And I said, Charles, how would you like to go to church with me on Sunday? And he says, oh.

I says, yeah, you know, you can come with me. And he says, well, okay, sure. But the one thing is, I said, you'll have to sit back.

I said, because they don't know you. So he says, sit back? What do you mean? So I said, well, you can't participate. He says, I can't.

No, I says, you can't. He says, well, why not? I'm saved. I said, yeah, I know you're saved.

And I said, but they don't know you. I said, and you're not part of our church. I says, if you joined our church, you could take part.

In other words, hint, hint, I'd have a carpooling buddy and everything would work out. Now, keep in mind, I didn't know anything really about the assembly at this point. So he said, well, okay, all right.

He says, this is my friend Charles. He's from Blacksburg, Virginia. And I says, I told him he has to sit back.

So they looked at me and they said, well, is he saved? So I said, well, he says he's saved. Oh, really? He said, well, good. And I said, you can talk to him.

So I went and sat down. It must have been a minute, two minutes later, he comes and sits next to me and he looks at me and he goes, I'm in. And he actually gave out a hymn that morning on the second coming of the Lord in the middle of the breaking of bread, what they would have at the breaking of bread.

He didn't have any idea. There was no order. For all that could have happened, he actually could have spoken in tongues.

And that would have really been something to see or hear. So we're driving home and he said to me, you know, Frank, he says, you made me feel that I couldn't take part. I said, why? He says, you told me that I couldn't take part.

He says, and those men let me take part. He said, you know, you're making a division in the body. He says, we're all going to be together in heaven.

Why are you making a division in the body on earth? Now, that sounded good at the time because I didn't know anything. And if you don't know anything, a lot of things sound good. That's why it's important because if you don't, you will swallow things that are wrong.

And you're open season for error. So I felt bad. I remember going back to the dorm and I called my mom up and I said, mom, I don't get this.

I said, I really have a lot of questions. I said, I know there's one way to be saved. No doubt about that.

I would tell people and I told her what happened and I said, there has to be a right way to worship. She said, I'm going to find out what it is. So I started studying my Bible.

I remember whole Saturdays reading, studying, trying to find out what did the church do? What did the disciples do? How did they function? And as I dug and dug and dug, I had two other friends. These two friends were going to be, actually, they were going to be Methodist ministers. The school I went to was Iowa Wesleyan College.

They were going to be ministers. They were going to go on to seminary. And so we would always talk about the Bible and bounce things off each other.

I don't even know if they were saved. They certainly didn't have any conversion story. They didn't have any day of salvation.

But we would talk about the scriptures. And one time, one of the men, what happened was this little community church, their pastor had left them. And the school got a call from their board of deacons and they said, listen, do you have any budding ministers we could use, since our pastor has left and we would appreciate the interim help and it would be good for them, it would be good for us.

And so they started preaching there. And one Sunday that was coming around, they said to me, Frank, they said, would you like to give a message at the church here? So I said, well, what do I speak on? They said, well, whatever you want, whatever you want to speak. And so the people were saved first and then they were baptized and then they were added to the fellowship of the church.

So I said, okay, I'll start from the beginning. I'll preach they have to be saved. Well, they got very mad at me.

And they told my friends, who does he think he is? That man telling us, I was in this church for years. My grandfather was in this church. And anyway, they got very upset.

My friends told me, Frank, you have to cool down. So he says, anyway, look, he said, you know, we'll give you another shot. They said, after Christmas, after the holidays, we come back.

And he says, if you want one, and I said, okay, all right. Well, I thought, okay, next time I'll speak on baptism. And that would have really got them upset too because they believed in sprinkling and so on.

Anyway, I never went back. I'll fast forward and tell you that I never went back there. So I go home for the holidays.

I meet my uncle, who I have somehow made contact with, or they have made contact with him, Gene Higgins, David Oliver, and other men that we would have known and are in fellowship with. And so he says, I'm going to a conference. He says, in Pensauken, New Jersey.

He says, would you like to come? So I says, yeah, sure, okay. And as he's talking to me, I'm looking and on his living room table, he has all these magazines spread out. Words in Season, Truth in Tidings.

So I start picking them up and I'm looking and reading. I still remember the first article I ever read, Hector Alves, Demas. And I looked at that and I said, wow, these are good.

These are really good. I said, where'd you get these from? He says, these are from New Testament assemblies. Now it sounds like, you know, unreal.

How could we be that much of neophytes, right? But he says, these are from New Testament assemblies. And I'm like, assemblies? I said, that's the word for church in the New Testament because I've been looking up words. So he says, you're gonna come to the conference? I said, yeah, sure.

So I go to the conference. I remember one man, he was asking me and different things, different questions. And he says, you know, he says, where are you from? I says, I'm from Iowa.

So he says, really? He says, what assembly are you from? Oh, I says, well, right now, actually, I said, there's a little community church and their pastor has left them, so we're trying to help them out until they get a new pastor. You know, you can't, you know, you shouldn't be doing this. And he really said, well, why are you going there? You should not be going there.

And I said, well, they're Christians, they need help too. And he's like, no, no. And I learned a lesson there.

We don't know where people are at. And I really was searching. And sometimes if you come down on people and you are, you can hurt them more than help them because there are people that God help us to find them and help them to find us and treat them with kindness.

And if they don't see it, they don't see it. But let not you be the reason that they don't see it. Let it be on their fault, their end.

Well, I do remember that day. I remember Walter Gustafson. And one thing I have always appreciated about Brother Walter is he backs up what he says from the scriptures.

And he was speaking about there's a reason why we, I can almost hear him, why we as the people of God don't have a one man ministry. And he went into his reasons. I've heard that message quite a bit.

And other people have too. But it's a good message. And it struck me.

And I remember thinking, this is exactly what I've been looking for. You see, you have to understand what I was looking for before. I took what I was reading in the Bible because I went to other places looking for what I saw in the Bible and I couldn't find it.

Denominational places were out because they were denominations. They gathered to another name. I never saw any denominations in the New Testament.

And you won't either because they're not there. In fact, I should say that they are there. But they're condemned.

Denominational systems are condemned by God in the Bible. So I couldn't have part in that. And then there were places where there were pastors and one man leading the congregation and saying basically that all the gifts were in him and all the teaching was in him.

And I thought, well, that's not in the Word of God either. And there were other places where women were speaking. The best one was, I have a biology degree.

And in the town of Mount Pleasant there is a Christian science church. And I thought, boy, those are my people. I said, I'm going for science.

They're scientists. I'm a Christian. And I found out that they weren't either.

They weren't scientists and they weren't Christians. And I remember going in one night and the woman came out, the woman ministered. And I said, oh boy, okay, this is, no, you know.

And so it was testimony night. And one man gave his testimony. And basically he was saying he was sick but he wasn't really sick.

It was all in his mind and this and that. It was mind over matter type of thing with Christian science. It's a cult.

And then he finished and I was like, what kind of testimony is that? And then she said, is anybody else? Would anybody else like to give their testimony? So I said, yes, I would like to give my testimony. So she goes, oh, and she saw me and I went with my two friends, my two ministerial friends. And she said, are you from the college down the road? Yes, I said, yes, we're from the college.

Wonderful, it's like great PR, right, for them. This is college students here. This is great.

So I gave my testimony. I told how the Lord saved me. She was shaking there and I could see her.

She was getting worse and worse and I think there was a moment when I took a breath and she said, thank you very much. That's very interesting and stopped me. And I suppose she probably thought, well, that's one, there's two more.

I don't know how far we're going to go with this. So I looked for what I saw in the Bible but I couldn't find it until I went that morning, that day, that conference. I heard Walter speak.

I heard the word of God opened and it was taught with power and clarity. And that night we were sitting at the table. You talk about the hand of God.

We sat at the table there, we were eating supper and I said to my uncle, I said, boy, I wish there was a place like this in Iowa. And down at the end of the same table, I have to be careful, I was almost going to say this, this head put forward and he says, young man, did I hear you say you're from Iowa? And it was Eric McCullough at the same table. And I said, yes, I am.

And we started talking afterward and I told him what had happened and where I was going and he said, do you know where Cedar Rapids is? I said, yes, I know. Well, he said there's an assembly in Marion and he told me about that. So I said, okay, all right.

He says, can you get a letter? I said, a letter? Yeah, I said, I've been reading about that in the Bible, letters. And he says, well, if you can get a letter, he says, you go there and we chat a little more. There was a little more of an in-depth conversation than that.

I said, I'll give them my own letter. Well, that's not what you do. You don't write your own letters.

But I didn't know that. I just knew that you had to have, there was an importance of a letter. To make a long story short, I did get a letter from where I was.

They had a once a month prayer meeting where I was going. Once a month. And I remember going to Marion for the first week and I remember the believers.

They came in, if you remember the old hall on the first floor. They used to tiptoe in. And there was a reverence.

And there was a respect. There was even a smell in that building. It was just a gospel hall.

I can't explain it, but it was something of simplicity. And I remember thinking, as that meeting went on, this is it. The Lord is here.

I never forgot that morning. Afterward, Jim Ferris invited me over to his house. And I went there for lunch.

So he says, Frank, he's looking at my letter and he says, I see you have a prayer meeting once a month. And I'm like, that's right. That's right.

I'm thinking, you know, some places don't have any prayer meetings, but we have once a month. We're consistent. We have a prayer meeting once a month.

And he said, oh, that's interesting. And he said, who would be some of the men that would come to where you are to visit, to preach, to teach? And I named several names, but they were all in a different circle of places. They did not frequent where we were.

And when I named them, Jim kind of, you know, he looked and I thought I caught a note of recognition on some of the names. And I said, oh, do you know them? I said, do they come here? And wisely, Jim said, well, you know, we're in a different part of the country, Frank. He says, and they don't get out here.

But as time went on, and the more I studied, and the more I read, I found out more and more of what it means to be gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus. Of why we are what we are. And why I love God's assembly.

Because there's nothing like it. Nothing like it. God preserved me.

When you see the reality, I know we all have faults and failures. But don't you, don't you ever leave because of someone. As hard as it is.

If you see him, he'll draw you like a magnet. And when I read these accounts here of assemblies with all their problems, with all their issues, yet even in the New Testament, here is the Lord himself in the midst of these lampstands. The sovereign Lord.

That's, that's my story. As we look at these passages here, I just would like to tie up a bunch of loose ends. I want you to think when we come back to the truth of headship and the truth of lordship and all that we were looking at, fellowship and all, really what the assembly is of God on earth.

How fitting then that we are representing him in this world. When you look at this, and how fitting too that we teach our children the importance of what the assembly is, of who the Lord is in the midst of his people. It is vital that we do that.

In light of future generations, in light of reality, that we impress these young people with what we are and what this is. Because they're not going to see it out there in the world. And they're not going to see it in other religious circles.

But God helped us to let them see what is in the word of God from us. And so often we will impress our children with so many other things. Parents will impress them with make money, get rich, do your farming, do this, and we'll leave all these different impressions.

Listen, above all, that God's assembly and the Lord Jesus, number one, it's a priority. And when it comes to these things, we need to teach our children not only the value of the assembly, the value of creatorial order, the value of headship order, all of these things. It's a three-booth mentality.

I've called it a three-booth mentality when it comes to the assembly. The assembly is not a matter of degree, but of kind. There are some that think, well, you know, the assembly is, we're a little bit, I remember telling people, well, people would say, well, what are you? And I'd say, well, you'll understand this, I'm not being derogatory, I'll just say, well, we're kind of like the Baptist church, I said, but we don't have a pastor.

Everything started with God's assembly, so that anything else that is now in existence other than the assembly has actually come out of the assembly. It's not the other way around. When you come to the New Testament, there's the assembly.

It was the only thing that was there in the first century. Everything else has come out of that. So it's not a matter of, this is better and best.

It's not like some contest where this is good and this is better but this is the best. The assembly is a matter of kind, not degree. And what I mean by three-booth mentality is this, you remember the Mount of Transfiguration? The Lord Jesus is there and the disciples are there, Peter, James, and John, and all of a sudden the cloud overshadows them as Moses and Elijah were conversing about his exodus, Elijah and the Lord Jesus.

Peter says, it's good for us to be here. Let us make three booths. One for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

He gave the Lord first place, didn't he? He put the Lord first. We'll make the first one for you, Lord. And then we'll make one for Moses and we'll make one for Elijah.

And then that voice booms out of heaven. This is my beloved son. Hear him.

It's not a matter of first, second, and third. It's not a matter of, well, we'll do this, but there are others. There are no others.

It's Christ and Christ alone is Lord. And when it comes to the assembly, it's not a matter of adding names or adding to the Word of God. It's Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, gathering unto his name.

It's not a matter of first place. It's the only place. And so when we come to these things, it goes right back to the beginning.

Remember that this truth, the truth of the gathering center, goes right through the Word of God. Yes, it takes different forms, but the principles of these gatherings have always been the same. And so you go right back to the Garden of Eden, for example, and where the Lord is the planter and he's the designer and he's the originator.

Think about it. Every tree, every plant that was in that garden was strategically positioned and placed by the hand of the Lord who designed that garden such to do exactly what he wanted it to do. And so it is with the assembly.

And in that design and in that origination and in that ownership, it says he took the man. What a tremendous picture of the assembly. He took the man and placed him into the garden.

And individuals are placed into the assembly by God. Yes, we make the decision in terms of commitment and conviction and where does that come from? It comes from the Spirit of God. It comes from the Holy Spirit working upon the willing heart of a believer as he opens this word and says, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And God takes the man, takes the woman, takes individual believers and he puts them in his garden.

To do what? To dress it and to keep it. Two interesting words, dress it and keep it. To serve.

Over 200 times that word, to dress, literally means to serve. How do they serve? To serve you must have a master. You cannot serve simply if you do not have dictates to serve under.

Or you are not a servant. Every servant who serves has a master. And so he was put there to dress it.

But he was also put there to keep it. What does that mean? Well, it's an interesting word too because that word has the idea there of observe, of preserve. Now, these are the other translations in the Old Testament of this same word, to keep it.

To observe, to preserve, to beware. And it's the exact same word in Isaiah 21, several times, watchman. Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, a man who watches, keeps watch.

So that God put man in that garden to serve and to maintain it, to keep it the way God intended it. So in the assembly, when God places believers in that assembly, his garden, and we've looked at that in 1st, my mind's going to West Union, sorry. To go to the garden, the tilled field, that's what an assembly is called in 1st Corinthians 3. He puts us there to maintain what he has established.

Not to do what we want. That's why believers are added to the assembly. You know why transplants fail? Transplants, when tissue is added to, when a small amount of tissue is added to a large body, the reason it fails, when it does fail, is because the tissue, they don't bond.

They're different. The tissue is rejected. That's why transplants fail.

If people come into God's assembly to change it, or if they have a desire to change it, it's going to be a rejection. Tissue won't bond. That's why it says they were added to.

So when it comes to the assembly, again, it's not a social club, it's not entertainment, it's nothing for us personally. People who want their personal interests stressed. It's all about me.

There's a great danger to destroy and disturb what God has established. We're living in a day and age when it's all about me. It's all about me.

I was reading, just in fact, I was reading an account of a couple, an East Indian couple, that were at Yosemite National Park. They were young lovers, and they took a selfie, and they didn't know it, and they kept going back further and further because they wanted to get the best picture of themselves and they went off the edge of a cliff, 800 feet, and died. They never realized the danger that they were in because they were self-absorbed.

And dear believer, if you are self-absorbed, if it becomes about you, you don't realize the danger that you are in, and you are putting everyone else in. It's not about us. It's about the Lord.

And so when we come to these things then, I want you to think of very quickly then, I want you to think of these three meetings. I'm just going to give them to you, and you can study them more on your own. I know we know about them, so this is nothing new.

It's going to be Education 101, but the breaking of bread, the prayer meeting, and the Bible reading, I'm just going to give you those three. In the breaking of bread, we act as priests. In the prayer meeting, we act as partners.

And in the Bible reading, we act as presenters. Presenters of truth. Presenters of teaching.

So the breaking of bread, priests, we are believer priests, and we all function together. When it comes to the breaking of bread, listen, it is not about gift. It's not a matter of a person's gift.

It's not a matter of a person's status. It's not a matter of a person's an elder, or a preacher. It's not about any of that.

We are believer priests coming together. And really, the two things that must be stressed are preparation and participation. Preparation.

That to prepare, like a worshiper who is filling his basket during the week, and who is collecting thoughts of Christ. You know what's amazing? The Lord Jesus is an infinite person. You can never get to the bottom of the Lord Jesus.

And this Bible is an infinite book. You'll never get to the bottom of this book. And if I can't get one thought in one week about an infinite person from an infinite book, I'm in trouble.

Freshness. Reality. Worship.

Pleasing to God. That God will hear and see the reality from this company. And it will rise to his nostrils and his heart.

And he'll say, there's a man and he's leading that company. You know what? That's what God is looking for. He's not just looking for worship, but he's looking for godly order in that worship.

So that it has been given to the men. We looked at the head covering last night. We looked at the place of women.

But the counterbalance to that is the importance of the leadership and authority of men. So that God has given to us men to lead that company. To present that company.

Not to certain men. Not to the same men. But to all men.

Listen, dear brother. It is not about gift to worship. The Father seeketh such to worship him.

Bring something that you have. God is listening. God is looking.

God is longing. You want to know about an assembly? I can tell you this from experience and I'm sure my brother can too. You listen at the breaking of bread.

And you'll be able to tell. At least if you're in touch too, you'll be able to tell. Maybe a little.

But a tremendous thing to hear one after another. And brethren, long. It's not a sermon.

It's not a sermon. Sometimes we have to say a greater than Solomon is here. Men worshiping 11, 12 minutes, 13 minutes.

Freshness. Vitality. Reality.

Christ. And when it comes to that, not only that but hymns. A well-placed, obviously spirit-led hymn can be a great thing.

But I'll tell you, there's a couple ways to kill a meeting. Number one, you can shoot it right in the head and destroy the meeting with an absolutely out-of-place hymn. I know people that have given out hymns about their life's experiences during the week and what a friend we have in Jesus, all our griefs and sorrows to bear and so on.

That's not the place for that. It's not about me. It's not about me.

It's about hymn. And then another way you can destroy a meeting is you can have too many hymns. I call it Xerox worship.

And the copy machine is just churning out the Xerox copies because you're really going with another man's worship from the hymn book. But after hymn, after hymn, we can do that too. There's nothing wrong.

And you can't dictate, but there's common sense to what we are doing when we are worshiping. It's not a time for sermons. It's a time for freshness.

It's a time for participation. And if there are younger ones here, that's another thing. There's really not a lot to encourage the younger men.

You know where you start, you young men? Start thanking God, looking in your Bible for truth about the Lord Jesus. And you thank God for that truth. And you will develop in your heart a greater ability to worship.

Start it now. You know what? The moment you were saved, you were made a worshiper. And you'll never stop being one.

Develop it. The greatest occupation, the greatest occupation a person can have is worship. So when it comes to the breaking of bread, there's the sequence.

There are the symbols. There's the setting. There's the separation.

And there's the seriousness of that meeting. There's the sequence of that meeting. We read in Acts chapter 20, upon the first day of the week.

And so it's preparatory, it's cyclical. Some of the great things in the Bible that are cyclical, seven days, look them up and you can see that there's consistency in what God wants. In some of the seven feasts, there are cyclical, there are things that repeat themselves every, it's the seventh, seventh day, seventh things.

So you can see that in this. There's a sequence of it. It's how we start a week.

It's the first day of the week. So we begin our week with a forward look in worship. And as soon as it ends, look forward to the next week.

There's the symbols, or the emblems, if you want to be more technical, that the emblems, it's the bread and the cup. And so we have seen clearly the body and the blood of the Lord Jesus. And the fact that they are separated is one of the greatest evidences of his actual death.

That bread is also a symbol of the local assembly, the local testimony there according to 1 Corinthians 10. So you have the symbols or the emblems. The setting of it, the breaking of bread as we've gone over is always and only in association with the local assembly.

It's never divorced from it. Never separated from it. It's not for a group over here.

And if there were several believers in this assembly that for some reason couldn't come or you were away somewhere, you have no authority to break bread. It would be unscriptural to do that on your own. Because it is always and only associated where the testimony is.

In conjunction with the local assembly. The separation of it. It's for those that are part of an assembly.

They have been gathered out. It's a called out company. And the seriousness of it.

You do realize what you're doing on a Sunday morning when you take that bread and take that cup, right? You are making a statement in relation to the other believers there. And you are making a statement in relation to God. And you are making a statement in relation to the world.

You are making a statement in relation to other believers. Let me just say this. If there are grudges if there are people that have ought against their brethren here there won't be blessing.

The Lord Jesus makes that clear in fact. He says, before you go to the altar He says, if you have something against your brethren leave your gift there first. First be reconciled to your brethren.

Then go. I think we just think well you know what I'm not going to do that. So we just don't do it.

And you know what happens? We hinder the spirit of God. We grieve Him personally and we can quench Him collectively. And personal interests? Coming to do your own thing? No, you're not discerning the Lord's body.

That's 1 Corinthians 11. And you don't understand that we don't understand that we're representing we're doing this for the Lord. This is the Lord's supper.

You remember in John chapter 12 it says, there they made Him a supper. This supper was for Him. It's for Him.

It's not for you. It's not for us. It's for Him.

It's the Lord's supper. And the seriousness of not understanding that and not grasping that has consequences. We can't live the way we want.

We can't do what we want. There will be a cost. A cost to assembly fellowship? It cannot be.

Listen, even though you and I might not be doing big sins, gross sins. Do you know rebellion and stubbornness is as the sin of witchcraft and idolatry? That if we know we should be doing something and we don't do it that's a good thing? That's sin? I mean we little realize we just excuse these things because we say well that's what we are and the Lord will put up with me and I've been doing this and there hasn't been any problems. You know what? You don't know what you could be if you weren't doing those things.

You don't know what God could be doing with this company if we did bow to His Lordship unitedly. Thank God for what He has done in grace and mercy. But what could be done if there was real spirit power in the midst of His people because we bowed to His authority and Lordship.

Tremendous. The prayer meeting. We're partners.

Men and women together. That's why we read in 1 Timothy chapter 2 that the men are to pray and it says they are to pray with holy hands without wrath without doubting. Three spheres are brought there.

Godward, manward, selfward. Godward, lifting up holy hands. The life of holiness.

Clean life, holy life. Without wrath that's manward. I don't have any anger against my brother.

I don't have any... There are some brethren that are just a seething... Boy, it wouldn't take much just to... And then they pray in a prayer meeting. And there's this anger roiling underneath. Godward, manward, selfward.

Without doubting. Without reasoning. You are leading the congregation.

You are leading the assembly. And the women in like manner. What He is saying what the Word of God is saying is that the women by how they dress their adornment and their attitude their attitude and attire you see with men it's attitude and approach.

With women it's attitude and attire. And the two of them working together complementary you see men and women are brought together complementary. We read that in chapter 11.

Neither is the man without the woman neither is the woman without the man in the Lord. God has designed it so that in the assembly in life itself that we need each other. That I benefit from your presence and you benefit from mine as a woman as a man.

That's what I wish individuals would realize that want to have these sisters conferences and these men's retreats and other things. They are losing out on the benefit and blessing of the very design of God that the Lord's people should be together. He never envisions splinter groups or fragment companies.

I lose the benefit and blessing of your presence dear sister and the power that you can add to accompany by your godly dress and deportment your attitude how you come in. You add spiritual weight to the very prayers that are lifted to God in the assembly. And as you pray dear brother you are complimenting that.

And you're representing the company. Partners. You know, the prayer meeting.

I don't know how your prayer meeting is but I was thinking this today. It really struck me. You go through the book of Acts.

People say the prayer meeting is the most boring meeting. I've heard people say that. You know, when you come to the book of Acts the prayer meeting was the most unbelievable meeting.

In fact, it's ironic. It's the breaking of bread where they fell asleep. Not the prayer meeting.

I never read of anybody falling asleep in the prayer meeting in the book of Acts. I do read of them after the breaking of bread he fell asleep. But in the book of Acts things happened.

Foundations shook. Earthquakes happened. People were saved.

Men were released from prison. The prayer meeting. Mighty meeting.

You know what's a tremendous thing when an assembly can look back their prayers were answered. They prayed. The prayer meeting.

Long prayers. That won't do it either. Preaching prayers.

You know what a preaching prayer is? It's a missile launcher. Where you're firing a rocket at some brother and you're hoping he gets it or some sister. That's not the place for it.

The prayer meeting should unify the saints. A burden should be felt by all. And you know what? It doesn't mean that everybody's praying for the same thing.

God exercises individuals. Come with an exercise to the prayer meeting. Bible reading, last one.

Presenters. When it comes to the Bible reading it's a matter of I remember I was in an assembly once where they actually allowed unsaved men to read the portions of Scripture. No one who's anyone who's not in an assembly should not have any part in a Bible reading.

It's for the fellowship of the assembly. It's the assembly Bible reading. The other side of it is this.

What is passages that should be taken are relevant to the assembly. They're doctrinal. They're helpful in that way.

When a person opens the Bible reading it's a tremendous help to lay out the chapter. Lay out the section. Break it down.

Have a few questions. That will mean you will have to study. You have to study anyway.

You really have to study anyway. You can't you shouldn't come to the Bible reading without studying. I've seen people it's unbelievable on the day of the cell phone commentaries and the Bible reading starts and they're like you know they're looking up this looking up that word trying to you know not following the Bible reading but they're they're looking up they're studying right in the meeting.

Is that is that what we give to God and his people? You know what that would be like? It would be like a wife throwing a throwing a cold piece of meat to her husband after a hard day's work. Here you go, hon. How would you like that? Well, how do we think the Lord likes when we come like that? If you're going to open the Bible reading brother have something have a little thought have something that that the that the assembly can latch on to and just give it a little a little anchor a little peg to hold on to and that they can develop.

It doesn't you don't have to be much. That's what it is leading a Bible reading. There's a lot of other things I can say but I'll end with this.

God has brought us into tremendous blessing. We never deserved it. We never will deserve it.

I'll tell you a little story. There was a man one time and he was in a village was a beggar. One day a carriage of the king drove by and they stopped.

The beggar was on the ground and he held out his hand he was looking for something from the king. The king said to the beggar he says, get in. The beggar couldn't believe it.

He took him in into his carriage took him back to his castle. Time went by he gave that beggar jobs responsibility. Years later he became the treasurer.

A few years later the treasurer. The king had all his treasure up in a tower and this man was responsible to have a tally to write out the amount that was there all the gold pieces and he would go up into the tower once a month and then he would come back down with the number the amount of gold that was in the treasure. There were others that saw that man and they were jealous of him.

They said, you know, we don't trust him. He's spending too much time up there. He should be down more quickly than that.

He's stealing from the king. He's robbing the king. So one day they said, we're going to go up and we're going to keep an eye on him and we're going to tell the king about him just because we know it.

So they did. They followed him up the tower. He took out a box.

It was the gold pieces of the king and he opened it up. He started counting it. It took him quite a while.

When he was done counting just as he finished he took another box out from underneath the table and they said, we got him. He's going to take that gold and he's going to put it in his box and he's going to steal from the king. And he opened up the second box and he took out an old, ragged set of clothing.

It was dirty. It was old. And he put it on.

It was his old clothing. It was his clothing that he had on when the king found him. And he went over and he looked into the glass and with tears running down his eyes he said this, never forget what you were.

Never forget what he made you when your king found you. Never forget what he brought you into. And he took the clothing off and he put it in the box and he left the tower.

Dear believers, never forget what you were. Never forget what he brought you into. Himself.

When he saved you, himself. And in the assembly, himself. Because he's the gathering center.

May God help us to remember that and never forget it. Let's pray. Father, we bow before thee.

We marvel in thy presence to think of what we were and what we have become. And yet even in the measure that we grasp what we have become now, we are reminded of John's words, Now are we the sons of God. Yet it doth not appear what we shall be.

But we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him. For we shall see him as he is. But our God, we ask that we would see him now and that others would see him through us.

Not only in our lives but collectively in the assembly. For that is the purpose of this gathering that we might bear testimony to his name. That we might represent him.

That we might, our Father, bear the dignity of the King. The reverence of the Sovereign of the Skies. And that we might do so in a way that is fitting.

The world takes so much from us and sadly we give so much to it. Help us, our God, that we might freely bow and give to him. We ask these things.

We thank thee for being with thy people here. We thank thee for everyone that has supported and come out to these meetings this past week. And we pray thy blessing, thy richest blessing on each company, each person.

There is so much attack, so much opposition in the world, from the world, from Satan, against companies of thy people to bring us down. And we pray, oh God, that we might constantly realize that we are a people that are elevated all because of him. We pray and ask in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ.

Amen.