Sunday School Address - Things new and old (Quality: Good)

[0:00] my friends and especially my young friends I'm glad I've got just a little row of me to look on while I try to speak to them and perhaps even to ask one or two gentle questions I had many concerns with regard to coming to you this time in fact I did ask a year ago for this for there to be a successor for me to listen to but I was asked to do one more and I have sought help from the Lord and sometime earlier this year while I was reading I suddenly thought now the ministers among us will know the thought that comes into their hearts when a word seems to suddenly make a suggestion to our minds and I hope more deeply as a word given to speak for me and I was reading and I was sure I read what I was reading the Lord was speaking in the gospel of Matthew he said therefore every scribe which is instructed into the kingdom of heaven is like unto a householder which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old and I began to think of this things new and old and then I thought yes we can look at this from many viewpoints all of us know it in the sense of well you know the things of time

[1:39] I look upon things in my house things new and things old and I think too that we look upon it in another sense there was a time when I was new I was taken into Union Chapel and my father returned thanks for my birth but that was rather well over 80 years ago and I have to acknowledge that now I am old and I have to think of what is the difference what has caused the difference and it all amounts to one thing and what can we think of that thing as just one little word time and time passes doesn't it and we know that time will continue to pass and new things will become old and we can read in the word of God old things will pass away and we see it in the things of nature we see it in the things which appertain to ourselves and we see it in many different aspects of life yet this was specific wasn't it the Lord was not speaking generally he was speaking specifically what did he say every scribe which is instructed in the kingdom of God is like unto a householder which brings forth out of his treasure the word could be treasury or store things new and old there was a purpose it was instruction and there was a treasury to look upon

[3:24] I began to think I said well there's only one treasury that we can take to give a Sunday school address from and all of us have one here it is the word of God a treasury what a thing it is too I was rather pleased we need help we ministers but yesterday when I went into the chapel in Southville for the afternoon the deacon got up and he gave out hymn number 43 now I had already typed into my notes because when I try to get a hymn back it doesn't always come hymn number 43 that I might bring it to you today and the hymn is like this it is one of Mr. Newton's precious Bible what a treasure does the word of God afford all I need for life or pleasure food and medicine shield and sword is revealed in Jehovah's sacred word and I thought as we sung that hymn yesterday afternoon well

[4:47] I think the Lord has given me just a little more help which I feel to need very much and I want as grace is given to try to look at the things new and old that are revealed to us in the word of God and they are things of treasure the householder took those things which were to be used and they were to be used in the purpose or for the purpose for in which they had been given God gives us good gifts and we use them yes it is when God gives the perfect gift of his word then may that same grace be given to us we make no questions do we about using the good gifts of God we should give thanks a little later on this afternoon for the food that is given to us and we can say it comes out of the treasury of God's providence

[5:54] I hope I hope too that we should give thanks for the treasury of God's grace the things that come out of it but it is those things in particular that I want to try to set just a few of them before I have to say a few of them and I began as we have to to look at something like a pattern from my address this afternoon I find it harder to keep to a pattern nowadays the word new is about 130 references and the word old about 200 and 300 and 40 and I thought well have I tried to take on too much and I said no we cannot begin to exhaust the word of God of the lessons it has in one address or in one sermon or even in a lifetime of preaching there would ever be those treasures to find those treasures to search for and if we search for them in the goodness of God we shall find them and so

[7:04] I'm only trying to bring just a few and then I thought well as we look at this treasure this treasury it has been divided into two sorts hasn't it we think we think of this bible and we refer to it often as the old testament and the new testament we have to look at them do we not and in our hearts we relate the old testament to the old covenant and the new testament to the new covenant covenant and yet we cannot in this say that the old is to be cast away we need instruction in the wisdom of God to know what new things to retain and what old things to cast away and what to do in the reverse what old things to retain and what new things to cast away for we can find the word of God which will instruct us in those things in both aspects of it to keep or not to keep old or new and I was round about your age in Sunday school one of the teachers he was a man not so much older than

[8:25] I was he quoted a little thing which has never departed from me the new is in the old concealed the old is in the new revealed and I've never forgotten it because how often we have to look at the old testament and we listen to the Lord Jesus and what does he say of it he was speaking of the scriptures when we speak of the scriptures in the sense in which the word would have been used in the gospels what scriptures were they looking upon the law that is Moses the sounds the prophets and perhaps the history and the Lord said of them these are they which testify of me we can see how important then the law the prophets are to us and the psalms we have to look at them and often as we look at them who do we see the Lord

[9:37] Jesus he had to come into my thoughts yesterday something in the manner in which the preaching went in the afternoon took my thoughts into Isaiah the 53rd chapter who else could he speak of and I thought yes they testify of him the Lord in his suffering and the purpose of his suffering messy things we can see in the Old Testament yet we look in the Old Covenant and if we follow the Old Covenant into the New read the epistle to Hebrews to the Hebrews and how often the apostle that wrote it he used the word better and every time he was referring to a better covenant a covenant that yes one was brought in the purposes of

[10:37] God to an end and so although we can look into the Old Testament and we can see the ceremonial law we no longer have to follow it it has been superseded and as so far as the Old Testament rituals are concerned go into those difficult books especially Leviticus and see all the things that had to be accomplished under the law must have to use one word about them it doesn't come from the scriptures but it explains quickly what I want to say they're obsolete no longer in themselves have they any relevance their only relevance is this that they were a foreshadowing of the sacrifice that would be made in the new covenant to end all those covenants so we can look upon something old which in the purposes of God is to be cast away yes but not when we look more deeply into the meaning and we see

[11:49] Christ set forth it just moves our thoughts doesn't it we no longer look back to that which is old again that is just as Paul described it in the Hebrews we look to that which is new no my friends when we try to think of the new covenant how precious it becomes to us a way made open a new and living way a way that will ever be new it will never be worn out while time remains and then oh we can look in so many ways at it I already have departed from my pattern but it doesn't matter we need to look a little differently we need to look at another thing a new thing yes strangely from the Old Testament which is given as a hope to God's people and the

[12:52] Lord is speaking through his prophet and the prophet that sometimes we find just a little hard to read is Ezekiel and one of the promises he made was this a new heart will I give you a new spirit will I put within you I will take away the stony heart the old heart and give you a heart of flesh and now yes the word new is used isn't it but it's used by God in referring to that which must take place in the heart of one of his people as taught by the Holy Spirit as instructed in the kingdom yes they will look within they will find a change a new heart yes sometimes it seems we look at it rather literally something almost impossible doesn't it but when we look at it spiritually oh my friends when we are made by the

[14:01] Holy Spirit to know what is the state of the old heart there will be a looking to such a word as this and there will be a plead a pleading at the throne of grace that the new heart may be given to us we shall ask that the old heart may be taken away the old hard heart of sin the heart of unbelief and that a new heart made a heart of faith a faith to believe to believe in that which God has given us to lay hold upon it this is the softened heart the renewed heart it has a different outlook it will be that outlook which will lift the sight to be looking unto Jesus oh my friends when we think of the old and the new and look within how essential we see the change to be the renewing yes to be made and new and that brings us to another thought each of us has a life the very fact that we're here we have a life we're alive we feel we move we think evidences of life outward life that is natural life but a life within a new life a life given now we come to another thought which will need to be put before you we said it was a matter of time wasn't it that caused the difference between old and new just the passage of time now when there is a spiritual gift given a spiritual gift comes from

[16:07] God who is eternal and when the eternal gives gift the Lord Jesus spoke about it he said not as the world giveth give I unto you we can give each other gifts and those gifts may be new when we give them but they will come old they will become old because time will pass but when the eternal God gives a gift which must come from himself and he is eternal his gifts like the gift of the Lord Jesus my peace I leave with you is a gift which will remain and strangely it will remain ever new it is given in the sense of eternity when the Lord Jesus spoke of the blessings which should come to those who were partakers of his sacrifice by faith he used that rather strong and strange expression which the Jews could not even begin to think about he said that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood who believes in the purpose of his suffering and in the shedding of his blood they have eternal life and eternal it lifts us straight away from this thought of time doesn't it the passage of time we don't understand eternity our natural thought of it is a never ending time it may be that but it's something much different to that it is an eternal now

[17:58] I think there's a hymn somewhere I can't locate it in my mind at the moment he dwells in his eternal now speaking of God in heaven it is that state which we as creatures of time cannot comprehend even while I'm speaking time is passing I keep glancing up at the clock and I cannot even imagine in my natural mind a state where time does not pass where things do not go forward can you I think we have to look at it in a very prayerful sense that we might have a true comprehension of the grace of the gifts of God or the gift of the grace of God eternal never ending because there is no end when the

[19:01] Lord said everlasting it made us to think of time continually passing and the life still lasting but when we think of that word eternal we have to lift it a little more differently we have to look at it like this it is ever as it was first given then my time is nearly up but we will just look one more aspect of it Peter writes and he says nevertheless we according to his promise look for a new heaven and a new earth wherein worth righteousness now I'm not going to try an exposition on that particular verse but I want to see have we got our sights fixed in such a place a new heaven a new earth no he's not talking about the heaven where

[20:01] God dwells to be renewed no he was he was thinking of the universe and the earth but he sees it in this sense that in the new Jerusalem is there we shall see the new heaven and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness it is a looking heaven word it is remembering that although we are creatures of time living in time we have an eternity to look forward although we look forward to that eternity and I always say because of the passage of time relentlessly approaching us it is coming to each one of us oh is that grace given to us that we might in that grace look forward to that place where God dwelleth where time shall be no more and where we shall look on that which can never grow old the last thought that came to me was like this what can be said to be neither old nor new anything or anyone eternal

[21:25] Daniel refers several times to the ancient of days and yet there is no aging where there is no time the very words that I have tried to base my address upon old and new they will be irrelevant in eternity we shall never think of them more things ever new now I had meant to go just a little more into the manner of worship but I'm not to start it now I just want to say this that when we look upon old and new to be discarded or retained in either sense I have to look at it like this what God has made redundant in his word by the new covenant we may look upon as that which we do not have to continue to do and I think of the ritual of worship but what

[22:29] God has shown in the new covenant will be that which we must never turn away from we must never turn away from the worship of God in and through Jesus Christ we dare not as we look upon this as that which given of God now so far as we are concerned a long time ago and therefore in that sense although new it is to us old it is something to be retained something to be kept and any departing from this in a solemn sense and my thoughts were taken perhaps I should have spent a little time bringing them before you to the many aspects of worship in the world at large which are in that sense new because they have been added by the thoughts of men to worship after the time of the apostles we need to be very careful as we worship the way is set forth in the new testament and when we look upon the man-made additions to it these are new things relatively to be discarded

[23:54] I will just try to illustrate what I mean we look upon the catholic religion we see the worship of saints it is a new thing it is something made of man it is to be thrown we look upon those doctrines which have been formulated by various popes they are new things they have no scriptural basis they must be avoided but oh my friends when we look at the old we call it a new and living way through the veil and yet to us now as we look upon old testament worship and then new testament worship we see them both as setting forth that way by which sinners are brought into the kingdom of god instructed in the kingdom and when instructed in the kingdom they will be brought to see it is by that example which is of our lord jesus christ i thought of those rather precious words of paul is writing to the philippians let his mind be in you which was also in christ jesus who being in the form of god thought it not robbery to be equal with god but he humbled himself made in the likeness of our flesh and being made in likeness as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death this is the way to walk in look back at the example and call it old but look back at the example and call it new never to be superseded that way to walk is in the following of jesus christ this is both the new way and the old way which will lead us to that timeless state eternity in heaven oh may this grace be ours to walk in that way now i've passed my time but may the lord bless you and enable you to walk in that way instructed in the kingdom of god that way in christ that leads to heaven lord bless you amen let us now continue by singing hymn 172 172 to the tune evening prayer 642 on proud egypt's reedy water lo the infant moses lies cruel pharaoh bent on slaughter must not find him or he dies there his sobbing mother laid him in his little osier bed praying israel's god to aid him bless and guard his infant head hymn 172 water to aid the

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