Philippians (Quality: Poor, start missing)

[0:00] into gracious exercise as God is pleased to work in the land you will undo of his good pleasure.

[0:11] So I hope you're clear on those two points. It's not working out our eternal redemption. It's nothing that we may do secondly that will bring us into any degree of merit. It's simply the outflow of that life which God is.

[0:34] The tree made good has good for it. And you've got enough spiritual judgment to know that that is self-evident.

[0:45] If the tree is alive and other things are well, fruit there will be. And the fruit will tell you the nature of the tree.

[0:58] Now the procedure is, this is to be done with fear, trembling. But I'm afraid we get hold of the wrong end of the stick so often with respect to this matter of fear and trembling.

[1:15] You mustn't take it to mean that you would do this with fear and trembling lest you ultimately come into hell. I can assure you that that's the furthest from the mind of the Holy Ghost.

[1:33] Because the Holy Ghost never contradicts himself. And he says to this very self-saving people, being confident of this very thing.

[1:44] That he which hath begun a good work in you will behold it, will finish it, at the day of Jesus Christ.

[1:56] No, no, President. It's not fear and trembling lest we fall into hell. We do know what that trembling and fearing has meant, though.

[2:09] Oh, we're not strangers to that. But not in this connection of our texts. Very often it is noticeable in good biographies that the individual who fears and trembles with a sober, godly, understanding fear and trembling goes off at the end in the rich and light of the stage.

[2:43] You know this. It's a good thing to fear and tremble, but the fear and trembling mentioned by the Holy Ghost here is opposed to pride.

[2:59] And he is so high-minded as to run upon the thick bosses of the Almighty with his stinking, wrangling pride.

[3:40] No, this is just three words of that. It's that idyll, reverential, childlike fear of offending, of displeasing, thank God, who is in so good shape.

[3:57] You and I, if God were to increase us with more of that fear, we could be less in bondage than we are.

[4:08] There is no bondage about that. The fear that is attained with bondage is the fear that arises from conscious guilt unpaused.

[4:20] But the fear that is connected with reverential, childlike fear of God is something very distinct. We may fear God, as the prophet tells us, and have no bright shining.

[4:39] Ah, that is true. No bright shining on two things. No bright shining on his word.

[4:50] And no bright shining in your heart. You may have that. I would go so far to say that, in some part of your experience, you are bound to have it, if you are a child of God.

[5:04] Sure alike. And now I think I have a case, an illustration, that will set this in a very clear light.

[5:15] You remember the case of dear old Eli, when the Israelites and he would have judged over Israel for many years. Israel went back to the Philistines.

[5:28] And now he is an old man. And he hears noise and shouting, and he wonders what it is. His eyes were dim. He couldn't see. The heart had been taken.

[5:42] He hears about his two sons being slain in the back of two. That doesn't seem to worry him. At least not unduly.

[5:54] But we read, he trembled. He trembled out of the holy solicitude. To the heart. To the heart. What is it that matters?

[6:06] Work out your own salvation with that solicitude, that holy fear and godly anxiety. So that you shall, by those fruits, prove that you are a good tree.

[6:23] It is quite consistent with fullness of trust in God. The man that is fearing and trembling in our text is not the man that doesn't trust.

[6:40] No. He gets that fear of the law. Trust in the law. See? Again, let me say, it is not the legal fear arising from the law, but the fear that arises from some measure of the inshining of the gospel of redemption and peace.

[7:03] He fears trust. He fears trust. And it is quite consistent to do with something more. You can have this fear and trembling and the law that better are these and yet be associated with rejoicing in the Lord.

[7:22] Serve the Lord with and rejoice with trembling. And the second time. Don't get the idea, friends, that it is everything on the miserable and the dark.

[7:37] There is a fear and a trembling that is, as I have made clear. But this is not the out there. This is that which looks at God, respects in honour, love to walk, love to act in every detail of life.

[7:55] So that God's name should be glory. And the trembling is that of a gracious solicitude of mine, lest in anything, in home, business, work, I do anything, that should eventually dishonour God, who with name I am.

[8:18] I think I may be clear. If not, I don't think any words of man will make clear. Now, this is done because God work within you both to will and to of equal pleasure.

[8:40] Now, both sides go together. And they keep equal time. Dear friend, there is nothing that you can work out only either.

[8:53] There is nothing that you nor I are one with you. Notice. There is nothing that you and I can work out as any good unless God works in.

[9:08] And just as fast as God works in you, you and I will work it out. They keep equal faith.

[9:20] And this principle is observable in what we call nature. And you can say also in providence. Certainly nature.

[9:33] Here we are at the end of the harvest. Yes. Now the ground needs to be broken up. See you again for him.

[9:45] This is man working. And if he didn't, well you and I all know, there'd be no harvest.

[9:56] In very plain and holy language, that's man's bound and duty to do. And I will say, you already can.

[10:08] But if God don't work in the realm of nature, there's no harvest. Similarly, with respect to your businesses, you will go off tomorrow morning energetic, you will be blessed, blessed, ready eager, quite right, quite right, not slow-ful in business, further in spirit, serving the Lord, what is now?

[10:38] Oh, then. If you are honest, you say you come short, you are ready, ready and short. The sweet-hearted.

[10:49] Not slow-ful, not lazy, not saying, oh, well, if I am to get a customer, you're bound to come. Not a case of the housewife saying, when it's time to get breakfast, oh, we need you, brother.

[11:05] I can stop in another hour or two. The eggs and bacon will come flying through the winter, already cooked. And you and I don't have those people. Certainly don't.

[11:17] And yet we know that God alone is the source of all that's done in business or homework or any other work.

[11:31] For in Him we live and move and have our work. And similarly, the principle is in grace. You will say, I can't pray.

[11:46] But you know you are. You know you are. And you try. And then you say, no, I don't believe I am praying.

[11:57] But you don't have. You don't have. You judge your prayers properly by the frippancy of the words.

[12:09] By the nice expressions you are able to keep turned to. Ah, to Him there is beauty in it. And music.

[12:20] That's all the damage. Still, try to play. That's working it out. Try to. There is a poor boy.

[12:31] I must just tell you this. It says so much to his son. I have the story from a doctor of the cloud in Scotland.

[12:42] He has long since been dead. During the course of his ministry, he had okayed him to visit a young boy only 13 years of age when he died.

[12:54] But he had been ill with a serious illness for many years. And the last three years of the poor boy's life have been just a series of pain.

[13:07] Hardly ever free from pain, even for both. When Dr. MacLeod saw him the day that he died that evening, he expressed sympathy with the man.

[13:24] Quite right to do too. What do you think the poor boy said? Only in a whisper. He said, I am quite strong in him.

[13:38] Take that only. That will bear your thinking out and mine too. Physically erect. And it'd be nothing but a refuge.

[13:51] Not requiring even man sympathy. I am quite strong in him. A lesson, dear friends, that we haven't yet learned fully.

[14:08] When I am weak, then am I strong. That's it? When you can't pray, you do pray.

[14:21] When you can't believe, you do believe. When you can't love, you do love. Weakness is not known.

[14:33] Either literally or spiritually defeated. It's notion of sanctuary. Our weakness, if I may put it so, gets linked with our weakness.

[14:47] As Paul tells us in his very vision, I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.

[15:04] Now God works to will and to do. You've all heard that word, you, we say of a certain man, where he's a most energetic man.

[15:24] He's full of energy. Well, that word comes from this very word in the thirteenth verse.

[15:37] Word. It is God which works, energizes in you. In the Ephesians, the epistle, Paul gives you gain in this beautiful way.

[15:56] After his marvelous prayer in that third chapter, where he prays to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God, the countless of the description of praise, the doxology, now unto him that ye is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask for, think according to the power, the energy of God that works in us.

[16:38] When he speaks in the second chapter, when in time past ye walked according to the cause of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air and the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, the same divine thought, the energy of the devil, in men of the world.

[17:04] They are really possessed of him. And we should say that with no gloating, with humility, for we were there once.

[17:16] When you hear some preachers talk about the ungodly, he makes your heart aches, because there doesn't seem to be much sound of humility about it.

[17:30] We are not gloating over their state nor their destruction if grace prevents us. We are emphasizing that. They are laid captive the devil who energizes them.

[17:47] Well now God has his blessed energy. You know, brethren, as well as I do, that when God is pleased to put a little energy in you, you can will and do will and do will to that he works in you.

[18:11] Yes. A man in Subtle, many years ago, would ask, Can you read Greek?

[18:23] He would only have found it. He is, I don't know. I never tried. And I shut the man up that asked me the question.

[18:34] They are all silly fools in Subtle. He was one too much. I haven't tried. The point is that whatever the child of God is able to try, he never knows what he can do.

[18:54] God worked with him. Supposing now, you'll forgive my saying it, you'll forgive an old man saying anything. I know, you should do. Now, supposing I say one Sunday morning, I would say, you know, honestly and sincerely, I don't feel equal to you.

[19:14] I can't be equal to you. I can't read. I can't pray. I can't preach. Some of you would say, try and see what acts.

[19:27] Allow me to return the prescription. Things you tell me you can't do. Try and see what happens.

[19:38] I'm talking of stupid things, aren't you? For it won't be you that will succeed, but God will work in you, the will and do of his good pleasure.

[19:52] The strange thing is, I don't know how to explain it, but I know it's true, time and again, that on occasions the more desperate that you feel unable to lift your little finger in a spiritual sense.

[20:11] That's service, that's easy, that's rich, that's sweet, that's the most pleasant. It's one time. The fact that we're in, brethren, you and I have to be obliterated.

[20:23] Yes, we have to be tried. Your old man, who's a good thing, he's a bad person. He's very similar. He was a awful chap by trade.

[20:34] I remember those things, so as you can see, I'm not telling you a fair detail. His name was Mr. Dixon. Well, he was telling the group of us one day, a little chap at the roadside, oh, those roadside chaps are 50 and more years ago.

[20:54] Yes, they can be nice. They can be otherwise. Well, he was telling us a bit of experience when he began to go out, and he said, and I've never forgotten it.

[21:09] He said, I tried to pray again. It's very quiet now. Not just without a voice.

[21:20] He said, I've tried to pray. And then there was such pause, he had to try ever since. There's a lot of times.

[21:32] God made us try. That's what he made us try. It's only been a try ever since. We've never succeeded in our judgment.

[21:44] We never hoped to succeed in our judgment. But God helped us to keep trying, working at what God works it in.

[21:58] He gives the will. Immediately, we are regenerated. Thy people to make willing. Volunteers, I think the margin says, in the day of his greatest power.

[22:14] God, yes. They don't want pressing. They don't want persuading of men. I think it's abominable if any man tries to persuade or press any man or woman, say you join a church.

[22:34] Meet for a cup of tea. Have a chat over the teapot. Oh, I know it's been done. I do much so. And the idea is, to get done pretty well in every age of the teapot, and emotionalism, and then, lug them into the church, before they know where they are.

[22:58] Well now, God doesn't want that. When God has anyone of his own, to make a public reflection of his name, he'll work in them, to will, and to do it.

[23:15] And it may be so slow, so gradual, and it can be quick, there's no limitations, we must fix to God, but oh, we must do it.

[23:27] And then, they come, well, like a dear old woman did, in our own case. And that, well that must be 55 or 56 years ago now.

[23:40] After service one Sunday evening, I got into the vexler to get a hat and coat, and this dear old woman, Mrs. Harlow, of my name, she came and fought on her chair, in the vexler, she said, oh, I must, never forget the dear old child, ah, that's it, I must, into me not, ye must not say it, for I must, go with thee God, willing, God may be the person, able, of the same path.

[24:22] Similarly, with respect to, ah, that great thing of all, death. Death. We mustn't expect, we start having as we do, dying moments, while we are alive, but, ah, I like those words, which we read, I am straight between the two, having a desire to be far, and to be with Christ, which is far better.

[24:54] Ah, well, when the time comes, God's time, I do believe, he will work with the willingness, as well as give the readiness, for that solemn moment.

[25:11] Now, it is, right for you and me, to be exercised, about that solemn moment. If I may say so, I speak as unto wisely, judge ye what I say, don't be undue, worried about it.

[25:31] It will up till now, you know, as well as me, that, what you have worried about the most, has never happened.

[25:45] The stone, invariably get rolled away from the door, before you get to it. The bridge is generally there, long before we get to the river, though we have anticipated, that we have anticipated, that we have reached for miles.

[26:00] You know what I mean? Ah, that reminds me of a sweet little, a sweet little story. Ah, tell it to me. Ah, I'm not afraid, tell it to me.

[26:12] So not you may smile. Smile. That's not my object, in telling you it. There's a dear old man, he'd been up and down, the land, in his native county, of Cornwall, for many years.

[26:30] And I, children, illiterate, literally, not spiritually, but I don't know. And he'd been doing this for many years, in the early part of the 18th century, and not without proof, from his labor, very much on a gate.

[26:51] Well, he became very ill, and it was thought that his end was near. Two or three ministers of the clock, they went to see him, and, ah, to finish up as he should.

[27:12] They each had a word in prayer, on their knees, and they each begged, that he might be spared, for some time again.

[27:23] One even went so far, as to ask, that he might be spared, for twenty or thirty years more, Lord. Dear old man, while they were praying, he says, Lord, don't hear, don't hear.

[27:38] I am the desire, to be spared, and the being of Christ, to be spared. It's so natural about that, he'll say.

[27:49] Very much so. But it's spiritually natural, for all that, I, let a man have it wrought in his heart, that he's near, oh, he don't want to stop.

[28:03] Yes. To be spared. The word means, to be called to peace. The tabernacle of the body, is to be called to peace. Sometimes God pulls it down, very much, slowly.

[28:19] This is the sign of this, in the tabernacle here, and a, and a hook there, I show it to me, but it's too bad. Ah, well, the point is, forgive my ranting, that, when the time comes, he makes with it.

[28:38] And, it is God that the world is in you, to will and to do, of his good pleasure, you think of that word, I haven't timed out, to stop on it, of his good pleasure, good pleasure, it will relate first, to the precepts of the word, that is good pleasure of course.

[29:04] But, secondly, and this particular length, it relates to this, that it's a pleasure to him, a pleasure to him, to work in us, to live and do, with his good, his little, he's a father, never forget that friend, he's a father, he has a thousand, sacks, and a father, like a father, no less, ah, he's pleased to give you and me the help, we need for now, to survive, and for any and every emergency, that shall come along, so that while, the precepted word, may seem too big for you and me, to work out our salvation, that is the evidence of it, with fear and trembling, yet don't be alarmed, you are well able to do it, because he, will work with him, the will, and the ability, and be pleased to do it.

[30:12] And may I add, you'll be pleased to do it, too, so there's no trouble, not at all. Oh man, there's something you should say, about certain people, oh, he says, John will isn't there, really what he meant, well when John will, that is the willing mind, he's put in a man's heart, no problem, a pleasure to him, to do, whatever he's helped to do, for the name, sake, of the Lord Jesus, and then, at the plenary of his life, he will, he's done now.

[30:54] God, he's done it. It's been God, that's been the duat. I work, my power of working, and I work, hitherto, too, shalt Christ, and here shalt unto him.

[31:13] what is the work of God, that we should do? Jesus says, this is the work of God, that you should believe, are you son?

[31:26] tell him that, as I am. This is the work of God, that you believe. Look at you, he's done it. God gives the faculty, the principle, faith.

[31:41] but it's the living child, in that faculty, that believes, and so it's called, his act. Abraham, believed God, and many others, is spoken of as their act.

[31:55] If only as God, work the peace, they work the tax. Which is, which is, conviade, mayed, and they will not, throw faith.

[32:09] Amen.