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[0:00] feeling so much to need the Lord's merciful and gracious help I can that venture with a word that you will find in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 33 reading verses 24 and 25 the book of Deuteronomy chapter 33 reading verses 24 and 25 and of Asher he said let Asher be blessed with children let him be acceptable to his brethren and let him dip his foot in oil thy shoes shall be iron and brass and as thy days so shall thy strength be our reading together in the 49th chapter of the book of Genesis there we have the record of Jacob blessing his sons and among the blessings that he was moved I believe by the Holy Spirit to speak is the blessing regarding Asher out of Asher his bread shall be fat and he shall yield royal dainties and as I understand it the inheritance of Asher was such that it was a very fertile part of the land of promise and if we just think like this for a moment that in the blessing which Jacob conveyed by the Spirit regarding Asher and then in this chapter here we have as it were again one of God's servants proclaiming blessings as appointed by God and in both the chapters they are indeed the last words of a godly father and a godly leader and if we help to consider it in this light and there are those of you here this evening who have known what it is to stand around a dying bed and those of you that have been favored in this and have known what it is for a godly father or mother or whoever it may have been and if you've been favored with them you will know how much it meant to you now here we have this particular blessing that is spoken regarding Asher and I read these two verses once more and as I just read them may we be made aware that this is the word of God that this is the word of God and that it was spoken by God through his servant Moses and of Asher he said let Asher be blessed with children let him be acceptable to his brethren and let him dip his foot in oil thy shoes shall be iron and brass and as thy days so shall thy strength be well I'm sure that perhaps most if not all of you here this evening may be aware that this poor man who stands before you this evening has desired to be the Lord's messenger in the Lord's message to you dear people here at Jireh and I can only hope and that is with my God

[5:07] I can only hope that the Holy Spirit has given the word and that the same Holy Spirit will now help me to speak from it and of course I have especially in my heart and thoughts your present position here as a people and we would desire that it might be as it were a word from God for you only the Lord can make it this I hope that he will and I hope that you will feel that this is the word of the Lord and I do also think of God's servants that are here with us tonight because I remember venturing with the same word in Lamberhurst pulpit some good few years ago now one Lord's day afternoon and one has been compelled to venture with it just a few times but sir this evening my special thoughts are with you here and for you here and what a word we have before us every one of God's servants that are sent by him to preach have a work to do and every God sent minister has their own work to do and that is appointed by God and I believe we could go a step further and say this that from their first sermon to the last in the hands of the Holy Spirit there will be that direction with them and as they will seek from God his word again and again knowing their great and solemn need of this how often we read especially in the prophecies in the Old Testament how that the word of the Lord came to God's servants it came to them and it's still the same today

[7:32] God's servants graciously exercised they tremble in this great matter and that they need God's word to be given them every time they are to preach they feel their need of this they tremble to be left to take God's word on their own unless they wait before God in and with their need of God given his word to be given and this of course is also the exercise the exercise of living souls and there are those of you here tonight that have proved this from time to time when you've been in great need when you have been burdened before God and when at times you've been brought very low and how then you've cried unto God and how many times you've had to plead concerning whoever was to be the minister Lord may he be thy messenger in thy message and you felt to need it in your own heart and there are those of you here tonight that the Lord has favoured in this

[8:45] I was speaking to a friend only today who so dearly loved the late Mr. Samuel Curtis who at one time was the pastor of Hanover Tunbridge Wells and this particular lady who is now and has long been a member of Ebenezer Luton but that lady was was knew what it was to be brought up in a convent under the teaching of Rome and as the Lord brought her out of all this and in her early days of spiritual exercise Mr. Samuel Curtis was her pastor and this is what she said about him this morning to me she said he was God's servant to me he was God's servant to me he was my pastor and oh how many times the Lord used him to speak to my soul and that you see is the important thing without this there's nothing there's nothing in the ministry and there's nothing in hearing the word first of all then we come to the this part of this subject and of Asher he said let Asher be blessed with children

[10:16] I said a few moments ago that every God sent minister has a work to do but I do believe that every God sent minister will be very exercised that the Lord might favour them with one spiritual child and their burden that the Lord might favour them with spiritual children it's one of the very solemn aspects of the ministry and yet dear friends the Lord is a sovereign in all this and I've often thought of the words that are found in that beautiful hymn on the life and death of Samuel Rutherford and you've heard it before but it's this if but one soul from Anworth meet me at God's right hand my heaven will be two heavens in Emmanuel's land now this is the exercise of God sent ministers that the Lord might favour them with spiritual children and I do not know how

[11:23] God's servants will feel in this that are here tonight but I believe that they both will say yes that's true and the Lord knows how they feel and the Lord knows what he's done for them but let me make this clear that God is a sovereign in it to some of his servants he may favour them and he does favour them sometimes with more in that sense spiritual children that they are favoured to I'm also sure of this that God's servants little know what the Lord has done with their labours there may well be those that have been quickened into life by the word of God through one minister or another and the dear man may never hear about it here but the Lord knows but what I am saying is this that it is a very sacred thing to be favoured in the ministry of God's word with spiritual children and this is the exercise of my soul here this evening for you dear friends if one might speak of it in another way

[12:39] I have long felt that when God brings a minister and people together pastor and people that it is by divine appointment and if the Lord is indeed in it then he brings it to pass he is a sovereign in all that that will mean and yet in this it is as I see it it is like a marriage union now you dear friends here if one might be allowed to use this expression you've been in a time of courtship and you've come to that point and again if we might put it in this way you're now waiting to be married and this is what is so needed and I need help to try and put this in simple and gracious words but in a right way naturally speaking there cannot be children born until there is union between husband and wife

[13:56] I leave that thought because you see there's the deep that couches beneath there cannot be any true spiritual children in any pastoring people only as they are brought together in Christ you see this is the vital thing this is where the true union lies it's in Christ and the Lord Jesus speaks of himself in this way he says I am the vine ye are the branches but you see if the Lord and I'm thankful but I know so little hardly anything really of the exercises of your souls here as a people and in that way I'm completely free but the Lord knows the Lord knows all that's gone on in this the Lord knows your hearts the Lord knows the exercises of your souls but dear friends if there is to be and I hope there will be but if there is to be yet a time of blessing in this chapel it can only come as you are really united with your pastor in the living vine and all that that means and I'm sure that in the measure that the Lord has granted to you it must have been so otherwise you would never have asked him to come here as your pastor if you hadn't known something of what it is to be united to him in the

[15:39] Lord Jesus and to be united to him in the things of God what is it that has drawn you together what is it has made you feel you must ask him to come here in this way well surely in a right way it can only be as you are brought together in Christ and that through his precious word now there cannot be any spiritual children without this and it doesn't happen at once it's something it's something that it is something that grows and you will enter in all this into times of trial you will enter into times of testing it has ever been so oh how many godly men as they've entered into a past here or there oh how often there has been and there ever will be the balancing of the clouds there will be that that will encourage and there will be that that will discourage but if these things are sanctified to you it will make you cry the harder it will make you feel your need in a much deeper way and you see it is in this way that the

[17:05] Lord brings a people and a pastor together if we think of it in another way for a moment and you all understand this think of a flock of sheep if there are no lambs born the sheep the flock will die out and we are living in a day when the flocks in Jesus' fold have grown lank and field I do not know how John Berridge would feel today in this matter he said in his day the flocks in Jesus' fold are grown lank and field but surely we have to say they have grown lank and field and to my heart we are living in the last days they are perilous times and I felt much of late thinking of the second coming of Christ and how near it is none of us know but there is so much in the world today that certainly speaks to us of this and what the Lord's will yet is in

[18:14] Zion we do not know but friends we are on scriptural ground when we are rightly and graciously exercised in these things you see there must be exercise and before there can be a bringing forth of children naturally and there are mothers here tonight that well know this and fathers too there cannot be a bringing forth of children naturally without pain travail and there cannot be a bringing forth of children spiritually friends without travail now how does the Lord do this and of Asher he said let Asher be blessed with children now this was Moses the man of God you know how exercised he was that God would raise up a man as he said let the God of the spirits of all flesh set a man over the congregation that will go in before them and out before them will lead them out and will bring them in that they be not a sheep which had no shepherd you see how exercised

[19:22] Moses was and do you remember when the day came when the divine command was call Joshua call Joshua I wonder if any of you feel like this about God's servant that you wait as it were now for him to enter into this solemn position have you felt like this call Joshua you see how exercised Moses was and of Asher he said let Asher be blessed with children of course as I stand here tonight I feel I can say before my God that I have this exercise for you indeed not only for you here but I have it in my own life and path in the solemn position that one holds at Eastmore and God's servants that are here they will know well know something of this exercise well how does the

[20:24] Lord grant spiritual children then thinking of it in connection with a pastor and people well if I know anything about these things it can only be as the Lord grants exercise in the souls of his people I remember Mr.

[20:49] Tyler saying once and I felt that he was right in this he was speaking of a cause or any cause of truth and he said if there's one mother in Israel there there's hope one there's hope I believe there's more than one here what is a mother in Israel you see the word of God speaks of the church of Christ in this particular way it's found in Solomon's song what does it say there concerning living souls that have been brought to Christ who is this that cometh up out of the wilderness leaning on her beloved and then what does it say he if it will only come who is this that cometh up out of the wilderness leaning upon her beloved I raise thee up under the apple tree and that speaks of Christ and his precious word for thou and thy word are both the same

[21:52] I raise thee up under the apple tree there thy mother brought thee forth there she brought thee forth that bear thee friends as I look back it was 37 years ago this year that I went down into the baptismal pool in this place and I know this that there were dear souls that were here then and some of them are here tonight but I look back at that time in my own life and I know this that there were those in the church here at Jireh that were travelling for me and there are those of you here tonight you well know that there were those that travelled for you and some of them now in glory they've done with the things here below they've been gathered home but there were those and you see then in those days at Jireh and it goes back of course some almost 40 years and some of you longer than that but friends how was it that we were brought forth we were brought forth as the

[23:05] Lord laid our souls in the hearts of whomsoever he would lay them the Lord laid our souls he laid them in the hearts of those that he would lay our poor case in their heart the Lord laid us in the hearts of one or another of his dear people now I know that is the case and there are those of you here tonight that can testify to this that you you may not know you may know if you know you'll understand what I say you'll know if you had a spiritual father you'll know if you had a spiritual mother father I've always felt in my own case that dear Mr.

[23:54] Dawson was my spiritual father and why was he because the Lord used him he was the first minister that God used to speak to my poor soul in Stone Chapel and oh how I loved him for this I went into that chapel without any concern about my never dying soul and yet the Lord spoke to me that evening and the word of God reached my heart and it sent me home crying with the public and God be merciful to me a sinner well do you have a spiritual father you may not know but those of you that do what I mean is this as you look back and think of whatever servant of God was used in your case to speak to you and when you were brought to feel that God spoke to you through whomsoever it was and his word reached your heart and it was used to bring you into concern about your never dying soul well the apostle Paul he had this to say did he not although you have ten thousand instructors in Christ you have not many fathers and this is the way that children will be born and are born spiritually and I hope that this will be the case with your pastor as he comes among you that the

[25:21] Lord will make him a father in Israel in this place the Lord knows how he feels already I remember in my own case in the same year that one went on what is termed probation at Eastbourne and then one was asked to be their pastor and we felt that it was from God and we felt we must accept that invitation that friends I can remember a Sunday morning in October 1969 when the Lord laid two dear souls right in my heart and I've travelled for them ever since and others too and God's servants that are here tonight I believe will understand what I'm saying and others too but then the Lord not only does this but oh how often the Lord has used godly women godly women in the church of God and the Lord burdens them

[26:26] I wonder how many of you dear ladies that are here tonight have known and do know what it is and if you can say and feel before God in this there are those that you're carrying you may have been carrying them for years but are you carrying the soul are you carrying souls in your heart as the Lord if the Lord has laid them in your heart you will have to carry them and you see friends if and as and I'm sure of this that when the Lord lays the burden of souls in any of his people's hearts that burden will remain as long as the Lord intends it to whether those that carry it live to see a fulfillment or not and not everyone does but those that do they will carry that soul or souls in their heart and as it is naturally the nearer you get to the time of bringing forth the heavier will be the burden and sometimes it is so

[27:34] I know it is so that when the Lord will bring forth precious souls in any church he will lay the weight of those souls heavier than ever just to show you what I mean I so well remember going to our friend Miss Doris Humisets one Sunday for meals and for over eight years I traveled to and fro in that way and had meals with different friends but I went to this dear lady's home this particular day and she started to open her heart to me a little and immediately I sensed that she was exercised before God and I trembled and I rejoiced and I remember telling one of our deacons about this dear Mr. West who poor man is in the Brighton Bethesda home now and oh any of you if you've seen him you'll see what he's like now but I told him how I felt that day and he looked at me and he said it needs a little more wrestling it needs more wrestling and within a few weeks the Lord brought that it to pass and one

[28:55] Sunday evening as I as she was going out of the chapel and she was 70 years old she said to me that Sunday evening I shall have to come now this is the way that souls are brought forth and this is the way that the Lord grants spiritual children now I know he's granted them here and there are those of you here tonight that are a witness to it there are those of us here that were carried and we were carried when we were completely unaware of it we didn't know that we were being carried until the Lord made it now and if you'll pardon me and some of you will remember this I believe but I so well remember that when one was compelled to venture to tell what the Lord had done for our never dying soul I found that one and another in the church here at Jireh they said something like this we've been waiting for you we've been praying for you you see friends this is the way the Lord knows where there's exercise in any of your hearts tonight and the Lord knows what your pastor to be if I can put it that way what he is carrying and

[30:09] I'm sure he will be so then the word is and of Asher he said let Asher be blessed with children I desire it for God's servants that are here tonight as well as the one whom you've asked to be your pastor and oh friends we still need it at Grove Road but the way that these things are brought to pass then is this as the Lord burdens the hearts of his servants and as he burdens the hearts of his people I have known what it is from time to time in my own little life and path when oh the Lord has burdened one and another and sometimes they've encouraged me and sometimes the Lord has favoured me to encourage them you see these things they go on the pastor is used of God to encourage those that are carrying these souls and those that are carrying them they will know what it is to encourage their pastor in this sense that they will encourage him by going on to wrestle for him and friends if you will pardon me saying this there's no need really but if you bear with me in saying this what you dear people are going to need here at

[31:32] Jireh is in that measure that the Lord will grant you and how pouring of the Holy Spirit some of us remember that here Mr.

[31:42] Frank Gostin preaching in Gower Street Chapel so many years ago from this until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high now there will never be a bringing forth without it there will never be bringing forth without it you see all this is the work of the Holy Spirit within the hearts of the Lord's people and of Asher he said let Asher be blessed with children and then the word goes on and it says this let him be acceptable to his brethren you have passed through the three months in the early part of this year and I'm sure this word has been fulfilled in that measure that the Lord granted to you and this is what you were waiting for this is what you were looking for you know dear friends if the Lord will bring a poor man together with a flock the Lord will bring them together and how does he bring them together he brings them together through his own word it's his word there's nothing else a man may have whatever

[32:59] God given ability that he has but that in itself is nothing the thing that matters is as they are brought together in Christ by the Holy Spirit and know something of the everlasting love of God and so they become Trinitarians in it may we then notice how this is worded and of Asher he said let Asher be blessed with children let him be acceptable to his brethren I hope you'll bear with me again in what I feel I'm saying this it is one thing and it is a great favour and mercy the Lord knowing how you felt during that three months that God's servant was here with you that oh friends there's going to be the need of continuance and I think of the words of

[34:03] Gamaliel here that he said I cannot remember exactly the wording but this is the substance of it if this thing be of God it will stand but if it be of man it will come to naught and that will search you because you will know it's true and it will make you cry the harder but this is what your pastor is going to need more and more how can this be I believe it was Mr.

[34:37] Godwin and he may have been if memory serves me rightly the pastor at God Manchester and after twenty years as their pastor the thought was expressed it often has been however can a man go on preaching for twenty years or even more as their life may be spent how can they go on preaching to the same people do you know what his answer was he said I found a spring I found a spring and if the Lord is in this and I have that hope that he is but friends when the Lord is in a union of this kind this will continue let him be acceptable to his brethren how can men be acceptable to their brethren well only as they are favoured to be God's servants and the need of this continually and again

[35:38] I must tell you this you must remember that you're not the only one in the chapel there's great danger I feel in this you must remember that you're not the only one in the chapel there are others here and you see in feeding a flock God's servants this is their burden to feed the flock of God that is among you and if you are favoured you have young people here you have parents here you have those in the midst of life and you have those that are older and your pastor will be exercised to feed you you see but do remember that there are others beside yourselves and you see this is the case that you will not always be favoured let me just remind you and the time seems to be gone but let me just remind you of what Jacob said concerning Asher in that blessing that he pronounced out of

[36:39] Asher his bread shall be fat and he shall yield royal dainties well if we think of our diet through the course of the year we do not have what we might term special food do we we don't we don't often have what we might term special food we have days in the year we all have certain days when the family gets together and something special is arranged and in that kind of way but you see for the most part we live as we do we don't always have special food do we and it's just like that in the ministry of God's word these royal dainties are comparatively rare in the experience of a child of God how many times friends have you had special times of hearing how many times have I had special times of hearing they've been comparatively few I remember speaking to Mr. Stanley

[37:39] Dells about this once when I told him how the Lord had used him to preach his word right into my heart here one Sunday morning and the word was and when I see the blood I will pass over you and friend if ever I received a blessing I did that day I'd never felt it the same before or since but I felt that day that the blood of the Lord Jesus was indeed it was true of this poor sinner and when I see the blood I will pass over you when I told him about it and he was by then he been preaching over 50 years and he almost come to the end of his life and he said this he said Seth he said I've only been to Calvary three times in my life so do not expect special blessings every Lord's day and those of you that understand this you won't expect them but you'll be thankful for a crumb because really a crumb from the master's table is a feast and special times of divine favour they are appointed and usually these things come when we've been brought down into the depths in the fire in the deep waters it's in such things

[38:58] I believe that the Lord's people receive their greatest blessings and of Asher he said let Asher be blessed with children let him be acceptable to his brethren your pastor to be and as he is will need to be endued with power from on high and only the Lord can grant this but it is to be prayed for friends the more you are helped to pray for him I mean in secret as well as in your public prayer meeting but especially in secret the more you are favoured to pray for him in secret I believe the more the Lord will bless you and let him dip his foot in oil well this speaks of the very life of the ministry as he receives it directly from his saviour as he receives it from the

[40:01] Lord himself well I must close but in all this there's a promise and you're going to need it friend you're going to need the promise your pastor is and you are as a people but there is a promise with this and what is it thy shoes shall be iron and brass and as thy days so shall thy strength be amen we'll conclude this service by singing hymn number three hundred and thirty two to the tune Wavertime three hundred and thirty two now let the feeble all be strong and make

[41:24] Jehovah's arm their song his shield is spread o'er every saint and thus supported who shall faint three hundred and thirty two love saøre the And my sight, let us come round and round shall be free.

[42:38] I can see, O God, I need you on singhey and praise O Lord and happen in hisry and take up Amen.

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