Stewardship of the treasures of Christ

Let us read together, please, in 1 Timothy chapter 6. I will read at verse number 20, please. 1 Timothy chapter 6 and verse 20. O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings on the positions of science, falsely so called.

On 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 13, perhaps even verse 12. Verse 12. For the which cause I also suffer these things, nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

Hold fast the form of some words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us. Now in chapter 2, please, verse 1. Thou, therefore, my Son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

On the things that thou has heard of me among many witnesses, the same cometh thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. Thou, therefore, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Keep your finger there.

I will turn now to the book of Ezra and we're going to read in chapter 7. The book of Ezra and chapter 7. Verse 14. Ezra 7 and verse 14. For as much as the heart send of the king and of his seven counselors to inquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem according to the law of thy God which is in thine hand, and to carry the silver and the gold which the king and his counselors have freely offered unto the God of Israel whose habitation is in Jerusalem.

Verse 19. The vessels also that are given thee for the service of the house of thy God, those deliver thou before the God of Jerusalem. On chapter 8, please.

And verse 15. And I gathered them together to the river that runneth to Ahabba, and there abode we in tents three days. Verse 24.

Then I separated twelve of the chief of the priests, Sherabiah, Hashabiah, and ten of their brethren with them, and weighed unto them the silver and the gold, and the vessels even the offering of the house of our God which is which the king and his counselors and his lords and all Israel there present had offered. I even weighed unto their hand six hundred and fifty talents of silver, and silver vessels and hundred talents, and of gold and hundred talents. Also twenty basins of gold of a thousand drams, and two vessels of fine copper precious as gold.

And I said unto them, Ye are holy unto the Lord, the vessels are holy also, and the silver and the gold are a freewill offering unto the Lord God of your fathers. Watch ye and keep them until you weigh them before the chief of the priests and the Levites and chief of the fathers of Israel at Jerusalem in the chambers of the house of the Lord. So took the priests and the Levites the weight of the silver and the gold and the vessels to bring them to Jerusalem unto the house of our God.

Then we departed from the river of Ahava on twelfth day of the first month to go unto Jerusalem, and the hand of our God was upon us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy, and of such as lay in wait by the way. Now verse 33, Now on the fourth day was the silver and the gold and the vessels weighed in the house of our God by the hand of Meramoth the son of Uriah the priest, and with him was Eleazar the son of Phinehas, and with them was Josabath the son of Jeshua, and Noediah the son of Benueh Levites. By number and by weight of everyone and all the weight was written at that time.

We trust God that he will bless his word and give us help to speak what has been upon our heart as a burden. In reading through Ezra and Nehemiah recently, I have been spoken to by these passages and would like to pass on to you what has spoken to me. What we have in Ezra chapter 7 and chapter 8 is one incident among many incidents that happened when a remnant of the people of Israel that were captive in Babylon for 70 years came back to Jerusalem, the place where God had put his name.

It started with Zerubbabel, approximately 50,000 people came back with him. They built the altar. After a while they built the temple, the sanctuary, the house of God.

Then another group came under Ezra, a little less than 2,000 people with him. Then some years later Nehemiah came with just a few men. But in the history of these two books, we have a group of people, really a minority, a remnant of the people of Israel who left the place of their captivity, Babylon, and came back to Jerusalem amidst much weakness, much discouragement, much to oppose them, much problems, but they came back to the place where God had put his name.

My mind was arrested in that chapter 7 and chapter 8, and I just like to look at it as an illustration that applies to us today. Because during that trip that Ezra took, they just did not come to Jerusalem with empty hands. The king of the empire had put into his hands a treasure.

He had gold, silver, he had vessels of gold and silver, and he was responsible to carry this treasure all the way from Babylon to Jerusalem and the temple of God. You might say that this was a stewardship, something that was entrusted to Ezra and those traveling with him. Now you might wonder, what does that have anything to do with us today? Well, I like to think about it this way.

According to what we have read in 1st Timothy and 2nd Timothy, you and I have been blessed with a far greater treasure that Ezra and the folks coming back with him had in their hands during that journey. Their treasure was gold and silver and vessels, no doubt worth a lot, but our treasure is made of teaching, doctrine, truth. God had put that treasure into the hands of the Apostle Paul as a trust, as a deposit.

During his lifetime, the Apostle put that trust into the hands of men like Timothy, and he told Timothy, Oh Timothy, keep that good deposit. Guard it, Timothy. And Timothy had to teach the same truths to his fellow believers, faithful men, who would be able to teach others also.

Now I don't know if you have appreciated that for yourself, but I wasn't raised in an assembly. I came from a very dark background, and after God saved me, and a number of others in a village of Green River, New Brunswick, in His grace and sovereignty, He has brought men our way to show us the truth of the local assembly and to teach us the basic principles of a local assembly. And as we understood some of these truths, bit by bit, and by the help of the Holy Spirit, grasped them for ourselves, these truths found a lodging place in our hearts.

And we soon realized that what these men were teaching us was something that had a greater value than all the material things in this world. That was a little over 30 years ago, and I would like to tell you, and God is my witness today, that I realize now more than ever what a wealth God has put into our hands. Coming back to the illustration, when they left the River Ahava, before they left, Ezra took that treasure, and he divided it, and he entrusted it into the hands of 12 men, 12 priests, and he told them, he said you guard this, you keep this, until we reach Jerusalem.

So Ezra did not want to do it all by himself, he entrusted the treasure to others, you see. And when he put the treasure into their hands, you know what he did? He counted everything. Every piece of silver, every piece of gold, every vessel, silver, gold, brass, copper, he counted everything, and they wrote it down.

And on top of that, he weighed everything, but on a scale. Not only every piece was counted, but everything went on the scale, how much it weighed. And he told them, when we reach Jerusalem and the house of God, we're gonna count everything again, and we're gonna weigh everything again.

How would you have felt if you would have been one of these 12 men? And Ezra, when Ezra put this silver, this gold, these vessels into their hands, they must have felt the weight of their responsibility, the grandeur of their stewardship, how serious they must have become as they fought on the way, their enemies, those who lay by the wayside, who would rob us of this treasure, who would try to take some of it from us. And they understood this, this is not ours, this is not our silver, this is not our gold, this is not our vessels, it's not for us, it is for the house of God of Jerusalem. And all this silver and all this gold will be used to buy the sacrifices to go upon the altar for God and His pleasure.

And these vessels will be used in the temple for the service of God. And they took their journey. Now, brothers and sisters, I would like to apply that to us today.

God has put into our hands precious truths, and God has counted them, God has numbered them. He knows how much light He has given us in His Word. He knows how much teaching we've received.

He knows how much the Holy Spirit opened the Scriptures to us and brought before us these beautiful things from His Word. And God knows that when He has put that upon in our hands and trusted us with these things, God knows exactly how much they weigh. And the day is coming, oh when I think of it, not at Jerusalem, but in the Father's house, up there, when the Lord comes, we're all raptured in His presence.

You know what's gonna happen? We're gonna appear before the bema, the judgment seat of Christ. What will happen there? The same thing that has happened in the picture at Jerusalem, when Ezra and the folks that came with him reached Jerusalem, everything was counted by number, and everything went on the scale. Why? To check if anything was lost in the way.

And on that day, brothers and sisters, when we all appear before our Lord Jesus, everything He has given us from His Word will be counted again and will be weighed again. And we will have to give account to Him what we have done with His great treasure He has put in our hands. I wonder, will everything be there? Will we have lost some truths in the way? Would we have allowed the enemy to rob us? Should I say, rob God, because it says of His teachings, these doctrines, these precious things? I wonder when we'll reach there, and I stand before Him, will the truths He has revealed to me, taught me from His Word, have the same weight in my life at the end of the journey that it had at the beginning of the journey? And I will have to give account to Him for what I have done with this treasure.

I would like to speak to you here today who are younger, and you say, how old is that? Well, it's my age and younger. Have you understood? Have you grasped? Have you appreciated for yourself the great treasure you have in your hand? I'm not talking about your home, or your car, or your bank account. This, what this book teaches, why are you just leaving it to the older brethren? You sit under their ministry, do you pay attention? Do you seek to understand by their teaching? Do you seek to grasp for yourself these truths that have marked them and molded their lives? As they're seeking to put into your hands that precious deposit that was put into their hands? These older brethren will not always be here, and you are that generation, younger sisters as well, that will have to take the treasure and carry it, and keep it, and guard it, until the Lord comes.

Now, to be a bit more specific, what are these truths? Well, we'll start with the very basic, the gospel. Yes, the gospel. Don't you think that's a treasure? Oh, I believe it's a great treasure, the gospel.

I shall forever thank my God for that time when it reached my ears, and my conscience, and my heart, and when my dark soul was first enlightened by the light of his word, when the gospel came our way, and that small place in New Brunswick, Canada, a small village so small you could drive by without noticing it, yet God in his grace and mercy had his eyes upon us. The gospel came our way. Oh, it wasn't too pleasant at first, but what a tremendous change it has wrought in the souls of young men and young women who were deep in sin, deep in drugs, deep in immorality, and God in his grace and power by the gospel took these folks, sinners, counted by most in Green River as worthless, and he saved them, and he changed them.

Oh yes, friend, the gospel has a changing power, and it's not something that reaches just intellect. Something you say, yes, I do, I believe this. No, no, friend, it's far more than that.

The gospel is a message, God's message, God's powerful message that reaches the conscience of men, and my friend, this is the true gospel. When it comes into the life of people, it disturbs them, it bothers them, it awakens them, awakens them to their sinful condition, awakens them to their sin, awakens them to the fact that they're perishing. This is what it did to me.

Oh, I did not know one verse from the Bible, but through reading the New Testament, I'd received that school. It soon became evident God was speaking to me, and the arrows from his word reached my conscience, and I saw myself as an open book before him, and my sin became a burden upon my conscience to the point that at night, at times, I had a hard time to go to sleep, until that happy moment when, through the same gospel, God revealed to my dark soul his precious son. Oh, friend, what a change.

I remember walking home that night from that house where I knelt beside a couch as a broken sinner condemned in my guilt, and I first understood that he died for me, the sinner, and I took it in. It was so simple, and as I walked home that night, friend, my little heart overflowing with joy and praise and adoration, I began to thank God for his son for the first time. What happened? The gospel, friend, the gospel.

I'll never be in hell, never be in the lake of fire, sins forgiven, have an everlasting life, a living link with heaven, friend, a true relationship with God, and appreciation in my soul for the person of his son. Religion cannot produce that. I changed life, never had to go back to the drugs again, never had to go back to the dance hall again, never had to go back to the sport world again, never had to go back to my old religion again, friend, never had to go back with my old friends again.

Why? The gospel, the gospel. Have we understood? This is a treasure, this is a real treasure. I'm speaking to some folks here today, and I'm wondering, I don't know you, I'm a stranger here, as you know, but I would like to ask you the question, can you relate to my little story? I'm not asking you if you can copy my little story, but can you relate to that? Can you go back to a time in your life when the gospel had such an effect upon you? Or it's just a question of making a profession.

You know, you know in theory the gospel, and you made your own story. Perhaps there were some well-intended but unwise believer cornering you, and at times asking you, you're not saved yet, how come you're not saved yet? And just to get rid of these uncomfortable conversations, you profess to be saved. Oh my friend, this is not salvation.

I believe we have to come back to that, brothers and sisters. I believe we have to come back to what the gospel really is, because I'm afraid we are threatened by some diluted type of gospel. Some gospel only appeals to the intellect, some kind of message that only entertains people, some story, some emotional story.

We have to get back to the Bible, get back to the scriptures, get back to the gospel as it is found in the New Testament. We must not aim at the intellect or at the emotions of men and women. We must aim at the conscience, and we must not be satisfied with anything less than true repentance and genuine conversions, lies that are transformed, that are proof that the work of God has taken place in the soul.

Because if we're satisfied with anything less than that, we might still know the theory of the gospel. In other words, we might still number, be able to number it, count it, but the weight of it is not there anymore, and we are responsible for that. So when we speak the gospel to others, when we go into gospel meetings, have gospel series, may God preserve us to reach the point where we're hard.

May God preserve us to reach the point where we're so shallow, and the weight of the value of souls who are on their way to hell is not there anymore, and the passion of our heart is not there anymore, and the love of Christ and the love of God is not there anymore, and the reality of hell and the lake of fire and souls will perish forever is not there anymore. Oh, would to God that this message will have the same weight upon us, and until traveling days are gone, are done, until we reach the glory. I'm thinking of something else.

I'm thinking about the truth of the local assembly, and truths in our practice in the local assembly. Oh, same thing again. We might be able to number, count the different things that are practiced in a scriptural assembly.

Yes, if I were to ask you, what do you believe about the assembly, you would be quick to point to me, point me to the fact that an assembly should gather in none other name but that blessed name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and you'll go through different things, and you'll tell me that we should we should practice the Lord's Supper every first day of the week, and we should practice the priesthood of all believers, and we believe that the Holy Spirit has full liberty to raise up gifted men to take care of the flock. We don't believe in one pastor. We believe in shepherds, overseers, and you'll point out to the fact that there's a different role for the men, and a different role for the women, and you'll point you'll point me also to the fact that there's there is headship displayed in a symbolic way in the local assembly by the uncovered head of the men, and their short hair, and the covered head of the sisters, and their long uncut hair, and you'll go through all this, and these are all precious truths.

But I wonder, brethren, sisters, what about the weight of it? What about the weight of it? I remember the first time I saw the Lord's Supper, I was there sitting around the table with a bread, a loaf of bread, and a cup of wine. It was in the basement of a house, painted cement floor, and you think your chairs are hard today. It was nothing fancy on the walls.

It used to be a pool room before. I shall never forget that first Lord's Day morning. We sat there to remember the Lord, just a dozen of us.

There's only one thing I regret about that morning, I never took part. But I could still tell you some of the atmosphere of that small gathering, the reverence, the warmth, yes, the emotions, the praise, the thankfulness of our hearts as we sat there and thought on the symbols and what they meant, and thought upon the Lord Jesus and his death upon the cross of Calvary. Oh, we did not appreciate a whole lot about his person.

We could not go back to the offerings, no, but we're overwhelmed with the love of Christ, and appreciated so much the fact that he died for us. Oh, the weight of it! Is it possible now that we sit, we go to the motion, we do the right things, we sing the right hymns, and we use the right words, and I'm not pointing to you when I say that, I'm pointing to my own soul. And we become so mechanic in the way we do things.

The warmth is not there. Oh, so you say, what are you suggesting? Are you saying we should stop before the, because the warmth is not there? No, that's what I'm saying. All I'm saying is this, we should, we should ask God to bring us back to together.

Bring us back to the cross, bring us back to Calvary, bring us back to Christ, bring us back to an appreciation of his person and his saving work. The Lordship of Christ, precious truth, is he Lord in my life? Does he have that place of supreme authority, full dominion, control upon my life? You go back, you go back to those days when God saved you at first. You go back to those days when you first discovered the truth of the assembly.

Was there something the Lord asked you that you found, you found too hard to do? Oh no, I'm sure it wasn't the case. You might not have understood a whole lot, but whatever you understood in the scripture, and you understood the claims of a living Lord in your life, you willingly bowed down to it. I remember when I came back from Quebec City, not yet having understood the assembly.

Came home a weekend to Green River, and the brethren had been there trying to preach the gospel and teach the young believers, and one of those young believers took me aside and he made me read first part of 1st Corinthians chapter 11, and he didn't have to say any more than that. My hair was down here. Oh I could not have told you what the teaching was all about, but I understood this much.

It's not right for me to have long hair. And I went back to Quebec City, went back to work, and that week I went to the barber, faced the laughter of the friends at work. Now why was that? His word was everything.

Whatever he said, I wanted to do it. How was it today? Is there some compartment of my life? Is there some areas of my home? Is there some part of my behavior that I just hold control on? I say the Lord can control this and that and this and that, but that part. You see, we are exposed to a danger.

The danger of professing great truths with our lips and practicing only some of them. And the Lord Jesus said in Luke chapter 6 and verse 46, Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things I say? If we say that he is Lord in the assembly, that means we should do whatever he says. The Word of God is the final authority in the assembly.

It's not what I think. It's not what I feel like. It's not even what brothers so-and-so believe.

It's what God says. It's what the Lord wants. He's Lord in the assembly.

I'm also thinking, I see the time is over, of our homes. One thing that we have understood not long after the Lord saved us was the place of sisters in the home. Titus chapter 2 makes it very clear that women are to be workers at home.

That means that this is her sphere. This is not a small thing. This is not depriving us, the sisters.

This is the place where they excel. This is the greatest career. Looking after their home, raising children for the Lord, maintaining a good testimony.

Now we might not all know these things and be able to number them, but I'm wondering, what kind of weight do they have? Is it still true in assemblies? Is it still true in the assembly where I am? Is it something that we used to believe and practice, but with time we've let go? We've found excuses. We've found circumstances to justify the sisters leaving the home and having her own career. Now we know there are exceptions.

There are widows. There are single mothers. That's not what I'm talking about, but I believe there are assemblies suffering today tremendously because of sisters leaving the place that God has given them in the home.

There are assemblies where some of the Lord's servants go for gospel meetings. Now this is not my experience because I have traveled very little among assemblies for gospel meetings. I've spent most of my time in a small area where I am, but I've been told of some places where it has become a problem because of so many sisters at work that only a few same sisters can look after the Lord's servants.

And of course the consequences of that, it has become a burden to have gospel series for any extended period of time because of nobody being able to look after the preachers. So everything is suffering and children come at home. Mom is not there.

Babysitters are raising the children. No wonder, brethren and sisters, even in the home life we might lose ground. We must go back to the scriptures.

As I close my little message, I would like you to think with me for a moment of what it will be like when we appear before the Lord Jesus and all these truths contained in the New Testament, and I've only touched a very few of them, not only will be numbered to see if we have kept every one of them, but everything is going to go in the balance. See how much it weighed, how it influenced our life. We cannot afford at this point of time in the history of assemblies in North America to handle lightly God's truth because if we are light about the truth of God, we will lose it.

And it will be not only to our detriment and the detriment of the next generation, but brethren and sisters, what makes it so real and important, it's going to rob God of the other and rob the Lord Jesus Christ of the other that he deserves. This is what's at stake now. It's not what I will lose.

It's not only what collectively we will lose. It is what God will lose because the local assemblies are his testimony. The only thing he has as far as collective testimony in this world is the local assemblies.

May God help us then to keep guard this good deposit until the Lord comes.