The Old Waste Places

Thank you. I'd like to read with you if we could in Isaiah, Isaiah's prophecy in chapter 58. Isaiah chapter 58 Isaiah 58 verse number 1 Cry aloud Spare not lift up thy voice like a trumpet and show my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways.

It's a nation that did righteousness and Forsook not the ordinance of their God they ask of me ordinances and of justice They take delight in approaching to God wherefore have we fasted say they and they'll see us not wherefore have we afflicted our soul I'll take us no knowledge Behold in the day of your fast you find pleasure and exact all your labors behold you Fast for strife and debate and to smite with the fist the wickedness He shall not fast as you do this day to make your voice to be heard on high Is it such a fast that I have chosen a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? But I'll call this a fast and acceptable day Day to the Lord now just for the sake of time down to verse number 12 Give some water there Thought this to be too dry an awful way to start a conference with something that's dry Verse number 12 Maybe I should put just for the sake of connection Let me go back to to verse number six is not this the fast that I have chosen to loose The bands of wickedness to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free and that you break every yoke Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry that they'll bring the poor that are cast out my house When they'll see us the naked they'll recover him now shall hide not thyself from thine own flesh Then shall I lay break forth is the morning nine health shall spring forth speedily I Righteousness shall go before thee the glory of the Lord shall be thy rear reward Then shalt thou call notice the change here now verse number nine Then thou shalt call and the Lord shall answer thou shalt cry and he shall say here I am If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke Notice the putting forth of the finger and the speaking of vanity Thou drought thy soul to the hungry satisfy the afflicted then shall all thy light arise and obscurity and I darkness be as the noonday and The Lord shall guide the continually and satisfy thy soul and drought Make fat thy bones and thou shalt be like a watered garden and like the spring of a water Whose waters fail not they that shall be of thee that shall build the old waste places This is the verse I want really verse number 12 They shall be of thee that shall build the old waste places thou shalt raise up Thank you Verse 12 they shall be of thee that shall build the old waste places. Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations Thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach the restorer of pause dwell in Mr. Boyd Nicholson who really maybe didn't circle Move that much amongst us Was a very devotional man. I knew him as a friend.

He was a Air Force pilot during for the Royal Air Force during World War two And Here's a book out called the watered garden. It's a delightful book. I have to confess to you I haven't read it in its entirety, but I've read parts of it And why I would remember him, of course, he was very interested in aviation.

He was very sick in Iowa one time I know I'm telling you this but that must be 15 16 years ago I was going back to the East Coast and there's a one seat left on the plane And there was six or eight of us And mr. Nicholson was a sick man. He flew back Took him to his right in the st. Catharines right near where he lived He wanted to go and just drop me off in Toronto.

He said my wife will pick me up there But he wrote a book called the watered garden. It's a delightful book I know like likely some of you have had it and read it and reread it But this is really the passage that he takes up. I have to confess to you.

I don't remember all that much However, I enjoyed it at the time But what I've been thinking about particularly is verse number 12 the old waste places You know Isaiah as we rightly say when we're preaching the gospel is often called the gospel of the Old Testament And he is that he preached the gospel is the message of Isaiah But Isaiah more than anybody else is also the preacher of restoration He wanted to see God's people restored Recovered You know dear child of God there isn't a day There isn't a day in our lives that we don't need to be restored. There isn't We never get beyond that So that he might be heard. That's why he starts the verse number one He says lift up thy voice like a trumpet God insists that his people here.

I Think of coming to a conference like this here Waukesha. Do you know God insists he insists that we hear Maybe we're not going to hear what we want to hear What we'd like to hear is likely what we don't need as I often say others have said it too But might we have that ear to hear might it be like a trumpet? you know how it is you've been at conferences and things have been spoken on and Immediately they've gone right to you. You kind of put them away at least I do have to speak a personal experience Oh, that's you know The Lord understands or the excuses or that that's what's happening in this chapter These people were raising the pointing finger they're pointing at everybody else.

So they're the problem. They're the problem The prophets telling them get the pointing finger down start pointing it inward. You're the problem.

You're the problem So verse number 12, he says they shall be of thee that shall build the old waste places. Now, that's not A verse that is just only there in the prophecy of Isaiah if you go back to chapter 5 You remember that he says then the lamb shall feed after the man or in the waste places of the fat ones Shall the strangers eat? So again, Isaiah is concerned about these waste places chapter 51 for the Lord shall comfort Zion Here's a comfort all of her in her waste places. Isaiah 52 and verse 9 break forth into joy sing together Ye waste places of Jerusalem.

The Lord hath comforted his people. He hath redeemed Jerusalem and Here where we've read in Isaiah 58 verse 12 waste places this country like our country if you search far enough, you'll find that they have a Super fund that super fund is for building Dumps or wastelands or Nobody, I mean nobody gets excited when they find out there's gonna be a dump bill down the road from where you live No matter what kind of a community you're in. Nobody wants to be near a waste place.

No We've got an environment. We got a company in our tell them where I live that Looks after this and of course, they have very fancy names on it. And my wife asked me the other day She says what they really do They're trying to tell you that they're doing the best they can to keep the environment clean That's why they have a picture of the blue water going across all the fancy names and I'm not taking from that.

I always remember It was that long ago last fall when young Joe Potter took me visiting somebody's contacts We were having some gospel meetings and we went back to this man Tried to him come to a meeting in there It was a dump and it was all kinds of old wrecked cars And he was telling us how much a ton he was getting for them and loading them on semis and hauling them out What really caught my eye was I had the stream went that far away I'm sure he'd have to be careful But I did notice a place where a tractor wheel got stuck and water laid in there for a while and all the seepage From those cars whether I don't know whether it's their engines or their batteries or just the car itself But it was just a toxic green There wasn't even frogs in it. It was desperate looking thing. Oh Man, that's that's bad.

Could you not covered up get up plowed in? That's the waste place You know brothers and sisters, let's be honest about it myself included We've had waste places in our lives and you know, we have and I have Times that we look back to like the nation could look back to Now, I know that God's Ideal for them was never to spend all those years in the wilderness. However, they learn lessons in the wilderness They may not have learned otherwise and we read to the Prophet tells us that they found grace in the wilderness So it wasn't all a waste but there was a lot of waste in Israel's day Time when they could have served the Lord time when there could have been development time when there could have been worship And so on just times of waste What about our lives? Do you mean times of waste in your life? Look back And think Yeah a few years back there I wasn't doing so well No, I could have contributed more to the assembly than I did God knows it and I knew it My wife told me I did nothing about it And finally God spoke to you at a time and things turned around and there was a restore the breach. There's a recovery of that waste place.

I Would be as addicted To the to the electronic age as anybody in this audience Might saw a minute to you whether it's the iPhone the iPad the MacBook the Apple watch I Become very addicted to it When I sit down to have I'm an early riser. I Go to bed early Well, I sit down and start to have my use them up maybe before my wife my coffee and that breakfast the morning I look at that clock and I say, okay, there it is Up six, whatever coffee made is twenty five to seven ten to seven. I'm out.

This is it No matter what I'm reading doesn't matter how good it is what I'm surfing. I'm finished Then I will go to emails answer those emails and Then get on with the reading. See what I didn't do the reading first.

I'll tell you why I don't do the reading first Well, I do in the reading. I think what if that brother got back to me? He's kind of a little Provoked in that email what if he got back to me? So that's always going through my mind I want to be able to read up that that other looked after You're not all like that, but there could be way you could just draw hours and hours into that And I'm not up beating up on some of these things. I had to tell preacher here a while ago He was really throttling pretty down on the Facebook.

I said, listen, your wife's on it. Don't you say a word? You got a word to say if she's on it. Well, you know, yeah, she shows you a few things So don't you be up there beat up of the Christians in there on Facebook.

I Know brother don't want sometimes things promoted on it It's it happens to be social media whether you like it or not brother It's a communication people have come to gospel meetings as a result of what they've seen on Facebook. Okay? I know there's all kinds of time that can be wasted on that. You don't have to tell me that I you don't need me To come and tell you that all I'm saying is make the time count Waste places.

It's never a waste time when you're gathered with God's people never Never mr. Ramsey back when newspapers used to be a big thing. There are any more USA today They cut they want I like to they give me one at the first airport. I had that they always know I like an airport USA today while I'm flying along and I've liked them and reading for maybe 25 years as long as been out It's down.

I think she called a pamphlet. Yeah, I don't pay for they give it to me $2 about that thick That's not all this. Mr. Ramsey used to say there's only one way to read the newspaper standing on one leg There's maybe only one way to be on Facebook or some of these other things stand on one leg How is it you can remember what you read on? the news or on the Facebook I would you read this morning the scripture would you read? And please brother, please let me speak the preachers don't get up, please and Go after the Christians at a conference.

What did you read this morning? It just may happen to be that you didn't get up there get four kids ready to go in the car packed up Clothes ready and to meeting and then get up and beat on them because they didn't read that morning Okay, back off on that a bit doesn't mean they don't read other days I think that's very very unfair happened at our conference once Good, man. Got a hold of them. Excuse me.

What are you doing tomorrow morning? I say we got 50 pounds of potatoes need for you to peel. Could you come and help us peel? He's what time do you do that? I said we start feeling about quarter seven. Ooh I Said would you like do your reading before after what do you want to do that? He didn't peel potatoes.

I don't think he's preached anymore not in our area about coming down these Sisters and families because they didn't do their I'm not saying you you don't need to read on conference where you know I'm saying that but brethren, this is what's wrong here Okay Instead of pointing at everybody else instead of finding fault with anybody You have to go find it. You don't have to go far with preachers to find fault. You can find fault with any of us Okay, we realize that you don't have to go far in any assembly to find fault with the oversight You don't have to go in any assembly to find fault with other fellow believers, but those are waste places that's toxic toxic And you'll happen those waste places.

You'll let you'll pick up toxic material and you'll carry it I'm sorry that I had to tell a Relative of mine. I felt her attitude was so poisonous. She should stay home from the conference I said if you can't go with a better attitude that you better stay home It's poisonous That's not what we need brother.

We don't need poisonous address. Well, you say you shouldn't say that maybe she come get some help Yeah, she didn't want any help She wanted to spread her poison Easy done. It's been done brethren.

You should humble us make us cry out to God Nobody wants to be around somebody that's that way don't we enjoy fellowship of Christians and I Enjoy a happy Christian life. I a Brother wrote me here a while ago and I said, excuse me, excuse me. Okay, I Know my age.

I Tell people I'm working the back shift of the late shift if you don't mind I want to spend the rest of my days happily serving the Lord I don't need some bitterness or something to take over on me or by come on become a sour cranky old man That's possible with any of us God help us to to enter our lives Like the Prophet could tell him here. He said they shall be of thee not somebody else you you're gonna rebuild this Okay, he says the old waste places now shall raise up the foundations remember times when you know as well as I do you could Have made that meeting you didn't try It's a waste place Waste place no matter what you try to justify. It was a waste place It's never a waste of time or place when you are where God would have you to be Now shall raise up the foundations many generations member.

He limits because the foundations are We're gone We're down and he says the repair of the breach to restore paths to dwell in I think that's delightful past as well so God help us to As we approach this conference to search our our lives our time And just say no, we're just getting away on me Where am I losing here? I'm not saying that you got to go breakneck speed and you've got so much to get done and you're so Task orientated that nobody can take you aside and that whatever No, sometimes God can make us slow down So we don't want to be that but we don't want to be that carrier of that toxic either I'm reminded of a Man by the name of Hurley was his last name bit of a comedian. He told he lived in an upscale area He told the story of He had an old garbage container It wasn't any good. He wanted to get rid of it.

Did you want to get try get rid of an old garbage container? he says I would put it out with the garbage and You know have it there to go And it would be piled neatly back by my house next time when I go home So I said I took up a day I said I adverted it so they could see the holes in the bottom In other words, this is garbage. He said the garbage man didn't want it, but I didn't want it. I didn't need it It wasn't any good So the next day says I pounded it up beat it up I thought sure they'll take it now no Came home and here it is.

I'm died. Well, there's garbage. I don't know Pounded it all out set it right back up there Funny thought of something he said, you know went down local hardware.

He got a little chain small chain He changed it to the tree. So we stole it that night So there you are So those are the things that we got to do to get rid of something that's carrying that which is garbage and toxic So you say what's the what's the antidote to that? It's this word This word brethren sisters it is and you know Children are growing they're gone. Don't even want to tell you the ages of you think of an old man 14 grandchildren I Can remember thinking, you know, what's these kids get here? I don't have to race for that bus We're gonna get surely and I're gonna have great time reading our Bible together in it.

Do you know something? It is much of an effort to read the Bible now without Chick or child of the house as it was when we had four of them it is Well, I'll tell you something. It is enjoyable It is enjoyable and we take the time that we didn't think we had then to read together something sweet about it We pray it together each day as a husband and wife. Nothing can take the place of it Let me speak to younger Christians with your families in this wicked world boy, brother, whatever you do Little grandson in our house the other day and he was reading him So I said to him the little checkup you see I said so do you read at home? No, he says dad usually reads and their mom.

I said don't let you read No, not too much. I say you tell him grandpa says you'd like to read so I'll let you know how to make out All right, but there's something about listen that little boy, you know reading the Word of God the purified not even saved I mean, he's only six or seven years old, but waste places Let's not only avoid them But be a contributor of it that God might make us those that will be the restore of paths to dwell in the restore of the breach