Unity

Now I'd like you to turn with me to the book of Genesis, first of all, and chapter 13. Genesis chapter 13 and verse number 5, Genesis 13 and 5, says, And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents. And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together, for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together.

And there was a strife between the herdsmen of Abram's cattle and the herdsmen of Lot's cattle, and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelt in the land. And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen, for we be brethren. And I think probably you know the rest of the story.

So we're going to turn now to Psalm 133. Psalm 133, the Song of Degrees of David. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.

It is like the precious ointment or the precious oil upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard that went down to the skirts of his garments, as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. Now another reading in the Gospel of John, first of all in chapter one.

Verse 18, first of all, says, No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. Now verse 39, I think is the one we want to read, or verse 37 says, And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.

And Jesus turned and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, or teacher, which is to say, being interpreted, Master, where dwellest thou? He said unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. Now a couple more verses in John 13, please.

Verse 23 says, Now there was one leaning on Jesus' bosom, there was leaning on Jesus' bosom, one of his disciples whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him that he should ask who it should be of whom he speak. He then lying on Jesus' breast said unto him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop when he had dipped it.

And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. Now we know that God will bless the reading of his word with what we have already heard. Now what I want to speak about, I think it fits in with what our brother William has brought before us.

He looked at it maybe in a little different way, but I want to speak about unity. Unity is a very important thing. It's not just everyone trying to agree and going contrary to the word of God, but everyone going according to the word of God really will bring unity among God's people.

And I believe that that's what Satan is trying to do today. He's trying to divide the people of God. And sad to say, he seems to be quite successful.

And there are some that think they know better maybe than the word of God, and there's great departure in some places. And hopefully we will take a stand. I'm talking about all of us will take a stand against error that's coming in among us.

Now you can see this illustrated way back in the days of Abram and Lot. Lot also went with him. That's a little expression that's used maybe about three times in Genesis.

Lot who also went with him. And I think we can learn from that is that Lot was a man that he really didn't have convictions of his own. He moved upon the convictions of Abram.

And when Abram went out, Lot went with him and so on. And Abram had a great love for Lot, actually rescued him as we know reading the word of God when he was taken captive. But here in the script that we have read together, there was a disunity.

It was disharmony among the people of Lot and the people of Abram. And it says that there were those that were there in the land at the time, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, I think it is. And it said they were in the land.

And it seems to me that the thought there is, why they're brought in is that they saw what was going on. And the people all around us, they know if we're unified or not. They know if we're all getting along together or not.

They know far more than you and I would imagine. So it's an awful testimony when God's people are divided. Of course, you all know what happened.

Lot chose a well-watered plain. That's what divides many of God's people today. They can see the material things in the world.

And the sad thing is that Abram in a way maybe was to blame because he had taken him down to Egypt and he saw the well-watered plain that was like the land of Egypt, like the irrigation around the Nile. But nevertheless, they separated. And materialism sometimes can draw people away.

They're more occupied with the material. As a matter of fact, you can illustrate it just very, very simply. The difference between Lot and Abram is this.

Abram had a tent. Oh, you say Lot had a tent too? Yes, he did. But Abram had an altar.

The tent would be separation from the world. And that could be a very legal thing and sometimes many ways. But you know, the altar was Abram's separation unto God.

The two things go together. You can't really separate them if we're going to live for God. And pretty soon it seems that Lot left his tent and ended up in a house.

And sad to say, after that, he ended up in a cave. He ended up in darkness with sin, even though he was a righteous man. I hated the filthy conversation of the ungodly.

Now we come to Psalm 113. I think you can see the subject here is unity. And we've been reminded of that on the stones on the breastplate of the high priest.

Here we're told how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. I tell you, that's a marvelous thing, isn't it? Are we getting along together? Are we getting along with our brethren? Oh, you say, surely we're all doing that. I remember one time, many years ago, in a place that Mr. Gustafson would say, far away from here.

And I was giving a little word after the breaking of bread, trying to get the people stirred up for a gospel series that was starting that night. And I didn't know, but there were two brethren in that assembly that didn't even shake hands with one another. How could you expect blessing in a place like that? The blessing here, Psalm 133, comes from unity.

And the brother that made the announcements after the meeting, he said, well, I'm sure our brother doesn't know anything. That was me. Well, I don't know very much, but I don't think he meant it that way.

I didn't know what was going on. But you know, God can give a little word. And I don't know any place here that there's this unity, but make sure you keep the unity of the Spirit.

It's been made by the Holy Spirit and the uniting bond of peace. That's Ephesians 4. But here you can see the, first of all, the fragrance in the sanctuary, how good and how blessed it is for the brethren to dwell together in unity. It's like the precious ointment or the precious oil.

So there's a refreshment in Christianity and you have the dew from Mount Hermon. That's refreshing. And then what does it say? There's blessing.

He commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. So I look at it this way, fragrance in the sanctuary, refreshment in Christianity and blessing for eternity. The pleasantness of unity, the preciousness of the oil and the promise of blessing.

Now this oil, the anointing oil, we know was anointed in the next chapter after from my brother, chapter 29 of Exodus. And here the anointing oil, it says here that it's upon the head, precious oil upon the head. And then it ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, went down to the skirts, some, look at that, it's a collar, but I think idea to me anyhow is a hem.

This oil went right down to the hem of the garment. Now you've heard about the stones and the breastplate. And I believe that this oil likely went right over those stones.

And even though they were all different, as we've heard, and they were all precious, we agree with what our brother said. I'm not here to add to what he said, but just to force it maybe. And why they were all different.

And we're all different. And I agree with William, I don't want to be really like him. And he really doesn't, I was going to shout amen, but I didn't want to be too rude.

And he likely didn't want to be like me. We're all different in many ways. But you know, there's a difference in gifts and so on.

We're all fitted to, for something. And you read the first Corinthians chapter 12, isn't it? Where you have a assembly like a body and everybody need it. We're all precious stones.

And we're all different, but all precious. And we all have our own little part. As our brother has said, we're on the shoulders.

That's a new birth. But here we have, the marching order through the wilderness is the order of the garments on the breastplate. But you know, they're all united.

How wonderful. All different. But we need to have that unity.

It's the unity that the spirit of God has made. And it's because Christ has been exalted on high. That's when the spirit was given.

That's a proof there where the Lord is. The uncreated sphere of heaven. And he has given the spirit.

And what refreshing it is. The spirit goes right down. The oil, rather.

Right down to the very garment. All included. But then, I don't know if I should say much more about this, but you know, dew is refreshment.

The dew of Hermon coming down. And that's coming down from God. And now God gives a blessing.

And you know, the blessings aren't just all in the future. I mean, in the faraway future. Not just blessings in heaven.

Blessings have been showered upon us now. And how do we come into the good of them? By all working together. All working together.

It's all for the exaltation of Christ and for the edification of the body. Now, we come to John 13. And there we have the Lord where dwells now.

Earlier in the chapter, we find out where he dwelt. He dwelt in the bosom of the Father. That was a place where he always was.

Always enjoyed that communion with the Father. And now here were two others. And somehow, they were attracted to the Lord.

We're not told what the attraction was. They wanted to learn. I know that.

Good thing when God saves you, you want to learn. We're in God's school. Most of us are still in kindergarten.

We haven't graduated yet. We're still learning. And we're learning from the things of God.

The Lord is a perfect model. If that's a good expression, that would be Matthew 11 and 28. Look unto me and learn of me.

Learn from me. Learn from my example. John complained when he was in prison, when things were against him.

Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? When things went against the Lord in Chorazin and Capernaum and Bethsaida, what did he do? He prayed. He said, I thank thee, O righteous Father, Lord of heaven and earth. How could he thank him? He was rejected because other things were coming in.

That's not my subject. But he said, learn of me. Learn how to behave when things like this are against you.

And that'll give you rest. Luke chapter 10, there's a woman and she learned from his ministry. So we have his model, the one that we follow to be Christ-like.

And we listen to his ministry. What a wonderful thing to get words from the Lord. We get that, you could get it at a conference, but I mean, you need to get it from the word of God, don't you? And that's the important thing.

And that's why I turn to John 13, because here's a man that's really enjoying the position that he has in Christ, on his breast and in his bosom. We're all there. That's what we've been taught here this morning, and we believe it.

We all have that place. That's positional. But are we really enjoying that place on his bosom? The place of nearness.

It's often been said, and I'm sure you heard it, the bosom is receptive love. The Lord loves to have his people, loves to have you close to him, loves to receive you in his bosom, wants you to be close. If you love someone, you want them to be close to you.

And the breast is love going out. It's love going right out to each one of us. And isn't it interesting that when a question was asked by Peter, who is it that's going to betray you? Peter wasn't close enough to the Lord to get the answer.

Maybe that's why we have a lot of things we haven't got the answer to. We're not close enough to the Lord. No point in fooling ourselves.

We're interested in so many other things, like lot servants. We haven't got really the convictions that we need for the things of God. Conviction comes from reading the word of God.

I don't want you to have my convictions, unless they're scriptural convictions, but I want you to get them for yourself from the word of God. And Peter wasn't close enough to get, but you see the Urim and the Thummim have been reminded was behind those stones. Guidance from the very heart of the Lord.

What a tremendous thing that is. And he's the one that got the answer. Where dwellest thou? And maybe I have spoken long enough.

Where dwellest thou? We could ask the question, not so much of the Lord. Certainly we should be attracted to him now, because we're here after Calvary and after the tremendous love that was displayed at Calvary. So we should be attracted to him, want to be with him.

But I'm asking ourselves a question, myself and you. Where do I dwell? Where do you dwell? Where dwellest thou? Are you on his bosom? Are you really enjoying the things? The washing of the feet, that's like the dew, the refreshment. And the Lord wants to refresh us.

And it's a first. Paul said, he oft refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain. I'll tell you, if Paul needed to be refreshed, surely we need it.

Where dwellest thou? The birds of the air have their nests, and the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head, the synoptic Gospels tell us. But where dwellest thou? The Lord dwells in the bosom of the Father. Where dwellest thou? Are we on the Lord's bosom? Are we enjoying the place that the Lord has given us? The Lord cannot bear to be separated from his own.

I wonder, can we bear to be separated from him? So may the Lord bless his word. We've been reminded the great position that God has given us. And now what about the practical enjoyment of it? So may the Lord help us to dwell together in unity, and God grant that I would never be the one to cause disunity among God's people.

And the unity has already been made by the Spirit, the Spirit who inspired the word of God. And by going according to the word of God, we'll express that unity. And we'll not only be precious to him, we'll be precious to one another.

And we'll appreciate the different things, gifts, or whatever you want to call them, that we all bring as we come together, so that the Lord Jesus would be exalted. And we would enjoy that place of nearness for him. And remember, blessing forevermore.

But may the Lord help us to enjoy the blessings, at least in part, while we're here to represent our absent Lord.