Welcome to Pilgrim Talk Radio. I'm Reverend Lee Johnson from St. John's Reformed Church, and we are planting a church here in Omaha, and we invite you to check that out. You can find out more at our website, www.stjohnsrcus.com. And there you'll find a button that tells you about our work in Omaha. You can click on that, and it'll have all the information, when and where we're meeting, things like that. We encourage you to come worship with us on Sundays. But today, here on Pilgrim Talk, with me again, the American dream, Ron Morris. Well, I totally, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the Canadian crippler, Reverend Darryl Kingswood. That's right. And, of course, the referee, Nick. and we are continuing our journey through the Lord's Prayer and we have come to the fourth petition give us this day our daily bread I'm gonna go ahead and read the question in the Heidelberg Catechism and answer this question 125 what is the fourth petition give us this day our daily bread that is be pleased to provide for all our bodily need so that we may thereby acknowledge that thou art the only fountain of all good and that without thy blessing neither our care and labor nor thy gifts can profit us that we may therefore withdraw our trust from all creatures and place it alone in thee thus the catechism explains give us this day our daily bread and so I'm going to open it up to you guys here in this petition the petitions before this have been about thy will be done thy kingdom come This one now switches to the first time that we are mentioned, give us this daily bread. What exactly is the Lord teaching us about prayer here by this late in the prayer, introducing us for the first time in our bodily needs. Normally when we pray, I'll venture a guess here at any rate, normally when most people pray, the needs are the first thing that comes up. I think we've mentioned before that the most important thing that we do when we pray is to get our minds right about who God is and who we are. And we can best do that by glorifying God and expounding upon who He is, that He is the Creator of all things, that He is not only the Creator of all things, but He is our Redeemer. And even when we're talking about Him being our Creator, we can elaborate on the beauty of creation and talk about who He is. And this puts us in the right frame of mind. To understand the most important thing that is that God is God and that we are not But we also know from this prayer that God does care about us our daily needs and that it's it's a request for bread, but bread is really just sort of a Word that that that that encompasses all of our all of our material needs our bread and our drink and and Bread is probably one of the most staple items around the world. Everybody's got some sort of a bread, whether it's a rice or a wheat bread or a Even today's bread that you get from the grocery store that has absolutely nothing in it but fluff. It's not just the white fluffy stuff. But bread is a basic necessity of all of our diets. And so the Lord is teaching us that we can ask for what we need from Him and that He will be ultimately our provider. This is something that goes back to several programs ago when we mentioned the idea of sin and what exactly is sin. Sin is not just simply me doing wrong things, but it's me being a wrong person and having a wrong heart. And out of that wrong heart flows all sorts of wrong things. And one of the things that the Apostle Paul mentions in Romans 1 is that we're not thankful, that we are not thankful people. And when you think about it, everybody listening to me this day, have you thanked God for the last 10 breaths that you took, that you have taken? And if you think about it, all of us have been given all the air that we've breathed into our lungs in the last minute or so. And we just take that for granted. We take our meals for granted. We take the food that we eat, the water that we drink, the times that when we're sick we pray, Oh Lord, help. But we don't usually when we're perfectly healthy stop and just say, Lord, I want to thank you that I'm not sick today. You know, there's so many things that we don't thank God for that are a part of our daily lives. And so the Lord is teaching us to thank Him and to give us those things that are very, very otherwise mundane things that are, you can almost go through your whole life and not even think about the fact that God is the one that gives you your daily necessities or your daily needs. Dovetailing into what Lee said, There is somewhat of a transition, but there really isn't a transition here. I mean, the first three petitions are about worship. They're about God being honored, God being exalted, God's name being magnified. And here we see it in that even in relationship to the most fundamental needs that we have, the basic needs for survival in this world, we are dependent upon God. It's worship. And you see that last phrase. That we're praying for God's provision. We're praying for God's blessing upon that provision. We're acknowledging that He alone is the fountain of all good. And it's driving it. For what purpose? That we may therefore withdraw our trust from all creatures and place it alone in Thee. There's the issue of trust, of worship in day-to-day life. That acknowledgement of our dependence upon the Lord for everything. That He is more than sufficient in His provision of all we stand in need of. And that we are to trust Him. We're not to trust in what He gives. Jonathan Edwards addresses that issue of being, Ron mentioned it so I'll use that as a transition here, of thankfulness. Of being guilty of idolatry even in our gratitude. Because we're not thankful for who God is. as the fountain of all goodness, being good in and of himself, we're not rejoicing in Him, we just want what He can give us. And we really then begin to trust in stuff. And you can tie most of these petitions back into things like, for example, the First Commandment, how the Catechism explains the first commandment and the danger of idolatry and fleeing from all idolatry and in question 94 of the catechism with regards to what does God require in the first commandment talks about that first of all I rightly acknowledge the only true God trust in him alone that's what this petition is getting at in the explanation from the Lord's Prayer of placing our trust not in creatures but alone in God the creator Go back to that question in 94. Trust in Him alone with all humility and patience. Expect all good from Him only. And love, fear, and honor Him with my whole heart, so as rather to renounce all creatures than to do the least thing against His will. And so there is a sense where, you know, there is a transition where it comes down to some of our bodily needs. But even within our bodily needs, there's the spiritual need. to have an attitude of dependence, an attitude of thankfulness, honoring the Lord. And if you go back, you'll notice, I think the catechism anticipates the structure of the Lord's Prayer. In question 118, the question is, what has God commanded us to ask of Him? And the answer is, all things necessary for. And how do we usually answer that? We'd probably put body and soul. We'd put body first. But the catechism has, for soul, and body. I don't think that's a mistake. I think there's a deliberate purpose there to focus our attention on what really matters, what our real needs, even in relationship to our bodily needs and God's provision of all we stand in need of, is that there needs to be that proper attitude of dependence and adoration and gratitude and thankfulness to God for who He is and His faithfulness. And I think In Matthew 6, verse 33, Jesus is addressing that, this matter of being idolatrous in relationship to the things of the world, and filled with worry and anxiety, thinking our lives consist in the things that we possess, right? That the body isn't more than clothing, that's all it is. And he says, we're to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and the promise is that all these things shall be added to you. So you busy yourself with that pursuit of God's kingdom, of God being honored and exalted as the King, His righteousness and what it means to live in a right relationship with Him. He'll take care of what we need physically. He'll take care of shelter for our bodies, clothing for our bodies, food for our bodies. We don't have to worry about that. We can live carefree existence because our Father cares for us. I think that you've hit on a good point there, and that is the idea that because God is the Father and He's all-wise, He provides us with all of our needs. There is a big difference between providing our needs and providing our wants. We might want a whole lot of things that we don't need. Daily bread doesn't necessarily mean donuts. Let's not get carried away. But there's a lot of things that we may think we need, even, that we don't really need. I don't want to belittle natural disasters or anything of that nature. They are terrible things for people to experience, terrible thing for someone to undergo a hurricane or either a Katrina or a Sandy or anything like that. I don't want to belittle that at all. But I did have a friend of mine whose house burned down and basically lost everything. He said that basically after that he realized all he had really was the clothes on his back. And he said, I realized how many things I don't really need, how I had cluttered my life up. And so it's good to know that God gives us what we need. And if we don't have something, it's not because God is mean or depriving us. He may have in his wisdom and judgment decided, no, you don't need that. We're going to pick right back up with Reverend Morris. Right after we come back after this. Welcome back to Pilgrim Talk Radio. We are with Rev. Morris, Rev. Darrell Kingswood. We're in the middle of talking about the fourth petition, Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread, and we are talking about The connection between soul and body, even in this question, when Reverend Kingswood mentioned that a few moments ago, I thought about how often the catechism never, I don't think it ever separates soul and body. Question 1 is I with body and soul. Question 11, we deserve punishment with body and soul. Question 37, we're redeemed from everlasting damnation, body and soul. The one that Reverend Kingswood quoted about soul and body is what we're supposed to ask of Him. And even here in this daily bread, the connection is not just that the Lord takes care of our body, but that that is that we are soul and body and that it does mean that we are to be trusting in him. I think I'm interrupting Reverend Morris' story as we came back from that. I don't know that it's so much a story, but just the idea that what we think... Well, first of all, to just say an amen to what you're saying, amen. But we're not Platonists and we don't believe in the soul at death. There's a time for the soul to leave the body and go and be with the Lord. But that's not mankind's natural state. God didn't create us to be just floating around non-physical creatures. That's not the goal. The goal is to die and be resurrected. and the soul are very important things, but it's just that sometimes our body craves things that it doesn't really need. And we can either feed those fleshly, those carnal desires, and in this sense I'm using it in the sense of physical desires, appetites and things of that nature, Or we can deny ourselves of those things that are not necessarily wrong. I'm not using the term flesh here in a sense of sinful nature, like the Apostle Paul often uses it, but in the sense of that there's sometimes physical things that I want that I don't need. You know, one of our favorite things to do on Friday nights, my family, we have ice cream night. We try to restrain ourselves, we try to keep healthy and everything. And so we go and we get ice cream on Friday nights. And there is a whole lot within me that wants a second big bowl of ice cream. But I don't need a second big bowl of ice cream. And now, in that case, it has been provided. It's there. I mean, we're not we haven't spent money that we didn't that we could have spent on something else. We've decided that we're going to spend this amount of our budget on ice cream. We went to the store, we bought the ice cream and we have the ice cream. It has now been provided. But just because it's been provided doesn't necessarily mean that I need to eat every single scoop of ice cream that's in that carton. And so sometimes we have to separate our wants from our needs and even things that have been provided. And that takes a little bit of discipline. You know, the Lord has provided us with with money. Well, OK, just he's provided us with money. But does that mean that we're supposed to spend it recklessly? And there's a lot of discipline and a lot of there's a lot of of things that they go in to come out of my spiritual nature, my from my spiritual disciplines that that are going to affect how I live with my body, what I eat, what I dress, how I dress, and the kinds of ways I spend my money and things like that. So I was getting earlier, my point was to differentiate between wants and needs. But I think that it's even deeper than that. We can differentiate those things that have been provided, that have been given by the Lord, but still, even though they've been provided, you still have to say, well, I don't need that as much as I want it. So I think that the idea of the body and soul And the soul, as Daryl pointed out earlier, the soul in this instance really taking priority because we need to have our hearts right when we're asking for what we need and what the Lord has provided and use what He's provided in a wise way. So that is an idea of the priority of our soul. Let me ask you this, Daryl. The Lord is sending things, providing for us, such as our daily bread, but really anything that comes to our physical bodies, anything that comes from the Lord. Do you think that we often see the connection when the Lord sends a broken ankle, or sends a loss of a job, or a windfall of money, or cancer? Do we often see how this affects our souls? And when we pray, do we pray for the healing of the body? Or are we often taking into enough that we are body and soul? And that whatever the Lord has provided is not just for our body, but perhaps there is something, as the house burning down, teaching us a lesson about how much we truly need and our worldly cares. Think of that. Well sure, yeah. I don't think, for most Christians, they have a hard time saying something like this. I used the example yesterday in Sunday school, adult Sunday school, the Hope Reform Church. At some horrific event happening in my family, and the understanding that God works all things according to His will. All things. That nothing happens outside of His sovereign decree, His eternal purpose and providence. He's in absolute control. So I could think of some horrific event and stop and say, I know this is necessary. I know this is needed. I know that my Father will cause us to work together for my good. It will bring me more and more into conformity with Christ, and the ultimate good then is that Christ is at first born among many brethren. It may teach me that some of these things happened to show me how I am trusting in, thinking that my life consists In this person or this thing, you know, so I'm buying into the kind of this world mentality that this is the only life that we have we got to have as much of it as we possibly can that that's where the life is found in Having stuff that's where safety security You know life is found and I'm we were Ron was talking and you asked the question I turned to Luke chapter 12 in the parable of the rich fool and where Christ in verse 15 of Luke 12 says, take heed and beware of covetousness. For one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. It doesn't. And our tendency is to trust, find our security. in stuff. This is the thing where the rich fool in Christ tells the parable. Then he spoke a parable to them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentiful. And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops? This is good, this is great. So he said, I will do this. I will pull down my barns and build greater barns and there I will store all my crops and my goods. Let me get to the point. I will say to my soul, soul, you have many goods laid up for you for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink and be merry. Now most people say, that's it man. But then Christ says, but God said to him, fool. I mean Jesus is calling people names here. Saying that type of person with that type of mentality is a fool. This night your soul will be required of you. Then whose will those things be which you have provided? So is he who lays up treasures for himself and is not rich toward God. And I think we come back to that fourth edition, the catechism's explanation of it. That's what it's getting down to, rich towards God. God is our treasure. God is our refuge. God is our strong power. He's our light. He's our salvation. He's our strength. He's the one in whom we trust. What do we need to be afraid of? When I have and when I have not, when the barrel is full and I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel, have we learned to be content, as Paul said in Philippians chapter 4, knowing that God will provide all my needs, all that is necessary to live for His glory. If I don't have it, I don't need it. That's really, I think, one of the fundamental errors of the health and wealth gospel is the health and wealth gospel is assuming that health and prosperity are always good and that there's a whole lot of healthy, prosperous people who are going to hell. And that there are people that sometimes the Lord uses sicknesses and poverty, losses of jobs and things like that to teach us things that are going to make us better Christians. But we don't like to think that was right. Granted, it is hard to think. When you're in the middle of it, you've just got your pink slip to think, well, I'm going to be a better person by the time this is all over with. But that's true, if we look at it from the broader biblical perspective. Radio programs are called Pilgrim Talk, right? I'm thinking about Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan's classic work. And I'm thinking of when Christian's in the house of interpreter and he's shown a room and in that room there are two children, Passion and Patience. Passion wants everything he wants or needs or thinks he needs right now. He wants everything. That's that person of this world. Patience is willing to wait. Passion's treasure wears out. Patience doesn't. And that's kind of the idea that we're talking about here is, where is our treasure? What are we really living for? Are our minds and hearts set on those things that don't perish? As Paul says, writing in 2 Corinthians, the unseen and eternal. That's what we look on. That's living by faith, not by sight. The health, wealth gospel, though it claims to be a word of faith, it's not. It's all about leaning upon your own understanding, walking by sight, and thinking that that your best life is now. You know what? If you live that way, you better live it up, because your best life is now. That is true, and as I said, an interesting spin on that particular title. As you quoted there from Luke, Jesus there warns the people, your life is not in possessions. And as he prays in his high priestly prayer, John 17, what is life? It's not possessions. eternal life is to know the one true God and Jesus Christ. And it goes back to where Ron talked about Romans 1, exchanging the glory of God for that of the creature. And a lot of times that's the glory. That's where we think we're going to find our significance, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, is in the glory of the shadowlands of this world. And we don't walk in the light. It's not just the shadows, it's the darkness. Because we've turned our back on the light and we embrace the shadow, usually of self. you know, and prosper. And a lot of times, riches are simply about us exalting ourselves, glorifying ourselves. Look how wonderful I am. Look how successful I am. And we're out of time. We do hope you will join us again next week here, same time, one o'clock on Saturday, four o'clock on Wednesday, on 660 KCR.