Matthew 18. Would you bow with me? We're looking at verse 20 here. And then two verses in Galatians chapter one, speaking about Christ, Christ in the midst. Let's pray. Our Father, It seems between heaven and earth, and between thee and ourselves, there is such a distance, one that we could not get there And yet Christ has reduced that by coming to earth. And now we get to Him, or Thee through Him. He is our propitiation. He is our way, our truth, our light. and apart from Him there is no coming to thee. I'm too close akin to Adam to dare rush into thy presence outside the Lord Jesus. And yet my Father it seems as though Christ our Lord is distant from us today. And we keep longing and we keep praying and pleading that once again that He might be made known in His church by the Spirit. And I'm sure these, as I, we come in, and there's many things on our mind. And sometimes we do not, we do not labor to have a right mind before thee, a quiet heart, quiet mind, a still heart, a still mind. But apart from that, we cannot know Thee. And it is eternally essential that we know Thee. So come, dear Lord. Visit with us. And may we be like those disciples after you departed from them, and they said, did not our hearts burn within us while He walked with us by the way? Lord, if we can get to Jesus, it'll be a good day, a blessed day. So grant it, Lord. in Thy mercy and good favor, and provide what each needs, not so much to hear me, but hear Thee. In the message, glorify Christ, we ask in His name. Amen. It has been the Lord Jesus speaking here, and that continues to verse 20. For where two or three are gathered in my name, a prerequisite, there am I in the midst of them. where two or three met him previously, been converted, or being saved as they journey. When they gather together in one mind, one heart, one spirit, he meets with them. And as usual, oft times with Peter. Peter begins to bring up this situation. Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Is this correct? Until seven times? And Jesus put an unlimited number there. How often do I forgive? Surely man must reach a limit where no more forgiveness. He's bothered me, afflicted me, spoken ill of me, no more. But folk, there is a difference between forgiving someone and that person knowing that you forgave them. God forgave all his children at Calvary. But you will never know of that forgiveness until you are brought in repentance and faith to see Christ Jesus paying your debt. So that's the way it is. It ought to be with you. Well, when they ask me to forgive them, know the one thing that you're striving to always have is a quiet, peaceful heart. And if you have ill will, you're bothered by words, or what you heard someone said, if you linger on that, it will become as cancerous to you as that disease is to our bodies, taking control. The Holy Spirit is seen as a dove many times. Without that dove, without that Spirit of God, you can know nothing of Christ Jesus. It does not matter how intelligent you might be when it comes to books. You can know nothing of Jesus with a disturbed heart. And without the Spirit of God, because if you do grieve Him, then you are through learning Christ, and you are through praying. Or you can say words, but you're not praying. And the Holy Spirit being seen as a dove, you must have Him to teach you Christ, bring you to Him, keep you near. It is said in Scripture that Christ in you is the hope of glory in Colossians 1.27. And I say Christ with you is your preparation for glory. And then I'll quote Paul, the last verse, chapter 13, 2 Corinthians. Now abideth faith, hope, charity. Faith, hope, love. Faith brings you to Christ. Hope keeps you on the path to glory. But love is something that you carry with you. It's the only, only thing. You leave faith at the entrance into glory. You leave hope at the door. Don't need them anymore. But love is with you throughout time and into glory and throughout glory. Especially the love of Christ for you. Now there'll be many times that you cannot discern any love. Your heart seems cold. It seems hard. It's been a long time since there was anything of the love of Christ made in your heart as to its awareness. But sometimes it's good in those times and during those times to quit looking at your heart and at your love. I began looking at His. Yours fades. up and down, off and on, but His for you is always constant. And if you cannot discern His love for you, and you do not know of any sin that has driven off the Spirit, then begin looking at His heart. I think I quoted this last week or the week before, a little while. And ye shall not see me in a little while, ye shall see me, because I go to the Father. And His disciples, like all of us, would gather around and we'd have our little debates or considerations. What was He talking about? A little while, you won't see me. And then again a little while, and you shall see me, but I'll be with my father." We don't understand. So how do you see him? And how do you know him since he's back in glory? Well, I shall send the promise. of my Father unto you, and he shall teach you and show you things to come." Now, I want you to turn to John 14. And you feel a little like everybody knows and is so familiar with this. But we turn again. There's a possibility that nine times out of 10, when you attend a funeral, you will either hear some of this read or all of it. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. My Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there you may be also. If I go, I will come again. Verse four, and whither I go, you know, and the way you know. That might hold a little value for a funeral service, but it has more to do with you in time, with me. Whether I go, you know, and the way you know. That's Christ going to a place where no man on earth living can get to. And yet we know. We know the way. And we know where He is. So if he's there, then it's not spoken, this is not, it won't mean anything to you at your funeral. You won't know anything about it. None of us will know anything about the written Word of God at our funeral, lying in as a corpse. But he's talking to disciples, living disciples about where he's going, and the way. And it is sad, sad that we have thrown away so much of the scripture thinking that this deals only with the future. This deals only with funerals. If that's so, mark them out. No need you spending any time reading them again. meditating upon them or thinking about them. But if it is true what we are told that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, then that means through time. All scripture is profitable for me. So now I ask you to answer within the quietness of your own soul, where is the Lord Jesus today? You might say, well, I would hope that He would manifest Himself to us. I also. But where is He? He's in glory. He's at the right hand of the Father. How do I get there? Can I be like this disciple? Lord, we don't know the way. We don't know where you're going. Well, well, Philip, have I been so long with you? You don't know what I'm speaking about. The thing that prepares you for eternity is you being on the way with Him, on the path with Him in time. All that the Father hath given me shall be with me, John 17, 24. Where I am, where I am, there they may be also to behold my glory." Now, what is it for a child of God looking in the book and hearing and seeing Christ? What is it to behold the glory of Christ? In his book, as you view him on the throne by faith, Well, Paul said, we all with an open face, 2 Corinthians 3.18, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord. What does that do for me? When I am looking at the glory of God, though through a glass of times of darkly structured peace, I am changed from image that that I am to that that I am becoming. So don't you need to behold his glory from time to time? Are you right now ready? Are you ready to walk out of here and say to Christ or say to others, I'm ready, I'm prepared to go to heaven? And if you say it to me, please do not bring up some incident, some happening in your life 20 years ago. Now you might have been converted there, but the only way that you'll ever know that you were converted back then is if you maintain a course on the path Jesus laid out. But children, Christ in the midst can only be a reality by the workings of the Holy Spirit only. Again, Paul spoke about that in Ephesians 2, Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly frameth together, groweth up unto an holy habitation, holy temple, where we're builded together of God through the Spirit, a habitation. An event 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 15 years ago, whenever, that has seen you get off the path to stay, or you can keep religion and be far off the path. But when we become, when you become that holy temple as a habitation of God, then you know what I'm trying to get across, hopefully, about Christ in our midst. We're two or three speaking the same thing, Having the same ambition in life, not physical ambitions, and you got to have those, but a spiritual ambition. Folks, you can have a group of morally good people. Within that group, there is no known outward division. The preaching is doctrinally correct. And there is a right exposition of Scripture. And the singing there can be that that group of people take up the old God-honoring, Christ-exalting hymns. And their voices could blend together that would raise the roof Without Christ being there, they're just talented people, singers. They're like Ezekiel. Ezekiel, they're coming to you as my people, but the reason they're coming is that you are unto them as a lovely song, having a pleasant voice, or one that plays well on an instrument. Well, that rules me out. Not a pleasant voice. And filled with mistake after mistake in just speaking. And I've been, and hopefully I've got it all straightened out, that they're wanting to put a message in print And if anything will ever humble you, might not you because you might be excellent in speaking, but if you'll have that written down which you say, I was removing ands at the front of a sentence, removing this out of, replacing it with that, So I thank you for putting up with me and I hope that I can tell you something beneficial on your journey towards glory. The least known being in our world today is the one that created it. It is very possible No, it is possible. That there is an unknown being in a place where you hear Jesus' name in the sermon and in the singing. They're often using that name. And this is what breaks my heart. It is very possible that the least known being in the church is Christ Jesus. Tell me it is not so with you. Tell me that you have a heart. that when you sat down on that pew that you were speaking to God about clearing your mind, obtaining, you getting to Christ, you knowing him. Have you ever formed an opinion of a person that you just met? I used to have a habit of that, and there were a good many of them I didn't like. But those that I continued to meet with, speak to, I found out I was wrong in my opinion of them. Do we even have a first impression of Jesus Christ? Do we? Who is He? What is He? Now ask that and I don't give you a Bible to go find out. I'm asking you who he is. Tell me about him. Or in the opposite, you could have extensive knowledge of a person and yet never know that person. Some of the old preachers in the past And some of those used by the Lord, I could tell you a lot about them. That's what I read, but I couldn't tell you a thing about them as to what I know they are in their person and in their being. And folks, one of the reasons salvation today is the receiving of Jesus Christ with that being sufficient in today's Christianity We meet him, we accept him, we pray a little prayer. We meet him because people told us we needed to do this and that, perform a few deeds. And that one time meeting with him is all that is necessary. And I'm pleading with you. Is Jesus Christ in the midst? Not only here, but when you meet, when two or three of you meet, meet on the street, meet as the two disciples walking away from Jerusalem, Or was your one-time introduction to Him sufficient? And your journey to glory was completed when somebody told you to ask Jesus into your heart. And Jesus also said in John 17 3, this is eternal life, that they might know Thee, the only true God. and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. If knowing Him is eternal life, should I be interested in finding out if I know Him? I might hear the preacher and he might say something But it's me with Jesus Christ where I really get to know Him. All parents, well it used to be all people that I know, they're always joyful and very thankful at the birth of a child. But there's not a one of us that would remain in that in that delightful, happy state of just seeing that little infant, if six months later, that little infant were still the same, that'd take away any delight or joy. And we look in the crib and he or she They cannot turn over. You do it. Wouldn't that break your heart? Then moms and dads and church Do not be satisfied because your children say they are Christians. Be satisfied only as you see them developing as a Christian. God's put that little infant in your life And God has allowed your children to grow up. But don't think that was just the blessing of the Lord that you could have children. It was. But He put them in your life for you to see you. They are growing or they are grown. And the invisible things of him are clearly seen, being understood by the things that he has made. You're no longer giving a bottle to the little one. Why, he's big enough, she's big enough that they can sit at the table. pick up their own food with whatever utensil. First of all, what about me? Is Christ in the midst of my life? Something that I must know and that you It is said of the Lord Jesus that he increased in wisdom and statue in favor with God and favor with man. And God put in a picturesque form the development of a newborn child to show you your development. You're not where you were 10 years ago, are you? Or you're not where you were when this journey began for you, are you? Turn with me to Galatians 1. My action or lack thereof in these days is missing. But you do not judge a preacher on his actions. I used to move around a lot. But one Sunday, a little two-year-old, they had a platform for me up front, and she'd crawl up there and get up my lap. Well, one Sunday, she decided that I need to stand with wet pants. So I didn't move anymore, and I stood there. Right or wrong, that's not the issue. The issue is if God has something to say to you in the message, not in the delivery. Galatians 1, 13 and 14, for you have heard of my conversation, my manner of living in time past in the Jews religion. how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and wasted it and profited in the Jews religion. You heard of my manner of life in the Jews religion. You all saw how I profited. And I might have ended up as the high priest had not I met Christ. I was doing quite well in the Jews' religion. All that changed. He said, I am a Jew, born in Tarsus, brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, great teacher there, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law. And I profited. I was moving up, advancing. Dear ones, there's a vast difference between the Jews' religion and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Listen to what our Lord himself said. The Jews' Passover was at hand. God, did not you start their Passover? Was not it the Lord's Passover? Did it not have a message of the slain lamb and the blood sprinkled on the doorpost? Yes, but they lost me in their religion. They lost Christ. and their religion. I was circumcised eighth day of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. And now Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 5, 7, even Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us. But yet he called it the Passover of the Jews. The Jews' Passover was at hand, John 2, and the other ones in John 6. And you can have religion, and you can have a lot of facts, even about the Lord Jesus, knowing nothing of Him. And whether He's absent or present in the midst of your meeting when you go, It's no difference to you. You went to the assembly. You paid your due. You kept the Sabbath day holy and going out to worship. Well, now it's the first day of the week. But I ask you now, what is it to have Christ in the midst? We just passed through one frigid week or days, snow, predicted another one this week, and we're shut in. And all the fruit bearing trees are all seemingly dead. No life there. The only ones that's green out there is those that provide no food for us. And that which brings beauty around your home It's all, if in bubs, it's all gone underground. And what's it going to be in two months from now? And we've had a few weeks of really warm, warm weather. And the birds that travel to a different climate, they're all gathering back. And you hear them early in the morning welcoming the rise of the sun. And those little bubs peep their heads out from what was a frozen ground. and then blossom, or they begin to blossom. Christ return, Christ in the midst would be like a cold indifferent assembly. where I'm the big guy, everybody pay attention to me. Serve other men? No. Other men ought to be serving me. No. Christ in the midst. His return to His church in power and glory would be like a traveler in a waste barren wilderness. Water gone. Unloaded everything that he was carrying because he didn't have the strength anymore. And then one day he sees some green trees with shrubs around, something. And he keeps walking and his heart becomes more excited. That couldn't be out here if they were not drawing, the roots were not drawing water up to them. And lo and behold, he gets there, and there's water to drink. Do you ever come here thirsty and you leave refreshed? The return of Christ to His church would be like a spouse that had a mate and a child, in the middle of a war zone and they had not, she had not, he had not heard from them in over three years. No communication. And one day when she pulls up from work into her own driveway, there's a car sitting at a distance. And she stops, somewhat concerned about who it might be. Not in a hurry to get out. And yet she sees that child or that husband walking. Couldn't make them out at first, but the closer they get, She sees the features and the face of one she loves. Wouldn't that be like Christ being here when you got here? You've looked for Him through the week, and lo and behold, He was silent a lot of those days. And yet, you met Him here. Or you've gone for days without hearing the voice of the Lord God in reading His Word. You try to pray, but your prayers seem so, so familiar, sounding like yesterday and the day before. And instead of them rising, it seems more of them tend to fall to the floor. You get nothing, you're in that desert, that cold wasteland. The dear one to you has been home this week, and lo and behold, One day you open the book as you've continued to, but one day you open the book and it's as if the very words are just leaping off the page to your heart. I come here and beyond the stuttering, stammering, old fellow, God, has a word for you that you haven't heard from Him in some time. Wouldn't that be like Christ in the midst of His people? Christ. Well, I can give you all those scenarios and many more, but if you don't know what I'm talking about, Missing him, not having him, laboring on, finally giving up doesn't matter anymore. He's left me. I could have told you, and there might have been one of those illustrations that grabbed your heart. Maybe none, I don't know. They were just words to you. But to me, Christ in the midst, once again, he becomes the central figure, the central being in my world. He becomes the very focal point of my life. Christ in your midst. She's down in the land of the Moabites. She's lost her husband. He's passed on. She's lost her only two sons. They've died. She was down there because of famine in the land of the Lord. But one day she got word that there's bread. God has visited His people in giving them bread. And she starts back. Naomi started with her, but went back. Ruth, slave to her. She just heard. You just heard that Christ might be there in your book, in your closet, in the preaching. And Lord, you get there and it is bread. God has blessed His Word and made it bread to your heart and to your soul. Solomon has written to me an illustration that I've, in some way, I said part of it. In the second chapter of the song, Lo, the winter is past, The rain is over and gone, and the flowers appear on the earth again, and it is the time of the singing of the birds, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. Fig trees put forth those green figs, and that great vine, that tender vine, sends forth a smell. I love when the old hedge bush and the honeysuckles, when that sound is out there in a few months, and the wind is stirring a little, and I can smell. That's a sweet, a sweet smell to me. I don't want to try paraphrasing, Turn with me, this is the last place. The Song of Solomon chapter 2. And I leave you with this, that it might be a word from heaven to your heart. Though it is Solomon, it is the greater than Solomon, the Lord of glory. Oh my dove, that's you if you're a child, that are in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs. Something has driven you out of sight. And you're hiding in that cliff or that secret place that no one knows about. Listen to the greater than Solomon. Is it something to your heart? Let me see thy countenance. But Lord, there's nothing here for you to see. Well, I wasn't talking about your outward appearance. I was talking about that inner man, that inner being. I was talking about the one that I have created in you. Been working on it all the time since you first met me. Let me see thy countenance. So quit making excuses. Well, Lord, I'm just not fit. I'm just unprepared. Well, get prepared and don't rob the blessed Lord Jesus of the time that He would spend with you. Just want to see you. Let me see you. Come out. And let me hear thy voice. For sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely. May the Lord do something in all our hearts that we might, fresh and anew, be seeking our beloved.