SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
SPEAKER_00: All who thirst, come to the waters.
SPEAKER_00: And you who have no silver, come purchase and eat.
SPEAKER_00: And come, purchase without silver and without price wine and milk.
SPEAKER_00: Our first lesson is taken from the book of Psalms, Psalm 37.
SPEAKER_00: Fret not over evildoers, be not jealous against those who do perversity, for as the grass, they are hastily cut off, and fade as the greenness of the tender herb.
SPEAKER_00: Trust in Yahoo, and do good.
SPEAKER_00: Inhabit the land and shepherd faithfully, and delight thyself upon Yahoo, and he will give you the petitions of thine heart.
SPEAKER_00: Commit thy way to Yahuwah, and trust on him, and he will do it, and he will make thy justice to go out as the light, and thy judgment as the noon.
SPEAKER_00: Rest in Yahuwah, and wait for him.
SPEAKER_00: Fret not over him who makes his way to prosper, over the man who makes schemes, slacken from anger, and forsake fury.
SPEAKER_00: Be not incensed, for this would surely do evil.
SPEAKER_00: For evildoers shall be cut off.
SPEAKER_00: But those who wait for Yahoo, they shall possess the land.
SPEAKER_00: We read further from the book of Revelation, chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: John to the seven churches which are in Asia.
SPEAKER_00: Grace be to you and peace from him who is, and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: To him who loves us and washes us from our sins in his blood, and makes us kings and priests, to his God and Father, to him be glory and might for ages of ages.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, he comes with the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth shall wail over him.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I am the Alpha and the Omega, beginning and the end, says the Lord, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
SPEAKER_00: I, John, who also am your brother and companion in affliction and in the kingdom and patient expectation of Jesus Christ, came to be in the island called Patmos, for the sake of the Word of God, and for the sake testimony of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And finally we read from the Apocalypse Explained, number 813.
SPEAKER_00: Explaining the words, here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
SPEAKER_00: This means that through these comes temptation, and afterwards the implanting of truth from good with those who are made spiritual by the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The patience of the saints means the temptation of the faithful, or of those who are made spiritual by the Lord, because patience means spiritual patience, which is the patience in sustaining temptation.
SPEAKER_00: Patience has a similar meaning in Luke.
SPEAKER_00: They who are sowed in the good land are those who are in a simple and good heart, and hear the word and hold fast and bring forth fruit in patience.
SPEAKER_00: To bring forth fruit in patience means to do good truths and goods, even when living amid falsities and evils, that is, among those who are in falsities and evils.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Here end our lessons.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: In our lessons, we read about patience.
SPEAKER_00: In the final lesson from the Apocalypse Explained, we heard about the patience of the saints.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the new church, we don't understand saints to be special people to whom one might pray or have a special line to the ear of God.
SPEAKER_00: Saints just mean the people who do what the Lord commands.
SPEAKER_00: So, in that sense, anybody can be a saint.
SPEAKER_00: And anybody can have the patience of the saints.
SPEAKER_00: So that is mentioned there in that lesson and in the lesson from the book of Revelation, John talks about being in the patient expectation of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: When you expect something, you are waiting for something.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the word that's actually used in the Psalm.
SPEAKER_00: The Psalm from which we read, Psalm 37, doesn't use the word patience, but it uses the word wait several times, along with the word trust.
SPEAKER_00: So if we trust the Lord, we wait for the Lord, and that is the patient expectation of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now you may think of patience as standing still, doing nothing, pausing until something happens.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what is being spoken of here.
SPEAKER_00: If you think about the last thing that's mentioned in that lesson from Apocalypse Explained, it is talking about the end of the parable of the sower, the man who planted seeds, and he planted the seeds in different kinds of ground.
SPEAKER_00: He cast the seed out, and it fell on different kinds of ground, and it was the seed that fell in the good ground that was spoken of, where those who are bearing fruit are bearing it with patience.
SPEAKER_00: And you might think about that this represents people, the Lord Himself said in explaining this, this represents the people who receive the word of God and do good things.
SPEAKER_00: But there were other kinds of seeds they fell in not so good ground.
SPEAKER_00: One of them was the seed that fell on rocky ground, and the plants would spring up, and the people who are in the good ground, where they might not be springing up so quickly, they might not be wearing fruit so quickly, might look at that and say, Why can't we be more like them where we spring up right away?
SPEAKER_00: Well, they bring forth fruit in patience.
SPEAKER_00: But notice that means they don't just sit there doing nothing.
SPEAKER_00: When you are growing seeds, you don't just put them in the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the time, you don't just leave them, you take care of them.
SPEAKER_00: You water them, you make sure they're getting sunshine, you pull out the weeds.
SPEAKER_00: You're doing things, but you realize it's not going to happen immediately.
SPEAKER_00: When you plant the seeds, it takes a while.
SPEAKER_00: And the good in the good ground, it's going to may take longer than it does on the rocky ground, where they spring up right away, but notice eventually they wither away as well when the sun comes out.
SPEAKER_00: And you can think then back to Psalm 37.
SPEAKER_00: And it says, don't worry about the evildoers.
SPEAKER_00: Don't fret about them.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be jealous of them just because they seem to be prospering in the way.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it says.
SPEAKER_00: The evildoers may seem to be prospering, but wait on the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And again, it doesn't mean sit around doing nothing.
SPEAKER_00: It means listen to what the Lord has said and do it.
SPEAKER_00: Even if you don't see results right away.
SPEAKER_00: That is the patience of the saints.
SPEAKER_00: To bring forth good fruit, but to do it in patience.
SPEAKER_00: So we've got to do the work and we've got to keep doing the work even when we don't see the results right away.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about the people who seem to be doing better, who seem to be more productive.
SPEAKER_00: If they're not doing what the Lord says, don't worry about them.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Just do what the Lord says and keep doing it, even when you don't see the results right away.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord encourage us to read the word every day.
SPEAKER_00: We should pray to the Lord every day.
SPEAKER_00: But we might start doing this and say, I don't see any difference right away.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's lots of things that the Lord tells us to do, and we may start doing them, and we may keep doing them, and we may not see the results right away.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord tells us to wait and to be patient, not waiting, doing nothing, but waiting, doing the things that we know the Lord wants us to do, and eventually and gradually, in a healthy way, the results will come.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it won't take all that long.
SPEAKER_00: Other times it may take our whole lives before we really see what the Lord is unfolding for us in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: So wait on the Lord, be patient, but be patient in bringing forth good works.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.