Keep sharing good news without ads.
Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/daniel-shutt/borders/
I want to read in the Old Testament in the book of Numbers, chapter 34. I'm going to shift gears a little bit this afternoon, but I have what maybe will seem at first like an unusual message, but one that will turn very rapidly into some very practical thinking about Christian living and potentially about the assembly if we have enough time to get to it.
Numbers, chapter 34, and verse number 1, and the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, command the children of Israel and say unto them, when you come into the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall fall unto you for an inheritance, even the land of Canaan with the coasts thereof.
Then your south quarter shall be from the wilderness of Zin along by the coast of Edom, and your south border shall be the outmost coast of the salt sea eastward, and your border shall turn from the south to the ascent of Achrim and pass on to Zin, and the going forth thereof shall be from the south to Kadesh Barnea, and shall go on to Hazor Adar and pass on to Asmon, and the border shall fetch a compass from Asmon under the river of Egypt, and the goings out of it shall be at the sea.
Now, I'm going to stop there because I have no intention of entertaining you with my mispronunciation of Hebrew words. However, I'm going to make a point, and it is this, that in the first 12 verses of this chapter, Numbers, chapter 34, there are 12 references to borders, to boundaries, lines that God has established in his mind, lines that delineated and demarked the border of God's people.
Now, let's read it again, if I might, in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 32. Deuteronomy, chapter 32. And I think you know what the book of Deuteronomy is about. I hope you do. Some have called the book of Deuteronomy the favorite book of the Lord Jesus because the Lord Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy more than any other book in the Old Testament.
In fact, as Brother William was reading this afternoon, I was reminded that his rejoinder to Satan was all drawn from this Old Testament book. Here's a little challenge for you. If you are feeling Satan's attack in your life, would you be able to quote from the Old Testament and find your resource in a place as what we might call as remote as the book of Deuteronomy?
Now, the children of Israel had come out of Egypt, as you know. But due to their failure at Kadesh Barnea, that generation, with the exception of Caleb and Joshua, was going to perish in the wilderness.
And now they stand on the cusp of the promised land, and God is going to restate the crucial principles that he had originally taught to them in their pilgrim character. So this is the second law, the second recitation in the ears of God's people.
I just want you to notice two verses here. Actually, three, perhaps, beginning at verse 7. Remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations. Ask thy father, and he will show thee thy elders, and they will tell thee.
When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people. According to the number of the children of Israel, for the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
Now, I'm going to read some more verses in a few minutes, but I would judge that that's probably the oddest reading you've ever heard at a conference. But embedded within it is an incredibly important principle.
For any of you who are awake at all in our modern world, you are aware that there is an ongoing conversation about the importance of borders. Now, this pulpit is no place for political speech at all. And at least while I'm up here, it's not going to happen.
So what I'm going to say is not political. It's just going to address a very simple question at first, and that is this. Is the Bible relevant for 2016? You know, sometimes when I'm talking to children, I'm trying to impress upon them what God is like.
And, you know, you almost get the idea that, you know, that God doesn't understand what a cell phone is and that God can't program in C++ and that somehow God must, of necessity, be baffled by our modern world.
And they think that because our grandparents are old and God is from eternity, and since our grandparents don't understand technology, God must be behind the curve. Let me just tell you something. The most relevant book in all the world is the book that sits on your lap.
And there is nothing that happens in this world in 2016 that is outside the compass of the principles of this book. Now, the Bible does not address the border between the United States and Mexico or the United States and Canada.
Where's Murray? He's over here. But listen, the issue of borders is very important to God. You know, we have a man named George Soros who spends billions of dollars. And one of his avowed aims is the ending of sovereign nations.
He just wants a one-world government. Where have you heard that before? And he would like to see all borders erased. People come and go as they will. No one can tell you where you can go and where you can't go, where you must stop.
No borders. That's what he believes. Now, before I go any further, I want to say something tenderly. Many of us are worried about illegal immigration. And I think, at one level, we have concerns about terrorism and people coming into our country who may wish to harm us.
That's not political, that's common sense. I don't keep snakes in my house because I don't want to be bit. Bitten. But please, may I give you an evangelist's point of view on this topic, just for one little minute?
We need to exercise tremendous care into whom we allow into our country. But it's been my happy experience over the last few months of seeing a number of people saved from countries where I would never be allowed to preach the gospel.
Just in a series in Windsor, we saw two Chinese ladies, graduate students at the local university, saved. They can't speak very much English, but they know Christ. Now, let me just tell you what I'm thinking about just for a second because I hear some of the Christians saying things that bothers me just a little bit.
I can't go to China. They won't let me. And I likely can't go to Russia, and I know I can't go to Syria. I'm certain I cannot go to Iraq or Iran or Saudi Arabia and preach the gospel to them. I cannot do that.
But isn't it an incredible thing that God has brought them here where I can witness the saving power of Jesus Christ to them? And in a time in American society where most of my white, middle-class Anglo-Saxon neighbors are so satisfied with their material world that they have no interest in the gospel, isn't it wonderful that God is bringing immigrants to us?
And they may be aliens to us, but if he brings them into the family of God, they're aliens no more. Just tuck that away in the back of your mind next time you think about immigration and what it means to us as Christians.
Let me go back to my subject, and that is just this, that God is a God of borders. As a matter of fact, for your own personal interest, some reading that you might be interested in is in Numbers chapter 20 and chapter 21 when the Israelites are traveling through the wilderness, and they come to the land of the Moabites and the Amorites.
And God insists that they recognize the territorial integrity of those nations. These are not good nations. These are not people that worship or recognize God. And yet Moses is given direction to ask permission to go through those lands.
They're not to steal from the inhabitants around them. In fact, God directs them that they should pay for the water even that the cattle drink. God is a God who cares about borders. You say, well, that's interesting.
What else have you got? Well, I've got more. Because the reason that I know that God is a God of borders in a material way is predicated on this fact that God is a God of borders in a spiritual way. Let me take your mind back, for example, to Genesis chapter 3.
And this is an interesting thing because what is in Genesis chapter 3 at the beginning of the Bible is actually answered. It is a bookmark at the close of our Bible. Because you remember that because of Adam and Eve's sin, there comes a day when they are expelled from the garden of God's blessing.
It was a place that reflected God's holiness. It was a place that reflected his blessing, but the day came when they were shown the exit. And cherubim with flaming swords said, you can go anywhere you want, but you're not coming here.
God had a border that was inviolable. The reason I mentioned the book of Revelation, I was speaking to some children recently about what it says about the heavenly city. It says, there shall in no wise enter into it anything that is unclean.
Isn't that interesting? God has borders of holiness at the beginning of the Bible. God has borders of holiness at the end of the Bible. I think probably the most stunning statement of this is certainly found in Luke's gospel chapter 16.
I couldn't help but think about this when I began to think about this topic. You remember the words of Abraham, child remember that you in your lifetime received your good things and Lazarus evil things.
And you know about the comfort and the anguish. But listen to this, beside this between us and you, a great gulf has been fixed. God has a border in eternity that cannot be transgressed. However much the people in hell would like to be out of hell, they cannot be.
And of course, there is no way that anyone who is not there can ever enter in. You know, that is the most solemn border, by the way. If you're not saved here today, I want you to think just for a moment about that terrible border.
I know this is a ministry meeting, not a gospel meeting, but here we are. You know, there is something more terrifying about hell and the lake of fire than the fire. Did you know that? I'm gonna tell you what it is.
Because Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians, I'm sorry, Paul writes in 2nd Thessalonians. He talks about people who die in their sins. And this is what it says about them. And the place of eternal torment.
It is away from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his might. I'm gonna tell you that that's the most terrifying thing about perishing for eternal days. You see, that's the one thing that is unimaginable.
Fire is imaginable. You've seen fire. You've felt its heat and its power. But there is no one in this room that has ever experienced a world where God is totally absent. See, the problem is in our world, we are bathed with the goodness of God.
It rains on the just and on the unjust. And I hope that you and I will live as thankful men and women, not merely for the spiritual grace that has lifted our souls and saved us for eternity, but the common grace of God that meets our every need.
I know we whine about all the things we want, but listen, God has given us everything that we need. And the breath that we breathe and the beating of our heart and the blessings of a free land, God has given them to us.
Imagine the horror of a world where every blessing from God is withdrawn. You say, Mr. Schott, I can't imagine that. Neither can I. That's what makes it such a horrifying thing that men and women who were created for a relationship with their creator through their savior are now condemned and abandoned eternally in a place where God is absent.
You know, I want you to think that this has implications that reach downstream because if God believes in spiritual borders and God believes in national borders, are there some other places that borders might be important to God?
I'm gonna deal with two things in the rest of my message, and that is this. The importance of borders in our homes as related to the borders that God has in his assembly. I hope that every believer here understands the connection between the home and the assembly.
Good assemblies are not built on the back of disorderly homes. Did everybody get that? Let me just turn it around and say it a different way. Good assemblies, or rather good homes, are at the foundation of good assemblies.
You know, if you come to the qualifications for leadership that are found in the pastoral epistles, what do you find? That Paul directs our thinking to men who will be in leadership in God's assembly, men who will be responsible for the spiritual care of God's people.
Where does he begin? Their relationship with their wife, their relationship with their children, and their relationship with the community that they live in. I'm not particularly interested today in how impressed God's people are with me when they see me at meeting.
I'm gonna read you something that C .H. Macintosh wrote 150 years ago. He could have written it yesterday and it would have been absolutely perfect. He said this, he said, "'I can never form a correct judgment of a man "'from seeing him or hearing him in a meeting.
"'He may seem a very spiritual person "'and teach very beautiful and very true things, "'but let me go home with him, "'and there I learn the true state of things. "'He may speak like an angel from heaven, "'but if his house is not ruled "'according to the mind of God, "'he will not be a real witness for Christ.'".
Anybody uncomfortable yet? I am. Somebody said the job of the preacher is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. You all look really comfortable. So the question is this, are there godly borders for my home?
Are there godly boundaries that make my home a sanctuary for holiness, for myself and for my wife and for my family? I was just in England a couple of weeks ago in London and I visited the Tower of London, the ancient center of the British Empire where the kings and queens all lived, crown jewels and all the great stuff that's there.
But in my own usual style, the thing that amazed me the most were not the jewels of the kings and queens of England, but actually it was a large green area, about 200 feet wide, all covered in beautiful green grass that ran all the way around the Tower of London.
And you know, people were playing and throwing Frisbees and having picnic lunches, but I don't think they knew where they were. Do you know where they were? They were on the ancient moat that surrounded that tower.
Now, it looks really pretty today, nice green grass and all that. But you know, in medieval times, it was filled with, I was going to say water, but that's a bit generous. It was actually the septic tank of the city of London.
And this soon after lunch, I won't entertain you any further, but it contained dead bodies and everything else. It stunk to high heaven. But the bottom line is this, it established a line of demarcation.
There was the out there and there was the in here. And what was out there belonged out there. And what was in here belonged in here. Unless you think I'm being pedantic, I'm just trying to make a point.
God has left us to be a testimony in this world. He hasn't taken us home to heaven the moment that we were saved. In fact, the Lord Jesus in John 17 makes that abundantly clear, right? That he's praying that God would not take us out of the world, but that we would be preserved in the world.
And what I want to just simply encourage today is that we go home after this conference and we do a little soul searching about our home. Is our home a place where the world is out there where it belongs?
But inside, it's a place where Christ is loved and honored. A place where the peace of God, which passes all understanding is demonstrated and seen. You know, one of the things, and I'm only telling you this not to boast in any way.
And I hope if you take it that way, you're wrong. But one of the things that my wife and I believe in is that we need to be a testimony to our neighbors. Now, a lot of people say they believe that, but they're not doing anything about it.
We're trying to do something about it. And one of the things that we try to do is we try to have our neighbors in for meals. I don't go out with them because that's not gonna end well. But I like to have them in to our home where I'm in control.
By the way, take down all those silly signs that say Christ is the head of this home. That's not in the Bible. You know who's the head of your home? You are. God holds you personally responsible for what happens in your home.
You know, people say a lot of things after they come to your house and have a meal with you. Do you know what the most oft-repeated thing that I have heard from people who have been in our home? It's just this.
They say, we can't believe how quiet it is and anybody here that's an evangelist knows that we go to home sometimes. Murray, is this right? And you can't even talk to people because the television is going and there's music blaring and there's people shouting and there's doors slamming.
You know exactly what I'm talking about. And people come to our home. Now listen, I have grandchildren and it gets noisy in our home sometimes. But listen, they recognize that there is a peace there. I'm just gonna, it's supernatural.
We don't have to shout at each other. We don't have to be slamming doors and that sort of thing. And we don't have nonsense blaring from every corner of the house. There's just a little, I hope, of the peace of God that's seen in that environment.
I'm not here to tell you what kind of electronic equipment you should have in your house. That's your business before God. But you know, our homes need to be a sanctuary from a world that is committed to compromising Christlikeness.
My children and my grandchildren need to come to our home. It's a place where the word of God needs to be on the wall. You can have your Thomas Kinkades, I could care less. But I want John 3 16. Because, you know, even if I don't get to say a word with this, God's word is living and powerful.
It needs to be a place where the values of Christ are reflected in kindness and generosity and peacefulness. Needs to be a place where cursing and anger and conflict are out there where it belongs, not in here where it does not.
I'm afraid that we have become the generation that has adopted too easily the world into our lives. It was Shakespeare who said, the world is too much with us. And I'm afraid that I am more worldly than I even know.
May God help us to not just simply lead unexamined lives. You know, I remember some of you will smile at this, but when you have preachers with you who are 90 years old, you have to be really careful what you say.
But, you know, I remember when there was a lot of soul searching among believers about whether they should have a newspaper in their home. Is that right, Brother Eric? It's true, isn't it? And I remember when people pulled radios out of the dash of their car rather to have a hole in their dash than to have a radio there.
And I heard 30 or 40 years of preaching about television and all of that, and I'm not against what was said. I'm just saying there was a lot of thought went in to what we allow in our homes until this came along.
And I've got one, but I want to tell you something. Every time I reach into my pocket, I'm not, I'm 15 seconds away from spiritual shipwreck. And we haven't even thought about it. We've just dropped it in our pockets.
We've handed them to our teenage children. Brothers and sisters, I'm not against the iPhone, or it wouldn't be in here. But let us live carefully and thoughtfully and recognize that there are some things that do not belong in our home.
What is the message of 2 John? There is teaching that does not belong in our home. There are people who do not belong in our home. There are ideas and philosophies and worldly things that have absolutely nothing to do with a home that honors Christ.
By the way, while I'm on this, if godly assemblies are built on godly homes, let me tell you that godly homes are built on the backbone of godly individual lives. And I'm not going to preach about this.
I'm almost finished, but let me just ask you a question. Do you have boundaries in your personal life? Last night, I was speaking about the disciples who said, I will never deny thee. And I think I rightly pointed out that that sort of hubris is the wrong attitude.
We ought to be asking ourselves what Peter said. Lord, is it I, the recognition that you and I are liable to any sort of sin? But listen, a boundaryless life is a life that will quickly slide into sin.
There need to be places that you cannot go. There need to be things that you cannot listen to. There needs to be things that you cannot look at or that you cannot read. There need to be thoughts that are to be foreign to your thinking.
There may even, my dear Christian friends, I feel for you at a level that maybe you don't even appreciate. When I was a little boy growing up, the greatest danger to our family was young people out there who were allowed to do things that we were not.
My greatest challenge with my own children and my grandchildren were children from Christian homes who did things that they ought never to do. And so you have a real challenge. It may even be that there are Christian relationships that can violate the holy boundaries of your life and compromise you for usefulness to God.
Pick good friends. Have absolute boundaries in your life. And may God help us all. I have little grandchildren. It's changed me in more ways than I can tell you. I hope it's softened me. I hope it has brought me closer to the Lord as I pray for another generation.
And I long for these dear children. I long that they will be saved. Who was at the Senate today? That they weren't just praying for their children to be saved, but praying that they would be in God's assembly.
That's a tremendous thing. Listen, that will only happen in the context of godly Christian homes. I know that when children are older, they will make choices that do not reflect their upbringing. I understand that.
I hope I say that with great tenderness. But that's not my responsibility. My responsibility is a boundaried holy life. My responsibility is a boundaried holy home. And I'm interested, as I bring this little message to a close, to the great truth that God's assembly needs boundaries as well.
I wish I didn't have to say what I'm gonna say next. But Brother Murray has already said it, and I said amen when he did. Because we are facing what I consider to be, at least in my lifetime, some unprecedented challenges of people who want to turn back the clock and go back to the religious world that they came out of, that want to just simply be evangelical, rather than be in a local assembly gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ alone.
And I'm not here to guess at their motives. I don't know whether it's the popularity and the fame of the preachers that they see on the internet. I don't know if it's the fact that they're just being openly rebellious to what they have been taught in the word of God.
That's not my job. That can await the judgment seat of Christ. But I want to tell you today, I'm an assembly man. And I have been brought to the local assembly because there was a day in my life when I was 17 years old, when I understood that Christ was there.
And I understood that if he was there, I should be there too. By the way, that's the only thing that will ever keep you in God's assembly. Because if your favorite preacher is keeping you there and he fails, where does that leave you?
And if it's just your mother and father and they pass away, where does that leave you? Brothers and sisters, God's assembly is a place where Christ alone is to be preeminent. He is the gathering center.
He is the attracting force. It is gathering to him plus nothing. That creates God's assembly. And yet there are some who would like to take down the borders and remove the walls and allow a sort of casual fellowship that is simply predicated on claims of Christianity.
Let me just be very, very clear. Germans are not good at nuance. And I'm German. God's assembly has an inside and an outside. And like the great moat around the Tower of London, what's in here is in here for a reason and what's out there is out there for a reason.
And those two need to have a holy border between them. Had I the time, I would turn to 1 Corinthians 5. And you would discover that because of moral sin, actually, I want you to turn to this. This is so important that I think we ought to read it together.
1 Corinthians 5. And verse number nine. You see, there are a lot of people who think that 1 Corinthians 5 is about the excommunication for sexual sin. And it is. But it's about a great deal more than that.
Listen to these words. I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators, yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or with idolaters. For then must ye needs go out of the world.
But now I have written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a railer, that is a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, that is a swindler.
No, not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? Do not ye judge them that are without? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
Behavior in God's house is very important because behavior in God's house makes the difference between the inside and the outside. And what Brother Murray has been reading to us from the Psalms about that holy sanctuary where God is present.
God's house and the characteristics of that house are not simply to be seen in some esoteric way. That holiness is to be seen in the lives of people who are gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus. My beloved brothers and sisters, there are a lot of things that are beginning to slip.
And I'm afraid that the integrity of God's assembly is very much in the devil's range finder, if you will. He has his artillery trained on the local assembly, on the Christian family, on the holy life of individuals, and perhaps above all, on teaching about the person of Christ.
This is just by the side. I thought I would never live to be old enough to have something happen that happened to me just a few weeks ago. I was speaking at a conference, a very large conference, and a man and his wife stepped up to me and said, could you come talk to us?
I said, I'd love to do that. And it was very evident that the man was the one who wanted to do the talking and the wife was not happy to be there at all. And I said, what is it then? He said, I heard you speak about a doctrine called the impeccability of Christ.
He said, I believe that Christ could have sinned. A man in assembly fellowship. And there wasn't one thing about that conversation that pleased me, except for one thing, his wife stood behind him shaking her head like this.
And it brought me a good deal of joy. I could have kissed her. I want to tell you, we have a savior who is not merely able not to sin. We have a savior who is not able to sin. He is a lamb without blemish and without spot.
He is God's holy, sinless, impeccable son. By the way, this dear man is very confused. He said, well, if he's a man, he has to be able to sin. I said to him, I said, is the Lord Jesus a man in heaven right now?
Oh yes, he said, he is. I said, well, then I feel really sorry for you because you have no basis for eternal security. Because if the manhood of Christ allows him to sin, then 10 ,000 times, 10 ,000 years from now, you might be ejected from that heavenly place.
He didn't like that, but I didn't like what he said either. So get over it. Listen, there's a lot of things that are slipping. Let us never let this slip. The boundary for God's assembly is not so that we can boast that we belong to the nicest church in town.
Border to God's assembly is not an excuse for spiritual arrogance and pride. I'm not in God's assembly because I'm better than you. And any sort of ministry or any, impulsive to God. I'm in God's assembly.
I know this is a weird message and I hope you got something out of it. But I hope you'll remember the next time that you hear about border control, that you'll remember that God is a God of borders. God cares about spiritual borders.
God cares about national borders. God cares about personal borders. God cares about domestic borders. And God cares about borders in his assembly. We're not being narrow. We're not being exclusive. We're not being proud.
We're just trying to be holy. And let God's house always be a holy place where his name is honored.