Philippians (Lesson 43)

All right now, each every one of you to preach one more time in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, and I welcome you to the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast.

I am sitting here just now looking over the mail that has come in the last couple of days, and it would really be a blessing to your heart if you could sit where I'm sitting and see what God is allowing us.

Those of us here and those of you who pray for and support us, it would really bless your heart to see what God is doing.

I'm looking at mail from the Philippines, from Kenya, from Nigeria, from Ghana, from Japan, from Guyana, from Argentina, from Canada, from all across the United States of America, from scattered places in Europe.

The Lord has really, really been good to us in allowing us the privilege, there's one from Singapore, in allowing us the privilege of preaching his glorious word and the truth about his marvelous son to people literally from one end of this world to the other.

And we certainly thank you for your participation, whether it be by prayer or by letter, we just appreciate so very, very much that the Lord has allowed us to participate in the great work of reaching men and women with the truth.

What an incredible thing that God would not only save us, but having saved us that he would use us in his work.

Remarkable, just remarkable.

We are studying together the Bible book of Philippians.

We have made our way into the fourth chapter, and we we thought, I thought we would get through verses one through three on the last broadcast.

We got through one, we got through two, but we never made it to verse number three.

And so can you guess?

Can you guess?

This is a listener quiz.

Can you guess where we will start today?

Very good.

Verse number three of Philippians chapter four.

I hope that you can follow along in your Bible.

If you're working, you can't.

If you are driving, you mustn't.

But if you're able, I hope you get your Bible and follow along.

And we'll look together at at least this verse of Scripture and then see how far we can travel together today through the pages of the Bible.

Scripture says in Philippians four verse three, and I entreat to politely request, I entreat thee also true yoke fellow.

In fact, of all the phrases and verses in Philippians, this is the real stumper.

Because the book is written to the church as a whole, not to an individual, and yet here in this verse an individual is addressed, and we really aren't given any visible clue as to who that individual might be.

So we just let it stand, and we say that this individual is treated also as a true yoke fellow.

What a great phrase.

We talked earlier long ago in our study of Philippians about what it means to be yoked up, how that you have you have seen a picture somewhere, maybe you've actually seen the real thing of two oxen placing their head through an apparatus and their shoulders up against it, and then it being fastened around their necks, enabling the two to pull as one.

It guarantees that they go the same direction.

It guarantees that they plough in the same row or furrow.

It guarantees that what one does the other does, where one goes the other goes.

And so here is a man that the apostle Paul addresses as a yoke fellow.

Now this speaks first of all of the grand spiritual nature of the church which is the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You say, How can that be?

Well, these men are many miles distant one from the other.

Paul is hoping to visit the church at Philippi, which means he is not present at the church in Philippi.

Paul is desiring, we read it in verse number one, that he's longing for the opportunity to be present with and to fellowship with the saints at Philippi, which means obviously he's not with them.

Now how could two men in different parts of the world be in the same yoke, pulling the same plough?

I'll tell you how.

The body of the Lord Jesus Christ is a spiritual body, and it reaches from one end of this earth to the other, and you may be, you may be today, listening to my voice in any one of hundreds of nations around this world.

But if you are in Christ and I am in Christ, we are one in Christ Jesus.

Our labor is one, our calling is one, our purpose is one, our Savior is one.

Isn't that an amazing thing?

That you could be part of something so grand, so large, so glorious, and all of that by the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

And so this man, Paul, is in a yoke with the unnamed man at Philippi, though they are nowhere near one another physically, they are joined together spiritually through the working of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.

Are you part of something like that?

You can be.

If you are, have you realized the magnitude of what God has let you be a part of when He saved you and put you into Jesus Christ?

Now, true Yoke Fellow, let's consider something else about this.

This means that these men with differing gifts, differing abilities, differing occupations are not only laboring together, but they are dependent upon one another by virtue of being yoked up together.

If Paul was a reluctant or unwilling participant in the gospel work, he would prove a hindrance and a harm and a detriment to his yoke fellow.

If this man at Philippi was an unwilling participant in the gospel call and was fighting against the Holy Spirit rather than yielded to the Holy Spirit, he would be harming not just himself, but Paul the apostle who is yoked to him in this work.

And so we see once again, as we have seen over and over again in this book of Philippians, that the real key to this Christian life is understanding and realizing that none of us are individual entities, but that all of us are joined together as one, and as we labor as one and view ourselves as one and minister for God to each other as one, then we are the full blessing to each other that we should be.

And when we become self-centered, self-occupied, say I'm going to strike out on my own, go my own way, I don't need you, I don't need her, I don't need anybody.

Suddenly we find ourselves harming the attempts of others who are trying to serve the Lord but cannot do so as effectively as God intended because they are yoked up with someone who is kicking against the direction that God wants the two to be traveling together.

And so it's quite a beautiful picture here.

This man is a true yoke fellow.

He's glad to be a participant.

He doesn't mind what his part might be as compared to what the other man's part might be because he knows ultimately they have the same lot.

They are both pressing toward the same mark, they are both enabling one another in that endeavor, and as they work together, it's better for the both of them, because like it or not, they are in an inseparable yoke, bound together by their mutual faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and their mutual calling to be of service to the Savior.

So this true yoke fellow is entreated by Paul to do what?

Help those women which labored with me in the gospel.

Help those women which labored with me in the gospel.

Now there are a number of things that need to be said under this heading, and I will say them as carefully as I possibly can, which most people think is never very careful, but I do try to be careful.

It just doesn't sound that way because I tell the truth, and people are pretty unaccustomed to hearing truth nowadays.

So you listen carefully, I'll try to speak carefully, and we'll get through this to our mutual benefit.

Number one, there are many places around this world that have not yet known the liberating power of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Should you travel to a land dominated by the people who follow a prophet who collected women at the point of a sword for his own lust and pleasure, you will find women in those lands oppressed, persecuted, and treated as bad or worse than animals, because they are nothing but property to be used for the pleasure of men.

When the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ reaches any part of this world and people begin to follow the clear and beautiful teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ, men treat other men better.

Women treat other women better.

Adults treat children better.

Children treat their elders better because God is love, and love worketh no ill to its neighbor.

So everywhere the gospel plough digs deep, everywhere the good seed falls upon good ground and souls are saved, the condition of relations man to man, woman to woman, parent to child, child to parent, elder to younger always improve.

In addition to that, where the gospel takes hold, suddenly men begin to treat women as equally loved of God, as equally saved through the blood of Jesus Christ, as equally indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and a country where the Bible has held sway will always be a country where women have freedom and liberty and safety, which is absolutely unknown in lands where Jesus Christ holds no influence.

That is an absolute fact.

It can be studied anytime, any place, anywhere throughout the history of the last two thousand years.

And so it needs to be said that Jesus Christ is a liberating power for women.

And it is no marvel that women throughout the Bible, women throughout history, women in cultures around this world have always followed Jesus in greater numbers than men, and have always been more faithful to the Lord Jesus than have the males.

If you would speak to missionaries in almost any land, they would tell you it is never a problem to see women trust Jesus as their Savior.

It is never a problem to get those saved women to devote themselves to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ because they know a liberating Savior when they meet one.

And Jesus Christ is such a Savior.

In these United States of America, if you talk to almost any pastor of almost any denomination, he will tell you we don't lack for faithful women, but where oh where are the men?

Now I suppose that women value Jesus more than men do because they just suffer more in this world than men do, and view the Lord as rightly, as one who rescues them from their suffering by educating men as to how a woman should be treated according to God, and that is with love, with kindness, with respect, with charity, with decency, and so forth.

So I know why more women than men love and follow Jesus.

I know why more women than men are faithful to the cause of Jesus Christ.

I I understand it completely, and I'm all right with it.

And so so that needs to be said, and it's been said.

Now, let's let's make the next point.

As time goes by, as time goes by, people tend to lose their appreciation for what someone has done for them, and begin to think as though maybe it's always been this way, or maybe I did this for myself, and so they lose the love, the respect, the devotion for the Savior, the Redeemer that they once had.

Now, when the gospel has seemingly run its course in a nation, take Europe one hundred years ago, take the United States of America in the last fifty years, people have been free so long that they forget it was Jesus Christ and the Word of God who set them free.

When Europe had been out from under the bondage of the Roman Catholic Church for fifty years, they still loved and appreciated the Jesus Christ revealed in the Bible through preachers like Martin Luther.

Today, today, those same European nations consider themselves to owe Jesus Christ nothing because their citizens have been free for so long they can't even remember who set them free.

And so now they use their freedom to sin against the one who set them free.

They don't respect Jesus Christ, they don't obey Jesus Christ, they don't honor and follow the word of Jesus Christ.

In fact, if you suggested to the average European that they owe their all to the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, they would laugh at you in the United States of America.

It wasn't long ago when the people of this nation believed they survived a Great Depression and a terrible world war because a God in heaven answered their prayers.

Now, some fifty years later, the average citizen of this nation believes they've always been free, they've always had liberty, and whatever good things or blessings they have in their life, they either earned them by their good works, or such were given them by their government.

And if you mention to the average citizen of the United States of America, you owe all these blessings and all this prosperity to the Lord Jesus Christ, most of them would laugh at you.

So what happens?

The very Lord who sets men free gets thanks and praise and obedience until such time as that freedom comes to be taken for granted, and men forget what it was like to be in bondage, and thus forget who set them free, and owe that one no further allegiance, love, or loyalty.

Now I wish that wasn't so.

I hate having to be the one to talk that way, but somebody has to.

And it may as well be me.

As much as I don't like it, I've accepted that that's my duty and calling in life, and I'll stick with it till the Lord comes.

Now, what does this have to do with women following and serving Jesus?

Do you realize that before Jesus Christ becomes the control?

controlling influence in a nation.

Women have no rights whatsoever.

They have no liberty, no freedom whatsoever.

Then Jesus Christ, because of his influence on the male population, brings about liberty and freedom for the ladies.

They are thankful to the Lord.

They serve the Lord.

They head to the church house to worship the Lord Jesus Christ and would not dare think of violating his word or his commandments because they love him so much they are willing to do what he says.

But time goes on and people forget who set them free.

People forget where the freedom came from and now they are no longer afraid and I don't mean fear in a bad way I mean fear in not willing to hurt or harm.

They are no longer afraid to sin against their deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so are you ready?

And so the Lord who forbids divorce watches women exercise their liberty to divorce their husbands.

The Lord who forbids killing watches women exercise their liberty to abort their babies.

The Lord who said who said a deacon must be the husband a bishop must be the husband women who have been set at liberty by the Lord Jesus Christ trample those verses underfoot and take their place in the pulpit take their place on the deacon board and claim that they've been given liberty by God to violate the teachings of God what a sad thing my friend when you forget what it was like to be in bondage when you forget the debt you owe the one who set you free and begin to use your freedom and your liberty to sin against your deliverer that's when you know things have just about reached the end of the line now that wasn't a very nice thing to say was it Who would say that?

Who would say that someone who loves their liberty but doesn't love the one who gave them the liberty why would you think it a a cruel thing or a or an unreasonable thing for me to uphold the clear teachings of the one who freed you from sin, the one who freed you from the fear of hell, the one who freed you from being oppressed just because of your gender or your race or your nationality why would you think me a bad man for calling you on the carpet for sinning against your deliverer on the basis of the liberty and freedom he gave you?

How about that?

Well that's just what a God called preacher would do trouble is there just aren't many of them so those few of us who are still upholding what the Lord said are criticized and condemned by the majority of ministers who couldn't care less what the Lord said.

God bless your heart and the worst part of it is the Bible commands you to love me and so you have to say I do love you in the Lord meaning if it wasn't for the Lord I'd hate your guts.

That's all right that's all right I've been living with this ever since I got saved and I'm all right with it.

Well so these ladies they labored in the gospel there's plenty to do for Jesus let's do what he told us to do the way he told us to do it in accord with the clear teaching of his word so that we might please him while we are serving him.

Wouldn't that be a blessing to the Lord our Savior Alright that's probably as far as we can go today this is the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast.

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