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Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 16:41:21 GMT -5
The Marvelous Privileges
of Adoption, Part 5
by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached February 24, 2008
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Now I ask you to follow with me in your Bibles as I read two portions of the Word of God, and the first is found in the book of Proverbs, Proverbs 3. In this section where the father is instructing his son, we find these words in verses 11 and 12: "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of His reproof. For whom the Lord loves, He reproves, even as a father the son in whom he delights." And now over to Hebrews 12 (this is where we will be parking this morning) and beginning with verse 5:
"And you have forgotten [or it could be a question: 'and have you forgotten?'] the exhortation which reasons with you as with sons, My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved of Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. It is for chastening that ye endure; God's dealings with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, whereof all have been made partakers, then are you bastards, and not sons. Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed good to them; but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness. Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down, and the palsied knees; and make straight paths for your feet, that that which is lame be not turned out of the way, but rather be healed."
Let's again seek the face of God, asking the help of the Holy Spirit in the opening up of the Word of God. Let us pray.
Once again, our Father, we come conscious that when our Lord Jesus said, "Without Me, you can do nothing," He meant exactly what He said. If anything of any spiritual profit is to be accomplished in this hour, it will be so because the Lord Jesus, by the Spirit, is present among us. Lord Jesus, come. Come, we pray, speaking to every heart, enabling your servant to open up the Word accurately in the power and grace of the Spirit. Come to us as we look to You in expectation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Apostle John wrote these words: "In this, the children of God are manifested, and the children of the devil." In John's reckoning, all men, all women, all girls, and all boys are either children of God or children of the devil. And I want to ask you a very simple question. Sitting in this place this morning, whose child are you? Sitting in this place, in your pew, in your spot, are you a child of God or a child of the devil? There is no shared spiritual parentage. Children of God or children of the devil. According to the Scriptures, we are all by nature, by birth, and by practice the children of the devil. But blessed be God, according to the Scriptures, there are some who by spiritual birth and by legal action of adoption in the family court of heaven, are the children of God. And we are presently considering this wonderful provision of redemptive grace, whereby we who were natively children of the devil, are taken into the number and given a right to all the privileges of the sons and daughters of God, a redemptive privilege that the Bible calls adoption. And we come this morning to consider together the sixth great privilege of adoption. And what I will attempt to open up in our hearing this morning is this privilege of adoption: our heavenly Father's loving discipline.
As sure as each and every repenting and believing sinner is given an irreversible status as a child of God, Christ is made his elder Brother in the family of God. He is made an heir of God and a joint-heir with Christ. He's given the Spirit of adoption, enabling him to cry, "Abba, Father." As surely as he is given the promise of the Father's provision, so it is always the case that every adopted child of God becomes the subject of the heavenly Father's loving discipline. It is an inescapable privilege of adoption to have a heavenly Father who loves us with enough principled love that He will discipline us to accomplish His own saving purposes in us.
So I ask you to open up with me, if you've closed your Bibles, to Hebrews 12, as we consider five dimensions of this loving, fatherly discipline that God brings upon each and every one of His children. Let me say a word briefly about the context of this passage. Those of you who were in our public reading of the Scriptures, I hope, that the great concern of the writer to the Hebrews is both to push and to pull tempted believers into the way of ongoing adherence to Christ. These Hebrew Christians had abandoned the old covenant and all of the trappings of Judaism; they placed their faith in Christ. But as a result, they were experiencing tremendous persecution, opposition, hardships. In chapter 10, the writer to the Hebrews could say,
"Call to remembrance the former days in which after you were enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly being made a gazing-stock by reproaches and afflictions, and partly by becoming partakers with them that were so used. For you had compassion on them that were in bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your possessions."
Think of all the things they experience as a result of professing attachment to Jesus Christ and the blessings of the new covenant. Conflict of sufferings, a gazing-stock--they were afflicted. They suffered privation of their very possessions. And so some are tempted to go back and to abandon their attachment to Christ. And so the great burden of the writer of this epistle is to urge them to continue to cling to Christ, to continue to lay hold of Christ and all the provisions of the new covenant in persevering faith. And so in doing this, he comes in chapter 12 and exhorts them that the Christian life is like a race and how they are to run. And he's reminding them as they consider their Savior, that unlike Him, they have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And they are being tempted to turn back because they have forgotten a very vital truth embedded in the old covenant documents, a truth which speaks to them. Notice what he says. Verse 4: "You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin." And it could be a question. ("Have you forgotten?") Or it could be an indicative. ("You have forgotten the exhortation [notice carefully] which reasons for you as sons.") Well, wait a minute, I thought the passage I read in your hearing from Proverbs 3 was Solomon speaking to his son and to his pupil saying, "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved of Him." And yet here the writer to the Hebrews says, "You have forgotten the exhortation which dialogues [that's a transliteration of the Greek verb] which reasons with you as sons." In other words, the words of Solomon embedded in Proverbs 3 are God's direct word to these Hebrew Christians in the first century, tempted to turn back because of the pressure and the opposition. And he says, "You have forgotten this word which reasons with you."
I must pause by way of application to make this statement. I quote from John Brown:
"There are two very important general remarks suggested by the manner in which the Apostle introduces this quotation. The first is that the Old Testament Scriptures are intended for our instruction as well as the instruction of those to whom they were originally addressed. The exhortation contained in the book of Proverbs speaks to Christians in this apostolic age. 'Whatsoever things were written aforetime,' Paul says in Romans 15, 'were written for our learning.' There is need of wisdom, that drawing from the Old Testament Scriptures the instruction they are intended to give us, but directly or indirectly, every part of those holy writings are intended to instruct us. When Paul said to Timothy, 'All Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,' he was speaking primarily and directly of the Old Testament Scriptures. So the writer to the Hebrews (the context of our passage) is bringing to remembrance a passage which these tempted believers ought to have remembered but had forgotten. And now he wants them to call it to mind in the midst of their present trial."
Well, so much then for the context of the passage, that little application with respect to the manner which we read our Old Testament. Now we come, secondly, to the major teaching of the passage in Hebrews. And as I presently understand it, there are five things set before us concerning this particular blessing of adoption, our heavenly Father's loving discipline. Five strands of truth set before us.
Number one: here we see the origin of God's paternal discipline of His children (vv. 4-6). "And you have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with sons, My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved of Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives."
You say, "But wait a minute, Pastor, when you read the passage from Proverbs, it says, "the son in whom He delights." This says, "every son whom He receives." How come? Well, the answer's very simple. In the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament Scriptures done by seventy men 200 years before Christ, the rendering is exactly as we have it here in Hebrews 12. And often you will find the New Testament writers, will quote from the Septuagint since it was their working Bible. And believing that the Holy Spirit is superintending in the inspiration of the Scriptures, we have every confidence that this is the Word of God, though it is not word for word paralleled with the passage in Proverbs 3.
So having dispensed with that for some who may have picked up on that, what does the text tell us? It says, "for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." And both verbs "love" and "receive" are in the present tense. And here we are informed that Almighty God who has taken people into this relationship as sons, He continues to love them, and He continues to receive them. Or if we take the nuance from the original passage in Proverbs 3, "He delights in them." So what is the origin, then, of God's paternal discipline? It is nothing other than His infinite, eternal, unchangeable love for His own, a love that manifests itself in His receiving them, not simply justifying them, declaring them righteous on the basis of the perfect life and the substitutionary death of His Son, but receiving them to His bosom as His own beloved children.
Remember the teaching of Scripture that we considered way back at the beginning of our study of adoption when we looked at adoption in the whole scheme of redemption. Ephesians 1:4-5 says, "...in love: having [predestined] us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself." You see the emphasis, "unto Himself." In love, He predestined us to adoption. And then we read in the Scriptures that in love, He sent His Son to redeem us in the fullness of the time. "God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive adoption as sons." And then He draws us to Himself. "No man comes unto the Father except he is drawn." And God says in Jeremiah 31:3, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore in loving kindness I have drawn you." And then He will keep us in His love. Romans 8:38: "I am persuaded that nothing shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Child of God, settle it in your heart, your Father's love is the origin of every act of discipline in your life. That love may be expressed in a righteous anger toward you for something you have done, but it is the holy and righteous anger of your Father and not your judge. And I have no sympathy for this teaching that says God is never angry with His children. Yes, He is. "You will not keep Your anger forever." "Rebuke me not in Your anger and Your hot displeasure," the psalmist prays. When as an earthly father, a child does something that is off the wall in disobedience, blatant, plain, open, clinched-fist disobedience, for a parent not to feel anger, there's something sick with that parent. Now there is a carnal anger that goes beyond that which is righteous, but our loving heavenly Father has as the origin of all His paternal discipline His eternal love to His people. One writer has captured this beautifully when he wrote,
"But still the displeasure is the displeasure of love. The frown is the frown of love. The correction is the correction of love. And the conviction of this is also necessary to its proving salutatory or helpful and to the prevention of the two extremes, against which the text warns us [and we'll see that in point number 5]. We shall not despise the discipline when we're convinced of it being in love. Nor shall we faint and be weary under the discipline if we are persuaded it is the discipline of our Father's love."
And you see at this point, dear people, some of you need to totally dispossess your minds of the patterns of your own earthly fathers. Get your concepts of God's fatherly dealings out of the Bible, not from the shadows of your experience. And here we are told, "whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." As your loving heavenly Father, He disciplines, He chastens, He reproves His children.
Now secondly, note with me the subjects of God's paternal discipline. Verses 6-8:
"For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. It is for chastening that ye endure; God is dealing with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, whereof all have been made partakers, then are you bastards, and not sons."
So when we ask the question, "Who are the subjects of God's paternal discipline?", the text is clear, abundantly clear that the subjects of God's paternal discipline are each and every one of His adopted children without one exception. "Every son whom He receives" (v. 6). If we are without chastening, we are not true sons, true daughters. God has no undisciplined, unchastened, unreproved brats in His family. He has no such children. As one man put it, "Corrections are pledges of our adoption and badges of our sonship." Another has written,
"God punishes His enemies, but He chastens His children. The one is the judicial infliction of His wrath. The other is the proof of His parental love. The same hand but not the same character gives the stroke to the Godly and the ungodly. The scourge of the judge is widely different from the rod of the Father. Moreover, this fatherly discipline pertains only to the present life. There's no chastisement in heaven nor in hell because there's no amendment. Chastisement is a companion of those who are in the way and of them only. These weary Hebrews might well think that they would not suffer if they were really God's sons. But in fact, the reverse is the case, for if they did not suffer, they would not be God's sons. 'Saints,' says God, 'think not that I hate you because I thus chide you.' He that escapes reprehension may suspect his adoption. God had one Son without corruption, but no son without correction. A gracious soul may look through the darkest cloud and see God smiling at him."
The subjects of God's paternal discipline are all of His children. The general truth is affliction in some form or another is allotted by God to every individual whom He regards with peculiar favor as the necessary means of promoting His spiritual profit. So we've seen the origin of God's paternal discipline, His love; the subjects of God paternal discipline, each and every one of His children without exception.
Now thirdly, consider with me the nature of God's paternal discipline. Look at the text. Here in Hebrews, we have three words. Look at them: "My son, regard not lightly the chastening [noun] of the Lord, nor faint [verb] when you are reproved of Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens [the verbal form of the noun chastening], and scourges [verb] every son whom He receives." Now we've got to spend a little time with words. That's the task of a preacher, to take the words of God, to open them up; to persuade your judgment that the meaning attached is the right meaning.
This word "chastening" (the noun) and chasten (the verb) is the family of words that is dominant in this passage. In fact, between verses 5 and 11, you have no fewer than eight uses of the noun and the verb and, I believe, one adverbial construction of the word (?). (?) is the verb. (?) is the noun. It's the dominant word. And it's a word that has a wide, what the theologians call the semantic range; that is, it's got lots of meanings in the New Testament. When you hear semantic range, that's just a fancy way of saying it's got lots of meanings. In secular Greek, it would primarily mean training and instruction. It can mean training and instruction by discipline. It can mean discipline in a more restricted way as it does in Ephesians 6:4: "You fathers, nurture them in the discipline and admonition [the rod and instruction]...." So here in this context, it's probably referring to chastening in its more limited sense. "My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved of Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges...." And if we have Hebrew parallelism, then it is a chastening that issues in scourging. So most likely here the word is referring to God's training and educating enforced by discipline.
And then we have the word "reproved." This is the word that means a verbal rebuke, a clear pointing out of wrong with a call to desist. It is said in Luke 3:19 that John was reproving or rebuking Herod for his sins. It's used in 2 Timothy 4:2: "I charge you in the sight of God and Christ Jesus, preach the word through rebuke." Here's our word. And then in revelation 3:19, when Jesus speaks to the church at Laodicea, "I'm about to spew you out of My mouth [I'm about to vomit you]," He says, "As many as I love, I reprove and chasten." So the concept is verbal reproof that points out a wrong and calls us to desist.
But now in verse 6, "and He scourges." This verb is found only seven times in the New Testament. Six of them are in the Gospels, and without exception, they refer to Jesus being scourged. So when the writer to the Hebrews picks it up out of the Septuagint ("scourges"), this is talking about giving you a good whipping. ("Your mamma gonna whup you.") That's what the word is here. The passage says He whups, He scourges every son whom He receives. In other words, God will take very severe measures to get our attention about issues that He believes are important in our lives.
So what's the nature of this matter of God's discipline? It is God's dealings with us that become His paideia, His chastening, His training of us, but training with discipline; His verbal rebukes, His bringing His strokes upon us. Now follow me closely, this is what broke the passage open for me, and I was ready to dance a little jig in my study. I didn't, but I did in my heart. In the context of the book of Hebrews, what was the discipline? What was the reproof? What was the whupping that the heavenly Father was giving? It was the manifold difficulties arising from their persecution. And the writer brings in the Proverbs passage as a special and specific application of the general truth "My son." The context in Proverbs is very general. But he takes the general directive and applies it very specifically, and he says,
"Look, you Hebrew Christians need to look upon all of this stuff that these people are doing: mean-spirited people taking away your goods, marginalizing you in your place of work and business, blocking your way to progression up the ladder in corporate responsibility. In all the ways you're feeling the pressure, you need to see in all of this, this is your heavenly Father's discipline. These afflictive circumstances that are pressing you; that are galling your flesh; that are disrupting your life, they are your heavenly Father's discipline; they are His training; they are His words of reproof; in some cases, they are His whupping; they are His scourging."
He makes a very specific application of the general principles of Proverbs 3 to their situation. However, we dare not limit the significance of these words to that specific application. For when we see them in their original context, they are much broader and more general. And I'm prepared to assert that the nature of the discipline, the reproof, the scourging of God is any afflictive circumstance that God brings into our lives in His sovereignty. Any afflictive circumstance that robs us of delight ("No chastening for the present seems to be joyous [using the most general word]"). No training, no discipline of your Father makes you dance around with a glory fit. You don't click your heels when God is chastening, when God is reproving, when God is scourging, when God is giving you a whupping--you don't do it. And so I believe William Arno in his commentary on the Proverbs 3 passage has accurately identified the nature of chastening. Listen to his words: "Turning now to the matter of this text, understand by chastening in the meantime, any affliction, whatever its form or measure may be. The stroke may fall upon your own persons, your body; your ears go dead on you, your body, your spirit."
When I hear that there were some who sat in the previous hour and dug their heels in. "No way I'm going to buy that stuff. I'll dress the way I want." When that comes back to me, it will be like a knife right here, right there. That will be the Father's discipline. It will be an affliction.
Body, spirit, or your good name. Some of us know well what that is. It may fall on those who are dearest to you and so wound you in the tenderest spot. It may fall upon your substance to sweep it away, or on your country to waste it. Whatever the providence may be that turns your joy into grief, it is a chastening from the Lord. That's it! That's it! "Despise not the chastening of the Lord," an afflictive providence coming from the hand of your sovereign God. "Nor faint when you are reproved of Him. For whom the Lord loves He chastens and scourges every son whom He receives." So then, child of God, mark it down that God will discipline, train, reprove, and whup you by one means or another, and all of it in His love to you as His adopted child. That's the nature of God's chastening. It would bring it would it not, then, to James 1:2: "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers trials [all kinds of trials and pressured circumstances], knowing [and then he goes on to tell us God's purposes in them]...."
Well, we come quickly, then, to number four. We've looked at the origin, God's love; the subject, each and every one of His children; the nature, afflictive circumstances. Fourthly, what's the goal of God's paternal discipline? What's the goal God has in mind? Well, let's look at the text. Verses 10-11:
"For they [our earthly fathers] indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed good to them; but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness."
Here are the two purposes of God, and they really are one: that we might be partakers of His holiness. I can't improve upon the words of John Owen who commenting on this writes,
"Our profit is that we might be partakers of His holiness, that is, the holiness which He requires of us and approves in us. This holiness consists in the mortification of our lusts and affections, the gradual renovation of our natures and the sanctification of our souls, the carrying on and increase of those things in that which God designs in all chastisements. Next to our participation of Christ by the imputation of His righteousness unto us (that's justification), this is the greatest privilege, honor, glory, and benefit that in this world we can be partakers of. So we have no reason to grow weary of His chastisement."
Do you hear what Owen is saying? Next to having the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, there is no greater privilege, honor, glory, and benefit than to be a partaker of God's holiness. Do you regard that to be true? No greater privilege than that God in His love would be working on you and on me that we might more and more reflect His character as embodied in the person of Christ. "For whom He did foreknow, He did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son," that He might see more and more of the family likeness of the elder Brother. And He looks at the elder Brother seated at His right hand, and then He looks down at you and me and says, "Ah yes, that afflictive dispensation, that bit of pressure there, that bit of disappointment there, that bit of trial there, it's working in them. And I see, aha, a little more like My Son." And He looks, "aha, a little more like My Son," that we might be partakers of His holiness. That's His purpose. He's not out to make you heel-clicking happy all the time. He wants to make you holy. He wants to make you like His own beloved Son. And He's committed to do it. That's why He chastens and scourges every son whom He receives, that we might be partakers of His holiness.
Then notice, he says that we might yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness, not the right-standing with God that becomes ours in our justification, but the righteousness comprised of growing conformity to God's absolute standard of right, which is His holy law: perfect love to God and to neighbor. Bring the two things together and you say God's goal in His loving, fatherly discipline is to increase the family likeness after the pattern of His beloved Son. Dear brother and sister, the God who is so determined to give us the status of sons and daughters that He sent His Son, in the fullness of the time, He sent forth His Son to redeem us that we might receive adoption as sons. That God so determined to give us that status that He sent His Son, so determined that we might know and enjoy our status. He sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, enabling us to cry, "Abba, Father." He is determined to have the family likeness, and He's going to whup you good to get it. That's what the text is saying. He does this to the end that we might be partakers of His holiness, that we might render the fruit of righteousness.
Then we come fifthly: what's the proper response to God's paternal discipline? What is the response that you and I ought to render to God when He brings upon us those afflictive, negative providences that press us and gall us and stretch us? What's our response to be? Three things: expect it, understand it, and submit to God in the midst of it.
Number one: expect it. Get rid of the idea that God will insulate us and protect us from affliction, from that which galls and disappoints us. Every son loved and received is chastened, is reproved, is whupped. He is chastised by His heavenly Father ("whereof all are partakers"). You see, as long as there's sin in you and me; as long as there's any grace not fully developed up to the measure of Christ Himself, God's got work to do in us. Anyone here want to say, "All sin has been extirpated from me--no remaining sin. Every grace has come to its fullest flowering in its conformity to Christ."? As long as there sin to be mortified, graces to be cultivated, then the Father is going to discipline, reprove, and He's going to whup you. And He's going to use these circumstances. He has the whole world at His disposal: all men, all things, all of the atoms and molecules in my body and in the little hairs in my cochlea that pick up the various vibrations and sounds. And He says, "I'm going to kill that one and kill this one." I don't have a clue, except I know my Father wants to make me more like Jesus. And I can embrace it and say, "O God, make me more like Your Son as a result of that affliction." Expect it.
Secondly, understand it. It comes from His heart of love. It is brought to make you more like His Son to bring the peaceable fruits of righteousness. Don't have somebody have to say to you what the writer had to say to these believers:
"Have you forgotten? There's a passage that's reasoning with you, that ought to help you in the midst of your affliction. You have forgotten the passage which reasons with you as with sons. And shame on you. Understand the origin is His heart of love. Understand its goal is to make you like Christ."
Then thirdly--and this is the heart of it--submit to God in the midst of it. Look at verse 9: "Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh chasten us. We gave them reverence."
Let me pause and say, you kids, listen to me. You've got fathers concerned enough to try to form your character by discipline, reproof, the whip, the paddle, the spoon. Then give them reverence. Thank God for it, that you don't have a father that says, "Well, I'll just let you do your own thing and let you end up a hellion."
"The rod and reproof give wisdom [not just reproof, the rod].." There is no child of God in this church family who doesn't need the rod. At what age should the rod be laid aside and what circumstances? Those are matters to work through before God. But don't any of you say, "My child is too sensitive. My child is too this, too that." No, the rod and reproof give wisdom. That's what the Bible says. The wisdom of God has spoken, and the passage says we give such parents reverence. We get old enough to realize what they were doing, and we thank God, and we thank them.
But now the writer to the Hebrews goes on to say, "We gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" The Greek word "in subjection" is a military term. It means to range yourself under another under authority. He says, "Shall we not range ourselves under the authority of our Father and live." Find true abundant life in the posture of a hearty embrace of the Father's discipline. That's what God calls us to, to submit to God in the discipline. And that will mean going back to verse 5: "My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved of Him." The first, insensibility: "O well, man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. This is just a problem. This is just a frustration. You expect it. In the world you will have tribulation, so grit your teeth and just ride it out." That's insensibility, indifference to God's chastening. It will never accomplish its purpose if you treat it with insensibility and with indifference.
On the other end of the spectrum is, don't be dispirited by it. Despondency is condemned. Don't be overwhelmed by it, nor faint when you are reproved by Him. "O, I must be the most miserable...." And you end up being paralyzed. That's what he goes after in verses 12 and 13: "Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down, and the palsied knees; and make straight paths for your feet, that that which is lame be not turned out of the way, but rather be healed." He says, "Don't allow yourselves to be paralyzed with despondency." You say, "I must be the worst child God has in His family. He brought this upon me and that upon me. Woe is me! Woe is me!" No, no, he says, "Now stop it. My son don't regard lightly. And on the other hand, don't faint." Don't treat God's discipline with insensibility on the one hand or despondency on the other. But in the language of verses 12 and 13, see what God is doing in the light of His Word; embrace His purposes from the heart: "Lord Jesus, what are the sins You are going after in this difficult circumstance?"
One of our men got stuck in a motel half way across the country this week because of weather problems, and I couldn't help but think of him when I was preparing the sermon. What's he need to do in a situation like that. Well, he can get mad and get angry and cuss the weather. On the other hand, he can say,
"Lord Jesus, I don't have a clue why I'm out here, but You know what You're doing. Work in me whatever grace You want to work in me. Getting the plane out of here is no big deal for You. But getting some sin out of my heart, that's the big deal. Now Lord, what sin are You going after? What grace do you want to cultivate in me?"
Matt, excuse me for using you, but I couldn't help but think of you when I was sitting at my desk. That's what we do with these things. We don't allow ourselves to get buried by them. We don't treat them with indifference. But we come to our God with a mind instructed by the Word of God, knowing the purpose of our loving heavenly Father. And we submit to God and embrace it. And then we look to Him, that He might go after the sin He's seeking to mortify, the grace He's seeking to cultivate in us. "Shall we not be subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?" This is what God calls us to in the midst of our afflictions. John Brown writes ,
"And here let it be distinctly understood that it is not affliction taken by itself that is represented as producing this effect. It's affliction understood to be and treated as the chastisement of the Lord. The natural effect of affliction on an unsanctified mind is either to irritate or to depress. In either case, instead of promoting, it hinders spiritual improvement. That, however, arises from the ignorance and unbelief and obstinacy of the person afflicted. And even with regard to Christians, it's just as true that in the proportion as they regard and improve affliction as the chastisement of the Lord, that affliction will promote their spiritual well-being."
So my dear fellow child of God, God's going to beat up on you. And this is why there's a lovely little touch in here when it says, "those that are exercised thereby" in verse 11. It's a five syllable Greek word. Transliterated, we get our word gymnasium. He uses the athletic imagery, that there are people who go into the spiritual gymnasium when afflictions come, and there they strengthen spiritual muscles and they're exercised by that affliction. And out of it comes greater likeness to Jesus, greater conformity to the Son of God.
So I say in closing, my adopted brothers and sisters, here's the teaching of the Word of God concerning the sixth great privilege and blessing of adoption: the discipline, the reproving, the scourging of our heavenly Father. Remember its origin: whom He loves, He chastens. The subjects: all of His children. The nature: all of our afflictive circumstances. Its goal: partaker of His holiness, fruits of righteousness. The proper response: expect it, understand it, and submit to God in it.
Now then, coming all the way back to where I started, John said, "In this the children of God are manifested, and the children of the devil." This is stuff for the children of God. You who are the children of the devil, one or two things will happen to you. God may surround you with kindness that will cause you to drop into hell smothered with His goodness. If you don't believe that, read Psalm 73. That's what unstrung the psalmist. He looked at wicked men around him; he said they had no trouble in life; they had no trouble in death. All their bills are paid; their family's all together. Everything looks hunky dory--no problems. But he says, "I'm afflicted everyday. Every time I turn around, I see the rod of God upon me." He said, "I couldn't figure it out until I went into the sanctuary and I understood their latter end."
O my unconverted man, woman, boy, or girl, face your latter end! God may be insulating and protecting you from affliction and trouble and disruption that will only make hell all the hotter, because His goodness is intended to lead you to repentance. And by not leading you to repentance, Paul says you treasure up unto yourself wrath against the day of wrath and the righteous judgment of God, because His goodness leads you to hardness of heart. I beg you, I plead with you, face the latter end, the latter end, the latter end.
Then on the other hand, there may be some of you greatly afflicted. You're not in Christ, but you're greatly afflicted. What do you do with your afflictions? You just tough them out. You just ride them out to no purpose whatsoever. What a wonderful thing to turn to Christ, to turn from running your own life. Throw yourself upon the Savior. And then in Christ, if God continues to choose to afflict you, you will see those afflictions as expressions of His loving, fatherly concern for you as His child. O, that you might go to Christ and find in Him the salvation that has brought us into that place of being His sons and daughters, the objects, the subjects of His loving, fatherly discipline.
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Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 16:42:04 GMT -5
The Marvelous Privileges
of Adoption, Part 6
by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached March 9, 2008
PDF Format | More Transcripts
Now let us turn in our Bibles to that portion of the Word of God we have just sung, 1 John 3, and I shall read the first four verses.
"Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are. For this cause the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, when He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him even as He is. And every one that has this hope set on Him purifies himself, even as He is pure."
Let us pray again and ask God that by the Spirit, He will come and teach us of His own truth.
Our Father, we were reminded in the previous hour of our great privilege and solemn responsibility to buy the truth. Help us in this hour to pay whatever price of mental discipline we must pay to buy the truth of this passage. Help us, Lord, where the passage will bring pressure upon us and demand things of us if we are to truly embrace it. May we be willing to pay any price to obtain the truth and be determined no price is high enough to cause us to sell it. Come with Your grace and power and minister to us we plead. In Jesus name, amen.
According to John's purpose statement in chapter 5, verse 13, John wrote this particular letter in order to strengthen the assurance of the true children of God and to expose the invalid assurance of those that one author called the successionists (according to chapter 2 and verse 19, those who had left the fellowship of the church but were continually troubling the church with their false doctrine and with their false claims that they knew God). So again and again throughout this letter, John sets before his readers three categories of tests by which the people of God may have their assurance strengthened. And those who are not the people of God may be exposed for what they really are. Those three categories of test are, number one: the moral or the ethical test, that is, the practice of righteousness on the one hand, and the non-practice of sin on the other hand, and a life of determined, principled obedience to God's commands. John says if you are not one who is practicing righteousness, who has not forsaken sin as a way of life and whose feet are not planted in a path of principled obedience; you claim to know God, you're a liar, and the truth is not in you. The second test is the social or the fraternal test: love for the brethren. And again and again John comes back to it:
"He that loves not, knows not God."
"By this we know we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren."
Love for the brethren, love manifested in deeds of self-giving benevolence. And then the third test is the doctrinal test, particularly a right doctrine of the person of Christ. John speaks to the fact that the true doctrine of Christ leads to the conclusion that in the person of Christ, we have true humanity joined to true deity: two natures in the one person forever.
Now in chapter 2, John returns to one of these moral or ethical test. Look at verse 29: "If you know that He [Christ] is righteous, you know that everyone who does righteousness is begotten of Him." Then we can drop right down to verse 4 and see how he continues that test. "Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested to take away sins; and in Him is no sin. Whosoever abides in Him sins not: whosoever sins has not seen Him, neither knows Him." Well, what do we do, then, with chapter 3, verses 1-4. Well, it's a parenthesis. For at the end of chapter 2, he used the term "begotten of Him." And as John thinks of the wonder of being a child of God by divine begetting, he breaks out into this parenthetical statement of four verses concerning the wonder of our adoption into the family of God and of our being birthed into the family of God. And he says, "Behold [stand back in amazement] what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God." And it is in the midst of this parenthetical section that John, then, sets before us the seventh blessing of adoption. The seventh blessing of adoption, at least in terms of my preaching of those blessings: the hope of future glorification as the children of God.
Now I've already set before you six of the great blessings of adoption. When God takes us into the number of His children and then tells us we have a right to all of the privileges of the children of God, what are the blessings that come with that? Well, first of all, we are given an inviolable and irreversible status as the sons and daughters of God. Secondly, we are introduced to the family of God in which Christ is our elder Brother. Thirdly, we are made heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Fourthly, we are given the Spirit of adoption, enabling us to cry, "Abba, Father." We are given, fifthly, the promise of our Father's provision of all of our needs. And then, as we saw two weeks ago, the sixth privilege of adoption, we have our Father's loving discipline.
Now as a capstone over all the blessings of adoption, John here sets before us blessing number seven: the hope of future glorification as the children of God. Now why do I use the word hope? Well, you will notice in verse 3, whatever John's been talking about in this parenthetical statement, he calls it hope. "Everyone that has this hope set upon Him," or more literally, "has this hope upon Him." Now the word hope is a wonderful, rich Biblical word, but we use the word in a way that is quite different from the way in which it is used almost without exception in the New Testament. We use the word to express a desire or a wish: "Hey John, I hope to see you next week (i.e. I have a desire to see you)." Or you might say as a student, "Boy, I really hope that I'll get on the honor role this semester or this term." You're using the word hope as expressing a desire or a wish. Whereas, in the Scriptures, the word hope means far more than that. It means nothing less than this: a confident expectation and conscious longing for a promise but not yet experienced blessing of God's salvation in Jesus Christ. And that's precisely how John uses it here. And therefore, we're going to dig into this passage as we consider together this seventh blessing of adoption, the hope, the confident expectation and conscious longing for the promised blessing of our glorification, the hope of future glorification as the children of God. That's our subject this morning with this passage as our text. And there are four basic units of thought in the passage.
The first is this: we have an affirmation of our present position as the children of God. Look at verse 2: "Beloved, now are we children of God." A simple affirmation of our present position as the children of God. Notice how John addresses these Christians. He calls them beloved. They are beloved of God. And while God has a general love to all men and to His whole creation, when you find this word used, it exclusively refers to the people of God. They are beloved. They are the people whom God has sovereignly and graciously made His children by the legal act of adoption and by the experience of the new birth. This is made plain in verse 1: "Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God, and we are." So this is a love that is inseparably joined to people being made the children of God.
And what does John affirm with respect to them? That they have a present position or status as the children of God. And how did they become children of God? Well, in John's Gospel, chapter one and verse 12, he gives us half of the answer: "But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become [and here's his same word for children] children of God." He gave the right to become children. That's speaking of adoption, that legal transaction in the family court of heaven where, based on the work of Christ, a believing sinner is taken into the number and given all the rights and privileges of the children of God.
But then in the Johannine language, we become children of God not only by an act of adoption upon the reception of Christ, but by an act of begetting by the Holy Spirit. Verse 29 of the previous chapter: "If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who also that does righteousness is begotten of Him." That's a reference to regeneration, the divine begetting, the new birth that John speaks about in John 3 when recording the words of Jesus to Nicodemus: "Except a man be born again [from above], he cannot see [he cannot enter] the kingdom of God."
And so John begins this passage with an affirmation of our present position as the children of God. So he desires that the most recent convert in the churches where this letter would circulate, the most untaught disciple along with the most mature and seasoned saint, would sense with John. Notice, he doesn't say "you," but he says, "we." "Beloved, now are we [all of us together] the children of God." And he wants them to be assured that is their spiritual position.
Let me say before moving on to our second head, if you've not had direct dealings with God in Christ, you've not received the Christ of Scripture for who He is and for what He has done; if you've not experienced the divine begetting, you've not been born again by the Spirit,. You are not beloved; you are not a child of God. You are a child of wrath; you are a child of the devil. That's the teaching of the Word of God.
But now secondly, not only do we have an affirmation of our present position as the children of God, but we have an explanation of our hidden or veiled condition as the children of God. Again, look at verse 2: "Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be." Here John is giving an explanation of our hidden or veiled condition, not our hidden or veiled position. No, our position is clear, we are the children of God now. But with respect to the "not yet," it is not yet revealed, manifest, made open and plain (which is the significance of that verb) what we shall be. And here we are introduced to that pervasive Biblical teaching of the "now" and the "not yet." And the language comes right out of this text: "Beloved, now are we the children of God, but it does not yet appear what we shall be."
What is the "not yet"? The "not yet" is what we shall be as the children of God. We are an amazing work. That's why John could say at the beginning of this parenthesis, "Behold, stand back in utter amazement at the love that would constitute us the children of God, and we really are His children. Beloved, now we are his children." He's getting the message through: we're an amazing creature to be a child of the living God. We who were besotten in our sins and our blindness and our rebellion; there was nothing in us to draw forth the love of God. It was shear sovereign, divinely initiated love. And God stood to gain nothing by putting us into His family when He had His holy Son and holy angels, and yet He did it. But we're a work in progress. It is not yet made plain and openly revealed what we shall be. Now, we're not moving to a higher or more glorious position. There is no higher or more glorious position than being a son or daughter of the Living God. So when it says, "It is not yet manifest what we shall be," he's not referring to our position. But he's referring to what is entailed in the fullness of being a child of God.
Let me give you a simple illustration. Most of you regard caterpillars as ugly, little furry, worm-like creatures--most women anyway. Now there may be some of you men who are fascinated with bugs and things; who like to get down close to them and admire their colors. But for the most part, I think any time I've seen a woman see a caterpillar--"Yuck!"--nothing attractive. But when that caterpillar goes into its cocoon, there's a monarch butterfly going to come out. It is not yet manifested what that furry, ugly, worm-like creature shall be. It shall be from larva to a beautiful monarch butterfly. Here John says, "We are, here and now. We have the status: children of God." There's the affirmation of our present position. But then he gives the explanation of our hidden or veiled condition: "It is not yet manifested what we shall be."
Now we come the heart of our teaching this morning. Point number three: a declaration of our future glorification as the children of God. Look at the text: "Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that [not if, but as all the modern versions translate it], when He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him even as He is." Here is John's declaration of this seventh great blessing of our adoption of being a child of God, a declaration of our future glorification as the children of God.
Look with me at four lines of thought in this part of the text. First of all, what is the essence of our glorification as the children of God. According to our text, it is nothing more or nothing less than being made like Christ. "It does not yet appear what we shall be; we know that when He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him." Now that does not mean we shall be deified. Any religion that speaks of God being everything and all of us being merged into Godhood is shear blasphemy and religious nonsense. The distance between God the creator, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and anything He creates, including us, is the distance of infinity. And you and I will never be elevated to deity. So when it says we shall be like Him, it does not mean we shall be deified. It does mean that what God purposed in His electing foreknowledge love will actually be realized in our experience.
And what do I mean by that? Simply this: Romans 8 tells us in verse 29, "For whom He foreknew [that is, those whom He knew beforehand with distinguishing love and purpose to save them], He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son." And then in Ephesians 1:4c-5 "in love: having predestinated us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself." That choice of God of a vast multitude of sinners out of Adam's race, He purposed from (how can we speak of these things?) the very first impulses of His choosing love, that when He was done with us, He could plant us next to His Son and say, "You're just like Him." As a creature, He's the second person in the Godhead, the creator, the sovereign Lord and ruler. But in terms of perfected humanity in a glorified body, we shall be like Him. That is the essence of the glorification of the children of God.
And what will that mean in particular? You've heard me often quote J.I. Packer: "It will mean nothing less than a sinless soul inhabiting a deathless body." Let's park on those things for a little bit. A sinless soul, what will that mean? All remaining sin totally removed. All of those instincts and impulses of my soul that make me want to be defensive when my faults are exposed, that make me excuse them or transfer the guilt to others, all of that indwelling sin that makes me instinctively pit myself and serve myself and seek myself--all remaining sin totally removed, all susceptibility to sin totally removed, all of those magnets in my soul that so easily draw to it what is forbidden by God, all of the magnets dug out of my soul, all of the darkness in my judgment that skews my perspective of reality, all of the darkness in my judgment removed, all of the twistedness of my affections, where l love what I ought to hate and I hate what I ought to love--every last bit of it forever removed. We shall be like Him--that's Jesus. And furthermore, all of the Christ-like graces of meekness and lowliness and teachableness and inclination to obedience with unmingled delight, love unchallenged with selfishness, joy unmixed with sorrow flooding my whole soul.
People of God, we shall be like Him, a sinless soul inhabiting a deathless body. What's a deathless body going to be like? Well, let Paul answer for us from 1 Corinthians 15. "This body will be sown [that is, planted in the ground] in corruption; it is raised in incorruption." There is nothing that will be worn out with time, nothing that will decay with time. "It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory." It is sown with all of the marks of death all over it. In spite of the cosmetology of the undertaker, it is sown in dishonor. It's an ugly thing when planted. It will be raised in glory, the outshining of the very perfections of God's work. "It is sown in weakness." That last enemy comes, and he says, "There's my victim, and I'll get him." And he gets us. "It shall be raised in power." What kind of power will surge through these bodies in the day of resurrection? What will they be capable of doing? I have my fantasies--I'm not going to tell you what they are. But the text says, "raised in power." "There is a natural body; there is also a spiritual body," that is, a body suited to life in which we will be totally filled with the Spirit and animated by the Spirit. And think of a body that will be able to follow all of the impulses of a sinless soul that wants to glorify God to the maximum. And when those passions and desires are in us and stirred, our bodies will leap in obedience and never be weary, never be worn out, never be decayed.
We shall be like Him. That's why Paul could say, "He shall fashion the body of our humiliation." This present body is a constant source of humiliation if you are in touch with reality. You may not feel it too much if you're in your teenage years and you don't have aches and pains and the rest yet, although some of you as teens, you do. But it's a body of our humiliation--the weakness, the weariness, all that pertains to this body in our present cursed situation. And it says He will transform us, this very body, and fashion it after the body of His glory, the body which He now has at the right hand of the Father. And I'm personally persuaded that His resurrection body that was here on earth for forty days was not fully the body He now has. That was still suited for life in this cursed world. The body He now has is suited for the place He now has at the right hand of the Father. And God's going to make that the template of your body, not even the body of His resurrection--the body of His glory. You say, "Pastor, you're going crazy." No, that's Bible. That's not me, that's Bible. He shall fashion your body after the template of the body of the glory of Christ who is at the right hand of the Father. That's the essence of the glorification of the children of God. That's the monarch butterfly coming out of the cocoon. "It's not yet manifest what we shall be." But here the declaration of our future glorification as the children of God, the essence of it: we shall be made like Christ.
Now notice, secondly under this declaration, the occasion of our glorification as the children of God. The essence: a sinless soul inhabiting a deathless body. The occasion--look at the text: "It is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, when He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him." This term "manifested" or "revealed" is one of the standard words for the second coming of our Lord Jesus. And as I intimated earlier, the New King James Version, ESV, NASV, NIV all render it "when," not "if," but "when He shall be manifested." The occasion, then, of our glorification as the children of God is not when we're planted in death. It's when He returns in glory and in power. He must reign until He has destroyed the last enemy, and the last enemy is death. That enemy is not yet destroyed. So when it says, "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is," what is the occasion of this glorification? It is His manifestation in His second coming, when He comes in clouds and the holy angels with Him. Colossians 3:4 is a wonderful text to buttress this perspective: "When Christ, who is our life [here's the same word] manifested, then shall you also with Him be manifested in glory." And the glory is not a place; it's a condition. We'll be manifested with Him in glory. We will share in the glory of a glorified Christ.
Then thirdly, what's the context of our glorification as the children of God? Look at the text: "We know that, when He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him even as He is." The context of our glorification as the children of God will be the undimmed vision of Christ Himself. And I've cried to God and said, "Lord, what's the connection?" "We shall be like Him; for we shall see Him even as He is." "Lord, what's the connection?" And I scoured my commentators, and I'm not sure what the connection is. I've got a little idea of what it may be, and I don't mind preaching my maybes when they're Biblical. Alright, 2 Corinthians 3. The context of our glorification as the children of God is the immediate sight of Christ. And could this at least be a pointer in the answer to the question, "What's the connection?"
Verse 18 (speaking of our present experience): "But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror [not directly, but as something reflected in a mirror or possibly through a glass] the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory [one stage of glory to another], even as from the Lord the Spirit." And here the Apostle is telling us that, as believers, as we behold our Lord as in a mirror, we behold Him in His Word; we behold Him in His ordinances; we behold Him in the company of His saints. And what is happening as we behold our Savior? The Holy Spirit is doing a work of transforming us from the inside out into the likeness of Christ. Well, if that work is going on here and now while we do not see Him face to face, can it be there is something about the face-to-face sight of Christ that will complete the work of transformation into the image of Christ? It's going on now by degrees. Will it then in that burst of spiritual energy? I don't know, but I have to be honest with the text and say the context of our glorification as the children of God will be nothing less than the very face-to-face sight of our Lord Jesus.
But then notice, fourthly under this head, the certainty of our glorification as the children of God. What does the text tell us? This is what it tells us: "We know that [John doesn't say, 'I know as an apostle,' but 'we the company of God's new covenant community all know'], when He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him even as He is." And then in verse 2, he had said, "It is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know...." Those are words of certainty ("shall be" and "we know")--the certainty of our glorification as the children of God, a certainty based upon the very words of Jesus, based upon the words of those two shining ones when He ascended up into heaven and said, "This same Jesus shall descend in like manner." All of the promises that are yes and amen in Christ. It is certain, as certain as we are now the children of God, as certain as it is not yet manifest what we shall be. It is certain that God's work having begun in us will be perfected at the Day of Jesus Christ. I say, this is the seventh marvelous blessing of adoption: our glorification as the children of God.
We looked at the directions that John has given to us, the affirmation, the explanation. Now we come to an assertion of our personal sanctification as the children of God. Verse 3: "And every one that has this hope set on Him purifies himself, even as He is pure." Look at the scope of this assertion and then the heart or the meaning of this assertion. John says, "Every one [and then he uses unusual construction] that has this hope set on [literally 'upon.' The word 'set' is not in the originals] Him." In other words, everyone whose hope of glorification is built upon true saving union with Christ, not a decision ("O, I've decided for Jesus. I'm now His"), a profession of faith. No, no, this hope he says is upon Christ. That's the picture of the person who has rolled the whole weight of his soul, his life, his being upon Christ. Everything about him rests upon Christ. And John says, "Here's the scope of my assertion: everyone that has this hope in Him...." What will be true? Here's the heart of the assertion--look at the activity described and the standard identified. What's the activity true of every true child of God? And here I beg of you, don't wiggle out of the Word. If what John says is true of every single true child of the Living God, everyone truly resting upon Christ and Christ alone--what does he say? What is the activity described? Look at it: "And every one that has this hope set on Him [and it's a present tense use of the verb--continually] purifies himself, even as He is pure."
Now this verb (?) frequently refers to ritual purification. In John 11:35, people were going up to Jerusalem to purify themselves in the light of the coming Passover. In Acts 21, Paul took some vows, and he purified himself ritually before he went into the temple. However, it's also used of morals: spiritual, ethical, practical purification. 1 Peter 1:22 says, "Seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth...." He's referring to their conversion. When in repentance and faith, they laid hold of Christ, they underwent and internal, moral, ethical purification from sin, what Romans 6 calls death to sin. Romans 6:15: a change of masters from sin to righteousness. And then in James 4:8, James says "Purify your hearts you double minded." There again, it's internal, spiritual purification. So when John writes, "And every single one that has this hope set on Christ is continually purifying himself," what's it mean? It means that everyone who has this hope in reality, not in mere profession, not in mere word, but in reality, is constantly purifying himself.
What's that mean? I didn't think I could cleanse myself from my sin. No, but I can continually go to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. Or as John said in 1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." I can engage in fresh actings of faith in the sacrifice of Christ. Chapter 2: "These I write unto you that you may not sin. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the propitiation for our sins." We can engage in the mortification of our sin. Romans 8:13: "If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you shall live." Jesus speaks of the cutting off of right hands, the plucking out of right eyes. 2 Corinthians 7:1: "Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." Or Hebrews 12:14: "Follow after peace with all men, and the [holiness] without which no man shall see the Lord." The activity described--and this may be why John used this rather unusual word rather than the standard word for pursuing holiness, because in ritual purification, the one to be purified is consciously active. He washes his hands; he abstains from touching a dead body; he abstains from sexual relations. Whatever was required in ritual purification, the person to be purified was consciously, deliberately engaged in the purification. And so he says, "And every one that has this hope set on Him purifies himself." Yes, only the blood of Christ can cleanse from sin. Yes, only the Holy Spirit can empower us to mortify our sin. Yes, only the Holy Spirit can empower us to mortify our sin. But we purify ourselves. And if you're not continually purifying yourself, your hope is a vain hope. It has no Biblical basis. The activity of all who are the true children of God, who will be glorified when Christ returns and receive the final blessing of their adoption--they are all, without exception, engaged in this activity of purifying themselves.
That's the activity described. Now look at the standard identified. It's right there in your Bibles. Don't go out and say, "I don't agree with Pastor Martin." This is not Pastor Martin. I've labored hours over words that I might bring you the Word of the Living God. And I want you to look at your Bibles. What does it say is the standard? "And every one that has this hope set on Him [continually] purifies himself, even as He is pure." Christ Himself is the standard of purification. Christ, of whom the writer to the Hebrews says, "He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." The Christ who could say, "Which of you convinces me of sin?" It is the One to whom demons spoke and said, "What have we to do with You, You holy One of God?" When He was conceived in Mary's womb: "That holy thing which is conceived in you is of the Holy Spirit." Jesus Himself is the standard towards which we press in the continuous engagement in self-purification. That means that we never come to the place where we say, "Well, my life is respectable enough to make others in Trinity Baptist Church comfortable with me, and make me comfortable with myself that I'm not now what I once was. I've given up this; I've turn away from that. This sin no longer marks me; therefore, I can coast. That's not what the text says. The text says, "And every one that has this hope set on Him [continually] purifies himself, even as [his standard is Christ Himself]."
We're not only free from outward violations of the law of God but the inward violations of motive, of desire, of reaction to wrong, of a disposition in a situation of misunderstanding. He was concerned with the state of His own heart, so that when the Father from heaven said, "This is My Son, My beloved in whom I am well-pleased," the Father who saw every motion of the heart of Jesus, every disposition of the Spirit of Jesus, every inclination of the will and desires of Jesus could say, "Everything pleases Me." "And every one that has this hope set on Him purifies himself, even as He is pure." I didn't write it, but I am determined to preach it into your conscience. That's the standard. John Cotton, the 17th century Puritan, stated the truth of this text this way: "Every Christian who hopes to be like Christ hereafter in glory cleanses himself to be like Christ in grace now."
And dear people, this part of my text cuts the nerve, lets out the life blood of two soul-destructive errors. Hear me carefully. On the one hand, the error of perfectionism. There are those who have taught that it is possible, by the grace of God and by the infilling and empowering of the Holy Spirit, to be brought to the place where we no longer sin in this life. That's called perfectionism. Now if perfectionism were true, this text is not true because it is in the present tense of the verb (?). "Every one that has this hope set on Him [is continually purifying] himself [all the way to glory]." And furthermore, if the standard is Christ, is there any mortal ready to say, "I am as holy as my Savior." You see, it absolutely bleeds the life out of perfectionism.
But that's not your danger. It bleeds the life--and I've labored over the words. I went through my dictionary and my synonym finder etc., and I'm making two words up because I couldn't find one that's already made up--it cuts the nerve, it slits the throat of casualism and contentedism. And do you know what I mean by those two words? Casualism: no more radical racking and hewing, no merciless treating of our remaining sin, no doing what Peter says: "On your part adding all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to your virtue knowledge, and to your knowledge self-control." Seven graces! And Peter says, "Coming in alongside what God has already given to life and godliness, adding on your part all diligence, add to your faith these virtues." The picture of the child of God in the Bible has no sympathy for casualism.
Contentedism: "We've made enough progress to be respectable. We would never be the subjects of church discipline." But there's no growth in likeness to Christ: no growth in love, no growth in humility, no growth in compassion for the lost, no growth in sensitivity to heart sins, to mental sins, to the sins of the patterns that you have with your wife, patterns of irritability and patterns of touchiness and patterns of responses that when your children hear them, they know they're sinful. But you don't even feel them, let alone repent of them, let alone go in tears to your wife and ask her forgiveness. You don't even feel them. Why? Because of casualism and contentedism. The child of God who is purifying himself with Christ as the standard can never be content with where he is.
Now what are you going to do about it? The old man's poured his guts out again. What are you going to do with what you've heard? There it is in the Bible. And along the line of this series on adoption, you say you've been thrilled with this and thrilled that. At the end of the day, everyone that has this hope in Him, continually purifies himself, even as He is pure. Is that you, pressing after Christ Himself as your standard? I doubt Christ slept as some of you do when the Word was taught in the local synagogue. "O, but we lost an hour's sleep." Yes, a lot of us do.
Dear people, the burden of my heart as I come near the end of my ministry in this place is, I really wonder how much wood, hay, and stubble sits in these pews. A hand shake at the door, "Thank you, Pastor, for your ministry," but nothing changes. The people closest to you, if you had the courage to ask them, would tell you nothing changes. There are couples sitting here with the same kinds of tensions in your marriage you had ten years ago. Shame on you if you name the name of Christ. You're not purifying yourself of the defilement of those things that cause those tensions in your marriage. And what will it take, in God's name, what will it take to bring you to the place where you're done with casualism and contentedism? May God grant that the Lord Himself will deal graciously with you that you might have the joyful, unbounded delight of saying with Robert Murray McCheyne,
"When I see Thee as Thou art
Lovely with unsinning heart
No one will say that who is not presently cleansing himself with Christ Himself, not only as the standard, but as the source of our strength. You see, it's when you begin to get serious about dealing with heart sins, with sinful patterns, then you'll see how deeply engrained they are and how impossible it is to make any progress without laying hold of Christ and His grace and your provisions in union with Him.
And for those of you who sit here glibly professing to be Christians, you know nothing of this cleansing of yourself, even as He is pure. May God grant that the Lord will have dealings with you and bring you to the place where you fall down before the Living God and cry for mercy and for grace.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 8:46:42 GMT -5
A Life of Principled Obedience
by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached August 31, 2012
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Now may I encourage you to turn with me to the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 119. And follow as I read verses 57 through 60, a great Psalm in which the blessedness of the precepts, the judgments, the ways, the word of the Living God is celebrated in so many dimensions of the heart of the Psalmist interacting with God and His Word. And here in this particular section, the Psalmist confesses,
"Jehovah is my portion: I have said that I would observe Thy words. I entreated Thy favor with my whole heart: be merciful unto me according to Thy word. I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto Thy testimonies. I made haste, and delayed not, to observe Thy commandments."
As I indicated in our prayer meeting this last Wednesday evening, it is my purpose to speak to you tonight on the subject "A Life of Principled Obedience: The Heart of True Godliness." And as I attempt to address that subject, I do so convinced that there are few if any passages which more comprehensively and succinctly state the major ingredients of such a life of principled obedience than does this passage that I have read in your hearing. But before we turn to examine the contents of this passage by way of a rather lengthy introduction, I want to underscore in your hearing by quoting seven or eight or nine key texts the central place this matter of obedience to God has in the religion revealed in the Bible. And the only religious experience and truth that we are concerned about is that which is contained in this book. And when we turn to this book with the question, "What place does obedience have in the true religion revealed in the Bible?", we are struck again and again with the central place which is given to this matter of obedience.
When we turn to the opening chapters of our Bibles, we have an account of creation. And we have a record of our first parents placed in the garden of Eden. And God made it plain that all of the joy and all of the blessedness which they knew as they came from God's created hand would remain only so long as they adhered to a path of obedience. For you remember, God gave a commandment:
"Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof [that is, in the day that you cease to obey Me with reference to that tree] thou shalt surely die [literally, dying you will die]."
All of the blessedness, all the life of communion with God, the life of true love toward God, toward fellow men--all of that would come to a tragic end the moment man stepped out of the path of obedience. And when our first father stepped out of that path, we stepped out of it in him and with him, so that the mark of every son and daughter of Adam is given in a passage like Ephesians 2:2. We are by nature not only children of wrath, but we are "the sons of disobedience." That's the generic term of the human race apart from the grace of God. It is a race committed to a course of principled disobedience to the revealed will of God.
When the second Adam, the Lord Jesus, came forth to redeem a people, the Bible makes it plain that He would redeem them only in a path of obedience. And where the first Adam fell through disobedience, the second Adam would secure salvation in the course of principled obedience to the will of God. And so in Romans 5:19, we read, "For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One [Jesus Christ] shall the many be made righteous."
And again, our Bibles tell us in Philippians 2 that He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. It was an act of deliberate, conscious obedience which caused our Lord Jesus to pour out His life's blood upon the cross. And that salvation which He purchased in His course of obedience, He now confers only in a way that makes all its recipients obedient subjects of the Living God.
And so in 1 Peter 1:2, Peter can speak of the people of God as those who are foreknown of God unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Christ. And the blood of Christ is never sprinkled upon any soul but that that soul is brought into a path of obedience. This is why the writer to Hebrews can say as he does in Hebrews 5:8-9, "Though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which He suffered; and having been made perfect, He became unto all them that obey Him the author of eternal salvation." The salvation He purchased in His own course of loving obedience, whenever that salvation is applied with power, it produces in all of its recipients a course of principled obedience to the will of God that is reflective of the course which their Savior walked in procuring that salvation.
And furthermore, the Word of God describes the glorified in heaven in Revelation 14:12 as those who are keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. So they are there not as self-righteous people who think that their imperfect obedience is the ground of their salvation. No, they cling to the faith of Jesus, the first rudiments of which are the confession of utter sinnerhood, for He came not to call the righteous, but sinners. But having come to the acknowledgment of sinnerhood and having cast themselves upon the mercy of God in Christ, keeping the faith of Jesus, it has produced a life of resolute obedience. They keep the commandments of God. And so when anyone professes to be a recipient of the salvation of God in Christ and obedience is not the basic pattern of the life, God calls such a person a liar. 1 John 2:3-4: "And hereby we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him."
Now, dear people, I've quoted seven, eight, nine, ten texts. And I hope the cumulative effect of them upon your own mind and conscience has been convincing. This matter of obedience is not some secondary or tertiary matter. It is not something that touches, as it were, obliquely upon the heart of true religion. It lies at the very center and core of true revealed religion.
"What then", you ask me, "Pastor Martin, do you mean by the use of the term 'a life of principled obedience: the heart of true Godliness'?" Well, by obedience, I mean nothing more or less than this (and I'll give you a technical definition, and then, I hope, a practical description): conscious, whole-soul conformity to the precepts of God with primary regard to the authority of God that stands behind the precepts. What is a life of obedience Biblically defined? It is conscious whole-soul conformity to the precepts of God with primary regard to the authority of God that stands behind those precepts.
What is an obedient son or daughter? Is a son or daughter who when Mom or Dad says, "Honey, time to come in from play", the kid pulls a pout a mile long, chin dragging on the ground, and the feet, as it were, almost tugging at one another to stay out in the yard? Would the parent say, "Thank you, dear. That was a wonderful expression of hearty obedience to Mommy and Daddy"? No, the feet may be coming into the house, but you do not call obedience that kind of grudging, reluctant activity, which probably has a primary concern, not to respect the authority of the Mother or Father, but a wholesome fear of the rod that will come if they don't get their feet in. But if the Mother or Father calls out and says, "Honey, time to come in for supper", and the child says, "Okay, Mom, I'm on my way", and the little bright-faced child comes running up to the porch, runs by Mom, gives her a kiss on the cheek, washes hands, comes to supper and says, "What's for supper, Mom?", then she can say, "Mommy is very pleased the way you obeyed her when she called you." You see the difference?
Now that obedience which is the mark of a regenerate heart, that obedience which is the mark of our Lord Jesus in the procurement of his salvation, and is the mark of His people in the application of salvation, is conscious. It's not something that we float into. The little girl who's called, she knows she's heard her mommy's voice, and there's the psychology and the whole mental process that says, "Mommy has spoken; mommy's worthy to be obeyed." She may not stop and think all of this through, but that's what's going on. And she consciously, then, by an act of the will sends signals to her feet, and her little paddy feet come right up the stairs and into the house. It is a conscious whole-soul conformity to the precepts of her mommy with primary regard to the authority of her mommy which is in those precepts. And so obedience as we consider it tonight is nothing less than this conscious whole-soul conformity to the precepts of God with primary reference to the authority of God behind the precepts.
Now it is just such obedience that unregenerate people cannot render to God. Romans 8:7: "The carnal mind is enmity against God." You see, the God who stands behind the precepts is the object of the enmity. Now Paul says, "For it is not subject to the law of God [that is, the revelation of His will in His precepts], neither indeed can it be." "Can" is a word of ability. There is a moral impossibility. But the wonder of God's regenerating grace is that God changes that "cannot be", and He says,
"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep Mine ordinances, and do them. " (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
Jeremiah states it a bit differently in Jeremiah 31:33, the same promise of the new covenant in which God says that He will write His laws and His statutes upon our hearts.
But now the point that is so crucial to our study as we come now to Psalm 119:57. Though apart from the regenerating work of God, this obedience is impossible--follow closely now, for here's the heart of the matter--the regenerative work of God does not make obedience something other than conscious, whole-soul conformity to God's precepts. It gives a will to be conformed to the precepts. It gives power to be conformed to the precepts. It gives motives inclining us to obey the precepts. But it does not alter the psychology of obedience, and that is a conscious, deliberate choice to do what God says because God says it. And if I feel good in doing it--halleluiah! And if I feel rotten, it makes no difference. If I feel blah, it makes no difference. And I'm convinced after years of wrestling in pastoral situations, until some of you come to grips with this, you're going to go limping and halting all of your days because you know precious little of a principled life of obedience.
When there's right confluence of your feelings and your moods and the time of the day and the weather, and obedience is something into which you are floated, as it were, on a flowery combination of all of these wonderful things, then you obey. But let your soul be conscious of the storm of remaining sin battering at its doors; let your mind be conscious of Satanic oppression; let your body be conscious of weariness, and you throw all obedience to the wind, and you live like a pagan because you didn't feel like it. And I want by every means possible by winsomeness, by sarcasm, by logic, and above all, by the words of God to attack that mentality with a holy vengeance. And I pray God will explode it out of your breast and replace it with the spirit of principled obedience that is determined to do the will of God no matter what the cost.
Well, so much for that lengthy but I felt necessary introduction. Now we come to the text. And first of all, we have in verse 57 what I'm calling the roots of a life of principled obedience. If you and I together are to render to God a life of principled obedience, these two roots described in verse 57 must be present. The Psalmist declares, "Jehovah is my portion: I have said that I would observe Thy words." Now the two roots of a life of principled obedience are these: first of all, a saving choice of God ("Jehovah is my portion"), and secondly, a saving commitment to God ("I have said that I would observe Thy words"). Now without those two roots, there can never be a life of principled obedience.
The Psalmist could say first of all, "Jehovah, [the great God of the covenant, the God who has now manifested to us in Jehovah Jesus] is my portion." In other words, he has taken God Himself to be the supreme object of his love and his affection. He had come to what I'm calling to be a saving choice of God to be His God. To put it in New Testament language, when Jehovah Jesus stands before the Psalmist saying, "I am the bread of life", the Psalmist says, "O Lord Jesus, Thou shalt be my portion of bread. I will eat of Thee." And when He stands saying, "I am the water of life. If any man thirsts, let him come to Me and drink", he says, "Thou shalt be the portion of my cup and my inheritance forever." When the Lord Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life", to say, "Jehovah is my portion" is to make that choice of God, Jehovah, God of the covenant, God of saving mercy in terms of the revelation He's made of Himself. And to make that God your God in that choice, in that embrace, is the very essence of true and Biblical conversion.
Now if you're sitting here tonight as someone who has never been brought to the discovery of your sin and your desperate need of God revealed in Jesus Christ, your desperate need which Christ alone can give to needy sinners in the virtue of His perfect life and His death upon the cross, my dear friend, all you can do if you go out and are determined to live a life of principled obedience is either end up in total frustration or become a self-deceived hypocrite. Content with external conformity to a life of decency and religious performance, you must have this first root: a life of principled obedience grows upon this root of a saving choice of God. And there are many of you, I have reason to believe, who by God's grace have made that saving choice.
And if it is indeed a saving choice of the Lord to be your portion, then it has been joined to the second part of the verse, a saving commitment to God. For notice, the same one who could say, "The Lord is my portion" says, "I have said as the deepest resolution of my heart and spiritual consciousness that I would observe Thy words." The God who was his portion was his sovereign. He had not only taken Jehovah to be to him all that He is revealed as God of covenant mercy, he had taken His words as the rule of his life. Listen to the comments of Bridges on this second part of the text in his excellent commentary on Psalm 119:
"If we take the Lord as our portion, we must take Him as our king. 'I have said this is my deliberate resolution that I would keep Thy words.' Here is the Christian complete, taking the Lord as his portion and His Word as his rule. All that we are and all that we have are His, cheerfully surrendered as His right and willingly employed in His work. Thus do we evidence that we truly have His salvation, for [and then he quotes a text I quoted earlier] 'He became the author of eternal salvation unto all that obey Him.'"
May I ask you sitting here tonight, do you have the roots essential to the life of principled obedience? Have you, by God's grace, chosen God Himself, revealed in Christ, to be your portion, not have you chosen to live a half decent life, chosen to go to church, chosen to raise a hand and have an evangelist pray for you? No, has the Holy Spirit unveiled to you the dept of your need that can only be met in the glory of the person and work of the Lord Jesus, and have you made Him your choice to be yours? And if there's been that saving choice of God, then there has been with it a saving commitment to God, the joyful resignation of your will to Him and the practical expression of that choosing His words henceforth to be the rule of your life. Now is that true of you? If it isn't, my friend, you have no Biblical grounds to say you're a Christian. And that may be the heart of the problem with some of you when it comes to trying to live a life of principled obedience--the root of the matter is simply not in you. There's never been a saving choice of God Himself and a saving commitment to God. And if there hasn't been, then here and now this very night as God speaks in the overtures of His grace and mercy, make Him your choice, bow your neck to Him, come under the yoke of Him who said, "My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."
Apart from this saving choice of God and this saving commitment to God, there will be neither the power nor the motivation to a life of obedience. For the motive to a life of obedience is love to Christ. And our love to Christ is always the response of His love to us received and embraced by faith and drunk into the soul that feels keenly its need for Him. "If you love Me," He said, "you will keep My commandments." And so without this twofold root system, there will neither be the motivation nor the power for a life of principled obedience.
But then notice in the second place, not only do we have the roots of the life of principled obedience in our text, but we have what I'm calling the climate (the spiritual atmosphere) for a life of principled obedience. And what is it? Well, again, there are two parts. First of all the Psalmist says, "I entreated Thy favor with my whole heart", and then secondly, "Be merciful unto me according to Thy word." Then what is the twofold climate or atmosphere for a life of principled obedience?
Well, first of all, it is dependence upon God expressed in real prayer. "I [did what?] entreated." And what did he entreat? The favor of God, a Hebrew word which has as its root meaning face. Many entreat the favor of a king. They want the king to turn his face toward them with good will. "I entreated Your favor, Lord. And how did I do it? With my whole heart." You see what he was conscious of? He was conscious that it wasn't enough that he had the root of the matter in him (the Lord was his portion, and that he had sworn to a life of obedience). He knew that even a resolution of a renewed heart was not sufficient without present supplies of grace. And so the climate in which his life of principled obedience was expressed was one of dependence upon God expressed in real prayer. He entreated the favor of God with his whole heart.
And then the second part of the climate: faith in God's provision according to His promise. "Be merciful unto me." And what's the measure of his expectation of mercy? It is the precise size and shape of God's promises. "Be merciful unto me according to Thy word." That's the climate of a life of principled obedience, a climate in which there is not only the recognition, "In me, that is, in my flesh dwells no good thing." We are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves. "Without Me, you can do nothing." It is not only that conviction that drives us to entreat the favor of God with our whole heart.
But then it's coupled with confidence in the provision of God as He has committed Himself to that provision in His own promises. "Be merciful to me according to Thy Word. [The measure of my expectation and confidence is etched out and shaped by Your own promises.]" "My grace is sufficient for you." "Sin shall not have dominion over you." "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." "When I am weak, then am I strong." And those exceeding great and precious promises become to the person who has learned the rudimentary aspects of a life of principled obedience the very raw materials that he pleads in prayer. He doesn't come and just whine before God, "O Lord, I've messed up again. Somehow or other help me sometime, somewhere, by some means to do better." No, here was prayer for mercy to be granted according to the very promises of God. "I entreated Thy favor with my whole heart: be merciful unto me according to Thy word."
Let me say by way of brief application, it's not enough that there will be a saving relationship to God in Christ. And I am not saying you need some further and deeper and exotic experience. But what I am saying is you must learn to cultivate a climate that is conducive to a life of principled obedience, a climate of conscious weakness and dependence that drives you to pray with your whole heart.
Some of you have much work to do at the throne of grace, but you'd never know it by the patterns of your life. And you can go on moaning and groaning till you die about the paltry progress you make in grace, but if you will not pray, your shattered, tattered garments of a shoddy life and your crippled and lame knees and ankles in walking the Christian life will be a constant monument of God's curse upon your prayer life. "You have not," James says, "because you ask not." And God has appointed prayer as the great means of exchanging our weakness for His strength. And if we despise that means, He will not tailor make another in order to either confirm you in your willful ignorance or your blatant disobedience. And you can run from one elder to another and have 150 counseling sessions a week but still make no progress.
Some of you struggling with certain besetting sin, you don't come daily and many times a day crying to God to wither the roots of that sin, to bore into your heart and mind and spirit the virtue of the death of Christ, the sin-killing virtue of that death. You don't cry to God with your whole heart. And you wonder why you fall before that sin and go back and whimper before God and make a half-hearted effort to repent and resolve to do better tomorrow, knowing right well you'll be right back where you were. Whether the sin is lustful thoughts, whether the sin is envy, pride, unforgiveness, gluttony, an undisciplined mouth in your speech or in your eating patterns or drink, an ungoverned temper--whatever it is. And these are the sins in all their sordidness that come across the counseling desk again and again to us. Dear people, the climate of a life of principled obedience must be one of dependence upon God expressed in real prayer.
But then it must be also faith in God according to His promise. You must learn how to take His exceeding great and precious promises and turn them into fuel for prayer. Those of us in leadership try to set the example in having our prayers laced with Scripture. We try to set a pattern in our public ministry of what it is to plead with God according to His Word. And we can pray that you learn it, but ultimately, you must learn how to wrestle with God and His Word alone and in secret with Him. Now without that climate, there will be no life of principled obedience. You say, "Pastor, here I came expecting some special, exotic formula tonight, and you take us right back to prayer and Bible reading. I heard that when I was just a Christian ten months old in the Lord." Yeah, that's right. You know why you're no further along in the road than you are? Because you didn't listen to what you heard. That's right. I take you back to prayer and Bible reading because that's where the Psalmist takes us.
But now we come in the third place to what I call the actual process of a life of principled obedience. We've looked at the roots. We've looked at the climate or atmosphere. Now what's the actual process of a life of principled obedience? Someone who's being a good daughter or son, that when the heavenly Daddy speaks, he does what he's told--what's the process that goes on in the mind and heart, will and spirit of such a person? Well, it's set before us in the remaining verses. First of all, it's to begin with honest self-reflection. Verse 59: "I thought on my ways." That's a statement of honest self-reflection. "I--that's not somebody else, but this guy right here." The Psalmist said, "I personally thought, that is, I exercised my mind consciously, deliberately, and I did so with reference to my ways, that is, the patterns of my life." My ways are the patterns of my life: how I spend my time, how I respond to my wife, how I relate to my children, how I relate to my fellow elders, how I relate to my fellow workmen, how I relate to my neighbors, everything that constitutes a pattern in the whole fabric of my life. He says, "I thought on my ways." In other words, the actual process of a life of principled obedience demands a sober, realistic assessment of where you are.
It's been many years since I used the illustration; perhaps nobody here is old enough or has been around long enough to remember it, but I want to use it because it's come back to me so often. A missionary friend of mine many years ago was going to a preaching assignment out in a little town out in the rural parts of South Carolina with all the red dirt roads, and he'd gotten himself hopelessly lost. He didn't have any idea where he was. He couldn't find any signs for the town; his map did him no good. He was just turned around backwards three times and just didn't know. So he figured if he could only find out where he was; so he was driving along and found this little boy on the side of the road, and he pulled over. And he came out and said, "Sonny, I'm lost. But if I knew where I was, I think I could get to where I have to be. Do you think you can tell me where I am?" The little boy looked at him, and he said, "Mister, you is right there." God has brought that little boy's words back to me time after time.
You know where you are? Some of you don't even stop to think. The Psalmist said, "I want to know exactly where I am. I thought on my ways. I reflected on the patterns of my life." And it's very evident in the context that he didn't do so just in some kind of reverie of the mind, but with the Word of God before him because he said (as we'll see in a moment) "...and turned my feet unto Thy testimonies." So he was not thinking on his ways in abstraction just sort of ruminating, looking over his past and present. But he was examining the patterns of his life in the light of the testimonies of God.
What does God say I'm to be as a husband, as a father, as a neighbor, as a friend? Here was reflection upon one's patterns in the light of the objective testimony of the Word of God. And there is no life of principled obedience as a pattern unless you're prepared for honest self-reflection in light of the standard of the Word of God. And that's got to become a spiritual habit. You say, "Man, this sounds like work." You bet your boots it's work. "You mean even when I don't feel like it?" Yes. "You mean even when I know if I think on my ways I can't avoid facing this sin and that sin?" Yes, yes! You must ever reflect upon your ways--honest self-reflection in light of the objective revelation of the Word of God.
And then that must be joined to what I'm calling conscious alteration of one's patterns. Look at the latter part of the verse: "I thought on my ways [and turned away from thinking because it made me miserable]." That's what some of you do. You start to think on your ways in the light of the Word of God, and you're such a mess in this area and that area. You say, "It's too painful to think about it." And so you go and turn on the television, or you pick up the newspaper, or you go out and cut the grass, or you go and do some other innocuous, silly thing. But that's not what the Psalmist did. He said, "I thought on my ways [and in the light of the testimonies of God when I discovered--uh oh--here's a pattern of my life that's contrary to the Word, here's a wrinkle in my life that doesn't line up with the Word, here's an abnormality that doesn't match the standard of the Word]." What did he do? Honest self-reflection led to conscious alteration: "I turned my feet." He did it. He didn't say, "I thought on my ways, and then I prayed, O God, turn my feet." He said, "I turned them. I did it."
But remember the climate? "I entreated Thy favor with my whole heart." He was a praying man. And in other places in this very Psalm, he's praying that God would turn him. Yes, it was in the climate and context of dependence, but notice, he didn't expect the grace of God to bypass the conscious action of his own will upon his own feet. "I turned my feet unto Thy testimonies." What's that mean? That means when you get up off your knees praying, "God help me with this matter of purity of mind," and you're watching the news, and on comes some jean ad that is borderline soft core pornography, turn the dumb tube off. And if you don't have grace to turn it off, get rid of it. You're praying, "O God, help me with my overeating." Then put some checks upon your mouth and upon what you put in the refrigerator, and start getting on those scales everyday and get honest with God.
Conscious alteration of the patterns of one's life. But you say, "I don't feel like it." There's not a word about feeling. "It's hard." There's not a word that says it wouldn't be. And I want you to notice what he says by way of qualification about that conscious alteration in the next verse. The one thing he expands upon is that point. After honest self-reflection, he says two things about the conscious alteration. Verse 60: "I made haste, and delayed not...." The alteration was immediate, and it was universal: "...to observe Thy commandments [plural]." He didn't pick and choose and say, "O well, that looks like an easy way fix up. I'll do that one. That way over there doesn't look too hard. I'll work on that one. But this one, I mean that will be undoing the patterns of a lifetime. That will be like pulling out my own teeth. That will be like plucking out my own eyes." Jesus said, "If thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body be cast into hell."
You see, the bottom line with some of you is that you really don't believe this is necessary. And that's why you're making no progress. You're not merciless in this matter of altering your patterns by conscious steps of alteration immediately and universally because you've somehow been self-conned into thinking (it isn't from this pulpit you learned it) that you can still live at that miserable rate and have real confidence that you're a child of God and go to heaven at last in spite of all the passages that say the people of God are an obedient people, and all who name His name and are not are self-deceived. It was immediate. He made haste and delayed not.
Do you know what the result is for delaying to alter any pattern that comes under the convicting element of the Word of God? This is what we talked about this morning--hardness of hard. Remember Hebrews twice quoting from the Old Testament: "Today, if you hear His voice, harden not your heart." What's the connection between "today" and "harden not your heart"? The connection is this: if you do delay, the pressure upon the conscience become less, and the heart becomes hard.
What a beautiful picture. We considered this in the series on conscience. When David--and I was just reading it in my own devotions this past week and was struck with it again--how he made haste and delayed not. Saul had gone into the inner cave to relieve himself, the Scripture tells us. And David and his men were deeper in the cave. And here Saul was seeking David like he was some kind of common criminal, though he was innocent of all wrong doing. And David cuts off a little part of Saul's garment. And no sooner does he do it, but it says his heart smote him. Even that little act of disrespect to God's anointed--he made haste and delayed not to confess to his own men and openly his sin. "I made haste, and delayed not." There was immediate, conscious alteration, and there was universal conscious alteration ("I made haste, and delayed not, to observe Thy commandments"): all that God by His Spirit had pressed upon His conscience. Now notice, there is nothing about waiting till he felt led. There is nothing about waiting till he felt good about it. There is not a word about his feelings.
And O, dear people, some of you are chained in the tyranny of feelings. And you're never going to run the race with any alacrity and any real zeal until the chains of your feelings are broken. You're always waiting for a wave of lovely feelings to break upon the shore. And then you say, "I'll go riding in behind that wave of beautiful feelings." You're like the surfer out there waiting, waiting, waiting for the perfect wave. And he never gets up on his surfboard and makes it to shore. Waiting, waiting, waiting--a better time, more convenient--waiting, waiting, waiting. How long will you wait under a ministry that under God in love goes after your conscience, a ministry that loves you enough not to let you be comfortable in your sin, that points you to the power of Christ and to the grace of Christ and the pity of Christ? How long will it be? How long waiting for your feelings, waiting till you feel good about it, waiting till you sense it's more convenient? There is none of this in the Psalmist. "I made haste, and delayed not, to observe Thy commandments." Now a life of principled obedience is when the things in this text become a spirit of habit. Sow a deed; reap a habit. And you start tonight, right here. If God has brought to your remembrance, even this day, issues that need to be made right with God and right with your brethren, you don't say, "Lord, tomorrow." Before you go through those doors, you have dealings with God.
I'm sure some of you think I'm a bit extreme when in the middle of the service, I confess my sins to 400 people. You know why I do it? "I must make haste and delay not to keep His commandments." Extreme? Not if you want a good conscience.
You see, some of you haven't begun to learn what this is. And frankly, I think it's the greatest pastoral burden we your elders bear. The greatest pastoral burden is people who are pampered from their infancy, brought up in a society that conned you into thinking that if it didn't feel good, it wasn't good; if it felt good, it was good. Overindulged by your parents; never made to do anything you didn't like to do; everything handed to you; never brought up lean with difficulty and hardship. And in one sense you're to be pitied and not blamed, but I tell you, there comes a point where you've heard enough not to cop out and say, "O well, I'm a postwar-generation person and can't help it." You've had enough encouragement and enough light and enough truth. God Almighty will hold you accountable if those patterns don't change.
Now there's nothing glamorous about this. There's not a word in this passage about feelings, not a word about a convenient season. It's all very cut and dried, isn't it? It is, but it isn't. Because when you live a life of principled obedience, you know what the reward is? I'll tell you what the reward is, and I want you to turn with me to several passages in the New Testament as we close tonight.
John 14. Here's the blessed reward of such a life of obedience. Verse 15: "If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments." And then He made certain promises that had peculiar reference to that period in redemptive history when the Holy Spirit was to be given from the ascended Christ for the first time. And having been given, He has continued with His church. But interlaced with some of things that have in one dimension an exclusive reference to the people of God at that particular epoch in redemptive history, there are wonderful spiritual principles applicable to the disciples of Christ in all ages. Look at verse 21: "He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me." This path of principled obedience is the constant affirmation and validation of the reality of my professed love to Christ. And here's the reward: "And he that loveth Me [that is, by a life of obedience manifesting that love] shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself unto him." Here the special, the intensified, the more expansive, realized communion and fellowship with Christ Himself is the reward promised to a life of principled obedience. And you know, if you're a saved person, God can hold out no greater reward to you than this: Christ will be more precious. And there's no reward that will get you more excited than that if you're a real Christian.
And do you know that that's exactly how He maintained the smile of His own Father? One of the most amazing passages in the Bible is in chapter 15 of John's Gospel. Verse 10: "If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love [that is, abide in the reality and consciousness of My love]; even as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love." How could Jesus carry about with Him in His holy soul the constant consciousness of the Father's love? It's because He lived a life of principled obedience.
Listen to his description of such a life back in John chapter 10. And I want us to conclude by gazing at our Savior as the great pattern of principled obedience. He sets the pattern for us. As well as procuring salvation in His life of obedience unto death, He sets the pattern of principled obedience. John 10:17-18: "Therefore doth the Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment received I from My Father." Jesus' path to the cross, though completely and at every point was totally voluntary ("I lay it down"), it was at one and the same time one act of conscious obedience to the Father's commandment. There's our pattern.
There was embedded in the mind and soul of Jesus a consciousness of the will of His Father. And as He ever reflected upon His ways, He turned His feet again and again into that path. When as a 12-year-old lad, His parents said. "Why?" He said, "Didn't you know I must be about My Father's business?" And when that obedience brought Him into the awful confrontation of Gethsemane, when perhaps the very powers of darkness began to press in upon His soul, and He contemplated the cup He would have to drink, and everything in His holy soul recoiled from the thought of the terrible baptism of dereliction and abandonment. And He cried out, "O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass. All of My feelings move me away from that path that goes to the cross. All of My inclination is away from the agony of Golgotha." His feelings were all pulling Him in this direction, but He said, "Nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done." Commitment to a life of principled obedience. Having to ride over not only every natural feeling of that shrinking back from agony and pain and public shame to be hung naked upon the cross among the rude stare of multitudes. But He had to ride over every holy feeling of revulsion of the thought of being severed from His Father in terms of conscious communion, every holy feeling of longing to maintain that communion He had known with His Father from eternity, and over which there had never come even the inkling of a cloud. But now He would be plunged in total darkness. But He said, "Nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done." And in that we read: "By which will we are sanctified once for all through the offering of the body of Jesus."
My friend, may I put it in a way that I hope will shock you. If Jesus had not lived a life of principled obedience, we'd have no Savior. And He died to have a people committed to a life of principled obedience. He didn't die to have a people who walk willy nilly at every whim and impulse of their feelings, who are chained by their moods (husbands who only love their wives when they feel good or when their wives are lovely, and wives who only submit to their husbands when they're very submitable, and children who only obey when they think the commands are reasonable and right and just, and people who only pray when they feel like it, and only come to the house of God when they feel like it and when it's convenient and when it's easy). No, Jesus died to have a people conformed to own image, His own moral image of a life of principled obedience.
Do you have the roots of such a life within you? I fear that may be the problem with some of you. The root is not there. There is no saving choice of God. There is no saving commitment to God. O, I plead with you. I plead with you. Go to God and ask Him to give you those roots. But then there must be the climate, one of dependence upon God expressed in real prayer, one of faith in God according to His promises. But then the actual process will be one of continuous, honest, self-evaluation in the light of the objective standard of the Word, and then conscious alteration (turning your feet unto His statutes immediately and universally).
You say, "Pastor, if that's what true religion is, that's too hard. I don't want it." Well then, my friend, make your own and go to hell with it. Make your own and perish with it because that's the only religion purchased by the blood of Jesus. You want something else? Then you make it, but be prepared to die with it and go to judgment with it. If you're not prepared to do that, then you better cry to God and do whatever you've got to do starting tonight to live a life of principled obedience because that's the mark that indeed you belong to Him.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 8:48:02 GMT -5
Come Unto Me
by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached January 1, 1960
PDF Format | More Transcripts
Tonight and probably again next Lord's Day evening (for I doubt we'll be able to adequately cover the text) I would direct your attention to a very familiar portion of Scripture. At least one verse is quite familiar. Perhaps the verses preceding and following are not so familiar. But we shall be looking at the entire paragraph. Matthew 11--and I shall begin reading at the 20th verse and conclude at the end of the chapter, verse 30. Speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew says,
"Then began He to upbraid the cities wherein most of His mighty works were done, because they repented not. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which were done in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, shalt thou be exalted unto heaven? thou shalt go down unto Hades: for if the mighty works had been done in Sodom which were done in thee, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee. At that season Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes: yea, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in Thy sight. All things have been delivered unto Me of my Father: and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know t he Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him. Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."
Let us once again look to God in prayer that He might be pleased to open to our understanding this portion of His truth.
Lord Jesus, we would hear You speak these words with power to our hearts. Your Word tells us that the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and live. O Lord, make these words to be life-giving words tonight. That some who in this very moment are laboring and are heavy laden may find the fulfillment of this word of promise err the final amen is spoken tonight. Speak blessed Lord.
We call upon You for that gracious assistance of the Holy Spirit, without which your servant seeks to preach but in vain, and without which this people would hear but in vain. Come, O breath of God to open to us the very mind of Christ as reveled in holy Scripture. We make this plea believing that such a blessing is purchased in the death of the Lord Jesus. So we come in His name. Amen.
I deliberately read the verses of the paragraph beginning with verse 20 and ending with verse 24 rather than starting with the paragraph that will be the focus of our study tonight, particularly the last few verses of that paragraph. For the Holy Spirit is careful to guide Matthew to indicate that the setting of these words of our Lord's rejoicing that the Father sovereignty reveals Himself to babes and withholds His revelation from the wise and prudent is a context of unbelief and rejection of the truth. Our Lord has just spoken these terrible words of woe upon these cities that had beheld His miracles. He had given these very sober words that if commensurate light had been given to the wicked cities of Tyre and Sidon, there would have been genuine repentance. And the fruit of that repentance would have been marked even in the hour in which our Lord ministered. And so in the face of unbelief, in the face of rejection, in the face of human hardness, our Lord finds great comfort in the doctrine that is one of the pillars of our faith, the doctrine of divine sovereignty. And He thanks God that in the Father's good pleasure, He has hid truth from the wise and prudent and has revealed truth unto babes. And the reason He resolves into the sovereignty of God, for He says in verse 26, "Yea Father, for so it was well-pleasing in Thy sight."
Yet it's interesting that immediately following that profound and beautiful statement of the fact that the ultimate issue in the unbelief or the sight and faith of men is the sovereignty of God, our Lord no way makes this a barrier to the free offers of His mercy, but, as it were, makes it the very platform from which He extends this gracious appeal, "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden." And I suggest that any view of the invitation beginning with verse 28 and ending with verse 30 that fails to take this twofold context into consideration will land you in error. If you look upon the invitation, "Come unto Me" as though the whole issue of the salvation of men was ultimately resolved by the will of man, you come up with a doctrine contrary to Scripture. This invitation is couched in the context of our Lord's rejoicing in the divine Father's divine sovereignty, which to some reveals truth and to others hides truth. Conversely, if we confess with the loudest confession our belief in the divine sovereignty and find some problem with extending the free general offers of mercy, then we do not understand that truth as our Lord did. And so taking this invitation in its total context will keep us, on the one hand, from the curse of freewill-ism, and on the other hand, from the terrible curse of a paralyzing hyper-Calvinism. And yet God's people have fallen into those two extremes constantly. And this very context would keep us from that if we would but take heed to the emphasis of our Lord.
So much for the general context. And I say that simply so that if your tendency is to that error of freewill-ism, you'll not put what I say in expounding the words of Christ through the sieve of your own defective theology and make me say something I never said or that Scripture never said. And conversely, that if your tendency is allowing the doctrine of divine sovereignty to become a couch upon which you rest instead of a spur to goad you on to activity, you'll not put my words through that sieve and make me say or Scripture say something that is not said.
Our focus tonight is upon the gracious invitation of Christ set in this context beginning with verse 28: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The prayer of my heart has been that God would cause some of you to hear His voice tonight. For the Lord Jesus said in those words I quoted as we prayed before opening the Scriptures, "The hour is coming in which those that are in the grave shall hear the voice of the Son of God and live." Jesus said, "The hour is coming and now is," speaking of that spiritual resurrection that comes when the voice of Christ breaks into the realm of spiritual death, and life issues. Jesus said in Revelation 3:20, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice and open the door...." The door is never opened until the voice of the Son of God is heard. The voice of the preacher may be heard for months and years, tender, entreating, full of the overtures of grace, full of the terrors of the law. The preacher's voice may be resisted, but those who hear His voice always fling open the door, for He said, "Other sheep I have. Them I must bring. They shall hear My voice." And may God grant that some of you shall hear the voice of the Son of God speaking in these gracious words of invitation, "Come unto Me."
Consider with me in the first place the people our Lord addresses in this invitation. The people addressed--who are they? In the second place, consider the invitation He issues: "Come unto Me." And then in the third place, consider with me something of the wonder of the promise He gives: "You shall find rest."
The people addressed. To whom do these gracious words of Christ come? Some invitations of Scripture come to all men irrespective of their particular spiritual condition. We read in Scripture that God commands all men everywhere to repent. And the basis upon which a sinner is warranted in embracing the promise of mercy is not that he is this kind of a sinner or that kind of a sinner but simply that he is a sinner. There is a free, general, unfettered invitation of the Gospel. But this is a more limited invitation. Notice, our Lord delineates those to whom this invitation comes. "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden." He is addressing a peculiar class of people, and they are described by the two words "laboring" and "heavy laden". What does the word "labor" mean? It's the strong word for labor. It's the word which means to toil unto weariness and pain. What does "heavy laden" mean? It means to be encumbered with crushing weight that bends a man over and almost presses him to the ground.
Now both of these concepts were very vivid to the minds of those to whom our Lord Spoke. This was the day before unions and seven-hour work days. This was before the day of automation. This was the period in which men worked as long as the sun was up. Remember, Jesus said there are twelve hours in the day in which to work (a little indication of how long their work day was). People knew what it was like to be out in the burning noonday sun and to labor unto pain beneath the heat of that sun and not to quit their fields and lay down their sickles until the sun made it impossible for them to labor anymore. The concept of toil unto labor was very vivid to the minds of our Lord's hearers. The concept of being heavy laden--this was the day before you had mini buses and pickup trucks and all the means to convey burdens, and not everyone was wealthy enough to own mules or camels. And some of you perhaps have seen the pictures of porters of Eastern parts, when loads were laid upon their backs that were two or three times the size of the one carrying them. Sometimes they'll carry as much a three to four hundred pounds. And you'll see them stooped beneath this great crushing burden. Now our Lord uses word pictures to very vividly describe all who feel the active and the passive effects of sin. The active effects of sin: men toiling unto pain, laboring in this course of sin and estrangement from God, feeling the pressure and weight of sin and effects of sin like a heavy burden. Our Lord is addressing in this gracious invitation those who've been brought to a consciousness of the effects of sin in their own hearts and lives.
Consider certain aspects of this. In the first place, He calls and invites to Himself those who labor and are heavy laden beneath the guilt of sin. The accusations of a condemned conscience lash and scourge a man, holding over him the fear of death, the thought of impending judgment, the awfulness of hell, and the terrors of the damned. What greater burden to bear than to be bent down with a sense of impending wrath? Hebrews gives it to us this way: "...a fearful looking to of judgment and fiery indignation that shall devour the adversaries."
Am I speaking to some tonight who know what t is to be heavy laden, who feel the crushing weight of a conscience that will not let you alone. It reminds you of those lies told way back in infancy, the defections propagated, the corruptions tolerated, the dishonesties perpetrated. All of those sins, and conscience is alive and will not be silenced. And try to still his voice--you cannot. But by the influence of the holy law of God probing the conscience and bringing before you your sin, your specific sins of uncleanness and ungodliness, and that great sin of unbelief and impenitence. Tonight you know what it is to feel the crushing weight of sin. You may be laboring to make amends. You may be doing everything in your power to somehow bring some peace to your conscience. You may be praying; you may be reading the Scriptures. And you may be laboring, but it's not the labor of delight. It's that terrible toil unto weariness and pain. The Lord Jesus has a word for you tonight. He's addressing his words to all who labor and are heavy laden, those who labor and are heavy laden because of the guilt of sin.
Secondly, those who labor and are heavy laden because of the bondage of sin. In Proverbs 5:22, we read: "His own iniquities shall take the wicked, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sin." What a picture! Our Lord said in John 8:34, "Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin." It's not so much the future punishment of your sin that makes you heavy, but its present bondage. You say to yourself, "O, that I could go back to that time in my life when I was not ensnared by this sin, when I was not held captive by that sin, when I was not the slave of this passion, of this lust, of this attitude, of this deflection from God's holy law. O, that I could somehow burst the bondage." And that bondage is a heavy burden. It makes life toilsome, just as toilsome as a man wrapped about with heavy cords attempting to live a normal life. Everywhere you go (to the shop, to the place of business, to the school, to the privacy of your own bedroom) there it follows you, the nagging toil of the bondage of sin. You labor, you toil to free yourself with vows, with resolutions, all to no avail. The Lord Jesus has a word for you tonight. All that labor and are heavy laden, whether its under the terrible lash of the guilt of sin, the oppressive bondage of sin, or the confusion and hopelessness of sin.
Your problem that makes you labor tonight and makes you pressed down is not so much that you've offended God (your thought hasn't developed that far yet) or that you're in bondage to your own corruption (this hasn't been the area of your particular concern). But you labor and are heavy laden tonight because of the confusion and hopelessness which sin has brought into your life. Here you are, a few short years to live, and then like all who have gone before you, you're going to pass on to be no more. What's it all about? What am I here for? Is there any meaning to life? Is there a God? If so, how do I know Him. Life's ultimate questions--we call them at camp life's most basic questions. No answers! Who am I? What am I here for? What lies beyond the grave? Confusion! A thousand voices saying, "This is the life. This is the meaning of life. This is right; this is wrong." And that hopeless confusion standing in the midst of all this swirling mass of ideas. Hopelessly confused.
Do I speak to some who are toiling for answers, weighted down with a sense of frustration because there seems to be no answers? I want to read that poem I read at a prayer meeting about a couple of months ago. I sit and study this thing at times because this is a man laboring, toiling under the hopelessness and confusion of sin. Listen to his words:
When I was a lad,
Simple notions I had,
There was wrong; there was right,
It was plain as black and white,
Ah, but now that I'm grown
In a world on my own,
The scenes I survey
Show nothing but grey,
I looked all around for the bright spots,
The lights that would lead me ahead,
I must have not looked in the right spot,
Nothing bright, nothing gay,
Just a muddy old world full of gray,
Ah, but now I'm a man
And at crossroads I stand,
Confronted with doubt
And all turned about,
At night in my sleep I hear voices;
I'm never quite certain what's said,
They offer me too many choices,
There's black; there's no white,
Where is wrong? Where is right?
I'm confused and unable to say
How does a man find his way
In a world full of gray?
That thing makes me weep inside every time I read it. Why? Here's someone laboring for answers, and there are none. Heavy laden with a sense of hopelessness and confusion. Dear ones, that's what's behind the hopeless quest that's driving multitudes of the now generation to LSD and to dope. Beneath it, you see, is this substructure of the hopelessness and despair brought about by sin.
Do I speak to someone tonight, maybe educated, cultured, refined? And you can answer a lot of questions about a lot of things, but the simplest little question dumbfounds you and leaves you silent: Who are you? What are you here for? Where do you go when you're done? No answers. Does a sense of that hopelessness of having no answers crush you? The Lord has a word for you tonight: all that labor and are heavy laden, be it with the oppressive sense of guilt, with the awful awareness of this bondage, whether it be in this state of the hopelessness and confusion of sin.
Or in the fourth place (and we could extend this on in many other areas), whether you labor and are heavy laden with what I'm calling the emptiness of formal made-made religion. Many commentators feel that this is the primary reference of our Lord's words, for the word "weighted down", "heavy laden"--the only other use in the New Testament is in Luke 11:46, where our Lord is indicting the Pharisees, and He says, "You bind burden upon men too heavy to bear." And when you read the context, you see what it was: all the trappings of manmade religion--form and ceremony, do's and don'ts, and ritual--that men by doing this, might somehow find acceptance with God and peace of mind. And the Lord says, "No, that brings nothing but labor unto toil and weariness and heaviness and oppression." And our Lord addresses such tonight.
Do I speak to some to whom all of the relatively informal--but nonetheless, we all have a ritual, even of our own assembly as we're in. Do I speak to some of you young people? This is all weariness to you. And deep within your heart, you long you could be in a home where you could just lay in bed till 10 o'clock, read the funnies till noon, and watch TV till bedtime on Sundays. All of the external activities of the worship and life of this assembly is weariness to you. It's toil; it's burdensome. The Lord has a word for you tonight: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden ."
Well, so much for those who are addressed. Now will you notice the invitation He issues to them. Here it is: "Come unto Me." And the most important thing about this invitation is not the word "come". But it's the word "Me". For you see, the invitation means nothing if we divorce it from the person who spoke the words. The meaning of the words and our confidence of their fulfillment is dependant upon the one who utters them. Who is it that makes such claims, that in Him the problem of guilt can be resolved, the problem bondage of can be resolved, the problem of confusion can be resolved, the problem of empty, formal religion can be resolved? That's quite a claim. Who makes it? Ah, that's the secret. We must never divorce these gracious words of invitation from the person who made them. So as we consider the invitation issued in the first place, consider who is the "Me" who gives them. And He has told us in the preceding verse, verse 27, that He is none less than God incarnate. Notice His claim: "All things have been delivered unto Me of My Father: and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him." What a claim! He says, "My person is such that no one can fully comprehend who I am but the Father Himself." It takes God to comprehend fully God. Can you imagine an angel saying, "No one knows me but another angel"? Why, the God who made angels knows angels fully and completely. There's a lot we don't know about angels. There's not a thing He doesn't know about them because He made them. But the Lord Jesus said no one knows the Son but the Father. Why? For great is the mystery of Godliness. God was manifested in the flesh. And in the mystery of the true deity and the true humanity of Christ fused in one person, we just stand before this vale of brightness and we prostrate ourselves and say, "God, the mystery is beyond me." Faith lays hold of it, but who can comprehend God and man joined in one person forever? "No one knows the Son but the Father." Ah, but these words of invitation come from God incarnate.
In the second place, they come from the One who is the appointed mediator between God and man. Notice His words: "All things have been delivered unto Me of my Father." The best commentary on this verse is John 17:1-2, where our Lord makes clear that this giving of authority to Him is for His performance of a role as a mediator. Listen to His words: "These things spake Jesus; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee: even as Thou gavest Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom Thou hast given Him, He should give eternal life." Who speaks these words: "Come unto Me"? God incarnate as the appointed mediator between God and man. The only way to God is Jesus Christ. There is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. So you see, when we come to the words, "Come unto Me", we must not put them into the context of "Well, I've tried this; I've tried that. Now, I'll try Jesus. And if that doesn't work, I'll try something else." O no, He who speaks them says, "Everything is delivered into My hand. I'm the only mediator." "No man comes to the Father but by Me."
And then He speaks them as the exclusive revealer of God. Notice later on in verse 27: "Neither doth any know the Father, save the Son [He knows Him perfectly], and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him." Men can know Him partially. We see through a glass darkly. Bless God, we may see by the revelation of the Son, but He's the only one who reveals God. No one knows the Father except that person to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. It is only as He exercises His office as a sovereign mediator revealing the Father that any man can know God. That's why Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by Me." The whole idea that we incorporate the best of Jesus with the best of Mohammad and the best of all the other religions is absolutely false. You have Christ in all the inclusiveness of His claims or you have Him not at all. John 1:18 says, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." Now, when you put the words of the invitation in that context, see the difference in the weight and power with which they come. What is the gracious invitation? "Come unto Me." Who speaks? God incarnate, the only appointed mediator, the only revealer.
Now what does He say? What is the substance of His invitation? Here it is: "Come unto Me." What does the word "come" mean? It's a synonym for the word "faith", "believe", "trust", "commit". It's used interchangeably in a verse like John 6:35. Letting Scripture be its own infallible interpreter, notice the meaning of the word: "Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst." What is it to believe? It is to come. What is it to come? It is to believe. So what does our Lord do? He calls upon all who labor and are heavy laden to believe on Him, to come to Him, to let the weight of their need be cast upon this unique God-man, the only appointed mediator, the only revealer of God. And why does He invite us to Himself alone? For the simple reason that He alone is suited to meet those needs which cause us to toil and to be heavy laden.
Are you toiling and heavy laden with the guilt of sin? Jesus says, "Come unto Me." Why? Because He's the appointed Lamb of God to bear away the sin of the world. It was He that went to the cross and there exposed Himself to the wrath of His Father until the billows of that wrath funneled down upon His own holy head and caused Him to cry out in agony, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Why doesn't He invite us to His church or to some philosophy or to a way of life? Because no church, no philosophy, no way of life hung in agony and blood. He hung in agony and blood. He poured out His soul unto death. And so He says, "Come to Me. I alone have borne the guilt of sin.
Are you heavy laden? Do you toil beneath the lash of a nagging conscience? There is peace and rest in My wounds and in my sufferings. Come unto Me." Or is it that you toil and are heavy laden under the bondage of sin? He says, "Come unto Me" because it's only as the ascended Lord sends forth His Spirit in the plentitude of power and grace that can break the bonds of sin. Acts 5:31 says, "Him did God exalt with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins." Ephesians 1 declares that He has been exalted, and all things have been put under His feet. "He is able to break the power of canceled sin to set the prisoner free." Is it that you have heavy laden with that hopelessness and confusion of sin? Why did He say, "Come unto Me"? Because He said, "I am the light of the world. He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness."
In Jesus Christ, life's ultimate answers are found, and only in Him. He is the fulfillment of all the types and shadows of all the Old Testament sacrificial systems. We need now no great rubric of ceremony, for the ceremonies have found their fulfillment in our Lord Jesus Christ. He is both priest and offering. He is the bread; He is the light of that true tabernacle. Scripture says He is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. He says, "Come unto Me." Why? Because in Christ and Christ alone our needs can be met.
Now He not only delineates those to whom He speaks; then gives His gracious offer, but will you notice the promise that He gives. This is the third area of our study. To whom is He addressing Himself? Those who labor and are heavy laden. What does He say? He says, "Come unto Me." Now notice the promise He gives: "Ye shall find rest unto your souls." What does the word "rest" mean? It means no more hopeless toiling under the crushing load of guilt and bondage, no more despair; release from the things that bind us, release from those things that crush us. That's what rest means.
Now notice the certainty of the promise: "Come and ye shall find rest." God incarnate is speaking. Of God Scripture speaks and says He cannot lie. This is why it's so important that we pause to think who speaks the words. For if I'm not certain that these are words of infallible and unerring certainty, how do I know that maybe if I come, they will not be fulfilled? How can I know that that which causes my labor and that which makes me heavy laden will be released if I come? Because the promise is certain. He who speaks them is God, and God cannot lie.
And if you do not know soul rest tonight, it's because you've not yet come to Christ. If your conscience is tormented by the terrors of a broken law and the fear of hell hangs over you like a billowy cloud, it's because you haven't come. For He says, "Coming, you'll have rest." If your held in the grip and bondage of sin, not those terrible outcroppings of remaining sin, but the cruel tyranny of reigning sin, you're its willing slave and servant. There's only one reason: you haven't come. For He says those who come shall have rest. And so the promise is certain.
But the promise is also an exclusive promise. "Come unto Me, and ye shall find rest." The implication being that rest is to be found no where else either now or in eternity. That's why the cold concept of the invitation is charged with the spirit of authority and command--come or you perish! "He that believeth shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned."
Then our Lord goes on--and I can only be suggestive in our study of this, and Lord willing, in our study next Sunday evening seek to enlarge it. The invitation does not end with verse 28. It's as though those who heard it said, "But O Lord, what will it mean? What are the implications of coming to You for rest?" Our Lord then, in the fourth place, enlarges on the true nature of faith. Notice: "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." Is faith a matter of trying Jesus as I indicated before? You've tried maybe dope and sex and liquor and things and pleasure; now try Jesus. No, no, Jesus said, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden." But He says, "I invite you to a relationship of absolute, unreserved commitment to Myself and to My truth. Take My yoke upon you. That's utter submission to My person. Learn of Me. That's utter submission to My truth. Then and only then will you find rest for your soul." We don't dicker with Christ. We don't, as it were, stand on the outside to bargain with Him.
Some of you come from societies where bartering and dickering on prices is just a part of the society. I believe it was in a missionary conference recently that I talked with some missionaries who said in the Philippines that this is just the way it's done. You may go down to the store on Monday morning to buy a dozen eggs, and the shop keeper may start out at 15 cents a dozen or whatever it would be, and you may haggle over for a whole hour and come down to your price of a nickel. You may go back to the same store in the same shop with the same shop keeper the next morning, and you've got to start this business all over again until you come to terms.
There's no dickering when we come to Christ. The terms are fixed. When you're looking for real estate and you see $22,500 firm, they're saying no dickering. The price is fixed; the conditions are settled. You meet them or no house. The Son of God says, "Here are the conditions--firm, no dickering. Come unto Me." Gracious invitation, but what are the implications of coming to Christ in faith? Here they are: unreserved commital to His person--"Take My yoke upon you." What is a yoke? It is that instrument that binds two animals together that they might plow the same furrow, move in the same direction. There's an identity of will and of effort and of labor and of purpose.
Christ says, "Come for rest." And what is that rest? Not freedom from all restraint and obligation. No, it's freedom from the tyranny of sin into the liberty of a bondslave of Christ. That's freedom! Not freedom to do what I want to do but freedom to do what I ought to do. Freedom for a bird is the ability to do what a bird was made to do: fly in the air. Freedom for man is freedom to be what I've been made to be. What? A servant of Christ doing the will of God from the heart. That's what I was made for. And until the will of God is precious to me and following Him is my delight, I'm not yet what I was made to be. And so He says, "Come, take My yoke. Utter resignation to My person--that is rest--and then absolute submission to My truth: learn of Me." And lest some should say, "Ah, but Lord, I've been burdened and heavy ladened with my sin. And now you call me to another burden?" He says, "My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." The Lord just clears away every last excuse, and He holds His gracious invitation this morning.
So what does coming to Christ involve? It means coming to Him as our Rest, coming to Him as our Ruler, coming to Him as our Teacher. And if you change the words, what do you have? Coming to Him as our Rest, as our great high Priest who bore our sin, who succors us in our need--He's our Priest. Coming to Him as our Lord--that's our King. Coming to Him as our Teacher--that's our Prophet. And here in this text, the Lord Jesus sets Himself as the only mediator appointed by the Father, the only revealer of God who does His work of mediation and revealing as a prophet, priest, and king and graciously invites burdened sinners to cast themselves upon Him with the assurance that they shall find rest for their souls.
O, may God grant that some of you who may be burdened tonight--I know of a few of you who are. You've disposed your hearts to me. And you've told me of the burden of sin that crushes, the sense of guilt and impending judgment. I plead with you tonight, come unto Him, come unto Him. Take His yoke upon you; learn of Him. Right where you sit, throw yourself at His feet and say, "Here Lord, I come on your terms. I don't come to dicker. And I long for release from the terrible crushing weight of guilt, from the terrible cords of bondage, from the hopeless confusion and emptiness. Lord Jesus, You promised rest. This is Your pledge. I venture upon it." In the words of that wonderful Gospel hymn of invitation,
"Venture on Him, venture wholly. Let no other trust intrude.
None but Jesus, none but Jesus can do helpless sinners good."
And dear child of God, you have ventured upon Him for rest. There's no other place you go for continued rest. And when there is that nagging of conscience that you know you've failed, where do you go? Don't' go to more prayer, to more Bible reading first. Go to Christ first. Don't make the means of grace the substitute for the fountain of grace. And when you've got a wounded, pricked conscience, the only place of refuge is Christ, even as a child of God. And when there's confusion and darkness, the only place of instruction is Christ. And so we don't come once for all. There is an initial coming, but we come continually. And we find Him to be true to His word of promise that we have rest in Him. May God grant that you may come, whether as a child of God in a state of some area of bondage or need and heaviness, He's a gracious succoring high priest. Or if you're out of Christ, young person, adult--I trust it would be some of both would this night come to Christ and find rest in Him.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 8:48:55 GMT -5
Affliction – Friend or Foe?
by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message
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One of the common experiences of all the people of God is this matter of affliction. And I want to speak to you tonight from 2 Corinthians 1:3-11 under the general theme of "Affliction – Friend or Foe?". It's obvious that the theme of this passage which we read earlier in the service is the subject of affliction, for the very thing which triggered this eulogy, this blessing of God the Father is that the Apostle and his companion Timothy have experienced a peculiar measure of the consolation and comfort of God in the midst of affliction. And so the Apostle begins with those words " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our affliction...." And then it opens up the whole subject of affliction in which there are given to us some very helpful perspectives concerning this that is the experience of all the people of God.
Now in introducing our study of the passage, it's necessary to understand several things about affliction. First of all, the meaning of the word as it is found here in the passage before us. The word itself literally means "that which is pressing" or "pressure". Hence it is come to speak of oppression, affliction, or tribulation. It refers to distress brought upon men and women particularly by outward circumstances which in turn create this inward distress. It's translated numerous ways in the New Testament. Some places it's translated "tribulation"; other places, as here, "affliction"; sometimes "persecution"; other times "trouble". But it's that which God reveals is the portion of all of His people. This pressure, this oppression, this tribulation, this inward distress brought about by outward circumstances, our Lord says will be the portion of all of His people. John 16:33: "In the world ye have tribulation [affliction--and this the same word in the original]: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."
One of the very elementary messages that the apostles used to give on their missionary follow-up tours concerned the whole subject of affliction. In acts 14:21-22, we read: "And when they had preached the Gospel to that city, and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, and to Iconium, and to Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that through many tribulations [same word in the original] we must enter into the kingdom of God."
The apostles were very, very concerned that believers understand early in their Christian lives that affliction and tribulation were part and parcel of normal Christian experience. It is for this reason our Lord in His parting words spoke the words previously quoted, "In the world ye have tribulation." He had given them some tremendously encouraging promises about the coming of the Holy Spirit, some promises concerning His ministry of comfort and consolation and illumination and the impartation of gifts and graces and power. But lest they should misunderstand this to think that they would come to some level of experiencing the Holy Spirit that would either immunize them from or totally lift them out of the realm of tribulation and affliction, our Lord says toward the conclusion of those wonderful words of John 14, 15, and 16, "In the world ye shall have tribulation."
John was so confident that tribulation was as much a part of the Christian life as faith in Christ that when he addresses the believers of Asia Minor in Revelation 1, this is how he addresses them (verse 9): "I John, your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom and patience which are in Jesus...." He looks upon all believers as fellow partakers not only of the kingdom and the steadfastness that are in Christ, but also the tribulation, the affliction, the persecution that are in Christ. And so it is not surprising that our Lord tells us in the parable of the sower that some apparent converts are caused to whither in their profession when they come into contact with their first real affliction. In Matthew 13:21, Jesus said, "When tribulation [affliction] or persecution ariseth because of the word, straightway he stumbleth."
It was affliction that caused the consternation of the psalmist in Psalm 73. He was afflicted, and he saw the people of God afflicted, and it didn't make sense to Him because the people who were not committed to the worship of Jehovah and to the law of God seemed to be wonderfully insulated from affliction. And this he could not understand.
So in the light of the fact that the Scripture teaches that affliction is one of the common denominators of the people of God and that affliction can be the occasion of stumbling and consternation, it is necessary for every Christian to learn how to confront affliction. And one of the great problems we face, as in many other areas, we carry over into the Christian life worldly carnal views of affliction. You see, the worldling looks upon affliction as his greatest enemy. Every affliction that comes into his life is a roadblock in the pursuit of his carnal and temporal goals. And therefore, affliction is always his enemy. He can never hug affliction to his breast and say, "Welcome my God-sent friend." He looks upon him and says, "Who are you, O my enemy?" And he does all that is in his power to get him out of the way. But now for the child of God, there should be a totally different perspective concerning the subject of affliction. The worldling looks upon it as enemy, all enemy, nothing but enemy. And yet, sad to say, many children of God, to some degree, have absorbed that mentality and do not understand the purpose of God in affliction.
Now what I want to do tonight in turning to this passage in 2 Corinthians is seek to lay out before you in a very sketchy way the divine purpose of God in affliction, which when understood by the child of God will help him to embrace his afflictions rather than to run from them as an unwanted enemy.
Let me illustrate the difference this perspective will make. Try to picture a little child who's been involved in a very serious accident. He's been knocked unconscious, and he has a compound fracture. He's got a bone sticking right through the skin that's going to demand not only the resetting of the bone but some suturing and patching up. And the first time he awakes out of his unconsciousness, he looks up and there's a man with a mask on his face and a skullcap on his head, a big needle in one hand and a scalpel in his other hand. And the poor child coming to consciousness thinks he's awakened in the midst of a Frankenstein horror movie. He's scared to death, and he screams out. And he begins to try to fight himself off that table until he's quieted down long enough. And his mom or dad or the nurse or the doctor explains to him that the person standing there with the needle is going to put the needle in there so that he won't feel any pain when he takes his little knife and he begins to patch him up here and put the arm back in place. And once the child understands that that which in his first reflex response looked so foreboding; something to be resisted, when he understands the purpose of all that, then if he's old enough to be rational and think through the issue, he will welcome that which upon first sight he would utterly reject.
In the same way, to the same degree, the child of God many times when he wakes up, as it were, and sees affliction standing before him with his long needle and with his scalpel, his reaction is one of wanting to run. And it's at that point that he needs to be still and hear the voice of God saying, "This is the purpose I have in this affliction." And then the heart of the child of God is stilled to submit to that affliction.
What then in 2 Corinthians 1:3-11 is the divine purpose in affliction? I would suggest that in the Apostle's description there are at least five divine purposes in affliction, and I'm limiting our observations just to this passage. We could range far and wide in many other portions of Scripture, but I want to stick with this portion and lay before you these aspects of the divine purpose in affliction. Now my purpose, I trust you remember, is that you as a child of God may recognize this so that when affliction comes (and it will come), you may be able to confront it Biblically and not look upon affliction as your foe but as your friend.
What then is the first purpose of God in affliction? Well, it's set before us in verse 3: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort." As the Apostle Paul breaks out in praise to God, he praises God with specific reference to the revelation of God's character that has come to him in the context of affliction. Therefore, the first purpose of God in affliction is to give us a fuller revelation of the character of God. In this text, God is called three things. He is called the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; secondly, the Father of mercies, and third, the God of all comfort.
Now when the Apostle addresses Him as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, he is indicating that God has been revealed to him in the saving revelation made in and through Jesus Christ the Lord. In other words, when the Apostles thinks of God, he thinks of Him not only as the God of creation, not only as the God of providence, but he thinks of Him particularly as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. He thinks of Him as the God who has revealed Himself in His way of salvation in the person and work of the Lord Jesus. Therefore, whatever follows in this text, whatever other revelation is made of God, it is made in the context of that fundamental revelation of God as a saving God in Jesus Christ the Lord. That's the starting point.
If you do not stand in a saving relationship to God through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, this message is not for you. This is children's bread, and it is not to be given to the dogs. This is God's word to believers who know God as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Apostle further says in verse 5, "For as the sufferings of Christ abound unto us, even so our comfort also aboundeth through Christ." All of the consolation of God to His suffering saints is in terms of their vital union with Jesus Christ.
But now notice, the Apostle not only knows Him as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus, but he calls him in this place (and it's the only place I know of in the New Testament where God is addressed in these terms) "the Father of mercies" or literally "the Father of the mercies" or "the compassions and the God of all comforting". Now let's look at those two ascriptions of God for a moment.
"The Father of all mercies [or compassions]." The word "mercy" means "pity to those who are in distress". You remember in the life of our Lord and His ministry, needy people would encounter our Lord and would cry out, "Son of David, have mercy upon me. Look upon me with pity." In Psalm 103:13: "Like as a father pitieth his children, so Jehovah pitieth them that fear Him." He addresses God in terms of God's inward disposition in the face of the afflictions of His people. When God beholds the afflictions of His people ordered by His own divine providence, how does He behold them? He doesn't behold them with a stoical indifference saying, "I've decreed it, and now it's for their good. Let them work it out." No, no, "In all of their afflictions," the Scripture says, "He was afflicted." He not only is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ who's revealed a way of forgiveness and acceptance through the Lord Jesus, but He's the God who having brought us into His family and given us the spirit of adoption is to us the Father of mercies.
And He says, "The God of all comforting." Where the reference to mercy focuses on the disposition of God's heart, this reference of comforting points out the activity of God. He not only has an attitude of pity and compassion, but He puts forth that attitude in positive comfort of His people. In the midst of the pressure of their distress, He is the God who comforts them.
Now let me ask a question. How did the Apostle Paul come to know God as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, you see, that revelation was made to him in the way that is made to all sinful men. He must, first of all, be brought to a sight of his sin. He must be brought to a sight of the mercy that God extends in the Lord Jesus. You read the first part of that in Romans 7: "I had not known sin, except through the law: for I had not known coveting, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." And he details how God dealt with him to show him that in spite of all his external morality and religiosity, he was lost and undone.
Then he came to know God as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, just as no one knows God as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus apart from the experimental knowledge of sin and of grace, so you cannot really know God as the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort unless you're in the experimental crucible of affliction. You see, you don't have pity upon those who are well off. You don't need to extend comfort to those who are completely at ease. Pity is for the afflicted. Comfort is for the distressed. And the Apostle tells us, then, in this passage that the first purpose of God in affliction with reference to His children is to give them this further unfolding of His own character, to bring them into an experimental awareness of the God that He is.
So if you pray as a Christian (and I trust you do pray), "O God, help me to know You better." Perhaps you find yourself in the words of Philippians 3: "That I may know Him." Would you have further revelation of the character of God, not in the abstract, but in the real stuff of human experience? Then, dear child of God, don't look upon affliction as your enemy. It's in the context of affliction that you will come to know Him as the God of all mercies and the God of all comfort. And if you're going to be so self-sparing that you say, "O God, don't touch me with affliction", what you're saying is, "I want no further revelation experimentally of the depth and breadth, the height and the length of Your infinite character. And so the first purpose of God, then, in affliction is to give us a fuller revelation of His character.
Now the second purpose is laid out in verses 4 to 7:
"who comforteth us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort them that are in any affliction, through the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound unto us, even so our comfort also aboundeth through Christ. But whether we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or whether we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which worketh in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: and our hope for you is stedfast; knowing that, as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so also are ye of the comfort."
Do you see what the Apostle is saying? He's saying that the second divine purpose of affliction for the child of God is to equip us for a more useful ministry to the people of God. Notice that thread of thought: God comforts us that we may be able to comfort others. "Suffering abounds in us. Comfort abounds through us. If we are afflicted for your sakes, if we are comforted for your sakes." And you can reduce the basic thought of verses 4 to 7 in this simple little equation: "All that happens to us happens for your sakes. All that comes to us issues in blessings to you."
Now in the context, the primary reference to this, of course, is to the Apostle and to his companion Timothy. Whatever particular trials they were passing through by virtue of the problems at the church at Corinth and in the light of their overall ministry, the Apostle wants the Corinthians to know that what is happening to them is for their sakes. But in the light of passages like Romans 15:14 in which the Apostle speaks in such broad terms of the ministry that believers have one to another, we cannot give this an exclusive reference to the Apostle. He said, "And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another." He said of the Romans, "I am confident that as brethren you have come to sufficient experimental knowledge that you're able to admonish one another." And so I would lay before you as the people of God this second aspect of the divine purpose in affliction.
How is God going to equip you for a more useful ministry to others? Well, I'll tell you what He's going to do. He's going to put you in the fires of affliction, that in those fires of affliction, as you experimentally become acquainted with the comfort of God, you in turn may be an instrument of consolation and comfort to others. You see, you do not exist in the body of Christ for your own sake. God has placed you in the body of Christ that you might be an instrument of maturity and development in the lives of the other members of that body.
1 Corinthians 12 deals with this so clearly: when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. When one member is comforted, all are comforted with it. Ephesians 4: "...all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love."
Now how are you going to be made more useful in your ministry to others? Well, it's going to be in the midst of affliction. If affliction is the common experience of the people of God in all ages, then one of the great needs that they have is for people to be able to console them and comfort them in their affliction. Who's going to be able to do it? Those who have themselves proven the consolation of God in the midst of affliction; those who have experimentally learned how to face the needle and scalpel. And instead of screaming and running and ranting and raving to get off the operating table, they'll say, "Lord, put in the needle; do Your work with the scalpel. May I prove You to be the God of all comfort, the Father of all mercies to the end that I might have a more useful ministry unto others.
Perhaps there are a few things which reveal the depth of our selfhood more clearly than the quickness with which we reject affliction. "Lord, this is doing this and that and the other to me." Instead of saying, "O God, if this is the price that I'm must pay to be an instrument in Your hands to be a blessing to others, Lord, I'm willing to submit to anything that I might be an instrument of consolation to my fellow believers." And isn't that the true mark of divine love? "Love seeketh not her own."
Isn't that our big problem? The moment affliction comes, all we think about is, "This is doing this to me, to my name, my comforts, my plans--my, my, my!" The Apostle Paul didn't look upon it this way. When affliction came tumbling in upon him, he said, "Well, halleluiah! There are a lot more people out there who are going to be helped." Isn't that what he said? "As the afflictions abound," he says, "so the consolations abound." And he welcomed the affliction knowing that it was going to equip him for a more useful ministry to the people of God.
So let me encourage you, dear child of God, some who this very night may be in the midst of an unusual discipline of affliction and tribulation, and you found it perhaps so difficult. You cried out, "Lord, is there something in me? Is this some chastisement? Is there some sin?" And you've been open before God, and you've drawn a blank. Perhaps this is the perspective that you need to bring into the total picture: "Lord, there are no accidents with you. You know every single person to whom I must be an instrument and a means of grace all along the way from here to glory. Lord, I embrace all of your disciplines to me that I might be a source of blessing to others."
Well, the Apostle goes on to give us a third purpose in affliction to help him look upon affliction not as a foe but as a friend. And it's found in verses 8 and 9:
"For we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning our affliction which befell us in Asia, that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power, insomuch that we despaired even of life: yea, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead."
What was the third divine purpose in affliction according to the Apostle? Well, it was simply this: simply to shut him up more fully to the power of God. Notice his words: "I don't want you to be ignorant, you Corinthians, concerning this tremendous affliction which came to us in Asia." What he was referring to, nobody knows for certain. The commentators offer their guesses, and most of them disagree. So I'd be foolish to try to arbitrate that problem. But whatever it was--and here's the important thing: not what the trial was but what the purpose of God was. And notice, he said, "Here was God's purpose: we had this affliction upon us that brought us to the place where we despaired even of life." He said, "Yes, we had the very sentence of death within ourselves. We were as good as dead." To what purpose? "That we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead." In other words, the Apostle Paul says, "We were brought to a place where the only way out of that circumstance of affliction was a manifestation, an operation of divine power equal to the power that raises dead men to life.
Now you see, in any other exercise of divine power, there may be great divine assistance, but there may be already something there to work with. If a lame man came to the Lord Jesus, the Lord straightened out a leg that was already there. If a blind man came, the Lord gave sight to eyes that were already there. But when the Lord Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb, there was nothing there. There was a direct intrusion of light from without. And Paul said, "We were brought to the place where our confidence was such an exertion of divine power that was equal to the power that raises men from the dead." And therefore, he said, "This affliction was not our foe but our friend because it shut us up more fully than ever to confidence in the mighty power of the living God."
Now you see, we can have a very romantic view of the Apostle Paul as though he didn't have to wrestle with indwelling sin and corruption. Yet Romans 7 is an eloquent testimony to the fact that this was not true. You look at 2 Corinthians 12, Paul had a tendency to be proud. And God seeing that tendency, said, "Lest you be tempted to be puffed up beyond measure because of the revelations given to you, I'm going to allow this messenger of Satan to buffet you." And Paul said, "Lord, I can't complete my ministry with this thing. It hinders me, it cripples me, it weakens me." The Lord said, "No, if I took it away, your pride would weaken and cripple you. Therefore, I'm going to allow this affliction so that in the midst of your physical weakness, you'll be conscious of where your dependence is. And in the midst of your weakness, the power of Christ will be manifested." And so the Apostle needed, as we do, to be constantly pushed away from the subtle temptation to self-confidence, to creature confidence; to looking more upon God's work as the work of Him assisting us in the exercise of our own cleverness and our own abilities. And so when this affliction came, he said, "This was the divine purpose: that we should not trust in ourselves but in God."
And O, dear child of God, if the Apostle Paul needed affliction to shut him up more fully to confidence in the power of God, who are you and whom am I to think we'll be shut up by any lesser means? And affliction, that which God brings upon us and makes us constantly embrace our weakness and comes like scissors to cut the cords and the nerves of creature confidence and carnal confidence, these things the Apostle says are the divine purpose in affliction.
Sometimes the Lord has to do it with regard to monetary things. It's pretty hard for some of us to pray, "Lord, give us this day our daily bread" and really mean it. We've collected our check week in, week in, month out, month out until suddenly we're laid off and affliction comes. Then you begin to know what it is as you never knew before to look to God to supply your daily bread. And suddenly those words are no longer pretty words in a prayer that you memorized as a child. They become the experimental petition of your own heart: "Loving Father, look down upon us and our need; give us this day our daily bread." And what happens with that affliction? It shuts you up to the power of God and the intervention of God.
Sometimes it comes with health. Some of us know weeks and months and years of getting out of bed with two sound feet and a sound mind and a body that can carry us to our work. And though we do sort of half-heartedly say, "Now Lord, give me strength for this day" and at the end of the day thank the Lord, it really doesn't come from our heart. We pretty well think we can run on our own steam until God just allows that strength to be shriveled. And we know what it is to lay there on a bed of weakness or sickness and say, "O God, if I'm to even get through half this day, You must sustain me; You must strengthen me. And we're shut up to the exercise of divine power for our daily strength in a way that we never were before. How did this come about? Affliction was God's means to shut us more fully to His power.
So it is with the matter of wisdom; so it is with the matter of patience. God puts us in situations where all of our natural resources are utterly depleted. And we say, "As far as that duty is concerned and what I must have to perform it, I'm as good as a dead man. The sentence of death is upon me." And God says, "Halleluiah! It's about time. I told you right along, 'Without Me you can do nothing', but you didn't believe Me. I told you right along, 'Cursed be he that trusts in man and makes flesh his arm', but you didn't believe Me." And now affliction has come, and what has been it's effect? To shut us up to the exercise of divine power. O child of God, don't look upon affliction as your enemy. That which shuts you up more fully to the exercise of divine power is your friend.
Well, we move on to see the fourth divine purpose in affliction, and we find it in verse 10. Having spoken of this trust in God who raiseth the dead, the Apostle goes on to say, "who delivered us out of so great a death, and [now he makes a prophecy] will deliver: on whom we have set our hope that He will also still deliver us." You see what he's doing? He's left the realm of testimony, and now he's making an affirmation of faith. Looking back upon this circumstance, whatever it was, that shut him up to the exercise of divine power, he says that the fourth function of this affliction was to increase his faith in the promises of God.
Way back when God called the Apostle Paul, He made a promise to him. We read that promise in Acts 26:16:
"But arise, and stand upon thy feet: for to this end have I appeared unto thee, to appoint thee a minister and a witness both of the things wherein thou hast seen Me, and of the things wherein I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom I send thee, to open their eyes...."
Here was the promise of God: "Paul, I am commissioning you with this Gospel commission. And in the accomplishment of it, I will deliver you from every opposition until my purpose for you is accomplished." And again and again the Apostle Paul was brought into circumstances where it seemed his life was going to be snuffed out. One time stones were heaped upon him. Other times plots were made to take his life. But again and again when these afflictions came and God fulfilled His promise, what did it do? Well, it increased his faith in the promises of God, for faith is strengthened in two ways. It's strengthened by looking to the greatness of the God who made the promise, and secondly, by experiencing the reality of the fulfillment of that promise. And faith is strengthened in those two ways.
Beholding the God who makes the promise. That's the emphasis of Paul in Romans 4. "[Abraham] waxed strong through faith." How? "being fully assured that what [God] had promised, He was able also to perform." As he conceived in his mind of the character and the might and power of God, he could look at his own body as good as a dead body and say, "This body will yet father a child because the God who made the promise ("In Isaac shall thy seed be called") is able to father a child through the dead body of Abraham. He's able to do something to this body to make it able to father a child.
But the Apostle in this passage is focusing on the second way in which his faith is strengthened. It's strengthened by the experiencing and the reality and the fulfillment of those promises. And so the Apostle says, "When we had the sentence of death in ourselves, we despaired of even living unless God puts forth the mighty arm of resurrection power." Once He did, he said, "Why, we have confidence that the God who has delivered will still deliver and continue to deliver untill His purposes for us are accomplished."
Notice how that faith became even stronger as he's about to lay down his life. In 2 Timothy 4:15, he makes a similar reference to the delivering power of God:
"At my first defence no one took my part, but all forsook me: may it not be laid to their account. But the Lord stood by me, and strengthened me; that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. The Lord will deliver me from every evil work...."
You see what he is saying? "This past deliverance strengthens my faith to believe the Lord will yet deliver me from every evil work and will save me unto His heavenly kingdom to whom be glory forever and forever."
You see, dear child of God, your faith is not strengthened by pulling your promises out of the promise box. Your faith is strengthened when that promise in the promise box goes with you into the fires of affliction. And you prove God in the terms of His promise in the midst of affliction. Then you're able to come forth with that ringing affirmation: the Lord has delivered; He shall deliver from every evil work. So again, it's quite easy to pray, "Lord, increase my faith." But when God begins to put you in the context of affliction, you say, "Lord, this doesn't have anything to do with my prayer." Well, that's the very answer to your prayer. It's by affliction that our faith in the promises of God and the God of the promises is strengthened.
And then the fifth function, the fifth divine purpose in affliction is found in verse 11: "ye also helping together on our behalf by your supplication; that, for the gift bestowed upon us by means of many, thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf." Now whether the Apostle is referring to the past prayers of the people of God (there's a problem in the grammar in the original--it's uncertain), or whether he's saying, "In the light of what I've told you, you will now have a renewed prayer involvement with Timothy and myself in our ministries." Whether, then, he's looking to a past deliverance or future deliverances in which their prayers will have a part, this thing is clear, that the end result will be this: "thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf." In other words, as Paul is delivered from affliction, preserved in the midst of affliction, the divine purpose at this point will be to provoke corporate praise and thanksgiving to God for the deliverance wrought for His servant.
One of the great delights of being a child of God and Scripturally identifying one's self with a visible community of God's people, the visible church, is that when we enter that affliction, we do not enter it alone. We have not only the presence of the Lord Jesus by the Spirit, but we have the presence of the Lord Jesus in the members of His body. And Christ and His union with His body is not a mere theological concept. So vital is that union that Paul says if you sin against a weak brother, you sin against Christ. He's a member of His body. And if you touch my finger, you touch me. That's a part of my body. You don't just say, "I hammered your finger." You hammered me when you hammered that finger.
The Lord Jesus said to Saul, "Saul, Saul, why persecuteth thou Me?" And this concept of this organic life-union between Christ and His people was so real in the mind of the Apostle Paul that he said, "When we're afflicted, and in answer to your prayers deliverance is wrought and we are preserved, then the end result will be corporate praise to God for the comfort and consolation ministered unto us."
I know that one of the great delights I have as a pastor is to hear the testimony of the people of God that have entered into unusual periods of affliction and to have them share that among other things (and this is almost always at the top of the list), they've said this: "The concept, the Biblical principle of the unity of the body of Christ has become precious to me in my affliction in a way I never experience it before that affliction came.
One of these days I hope to read, if not all, great segments of a precious letter which we received from Roz and Erv Mollet when we were over in Wales shortly after the death of little Lori. And again, this concept came through so clearly. The sense that when they passed through this trial of their faith, this affliction, they did not pass through it alone. There was not only the Lord Jesus ministering His own grace directly by the Spirit to their hearts, but there was the Lord Jesus ministering to His body that supportive role of love, intercession, sympathy, and understanding. I know that this has been Mr. Clarke's testimony concerning the physical affliction through which he's passed in recent weeks and months.
The realization that the body of Christ is not just a theological term. It's not just that we meet under the same roof to hear the same sermon, sing the same hymns. There is a bond of identification of love and compassion, which when God is pleased to undertake, results not just in the person who was afflicted and has received comfort rendering praise to God. But as the whole body of God's people enter into that affliction by their supplications, so now they enter into praise and rejoicing. And God is magnified not by the one but by the many. And notice how that's the clear emphasis of the text: "ye also helping together on our behalf by your supplication; that, for the gift bestowed upon us by means of many, thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf." The Scripture says, "Whoso offered praise glorifieth Me." And if God is glorified by the praise of one of His saints, He's glorified more intensely by the whole body of His saints rendering praise unto Him.
So I would assert from this passage that there are at least five distinct divine purposes in your afflictions and in mine. And let me ask a question in the light of these. Can that which gives you a fuller revelation of the character of God be your enemy, or is it your friend? Can that which equips you for a more useful ministry to God's people be your enemy, or is it your friend? Can that which shuts you up more fully to the power of God be your enemy, or is it your friend? Can that which increases your faith in the promises of God be your enemy, or is it your friend? Can that which provokes corporate praise and thanksgiving to God be your enemy, or is it your friend? O child of God, be done with carnal views of affliction, looking upon affliction as a dreaded enemy.
Look beyond the temporal, beyond the immediate and ofttimes flesh-withering disciplines of affliction. And realize that through affliction you will come to know God experimentally in a way that you could not otherwise know Him, that through affliction you will be made a more fit instrument of blessing to God's people, that through affliction your faith will be strengthened, your sense of the certainty of the promises of God. And then your involvement with the people of God will be increased. This is the divine purpose in affliction.
So if you are presently in the midst of affliction, may God help you to view that affliction Scripturally. And if you aren't presently in the midst of it, don't breathe too easy, for "in the world ye shall have affliction...that through many afflictions we must enter the kingdom of God." And if you're a child of God, as sure as you sit on that bench tonight, you're going to pass through affliction. May God help you, and may God help me thus to view our afflictions in the light of divine revelation.
But then there are some of you here who do not know God as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. If not, you cannot know Him as the God of comfort; you cannot know Him as the Father of mercies. It will not do in the next affliction to go whimpering to God and say, "O God, whoever you are, wherever you are, comfort me." No, no, if you're indifferent to God's demands with reference to your sins, that you repent and believe the Gospel, that you acknowledge yourself to be undone and standing in need of His mercy. If you live in impenitence and unbelief and despise the Gospel and trample underfoot the blood of the covenant, do not think that you can come whimpering to God and somehow snatch to yourself the comfort that He has pledged to His children. No, no, if you would know Him as the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort, I entreat you first of all to know Him as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Repent of your sin; believe the Gospel. Embrace His gracious promise: "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
But thank God, if in grace He has brought us to know Him as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, He is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort to us. May we prove Him to be that in our experience. And all of the theory that perhaps we have of these things, God will make real to us in the crucible of affliction.
Frankly I have great fears, humanly speaking in the flesh, whenever I preach along these lines because I know the only way I can have an increased ministry of comfort to the saints is to be dipped more deeply into that crucible of affliction. Maybe some of you will need to remind me of some of the things I've preached to you. May God help you to do so, that we may encourage one another when we begin to scream and holler and try to jump off the table because we see the syringe and the knife. May God help us to quiet one another down and remind one another of the principles of this passage, the divine purposes in affliction, that we might know that affliction is not our foe but our friend in the purpose of Almighty God.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 8:51:58 GMT -5
The Necessity and Nature
of the New Birth
by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached July 23, 2000
PDF Format | More Transcripts
Now may I encourage you to turn with me in your own Bibles to the Gospel of John. And we shall read the last three verses of chapter 2 beginning with verse 23 and read through to verse 15 of chapter 3. John 2:23, describing activity in the life of Jesus, John writes,
"Now when He was in Jerusalem at the passover, during the feast, many believed on His name, beholding His signs which He did. But Jesus did not trust Himself unto them, for that He knew all men, and because He needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for He Himself knew what was in man. Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came unto Him by night, and said to Him, Rabbi [or teacher], we know that Thou art a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that Thou doest, except God be with Him. Jesus answered and said unto Him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born anew [or born again or born from above], he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto Him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born anew. The wind bloweth where it will, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto Him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou the teacher of Israel, and understandest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that which we know, and bear witness of that which we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you heavenly things? And no one hath ascended into heaven, but He that descended out of heaven, even the Son of man, who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life."
As many of you are well aware, it was in the summer of 1962 that I began my ministry to what is now known as Trinity Baptist Church. That means I've completed some 38 years of ministry among you. By any standard, 38 years is a lengthy pastoral involvement. And lengthy pastoral relationship has both its peculiar blessings and its peculiar liabilities. And among the liabilities is the tendency to forget that there are some very foundational truths of the Word of God that need to be declared again and again with some degree of sanctified repetition. And the tendency in a lengthy pastorate is, as one is continually breaking new ground--and of necessity is doing that--in the exposition of the Word of God, to forget that there are some very basic truths to which we must come back again and again if those of us who minister are to be faithful to the souls for whom we shall give an account in the last day. And one such truth is the truth that we're going to consider together tonight, a truth I've not preached on in a focused way for almost seven years. As I've checked the records of my past sermons, I have mentioned this truth numerous times. We touched upon it briefly when we were working our way through 1 peter, chapter 1 and verse 23. And it is the truth of the necessity and the nature of the new birth. Or stated more simply and more personally, why you, why I must be born again if we are to see, if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven.
The passage we are to examine together has peculiar relevance to us in this particular congregation because, as we have seen in our reading of the passage, it is the record of the dealings of our Lord Jesus, not with a raw pagan, not with a relatively non-religious, half breed, immoral Jewess that we commonly identify as the woman of Samaria. Her record is given in chapter 4 of John's Gospel. But it is our Lord Jesus dealing with someone who has a sterling religious background. He was born as a son of the covenant. He has been reared within the womb of the nurture of the knowledge of God contained in the Old Testament Scriptures. He is a man upright in his external life and conduct. And he has become so knowledgeable and proficient in conveying that knowledge that Jesus refers to him in chapter 3 and verse 10 as the teacher of Israel. In other words, he had gained notoriety as an instructor of others. His grasp upon the truth of God's Word was so thorough and so comprehensive. I lived through the period when if you were to say anywhere in the United Kingdom the doctor said such and such, everyone knew to whom you were referring. There was but one doctor; that was Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. And in Christian circles, all you needed to say was the doctor. He was the doctor in the United Kingdom. Well, in a similar way, this man Nicodemus has come up through the ranks of the mere ordinary instructors and has gained the reputation of being so knowledgeable and so proficient in the conveyance of that knowledge that he is called the teacher in Israel. And the Lord Jesus who knew what was in man (verse 25 of chapter 2) deals with this man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus out of the knowledge of this man's true spiritual condition. He does not deal with him in terms of what Nicodemus may think himself to be, what others may perceive him to be, but what He, the Lord Jesus, knows him to be. And as surely as John can say of Jesus in the days of his earthly ministry that he needed not that anyone should bear witness concerning man for He Himself know what was in man, so, sitting here tonight, the Lord Jesus knows you and He knows me. And His knowledge is not limited by what we might appear to be to others, what others may think us to be, but what He knows us infallibly to be.
I want us to come to this passage tonight and consider these very sobering words of the Lord Jesus in which He addresses with Nicodemus the necessity and the nature of the new birth, or "You must be born again." And we'll do so under these two headings: first of all, the necessity for the new birth established. Note how repeatedly our Lord affirms the necessity of the new birth. In verse 3, He says to Nicodemus, "[Truly, truly, amen, amen]...." He who is Truth incarnate, whenever He prefaces His statements the "amen" or the "verily" or the "truly" and much more with the double "amen, amen," He is underscoring with His own verbal marker the tremendous importance of what He is about to say. And He says to this man Nicodemus who comes (and we must not read in false motives of flattery) acknowledging what he perceives of Jesus of Nazareth, having seen His miracles, he said, "No one can do these signs that Thou doest, except God be with him. [You are a teacher who has come from God. Your signs, Your miracles validate Your identity.]" Jesus abruptly breaks into this exchange and says to Nicodemus,
"Verily, verily, I say unto thee [in particular, Nicodemus], Except one [anyone, man or woman, boy or girl, living in Jerusalem, living in Samaria, living anywhere in Judea, living to the ends of the earth, living in the 1st century, living in the 2nd century, living in the 10th century, living in the 20th, or as some say, the 21st century] be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
Jesus turns to Nicodemus, and speaking to him in particular, He broadens His statement into a general statement applicable to every man, woman, boy, or girl that has ever lived on God's earth when He says, "Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God." And when our Lord said he cannot see, He is saying he cannot in his experience enter in to see. Or more likely what he is saying, he cannot perceive the reality and the nature of the kingdom of God.
"Nicodemus, you come to Me as the teacher in Israel. You come to Me out of the womb of many Godly wholesome influences that have grounded you in much of the teaching of the Old Testament Scriptures. You come to Me as one whose life is taken up in religious concerns and activities and relationships. But Nicodemus, settle this, amen, amen, I say to you, except one is born anew, he is a dunce in the matters of the kingdom of God. Except one be born again, born anew, born from above, he cannot perceive the kingdom of God."
And then our Lord goes on in verse 5 after Nicodemus responds, "How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born? [What kind of nonsense, Jesus, are you talking about? This is ridiculous. Can one go back into his mother's womb and be pushed out again in a second physical birth?]" Jesus responds (verse 5): "Jesus answered, Verily, verily [the double amen, His own underscoring of the tremendous importance of His words], I say unto thee [in particular, Nicodemus], Except one [anyone at time, at any place, under any circumstances] be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Beginning in the same way with underscoring His own authority, the Lord now generalizes His speaking to Nicodemus and says,
"[Nicodemus, this birth again, this birth from above is a spiritual birth effecting true cleansing from sin. It is a spiritual birth effected by the person and work of the Holy Spirit.] Except one be born of water [referring to a spiritual birth involving true spiritual cleansing from spiritual defilement] and of the Spirit [the Holy Spirit Himself imparting divine life to a hitherto dead soul. Notice the solemn words], he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
If anyone at any place, at any time, in any circumstances, enters the kingdom of God without being born of water and of the Spirit, Jesus Christ is not Truth incarnate. It's just that simple. Our Lord boxes all of us up with His own truthfulness saying, "Verily, verily [truly, truly, amen, amen], I say to you [Nicodemus--but you are simply in this personal exchange, the theater in which I want to proclaim to all men of all time], Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." He cannot enter it now in this life. He will not enter it in its consummate glory at the second coming of the Lord Jesus.
"Nicodemus, you and all men need a spiritual birth that in its very essence is a birth that results in real, deep, basic, fundamental cleansing from defilement--born of water and a radical, pervasive, all-encompassing transformation, ethically and morally and spiritually wrought by the person and power of the Holy Spirit himself."
And then in verse 7: "Marvel not that I said unto thee [in particular, Nicodemus], Ye must [it is absolutely necessary for you to] be born anew." He says, "Nicodemus, don't be amazed at what I've said. Do not marvel that I said unto you, you must be born again." And so three times within short compass, Jesus affirms the necessity of the new birth. Two of the three, He affirms it by moving from a particular and pointed word to Nicodemus into the general statement, "Except one be born [from above], he cannot see the kingdom of God...Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." And Christ's word to you and to me is His word to Nicodemus, "[Therefore], marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born [again]." Settle it, without going into the particulars of what the new birth involves and what are the evidences and the fruits of it, settle this, and settle it in the first person singular, and say to yourself sitting where you are, "Unless I am born anew, I cannot see the kingdom. Unless I am born of water and the Spirit, I will not enter the kingdom." We must make it that personal because Christ does. He speaks to us in His Word saying to us as clearly as He said to Nicodemus that the new birth is a necessity if we would enter the kingdom.
It is said that George Whitefield in the course of his amazing ministry, preaching the Gospel on both sides of the Atlantic, preached on the theme of the new birth at least 300 hundred times in the course of his ministry. He was not a resident pastor. He was an itinerate evangelist. And it's reported that on one occasion someone who had heard him preach apparently more than once on the theme said, "Mr. Whitefield, why are you always preaching 'You must be born again'?" to which Whitefield is reported to have replied, "Because you must be born again." Very simple. I repeat my sermons on the new birth because it is absolutely essential if men are to enter, if men are to see the kingdom of God. No new birth, no heaven; no heaven, only hell. Now can I make it more simple than that? No purgatory, no mediating place. No new birth, no heaven; no heaven, only hell. Has that got some of you at least half-inclined for a change to really listen through the ears of your soul, not to deliberately bring into your mind every distracting thought to somehow tolerate another sermon and that preacher that bellers and hollers--get it over with and get home. My dear friend, your indifference won't change the reality--no new birth, no heaven; no heaven, only hell. May I plead with you at the most low rung of self-interest. Don't you value your never-dying soul enough to listen with a degree of concentration and seriousness to what Jesus has to say about the new birth? He comes to you in spite of your repeated patterns of stiff-arming Him and indifference and hostility. You're still alive. You're in the land of the living breathing His air. And once again He comes to you in the overtures of grace and mercy and pity in the preaching of His Word. O, that you might hear Him as He speaks in the Scriptures.
So we see first of all the necessity of the new birth affirmed, but then now note in verse 6: the necessity for the new birth explained. Our Lord has affirmed we must be born again. Without the new birth, we cannot see the kingdom. Without this birth of water and of the Spirit, we cannot enter. We must be born again. But now here in verse 6, the Lord Jesus explains this necessity. Why is it necessary that men, women, boys, and girls be born again, born of water and of the Spirit to see and enter the kingdom? Jesus tells us: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born anew." The statement of verse 7 is the deduction from verse 6. "In the light of this reality," Jesus said, "that that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, don't marvel that I said unto you, you must be born anew."
The explanation as to why we need another birth, a new birth, a birth from above, a birth of water and of the Spirit is bound up in these simple words: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." Now what do those words mean? Well, simply this (and I believe the commentator Hendrikson has hit the nail right on the head in this simple explanation): sinful human nature produces sinful human nature. That's it. That which is born of the flesh, that which is born in natural human generation, that which possess nothing but what was given by Momma and Daddy in Momma's womb and that which comes out of her womb, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. Sinful human nature produces sinful human nature.
"Therefore, Nicodemus, don't Marvel that I said unto you, you must be born anew, you must be born from above, born again, a birth, not a repetition of your natural birth, for that would simply bring your forth as your first birth brought you forth. That which is born of the flesh once, twice, a hundred times is flesh. And only that which is birthed by the Spirit partakes of the nature and character of the Spirit. That which is born of the flesh is flesh."
And what are the characteristics of sinful human nature as it is present in everyone of us when we are brought forth from our mother's wombs? Well, we are brought forth fleshy in that we have a native enmity to God Himself. Turn to Romans 8 where the same word for flesh is used. And here the Apostle Paul describes the fundamental mindset of the flesh: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." And as flesh, it is enmity to God Himself. Verse 7: "because the mind of the flesh is [now notice, it doesn't say 'it possesses,' or 'it has some,' or 'it is afflicted with a disposition of.' No, the mind of the flesh is] enmity against God; [it is enmity itself] for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be." The mindset with which you and I are conceived and born is one massive clinched fist against Almighty God. It is enmity to God. And how does that enmity manifest itself? By its non-subjection to the law of God. You see that in the text? How do we know it is enmity? "For it is not subject to the law of God." And furthermore, Paul says it is hopelessly in that condition if left to itself ("neither indeed can it be"). If you are conceived and born with that mindset that is yours by nature, unless Almighty God intervenes, you will die and go off into an eternal hell to live forever with that enmity. "The mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be." The word "can" is a word of ability. It cannot be, it will not be, it never will be unless there's a divine intervention. Furthermore, as to what the mind perceives as reality, look at 1 Corinthians 2:14. This is God's commentary on the words of Jesus ("That which is born of the flesh is flesh.") The mindset of the flesh: enmity, non-subordination to the law of God, moral and spiritual inability to change itself. Now we come to verse 14 of 1 Corinthians 2:
"Now the natural man [the man, the woman, the boy or girl who has nothing but what he's received in terms of his own natural generation. He has human life. He has a marred image-bearing capacity of God, but that's all he has] receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God [and in the context, the things of the Spirit of God are the truths revealed to the apostles and embodied in the apostolic writings, the truths surrounding Jesus as God's only begotten Son, the only Savior, the things that for ages and generations were hid and not revealed, but Paul says are now revealed unto us by the Spirit--'which things we speak in words which the Spirit teaches.' And he says, 'The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.' He sees nothing in Christ to get excited about. He does not see Him as the Pearl of great price for whom it is natural and delightful to sell all to obtain Him. He does not see Christ as the treasure hidden in the field. He sees nothing glorious in Christ, nothing attractive in a life of holiness, nothing attractive about the people of God. The things of the Spirit of God, he does not receive them. Why?]: for they are foolishness unto him [unworthy of serious consideration. That's a description of some of you sitting here tonight. If Mommy and Daddy and the pressure of family had not brought you here, this is the last place you would be. Why? This stuff is foolishness to you. Your latest rock group, that turns you on. Your latest hobby, that turns you on. Your latest sensual thrill, that turns you on. But Christ and heaven and God and holiness and the people of God doesn't register. Why? It's foolishness unto you. Now look at the text. Not only does Paul say, 'The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him']; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually [examined, and he has no faculty with which to examine them. Why? 'That which is born of the flesh is flesh']."
"Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born anew. [Nicodemus, I've told you, except a man be born of the Spirit, born from above, born of water and the Spirit, he cannot see, he cannot perceive the kingdom of God.]" Here the king stands in front of Nicodemus and he doesn't see Him for who He is. "O, we know You're a teacher come from God." Jesus went on in this passage to say, "I am the Son of Man who, even as I speak to you, I am in heaven, and I've come from heaven, and yet in My divine nature, I fill heaven and earth. Nicodemus, I am more than some prophet validating my identity as a teacher from God with miracles. I am God incarnate, and you can't see it until you're born again." That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and as flesh, it is enmity to God. As flesh, it is blind to spiritual realities. Furthermore, as flesh, it brings forth works contrary to the law of God. That's what flesh does. Turn to Galatians 5. Let the Scriptures interpret the words of Jesus in John 3. Here in Galatians 5:19: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest...." "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." It acts like flesh. It manifests flesh. And what are they? He focuses first upon the sins of sexual impurity:
"Fornication [pornia], uncleanness, lasciviousness [unbridled lust], idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, parties, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, [and Paul says, 'I haven't completed the list'], and such like; of which I forewarn you, even as I did forewarn you, that they who practise such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh." It partakes of the fleshy enmity to God. It partakes of the spiritual blindness to the things of God. It brings forth the works contrary to the law of God. And this is the most humbling of all, but Jesus stated it in spades, and I must not hold back from saying it. Flesh is utterly impotent to even get to the only One who can change it. Listen to the words of Jesus in John 6, words when He spoke them cut the very nerve centers of the pride and the religious smugness of the Jewish leaders of His day. It even penetrated into the ranks of apparent disciples and caused many of them to go back and to walk with Him no more. And what were those words? Verses 43-44: "Jesus answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to Me, except the Father that sent Me draw him: and I will raise him up in the last day." They were offended. And Jesus didn't say, "I'm sorry, you misunderstood Me. I was just overstating it a little bit for effect." No, Jesus had been speaking of Himself as the bread come down from heaven, as the One who came down from heaven to do the will of the Father. And the Jews murmured because He made such a claim ("I'm the bread that came down out of heaven"), even though He's offering to anyone who will eat of Him by faith. And then Jesus tells them their condition is rooted in what they are: "No man can come to Me, except the Father that sent Me draw him." You say, "Well, maybe the Lord didn't quite mean it." O yes He did, and He repeats it down in verse 65: "For this cause have I said unto you, that no man can come unto Me, except it be given unto him of the Father." "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." What is its condition that it desperately needs a divine birth, a birth of water and of the Spirit? "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." It is in its mindset enmity to God, "is not subject to His law, neither indeed can it be," is blind to spiritual realities and cannot receive them, brings forth the works contrary to the law of God and is spiritually impotent. We must, we must, we must be cleansed of our defilement to be fit for the presence of a holy God. We must be renewed by the Holy Spirit to be given a faculty to see the beauty and the glory and the realities of that kingdom as they focus on the King Himself, the Lord Jesus, and all of the blessed realities purchased by His own precious blood. But "except one be born anew, he cannot see.... Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
That's our Lord's teaching on the necessity of the new birth. Now let me ask you, do you feel flattered by that? I don't, but I'm thankful that He loves us enough to tell us the truth about it. Never for this, the person who loves you the most is the one who tells you the most truth about yourself, not the one who tells you what your flesh might want to hear. No doubt, Nicodemus could have found a half a dozen of his fellow leaders in Israel who would have stroked him up one side and down the other and said, "Nicodemus, if anybody's going to make it into the kingdom, surely, you are. Look at you Nicodemus--separated one, knowledgeable one, useful one (the teacher in Israel)." And Jesus levels him and brings him down to the same level of the vilest, most besotted drunk, drug addict, sexually immoral person, destitute, the lines of sin etched upon the face. And Jesus said, "[You're all lumped together.] That which is born of the flesh is flesh." The differences observed by men are relatively inconsequential. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit."
Well, then we come secondly to see what our Lord Jesus teaches about the nature of the new birth illustrated. This language puzzles this man Nicodemus. Jesus said it should not puzzle him because the Lord had spoken about it, particularly in passages such as Ezekiel, chapter 36, when speaking in language that is clearly identified in the book of Hebrews, chapters 8 and 10, as new covenant language. God had said, "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." Nicodemus is utterly ignorant of these things. And Jesus is going to teach him something not only of the necessity of the new birth, but the nature of the new birth illustrated. Look at verse 8: "The wind bloweth where it will, and thou hearest the voice [or sound] thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." In this way, after this pattern illustrated by the activity of the wind, Jesus said, "You may understand something of the nature of the new birth." And what are the elements of the activity of the wind, not spun out of a preacher's imagination but highlighted by Jesus Himself. "The wind bloweth where it will." Now we know the wind has no will of its own. Behind the wind is the Lord of the wind. God Himself disposes the wind. But Jesus focusing on the wind says it acts as though it had a will of it's own. "The wind bloweth where it will...so is every one that is born of the Spirit." It is a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit.
It may be a blistering hot, sultry August day in northern New Jersey. And you're out in the backyard and have been doing yard work and cutting the lawn and trimming the shrubs. And you're thirsty, and you've got a cool drink in your hand, but the sweat just pours off you. And you say, "O, if I could just snap my fingers and bring a cool refreshing breeze." But you can't snap your fingers and have the wind come at your beck and call. "The wind bloweth where it will...so is every one that is born of the Spirit." There is an unfettered but principled sovereignty in the work of the Holy spirit. The divine begetting is God's work, and He never puts it in anyone else's hands. John 1:11-13: "He came unto His own, and they that were His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Could words be plainer? There are many evangelicals who like to think in a very real sense that the new birth is in their control. "If we can get a person to decide for Jesus to be born again, then it's legitimate to do anything we can to get them to make their almighty decision that they might be born again." My friend, no. This text says those who received Him are those who were born. Their receiving is the manifestation of their birthing. They were birthed that they might receive. And they are birthed not according to natural blood lines ("who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God"). The divine begetting is utterly sovereign in its origin. James 1:18 makes this plain: "Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures."
You say, "Pastor Martin, isn't that a doctrine that paralyzes people? No, my friend, it doesn't paralyze. It humbles. It tells you that sitting here, you in Adam and you in your own activity have done all you can to damn yourself. And you can't do a thing to save yourself. That means you're shut up to the only One who can--the God who made you, made you to be a creature dependent upon Him, to derive your life and sustenance from Him. And in Adam, you with me have gone astray and turned to our own way, gone into the God business. And God's determined to put Himself back in the God business. And nothing does it more quickly than to face realistically that that which is born of the flesh is flesh. "O God, if I ever know the divine begetting, it will be because you willed to bring me forth. You willed birth me." The power's not in Mom and Dad. The power's not in the preacher, the evangelist, the pastor. The power's in God and God Himself and God alone. But you see, this is a wonderful doctrine of hope. Because it's God who does it, there's no one whose state as flesh is beyond the almighty power of God.
It's beautifully illustrated--I'm not saying this is the purpose of the passage, but it's a beautiful analogy and picture of Ezekiel. I read that in my own devotions a few weeks ago. God takes him out and shows him a valley of dry bones and says, "Can these bones live?" And what's the prophet say? "Sure can. I get in there and I'll motivate them. And I've got this new super duper approach to get dry bones to live. Sure, God, I'll get them to live." "Can these bones live?" And what's the prophet say? "O Lord, you know." God says, "Start speaking to the bones." What a stupid thing. Someone comes along and says, "Hey Ezekiel, what are you doing? Are you talking to somebody behind the bush?" "No, I'm talking to bones." "You're talking to Bones. Why are you talking to bones?" "Because God told me to." "What's God going to do?" "He's going to bring the bones to life." "Ezekiel, you've gone wacko. This preaching stuff has gone to your head." And what does he do? He preaches to dry bones, and suddenly flesh and sinews come over the bones. And before long, there's an army of breathing men with muscles and sinews and veins and blood, not because Ezekiel was clever, but because God is almighty.
How does the Bible picture our spiritual life? "You hath He made alive who were dead." He doesn't say, "you hath He resuscitated who had swooned in your sins." "You hath He made alive who dead in trespasses and sins, and quickened us together with Christ." It's resurrection. It's birth. It's the divine begetting. It's a sovereign work of the Spirit. And my sinner friend, that's you hope, not your despair. And my fellow believers, that's our hope. As we pray, "O God, bless Your word," as Peter says, "Having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, by the Word of God that lives and abides forever." While the Word is preached, God can makes dead bones live. And that's our confidence. That's our hope. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh...the wind bloweth where it will." The sovereign work of the Spirit.
Secondly, it's an effective work of the Spirit. Look again at the text: "The wind bloweth where it will." You can't tell where it started, where it came from, where it's going. You can tell neither the womb nor graveyard or the (?) that blows across your face. But now notice, though you cannot tell whence it comes and whiter it goes, you know the effect of it. You hear the sound, you hear the voice of it. It makes an effect that is discernable on your eardrums. You hear it whistling and rustling through the trees. You hear it in its effect. The voice, the sound of it you hear. Jesus said, "So is every one that is born of the Spirit." The new birth is not only a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit; it is an effective work of the Holy Spirit.
And when we turn to the book of 1 John, John picks up this very theme that he introduces in that Gospel he was moved to write by the Holy Spirit. And listen to the effects of that wind of the Spirit blowing over a dead sinner's heart. Chapter 5 and verse 1: "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God." When you see someone believing that Jesus of Nazareth is none other than God's Messiah. And a man, woman, boy, or girl is prepared to commit all of his soul to all of Christ as his Prophet to teach him, his Priest to forgive and intercede for him, his King to rule over him and govern him. There's only one explanation. He's been born of the Spirit; he's been given eyes to see the kingdom as that kingdom focuses on the glory of the King as the Prophet, Priest, and King of His people. "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God." That's the effect of the divine wind. A person is brought to trust in, to rely upon Jesus the Christ as He's offered in the Gospel.
Chapter 3 and verse 9: "Whosoever is begotten of God [does not practice] sin, because his seed abideth in him: and he cannot [practice] sin, because he is begotten of God." "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." And the same Spirit who testifies to Christ and makes Christ glorious and trustworthy and brings us to faith in Him brings us to Jesus as the Savior from sin and makes sin odious to us and loathsome to us and distasteful to us. And when we sin, we are out of our new native element. The divine seed within us does not let us be at home in the realm of sin, sins of thought, sins of word, sins of attitude, sins of the hands, of the feet, of the sexual organs. It doesn't matter. "Whosoever is begotten of God [does not practice] sin."
Chapter 2, verse 29 (the positive side of that): "If ye know that He [Jesus] is righteous, ye know that every one also that doeth righteousness is begotten of Him." That disposition of clinched fist is not subject to the law of God and cannot be. God says in the language of Ezekiel, He takes out the heart of stone. He gives the heart of flesh. He writes the law upon the heart, and He says, "I will cause them to keep My statues and My judgments. I will put My fear within them that they shall never depart from Me. The wind blows. You don't know where it comes form or where it goes, but you hear its sound. It has an effect. So is everyone born of the Spirit. He believes in Christ. He commits himself to turn away from sin, commits himself to practice righteousness.
He loves the brethren. Chapter 3 and verse 14: "We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we [are loving] the brethren. He that [is not loving] abideth in death." You say you've been born of the Spirit. This will be one of the effects of the wind of the Spirit that has blown across your heart. He will engender in you a love for those in whom Christ is seen, your brethren, who love the same Christ, who've seen the same things about Christ by the work of the Spirit through the Word.
Chapter 5 and verse 4: "For whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith." The world does not bring us to its feet simpering and whimpering for its standards and its frown and its smile and its goals. No, we take our stand against this world system, behind which is the power of the prince of the world, the devil. And we overcome the world. The world doesn't dictate our standards of dress. It doesn't dictate what we believe is acceptable to go in our eyes over our TVs or our videos or at the movie theater. It doesn't dictate how much flesh we'll bare on a beach because it's hot and we like to swim. We overcome the world wherever the world would defy Christ. In union with Christ by faith, we overcome the world. Isn't that what it says? That's what my Bible says. He that overcomes the world is he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God. And the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God, so believes because he's been begotten of God.
And then he keeps himself. Chapter 5 and verse 18: "We know that whosoever is begotten of God [does not practice sin]; but he that was begotten of God keepeth himself, and the evil one toucheth him not." You say, "I thought the Lord keeps us." Yes, He does. Behind our keeping of ourselves is His keeping. "He ever lives to make intercession for us; therefore, He saves us to the uttermost." But the way I know Christ's intercession is saving me is when I keep myself. Christ's prayer that we be kept is answered when you keep yourself, not in your own strength but in His. You're ready to do what? Not say, "O Lord Jesus, I've got a problem with this sin. Please cut off my right hand." He says, "Sorry, that's not My job description. Mine is to pray that you'll have grace to cut off your own right hand and cast it from you." If your hand offend you, cut it off, cast it from you. Don't ask the Lord to do it. You do it. "And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee." If you're begotten of God, you're keeping yourself. And wonder of wonders, when you've hacked and hewn and thrown away, you fall on your face and say, "Lord Jesus, I never could have done that without Your grace." His keeping comes to manifestation in our keeping ourselves.
That's just five things from the book of 1 John. You don't need to know a word of Greek except that there are present tense verbs in the sinning and the keeping of righteousness, and I translated them as present tense verbs. "The wind bloweth where it will." You can't tell where it comes from or where it's goes, but you hear the sound. The new birth is not only a sovereign work of the Spirit; it is an effective, discernable work of the Spirit.
And thirdly, according to Jesus, as to its nature, like the wind, it is a mysterious work of the Spirit. Look again at verse 8 of John 3. What does our Lord say? "The wind bloweth where it will, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. There's an element of mystery in the wind. And even though our meteorologist can stand on our 10 or 11 o'clock news or whatever o'clock news you may watch and tell us we have this cold front and this warm front and the jet stream is doing this and all the rest. At the end of the day, you say, "Yeah, but whose up there nudging the jet stream." "We think it may reach down this far, and if so, this front.... And if if if...." Who's behind settling all the ifs of the meteorologist's forecast? Blind chance? No, my Bible says He has His way in the whirlwind and the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. I love to think of it when they're standing there saying, "Well, what kind of weather are you going to bring us?" What arrogance! And when they say, "Well, this front will...." Yeah, if God nudges it down a little bit, He'll fool you and everybody else. And if you get it right, it's only because God decided that you'd get it right. No, there's a mystery behind the ways of the wind. "So, Jesus said, "is every one that is born of the Spirit." It's a mysterious work of the Spirit. We can't tell its precise origin. We cannot tell when God begins that mysterious, powerful work. There is an unpredictableness in the ways of the Spirit. Did not the hymn writer catch this when he wrote,
"I know not how the Spirit moves, convincing men of sin,
Revealing Jesus in the Word, creating faith in Him.
I know not how the Spirit moves.
Can you say amen to that? There is an element of mystery. And therefore, we have no sympathy with those who want to box up the work of the Holy Spirit. "Well, you must go through three months of conviction and then three months of seeking and then three months of awakening and then three months of tentative hope that maybe you found rest in Christ. And then after six years, you'll come to solid assurance." No, no, my friend, the ways of the Spirit are like the wind. He won't be boxed up to your formula or mine. You like the way God got you into the kingdom and birthed you, fine. But He's just as free to birth someone in a way that breaks all of the basic patterns of how He dealt with you. I look out on your faces, and I've heard the testimony of many of you sitting in my study as you come before the elders to give your testimony in preparation for membership, and I think of this verse so often. The ways of the Spirit are like the wind. And some of you, God just blew down like a mighty torrential rain of spiritual influence. You can almost mark the day, the minute, and the hour when God rattled your cage and got your attention and showed you you were hanging over hell and revealed Christ to you and brought you out of death into life. And there are others of us, God's dealings with us were so murky. But like the hymn writer, we can say as he echoed the words of Paul, "I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've entrusted to Him against that day." And I know there's no way I would ever do that if I had not been born from above. So we don't trouble ourselves about saying, "Well, I didn't have this experience or that experience." There's an element of mystery. Amidst the efficacy and the sovereignty, there is mystery. And that again keeps us honest; it keeps us hopeful. We think someone's got to know this much and that much. No, no, God can take a very minimal measure of His truth and do a mighty work of divine begetting that astounds us all.
Well, we come around full circle to where we began. Jesus said to this religious man who didn't have a clue of what He was talking about, "Nicodemus, the new birth is an absolute necessity. Truly, truly, I say unto you, Except one be born again, he cannot see the kingdom; except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom. Marvel not that I said unto you, You must be born again." And that birth is a sovereign work of God. That birth is an efficacious work of God and a mysterious work of God. You sit here tonight and say, "Well, I'm not sure that I've known that work. What shall I do?" I urge you, my friend, to go right on in John chapter 3. It's not clear how much of this section of John 3 is Jesus speaking or where John enters in to give his Spirit-inspired commentary. But most careful students of the Word agree that it is Jesus speaking at least through verse 15. Verse 12: "If I told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you heavenly things? And no one hath ascended into heaven, but He that descended out of heaven, even the Son of man, who is in heaven. [Nicodemus, you're not talking to a teacher sent from God. You're talking to God sent down to earth. I've come out of heaven. And while I speak to you, Nicodemus, I'm in heaven. And furthermore, Nicodemus--Nicodemus, listen to me. As Moses--you know your Old Testament, Nicodemus--As Moses lifted up the serpent so that those bitten with those fiery serpents and death was in their veins, as that serpent of brass was lifted and whoever looked lived, Nicodemus, I tell you, if you've been humbled and brought to the place where you realize all your religious upbringing and training and rituals and knowledge and all of your activity count for nothing in the court of heaven. You need a birth from above. Nicodemus, don't look into your heart. Don't put your fingers on your heart to see if you feel the motions of the divine breath. Nicodemus, come to grips with who I am and what I'm going to do when I die for sinners. Even so must the Son of man who stands before you be lifted up that whosoever believes may in Him have eternal life.]"
And the Lord Jesus moves from teaching the necessity and nature of the new birth to drawing all the attention to the uniqueness of His person and the sufficiency of His work as the Savior of sinners and gives this general Gospel promise that whosoever believes will be saved. And my friend, that's where I believe Him. You say, "I can't figure that out. You've told us, and it seems clear from the Word, that we don't believe in order to be born again. We're born again that we might believe. Well, then surely, we ought to occupy ourselves with asking, do I feel the motions of the divine birth so that I have a warrant to believe?" No, my friend, the warrant to believe is not in anything you feel in yourself. It's in what God declares to you in Jesus Christ. He has been lifted up a Savior for sinners. He has freely and sincerely offered to all sinners in the Gospel with the promise that whosoever believes shall not perish but have eternal life in Him. But you say, "I sought to believe, and at times I thought I believed. What shall I do?" You continue to look out of yourself and to the uplifted Christ and cry to God that you may be able to lay hold of Him with that faith that will bring you to a certain knowledge that in Christ your sins are pardoned and you are accepted in the Beloved.
I close with the words of John Owen, words that are haunting words. John Owen said that men and women, boys and girls make two tragic mistakes when it comes to the matter of their own souls, and those two mistakes are these: number one, to think that they may get to heaven without the new birth, and secondly, to think they have the new birth without a life of holiness. The wise Puritan, pastor, theologian said these were the two most frequent undoing mistakes he observed as a man of God. Are you in one of those categories, thinking you'll get to heaven and you know nothing of the new birth or saying, "O yes, I've been born again," and those five things John says always accompany the new birth are not true of you? My friend, don't believe the devil's lie. Except one be born of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom. And if you are born of the Spirit, you're no longer under the dominion of sin and the world. But you are Christ's bondman, bondwoman seeking to live in the strength of His Spirit to His praise.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 8:54:13 GMT -5
The Shepherd Knows His Sheep
by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message
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Almighty God has made the most full and the most brilliant display of all of His glorious attributes in the work of rescuing sinners through the person and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. God has many theaters in which He displays His attributes. His attributes are simply the outshining of who His is as a glorious and a magnificent God. They are not little parts which all together make up God. They are God in all of His glorious unity shining forth in various ways displaying who He is: His beauty, His intricate wisdom seen in the complexity of a snowflake, His majestic power seen in mighty snowcapped mountains, something of God's magnificence and something of the overwhelmingness of His being seen in the pictures sent back from the Hubble spacecraft and the vastness of the galaxies of the universe. But I have asserted in my opening sentence that God's most glorious display of all of His attributes is made in conjunction not with the vastness of the cosmos, the intricacy of the snowflake and all of the other things that manifest God's beauty, God's wisdom, God's power, His overwhelmingness, but they are manifested in conjunction with the salvation which God has both planned, procured, and applied to guilty, hell-deserving sinners. And one of the most marvelous aspects of that salvation which most fully displays God's glorious attributes is the absolute certainty of that salvation with respect to all for whom it was planned, for whom it was procured, and to whom it is applied. And whenever we begin to be acquainted with this wonderful aspect of that salvation, namely, that once brought within its orbit, we are forever within its orbit. Whenever we begin to be acquainted with that truth, often called the perseverance or the preservation of the saints, there's a text that one will find in systematic theologies, in devotional books, and in other ways in which this aspect of God's glorious salvation is set forth in Scripture. There is a text that again and again comes to fore. And it is that text to which I want to direct your attention tonight in the time allotted. It is found in John 10, and I shall read something of the immediate context. Verses 22-30:
"And it was the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem: it was winter; and Jesus was walking in the temple in Solomon's porch. The Jews therefore came round about Him, and said unto Him, How long dost Thou hold us in suspense? If Thou art the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believe not: the works that I do in My Father's name, these bear witness of Me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who hath given them unto Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one."
Now it is verses 27 to 30 that in a very special way are one of those epitomizing text in holy Scripture which state in unmistakable language that once we are brought within the orbit of the salvation planned, procured, and applied by the triune God--once there, we are forever there. And I want us to spend a few moments looking at this passage under three very simple headings.
First of all, the imagery employed. In this passage, the Lord Jesus likens Himself to a shepherd. And all who have presently embraced His salvation are likened to sheep. "My sheep hear My voice." And this imagery of sheep and shepherd was introduced earlier in this chapter. In the beginning of the chapter, you have what for some is a difficult thing to sort out because we are not personally acquainted with the practices of Middle Eastern shepherds in the first century, where He refers to Himself as the Door. And then later on, He refers to Himself as the Shepherd. Verses 4 and 5: "When He hath put forth all His own, He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him: for they know His voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers." Verse 11: "I am the good Shepherd: the good Shepherd layeth down His life for the sheep." And then right on through that section, He is likening Himself to a shepherd and His people to sheep. And in our text in particular (v. 27), He speaks of the sheep as His sheep whom He knows and to whom He gives eternal life. So from this passage, we know the sheep are those who come into this personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. And according to the context, they come into that relationship to Him as the good Shepherd, particularly the good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep. Note again verse 11: "I am the good Shepherd: the good Shepherd layeth down His life for the sheep." Verse 15: "even as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep." Verses 17 and 18: "Therefore doth the Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down...." In this short compass of verses, four or five times in this context of setting Himself forth as the good Shepherd of His sheep, He wants us to think of Him as the Shepherd who supremely lays done His life for the sheep. So as the sheep are related to Him in this personal, intimate way, it is a personal, intimate relationship founded upon the shepherd's act of laying down His life for the sheep. Whoever the sheep are, they are related to Jesus the good and the great Shepherd in the context of His voluntary laying down of His life. That is, they are related to Him on the basis of His voluntary, substitutionary death in the room and stead of His people (voluntary, vicarious curse-bearing under the wrath of God) so that we should never think of such glorious passages as Psalm 23 as some kind of general, ubiquitous relationship that all men have to the great Shepherd ("The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want"). There is but one way in which sheep become bonded to the Shepherd, and that is in the embrace of His cross. So the imagery employed is that of Christ the Shepherd, His people the sheep; the sheep bonded to Him in a very special way in the context of the Shepherd who lays down His life.
But then having noted the imagery employed, note with me secondly, the security affirmed. And it is affirmed both positively and negatively. Notice the positive affirmation in verse 28: "I give unto them [that is, My sheep] eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of My hand." On the basis of His laying down His life for His sheep, that which He grants to them as the donation of His grace is nothing less than eternal life. And according o the Scriptures, eternal life is both a quality of life and a duration of life. Eternal life is a distinctive kind of life. And what is the distinctiveness of that life which is eternal. Jesus Himself defines it for us in chapter 17 of this same Gospel. Verses 2 and 3: "even as Thou gavest Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom thou hast given Him, He should give eternal life. And this is life eternal, that they should know Thee the only true God, and Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." Eternal life is a quality of life. And that quality is nothing lest than a heart acquaintance with the one true and living God and with His Son Jesus Christ. "This is life eternal, that they should know Thee [not know about Thee, be acquainted with Thee, but know Thee as a man knows his wife, and there is interpenetration of mind, soul, will, body, and knowledge at the deepest level]." This is life eternal, not to have God paraded by us in a collection of notions and concepts that never touch and win and woo and capture the heart. "This is life eternal, that they should know Thee the only true God, and Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." Not know much about Him, His church, His ways, His people, but to know Him as a living, loving person knows another person. This is life eternal. It is a quality of life, but it is also a duration of life. We turn back to John 4, and we find these words from the lips of our Lord Jesus in verse 14. In speaking to the Samaritan woman, offering her eternal life under the image of living water, He says,
"Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life. [What I give them here now of Myself and My salvation is like an artesian well that will spring up from within them bubbling forever and ever and ever. It is a well springing up into eternal life.]"
And here the security of all the sheep is wonderfully, positively affirmed:
"I'll give them not a temporal taste and experience of eternal life. I give to them eternal life, life that begins here and now as they come into a saving knowledge of My Father and of Myself, of My Father through Myself, for no one comes to the Father but by Me. And He that has seen Me has seen the Father. He that does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him."
He says that this into which we enter now is not only a quality of life, but a duration. And in so stating, our Lord affirms positively the security of all who truly experience eternal life. "I give unto them nothing less than eternal life in quality and in duration." But then three times He makes the affirmation negatively. Notice it: "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish." Throughout the rest of their earthly pilgrimage and life and on through death and resurrection and judgment, and as one ion rolls upon another in the endless ages of eternity, they shall never perish. And second negation: "No one shall snatch them out of My hand. [As the great and the good shepherd who lays down My life for the sheep, I gather My sheep to Myself; I hold them, I protect them, I encompass them with My own protective grace.]" A third negation: "My Father, who hath given them unto Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand" (v. 29). I actually heard someone say cheaply, "Ah yes, none can snatch them out of Christ's hands; none can snatch them out of the Father's hands, but it doesn't say they can't jump out of His hands," trying to prove that this eternal life is not really eternal life. But it is life that we may possess if ultimately we continue to make sure that we possess it. But the words of our Lord Jesus do not point us in that direction at all. For under the imagery employed, there is this security affirmed. And the marvelous capstone to that security is verse 30: "I and the Father are one [one in our Godness in nature, in what we are as Father and Son in the mystery of the triune Godhead; one in purpose, that we should confer nothing less than eternal life]." As Jesus said in John 6:38-40:
"For I am come down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me. And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that of all that which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on Him, should have eternal life; and will raise him up at the last day."
This is the indefectible will of the Father that Jesus came to fulfill. So we've looked at the imagery employed: Christ the Shepherd, all the possessors of His salvation likened unto sheep. There is a security affirmed. But now thirdly, note with me their identity described. What is the precise identity of these people who are in this unspeakably glorious position of being Christ's sheep, those for whom He died, those whom He has brought to Himself, those whom He and the Father hold so that they can never, never perish. How are they identified? Look at the text. Verse 27: "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." And everything that follows is with respect to these described. "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of My hand." Who is the "they" and the "them"? It is the sheep. But what is their precise identity as described by the Lord Jesus Himself? And surely, none knows better the distinguishing marks of the sheep than the great Shepherd who dies and who lives to make them His sheep. Well, there are two very identifying marks simply stated in these words: "My sheep are hearing [present tense verb] My voice." The identifying mark of the sheep is the hearing ear. "They are hearing My voice." Our Lord already asserted this in chapter 10 in verse 3: "To Him the porter openeth; and the sheep [are hearing] His voice: and He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out." Who are His own sheep? Those who hear His voice.
Now in what sense are the sheep identified as those who are hearing the voice of Christ? Well, first of all, they hear His voice when the great Shepherd who laid down His life for them in the course of their life history effectually calls them to Himself, speaking to them through the word and promise of the Gospel. Look at verse 16 of this chapter: "And other sheep I have, [they are already sheep in the Father's eternal electing love and purpose, in the Father's donation to Me; all that the Father gives Me] which are not of this fold [that is, the fold within Israel]: them also I must bring." The good Shepherd, the great Shepherd is not to lose any of the sheep. Those whom the Father has marked out in His eternal electing love and given to Him as the donation of grace, given to Him the responsibility of doing all that was necessary that they should enjoy a righteously founded, a justly procured salvation (He must lay down His life), these He must bring. And how are they brought? And how are they brought? Look at the rest of the text: "They shall hear My voice; and they shall become one flock under one Shepherd." They shall hear; they shall become.
No one can claim to be a sheep of Christ because somehow he has pried into the Father's eternal electing love and has laid bare before him for himself or for another: "Ah yes, that's one of those who are already Christ's sheep." No! None of us can know he is Christ's sheep in terms of prying into God's secret electing purposes. We can only know when we have heard and have become.
"The other sheep I know. They don't know themselves. But when I come, and in the word and the promise of the Gospel, I declare to them their desperate need of what I have done on behalf of sinners. And when I come in the word and the promise of the Gospel and declare to them that as the good Shepherd, I've laid down my life for wondering, hell-deserving sinners who are like Isaiah's vast flock of sheep that has gone astray, each one having turned to his own way."
They hear the word of promise, "He that believes on the Son has everlasting life." "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." "Come, come!" He says, "They hear My voice." He is not saying that in gathering His sheep among the nations outside of Israel throughout the entire age of the church that He is going to come and personally in His glorified being speak with an audible, physical voice. No. But it is nonetheless Christ's voice that is heard in the proclamation of the Gospel. And that's why Paul can say in Romans 10 in that tightly knit chain of argumentation that if people are to be saved, they must believe on Christ. And how shall they believe on Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher. And when a preacher comes in the authority of Christ with the word of Christ proclaiming the truth of the salvation of Christ, His true sheep are gathered into that one fold when they hear His voice. Beyond the explanations the preacher gives, beyond the illustrations, beyond the entreaties, beyond the appeals, the earnestness, the tears, the pleading, they hear the voice. It captures them, and they can no longer resist. And they say, "O Lord Jesus, You who love sinners and poured out Your life's blood on behalf of sinners, how can I go on in the folly of clinging to that which can only damn me by refusing that which only intends to give me life, and that eternal?" And they capitulate gladly and joyfully. And in the disposition of repentance and faith, they turn from their sin and their self-will and their self-determination. And they embrace One whose love conquers them and subdues them, woos and wins them.
The identifying mark of the sheep is, "They hear My voice." They hear it initially, powerfully, efficaciously in the proclamation of the Gospel. But then it's a present tense verb. It doesn't say, "My sheep heard My voice calling them, promising them rest, forgiveness, eternal life, adoption into the family of God, the gift of the Spirit, and all the blessings of grace. It doesn't say, "My sheep heard." Look at the text: "My sheep [are hearing] My voice." The mark of the true sheep of Christ is that they have a fundamental, internal disposition of utter openness to the Word of Christ. To the word of Christ when it is promising, to the word of Christ when it is commanding, to the word of Christ when it is comforting, to the word of Christ when it is convicting, to the word of Christ when it distills like gentle dew upon upturned flowers, to the word of Christ when it breaks in upon them like jagged lightening; nails them to the pew and says, "You are the man. It's your sin, and yours and yours that must be dealt with." If it's the voice of Christ, they hear it. "My sheep are hearing My voice." It is the infallible, identifying mark of the sheep. They are hearing the voice of Christ. And that voice calls them to humble themselves, confess their sins one to another. When that voice calls them to cut off right hands and pluck out right eyes to maintain moral purity, they hear His voice. When that voice calls them to rear back on their hind legs and resist the spirit of this world when the voice of Christ says, "Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind," they are hearing the voice of Christ. Have I beat it thin enough at the edges? That's the identifying mark, not some of them (the real dedicated ones, the real super duper, fat, healthy sheep). "My sheep are hearing My voice."
But then notice the second identifying mark: "And they are following Me." What they hear goes right down to their feet. And what their feet do have a direct relationship to the person of the great and good Shepherd. Notice, He doesn't say, "They hear My voice and obey the commands. They hear My voice and obey the precepts." That's true, but you see, our Lord makes it intimate and personal. "They hear My voice, and they are following Me." Not following their parents and doing just enough to get Mom and Dad off their back or just enough to persuade their elders that maybe the root of the matter is in them so they can get baptized and come into the church and get a Christian husband or a Christian wife because they don't want a worldling scoundrel for a life's partner. No. "They hear My voice, and they are following Me." They are enamored and attached to a person who loved them and laid down His life for them. So it's not the naked Word. It's the Word dropping from the lips of the good Shepherd who laid down His life for them, who was committed to preserve and keep everyone of them so that none of them will perish.
"They follow Me, as by My Word I lead them into the kind of personal life that marks them out as My sheep, as My Word leads them into the kind of domestic life that marks them out as My sheep with husbands loving, sensitive, sacrificial, self-denying love that treats their wives as their own flesh, as solicitous for the wife's well-being emotionally, physically, spiritually as they are for their own bodies."
I've never met a man yet who had a sliver rammed up under his fingernail and said, "O, it's just sliver under my fingernail; I'll take care of it three month's from now." No, no. I don't care what his job is or how important he is, you get a sliver under your fingernail, and I tell you, everything stops till you get it out. That's how you're to love your wife. Her slivers are yours. You love her as being your own flesh. Is it an emotional sliver under the nail of her soul? "That's her problem. Let her work it out." That's not following the voice of Christ who said love her as Christ loves the church. "O yes, but...." No "yes, buts." "My Sheep hear; they follow." "O but I didn't have a good example in my father." Who cares what your father's example was? You have Christ as your model. Love her as Christ loved and gave. Are you following Him then?
Are you following Him in domestic relationships? "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." In social relationships? In church relationships? In every area addressed by the great Shepherd, the mark of His sheep is they not only hear and say, "O, this is a wonderful, we've heard the voice of Jesus today." They are not only marked by the open ear, but by the obedient and willing foot. And that foot moves at the direction of the person who has won them by His grace. In fact, it is only such who have any grounds Biblically to say they are His. Hebrews 5:9, one of the few verses that uses the term eternal salvation in all of the New Testament, and notice what the writer to Hebrews says about that eternal salvation and who has it. Speaking of our Lord Jesus in verse 8 and 9 of Hebrews 5:
"Though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which He suffered; and having been made perfect [that is, having been made a perfect Savior, not from imperfection to perfection, but from the perfection of unspotted sinless humanity to the perfection of empathetic humanity joined to deity in the theanthropic person], He became unto all them that [are obeying] Him the author of eternal salvation"
O, you say you have that eternal salvation. "O I love the truth, 'My sheep are in My hand. None can snatch them, and the Father's hand is over My hand and none can snatch them from the Father's hand." The onus is on you to demonstrate the identifying mark. "He is the author of eternal life to all who are obeying Him." Our obedience does not procure the salvation, nor does it ultimately secure the salvation. It is the manifestation that we possess it. We're His sheep. "My sheep are hearing; My sheep are following Me." The language is clear and unmistakable, and the Lord Jesus knows better than any of you how to describe His true sheep. And He's described them. Their identity is described.
And then you see nestled in the midst of those two identifying marks, Jesus said, "And I know them [that is, the ones to whom I am related in intimate, personal, saving relationship, the ones I know that I am prepared to say, 'Ah, that's one of mine--open ear and willing foot]." If you're not sitting here tonight marked by open ear and willing foot, Jesus does not claim to know you. He does a better job of saving than He's doing in some of you who say you're saved. If His love cannot conquer your love of the world and your love of self and your love of your own will and your own way, what kind of love is it that leaves you wedded to the very things that nailed Him to the cross? "I lay down My life for the sheep, [and the way that I give them the identifying marks of the sheep is by the revelation of My love that breaks them and subdues them and brings them into the orbit of being willing, hearing, obeying sheep]." That's what the text says. The imagery employed: He is the Shepherd; His people are the sheep. The security affirmed: "I give to them eternal life, ." Their identify described: "The are hearing My voice, and they are following Me."
I say by way of application--and I want to underscore so that none can mistake what I'm saying--the ground of our position as sheep is nothing in us. It's what He has done, and it is all in Him. He lays down His life for the sheep. Why? Because the sheep are human beings who are guilty in Adam, who are dead, who are deserving of the wrath of God. And there is no omnipotence in God Himself that can bring such people into an intimate relationship or fellowship without the issue of sin being dealt with. And so the ground of our being His sheep is not in our hearing or in our following or in our obeying. The ground is in His laying down His life for us. But the proof that we have embraced Him as the good Shepherd who has laid down His life is that His love in sacrificial self-giving for us has conquered us and brought us to the place where we love to hear His voice and we love to follow Him. It's 2 Corinthians 5 in different language. The Apostle says in verses 14 to 18,
"For the love of Christ constraineth us [it holds us in its grip]; because we thus judge, that One died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again. Wherefore we henceforth know no man after the flesh: even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know Him so no more. Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new. But all things are of God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation."
That's Pauline language for the very truth we have in John 10. The ground of our acceptance is the laying down of His life. The proof of our acceptance is that we've become part of the flock that He says He recognizes and He's glad to be identified with. "I know them [those who are hearing, those who are following]." They do not follow perfectly, but they do so purposely. They do not follow with equal zeal, but they follow, as the old writers said, universally. They do not mark out any area of life and say, "If Jesus has anything to say about that, I could care less. I don't want to know what He says."
And that's the problem with some of you young people, and I want to get very blunt. You have marked out the area of your music and your entertainment and said, "I don't care what Jesus has to say, if anything, about that area. That's my music, That's my entertainment, That's my delight. Keep Your hands off." And you know it and I know it. How can you claim to be His sheep until you're ready to take every single CD, every single video and put it on the table and get down on your knees in front of it and say, "Lord Jesus, Shepherd who laid down Your life, who died for sin, the sins of listening to things I ought not, looking at things I ought not. Lord Jesus, whatever is in these CDs that's displeasing to You, help me to see it. Help me to recognize it; may I be willing to smash it." Are you willing to do that? "O no, I've got...." Yeah, I know you can biff and you can rationalize. But the issue is you're not willing for the cross of the great Shepherd to be laid over your CDs and over your videos. And until you are, don't kid yourself that you're one of His sheep. With many of you, that's going to be the rubbing point.
You live in a media obsessed generation. And the devil has his hooks in a whole generation with the sounds and sights produced by all the gadgetry. And if you're going to be real and count for Christ, this issue you've got to settle. I know you can go out of here and say, "Pastor Martin is on his hobby horse." That's a copout because you're not going home and doing what I said. I've got no fear to go home and take every CD I have, even one that's got the best of Johnny Cash on it. OK? "You listen to his opera and hymns." What do you know I listen to? Take every one of them and say, "Lord Jesus, if listening to any of that puts any distance between You and Me, in anyway fills my mind with things it ought to be filled with, Lord Jesus, I don't want it. I want You. I want nothing to disturb my communion." I'm ready to take every DVD (there aren't many; most of them have been given to me) and every video and lay it before Him. Are you? Are you ready to do it.
You young women, are you ready to go to your closet and stand before every piece of clothing and say, "Lord Jesus, You say the thing that should mark me as a woman...." The first thing God addresses when He gives particular directives to women in 1 Timothy where He's dealing with behavior in the church is not your heart but your clothes. "I will therefore that the women dress modestly." You stand in front of your closet with every piece of clothing and say, "Lord Jesus, I want to hear Your voice and I'm ready to follow. Is this modest?" And if you don't know, find an honest dad. And if you haven't got an honest dad, find one. There are a lot of us here in the church, and we'll tell you. Until you're ready to do this folks, your Christianity is floating around on the issues that don't really touch where you live. Are you ready to do that? Are you ready to do that with every facet of your life?
Dear folks, this is Christianity--attachment to Jesus that we do not willfully, knowingly seek to detach in any area. "My sheep are hearing My voice, and they are following Me." It's not rules and regulations; it's a person who's won us by His love. And as we heard this morning, we want an alternate, thorough-going Christian lifestyle that makes the world look and say, "Wait a minute, we need this, this, and this to find a little sweetness in life to suck a little meaning. They are not worshipping at the shrine of this, this, and this. And they've got a joy that we know nothing about. What in the world makes these people tick." And then we have the joy of giving answer to everyone who ask a reason of the hope that is in us. Dear folks, that's Christianity. When you worship at the same shrine as the worldlings, what in the world is there about your Christianity that would ever whet their appetite?
You can sit as my daughter and my sister did the evening after the Lord took my beloved home. Someone had given to my wife and me months ago some--whatever you call them when you go out to restaurants and spend them there. My wife and me were not able to use it. So because we had been under a lot of stress, I said to Heidi and Joyce, "Let's go out to Steak and Ale and celebrate my loved one's home going." And we sat at that table and a young waiter came, and he saw that we were a happy bunch. And I told him, "You know what we're here for?" He said, "What?" I said, "We're celebrating the fact that my wife went home today. She's in the presence of Jesus." And through my tears, I told him of what our joy was. I tell you, we had the ears of that young man. I got a chance to speak to him about the Savior. He's newly married, and I told him, "God never intended your marriage should be a two way affair. He intended that Christ should be at the center of it." We had his ears because he saw something that he couldn't explain.
Does the world see anything in you that they can't explain? Or do you just blend in with the idea that you've got to be like them to win them. No. If you're like them, you've got nothing to win them to that's worth anything. That's the curse of this notion: "We've got to bebop our music, and we've got to modernize our worship so the unconverted person comes and can feel at home. We'll play his kind of music; we'll talk his kind of jive talk--nonsense! Let the worldling come in, see our joyous, God-centered worship and say, "What in the world do these people got? It's something I know nothing about." And then we're able to tell them of the hope that is within us.
Dear people, if you're going to tolerate me here as your pastor--I think I've got a few more sermons left in me--this is where we're going by the grace of God. Are you with me? "My sheep hear My voice. They follow Me. I give to them eternal life, and they shall never perish." Blessed assurance that once in Christ, always in Christ. And at the end of the day, not because we have so resolved and so mortified and so determined to press on that we make it, but because we've got a great and a good Shepherd who's committed to keeping us and bringing us safely at last into His blessed presence.
O, sitting here tonight, are you one of His sheep? You say, "Well, if the sheep are what you've described in the Bible, Pastor Martin, I'm not one of them." Listen, Jesus said, "Other sheep I have. They are not yet of this fold; they shall hear My voice." Have you heard the voice of Christ in the preaching? Have you heard something that's gone beyond what any human voice could do in reaching into the inner chambers of your soul and causing you to say, "O God, I want to know the forgiveness of sin; I want to know what it is to possess eternal life. I want to be able to look death straight in the eye and say, 'Death, you're the last enemy, but all you can do is chase me up to heaven'"? My friend, that's waiting for you in Christ if you go to Him. He's promised to receive all who come unto Him. May God grant that you go to Him, and you'll find Him a gracious, welcoming Savior. And you'll become part of that one block under the rule and governance of that one great Shepherd.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 8:55:26 GMT -5
I Am the Bread of Life
by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message from radio broadcast
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Will you follow, please, in the Scriptures as I read a portion of the 6th chapter of the Gospel of John. The opening section of this chapter records our Lord's feeding of the 5000 on one side of the Lake or Sea of Galilee and then the record of our Lord visiting His disciples in that night watch as He crossed from one place to another. And then in verse 22, John picks up the narrative.
"On the morrow the multitude that stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there, save one, and that Jesus entered not with His disciples into the boat, but that his disciples went away alone (howbeit there came boats from Tiberias nigh unto the place where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks): when the multitude therefore saw that Jesus was not there, neither His disciples, they themselves got into the boats, and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. And when they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said unto Him, Rabbi, when camest Thou hither? Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek Me, not because ye saw signs, but because ye ate of the loaves, and were filled. Work not for the food which perisheth, but for the food which abideth unto eternal life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for Him the Father, even God, hath sealed. They said therefore unto him, What must we do, that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent. They said therefore unto Him, What then doest Thou for a sign, that we may see, and believe Thee? what workest Thou? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, He gave them bread out of heaven to eat. Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, It was not Moses that gave you the bread out of heaven; but My Father giveth you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which cometh down out of heaven, and giveth life unto the world. They said therefore unto Him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst. But I said unto you, that ye have seen Me, and yet believe not. All that which the Father giveth Me shall come unto Me; and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out. For I am come down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me. And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that of all that which he hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on Him, should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. The Jews therefore murmured concerning Him, because He said, I am the bread which came down out of heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how doth He now say, I am come down out of heaven? Jesus answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to Me, except the Father that sent Me draw him: and I will raise him up in the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall all be taught of God. Every one that hath heard from the Father, and hath learned, cometh unto Me. Not that any man hath seen the Father, save He that is from God, He hath seen the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth hath eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which cometh down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: yea and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove one with another, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have not life in yourselves. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eateth Me, he also shall live because of Me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven: not as the fathers ate, and died; he that eateth this bread shall live for ever. These things said He in the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum."
All that the Lord Jesus ever spoke was truth, undiluted, unmixed, pure, unsullied truth. This had to be so because He Himself was conscious that He spoke only that which His Father gave Him to speak. He asserts this many times, particularly in the Gospel of John. And one of the clearest statements of this is found in chapter 12, verses 49 and 50: "For I spake not from Myself; but the Father that sent Me, He hath given Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life eternal; the things therefore which I speak, even as the Father hath said unto Me, so I speak."
There is a negative word; there is a positive word, and then an explanative word. What is the negative? Jesus said "except you eat", and the form of the verb points to a once for all eating. "Except you once for all eat of My flesh, and except you once for all drink of the blood of the Son of man, you have no life in yourselves." Now imagine how this staggering statement must have fallen upon their ears. They are very much alive. They have crossed over one part of the lake to another in order to be where Jesus is. Their physical life had been sustained by His miracle the day before. He said, "You ate of the loaves and you've come again because you want your bellies filled. You haven't seen the significance of what happened." They were very much alive--eating, breathing, looking, talking. But Jesus says, "Except you eat once for all the flesh of the Son of man and drink once for all of His blood, you are utterly devoid of life." That's what the text says. That's the essential substance of the first part of this word to those to whom He spoke.
But then there is the positive. Look at verse 54. Jesus goes on then to say, "He that eats [present tense]", and He uses a different word. There is a standard word for "eat" in the New Testament. It's used literally dozens and dozens of times. But here our Lord uses a word that is found four times in this context here in John chapter 6. It's found in verse 56, 57, and 58. So with its presence here in 54 (four uses), the only other uses in the New Testament are Matthew 24 and again in John 13. And it's a word that means literally to munch. It means to nibble. It means to crunch. It is a word you would use to describe ravenous animals who continually tear and tear and tear and consume the flesh off the animal which the predatory animals have downed and killed. And Jesus here is saying, "He who is continually feeding upon My flesh [and again, a present tense]; he who is continually drinking My blood has eternal life. Those who continually crunch and munch and nibble and feed upon My flesh and continually drink My blood, two things are true of them. They have right now eternal life." Eternal life is their present possession, their inviolable possession. They now possess and will continually possess into the endless ions of eternity that quality of life that is called in Scripture eternal life. And secondly, Jesus says, "All who continually feed upon My flesh, continually drink My blood, I will raise him up at the last day."
Then He gives an explanative word in verse 55: "For [with that little particle of logical connection, why is all this true?] My flesh is [real food], and My blood is [real drink]." He is saying, "Whatever you may have known of any kind of food that has satisfied your physical hunger, whatever your fathers may have known of that supernatural food sent down from heaven in the wilderness called manna, whatever you may have experienced of the food that came from my hands yesterday (the multiplying of the loaves and fishes), all of that food in terms of the issues that really counts is non-substantial. At best it meets an immediate need and points to greater needs and to greater fulfillment of need. "But all that I've said to You", Jesus said, "is true, for My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink." Now that's the substance of what Jesus said.
But you say, "But Pastor Martin, you haven't explained it." No, I haven't explained it, but I've tried to just open up briefly what those words would have conveyed if you were sitting there when Jesus spoke them. Now before we move on in the third place to consider the basic meaning of these words, I trust something has happened in your own mind or heart. If it hasn't, either I failed to open up the seriousness of the issue, or you failed to receive the right impression of the issue. If Jesus is truth incarnate, speaks only the words of His Father, speaks only truth, do you see the implication for you sitting here today? If you do not eat His flesh and drink His blood, you have no life according to Jesus. "Yes, but...." No, no, stop, back off. It's not a matter of what it means. Do you feel the weight of His words? You are spiritually dead, and you will remain dead through life and in death and know the pangs of the second death. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of God and drink His blood, you have no life in you.
What is the heart, what is the very soul, what are the central issues to a right understanding of these words? "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have not life in yourselves." Don't you want to understand what those words mean? I'm looking out on some people who are dead, utterly dead. You have no life in you. Why? Because you've never once for all eaten of His flesh nor drunk of His blood. And there are others who profess that once for all you've eaten of His flesh and drunk of His blood, but you're not continually masticating His flesh. You do not feed upon His flesh. In the ongoing, living dynamics of persevering faith, you are not drinking of His blood. And according to Jesus, any hope you have of everlasting life and a blessed resurrection is ill-founded. Dear people, may God help us to come with a heart that says, "O God, teach me what those vital words mean. It is a matter of life and death to my soul." My friend, you have no life unless you eat of His flesh and drink of His blood. And that means you come to embrace from the heart it is Christ crucified who is the life and the nourishment of the soul, not Christ merely sent down out of heaven, Christ as sealed by the father (verse 27), Christ as manifesting grace and power in the feeding of the multitudes, but Christ in His flesh given for the life of the world.
Do you see now why He says, "Unless you have eaten once for all My flesh and drunk My blood, you have no life in you"? For all life is in a crucified Savior. Outside of Him, there is nothing but death, present death, continued death, and the horrible specter of eternal death in the lake of fire. You want to put forth endeavor to do what God requires of you and that which will please Him? Believe on the One He sent. You don't need to know a word of Greek; you hardly need to know much of the English language. Believe on Him whom He has sent. That's what God requires of you.
The Lord doesn't stop there. Verse 35: "Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst." How is soul hunger and soul thirst met? By believing upon this One who stands before them. Verse 40: "For this is the will of My Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on Him, [now note carefully] should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day." What is promised to all who believe on Him? Two things: they possess eternal life and they will be raised at the last day.
Now turn over to verse 53, and I think the picture will begin to come into sharp focus. "Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves." He that is continually munching, feeding upon Jesus' flesh and continually drinking His blood, what two things are to be true of him? He has eternal life and Jesus will raise him up at the last day.
You see the strict parallel between verse 54 and verse 40. Who has eternal life according to verse 40? The one who believes on Him. Who will be raised up at the last day? The one who believes on Him. What is it to believe on Him? Unless you come up with Jesus teaching two ways of salvation--some people get saved by eating Jesus' flesh and drinking His blood, whatever it means, and other people just get saved by trusting in Him. Take your pick. If you want to plunge into some mystical heights and depths and get involved in great convoluted mysteries, you go the former way. No, Jesus is not teaching two ways of salvation, only one. And when He promises precisely the same two things to two different activities, obviously the activities are one.
What is it to eat His flesh? What is it to drink His blood? It is simply to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to do what the ancient Israelites did with the manna. There they were in their destitute state with no means to set up an agricultural economy as wanderers in a wilderness. And in their unbelief, they want to go back to Egypt, kill Moses, and change the thing, but God mercifully provides manna. They are destitute; they are unable to meet their own need. What did God do? In His love and pity, He sends bread out of heaven. Now what did they have to do? Did God say, "You've got to go out every morning, and you've got to go through fifty different mantras. Then I'll send down a little bit of manna. Do thirty more and I'll send down a second piece of manna. Do fifty hail Marys and seventy-five our fathers, and I'll give you a dozen manna"? What did they have to do to get the manna? Nothing. God sent the bread out of heaven. You remember how many times it's emphasized in the passage this is the bread. Yes, it came out of heaven, but it's pointing to a greater reality. What did they have to do? Just go out and gather it. They couldn't stand around in circles and jump for joy and say, "O boy, manna this morning. Doesn't it make your mouth water? Doesn't it look good?" They'd starve and perish. They had to reach out the hand, take it, put it into the mouth, chew it, let the saliva mix with it, swallow it, let the gastric juices work upon it. And what did it do? It sustained life through the wilderness.
Now Jesus said, "If you want to know what it is to believe on Me, you do with Me, My person as the God-man crucified for sinners, what they did with the manna. Behold Me as God's gift out of heaven to destitute humanity." Jesus said, "Eat this bread and you'll live forever. Eat of Me; you'll live now and you'll never cease to live. And I will raise you at the last day." Again, verse 47: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth hath eternal life." Dear people, can God make it any simpler or plainer? It is Christ received--and listen carefully--and fed upon by faith who is the life and nourishment of the soul. "Unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood, you have no life in yourself."
I trust God has helped some perhaps for the first time to see how simple the Gospel is. Do you see? It is Christ Himself who is food and nourishment. Four times: "I am the bread, I am the bread, I am the bread, I am the bread sent down from heaven." It is Christ in the uniqueness of His person: "I am come out of heaven, out of heaven, out of heaven." Don't think of Him just as another mortal. Yes, He is one of us in the reality of incarnation, but He was wholly other than us from eternity, the eternal Word made flesh. And do you see that it is Christ crucified who is the true food and nourishment of the soul? And are you one who having eaten and drunk is yet eating and drinking of Christ?
If you have never known what it is eat and drink of Him, He stands before you this morning. And the only way He will stand before you until the second coming, He stands before you in the Word and by the Spirit and offers Himself to you as the bread of life. Do you feel the solemnity of that? I do as I preach. I will not see Christ in any other way until the second coming other than the way I see Him in the Word by the Spirit. You will never know Christ in the graciousness of His invitation of life in any other way than you know Him this morning. Don't wait for some overwhelming feeling and goose bumps up and down your spine or anything else.
Christ says, "I am the bread of life. He that comes to Me and eats of Me shall have life. Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life." Will you go on trying to find life in the junk food of this world? Will you go on trying to find life in the sand and marbles and gravel of the lust of the flesh, in the pursuits of that which dishonors God when the One who came out from God stands before you and says, "I am the bread of life, and I am bread to be eaten. And My blood is that drink which gives nourishment to the soul"? May God grant that these precious words of the Lord Jesus will not cause us to murmur nor cause us to stumble, let alone never cause us to turn back. But may we say Lord Jesus, "I do eat of Your flesh; I do drink of Your blood."
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 8:56:46 GMT -5
The Most Terrible Words
by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached January 1, 1960
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I want to speak to you on what I am entitling "The Most Terrible Words That Human Ears Can Ever Hear". What do you think they might be? For you husbands and fathers, it would be a terrible thing to be called away from the bench, the place of employment tomorrow, and to hear someone with a very faltering, trembling, hesitant voice on the other end of the line, break the news that by some unusual calamity your wife and children had been snatched away in a moment of time. If your ears had to receive those words, they would be terrible words. Conversely, if some of you wives heard a trembling, hesitant voice from the place of your husband's employment announcing some terrible tragedy--terrible words. Some of you fellows and girls (and I want you to know you're very much on my heart this morning, and I might say, in a real sense, three quarters of my burden is for you children, young people, teenagers) what do you think are the most terrible words your ears could hear? Wouldn't it be terrible to hear that Mom and Dad had been taken away in a moment of time, perhaps that your house had been burned down. Those would be terrible words, wouldn't they?
Job experienced something like that all in the matter of a few hours. His ears heard the acrid announcement that all of his possessions had been swept away, all of his family had been swept away. And yet I suggest that the words we're going to look at make even the words that Job heard look like kid's stuff. In fact, the words that Job heard would be good news compared to these terrible words we're going to consider this morning. And those words are found recorded in the 25th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. And I want us to look at them this morning, trusting that as we look at them as recorded in Scripture and take the warning from them, that none of us present will never hear them pronounced to us by the Lord of glory in that awful day. In other words, we're considering the fact of these most terrible words now that we might not hear them then.
Matthew 25:41: "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels." I'm convinced that these are the most terrible words that your ears could ever hear. These words are terrible first of all because of the One who speaks them. These are not the words of the devil or the antichrist or some demented fiend. But these are the very words of the very One of whom it is said, "They wondered at the words of grace that proceeded out of His mouth." The One who speaks these words is the One of whom it is said, "The common people heard Him gladly." It's the One who said, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven", the One who said to a woman taken in the act of adultery, "Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more." Yet this same One whose lips spoke words of grace to the amazement of the hearers, who spoke these tender words of forgiveness to a woman taken in the act of adultery, is the very One who will utter the words, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels." And I submit that these words are terrible because of the One who speaks them. For He will speak them as the exalted Lord of glory with the right to speak them and as the appointed Judge of the world with the power to carry out His sentence.
To effectively judge anyone, there must be both the right to judgment and the power to execute judgment. I've had people tell me to go to hell, and maybe you have. But it doesn't trouble me for two reason: they have no right to make that pronouncement, and they have no power to carry it out. So sticks and stones may break my bones, but those kind of words will never hurt me. So let the whole world rise up and say in chorus, "Go to the pit." It doesn't trouble me, for they have no right to make that pronouncement, and they have no power to carry it out. But what makes these words terrible and makes me tremble inwardly to even consider them with you this morning is that the One who speaks them has the right to speak them and has the power to execute them. For He speaks them first of all as the exalted Lord of glory. Notice verse 31 of the chapter: "But when the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then shall He sit on the throne of His glory." He shall come in His glory seated upon a throne of His glory. And what is glory? It is the outshining of the perfections of God. When we speak of the glory of God, we're speaking of the outshining, the manifestation of the perfection of His being. And the One who speaks these will speak them as the exalted Lord of glory in the full exercise of that glory of His own Lordship and sovereignty.
Philippians chapter 2 makes clear that as the reward of His suffering and death, the Father has exalted Him with His right hand and given Him a name above every name. Ephesians 1 says He's been exalted above all principalities and power and might and dominion and every name that is named. And all authority (right to do) in heaven and in earth has been committed unto Him. So when He says, "Depart from Me", He's got the right to say it, and not only the right but the power to carry out the sentence, for He speaks as the exalted Lord of glory, the One in whom all authority and all power resides. And He speaks as the appointed Judge of the world. In John 5:22, we read: "For neither doth the Father judge any man, but He hath given all judgment unto the Son." Verses 28-29: "Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment."
Can you imagine what must have gone through the minds of some people when He was on the cross, people who remembered Him say in their hearing, "The hour is coming when all that are in the graves shall hear My voice. The Father has given all judgment to Me." And there He is upon a cross, bowing His head in weakness, His form bruised and battered, the heavens shrouded in blackness, the disciples gone, the spittle of the angry mob dripping from His face as it mingles with His clotted blood. And they say, "Judge of the world? Look at Him. We got a little puppet court together, and by instigating the mob to cry, 'Crucify, crucify', we judged Him. And He says He's going to judge us. He doesn't even have enough power to deliver Himself from our hands, and He says He's going to deliver us from the clutches of death and the grave. Impossible!"
Paul tells us in Acts 7:31, "[God] hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He hath ordained [or appointed]; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead." And when the Father raised up His Son from the dead, He was saying to the world, "I have the last word now." And that open tomb in Palestine, wherever it is, is God's pledge that His Son is indeed the appointed Judge of the world. And the fact that Christ is the appointed Judge of the world is a very vital part of the apostolic Gospel, for Peter preaching to the household of Cornelius said in Acts 10:42, "And He charged us to preach unto the people, and to testify that this is He [the Lord Jesus] who is ordained of God to be the Judge of the living and the dead. [He commanded us to preach this facet of Christ's office and ministry. He is the appointed Judge of the world.]" Now when you join all right and power in one person, and that person says, "Depart from Me, ye cursed", those are the most terrible words that human ears can hear.
And then I submit in the second place that they are terrible, not only because of the One who speaks them, but they are terrible because of the number who shall hear them. If only one Hitler and one Mussolini and one Stalin were to hear those words, that would be frightful enough. For any one person to hear those words "Depart from Me, ye cursed", that would be terrible enough. But the thing that makes these words terrible and causes every sober listener and reader of them to take note is that great multitudes shall hear them. Who will hear these words when the nations are gathered for judgment before the appointed Judge of the world, the exalted Lord of glory who will come in His glory? I would suggest that all who will hear them can come under three broad categories. And I trust you will study and listen intently to see if you fit these categories, that seeing it now, you might repent and flee the wrath to come.
First of all, all impenitent violators of the law of God. Who will hear these words "Depart from Me, ye cursed"? All who openly and impenitently violate the holy law of God. For the God who made us has subjected us to His law. And that law is either found written in its remains upon the heart and conscience (Romans 2:14-15), or that law has come to us in the additional form of the written Word of God. And God didn't ask us to take a vote if we would like to be subject to His law any more than you vote about being subject to the law of this land if you're born here. If you're born here, by the very nature of your birth in this land, you're subject to its laws. And the fact that you've been born on God's earth in His moral universe subjects you to His holy law. And by nature, we are rebels against that law. Romans 8:7: "Because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be." And every breech of His law we commit in the working out of this disposition of enmity, God records it in thought and word and deed. And there in the court of heaven stands against all impenitent sinners the accusations of God against them, for they are breeches of His law.
And then there is that terrible disposition that produced them: this carnal mind. And all who go to that awful day with that disposition not transformed by the Spirit and that record not cleansed by the blood of His Son, all impenitent violators of the law of God will hear those terrible words "Depart from Me ye cursed." There are an abundance of passages that make this clear. I will only be selective and read several. 1 Corinthians chapter 6. The Apostle Paul is dealing with some of the problems of that church, and one of the them was immorality, impurity. And he is exhorting these professed believers to deal with those sins. And it's as though someone says, "Yeah, Paul, but suppose I don't." Well, he tells them in verses 9-10:
"Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? [If you disregard My exhortations to holiness and purity, you can mark it down as an absolute maxim, you'll not inherit the kingdom of God. Holiness is not optional but essential.] Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."
What is that class of people? Open, impenitent violators of the holy law of God. God's law says, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." They say, "We shall." God's law says, "Thou shalt not steal." They say, "We shall." God's law says, "Thou shalt worship Me and Me alone." They say, "We will not." And God says in this text of Scripture that all impenitent violators of His holy law shall hear those words "Depart from Me, ye cursed."
I ask you this morning, what is your attitude with regard to His holy law? Is it one of open impenitence and indifference to the claims of your Sovereign? When He says, "Love me with the whole heart", you say, "I don't care to." When He says, "Honor My name", you say, "I don't care to." Listen, there will be people who hear these words as much for willful breech of the fourth commandment as those who will hear them for the seventh. Those who say, "Yes, God demands one day in seven to be different, but it's not convenient for me", they will perish just as surely as those who say, "Yes, God commands 'Thou shalt not commit adulterer', but it's not convenient for me." All impenitent violators of the holy law of God at any point, the Scripture tells us in the book of James, "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all", for that law is a unit of expressing the mind and the will of God, not only to all those who indulge the gross sins mentioned here, but all those who indulge the refined sins (covetousness, bearing false witness, Sabbath breaking, failure to love His people).
If there are any here this morning who cannot say from the heart, "O how love I Thy law. O that my ways were directed to keep Thy statues." If your heart is not bent in the direction of a serious, careful regard of the holy law of God, not to keep it in order to attain salvation--no, no, for having discovered the spiritual demands of the law, having discovered the extent of its demands, you know that that law could never save you. It's been the instrument to show you your sin, to show you your need of Christ, to make you appreciate the cross that He bore, the curse of God against a broken law. And having received full and free forgiveness, you accept that law from the hand of your Savior as a guide for your conduct in order to live to His praise. And I say to every child, every adult, every fellow, every girl, if your disposition is not that of the psalmist ("O how love I Thy law. O that my ways were directed to keep Thy statues"), you're an impenitent violator of the Word of God, and you will hear these words.
Because Jesus Christ as Messiah, according to the book of Isaiah, has come, and one of His offices as Messiah is to magnify the law and make it honorable. He did it in His life. He walked in the light of the strict law of God, and He kept that law at every point. He magnified it in His own holy life. He magnified it in His death when there upon the cross, He said in essence, "Father, Thy law is so holy that when you say, 'This do and thou shalt live; this fail to do and thou shalt die', we cannot relax those demands. Father I'm willing that I shall bear the brunt of Your wrath against a broken law on behalf of those for whom I die." And the Son of God bared His breast to the Father's wrath. For what purpose? "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." He magnified the law in His life; He magnified the law in His death. And listen, He'll magnify the law in His judgment. He will say to sinners, "Young man, young woman, did you know that My law said, 'Thou shalt not; thou shalt'?" "Yes." "Why did you not regard it seriously?" "It wasn't convenient. I didn't want to. I didn't like to." He's going to say, "My Father's law says, 'The wages of sin is death.' Depart from Me, ye cursed." And as sinners sink into the pit of eternal burnings, the law of God will be magnified in its purity. The Son of God is committed to magnify the law in His life, in His death, in His judgment. And if you will not be brought by the Spirit; if you're determined to go on with the bit in your teeth saying, "I will not be subject to God and His law", then you must hear those words "Depart from Me, ye cursed."
Young people, when the temptation of your flesh begins to rage like a fire within your breast, remember, this is the issue: to make a playground out of your body now is to make a faggot of your body in the pit of eternal burning then. Never forget it. To disregard the law now is to have that law magnified in your damnation in the world to come. Terrible words because they will be spoken to all impenitent violators of the law of God.
The second segment of humanity who will hear those words are what I am calling all self-righteous moralists, those whose training and temperament and disposition and circumstances are such that they could never openly and obviously be violating the law of God. They are very moral and upright. Christ said about a people who are the epitome of self-righteous moralism, "Your lives appear beautiful unto men." Listen to what He said in Matthew 5:20: "For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." You and I can't appreciate the shock this must have brought to His hearers. Here they are sitting there beneath our Lord as He preaches what is commonly called the Sermon on the Mount. He went up into a mountain and the multitudes gathered, and there in that crowd were, no doubt, some of these Scribes and Pharisees, the separated ones, the holy ones, the fundamentalists of their day. (Not the Sadducees. He doesn't mention them. They were the liberals.) Here was the strict sect of the Pharisees. And I wonder if the Lord Jesus even pointed to them and said to that great crowd, "Except your righteousness shall exceed theirs, you'll never enter." I can just hear the gasps: "More righteous than they? They are the separated ones. They will not defile themselves by contact with anything unclean. Just to go out to the market place and buy a loaf of bread, they wash themselves before they come back and eat. They are the separated ones, the holy ones."
What was wrong with their righteousness that Jesus said, "Except your righteousness goes beyond it, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven"? I suggest that two things were wrong with their righteousness: it rested on a wrong foundation, and it was constructed by wrong principles. What was the foundation of the Scribes and the Pharisees? Upon what foundation or basis did they seek acceptance with God? Luke 18 gives us the answer, beginning with verse 10: "Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican." Now listen to the words of the Pharisee: "The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get." Here's the key: "I thank Thee, that I am" and "I fast...I give." What was the foundation of the Pharisee's acceptance with God? He felt that what he was and what he had done would commend him to be accepted by God. He wasn't corrupt as others, and he did things that would be pleasing unto God.
And anyone in this place this morning who is building a hope for acceptance on what you are and what you've done, unless you repent and find another ground of hoping to be accepted, you're going to hear those terrible words, "Depart from Me." For all that you are the Scripture says, "In your flesh dwelleth no good thing", and "They that are in the flesh [though it be moral, religious, cultured flesh] cannot please God" (Romans 8:8). They rested on a wrong foundation: what they were and what they did. And then they constructed their practical righteousness on wrong principles. And the 23rd chapter of Matthew is a commentary of this. They were more concerned with the external than the internal. Jesus said, "You scour the outside of the platter, but inside you are full of uncleanness."
How would you feel if I invited you to our home for dinner, and you came and sat in the living room. And looking into the dining room, you saw all of the porcelain there, all of the china sparkling, looking so nice. And then the food was put on the table and you began to smell the meat and the rest. Then you were seated at the table and the blessing was asked. And then as you lifted up your head and Mrs. Martin said, "Now what would you like to drink?" And you said, "I would like coffee with my meal." And as she comes to pour the coffee in your cup, for the first time you look in and there you see dried up coffee grounds. And you see what looks to be like some food that may have been stored in the refrigerator for three weeks. And then it was just poured out just full of dead, decaying, smelly, rotten remains of past meals. What would happen to your stomach? Well, if you've got one, I think I know. That's exactly the picture Jesus gave of the Pharisees. "Looking at the outside," He said, "beautiful, but within, full of uncleanness." They were concerned about righteousness, but only externally, not internally.
In the second place, they were more concerned about details than principles. O, a Pharisee would tithe mint and anise and cumin (his spices). Jesus said he would strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. When they had wine in those days, the grapes would be thrown in an open vat, which would be a hollow stone about 4' x 6', and the men or women would tromp up and down with their feet. And the wine would be made and put into wineskins or goatskins. And then when it was to be poured out and going to be put into your glass or cup, you'd put a piece of muslin over it and pour it through the muslin so that any flies or fleas that had been picked up in the process of the open crushing might be strained out. Now Jesus said, "Here's what you people do. You strain out little gnats. And when you've got all of your gnats strained out, you turn your head to say hello to your neighbor, and a camel gets in your cup, and you drink the camel down with one big gulp." You see, He's using a grotesque figure of speech. "You strain out gnats but swallow camels." What's He saying? "You're concerned with little nitpicking details, but the great principles, you pass them over. You don't confront them; you don't walk in the light of them."
If your idea of the Christian life is, "I don't do this; I don't do that. I don't go here", and you're a stranger to the great issues of love to God, of mercy, of justice, of hunger for Him and His truth, beware, it could well be that you're a self-righteous moralist. And I'm convinced our evangelical churches are full of such people. They wouldn't be caught dead with a cigarette between their fingers or their mouth (and anyone who values his life ought not to have one there). They wouldn't be caught dead going to the theater down on Bloomfield Avenue, but, O, the inconsistency. They'll be found with a flood of stuff far worse than what might be seen in a well-selected movie pouring through their television day in and day out, defiling their own minds and the minds of their children. And they never seem to ask the question, "Is this acceptable unto God?" "Well, it's not on the list." And their kids sniff out the phoniness, and they want nothing to do with it. Sure Mom and Dad would never defile their mouth or their lungs with a cigarette, but they will defile people's ears with gossip and unkindness. This was the problem with the Pharisees. Thankful they weren't dirty on the outside, but dirty on the inside--concerned with the little nitpicking details of religion, but missing the principles.
In the third place, they were more concerned with the eye of man than the eye of God. In Matthew 6, three times Jesus said when the Pharisees fast, when they give, when they pray, what are they concerned about? That they may be seen of men. But Jesus said, "When ye fast, when ye pray, when ye give, have one concern: the eye of your Father who sees in secret." Wherever the seeds of true holiness have been implanted in the breast of a child of God, one of the primary marks is this: there is a consuming passion to be well-pleasing unto God. And if I've got to run counter to what pleases men, so be it. I must please my God at any cost.
I wonder, as you listen this morning, does this fit the category of some of you? Self-righteous moralists, resting on a wrong foundation. You've done something. You are something. I submit to you that until you've been beat off from every foundation but Christ crucified, until you've been driven from the place of hoping anything in you will ever be the ground of acceptance to where you can say from the heart,
Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness,
My beauty are my glorious dress
Midst flaming worlds with these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head;
Bold shall I stand in that great day,
For whom ought to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved from these I am,
From sin and fear and death and shame.
These are terrible words because of all of the great number that shall hear them--all impenitent violators of the law of God, all self-righteous moralists.
Now listen to the third great segment: all deceived religionists. The Word of God speaks of people in Titus 1:16 who profess to know God, but in works deny Him. 2 Timothy 3:5 says, "holding a form of godliness...." They have all the structure of true godliness, worship, doctrine, and service but deny in experience the power. They have the form but not the power. They have the carcass but no life. They the have the shell but no kernel. And they hold to the shell of true religion. Matthew 7:21-23 is a description of many of them:
"Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by Thy name, and by Thy name cast out demons, and by Thy name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity."
They're going to hear those words. All who were deceived, so convinced that all was well, that not until the day of judgment do they wake up and hear those awful words "Depart from Me."
What makes a man a deceived religionist, that he can hold to the form of orthodox Christianity and still hear these words "Depart from Me"? I would suggest that it's because, in the first place, many seek the benefits of the cross without submitting to the demands of the crown of Christ. Many seek to have the blessings of Christ as Savior who want nothing to do with the demands of Christ as a Sovereign and a Lord. And because they heard that Jesus died for sinners and all who trust in Christ crucified are saved, they have snatched, as it were, at the promises of blessing from His cross, but they have willfully turned their heads away from such words as these: "He that forsaketh not all that he hath cannot be My disciple." They deliberately turn their heads away from the demands of His crown: "He that loveth father more than Me, son or daughter more than Me, his own life more than Me is not worthy of Me." This is the Word of Christ. And in that terrible day, every person who comes as a religionist trying to suck sweetness from the promises of mercy flowing down from the cross but who will not bow to the implications of His crown will be found to hear those frightening words.
Salvation is in a person, and that person is the Lord Jesus Christ. And He's not received in installments. "As many as received Him [all of Him], to them gave He power to become the sons of God." Hebrews 5:9 says, "He became unto all them that obey him the author of eternal salvation." 1 John 2:3-4: "And hereby we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He that saith, I know Him [trusting in His blood, resting in His finished work], and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in Him" All those who seek the benefits of the cross without bowing to the demands of His crown will hear those words, all those who claim to believe without repenting, all those who say, "I trust" but haven't turned, for faith and repentance are inseparately joined in Scripture. Paul said He testified to Jews and Greeks "repentance toward God, and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21). In Mark 1:15, Jesus says, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the gospel."
Do you claim to believe in the Lord Jesus? Do you claim to trust in Him who died and rose that sinners might be forgiven? What do you know of repentance? That repentance so beautifully described in the shorter catechism: "Repentance unto life, that saving grace whereby a sinner out of a due sense of his sin and an apprehension, a laying hold of the mercy of God in Christ, does with grief and hatred of his sin turn from it unto God with full purpose of and endeavor after a new obedience." True repentance is always a universal thing. It respects every area of sin.
The Bible does not teach that every area of sin is immediately conquered. But it does teach that when the heart is touched with the grace of repentance, there is a disposition of hatred to all sin--Jesus said the sin that is dearer than the right hand and the right eye. For what did our Lord say? Five times it's recorded in the Gospels, "If thy eye offend thee, pluck it out." Or He says, "If you don't, you'll enter into hell." "If thy hand offend thee, cut it off. It is better to enter into life maimed that having two hands to go into hell." What's He saying? The sin as dear as right hand and right eye must be dealt with. Why? For true repentance is universal. It respects all sin. For the truly repentant man or woman, fellow or girl, recognizes all sin opened up the wounds of my Savior. All sin is destructive. All sin is dishonoring to him. And he never takes the pen from his pocket and sneaks in a corner and signs a peace treaty with any of it. He may not know the victory that he longs for. He may at times be miserably and powerfully overcome. But even at his point of deepest defeat, he's whispering if not shouting, "No, no, I will not sign a treaty. I will not sign a treaty." Have you signed any treaties? How about you fellows and girls? Any treaties with lies, uncleanness, pride, stubbornness, deceitfulness? How about you adults? Any treaties with temper, anger, lust, passion, envy, covetousness, gossip?
The mark of true repentance: it's universal. Secondly it's always internal. It respects the disposition of the heart and then moves out into the light. Jesus said, "Make clean first the inside of the cup." He said, "Make the tree good first and then the fruit will be good." One of the most damning, delusive practices that's gone on for years is the idea that we tell a person, "Now you admit you're a sinner. Now pray the publican's prayer after me: 'O God, be merciful to me.'" Listen, the publican wasn't giving us a point to put in a personal work book. He didn't know anybody was looking or recording his words. He came up to the temple, and as he thought of his own sin, he didn't even press to the inner court but stood afar off. And the inward pain was so great the only way that he could express it was to beat upon his breast. This was not for stage effects. He was conscious of one thing, his God. And as he thought of his God and thought of his own sin, it pained him. His repentance was internal, and the internal pressure produced the beating upon his breast. "God, be merciful unto me, a sinner."
Have you known any inward pain? True repentance involves that breaking up of the heart. That's why David said, "The Lord saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." And that's the only one He saves. And all who come to that awful day claiming to believe but are strangers to that repentance that is universal, internal, and perpetual. 2 Timothy 2:19: "Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord [contually] depart from unrighteousness." Repentance is not the act of a moment, but the acquisition of an attitude. It's not the fit and start of a day, but it's a pattern of life until there's no more sin. As long as sin is around, there needs to be repentance. And if I read my Bible right, the problem of sin will be with us until that day when we look upon His face, and seeing Him as He is, we shall be like Him. So the child of God is continually marked by repentance. His repentance is not something in the memory of the past, but it's a present experience. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are they that mourn [present tense], for they shall be comforted."
Beloved, I'm dead in earnest when I ask you this morning, "Are you claiming to believe without the clear, Biblical evidences of repentance?" Then unless that decision is rectified by true repentance and faith and casting yourself upon the mercy of God in Christ, you'll hear those words, "Depart from Me." For not only will all open violators of the law of God hear it, all self-righteous moralists, but all who claim to have the benefits of the cross without the demands of the crown, all who claim to believe without repenting, and in the third place, all who profess salvation by the blood but who were not sanctified by the Spirit. For in the work of God's grace, according to Hebrews 10:15 and following and other passages, whenever the blood of Christ cleanses a man, the Spirit of Christ renews him. And the blood and the Spirit are inseparately joined in God's salvation. And in that day there were people who think they were cleansed by the blood, but what did Christ say to them?
"Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity. [You had gifts, and you preached in My name. I don't contest that. You made a credible profession; that's how you came into the pale of the professing church and rose to the ranks to the place where you spoke in My name, you cast out demons in My name, you labored in My name. But though you had ministerial gifts and success, you lacked sanctifying grace. You were still workers of iniquity.]"
I plead with you this morning to ask the question, "Has the Spirit begun His work of sanctification?" For whenever the blood cleanses, the Spirit sanctifies. Who will hear those words? There terrible because those three great segments of humanity shall hear them: impenitent violators of the law, self-righteous moralists, and deceived religionists. In short, all those who fail of true, Biblical salvation will hear those words, that salvation so beautifully described in 2 Corinthians 5:17: "Wherefore if any man is in Christ...." What's the essence of true, Biblical salvation? Union with Christ. What's the effect of it? "He is a new [creation]." And what will be the fruit of it? "The old things are passed away; behold, they are become new."
Having considered that these words are terrible because of the One who speaks them, secondly, terrible because of the number to whom they are spoken, they are terrible in the third place because of what will follow the utterance of these words. Will you look back at the text. What will happen after the Lord of glory seated upon a throne of glory says, "Depart from Me, ye cursed"? Verse 46 tells us: "And these shall go away into eternal punishment." Terrible because of what will follow their utterance.
Notice in the first place the certainty of the judgment to follow: "These shall go away." In time, when the Lord Jesus beckoned them through the Word and the Gospel, "Come unto Me all ye that labor", they said, "We will not come." When preachers like this one stood before them and said, "Don't be deceived. Don't trifle with your soul. Make you calling and election sure. Search your heart", they said, "We will not." And when conscience probed them and the Word pricked them and said, "Repent! Flee to Christ", they said, "We will not." And my friend, when the Lord Jesus says as the Judge, "Depart", it says they shall go. Though when He said "Come", they would not come, when He says, "Go", they shall go. The certainty of the judgment to follow: "These shall go away."
And they are terrible because of the nature of that suffering that shall follow. "These shall go away into eternal punishment." Body and soul joined together to bear the brunt of the wrath of God forever. Matthew 10:28 says, "And be not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Some of the most frightful words are right here: "Depart from Me." That's hell enough. Christ, the source of all light, of all love, of all purity, He says, "Depart from Me."
Can you imagine what this world would be like if it were cast out away from the influence of the sun, the source of all our earthly light, warmth, life, and sustenance of the same? To depart from the Son is to depart from the source of all life and light. And Jesus says, "Depart from Me." That's hell enough, but that's not all. It's not only "Depart from Me", but He says "into". There is a negative and positive aspect of the law of God: cut off from all light and shut up to all darkness into everlasting punishment. Terrible because the judgment that follows is certain. It's a judgment that has as its very nature the shutting off from all light and the positive infliction of all darkness.
And then it's terrible because of the duration. Notice: "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." And the word "everlasting" and "eternal" are exactly the same in the original. The translators used a little different word so it would sound better to the ear, but it's the same word. How long will the glorified saints whose record in heaven has been changed by the blood, whose rebel hearts have been subdued by the Spirit, who in time embraced the Savior and a Sovereign, who believed and repented, who were cleansed and sanctified--how long will they be in His presence? The Scripture says forever and ever. The same word is used to describe how long those who openly violated His holy law and died in that state of impenitence, those who deceived themselves, those who built upon a wrong foundation. Fuse omnipotence to wrath and then focus the two upon the head of a sinner and extend it to eternity. I dare not spend too much time even thinking about it because I think it would drive me to a state of being demented. And so I just proclaim it to you without trying to go beyond the words of Scripture. "These shall go away into eternal punishment."
As I look out into the faces of people here and think that these terrible words could be fulfilled in some of you, some of you boys and girls, some of you young people. It's a terrible thing. It will knock the giddiness out of anybody when it is soberly faced--terrible words! The very ears that have heard the Gospel from my lips could hear these words.
Then I close with my fourth point this morning. These words are terrible because none of you here need hear them. This place is prepared for the devil and his angels, and enough have already been cast off in their sins to be an eternal monument of the judgment and justice of God. But God takes no delight in the death of the sinner. He says so in Ezekiel 18. God says He has no delight in the death of the sinner but that he turn and live. God has made an adequate provision in His dear Son, the Lord Jesus, who is an able Savior. He is able to save. He's a willing Savior who says "Come", and then promises to all who come: "I will receive." God takes no delight in your death in a state of impenitence or deception or empty moralism. God has made an adequate provision in His Son.
In the third place, God has sent His saving word to you. If you go out into eternity with a clinched fist to the law of God and die in a state of impenitence, who will you blame? Will you be able to say, "O God, I didn't hear any preaching that warned me"? Listen, there are people dropping into hell beneath the shadow of pulpits all over the world who have been fed the kind of business that God's too loving to judge. He doesn't have a law that's inflexible, and no morality and religionless Christianity and all of this business. Some are fed a diet of it week after week. But you, dear people, have sat beneath the sound of the Gospel of Christ announcing God's holy law and His righteous claims and the fact that we've broken it, and we need a Mediator. If you go out into eternity a self-righteous moralist thinking that what you are and what you've done will gain acceptance, what excuse will you have? And if you go out deceived thinking you can have a Savior without a Lord, thinking that you can have salvation from wrath without sanctification from pollution, thinking you can have faith without repentance, who will you blame?
These words are terrible because none of you here need hear them. And ofttimes I wonder, when that day comes and I stand before the Lord, and all to whom I've ever preached will stand, who will I see going away from the presence of Christ into everlasting fire? I can say with all my heart I don't want to see a one of you. And the thing for which I pray and plea and which is the life and meat and drink of my ministry is to see some of you waking up from wrath to flee, hidden in the Savior's side and by the Spirit sanctified. O, boys, girls, men, and women, I plead with you, don't rest until you know that you'll never hear those terrible words.
And if you've been able to sit here this morning and reflect and say, "Thank you, Lord. Though my repentance isn't as deep as it ought to be, I have signed no peace treaty. There is evidence of universal repentance: internal, perpetual. Thank you, Lord. I do know that You've not only blotted out the record, but You've begun something in my rebel heart", how your heart should be filled with hallelujahs that your ears will never hear those words. They could have; they ought to, but grace has intervened. A debtor to mercy alone, and may that sense of debtorhood bind our hearts to our lovely Savior and more deeply bring us beneath His gracious yoke that we may be instruments to rescue others as brands from the burnings.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 8:57:46 GMT -5
How Soul Thirst Is Satisfied
by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached January 1, 1963(?)
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John 4:4-26, 28-30:
"And He [speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ] must needs pass through Samaria. So He cometh to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph: and Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. For his disciples were gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman therefore saith unto Him, How is it that Thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, who am a Samaritan woman? (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto Him, Sir, Thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: whence then hast Thou that living water? Art Thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his sons, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life. The woman saith unto Him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come all the way hither to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said unto Him, I have no husband. Jesus saith unto her, Thou saidst well, I have no husband: for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: this hast thou said truly. The woman saith unto Him, Sir, I perceive that Thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and Ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father. Ye worship that which ye know not: we worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be His worshippers. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman saith unto Him, I know that Messiah cometh (He that is called Christ): when He is come, He will declare unto us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am He.... So the woman left her waterpot, and went away into the city, and saith to the people, Come, see a man, who told me all things that ever I did: can this be the Christ? They went out of the city, and were coming to Him."
From this story (which is one of the most familiar when anyone begins to get some acquaintance with the Gospel history, the record of the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus), I wish to speak to you tonight on this very basic subject, one that is very much apart of every one of us, namely, how soul thirst is satisfied. And the heart of our study will be the words of our Lord Jesus in verses 13 and 14: "Jesus answered and said unto her, Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life." Here in these words, our Lord gives one of the most sweeping, one of the most comprehensive statements concerning the great issue of how soul thirst is truly satisfied. And these words come to us in a setting in which our Lord has encountered a woman with great unmet soul thirst. This woman is not just alone. She is a picture of every man, every woman, every fellow, every girl who has not drunk of the water of life--thirsty; coming to a fountain that could never quench that thirst, but coming again and again. And in that situation, the Lord Jesus speaks and tells her how her deepest soul thirst can be fully and eternally met.
And the Scriptures make very clear that every single human being by nature is possessed of this unmet soul thirst. For we were made for the living God. We were made to know Him. We were made to have fellowship with Him. And though sin has, as it were, caused God to vacate His place of rightful dwelling, there is that sense of unfulfillment that gnaws like a terrible cancer at the hearts of men. Men do not by nature hunger after God. That concept is explicitly denied in Scripture. "There is none that seeketh after God." But they do hunger to have that emptiness filled. The problem is that they seek to fill it with everything but the only thing that can fill it. Hence the famous words of Saint Augustine: "Thou hast made us for Thyself. And our souls are restless till they rest in Thee." This why the prophet Isaiah said, "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." There can be no peace; there is that unmet soul thirst. And it will be unmet until that person comes in living contact with the only One who can impart living water. And so as we look at the passage, we are not interested only in discovering how the Lord Jesus meets the soul thirst of this woman, but we are seeking to discovering how He met her need in order that we may see the basic pattern by which He always meets the deepest soul thirst of all who come unto God by Him.
Now as we think our way through, particularly verses 13 and 14--and then we'll be ranging back and forward in the general context--consider in the first place our Lord's statement concerning the water which cannot satisfy. Verse 13: ""Jesus answered and said unto her, Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again." In that immediate context, He was pointing, of course, to Jacob's well. He was pointing to a literal supply of literal water, water that no doubt probably was a lot purer than this, but nonetheless, essentially H2O. And when He said, "Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again", He was referring, of course, to that particular well and the water it contained. But He was not in anyway limiting the meaning His words to that, for remember, He's dealing with water here in a double meaning continually. And He's speaking of water as the supply which meets the deepest thirst, not of the mouth and of the tongue, but the deepest thirst of the soul. And just as that literal well of Jacob had no ability to bring permanent satisfaction, but this woman had to come day by day to fill her water pots, so that wearying task of coming to a well to take water that could never fully satisfy is a very graphic picture of every single well at which men seek to satisfy the deepest thirst of the soul. And Jesus Christ this night stands by every single well at which you here tonight seek to satisfy soul thirst, and He says to you, "Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again." That's the sign that Jesus Christ has painted with His own hand and placed over every single well at which men seeks to gratify this sense of gnawing emptiness and thirst that has been left by a vacated God. For that's the root of man's restlessness; that's the root of man's unfulfillment. It's the gnawing ache of a vacated God. And Jesus says of everything to which men come, "Drink of this water and you will thirst again."
Now let us break that down in a few areas. What are some of the wells to which men and women come in our day, to which men and women came in this day, to which men and women will continue to come until Christ returns--that water which can never satisfy? Well, in the case of this woman, she was trying to satisfy soul thirst by coming to the well of immorality and sensual pleasure. Jesus said, "Thou saidst well, I have no husband: for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: this hast thou said truly." Here is a woman--and I say it, I trust with discretion--as it were, being driven from one marriage bed and one illicit relationship bed to another, thinking that somehow her soul thirst will be satisfied in some earthly, carnal, sensual relationship. But Jesus said to this woman, "Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again." She had been coming to that well of immorality and sensual pleasure for years only to have her soul thirst unmet.
What was true then is true in our own day. We have prophets who are telling us that the well of life is the well of titillation of your sensual appetites and pleasures. Come to this well and you'll never thirst again. Jesus Christ has beat them to that well. And He stands saying above their hollow voices, "Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again." And this woman was an eloquent testimony that sensual delights and pleasures can never satisfy deepest soul thirst. Sure there is pleasure in sin for a season. But she had to go back again and again trying various wells of sensual pleasure only to have her need unmet. And I say particularly to the young people amongst us tonight, hear the words of Christ. Hear them couched in the context of this woman. She tried that well and she found it left her thirsty. And some of you now with everything in you are longing to find that well. If only you could break off the traces of the restraints of Mom and Dad and society. And you have secret, scheming plans what you're going to do to drink deeply of the well of sensual pleasure. I'm talking to some of you young men and women who can't wait until you can abandon yourselves to the lust of the flesh. O, my dear young friend, listen to the words of Christ, "Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again."
In our own generation, some of us have lived to witness those who have made no apology that at this well they have, as it were, pitched their tent. And at this well they have drunk day and night only to end their lives in misery, as the sex symbol of the 50s, Marilyn Monroe, did. At age 36, taking that overdose of sleeping pills, saying what? "I drank of this well and it left me empty." And she ends it all. And some of you in the folly of your sins and the lies of the devil, who could never have one thousandth the measure a woman like that knew of drinking at that well, think that you'll be satisfied. "Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again."
Then in the second place, there is the well of what I'm calling diversion in aesthetic delights. People say soul thirst can be fulfilled if we can have all the recreation that we need, all or the involvement in sports and music and arts, the beautiful things. We have a mood in our own generation that says, "If only we can get back to the earth. If we can move out of the city and the smoke and the den of subways and buses and all of this mad craze of suburban life and inner city life and go back to the earth; get our fingers in the dirt and get the dirt under our fingernails." And so you have people moving out in communes to live off the earth--the simple life. Why? They say here's where soul thirst will be met. Others say soul thirst will be met by a retreat into the abiding things: music and the arts, the things that transcend each generation and abide. Soul thirst will be met here. But Jesus Christ stands by the well of diversion and aesthetic delights, innocent in themselves, and He says, "Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again."
And I may be speaking to some tonight, it's not your particular bent to move to the realm of sensual pleasure. You say, "No, fulfillment will come to me in these other areas, the things that are not evil in themselves." Maybe I'm speaking to some young people who feel, "If I could only make my mark in sports, I'll feel that sense of satisfaction." Listen, it's the emptiest, hallowest thing in all the world. You think, "Ah, if I could know something of a thousand or ten thousand or hundred thousand pairs of eyes were looking upon me performing and then looking upon me as someone who has attained, then there will be fulfillment." No, there isn't. Jesus Christ has written over that well "Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again."
Then there's the well of material possessions. The Scripture says God has given us all things to richly to enjoy. But those things were never given to meet soul thirst. What would you think if you were driving down the road one of these days and you passed a park where people play tennis (not prostituting the Lord's Day, but on another day when it's alright to play tennis), and you saw a man there with his lips parched, as you see mine are sometimes when I preach. And you see the man going around distracted saying, "I'm so thirsty! I'm so thirsty! I've got to satisfy my thirst." And he turns around and starts chewing on his tennis racket. You say, "Sir, what are you doing?" He says, "I'm going to quench my thirst." You say, "By doing what?" He says, "By chewing on my tennis racket." You'd say the man was either trying to be funny, or he had gotten so thirsty he had lost his head. You'd say, "That's ridiculous. Chewing on your tennis racket to quench your thirst? Impossible!" Ah, listen, it's just as impossible to fill the thirst of the soul with things as it is to quench physical thirst by chewing on a tennis racket. God never made us so that His gifts could fill the place reserved for Himself, the giver. God never made us so that soul thirst could be satisfied with things. Things were given to us, and in pursuit of the will of God, they were to be our servants as God had His rightful place in the heart and in the spirit. But God has been vacated, and there's the empty, gnawing realization of unmet soul thirst. And people try to fill it with things, but it simply cannot be done. And so there is the craze for things in our day. "If I can have this thing and that thing, then the restlessness will cease and the soul thirst will be satisfied. No, no, Jesus says, "Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again." Now, why let your life be wrecked and ruin simply to prove the truth of Christ's words when He's already said it? Why be a monument to this generation and to a seceding generation that soul thirst cannot be filled at that well?
Then there are others--perhaps the well to which they come is not the well of sensual pleasure, diversion, and aesthetic things. Perhaps it isn't the well of material possessions. But it's the well of intellectual attainment. They say the reason there's this sense of soul thirst is because we haven't exercised our minds. And if we can understand our world better and understand ourselves better, if we can penetrate within with psychology and examine and penetrate without with astronomy and nuclear physics and all the rest, and we can master our world and all the rest, then soul thirst will be met. No, no, whoever comes to the well of intellectual attainment shall thirst again. Listen to the statement of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:21: "For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe" The world by its wisdom knew not God. Again, the needs of the soul cannot be satisfied by cramming the head with knowledge anymore than stuffing a breadbox with rocks fills your stomach. Again, you'd say that would be stupid. If you see a man who's hungry and he's putting rocks in a breadbox, and you say, "What in the world are you doing?" He says, "I'm satisfying my hunger." You'd say, "That's not the way. You've got to put bread in your stomach, not rocks in a breadbox." O, we're so smart when it comes to filling our stomach's with bread, but such fools when it comes to filling our souls with the only thing that can fill them. Whoever drinks of this water of intellectual attainment shall thirst again. Here we are the so-called most educated generation we've ever known, and yet the most frustrated, confused, blind, staggering generation. Why? "Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again." Let our universities intensify their courses. Let them double their demands. Let them augment their programs and turn out PhDs like General Motors turns out Chevrolets. Jesus' words will stand: "Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again." Soul thirst cannot be met by intellectual attainent.
Ah, but someone goes a little bit higher and says, "Soul thirst has got to be met with religion. You've got to have religion." And so we have a great wave of religiosity. We've got the religion of drugs--and it's a religion. Fulfillment comes when you retreat from this world of sense by virtue of your great savior, LSD or some other form of drug. And it's a form of religion. You've got what I read in Sunday school this morning. You've got the importations of the religions of the East telling us to look within. There must be the meaning in the nonmaterial word. We find God within. In the mind, in the spirit, there must be this religious element. Ah, listen, "Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again." God never made religion to meet soul thirst. And no matter what the well is, Christ has written over it, "Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again."
So much, then, for that water which cannot satisfy. That's the negative, but now let's consider in verse 14, the water which fully satisfies. For Christ, beginning with the negative, then moving into the positive, having said, "Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but [here's the contrast] whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life." Here is the water which fully satisfies, the water that is guaranteed to have permanence--shall never thirst, never languish, never thirst for anything new. There will be thirst for more and more of the living God, but never thirsty in the sense that I've got to find a different well.
Look at the aspect of this water that satisfies. First of all, what is it's source? Where does this water come from? And Jesus is careful to direct us as He did this woman to Himself and Himself alone as the source. Look at His words: "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life." What is the source of the water that satisfies soul thirst? It is Jesus Christ Himself. Look back to verse 10: "Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water." O, how can words be more clear, and how can I state it more simply? Listen to me tonight. Children, young people, adults, visitors, friends, members of this assembly, the water that satisfies has as its exclusive source the person of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Anything that God gives of Himself in a way of satisfying soul thirst, He gives exclusively in and through Jesus Christ as revealed in the Scriptures. He doesn't give it through a ritual. He doesn't give it through a form. He doesn't give it through a church. He doesn't give it even through doctrine detached to Him. But He gives it to us in a living, glorified, omnipotent, gracious Christ. And the Scripture says in Ephesians 1:3: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." We read in 1 Corinthians 1:30: "But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption." Jesus Himself was conscious of this, for He said in this very same Gospel record, chapter 14 and verse 6, "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me."
But it's not the Christ that men think Him to be. It's the Christ that He is, the Christ described in the first chapter of this very Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him; and without Him was not anything made that hath been made." Verse 14: "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us." Who is this source of living water? Is He just a nice exalted, augmented, elevated religious figure? No, He is the eternal Word, He is God Himself, He is God made flesh. He is as John describes Him in verse 29 of the first chapter: "Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!" He is the Christ who is God in the flesh, the Christ who died, who rose, who went back to the right hand of the Father. It is the Christ of Christian theology who is the source of living water, the One who said in John 11, "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." And I say to every one of you here as simply as I know how, if you do not have firsthand, genuine dealings with Jesus Christ Himself, you'll never have your soul thirst satisfied. And you can be so close to Him and miss Him. You can be in the midst of His people, in the midst of His church, in the hearing of His Word, and miss Him. There is no saving virtue in anything other than direct living contact with the living Christ. He's the source of that living water.
Now in the second place, as we analyze the water that satisfies, how is that water given? Having seen its source, Jesus Christ in His person and work, how is it given? Verse 10 and 14 tell us: "Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water." Verse 14: "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life." Four times in two verses that water is described as a gift.
Now see how people have perverted this. Here's how certain religions would write it: "If thou knewest the reward, thou wouldst have taken the sacraments, done penance, gone to confession, and had the last rites, and you might have after a thousand years of purgatory eternal life." What a perversion of the words of Jesus. If that's the truth of how you get to heaven, why didn't Jesus tell her? He said, "If thou knewest the gift...." Free, gracious gift--no works, no merit, no penance, no sacraments--gift to be given. But there are others who would say, "If thou knewest the reward of being baptized, keeping the ten commandments, particularly the fourth, or particularly some other commandment, and if you do this and this and that, then God might graciously confer eternal life upon you." That isn't what Jesus said. His words are simple. Only a person determined to pervert them can do so. "If thou knewest the gift, you would have ask, He would have given." How does this water of life come to us? That which alone can satisfy soul thirst comes as pure, gracious gift from God--no other way. "For the wages of sin is death." That's what you get by merit--death, hell, judgment. "But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." "For by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God."
Now why is it so hard for men to come to the recognition that this which satisfies soul thirst can only come as pure gift? I'll tell you why. Because the crowning sin of the human heart is pride. And to be brought to the place where we confess, "Nothing in my hands I bring; simply to Thy cross I cling", if I'm saved by pure gift, then all the credit for my salvation must be laid at the feet of another. I'll have to confess that if I got what I deserved, I'd be in hell with the worst of men. And if I ever have eternal life and find favor with God, it is purely because of factors external to me. And that's what old Adam doesn't want to acknowledge. Hence, every form of unbiblical religion, even though it may quote the Bible, has this at it's heart in common: you have got to do something to commend yourself to God. I don't care if it's all the way from Romanism to the cults, when you lay it bare, though it may use the terms grace, forgiveness, gift, and all the rest, it has this in common: you contribute to something that coerces God to open up that fountain of life for you. And the genius of the religion of the Bible is that it is grace from beginning to the end--pure grace, pure gift. ("If thou knewest the gift of God....")
And I think it one of the most telling questions to ask any person and asked in this order is this: Do you believe you're an heir of eternal life? "Yes." Do you believe your soul thirst is met? "Yes." Then ask the second question: On what basis is it met? If they start talking about, "Well, I this and I that", then you know they've missed it. But if they immediately begin--and I say it reverently--as an old friend of mine used to say, they begin to brag on Jesus, and they begin to talk about what He is and what He's done and is doing, then you know they're on the right track. What is the source of this water that satisfies? It is Christ Himself. He said, "If you would have ask of Me, I would have given...." How is it given? As pure gift.
Now in the third place, let's ask the question, to whom is it given? And this question is answered right here in the passage. It is given in the first place to those whom God reveals His Son by spiritual illumination. Verse 10: "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him...." You see what He's saying? He's saying,
"If when you looked upon mMe, woman, you saw something more than just a tired, traveled, weary Jew--and that's all you've seen, and because you've seen that, you say, 'You're asking Me for water. How come You, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan? You're not supposed to have dealings with us.' But there's much more to your eyes than a tired, traveled, weary Jew. The Son of God is before your eyes, and you don't see Him. If you knew who was talking to you, instead of you questioning Me about why I'm asking you for water, you'd be at my feet in worship and penitence pleading with Me for the gift of life. If you knew, you would have asked."
Then the Lord wonderfully leads her on until--notice in verses 25 and 26, the woman says, "I know that Messiah cometh (He that is called Christ): when He is come, He will declare unto us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am He." And the next time we find the woman, where is she? Running back into the village saying, "I've found Him. I've seen Him"--spiritual illumination.
Who receives this water of life? To whom is it given as pure gift? It is given only to those whom God reveals His Son by a work of spiritual illumination. The Scripture tells us, "No man can call Jesus Lord but by the Holy Ghost." Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, "The god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving.... Seeing it is God, that said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." When I say spiritual illumination, what am I talking about? Visions? No, if you've been saved by a vision or think you are, you better get on different ground, my friend. God doesn't save by visions. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." "We are born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God." "Of His own will begat He us by the Word of truth [not visions]." So when I speak of spiritual illumination, I'm not talking of visions; I'm not talking of revelations and lights and bells and the flutter of angels' wings. I'm talking about God taking away the scales from the eyes of your heart so that the Christ you've heard about (whose name perhaps has been on your lips as a very curse word), you are given spiritual eyes to see that the Christ of Scripture is indeed God, the only Savior of sinners, infinitely worthy of your trust, your homage, your love, and your obedience. And you give yourself over to Him. A Christian is someone who has seen Christ and has never been the same since.
To whom is this water given? In the first place, to those whom God reveals His Son by spiritual illumination. But secondly, it is given to those who are ready to be honest about their sin. "Woman, you want this water? Call your husband." As we saw this morning, there's no meeting of soul thirst without facing head on the ugly reality of our sin. "Woman, if you want your soul thirst met, you've got to face the ugly reality of your sin. I'm not talking about sin in general, woman. I'm talking about your sin in particular. Call your husband. Whatever cloaks you've thrown over your murky past, tear them off. They're naked before My eyes. I want you to own up to the reality of your sin."
Let me say by way of application, the water of life will not be given to you as pure gift except it's given to you in a way in which by the same Spirit, who reveals Christ to your heart, you're brought face to face to own up to your sins. You'll never know the water of life until you're ready to be honest about the sin of your life, of your relationships, of your attitudes, the sin in your deeds, the sin in your heart. And I'd be a liar to say that you can have the water of life without facing the reality of your sin. Let me say by a little aside, because we do have a number of you in Bible school and seminary, don't you ever preach a Gospel that tells men they can have the gift of the water of life without facing the reality of their sin in deep and thorough repentance. You'll tell them a lie and send them to hell clinging to the promises they were never prepared to receive. And so this water is given to those whom God reveals His son; secondly, to those who are ready to face their sin.
Thirdly, this water is given to those who lay hold of it, to those who appropriate it, to use the words of Jesus, to those who drink it. Look at verse 14: "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst." God doesn't drink for you. You've got to drink. What is drinking? Drinking is an appropriating act. And it's quite appropriate that I should illustrate it right now because I'm thirsty, and I need a drink. What is drinking for me right now? It is the appropriating act by which the water that is sufficient for my need but is presently found within the confines of that pretty glass is taken out of the glass into my system, and the water becomes a part of me. It's an appropriating activity. And it's many times used as a description of faith. Faith is coming to Christ, faith is trusting in Christ, faith is casting ourselves upon Christ, faith is following, faith is drinking, faith is eating. Faith is all of these various activities. And so this water comes not only to those who are brought to see who Christ is (Son of God, Son of man, Savior of the world), who are not only brought to own up to their sin, but who actually appropriate Him to themselves as He is offered in the Gospel.
Have you drunk of Christ? Have you not only looked upon Him as He is--and I say it reverently--encased in the Gospel, as He is contained in the Gospel as this water is contained in the glass? It's not enough to look at Him in the Gospel and say, "I believe He is sufficient. I believe He is adequate for my soul thirst." You must drink of Him. And what is preaching? It is putting Christ to your lips and saying, "Drink, drink, drink! You must drink! God warrants you to drink as He sets Him before you in the Gospel.
Well, then, in the last place, what are the results when men drink of this water of life? Having looked at its source (the Lord Jesus), having looked at how it comes to us (pure gift), having considered to whom it is given, what are the results when this water is drunk? Look at verse 14: "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life." Look at the results. They are threefold.
Number one: present satisfaction. Here it is: whoever drinks this water shall never thirst. From the moment he begins drinking of Christ, there is soul satisfaction. And though there is a paradox (he is ever satisfied but yet ever dissatisfied), the dissatisfaction is not with the source but with the measure to which he is drinking of the source. He doesn't look for another source. He's found the one source, and his only satisfaction is that he doesn't drink more deeply of Christ. Isn't that true of you, Christian? Having drunk of Him, you're not in the well hunting business anymore. Some of you wore out your shoe leather well hunting. You tried this well; you tried that well--thirsty, thirsty, thirsty! But God brought this well into your life. And having drunk of Him, you're not well hunting anymore. Your only pain is you don't take more out of the well that you've found. And that's the part that Christ is emphasizing here. "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst," that is, have that deep gnawing unmet thirst. He'll have the wholesome thirst after righteousness, which alone is the mark of a true believer.
The second thing: it's not only present satisfaction to never thirst, but it's inward satisfaction. "The water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life." What a marvelous thing--and I say it reverently--that the source of satisfaction takes up His residence in your own bosom. "Or know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own." And where the Holy Spirit is, Christ is. Hence, the Scripture says, "Christ in you, the hope of glory." "That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." So it's not only present satisfaction; it is inward satisfaction. As the Psalmist says, "All my springs are in Thee."
But thank God, there is a third facet of it. The third result is eternal satisfaction. He now has a well of water springing up from within unto eternal life. Once we drink of that water, it's as though there's a transplanted well that will bubble up into eternity--one of the most beautiful descriptions of the Biblical doctrine of the preservation of the saints to be found anywhere in Scripture. Once we've drunk, the issue of that drinking is eternal life ("a well of water springing up"). No disappointment causing me to try another source, no frustration that somehow this will all peter out and come to naught. All that I know now, the Scripture says, is but an earnest, a little down payment, a little foretaste of what I shall know in the world to come.
How is soul thirst met? Jesus tells us in this passage. Negatively, soul thirst is never met by going to the world's wells. And again, I plead with you children and young people. Will you not take Christ at His word? And as the devil sets before you a whole, as it were, shopping center full of wells, and he adorns them with neon signs and attractive posters and says, "Come to this well and it will satisfy--the well of pleasure, the well of education, the well of aesthetic beauty, the well of the arts, the well of this and that." O, that God will bring to your remembrance what you have heard tonight, that Jesus stands above those wells, and one sign is over all of them: "Whoever drinks of any of these wells shall thirst again." They cannot satisfy. Thank God, there is soul satisfaction to be found. Where? Not in religion, not in church, not in form, not in ritual! It's to be found in Christ. "Whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give"--and how is it given? As a gift ("If you knew the gift of God"). To whom is it given? To those who see Christ for what He is as He is revealed in the Scriptures, to those who are willing to be honest about their sin, to those who drink of Him, take Him to themselves.
You say, "But O, what a messed up life I've had. I've got to get fixed first." Who was Jesus talking to? Was He talking to some sweet little girl who had come out of a sheltered environment? He was talking to a woman with a pretty messed up life, and He said, "Woman, you can drink." I don't care what you life is. I don't care to know the murky details of it, because the God who knows it in its entirety says, "If you knew the gift, you would ask; He would give even to you." "Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." You say, "Ah, but you don't know...." I don't care to know. God knows the worst about you, and He tells you to drink. Shouldn't that be the end of the controversy? If you talked to me for ten hours and told me all the details of your rotten past, you'd only be telling me one part of what God knows about it. And the God who knows the whole business says, "Whoever drinks of this water shall never thirst again."
O, may you drink, may you drink; may you have direct dealings with Christ, and with Christ in His living power through the grace of the Holy Spirit. How is soul thirst satisfied? This is how, and there's no other way. May God grant that the Holy Spirit will make this word effectual to cause some of us to drink for the first time of the water that is found in Christ, and in Christ alone.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 8:58:47 GMT -5
The Life of Faith
by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached July 14, 1996
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Now let us turn together in the Word of God to the book of Acts and chapter 27. And I shall read in your hearing the first 25 verses, a portion of the Word of God, no doubt, familiar to many of you. But I have been reminded in recent days in some of our membership interviews that not everyone comes from a Christian home and the nurture of a church where the Word of God has had its due prominence. And I trust that those of you who are stronger in knowledge will bear with the weaker and never grow weary of hearing read in your ears those familiar stories and portions of the Word of God. Here in Acts 27, we have Luke's Spirit-inspired account of the beginnings of Paul's journey from Jerusalem to Rome, where he will appear before Caesar in defense of his own person and labors, having been constantly falsely accused by the Jews. His life placed in jeopardy again and again, he appeals to Caesar, the rights of his Roman citizenship for a proper trial. And Luke now records that journey from Jerusalem to Rome:
"And when it was determined that we should sail for Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners to a centurion named Julius, of the Augustan band. And embarking in a ship of Adramyttium, which was about to sail unto the places on the coast of Asia, we put to sea, Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, being with us. And the next day we touched at Sidon: and Julius treated Paul kindly, and gave him leave to go unto his friends and refresh himself. And putting to sea from thence, we sailed under the lee of Cyprus, because the winds were contrary. And when we had sailed across the sea which is off Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra, a city of Lycia. And there the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing for Italy; and he put us therein. And when we had sailed slowly many days, and were come with difficulty over against Cnidus, the wind not [c]further suffering us, we sailed under the lee of Crete, over against Salmone; and with difficulty coasting along it we came unto a certain place called Fair Havens; nigh whereunto was the city of Lasea. And when much time was spent, and the voyage was now dangerous, because the Fast was now already gone by [it was well into autumn or fall, and the more difficult winter months would be soon be upon them], Paul admonished them, and said unto them, Sirs, I perceive that the voyage will be with injury and much loss, not only of the lading and the ship, but also of our lives. But the centurion gave more heed to the master and to the owner of the ship, than to those things which were spoken by Paul. And because the haven was not commodious to winter in, the more part advised to put to sea from thence, if by any means they could reach Phoenix, and winter there; which is a haven of Crete, looking north-east and south-east. And when the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, they weighed anchor and sailed along Crete, close in shore. But after no long time there beat down from it a tempestuous wind, which is called Euraquilo: and when the ship was caught, and could not face the wind, we gave way to it, and were driven. And running under the lee of a small island called Cauda, we were able, with difficulty, to secure the boat [this was like a large lifeboat that was towed behind the main ship. And because the sea became tempestuous, they didn't want to lose their lifeboat, so they sought to secure it]: and when they had hoisted it up, they used helps, under-girding the ship; and, fearing lest they should be cast upon the Syrtis [sandbars in that area], they lowered the gear, and so were driven. And as we labored exceedingly with the storm, the next day they began to throw the freight overboard; and the third day they cast out with their own hands the tackling of the ship. And when neither sun nor stars shone upon us for many days, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was now taken away. And when they had been long without food, then Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have set sail from Crete, and have gotten this injury and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer; for there shall be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For there stood by me this night an angel of the God whose I am, whom also I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must stand before Caesar: and lo, God hath granted thee all them that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even so as it hath been spoken unto me."
Most of us have heard, and perhaps heard many times, the familiar proverb or aphorism that one picture is worth a thousand words. And if I were to ask you children to explain that little aphorism or proverb, I think most of you could do it. It tries to capture the fact that there are some things that are more clearly perceived by seeing and observing than by hearing elaborate descriptions about them. If we were trying to explain to someone who had never seen a brilliant Southern Florida sunset, it would be far easier to take a wide-angled photograph of one such sunset and say, "Here is what I'm talking about", than to attempt page after page to put into verbal symbols, into written vocables what such a sunset is like. And it is for this very reason that the Bible is given in many many areas to history and to biography, because it is in the stuff of real people in real circumstances facing real difficulties with real interventions of the true and living God that God both enforces, illustrates, and confirms the doctrines and duties taught in His Word. And this morning we're going to look at such a passage, which better than a thousand words sets before us some very vital principles concerning the life of faith. And our focus is going to be upon verse 25 in this passage, the words of the Apostle Paul: "Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even so as it hath been spoken unto me."
In opening up this passage, I want you to consider with me, first of all, what I am calling this startling exhortation. These words of the Apostle Paul are nothing less than a startling exhortation. Consider with me briefly the substance of the exhortation and why we do well to regard it as a startling exhortation. The substance of the exhortation is basically this: Paul speaks to those on the ship with him and particularly to the men. You may have a translation that says "Sirs", but the Greek word is that standard word to address the male gender. And he speaks in the plural and says to the men on that ship to take heart, to be of good cheer. He uses a word that is found earlier in this very passage, verse 22: "And now I exhort you to be of good cheer...." And the only other use of this verb in the New Testament is found in James 5:13, where James says, "Is any cheerful [or in a state of good heart and of good courage]?" So Paul is exhorting these men no longer to be downcast, no longer to be despairing, dispirited, and dejected. In the midst of all of the realism of those circumstances which he shared with the other 275 who were on that ship, he gives this exhortation immediately to cease from being downcast, despairing, dispirited, and dejected, and to be of a cheerful heart. He is exhorting them to take heart, to be men of courage, to be men of strength in their spirits. That's the substance of his exhortation.
Now why was it startling? Well, it was startling, first of all, in the light of the preceding circumstances. What began as a very ordinary and pleasant journey across the sea (v. 14) suddenly was tremendously disrupted and turned into a horrible nightmare. We read in verse 14: "But after no long time there beat down from it a tempestuous wind, which is called Euraquilo." These would be winds of hurricane or cyclonic force. And with them would come (what many of us have seen on our televisions in recent days with hurricane Bertha that moved up the coast) tremendous turbulence in the seas. And from the quiet, tranquil seas, supposing they were going to have a very uneventful journey, suddenly, these unusual winds come down upon them, and the ship is caught. No longer can the helmsman plot his course and set his sails, but they are driven by the wind. And we read that things begin to get so bad that they not only had to take their large lifeboat that was dragging behind them in tow and bring it on board, but they had to begin to place thick ropes (cables) around the very heart of the ship to keep the planking from tearing apart and becoming nothing but a pile of flotsam in the midst of the turbulent sea. Furthermore, the ship was not only about to be torn apart; they recognized that they had to lighten the load of the ship so that, rather than being dashed and buried by the waves and the turbulence, as it was sitting lower in the water, they wanted, as it were, to float more upon the crest of the turbulent waves. And so they begin to throw out some of the very furniture that is in the ship. This goes on for several days, and we read in verse 20 that the heavens were so thick with the clouds that they saw neither sun nor stars for many days. The mariners lost their ability to get their bearings from the stars by night, their position from the shining of the sun by day. They are shrouded in the midst of this inky darkness of the night. And during the day, the dark, cloud-covered skies forbid them from finding even the direction in which they were going. And we read "...and no small tempest lay on us."
Try to get something of the feel of this situation: the tempestuous sea, the turbulence all around, the panic that runs like an electric current through all who are on board. The heavens are shrouded in darkness. They don't know where they are, where they are going until the very zenith of that despair is recorded in verse 20: "All hope that we should be saved was now taken away." Everyone was now in a state of absolute despair. No longer was there a hope that there will be a little break in the clouds, perhaps another vessel will come by, perhaps there will be some quieting in the seas, and they can begin to pull things together and find out where they are and how they're going to get to where they want to go. No, Luke says, "All hope that we should be saved was now taken away."
Now do you see why I call this a startling exhortation? In the midst of that situation, Paul says, "Buck up! Be of good cheer! Get rid of your universal gloom upon your faces." That's a startling exhortation in the light of the preceding circumstances. Furthermore, it was startling in the light of the predicted circumstances that were yet to come. Two circumstances are predicted. Look at verse 22: "And now I exhort you to be of good cheer; for there shall be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship." He now predicts that the ship is going to be lost. The ship is going to go down to Davy Jones' locker. That's not a very encouraging thing. And then he says in verse 26 that they must be shipped wrecked upon an island. Knowing then that the ship is going to lost, that they're going to be ship wrecked on an island, yet in the midst of that, he says, "Be of good cheer. [Take heart, don't be dispirited, don't be discouraged.]" I'd say that's a startling exhortation not only in the light of the preceding circumstances, but of the predicted circumstances. And furthermore, it was startling because of the subsequent events. When Paul said, "Be of good cheer," he uses a tense of the verb which means, "Begin now to be of good cheer. Let all discouragement and all attitudes of being dispirited and disheartened be banished. And begin and continue to be of good cheer. Begin and continue to be of good heart." And I say that's startling in light of the subsequent events. After speaking these things, the circumstances got worse. The storm did not calm down. It continued for two whole weeks. Verse 27: "But when the fourteenth night was come...." Verse 33: "This day is the fourteenth day that ye wait and continue fasting, having taken nothing." Verse 41: "But lighting upon a place where two seas met, they ran the vessel aground; and the foreship struck and remained unmoveable, but the stern began to break up by the violence of the waves."
Can you imagine what some of them might have thought, when in such circumstances, the words of Paul's exhortation are ringing in their ears, "Be of good cheer [take heart]," when they see the planking from the stern of the ship being torn apart by the violent fingers of a turbulent sea, when they don't know where they are, and all is raging around them. I say, this was startling exhortation. Yet amidst of all this disaster, all of this danger and even devastation, the exhortation of Paul rings out above the roar of an angry sea, above the shriek and whistle of the wind, through the rigging of that ship, above the moans and fear and cries of despair, the words of verse 25 ring loud and clear: "Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even so as it hath been spoken unto me."
Well, we've considered the startling exhortation--and I hope you agree with my terminology, it is a startling exhortation. Consider with me in the second place, the satisfying explanation. Though it's a startling exhortation, the Apostle gives what I trust to you is a satisfactory explanation of that exhortation. We could ask the question, "What explanation can be given for Paul's exhortation?" Given the preceding circumstances, the predicted events, and the subsequent events, what explanation can be given for such an exhortation? Was Paul what we commonly call the eternal optimist? You know what an optimist is. That's the one who wakes up in the morning and there's not a hole in the cloudy, thick, murky skies; it's raining cats and dogs. And he says to his wife, "I'm so glad it's raining early in the morning--the sun will be out by noon." The pessimist gets up and there's not a patch of cloud in the blue sky from horizon to horizon, and someone says, "What a beautiful day. This will be one of the ten best of '96." He says, "It will be raining by 11:00." That's the eternal pessimist. Well, was Paul just the eternal optimist, waking up anytime there were clouds and rain and smiling and saying, "It will be brilliant sunshine by noon"? No, he was not an eternal optimist. Well, was he a Robert Schuller born before his time? You know who Robert Schuller is? The man with the plastic smile who says, "Cheer up. Think positive thoughts. Life is beautiful; life is rosy. No matter what you face, it's a matter of mind over circumstance. Buck up, be cheerful, it's a wonderful world." No, well, was he some "name it and claim it" miracle worker who figured he could speak to the turbulent seas at will, and in the name of Jesus claim deliverance from the demons of tempestuous winds and waves. No, none of those things is a satisfactory explanation for this exhortation. He gives us the explanation. Let's listen to his words: "Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even so as it hath been spoken unto me." I want you to note with me the content of that word from God and the response of Paul to that word, for his explanation simply stated is this: "I have had a word of reassurance from my God that all will be well with us, and I believe Him." That's the satisfying explanation for his startling exhortation.
Let's look, then, at the content of that word from God in verses 23 and 24 and then the response of Paul to that word in verse 25. What was the content of that word from God? Verses 23 and 24: "For there stood by me this night an angel of the God whose I am, whom also I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must stand before Caesar: and lo, God hath granted thee all them that sail with thee." Now the content of this word from God mediated by an angel of God was very simple and straightforward. He began first of all by saying, "Paul, you must not be afraid." Now one could read into the form of the verb that Paul had already begun to be afraid, and God was calling him to cease from his being afraid. But I think that would be pressing the issue beyond what the context and the general knowledge we have of the Apostle. But this much is clear, that Paul was vulnerable to all of the fears to which the others were vulnerable is indeed warranted by the text, otherwise the words mean nothing. If Paul was such a giant in the faith that fear never dogged his steps, that fear was never an emotion with which he had to wrestle, why is God's first word to him "Don't be afraid." This is the very man who spoke of fightings without and fears within. He was unashamed to say to the Corinthians, "I was with you in much trembling and fear." No, he was no stranger to the emotion of fear. And so the word that God brings to him is one that prohibits him giving way to and coming under the horrible paralyzing grip of carnal fear. "Do not be afraid, Paul, you must be brought before Caesar."
God is reiterating something He had already revealed to Paul in chapter 23 and verse 11: "And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer: for as thou hast testified concerning Me at Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome." He had had a previous word from God that no matter what the Jews may have plotted, no matter what the Roman soldiers assigned to keep him may have thought about him or attempted to do with him, regardless of the circumstances that God in His providential ordering of the winds and waves of the sea, whatever these would be, Paul had a sure and a certain word from God. He will bear witness to his Lord in the face of Caesar. He will get safely to Rome. Now this word that comes from God through the angel reaffirms that fact. God says to him through the angel that he must be brought before Caesar.
And furthermore, God says that in the process, all on board with him will be spared. Now these words "God hath granted thee all them that sail with thee", is the Lord saying that they are granted you in terms of the success of your witness and Gospel endeavors? That may be true, but in the context, what is clear is Paul understood this, that there would be no loss of life among the 275 who were on that ship in addition to himself, for look at verse 22: "And now I exhort you to be of good cheer; for there shall be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship." How did he know that? When he was assessing from his knowledge of that part of the world from his many travels, based not upon divine revelation, but upon an ordinary observation, he had earlier said, seeking to dissuade them from leaving when they left (v. 10), "I perceive that the voyage will be with injury and much loss, not only of the lading and the ship, but also of our lives." Now that wasn't a revelation from God. That was the assessment of a seasoned traveler upon the seas and one who was knowledgeable of that part of the world and the patterns of the winds and the different times of the year. And he said there's no way we're going to make this journey across that part of the open waters at this time of the year without tremendous loss both to the ship and to our lives. But now God had come with a word of direct revelation and had said to him, "Paul, not only will you be brought before Caesar, but I have granted you all those who sail with you. For your sake and for whatever secret, saving purposes I may have in their lives, I will spare them as I protect and preserve you." That's the content of the word from God.
And what was Paul's response to that word? Well, obviously it was one of implicit, unwavering trust. Look at the language: "Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even so as it hath been spoken unto me." What is Paul saying? This is what he is saying:
"What is to happen to me and to all of you here on this ship is not going to be determined by the wind, by the waves, by the ordinary patterns of the weather and the sea at this time of the year. No, what is going to happen to me and to you is not going to be dictated by turbulent seas and shrouded heavens. Rather, the God of heaven and earth who purposes and executes His plan, that God has determined what will happen to all of us. And He has made it known that I will not perish in the seas, neither will you perish as well."
His response to that word from God was a response of implicit, unwavering trust that what God's word determines as the revelation of His purpose will infallibly come to pass. No wonder now, without sticking his head, as it were, under the folds of his robe and imaging a very quiet, peaceful, calm sea and opened heavens and the sun. No, looking out into the heaving sea, hearing the creaking of the planking on that ship, seeing every single visible sign of imminent danger, he raises his voice (and I cannot conceive of him doing it without a raised hand, though it's not in the text), "Sirs, be of good cheer...." Crack, bang, creak, heave--maybe some were hanging over the gunnels losing whatever food they had attempted to take, though most of them, it says, were fasting for days. Get the picture. And in the midst of that, he says, "Be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even so as it hath been spoken unto me." Now at that moment, did the seas stop? No. Did the heavens open up? No. Everything was even more turbulent and more desperate, yet the Apostle said, "Be of good cheer: for I believe God...." Reality is not determined by what you see and what you think will be. But reality is determined by what God says will be. "And I believe God."
Well, we've looked at what I've called the startling exhortation and then the satisfying explanation that lay behind it. Now as time permits, I want us to consider several practical applications of this passage. And the first is this: I want you to behold with me the vivid illustration of what it means to walk by faith. Here, last Lord's Day evening at the table of the Lord, when we received four new members, Pastor Barker gave a text to those who were being received into membership (2 Corinthians 5:7), where the Apostle says, "We walk by faith and not by sight." He exhorted those coming into the membership never to forget that the walk of a Christian is a walk of faith. And the opposite of faith in that setting is sight. We do not frame our lives by what we see, though what we see is real. And what we see is not a mirage or a figment of our imagination. But there is an unseen world of spiritual reality which is to frame the way we walk, the way we pattern our lives. And I began by saying one picture is worth a thousand words. And so in this passage, we have a marvelous picture of what it means to walk by faith. What's it mean in the nitty gritty, day by day experience of the Christian life to walk by faith? It means to walk the way Paul walked in this set of circumstances.
Notice with me several vital elements of the walk of faith illustrated in this passage. First, the soul, the unrivaled object of our faith. Look at our text, verse 25: "Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God," not "I believe in faith," or "I believe in myself." He says, "I believe God. There is a person who is the soul object of my faith. It is that God who sent His angel to speak His word into my ears last night. And that God who spoke is the God who is." He is the God who has made the world and all things therein. He is the God of whom the prophet speaks when he says, "He has His way in the whirlwind, and the clouds are the dust of His feet." He is the God who manifested in Jesus Christ can say to turbulent seas, "Be still," and they become as glass. He is the God who has said that He can do all that He purposes to do, and none can stay His hand or say unto Him, "What are You doing?" And the Apostle very simply illustrates and affirms what it meant for him to walk by faith. It meant that he had a soul object of his faith:
"I believe God, God the Father who has spoken through His angel, God the Son whom I serve in the Gospel, God the Holy Spirit who has transformed me and enabled me to behold the very glory of the Godhead in the face of Jesus Christ, God the blessed one in three and three in one. He is the soul object of my faith. I believe God."
Now few things are more elementary to the life of faith than that. "Without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto Him; for he that cometh to God must believe that He is", not that He was and shall be, that He's the great I was and the great I shall be. No, that name by which God reveals something of the mystery of His own essence and being is Yahweh: "I am that I am. I will be that I will be." We must believe that He is. And the soul object of faith is God Himself.
But then notice secondly, in the life of faith for the Apostle, there was a solid foundation for faith. If the soul object is God Himself ("I believe God"), what was the solid foundation of that faith? It was the spoken word of God. Look again at the text: "I believe God [not in some nebulous, mystical, indefinable way]." No, "I believe God, that it shall be even so as it hath been spoken unto me." Capture something of the perfect tense:
"God has spoken, and what He has spoken abides as a living present word from God. And I'm convinced that all that shall be in the hours and days to come will be but an exegesis of that which God has said. God has told me I am going to be brought before Caesar. 'I have given you all on the ship.' I don't care if the waves become twenty times higher, the storms become twenty times more fierce, and the skies intensify in their darkness, and every plank on this ship is smashed to splinters. I believe God. It shall be just as it was spoken."
What was the foundation of his faith? It was the sure, the certain, the immoveable word of the Living God. Ah, but you say, "Pastor, that was an angel speaking the very word of God. If God would speak through an angel, then I could begin to walk by faith. How could I ever forget an angel's word?" My friend, if you've got the silly word that an angel's word is better than the word of God written, spoken, put down in printer's ink and abiding, you're ignorant of your own heart, and you're ignorant of your Bible. Peter who heard the very voice of God without the mediation of an angel on the mount of transfiguration, referring to that very incident in his second letter in the first chapter, said, "Yes, we heard the voice on the holy mount, but we have the word of prophecy made more sure." There's something more sure than hearing the voice of God in the midst of shekinah glory on a mountain in Palestine? Yes, it is that word which has been given to us in Scripture as holy men of God were carried along by the Holy Spirit. You remember what Jesus said in His parable or in His story of the rich man and Lazarus? The rich man says, "I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house; for I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment." Jesus said, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, if one rise from the dead." So there's no question after the angel goes what was said. No, we have record in Scripture of even holy people who heard holy angels and they didn't believe. Remember John the Baptist's father? The angel Gabriel appeared to him and he didn't believe him. God said, "I'll strike you dumb for your unbelief."
If you've got any notion you'd believe if only an angel would speak to you, you don't know your Bible, and you don't know your own heart. The foundation of faith is the Word of God revealed in the way God chooses to reveal it to us. And that way here and now is in this blessed book. If anyone adds to the words this book, God says the plagues will be added to him. The foundation of faith is the spoken word of God, which for us is that word in holy Scripture. And as God Himself is the soul object of our faith in the walk of faith, so the solid foundation of our faith is the Word of God, not our feelings, not our experiences, not our sense of what ought to be, or our groaning and moaning on what we hope things would be, but the confidence that it shall be even as it has been spoken. And everything God has said concerning us who are in Christ is but the prefiguration of what we shall in our experience be. Everything that the Scripture says concerning our present possessions in Christ, our future prospects as the people of God and those in union with Christ, that "the dead in Christ shall rise first" (1 Thessalonians 4), that "as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" (1 Corinthians 15:49), that "He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6), and on and on we can go. But the life of faith is the life that builds on the solid foundation of the spoken word of God, particularly that word as it is couched in the promises.
But then thirdly, notice, as we behold this vivid illustration of what it means to walk by faith, not only the soul object of faith, "I believe God", the solid foundation of faith, "It shall be even so as it hath been spoken unto me", but the simple essence of faith. What is the simple essence of that faith by which we walk? Look at the words of the text: "It shall be even so as it hath been spoken unto me." Very simple, isn't it. Look at verse 34: "Wherefore I beseech you to take some food: for this is for your safety: for there shall not a hair perish from the head of any of you." The seas were still turbulent, the skies were still shrouded in darkness, the planks were still creaking, and he says, "There shall not a hair perish from the head of any of you." Why? Because it shall be even as it was spoken. "God has said He will not only spare me to appear before Caesar, but He has given me all of you on this ship to be spared with me--at least that much the word from God meant. And if God says it, I credit it. That's the end of the discussion." We like to make the life of faith so complicated because then we can excuse our instability, our unbelief, and all the other sins that grow out of those twins--horrible things. It wasn't very complicated for Paul. The simple essence of the faith by which he walked was that internal conviction and commitment to this principle: it shall be just as it has been spoken.
But then notice in his walk of faith what I'm calling the constant companion of faith. And what is it? That faith which has God as its soul object, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; its solid foundation, the Word of God; its simple essence, crediting what God has said, believing that what He has said will frame all that is true of us. But there was a constant companion. And what was that companion? Well, let me state it, and then we'll see it in three or four places in this setting. It is the proper use of God-ordained means. That is always the constant companion of the life of faith when that life of faith is framed by the Word of God. And where do we see that in the passage?
We see it first of all, when up in verse 10, Paul believes he has a responsibility to put in his opinion about this purposed journey at this particular time in that particular part of the world. He said, " Sirs, I perceive that the voyage will be with injury and much loss, not only of the lading and the ship, but also of our lives." Hadn't God said to him earlier as we saw in chapter 23 and verse 11, "You will appear before Caesar. You must bear witness in Rome"? Couldn't Paul assume, then, that he's invincible until he gets to Rome? And when he hears of the plans to set out to sea at a difficult time of the year with the very real possibility of this cyclonic and hurricane-type winds coming, he could have just said, "Well, fellows, I think it's a stupid idea, but I'm invincible until I get to Rome. God's told me I'm going to appear before Caesar." No, no, the walk of faith that is Biblical is a faith that uses all legitimate means. And here Paul is using his nautical knowledge, his geological knowledge, and his knowledge of the winds and all of the patterns. He's using this means, realizing that if he's to be preserved to get to Rome, he doesn't become a fanatic who doesn't use the legitimate means for his preservation. The handmaid of his life of faith was the proper use of means.
Look at verse 31 (we see it again): "Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved." Some of them under the guise of wanting to put anchors in that lifeboat and carry them out in front of the ship and set down the anchors, they wanted to escape from the ship. And Paul says, "Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved." Wait a minute, I thought God gave him a promise: "I've given you all that are with you." He could have said, "Okay, fellows, jump in the ship; do what you want. The Lord's going to spare you. I have a word from Him." No, he recognized that the handmaiden of faith was the use of means. And God's preserving of all 275 companions was contingent upon this means of their abiding in the ship. And Paul insisted on it.
Look further in verse 38. They had been fasting; Paul stands in the midst, gives thanks to God and eats. And we read, "And when they had eaten enough...." They all ate to be strengthened, but then they didn't say, "O well, we've eaten and we've gotten some encouragement that we're going to be spared, so now we can be utterly careless." No, "they lightened the ship, throwing out the wheat into the sea." They used means to make there situation as much as possible one that would be conducive to their preservation.
Then in verse 44, when it came time for them to go to shore, what did they do? Paul didn't say, "Alright, everyone, whether you can swim or not, God has promised He's going to spare us all. Jump in the sea, and God will send dolphins to carry you to shore, piggy backing you." No, no, look what the text says, "...and the rest, some on planks, and some on other things from the ship. And so it came to pass, that they all escaped safe to the land." Who were the rest? Look at verse 43: "But the centurion, desiring to save Paul, stayed them from their purpose; and commanded that they who could swim should cast themselves overboard, and get first to the land; and the rest [those of you who can't swim, trust the Lord. No, grab a plank or you'll drown.]" Now do you see the point? In the midst of this amazing display of confidence in God with the darkened heavens, the heaving seas, the creaking planks of the ship, "I believe God." But he says, "I also believe every means at my disposal must be used for my preservation." And you must use every means at your disposal for your preservation.
You see, psychological faith believes in man and disregards God, so it doesn't say, "I believe God." Psychological faith is "I believe in me, and I believe in my faith." Fanatical faith believes when there's no word from God. That's the essence of the fallacy of the faith healing movement. There is no word from God that says earnest believing, Godly Christians can be and ought to be delivered from all physical maladies in this life. And when people try to get other to muster up faith that they can be healed, it's a fanatical faith, for it has no word from God to which it can align itself and say it shall be even as it has been spoken. Can I say of this body with the seeds so death in it, with the passing of the years, more and more of those seeds germinate, and we become conscious in this way and in that way that indeed our outward man is decaying and heading for the grave. When we look into the cold earth, standing by a plot of ground that we may have already purchased as our burial place and say,
"If the Lord Jesus tarries, this body will be in a box buried in the earth, and maybe there long enough for the worms to eat it and for the bones to disintegrate. But this I know that a moment is coming in human history when the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God will sound, and I with all of my redeemed companions shall rise first."
Can I say that? Yes. Why? Because I have a sure word from God. "Wherefore, comfort one another with these words" were from the Living God.
When you're committed to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, you make personal, domestic, career decisions in the interest of truth and righteousness and the advancement of the Gospel. And sometimes you must do so at the expense of the numbers that appear in your savings account in your checkbook. They are not foolish, irresponsible decisions. They are principled, well-thought-out decisions. Can you plan your feet on God's promise and say,
"Lord, you have said. You know my need for food. You know my need for shelter. You know my need and the needs of my family for clothing. And You have said I am not to be anxious. And if I seek first Your kingdom and Your righteousness, all these things shall be added unto me. And I plant my feet on that promise and claim God's fulfillment. I believe God, that it shall be even as it has been spoken."
A fanatical faith is a faith that has no word from God. Psychological faith is trust in yourself. And then a presumptive faith is a faith that doesn't use appropriate means. It says, "O, God has said it. He can bring it to pass regardless of what I do." Paul did not take that position. "I believe God, that it shall be even so as it hath been spoken unto me. [Stay in the ship or you can't be saved. Grab a plank and paddle to shore. Eat some food; throw the rest overboard. Don't set out to sea. It will be with loss of ship and of life.]" The life of faith is not a life of psychologically induced feelings, nor is it a life of fanaticism, nor is it a life of presumption. The life of faith is precisely what we see it to be here in this passage, set out not in philosophical terms, but in the living character of a living man in the midst of a heaving sea and the creaking planks of a ship breaking up and the look of despair and hopelessness upon the face of men who have been fasting and are hungry. In the midst of all of that, here is a man who says, "Be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even so as it hath been spoken unto me." That to me is the great lesson of this passage.
But may I presume to take just a few more minutes to underscore a second lesson far more briefly. And it is this: behold in this text the powerful example of the extensive influence of one man of faith. As I have read and reread this passage in preparation for the message this morning, I've had to smile inwardly again and again. The man who went on board as a prisoner whose knowledge of the seas and the winds and the seasons of the year was disregarded by the experts. By the end of the chapter, that despised, disregarded religious fanatic becomes the captain of the ship, the ship's nutritionist, the ship's chaplain. I mean he takes charge of everything. And how did he do it? Not by dragging out four or five degrees to prove his credentials--Doctor of Ministry in Nutrition and Doctor of Ministry in Psychology. No, no, Here's a man who walked with God. And in a situation where an entire company of men is held in the paralyzing grip of fear and dread, one man of faith stands forth and takes charge of the whole situation, not with carnal pushiness, not with braggadocio, not with fleshly bombast. But when people are in the midst of the turbulent seas that are about to swallow them up, never are they more ready to see if there is somebody who's got a perspective on things that's better than theirs. They didn't need anyone to stand forth and say, "We're in bad shape. The prospects are bleak." They all knew it. But they needed a man who could say, "I believe God." And reality is not what you're assuming it will be in light of the heaving seas, in light of the storm clouds above us, in light of the creaking planks. No, no, reality is determined by the word of God and by the God who speaks that word.
And what an influence this man had. I've let my imagination run a bit wild and wondered what happened to these other 275 after this incident. How many of them lived to be old men and women if there were women. He says men; it may have been all men. But do you think they could ever forget this incident, when a despised religious fanatic, as they thought him to be when he entered that ship, became the very instrument in hands of God by which their lives were spared, hopefully by which many of them came to eternal salvation and will forever bless God in heaven that they were put on the ship with a man who believed God?
Now you see the application. What does your family need more than anything else, dear Mom and dear Dad? Not big name, big position, big bucks. You know what your kids need more than anything else? You husbands, you know what your wives need more than anything else? You wives, you know what your husbands and your children need more than anything else? They need a man or a woman who believes God. And he says reality is framed by the Word of God, not by current opinions, the reality of who we are, the reality of who you my son are, what you my daughter are, the reality of what you my wife are. That reality is determined by the Word of God. Our sexual identity, our specific roles and responsibilities, they are determined by God. Take all the current opinions of sociologists and feminists and wimped-out males that have capitulated to all of this nonsense, and let it be swallowed up in that very turbulent sea. Let God be true and every man a liar. That's why men and women of faith are such a pestilence in the eyes of the world, because you can't cajole them, you can't bride them, you can't frighten them into giving up their moorings because they are rooted in the Word which lives and abides forever.
I think of you dear young people, as God has been gracious to deal with a number of you in recent days. As you think of your life spread out before you, if God is pleased to spare you, you wonder, "What should I pray as my dominant goals in life?" May I add to whatever list you now have this prayer: "O God, make me a man, make me a woman who will have the influence of a man or woman of faith." And as you go back this year into that school, into that college, your life will be framed, not by what you see and others see, but by what God has said. You will manifest the walk of faith that Paul manifested in which God Himself (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is the soul object of your faith, the Word of God the sure foundation of that faith. The essence of that faith is the conviction that what God says is, and what God says shall be will be, while all the while remembering the handmaiden of faith, that inevitable accompaniment of faith, using every legitimate means in every pursuit that is according to the will of God. What is needed more than anything else in this place in the leadership of this church, surely it is this: men and women of faith, men and women prepared to take the promises of God that are yes and amen in Christ and to believe that it shall be even as it has been spoken.
As we think of these endeavors in the very bastions of immorality and wickedness in Newark and in Manhattan, surely people could look at us and say, "You're fools to think any good can ever come out of those settings." But what is all the sin and unbelief and the materialism and all the other things that plague the souls of men in Newark and in Manhattan-- what are these things to the mighty God who planted His truth in such a cesspool of iniquity as Corinth, who planted His truth in the bastion of the pagan worship of Diana, god of the Ephesians, there in Ephesus, and from that place sent out the Word into all of Asia Minor? I say, in this passage we must behold the powerful example of the extensive influence of one man of faith.
Let us look at verses 34 to 36 for a moment:
"Wherefore I beseech you to take some food: for this is for your safety: for there shall not a hair perish from the head of any of you. And when he had said this, and had taken bread, he gave thanks to God in the presence of all; and he brake it, and began to eat. Then were they all of good cheer, and themselves also took food."
They watched this guy in the midst of the storm, and I wonder how he held on while he gave thanks. Your imagination just goes in a number of directions. The ship is heaving, the planks are creaking, and the rigging is whistling, and in the midst of it, a voice is raised giving thanks to God. And however he hung on with his arm around one part of the rigging or one of the masts, I don't know. But he brakes the food and begins to eat. And when people say, "This man's not just indulging in pious talk. He believes what he has been talking to us about. This man is embodying in the very concrete, visible, manifestation of breaking bread and eating it his confidence. And it says at this point (and there's no indication up until now that they were anything other than scared out of their wits), they took courage. They took heart because of a man of faith in the midst. May I say it reverently, though there is a contagion of unbelief (we read that in the book of Joshua), there is also a contagion of faith. And I trust that your family, your spouse, your children know something about that.
But then I close with this sober word: behold in this text a vivid description about how one becomes a man of faith who walks by faith. How did Paul get to be such a man? Well, he tells us in verse 23: "There stood by me this night an angel of the God whose I am, whom also I serve." At one time Paul was not a man of faith. He was a man of unbelief; his unbelief took him to such an extent that he was committing himself to capturing and murdering Christians. He said, "I did it ignorantly in unbelief." His heart was dead set against Christ. He was a child of wrath by nature according to his own testimony in Ephesians 2. But what happened? He said, "Something happened whereby this God became the God to whom I gave myself, the God to whom I belong. And He became the God to whom I render service." And when did that happen? It happened on the Damascus road when that God revealed Himself and His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. And when Paul, stricken down by the blinding light, cried out, "Who are You, Lord? Surely this is a divine manifestation, the Shekinah glory shining brighter than the noonday sun." He cries out, "Identify Yourself, Lord." The voice comes back saying, "I am Jesus." And in an instance of time, the Apostle beheld the glory of God in the face of Christ. And what were the first words that came out of his mouth? "What will you have me to do, Lord [the God whose I am and whom I serve]?" That's how he became a man of faith.
And my dear friend, young or old, that's the only way you'll become a man or woman of faith, to live by faith and to enjoy the consummate blessings of the life of faith when in the light of resurrection glory, faith will be turned to sight; you'll behold the Lamb in His glory amidst all His redeemed host. You too must become the possession of God and the servant of God. As long as you think your life is yours to live for yourself according to your standards, to your own ends, to your own purposes, my friend, you know nothing of the life of faith. You're in a state of unbelief, and in that state of unbelief, you're under the wrath and curse of Almighty God. But God graciously comes to you in the Gospel and says, "Look, stack arms, you know in your heart of hearts, you were not made to live the way you're living. And you know in your heart of hearts, you can't look forward to death and to the age to come." Turn from your sin; throw yourself upon the mercy of God in Jesus Christ who died for sinners, who lives in the mercy and promise of the Gospel and invites you to come, and assures you that in coming, you'll be received. That's when you begin to be the man or woman of faith when you say, "I believe God. It shall be to me even as it has been spoken." What's been spoken? Christ says, "Him that comes to me, I will in nowise cast out." What is faith? It's laying hold of Christ in the word and promise of the Gospel and saying, "Lord Jesus, in spite of all my felt unworthiness, in spite of all my sense that I don't deserve anything, You have said if I come, You will not cast me out. I believe You, Lord, that it shall be to me even as it has been spoken."
God's word and promise to you in the Gospel is not a revelation of whether or not you're elect. It's not a revelation of decrees with respect to you or anyone else. It is a word that calls to you as a plain old sinner, and it says in a marvelous word of promise, "The is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptance, Christ Jesus came into the world sinners to save." So as a sinner, you come. As a sinner, you're welcome. As a sinner, you can say, "I believe God. It shall be to me even as it has been spoken, that believing, all my sins will be pardoned. I will be credited with a perfect righteousness in the court of heaven all for the sake of the perfect life and the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus." That's how Paul became a man of faith who walked by faith and could say amidst the turbulence of the storm, "I believe God. It shall be even as it has been spoken."
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 9:00:18 GMT -5
The Peace of God
that Surpasses Understanding
by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached October 20, 2008
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Now may I urge you to turn with me to that portion of the Word of God that was read in your hearing, Philippians 4. And the very familiar words of verses 6 and 7 will be the focus of our meditation this evening.
"In nothing [and I like to break up the word 'nothing' in to two words: 'in no thing'] be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus."
Let's pray for the help of the Spirit of God that we may understand and receive with meekness and joy His Word to us.
Our Father, we have already sought Your face as your servant has been our mouthpiece at the throne of grace. But we come again, not as a matter of ritual or formal approach to you, but because we have some sense of felt need. Lord, I need Your grace that I may be enabled to open Your Word accurately, that I may be able to open up Your Word in such a way that Your people will grasp its truth, that sinners will be made jealous to know the blessings held forth in Your truth. Come to us, we pray, with Your blessing. Open every mind and every heart and visit it with Yourself, we pray. In Jesus name, amen.
I believe I am right in assuming that most of you know that almost all of the letters of the Apostle Paul that have been providentially preserved and now form a large part of our Bibles were letters precipitated by some urgent pastoral concerns either in a church or churches or in the life of an individual. However, the letter to the Philippians is an exception to this general pattern. In fact, we might call the letter to the Philippians basically an expanded newsletter and thank you letter to the Philippian church.
In this letter, Paul is laying to rest some of the anxieties of the Philippians who loved him, who communicated frequently with him by telling them about his own circumstances and then by thanking them for that gift that was sent by the hand of Epaphroditus of which we read in verse 18 of chapter 4. The formal thank you part of the letter is chapter 4, verses 10 through 20. But because he's an apostle and a shepherd to all of the churches there in the first century, he has become aware of certain pastoral concerns in the church at Philippi. And he addresses those in his extended newsletter and thank you letter. He takes this opportunity to give a very strident warning about the insidious influence of the Judaizers. And then he speaks to a couple of ladies who must have had red necks and red faces when one of the elders or appointed readers in the church at Philippi stood and read this letter, and their names are mentioned. And Paul is telling them to bury the hatchet and to be at peace one with another. Well, as he's drawing this letter to its high point of thanks for the gift that the Philippians gave to him, in chapters 4, verses 10 to 20, he gives a concise series of directives to the Philippians as to how they are to live out their lives as the children of God in the presence of an on-looking and unbelieving world. And in chapter 4, verses 4 to 11, you have this trilogy of imperatives to the people of God bunched together. Verse 4 is a call to constant rejoicing. "Rejoice in the Lord always: again I will say, Rejoice." Here is the call to a life of constant rejoicing. Then in verse 5: a call to a life of constant gentleness or forbearance or reasonableness. The various Bible translations indicate the difficulty of nailing down this particular word to a precise meaning. But most likely, he is calling them to a life of gentleness and forbearance in the face of the opposition that many are facing because they are Christians. For remember, at the end of chapter 1, Paul says, "It has been given to you not only to believe on Christ, but to suffer for Him." And then in verses 6 and 7, he gives this call to a life of non-anxiety. And it is third call in this trilogy of calls to which I direct your attention this evening. And I have decided to preach on this text for three basic reasons.
Number one: the circumstances of the world around us as the people of God demand, I believe, a fresh consideration of this directive. Unless you can somehow be buried your basement or you just got back from being shipped to the moon, you know that our nation is in a serious economic crisis. And not only our nation, but in our global village as it called, the repercussions of this are shaking the economic fabric of one nation after another. Some of us have had a very vivid reminder when the quarterly statement of our IRA or our 401K came to us, and in a matter of weeks, thousands of dollars have gone down the tube. And you see the little plus and minus marks, and there it is: a loss of money, hard earned in many cases, not earned on stocks and bonds but the reward of our own labors. We have invested and poof--it's gone--a very serious anxiety-causing reality.
Many of us think of the implications of this crisis in terms of the stability of our churches. We've committed ourselves to ministries and to servants of God laboring in other places, and we wonder if we are going to be able to sustain those ministries. And then, of course, the political crisis, a national election coming up in about thee weeks. And the situation is such that it's nail biting, hand wringing if we don't take heed to the passage that is before us. When you have two candidates who present themselves as though they have messianic powers and kingly positions and a bottomless pit of money to give to anyone and everyone who will elect them. And they will line their pockets with the fruit of your willingness to cast a vote for them. For any thoughtful person, this can provoke tremendous anxiety: "What has happened to our national life?" And then in our churches. We heard in the reports last night some distressing news: churches where there are major exoduses from people who at one time paid a price and seemed to love the things that we love and the implications of the truths we embrace. And now they want something a little less demanding, something a little easier in terms of the expectation of them as church members. They want something that makes them a little more comfortable. And this can be distressing. Again, churches have committed themselves to building programs assuming, We have X number of families to responsibly take on a certain amount of indebtedness, and now all of that is coming apart at the seams.
And then there's a third reason why I want to address this text, and it grows out of the experience that my dear wife and I have had in recent months in relocating from Northern Jersey to Western Michigan. And Bunyan, you remember, said, "I did preach that which I did feel, that which I did smartingly feel." And in these recent months, this is a text that Dorothy and I have felt, we have smartingly felt as we have faced again and again situations that could cause much anxiety. And we have brought this text before God times without number as we have prayed together. And we have seen its truth. We have known the reality of its promise being fulfilled in us. So I hope I've touched at least most of you at some point in trying to persuade you we do well to come afresh to this text. The great crisis in our national life politically, economically; the crises in not a few of our churches, and then from a personal standpoint, this text has been nothing less than a roadmap and a constant companion to us in recent days. So in this context of the implosion of a housing market, the bottom dropping out of the stock market, the escalating crisis in Afghanistan, the context of the bleak political scenario before us, and in the midst of many unspoken pressures that could quickly and easily provoke anxiety, let us come to this word from the living God through the pen or the voice and the pen of Paul's amanuensis: "In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus."
First of all, then, consider with me the word of prohibition: "Be anxious for nothing." Now you don't need to know a word of Greek or any other language but plain old English to know this is a flat out, clear, unqualified prohibition. This prohibition is as clear as the prohibitions of the Decalogue: "You shall commit no murder [no exceptions]. You shall not commit adultery [no exceptions]. You shall not bear false witness [no exceptions]." And I trust that there is none here tonight who would willfully or even carelessly violate those prohibitions of the Decalogue and then with indifference chalk it up to, "Well, it's common human frailty." Would you do that? If you murdered someone, if you committed adultery, if you bore false witness, would you just chalk it up and say, "Well, to err is human, and nobody's perfect." I hope there is no one sitting here who would take the prohibitions of the Decalogue, violate them and then treat that violation with indifference. Dear people of God, this prohibition is just as clear and unrelenting as any of those in the Decalogue. "Be anxious for nothing." And to break that prohibition, to violate it is nothing short of sin. What is sin? Sin is any lack of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. This is part of the law of God, the revelation of the moral standard of God for us His people. Those whom Paul addresses in his opening words of the letter who are at Philippi but are in Christ Jesus, he sets this clear prohibition before these who are in Christ: "Be anxious for nothing."
Now when the Apostle wrote these words, he was not prohibiting the engagement of our hearts with those concerns that are part of our God-given stewardship of responsibility. If he was condemning any kind of heart engagement in a given concern, then he was condemning himself. For in 2 Corinthians 11:28, he takes the noun form of this word anxious and he says, "Besides those things that are without, there is that which presseth upon me daily, anxiety for all the churches." Paul was anxious for something: the state of the churches. And he lived with it, he went to sleep with it, he woke up with it, he bore it throughout the day. So when he sits down and writes or dictates, "Be anxious for nothing," we must not understand it as prohibiting that engagement of heart, that spirit of solicitous concern for someone or something. In fact, in this very letter, in chapter 2, he commends Timothy for being an anxious man. Look at verse 20: "For I have no man likeminded, who will [be genuinely anxious] for your state." It's exactly the same word. So when Paul says, "Be anxious for nothing," he is not prohibiting that engagement of heart and concern for persons or things that are part and parcel of our God-given stewardship.
Rather, Paul is prohibiting indulgence in that anxious care that Jesus addresses in Matthew 6:25-34. Six times in that passage we find our verb and Jesus saying, "Do not be anxious." It's that anxiety that produces the language of: "What shall we do about clothing? And what shall we do about drink? And what shall we do about my IRA? And what shall we do about my mortgage payment?" It's the anxiety that produces the fretful "What shall I do?" that he is addressing. It's the anxiety that our Lord graciously rebukes in our sister Martha. In Luke 10:41, Jesus says, "Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things" There's our word. And the parallel word "troubled" is a very vigorous word. It's the word found in Acts 17:5 when the Jews cited an uproar in the city. He says, "Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled.... [Your soul is like a turbulent sea, and waves crashing one upon another.]" In the three Synoptics in the passages concerning the parable of the sower and the soils, we have "the cares of this life that choke the Word." There's our noun form. It is the anxieties of life that choke the Word. So I think we can begin to get a feel to lay hold of what Paul is saying when he writes, "Be anxious for nothing." The prohibition has to do with that kind of carking, disruptive anxiety that agitates the soul. It clouds the face of God, unfits us for present duties, and weakens us for future duties. It produces, as I've indicated, the "What shall we do?" fretful language of Matthew 6 . This sinful anxiety is the nail-biting, frown-producing, ulcer-creating, sleep-depriving anxiety. And if we are to any extent indulging it, we're sinning. "Be anxious for nothing." That's the word of prohibition.
And then by moving into what I'm calling the word of direction, the Apostle uses one of those strong conjunctions, a strong adversative ("but"), and we cold translate it "but rather." In direct contrast to yielding to this sinful anxiety, here is the word of direction: "but rather." And then what does he say? Well, let's consider first of all what he doesn't say. He doesn't say, "Be anxious for nothing, but just flop yourself in the lap of divine sovereignty, for what will be, will be." That's Islamic theology, not Christian theology. That's a pagan notion, not a Scriptural notion. Nor does he say, "Do not be anxious, but get up and do something." Because doesn't God say He helps those who help themselves. I read recently a survey was taken, and the majority of the people when asked whether that was a saying out of the Bible affirmed, "O yes, that's in the Bible somewhere." That's the theology of Obama and McCain. "We're Americans. We can do it." That's not what Paul says. "Be an American and do something. Don't be anxious. Deal with the situation that's causing your anxiety." No, that's not the word of direction.
Here's the word of direction: "[but rather] in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." The way to be anxious for nothing, to state it in summary form, is to engage continually in Scriptural prayer concerning every single thing that would trigger and foster my anxiety. That's it in a nutshell. What is the divine antidote to sinful anxiety? It is the continual engagement of Scriptural prayer concerning everything and anything that would trigger sinful anxiety. "In everything"--and notice the words that he heaps together: "by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." All of those words put together are a description of Scriptural prayer. And there are four components to Scriptural prayer in this passage. Note first of all its object. It's object is God Himself. "In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known [towards] God." This is truly God-oriented prayer. It is not prayer conceived of in terms of its internal subjective exercises, but its objective reality in which I the potentially or presently anxious saint am engaging that being who in the trinity and glory of His grace has brought me out of darkness and into marvelous light. And I am to come to this God as the object of my prayers. And when we take this passage and bring under the light of Matthew 6, it is coming to God particularly remembering that He is our heavenly Father. Jesus said the antidote to anxiety is remembering your heavenly Father knows your need. "Shall not your heavenly Father...?" It is basking in the reality and the glory of what it is to be His adopted son.
A may I pause with a little aside because we've got a lot of preachers here. I found when I brought series on adoption (one of the last series I brought here at Trinity), I was frustrated by the fact that there's only one passage in the New Testament that says "sons and daughters." And I tried to get rid of the thinking in any of our ladies that somehow they're not full-class citizens because they're not sons of God but daughters of God. Then after I preached the series, I came across a book on adoption that I found tremendously helpful. And the author pointed this out: "Because of the Biblical taproots of the concept of adoption and the unique place of the firstborn son, God makes all His children, male and female, His sons. He gives them the position of the firstborn. They are brought into His family as full-grown sons, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ." So my dear sisters, you're sons with us. That's just a little aside for you preachers to pursue in subsequent preaching on adoption.
But when we come towards God in our determination not to yield to sinful anxiety, we must think of Him particularly as our heavenly Father. And though the Scripture says in Matthew 6:8 "Your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask Him," Paul has the temerity to write, "Let your requests be made known unto God." Why do I need to tell God anything? Because He tells me I should. Do I need any further reason than that? My heavenly Father comes to me as His child and says, "My son, tell Me about everything that's making you anxious." And we are engaging this One with whom nothing is too difficult. He is the Lord, the God of all flesh with whom nothing is impossible. And so we are to engage in Scriptural prayer that has as its object God Himself.
And then notice secondly from the text its nature. Its nature is bound up in the various words that are used: "by prayer," the most general word for prayer found in the New Testament. Someone has defined it this way, and I find it helpful: "the devotional, filial approach to God as our Father." "When you pray, say" Jesus said, "our Father who is in the heavens." There's intimacy: our Father, transcendence in the heavens. And though He's my Father, He's the sovereign of the universe. I come to Him in my prayers. But then Paul says, "by prayer and supplication." And now the issue is narrowed a bit. This is the word for specific petitions or requests. The verbal form is often translated in the New Testament "to beseech, to entreat." And the thing that's seeking to trigger your sinful anxiety, that specific thing is to become the issue that you bring to God in prayer, whatever it is. There's nothing silly when you come to your heavenly Father saying "Father, this thing is getting under my skin. It's going to make me a Martha, and I'm going to have an anxious and a troubled soul. You told me, 'by prayer and supplication.' And the fruit of that is a request. I bring it to you." And never need fear that God's going to say, "Now My son, that's an awfully piddling, little, silly thing." If God were to say that to me, I say back to Him, "Yes God , but You said, 'in everything.' It's a thing that's getting me anxious. So though it may be a piddling, little thing in Your estimation, God, You already told me to bring it back to You, so I'm going to bring it to You." I'm not going to be wiser than God. I'm not going to be sophisticated. I'm going to feel the liberty of son in the presence of his heavenly Father.
"By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving [we'll hold off a minute on that] let your requests be made known unto God." The verbal form of that noun is the standard word "to ask." The things that I ask about and for are my requests. So by prayer, in its most general sense, and supplication, I let my requests be made known unto God. Now that's not all that is involved in Scriptural prayer. We've said nothing about adoration, confession of sin. But in terms of dealing with that which would cause anxiety, this is the kind of prayer in which we are to engage. Its object is God; its nature is prayer, supplication, request. Now what is to be its attendant? Thanksgiving--"with thanksgiving." Prayer, supplication, and request stripped of thanksgiving are not Scriptural prayer. "With Thanksgiving"--thanksgiving for the privilege of coming towards God, thanksgiving for the past interventions of God in quieting our troubled hearts. Looking at our Ebenezers that we've raised along the way, and thanking God that in other circumstances where seemed we would have been buried with our anxiety, we came and did what the passage says. And we found the promise true. We thank Him, we praise Him, we worship Him. We thank Him for privilege in coming for past interventions, past answers. And then we bless Him that as we do this, He is going to fulfill His promise.
We've seen the object is God, the nature: prayer, supplication, request; the attendant: with thanksgiving. And what's to be its extent? "In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving...." Every single thing that would cause anxiety is to become the stuff of our prayers in coming towards God. Remember 1 Peter 5:7--and here you have a noun form: "Casting all your anxiety upon Him." Casting how many of them? All of them--the piddling, little ones, the big, giant ones and everything in between. And it's a wonderful word Peter uses. It's the same verb that's used when it says they took their coats and they cast them upon the mules on which Jesus was to ride. Once they cast them upon the mules, they weren't in their hands or on their backs anymore. There was distance between their cloaks and their bodies and their hands. They cast them--they got rid of them. "Casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He careth for you."
The word of prohibition: be anxious for nothing. The word of direction: engage in Scriptural prayer. And now the word of promise. As we do by God's grace what He's told us to do, this is what God has promised to do. Let's ask four questions of the text.
First of all, it says, "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus." Question number one: what is the peace of God in this context? I think the simplest way to answer that is to say it is the opposite of that turbulent, disruptive, sinful anxiety. It's the troubled waters of the soul hearing the voice of Christ saying, "Peace be still," and there was a great calm. The peace of God, that peace that is the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace...." The peace of God that comes from the One that Paul calls later on in this chapter the God of peace. He brings His own peace into our breasts. It is the exact opposite of that turbulent, disruptive, carking, gnawing, crippling anxiety of the soul.
Second question: what's the characteristic of this peace? Paul describes it in this way: "And the peace of God, which passeth [exceeds, goes beyond, rises above, and is superior to] all understanding...." Paul used this word in chapter 2 and verse 3: "doing nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each counting other better [beyond, higher] than himself." Here is the outstanding characteristic of this peace. It rises above, is superior to all understanding. In all our ability to put it in a strict, logical category to describe it out for anyone to see, there is, dear brothers, in our Bibles, a clear teaching of legitimate Christian mysticism, experiences of God and His grace, that we cannot put in nice, neat, little categories. That's why Paul can pray for the Ephesians, that they'll know the love of Christ that passes knowledge. "What kind of nonsense!" If you sent off something to an editor or to a publishing company, and in there you talked about people understanding that which surpasses understanding, they'd shoot it back to you saying, "What in the world are you talking about?" Here is a peace that surpasses, goes beyond, is superior to all understanding.
Third question: what will this peace do, or how will it act in us? Well, Paul tells us: "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts...." And when he uses the word "to guard," it was a military term. Remember, Philippi was a Roman colony. There were many Roman soldiers, and no doubt many of the Philippians had seen and walked by and perhaps had even become friendly with some local soldiers. And Paul uses this term that speaks of the peace of God acting like a garrison of soldiers around our hearts and around our thoughts. Some suggest that this speaks of a guard that would be inside the city gates protecting what goes out. But most suggest it would be a garrison guarding the external parameter of the city, keeping unwanted people out. But whether it's in or out, the concept is that the peace of God, this gentle, gracious fruit of the Spirit becomes armed with tremendously frightening power to resist things that are alien to our peace. And here he says that peace will guard the heart and our thoughts. And he doesn't say, "simply guard your hearts and thoughts," but "will guard your hearts and your thoughts."
One commentator has suggested what Paul is saying is this: "It will act like a sentinel on our hearts, keeping out unholy desires, attitudes, and affections and will guard our minds, keeping out rebellious, restless, and distracting thoughts. It's in the area of the hearts, the seat of our being, and in the cogitations and windings of our thoughts where anxiety does its horrible work? Anxiety is not something you can put in a test tube, but it's sure real when it's there in the heart, making the heart turbulent, restless, unsettled, and the mind filled with that which produces the questions, "What shall we do? What shall we wear? What shall we eat? And how shall we live in retirement? How shall we support our missionaries? And how, how, how?" In the area of the heart and the mind, in precisely those areas, God's peace will act like a garrison of soldiers to keep us, to guard us, to protect us from those things that by anxious thoughts would unsettle us.
And then the fourth question I want to ask of the text is, what's the ultimate source of that peace? Look at the text: "shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus [that precious little phrase that gives us the heart of Pauline New Testament theology]. " In the writings of Paul, it and similar phrases, "in Him," "in whom," "in Christ" are used approximately 150 times. Paul introduces it to the Philippians in his opening words: "Paul and Timothy, [bondslaves] of Christ Jesus, To all God's holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi...." Their essential identity is, while at Philippi, they are in vital saving union with Jesus Christ.
And in this past year, I've tried to think what it meant for this man who was out to kill everyone that called upon that name. For Paul to say Messiah Jesus--and when I read my New Testament, I try to read it that way. Instead of just saying Christ Jesus--it's lost its vigor--I say Messiah Jesus. Paul, out to obliterate any concept of this Messiah Jesus, now glories in that name. And so he says to the Philippians the ultimate source of this peace is in Messiah Jesus. It is one of the benefits of your union with Him. Remember what John says: "Of His fulness we all received, and grace for grace." God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. And what is the location of it? In Christ Jesus.
And Paul wants these people to know that this promise is not some little psychological gimmick by which we can get relieved of anxieties. The bookshelves in Borders and Barnes & Noble are full of books that give you psychological patterns and techniques to get rid of your hang-ups and anxieties. This is thoroughly Christian. This is the thorough-going Gospel way of being delivered from our sinful anxiety. Paul is telling these believers that the ultimate source of this peace is Christ Jesus Himself, the One who has become your peace through whom you have been reconciled to God so that you are now at peace with God who is the God of peace. You may now know the peace of God flowing out of Christ in whom the fullness of all of God's grace dwells. And it comes down into your hearts right there in Philippi. And you will know that peace as a wonderful fruit of your union with Christ guarding your hearts an your thoughts in Him.
And I must pause to say a word to men and women, boys and girls here tonight who are not in Christ. Perhaps the very term seems strange to you. You thought a Christian is someone who goes to a "Christian church" and becomes a member and does certain rituals and goes through certain external performances of religious deeds. No my friend, to be a Christian means that you and Christ have become one. You are in Him, and wonder of wonders, He is in you. An the only way to become a Christian is to get into Christ. And you don't get into Christ by some ritual of baptism. You don't get into Christ by praying some little prayer that someone puts in your mouth. You get into Christ when you stack arms and stop playing God. You weren't made to be your own little independent god. But that's what you are if you are out of Christ and in Adam. You're running your own life; you're living unto yourself.
And to get into Christ means you say, "I wasn't made to live unto myself by my own rules, to my own ends, by my own standards--no--I was made for God. But that God has a controversy with me because I've been living like I was God. And yet, wonder of wonders, that God sent His Son into the world to take upon Himself the guilt of our sin, having punished Him in the cross, having raised Him from the dead to validate that everything Christ did is accepted by the Father. He took Him back to His own right hand. And now in the Gospel, He comes to you and says, "Be reconciled to this God." He has in Christ punished our sins. On that basis, God invites you to come and partake of that forgiveness. Stack arms; stop playing God. Embrace Christ for who He is: the Way, the Truth, the only One through whom we can come to God. And as you come in what the Bible calls repentance and faith, you'll be united to Christ. God will give you His Holy Spirit that will become, as it were, the bond that knits you to Christ. And you will then, in Christ, be able to claim a promise like this and say, "Yes, I am in Christ. And in Christ, I have all the blessings that God has promised to needy sinners."
And to you God's people I haven't told you anything new tonight. I think you would agree with me, there's enough around us in the world, in our churches, in our own little hectic lives to cause all kinds of anxieties. Let me ask you, has your conscience been persuaded that to indulge anxiety, you need to add an adjective. It is sinful anxiety. God prohibits you to be anxious. "Be anxious for nothing." But then He's given you a wonderful direction: "In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." Prayer, supplication, request mingled with thanksgiving. And God says His peace will then be given. The promise is set before us based upon the assumption of compliance with the prohibition and the directive.
And why was Paul concerned about this? Well, I'm sure there were many reasons, but not the least he already hinted at in chapter 2--and this is why it's so critical, dear fellow believer. Verses 12-16a:
"So then, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for His good pleasure. Do all things without murmurings and questionings: that ye may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye are seen as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life...."
Paul identifies two things that must not mark God's people: grousing and complaining. But what's the great end in view? He is conscious that they are luminaries in the darkness of the pagan society at Philippi. And he wants them to shine as lights, brilliant twinkling stars against the backdrop of that pagan society. That's his passion, and surely he would incorporate this as well. People around us are wringing their hands, biting their nails, fretting, running to the banks, sticking money under mattresses. And you can in that situation show a calm, a peace that surpasses understanding. You talk about being a witness. You talk about having the opportunity that Peter anticipates: sanctifying Christ as Lord in your hearts, ready always to give an answer to him who asks a reason of the hope that is in you. I'm concerned when I hear believers caught up in the anxiety of this present political crisis. "O, what are we going to do?" What are you doing different than the world? How are you different? That's worldliness. God calls us to be other-worldly, to manifest in this very practical area that God's Word is true.
I wrote a little note at the end of my message on page 5 of my notes with a question mark: should I or should I not give this personal testimony? I believe I should. I shall never forget the day when I had a firm diagnosis of prostate cancer. The doctor had called me, and I had to have a second biopsy. Then was about time for the biopsy to come back and I had a call again from the doctor's office from his nurse who said, "Mr. Martin, Dr. Slyker would like to see you this morning." It was a beautiful spring morning in March of 1998. I said to my wife, "He doesn't want to call me in and talk about the weather. I've got cancer." And sure enough, I went in and he told me the bad news. And we had a good talk with him and sought to give testimony to our confidence of God's sovereignty and God's grace. And then we came home--and I'll never forget it--we got on our knees, and I said to my wife, "Now dear, we're going to do what God tells us to do in Philippians 4, and then we're going to watch God do what He says He'll do." And at that point, was I anxious? What do you think? When you've got something that might take you to your grace like it took your vigorous father, strong as an ox at age 82 until that wretched disease took him to his grave in three years. And I knew enough from my reading to know that the type of prostate cancer you have (the score on the Gleason score) is commensurate with your genetic predisposition. Sure I was anxious, but I said, "Dear, we're going to get on our knees and we're going to do what this says." And we opened up the Word of God--I believe I actually opened up the passage--and said, "Now my Father, here we are, and You said, 'Be anxious for nothing.' Lord, I settle in my heart, I am not going to let anxiety rule me in this issue. It's sin! Lord, I don't want to sin." "Be anxious for nothing." And then I laid out to my heavenly Father with thanksgiving my request. And when I did all of that, then I said, "Now Lord, the rest is up to You. I can't do what You said You can do, that your peace will guard my heart and mind in Christ Jesus." And some of you remember, it was that very evening we had a prayer meeting, and I was privileged to stand in that multipurpose room and say to my people, "God means what He says."
Dear people, I beg you, some of you who are a bundle of knotted, tied-up anxiety about everything--stop it! God tells you to stop it, but not like Obama and McCain are telling us to stop our national nonsense by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. Go to your heavenly Father through Christ your Savior. Bring to Him your prayer, your request, mingle them with thanksgiving. Anything that causes anxiety becomes the thing that you bring to Him in prayer and supplication. And then tell God you expect Him to fulfill His promise. You who are fathers, what it did to you as a parent when your child had the loving temerity to hold you: "Daddy, you promised me this, and you're my father." We're you ever insulted, turned off? No, you felt ten feet tall. God loves it when we hold Him to His Word. So in the midst of all these pressures, may God grant that we as a people will be living monuments that God is true. And His peace shall guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 9:01:06 GMT -5
Sin Forgiven
by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached January 1, 1995
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As an ordinary course in our evening service of worship, the ministry of the Word is the culmination of that worship and usually takes an hour of that worship. But in our communion service, those of us who minister the Word are asked to keep our messages somewhere within 30 or 35 minutes, and whatever subjects we may be dealing with, whatever series of sermons we are involved in in the other Lord's Day evenings, to seek to prepare a meditation that will in a very focused way prepare us to come to the Lord's table so that our coming to the table, though under the light of the Word, finds the Word preparing us for that privileged activity of remembering our Lord Jesus in the way of His appointment. And in keeping with that commitment that we presently believe as elders is unto optimum edification, I do want to speak to you relatively briefly this evening. And I'm going to ask you to turn with me to a portion of the Word of God that we will have occasion to come back to for the conclusion of our meditation--Psalm 32. Psalm 32 is one of the Psalms that most responsible Bible students believe was composed in conjunction with David's penitence with respect to his sin in the case of Uriah and Bathsheba. And when God by His Spirit through the instrumentality of the ministry of Nathan the prophet was pleased to bring David to deep repentance and confession of his sin, he penned these words:
"Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom Jehovah imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my groaning all the day long, for day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture was changed as with the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity did I not hide: I said, I will confess my transgressions unto Jehovah; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin."
Now as we embark upon this new year and are found gathered here one the first day of the year, January 1, 1995, I believe, were we to conduct some kind of grassroots survey, we would find that many of us enter this new year with an array of burdens which we have no power in ourselves to remove. We come to this first day of the new year in the providence of God with a manifold, perhaps even number of personal and domestic burdens, which, though we can cast upon the Lord as we are commanded to do in Psalm 55:22 ("Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee"), we have no power to remove that burden. Perhaps it is the burden of declining health or chronic illness, the burden of joblessness or frustration as we seek to glorify God in our appointed career. For some, I know, it is the burden of ongoing singleness. When you recognize that God has made you that you might share life with one of the opposite sex in the bonds of marriage and know the joys of marital love and intimacy and family. And yet through no choice of your own, you carry the burden of an ongoing single state into this coming year. And I know there are others among you who carry the burden of an ongoing barren womb, the burden of childlessness, and others, the grief of the loss of a loved one, the grief of a wayward son or daughter, the tremendous internal crushing that comes from the apparent frustration of all of your endeavors to bring those children, the fruit of your marital union to the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. I know there are others who live with the burden of a divided marriage. You have a spouse with whom you cannot share your deepest joys, your deepest griefs, your highest aspirations. Well, on and on we could go with the burdens represented by those sitting here tonight. We carry those burdens with us into this new year, 1995, and we are helpless to remove those burdens.
However, there is another burden that perhaps not a few of you have carried into this first day of 1995. But it is a burden which no child of God need carry into the second day of this new year, a burden that, in a sense, is the burden of all burdens. And yet, though it is the burden of all burdens, there is no reason for the child of God to carry it into the coming year. And it is the burden of unforgiven and uncleansed sin. The burden that David describes here in Psalm 32 that drove him into the state of emotional disruption so that there was groaning, the sense of the hand of God upon him day and night, apparently crying and weeping to the point where his tear ducks were dry. He was carrying that insufferable burden to the conscience of a true child of God, the burden of unforgiven and uncleansed sin. And my simple and straightforward appeal to every Christian in this place tonight is that you deal with that burden at the most appropriate place to have it dealt with. When sitting here tonight, there is spread before you the very visible tokens of the body of Christ given up as a sacrifice for sin, that token, an emblem of the blood of Christ shed that our sins might be cleansed and forgiven. And the central, the focused passion of my heart is to entreat you as a child of God not to carry into this coming year the burden of unforgiven and uncleansed sin. And let me give you three very simple reasons from the Word of God as to why you should not carry that burden.
The first is this: the provision of God for our sins is unquestionably adequate. We have such statements as these in the Word of God: 1 John 1:7: "If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son [goes on cleansing] us from all sin [sins of thought, sins of word, sins of attitude, sins of deed, sins of the heart, sins of the hand, sins of the mind]." There is no sin of any kind in any category for which the blood of Christ is not an adequate provision fully to cleanse us. Further on in this very epistle (chapter 2 and verse 1): "My little children, these things write I unto you that ye may not sin. And if any man sin [and no qualification is made upon the nature of that sin], we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the propitiation for our sins." He embodies in Himself all the virtue of that sacrifice by which He turned away the wrath of God which every sin deserves, whether it be a sin of thought, word, desire, deed, intention, of sins seen only by the eye of God or a sin placarded before all around us. He is the propitiation for our sins. And as we heard so eloquently and powerfully several weeks ago in this place, He cried from His cross, "It is finished!" And payment was made for every sin, so that the Scripture tells us in Hebrews 9:12, "nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption." And then the writer to Hebrews goes on to amplify on the perfection of that once for all sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Chapter 10 and verse 12: "But He, when He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God." Child of God, why should you, why should I enter into this new year carrying the burden of unforgiven and uncleansed sin when the provision of God for our sins is unquestionably adequate?
But not only does the Bible teach us that the provision of God for our sins unquestionably adequate, in the second place, the promise of God with respect to forgiving our sins is unquestionably certain. Someone might reason, "My problem is not the adequacy of the provision for forgiveness. But is God willing to forgive me this sin, this sin for which I've had to come to Him a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand times? Is there a promise with respect to His forgiving my sin that is unquestionably certain? Well, here we could multiply texts, but let's just look at a couple of them that epitomize the whole teaching of Scripture. Psalm 130:4 is one of the most precious texts on the subject of forgiveness found anywhere in the Word of God. The Psalmist asked the searching question in Psalm 130:3: "If thou, Jehovah, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?" If God were to mark our iniquities with a view to calling us into account for them and there were no forgiveness provided, no way of pardon and cleansing open to us, who among would stand before the God who knows the deepest secrets of our hearts, who sees the first springs of anger and of lust and of envy, who sees with His eye of omniscience, according to the Scriptures, the eyes of the Lord that are in every place beholding the evil and the good, the first swellings of pride; who sees and hears all that is a violation of His holy law? "If Thou, Jehovah, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?" It's a rhetorical question, the answer of which is clear: not a one of us. "If any man says he has not sinned, he is a liar, and the truth is not in him," John says. None of us could stand. But look at verse 4: "But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared." The promise of God with respect to forgiving our sin is unquestionably certain. There is forgiveness with the God, who if He marked our iniquities, could bring us all into judgment, and our mouths would be stopped before Him. But here is an unquestionably certain promise of forgiveness with this very God. Those promises could be multiplied many times over from the Scriptures.
But then I want you to think with me thirdly, not only is the provision of God for our sin unquestionably adequate, the promise of God with respect to forgiving our sin unquestionably certain, but--here's the catch--the prerequisite of God with respect to our forgiveness is unquestionably clear. What is the prerequisite? It is not to do one thing to add to the virtue of the sacrifice of Christ. We'd like it if we were asked to do something to perfect the provision, if we were asked to find some loophole in the promise. But no, the prerequisite of God with respect to our forgiveness is unquestionably clear. And what is it? Here I ask you to turn to one of the most familiar verses in that same book of 1 John. 1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Here is the promise of complete forgiveness of all our sins and cleansing from all our unrighteousness. But what is the prerequisite? "If we confess our sins...." And the word "confess" here in this context very simply means we stand with God accessing our sin to be exactly what He says it is. And we say the same thing about it that God says. "If we confess our sins," not if we make some general acknowledgement we haven't been all we should be; we haven't attained all that we ought to have attained to, not some vague, nebulous acknowledgement of being a general flop. It's "If we confess our sins [if we are prepared to name those risings of envy, that root of bitterness, perhaps a disposition of suspicion about the goodness of God because of some of those other burdens that He in His providence has laid upon you and that you cannot shed, the burden of your singleness, your barrenness, your broken heart over a wayward son or daughter]...." I read recently in one of the popular magazines of someone writing in to one of the Christian gurus for counsel. Because this person said, "My wife and I have prayed our eyes out for one of our children and they haven't been saved. The more we prayer, the more they go away from God, and I find myself bitter at God." What a horrible admission to be in, but at least they were admitting it. It's blasphemous to think that God owes salvation to anyone simply because he prayed. God owes salvation to no one. But with respect to some of these burdens, perhaps those are the very things that are creating the sins of the heart: suspicions of God's goodness, questioning God's right to be God, bitterness and resentment directed to God, perhaps bitterness and resentment directed to the human instruments who are the cause in God's hands of laying some of these other burdens upon you. But whatever those things may be, the prerequisite of God with respect to our forgiveness is unquestionably clear: "If we confess our sins...."
The Old Testament passage that is parallel to this is Proverbs 28:13: "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy." Here's a prerequisite of obtaining God's forgiveness, His mercy unto pardon and cleansing: we must not cover our transgressions. David, in the passage we read in Psalm 32, covered his transgressions with silence. Verse 3 of Psalm 32: "When I kept silence...." All you need do is to be silent about those sins and refuse to confess them, you will not know God's forgiveness; you will not know God's cleansing. And if you're a true child of God, you will know an increasing burden of divine chastisement, "for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth," to the end, according to that Hebrews 12 passage, that we might be partakers of His holiness. And God will not allow His true children to go on forever in a course where they cover their sins. David went on for a period of time (at least close to a year) covering his sin, covering it with silence, covering it with hypocrisy, seeking to go on in the administration of his family and the kingdom as though it were business as usual. And all the while, the cancer of the sin that gnawed at his conscience was working until his whole inner being, according to this passage and Psalm 51 as well, was being eaten up and consumed. The joy of Lord was lost. The sense of divine nearness was gone. Any sense of authentic witness was gone. And we read the tragic effects all because he would not confess his sin. And when we read the sequel of God's dealings with him through Nathan the prophet, one of the most beautiful statements in all of the Word of God--and I want you to turn there with me. 2 Samuel 12. David is in this wretched state. Day and night the hand of God is heavy upon him; his moisture is turned into the drought of summer. And God in mercy sends the prophet Nathan, captures his conscience and awakens it with a parable. Nathan says to David, "You are the man." And then the prophet lays out David's sin. 2 Samuel 12:7-10:
"And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul; and I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added unto thee such and such things. Wherefore hast thou despised the word of Jehovah, to do that which is evil in his sight? thou hast smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house...." Verse 11: "Thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house...." Verse 12: "For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel...." When the prophet was done indicting him--look at verse 13: "And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against Jehovah." Simple: "I have sinned against Jehovah." I want you to expect the following: some words saying, "Well, in the light of the horrible extent of your sin, the amount of time you covered your sin, all of the horrible, growing circles of the tragic influence of your sin, David, grovel for the next six months begging and seeking forgiveness. And it may be God will be inclined to show mercy." That's Romanism. That's not Biblical religion. Listen to the word of the prophet: "And Nathan said unto David, Jehovah also hath put away thy sin." You mean in an instant of time? David says, "I have sinned." And the prophet answers, "Jehovah also hath put away thy sin." May I say it reverently. It's as though God was yearning and longing, bending over heaven, waiting for that prerequisite to be fulfilled. And the moment the first intimation of it was expressed with David, God's own heart of tenderness and mercy burst open to the language of the prophet: "Jehovah also hath put away thy sin." You say a doctrine like that will make people go out and sin like the devil and just think that they can get quick and cheap forgiveness. No, no, my friend, if that's what you think, you've never known the sweetness of divine forgiveness. Forgiveness so free, forgiveness so undeserved humbles us, breaks us, crushes us and binds us in love and gratitude to a God who would be so merciful to the likes of us.
Dear Christian, whatever burdens you carry into the coming year, in the name of this God, in the name of His Son, in the name of that body broken and that blood shed for sinners, why carry that burden of a gnawing conscience into this coming year? Why carry the cancer of uncleansed and unforgiven sin, cutting off the nerve of communion with God, cutting off all of the nerve of vital witness, drying up the springs of holy joy and praise? Dear child of God, you know what your sin is. I don't, but God does. And I plead with you as we gather on this first day of the new year here at the table of the Lord, where our Lord Himself says, "Remember Me, but remember Me especially in terms of My body given and My blood shed for the forgiveness of sins here in this place tonight." May God grant that you'll take the posture of David. No, your sin has not been physical adultery or physical murder and betrayal of trust before the whole nation of Israel. But whatever your sin is, if you confess your sins, yours in particular, yours specifically, He is faithful and righteous to forgive. Righteous to forgive? Yes, because the payment for that sin has been made by His beloved Son. And it is righteous for God to forgive the sin of those who do confess it. "He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Whatever burden you may be called upon to carry into this coming year, and whatever burdens may yet be laid upon you throughout the year, wherein is true blessedness found? Not in being burdenedless. No, we come back to the Psalm with which we began: "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom Jehovah imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile." May God grant that you will suffer the exhortation, child of God, and not carry the burden of unforgiven, uncleansed sin into this new year.
And for you who have never known the joy of sins forgiven, who have never taken the posture of the publican standing in the presence of God acknowledging you have nothing to commend yourself to Him, you may carry no perceptible burden. You may come lighthearted, you may come light-spirited into this new year thinking you've got the world by the tail, utterly unaware that there hangs upon you the most insufferable burden that can hang over any creature of God, for the Scripture says the wrath of God abides on him that believes not. God's wrath like a frightening canopy hangs over your head if you have never gone in the posture of a penitent seeking forgiveness from the God of heaven in the way that forgiveness alone is tendered to sinners on the grounds of the person and work of the Lord Jesus. And so the entreaty I make to the people of God I make to you who have never come in repentance and faith. And I plead with you, do not carry the burden of sin into this coming year, for it may be the time when God will say, "Enough." "Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth." God grant that even as you see the people of God taking the emblems of the body of Christ given for sinners, the blood of Christ shed for sinners. If you will say, "O Lord Jesus, is that for me?" The answer of the Gospel is, "Whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely." "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out."
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 9:02:10 GMT -5
Helps in Dealing
with Remaining Sin
by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of conference message
PDF Format | More Transcripts
What I wish to do tonight is to speak to you on the very practical subject of helps to dealing with remaining sin. And for Scriptural background to the thoughts that I will share with you tonight, I would ask you to follow as I read from Romans the 6th chapter. And I shall read the entire chapter. The Apostle having expounded the great truth that sinners are accepted before God as righteous solely on the basis of the work of another, the work of Christ, and they come into vital appropriation by faith and faith alone--now human logic goes to work on that grand doctrine and says, "All right, if I'm saved by the work of another and I'm saved by faith that confesses I have nothing to bring to God, but I simply lay hold of that which is provided, then let us continue in sin that grace may abound." And so the Apostle addresses himself to that objection and says,
"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
As I address myself to the very practical subject of helps to dealing with remaining sin, I wish to do so with three broad fundamental Biblical and theological propositions forming the base upon which these practical exhortations will be given. The order of Scripture is always, you are and therefore be. This is what you have, and in the light of it, therefore do. Doctrine is always the basis of exhortation unto practice, and all exhortations to practice are rooted in the realities of Christian doctrine. The doctrine is unto practice; the practice is rooted in the doctrine. And so very briefly I wish to state three Biblical propositions, each of which is taught in this 6th chapter of Romans and throughout the entirety of the Word of God, which will be the platform upon which the exhortations will be set forth.
The first proposition is this: all men by nature are under the dominion of sin. When the Apostle writes to the Roman Christians, he generalizes their pre-converted state and says it was true of each one of them, that they were the bondslaves of sin. And this concept occurs in the strong language of verse 17: "But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you." You were as it were the property of another. Sin is personified into a living master, and all of these Roman Christians are called as to their pre-converted state the very bondslaves of this master called sin. Again in verse 18, the same concept is used and again in verse 22. Our Lord Himself said in John 8:34, "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin." And so the relationship of all men by nature to sin is one of servitude. We are under sin's dominion, and this servitude is a very practical servitude. The Apostle says in verse 13 that you were presenting your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. He repeats it in verse 19: "Ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity." In other words, the doctrine of bondage to sin is not some kind of a detached theoretical description. It is an accurate statement of the case as it is. Sin, as it were, speaking through depraved lust and unregulated passion, says, "Give me your eyes to lust; give me your ears to receive false witness; give me your feet to walk in forbidden paths; give me your hands to touch forbidden objects; give me your affections to covet inordinate objects." And we presented ears, eyes, hands, tongue, feet, and all of our faculties without and within as the very instruments of servitude to sin. The servitude, then, was practical; the servitude was pervasive. When you were the slaves of sin, he said you were like free men in regard to righteousness. You did not recognize the claims of righteousness. As a free man does not recognize the claims of a slave owner--he's a free man. The Apostle says you regarded yourselves as free men in regard to righteousness. So this servitude is not only practical but pervasive. And it is perpetual, for he says you were continually the slaves of sin. This was your constant state--eating, drinking, sleeping, and waking. Every aspect of your life was but an expression of this servitude. And that's the condition of everyone in this building this night who is not savingly united to Jesus Christ. What do you need to do to become a slave of sin? You need do nothing but to be born a son or daughter of Adam; that's all. "We were by nature," the Apostle says, "children of wrath, even as others."
The second proposition is here in Romans 6 and elsewhere in Scripture: all men by nature are under sin's dominion, but some men by grace are no longer under its dominion. The Apostle says in verse 17, "But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin...." That condition no longer exists. "Ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. And being made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness." Some men are no longer slaves of sin. They are in the words of this text the slaves of righteousness. And of course, verse 22 repeats the same sentiment: "But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God." You are no longer the slaves of sin. You are the servants of the living God. And verse 14 is the most explicit statement of this principle that some men by grace are delivered from sin's bondage: "For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace." The moment a man or woman, boy or girl comes into the orbit of the effectual operations of grace, they are out of the orbit of sin's dominion. And no one exists in the same orbit at the same time. All men by nature are within the sphere where sin is lord. But when grace becomes operative, grace unto free justification, that same grace delivers men from that sphere of bondage to sin and brings them into the state of freedom from that bondage. And so the second proposition is clearly taught here; it is taught in Romans 8:5-9; it is taught explicitly in Galatians 5:19-24 and in 1 John 3:1-10. These are the most powerful statements in the New Testament demonstrating this second proposition, this second assertion: some men by grace are delivered from sin's dominion.
But now there is a third proposition: All saved men, though delivered from the dominion of sin, have the remains of sin and corruption with which they must reckon to the end of their days. Now don't ever start any view of the conflicts and struggles and responsibilities of the Christian life with proposition 3. Start with 1; go on to 2, and then and only then will you have the right perspective of the third proposition. And it's interesting that the chapters which most forcefully declare the believer's emancipation from bondage to sin, most explicitly assert the reality of the present aggravation of remaining sin. Emancipation and aggravation are put together in the closest of context. Here is Roman 6: You were, but you now are. You once were, but this is your present experience. But in the midst of that, he says in verse 12, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof." Though I have been delivered from sin's dominion, I have not been delivered from the actings of lust in my members. And I have a responsibility that there will be no usurping of sin in my life. He goes on in verse 13 in a way of exhortation, as you were voluntary and cooperative in presenting your members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, now there must be the same conscious, voluntary cooperative yielding of your members instruments of righteousness unto God. Though the people envisioned in Romans 6 are delivered from sin's dominion, there is still remaining corruption. Furthermore, Romans 6 is followed very closely by Romans 7. And what is the cry of the last part of Romans 7:14 and following in spite of the fact that a well-known minister in recent days has taken a position on this disputed chapter that contradicts the historic understanding of it? May I just suggest, the Apostle Paul was not careless in the use of tenses. And whatever Romans 7:14 and following teaches, it's interesting that everything he says with reference to this problem is in the present tense. The previous 13 verses deal with what we would call in English the past tense. They are a description of something that happened historically in the life of the Apostle. But verse 14 and onward deal with a present reality, and that reality focuses on the words of verses 20-23:
"Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members."
Here is the man who is fully cognitive of the great truth of Romans 6, that some men by grace are delivered from the dominion of sin. And he speaks of the great emancipation in chapter 6. But here in chapter 7, he speaks of the agitation of remaining sin. You have essentially the same thing in the other great chapters of emancipation. Galatians 5:19-24. You have the statement about the realm of the flesh in verses 19-21; verses 22 and 23 the realm of the spirit. And then Paul says, "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." There's been a basic emancipation from the realm of flesh into the realm of spirit. But verse 17 in that same chapter says, "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." Take again 1 John--great book dealing with the emancipation. Chapter 3: "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin...." He that is born of God does not make a practice of sin. But that's the same John who says, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.... My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Likewise in Romans 8, another great chapter of emancipation. Having stated in verse 9 that we are no longer in the flesh as a dominant sphere of spiritual experience, "but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in [us]." He goes on to say in verse 13 that we must by the Spirit continue to mortify the deeds of the flesh. Though we're delivered from the flesh as the realm and domain in which we live and move and have our being, there is still the problem of remaining flesh, remaining corruption: sin in our members with which we must reckon to the end of our days.
Now in the light of those three fundamental principles, I should like to exhort you as time permits in the way of some practical directives assisting us in this great conflict with remaining sin. Now some may question the very thing that I am doing and say, "Is it right to give rules, principles, guidelines? Should we not simply just pray everyday, 'Lord fill me with the Spirit; lead me not into temptation, and deliver me from evil.' Is not that enough?" No, my friend. The whole concept of warfare is patent in the Word of God, that we must learn spiritual logistics in this warfare with the world, the flesh, and the devil. And all the principles that I will set before you are ones that just whistle through the pages of the New Testament and are wonderfully Illustrated in many portions of the Old as well. And there's no significance to the order, except the first and last focus upon Christ. And any consideration of this matter must have the focus there. So the only significance is in what forms the beginning and the end. And there is no real significance in what lies in the sandwich in between.
First of all then, if by the grace of God when we leave this place to go back into the mundane, the hum drum, the place of duty and responsibility, how are we to make progress in dealing with the problem of remaining sin? Well, first and foremost, we must keep our hearts well-supplied with Gospel motives. Now what do I mean by those words? Well, when I use the term "keep the heart well-supplied," I'm speaking in terms of such statements as we find in Proverbs 4:23: "Keep [or guard] thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. And if we may liken the heart to a garden, a garden that grows weeds if it is not nurtured and cultivated and cared for, but a garden which under proper care can produce luscious, nourishing food, we then must keep the heart well-furnished, well-weeded, well-cultivated so that holy fruits may spring forth, not innately from our hearts but from that virtue which is in Christ and which becomes our portion because we are united unto Him. We must then keep the heart well-furnished with what? Well, with what I'm calling Gospel motives. And I'm using the term "Gospel motives" in contrast to legal motives. Legal motives and principles would be such things as the fear of hell, the fear of the consequences of our sins, perhaps even the fear of the chastening rod of God. But as Owen has so clearly demonstrated in volume 6 of the complete works of Owen dealing with this subject, these legal motives are conquered in sinners day after day. And though they may for a time be a barrier to some sins, in many people they are nothing but a paper barrier. And in the heart of the child of God, there must be found flourishing, not legal motives but Gospel or evangelical motives. And what do I mean by evangelical motives? Those motives that flow from the genius of the Gospel, those motives that flow from a present sight of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, those motives which flow from a trustful reliance upon and confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ in all the beauty of His person and the perfection of His work.
Let me give you an example of Gospel motives working in the heart of a man to keep him from sin and to spur him on to duty, one in the New Testament and one in the Old. The Apostle Paul, of course, is a great example in the New Testament. We read in 2 Corinthians 5:14: "For the love of Christ constraineth us." The Apostle describes some motivating power in his life as the love of Christ, that is, a believing intelligent apprehension of Christ's love to him. Now imagine that you were privileged to follow the Apostle Paul to one full day of his arduous labors. Suppose you could be with him in the motel where he stayed between preaching engagements, and you were awakened in the morning by the muffled tones of his intercession as he arose early to seek the face of His God. And then you followed him as he spent some of the morning hours in the local market place button-holing people and seeking to a accost them in the name of Christ and lay before them the Gospel in all of its majesty, in all of its tender entreaty, and in all of the overtones of divine urgency. And then you watched him go back to his motel, and he prayerfully compose letters that he asked you to take down to the post office, letters to go to a church here and a church there and a church in another place. And then you beheld him as perhaps he skipped the supper hour to spend time gathering around him some of the leaders in the local assembly and exhorting them to go on in the faith, and warning and charging them as a father with his own individual children. And then you saw him go to some public meeting hall, and there he preached as a man who had spent the day resting or relaxing. He preached with such energy that some even thought he was demented and that he was beside himself. And after seeing him through such a day and following him back to the motel as he flopped his weary bones upon his bed, you say,
"Paul, I've watched you all this day; I've heard the urgent, fervent pleading in your prayers; I've beheld your tender, loving, consuming zeal for the conversion of sinners; I've seen you pour your heart through your pain as you've taken the concern of the churches upon you; I've beheld you preach with energy and power and in demonstration of the might of God. Paul, what is it that drives you with that which borders almost upon madness? What is it that drives you from your bed to pray; drives you from the place of a recluse into the peculiar dangers of the marketplace and the public ministry and back to the secret place to yearn over the churches? Paul, what is it that drives you? What is it that impulses you?"
And the Apostle would answer,
"The love of Christ constrains me. In my eye continually is this awesome, this blessed, this glorious reality that the Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me, and because of what He is and what He has done, all of my debts to divine law have been paid; all of my forfeited privileges of communion with God have been restored. And it's the believing sight of this love of this Savior to me that constrains me, constrains me to keep under my body, constrains me to say no even to the innocent that would impede my progress in grace and in usefulness."
Here's a man moved by Gospel motives. In the Old Testament you have the example of Joseph. The young man by strange providence deposited in Potiphar's house, and in that situation a woman cast her eyes upon him and taunts him day after day seeking to seduce him until one day in her frustration when the scene is set for his fall, she lays hold upon him physically and says, "Lie with me." And his response is, "No, I dare not. What will happen to my reputation? What will happen to my present station?" No, no, none of these things are foremost in his mind. Whatever place they may have played, the Scripture is careful to record that the answer of Joseph was, "How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" This God who graciously preserved him when his brothers sought his ruin, this God who had delivered him, this God who had brought him into this place of position and usefulness in Potiphar's house, this God before whose eye He knew all of his life was constantly lived--here was a man furnished with Gospel motives.
Now let me say by way of application, if you are to keep your heart well-furnished with Gospel motives--and you must, or you will make very little progress in dealing with remaining sin--there are three exhortations, one positive and one negative that I would lay before you. The positive is this: If you are serious about dealing with remaining sin, then you must seriously employ all the means of grace, public and private, in order to keep your heart well-supplied with Gospel motives. If I'm serious about keeping the garden in my backyard free of weeds, specific steps must be taken. If I'm determined that the plant leaves will be lush and green, then specific steps must be taken. And so we've organized the children into a band of mini farmers who have their weeding chores in the morning. And if we go a few days without rain, one of them has the watering chore, and I have the fertilizing chore. And specific calculated steps are taken to keep that garden well-furnished with all that is necessary to have a good crop of vegetables. No one ever has a heart well-furnished with Gospel motives by sitting back and just hoping it will be so. For God has ordained specific means in order to keep the heart well-furnished with Gospel motives. Some of those means are public; some are private. Those public means, of course, are the preaching of the Word. For in all true expectation of the Word, Jesus Christ in one way or another is set before us, the glory of His salvation, our need of that salvation, and its many dimensions. When the law is preached, it is preached that we may discover its perfection fulfilled in Christ and our imperfections that we may be driven to Christ. And so the whole end of all true law preaching is to produce Gospel motives in the heart. The true end of opening up doctrine is that we may see Jesus Christ as the Lodestone of all truth. And the end of opening up duty is to show us how we demonstrate our gratitude to the Son of God. And the opening up of the promises is to ravish our hearts with the realization that, how many so ever are the promises of God, in Him is the "yea" and through Him is the "amen" to the glory of God. And I say to my dear preacher friends, are you preaching the Word as you ought? Is Christ Himself coming through if I may say that without irreverence? Is the Lord Jesus the great throbbing heartbeat of your preaching? I do not mean do you sentimentally parrot the name of Jesus 50 times in a sermon. I don't mean that at all. But if He is the great theme of the Scriptures, you cannot be rightfully expounding the Scriptures and not have Jesus Christ and Him crucified as the great comprehensive theme of your preaching. Perhaps the little progress that some of your people are making in the area of dealing with remaining sin is reflective of a ministry that does not have enough of Christ in it. And it's the question I must continually ask myself as a preacher. Can it be that the crippled walk of my people is a reflection of their own spiritual starvation? Their hearts are not being irrigated with that Water of Life that flows, not from Mount Sinai, but from under the Throne of God and a little Lamb. The irrigation of the heart must come from that source and the blessed privilege of coming to His table where there we have set before us in visible tangible emblems the heart of the Gospel: "My body broken, My blood poured fourth." You see the whole goal of that table is not that you might come and while you sit take a rake and just go through the muck and corruption of your own heart. Perhaps few texts have been more misunderstood than the text in 2 Corinthians 11: "Let a man examine himself." We think of it: "So let a man examine himself and so let him stew in unworthiness." That's not what it says. "But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup." For that which I discern when I examine myself is a more clear view of my own corruption and need, and therefore all the more my desperate need of Him who loved me unto death and poured out His blood on my behalf. And there are fresh actings of faith upon Him; the pouring forth of devotion to Him. And that's the end of the private means of grace. To tell a young convert, "Now that you're a Christian, read the Bible"--that's poor advice. The proper advice is, "Seek the Lord in His Word." Don't be content to tick off your Mcheyne's calendar and say, "I've read my chapter for the day. I've been a good boy. Now I must really stand." That's a legal perspective. For if you read the Word, seeking Him in the Word, there will be the realization that without Him you can do nothing. And you spread your helplessness before Him as He is demonstrated in His glory. The commands are not isolated precepts; they're the Words of your heavenly Shepherd. What a difference when you read the Bible that way. "My sheep hear My voice." And the commands, whether they be in the area of home (husbands love your wives; wives be subject to your husbands; children obey your parents), employer-employee relationships, and all of the other definitive instructions on ethical conduct, let's never look at them as isolated Christian regulations hanging out there in some kind of an independent relationship from the Son of God. No, no, they are the voice of the Shepherd, the One who loved us; the One who gave Himself for us. And so if the heart is to be kept well-furnished with Gospel motives, we must be diligent in the use of the means of grace, not only public but private, seeking the Lord in His Word; seeking the face of our Lord as we pray.
The second exhortation--this is a negative one: if you would make progress in dealing with remaining sin, there must be the heart well-furnished with Gospel motives. That means you have to use the means calculated to keep it well-furnished. Beware of anything, no matter how innocent it may appear, if it bleeds away the vigor and reality of Gospel principles in your heart. Whatever shrivels your love to Christ and the believing apprehension of His love to you, flee it like death itself. Some of you young men are starry-eyed. Miss right has come across your path. Some of you young women, everything is going flitter flutter and flip flop. Mr. right has come across your path. You've been praying very earnestly that God would bless this relationship, and you've just about convinced yourself that it's of God. I challenge you to ask this question: "Is this relationship increasing the vigor of Gospel principles in my heart or is it bleeding my heart of Gospel principles?" Don't you tell me that God gives you a gift that, in turn, steals your affections to Him. Either it is not His gift, or you're abusing the gift. Either there must be a severance of the relationship or a drastic alteration of what's involved in that relationship. Do you apply this to the use of the television, the literature you read, the exercise of Christian liberty? I urge all of you if you were not here last year, to obtain the tapes of Pastor Chantry's two messages on Christian liberty and self-denial. With a resurgence of understanding of reformed truth (and one element of reformed tradition is the doctrine Christian liberty), there is a subtle move abroad to turn that blessed and holy truth into a license for sin and spiritual carelessness. And when a man says, "I'm rejoicing in my freedom in Christ" and indulges in practices that bleed away his love to Christ, something's wrong. For the appreciation of my liberty in Christ rightly understood and rightly implemented in practice will deepen my devotion to Him and my believing apprehension of His love to me. Beware of anything which bleeds away the vigor and reality of Gospel principles.
And my third exhortation--another negative: beware of falling back under legal principles. You see, the human heart by nature is either an antinomian heart or a legalistic heart. It either says, "If I'm saved by the doings of another, it doesn't matter what I do." Or it says, "Since what I do is important, what I do must be foundational to my standing with God." And left to itself, the human heart will drive a man down a path of antinomian lechery or into cold, lifeless legalism and pharisaism. The New Testament early needed the book of James and 1 John to counteract antinomianism. And it needed desperately the book of Galatians and Romans to counteract legalism. You will not make progress in Gospel holiness in dealing with the remaining sin if you allow yourself to come back under legal principles. Now, how does it work? It works like this: "If I've been a good boy or a good girl and I haven't fallen before my besetting sins for two or three days, then I don't need to come in the words of the hymn saying, 'Nothing in my hands I bring; simply to Thy cross I cling.'" When I've just fallen in some area of particular weakness; when I've been tripped up in some area of remaining sin, then I have nothing, no pedestal upon which to stand as I appear before my God. I come groveling in the acknowledgement I've sinned. I have nothing to commend myself to God. I must look wholly out of myself to Christ if I'm to find any access. My friend, if a few days of relative victory over some specific lust or corruption makes you assume any other posture than that which you had the moment after you sinned as far as your approach to God, you've fallen back under legal principles, and it won't be long before you'll fall again. For the way we are led into sin is by being led away from Gospel motives. And when it is in some sense we've attained, the Scripture says, "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." That's the first and perhaps the most is essential exortation. The others I will move through much more rapidly.
In the second place, if you and I would make progress with remaining sin--and it will be with us through all our days--we must keep our consciences sensitive to the guilt and danger of our sins in general and our peculiar areas of weakness in particular. The battle against remaining sin is difficult enough when we regard our enemies as enemies. But if you begin to look at your enemies either as friends or neutral observers, the battle is lost. My friend, every remaining lust in you and in me, if it could have its way, would slay us. And the moment you begin to look at any area of remaining sin as innocent or neutral, you're in danger--terribly, frightfully in danger. And how are we to keep the conscience sensitive both to the guilt and the danger of our sins in general and our peculiar areas of weakness in particular? We must bring our sins again and again to the light of God's law and its full purity, not bringing our sins to the law to come back under its condemning power, but to the law in its purity as a revealing power. "By the law is the knowledge of sin." And the Apostle says in 1 Timothy, "But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient...." And then he describes the functions of the law. But he goes on showing how the law unveils outward gross sin. And he closes with this phrase: "...and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; according to the glorious Gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust." In other words, the law is God's instrument to reveal sin wherever sin exists. From the gross sins of the flesh to the refined sins that are a contradiction of the holiness demanded by the Gospel. If you want a profitable Lord's Day exercise in the afternoons, you take the larger catechism in the section on the Ten Commandments, and you take one this week praying, "O God, I bring my whole life to the search light of your holy Law; that You would reveal in me anything that is a contradiction of the holiness demanded by the Gospel." And then read those questions: What duties are commanded? What sins are forbidden? And then you look up the Scripture references and allow the Word of God, exposing the heart to that burning light of the law, and you see something of the enormity, the extent of your remaining sin. But O, you must not only bring those sins to the light of God's Law again and again; you must bring those sins to the light of the Gospel in all of its glory. See your sins in the light of the self-emptying of Christ. Say to that particular sin that seems to have almost a magnetic power in your life; it seems to cling and adhere to you with an unusual force. Say to that particular sin,
"Is it this sin that caused my Lord to leave the ineffable glory of the Father's presence to come to the confines of a virgin's womb? Is it this sin that caused Him to breathe as His first air upon Earth the acrid smell of a cow barn? The holy nostrils of the Son of God seared with its first breath by the stench of a barn. Is it this sin that when my flesh yields to it, or I yield to it, brings such delight to me in a moment? Is it this sin that caused Him who was the object of the adoring wonder of the angelic host to become the object of the rude stare of dumb beasts in a manger? Is it this sin that demanded that mysterious humiliation?"
Bring those sins to the cross of Christ. Hear the voice of the Son of God: "My God, My God why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Name your sin; bring it to the darkness of Calvary. Bring your sin to the blazing light of that awful darkness, for there is no light like the darkness of Golgotha to show sin in its true color. O dear child of God, keep your conscience sensitive to the guilt and danger of your sins by bringing them again and again to the light of the law in all of its purity and to the Gospel in all of its glory.
Thirdly, if we would make progress in dealing with remaining sin, we must not only keep the heart furnished with Gospel motives; keep the conscience sensitive to the guilt and danger of sin, but we must avoid all the known occasions of sin except where duty demands otherwise. Our Lord said in Matthew 26:31, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." It is not prayer detached from watching that will see us overcoming temptation; it is not watching divorced from prayer. We are to watch and to pray. And watchfulness demands the engaging of all our faculties in the most intense observation of where the enemy lies; how I am susceptible to his subtleties and avoiding those occasions at all cost unless duty demands otherwise. John Owen said, "He who dares to dally with occasions of sin will also dare to sin. He that will venture upon temptations to wickedness will also venture upon wickedness itself." And I'm amazed again and again in pastoral counseling how this simple principal is either not understood or willfully ignored by so many of God's people. Here's the person who bemoans the problem of irritability, and yet this person knows that most of the succumbing to irritability comes on the heels of a lack of normal sleep. And it was not duty that caused you to cheat on an hour or two of your sleep. It was an inordinate involvement in innocent social relationships. And the devil isn't concerned what keeps you from getting your necessary rest just so long as your sin rises to the fore and the name and testimony of Christ is jeopardized because of you. Maybe some of you need to stop groaning and moaning before God about the problem of irritability and start disciplining your time schedule to get adequate rest. Some of you mourn the fact that Sunday mornings your minds are so distracted; your minds are so dull. And you have to go home and ask God to forgive you for the kind of lame worship that you brought to Him. And all the while the problem is you've not disciplined your Saturday night's use of the television. What about you young people and older people as well, single and married people? Are you serious in praying, "O Lord, keep me pure in a lecherous age?" Are you serious in praying, "O Lord, keep me from the sins that are slaying the thousands on the left hand and on the right?" Then you better avoid all the known occasions of those sins. The Scripture says in Paul's letter to the Corinthians, "Flee fornication." He doesn't say, "Pray about it." He says, "Flee it." That means you don't put yourself in physical surroundings that make fornication possible; that make adulteress relationships possible. You don't begin the innocent bantering with someone of the opposite sex who is joined to another. You avoid the occasions. And when you find that in the presence of certain men and women there begins to be, as it were, the untying of that holy veil cast over your heart and your thoughts, avoid that person. Flee fornication. Dear young women, if you're concerned that you will never be an unnecessary provocation to impurity in a man, you'll recognize that your clothing is not an amoral issue. And though we would shrink in horror from a legalism that would legislate with inches in skirt lengths and other styles, the Scriptures do say, "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but (which becometh women professing godliness)...." "You can't tell me what to wear!" My friend, if that's your attitude, nothing would convince you till you go down before God as a man or woman saying, "O Lord, my dress is not a matter of indifference. It's a matter of a Gospel obedience. Lord, make me sensitive to what is modest in terms of my station and calling in life and my position and relationship before and with other men and women." Avoid the known occasions of sin.
And then fourthly, if we're to make progress in dealing with remaining sin, we must learn to strike at the first risings of sin. The first proposals of sin are often very modest. And we reason: "I can go thus far in compliance with its proposals but no farther." But remember, whatever the first proposals of sin may be, its ultimate end is always the same. Look at James 1:14-15: "But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." It's a picture of conception and birth and then another generation. What happens? A man is tempted: drawn by his own lust and enticed. Then when he consents to lust, there is conception. Lust conceives and then gives birth to sin, and the child which sin bears is death. And the two generations are inherent in the first modest proposal. No matter how modest those first proposals may be, the ultimate intention is death. Like the lecherous man whose hobby is seducing women, his first encounter always begins with modest banter. But he has one end in view, the stripping of that woman's virtue upon the altar of his own lust. Do you believe that every sin that comes to you saying, "Indulge me this little bit; give me a little quarter here and a little bit there"--do you really understand its true intention? Christian, do you believe that every stirring of envy, if it had its way, would lead to murder and destruction? Every doubt of any phrase of Scripture as to its authority, if it had its way, would lead to ultimate denial of every word of Scripture? Do you believe that every breathing of pride at its first stirrings, if it had its way, would run and tear the crown from off God's head and put it on your own? Do you believe that every unclean thought, if it had its way, would lead actually to wallow in the filth of lechery and immorality? Christian, if you believe that, you'll start striking at the first risings of sin. And I had occasion just this day to know that this is not abstract theory. People walking over these grounds have come and bared their hearts and had to shake their heads as if to say, "How could this be? How could I or this one ever be involved in such areas of sin and declension from God?" The first proposals were modest, almost blushingly modest. O dear Christian, strike at the first rising of sin.
And then I close with the focus with which we began. If we are to make progress in dealing with remaining sin, we must look continually to Christ for the killing of our sin. Mortification is to be done in the strength and power of the Spirit according to Romans 8:13: "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." And the work of the Spirit is always in conjunction with and inseparately joined to the objective work of Jesus Christ. The Spirit is given in the context of the preaching of the Gospel. Paul says to the Galatians, "Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" And as the first communications of the Spirit are given in conjunction with the Gospel, the objective realities of Christ and the glory of His person and work, so all subsequent communications of the Spirit are given in the context, not of Spirit-centeredness but of Christ-centeredness. "He shall testify of me. He shall take the things of Myself and reveal them." And so if we would by the Spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh, it is a call to look continually to Christ for the killing of our sin.
Hebrews 12 is the great passage:
"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin."
Do you see the exhortation? There is a race before us; the impediment of running the race well is sin. And there must not only be the laying aside but the looking. Not only putting aside the weights but the considering of Him. And if we are to make progress, we must look to Him of whom the Scripture says, "Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sin." All the saving from all the sin in all the aspects of that salvation are attributed to Him. He shall save His people from their sin, not only in providing the atonement, the appeasement of divine wrath and anger that there might be a just basis of declaring those who believe in Jesus to be forgiven and accepted, but He shall save them from their sins in the remaining aspects of that salvation: progressive sanctification and ultimate glorification. And therefore, we're to look unto Him. It's in the virtue of His death and resurrection and our union with Him that we walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). And so if we're to make progress, dear fellow believers, we must look unto Christ, the mighty Victor, the One who was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. We're to look to Him as One in whom the virtue and the power resides by which we may overcome. But we must also look unto Him as the great example in the great struggle with sin. That's the emphasis of verses 3 and 4: "For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin." He did. He resisted unto blood to bear an aspect of sin that you and I as believers will never have to bear. He swallowed up the full measure of God's wrath against the sins of His people. Whatever agonies sin brings to us, whatever inward disturbance and agitation, whatever throws of conviction, humiliation, and repentance, we shall never know one dram of what sin brought to our Lord: the fiery anger of the righteous Judge of the universe. We may know His fatherly frown; we may know, as the subsequent context indicates, His loving, fatherly rod upon our back to chastise us. But the glistening rod of judgment was broken on the head of the Son of God never to be mended--broken and cast away upon Him. Do you get weary of the conflict, Christian? Aren't there times when you say, "Lord, if I could just have one day when I serve you with an unsinning heart." Are you wearing in the conflict? What about some of those pockets of resistance, some areas of sinful patterns and attitudes? It's as though they were swept away by the rising of the Son of righteousness in your heart when you were first drawn into union with Him. Things that held you in vice-like grips for years--the chains were broken and they've never been a real problem. But O, there's some other area. You wonder if you've made an inch of progress. Do you have those areas: inward corruptions, stirrings of remaining sin, uncleanness that plagues you and sometimes torments you and sometimes causes you to wonder, "Am I ever, ever going to see relief? Am I even a child of God?" Do you grow weary? Are you ready to quit? Look unto Jesus! Look unto Jesus! You have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin. And why did He give Himself to the pouring out of His blood? Not just to turn away the wrath of God. He loved the church and gave Himself for it that He might sanctify it, purify it, and present it a holy church. He died to make us holy. He died to make us good that we might go at last to heaven saved by His precious blood. Dear child of God, when you grow weary and quit and, as it were, just throw up your hands in despair, you're denying the very intent of the death of Christ. O, look unto Him in whom the virtue resides and who pours forth by the Spirit in our hearts ever-increasing measures of that virtue, look unto Him as the great example.
And then finally, look unto Him as the One who will complete that work in the day we shall be like Him and see Him as He is. What strengthened our Lord in the prospects of Golgotha? What caused our Lord to move resolutely to that awful place? The Scripture says, "Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross...." Dear child of God, fix your gaze upon Him who at His appearing is going to do something to you and to me that will be nothing less than making us into His own moral likeness--every last stain of sin gone and gone forever! And more than that, every virtue that we saw in just seed form while here below will then begin to come to its full and perfect fruition as we are ushered into His presence. O, may the Lord help us as we live to the end of our days, that this problem of remaining sin, that in the conflict, we may know something of the grace and overcoming power of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But you say, "Pastor Martin, What do I do when I fall?" My friend, your fall is within the orbit of the Gospel. Don't jump out into the orbit of the law. And when you fall, as a Christian, rather than let that keep you from Christ, go quickly, go immediately to Him. And as your sins are confessed and there's a fresh application of the blood of Christ, you go forth fragrant with that fresh knowledge that Jesus Christ is indeed the Savior of sinners. And filled anew with Gospel motives, you're nerved again for the conflict. Amen!
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 9:03:08 GMT -5
The Parable of the Marriage Feast
by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached November 6, 2000 (?)
PDF Format | More Transcripts
Our study in the Word of God this morning will be focused on Matthew 22:1-14. Today is not only the Lord's Day in which we gather for public worship in our stated meetings appointed for that end, but many will be gathering this afternoon to witness the exchange of vows between Rick and Linda as they begin life together as husband and wife. And I believe it is appropriate that we consider a passage which deals with the subject of marriage, at least in parabolic form.
Now marriage as an institution ordained of God involves, as we saw in our study last Lord's Day evening, at least three irreducible elements. In the language of Genesis 2, quoted by our Lord in Matthew 19, "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh? So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." And in that passage, we are led to understand that marriage involves at least three things: that conscious, deliberate, irrevocable severance from all previous ties ("a man shall leave father and mother"). It involves secondly, this conscious, deliberate, covenantal commitment to one person for life ("a man shall cleave unto his wife"). And then thirdly, it involves the consummating of this relationship ("the two shall be one flesh").
Now because marriage is so radical a relationship, it is natural that in every culture, certain significant ceremonies should surround both the creation of that new relationship and the declaration of it in the actual leaving, cleaving, and joining together. So every culture, no matter how primitive or how advanced, has its marriage rituals. Now this was also true of Eastern or Hebrew culture as well. And the passage that is before us this morning gives us some insight into some of the peculiar marriage rituals of culture. And in this particular passage, our Lord is primarily concerned with speaking a word to the Jews. It carries on from the previous chapter in which He reminds them of the prophecy that the stone which the builders rejected would be constituted by God the head of the corner. And our Lord was telling these impenitent Jews that the Gospel would be taken from them and sent to the Gentiles. And so there is much in this parable of the marriage feast that has primary reference to the Jewish nation and to God's dealings with them in history. However, it would be wrong to limit the principles to that exclusive application. I'm fully aware that that intention is in the passage. I'm going to bypass it for the most part in the exposition and application and draw out the larger lines of teaching and application which I trust will have very pointed relevance to those of us gathered in this place today.
As we think through this passage, this parable of the marriage feast, there are four various natural divisions of the various ingredients in the parable. We have first of all the account of a royal provision. Notice the language of the passage:
"And Jesus answered and spake again in parables unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a certain king, who made a marriage feast for his son, and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the marriage feast: and they would not come. Again he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them that are bidden, Behold, I have made ready my dinner; my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready."
Here then in the first place is a statement concerning a royal provision. It was a king who made a feast in honor to his son. And because it was no common peasant nor a man of mere common wealth or possessions, but a king, everything about that feast bespoke the royalty of the one who prepared it. And perhaps two words accurately describe the predominant characteristics of this feast: first of all, the word "gracious" and secondly, the word "lavish." Notice, the king does not ask people to bring a thing. This is not a potluck supper. He doesn't say, "I have prepared a large hall. Bring your grub, and we'll share it. No, it is a gracious provision. The king is able to say in verse 4, "I have made ready my dinner. All you have to do is come and eat. I have provided the oxen; I have provided the fatlings. All things are ready." And being a royal feast, it was a feast that bespoke something of the gracious nature of the king's disposition to his subjects. To honor his son, he makes a gracious provision adequate for everyone who would come and sit down at that banquet table. But not only was this royal provision marked by things that can be underscored by the word "gracious," but we must add to that the word the word"lavish." This was not a meal that just provided staple fare. In that day the common fare would be, of course, bread and water or wine and some meat provision. But here is a feast in which oxen (plural) and fatlings (plural) have been provided, and all other necessary things. It was a lavish provision, not only a lavish provision of food. But when we come to this incident of the man who did not have a wedding garment, we must understand something of the custom of that day. Just as in certain cultures today, if you attend a funeral, the person who is giving that funeral for a deceased loved one will provide everyone who comes to that funeral with a certain form of external garment. And if you have any respect for the person who's invited you and the one deceased, you will take that garment, be it a headdress of some kind or a dark shawl, and you will wear that as provided by the one who's invited you to that occasion. Well, likewise, it was the custom of those who had the means to prepare a garment that was universal for all who would come to a feast so that there was no social distinction. You see, if you were one of the up an outers who could come with a hundred dollar dress and think you might show up someone else who had come with a dress that you had obviously seen at about fifty other weddings and look down your nose. No, no, everyone was provided by the wealthy host with a garment that the host himself had made for that occasion. And so this feast was lavishly prepared, not only in the food stuff upon the table, but in that particular garment that was necessary if you were to sit down and show that you honored your host. So two words marked this royal provision. It is both gracious and it is lavish.
Now what does this say to us concerning the great truths of the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Well, this royal provision is one of the clearest illustrations in all of holy Scripture of that which God has graciously and lavishly done in the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What joy is in my own heart this morning to stand in this place and upon divine warrant to say that Almighty God, the King of heaven and earth, has made a feast. And that feast is both gracious and it is lavish. It is the feast of the living God made for poor needy sinners, such as we are--those of us who, in the language of Scripture if we take but one chapter, Romans 5, are described as sinners ungodly, without strength, the enemies of God. Then if we move to such passages as Ephesians 2, we are described as dead in trespasses and sins, bound by our sins, deluded and duped by the god of this world. We are by nature the children of wrath. There we are in the language of the Bible in all of our destitution, in all of our filth and nakedness. What a joy it is to announce that a royal provision has been made. Almighty God in sovereign mercy has taken the initiative to provide everything necessary for sinners such as you and such as I.
But that is not only to be reckoned as a gracious feast; it is a lavish feast. God has provided for every single necessity in order to bring guilty, condemned, vile sinners safely into His own presence for all eternity. If the king could say, "All things are ready. Come," how much more the Living God who has sent His Son by way of a virgin's womb, who subjected Him to the rejection of men and then to His own malediction and curse upon the cross, raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand and power, and has sent forth the Holy Spirit to bear witness of Christ and to convince men of their need of Christ and to subdue their rebel wills and open their blinded eyes. Surely, if the feast of this king was marked by its lavishness, the feast provided in the Gospel of Jesus Christ is more lavish than any feast provided by an earthly king. Almighty God in the Gospel comes to sinners with wonderful news. All things are ready. The grounds of a just peace with God have been made in the bloodletting of the Son of God. The grounds for acceptance as sons and daughters in the family of God has been made in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Every provision necessary to subdue the dominion of sin and to bring us into a state where we love righteousness and love the Savior and serve Him has been made in the gift of the Holy Spirit. Surely, the feast that the Gospel sets forth is a lavish feast, a feast that is gracious from beginning to end.
But then we notice in the second place, we have in this parable not only a record of a royal provision, but we have the account of a repeated invitation. Notice the facts in verses 3, 4, and 9. Having prepared the feast, we read in verse 3: "[He] sent forth his [slaves] to call them that were bidden to the marriage feast [in other words, those that had a previous invitation, he tells them now is the time to comply with that invitation has come]: and they would not come." So what does he do? Verse 4 says he carries on that work of invitation: "Again he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them that are bidden, Behold, I have made ready my dinner; my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come to the marriage feast." But when they despised that invitation, he still will not be denied a full house. So we read in verse 9: "Go ye therefore unto the partings of the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage feast." What do we have, then, in this parable? We have not only the record of the royal provision, but of the repeated invitation made at the direction, at the command of the same king who made the provision. He was not content to have a feast spread and all preparations ready. Nor was he content to simply ease his conscience: "I made the feast; I've given an invitation. If they don't want it, that's their problem--just let them be." No, no, but again and again he sends forth the invitation: "Come, the feast is ready." And when certain ones come to the point where they show the obduracy and the stubbornness to the point where they abuse the messengers, and only then cut themselves off from the invitation, still not satisfied, he sends his servants saying, "Alright, leave those who were the officially invited ones. And now go out wherever you can go and tell men, 'Come, my feast is ready.'"
Now certainly the application of this to the Gospel should be obvious to all of us. Our great King did not spread the Gospel feast and then sit back and wait for people to discover it. This king did not spread His feast and say, "Well, let's hope that while people go by the banquet hall, they'll get a whiff of things and make an inquiry and peek though the window and maybe knock on the door. No, no, he made the feast and he sent his servants out. He took the initiative to give the invitation. And so it is with our blessed and gracious God. He did not merely (if I may use the word "merely" without being irreverent) make every provision necessary for needy sinners that they might find the just grounds of peace and acceptance with God. He did not merely spread the Gospel feast with everything necessary for life and Godliness in time and into eternity. But He commissioned His original representatives, those apostles, with a very clear commission. He said, "God ye into the world and preach the Gospel; say to every creature, 'Come, the feast is spread.'" And throughout the Scriptures, there is this clear indication that the God who has made this gracious, this lavish provision in Christ has sent forth the repeated invitation that men should come and partake of that Gospel feast. And remember, when that command and invitation went out, this was not in a democracy. It was in a monarchy. It was the king sending an invitation to his subjects. He had claims upon them. Now, you see, somebody can send you an invitation to a wedding, and in a free society if you want to go, you go; if you don't want to go, you don't go. But if you live under a monarchy and a king sends an invitation, failure to come is high treason. That will help you to understand something of the violence of the king in seizing those who would not come.
But what does he do? Look carefully at verses 9 and 10: "Go ye therefore unto the partings of the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage feast. And those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was filled with guests." What a gathering at that banquet hall. There were the moral, upright ones, and there were the immoral and the harlots and the publicans, the cultured and the uncultured, the religious and the irreligious, the bad and good as in terms human descriptions of external character. And here they were--what a motley crowd--all brought together to the door. But once the wedding garment was placed upon them and they entered one by one, you couldn't tell the up and outs from the down and outs. O, if you listen to their language, some of them might be a little cultured, some might be of these, them, and those. But by and large, what they met at the door, the king's servant who clothed them with a wedding garment, and what they met at the table was the great leveler. You got it? What they met at the door (the king's provision of a wedding garment) and what they met at the table (equally lavished for all, regardless of culture, lack of culture, education or lack of it) was the great leveler. The invitation was to come, not to parade what your status had been prior to the feast, but the invitation was, "Come and partake of the lavishness of the provision of the king himself."
And what was true then is true now to everyone sitting in this place. The Living God of heaven and earth who has claims upon you--He's your Creator. He made you; you draw breath this morning by His sovereign disposition. Acts 17 says, "In Him we live and move and have our being." You are not in a moral democracy. Almighty God is your Monarch. He made you. And He says in the Gospel, "Come!" It's a gracious invitation--it is full of grace. But it is full of regal authority and power. And when He commands you to repent of your sins, when He commands you to believe on His Son, when He commands you to take the wedding garment of the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ and to sit down to all the privileges stored up and provided by the Gospel, this is no simpering, whimpering, whining king: "Won't you please trust Jesus? Won't you do the Lord a favor and decide for Christ?" Rubbish! Almighty God says, "I've sent My Son. My Son has died. My Son has been raised from the dead. My Son sits at My right hand to give repentance and remission of sin. Believe upon Him or perish." The invitation to the royal feast comes from the royal throne. And as surely as the provision bespeaks all of the wealth of royalty, so the invitation bespeaks all of the authority of royalty. My friend, sitting here this morning, if to this day you have never heard the command issued in the name of Christ to come to the Gospel feast, to repent and to believe, you have heard it this morning, and you will continue to hear it. And you ought to leave knowing that Almighty God has laid solemn responsibilities upon you.
Well, we move to the third place. Having looked at the royal provision, the repeated invitation, now thirdly, notice the diversity of reaction. There are three categories of reaction to this invitation. Notice them carefully. Verse 3 and verses 5 and 6: "And [he] sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the marriage feast [this, of course, refers to the Jews who had previous invitations through the prophets of the Old Testament through John the Baptist]: and they would not come." It gives us no insight into the rationale behind their refusal. It simply says they would not come. However, verse 5 and again verse 6 give us some indication of at least the reaction of some of these described in verse 3 if not all of them when the second invitation came. "All things are ready. Come." Now remember, it's a king commanding. "Come to the marriage feast. But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his merchandise." Here's the reaction of bland indifference. They made light of it. They said, "O, the king says, 'Come to the marriage feast.' Phooey for the king. Big deal. I've got a farm to plow. I've got some money to make. I've got some goods to sell. Alright, the king's having a feast. Good, he'll have another one some time. Appreciate it. Thank you. Goodbye." They made light of it. They didn't mock him; they didn't despise him. They just were too preoccupied with their own concerns to heed the royal command to come.
But now there was another group. And their refusal we read: "And the rest laid hold on his servants, and treated them shamefully, and killed them." What did the servants do? They weren't coming saying, "Look, we want $10 and then you go to the feast." Like a lot of these Christian organizations. They plan a program and then say, "Donation: $5." That's wicked. Well, these servants didn't come and say, "Free feast. Donation: $5." No, no, they came with a royal invitation. They just came saying, "Everything's ready. We don't ask you to do a thing but to come and eat." Some made light of it--bland indifference. Some became so hostile; they said, "We're going to take those servants. We can't stand this insistence that we come to the feast." Now notice carefully, their treatment of the servants was a revelation of their attitude to the king. The servant never came in his own name. When the servant would come, he would say, "In the name of our king, all things are ready. Come!" If they could have gotten their hands upon the king, they would have killed him, saying in essence, "Don't you bother our lifestyle with your wedding banquets for your son." O, yeah, you want to honor your son, and you want us to honor him by showing up at the banquet. But we've got other things to do other than join you in honoring your son. We've got money to make; we've got fields to plow. We're practical people. And then the others were hostile and said, "We cannot stand any expression of the will of the king that cuts across the grain of our own plans." And they show their attitude to the king by seizing his servants and killing them. There's the attitude of resolute refusal.
You see the application? I'm talking this morning to men and women, to boys and girls, some of whom have heard the Gospel times without number in this very place, and in that little cracker box on Runny Meade Road. You've heard the overtones throbbing with divine authority and with something of human earnestness and compassion: "All things are ready, all that is needful for your sinful state has been provided in Christ. Come to the feast." And you know what your attitude has been? It's been, "I've got my field to plow. I've got my merchandise to sell." O no, you're not one who says, "Just get off my back, preacher." You say, "That's fine if the king wants to have a banquet, but I've got other things." Some of you dear young people and children, that's why you're not converted: "I've got other things to attend to. I'm too busy to pray in secret and to cry to God for a new heart. I'm too busy to search the Scriptures and to seek the Savior where alone He can be found in the pages of this holy Book." I'm speaking to young men and women and adults too busy seeking a husband, seeking a wife, seeking positions, seeking a home, seeking prestige. What do you do? You take the invitation that comes with royal authority and you make light of it.
I'm talking to some visitors who are among us today. You know what you're going to do with what you hear today? Make light of it. You'll go out and say, "Who is that guy? Some kind of professional actor or something getting all upset and waving his hand. What in the world...?" My friend, listen to me. As God is my witness, I'm dead in earnest with your soul this morning. Almighty God takes seriously your reaction to Gospel invitations. As we're going to see in a little bit, the reaction indifference will land you in hell as much as the attitude of open resolute refusal that would abuse publicly His servants. All you need do to perish is to fail to come to the feast clothed with a wedding garment. What you are by nature is such that if Almighty God does not change it by grace, you'll perish and perish forever. Are you in that posture of resolute refusal? Maybe you recent the fact that a preacher has dared this morning to look you in the eye and talk not in professional clerical tones, but in blunt twentieth century Anglo-Saxon that you can understand. You say, "I don't preachers who look at me and preach to my eyeballs." My friend, I do so because these things are the only things that matter. I'm not here on a fool's errand. I'm here on an errand for my Master, my King who says, "Tell them all things are ready. Come."
There was the attitude of resolute refusal. But secondly--and thank God for this--there was the attitude or reaction of wholehearted acceptance. Look at verse 10: "And those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was filled with guests." You see, the king's intention to honor his son with a full banquet house would not be frustrated. And thank God, it never shall be. And when the Jewish nation says, "We will not have this man reign over us," God says, "Alright, go to those vagabond Gentiles, those dogs who for centuries have had no Gospel light and for centuries have had no prophets and no priests ordained of God. And from that rabble, I'll have a full house." And so this morning, in every tribe and tongue and kindred and nation, there are those who eat upon Gospel dainties as they sit in the banquet house of the King. And they honor the Son by eating at His table. You see, that's the whole rationale for this. It says a king would honor his son. He would make a marriage feast for his son. And in the interest of His Son's honor and glory, thank God, there are those who have responded with wholehearted acceptance of the Gospel invitation. They have face honestly the problem of their sin as being an offence against the Living God. They have taken honestly what God has said concerning His dear Son, that He alone is the Savior of sinners. They have taken seriously the command to repent and to believe the Gospel. And they have turned from sin and thrown themselves upon Jesus Christ as He's offered in the Gospel. They take seriously the commands to be holy. They take seriously the language of Christ who said, "If ye continue in My word, then are ye My disciples." And they have taken seriously the issue of that wedding garment as they have stood at the banquet house and said, "What do I need to come in?" Maybe they were one described as the bad ones in rags and tatters and nothing to make them feel at ease amidst all of the regal provision. And one of the servants smiles and says, "Put your fears to rest. Look at what the king has provided from His royal tailors." And out comes a garment befitting a king, woven through with gold, spotlessly white. And those who with wholehearted acceptance embrace the royal invitation are those who are clothed in that garment and are actually seated at the table eating the provision. Thank God, there are such here this morning clothed in the righteousness of Christ because you've acknowledged you have none of your own, sitting at the table and eating of the great dainties of forgiveness and peace with God and joy in the Holy Spirit, not because of anything in yourself, but because of all that God has done to honor His Son in making this provision.
But then there's a third class. And I want you to look carefully at what our Lord says. There's a resolute refusal described in verses 3, 5, and 6, the wholehearted acceptance described in verse 10. But then there is in verses 11 and 12, the hypocritical response of this strange character who has no wedding garment: "But when the king came in to behold the guests, he saw there a man who had not on a wedding-garment." Now remember the background of this. The wedding garment was provided by the king. You didn't have to go out and save your pennies and buy one or make one. It was provided. But if you were to honor the king, you showed your honor by submitting to be clothed with that garment. And so he said unto this character, "Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding-garment?" And the next remark is critical to an understanding of the whole thrust: "And he was speechless." Why was he speechless? He couldn't say, "But O king, I'm impoverished. I don't have enough money to go purchase a garment." He could make no plea of poverty. Nor could he say, "O king, not only am I poor, but all the garments ran out. The fellow in front of me put on the last one." No, no, he had no excuse. He dared to insult the king by appearing at his table in the presence of others of his subjects without that which was essential, truly to be found there. He was speechless.
And how does the king react to this? "Then the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and cast him out into the outer darkness; there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth." Wait a minute, what's the big deal? The guy doesn't wear a garment. Listen, it was an insult to the king. He was saying, "I can appear on the basis of what I am in myself, not on the basis of what you will make me by virtue of your garment." And that's the picture of every single person who says, "All this business of repentance and the new birth and regeneration and a new heart--that's for fanatics. I'll make it into God's banquet house on my own steam. I've never been a lecher, I've never been a thief, I've never been a whoremonger. I've been honest; I've been upright." And when you hear of Christ and the blood of atonement and the work of the Spirit, and when you hear of repentance, these are all words and names to you. Why? My friend, it's because you're like this poor, deluded hypocrite. You think you can be found among the true people of God on your own steam. And you can't, you can't. Am I speaking to people who sit here this morning and think all is well because of what you are in yourself or what you have been able to do of yourself.
This brings us fourthly to look in this passage to what is the most sober part of the entire portion, what I'm calling the royal reckoning. Not only do we have the record of the royal provision, the repeated invitations, the diversity of response, resolute refusal, wholehearted acceptance, hypocritical response, but our Lord is very careful to give a graphic description of the royal reckoning. And there are two phases of that reckoning. One is given in verse 7 and one in verse 13. Verse 7: "But the king was wroth; and he sent his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned their city." Now these words came from the lips of the gracious, meek and lowly Son of God. It's the Son of God who says, "The king was wroth [that's an English word for angry. He was angry with a white, hot, albeit pure and holy anger]; and he sent his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned their city." That was a prophecy of the downfall of Jerusalem, when the sovereign Lord upon His throne so disposed the Roman armies to come in 70 AD and utterly raise to the ground the city of Jerusalem and to disperse that nation to the ends of the earth for centuries.
My friend, if you've got some wispy, unfounded notion that God is all love ("He's just so sweet and kind like a nearsighted, benevolent indulgence grandfather."), you don't find that God in the Bible. You don't find it in the face of Jesus Christ. And you don't find it upon the lips of Christ. The royal reckoning time comes. Here are people who have had tremendous privilege. They had been previously informed that there would be a wedding for the son. They are the first ones to get the invitation. When they refused, the king gives them the benefit of the doubt. When the servants came back saying, "O king, we gave the invitation, but they would not come," perhaps he had someway of reasoning through, "Well, it's that time of the year when people have this concern and that concern. Go back and invite them again." And they go back with a repeated invitation. And some of them, as we saw, make light of it. There is this indifference: "I've got to go to my business. I've got to go plow my field." Some are openly hostile. But the indifferent and the hostile came under the frown of the king's wrath, and he destroyed them.
My friend, listen to me this morning, if you show indifference to the royal command to come in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ, if you show hostility to the overtures of the Gospel and the grace of God in Gospel preaching, an hour is coming when you must reckon with the King himself. The Scripture tells us that in that day men will cry for rocks and hills to fall upon them. And I quote from Revelation 6: "And they say to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb." Who would ever think of putting those two words together: "wrath of the Lamb"? A lamb is meek and lowly. And we read of our blessed Lord in the day of His humiliation: "As a lamb before her sheerers was dumb, so He opened not His mouth." He is led as a sheep to the slaughter, even so much so that the heathen authorities were amazed that He did not defend Himself. But my friend, that same Lamb who died in self-imposed weakness, that same Lamb who obediently submitted Himself to the scoffing and the spittle shall come with power and glory, and every eye shall see Him. And when He breaks through the clouds, if you have treated the royal invitation with indifference or hostility, you will know, as I can never depict with words, what it is to bear the brunt of the wrath of the Lamb. You'll wish that somehow you could go back beyond your mother's womb into at state of nonexistence rather than face the anger of the Son of God. A royal reckoning is coming. And those who are indifferent and hostile, in the language of 2 Thessalonians 1:8, to them Jesus Christ will come with flaming fire to take vengeance on "them that know not God, and to them that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus."
But I direct your attention to verse 13 as well. Not only will the royal reckoning bring within its scope those who openly refuse the Gospel, those who with indifference are not concerned with the Gospel, but what about those who are found in someway among those who have responded to the invitation? That's you here this morning. In someway or another, there is some degree of interest in and identity with the Christian message, or you wouldn't be here. But my friend, the great issue is this: do you have a wedding garment this morning? Are you clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ? Has He been made unto you wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption? Or do you merely have the name of Jesus on your lips, songs of Jesus in your mouth, thoughts of Jesus floating through your head? The day of royal reckoning is coming, and the language from the lips of Christ, again, is vigorous and frightening language.
Think now, you're in Palestine; there are no Edisons who have yet invented electric light bulbs. Outside of the warmth and fellowship and love and provision and gaiety of the banquet hall, everything is inky black darkness. "Then the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot [render him immobile], and cast him out into the outer darkness." In other words, our Lord in this figurative language is saying the state into which this hypocrite is cast is irrevocable, unchangeable, irreversible. "Bind him so that once he's in darkness, there's no escape from darkness." "Hell" is a popular word in the language of every news commentator, every man who's trying to prove he's a man. "Hell" and "damn" are acceptable now in the mass media. My friend, "hell" may be just a convenient word that you slip in to prove you're a man or to show you're "in." But to our Lord, hell was a place prepared for the devil and his angels. And weeping and gnashing of teeth are not poetic language. They simply reveal the poverty of human language to express the awful reality of abandonment from God. What was in the banquet house? There was the laughter, there was the gaiety, there was the fellowship, there was the love, there was the light, and above all, there was the king and his son. Without--darkness, darkness! And that's the hell of hells. The hymn writer caught that when he said, "
Jesus, all perfections rise and end in Thee;
Heaven itself without Thee--dark as night would be.
Lamb of God, Thy glory is the light above,
Lamb of God, Thy glory is the life of love.
My friend, listen to me, you're externally identified with Christ and His church and the Gospel, but do you have the wedding garment? The royal reckoning is coming. And in that day it will not be enough that you passed the scrutiny of fellow mortals, elders who may have interviewed you for acceptance into a church. It will not be enough that you passed the scrutiny of fellow mortals who would say, "Ah, that's brother so and so." It's the king himself who comes and reckons with this hypocrite. Anyone could mark out those who openly refuse, but now the passage says the king himself comes in and discovers him. Now there are men today that everyone knows they're not converted. They make no profession. They say, "The Gospel's alright, but I've got other things to do." They're the indifferent. There are some who openly oppose it and say, "I want nothing to do with it. Shut up! Don't talk to me about Christ." But there are some of you who are like this man. You sit at the table, and the king alone can discover you. And he's going to find you in that day. The Scripture says His eyes are as a flame of fire. And according to Romans 2:16, in that day He will judge the secrets of men's hearts by Jesus Christ.
O my friend, listen, and may the Holy Spirit drive it into your conscience with inescapable power: do you have the wedding garment this morning? "What do you mean?" I mean are you joined to Christ in the bond of living faith? Have you been given a new heart in the language of Ezekiel 36, in the language of John 3 that has become so prostituted in the past few months? Have you been born of the Spirit? Not, have you had some kind of mystical experience that has the name of Jesus somehow attached? But have you received the life of God, giving you a hunger for holiness and obedience and a disposition to take seriously the Word of God and to love and serve the Son of God? My friend, if not, you do not have the wedding garment.
O, how wonderful it is to know this morning, at least while we still draw in breath, that the King has not yet determined that wrath should come. And there are few joys that can match the joy of one of His slaves. And that's all we who preach the Word claim to be, His slaves to echo the royal invitation, "Come! All things are ready." Think of it, this poor man's case was irreversible in the parable; yours is not. If you're found among the guests with no wedding garment, thank God, you can still get up and go to the door who is Christ and say, "Lord Jesus, cloth me."
All things are ready. There's a wedding garment for all who would have it. The feast is spread. Forgiveness, peace, acceptance, justification, adoption, and all the blessings conceived by the infinitely loving mind of God stored up in the covenant of grace--all of them are bundled up in Christ. And God says, "Will you have my Son?" O dear people, if you're not in Christ, will you heed the royal command today? "Come, for the feast is spread! All things are ready." I stand today not as a preacher of Moses to tell you, "Do." I stand as a preacher of the Gospel saying, "Come! All is ready." Why do you get irritated with preachers who are simply seeking to do what these servants did, to get you to come and honor God by being found at the feast made for His dear Son?
My final word of application is to you the people of God. Do you see the glory now of what real Gospel endeavor is? It's entreating men in the language of Paul to be reconciled to God through Christ, that God may be honored as men embrace the provision stored up in and on behalf of His dear Son the Lord Jesus Christ. This is why we refuse to cheapen the Gospel, to bring it down to a tawdry confidence trick. And you and I are going to be inundated with it in the next few months. This Here's Life campaign that's inundated the greater New York metropolitan area--just a sales gimmick to sell Jesus. And we'll be glutted with it--billboards and spot ads. It's all Madison Avenue. It utterly obscures the glory of the Christ of the Bible. We don't try to trick you into a decision over a telephone call. We command you in the name of the God in heaven to repent and believe the Gospel; bow down to Christ. "Kiss the son, lest He be angry, and ye perish in the way." And those of us who, by the grace of God, have embraced that royal invitation and are sitting even this morning at that royal feast, the Scripture says, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come."
We want as our closing hymn of praise to God to confess our believing response to the Word by singing that great hymn of Joseph Hart in closing. And if you're here as one who has not heeded that Gospel call, will you even now as the Word as come there where you sit? We do not ask you to walk an isle or raise a hand. We ask you to have dealings with God Himself in Christ right where you sit, right now, even as the Gospel is echoed in this wonderful hymn.
One of the old Puritans said that saving faith is nothing more but Gospel begging. O, may God grant that some of you will go to begging today, buying at the price of your pride and stubbornness those gracious provisions of God in Jesus Christ.
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