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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 9:04:51 GMT -5
I Am the Way by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message from radio broadcast
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Now I wish to begin this evening a relatively brief series of messages entitled "Simple Signposts to the Celestial City". Taking the term "The Celestial City" from John Bunyan's term for heaven in his immortal work The Pilgrim's Progress, I plan to preach on some of the most simple and clear Gospel texts given to us in the Scriptures. And my aim in doing this is quite straightforward and uncomplicated, and it is basically a twofold goal. First and foremost, I want to proclaim by means of these texts, these simple signposts to the celestial city, that Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation. And I desire to do so with the prayer and, I trust, some measure of expectation that God will make that preaching of the Gospel with these texts as our sphere of reference the very power of God unto salvation to some who sit among us. And then my second goal is that I want to furnish you, the people of God, with a working acquaintance with some of these most crucial texts, which ought to part and parcel of every mature Christian's stock-in-the-trade of witnessing to others, the kinds of texts that you ought to be able to sit down and open up to son or daughter or to neighbor and work associate as God gives the opportunity in seeking to set forth the message of life and salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ.
So without any further words of introduction, I direct your attention to the first of these simple signposts to the celestial city. It is verse 6 of John chapter 14: "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me." In this marvelously simple and yet subtly profound text, we have our Lord Jesus Christ telling us in His own words who He is, what He came to do, and the weighty implication of these things as they relate to each and every one of us. Note with me first of all in the words of our Lord Jesus what I am calling the amazing personal claims of Jesus Christ. And those claims are with respect to three things. Look at the text. "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life."
First of all, our Lord Jesus claims to be the way. Now this word "way" is used in a figurative sense. A way is a path or a road leading from one place to another. And in the context, Jesus had just spoken of the Father's house, heaven, the celestial city. And in this particular personal claim, the Lord Jesus Christ is declaring that He is the way. That is, all of the building materials needed to construct a road from earth to heaven for sinful men are to be found in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He is the way. And in the context, He is the way with reference to the question that was asked. Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we don't know where You're going. How can we know the way? If we don't know where You're going, how can we find the road that gets there?" Jesus has been speaking of where He is going. He will in a few short days subsequent to the whole ordeal of Gethsemane and Golgotha be laid in Joseph's tomb. He will come out from the tomb in triumphant resurrection life. And according to Acts chapter 1, He will go back into the presence of the Father. And He says with reference to the one and only path that leads from earth to heaven, "I am the way."
But then the second aspect of His amazing personal claims is that He claims to be the truth. Here we have no figure of speech. Truth is an accurate statement of reality. And therefore, when Jesus in this text makes this amazing personal claim, not only to be the way but the truth, He is saying in the context with reference to the great issue of man's ultimate destiny, making one's way to the many dwelling places prepared by the Lord Jesus, that everything pertaining to how one is fit for those dwelling places, how one obtains a title to those dwelling places, how one can actually arrive at one of those many abiding places, in Jesus Christ is the truth with respect to those great and all-important issues of heaven or its opposite, hell.
But then thirdly, His amazing personal claims culminate in this claim: "I am the life." Now the term "life" is not mere existence. But in this passage when Jesus said, "I am the life", He is speaking of life in its rich and highest Biblical connotation, which means nothing less than realized communion with God Himself. Life in terms of Jesus' definition of it in John chapter 17 where in His high priestly prayer in verse 3, He says, "This is life eternal, that they should know Thee the only true God, and Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." What is life? What is life eternal? What is that life which was forfeited by our first father and mother, Adam and Eve, and can only be realized in and through the person and ministry of Jesus Christ? It is nothing less than life known and experienced in the realm of communion with the Living God. The knowledge of God, delight in God--this is the essence of life. And the Lord Jesus in John 10 and verse 10, said in reference to His sheep, "I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly."
Now these are the amazing personal claims of the Lord Jesus. This is not something a prophet said would be true about the One to come, nor an apostle looking back speaking about the One who had come. This is Jesus in the days of His flesh gathered with the eleven in that upper room and making this claim: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."
Then consider with me secondly, not only the amazing personal claims of Jesus Christ, but the sobering conclusion drawn from these claims by Jesus Christ. Look at it. No sooner does He say, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." There are the amazing claims. Now the sobering conclusion: "No one cometh unto the Father, but by Me." Now you see, it has often been said in days past and said right down to the present hour that people have no complaints with Jesus as a good man or a good teacher. But it is the narrowness of His followers, the fanatical claims His followers make, that unless you believe as they believe, you're lost and damned and will roast in hell. People say,
"That's the offence of Christianity. It's not Christ. The meek, the gentle, the loving Jesus went about doing good, taught us the golden rule, gave us the Sermon on the Mount. We've got no complaint with Jesus. It's these fanatical, bigoted, narrow-minded followers who go far beyond Jesus and say, 'Unless you believe as we believe, you'll roast in hell.' Our problem is with those characters."
No, no, my friend, if you've bought into that nonsense, you listen to Jesus. Listen to the meek, lowly Jesus. This is not something I'm saying about Him. This is something He says about Himself, and this is what He says. A sobering conclusion drawn from those amazing personal claims is this: "No one cometh unto the Father, but by [or through] Me." Note in this conclusion that it is universal in its scope. It says, "No one cometh unto the Father, but [through] Me." No one! This is Jesus' own conclusion based upon His amazing personal claims. It is universal in its scope. It touches every single one of us in this building--you and you and you and you and the preacher standing in this pulpit.
Now notice, it is undeniably exclusive in its intent. Look at the language of Jesus: "No one cometh unto the Father, but [through] Me." Now what is He saying? Well, surely He is not saying, "No one will see the Father as Judge in the last day", because that would contradict the rest of the Scriptures and many other statements of the Lord Jesus. Acts 17:30 says, "[God] commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent." Why? "[Because] He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world...." Romans 14:12 says, "So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God." Yes, you will in that sense come to the Father. You will see God in the day of judgment and see His approval of having His own Son as the appointed Judge seated upon His throne when the books are opened.
Yes, you will have dealings with God. But what Christ is saying is this: none can come to God as Father and find Him a welcoming God, a pardoning God, a receiving God, a gracious God. None can come to the Father and find forgiveness for all of their sins, for all of their iniquities, acceptance and welcome. "No one cometh unto the Father, but [through] Me [that is, through Me as the way to the Father, through Me as the truth concerning how sinners can approach the Father, through Me as the life who alone can impart that knowledge and saving relationship to the Father]." In other words, Jesus is giving the most explicit, simple affirmation that He is the exclusive mediator between God and man. Listen to old Bishop Ryle. How the old bishop could hit the nail on the head in some of his comments on Gospel portions. Commenting on this text, the old bishop said,
"We should mark in these verses how expressly the Lord Jesus shuts out all ways of salvation but Himself. He declares, 'No man comes unto the Father, but by Me.' It avails nothing that a man is clever, learned, highly gifted, amiable, charitable, kind-hearted, and zealous about some sort of religion. All this will not save his soul if he does not draw near to God by Christ's atonement and make use of God's own Son as his Mediator and Savior. God is so holy that all men are guilty and debtors in His sight. Sin is so sinful that no mortal man can make satisfaction for it. There must be a mediator or a ransom payer or a redeemer between ourself and God, or else we can never be saved. There is only one door, one bridge, one ladder between earth and heaven--the crucified Son of God. Whosoever will enter in by that door may be saved. But to him who refuses to use that door, the Bible holds out no hope at all. For without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. Let us beware if we love life, of supposing that mere earnestness will take a man to heaven though he knows nothing of Christ. This idea is deadly and ruinous error. Sincerity will never wipe away our sins. It is not true that every man will be saved by his own religion no matter what he believes, provided he's diligent and sincere. We must not pretend to be wiser than God. Christ has said, and Christ will stand to it, 'No one cometh unto the Father, but by Me.'"
Having looked at this text under the two headings, first of all, the heading of the amazing claims of the person of Jesus Christ, secondly, the sobering conclusion drawn from these claims of Christ, now thirdly and finally, I want to give you some searching personal questions based upon Jesus' claims and His own conclusion. Now I want you to envision that we dismissed the whole congregation and set up appointments that they had to go through the next three to four days. And each one of us were able to go to the back room where the elders meet for prayer. And you were sitting down three feet away, and no one else was there, not even your husband or wife. And I looked you straight in the eye, and I asked you these questions in the light of this text. I want you to conceive of yourself as in that setting. I'm asking you with Judgment Day earnestness and intensity and tenderness. Hear these questions; answer honestly in your heart.
Question one: have you, not your wife, husband, son, daughter, father, mother, cousin, uncle, aunt--no, have you come to the conviction that your own condition is such that you can have no safe dealings with God apart from Jesus Christ? Why do I say safe dealings with God? Well, you're going to have dealings with God, my friend. You're having them right now. Whether you think of God or not, He thinks of you. He knows your every thought, every idle word. He knows every unclean, dishonest thought. He knows every mean, petulant, selfish, ungodly word that comes out of your mouth. He sees the envy of your heart. He knows our thoughts from afar. Every one of us is having dealings with God right now. And every one of us will have dealings with God in the day of judgment. But you see, Hebrews 10:31 says, "It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God." That's not a safe dealing with God to fall into His hands, to have God deal with you in judgment, cast you into hell saying, "Depart from Me, I never knew you." Now my question is this, fellows, girls, men, and women, teenagers: have you come to the conviction in your own hearts that you can have no safe dealings with God apart from Jesus Christ?
Second question: have you come to the conviction that only the Christ of the Bible can secure your acceptance with the Father? Have you come to that conviction, "If I do not lay hold of and have answering for me the Christ of the Bible and have no safe dealings with the Father"? Have you come to the conviction that only the Christ of Biblical revelation can secure your acceptance with the Father, that your acceptance is not in yourself? It's not in your deeds, it's not in your prayers, it's not in your sighs, it's not in your groans, it's not in your church attendance, it's not in your participation in the sacraments, it's not in rituals and forms. It is outside of yourself in a person, and that person is Jesus Christ. And faith is the casting of yourself (I say it reverently) into the arms of Christ, that He might present you to the Father. It is laying hold of Christ as the pierced One, the resurrected One, saying, "Lord Jesus, be my mediator with the Father, with the incensed Godhood that has righteous anger against my sins. Lord Jesus, be my propitiation, the One who turns away the wrath of the Godhead from me because You bore that wrath in the room instead of sinners upon the cross." Have you come to the conviction that only the Christ of Biblical revelation can secure you acceptance with the Father?
Well, then I come to the cruncher, the third and final personal question. Is Jesus Christ right now your way, your truth, and your life? Can you say to the best of your knowledge,
"Yes, I have turned away from every hope to find in all the universe the raw materials that will make a way to God. I believe they are all in Jesus Christ. In the uniqueness of His person and in the perfection of His work, I am convinced, so convinced that I placed the whole weight of my soul upon Him. I put the feet of my soul upon Him as the way, the only road that leads to the Father. I joyfully acknowledge that He is My way"?
Is He your truth? Have you embraced Him as the One who speaks the words of God, whose truth makes free and liberates from the tyranny of men's silly notions about life, the meaning of life, death and what lies beyond the grave? Take all of the theorizing of the most profound, insightful, intellectual philosophers of all the ages, and on the most simple issues that a little child asks ("Mommy, what happens when I die? Where do I go?"), and take all of that the philosophers have said and pile it up, and it's nothing more than a dung heap of human ignorance. Christ is the truth. Is He your truth? Do you cling to Him with a death grip in terms of His Word? You say reality is what Jesus says it is, no more, no less. Christ is my truth. Is He your truth, your truth about yourself, that you're a sinner; your truth about God, that He's holy; your truth about the only way that sinners can be made right with a holy God through the blood-shedding of the incarnate God, the Lord Jesus, through the triumph of His resurrection, through the impartation of His Spirit?
Is He your truth, and is He your life? Can you say in the language of John, "I know I have passed from death unto life"? Do you know what it is to say, "I once was dead"? As the Father said of the prodigal, "This my son was dead, but now is alive." He was dead in terms of communion with his father, dead in terms of delight in his father's presence and his father's ways and his father's rules. But when he came back with the disposition of desire to see his father's face and live in his father's presence and live under his father's government, the father says, "My son was dead and is now alive." And so it is true when Christ becomes our life. We love the Father's face, we love the Father's fellowship, we love the Father's rules. Is Christ your life? Is He your way, your truth, and your life?
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 9:05:50 GMT -5
Be Ye Reconciled to God by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached November 17, 1991
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2 Corinthians 5, and I shall read verses 18-21.
"But all things are of God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses, and having committed unto us the word [or message] of reconciliation. We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God. Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
Recent events in the life of our own congregation and within the orbit of our awareness of what God has done in the lives of some of our own members and some of our friends in our sister churches have had a very sobering influence upon many of us. For example, it's a sobering thing for me to realize that I stand in the very pulpit where a few months ago a man of God stood preaching to us with life and vigor and with the power of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, a man in his early forties who now lies on a hospital bed in the Albany Medical Center with his body riddled with cancer, and with the doctors having said that his cancer is incurable. We heard Wednesday night of a 37-year-old servant of Christ, possibly planning to visit us in the spring during an extended vacation, a sabbatical, that he might spend some concentrated period of study in the academy. And just a few weeks ago, with nagging headaches and a feeling of general weakness, he checked himself into the hospital. And by Saturday of that week, he was told that he had a massive brain tumor. And by Monday of the next week, he was in his grave, leaving behind him a grieving wife and four precious children. As we meet here, unless something has transpired in a couple of hours to change the facts, Pastor Barker is by the bedside of his own earthly father, who in his own words, said to his son last night, "The end is near, isn't it?" And oxygen has been brought to help make his breathing easier as he totters on the very brink of eternity. These realities, dear people, have had a very sobering affect upon all of us. They've had a sobering affect upon me.
As I put my feet on the floor this morning and asked myself the question, were my feet still in the bed at the end of relatively immobile legs through the paralysis brought on by the secondary effects of the tumors; if I were lying on that hospital bed as Dean Allen is this morning, and I were to ask myself, looking back upon my years of ministry, what questions would press in upon my own conscience? And I'm confident that the questions that would press in upon me would be such as these: Did I make the issues of life and death plain enough each time I preached? Did I in the course of seeking to have a balanced ministry to edify the people of God frequently enough pause in the course of building up the saints to concentrate all of my energies and powers upon addressing the central issues of life and death in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ? I asked myself that if I were that 37-year-old man, having been told I had a massive tumor and had a few moments of reflection before I passed out of this world, what would I think about the extent to which I had set before my regular hearers the great issues of life and death and salvation through Jesus Christ? And as I reflected upon what it is that a son in his fifties would say to his aging and dying father who's about to breathe his last, what would I wish I had been able to say with clarity when his mind was more clear, when he was more vigorous in health?
What are the concerns when we put everything into focus against the backdrop of the realities of death and of the age to come? What are the issues that really count? And while my mind was reflecting on those matters and my spirit feeling the pressure of them, and I sought to prepare for this morning, I trust, in answer to your prayers and mine, that my mind was directed to the passage that I've read in your hearing, a passage that I have often reflected upon over the years, a passage, portions of which I have quoted probably hundreds of times, but a passage that I've never attempted to open up in the hearing of gathered people of God in the place. And I want to do that this morning with the pressure of these other providential matters exerting, I trust, upon us something of an intensified awareness of the brevity of life, the uncertainty of life, the certainty of death and judgment and heaven and hell. And as we look at our passage, I want you to trace out with me three very vital, three very crucial lines of thought that are contained in the passage.
The first is, I want you to note with me the condition of the world assumed in our text. In this passage read in your hearing, the world is assumed to be in a very specific condition by nature. And I want you to consider with me the essence of that condition from our passage and then the cause that condition. What condition is the world in according to this passage? Well, you will notice that there is a certain word that occurs again and again in the passage. Listen as I highlight it in the manner of my reading:
"But all things are of God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses, and having committed unto us the word of reconciliation. We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God."
Do you see the dominance of the word "reconciliation, reconciled"? And seeing that word, we are led immediately to understand that Paul is assuming that the world is in a certain condition. When something is to be reconciled, it assumes that it is in a condition of alienation. The opposite of reconciliation is alienation. It is the reality of alienation which necessitates the intrusion of reconciliation.
Let me try to illustrate it. Try to imagine a young couple who in the providence of God met one another in this congregation. They are both real, serious, earnest Christians. They have been praying for a number of years that God would guide them with reference to a life's partner. And knowing something of Biblical standards absorbed from the Scriptures as to what they are looking for in a mate, they have very carefully and prayerfully established a friendship. They have gotten to know one another; they have come to the conviction that there is a solid basis for the building of a stable and God-honoring relationship. Along the way, they sought counsel from wiser, more knowledgeable people. They have sought to regulate that relationship in the pacing of the level at which they have disclosed their growing affection and esteem and love for one another. And then the moment of truth has come. When confident of the will of God according to the Scriptures and within the quality control of having sought wise counsel, the evening comes when he's going to pop the question and put a ring on her finger. And we happen to be at the restaurant where he plans to let her know his intentions and seek her hand in marriage. And as they sit there at the table looking back into the retina of each other's eyes, and he asks the question, and a holy blush comes over her cheek. And she restrains herself from jumping across the table, saying, "Of course I will, you dummy. What do you think I've been doing all these months?" But she very modestly says, "I will." And he places the ring on her finger and reaches across discreetly in the restaurant off in a quiet corner and holds her hand. And pools of love are filled up in his own eyes and hers. Can you imagine us sitting there watching all of this and then me nudging you and saying, "You know, I think that couple has a serious problem. I want to go over and offer to reconcile them." You'd look at me and say, "I think maybe I need to take you to the nearest hospital and to the psychiatric ward. What in the world are you talking about? Going over and offering to reconcile that couple? I mean if eyeballs were glued, they'd be glued." It's evident that their hearts are toward one another. Their affections are being poured out to one another. The concept of reconciliation is absolutely foreign to them.
But suppose we looked over the other side of the restaurant, and there's a couple who know nothing of the kind of harmony that's built either upon God's common grace or His special grace, true love that seeks the good of one another. And in desperation to try to patch up a very tortured, fractured, hate-filled marriage, they've got a baby sitter and they're going out to eat. And what happens? Well, no sooner do they sit down when they begin to spat. And the water has been brought and then the menu has been brought, and you sense that there's a growing level of animosity. And you can even overhear the crackling of some of the sharp words. And you see the icy daggers in their looking at one another and the cynicism written all over them. And then if I were to say, "You know, I really think that couple needs some help. I'm going to make an effort to go over and reconcile them," you'd say, "Well, I don't know if they'd appreciate it, but if you're fool enough to try it, go ahead." But you see, though you might question my judgment in trying to reconcile them, you would see in that setting that reconciliation is exactly what they needed. Why? Because there was hostility; there was alienation. Though they were sitting three feet away from each other, they may have well been on different planets. They are alienated in affection and love and esteem and sensitivity.
So when the word "reconcile" comes into our vocabulary, it is assumed that there is a condition of hostility, a condition of distance, of separation, of ill will. And in this passage, when the Apostle says that God has reconciled us, has given to us the ministry of reconciliation, that God in Christ beseeches us to be reconciled to God, all of that is nonsense unless what is assumed in the use of that term is a reality. And what is assumed is that God and man are not holding hands by nature, are not looking into each other's eyes with pools of love and good will. But there is separation, alienation, hostility between God and man and between man and God.
And if that is the essence of the condition assumed--and it is--then what is the cause of that condition? Well, our text tells us by using two words. Notice them. Two words are found in our passage. We read in verse 19, "...that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses." Reconciliation is introduced in the context of trespasses. And again at the end of verse 20: "We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God. Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." The essence of the condition assumed in our text is alienation. And what is the cause of that condition assumed in the text? It is trespasses and sin. It is the ugly reality of human sin and trespasses which has caused the alienation. And in this passage, the primary emphasis is on the alienation which sin has caused between God and man, especially the alienation of God Himself with respect to man.
When man sinned and broke covenant with God, it is true that man is alienated in his own heart towards God. But it is more fundamentally true that God is alienated to the sinner. It was God who banished Adam and Eve from Eden. They did not run out of Eden. He banished them from the place of His special presence because of their sin. And it is the reality of that which the Word of God designates trespasses, those steps that are not planted in the way of God, and sins, those missings of the marks of God's standard of righteousness that originally constituted our first parents sinners. And we falling in Adam are constituted without exception as sinners. We are conceived in sin, brought forth in sin. And the Scripture says, according to Ephesians 2, that through our trespasses and our sins, we are brought into a state of spiritual death as well as that of alienation from God.
Now if this is not the condition of the world, a condition of alienation, a condition caused by trespasses and sins, then the work of Jesus Christ is all a cruel joke. Now I want you to feel the logic of that. According to this passage, that which Christ did, He did to reconcile us to God. But if there is no real alienation; if there is no real trespasses and sins which causes God to have a controversy with us, then Jesus did all that He did for nothing. If man is inherently good; if man can pull himself up by his own bootstraps, then I say it makes mockery of the work of Jesus Christ. For as the Apostle concentrates upon the work of Christ in terms of reconciliation, he is assuming that dark, dismal, foreboding backdrop of the Biblical doctrine of the universality of human sin, the tragedy of human sin, that it has cut man off from God and has God in righteousness and justice to turn away from man. There is alienation between God the creator and man the creature.
Now I ask you sitting here this morning, has that truth ever descended out of the realm of general religious talk and theological propositions and come home with burning focus within your own breast? Have you personally, individually, consciously come to the acknowledgement that you through your trespasses and sins by nature are alienated from the Living God? Has that ever become a felt, believed, spiritual truth to you? If not, I'm not surprised you think so little of the death of Christ. If not, I'm not surprised you treat so lightly the Son of God in His person and in His work. For He Himself said, "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. They that are healthy have no need of a doctor, but they that are sick."
And don't sit there in your vaunted pride that you've been able to escape joining the ranks of the rest of us groveling sinners who acknowledge that we are in Adam sinners, conceived in sin, born in sin, go astray from the womb speaking lies. Don't pride yourself that when people pray and say, "O God, have mercy upon us for our sins. Cleanse us from our remaining uncleanness, our pride, our lust, our envy, and our greed." Don't pride yourself that you put yourself outside of the scope of such prayers. You're living in the never, never land of self-deception; that is the very murder of your soul if you go on in that land. For in the day of judgment, God will convince you in the presence of the whole assembled universe that you were part of the world alienated from Him. Convinced of it, you must be either now while the door of mercy is open, or then when that door is shut. But convinced of your alienation from God, you will be. And for those who sink into hell, in once sense, hell is God's eternal affirmation of His alienation from sinners, for He says, "Depart from Me." You see how personal it is. "You wanted to live without Me. You wanted to die without Me. Now go out into hell without Me. Depart from Me into eternal fire."
So the condition of the world assumed in our text in its essence is alienation; in its cause according to our text, trespasses and sins. But now notice in the second place (and this is Gospel), the provision for the world as described in our text. We've seen the condition of the world assumed in our text, but now what is the provision made for the world as described in our text? Notice first of all its author and then its essence. Whatever that provision is, Paul is careful to draw all of our attention to its author. See the emphasis in verse 18: "But all things are of God, who reconciled us." Verse 19: "God was in Christ reconciling the world." Verse 20: "We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us...be ye reconciled to God." Do you see who the author of this provision is? He reconciled, He gave, He reconciled; He committed. It is God who entreats. And in this constant allusion to God, Paul is setting before us this fundamental Biblical truth, that in the issue of rescuing man from his native condition (alienated from God; held in the grip and under the condemnation of trespasses and sins), it is God who is the author of the provision that is made. There is an emphasis here upon the fact that it is God Himself and God alone who has both taken the initiative and made the provision for this world as it is set forth in our text.
And what's the essence of that provision that He made? Two things--look at them. They're repeated in verses 18 and 19. "But all things are of God." And what did He do to remedy this condition? Two things: "...who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation." He reconciled; He gave. Verse 19: "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses, and having committed unto us the word [or message] of reconciliation." You see the parallel in verse 18? He reconciled; He gave. Reconciling, He committed. So the two things that constitute the essence of God's provision are reconciliation based on the cross of Christ and the institution of the ministry and word of reconciliation on behalf of Christ. And that's what God has done to effect a remedy for our state of alienation. Let's look at them for a few moments each.
First of all, reconciliation based on the cross of Christ. And here the emphasis is so clear that one can miss it only if he is determined to do it. What is God's remedy for alienated sinners? It is a reconciliation through Christ. The emphasis is clear that that reconciliation has no substance in reality apart from what is bound up in the words "through Christ." Verse 19: "God was in Christ reconciling." What is "through Christ" in verse 18 is "in Christ" in verse 19. And then in verse 21: "Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." And here is a direct reference to that awesome reality expounded in a text like Galatians 3:13.
What does it mean that the One who knew no sin was made sin on our behalf? It does not mean He was made to embody the defilement of our sin, to be made personally, individually guilty with our sin. But it means that by imputation, putting to His account and record our sin, God dealt with Him as the greatest sinner that ever existed under His heaven. And that's why Galatians 3:13 says, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for us." He is constituted in the court of heaven as the One who is legally charged with all the punishment due to the sins of every man, woman, boy, or girl in all ages who will ever come to trust in Him and form part of that company whom no man can number out of every kindred, tribe, tongue, people, and nation who will worship God and the Lamb forever and ever.
Christ takes our place. And in taking that place, God is not playing games with our sins and our trespasses. He's not blinking at them. He is not simply sweeping them under the rug of general benevolence and kindness and goodwill. He is heaping up all of the legal demands for justice which our sins provoked. And He's charging all of that to His Son. And He is venting in holy, pure, restrained but righteous anger all that our sins deserved. He is being made sin for us in His death upon the cross. And our reconciliation to God is based on the cross of Christ. It is reconciliation through Christ. It is reconciling the world to Himself in Christ. How? Not in some nebulous way that Jesus Christ is made the great figurehead by God. And if you in someway or another like Him and are drawn to Him and lean upon Him, all will turn out right. No my friend! It is Christ hanging upon a Roman cross soaked in His own blood with His contused face dripping with that blood mingled with spit and the heaven shrouded in blackness. And the Father pouring out the vials of His wrath, making Him sin for us until it rings from His holy soul the cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!" That's what God was doing through Christ to reconcile sinners to Himself. That's what He was doing in Christ making reconciliation. That's what it means, "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." God's provision for a world of sinners in its essence is reconciliation based upon the cross of Christ.
But then the second thing God did--and it's part of His provision. Remember, we saw it in both verses. The God who reconciled also gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation. Verse 19: "...that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses, and having committed unto us the word of reconciliation." And as surely as God is the author of all that Christ does to procure a righteous forgiveness and a righteous acceptance with God, God institutes a ministry from among the sons of men and confers upon mere mortals the privilege of pronouncing this word or message of reconciliation. And to state it in a way that I hope will shock you into alertness, as surely as no sinner (as far as the Scriptures are concerned) can be saved without God's work in making His Son sin for us, no sinner will be saved who does not hear the word of reconciliation. Can you be saved without the reconciling work of Christ? No. Can you be saved without hearing and embracing from the heart the word of reconciliation? No, for God has ordained by the foolishness of preaching to save. "How shall they call on Him whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they preach except they be sent?" And while the preacher is never in his person and in his work the ground of the sinner's hope or confidence (not one millionth of a gram's worth), nonetheless, God has instituted the ministry to be that of reconciliation.
And how is it constituted the ministry of reconciliation (verse 18)? Well, it's exegeted in verse 19. It is constituted the ministry of reconciliation, not by organizing God's people to have marches in places where there are social problems and be reconcilers by marches--no, that is not the apostolic way. The God who has made a ministry of reconciliation has defined it in verse 19: "...having committed unto us the word [or message] of reconciliation [constituting the servants of God ambassadors on behalf of Christ]." And what is the function of an ambassador? It is not to go out and to lobby and politically agitate the cause of His country. It is to represent the mind and the will of the Sovereign who has sent him into a foreign country. And here God has clearly defined what means He as ordained by which to bring the news of His provision for needy sinners to men.
Now if that is true (and it is), then let me say by way of application, if you ever hope that your problem of trespasses and sins is to be dealt with Biblically, you must come to the place where the reality of the person and work of Jesus Christ becomes the most focused object of your interests, your desires, your longings, your hopes, your confidence. Until Christ crucified becomes something more than religious gibberish, something more than pious dribble, something more than preacher's official talk; until in the felt awareness of your alienation and God's right to banish you forever because of your sin; until in that context the news that He has sovereignly chosen to make someone else sin on behalf of sinners (He has chosen to impute to an innocent one all of our guilt that we might have the righteousness that is inherent in Him reckoned to our account)--until that becomes indeed good news and you're prepared to listen to it preached and expounded from the Scriptures from men whose only claim is they have been given a ministry of reconciliation (and the essence of that ministry is a word of reconciliation that points you to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world), O my friend, until you count those men your greatest friends who tell you about a crucified Savior, you haven't begun to understand your own need nor God's provision in Jesus Christ. God has instituted the ministry and authorized mere men who rescued themselves by the very work of Christ that they proclaim to herald in the name of the King on behalf of Christ--notice--"as though God [Himself] were entreating" this marvelous message.
Well, we've looked at the condition of the world as assumed in the text: alienated--that's it's essence. What's it's cause? Trespasses and sins. We've looked at the provision for the world as described in the text. The author of that provision is God. And the essence: a reconciliation based on the cross of Christ instituting a ministry that is a word of reconciliation on behalf of Christ. Now consider in the third place, the personal entreaty which comes to the world as contained in the text. And I want you to consider with me first of all its characteristics and then its substance.
What are the characteristics of the entreaty that comes to you? Look at verses 20 and following: "We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God." The characteristics of this entreaty that comes to you are these: It comes from God Himself. Think of it, the offended God who has righteously turned away from man the sinner, the God who in righteous anger could damn us all, but who in love to sinners has sent His Son to take the room and place of sinners and made Him to be sin--that God has not instituted a ministry and then, as it were, vacated the premises to see how it all turns out. No! The God who was active in reconciling, the God who was active in committing the word of reconciliation, He is now Himself coming to you ("...as though God were entreating...").
Think of it, my friend, the Creator coming to man the creature, we who can give Him nothing, add nothing to Him, He who dwelt in blissful self-containment in the epitome of bliss and happiness from all eternity before there was a speck of created reality--no angel spirit, no seraph wing, let alone no puny little creature called man who rears back on his hind legs and spits in the face of deity. God needs nothing from us and gains nothing from us. Yet the text says that this personal entreaty in its characteristics is first of all one that comes from God, the offended, alienated God, the God who has done something in Christ and has instituted a ministry. That God is still active, and He comes.
And the second characteristic is, it comes on behalf of Christ Himself. "We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ." There is no separation between the Father's will and action in authorizing this message to come us. It in that sense comes directly from God. But it comes on the behalf of Christ Himself. May I say it reverently, Christ was not content to die to procure the reconciliation alone. He is still following the work of His cross and His open tomb and His glorious session at the right hand of the Father by His present activity as He Himself comes through the message of the ambassadors whom He sent. So it's not that preachers say, "Only go to Christ." It's Christ who says in the word of the Gospel, "Come to Me. Come to Me." The only way you're going to here the voice of Christ in the day of judgment is to hear it through His ambassadors. He's not coming down to speak again. The next time we hear Him speak will be at His second coming when summoning all men to judgment. But He is not distant. Though He is not physically present, He comes through His ambassadors on the behalf of Christ.
But this is what amazed me: as to the characteristics, this entreaty not only comes from God on behalf of Christ, but it comes in most earnest, passionate sincerity. Look at the words: "We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us." This word "entreat" is the word Paul uses when he says, "I beseech you, therefore, brethren." Does God command in the Gospel? Yes, He commands all men everywhere to repent. One of the text I was wrestling with last night that I might preach on, that the truth God commands us to repent, commands us to believe, but He goes beyond commandment. He comes beseeching us like an inferior to a superior. I don't understand such grace. "As though God", the offended, alienated God who has turned to us in Christ, that God has gone beyond the sending of His Son, the bruising of His Son, raising Him from the dead, authorizing a ministry of reconciliation. That God now--I say it reverently--on bended knee with stretched out hand beseeches you. What grace!
And then He goes beyond beseeching. And if you were writing in the Gospels and were talking about a beggar who sat by the roadside begging, you'd use a Greek verb, "deometha". And that word is found right in here: "...as though God were entreating by us: we beseech you on behalf of Christ." The word "entreat" is "beg." The word "beseech"--I'm sorry--I think I parked on "entreat". That word "entreat" is translated "beg". It's one of the standard usages of it. And then when he says, "We beseech you", that's the word found in Romans 12:1: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies...." There's the beseeching, the bent knee, the stretched out hand, but now even more than that, entreating (begging). And if that imagery means anything, it means that the characteristic of the personal entreaty that comes to the world is not only from God and on behalf of Christ, but it comes most earnestly, passionately, and sincerely. The offended God who gives is now the offended God who beseeches and who entreats (who begs).
And what is the substance of that entreaty? Look at it. Here it is: be reconciled to God. God has turned to the sinner in Christ; now He says to the sinner, "Turn to Me through Christ." And in Christ, God and the sinner meet reconciled. You see, God's done something in Christ. His face is turned to sinful man, and He says, "I beseech, I entreat. Here is My Son. In Him, all that will ever be done that sinners may have a righteous pardon, a righteous access into My favor has been done." And what do His messengers now say? They say,
"You, sinner, with your hard thoughts of God, with your heart that is hard to His person and His laws and His ways. And you think mean and unworthy thoughts of His Son and His salvation. Be reconciled to God. Turn from your disposition of self-pleasing. Turn from your disposition of trying to work out your own righteousness when God has emptied heaven of its best to procure the only righteousness that will be accepted by heaven, the One who came out from heaven in the person of Christ and went back to heaven in the person of Christ."
God said, "Be reconciled." That means we must repent, turn from our unworthy thoughts of God and how to be right with God and how to obtain forgiveness and life and salvation. Turn from all of that nonsense and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Rest the whole weight of your soul upon the work that God has accomplished in His Son. Trust in Him. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved." "For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourself." That's how we are reconciled to God. And do you see the glory of it? That the nexus, that which holds it all together like the compression ring at the top of this building holds the weight of all of those beams. So in Christ, God has turned to us as sinful men. And now He says through Christ, "Turn to God." And in Christ, the offended God now reconciled, and the offending, guilty sinner now reconciled meet in Christ, and in Christ alone, but in Christ forever.
And in this passage, beseeching, entreating, begging, yearning that you might know that salvation, we say with the Apostle, "We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating [begging] by us." And that's what humbles me. As I pray over the text, and I say, "O God, how can one so natively cold and indifferent to men's salvation rightly represent Your heart?" But that's what the text says we're to do. "As though God were entreating by us: we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God."
O, my lost friend, boy or girl, man or woman, I do not come with the thunders and with the threats and the warnings this morning. I pleaded, "O God, baptize my heart with the genuine felt tenderness of Your own heart in condescending to beg and beseech sinners to be reconciled to Your Son." My friend, give up those hard thoughts of God. If He were the mean being you think He is--and that's why you won't repent and turn to Him through Christ. You really think He's going to rob you of your bag of jelly beans. You really think He's going to steal your lollipops; He's going to be the heavenly killjoy. No! Those thoughts come from the devil. He put them in the mind of our first parents: "God is mean-spirited. That's why He said that tree's a no no." He's been telling you the same lie. We beseech you in the name of that God and of His Christ, be reconciled to God. God bends the knee. God stretches out the hand. God says, "Why will ye die? I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that he turn and live." God has no delight that now His wrath hangs over you because of your impenitence and unbelief. And therefore, He says, "Be reconciled to God." Come out from under the foreboding canopy of His wrath and into the bright warm sunshine of His reconciled face. Be reconciled to God. Turn, believe, be reconciled to God. In Christ's stead, on behalf of God Himself, we beseech you, be reconciled to God.
If you ask the question,
"Pastor Martin, I see that you have not imported anything into the passage; you've not involved us in complicated arguments. You've taken the simple, straightforward words of the passage and laid them before us. But what happens if I chose simply to count it as another time when I suffered through a sermon?"
Read on, and the answer is right in the passage: "And working together with Him, we entreat also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain." It is the grace of God that has brought the reconciliation to pass. It is the grace of God that has instituted the ministry. It is the grace of God that has brought you into the orbit for another time of the message of reconciliation. And again, someone in the name of God and on behalf of Christ has begged and besought you to be reconciled to God. And now we buttress it by saying, "We entreat you receive not that grace of God in vain." And what is it to receive it in vain? Read on: "For He saith, At an acceptable time I hearkened unto thee, and in a day of salvation did I succor thee: behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." And my friend, if having heard the word of reconciliation today, you do not repent and believe, you've again received the grace of God in vain. And you have no assurance you will ever hear the entreaty of God again.
Though God stoops to bend the knee and stretch out His hand, He will not stoop and stretch forever. "My Spirit will not always strive with man." The only safe day is today. Receive not the grace of God in vain. It is all of grace that I could say the things I've said this morning based not upon my religious philosophy, but upon God's infallible revelation in the Scriptures. How long, my friend, will you trifle with this God? Though He's merciful and delights in grace and mercy, and judgment is His strange work, the Scripture says, "He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." Dear friend, as I have labored to speak simply and clearly, going back over the fundamental issues--why have I done all of this? That you might receive the grace of God today, receive it to your everlasting profit by being reconciled to God in the way of repentance and faith, dealing with God in the person of His Son through whom God is reconciled to sinners.
And my final word to those of you who are the children of God, may I ask you, how long has it been since the great truth of God's marvelous grace in rescuing the likes of you has brought you to a sense that has made you cry out, "O Lord, what else can I do but give myself away in the light of such condescending love"? In direct proportion to the truth of Christ crucified living in your heart, will you love Him and serve Him, hate your sins and love His ways? May we feed upon Him who said, "He that eats My flesh and drinks my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." What was He saying? "He whose life is sustained by the truth of My death for sinners." That's what it is to eat His flesh and drink His blood. That's what Paul meant when He said, "That life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God [and how does he conceive of him?], who loved me, and gave Himself up for me." As I live in faith of the Son of God, it is always viewing the Son of God as the One who reconciles me to the Father. He loved me, gave Himself for me. So may the Lord not only make His Word effectual to bring some of you to be reconciled to God, but those of us who are reconciled to Him, may we with renewed determination live our lives in the faith of Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 9:06:50 GMT -5
Ballast for the Soul: God Is an Absolute Sovereign by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached January 1, 2001
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I know that some of you have had the privilege of visiting Plymouth, Massachusetts. And you have seen the replica of the kind of town that our pilgrim forefathers built and in which they lived in the 1600s after arriving on these shores from Great Britain. And most likely, those of you who've been to Plymouth went aboard the Mayflower 2, an exact replica built from the very original plans, the original drawings of the Mayflower 1. And if you did a thorough tour of that ship with a guide or on your own, you went down into the belly of that ship, and there you saw a strange sight. You would have seen a number of oak barrels standing rim to rim all throughout the lower part of that ship. And if your guide was explaining things, or if you read one of the explanatory plaques somewhere posted there (I was trying to reconstruct that from my memory, and I'm not sure, but I believe it had an explanatory plaque somewhere near to the visual sight of those barrels), you would have found out that they were performing a very necessary function in that very hazardous transatlantic journey in that ship that we now wonder how in the world did 120 people make that journey for weeks cooped up in that thing and land safely on our shores. Well, what you would have found out about those barrels is that they were essential to that journey. Before they took the journey, they filled them with potable, good drinking water, the water that they would use for their cooking and for their refreshment, that commodity without which they could not have lived in that journey. But then every time one of those barrels was emptied of the drinking and cooking water, they filled it with sea water, because the barrels fulfilled a second function. They were ballasts there in the bowels of that ship.
Now, you kids know what ballast in a ship is? That's heavy weight put in the lower part of the ship to give it stability. Once it gets out to sea and meets something more than little rippling waves and begins to know something of the turbulence of the sea, without ballast the ship could be capsized; it would be difficult to keep in on course. And the ballast, that weight down in the belly of the ship, is what enables it to make it through the turbulent sea, to keep on course, and to arrive safely at its destination. Well, for some reason, as I was prayerfully considering what to bring as an appropriate last of the year and New Year's meditation, the imagery of ballasts came so forcefully to my mind.
What do you need, and what do I need as we, in a few hours, will set out on for what for us is the uncharted sea of the coming year? When those people left Britain to come to Plymouth, they at least had what we would now regard as crude navigational charts. But they had some clear sense of direction, some definite sense of what they were doing when they cast off and made their way to the New World. But you and I are embarking upon an uncharted sea. The Scripture says we don't even know what one day will bring forth. "Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth [let alone 365 days]." And as we are let loose in a few hours and go out to sea in this journey that is the new year before us, I want to lay before you the principle that we desperately need, those old oak barrels there in the bowels of our souls. And we need them for the same two reasons that those pilgrim forefathers needed them. If the seas are smooth and not at all turbulent, I don't care how fair the weather, how smooth the seas, you're going to need water to live. And these are the truths that the child of God must constantly drink into his soul if he is to live in any way what the Bible would describe as a Spirit-filled life. And then it is certain that for most, if not all of us, the coming year will hold some period of a turbulent sea. And we know that because Jesus said, "In the world, ye shall have tribulation." And the Apostle Paul, in exhorting young believers (Acts 14), said that through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.
When we hit those turbulent seas, if we don't have ballast in our hull, we're going to capsize, we're going to be move off course. And its too late to get your ballast when your in the midst of the turbulent sea. It's time to fill up the barrels now before you set out in this uncharted sea. And what I propose to do because I have not preached a sermon on barrels of ballast in the belly of your soul, I think we'll cover two of those barrels tonight; then two of them next Lord's Day as a communion meditation. And what are those Biblical truths? Nothing new to many of you, but as Peter said, "Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance." Perhaps expressing them in a different way, God will enable us to lay hold of them with fresh dimensions of understanding and the response of faith.
Well, into barrel number one goes this very refreshing, substantial, essential truth, and I'm stating it this way: God is on His throne governing all things in this universe as an absolute sovereign. What truth do you have to have deep in the depths of your soul as you embark upon the coming year? I'm saying this is the most foundational of all truths, that God is on His throne governing all things in this universe as an absolute sovereign. Let me take a moment to explain the choice of several of those key words.
The word "universe" refers to the totality of all things that exist, the cosmos. From the subatomic particles in every cell of your body right out to the particles in the farthest star in a yet undiscovered galaxy, God is on His throne governing all things in this universe, that is, everything that exists outside of Himself, every created reality from the macrocosm out to the microcosm within. And that's what I mean by asserting God is on His throne governing all things in this universe as an absolute sovereign.
I'm using the word "absolute" in its first and second meanings in the dictionary. Absolute is that which is perfect and complete. I came into a room and found it in absolute silence. What do I mean? There wasn't any noise of any kind whatsoever. We usually say in such situations the silence was deafening. All you can hear is nothing. If someone were to snap a match, you'd hear it--absolute silence, total silence, complete silence. And I'm using it also in the second sense, not limited or restricted. We speak of an absolute monarchy. What do we mean? It is a rule in which the king has total authority and power. There is no parliament with which he must consent. There is no populace whose consent of the governed he must wait upon before he executes his will and sends out his decree.
What I'm asserting is that the Bible teaches, and we must grasp as a present reality facing the coming year, that God is on His throne governing all things in this universe, and that as an absolute sovereign, One who is supreme in rank, power, and authority. Now that's what I mean by saying this is what needs to go into the barrel of your soul and mine, and must remain in there. And when it begins to be used up or leaks out, don't seek to fill it with sea water. Fill it again with this pure, refreshing truth from the Word of God. Psalm 93 begins with the simple words "The LORD [Jehovah] reigns." Now notice what it says. It doesn't say, "Jehovah reigned" (past tense--but we don't know who's in charge now), Jehovah shall reign (future--we have hope, but we sure don't know what's going on now). Nor does it say, "Jehovah may reign." It's not subjunctive. It's not past tense. It's not future. It's indicative--"Jehovah reigns." You don't need to be a philosopher or theologian to understand those two words. Jehovah, the one true and living God who says, "I AM THAT I AM ." Jehovah reigns.
Now notice how that simple assertion is picked up several more times in these Psalms. Psalm 96:10. This is not a truth to be whispered in the corner when you're in the presence of people that understand and believe the doctrines of grace. It's contraband goods; you only share it with the right people. No. Notice what the psalmist says: "Say among the heathen that the LORD reigneth." The same assertion. And this is not something to be whispered in secret with the initiate. This is something to be heralded among the nations. But you say, "Pastor, people don't like to be told God is in charge." That doesn't make any difference. The reality is God is in charge. And let every single human being in the world get together if they could in one place and vote to assert that something else or someone else reigns. It doesn't change reality. "Say among the nations, Jehovah reigns."
Psalm 97:1: "The LORD reigneth." And what is to be the response to this? Some kind of a trembling spirit of bondage? No, "let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof." There's nothing to rejoice in if there's no Sovereign holding the reigns of the universe. How do we know some meteor will come crashing upon earth and knock this little planet in to a billion pieces? Because there's a God who reigns and says, "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." And this earth as we now know it shall remain until Jesus comes and in flaming fire takes vengeance on His enemies, and God renews this world by fire and ushers in the new heavens and the new earth.
In Psalm 99:1, he says it again: "The LORD reigneth." Now the call is not to rejoice but, "let the people tremble." There is a darker side to this reality. God is in charge, not you. Let your whole life be witness to the fact that you believe in the depths of your soul that it is indeed Jehovah that reigns.
Then the two chapters we read together from Revelation 4 and 5. We go back to them for just a few moments. I've already hinted at their significance. Before John is given to see visions and hear voices with respect to things that are and are to come. He is given this vision in which the throne is central as soon as heaven is opened and that voice has summoned him to come up hither. Now notice verse 1 of chapter 4: "I will shew thee things which must be hereafter." And what does John see of things which must be hereafter? Nothing. The text says, "And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne." Before the things which must be hereafter, John is given this magnificent vision of a throne. And on the throne is not some impersonal force, but the majestic, glorious, living God. Jehovah sits upon that throne. The God celebrated by the psalmist in those kingship psalms--John sees Him here. In this chapter and in the next, 17 times the phrase "the throne" is mentioned. "John, I want the seven churches to get the message. You're sending to them My word." In two cases, no word of condemnation but only commendation; in five cases, greater or lesser degrees of rebuke and condemnation as well as calls to repentance. And the overall picture of the life of those churches is the picture of churches beset with the enemies of false doctrine, of heterodoxy, of people turning the grace of God into license, of opposition, of persecution. And what's the first thing God wants these churches all to know after the risen Lord has given His specific word to each one. He says, "I want you to see a throne." Whatever is to come, it's administered by One who is an absolute sovereign. A throne, a throne--that's what John sees.
So as we seek to peer, as it were, into the new year, and we see that all is shrouded in uncertainty, the unknown, like a ship that's set out to sea and suddenly is enveloped in fog and can get no bearings from the pole star, no sense of east, west, north, or south--what direction are we going? You and I need to have a new sense of confidence, that every single thing that transpires in the coming year--at the end of the day, it's very simple. It will be the revelation of God's secret decree as a result of His sovereign action. Everything that unfolds in the coming year will be nothing more or nothing less than the revelation of His secret decree as a result of His sovereign action. And there are texts upon texts in Scripture that cover the whole gamete. And I want you to just look at several with me here.
There is that well-known statement in Daniel 4. It covers activity in heaven and upon earth, spoken by a king who thought that he was an absolute sovereign. He walks by the grandeur of his Babylonian kingdom, and he swells with pride and spreads his peacock-like feathers in his soul. And God says, "I'm going to humble this man and let him know who the real boss is." So God deals with Nebuchadnezzar. And at the end of his lengthy period of madness, when he lived like an animal in the open field, and his fingernails grew like bird's claws, the Scripture says,
"And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured Him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation: and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven [those unseen heavenly creatures, angels, seraphim, cherubim, archangels], and among the inhabitants of the earth [even the proud, boastful Nebuchadnezzars who think somehow at least they have some niche on some sphere of independent sovereignty. 'No, no, my understanding has come back to me. I now see reality. It is Jehovah God, the one true and living God who does according to His will among the inhabitants of the earth]: and none can stay His hand [literally--strike His hand], or say unto Him, What doest thou?" (vv. 34-35).
When God stretches out His hand to do what His decree has purposed, who can slap God's hand and say, "Hands off, don't You touch that person, don't You touch that nation, don't You touch that economy, don't You touch that person's looks, don't You touch that person's health." Who can strike God's hand and say, "No, no, You don't do that, God." Nebuchadnezzar asked a rhetorical question, the answer of which is obvious. None can stay His hand or say unto Him, "What are You doing?" That's a statement of God in His posture upon His throne, administering and governing all the affairs of the universe as an absolute sovereign.
You also have the sweeping declaration of the prophet Isaiah. And this is only a teaser. These are only some of the Biblical testimonies. And I was embarrassed with riches. Which ones shall I read and barely quote upon, and which ones to pass over. Isaiah 46:9-11:
"Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done [why can God infallibly predict the future? Because He plans and executes what to us is future], saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure: calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth My counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it." Very simple. God says, "It is in My heart to do it, and I will accomplish what I purpose to do."
Then you have the ordering of the elements. Why did we get dumped with that pile of snow. Well, the meteorologists on channel 2 and 4 and 5 and 7 and 9 will say,
"Because there was moist weather system forming down off the Carolina coast, and because of the movement of the jet stream, etc. and the vapors rising from the ocean, it was drawn up this way. And then there was a cold front coming in from the northwest. And that all met, and it hung over us."
Yes, I fully understand. I've seen your weather maps; I've heard your explanation. But Mr. Weatherman, I've got a question. Why did that bit of moisture get formed? "O, that's because it went...." Yes, fine. And why was it there to do this? And ultimately, you see, you're driven back and back and back to where you say, "It just happened." Or you think Biblically. And to think Biblically is to bring our minds to a passage like Psalm 135.
The Psalm begins with a call to praise the Lord. Those who stand in the house of God in the courts of God sing praises to His name. Verses 5 and 6: "For I know that the LORD is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did He in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places." And how did He do it? Did He do it like the God of the deist? Did He just put forth certain laws and principles and weave them into the texture of the world and walk away and let them work out themselves? No, look at how specific He gets. Verse 7: "He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; He maketh lightnings for the rain; He bringeth the wind out of His treasuries." You say that's poetic language. Yes, it is. But it's poetry not conveying nonsense and non-truth, but reality.
Why is it that the clouds are forming from vapors rising from the earth? God causes it to do so. The Scripture says that our Lord Jesus upholds all things by the word of His power. And in Colossians, "By Him all things [literally not consist but adhere. They hold together]." With all of that potential energy in every atom, why doesn't it just break off and cause perpetual atomic explosions? In Christ, they are held together. These are not distant, detached laws of nature that operate on their own. God is eminent and active in the exercise of His absolute sovereignty in His world.
The expansive statement of Daniel, the sweeping declaration of Isaiah, the ordering of the elements right down to that little bird that is flying and thinks your picture window is open space. And whop--he hits it and falls dead in your shrubs. Where was God? Turn to Matthew 10:29: "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father." You mean God was there superintending the flight of that bird, allowing that little bird's brain to think, "This is open space," when all the while it was double-pain glass. Yes. Rule God out of the sphere of that bird, then you can rule God out of the sphere of anything. God is either sovereign over all the universe; in all that makes it the universe, or you will eventually exclude Him from the whole.
Even the most wicked deed ever perpetuated by mankind was sovereignly directed by Almighty God. He is not responsible for the sin, but the sin did not operate in a no-man's land. What was the most wicked deed ever perpetrated upon earth? It's the deed for which you and I are most thankful, the crucifixion of our blessed Lord. And how did the people of God view that most wicked of all deeds? We see how they viewed it when they prayed in Acts 4. The servants of God have been opposed and threatened, and they returned to their company, either the company of the apostles (it's not definite) or all of the people of God, or a group of the people of God, and they have a prayer meeting. And their prayer meeting begins, not with this laid back conversational so-called prayer: "Hey Lord, I got a little bit of trouble. Thank you. You hear us." No, no, their prayer had the elements which a lot of people would say is stuffy and formal. It began with high theology. Acts 4:23-27:
"And being let go, they went to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, Thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is [we come to You as the mighty creator of all that exists in this universe]: who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for [to do whatsoever the devil stirred them up to do, and Lord, there's nothing You could do about it. No] to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done."
God's hand and God's counsel foreordained what wicked Herod did and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel. False accusations, mockery, spittle on His face, buffeting Him, bruising Him, taunting Him, yet not one hand could have been raised to strike Him; not one nail could have been placed on His hand and driven through if God's hand and counsel had not foreordained that it come to pass. That's in your Bibles, folks. Don't give this any human label: "O, you're preaching something-ism." No, no, this is what our Bibles teach us. And this must become something more than a theological tenet to which we occasionally point and say, "O yes, I believe that." It must be in the soul like the barrels of water in the bowels of a ship, so that no matter where we are taken in the will of God in what to us is a sea shrouded in mist and fog, we can say at any point, "God is on His throne. God is governing everything in His universe as an absolute sovereign." And then we bring that to bear upon the specifics of our own circumstances.
I was struck in my recent reading and then listening on my treadmill to the book of the Revelation, one of the most striking passages. Turn to Revelation 17. Here in this passage, those forces that are likened to a beast and to a scarlet woman, the combined forces that are to oppose Christ and His people. We read in verses 13 and 14:
"These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. These shall make war with the Lamb [these combined forces of evil come to one mind in their insidious, demonic determination to war against the Lamb], and the Lamb shall overcome them: for He is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful."
I've got to preach a sermon on that sometime. All His people are the ones effectually called. And why are they called? Because they've been chosen. And how do we know they've been called and chosen? Because they are faithful.
Verses 15 and 16: "And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire." Why do they do all of this, these evil powers doing evil things? Look at verse 17: "For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil His will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled." Are you offended at that? God did put it into their hearts to do His mind. God says, "I'm running the show. And at this point at the unfolding of the drama, I want you and you and you to get your powers all together and see what you can do to defeat My Son."
Now does God create the evil disposition? No, He cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempted He any man. He is of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity. We guard the statement with the rest of Scripture. But I will not blot out this and say there must be a wrong translation. "God stood back and let them." No, it says God put it into their hearts to do His mind. By allowing their evil powers to cut a given course, God is putting it into their hearts to do His mind and to accomplish His will. If you don't have a God who is in charge of evil and the devil, I wouldn't want to trade places with you. He's sovereign even in these matters. So, my dear brethren, as you and I set out to sea, may I exhort you as I exhort myself, fill barrel of your heart with this basic conviction: God is on His throne governing all things in His universe as an absolute monarch.
Now what practical effect will the settled faith in Him produce? Now notice, I didn't say faith in this doctrine. That's impersonal. I said the settled faith in Him. Faith in the God who is on His throne. And He's not on His throne to give the appearance of a monarch. He's on His throne administering His will in absolute sovereignty. So what's the difference? What's the big deal? Well, let me suggest several things.
First of all, under God, this will produce stability in the face of the most radical upheavals and disruptions around you and in the world. I commend to you Psalm 46. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." What God? The God whose hands are tied, the God who must always be wringing His hands wishing and hoping He could do something, but because He must respect man's so-called freedom, He cannot touch the situation? No, read Psalm 46. The psalmist says, "[Even though the mountains begin to play leapfrog with one another and end up in the sea, I'm going to say to myself,] Be still, and know that He is God." He's on His throne.
That's why we don't go around nervously biting our nails wondering what will the president's next cabinet appointment be? Will they get approved? If they get approved...? My friends, loosen up. He may be president, but I've got news for you, the White House doesn't house the Monarch of the universe. And the people that meet in the halls of government, congress, the House of Representatives, the Senate--they don't hold the reins of government, nor does Putin, nor does any other earthly monarch. We know who the Monarch is.
And while we in obedience to the Scriptures pray that there will be stable governments; we pray that God will end the horrible oppression of these dictators in countries that thought independence from colonial powers would be something next to heaven, and they've had a living hell for decades (millions slain, people starving), and we cry to God, "O God, end this horrible stuff; bring stability (1 Timothy 2). Yes, that's our prayer and our yearning. But at the end of the day, whatever may collapse, whatever may look like a mountain today, that ends leapfrogging another mountain and ends up buried in the sea, God's throne hasn't twitched a bit. And God's not scurrying about for plan B. All of His counsel, all that happens in history, is but the exegesis of God's decree administered by His own sovereign power. And you see, that stability of a Christian in the midst of the crises that impinge upon all men around us is a marvelous testimony to the fact that the God we know and whom we profess to serve is not the little God who can be stuck in your hip pocket. But He's the awesome, glorious, all-powerful God of the Scriptures.
Secondly, it will produce submission in the face of crushing, negative providences. I didn't know how else to describe them and make sense of them. No providence is a negative one. We know all things are working together for good. But you know what I mean when I talk about crushing, negative providences.
I was stunned when a couple of years ago I listened to a sermon I preached at a Legionier conference in February of 1997. They had asked me to preach on the sovereignty of God over nature. And so I sought to preach on the sovereignty of God over nature. I opened up a number of passages. "He hath His way in the whirlwind, and the storms and the clouds are the dust of His feet"--some of these passages in the Psalms. And then when I got to application, one of the applications I made was, "What's part of nature?" Your physiology, your body, the seeds of death in it--that's part of nature. And part of the results of the fall is that there has been worked into the fabric of the gene pool certain predispositions to certain diseases, and there are certain toxins, and all of the rest. Then I said, "What are you going to do when you go to the doctor and you've had that biopsy, and a few days later you hear the dread C word? Little did I know that three months later I would have the biopsy, and I would hear the C word. What do you do if you don't have in the belly of your soul this barrel full of the ballast? God was not vacating His throne when that strange influence caused these aberrant cells to begin to multiply. Either God was there, or He's nowhere.
Child of God, this has got to touch you at the deepest level of the darkest providence that may break upon you in the coming year, or you're never going to sit with Job and worship. Ten kids dead in a day, all of his accumulated wealth gone in a day--and it says he fell upon his face and worshipped saying, "The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." I'd rather have a universe ordered by God even when that God orders the death of my ten children and takes away all my wealth and possessions than have a universe at the mercy of pure chance.
Child of God, is this where you're living? It better be. Set out to the sea with that conviction, and you will be a monument of God's stability in the midst of upheaval and disruption. With submission in the face of crushing providences, Romans 8:28 will be something more than a plaque on the wall. When some thing or some things come to bear upon you that seem to drip with the smell and the flavor and the sight of evil, for you to look at that as a man or woman of faith and say, "All things are working together for good. My loving, sovereign Father has brought this upon me for good. I don't have a clue what the good is, but I do have a few clues about the God who says all that He brings is good, and He's worthy to be trusted." That's why I have no sympathy for this health, wealth, and prosperity nonsense. It misrepresents God and what the life of faith is like.
Then there's confidence in the face of danger. What is it that gives a child of God confidence in the face of danger? In that passage we quoted from Matthew 10:29, that comes right on the heel of Jesus telling these men whom He has commissioned, "You're not going to go out and be welcomed as citizens of the year everywhere you go. In fact, there may be some who threaten to kill you. In fact, some of you may actually be killed." So what are you to do? Matthew 10:28: "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Well, who is He? He's the God who doesn't allow one sparrow, insignificant as it is, to fall to the ground without His sovereign will and His sovereign purpose for that little sparrow. That takes the most timid, shy, fearful man or woman and makes him/her a rod of courage.
That's what happened with Paul. In Acts 18, he knew what the Jews would do when they got angry with him and rejected the Gospel. And he comes to Corinth, and sure enough, they're there, and they're opposing and blaspheming. But Paul shakes out his raiment and says in verse 16, "Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean; from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles." He goes to the house of one Titus Justus, and Crispus the ruler of the synagogue believes. And the Lord knows his servant, and He comes to him in verses 9 and 10: "Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city." Now let me ask you something. If God is not sovereign over all the plotting and over all the plans of evil men with their evil intentions, how can He make such a promise as this? God has Gospel purposes, so Paul with Gospel boldness stays on for another year and a half ministering the Word of God in that city confident in the face of danger.
Boldness and largeness of petition at the throne of grace. If the God to whom we pray is indeed on His throne governing everything in His universe as an absolute sovereign, then He can say, "Call upon Me and I will show you great and mighty things which you no not. He says through the prophet Jeremiah, "Behold, I am the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?" That's what gives us hope.
Some of you have sat here as hard as flint for another whole year. And the Gospel has been taught and preached, and you've been pleaded with. And with holy cajoling and urgency and in every way, we sought to bring you to Christ. Why don't we just say, "Phooey on you--go to hell if you want to"? No, we pray to a God who can take all your smugness and all your smart ellic indifference and break it in a moment of time. So we pray to Him who holds the hearts of men in His hands. We pray to a God who can restrain the most adamant evil-minding man or woman purposing to harm the child of God. It's a simple statement (some may call it trite), but I find it a great comfort that, as a Christian, I'm invincible until my work is done. And I don't want to stay around three seconds beyond the time my work is done. There aren't enough demons in hell; there aren't enough evil men on earth to thwart the child of God from fulfilling the will of God against the purposes of God. They can't do it. And that's the source of boldness and confidence in the face of danger.
With boldness at the throne of grace, we pray as Jesus said, "Our Father who is in the heavens." What's the significance of being in the heavens? Psalm 115:3: "But our God is in the heavens: He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased." He is in the heavens, not as a king whose simply got a crown and a scepter but doesn't wield any authority. He's in the heavens; He does whatsoever He has pleased. Those are just a few of the implications. You see, this truth that God is utterly, absolutely pervasively sovereign in this world is not an abstract, philosophical concept. It is not a detached theological proposition. It's the ballast in the soul of the child of God. May God grant that the opened barrel of your soul will be filled afresh.
Now very briefly, let me take the second barrel, because much of what we've already established pours into this second barrel, and it is this: the crucified, risen, and exalted Lord shares that throne as the administrator of all things leading to a glorious consummation. And where do I get that idea? Well, from a number of passages. We go back to the Revelation passage. John is given this vision of God upon His throne: creator, sovereign, holy, eternal. And then in chapter 5, John says, "And I saw in the right hand of Him that sat on the throne...." He sees some being upon the throne that is God. He has in His right hand a book written within and on the back close sealed with seven seals.
"And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof? And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon. And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon. And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof."
The person who is worthy is identified as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, a lion, the king of beast; the Root of David. He is of the line of David. He is David's root as well as David's stock; David's Lord as well as David's Son. He has overcome to open. There was an overcoming that uniquely qualifies Him to open this book and the seven seals. Then John sees in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures in the midst of the elders a Lamb standing as though it had been slain. What a strange vision. When you try to conjure up in your mind what did John see, what does a Lamb look like that's standing, but it's a Lamb standing as if it had been slain? Apparently, it's stained with blood. Maybe there's a gaping wound on its throat. It's grotesque when you try to actually visualize what John is describing here: a Lamb having seven horns and seven eyes. What a grotesque looking Lamb. We'd never take that home or say, "Mary here's a little lamb that you can take and follow you wherever you go." No, there seven horns, seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits or the sevenfold Spirit of God sent forth to all the earth.
Now the Lamb comes and takes the book. How did He do it? Well, most likely, if a lamb takes something, he'd have to take it in his mouth. Now it doesn't say the mouth, but trying to listen and see what John is describing, "I see a Lamb as though it had been slain, and it's standing." Then that Lamb that's in the midst of the throne, comes to the very right hand of the One upon the throne, and He takes that book that is sealed out of the right hand of Him who sits upon the throne. And as soon as He takes the book, the four living creatures and the four and twenty elders fall down before the Lamb, each one having a harp. Linski suggests the term "zither." But one thing is clear, there's going to be instrumental music in heaven. Each one of them has a harp and golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints, and they sing a new song saying, "Here's the One who has been singing and worshiping Him that sits on the throne, holy, eternal. This is the One who created all things. He did it because of His own will and for His glory. Now they are caught up and they're singing a new song addressed to the Lamb:
"Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for [this is what constituted Him worthy to open the seals of that book] Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth."
Then John sees all of these other creatures taken up into praise: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain." Verse 13: "And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." All of the worship that is focused upon the enthroned God in chapter 4 is now focused equally upon God and the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne.
What is God saying to us? Well, whatever else He is saying to us, and whatever our peculiar conviction may be about the precise significance of this book written within and on the back close sealed with seven seals, as you see the Lord Jesus opening up seal upon seal (verse 1 of chapter 6: "And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals...."), it is evident that it is the outworking of God's purposes in the great redemptive scheme of things in this constant warfare between the devil and the Lamb and the people of God and the enemies of God.
It is Christ as the Lamb who was slain, who conquered, who now in His exalted position has this unique responsibility. This is why I used the terminology of being the administrator of all things leading to a glorious consummation. Because He was willing to humble Himself and become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, God has highly exalted Him, giving Him a place at His right hand--and not just a position to be admired. But God has deposited in Him this unique privilege and responsibility of being the administrator of His sovereign will and purpose leading to a glorious consummation. That's why Jesus could say subsequent to His crucifixion and resurrection just before His ascension, "All Power [authority] is given unto Me," not "All authority has been Mine as the eternal Word." That's true, but that's not what He says in Matthew 28. He says, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth." With what reference in particular? "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen." All authority in heaven and earth deposited in Jesus the resurrected Christ, the soon to be exalted Christ with peculiar reference to administering the purposes and plan of God leading to the consummation.
In Ephesians 1, there's a similar emphasis. Paul says he's praying for these Christians, that God would give them understanding and illumination and insight concerning three specific things. And one of those things he identifies with this language. In verse 19, he's praying that they might know the exceeding greatness of the power of God to those who believe. And what is the measure, the standard of that power?
"...according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church."
Christ is given this particular administrative responsibility with reference to His church. And in the interest of the cause of His church, He is given a place of sovereignty over all things. And what is that consummation towards which His administration is leading to? Well, turn to 1 Corinthians 15 for a specimen passage. We could look at many passages, but here's one that's explicit. Verses 20-28:
"But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For He hath put all things under His feet. But when He saith all things are put under Him, it is manifest that He is excepted, which did put all things under Him. And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all."
I don't have time to attempt to open up the significance of that last verse. I know your mind fastens on it, but get the overall picture. Christ must reign; He is reigning, and He shall reign untill the last enemy is destroyed. And what is the last enemy with reference to His people? It's death, death that has taken them to the grave, the grave that has taken them to dust, dust that has been entered in the earth and nourished plants and flowers; bodies eaten by lions (and you can think of all of the things), but the grave doesn't have the last word.
Christ is reigning with a view to the consummation when that which He secured in His resurrection. He did not die a private person, He was not buried as a private person, He was not raised as a private person, He was not exalted as a private person. As Adam was a public person, He stood as representative and head of all humanity. So Christ was head of all of His seed, all of God's elect. And as surely as Christ died, in His death was their death, death to the condemning power of the law, death to the dominion of sin and the power of the devil. So when He was raised, His resurrection not only secured their spiritual resurrection (Romans 6), but their literal, physical resurrection.
And as sure as Joseph's borrowed tomb was empty Easter morning, when you put me in my grave, say to that grave, "You're going to cough him up someday." As sure as Christ is at the right hand of God, I must be raised. "Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." Don't ever quote that at a funeral. The grave does have a temporary victory. It swallows up the remains of our loved ones, those dear to us; wrenches them away from us. But it doesn't have the last word, because the crucified, risen, and exalted Lord shares that throne of sovereignty. He must reign. And He shares it as the administrator of all things leading to a glorious consummation. That consummation for us as God's people will be the resurrection. For this world, in the language of Romans 8, will be delivered from this bondage to which it was subject because of our sins. And it yearns and groans. "And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" (v. 23).
Then Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3, that the returning Christ will purify the existing cosmos by fire. And there will be ushered in the new heavens and the new earth. And we will then join the chorus which we read about in Revelation 5: "Worthy, worthy is the Lamb." Child of God, this has got to become the stuff in the barrel of your soul. As we face the coming year, not only to be persuaded afresh and remind ourselves every day that God is on His throne, and on that throne He is governing all things in His universe as an absolute sovereign, but as a crucified, risen, and exalted Christ shares that throne as the administrator of all things leading to a glorious consummation.
I'll tell you what the next two barrels are going to be that we're going to try to fill. The enthroned God is our loving, patient, principled Father. And the enthroned Christ is our intercessor, life, and constant companion. So we're going to go back to the throne, but view that relationship in its more interpersonal dimension. But the order in which I've given them is the right order. You start with an enthroned God and an enthroned Christ. Then you draw some comfort from the relationship of Father, advocate, intercessor, and companion. But that will have to wait, God willing, till next week.
I close with this simple incident that I read in a book I hope a number of you will get when we get a batch of them in the bookstore. I had the privilege of reading it and filling out the recommendation form. It's a book on a very straightforward, helpful, non-complicated commentary on the book of the Revelation by Dr. Vernon Portress. And in the introduction, trying to clear away the misconception that you've got to be some kind of an astute theologian and have great imagination and a lot of other things to even hope to begin to understand the book of the Revelation, he shared an incident about some seminary students. I think he said they were in a gym somewhere playing basketball. And they saw a janitor over in the corner reading. So these three seminary students went over and said, "Sir, what are you reading?" And he said, "I'm reading my Bible." They said, "Where are you reading?" He said, "I'm reading the book of the Revelation." "Well, would you like some help to understand it?" He said, "No, I understand it very clearly." They said, "You do?" He said, "Yes." They said, "Well, tell us, what is it teaching?" He said, "It's very simple. There's a war, and Jesus is going to win."
That's it. There's a war, and Jesus is going to win. That's what I mean by Christ is sharing that throne all heading to the consummation. And unlike your favorite football team that you may want to watch and root for on Monday, the outcome of this one is already settled. You don't need to wait for tomorrow's news to find out if they made it to the next step in the playoffs? It's all settled. And that needs to become the stuff that's in your soul. And when it appears that the devil and sin and wickedness are on the throne, you say, "No, Christ is on the throne; He is reigning." And the time is coming when the whole created order will be one united hallelujah chorus. And my voice is going to be there with the second tenors, and yours is going to be there. And some of you who can't carry a tune in a bucket are going to sing like nightingales. And it's certain. Now why in the world are we going around dragging our feet and our chins on the ground when God's given us this stuff. This is not pie in the sky, by and by, folks. This is the stuff of Biblical reality. May God help us to fill up the barrel of our souls with it when we embark upon the New Year.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 9:08:06 GMT -5
Christ: The Tender Preserver of His People by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached December 1, 1996
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Now let us again seek the face of God in prayer, asking specifically that the Lord would fulfill His word of promise that if we who are evil know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more shall our heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. Let us ask that the Father would grant the Spirit's presence in conjunction with the preaching and hearing of the Word of God. Let us pray.
Our Father, we thank you for Your word of promise that You are the God who delights to give good gifts to Your children; that you are the God who has promised that You would not upbraid us when we ask from You those things that are needful for our spiritual well-being. And we would, as we now come to the preaching of Your holy Word, acknowledge our present need of the present assistance of the Holy Spirit; that His ministry to us may not be theoretical, but that it may be powerful; that it may be known and felt in the preaching and hearing of this Your own holy Word. And we pray that the Spirit will do that work which He most delights to do, even taking of the things of Christ and revealing them to our hearts with power. Hear us, O God, we plead through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
If you have your Bibles open, may I urge you to just glance with me at the opening and closing words of the Gospel of Matthew. That may seem like a strange request, but I hope the rationale for it will soon become clear. The book of Matthew, the first book of the New Testament, begins with the words "The book of the generation [or the genealogy] of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." And then there follows in the next sixteen verses this record of the genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh. There was a real genealogy of a real Jesus Christ whose birth record then begins in verse 18: "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise." And then chapter 2: "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem...."
And then throughout the Gospel of Matthew, we have this accurate, though not exhaustive and not always perfectly chronological record of the life, the ministry, the teaching, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, what we have in the Gospel of Matthew is a real, substantive, biographical account of the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus. We are not dealing with the stuff of religious myths. We are not dealing with notions that devout followers of Jesus projected, as it were, into historical form. But rather, we have a real, bonafide biographical sketch under the direction of the Holy Spirit with reference to the life, the ministry, the teaching, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of our Lord Jesus.
But this very account of the historical facts as they relate to Jesus of Nazareth closes in its very last words (Matthew 28:20) with these very suggestive words: "And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world [or the consummation of the age]." And here we have a record of the words of Jesus promising that He would be with His people always (literally, each and every one of the days, even to the consummation of the age). In other words, we have in the Gospel of Matthew what is introduced in the very first word and the first verse of that account a bonafide, real historical record of the life and ministry of Jesus. But then it closes with this promise of the abiding presence of the very Jesus whose record s given to us in the Gospel of Matthew.
Now as Hugh Martin, the preacher, theologian, and pastor of the previous generation in Scotland has so masterfully demonstrated in his classic work now printed under the title The Abiding Presence, here we have in this combination of Matthew 1:1 and Matthew 28:20 one of the most amazing and encouraging declarations of what lies at the very nerve centers of the Christian faith. And Hugh Martin goes on to comment and, as it were, to conjecture what it would be like if all he had was an accurate, historical, biographical account of the person and work, the ministry, the teaching, the life and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. If that's all we had, we would experience what we experience when we read the biography of a noble man or woman who has come across the stage of human history. If that biography is accurate and we see in that man or woman noble characteristics, great deeds accomplished for the advancement of the truth of God or humanity at large; when we read such a biography, we are filled with admiration. We are filled with a sense of mingled disappointment that we had to read in the last chapter about the person's death. We are filled with a sense of longing: "Would that God would bring into my life someone with those characteristics in my generation." Hugh Martin says,
"If all we had in the Gospel records was this accurate account of the life and teaching and ministry of the Lord Jesus, a record of how He related to the full spectrum of humanity in all of its complexity of need, then to read the Gospels would merely fill us with admiration. It would fill us with longing and yearning that somehow we might know something of the presence and ministry of such a Savior. But God has not left us with that frustration. For having giving us this beginning of the Gospel or Good News of Jesus Christ, this Gospel that begins with the record of His genealogy, the record of His birth, the record of His baptism, of His mighty ministry, it concludes with this marvelous promise that this very Jesus by the presence and ministry of the Spirit is with us, not to be admired from a distance, not to be longed after, not to be filling His people with nostalgia, but in the Spirit of faith to fill them with confidence that all that He is as He is displayed in the Gospel records, He is to the end of the age in the presence of His people. 'I am with you always, even to the end of the age.'"
Then Hugh Martin goes on to say,
"Think how frustrating it would be if all we had was a record of His promised presence, but we had no Gospel account of what He was like. If all we had was the promise, 'Low I am with you,' but no record of how He related to the downcast, how He related to those of weak faith, how He dealt with the outcasts of society, how He dealt with the religious pride and smug. You see, if we had merely the promise of His presence but no substantial content in Scripture telling us what He was like, there might be some sense of mystical satisfaction, He is with me. But when I ask the question, 'How can I expect Him to act towards me?', I would be left at the mercy of my own imagination or the mercy of the opinions of others. And there are never lacking in any generation people who are quick to affirm, 'My Christ would never do this', or 'My Christ would never do that', or 'My Christ would always do this', or 'My Christ would always do that.' And you see, if we had but the promise of His presence but we had no substantial record of what He is like, it could only fill us with this mystic sense that He is somehow in someway or another with us. But precisely how He is with us and how He relates to us--concerning those questions we would know nothing. But since God has given to us this marvelous conjunction, this fusion of an accurate record joined to the promise of an ever abiding presence, we have all the human heart can yearn for in relationship to the Lord Jesus."
And that reality is the background and the framework of the passage to which I direct your attention this morning in this very Gospel in Matthew 12. And I trust you'll see the relevance of that rather lengthy synopsis of Hugh Martin's thesis given in the first chapter of his classic work The Abiding Presence. For here in Matthew 12, we have an accurate record of our Lord's two encounters with the Pharisees in conjunction with controversies over His activities and the activities of His disciples on the Jewish Sabbath Day. In Matthew 12:1-8, we have the incident where our Lord justifies and defends the action of His disciples in going through the grain fields and taking some of the gleanings of that grain in order to gratify their hunger. And the Pharisees take umbrage of this, and the Lord defends His disciples. Then in verses 9 through 13, our Lord Jesus heals a man who had a withered hand--and He did it on the Sabbath. And again, the Pharisees are upset that Jesus did this. And Jesus once again comes to the defense of His actions. And when Jesus is done with these two defenses of what in the estimation of the Pharisees was a breaking of their Sabbath rules (not God's), they are so frustrated that they've been openly put to rout that we read in verse 14: "The Pharisees went out, and took counsel against Him, how they might destroy Him." You see, when you cannot best a man with rational arguments, then you've got to get rid of him. He's an irritant, and the only thing left to do is get rid of him. And so that's what they are committed to doing. It's in that setting that we now read in Matthew 12:15-21:
"And Jesus perceiving it withdrew from thence: and many followed Him; and He healed them all, and charged them that they should not make Him known: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying [and then Matthew quotes Isaiah 42:1-4], Behold, My servant whom I have chosen; My beloved in whom My soul is well pleased: I will put my Spirit upon Him, and He shall declare judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor cry aloud; neither shall any one hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, till He send forth judgment [or justice] unto victory. And in His name shall the Gentiles hope."
Now I want you to direct your attention particularly this morning to verse 20 in this passage. As the Lord Jesus withdraws from the Pharisees who are taking counsel how they might destroy Him, and as He is engaged in the work of healing multitudes and charging them not to emblazon abroad what He has done, but to be reserved and restrained in advertising His mighty works, Matthew, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, says the actions at this time were a direct fulfillment of what was prophesied of the Servant of Jehovah by the prophet Isaiah 800 years prior to the events recorded. And Matthew says everything that was prophesied of the Servant of Jehovah in what in our Bibles is Isaiah 42:1-4 is now being fulfilled in Jesus. And while the primary emphasis of the passage falls upon His reticence to send out these who have been healed as noisy ambassadors of His credentials, He solemnly charges them not to make Him known because the Servant of Jehovah was to accomplish His mighty work, not through the ostentatious methods of the worldly leaders, but by the sheer power and grace that rested upon Him by the Holy Spirit. He would accomplish His divine mission. But in the certain accomplishment of that mission, a mission that would eventually encompass the Gentile nations (verse 21: "And in His name shall the Gentiles hope"), He can be expected to act in a certain way. And it is in verse 20 that we are told in the accomplishment of that mission, "A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench."
I want us to meditate for the remainder of our time this morning upon this statement extracted from the prophecy of Isaiah, which Matthew under the guidance of the Spirit, says is now being fulfilled in the life and ministry of Jesus. For in His promise, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the [consummation of the age]," we are warranted to think of the Jesus who is with us as perfectly suited, as perfectly fulfilling this description: "A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench." As we think our way through the passage, consider with me first of all the imagery employed. Then secondly, we'll consider the truth conveyed by that imagery; then thirdly, the practical application of the truth declared.
First of all, the imagery employed. Our text says that Jesus will deal with bruised reeds and with smoking flax. "A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench." Now obviously, the prophet is speaking in figurative language. It's not telling us what Jesus would do if He came by a riverside or by the side of a lake and found a stand of reeds--that He would be very careful as the super environmentalists to make sure He didn't bruise one of them. Now you see, environmentalists would find in this text a marvelous text to prove that Jesus supported their cause. Well, it's not talking about literal reeds; how Jesus would relate to reeds that He might pass on the way down to Jordan to be baptized, or on His way out of the Jordan, or reeds that might be found by the shores of the sea of Galilee where much of His ministry was carried on there in Northern Palestine. No, it is figurative language. It is not talking about how Jesus would deal in a home where some flax was smoking. It is figurative language. There is imagery employed. And it is crucial that we grasp the imagery. And let's seek to do that.
"A bruised reed shall He not break." The reed is a hollow, tall but fragile water plant found abundantly by rivers and often around lakes. And apparently in Palestine, it was a well-known plant, for you'll remember in the Gospel record, the previous chapter, when our Lord was speaking about John the Baptist, He says, "What went ye out into the wilderness to behold? a reed [same word] shaken with the wind?" Now you see, you don't use figures of speech that don't bridge in the minds of the people from the known to the unknown. You don't use figures of speech that make no sense. That's confusing issues, not clarifying them. So when Jesus said, "When you went out to see John, what did you go to see?"--now, they had all seen many, many times a stand of reeds, these thin, hollow water plants. And when a zephyr, a breeze would blow, they would all bend with the breeze and then stand again--He said, "Is that what you went out to see?" Did you see in John the Baptist one who is like a reed? And He could use that imagery because the reed was a common commodity to these in Palestine. It was so common that when our Lord is standing before that kangaroo court the night before His crucifixion, and they put Him into this posture of mock coronation as a king, and put upon Him a purple robe, and put upon Him a crown of thorns, it says in Matthew 27:29, "They put a reed [same word] in His hand." They had them readily available.
The reed, then, was this hollow, tall, but very fragile water plant. A bruised reed would be a reed that someone had either walked against it or deliberately whacked it. And somewhere along the stalk of that hollow reed, it had been bruised, and being bruised would to some degree be bent at the point of its bruising. And now it says that Jesus, the Servant of Jehovah, can be counted on, that when He encounters a bruised reed, He will not break it. Now the word "break" is the very word used in John 19 three times with reference to the breaking of the legs of those that were crucified. They broke not the legs of our Lord. They did not snap the bones, though they did snap the bones of the other two criminals that were crucified with Him.
So here we are told that the Servant of Jehovah in the accomplishment of His messianic mission, which will be successful ("In His name shall even the Gentiles hope"), that whenever He came upon a bruised reed, He would never do the thing that would be very easy to do. When you come upon a reed that is bruised and bent over, all you need to do is take the part that is bent and bring it down once and up again, and you break it off. A bruised reed, it's so easy to break it and to cast off that reed as no longer useful for a measuring rod, for that's what these reeds were sometimes used for. And it's that very use that appears in the book of the Revelation. John in vision sees that there is a reed used as a measuring rod. The reed in other cases was in the small end cut off and used for a quill and a pen. And that Biblical usage was found in the Scriptures as well. But this is the picture of a man who comes upon a bruised reed, and he does not do what would be so natural and easy to do to something that appears as though it's not going to be useful for anything anyway. It's already bruised and bent. "Break it off." He will never do that. "A bruised reed He will not break."
But then the second imagery is, "A smoking flax shall He not quench." Now what's flax? Well, again, we're in the realm of plant life. And the flax came from a plant, the stalk of which had fibers that could be woven into what we now would call linen. And in Biblical times, that particular plant and the fibers from the stem would be woven into various materials for various usages, and one of them was to make a wick for oil lamps. And when those fibers would be woven together into a wick, they would be placed into a bowl-like vessel that held oil. And the wick would be pulled out one end of it. Often it was formed in such a way that it would cut the wick, and that flax served as the wick for that lamp. Now it says, "A smoking flax shall He not quench." Well, we are told by those who are knowledgeable in these things and have even seen such lamps in our day in the Middle East, that when the supply of oil would be diminished, the flax itself would begin to burn. And when it did, it would begin to smoke and send off an acrid smell. And that would signal that you better get some more oil back in there because the house is being filled with the smell of burning flax. So the picture here is smoking flax. The oil is being diminished. And often what the woman of the house or the man of the house would do when the wick had gotten to the place where it began to smoke is clip off part of that wick that was smoking (it still had a little bit of the embers of living fire in it, but it was mostly smoke), quench the fire, pull off the burnt part, pull out more of the flax, and then re-ignite that flax and so have light in the house once more.
But now it is said of the Servant of Jehovah: "A smoking flax shall He not quench." And that's the standard word for putting out fire. When Jesus spoke of hell as being a place of unquenchable fire, there's our word. It's the word used in Matthew 25:8 with the foolish virgins. They said, "Our lamps are gone out." Their fire has been quenched. And it's the word used in Ephesians 6:16 where Paul says, "withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench [put out] all the fiery darts of the evil one." Now you see the imagery employed there. The Servant of Jehovah, as surely as He will never break the bruised reed, He will never put out the little remaining flickering embers in that smoking flax of that oriental oil lamp. He will never quench that flax. Rather, He will nurture it. He will do whatever's necessary to have it burn brightly again. So the Servant of the Lord in His ministry is one who would never do what is illustrated in this snapping of the bruised reed and this extinguishing of the flickering fire in a smoking, oil-scarred, flax wick. That's the imagery employed.
Now then, secondly, what is the truth conveyed in that imagery? As surely as we know from the prophecy of Isaiah that the One who was the Son given, the One who was the child born would be the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, we would know with certainty that in the accomplishment of His messianic tasks (whatever it means), He will never break the bruised reed, and He will never quench the smoking flax. Now what is the truth conveyed in that imagery? Well, negatively stated, it is this: the person whose spiritual condition is weak, flagging, and vulnerable like the bruised reed; whose spiritual condition is such that it is waning in the fire of devotion and zeal--such a one will neither be crushed nor extinguished by Jesus. That's the negative statement. And that's the way it comes to us in our text. Quoting from the prophet Isaiah, we are told: "A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench."
But most likely what we have here is a figure within a figure. You have imagery used, but used in the form of what's called a litotes. And a litotes is a figure of speech (Many of us use it) in which you state something and mean just the opposite. You state it negatively, but you mean just he opposite. For example, someone might say, "This cost me no little pain to make this for you." What do they mean? "It cost me much pain." Or we may say, "There were not a few present." What do we mean? There were many present. So when it is said of the Servant of Jehovah, "A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench", most likely our Lord intends that we should understand from this the positive affirmation that the person whose spiritual condition is weak, flagging, and vulnerable as the bruised reed; whose zeal and whose love and whose faith and whose repentance is well-nigh obscured in the smoky wick of spiritual dullness and barrenness--most assuredly the Lord Jesus will never break off and cast away that believer who is like a bruised reed, nor extinguish that almost imperceptible fire of spiritual life in the one who is like a wick of smoking flax.
Now it's interesting that in Bishop Ryle's Expository Thoughts when he comes to this very passage, he beautifully states this perspective in summary form:
"What are we to understand by the bruised reed and the smoking flax? The language of the prophet, no doubt, is figurative. What is it that these two expressions mean? What is the truth conveyed in the imagery? The simplest explanation seems to be that the Holy Spirit here is describing persons whose grace is at present weak, whose repentance is feeble, and whose faith is small. Towards such persons, the Lord Jesus Christ will be very tender and compassionate. Weak as the bruised reed is, it shall not be broken. Small as the spark of fire may be within the smoking flax, it shall not be quenched. It is a standing truth in the kingdom of grace that weak grace, weak faith, and weak repentance are yet precious in the Lord's sight."
Now if that is the proper understanding of what Matthew says is presently being fulfilled in the ministry of Jesus, then we should expect when we read through the Gospel record concerning how Jesus dealt with those with weak faith, those with weak repentance, those with but a dull, little speck of zeal and fire and courage of devotion to Him, that we should see Jesus dealing in such a way, that we could immediately make the connection and say,
"Yes, there's a bruised reed. Jesus is in the presence of a bruised reed. What will He do with it? Will He break it? Here is a smoldering, smoking flax wick. It is acrid with the smell of smoke. There is very little discernable fire. What will Jesus do? Will He clip it off? Or will He so deal with that smoldering, smoking wick that it once again burns brightly?"
Well, if you have any acquaintance with the Gospel record, you know that the Lord Jesus deals precisely in this way with one after another after another. Just turn back to chapter 11 in this very Gospel for a beautiful example of a bruised reed and of a smoking flax. And it's interesting because this is a man of whom Jesus spoke and said, "He was a burning and a shining light." That's how Jesus referred to John the Baptist. But here in the opening part of chapter 11, we read in verse 2: "Now when John heard in the prison the works of the Christ, he sent by his disciples and said unto Him, Art thou He that cometh, or look we for another?"
Now think of it, this is the one who was the forerunner of Jesus; whose devotion to Jesus even predated His birth. When Mary came into the presence of Elizabeth, John the Baptist had a glory fit in his mother's womb. The babe leaped in her womb in the presence of his Lord. He was filled with the Spirit from his mother's womb. It was he of whom it was said in John 1, that when he saw Jesus coming, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man who is become before me...I am not worthy to unloose His sandals...I baptize in water, but He shall baptize in the Holy Spirit and in fire." It was John who points to Christ, who speaks of Christ, who rejoices when people come and try to stir him up to jealousy and say, "John, everybody's going away from you and after Him." And it's recorded that John rejoiced and said, "What makes the friend of the bridegroom happy? It's when all the attention is placed upon the bridegroom, not on the best man. I'm just the best man. And now that all the attention is focused on the bridegroom who's come, I rejoice." There is the burning and the shining light.
But now look at him. He's in prison--swept into prison by a sea of raw, base, animal-like, male lust when everyone's raving about the seductive dance of Herod's daughter, Salome. And carried along in that mindless orgy, Herod says to this wicked young woman who's being pulled at the end of the strings of her mother's manipulative influence, "Look, I'll give you anything up to the half of my kingdom." John is in prison. And in prison, apparently, this one that seemed to be like a cedar in Lebanon is now a bruised reed. "What went ye out in the wilderness to see? A reed shaken in the wind?" Jesus said, "Not John. None greater among those born of women than John. He's not a reed. He's a cedar in Lebanon. Let the winds howl. Let the opposition come like a gale. This is no reed shaken in the wind." Look at him now: "Are You He who should come, or do we look for another?" He's a bruised reed. His faith, his confidence has been shaken. He's a smoking flax. "Are You He, or do we look for another?" And he said this after he heard of all His miracles. Strange thing. You'd think if there had been a period when Jesus wasn't doing miracles that John might have said, "Are You the One who should come?" But the text says, "When John heard of the works of Christ...." He sent by the disciples and said, "Are You He who should come, or do we look for another?" Now surely, if ever anyone was a just candidate to be rebuked for sinful forgetfulness, for unbelief, for unfounded timidity, it was John at this point. But how does Jesus deal with him? Look at the passage:
"Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and tell John the things which ye hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good tidings preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall find no occasion of stumbling in Me."
He said,
"Look, just go back and tell John all the things you see and hear. I have confidence that John knows his Old Testament Scriptures well enough that when you spread before him all of these specific credentials of My messianic identity, he'll remember who I am. All that he has said about Me and all that he's preached about Me and all that he's known about Me will once again ignite into a flame of present confidence that I am precisely who he declared Me to be, the Lamb of God, the Son of God, the promised Messiah. I am exactly all that's he's already preached that I am. Just go back and tell him."
And then what does the Lord do? Verses 7-9:
"And as these went their way, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John [now here's an example of what happens when you allow unbelief and doubt.... No, He doesn't use John as a springboard to give a lesson on the wickedness of unbelief and forgetfulness. He uses the occasion to give just praise to John], What went ye out into the wilderness to behold? a reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out to see? a man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that wear soft raiment are in kings' houses. But wherefore went ye out? to see a prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet."
Dear people, do you see the Lord Jesus fulfilling His identity as the Lord's Servant. This bruised reed, John, He didn't break. This smoking flax, He didn't quench. And you can go through the Gospel records. (We had some of it laid out so eloquently when Pastor Donnelly was here.) You take Peter, yes, there's a time when the Lord calls him adversary when he would stand between our Lord and the cross, thinking that he is God's appointed means to keep the Son of God from suffering. The Lord says, "Get behind Me, Satan. You're thinking not the thoughts of God, but the thoughts of men." And then Peter, when he thinks himself to be a cedar in Lebanon: "If all forsake You, Ill never forsake You." But you see, there comes a point where Peter is a bruised reed. And his own ears cannot deny that they've heard his mouth taking oaths and maledictions in the presence of a little servant girl; in the presence of others, taking oaths and curses upon himself to affirm he doesn't even know Jesus. And what does the Lord do? The Scripture tells us that Jesus looked upon him. The Scripture tells us that Peter called to remembrance the words of the Lord Jesus and went out and wept bitterly. And when our Lord rises from the dead, what does He say? "Go tell My disciples and Peter. He may think he's cut himself off, but I want him to know I've not cut him off. Tell My disciples. And because Peter may think he's the bent and bruised reed and has been broken off and longer fits the category of disciples--go tell My disciples and Peter." And then you remember how sweetly and graciously He dealt with him. After He prepared breakfast for them by the seaside recorded in John 21, He said, "Do you love Me, Peter?" He didn't say, "Why did you deny Me?" Peter at that point was so bruised that such a question from the Lord Jesus would have broken him. His flax was so smoking and so lacking in any discernable fire that such treatment would have extinguished whatever remaining love and zeal was there. So the Lord Jesus tenderly deals with that smoking flax called Peter. And he says, "Lord, You know all things. You know that I love You." And the Lord re-commissions him. For each denial, there's the fresh affirmation of his love. And after it's all over with, the Lord Jesus says, "My purposes for you have not been sidetracked. You're to feed My lambs, tend My sheep. Peter, you're to follow Me as My faithful disciple." And you go through the Gospel records, and you see the Lord Jesus doing this again and again and again. Where there is one of His true people (weak faith, weak repentance, weak zeal), they are indeed fitting the imagery of the bruised reed and the smoking flax. He neither breaks the one nor quenches the other.
So we've considered together the imagery employed; secondly, the truth conveyed by the imagery. Now thirdly, I want to make application of this truth to those of you sitting here this morning. And since there are two basic groups sitting here this morning more basic than male and female (it's the groups, those that are in Christ and those that are out of Christ), I want both of you to know what you can expect of Christ, the Christ of whom Matthew speaks saying that this passage is now fulfilled. He who has come as the Lord's Servant is the One who will not break the bruised reed and will not quench the smoking flax.
So I want to make application first of all to you who are the true people of God. And I have thee applications I want to lay upon your understanding and upon your conscience. And the first is this: I want to call upon you as I call upon myself to worship and to admire such a Savior. In the midst of a passage--and note this emphasis--a passage which declares the triumph of the mission of the Lord's Servant: "Behold, My servant whom I have chosen; My beloved in whom My soul is well pleased: I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He shall declare judgment [or justice] to the Gentiles.... And in His name shall the Gentiles hope." There shall be such a revelation of His character and works (that's what His name means as we saw several Lord's Days ago), and even Gentiles shall hope, shall trust; they'll place their confidence in this One as He is revealed in the Gospel. In a context where the Servant is set forth as the successful Servant in His mission, yet in the success in that mission, there is nothing of the worldly conqueror in our Lord Jesus. There is nothing of the worldly method to accomplish His mission. There is nothing of a pattern of the Gentiles, as we were reminded in the previous hour. Jesus said, "Among the Gentiles [those that reach the top] are those that lord it down upon others. [They climb to the top over the reputations and over the sensibilities of others.]" And in our Lord Jesus, we see this beautiful balance, this fusion, a principled, determined commitment to do the will of God, unflinching commitment to the will of His Father. And yet the gentleness and the tenderness, that it can be said that the bruised reed He will never break, and the smoking flax He will never quench.
In a very moving sermon on this text, one of the most powerful preachers of the colonial period (some say in their judgment, the most powerful preacher that America's every produced), Samuel Davies, opened his exposition of this text with these words:
"The Lord Jesus possesses all those virtues in the highest perfection which render Him infinitely amiable and qualify Him for the administration of a just and gracious government over the world. The virtues of mortals when carried to a high degree very often run into those vices which have a kind of affinity to their very virtues."
Then he quotes a statement which apparently was in vogue in his day:
"Right too ridged hardens into wrong. In other words, in mortals, a man committed to righteousness and committed in principle, unflinching in his commitment to right can very easily cross the line into a harshness and into an inflexibility. Strict justice steals itself into excessive severity, and the man is lost in the judge. In other words, the tenderness that ought to mark humanity in the midst of suffering humanity is lost in this absorption with principle and with equity. But in Jesus Christ, goodness and mercy are joined to this inflexible commitment to righteousness. These seemingly opposite virtues center and harmonize in the highest perfection without running into any extremes. Hence, He is at once set before us in Scripture as the Lamb."
Remember in John's vision: "I saw, as it were, a Lamb in the midst of the throne." Yet in that same book , He is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Well, He is Lamb or is He Lion? When it is right for Him to be Lamb, He's all Lamb. "As a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth." Pilate marveled; Herod marveled at His silence before all of this sham witness of His so-called sins. When it's time to be a Lamb, He's all Lamb. When it's time to be a Lion, He's all Lion. Psalm 50 shows Him as the Lion who says, "I will rend you in pieces." Now I ask you, can you worship and admire a Jesus who is perfect Lamb and perfect Lion? Not all Lamb, not all Lion, but perfect Lamb, perfect Lion.
In this passage, we see Him, the Servant of Jehovah anointed by His Father to go forth to accomplish His mission. And He shall be, He must be successful in that mission. But in that mission, He is never so preoccupied with the world-encompassing task laid upon Him that when He passes by a bruised reed, He just nudges it and sees it break. He stops and takes that bruised reed like I took one of the branches on one of the shrubs in front of my house, a shrub that is dependant for symmetry upon all of its branches. And somehow during the ice storms last year, one of them got bent over to where it would have been the easiest thing to just snap it off. But it would have destroyed the symmetry of that bush. So I tenderly propped it up, splintered it, wrapped some duct tape around it, and now it's joined the rest of it's fellow branches. That's the picture of our Lord. Filled with zeal to accomplish His messianic mission, so much so that at one point as He sets His face like a flint to go to Jerusalem, it says that even His disciples were amazed. They were blown out of their minds. There was an aura of determination, a fixation that they could not comprehend. Yet in the midst of that, He never walks by the bruised reed and carelessly snaps it off. And when He sees the smoking flax, He doesn't say, "Look, we've got to get on with it. We've got no time to stop and trim smoking flaxes. Let's snip them off and pull it out." No, the smoking flax He will not quench. O, dear people of God, how we ought to admire and worship our blessed Savior for all the perfections of holy humanity seen in perfect equipoise and balance in Him.
But then secondly, I exhort you, my fellow believers, to trust the Lord Jesus to be just such a Savior to you. Now I hope you see the rationale for giving you a little synopsis of Hugh Martin's marvelous insights. "The book of the generations of Jesus Christ." And the record unfolds. But you see, it closes with the words, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the [consummation of the age]." And the Christ who is my Savior, my Lord, my keeper, my preserver, my protector, I can trust Him to continue to be what He has declared in this text, to be the Lord's Servant who will never break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax. And when I know myself to be the bruised reed; when I like John find myself in a place where faith is low and my whole world has come crashing down at my feet, and I hardly know my left hand from my right, it is precisely then that the accuser will come and say, "What will He have to do with you? You're nothing but a bruised reed. You're nothing but a piece of flax that stinks. There's no pure and even discernable flame of faith and love and zeal and repentance. What use does He have for you?" That's what the accuser will say to you. And as a man or woman, boy or girl of faith, you need to face your accuser and say, "My Savior is the One who is committed never to break a bruised reed and never to quench a smoking flax." And you look up into His face and you say,
"Lord Jesus, this isn't a very glamorous thing You're looking at. It's a bruised reed that's drooping over, apparently useless, cast off, no good for a measuring rod, no good even to be put as a mock scepter in the hands of the Son of God--no good for anything. But Lord, You said You'd not break bruised reeds. And Lord, I'm smoking flax. If I had to look with the most powerful microscope, I wonder if I could even find a glimmer of any real, living fire of zeal for Your honor, of tenderness, of brokenness. Lord, my repentance shames me. My faith is well-nigh indiscernible; my zeal--I can't even think of it without shame. But Lord Jesus, You have said in Your Word that would not quench the smoking flax."
Now it's not very good for self-esteem, I realize, to say I'm a bruised reed or a smoking flax. But if you're committed to this wretched gospel of self-esteem, you'll never, never be able to walk as a Christian in a Biblical way. It's not flattering to say, "Lord, I'm a bruised reed. I'm a stinking, smoking, no good piece of flax at this point." But you see, you're a reed and a piece of flax for whom the Son of God shed His precious blood; for whom He came all the way from heaven by way of Mary's womb to get up to a cross where hell would be poured out upon the soul of the Son of God. That's your value to Him. So you come as the bruised reed and the smoking flax and say, "Lord Jesus, manifest in me Your messianic function and identity: the Lord's Servant who will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax."
Then my third exhortation to you the Lord's people is this: not only worship and admire such a Savior, trust Him to be such a Savior to you, but imitate Him in your dealing with others. The Scripture says in 1 John 2:6, "He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also to walk even as He walked." We've heard in recent weeks, "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you." And surely this is one dimension of His love by which He nourishes and cherishes all of the bruised reeds and the smoking flaxes for whom He shed His precious blood. And now you and I are called upon to imitate Him in our dealings one with another. And where we have no reason to doubt the profession of one with whom we are bound in common confession of faith and attachment to Christ; there's not been a repudiation of that profession; there's not been official church discipline which has labeled someone's profession as spurious and put that person out of the church, we are to deal with one another as the Lord Jesus deals with us. And we will see each other at times as bruised reeds and as smoking flaxes, and we need to deal with one another as the Lord Jesus deals with us. And when someone has done something that was irresponsible and stupid, and now they're reaping the fruits of that stupidity and irresponsibility or even sin, what is our function? To rub their noses it? No, but to be like our Savior and come to the bruised reed and the smoking flax and to minister in the gentleness of our Lord Jesus. Isn't that what Galatians 6:1 says? "Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any trespass, ye who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to thyself, lest thou also be tempted."
How many times in pastoral dealings when people have come and had to expose some aspect of sordid declension from the Lord, and they've looked at me, and I say, "What do you want me to do? Spit on you? Throw you out of my study?"
"Well, aren't you angry?"
"No, I'm a sinner, and apart from the daily mercy of God vouchsafed to me in Jesus Christ, where would I be? And whatever you've done, but by the grace of God, on the day you did it, I would have done something ten times worse."
Surely, if we are present monuments of the fact that Jesus does not break bruised reeds or quench smoking flax, we ought in our dealing with one another reflect the disposition of our Lord Jesus.
But then in closing, I want to bring a word of application to you who are not in Christ. And I want to bring it in terms of two very simple and direct questions. There are those of you sitting here today, men and women, boys and girls who are not in Christ. You have never divorced yourself from sin and been married to Christ in the bond of faith. You've not turned from running your own life and being in the God business, and embraced the Living God as your God and His Son as your Savior and your Lord. And I want to give you two words of exhortation in the light of this text. The first is a sincere question, and it's this: why would you not want to put yourself in the hands of such a gracious Savior? As I was preparing, I said, "Lord, to go on in unbelief under the preaching of the Gospel is moral madness." It doesn't make sense. Why would you not want to put yourself unconditionally in the hands of a Savior who says,
"If you do so, I will pardon all of your sins, I will break the chains that bind you, I will give you a title to eternal life, and I will be to you the kind of Savior I was prophesied to be by Isaiah and that Matthew said I was to be in My earthly ministry. I do not break bruised reeds, and I do not quench smoking flaxes."
My unconverted friend, I ask you to think on this question: what reason can you give for not putting yourself in the hands of so gracious a Savior? Unbelief is moral madness. That's why Jesus said, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 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." Why would you not come and take a yoke that gives you rest? Your present master gives you no rest. He promises you pie in the sky, and all he gives you in an accusing conscience. And however sweet the momentary taste of sin may be, it's bitter aftertaste. It isn't worth it! And here is a Savior who is committed to so dealing with all of His people that the bruised reeds among them He not does not break, and the smoking flaxes He does not quench. I ask you sincerely, why would you not want such a Savior to be yours?
Yes, I've ask a sincere question, but I must close with a solemn warning. While He'll cherish, nurture, and preserve the weakest of those who truly trust Him, He will utterly crush all who oppose Him and die in that opposition. I want you to hear His own words from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 21, as our closing passage. You see, this is where some people can't hack the Jesus of the Bible. They want a Jesus who's all Lamb but no Lion. Alas, there are some who would have Him all Lion and no Lamb. But let the Lord Jesus Himself tell us what He will be to some. Matthew 21:42-44:
"Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner; this was from the Lord, and it is marvellous in our eyes? Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. [Now this is Jesus speaking, the One who will never break a bruised reed, who will never quench a smoking flax.] And he that falleth on this stone [Jesus said, 'I am that stone spoken of by the Psalmist'] shall be broken to pieces: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will scatter him as dust. [It will grind Him to powder.]"
Here, the same Servant of Jehovah of whom it is said His gentle hands will never break a bruised reed; they will never quench a smoking flax. He said, "I am that stone rejected of the builders, but chosen and appointed by the Lord Jehovah in the building of His spiritual temple." If you by faith do not become incorporated into that chief cornerstone rightly related to Him; if you fall upon Him thinking you're going to do Him harm, you shall be broken to pieces. And if He falls upon you, if He comes upon you in the fury of His righteous judgment, He will grind you to powder. My friend, don't you mistake the gentleness of Jesus for an effeminate, carnal, unprincipled indulgence in your willful unbelief. "He that believeth not shall be damned." The same Jesus who will never break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax will grind to powder everyone who says, "I'll take my chances, maintain my own independence and self-will and pride." My friend, don't you become an eternal exegete of what it means to be ground to powder by God's chief cornerstone.
Some of you wonder why we don't indulge in telling jokes and creating a climate of laid back, relaxed, easy, low-key, cool communication in this pulpit. I'll tell you why. We believe what Jesus said. The day is coming when people who sat in this building and heard of the love and mercy and compassion of Jesus and said, "No, no, no, no", and Christ will have the final "no", and He will grind you to powder. May God have mercy upon you, that this day the Spirit of God will apply the Word with power to your conscience and cause you to see: "Why, why should I be a moment of His right and power to grind to powder when I could be a monument of His gentleness and tenderness in never breaking the bruised reed and never quenching the smoking flax?"
One of the interesting things, I believe, when we get to heaven, dear fellow believers, is to have the Lord Himself show us all the times when we didn't even know we were bruised reeds. But He did, and we were so close to bending and breaking, but He secured that we would not be broken. And we were the smoking flax, and He nurtured the life He had implanted until at last He brings us home to the consummation of that life in His very presence. May God grant that this sight of our Savior will draw out the hearts of all of us who know Him to admire Him and worship Him, to trust Him to be just such a Savior to us, and to pray that we may imitate Him in our dealings with one another.
And to those of you who are not in Christ, may that question follow you to your home: "Why would you refuse such a gracious Savior?" And may the solemn warning fasten itself upon your conscience and give you no rest until you turn to Him.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 9:09:04 GMT -5
Blessed Are the Dead Who Die in the Lord by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached September 23, 2007
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Before we pray and seek God's blessing on the ministry of the Word, I read but one text of Scripture, Revelation 14:13. John writes, "And I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; for their works follow with them."
Let us pray and ask God's help in the opening up of His Word this morning.
Our Father, it is encouraging to us to know that as we sit and as I stand in this place, those things of which we have just sung are true, that there is a vast company surrounding Your throne and the throne of the Lamb who have overcome and entered into their rest, and with one voice exclaim that they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, by the grace and power of Your Spirit. And we ask this day as we contemplate what they now know and what we shall know when we join them by the same grace, that our hearts will burn within us, that we may be nerved to face the last enemy with confidence that neither life nor death shall separate us from Your love that is in Christ Jesus. Speak to us, then, with grace and power we plead. In Jesus name, amen.
It was on September 20, 2004, exactly three years ago this past Thursday at 6:20 in the morning that Marilyn Martin, my wife of 48 years, breathed her last and died. As most of you know, she died at home in my presence and in the presence of her daughter Heidi Cook and of my sister Joyce Maltby. Four weeks later, on October 17, 2004, I stood behind this very pulpit and preached a sermon entitled "Death and Its Immediate Sequel for the One Who Dies in the Lord." In His wise, loving but inscrutable providence, God has once more thrust upon us as a congregation the unsettling facts concerning the uncertainty of life and the cold, brutal, irreversible finality of death. God has done this by taking a relatively young man from our midst on July 3, our brother Dan Haines, less than three months ago. And then again, in the shocking murder of Arif and Kathy Khan on August 29, now three and a half weeks ago.
In seeking to put these dark providences into some Biblical perspective for you, those who feel most keenly this unwanted but irreversible intrusion of death, and seeking to bring to you, God's people, some Biblical perspective to settle your minds and your hearts, I have not addressed in any extended way the question, "What precisely has happened to Dan and to Arif and to Kathy in the experience of their deaths?" And it is that question that I will attempt to answer from the Scriptures this morning using Revelation 14:13 as the basis of my message.
This text states, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." And it has struck me in coming back to this text of Scripture that there is an apparent contradiction in the language of this text. "Blessed are the dead who die...." The word "dead" and "die" are nestled under a canopy of blessedness. "Blessed are the dead who die...." We do not think of death in the category of anything that is a blessing. Death that wrenches our hearts, that opens up our tear ducts, death that brings us to that shocking realization of how tenuous life is. And yet the text says, "Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." And so this morning my message is simply this: an attempt to answer this question: "In what does this blessedness consist for those who die in the Lord?"
Now at the outset, I admit what is evident to any serious student of the Bible. Compared to what the Bible tells us about the consummation of redemption when Jesus returns in glory and power, raises the dead, and joins their perfected spirits to resurrection bodies. The Bible has a lot to say about the consummation of God's redemptive work in the hearts and in the lives and in the bodies of His people. Compared to all that the Bible tells us about the consummation, it tells us relatively little about what the theologians call the intermediate state, that condition between death and the coming of the Lord Jesus. However, the Bible gives us sufficient, clear, unmistakable information that we are able to answer the question, "In what does the blessedness consist for those who die in the Lord?" And I want to answer that question with four very simple affirmations rooted in the Word of God.
Number one: they are blessed with the welcoming of their spirits into the very presence of Jesus. When the text says, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord," they are blessed with the welcoming of their spirits into the very presence of Jesus.
We begin by asking the question, "Where is Jesus right now?" And the Bible answers it very clearly. In the body in which He lived, performed His miracles, died upon the cross, and rose from Joseph's tomb, that body in a new, resurrected condition that had corporeal substance (He could say, "Handle Me. See that a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see Me have), yet a body capable of appearing in a room with closed doors, the doors being locked, capacity to pass through the walls, through the door, and yet appear with corporeal substance before the disciples, a body that apparently could remove from one place to another without the ordinary means of passing from one place to another by walking, by running, by riding upon a donkey. On the road to Emmaus, our Lord is with the two dejected disciples; He sits with them. And while He sits with them, their eyes are opened to behold who He really is, and then He's gone. So we don't understand and fully know the nature of that body that was given Him in His resurrection and any changes that may further have occurred when, in that body, He went to the place where He is right now. And where is that? When we turn to Acts 1, the Scriptures answer the question for us. In Acts 1, Luke has told us that our Lord has spent some 40 days with the disciples subsequent to His resurrection, showing Himself alive and speaking of things of the kingdom. And then as He's about to leave them, we read in Acts 1:9-11:
"And when He had said these things, as they were looking, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they were looking stedfastly into heaven as He went, behold two men stood by them in white apparel; who also said, You men of Galilee, why stand you looking into heaven? this Jesus, who was received up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you beheld Him going into heaven."
Here the language could not be more plain. Wherever this heaven, that's where Jesus is. They beheld Him going up from their presence into heaven. And this is the uniform testimony of the New Testament. In Hebrews 1:3, the language is a bit different, but it does not contradict but simply compliment: "Who being the effulgence of His glory, and the very image of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." And again in Hebrews 10:12, we have a similar affirmation: "But He, when He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God." So where is Jesus? Jesus is in a place designated as heaven somewhere in the vast universe of God, perhaps in a way that we cannot even begin to understand, with realities penetrating other realities. There in His glorified body, our Lord Jesus Christ sits at the right hand of the concentrated presence of the majesty and glory of God. So wherever that heaven is, He is there in His now glorified body. And when anyone dies in the Lord, that human spirit which leaves that human body is immediately welcomed into the very presence of Jesus, so that the body remains down here while the spirit goes immediately into the presence of Jesus up there wherever up there may be. And there are several text of Scripture which, again, make this abundantly and unmistakably clear.
2 Corinthians 5:6-8: "Being therefore always of good courage, and knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by faith, not by sight); we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord." Twice we have "at home" and "absent". While we are at home in the body, that is, our spirits are inhabiting these corporeal subsistences called our bodies, we are away from or absent from the Lord. While we are not absent in terms of His dwelling in us by His Spirit; we are not absent in terms of holding loving, communing and fellowship with Him, but in terms of being in His immediate presence, the glorified, exalted God-man with His glorified body. When we are at home in the body, we are absent from the immediate presence of the Lord Jesus. However, when we vacate the body, when we are absent from this body, we are immediately at home with the Lord. Language could not be more plain. We are willing rather to vacate the body and to be at home with the Lord. Even though in the previous verses, Paul says his great longing is not for the disembodied state, the intermediate state, this abnormal state of severance of soul and body. He longs ultimately that his mortality would be swallowed up by immortality, that he will have his resurrection body. But he says, "Though that's my great longing, I'm perfectly content for the wonder and the privilege of the intermediate state, that when I vacate my body as my home, I come to be home with my Lord.
The second text that makes this unmistakably clear is Philippians 1. Paul is in prison writing to this church that brought him such delight, and he tells them that his great passion is that Christ will be magnified in his body whether by life or death (v. 20b). In verse 21, he says, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Well, in what sense is death gain? He's going to explain: "But if to live in the flesh,--if this shall bring fruit from my work, then what I shall choose I know not. But I am in a strait [I'm torn between two great desires], having the desire to depart and be with Christ." Depart is the language of dying. Dying is gain. And what is the gain? "If I depart from this bodily existence, the gain is with Christ, the Christ who arrested me on the Damascus road, the Christ who commissioned me, the Christ who empowered me, the Christ whose presence I have known in my fellowship and communion with Him, but I long to be with Him." And he says, "To depart and to be with Christ, which is very far better." He piles superlative upon superlative and says it's very far better. And this is no selfish death wish, for he goes on to say,
"It's more needful to remain in this body with all of its scars from my beatings, with all of the aching joints from the deprivations I've suffered as a Gospel minister, as an apostle, as a church planter and missionary. I'm prepared to stay on in this state for your sake. And I have intimations from God that that will be His will. But if I had my choice, it would be to depart from this bodily existence and in my disembodied state to go immediately into the presence of Jesus."
Then you have a beautiful picture of this exactly happening with one of God's precious saints. In Acts 7, that Godly, spirit-filled, Bible-soaked man called Stephen, standing before enemies of His Christ and His Gospel, and he has preached faithfully, powerfully to the point where they gnash upon him with their teeth. And they pick up boulders to throw upon him and to snuff out his life. And we read in Acts 7:59: "And they stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep." (A beautiful euphemism for "He died.") For the believer to die, the bodily part of death is like being put to sleep awaiting the morning of the resurrection when he and all the saints shall awake resplendent with glorified bodies. But meanwhile, where is His spirit? He is very conscious that his very spirit is to be received by the Lord Jesus Himself. He then calls on the Lord saying, "Receive my spirit." And in what posture did he see the Lord of whom he petitions now, "Receive my spirit"? Verses 55-56: " But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." Standing for what reason? I thought we read in Hebrews, "He sat down at the right hand of God." He stands to receive the spirits of His own. Stephen sees this reality. Jesus standing to receive what? Not his body. His body will be buried. We read that in the next paragraph in chapter 8. His body will go into the ground, but his spirit will be in the immediate presence of the Lord Jesus.
In a very real sense, dear people of God, when anyone dies in the Lord, they are blessed in that death because Jesus gets His greatest desire fulfilled in them. Turn to John 17. In His high priestly prayer, the language, the verbs of petition, the standard words are used throughout this prayer. But when we come to verse 24, it's not the standard language of petition, but it's the expression of want, of will:
"Father, I desire that they also whom You have given Me be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory, which You have given Me: for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. [Father, it is my strong wish and desire that those You have given Me, those for whom I am about to die and lay down My life, those to whom I will send My Spirit, regenerating them, giving them eyes to see My glory and to embrace Me as their only hope of life and salvation, those in whom I will come to dwell by the Spirit, that by a process of sanctifying grace, I will make them more and more like Myself. But Father, though I will that all this shall be done in them and for them, My great desire is that they be with Me where I am.]"
And the moment someone dies in the Lord, this desire of the Lord Jesus is fulfilled. And that departing spirit is with Him where He is.
Surely then, when John hears the voice saying, "Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord," the first dimension of that blessedness that is theirs is that they are blessed with the welcoming of their spirits into the very presence of Jesus. Yes, all of them have seen their need of Him as the only way to be right with God, to have the forgiveness of sins, to be accepted in the court of heaven. They've entrusted themselves to Him in the abandonment of saving faith. They've come to love Him supremely above father, mother, brother, sister, and their own lives also. They have enjoyed communion with Him in prayer and praise, in the fellowship of the church, in the secret place of the closet, and at the family table. But if they truly know Him, their greatest longing is to be with Him, to see Him face to face, to behold His glory at the right hand of the Father. The great longing of their hearts is to be in His immediate presence. "Blessed are those who die in the Lord." Why? They are blessed with that entrance of their spirits into His presence.
For those of us who have lost those dearest to us, concerning whom we have confidence they died in the Lord, no little part of stabilizing our hearts, of chastening and disciplining our grief is to think of the blessedness that is theirs. With the deepest yearnings of their renewed inner being now fulfilled, they look upon the face of their Redeemer with joy. Few things are more calculated to give us as God's people confidence in the face of our own death than to really believe that by whatever means God chooses to bring to me that abnormal and temporary severance of soul and body ("as the body apart from the spirit is dead")--that's what death is, this radical, unnatural severance of soul and body--to know that by whatever means, whether it's a sudden tragic accident, whether it's by a lingering, debilitating illness, whatever the means by which my death will glorify God, to face death with the confidence that the moment I breathe my last and the line goes flat, and the nurse puts her finger on my carotid artery and says, "He's gone," to know that I'll look upon His face and the great desire of my heart will be fulfilled. How can we have a crippling fear of death when we have that confidence? "Blessed are the dead [fully satisfied]...." That Greek word packs into it all of the Hebrew concepts of the shalom of God, the well-being that God gives us, the peace, the joy of being in covenant relationship with God. "Blessed are the dead who die...." Blessed because, first of all, they have experience what I have called the welcoming of their spirits into the very presence of Jesus.
But secondly, they are blessed with the perfecting of their spirits into the moral likeness of Jesus. Not only the welcoming of their spirits into the very presence of Jesus, but the perfecting of their spirits into the moral likeness of Jesus. According to the Scriptures, when God sets His heart upon the salvation of a sinner, He has a gracious determination that He will fulfill in every such sinner. And what is that gracious determination? Romans 8 tells us. Here's God's determination in the salvation He has purposed, He has planned, for which He has marked out fallen sons and daughters of Adam in His free, sovereign, loving, electing grace. Verse 29:
"For whom He foreknew [that is, those upon whom He set His sovereign love], He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He [Jesus] might be the firstborn [the chief] among many brethren: and whom He foreordained [that is, foreordained to this end: to be conformed to the image of His Son], them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified."
And what is glorification? Glorification is God's accomplishment of His sovereign purpose to conform the subjects of His saving grace to the image of Christ (spirit and body) so that Christ will be the great paradigm of what they will be. He will be the elder Brother, the chief in the family, the firstborn. And His brethren will bear His likeness in their spirits being perfected in holiness and in their bodies being conformed to the body of His glory, as Paul describes it in Philippians 3:21. However, while glorification is total conformity to Jesus (sinless spirits inhabiting deathless bodies), only those alive when Jesus comes get both parts at once. Most of us get it in two installments. The glorification of our spirits occurs when we die, the glorification of our bodies when He returns. And I'm amazed at how much sloppy thinking there is among Christians. They say, "O, my loved one is in heaven and they're doing cartwheels." No, you don't do cartwheels as a disembodied spirit. "My loved one is gone to heaven and they were crippled, and now they're running hundred yard dashes in 11 seconds." No, you don't run hundred yard dashes in a disembodied spirit. No, we've got to think Biblically, dear people. God's committed that when He's done with us, Christ will be the firstborn; we'll all bear the family likeness in spirit and in body. However, for most of us, we will pass through the door of death. And as we do, what happens that enables the spirit to say to John, "Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord"? I answer by saying they are the blessed with the perfecting of their spirits into the moral likeness of Jesus. They'll get the glorification of the inner man the moment they die. They'll get the glorification of the outer man when Jesus returns and gives them resurrection bodies.
Now where does the Bible teach that? Well, turn with me to Hebrews 12. In this section of the book of Hebrews, seeking to persuade these Hebrew Christians not to cast off their faith but to cling to Christ and all that they have in Him in spite of the opposition they receive and the persecution they're enduring. And here in Hebrews 12, beginning in verse 18, the writer to the Hebrews contrasts what you would have come to had you been there at Mount Sinai when God gave the terms of the old covenant under Moses. And he has all this descriptive language of what was true when the old covenant was inaugurated at Mount Sinai. He begins by saying, "For ye are not come unto a mount...." And then he says all the things to which we have not come in the new covenant; then he contrasts them with the things to which we have come. Verses 22-24:
"But you are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect."
He says when you come to Jesus, mediator of the new covenant, to lay hold of the blessings held out in Him, here is one of the things to which you come. You come into this communion with the spirits of just men made perfect. You come into this communion with those who have right now a spirit existence. Their bodies lie in graves all over the place. The worms have eaten them and the fish have consumed them, but their spirits have entered into the presence of their God. And having entered into His presence, they are spirits having been and remaining in a state of perfection. The writer to the Hebrews uses a perfect passive construction of the verb (to complete, to bring to fullness, to bring to its terminus), and he says, "You've come to the spirits of just men" (those who were justified by faith in life, so that it would be right for God to welcome them into His presence with no controversy against them, made righteous on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus, mediator of the new covenant whose work is applied to all of those under the old covenant who come to true faith in Himself). And he says, "In coming into communion with them, you come into communion with spirits having been made perfect."
And one of the wonderful things about the death of Christians when we're thinking Biblically, what makes us blessed when we die in the Lord is this: we are blessed with the perfecting of our spirits into the moral likeness of Jesus. While here on earth, when we came to Christ quickened by the Holy Spirit to repentance and faith, in our union with Christ and by the indwelling Spirit, the dominion of sin was broken in us. Romans 6:14: "Sin shall not exercise lordship over you, for you are not under the law but under grace." If we've come out from under the condemning power of the law as a covenant, sin's dominion over us has been broken in the cross of Jesus Christ; the willful practice of sin has ceased. We read of that in 1 John 3 this morning: "He that is born of God does not make a practice of sin." Why? "His seed remains in him [the principle of divine]." And he cannot be at home in sin as his native environment because he has been born of God. The mortification of sin as an ongoing discipline has been their reality: "If you by the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live." The image of Christ has begun to be formed within us. 2 Corinthians 3:18: "But we all [in the blessing of the new covenant], with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are [being] transformed into the same image from [one stage of glory to another], even as from the Lord the Spirit." A pattern of Christ-like behavior has begun to emerge in us. 1 John 2:6: "He that says he abides in Him ought so to walk even as He walked." 1 Peter 2:21: "Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow His steps." All of this is true of every single true child of God. The dominion of sin has been broken. The willful practice of sin has ceased.
The mortification of sin is an ongoing reality. The image of Christ is being formed in him or her. The pattern of Christ-like behavior is emerging. Yet sin remains. Romans 7:21-23: "I find then the law, that, to me who would do good, evil is present. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members." The same Paul writes, "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other; that you may not do the things that you would" (Galatians 5:17). It's a reality that the child of God longs with a passionate longing for the time when sin will no longer be any element in his experience of grace.
The moment we breath our last and our spirits leave our bodies, in order to make it feel comfortable in the immediate presence of God and of the Lamb, the Holy Spirit puts forth a burst of redemptive energy and power upon every last element in the texture of the human spirit that purges away every vestige of sin and implants every perfection of Christ-like grace. In a instant it's done. Think of it. What power was operative to breaks sin's dominion? Some of us can remember. We had filthy minds and dirty tongues that liked to tell dirty jokes--and no heart for God. What did God do by the power of the Spirit to dethrone sin and make it a clean tongue and holy eyes? What amazing power! That's why God called it a spiritual resurrection: "You hath He made alive who were dead in your trespasses." Think of the power that's been operative in us to keep us from the potential that is still within us. Think of the power that's working in us day by day, that we don't bring shame to the name of Christ, fall into grievous and shameful sin. Every irritation breaking out in foul words and striking and hitting. We're an amazement if we're real Christians. But I tell you, all that God's done right now, that's 5 watts compared to what He will pour in the moment we die. That's 10,000 megawatts of sanctifying grace that's going to take this spirit that lies behind all of the remaining struggle. Yes, it brings into service the members of our body, and I'm fully conscious of that emphasis in Scripture. But sin does not reside in the corpuscle of my fingers or in my head or in the stuff of my eyeballs. It resides in my spirit. And God's going to do something marvelous the moment we breathe our last. That spirit will experience its perfecting into the moral likeness of Christ. So instead of being uncomfortable in the presence of the holy One of Israel, we'll feel perfectly at home in His presence.
What happened to Isaiah when he had a vision of the holy God? It shattered him. He fell on his face and said, "I'm undone! I'm unzipped from head to toe! I'm shattered! I'm disoriented! My eyes have seen the King!" God's going to do something in us, and we're not going to fall down shattered. We may fall down, however disembodied spirits fall down--I don't know--but we're going to be at home. And we're going to run into the arms of our Savior and say, "Lord Jesus, at last I'm home, and I'm like You." "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." Child of God, do you believe God's going to do that for you? If you do, why can you look on death with such dark, foreboding, shrinking fears? If you really believe that, then you'll understand why McCheyne wrote the words that he did:
"When I stand before the throne Dressed in beauty not my own, When I see You as You are; Love You with unsinning heart, Then, Lord, shall I fully know Not till then how much I owe Some of us feel we could give a pinky to go through one day without sinning, and maybe an index finger to go through a week. I've got news for you, you're going to go through an eternity and never sin. And it all is going to begin when God ushers you through the door of death, and you experience the blessedness of the perfecting of your spirit into the moral likeness of Jesus. Surely, this is the great attraction of heaven for the child of God. Next to being with Jesus is the longing to be fully like Jesus. And when you think of heaven, if those two are not the dominant attractions, you've probably have a heaven like unto the Muslim. It's escape from this and that, and it's a joy in this, that, and the other and has nothing to do with that work which God does in making Christ precious and making sin our greatest mortal enemy.
Child of God, this is for your comfort. I say to grieving widows and widowers, grieving sons and daughters, think what's happened to Dan, what's happened to Arif and to Kathy. They've enjoyed, whatever consciousness of time there may be (several months in Dan's case and three and a half weeks in Arif and Kathy's case), uninterrupted communion with their Savior in His presence without sin. And it should go far to help you and me to have a balanced Biblical attitude to our own eventual death.
"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord," blessed not only with the welcoming of their spirits into the very presence of Jesus, blessed with the perfecting of their spirits into the moral likeness of Jesus, but thirdly, they are blessed with the gathering of their spirits into the company of all those redeemed by Jesus. Each one of us is born as an individual. Even if you're one of triplets, somebody came out first, second, and third. You're born all alone. And if we're in Christ, we come into Christ individually. We don't come in on mama or daddy's belt or apron strings. And if we've experienced new birth (God has born us individually by His Spirit), we will die as individuals and will stand before God on the day of judgment as individuals. Yet, hear me now, God's great design in salvation is not crassly individualistic. Rather, in redemption, God is committed in that redemptive grace to create a new humanity, a city of God, a bride for His Son, a holy nation of people for His own possession. When Paul describes the consummation at the second coming, he writes of this togetherness that's in the mind and purpose of God and will be in our experience. In the familiar words of 1 Thessalonians 4:14-15,
"For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep."
There was some teaching abroad that there was going to be a bifurcation of class distinction at the coming of Christ, that the living saints were going to have preference over the dead saints. Paul said, "No, no! No splitting up of the people of God." Listen to what he says:
"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we [in our togetherness] ever be with the Lord."
In those pictures of the consummate glory of redemption (the new heavens, the new earth), it is a city that comes down from God. It is a vast multitude whom no man can number out of every kindred, tribe, tongue, people, and nation. It is 144,000 of the spiritual Israel. God is committed to make a new humanity. And when the Spirit says to John, "Write, Blessed are those who die in the Lord from henceforth," a third aspect of that blessedness is the gathering of their spirits into the company of all those redeemed by Jesus. And again, I go back to the Hebrews 12 passage. What do we come to in the new covenant? We come here and now into relationship and communion with the spirits of just men made perfect. Verses 22-23: "But ye are come...to the spirits of just men made perfect." This is captured in one of the verses of one of our lovely hymns:
Yet she on earth hath union with God, the three in one And mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won Even now we have a dimension of mystic sweet communion with Abraham and Isaac and Joseph and Sarah and Mary and Martha and Ruth and Naomi and all of those redeemed by Christ. How much more, then, can we expect, that when our spirits leave our bodies, that communion will become intensified because we now become a part of the company of the spirits of just men made perfect, so that when those still on earth come to faith in Christ, they come into mystic sweet communion with us, and I'm a part of the us. I don't know how disembodied spirits recognize one another and communicate, but aren't angels disembodied spirits? The Bible says they are spirits sent forth to do service to the heirs of salvation. The angles obviously communicate with God, and He communicates with them. They recognize their rank and station. There are angels and archangels, and there are different categories and structures of power. So in some way, disembodied spirits are going to be able to communicate. I don't know how, but they're going to.
After I've seen my Savior and seen Paul and seen Dick and thanked him for all he did, that I now have the wife God has given me. And I've seen Marilyn and thanked her for all her life and ministry meant to me over those 48 years, I want to meet Moses and Joseph and Daniel and Peter and Paul and all those lesser saints the writer to the Hebrews says the world was not worthy of. "Time will fail me," He says, "if I tell of," and then he mentions Gideon and Samson and Jephthah and those who were sawn asunder. Brothers who lost their lives in my generation, sealed their testimony with blood. It's going to be wonderful. We'll be introduced into to something far grander than we have ever known in our most loving, intimate moments of communion down here when at the end of the Lord's Day when we've worshipped God together and we've felt the impress of the Word upon our hearts together, and we've been drawn out in prayer and praise together, and we've lingered long to enter into each others joys and sorrows and we've said, "Ah, this Lord's Day was a taste of heaven." Ah, but what a pathetic taste. We're still a bunch of sinners with selfishness. And we hear things wrongly, and we interpret things wrongly. What will it be to be gathered home with the spirits of just men made perfect? I will be one of them, and you will be one of them.
I say again, this should be a comfort to those of us who've lost loved ones who've gone before us. Think of what they now enjoy. You wonder if they even have time to think of us poor folks down here. Their eyes, their hearts, their souls--however disembodied spirits communicate, I don't know. I've got some secret, holy fantasies that I'll never preach; I'll never say publicly. In the early hours of this morning I said, "Lord, should now be the time when I pull back the vale?" I said, "No, I'm not going to do it." Because I've never preached my fantasies. But I have some, and it's between me, the Lord, and my wife. If she ever squeals on me, she's in trouble. But seriously, isn't this calculated to take away some of the brininess of our tears as we think of those whom God has taken from us. What they now experience as they have been gathered into the company of those redeemed by Christ.
Fourthly and finally: when the Spirit says to John, "Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth," they're blessed with the experiencing in their spirits of the promised rest of Jesus. Go back now to the Revelation 14 passage with me. We're going to concentrate a little bit more on some of the wording to which I've not made reference. "And I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors." When the Spirit tells John to write the words He gives John, they're rather shocking at first. You'd think he would have said, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: yes, says the Spirit, in order that they may see their Savior, in order that they may be perfectly holy, in order...[these other three things that to me are prominent emphases]." But the Holy Spirit emphasizes with a hena clause of purpose what it is that is a focal point of their blessedness. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord [in order] that they may rest from their labor." Now it's interesting that the verb "to rest" is the very verb used in Matthew 11:28: "Come unto Me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." They've come laboring with an accusing conscience, laboring with the guilt of sin. And coming to Christ, they have found the promised rest to their souls. They rest from trying to save themselves; they trust in another for their salvation. But in this life they continue to labor, life in general under the ancient curse upon the ground, life as a Christian in a fallen world, life with a decaying outward man. No wonder Paul said in Romans 8:23, "And not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." In 2 Corinthians 5:4, He says the same thing: "For indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened...." But God says the moment we die in the Lord, we enter into the rest of Jesus. What is that rest? One man of God wrote--and I found this so helpful,
"Rest also may be rest above all. Here we have responsibilities, pain, and temptation; here harassment by the demonic, persecution from the world, disappointment in our friends; here relentless, remorseless pressure, requiring us to live at the limit of our resources and at the very edge of our endurance, but there, rest. The battle's over; the victory's won. The toil is behind us and the danger is past. No more the burden of unfinished work or the frustration of inbuilt limitations, no sin to mortify, no self to crucify, no pain to face, no enemy to fear. 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord in order that they may rest from their labors,' blessed with entering into the promised rest of Jesus."
Here again, I say for the consolation of those who are called upon to grieve, think of the blessedness of those who have died in the Lord and have entered fully into that rest: no struggle with the unyielding nature of a cursed earth, no struggle against the powers of darkness, no struggle with remaining sin, no weariness in the performance of duty, no frustration with not enough hours to do the things it appears one must do. All of that is over--perfect rest! And whatever activities there are, they are the activities of sheer, unbounded, limitless, Holy Spirit-imparted, heavenly energy, so that there's never any weariness in worship, never any weariness or distractedness in praise. They've entered into their rest.
Now what do I say to you by way of final summary and application? Well, the Bible clearly teaches, my friends, that death is the result of the intrusion of sin into the world. It is the unnatural, temporary separation of soul and body. It is called in our Bibles the last enemy and leaves a trail of emotional trauma, tears, and broken hearts. Yet the Spirit says, "Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." And I've tried to answer the question, "In what does that blessedness consist?" And I've sought from the Scriptures to give you four assertions: They are blessed with the welcoming of their spirits into the very presence of Jesus. They are blessed with the perfecting of their spirits into the moral likeness of Jesus. They are blessed with the gathering of their spirits into the company of all the redeemed by Jesus. And they are blessed with experiencing within their spirit's the promised the rest of Jesus. While not denying that death is still an enemy, the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26), a cruel, ugly, heartless enemy. And if you had to look at it up close by bits and pieces, taking a love one to a grave with a horrible, lingering, debilitating illness, you grow to hate that enemy. Years ago I heard Dr. Tozer on a tape, speaking of the fact that if you can't hate, you can't love and make it mean anything. And he was speaking of the things he loved. And then he spoke of the things he hated (this will tell you when he lived), and he said, "I hate the devil, and I hate Khrushchev, and I hate cancer." I didn't understand it at the time. I now do. Death's instrument, a debilitating disease that wrenches away a love one. I'm not denying any of that reality, but here in our text: "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." And what should be the result of internalizing these things that have grown out of our question? In the Biblical answer to wherein consists that blessedness, we ought to be able, in facing our own death and the death of others who die in the Lord, to enter into this holy triumphalism of the Apostle. Romans 8:37-38:
"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Dear child of God, for you to be tentative as you face death is a disgrace to the power of the Gospel and takes away the edge of the convincingness of your witness. The world lives in denial of death. It has no answer in the face of death. And in honest moments, people will admit they fear it. And they want to do everything to reverse the undeniable evidences that the outward man is decaying--the billions of dollars spent on elected cosmetic surgery to live forever in a body that's going to rot and be eaten by the worms in a grave. When you, as a child of God, can speak of death, not in a cavalier way, but with the confidence of the Apostle who said, "Death shall not separate me from the love of God. It will usher me into four wonderful dimensions of the love of God that I can't have down here." And then you tell them what they are: "I'm going to be with Jesus. I'm going to be like Jesus. I'm going to be with Jesus' people. And I'm going to enter into rest." Child of God, that's your privilege. And then to go even further. 1 Corinthians 3--this is an amazing statement--and verse 21: "Wherefore let no one glory in men. For all things are yours." In Christ, everything is yours for your spiritual profit. Then Paul specifies different ministers, Paul, Apollos, or Cephas, because they were splitting up and lining up behind one or the other. Paul says, "Don't do that. They're all yours. Appreciate them all for what God would do in you through every one of them." "Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours." Death is now mine? Yes, in Christ, death is my possession to chase me home to Jesus, to bring me into total conformity to Jesus, to put me at home with my people of Jesus, and to enter the promised rest of Jesus. Death is mine to do that for me.
There was an anthem sang way back 50 plus years ago in college, and the phrase in it was this: "Thou hast made death glorious and triumphant, for through its portals we enter into the presence of the living God." That's why the words of Jesus that puzzled me for years, I think I understand them a little better now. In John 8:51, Jesus made this stupendous claim: "[Truly, truly], I say unto you, If a man keep my word, he shall never see death. [If you're one of My true disciples, and you've been bonded to Me in faith and love and obedience, you will never see death.]" What did He mean? Did He mean that His true followers will never experience that radical, temporary severance of soul and body. No, what He meant was that you will never see death in its naked essence as the wages of sin: to separate your soul from your body in order to drive that soul into the hell of the intermediate state, the provisional suffering of the hell that is the moment you die out of Christ, and then the hell of soul and body in Gehenna after the judgment. You will never see death. Death as the wages of sin has been swallowed up by my Savior. And if I'm united to my Savior in faith, in love that issues in obedience, I have His promise, "If you keep My word, you shall never taste of death." And then a similar statement in John 11:25-26: "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believes on Me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever lives and believes on Me shall never die." Of course, that's pointing ultimately to the eternity of eternal life, but it has wrapped up in it this wonderful reality, that death in its naked essence as the wages of sin cannot touch me, for I am in my Savior. If you are in Christ as one who will die in the Lord, surely, murky views of what will happen when you die are inexcusable. And a crippling fear of death is dishonorable to God. And if your loved ones die in the Lord, grief unmixed with joy is dishonoring to the Lord if we're thinking as Christian men and women.
Now I'm not saying that we should all rise to the level of Billy Bray. Have you ever heard of Billy Bray? He was a Cornish miner in Cornwall, England. He had been a profligate, wicked man, and God saved him. And just as God gave to George Mueller an unusual gift of faith, he gave to Billy Bray an unusual gift of joy. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace...." Some people seem to have a peculiar dimension of love, some of joy, some of peace. And he was known when walking down the street. And he would start praising God for no apparent reason. People would say, "Billy, why are you praising God." He would say, "I can't help it. When I'm walking, one foot says, 'glory,' and the next one says, 'hallelujah.' I can't help but say it." Well, his wife struggled with assurance and struggled with doubts. And Billy sought to minister to her to enable her to come to full assurance. And when he stood by her bed and she breathed her last and he knew she we gone, the story is that he raised his hand and bellowed out in praise, "She's done with the doubters and gone up with the shouters." Now, I'm not saying that I should have stood by Marilyn's bed and raised my hand like Billy Bray. But shame on me if I could not look upon that lifeless form and say, "She's with Jesus, she's like Jesus, she's in the company of Jesus' people, and she's entered into the rest of Jesus. Dear people, those four realities should enable us to look death straight in the eye and know what it can and cannot do to us.
My final word is back to Revelation 14:13. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." Taking the teaching of Scripture from other places, we could well write, "Cursed are the dead who die out of the Lord." And if you want to know what the curse is, just stay within this very 14th chapter of the book of Revelation. And go back to verse 10:
"He also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is prepared unmixed in the cup of his anger; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever; and they have no rest day and night, they that worship the beast and his image, and whoso receives the mark of his name [those who sell their souls to the world and do its spiritual harlotry]."
A horrible, horrible description. Cursed are those who die out of the Lord. And I pray that if you're not in the Lord, that this day you will determine the sun will not set without you embracing the Son of righteousness and casting yourself upon Him. I think especially of you dear children. And I do so because I cannot remember a time as a child when I was not terrified at the thought of death. I'd go to bed every night saying, "O God, don't let me die." Afraid to go to sleep for fear I might die in my sleep. I thank God I had that fear of hell. I thank God I no longer do. But there may be some of you children that are where I was. And I want to tenderly plead with you this day that you might join the ranks of those who are in the Lord. I found this little story: A young girl somewhere in England who died at nine years of age, one day in her illness said to her aunt with whom lived,
"When I'm dead, I should like the pastor to preach a sermon to children to persuade them to trust in Jesus, to love Christ, to obey their parents, not to tell lies, but to think about dying and going to heaven. I've been thinking what text I should like the pastor to preach from at my funeral--2 Kings 4:26. Auntie, you're the Shunammite, the pastor who I regard as the prophet, and I am the shunammite's child. When I'm dead, I dare say you will be grieved, though you need not. The prophet (the pastor) will come to you, and when he says, 'How is it with the child [like Elijah came to the Shunamite]?', you may say, 'It is well.' For I am sure, Auntie, it will be well with me, for I shall be in heaven singing the praises of God. You ought to think it well too."
The pastor, accordingly, fulfilled the wish of this nine-year-old child.
Dear children, if one of you should die in the next, the next month, the next year, could your mom and dad say, "Pastor, you know what my kid said to me? Tell the pastor to preach on this text. And when he asks, 'Is it well?', you tell him, 'It is well with my soul.' Ah, dear children, is it well with you? Are you trusting in the Lord Jesus to take away your sins? Are you loving Jesus? Are you telling lies or speaking truthfully to Mom and Dad? Do you love the worldling that has no use for Jesus? Or do you like to be with the kids that like to talk about the sermons and about Sunday school? And when they're laughing and playing and having innocent fun, their language is clean, and their attitudes are loving. Are you showing that you are a true child of God? I yearn for you, that you may be able to say, "It is well with the child."
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 9:10:05 GMT -5
God's Inescapable Command by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached November 6, 2000
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The setting is Paul's missionary visit to the city of Athens. While he is there, he beholds a city given over to idolatry; he enters into dissertation and discussion with men. And in this particular setting, he's on Mars Hill discoursing concerning the nature and character of God. And bringing his sermon to a conclusion, he says in Acts 17:30-31,
"The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; but now He commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent: inasmuch as He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead."
We're going to consider this text this morning under the general heading "God's Inescapable Command." Now the Scriptures are full of commandments. Some of those commands are directed to specific segments of society, certain facets of the total fabric of humanity to whom God speaks with peculiar and with special reference. When God says, for instance, in the Ten Commandments, "Children obey your parents" or "Honor thy father and thy mother," this is a direct commandment directed particularly to sons and daughters. When God speaks, as He does in many parts of the Epistles, that is, the various letters to the churches in the New Testament, He's speaks on the one hand to servants and to masters, to fathers, to mothers, to husbands, to wives. And so there are many commandments which zero in upon a particular segment of God's creation. But here we have a text which applies to all men without discrimination. There are fathers here this morning, there are mothers, there are wives, there are employees, there are employers. And if I were to treat a text which applies particularly to one of those segments, though there might be something there for all of us (and I would seek to show the relevance of that command to everyone in a general sense), I don't care who you are this morning, this text comes directly to you as an individual. Regardless of your present status as son or daughter, husband, wife, father, mother, employer, employee, none of these distinctions enter in whatsoever. For this text is an inescapable, a universal command to all of us. And so then, let us study this text under the general heading "The Inescapable Command."
First of all, consider with me who gives this inescapable command? When somebody starts throwing commandments around, especially when they start throwing them in my direction, the first question I ask is, "What right do you have to issue commands and throw them in my direction?" In other words, all of us have a built in safety mechanism that learns to disregard commands when they come from source which has no authority over us. If someone in the process of my driving home today should step off the curb down there on Westville Avenue, on Bloomfield dressed in summer short sleeve shirt and tie as I am dressed and stick up his hand and say, "Hey, pull over," I would probably promptly ignore him because, though he's giving me a commend, I do not recognize in him any basis of authority for that command. But should that same individual appear tonight when I make my way home by the same route, the same individual dressed in a blue uniform and a badge and a cap and a whistle and made the same gestures and said, "Pull over," I venture to say I would promptly obey his command. Now the difference, you see, is not in his words or his whistle. But the difference is that I recognize in him the symbols of proper authority to give that command. Now here is a command in our text. Someone is commanding all men everywhere to do something. That means somebody is commanding you to do something. And so you have the right to ask the question, "Who is giving the command? Should I obey on the basis of the source from which the command comes?" And the Apostle Paul clearly indicates in this text that it is nothing other or no one lesser than the Living God Himself who gives this command. Look at the text: "The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; but now He commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent." It is God who issues this command.
Now when Paul said God, what did he mean? Was he just using some kind of a religious symbol and said, "God," and by that, you just make it anything you want it to mean? Of course not. Packed into that little 3-letter word that we use, "God" (it is a 4-letter word in the language Paul was speaking, in the Greek language), Paul was packing everything that he himself understood of the nature and character of that God, everything that he had already been preaching in the bulk of his sermon. You see, the idea that men instinctively know who God is and we've just got to know the way to God and how to know God is entirely erroneous. Sin has so darkened our minds that we do not know who God is. Sin has so perverted out thinking that we have made God after our own image. And so the Apostle Paul was very careful in the first part of this sermon to buttress this command that God gives by describing who God is. And I want to follow the same pattern that Paul did. So look with me very quickly at the fundamental facets of the character of God that Paul has already set before his hearers so that when he says to them "God commands you to repent," they might bring before their minds this great God of whom Paul has been speaking.
Notice then, he starts by saying in verses 24 and 25, "The God that made the world and all things therein, He, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is He served by men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing He Himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things." Where does Paul start? He starts with the fact that the God who gives this command that is inescapable, this command that comes to all of us--that God is the creator of heaven and earth ("God that made the world"). Now you see, this cut right across the grain of what these particular Athenian people thought. Their philosophical frame of reference was either that of Epicureans or that of the Pantheists. The Pantheist is the man who believes everything is God and God is everything.
We received in our church mail sometime this week a mimeograph sheet inviting us to come and hear some Indian holy man who's coming to Passaic. And we were informed that he's going to teach us that God is everything and everything is God and God is within us. And until we discover the God within us, we never discover God. That's just plain old pantheism that has plagued the world since the fall of man.
But you see where Paul starts? He says "God that made the world and all things therein." Well, if He made it, He is before it, He is above it, He is separate from it. The world is no more God than God is no more the world in this context. It cannot be. And he gives these people to understand at the outset, that if God made the world, He is eternal. He existed before the world. He is transcendent, that is, He is above this world. He is independent of it. He doesn't need this world to make Him complete and to make Him fulfilled. That's the first thing you and I need to understand about God. He is creator. And if He is creator, He is eternal, He is almighty, He is independent.
And Paul goes on to say He is not only creator of the world, but He is creator of mankind. Verse 26: "He made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth." He is man's creator. Man is not God; God is not man. Man is not simply a product of the inescapable forces of the evolutionary process. "[God] made of one [that is, of one blood] every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth." Man's life comes from God; man's life is sustained by God. Look at verse 25: "He Himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things." Here these people are breathing God's air, and Paul wants them to know it. He gives life, and He gives breath. He not only imparts life, but sustains life.
Now you see how this command is beginning to take on new overtones. Who is uttering the command of verse 30 that men should repent? Is this some command that comes from some ecclesiastical court, a group of bishops or priests, or reverends that get together and they decide they ought to have something to preach about. And so they come from their convocation and say, "We've got an idea. Everybody ought to repent." Of course not, this command comes from the God who made you, the God who not only made you, but holds your life in His own sovereign hand, who gives you breath and who can take that breath. Now when that God starts talking to you, you better listen. When that God starts telling you what to do, you better pick up those ears, and you better listen because you're not trifling with some God who's simply everything that is, and you're God, and God is you and all this other foolishness. You're dealing with that living and true God, that person who is creator of the world, who is your creator.
But Paul not only preaches Him as creator. Look what he does later on in verse 24. It says, "He being Lord of heaven and earth...." He not only made His world; He's the sovereign and the King over His world. He is Lord of heaven and earth. He is the Master and the sovereign of the world that He has made. And what a difference this makes when we begin to realize this. Who is speaking to me? Not only the God who brought me into being, but the God who governs and controls me and all my actions and all the actions of all of His created universe.
And then Paul goes on to tell these people that that God is not served by men's hands as though He needed anything (v. 25). He's the totally independent, self-sufficient God. The idea that you ought to accommodate God because He'll sort of be frustrated if you don't--that's rubbish! God will go on for eternity being the blessed God, even if you never acknowledge who His is and bow before the claims of His commands. He is God who is not served by men's hands as though He needed anything. He is creator, He is sovereign, He is independent. Paul says He doesn't dwell in temples made with men's hands (v. 24). He is spiritual in nature.
These Athenians had a clever concept of God. They've got their god boxed up in a temple somewhere at an altar so they could go once a week, twice a week, no matter how many times they were supposed to go, bring their little offering, satisfy their little deity, leave their god where they left their offering, and then go on out and be scot-free to do what they pleased. You see, a God who dwells in a temple somewhere, who is only present in your religious exercises is a very convenient kind of god. He doesn't bother you what you do on your dates, what you do in your social life, what you do with your money, what you do with your time, what you do with your thoughts. That kind of god is very convenient to live with when men are in a state of impenitence. And Paul wants them to know right at the outset, "Look, you Athenians, you thought that when you brought your little offering and laid it there in front of your little god and went your way, your god was there, and he didn't see you in your crooked business dealing. He didn't see you in your immoral social relationships. He wasn't around to know what you said when you spoke angrily to your wife, and you churlishly treated your children. Paul said, "I've got news for you. The most high dwells not in temples made by hands. He fills heaven and earth." "The eyes of the Lord are in everyplace beholding the evil and the good."
Now you see how this command again takes on new overtones. Who is commanding you to repent? The God who made you, the God who sustains your life, and the God who knows you, the God who has been present in the midst of every thought and every attitude and every deed you have done contrary to His holy Law and has beheld it with His all-knowing eye.
Then he goes on to proclaim Him as the God who is eminent. He hasn't washed His hands of His creation. This was the philosophy in the thinking of the Epicureans (the world's here; God's out there). Ah, he goes on to say in verses 26-28, "[He hath set] the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said." He says that though this God is creator, He is above us and beyond us in might and power and majesty. He has not abandoned us. We are His creatures made in His image. And though we've sinned against Him and turned our backs upon Him, and though our sins have separated us from this God, He has not abandoned us. He has moved to us in grace, common grace and special grace.
Then he goes on to conclude his sermon proclaiming that this God is the God who will be judge of the world. We'll look at that in more detail later on, but just notice it now for a moment. Verse 31: "He [this God] hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world...." And so I say to everyone one of you have gathered here this morning, the God who utters this inescapable command is no less a being than the God revealed here in this very passage. He is creator, He is sovereign, He is Spirit, He is sustainer of the world and the universe, He is near us in His grace and in His mercy. And it's that God with whom you and I have to do.
So much, then, for the God who gives this inescapable command. Consider in the second place, to whom does the command come? And the word of the text is very clear: "The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; but now He commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent." That is, this command comes to all men in every place. Now words cannot be more general, more all-inclusive than these. All men in every place: Jew, Gentile, cultured, uncultured, in New Guinea, Africa, U.S., Europe. "It does not matter," Paul says. This command comes from this Living and True God upon all men and to all men in all places. Now why? Well, for the simple reason that whatever sets us apart and makes us different, whether we think of it racially, culturally, economically, temperamentally, our inclinations. No matter what changes or differences there are in men that set them apart, cause them to dwell in different lands with different cultures, different colors of skin, and different attitudes, everyone of these changes--put them all together--are very surface differences. Essentially, what makes us men, there is no difference between us whatsoever. Everyone of us was made in the image of God. "He hath made of one blood all nations of the earth for to dwell upon the face of the earth." We have this in common, that we are the creatures of God made in His image.
Secondly, we all fell in our first father Adam. Romans 5:12: "Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned." When? In Adam. So whatever cultural, racial, economic differences there are, these are surface differences. We are part of Adam's fallen race. 1 Corinthians 15:22: "For as in Adam, all die [no superiority]." All of us leveled in that great leveling experience of the garden of Eden. And there is no explanation for the history of mankind if you deny the fall of man in Adam. Look at the complexity of our present generation: all of the different cultures, all of the different perspectives, all of the various influences that have led to these perspectives and cultures and attitudes. But what is the common denominator of every culture, every perspective, every racial and ethnic group? Here is the common denominator: man has a heart wedded to his sin. He is alienated from God, and he can't find his way out. And what's the explanation for that? The is no explanation but the Bible explanation: "As in Adam, all die. By one man sin entered and passed upon all men." That's why this command is addressed to all men in every place, because basically, there is no real essential difference between men in any place.
Created in the image of God, fallen in Adam. Thirdly, we are all by nature rebels against God and helpless to recover ourselves. The Apostle Paul treats this subject formally in the epistle to the Romans. And he comes to his conclusion in verses 10 through 13 of chapter 3: "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none that understandeth, There is none that seeketh after God; they have all turned aside, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one." And then he goes on to the describe the effects of sin, and then his concluding statement: "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it speaketh to them that are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God." Now you see, the Apostle Paul was not ignorant of the various differences that separate men in their common experience as far as culture and the rest. He was conscious of this. He said, "When I'm amongst the Jews, I adopt, as it were, a Jewish faith. I submit to Jewish custom and tradition that I might not unnecessarily prejudice the Gospel. To the Jews, I become as a Jew." He was conscious of their cultural and religious heritage. He said, "To the Gentiles, I become as a Gentile. I don't carry into my Gentile contacts all of my Jewish scruples." He was not ignorant of racial and cultural and religious differences. No, he was very conscious of it. But he said those differences are surface. Jew and Gentile alike created in the image of God, fallen in Adam, rebels against God, under the wrath of God, hopeless and helpless to recover themselves.
And so I say to you here present in this place this morning, many of whom I've never met before, but one thing I know beyond a shadow of a doubt about everyone of you, whether you're people whom I would call intimate friends or total strangers, you were made in God's image, you fell in Adam, and by nature, unless grace recovers you, you're a hopeless rebel under the wrath of God, and you can't do a thing to rescue yourself. That's what God says about you. And you'll either bow to that indictment and seek the remedy or go to an everlasting hell as a monument of the folly of rejecting God's assessment of what you are.
This command comes to all men in every place because we are essentially the same in our creatureness and in our sinfulness. And so God is speaking to you without exception this morning. This great God whom we have looked at, the God who gives this inescapable command. Secondly, we've considered to whom that command comes. Now in the third place, consider with me what is the essence or the true meaning of this command. This great God speaks to all men everywhere. And this is what He says: "[God] commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent." Now what did the Apostle Paul mean when he said God commands you to repent? Well, sometimes this word "repent" is used in a very limited sense. It is the negative part of a saving turning to God through Christ. It's set in parallelism with faith. Paul says in Acts 20:21 he preached repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance: turning from sin. Faith: turning to God through Jesus Christ. Together, repentance and faith comprise the totality of a saving response to the Gospel. Sometimes the word "repentance" describes grief and sorrow for sin and that turning from sin involved in true Godly sorrow. Sometimes it is used to describe the whole of our turning unto God through Christ. And that's the sense in which Paul uses it here, the same way you have it in 2 Peter 3:9: "God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance [that is, that they should come into a saving relationship with the Living God through Christ]."
Now what is involved in that repentance which is unto life? When Paul says, "[God] commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent," what is the irreducible minimum of what's involved in that repentance? Let me give you three very simple thoughts. And I'm greatly indebted to one of the masters of the past for the frame in which they come to you. And I'm quoting him as I give them to you.
First of all, repentance involves a painful sense of sin and its deserved wrath. Jesus said in Matthew 9:13, "I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Well, we know that no one is righteous absolutely. So Christ cannot mean that there's some people who don't need to repent. What He's saying is, "I am not come to call the righteous to repentance, that is, those who are righteous in their own eyes, those who say, 'Adam's race may have fallen, but I'm the one exception.'" No, no, He's said, "I am not come to call the righteous, those who say, 'I've got a few kinks and chinks in my armor, but I'll make it alright on my own.'" He's said, "I am not come to call those who don't feel their helplessness and their hopelessness. But I am come to call sinners to repentance, those who have painful sense of their sin and deserved wrath." That's why repentance is described as fleeing the wrath to come. In Matthew 3:7, John said, "Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" You don't flee from a wrath that you don't believe is coming upon you. You don't just flee from nothing. You flee from something that you feel is a very real danger and a very real danger to you. You don't find people in the middle of the plain and prairie states up in central Canada running from the lava that may pour down from some active volcano in the Philippines. It's the people who live under the shadow of the sparks and the constant reminders of the activity of that volcano, which when they begin to see it bellowing up skywards, they flee. Why? It's a real danger to them. People in the plain and prairie states of Manitoba don't do it. And so, you see, a Christian is one who does not take the doctrine of sin in a general sense: "O yes, all men are sinners." No, no, he sees himself standing beneath that mountain of God's holiness and justice and wrath against human sin. And he feels the lava of divine judgment is flowing down upon his own back, and he flees from the wrath to come. And until you have that painful sense of your own sin and deserved wrath, you'll never repent. You're living in a fool's paradise. You've made your bed on the lip of the volcano of divine wrath and anger, and you're sound asleep. God have mercy on you to see that your sin cries out to heaven for vengeance. It cries out to Almighty God for judgment. And so the first facet of true repentance is that painful sense of sin and deserved wrath.
What a beautiful example you have in that story of the publican who went up to the temple to pray. It's recorded in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 18. And we read in verse 13 concerning this man: "But the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God, be thou merciful to me a sinner." He smote upon his breast. Why? Were there television cameras there in the boom of the microphone doing this for some religious broadcast to come over channel 4 Sunday night? Was this some kind of playacting? No. He wasn't conscious that any eyes was upon him. The eye of God was upon Him. This man had been brought to the place where he realized what I've been trying to expound to you simply and clearly this morning:
"God is my creator; I was made in His image. But in Adam I fell and I have, as it were, ratified that fall by my own choice a thousand times over. I've chosen to live my own way; I've chosen to do my own thing. I've chosen to turn my back upon God, to live independent of God. And I have nothing I can claim from God. I deserve nothing but His wrath, I deserve His judgment, I deserve His anger. But I see revealed in God mercy and grace by means of sacrifice."
And probably with his eye upon the very altar of sacrifice. He does not so much as lift up His eyes to heaven. I personally believe his eyes were upon that sacrifice. And he says, "God, [God my creator, God in whose image I was made, God against whom I have sinned] be Thou merciful to me a sinner." And he felt the pain where he beat even upon his breast. He wasn't just going through some ritual mouthing some words ("I'm a sinner. Christ died...."), going through the motions. He felt the pain of his alienation from God. Have you ever felt it? I'm not asking if somebody dragged you into a little room somewhere and you prayed a little prayer, "God be merciful to me a sinner. Save me for Jesus' sake." I'm asking if the Holy Spirit has wounded you in your breast, in your heart, in your bosom, and you felt the pain of your sin and your alienation from God. I'm asking if you've felt the pain of your sin, not what it's done to you, but what it's done to God, what it did to His Son.
The first part of true repentance: a painful sense of sin and deserved wrath. But secondly, it involves a sight and confidence of mercy in Jesus Christ. When the Apostle Paul preached that men should repent, he went on then to say that this repentance is in the light of that day in which Christ shall judge the world, even the Christ whom God has raised from the dead. So our response to this God must be in terms of His Son whom He sent to die and whom He raised from the dead and set at His own right hand. There will be no true repentance unless there is that sight and confidence that there is mercy in Jesus Christ alone. So when Christ Himself authorized His apostles to preach and commanded them to preach to all the nations, He said in Luke 24:47, "that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name unto all the nations...." And what does it mean to preach repentance in His name? To preach it in the setting of verse 46: "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission should be preached...." O, what a wonderful proclamation to make! I have declared to you on the authority of the Word of God that you fell in Adam, that you are helpless and hopeless to recover yourself. What a wonderful thing to declare on the same basis of authority that "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through Him." And it's that sight of God's mercy in Christ, Christ coming to bridge the gap between a holy God and sinful man by taking upon Himself our nature. And in our nature, living a perfect live, in our nature, dying upon the cross, swallowing up to Himself all the billows of divine wrath against the sins of His people. And it's when we behold in Christ the way of mercy, the way of forgiveness, the way of acceptance, then and only then can there be true repentance, that repentance which is joined to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then in third place, that repentance which God commands all men not only involves that painful sense of sin and deserved wrath, a sight and confidence of the mercy of God in Christ, but it will always involve a sincere grieving for and a forsaking of sin and giving ourselves up to the Lord. In 2 Corinthians 7:10, the Apostle says, "Godly sorrow worketh repentance." In other words, there is no path into true repentance but the path of Godly sorrow. I see what my sins have done to the God who made me. I've lived in indifferent to His commands all my life. He made me to glorify Him, and I've prostituted, I've squandered all that He has invested in me as a creature made in His image. Sin has turned all of this inward upon myself and handed it over to the service of the devil. What a tragedy! Made to glorify God, and I've been doing everything but that. And we I see that, it produces grief that I'v sinned against my sovereign. I've sinned against the privileges that He's showered upon me. This is why Robert Murray M'Cheyne, a Godly Scottish preacher of several generations ago, said these very simple words, "A broken heart alone can receive a crucified Savior." If your heart's not been broken at the thought of your sin against God, sin that opened up the wounds of Christ, there's never been a saving embrace of Christ.
But it must not only be a sincere grieving for, but a forsaking of sin. Proverbs 28:13: "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy." There's all the difference in the world between the mere slobbering of self pity and telling Delilah to get off your lap and kiss her goodbye forever. See what I mean. Because it's easy, because conscience, that little monitor within our own minds and hearts condemns us. It's a hellish thing to live with a nagging conscience. And some people allow the terror of that conscience to build up until they have some kind of inner catharsis. And they have a good week and a little slobbering party amongst themselves, and then they feel better. And they leave their sin alone until conscience, as it were, goes back to sleep. Then they go right back to the sin until conscience starts thundering so loud until there's that awful burning, hellish fire of gnawing within. And then they lay off the sin long enough until conscience goes back to sleep. That's not repentance. Repentance is saying to that sin what Jesus described in Matthew 5: "Ye shall be cut off. Ye shall be plucked out." It's saying no to the sin. It's abandoning the sin. It's turning from the sin. That's why when that woman at the well--she was already to make a decision in common parlance. The Lord's been talking to her in John 4 about living water. She said, "Lord, I'd like to get in on this. This sounds great. I'd like some of that living water." Well, Jesus didn't put His hand on her shoulder and say, "Let's have a word of prayer, and you pray after Me the following words." He said, "Go call your husband." And I can just see the look on her face. She went from white to red to purple. "Well, I don't have husband." He said, "That's right, you don't have a husband, and that's not the whole story. I know all about your checkered past. And when I offered you the water of life, I offered it to you in grace. I know all about you. Knowing all that I know, I still say you can have a well of water in you springing up to everlasting life." What an offer of grace. But He says,
"Woman, that grace will come in a way in which I am going to impose my government over you. You want living water? Then you face the demands of my government. Call your husband. You have living water only so far as you're ready to face your past, your present, your sin, God's Law, My demands over you. Call your husband. You want grace? It will come with government."
That's repentance, a grieving for and a forsaking of sin. Listen to the words of Paul in 1 Thessalonians 1. He says, "For they themselves report concerning us what manner of entering in we had unto you; and how ye turned unto God from idols, to serve a living and true God." They turned to serve. There's no idea, "Well, I'm going to snatch a few benefits from the Lord and then I'll go scot-free without any fear of punishment." They turned from their idols to find pardon and mercy, but also to become the willing subjects and servants of that God.
All of this is put together so beautifully in such vivid pictorial language in the description of the prodigal son. Though the main purpose of that story of the prodigal is to magnify the grace of the God who receives sinners, there are many secondary lessons. And you have one of the clearest examples of these elements of true repentance in that parable. I want to you consider with me briefly what those elements are.
First of all, You remember what happened to that young prodigal in Luke 15. He's left home; he's squandered his money, given himself over to sin. And then we read in verses 17-19: "But when he came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight: I am no more worthy to be called thy son." Here is this young man coming to a sensible and painful awareness of his sin: "I have sinned against heaven. Father, I did not simply cast off the restraints and the mores of society when I bolted the restraint of your government, and when I broke the traces of the government of the Law of God, I wasn't sinning against you, Dad. I was sinning against heaven. My problem is not primarily horizontal. It's vertical. And I say to everyone in this place this morning, your basic problems are not horizontal, but vertical. You become aware of your problems at the horizontal level, and because you become aware of them there, you think that's where they lie. No, no, they are simply the manifestation of the real problem which is vertical. The ruptured relationship with God is the person whose marriage goes on the rocks, and they say, "Something's fundamentally wrong with me. I can't live with this woman. My problem is here." No, no, that's simply a manifestation of what your problem is. You can't live with that woman or that man because there's something wrong between you and your God. That's the problem. You say, "My problem is that I can't relate to other people in this society." Ah, but that's not the problem. That's just the symptom. The problem is this way.
That's what this prodigal came to see. He came to see, "I've sinned against heaven," this sight of his sin and deserved wrath. But then he knew that there was something back in that household called mercy and grace, and he says, "I will arise and go to my father." And though he says, "I will confess my unworthiness," there's no question that the father will be there in mercy. And that's what gave him encouragement in the midst of all the living reality of his sin to return because he knew there was mercy back at that home. And so with us, it is not enough that we see ourselves alienated from God, deserving of His wrath. If we get no further than that, we'll either kill ourselves or die in hopeless despair. If I speak to some this morning who are in that first category--you see yourself alienated from God, deserving of His wrath, but there's that despair. O, I preach to you this morning, despair no more. Christ died, Christ, rose, Christ lives. He's mighty, He's able, He's willing to save.
Then there was this sincere grieving for his sin and forsaking it. He didn't run around and find some of his old girlfriends and say, "Look, I'm going back home. Do you want to come along with me?" When He left the hog pens, he left everything connected with them: the harlots upon whom he wasted his living, the old associations. He left the whole business and went back to the government of his father's home in which righteousness reigned. And there we see true and Biblical repentance.
I ask you as you sit here this morning, have you and do you experience the things I'm describing? Do you know what it is to have been brought to a painful awareness of sin and deserved wrath. Has the Holy Spirit brought you through the Word to a sight of Christ and His mercy and His grace? Have you been brought to that place of a sincere grieving and forsaking of your sin and a giving of yourself over to the Lord Jesus Christ to be His, to be saved by Him, to be kept by Him, to be governed by Him simply to be His?
Well, the Apostle closes His sermon where I want to close it this morning by buttressing this command with this great reason why men ought to seriously regard that command. And you may sit there this morning and wonder in your mind, "Why in the world should I take this command seriously?" Well, I'll tell you why you should. For the same reason Paul told these people why they should take this command seriously. Look at verse 31: "[God] commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent [why?]: inasmuch as [or because] He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world...." God commands you to repent because He's appointed a day of judgment. In other words, this command comes to us couched in the context of the final day of judgment. And in that day, no other issue will be important but this: did you repent? Nothing else will matter. In that day, it won't matter a hill of beans how much money you made. Can you imagine the folly of a man, a woman, fellow or girl coming into the presence of the Living God against whom they've sinned and lived in rebellion, and the books are opened, and the record of all their thoughts and words and deeds are spread before them--can you imagine them reaching in their pockets and flashing a few hundred dollar bills and saying, "God, maybe this will help me out a little bit. While I was there on earth, I lived for money and things, and that's all I've got, God. Take these. Maybe that will help me." What stupidity. The folly of it is evident to the youngest here this morning. What good will your money do? What good will your cars and your homes and your things do when you come to judgment and your sins are not forgiven? What about the person who has lived for pleasure? How are you going to capture those moments of sensual pleasure and put them in a box or a bottle and stir them in the judgment and say, "Here Lord, here are all my pinnacle moments of ecstatic pleasure. Maybe they'll help me out." You see how stupid it is. You see how foolish it is. O my friend, the day is coming when one thing will matter. Did you repent? Not how much money you made, not what pleasures you had, not what church you belonged to or didn't belong to. One thing will matter: did you experience repentance unto life?
Now look at what Paul says about that day. He says it is an appointed day: "inasmuch as [this God] hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world...." If men could get together, say on July 1, all around the world in every little hamlet and village and tribe as well as the great centers of the world, Paris and New York and London and Cairo, Egypt and Peking and all the rest and say, "We're going to have a worldwide referendum, and here is the issue at stake: shall there or shall there not be a day of judgment? Yes or No?" I have no question as to what the outcome of the ballot would be. Apart from God's elect, His salt sprinkled throughout the earth, it would be an overwhelming vote: no day of judgment. Because even in the mind and heart of the most careless sinner in this place, whoever he be this morning, there is that gnawing awareness, "My sins one day are going to stare me in the face when I stand before God." O, how men would love to blot out the reality of that day. They can't do it in their own conscience let alone in reality. And the reason they can't do it in their conscience is because Almighty God Himself has appointed that day, and nobody's going to change His appointment book. No secretaries can't take God's appointment book and scribble out His appointments and write in others. The God who made the world is the God who determined to judge the world, and no one will alter that determination. It's an appointed day.
The second thing Paul says about it is that there will be an appointed Judge taking charge in that day: "He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He hath ordained." If men couldn't pass their referendum to cancel out the judgment day, they'd love to do the second best thing: pick their own judge, one that they could pay off, one they could bribe, one they could threaten, one who could be cajoled into altering the standard of inflexible judgment. But God's already made the choice of His Judge, and He's not going to alter it. He's not only appointed the day, He's appointed the Judge. And He says it's that person whom He has raised from the dead in order to give assurance of His appointment. In other words, the resurrection of Christ is God's validation upon His appointment to judgment. He didn't look like the judge of the world when He was hanging on a cross. He himself was judged by the creatures of that world, condemned to be worthy of death, hung upon a cross. In weakness He died. But He now lives, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ is God's irrefutable argument for the fact that this appointment will be kept. When I hear men trying to talk themselves into the conviction that Christ is not risen, I have to laugh under my breath. So indelibly impressed upon men is the reality of Christ's death and resurrection and His appointment to judgment that they marshal all their energies to try to scrub that concept from the minds of men so they can live so much more comfortably. And all the so called intellectual arguments against the Gospel are nothing but man's futile attempts to scrub from his mind the awful haunting realization an empty tomb in Palestine is the certain pledge of Somebody who's going to sit on a throne and judge me. "All judgment has been given unto the Son" (John 5). And part of the Gospel, according to Acts 10 and Romans 2, is the preaching that Christ is Judge.
Then in the third place, He's going to judge by an inflexible standard. Look at text: "He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness [that is, by the inflexible standard of His own holy Law]...." O, how we love a sliding scale of judgment. Let somebody else say what they say and that's gossip. But then we adjust the scale, and to us it is just criticism. Let somebody else do something and we can judge it as lie, untruth. But we slide and adjust the scale and call it with reference to what we say that's in the same ball park diplomacy. Let somebody else do something and it's this, and we slide the scale and adjust it and squeeze it and stretch it, but not this Judge. He judges in righteousness. He has a standard of absolute inflexibility: the holy Law of God. And every thought, word, and deed that is not mathematically parallel to that law, if it is not covered by the blood and mediation and righteousness of Christ, will be met with justice--pure, simple, and unmixed. "He will judge the world in righteousness." And if anybody here is foolish enough to want to enter into discussion with God about your life when it's faced with the law of God, then God have mercy on you. I for one want to be found hiding beneath the righteousness of Christ, hiding beneath the covering of His blood. "For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." And all my righteousness are as filthy rags. I do not want to face a standard of inflexible righteousness unless I meet that standard. And I cannot meet it in myself. But blessed be God, I meet it in Jesus Christ. "He is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." And so if you're in Christ, you may not fear that day. If you're out of Christ, you should tremble.
And then that day will be consummated with an irrevocable sentence. "He will judge the world in righteousness." He will not only bring in the evidence and issue the sentence, but He will pronounce that sentence as irreversible and irrevocable: "Depart from Me ye cursed into everlasting fire."
Well, you read at your leisure what Paul preached along these lines. Some people mocked. They said, "That's a bunch of stupid religious railings. Some other people were a little more polite and said, "We'll hear You another time." But thank God, it said some clave to Him and believed. O, may God grant that this morning, as this inescapable command of the Living God has come to us from the Scriptures, that we shall not destroy ourselves by the mocking born of human pride or by the evasion borne of human diplomacy. ("Well, that's alright if that's your cup of tea.") But O, that we may be subject to the authority of the Word of God. Hear this God who made us saying, "I command you to repent, acknowledge your sin, flee to My Son, flee from your sin, give yourself unto Him.
God grant that in that awesome day, I may be found clear of the blood of everyone of you. Some of you may never darken the doors of this place again, but you will never escape what you've heard this morning. As much as you would love to, you cannot escape the haunting conviction that what I've told is true. Because being made in God's image, though sin has defaced that image, whenever God's voice is heard through the Scriptures, there is an echo to that voice, an amen in the depth of our own hearts. And we try to stifle, we try to squelch it, drown it out. But O, blessed is the man to whom that amen becomes so thunderously overpowering, and he says, "O God, I can fight against You and Your truth no longer. Here I am naked before You in my sin and uncleanness. But O God, if there's hope for creatures like me, be pleased to receive me and pardon me and forgive me for the sake of Your dear and only begotten Son."
"[God] commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent: inasmuch as He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world...."
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 9:11:13 GMT -5
The Parable of the Ten Virgins by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message
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For a long time I've had a desire to expound at greater length this portion of the Word that I've used in a mini exposition on one or two occasions at the wedding of one or two of you present here. And I believe this is the occasion that it would be proper to take this portion and to expound it in greater length and in greater depth because it speaks so simply yet so profoundly to one of the most fundamental areas of Biblical truth. And the passage to which I refer is Matthew 25:1-13:
"Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, who took their lamps, and went forth to meet the Bridegroom. And five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For the foolish, when they took their lamps, took no oil with them: but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. Now while the Bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. But at midnight there is a cry, Behold, the Bridegroom! Come ye forth to meet Him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are going out. But the wise answered, saying, Peradventure there will not be enough for us and you: go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went away to buy, the Bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with Him to the marriage feast: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But He answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for ye know not the day nor the hour."
As with all of the parables of our Lord, this parable was not spoken in a vacuum. The Lord Jesus was not simply gathered somewhere with His disciples and suddenly He got and impulse to tell an earthly story with a heavenly meaning, for that is the oft repeated phrase of what a parable is. Rather, our Lord here, as in every situation in which He spoke in parables, was concerned with one great central truth. And we do not need to use our imaginations to know what that truth is which provoked this parable. For in the previous chapter, our Lord is recorded as speaking very explicitly concerning this great Biblical doctrine of His coming again in power and in glory, that which we commonly call the second coming or the second advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the Scriptures everywhere teach that the same Lord Jesus who first of all came by way of a virgin's womb to dwell amongst men as the God-man. (He is Immanuel, God with us.). That same Jesus will also come again, not in humility, not to be infleshed in a virgin's womb, but He will come in power; He will come in great glory. He will come to gather His saints to Himself and to bring judgment upon the wicked. And it is these truths that our Lord has been enunciating in the ears of His disciples.
A sampling of this teaching is verse 31 of chapter 24: "And He shall send forth His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." When He comes, it will be gathering home time for all of His people. He at His return will gather His own to Himself, the truth that is wonderfully taught in the parallel passage, 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 13 and following. However, the coming again of Christ will not only be the consummation of redemption and the pinnacle of bliss for His own, for His elect, as they are called in this passage, but the next paragraph in chapter 24 reveals that it will be a time of judgment upon the ungodly. He tells us that the return of Christ will be to the ungodly what the coming of the flood was to ungodly of that day. Verses 36-40:
"But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only. And as were the days of Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of man. For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and they knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall be the coming of the Son of man."
There will not only be the gathering of the saints to their Lord, there will be the taking away, the banishment, the judgment of the ungodly. In fact, that's the note upon which that chapter closes. Verses 50 and 51: "The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he expecteth not, and in an hour when he knoweth not, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth." So then, the context, the setting in which this parable was spoken is very clearly a setting of explicit concern with the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, a coming that will be bliss and glory for His own and judgment and eternal destruction for the ungodly. Now in that the setting, our Lord says "Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins."
Having spent these few minutes to put the parable in its proper setting so that in attempting to extract from the parable the message of God, we will not get bogged down with what is the trimming of the lamps, what does it mean to go buy, and all the rest. For the meaning of the parable is not found in finding some significance in every detail of the parable, anymore than when the preacher gives an illustration, you are to find the thrust of his illustration by a hidden meaning in every single ingredient of the illustration. And so the great thrust of this parable has to do with events that surround the returning of Jesus Christ in glory and in power to gather His own to Himself and to crush the wicked with everlasting destruction.
Now then, what are the basic facts of the parable itself? Having ascertained the basic facts of the parable, we shall then seek to discover the meaning of those facts as they relate to us. Fact number one is this: all ten virgins went out to meet the Bridegroom. Look at your Bibles: "Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, who took their lamps, and went forth to meet the Bridegroom." All ten virgins were concerned with this coming and this encounter with the Bridegroom. The second fact of the parable is this: all ten virgins were divided into two classes, those called the wise and those called the foolish. Verse 2: "And five of them were foolish, and five were wise." Fact number three is this: the thing which constituted them wise or foolish was the presence or absence of oil. Verse 3: "For the foolish, when they took their lamps, took no oil with them: but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps." In other words, the Lord Jesus calls them wise or foolish not on the basis of their IQ, not on the basis of any other factor than this: some had oil; some had no oil. Fact number four is this: only the wise actually entered into the marriage feast. Verse 6 and following: "But at midnight there is a cry, Behold, the Bridegroom! Come ye forth to meet Him." All of the virgins arise and trim their lamps. All of them are aware of the coming of the Bridegroom, but only the wise actually enter into the marriage feast. Verse 10: "And while they went away to buy, the Bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage feast: and the door was shut." All ten were aware of the return of the Bridegroom, but only the wise entered into the place of festivity. Fact number five: all of the others were shut out and wished they could enter when it was too late. Verses 11 and 12: "Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But He answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not." The others were shut out but wished desperately that they could enter. But all of their wishing and all of their entreaties and all of their tears and their desperate pleas could not prevail upon the Master of the feast to open the door and to admit them.
Well, those are the simple facts of a simple story having to deal with a common occurrence, especially if you belong to Trinity Church, a wedding. Now then, what does this say to us? Particularly, what does it say to us concerning this great event which triggered the parable? What is there in the great Biblical doctrine of the second coming of Jesus Christ that is enunciated by this parable? Well, let's look at those five facts and see the significance of them, the message of God in them.
The first fact of the parable that we established was this: all ten virgins went out to meet the Bridegroom. And this tells us that all mankind shall meet the heavenly Bridegroom at His return. Whom do the ten virgins represent? Well, the answer to this passage if we read it in its context is, they represent all mankind. For our Lord had said in plain, non-parabolic language in chapter 24 and verse 30, "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." All the tribes of the earth shall be aware of the returning Bridegroom. Then shall the Son of man appear. And in the words of the book of the Revelation, "Behold He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him." And so the first fact of the parable is a pictorial assertion of this great fact, that all mankind shall have to deal with the heavenly Bridegroom at His return. God is not going to consult the tribes of the earth. God is not going to take consensus. God is not going to ask that this issue be put on a public referendum for the next election day: "Would you like to have dealings with My Son at His return? Do you choose to have a reckoning with My Son when He comes in power and glory?" Concerning this event, God does not consult the creature. The hour, the day, the moment of His return is fixed in the counsels of heaven. And though no man knows that day or hour, every man should know this about that day and hour: when He comes, you will see Him; when He comes, you will reckon with Him; when He comes, you will have dealings with Him.
Well, the second fact of the parable is this: all ten virgins were divided into but two classes, the wise and the foolish. And what does this tell us? It tells us that all mankind will be found divided into two classes at the return of Christ. And the Bible knows only two essential divisions of mankind. And it has nothing to do with male and female, rich or poor, black, white, yellow, or any color in between. The Bible knows only two divisions of mankind. And to describe those divisions, it uses such simple words as just, unjust, righteous, unrighteous, saved, lost, sons of light, sons of darkness, sheep, goats, children of God, children of the devil. In the words of our text, there are the wise; there are the foolish. They are in Christ, or they are in Adam. They are justified; they are condemned. They are believers; they are unbelievers. And we could multiply words right from the Scriptures--and that's all I've done is quote Bible terms which categorically teach us that there are but two divisions of mankind that really count in God's eyes. That means sitting here tonight, there are but two divisions. There are but two categories of people amongst us. And everyone of us in the reckoning of God is either wise or foolish. No middle ground, no neutral position, no halfway house, no co-mingling. There were wise; there were foolish.
The third fact of the parable is this; the thing which constituted them wise or foolish was this whole matter of oil. Look again at verses 3 and 4: "For the foolish, when they took their lamps, took no oil with them: but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps." Now it's obvious, then, that they were wise or foolish based upon this commodity of oil. What is the message of that to us? Without having to go into a complicated proof or anything else, I think it should be quite obvious to us what the symbolism of the oil is, not only because throughout the Scriptures oil is often the symbol of the Holy Spirit, but because the context itself indicates that the difference between these people was that some were prepared to enter into the presence of the Bridegroom and the marriage feast and some were not. And therefore, even if there is no essential symbolism in the oil referring to the Spirit, we know from other Scriptures that that which constitutes a man or woman prepared to enter the kingdom of heaven or not prepared is whether or not he or she has been born of the Holy Spirit of God. And so we are safe in asserting that that which constituted them wise or foolish was the presence or the absence of saving religion, which is just another way of saying the presence or the absence of the indwelling of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. For saving religion, if it is anything, is religion in which the sinner has been brought into vital living relationship with the Son of God and has been made a partaker of His Holy Spirit in His person, in His graces, and in His gifts.
Does not the Word of God say in Roman 8:9, "If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His"? Did not our Lord say to Nicodemus, one who certainly considered himself wise (and if Nicodemus was ever to access himself, I'm sure he would come to think he was constituted a wise virgin), "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." It is the presence or the absence of the life-giving principle, the life-giving power that makes the difference between being wise and being foolish. And now whenever the Spirit of God has come to indwell a man or woman, mark it , He never comes as a dormant, hidden principle. He comes as the life-giving, life-transforming power of God. "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. The old is passed; the new has come."
And what do I mean when I say we must have the Spirit? Am I talking about some kind of mysterious experience of the Holy Spirit in which we hear the fluttering of angel's wings and profess to be caught up in rapturous ecstasies and have visions and hear voices? No. Am I speaking about some experience in the Holy Spirit subsequent to conversion called a baptism in the Spirit or some other such thing? I say again emphatically, no! I'm talking about nothing more or less than that gift of the Spirit that is always attendant upon a believing response to the Gospel of the grace of God. Paul could say in Ephesians 1--and I direct your attention to that portion--writing to the Ephesian Christians who were blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ, he says in verse 13 of chapter 1: "in whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth, the Gospel of your salvation,--in whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise." Now see the three things that he brings together. "Having heard the truth of the Gospel, ye believed; ye were sealed." And that is an inseparable trilogy of spiritual reality. They heard, they believed, they were sealed. No man has any valid experience in the Holy Spirit who does not believe. And no man truly believes who does not hear the Gospel, which is the truth concerning God and sin and Christ and forgiveness. "Having heard, ye believed; ye were sealed."
And so when we come to this parable of the virgins and see this third fact that that which constituted them wise or foolish was the presence or absence of oil, we are facing this very simple fact as we sit here tonight. Do you know what constitutes you wise or foolish in God's reckoning? Whether or not you are indwelt of the Holy Spirit, whether you have heard the word of the truth of the Gospel, and having heard, you believed, and having believed, you've been sealed with the Spirit. And if you've been sealed with the Spirit, the Spirit is producing in you the fruit of His own presence. And what is that fruit? Tingles and trills up and down the spine? The ability to speak in an unknown heavenly language? No, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control. "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us." The evidence of the Spirit's coming to indwell you is that He is producing in you that nine-fold fruit. It does not say, "the fruits (plural) of." It is "the fruit of." Wherever He is, the fruit will begin to be manifested. Some dimensions of it more quickly than others, some dimensions more fully developed than others. But that nine-fold fruit is produced in all of its dimensions to some degree in everyone in whom the Holy Spirit dwells.
You might approach it from this standpoint: what is the great ministry of the Spirit? Well, the great ministry of the Spirit is to testify of Christ. Jesus said, "When He is come, He will take the things of Mine and reveal them unto you. He shall not speak of Himself, but He shall speak of Me." And if you're indwelt by the Spirit, the evidence will be that you've been given an estimation of Jesus Christ that parallels what the Word of God declares about Him. This Word says He is altogether lovely. And if the Spirit has come to indwell you, He has convinced you in your heart of hearts He is indeed altogether lovely. The Word of God says He's altogether trustworthy, worthy of the confidence of the vilest of sinners. "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." And when the Holy Spirit comes to indwell a man, He convinces him it is so. Christ is worthy of my trust; He is worthy of my confidence. The Scriptures say of Jesus Christ that He is worthy of obedience and love and devotion that far exceeds the love and devotion to husband, wife, father, mother, friend or any human creature. And when the Holy Spirit comes to indwell a man or woman, He convinces him Jesus Christ is indeed worthy of that. And so the heart runs out to Him saying, "Lord Jesus, I do gladly give you a place beyond that of husband, wife, lover, friend, sister, brother, mother, father. Lord Jesus, I give myself to you." That's the evidence that the Spirit has come in the belief of the truth. That's the work of the Spirit, to make Christ in His person and work as revealed objectively in the Word, subjectively real in your own heart and life. And so to ask what is the evidence of the presence of the Spirit is simply to ask, what is the ministry of the Spirit with reference to the Lord Jesus? And His ministry is to show us our need of Him. When He is come, He will convince the world of sin to show us that Christ alone can meet that need, to show us that Christ is able and willing to meet that need. That's the ministry of the Spirit. And then when we have embraced the Lord Jesus as revealed by the Spirit through the Word, the evidence of His presence will be a growing love for and trust in the Lord Jesus, beginning to manifest in our character likeness to Jesus. You see, you must never divorce the ministry of the Spirit from the revelation of God concerning His son.
Now let me ask you, are you wise or are you foolish? I'm not asking, do you carry about a very well, beaten out, beautifully hammered, ornate lamp of Christian profession. You say, "Look at my lamp. Doesn't it look nice--all gold plated, silver plated." That's lovely, my friend, but have you got oil in your lamp? O yes, you do everything a Christian is supposed to do. You're a very well polished, tooled lamp. But do you have oil? As you sit there tonight, is Jesus Christ precious to you? Not as precious as you want Him to be--that's your great grief, that He's not as precious as you know He ought to be. But it's your grief. That's the difference between the grieving believer conscious of his sin and the false lamp holder with no oil who's content that he's got a pretty lamp. Do you have the oil? Is Jesus Christ precious, Christ as He's revealed in the Scriptures? Do you count Him worthy of your trust, worthy of your confidence, worthy of your loyalty? Do you see Him beginning to subdue your lust and your passions and your pride, and beginning to work in you something of likeness to His own character? Now my friend, those aren't profound questions, are they? I mean those aren't obtuse and difficult and involved. But that's what constitutes you wise or foolish--the presence of oil. It's not enough to have the lamp of profession; it's not enough to have the lamp of respectability. God says if you do not have the Spirit, you're a fool. The foolish took no oil. And if you're content with religion and external conformity to the Christian faith and you are devoid of the Spirit, God says you're a fool.
And may I remind you that the Spirit is not given hereditarily. You can't get the Spirit because you have a mom and dad who have the Spirit. We are "born not of blood." Your earthly bloodlines won't help you. The Spirit is not given sacramentally. If only the Spirit were given through the sacraments, how simple our task as ministers would be. I almost wretched when I went into a church and saw over the baptismal font the carved figure of a dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit, as though the Holy Spirit was there in a baptismal font. He is neither in baptismal font nor baptismal pool, running water, standing water, or a mixture of any kind of water. For then we would be born of man and the will of man. We'd just have to have His will over power ours if we're adults, and if not, exert His will upon us as infants and get us into the water. If the Spirit is given sacramentally, then men are born of the will of man. But the Scripture says, "who were born not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh."
Well, if we don't get the Spirit hereditarily, sacramentally, traditionally, or decisionally, how do we get the Spirit? He's given sovereignly: "who were born not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God." But He's always given evangelically. Paul says in Galatians, "Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?" The Spirit is given evangelically, that is, He is always given in conjunction with the preaching of Christ and the believing reception of the message of Christ. And he's always given personally. You see, that's the wonder and the mystery. Sitting here tonight, someone may sit in the pew and the oil is within that vessel. And less than two inches away, a husband, wife, son or daughter, friend, visitor, whoever you be, there's no way in which the Spirit indwelling that person there can pass from you to them. There must be personal dealings with the Living God who alone can implant His life within the soul of a sinner. So the third great fact of this parable with which we need to reckon is, the difference between the wise and the foolish was the presence of the oil.
Now the fourth fact is this: only the wise enter with the Bridegroom into the feast. So only the true Christian will enter the presence of Christ and the glories of heaven when He returns. The wise and the foolish were aware of His return. They couldn't escape it. Look at the text again (Matthew 25:6): "But at midnight there is a cry, Behold, the Bridegroom! Come ye forth to meet him. Then all those virgins arose...." My friend, when the Son of God comes back, there will not be a foot to drag when He summons the whole universe into His presence. We read that vivid picture in the 20th chapter of the book of the Revelation in which it speaks of the sea and the earth giving up its dead. At the voice of a returning Lord Jesus Christ, all the wise and the foolish shall go forth to meet Him, but only the wise will enter with the Bridegroom into the feast. Look again at the vivid language (v. 10): "And while they went away to buy, the Bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with Him to the marriage feast [and these next words are frightening]: and the door was shut." O, how vivid are those words! "They that were ready went in with Him." That's heaven in a nutshell. What's heaven? With Him! When Jesus would describe heaven to His disciples in John 14, what does He say? "If I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." And at that point, all silly questions about streets of gold and how many mansions and how many rooms in a mansion--I tell you, it borders on sacrilege. All I need to know is that I'll enter in with Him. "Well, is it going to be before or after the Tribulation?" My friend, listen, can you even think a thought like that with these words ringing in your ear? They went in with Him! And if I must be brought through blood and persecution, of what concern is it to me if I know at the end I shall be brought in with Him? Isn't that the heart of the issue? It was only the wise who went in with Him. And they went in with Him to all the privileges that He prepared for them. This elaborate wedding feast into which hundreds of dollars had been poured and hours of planning and preparation is but a little figure of all the glories that God has prepared for those that are constituted as wise by His grace. Only the wise enter with the Bridegroom into the feast, so only the true Christian will enter heaven.
You say, "Pastor Martin, that's a very simple statement. We've heard that all our lives." Yes, you've heard it, but has it really gripped you? One of the things that I need constantly to remind myself of as a Christian and as a Christian minister is that I'm trafficking in eternal issues. And though as a Christian and a body of Christians, we cannot be indifferent to social, economic, sociological issues (our hearts must bleed for the downtrodden and the oppressed; our spirits must be stirred with anger at injustice and inequity), my friend, listen, when it's all boiled down, the issue of greatest concern is this: in a few short years, time will have taken its toll upon everyone of us. And though the Lord should allow the course of human history to go for another twenty millennia, which I doubt, but if He did, it still is but a tick in the clock of eternity. And heaven and hell is where everyone of us is going to land forever. We need to come back to that basic perspective again and again and again. The Bridegroom is coming; only the wise are going to go with Him into the feast. "That's pretty narrow." My friend, Jesus uttered this parable. He put in the parable these sobering words. You can almost hear the door, can't you? "And the door was shut." Can you hear it? "Shut."
And that brings us to the last fact of the parable, the frightening fact of the parable. The foolish were shut out. Even though they sought admission earnestly, fervently, they sought it in vain. Again, the words of our Lord: "Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But He answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not." That's all. All He had to do is to say, "I recognize no intimate, personal, loving acquaintance with you." That's the end of the debate. "Lord, Lord, open to us." Is our Lord intending to teach here that there's a time coming when every man will wish he had been wise? Is our Lord teaching there's a time coming when everyone will be dead in earnest about getting into heaven? It seems that there's a strand that flows through our Lord's teaching. Remember Luke 16, the parable or the story of the rich man in hell. But the desires were framed too late. O my dear people, this is a sobering text before us tonight. The time is coming for everyone of you who lives and dies a fool according to this passage, that is, who lives and dies devoid of the Spirit, when with everything in your being, you will wish that it were otherwise. And you will say, "Lord, Lord, open to me." And He will say, "I know you not. The door has been shut." Entrance is sought, but too late.
I know of few things that sober more as a minister of the Gospel, especially when I face either a mocking, sneering response to the Gospel or a spirit of indifference to the Gospel. When I look into the face of the man or woman who says as much, "Preacher, come off it now. Don't you know I'm no kid. I've heard preachers who preach much more fervently and frightenly than you could every do, and that hasn't bothered me. Preacher, you're not going to move me." When I see such a person, my heart bleeds because I realize the hour is coming when a voice more powerful than my voice will shake every last ounce of sneer from his whole being, the voice that says, "I know you not." And when I meet the person who is indifferent, who may even give lip service to the reality of the things of eternity but who says, "I can't be bothered," I cannot think of the time when that indifference will give way to earnestness, to fervency, to importunity ("Lord, Lord, open to us!").
My friend, do you sit here as a mocker tonight. I tell you, it's frightening to see mockery on the faces and in the attitudes of young people. It's bad enough when you see it in a hardened old sinner, but when I see it on the faces and in the attitudes of some of you that aren't even out of your teens, it scares me to death. Are you the mocker? Are you the person who sits indefinitely to all the fervent Gospel appeals that go forth from this place, that go forth from the prayers and the lips of your Godly mom and dad, uncle, aunt, sister, neighbor. O my friend, listen, the hour is coming when all the indifference will go. And these words will rise up in that hour to mock you.
O, may God grant that you will recognize that this night the word of salvation is sent to you. The word of salvation comes to you because--blessed be God--the shutting of the door comes after the return of the Bridegroom, never before. The door was shut when? After the cry, "Behold, the Bridegroom!" And my friend, that cry hasn't come yet, and it's not going to come secretly or in a corner. It's going to be the voice of the archangel, the trump of God, the shout of a returning Lord. And when He comes, then the door is shut. But blessed be God, as when omnipotence shuts that door, nothing can open it; while the hand of gracious omnipotence holds it open, none can shut it. And thank God, that door is held open by the hands of omnipotence, but not naked omnipotence--infleshed omnipotence. Pierced hands hold the door open. And standing at the door is Him who said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." This is what turns preaching from a frightening, awesome responsibility into one of the most blessed privileges a sinner here on earth can know: to say in Christ's name to everyone here tonight, that door is open. Gracious omnipotence, crucified, buried, risen omnipotence holds the door open and says, "Come." And in Jesus Christ, there is welcome, there is pardon, there is the gift of the Spirit. All of those blessings that you need to be wise are in that One of whom Paul spoke when he said, "Jesus Christ is made unto us wisdom." How can He be made to be wisdom? Because in Him is the gift of the Spirit as well as the gift of forgiveness, the gift of pardon. All of the blessings of grace are in Him. And if you embrace Him, you are blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. And the gift of the Spirit is yours in Christ. You now have oil in the lamp prepared to live, prepared to face Him.
You say, Pastor, "Why were you silent on the last text?" Well, because I wasn't ready to finish. Now I am; I'll read it. Verse 13: "Watch therefore, for ye know not the day nor the hour." Our Lord returns to the great theme that has occupied His mind throughout this whole section, the theme of His coming again. And the call to all of us is to be watchful. It's a military term. It brings into its orbit the whole concept of conscious, deliberate wakefulness, feeling something of the awareness of the great issues at state. As a soldier sits at his post in time of warfare, feeling something of the frightening responsibility that is his to protect the ammunition or the persons of his fellow soldiers while enemies lurk unseen in the darkness, so our Lord says we're dealing with issues of tremendous moment and concern. "Watch therefore, for ye know not the day nor the hour."
Blessed be God, by faith, every Christian can hear the voice of his returning Lord. Can you hear it tonight? Can you hear it? By faith, can you shrink whatever amount of time is between His coming and your sitting here tonight? Can you by faith shrink that time and hear Him saying, "Behold, I come quickly"? Can you respond and say, "Even so, come Lord Jesus"? Can you respond in the confidence that you have something more than the mere lamp of profession and notion and tradition, but that you do have oil. You're born of the Spirit. And your proof of that is your estimation of Jesus Christ, your confidence in Jesus Christ, the beginnings of moral and ethical likeness to Jesus Christ.
I cannot close without exhorting my fellow Christians who can answer in the affirmative, "Yes, by the grace of God, I do have the Spirit; I have been born of God. I am a new creature." O dear fellow believers, we live in the midst of fools. God calls all who are devoid of the Spirit foolish. But it's a folly that should break our hearts. But you and I can be instruments in God's hands in communicating the Gospel to see them transformed from fools into wise. Isn't that an amazing thing? I can't give my children the Spirit, but I can give them the Gospel which, under the blessing of God, can be the instrument of the Spirit being given. I can't give the Spirit to my fellow workers in that shop, in that office, in that college, in that high school, but I can give them a consistent example of what a true Christian is and then explain to them what makes me tick and then plead with God to bless that witness of His own saving mercy to bring them into the knowledge of Himself.
May the Lord take the message of this simple parable of our Lord and burn in into our hearts and by His grace make us the wiser, the more diligent. And if we are not His children, make us those who will seek the Lord while He may be found.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 9:12:06 GMT -5
God's Word to Our Nation: Sin of Bloodguiltiness by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached July 5, 1983
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Now due to the unusual circumstances of our meeting last evening, I deemed it wise only to begin our consideration of the announced theme, namely "God's Word to Our Nation." And in what really was just an introduction to that very weighty subject and that very needful theme, I basically did two things: I, first of all, set a disclaimer before you clearly indicating that in speaking on this subject, I am making no fanatical claims to direct revelation or to special inspiration, but that all of the raw materials that constitute the word of God to our nation at this critical hour are derived from the once for all embodiment of the word of God in Holy Scripture. And then I made a disclaimer of any irresponsible equating of Israel with the nation in which we live. Well meant sermons and earnest preachers are often led into the error of making a direct equation between words spoken to the nation of Israel because of their peculiar covenantal relationship to God, which is not proper to apply to any other nation in a direct one to one equation, though there may be some very abiding and permanent principles. And then I proceeded to lay before you a justification from the Scriptures for addressing such a subject. Is it proper for a minister of the Gospel to speak on such a theme as God's word to our nation? Is it not the task of a minister of the Gospel either to proclaim the Gospel to the unconverted or to feed the sheep and the lambs of Christ? Is it proper for a minister of the Gospel to address a word to the nation? And I sought to demonstrate from the Scriptures that it is indeed proper because of these four fundament facts clearly asserted in the Word of God: First of all, God's sovereign rule over the nations, secondly, God's righteous judgment of the nations, thirdly, God's unrivaled right to address the nations, and fourthly, God's establishment of the principle that individuals stand in solidarity with the nations of which they are a part.
Now tonight, we come more directly to the subject at hand: God's word to our nation. And the text I want to use as constituting both the basis and framework for the more specific elements of that word to our nation is found in Proverbs 14:34: "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." And surely if there is a text that speaks with unusual application and pointedness to our own nation and constitutes in a very real sense God's word to our nation, the United States of America, at this point in its history, it is this text.
Now, as no doubt many of you know, in Hebrew poetry, you have a structure in which often there are two parts to a statement. The first is either amplified or repeated in different language in the second part if we call the first A. The second part is B. But sometimes there is a structure in which B is the contrast or the opposite, the antithesis of A. And we have that structure in the verse before us. We have, first of all, this positive statement, "Righteousness exalteth a nation." And here the word "righteousness" is used in the second sense. It speaks of conformity to the norms and to the revealed will of God.
Righteousness which exalts a nation is that pattern of life which reflects a sensitivity to and a conformity to the norms of Almighty God. And our text says that righteousness exalts not just the nation, in which case we would be tempted and rightly so, to believe that the text spoke primarily if not exclusively to Israel. But the language down to the very singular or plural usage is very significant. "Righteousness exalteth a nation," any nation of the earth, including the nation of Israel. Righteousness is the basis of it being raised up to a place of exaltation, a place that is honorable, a place that is useful in the purpose of God in the unfolding of history. But then by way of contrast, we are told that sin, that is, departure from the norms of God, sin when it becomes a way of life, sin when it is framed by statute and supported by the very so-called laws and jurisprudence of the land, sin when it comes out of its closet and becomes popular and becomes part and parcel of a national way of life--sin is a reproach or a disgrace to any people.
Perhaps the best summary of the meaning of this verse is found in the few choice comments upon it in the commentary of Kyle and Dalish on the book of Proverbs:
"The proverb means that all nations without distinction, even Israel not excluded; history everywhere confirms the principle that not the numerical nor the warlike nor the political nor yet the intellectual or the so-called civilized greatness is the true greatness of any nation and determines the condition of its future as one of progress. But this is its true greatness: that in its private, public, and international life conduct directed by the will of God according to the norm of moral rectitude, that is, the law of God rules and prevails. Righteousness, good manners, and piety are the things which secure to a nation a place of honor. Righteousness exalts a nation, while on the contrary, sin, that is, sin prevailing and more favored and fostered than contended against in the consciousness of the moral problems of the state--this is a disgrace to the people. It lowers them before God and also before men who do not judge superficially or perversely, and also actually brings the nation down to ruin."
Righteousness exalts a nation, not righteousness once as its hallmark in the past. And though we can with great gratitude to God thank Him for those periods in our national life, not when we were a Christian nation (we never were), but when righteousness, that is, sensitivity to and submission to the great overarching demands of morality as expressed in the law of God, there have been seasons when righteousness has marked our national life. But it is not enough that righteousness once marked our national life. For it is only when righteousness is the present mark of the life of a nation, that it will maintain a position of exaltation. Righteousness exalts a nation, not the past memory of past righteousness, but the present reality of present righteousness exalts a nation. And sin, present sin, national sin, sin as a way of life, regardless of what the past has been, is a reproach and a disgrace to any people. And surely if that text embodies the word of God to our nation, then God's primary word to this nation at this hour is a word, first of all, of rebuke and denunciation for our aggravated national sins. And it is, secondly, a word of summons to repentance and reformation in our national life if we would avoid the crushing judgment of Almighty God.
Tonight, God willing, I want to begin at least to open up the fact that God's word to our nation, based upon this text, is a word of rebuke and denunciation for our most aggravated national sins. You see, the sins of any nation are like a mountain range. Those of you who are familiar with mountain ranges know that you, first of all, have the foothills of the mountain range. You may have been driving across a vast section of our country where everything was flat. And then you begin to see off in the distance little hills, the foothills of a mighty mountain range. And when you press beyond the foothills, then you enter into the spine or the heart of the mountain range itself comprised of many mountains, many of which are of relatively the same height and majesty. But in most mountain ranges, you move from the foothills to the spine of the mountain range. And then jutting up among the ordinary mountains, there is the Mount Hood of the Cascades on our West Coast. There is Mount Washington among the less majestic White Mountains on the East Coast. And it's true with almost every mountain range, that we move from the rolling foothills to the spine of the mountain range. Then we move to the Mount Hoods and the Mount Washingtons. We move to the Mount McKinleys and the other great mountains that jut up mighty in their splendor above even the great spine of the range of those mountains.
So it is, I say, with national sins. There are foothill sins. There are sins that comprise the spine, as it were, of the mountains of iniquity in any nation. And then there are those high peaks that stand up above all others. And it is certainly proper and Biblical, both from the perspective of the New Testament and the Old Testament, to describe in some circumstances everything from the foothills all the way to the mightiest peaks. We see our Lord Jesus Christ doing this to the nation of Israel. We see the Apostle Paul doing it to the existing Roman world in Romans 1:18-3:19. We find the prophets doing it again and again. And yet there are times when we need to concentrate upon those great peaks of national sin which, above all others, cry to God for judgment, those sins which, if they are not averted and turned away by national repentance, will inevitably bring the nation to destruction. And I submit to you that God's word of rebuke and denunciation to our nation for its aggravated national sins is a rebuke that concentrates upon two mighty shameful mountain peaks of national iniquity, on the one hand that that I am calling our sins of putrid moral degeneracy, and the second, our sins of horrible religious apostasy. And among the multitude of our national sins, the many foothill sins, the many sins which comprise the spine of the mountain of our national iniquity, standing up above all of them are these two mountainous sins: our putrid sins of moral degeneracy and our horrible sins of religious apostasy.
First of all, then, our putrid sins of moral degeneracy. And that mountain has two great peaks that constitute it such a mountain of iniquity. The first is the unrequited blood of the murdered multitudes. And the second is the unrestrained abandonment to sensuality and sexual perversion.
First of all, then, among our putrid sins of moral degeneracy, perhaps none is greater, and if viewed from the perspective of the Bible, none brings us closer to national judgment of the worse kind than the unrequited blood of the murdered multitudes. Now what do I mean by the term "unrequited blood?" Well, to requite someone is to pay him back; generally to pay him back in kind. And unrequited blood is the blood of murdered people that has not been paid back in kind; that has not been paid back according to the clearly revealed will of God. But you say, "Pastor Martin, surely among all of the great sins of our nation, you are not suggesting that this, perhaps above all others, is the sin which, as it were, tempts God to bring us to oblivion?" I am asserting that, if we think Biblically, more than any of the other sins that receive so much attention in our churches, in Christian literature, and popular preaching, it may well be that this sin, above all others, is that which cries to heaven for the vengeance of Almighty God. And in order to try to convince you from the Scriptures that this is so, I want you to take a quick trip with me through the pivotal passages in the Word of God dealing with this problem of unrequited blood; how God feels when blood is split in wanton, willful, heartless murder, and that blood is not requited by taking the life of the murderer.
Turn to Genesis 4. Here in the 4th chapter of Genesis, we have the record of the first murder ever perpetrated upon the face of the earth. Most of you children are familiar with the story. Cain, the firstborn of Adam and Eve, has a brother named Abel. And in the process of time, Cain became jealous of Abel. And according to 1 John, he also became irritated in his conscience with the righteous life of Abel. So he took the opportunity described in verse 8: "And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him." And as we shall see from the language of verse 10, he apparently slew him in a manner in which his blood was actually spilt, perhaps taking a sharp instrument and stabbing him or cutting his throat. But is was a violent, wonton, deliberate, highhanded act of murder. No sooner is Abel murdered by Cain but that God comes to Cain and speaks to him. Verse 9: "And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And He said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper? And He said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me from the ground." And here God uses a vivid image of speech. The place where Cain rose up--and if he used a sharp instrument and stuck it into the back or heart of Abel, by whatever means the blood was spilt, that blood dropped to the ground, and no doubt, a pool of it collected where his murdered body lay. And now God says,
"Every drop of that blood that has been soaked into the sod has been turned into a mouth, a tongue, and a larynx. And now, every drop of that blood is speaking. And it speaks so powerfully, it speaks so eloquently, it speaks so forcefully, that its voice has pierced My ear upon My throne in heaven, and I've come down to see what the facts are."
It's a figure of speech, of course. But O, what a graphic figure of speech in which God is seeking to impress not only upon Cain but upon all who would ever open the pages of the Bible. Right in its opening chapters, God is saying something tremendously important to us, and it is this: whenever the blood of a human being is shed in murder, innocent blood is split; that blood has a voice, and that voice always, without exception, reaches through to the very throne of God in heaven and summons God to come and to do something to requite the blood of the innocent slain. Now, in this particular case, God did not kill Cain. He placed him under a severe judgment that caused him to cry, "My punishment is more than I can bear." But the point that God underscores with tremendous force is this: unrequited blood of the murdered cries to heaven for the intervention of Almighty God in judgment.
Now turn to Genesis 9 where we have the next instance of an explicit development of this whole theme of unrequited blood. God has blotted out the entire human race with the exception of the family of Noah. God is now reinstituting His whole arrangement with this earth in its present reconstituted state after the flood. He is giving directions. He is giving promises. He is making a covenant with all men as men and with the earth as the earth. And these covenantal engagements will obtain until the Lord Himself descends from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God. And during this arrangement from the flood until the return of the Lord Jesus, God articulates this principle to Noah. Genesis 9:5: "And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man." Now notice this intimate connection. God says, "I will require the blood that is shed of any one of My creatures." But notice, He works by the instrumentality of man the creature. "At the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed...." And in this situation, the man, the nearest of kin in his family, shall his blood be shed. And here, God is instituting what we call capital punishment. But God is saying that it is an expression of His own righteous government. "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." Why? "Because I require it. I require it by the hand of his brother, but it is My requirement. For the blood of one innocently slain and murdered cries to heaven, and the cry reaches My ear. I will, I must, I shall require it."
Then there is this additional perspective nestled in the text. Notice the latter part of verse 6: "...for [this is the rationale behind it] in the image of God made He man." In other words, man is such a dignified creature; man is so totally and qualitatively different from all of the creatures of God that there can be no constant maintenance of that perspective of the essential, the profound, the glorious difference between man and beast in a sinful world where sinful hearts will break out in hatred, the mother of murder. There can be no maintenance of the dignity of human life unless he who wantonly takes human life pays with the forfeiture of his own life. And contrary to all of the sentimental mouthings of current lawyers, judges, sociologists, and even evangelical theologians, it is a slap at the dignity and uniqueness of man to let murdered people's blood be unrequited. It says man is cheap. He can be snuffed out. And all you'll pay for it is a few years of easy existence in prison at the expense of hard-working tax payers. It is not maintaining the dignity of man to forgo capital punishment. It strikes at the heart of the dignity of man. How dignified is man? So glorious in his dignity as an image-bearer of God that whoever takes upon himself wantonly to murder an image-bearer of God must declare, as it were, to the entire world that knows him that worth is such as to demand the forfeiture of his own life.
Now I remind you that these perspectives predate the giving of the law upon Mount Sinai. They predate all the details of the Mosaic legislation. They are woven into the fabric of humanity by the will and purpose of God, the Creator. But when we turn to the Mosaic legislation, what do we find? We find these great principles incorporated into the national life of Israel, expanded in great detail. To what end? Not only to preserve righteousness in Israel, but remember, Israel was to be the mirror of God's righteousness to the entire world. God said, "I have set thee a light among the nations." And when the queen of Sheba came and saw Solomon and his kingdom, she said, "What nation has such laws?" You see, the Mosaic legislation was not merely the legislation for the regulation of the national life of Israel for Israel's sake, but it was to declare the righteousness of God in human relationships to all the ends of the earth. And it's very interesting when one studies in detail the amount of legislation pertaining to murder; the distinction between manslaughter, that is, unpremeditated accidental taking of human life and wanton, willful murder. And then, again and again, we have the record of the establishment of the cities of refuge, the legislation for the necessity of two or three witnesses.
But I want you to look with me at just a couple of passages that have tremendous relevance to our own nation at this time. And remember, I am not equating the United States with Israel. But the principles are so clear in these passages that we cannot miss them. Turn to Numbers 35:9-15. These verses give a description of the cities of refuge, these six cities to which a manslayer can go. A man is out in the field, and he's working with his friend chopping wood. And his ax-head flies off and hits his friend in a vital spot, and he dies. He did not murder him. It was accidental death. But the nearest of kin who is called the avenger of blood would seek to come upon this man who took his brother's life and kill him. God made provision that he could flee to a city of refuge and stay there until the death of the high priest, and he was protected. But now verses 16-21:
"And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. And if he smite him with throwing a stone, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. Or if he smite him with an hand weapon of wood, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. The revenger of blood himself [the nearest of kin] shall slay the murderer: when he meeteth him, he shall slay him. But if he thrust him of hatred, or hurl at him by laying of wait, that he die; or in enmity smite him with his hand, that he die: he that smote him shall surely be put to death; for he is a murderer: the revenger of blood shall slay the murderer, when he meeteth him."
Then in verses 22 and following, we have an expansion of some of the cities of refuge legislation. Why is God so concerned about this whole issue in Israel? What lies behind all of this legislation, all of this careful delineation of the difference between manslaughter and murder, and the place of refuge and the necessity of avenging the blood? Here's the rationale in verses 29-33:
"So these things shall be for a statute of judgment unto you throughout your generations in all your dwellings. Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses: but one witness shall not testify against any person to cause him to die. Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death. And ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled to the city of his refuge, that he should come again to dwell in the land, until the death of the priest. So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it."
Do you see the emphasis? Polluting the land. Blood pollutes the land. No expiation can be made for blood but the blood of the murderer. And wherever there was unrequited blood in Israel, the land was defiled; the land was polluted. That blood cried to God for vengeance, even as did the blood of the slain Abel.
Now turn to Deuteronomy 19. And please be patient. You may not see the necessity of this at this precise moment. But I trust that in about 7 or 8 minutes, it will all come together. We read in this chapter again a repetition and an expansion of this cities of refuge legislation. And I want to underscore now why God is concerned with this legislation. Verses 9-10:
"If thou shalt keep all these commandments to do them, which I command thee this day, to love the LORD thy God, and to walk ever in His ways; then shalt thou add three cities more for thee, beside these three: that innocent blood be not shed in thy land, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and so blood be upon thee."
God says, "I must make this provision, or else the man who is guilty of mere manslaughter will be slain as a murderer. He's an innocent man; therefore, innocent blood will be upon the man who takes his life. And there must not be a situation in the land where innocent blood is shed and innocent blood is unrequited." Now then, notice verses 11-13:
"But if any man hate his neighbour, and lie in wait for him, and rise up against him, and smite him mortally that he die, and fleeth into one of these cities [here's a man who runs to the cities of refuge even though he's a murderer]: then the elders of his city shall send and fetch him thence, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. Thine eye shall not pity him, but thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with thee."
This is what we would call in our day a heartless, cruel, uncompassionate act. The elders find out this man is not a manslayer. He's a murderer, and they deliver him up to be slain. It was the most gracious thing the elders could do, for it meant that the land would not be stained with innocent and unrequited blood.
Then if you turn to Deuteronomy 21, you have one of the strangest bits of legislation in Israel. But O, how it speaks so eloquently of this great principle in a different way. Verse 1: "If one be found slain in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it, lying in the field, and it be not known who hath slain him." Someone goes out one day to plow his field, and there he sees a dead man, a man obviously with all the marks of a brutal murder. Someone has slain him, but there are no witnesses. You cannot bring forward the two or three to establish who killed him. What are they to do? Are they simply to say, "O God, You know. We don't know who killed him; therefore, blot out that blood from the ground. Lord, surely that blood doesn't cry for vengeance. We don't know who killed him. We can't requite the blood. Lord, You'll not hold us guilty for that, will You?" God says in sense, "No, but I want to impress upon you the seriousness of unrequited blood even when you don't know the guilty party." And so God gives them a ritual. They're to measure the distance between the slain man's body and the cities. Then when they found out what city his body was nearest to, the elders of that city have a solemn responsibility along with the priests. Verses 4-9:
"And the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer unto a rough valley, which is neither eared nor sown, and shall strike off the heifer's neck there in the valley: and the priests the sons of Levi shall come near; for them the LORD thy God hath chosen to minister unto Him, and to bless in the name of the LORD; and by their word shall every controversy and every stroke be tried: and all the elders of that city, that are next unto the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer that is beheaded in the valley: and they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it. Be merciful, O LORD, unto Thy people Israel, whom Thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto Thy people of Israel's charge. And the blood shall be forgiven them. So shalt thou put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the LORD."
Let me ask you children something. Does God love heifers? Psalm 104 says that the goodness of God is over all His works. He feeds man and beasts. In the original creation, He beheld all that He made, and it was good. God loves His creatures, even poor dumb heifers. Why would God tell them to do such a cruel thing and then go through a strange ritual of washing their hands in clear water over the broken neck of that heifer. God is saying to them in ways that they could not mistake: the blood of the murdered cries for vengeance. And even when it is humanly impossible to lay hands upon the murderer and spill his blood to requite the blood of the innocent, a life must be given for that life. And so God says to take the life of the heifer, break its neck and go through a symbolic washing and then a plea, "O God, take away innocent blood, though the ordinary way is by the blood of the innocent to be requited with the blood of the guilty, the blood of the slain with the blood of the slayer. O Lord, it is impossible. So God, forgive; wash us from the guilt of innocent blood that our land be not polluted before You."
When we turn to the New Testament, we find that this power to requite the innocent blood of the murdered has passed beyond the family, beyond the elders and the priests of Israel, and now is deposited in the state as an institution of God. This is clearly taught in the 13th chapter of the book of Romans: "There is no power but of God." And Paul goes on to say the civil power is placed there to be a terror to evil workers. What kind of a terror? Even the terror of executing capital punishment, for we read in verse 4: "For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he [the civil governor] beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil."
Now notice, chapter 12 closes with the individual Christian ethic in which God says as an individual believer, when I am individually wronged, I am never to return vengeance upon evildoers. I am to give place to the wrath of God. I am never to requite personal injuries on a personal basis as a Christian. But the same Holy Spirit who inspired the Apostle to write the words at the end of chapter 12 for individual Christian ethics has a totally different framework for the ethics of the state. And the woolly-headed evangelical theologians who are trying to impose upon the state the individual ethics of the Christian believer are cooperating with liberals and humanists to bring innocent blood upon us to the place where Almighty God will come forth and requite the blood with His own hand. He is a minister of God for vengeance. And when self-confessed and duly convicted murderers are not executed, the blood of the innocent slain cries to heaven for vengeance.
Now do you see something of the Biblical doctrine of what a horrible thing for a land to be polluted with innocent blood? This land is polluted with blood, not just a few clods from the blood of one innocent Abel slain at the hands of Cain; not just a few clods of blood there because a few murders have gone unrequited. But I suggest it is nothing less than a pool of blood from the children and adults who are wantonly murdered and whose murderers are not put to death, the murders that go on in our country by the dozens every single day--self-confessed, duly convicted murderers who yet live.
Do I stand as a vengeful man longing to see murderers get what they deserve? No, I do not. I know enough of my own heart to know that if anger is the seed of murder, I stand as a cleansed sinner purged in the blood of Jesus from the sin of murder in the heart. I do not stand here with a personal vengeful desire that murderers get what they deserve. That is totally foreign to the spirit of the Christian who knows that he is what he is by the grace of God. But I stand here to speak God's word to our nation. And our nation is stained with innocent blood.
There is a veritable pool of blood from all of the murdered boys and girls and men and women whose murderers live. And there is nothing, according to the Word of God, no ransom, no expiation--I say it reverently--if God were sovereignly to send the Holy Spirit and regenerate every self-confessed, duly convicted murderer in murderer's row. They should still die to requite the blood of the murdered. Thank God, they would die and go to heaven. But the blood of Jesus that cleanses their souls, does not cleanse the blood that stains the ground. It can only be cleansed by the death of the murderer. That's the teaching of Almighty God. And no Supreme Court, and no judge, and no country, and no system of jurisprudence has any right to defy the God of heaven with impudence and with a high hand and think it can long exist upon the face of the earth.
And if there is a pool of blood from the children and adults wantonly murdered, whose murderers are not put to death, then surely there is an ocean of blood from the murder of unborn children in their mother's wombs. I say, if the one constitutes a pool, the other constitutes nothing less than a river with cold and calculating statistical analysis. We are told last year there were 1.5 million registered, state-condoned murders in mother's wombs in our nation. O, the blood that cries from trash bins of our sterol operating rooms. O, the blood that cries from the soaked sterol labs of the Dempsey Dumpsters at the back of our hospitals.
What an outrage there would be if on the front page of all of our papers tomorrow, we read something like this: "Madman goes berserk in hospital in New Jersey." Nearby us there is a very advanced medical center with a very large nursery, and in that nursery, unusually advanced equipment to care for little primies, some of whom hardly weigh a pound and a half or two pounds, born four months, sometimes even a little less than that before full term, born in the second trimester when one can still legally get an abortion. And suppose the byline read that a madman went into that particular part of the nursery where all the premies were kept, some of them weighing only two pounds; kept alive by the life support system of the incubator with its oxygen hose and with the intravenous feeding. And if that man were to take a machine gun and riddle the bodies of six little premies until they were nothing but raw flesh and bones, O, what an outcry there would be. "Madman slays six helpless premies under the life support system of an incubator with its oxygen hose and its intravenous tubes." What an outcry there would be. But let the surgeon with his sterol gloves and his suction tube and a consenting mother agree not to riddle the unborn life with the support system of an incubator and an oxygen tube but in her life support system called the womb, and that's called the destruction of fetal tissue, termination of pregnancy--it's called a woman's choice. I say to this nation, Almighty God calls it murder and the shedding of innocent blood! And Dear Christian, if it hasn't gripped you, it better. Because if anything will move God to move some man in a silo somewhere to push the button and blow this nation into a cloud, I say, it is the blood of the millions of unprotected, helpless lives in the life support system of mothers' wombs!
"I break for animals." The generation that produces bumper stickers to protect animals, that has an outcry when some bear are brutally killed; the generation that speaks so movingly of women's rights and humans rights is the generation that with heartless calculating brutality and cruelty slays unborn life that is made in the image of God! And I believe that decision of our own highest courts and our own highest halls of legislation--most of you know the thing to which I refer--I fear that more than anything else that has happened in our national life in a long time. I say, O God, how long, how long? This is the generation that is trying to rub the conscience of the world raw because of Dachau and Buchenwald and all the rest, where they say six million Jews were killed over a period of those years. We've long sense exceeded that number in the slaying of unborn life in the life support system of a mother's womb.
What is God's word to our nation? I say without any reservation on the basis of the Word of God, it is a word of rebuke, a word of condemnation. It is a word that summons us to repent of this sin of unrequited blood.
Do you know how God describes Himself in the 9th Psalm? This passage is so appropriate to our subject. Verses 7-8: "But the LORD shall endure for ever: He hath prepared His throne for judgment. And He shall judge the world [not just the nation of Israel] in righteousness." This is the very passage Paul quotes in Acts 17:30-31. Now notice verse 12: "When He maketh inquisition for blood, He remembereth them: He forgetteth not the cry of the humble." God is described as an inquisitor and an avenger of blood. He makes inquisition for blood. When He sees blood spilt, He becomes the great inquisitor. God becomes the heavenly sleuth to track down who is guilty of this blood. And having tracked him down, He will requite it with His hand.
But now someone says to me, "But Pastor Martin, is it not contrary to the spirit of the Gospel. Are you not talking as a man whose thinking and spirit is too much affected with the overtones of Sinai and not enough permeated with the glories of the full revelation of God's grace in Jesus Christ?" My friend, turn with me to Revelation 6. We shall here see a description of the disposition of saints who have joined the company of just men made perfect. Every departed spirit of every believer joins the company of the spirits of just men made perfect (Hebrews 12). That is not glorification. Glorification awaits the resurrection of the body. From the time the spirit leaves the body and looks on the face of Jesus with bliss by the mighty work of the Spirit begun in regeneration, God purges from the human soul every last remains of sin and makes it totally conformed to the image of Christ and confirmed in that righteousness forever. Now how do glorified spirits view unrequited blood? Revelation 6:9-11:
"And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held [here are the souls of martyred saints murdered at the hands of ungodly and unprincipled and unrighteous men]: and they cried with a loud voice [and remember, this is a cry coming from souls made perfectly holy], saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled."
Glorified spirits long for God to avenge innocent blood. And listen to me, Christian, if you were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy; if you were predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, no little part of true inward conformity to Jesus Christ is an entering into His own holy passion that innocent blood should be requited in the way of God's appointment.
Am I saying that a murderer can find no forgiveness? No, Paul says, "Who before was a murderer and a blasphemer." Am I saying, if I'm speaking to a woman who had an abortion, that you've committed the unpardonable sin and ought to be stoned? No, I am saying no such thing. I am not giving a detailed exposition of the ethical implications of the past sin of a believer with regards to such matters as an abortion. What I'm saying is that God's word to our nation of which you and I are a part it this: it is a word of denunciation; it is a word of rebuke and exposure for this great mountain peak of iniquity, our sordid, our putrid moral degeneracy of which perhaps non is greater than the unrequited blood of the multitudes of the murdered.
And what does this say to you and to me who are Christians? It says you better take this doctrine of the Word of God seriously. You better begin to think of your land as a land stained with blood. Don't look upon it after the seeing of the eyes of the flesh.
When I was out running this beautiful day on a back country road and saw beautiful waving grains of wheat and corn that stood far higher than knee high on the day after 4th of July (quiet, peaceful, beautiful fields), I said, "O God, they are not what they appear to be. They appear verdant with the blessing of heaven (and in one sense they are), but those very fields and lands are stained with blood. And they cry to heaven for vengeance.
You and I better begin to cry to heaven as those who believe it's true. We had better begin to plea with God to pour out His Holy Spirit upon every preacher of the Gospel, that he will dare to hurl this truth into the conscience of his community; that God might be pleased to raise up men, whether saved or unsaved, who have some Biblical convictions about the doctrine of unrequited blood, men who will dare to face those who sit on the Supreme Court, and who sit in the seats of congress, and dare to speak to them the Word of the living God. Let's cry to God for our president in whom we have some reason to believe there may be at least the seeds of sympathy for these Biblical truths. Only God knows his heart. But we're commanded to pray for him in 1 Timothy 2. And whatever else we pray for, let's pray that God will somehow get into his ears this Biblical doctrine of unrequited blood until the president sees as a far greater dread, the unrequited blood of the murdered multitudes than the silos and the missiles and the submarines that are set against us. I do not fear all the military might of a thousand nations that are set against us. I fear the God who in righteousness will requite innocent blood upon every land that is stained with that blood.
Dear child of God, it's time you stop playing. The hours you spend frittering away in front of your boob tube, the hours you spend sitting around licking your wounds and feeding your hurts--you need to begin to give those hours to crying to God, writing letters to your elected officials, seeking to band together with other believers, and cry to God, "Purge our land of unrequited blood." And above all, cry that the Spirit of God would be poured out upon our churches, and that once again, we would see multitudes brought to true evangelical conviction and repentance and faith and submission to the Word of God. And out of such a mass of people turning to Christ, God would then raise up men of stature who would once again enunciate these principles in the key places of our national life.
I had hoped to go on to that second part of that first mountain, but frankly, dear people, I've come with a constraint upon my spirit. And I must say, not in a nasty way, I don't know when I've cared less about a conference program. And I've never done this before in all my years speaking at a conference. I've always stuck diligently to the subject assigned. But I feel like a man possessed. Our time may be much shorter than we realize. What is God's word to our nation? Righteousness exalts a nation, the righteousness that requites the blood of the innocent slain, the righteousness that protects the helpless blood of unborn infants. But sin, the sin of unrequited blood, is a reproach to any people. Frankly, that's why I'm a loyal patriot. I believe I would give my life's blood, if necessary, to defend the liberties I know for the sake of my children and unborn grandchildren. But I have to say with Ezra, I blush. I am ashamed. I cannot look up. What's your posture? May God bring us to a season of holy blushing that will lead to earnest prayer; that will lead to sanctified, spirit-directed, Scripturally governed conduct, that the church may indeed be salt and light with respect to the sin that is our national reproach.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 9:12:54 GMT -5
God's Word to Our Nation: Sin of Sexual Perversion by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached July 6, 1983
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Our study in the Word of God this evening will be in reality a further continuation of that word we began to consider on the first evening of our conference: God's word to our nation. In our previous studies, I thought to set the subject in a Biblical context, disclaiming any direct revelation from God; disclaiming any direct equation between Israel and the church, and then setting before you from the Scriptures a justification for taking up such a theme. And that justification resides basically in what we would call a Biblical theology of God's relationship to the nations. And then last evening I suggested that if there is any text in all of Scripture which constitutes the essence of the word of God to our nation at this time, it is that text found in Proverbs 14:34 in which the writer of the Proverbs declares, "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." And having looked briefly at the meaning of those words, I deduced this principle: that if sin is a reproach to any people, then surely the word of God to our nation at this time is the word on the one hand of scathing rebuke and denunciation for our national sins and a summons, a regal call to repentance and reformation, on the other hand. And then as we began to open up this theme, I sought to use the analogy of a mountain range with its foothills, its main major peaks, and then those high mountain peaks that jut above the others. And any nation has sins like a mountain range. And it is my concern and burden to address the Word of God to those great high peak sins of our nation, which I suggested can be ranged under two very simple headings: our sins of putrid moral degeneration and our sins of horrible religious apostasy. And under that first heading last night, we only had time to direct your attention to the first aspect of our putrid sins of moral degeneracy, namely the unrequited blood of the murdered multitudes. And I've been encouraged with a number of you who have come to me and expressed perhaps for the first time you have seen from the Word of God and its accumulative testimony how indeed our nation is guilty of blood, and how the unrequited blood of the multitudes of the murdered literally cries to heaven, pierces through to the ear of God upon the throne of God that that blood may be requited either with the proper, just taking of the life of murderers or by the direct judgment of Almighty God.
Tonight I want to look at the second aspect of this great first mountain of our sins of putrid moral degeneracy, namely our unrestrained and unashamed abandonment to sensuality and sexual perversion. Along with the unrequited blood of the multitudes of the murdered, I submit to you that a sensitivity to Biblical teaching leads to this conclusion: that another of our greatest national sins is our unrestrained and unashamed abandonment to sensuality and sexual perversion. There are many in our day who say something like this:
"If there is indeed a God, and if that God does indeed take any cognizance of the affairs of men upon the face of the Earth, then surely that God is concerned with larger issues than what goes on in people's bedrooms; what goes on in the fertod meetings of individuals in motel rooms. If there is a God, and if He is aware of what goes on, and if He is concerned, surely He is concerned with larger issues than someone's sexual preferences and sexual activities."
Well, is that so? Is that perspective in anyway reflective of the teaching of the Word of God? What I want to attempt to prove to you from Scripture is this: that any city, any nation, any large segment of humanity which abandons itself with shamelessness to sensuality and sexual perversion, that city, those cities, that nation, those groups of people call down upon themselves the frightening judgment of Almighty God.
We saw in our study of innocent blood and how it affects God, that God used for the first time in His Word the vivid imagery of the innocent blood of Abel turning into an eloquent voice which cried to God Himself. In Genesis 4, God said to Cain, "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground." As we read on in the book of Genesis, we read the tragic account of the degeneracy of the human race, a degeneracy that reaches the place recorded in Genesis 6 where God says, "And it repented the LORD that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart." And God commits Himself to blot out the entire existing human race with the exception of the family of Noah. But in all of the record of all the degeneracy which brought about the universal flood which blotted out the entire race, the language of sin crying to heaven is never once used. For the next time it occurs, it occurs in Genesis 18. And I want you to turn to that passage with me. What is it that once again constitutes a voice that pierces the ear of God upon His throne and brings God down out of heaven in order to deal with the occasion of that crime? In Genesis 18, the answer is given to us in very clear language. Three angels have visited Abraham, the father of the faithful. By a careful reading of the entire 18th chapter of Genesis, it becomes clear that one of those angels is the angel of Jehovah; that is, Jehovah Himself who comes in visible form and appearance. He receives the worship of Abraham; he speaks in the first person in the name of Jehovah, and as He speaks to Abraham, He says these words (Genesis 18:20):
"And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to [and this word is the same root word in the Hebrew as we have in Genesis 4] the cry of it, which is come unto Me; and if not, I will know."
Here Jehovah informs Abraham that a cry has once more reached His ear. And it is this cry that has brought God down from heaven in the person of the angel of Jehovah, Jehovah Himself, to see if indeed the cry accords with reality. Now granted, all of this is figurative language in the sense that God doesn't need to come down to see. He fills heaven and earth. God is omniscient--He knows all things concerning all there is to know at one given point in time. And yet to speak to us and to communicate the realities in a manner that we can understand and grasp, God accomodates Himself to us and says to Abraham,
"Abraham, I have heard a cry from My throne in heaven. The cry has come up from the cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham, I am now come down to see if indeed the facts accord with the measure of this cry. The cry is great. It is a grievous cry of grievious sin. But I will come and establish by My own visual presence whether or not the cry accords with reality."
Then we read on in chapter 19 of the experience of the angels as they come:
"And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; and he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night. And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat. But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter: And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them" (vv. 1-5).
That knowing was not the knowledge of social introduction. It was an appeal that they might have these men to enter into illicit, abominable homosexual practices with them. How do we know that? Read on in the subsequent context: "And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, and said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly" (vv. 6-7). What they desired was wickedness, and the precise nature is indicated in verse 8: "Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing...." Then we read the sad history of the resolute determination of these men inflamed with their aggressive, beastly lust. They are not satisfied to take even these two virgins and abuse them and make them their playthings for the night. They would have fain laid hands on these two visitors forcefully had not the angels struck them with blindness. Then you know the subsequent history, how God forcefully removes Lot and his family from those cities. And He reiterates this in verse 13: "For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the LORD; and the LORD hath sent us to destroy it." Then God did something He had never before done in human history. God literally rained hell down from heaven and destroyed the cities of the plain.
Now, what was the most aggravated sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? There are some clever manipulators of the Bible who say, "Well, if you think it was abandonment to sensuality and sexual perversion, you're all wrong." Then they quote in a cavalier way the remark of the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 16, verses 46 and 48 in which certain other of the sins of Sodom are underscored in another context: pride and fulness of bread and indifference to the needy. And then they proceed to say that these were the great sins: inhospitableness, not homosexuality. My friends, that is a perversion of the Word of God. For when we turn to the inspired comment upon this incident in the book of Jude, it is very clear what the crowning sin of Sodom was according to the inspired penman of the New Testament. For here we read in the book of Jude and verse 7: "Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." That which caused Almighty God to bring down fire and brimstone and literally to rain hell out of heaven upon the cities of the plain was this unashamed, this unrestrained, this unembarrassed abandonment to sensuality and to sexual perversion. The cities of the plain had come through the various stages of this abandonment and this commitment to perversion. They had passed through the stage in which these sins were merely tolerated, while it was known that they were, to use contemporary jargon, carried on in the closet. And from the state of toleration, they had become an acceptable form of behavior. And it's at the point they become an acceptable form of behavior, that they become a contagious form of behavior. For on that evening, it was not only men, but it says men and boys, and not from just one pocket of the city--from every single quarter of the city. From toleration to acceptance to militant aggressive propagation of their perverted lifestyle until they were now so evangelistic about it they would impose it upon two wayfaring men. And when the sin reached that point, God says, "Enough. The cry that has come to heaven is indeed worthy of My response in frightening judgment." And so God performs this strange act of judgment and rains down what in Scripture is used as the very symbol of eternal fire. Hell is described as the lake of fire and brimstone. And God rains hell out of heaven upon the cities of the plain to make it manifest to all mankind from that point onward the holy hatred of His soul to this kind of abandonment to sensuality and sexual perversion.
Now you may ask the question, "Why is this so, Pastor Martin?" Well, you remember yesterday when we asked the question, "Why does God hate innocent blood?" The answer was found in the language of Genesis 1: "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him...." Well, this is the same answer to this question. Why is there that in God which is so violently provoked in His holy nature when there is this abandonment to sensuality and in particular to perversion in which sexual distinctions are blurred and ignored and blatantly rejected in the most intimate expression of that sexual distinction, namely sexual intimacy. The doctrine of the image of God is again the answer. For when we read in Genesis 1: "Let Us make man in our image," do you remember what the Scripture says? "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them." Mankind created in the image of God is created male and female. And in a way that I confess I am not prepared to expound, this much is true: there is something in the distinctiveness of maleness and femaleness, masculinity and femininity that answers to that which is in God Himself. He is one God. We believe in the great truth: there is but one true and living God. And yet our Bibles teach us within that one God, there is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit so that the Spirit can commune with Father and Son, and Son with Spirit and Father, and Father with Spirit and Son. One God, and yet within the one there is three. And in a way that I would not dare to unravel with precision, surely there is something of this perspective in God making man in His image male and female so that anything that obliterates that distinction, and in particular that which obliterates it at its citadel, the sexual union, is the highest affront to Almighty God! It is, in a sense, an attempt to march up to the throne of God and re-dictate the very structure of God creating man in His own image.
This holy antipathy of God to sexual perversion and licentiousness again is picked up and expanded and underscored in the Mosaic legislation. And I asked you to turn now to Leviticus 18 as a specimen passage. The great concern of God as articulated in verses 2 and 3:
"And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, I am the LORD your God. After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances."
And then in verses 6-18, God gives specific directions that all fall within the realm of laws against incest, laws against certain marriages within certain blood relationships. In verse 19, God gives a prohibition of what we would call an unnatural sexual activity. In verse 20, He speaks against adultery. In verse 21, He speaks against the sin of offering up children to heathen idols as blood and burnt sacrafices. And then in verses 22 and 23, notice the clear prohibition: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion."
God is very explicit in prohibiting all forms of sexual perversion, all forms of sensuality, all forms of adopting the policy, "My sexual appetites and preferences are my business. I shall fulfill them according to my own passions and my own inclinations." God says, "You shall not do so." Now why is He concerned about these matters? Why is this legislation hammered out in such detail, which is almost embarrassing to read in a mixed public gathering? God gives the reason in the following verses:
"Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) that the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you" (vv. 24-28).
O, dear people, hear the Word of God. The nations in the land of Canaan were pagan non-covenanted nations. The law they had was the law inscribed upon their moral consciousness as creatures made in the image of God. And yet from that law, they were to know that these activities were sin. And when they defied that law of their own moral constitution, God uses graphic language. He says that Israel's conquest of the land was but the feather in God's hand to tickle the throat of the land of Canaan that it might wrench and vomit out the inhabitants of the land. That's the gross, sickening language of Jehovah. The lands of Canaan, the nations of Canaan--that's the language of the passage--had become defiled and polluted for these sins. National sins that provoked God to bring national judgments, as then, so it is now, even though our nation has the light of special revelation in the possession of the Word of God and in the preaching of that Word. Even if we did not have the light of special revelation, when a nation gives itself to the kind of sexual perversion, the kind of sensuality forbidden in this chapter (adultery, indifference to proper laws concerning incest, insensitivity to the sanctity of the one-to-one marriage sanctuary of a husband and a wife); when a people give themselves to homosexuality, the passage says the land becomes defiled; the nation becomes defiled. And mark it well, God will have a feather in His hand to tickle the throat of this nation until it vomits out the inhabitants of this land. Whether He causes us to be vomited into a grave of atomic dust, whether He causes us to be vomited into the hand of a foreign totalitarian power, whether He causes us to be vomited out into the disruption and disintegration of civil and racial war, I do not know. I am no prophet. But I am a preacher of this Book, and this Book says these sins defile the land. We have gone beyond the stage of toleration. We are now at the stage of acceptance. Legislation is being pushed through to give open, self-confessed, practicing homosexuals full acceptance at every level of social, economic, educational life, and even religious life. So the great debate in many denominations centers around the ordination of homosexuals. And already in some places, we have proceeded beyond mere toleration and acceptance to aggressive propagation and forced seduction. How long will it be before the feather touches the throat of this nation?
Add to the testimony of Genesis 18 and 19, Leviticus 18, the clear teaching of Romans 1. We move out of the Old Testament into the New. The great theme of this epistle is the exposition of the Gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation, a Gospel which sets forth a righteousness of God to be received by faith. But the dark backdrop of the righteousness of God is the filth and the unrighteousness of man. Most of you, I'm sure, are familiar with the basic thread of argument in Romans 1. Beginning with Verse 18, the Apostle declares that the wrath of God is (present tense). There is a coming wrath. (He talks about it in chapter 2.) There is a coming day of wrath, but there is a present manifestation of divine wrath: "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven." And it's revealed against all ungodliness and that which inevitably follows from ungodliness: all unrighteousness of men who hinder the truth in unrighteousness. And then he goes on to declare in this context the situation in which men had only the light of general revelation: what they could know of God by looking at His handiwork. "The heavens declare His glory; and the firmament sheweth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge" (Psalm 19:1-2). And what has man done with that revelation God has made of Himself? Paul says he has turned away from it, and he is turned instead to silly idols and beasts. And as a result, God has acted in judgment. Verses 24-27:
"Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this cause God gave them [marvelous insights with respect to total sexual liberation. That's what we're being told our day has received. We are the day of great enlightenment. We have now received light that has chased away the dark shadows of the terrible Victorian mentality with regard to sex. We've received the light of true benevolence and compassion that invites all of the perverts to come out of the closets and to declare openly there alternate lifestyle. And we are told even in evangelical circles by certain so-called evangelical leaders, such as Mullencock and Hardesty and her ilk, that it is a matter of Christian enlightenment to recognize homosexuality whether between men or women as a viable Christian lifestyle, because we have now become enlightened by God to see that all of this homophobia is but a dark shadow of the prejudice of our past perspectives and influences.]"
Is that what the Word of God says? Look at the language:
"For this cause God gave them unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet."
Where is the AIDS problem coming from? This text has the answer. Where is that new strain of venereal disease coming from? No longer can a few shots of penicillin fix everyone up. And the medical world is baffled and wringing its hands. I'll tell you where it comes from--Romans 1:27: "...receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet." Wrath is already being revealed. And the tragedy is verse 32 says they know such conduct deserves the judgment of God. "Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, [and this is why I use the word 'shameless'] not only do the same, but had pleasure in them that do them." In other words, when perversity becomes public and shameless, that's the height of degeneracy.
You'll find this theme--though time will not permit us to trace it out--in the Prophets, particularly with Jeremiah. One sample is Jeremiah 6:15 where the prophet says, "Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? Nay, they were not at all ashamed...." God says, "Thou hast a whore's forehead. Thou refuseth to be ashamed." What is it like when a woman takes her most noble faculty of sexuality and dares to parade it and sell it on 42nd Street in New York City? Something has died in that poor soul of native natural shame. Surely if she's going to do that, she'll do it in the dead of night; she'll do it in the shades and shadows, not in broad daylight before the rude stare of anyone who can look upon her. When a woman has come to that place, God says she has a whore's forehead that refuses to be ashamed. And I say, my dear fellow believers, our nation has a whore's forehead. And we've lost the ability to be ashamed. And the testimony of the Word of God from Genesis clean through into this passage and on into the Epistles is that for these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. And surely, then, God's word to our nation is this: sin is a reproach to any people. And not only is the sin of the unrequited blood of the multitudes of the slain our national reproach, but this unashamed, this abandonment to sensuality and perversion is our national sin and ought to be our national shame, and brings us as a nation to the very brink of even further judgments from the Almighty.
I will not pollute your ears by speaking in great detail of the clear indications that we have come to this position of unrestrained and unashamed abandonment to sensuality and perversion. Suffice but a few clear examples. When men who are supposedly intelligent, trained in our so-called best universities, can write and have published books advocating constructed incest, and when they are given prime time to sit on national talk shows to give a justification for their books and a polemic for the possibility that a father may be indeed the best man to introduce to his daughter the realities and joys of sex--and there is no shame. Men and women ought to run to turn off their televisions sets; march to the studios and demand a retraction. I say, our sin is a national sin for which we must hang our heads and blush. When perverts lose all shame and brag that this is come out of the closet time, and not only openly identify themselves by name but gather together in groups and causes and march through our streets no longer with any sense of shame for their perversion, I say, dear people, we must hang our heads and blush. Don't let the word "gay" ever be used upon the lips of a Christian. It is a euphemism to take off the edge of the horrendous nature of the perversion of homosexuality. Call it sodomy, perversion. Don't ever refer to gays. They are not gay. They have the misery of a tortured conscience within, and the fires of hell await them. When fornication and adultery are a way of life in all of the avenues of so-called entertainment (the movies, the theater, the TV, the theme of the lyrics of popular songs), I say, this is our national sin. When male and female virginity are laughed upon and mocked; when skin magazines are a multi-billion-dollar business, both those appealing to women as well as to men; when the TV becomes the personal X-rated movie screen (no sooner does the video cassette become a marketable thing when the number one item is X-rated movies); when our schools take upon themselves to show pornographic movies and slides and give pornographic literature to preteens; when verbal titillation and double innuendo have become part and parcel of almost every social context; when a man who seeks to keep a pure mind must almost live with his eyes upon the pavement because of all of the bared titillating flesh paraded before his eyes, I say, dear fellow believers, this national sin cries to God for national judgment. And you cannot opt out and say, "But Pastor Martin, I don't indulge in these things; I do not approve of these things." Remember the principle of solidarity: you and I are a part of a nation that has sold itself to sensuality and to perversion.
But you asked the question, "What can I do?" Well, I want to give a little more attention in closing tonight than I did last night to the remedy. If this is our state, what can we do? Let me first of all answer that question for boys and girls and men and women in this building who have been sucked into the whirlpool of our national sensuality and perversion. I would be willing to make the statement without claiming prophetic insight that there are more than a few within the sound of my voice tonight (boys, girls, men, women, even preachers) who have not been able to withstand this climate, that whirlpool of sensuality and perversion that swhirls around you with ever increasing fierceness and power. At first, you just came to the edge of it to look in out of innocent curiosity--you called it. Some of you who are preachers, you began to look into it under the guise: how can I denounce it if I don't know what it is? That was your first contact with pornographic movies; your first contact with pornographic literature. And I would not be surprised if I'm speaking to more than one adult and possibly more than one preacher who is an addict to pornography. You're an addict to pornographic movies. You've spent the last two, three, four years constantly looking over your shoulder to make sure no one sees you slip in and pay your $3 or $5, whatever it cost. You're constantly looking this way and that way when you go to that haunt where you look at your girly magazines. You're constantly living that fearful, frightening experience of wondering whose going to see me: when will the lid be blown off? Perhaps I'm talking to teenagers who have been sucked into the idea that it's all right to fool around with girls if you're a girl as long as you still have an interest in boys and vice versa. Am I speaking to boys and girls and men and women who now, sitting here tonight, known only to God and to yourself, and if others are involved, by way of sexual dalliance--only they know that you sit here tonight in the frightening chains of sexual perversion? And next to heroin and to alcohol, there are no chains that I've ever had to deal with in a pastoral setting like the chains of sensuality. My friend, is there any word for you? There is a word for you. That word comes through so clearly in 1 Corinthians 6. In verse 9, Paul says,
"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived [the first word of God is this: Don't listen to what you're being told by the so-called experts in America]: neither fornicators [and there he uses the general Greek word 'pornia' for all kinds of sexual impurity from which we get our English word 'pornography'], nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."
What is the word to you sitting here tonight with all the symblance of a liberated Christian, but you know you're in bondage? Perhaps even a day or two before you came to this conference, not knowing what might be available in this area, you went on a binge with your girly magazines, and you're here in your chains. What's the first word of God to you? It's this: either those chains are broken or you'll go to hell. And you better take that seriously. Don't you listen to what the world says, that your chains are the symbols of your liberty. They are chains that will chain you now and into hell forever. Don't listen to the so-called evangelical experts who tell you that self-abuse is a viable Christian activity; who tell you that responsible, committed, loving homosexual or lesbian practice is a viable Christian expression of lifestyle. The Word of God says, "Don't be deceived." You won't go to heaven with those chains of uncleanness and perversion. You'll sink into hell! O, dear young people who've been spared, when the temptation comes, and when you're bombarded by the radio and the TV and in the school and by your peers--try this a little bit and try that--and you're tempted to go the first step in the direction of sensuality and perversion--hear the Word of God: "Be not deceived." That path will chain you and take you to hell!
But now the second word of God to you is in the verse that follows: "And such were some of you...." "You mean there's hope? Why, Pastor Martin, you said there's no hope." That's right, no hope while the chains are there; no hope while you defy God's norms of sexual purity as a single person, as a married person. I don't care what your psychological orientation may be. If you are not heterosexual oriented; if you are giving yourself man with man, woman with woman--be not deceived--those patterns of life are utterly inconsistent with being an heir of the kingdom. "And such were some of you...." Something has happened--they're no longer like that. What's happened? Look at the text. A combination of two mighty influences impinged upon many of these Corinthians: "...ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." What had happened? There in Corinth, this sink of iniquity; this center of commerce and pagan thought and pagan worship where as a very part of your worship of the heathen deities, one would commit acts of sexual impurity and fornication. What had happened? A humble hook-nosed Jew came and began to preach about Jesus of Nazareth who authenticated His claims by His life and by His works; who was impaled upon a Roman cross by the decree and purpose of God; who there upon that cross bore the sins of His people; bore sins of every kind and stripe; who went from that cross into a grave; who broke the bars of death and came out from that grave and ascended to the right hand of the Father and received of the Father the promise of the Spirit and sent Him forth upon men. He says such were some of you, but having come into contact with the message concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, you've been washed; you've been justified. And furthermore, you've heard that He gives the gift of His Spirit to all who believe upon Him. Yes, He sovereignly regenerates by the Spirit unto faith. But the Bible everywhere teaches that it is to the regenerate, believing sinner that the gift of the Spirit is given when he believes on the Lord Jesus. And in the power of the indwelling Spirit, he can now see his chains broken and fall at his feet, and rise a free man, a free woman. If you're here tonight bound by various dimensions of our national sin of abandonment to sensuality and sexual perversion, there is hope for you. And that hope is not in trying to sell your conscience a bill of goods that your sins are not really sins--they are! But it's to flee to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. Fall down before the Son of God like blind Bartimaeus and cry, "Son of David, have mercy upon me. What wilt thou that I should do unto you? Lord, that I may be free of my chains?" to which He will say, "I will, be thou free."
And what can we do as a people? I've tried to answer the question to the individual, but what can we the people of God do? Well, ultimately, dear people, the greatest thing you can do is stop playing games with free time and ask God at any cost to make you a Jacob, an Israel, who knows how to wrestle with God. The greatest thing you can do is to become a wrestler with God for the outpouring of the Spirit of God upon our poor, bound, hell-deserving nation. And I don't say that as something pious to get on to something more practical. The greatest thing you can do is cry mightily to the God who alone can turn away this terrible tidal wave of uncleanness. But then, if your prayer is sincere when you rise from your knees, you must rise determined to do what the Scripture says. In Ephesians 5:11: "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." You are light. Walk as children of light. I'm sick of hearing Christians saying of this movie or that movie, "Well, it wasn't too bad--only had one steamy love scene. It wasn't too bad--only had a half a dozen curse words." What in the name of God has happened to our consciences? How can you sigh and cry for the abominations of our nation, much of which flow to the conscience of the nation through the movie theater, while you sit in the midst of it? I'm appalled at what so-called reformed Christians watch and allow their children to watch on TV in which their consciences are made dull to the high standards of morality, the high standards of sanctity and purity touching the sexual relationship and touching our identity as males and females in the image of God. Determine as a Christian father in light of the challenge of this morning to say, "As for me and my house, I don't care if my kids whimper; I don't care if they complain that their ignorant of this program and that program and the other program. I will not cooperate with the devil to send them to hell in this sea of sensuality." Have the fortitude to rear back upon your hind legs. And if you cannot exercise Godly control over the TV so that you can face the Day of Judgment with a good conscience, then get rid of the thing and determine never to have it in your home again.
And then the third thing we as the people of God can do is to exercise every legitimate influence consistent with our civil liberties on the one hand and our Gospel priorities on the other. And don't detach what I say from those two qualifications. You see, the devil loves to get people using up all their time in a good cause to keep them from the best cause. And it's much easier to spend an hour agitating in some organized movement against pornography than it is to spend an hour on your knees crying to God for the Holy Spirit to come down upon the preachers in this land and make the Word effective to purge the sea of pornography. Do you see my point? Do everything you can do consistent with your civil liberties and responsibilities and Gospel priorities. And then ultimately, let's touch what is the softest spot in the heart of God, His glory. When you pray say, "Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name." And O what glory would come to God if when the perveyors of filth have as it were come to the position where they sit back and fold their arms with glee and look over the scene of our national life and gloat that they have won the day--what glory it would be to God to raise up His mighty arm, and when the enemy has come in like a flood, to see the Spirit of our God raise a standard against him and pray,
"O God, for the glory of Thy name, Your name that is sanctified and hallowed when men repect Your laws of sexual purity; when men regard your standards of purity and uprightness in every facet of male/female relationships. O God, can You stand to see Your glory stained? O God, can You bear to see Your glory completely besmirched by our national life? O God, vindicate Your glory."
May we thus cry to God.
What is God's word to our nation? I say, it is essentially a word of denunciation for our national sins: the sin of unrequited blood, the sin of unashamed abandonment to sensuality and sexual perversion. Dear people, that's my nation. Some of you children don't know what this is like. I lived during the Second World War. I was old enough to read the papers. And we used to sit about the table and wonder: will God allow the Japanese to come to the West Coast; will be bombed? I can remember my sister crying the day when President Roosevelt made the announcement of the invasion of Pearl Harbor. She sat upon my dad's knee, and I sat next to her, and she broke into convulsive weeping and said, "Daddy are we going to be bombed?" Some of us remember the mighty deliverances God brought to our nation in that war. We thank God for His grace and kindness. But you dear young people, listen, this isn't going to go on forever unless something changes, and it can start with you. Some of you precious teenagers can determine, by the grace of God, to be a Daniel. You will not defile yourself with the sins of your companions at school and on the block and wherever you may associate with them. You can begin to go off into your closet and pray for those teenage friends of yours. You know many of them--their heads blown half the time on their pills and on their pot and on their booze. And girls who are hardly into their teens brag about their affairs with the fellows. O, may God touch the hearts of you dear young ones. May He touch the hearts of you parents. And dear pastor friend, let me ask you in closing: can you preach on this sin with a clear conscience, or does that very question cause a little bit of redness to creep up the back of your neck? Your wife doesn't know the stuff you look at when she's gone to bed. O yes, you got that cable service TV ostensibly to get the good educational programs, but God knows and you know what you've been using it for. My friend, come out of that wall of hypocrisy and have dealings with God. The time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God. Some of you precious Christian women, your bearing is the essence of purity, and yet your eyes soak up the sorded filthy soap operas hours everyday, and you fantasize and by proxy enter into the sexual escapades of your heroines on the boob tube. You say, "Pastor Martin, not amongst reformed Christians." Yes, amongst reformed Christians, because when iniquity abounds, the love of the many waxes cold. Righteous Lot, his righteous soul vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. Poor Lot was stained and crippled by the context in which he lived. O, may we hear the call to repentance and thorough dealings with God. And may we yet see God bare His arm and purge away the filth from our land.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 9:13:40 GMT -5
God's Word to Our Nation: Sins of Religious Apostasy by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached July 7, 1983
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The vast and weighty theme which has occupied our minds in these evening sessions this week has been entitled "God's Word to Our Nation." And after giving a Biblical setting and a Scriptural justification for this subject, I proceeded to assert that perhaps no text is more relevant in setting the framework for God's word to our nation than Proverbs 13:44 in which we read: "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." And in the light of this text, then surely the word of God to our nation in this hour must primarily be a word on the one hand, of denunciation for our national sins and on the other hand, a call to national repentance and reformation from our sins.
Using the analogy of a mountain range, I've suggested that the sins of any nation are likened unto foothill sins, sins that constitute the main bulk and spine of the mountain range. But then there are those sins that rise up in their height above all others like some of the mighty mountain peaks in the great ranges of mountains on the face of the earth. And I have suggested that two of these mountain peak sins of our nation are the sins of our putrid moral degeneracy and our horrible religious apostasy. Under that former head of our putrid sins of moral degeneracy, none are greater than the sins of the unrequited blood of the murdered multitudes and the sins of unrestrained and unashamed sensuality and sexual perversion.
Now tonight, we move to consider the second mountain. Not only is our nation marked by the mountain of the sins of putrid moral degeneracy, but also by our sins of horrible religious apostasy. Now for you children and young people for whom the word "apostasy" may be a new word or one concerning which you do not have a clear understanding as to its meaning, apostasy means basically to fall away, to depart from the recognition of and submission to certain fundamental Biblical truths and principles. So apostasy assumes that one has been in a condition of belief and practice from which one has now departed. And I say that the second great mountain of our national sins is to be found in our sins of horrible religious apostasy, our sins of falling away from the principles of revealed religion.
Now if there is anything which God detests and abhors with holy detestation and righteous indignation, it is the turning away from light and privilege, whether that is the light of general revelation or the more special light of special revelation. We saw last night from Romans 1 how much God hates and detests apostasy from general revelation. For it's in Romans 1:28 that we read: "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient." Those who turn from the worship of God according to the light of general revelation and turn to the worship of idols, God so detests and abhors that apostasy even from general revelation that He gives men over to the lusts of their hearts until they destroy themselves in their sins of lawlessness and sensuality.
But if God detests apostasy from general revelation, then how more intense is His detestation of apostasy from special revelation, that is, a turning aside, a falling away not merely from the light of Himself given in creation and stamped upon the consciousness of man made in His image, but from the light of His word brought to men through prophets when they lived and through the Word of God now that special revelation is found within the pages of the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments. And just as surely as the history of the pagan nations is a constant revelation of the wrath of God upon apostasy from general revelation, so the history of the nation of Israel is the sickening saga of the divine hatred and detestation of those who turn from the light and privilege of special revelation. Look at the statement of the prophet Jeremiah with respect to this very point. In Jeremiah 25:3-8, we read the following words:
"From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, even unto this day, that is the three and twentieth year, the word of the LORD hath come unto me, and I have spoken unto you, rising early and speaking; but ye have not hearkened. And the LORD hath sent unto you all His servants the prophets, rising early and sending them; but ye have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear. They said, Turn ye again now every one from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD hath given unto you and to your fathers for ever and ever: and go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke Me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no hurt. Yet ye have not hearkened unto Me, saith the LORD; that ye might provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt. Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Because ye have not heard My words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations."
Then God goes on to say how He will accomplish His judgments upon this land. For what reason? Fundamentally this: they apostatized from the light, the privileges, the demands of special revelation. And that detestation and anger of God culminated in the Old Testament in the captivity of the people of God in Babylon. And according to the New Testament, it found its climactic expression in the utter destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. According to the word of our Lord in Luke 19:41-44, and according to the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16, wrath has come upon that nation to the uttermost. Their house has been left desolate. Why? Because they knew not the time of their visitation. God sent to them, calling them back from their apostasy, back to national reformation, national repentance, back to the recognition of His laws and His ways. But they would not until they were ultimately brought to the place of desolation and destruction. I say, these incidents in the Word of God reveal something of the horrible nature of religious apostasy, the turning away, the turning of one's back upon the light of God's revealed truth.
Now someone asks, "Pastor Martin, you have told us we dare not make any equation between Israel and the United States. What does all this say to us?" Well, I trust the Romans 1 passage says much to us and that its message is obvious. But there is also a principle from God's dealings with the nation of Israel. Since God is the sovereign director of where His word goes among the nations, it is God that decreed and then secured to this nation the tremendous measure of Gospel light and privilege which we have known from our very inception. According to Acts 16:6-10, it is the Holy Spirit who suffers the Apostle not to enter a whole new area for Gospel witness. It is the Spirit of Jesus who suffers him not to go one direction and directs him in another. And so amidst all the nations of the earth, when Gospel light comes, and when that light comes with unusual intensity, and when that nation is blessed with the Scriptures in its own language, blessed with the visible church greatly multiplied, blessed with the proclamation of the Word, blessed with institutions that are framed by the Word of God, that nation, I say, has been the recipient of a sovereign act of God in bringing this tremendous privilege of Gospel light, this tremendous privilege of the light of special revelation, casting, as it were, both its illuminating and warming influence over the entirety of that nation's life and experience. And surely this has been true of our nation, perhaps as of no other nation in the history of mankind.
Think of our founding fathers. Don't ever forget, particularly you young people, for you won't be taught this with any detail in the history books by those who hate this heritage. We had 150 years of national life before the Declaration of Independence. In 1620, our forefathers arrived on these shores, and whatever we may say about the weaknesses of our Puritan forefathers, the fact that they did not see as clearly as we see the principles of the separation of church and state, and we perhaps believe (many of us) that their ultimate eschatological vision, that is, their vision of a situation in which righteousness would prevail as the dominant characteristic among the nations (their postmillenarian eschatological vision)--we may feel that it was exegetically and theologically defective. But whatever we may say about the defects and the blemishes and the perspectives of our Puritan forefathers which we would not emulate, surely, my brothers and sisters, it is accurate to say that in spite of some of these minor irregularities, the heart of Puritanism that beat within the breasts of these people was the desire to live in the fear of Almighty God and gladly to welcome the impingement of Biblical perspectives upon every single facet of family, community, and national life. And anyone who denies that simply shows his ignorance. That's the climate in which this nation was born. Our Puritan forefathers longing to carve out an identity and a social and a political and a national experience that would reflect that all of life must be lived under the eye of the God who has spoken in Holy Scripture.
And surely this was true of many of our founding fathers. I am not so naive nor ignorant historically to say that even the majority of our founding fathers were self-consciously evangelical or reformed Christians. But this much can be said: some of the most strategic men as to the framing of our constitution were men whose thinking about government and particularly about the framing of our government was tremendously influenced by Calvinistic theology. And many who were not Christians, many who would claim no adherence to the evangelical faith had been nurtured in the context in which there was a general perspective of regard to God as the Lord of the nations and to God as the one who alone could establish our nation and make it that which they longed it should be. And therefore, woven into the very fabric of our system of jurisprudence, woven into the very fabric of statutory law, you find Biblical principles again and again as the very molding and shaping influence of our national life.
Then surely as we look at the founding of our original institutions--do you know why Yale college was formed? Do you know why Dartmouth was formed as an institution? Dartmouth was formed to train men to be missionaries to the American Indians. Yale was formed to train preachers to preach to the colonies. Princeton was formed out of the womb of the log college of the elder Tenet who gathered Godly young men around him whose hearts beat with a passionate concern to see the outpouring of the Spirit upon the colonies. Princeton came out of the womb of this passionate commitment to revivals and to the mighty manifestation of the power and grace of God.
And in our early national life, the appointment of chaplains to the armies and our courts and halls of legislation--what was all of this but a reflection of the true one nation under God. And it is nothing short of willful blindness that takes the first amendment and tries to use it as a justification to make us an aggressively Godless nation. That was never the intent of the framers of those words, for those very men were the men who sought to recognize the sovereign rule of God over the nations in the founding of this nation and in the vast majority of its institutions.
Then we think of the influence of Whitefield. It's a tragic thing to think that the nation that now welcomes that pied piper from Rome is the nation that welcomed Whitefield throughout all the colonies. And wherever Whitefield went, he went not to deceive people, not to try to lead them back to the mother of harlots, but to lead them to the feet of a pierced Christ where they might find in the direct embrace of the needy sinner, in that embrace of the offered Savior, life and salvation.
So I say, the great sin of our nation is the sin of our horrible religious apostasy, a drifting away, a turning away, a casting aside of this tremendous heritage of the light, not of general revelation, though God knows our nation has so much of it in its native beauty and in the continuous blessing of God upon the earth and its produce. But this nation has been blessed with megawatts of the special light of special revelation that burned and etched, as it were, its very presence into the consciousness of this nation as it came from the womb of Almighty God and His providence when He moved our Puritan forefathers to come in the 1600s. And that work was continued as God raised up mighty preachers. And God raised up whole denominations that acted as light and salt upon every facet of our national life so that wherever one turned, one did not find a Christian nation (we have never been a Christian nation in the sense that the majority were in vital union with Christ), but we were a nation marked by national righteousness, and in that was our exaltation. ("Righteousness exalts a nation.") And so powerful was the direct influence of the Gospel through revivals, so widespread was the indirect influence of the Gospel in the leavening influence of that Gospel upon our national life that it was true of us as a nation: righteousness exalted this nation. But now our sin is a reproach to us, not only our sin of putrid moral degeneracy, but our sin of horrible religious apostasy.
Now how has that apostasy manifested itself? I turn you now to Jeremiah 2 for a text that will constitute the framework of the remainder of my message as I try to descend now from the theology that justifies my declaration to the specific applications of that exposition. And here the prophet crying out in the name of Jehovah God of His people says in verses 11-13,
"Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? [He asks a question: 'Do you see fickleness among the pagan nations?' They worship what they call gods but are not gods, and yet you can count on them to be consistent in their worship of their false gods. And you could say in Jeremiah's day that the nation of Babylon and the other nations of the earth were identified with the worship of this false god or that false god or another false god. And you didn't have to worry that if you made the statement on Monday, you would be proven wrong on Wednesday. He asks the question, 'Have you ever heard of a nation changing its so-called gods?'] but My people have changed their glory [the true God] for that which doth not profit. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD. For My people have committed two evils [something the pagan nations have not done]; they have forsaken Me the fountain of living waters , and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water."
Now what's the picture? Try to envision what the prophet is saying. Here is a man who has in his back yard a bubbling spring. And when it comes up out of the earth because of the natural system of filtration that is there in terms of the subterranean rock structure and all of the rest, that water is clinically and chemically analyzed as being the nearest thing to pure water upon the face of the earth. It has no impurities. It has an excellent balance in terms of the minerals. It has the proper content of the saline and all of the rest. It is a fountain of living waters. And any thirsty person who wants his thirst assuaged, he never needs fear that he will be poisoned or in any way harmed. All he needs to do is go and plunge his thirsty mouth into that fountain of living waters.
Now here's the picture: A man goes out one day to this fountain of living waters that springs up very naturally from his back yard. And he takes two or three yards of concrete. (You can carry about a third of a yard in a big wheel barrow. I know that from my construction days.) And he goes to that fountain of living waters, digs around it, seeks to place a cap upon it, and then he has three yards of concrete poured over the top of it and utterly stops it up. And then having done that, he goes further in his yard, and there he finds a large boulder. And he takes a little mason's hammer, and he begins to chip away at the boulder. After a while, he's got a little indentation, and it gets a little larger and a littler larger. And just about that time, you come by and say to him, "Man, what in the world are you doing?" He says, "I'm chipping out a cistern. I want to collect the rain water when it falls upon the earth." And you say, "But don't you know that that rain water coming down through the atmosphere picks up all kinds of impurities from the pollution in the air? Don't you know that anyone could come by and put something into that water and defile it? What in the world are you doing? You have that lovely fountain of living waters, and now you're chipping away to make a little cistern." The man says, "I know what I'm doing. Leave me alone." And he chips and chips and chips, but alas, in the process, in chipping too hard at one spot, there's a crack and a fissure goes right down through his boulder. And then as he chips further on another side, another crack goes through. And then the moment of truth comes when the first rains descend, and though it holds the water for a few moments, it isn't long before it all leaks out. Why? Because it is a broken cistern that can hold no water.
Now you kids tell me, if you had a neighbor like that, what would you says was his problem? You'd say he had a few bricks less that a full load upstairs. You might not say it to his face, but you'd say he's crazy. Why would anyone forsake a fountain of living waters, a natural, bubbly, pure, refreshing spring to chip away at a cistern that ultimately can hold no water? It's madness! It's folly! God says that's exactly what religious apostasy is.
God came to Israel and gave Himself to her as the fountain of living waters, all she could ever need to assuage the thirst of the soul, the thirst of the soul for the knowledge of God and the knowledge of forgiveness of sins, all that was needed to assuage the thirst of the mind for reality (Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? How did the world get here? Whose world is it? Who governs it?) All that was needed to assuage the thirst of the soul and the mind was theirs in the living fountain of Jehovah. And she poured three yards of concrete upon it, stopped it up, and chipped out a boulder that couldn't hold any water. And I say, that's a picture in principle of how apostasy works whenever God has brought the light of special revelation to a nation, and that nation rejects that fountain of living waters and chips away and hews out its own cisterns. But they are cisterns that can never hold water.
Let me point out some of these broken cisterns that constitute the undeniable evidence of our national sin of apostasy in the realm of religious truth. There is, first of all, the broken cistern of decadent humanism. Now we use the word "humanism" frequently, but do we know what it means? Let me give you the relatively simple definition found in Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary: "Humanism is a modern, non-theistic [it rules out God], rationalistic [you go no further than your own noggin] movement that holds that man is capable of self-fulfillment, ethical conduct, etc. without recourse to supernaturalism." In other words, humanism is that approach to life which says, "Everything I need to know about all of the basic questions of life (who I am, how I should conduct myself, how I can find meaning in life), I can know, and I can attain without going out of myself to God." It is a closed system in which man is both the center and circumference of all reality.
In the early days of our national life from our Puritan forefathers even to our founding fathers, many of whom were not evangelical Christians, to the original institutions, to the very fabric and perspective of our national life, we were a theistic nation that believed over and above what man purposes, over and above what man plans, over and above what man can accomplish stands Almighty God. And when man asks the question, "Who am I?", he must look outside of himself to the God who made him to give him the answer, and He's given it in His Word. How should I live? Man must not look within because he recognized that within was a nature that led him in the direction of sin and perversity. He looked outside of himself to the changeless character of God who has etched, as it were, the liniments of His character in His own changeless, eternal, moral law. And so the Ten Commandments, whether with saved or unsaved people, became, as it were, the framework of the consciousness of national morality.
Now what has happend? We have forsaken the living fountain, that bubbling fountain of knowledge of ourselves and of right and of wrong and of personal identity. And in its place, we have hewn out the broken cistern of a decadent humanism. Man's mind is made the measure of all reality. Who am I? Humanism says, "Connect electrodes to your head, and we'll find out who you are. Dissect you on the table, and we'll find out who you are. We'll watch the patterns of other animals in the laboratory, and we'll find out who man is, why he does what he does, and reacts the way he reacts." Why have animal experiments become, as it were, the dictates as to the nature of man and the patterns of behavior expected of man? Because of the curse of this wicked, decadent humanism that says man's mind is the measure of all reality. He can find out who he is, why he's here, what's right or wrong, what's acceptable or unacceptable by having no recourse to the supernatural. It is all within himself.
Furthermore, man's ability is made the measure of possibility for what we can expect from man. What a sorry thing to live with. What can we expect in terms of our individual experience, our family experience, community experience, and national experience? If man is not only the measure of reality, but the measure of expectancy, then, dear people, what can we expect from such creatures, the likes of you and of me?
What a tragic apostasy has occurred in our national life, an apostasy in which we have forsaken the fountain of living waters, in which the consciousness in our nation was that man was indeed a creature of God; man indeed was distinctly and qualitatively different from the beasts of the earth. And man was answerable to God--there was a judgment to come. And men may have used the words "damn" and "hell" as curse words, but when they stopped and thought about the word "hell," they believed there was such a place because they knew eternity was stamped upon their very being. O, what a tragic thing, this apostasy from the living fountain of the knowledge of God to the broken cistern of decadent humanism that can hold no water.
Then I hasten on to point to a second specific indication of this religious apostasy. And it's what I'm calling the broken cistern of deceptive liberalism. Now I'm not speaking of political liberalism, but I'm speaking of religious liberalism. That is the situation in which so-called Christian churches and denominations hold the name, and the forms, and the rituals of Christianity, and even in many places still the hymnody of Christianity, but they have rejected everything that is distinctively Christian according to the Bible. There has been a rejection of the infallibility and inerrancy of this blessed Book. It is no longer looked upon as the deposit of the revealed mind of God who in gracious self-revelation has spoken and embodied His words in a book. It is looked upon as the fallible, error-ridden, pathetic account of man's developing and changing religious consciousness. No longer is there a view of man that he is essentially and fundamentally evil, having fallen in Adam. Each man, woman, boy, or girl was conceived in sin, born with a positive bent to evil, and that from within--out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts, adultery, murder, fornication, theft, pride, and all other forms of wickedness. No longer is there the confession of and belief in a supernatural Savior who is as much man as though He were not God, as much God as though He were not man; no longer any conviction with respect to the virgin-conceived theanthropic person, the great mystery of Godliness, that in the Lord Jesus is true, essential, undiminished humanity joined to pure, essential, undiluted, and undiminished Godhood. And in Him and Him alone is the hope of wretched sinners.
Liberalism has jettisoned an infallible Bible, jettisoned a depraved man, jettisoned a supernatural Savior, jettisoned the heart of the Gospel, which is penal substitution (the wrath of God being vented upon His Son). So holy and righteous is the God of the Bible that He will not forgive in a way that stains His holiness, His righteousness, or His justice. And the only path He could cut in fulfillment of eternal redeeming love consistent with the rectitude of His nature was the path that cut through the heart of His own beloved Son and made that heart the very depository of divine wrath until under the billows of that wrath, the Son of God cries, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Liberalism has no answer to that question. Liberalism won't even approach and listen to that question.
There was a time when in our land the great denominations, the great Presbyterian denomination that is now again reunited after all these years of separation since the civil war, most of the great Baptist denominations, the Methodist denominations, even the Episcopalian denominations by and large back even as recent as the early to mid-1800s--men could exchange pulpits from these denominations in the confidence that whoever stood to preach would hold to the essentials of mainstream, historic evangelicalism: an infallible Bible, a supernatural Savior, a depraved sinner, a supernatural salvation based upon the bloodletting of the one who became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. But alas, in our day, though we thank God for the evangelical and reformed denominations that have come to birth in recent days, the tragedy is, dear people--and O, may you never forget it--sitting in the warmth and basking in the light of that reformed congregation of which you are a part, millions in our nation every Sunday are put to sleep and lulled in the lap of deception until they will land in hell by the broken cistern of a deceptive liberalism. And I say, this sin of religious apostasy is our national shame.
Then I want to touch very briefly on a third and then more fulsome on a fourth and final cistern. We have turned to the broken cistern of demonic occultism and astrology. You say, "Where in the world does that fit as a national sin?" Well, I remind you of what we read in Deuteronomy 18. We looked at Deuteronomy 19 last night, but in the previous chapter, we have to my knowledge the only other explicit reference to the key reason for God casting out the inhabitants of the land of Canaan before the children of Israel. You remember in Leviticus 19, God said that the land vomited out the inhabitants because of the sins of sensuality and sexual perversion. In Deuteronomy 18, God says in verses 9-12,
"When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee."
Non-covenanted nations, because of the law of general revelation, are to know from the heavens His everlasting power and divinity. There is but one true and living God. And there is to be no seeking to consort with familiar spirits and the demonic elements of the occult. And further on, though time does not permit us to turn to it, in 2 Kings 17:14-18, there is a condemnation of the worshipping of the stars of heaven. And again in Jeremiah, God addresses Himself to what we would now call the science of astrology.
Who would have ever thought that the daily papers in some of the smallest towns in our nation as well as the great metropolises would have a daily column for Jeanne Dixon? And we've gotten so accustomed to it, we're no longer shocked, are we? We can flip through the paper, and in the corner of our eye, see "Jeanne Dixon says" and may even read it and snicker. But do you believe that may be one of the major factors for God to bring judgment upon this nation?
Have you lost the ability to feel a shudder of horror that our free press should propagate an abomination of this broken cistern of the demonic occult and astrology? Millions of Americans, before they have their first cup of coffee, turn to the astrology charts for the day; they dial the local astrology number. We have become a nation that is given over to the occult and astrology. Ouija boards are sold by the millions. Satan cults are being established by the scores. Satan worship is becoming a matter of public discussion. And books are being written to initiate men and women, boys and girls into the "marvelous" world of Satan worship. "My people have committed two evils." Imagine a nation with the light of a translated Bible and the privilege of public preaching of that Bible turning to the Jeanne Dixons and the astrology charts. But dear people, that's your nation; that's my nation, the nation of my children, and if the Lord spares us, the nation of my unborn grandchildren.
But I come finally--and here I speak most painfully and most reluctantly. For some of you who do not know me personally, I do not often make any personal references in preaching. I think the best compliment ever paid to me was by a man who met me once and said, "I've listened to hundreds of your tapes, but I don't know anything about you." And I said, "Wonderful! For we preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord." But I want to tell you something lest someone says, "This is just Pastor Martin giving vent to his own peculiar personality trait." When God put me together in my mother's womb, He put together one of the most sensitive, fearful little creatures the world has ever seen. I am so constitutionally adverse to confrontation that when I was big enough to go down to the sand lot to play football with the guys who were a little older than I (my mother loves to remind me of this story), the first time I went down, I said, "Hey guys, can I play?" And they said, "Nah, you can't play." You know what I did? I didn't fight. I came home bawling with my shoulder pads hung over my shoulder. A short time after, I was twelve or thirteen, and I made a shoeshine box, and I went downtown in Stamford, Connecticut and set up my corner. It wasn't long before another kid came by and said, "What are you doing here? This is my corner." And I went home and cried all the way home. When a teacher would rebuke me for something in grammar school, I'd be sick to my stomach for two days. And to this day, God is witness, I have the most intense aversion to anything that borders on confrontation.
It is only the Word of God impregnated in my spirit that gives me any grace to speak boldly and plainly the truth of God. And it's that pressure that brings me to this fourth and final cistern that is the evidence of our tragic national sin of religious apostasy, and it is this: we have turned from the living fountain of a vibrant (and I say it in the truest Biblical sense) Pentecostal, spirit-infused, living evangelicalism in doctrine and in practice, which was our national heritage under the ministry of Whitefield and the Tenets and Blair and a host of lesser lights. We have turned from the living fountain of days of mighty visitations of the Holy Spirit in the 1800s in the earlier period. And you know what we've turned to? We've turned to the broken cistern of a weak, man-centered, flesh-pleasing, fad-conforming, self-flattering evangelicalism. And I don't say those words to appear clever. I've chosen them carefully and with a broken heart. It is an evangelicalism marked by a professed adherence to an infallible Bible, a supernatural Savior, man as a sinner in need of supernatural grace. But the message that is preached and the climate in which it is preached negates the profession that is adhered to.
Think of the message that is popular in evangelicalism in our day, a message that lacks the cutting edge of a clear denunciation of the prevailing sins of the evangelical community. Who are the popular preachers in our day? The preachers of health, wealth, and prosperity gospels. The president of Fuller Seminary writes a commendable blurb on the heretical manifesto of Dr. Robert Schuller, which he sent to me and every preacher whose name he could get, calling for a new reformation. Do you know what Dr. Schuller's reformation is? Simply this:
"We need to reinterpret the entire Christian message. The cross is no longer the revelation of the righteous character of the God and of His holy anger against sin; no longer is it His declaration that He so abhors the sinner in his state of pollution and impenitence, and yet so loves him with a redemptive love that He will rescue him by means of the vicarious bloodletting of the Son of God. O no, you know what the message of the cross is? It's the message of unconditional love. God so loves you, my friend, no matter what you are and where you are. If you'll only believe He loves you as much as He does, you'll begin to love yourself. And loving yourself, you'll become a new creature. That's regeneration. And the way you learn that great truth is look at the cross. In spite of all you think about yourself, God has such a high estimation of you. Jesus died. Look at the cross, not as the place where God reveals His righteousness, His holiness, His justice, His burning hatred for sin that would sooner bear the agony of the cry of dereliction from His own Son than let one sinner get pardoned without that cry of dereliction."
I say, that filthy, rotten, abominable heresy encouraged by so-called evangelical leaders is our national sin.
And the charismatic movement by and large (and this is not a blanket condemnation of all charismatics, but by and large) is nothing but thumb sucking, religious self-gratification preached in the name of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Get your tingles, get your thrills, get your baptism. Know the joy of babbling in your closet and babbling in public. What in God's name does that have to do with poverty of spirit, mourning for sin, hungering and thirsting for righteousness?
Our national sin is the sin of the broken cistern of this decadent evangelicalism that lacks the cutting edge of a clear denunciation of our national sins, of our evangelical sins. It is a stranger to holy mourning, to holy poverty of spirit. And I'm not in any way contradicting what my dear brother said this morning. If we had a nickel for all the times we laughed until our bellies hurt, both of us would be wealthy. But the Scripture says there's a time to laugh, and there is a time to weep. But this evangelicalism has no place for weeping. In fact, it lives in morbid dread lest it should give the slightest impression to the world that Christianity is anything other than happy, happy, happy all the time, time, time. You live, you sleep, you wake with a thirty-two tooth grin from morning till night.
This foolish evangelicalism lives in morbid dread that anybody should find us sober. It's message lacks a clarion call to deep and thorough repentance. Everything is slick. You admit this; admit that; do this, and you're in. There's no waiting for any evidence that God has plowed a man's heart, giving him a sight of his own sin that sickens him enough to vomit it out. For that's what repentance is--it is the vomit of sin in which the sin that I took in and tasted every morsel with relish, and I held it in my mouth as it passed over the taste buds of the soul. Repentance is that work of God in which I now wrench and I spew out with disgust that which I took in with delight. Current evangelicalism knows nothing of a message that calls for that deep and thorough repentance.
Thirdly, it lacks in its call to radical discipleship. It doesn't call for cross bearing and self-denial and buffeting the body and plucking out right eyes and cutting off right hands. It calls for a life of simply trust Jesus and all is well. Read the ads in the Christian magazines. See the fat portly man bringing on an early cardiac arrest standing by his Cutlass with his golf clubs. And he says, "I never thought I could be a successful Christian businessman." Whole pages in our best evangelical magazines given over to the cult of materialism. No call to radical discipleship with self-denial, agonizing to enter, cutting off right hands, plucking out right eyes. And that's why this is the evangelicalism that takes the half converted ball player, and the moment he twitches a finger in the direction of Jesus, rushes him up to the platform and thinks that the glory of Christ needs his broad shoulders and bulging neck. And so he's held before people as the great model of what the grace of God can do. And he goes out the next day and encourages forty million people to profane the sanctity of the Lord's Day. And then he's quoted Monday morning as blowing his cork and using his "hells" and "damns" along with everyone else. And who has the courage to go to our leaders and say, "King Jesus needs no such service from vile and polluted mouths and lives that refuse to conform to the holy law of God"? You feel uncomfortable with that? Show me from the Word of God where it's wrong.
When those came to John the Baptist and said, "What must we do to bring forth fruit for repentance?" What did he tell them? A bunch of general innocuous things? No sir, he said, "You soldiers, you know what your key sins are? Grumbling about your wages, taking advantage of your uniform. Now stop it! Be content with your wages. And you publicans, don't take any more than belongs to you." He went after their sins.
If some broad-shouldered All-American comes into this building tonight and says to me, "Preacher, I've begun to study my Bible, and I see I'm a sinner, and I'm lost and on my way to hell. What do I do?" I point him to Christ, to the way of a Savior who died for sinners, and then point him to the path of repentance. And when he says, "But man, what will that mean for me?" I'll tell him what it means. "It means you stop your whoring around and all the silly women who go after you like animals in heat. You're done with them. And the first one that makes an approach to you, you say, 'look girl, I'm done with that. My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.'" And then I'll tell him,
"Look man, from the time you were in the Pop Warner League, you were made a little god because of the size of your thighs, your neck, your shoulders, and your ability to butt a body across a line. And you've made that your god. Man, your god's got to die, and die here and now. And if you're asking me if you can go out and worship that god on a day set apart by the living God for His public worship--no! Repent of your profaning of the Lord's Day."
If he says, "But man, I don't know what to do," I'll say, "You've got a good broad back. Dig ditches till you can do something more noble. You can dig them. I dug ditches to pay my tuition to get some tools to go to the ministry." And I'm sick and tired of athletes saying, "I've got this ability to bury the offensive tackle. I've got this ability to bury the halfback." Somebody else may have the ability to blow people's brains out at three miles--a beautiful marksman. How does he sanctify that for Jesus? This wooly-headed thinking--there's very little place for cynicism and sarcasm, but there is a place. And I believe it's right here. O, the apostasy of an evangelicalism that is afraid to call people to a life of radical discipleship.
Not only is it seen in the message but in the climate of the church life itself. According to the Scriptures (and would that I had time to develop this through the early chapters of Acts), that which characterized the church in the flush of the outpouring of the Spirit was the presence of God. "Fear came upon all. They were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit. They were all of one accord. No man dared join himself to them, but the Lord added such as should be saved. And they were walking in the fear of God and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. And the disciples were multiplied." Those were some of the descriptive phrases of the church in its period of great blessing.
And what is our decadent evangelicalism marked by now? They have the mentality that when sinners come in, we ought to make them feel at ease and comfortable. So the minister stands up and says, "It's lovely to have all you lovely people here. You're lovely; we're lovely. Everybody turn around and shake hands. Have a little chit chat. We don't want you to be uptight and think that religion is something to be serious and sober. We're a lovely bunch of people." Then they have a little chorus, a little entertainment, a few solos, a few duets, and a few quartets. And I'm not saying that all special music is entertainment. Don't anyone go out and say that I said it. I didn't. Don't say that I did, or you're breaking the 9th commandment. I'm serious, because usually the only ones who would go out and say it are those for whom it is entertainment, and I touched on a raw nerve, and you don't like it. But the great majority of the so-called special music in evangelical churches is nothing but entertainment. You know the proof of it? Look at the Christian recording business. It's a multimillion even billion-dollar business. People want to be entertained with the world's mood and with the flabby, diluted lyrics that wouldn't convict a flea.
Paul says, "When the unbeliever comes amongst you, what should strike him?" 1 Corinthians 14:25: "And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth." What should be the dominant characteristic of our public gatherings? Whether the expression is the exuberance of holy joy, whether it is the more sober spirit of holy mourning, whether it is the intense spirit of rapt attention to the Word of God in the full range of holy emotions (and the Bible recognizes the full range), above all else, this is what should grip us: it's not just a bunch of people in the same place singing the same songs, hearing the same preacher. There is a presence. God is in the midst of His people. That thought rarely, if ever, enters the average evangelical church. So long as the bills are paid, and the people are happy, and the program is up to snuff, all is well. My dear people, how long will God bear with this?
That's what happened in Israel, didn't it? Read the 1st chapter of Isaiah. Read the 58th chapter of Isaiah. They were keeping all their meetings and even had more than God required. They had their feast of the new moons. They had their fast days. They were offering up multitudes of sacrifices until God says, "What unto Me is the multitude of all of this orthodox in framework, orthodox evangelical worship? I'm tired of it. Get rid of it. Wash you; make you clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before your eyes. Learn to do good; cease to do evil." And I believe if there's a word of God to the apostate evangelical world in our day, it is that. Away with all of our ceremonies and committee meetings and slick promotionalism, and back to the place where we're on our faces saying, "O God, come to Your temple."
You know the first thing He'll do if He comes? He'll come and purge the sons of Levi that they may offer a sacrifice in righteousness. He'll come like He came to that temple in Jerusalem when with eyes like fire, He brought those strands together into a scourge. And the Son of God--I say it reverently--went into a holy rage. And you read those verbs in the original, and they are vigorous and almost frightening. He was like a madman. It says He threw over the changers' tables. He drove out the oxen. Can you imagine a huge ox turning around and seeing this man coming with burning eye and a scourge. The poor ox's eyes get as big as saucers, and he runs out the temple door. "My Father's house shall be a house of prayer: intimate, vital, soul-communion with God. You've made it everything else." And sad to say, one can get almost anything he wants in the average evangelical church but the sense of the presence of God.
It's not a pleasant picture, is it, dear people? But I say, this is our great second national sin. What do we do? We cry to God. We start in our own hearts. You leaders here, you start with your own fellow overseers. We start with searching and trying our ways. We cry to God. We pray that God may yet send Jonahs to the Ninevehs of our land. And I use that incident purposely--non-covenanted nations. And someone came out of the covenant nation (the parallel in our day would be someone out of the church) who addressed the pagan city. And from the king down to the animals, they put on sackcloth and ashes and had a national repentance and restoration to righteousness. It doesn't mean every individual was saved. But many were because Jesus said they're going to rise up on the day of judgment and condemn the people of His own generation. Many were saved, and many others had their sins checked. And for three generations, the judgment pronounced upon Nineveh was withheld as a fruit of that revival. I commend the book of Jonah for your prayerful study as part of the answer for what we ought to pray that God will do in this dark and needy hour.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 9:14:37 GMT -5
Christ: The Hidden Treasure by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached November 5, 2000
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Now may I encourage you to turn in your Bibles to the 13th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. And I shall read selected portions from this chapter. And I trust the rationale behind that selection will become clear as we move into the exposition of the last two verses. Verses 1-3a: "The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side. And great multitudes were gathered together unto Him, so that He went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. And He spake many things unto them in parables...."
Verses 10-17:
"And the disciples came, and said unto Him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: for this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them."
Verses 34-36:
"All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake He not unto them: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and His disciples came unto Him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field."
Verse 44:
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it."
Those of you who regularly attend this place of worship know that last Lord's Day morning I completed the consecutive expositions of the book of 1 Peter. I do have a desire that I trust will issue in practical performance to bring several summarizing messages on that letter that has become very precious to many of us. But due to the disruptions of vacations and weddings and the changing complexion of the congregation, I'll probably bring those gleanings on 1 Peter in the first few Lord's Day evenings in September. But this morning we're going to consider two of the parables that are found here in Matthew 13. As I've prayerfully reflected on how best to use these two Lord's Day mornings closest to the two weddings, my mind has been drawn to these two parables of our Lord Jesus, parables which I have been fascinated with for years but upon which I've never preached, never made any effort to expound them. Well, God willing, this morning and then next Lord's Day morning I will make an effort to open up and apply these two parables: the parable of the treasure hidden in the field and the parable of the pearl of great price.
Many of you would know that these two parables come in a context in which as Matthew records this aspect of the ministry of our Lord, he gathers together and opens up or records seven of the parables spoken by our Lord at this time. They are ordinarily called kingdom parables. And in them the great subject of the kingdom of God is central. In two of the parables, the sower and the soils and the sowing of the good seed and the bad seed, we have some indication of how the message of the kingdom is received. It is as seed sown. Some falls on good ground; some falls on not so good ground. And the kingdom advances as the message of the kingdom is proclaimed. And the response is along the lines of the differing soils described by our Lord. And then in the parable of the dragnet and possibly that of the wheat and the tares, our Lord is showing the mixed character of the kingdom and also the future purification of the kingdom. The tares will be gathered in bundles and cast into fire. And the bad fish that come up in the dragnet will be discarded, and the good fish gathered and brought into the kingdom in its future and consummate glory. And then in the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven, we are taught something of the growth and the development of the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, the smallest of seeds, yet it grows into this tree which is able to become home to the birds of the air. And a little bit of leaven put into the flour effects the whole lump. Here we are taught something of the growth and development of the kingdom. And then in these two parables: the parable of the treasure hidden in the field and the pearl of great price, our Lord is underscoring something of the preciousness of the kingdom for all who are brought into that kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure. And the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant seeking goodly pearls.
Now in any initial reading of the two parables, it is evident that in a real sense they are twins, not identical twins; they are fraternal twins. They have many things in common, though they are not identical twins. The common denominators are obvious. In both cases, a single object of supreme value is found. Look at your Bibles and see the language: "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found...the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: who, when he had found...." There's one of the common denominators of both parables. In both cases, a single object of supreme value is found. A treasure is found; a goodly pearl is found. Furthermore, in both cases, the single object of supreme value is acquired at the price of the total liquidation of all other assets. Look at the text: "...which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field...when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it." There's the second common denominator. In both cases, the single object of supreme value, whether the treasure or the pearl, is acquired at the price of the total liquidation of all other assets. Those are the two obvious common denominators in these parables.
And then there's one major factor of difference easily observed. In the first parable, the treasure is discovered unsought and unexpectedly. The text says, "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found...." He found it. How he found it we don't know. We'll come to that in a moment when we try to grab hold of the basic facts of the parable. But in the parable of the hidden treasure, the man finds a treasure. He comes upon it unsought, unexpectedly. But in the parable of the pearl of great price, there is a merchant, we are told, seeking goodly pearls. This man's business is pearls. He thinks pearls, he eats pearls, he sleeps pearls. He's seeking goodly pearls. He's not one of these who's just trying to find some junk pearls and pass them off as good stuff. He's a serious pearl merchant. Now I've never met a serious pearl merchant except here in the text. But you see, there is a marked contrast. In conjunction with the treasure, it is found. In conjunction with that one pearl of great price, it comes in the course of a life taken up with pearls. Here's a man seeking goodly pearls, and in that pursuit, he comes upon this one pearl of great price.
Now before we're done considering the instruction which these two parables are meant to convey, we'll address the significance of both the common denominators and that fundamental distinction between the two parables. But at this time we take up verse 44. And I'm going to attempt to expound and apply this parable under this title: the hidden treasure: what is it? and have you found and acquired it? And I want to press the rational for that title. Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is like...." In other words, wherever the dynamics of the kingdom of heaven are operative, whenever someone is born of the Spirit and seeks and enters the kingdom, whenever the King of grace conquers one of His subjects and brings them into the kingdom of grace and power, what is said of this man who found a treasure will be true of every single individual who gets into the kingdom. And according to my Bible, you're either in the kingdom of grace and power, or you're in the kingdom of darkness and death that will lead to hell. And I want us to come to this parable, not with an innocent curiosity alone (what does it mean?), but with a felt sense of the tremendous personal interest each of us has in this parable. If you are not the man who's found a treasure, you're not in the kingdom. No place for idle curiosity or even mere innocent curiosity (What does it mean?) No, I'm preaching this morning on the hidden treasure--what is it?--and with a passionate desire that you answer honestly this question: have you found and acquired it? That's the thing to which our text points. Having found it, he hid it, sold all that he had and bought the field in which the treasure was buried. The hidden treasure: what is it? and have you found and acquired it?
Alright, we begin then under our first heading: the basic facts of the parable explained. Our Lord in these parables takes the stuff of events and circumstances and commodities that would be well known by those of His own day. And for many of us, we've got to put ourselves back there and seek to get into their mindset. And when our Lord said, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the field," He was not talking about something that would be foreign to their knowledge and to their experience. Think of what it would be like before the days of a local bank where you could go down to rent a safe deposit box to put your valuables.
I remember back in 1974, I think it was, we came into a little bit of money from one of our relatives. And I received some counsel that I ought to put a little bit of it into gold. So I bought eight Mexican--I forgot what they were--gold coins at the time, I think, when gold was about $250 an ounce. I invested $2,000 in gold, and there it's been sitting since 1974 and isn't worth much more than that now. I'd like to go to the person who gave me that counsel. But be that as it may, I was able to take these valuable coins and put them in a safe deposit box, and I don't think have opened sometimes for years on end, except when I want an illustration. Then I bring them out.
But remember, back then there were no local banks with safe deposit boxes. Nor did they have heavy, thick, steal-lined safes that you could purchase and keep somewhere in your basement that weighed 500 pounds and put your valuables in there. If you had something very valuable, it was not unusual to take that commodity, whatever it was (coins, jewelry) and to put it in a substantial, thick wooden box and bury it in some obscure place. Some who have studied the times of our Lord said that wealthy men would be advised to split up their assets like that into three major divisions, and one of them would be buried. Well, apparently what happened in this case is someone had valuables called a treasure. (And this is the standard word used for treasure. The wise men came and "opened their treasures"--same word. "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, but...treasures in heaven.") And a man put his treasures in a box and buried it.
And then Jesus tells us that a man found it. Who was the man? He's undesignated. Whose field was it? It's undesignated. What was he doing in that field? We don't know. It just says, "which a man found." Now he may have been a hired hand to the man who owned the field who may have been a distance relative to the one who put the treasure in the field. The Lord doesn't give us all these details. Now, whether he was following behind his mule that was drawing the plow, and he heard the plow bite into something substantial, and he told the mule to stop, we don't know. One thing we know, he didn't own it. He found the treasure; he opens up the box and sees there's real substantial treasure. Once he discovers it, he looks over this way and that way, as he wants to make sure no one else is privy to his discovery, and he then hid it. He either buries it in the same place. Or perhaps feeling that if people see the dirt disturbed around there, they might get suspicious and come and dig around it, so he may have looked this way and that way to find some other place. All we are told is: after discovering the hidden treasure, he himself hides it. And he hides it with a view to doing something.
Look at the text--and the words of our Lord Jesus are very precise: "...and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field." A very strange construction. When the Lord says, "for joy," it means trauma from the very posture and out of the context. I don't know if this person had a garage sell. I don't know if he advertised in the local paper or went to the local supermarket where they pin announcements and said, "Everything for sale, cheap, first bidder, first come, first serve." I don't know, but one thing is clear: he was whistling all the while he was selling. It says in his joy he goes and he sells. So you can't think of him saying, "I've got a treasure there in the field, but man O man, I've had this particular set of tools, this particular set of golf clubs, and I've got this clock that was given to me by my great grandfather--boy, I don't know if the treasure's worth it." No, it says in his joy he goes; in his joy he sells. And he comes whistling up to the walk of the owner and says, "You know that field over there? I want it." It doesn't tell us whether they dickered, whether they bargained, whether he had to give every last cent he had--I don't know. All it says is that he sold all he had and he struck a bargain. And that day when he walked away, he had title to the field.
Now then, having ascertained the basic facts of the parable, what is the central truth of the parable? "The kingdom of heaven is like...." And in what does the central likeness consist? And you don't say, "Was it right for him to hide the treasure once he found it? What about the ethics of what he did?" Forget it. It has nothing to do with the central truth of the parable. You don't get locked up in all the little details and say, "This and that must have significance." No, "the kingdom of heaven is like...." In some ways, it's like a sower who goes out to sow. The parable doesn't tell you everything about the kingdom you need to know. But it does tell you how the kingdom is advanced by sowing the seed of the Word. It tells you that it will meet with a different reception. Some will receive it like hard packed wayside soil, some like shallow rocky soil, some like thorny soil, and some like good soil. Is that the only and the extensive teaching on the kingdom? No, it teaches certain aspects of the truth of the kingdom. Well, likewise, when our Lord is committed to underscore the preciousness of the kingdom and how it becomes precious to all the subjects of the kingdom, He is not giving us an exhaustive, comprehensive dissertation of the whole Biblical doctrine of the preciousness of the kingdom to all who enter the kingdom. He is highlighting certain aspects of it.
And what is the central truth of this parable? Well, certainly we can say with confidence what it is not. Certainly, our Lord is not teaching that the message and blessings of the kingdom of grace ought to be hidden from men. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hid in a field; therefore, let's hide the message and only give it to those who come and ask for it. No, in this very chapter, it is said that when Jesus saw the multitudes, He didn't retire. He got into a boat, pushed out from the land and preached to them. So the message of the kingdom is not to be hidden. Jesus said make disciples of all the nations. "Ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8). I have a divine warrant to stand here this morning and declare God's treasure chest of grace in Christ and say in Him there is forgiveness, reconciliation, pardon, adoption, the gift of the Spirit, the pledge of eternal life. It is all there treasured up in Christ. And He is there for you if you will have Him.
Certainly, the message of the parable is not that the blessings of the kingdom of grace ought to be hidden from men. Nor is it that the blessings of the kingdom can be purchased by the currency of our own works. It says that he sold all that he had and bought the field, so he paid for the treasure. The treasure was the reward of his payment. Therefore, if we bring enough shekels, God will give us the blessings of the kingdom and all that is in Christ the King. No, that would contradict this very chapter again. When Jesus is telling His own disciples why the parables conceal truth from the multitudes and reveal truth to His own, He says in verse 11, "Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given." It is given unto you, not because you are more clever, not because you have something of worth which you presented to God and purchased this privilege. It is given. Philippians 1:29: "For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for His sake." The first Beatitude: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The first thing God does to a sinner is strip him and bring him to the place where he realizes he has nothing, can do nothing, and can conjure up nothing to present to God as the reason why he ought to be pardoned and forgiven and taken into God's kingdom as one of His cleansed and forgiven subjects. No, the central truth of the parable has nothing whatsoever to do with any notion that the message of the kingdom ought to be hidden, that we can, by some currency of our own works, earn the blessings of the kingdom.
It is true that, as with all the parables, there is a central, dominate, all-embracing truth illustrated. And the crucial issue in understanding it is having at least a little understanding of what Jesus meant when He said, "The kingdom of heaven is like...." What is the kingdom of heaven? Now some have asserted that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God are two different things. Folks, I don't mean to be unkind if there's anyone sitting here who has believed that, but that is shear unbiblical nonsense. In a passage such as Matthew 19:23-24, Jesus uses the terms interchangeably in the very same context. In speaking of the rich young ruler, as we generally describe him, Jesus said to His disciples, "Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Jesus uses the terms interchangeably. And when you study certain passages in Matthew and see their parallels in Mark and Luke where Matthew says, "kingdom of heaven" (and for good and wise reasons, which we'll not go into), Mark and Luke will say, "Kingdom of God." Kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God are one and the same kingdom. And when we turn to our Bibles, we realize that whatever the kingdom of God is, the dominate emphasis in the New Testament is that the kingdom comes when the King Himself comes.
Look at Matthew 3:1-2: "In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, and saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And how did the kingdom of heaven come to be at hand? Because the King Himself was now going to present Himself in His public ministry. Shortly thereafter, Jesus is baptized, and we read in chapter 4, verse 17: "From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." It is at hand in the presence and Person and work of the King of grace, the Lord Jesus. And so when He commissions the twelve, He says,
"That's what you're to go out and preach. I'm giving you power to cast out demons, heal the sick, and raise the dead. And these are to be validations that the King has come in regal power to invade the kingdom of darkness with which sickness and demonic possession and death are associated. You go in My authority and in My power. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons. And this is what you are to preach...."
Matthew 10:7-8: "And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils." You see the sense of what the kingdom is. The King has come. We come in His name and in His authority. The kingdom of darkness is going to yield before the King who has come to establish His kingdom. And then when the seventy are sent out, you find the same emphasis in Luke 10:8-9. And when we come to the book of Acts when Paul summarized his preaching, he summarizes it as the preaching of the kingdom. Look at Acts 20 for our final verse. Paul summarizes three and a half years of ministry among the Ephesians and tells them the disposition in which he served the Lord. Verse 20:
"And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more."
When Paul preached repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus, when he testified the Gospel of the grace of God, he was preaching the kingdom. The kingdom has come in the person of the King and all of God's gracious disposition toward sinners in that King of grace, the Lord Jesus. And that's not an exhaustive description of the Biblical doctrine of the kingdom. I must only touch on this basic element that we might feel the weight of this parable.
Now with this understanding that the kingdom of heaven is the rule of God in grace and power connected with the Person and through the work of the Lord Jesus, what is the central truth of our parable? "The kingdom of heaven is like...." When the rule and reign of grace in the Person and work of the Lord Jesus comes to terminate upon a man, upon a woman, upon a boy, upon a girl, "the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field." I believe with all my heart this is the central teaching of the parable. You might express it in different words. I claim no divine inspiration for the words that I use. But words like this similar to them that capture the essence of it--here is the central truth of the parable: the discovery of the great worth of Christ and the salvation that is in Him will always cause a sinner to joyfully dispense with anything and everything that would keep him from possessing Christ and the salvation that is offered to us in Him.
Now let's see if that fits the parable. "The kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field." The treasure is Christ and all that is stored up for sinners in Christ, the King of grace. And as far as this man is concerned, the field is useless. It has no more worth than a means to earn his living, however he was using it, until he discovers the treasure. The discovery of the great worth of Christ and the salvation that is in Christ--what will it do? It says, "...and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field." When the sinner discovers the beauty and the worth and the treasures of grace in Christ, he is ready in the joy of that discovery to dispense with anything and everything that would keep him from possessing Christ and the salvation offered in Him. This man may have had deep, long-term emotional ties to an old grandfather's clock in his living room. But once he got enamored with the treasure, away with grandpa's clock. He may have had rings from a grandmother and a great-grandmother of great value, that before he discovered the treasure in the field, he might periodically sit down and look at his assets and the things that had tremendous emotional and historical significance in the family lines. They were precious to him until he found something more precious. Then out they went in the first garage sale. Isn't that what the text says? In his joy--don't miss that--he goes and sells all that he has. He wants the field because the treasure's in the field, and he knows he can't have the treasure without the field. Nothing is important now but the field in which the treasure's found.
That's the way the kingdom comes. It comes to us who, as sinners, have a thousand idols in our hearts to which we are bound with deep ties of affection. For some, it's sensual pleasure. For others, it's aesthetic pleasure. For others, it's the pleasure of being number one, putting others down, being first on the block. For others, it's this or that. And we have a thousand ties to a thousand things. And we walk by the field in which the treasure is found and count it a thing of no worth until the Spirit of God through the Word discloses to us the loveliness of Christ and the desirability of salvation in Christ. For the joy of that discovery, there is nothing that is not expendable. In his joy, he goes; he sells, and he buys. Jesus says the kingdom is like this. So if the kingdom has come to you, and if the kingdom has come to me, we have come to the discovery of the great worth of Christ and the salvation that is in Him. And it has caused us joyfully to dispense with anything and everything that would keep us from possessing Him and the salvation that is in Him. If that's not true of you, you're not in the kingdom. You say, "That's very narrow." Call Jesus narrow, for He said, "The kingdom of heaven is like...." Wherever it comes, whenever it comes, to whomever it comes, the kingdom of heaven is like this.
God has given us a very vivid illustration of this in a particular man. And if my definition of the heart of the meaning of this parable is accurate, then surely the analogy of Scripture will support it. I want you to turn to Philippians 3. I'm going to read the account of a man who tells you all that he had to which he had great ties of affection sentimentally, religiously. And he's going to tell us how, upon a certain discovery, he was ready to relinquish it all that he might have the treasure. Verses 1-9:
"Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. [These Judeaizers wanted to get all the gentiles circumcised and become kosher Jews. Paul very ineloquently calls them knife wielders--not very flattering. He hadn't gone to a user-friendly seminar.] For we are the circumcision [the true covenant people of God], which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more [if anyone thinks he has the stuff with which to purchase grace, to purchase God's favor and God's salvation, I've got a better stock than he does]: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me [these things were gain to Paul at one time. These were the treasures in his house. He had lots of them. He said, 'You think you've got some, I had more. These things were gain to me. I was tied to them with affection and trust and pride. They were my salvation. They were the significance of my life. These were the things that I lived for and was ready to die for. Now, what happened?], those I counted loss for Christ. [What did he discover that made the difference?] Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness [the blessing of a justifying righteousness], which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith."
Paul does not separate gaining the Person and gaining the privileges. They are inseparable in God's salvation. You can't snatch at the privileges while being indifferent to the Person. There's a man who found a treasure in a field. And most of the commentators are careful to point out, he illustrates very vividly that area of difference. He was not like the pearl merchant seeking goodly pearls. He was out seeking Christians to commit them to prisons and to death. And God said, "Enough." There was a blinding light above the brightness of the noonday Syrian sun; there was a voice out of heaven, and the treasure was there before him. He said, "When I saw the worth of the treasure, for joy, I sold all that I had. I count it but a pile of dung." What was his gain is now a pile of dung. Why? Because the Holy Spirit showed him the beauty and the loveliness of Christ and all the gracious salvation that is in Him. "The kingdom of heaven is like...." Paul is the great example.
The negative example is that wretched young man of Matthew 19. Look at the contrast. He comes to Jesus and he seems to be a merchant seeking goodly pearls. Verses 16-23:
"And, behold, one came and said unto Him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And He said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto Him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. The young man saith unto Him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet? Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect [complete], go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow Me."
What did Jesus offer him? He offered him treasure in heaven and His own companionship. He said, "Get rid of what you have and give to the poor. Don't put it in long term bearing CDs hoping you'll eventually go back--no, no. Don't sign it over in your will. You give it right now, and then you'll have treasure in heaven. And follow Me." What is the Lord doing? He's seeing--has this man been brought to the place where he's really discovered the treasure? He comes as a man who has great ties to his present treasures: his morality, his uprightness, his reputation, his influence--all these things--and at the head of the list is the money and all it can give him, all it has given him, all it could continue to give him. And the Lord Jesus is saying,
"You've come and called me good master. And I'm more than that. I'm God incarnate. I'm the King of grace, and eternal life is bound up in Me. Do you want Me? Have you seen in Me a treasure above the treasures that are there in your bank accounts, above the treasures in your titles to land, possessions, and property? If you have, you will with joy go and sell all that you have. And having a treasure that cannot be touched in heaven to come and Me as your companion now, it will be a no-brainer."
But what happened to him? Look at the passage: "But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions." He still saw his treasure in the things that he could touch and feel and fondle and turn into cash and influence. He didn't see Christ as the treasure hidden in the field, for whom he ought joyfully to get rid of all his toys that he might have eternal life in Christ. And the text says, "He went away sorrowful." Why? Because he didn't see the worth of the treasure. And Jesus didn't run down the road and say,
"Excuse me, young man, you know, I was really going for broke. I was hoping to get you both saved and surrendered with one big whack of the soul. I missed it, but look, if you're willing to believe I'm the Son of God and came from heaven to die for sinners, you'll be saved and go to heaven when you die. And hopefully down the road you'll learn to love Me enough, and you'll surrender to My Lordship."
No, no, Jesus did not butcher his soul by that wretched teaching. Jesus wasn't playing games with him. He said, "What shall I do to have eternal life?" And Jesus said, "Eternal life is in Me. I'm the treasure. Do you see in Me the treasure? Then get rid of your toys. Come, follow Me, and there will be eternal treasure in heaven."
"The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in a field." We go by Christ day after day. We go over Him, around Him, and we see nothing beautiful. But when the Spirit of God through the Word of God opens up the loveliness of Jesus and the fact that all the salvation we need and could desire is in Him, then for joy of that discovery, we sell all that we might have the field and the treasure that is in it.
Now having sought to open up the basic facts of the parable and the central truths of the parable, I want to close by making two crucial applications of the parable. The first is this: the parable exposes as utterly false the notion that some of the blessings of the salvation of Christ can be had without having Christ Himself on His terms. We can somehow sneak up on the box in the field and grab a goodie or two without getting rid of the toys in our home that we might buy the field in which the treasure's found. No, impossible. This takes all kinds of wretched faces in our day where people write books trying to show you can take Jesus as Savior and have your sins forgiven and be ready to die and go to heaven while you have never bowed to Christ as your Lord and as your Master. You can believe on the Lord Jesus but not be a disciple to Him. You can be saved but not fundamentally surrendered. You can be a true Christian but not a holy man or woman. That is all forms of saying you can have some blessings that are in Christ without having Christ Himself on His terms. There is no more wretched, destructive lie than that lie because it incases people in a false security. "O yes, I believe in Jesus. He's the Son of God who came from heaven and died for sinners. I'm trusting in what He did on the cross to take away my sins." My friend, you have never seen any beauty or loveliness in Christ that's caused you for joy to throw open the whole soul and being of who and what you are and embrace Him to be to you all He promises to be to sinners who trust Him and receive Him on His terms. You see how the parable exposes this notion as false.
The treasure's in the field. The man had to sell all he had to get the field. And he got the field on the owner's terms, not his own. No evidence that he bargained. No evidence that he was struggling--"Well, I've got to give up my boat. No, I've found the treasure; everything I have is expendable for the sake of the treasure." My Bible says, "God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." All of God's salvation and all of its glorious facets are stored up in Christ: forgiveness, reconciliation, justification, the gift of the Spirit, the promise of eternal life, adoption. All of them are in Christ. And Christ comes to us in the Gospel as the treasure. And He says, "You want Me? If you want Me on my terms, you have everything that is in Me." What are His terms? "If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." "And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me." "How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?" Christ's terms are that you've seen in Him a loveliness, a beauty, a desirability through the preaching, teaching, and reading of the Word of God, good books--whatever means God is pleased to use. You've discovered Him to be the treasure, and you haven't dickered with Him. Like Saul of Tarsus when he discovered the treasure, he didn't pray a long prayer in that initial discovery; it just was, "Who are you, Lord?" "I am Jesus." He says, "What will you have me to do?" Saul of Tarsus up till now has made the plans, set the agenda: "From here on, Lord Jesus, I'm Yours."
Some of you kids who are struggling, this is the real issue. You deny nothing you've heard about Christ. But if you're honest, you have to say, "There's an awful lot I haven't tasted in this world, and it still looks so attractive to me; it still looks so desirable. I'm not sure if I want to come into my adult years never having known a rib-crushing embrace from a young man and a passionate kiss on my lips and perhaps never to have it if God doesn't give it to me in a marriage partner." You've not settled that. You really think you might miss something in Christ if you never know what it is to have a rib-crushing, passionate embrace. You go right down the line: to have this, to have that, to experience this, to experience that.
"The kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field [present tense verb to make it live before us]." We see the man whistling all the way as he disposes of goods, comes with his bag full of money, whistling up to the owner's walk. You don't know anything of that. And that's why you're so miserable. Your conscience has been conditioned not to be comfortable in crass worldliness, but you've not discovered a beauty in Christ that has captivated you and makes Him precious and makes a life of obedience a delight. You're of all people most miserable. That's the problem with some of you. And if you're honest, you'll say, "Pastor, now I don't know why God led you to take this to anybody else, but that's my problem." And I plead with you, own it, face it--that's the issue. You need to cry to God that He would, by His Spirit, do what Paul says He does whenever He brings someone in the kingdom.
2 Corinthians 4 is another passage that is an excellent commentary on this parable. Paul says, "But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." The devil doesn't want a Gospel that radiates the beauty and the loveliness and the glory of Christ to break upon your soul. Paul says, "For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Paul says, "It wasn't the light in the Syrian sky that was the instrument of my conversion. It was the light shed upon my darkened heart. And when the light broke in, it illuminated the face of Jesus, and I've never been the same." That's it, and that's what you need. You need to cry to God that He would, by His Spirit through the Word, make Christ the treasure discovered in His beauty.
Many years ago, I heard an Indonesian preacher, and in his broken English, he was preaching on this theme out of the experience of Abraham. And he said, "God says, 'go,' and heart don't want go. But when I see Him, heart go." His words came back to me in my preparation at my desk yesterday. This parable exposes as utterly false the notion that some of the blessings of the salvation of Christ can be had without having Christ on His terms.
And my second application is this: this parable exposes as utterly false the notion that to possess Christ on His terms is to consign oneself to a joyless life. The passage is clear. And I confess, and so often happens for those of us who preach the Word would acknowledge, there are things we pass over again and again until we have to preach on the passage. And I never saw how pivotal is this little phrase "and for joy." For the joy thereof he goes, he sells, he buys. That's it, dear friends. God does not deliver us from our soul-damning idols to make us a bunch of sorrowful, doleful, wretched creatures. He delivers us to bring us into the joy that we were meant to know as creatures in fellowship with the living God. "The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking," Paul says, "but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."
I hope some of us who have been in the way awhile are a constant refutation of this lie of the devil to you young people. You see your life before you; you see all your options. And you see the self-denial; you see the strict terms of following Christ closely in a world that is hostile. And you see your parents; you hear their acknowledgement of the struggles with sin. And the devil would love to come along and say, "Is that what you want for your life--this joyless, struggle, wrestle existence?" I hope that some of us are a living monument that that's a bunch of bunk. I hope you see in us, amidst our struggles and our acknowledged wrestlings and the rest, a joy and a vibrancy that you know is rooted in Christ and the things we have in Him. And in your heart of hearts, you know it isn't fake. You know it's real. It's yours if you will have the treasure. It's there in the field. Sell all and buy it. There it is available. "The kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field."
Isn't it interesting that the program that has knocked the charts into all kinds of disarray is Regis' "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" It's amazed people. And now several other stations have come up with imitations of it. What lies behind all this obsession? Millions of people, night after night, sit there watching "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" What lies behind that? It's the lie that the treasure's in dollars and what dollars can procure. We've got a nation that's bought the lie. That's why the lottery is so popular. "If I can hit the lottery--what's at the end of that lottery; hitting the right number is the pot of gold." No, my friend, the treasure is not to be found on Regis' show or in a local store that sells the lottery ticket. Christ is the treasure and all that your soul will ever need to be right with God now and to be filled with all you can handle now and to look forward that the best is yet to come. It's in Christ. O my friend, go to Him. Cry that God will enable you to see that in Christ are hidden all the treasures, Paul says, of wisdom, knowledge, pardon, forgiveness, fulfillment, direction, purpose--name it, it's in Him.
I come around full circle to where I began. The hidden treasure--what is it and have you acquired it? No one can acquire it for you, kids. Mom and Dad can't. In their prayers, they would, but they can't. You personally must acquire it. Have you acquired it? If not, why not? And if not, when? "Behold, now is the day of salvation. Today, if you hear His voice, harden not your heart."
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 9:15:54 GMT -5
Are You Prepared to Die? by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached May 1, 2000
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Those of you who were present at our prayer meeting on Wednesday will know that yesterday morning found me discharging a very solemn responsibility. And that responsibility was leading the funeral service and the subsequent intermit of a former friend and once regular attender here at our assembly. The man moved to Tennessee several years ago, got up this past Tuesday morning to go out and work in his yard. Though an eighty-two year old man, no signs that death was anywhere near at his doorstep, and yet by Tuesday night he lay dead in a funeral parlor. And as I was privileged to take that funeral yesterday and stood to minister the Word of God to those who gathered in that funeral home with an open coffin and the earthly remains of this man some ten feet from me as I stood to speak, and as I stood by his coffin at the graveside just a few minutes after the conclusion of that service and realized that within minutes after leaving that graveside, that coffin with those earthly remains would be let down into the cold earth, I believe I had a sense of the answer to my prayers as to what I should preach upon tonight.
As we look back over the past months, and much of the ministry, when not in the regular course of preaching through 1 Peter, has been focused on trying to minister to distressed and at times confused and distraught sheep, I realized in anticipating this Lord's Day evening and the privilege and responsibility that would be mine to preach, that it had been some time since there has been a ministry of the Word of God which focused exclusively upon the great central issues of what it is to be right with God, those central fundamental issues of death and of judgment and of the necessity of repentance and faith. And a funeral has a very rude way of rattling one's cage and reminding us that at the end of the day, this is the end of all the living. And barring the coming of the Lord Jesus, someday I will lie lifeless in a coffin while someone preaches at my funeral. And someone will stand at the head of my coffin and say, "We commit the earthly remains of our brother to the ground in the hope of the resurrection." And dear children and young people, barring the coming of the Lord Jesus, someone will stand by your coffin and preach. And someone will stand by your coffin when you are also laid in the cold, damp earth. And realizing that I may never preach again, though I have no premonition, but neither do I have any assurance from heaven, I'm constrained this night to preach to you with the shadow of yesterday's events very much cast over my own spirit. And I want to do so under this topical sermon head of three facts and one important question. And I plead with each one of you, that if you've ever made an effort to listen with both ears, not only externally, but the internal ears of the soul, and if you have any reason to believe that I am something other than a professional cleric (I don't do what I'm doing because it's the only thing I can do to make a living), if you have any sense, dear children, young people, and adults, that I'm not playing games when I'm in this pulpit or doing my professional clerical thing, then I plead with you to give me an earnest and a fair hearing as I seek to speak into the depths of your own soul as we consider these three facts and the one important question that grows out of them.
Fact number one: life is brief and uncertain. Think first of all of those Scriptures that underscore the reality of the brevity of life. In Psalm 90, the great theme of which is Moses the man of God contrasting God's eternity with man's transitory and temporal existence upon the earth. Moses writes in verses 9 and 10, "For all our days are passed away in Thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away." Here Moses says that if we even live out our seventy or our bonus years that make us eighty, yet this life is soon gone. Eighty years soon gone, and we fly away.
Or take the testimony of the patriarch Job. And it's particularly significant because these words come in a setting in which Job is greatly distressed with physical discomfort, emotional trauma. And he says in chapter 7, verses 4 and 5 of the book of Job, "When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day. My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome." Here is man in tremendous physical trauma, a time when he wonders when a night will pass. He's full of tossing and turning. Yet in the midst of a situation in which time seems to pass so slowly--and some of us have known that kind of intense physical trauma when we have lain upon a bed of pain and looked at a clock in the middle of the night and thought for sure we must have misread the clock when it showed that only five or ten minutes had past, and we thought surely an hour and five or ten minutes had past--yet in that setting look at what Job says in verse 6: "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle [swifter than that block of wood that goes through the various strands on the weaver's loom, that shuttle that is thrown back and forth in the process of weaving]." He says, "My days, in spite of the trauma of pain and the tossing to and fro throughout the night, are swifter than a weaver's shuttle." Look at verse 7: "O remember that my life is a breath." Think of it, how many breaths have you breathed sitting here tonight? You inhale; you exhale. Job says, "That's my life." It's one inhalation followed by an exhalation. "My life," he says, "is a breath." The brevity of life. Moses the man of God highlighted it. Job underscored it.
Look at what the old man Jacob says in Genesis 47. He's 130 years old, and yet looking back upon that lengthy life, notice how he views it from the perspective of the terminal point of that life. Verse 9: "And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage." He lived to be 130, yet compared with the earlier patriarchs, he said, "I've not attained to their length of days. My 130 have been few." He came to the painful awareness of the brevity of life.
And how clearly this is underscored by James in James 4:14. Writing to people who are careless and presumptuous about the future he says, "Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." You are a vapor. You know what a vapor is, don't you, kids? On that cold wintry morning, Dad starts up the car and out of the exhaust pipe comes that what you might call steam. It's that visible vapor. And it looks so thick that on a real cold morning you think you could go out and grab a hunk of it. By the time you got out of the house to go out and grab it, it's gone. It appears for a little time and then it's gone. Or think of the contrail of a jet passing high above us in stable upper air. And sometimes those contrails are as straight and seem to be as dense as something solid. And you look up and see that vapor, and you get involved in what you're doing. You look back in a few minutes and that solid line has been broken up. Look up in a few more minutes, and it's utterly gone. God says that's your life and that's my life. It is a vapor that appears for a little time and seems to be so substantial and permanent, and yet it is but a vapor. It appears for a little time and then is gone.
Life is not only brief, but it is also uncertain. Proverbs 7:1: "Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." Now, would you argue with that? We can say, "I think I know what tomorrow will bring." And we listen to the weather prognosticators, and they give us their five day forecast. And we have a reasonable expectation given all of the modern technology that can track the direction and the speed of jet streams and cloud formations--and satellites pouring in information. And we have some reasonable idea of what the weather will be. We have reasonable expectations of the structure of our lives. And that's right and proper, but the text says you do not know what a day may bring forth. And you don't know. There's not a one of you so foolish as to mark yourself a public fool who would dare to stand tonight and say, "I can guarantee what the next twenty-four hours will hold for me." You know better than to do that. You've got enough sense not to mark yourself as a public fool. You and I do not know what a day may bring forth. This is not a Bible scare tactic. This is a statement of a simple, plain observable fact of life.
Do not boast of tomorrow, for you and I do not know what a day may bring forth. You see, emergency rooms don't keep specific hours. They are open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Why? Well, if you went to Chilton Hospital, or you went to any other local hospital and did an little interview of all the people in the emergency room and said, "How many of you expected to be in here." They'd look at you like you were crazy. They'd say, "Don't you see the sign? This is the emergency room. This is not prescheduled same-day surgery. This is not an admissions to three or four day surgical procedures. This is the emergency room. Do you think I knew this morning that some drunk was going to hit me in the car and I'd come in here with my neck out of whack?" Do you think my wife knew she was going to break her toe in the middle of the night two weeks ago simply stepping out of bed? She would have been one of those you could have interviewed at Chilton's emergency room two weeks ago today at 8:00 in the morning. No, it's an emergency room. Why? We do not know what a day may bring forth.
And James underscores life's uncertainty in that same context from which I quoted a moment ago. In James 4:13-14, he says, "Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow." Not only is life brief like a vapor, James says it is uncertain. Most people don't anticipate the aneurysm that in a moment of time takes them from active, intelligent, vigorous life down to death or to where they lie in a hospital bed like a vegetable. They don't anticipate that fall that may radically alter the whole pattern of their life for years to come. The people that in recent days have had all of their life's possessions taken away in a moment of time by the fierceness of a tornado that's come, as it were, out of nowhere, and in minutes has left an area in devastation. A lightening bolt that's left a family in Long Island homeless as it struck in such a way that it ignited the home yesterday afternoon. These are not preacher's scare tactics. This is reality. Life is not only brief; it is uncertain. That person that this afternoon will lie choking in a restaurant on a piece of a $20 stake didn't anticipate the piece of gristle getting caught in the throat.
Life is brief, and life is uncertain. That's a fact, a simple, plain, straightforward, unadorned, non-scare tactic fact. Would you want to debate with that fact and still maintain any reputation of being a rational, reasonable human being? That's fact number one, true for all of us. Life is brief. Should we live to be 130 like Jacob, we would say, "Few as well as evil have been the days of the years of my life." You see, he's marking out life in its daily increments. Your life is a vapor that appears for a little time and vanishes away. You know not what shall be on the morrow.
Second fact: death is unavoidable and sometimes sudden. Death is unavoidable. Romans 5:12 states the fact: "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Spiritual death, the judgment of God upon a race that was piggy backed on Adam. The whole world comes under the sentence of death in Adam. And the visible, undeniable, indisputable result of that is that all men die physically: the great ones of the earth, the rich and the famous, the power brokers, the little obscure ones of all ages and all societies and all races and all social, economic standards and structures. Death is the universal reality of the human race as it now lies bruised and battered as a result of the fall of our first father.
Hebrews 9:27: "It is appointed unto men once to die." From the time you and I breathe our first breath in the delivery room at that hospital, only one thing can be said with absolute certainty about that little one with its piercing wail and its first lung fulls of air: he or she, barring the coming of Christ, will die. Once someone records your birth day, only one thing is certain: someone will record your death day. You say, "Pastor, we made the effort to come out to church on a Sunday, and we've got to be told such doleful, weighty words." My friends, smiling won't drive death away. Wishful thinking won't vaporize death. Death is unavoidable--utterly unavoidable for every single one of us.
And how we've been reminded of that. Some of us can remember when the teenagers with their buckskin shoes and their bobby socks were screeching and sighing and fainting when old "Blue Eyes" first hit the scene during the second world war. We are old enough to remember when Frank Sinatra was a little skinny kid out of an obscure town in New Jersey. And all of his fame and all of his influence and all of his power--when God said, "It's time to go, Frankie," he went. And there's nothing he could do. All the power brokers in Hollywood couldn't give him one extra minute--he died. And Princess Di with all of her money and all of her influence--when God said, "Your appointment has come, woman," she died. Death is unavoidable.
Sitting where you're sitting, one thing is true of you. One thing I can say and know that my prophecy will come true, barring the coming of Christ, every one of you from the youngest to the oldest is going to breathe your last. Somewhere, at some place, at some time, in some set of circumstances, someone's going to say, "He's gone. She's gone." That's reality. Don't stick your head in the sand and say, "If I don't think about it, it will go away." Death will not go away by ignoring its inevitability. It is unavoidable. You and I need to look ourselves in the mirror and say to ourselves, "John, Sally, Mary, Pete, Henry, Albert, what I see in that mirror is going to die."
Not only is death unavoidable, death is sometimes sudden and unexpected. Many times death comes as the spring of life gradually winds down. Many times death does come that way. That's what Moses observed in Psalm 90: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years...." Moses had seen a whole generation in the wilderness with the spring of life wind down and wind down, and one after another died. And one time I calculated how many deaths he saw per week through that wilderness wandering--a frightening amount of them. The tragedy is that so often if life ebbs out as the springs of life wind down, the faculties are so impaired or so occupied with the exertion simply to exist, that the ability to think of important issues is almost a physical and mental and psychological impossibility. So even if you knew you were going to live out your 80 years, how foolish it would be to avoid the serious thoughts about death and its sequel. However, the Word of God and human observation both declare that death sometimes does come suddenly and unexpectedly.
Can you think of the classic illustration of this in the Scriptures? You remember what our Lord taught in Luke 12? He described this wealthy fat cat all ready to retire and live the "good life" somewhere down in the posh retirement sections of Florida or out in some place around Phoenix, Arizona, one of the other retirement havens. And he had it all figured out. Verses 19-20: "And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. [You've worked hard. You've paid your dues. Now enjoy your golden years.] But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee." He hadn't factored in the possibility of a sudden, unexpected death. Apparently he had no pacemaker. Apparently there was no indication that his cholesterol levels were high, that he might be a sitting candidate for a stroke. He worked out three or four times a week. His cardiovascular system was in good shape. He watched his diet, kept his animal fat intake low, supplemented with necessary vitamins. He did everything to make himself think he was going to have a nice long period of his golden years, and God burst his bubble in one night. "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee." Death came upon him suddenly.
And the Bible is full of examples of this. And we see it with our own eyes in our own society in our own generation. Think of those--it says they knew not until the flood came and took them all away: children, teenagers, young adults, and old men and women. All but eight who were safe in the ark were suddenly swept away. Think of those men who went out to apprehend the prophet. They went out one day, polishing their buckles and their brass, and they're going to have some fun with the prophet of God. And fire comes down out of heaven in an instance and consumes fifty of them. Think of what's happened in our own day. Those kids who one minute are in a classroom laughing with their peers listening to their teachers, and the fire bell rings, and minutes later they're nothing but slaughtered carcasses out on the school playground. Death came suddenly, unexpectedly. The illustrations abound. These are not preacher's scare tactics, folks. This is reality. This is a fact. Not only is it a fact that life is brief and uncertain, but death is unavoidable and sometimes sudden and unexpected.
But then the third fact is this: that judgment is certain and irreversible. Judgment is certain. Hebrews 9:27-28: "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." The paradigm of a fixed and an inseparable relationship between the death of Christ and His coming in triumph for those on whose behalf He died. The inseparable, unbreakable bond between the death of Christ and the fruition of that death is the paradigm of the inseparable relationship between death and judgment. You see, so foundational is this inseparable relationship that it becomes an indisputable paradigm, a framework on which to establish this other reality. Judgment is certain.
Jesus stated it in unmistakable terms. He who is Truth incarnate said, "I speak only the words that My Father gives Me." Look at His words in John 5:28-29: "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves 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 damnation." Jesus said the hour comes in which all that are in the tombs shall hear His voice and shall come forth. And it's that truth that grips one when one stands by the open grave and realizes that, though that coffin is let down into the earth and though with the passing of time what is there in that coffin may be eaten by the worms, as surely as the grave diggers opened up the earth and the funeral directors place the coffin in that hole, the Son of God will speak, and all that are in the tombs shall come forth, including you, including me. Judgment is certain. Christ will call us from our graves to stand before Him. Look at His words in Matthew 25. Here, again, Truth incarnate is speaking. Verses 31-32: "When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory: and before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." Judgment is certain. You have that graphic description of it in Revelation 20 verses 15 and following in which John says,
"And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works."
The picture of a certain coming judgment. Judgment is certain. It is not a fable. It is not the invention of sick minds that want to oppress people with guilt trips. It is the reality of our ultimate destiny to stand before the God who made us in that final day of judgment.
And not only is judgment certain, but it is irreversible. Whatever occurs in the judgment is settled for all eternity. Here in the Matthew 25 passage, the Lord goes on to describe His activity, speaking to those who are blessed, speaking to those who are cursed--blessing upon the sheep, cursing upon the goats. Then we read in verse 46 at the conclusion of that passage: "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." The same word "eternal" is used with respect to punishment as is used for life. And as sure as that life is not only a quality of life but also a duration, so the punishment is not only a quality but a duration. The judgment is irreversible. Similarly in the Revelation 20 passage, it says that those who are condemned out of the books are cast into the lake of fire. And what will happen in that horrible reality set forth under the image is described in the earlier verses: the beast and the false prophet cast into that lake of fire; tormented forever and ever. It's a simple, simple reality. As death leaves you, the judgment will find you. And as the judgment finds you, eternity will hold you. Do you get that, dear people, do you get that? As death leaves you, the judgment will find you--no moral, no spiritual, no ethical change between death and judgment. And as the judgment finds you, eternity will hold you. That's a sobering reality--no escape from it.
I can remember as a little boy lying upon my bed, and though those were not the words that were in my head, that reality fastened itself upon my young soul. And I lay upon my bed many a night afraid to go to sleep, knowing that if I died in my sleep, as death left me, the judgment would find me. And as the judgment would find me, eternity would hold me. And I can remember thinking in my tortured little boy brain, "But, O God, forever and ever and ever--what is eternity? Forever and ever--surely, God, after so many years...." I thought as a child thought and tried to define and understand eternity in terms of the succession of blocks of time. And I can remember many a night falling to sleep distressed and terrified. You say, "What a horrible thing." No, my friend, I thank God for it because God was bringing my little boy mind in touch with reality. And the fact that you've been able to pillow your head night after night and year after year with no such thoughts is no credit to your good sense. It's a monument to the power of the devil to blind you to reality and to stupefy you and to benumb you and to paralyze all efforts to seek the Lord while He may be found and call upon Him while He is near.
There will be no systems of appeal in God's day of judgment. There will be no overturning of the verdict because of some discovered irregularity in the legal process. There will be no one to declare that the evidence that condemned you was somehow inadmissible. We read this morning of Him who judges every man's work without respect of persons. Dear children, young people, and adults, this is the third fact that I want you to contemplate and think upon for but a few moments: judgment is certain and irreversible.
Well, we've looked now at these three facts: life is brief and uncertain. Would you debate that? Would you want to prove that to be none fact? You say, "No, I can't deny that." That's a matter of common observation. And also, it is affirmed in the Scriptures. Death is avoidable and sometimes sudden." Would you want to say you're going to be the first one since Adam to find a way to cheat death? Do you really believe when utterly godless, purely mechanistic scientists and philosophers say eventually they're going to find the secrets that will let us perpetuate this life forever? You really don't believe that. You know better. No, death is unavoidable and sometimes sudden. And judgment is certain and irreversible. Those are the three undeniable facts.
And that leads to one simple, reasonable, personal important question that I would ask if I had the time, and you would give me the privilege of sitting down with you personally and sitting with every one of you here from the youngest to the oldest: in the light of these three facts, are you prepared to die? Very simple question. Are you, right now, sitting here tonight, prepared to die? Would you want to die, all other reasons being set aside for extending your life and just isolating this issue: what will death do with me? Will it release my spirit from this body to go immediately into the presence of Christ? To be absent from the body is to be home with the Lord. "I desire," Paul says, "to depart and be with Christ, which is very far much more better." That's a more literal rendering of the Greek. He piles up one thing after another: "It's much, much better." Would you be able to say, "Yes, I'm prepared to die, and death holds no terror for me." Are you prepared to die?
You say, "How can I be prepared to die? What is the heart of preparation for death?" Well, let me give you three texts of Scripture in answer to that question. First of all, preparation for death is found in a Person. It's not found in what you are, what you do, what you hope to do, what you've not done. But listen to this Person who speaks in John 11:25-26. "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die." Our Lord is using a play on words. He says, "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in Me, though he dies physically, yet shall he live." In the day of resurrection, he shall not only be called out of his grave; he'll be called out of his grave to everlasting life. "And whosoever lives and thus believes in Me shall never die." That is, he will never know death as the wages of sin. He will never know death as separation from God. He will never know death in the torments of hell. For all of that is in death out of Christ, Christ has swallowed up in His own death and in His own resurrection.
John Owen rightly entitled his work on the significance of the death of Christ, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. Christ took to Himself everything that is penal, everything that is judgmental in death, and He swallowed it up in His agonies upon the cross in His literal death when He said, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." And by His own resurrection, according to 1 Corinthians 15, He brought out of the tomb with Him in principle and in covenantal engagements of God the Father and God the Spirit all of His redeemed ones. And all who come to Christ and believe upon Christ--they need not fear death, for He says they shall never die. Yes, they may pass through the valley of the shadow of death. And they may experience death as separation of soul and body. But they do not die in the sense of the terrors of the law coming upon them for the wages of their sin. Christ has born the curse for us. He has taken all that God's justice demands because of the sins of His people.
A second text. How can we be ready to die? The answer's in a Person and believing in Him. Hebrews 2 gives us another strand of the answer. Verses 14-15: "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." You see, when the writer to the Hebrews penned these words, he assumes that people not given over to judicial hardness experience a form of bondage when they think of dying and standing before God in the nakedness of their sinfulness. And so they live under the fear of death. One of the tragedies of the paganising of our current American society is that multitudes have no fear of death. I didn't think that's possible, but I've interacted with enough people to believe that they really don't fear death. They have so imbibed a totally secular view of man and of life and of what it's all about. But the writer to the Hebrews speaks of those who through fear of death are crippled with this horrible bondage.
And how are we released from that? If I speak to some dear children for whom the thought of death is terrifying, to some who are closer to the end of your threescore and ten or your fourscore years, and you know that the next great crisis in your life is going through the rough door of death, and there is an element of fear and with it bondage. What is the answer of this text? It is to recognize that in the incarnate Lord of glory, the second person of the Godhead, who took to Himself flesh and blood; He took to Himself a true humanity in order that in that humanity He might destroy the one who has the power of death, the devil, to whom we sold ourselves when in our first parents we sinned and aligned ourselves with him. God came and broke up that alignment and said, "I will put enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman." Had God not injected that enmity, we would have all been the willing slaves of the devil forever. But Christ has come. The incarnate God has come. And through His own death, He has destroyed him that had the power of death so that believing in Him we are liberated from that crippling, carking bondage of the fear of death. The answer's in a Person who is incarnate deity who died to destroy the power of the devil himself.
And one third text is in Revelation 14, the text I preached on at the funeral parlor yesterday. When we ask the question, "How can I be prepared to die?", this text is very helpful in answering the question. Verse 13: "And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them." Blessed (perfectly happy, completely fulfilled with covenant life and blessing from the hand of God) are the dead who die in the Lord. That is, those who, when they come to the rough door of death, they do not come alone. They come in union with Christ. That's what "in the Lord" means. Blessed are the dead who die united to Christ (in Christ), bound to Christ. But you say, "How do I get into Christ? How am I bound to Christ?" From God's perspective, we are bound to Christ when by the Spirit of Christ we are made new. We are born again. We are quickened to life. We are made new creatures. From the human response perspective, we are bound to Christ when by faith we embrace Him as He is offered in the Gospel.
So as we come around full circle, having faced these three sobering facts: life is brief and uncertain, death is unavoidable and sometimes sudden, judgment is certain and irreversible. And in the light of those facts, we contemplate this important question: "Am I ready to die? How can I be ready to die?" The answer is in a Person who said, "I am the resurrection and the life," in a Person who is incarnate deity who by His death destroyed him that had the power of death that He might deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Those who are in Christ by faith--they and all of them are prepared to die. But they and they only they can contemplate their death as a blessing. Isn't it grievous when people just churn out all of this nonsense, regardless of a person's relation to Christ. If they've suffered a long, lingering death, people so lightly and in a cavalier way say, "Well, they're better off now. They're at rest." Not if they died out of Christ. Their fiercest agonies in this life are playthings to what they now and shall yet experience. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."
You see, dear children and young people, you may be able, in God's common grace, having surrounded you with loving parents, stable home, relatively good health to think life is very full without Christ. But I want to ask you a very simple question. If you knew you were going to die before this day was over, what comfort could you find in all the things that now fill up your soul and make you indifferent to Christ? Not much, could you? If you were lying on a death bed, would your friends standing around you weeping and holding your hand prepare you to stand before Almighty God? All of your ambitions and plans for the future, if you could materialize them before your own eyes and then touch them with your hands, do you want to cling to them as you go through the rough door of death? There's only one consolation in death, and that's to know that you cling to the pierced hands of the Son of God and that you are in Him by a real and lively faith as the old writers would say. You're united to Him who has already gone into the jaws of death and died death in all of its horrors and came forth in resurrection power and glory, and now says to all, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
As I was preparing the message, I thought of some of you dear children. You're in my arms every Lord's Day at the door, and your love for me is in your eyes. And I hope you read my love for you in my eyes and in my arms. And the last thing I want to do is to unnecessarily terrify you. Dear children, let me tell you what I used to tell my children. From time to time, I would be called out of bed, and one of the children would say, "Daddy, I've been thinking about God and my sins and dying and what would happen if I died tonight." And again and again I would tell them, "Jesus died for sinners; Jesus promises all who believe in Him are forgiven. No one ever dropped in hell trusting in Jesus. Are you ready to say here and now, 'Lord Jesus, I want to trust in You to forgive my sin'?" And without in any way "decisioning" them and making a monument to what they did, I just pointed them to Christ and said, "Pillow your head with peace if you're trusting in Jesus." And I can say that to any one of you children. If you are trusting only in the Lord Jesus to forgive you, death can do nothing but land you in the presence of Jesus. That's all it can do. It can just chase you up to heaven. That's all it can do--nothing more. But the question is: are you trusting in Jesus? Are you saying,
"Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner. I have nothing to present to you. I do try to obey mommy an daddy. And I do try to be a good girl, a good boy. But, O Lord, I know I'm not as good as I ought to be. I'm a sinner. And I know my first father, Adam, sinned, and somehow I was connected to him. And what he did affects me. And God, I know that I can't earn heaven by what I've done or what I am. But I thank You that You sent Your Son to die for sinners. And Lord Jesus, I trust in You and only in You."
You need not be terrified, children. Trusting in Jesus, no one young or old ever died, went to judgment, and was cast into hell.
But those of you who've come beyond those infant years, and you've begun to sort the directions and priorities of your life. You've sat in this place many a time and heard the Word of God preached. I want to ask you sitting here tonight, what grounds do you have to do anything other than go home tonight terrified unless you seek the Lord while He may be found and call upon Him while He is near? You do not know what a day may bring forth. Life is brief and uncertain.
As I was prayerfully considering how I can get inside your head to reason with you, my final perspective is this: suppose this next coming week you were to be the next living proof that life is uncertain. And I were to receive the unexpected phone call at my study that I received this past Wednesday: "Mr. Boonshire went out to work in his garden on Tuesday, and he dropped dead." Suppose the phone call came: "Pastor Martin, [put your name in there right now in your mind] was killed in an accident at work--on his on her way to this or that was struck by a car and suddenly dead." I want to ask you a simple question. What words of comfort from the Bible could I give were I asked to conduct your funeral? What words of comfort could I give to your mom and dad, to your husband, to your wife? What solid Biblical grounds of comfort could I give to say, "Mom/Dad, I know it's painful and grievous. All the hopes and plans suddenly shoved to one side by the intrusion of death, but listen, it is evident that [your name] was trusting in Christ, looking only to Christ, manifesting a vital attachment to Christ. Our loss is the Savior's gain." We said, "O Lord, I will that they be with us for a long time." But Christ was praying, "Father, I will that those You've given Me be with Me where I am." And His "I will" overruled ours. Could I give that consolation to your husband, to your wife, to your mom, to your dad? Do you see what I'm doing? I'm trying to get you to think seriously about the issue. Are you prepared to die? If not, I urge you to seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. And let him return unto the Lord, for He will have mercy upon him and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. He will multiply pardon.
May God grant that the shadows cast over my own spirit from that modest service in a funeral home yesterday will be shadows that will issue in life for some who sit here tonight and find that the Spirit of God through the Word has arrested you, and you say, "I must delay no longer. I cannot afford the luxury of playing Russian roulette with my never-dying soul. Outer darkness, weeping and wailing, gnashing of teeth--it's too serious to trifle with my soul." An incarnate God hanging on a cross, crying out in dereliction, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" His cry of triumph: "It is finished!" "These things will no longer be treated as common place by me. They will become the stuff that mean more to me in life than life itself." May God grant that it shall be so.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 15:21:15 GMT -5
An Ancient Recipe for a Happy Life by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached July 4, 1999
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Now as I've already indicated, our study in the Word of God this morning will find us in our consecutive expositions of 1 Peter at 1 Peter 3:10-12. But as we prepare our hearts and minds to consider this portion of the Word, I would ask you to follow as I read chapter 2, verses 11 and 12. And then I will read the entire paragraph within which our text is found.
"Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; having your behavior [honorable] among the Gentiles; that, wherein they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which they behold, glorify God in the day of visitation."
Chapter 3, verses 8-12:
"Finally, be ye all likeminded, compassionate, loving as brethren, tenderhearted, humbleminded: not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling; but contrariwise blessing; for hereunto were ye called, that ye should inherit a blessing. For, he that would love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: and let him turn away from evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears unto their supplication: But the face of the Lord is upon them that do evil."
There are some things which the average man of the world will not tolerate, and one such thing is phoniness among those who profess to be Christians. While they may mock, taunt, speak evil of real Christians who are living authentic Christian lives before them, they inwardly recognize their genuineness and may even and often secretly admire them for their consistency with respect to their life and their profession. However, when there's the slightest inconsistency between the profession of attachment to Christ and the manifested pattern of life, the worldling is very, very quick to make it plain that he will not tolerate such inconsistency. Furthermore, he'll use that inconsistency as a semblance of a reason to reject the claims of Christ and of the Gospel. It is for this reason that the Apostle Peter is also greatly concerned that there be no phonies among the believers in the five Roman provinces of Asia Minor to whom he writes this letter.
One of the prominent concerns of Peter's pastoral and apostolic counsel in this letter is the concern that believers live an authentic Christian life before the closest scrutiny of the unconverted who behold their life pattern. We see this emphasis in the verses I read to you from chapter 2. As Peter writes that they should abstain from fleshly lusts and have their behavior honorable, he said it is with this end in view: that, though nonbelievers accuse them of evildoing, they actually see their good-doing, their good works, and they inwardly know that they are authentic Christians regardless of what they're saying. So in the day of God's visitation, whether in grace or judgment--that's not the issue--what was really in there will come out. They will glorify God: "I've seen the real thing. That is the real thing. That is authentic Christianity."
Now as he brings to a close this second series of pastoral directives that we might call Peter's directives for authentic Christianity as he brings this second series of pastoral directives to a conclusion--and we know he's doing that from the language of verse 8: "finally," not finally with respect to the whole letter, but finally with respect to this section--he is concerned to give this general directive to God's people as they relate to one another (verse 8), God's people as they relate to those who are doing evil to them and speaking evil of them (verse 9). And then he buttresses the exhortation of verses 8 and 9 with this lengthy quote from Psalm 34.
Now I hope those who were here will remember what he does in verse 8 is to give us a very kind of shocking verbal twist, where he's been using imperatives and participles to give his exhortations. Here, when he turns to lay out how the people of God are to relate to one another, he gives us what I call this string of five pearls, all as adjectives, describing God's people and their relationship one to another, saying if you want to be an authentic company of the people of God, anyone should be able to describe you with these five adjectives. You are a like-minded, sympathetic, brotherly-loving, tender-hearted, humble-minded company of God's people." And then in verse 8, turning again to participles, he recognizes that, though by grace and power of Christ, they may grow in those graces that mark their life together, they are yet living before their unconverted neighbors and work associates and relatives, and that they will receive from them both evil in deed and evil in speech. And so assuming that some are doing evil to them and speaking evil of them, he gives what I call this very unnatural duty in verse 9: "not rendering evil for evil [no tit for tat-ism], or reviling for reviling [but that's not enough, the negative]; but contrariwise blessing [the most unnatural thing in the world]...." The natural thing is, "You hit my shoulder, I hit yours. You stick your tongue out at me, I stick mine out a quarter of an inch further. You speak evil of me, I'll give you back in spade." And Peter says, "No"--no rendering evil for evil, no rendering reviling for reviling, but contrariwise, to pray and to wish and to desire good upon the very head of those who do evil to you and who slander you and who revile you. You are to bless them. You are to have a disposition of heart that does not desire to take into your hands what is in God's hands ("Vengeance is Mine. I will repay, says the Lord.") No evil is to be done for evil, no reviling for reviling. That's the unnatural duty enjoined.
But then, in the last part of the verse, we have the unnatural duty justified. He says you were called to such a life of authenticity. Why should you do this? Notice the text: "...for hereunto were ye called." Unto this very thing you were called. When God laid hold of you in grace, called you out of darkness into union with His Son, He called you to walk in the way of His Son. And in the person of His Son, we see embodied this unnatural duty: "...not rendering evil for evil or reviling for reviling; but contrariwise blessing." He could pray from His cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." And furthermore, he says if you want a reason for this unnatural duty, it's not only that this is that to which you were called, but you were called into such a life that you might inherit blessings, not a blessing, but blessings. That you might inherit as the free gift of God's grace yet further blessing from God as you live out a life of blessing, even blessing your enemies. You've been called into such a life, and in the way of that life, God unfolds even greater blessing upon His own.
Now that is a brief review, and now we come to verses 10 through 12, beginning with a little word, "for". Peter now is going to answer a question that was raised by his readers. It's as though his readers would say,
"Peter, why pursue the graces of like-mindedness, sympathy, brotherly love, tender-heartedness, humble-mindedness in relationship to my brothers and sisters in Christ? Why commit myself in the strength of Christ and out of love to Christ to seek to perform this unnatural duty of not rendering evil for evil, reviling for reviling, but contrariwise blessing? Yes, you told us we were called to this, and in the way of fulfilling that calling, greater blessing. But Peter, can you give us a more fulsome, a more expansive, Biblical rationale for all of this?"
Peter says, "Yes, I'll be glad to accommodate you. And I will accommodate you by referring you to Psalm 34 and to that which David found in his own experience. David found a way in which one could so live as to love life, to see good days, to live with the confidence that God's eye was upon him in favor, and God's ear was ever open and bent to hear his cries. Is that reason enough to entice you more fully into living such a life in the strength of Christ? And in these verses quoted from Psalm 34, one of the old commentators said, "What we have in reality is an ancient recipe for a happy life." I like that. Sometimes what I read in the commentators doesn't stick, but that has stuck. I hope it has as much stickability with you.
Would you like an ancient, well-proven recipe for a happy life? You say, "Uh oh, while he was off to the conference, the pastor must have gone to a seminar on the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel. He's actually entitling the sermon, 'An Ancient Recipe for a Happy Life'." Yes, I am. I'm hiding behind that old commentator because he's hiding behind the text: "...for he that would love life and see good days...." I didn't write it. The Holy Spirit through Peter wrote it. And the Holy Spirit wrote it through Peter, taking his clue from David. And taking some liberties under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he even changed some of the wording of the original Hebrew text and the Greek text that was the working Bible of Peter and others at that time. And he sets before us a formula for a kind of life that's worth loving, a life made up of units of days that are good. And so what we have as the Biblical basis for these directives of verses 8 and 9 is indeed an ancient recipe for a happy life.
Now in opening up the text, I can do no better than to use the headings that I found in Edmond Hiebert, who has been a constant exegetical companion throughout this entire series. And he says the text breaks down under these three very natural headings: the dominating desire ("he that would love life and see good days"), the demanding activities ("let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: and let him turn away from evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and pursue it"), and then the divine response, first of all, to the one pursuing that life ("For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears unto their supplication") and the divine response to all others ("But the face of the Lord is upon them that do evil"). You see why I couldn't do any better than to borrow Hiebert's outline. So rather than strain my brain and waste time trying to come up with a better outline, I spent my time working on the nuts and bolts and meat and bones of the sermon. So we take up the text under those headings.
First of all, the dominating desire. As Peter brings forward a Biblical rationale for this kind of authentic Christian life in which God's people are marked by those five adjectives, marked by this unnatural response to evil done to them and railing against them, recognizing that this is the life to which they were called, and it puts them in the way of further blessing, the Spirit of God wants us to know that there is even more Biblical substance beneath the pursuit of such a life. And it is described, first of all, in terms of the dominating desire. We could render this part of the text as follows: "The one who is continually desiring to be loving life and to see good days...." Peter, under the guidance of the Spirit, took liberties with the original text. And some of the commentators do exegetical back flips and say, Peter didn't really alter the text. No, under the guidance of the Spirit of God, which was the unique province of an apostle, he could take the text of Scripture and alter it to give the mind of God to His people. And Peter is saying, "For anyone who has a continual desire to be loving life, I have a formula for a life that is worth loving. And the use of this word "he that would" or "he that is continually" or "the one continually desiring to be loving"--the way I can best describe it is in common, current sports jargon. Peter says, "the one who's focused upon loving life."
You guys involved in sports at all, you know when they interview someone between important games and say, "What are you planning to do with game five coming up?", the response is, "We've got to stay focused." And what they mean by that is, "We've got to cut out all secondary and tertiary issues and keep our minds on what we need to do to win the next game." Peter is saying the one who is focused--and focused upon what? The text says, "he that is focused", "he that is willing to be loving life". Now what in the world does that mean to be loving life? It means to have the kind of life that is worth loving. And the word he used for love means to love with intelligence and with purpose. "And he that would love life" with open eyes, considering all that life really is and all that life holds before the face of God and with reference to myself, with reference to time, with reference to eternity. He that would love life, not he that would love mere existence. There's all the difference between mere existence and life. Hell is eternal existence. It's not eternal life. There's a difference. And Peter says, taking his clue from Psalm 34,
"Do you want to know why I'm setting before you this kind of life? Would you have Godly incentives in the strength of Christ to live such a life? Here is my rationale. This dominating desire, which I trust all of you the people of God have. I'm going to set before you the kind of life that is worth loving, the kind of life which if lived will enable you to love life with a passion.
And then he says, "...and to see good days [to experience life as comprised of units of days that are good, good as defined by God, good in relationship to a life worth living and a life worth loving]." In the context of Psalm 34 and in the context of 1 Peter, it obviously does not mean a life without clouds and without thorns. Remember what Peter's already said in chapter 1 and verse 6: "Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, ye have been put to grief in manifold trials." He's already assumed that they are receiving evil, that some are speaking evil of them, doing evil to them. He's going to go on in this chapter and say, "But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake..." (verse 14). In chapter 4, he's going to tell them, "Whatever heat you've already experienced, there's more heat coming." "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial among you, which cometh upon you to prove you, as though a strange thing happened unto you."
Think of the context of Psalm 34, when David writes about seeing good days. Here's a man in a cave away from family, seemingly cut off from the promise of God that's he's going to be king in Israel. He's being cased around the wilderness of Judea like a mad dog by Saul. And he's says, "I have experienced such good days. Come on in the cave you children and I'll teach you the fear of the Lord. You want to know the good days I'm having? Come and sit down and I'll tell you." I don't know about you, but I get the goose bumps when I read something like that. That's what David is saying. "How's it going David?" You expect some mournful tale, and he says, "O, these are good days."
Now you see, that's entirely contrary to the mentality of 1999 America. I don't watch a lot of television. I try to watch very discriminately, not only the programs I watch but the commercials I allow my eyes to see. But I have seen, and maybe you have seen that beer commercial in which there are a bunch of buddies who've gone off for a fishing trip. And it's the end of the day, and they're sitting on a porch, and they've got their feet up on the railing. And the sun is going down, and there's some coals over which they've placed the fish they caught that day. And one says to another, "It doesn't get any better than this." That's the world' s idea of a good day. But David is in a cave with the rift raft of Jerusalem gathered around him. And you say to him, "David, how are things going?" And he says, "It's been a good day." We're going to find out why he could say it's a good day. He tells us in Psalm 34. And we're told here in this passage quoted by Peter. But do you long for good days as God defines good days; to have such a view of life and of reality, that if you were in David's setting, you could say, "Hey, I have experienced such a measure of good days I want to tell you how to know good days."?
Think of Paul and Silas there in a prison, feet in the stocks, backs laid open with wounds. You come to them and say, "How are you doing, guys?" They would say, "It's been a good day, so good that we're singing songs of praise to God at midnight."
Would you really love life, and would you really see good days? Now does that strike a note in you? I hope it does. And I believe the reason David originally penned those words by the guidance of the Spirit, and Peter quotes them, is every single one of us by nature desires his own happiness. You can no more deny that than you can deny your existence. By the time you unconsciously cried for your mother's breast or the bottle to this hour, everyone of us by nature desires passionately his own highest happiness and good. And it is that reality embedded in the soul of man to which the Word of God is appealing here and saying, "Do you want God's formula for a life worth loving and for days that are truly good even in the midst of suffering, in the midst of people bad mouthing you and doing evil to you?" Peter says, "The formula I've set before you is a formula that will bring about a life worth living and truly good days."
Now having considered the dominating desire in the text, now we come to what Mr. Hiebert calls the demanding activities. Now as we come to these verses, remember these are not verses telling you how to enter into life, how to obtain the forgiveness of sin and enter the kingdom. This is not a formula for conversion. He's writing to people whom he described in chapter 1 as those who heard the Gospel with the Spirit of God attending the preaching. They are described in chapter 1 as those who have purified their souls in obedience to the truth. He describes them as having been born again by the living seed of the Word of God. He describes them in chapter 2 as those who are continually coming to Christ, as those who have been called out of darkness into marvelous light. He's writing to people who are in a state of grace by the grace of God working through the Gospel, sovereignty imparting divine life, leading them to repentance and faith. I don't know how to state it more plainly. This is not an answer to the question, "What must I do to be saved?" Peter is answering the question, "Why ought I to live such a life and what is the nature of the blessing that is in store for those who by the grace of God live this way?" Well, he's going to answer now in these demanding activities.
Now I want to say a word about the structure here. As you look at your Bibles, you will notice that these verse are printed in the form of poetry. That's because in Psalm 34 they are Hebrew poetry. And most of you know that in Hebrew poetry you have parallelism. You have a statement and a second statement that will contrast with it, amplify and enlarge upon it. And the second often throws light upon the first or is more fully understood in light of the first, etc. This is Hebrew poetry, and we might expound it accordingly. But what would have struck the first person who opened up the parchment sent by Peter and would have looked at the text with a view to reading it the next time God's people gathered together--what would have struck him is not so much the structure of the Hebrew poetry, but the five aorist imperatives (five words--all imperatives), everyone ending with the letters, when we transliterate them into English, end with ato. And I labored to try and bring it over to five English words to give you the sense someone would feel the minute they opened up the manuscript and began to read it. Those five imperatives would jump out. And when whoever would read the letter to the assembly would read it, those sitting there would hear standing out, palsato, ecclenato, poesato, zatasato, deasato. Five times ato, ato, ato, ato, ato, and you go away saying, "What were the five atos?" The same way the reader would have been impressed with Peter's use of the five adjectives to describe what I call that five pearl necklace of graces to adorn the life of God's people in their relationship to one another. Anyone reading and listening to that letter read would be struck with these five aorist imperatives (for you Greek students, third person singular aorist imperative). He is saying by the guidance of the Spirit, would you live a life worth loving and see good days? Here is the demanding set of activities. And if the five adjectives can be likened to five pearls that are to adorn the neck of God's people as they relate to one another, these five imperatives are the stones that pave the path into additional blessing from God. Would you be in the path that brings additional blessing from God? Here are the five stones that must be laid in the path on which you walk.
Now, what are they? Look at the text. The first is, "For, he that would love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile." The verb "refrain" has reference to the activity of the tongue and also to the lips. The first stone laid in the path of the way of additional blessing from God has to do with the organ of speech (tongue and lips). The verb is a vigorous verb. It means to hold something back. You are to hold back the tongue from evil. And the word "evil" is anything base or degrading in nature. It can refer to something profane or slanderous or merely unprofitable speech. In the context--for remember context--what would evil tongues do? They would return reviling for reviling. Even though the people of God are reviled and sinned against (they're not imagining this), it is evil for them to return reviling for reviling. Would you have a life worth loving and filled with truly good days, you must, in the language of James, place a very stiff, firm bridle upon this unruly member called the tongue. "Let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile."
What is guile? It means saying one thing while meaning another in order to lead someone astray. And sadly, we've had grievous examples of guile in the highest office of the land. Staring into the camera with conviction and pointed finger, "I never had blah, blah with that woman, Miss Lewinski." Saying one thing, technically true in terms of what he thought, calculated to lead a nation astray. That's guile. If you want to be in the path that brings and continually unfolds a life worth loving and days that are truly good, not only must you refrain your tongue from evil, but your lips that they speak no guile. Your yes is yes; your no is no. When you greet someone and shake their hand and say, "It's good to see you my brother; it's good to see you my sister", when inwardly you don't mean that, you're guilty of guile. Do you want to be in the path of blessing? Refrain the tongue from evil and the lips from speaking guile.
Now to respect Hebrew poetry, we'll take two and three together. Look at the text: "...let him turn away from evil, and do good." The meaning of the word "to turn away" is the picture of a bolder in the highway, and you're driving at 60mph. You come around the bend; the boulder's there, and you swerve to miss it. You take an evasive action. Perhaps you're walking down the street and you see on the sidewalk the local gang of bullies. And you walk over to the other side. You swerve, you turn aside, you take evasive action. I hope you do. I hope you've got enough sense to do it. You're not going to take them on all by yourself. Or if you've got some bigger guys on your side, and then you go walking down. But otherwise you do evasive action. That's the sense of the verb. "Let him turn away [let him engage in the evasive action in the presence of evil]." Same word again--what is base, what is degrading, anything contrary to the Word of God.
In the context, the moment you're tempted to be indifferent to wearing your five-pearl necklace, why bother to labor at cultivating the graces of one-mindedness, of sympathy, loving as brothers, tenderheartedness, humble-mindedness? It's difficult given my remaining sin and the sin of my brethren. Why back off? Because to do so would be evil. You must turn away from that impediment to cutting a straight course in the cultivation of those graces. And when you are tempted to return evil for evil and reviling for reviling, or you're tempted to say, "Well, I've done that much, but I'm not going to pray God's blessing on them", that's evil. Anything contrary to the Word of God, and you are tempted to it, is evil. We must turn away from evil.
But that's not enough--"...and do good." This is the positive side of the previous imperative. It's not enough to evade and turn away from evil. There must be active pursuit of that which is good. The same word is used in verse 10: "He that would love life, and see good days...." If you want to see good days, then fill your days with good. Pretty simple formula, isn't it? How can you expect to fill your days with evil and then see good days? You fill your days with good and you will see good. And here again is the emphasis of the Word of God. It's not enough to deal with the negative. Isaiah says, "Cease to do evil; learn to do well." And Romans 12:9 is a very helpful parallel text. The Apostle says, "Abhor that which is evil." And that Greek word is a vigorous word: "Detest it. Treat it like an abominable thing worthy of being vomited out." But that's not enough. He says, "Cleave to that which is good." And the word "cleave" is the very word that is used in 1 Corinthians 6: "He that is joined to a harlot is one flesh with the harlot." What is the cleaving of sexual intimacy? God says that's the way you're to be with good. Abhor the evil; cleave to the good. Hold it with a death grip.
It is the devil's lie that to have a life worth loving and to see good days, you've got to turn away from that which is good and cleave to that which is evil. Wasn't that his lie in the garden? God said to Adam and Eve, "I know your love life. You want to see good. Here's the way of a life worth loving and the way of the good life: of all the trees of the garden you may eat, but the tree that is in the midst of the garden, you shall not eat of it. For in the day you eat of it, you shall die. Good days will end; a life worth loving will end the day you choose evil." God was saying in essence to Adam and Eve, "Abhor the evil; avoid that tree. Cleave to the good. Of all the trees you may freely eat." The devil came and said, "No, the only way to have a life worth loving and to see really good days is to choose evil. God doth know in the day you eat, that is, do evil, your eyes will be opened; you'll receive good." Do you see it? That's his ancient lie. He's been telling it for thousands of years. And he'll whisper it in the ear of the most mature Christian, let alone some of you naive young people who still think--thank God you're the minority--
"Mom and Dad and pastor and these old fuddy duddies, they really don't know where it's at. What I see dangling out there of the devil's bate--that's the life worth loving. The good days are out there when I can buck the traces of Mom and Dad's do's and don'ts and no's. And I can get away from curfews and rules and regulations and church and all the nonsense. It's out there. I know it's out there. I can't wait to drink in the life worth loving and the days that are truly good."
My dear precious young person, in the name of God and of His truth, listen to His Word. Would you have a life worth loving and see good days? Then come in the way of abhorring the evil and cleaving to the good. God is not a celestial killjoy. It's the devil who tells you He is. Don't believe him. Believe Him who is the truth and validated He is truth by going to a cross and dying under the wrath of God and the scorn and the spittle and the jeering of men to show you that God is no celestial killjoy. He knows that He made you to love life. He knows that He made you to see good days. But He's telling you the way to have a life worth loving and to know good days is not the way spawned by the devil's lie. It is the way that God has given us in a Psalm given by a man being chased around the wilderness like a criminal gathered with the rift raft of Israel and says, "It's been a good day. I'm living a life worth loving," because he was turning away from evil, and he was doing good.
And then the last two imperatives, four and five, are put together: "Let him seek peace, and pursue it." Now again, the words "seek" and "pursue" are vigorous words. Peter uses the word seek again in chapter 5, verse 8: "Your adversary the devil goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." When a prowling lion hasn't had a kill for a few days and is hungry, he doesn't go about just lazily looking, "O, there's something over there; I might get it." You've seen the National Geographic films. When a lion's on a kill, he's a determined creature. "Seeking"--that's the word used. It's a beautiful use of it in Luke chapter 2 when Joseph and Mary discovered Jesus wasn't with them. It says they went back to Jerusalem seeking Him. You get the feel of the word?
In preparation and thinking of that word, I couldn't help but think of an incident very recently in our own family life. After Heidi, Gord, and Landon went back to Michigan less than two weeks ago, Gord took landon to an air show in a nearby airfield, and there were approximately five thousand cars parked for this air show. And Gord's dad was with him (quite an elderly man). And after the air show, they went back to find the dad's car that they had used to get there, and Gord said to his dad, "You keep an eye on Landon, I think your car is over here." (They were looking in the wrong place.) So Gord found the car and went back then to his dad, and Landon wasn't there. He said, "Dad, where's Landon?" He said, "I thought you were watching him." Can you enter into what my son-in-law must have felt when their only son, a little 7-year-old guy, might have been lost in a sea of five thousand cars and all kinds of people. And as Gord described what he did over those next moments, frantically searching for his son, our text says you want to be in the way of blessing; you want to see that next stone paved in that way of blessing, then you seek peace. Seek it like the devil seeks his prey, like Mary and Joseph sought their Son. Seek it like my son-in-law sought my grandson.
But then the next verb is even more vigorous: "...pursue it." This the word most frequently translated in the New Testament for persecute. Now what do you do when you're persecuting someone? You put your eyes upon them and track them down. They go out of sight; you go after them. They hide underground; you go down to get them. It's a picture of seeking peace, and you're about to lay hold of it. And it's like my grandmother said to me as a boy, "Albert, if you can ever put salt on the tail of a bird, you'll be able to catch it." And I believed her. And I used to run around on our vacation in her backyard with a saltshaker. You know what would happen. And I'd come in and say, "But grandma, I can't get the salt on its tail." She'd say, "Well, if you do, you'll be able to catch it." And in my naivety, I believed, and they would sit inside and see Albert running around after a bird with a saltshaker and laugh their heads off. Well, sometimes peace among brethren is like the bird. And what this text says is, when it flies away, you go after it. And when it flies some more, you go after it with a zeal to track it down and to lay hold of it. That's what he says. Would you have a life worth loving and seek good days as God describes them? Then the last two stones in that path are the stones of seeking and pursuing peace. And here again are two parallel texts: Roman 12:18 "As much as in you lieth, live peaceably with all men." And Hebrews 12:14, the same vigorous verb: "Follow after peace with all men and the holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord."
Now I must bring in the qualifying word of our Lord Jesus. In Matthew 10:34, He said, "Do not think that I came to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace but to cast a sword." And there is a whole Biblical doctrine of the non-peaceful relationships that come in allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm aware of that doctrine. I live with the reality of it. I have blood relatives with whom I do not have the measure of peace that I desperately desire. But my Lord takes full responsibility for that sword. And there can even been among brethren, implacable brethren, whom you pursue with a disposition to reconciliation, and their disposition is "no." People will leave churches and will never even meet you and have the decency to tell you what their gripe is, but feel free to speak their gripe all over the Christian public wherever they get an ear. But what our disposition must be is one of even yet pursuing them, communicate when we can; let them know that our hearts are toward them and that there is no barrier in our disposition towards righteous reconciliation.
You want to have a life worth loving and see good days? Here's the path: five massive stones laid in the path originally queried out of the experience of David and put in Psalm 34, shaped a little differently, altering a word here or there and bringing them over. And Peter lays them out for all of the believers in the five provinces of Asia Minor undergoing opposition and disappointment and feeling the pressure that came from their attachment to Christ. And he says after telling them, "Here are the graces that mark your relationship to one another,"
"Here's how you're to relate to those who oppose you. And if you need any further incentive, I set before you this wonderful path to additional blessing: he that would love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: and let him turn away from evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and pursue it."
Now we come thirdly and briefly, having considered the denominating desire, the demanding activities, now look at the divine response first to the child of God who's walking that path and then to the evildoer. Verse 12: "For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears unto their supplication: But the face of the Lord is upon them that do evil." In a real sense, this passage gives flesh and blood to what is the heart of a life worth loving and truly good days. These words describe God's response to the persecuted child of God who is determined to respond in God's way to opposition. And God says two things will be true of him. His response to the believer's determination to walk in the path first is, "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears unto their supplication." What's that mean? It means that they are the objects of God's constant loving, intimate, eternal concern and care.
Here's a couple with a little one. The man has to go off to something and says to his wife, "While I'm gone, keep your eye on our child." What's he mean? He means, "Let your whole person be turned in loving concern and protective attention to that child. Keep your eye upon him", the eye being an index of the soul, and the soul being, as it were, the monitor of the concern and activity of the whole person. And now Peter says, quoting from David, who in the midst of very adverse circumstances describes the life worth loving and the good life as this kind of life, a life in which you know the eyes (plural) of the Lord are upon the righteous. With all that God has to do to keep His universe in order down to the farthest galaxy, down to the subatomic particles in your body, this God's eyes will be constantly upon you. Beautiful image! You will be the object of His constant paternal love and care. You will be the object of all that He is as God turned toward you in loving paternal favor and compassion. And furthermore, as you're in circumstances as David was, and as you Christians there in Asia Minor are, and as many of us are in circumstances that cause you to feel deeply your need (and one of the three or four major words for prayer and its particular nuance is it's the prayer with a sense of need, often translated "supplication"), we are told that God's ears (plural) are unto his supplications. It's a picture of a tender mother who bends over to listen to the slightest intimation that the child is in distress.
Now do you begin to see what the life worth loving is and what the good life is. It all has to do with the nature of your relationship to God. And David says the good life, the life worth loving is the life in which you have the kind of relationship to the living God in heaven and earth in which you can be confident that no matter where you are and what your circumstances are and what is being done to you and what is going on around you, the eyes of the Lord are upon you in love and concern and favor. And furthermore, His ears are unto your supplications. This is indeed a life worth loving; these are indeed good days. My Father sees, my Father cares, my Father hears my cry for help. One of the commentators expressed it beautifully, and I want to just read this paragraph to you:
"What a picture of condescending majesty and love. Behold, He who inhabits eternity and spreads out the heaven as a tent to dwell in with unswerving and most loving regards watches over the most humble saint, follows him in every step of his pilgrimage, marks every good purpose and aspiration of his heart as well as all the outward perils and temptations that he faces. The eyes of the Lord his God are upon him from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward Him. As they are ever within sight, so also His ear is unto their prayers to hear. He bows down His ear to listen. And no cry of distress, no spontaneous cry of filial faith and hope, no inward sigh even of bruised and weary and longing soul fails to find entrance there. O, the blessedness of those for whom the almighty and omnipresent God doth care. 'I am poor and needy said one of His saints. yet the Lord thinks upon me.'"
You see, that's the life worth loving and the life marked by good days. It's the life lived in that kind of confidence of God's Fatherly care, His eye upon us, and of His hearing ear. And if that's not enough to entice you more fully into the way described by Peter as the way of authentic Christian experience, cultivating those five graces of our interpersonal relationship; by the grace of God, not rendering evil for evil, reviling for reviling, but contrariwise, blessing, then I really wonder, have you ever tasted and seen that the Lord is good? Remember that early in Psalm 34? "O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth in Him." And the one who has tasted and trusted is the one who knows that there is no greater good in life than to know, "My Father watches over me, and my Father hears me. I live before His face. I live in communion with Him, and all because of His grace and kindness to me in the Lord Jesus."
But then I must hasten to just speak very briefly on God's response to those described in the last part of the text: "The face of the Lord is upon them that do evil." The preposition is not "against"; it is "upon them". "As the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous with a view to giving them His Fatherly care, so the face of the Lord (all that God is in Himself) is upon them that do evil, not with a view to blessing, but with a view to venting His righteous and holy wrath unless they repent. And isn't it interesting that Peter didn't quote the whole of verse 16 from Psalm 34. I'm sure he knew it. I'm sure he could have looked it up if he needed to, but he stopped short. The last part of that verse is this: "The face of the Lord is against them that do evil to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth." Peter stopped short of that because the day of grace was still open and the offers mercy still go out to sinners, sinners who are believing the devil's lie, that to find the life worth loving and to know true good days you must do evil. And God extends His mercy in the call of the Gospel saying, "Turn from your folly, turn from your notions and the devil's prescription and recipe for the good life. And throw down your weapons of rebellion and go and plead for mercy and grace in the way of God's appointing.
We come around full circle to where we began this morning. Here is an ancient recipe for a happy life. Reread Psalm 34, and read that happy man in a cave. He had many troubles, but he said the Lord delivers him out of them all. But he continues to have them, and he continues to be delivered. And again and again in Psalm 34, David underscores the blessedness of having a God who hears his prayers, and a God whom he knows cares for him. Hence, he can tell us and lecture to us about a life worth loving and what truly good days are. My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this is counter cultural, but this is authentic Christianity. May God give you grace; may God give me grace to think again and again of the five pearls with which we are to adorn ourselves in our life together, and to think of those five stones that are the path to additional blessing from our God, as by His grace, we are enabled to walk in that way.
On the contrary, there's something truly awful in the bare simplicity of the general announcement that while God sees the righteous and listens to their prayers, He is at the same time looking at evildoers. They may think to hide themselves in their wicked courses and counsels in darkness and in the shadow of death. But even there God, though unseen, confronts them still, gazing direct and full on all their ways and their most secret as yet unuttered devices. They would fain turn their backs on God, but God's face is always toward them. And what more is needed to ensure their ultimate destruction and meanwhile to guard the righteous from their assault? This is truly an awful word from the mouth of God.
And then this writer quotes from Amos: "I will set my eyes upon them for evil and not for good." May God help you if His eyes are upon you; His face is upon you with a view to your destruction, that you would flee from the wrath to come and find refuge in the Lord Jesus and come join this happy band and on to heaven go where there are joys celestial forever.
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 15:23:21 GMT -5
Perspectives on the 70s by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached December 28, 1979
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Will you turn in your Bibles, please, to Paul's letter to the Ephesian church, the book of Ephesians, chapter 5. And I shall read only verses 11 through 13, words which come in a context in which the Apostle is exhorting the people of God to a life of holiness, holiness understood in its highest sense as the imitation of God (vv. 1-2), holiness which practically speaking means the avoidance of those sins that are contrary to the character of God as revealed in the law of God, and a holiness made difficult by the fact that we not only have indwelling sin, but we must pursue it in the midst of an unholy society. And in that general train of thought, this word comes to the Ephesian Christians and to us: "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them; for the things which are done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak of. But all things when they are reproved are made manifest by the light: for everything that is made manifest is light."
All of us sitting in this building this morning from the youngest to the oldest are creatures of time. We all have a day which is both designated and celebrated as our birthday. All of us live our lives in those little segments of time that we identify with such words as minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, and now the word that is very much upon everyone's lips and in everyone's mind, decades. Now all of those words are a constant reminder to us that we are indeed creatures of time. And though this is true, there are many times we are not self-consciously aware of that reality. But it is this time of the year when everyone is thinking of the closing down of one calendar year and the ushering in of another that we are made acutely aware of the fact that we are creatures of time. And that awareness is even heightened when we not only pass from one calendar year into another, but when we pass from one decade into another. Now as the people of God, we are not to in any way to think of ourselves as detached from this reality of our being creatures of time. Though we have confidence for that which goes beyond time, even the confidence that we shall be forever with the Lord in the timelessness of eternity, nowhere does the Word of God call upon us as God's children to be insensitive to this matter of time. In fact, in this very passage, the Apostle goes on to say to Christians, "buying up the time" in which he pictures time as a very vital and expensive commodity, a worthwhile commodity which we are to accumulate. We are to be sensitive of the matter of time. And we are to buy up that time in seeking to render acceptable service to our blessed Lord.
Now in the light these things, it is my concern that on this the last Lord's Day of 1979, the last Lord's Day of this decade, we should meditate together on matters related to time and seek to glean perspectives that will help us on the one hand to assess what has gone before and is now being phased out, and to face that which lies before and is ushering in upon us with some degree of Biblical perspective. And so our meditation today could well be called "A Perspective on the 70s and a Prescription for the 80s." And that's why, as I mentioned earlier, we really have one overall meditation divided into these two segments. This morning, in seeking to gain a perspective on the 70s, I want to direct your attention first of all to what I would call the paramount sins of the 70s. And then we shall consider together the primary reasons for the sins of the 70s, and then finally, the exclusive remedy for the sins of the 70s.
First of all then, the paramount sins of the 70s. Now some may ask, "Why concern ourselves with such a negative matter on the threshold of a new year? Why reflect upon the sins of the 70s?" Well, the text I read in your hearing, among many others, demands that we engage in such an exercise. Notice the language of Ephesians 5:11: "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them." There is the negative admonition. We are not to enter into fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. Well, how do we know we are obeying that injunction unless we can identify that which constitutes the unfruitful works of darkness. If we're to obey the injunction to have now fellowship, no delightful sharing and participation with and in the works of darkness, we must have eyes illuminated by the Word and the Spirit to be able to identify what are the works of darkness. And then there is the positive injunction: "but rather reprove them." Our Biblical duty is not fulfilled by a mere withdrawal from the identifiable works of darkness. But the people of God (this is not a word to ministers alone) are called upon to reprove the works of darkness. Well, they cannot engage in that Biblical duty unless they can clearly identify that which is the just and warranted subject of that reproof. And how are we to determine what are the works of darkness. Well, Paul goes on to say, "But all things when they are reproved are made manifest by the light: for everything that is made manifest is light." It is only as the pure light of the Word of God shines upon patterns of human behavior that we can identify them for what they truly are.
Well, having demonstrated, I trust, the legitimacy of beginning our meditation with a consideration of the sins of the 70s, let me just give a word of explanation with reference to what I mean when I speak of the paramount sins of the 70s. Since the fall of man, there has existed in the heart of every man both the potential for every single sin imaginable and a tendency toward that sin. One of the most humbling teachings of the Word of God is summarized in such passages as Jeremiah 17:9: "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." And without in anyway seeking to minimize that pervasive teaching of Scripture, that there is within the heart of every man, woman, boy, or girl both the potential and the tendency, the capability of every form of wickedness, it is also clear taught in the Word of God that God, by the restraining influence of common grace and the transforming influence of special or saving grace, keeps back much of that potential for evil that is in the human heart. But there are times in the history of men and of nations when because of the limited measure of special grace and the withdrawal of common grace, certain sins that are not only latent or may have found an expression here and there in a given society, not only continue to express themselves as a latent possibility and as an occasional outburst, but they become the very sins which characterize that society. And you cannot think of that society without thinking of those sins.
This is illustrated in such portions as Genesis 6 where we read in verse 5 that God saw that the imagination of the heart of man was only evil continually and then that evil found expression in a peculiar sin. We read in verse 9 that violence filled the earth. And it was that sin of unfettered, aggressive violence which finally precipitated the judgment of the flood. We read in Jude 7 that there was a peculiar sin which characterized the cities of the plain, "Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, having in like manner with these given themselves over to fornication and gone after strange flesh." Now that does not mean that you found no murder, no dishonesty, no blasphemy, no gossip, or any other form of sin in Sodom and Gomorrah prior to the judgment of God. What it does mean is that sexual impurity and, in particular, sexual perversion became the dominant or the paramount sins of that society. This was true, likewise, in New Testament days. The Apostle Paul, writing to Titus, speaks of the Cretans and of what we might call the national sins, paramount sins of the Cretans. Titus 1:12-13a: "One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, idle gluttons. This testimony is true." There were these three sins that predominated in the national life of the Cretans. Now that does not mean , again, that other sins were not manifested or that the tendency was not latent. What it does mean is that these sins became the paramount expressions of the condition of the human heart.
Now it is within that Biblical framework that I address myself this morning to that which I am calling the paramount sins of the 70s. I am not saying that these sins were never present in our national life until the 70s. They were present in our national life from the moment we had any life. Even in our most blessed periods of national righteousness, every one of these sins that I will mention was present. And the potential for them was latent in every human heart. But they did not become the predominating social climate of our nation until the 70s. You see, then, the precise thing to which we are addressing ourselves this morning. What then are those paramount sins of the 70s that have become as much a part of American national life as Baseball, hotdogs, apple pie, and Chevrolets. Well, I confess that it has been no pleasant thing for me to sit hour after hour in past days and to think upon that which constitutes the moral face of my own beloved country. To look at the open sores and the putrefying wounds of the moral state of our nation. And yet as the people of God, we are called upon to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather to reprove them, to have this prophetic edge to our life and testimony, a duty which we cannot fulfill unless we have some clear consciousness of what constitutes those paramount sins the 70s. And there is no particular significance in the order in which I mention these things.
First of all, this decade of the 70s will go down in any accurate record of its history in American national life as the decade of the tragic reality of abortion on demand. One of the most horrendous decisions that was ever made by the highest court of our land was made in 1973, a decision which has literally turned those theaters of mercy and compassion, our hospital operating rooms and clinics, into mass murder houses. And it has been done with the sanction and the encouragement of the highest court of our land. And it could never have been done at the highest court of the land if it had not been a reflection of the basic moral fiber of the nation itself. The hands of the physicians that have been trained and skilled to administer mercy now throw murdered babies into sterile trash bins to be carried off with the other garbage in the hospital. And I say, if the blood of one creature made in the image of God so moved God that He came to the perpetrator of that crime and said, "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me from the ground," what must the din be in the ears of the Almighty from the trash bins of our hospitals and clinics across this land? One of the great sins of the 70s is the sin of abortion on demand.
Secondly, the 70s will be recognized by any accurate historian as the decade of pornographic glut. O yes, Playboy has been around with some degree of respectability for over twenty years. And under the counter for years, one has been able to purchase any amount of pornographic filth that his own depraved heart would desire. And mail-order houses have existed where the foulest kinds of movies and pictures could be obtained in order to answer to the foul, base, bestial lusts of men's hearts. But it awaited the 70s to have the glossy-covers of Playboy and a dozen other magazines spawned out of the so called sexual revolution staring at us over the counter of the local deli, the local supermarket, and every corner drugstore. It was one thing for wretched depraved men to gather in secret and there to feed the depravity of their hearts upon the carrion of pornographic movies that had been obtained illegally from abroad or by a black market in our own country; it's another thing for someone respectable, middleclass business man to turn aside in his lunch hour to plunk down his few dollars in a respectable place like Willow Brook and there feed his mind upon the very thing that just a few years ago had to be sought out, but is now open and blatant, a running sore in our society. But not only is it confined to the magazines and to the movies, but the TV, t-shirts, bumper stickers. We have nothing less than a pornographic glut as the mark of the sins of the 70s.
Thirdly, it will be known as the decade of total sexual abandonment. O yes, there has always been premarital sex and fornication. There has always been extramarital sex and affairs, but it awaited the 70s to bring it out to the level of respectability so that premarital sex is a way of life among our own present generation. And the college student who even regards virginity as a virtue, let alone who seeks to maintain it, is looked upon as some kind of a historical anachronism, sort of looked upon like someone out of the ice age. Yes, there have always been extramarital affairs. The Bible records them and the tragic fruits of them, but it awaited the 70s to have the sociologists and the Dr. Bothers and the Ann Landers and their ilk to tell us that extramarital affairs are not only tolerable but often provide spice and new life to the marriage relationship. Unashamed vaunting of the sanctity of that inner sanctuary of marriage and saying that the violation of that sanctuary can actually aide and advance the cause of a good marriage. This will be known as the decade of total sexual abandonment.
Fourthly, the 70s must be understood as the decade of homosexual militancy. There have always been homosexuals in our national life. But it awaited the 70s for the homosexual to be so blatant and bold as to march shoulder to shoulder with his fellow perverts and demand not only the laws punishing this vicious wickedness be rescinded, but that laws be enacted to give him full status in the society. It awaited the 70s for homosexuals to appear unshameably on talk shows, television and radios; to appear in popular magazines and openly acknowledge with joy and with a measure of pride that they are perverts. And don't you ever use the word "gay." That's their term. Don't you use it. God calls it perversion. And to the tragic, tragic erosion of our society, this will be known as the decade of homosexual militancy.
Furthermore, the sins of the 70s are to be found in the fact that this will be known as the decade of drug and alcohol obsession. O yes, drugs have always been with us. Alcohol has always been with us. But this has been the decade in which drugs and alcohol have become an obsession and a way of life right across the board in our nation, both legal and illegal drugs, so that you have the housewife who, getting her prescriptions from her own doctor, can only function as she's driven to her tasks as she pops her uppers in the morning and can only get off to sleep as she swallows down her downers at night. And you have the wino who staggers on the skid rows of our cities. And you have the respectable scotch and water business man who sits next to me on the airplanes and belts down three or four before he takes his lunch, belts down another three or four before he gets off the plane, and belts down a few more before he eats his meal at night. He's utterly addicted to his alcohol. O yes, he's not on skid row. He has his three-piece business suit. He makes his $40,000 a year and has a fancy title and a lovely home. But he is obsessed and cannot function without his alcohol. And then there is the downright pothead who lives for nothing more than his next buzz or his next high with his joint. And it's a way of life to him, all the way to the respectable weekend user who only gets his five or six on a weekend and consider himself a vital part of society and making a vital contribution, but utterly obsessed. And you have the entire rock culture with music that is out of minds that are disjointed through drugs, that is then paraded by means of an obsession with a whole mentality that is saturated in chemicals. And it's significant that the 70s closed with a bitter memory of that rock group that is the symbol of everything that rock epitomizes. Read the article in Time magazine about the rock group Who, not written by Christians, and saying that they are the symbol of the inherent self-destructiveness of the rock music and the rock culture--and eleven people killed, storming the gates of an auditorium. And witnesses said most of them were blown out of their heads with drugs and alcohol. My friends, I am not creating bogie men and setting them before you. These are the characteristics of our national life, the decade of drug and alcohol obsession.
The 70s will be know as the decade of dishonesty and double talk. There was a time in our national life when a man's word was his bond, Christian or non-Christian, whether it was the man down at the corner store and you happen to have no money with you and you took home your groceries and said you'd be by the next day to pay it. I've lived long enough to remember when there was such a day. And your word was your bond, but no longer. And the double talk and the dishonesty perhaps was more clearly epitomized in that whole tragic affair that goes under the title of Watergate. And the highest elected official would look straight into the eyes of millions of fellow Americans and say, "I'm telling you all I know," when he was spinning out a web of lies. And the double talk and the dishonesty is only exemplified by the fact that the very ones who are most blatant in condemning him are guilty of the same doubletalk and the same lies in their political and personal dealings. The 70s are marked as that decade when dishonesty and double talk at every level of national life has become a way of life.
It will be known as the decade of militant feminism. O yes, the so called feminist movement had its roots back earlier than that. I'm very much aware of it. But it has been in the 70s that there has been this obsession to pass the equal rights amendment even to the twisting of our constitution to get an extension of time. "What is constitutional law? We're determined...." What? That women shall receive equal pay for a job they do in equality with men. If that's all it were, I would stand behind it. There's injustice if a woman does not receive the same pay for a job that a man does if the job is worth a certain amount of money. But that's not the issue. The issue is much deeper. Militant feminism asserts that there is no fundamental difference between men and women except a few biological matters. There is no fixed role assigned to the woman by God. There is no fixed structure of authority in male-female relationships. There is no such thing as femininity and masculinity. "All these distinctions are manmade and imposed from without, and we are determined utterly to obliterate them." That's the platform of feminism. And the 70s will be marked as the decade of militant feminism.
Further, the 70s will be marked as the decade of divorce as a way of life in America. Divorce has always been with us. Even the Scripture allows divorce for two reason. It does not encourage or smile, but recognizes that sin being what it is, there will be circumstances where divorce is the only honorable and righteous course to take in a given set of circumstances, but it never envisions it as a way of life. One just picks up an ordinary newspaper now and there are the ads of the attorneys who for $200 will help you to dissolve your marriage--just that simple. One cannot stop at a popular book store that carries good literature (I'm not talking about a cheap paperback shelf), and there will be books on how to get your own divorce at a minimum expense to yourself. The absolute dissolving of the sense of the marriage bond and its sacredness.
And then this will be known as the decade of the rejection of the so-called nuclear family, the whole idea that you have a family in which there is a figurehead called the father, who exerts a gracious and righteous and authoritative, loving rule in that home, and a mother who is the epitomizing of all of those virtues spoken of in the Word of God that are attached to motherhood, and children who look to that mother and father for direction and guidance. This will be recognized as the decade that perhaps utterly destroyed the concept of the nuclear family in our national life. Day care centers are far more competent to rear children because they've got the experts whose only job is to manipulate three to five-year olds or seven to nine-year olds. And so the terrible, terrible propaganda goes on.
And finally, this will be known as the decade of decadent religious obsession. And here I wish I could pause to speak longer, but time will not permit it. But we must face the fact that the 70s were marked by a tremendous mushrooming of the cults. Who every heard of the Moonies before the 70s. They were around, but we didn't hear of them. They weren't accosting us every time we stopped at a red light or walked through an airport. But in the 70s, there was this tremendous advance of the Moonies. And again, the 70s are the decade of Jim Jones and the Guyanese tragedy. 900 people so fanatically obsessed with a human leader that they will send themselves to hell at his command. The decade of yoga, the decade of TM, the decade in which there has been that mushrooming of the mind cults and the oriental religions, the decade of pop religion with no doctrinal substance or moral fiber. Country singers drunk on Friday night, singing "Amazing Grace" on Saturday night while 6000 people stomp their feet and clap their hands and have no sense of shame. Pop religion with no doctrinal substance or moral fiber. We now have locker room chaplains who go in and read a few verses to 35 men on a Sunday and pray with them to salve their conscience while they go out and for three hours profane the Sabbath before 60 or 70,000 and who knows how many millions on the TV. Pop religion with no moral fiber, no doctrinal substance. Bumper sticker Christianity--"Smile, God Loves You," "Honk If You Love Jesus." What is all of this? It is nothing more or less than the terrible blight, the terrible sin of this that I have called decadent religious obsession. "Born Again-ism" where everybody and his uncle whose had any kind of a twitch anywhere in his inner being that has made him feel good in someway related in some form or another to something that has to do with the Bible, he's "born again." Mystical experience. This is the decade of the 700 Club and the PTL movement.
O dear people, it is no pleasant thing for me to speak of these things. But these, I suggest, are the paramount sins of the 70s. Some of you perhaps feel other things should be added. Some of you perhaps feel some should be subtracted. But no one can deny that the things I've articulated are no longer done in a corner. These things have always been present in our national life. But it has been in the 70s that they have arisen to the prominent features and the very characteristics of our life, so that when a fanatical Muslim by the name of Ayatollah Khomeini says, "We Muslims must rise up and put down your morally decadent Western Christianity," we have no answer. Now, he's wrong in identifying American culture with Christianity. In his Muslim mind, he cannot separate religion from total national life, and we understand that. But no one can say, "You misread our national life. What moral decadence are you speaking about?" We must old our hands over our mouths and blush and weep. These are the paramount sins of the 70s.
Now I must hurry to touch on this second area of our concern. What is the primary reason for these sins of the 70s? You're aware, I'm sure, that there are some who would say that these things are not sins. They fit the description of Isaiah 5: "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" And there are people who would take these ten things I have mentioned and would say, "They're an evidence of advancement and development. We're throwing off the shackles of the old Puritanical mentality that so long bound us in our national life. And they would call all of this evil "good." Well, God has spoken to such people and says, "Woe be unto then!" But now I'm concerned from the Scriptures to ask and answer the question, what is the primary reason for these sins of the 70s? And here's where the Romans 1 passage enters. I am not saying this is the exclusive reason, nor am I saying that this is the only means that has been operative. But I am asserting that this passage contains an answer to the question, what is the primary reason for the sins of the 70s in our national life in America?
Romans 1:18. In this passage, I'll give you a summary statement, then we'll break it down briefly and demonstrate that that summary statement is warranted. What Paul says in Romans 1:18-32 is that God's wrath is revealed right now in giving men over to sin when they willfully reject the knowledge of God given in His revelation to them. Notice, the main assertion (v. 18): "The wrath of God is [being revealed] from heaven...." And all that follows is a commentary upon that fact. What is the wrath of God? How is it revealed? What are the manifestations? What are the causes which provoke it? Those are questions to which the Apostle will address himself. But now the main thesis is, "The wrath of God is [being revealed] from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men."
Now what's the main cause for that wrath being revealed? And the answer is the rejection of the knowledge of God (v. 21): "Because that, knowing God, they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened." Knowing God, they did not glorify Him as God. Verse 25. Look at the language: "for that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen." Verse 28: "And even as they refused to have God in their knowledge...." You see the main cause for that wrath being revealed? It is the rejection of the knowledge of God given in His self revelation. In this context, it was the revelation of Himself in creation, nothing more, but it was that. And rejection of that knowledge is the cause of His wrath.
Now then, what is the manifestation of that wrath? Abandonment to the vilest of sins. Verse 24: "Wherefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts...." Notice, the lusts were already there, but there was measure of common grace restraining the lusts from finding expression in total abandonment. And now as a judgment of God, God removes the barrier; He gives them up to the lusts of their hearts. Verse 26: "For this cause God gave them up unto vile passions [and then the sin of homosexuality is described]." And then verses 28-31--and here the language is frightening:
"God gave them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting [and then this tragic list of social sins]; being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, unmerciful. [All of this being the fruit of what? Being given up by God to a reprobate mind.]"
Do you see, then, primary reason for the sins of the 70s? The primary reason is the wrath of God revealed on our nation for its rejection of the knowledge of God. There is no explanation for this pattern of abounding, aggressive, dominant wickedness but that Almighty God is right now in this last Lord's Day of 1979 revealing His wrath from heaven by doing what? In the language of the text, giving up those in our nation to the lusts of their hearts, giving them up to vile passions, giving them up to a reprobate mind. Now follow, if God did this when men rejected the mere glimmering light of creation, glimmering compared with the full blazing light of the Gospel; if men with just the light of common or general revelation put down that knowledge, refused to act commensurate with it and God is angry and gives them up to these vile sins, what of the nation that was born under the blazing light of the Gospel and visited with mighty outpourings of the Holy Spirit, so that woven into the very fabric of our national life for the first couple hundred years of its existence was the overall moral consciousness of the Word of God governing social life, family life, governing our views of sex, of marriage, of education, of the home; governing the dictums of our courts, what must God's anger be upon a nation that takes that light and says, "We no longer want it," and turns to the darkness of humanism, pagan education, subjectivism, and the deification of man's so-called intellect?
My friend, there is no explanation for the 70s but that Romans 1 is being reenacted before our eyes. And if we are called upon as the people of God to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather to reprove them, we've got to understand what produced these characteristics of the 70s. God has been thrown out of any true consideration in the whole realm of education. In place of an educational framework that operates in the orbit of creation, fall, and redemption, we have for a hundred years had an educational framework soaked in pure humanism, an educational framework which puts evolution in place of the God of creation, which puts humanistic optimism in place of the Biblical doctrine of the fall, and which puts self-help based on self-wisdom in place of redemptive power and light and grace. And God has said, "Alright, you're so smart, you can get on educationally without Me--go ahead." It's no surprise, then, when young people act as though they were animals. They've been told they are animals. They're just being consistent. And God says, "You want to believe you're an animal, then I'll give you up to your animal passions." In terms of our courts, the Word of God and the great principles of justice, the sanctity of human life, the overall moral implications of the unchanging moral law of God expressed in the Ten Commandments are no longer a consideration. That's why our highest court can justify abortion on demand. It has no longer felt the pressure of the Six Commandment. ("Thou shalt do no murder.") That's why divorce is so cheap and easy. Premarital and extramarital sex--no one is upset. Why? We no longer have the Seventh Commandment exerting its pressure upon our national life and thinking. The tragedy is that in the very church of Christ, voices are raised up saying the Ten Commandments have nothing to say to us. It's bad enough when the world does. But when the church begins to parrot what the world is saying, it's a double tragedy.
Well, this has been very oppressive hasn't it? It's been oppressive to me. I've lived with these thoughts for the last couple of days, and my spirit is very oppressed. But I'm going to close by briefly addressing myself to something that I hope will be a glimmer of light. What is the exclusive remedy for the sins of the 70s? Having contemplated the paramount sins of the 70s, the primary reason for the sins of the 70s, now very briefly and in closing, what is the exclusive remedy for the sins of the 70s? O, stay right there in Romans 1. You see, the Apostle did not introduce the thoughts of verses 18 to 32 in a vacuum. He had just stated his own sense of indebtedness to preach the Gospel (v. 14). Then he has given this wonderful statement of the power of the Gospel. He says, "I have no cause to be ashamed of the Gospel of the grace of God. It is this very Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation to the Jew first and also to the Greek." And then he launches into this statement: "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven...." Do you see the connection? What he is saying in essence is this: "Against the realistic backdrop of the condition of the pagan Gentile Roman world, a world that is obviously under the wrath of God, having been given up by God to its lusts and passions because of its rejection of the knowledge of God in creation, to such a world, I go with a Gospel that is the power of God unto salvation." And though I have gone into situations where I have seen men ensnared in the very sins described in this passage, I've seen this Gospel break their chains, set them loose and make them Christ's free men. Paul said, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation." And O my friend, this is the exclusive remedy for the sins of the 70s.
There are all kinds of quack doctors who may to one degree or another admit the malady, but they come with false remedies. My friend, there is but one remedy. It is the Gospel preached in this book of Romans coming to the consciences of men in the power of the Holy Spirit, a Gospel that announces God's right as Creator, Lawgiver, and Judge. And that's exactly what Paul does in the first three and a half chapters of Romans right through chapters 1, 2, 3 to verse 20. And he says, "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it speaketh to them that are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God." That's the Gospel that is the hope of this generation, a Gospel that announces God is Creator, God is Lawgiver, God is Judge, but then a Gospel that goes on to announce that this same God has sent His only begotten Son to die for sinners. And in the perfection of the obedience of Christ, obedient even unto death, there is a righteousness adequate for all the filth and unrighteousness of these things that are categorized in Romans 1.
You mean there is a righteousness that can cover all of these sins (homosexuality, bestiality, open idolatry, backbiting, insolence, disobedience to parents, covenant breakers)? Yes my friend, that's the Gospel, that in the Lord Jesus Christ, God has provided a righteousness that is adequate to all the demands of His holy law. And that righteousness is to be found only in Jesus Christ. And it is only ours when we come into Christ by faith. So Paul says, "It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth." There's nothing here about to everyone who joins himself to the true church and partakes of the seven sacraments. There is no Romish hocus pocus in this. No, no, it is the Gospel to everyone that believeth, not to everyone who gets a wonderful feeling about Christ. He doesn't know where it comes from or what it's based upon. No, no, it is faith in this objective truth, the announcement God our Maker is our Lawmaker and our Judge.
We've sinned against Him; we stand under His wrath. But that God, wonder of wonders, has sent His Son. And in His Son has perfected a righteousness that is available to everyone who believes. Believes what? All that's revealed about God as your Creator, your Lawgiver, and your Judge, all that's announced about God as the Redeemer of sinners in the Lord Jesus Christ. You're to believe that. You're to embrace Him who is held forth in the Gospel. My friend, that's the exclusive remedy for the sins of the 70s. The remedy is not found in Christians going to Washington and lobbying. The answer is not found in Christian action groups. The answer is found in the mighty power of God the Holy Spirit attending the proclamation of the Gospel and transforming men and women at the citadel of their being, that Gospel proclaimed over the back fence to your neighbors, proclaimed to your loved ones when you enclose a good, solid Gospel tract or booklet, that Gospel proclaimed when you pass on a tape to a friend or associate at work, that Gospel proclaimed formally in pulpits across our land.
And O, as we gather tonight, this will be one of the areas of exhortation and entreaty that we have a renewed confidence in the power of this Gospel. You would think, after Paul wrote what he wrote in that first chapter of Romans, he would have put his pen down and put his tail between his legs and said, "What's the use? If God's wrath is being revealed upon the Gentile world? Why burn myself out, why risked shipwreck and death and imprisonment and beatings and stonings if men are so given over and given up and besotted in their sins?" My friend, that's the very glory of the Gospel. And that's what got hold of Paul. He saw that Gospel come as divine power and liberate sinners. O, may something of the thrill and the glory of it grip our hearts. And as we feel the pain of looking at the 70s and seeing the tragic moral and spiritual declension, those sins that characterize that decade, and recognize the cause and the anger of God, the wrath of God giving up a nation that no longer wants God and His knowledge, how thankful to God we can be if we've been rescued from that. All the potential for every sin in Romans 1:18-32 is in your heart. And O, how grateful we should be if God has laid hold of us in grace, and how filled with hope and earnest desire to see that Gospel come to others should we be.
And O my friend sitting here this morning, some of you whose very lives fit the description at one point or another of the sins of the 70s, you wouldn't know how to get through one week without your booze. You wouldn't know how to get through one week without your drugs of one kind or another. Your life would be utterly shattered. You wouldn't know how to get through one month without some kind of illicit sex, some kind of a high from pornography or infidelity. Your life is a living monument that these are the sins of the 70s. My friend, there's hope for you, but there's hope in only one place, and that's in Jesus Christ as He is offered in the Gospel--that's all. Now that's not flattering. That doesn't make you rise up and say, "O boy, there's something." It strips you; it humbles you. But O, if you will but come in the humility of faith, you will find the blessedness that we read about in our opening Psalm, "Blessed is that people whose God is the Lord [Jehovah Jesus]."
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2023 15:25:09 GMT -5
Validating the Gospel in Modesty by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached February 24, 2008
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Now I want to begin by saying that during my 45 (this July will be 46) years among you as one of your pastors, it has been my joy to pastor a people who both in their individual lives and in their corporate life have both validated and illustrated the gospel that is preached from this pulpit, that was preached from pulpits set up in several different schools, from the pulpit that is now in the multipurpose room that used to be in what we affectionately called the cracker box. Now let me explain what I mean by the statement that you have individually and corporately both illustrated and validated the gospel that has been preached. Over the years visitors would come among us and after they had been among us would speak to one of us in leadership and say, "Pastor Martin or pastor so and so, I was tremendously impressed as I came to worship among you to see how your people came in, quietly prepared their hearts, entered in whole heartedly to the worship." You were validating what was preached from the pulpit that the gospel creates earnest, passionate, serious worshippers. They would also comment on the behavior of your children. One woman, a very well known leader in evangelical circles, worshipped with us here one Lord's Day a number of years ago and was so impressed with the way the children behaved themselves. And she inquired of one of our people, "How is it done?" And she was told, "Well, we believe it can be done. We start early and we stick with it." You were validating what was preached from this pulpit that the gospel creates men and women committed to Godly family life and to parental guidance and government of the children. Pastors have come for our pastor's conference and stayed in your homes. And some of them have said they never saw gospel-ordered homes until they came into some of your homes. They didn't see regular family worship. And they went away challenged. Why? Because you as a people have both validated and illustrated the gospel that is preached from this pulpit.
Another area that has marked our life together which has also both validated and illustrated the power of the gospel in days gone by has been the decided modesty and the distinctive femininity of the dress and the demeanor of the women in this church. However, in the past year or two there has been a marked erosion among us in both of these areas. We, as pastors, have seen it with our own eyes. We have had men come to us vexed in their hearts and in their minds as they struggle to maintain mental purity before God, eyes that do not become the inlet of lust on the basis of what they see. Furthermore, there have been members of the church who have expressed their sense of vexation and concern that we have lost ground in this area of the decided modesty and the distinctive femininity of our women. And, as your pastors, we have spent much time discussing, praying, wrestling with such questions as, How should this be addressed? What forum should it be addressed in? How explicit shall we be without crossing the line of good taste and holy discretion? Well, a couple of weeks ago we called you as a church to pray that God would guide us. And I believe that my standing here this morning is a direct answer to your prayers, that God gave us a sense of an answer to our wrestlings: how to address it, what forum within which to address it, how explicit to be. And I stand before you with a good conscience this morning convinced that it is God's time to address it in this forum and to be as explicit as I purpose to be in the unfolding of this matter.
Now let me begin with three introductory concerns that will kind of set the field, clear the field of misconception as I then come to the heart of these issues.
The first introductory concern is this: in all that I say this morning, I am addressing the members of this congregation and their families. Should God be pleased in the next hour to bring among us 20 raw 21st century pagan women dressed with mini skirts, cleavage almost down to their belly buttons or with slacks of stretch material that hug their thighs and their buttocks and their crotch, we are not about to meet them out in the foyer and say, "You can't come in here and listen to our gospel in that way," and then hand them a shawl and say, "Wrap this around you before we welcome you into this place." We would welcome them exactly as they show up among us unless they showed up naked. We would welcome them to come and sit under the ministry of the Word of God, to sit under the gospel. However, as they sit among us and as they look around and as they interact with the people of God in this place whom we are confident would be lovingly aggressive to interact with them, to introduce yourself, to show a genuine interest in them as image bearers of God, sinners, yes, but image bearers of God with the dignity and nobility of an image bearer, that it wouldn't take long for them to draw this conclusion: if I begin to believe what is preached in this place, if I begin to internalize this gospel that is preached from that pulpit, I will begin to dress like the women in this place who are marked by decided modesty and by distinctive femininity. In other words, we take them as they are with a view to seeing them become what God says the gospel will make them. So I want to make that very clear, lest anyone go out and say, "Well, the elders, they don't want sinners to come and..." No, no, my friends. Don't go there. Please, don't go there because that is not where we are.
The second introductory concern is this: in addressing the members and their families--please listen carefully--I am not saying that we as elders believe that the women members of this church are deliberately seeking to be seductive or sexually provocative to the men who sit among us or that the women who are members of this church are willfully, deliberately and defiantly seeking to blur male and female distinctions in your dress. Now I have kept my eyes on my notes because I worked out the wording of that statement very carefully and purposefully. We, as your elders, do not believe that there are women members of Trinity Baptist Church deliberately seeking to be seductive or sexually provocative to the men among us or that you are willfully and deliberately and defiantly seeking to blur male and female distinctions in your dress. However, without in any way taking back one word of that statement, we do believe that society has so degenerated in these two areas of decided modesty and distinctive femininity and is presently squeezing some of you into its mold contrary to the will of God revealed in Romans 12:2: "being not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." We believe that the world's pressure is being evidenced in this place in the dress of some of you. Therefore, I come to you this morning with a burdened heart and with a bent knee seeking under God to sensitize your consciences in this area of gospel fruit. You will notice how from my opening statements I will continually use the terminology, validating and illustrating the power of the gospel. And that is the issue that is at stake. It is the gospel that is at stake.
Yes, the men among us need to take seriously Matthew 5:28 which says, "Whoso looks to lust upon a woman, whoso looks with a view to lust after her, has committed adultery already in his heart." Any man that willfully goes from what he sees to what he would desire to have will answer to God for his sin. That is clear from the Scriptures. However, my dear sisters in Christ, there are two other passages that need to be brought into the orbit of your deepest concern as a woman. The first one is Luke 17:1-2. "And Jesus said to His disciples, 'It is impossible but that occasions of stumbling should come.' [In other words, the world being what it is, the human heart being what it is, occasions of stumbling are going to come.]: But woe unto him [woe unto her] through whom they come. It were well for him [for her] if a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were thrown into the sea rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble." The little ones are those who believe in Him. And, my dear sisters, I beg of you to listen to this passage. Any man that lusts after you will answer to God for his mental adultery. But you will answer to God if you have provoked it by the manner in which you are dressed. The second text of Scripture is Romans 14:13. "Let us not, therefore, judge one another anymore, but judge this rather, that no man [no woman] put a stumbling block in his brother's way or an occasion of falling." That is what we are to judge. Am I in any way in the manner of my dress putting an occasion of stumbling before one of my brothers in Christ.
Dear ladies, get hold of this principle: purity of motive does not cancel the effects of your appearance. You may have a heart as pure as the untouched new fallen snow on a hillside out there this morning, no desire whatsoever to provoke a man to lust, to seduce a man. But the purity of your motive does not cancel the affect of your appearance. You may have a heart as pure as the new fallen snow, but a bared thigh with a long slit up to here will provoke the lustful thoughts of a man. And God says to you, members of Trinity Church (I said you are the ones whom I am addressing primarily), "Judge this rather, that no man [no woman] put a stumbling block in his brother's way, or an occasion of falling." Mrs. Al Mohler, wife of a man to whom God has given literally national prominence with his syndicated radio broadcast and his blogs, she said this:
"Don't blame the men around you who happen to be unfortunate enough to be within sight and say, 'They need to get their minds out of the gutter.' Proverbs 30 and verse 20 says, 'This is the way of an adulterous woman. She eats and wipes her mouth and says, "I have done no wrong."' Ladies must remember what battles men face to stay pure as they are stimulated visually by women. They should never have it flaunted in their faces. And to have it done at church is an abomination."
That is a woman speaking to her sisters in Christ.
Then the third introductory concern is this. I am speaking for your pastors, including pastor Chanski. This material has been run by pastor Chanski. And he with pastor Smith and pastor Carlson share this burden. I am speaking as your pastors, as those responsible for this local assembly and concerned only with this local assembly. You may go to other churches and you may find expressions of dress that are contrary to the things that I am going to articulate this morning, and my response to that is the words of Jesus in John 21. "What is that to you? Follow thou Me." We leave to other pastors to answer to God for what they do in the sphere of their responsibility. We are concerned with what we do in this sphere of our responsibility. And if you find that some of the things you hear this morning are not going down smoothly, we plead with you, don't seek out others who share your reservations and form a little grousing club. Come to us with an open Bible and show us where we have gone beyond the Scriptures, and we will stand in this pulpit and make alterations or retractions, whichever are necessary.
Well, those are my three areas of introductory concern. Now I come, first of all, time permitting, to an appeal for decided modesty of dress. If you were to look up the word "decided," you would find that it is defined as "definite and unmistakable and clear cut." In other words, I am making a pastoral appeal not for pressing the edge of the envelope, but for dress in the house of God on the Lord's Day that is marked by decided modesty. In other words, no rational man or woman would be able to say anything other than, "That woman is dressed modestly." Now open your Bibles with me, please, as we look, first of all, at the biblical basis for our concern. 1 Timothy 3:14-15 (we are going to come to 1 Timothy 2:9-10, but we start here because Paul tells Timothy why he wrote and what he wrote and when he wrote it):
"These things I write unto you hoping to come unto you shortly. [Paul is desirous that he might very quickly be able to return to Ephesus.] But if I tarry long, here are the burdens on my heart. These are the things that I would address were I with you now, if I come shortly. But if I don't, Timothy, be my alter ego. Address them for me. But if I tarry long, that you may know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Timothy, I am writing specific directives concerning behavior in God's house, God's church, which He has constituted both the foundation and the support of the truth."
In other words, the Church is pillar and support of the truth. She is to confess the truth of God. She is to embody and be shaped by the truth of God. Both elements are absolutely crucial, that the Church must confess the pure gospel of the grace of God, and the Church must validate and illustrate that gospel in its life and in its conduct. And only then is the Church the pillar and the ground of the truth. Now, what are the things, then, that pertain to behavior in God's house? Well, after chapter one where he says in verse three that he left Timothy behind to sort out some doctrinal aberrations, he starts his list of church concerns in chapter two and verse one. "I exhort, therefore, first of all. Here is my first concern, and that first concern is that the Church be marked by this world encompassing gospel-framed life of prayer." That is Paul's great burden in verses one to seven. And then in verse eight, he is concerned that the male members of the Church take the lead in that prayer concern and prayer perspective. "I desire, therefore, that the men pray in every place lifting up holy hands without wrath and disputing." Then he goes on to address women. We are going to pause for a moment and pass over verses nine through 15. And then in chapter three, he takes up the biblical standard for elders and for deacons and says, "These are the character traits that must mark those who are to be set apart in those offices." And nestled down in the midst of this behavior which Paul says ought to be the mark of the people of God--go back to verse 15. "If I tarry long that you may know how men ought..." And in that little particle of necessity, the Greek word dei, there is an element of ought-ness.
"And, Timothy, you are responsible to make sure that these standards are implemented in the Church at Ephesus, that the Church at Ephesus be marked by world encompassing, gospel shaped prayer, that elders and deacons be marked by these requirements and also, Timothy [now we come to verse nine], in like manner, that is, I desire [the pressure of that verb boulomai], in like manner, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel."
Let me read four translations of that verse.
The NIV: "I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety."
ESV: "Likewise also that women should adorn themselves with modesty and self-control."
New King James Version: "In like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation."
New American Standard Bible: "I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly."
Now I want to read a very simple summary of what the words in the original mean and what they point to. And here I quote John Stott in his excellent commentary on 1 Timothy.
"First he tells women to dress modestly with decency and propriety. It is not possible to distinguish these words from one another in a clear cut way. That is why you have these various translations. But the general impression is clear, that women are to be discreet in modest in their dress and not to wear any garment which is suggestive or seductive. This establishes a universal principle."
Then in the following verse where he gets very specific about hairdos, et cetera, what Paul is emphasizing there is that they should not be neither seductive nor in any way suggestive, nor should they be ostentatious (dress in a way that immediately when they walk by every head turns and you look at the hair piled up on their head in a certain way or their garment adorned in such a way that they are showy) so that when you come to the house of God occupied with God, this woman walks by and you become occupied with her. And after commenting on those verses, then Mr. Stott summarizes by saying, "What Paul is emphasizing is that Christian women should adorn themselves with clothing, hairstyles and jewelry which in their culture are inexpensive, not extravagant, modest, not vain and chaste, not suggestive.
So for us as your pastors to be upfront and graciously confrontational and proactive concerning the matter of modestly, does not put us off the charts of our duty. What would you think of us if we gave up the centrality of world-encompassing prayer shaped by the gospel in our life together as a church, gave it up in our prayer meetings, gave it up in our worship services here? What would you think of us? When the text says, "I will first of all that prayer, supplication, intercession, giving of thanks be made for all men," what would you think of us if we no longer insisted on the biblical standard for elders from chapter three? What would you think of us if we gave up what Paul says about the teaching, ruling ministry in the Church and that women are not to teach the mixed assembly, women are not to govern and we began to entertain the thought of women elders? I ask you in Christ's name, what would you think of us if we permitted this? It is going on in many churches. What would you think of us? Well, in the same way, nestled in these same directives is the apostolic mandate that women must dress modestly in the house of God. And we are not going to avoid the insistence that that will be true in this house of God. Do we carry your conscience? I hope we do. So that is the biblical basis for our appeal. We have no alternative.
Now then, secondly, I want to identify the 10 things that most frequently tempt men to think unclean thoughts. This is not an exhaustive list, but I have run it by my fellow elders. I have run it by some others, and I believe I am accurate in saying these are 10 triggers to lustful thoughts. Let me use this image. These are like magnets in a women's dress, magnets that draw men's eyes to parts of their bodies that if they are to maintain purity of mind, they don't want their minds drawn to these parts of a woman's body. Here are the 10 magnets to men's eyes:
Number one: dresses or skirts with lengthy slits. When a man's eye sees a slit that comes up to the knee or above, he thinks, "Oh, a few more inches and what would I see?" That is the way a man's mind works. If your fathers have not told you this, daughters, it is true. If you husbands have not told your wives this, shame on you. You know it is true. This is a magnet to men's eyes, dresses or skirts with lengthy slits.
Secondly, dresses or skirts which hug the buttocks. I don't know a better word to use. I asked my brethren. What do I mean? My shirt is not hugging any part of my body except, perhaps, this is hugging my wrist. A skirt that hugs the buttocks is a skirt that not only comes down over the buttocks, but back in to the back of the thighs. When you see pictures of hookers, one of the marks of a hooker: she always has her buttocks hugged, whether it is a mini skirt, whether it is jeans, whether it is tight slacks, her butt is always hugged because that is what she is selling. And that is what she wants men to buy. It is a magnet to men's eyes.
Thirdly, any upper garment that hugs the breasts. And I don't know a better way to describe it. It is one thing for your garment to come down over and hang loosely upon the breasts, but to hug the breasts, to shape and isolate your breasts becomes a magnet to men's eyes. People should not receive an anatomy lesson in mammary glands when they look at you women. It is a magnet to men's eyes.
Fourthly, unbuttoned blouses, low neck lines or cleavage on any upper body garment. You know what I mean by the buttons. You have got a blouse that buttons up to here. You not only unbutton here and here and here and here, but you unbutton right down to one button away from bearing your bra. And when a man sees only one button to go, his mind goes, I wonder what is under that one more button. I am looking down right now at a young woman who has everything up to the last button. It opens the collar, that's all. And a man's mind only sees that is an open collar. Come two buttons down and what he sees and what he thinks is an occasion of stumbling to him. John Piper, ministering to thousands out in Minneapolis, he is burdened about this issue, and he has posted an article on the internet, "Is Modesty an Issue in the Church Today?" Listen to Mr. Piper.
"Necklines are an issue these days. Everywhere I turn, at the airport, at the church the necklines are plunging. Some fashion designers in the world are communicating to women today that the thing to do is to have your neckline split extend too low. Unbuttoned blouses, low neck lines on the shirts that may be under your jacket, cleavage of any kind on any upper body garment. And also, women, remember, in the church setting you are found at times bending over, picking up a child. Bend over and look at yourself in the mirror before you leave the home. What may seem to cover you well standing, bending over does not cover you sufficiently to be dressed modestly."
Number five, another magnet to men's eyes: sleeveless blouses or dresses with large arm holes. You look down on your sleeveless dress and you see nothing but your shoulder. But if it is a large arm hole, a man sitting behind you looks up at the pulpit, sees through to your bra. And his mind goes where he doesn't want it to go. It is immodest to appear in the house of God with sleeveless blouses and dresses with large arm holes. If the arm holes are tight enough that no one can see in, then that is your liberty before God.
Number six: low rise skirts or pants. This is the style made popular by Christina Aguilera, Brittany Spears, Jennifer Lopez, these sex pots, flaunting their bodies in their gyrations with their so called music. They have made this style popular with the skirts that barely hang on the hip bones and with the jeans that barely come up and cover the crack of the buttocks. I have been in situations with Christian women where I have had to look at the crack of their buttocks because of the low rise jeans, skirts or pants.
Number seven: see through clothing of any kind, clothing that does not cover your under garments to the point where no one can see them. Some of you need to know the function of a camisole.
Number eight: skirts and dresses that are just plain too short. It's difficult when you are seated to adequately cover yourself. And then you get engrossed in something in a public setting and you are not keeping your knees locked together, and before long the legs are spread a bit, and anyone just happening to glance can see clean up to your panties. That is not modest. It is immodest. It becomes a magnet to men's eyes. Listen to Mrs. Mohler again. She says,
"If you arrive at church dressed in such a way that by the end of the service the people around you by no fault of their own know the color of your underwear, and they have watched you do a shimmy dance as you try to get your too short, too tight skirt to go under you, there is a big problem."
I like her humor. You have to do a shimmy dance. But seriously, women, that does not meet the biblical standard, "I will that the women dress modestly."
Number nine: slacks or pants or jeans--hear me carefully, women--that hug the buttocks, the thighs and the crotch. And crotch is not a course word. The dictionary defines it as the place where the legs fork from the human body, the seam or place where the legs of a pair of pants meet. And here I speak from a deeply burdened heart. This is one of the areas, dear women, where the immodesty has taken over in Trinity Baptist Church. Some of you showing up with slacks that I have never asked you what the material was, but they either have spandex in them or they are a kind of material that is a stretch material and hugs the buttocks, comes around and hugs the thigh and presses up on your crotch and the crack of your buttocks, and you have no idea what that does to many a man when he sees it. You draw the eye to the most erotic part of your body. That whole area becomes a magnet for men's eyes. And the apostle says, "I will that the women dress modestly."
And then, number 10: a bared midriff and back. This whole present style where tops come down and just barely, if at all, meet the low rise jeans. You may look in the mirror and say, "Well, I am fully covered," but all you need to do is to reach here and a couple of inches of your belly are showing. All you need to is bend over and people can see your back and usually the top of your underwear, and it has happened right in this assembly. I have seen it Wednesday nights in the prayer meeting to my embarrassment. Thank God, not to my lust, but to my disgust that this would be tolerated in Trinity Baptist Church. One man said to one of his elders, "I saw a woman bend over. I could see the top of her panties and I wondered what it would be like to put my hand down her back," a godly young man, passionate to be a holy young man and caused to stumble in this place.
Now, am I saying that I negated what I said earlier? No, I am loathe to believe that the women involved in the two incident I have just cited are deliberately seeking to cause men to stumble. But my dear sisters, the purity of your motive does not cancel the effect of your dress. And I am going to do something right now. I am going to stick my neck out. I am going to ask the men seated here this morning and the boys, if you find any one or more of these things that I have called magnets for your eyes an occasion of struggling with purity of mind, I want you to raise your hand. Keep them up, men. Keep them up, please, high. Now, my sisters, look around. Come on, 360 degrees. Keep them up, men. Women, turn around. Girls, I am not looking at you. I won't embarrass you. Get a good look at how many--put your hands down now, me--of your dear brothers are struggling with these issues. I am not a dirty-minded old man trying to rob you of your Christian liberty. I am a pastor determined that in this place, women shall appear modestly to the glory of God and to the good of their precious brothers.
So then, having laid out the biblical basis of our concern, secondly, having identified the 10 magnets to men's eyes, what are you to do as a woman? Well, here is my counsel. Let me work down through my notes. Number one: repent of the ways in which you have unwittingly and carelessly allowed yourself to be sucked in by the world's standards and have caused occasion of stumbling to your brothers. Ask God's forgiveness. Go to the Lord Jesus Christ and say, "Lord Jesus, wash me in Your precious blood. I had no idea that those tight slacks that are so comfortable caused my brothers to sin. Oh, Lord Jesus, forgive me." I trust that many of you will have dealings with God today in the way of repentance. "Lord Jesus, I had no idea that that shirt that hugged my breasts and shaped them was an occasion of stumbling. Lord Jesus, forgive me. Cleanse me. Wash me in Your precious blood." Repent. Go to Christ in faith. Find the purging of His own precious blood. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." "And then bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance." Go to your dresser drawers, go to your closet and remove anything and everything that has one of these 10 magnets embedded in it. You say, "Pastor, I will show up in the same outfit for the next five weeks." Hallelujah! If it is modest, we will rejoice. And if anybody comes up and says, "Hey, don't you have another...?", you come and tell us and we will get on their case. We will find some reason to get in their face. I am serious, dear women. Have dealings with God in the way of repentance.
Secondly, pray for and labor to cultivate a sensitive and well-instructed conscience before God on this issue. I would be willing if I asked for a show of hands, I am 99 and 44/100ths percent certain that there are not a few of you women, as I have gone down these 10 things, would say, "I have never realized this." But now you have gotten instruction. To him that knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin. You can't claim ignorance after this morning. And I am looking out now and I find one or two women's faces hidden from mine and I don't like that. I like to see your eyeballs. So if you have got a head in front of you, I am looking over here so nobody will know who I am talking about. If you will just move a little bit. I want to see your eyeballs, women. I want to know, am I striking home to your conscience this morning? You pray and ask God to help you to cultivate a sensitive, well instructed conscience before Him concerning this issue. Pray in the Luke 17 passage. Pray in the Romans 14:13 passage. Listen to the words of John Piper.
"I plead with the Christian women of the world that they take into consideration the things they are saying by what they are wearing. Dress to please the Lord. And you can still dress beautifully. You don't have to look stupid or out of style to be modest. I know this is the case because there are hundreds of very attractive women at our church-- excuse me--who dress modestly and don't cause men to stumble. And they don't look out of style."
That is my plea to you. Repent and bring forth fruits meet for repentance. Pray for and labor to cultivate a sensitive, well-instructed conscience before God concerning this issue.
Thirdly, welcome the quality control of husband, father, mother, the people of God and your pastors. Welcome the quality control upon your modesty that should come from your husband, from your father, from your mother, from the people of God and from your pastors. You may judge something to be modest because you look at yourself through your own eyes. Someone else is looking at you through a different set of eyes. Now, if there are some men who will only believe you are modest if you show up like a Muslim women, we will take those men aside and deal with them. We are not advocating you all go out and get a black gunny sack, cut a hole in it and stick it on your head, not at all. But we need the quality control. You men, you know what are the magnets to your eyes. Monitor what your wife wears. It hurts me at times when my wife comes up into my study and says, "Well, Al, what do you think about this?"
"No, dear. It looks nice on you, but it looks too nice on you."
You be the quality control over your wife. She is not a man. She doesn't think like a man. You can't expect her to think like a man. But you are a man, aren't you? Well, begin to act like one. Quit yourself like a man and say it sweetly. Say, "Dear, the slit goes up to high."
"Oh, but honey..."
"Dear, the slit goes up too high."
"Oh, but honey."
"The slit is too high."
In other words, you start out nice and sweet. If she resists you, you meet her head on and say, "You will not leave this house with that skirt as long as I am your husband. End of discussion." Now, let me ask you men, have got that kind of holy testosterone? If not, go to God and ask Him to give you a good shot of it. Be sweet. Be gentle. Be kind. Be sensitive. But if she meets with you whining and starts to wear you down, stand your ground.
Quality control of husband, father for the daughters and mother. You have every right while your children are under your roof, not only do you have the right, you have the responsibility that they dress modestly. It is your responsibility. Now I want you to listen to another one of your sisters in Christ. This is Mrs. Mohler. I love this woman. I have never met her, but I hope to meet her some time. She has got moxy. She says,
"Mothers of sons have often asked me, 'What can we do? We don't have daughters we can influence, but we have sons that are looking at how your daughters dress.' Men of all ages struggle with this. It is our job as mothers of daughters to make sure our daughters' appearance are not causing males to stumble or causing females to point to them as examples in order to make their case."
Richard Baxter, the great Puritan preacher said to women,
"And you must not lay a stumbling block in the way of men, nor blow up the fire of their lust, nor make your ornament snares. But you must walk among sinful persons as you would do with a candle among straw or gunpowder, or else you may see the flame which you would not foresee when it is too late to quench it,"
And what do you do with respect to your daughter that pushes you and pushes you with regard to a certain standard? Well, she has, again, some very helpful counsel. Time is going so we will have to skip it, but basically what she says is, "You are the mother. You are the father. You stand the ground and you tell your daughter, 'In this house, this is off base. This is off base. No discussion. End of the issue." But then we need the quality control of one another. Some of you don't have husband. You don't have father. But the Scripture says in Hebrews 3:13, "Exhort one another while it is called today lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." Sin is deceitful. You can think, "Oh, I am dressed perfectly modestly." But sin has deceived you. You are not dressed modestly. You need the quality control of God's people to draw aside lovingly and say, "My dear sister, I know the last thing in the world you would want to do is cause any man to think unclean thoughts. Isn't that true?"
"Well, of course."
"Well, I think maybe you ought to maybe reconsider this or that which you are wearing," in the light of "graciously exhort one another." And then if there is any pattern of immodestly--notice what said--a pattern of immodestly that does not yield to husband, to mother, to father, to the people of God, then, your elders are going to deal with it. And we are going to confront you and say, "Our Bibles say that behavior in the house of God mandates modestly of dress among the women. You have a pattern of immodesty. It must stop." That is our responsibility. The text that has been haunting me for months as we have wrestled with this. And my wife will tell you and my fellow elders. I have been vexed; I think it has contributed to some of this headiness over the past months. "Lord, I see what is happening. I know something must be done, but how, in what forum, in what way? Lord, give wisdom." And the text that keeps thundering in my ear, the prophet Isaiah spoke of the false prophet and he said these words: "They are dumb dogs that cannot bark." Dumb dogs, a watch dog that when the thief comes he sits there and licks his hand and he doesn't bark. I said, "Oh, God, don't let us be charged with being dumb dogs that cannot bark," that cannot bark and stand against the tremendous pressure that the world is bringing upon your dear women to get you to compromise or to be insensitive to the biblical standard with respect to the matter of your modesty.
Well, I have just dealt with modesty. I haven't given my appeal for distinctive femininity of dress. That will have to wait. It is already 10:31 and I don't want to squeeze the other material so that it is not dealt with adequately. So we will have to leave that for another forum and trust that God will guide us and, perhaps, as my thinking on the matter ripens and matures, I will do a better job than I would have had I covered the material this morning.
So what have we done? I gave you three disclaimers. We are not saying that if God brings raw sinners among us dressed like sinners we are going to reject them till they change their clothing. That has never been our posture. It will not be as long as Christ rules in this church. I have said I don't believe that the women in membership in this church--I am not speaking for some of you who are not members--I believe there are some of you young women who are seeking to be cutesy seductive. In other words, if one of the men of this church propositioned you, you wouldn't like that, but you like being cutesy seductive. You know what the tight skirt does to the eyes of men and you like it. But I don't believe that is true of any of the members. I trust I am not being overly optimistic. But I am sincerely, pastorally saying we do not believe that is true. And, thirdly, by way of that introductory concern that we laid before you, I can't remember what it was and I don't have my notes in front of me, so I will have to leave it. But then I gave you the biblical basis for our concern, 1 Timothy. I gave you the 10 magnets for men's eyes. You saw in many, many hands of your brothers, I am not barking up a tree with no coons up in the tree. And then I sought to lay before you what you ought to do in the light of what you have heard this morning. Repent, pray for a sensitized conscience and then plead with God to be sensitive to the quality control of husband, father, mother, the people of God and your pastors.
God grant that it will not be long before any one coming back into Trinity Church or coming for the first time will see the gospel validated in the decided modesty of the women of this church. The gospel is at stake, my dear sisters. Let's preserve it in its substance, in its doctrinal purity and in its powerful application to take women out of the society where immodesty is the order of the day and make them attractive, tasteful, modest, Christian women to the glory and to the praise of our God.
Obtained from www.sermonaudio.com. Revised and reformatted by Eternal Life Ministries. Only necessary changes have been made, such as correcting spelling errors, some punctuation usage, and capitalization of deity pronouns.
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