Good morning. That is a great
call to worship. I love that hymn. We don't sing
hymns unless they exalt Christ, but sometimes the hymns that
we sing, we sing things that we believe,
but that particular hymn Every bit of it is a prayer. It's addressing the Lord and
asking Him for His mercy as we meet together. I love that hymn. We're going to be in John chapter
7 again this morning. If you'd like to open your Bibles
there with me, John chapter 7. Hugo preached memorial service
for Mary in Dominican Republic yesterday, and he and Zoby are
still down there, and Jorge is going to be translating the messages
this morning for the first time in Hugo's absence, so I want
us to pray for Jorge as he does that. I told these men I have
a hard enough time finding words, and I only know one language. To be able to hear one language
and translate it simultaneously into another takes a whole lot
bigger brain than I've got. But let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, thank you.
Once again, you have brought us together to meet with thee,
to worship thee, to open your word in hopeful confidence that
you will meet with us and that you will open our hearts and
that you will be pleased to reveal your grace and your glory in
the person of thy dear son. Lord, enable us to speak well
of him, to speak the truth about him and to to exalt him, enable
us to hear not just the voice of a man, but Lord, that we would
hear your voice and that we would leave this place having met with
thee and having worship thee. Lord, we thank you for you go
and for the work that he was able to do there in Dominican
Republic and pray your blessings on your word to those people
and she would bless it to the faith of your elect. Lord, we
pray for Jorge asked that you would enable him to to translate
the gospel this morning. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. John chapter 7. I've titled this
message, Yet a Little While. Yet a Little While. Now, the
events of John chapter 7 are about six months prior to the
crucifixion of the Lord. And that is what he's speaking
of. when he says, yet a little while,
won't be long. I'll not be with you. Verse 32 of John chapter 7, the
Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning
him. And the Pharisees and the chief
priest sent officers to take him. And one of the other gospel
writers tells us what these officers said when they came back. The
Pharisees wanted to know where he was. And these were the enforcers
of the law. These were the policemen of the
day. And they went out in authority
to arrest the Lord Jesus. And yet, his time was not yet. And they came back and said,
never a man spake like that man. We went with the authority of
the law. He spoke with the authority of
God, and we had no power to overtake him. And so they came back empty
handed. But if you'll notice back up
in verse 30, then they sought to take him, but no man laid
hands on him because his hour was not yet come. The Lord Jesus
was in complete control of all the events surrounding his arrest
and his death. No man took his life from him. He laid it down willingly. And we see in this story the
absolute sovereign power and control of our God over man. Of course, the application of
that for you and me is that he has not changed. He's the same
today as he was yesterday and shall be tomorrow. He changes
not. And so we have a God who is still
in absolute sovereign control over all the events of this world.
and all the things of our lives. Verse 31, many of the people
believed on him and said, when Christ cometh, will he do more
miracles than these, which this man hath done? And when the Pharisees
heard these murmurings, they wanted to put an end to it, but
they had no power over him. Then said Jesus unto them, and
here's the title of the message, yet a little while, Yet a little
while I am with you. And then I go unto him that sent
me." Six months from this time, the Lord Jesus would go to Mount
Calvary. He would willingly lay his life
down on a cross and lay down his life for the sins of his
people. He would rise from the dead. victorious over death, over sin,
over Satan, over hell. And in just a few days, he would
ascend back into glory and take his rightful place at the right
hand of his father. And so he's telling these Pharisees,
you only have a little bit longer to have to tolerate me. Yet a little while am I with
you. And then I go unto him that sent
me. You shall seek me and shall not find me. And whither I am,
you cannot come." Men are still seeking the physical
presence and physical evidence of God in their lives. They're looking to their outward
works as the evidence of their salvation. They're looking for
signs and wonders. They're looking for things that
they can tangibly see and hold to for the evidence of God's
presence. And that's what our Lord's saying
to these Pharisees, you're going to look for me, but you're not
going to find me. Because I'm not going to physically
be here. I'm going to be seated at the
right hand of my father. And the only ones that are going
to find me are those who are not looking for me in the physical
world. They're not looking for evidences
of me in this life. They that are after the flesh
do mind the things of the flesh. But they that are after the Spirit,
the things of the Spirit. We look not upon those things
which are seen, for the things which are seen are temporal.
We look upon those things which are not seen. We set our affections
on things above, not on the things of the earth. That's what our
Lord's saying. And don't look for me in worldly events and in worldly
evidences, you're going to have to have eyes of faith. The contrast
to what the Lord is saying to these Pharisees is what he said
to the disciples in John chapter 14, when he told them that he
would go and prepare a place for them. and that he would come
again and receive them unto himself, so that where he is, there they
would be also. And Thomas said, Lord, we don't
know where you're going, and we don't know how to get there. And the Lord said, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. he that cometh unto me. No man
can come unto the Father except by me. The Lord Jesus was saying
to Thomas and to the other disciples, yes, you know where I'm going.
Matter of fact, he said that in John chapter 14. He said,
you know where I'm going and you know the way. You know where
I'm going and you know the way. And that's when Thomas said,
we don't know where you're going, and we don't know the way. And
the Lord Jesus said, I am the way. And then Philip speaks up
and says, Lord, show us the Father, and it will suffice us. And the Lord said, oh, Philip,
have I been with you so long that you don't know? If you've
seen me, you've seen the Father, for I and the Father are one.
If what the Lord says to his children and what he says to
these Pharisees too, he said, in a little while, you're only
going to have to tolerate me for a little bit longer in the
flesh. And then you're going to seek for me. And they did. Don't you know that when those
soldiers that were guarding the tomb came back and reported that
an angel had come and rolled away the stone and that the Lord
was no longer there. Don't you know they sent a battalion
of officers to that grave site to look and to confirm, and then
they bribed the soldiers to lie about what really happened? They
sought him. They sought him, but they could
not find him. The Lord Jesus never revealed
himself to anyone after his resurrection but to his children, but to his
people. During those days when he remained
here on earth before his ascension into glory and to this day, he
has never manifested himself to anyone other than his elect,
his people. how easy it would be for him
to humble all men with a little finger of his power. One day it will be that way. One day the trump of God will
sound. One day the dead in Christ will be raised. And one day every
knee will bow and every tongue will confess. But in the meantime,
the revelation that our Lord makes of himself is through his
word, by the power of his spirit, through the gift of faith, by
the eye of faith. We're not looking for him in
this world. We're looking outside of ourselves
and outside of our experiences and outside of our circumstances
and outside of our feelings. And we're looking through this
miraculous eye of faith that God gives only to his people.
And we see him seated as a sovereign, successful savior at the right
hand of God. And we set our hope, all of our
hope of salvation on him. Where I am, he's saying to the
Pharisees, you cannot come. But he says to his people, you
know where I'm going and you know how to get there. Then said the Jews among themselves,
whither will he go that we shall not find him? Will he go into
the disperse among the Gentiles and teach the Gentiles? Now that
was an insult that they were making about the Lord. And yet, that is exactly what
he will do. That is exactly what he did do.
And that is exactly what he's doing now. The gospel, is going
out into the Gentile world, how few of the Jews are converted. The church, primarily in the
last 2,000 years, at least after that first generation, the Lord
did give those Jewish people, that first generation, to hear
the gospel. After that, went out into the
Gentile world. What manner of saying is this
that he said, you shall seek me and shall not find me. And
whither I am, thither you cannot come. What does this mean? Well, here's what it means. The Lord, the disciples, thought
that the Lord was going to establish an earthly kingdom. They were
still thinking the throne of David was an earthly throne.
They were still having fleshly thoughts and ideas. They had
not yet come in the power of the Spirit of God, which they
would have after Pentecost, to understand the truth of the gospel
fully. even at the ascension of Christ
from the Mount of Olives. Is it time now for you to set
up your kingdom? You know, we're ready. It's not
for you to know the time of the season. You go back into Jerusalem,
the Holy Ghost will come upon you, and you're going to be my
witnesses, first in Judea and Samaria, and then to the outermost
parts of the world. Prior to that, Pentecost, prior
to the coming of the Holy Spirit, You remember James and John wanted
to sit at the right and the left hand of the Lord in his earthly
kingdom. I thought, we've got, you know,
we're his disciples. Their mother came, made the other
disciples angry. And the Lord asked this question. He said, are you able to drink
of the cup that I'm going to drink of? And are you able to
be baptized with the baptism that I'm going to be baptized
with? And they proudly, arrogantly said, we're able. Whatever that
means, we're able. And I love what the Lord said
when he said, and you will. You will. When the Lord Jesus
drank the bitter dregs of sin from that cup, that cup that
he had prayed, Father, if there be any way this cup can pass
from me, let it be nevertheless not my will, but thy will be
done. When the Lord Jesus suffered the baptism, not of water, but
of fire, the baptism of fire on Calvary's cross, having been
made sin, it pleased God to bruise him. And the full fury of God's
justice fell on the Lord Jesus at Calvary's cross. That was
the cup and that was the baptism that he would suffer on behalf
of his people. And when he says to us, and you
will, and you will, what he's saying to us is that when the
Lord Jesus drank that cup and put it away, we did. That was our sin. When he was
crucified and suffered the wrath of God's fiery justice, we were
in him. And God is satisfied. We drank
of that cup and we were baptized with him. And there's our hope. Can we see that in our earthly
experience? No, we have to have the spirit
of God. We have to have the faith that
only God can give to believe what God has revealed in his
word to find our hope in a salvation that is invisible to the natural
eye. It's invisible to the natural
eye. Yet a little while. Won't be
long. Four things I want to try to
draw out and point to in this one statement, yet a little while. is the first one would be the
sovereignty of our God. Now, we don't hang the hopes
of our salvation on the doctrine of sovereignty. We don't believe
our faith is not in the sovereignty of God. Our faith is in a God
who is sovereign. absolutely sovereign. And I love
the revelation that the Lord's making of himself to these Pharisees
and, well, to his disciples, to his disciples. When he tells
to the Pharisees, yet a little while, they're trying to arrest
me. They send the police out after
me. They're trying to take him, but they have no control over
what's happening. I am in control of all these
events. Even when the Roman soldiers,
which would have had more power and more authority than these
officers that the Pharisees sent, when they came to the Garden
of Gethsemane with Judas to arrest the Lord, whom seekest thou? Jesus of Nazareth, And the literal
translation is, I am. He declares his sovereign name,
I am. His self-existent name, the name
that encompasses all of his power and all of his glory, I am. And this legion of Roman soldiers
fell to the ground. They fell to the ground at the
voice of God. And they get back up. Whom seekest
thee? I am. And they, according to his sovereign
purpose, took him into custody and would have taken all the
disciples as well. They were still there. And the Lord Jesus says to those
Roman soldiers, you let these go. And they obeyed his voice. They obeyed him. They did what
he told them to do. You let these disciples go. You're
here for me. He didn't negotiate with them.
He just told them what to do. And then when he stood before
Pilate and Pilate wanted to threaten him and say, don't you know that
I have the power to crucify you or to let you go? And what did
the Lord Jesus say? You have no power at all except
for that which is given to you from heaven. Oh, what a glorious
God we serve. And just as he was in control,
He said at the Garden of Gethsemane, when he came back after sweating
great drops of blood, he said, my hour's here. We just read
in John chapter 7, they tried to arrest him, but his hour had
not yet come. My hour, his hour, the appointed time and the fullness
of time, when he purposed it, as he ordained it, it would happen. What comfort, brethren, we have. And whatever God has ordained
for us is not only right, as we sing sometimes in that hymn,
whatever our God ordains is right. But what our God ordains is best. What our God ordains is good.
And when we can't see the good that's in it, by the eye of faith,
we're not looking You see, here's the danger of looking at my circumstances
to get evidence of God's blessings in my life. Now, we're tempted
so often to think, well, this is too bad, this is too difficult. And you've heard me say this
before, I'll say it again. There's hard days and there's
easy days for the child of God, but there are no bad days. There
are hard days and there are easy days. There are no such things
as a bad day for the child of God. All things work together
for good for them that love him and those of the called according
to his purpose. And when God said something bad, something
hard, we look beyond that and we come to believe in what the
eye cannot see. A little while In a little while,
I'm with you, but only for a little while. Then I'm not here. And we see our God, the glorious
I am, seated upon his throne, reigning over the armies of heaven
and all the inhabitants of the earth. No man can stay his hand. No
man can say unto him, what are you doing? Not a great comfort to you. Turn with me to Ecclesiastes
chapter 3. Psalm, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. Solomon. Wisest man that ever
lived. Verse 10, Ecclesiastes chapter
3. I have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons of
men to be exercised in it. These hard days are exercises
of faith. Your faith's going to be tried.
A faith that's not tried is not proven. And God's gonna exercise
us through trials and troubles and tribulations, count it all
joy, my brethren, when you fall into diverse trials, knowing
that the trying of your faith, the trying of your faith work
at patience. Patience, when it is complete, will make you perfect
and entire, lacking nothing. How are we ever gonna be perfect
and entire, lacking nothing? Only when we're able to look
at that which the natural eye cannot see. Only when we're able
to set our affections on Christ and look to him as the sovereign,
successful savior, ruler, sustainer of all of life, then in him we
are perfect. hath made everything beautiful
in his time in his time and the beauty of what he's doing won't
be seen by us until it's all is sometimes we we can look back
and say well you know I see where that brought about something
good but oftentimes we're not able to see where good comes
from bad his time will be eternity. And in that time, we'll see.
We'll see. It all brought us to that place. Also, he has set the world in
their hearts so that no man can find out the work that God make
it from the beginning to the end. We can't figure it out. We can't connect the dots. We
just can't do it. But God already has. You know,
we're looking at the backside of the tapestry and there's a
lot of knots and confusion, but on the other side where the Lord's
working, there's a perfect picture of himself. I know that there is no good
in them, but for a man to rejoice and to do good in his life, and
also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good
of all of his labor, it is the gift of God. It is the gift of
God. I know that whatsoever God doeth,
it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor
anything taken from it. God doeth it that men should
fear before him. We know that that first and foremost
applies to the work of Christ. Nothing can be added to his work
and nothing be taken from his work. We fear God in the finished
work. of the Lord Jesus. We see in
this a little while the sovereignty of our God. So if the Lord tells
us, don't worry about what you're going to eat or what you're going
to drink or what you're going to wear. Consider the lilies
of the field. They don't spin and they don't
toil, and yet Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed
as one of them. Consider the birds of the air.
Not one of them falls to the ground. And that word falls to
the ground doesn't mean a sparrow dies. It means what sparrows
do. You watch a sparrow, he hops
around. How many sparrows are there in
the world? How many times does one sparrow
hop in a day? The sparrow doesn't take a hop
without God knowing it. Are you not of more value than
they? The Gentiles seek after these
things. Your father knows what you need. yet a little while. I'm in control of this, every
bit of it. Faith enables us to rest right
there. I'd be cold hearted to make that
statement apart from the authority of God's word. based on what
some of God's children have to suffer in this world. But it's the Lord. It's the Lord. And our comfort is not to find
change in our circumstances. Our comfort is to look at that
which cannot be seen. Secondly, we see in this statement
that our Lord makes in John chapter 7, the brevity of this life,
yet a little while. Yet a little while. The man studied
this morning before the service, Don, where Don Williams read
from Psalm 19. And there's a verse in Psalm
19 where David says, Lord, forgive me of my presumptuous sins. So many. sins that are wicked
and shameful, but we rarely consider our presumptuous
sins. And yet the majority of the evidence
of our sin nature is seen in how presumptuous we are. We presume
that the sun's gonna come up tomorrow. We presume that God's
gonna give us another breath. We presume that our children
are gonna grow up. We presume upon God in everything,
not even conscious of the fact that we're dependent upon him
for everything. Lord, forgive me of my presumptuous
sin, yet in a little while, in a little while, What is your
life, James said. It is a vapor. It is a vapor
and what a blessing it is when the Lord reminds us of that and
how, what a testimony of our unbelief and the coldness of
our heart and our attractions and attachments to this world
that we have to get old before we really believe. You know, I can't believe how
fast 71 years have gone. I mean, it just, boom. And, you
know, just a little bit longer. But I'm ashamed that I have to
be as old as I am to come to that realization as clearly. I mean, I've always known it,
but you experience it. You experience it, just, you
know, what is your life? It's a vapor, it's here for a
moment and it's gone. Yet a little while, let the Lord
remind each of us, regardless of our age, how brief this life
really is. How few days there are in it. And what a mercy it is that our
God would afflict us, afflict us in this world, afflict us
with trials and troubles and cancer and heart attacks and things that will remind us of
just how frail we are and how brief this life is. Just a little
while. Not going to be long. We're not going to be here much
longer. And I can say that to young people. You're not going
to be here much longer. Because you're going to be my
age before you know it. And then you're going to be gone. And
that's a good thing. Let us hear the words of our
Savior yet a little while. yet just a little while. Job said it like this, man that
is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, full of
trouble. Thirdly, we see that our God
is sovereign. He's in control of this when
he says in a little while, We're reminded of the brevity of our
own life in this world, yet a little while. We're also reminded of
the responsibility that we have to honor the Lord with the little
time that we have, yet a little while. Listen to what the Lord
says to us in Colossians chapter four. Walk in wisdom towards
those that are without, without Christ. He's talking about our
walk of faith in this world among unbelievers. Walk in wisdom toward
those that are without, redeeming the time, redeeming the time. Ephesians chapter five, see then
that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming
the time because the days are evil, yet a little while. Now,
if you're anything like me, if you had all the money that you
spent on things that after you bought them you had buyer's remorse,
you'd be a millionaire. I mean, how many things we've
invested in, how many things we've bought, little to big,
If we had to do over again, we would never have purchased them.
That's what redeem means. To redeem something means to
buy it. And the Lord's telling us to
redeem the time. There's no buyer's remorse in
investing in time. Redeeming that time, holding
that time that we have in this life to be valuable. How much of our time we flit
away, we waste. And the Lord is saying to you
and me, yet a little while, yet a little while, the days are
evil. You're walking in a world of unbelievers. Redeem that time,
purchase that time. Hold that time to be valuable.
There will be no buyer's remorse in that. Most of what we bought is a whole
lot less valuable than we thought it was when we bought it. But
to redeem the time, oh, it's much more valuable than we even
think. Yet, a little while. And my final point. is that we
cannot presume, the worst presumption that we can make is not that
we'll be drawing another breath or that our events that we planned
will come out, whatever it is. But the worst presumption of
all is that God will send his spirit again and again. And the call of the gospel, the call
of the gospel is never go and think about it. The call of the
gospel is come. Had a mother tell me whose son
has gone completely out into the world that he told her one
Sunday. You know, I really felt, I really
felt convicted by what I heard this morning. And I wanted to
go and talk to Greg about it, but I didn't do it. I just shelved it. I just put it aside. Whether
the Lord will ever visit him again Whether the Lord will ever
give him another opportunity to hear the gospel, I don't know.
But it's a sober reminder to all of us that just like with
blind Bartimaeus, who heard that the Lord was passing by, he knew
that he had but a little while. He could not presume that he
would have another opportunity to encounter the Lord, and he
cried in a loud voice, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy
upon me. And his friends and associates,
people around him tried to shut him up. Bartimaeus, you're embarrassing
us, and you're embarrassing yourself. Look at you. And he cried all
the louder, until finally someone came to him and said, be of good
cheer. The master calleth thee. That woman with an issue of blood,
the Lord Jesus was being thronged by people. She couldn't even
get to him. There were so many people around him, but getting
on her hands and knees, crawling through the crowd, if I could
just but touch the hem of his garment, he would make me whole. Yet a little while, let us not
presume that God, that let us come, let us respond, let us
believe every time we hear what we hear and never presume that,
well, you know, I'll just wait. We'll have another chance. What must we do to be saved?
Believe. When? Right now. Today is the day of salvation.
Now is the accepted time. Right now. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Talking to a young man this week.
Well, you know, you've given me a lot to think about. And
we had great conversation. He had good questions and understood
what I was saying. I was able to say to him, you
know, all the excuses that people make, he would say, well, I need
to go learn some more. No, you don't. No, you don't. Well, I need to have this. That's
looking for something. But in fact, all of those things,
your people say, well, you know, I'm not sure if I'm ready, or
I'm not sure I understand, or I've got to do this or that.
Those are all excuses. They're just smokescreen. The
real issue, I will not have that man reign over me. Light has
come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light
because their deeds are evil. I'm not going to bow to him,
because in bowing to him, I'm going to have to submit control
of my life to another, and I'm not ready for that. I'm not ready
for that. I'm the master of my own ship,
I'm the captain of my own ship, the master of my own destiny,
I'm in control. No, you're not. No, you're not. If you knew how self-destructive
we were, how, oh, if we only knew how he loved us, What do they say about a man
who represents himself in a court of law? He's got a fool for a
lawyer. A man who tries to represent
himself in this world, and most importantly, before God, is a
fool. He's a fool. Yet, a little while. Not going to be long. All right. Let's take a break.