Sinners Jesus will receive, Sound
this word of grace to all, Who the heavenly pathway leave, All
who linger, all who fall, Sing it o'er and o'er again, Christ,
receive a sinful man. Make the message clear and plain,
Christ, receive a sinful man. Come and He will give you rest. Trust Him, for His word is plain. He will take the sinful last. Christ receiveth sinful men. Sing it o'er and o'er again,
Christ, receive His sinful man. Make the message clear and plain,
Christ, receive His sinful man. Now my heart condemns me not,
pure before the law I stand. He who cleansed me from all spot,
satisfied its last demand, sing it o'er. ? And or again ? ? Christ,
receive us, sinful man ? ? Make the message clear and plain ?
? Christ, receive us, sinful man ? ? Christ receiveth sinful
man ? ? Even me with all my sin ? ? Purged from every spot and
stain ? ? Heaven with him I enter in ? ? Sing it o'er and o'er
again ? ? Christ receiveth sinful man ? Please be seated. I hope the Lord will enable us
to make that message again clear and plain, that he will make
it effectual to our hearts that we'll know that he's put away
the sins of his people by the sacrifice of himself. And he received sinners. He does. Aren't you glad? We can we can sing about it and
be thankful for it. Let's open our Bibles together
to Leviticus chapter three. Leviticus chapter three. I prepared a message from Judges
6 on the Lord, our peace. And so I want us to read some
verses here about the peace offering. All of these Old Testament offerings
were types and pictures pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ, who
would make peace with God for us by offering up himself. to
his heavenly father. Leviticus chapter three, verse
one, and if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer
it of the herd, whether it be a male or female, he shall offer
it without blemish before the Lord. An animal that was without
spot, the lamb of God. and he shall lay his hand upon
the head of his offering and kill it at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation. And Aaron's sons, the priests,
shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about." What
a fulfillment of this prophecy. The Lord Jesus Christ was killed
at the door of the tabernacle and that his blood was sprinkled
on the mercy seat. And he shall offer of the sacrifice
of the peace offering, an offering made by fire unto the Lord, the
fat that covered the inward and all the fat that is upon the
inwards. Here's the fire of God's wrath
and God's justice falling upon the Lord Jesus Christ and the
two kidneys and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks
and the coral above the liver, with the kidneys it shall he take away. And Aaron's son
shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is
upon the wood, which is on the fire. It is an offering made
by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. The only thing that's a sweet
savor unto the Lord is the aroma of the sacrifice of Christ. And
that's how we come before him now. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we do thank
you that the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled all of these Old Testament
types and pictures and prophecies, and that we have a lamb as one
slain before the foundation of the world, seated at thy right
hand as our sin bearer, our substitute, our advocate, Lord, we pray that
you would forgive us of our sin for Christ's sake. And that you
would give to us again tonight as we look to your word, the
power of your Holy Spirit, and the gift of your grace and faith
that we might look to and find our peace offering in the sacrifice
that Christ made of himself to you. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Number 19 in the Spiral Hymnbook,
19. Let's all stand together again.
? Sovereign ruler, Lord of all
? ? Prostrate at your feet I fall ? ? You are holy, wise, and just
? ? I'm a creature of the dust ? ? All things move at your command
? ? Governed by your mighty hand ? ? Heaven, earth, and hell I
see ? ? Fulfill all your wise decree ? ? Dares a man resist
his Lord ? ? Stand against the sovereign God ? ? I will bow
before your throne ? ? Seeking grace in Christ your Son ? ?
Through his blood and righteousness ? ? Lord, I plead with you for
grace ? ? If you will, you can, I know ? ? Grace and mercy to
me show ? ? Will you, Lord, my soul forgive ? ? Grant this sinner
grace to live ? I've no other hope but this, Jesus' blood and
righteousness. Now I'm conquered by your grace. In the dust I hide my face. Give me Christ or else I die. I upon your grace rely. ? O for mercy now I plead ? Grant
me Lord the grace I need ? Turn O turn to me and say ? All your
sins are washed away ? In my son your debt is paid ? He for
you the ransom made Please be seated. Give me Christ or else I die. In Judges chapter six, Gideon
saw the Lord and he thought he was going to die. And the Lord
said, no, you're not going to die. He found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. And Gideon called the place Jehovah
Shalom, the Lord, my peace. Last Wednesday night, we looked
at the Lord of Hosts, Jehovah Saba. and how encouraged we are
to know that our God is absolutely sovereign over the armies of
heaven, the inhabitants of the earth. No man can stay his hand. The nations are but a drop in
the bucket to him. Everything that's happening is
right on our God's schedule, and he's controlling it all for
his glory and for the good of his people, the Lord of hosts. Tonight, I want us to look to,
if you will, with me in your Bibles to Judges chapter six. Verse 24, then Gideon built an
altar there unto the Lord and called it Jehovah Shalom. And unto this day, it is yet
in Ophrah of the Abizarites. The Lord spoke to Gideon, told
him that he would have peace with God. And so Gideon calls
this place the Lord My Peace. The Lord My Peace. Peace is a
pretty simple concept. We understand peace as it relates
to the absence of conflict. We want to have peace in our
homes. We don't want there to be a spirit
of conflict and contention or anger. We want peace among nations. We want the cessation of wars. We hope right now that our Lord
will do something to stop this tragedy that's taking place in
Ukraine. We want peace of mind. We enjoy peace of mind, don't
we? a place where we can just be
at peace and harmony and friendship and concord and unity. Anxiety and conflict and a disquieted
heart and war between men is never anything that we desire. We desire and hope to contribute
to a spirit of peace here among us in the church, that we'll
be quick to forgive, that we'll love one another. Love hides
a multitude of sins. That we'll be patient with one
another and that we'll be at peace with each other. That's
a blessed thing when God's people enjoy peace among themselves,
isn't it? And so in all those senses, peace
is a desire of our hearts and our lives. And yet the peace
that I want us to look at tonight is a peace that only God can
give. It's not a peace that's created by circumstances or by
the efforts that we make. It is a peace that God alone
speaks to the heart. And when he does, then our circumstances
can be not at peace. And yet we can still be at peace.
We can be living in a contentious world. We can have conflicts
even in our homes. and yet be at peace. Did the
Lord not say, I did not come to bring peace, I came to bring
a sword? And that the gospel would turn
family members against family members. And so can I have peace
under those circumstances? Yes. The kind of peace we're
talking about you can. Men love just to have their their
minds soothed, don't they? I got an email recently that
said, download this. Are you having anxiety? Do you
have trouble sleeping? Are you worried? Download this
app and listen to this music, and it'll lull you to sleep,
and it'll give you peace. And I thought about how King
Saul would call David in to play his musical instruments for him
to soothe the spirit that he had, which
was the scripture calls it an evil spirit. Saul had an evil
spirit. And yet that music gave him a
false sense of peace, didn't it? And we're not interested
in that sort of peace. Notice with me in verse 23 of
our text. And the Lord said unto him, peace
be unto thee, fear not. thou shalt not die." Oh, there's my hope that God
would say unto me, fear not, you're not going to die. The false prophets speak of false
peace. Scripture says that they say
peace, peace, when there actually is no peace. And we see that
in religion. We see men saying, well, you
know, if you just pray this prayer, you can have, you can have peace.
And then when you pray with them, uh, they say there, you've nailed
it down. Now you've got peace. And, uh,
and so they lie to you and you lie to themselves and they give
you your lie to yourself and you get, they give you assurance
and, and all of a sudden you think, you know, all is well. The scripture says, the name
of the Lord is a strong tower and the righteous flee to it
and is safe. Now notice in that verse that
the verb is singular, is safe, not are safe. So if the verb
is singular, then the subject, the righteous must also be singular. If you read it, you think, well,
the name of the Lord is a strong tower and the righteous flee
to it and are safe, but that's not what it says. The righteous
flee to it and is safe. So the righteous is the individual. This peace that God speaks to
the heart is not a general call to a lot. It's a, it's a personal,
it's a personal call. God's got to speak to your heart.
He's got to speak to my heart. He's got to speak to each of
us. And I love the emphasis that the Lord puts on the individual
in the scriptures and how he will turn the world upside down
to save one of his children. You know, he sent Paul and Silas
to a Roman prison, had them beaten to the end of their life, chained
to a dungeon wall, and for the salvation of that jailer. You
know, there was no peace there in terms of their circumstances.
They were not in the absence of conflict. They were in the
midst of a great turmoil. And yet God intended to cause
one of his righteous to flee to that strong tower that they
might have peace. When God speaks, he speaks to
individuals. false prophets, the false gospel
will have us looking to evidences in our lives to get peace. You know, well I'm not doing
this anymore, and I'm not doing that anymore, and I am doing
this now, and so I must be a Christian. and we hang the hopes of our
salvation and our sense of peace on what we're able to see with
our natural eyes and experience. When God speaks peace, he's saying
to the heart of each of his righteous ones, you're not gonna die. You're not gonna die. A lot of other things might happen.
No place in the scriptures does the Lord promise us a bed of
roses and a life of ease. No, to the contrary, we're going
to have some conflicts in this world as a result of the gospel.
And we're certainly going to have conflicts within ourselves
as a result of the gospel. You remember the Midianites?
Midian being contention and And here we are, we've got a spirit
warring against the flesh and a flesh against the spirit. And
we live in a world that's contrary to everything that we hold dear
and everything that we believe. And we're drawn into that. And
we're tempted by the world. And the weakness of our flesh
is just, there's a lot of conflict in there. We're in conflict with
ourselves. And yet God says, you have peace
with God, you're not gonna die. You're not gonna die. If I have
a word from God assuring me that I will not die, then all is well. All is well. Now we're talking
about, we're not talking about physical death. We're talking
about eternal separation from God. That's what, that's what
Gideon was afraid of. I've seen the Lord, I've seen
him in his holiness and in his beauty and in his perfection
and in his righteousness. And as a result of seeing him,
I see something about myself that I've never seen before.
I'm a hell deserving sinner. I'm going to die. It's exactly
what Isaiah thought when Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted
up in Isaiah chapter six. He said, woe is me, my eyes have
seen the King. I've seen the Lord. Grace comes before peace. Notice
with me in our text in verse 16. And the Lord said unto him,
surely I will be with thee and thou shalt smite the Midianites
as one man. And he said unto him, if now
I have found grace in thy sight, then show me a sign that thou
talkest with me. You know what that sign was.
Gideon went and got some He got a sacrifice and killed a lamb
and brought some bread and some water. And what'd the Lord say? Put it on that rock. And then
the Lord took his staff and he touched it and fire came out
of the rock and consumed the sacrifice. There's your evidence,
Gideon, that you have found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And
you and I find grace in the eyes of the Lord when we look to the
rock of ages and the fire that came out of him to consume and
to quench the fire of God. And we look to him alone for
our peace with God. We're not looking to any change
in our lives or any prayer that we prayed or decision that we
made or work that we performed. We're looking to that sign, that
sign, Christ laid down his life and made peace with God through
the sacrifice of himself. Grace always comes before peace.
Look at verse 21. Then the angel of the Lord put
forth the end of his staff that was in his hand and touched the
flesh and the unleavened cakes. And there rose up fire out of
the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then
the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight. Get in, you
want a sign? There it is. You want a sign? It's the cross. We look back
to the fiery wrath of God's justice that was quenched at Calvary's
cross when the, that staff is a picture of the, of the law
of God. And it was the law of God that
touched Christ on that cross when he bore the sins of his
people on his, in his body on the tree. And, uh, We see grace comes before peace.
How many times the Apostle Paul introduces his epistles with
grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I think Peter even does that in second Peter. Grace and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace must come
before peace. And if we found grace in the
eyes of the Lord, then the Lord speaks to our hearts and reveals
to us the accomplished work and the glorious person of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we cry out, Jehovah Shalom. The Lord is my peace. I have no means of having peace
with God apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn with me to
Genesis chapter 43. Genesis 43, Joseph's brothers
have come back now to Egypt. for the second time. And you
remember when they left, they stopped at an inn on the way
back to where they lived in Israel. And they opened their bags and
all the money that they had spent for the corn, it was in the top
of the bags. Joseph put it back in there.
You know, the two times they came and all the food they gathered
and they took home, they never paid a penny for any of it. And
so it is with us. We found grace in the eyes of
the Lord. We don't pay for it. We don't bargain with God. We
don't barter with God. He paid it all when he laid down
his life and became peace for us with God. providing everything
that the law required, everything that God's justice required.
And we have a picture of that here in Genesis chapter 43. Look at me at verse 20. And they
said, oh, sir, we came indeed down at the first time to buy
food. And it came to pass when we came to the end that we opened
the sacks and behold, every man's money was in the mouth of the
sack, our money in full weight. And we have brought it again
in our hand. and other money we have brought
down in our hands to buy food. We cannot tell who put our money
in our sacks. We brought the money back that
we found in our sacks and we brought more money to buy more
food. We didn't do this. We don't know how this happened. And he said, peace be to you. Fear not. Your God and the God
of your father have given you treasure in your sacks I had
your money and he brought Simeon out unto them. Peace, fear not your God and
the God of your fathers. He's the one that paid the price.
Oh, we have been bought with a price, the price of the precious
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we don't, we don't add a
dime to it. We don't add a penny to it. It's
grace, peace, peace be unto you. In verse 24, and the man brought
the men unto Joseph's house and gave them water. And they washed
their feet and he gave their asses preventer. And he made
ready the present against Joseph and came at noon for they heard
that they should eat bread there. And when Joseph came home, They
brought him the present that was in their hand into the house
and bowed themselves to him to the earth. Now, these were the
same brothers that were jealous when Joseph years before told
them of the dream that he had where they would bow to him.
And we know that this is a picture of Christ and his people. Joseph
is such a beautiful type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Even when
he was put into prison, the prison keeper turned the prison over
to Joseph, who was an inmate. And the scripture says that whatsoever
was done there, he was the doer of it, Joseph. Oh, and now he's
gonna reveal himself to his brothers as their savior. And you know,
the end of the story, you meant it for evil, but God meant it
for good and sent me ahead of you to bring a great salvation. There's our Lord. No, you're
not gonna buy this gift. You're not gonna earn it. Why do you spend money for that
which satisfies not? Isn't that what Isaiah said?
And that's what we do. We spend money for bread that
satisfies not. Come and eat and drink without
money and without price. And you know what that word price
means? It means to barter. It means to barter. That's how
men deal with God. Lord, I'll, you know, Lord, if
you'll save me, I'll do this and I'll do better. And I'll,
you know, I'll start doing that and stop doing the other. And
there's a bartering spirit in every one of us, isn't there?
And we have to hear this even as believers to be reminded that
we're saved by grace. We're not bringing to God anything. We're clinging to Christ alone.
And so the Lord is the only one that can speak peace to our hearts.
You know, the only, the only person that would try to convince
another person that they're saved is a person who's not saved. You come to me and say to me,
you know, I don't know if I'm saved. I'll pray with you and
I'll encourage you to sit and listen to the gospel, but I'm
not going to tell you you're saved. And don't tell that to me if
I come into you and say, you know, I'm worried I'm not saved. Don't try to convince me I am.
But that's what happens in religion, isn't it? Men speaking peace
to one another. Only God can speak peace to the
heart. And the Lord spoke to Gideon. And by prophecy, he speaks to
his people And he says to them, peace be unto thee, fear not,
thou shall not die. One has died in your stead. The
fire has been put out. You asked for a sign, there it
is. There it is. And Gideon called the place Jehovah
Shalom. Now, The gospel tells us that this peace with
God we once had and we lost it. We lost it in the fall of our
father Adam. Adam walked with God in the cool
of the day and fellowship with God, had peace with God. There was no There was no separation
between God and Adam. The Lord said, the scripture
says, your sin has separated you from your God. So before
sin, there was no separation. There was perfect harmony. There
was concord. And then there came a breach. And so the gospel is called the
ministry of reconciliation. What the Lord Jesus Christ is
doing is He's reconciling us. back to God because our sin has
caused a breach between us and God. There is a conflict there
that exists between us and God. And the father said to his son,
you see, we come into this world at enmity with God. We come into
this world sinful and unbelieving. And the father said to the Lord,
sit down here at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy
footstool. for thou shall be a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
took his rightful place. And the spirit of God is taking
those who are at enmity with God and causing them to do what
Mary did when she sat at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the Lord said, Mary has chosen that one thing needful. So this
is the, The Bible goes on to say that God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself. So the gospel that we believe
and the gospel that we preach is a word of reconciliation. And the righteous who flee to
his name as a strong tower, they know that they have a need. They know that if the Lord gives
them what they deserve, their sin will separate them from God
for all eternity. The gospel brings together again
those who were once friends and those who are reconciled together
with Christ have that unity with him to look forward to for all
eternity. The Lord doesn't just reconcile
a sinner and then, no, when we're reconciled to God, it's an eternal
reconciliation. That's why it's called eternal
life. I give unto them eternal life. And so we have peace with
God. And the wonder of wonders when
it comes to the gospel is that The offended one did everything
required to be reconciled with the offenders. You know, when
we're, when we have a conflict among ourselves, whether it be
in a husband and wife or whether it be friends, You know, we have
to accept responsibility, be reconciled, don't we? We have
to each do our part, make our compromises, whatever it is.
And here we have the innocent party, the one who was completely
offended by the sins of his people doing all the reconciling. He's not waiting on, he pays
the price with his precious blood to appease the wrath of God. He lays down his righteous life
in order to satisfy the demands of God's law. He presents himself
to the Father as our righteousness. And then he sends the Holy Spirit
to give us faith and repentance. Even that is a gift of God, isn't
it? We don't make any contribution
to our salvation. The Lord does it all. The offended
one, the innocent offended one, does everything to reconcile
the offender. The false gospel is so contrary
to that. We sin against God, man sins
against God, and then man gives God permission to forgive him.
How ridiculous is that? No, the Lord Jesus Christ is
our peace with God. Scripture says to mark the perfect
man, for the end of that man is peace. We're in need of a
man who's perfect to stand in our stead before God. in order
for us to have peace with God. And having that man standing
before God does not mean that we're gonna have peace in this
life. Doesn't mean we're gonna be without sickness. It doesn't
mean we're gonna be without conflict. Doesn't mean we're gonna be without
all the problems, wars. I mean, you think about it, look
at the people that are dying right now in wars. Believers,
can that happen to believer? Yes, it can. But God says, you shall not die. Martha, I am the resurrection
and the life. He that cometh to me shall never
die. Believest thou this? Yes, Lord. And though he die, let turn with
me to that passage. John chapter 11. Verse 25, 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. Believest thou this? Yea,
Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which
should come into the world. There's the confession of faith. I believe that thou art the Christ,
the son of the living God, which should come into the world. All
those Old Testament types and pictures and prophecies, I believe
you're it. You are the one. You are the
Messiah. You are the Christ. You are the
son of God. You are the successful savior
of sinners. You're the sovereign one. You're
Jehovah Shalom. If I'm going to have to, if I'm
going to have peace with God, Lord, you're going to have to
give it to me. Now notice Martha didn't say, yes, Lord, I believe
that I'm saved. Or yes, Lord, I know that you've
made a difference in my life. No, she said, yea, Lord, I believe
that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which shall come
into the world. She was agreeing with what the
Lord said. Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Lord, I believe in you. I'm,
I'm resting all the hope of my immortal soul on the Lord. If you don't save me, I won't
be saved. I won't be saved. I'll die. So Gideon thought Gideon
saw the Lord and he thought I'm going to die. And then when the
Lord did come into this world, in the likeness of sinful flesh,
born of a woman, born under the law to redeem them who are cursed
by the law. God sent an angel to say to those
lonely shepherds, unto you, here we go again, we have the righteous
is saved. Unto you, very personal, is born
this day, right now. in the city of David, that was
the fulfillment of prophecy, a savior, which is Christ the
Lord. And then a multitude of heavenly
hosts came and they all sang together, glory unto God, the
highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men. This is
the perfect man. This is the man whose end is
peace. This is the only one that we
can look to and have peace with God. If we have peace with God in
Christ, then we will be able to enjoy the peace of God in
the midst of our trials. Count it all joy, my brethren,
when you fall into diverse trials and temptations, knowing that
the trine of your faith worketh patience. Patience, when it is
complete, makes us perfect. How are we going to be perfect?
We're not going to be fretting anymore. We're not going to be,
no, we're going to be looking to Christ for all of our perfection.
Make you perfect and entire, lacking in nothing. Todd and
I were talking on the phone today and he brought out something
to me that I hadn't seen before. He said in Psalm 24, you know,
all these Jehovah names that we have of God in the scriptures,
the name of the Lord is a strong tower and the righteous flee
to it and is saved. All these names are in Psalm
24. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want of anything. He provides everything. All my
perfection is found in him. And all the names of God are
in that one Psalm. And so the Lord was able to say
to us in Philippians chapter four, verse four, rejoice in
the Lord always. And again, I say, rejoice, you
have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you believe
that he is the, he's the son of God. He's the successful savior
of sinners. He is your, he didn't say, I'll
make, I just make peace with God for you. No, my peace I give
thee. Not as the world gives. See to
the world, peace is nothing more than the absence of conflict.
Healthy, wealthy, and wise. Everybody loves me. No problems,
no troubles, no trials. I got all the money I need. That's
peace. No one's killing each other.
Everybody's alive and doing well. That's peace to the world. My
peace I give unto thee. What kind of peace did the Lord
Jesus Christ, does the Lord Jesus Christ have with his father?
That's what he gives to his children. The same peace that he has with
God All those who are looking to him have with God. Perfect peace. Mark the perfect
man for the end of that man is peace. And then in verse five of Philippians
four, let your moderation be known unto all men. Don't be
given to extreme emotional responses to your circumstances. Let your
moderation be known unto all men. Why? Because the Lord is
at hand. The Lord is here, he's sovereign
and he's controlling. Lord, moderate my responses. Don't let me just react in the
flesh to my circumstances. Give me grace to look to Christ. He goes on in verse six to say,
be careful for nothing. Be careful for nothing. But in all things, by prayer
and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be known unto
God and the peace of God, which is better. I'm paraphrasing here. The word the peace of God, which
passeth understanding. You know that word passeth means
exceeds or is better than. What is it that takes away our
peace? What is it? It's looking to our
past and having regrets and guilt and shame over what Paul said,
forgetting those things which are behind. or it's looking to
our future. And we ask ourselves, what did
I do to cause that? Why is this happening? And we're
paralyzed, aren't we? Or we look to the future and
we think, you know, how's this gonna work out and what's gonna
happen? And so we live in regrets of the past and fear of the future. The Lord says, The peace of God is
better. What are we doing when we look
to the past and to the future? We're trying to control our circumstances
by understanding them. If I can just figure out why
this is happening, then I can figure out what to do about it. What's the Lord say? The peace
of God is better than understanding. You're not going to understand.
Only God can see the beginning to the end. He's the only one
that knows what's really happening, but he gives to us in the midst
of our trials, his peace. And it's better than understanding. Peace is for sinners. The end of John chapter 13, when
the Lord made it clear that he was going away, this was at the
last supper. And he made it clear to the disciples
that he was gonna die. And Peter said, I'm going with
you. Lord, I'll die for you. And the last verse of John chapter
13, the Lord looks at Peter and says to Peter, will you? Will
you die for me? Because I'm telling you that
before the clock crows in the morning, you're going to deny
me three times. Now we have chapter divisions
in the Bible that we put in there in order to be able to find verses.
But chapter 14 is a continuation of chapter 13. Because the very
first verse, right after the Lord said to Peter, are you,
will you, you're going to die for me? Because I'm here to tell
you that before the cock crows, you're going to deny me three
times. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me. For in my father's house are
many. You're not going to die, Peter. You're not going to die. You're going to deny me, but
you're not going to die. My father's house are many mansions. If it
were not so, I would have told you, I go and prepare a place
for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I'm going to
come again and receive you unto myself so that where I am there, you
may be also. Peter is grievous as your sin
is going to be this very night. I'm speaking peace to your heart
by telling you, you're not going to die. Why was Gideon so fearful after
seeing the Lord? The first response that grips
the heart when we come to some understanding of the holiness
and the perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ is our own sinfulness. Robbers, like you told me, first
time you heard the gospel, you came home and told Deanna, you
said, we're going to hell. That's what Gideon thought. I'm
going to die. If that's who God is, there's
nothing in me like him. And there's no hope of me ever
becoming like him. If that's who he is, Jeff Taubenheim sent me a picture
a day or two ago of a car that was in front of him with a bumper
sticker on it. It said, keep the Ten Commandments. How sad. How sad. Publishing everybody keep the
Ten Commandments and the person who's saying that has never kept
a single one of them. You see, this is what Gideon
did. He saw the Lord and then he said,
I'm going to die. And the Lord spoke peace to his
heart and said, no, you're not going to die. You found grace
in my eyes and I've made a sacrifice for your sin. But when you see the Lord for
who he is, you become convinced that from the top of your head
to the sole of your feet, you are nothing but wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores. You're just leprous. You've got
no righteousness whatsoever within yourselves. And you're left with, Lord save
me. And he speaks peace. I have. I have. I laid all your
sin on my son. And I put them away. I'm satisfied. Like Daniel, we're left with
our comeliness being turned into corruption when we see the Lord. Know what happened to Daniel?
Daniel saw the Lord and he said, my humbleness, my beauty, my
strength, everything I thought was good about me has now turned
into corruption. This is what happens every time
that the Lord's pleased to show us a glimpse of his glory. We realize that we truly are
hell deserving sinners. And if God gives us justice,
we're going to go to hell. Like the apostle Paul, our righteousness,
is turned into dung. Filthy rags. Like Job, all of
our arguments and all of our justifications, our mouths are
shut. And when we do speak, all we
can say is truly, Lord, I spoke without knowledge. For behold,
I am Bible. I'm a sinner. Lord, you're going
to have to have mercy upon me. Like that Syrophoenician woman,
when the Lord called her a dog, what'd she say? Truth, Lord.
That's what I am. Or the publican, all he could
do was beg for mercy. When we see him, we'd come to
know that our will and our works and our wisdom, our faith, our
repentance, will never be sufficient to measure up. You see, when
the Lord reveals himself, what's he doing? He's showing us what
the standard is. Because left to ourselves, we
will go through life comparing ourselves to ourselves and convince
ourselves that we're getting better. Or we will go through
life and die comparing ourselves to other men and convince ourselves
that, well, you know, I'm above average. I don't deserve to go
to hell. Everybody believes that till
you see the Lord. Then you know, I'm gonna die.
I'm gonna die. And the Lord said, no, you're
not. No, you're not. You're not gonna die. I died in your stead. Turn with
me to Isaiah 54 quickly. I wanna show you something here. Isaiah chapter 54. Look with me at verse... Verse
eight of Isaiah 54. In a little wrath, I hid my face
from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have
mercy on thee, saith the Lord, thy Redeemer. For this is the waters of Noah
unto me. For as I have sworn that the
waters of Noah should no more go upon the earth, so have I
sworn that I would not be wroth with thee nor rebuke thee. For
the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my
kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant
of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. See, our response is just like
Gideon. We see the Lord, I'm gonna die. And the Lord said,
the Lord lets us experience that conviction of sin and loss of
all that we thought that we were counting on for our salvation
is all stripped away. And now we're left with depending
upon him alone for all our righteousness. And here's his words for a moment.
I hid my face from thee, but now I've established an everlasting
covenant with you, and though the mountains be removed, that
covenant's not gonna change. Not gonna change. Mark the perfect man and behold
the upright, for the end of that man is peace. Psalm 37, 37. My God, give us the faith to
mark Christ, the perfect man, and to know that he has prepared
a place for us and that we have peace with God through the Lord
Jesus Christ. Our Heavenly Father, bless your
word with faith to believe all that you've said. We ask it in
Christ's name. Amen. 26. Let's stand together. Number 26.