It has been so very, very good
to be with you again these past few days. This congregation,
I hope you know, is very special to me, to our folks in Danville. Thankful for the relationship
God has given us. I was sitting there thinking
just seven years ago or so. You contacted me maybe a little
more than that and wanted to see about starting a work here.
And nothing looked very promising, did it? And here God's established
a good, strong gospel witness in this place, giving you a pastor,
knit your hearts together. We rejoice with you and thank
God for his goodness to you. Continue to pray for you and
ask that you do the same for us. And I look forward to seeing
you again as God gives us opportunity. I want to talk to you this morning
from some of my experience what i consider to be perhaps the
most important experience in my life as a preacher as a pastor
as god's servant back in nineteen sixty nine i was a young believer
just and nineteen years old and uh... there was a fellow who
came to our home town western salem north carolina held a series
of meetings at Rosemont Baptist Church. Brother Herbert Wilson
was the pastor of the church. I attended another local church
where brother Dan Park's father, EW Johnson was pastor. But, uh,
this man came to Rosemont and preached a series of meetings
in the fall of 1969, just after his son Robbie had been killed
in Vietnam. Brother Henry Mayhem, I had to
work most of the week and only got to hear him twice. The first
night went to the services and he preached to us from the book
of Ruth on Christ our kinsman redeemer. I can give you the
outline, still remember it. The next night, actually it was
two nights later, I went back and he preached again from the
book of Hosea. on a picture of grace, using
Hosea and Gomer in the first three chapters of the book of
Hosea to describe God's grace and mercy to his people and saving
us by his grace through Christ Jesus. And I never heard from
him again, never met him again. His name was Pastor Henry Mahan.
But I heard a lot about him. I heard a lot about it. Shortly
after we met, I moved to look out West Virginia and started
pastoring when I was 21 years old. preached there for a good many
years. And then in the spring of 1976,
I was, uh, it's been 38 years ago. I was now 26 years old. I was going down to Lexington,
Kentucky to a Bible conference with a friend. And I'd heard
a lot of things about this man fella. Most of them weren't good. Lots of things, folks yik-yak
about this, that, or the other, and spoke less than admirably
of him, but I decided I'd stop by and see him. And perhaps I
could give him some of my indescribable knowledge and wisdom and help
him along the way a little bit. I came in, introduced myself. but it was very cordial reply
very nice he was at his desk preparing a message to preach
that night is on a monday and he always did is television taping
on monday evenings work on his message and we talked for i guess
an hour and a half two hours is visiting and i ask him questions
about prophecy and church discipline and the decrees of god and a
good many other things And Brother Henry just sat and kind of listened
as I kept running off at the mouth. And then when we started
to leave, he stood up. The other preacher with me, I
don't think they said any more than just hello to one another.
But he stood up and he said to me, he said, Brother Fortner,
I'd like for you to read this right here. He had his Bible
open on his desk and he turned it around to Colossians chapter
three. And I started to read the third chapter of Colossians.
He said, no, right here. And he pointed to verse 11. You
turn there, if you will. And I started to read the 11th
verse. And he said, no, no. Just these words right here.
And he underlined these three words at the end of Colossians
chapter 3, verse 11. Christ is all. I read the three words and looked
up at him as if I must have been shouting inside, so what? And then that wise man spoke
as a prophet to my soul. This is what he said. If you
ever learned the meaning of those three words, you'll understand
the message of this book. And God might use you preach
it. If you ever learn the meaning
of those three words, you will understand the message of this
book. And God might use you to preach it. Frankly, I didn't
pay too much attention to what he said. It didn't impress me
much. I went on to the Bible conference
came home. And in just a few weeks, I was
graciously by our God Calls to hear what he told me by his servant. I Had at this time been preaching
the gospel for eight years. I Was about four and a half years
into my first pastor pastor to look out West Virginia During
those earliest years of my ministry Those earliest years of preaching,
I started preaching when I was 17 years old. I was a strict
Calvinist. I was a thoroughgoing Baptist.
My doctrine was precisely accurate. It was orthodox. I gave myself
relentlessly to study and to the work of the ministry, but
something was missing. There was no life. no heart,
no fire. I had everything except the message
of God to eternity-bound sinners that sinners need to hear. And
then the Lord laid me flat on my back in a hospital bed for
21 days. The doctors told me the second
day I was there that I had cancer. It was over most of my body. And they didn't expect me to
survive very long. And immediately, as one does
at those times, I began to evaluate my life's work. 26 years old and about to leave
here. Thinking that it all might come
to an end in the very near future, I realized some things. After
honest, heart-searching evaluation before god i had to conclude
that those eight years of preaching had amounted to very little if
indeed anything i couldn't see how my labor could
have been profitable to anyone i'd been spending my wheels in
the sand defending my doctrine and preaching my doctrine and
teaching other folks my doctrine. And my heart was crushed with
conviction. My doctrinal orthodoxy was meaningless. But then the Lord graciously
burned those three words in my heart. Christ is all. I mean he burned them in my heart. Those three words flashed into
my soul like a dazzling ray of light and burned in my soul as
with a red heart iron. And never before and never since
have I made a vow to God. I wasn't concerned about dying. I really wasn't. That was not
a problem. I was confident that I belonged
to God and Christ was mine. I was confident he would take
care of my wife and daughter, and I was confident of his grace. But I was very concerned about
living. And I made a vow. This is the
vow I made. I said, Lord God, if you're pleased
to raise me up ever to preach again. I will never again preach
anything except this message. Christ is all. For as long as
I live, I will never preach anything but this message. Christ is all. For 38 years now, I have attended
purposely to that vow, and God helping me, I will do so until
I die. I thank God for what he's taught
me. I confess to my shame and my own sinful pride that it kept
me from seeing it before. And you can be sure of this,
sooner or later, sooner or later, You will learn that Christ is
all. Sooner or later, either in God's
great mercy while you walk on this earth, or in the judgment
as he cast you into hell, sooner or later, you will learn that
Christ is all. Just three short, one-syllable
words, but words of such great wealth of meaning that I hope,
I know I can never explain it as much as I hope to. These three
words, however, are the essence and substance of all true Christianity. Now you mark that down. These
three words are the essence and substance of all true Christianity. Christ is all. Christ is the
foundation of all true doctrine. Christ is the motive for all
godliness. Christ is the message of all
true preaching. And Christ is the object of all
true worship. In what sense does God the Holy
Spirit intend for you and I to understand these words? How far
do we carry this? How far do we carry this? Most
of you, I know, hear a good bit of things I preach, and you've
heard me say this, but folks lots of times don't hear what
they hear. When you read something in the word of God and you immediately
throw up a caution sign in front of you and say, well, they can't
carry that too far. Are you listening? Carry it just
as far as you can. And when you've carried it as
far as you can, you haven't begun to carry it far enough. You cannot
be extreme here. You cannot reach beyond the bounds
of what this passage is teaching. Christ is all. You mean, Pastor, nothing else
matters? You're getting close. You mean, Pastor, this is the
only thing important? You're getting close. You mean,
Pastor, No other relationship is meaningful apart from this
relationship. You're getting close. Christ
is all. In all things concerning our
souls, in all the knowledge of God, in all understanding of
this book, in all that relates to eternity, in all that relates
to salvation, in all that relates to godliness, in all that relates
to serving God, Christ is all. Let me go at this from four directions. First, understand that Christ
is all in the purpose, decrees, counsels, and works of God. All his wondrous works. How many
times do we read through this book, and hear the psalmist speak
particularly, that God does wondrously? We're commanded to sing his praise
for his wonderful works. God only does wondrous things. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that
amazing? In all that God does, in all his purposes, in all his
counsels, in all his eternal decrees, in all his works in
time, Christ is everything. Christ is all. Turn to Proverbs
chapter 8 for a minute. Proverbs chapter 8. There was
a time when this earth, this world, this creation had no being. A time when there was no time,
no world, no universe, no angels, no men. A time when the triune
God existed alone in the ineffable glory of his sacred persons,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And where was Christ then? Look
here in Proverbs chapter 8. Even then Christ was with the
father one with the father loved of the father Set up and accepted
by the triune Jehovah as our covenant surety and our sin atoning
sacrifice in whom God's elect were Accepted in the beloved
look here Proverbs chapter 8 verse 22 The Lord Jesus is speaking
our mediator our covenant surety. He's personified as wisdom He
says, the Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before
his works of old. I was set up from everlasting,
from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no
depths, I was brought forth. When there were no foundations
abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before
the hills was I brought forth. While as yet He had not made
the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust
of the world. Now obviously this is not talking
about Christ as in his eternal deity. He was never brought forth
in that sense. He is from everlasting to everlasting
God. He is the one whose goings forth
have been of old even from everlasting. This one who is brought forth
is brought forth in covenant mercy as our surety, our mediator. All things done by him when he
is brought forth as our mediator. Look at Ephesians chapter 1.
I know your pastor has been preaching to you from this passage in Ephesians
1. Relating particularly to the purposes of God. In the beginning
was the Word. And the Word was with God. And
the Word was God, John tells us. In the beginning was the
Word. There was a time when there was
no time. A time before time began. When
Christ was brought forth as the Word. The Word by whom and in
whom God would make himself known. the word by whom and in whom
God would reveal himself and reveal his glory. He stands forth
in the covenant of grace as our God-man mediator even before
he assumed humanity. But he stood there as the first
Adam. He's called the last Adam in
the sense that he comes last. But he's the first Adam in the
sense that he stood as our federal head and representative before
the world began. the Lord Jesus Christ is brought
forth and he's with the father with the father John's intent
the spirit of God's intent in John chapter 1 verse 1 is that
we should understand that this one who is our mediator this
one who is our covenant surety is himself God did you get that
Jesus Christ is God He's not a god. He's not a representative
of God. This one who is the word is God. He's with God, John said, from
the beginning. In the New Testament, there are
three words that are used in the Greek New Testament that
are translated with. And the three words have different shades
of meaning. One means with, but a step ahead of. Another means
with, but a step behind. When I'm shopping with my wife,
I'm with her, but I'm a step or two behind. I'm not really
interested, I'm just there. When I'm trying to walk with
her, I'm with her, but she's a few steps ahead, I can't keep
up with her. That's not the word, neither
of those. The word that's used here means face to face with. one with. In the beginning was
the Word, this One who is the Wisdom Man, the Word Man, the
God Man, our Mediator, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. A better translation would be,
in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was face to face
with God, and God was the Word. So the Spirit of God is saying
to us in John 1, verse 1, Jesus Christ, this man who came into
this world 2,000 years ago, who died at Calvary in our room instead,
this man is God. Now look what happened with this
one who stood forth before the world was as our sheriff did
here in Ephesians chapter one. Look at verse three. Blessed
be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heaven that places in Christ.
according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love. Now just pause and consider what
you just read. God Almighty, the triune Jehovah,
has blessed all God's elect with all spiritual blessings. That
is, God has given to us everything God can give to us. That's saying something. That's
saying something. God has bestowed upon us everything
God can or will bestow upon humanity. God has given us everything God
requires of us. in his son at one time in eternity
before the world began. He hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in Christ Jesus. Well, Brother Don, if that's
the case, God's blessings don't depend on what we do. If that's
the case, you're telling us God's blessings don't depend on anything
about us these were given to us in christ before the world
was that's exactly right given to us according ads according
ads he had chosen us india we live in this generation thinks
elections a cuss word it's a good word he chose us he chose us
in christ Do you have any idea how uncommon it is to hear a
preacher talk about election in the pulpit in this generation?
I have a friend down in Dallas, Texas, Fort Worth, Texas, just
between Dallas and Fort Worth. And he was out in his yard working
one day, cleaning up some brush. And actually, I don't know him.
I know his mother and dad. His dad's with the Lord now.
But he was cleaning up some brush and stuff in the yard one Saturday.
Folks came by and wanted to get him to come to church with him.
in one of the big whoopee churches down there and uh... he he was
busy didn't want to be bothered with them but he didn't want
to be too rude to them and finally he said y'all don't want me to
come down there oh yes yes we would love to have you come down
and worship with us he said well tell me something what do y'all
believe about election and these two fellas looked at him like
a calf looking at a new gate didn't have a clue what he was
talking about. And one looked at the other one and he said,
you know, I'm not sure, but I believe about everybody down there that's
Republicans. And that wasn't a bad discharge.
Election is taught throughout the book. God doesn't bless anyone
except by election. the blessings of grace flow to
sinners according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world and chose us for this purpose that we should be
holy and without blame before him now that doesn't mean as
folks commonly say he chose us so that we could live a holy
life now I highly recommend that you
do that but you can't Now like this, you don't live holy and
without blame. You don't even think holy and
without blame. Your highest imaginations, your
most devoted aspirations are not holy and without blame before
God. Not before God. Now you can impress
me, and I can impress you, but not God. He says he chose us
in Christ, blessed us in Christ, that we should be holy and without
blame before God. Holy and without blame before
God! Oh, what grace! Now read on. He did this in love. In love,
having predestinated us unto the adoption of children, that
is, having predestinated us unto the blessed experience of being
the sons of God. The adoption was done in eternity,
but we come to know our adoption when God sends His Spirit into
our hearts, causing us to cry, Abba, Father. to the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good
pleasure of His will, wherein He hath made us accepted in the
Beloved. Where was Christ before the world
were made? He was with the Father, our covenant
surety, standing in our stead, accepted of God. Accepted of
God as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The
Lord God looked on Him. before the world was as the lamb
slain from the foundation of the world and set in his hands
the reigns of the universe gave him power over all flesh to give
eternal life to as many as he had given him and then when he
came in time and accomplished redemption for us the Lord Jesus
said father the hour has come Glorify thy son with the glory
which I had with thee before the world was. Now make manifest
what we agreed upon and accomplished in old eternity. And we were
accepted even as he is accepted. You don't have to leave that.
If you did, if I had believed that, I don't think I could contain
my heart from erupting. We were and are accepted even
as He is accepted, one with Him, holy and without blame, perfect
and spotless before God. And this was done before the
world was. It didn't change when we fell
in our father Adam. It didn't change when we came
forth from our mother's womb speaking lies. It didn't change
all the days of our rebellion. The acceptance was from eternity. In time, he comes and gives us
faith. But our acceptance was from eternity. Our righteousness, from eternity.
Our perfection, from eternity. Accepted in the beloved. And
since he called us by his grace. It's been all downhill since
then. There's a real sense of what's been all downhill since
then. I never had such struggles with sins before, did you? I
never had such struggle with my flesh before. I had never
had such struggles with the world before. The struggle began, the
warfare began then. And since the day he called me
by his grace, this righteous man falls seven times in a day. Reckon why the wise man said,
though the righteous fall seven times in a day, the Lord raises
him up. Why did he say seven times? Why
not 70 times? Why not 700,000 times a day? They'd come closer. Why seven
times a day? Because he would have you to
know, he'd have you to know, that the totality of your life
is failure. I love that lady sitting there.
You may be a great success in all things you do, except in
this. The totality of your life walking
with God is failure. All we do is fall. Seven represents
completion. Finality. It's the entirety of
a man's life. The righteous man falls all the
time. And he knows it. But the Lord
raises him up. Because our acceptance with God
doesn't hinge on anything we do. Our acceptance with God doesn't
hinge on any work of obedience. Our acceptance with God doesn't
hinge on the measure of our faith. Our acceptance with God doesn't
hinge on our holiness. Our acceptance with God is Jesus
Christ the Lord. We're one with him, the beloved. There was a time when time began
and there came a day when the earth was created. And where
was Christ then? If you still got your place here
in Proverbs, Proverbs chapter 8, look at verse 27. When he
prepared the heavens, I was there. When he set a compass upon the
face of the depth, when he established the clouds above, when he strengthened
the fountains of the deep, when he gave to the sea his decree
that the water should not pass his commandment, when he appointed
the foundations of the earth, then was I by him, as one brought
up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always
before him. All things, John says, were made
by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
Christ Jesus is the word by whom God created all things. There
came a day when sin entered into the world. Satan tempted our
mother Eve and she was beguiled and Adam seeing what Eve had
done willingly, plunged himself into death and sin and the curse
of God because of his love for his wife Eve. Rather than be
separated from Eve, Adam plunged himself and all his posterity,
you and me, into death and under the curse. This was not by accident. This too was by divine design. You see, nothing in God's creation
happens by accident. Satan is not a rival to God. He's God's devil. He serves God's
purposes. He tempted our parents and had
them fail. But Paul tells us in Romans chapter 5 that he was
a similitude, a picture, a type of the Lord Jesus. Adam in his
sin in the garden being a representative man because of his love for his
wife Eve Plunged himself in darkness and death of its separation from
God Because of his love for Eve Now hear me the Lord Jesus Christ
our great Adam because of his love for his people willingly
took sin upon himself and into his own bosom so that he is made
sin for us. Rather than that he should lose
the bride of his love, he willingly took the curse. He willingly
took the wrath of God. He willingly endured damnation
for us that we might live forever with him. The Lord Jesus Christ
came in the garden to our parents, Adam. And he promised that he
would come, the woman's seed. The woman's seed, the savior
by whom the serpent's head would be crushed. He said, I will come. I will come through the woman,
the woman's seed. And I will undo everything here
done in the garden by this vile thing called the serpent, Satan,
the adversary of our souls. And then he gave a picture to
Adam and Eve. He slew innocent victims and
made for Adam and Eve clothes with which he clothed them after
he stripped off their fig leaves. And so portrays to them how he
would save his people as a lamb sacrificed in their room instead,
clothing them with his obedience and his righteousness. There
came a time when the world seemed to be buried in rebellion and
sin. engrossed in thick darkness,
imprisoned by idolatry, and utterly ignorant of God. After 4,000
years of brilliance. 4,000 years of the most brilliant,
massive empires in history. 4,000 years of the Assyrian and
the Egyptian, the Persian and the Grecian and the Roman empires,
nothing had been done except a continual increase of superstition,
idolatry, will worship, and ungodliness. Poets, historians, and philosophers
had proved that with all their intellectual powers, they had
no knowledge of God, and man is utterly corrupt. The world,
Paul puts it this way, by wisdom, knew not God. Except for a very
small company of Jews, just a remnant among the Jewish nation, in a
small corner of the earth, nobody knew God. Nobody. The world was ignorant of God.
There was nothing but ignorance and sin everywhere. And where
was Christ then? In due time. God sent forth his
son made of a woman made under the law to redeem them that were
under the law. The Lord Jesus Christ stepped
into humanity. He who is rich for your sakes
became poor that you through his poverty might be made rich. He who is God stepped into humanity
as a babe at Bethlehem. That one who is in Bethlehem's
manger. These things are beyond our comprehension. They're beyond our understanding.
He who is the incomprehensible, infinite God came in the form
of a man 12, 18 inches long. And that baby who
nursed at Mary's breast had to have his mother's milk for life
as much as any other baby had to have his mother's milk for
life but he's God who supplies her breast with the milk he had
to have. He never ceased to be God. Our
Lord walked on this earth as a man. And as a child, He grew
in wisdom and stature and found favor with God and with men.
And yet, this child growing is God who changes not. This child
growing is God who never learned anything and never forgot anything.
God who knows all things. And yet, He learned obedience
by the things that He suffered. And our Lord Jesus walked on
this earth not for Himself, He owed nothing to God. He is God. He obeyed God's law. Every jot
and tittle of the law. Every word of the law. Every
commandment of the law. Every ceremony of the law. He
obeyed it all. Not for himself, but as our surety. As our representative. So that
he came to repair what we had undone. He came to make up what
we had sought to destroy. He came to undo all things involved
in the fall. And he brought in everlasting
righteousness. Everlasting righteousness for
his people. Those for whom he lived. But
the law of God requires something else. The law of God requires
satisfaction. God says the soul that sinneth,
it shall die. And die you must. Die you must. You must suffer the wrath of
God. There's no escaping it. You must
suffer the wrath of God. How can this be? How can God
both punish me for my sin and forgive me of my sin? How can
God satisfy his justice and yet give me mercy? Only by mercy
and truth is iniquity purged. Only by righteousness and grace
is redemption obtained. And our Lord Jesus Christ takes
our sin as his own. And when God found sin on his
son, the Lord God Almighty turned his back on his son, and his
son cries, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And he
answers his own question. He says, you're a purer eyes
than to behold iniquity. And the Lord God, in furious
anger, slaughtered his son. He slaughtered his son. He slaughtered
his son. until at last God said, enough! I demand no more. And justice
was satisfied. And now God Almighty looks on
his son and pardons me. God looks on his son and finds
me perfect and without sin. We often repeat words without
thinking what they mean because we've heard them all our lives.
I heard since God first saved us, 16 years old, justified,
means just as if I'd never sinned. That's not what it means. That's
not what it means. It means I'd never sinned. God blotted out my transgressions. He casts them behind His back. He remembers not our iniquities
against us anymore, forever. Well, how can God not remember
it? How can that be? God knows everything. He can't
know what He is not. He can't remember what He is
not. And God Almighty has put away our sins by the sacrifice
of His darling Son. And having accomplished redemption
for us by the sacrifice of Himself, our Lord Jesus was buried in
the tomb. Robert Murray McShane said he
went into the tomb as one cursed and condemned, bearing sin in
his own body on the tree. But watch him, there he lays. One day and another, and on the
dawn of the third day, the scripture says he was justified in the
spirit as he rose up out of the tomb. Accepted of God without
sin. He who died for sin, he who was
made sin, buried our sins in the tomb and arose without sin
and soon he shall come again without sin to call us unto himself
in everlasting glory. There is a time coming when God
shall make all things new. Where will Christ be then? He'll
be the judge of all. He'll be that one before whom
all nations are gathered. He'll be that one before whom
all men must give account. He'll be that one by whom all
his elect are brought into glory and that one by whom all that
defile and make alive shall be cast into hell. And in that day
he will make restitution of all things. I can hardly wait. restitution
of all things. When God gets done with this
universe, when God gets done with all things, the Lord Jesus
is going to make everything be brought forth to the glory of
the triune God. We will see then as we cannot
see now. We will see what we know now,
but we cannot see. We cannot comprehend now. We
will see and understand all of this. All of this. All that has come to pass since
God said let us make man after our image and after our likeness. All that has come to pass through
the ages of time. brings to bow before the foot
of his son to give him praise, honor, and glory. Everything. Everything. I was in a meeting
a few weeks ago down in Kansas City, Missouri, with a friend
of mine who's a, he's a brainy fella. I mean, I mean, he's sharp. He's sharp. And he preached to
us two messages on the subject of eternity. And they were just
outstanding. Outstanding. This fellow is a
linguist, a brilliant linguist. And he said, I don't know what
language we're going to speak in heaven. I don't know what
it's going to be. But he said, I'm sure that there's
one word from our language that's going to be carried over into
heavenly glory. He said, as we see what god has
done as we began to look back over the ages of time in the
days of our lives and all those things over which we well wept
and all the silly stuff that bothered us we're going to see
how god's done everything and this one word we're going to
carry over wow oh wow would you look what god
has done He's done all things well. Now understand this. As Christ is all, in all the
works, purposes, counsels, and decrees of the triune God, in
this book, Christ is all. You will understand nothing of
this book Not one word, not one chapter, not one verse, not one
portion of this book, except as you see Jesus Christ and his
accomplishments of redemption in his glory in the word. It's
all about him. Back in 1799, someone doing some
of those archaeological digs they do in northern Egypt, a
little town called Rosetta, Discovered a stone slab They call it the
Rosetta stone For years and years and years and years people been
trying to figure out the meaning of the Egyptian hieroglyphics
on the various things they had in those ancient tombs and They
saw this Rosetta stone now if you Walk to you go to bookstore
you buy your Bible. It's got three or four different
translations and their parallel translations So you have King
James here, New King James, Revised Standard, and New International
Version here. Or you can get the Greek text
here and the English text here, side by side, running parallel.
Well, on this Rosetta Stone, they had the Egyptian hieroglyphics. And running parallel with the
Egyptian hieroglyphics, they had Greek text written. And running parallel with that,
had the characters of the common language of the people written.
So for the first time in history that men could recall, for the
first time, they could look at those hieroglyphics and say,
that picture means this. That picture means this. That
picture means this. Because they had words to correspond
with it. That's what Christ is to this
book. He's the Rosetta Stone. He gives meaning to it all. He
gives meaning to it all. All the history of the Old Testament.
Every event in the Old Testament. When you read your Bibles, now
read them this way. They're not just things that happened and
God said, I want to use something in that to picture redemption.
No, no. They were brought to pass by God to portray redemption
and grace. Every law, every sacrifice, every
commandment, every priest, all the garments of the priesthood,
the tabernacle, the temple, all the furnishings in the tabernacle
and temple, everything portrays Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ,
he is that one of whom Abel spoke when he offered a sacrifice that
God accepted and God wouldn't accept his brother's sacrifice
of his works. Christ is that one of whom Abraham
spoke when he said to his son on Mount Moriah, my son, God
will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. Christ is that
one who was typified and portrayed in the ark that God commanded
Noah to build. What a marvelous picture that
is. When I was growing up, What times I'd go to church Sunday
school they'd tell the Bible stories and all they were were
like Aesop's fables. They sent me like just fantastic
stories with a good moral to go along with it. That's not
what they're about at all. That ark is pitched within and
without. And God commanded Noah to bring
his family into the ark. And he brought into the ark with
Noah everything he needed. And God shut them in. And Noah
and his family went through the flood. And all the fury of God
fell on Noah. All the fury of God fell on Noah,
just like it did everybody else. But it never touched him. The
ark absorbed it all. That's what Christ did for us.
You understand that? And Noah came out of the ark,
walking with God to this day. We are saved through the doing
and dying of the Lord Jesus. And everything in this book tells
us about Him. Him who was coming to redeem. Him who came to redeem. Him who's
coming again to finish redemption. Now is our salvation nearer than
when we believed. And when we stand before God
in glory. I can't say much about that.
because they haven't experienced much of it yet. Christ shall be all. We shall see his face. And when we see his face, there'll
be no more sickness and no more sorrow and no more sin and no
more curse. And God shall wipe away all tears
from our eyes, and Christ shall be all. In that day, when God
our Savior makes all things new, our great Savior will completely
eradicate. He will completely eradicate
the slime of the serpent, from the creation of God. So that when our Lord has finished
his work, you and I, who are his, will
suffer no evil consequence for all the evil that we are. and no evil consequence for all
the evil and the havoc that Satan has wrought in this world, but
all of it, all of it, all of it, shall prove at last to have
been ordered by our God for our everlasting good and his everlasting
glory, who is all and in all. Oh, may God be pleased to give
you Christ. Oh, may God be pleased to give
you his son. May God be pleased to make your
heart empty without him, to make your soul barren without him,
and cause you to hunger and thirst for him. Amen.