We're going to be in the book
of Numbers, in chapter 14, if you want to turn there. At least
that's where we're going to start. And I want to visit several places
in scripture. I've entitled today's message,
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
If, as I mentioned this in the bulletin, If I could live a thousand
lifetimes and preach every day in all thousands of those lifetimes,
I would want you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And so
that's why I have chosen that title, because that is what the
Lord has commanded us to do. And that is what he has given
us by grace to do. And that's what we're going to
see here in this chapter. to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, what we're going to see
here, and as Brad was reading there just at the beginning and
the end of Psalm 106, which I encourage you to read the whole chapter,
is one place in scripture, in Psalm 106, is one place in scripture
where God recounts the history of the nation of Israel. And
I hope that you either on your own or somebody, your mom, your
dad, or somebody reads the scriptures to you, or you read them yourself. Or if you can't read them yourself,
then listen to it being read. There are... phone applications,
there's other recording methods. There's really, in this day and
age, we have so many ways in which God has enabled us to hear
his word. And faith comes by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God. Do this in your life. Seek the
Lord. Seek him with your whole heart.
Seek him from his word. Ask Him to open your heart and
to give you faith through His Word, faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. If you don't know where to read,
begin at Genesis and just go through the Bible. If you're
short on time or if you want to focus on an area so that you
could really know the truth, then read the book of Romans
or the book of Galatians or Hebrews or the book of the Gospel of
John. There's so many places and just turn on the repeat and
let it repeat over and over and listen to it. While you're walking,
when you're by yourself, when you're eating, when you're lying
in bed, it doesn't matter where you are. Make it your life's
aim to know Christ through his word. Now, if you do that, what
you'll find is that God gives a history of His own people. And the nation of Israel is prominent
in the Old Testament. And their life, their life as
a nation began with Abraham and went through Isaac and Jacob
and all of Jacob's children and then into Egypt and then out
of Egypt and then into the wilderness, the desert really, and through
the wilderness and into Canaan. And then as they were in Canaan,
they were taken captives by these nations like Assyria and the
Babylonians. And all that went on until the
time of Christ. And this long history can be
summarized as is done in Psalm 106, that this people, this people
that God set his name upon, the nation of Israel, Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, and their children, this people are to teach us personally
about our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. When we read
it, it's interesting. When we read it, we're amazed
at how these people could be so hard-hearted and so prone to depart from the Lord
Jesus Christ, from God himself, who chose them and gave them
so many blessings. They completely went away from
the Lord. Not just once, but repeatedly. And they lived, their history
is right here in all of the Old Testament, and even into the
New. God is following this nation,
this people, in order to teach us. In 1 Corinthians 10, it tells
us that these things were given us as an example, that we should
not lust after the things that they lusted after. Or in Hebrews
chapter 3, it talks about how most of them fell, died in the
wilderness because of unbelief. And in the New Testament, you
see the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin, that council
of 70 elders in the nation of Israel, all of them except a
couple, like Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, were lost. They refused Christ. They would
not believe Him. They set themselves to oppose
Him. They were hostile towards Him,
and they killed the Lord of Glory, the Prince of Life, their Savior.
I mean, their Messiah that came from that country, that nation.
And so we see the history of this people. And so if you were
to summarize that, you would see a sinful people, a people
who were given over to idolatry, even though God himself had revealed
himself to them. You see a people who failed,
a people who were in unbelief. In Egypt, they were idol worshipers
there. At the Red Sea, as Brad was beginning
to read Psalm 106, And in all these cases, whether it was at
the waters of Meribah, that place where the waters were bitter,
and Moses and the people cried, we don't have any water, and
Moses asked the Lord what to do, and the Lord said, chop down
a tree and throw it into the water, and the waters became
sweet. Whether it was there or on into the wilderness when they
had no water and Moses struck the rock, or when they had no
bread and God rained manna down from heaven, or when they faced
enemies more powerful than themselves. The Egyptians, the Moabites,
the Ammonites, the Jebusites, the Canaanites, all these different
nations, all of them stronger than Israel, and God delivered
them from all of them. And the message that comes through
all of this, on the one hand, is the sinfulness of these people. And on the other hand, God saved
this sinful people in spite of their sin. And he did it in such
a way that he would drive this point home to us. that we are
no better than they. Romans chapter 3 and verse 9
says, the apostle Paul in covering those first three chapters in
Romans, he asked this question, what then? Are we better than
they? These Jews who had the law, who
had the revelation from God and were more sinful than the Gentiles
that they were critical of and judged and condemned when they
saw their sin and their wickedness? And the Apostle Paul says, those
Jews who were so critical of the Gentiles and judgmental of
them, are we better than they? These Jews who lived thousands
of years in unbelief and idolatry, and yet God saved people, a remnant
from that country. Are we better than they? No,
in no wise, he says. No, we're no better than they.
We're worse, we're worse. We have the gospel. We have God's
entire revelation written and yet we treat it as just an ordinary
thing. And so what are we to learn from
all of this? Well, first of all, we're to
learn that those things that happen to them at a physical
level and at a national level are to teach us that God is dealing
with us individually and personally in our hearts. Not at a national
level, not at a physical level, so much he does, but mostly the
issues of life are in the heart. In Proverbs chapter 4 and verse
23 he says, my son, keep thine heart with all diligence, for
out of it are the issues of life. That's it. That's the message,
all of this history. For you and me, the issues of
life are in the heart. It's in the heart. It's do we
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Do we believe him? And so one
of the questions I want to answer today is what is faith? What does it mean to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ? And I think that this chapter
is a good place, I told Denise sometimes I'll study for a sermon
and I've got all of these scriptures and I only get to a fraction
of them and so I just usually go on to the next thing and leave
all those on the table. Well, I'm not doing that this
time. I'm going to go through some of these in our diversion
from the book of John. I'm going through some of these
scriptures and one of them is in Numbers chapter 14. Now the
setting here in Numbers chapter 14 is that the nation of Israel
had just come out of Egypt. They had come through the Red
Sea. Moses had to make the bitter
water sweet with that tree he cut down. The Lord told Moses
to strike the rock, the water came out and that water followed
the nation throughout their wilderness sojourn all those years. But
they came to the land that God promised to give them, the land
of Canaan. And this land was a land that
God described as flowing with milk and honey. flowing with
milk and honey, a land you didn't have to work for. It was already
tilled. Things were planted. Vineyards
were growing. There were already cities built.
It was already prepared for them. It was a land they did nothing
to earn, but was just given to them. God had promised it to
Abraham. and God swore he would give it
to his children, and now God brought them to the very borders
of Canaan. In Deuteronomy, it describes
this in a little more detail, but what happened when they came
to this land, this land of Canaan, the children of Israel said,
We need to send in some spies. How about we choose one man from
every tribe, 12 tribes, 12 men, one from each tribe, send them
in to see what it's like. Is it really the way the Lord
described it? And will we be able to go in?
And what that was was just an expression of unbelief. God
had given them the promise. All the 430 years they were in
Egypt, and the time before that from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and then they were told by Joseph, God's going to bring you out
of Egypt and carry my bones up and bring me into this land God
is going to give you. They had all of these fathers,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and men like Joseph. But these men had
died, and now they're come to this land. After all this time,
they saw what God did in Egypt. Egypt was way stronger than them,
and God ruined that nation to bring out his people. He redeemed
them by his outstretched and almighty hand, and brought them
out, and brought them through the Red Sea, even though they
provoked him at the Red Sea. And he brought them even didn't
destroy the nation even though they built that golden calf that
we talked about last week. But here now, they're poised
about to go into Canaan and they say, let's send in some spies. Let's find out if it's really
the way God described it. Let's see if we're strong enough
to take this land. That was an expression of unbelief,
wasn't it? And so that's what this is about
here, and it's leading up to this in the chapter that precedes
chapter 14. But let me read just in the closing
verses of chapter 13. It says in chapter 13 of Numbers, in verse 26. And they went and
came to Moses. These are the men who spied out
the land. They went and came to Moses and to Aaron, and to
all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the wilderness
of Paran, to Kadesh, and brought back a word to them, and unto
all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. So
here are the representative men, one from each tribe, bringing
back the report. and it was an evil report, and
you'll see why in a minute. It so underscores this importance
is that whenever you speak to God's people, do not bring an
evil report. By that, I mean a report that
would cause them to mistrust God, to think that all of God's
promises were somehow hindered by their own weaknesses. because
faith is just exactly the opposite of that. Faith is seeing God's
ability. It's trusting God's ability,
not ourselves. It's trusting God's word, not
our understanding, not leaning on our own understanding, but
God's word, God's strength. God's goodness. Faith is not
trusting ourselves. It's not even considering ourselves. It's completely leaning on the
Word and the will and the power of God. That's what this is setting
up to show us. Verse 27, and they told him,
They told Moses and Aaron and said, we came to the land whither
thou sent us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey, and this
is the fruit of it. They brought back this cluster
of grapes, one cluster that required two men to carry on a pole between
them. Nevertheless, here's the evil
part, that people be strong that dwell in the land and the cities
are walled and very great. Moreover, we saw the children
of Anak there, the Amalekites dwell in the land in the south,
and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites dwell in the
mountains, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and by the coast
of Jordan. There's a lot of bad people over
there. Strong people, giants. And Caleb stilled the people
before Moses and said, let us go up at once and possess it,
for we are well able to overcome it. Now, he wasn't saying their
own strength, because Caleb knew it was because God was with them.
If God be for us, who can be against us? So he says that.
Verse 31. For the men that went up with
him, with Caleb, said, we be not able to go up against his
people, for they are stronger than we. Ha, ha, ha. That's not
news, buddy. And verse 32. And they brought
up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto
the children of Israel, saying, The land through which we have
gone to search it is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof,
and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we saw giants, the
sons of Anak, which come of the giants. And we were in our own
sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." So here
we see what unbelief does. Unbelief looks at itself. We're grasshoppers. And unbelief
looks at itself through the eyes of the enemy. We're grasshoppers. They're going to eat us up. But
faith sees all of God's promises and every barrier that would
keep us from those promises and relies on God's ability, God's
strength. And so that's what begins chapter
14 here. He says in verse 1 of chapter 14, and all the congregation
lifted up their voice and cried. And the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel
murmured against Moses. They complained and whined against
Moses. They accused him and against
Aaron. And the whole congregation said
to them, would God, though we had died in the land of Egypt,
Or would God we had died in this wilderness? You see what they're
saying? It would have been better if
we were left in Egypt to die as slaves than to face this test
of God that would cause us to have to look to him for everything. Facing an insurmountable problem
with nothing but God's promises. and the faith that God would
give. And so they're complaining and they're doubting and they're
crying and moaning and weeping and hollering because all they
can see is their own pitiful condition and their strength.
And they said one to another, let us make a captain and let
us return into Egypt. Then Moses and Aaron fell on
their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children
of Israel. And verse 6, Joshua the son of
Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched
the land, rent their clothes. Because they were so afraid at
what God would do to this people because they were speaking against
Moses and Aaron, and speaking against God, and ready to turn
back to Egypt, and complaining that God should never have brought
them out of Egypt. Verse 7, and they, Joshua and
Caleb, spoke unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying,
The land which we pass through to search it is an exceeding
good land. If the Lord delight in us, then
he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land which
floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not against the Lord,
neither fear ye the people of the land, for they are bred for
us. Their defense is departed from
them, and the Lord is with us. Fear them not. See, that's what
faith says. And what did the congregation
then do to Caleb and to Joshua? Because they said this. They
say, thank you. Thank you for correcting us.
We were completely in the ditch in our unbelief. We should have
believed the Lord, just like you said. I don't know why we're
so thick-headed. No, it says in verse 10, but
all the congregation they'd stoned them with stones and the glory
of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all
the children of Israel." Now God is appearing. His glory is
appearing in the tabernacle and all the children of Israel and
the congregation there who heard Caleb and Joshua pleading with
them to trust the Lord and they refused and they wanted to stone
them And in verse 11, and the Lord said to Moses, how long
will this people provoke me? How long will it be ere they
believe me, before they believe me? How long will it be before
they believe me for all the signs which I have showed among them?
Not only my word, but signs. I will smite them with a pestilence
and disinherit them, and I will make of thee a greater nation
and mightier than they." Now, like we saw last week in Exodus
chapter 32, when God speaks this way to Moses, he's not just saying,
I'm going to do this. But he's engaging with Moses
in order that Moses fill the role of a mediator on behalf
of Israel. So this is God's mercy to speak
this way to Moses, even though in his words to Moses, he's showing
something. He's showing his absolute justice
that should come on this people. His law demands that God punish
them for their disobedience, for their idolatry, and for their
unbelief, which is the seed of all of their other sins. They
didn't believe God. But notice the mediator in verse
13. And notice what he says. Moses
said to the Lord, Because God said he would destroy them and
disinherit them with pestilence and make Moses a nation mightier
than them. And Moses said to the Lord, then
the Egyptians shall hear it. For you brought up this people
in thy might from among them. God brought Israel out of Egypt
with his almighty hand, redeeming them from the Egyptians. And so those words are insignificant.
Scripture speaks about redeeming Israel from Egypt. And this teaches
us the symbolism here, that to redeem Israel from Egypt means,
in its fulfillment, God redeemed his people from their sins by
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so in saying this, Moses
is preaching the gospel of God's grace to Israel. And when we
use the word, the name Israel in scripture, in the New Testament
it teaches us that there is an Israel of God, a people truly
chosen not just to be a nation that receives physical blessings,
but a people that receives eternal and spiritual blessings in Christ
because of Christ. And so when Moses is pleading
here as a mediator, he is foreshadowing the work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
God appointed to mediate to God on behalf of the people. And
Moses is pleading with God and saying, your enemies, the Egyptians,
in our case, it would be the kingdom of Satan, and our sins,
and death, and hell, and the grave, and our sinful nature,
and everything that is an enemy of our souls. And so Moses said,
the Egyptians shall hear it, for you brought up this people
in your might from among them, and they, in verse 14, they will
tell it to the inhabitants of this land, to the Canaanites. The word is not gonna just stay
in Egypt about your abandoning this people and destroying them
and in your justice and in your wrath, but it's going to extend
across the whole world. that you abandoned and destroyed
these people in your wrath when you first, at first, redeemed
them. There's a change. There's a discontinuity. There's
a redemption that ends in failure. There's a people on whom you
have set your name, and those people you have abandoned, you
have disinherited. What can be said about you? And
so that's what he's going towards here. In verse 14, they will
tell it to the inhabitants of this land. For they have heard
that thou, Lord, art among this people, that thou, Lord, art
seen face to face. his favor therefore, and that
thy cloud standeth over them, protecting them from the sun,
the heat of the day, and giving them light at night, and that
thou goest before them by daytime in a pillar of a cloud and in
a pillar of fire by night." So God's presence, it was with his
people. God did all this for them and
yet he disinherited them and destroyed them. when in the wilderness
they wouldn't believe him. In other words, Moses is arguing
here on the saving work, God's saving work,
that there's something in the work of God that didn't go far
enough because the people were so sinful, you see? Their sin prevented God from
saving them. And so this character of God,
this inability of God, this unfaithfulness of God, where his words said
one thing, his actions said one thing, but in the end, they proved
unable to live up to God's demands, and so they were destroyed. And
so God can only save those who can help themselves. But that's
about to be shown not to be the case. Verse 15, now Moses said,
if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations
which have heard the fame of thee, will speak, saying, Because
the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which
he swear to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness."
You see the argument of the mediator here? God swore. He swore by himself that he would
bring them into this land. If God didn't keep his promise,
When we make an oath, scripture teaches us this, but when we
make an oath, people will say things like this, I swear on
my mother, or I swear on my father's grave, or I swear by heaven,
or something else. And they always choose something
greater than themselves. Because if they fail, then they're
calling into the support of their own word that heaven itself will
fail if I fail. That's a foolish thing to do,
and we're not to swear that way. God tells us not to do that.
Do not swear. But here he says, Jesus said,
because you can't make one hair black or white. But here, Moses
is saying, you, God, swore by yourself to bring them into this
land. And if you do not, then what
does that say? It says that the one by whom
you've sworn your own character, your own nature as God, failed. and that your word, you couldn't
keep your word, that you were not able. You didn't have the
power. You couldn't overcome your justice
in order to show mercy. You couldn't forgive their sins
because your wrath was so great and your justice so severe that
you couldn't deal with a sinful people. There's no reason to
trust you because who can trust a God who can't save a sinful
people? You see, all the arguments of
the gospel come here in the negative. And so Moses is pleading this
way. What Moses is doing here, as
I tried to lay out last week, Moses is pleading God's cause. Moses is pleading God's name,
his character, his ability, his faithfulness, his power, and
he goes on. And verse 16, reading there again,
he says, because the Lord was not able to bring his people
into the land which he swore to them, therefore he has slain
them in the wilderness. That's what they'll say. Now,
I beseech thee. Let the power of my Lord be great,
according as thou hast spoken. Now here, the power, underline
this. In order to save us, God had
to exercise his almighty power. His almighty power. That means
we couldn't do it. We couldn't help him. We were,
as Romans 5, 6, when we were yet without strength, In due
time, Christ died for the ungodly. You see, it's not our strength,
it's the Lord's strength, it's his power. And so Moses asks
the Lord, let your power be great according as you have spoken,
according to your own word, about your own character, saying, and
now he quotes the Lord's words, This is what God said in Exodus
34, verse 6. The Lord is long-suffering, long-suffering. That means he suffers long with
a sinful people. And he withholds his wrath in
mercy. And of great mercy, he's pleading
God's character. Forgiving iniquity, this is the
goodness of God. In Exodus 33, Moses asked the
Lord, show me your glory. And the Lord said, I will be
gracious to whom I will be gracious. I will be merciful to whom I
will be merciful. And then he says in Exodus 34,
right after that, and I will cause all of my goodness I will
make all of my goodness to pass by, and I will hide you in the
cleft of the rock." And that's when he declared these words,
the Lord, the Lord God, long-suffering, of great mercy, forgiving iniquity
and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty. If
God is forgiving, if God is merciful to the sinner and yet doesn't
clear the guilty, what does it mean? That God has to justify
the ungodly. He has to justify the sinner. He has to forgive the sinner
on the basis of his justice and his truth. In 1 John, 1 John
chapter 1, it says this, and you don't have to turn there,
but listen to these words, they're familiar. In 1 John and chapter
1, notice the way God writes his word in order to teach us
about his own character, his own greatness here, and his strength,
his power. He says this in 1 John chapter
1, if we confess our sins, We just say what we are. We say
what we've done. And we declare what we really
are, as Brad read from Psalm 106. We have sinned. We've done
wickedly. If we confess our sins, notice, He is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins. and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
We would have expected him to say merciful, but no, he says
just, because he wants to underscore that God's mercy always comes
on the platform, on the throne of justice. And so he says back
in Exodus, I mean Numbers chapter 14, the Lord is long-suffering,
of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no
means clearing the guilty. God is not going to clear the
guilty. He's not going to justify the wicked. So what he does is
he takes away the sins of the guilty in the blood of his Son,
and he clothes the naked and the shameful in the righteousness
of his son, in the obedience of his son. And that's the way
God forgives. That's the way God doesn't clear
the guilty and yet forgives iniquity with great mercy and long suffering.
And then he goes on visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children to the third and fourth generation. And so Moses
asks this in verse 19, pardon, I beseech thee. the iniquity
of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy. And
notice, notice, as thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt
even until now. Why does God forgive sin? Because
God is merciful. God is a great mercy, forgives
iniquity. This is his glory because God
is good. That's why, not because of us.
And as God had forgiven this people from Egypt until now,
he asked him to continue to be the same unchanging, immutable
God. According to his oath, according
to his character, according to his fame, his honor, he says,
do it for the Lord's sake. That's what he's saying here.
And then it says in verse 20, and the Lord said, I have pardoned
according to thy word. And here we have the fulfillment
of it in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ entered
into heaven. He offered his own blood and
he obtained for us eternal redemption. God pardoned us for the sake
of Christ. We are forgiven for the sake
of Christ. He has forgiven all of our sins for Christ's sake.
All right, so you see here, do you see the message of the gospel
in this? God forgives our sins for Christ's sake. He pleads,
He makes intercession, He advocates for us. If there were no intercessor
here in Numbers 14, if there were no intercessor in Exodus
32, then there would be no mercy. there would be no prayer that
God could ever hear because God is not going to hear sinners.
So he hears the pleadings of the intercessor who knows the
mind of God, who knows the will of God, who knows the character,
who desires to hold up and make known the manifest glory of God
in his name. He's concerned with his fame
and with his honor, and he builds his case upon God's own character,
just like God swore by himself, so the intercessor pleads on
the basis of God's own character, his name. And that's why Jesus
says, if you ask anything in my name, in my name, we come
to God through Christ alone. We don't come by anything in
ourselves. And so that's where the question
comes then. What about this thing of faith?
What about this thing of faith? It says in Acts 16, 31, when
the Philippian jailer is about to kill himself and Paul says,
do yourself no harm. And the jailer comes in and he
falls at Paul and Silas' feet. He says, sirs, what must I do
to be saved? And Paul said, believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and your house. If they believe, they also will
be saved. So believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is the message for a dying man. This is a message
for a needy man. This is a message for a helpless
man, a man who's condemned, a man who is sinful, who deserves to
die. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Look with me at Matthew, the book of Matthew in the New Testament. Matthew chapter 9. It says in
Matthew 9 verse 27, when Jesus departed thence, when he left
the place where he was, Two blind men followed him, crying, saying,
Thou Son of David, have mercy on us. This was a way of calling
Jesus the Christ, to say, Thou Son of David, was saying, Thou
Christ, Thou Messiah, have mercy on us. In other words, they were
saying in their words, we believe you are the Christ, the Son of
God. We believe you came into the
world to perform the work God gave you to do. We believe that
you can do this. And in verse 28, and when Jesus
was come into the house, the blind men came to him. So they're
still pursuing him. They follow him into the house.
And Jesus said to them, notice these words, believe ye that
I am able to do this? They answered, they said, yes,
yes, Lord. Then touched He their eyes, saying,
According to your faith, be it unto you. And their eyes were
opened, and Jesus straightly charged them, saying, See that
no man knoweth. So these two blind men, they
hadn't seen Jesus, but they had heard of Him. That's all they
had, was what they heard. They knew they were blind. They
were convinced he was the Christ. They were convinced he came according
to God's promise to open the eyes of the blind. And so they
pleaded with him to perform the work God gave him to do. They
pleaded with him and they called him by his name, Christ, son
of David. And when he came to them and
he asked them this, this is what faith is. Do you believe that
I am able to do this? Faith is believing in His ability. Moses told the Lord, if the Egyptians
hear this, that you destroyed Israel, they'll tell it to the
Canaanites and all these people, and they're going to say, the
Lord wasn't able. And Jesus asked the blind men,
do you believe I'm able to do this? And they just said, yes.
Yes, we do. They didn't question it. They
just said, yes, we do. And they did. And we might want to apply that
to ourselves, and we hear the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Do you believe, you, today, here, now, do you believe that I am
able to save you from your sins? I'm not asking whether you can
do what you need to do. I'm asking, do you believe that
I am able, the Lord Jesus Christ, to save you from your sins? Look
at Hebrews chapter seven. Hebrews chapter seven. That's
the issue, isn't it? Do you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ? In Hebrews chapter seven, it
says this. Look at verse 25. It says, wherefore,
because the Lord Jesus Christ ever liveth, he's eternal, he
has no beginning, no end, no end of days, He says, wherefore
he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto
God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
Do you believe he is able to save you from your sins, all
of your sins, to the uttermost, to take away the guilt of your
sins before God. It's on the books of God. Here
it is. The account is there. All of your sins stand out and
demand God's justice. Do you believe Christ is able
to save you from the guilt of your sins? and the shame of your
sins, all the things that your sins bring upon you in the filth
of them and shame before God, do you believe He's able to save
you from that? And do you believe He's able
to save you even from your own sinful nature that's so perverse
and wicked you can do nothing to overcome it? And do you believe
He's able to give you this grace of faith by His Spirit living
in you, by His almighty power, in order to look to the Lord
Jesus Christ? Do you believe He is able? And
do you believe that He's able to keep you from falling and
to present you before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
faultless and blameless, holy and without fault before Him
in Christ? Do you believe He is able? Right? Isn't that the question
of faith? And then to bring you all the
way into glory, in the presence of God, united to the Lord Jesus
Christ, God, in your inheritance, in God, and you are His, His
own child, His son or His daughter, knowing God and having full, restricted disclosure of God's
mind throughout all eternity and to see him as he is and worship
him and to give him all the glory because he gives you that? Do
you believe he is able to do that for you? That's what he's
saying here. Look at Ephesians chapter three.
That's what faith is. Ephesians chapter three. And
look at this. He says in verse 20, now unto
him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we
ask or think according to the power that worketh in us, God
himself, Christ may dwell, he says in verse 17, that Christ
may dwell in your hearts by faith, you see. He says, according to
that, that power, the almighty power of God that redeemed us,
that withheld God's wrath and answered His justice in the propitiating
blood of His Son, that power, and the power that exalted Christ
to the right hand of God and gave everything to Him in order
to bring all of His sheep to Him in glory and to give them
eternal life and give them the eternal glory that God the Father
prepared for them in Christ before the foundation of the world and
all that's necessary to do that without any failure. God Himself
staking Himself to the fulfillment of it. Do you believe He's able
to do that? Well, here he says he's able
to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according
to his power that works in us. Now notice verse 21. Unto him
be glory, not in the world, in the church. by Jesus Christ,
by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end, that's
a certainty. That is a certainty. All of God's
people, throughout all ages, will give all of the glory to
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the church of God. And
he says to that, yes, amen. Let it be even according to your
word. That's my desire too. Make it
so according to your word. That's what this is saying here.
Do you believe the Lord Jesus Christ is able? Do you see your
need like these blind men? Lord, help me. I have no power. I'm not over my sin. I can't
open my spiritual eyes. I need your grace. I need the
grace of God that's almighty in Christ by his blood. I need
him to plead for me. Give me this grace of faith.
Look at one more text of scripture and then we'll close today. In
Psalm chapter 29. In Psalm, the book of Psalms chapter
29. Look at this, this goes along
with what we just read in Ephesians 3. He says this in verse 9. The voice of the Lord maketh
the hinds to calve, the deer have their babies. The voice
of the Lord does that. And discovereth the forests.
And notice, and in his temple Doth everyone speak of his glory? What is the temple of the Lord?
It's where God dwells. Where does God dwell? He dwells
in the hearts of his people. He dwells in the church. Everyone
in the church, the congregation of believers, the elect of God,
redeemed by the blood of Christ, for whom Christ advocates and
intercedes, every one of them give him the glory. They speak
of his glory. They say, have you heard? Have
you heard of his honor? Have you heard of his fame, how
he can save sinners and does save these wicked, perverse sinners
who in themselves are so perverse? They would be destroyed at the
hand of God's just wrath. But the Lord himself in his goodness
provided an advocate, a high priest who offered himself to
God in sacrifice. And that sacrifice that he offered
of himself and obedience was well pleasing to God. And he
has taken away our sins. He satisfied God's justice. He
took away his wrath. He justified us in the righteousness
of his obedience. Do you believe he's able now
to do everything necessary to bring you to glory? That's what
faith is. And we, in our hearts, this is
the issue. The issues of life are what goes
on in the hearts. Make it your aim to know and
to trust and to give all honor and glory to the Lord Jesus Christ
for his goodness sake. Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your great
goodness, thank you for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. He
was rich. Though he was rich, he became
poor in order that we through his poverty might be made rich. And you have staked your own
name to an oath to give to your people in Christ and for Christ's
sake alone all of your of your blessings in Christ. Eternal
life, eternal glory, sonship, to dwell in your presence, to
sing your praises, to see your face. And to give you all the
glory, Lord, cause us to trust in him, help us to see our own
natural sinfulness and helplessness, and to see the greatness of your
name in all of your goodness to save sinners like we are,
and help us like these two blind men to come to you needy and
without strength in ourselves, trusting only that you are able,
for Christ's sake, to save us to the uttermost. In Jesus' name
we pray, amen.