Welcome, friends, to another
broadcast of Morsels for Zion's Poor. God does nothing out of
necessity, except those things which He by Himself makes a necessity. Some seem to think that God is
a God of reaction rather than action. I have often heard men
say that they hope God will intervene in this situation or that, as
if He was idly sitting by while His children play with their
toys, only rising up to action whenever one of them is in some
sort of trouble or imminent danger, which He desires to deliver them
from. Or we hear some say that God often changes the circumstances,
as if the circumstances have a mind of their own. The God
with whom we have to do is presently working all things according
to the good pleasure of His will. God does not change circumstances. He prescribes the circumstances
we find ourselves in, and He does not intervene because He
is already actively involved in the ordering of all events,
so that it is quite impossible for anything to occur which He
has not directed from the very throne of heaven. The salvation
of the Lord's people sprang out of the exact design for which
He created the heavens and the earth. He did not create man
only to discover that he would then be forced into coming up
with a scheme of redemption. Rather, the Scripture tells us
that before there was ever a sinner, there was a Savior, and before
Adam sinned, the means of man's redemption was already determined. The world exists in order to
manifest the glory of God in the redemption of His elect children
through the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the testator,
that is, one who testifies, of the new covenant. This is one
of the most glorious of truths revealed in all of the scriptures.
Abraham and all of the Old Testament saints could look at the promise
of God, but they were not allowed to actually possess the fullness
of that which was promised, even though they were as much the
heirs of the promise as any of the elect who, by the grace of
God, have now witnessed the death and resurrection of our blessed
Lord. These all died in faith, not having received the promises,
but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and
embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and
pilgrims on the earth. A valid will and testament consists
of three things, and in the new covenant Jesus Christ fulfills
all three. A will must have an author or
a testator. Jesus Christ has determined all
of the blessings which he would bestow on his elect. The new
covenant is really older than the old covenant because its
precepts were laid before the old. The old covenant was temporary
and only had an existence for the purpose of bringing in that
which was better. The law written in tables of
stone could only condemn But the Lord promised to write His
law upon the hearts of His children. Jesus Christ has determined to
set His people free from the principle of sin and death which
they were all their lifetime subject to. A will must have
the death of the testator. All of the promises which Jesus
Christ determined to bestow upon His elect before the foundation
of the world have now become our possession because He has
died to purchase our redemption. Our election and vital union
with Him from eternity, as glorious as His blessings were, were not
our salvation. Though our justification had
its decree before the foundations of the earth were laid, yet that
decree was not our justification. Though our sanctification was
certain from the ancient times, it did not come into our possession
until the death of the one who was the testator of the new covenant. All of the actual blessings of
the sons of God, though they were chosen before the foundation
of the world and ordained to receive them, have only now become
theirs because of the death of the testator. A will must have
the executor or administrator. No will is of any value if the
executor of the will fails to see it carried out. Jesus Christ
is the administrator of His own will. Not only did He die to
secure our redemption, but He rose from the dead in order that
He may apply the purchased blessing to all those for whom He intended
it. In this natural world it is possible for a man to be an
heir to a great fortune and yet die in poverty because of the
inability of the executor of the will to locate him. But such
is an impossibility in the case of the new covenant, because
the same one who wrote it also administers it, and he calleth
his own sheep by name. How much more shall the blood
of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without
spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the
living God? Are you an heir of the promises
of the New Testament, testified and administered by Christ, who
has both died and is risen again? Christ is the Redeemer of His
people. For a free CD containing 15 of
these radio broadcasts, send an email to forthepoor at windstream.net.