Our dear brother Norm, who pastors
out in the Dalles, Oregon, will be coming up to speak to us first. Well, good evening. It's once
again a joy to be with you. I have so greatly appreciated
the hospitality from you, your pastor, and his wife. It's been
a joy to be with Brother Joe and Brother Jean-Claude and to
get to know Tanner. And your pastor and I, it goes
without saying, we've had a good time. I would ask that you would
remember us out in the Dalles. I would ask you to come visit.
I only ask one thing, if you do, when you call up and say
you're coming, please remind me where I met you. And your names. It didn't used to be so bad,
but it is getting that way. I would ask you tonight to turn
to the gospel according to Leviticus. Leviticus chapter 26. Leviticus was a blessed book
in our study and I was saddened to come to the close of our study. Someday we'll go back there.
But it was so enlightening. I shared with the folks out there
that for years, the book of Leviticus was a flyover book. When you're
reading through the Bible, you come to Leviticus, you fly over
it very quickly, because it didn't appear that there was much there.
And I read a book that said, the book of Leviticus was written
to sinners. and me being a sinner, I wanted
to go find out what that book was about. So we spent some time
doing it. The book of Leviticus starts
off with five different sacrifices, probably not very often offered,
because sinners only were to offer those, and they're very
difficult to find. A sinner is a sacred thing. God
hath made him thus. There are a lot of people that
are sorry they got caught, They'll never do it again, but when it
comes to a true sinner, they're a gift of God. God must make
us that. We'll only truly know what we
are after we've been regenerated. Then you shall know is what we
find in the book of Ezekiel. In a lot of the Old Testament
book of Ezekiel, we find much said about depravity. I appreciated
what was said last night, sinfulness, because it's gonna fit right
into his lesson for tonight, or his message for tonight. But
the depravity of man, and our bodies confess, whether our mouths
do, that we have fallen in Adam. It got so, as I was going through,
if you have a pimple, that's a sign of the fall. If you have
an ache or a pain, you have a boil, a blister, you lose your hair,
your hair turns gray. Those are all signs of the fall. They're our body telling us that
what God said about the fall is absolutely the truth, whether
our heart or our mouth want to confess it. That is the truth. We come to chapter 25 and we
have that wonderful chapter about the year of Jubilee. Dr. Hawker said, and I wish I
had found his quote, but just kind of adding lib or putting
it into today, he said, wasn't it something that a slave, a
person who had been put in slavery, when he heard the sound of those
trumpets, those horn trumpets, only heard once every 50 years,
that person knew by the sound of that horn, that they were
now set free. Didn't happen very often. Some
people might have heard it twice in their life, but it didn't
happen very often. But when it happened, things
were put back as they once were, and we find that that year of
jubilee for us is summed up by the psalmist when he said, blessed
are the people who know the joyful sound. how blessed God's people
are to know the sound of redemption, the sound of the Redeemer, to
know what it is to be ransomed, to be purchased back. All of
those words have to do with the condition that we're in. To be
ransomed means that we were in slavery and we were bought out
of slavery. They all have to do with a condition
we're in. And the redeemer is the person
who does the buying. And the redeemed are the people
who are bought back. And those terms are brought out
so clearly here in the book of Leviticus and particularly in
chapter 25. In chapter 26, we have the results of redemption.
First four verses of this chapter. Now there are a lot of people,
and I was one of them, that believed when I read these. If I had of
read these, similar ones are found in other places, I would
have said I'm doing the best job I can to keep these, and
someday I hope to have them accomplished. People have said that all the
way through this existence of the world. Just read with me
Leviticus chapter 26 verse 1, 2, 3, and 4. Ye shall make no idols nor graven
image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall you set
up any image of stone in your land to bow down unto it, for
I am the Lord your God. You shall keep my Sabbaths and
reverence my sanctuary, I am the Lord. And if you walk in
my statutes and keep my commandments and do them, Then I will, and
we're gonna stop right there, and we wanna pick up a couple
of those verses that share the I will that God does here, but
most of us in our religious life spend a lot of time trying to
keep those verses of scripture. trying to keep idols out of her
life, and trying to have our Sabbaths and everything, and
it is only in redemption, the redemption that God has, the
Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the ransomed ones that he
buys back, and that is called a church. They're the only ones
that understand that they cannot keep these verses, and there
has to be someone else keep them for us. The Lord is our Sabbath. The worst of all idols is not
some stone idol down on the Easter Island. The worst of all idols
is not some Buddha in some restaurant. There in the Dalles we have a
wonderful Chinese restaurant and there are people that will
not go in there because they walk in and they see this big
golden Buddha. It's just a piece of stone. It didn't affect the food at
all. The food is good. The price is wonderful. And the
amount, you can't eat at all. So I go there, but people won't
go there because there is that idol there. You know, the worst
idol of all is being pronounced throughout this world by men
and women, and particularly preachers and pulpits. The worst idol of
all is the idol of free will. That is the worst. That you on
your own can get yourself out of the condition that you're
in, and that is a bold-faced lie. Our idols have been taken
care of by the Lord. He tells us in the book of I
Thessalonians, chapter one, that you have turned to God from worshiping
dumb idols. Thank God, He's the one that
does that, because left on our own, even now, we'd go find something. But God is our object of worship. The Lord is our object of worship.
And it goes on down there and talks about Sabbaths. He is our
Sabbath. When He said from the cross so
many years ago and still rings in the ears of the church today,
it is finished. The church says, hallelujah,
His work is finished and I don't have to work. Work is impossible
anyway. It never accomplished anything.
But when he said it is finished, he said, all the work is complete,
redemption is complete, and now I will go about, from that point
on, he's taken care of it from all the people behind that, when
he brought them regeneration, just like he does now, in this
day and time, but from that day forward, he said, I will become
their rest. when I regenerate them, and they
are cause to rest on Me. how joyful it is to rest in Christ,
to realize that he has done everything that God required, and that he
has fulfilled every requirement that God has ever requested.
The request is, be ye holy as I am holy, and you and I cannot
do that. We commit enough right here in
a religious setting to send us to a devil's hell. Our mind wanders,
goes off towards Lukey and everything else. We come up with all kinds
of things. And yet the Lord said, I'm your
Sabbath. I've taken care of your idols.
Be at rest, be at rest. Well, in chapter 26 and verse
four, we have some wonderful things, the blessings of redemption. These are much like those passages
of scripture in the New Testament that share with us all the spiritual
blessings that we have in Christ. In this passage of scripture,
down through verse 14, he goes through a list of things that
he, I will do this. Now we find that a number of
times through the Old Testament, the things that God will do on
the behalf of his people. And we rejoice in those, because
they're unable on our part to do them, but he is able to do
them, and to do them greatly. With nothing, no effort, he is
able to do that. God is God and beside him there
is none else. He is able in his own power to
keep the word that he said he will keep. We are so frail and
we are so weak that when we even promise to do something, many
times we're unable just to keep it because we don't have the
power to keep it. But God has said, everything he has said,
he said, I will keep. I will keep every promise that
I have made. And he's doing it. And one of
those is, I will give you rain in due season. and the land shall
yield her in crease, and the trees of the field shall yield
their fruit. Now when we put that into spiritual
context, we certainly see some really rich blessings that God
gives to us. But would you turn with me ahead
just a little bit to the book of Deuteronomy Chapter 11. Deuteronomy
Chapter 11, Moses again as he is the secretary for God. We
hear so often that Moses wrote this book. He wrote it because
he was a secretary. Holy Spirit, holy men of God
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. They are the secretaries
of God. And they wrote it down like God
told them to write it down. They didn't have any latitude
in this. Write it down. He didn't ask them to give their
thoughts. He said take pen and paper and write down what I give
you. Well Moses wrote it down and
thank God we have a translation of it because I have met very
few people in America that can read Hebrew. So, we have a translation. Thank God for it. I was talking
to Brother Jean-Claude and he does translate it. Oh my, to
me that would be the most difficult thing in the world is to translate
it so it would be correct and yet readable in the other language.
Well, God has given him a gift. That's it. Here in the book of
Deuteronomy, chapter Chapter 11, and verse 10, we read these
words. Keep in mind, I'm gonna send
you rain. That's one of the blessings,
spiritual blessings, that God gives to us, is He sends us spiritual
rain. Now He says here, for the land
whither thou goest, and to possess it. They're not quite into Canaan. In fact, it's gonna be a while
yet. But he says, this is what it's going to be like. For the
land where thou goest in to possess it is not as the land of Egypt. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. My goodness. Isn't it great to
know that the land where the Lord's going to take us is not
like the land we're in? The land the Lord is going to
take us is not like where we are. He said, it's not going
to be like Egypt. Now what was Egypt like? Let's
read on. From whence ye came, where thou
sowest thy seed, and waterest with thy foot as a garden of
herbs. Now that word foot carries with
it the idea of a foot wheel. It can also mean dragging your
foot to open up ditches. Now I don't know about you, but
I used to have to irrigate with ditches. That's how we irrigated
our garden. We didn't have sprinkler systems
then. I don't even know if they were invented. But it was with
a water wheel. Now, I've seen pictures of water
wheels where people are there on a water wheel and with their
feet, they're raising this water from one level to another level
so it can go out in the field and irrigate it. God said, when
you get to where I'm taking you, you're not gonna be like in Egypt
because down in Egypt, you had to work and work and work and
the work was never done if you were gonna eat. You are going
to work on a water wheel. You're going to carry this water
down through the ditches with your feet. This is your labor. What does God say when you enter
into the promised land? He goes on in verse 11, But the
land whither you go to possess it is a land of hills and valleys,
and drinketh water of the rain of heaven. Now who has control
over the rain? Almighty God, and He sends it
down instead of us sending it up. He said, over there in Egypt
it was all work. Over there in Palestine, I'm
going to send the rain down and irrigate the land, and it will
be the early and the latter rain at the right time. My friends,
when we come to the church, when God opens our eyes and we get
to see Christ as our Redeemer, when we're born again and we
get to enjoy the rich blessings of Christ, we find that the blessings
flow down to us. It is not our work going up to
Him, it's His blessings coming down to us. It is the sweet rain
of heaven. It is every spiritual blessing
in Christ Jesus. We have the blessings of Christ,
and when we go to the book of Ephesians chapter one, we read
some of those wonderful blessings that we have in Christ Jesus,
and that is how he has chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, and how he has worked out redemption perfectly,
and he left nothing to us, because we can't do it. We're unable. And so the Redeemer
actually redeems. The irrigator actually sends
the water. We have no control over the rain. Oh, scientists have tried, but
they just can't copy it. So He said, back there in Leviticus
chapter 26, He said there in verse 4, I'll
give you rain in due season. When you need blessings from
God, in due season. Had a man come to me and say,
Brother Norman, I just don't think I have dying grace. And
I says, are you dying? He says, no. I says, you don't
need it, in due season. We need blessings every day,
and in due season, God gives them to us. He gives them according
to His sovereign, eternal purpose. He has never left out His blessings
to His people. David said, I was young and now
I'm old, and I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor his
seed begging bread. The Word of God is always available
to God's people. We can read it, and years later,
those verses come to us. We can be reading, and we read
a passage of scripture we thought we'd read a dozen times, and
a verse pops off the Word of God, and we say, I've never seen
it, but I'm going to claim it right now. God has sent his reign
in due season. He sent his blessing in every
blessing. We learn more about Christ as
we go through the scriptures. We are reminded as preachers
stand before us and share with us the wonderful news of the
gospel of how that Christ died for our sins according to the
scripture and was buried and rose again the third day according
to the scriptures. And he was seen of a lot of people. And Paul said, and he was also
seen of me. I'm glad in these days there's
some that can say he was also seen of me. I was lost as a goose in religion
and God in his mercy sent a man to Oregon from Kentucky who knew
something. Never met a man like him. I never
met a man that knew something. Came out there and preached the
gospel and the first words out of my mouth to my wife, and I
probably told you this before, but I said, I hate that man. And I was truthful about it. He turned up my apple cart. I
was so mad at him. And then I found out I was mad
at the postman. He was delivering the message.
for I'm God, and I found out I was mad at God. God could have left me in that
state, but by His mercy, He let me see Christ. Well, in the next
verse of Scripture there, in the book of Leviticus, chapter
26, a wonderful verse of Scripture, and you're threshing. A lot of
young people today don't even know what it means to be threshing.
Used to go out and watch those threshing machines. Used to ride
on a threshing machine. Used to get all the chaff all
over you. Dirt. But I'd reach down in that bin
as that grain was coming out of the header and you'd blow
out the bugs and the rest of the chaff and pop it in your
mouth and chew it up and there was no better food in this world.
Threshing. It says right here, and your
threshing shall reach unto the vintage. Now that's grapes in their maturity
and they were a few eaten but most were turned into wine. And
the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time and ye shall
eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land safely. In this passage of scripture,
we find that the Holy Spirit through Moses, the preacher of
righteousness, we read that about Noah and I think it could have
been said about Moses too, is a preacher of righteousness.
The righteousness of Christ. If you think for a moment by
offering this sacrifice you're going to gain righteousness,
you're greatly mistaken. It's just a picture of the one
who is our righteousness. A lamb without spot and blemish. He is the only one, 24 hours
a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, kept God's law perfectly. From eternity, the righteous
one, the Lord Jesus, And He is gracious enough to impute that
righteousness to His people, and God counts it as our righteousness. And our sin was imputed to Him,
and God counts it as His sin. He laid down His life, a ransom
for many. Let's look at this next verse
here, in verse 5, and you're threshing. It talks about abundance. This talks about abundance. There's
just so much planting, and gathering, and planting, and gathering,
that it's just one season right after another. That there's always
something growing, and always something to be harvested, and
always something to be planted. And it's just a continuous, continuous. There is no downtime. And that's what we find about
the grace of God. that there is no downtime with
the grace of God. He never relinquishes His sovereign
grace for His people. It is always unmerited favor
that He gives on the behalf of His people. His grace has been
evident throughout the ages, and it was promised in eternity
past. This grace, this free, this sovereign
grace, it is overabundance. There is never any end to it. We never come to the completion
of it. We never see the end of the planting
of it, or the harvesting of it, or the vintage of it. It just
continues on, and we delight and relish in it every day of
our Christian life. We thank God that he protected
us and gave us grace before we were born, provenient grace.
I don't know how many times my brothers and I have said, we
should be dead. Most people feel the same way.
The stupid things we did as kids. And if it wasn't for the prevenient
grace of God for His elect, we would have been dead. But that grace continues. Turn over with me to the book
of Romans, chapter 5, if you would. Romans, chapter 5. As
we think about this continuous planting, growing, threshing,
vintage, picking grapes, making the wine. It's just a continuous.
Out in Oregon, there where I live, it's dry land farming for most
of everything. Thousands and thousands and thousands
of acres of barley and wheat are grown. Dry land farming.
They put it in in the fall, and hopefully there'll be enough
moisture during the winter to sprout that seed, and then a
little rain a little later so that it can grow and come to
maturity. 6,000 acres of cherries, sweet cherries, are grown in
that area, and every bit of it is dependent upon pumps pumping
water out of the Columbia River up onto those trees so that they'll
have cherries mature. Water is of necessity. But you know, when that harvest
takes place, when those cherries are picked, we've got to wait
another year to get it going again. Our climate just will not do
anything else. But here, in the church, Grace
never ceases. There is never any end to it.
There is no end to God's unmerited favor to us the chiefest of sinners. In the book of Romans chapter
5, there in verse 17 we read these words. Romans chapter 5
and verse 17. For if by one man's offense death
reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace
and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus
Christ. Did you notice that abundance
of grace? You can't run out. It is so much. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. There's no end to it. You can't
wear it out. It's not worn thin. And then
in that same chapter, verse 20, Moreover the law entered that
a fence might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much
more abound. Would you turn back with me to
the book of Acts? Keep your finger in Romans. We'll
be back there in just a moment. But in the book of Acts, chapter
4, we read these words. I'll keep the law for you. I'll
keep the Sabbaths for you. I will be your object of worship.
And I will give these things to you. I'll give you rain from
heaven. Not like you had down there in
Egypt, where you had to go out there and work those water wheels
and get sweaty and dirty and go home and get some rest. And
the next day you came back and you had the job to do again.
But I'll give you rain from heaven. I'll send it down to you in showers
most pleasant. It will be a joy to you. How
many enjoy standing out in a good shower? I suppose us as kids enjoy it
more than we do now because we will get our clothes wet. And then it says, you're thrashing
shall go to your vintage, and your vintage to your planting,
and your planting to your thrashing. It is a never-ending circle of
grace. Acts chapter 4 and there in verse
33 we read, And with great power gave the apostles witness of
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and great grace
was upon them all. Isn't it a wonder when we are
convinced by the Holy Spirit in salvation, in regeneration,
of the resurrection of Jesus Christ? And why is that important?
Because He completed His task. And why is that important that
He completed His task? Because He promised He would.
And our sin was at stake. If He did not complete His task,
the Apostle Paul said, if He did not raise, we're yet in our
sins. We're worse off than we were.
But since He raised from the dead, just like He promised He
would, He is successful in all that He set out to do. And beyond
that, He ascended back to the Father and sits down at the right
hand of the Father, declaring to us, the church, and to the
Father too, I have been restored to the glory that I had with
you before the world was. And the church says, hallelujah. It's been completed, finished,
worked out, and we have abundant grace. We have abounding grace. And if you turn with me to Romans
chapter 11. Romans chapter 11. In Romans
chapter 11 we have here God's symbol of it all. How did He
get it started? My goodness, that's We can't
understand God. Thank you, thank God for his
word that we can understand a little bit. If you know that much about
the word of God, thank God. Don't say, I need more. No, thanking
for what you have. And as we hear, it's revealed. And when it please God, you'll
reveal some more. But here in Romans chapter 11,
this wonderful chapter, when I was in Bible school down in
Dallas, Texas for one semester, I was told that Romans 9, 10,
and 11 were parenthetical statements and there's no need for us to
read them today. That is just one way that lost
people get around the sovereignty of God. These are wonderful chapters,
glorious chapters. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
16. Here in the book of Romans chapter
11, and there in verse 5, even so then at this present time
also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. A remnant according to the election
of grace. I had in my notes last night,
and Brother Jean-Claude reminded me, I didn't get that far, but
you know, there was only a few thousand of Judah that actually
left under Cyrus' rule. There was a remnant according
to the election of grace that went back. And the others were
happy where they were. There was a remnant of the tribe
of Judah that went back because through that tribe, we must have
the Messiah. He's the lion of the tribe of
Judah. There's nothing said, as the
book of Hebrews writes or gives us, nothing said about a priest
coming out of Judah except this priest. And because there is
a priest of the tribe of Judah, there is a necessity a new law, and that law is Christ. We read
in the book of 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 9, verse 24, there's
continuous harvest, we're basking in the harvest of grace, daily,
nightly, in the night seasons, in the daytime, When we're in
church, when we're out of church, when we're fishing, when we're
sitting around visiting, when we're having a good time with
our friends, there is the abundance of grace. There is the abundance
of grace. My goodness, as we read here
in 2 Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 24, it says, and if all
prophecy, and there come in one that... I want 2 Corinthians. Chapter 9. And verse 24. Wherefore, show ye to them, and
before the churches. Well, you know the worst thing I ever
learned was that the pastor who brought me the gospel was a man. So let's go to Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians
chapter 1. To the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved, Praise
of the glory of His grace. That continuous threshing, continuous
harvest, continuous vintage, continuous planting we find here
is the praise of the glory of His grace. Let us praise His
grace for all the rich blessings that He has given us. And in
that same chapter, verse 7, in whom we have redemption. through
the blood and forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of His grace. God just compounds His grace,
overwhelmingly gives us of His grace. The rain coming down just
drenches, the blessings of Christ just drenches to the bone, and
the threshing, and the planting, and the vintage, and all that
goes on in the blessings of grace continuously go on, and you know
how much we had to do with it? Not one thing. We just get to
enjoy it. The richness of his grace. And
you know the one who does all of that shares with us in the book of
Matthew chapter 11. Come all ye that labor and are
heavy laden and I will give you rest. heavy labor and are heavy laden. If you look those up, you'll
find they have to do with imposed labor. My goodness, we're imposed
labor when it comes to religion. We're given all sorts of things
and the Lord says, come unto me all you that labor and are
heavy laden. You've got all that nonsense
on you. Come to me. Come unto me all
you that labor and are heavy laden. And I'll give you the
sweet rain from heaven, and I'll give you the great riches of
grace. Come unto me, all you that labor
and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon
you and learn of me." My goodness, the sweet blessings of grace
God gives to us. We realize we can't come without
the grace of God, but we are called on to come. I remember
Brother Henry in those messages would say, trust Christ and don't
move a muscle. The preacher says come forward,
come here, do that, trust Christ and don't move a muscle.