I want to thank you again for
your very warm hospitality and welcome. It's been a real rest for me
and it's been such a joy to see you. Let's just open up the Word of
God together and we trust the Holy Spirit will bring us the
joy that isn't fleeting and the joy that is the strength of God's
people. The joy that doesn't belong to
us by nature but comes from God Himself. It's His joy that is
the strength of His people. So let's look at Nehemiah 8. I just didn't want to read all
those names. And I looked at Nehemiah 7 and
I thought we definitely won't be going there. There are more
names and I notice we don't name our children after most of them.
And there's a reason because we wouldn't be able to pronounce
it. But as I said last night, these are real people. They're
not characters in a fairy tale. And I think Gary and I were talking
about this because we said, you know, if we knew the meaning
of some of these names, they might preach a gospel sermon
to us. I don't have the language to understand it, but I think
part of the reason why it's there, and it's a very careful list,
Nehemiah 7 particularly talks about the children of Peshur
and the children of others. And I'm not even going to try
to pronounce that name that I just fell on, Shefa Taaya or something. But all these children. Now the
man had come to seek the welfare of the children of Israel, and
they're there listed by name and by family. And now we know
that the Lord Jesus has come to seek the welfare of the children
of God and they're named and numbered and part of His family
and they are His by virtue of His free and sovereign and unconditional
choice to save them. No advantage in life, no existence
in creation when He chose them in Him. And when the Father sent
the Son into the world, He knew who He was coming for. And He
says that this is the will of the Father that sent Me in John
6, that of all He has given Me, I should lose none but raise
Him up at the last day. Timothy was told by Paul, the
Lord knows. I tell you it's a good thing
for an older pastor sometimes to remind a younger pastor or
a brother who is esteemed to remind someone who's at distance
and perhaps suffering trials brother the Lord knows those
who are his and that's the best comfort and that's the great
confidence we can have because it's his work we saw that first
of all that there was a man who was sent as the servant of the
Lord his name was Nehemiah but we can't be content to stay just
in that era, just in that history of this action by this man 24
centuries ago. All of the Old Testament points
us to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ points us from the
Old Testament to himself. These are they that speak of
me. And here we've got all the people gathered together in the
books of Moses, the first five books of the Bible. Because remember,
this is back before much of what we have in our Old Testament
even. had not yet happened and had not yet been written. All
the Psalms of David, they weren't written. The books of Proverbs
and Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon hadn't been written. This is
a time when... actually they had been, brother.
I made a mistake. There you go. We've got to trust
in God, not in men. Most of them had been written,
but the books of Moses, I think it's only Malachi that hadn't
been written. This is only 400 years before the Lord Jesus came.
There you go. But they went to the five books
of Moses. When you see the books of Moses
here, it means the five books. And that was called the law because
it was the covenant document of Israel. Now Jesus said that
the Jews of his day made their boast in Moses. He said, he wrote
of me. He wrote of me. So again, we
can come here and we can have confidence that we don't have
to find some way to reform our lives. Remember what we said,
we've got to rebuild the walls. We've got to build up the walls
of our church. We've got to look to someone
to lead us. That'll usually be the pastor or someone like that.
We've got to rebuild the walls and the values of our community
just like those Jewish people did back in those days. Now we've
got to look for a city that lasts. We've got to look for work that
God does that can't be undone because if we follow Any form
of reformation from this book will end up in the same state
as this city ended up. Because it was only four centuries
later that it was irreparably broken down and its walls that
had been rebuilt so quickly were gone forever. So we want a city that lasts,
a city that builder and maker is God, a work that is a finished
work. this work wasn't a finished work,
you'll see that Nehemiah had all, he came back and visited
again and there was not a great change in the hearts of the people.
We want something that is a change that is wrought forever. So the
servant of the Lord came, we saw that together if you were
here, and he was in touch with our infirmities, he was sympathetic,
he was a man of sorrows. He was sent by a sovereign, sovereign
Lord. And he suffered the contradiction
of sinners against himself. The opposition came from sinners. Sambalat, Tobijah, Geshem the
Arab. People who profited from preying
on other people's fallenness and vulnerability. But then we
saw that Nehemiah in a sense became a savior. He became a
deliverer and to do that he had to enter into the ruins. Humanity's
ruined. and the Jewish people were ruined.
And Nehemiah came in among them. He didn't send somebody else.
He didn't send in the builders of Babylon or Persia as it was
then. He came himself and he wasn't
ashamed to call them brethren and he entered among them and
he surveyed the ruin that they lived in. Now this is what our
Lord Jesus did in the greatest sense. He came into the ruins. He came as a man. He walked among
us. He was born of a woman. He was
born under the law. He lived for 30 years in relative
anonymity. He worked with his hands. He
interacted with every type of person. The only righteous man
the world will ever know reacted and acted and walked
among the unrighteous and surveyed the ruins. So we saw that Nehemiah
did that. But also we saw that he assessed the damage. Nehemiah
rode round the walls. He went to all those places.
Water gates. You know, he went from the bathroom
to the water tank. He went from the dung gate to
the water gate. He went from the king's pool
to where the bakers baked their bread, to where the goldsmiths
had their business. Everything was broken down. Every
strata of society, every place was burnt with fire and broken
down. It's a picture of the total ruin. of humanity, but he assessed
what needed to be done to redeem those who were, where were they? Within the city. He contemplated
those who were within the city. And our Lord Jesus, that New
Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all and is free, he contemplates
those who are his and the citizens of that city. They're the children
of God. They're also called by Paul in
Galatians, the children of Abraham, the seed of Abraham. And they're not just Jewish people.
They're not even Jewish people. They're Jewish and Gentile. They're
bond and free. They're male and female. And
what distinguishes them is the fetching grace of God and the
gift of faith that that brings in Jesus Christ. And if you look
in Galatians, if you just turn up there to Galatians chapter
4 and towards the end of the chapter, we're told that we're
no longer under the law. It was a tutor, a schoolmaster. But in verse 26, ye are all the
children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as
have been baptized into Christ, now that's not water baptism,
that means to have been, it says those that are baptized into
Christ are baptized into his body, that's what water baptism
only ever pitches, is to be put into Christ. Those of you that
have been baptized, that have been put into Christ, have put
on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek.
There is neither bond nor free. There is neither male nor female.
For ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be Christ's,
then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Now, we know that the seed of
Abraham is the Lord Jesus Christ. And we are accounted the children
of Abraham because we are in him. And if you go back now to
the last book of the Bible in Revelation chapter 21, we see that this city that is figurative
of God's people, you know, and we know from 1 Peter 2, it has
living stones just as the temple that is figurative of God's people
has living stones. And you can see there in Revelation
21, you go down to about the 24th verses, it's beautiful in
the 23rd, the city doesn't need lighting. It has no need of the
sun, the moon to shine in it for the glory of God did light
it. The lamb is the light thereof. And you see again that this is
not one people. This is where we grow beyond
Nehemiah and the promises of the New Testament and the teaching
of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fullness of the work that
he has done and the nations of them which are saved shall walk
in the light of it. and the kings of the earth to
bring their glory and honor into it and the gates of it shall
not be shut at all by day for there shall be no night there
and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations
into it and there shall in no wise enter into it anything that
defiles neither whatsoever worketh abominations or maketh a lie
but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life. We saw they which were written
in Nehemiah's book, and now we see they that are written in
the Lord Jesus Christ's book, because he is the Lamb. So we
go from the lesser to the greater. That's the way to come to the
Old Testament. That's the way Jesus taught his
disciples. That's the way that the Spirit
of God should teach us. And we don't look at an earthly
people in an earthly Jerusalem as the great culmination of Christ's
return. We look to a heavenly people.
We trust that by God's grace and Christ's work we're among
them. And that is pictured as coming down out of heaven from
God. And why is that? because its origins are in heaven,
in the eternal glories, before even an earthly creation. So
now, moving from the Savior of God's people, we come to this
final portion, and yep, I'm guilty of creating a series. So I've got a third one. I don't
think I'd like to try and do this all the way through Nehemiah.
I don't think I could. I look at some of it and I think,
I'm not sure that I'm able to make anything out of that. I
know God would. And he sometimes does, but this is not now the
strength of God's people, the strength of God's people. And
you can see it there, can't you? The people, they gather around
the word of God. And the first thing is this,
that the strength of God's people has to be revealed through the
word of life. The strength of God's people
has to be revealed through the word of life. It's not something
that belongs to them. It's not their makeup. Now, I
know you North Carolinians are pretty tough stuff. And Texans
reckon they're tougher than anybody else. And we Aussies reckon you're
all pussies because we reckon we're tougher than anybody else
on earth. But the fact is, we have no strength. We're dead
in trespasses and sins. We cannot bring ourselves to,
we cannot overcome what we are by nature. And if we ever become
aware of it, truly aware of it, it'll be through the word of
life. It'll be through our eyes opening, our minds being given
understanding. Now, I believe that in a measure,
that's what happened to these people. They were quite happily
building. They'd been afraid of the opposition. They'd strengthened each other's
hand. They'd been encouraged by their
leader, the one who prayed to God and interceded and mediated
on their behalf. And here's the picture of Christ
in that. But when it came to the Word of God, they did not
understand what it was for, what it was teaching, and they did
not know themselves. They did not know who He truly
was. And that knowledge always brings, first and foremost, sorrow. Sorrow. And that's what happened
here. Everybody wants to go straight
to joy. But, you know, our Lord Jesus Christ, His coming meant
that there was to be repentance toward God and faith in our Lord
Jesus Christ. And repentance is to forsake
yourself. Repentance is a change of heart. I think very highly
of myself. It's the biggest battle. You
look in the morning and you say, how shall I love me? Let me count
the ways. Getting older, it's a bit harder.
You need to fog the mirror up a bit. The fact is that we have
a self-love, even when we loathe ourselves. We can say things
like, well, I'm just too great a sinner, and God doesn't really
understand my problems, and that's exalting ourselves above God.
If we think that God is not powerful enough to deal with us, we really
think we're more powerful, even though we want to be wretched
and miserable about it. But these people, they needed someone to
open up the Scriptures and give the sense give the sense. You notice that there, that they
build a pulpit of wood? Why was that? They want to be
six foot above contradiction? No, it was so people could have
access. It's so that everyone could hear and then they put
other fellas out. Why was that? Because they didn't
have amplification. And they would take what they
heard and they would repeat it to the other men. That's why
all those names are there. And so they stood as one man,
and the book of the law was opened, and Ezra the scribe began to
give the sense, they read in the book of the law, it says
in verse 8, of God distinctly. They made a distinctive reading
of it. And then they gave the sense. It's important to give the sense.
It's one thing to read well, and to do it distinctively. It's
another thing to give the sense. What does this mean? Why is this
written? How does this apply to us and
cause them to what? To understand the reading. To understand the reading. And then there was a result.
Nehemiah and the Tertiary, that just means governor as far as
we know, and Ezra the priest, the scribe, and the Levites that
taught the people said to all the people, the day is holy unto
the Lord your God. Mourn not, nor weep, for all
the people wept. Why did they weep when they heard
the words of the law? Now, that is the right reaction. That, in a great measure, ought
to give us some hope for a person, or for ourselves, that we don't
take the law as an opportunity to prove ourselves to God. If
you want to take the law as an opportunity to prove yourself
to God, you are going to be lost forever, no matter what you pretend. Because again, Paul tells us
that we can keep the whole law in one point. keep the whole
law and be guilty of one point and we're guilty of all and Romans
3 tells us there's none righteous no not one the whole world's
become guilty before God and the reason is so that everyone
closes their mouth and doesn't try to justify themselves by
their works by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified
but there is a good result here for these people now there's
a better result when the Lord Jesus Christ reveals the depths
of our ruin by Himself. You go and look here in John
15 and you'll find that He came to convict the world of sin and
righteousness and judgment. Sin and righteousness and judgment. It's actually chapter 60. Now they've got sorrow in their
heart, these disciples, and he's dealing with that. They don't
have joy presently, and he, in tenderness and care, is going
to bring them to the point of sharing his joy with them, because
that's where he wants them to be. But he says here, that because,
in verse 6 of 16, because I have said these things unto you, what?
Sorrow has filled your heart. You know, in the reflection of
who God is, and the reflection of who we are, you can hear the
word to your prophet if it fills your heart with sorrow, it's
probably the first and best reaction, but it's not the last reaction.
There's one that the Lord Jesus, he will draw out of us, he will
fill us with something that doesn't belong to us by nature. And he
says, nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it's expedient for
you that I go away, for if I go not away, the comforter will
not come unto you. So there's a comforter coming. So they're
not gonna remain in sorrow. But if I depart, I will send
him unto you. And when he has come, and he is the conviction,
he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and
of judgment. But he's not going to do it through
the law as these people did in Nehemiah. He is going to do it
He's going to convict of sin because they believe not on me.
You see how much greater that is? Someone greater than the
law is here. He's going to convict of sin,
not primarily because you've broken that commandment, brother.
Sister, you didn't do that. We're always looking at the that,
that, that, that. We accuse and excuse ourselves
because of this, that, this. But it's going to be unbelief. The state of native rebellion
is what will convict of sin when it's revealed by the Holy Spirit
of righteousness. It's not going to be through
the law. Oh, you know, there's a righteousness.
And the law, it stacks it up by degrees and you get first
degree, second degree, third degree, fourth degree righteousness,
depending whether you've been sinless according to the precepts
of God and been not guilty or guilty in certain areas. You
can have victory over that sin and that'll put you up the scale.
You can be promoted. Righteousness comes as a conviction
because I go to my father and you see me no more. The ascension
of Christ into the presence of the heavenly glory as the one
who has finished the work that the father gave him to do and
to whom he has given all the nations as his possession and
the governance of all time and eternity, the blessed and only
potentate, the king of kings, the lord of lords, his ascension
convicts of righteousness. See how great a measure it is
than just the books of Moses? Important as they are because
they speak of him. So we've got to come back to
these things in the belief and in the reality that they speak
of him, because he's going to talk about judgment. But it's
not going to be because Jerusalem, the city that now is, is judged.
Or Sanballat and Tobijah or Geshem the Arab are judged. It's going
to be because the prince of this world is judged. because Satan is cast down and
we know at the cross he defeated the principalities and the powers.
We know at the cross Satan fell like lightning from heaven. We
know that Jesus met him in the wilderness, was tested 40 days
and overcame him and he fled and there's going to be a judgment
and the Holy Spirit reveals that. And this is what convicts the
world of sin and of righteousness and judgment. I do ask you, have you known
that conviction? I don't want you to stay there.
There's no hope there. But you can never really understand
hope if you haven't been hopeless. You can never hear good news
if you don't know that there is bad news. Light is best displayed
against a dark backdrop. You've seen it, you know, you
get one of those new Cree mag lights with the LED. Actually,
Gary bought a marine recon light at a garage sale yesterday. Oops,
sorry, didn't want you to know. But man, that light's hot. But
it burns, burns. You know, you can put it against
your hand. I wouldn't want to leave there. But it throws a light. And not
much good in the day. But in the night, if you get
out amongst those trees, it's going to be handy. Light reveals. And the Lord Jesus' light has
revealed to us that our state is lost and therefore our lot
should be sorrow. But then something else happens.
It happened to Jeremiah. He says in chapter 15 verse 16,
Your words came to me and I ate them. And your word was to me
as the joy and the rejoicing of my heart, because I am called
by your name, O Lord God of hosts. So the word doesn't just convicts
us, but it draws us on, as we understand it, to the source
of all joy and redemption, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, God's
gift, God's intention, and God's deliberate interaction with those
for whom Jesus came. Because I have told you these
things, sorrow has filled your hearts, but your sorrow shall
be turned to joy. Now I say to you brothers and
sisters, you should not fear to rejoice
in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no good thing in us.
We do get burdened by the wretchedness of our situation. We come into things that we had
hoped would satisfy us and then we say it's not all it's cracked
up to be. And we, you know, change and decay, the hymn writer says,
and all around I see. All thou who changest not, abide
with me. There's a joy and a peace and
it's when the word is digested. Your words came to me and I ate
them. Jesus is the word of life and we're meant to, he says,
feed on me, feed on me. So we have first a revelation,
a word opened in Christ, but now we have a rejoicing, an understanding
given through Christ by the Holy Spirit, joy given to us. And you know, you can go there
to John 15 and I believe it's verse 11 and you
see that the Lord Jesus has a gift that he wants to give the disciples.
These things he says, I have spoken unto you that my joy,
my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full. And then if you go a little further
over there in chapter 16 and he says, In chapter 16 and verse 20, verily,
verily, I say unto you that you shall weep and lament, but the
world shall rejoice. A world can only rejoice when
it's blind to a living Christ, because if it was able to see
who he was, there'd be no joy. but a certain fearful looking
for judgment. The world will rejoice and you
shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
A woman when she's in travail has sorrow because her hour is
come. But as soon as she is delivered
of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish for joy that
a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow,
but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoice and
your joy no man taketh from you. Those who regard lying vanities,
the psalmist says, and I apologize, I don't know where it is, but
I know it's there. Those who regard lying vanities
forsake their own mercy. I would say to you, dear friend,
don't return again to the lying vanities of your own heart. Don't
try and set some scale up by which you measure who you are
in God or how it is that you can have assurance. or what it
is that you've now done that's going to disqualify you from
heaven. Jesus died once for sin forever. Hebrews 1 says, when
He by Himself had purged our sins, He sat down at the right
hand of the Majesty on high. He's done a work and it's finished.
Yesterday's sins, today's sins, tomorrow's sin, He dealt with
sin, the root of our sins. And He dealt with it forever.
And that just makes me happy. He loved me, he gave himself
for me, he rejoices over me. As a man rejoices, it says in
Malachi, over his only son who obeys him and whom he delights.
And you see, we have a righteousness that is his. God looks upon us
and he sees him. He sees him. And one day we will
become like him and we shall see him as he is. But there's
such a joy in the contemplation of who the Lord Jesus is. There's
such a joy in his gladness, his delight. You see, it's his joy
in what he's done. You see, it's not a joy that
we've worked up. That Lord Jesus, he's so lovely,
I feel so joyful. That'll fail you. When you get
a disease that's going to take your life, when you lose a family
member you love, when someone you trusted in, he called brother,
betrays you, you're going to find it hard because you're going
to start questioning. It's got to be his joy as well
as his righteousness. There's safety in rejoicing in
him. Even though we do rejoice in one another, we will fail.
I will fail you. I almost dare not say it because
it hasn't happened to me yet, but Brother Shepard will fail
you. if you make him the source of your joy, and you will fail
yourself, your family will fail you. What sustained our Saviour? You
see, you say, well he was God, but there was something particular
that sustained him when he went through his cross work. when
he went through the contradiction of sinners against himself. You see, there's a beautiful
thing about true joy, the joy of the Lord that is our strength,
and that is it can abide with us in the worst earthly sorrows. and the most painful circumstances. It coexists. It exists through
and beyond every trial. It is there, like a stream. You know, over there in Australia,
we've got streams underground, a lot of underground water. Out
where I am, because it doesn't rain a real lot, when it does,
it rains a lot, but unless you've got big tanks, you can't... it
just soaks into the ground. But you sink a shaft, and you
can live in a desert. because there's underground rivers.
They're actually, we call them upside down rivers. And you see
big channels of sand, dig down 20 feet and then you get a well. And whenever there's, even if
there's a little creek trickling in, we say the river's in flood
because it's underground. Unfathomable streams of never
failing skill. One hymn writer said, he works
out his designs and does his sovereign will. And the Lord
Jesus, it says there in Hebrews 12, and remember it's encouraging
us to look unto Jesus the author the finisher of our faith who
for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising
the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne
of God for consider him that endured such contradiction of
sinners against himself lest you be weary and faint in your
minds. Your Heavenly Father loves you.
He knows the things you have need of. Your Lord Jesus rejoiced
in the work that the Father had given Him to do. And He said,
here am I and the children whom you have given me, didn't He?
A song of joy and rejoicing. And to bring us into heaven,
all whom the Father has given Him. is to rejoice in the work of
the Father and he had a joy that was set before him when he was
the most forsaken human being that ever existed. Now I'm sure
some of you have had much darker times than me But you think of
the darkness that caused the perfect, sinless Son of God to
cry, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani. I can't say it in Hebrew, it's
probably good. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Eloi,
Eloi, lama sabachthani. My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? There's darkness there. But there's
also an exultation of joy. Show me. Show me why have you
forsaken me. Show me why I stand here. And
I'm sure that when the angel came to strengthen him in the
garden, he set joy before him. The joy of doing the Father's
will. The joy of doing the saving work. The joy of bringing many
sons to glory. And it's no accident that the
fruit of the Spirit's presence within us and with us is joy. Love, joy, peace. So the joy of the Lord was the
strength of the Israelites. Look what God has done for you.
In 52 days, He's raised up a wall and you're safe again from your
enemies. He's hung doors. He sent a man. He's provided
from a pagan king. He surrounded you as a people.
Well, look what your God has done in those hours upon the
cross and in His grave and in a finished work, He ascended
into heaven, resurrected from the dead. Much, much more. Endless things, eternal things.
Things that cannot end and cannot be taken away. And if you're
of His sheep, you'll hear His voice and you'll follow Him.
You won't follow the voice of a stranger. And you'll know this,
that no one shall pluck you out of his hand, and no one shall
pluck you out of his father's hand. You have eternal safety
because he is your refuge. And it's a safe thing. You know,
Paul in Philippians, he says to them, doesn't he? He says,
rejoice. And again, I say rejoice. For me to say such a thing to
you isn't tedious. I don't get tired of it. But
what is it for you? For you it is safe. For you it
is safe. He says, beware of the mutilation.
You know, their God is their belly. They mind earthly things. And I shouldn't misquote it,
so we'll pull it up. Philippians chapter 3, I believe
it is. But I'm fortunate I've got Brother
Shepard here to help me. We were looking at it this morning.
Is it Philippians chapter 3? Yeah, here it is. Finally, my
brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you,
to me, is not grievous. Indeed, it is not grievous, but
for you it is safe. Beware of dogs. Beware of equal
workers. Beware of the concision. That
word means mutilation. You know, someone who chops up
and scars. For we are the circumcision. which worship God in the spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus and we make no provision for the
fallen sinful nature, the flesh. We don't find our lasting solace
there. Look, you know, I've got a new
granddaughter, I love her. I've only known her for two weeks.
She was a bump in the belly 10,000 miles away three weeks ago in
my eldest daughter's womb. But she's emerged, and I love
her, and I have joy in her. Gary Shepard has little joy in
Lizzie. He has every joy in Lizzie, doesn't he? And there are earthly
relationships and earthly endeavors that we have a certain fleeting
happiness in. But this is lasting joy, what
the hymn writer says, solid pleasures. This can coexist with the worst
suffering, and it will exist beyond all suffering when God
wipes away every tear from our eyes. There's no more sorrow,
crying, dying, or pain. Nothing that defiles enters in.
That's joy. And I'm not saying it precedes
peace. Through the Spirit, it's love,
joy, peace. In Romans, it's peace that brings
joy. These things are all there because
they're the fruit, the work of God's Spirit who was sent as
the comforter of God's people because Christ has finished the
work that the Father gave him to do. What it leads to is rest. a restless you may have heard the gospel
for many years believe it with all your heart and rest in the
righteousness of Christ but in certain circumstances as things
begin to betray you perhaps in your body or family situation
whatever or your own wrestlings with your true state before God
you're looking in the wrong place look to Him ask him for the joy that is his.
You see, that word joy, it's an interesting word. And as you recognize, I'm not
good with Hebrew, but there's a thing called concordance, and
I looked up the meaning of the word, and it means gladness,
it means rejoicing, but there's a third, it says to be joined.
To be joined. So it's a word that means you're
joined to someone else and that's the source of your gladness and
you're rejoicing and it almost means it belongs to the other
person and your union conveys it to you, conveys it to you.
And for these people in Nehemiah's day, as they rejoiced, they did
something gracious, something that was a consequence of understanding. They gave portions to those for
whom nothing was prepared. Now, I'm going to take a risk
here. It's a calculated risk. I'm pretty
sure if you're visiting this morning, there's going to be
the biggest lunch you could ever possibly contemplate over on
a table at the back here. So don't think you have to leave
because there'll be a portion for you. even though it wasn't
specifically prepared with you in mind. You might be visiting.
You might have come up even as far away. Some people come from
around Fayetteville, which is quite high. But you know what
I mean? People leave because they think,
well, I can't stay. They didn't know I was coming.
And some of us get, I mean, particularly over in England. One of the things
I found difficult about living in England was it was a different
culture. You didn't just drop in when
people were eating. Where we come from, someone turns
up, you just put down an extra plate. Over there it's sort of
like, oh dear, we didn't know you were coming, please sit in
the lounge room, we'll be finished in a moment. The Lord said, give a portion
to those for whom nothing is prepared. You may not have expected
to be here this morning. But God knew. He comes upon us
unexpectedly, doesn't He? And He shows us He's prepared
a portion for us. We have a part in a lot when
He shows us Christ as He really is. We see ourselves as we really
are. And that fetching ghost draws
us to cast all our care upon him, knowing that he cares for
us. And the result is joy, weeping
in jaws for a night. But joy comes in the morning,
when the light comes. And so they rested. Now it's
interesting, they're searching the scriptures and they found
this little gem. about this feast of booths. And they were in such
a state, they'd been rejoicing, they'd been providing for one
another, they'd been eating the sweet, sorry, drinking the sweet
and eating the fat, all of which diabetics like me should not
do. But back in those days, it was, you know, the best things,
they were enjoying the best things, because it was free, and they
were free. And then they went, and they
went up the hillsides, and all the time that they'd been in
exile over those 70 years those hills had become wooded and those
trees had grown and God had prepared something for them they cut down
the branches and they made booths of rest and the last time they'd
done it was when Joshua was leading the children of Israel into the
promised land And that sparked something off in my mind, and
it's just what I trust we'll close with. They had rest, they
had safety, and the result was that they dwelt in these shelters
on the second day. Now, we're told in Hebrews chapter
4 that there remains a rest, and it is associated with the
time of Joshua, and he said, but if Joshua could have given
them rest, then they would have entered into it. But there remains
a rest, it says, for the people of God. So if you turn to Hebrews
4, there remains a rest for the people of God. There's a place
of quiet rest, the hymn writer says, near to the heart of God,
a place where sin cannot molest, near to the heart of God. Jesus
blessed Redeemer it turns to him and so it says in Hebrews
chapter 4 let us fear therefore lest a promise being left to
us of entering into his rest any of you should seem to come
short of it what we should fear is not entering into that rest
that's what we should fear you know that's that's something
that people refuse simply to rest in the righteousness of
Christ. It's a sort of madness. It's
a, you know, it's to not understand God at all, ourselves at all,
and what Jesus has done at all. But, you know, for unto us, what,
was the gospel preached, you see, the word of life came and
gave understanding, as well as unto them, but the word preached
did not profit them. Okay, and it wasn't mixed with
faith. There wasn't the presence of
God's gift. He regenerates, gives a gift
of faith. It's his power. It's his provision. They had no faith, therefore
they did not see. They did not see because God
did not open their eyes. And God held them accountable. His works were finished from
the foundation of the world, but he swore they would not enter
into that rest. And he spoke about it. He spoke
of a seventh day. It was an emblem and a commandment
to show that there was a rest coming. But you know, and it
remains. And in David he limited a certain
day. But there remains a rest, it says in verse 9, to the people
of God. And this is how you enter it.
This is the doorway. That rest does not come by saying,
I keep a Sabbath, I'm a strict Sabbatarian, I'm resting as God
commanded, so make sure you don't... It brings a lot of tension actually,
you ever been in the presence of strict Sabbatarians? I used
to be one. It's not restful. Because you're working out what
you can and cannot do. And you're hoping no one sees
you do the things that you probably think you cannot do, but you're
going to do anyway. You know, you're comparing yourselves among
yourselves, there's no rest in that. It's not a restful day
at all. I remember meeting a fellow,
a little Scotsman, lived on the island of Harrison Lewis. And
he got sunburned with his fiancee on the Lord's day, the Sabbath,
the first day of the week. And he said, I'm in real trouble.
Brother, I got sunburned. And I said, why? I've got to explain to my father
why I was walking out in the sun on the Sabbath. to get sunburned
and why my fiancé is sunburned as well because I was walking
with her unaccompanied so you know he they used to chain up
the swings the children swings on the Sabbath so people couldn't
use them that's not what he's talking about here that's not
rest there remains a rest to the people of God look at verse
10 of chapter 4 for he that is entered into his rest He also
has ceased from His own works as God did from His. Are you
trying to work your way into heaven? Are you trying to work
your way into worth? You know, that's not the way
salvation works. That's not the way you inherit
eternity of bliss and joy. That's not the way you come into
the people of God. It is the way that we undertake tasks in
this world. It's the way of the military and the education system
and the health system and every professional and trade, but it's
not God's way. God's way is free and unmerited. Someone else qualified. Someone
else did the work. And the joy that was set before
Him as He endured the cross, He wants to share. His joy may
be in you and it may remain. And He wants you to rest. Rest
in that. He rejoices over you. And He
has redeemed you. And He will never leave you.
And your darkest hours, you know, you may be very young or A bit
like me, getting towards very old. I don't know, Joe, you don't
seem to change. You look the same as you did 14 years ago
when I first met you. But whatever your age and circumstances,
whatever your trials, a better day is coming for the Lord's
people. A better day is coming for your
troubled heart. These may seem great fears and
trials, but they will have an end, and their end will be joy
and rest. and their end will be a world
that never ends, and their end will be in the presence of God,
and your joy shall no one take from you. And so let us enter
into that rest this morning with trust and rejoice in our Savior,
and know that it only ever comes through the word of life, opened
by the Holy Spirit, that we may see Jesus.