In Ephesians chapter 1 and verse
6, God the Holy Spirit declares one of the most comforting, delightful,
instructive, profound things revealed in all the Word of God. Here he tells us that God Almighty
has from eternity chosen, predestinated, adopted, and blessed us in Christ
to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He hath made
us accepted in the Beloved." Accepted in the Beloved. What a declaration. What a revelation
of grace. Accepted in the beloved. There is between God's darling
son, our mediator, and all God's elect, an everlasting, indestructible
union of life. An everlasting, indestructible
union of life, so that we are one with Christ. one with Christ
and Christ is one with us in the broadest possible sense you
can use that word one more really and truly one with Christ we
are then we are one in our physical bodies more really and truly
one with Christ we are we are one family. We are one with Him
from everlasting. Look at the text very carefully.
He, God the Father, hath made from all eternity before the
worlds were made, us, all His elect, you and me. Vile, hell-bent, hell-deserving
sinners by nature, us. But chosen, redeemed, and called
by grace, He hath made us accepted, highly favored, honored, pleasing
to, delightful to God Himself. in the beloved in Christ the
Lord. I wish this hymn by John Kent
was in our hymnal. I'll put it in the bulletin soon,
the Lord willing. Twixt Jesus and the chosen race,
subsist a bond of sovereign grace, that hell with its infernal train
shall ne'er dissolve nor rend in vain. Hail sacred union firm
and strong, how great the grace, how sweet the song, that worms
of earth should ever be, one with incarnate deity, one in
the tomb when he arose, one when he triumphed over his foes, one
when in heaven he took his seat while seraphs sang all hell's
defeat. This sacred union forbids our
fears, for all He is and has is ours. With Christ our head,
we stand or fall, our life, our surety, and our all, one with
Christ. May God give me your attention
and give me the ability of His Spirit to proclaim this blessed
gospel doctrine to you. Let's look at it in four ways.
I've got nothing new to say tonight. All that I have to say I've said
to you many times before, but it's been a long time. First,
I want you to understand that our text describes our Lord Jesus
Christ as a beloved person. This beloved one who is God the
Son, but he's spoken of here as God the Son who is our mediator. God the Son as our substitute. God the Son as our divine surety. He's revealed here as the beloved. I can't think of a single term
more suitable to our Savior in all his relationships with God,
with the holy angels, and with his people. In all of his offices
and in all his works. both while we worship Him as
sinners saved by His grace on the earth, and when we come to
worship Him as sinners saved by His grace in heavenly glory,
then this term, the Beloved. The Lord Jesus is the Beloved
of His Father's heart. None of us can imagine how dear
the Beloved Son of God is to His Father, who can enter into
that relationship. But here I again repeat, he's
not talking about the relationship between the Father and the Son
as he is God, so much as he's talking about the relationship
between the Father and the Son as our divine mediator, our covenant
surety. I know that's the case. Because
twice in the book of God, while our Savior walked on this earth,
both at his baptism and at his transfiguration, the Lord God
spoke from heaven and said concerning this man, Jesus Christ, this
is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Who then can imagine
the kind of love the Father has for his Son? We can't imagine
it, but we're given illustrations of it to help us. God the Son
was one with His Father, beloved by Him as our surety in the council
chambers of eternity before ever the earth was made. Hear what
the Savior says, I was by Him as one brought up with Him. That's
not talking about His eternal deity. That's talking about Him
standing forth as our surety. I was by Him as one brought up
with Him. And I was daily His delight,
rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in the habitable part
of His earth. And my delights were with the
sons of men when the Lord Jesus was brought up as our surety.
And by the triune Jehovah as our sheriff did, rejoicing before
Him, even then His delights were with us. His delights were with
the sons of men in the covenant of grace. All the blessings of
God's grace, we're told in Ephesians 1, 3, and 4, were heaped upon
chosen sinners in the Beloved, given to us in Christ Jesus. When the Lord God stooped to
create the earth and to create all things out of nothing, God
the Father called to his Son and said, let us make man in
our image and after our likeness. He's speaking to the Lord Jesus
as our divine mediator, as the God-man, he who is the image
of God. He who is the image of God. God Almighty comes to this earth
in human flesh, but before ever He came in our flesh, the Lord
God said to His Son, our Mediator, let us make man in our image. I'm going to make man like you.
I'm going to make a man like you shall come into the world.
I'm going to make one in your image who is the image of God.
I'm going to make one a representative man, a covenant man, a man who
is the head of a distinct race, a man who represents other men. Let us make man in our image
and in our likeness, for without him was not anything made that
was made. In other words, everything that
God has done and decreed to be done has been done to glorify
His Son. that in all things he might have
the preeminence. And God the Son lived on this
earth as a man, died as our substitute, and lives again as our exalted
prophet, priest, and king in heaven, that he might glorify
the Father. He is the beloved of the Father. And our Lord Jesus is the beloved
of the Blessed Spirit. I want you to turn back to John
chapter 16. John chapter 16. It is the office work and the
good pleasure of God the Holy Spirit in the economy of grace
in all his gracious operations and influences to glorify Christ. Look at John 16 verse 13. This
is what our Savior says concerning God, the Holy Spirit, the divine
comforter, that one who comes to convince us of sin, of righteousness,
and judgment, that one who is sent by God the Son to reveal
Him in us and to give us the blessed consolation of the hope
of faith in Christ. How be it, verse 13, when He,
the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth. For he shall not speak of himself. He shall not speak of himself. He shall not speak out of himself. He shall not speak by himself. He shall not speak about himself. But whatsoever he shall hear,
that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come. Well,
what's he going to do? He shall glorify me. for he shall receive of mine
and show it unto you. He shall show you things to come. Back in the 60s, there was a
theologian who published a book on prophecy. I've got it back
there in my office. It's about that wide, called
Things to Come, Dwight Pentecost, Dallas Theological Seminary.
It was one of our textbooks in school. And he uses this phrase,
things to come, to refer to the work of the Holy Spirit revealing
to us the unfolding of prophetic things. Not talking about that
at all. Not talking about that at all.
God the Holy Spirit was not sent here to show you when Christ
is coming the second time. He wasn't sent here to show us
the signs of Christ's coming. He wasn't sent here to show us
things about Israel and the nations and Russia and the United States
and all that stuff folks talk about. What's he talking about
things to come? I hath not seen nor ear heard. Neither hath it entered into
the heart of man. what God has prepared for them that love Him. But He has revealed them to us
by His Spirit. Christ says the Holy Spirit will
come and He will show you who I am, what I have done and what
I am doing so that you will understand things to come. He shall glorify
me for He shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. Now
I stress this because we live in this age, the most blasphemous
religious age the world has ever known. And among all the blasphemous
religions of the world, none is worse than the modern charismatic
Pentecostal movement. Pretending to have the signs
of the Apostles and pretending to heal people and pretending
to heal your bank account Especially if you give me part of it They
talk about the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit when
God the Holy Spirit speaks He doesn't speak about himself He
speaks about the Son When God the Holy Spirit speaks he doesn't
turn your eyes inward to behold yourself He doesn't turn your
eyes to behold Him, but rather He turns our eyes upward to behold
Christ, our crucified Redeemer, in all His accomplishments as
our Redeemer. Brother Todd Nybert once said,
where the Holy Spirit is emphasized, the Holy Spirit is absent. That's
worth remembering. Where the Holy Spirit is emphasized,
whether you're talking about books or sermons or religions,
where the Holy Spirit is emphasized, the Holy Spirit is not there.
God the Holy Spirit never draws attention to himself. He's come
to glorify Christ. When he is present, when he is
working, Christ is preached, Christ is worshipped, Christ
is exalted, and Christ is known. The Lord Jesus is the beloved
of God the Father, the beloved of the blessed spirit of grace,
and he is the beloved of the heavenly angels. I'm not stretching
that, the scriptures in the least when I say that. When you read
Isaiah chapter six, we see those angels. They're portrayed from
the very beginning of the Mosaic age when God commanded Moses
to make an ark and a mercy seat with cherubs end of the mercy
seat, facing one another and looking down, representing angelic
creatures. The holy angels in heaven are
forever looking upon the crucified Christ who preserved them from
the fall when Satan led his revolt in heaven. The crucified Christ,
though they have no part in redemption, they have no part in that which
we experience in His atoning blood, yet they constantly are
looking upon Him and attend the services of God's people when
they meet for worship that they may learn from us the wonders
of redemption. The Lord Jesus, turn back to
the Song of Solomon. Let me just read some Scripture
to you and you read it with me. Song of Solomon beginning in
chapter 1. The Lord Jesus without question beloved of his people. Saved sinners everywhere, in
heaven above and scattered through all the earth, look upon the
Son of God as their beloved. In the beloved accepted am I. What a word. Look at the Song
of Solomon chapter 1 verse 14. My beloved is unto me. as a cluster of camphor in the
vineyards of Engedi. My beloved, he is the sweet fragrance
of my being. My beloved, he is the sweet incense
by which I'm accepted of God. Verse 16. Behold, thou art fair,
my beloved, yea, pleasant also. Blessed Savior, You're beautiful
and pleasant. Lovely to behold and pleasant
to know. Also our bed is green. Chapter
two, verse three. As the apple tree among the trees
of the wood, so is my beloved among the suns. The most fragrant,
the most delightful. I sat down under his shadow with
great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste. Look at verse
8, chapter 2, the voice of my beloved. When Christ speaks,
when Christ speaks to you, when you hear him speak, behold, he
cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. What
a picture. What a picture. Here comes the
lover of my soul. more anxious to come to me than
I to him, more anxious to come to me than I am to have him,
leaping and skipping across the hills. My beloved is like a roe
or a young heart. Behold, he standeth behind our
wall. He looketh forth at the windows,
showing himself through the lattice. The picture is the Lord Jesus
standing behind the wall and he's He wanted to arouse interest
in his beloved. And so he just sort of shows
himself through the latticework so that he catches your eye.
He shows himself through the lattice. My beloved spake and
said to me, rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. Verse 16, my beloved is mine
and I am his. My beloved is mine, and I am
his. He feedeth among the lilies until
the day break and the shadows flee away. Turn, my beloved,
and be thou like a roe or a young heart upon the mountains of Bitha.
Chapter 5, verse 2. Song of Solomon 5, verse 2. I sleep, but my heart waketh. My heart waketh because it's
the voice of my beloved that knocketh. And this is what he's
saying, open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled. It's a picture of one who dearly
loves the one who has ignored and spurned him. Who dearly loves the one who
is the object of his delight. And he's leaning hard against
the door shut against him, the door of our hearts. And he says,
open to me. Now listen to how he bids us
open to him. My sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled, open to me because
my head is filled with the dew, and my locks with the drops of
the night. My head is filled because I have
labored for you. I have labored for you in Gethsemane's
dark night, in the midnight of the midday, when I cried, my
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I've labored for you, now
open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled. Who can resist such a call? Who can fail to rise immediately? Me. And you. Wait at the door till
I get a good night's rest and I'll be right there. But then, verse 4, my beloved
put his hand in by the hole of the door. We would not open our hearts
to him in the beginning, except he break down the door bolted
bar and come in. And we must confess, I know it's
so, and you do too. We will not open our hearts to
him now, except he put his hand in by the hold of the door, and
his fingers drop with myrrh, with sweet-smelling myrrh. Then
our bowels are moved for him. Chapter 5, verse 9. The daughters hear us speak about
our Savior. Religious folks hear us speak about him and they say,
what is thy beloved more than another beloved? O thou fairest
among women. You cannot imagine how many times
I've had preachers to say to me, preachers, moral preachers
who ought to know better, there's more in the Bible than Christ.
You can't imagine how many times I've had folks say that to me.
There's more to talk about than Christ, more to talk about than
Him. What is thy beloved more than another beloved? O thou
fairest among women, what is thy beloved more than another
beloved that thou dost so charge us? Well, I'm glad you ask. My beloved is white and ruddy,
the chiefest among 10,000. His head is as the most fine
gold, his locks are bushy and black as a raven. His eyes are
as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters washed with milk and
fitly set. You've never seen anybody like
him. His cheeks are a bed of spices, as sweet flowers. His lips like lilies dropping
with sweet-smelling myrrh. His hands are as gold, as gold
rings set with beryl. His belly is as bright ivory
overlaid with sapphires. His legs are as pillars of marble
set upon sockets of fine gold. His countenance is as Lebanon,
excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet. Yea, He is altogether lovely." From head to toe, He's perfect. From head to toe, He's altogether
lovely. In all that He appears to be,
in all that He is, in all that He says, all that he does, he
is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and blessed
be his name, this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. Look
at chapter 6 verse 2. My beloved is going down into
his garden, I've been praying that he'd come down here tonight,
to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens and to gather
lilies. I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. He feedeth
among the living. Chapter 7, verse 10, she says,
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. His heart is toward
me. His heart is fixed on me. Now I will sing of my well-beloved. Never, never was the term beloved. so full of meaning, so well deserved,
and yet so incapable of expressing all that is meant when it's applied
to Christ our Lord. This is my beloved. John said,
we love him because he first loved us. Christ is the beloved
of our soul. because Christ is our Savior. He came and conquered us by His
grace, made us willing in the day of His power, revealed Himself
to us and in us, and thereby compels our hearts to love Him. And we love Him, not as we should,
not as we would, not as we soon shall. But every heart conquered
by him confesses gladly, yes, we love him because he first
loved us. All right, that's the first thing.
Second, I want to talk to you about our union with Christ. And this is the heart of the
matter, our union with Christ. I have spent more time studying
this subject particularly than any other in these past 47 years
since God saved me by His grace. I deliberately think about this
fact throughout the day, every day. I am one with Christ. Christ is one with me. And I
don't have a hint of a clue of an idea what all that means. It is infinitely beyond me. All I can do is tell you what
I know to be so by the experience of God's grace and the revelation
of this book. Our everlasting union with Christ
is the source and spring of all blessings, of all benefits of
grace, which we enjoy in this world and shall enjoy in the
world to come. Our everlasting union with the
Son of God is the basis of our security in all things. People
talk about eternal security and fuss about whether or not you
believe in eternal security. If you believe God, you do. That's
simple enough. If you trust Christ, you do.
God's elect are safe and secure, as safe and secure as Christ
is safe and secure, for we are accepted in the beloved. Not in ourselves, not in the
church, accepted in the beloved. Now let me show you what the
Scriptures teach concerning this to the best of my ability. I'm
not talking to you now about our manifest union with Christ.
I'll deal with that a little bit, but I'm talking to you about
our eternal, everlasting union with Christ. Turn back to 2 Timothy,
2 Timothy chapter 1. Very familiar text of Scripture.
Our union with Christ began long before we believed on Him. Our
faith in Christ is not the cause of our union with Christ. Our
faith in Christ is but the manifestation of this union. 2 Timothy 1 verse
9, God hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, not
according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace
which was given us in Christ Jesus world began. Now watch this, but is now made
manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ who hath
abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light
through the Gospel. When it talks about the appearing
of our Lord Jesus Christ, this blessed union and our salvation
in Christ from everlasting is made manifest to each of God's
elect when the Lord Jesus appears in you by the mighty work of
His grace, bringing life and immortality to light by the gospel. And the union spoken of here,
of our being accepted in the beloved, of our being saved in
and with Christ Jesus from eternity, involves at least these five
things. First, it is an election union. Isaiah 42. I was thinking
about this just a few minutes ago. Isaiah chapter 42. I want
you to look at it. The Apostle tells us plainly
that we were chosen in Christ before the world began. And he's
talking about our election union in Christ, our election union
with Christ who is himself God's elect as he's described here
in the 42nd chapter of Isaiah. This election union is the basis
of all God's gracious operations in time. Salvation must begin
with someone's choice. Now the religious world talks
about it beginning with your choice. The book of God never
speaks like that. Salvation begins with God's election
of our souls in Christ Jesus. It's called the election of grace.
Now though election is personal and distinguishing, God chose
me because He loved me. My brother, my sister, God chose
you because He loved you. Yet He did not choose us individually
and personally. He chose us in union with His
Son. Christ be my first elect, He
said, then chose us in our blessed head. Look here in Isaiah 42
verse 1. Behold my servant, whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom
my soul delighteth. Behold, this is my elect. Christ is our elect, God's elect,
and we are God's elect in Him. Now here's the blessedness of
the doctrine. It guarantees that security I
spoke of earlier. Our election and our Savior's
election stand or fall together. long as God's darling son is accepted of God. I'm accepted of God in him until
the pin of hell can scratch out his name from the book of life. It cannot scratch out mine. His
name is written at the head of a register of heaven and our
names written beneath it. Our everlasting union with Christ
speaks of election. It also speaks of suretyship.
It is a legal suretyship union. Now, we seldom use the word surety
in our language today. We would commonly use the word
sponsor instead. Surety is a better, stronger
word. If we use the word surety now,
Speak of it as one who is a guarantor of something. I've often used
the illustration. I don't know a better way to say it. When
I was 15 years old, I worked and had a little bit of money
saved up. I had $125, $225 with which I hoped to buy my first
car. I didn't have a driver's license, and I wasn't legally
of age to buy any kind of property, but I had almost enough money
to pay for it, and I needed to borrow a little. So I talked
my dad into going to the bank and signing the note. And what
that meant was this. If Don Fortner doesn't come up
with the payments, Claude Fortner must. He becomes legally responsible. But the bank looks to both Don
Fortner and Claude Fortner to take care of the debt. That's
not suretyship in biblical terms. Lord Jesus became surety, we're
told in Hebrews 722, of a better covenant in the covenant of grace.
And as our surety, before the world began, Jesus Christ, God's
darling Son, our Mediator, the Eternal One, stepped forward
and said, Father, give them to me. Put them in my hands. And I will will assume all responsibility
to bring your children home to glory. He describes it this way,
I'm the good shepherd, the good shepherd giveth his life for
the sheep. Other sheep I have which are
not of this fold, them also I must bring. What a word, I must bring. Them also I must break. My Father
gave them to me. I assumed responsibility for
them. My Father will look for me to deliver them. Them also
I must break and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. I laid down my life. I had the
power to lay it down. I had the power to take it again.
This commandment have I received of my Father. Lord Jesus said,
trust them to me. And the father says, all right,
you've asked of me, I'll give you the heathen for your inheritance.
And when you have redeemed them I'm going to put all things under
your feet because God created man and God visited man that
man might have all creation including the angels of heaven served under
him. But we don't see everything put
under him. I don't see anything put under me. We men are people
who like to be in charge. Shelby and I were flying back
from Alaska the other night, and we got on a plane, and the
captain came out real nice, chatted with us a little bit, and he
said, is there anything I can do for you? I said, can I fly the plane?
And the fellow sitting right beside me looked kinda shocked,
oh no, don't let him do that, I'll get off. I said, well, I like to be in
charge. I don't know how to fly, but I like to be in control.
But the fact is we don't control anything. Nothing has yet been
put under our feet. But soon all of God's creation
shall be put under our feet. We know that because we see Jesus
who was made a little lower than angels for the suffering of death.
Yonder sits the man whom we live and move and have our being the
man Christ Jesus and all things are under him so surely they
shall be put under our feet when he stood forth as our surety
he assumed total responsibility for our souls and the father
struck hands with the son and the work was done God ceased to look for satisfaction
from us. The Lord God, the triune Jehovah,
trusted Christ as our surety. Look here in Ephesians 1 verse
12. That we should be to the praise
of His glory who first trusted Christ, in whom He also trusted. After that, you heard the word
of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When Christ became
our surety, the work was done. Now, that's not my words. That's the words of the book.
When Christ became our surety, the work was finished from the
foundation of the world. The Lord God accepted him as
the Lord our righteousness. as the Lord our satisfaction,
as the Lord our sacrifice, and accepted us in His Son, the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. And God declares that
we were then, before ever the world was made, justified and
sanctified and glorified in Christ Jesus. Our everlasting salvation
in time and our everlasting Security became a matter of absolute certainty
when Christ stood forth as our surety so that the Lord Jesus
as our covenant surety in time came into the world and he obeyed
God. He obeyed God not for himself
but for us in every detail. and satisfied the justice of
God not for Himself but for us as our surety. And the Lord God
Almighty received us in Him because of His obedience. Look at 1 Corinthians
chapter 15. Let me show you. I said earlier
God made Christ, made man, made Adam in the image of God, in
the image of the Lord Jesus. made him to be a covenant head,
a representative. And so it is represented in scripture.
In reality, God deals with two people, two men. He deals with all men in two
representative men. He deals with men either in the
first Adam, in whom we sinned and rebelled and died and fell. with us in the last Adam, Jesus
Christ the Lord in whom we live. Let's see what it says, 1 Corinthians
15 verse 21, For since by man came death, by man also came
the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all the human
race died, even so in Christ shall all God's elect be made
alive. Everything Adam did in the garden,
we did in him. Everything Adam experienced in
the garden, we experienced in him. And everything that is the
result of Adam's transgression, we experience in time, being
born with a heart of sin and rebellion against God. So that
every child of Adam is born with Adam's nature in exactly the
same way. Everything that Christ did on
this earth. Everything Christ did on this
earth. Every breath of his body. Every emotion of his heart. Every
ounce of his own consecration to God. Every scintilla of His
perfect holiness, every detail of His obedience, we performed
in Him. And when He died, we died in
Him. And when He was raised from the
dead, we were raised with Him. And when He sat down in heaven,
we sat down in Him. Christ Jesus is our surety. In whom we are forever accepted
in the beloved. I baptized, I had the privilege
of baptizing, I suppose most of you sitting here. And I make
it a point of giving a word of instruction, either personally
or publicly at such times. Baptism symbolizes this whole
thing. And I try to remember it every
time I administer the blessed ordinance. I'm crucified with Christ. So I take my place with him in
the watery grave, buried. And I rise up out of the watery
grave, alive, to walk with him forevermore in the newness of
life. life that is mine in union with
him. We had our being in Christ from
eternity. We have our being in Christ now
and we shall have our being in Christ forever. This everlasting
union is a mystical union. And every
time I work on this subject, I try to think of a better word.
I don't know a better word to express this aspect of our union
with our Savior than the word mystical. I use that word because
it is a union beyond our present comprehension. It's a mysterious thing. Over in the fifth chapter of
the book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul spends a good bit of time
Talking about husbands and wives and children and how a man ought
to love his wife and a woman ought to be in subjection to
her husband and all those things. And that's good. That's what
we ought to do. That's what we ought to do. But Paul says now, I want you to
understand something. That's not my lesson. That's
not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Christ and
the church. I'm talking about Christ and
the church. For we are members, verse 30,
of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. Therefore, that
is, this is the reason Adam said, let a man forsake his father
and mother in the begin with. For this cause shall a man leave
his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and they
too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but
I speak concerning Christ and His church. We are one with Christ. One with Christ, as I said in
the beginning, more profoundly. more wondrously, more certainly,
than the head is one with the body. For the head and the body may
be divided. More profoundly, more wondrously,
more certainly, we are one with Christ than a husband is one
with his wife. We have a union that shall never
be broken. We're one with Christ. My wife
and I are part of that union. But this union we have as husband
and wife, I cannot imagine a husband and wife having a more delightful
union. But one of the most delightful
aspects of it is one of the saddest. soon the union shall be dissolved.
Soon that union shall be dissolved. Don't you think we'll know we're
husband and wife in eternity? Yeah, but it won't matter. It
won't matter because we will then be perfectly one with all
God's elect. This union with Christ is compared
by our Savior in John 17 as the same kind of union he has with
his father. How many months now you've been
teaching John 17? A bunch of them. Have you come close to
getting any idea what he's talking about? That the world may know that
we are one as I am one with you and you're one with me. as really
and truly one with the Son of God as he is with his Father. It's a mysterious union. It is
a union that involves the same kind of love that he has from
the Father. He says, Father, I want my people
to know and I want the world to know. that thou hast loved
them as thou hast loved me. Imagine that. Imagine that. Imagine that. God, in all his
being, in all his holiness, in all his blessedness, loves us
exactly as he loves his Son, our Mediator. exactly as He loves His Son,
our Mediator, because we are one with Him. And this union,
this union with Christ is a marriage union. He espoused us to Himself
before the world began. And in time, He comes and conquers
the hearts of His own. and weds us to himself so that
he causes his people to be united to him in the sweet, sweet bondage
of truly sacred matrimony. Married to Christ. Married to
Christ. Six years ago come June. I married that lady. And when I did, all earthly ties were in a sense
broken. I mean by that that every relationship
of any physical kind, of any natural kind became subservient. to that matrimony. And she did
the same thing. Same thing. So that we, on that
occasion, devoted ourselves to one another. This is what faith
in Christ is. He devoted himself to us from
everlasting. That's up. His desire is toward
me. And it causes us to devote ourselves
to him in the sweet experience of grace. On our part, the devotion
requires continual renewal. And so we continually beg of
him. that he will turn our hearts
to him and set our hearts upon him and never leave us alone. And we have the promise that
he will. For he which hath begun a good
work in you shall perform it until the day of Jesus Christ
when he will make known to all the world what he accomplished for us in
eternity. making us accepted in the beloved. The objects of God's highest
honor, God's constant delight, God's complete satisfaction accepted
in the beloved. Imagine that. I've got to quit. God bless you.