Well I'd like you to turn back
to the passage we read in Deuteronomy chapter 32 and the first four
verses is going to be our focus this morning. I've called this
message a doctrinal hymn. A doctrinal hymn. We use Gadsby's
hymn selection because it is doctrinally rich. It's full of
teaching. It's true doctrine. in the sense
that it's true to Scripture. What's the test? What's the mark?
Is it true to Scripture, as opposed to false doctrine? As opposed
to doctrine that might sound on the surface okay, but you
look a bit deeper, and you dig a bit deeper, and look and see
what you can detect of that which is mixed with the thoughts of
man, and diluted with what we think will go down well with
people, and twisted from what it really truly is. To the law
and to the testimony, Isaiah 820, This is always the test
and the mark to the law and to the testimony. If they speak
not according to this word, there is no light in them. And so that's
why, although many people might think in these days that the
hymns of Gadsby's selection are a bit old-fashioned and a bit
quaint and the language is a bit quaint, it's full of good doctrine. It's full of doctrinal truth,
gospel truth. Doctrine is key. Doctrine is
key. Look at verse 2 of chapter 32. Moses says, my doctrine shall
drop as the rain. My doctrine. Doctrine. My doctrine. My teaching is what
doctrine means. My teaching. Or, my receiving
is what it means here. That which I have received. You
know when we have the communion service, the form of words we
always use. from First Corinthians chapter
11. That which I have received of the Lord, says Paul, that
which I have also delivered unto you. The doctrine is what he's
received of the Lord. My receiving of that which God
has sent down to me. True doctrine is divine in its
origin. It's from God. Jesus said in
John 17, verses 16 and 17, Jesus answered them and said, this
is Jesus speaking, God in flesh, and he said, my doctrine is not
mine as a man, is what he meant. but his that sent me." It was
his father's doctrine. If any man will do his will,
believe the gospel, he shall know of the doctrine, whether
it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. If you believe the
gospel of God, you'll know that the words of Christ are true
doctrine, for they come down from heaven. True doctrine is
of divine, heavenly origin. It isn't of human opinion, or
debate, or consensus. We were listening to a woman
Anglican priest yesterday who was saying that what she loves
about the Anglican church is that it's such a broad church.
You can come along with just about anything you fancy believing
and you'll be accepted in that church because that's such a
wonderful feature of that church is it's such a broad. What doctrine
do you believe? Anything you want to believe.
We'll have a consensus. You can have those that believe
this and those that believe the opposite and we'll all be friends
together all in the one place. Isn't that a wonderful thing
to do with our religion? This is what so many people think,
but no. True doctrine is not a result
of human opinion and debate and consensus. It's divinely given. It's given by God. Paul says
to the Galatians this, Galatians chapter 1 verses 11 and 12, I
certify you brethren that the gospel which was preached of
me is not after man, doesn't result from man's opinions, For
I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but
by the revelation of Jesus Christ." It came down by revelation from
God. Doctrine is from, true doctrine,
is in accordance with the Scriptures, and it comes down from on high. It is divine in its origin. It
isn't human opinion. And when I mention the word doctrine,
so we're going to have a doctrinal sermon, oh dear, yawn, yawn,
yawn, oh it's going to be boring isn't it? Doctrine isn't doctrine
boring, it's dry and dust, oh did you go and hear that preacher?
Oh it's just a dry, boring, dusty old doctrinal sermon. No it shouldn't be dry and boring.
It shouldn't be. Nearly all of you I know know
that I was a physics teacher, and it's 35 years or so ago that
I was doing my physics teaching. And a lot of people will say,
oh, you taught physics? Oh, I hated physics. It was so
boring. I just couldn't get my head around
it. It was so boring. No, when it's taught properly,
it's exciting. It's fascinating. It's enabling. Think of the things that we can
do because people have studied and loved physics. It's practically
useful. You show me a modern device,
a technical gadget, and you can trace the development of that
back to the principles of physics. Boring? Dull? No, it's thrilling,
it's exciting, it's powerful, enabling. Think of men in the
past, the great men of physics of the past, Isaac Newton, Sir
Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Boyle. Do you know these
men, do you know what they, do you know their approach to science?
They were uncovering how fearfully and wonderfully made this universe
is. You know that's what the psalmist
says about mankind, he says of me, he says, I am fearfully and
wonderfully made. Isaac Newton said, and don't
underestimate Isaac Newton, you know, he goes down with me as
one of the greatest British men that ever lived. Sir Isaac Newton. Do you know it was on the principles
of what he discovered and worked out that we sent men to the moon?
That the space lab goes on? You know when they fire a rocket
up and you know it lands exactly and it docks with the space?
Do you know how that is? Newton's laws of motion. Exciting. Think of the enablement of it.
But those men Isaac Newton said, he said, I feel like a little
boy on a beach, wandering along, picking up pebbles, you know
like little Luca does now, he loves going down my garden. And
you know the thing that fascinates him more than anything else?
Stones. He loves little stones, picks
up a stone, and I have to keep telling him, don't put it in
your mouth, don't put it, he loves dropping it in water, and
all sorts of things like that. Isaac Newton said that he felt
just like a little boy on a beach, and all these wonders of science
that he was discovering, he said it's just vast, what there is
to discover. You see, it's not dry and boring.
Now, we're not here to talk about science. I know you're probably
getting the impression I could go on a bit about it. We're here
to talk about doctrine. And the thrill and the smile
that I've seen on some faces while I've been saying that,
the doctrine of scripture should produce the same. It's not dry
and boring. It's thrilling. It's exciting. It's all our hope. It's our eternal
future, this doctrine, the doctrine. Moses said, my doctrine shall
drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew. This song
of Moses is a song of doctrine, and it's thrilling, it's exciting,
it's distinguishing. It's the basis of all true religion. Look at these verses. Give ear,
O ye heavens. This is a song, it says in verse
30, the words of this song. Give ear, O ye heavens, and I
will speak, and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine
shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew, as
the small rain, the drizzle, if you like, on the tender herb,
and as the showers, the heavy rain upon the grass. because
I will publish the name of the Lord. Ascribe ye greatness unto
our God. He is the rock, his work is perfect,
for all his ways are judgment. A God of truth and without iniquity,
just and right is he. What is the doctrine of Scripture?
If I say true doctrine is based on Scripture, because to the
law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this
word, there is no light in them. All doctrine is Scripture. What
is the doctrine of Scripture? Well, it is all of Scripture.
All of it. All of it is the doctrine of
God. 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16. All Scripture. Not just the
bits that you fancy picking, all scripture, all of it, is
given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all
good works. It's the whole of scripture.
Now, you know I always put something on the back of the bulletin.
And I really want you to read this this week. I'm not going
to stand here and read it out now because you're perfectly
capable of reading it for yourself. But this book is miraculous. And I mean truly miraculous.
Miraculous, people often say something's a miracle when it
isn't really a miracle. It's just the normal laws of
this world working out in a very fortuitous way as far as they
see it. That's what a lot of people say,
oh, it was a miracle. It wasn't really a miracle. It
was just of all the different outcomes it could have been,
there was one that particularly suited you. That's what it is.
Oh, it was a miracle that we caught that train. No, it wasn't.
It was just the normal outworking. A miracle is when God suspends
or changes the laws of this universe to accomplish his purposes. A
miracle is when the normal medical process in that man by the pool
of Siloam, and Jesus said, take up your bed and walk, and he
got up. When Peter and John went to pray,
that man outside the temple went walking and leaping and praising
God. That wasn't just the fortuitous outworking of the normal laws
of this universe, that was a miracle. God changed the laws. The day
that the sun stood still in the sky so that Israel could defeat
its enemies. You know, that was Newton's laws
of motion were held in stationary situation while God's purposes
were accomplished because he upholds all the laws of this
universe by the word of the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. But
this book is miraculous in this respect. It says here, I'll just
pick out the key parts, it was written over fifteen or sixteen
hundred years in three different languages on two separate continents. It was written by about 40 different
authors. It was written by well-educated
men in great cities, by shepherds, by fishermen. Parts of it were
written in times of war, pestilence, danger, ecstatic joy. They were
from every walk of life, judges, priests, kings, prophets, et
cetera, et cetera. And Arthur Pink has a very good
illustration of it. You know, I love going to hear
orchestral music. And when I go and hear some magnificent
symphony, you know, the ones that you get the hairs on the
back of your neck tingling because it's such a wonderful sound.
And there's a hundred, maybe a hundred and ten musicians.
And they're all playing their different instruments. And they're
all playing a different set of notes. All the correct notes,
and unlike that well-known joke of Eric Morecambe, all in the
correct order, not in the wrong order. And they're all playing
their own bit. And you listen to any one of them on their own
and you wonder what it is, but you put it all together. And
there's just such a symphony. That's what it means, sound together,
of harmony. And what does it make you think?
Gosh, isn't that lucky that that all came together like that?
Not in a million years, not in 10 billion years. it isn't lucky,
there's a brilliant composer who put it all together. There
was one mind behind that symphony, not a hundred different musical
opinions, there was one mind. And so there was with this book,
miraculously. Here we are in 2012 and we still
have in the English language A translation which is so good,
I'm not saying it's perfect because it's the work of human translators,
but it's a translation of what God inspired. And we have such
a treasure. I think, was it Queen Elizabeth
I said in this book, is the greatest treasure Earth affords. glorious
treasure. It's miraculous. This book is
absolutely miraculous. The scripture is the doctrine
of God. And no one's summary can fully
capture everything that's revealed there. You know, well, it takes
you a long time to read the scripture, so summarize it for me. And no one can fully, infallibly
capture it. But some are much better than
others. So, if you read our website, we say that we broadly base ourselves
on the words of the 1644 or 1646 Baptist Confessions, because
it's pretty true to the Scriptures. There was the 1729 Goat Yard
Declaration in London, with John Gill and others around him, which
is a very good summary. And, you know, the more you examine
the Scripture, you find it pretty close, it's difficult to see
where it deviates from what the Word of God says. There are other
much more concise summaries, like the one I keep telling you,
Tulip, total depravity. The scriptures teach total depravity. And men say they believe total
depravity and preach it, but you just scratch a little bit
and you see, no, no, no, they don't see that valley of bones
as dry bones. They see a little bit of hope,
of persuasion, a little bit of hope that you can teach them
to believe that which you want them to believe. No, total depravity
is what this book says. Sovereignty. Oh yeah, God's sovereign,
but he's got up against all sorts of things. No, he's absolutely
sovereign. And his election grace is unconditional. And in order to accomplish his
purposes of salvation, he formulated a plan of redemption which is
particular for a people. and absolutely effectual in its
accomplishment. And His grace, when He comes
to dead sinners, is irresistible. And He makes those who are dead,
who regard the Gospel as a stumbling block, or as foolishness, He
makes them believe it. And it's as if the light switched
on, and the people that walked in darkness see a great light.
And He causes them to persevere. You see, Tulip is a good summary
of the Scripture. Don Faulkner summarized his doctrine
in these five points. The sovereignty of God. The absolute
sovereignty of God. You know, if God isn't sovereign,
he's not God. You can't have a God who's trying
and failing. You can't have a God who's making
his best efforts, but always being frustrated. You can't have
a God who is trying to save people, and yet the people he's trying
to save end up in hell. because they didn't do those
things that they will cause them to do. No, the absolute sovereignty
of God, and the Word of God. Secondly, what's your doctrine? The Word of God, that it's utterly
infallible and inerrant, and is the Word of God to us, and
is the voice of God to us now. And this is that which gives the message
of God to us. And thirdly, the sinnerhood of
all men. We were looking at it in Romans
chapter two earlier on, the utter indictment of the law of God
against the sin of man, what we are by nature, our utter lost
cause. And that fourthly, salvation
from sin belongs to God alone, it's His prerogative, it's His
purpose, it's His will that causes the salvation of men, and fifthly,
that all without distinction, all without distinction, who
believe the gospel and trust Christ are the ones God has saved. That's a summary of the doctrine
of the scriptures. Now, What Moses says here in
chapter 31 and verse 29 is he says, I know you by nature in
the flesh, he says, look at verse 29, for I know that after my
death you will utterly corrupt yourselves and turn aside from
the way which I have commanded you. and evil will befall you
in the latter days because you will do evil in the sight of
the Lord to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands."
There's such a tendency of men, there's such a tendency of the
flesh to drift away from the truth. We don't naturally congregate around the truth of
God. No, the tendency of the flesh
is always to drift away. This is what Moses is saying.
This is always what Moses is saying. But the truth of God
is here in Scripture, and the truth of God is what declares
Him, and what causes us to praise Him. I've been asked in the past,
why don't I go to the local ministers' fraternals? Well, I guess today,
probably the answer would be that they wouldn't have me, they
wouldn't like me to be there, but why don't I? Because they
don't believe this book. Because they mix it. They always
mix it with something else. They always dilute it. They always
put one drop of poison in the pure water. That's what Bill
used to give that example, which I think is an excellent one.
A pure glass of clear water, you know? And there it is, pure
glass of clear water that's good for you. And you take one drop
of cyanide, and you put one drop in that great big glass of water,
are you going to drink it? I think not. Because however
little it is, it pollutes the whole thing. It's like one little
grain of leaven leavens the whole lump. One little thing. If any
one of the ministers that we're talking about, truly believed
this doctrine and preached it clearly and unashamedly, we pack
up trying to do what we're trying to do and we go and join with
them because it would be much easier to do that. You see, even
if they say they believe it privately, They don't preach it publicly.
Unlike Paul, 2 Timothy chapter 3 verses 5 to 10, he talks of
those who have a form of godliness but deny its power. He talks
about, and I'm paraphrasing, confused and confusing teachers. But he says of himself, as the
apostle of Christ, that thou has fully known my doctrine. It's not been hidden, it's not
been twisted, it's not been mixed with anything else, you have
fully known my doctrine." Well, what was Moses' doctrine? Let's
look at this, verse 2. My doctrine shall drop as the
rain, my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain
upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass. This
doctrine is like rain and dew, rain in the respect that it drops
down. You know, those listening to
this who live in climates that are not like the climate of England,
or at least the way it has been the last few weeks, The last
two and a half weeks of June have felt more like the end of
November in terms of the numbers of Atlantic storms that have
come crashing in one after another, bringing us wind and rain and
wind and more rain. We seem to have an abundant supply
of rain. And in other places, it's difficult
to understand what that really is like. We tend to get tired
of the rain and wish it would stop. But in plenty of other
places, where there's a parched appearance and parched vegetation. Oh, there's such a desire for
some rain, because the rain comes down. We can't order when it
comes down, we can't order when it stops coming down. It comes
down, and the doctrine of God is that which is given by Him.
It drops down sovereignly, at His will, and it's refreshing. It's life-giving. It says the
rain is refreshing to the tender herb. The tender herb is that
which is fragile, like the sheep of his pasture. You know, the
people of God, the believers, are represented in Scripture
as sheep, which are not particularly strong creatures. They're timid,
they're frightened, they need protection. They're fragile.
but they get refreshed by the doctrine that comes down from
on high. The doctrine is like the rain
and dew, refreshing and life-giving, and it comes down from God in
his sovereignty. He gives that doctrine. Moses'
doctrine, my doctrine, shall drop as the rain. My reception
from God shall drop as the rain. And he doesn't just keep it to
himself, because he speaks it. My speech, my speech, spoken
doctrine, Preach doctrine. My speech shall distill or condense
as the dew. You know, you can have what seems
to be a dry night if you go camping and you go to bed at night and
everywhere looks fairly dry. But if you get out of the tent
at five o'clock in the morning and you walk out on the grass,
you more often than not you'll find it soaked, absolutely soaked,
and it hasn't rained. It's the dew that has condensed.
The vapors come up from the ground and it's condensed at the right
temperature. And the doctrine of God comes and distills in
his speech. He preaches, and that doctrine
condenses like dew. Many say they see nothing in
preaching. They don't get anything out of
it. But that which is from God, it's like dew to the tender herb,
to the tender herb and the grass. It's the sweet, refreshing doctrine
of Christ that distills on them. This is what we pray, that God
would cause his doctrine to distill on us and come down like the
small rain upon the tender herb. You know those days when we have
a kind of a drizzly rain? We've had all sorts of rain recently.
The small rain on the tender herb. In the island of Lanzarote
which is a very dry island, incredibly dry island, volcanic island,
but they grow some superb grapes and make lovely wine on the island
of Lanzarote. And you think, where does the
vegetation get its moisture from? It's from dew. It captures moisture
from the air. It stores it in the volcanic
rocks and makes use of it. And there are vineyards growing
in the most bizarre places. They look like the most unlikely
places where you would have vegetation growing. But it's that small
rain, it's that dew that distills upon them. Very little in terms
of showers upon the grass, but we also get the grass, you know,
everywhere looks incredibly green in this country at the moment.
And this is what Moses said his doctrine is like, coming down. The sovereignty of God gives
that doctrine, and it's refreshing, and it's refreshing to the tender
herb, or that we might be like tender herbs, to be refreshed
by the doctrine of God. Now why does it come down? Why
does it come down like that? Look at verse three. Because
I will publish the name of the Lord. I will publish the name
of the Lord. This is why it comes down, like
the rain, and like the dew, and like the small rain. This is
why the doctrine of God comes down, because of what he preaches.
This is the thing. What is it that he preaches?
He publishes the name of the Lord. This is what he preaches. This is what true preaching of
the gospel of grace is about. The name of the Lord. What is
the name of the Lord? It's all that God is. It's not
just a label that we stick, like we stick on people, you know,
you're called so and so and you're called somebody else. The name
of God is all that God is. All that the God of salvation
is. All that the God of the gospel of grace is. Let me remind you,
some of his names, some of, because he's multifaceted names. Jehovah
Jireh. the Lord will provide. This is
Abraham with Isaac on Mount Moriah, where are we going to get the
sacrifice? The Lord will provide, and the Lord provides the sacrifice.
The Lord provides the lamb for the offering. Jehovah Nisai,
the Lord our banner. This is where his people congregate,
under the banner which is his banner of salvation. Jehovah
Rapha, the Lord that healeth thee. the Lord that healeth thee. We're sick with the leprosy of
sin, but He is the Lord that heals, as Christ healed those
lepers as He went about His earthly ministry. Jehovah Kadash, the
Lord that doth sanctify thee. We need holiness, without which
no man shall see the Lord. We need righteousness. We need
setting apart. But who does it? It's the Lord
that sanctifies his people and sets them apart. They don't set
themselves apart. Jehovah Shalom, the Lord our
peace. He is the Lord our peace. We
need peace with God. It's a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God, for the scripture tells
us our God is a consuming fire. The soul that sins it shall die.
He must judge sin, but in the gospel of his grace, Jehovah
shalom, the Lord our peace. Jehovah Raha, the Lord our Shepherd,
we as the tender lambs of His flock, He is the Lord our Shepherd
who shepherds His sheep, who cares for them, who shepherds
them and herds them and protects them and keeps them in the fold
as He does His people, for He has promised to keep His people.
Jehovah Tzidkenu, the Lord our righteousness. We need righteousness,
we must have the righteousness of God, without which no man
shall see the Lord, but He is the Lord our righteousness. Jehovah
Shammah, Jehovah Shammah, the Lord who is there, the imminence
of God, the one who is there all the time, this concept of
God who is always there. And then most gloriously, Jehovah
Jesus, Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. The
Lord our Saviour. Call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sins. This is what it is to publish
the name of the Lord. It's to preach the gospel of
his grace. This is what Moses said. You know, you may think
that Moses never preached the gospel of God's grace. He only
gave the Lord? No! He gave the law, and what
was the purpose of the law? To drive us to Christ, to send
us to Christ, to show us the utter inability of ours to keep
that law, to drive us to Jehovah Jesus, to the Rock. And what's the reaction to this?
As the name of the Lord is published, verse 3, You know, it's an emotional
thing. It's not just an academic head
knowledge thing. It's an emotional thing. When
you hear these things about God's provision, about his banner of
salvation, about his healing of the sins of his people and
making holy, sanctifying his people. When you hear about him
being a shepherd, the good shepherd of his sheep, and the Lord our
righteousness, this is a thing which goes down into the heart
and produces a response. And the response is a response
of praise. Ascribe greatness. Ascribe greatness
unto our God. Ascribe greatness unto His person,
who He is. What a thing it is to know the
living God as He's revealed in the Scriptures. What a blessed
thing it is to know the saving work of our God in the Lord Jesus
Christ. To know the power of the precious
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know what the song of praise
in heaven is this, worthy is the lamb, worthy is the lamb. Verse four, what's this doctrine
centered on? He, our God, is the rock. It's centered on Christ. We read
in 1 Corinthians 10 about Christ being that rock that was there
in the wilderness with them as they walked on their wilderness
journeys. Centered on the rock, the rock, not any rock, not a
rock, but the rock. The rock, there's only one, but
people make other ones. Turn over to verse 31 of chapter
32, where Moses mentions this. He says of these other people,
he says, for their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies
themselves being judges, their rock is not as our rock. There
are plenty who say they believe Christ, who follow Christ, a
rock, but is their rock the same as this rock of scripture? The
rock of all of these names of God? It's centered on Christ. He is the rock. Not any rock,
but the rock. The rock of foundation. The rock
of refuge of his people. The rock of hope. A rock is a
solid thing. in an uncertain place. He is
the rock, the rock which is Christ. Show me your glory, said Moses.
Stand here in the cleft of the rock. He is described in Isaiah,
is it 32, as a great rock which provides shadow and shelter from
the storm of the judgment of God. He is that rock. And his
work is perfect, verse 4. His work is perfect. My doctrine
shall drop as the rain, and it tells us this, that the work
of our Saviour is perfect. Everything He does is for the
salvation of His people. He is just and the justifier
of His people. He's not trying to save, if people
will let Him. He doesn't leave any loose ends.
He's not struggling in frustration, trying to get some people to
believe Him. His work is perfect. When Christ said it is finished
on the cross, He had accomplished everything that was necessary
for the salvation of His people. His work is perfect in everything
that He does for the salvation of His people. It's all His ways
are judgment, says verse 4. All His ways are judgment. the
wisdom and the justice of God, all His ways. Psalm 97 verse
2 says, righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne. If you believe the God of these
names, the name of the Lord, if you believe these things,
the doctrine of the person and work of our God, these things,
righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne.
Righteousness and judgment. in his sovereign grace, in his
electing purposes, even in his reprobation of the lost, in his
providence, in his ordering all things for the good of his people,
in his justice, in his truth. All his ways are judgment. He's
a God, says verse four, of truth and without iniquity. God of
truth. In a world of lies, a God of
truth. and without iniquity. What is
truth? His Word is truth. Thy Word is
truth. The Word of God is the truth
of God. Let God be true, says Romans chapter 3. And verse four,
let God be true and every man a liar. Every man in his own
opinions, in his own separate opinions, a liar compared with
God. God is true. He is the benchmark. His word is the benchmark of
universal truth. He is holy. He is just. He is
right in all that he does. This is Moses' song of doctrine,
look at it. A God of truth and without iniquity,
just and right is he. A song of doctrine, a doctrinal
hymn, just like we seek to sing from Gadsby's selection. Doctrinal
hymns, hymns that are rich with the doctrine of sovereign grace
and of particular redemption in the Lord Jesus Christ. You're
going to say, well, surely all of this doctrine is too complex,
too complex for us. Is it too complex? Paul said
to the Corinthians, he said, I fear lest by any means, as
the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should
be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. Not the complexity,
it's not complex, it's simple, the simplicity that is in Christ. The true doctrine of Scripture
is the simplicity, the singleness that is in Christ. It's only
complex, it only becomes complex when you refuse to believe Him
and His doctrine. and you start to mix with it
that which you think will make God's doctrine easier for people
to accept and believe, and that's what people are doing all the
time. No. This is Moses' song of doctrine,
a hymn of doctrine, a hymn of truth. Let us seek, by God's
grace and help, to be true to him and to his truth, and to
sing hymns while we're at it, and we meet together for worship
to sing hymns that are true to his doctrine.