I have seen in the Scriptures
four things that God, by His Spirit, will reveal to every
believer, every single one, four things. And the first of these
is in Genesis 1, and see if it jumps out at you as we read these
Scriptures. In Genesis 1, verse 1, we read,
God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without
form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and
the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God
said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw
the light, and that it was good. And God divided the light from
the darkness. Now drop down to verse 10. And
God called the dry land earth and the gathering together of
the waters called he seas. And God saw that it was good. In verse 14 we read, And God
said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to
divide the day from the night. Let them be for signs and for
seasons and for days and years. And down now at verse 18, And
these lights are to rule over the day and over the night and
to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it
was good. Verse 21, And God created great
whales and every living creature that moveth, which the waters
brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every wing fell
after his kind, and God saw that it was good. Verse 25, And God
made the beast of the earth after his kind, and the cattle after
their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after
his kind, and God saw It was good. Verse 27, we read, And
God said, Behold, I have given you every herb, so God created
man in his own image, and in the image of God created he him,
male and female created he them. Now verse 31, And God saw everything
that he had made, and behold, it was very good. and the evening
and the morning were the sixth day. Now, turn to Psalm 100 with
me. Now, there is an obvious conclusion
we can reach from these scriptures. And the psalmist reaches that
conclusion. Here it is again in Psalm 100,
verse 5. We read, For the Lord is good. How simple is that? The Lord is good. He's good. Now, turn a few pages over to
Psalm 119. David, a man after God's own
heart, reached the conclusion that we also should reach in
Psalm 119, verse 65. Psalm 119, verse 65, Thou hast
dwelt now has dealt well with thy servant,
O Lord, according to thy word, teach me good judgment and knowledge."
I want you to remember that word, teach, for later in the message.
It's very, very important. But David here, a man after God's
own heart, said, teach me, teach me good judgment and knowledge. That ought to be an indication
that he didn't think he had very good judgment and knowledge.
He said, Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I have believed
thy commandments. Before I was afflicted, I went
astray, but now have I kept thy word. Thou art good, and doest
good. Here it is again. Teach me thy
statutes. Do you see the simple truth here
that every believer will be taught of God? God is good. David says here, Thou doest good,
and He does do good. But He does good because He is
good. It's not the other way around. And this may sound like a strong
statement, and I don't mean it to be hard or insensitive, but
only a blind, deaf, and dumb person would not reach this conclusion. Everything God does is good. Why? Because God is good. Turn back to Genesis 2. God made Adam, and it was good. It was good. Adam was good. He was perfect and upright. Everything
Adam did was good. That's the only thing he knew
was good, because it said God made Him, and it was good, very
good. The only thing Adam knew how
to do was be good. Gee, kids, wouldn't that be great? The only
thing you knew was how to be good. You'd never get in trouble,
would you? Well, that's how Adam was made. In Genesis 2, verse
8, we read, And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in
Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. and out of
the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant
to the sight and good for food." Every tree God made, you could
walk up and pull a fruit off and eat it and you would think
it was the best thing you ever ate. It was good. In the tree
of life, also he made in the midst of the garden, and now
listen to this one, and he made a tree of knowledge of good and
evil. And the Lord God took the man
and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it.
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of all these trees,
of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat all of it
you want. But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, this one tree, he said, Thou shalt not eat of
it. For in the day that thou eatest
thereof, thou shalt surely die. Does anybody in here not understand
what this is? I don't know whether there were
thousands or millions of trees to choose from. And all Adam
had to do was just go pluck and eat. One tree. One tree. Don't eat that, Adam. Everybody understands what happens
if Adam eats the tree, right? He dies. You children, you can
understand that if your parents say, don't do that or else. Whatever the else is, you understand
what that means, don't you? You do it, you're going to get
it. And Adam understood. If he ate, he died. OK. Let's talk about this tree just
a minute. It's, first of all, a tree of
knowledge. That means if you eat it, you
learn something. Something comes into you. that
wasn't there before. You children go to school so
that you hear and see and learn things that you never knew before.
You acquire knowledge by going to school. Adam understood that
when he ate, one of the things he was going to learn, there
were apparently two things you could learn here, good and evil. Now, Adam wasn't going to learn
anything new on the good side. He was already perfect. But,
oh, the other side. When Adam ate of that, the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil, he was going to have knowledge
of evil. He stood to gain nothing good
from eating the fruit. What he would know, which he
had never known before, was evil. And the consequences of eating
were clear. He would die. Now, he didn't
die physically. Adam didn't eat the fruit. It
had arsenic in it and he just went boom and fell over dead.
God could have done that, but that's not what he did. Adam
had two kinds of life. He had physical life like we
have, and he had a thing called spiritual life. And that's how
Adam died, was spiritually. And the only way God ever communes
with anybody is spiritually. He doesn't commune physically
with us. Spiritually is how he communes. So that when Adam died
spiritually, What it means is he no longer could see, he no
longer could hear, he could no longer understand anything good
anymore. The spiritual life was gone out
of him. But oh, what he could now understand. What he now knew. Now you say, you know, we still
got a conscience. Yeah, we do. But we don't understand
good like Adam understood it. That was gone. He no longer saw
the Lord coming in the cool of the night, talking to him, communing
with him, imparting knowledge and wisdom and joy and peace
and all the good things. No longer. But what he did have,
oh my, what Adam had now. Look at Genesis 6. When Adam and all of us got from
that tree was knowledge, the knowledge of evil. And with the
physical life we still have, do you know what we now do with
that life? We see evil. We hear evil. We understand evil. We like evil. We strive for it. We just run
after it. Why? It's all we know. It's the
only thing we know anymore. In Genesis 6, verse 5, after
this happened, God saw that the wickedness of man, in verse 5,
was great in the earth, and that every imagination... You say,
we're pretty good people, but we should occasionally do a bad
thing. Occasionally have a bad thought. Occasionally have a
bad imagination. No, no. Every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart is only evil continually. Why? It's the only thing we know
to do is be bad. Turn over to Psalm 53. And I'm going to tell you right
now, I don't mean to wear you out looking out for scriptures
this morning, but You know, when you sit down to study, you don't
go, I wonder how many scriptures I can throw into this thing.
What you have to do is find the truth, and then the scriptures
lead you from one to another to prove the truth, to reveal
to us what God is teaching us. So I'm not trying to wear you
out with it, but bear with me this morning. I know I've got
a lot of them, but in Psalm 53, you see, this is the second great
truth that's revealed to God's people. The first is that God
is good. He's holy. He's righteous. But
the second is, listen carefully, is that I am not good. I am evil. I am bad. And David found this
out. You see in Psalm 53, verse 1,
he says, The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt
are they, and have done abominable iniquity. There is none that
doeth good. There is that truth. God looked
down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any
that did understand. that did seek God, and every
one of them has gone back. They're all together become filthy.
There's none that doeth good. No, not one. And that means me. And it means you. It means our
children. It means our children are not
born innocent. No, they're bad. I'm sorry they're
bad. They're evil just like us. Turn
to Psalm 73 over a little bit. To whom does God reveal these
things? That's a good question, isn't
it? I said there's four things God will reveal to all his children.
Who are they? I said earlier, God only communes
with those that have spiritual life, and therein lies the answer.
The earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ consistently involved
doing these things. Giving sight to the blind. Giving
hearing to the deaf. giving sanity to the crazy. That guy in the tombs of the
Gadarenes was out of his head, and God put him in his right
mind. It involves raising the dead to newness of life. And
those all picture what we need spiritually for God to do for
us. That's the new birth. That's being born again. That's
eyes to see good. It's ears to hear good. It's
a mind to understand good. A heart to love good. And so
for whom does God do this? The answer is so simple and so
plain in the Scriptures. In Psalm 73, verse 1, it says,
Truly God is good. We've established that truth,
haven't we? Now, who does he do it for? Look, truly God is
good to Israel. To Israel. Who does that mean?
That means God's people. Even to such as are of a clean
heart. You spend all this time telling
us we've got evil hearts. If you've got to have a good heart,
that leaves no opening for me. Oh, it does in Christ. Christ
has a clean heart. If you are in Him, you have life,
spiritual life, and God does good for you. Now, Exodus 33. Israel here means God's chosen
people, His chosen race, His elect, and there are always those
when you start talking about this, who go, that's not fair.
That just doesn't seem fair to me. Have you ever heard that
before? I can't tell you how many times
folks have thrown that in the face of our pastors. That's just
not fair. Let me warn you about something. God's always fair. He's more than fair. He's just. He's righteous. He's always good. Be careful asking for what's
fair. Nobody here wants what's fair.
If Adam had gotten what was fair, you know what he'd have gotten?
God would have killed him, not just spiritually, he'd have killed
him physically and been done with the whole matter right then.
That would have been fair for Adam. If God were only fair and
just, everybody in this room would already be in hell. That
may sound hard, but that's the simple truth. It is a demonstration
of the goodness of God that He is merciful to those who not
only show no mercy, but deserve no mercy. If we ever want to know how to
act in a situation, especially when somebody we know or hear
about does something really despicable, I tell you, let's quit hoping,
I hope they get what they got coming. Gee whiz, God hasn't
dealt with us like that. Let's not want that for anybody
else. Let's be merciful. And Moses made a request of God
here in Exodus 33. Have you got verse 12 with me? God told Moses to go lead his
people out of Israel, and Moses said unto the Lord, See, thou
sayest unto me, Bring up this people, and thou hast not let
me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know
thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now
therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show
me, and that is, teach me now thy way, that I may know thee,
that I may find grace in thy sight, and consider that this
nation is thy people." Verse 17, and the Lord said unto Moses,
I'll do this thing also that you've spoken. For thou hast
found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. And Moses
said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And the Lord said,
I will make all my goodness pass before thee." You are about to
get a glimpse of the goodness of God. All of it. All of it.
Here it comes. He said, I will proclaim the
name of the Lord before thee. Jesus Christ is all the goodness
of God. But the way he demonstrates it is next. He says, I'll be
gracious to whom I'll be gracious, and I'll show mercy on whom I'll
show mercy. Don't cry unfair. God is more
than good that he's gracious to anybody, that he shows mercy
to anybody. Now back to Psalm 25 with me. So how do God's people know they're
chosen? How do they know they're chosen?
I know where every child in this room is going to be tomorrow
morning, if we don't get any more snow and they get the roads
clear. I know where you're going to be on Tuesday morning and
Wednesday morning and Thursday morning and Friday morning. And
I know where you're going to be every Monday through Friday
from now all the way up sometime in May or June. I know exactly
where you're going to be. You guys do too, don't you? You
know where you're going to be. You're going to be in school.
And why are you going to be there? You're going to be there because
your parents make you go there. They send you there, don't they?
They insist that you're there. You say, why? Well, you know,
why can't I just miss today? Why can't I play hooky today?
Why can't I just miss one day? You know what your parents are
concerned about? They are concerned that that one day you miss. will be the one day they teach
the one thing that you will determine someday down the road you don't
pass your ACT test, or somebody gips you out of a bunch of money,
or that will determine the whole bent of your life. There'll be
some lesson that interaction with people, that you'll be a
failure. You won't know how to interact
with other people. There'll be some truth some knowledge
that day imparted, and you'll miss it. And down you'll go in
flames. That's why they just insist that
you go every day. You need to be taught. It's a
good thing your parents do this for you, even if you always don't
want it that way. Well, if your folks have that
much common sense, if they're that interested in being that
good to you, Remember, God is good. He's going to teach His
children. Look in Psalm 25, verse 8. Good and upright is the Lord.
There's that truth. Therefore will He teach sinners
in the way. The meek will He guide in judgment,
and the meek will He teach His way. It's there twice, isn't
it? But who does it say in verse 8 He's going to teach? Sinners. All God's children know they're
bad, know they're evil, know they're sinners. He has shown
them that, and that God is good to sinners. He teaches them.
A self-righteous person you cannot teach a thing to. They're not
interested in learning. I understand. Does it frustrate
you? You ask your friends, you ask
your family to come to church with you, and they won't come.
They already know everything. They don't need what you need.
Notice also that God's children are meek. Turn over to Luke 18
with me. The Lord gave a parable here,
and I want you to answer this question for me. After we read
this parable, which of these two men comes across to you as
meek? the first or the second man.
Which one seems meek to you? Verse 9 of Luke 18. And the Lord spake this parable
unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous
and despised others. He said two men went up into
the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a Republican. The
Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. Now imagine this.
He says, I thank thee that I am not as other men." He said, I'm
not an extortioner. I'm not unjust. I'm not an adulterer. I'm not even like this filthy
publican over here, this nasty fellow. I fast twice in a week. I give tithes of all that I possess. Now, is he the meek one or this
second fellow? And the publican standing afar
off would not lift up so much even as his eyes. He kept his
head down. His eyes down, he wouldn't even
look up, and he smote his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me,
the sinner. Which one of those fellows was
me? Well, the Lord doesn't leave it up to us to figure it out.
He answers. He said, I tell you, this man, this second man, went
down to his house justified rather than the other. For every one
that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth
himself shall be exalted. Let's turn to Romans 10. How
does God teach His children? If you're here this morning, and
I know if you're here this morning, you wanted to be here, thinking
about those icy roads out there, but how does God teach His children? Well, if you're here this morning,
it just may be that your Heavenly Father saw to it that you came
to school. Mark had a great lesson this
morning in Sunday School that fits hand in glove with this
message. In Romans 10, verse 13, we read, ìFor whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.î They will be
saved. ìHow then shall they call on
him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe on
him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher or a teacher?î And how shall they teach or preach
except they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of what? Good things. You know what Todd's
doing every time he comes in here? He's giving us good news. He's telling us the good things.
That's what we need to learn. We know plenty about the other
side, don't we? The dark side, the evil side.
We know that by nature. But oh, Todd's going to try to
teach us who Christ is and what he's done, turn to Hebrews 1. So God calls his children. He
gives them spiritual life. They see. They hear. They believe God. They see he
is good and that they are evil by nature. And then this third
thing he teaches them is that Jesus Christ is better. He is better than anybody or
anything that you ever knew or thought of in your whole life.
In Hebrews 1, we read verse 1, God who at sundry times and in
diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the
prophets, he hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son,
whom he hath appointed heir of all things, and by whom also
he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory,
and the express image of his person, and upholding all things
by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our
sins, sat down in the right hand of the majesty on high, being
made so much," here's the word, "...better than the angels, as
he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they."
I have a customer in the Carolinas that on their counter has got
a little plastic jar, and in that are these little round metal
stamp things that have got an image on them that I guess somebody
thinks looks like an angel. And it's got a little sign there
that says, put an angel in your pocket for a doll. You know,
and I looked at it and I said, what's this about? And this lady
happens to be a Jew, which it doesn't matter whether we're
Jewish or so-called Christian or anything. It doesn't really
matter. All religions are superstitions except that worship of the true
and living God. And I said, what's this all about?
She said, oh, well, this is just a, you know, sort of like a good
luck charm. You know, you just put it in
your pocket and when you have a problem or you need some help,
you just reach in there and rub it. Now, you know, we laugh, and
I didn't tell you that as to be amusing. It's just to demonstrate
the foolishness, the absolute absurdity of modern religion. God's not in that. There's got
to be something better than that. Doesn't it? I'm telling you,
if you think that's ridiculous, it's no more ridiculous than
all the foolishness going on across the street, across the
way, and all over this country. It's just as crazy. Turn a few pages over to Hebrews
chapter 7. Folks have a lot of strange things
they hope in. I heard a lady recently tell
me, she said, I'm counting on mama praying for me up there.
It's not a good hope. If it's your baptism, it's your
religious system, it's doing the best you can, I don't care
what it is. That's not a good hope. Those are no hope at all. There's got to be a better hope.
And here it is in Hebrews 7, verse 19. For the law made nothing
perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did, by the
which we draw nigh unto God." Verse 22, "...by so much was
Jesus made a surety of a better testament." Adam couldn't keep
the law. He ate of the tree. We can't
keep the law. But Jesus Christ is better. He kept the law perfectly. He's
a far better hope. In Hebrews 8, verse 6, we read,
But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much
also he is the mediator. Jesus Christ is the mediator
of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
There's something better than that angel in your pocket. There's
something better than being a Catholic or a Jew or any of those things.
It's being in Christ. The covenant God made with Adam
was, you eat, you die. Don't eat, you live. Adam couldn't
keep it, could he? We can't either. You want that
covenant? You want that law? Well, you just have at it. You
have no hope in this world of keeping it. But Jesus Christ
and God the Father and the Holy Spirit made a covenant. God says,
I'm going to choose a people. How good is that? And He said,
I want him. And Jesus Christ said, I'll go
get him. And the Holy Spirit said, I'll
call him to you. That's a covenant. That's a better covenant. And
the promise is, Jesus Christ said, he didn't say, well, I'll
try to save him. I'll do the best I can. He said,
I'll go get him. I'll bring him to you, Father. And that's what
he did. He came and lived a perfect life. He was good in every way. Do you know what he does? He
gives us that goodness. God saves us because we're perfect.
We're clean. Pure through. We said, what happened
to all that evil that was in me? Jesus Christ took care of
it at Calvary. He let them drive nails through
his hands, through his feet, spear in his side, kill him. Why? That's what we had coming.
Isn't it a good thing he took it for us? Let me tell you, he's
the only one good enough to get that done. The only one good
enough to get that done. You see here in Hebrews 9, verse
23, this is talking about the priesthood and the slaughter
of all these animals. And he said, And almost all things,
verse 22, are by the law purged with blood, and without the shedding
of blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that
the patterns of things, and the heavens should be purified with
these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices
than these." All those animals the Old Testament priests slew,
they didn't accomplish a thing. But they were a picture of a
better sacrifice who was coming, who is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And God accepts that sacrifice. He says, That's good enough.
That's good enough. Turn to Hebrews 11 with me. We
live in a mighty fine country as earthly countries go. The
only thing wrong with it is the fact that sinners are running
it. They always have and always will. I'm not talking about any
administration. They're all the same. They're sinners. But as countries go, this is
a mighty fine one, and I wouldn't want to be in any other, so don't
misunderstand that. But in Hebrews 11, verse 13,
these all died in faith, not having received the promises
This is talking about the Old Testament patriarchs, from Abraham
to Moses to Isaac and Jacob and all those, Sarah, all those Old
Testament people. It says they all died in faith,
not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off.
They looked forward to Christ just as we look back to Him.
We have a historical record. We've got a lot more responsibility
than they had. They hadn't seen all these things actually happen
as we have recorded. But it says here, They were persuaded,
verse 13, of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they
were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say
such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly,
if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came
out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they
desire a better country, that is in heavenly, wherefore God
is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for
them a city. This is really good. This is
really, really good. You know, we come together like
this to be taught. This is God's school. Why would
you want to miss this? You just might miss the one time,
the one time when God manifests His presence and speaks to you. Why would we want to miss this?
We're in school. But just as you hope one day,
I suspect every parent in here hopes one day that your children,
you know, they give them graduation ceremonies for kindergarten and
elementary and all this stuff. But I know what you want. You
want to graduate from college, don't you? You think, boy, that'd
be a high day. That'd be a good day, wouldn't
it? You know what every believer is looking forward to? Graduating. One day we're going to graduate
from this school. And we'll know, as we've been known, until that
day, you know the best place to be? It's in school. It's in
school. We're looking for a better country.
But until then, we wait upon the Lord. We wait upon him. Revelation 19. Almost finished here. Revelation
19. Briefly, the fourth thing God's
people will see and will be taught, number one, is that they are
sinners. Number two, is that God is good. Number three, is
that Jesus Christ is better than anything or anybody. And fourth
is that, and I really like this, God is great. God is great. You say, is that better than
good? Oh yeah, it is better than good. Everyone in heaven knows
who God is. It is revealed here, if you have
Revelation 19, verse 16, ìAnd the Lord Jesus Christ has on
his vesture and on his thine name written, ìKing of kings
and Lord of lords.îî That is who he is. ìI saw an angel standing
in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the
fowls that fly in the midst of the heaven, ìCome and gather
yourselves together unto the supper of the great God.î He
is not just a good God. He is a great God. He is a great
God. Turn over to Titus chapter 2. The writer of Hebrews implored
us to consider how great this man is, talking about the Lord
Jesus Christ. How does God manifest His greatness
to men, to His people? Well, the answer to that is He
manifests it in revealing, teaching them that the birth of the Lord
Jesus Christ, it was a great event. It was great. Never happened
like that again, has it? Never before, never after. The
life of the Lord Jesus Christ, it was great. It was perfect.
It was better than perfect because it was for all of God's people. The burial and resurrection of
the Lord Jesus Christ, that was a great thing. Nobody else ever
been raised to the dead that I've read about. no man on his
own merits. The reign of the Lord Jesus Christ,
they know it in glory. They know it in that country
we are going to. They already know it. God teaches his children
not just the facts, not just information, not just knowledge,
but he introduces us, makes us one with the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the great God. Here it is in Titus 2, verse
11. Sorry, I had 2 Timothy. Titus
2, verse 11. For the grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men, that's all his people, teaching,
there's that word again, teaching us that denying ungodliness and
worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly
in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, that better
hope, and the glorious appearing of who? The great God and our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. who gave himself for us, that
he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar
people." The world thinks we're peculiar, because we are. We have spiritual life. That's
how we differ. We're zealous of good works.
These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority.
Paul was telling Titus, you go preach this message. You teach
this information that Jesus Christ is the great God. Everything
he's done is great. And one more scripture, back
to Psalm 135, which we read earlier. This word great means a lot of things. But the
greatness of our God is infinite. Three things I want us to see
very briefly that it means. First of all, great here means
only when you hear the great God, it means he's the only God.
God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit are one
God, but they're the only God. If you and I don't know him,
we have no hope because he's the only God. The second thing
it means is I like this united. The great God is united. God
the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit are one. And
if we're in the Lord Jesus Christ, we're one with Him and one with
them. We're united with the great God. That's what it means. When it
says great God, it means it's great. It's great. It's all of
us in Him. All men and women. We're either
Standing alone, one in and of ourselves in this life and in
the life to come, for we're one with Christ, united with the
great God, now and through eternity. And then the third thing it means,
this is really sweet. Great God means the beloved God. Beloved God. The great God is
the beloved God. If you love being taught, learning
more about God and His Son, Jesus Christ, That's a good sign that
you're one of His people. On the other hand, if we can
take it or leave it, you know, just hit or miss, hit or miss,
the preaching of the gospel, the teaching of God, that's not
a good sign. And I would illustrate that this
way. Everybody in here who's married, if your spouse, if it was their
choice, I realize fellows and husbands have to travel and go
about on business, but if you knew it was your spouse's choice
to come home to you a couple nights a week, maybe every other
night, how beloved would you feel to your spouse? How special
would you think you were? Can we take or leave the teaching
of the gospel, communing with the great God, our Beloved. Is
it that simple? Well, the Beloved God, he loves his
bride. Do you know what he does for
her? He draws her in. He woos her, says sweet things
to her. And boy, she likes hearing it.
She wants to come hear it again and again and again. You ladies
like it when your husband whispers sweet nothings to you? You like
it when he tells you you're beautiful? You like it when he praises you
for what you've done? You say, well, we haven't done
anything good. Oh, in Christ we have. In Christ we have. We're perfect in Christ. And
the beloved God, the great God, He woos his bride. He teaches
his bride who he is, what he's done, why he did it and where
he is now to assure them, to reassure them of this one thing
he's coming back for. He's going to come get her and
take her where he is because it's not enough that she's with
him just occasionally or once in a while. He wants her there
all the time. And one day real soon, That is
where God's people will be with Christ continually, world without
end, everlasting eternity. We are beloved of him, and he
becomes beloved of all his people. Psalm 135, look at these first
five verses. If we get taught these four things. I'm terrible. I'm a sinner. But
God is good. Jesus Christ is better than anything.
And He's a great God. We'll be able to do what it says
right here. Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the name of the Lord.
Praise Him, O ye servants of the Lord. Ye that stand in the
house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God, praise
the Lord. You know why? He's good. He's good. Sing praises
unto Him. It's a pleasant thing for us,
isn't it? The Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself and Israel
for his peculiar treasure. For I know that the Lord is great,
and that our Lord is above all gods." May the Lord bless his
work.