Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Acts chapter 3 and verse 26,
the last verse. Unto you first, God, having raised
up his Son Jesus, send him to bless you in turning away every
one of you from his iniquities. Acts chapter 3 and verse 26. Jesus sent to bless. Just a couple of points as a
way of introduction. Our text begins with the words
unto you first. Peter is speaking to the Jews. He's speaking unto the nation
that our Lord came through and to whom our Lord first sent the
apostles to not preach in any city of the Gentiles but to go
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And it was so that
for the first 10 years or so following Pentecost that it was
to the Jews that the Word was preached even in other lands. But then there was the appearance
in the house of Cornelius of the Holy Spirit upon Peter's
preaching and the power attending the Word there, a second Pentecost,
for the Gentiles. So we have the order, the Jews
blessed first, and then the Gentiles were to be blessed. Our Lord
speaks of this in John 10, where he says, other sheep I have which
are not of this fold, them also must I bring. And there shall
be one fold and one shepherd. And he is speaking of the Gentiles. We have the prophecies that there
shall be those waters flowing out of Jerusalem, half toward
the former sea, half toward the hinder sea, half toward the Gentiles,
half towards the Jews. We have this emphasised in Paul's
epistle to the Ephesians, ye who sometime were far off are
made nigh by the blood of Jesus Christ. They were alienated from
the life of God, the ceremonial law. It excluded other nations. It was sent to the Jews only. And this is very clearly seen
through the Scriptures. Paul says that the going of the
apostles from the Jews to the Gentiles, the casting out of
them, and then the grafting in of the Gentiles. But there shall
come a time when the Jews are grafted back in and brought in
again. What a blessed time that that
will be, and we believe that that still is to happen. But here at this time, The apostles
have this word to their own countrymen, having charged upon them the
death of our Lord Jesus Christ, his crucifixion, and he says
that unto you fast, God having raised up his Son, Jesus. But then we have secondly, coming
out from this, that God is a God of order. He does first things
first. He doesn't put the cart before
the horse. He doesn't put things in the
wrong order. And now we're reminded of that
right the way through Scripture. We find it with the order of
creation. In the beginning, God. The Scriptures,
they put God first. But when creation is done, it's
in a beautiful order. He creates the places first. He creates the heavens. And then
he creates the seas and the air and then he creates the earth.
That's the first three days and then he goes back and he populates
those areas and he puts the sun, the moon, the stars in the heavens
and he puts the fishes in the sea, the birds in the air and
the land animals on the land and then man. And he prepares
Eden first. It's not like someone that buys
a house and then they move in and they decide they're going
to renovate it or completely strip it and work it while they're
in it. It's all done first. And then man is put in a finished
garden. And this is ordered very clearly
soon in creation. We have it in marriage. The order
that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave unto his
wife and they two twain shall be one flesh. And then there
shall be added the children into that marriage. A man puts it
the other way around, he gets the children first and then sometimes
he adds the marriage afterwards, completely destroying God's order. But God is a God of order, and
in the Church of God. The Apostle writes to the churches,
that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in
the Church of God, which is the pillar and ground of the truth.
And he then says to them, Before them, their pastors, their elders,
their deacons, the church order, the ordinance of baptism, the
ordinance of believers' baptism, and the Lord's Supper. All of
those things are set in order in the church of God. And Paul
says, when I come, then he will deal with other matters as well. We think in history. You've only
got to read the first chapter in Matthew, and we see a beautiful
order of 14 generations from Abraham to David, and from David
to the carrying away into Babylon, and from the carrying away into
Babylon under Christ, 14 generations. A perfect order. in a history
that you could look at the individual parts of it in Kings and in the
Chronicles, and you think how it often hang on a thread and
on a whim, and the seed was almost extinguished several times. And yet the Lord was in complete
control in history, and he still is. The history of this world
is under the Lord's unfolding. It is His hand that unfolds the
book. Providence unfolds the book and
makes His counsels shine. It's also so in conversion, not
think to lay down lines and say God must work in a certain way
in conversion. But God does have an order in
what He does with each individual of His people. Sometimes in the
Word of God that order is shown forth. We think of the Apostle
saying that the law was a schoolmaster under Christ. I was shut up under
the law first and then delivered from the law and the condemnation
of the law through the Lord Jesus Christ. By the law is the knowledge
of sin, and it is the work of the Holy Spirit to convict of
sin. That all the world might be brought
in guilty before God is the reason why the law was given. Not to
provide a way that we can get a righteousness or pay our own
debt, but to convince us of our sin and need of a Saviour, a
need of mercy. And in our conversion there is
an order in the teaching of the people of God. He teaches them
in order. Those of you that are teachers
here, or those of us that can remember when we were at school
or further studies, there was a syllabus, there was an order,
we were taught certain things first, and then after we'd learned
those, then we added to that, And the Lord said, I have many
things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. We have
that in Isaiah. He taught them line upon line,
here a little, there a little. This is the way that the Lord
works. We often want to go ahead of
the Lord and want to know more things, but the Lord says, no,
there is an order. carry longer in this mount, as
it were, or learn these lessons, and then there is a proceeding
further. And these are the marks of our
God. And it's a good thing for us
if we observe providence, if we watch God's order, what he
does. And the children of Israel were
in Egypt. He didn't work with the Passover
lamb first, that was reserved to the last, for good reason. And the Lord brought all of those
signs, all of those wonders, not all muddled up, but one after
another, all in order. Not in any hurry, not in any
rush, the Lord in control. And may we notice that in our
lives, He wants what He does. The Lord is not worried that
His plans are not working out, or that some man is frustrating
them, or some relative is interfering, or that someone is upsetting
His plan and undermining it. No, everything is in perfect
order. None can say unto Him, What doest
Thou? None can stay His hand. shall
not the judge of all the earth do right. So may we notice this
when we have a text like this unto you first. When we think
back these many other scriptures that speaks of this order, seek
ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these
things shall be added unto you. I want to look then with the
Lord's help this evening at three points. Firstly, the foundation
of all blessing. And to you first, God having
raised up his son, Jesus. There is a foundation to all
blessing. Then secondly, Jesus is sent
to bless. Raised up His Son Jesus, sent
Him to bless you. Jesus is sent to bless. And the third point, the blessing
is described. Not just a vague statement that
our Lord is sent to bless, but it's specific in their point
here, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities. That is the blessing. Well let
us look then at the first point, the foundation of all blessing. All that the Lord does for a
people that in themselves are under condemnation, they are
guilty, they are under the sentence of death, All that he does for
them is through mercy, through everlasting love, but also through
the payments of a debt. God just doesn't say, don't worry
about those sins. Don't worry about the condemnation
due to them. I'll just put everything right
from now on. He doesn't say to Those who are
locked up in the prisons, don't matter about your past life,
I'm going to let you out. Well, forget about all the rest.
You don't have to serve time. You can come off death row and
you start your lives anew. And the Lord is a holy God, a
just God, a righteous God. And the first thing he does when
he intends to bless the people is he pays their debt. He sets them free from that debt. That is what the Lord did at
Calvary. That is what He came to do upon
the cross. A redemption price. A debt that they could not pay. Thine they were, thou gavest
them thee, and those people that were received, were people that
he would have to be a surety for. When they couldn't pay,
he would pay all. And that is certainly for us
here, because where there is a raising up of his son, there
must also be the dying of his son, the death of his son, the
crucifixion of his son. That comes first. Otherwise the
raising up means nothing. How vital it is when we think
of something like this, of raising up. You might say, it's not in
the text about him dying, about his blood. It is set forth beforehand,
very clearly in the passage here, the men of Israel. God, verse
13, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our
fathers, hath glorified his Son, Jesus, whom ye delivered up and
denied him in the presence of Pilate, when ye were determined
to let him go, killed the Prince of Life, whom God hath raised
from the dead, whereof ye are witnesses." And he says, before
that, the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, someone might say,
I'm healthy and strong, I've been wonderfully healed. And
you say to them, what was your illness? What was wrong with
you? And they might say, well, I thought
I had cancer or something. But they weren't really ill.
But someone who really knew they were ill, who really had all
the symptoms and all the signs of it, and all the evidences
of it, When they're raised up, they say the same thing, and
they look the same as the other man, and they still look healthy,
and they say that they've been healed, but they really have
been healed, and they know they have, they know the difference.
And so when you have the end result set forth, like two people
saying they believe, but what goes before that believing? What
were you before? Were you like the Jews, shut
up in unbelief and then that joy and peace in believing? Those who are alive unto God,
were they once dead in trespasses and sins and had every evidence
of that? So here we have the debt paid
in that which was done at Calvary, the precious blood that was shed. That is what puts away sin, that
is what blots out sin, that is what appeases the wrath of God. The righteousness of our Lord
is imputed to a believer to enable them to stand faultless before
the throne of God. It does not cover their sins. It is the precious blood of Christ
that covers sin, that blots it out, makes atonement for sin. that we need a righteousness
to stand before God, and that is Christ's righteousness, to
stand faultless before the throne. Some of the hymns, the lines
of the hymns seem to indicate that it is the robe of righteousness
that's covering sins of every name and every shape, but that
is not true. The scriptures are very clear
with that. The foundation of blessing, then,
is the debt paid and a risen Saviour, having raised up His
Son, Jesus. How the Jews, together with the
Romans, tried everything they could to stop that fact being
known. They did not want it known that
the one that they had crucified had risen from the dead. They
remembered that he said that he would, and they took pains
so that he couldn't, first with putting the stone, sealing the
stone, setting a watch, and then when he rose anyway, bribing
the soldiers and telling them to testify that his disciples
came and took him away. Now really it's a message for
us in the church, isn't it? When the devil and the adversaries
of our Lord take so much pains to stop it being known that Christ
is risen from the dead, it should mean to us how much hangs upon
that, how important it is, how vital it is. That's why they
don't want it known. That's why they want it hushed
up. God hath given, says Paul, assurance unto all men, in that
he hath raised him from the dead. Paul, when he writes to the Corinthians,
his first epistle, chapter 15, he deals with those that said
there was no resurrection of the dead at all. And he said
if there's no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not
risen And if Christ is not risen, then are you still in your sins?
And your faith is vain, our preaching is vain, and we are false witnesses
because we have testified that God raised him from the dead.
And he says, if in this life only we have hope in Christ,
we are for men most miserable. And he's pointing to all the
implications. If there is not a resurrection
of the dead, if Christ is not risen, How vital it is then that
this is the secret of these blessings and this is why he is setting
this forth here before he speaks of blessing, having raised up
his son Jesus. Our Lord said, I have power to
lay down my life, I have power to take it again. This commandment
have I received of my father. Life from the dead. And is not that what we need? Dead in Adam, in the day that
thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. What we need is life
from the dead. And our life is bound up with
Christ. Christ hath died, yea, rather
risen again, and ascended to the right hand of the throne
of God on high. So this is the seal of an accepted
sacrifice of a fruit and effect of the power of God upon that
payment being made. Christ is spoken of as the first
fruits from the dead. So this is the foundation of
all blessing. How do we use that? Do we not
take it before the Lord in prayer? Plead it before the Lord in prayer? This is the foundation of blessing. This is the work of Thy Beloved
Son. He died for sinners, He died
under the load of His people's sin, yet He was risen again and
the sacrifice accepted. Can our God now show mercy, give
grace, give every blessing? Himmler says every blessing comes
to us through Jesus' precious blood. And the Lord stays holy and just
and righteous in all that he does. Our Lord was made a sacrifice
for sin, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. That was
done, that was finished, It was accomplished. And how I want to look at our
second point, that Jesus is sent to bless. Having obtained eternal salvation,
having paid the debt, having risen again, there remains until
the end of time a people that have the blessings and fruits
of that salvation known in their lives. We may say that each one
of them before God, even when they are born into this world,
only known to God whom His elect are, their sins are already put
away. They don't know it. They don't
even know they're sinners, but their sins are put away. All
that count for it. that they come into the world
as sinners. They go forth from the womb speaking
lies. They go forth as enemies to God
and at peace with hell. M76, at peace with hell with
God at war. In sin's dark maze they wander
far. And those people who are dead
in sins need to be quickened and need to be made alive. And
it is God that will do that. I pass by thee, when thou wast
in thy blood, and when thou wast in thy blood, I bid thee leave.
He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto the
day of Jesus Christ. He must be born again, born of
water and of the Spirit, quickened into spiritual life. and those that are quickened
into spiritual life will first know and realize and feel that
they are sinners. And not only that, that they
do sin and will sin constantly. The Apostle Paul, when he was
first convinced of his sin through thou shalt not cover, He said
it wrought in me all manner of evil concupiscence, and he says
the good that I would, I do not, the evil that I would not, that
I do. O wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from this body of death? And his feeling, his
desire was to be delivered from the body of death, the sin that
was working in his members. He says, if I do that which I
would not, it is no more I that do it than sin that dwelleth
within me. But those sins, they cleave to
us and we need to be delivered from them. Now here in our second
point, Jesus is sent to bless. And he sends a blessing quickening
into life and then the blessing described here turning away every
one of you from his iniquities. But I want to look at this second
point, just focusing on this work of God in sending the Lord
Jesus Christ to bless. His sending to Calvary was for
that purpose when the angels gave the message to the shepherds,
it was on earth peace, goodwill toward man. It was to be a blessing,
a goodwill to sinners. The Lord said that I came not
to destroy men's lives, but to save men's lives. That this is
the condemnation, that life is coming to the world, Men love
darkness rather than light. The sending forth of His Son
was for blessing, not for condemnation. And we have to always remember
that. Where the Lord sends to bless,
Jesus is sent to bless. Our Lord has a different message
than the Lord. By the laws shall no man living
be justified. The law demands an absolute perfect
obedience which we cannot give, but which the Lord did himself. And I think one of the most beautiful
illustrations is in the title of the Ark of the Covenant, where
the broken tables, they were smashed to the bottom of Mount
Sinai, that is what man broke the laws, but the perfect laws,
The tables unbroken were put in the ark. That is the type
of the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilling the law and making it honourable.
And if you wonder why the law is so strict in so many points,
the Old Testament, even those gathering sticks were stoned. It is to be put in such a high
standard because God is never going to use that standard to
measure on a man to obtain salvation. but he is going to meet that
standard himself and to completely fulfill all that was required
by the law. So the Lord coming is coming
to bless. Now the Lord blesses through
his servants, through his people. It was in the Old Testament too
the Lord sent his prophets We think of even Jonah. Jonah was
sent to the Ninevites, a nation, the Assyrians, that
were enemies to Israel. And Jonah knew, and we read in
the fourth chapter of Jonah, this was my saying in my own
country, therefore I fled. What did he, what is he saying?
I knew that there was a merciful God. He knew if he sent his servant
to preach to that people, you say, but where was any gospel? In forty days the city shall
be destroyed. How is that a gospel? How is
that good news? The Lord gave them forty days.
Forty days is a testing time, a proving time. Forty days the
water on the earth. Forty days Mount Sinai. Forty
years in the wilderness. 40 days, the Lord from his rising
to his ascension into heaven. 40 days, the Lord's sufferings
have been tempted in the wilderness. 40 days, Goliath came defying
Israel. It's always a testing time. But
it's also a time that there is the opportunity or a possibility
of being saved. Why did not God immediately strike
Adam and Eve dead and finish the whole human race? because
there was to be blessing following. And the blessing rested in there
being time, in there being years that fulfilled and generations
being brought up. And so Jonah, he knew this. And
surely the Lord then, he did give them repentance. They did
turn away from their iniquities, exactly what we have in our text
here. God saw what they did. And he
turned away his wrath, he destroyed them not. Jonah was displeased,
he was angry, trying to get God to change his mind. But would
he change his mind? No. That was his purpose, to
bless. And God's purpose was to bless
with Balaam. Balaam could not curse, the Lord
was blessing. Jonah was sent. Philip was sent
to go into the desert to the eunuch. What was the end result
with the eunuch? To bless the eunuch, to bless
him through Isaiah 53. Peter was sent for by Cornelius
at the bidding of the angel. Peter at Joppa, the same place
that Jonah was, that Jonah ran away when he was told to go to
the Gentiles. that Peter was prepared, prepared
by God, given the vision of the sheep let down from heaven. And
so Peter goes, and the Holy Spirit falls when Peter preaches to
Cornelius and his household, and the Gentile church is then
blessed. You think of the Apostle Paul,
he tries to go to Asia, forbidden there by Thinea, the spirit suffered
him not, then a vision, come over into Macedonia and help
us, and he goes assuredly believing that God meant them to go and
to preach the Gospel there. What happened when he comes there?
He might say, well he had a trial, he was cast into prison, so he
was. But his time there was blessed
and we have a beautiful epistle to the Philippians. that Paul
writes to that church that was formed in that place. Where the
Lord sends a minister, sends his people to preach the gospel,
there is an expectation that the word will be blessed, and
we should pray for it, and ask for it, and look for it, and
not think, well, we just happen to have the gospel in this place,
and it happens to be a chapel here, and a church here, and
they're preaching here, Do we rather say, Lord, Thou hast maintained
a candlestick here, Thou hast maintained a ministry here, my
soul needs blessing, I need this blessing? I wonder how many times
we can feel that the Lord has sent a particular ministry into
this pulpit, into our pulpit, maybe a crab book or another,
and that word has been to us, and the Lord has made him His
messenger, in his message and spoken to us and had this effect,
it has been to bless us. All that happened, strange thing
there, wasn't it? He's towering there, delayed
there, waiting for his fellow companions and while he's there
he's stirred up by the iniquities, the sin, the idolatry of the
people there, the unknown, the altar to the unknown God, Him
whom you do ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you. And we
find Paul then is really being sent to them. It is to be a blessing
to them. He that receiveth you, says our
Lord, receiveth me. And he that receiveth me, receiveth
him that sent me. And so when the Lord blesses
Our Lord is in heaven, but he says to his servants, go into
all the world and preach the gospel. The Lord Jesus is sent
to bless. The preaching of the cross, the
preaching of our Lord Jesus Christ by his servants, the preaching
of the word, is to this end to bless the church of God. What is the blessing then? In our third point, the blessing
is described. Now it's described in, you might
say, several ways. The first is this, a turning
away from sin, or it says here, from his iniquities. Iniquities
are aggravated sins. They're really sins against light,
against knowledge. They're more than a sin. And
certainly applies to the people of God that know that sin is
sin and yet they still sin. And sin is a burden and sin is
a trouble to them. But it applies to all the people
of God. For God blesses, He doesn't mean
that they stay in sin. Paul says in Romans 6, Shall
we continue in sin that grace might abound? Notice the Apostle
here, the evidence of a blessing is by turning away from your
sin. And this then is a great encouragement,
a blessing. to us to even realise it. The blessing isn't to condemn
us for our sin, it's not to say, look, I've died upon the cross,
I've put away some sins and now you've got to do something for
the rest, or I've put away your sin and now you have got to,
by your efforts, you've got to control your own heart your own
thoughts, your own affections, your own actions, you must do
that. But we read in 1 John chapter
1 verse 9, if we confess our sins He is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. In other words they are turning
us away from our sin, changing the heart, renewing the will,
giving power over sin, giving strength, giving deliverance.
This is the blessing, that the Lord should have His people not
continue in sin, but to walk in ways of holiness, ways of
uprightness, ways of the Lord, new creatures in Christ Jesus,
showing forth the praises of Him who hath called them out
of nature's darkness, into his marvellous life, he says to the
woman he'd taken in adultery, neither do I condemn thee, go
and sin no more. And I believe in this that he
gave her grace that she should not continue in that path of
sin any more. The Lord giving that strength
and giving that power and giving that health We will never be
sinless this side of the grave. Sanctification, setting apart
for a holy use of God's people, and a washing, and a water by
the word, as spoken of in Ephesians 5, is a sanctifying that is not
perfect. It is God's work. that we are
not made angels here, we're not made sinners here. We've grown
under a body of death. The Canaanite dwells in the land. And don't ever dream, don't ever
think, if I'm a child of God, I'll never have a wrong thought,
I'll never have a wrong desire, I'll never have my heart going
after forbidden things and evil things. That will not be so. but we have a God to go to and
we have one that blesses in this very particular something that should be a good
message to poor sinners. Poor sinners that thought, well
I thought that was my duty, I thought that was my effort, I thought
that I had been so poor in this. If ye through the Spirit do mortify
the deeds of the bodies, you'll live through the Spirit, through
seeking the things of God, through the Spirit's power. But may you
be very clear of this blessing, really put in very simple words,
to bless you in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.
You think, something's put in a different way. in giving you
a wonderful revelation like Paul had of a vision into the third
heavens. Send him to bless you so that
you might be like Peter upon the Mount of Transfiguration,
and see Moses and Elias and no man but Jesus only. But you find
Peter in his epistles saying, we have a more sure word of prophecy
which unto you have well to take heed as unto a light that shineth
in the dark place. He's not pointing you to the
Mount of Transfiguration. And Paul, he's not taking you
to his vision. He says, my grace is sufficient
for you. The glory in my infirmity is
that the power of God may rest upon me. When I am weak, then
am I strong. That's where he's pointing to.
Every conquest over sin, every deliverance, over the evil of
the heart, every time the old nature doesn't get its way, it
doesn't get its way, is a blessing from the Lord. When he raises
up a standard against the adversary, when he delivers from the temptations,
God is faithful, will not It's tough for you to be tempted above
that which you're able, but we'll make a way of escape that you'll
be able to bear it. This is the first way the blessing
is described, turning away. That's really repentance, isn't
it? A change, a turning, a sorrow,
a going from one thing to another thing. The other aspect of the blessing
here is that it applies to everyone saved. So isn't it a dangerous thing
to say everyone that is saved has particular marks on them? Well, you go to Hebrews 12 and
the Lord says that he chastises every son whom he receiveth. If he be without chastisement,
ye be bastards and not sons. So the Lord is saying in that
very, very clearly that this is something that belongs to
every one of the children of God. And really what he said
before us here, sent him to bless you in turning away one of you
from his iniquities? No, every one of you. It applies to everyone. You can't
get one of the children of God walking in open sins. That doesn't
apply to me. The Lord doesn't deal with me
like that. He allows me just to do this.
You say no. It doesn't mean every man, woman
and child in the world is turned away from their iniquities. They're
not. But those that are blessed by the Lord are, and that is
the mark of the blessing. There's another aspect of this
blessing. in this chapter. The chapter
begins with a miracle of a man that was over 40 years of age
that had been carried to the temple. He hadn't been able to
walk ever, right from his womb. Mother's womb. And then with
this miracle he is not only walking but he's leaping and he's praising
God. Something never any natural physician
today could never accomplish, something like that. Instantly. A miracle that so astounded and
brought the people together that it was the opening for the apostles
to preach that this was done in the name of Jesus Christ. In verse 6, in the name of Jesus
Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. Took him by the right hand
and immediately lifted him up. You might say, what could be
a greater miracle, a greater blessing than that? Our text. Sent him to bless you, turning
away. Don't ever think it is not a
miracle, that one that loves sin. And we do. We love it by
nature. We love it. It's in our nature,
we go after it. To have one like that, to be
turned away from it. You see a child that is bent
on a particular toy or a particular thing that's a forbidden sin,
and you try to deliver them from it, try to turn them away from
it. And the more you do, the more they scream and cry and
hold on to it. But sometimes if you give them
a counterattraction, something else, something nicer, then they'll
drop that, they'll turn away from it and go away from it.
But you see how they cling to it, and we do that, we cling
to our sins. And yet there's a contrasting
miracle here, a miracle of grace, a miracle of a sinner turned
away from his sin, greater miracle, than what was done with this
man that was once lame. Now there's a last point I mention
here, and that's the blessing of power joined to Christ's resurrection. Remember our text says, unto
you first God, having raised up his son Jesus, sent him to
bless you in turning every one of you from his iniquity. So we go back again to the joining
of the resurrection of Christ to this blessing, to this blessing
that's greater than the miracle that was wrought in the layman.
And we compare that with Paul's epistle to the Ephesians chapter
1 and verses 19 and 20. because he says here that he
wants them to understand and know the hope of his calling.
And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe
according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought
in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at
his own right hand in the heavenly places. Now it was to put all things
under his feet, gave him to be a head over all things to the
church. And the church is his body, the
fullness of him that filleth all in all. And what is set before
us here is what is wrought in a believer is the same power
that raised Christ from the dead. You must never think that what
is wrought in a believer, what is done in a sinner's heart and
life, is a small thing, it's a great thing, it's a great conquest,
it is a miracle, and it is a miracle that is the same power of God
through the Holy Spirit, through the raising up of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that works that work in a poor sinner. We need more
than just a change of mind and a few resolutions. It's vital
we have this power of God, that we pray for it, we ask for it,
we look for it, and every fall and every realization of the
sin in our members makes us more and more so. If ever my poor
soul be saved, His Christ must be the way. If ever I am delivered
from sin, from the love of it, the power of it, the condemnation
of it, must be the miracle of God's grace and mercy and power
in my soul. So may we know, dear friends,
may we know God as God of order, may we know the foundation of
the blessing, of all blessings is set before us here. and that
Jesus is sent to bless and the blessing is, as described, turning
away from sin. And there's one thing just to
leave with you. May each one of us ask, has the
Lord blessed us? Has the Lord blessed us in this
way? May the word this evening be
clarified in the heart and soul of one of His people that they
have been and are the subject of a blessing for which the Lord
has been sent for them, and they have been partakers of that blessing. May the Lord seal that word and
bear that witness to your soul. Amen.