Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 58 from your hardback, Tim Hills. Number
58, Jesus, the very thought of thee. Let's all stand together. Jesus, the very thought of thee. With sweetness fills my breast,
but sweeter far thy face to see, and in thy presence rest. Nor voice can sing, nor heart
can frame, Nor can the memory find A sweeter sound than thy
blessed name. O Savior of our kind, O hope
of every contrite heart! O joy of all the meek! To those who fall, how kind thou
art! How good to those who seek! But what to those who find all
this? Nor tongue nor pen can show the
love of Jesus what it is. None but his loved ones know. Jesus, our only joy, be thou
as thou our prize wilt be. Jesus, be thou our glory now
and through eternity. Please be seated. Good evening. Let's open our
Bibles to John chapter four. We started a couple of Wednesday
nights ago looking at our Lord's miracles. And I was preparing
to preach from this, the second miracle for tonight and found
out that Joe Terrell was in town visiting Ben and Sherry Lee. And so he was willing to come
over and preach for us tonight. So Joe is going to be bringing
the message, but I want to bring that. I want to read this account
and we'll, Lord willing, look at it next Wednesday night. John chapter four. We'll begin
reading in verse 46. So Jesus came again into Cana
of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain
nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. And when he heard
that Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee, he went unto him
and besought him that he would come down and heal his son, for
he was at the point of death. Then said Jesus unto him, except
you see signs and wonders, you will not believe. And the nobleman
said unto him, sir, come down, ere my child die. Jesus saith
unto him, go thy way, thy son liveth. And the man believed
the word that Jesus had spoken unto him and he went his way. And he was now, as he was now
going down, His servants met him and told him, saying, Thy
son liveth. Then inquired he of them the hour when he began
to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday
at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew
that it was at that same hour in which Jesus had said unto
him, Thy son liveth, and himself believed, and his whole house." The only thing this man had was
a word from God and he believed it. And that's all we really
have is God's Word. It's all we need. When the Spirit
of God is pleased to take the Word of God and apply it to the
hearts of God's people and giving them faith in the Son of God,
they believe. I pray the Lord will speak his
word to our hearts tonight. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, thank you for giving us your
word, your written word. Lord, we know from what you revealed
that Your written word is a revelation of the Lord and Savior, our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ, our living word. We ask, Lord, that
you'd be pleased tonight to give us faith and to enable us to
rest all the hope of our healing and our salvation on thy precious
word. Thank you for Joe and pray, Lord,
you'd bless him as he speaks and give us ears to hear. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. Let's stand together again. We'll
sing hymn number eight from your Spiral Gospel Hymns hymn book,
number eight. O Lord, our hearts and souls
aspire to lift up from this earthly mire. O may we think of heavenly
things, ? And know the joy thy presence brings ? Lord, let us
see the Savior's face ? And let us taste of thy sweet grace ?
May open ears thy glories hear ? And may we smell thy fragrance
near ? Be pleased to open heaven's door ? And on our heads thy blessings
pour ? All wretched, poor, and needy we Where can we go if not
to thee? Oh, may this day be blessed the
most, that Jesus Christ becomes the host to feed our souls with
living bread and with our souls in joy to wed. Please be seated. Good evening. This is the first
time I've seen your new building. This is really nice. I even like
the sound. It's present but not overbearing. So you put in a good sound system.
If you'd open your Bibles to Song of Solomon, the very first
chapter, Song of Solomon, chapter 1, We'll start at the first verse
and we'll read the first three verses. The Song of Songs, which
is Solomon's. Let him kiss me with the kisses
of his mouth, for thy love is better than wine. Because of
the savor of thy good ointments, thy name is as ointment poured
forth, therefore do the virgins love thee. Now I realize that
when folks come to a Wednesday night service, quite often they
rushed home from work, ate something in a hurry, and then got to church.
So I'm not going to weary you with tightly theologically argued
message. There's a place for those, but
I think Wednesday night is a time in the middle of the week. It's
kind of like an oasis in the midst of the desert where the
people of God can just relax for a little bit and take in
a breath, as it were, spiritually speaking. And that attitude where
that mindset that I have about such gatherings as this led me
to this scripture. And I'll be honest with you,
while I hope that it is certainly a blessing and a rest here in
the middle of the week for you all, this is the most difficult
kind of message for me to prepare for, because it doesn't follow
a logical progression. What I'm focusing on here is
that phrase, Thy name is as ointment poured forth. About a year ago,
we finished up a series in our adult Bible class on the Song
of Solomon, a beautiful book, a book that is not understood
by many, I believe. Given our particular sensibilities,
it's embarrassingly explicit in the way it describes marital
love, but the Jews weren't afraid to do that. They talked about
things more openly than we do. Nonetheless, what is set forth
in this book is nothing less than a description of the relationship
that exists between the Lord Jesus Christ and his bride, the
church. And in all of the wonderful relationship,
or all the aspects of the wonderful relationship that marriage can
be, in all those things, we find what Christ is to us and what
we are to him. This book is not a manual on
marriage, though you can learn some things from it. I mean,
anything about Christ is a good example for us, but that's not
why it was written. It's a dramatic poem or a poetic drama, however you
want to put it. In fact, I remember when I First
started teaching the series, I told the folks, I said, now
the best thing for you to do is sit down, read the whole thing
in one sitting. Now, it's not a chronological
narrative. It's like a play in several vignettes
or several scenes. But in each of these, we find
wonderful representations of the loving relationship between
Christ and his church. The primary characters are Solomon,
whose name in Hebrew is Shelomo, something more akin to that,
and then Shulamith. It's a story. Now, taking it
simply literally, it's a story of the love between an idealized
Solomon, When you read this and then you read the more historical
accounts of Solomon, you realize that they've kind of idealized
him. He wasn't nearly so good as what's
represented in this story. Now, the names of the people
involved, the two primary characters, Solomon, his name means peace. That's the primary meaning of
his name. We'll get into more details in a few minutes. But
it's stumped people, or many people, as to what the name of
the woman means. Actually, she's rarely referred
to by name. And it just says Shulamite in
our English translations. And some says, well, it means
that she came from a city of Shulam. Trouble is, there is
no city of Shulam that anybody's been able to identify. Some have
said, well, she came from Shunam. Well, then she'd have been the
Shunamite. The word is actually a feminized
form of the name Solomon. She bears his name. If not simply
a feminized form, it could even be like a pet name. You know,
when I, I don't mean the name of your pet, but the name you
give to someone whom you hold dear. Sometimes in, you know,
we, we, we call our wives, you know, sweetie, honey, whatever
like that. This could be a name like that,
but still it bears the same meaning. And this is very fitting to represent
Christ and his church. because he is the peace of the
church, and the church is a woman of
peace. There have been many wars waged
against the church, but the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
by that I mean fleshly wars, you know, wars of actual warfare,
you know, the persecutions that the church has dealt with. But
God's church has never picked up a sword to advance its cause. It has never gone out into the
world with the purpose of stirring up trouble. Now, when she goes
out with a message of peace, the world responds with war.
It wasn't because the church did anything worthy of a warlike
response. Now the names of notable men
evoke strong emotions. Just say Hitler and most people
are filled with revulsion. But maybe the name George Washington
would evoke a more positive response. The names of our children, just
to hear them. often bring joy to our hearts.
But there is no name that can match the wondrous name of Jesus. For those of us who know him,
the mere sound of his name can draw out the deepest emotions
and bring together everything good to our hearts. This name,
when spoken to our hearts by the Lord himself, can find us
in the deepest valley and make us feel as though we are walking
on the heights. He can come to us in the hour
of our greatest earthly joys, speaking his name to our hearts,
and it can make earthly joys seem like drudgery. Now understand
that when I say the sound of his name, upon a believer's ear
has that power. We understand when the Bible
talks about someone's name, it just doesn't mean what you call
them. When it says, whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord, that means whosoever shall call
upon the Lord. But a name gives significance
to a thing. Now, when I was born, I was named
Joseph. because that's my grandfather's
name, my paternal grandfather. Now, the name Joseph, it's a
Hebrew name, it has a meaning, but I wasn't given that name
because I was in any respect a match for that particular meaning. But in times past, they gave
people names that were supposed to signify what they are. Our Lord's name, when we hear
His name, we're not just hearing a string of letters or a couple
of syllables. When we hear His name, we who
know Him, when we hear His name, it brings together in all, in
our hearts, all those wonderful attributes of the person who
bears that name. All that He is and all that He
has done and all that He is still doing in our behalf. That is
all brought to mind. The woman speaking in this text
of scripture speaks for all who know the Savior. All believers
in every time, in every location, from every kind of religious
group there is that calls on the Lord in truth, we all agree on the Lord Jesus. Now various denominations of
churches present in our day and actually it's the church split
into denominations pretty early on. We disagree about what we
might call lesser matters. We may disagree on matters of
prophecy. We may disagree on how the church
ordinances are supposed to be administrated. But here's one
thing that binds every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. They
all have the same opinion of him. Paul says there's one body. He
didn't say there should be one body. He says there is one body.
There's one faith and only one. And all who have that faith in
that one Lord have the same opinion of him. His name is like ointment
or oil, perfumed oil is really what's being spoken of here. It may not be in our nature to
express this as romantically as Shulamith did, in speaking
of Solomon. You know, our personality pretty
well determines how sentimental or romantic we might be as we
express our love to those we love. My mother was the kind that,
I remember one time I came home, it had been quite a while since
I had seen her, and I got out of the car and she come running
out the door. And at their house, she comes
out the door real quick and her arms are out like this. She can't
wait to get ahold of me and give me a hug. Now, my dad loved me
every bit as much as my mother did, but dad was not a very sentimental
fellow. So we might not go around saying
to people, well, Jesus is to me like a lovely fragrance poured
out, because that's just not the way we express things. But
that attitude is in your heart if you know the Lord Jesus Christ.
If he is not wonderful to you, you don't know him. If the hearing of his name within
your heart does not bring you joy, it's because you don't know him. Of all our senses, none can bring
up memories with such power as a fragrance or smell. In 2017,
I had a series of sinus infections, and I pretty much lost my sense
of smell. Now, coming from where I live
in Northwest Iowa, where there are hundreds of thousands of
hogs, there is a certain benefit in losing your sense of smell.
But for those of you who've not experienced the loss of the sense
of smell, you'd be amazed how much you depend on it, how much
information it gives you, how it brings joy or sorrow. I remember one time I had tried
to make a living as an odd jobber doing construction. I always
underestimate the amount of time it takes for a job, so I really
wasn't making any significant money. And after one job, I decided
I'm done with this. I'm going to do something else.
I put all my tools in my garage, and I shut the door and went
off and did something else. It wasn't for several months
that I ever opened that door again. And when I did, I could
smell the sawdust and all that. And immediately, I just tensed
up. with all that stress that I had experienced while trying
to make a living making sawdust. But the flip side works as well.
I was in my senior year of college, and my car broke down one evening
after church. And I attended a church that
was about a half hour's drive away. Well, we got to drive home,
but I had to go back later in the week and find a way to get
that thing running. And while somebody there at the school
I was attending gave me a ride to the city, it was Xenia, Ohio.
But he didn't take me right to the church, so I had to walk
several blocks. And I remember as I'm walking down the road,
I smelled this just absolutely wonderful fragrance. And I even
walked around a bit, trying to find out what it was. Now this
was late in the fall. There weren't any flowers growing.
So I knew it wasn't that, but I was trying to find out. And
I couldn't figure out what it was. Years later, I smelled that
smell again. And I mean, it just brought back
that experience. And I found out what it was.
Somebody had been using one of those dryer sheets, and I passed
by their house when they had the dryer going. And that beautiful
fragrance, but it brought back all the memories. That smell
is, they say it's one of the most primitive senses. I know
that that is said within the concept of evolution, but while
we may deny the evolution, what it does tell to us is that it
is one of the most basic senses. In fact, the sense of smell bypasses
the rational part of the brain, goes directly, I spoke to the
emotional aspects, I mean, most animals have a much better sense
of smell than us. And one of the reasons is they live or die
by whether they smell a predator coming. So they don't have time
to think about smells. Smells are supposed to impact
them immediately. And that's the wonderful thing
about a book like The Song of Solomon. We read it, and we don't
read it to figure out closely argued theological points. We
read it. to experience it. You know, there
are people who go to an art museum, and they'll stand there and look
at a picture. And they'll say, oh, this brush stroke here, masterful. And the use of color. And they
can analyze that thing to death. OK, if that's what they want
to do, it's fine. You know what I do? I look at the picture.
If I don't like it, I move on. I find a picture that just, when
I look at it, It impacts me. It does something. I may not
even know why. That's what art is supposed to
do, is just impact you that way. Well, here we have this artistic
representation of Christ, and it's not for analysis. We just
behold it. Now let's note how the name of
our heavenly husband is like perfume poured out. His name. From this text, we can derive
two names for our Lord, Solomon and Jesus. You say, well, I don't
see the name Jesus in there. Well, these two names have a
lot in common, actually. Solomon, of course, we see the
Savior's name identified as Solomon, because that's the name of the
fellow in the book. So the name of Solomon was like wonderful
perfume just poured out. And it's Jesus because Solomon
is there as a picture of the Lord Jesus. Our Lord has a name. It's a good name. It's Jesus. And there's nothing wrong with
using the name. The apostles did. to those who know that name and
know what it means, what it signifies. It is a high and honorable name. These two names have much in
common. Solomon is derived from the word that means peace, basically. You know how when Jews greet
one another, Shalom. Well, that's where the name Shalomon
comes from. Peace. But it means, well, the Jewish
concept of peace means more than we normally think of when we
think of peace. We simply think of the absence
of turmoil. That's peace. But the Hebrew
concept of peace includes such things as wholeness, soundness. In fact, The word from which
Solomon's name was derived, when it is a verb, it is almost always
translated as to make restitution, to repay, to restore. So if a Jew says to you, peace, what he's desiring for you is
that everything regarding your body, soul, and your life be
in a state of perfect resolution. Now that's a whole lot more than,
you know, peace. Something from us baby boomers in the 60s and
70s. And then in the New Testament,
when we come upon the name Jesus. Of course, Jesus, by a roundabout
way, it came into English as Jesus, but it also comes into
English as the name Joshua. And it is a combination of a
shortened version of God's name. You know, his name is Yahweh,
but sometimes it's just Yah, as in the word hallelujah, which
means praise, and Yah. Praise Yah, hallelujah. Well,
you take Yah, and then you take the name Hosea, as we normally
pronounce it, which means salvation. And you cram the two together,
you get Yahashua. And later, they dropped one of
the syllables, and it just became Yahshua. In the Greek, it became
Iesu. In the English, Jesus. But here's
what it means. Jehovah saves, or Jehovah is
my salvation. And that word salvation means
more than we normally think of it. Now the most basic idea we
have when it comes to salvation is like a rescue. Somebody's
in trouble, somebody rescues them, they saved them. But in the Greek language of
the New Testament, I don't know enough Hebrew to know it about
the Old Testament, but in the Greek of the New Testament, that
word that's translated save or salvation, it not only means
to rescue, it also means to make whole, to make complete. You see how those words are joined
together? Peace, salvation. Isn't it interesting? that so
often when our Lord appeared to people, his first word was
peace, peace. And he wasn't just saying that
because he was a Jew and that's the way they greet each other.
He's saying that because with our conscience and our knowledge
of our sin, if we see God approach us, we're going to be filled
with terror. We're going to be thinking that something awful
is about to happen. And he says, peace, peace. And in saying peace, he announces
our salvation. He's not simply saying be at
peace, he's saying you are at peace. All is well with you, body, soul,
life, everything. Now the fact that the name of
our Lord is compared to oil poured out points us to not only his
name, but his title as Messiah or Christ. Messiah is the Hebrew
version, Christ is the Greek version. It means the same thing,
anointed. And when they anointed someone
to one of the offices of prophet, priest, or king, it was a fragrant oil. They didn't
just find oil and dump it on them. It meant a perfumed oil. Consequently, just, you know,
God, as he inspired the writer here, he says, your name as this
ointment or oil poured forth, he was referring to our Lord as the
Messiah in particular, the King Messiah, the Lord's anointed
one. And so when it says, your name
is as oil poured out, it points us not only Solomon, not only
Jesus, Messiah Christ. And it is our Lord Jesus in that
office as Messiah, our prophet, our priest, our King, The prophet
represents God to the people. The priest represents the people
to God. And the king rules the kingdom
for the welfare of its citizens. And that is our Lord for us.
In every aspect of this, he is peace unto us. In short, our Lord's name and
title as our Messiah King is the most wonderful fragrance
to us. And when by the Spirit of God
we are able to spiritually smell that wondrous fragrance, oh,
what peace of heart, soul, and mind floods the soul. It's not for nothing that Paul
wrote, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, Peace. Why is that? Because the ministry
of the Spirit is to take the things of Christ and show them
to us. And when He shows the things
of Christ to us, He's showing Christ to us. He's making known
His name to us. And that's that sweet smelling
fragrance to us. The smell of peace. said in John chapter 14 verse
27, peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as
the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. Seems our Lord knows us fairly
well, doesn't he? He knows that we're often troubled. We're troubled over a lot of
things. Says man is born to trouble as
the sparks fly upward. Our troubles trouble us. We're
troubled in our minds because we know God is perfectly righteous. and unapproachably holy, and
we are indescribably wicked and nauseatingly impure. And if we were to come into His
presence, it would mean the end of us. Yet through Christ, the
word of peace between God and sinners is made known. What did the angel say at his
birth? Glory be to God in the highest and on earth, peace,
peace. Unfortunately, we Americans have
to endure the next several months of a presidential campaign. The
older I get, the more nauseating that gets to me. They all get
up there and brag about what they're gonna do and they can't
do anything. And some of them will talk about peace. And they can't provide it. The
truth is, human politics is against peace. If somebody's gonna be
elected, they have to present themselves as at odds with the
other side. So they're not trying to make
peace. The world of the power struggles. And that's what our world is.
I remember one time a famous radio personality, and this was
when they were getting all ginned up for the war in Iraq. And this
guy says, beating in the heart of every man is the desire to
be free. And I bought that for a little
while until I thought about it, and then I realized, no, beating
in the heart of every person is the desire to be king. That's
what, you know, and that's why there's never any peace. Everybody
wants to be king. But the king comes. The prince of peace arrives. And there is peace. My peace I give to you, not the
peace that the world gives. You know what the peace of the
world is? You know, I remember, you know, being a baby boomer,
I was born right in the middle of that generation, 1955. So, you know, as I say, my coming
of age years were from 65 to 75, you know, from age 10 to
20. You might go around, peace. And what was funny is to see
some of those guys going peace with a very angry face. You think, that doesn't look
very much like peace to me. What peace means is, do things
my way so we can be at peace. That's the world's idea of peace. They say, we just, you know,
let's give peace a chance. Okay. But what if I want to do
something different than what you think I ought to do? You
gonna be at peace with that? No, that's not what I meant.
Oh, the Lord. Peace. Peace. Not what the world gives. He
gives, and notice that he doesn't offer, he gives peace. Now, we
may not always experience a peaceful, emotional state. That's because our emotions are
part and parcel of our flesh, and they're deeply affected by
the things that are going on. They're affected by the health
of our brains. That's just the way emotions
are. But brethren, what does it say
in Romans chapter five, verse one? Being justified by faith,
we have peace with God. Thoughts of God may trouble you
because our thoughts are a mixture of spiritual thoughts and fleshly
thoughts. But no matter how we feel, the fact is every believer has,
as an objective reality, peace with God. And brethren, if we've
got peace with God, why are we troubled about anything else? And if we don't have peace with
God, how can we find peace in anything else? I've often read of some of those
that we call them men of great faith. I guess that's a decent way to
describe them, but men who, and women as well, I guess I'm speaking
of humans, but as believers, They faced what seemed like unbearable
difficulties. How could John Bunyan sit there
in a prison for 12 years with his wife and children out there
going hungry? How could he do that and be at
peace? I don't think I'd make a very
good prisoner. I suppose if I ever got in prison
because of Christ, the Lord will provide the grace at that time
necessary to bear with that. But isn't that amazing? Paul,
in prison, knowing that shortly they were going to take his head
off. He's at peace. Well, you've got peace with God.
Isn't that a lovely fragrance? Doesn't that smell, spiritually
speaking, come into your spiritual nostrils His name is peace. Even if all the world is falling
down around me. He is peace with God. And he
is our peace with God because as the Hebrew word shalom signifies,
he's our restitution. He paid back what we owed. See,
there isn't peace between a creditor and a debtor. There may be a
cessation of hostilities as long as payments are being made, but
there isn't going to be peace until the balance sheet is at
peace. Until we have repaid, until restitution
has been made for the loss. He is our peace because he made
restitution. He paid the debt. I did a little bit of bookkeeping
in my college years for my uncle. He had a little business. And
I remember, you know, there's your zero that you might have
anywhere within a number. But if the account had absolutely
no balance to it, It was a zero and I threw it. Absolute zero. It's just not
a zero holding a place so you can put some numbers to the other
side of it, you know. It's zero and only zero. And
think of this, brethren, through the one who made restitution
for us, through the one who is our peace, our Solomon, there's
a big fat zero on our balance sheet. with a stroke through
it, paid in full. Isn't that peace? Our Lord Jesus Christ is peace
between us and others. In the book of Ephesians, Paul
addresses the issues between Jews and Gentiles, showing that
Jews and Gentiles have been made one body. Now understand this,
I know we've got some ethnic strains in our country, but nothing to compare with what
Jews thought of Gentiles and what Gentiles thought of Jews. The Jews thought so highly of
themselves, to them, Being around Gentiles was just an odious thing. When Peter said to the Jews,
you with wicked hands have slain, have crucified this man. Who do you think he was talking
about when he said with wicked hands? He didn't mean you Jews
with your wicked hands did it, because their wicked hands didn't
do it. They, in their hearts and minds,
got the ball rolling. But in referring to the Romans
who carried it out, he said, with wicked hands. And he was
speaking in the manner of Jews. So when Paul comes here in the
book of Ephesians, And he says that God has revealed to him
this mystery that the Gentiles are joint heirs with the Jews
of one body. That was about as radical a notion
as you could say to a mixed group of Jews and Gentiles. Now, how are Jews and Gentiles
going to get along? Well, what separated them? the
law, the wall of petition that God
had made. What did Jesus Christ do to that
wall? He brought it down by fulfilling
it. Now the Jews were on one side
of the wall thinking they were righteous by the law and they
were wrong. The Gentiles were on the other side of the wall,
not even consciously aware of the law. What the Jews and the Gentiles
didn't understand is that despite that middle wall of partition,
there wasn't any difference in between them. But then the wall
came down. And Paul said, listen, Gentiles,
wicked. Jews, wicked. You Jews? You know, the Jews
thought that in order to be saved, Gentiles kind of had to first
become a Jew. Men had to be circumcised, you
know, and all this kind of stuff. You know what Paul said? You
Jews, if you want to be saved, you got to become a Gentile.
He said, Peter, well, it was Peter or Paul. You know, you read the book of
Acts, and the first part of it's mostly about Peter, and afterwards
Paul, and sometimes I lose track who said what. But one of them,
and I think it was Peter, in talking to the Jews, said, not
that the Gentiles are saved like we Jews are. He said, we Jews
are saved like the Gentiles are. Every bit as much in need of
the grace of God. How is that done? Christ makes
peace between people. You know, in every church, you've
got a bunch of sinners gathering, and they got different opinions
about a lot of things. How can there be peace among
them? There's one thing they have no disagreements on, and
it's the most important thing. I've been, the pastor there at
that church in Iowa. This June, it'll be 37 years.
And we've had our bumps. And I'm not saying this to brag.
I'm just trying to make a point here. But for nearly all that
time, we have dwelt together in peace. And it's not because
I'm some kind of strong leader, because I'm not. But I have striven to do this. preach Christ all the time. And when the sheep are fed on
Christ, they are at peace. It's when all this other stuff
gets introduced that they might have different opinions about.
That's when the warfare shows up. Christ brings peace. Christ brings peace. He is our
peace in our hearts. In Colossians 3.15, Paul wrote,
and let the peace of God rule in your hearts. Well, what do
you think the peace of God is? It means the peace from God.
And what is the peace from God? Christ. By Christ, he declared
the end of his warfare against us. And the plea of the gospel,
the general exhortation of the gospel, is let's quit our warfare
against him, which is the meaning of be ye reconciled to God. In Christ, God has no cause against
me. And in Christ, I have no problem
with God. I have no problem with him being
God. I like that. I'm at peace with this, are you?
I'm at peace with this, that Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven
and earth, and he holds me and my destiny in the palm of his
hand. Are you at peace with that? You know, there's an argument
that comes up once in a while on the subject of, quote, lordship
salvation. I have, over the years, come
to just leave off using man-made terms. Because I found out when
you're talking to people about things, you might be saying the
same word, but you're not talking about the same thing. Normally
what people are talking about when they say lordship salvation
is this, that you have to have a certain level of obedient submission
to Christ before you can claim you're a Christian. In other
words, you've got to demonstrate a good enough lifestyle, or you
don't have the right to claim that you're a Christian. Well,
that's wrong on the face of it. But I'll tell you this, nobody's
ever been saved by anybody other than the Lord Jesus Christ. What did Paul say? If you confess
with your mouth Jesus to be Lord, and believe in your heart that
God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And that doesn't
mean just mouth the words Jesus is Lord. You can put them on
a big banner. You can fly them on a flag. You
can shout them from a hilltop. It means nothing unless those
words are coming directly from your heart. Jesus is Lord, and
I'm reconciled to that. I'm glad of it. Everybody's eventually
going to confess it, but not everybody that confesses is going
to like it. But I like it. I don't want to be Lord. Every
time I'm Lord, I mess things up. I don't want anybody else
to be Lord, I don't trust them. And nothing will give me greater
joy, see that this isn't true of you, than to see my Lord appear
on this earth and be vindicated. He's coming back, don't know
when, Don't know all the circumstances surrounding it, and pretty much
don't care. I just know he's coming back.
And when he does, every mouth that stood in opposition to him
is going to be shut. And we will see our Lord as we've
known he is all along. We shall see him as he is. We
know him as he is, but we don't see him as he is right now. And
I think if we did, the site would be too much for us. His name. In all the things that trouble
you, remember his name. And to the degree that we are
able to lay hold of what his name means and draw in not a
raft of theological discussions, but a wonderful aroma. And it
triggers within our spiritual being that knowledge of him. It gives us that peace that passes
understanding. And like Shulamith, who later
was challenged with a question, she was out looking for Solomon.
And the women of the city said, what is your lover better than
our lovers that we should let you or help you look for him? And she begins to describe him.
And you can just see it going on in their mind. Oh, his head
is like gold. His hair is like a raven. And
she describes, she just can't talk about him. and with words
that really could even satisfy her feelings about him. And she
gets to the end, and it's as though she can't get it all out. She just said, he's altogether
lovely. Everything about him is lovely. And when you put all the different
aspects of him together, they go together lovely. You know,
some of us might have nice isolated features, but they don't necessarily
go together all in one person. But not so with Christ. Every
detail is lovely. And all the details are assembled
into one inexpressibly lovely person. And his name is like
perfume poured out. May the Lord bless your soul. We'll close with The Church's
One Foundation, number 186 in your hardback hymnal. 186. The Church's One Foundation is Jesus
Christ, her Lord. ? She is his new creation ? By
water and the Word ? From heaven he came and sought her ? With
his own blood he bought her ? And for her life he died ? Elect from every nation ? Yet
one o'er all the earth ? Her charter of salvation ? One Lord,
one faith, one birth ? One holy name she blesses ? Partakes one
holy food And to one hope she presses with every grace endued. Mid toil and tribulation and
tumult of her war, she waits the consummation of peace forevermore. Till with a vision glorious,
her longing eyes are blessed. and the great church victorious
shall be the church at rest. ? Yet she on earth hath union
? With God the three in one ? And mystic sweet communion ? With
those whose rest is won ? O happy ones and holy ? Lord give us
grace that we Like them, the meek and lowly, on high may dwell
with thee.