Good morning. It's good to be
here. I'll try to yell as loud as I
can. My voice is leaving me again. Would you turn to the book of
Chronicles 29? 29. We're going to begin reading in verse 9 to
verse 15. In preparing this morning, I
wanted so much this week. Something we just take for granted,
I think. And I'm hoping this morning,
I really want to worship God. What we heard this morning, it
is the only gospel that saves. Everything in Christ that we
enjoy. We're gonna beg him for his Holy
Spirit, because that's the only way we're gonna do this. Well,
in this passage, it just gives a glimpse of how Israel, so glad
and willing to give everything to the building of the temple.
So let's begin at verse nine. Then the people rejoiced for
that they offered willingly, because with perfect heart they
offered willingly to the Lord. And David the king also rejoiced
with great joy. Wherefore, David blessed the
Lord before all the congregation. And David said, blessed be thou,
Lord God of Israel. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness
and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty for
all that is in the heavens and in the earth is Thine. Thine
is the kingdom. O Lord, and Thou art exalted
as head above all. Both riches and honor come of
Thee and thou reignest over all, and in thy hand is power and
might, and in thy hand it is to make great and to give strength
unto all. Now therefore, our God, how we
thank thee. Praise that glorious name. But
look at verse 14. This is grace, the hearts of
a believer. Lord, but who am I? And what
is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly after
this sort? For all things come of thee and
of thy hand have we given thee. For we are strangers before thee
and sojourners as well as our fathers, our days on the earth
are as a shadow, and there is none abiding. May the Lord bless that to our
souls, enable us to do that today by a spiritless prayer. O Lord, our God, truly how wonderful,
majestic, is thy name in all the earth. For heaven is your
throne, and down below here on earth is your footstool. Lord,
enable us to look up this morning only by your power, the sweet
Holy Spirit. Lord, we just want to heap upon
you all the adoration, and you've given us your word to do it.
Thank you, Lord, for your word. Thank you for opening it up to
us. Lord, who don't, would not see
it, would miss it, would not hear it, would care less. But Lord, you're so infinitely
gracious and merciful. You provide everything from the
next breath of our, to the next heartbeat, But most importantly,
this morning, we're trusting and vowing that we will see your
face, Lord. Bless Greg this morning, everything
you taught him this week. May it come out the way exactly
you want to hear it, not as thoughts of a man, but Lord, how you see
it, how you think it, and the good of your church. For it's
in Christ's name that I ask all these things. Amen. Number eight from our spiral
hymn book. Let's all stand together again.
Number eight. ? And souls aspire to lift up from
this earthly ire ? ? O make me 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 opened ears
thy glories hear ? And may we smell thy praise Be pleased to open heaven's door,
And on our heads thy blessings pour, Please be seated. Will you open your Bibles with
me to 1 Samuel 6. 1 Samuel 6. And if you'll bear with me for
an extended reading, I would like to read this story beginning
at verse 1 and down through verse 16. And the ark of the Lord was in
the country of the Philistines seven months. And the Philistines
called for the priest and the diviner saying, what shall we
do to the Ark of the Lord? Tell us wherewith we shall send
it to his place. And they said, if you send away
the Ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty, but in any
wise return him a trespass offering Then you shall be healed, and
it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from
you. Then said they, what shall be
the trespass offering which we shall return unto him? And they
answered, five golden emeralds and five golden mice, according
to the number of the lords of the Philistines, for one plague
was on you all and on your lords. Wherefore, you shall I make images
of your emeralds and images of your mice that mar the land,
and you shall give glory unto the God of Israel. Peradventure,
he will lighten his hand from off of you and from off your
gods and from off your land. Wherefore then do you harden
your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaohs hardened their hearts?
When he had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let
the people go and they departed? Now therefore, make a new cart
and two milk cows on which there has never come a yoke and tie
the cows to the cart and bring their calves home from them and
take the ark of the Lord and lay it upon the cart and put
the jewels of gold which you returned him for a trespass offering
in a coffer by the side thereof and send it away that it may
go. and see if he goeth up by the
way of his own coast to Beth Shemesh, then you shall know,
or then he hath done us this great evil.
But if not, we shall know that it is not his hand that smote
us, it was a chance that happened to us. And the men did so. They took two milk cows and tied
them to the cart and shut up their calves at home. And they
laid the ark of the Lord upon the cart and the coffers with
the mice of gold and the images of the emeralds. And the kine,
or the cows, took the straight way to the way of Beth Shemesh
and went along the highway, lowing as they went and turning not
a side to the right or to the left and the lords of the Philistines
went after them unto the border of Beth Shemesh. And they of Beth Shemesh were
reaping their wheat harvest in the valley. And they lifted up
their eyes and they saw the ark and they rejoiced to see it. And the ark came unto the field
of Joshua of Beth Shemite and stood there And there was a great
stone. And they claved the wood of the
cart and offered the cows a burnt offering unto the Lord. And the
Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the coffer that
was with it, wherein the jewels of gold were, and put them on
the great stone. And the men of Beth Shemesh offered
burnt offerings and sacrifices the same day unto the Lord. And when the five lords of the
Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day. I've titled this message, Christ. Who is he to me? The Lord said, He that is not
with me is against me. Some believed, some believed
not. All men either love Christ or
they hate him. Some might ask, what does that
look like? I hope by the end of this message
that that answer, that that question will be answered. And that everything
we see in this story contrasting the way in which the Philistines
treated the ark and the way in which the men of Beth Shemesh
treated the ark, will help each of us to identify ourselves with
one group or the other. The Lord Jesus is a saver of
life unto some, and he is a saver of death unto others. Let me show you that passage.
Turn with me to 2 Corinthians 2. 2 Corinthians 2. Verse 15. For we are unto God
a sweet saver of Christ in them that are saved. And in them that
perish, the one we are the saver of death unto death and the other,
the saver of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these
things? I believe we can see in this
story that the Lord has given us The difference that there
is between those who rejoice in Christ and those who understand
the need for a blood sacrifice for the cleansing of their sin,
those who love the gospel, those to whom the Lord Jesus Christ
is a saver of life, as he was to the men of Bethshemesh and
those who have some knowledge of the God of Israel but are
anxious to get the ark out of their country. In chapter 5, the Philistines had taken the Ark
in a battle from the Israelites and you remember from what we
looked at last Sunday, they took this Ark and brought it to the
Temple of Dagon and they put it in their temple and their
idol kept falling over in front of the Ark of the Covenant. No
question about how we see this ark and how the believers in
Beth Shemesh saw this ark. It is the presence of God. It
is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the ark of the
covenant. He is the mercy seat. He is the
one that God said of him, here, here I will meet with you. And
so The Philistines began to suffer the hand of God's wrath as a
result of them having the Ark of the Covenant. And God afflicted
them and brought great trouble to
their land. And in chapter 5, they kept moving
the Ark around from town to town. trying to fix the problem. Well,
what do we do with the ark? Well, let's send it over here.
Let's send it over there. And everywhere they sent the
ark, the plague broke out and the wrath of God came upon them
until they finally said, we've got to get rid of this thing.
We thought that this ark was going to be a blessing to us. but instead of it being a blessing,
it has turned out to be a curse. And so they consulted their priest
and their diviners and said, what do we do with the ark? And
their priest and diviner said, send it back, but don't send
it back without a trespass offering. Now, these priests and diviners
knew something about the God of Israel. The Philistines are
living in the land of Israel. and they had been exposed to
some knowledge of what the God of Israel required. He required
a trespass offering from Leviticus chapter 5. The problem is that
they thought that they could send the works of their hands. They thought they could send
a trespass offering that was made of gold and fashioned into
an idol of an emirate and a mouse and that that would somehow satisfy
the God of Israel. They wanted him to be gone. All their attempts to try to
get a blessing from this from this ark had failed. Reminds
me of Acts chapter 17 when the Apostle Paul went to Athens and
he preached the gospel to those philosophers on Mars Hill. And
the scripture says this, all the Athenians spent their time
either to tell or to hear something new. These Philistines in moving the
ark around were trying to figure out a way to get this ark to
bless them. And instead of a blessing came
a curse. And so they're ready to get rid
of it. They're ready for some relief
from their troubles. Notice in verse five, wherefore
you shall make images of your emerods and of the images of
the mice that mar the land and you shall give glory unto the
God of Israel. Per adventure, he will lighten
his hand from off of you and from off of your gods and from
off of your land. They just wanted some relief
from the trouble that they had brought on themselves. Scripture says, they that are
after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. And the point that I'm trying
to make here is that these Philistines represent what the natural man
The man who doesn't know God, the man who hates God, does with
God. He uses him to try to make his
life in this world better, to try to improve his circumstances. Maybe if you send him away that
he'll take his hand off of you and things will get better for
you. You know how much we see this
in religion today. Men's only interest in God is
what he can do for them in this world. How he might be able to make
their lives here a little easier. no real concern for the lost
condition of their soul, no real concern for the forgiveness of
their sin, no real concern for eternal life. They just keep
moving the ark around or they keep listening for something
new or telling something new like these Athenian philosophers
hoping to find something that will make their existence here
in this life a little better. Seven months of trouble they
had had. The false gospel says peace,
peace when there is no peace. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I
did not come to bring peace but a sword. Men are not interested in peace
with God. They're interested in having peace with man or having
peace in their circumstances or having peace in their lives. But to have peace with God is
of no real interest to those who hate Christ, those who don't
have a need for Christ. pick up the mantle of religion
and try it out for a while, but if it doesn't give them what
they're looking for, they will soon drop it and move on to something
else. They quickly become disappointed,
disenchanted, disillusioned with what they thought God was going
to give them. They're like the men of of the
Gadarenes. You remember when the Lord crossed
over the Sea of Galilee and met with that man, the demoniac,
that was in the cemetery. He was in a graveyard and they
had chained him. He was cutting himself with stones
and he was possessed with a legion of demons. The Lord delivered
him from those demons and cast the demons into a herd of swine.
The herd of swine ran off the cliff into the sea And the men
of the Gadarenes came and saw what had happened and they pleaded
with the Lord to leave their coast. Leave us. You've cost us too much. This is not what we bargained
for. You see, that's the point of
those who don't love Christ. They will use him and the things
of God and the things of religion to their benefit in helping them
to be delivered from their temporal troubles. They will mind the
things of the flesh because they're after the flesh. But they have no need. for the
salvation of their souls. They have no need to know God
and to bow to Christ and to act as these men in Beth Shemesh
did when they looked up and they saw the ark and they rejoiced.
And the first thing they did was they killed the cows and
they shed blood and they made a burnt offering. That was what
God required in Leviticus 5 for a trespass offering. What these
priests and diviners had told them about a trespass offering,
yes, the God of Israel requires a trespass offering, but Images
of emeralds, tumors and mice made of gold that somehow going
to satisfy him? No, no. Second thing we see about those
who don't love Christ is that they value the opinions of men
over the word of God. They will listen to false prophets,
they will listen to their own opinions, they will listen to
their own thoughts and ideas as the standard of what's right
and what's wrong and they will ultimately call that which is
evil good and that which is good evil. They will follow the values
and the philosophy of the world rather than looking to the Word
of God. These Philistines, as I said,
had some understanding of God's Word. They knew that he required
a trespass offering. They knew that he was the God
who had defeated the Egyptians. They knew something about what
he had done in delivering the children of Israel out of Egypt. And they told him that when they
brought the priests and the diviners before them. But they twisted the scriptures. They rested the scriptures to
their own destruction. They sought counsel from religious
experts and self-appointed priests and false prophets. They bowed
to the values of this world over the word of God. They looked
to the opinions of... I can't tell you how many times
I get in conversation with someone and they want to talk about what
some dead theologian had to say about a particular matter. And, you know, I don't read Puritans
and I don't recommend that you do either. They will put you under the law
quicker than anything. And what I think, you know, they
were prolific writers and someone's always wanting to bring up the
opinion of a Puritan as the standard of truth. You know, the Puritans existed
not long after Gutenberg had invented the printing press. And the writing of books was
very vogue during the 16th century. I mean, that was a big thing.
You know, we're going to, and the producing, and what they
did was generation after generation, they kept writing these volumes
of books and they kept repeating the error of the previous generation.
And God says this, he says, of the writing of books there is
no end and much study wearies the soul. The more the Lord teaches me of himself,
the more I see the need to just compare scripture to scripture,
the spiritual to the spiritual. God's word defends itself. And God's Word's the only thing
that He's promised to bless. I had a man call me from Melbourne
recently. His pastor died. He's the elder
of the church. And he's been listening to our
messages. He wants me to come down and preach for him. And
he asked me about other preachers that they could get to come.
And he thinks that his church has been in error, but they have
been. I looked at their website. It's
awful. And the last thing he asked me, he said, do you have
any books you recommend that I read? I said, yeah, the Bible. Just read the Bible. Just read
God's Word. There's nothing else you can
really trust completely. Those who have no real love for
Christ will value the opinions of men over the Word of God. Someone asked me, what do you
believe about such and such? Whatever God says is what I believe. Whatever the subject is, whatever
God says is what I believe. It's just that simple. What sayeth
the scriptures? Period. End of conversation.
End of story. Oh, we live in, you know, the
relativism that exists in our culture today is not new. It's
always been. Men have always been this way.
Consult the priest and the diviners. Consult the opinions of men.
Go to the philosophers. See what they have to say. No! Just believe God. It's the only
safe place to be. It's the only truth. Men don't know what they're talking
about. That's what Pilate, when the
Lord Jesus said to Pilate, for this cause came I into the world
and for this reason was I born to bear witness unto the truth
and they that are of the truth hear my voice because I am the
truth and they follow me. And you remember what Pilate
said? Truth? Is that what this is all about?
You turn the whole city upside down over something that doesn't
even exist? Don't you know that there are
no absolute truths? Don't you know that everything's
relative? Don't you know that each man has his own truth? The world's always been there,
and that's the world that we live in. And that's the culture
we live in. And then they who are of the
Philistines who want to get the ark out of their land because
he hasn't given them the blessing that they were hoping for. And
child of God, might I say this, you believe on Christ. He promises
you no bed of roses. He promises you no life of ease
in this world. He promises you. the forgiveness
of your sin. He promises you eternal life.
He promises you salvation. But men want to use God. Just
ring the bell, get God to come and help me out. Make my life
a little better. And all these plagues that he's
sending in my life, let's get him out of here. Let's get rid
of him. He's not what we expected. I did not come to bring peace,
I came to bring a sword. To divide families? Families are divided over the
gospel. Men who don't love Christ, men
who hate Christ, men who have not gathered with him, value
peace with men, they value the opinions of men, they value their
own ideas more than God's. Those who love Christ. know that
man at his very best state is altogether vanity. They know
that their heart is deceitful and wicked and that they can't
know it and that they can't trust it. And they know and that they
believe that the only hope they have is to hang all the hopes
of their life, temporal and eternal, on the glorious nail that's fashioned
in a sure place The Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, there's the difference. There's the difference. Men will call good evil. We see that in the values and
morals of our society and that's nothing new but we see it mostly
in what men have to say about the gospel. when they hear the
gospel. They believe that what we believe
is wrong. They believe that who we believe
doesn't exist. They will call our gospel evil
and their gospel good. Oh, young people, the word of God
is timeless. It is timeless. The Word of God
is relevant to every culture and every generation. God has
not changed. He hasn't changed. He hasn't
changed His mind on sin. He hasn't changed His mind on
that which is good and that which is evil, that which is right
and that which is wrong, that which is true and that which
is error, that which is holy and that which is profane. God
hasn't changed His mind. We have His Word. What else do we need? Men talk about making the gospel
relevant. Oh, it is relevant. Just preach
the word. It speaks to everything. God
speaks to every need, every issue, every problem, every fear, every
doubt, every hope. God speaks to it. We give so much of our attention.
Notice in contrast to the Philistines where the men of Beth Shemesh
were. Look at verse 13. And they of
Beth Shemesh. Now you know Beth in Hebrew is
house, and this is the house of the son. So the men of Beth
Shemesh would rather be doorkeepers in the house of the Lord rather
than the suffer with the evil. They live, you know, Psalm 19
speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ as the sun that rises in the
East and sets in the West. And that's where these men lived.
They lived in Christ. They lived in the light of the
gospel. They lived in the glorious revelation
of who God is and who we are and how it is that God saves
sinners. They walked in the light. They
had fellowship with God. That's where they lived. They
lived in Beth Shemesh. And what were they doing? What
were they doing in Beth Shemesh? Look at verse 13. When the ark
came, they were reaping their wheat harvest. They were doing what you're doing
right now. In the breaking of bread their
eyes were opened. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
manna that came down from heaven. He is the bread of life that
feeds our souls. So these men who loved Christ
were living in the light of the gospel, they were living in the
light of Christ and they were living off of the very bread
that they were harvesting. The Philistines, on the other
hand, They had enough understanding
to know that there was a God who needed to be, he needed to be satisfied. They
had a sin problem with this God. And they needed to be redeemed
from that. There needed to be an atonement
made. There needed to be a trespass offering given. But they didn't make a blood
sacrifice. They made a monetary gift. They fashioned an idol and they
thought that somehow would satisfy him. And it was made of gold. Oh, Isaiah said in Isaiah chapter
55, why do you spend money for that? Which, turn with me to
that passage, Isaiah 55. Oh, oh, everyone that thirsteth. The Philistines weren't thirsty. They had the ark for seven months. Seven is the number of completion. It is the number of perfection
in the Bible. Seven months they had this ark
and they were completely done with it. They were ready to be
rid of it. They weren't thirsty. As I've
already said several times, they thought the ark was going to
somehow add to the blessings that they were already getting
from Dagon, their other idol. And they were so disappointed
that it didn't turn out that way. But the children of Israel,
seven months was an eternity for them. They had been without
the presence of God for seven months. And they're in Beth Shemesh and
they're reaping their wheat and they're looking down, picking
up the sheaves and gathering the harvest. And they hear this cart and these
cows bring in this cart and they look up. Oh, what did the Bible
say? They rejoiced. Oh, this is what
we've been thirsting for. This is what we need. We need
God. Oh, everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters. And ye that have no money, come
ye buy and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk without
money and without price. That word price means to barter. Oftentimes we find ourselves
trying to barter with God. That's what the Philistines were
doing. They were bartering with God. You know, do this and maybe
the curse will go away. Maybe somehow these gifts that
you're sending are going to be a satisfactory trespass offering
to meet the needs of this God for your sin. Wherefore do you spend money
for that which is not bread? and you labor for that which
satisfieth not, hearken diligently unto me. All you that are labored and
heavy laden, come unto me. Learn of me. My yoke is easy,
my burden is light. Learn of me. Learn who I am. That's who these, that's the
difference. You see the clear contrast between
the way the Philistines treated Christ and the way the men of
Beth Shemesh needed Christ. The Lord said, if you're not
gathered with me, you've scattered abroad. He is not for me, he's
against me. Let your soul, let your soul
delight itself in fatness. The Lord doesn't promise to increase
our wealth and our health. He doesn't promise to do that. He may take them both away. But he does promise to feed our
soul. And those who love Christ have a greater need than wealth
and health. They have a need in their heart
that God has given them. They have a need to know God
and to have their sins forgiven and to be made right with God
and to have the hope of eternal life and to be made like him,
to have their sins atoned for, to have that God satisfied. And they know that no fashioning
of idols is going to do it. Incline your ear. You say, well,
how do I eat the bread of life? You eat through your ear. That's
how you eat. Spiritually speaking, faith comes
by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God. and of his
own will begat he us with the word of truth." Truth. You see, those who love God and
those who love Christ, they love the truth. I just want to know
what God says. I want to know what the truth
is. I don't care what the world says.
I don't care what religion says. I don't care what my opinions
are. What does God say? That's how you know whether you
love Christ or whether you hate him. Because if you put his word
below your own opinion, you put his word below the opinions of
men, you put his word below the religions of the world, what are you saying to him? Is that not hatred for God? The idols they sent represented
the problems that they had. And nobody knows exactly what
emeralds were, there's some speculation, but there was some kind of tumor.
And they made these tumors out of gold, and then they knew that
there was a plague that was being carried by rats, and so they
made idols that looked fashioned like rats, and they thought that
somehow You know what men do when they try to atone for their
own sins? They make their atonement the
sacrifice of their sin. They fashion an idol that looks
like their sin. Let me tell you how that works. We find ourselves in a self-destructive
pattern of life. and living a godless life and
living a very fleshly life and so we think
that somehow we're going to atone for this by stopping the things
that we're doing. Now there's nothing wrong with
stopping bad behavior. Shouldn't have been doing it
to begin with. We should not do the things we ought not to
be doing. But making that a sacrifice to
God for the atonement of your sin? Well, I don't do this and
that anymore, and I'm doing this and that now. What you're doing
is you're offering golden emeralds and golden mice to God for your
trespass offering, thinking that somehow now that I've turned
over a new leaf, I've changed my life, I'm living a better
life now, I'm being more conscious of doing what's right, and somehow
that's going to atone. It won't atone for it. Yeah, I pray the Lord will cause
all of us to not to do the things we ought not to be doing. But
don't think for a moment that that's going to atone for your
sins. There's only one atoning sacrifice. The blood and the merit of the
Lord Jesus Christ. His blood alone will cover our
sins. When the men of Bethshemesh who
were reaping their harvest, when they saw these cows, Pulling
this cart, the first thing they knew before they ever took that
idol off, and they couldn't touch the idol, they couldn't touch
the ark, they had to call in the Levites. The Levites were
the only ones that were able to handle the ark. But they knew
that a blood sacrifice, they took those cows, they took the
yoke, they made a fire out of the wood, they took the cows,
they slew them, they shed blood. This is the only thing that God's
going to be atoned with. And it's the only thing that
God's still atoned with. The Lamb of God. The spotless
Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world. Oh, child of God, don't spend
money for that which satisfieth not. Incline thine ear and hear. here. And as far as I can tell, every religion of the world mixes
law and grace. And a mixture of law and grace
is law. You add works to the grace of
God And you have a works gospel. If it is of grace, it can no
longer be of works. Otherwise, grace is not grace.
It's either pure grace, it's sovereign grace, it's accomplished
salvation in the glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ who
got the victory all by himself without anything taken from him
and without anything added to him. It is all of grace. or you're saved by works. But
all the religions of the world, you'd hear them talk about, the
Muslims talk about grace, the Jews talk about grace, the Catholics
talk about grace, everybody talks about grace. They all talk about a gracious
God and the need for grace. And then they turn right around
and add man's works to the grace of God. And the, The supposed Christians do the
same. They say, oh, you're not saved
by works, you're saved by grace. But then you have to, you know,
you have to do something in order to make that grace work for you. You have to accept him, you have
to pray a prayer, you have to prove that you, you know. So
where are you getting this point from, preacher? The number five
in the Bible is the number for grace. Every number has a meaning.
And the number five is the number for grace. They fashioned five emeralds
and five mice with their hands into images of gold thinking
that that was somehow going to be a satisfactory trespass offering
to satisfy the demands of Israel's God's justice. They also believed in chance. They didn't believe that there
was a God in heaven. Did you notice these cows, it's
against their nature to be put in a yoke. A cow is not an ox. A cow doesn't pull a yoke. And these cows in particular
were non-accustomed to the yoke. And they were milk cows and they
had calves that they were caring for. And the priest said, separate
the calves from them and lock up the calves and see if the
cows will take the ark back to Beth Shemesh. And if they do,
then you know that it was God. And if they don't, you know that
all of this has just happened by chance. So we're going to look for a
sign. We're going to look for a sign.
You see, men who don't love Christ and don't know God, they believe
things are happening in this world by chance. And they're
always looking for a sign. They're always looking for something
to prove God by. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
a wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. No sign
will be given unto it except for the sign of Jonah, who spent
three days and three nights in the belly of the whale. The resurrection
is the sign that God has given to his people. Child of God,
how often we fall into the temptation of putting God to the test. Let's put out a fleece like Gideon
did. Let me remind you that that fleece
came from a lamb. You remember Gideon didn't believe
God and he said Lord I need a sign and he put out a fleece and the
first night he said Lord wet the fleece with dew but make
the ground around the fleece dry. And Gideon got up the next
morning, he took that fleece, and it was so wet he wrung bowls
of water out of it, and he put it back out, and he still didn't
believe God. He said, Lord, he said, tonight, when the dew falls,
make the fleece dry and the ground wet, and then I'll know that
this is of you. That's Gideon's fleece. And sure
enough, the next morning, Gideon goes out, and the fleece is dry,
and the ground all around it is soaking wet. A child of God, don't put out
a fleece. The fleece has already been put
out. And the Lord Jesus Christ, who had the full power of the
Spirit of God in him, the water of life, emptied himself on Calvary's
cross. and his tongue claved to his
mouth and he was dried and forsaken of his father in order that the
water of his spirit might go out from him to his people all
around him. He suffered the fiery wrath of
God's justice and became dry that we might drink of that water
of life freely. The fleece has already been put
out. The fleece is Christ, it's the gospel. It's the accomplished
work of his redemption on Calvary's cross. These men of Beth Shemesh,
they had some understanding of that. But the Philistines, child of God, you know, that
your God is in the heavens and he hath done whatsoever he hath
willed and that he is sovereignly working together all things together
for your good and for his glory. You know that. You know that
there's not a single thing happening in this world or in your life
that he's not Controlling, purposing, ordaining, has evil come to the
city and the Lord has not caused it? He's the first cause of all
things. He reigns sovereign over all
the armies of heaven and all the inhabitants of the earth
and no man can stay his hand or say to him, what doest thou?
Nothing happens by chance. These Philistines who hated God,
who hated the ark, who hated Christ, who wanted to get rid
of it, They thought, well, let's see if it'll just go by chance.
If it doesn't go, if God doesn't perform a miracle, and it was
a miracle for those cows to take that ark back to, I mean, they
load all the way, why? Because they heard their calves
pinned up in the stall. It wasn't in their nature to
leave their calves behind. No one was whipping those cows.
God was directing them to bring the ark to the children of Israel. No. Nature does not have a mother.
There is no such thing as chance. There's no such thing as luck. Our God reigns. And when all
the fears and all the prayers and all the worry and all the
sleepless hours are said and done, the child of God can rest
their head in knowing that our God is in control of all things. He's absolutely sovereign. He's not threatened by the unbelief
of any man. They lifted up their eyes. They
saw the ark coming. They rejoiced. They rejoiced. They made a blood sacrifice.
The ark is back. The Lord has given us in this
story a picture. Those who whose interest in God
is just for their own self-profit in this world. And when he doesn't
give them what they want, they soon rid themselves of him. And the Israelite who's reaping the harvest in
Beth Shemesh and looks up and sees the ark coming and rejoices. Our heavenly Father, thank you
for your word. Pray, Lord, that we would be
brought by your spirit to love Christ and to rejoice in him. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen. Number 58, let's stand together. There's a word at the very end
of the second verse here that's always bothered me. It's not
scripture.