on the back of your bulletin.
So that's a little unusual, but let's all stand together and
we'll sing the hymn that's on the back of your bulletin. Our sovereign God maintains His
universal throne. In heaven and earth and hell
He reigns and makes His wonders known. His counsels and decrees
firmer than mountains stand. He will perform whate'er he please,
and none can stay his hand. ? All things his will controls
? And his own wise decree ? Has fixed the destinies of all ?
In matchless sovereignty ? Jacob by grace he saves And gives no
reason why. But he saw'st heart he left,
he prayed, And who shall dare reply? What if the potter takes
Part of a lump of clay, And for himself a vessel makes, And casts
the rest away? Who shall resist His will? Or say, what doest thou? Jehovah is the Sovereign still,
And all to Him must bow. My soul bow and adore the Lord
in all His ways. His sovereignty none can explore,
but I will trust His grace. For of Him and through Him and
to Him are all things. ? To whom be glory evermore ?
Amen, amen, amen Please be seated. Good morning. Our God is the
potter and we are the clay. And he has the sovereign right
to make out of the same lump of clay some vessels of honor
and some of dishonor. No man can stay his hand. No
man can say unto him, what doest thou? He hath done whatsoever
he wills. Oh, what hope, what comfort,
what grace. We can rest in a God who is absolutely
sovereign. He's not looking to us to contribute
anything to our salvation. He's done it all. putting away
the sins of his people by the sacrifice of himself once and
for all. We've come to worship our sovereign
God this morning. Truth is, only a God that's sovereign
will be worshiped. A God who is needing us for something
is no God at all. Men pretend to worship. when really they're just putting
themselves on the throne of God. What a blessing it is to be able
to bow and to be able to believe that our God is God. That's a
good hymn. I don't know who wrote that hymn,
but I like the words of it. Thank you, Tom. Tom is having
a heart catheter this Tuesday. And they're going to evaluate
the condition of one of his heart valves for a potential valve
replacement. So I want us to pray for Tom. And you remember, as the Lord
enables you to pray for him this week. Also, our son-in-law, John,
took Jennifer to the hospital this morning. They're on their
way there now, I think. She's been in a tremendous amount
of pain the last four days. with her back, and so I want
us to pray for Jennifer as well. Let's pray together. Our merciful, gracious, and sovereign
Heavenly Father, we come before thy throne of grace looking in
faith to thy dear son, the Lord Jesus Christ, for all our acceptance,
all our righteousness, all our justification before thee. Lord,
what great hope we have in knowing that, that as we come in his
name, that we have acceptance. We have your heart and your ear
Lord, the power of your hand and how dependent we are this
hour that you'd be pleased to open what no man can shut. Lord,
open our hearts, speak to us and reveal to us the glory of
Christ and enable us to enter into true worship, worship that's
done in the power of your spirit and according to the truth of
your word. Lord, we pray for Tom. Thank you for him. Pray that
you would. Comfort his spiritual heart and
and draw near to him and encourage him Lord as he waits on you for
his physical needs. Pray for the doctors that will
be ministering to him and know Lord that they are. but instruments
of healing, that you're the great physician. We pray that you would
be merciful and that your hand of strength and healing would
be upon him. We pray the same thing for Jennifer.
Ask the Lord that you would give her comfort and grace in Christ
and in her physical body. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. Will you open your Bibles with
me to Malachi chapter three, please. Malachi chapter three. I want to speak to you this morning
about the urgency of the gospel and about the certainty of the
gospel. The urgency of it and the certainty
of it. Notice in verse 1 of Malachi
chapter 3 we have that often repeated word in the scriptures,
behold. Behold. How many times we read
that word. Translated it means look, see,
give me your undivided attention. Be discerning about what it is
I'm about to tell you. Understand the truth of this.
This is an urgent message. How oftentimes we are like a
child who's playing with his toys and unable to hear the voice
of his father until the Lord gets down on his knee comes to
our level, puts our face in his loving hands, gives us the tender
look of those compassionate eyes and that affectionate voice,
and he speaks to us and he says, behold, look, what you're doing
is not important. You know, we have something important
to say to our children, ain't that the way we have to do it
sometimes? They get so consumed with playing with their toys
that they become oblivious to the important voice of their
loving, caring, providing parent until we have to go to that extreme. That's what God does for every
one of us. We're just like that little child,
aren't we? Playing with our toys. And the Lord says, that's not
important. This is what's important. Behold,
we read this word over and over and over in the scriptures. John,
who's being prophesied of here in Malachi chapter three, John
the Baptist is the one who, when the Lord showed up at the Jordan
River, Looked and said, Oh, behold, look everything else is second. Look, look, behold the lamb of
God, which take it the way the sins of the world. I must decrease. He must increase. Look to him. And then when the Lord came and
said, baptize me and did what John say, Oh Lord, I'm not worthy.
I'm not worthy to take the role of the lowest servant in the
household. See, in that culture, the lowest
servant would sit at the front door with a basin of water and
a towel. And as guests came in, or as the members of the household
came in, that servant's responsibility was to take the shoes off of
the person coming in and wash their feet. And John said, I'm
not worthy to unlatch his sandals. I'm just not worthy. He's the
Lamb of God. He's the only one that can take
away the sins of the world. And then when the apostle John
is writing to us in the book of Revelation, he says, repeating
what the Lord told him, behold, behold, I come quickly. Hold fast that which you have. Oh, if we just knew how urgent
the situation was. If we knew how brief this life
really is, if we knew how good and merciful our heavenly father
really is, if we knew how sufficient the Lord Jesus Christ is for
our every need, for our every need, if we knew how weak and
sinful we are, we lose sight of those things while we're playing
with our toys, don't we? And the Lord says, behold, behold,
this is what's important. John said in Revelation, he said,
I saw heaven open and behold, a white horse. And he that rode
upon it was called faithful and true. There's nothing faithful
in this world. There's nothing true. The Lord
Jesus Christ is the faithful one. He's the one who's true. And the Lord is using this word
behold to show us the urgency of our situation. The urgency
of our need. Behold. He smote the rock and waters
gushed out. Now that's in reference to what
Moses did in the wilderness when the people were dying of thirst,
but you know the symbolism of that, don't you? That rock, the
scriptures make it clear, was Christ. And that rod was the
rod of God's law, who smote the rock. And what happened when
the law of God smote the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross?
That's exactly what happened on Calvary's cross. The sword
of God's wrath and God's justice saw the sins of God's people
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and he sheathed that sword into the
heart of his own son. It pleased God to bruise him. He had no choice. And that's the smiting of the
rock. And what happened? Waters gushed
out. If any man thirst, let him come
unto me. And out of his belly shall flow
rivers of living water. I'm the water of life. How, how
necessary is water for life in this world? It's essential, isn't
it? It's essential. And the Lord
Jesus Christ makes it clear. Behold, behold, I am the water
of life. I'm the one that you need. I'm
the one that provides all your righteousness before God. I'm
the only one that can be sufficiently smitten by the rod of God's justice
and put away in the sight of God Almighty. Nothing you and
I can do to put away our sins. What are we going to do to make
up for our sins? What are we going to do to satisfy the demands
of God's holy justice? That's why the rod smote the
rock. And that's why Moses, as a picture
of the law, was not able to go into the wilderness. Why? Because
after Moses smote the rock one time, from then on, he was to
speak to the rock, which is a picture of us calling out in prayer for
God to supply us with the hope of our salvation and the water
of life. And what'd Moses do? He got angry and smote the rock
again. You see, the rock can only be smitten once. It can
only be smitten once. Once that rod of God's justice
smote the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross, the law was
satisfied. The law was silenced. God's justice was met. The Lord
Jesus Christ said, it is finished. Everything necessary to satisfy
the demands of God's holy law has been fulfilled sufficiently
in the sacrifice that I've made of myself. Righteousness is established. Don't smite the rock again. Don't
go back to the law. Stand fast in the liberty with
which Christ has made you free and be not entangled again with
the yoke of bondage. Don't go back to the law thinking
there's something you can do to add to what Christ has done
or something you can do to make what the Lord Jesus Christ did
work for you. That's just the law. That's all that is. Look in faith
to Christ. That's what the Lord is saying. Behold, this is of utmost importance. Look, go back with me to Malachi
chapter 3. Behold, I will send my messenger. Now he's speaking of John. John is prophesied three times
in the Old Testament. He's prophesied here, he's prophesied
in the last verse of Malachi chapter three, and he's prophesied
in Isaiah chapter 40. And the only New Testament character,
the only person in the New Testament that's spoken of in the Old Testament
other than the Lord Jesus Christ, and what did the Lord say? No
man born among women is greater than John. Nevertheless, nevertheless,
he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. Now, when the scripture speaks
of being least in the kingdom of God, who do you think that's?
Who's greater than John the Baptist? John said he must increase, I
must decrease, and the last shall be first. And the Lord Jesus
Christ took that role as a servant. That's what he did when he washed
the feet of his disciples, didn't he? He took the role of a servant. He became least. He thought it
not Robert would be equal with God, but he made of himself no
reputation and taking on the form of a man, he became obedient
to God, even obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
And so here, John is being spoken of as the messenger, the forerunner. But, but, but the one he's given
the message of is the messenger of the covenant. Look at, look
at chapter, look at verse one. Um. I will send my messenger and
he shall prepare the way before me and the Lord whom ye seek
shall suddenly come to his temple even the messenger of the covenant
whom you delight in below behold he shall come sayeth the Lord
of hosts but who may be able to stand who may be able in the
day of his covenant and who shall stand when he appeareth now that's
the urgency that's the urgency to be able to stand in the presence
of the Holy God when suddenly, suddenly he comes. Who's going
to be able to stand? If the Lord should mark iniquity,
if the Lord should take notice of one infraction to his law,
One errant thought, if the Lord should take notice of that, we'd
go to hell for it. If the Lord, as I said a couple
of weeks ago, if the Lord judged us for what we're doing right
now, we'd go to hell for going to church. That's right. You heard me right. We'd go to
hell for it. There's enough sin in what we're
doing right now to send us to hell. You believe that? That's why
we need the sinless one as our advocate. There's no righteousness
outside of Christ. We need the Lord Jesus Christ
to stand in our stead and present himself on our behalf. We need
him to bear the iniquity of our holy things. We can't stand in the presence
of God, not outside of him. Oh, but in Him, in Him as He
is, so are we right now in this world and so shall we be forever.
He's the one who makes us accepted. We're accepted before God in
the Beloved, not having our own righteousness, which is of the
law. That's what religion is all about, isn't it? Man going
about trying to establish his own righteousness. Why would
man do that? Because he's ignorant of the
righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believe it. There's only
one righteousness. There's only one that's righteous. This is the urgency of the message. being prepared to stand in the
presence of God at his appearing. And his appearing will be sooner
and much more sudden than any of us think it'll be. Like a thief in the night, when
men least expect him, when they shall say, peace and safety,
Sudden destruction shall come upon them as travail upon a woman
with child." That's the urgency. That's the message. He's pointing
to the messenger of the covenant. What covenant is he talking about?
Covenant is a promise. And all man-made religion is
based on us making promises to God. That's what it's based on. How many promises have you made
to God and kept them? If the hope of my salvation is
based on any promise that I've ever made to God, I'm going to
hell. There's no hope in that. There's
no, that's why I've said, and you've heard it said, honest
people don't go to hell because honest people know. that their
promises are insufficient. They've not really kept them.
Not with all their heart and all their mind and all their
soul. All the time. There's the one,
the only one that ever did that. The only one that ever did that.
We looked this past Wednesday night at that passage of scripture
where the lawyer tempting the Lord. And here's a here's a man
of the law. Who who's standing in the presence
of holiness? He's standing in the presence
of sovereignty. He's standing in the presence
of omnipotence and he actually has the nerve to stand and interrogate
the Lord Jesus Christ. But that's what men do. That's
what men do. And he said in tempting the Lord.
What must I do to inherit eternal life? And the Lord said, well, you
know the law, what's the law say? Love the Lord your God with
all of your heart and all your mind and all your soul. Love
your neighbor as yourself. You've spoken well. You've spoken
well is what the Lord said. Go do that and you'll live. The Lord met him on the same
ground that he came to the Lord on. He wanted to do something
to inherit eternal life, and the Lord gave him something to
do. You want to do something to inherit eternal life, God
will give you something to do. The problem is you won't inherit
eternal life by it. That's where we have the parable
of the good Samaritan, which is not about us being good Samaritans. The most callous hard-hearted
person if they're driving down the road, and there's someone
laying on the side of the road And there's no one there to help
they don't stop and help them You don't do that aren't you
you your elderly neighbor comes over to you and knocks on your
door and crying and asking you for something You're not going
to put them off. Are you I? You don't have to
be a believer. The Lord did not give us the
story of the Good Samaritan in order to teach us how to be merciful
to people who are in need. Everybody does that. And the
world is always promoting the Good Samaritan, aren't they?
Christ is that Good Samaritan. He was later called a devil and
a Samaritan. And in the next verse, he denied
being a devil, but he never denied being a Samaritan. You see, we're
the ones that have been robbed. Sin has robbed us of our salvation,
robbed us of our righteousness, robbed us of our, of our hope. And we've been beaten and left
for dead. And the, and the priest and the Levite, when they come
along, they represent the law, the moral law, the ceremonial
law, what they do, they go on the other side of the road. Yeah, that's what that, that's
what that story's about. You and I are the ones left for,
yeah, be merciful to people, but you know what? You're going
to do that. Somebody has a need and you've got the ability to
meet it, and you're going to do that. Men won't come to Christ. They'll
present their works of being a good Samaritan for the hope
of their salvation before they'll come to Christ. Here's the Lord Jesus Christ.
Look at me again, behold, I will send my messenger. You know,
Paul speaks of his salvation being a pattern for everyone's
salvation. And so many things about Paul's
conversion that are typical of all conversions. Paul was in opposition to God. Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me? Who art thou, Lord? I'm Jesus,
whom thou persecutest. Outside of God's grace, we are
at enmity with God, raising our fist to God and rebelling against
God. That's a pattern for every...
You say, well, I've never been angry at God. I've never been
an enemy of God. And I say to you, if you believe
that about yourself, that I fear that you still are and don't
know it. You don't know it. It's when the Lord shows you
the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, when he shows you
his mercy, you realize that everything you ever did was nothing but
rob God of his glory, promote yourself as the righteous one. Paul was knocked off his high
horse, wasn't he? When the Lord saves his people,
he strips them of their righteousness. He takes them down off their
high horses. He humbles them. He puts their
face in the dirt. It's not a feigned humility.
It's true brokenness and submission before God. And then he causes them to say
with the apostle Paul, Lord, what would you have me to do?
What would you have me to do? They've become, they go, they
go from being an enmity with God to being in servants. Now,
if that's, that's true of Paul, Saul of Tarsus as the pattern
of salvation. John here is a pattern of a faithful
gospel messenger, whether it be a gospel preacher, whether
it be one of God's people who sharing the gospel, this messenger
is sent of God. If he's been sent of God, we're
not talking about degrees here. Either you're preaching the gospel
or testifying of the gospel or you're not. There's not a mixture
of error here. It's not, you know, well, we're
going to be more accurate in our demonstration and our preaching
of the gospel. I like what one man many years
ago I think it was Charles Spurgeon, because I think his father was
a preacher. And Spurgeon said, my dad may be able to preach
better, but he can't preach a better gospel. And that's true. That's true. One believer might
be able to share a little better than another, but we don't share
a better gospel. Not if we're son of God. It's the same message,
the same gospel. It's the gospel of God's free
and sovereign grace in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's good news to a sinner. That sinner says, whoo, you mean
tell me all the pressures off of me? It's all on him? Yep.
Yep. And the person who's still under
the law says, you can't tell people that. You'll lead them
to live in godless lives. No, I'm not worried about that.
Not worried about that. God's people are going to say
what Saul of Tarsus said, Lord, what would you have me to do?
And the Lord is going to be faithful, because every time they get too
enamored with their toys, the Lord will get back down on the
floor with them, take them in his hands, and say to them, behold,
listen to me. I've got something very important
to tell you. And they will listen. They will listen. He will make
them. Listen. So I, my confidence is not in
the believer being faithful. My confidence is in our God being
faithful to keep his children, keep them. So this is a messenger
that sent of God. And, um, and all he can do is
prepare the way notice in verse in verse one of Malachi chapter
three, he shall prepare the way before me. He's a forerunner.
Now, this is a picture of, there's an entourage following the king
as he's coming into the city. And they didn't have, like we
have today, nicely paved roads, well, other than I for right
now. But, you know, they had men that
went out and moved the stones out of the way and filled up
the holes so the cart wheels wouldn't fall in. And they were,
what were they doing? They were just preparing the
way so the king could get to the city. And that's what John
calls himself. He said, I'm just a voice of
one kind in the wilderness. I've been sent to prepare the
way. I can't, I can't get the King there and I can't make you
bow to the King, but I can prepare the way. And that's all, that's
all preaching is. I can't save anybody. You can't
save anybody. That's a work of God's grace.
But to remove the impediments, what are the impediments that
keep the, it's the law. So we're trying to remove those
things that keep men from being able to see the king and worship
the king. We're putting out road signs.
You know, the cities of refuge in the Old Testament, when a
man was guilty of manslaughter, the law said that eye for an
eye, tooth for a tooth, life for a life. So the next of kin
had the legal right to take the life of a person who accidentally
killed one of their relatives. Now, if it was on purpose, there
was no refuge for that. It was life for life. But if
it was on accident, the person who committed the manslaughter
had to get to a city of refuge. And all along the way, there's
signposts pointing to the cities of refuge, go this way, go this
way. And that's all gospel preachers
do. The messengers, I said, there's the city of refuge. That city
of refuge is Christ. And as long as he stayed in the
city of refuge, he was safe. But if he came out of the city
of refuge, then the avenger of blood had the right to take his
life. We've got to remain in Christ,
don't we? Well, the law has the right to take our lives. And all the messenger does is
point to the city of refuge. All John the Baptist did was
say, behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of
the world. Look to Him. Look to Him. You know what false
religion does? You ever been traveling on a road and there's
a sign that's been turned and it's pointing in the wrong direction?
And you think that you follow it and you end up in the wrong
place? Because the sign was pointing in the wrong place. That's what
false religion is. It's men pointing in the wrong
direction. Go this way and you'll live. Behold. Behold. Oh, time and time and time again,
the Lord shows us the urgency of the message when he says to
us, behold. Who shall stand? I'm just preparing
the way for the King. The Lord whom you seek, and we'll
deal with that in the second hour. Whom you seek shall suddenly
come to his temple. This is a sudden thing. Death is a sudden thing. I'm not talking about the person
who just has a heart attack and dies. I'm talking about for every
one of us, the Lord said, behold, I come quickly, quickly. Young people, you have no idea
how brief this life is. You think you got, you know,
you hear people say, we got your whole life before you. Yeah,
you do. And that ain't long. That ain't long. It's brief. It's an urgent thing. The king's
coming suddenly. More sudden than you think. And
more sure. Look what he goes on to say. He shall suddenly come to his
temple. We sang that hymn at the opening
of the service. About the potter and the clay. And that's taken
from Romans chapter nine. Why does he still find fault
for who has resisted his will talking about God being sovereign
in salvation. And the man says, well, who can
resist the will of God, of God's sovereign. And you know, then
I w we'll just become a fatalist. Don't be a fatalist. When it
comes to the gospel, you haven't understood God's sovereignty.
If you become a fatalist. Or someone say to me, well, you
know, God's sovereign. If he wants me to get church,
he'll get me there. If he wants me to do this, he'll,
you know, no, we got, God's already told us what to do. Yes. He's absolutely sovereign. And
if we're here, it's because he brought us here, but don't use
God's sovereignty as a, as an excuse for not doing what you
ought to do. And that's what, that's, what's
being said here in Romans chapter nine, God's sovereign. Who's
going to resist his will. He'll do what he wants to do.
O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Now that word repliest
means to dispute. You going to stand up to God?
You going to argue with God? You going to dispute God? You
going to lose that battle? Why did the heathen rage and
the people imagine a vain thing? An empty thing. Let us break
his bands asunder. We'll not have this man reign
over us. You see, that's what that lawyer was doing. He's standing
up to God. Shall the thing form, say to
him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the
potter power over the clay to make of the same lump a vessel
of honor and a vessel of dishonor? We don't, we don't dispute God. There's only two postures to
take in relationship to us and God. One is to stand proudly
and present your righteousness and the other is to bow. The bow. And all men take one
or two postures. Isaiah chapter 40, the other
reference to John the Baptist says, every, every valley shall
be exalted and every mountain and hill shall be made low. That
means the mountains and the hills of men's pride and righteousness
is going to be brought down and those that will be brought down
are going to be picked up. Going to be picked up. When a man hears the gospel and he hears about sovereign
election, that God chooses, that we don't choose, He chooses,
and he says that's not fair, all he's doing is standing up
to God. He's standing up in opposition to God. when he hears about the
atoning sacrifice made by Christ to the Father for his people
and for them only. We're talking about limited atonement. We're talking about particular
redemption. What does he say? What does the natural man say?
Well, that's not fair. All he's doing is standing up
against God. Who shall stand? That's what
he's saying. Who's going to stand in his presence? When he hears about a holiness
that's completely outside of himself and all of his works,
all of his works have not only not added to his holiness, but
actually made him more sinful. As he looks to those things for
his righteousness, as he says, but, but, but, but, but I did
this and I did that. Doesn't that count for something?
All he's doing is standing up against God. When he hears about
the fact that he's dead, dead, doornail dead in his trespasses
and sins, unable to believe, unable to do anything unless
God revives him, unless God breathes life into his soul. It is not
of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
shows mercy." And he says, wait a minute, I make choices all
day long. I've got a free will. I can choose
if I want to choose. All he's doing is standing up
against God. And when he uses scripture to
defend his position, all he's doing is aggravating his sin
against God. When he says, but the Bible says,
whosoever will. But the Bible says God loves
everybody. But the Bible says all he's doing
is aggravating his sin against God. Behold, I will send my messenger. And he's going to be faithful
to the message. He's going to tell him about Christ. He's going
to prepare the way. That I might do a work of grace
in their hearts. For the Lord shall suddenly come. Suddenly. It's an urgent message. It's a certain message. Oh, there's so much in this verse
of scripture. We'll come back to it. Let's
take a brief break and we'll come back to it in a few minutes.