Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1 says,
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for. It is the evidence
of things not seen. Faith is resting the hope of
all your salvation on the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so in Hebrews chapter 12
it says, Looking unto Jesus. who is the author and the finisher
of our faith. Christ has done it all. And faith
is resting all your hope on Him. I hear people say, well, no,
we're not saved by works, but we have to have good works to
give proof that we're saved. If you're looking to your works,
either as the cause of your salvation or as the evidence of your salvation,
you're not looking to Christ. May God give us the faith to
look to Christ. Rest in Him. Let's stand together. Tom's going to come lead us in
number 32, in your spiral hymnal number 32. All children of wrath, in bondage
and sin, we helplessly lay, condemned and unclean. God's law, in its
infinite justice and wrath, demanded we suffer an eternal death. But long before time had ever
begun, One stood in our place, God's glorious Son. He offered Himself to go live
among men, And give His own life to atone for our sin. The great substitute, behold,
he has come. The price has been paid, the
work is all done. Christ took on himself the great
load of our sin. He poured out His blood, and
He put away sin. God's justice and law are now
satisfied, and all who believe have been justified. Through faith in the blood of
the Lamb, we are free from sin's condemnation, eternally free. Please be seated. Churches all over America will
be full this morning because the religious world buried one
of their own. But the saddest thing is, like
Greg said, they'll hear man glorified, not Christ crucified. That is so sad. The religious world's opinion
of Christ has been the same since Adam and Eve. They will hear
that we are as God to know good from evil. There is a parallel in the scriptures. It's in John chapter 3. John
chapter 3 and verse 1. There was a man of the Pharisees
named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. Now, Nicodemus, I'm persuaded,
was a child of God. That he had been blessed with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. That he was
foreknown by God the Father. that he was predestinated to
be conformed to the image of his son. He was justified from
eternity and he was glorified, but he had not yet been called. So what Nicodemus says is the
voice of every religious unbeliever that's ever lived. A man named
Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night. And said, Rabbi. We know. That there are two teacher come
from God. Because no man can do the miracles
that they'll do is except God be with him. And that's as far
as unsafe religion can go. And the Lord Jesus Christ gave
him the same answer that's been in effect from the covenant of
grace. Barely, barely, I say unto thee,
except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He's more than a rabbi. He's
the ruler and creator of heaven and earth. Nicodemus said, We
know, but they don't know, because the natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, because they're foolishness unto
him, neither can he know them. He's more than a teacher. He
is the living Word of God. He's not just someone that clarifies
the Scriptures to an unbelieving world. He is the Scriptures.
Search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal
life, and they are they which speak of me." He not only comes
from God, he is God. He is the God-man. No man can
do these miracles of the Taldous. Other men perform miracles in
the name of Jesus Christ. He performed miracles by his
own power as the God-man. Except God be with him. And God was with him except in
one instance. Whenever the Lord Jesus Christ
became sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made to
righteousness of God in him, God was not with him. God abandoned
his son on the cross and his son, by his own power, stood
under the full wrath of God and paid for every sin of every believer
that's ever lived or ever will live. And the last word on that
subject is, it is finished. There was a man named Nicodemus,
a ruler of the Jews, who came to Jesus by night and said, we
know, Rabbi, that thou art a teacher come from God. For no man can
do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him. And Jesus
said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Father, we come before you this
morning, Father, knowing that our new birth was purchased by
the blood of Jesus Christ. That there's nothing we can do,
Father, to be saved. That everything it takes has
been performed by our Lord, and you give us everything that we
need to be saved. You give us faith. You give us
grace, Father. You give us knowledge. You give
us all things, Father. And we are so ungrateful, but
we're here this morning, Father, to to hear Christ glorified,
to hear Greg bring a message that'll lift our hearts, Father,
and open our eyes to Christ, that we might see the difference,
Father, between saved and unsaved, between truth and a lie. We're
thankful again, Father, that you brought us all here together
by your grace for your glory. We ask these things in Jesus'
name, amen. Let's all stand together once
again and we'll sing the hymn that's on the back of your bulletin.
The hymn that's on the back of the bulletin. Father of heaven, whose love
profound, A ransom for our souls hath found, Before thy throne
we sinners bend, To us thy pardoning love extend. Almighty Son, Incarnate Word,
Our Prophet, Priest, Redeemer, Lord, Before Thy throne we sinners
bend, To us Thy saving grace extend. Eternal Spirit, by whose
breath the soul is raised from sin and death, before thy throne
we sinners bend. To us thy quickening power extends. Jehovah, Father, Spirit, Son,
mysterious Godhead, three in one, before thy throne we sinners
bend. Grace, pardon, life to us extend. Please be seated. Adam Cherin's
going to bring special music now. If you want to follow along,
this is number 509. The sands of time are sinking
The dawn of heaven breaks The summer morn I've sighed for The
fair sweet morn awakes Dark, dark hath been the midnight,
but day spring is at hand. And glory, glory dwelleth in
Emmanuel's land. O Christ, he is the fountain
The deep, sweet well of love The streams on earth I've tasted
More deep I'll drink above There, too, in ocean fullness His mercy
doth expand And Lord, Lord, we dwell in Emmanuel's land. Oh, I am my Beloved's, and my
Beloved is mine. He brings a poor, vile sinner
into his house of wine. I stand upon his merit. I know no other stand. Not even where the Lord dwells in Emmanuel's land. The bride has not her garment,
but her dear bridegroom's face. I will not gaze at glory, but
on my King of grace. Not at the crown he giveth, but
on his pierced hand. The land that's on the floor,
we are Emmanuel's land. Thank you, Adam. Will you open
your Bibles with me to Isaiah chapter 64? Isaiah 64. The most brilliant people in
this world are wasting their lives and trillions of dollars
of your tax money trying to discover the theory of everything. You
heard about it? They're looking for the God particle,
trying to figure out what life is really all about. I wish one of them would be able
to hear what God says this morning in our text. This is no theory,
but it does explain the purpose of everything. Everything. There is nothing more important. Nothing. Nothing more needful. Nothing
more glorifying to God and more hopeful for a sinner than for
God Almighty to rend the heavens and come down. That's it. Emmanuel, God with us. with us. He rent the heavens
and he came down and he visited man. This is the purpose of everything. Everything. And you and I have
absolutely nothing to compare to the need of God, God, renting
the heavens and coming down to where we are.
Now religion is all based on man's attempt to break through
the heavens and get to where God is. And God says when you
do that, I will make the heavens brass. You're not going to be
able to do it. You're not going to be able to
make access into my presence by anything you do, any decision
you make, any prayer you pray, any work you perform, any knowledge
you possess. You're not going to be able to
get to where I am. My thoughts are above your thoughts. My ways are above your ways.
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts
above yours. God is God. How can a man be
right with God? Well, the answer to that question
is that God's going to have to rend the heavens and he's going
to have to come to where we are because we can't get to where
he is. And that's the prayer that the prophet Isaiah prays.
And that's my desire. Oh, and I hope it's, I hope the
Lord puts that on each one of our hearts. that God Almighty
would rend the heavens. Look what Isaiah said, Oh, that
thou wouldst rend the heavens, tear a hole in the very heavens
and come Lord to be with us for thou, that thou wouldest come
down, come down that the mountains might flow down at thy presence. Now what are the mountains symbolic
of in the scriptures? Barriers. Barriers between us
and God. That's what the mountains are
a picture of. Did not the Lord Jesus Christ
say if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed you could
say unto this mountain be ye cast into the depths of the sea
and it would. Now all these fake preachers
who claim to have faith. I've never, and you know what,
if you've got enough faith, you can heal somebody. You've got
enough faith, you know, they're, as we said in the first hour,
they're charlatans. They're looking out for their
own interest. And I've never seen one of them move a mountain. I've never seen one of them,
I've never heard one of them say, well, you know, if you had
enough faith, you can move that mountain. I moved it. Now, what is the
mountain that stands between us and God? It's our sin. That's the mountain. And the
only hope that we have for our sin being removed, we might have
access to God, is for God to rend the heavens and come down. Look what he says. As when the
melting fire burneth, The fire causeth the water to boil, to
make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations
may tremble at thy presence. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us, but unto thy name be glory forever." This is all about the
glory of God. When did the fire burn? The fire
of God's wrath fell from heaven. on that sin bearer, that sinner's
sacrifice, the Lamb of God, the one who bore in his body all
the sins of all of God's people of every generation, the fiery
wrath of God's justice fell on him, and God provided himself
a sacrifice. And that's what Isaiah is saying,
oh Lord, rend the heavens, rend the heavens, come down, remove
these mountains, burn with your fire that we might see your glory. This is what it's all about.
This is the purpose of everything. Let the pseudo-intellectuals
talk about the theory of everything all they want. This is the actual
purpose of everything. I'm not exaggerating, everything. This is it. when thou didst terrible things
which we look not for. Here's the amazing thing. I will call them who are not
My people and make them My people. God's people, when He calls them,
when He rends the heaven and brings them to Himself, are not
looking for Him. I hear people in their testimony
say, well, you know, I was searching for God and I found Him. several years ago there was another
religious campaign uh... where they put bumper stickers
on their car we found it or something like that i can't remember you
remember some of you are old enough to remember that no man seeketh after god at any
time god doesn't seek us and call us all we may be looking
for something but we're not looking for the god who is we may be
looking for a god that we can manage a god that we can control
But the God who is, is not something man's looking for. And so the
Lord said, when I rent the heavens, I'm going to do terrible things,
amazing things, things beyond your comprehension, things you
didn't look for. Eye has not seen, nor is ear heard, nor is
it entered into the imagination of man. The things that I have
prepared for you, when I rent the heavens, it's not going to
be anything like you thought it was going to be. Thou camest down, verse 3, and
the mountains flowed down at Thy presence. For since the beginning
of the world, men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither
hath I seen, O Lord, beside Thee, what He hath prepared for Him
that waiteth for Him." Now, I have five points to this
message very quickly. And I'm asking the question,
when does God rend the heavens and come down? And the answer
to that question, some is in past tense, some is in present
tense, and some is in future tense. The first time that God
rent the heavens and came down was at creation. When he put
Adam in the garden, and the scripture says that God came down and he
walked with Adam in the cool of the day. And God put your
father and my father under a covenant of works, knowing that he was
going to fail. God said, in the day in which
you sin, you eat of the fruit of that tree, you're going to
surely die. You're going to die. He had one
commandment to obey. and that was not to eat the fruit
of that tree. And he couldn't keep it. And he violated God's
law and he was cast out of the garden. And God rend the heavens in order
to put our father Adam under that covenant of grace that he
might fail so that the glory of God might be shown forth. Now I used to think that You
know, Adam knew about the glory of God. He knew about the love
of God. He knew about the power of God.
But he had to fall and sin in order for him to know about the
grace of God and the mercy of God. But I've changed my mind
on that. God's changed my mind on that.
The truth is, apart from the fall, apart from sin, we don't
really understand anything about the glory of God. We don't understand
anything about the love of God. We don't understand anything
about the power of God. You see, all the demonstrations
of God's character are most glorified at the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The truth is that the child of
God today who's been called by the Spirit of God and has their
hope on the Lord Jesus Christ, knows more about God than Adam
did before he fell. You say, well, Adam walked with
God. The Lord were in the heavens and he came down and he talked
with him. Yeah. And God walks with us and talks
with us. And as a result of the fall and
as a result of sin, We have a better understanding. We have more truth,
more light about all the attributes of God's essential nature than
even our father Adam had. And so the fall was necessary. The fall was necessary. God ordained
it. Now, preacher, you're saying, God, no. James said, let no man
say when he sins that God made me do it. For God causes no man
to sin. We sin when we're drawn away
by our own lust. When lust is conceived, it produces
sin, and sin bringeth forth death, and man, just like Adam, are
responsible for their own sin. What I'm saying is that our great
and glorious God ordained the fall in order to demonstrate
more of his glory to his people. The second time that God rent
the heavens was in the inspiration of scripture. Now, we use that
word inspiration to say, well, you know, I hope that somebody
will be inspired today. I hope, you know, we're inspired
by something we read or we're inspired by a song or, you know,
But in the biblical sense of the word inspiration, it has
to do with what God has told the penman of scripture. That's inspiration. When holy
men of God wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, it
came not by private interpretation. This wasn't just some man's idea.
When Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, he was experiencing
the rending of heaven as God came down and revealed himself
infallibly. When Isaiah wrote the book of
Isaiah, he was experiencing the rending of heaven as God came
and spoke to his heart and gave him word for word revelation. I know that there are gainsayers.
I know that there are the intellectuals who think that we're just, you
know, we've not been educated if we think that this book could
survive all these centuries and still be infallible and still
be the word of God. Our God is able to preserve for
himself a witness. Our God is able to reveal to
men the things that he wants us to know about himself. And
that's exactly what he's done. So that all scripture is given
by inspiration of God and all scripture is profitable for doctrine. for reproof, for correction,
and instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly
furnished unto all good works." This is God's Word. And over
a period of many years, the Lord spoke to the prophets, He spoke
to the apostles, and He gave them a revelation of Himself. And that's what this book is.
This book is not a book of of doctrines to be believed. It's a revelation of the Lord
Jesus Christ. People go to the Bible and they
think, well, if I just keep these rules and regulations, I'll,
you know, no. It's a revelation of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so God rent the heavens in
the past when Adam walked with him in the garden
before the fall. God rent the heavens when he
inspired the penman of scripture to write down the things about
himself. And he uses this as the means
of renting the heavens today, doesn't he? Faith does come by
hearing and hearing does come by the word of God. God uses
his word. We just We continue to just declare
what God has said. Thirdly, creation, inspiration,
and incarnation. Incarnation. That was the real
rending of heaven, wasn't it? when God was made flesh and dwelt
among us, and we beheld his glory as the only begotten of the Father,
the only one that was full of grace and full of truth. Unto you, unto you a child is
born. Unto you a son is given. And the government shall be upon
his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor,
the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace,
the Lord Jesus Christ, born of a woman, born under the law. This is the seed of the woman
that God spoke to Adam and Eve about after the fall, when God
said, the seed of the serpent, that the serpent will be crushed
by the seed of the woman. And the serpent will bruise the
heel of the seed of the woman, which is what happened at the
cross. But what happened most gloriously at the cross is that
the head of the serpent was cut off by the sacrifice that the
Lord Jesus Christ made on behalf of his people. And so God rent the heavens when
he came down. Isn't that what the angels said
to those shepherds on that fateful night? Unto you is born this
day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. Why did God rend the heavens
in the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, the law had
to be satisfied. A man had to keep the law. And
the Lord Jesus Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone. God required the law to be made
honorable. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the only man that ever kept God's law. You and I have never been
able to keep any of God's law. He kept it perfectly with all
of his heart, all of his mind, and all of his soul. And then
justice had to be fulfilled. The requirement that God made
to Adam that death be paid for the sin was satisfied in the
Lord Jesus Christ. A perfect man had to die. Perfect
blood had to be shed. And God satisfied only with the
death of the Lord Jesus Christ for his divine justice. When did God rend the heavens?
He rent them in creation. He rent them in inspiration. And he rent them in incarnation. God. God himself came into the
world in order to bear all the sins of all of God's people of
every generation. and satisfy God's justice on
Calvary's cross, putting them away once and for all by the
sacrifice of himself. God rent the heavens. When he came down, that's what
Isaiah is praying for. Oh, Lord, rent the heavens and
come down. Let thy fiery judgment melt away
the mountains. And that's exactly what he did.
That's exactly what he did. All the sins of all of God's
people were put away through the sacrifice that Christ made
on Calvary's cross. Yes, Robert, it is finished.
It is finished. Everything that God requires
of us, he looks to his son for. Turn with me to Psalm 20. Psalm
20. Here's, you hear in religion
men coming up with a sinner's prayer. Well, if you pray this
prayer and really mean it, really mean it, God will save you. God
will reward your sincerity and God will reward your words with
your salvation. Psalm 20 is the sinner praying
to God a sinner's prayer. But notice the content of this
prayer. The Lord, that's the Father,
here's the sinner praying. Father, may the Father hear thee
in the day of trouble. The name of the God of Jacob
defend thee. The believer, the sinner is coming
before a holy God pleading that God would not hear his prayers
but that God would hear the prayers of his son. That's what Psalm
20 is. May the Lord hear what you have
to say. What did the Lord Jesus Christ
have to say? Father, I pray not for the world. I pray for them which thou hast
given me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest
them unto me." The Lord Jesus Christ prayed for his church,
didn't he? He prayed for Peter. What was the difference between
Peter and Judas? God prayed for Peter. He didn't
pray for Judas. They both did the same thing
that fateful night. They both denied the Lord. Peter
three times with cursing. Judas for a few silver coins. What was the difference? Peter,
before the cock crows, you're gonna deny me three times, but
I've prayed for you. I've prayed for you. And so this
is the sinner pleading with God to hear the prayers of Christ. Father, into thy hands I commend
my spirit. That's a prayer. Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do. Here's what the sinner
says to God. God, listen to the prayers of
the Lord Jesus Christ for me. Look to thy dear son for everything
that thou requirest of me. Lord, if you look to my prayers,
How sincere are your prayers? How sincere are they? How are
you able to pray? How well are you able to pray?
God knows your heart, doesn't he? Oh, we try to pray and our
mind wanders and we think, you know what, I'm just... If our salvation's based on the
sincerity of our prayers, we're in trouble. David's saying, God, listen to
him for me. His prayers were perfect. I'm sorry, verse 2 of Psalm 20. Send thee help from the sanctuary
and strengthen thee out of Zion. Remember all thy offerings and
accept thy burnt offerings. Grant thee according to thy heart
and fulfill all thy counsel. Lord, grant his petitions. Grant what He's desired of you. Listen to His prayers for me." He goes on in that Psalm to say,
as we saw in the first hour, some trust in horses and some
in chariots, but we will trust in the name of the Lord our God. Go back with me to our text. When did God rent the heavens?
He rent them in creation when He walked with Adam ordaining
the fall that he might glorify himself in the saving
of sinners. All the attributes of his character
are glorified as a result of our fall. He rent the heavens
when he spoke infallibly to the penman of scripture revealing
the truth about the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He rent the heavens when He came down and became man and satisfied
God's justice and fulfilled God's holy law. And He rents the heavens. Those
are all past tense, aren't they? I said some of these are past
tense, some of them are present tense, some of them are future
tense. When does He rent the heavens for us? Well, he rents the heavens in
regeneration. When he calls us effectually,
when he causes the new birth, God has to come to us in order
for that to happen. Nicodemus, there's the example. God rent the heavens. The apostle
Paul, Saul of Tarsus, was breathing out threatenings and persecuting
the church and was sent by the Sanhedrin with letters of authority
to go to Damascus and arrest anybody that confessed faith
in Christ and bring him back, put him in prison. And on the
way there, what happened? What happened? God rent the heavens
and came down and a light shined and a voice was heard. And the
men that were with him heard the voice, but they didn't know
what he was saying. Saul heard it. Saul heard it. Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me? Saul said, who art thou, Lord? I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.
You're going after my body. You're going after my bride.
You're going after my church. And that's going after me. What
would you have me to do, Lord? He blinded him, didn't he? Sent
him to Damascus to a street called Straight and raised up a man
to come lay hands on him and give him his sight back after
he was blind for three days. And Saul of Tarsus became the
Apostle Paul and preached the gospel. because God had rend
the heavens and came down, stopped him in his tracks, knocked him
off his high horse. And you know what Saul, what
Paul wrote later, when talking about his conversion, he said,
my conversion is a pattern for your conversion. He said, well,
I haven't seen a light from heaven. I haven't heard a voice. I haven't
been knocked down and blinded by a light. If God's rent the heavens and
shown you who he is, you've come to realize that you're a sinner. Your eyes have been opened. You
see the spiritual truth of what Saul experienced happens to every
believer. It happens to every believer.
He opens the eyes of our understanding. He completely changes our mind
about everything. And this vain pursuit of enmity
against God is brought to friendship with God. He said, I'll make
my enemies my footstools. And so we find ourselves sitting
at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ as a result of God rending
the heavens and coming down. And the light of the gospel does
shine. It shines in our hearts in the face of the Lord Jesus
Christ. as God rent the heavens for you. Now, most folks will look to a religious
experience as the time when God rent the heavens and came down
and I'm okay now, I got everything settled. You won't hear believers, you
won't hear God's preachers talk about talk about salvation as if it
was something that just happened in the past. What do they say? Well, I got saved. What do they
say? I accepted Jesus. I let Christ
come into my heart. And they talk about their salvation
as if it's nothing more than just a past experience. I nailed
it down. Everything's settled. I'm good
to go. God's people don't talk like that. Why? Because salvation
is not just a past experience for us. Matter of fact, our past
experiences are questionable at best, aren't they? The child of God will tell you,
you know, I don't know when I was saved. You know, I know when
I heard the gospel and I know, you know, when I think I started
believing, but I can't put my hopes in an experience or in
a feeling. That's yesterday's manna. What
happened when the children of Israel tried to collect enough
manna to save over for another day? They opened the manna and
it was full of worms. And that's what happens to the
child of God when he tries to hang the hopes of his salvation
on a past experience. However glorious that past experience
may have been, if he looks back to his past experience for the
hope of his salvation, It's just going to be worm-filled manna.
He's got to have a fresh daily dose of God rending the heavens
and coming down. And the child of God every day
is saying, oh Lord, give me this day my daily bread. Peter put
it like this. When he talked about coming to
Christ, he said, to whom coming. You see, the only time when you
know for sure that God has rent the heavens and come down is
when God is renting the heavens and coming down. That's the only time you know
for sure. It's just a, it's a moment by moment, day by day experience,
isn't it? Today is the day of salvation.
You can't put your hopes in something you had yesterday or think or
presume upon God to give you something for tomorrow. The child
of God is constantly asking the Lord to save him. Lord save me. That's what sinners
do. Sinners never. As you received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him. How did you receive
Him? You received Him as a mercy-begging
sinner. You would never grow beyond that. When the Lord told the disciples
that one of them was going to forsake Him, speaking of Judas,
What did the rest of the disciples say? Lord, is it I? You see, we can't presume upon
ourselves to think, well, sinners know how close they are. And sinners are always saying,
Lord, save me, save me. Let me show you that in a couple
of places. Turn with me back to Psalms. Look at Psalm 3. Now, here's David praying. And
when David prays in the Psalms, the Lord Jesus Christ is praying. Did the Lord Jesus Christ have
to ask the Father to save him? Didn't he have the assurance
of salvation? Look at what he says. Verse 7
of Psalm 3. Arise, O Lord, save me, O my
God, for Thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheekbone.
Thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly. Salvation belongeth
unto the Lord. It belongeth unto the Lord. It's
a current day experience, isn't it? Look at Psalm 6 at verse
4. Return, oh Lord, deliver my soul. Oh, save me for thy mercy's sake. Look at Psalm 7 verse 1. Oh Lord,
my God, in thee do I put my trust. Save me from all them that persecute
me and deliver me. Turn to me to Hebrews chapter
five. Verse seven, who in the days of his flesh,
this is the Lord Jesus Christ, in the days of his flesh, when
he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying
and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was
heard in that he feared. Though he were a son, yet learned
he obedience by the things which he suffered, and being made perfect,
he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that
obey him." The Lord Jesus Christ prayed to the Father to save
him and was heard. God rent the heavens. When the Philippian jailer's
foundation of his prison was shaken And God rends the heavens
every time He's pleased to call one of His people to Himself,
and He continues to rend the heavens as He calls us by His
grace. And this is the place where that
happens more than any place else. There's a good article in your
bulletin this morning that Joe Terrell wrote about the importance of
public worship. God's people want to be at the
place where God's rending the heavens and coming down. And
when His gospel is preached, when Christ is lifted up, He's
rending the heavens and He's coming down. So, He rends the heavens in creation,
He rends the heavens in inspiration, He rends the heavens in incarnation,
and He rends the heavens in revelation. Revelation. That's when he reveals
Christ to our hearts. And one day. One day. The fullness of everything that
God's doing. Is going to come to fruition. The end of it all. When the eastern
sky splits. And the Trump of God sounds.
And the voice of God is heard, and the dead in Christ are raised,
and those of us which are alive will be caught up together with
them in the air." God's going to rend the heavens. He's going
to rend the heavens in the culmination of the history of this world. I want to be ready for that rending,
don't you? Now, I began this message by
saying that Nothing, nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing is
more important. Nothing is more needful. Nothing
is more glorifying to God than for Him to rent the heavens and
come down. It's the one thing that you and
I need more than anything else. And if God doesn't do it, if
He doesn't do it, then on that fateful day when the heavens
are rent, and the world comes to an end. It's not a scare tactic. It's just the truth. It's the
truth. It's what God says. He says, comfort yourself one
another with these words. This is a comforting truth. To
know that when the heavens are rent, God comes down that final
time that I've got the hope of seeing
him as he is and being made like him. That's what it's all about. That's
the purpose of everything. Everything. Eternal life. Being with Him
in glory. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we're thankful for Your Word and all how we pray that You
would speak to our hearts Cause us, Lord, to have the desire
for you to rend the heavens and to come down. Save us, Lord. We ask it in Christ's
name. Amen. I'll ask the men if they'll come
and distribute the bread and the wine, please, for the Lord's
Supper. Just remain seated and we'll
sing hymn number 17 from the Spiral Gospel Hymns hymn book,
number 17. See the table spread before you,
see the feast of bread and wine. These are symbols of our Savior,
tokens of his love dear. Bread that's broken is his body
Crushed beneath the wrath of God Wine poured out is a reminder
Of our Savior's precious blood Children of our God, remember
how he bought your soul and mine. In remembrance of our Savior,
eat the bread and drink the wine. Jesus came, the God incarnate,
to fulfill God's holy law. On the cross he made atonement
and retrieved us from the fall. Let us never forget the promise
Jesus made to come again. Soon he comes, our King, to call
us home to glory. Praise his name. With this joy and expectation
We rejoice to keep this feast Celebrating our redemption Till
we lean on Jesus' breast Celebrating, that's what the
Lord's Table is, a celebration. When our Lord was giving up the
ghost on Calvary's cross, bowed his mighty head and said, it
is finished. Father, into thy hands I commend
my spirit. At that very moment, at that
very moment, the veil in the temple that separated the holies
of holies, the scripture says, was rent from top to bottom. Now, if man had rented, he'd
be ripped from the bottom up. But God rented. God rented. And in renting that veil, he
said, the blood's been put on the mercy seat. No longer do
you have to fear the wrath and judgment of God. Come. Come. Receive freely. And that's what we're doing now. And so the Lord said, when you
eat of this bread, do it in remembrance of me. The gospel is not complicated. Men make it complicated when
they try to reconcile it to what they thought was true that's
not. That bread is just a picture
of our Lord's life, unleavened, sinless life. And the blood represents
his blood, the wine represents his blood. Shed for the forgiveness
of sin, for without the shedding of blood there is no remission.
God required perfect blood sacrifice, and Christ provided it. And God's
people say to the Father, look to Christ for everything you
require of me. Do this in remembrance of Him. May God be pleased to rend the
heavens every day Let's stand together. Brother
Hugo, would you dismiss us in prayer, please?