with me to Matthew chapter 1.
I talked a little bit about this
this past Wednesday night, but I left some things unsaid
that I want to say here this morning. And the verse that I
want to call your attention to is that 21st verse of the first
chapter of the book of Matthew. The 21st verse and the 23rd verse. The third verse says, Behold,
a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name
Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. In the twenty-first verse of the first chapter of Matthew, it says, And she shall bring
forth a son, and thou shalt call his name
Jesus, which means Savior. There's the Son who is the Savior, and his chief business, his chief
business and objective of coming into this world is to save his
people. not necessarily to save them
from some great conqueror or to save them from slavery as he saved his
people in Egypt, delivered them from the rule of that great monarch of dictator or
whatever he was there. But his name shall be called
Jesus, Savior, Joshua. For his chief business will be
to save his people, not from a situation that they could do something about,
but he's going to save them from their sins. Now, he's either going to do
this or he's not going to do it. We know from the written Word
and from our own experience of the grace of God, we know that
he did. accomplish what he was sent to
do. He saved his people from their
sins. He was not thwarted in the fulfillment
of his purpose. He came to save his people from
their sins. by standing in their place and
in their room and in their stead and being their surety. Being their surety, he guaranteed
the Father in heaven that he would, as their surety, meet
all of the demands of holy justice in their behalf. and that he
would keep the precepts of the holy law in their stead and place. In other words, he being their
surety guaranteed to represent them in all that was required
of them. He guaranteed that to the father
and the son. I will deliver my people, the
people that the Father gave me. For he shall save his people
from their sins, and a virgin shall be with child, and shall
bring forth a son. They have called his name Immanuel,
which is interpreted God with us. The Lord Jesus Christ is
God with us. in that he took upon himself
our nature and became one of us. God with us. Now, our Lord speaks of this
oneness over here in the book of John,
chapter 17. I related to some of these scriptures
last Wednesday. In John chapter 17, our Lord Jesus says in verse
9, now He is in holy communion with
the Father. He's in prayer. He is speaking
to the Father. In the first verse he says, These
words spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven, praying
to the Father. This is his high priestly prayer. He is praying unto the Father
on behalf of those that he represents, his people. going to save them
from their sins. And he said, Father, the hour
has come. Glorify thy Son, that thy Son
may also glorify thee. When our Lord Jesus lived here
upon this earth and lived this sinless life, it was without
sin. He was in a world that was full
of sin, but in regard to himself, he was without sin. And in his
finished work, the finished work of this person that became a
man, he glorifies. He glorifies all the attributes
of God. All that makes up the character
of God is glorified in the death, in the doing, and the dying,
and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he says,
Father, it's time. The hour has come. I came to
this end. I've accomplished the work. I finished the work, he'll say
later on. But he said, The hour has come,
glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee. So all
the attributes of God, everything that makes up his character in
the doing and the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ, sin, sin being
punished justly, sin must be punished by a just God, and righteousness
must be established, so the law must be kept. Every jot and every
kittle of that law has got to be kept, so the Lord Jesus Christ
keeps the precepts of the law. He found the law cast down, trampled
under the feet of man when he came, but he lifted it up to
a higher level and made it honorable and magnified that law by keeping
the precepts of that law. And then the Lord Jesus Christ
being born of a woman was born under the curse of the law because
he was born of a woman, but he never sinned. He had no sin. He kept the law perfectly, but
he died sinner's curse, paid what the law demanded, which
was death, and he tasted death for every one of his people,
went into the grave, and if the cold jaws of death had retained
him, not a single solitary human being that lived or ever lived
or ever shall live would have been redeemed and made a child
of God. But he fought the battle. He
conquered death. And on the third day he ascended
from the grave and went back to glory from where he had come. intercessor to ever live before
God to make intercession for us, to interpret our prayers
and make sense out of them before God. God with us. The Lord Jesus Christ,
God with us. Almighty God with us. All of God that is, was, and
ever will be, was with us, not with us. Mystery, isn't it? And as we look at it in our lifetime,
the mystery, if we be believers and have the Spirit of the Living
God, the mystery begins to unfold. And before it's over with, we
can understand. how God saves sinners on the
doing and the dying of his blessed Son, our substitute. We can understand
how justice is satisfied because the Lord Jesus Christ gave to
justice what justice demanded. God demands His holiness and
justice, demands that the soul that sins shall surely die. There must be a way to satisfy
God because God will not compromise His justice. He will not lower
His justice to meet our sinnerhood. So we've got to have a sinless
sacrifice. We've got to have a perfect righteousness. And the only way that that can
be wrought is by God being with us. God with us in the flesh,
a man. They asked that old blind man,
they said, who did this? He said, a man. Bless God. He said, a man called Jesus. All man and all God in one person. Is that too much for you? All man and all God. That's the
way it's got to be. It can't be any other way. God
cannot save a sinner apart from God becoming a man. He will not
compromise His justice. Justice is compromised here. Men's justice is compromised
every day. But God will never compromise
His justice. Well, he says here in verse 9,
let me read that now. He says, I pray for them. I pray
for them. I pray not for the world, but
for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine. And all
mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them.
Now, he says in verse 22, and the glory which thou gavest me, I have
given them, that is, these that were thine, but you gave them
to me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are
one." What I'm saying here now is that this blessed Redeemer,
the Lord Jesus Christ, this person of the Son, this person, this
man, this person of the Son, took our nature and is God with
us. And I believe myself, and you
may differ with me and I may be wrong, I don't know. But my
own personal belief is that he really took body and soul and
the whole of humanity in his incarnation. He was God with
us in his weakness. He was God with us in his conflict. He was God with us in His exaltation. He was God with us in all of
His victories. He came and conquered sin, that
monster sin that has invaded this universe through the first
man at and will kill every one of us. This monster sinned, and
our Lord Jesus Christ, God with us, when he accomplished victory over sin
and made an end of it by paying what justice owed him. He was
God with us in his weakness, God with us in His conflicts,
God with us in His exaltation, God with us to strengthen us,
God with us to watch over us, God with us to direct us, God
with us to deliver us, God with us to completely save us, body,
soul, and spirit. He was God with us to rule over
us and to rule in us, and to defeat all of our enemies, God
in us, to give us exalted feelings and views of God the Father,
how he can be just and justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.
God with us to raise us in immortal glory, to take us to that place
that never-never land, that land beyond, that place eternal, where
we shall never die, that place where we shall enjoy the presence
of God with us throughout eternity, eternity never-ending, immortal
glory. And there's a thousand others
that I could say, if I had time. He's promised to be our guide,
even unto death. He who was a Godman was born
in Bethlehem, was hunted down like a dog in Egypt, that he
might find his hunted people, every one of them. to seek them
out of every nation, every tribe, and every tongue. Oh, my soul,
this morning. This Jesus that I'm talking about
has been here before we got here. It was God with us when He came. God with us in His temptation. Where did I read that at? I think in the book of Matthew. Yes, the fourth chapter of the
book of Matthew, listen to this, God with us in his temptation. It says, Then was Jesus led up
of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. The devil is going to tempt God
with us. If the devil wins in this battle,
this is one of the conflicts, if the devil wins in this battle,
there will be no man saved. There will be no children of
God by faith in Christ Jesus if in this conflict The devil
is the victor. Our Lord Jesus Christ meets him
on his own ground. And when he had fasted forty
days and forty nights, he was afterward and hungered. And the
tempter came, the devil, came to him and said, Why, if you
be If thou be the Son of God, command these stones be made
bread." Fasted, he hadn't ate for forty days and forty nights,
and he was hungry. God with us, a man, all man,
apart from a sinful nature, and he was hungry. And he said, Well,
if you're the Son of God now, just command these stones that
they turn into fresh bread. And our Lord answered and said,
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God. So the devil was defeated in
these two battles here, but the conflict is not over. The war
is still raging. between the devil and God with
us, the Lord Jesus Christ. So the devil taketh him up into
the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, jump off, cast
thyself down, for it is written." The devil
knows some Scripture, too. He said, "...for it is written
that he," that's God the Father, he doesn't know that he's talking
with God with us, "...he shall give his angels charge concerning
thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up." You go ahead
and jump, they'll catch you. "...lest at any time you would
and dash thy foot against the stone." Another battle. This is a fierce battle. He's
waging this battle, not for himself, but because he shall save his
people from their sin. In order to save his people from
the sin, he's got to destroy this one here, destroy this devil. And he beat him at his own game. And Jesus said unto him, It is
written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And again the
devil takes him up into an exceeding high mountain and showeth him
all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of those kingdoms.
And he said unto him, All these things will I give you, if you
will fall down and worship me. Then said Jesus unto him, he
said, Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt
worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and
behold, the angels came and ministered unto the Lord Jesus. So if the
Lord had not won the battle, If he had not conquered the enemy, if he had yielded to temptation,
there would be no salvation for no soul. But he conquered. He was God with us. God with
us in our weakness. God with us in our strength.
All for this foresight. God with us in His suffering. He suffered. Driven. The beginning of His suffering,
driven into the wilderness of temptation. and he fought this
battle. It was a hard battle he fought.
As I said twice now, if he'd have been beaten, I got to insist
upon that and you got to see this. If he'd have been beaten
in this battle, the whole world would have been damned. There
would have been no hope if he had been beaten in this battle. But he comes to grips with Satan
and his deception and he beats him. All of that is required
in order that a soul might be saved. I feel real bad and sorry
for those who teach, just do your duty as you know it, and
God will love you. God will love no man apart from the doing and the dying of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Do your duty and God will love
you. This is one of the cradles in
which hypocrites get rocked to sleep. Do your duty. Do the best you can and everything
will be all right. Oh, no. I'll tell you this, that
God Himself will bring His people into a state that nothing but
God with us can bring him out. And when they have been brought
out, they will join themselves together
and sweetly sing like the angels, God with us. God with us is our
salvation. God with us is all Christ and
all God in one person. And the more we are brought to
feel sick of self, if you're not sick of yourself, you are still in the bonds of
iniquity and the bitterness of God. The more we are brought out to
feel sick of self, the better fit we are for God's salvation. Christ was God with us in Gethsemane. Christ was God with us on the
tree. We were there, poor ignorant
sinners, as we were, to spit in God's face, to kill him, and
to despise him, and to set him at naught. He who was our next of kin, he's
the day's man, He's our substitute and our Savior. We set Him at naught. We esteemed
Him naught. No, it's God with us in Christ. That's our hope. We have no hope
but that. He suffered for us. The vengeance
of hell against sin, he suffered for us. The vengeance of insulted justice,
he suffered and satisfied that for us. Someone said that the
day that they nailed the Son of God to the tree, they said
that the sun went into morning, And the dead were alarmed, and
earth and hell were in array. And all of this was done on behalf
of that poor sinner that the Lord Jesus Christ came to save. God with us. Oh, listen, God
with us, bless His holy name. If God with us is applied to
our souls and the light of the glory of
God would shine into our hearts and into our minds and make us
to see and understand what it takes save us so that God must
consume, that God must clothe His deity with our humility
and become a man and become one of us and walk with us and talk with us. might be made
flesh, live here on this earth, walk among men for thirty years
or thirty-three years, give or take, and in the end die the
sinner's death. God Almighty! God with us! That's what this is all about.
It's not doing all about doing the best you can, and peradventure,
God might show you favor. It's not all about that. God
will only show favor on the account of God becoming a man, and as
a man, satisfying every claim against us. That's how God shows
mercy. He doesn't show favor because
your name is this, something else, or you've done this or
you've done that. God does not show favor apart
from the doing and the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is God with us. God shows favor. I told you the
other night here, Noah found grace, found grace,
found favor, favor with God. The only favor that will do a
man any good is the favor of God. God put us in Christ. Those that are saved by the grace
of God are those that God put in Christ. It says this about that. This is what it says. It says
that, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us
in him. Now listen to this. He has already
blessed us. all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places, and all of his blessings are in Christ, according as he hath chosen us
in him." That is, he hath put us in Christ before the foundation
of the world. All of his people were put in
the Lord Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world.
All these that were put in Christ must be redeemed by Christ. So Christ become a man, God with
us, to redeem us. Now, He hath chosen us in Him
before the foundation of the world. He put us in Christ. Now listen to this. He put us
in Christ. And where He put us, He kept us. We fell in Adam, but we didn't
fall when we were in He put us there and kept us where He put
us. We fell in Adam, but we didn't
fall in the Lord Jesus Christ. And from then to now, we have
been preserved in Christ, all on the account of God with us. God who became a man, walked
this earth, saved our soldiers, gave us hope, pardoned us of
our sins, took away our guilt and our shame, and judicially and legally We
appear before God as we had never seen. We've sinned trillions of times. But judicially, we stand before God. Legally,
we stand before God as one that had never seen. All on the account
of the Lord Jesus Christ covering
His deity with our humanity, and in our humanity making a
complete, perfect, and final salvation for the souls of His
people, clothing them in His perfect righteousness, And I'll
read this verse again. I'll read this so much. John
chapter 4. Do you feel like it does? That you're going to tremble
when you stand before God in the judgment seat? Put your head between your knees?
Are you going to try to hide? Or what? Well, here it says,
in regard to the people of God, it says, Herein is our love made
perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. Boldness! shaken in our boots. Have I done
enough? I remember one time years ago
that a dear person of my acquaintance and
experience told me a story about the lady that she was nursing. had cancer and she was dying
and this lady told her, said, I'm scared to death. She said,
I'm scared to death. She said, what are you afraid
of? She said, you've been going to
church all your life. Yeah. She said, I've been going
to church. I said, I don't think I've ever
heard anything. And she said, I'm scared to death.
I'm afraid to die." Well, she wasn't very bold. But if you've
been washed in the blood of the Lord Jesus, if God has brought
you to see that it takes God with us to stand you in good
stead at the judgment day, then you can have boldness in the
day of judgment. Because as He, that's the Lord
Jesus Christ, God with us, because as He is, now you find out how
He is right now. How is He? God raised Him from
the dead. He conquered death, raised Him
from the dead. As He is, so are we. Now, however the Lord Jesus Christ
is, that's the way we are. We who are believers are like
Christ himself. Well, you say, Boy, that is good
news. Well, that's what the gospel is, good news. As he is, so are
we, even in this world. Well, he said there's no fear
in love, perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect
in love." We love Him. Why? Why do we love Him? Well, it's because He first loved
us. When did He first love us? He first loved us in eternity
when He put us in Christ. when He chose us in Christ before
the world was. We found out about that. We found
out that God loved us before we had been. And it was God's
love that sent the Savior. It was the love of God that saved
us. So we love Him. We love Him because He first loved us. When? In eternity. Well, I'd say that's a pretty
good reason for a man to love God when he's assured that God
loves him. This stand will be dismissed.
We'll not have it.