where he reigned. Fire and brimstone
down upon him destroyed them all. He told Lot and his wife
to flee, not to look back. And as they departed from the
city, Lot's wife looked back, and she turned into a pillar
of salt. So he says, That land is going to be better off than
you fellas on the Day of Judgment. And so he speaks here. It says, And at that time Jesus
answered. Now, if you look at the context
here, you'll see that nobody has asked him a question. He finishes in verse 24, He's
been referring to these several cities that did not welcome the
disciples and so forth, didn't treat them well. And He said,
It is to be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day
of judgment than for thee. And at that time, Jesus answers. Well, if you look at the context
here, you'll see that nobody had asked him a question, or that he was indeed in conversation
with another man, or a group of men, or any human beings. Now, when a man answers, he answers
the person who has been speaking to him. Who then was speaking to the
Lord Jesus Christ that required an answer? Well, the only thing you can say here
is that He was speaking to His Father in Heaven. At that time, Jesus answered
and said, I thank Thee. O Father, Lord of heaven and
earth." He called him Father and recognized him, his Father,
to be the Lord, the Lord. That means that God the Father
is the Lord. of the heaven and the earth.
That is, that he has all power and authority in heaven and in
earth. That's what that means. Our Lord Jesus was in constant
fellowship with the Father. That is to say that There was
a silent fellowship and conversation that
the Father and the Son had. They communicated one to another
silently. The Lord Jesus Christ had the
ear, He had the mouth and the tongue of the Father in His own
ear. He could hear. perfect unity and harmony. There
was no disagreement between the two. Perfect unity in the Trinity
of the Persons, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So he had a constant and silent
fellowship with the Father. He had an ear ready to listen
to the voice of God. And he said at that time Jesus
answered, speaking to the father, because he said, I thank thee,
I thank thee that to be in such a relationship with the father, which is so much different than
human relationships, because in human relationships, father
and son oft times are not on the same wavelength. One thing is one thing. But these
two, the father and the son, was in perfect agreement, perfect
agreement. The son agreed with the father
and the father agreed with the son. No surprise to either one. He had an ear ready to listen
to the voice of God. He had a right understanding
and apprehension of who God is. and who God was at that time,
although what he was then he is now, because God never changes. And the thing about our society, our generation,
the thing about them is they have not a clear apprehension
of who God is. That's their problem. That's
the problem with every lost man. every man, woman, boy or girl
who is not in the fold, who has not been quickened by God's Spirit,
and who has not been wounded in his conscience and laid low
and made to cry out, guilty, guilty, guilty of the charges
against me. Oh, God have mercy. They've never
been brought to that because They have no clear understanding
or apprehension of who God is. Our Lord Jesus Christ knew who
God was and is. And he said at that time, Jesus
answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and
earth. I'm in agreement. Not thanking,
praising, blessing. A right apprehension of the character
of God. Now, most, I say, not all, but
most, they seem to have a floating,
misty, hazy idea of who God is. And that's the problem. They
don't know who God is. That's the reason they do what
they do and say what they say. Act like they act. They don't
know who God is. They have not an inkling. Their fingertips have never touched
this idea of truth set forth in the Bible as to who God is. You could ask them to square
a circle and they wouldn't know the difference. They do not see anything in regard
to his holiness, his justice, his love, his faithfulness, his
immutability, his not being capable of change. God cannot lie, he's
immutable. He can't lie. It's an impossibility
for God to lie. It's an impossibility for God
to change. He can't change. He is what he
is. And what he is, he always will
be. And what he always will be, he always was. No apprehension of what God is. They don't know anything about
God's holiness, his justice, his love, his faithfulness. His
omnipotence? Oh, no. They're blind to that. And that's
the reason they say what they say and do what they do. No understanding
of who God is. Look at the way the Lord Jesus
Christ regards God the Father. He calls Him the Lord of heaven
and earth. He doesn't talk with his friends
about the man upstairs. I hear that practically all the
time. Around somebody and someone says,
well, that's the preacher. Is he a preacher? Yeah, I'm telling
you. I've heard people argue over
it, whether I'm a preacher or not. Just sat and talking. They don't know who I am. I don't
know who they are sometimes. I may recognize their face and
I may not. Everybody talking, having a conversation, and one
of them or someone comes along, but there's the preacher! What
are you guys doing talking to the preacher? Are you a preacher?
Well, I said, preach a little. They can't understand. They don't
understand. The Lord Jesus Christ regarded His Father as Lord of
heaven and earth. Creator of all things. If you're Lord of heaven and
earth, you're the man in charge. The question is to most people
in our day, who's boss? Who's the boss? Who's in charge? God's in charge and God's the
boss. Who's running this show? God's
running this show. Always has and always will be.
I thank thee, O Lord, of heaven and earth." Now, when he says that, he's
regarding God as having all authority in heaven and on earth. And these religious of our day do not see
this loving kindness. They don't see it or they don't
understand it. The loving kindness of the Father
in the choice of his people. When I talk about the election
of God, when I say that God before the foundation of the world hath
chosen a number out of this numberless race of people unto himself,
sanctified them and set them apart, and sent the Lord Jesus
Christ to redeem them. And when I say that all that
the Father giveth to me shall come to me, and him that cometh
to me I will in no wise cast out. And when I say that this
individual who has come to the place of his sinnerhood and recognizes
it and confesses unto God that I'm guilty as charged, When I
say that man is saved, if it's true, if he really has come and
gives evidence of it, I say that he's saved, saved for now, for
time, and for eternity, and he shall never perish, he'll never
be lost again. When I say that, people say,
Now why do they say that? Because they do not have a clear
apprehension of who God is. They don't think he's in charge.
They don't think he has this power. They think they have power. You have no power whatsoever. You're either one. God has all
power in heaven, and inert. Well, they can't understand that this
business of salvation by the grace of God, that it originated
in His sovereign, discriminatory love and that this love of God Almighty
was so strong that it is from everlasting to everlasting upon
those on whom it is fixed. Our Lord called him Father, and
yet, Lord, of heaven and earth. Now, the name, the man is not
father to everything he produces, a mortal man like you and I. Amen. A man is not father to
everything he produces. He may paint a painting and spend
much time in doing it. Bob's a painter. He paints paintings. He's a good painter, too. A good
artist, Bob is. Has been all this time. I don't
know whether he's been appreciated for his ability to do that or
not, but I appreciate him and thank God for him that he can
do that. spend a lot of time on it, sit
there for hours upon hours looking at that blank piece of paper
and drawing on that, you know. Well, listen, a man may draw
this picture, make this painting of an intricate object and spend
a whole lot of time doing it, but he is not its father. He's not its father. as to what
a father is. God made the stars, but he's
not their father. He made the angels, but nowhere
is it said in the Bible at any time, ye are my sons, nowhere. It's true now in the sense of
origination, We are all his offsprings, for he made us all. And that's
true. But that sweet word, Father,
he starts out with that. I thank thee, O Father. The Lord Jesus Christ in his
prayer here, I thank thee, O Father. Sweet word is Father. There is,
with God the Son and God the Father, there is relationship
as well as origin. We, his chosen people, are next
of kin. We are his children by faith. and we have been adopted into
the family. So we are chosen, the next of
kin, his children, joint heirs, the Bible says, heirs of God
and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, and it is a relationship that
can never be dissolved. We can never be divorced on any
ground from the relationship that we have with God the Father. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
elder brother. He's the next of kin, and we're
members of that family, and he calls us the children of God,
and when he creates us anew, when we're born of the Spirit
of God and become a new creature in Christ Jesus, the first thing
that comes out of our hearts and soul is Abba, our Father, which is in heaven. Abba, sweet word. Now a child
can never be anything but the son of his father. I have these Four boys. I am their father. And that four boys, Pat, Mitch,
Brad and Stan, they can never be anything but the sons of their
father. That cannot be dissipated. That cannot be absorbed, that
cannot be cut in two, I'll always be their father and they'll always
be my son. But the son of his own father,
a relationship, father and son, which no sin can ever break. a relationship, father and son. No sin can ever break that relationship. No pain can ever loosen or mar
that relationship until it's an all-in boy. It can't be done. The father is the father still,
though his child or his son be bogged in the quaggy and filthy
mire and mud. Even if the son spits in the
father's face or does something else that is worse
than that, and I can't think of anything else worse than that,
the son spitting in the father's face, this relationship between
the father and the son is not removed by any act either on
the father's part or on the son's part. It can't be dissolved. Once a father, once a son, it's
always father and son. Nothing can change it. Now, so
this stands, too, with the people of God. They are not only his
creature but doubly his creature because he hath made them new
creatures in Christ Jesus. They are so near to him that
there is none that can stand between him and they, father
and son. Nothing can stand between the
sons of God and God their Father. So Jesus Christ, the only begotten
Son, is the link of union between the Father and the Son. No man
cometh under the Father but by the Son. And that link cannot
be dissolved. Abba Father, He that can say
that has uttered better things than even angels can utter. Abba Father. You can't look upon
Him as the King of kings until you first see Him as Abba Father. You can talk about the great
king of the universe, but you can't apprehend who he is until
you find out that he's your father. Just to say that he's your father
don't make it so. So you can't look upon him as
the great king of kings and lord of lords and only potentate unless
you can regard him as your father. You can't do anything for his
honor and for his glory unless you call him father. See here this evening, when we
come to the place in our minds, our intelligence and in our bodies
and in our soul, that God our Father is everything we need,
nothing else. When we have Him as all and in
all and to all, then we can say, I have a Father. Our Lord, in this passage here,
said, at that time, Jesus answered and said, I thank
thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast
hid these things from the wise and the prudent,
and hast revealed them undebated. So we take it that Jesus meant
by the expression, I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
that the Father was by power and by right the Lord of heaven
and earth. Which is to say, Now, I read
there in the paper about the storm in the southern part of
the state, and I've seen the pictures. And they said that
most of those people, that they'd never experienced anything like
that. And they wondered, and still
wonder, how it could have happened. can understand the damage that
is done. They tore their homes up and
all that. But to say that he's the Lord
of heaven and the earth is to say that the wildest storm that
can be imagined is ordered in the eye of God. In every calamity, God reigns. Whether it's an earthquake that
kills a thousand people or whether it's two trucks that come together
and two men die on the highway, it's always in the eye of God. He's the order of all things
certain and sure. I thank thee, he said, that thou
art Lord. You're running things, you're
the boss, you're in charge. There is no light or spark that
his power does not kindle. When those forests in Wyoming
and Colorado and all those places catch on fire, they always say,
It's due to the hot weather. Lightning has struck and started
a fire. That's God's lightning. He sends
the lightning. He sends the hail. He sends the
storms. God's in charge. Not many people recognize it.
If you do here, you're one of the minority to believe that
God's in charge. that he's on the throne, that
he rules. And he has the right to rule
because he's the creator. He fashioned these things, he
put it all together. And there's no limit to his right. He has the absolute right to
do whatever he wants to. And he has the absolute right
to do whatsoever he will with these creatures. He has that
right. I listen to the politicians and
their crying and saying they want certain groups of people
to have this and to have that, and say they have a right. They're
citizens of the United States of America and they have a right.
Every child has a right. We're all born equal. Now the
Constitution may say that, but the Bible don't say it. The Bible doesn't say we're all
equal. We're not all equal. The little
baby there in Germantown, Pennsylvania that was born without no arms
or no legs, she's not equal with the child that's born with two
arms and two legs. That child that's born blind
is not equal to the one that's got two eyes. God's in charge. He's got the right. You say,
well, that's hard. No, it's not hard. Everything
that God does is right, and he has the right to do it. Absolute
right. He's the King of kings, Lord
of lords, controls everything. And whatsoever he does with his
own creatures, he has the right to do so. He has the right to
destroy them, or he has the right to save them. And he said, I
thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
because thou hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent.
I thank you, Father. Our Lord Jesus Christ now says,
I thank you, Father, that you've hid these truths from the wise
and the prudent. I thank you that you've done
that. Well, I thought these people
said God's going to save everybody. Oh, no. He never promised to
save everybody. He promised to save His people,
people that He chose unto Himself in Christ before the world ever
was. He's going to save them. They're not wise and prudent. No, they're babes. They don't
know anything. They're teachable. He reveals
it to them. Well, anyhow, He doeth as He
wills. He's Lord of heaven and earth
and has the right to do so. Now listen, and I'll quit here
in just a minute. You say, well, why did not God
choose the wise and the prudent? Why did
He hide those things from the wise and the prudent? a book of 2 Corinthians. I'll
read something else along with that. 2 Corinthians chapter 1,
chapter 1. Listen to what it says here. It says here in verse 25, it
says, Because the foolishness of God is wiser than man. and the weakness of God is stronger
than men. For you see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble, are called." Why didn't God call the wise and
the prudent? Well, there are not many wise
men after the flesh and not many mighty men, not many noble, are
called. But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty. And the base things of the world and the things which
are despised hath God chosen, yea, listen to this, the things
which are not, to bring to naught the things that are. that no
flesh should glory in his presence. But of him, the children, are
ye in Christ Jesus. But of him, it's of God. But of him are ye in Christ,
who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, sanctification
and redemption, that according as it is written, He that gloryeth,
let him glory. in the Lord. You ask, you say,
Well, why did God do that? Well, ask the angel Gabriel and
see what he says. What does he say about this? Ask old Gabriel. He's the chief
angel. He's the spokesman here. You don't have to ask him. Some of them, they think, they
think it's because that the gospel is beneath their consideration.
That's the reason they won't come. Well, that wise man, he
won't come. He's heard the preacher and all
that, and he knows that there's no no way to God except through
the Lord Jesus Christ, but he thinks that the gospel is beneath
his consideration. He thinks it flatters his pride. He says, I'm occupied with something
else and I don't have time. I don't have no time for this
preaching business, this God business. Well, all these, I
suppose, are good reasons why they do not come to Christ or
why they do not receive the gospel. But they are none of them all
put together, not a reason why God does not call them. God's
reason for calling or for not calling a man is not in man,
but it's in God. himself. Ask that Gabriel and
he can't tell you. They don't know. But we know
it's in God. The calling of God is without
repentance. God doesn't repent of what He
did and change His mind. And our Lord Himself in this
text says, Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight."
Why didn't they call them? You can ask every preacher in
the United States of America. You can ask the angel Gabriel
if you want to, and you can, if you could, go to an angel
that sits before the throne of God, and he won't be able to
tell you. You may ask all of the people
of God that you can find, and they can't tell you. The reason
is, is that God willed it, and there we must rest and let it
go. God willed it, and that's the
way it is. You ain't going to change God's
mind, and he didn't make no mistakes. I thank Thee, Father. I thank
You that You hid these things. Well, I'll tell you this. I feel
a little bit better when I realize that I was never considered among
the wise and the prudent. I just never was considered among
them. No one ever told me I was a wise
man. And one ever said, I was prudent.
But I have some say, I have had some whisper, that fella, I don't know where
he's coming from. What kind of a preacher is he?
He doesn't know the Latin. He doesn't know the Greek. He's
uneducated. He's not wise. He's not prudent. And our Lord Jesus said, I thank
thee, O Father in heaven, that thou, because thou hast hid these
things from the wise, of which I have never been accused of
being wise and true, but hast revealed them unto me. And our Lord Jesus was saying,
Amen, here. He said, Even so, Father, for
so it seemed good in thy sight. Because it is the will of God.
The reason is not in us. I've told you time and time again
that if there's any reason, the reason's got to be in God because
He can't find no reason in us. There is no reason in us. All
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We're all alike.
And the reason is found with Him. He willed it. It's His purpose. Well, the Lord
help us. Let's stand.