This morning to the 9th chapter
of the book of Numbers. Numbers chapter 9. 9th chapter. Beginning there at verse 14. In this chapter as well as the
chapter that follows, chapter 10. The children of Israel receiving instructions from Moses, God's appointed prophet and leader,
and he lays great stress upon them keeping the Passover." Now, these two chapters in particular
set forth the characteristics of the Church. Israel as a nation is a type
of the Church in the New Testament. The Israel of the Old Testament
is a type of the Church in the New Testament. There are certain
characteristics about Israel that apply to the Church of the
Lord Jesus. Now, I said that there are a
lot of things said here in these two chapters in reference to
the Passover. I think all of us are acquainted
with the word Passover as it relates to the Bible, although we don't observe the
Passover in the sense that the Jews were commanded to observe
the Passover. But we do observe a form of the
Passover. The Passover means that the children
of Israel were passed over from the judgment
of God. The judgment of God fell upon
those that held Israel captive. But the judgment of God passed
over Israel. It didn't fall upon Israel. It fell upon the Egyptians and
killed the firstborn in the land of Egypt. All the
firstborn were destroyed by the death angel as it came over.
But the children of Israel were spared. Judgment passed over
them and fell on Egypt. And he has a lot to say about
this Passover and tells them that they are to keep this Passover, to be reminded that they were
held as a captive people, a slave nation for 400 years in Egypt. They were down there 400 years
and they were slaves of the Egyptians. But God delivered them and His judgment fell upon Egypt
and didn't fall upon the children of Israel because the children
of Israel killed a lamb and took the blood
of the lamb and put it on the side post of the door and overhead
on the lintel, took that blood, took this lamb, this lamb which
is representative of the Lord Jesus Christ, behold the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the world, John the Baptist,
proclaimed the forerunner of Christ. They took that lamb,
killed the lamb, caught the blood, made him up brush-like out of
hyssop, and painted that door post over here, over here. And when the death angel came
over, he passed over the house that had the blood on the lintel
and on the side post. He passed over them and spared
them and executed justice upon the firstborn of all ages. And he said, I want to remind
you people, constantly and perpetually, throughout your existence, as
long as Jews shall live, you keep the Passover. Keep the Passover. A lot to say about the Passover.
Well, I said that the Nation Israel was a type of the
Church of the New Testament, and certain characteristics that
we observe in Israel is observed in the New Testament. For instance,
number one, now think of this just a minute. Number one, the country or the nation Israel
was a chosen people. Now, there was a civilization
back 4,000 years ago like there's a civilization now. There was Egyptians, Assyrians,
Philistines. There's all kinds of nations
of people that existed on the face of the earth. People, human
beings. that came from Adam. But God
called out one nation among all these nations. And He told them,
You are a chosen nation. And He started with Abraham and
called Abraham out of the earth of Chaldea. Abraham was a simple
but plain man, and God appeared to him just The Lord of Glory,
the Bible says, appeared unto Abraham and told him to get out
of that land. Just leave the place that you're
at here right now. Just leave it. And leave your
kindred, leave them all back there, and you come on and follow
me. And he said, I'll make you a
great nation. And out of Abraham's loins, God made a great nation,
and that nation is Israel. And that's the only nation that
God ever had anything to do with. Back here in Old Testament days,
God did not visit the Egyptians only with judgment. God did not
visit the Assyrians and Philistines and the rest of them only in
judgment, but visited this one people in mercy. You see, they
were a chosen nation. God chose them. over and above
all other nations on the face of the earth, God chose Israel. That cannot be denied. Even folks
that don't understand what I'm talking about when I talk about
the doctrine of God's sovereign election cannot deny that, that
Israel was chosen by God. They didn't choose God, God chose
them. So that is the first point, by
way of characteristic, that they are likened unto the Church of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The people that are redeemed
in our day are redeemed because of a first cause. The first cause
is God, in that God chose them. We talk about people being redeemed,
or we talk about people being the children of God, or we talk
about people being saved from the wrath of God and saved from
their sins. We're saying that those people
were chosen by God. And here in time, they experienced
the salvation that God's talking about. And that's what the Bible
is all about. The Bible, from start finished
is about that word S-A-L-V-A-T-I-O-N, salvation or deliverance. That's what it's all about. And
that's what this whole religious business is all about. It's about
a salvation. It's about something that God
planned and purposed before time ever was. And it had its fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ. So the people of Israel were
the nation chosen out of all the other peoples on the face
of the earth. And God deposited His presence
with the children of Israel, nowhere else. He dwelled with
them nowhere else. Not to say that God did not exercise
His power over the whole world that is seen here and unseen
worlds. I'm not trying to say that. But
I'm trying to say that he deposited himself and his mercy and his
love and his long-suffering with Israel. And Israel is a type
of the church in the sense that they are redeemed. You see, these
people, that's about to go out in this vast wilderness, in tithe
they are redeemed. Now, how were they redeemed?
Well, let me read this to you real quick. They were redeemed
through the blood. Now, notice over here in Exodus
12. You'll not have to turn, and I'll read it to you. Exodus
12, yes. It says that you'll take a lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish.
picturing the Lord Jesus Christ who was without sin. Now listen,
"...your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first
year. Ye shall keep it up until the
fourteenth day of the same month." That is, pin it up someplace,
because if there is any blemish in that lamb, if there is a If
there's a blemish, if the eyes run, if one eye is white and
one eye is blue, it disqualifies that lamb. There's a blemish
on that lamb. If it's got a limp, if it's lame, if its wool is
tarnished and some of it's fallen off, anything about that lamb
that is short of what a perfect lamb would be, you can't use
it as a sacrifice. So take the lamb, first thing
of the flock, and keep that lamb up, pin him up out there somewhere
for 14 days. And just every so often, you
go out and look at that lamb and observe that lamb and look
and look and look, and if there's any blemish in that lamb, he's
not qualified. Go away with him and get you
another one. Which is saying that the Lord Jesus Christ is
our lamb. He's the perfect lamb of God. He didn't know any sin. No blemish
in the Lord Jesus Christ. He could qualify as a perfect
candidate for sacrifice in that he never sinned. He was a man
and he was God. And as a man, he never sinned.
Now, that's hard to imagine, isn't it? As a man, he never
sinned. He obeyed God literally, perfectly,
in every movement, walk, talk, conversation, and in everything
else. So, take that lamb and kill the
lamb. Kill the lamb. Take the blood,
verse 7, and they shall take of the blood, the blood of the
Lamb." Now, God's going to execute judgment upon every home that
does not have the blood of the Lamb here. But the basis of His
mercy to these people that have the blood is the blood. That's
the basis of His mercy. Now, "...they shall take of the
blood, and strike it upon the two side posts upon the upper
doorpost of the houses. And then he comes on down and
says, verse 12, it says, And when I see the blood, I will
pass through the land of Egypt. God said, I'll pass God Himself. We said it's a death angel, but
it was God that passed through the land of Egypt. For I will
pass through the land of Egypt this night. and will smite, that
is, will kill all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. Every firstborn
of every family. Think of that. He wouldn't have
gotten me because my brother is older than I am. He'd have
been the firstborn. They'd have got him. But every
firstborn of every family he killed. It didn't make any difference
if it was six months old or 60 years old. Whatever the age was, God came over. Now, this is God. I'm not telling you some story
that is fiction, that is not based upon truth. This is God
Himself, and this is God saying it right here. He said, I will.
I will. And when God wills to do something,
He does it because no one can thwart His will. I will pass
through the land of Egypt this night, And I will smite all the
firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. Against all
the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you
for a token upon the houses where you are. The blood shall be a
sign, a token." That blood here, here, and here. And when I come
over and see the sign, and when I see the blood, verse 13, it
says, And when I come over, when I see the blood, he said, I'll
pass over you. So the Passover is based upon
the blood. Do you see that? The Passover
of the children of Israel is based upon the blood of this
Lamb. And let me say now, for fear I just go on and talk here
and not emphasize this, the only safety and security that anybody
has on the topside of God's green earth, any time, any place, any
year, is to be found sheltered under the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the only safety. Anybody
outside of the blood is in for judgment. You say,
well, how come the children of Israel did not receive this judgment? They did receive the judgment.
The judgment fell on the Lamb, and the Lamb was their substitute.
So the Lamb bears the judgment of God for them. And that's what
we talk about when we talk about the Lord Jesus Christ being our
substitute. We talk about Him being our Savior.
He's our Savior in that He's our substitute. He dies for us. He sheds His blood for us. He bears in His person the penalty
that's due us as sinners. So we hide in Him. So we say,
is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. So my hope is in Him. Judgment
won't fall on me because I'm in Him. It already fell on Him.
See? It already fell on the Lamb of
God that's perfect. It didn't fall on Him because
He deserved it. There's no warrant in the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ for Him just dying for Himself. He
died for His people. He's the Lamb. All right? The people of the wilderness
were a redeemed people, redeemed by blood and redeemed by power. The blood secured their safety
while the firstborn of Egypt was slain. God passed over them
in mercy, the justice of God that says the soul that sinneth
shall surely die, inflexible justice. Unmitigated, unswervable, just. You see, when I say inflexible
justice, I mean a justice that does not veer off. It does not
bend. Our justice, the United States
of America, is a justice that will start in this direction,
but it may go over here. It'll bend. It'll bend. when
a man kills another man out of anger or premeditated reason,
some reason or the other, and shoots a man, kills him in cold
blood. Most of the time, justice does
not run its course. Justice requires that if a man
kills another man, premeditated, then his life, an eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth, inflexible. The inflexible justice of God
does not bend. There is no life imprisonment
in God's capital punishment. See, his justice is unswerving,
inflexible. Now, the justice of God had executed
its warrant upon the person of that lamb, and the people who
had the blood of the lamb as their substitute, they escaped
the judgment of God that fell upon the firstborn of Egypt.
Because the blood of the lamb satisfied the justice of God. Now, another thing about these
people, by way of characteristic to the Church, as we know it
this morning, they were a people... Now, this is important, and I
think you'll appreciate this. These people that I'm going to
preach about here this morning in chapter 9, these people were
passing through a land wherein they found no rest. They were
entering in to a wilderness, a trackless wilderness, where
there was no way. They're about to enter into this
land. They're going to be in this land for forty years, wandering
this land. They're a type of the church. They're a type of the people
of God right now. in that these people were passing
through a land wherein they found no rest, and neither did they
desire any. Why? For they were going to another
country. You see, this passing through
was only temporary. It was only going to last forty
years. Where were they really going?
They were going to the promised land. They were passing through
here. Their real objective and goal,
according to the Word of God, was the land of Canaan. See,
God told Abraham, when He called him out of the earth, the Chaldees,
He said, I'm going to make you a... you come follow Me. Leave
your father and your mother and your brothers and sisters and
all of them, leave them there! Your cousins and your aunts and
all, grandpas and grandmas, leave them there! I want you. And old
Abraham, he dropped his shovel or he thowed the lines of the
horse down or whatever he was doing, he thowed them down and
he took off! He took off and started following
exactly where God led him. Left them all behind. God made a great nation out of
him. Out of his loins, his seed. He made all these almost innumerable
people. There's over a million of them
here right now. Right here in this ninth chapter of the book
of Numbers, there's over a million people here. And they all come
from one man, from Abraham. And God's made them a great nation. He's blessed them. And He told
Abraham, He said, for you and your seed, He said, I'll give
you a land. I'm going to give you a land,
He said, and it's a land of milk and honey. It's the land of Canaan.
It's yours. I'm going to give it to you.
You don't have to buy it. All you've got to do is go in
and take that land. Just go in. It's yours. The inhabitants of that land,
the Gibeonites, the Midianites, and all the rest of them, he
said, I'll drive them out. I'll drive them out. You just
go on in. It's yours. The city, everything there is
yours. I'll give it to you. He said,
there's fruit there that you wouldn't believe. He said, the
soil is so rich, there's gold and silver and copper and brass
and trees. He said, there's everything there,
George, I give it to you. That's the land of Milka, and
that is in time, in time, a picture. You know, they said Abraham said
he was looking for a city. Abraham said, I'm looking for
a city. He said, a city. He said, not one that you can
see. He said, a city whose builder
and maker is God. Now, the people of God now, we're
passing through. We're on to a land of canes,
a land of milk and honey, a land where you live forever. I've
got a land where you'll never die. I'm anxious for it. I'm anxious. I'm just passing through. You're
passing through. This wilderness in this world
is a wilderness. This whole world is against God.
They hate the God of the Bible. They won't let God do what He
wants to. I mean they They would prohibit
him if they could. But they can't prohibit God according
to what you read there in the 40th chapter of the book of Isaiah. He said, if we just remember
that all flesh is as grass. That's what we are. Grass comes
up, gets green for a while, and the first thing you know, it
dies. And then he says, the mowers come along and cut it down, and
then they take it over in a pile and burn it. That's what we are
in comparison to God. We talk about knowing God. We
may know maybe that much of God. But there's more to God than
we'll ever know. The heavens can't contain the
vastness and the splendor and the beauty and the majestic of
God Almighty. And we just, well, we just look
in a glass darkly, just see a faint picture, as always. But we're
passing through, see, passing through. We're going to the land
of Canaan. We're going to be with God. We're
going to go and live forever and ever and ever and ever with
God Almighty, where there'll be a... It talks about a new
Jerusalem. It talks about an earth that
has been scourged and refined. Well, that's where they're going,
the land of Canaan. But they're temporarily hindered. They've got some lessons to learn
before they get to the land of Canaan. So they're going out
into the wilderness. They were a people passing through
a land wherein they found no rest. Neither did they desire
any, for they were going to another country. a promised land. So that's where we're going,
to a promised land. He promised us a place. He said,
don't let your hearts be troubled. Our Lord Jesus, He was about
to go. He was about to be crucified.
And He looked out there at those disciples, and they sat there
with their head in their hands, and looked like they was whipped
and beaten, and they didn't know what to do. They'd left all and
followed the Lord Jesus Christ for three years, and now He announces
to them that He's going to leave. He's going to depart from them.
And they, what do we do? We feel like we're orphans. We've
been with you. He said, let not your hearts be troubled.
He said, You believe in God, don't you? And they said, Yes.
He said, Believe also in Me. Because He said, In my Father's
house. That's the promise. In my Father's
house are many places. And He said, I go. I go to prepare
a place for you. And where I go, He said, is for
you. And I'll come again. And where
I am, there you may be. So we're passing through this.
strange world. Bob said as he prayed, this world's
not my home. It's not my home, not my permanent
home. My permanent home is an eternal
home. When I die, when I die and if
there's anything left of me and they don't decide just to close
the coffin, you know how they do, they say, We don't want anybody
to see him. Just close the coffin. And you
can pay your respects to him. His body is there, but you can't
look at it. But if you could, I mean, if
it's so that you could walk up here or wherever I'm at and look
in my face, that will just be the shell. That's really not
me. That's just where I was. That's
where I was. I live in... And this body, this
body is a tent. It's just a tent. A tent's not
a permanent home, is it? You just live in a tent for a
week, and that's a long time to live in a tent. Raining and
all that, and the water running underneath, and you're trying
to have a little fire to cook, and you can't get no dry wood,
and all that business. It's a mess, isn't it? It's a
mess. That camping business is a mess,
unless you got a 28-foot trailer. with a television in it and running
water and a bathroom and all that, or a motel nearby. That's
the kind of camping I like to do in a nice, plush motel. I'm
all for that. Them tents, them tents is what? Temporary. That's what your body
is. It's temporary. It's going to
go back to the dust. That's where it came from. It's
going to go back to the dust. You see these eyes? These eyes,
one day, will be a racetrack and a carnival for worms. Or
you say, they're going to put me in a cement vault. Listen,
that doesn't make any difference. Worms come from the inside. They don't attack that cement
wall and come in. They're bred right here. And
when that body dies, the worms will eat us up. And hell, that'll
be all right. Because you won't be there. You won't be there. You've got
a soul. A soul. My God, that's all you've got.
There's one soul. Boy, if there's any way to preserve
that soul, do it. And I'm saying that there's only
one way, and that's to be under the blood. Preserve that soul. I said a whole lot of things
I didn't intend to say. So, you can disregard some of
them. But, it didn't cost you anything.
Got them for nothing. Now, I want to read something
to you here. Chapter 9 of the book of Numbers. It says, On the day that the
tabernacle was reared up. See, a tabernacle is a tent.
That's what it was. It was a tent made out of skin.
Tides of animals. It was a great, great big thing. I told you that it took 8,000
people. 8,000 people to take care of
all that was involved in the tabernacle. The slaying of the
animals, why there was blood in there. There's blood in the
Holy of Holies up to your knees. There's blood splattered every
place. It had to be cleaned up and taken
care of. There was boats. that bolted
this tabernacle together. All of this had to be maintained
and taken down. And we'll get to that in just
a minute. But see, listen, God's out in front of this. There's
over a million people here, men, women, and children, and I suppose
some slaves. Over a million people, not counting
all the cattle and asses and sheep and all that, not counting
all that. An enormous body of people, and
God's out in front of it. He's not a man like I'm a man. God's a spirit. God's a spirit. They don't see Him, but His presence
is with them. They're about to go into a wilderness. And there's no way in that world,
there's no path in that world, there's nowhere to go, it all
looks alike! And God tells them to come on
now, He says, let's go! Get with it! You know, there's no path there,
they can't depend upon a path or a trail that some man made
before. No one went along painted white
on a tree. I was reading about the Appalachian
Trail that comes from way up in New England and goes clean
down into Georgia, I believe over 2,000 miles. And it's a
trail, discernible. You can see it. And people that
have to do with this Appalachian Foundation, they go along and
if the tree falls over, they move the tree for the hikers. And they paint the trees white.
So when you walk along, you can see it. But there's no trail
in this wilderness. And they got to go in that wilderness,
a trackless, wasteless wilderness. It says that on that day that
the tabernacle was reared up. When they reared the tabernacle,
and it's getting ready to move, here's what God told the children
of Israel. He told them, now He said, you
just trust in Me. He said, that's what I want you
to do. Just trust in me. He said, now I'm going to put
a cloud up here by day. There's going to be this one
big, quiet, fluffy cloud. It's going to hover up here above
the tabernacle. And he said, when that cloud
moves, you move. Just that simple. He said, now
I'm going to guide you. I'm going to guide you, I'm going
to guard you, and I'm going to direct you, and I'm going to
be your refuge. You're not going to want for
anything. You're not going to want for anything." He said,
all you've got to do is when that cloud moves, you start taking
the tabernacle down, you start taking your tents down, you pack
your and all of that, and your belongings on your camels, or
your beasts of burden, whatever. And when that cloud moves, you
follow the cloud. And when that cloud stops, you
stop. That's simple, isn't it? When
the cloud moves, you move. Follow that cloud. And when that
cloud stops, you stop. And he said, Instead of being
a cloud by day, it'll be a pillar of fire by night for your protection."
And he says, whenever the cloud moves, you move. Well, you see
a numerous host of men and women and children traveling through
a trackless wilderness where there was no way, passing over
a dreary wasteland, a vast sandy desert without compass and without
a human guide, wholly, absolutely dependent upon God for guidance
as for food and everything else. They could form no plans for
tomorrow because they didn't know what tomorrow held. They
knew not when they were tomorrow. And when on the march, they knew
not when or where to stop, so there could be no plan. They
had to look up for guidance. They had to look up at the cloud.
And when the cloud moved, they moved. And when the cloud stopped,
they stopped. Their movements were controlled
by the wheels of God's chariot. And the Bible says, So it was
always. Look down there in that 16th
verse. It says, On the day that the
tabernacle was reared up, the cloud covered the tabernacle,
the tent of the testimony. And even there was upon the tabernacle,
as it were, the appearance of fire until the morning. Notice
the next four words. So it was always. Or so it was always. It's always like that. For 40
years it'll be that way. Which is characteristic of what
God says to His people now. He said, I'm the good shepherd. The good shepherd, give up. Layeth
down his life for the sheep. He says, You'll not want for
any good thing. I'll give you every good thing
that your heart desires." He didn't say, what you want, but
what you need, I'll give to you. I'll take care of you. Listen,
he said this. He said, don't be discouraged.
Ah, it's so easy to be discouraged if we look at circumstances.
Be discouraged, my gracious. Look, your wife's sick, or your
husband's sick, your children's sick, or you're without a job,
and you've got bills to pay and no money to pay them, and people
don't like you, and your roof leaks, the house has no accounts
you'd like. You don't look around and be so full of despair. You almost say, well, maybe it'd
be easier if I could just take a gun and shoot myself. But the reason why we feel that
way is we look at the conditions and the circumstances. But if
we could, if we had faith to rise beyond the circumstances and listen to the voice of God
who said, be not discouraged and be not dismayed, I'll never
leave you nor forsake you. I'll never leave you. I won't
leave you. God said that. He said, I won't
leave you. Well, surely you forget about
me. No. No. No, I said, you're the apple
of my eye. I won't leave you. Oh, listen. So it was always
the cloud covered the tabernacle by day and fire by night. And this is a picture of what?
It's a picture of absolute dependence upon and subjection to divine
guidance. I have already told you that
there was not a footprint or a landmark throughout this great
and terrible wilderness. It was useless for them to look
for any guidance from those who had gone before because there
was no one who had ever went before. They were absolutely
positively cast upon God for every step of the way. Now, they
were in a position of waiting upon God. And that's not a bad
position to be in, just wait on God. I was talking to a fellow
the other day, and they had some problems with another preacher. And the other preacher said this,
And the other preacher said that. And so we talked about it. And he said, well, what do you
think we ought to do? I said, well, let's just leave it go. Can you
live with it? I said, can you live with it?
He said, I can live with it. I said, well, let's just kind
of ignore it. That's been a couple of years
ago, just recently. He said, you know, What we talked
about, we said, just back off and leave it go. And I said,
yeah. He said, well, I think that's
the way to handle things. He said, God took care of the
whole problem. He said, God just took care of
it. He said, just backed off from it. Just back off from it. Well, listen. They were in a
position of waiting on God. That's what we do, just wait
on God. Wait for God. Some folks, you know, they say,
well, I think I ought to leave this place. Here are the Gospels
preached. Right here, it's preached. The
Word of God is set forth in truth. Someone says, well, I'm getting
tired of it. I think I'll leave. I feel like
the Lord is having me do something else. No. No. People trying to make their feelings
conform with the wisdom of God. And what do they need to do? Just sit back and wait. Just sit back and wait. Wait. Just wait. God's in no hurry. Just sit back and wait. Ah, listen, they were in a position
of waiting upon God. But listen to me now. But this,
to an unsubdued mind, an unbroken will, waiting upon God, would
be intolerable. It would be terrible. But to
a soul that has a distinct knowledge of knowing God, loving God, trusting
God, delighting in God, Nothing could be more blessed than for
that soul to wait on God. But here lies the real problem
with all of us. This is the problem. This is
the real gist of the matter. Is God known? Do I know God? Do I know God? That's the question. Do you know God? Well, most people say, well,
I know about it. I know they are God. I'm not
a communist. I'm not an atheist. I know there
is a higher power. I know that. And they call Him
God or something else. But that's not what I'm talking
about. The Bible talks about knowing. The only way you can
know this God that I'm talking about, this God of the Old Testament
that Bob wrote and read about, and the God that is depicted
from this 9th chapter of the book of Numbers, the only way
that God is known is in the face of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
No man can know God the Father apart from God the Son. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
spitting image of God the Father. And our Lord said to Thomas,
one of His highly favored disciples, Thomas said, they told him, they
said, well, the Lord's been crucified. He'd been crucified and they
put him in a grave, but he come forth from the grave, they said.
Thomas said, I won't believe that. until I see the nail printed
in His hand, until I can put my hand and lay it in His side. I won't believe that. And all
at once our Lord appeared on the scene. And old Thomas, you
know what he said? He said, My Lord and my God.
And our Lord said this in response to his statement. He said, Blessed
are them. Oh, I said, blessed are you,
Thomas, but blessed are those who believe and see Thomas. He said, I am the Father, and
he that seen me, Thomas, he that seen me hath seen the Father. So all God's got to show and
all God's got to give is wrapped up in the Lord Jesus Christ. know His Son. That's all there
are to it. I can't make a man know Him.
I haven't got anything to do with it. But I can tell you,
I can tell you, you've got to know Him. John chapter 17, verse
3, And this is eternal life, that they might know Thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast Is God known? Is God loved? Is God trusted?
If He be so, if He be known, if He be trusted, if He be delighted
in the heart, we'll be delighted in the most absolute dependence
upon Him. Who wants to depend upon yourself?
What do you know? What can you do? My God! You're dependent upon God for
the very next breath you take. If God all at once would would
take some spit, if God would take some sinus drainage and
use it, He could choke us to death on our own spit. Huh? Oh, we are dependent upon
God. We don't realize that, don't
act like it, don't live like it, but we are. Absolute dependence upon God.
Well, the unregenerate man, that is this man that's indifferent
towards God, is indifferent towards the Lord Jesus Christ. He said,
It's all right for you. You need a crutch to help you,
but I don't need nobody to help me. I'll make it. I've made it up to this point,
and I'll make it on in. That's the unregenerate man.
That's the unbeliever. He doesn't know God in the face
of the Lord Jesus. He don't know how God can be
just and justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. The unregenerate
man, the unbeliever, the lost man thinks himself independent. I'm independent. I don't need
God. I don't need the preacher. I
don't need a church. I don't need nobody. I'll make
it myself. I used to feel like that, too.
That's pride, isn't it? I don't need no neighbor. I don't
need anybody to encourage me or pat me on the back. I can
make it. I made it this far. I'll make it the rest of the
way. Ah, boy. Listen, the unbeliever, the lost
man, the unregenerate, he thinks himself independent. He loves
to think himself free. He thinks he's free. I'll tell
you how free he is. He's as free as a frog in a snake's
belly. He's free to move around, but
he's not free to get out. He's free in his environment
according to his nature. He's a sinner by nature, by birth,
by choice, and by practice. And he's free in that environment
to sin all he wants to. But he can't make a move towards
God until God does something for him. That's how free he is. He loves
to believe that he can do what he likes. He can go where he
likes. He can say what he likes. That's
a delusion. That's a delusion. Man is not
free. He's a slave to his nature. He's
a slave to Satan the devil. And the devil has him bound hand
and foot. And he rules that man through
the passions and the lusts and the desires. of that man's depraved
nature. There is no freedom save that
which our Lord Jesus Christ makes his people free. He says, If the Son makes you
free, ye shall be free indeed. This is true liberty, when the
Son makes you true liberty where the new nature finds itself walking
in the Spirit of the living God and doing the things that are
pleasing to God. But this service in all of its
departments involves the most simple dependence and subjection
upon the living God. There is only one true and perfect
servant that ever lived upon the face of the earth that was
absolutely subjected to and dependent upon the living God. And that
was the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. He was ever-dependent
upon God, ever-dependent. Every movement, if he moved to
the right or he moved to the left, forward or backward, was in absolute dependence upon
God. Every word he spoke, there was
no idle word that fell from his lips like fall from mine. Every word he spoke, all that
he did and all that he left undone was the fruit of the most absolute
dependence upon and subjection to God. He moved when God would
have him to move. He stood still when God would
have him to stand still. He spoke when God would have
him to speak. In one place it says that he
opened not his mouth. That is, he was silent when God
would have him to be silent. Isn't that something? That's
the only one. And he was in perfect subjection
and dependent upon God in order that he might be my substitute.
Now, that's what God requires out of me. That's what He requires
out of you. Absolute subjection and dependence
upon God. I can't give it. I can't give
it. I haven't got it. I'm a sinner
by nature. I'm a sinner by choice. I'm a
sinner by practice. I sin every day, and I'm not
bragging about it. I'm ashamed of it. But I'm a
sinner. Everything I do is contaminated
and polluted with the virus of sin. Not so with the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is what God demands, absolute
submission to His free and sovereign will. And I can't produce it,
and I don't know where to find it. except I find it in Him,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man. So I bow to Him. I bow to Him. I rest my case in the Lord Jesus. I sink or swim in Him. I'm not
dependent on myself. I'm not dependent on my preaching,
whether it's good or whether it's bad. I'm not dependent on
giving my little bit of money. I'm not dependent on the fact
that I quit cussing or I quit this or I quit that. I'm not
dependent on that. My hope is not built on whether
I go to church every Sunday or not. My hope is built on Him. That's the basis of my hope.
You say, preacher, what hope have you got to get into heaven?
No hope in myself. All my hope is based in Him,
the blood of the Lamb, that He died for sinners. And I've got
reason to believe they died for me. You say, well, what reason
is that? Because I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. Wharf and woof.
Inside and outside, the soles of my feet to the top of my head.
I haven't got one single solitary good thing that I can take from
myself and hand it to God and say, look here what I give you.
I haven't got anything. I'm destitute. I'm stripped. I'm bankrupt. I haven't got a
thing. I owe God $10,000 and I haven't got a penny to pay.
Them's the kind of people he saves. People who hadn't got
anything to pay. Why? He already paid it. All I owe he paid. Paid it in
full and signed it in his own blood. Well, I'm going to quit. Thank you for your attention.