I was thinking as Norm was reading
that, one of the verses in the scripture which is so remarkable
is that, so sure are things, Isaiah 46.10 says that our God,
the Lord Jesus Christ, declared, declaring the When all things are wrapped up,
there will be a new creation and all of God's children will
be there, all of the bride of Christ will be there. There will
be that great wedding feast and there will be that rejoicing
and there will be that new creation where we will know each other.
brothers and sisters in Christ, and we will see each other. But
most of all, every thought and every moment of all that time,
we will be there without sin, glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, he declares, that's
the end, isn't it? So, Max is a builder, I've done
a bunch of buildings. When you're doing some building,
you actually plan and you have a picture in your mind of what
you're going to build, even when you're cooking a meal or doing
all sorts of other things. We have a plan, don't we? We
have a picture of some sort in our mind of what it's going to
look like. And then we start. But that picture is always there,
isn't it? He's declaring the end from the beginning. As far as God's eternal purposes
are concerned, it's all finished. the works were finished and the
foundation of the world were declared. Declaring from the
end, the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things
that are not yet done, saying, this is God, our great and sovereign
God, my counsel, my purpose shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. I have spoken it, I will bring
it to pass, I have purposed it, I will do it. Then he says, hearken
unto me. Just listen, listen to what God
says. So turn back in your Bibles to
John chapter 14. And I just wanted to, before we have the Lord's
Supper, I wanted to briefly have a look at what it is for the
Lord Jesus Christ to declare Himself to be the way. And Lord
willing, next week we'll look at what it is for Him to be the
truth and for Him to be the life. And I love the definite articles,
isn't it? And the Lord says this in response to His statement,
where I go you know the way. And Thomas saith unto Him, verse
5, Lord, we know not whither thou goest, how can we know the
way? And the Lord brings to us and
to his church, until he returns, he says unto him, I am the way,
I am the truth, I am the life. No man comes to the Father but
by me. The way, the truth and the life. The way is the truth and the
life. They're all descriptions of the
Lord Jesus Christ. The truth is the way and the
life. The life. is in the way and in
the truth. To have one is to have all. If you have the Lord Jesus Christ,
you have it all. To be in the way is to be all
the way. If you're in the way, you are
all the way there. It speaks the word way, which
means a road or a journey between two points. But if you're in
the way, you've already arrived at the destination. There's a
reality to come. And the early church was declared
for quite some time to be the way. So Paul speaks of, he found
any of this way, and they spoke in Acts 19.9, they spoke evil
of that way, and there was no small stir about that way. And
Paul says he persecuted that way under death. And he says
in Acts 24 verse 14, he says, But this I confess unto thee,
that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the
God of my fathers, believing all things which are written
in the law and the prophets. To be in the way is to worship
God. And one of the ways you know
you're in the way is that the religious, legalistic, self-righteous
around you will declare you to be a heretic. It's a badge of
honour for the child of God. It's an Old Testament promise,
isn't it? He says that John the Baptist called and commissioned
in Isaiah 40, is the voice of one that crieth in the wilderness,
prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a
highway for our God. He shall come with a strong hand.
He is the way. No man cometh to the Father but
by me. When he comes to the Father,
I come to the Father. When he comes to the Father,
all his bride comes to the Father. He is the head, we are the body. Some of you walked over and took
some of that magnificent watermelon this morning. Did your toe go
with you? And the hairs of your head go
with you? That's what it is for us to be
united to the Lord Jesus Christ. We're one with Him. Where He
goes, we go. He goes into heaven. We go into heaven. We are eternally vitally united to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Here's the way. In a world where
there are so many ways, aren't there? There are so many ways.
I do love that verse in Jeremiah 6 where the Lord's advice to
his people, he says, stand ye in the ways. And that's exactly
what people do now, don't they? You stand and there are multitudes
of ways that people can go. a multitude of religions you
can follow, a multitude of varieties of Christianity you can follow,
thousands and tens of thousands of them. He says, stand ye in
all the ways and see. Don't be unthinking and don't
be unexamining. You see, and there is a way to
examine them and it's clearly laid out. He says, ask for the
old paths. wherein is the good way, and
walk therein. The old paths are the paths which
are everlasting. They disappear into eternity
past. And so when we are speaking of
the Gospel, we're talking about the everlasting Gospel, the eternal
Gospel that goes back as far, that path goes back as far as
you can possibly trace, right back to the very councils of
God before the foundation of the world. and it goes all the
way to eternity future. And so the stability of the child
of God reaches back to eternity and reaches forward to eternity.
And so the things here in this little moment, this brief moment
of life, are not the big deal at all. It's the things of eternity
that matter. And he says, you ask for the
old paths, where is the good way and walk therein and you
shall find rest for your souls. Isn't that lovely? It's called
the way of peace. Christ is the way of peace. Peace
with God. Peace with our consciences. And listen to what the Jews said
in response. Isn't that a glorious instruction
from our gods. You stand, you've got so many
ways around you. All over this world there are
so many ways. And they said, we will not walk therein. Also I set watchmen over you
saying, hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said,
we will not hearken. We will not hear what you say. There is just one way. There
is just one way. There is a way, the Lord repeats
this twice in Proverbs 14 and 16, there is a way which seemeth
right to a man. There is a way. When you talk
to people in religion, it doesn't matter what sort of religion
it is, you talk to them, that seems right to them, but the
end thereof are the ways of death. So I'm with me in Matthew chapter
7. Let's try and grasp how serious this whole business is. Matthew chapter 7 verse 13. The
Lord speaking of this way, speaking of himself being the way. He
says, Enter ye in at the straight gate. For wide is the gate, and
broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there
be which go in thereat. Because straight is the gate,
and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life. And few there be that
find it. Lord, make me one of the few.
Whatever it takes. Every time I think of all of
those ways, I went to India 20-something years ago now, nearly 23 years
ago, and I left this religious world that I had spent just a
few years in here and I went to India and all of a sudden
you're on top of a hill in southern India and you're surrounded by
Hinduism and Catholicism in mega scales and you're surrounded
by Islam and then you get to the school which you would think
would be about as close to heaven on earth as you could get with
70 or 80 missionaries supported by their churches back in all
parts of most continents, all continents of the world, and
then you're teaching the children of missionaries, hundreds of
missionaries have their children there, and all of a sudden there
were just so many ways. I didn't know how many there
were, and I spent a bunch of time pleading with the
Lord Just show me what's true. Just show me what's true. I don't
care what I have to lose in religion if I'm wrong. If I have learned
something and believe something that's not true, just take it
from me. We were responsible for 25 young
girls between the ages of 12 and 14 in our dorm and we were
charged by the school with the spiritual care of those girls
and they were the children of missionaries and some Indian
children. And there I was, that's why I
love Jeremiah chapter six, I was standing in the ways and I was
desperately pleading with the Lord to not cause me and not
allow me to be someone who leads these little ones astray. Because
Matthew chapter 10 says, if you do lead the little ones astray,
and I was teaching Mark chapter 10, I was teaching Mark's gospel
to students four or five days a week and Mark, The Lord says
in Mark chapter 10, you're better off having a millstone around
your neck and being a corpse in the bottom of the Sea of Galilee
than leading one of these little ones astray. I was surrounded
by little ones. I'm so thankful the Lord dealt
with me in grace and mercy. There is a broad road. It's a
broad road. He's talking to religious people
here. But the road is so broad. It's broad enough for the moral
person, isn't it? Then it's broad enough for the
immoral person. It's broad enough for the religious
person. It's broad enough for the intelligent
and the sophisticated. It's broad enough for the lowest
of the low and the highest of the high. It's broad enough for
the rich and the poor. You can imagine that road. It's
a huge wide road and it's got a gutter on each side and up
on the height of that road are all these lanes and the self-righteous
walk there proudly in the sunshine and look down on the people in
the gutter on the other side. If you're on the broad road,
It doesn't matter which part of the road you're on. At all. It doesn't matter what part of
the road you're on. If you're not in the way. Narrow
is the way. The way is so narrow that religious
people of all varieties throughout the world find it offensive. You make the way to heaven narrow.
I didn't make the way to heaven narrow. The Lord Jesus Christ
made the way to heaven narrow. People like to think, I was sent
something yesterday from a church in London and it was talking
about how wonderfully inclusive we are. We include all religions
and all genders and all types of people and they were parading
the fact that they were inclusive. The Lord Jesus Christ here is
declaring that he is exclusive. I am the way, not one among many
ways. I am the truth. Personally he
is the truth and I am the light and unless you're in him, unless
you come in him, you cannot come into heaven. People like the notion. It comforts
people, isn't it? And my fleshly desires are the
same as yours, I'm sure. We want there to be a broad road. We want there to be an acceptance
of all different sorts of things. We want the people that we love
to come to heaven. But the reality is, do you want
a bridge that's incredibly broad and doesn't get across the river,
or do you want a narrow one that reaches all the way across? And
that's what the Lord Jesus Christ is talking about. So many people
are on that broad road, the way that seems right to them. It's
so narrow the way to heaven, it's so narrow and so straight,
it's so constrained, that it only accepts Jesus Christ alone. We sing the song, don't we? I
wonder sometimes how often people sing songs that actually sing
hymns which are profoundly true, but then they would deny the
reality of it in their experience. Nothing in my hand I bring. That's a lovely phrase, isn't
it? Simply to the cross I cling. Naked. Come to thee for dress. I've
got nothing. I haven't done a righteous deed
ever. There's not one single thing
about anything that I have personally done that causes me to have any
acceptance with God. I come in Christ alone. Naked, come to thee for dress.
Helpless. Helpless, look to thee for grace. Foul. Filthy. I fly, I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Saviour, or I die. Many are turning up to meet the
Lord Jesus Christ even as we speak and they've done many wonderful
works. You can read about them in Matthew chapter 7 and the
Lord will not deny their declaration of their wonderful works. They
won't deny their preaching. The road, the broad road is broad
enough for preachers to be on. The road is narrow. God has accepted
his Son. He has accepted his obedience. He has accepted his faithfulness.
He has accepted his offering for sin. To add anything of your
doing to what has already been accepted is so offensive to the
Father. Imagine the thought That your
works somehow can enhance the works of the Lord Jesus Christ. That your works can be, before
God, somehow equivalent to the works of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a narrow way. May the
Lord burden our hearts with the desire to be on the narrow way. We read it at the beginning of
our service. Righteousness shall go before him, Psalm 85, and
shall set us in the way of his steps. How did we get in the
Lord Jesus Christ? God the Father puts his people
in the Lord Jesus Christ. I want us to turn to a couple
of passages briefly. I want us to turn to Genesis
chapter 3. Genesis is the foundation of
all things in the Bible. We cannot spend too much time
praying the Lord opens our eyes to see the things in Genesis. But I want us to see what happens
at the end of Genesis 3 and what the description is of this way.
So there is in the Garden of God the Tree of Life, and the
Tree of Life is a representation of the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
And the only way you can have eternal life is you must get
to the Tree of Life. you must get to the Tree of Life.
But listen to what happened to Adam and Eve. Verse 24, So he drove out the
man, and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims,
angelic beings, and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of
life. How do you get to the tree of
life? You have to go past the flaming
sword in the hand of the cherubim. And when they did the curtains
in the temple, what did they do? They had a representation
of this. They were cherubims. embroidered
into those curtains. Once again it was showing that
the way into the Tree of Life, the way into eternal life, is
a narrow way and a restricted way. How do you get to the Tree
of Life? Someone from inside the garden
has to come out and take you through that flaming sword. And that's exactly what happened
to the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. Zechariah 13
says, Awake, O sword. Awake, O sword. It's a remarkable verse of Scripture. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd. Against the man that is my fellow,
saith the Lord of hosts, smite the shepherd, slay the shepherd
on the cross of Calvary. All of the sins of all of God's
people and all of God's people were in the Lord Jesus Christ
and united to him. And the sword of God's justice,
this flaming sword, pierced the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. smite the shepherd and the sheep
shall be scattered and I will turn my hand, my hand of love
upon the little ones. How do you get into the tree
of life? What is the way? The way is the
Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord Jesus Christ crucified and That's the picture here before
us. I love what Paul described of
his conversion and his walk in this world. I've quoted it so
many times and I'm sure you know it, but it's just lovely to read
it again, isn't it? He says, this is Paul speaking
as being on behalf of all believers. He's a pattern of all believers.
He says, I am. Verse 20 of Galatians 2, I am
crucified with Christ. That's what happened, isn't it?
That flaming sword crucified all of God's people in Christ.
Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and
the life which I now live in the flesh, while he's living
in this world here, I live by the faith of the Son of God who
loved me and gave himself for me. What a glorious, glorious picture
that Paul paints there for us. These days there must be countless
multitudes that turn up on that Day of Judgment, turn up and
meet the Lord Jesus Christ and then say to Him, I was told all
my life that God loves everyone and Jesus died for everyone.
What a horrifying thing for them and their preacher on that day. Peter speaks of the way. He says
it's the right way in 2 Peter 2 verse 15. There is just one
way and it's the right way. But he says in verse 21 of that
same chapter, he says, who have deserted the way, have forsaken
the right way and gone astray. He says it's better for them
not to have known the way of righteousness. It's best not
to know. On the Day of Judgment, according
to Matthew 11, according to the Lord Jesus Christ's words, it's
going to be worse for Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum than
it is for Sodom and Gomorrah. Because they had more light. It is the right way. It is just
a narrow way, and He is that way. I want us to turn to Romans
Chapter 4. I just love it. He says in 2
Peter and in Matthew 21, I think it is, he says, He calls the
way the way of righteousness. What is righteousness? Lot was
declared to be a righteous man, wasn't he? Righteous Lot. What
is righteousness? It is nothing less than perfect
holy conformity in heart, soul, and mind to the holy law of God,
that God declares the righteous to be perfectly holy in his heart,
to have never sinned. Romans 4 is just one of those
verses that I am still amazed by how profound it is. He speaks of those who work and
want to put God under debt, but in verse 5 he says, but to him,
listen to this, this is a description of someone in the narrow way,
someone in the way of righteousness, but to him that worketh not. but believeth on him that justifieth
the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Isn't that
remarkable? To him that worketh not. Even as David also describes
the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness. He imparts righteousness and
he imputes righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they
whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord impute sin. Why will he not impute
sin? Because that sin's already been
imputed to his son and his son has dealt with it. His son has
borne the fire of that sword of the justice of God. What a
glorious, glorious gospel we have to proclaim. That's why
it's called the Way of Peace. God's children have peace with
God. We have peace with our consciences, don't we? Romans 4.25 at the end of that
chapter. He was delivered for our offences.
He was delivered because of our offences and was raised again
because of our justification. Therefore having been, is the
best way to say it, having been justified, By faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And if you read
on, you'll read a description of what it was for you when the
Lord Jesus Christ did all this work. It's called in Hebrews
10, verse 20, a new and living way. We went into the courts
of God by a new and living way. That word new means freshly slaughtered. The blood of Christ is always
speaking peace to God's people. The blood of Christ is always
there interceding for us. And if it's just consecrated
for us through the veil, that is to say His flesh. There is a way. It's a narrow
way. It's a constricted way. It's
a glorious way for the children of God. In closing, I'd like
you to turn with me to one of my favourite passages in the
scriptures in Isaiah chapter 35. Because the end result of this
way is the rejoicing of God's people. Let's start in verse 4 of Isaiah
chapter 35. Say to them that are of a fearful
heart, be strong and fear not. Behold, your God will come with
vengeance, even God with a recompense, and He will come and save you. Then The eyes of the blind shall be
opened. It's a messianic miracle that
only the Lord Jesus Christ did. Open the eyes of the blind. The
eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall
be unstopped. We'll hear the gospel. We'll
see. Blind eyes will see and we'll
hear the gospel. Then shall the lame man leap
as an heart, and the tongue of the dumb sing, for in the wilderness
shall waters break out, and streams in the desert, and the parched
ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. In the habitation of dragons
where each lay shall be grass with reeds and rushes, and an
highway shall be there, and a way and it shall be called the Way
of Holiness. How good do you have to be to
be in God's presence? As good as God, as holy as God. It's the way of holiness. The
unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for those, the
wayfaring men though fools, those that wander about, those that
are foolish, just like our apostles in John Chapter 14, shall not
err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any
ravenous beast shall go up thereon. It shall not be found there.
but the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord. Those for whom the Lord Jesus
Christ has paid the price to set them free from captivity,
the ransom of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with
songs and everlasting joy upon their heads, and they shall obtain
joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. There's a highway there. the
ransomed of the Lord, they'll come to Zion with songs and everlasting
joy on their heads, and they shall obtain joy and gladness,
a joy and gladness from he who is the way that cannot be taken
away. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we do thank you for The fact that there is a saviour
for sinners like us, Heavenly Father, we thank you for the
glory that's revealed in his salvation of sinners. The glory
that's revealed in him bearing our sins in his own body on the
cross and bearing them under your wrath, our Father, until
they are gone, until there is that great cry of our salvation,
it is finished. The price is paid in full. Oh, our Heavenly Father, we pray
that we wouldn't be drawn away to look at all the other ways,
that we would have our eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ who
is the way, the author and the finisher, the one who writes
and the one who completes all of our salvation. Cause your
people to come to Zion, Heavenly Father, with singing and joy
and rejoicing because of who he is and the fact that he has
put us in the way. And for those who are out of
the way, Heavenly Father, we pray that you would have mercy
upon them and that you call them to cry out because you have promised
that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. Make us to call our Father. We pray in Jesus' name and for
His glory. Amen.