We're here in the presence of
God Almighty. He's promised to be with us.
We are witnesses of Him for this very brief time that we have
here. What a blessed privilege it is
to know the truth, to know Him. One day, all of you who know
the Lord, all of you who are bought with His precious blood
will sing. and we think life is long, and
we long for long life, but what's the song, what's the song that's
just around the corner for all the redeemed of the Lord? They
sung, Revelation 4 and on, they sung a new song saying, thou
art worthy. That's the song they're singing
in heaven right now. Thou art worthy. to take the
book and open the seals there. The book is the book of life. The book is the book of the covenant.
The book is the book that's in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ
and his time and the seals and all the book is in his hands.
Every circumstance that happens in this world is in the book.
That's the eternal covenant sorted and sure in every detail and
it's all the salvation of all of God's people. It's all of
our desire. This is the reason, they're singing,
and this is the reason he's taken the book. For thou wast slain
and has redeemed us to God. You've bought us at the appropriate
price, which is your blood and your life, and you've redeemed
us to God by thy blood. kindred, and tongue, and people,
and nation. And thou hast made us unto our
God kings and priests. The people in heaven are singing,
and we shall reign on the earth. That's the future of God's people.
We shall reign on the earth. The new creation will reign on
us. That's what Job said, didn't he? I know that my Redeemer lives.
And one day with these very eyes that I'm looking at, these people
that are accusing me, like those Highlings that we were talking
about earlier, they're accusing me. Before God, these eyes are
gonna see Him. They're gonna see Him. They'll
see Him. That's the future. That is the glorious, glorious
future. And no wonder the Lord Jesus
Christ, in the midst of opposition, in every midst of opposition,
He would declare the wonders of His glory in the redemption
of His people. Listen to it in John chapter
10 verse 15. He says, I lay down, chapter
10 verse 15, as the Father loatheth me, and I even so I know the
Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. Other sheep I
have. When did he have them? When did
he get the sheep? When were the sheep given into
his hands? We just read it in Ephesians 1 earlier, and before
the foundation of the world they were given to him as a precious
gift to the Son from the Father, a bride, a bride for him. I have them, which are not of
this fold, not of the fold of Israel. This has a fold. Look,
we just read it, didn't we, in Revelation 5. They've come from
every tribe and nation. Our God is a glorious God in
all of His activities, and when this world is done, we will be
made to see how amazingly glorious our great God and Savior is.
They're not of this fold. They're not of the fold of Israel. must bring. I must bring. And how is he going to bring
them? And they shall hear my voice. They'll hear the shepherd's
voice. If you just hear the voice of a man on Sunday morning, you've
heard next to nothing that's of meaning in this world at all. You don't want my opinion. I
don't want my opinion. You want to hear from God. You
want to hear the words of God. They shall hear my voice. What a great promise from our
God. What a great promise, what a great incentive not to fiddle
with the word of God, not to massage the word of God, not
to make it more appealing to men. They shall hear my voice
and there shall, these are the promises of God, aren't they?
There shall be one fold and one shepherd. Verse 17, therefore
doth my father love me. This is extraordinary, isn't
it? People speak of unconditional love. There is no such thing. The love of God is in Christ
Jesus. We are loved of God as we are
loved in Him. Therefore doth my Father love
me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me. No one takes it from me. He bowed
his head on Calvary's tree. He marched to Jerusalem and set
his face like a flint to go to Jerusalem. He told everyone that
would listen to him, this is why he's come, that he was going
to Jerusalem to die. He didn't go as a victim, brothers
and sisters. He went there as a conquering
king. No one takes it from me. I lay
it down of myself. I have the power to lay it down
and the power to take it again. This commandment have I received
of my father. And there was a division therefore
among the Jews for these sayings. So what's the great division?
What is the great division? The great division is about who
the Lord Jesus Christ is. The great division is about who
the Lord Jesus Christ is and what he did on Calvary's tree,
what he did on the cross. Now under Moses said to the children
of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai in Exodus 3, who's on the
Lord's side? Who's on the Lord's side? If you're on the Lord's side,
you strap on your sword. David when he went to conquer
Goliath, that great picture of the Lord Jesus Christ dealing
with our enemy which is above us and accusing us, David went
to his brothers and he said in 1 Samuel 17, is there not a cause? There's a cause brothers and
sisters in this world, there is a cause that's worth fighting
for. And at the end of David's life he said I won't offer burnt
offerings unto the Lord which doesn't cost me anything, which
costs me nothing. It's going to be the people because of these sayings. There's a division among the
people who claim to be God's children in this world over these
sayings. It's a division that God brings.
It's a division that is worth standing for. It's a division
that Norm and I were talking in the break about that man that
I was talking about earlier who came and openly lied to all of
those people. There was a division that night.
There was a division, wasn't there? There were other men at
that table that knew that that man knew that he was lying in
the morning and it meant nothing to them. Why did it mean something
to Norm and I and not to others? Why? We've just read about it. They shall hear my voice. hear his voice. God's sheep will
hear his voice. The Lord spoke. pointedly and bluntly and very,
very clearly. And in the midst of his enemies,
he wanted these enemies, but he wanted particularly for those
who hear his voice to hear what he's saying about his salvation.
I lay down my life, I lay down my life for the sheep. I lay down my life for the sheep. The Lord spoke of those who stood
opposed to him in his day, and the words are applicable for
all of the days of this creation. He called those people who stood
opposed to him serpents and a generation of bikers. a generation of boy
fighters. He said, Paul said, the poison
of asps is under their lips, Romans 3. And so we want to speak
plainly, we want to speak pointedly, we want to speak in such a way
that those who oppose what is being said know exactly what
they're opposing and why they're opposing it. And it's always
got to do, it's always got to do with the pride of their heart.
See, false prophets lead to false doctrines. And false doctrines
lead to false gods. And false gods lead them to false
devils, and devils lead them to hell. That's the process,
isn't it? That's why the wolves come in
sheep's clothing. And in the midst of the Lord
talking in John 10 about wolves, and thieves and robbers and strangers
and hirelings, the Lord wants us to see very clearly the one
thing that matters and the one thing that comforts the children
of God and the one thing that causes the division. We must
speak plainly and we must speak pointedly and we must, if God
will give us the grace, to hear and to speak as clearly as we
possibly can about the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You see, if the truths of God
are obscured, and that's exactly what the Highling is doing all
the time, he's obscuring the truth of who God is. If the truths
of God are obscured, the perfections of God are obscured. And God
is represented in a false light. And the result of it is, in the
hearts of so many millions and billions of people throughout
time, is that they entertain false ideas of a God and they
create in their imagination a false god, and a false god created
in the imagination and the hearts of men will do as men please. The only problem is that he's
not the God of the Bible. And one day soon, you will meet
him. One day soon, you and I will meet him. God says, you thought
that I was altogether such as one as yourself. He's not like
us. Our God is absolutely glorious
and absolutely sovereign. So let's go back and I want us
to talk about what happened at the cross. I want to, in some
sense, by this message, answer the question that I was asked
the other day. What was finished? What's he
mean when he says, on the cross of Calvary as he breathes his
last, What is it for him to say it is finished? And John 10 and
John 6 and the rest of John's Gospel and the rest of the Bible
from Genesis gives us the answer and the answer is really simple
and really, really clear again and again and again. He says,
As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father, and I lay
down my life for the sheep. Is everyone a sheep? is everyone a sheep? I can tell you on the basis of
studying this question and examining these things for the last 30
years and having to examine them because I was challenged about
it, if you go amongst the people who profess to know God in this
world, in this town, you would say and you would hear and you'll
read in their statements of faith and you'll hear in their preaching
over and over again that the Lord Jesus Christ died to make
salvation possible for all men. He died to create an opportunity
for all men. And the great deceit that has
swept the world so significantly in this last 200 years that people
will say that the death of the Lord Jesus Christ is sufficient
for all the world, if all the world were to believe, and it's
efficient for the elect of God. They can't deny election. They are the words of the Highlings.
Brothers and sisters, they are the words of the thieves and
the robbers. And the thieves and the robbers, first and foremost,
want to rob God of his glory. want to rob God of his glory
and they want to rob God's people of his peace. Not all people
are sheep. He makes that abundantly clear.
He says there are sheep in this world and there are goats in
this world. If you read Matthew 25, at that great day the great
shepherd will gather and he'll divide humanity, just like he
divided humanity on the cross. On the cross there was a division
in humanity, wasn't there? There was the Lord Jesus Christ
in the middle. On one hand was a man who was saved by pure and
sovereign grace. That blood that was falling on
the ground was the blood that was paying for the sins of that
thief. and paid for them perfectly so
that God Almighty could come into his life and reveal that
that man hanging, bleeding, naked, abused beside him was God Almighty. How on earth did he come to know
that? How did we come to know anything about God? It was just
an act of God's sovereign grace in the life of that man. And
he knew that he was Lord. No one else there knew he was
Lord. He knew he was Lord, and he knew that he was a king, and
he knew that he had a kingdom, and he knew that he was coming,
he knew that he was gonna die, but he knew that he was coming
back from the death. Where did he learn all of that? Where did
any of us learn it from? It comes by divine revelation. Was that blood precious to that
man then? How precious was that blood to
him? And it meant absolutely nothing to the other fellow who
was cursing and abusing him. See, not all the sheep. He says,
my sheep, John 10, 27, my sheep, hear my voice and I know you believe not you believe not
verse 26 because you are not of my sheep I give the sheep
eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any
man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
my Father's hand. No one. So how secure are the
sheep? The sheep are the elect given
by God. There is pervading this world
a terrible, terrible lie and it's preached in pulpits all
over the place and I read about it in their statements of faith
again and again and again. And I'm so thankful, I'm so thankful
that God has made what happened at the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ the centrepiece of His glory, the revelation of all
of His character, the fulfilment of all of the scriptures. Which
is why we now, brothers and sisters in Christ, we have a really simple
task, don't we? We go into this world with the
determination that Paul had in Corinth, a city and a country
as wicked as the one we live in. He had a determination, I'm
determined to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ and him
crucified. And if he came back today, what
would he do? He'd preach Jesus Christ and
him crucified. There is a division. The Lord
divides humanity. He divides humanity between the
sheep and the goats and he divides humanity on account of the preaching
of the Gospel. His Gospel is a Gospel that divides. We don't wish for division, we
are peacemakers in every possible way and we long for lost sinners
to come and hear the message of salvation. We long for them
to come and hear what happened and why the Lord cried out, it
is finished. And we long for people like all
of us have to be rescued out of the notions of universal redemption. This idea that God loves all
men without exception He hated Esau. So you've got to strike
one off that list. That God wills the salvation
of all men, without exception. That the Holy Spirit is in the
business of trying to call all men, without exception. That Christ died for all men,
without exception. He died for Judas who was in
hell when he died and cried out, it is finished, they say. same
as he died for Peter. What was the difference between
Judas and Peter? What was the difference? Christ prayed. He says, I've
prayed for you that your faith Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. And if you want to try and turn
that into that he loved him a little bit less like so many people
want to do these days. The Lord Jesus Christ came and
he says to us again and again and again in these verses of
scripture, I lay down my life for the sheep. I lay down my
life for the sheep. The sheep are those who hear
his voice. We don't know when they're going
to hear his voice, we don't know when the time of love is, but
we know that in the preaching of the gospel they will come
and they will hear, and they will hear the shepherd's voice
calling them. They'll hear a powerful, effective
voice calling them. We cannot, because the Bible
never does, declare that salvation is available to all men if they
will exercise their will and allow God to save them and accept
God to save them. The Bible never, never declares that. And people go out of this world
clinging on to a refuge of lies. If you read about it in Isaiah
chapter 28, that refuge of lies will be swept away. I pray that
like you and like me, it's swept away in this world. Mine was
swept away by a powerful deluge of God just revealing that what
I had believed and what I thought was my security was actually
just a lie and I was holding on to a lie. I had a man we tried to witness
to for a long, long time, years ago, and he said, and he was
so adamant, he said, I would not have been saved unless I
went forth. I responded to the invitation,
and then he said to me, and he said to all of us, he said, you're
never, ever going to take that away from me. You cannot take
that away from me. I will never let go of it. He
will cling on to it. Brothers and sisters, I pray
that in this world we are clinging to the Lord Jesus Christ. We
are clinging to a sovereign, successful Saviour who sacrificed
His life and shed His precious blood for His people. The Gospel
is how Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
It's not the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ died and rose again.
You can read the Encyclopaedia Britannica and know that. It's
how He died. Why did He die? Who was it that
died? Who was it that put him to death
and what did he achieve by his death on the cross? And that's
what he's saying to these people who stand opposed to him, that
have surrounded him and his little band and they're there with daggers
in their hearts and in their hands eventually to try and kill
the Lord Jesus Christ and kill his message. Salvation is God's from beginning
to end, and salvation is intook entirely and completely by pure
and sovereign grace. Christ did not die for the goats. Christ is God Almighty in human
flesh. He doesn't try and do anything. Everything he set his mind to
do, he does. Isaiah 14 says all he has to
do is think it and it is. Do you think that God can try? Do you think that God can have
a will to do something? Do you think that God Almighty
can put his son to death on Calvary's tree and it be a failure? There is a cause and the division. The division is a division about
what happened at the cross. It's always a division about
what happened at the cross. We stand opposed to the idea
of universal redemption, and we stand opposed to it not because
we just want to be contentious, but we stand opposed to it because
the glorious gospel of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ
is too precious for sinners, just like that blood that was
shed was precious for that man who died beside the Lord Jesus
Christ. You see, on the cross of Calvary,
the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father, there is a revelation
of all of the character of God. You take every known attribute
of God and you take it to the cross and it only stands, it
only stands as a truth to comfort the souls of God's people in
light of what we've just read, I lay down my life for the sheep.
See, the message of universal redemption is a denial of the
justice of God. He's a just God and a saviour. If Christ can pay for the sins
of someone on the cross, and then they must be paid for again
in hell because they haven't believed, God is unjust. He's unjust to an extent that
we wouldn't allow in a court of law in this land of ours.
It's a denial of the justice of God. All that the Lord Jesus
Christ paid for, all the sins are gone forever. It's a denial
of the fact that our God is absolutely holy in everything he does. He's
a just God. He's a holy God. Our God doesn't
change, Malachi 3.6. I change not, therefore you sons
of Jacob are not consumed. If God intended to save someone
and didn't achieve his purpose, what's happened? He's failed. He cannot fail. He cannot fail. Who shall separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus? If he can love me and
die for me and then send me to hell, then I'm separated from
his love forever. And he says I can't be separated
from it. He can't lose one of them. No one can pluck them out
of his hand. The great lie from the pit of
hell is the idea that salvation is in the hands of man and salvation
is not the gracious activity of God and it's the activity
of the triune God. God the Father gave these people
into the hands of his Son and God the Son represented them
as a substitute and a sacrifice and an offering to his Father.
It was God the Father who put his Son to death on Calvary's
tree. was God the Father, a Waco sword. I don't like talking about my
experiences and activities. I remember a number of years
ago when we were preaching up at the showground and I read
that verse and I spent a week troubled about it. Awake O Sword,
this is what God the Father said. Awake O Sword, the sword of his
justice. Zechariah 13.7. Against my shepherd,
we're reading about the shepherd in John chapter 10. Against the
man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts, smite the
shepherd. The sword of God's justice, wielded
by God the Father, smote the shepherd. And people run around
this world saying that all he did in all of that was just try
to do something and failed. Don't dare talk to me about that.
You take away all of my assurance. You take away all of my hope.
You take away all the glory of God, because the greatest comfort
that I can have in this world is what brings God the most glory,
His absolute sovereignty. You knew what He's doing. This
was God's plan and God's purpose. Did He achieve what He set out
to do? He shall see the travail of His
soul and He shall be satisfied. Our Saviour is a satisfied Saviour. All of His sheep are saved, all
of them, all of them. "'You slay the shepherd,' says
that sword. "'Smite the shepherd, and the
sheep shall be scattered, "'and I will turn my hand upon the
little ones.'" He'll turn his hand of love and grace and come
and gather all of the little ones. We stand like David, saying
there is a cause. Our God cannot fail. Our God
cannot try and fail. He says, other sheep have I which
are not of this fold, them I also must bring. What power there
is in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, what promises he makes
and are attached to it. There shall be one fold and one
shepherd. God says, when I see the blood,
I'll pass over you. What was he looking for in Egypt
to set those people free from death of their firstborn and
from the captivity of Egypt? All them pictures of this world
and the enemies against the people of God, he says, when I see the
blood. What was he looking for? He's just looking for the blood
of his son. He still looks to the blood of
his son. He wasn't looking to their decision.
He wasn't looking to their good works. He wasn't looking to their
sincerity. He was looking to his son. Our God is sovereign,
his will is sovereign over the will of man. He is a satisfied
saviour. Hebrews 12 says, for the joy,
he's satisfied and joyful, for the joy set before him, he endured
the cross. God must get all the glory. No one is saved by a lie. There used to be a saying in
the religious group I was in years ago that God shoots straight
with a crooked stick. Why does he need a crooked stick?
He's never said he needs a crooked stick. He only ever uses the
truth. Why on earth would he, who is
a sovereign over all things, lead his people to the truth
by a crooked path? He just tells them straight and
plainly. The Lord Jesus Christ died as a substitute for sinners. He died as a substitute for his
people. He died as a representative for
them. And that's why Paul can say,
I was crucified with Christ. All of the children of God can
say, I was crucified with Christ. I was crucified with Him. Nevertheless
I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which
I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me. I love the fact that
God is absolutely sovereign, but my comfort is in that. My
comfort is in that. I love the fact that he ordains
and rules over all things. My comfort is in that. He loved
me. He loved me. And He gave Himself
for me. He loved me and He washed me
in His blood. And that's what every child of
God is singing in heaven right now. And how many countless multitudes awake in hell with the words
of a lying Highling echoing in their ears. Telling them that God loved them. Telling them that the way and
the door into heaven is as broad as you can possibly make it.
The door is the Lord Jesus Christ in Him crucified and nothing
else, brothers and sisters. God will accept no other. The
offering of Christ was made to His Father. And God accepted
his offering for all of the sins of all of his sheep. And that's
what the resurrection is about, isn't it? He was put to death
because of our sins and he was raised because of our justification. And what it is to be justified
is to have no sin. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ did. And that's why he can cry out,
he's finished. Everything is finished. All of
my holiness that I need to be in the presence of God is finished.
All of my sins are put away, it is finished. All of my righteousness
before God is robed upon me, it's put upon me, it is finished. And when God says it's finished,
it's done for all time. I owe God nothing and I owe Him
everything. His salvation costs me nothing,
and his salvation costs me everything. Take my life. Take my life. There is a cause, brothers and
sisters. We must stand for the gospel of a crucified saviour,
a reigning saviour, a ruling saviour. We come to God, don't
we? We come to God commanded to believe. Sinners. Sinners. Just sinners. Sinners. Sinners
do nothing but sin. We come to God as needy. We need a physician. He healed
all that had need. We come to God because he says,
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord. To call upon
his name is to call upon his holiness, to call upon his sovereignty,
to call upon his immutability, to call upon him as he was revealed
in the crucifixion of his dear and precious son. That's the
name you call on. Those people on the day of Pentecost
had the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ on their hands and in
their consciences. Whosoever shall call on the name
of the Lord shall be saved. You take the water of life freely. Whosoever, call upon him and
his power and his will and his grace, but call upon him as a
successful sovereign saviour. Let's pray. Our heavenly father,
we pray that you would cause your son and his blood and His
life for us, everything about Him, Heavenly Father, cause it
to be precious to us and cause Him in all of His glorious attributes
to be so precious for us, Heavenly Father. May we gaze upon Him,
have our eyes fixed upon our Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Oh, our Father, may you grant
us the grace that we might sing the songs of heaven while we
walk upon this earth. For the glory of your son, for
the comfort of our brothers and sisters, and for our rest, our
rest in him who finished it all. Our dear and precious saviour,
bless your words to our hearts as we pray in Jesus' name.