Well, good morning and welcome
to our service together. I'm sorry we've been a bit delayed,
all sorts of technical issues and others. We've come because
our great God has called us to come together and be gathered
to worship the Lord Jesus Christ, to worship him in spirit and
truth, as we looked at last week. I'd like us to begin our time
together by looking at Psalm 121 together. It's the Song of Degrees. It was a song that the children
of Israel sang as they went on their way of pilgrimage up to
Jerusalem to worship the Lord God at His appointed time and
in His due order. And this is one of the songs
they sang. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, for whence
cometh my help? My help cometh from the LORD,
which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to
be moved. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel
shall neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is thy keeper. The LORD
is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee
by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee
from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going
out and thy coming in from this time forth even forevermore. What a great reminder it is in
this world that is so easily shaken. And the circumstances
of our lives show it easily shaken for us to be encouraged once
again to lift our eyes above the things of this world. Lift
our eyes to the house of God. Lift our eyes to our God who
sits enthroned in the heavens. It's where our help comes from.
The Lord keeps his people. The Lord preserves the souls
of his people. Our prayer, again, is that this
Lord who inhabits eternity might come and reveal himself to us
this morning, reveal himself to our hearts, reveal himself
as the preserver of our souls, reveal himself as the one that
preserves, as verse 8 says, you're going out, you're coming in,
from this time forth, even forevermore. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we thank you that you preserve and keep your people. We thank
you, Heavenly Father, that you remind us again that we have
eternal souls. And we pray, Heavenly Father,
that we would be mindful of the things of eternity. We would
be mindful of the things that occur at the resurrection of
the just and the unjust. And we thank you and praise you,
Heavenly Father, that you preserve the souls of your people. We
thank you that we are reminded that we have no help from ourselves
or from this world, that you alone keep and preserve and protect
your people. And we thank you, Heavenly Father,
for your remarkable promises which are signed and sealed in
the blood of our dear and precious Saviour, and we pray, Heavenly
Father, that He might be exalted this morning, that you would
cause Him to be high and lifted up, and that we might find ourselves
just in the simplicity of who He is, being led to worship Him,
Heavenly Father. We pray your blessing on the
gathering of your people. We pray your blessing on those
that are here and those that are watching from afar. Heavenly
Father, this might be a time when we have our eyes fixed on
the author and finisher of our faith, our Lord Jesus Christ.
We pray in his name and feast glory. Amen. We're going to sing,
listen to singing number 47 in our hymn books. I need Thee every hour, most
gracious Lord. No tender voice like Thine can
peace afford. I need Thee, O I need Thee, every
hour I need Thee. O bless me now, my Savior, I
come to Thee. I need thee every hour. Stay thou nearby. Temptations lose their power
when thou art nigh. I need thee. Oh, I need thee. Every hour I need thee. Bless me now, my Savior, I come
to Thee. I need Thee every hour, in joy
or pain. Come quickly and abide, for life
is vain. I need Thee, oh, I need Thee,
every hour I need Thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior,
I come to Thee. ? I need Thee every hour ? Most
holy one ? O make me mine indeed ? Thou flesh and son ? I need
Thee, O I need Thee ? Every hour I need Thee ? O bless me now,
I say We missed out on one of the verses.
I need thee every hour, teach me thy will, and thy rich promises
in me fulfill. I'd like us to return to our
studies in Acts. If you turn to the book of Acts,
in chapter 24, we have been following the journey
of the Apostle to the Gentiles. God's particular servant to us,
the Apostle Paul, who is a pattern. He's a pattern. His life is a
pattern. His conversion is a pattern.
His doctrine is a pattern. His preservation is a pattern.
His testimony is a pattern to all those who would afterwards
believe unto eternal life. And here we have the Apostle
Paul being called upon to defend, to defend the testimony of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm continually reminded
of the blessings that we have today because of the enemies
of the gospel. For those that stood opposed,
to the testimony, the clear and evident testimony of the Lord
Jesus Christ in their opposition to the gospel. They cause us
to read these remarkable words. Verse 14, we've been looking
at in Acts chapter 24. Paul has defended himself in
the previous verses saying that none of the accusations against
him are true and neither did they bring any witnesses to establish
the accusations against him. But he makes this confession.
And don't forget, Paul had a sentence of death in his body. This is a confession that he's
prepared to make, even with a sword potentially hanging over him.
But this I confess, verse 14, 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.
and have hope towards God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection
of the dead, both of the just and unjust. And herein do I exercise
myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and
toward man. He then goes on to defend himself
even further. He says in verse 21, except,
so none of these accusations, no one have found any evil doing
in me while I stood before the council, except it be for this
one voice, I cried, verse 21, I cried standing among them,
touching the resurrection of the dead. I am called into question
by you this day. There are some glorious words
here that I want us to consider. We looked last week at something
of what it was for them to call the belief of the children of
God, the witnesses of the Lord Jesus, to call that heresy. There
is that wonderful word worship. There is the believing of all
things which are written in the law and the prophets. And have
hope towards God. that there shall be a resurrection
of the dead, both the just and the unjust. There is a resurrection.
The Lord Jesus Christ's resurrection is a guarantee and a promise
of the resurrection of every human being that's ever walked
on this planet. But what a remarkable testimony
Paul makes when he makes this testimony in Acts chapter 23.
The high priest commands that someone comes over and slaps
him in the side of the mouth for saying that he has a conscience
void of offense toward God and toward man. If the Lord would
allow us to bear Paul's testimony, to bear Paul's testimony to Paul's
Lord. And we could walk away here declaring
that I have a conscience void of offence toward God and toward
man. What glorious peace might come. I pray that that's our portion
this morning. We're going to sing again. Thank you, Normy,
number 65. Is it easier in here? Crown Him with many crowns, the
Lamb upon His throne. Now the heavenly anthem drowns
all music but its own. Awake my soul and sing of him
who died for thee. ? And hail him as thy matchless
king ? ? Through all eternity ? ? Crown him the lord of love
? ? Behold his hands and side ? ? Rich wounds yet visible above
? No angel in the sky can fully
bear that sight crowned in the Lord of life,
who triumphed o'er the grave. Who rose victorious to the strife,
for those he came to save. His glories now we sing, who
died and rose on high. may die the lord of one with the Father known, one
with the Spirit through Him given from yonder glorious throne. To Thee be endless praise, for
Thou for us hast done For those of you who listen in to
Greg Samuels, you would recognise the voice of our friend Tom. and Greg and Peter and others
in America send their greetings to us all. It's lovely for us
to be able to have fellowship with our brothers in these difficult
times, but also to particularly remember what's happening in
America at this time. These are changeable and difficult
times and a cause for us to ask the Lord to grant us the faith
that we might live in this world in the midst of what seems to
be constant changes at this time in such a way that the Lord Jesus
Christ is glorified and in such a way that His people are comforted
and encouraged to look to Him. We have before us In the Book of Acts, a constant
and continuous and repeated declaration of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the question that's often
exercised in my mind is, why all this seriousness? What does
all this matter? Why? Why is Paul prepared to
face death for this testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ? Surely,
surely all people who had some profession of the Lord Jesus
might have all sorts of differences in doctrine. Why this seriousness?
I have often told you that one of the verses that caused me
great consternation and sleepless nights in my time in India was
I was teaching little ones and I was caring for little ones. We had 25 to 30 young girls from
the age of 13 to 15 in our dorm and we were given responsibility
for their spiritual well-being. and we were given responsibility
for teaching them, and I was given responsibility not only
in our dorm but also in the classroom each day, teaching them the scriptures. In Mark's gospel, the gospel
that we focused on in much of our lessons over there, it says,
if you leave one of these little ones astray, It is better for
you to be, effectively it means, it's better for you to be a rotting
corpse on the bottom of the Sea of Galilee. It's better to you
to be cast into the Sea of Galilee and have a millstone around your
neck than to leave one of these little ones astray. The Lord
used those words. There is such a thing as truth
and Paul wants to highlight that, doesn't he? That there is such
a thing as truth and there is such a thing as salvation and
there is such a thing as the people made just by the righteous
work of God. There is such a thing as a resurrection
and at that resurrection there will just be two groups of people.
There will be this amazing division among people. And so, as much
as the religious world wants to tell us again and again that
let's compromise and let's make peace and let's not cause unnecessary
divisions over the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ
or over his gospel, we are considered, like Paul, to be troublemakers.
We are considered, like Paul, to be people who profane the
temple that men have created in this world. It does matter. Another verse that's been a couple
of verses in Revelation, if you turn to Revelation 21, I'll answer
in the question, why is it so serious? Why do you take the
issues of the declaration of the Lord Jesus Christ, why do
you take them so seriously? It says about them entering heaven,
It says in verse 27 of Revelation 21, "...and there shall no wise
enter into it, anything that defileth, or whatsoever worketh
abomination, or maketh a lie, but they which are written in
the Lamb's book of life." He says in the next chapter,
just on the same page in verse 12 of Revelation 22, And behold,
I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every man
according to his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning
and the end, the first and the last. He's also everything in
between. Blessed are they that do his
commandments that they may have right. to the tree of life and
may enter in through the gates into the city. For without, on
the outside of this city, are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers,
and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh
a lie. We stand before this religious
world, as Paul did before the religious world of his day, to
testify that the God that they have is a figment of man's imagination. that the saddest thing of all
is to witness the religious world not taking the warnings of the
Lord Jesus Christ, which are on every page of the Scriptures,
with the seriousness with which God's people will take them in
this world. The Lord says again and again,
just leave them alone, leave the blind guides alone. The blind
lead the blind, he says, and they both fall into the ditch. All of the apostles, if you read
the last will and testament of all the apostles in the scriptures,
you'll find that again and again their last will and testament,
their last letters are warnings about false teachers. They are
great encouragements about the fact that the Lord, as Peter
says in verse 9 of chapter 2 of 2 Peter, the Lord knows how to
deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto
the day of judgment to be punished. But he says that there are false
prophets at the beginning of chapter 2 of 2 Peter. But there
were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall
be false teachers among you, who shall privately bring in
damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and
bringing upon themselves swift obstruction. And many shall follow
their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall
be evil spoken of, and through covetousness They shall with
feigned words make merchandise of you. It is judgment now of
a long time, lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
That word feigned words means plastic. It means to be moulded. Just like the word maketh a lie,
In Revelation 21 and 22 is the word pseudo. It's that which
appears to be right, but it's not that in reality. They rest the scriptures. Unstable
and unlearned men, they rest the scriptures to their own destruction. That rest means to put them on
a rack. so that they become completely
out of joy. God's servants, like the Apostle
Paul, and I trust like us, are witnesses unto me. The Lord Jesus Christ has created
his witnesses. The Lord Jesus Christ preserves
his witness in this world. And it's good to contemplate
that when our Saviour came to this world, he came to a religious
nation 2,000 years and more of extraordinary heritage, 1,500
years in that land where they had witnessed the promises of
God being fulfilled. But when the Lord Jesus Christ
comes, as He did to Paul on the road to Damascus, there is a
revealing of a world beyond, a revealing of a being beyond
and over this visible world. Paul heard a voice from heaven. Paul had a light come upon him
from heaven. Paul saw the Lord Jesus Christ,
the God incarnate, resurrected, and his whole world was turned
upside down. See, the Lord Jesus Christ turns
the world, the religious world, upside down. It's remarkable,
isn't it? Paul is reminding people again
and again in these examinations of him that there is a resurrection
to come and everything, all of reality, all of reality will
be exposed on that day. The heavenly realities, the heavenly
realities that are seen in this world through the eyes of faith
but were seen in reality by witnesses. The angels came and they spoke
promises. The angels came and they sang. And they declared, Immanuel,
God with us. And all that men thought that
was real, all that men thought that was valuable, all that men
thought that was esteemed, was turned downside up. See, there is a reality which
is more real than the reality we see the reality we feel, the
reality we handle, the reality we touched. And yet it's promised. It's established in history and
it's fulfilled in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And when he came, he exposed this religious world. He exposed
the world of men. And Paul, in bearing testimony,
exposes the religious world again, and he exposes the Roman powerful
world again, doesn't he? And he's prepared to stand before
them as a man with the Lord Jesus Christ in him and beside him. And he's prepared as boldly as
the Lord would allow to testify that man-made religion is nothing
other than Satan's delusion. Man's power is nothing compared
to the power of God. But man, in his wickedness in
religion, stands in judgment of God and his word. They stand there to judge the
judge. And God will vindicate his witness
and his testimony. See, Paul in these verses links
believing all things with worship. As I said last week, you cannot
worship a God who is not absolutely sovereign. You cannot worship
a God and believe lies about His person and about His character.
You cannot worship God and deny anything revealed in the Word
of God. Paul speaks as a man who worships,
as a man who believes all things, as a man who has a hope in this
world, a hope that goes beyond the things that are seen and
heard and touched, a hope that goes to the resurrection of life
and that resurrected life is life eternal. See, if your hope
doesn't extend beyond the things of this world to the judgment
to come and beyond that into eternity, then I pray that the
Lord takes away whatever hope you're clinging to. The Lord,
when he met Paul, removed all of the props of his life. He
removed all of his religion, he removed all of his righteousness,
he removed all of his heritage and his history, he removed everything
that man can boast in, and left Paul, left Paul with just the
Lord Jesus Christ. It matters, brothers and sisters,
it matters to bear testimony to our God in this world. It matters to have a conscience
devoid of offense. There is the most remarkably
enormous industry in this world, isn't it? The industry of psychology
and personal helps and cares about all of the people and their
frailties and failings in this world. And it's all got to do,
it's almost all got to do with guilty consciences. Paul stands
before these men who know his history. to know him to have
been a murderer and a hateful man by his own testimony, and
he can stand there and say that I have a conscience devoid of
offence. I can stand before God without
any sense of guilt in any way at all, and I can stand before
men because I've testified to them of who the Lord Jesus Christ
is. Not a blessing. We are different. We have a testimony that is different. We have a gospel. that is different. We have a Lord Jesus Christ who
is different from this religious world, as different as the Messiah
that the Jews believed in, the Messiah that Paul thought he
was serving and worshipping on his way down to the road to Damascus,
as different between that Messiah that Paul had through his knowledge
in Judaism from the real and living Messiah. Paul bears testimony
We have a glorious Gospel. Paul was working his way, like
all men, working his way into favour with God. One of the glories
of the true Gospel is that it reveals the reality of who the
Lord Jesus Christ is in his true character, and we find everything
about his character delightful. We find everything about his
character comforting. We find everything about his
word of promise to be our comfort. See, the true gospel begins where
religion ends. Religion teaches men how they
can get right with God by all of their activities. The gospel
begins with complete salvation. The gospel begins with complete
forgiveness of sins. I love that story in Mark chapter
2 with that lame man, that crippled man who couldn't walk for himself
and couldn't get to the Lord Jesus and lay down before him.
And the first thing the Lord Jesus Christ says to him is,
son, your sins are forgiven. Your sins are forgiven. How forgiven? Completely and utterly forgiven. You can now stand before God
with a conscience devoid of offence. And then, And then, with this
man with no sins, then he's told to take up his bed and walk,
such as it is with the Lord Jesus Christ when he saves all of his
people. We begin with the complete salvation. We have a cause to
stand for. That's what David said, didn't
he, when he went down there and he had the enemies of God mocking
the God of Israel, and he said to his brothers down there, as
Goliath mocked them and the Philistine army had them cowering and hiding,
he says, is there not a cause? Is there not a cause? There is
a cause, and God causes his people to stand. Stand in this world,
stand in this world with your heart and your thoughts fixed on a resurrection, on a meeting
with God at the end of this life and as a resurrection and a resurrected
life that goes on for eternity, a resurrection which will separate
the just from the unjust. It's the great question of the
scriptures, isn't it? Job asked it on several occasions,
how can a man be just with God? How can a sinner stand before
a holy God? and survive. How can a sinner
stand in the presence of a holy God and have him smile, have
him delight in you? It is the glory of our gospel
that the Lord Jesus Christ said, it's finished. See, man's religion
always solves that dilemma of how can a man be right with God.
Ultimately, by manufacturing another God and by manufacturing
another view of man, which is the opposite of what the scriptures
say, They manufacture another God using the names, using the
words of the Bible, using the history, and so distorting every
attribute that they can find themselves able to. And what
do they do? Because of their works that they
can see, because of the activities that they can do, because of
the changed and reformed lives they see, they're speaking peace,
peace to themselves. That's the work of Satan in this
world, brothers and sisters. is to speak peace to people who
God has not given peace. And we know how they do it again
and again and again. God loves everyone. See, if God
loves everyone, He must love me. That's why they have that
doctrine that's promoted before they say almost anything to any
sinner in this world. They want to say, well, God loves
you. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. And God has
proved his love for you because Jesus died for you. If Jesus
died for everyone, he must have died for me. And the Holy Spirit
wants to save everyone. So I can be saved because God
loves me and Jesus died for me. And I'm worthy of salvation because
God loves me. And salvation is offered. to everyone and you can take
salvation whenever it suits you. It's just there as an offer sitting
on a table. The Lord says all of that is
a blasphemy against his whole name and poison to the eternal
souls of people. He says that great accusation
of God. He says you think that I'm altogether like you. We've
manufactured a God. who looks very much like us and
acts very much like us. God's servants stand for these
things because of who the Lord Jesus
Christ is. Because of who He is in His revelation
of Himself to us. You see, all doctrine in the
Bible says something about the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And all false doctrine in this
world says something about the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified. Paul was able to stand against
a religious world and say, I'm different. The Lord Jesus Christ
came to a religious world and he says, I'm different. I'm not
the God that you think I am. And I save people in a way which
offends everything about your religion. Paul was different. The Lord Jesus Christ was different.
We are different. We're not different to exclude
others, but to stand, to stand as a light in this dark world,
to stand for the truth of who the Lord Jesus Christ is in a
world of lies, to stand as worshippers in a world of idolatry, to stand
as believers in a world of unbelief. To stand as righteous in Christ
in a world of unrighteousness. To stand as the living in a world
of death. And we hold out the word of life. We hold out the hope that this
glorious gospel is going to draw all the Lord's people to himself.
We have this hope in a hopeless world. We proclaim the Lord Jesus
Christ as God over all, a sovereign God, a successful saviour, a
glorious substitute, a satisfying, a justice satisfying offering
to God as he bore all the sins of his people in himself. You see, to deny the Lord Jesus
Christ and to deny his attributes is to deny something about the
very reality of who we are. I had a pastor come to us some
years ago and he wanted to show to us that it's perfectly alright
for you to worship God in any of the churches in this town.
And I said to him, I said to him, which one of the attributes
of God do you wish me to deny by joining with them? Do you
want me to deny his sovereignty by churches that put enthroned
man in his free will as sovereign? Do you want me to deny His holiness? Which one of the attributes do
you want me to deny? Because I cannot join with them
and not deny something of the attributes of our God. Do you
want me to deny His truth? Do you want me to deny His justice?
Do you want me to deny His grace? This notion of common grace is
useless grace. A grace that can't save is not
the grace of our God. Do you want me to deny His blood
shed on the cross? The man went his way, and within
months the Lord had removed his church from him. I pray that
he might have mercy on him. See, everything matters. There
are no little errors, just like there are no little sins. Religion Self-righteous religion
makes its adherents fearful. Paul was prepared to stand, and
it didn't matter who he stood, he could stand before Caesar,
he could stand before the Sanhedrin, he could stand before a religious
crowd, whether they are in pagan religion or Jewish religion,
he could stand before all of them as the Lord made him to
stand. And he would just stand there unfazed and unfearful as
he just simply declared the Lord Jesus Christ. And what was Sanhedrin
doing? What was this religious world
doing? They were playing political games. What was the Roman governor
doing? He was playing political games. Nothing has changed, brothers
and sisters. I have two men that I see regularly
as I drive into town, as they live down the road from us. And
every time I drive by, they turn their heads away so that they
can't even look at me. And they've been doing it for
years. What are they fearful of? What are they fearful of?
If you have the truth, brothers and sisters, and the truth is
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, you walk in this world
without fear. Perfect love casts out fear.
We're not fearful of them, we long for them to come. The door
is open, we long for them to come. You see, the thing that
they find offensive is the declaration of who the Lord Jesus Christ
is, and the fact that God has made his people to stand. The rest of the world can compromise. The rest of the world can find
a fence to sit on, on which they can be comfortable, and they
can join hands with those on either side of the fence. There
is no fence, brothers and sisters. There is no place of safety outside
of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. There is no middle
ground. There is a resurrection. And in that resurrection, there
will be people who are made just, which means that they are to
be made righteous. Their righteousness has got nothing
to do with themselves. Their righteousness is the Lord
Jesus Christ. They stand before God justified,
which means they have no sin. That's the glory of the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He bore the sins of his people
in his own body on the tree. He bore those sins, and he bore
them away to be justified, is to be declared by God to have
never sinned. You can see why Paul, Paul the
professed sinner, the chief of sinners, can say to these people,
I have a conscience devoid of offence before God. Because the
Lord Jesus Christ took all of my sins away. I love what 1 Peter
3 says, For Christ has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust,
that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh,
but quickened by the Spirit. I can't ever think of that verse
without thinking of the situation we had many years ago where they
brought down a fancy man like Tertullius, a great speaker,
a great orator, to convince the people in that church that the
Lord Jesus Christ didn't really die for everyone. That was the
whole purpose of his coming down, to deny the gospel that was being
proclaimed in that church. Norman, two or three others sat
with the table of this man, and in the morning he actually turned
that verse upside down, and rather than it saying that Christ has
suffered once, for sins, he says, he suffered for all. And he made
that the whole focus of his message. And he probably repeated it 20
times with emphasis in the morning, that the Lord Jesus Christ died
for all, died for all, died for all. And in the evening, we sat
before he was to preach again at a table, and we were there,
four or five of us were there. And he happened to be at our
table, and I handed him the Greek New Testament. And he looked
at the verse, and he knew instantly. And he didn't even need to look
at the verse. He said, I know what that word means. The word
in Greek does not mean what the NIV translation meant. And he
jolly well knew it, and he admitted to us that he knew it. And I
thought, this is going to be very interesting. Now this man
is going to stand up and speak to this people again. And do you know what? In that
evening sermon, he emphasized that he died for all with more
emphatic declarations than he did in the morning service. And
he was looking at us no more than four or five yards away
from him, knowing that we knew that he was lying. The Lord Jesus Christ said, you
will know the truth and the truth will make you free. I want my
brothers and sisters in Christ to enjoy a freedom, to enjoy
the freedom that Paul had, to enjoy the freedom that the Lord
Jesus Christ had, to enjoy the freedom that all the saints had
in this world, to enjoy the glorious freedom of having the presence
of God and the power of God and the truth of God as the one thing
that you stand on. See, all our eggs are in one
basket. We are making a declaration to this world as we gather together
that this gospel, this gospel that we declare is the gospel
of God. This gospel that we declare is
the testimony that God has given of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. This testimony and this witness
will cause us not only to live in this world with freedom, to
live in this world without fear, that will cause us, as John says,
to have boldness on the Day of Judgment. I can go with this
Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, I can go with this Gospel to
the Day of Judgment with confidence. I can look forward to the Day
of Judgment and I can look forward to the Resurrection because all
of my justification is in Him. We spoke briefly about some of
the differences. We'd love to declare an eternal
covenant that God chose a people in eternity and put them in the
hands of the Lord Jesus Christ and He is the great surety. He
says, I'll bring them back. I'll bring them back to you.
I'll bring them back holy, unblameable, unapprovable in your sight. And
the blessed Holy Spirit comes and He takes the things of the
Lord Jesus Christ and He makes them known to people. We have
a difference about what happened in eternity. We have a difference
about what happened in the garden. We declare, as the scriptures
say, that men are dead. Dead men don't make decisions. Dead men don't make a choice.
Dead men don't decide which of the two ways to live do they
give. Throughout the Acts of the Apostles, we've seen Paul's
testimony repeated again and again. God pricks the hearts.
God opened the heart of Lydia that she might believe. God opened
the heart of that Philippian jailer. And he cried out, what
must I do to be saved? Paul hadn't told him anything
about God loving everyone, Jesus dying for everyone. Paul had
just simply preached a word to him and sung a word in the midst
of the trials of this world. It's a new creation. You see,
what we are declaring is that when God takes up residence in
a people, there is something imparted to them that was never
there before. something that was promised in
eternity, something that was signed and served with the blood
of the Vultures. It's a new creation, created in righteousness and
true holiness. Most people believe that the
old nature is changed and people become better and better until
they are right for heaven. And in religion, they're always
encouraging each other how you can live and live more holiness,
live with more holiness. As a statement of faith that
was made by a conservative reformed evangelical church says, the
Holy Spirit helps us to grow in our holiness. I hope you're
horrified by a statement like that, brothers and sisters. If
you have any holiness that's got anything to do with you,
and not entirely the holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ, I pray
that the Lord would do as he did to Paul. Paul thought he
had a holiness, didn't he? Paul thought he had a legal,
righteous holiness before God. I pray that the Lord would take
it away from you. That statement is a blasphemous
statement. Christ is our sanctification.
That word sanctification is our holiness. He's all the holiness
we ever have. He's all the holiness we ever
need. He's the holiness that God accepts. And God accepts
him and his holiness and he accepts me in him. That's our holiness. We don't grow. Holiness is an
absolute. And those who are made to be
honest, the children of God, says Isaiah 66, they will not
tell lies. They won't tell lies about themselves
and they won't tell lies about God. You see, God's servants,
God's children, God's children who have been made, as 1 Corinthians
1.30 says, But of him are you in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption. That as according as is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. They're absolutes,
brothers and sisters. There is no growing in holiness. There is no progression in sanctification. We do grow in the grace and knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our faith is tried and it's tested.
And as I said last week, it finds itself washed up by the storms
of this world on the rock that is higher than us, the Lord Jesus
Christ. See, our holiness is a person,
not a practice. Our holiness, our personal holiness
is the Lord Jesus Christ and we can stand before him. We can
stand before our God with a conscience void of offence. See, when God saves a sinner,
He gives him life from the dead. It's a new creation. A new creation
created in righteousness and true holiness. It's a new heart
I will give you, says the Lord. I'll take away that stony heart
out of your flesh and I will give you, I'll give you a heart
of flesh and I will move you, says our God. I'll move you,
as Ezekiel 36 says. What a glorious thing. to have
that sovereign God moving us to obey, moving us to simply
believe, moving us to look away from ourselves and look to the
Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone. A life from above. The Lord Jesus Christ becomes
so glorious to the children of God that we find Him We find
him all we ever need. We find him all we ever want
in this world. We find him satisfying. We have no other place to go. We have no embarrassment about
the character of God. So many churches will talk about
the fact that they believe in election, but then they'll deny
it in all sorts of ways and they'll try to avoid preaching it. We love speaking about God's
unconditional election. that his election had nothing
to do with anything God would say in us. His election had everything
to do with what God saw in his dear and precious son. All the
elect are elect in him. And most particularly we stand
different from the rest of this religious world when it comes
to what happened at the cross of Calvary. See, most of this
religious world believes that Christ Jesus died for all men,
or he died in such a way as to make all men savable, or to create
the possibility for all men to be saved. The modern statement
is that the death of the Lord Jesus Christ is sufficient for
all. That somehow the Lord Jesus Christ,
in their thinking, died for all of Adam's children. And it's efficient for the elect. We don't have a lot of time to
go into that, but every single attribute of God revealed in
the Scriptures is completely and utterly denied by that statement. It was a just act of a just God
to punish the just one, his son, because the Lord Jesus Christ
was made sin. It wasn't an innocent man being
crucified on Calvary's tree. He opened his mouth. Why? Because he was guilty. He declared
those sins in the covenant of grace, in the covenant of peace,
the covenant in his blood. He claimed and declared those
sins to be his. So completely did he bear them. They are owned as his. Modern theology says, Jesus Christ
brings forgiveness of sins to those who believe in him. Now
there's a way of saying something which is perfectly true and a
complete and utter lie. Why don't they just tell the
truth? That he died for his sheep. You see someone can look at that
statement and they can think well God looked down the tunnel of
time and he saw those people that would believe of their own
free will And he put them in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the
Lord Jesus Christ died for them that would believe. Why don't they just state it
plainly? Paul says he used much boldness
of speech. He used much plainness. The Lord Jesus Christ shed his
life blood for his church, for his sheep, for his people, for
his bride. and His blood is not limited
by the will of man, and the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is not
a miscarriage of God's justice, it's a magnification of God's
justice. He bore our sins in His own body
on the tree. God was not playing games on
the cross of Calvary with His Son when He made Him sin, when
it pleased the Father to crush Him. God wasn't treating the
Lord Jesus Christ as if he were sin when he wasn't. There is
no untruth, there is no unrighteousness, there is no injustice in anything
that our God does. He shall not fail, says Isaiah,
he shall honour the law and magnify it. by his obedience, by his
faith unto death, and by the punishment for real sins which
were made his." It is a nonsense, isn't it? There are many... These people
believe that there are people in hell for whom Christ died.
That he died for Judas in the same way that he did for Peter. that He died for those who perished
in the flood. He died for Noah. He died for
all of the seed of God. The Gospel is not an offer. The
Lord Jesus Christ is not being offered to this world. The Lord
Jesus Christ is being declared because He made an offering to
His Father and the Father accepted it. And that's what the resurrection
is all about. So the question is, did He atone? Did he redeem? Did he ransom? Did he get what he paid for?
You see Tom and Jennifer here, they deliver pizzas to people.
Imagine you ring up Domino's Pizza and ordering 10 pizzas
and then you turn up at the door and you give them two. What are
they going to say? I paid for 10, I'm owed 10. And yet in all aspects of this
world we would see the nonsense of that, except when it comes
to religion. That's exactly what they're saying about the Lord
Jesus Christ. He paid for all of the sins of all of these people,
and He didn't get them. He redeemed. It means He bought
them back. And He paid a price. And He got
them all. And none can pluck them out of
His hand. He reconciled them to God. He
made peace by the blood of His cross. He loved them everlastingly. And he loves them now. He loved
Paul when he was murdering the children of God. And his love
won't change. His love won't change for his
people when we leave here and go to glory. The children of
God are a purchased possession. Just remember it, brothers and
sisters. He shall not fail. He shall not fail. He cannot
fail, and he cannot be discouraged. Our God sovereignly reigns. Our Saviour gets what he paid
for. As that pastor told me some time
ago, he said, I lean towards particular redemption. You know
what happens when you lean? All you need is a puff of wind
to blow you over. And also, if you're leaning in
one direction, you can be made to lean in another direction.
You can lean whichever way you like. And you can be friends
with a whole lot of people in this world. God's people stand. They stand as God so helps them
to stand. I want to read what my friend now
gone from this world to the resurrection of the just Maurice Montgomery
now rejoicing with God in heaven and he hasn't had to change a
single thing about his doctrine and he hasn't had to change a
single thing about his company. Whenever I think of standing
before the holy God of the Bible on my own, my thoughts turn not
to life and acceptance, but to sin and death. Romans 7, 9. However, as I think of standing
before this holy God in Christ, I can sing from my heart. Free from the law, O happy condition. You see, Christ Jesus has obeyed
and satisfied the law of God for me. We establish the law by faith,
by looking to him. And now through faith in him,
the Lord Jesus Christ, and that one whom God chose and sent to
be my substitute and my surety, it is as if I myself have satisfied
the law of God. No, it is much better than that.
Yea, infinitely better. Had I personally and perfectly
satisfied the law of God, it would have been a perfect righteousness,
but rendered by a mere man. But the righteousness which the
Lord Jesus Christ rendered unto God in my name is the righteousness
of one who is not only a perfect man, but also eternal God. His righteousness is of infinite,
measureless, indescribable value and worth. It's the very righteousness
of God. Now, this is the way I see it.
God is more pleased with me, this old dead dog sinner, and
he speaks of Meshivah theft there, this old dead dog sinner in Christ,
than if I had personally and perfectly kept his holy law myself. Therefore, when I consider how
much I owe unto my God, and my total inability to pay, I offer
unto Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, as my substitute. God is delighted
to accept Him, and me in Him. What a wonderful, full, complete
and everlasting salvation. What amazing love and grace. What an amazing God and Saviour. Brothers and sisters beloved
in Christ, we're better off now than Adam was in the garden when
he'd never sinned. We're more secure now than Adam
ever was as he walked in that garden in the company of the
Lord Jesus Christ. To declare these things is to
declare A salvation that takes us through
the trials of this world and enables us to stand. Takes us
into the very judgement halls of God. And I can have peace
and look forward to that day. Takes us to a resurrection of
the just and the unjust. When all of this world will stand
before that throne and the Lord Jesus Christ will be vindicated.
Before angels and before devils and before all of humanity, the
just and the unjust. And the children of God will
sing hallelujahs to the justice and the glory and the holiness
of God when he sends those people to eternity separated from him
and he'll have his own with him glorified. And his justice and
every attribute that's revealed in the Gospels will be held on
glorious display. You see, is the gospel good news
to you? See, if your gospel doesn't give
you peace in this world, and peace as you travel through this
world to death and beyond, it's not the gospel. It's not the
gospel. Does this give you, this gospel
give you a conscience devoid of offense before God? The real gospel does. I'll finish
with these lovely words. But Christ, being come a high
priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building,
neither by the blood of goats and cows, but by his own blood,
he entered in once into the hole he placed having obtained eternal
redemption for us. He's got it in his hand. And
he's got everyone else in his hand. All of his people are in
his hand. He went in there for us. He went in there with us.
For if the blood of bulls and goats, and of goats, and of ashes
and heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of
the flesh. That's as far as they could go.
All of those Old Testament sacrifices, all of religion can only ever
reach to the flesh of man. How much more shall the blood
of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without
spot to God. He offered himself without spot
to God. purge your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God. That word, to serve, is a word
that's often translated to worship. See, only when that God, that
Christ, that accepted sacrifice, that high priest is your high priest and has gone
there on your behalf, And you are caused to look away from
everything in yourself and about yourself and look alone to Him. You'll have a conscience purged.
What are dead works? All of the works of the flesh
of man. All of the religious things that people do to want
to make themselves right with God. We don't bring any of our
works. We worship, we serve the living
God. May he make you to stand upon
this rock. It's been tried. It's been tried
by all the storms of this world. It's been tried by all the activities
of Satan. It's been tried by all the unbelief. of saved men and others. It's
a tried and tested and it's a sure foundation. You can build your life upon
that rock. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we pray that your words, the words that declare the glory
of your dear and precious Son, will be the cause of our hearts
rejoicing in this world. Heavenly Father, we thank you
that you call upon us to look away from ourselves and look
unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. Heavenly
Father, we are in this troubled world of so many things that
cause us so much consternation. Will you cause us to have our
eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ? who is both the author
and the finisher, the perfecter of our faith. And may we find
that glorious word that he said from the cross of Calvary, it
is finished. May we find that the cause of
our rejoicing and our hope, both in this world and beyond, our
Father. Cause your son to be glorified
and lifted up, Heavenly Father. May your people find their rest
and their peace and their hope and the clarity of their consciences
purified in his blood. May we find ourselves at rest
and at peace.