Well, let's turn in our scriptures
to Acts chapter 18. Paul the preacher. Paul the preacher. Paul the preacher and Paul the
pastor at Corinth is what we wanted to look at this morning.
Paul is declared to have done three things in Acts chapter
18 regarding the Word of God. In Acts 18 verse 4, he reasoned
in the synagogue every Sabbath. I love that word reason. To reason is to mingle thought
with thought. And what Paul was doing was he
was taking the Old Testament Scriptures and he was showing
the Jews that in every single passage of the Old Testament
Scriptures was but a declaration of the Lord Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. He could start in Genesis 3 and
he could finish in Malachi 4, and I promise you, without any
guarantee of it, but I promise you that by the end of Paul's
life, Paul realised that there was so much more in the Old Testament
he hadn't discovered. and such as it is with us." Everywhere
He went into the Jews, He was showing them that out of the
Scriptures, the very Word of God was declaring that this is
the Messiah. The Messiah has come. And the
Messiah, the prophet, the priest, and the king has fulfilled every
single Old Testament promise there was from God. All the promises
of God are yea and amen in Him. As we've been going through Acts,
we've seen that the Apostles had been led of the Spirit to
go to so many, many places to declare the glory of the Lord
Jesus Christ, to show that everything He did and everything He said
was but a fulfilment of the Old Testament promises, that our
faith would rest on the Word of God and on the promises of
God. I love Daniel 7. It's a great
declaration of the Lord Jesus Christ. It says in Daniel 7 verse
13, I saw her in the night vision and behold one night the Son
of Man came with the clouds of heaven and came to the ancient
of days and they brought him near before him and there was
given him our Lord Jesus Christ. Just listen to this declaration
of Him. Given Him dominion and glory and a kingdom that all
people, nations and languages should serve Him. His dominion
is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and His kingdom
is that which shall not be destroyed. He's a King. He's a King. Our God reigns. Our God reigns. And how does this king get his
kingdom? How does this king get the subjects
of his kingdom? Well, they're his by creation.
They're his by his rule over all things. Nothing wriggles
in this universe except by the direct command and will of the
Lord Jesus Christ. But he gets the special people,
doesn't he? He gets the special people, the subjects of his kingdom. The special people that all of
this is about are the people who are called the children of
God. Listen to what Daniel says in Daniel 9.24. He says, 70 weeks
are determined. So this God rules and reigns. He determines all things. 70
weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city.
Listen to what he's going to do. He's going to finish the
transgression. He's going to make an end of
sins and to make reconciliation for iniquity. In the scriptures
sins are described as transgressions sins and iniquities. Transgressions
is you breaking the law of God. And you've done it every time
you've opened your mouth and breathed in this world, you break
the law of God. God's holy law. Anyone who thinks
that they have kept it for one millisecond is completely and
utterly deceived. And that's what iniquity is.
Iniquity, the word means to make equal. Iniquity is what you do,
what you think you do to make up for your sins. Okay? And sin is what you are. Sin is what you are. Sin is a
much bigger deal. But what did the Lord Jesus Christ
do? He finished the transgression. He made an end of sins. He put
them away. He put them away in such a way
by His death on Calvary Street that they don't exist anymore
in the eyes of God. He made an end of them. That's
what it means. And He's made reconciliation. He's reconciled
His people to Himself. Paul reasoned in the synagogue.
He was saying this is the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what happened
on Calvary Street. This is the promise. This is
Isaiah 53 fulfilled. He bore in His own body the sins
of all His people on Calvary's tree, and a holy God put His
holy Son to death on Calvary's tree because of His union with
His people, because He loved His people, because He loved
His Father. It is just such a glorious gospel,
isn't it? If you're a sinner, if you're
a sinner, to know that your sins have been put away perfectly
and completely forever. That all of your iniquity, all
of your iniquity has been reconciled. All of what you've done, all
of what you've done that you think is righteous has to be
dealt with by the Lord Jesus Christ. And transgressions are
finished. Daniel goes on to say, no, therefore,
and understand that from the going forth of the commandment
to restore and build Jerusalem unto the Messiah, the prince
shall be seven weeks and three score and two weeks, and the
city shall be built again, the wall, even in trouble as times,
and after three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off. See, that's what the Jews couldn't
understand. They couldn't understand that a Messiah must die on a
cross. The Messiah must die a bloody
death. Messiah must die under the wrath
of God, and yet their Bible said it again and again. They read
it in the synagogues every week. Messiah be cut off, Daniel 9,
26. But not for himself. Not for
himself. He was cut off for his people.
Not for himself. Verse 27 says, and he shall confirm
the covenant with many. And in the midst of the week,
he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. Our
God, our God. is revealed in his son. And Paul
is going to this place where the word of God is revealed and
these religious people gather together and he's persuading
them, he's mingling thought with thought. He's showing them again
and again out of the scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. At the end of verse four it says
that he persuaded them. So he was inducing them with
words, by words, to believe. He was there just preaching.
All Paul did was preach and preach and preach. He went into the
synagogues, it says in verse 8 in our passage in Acts 19.
He went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months,
disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom
of God. He expelled and testified the kingdom of God. He persuaded
them concerning Jesus. We aren't just beating the air
when we come to preach the Gospel. We are preaching the Gospel expecting
that the Lord would do marvellous things, expecting that out of
the preaching of the Gospel will come simple belief in the Lord
Jesus Christ, that He would be honoured. We are unto God a sweet
savour. We are unto God a sweet savour
of life unto life and death unto death. We're pleading with men. We are
presenting the Lord Jesus Christ, but we're presenting him in such
a way that we reason, we weigh scripture with scripture. All
we want to do is bring people to the bow before the word of
God and then bow before the living word of God. In Acts 18.5 it
says that he testified. To testify is to bear witness.
That word testify is the word that we have for our word martyr.
It's to bear witness through a martyr as it were. To actually
lay your life on the line. as Paul did again and again.
It's exactly what Peter did in Acts chapter 2 on that day of
Pentecost. And with many other words, did
he testify and exhort, saying, save yourselves, save yourselves
from this untoward generation. And you recall what happened
in Acts chapter 2, that they were cut to the heart Those men
and those women realised that they were 100% responsible before
God for the death of his son. And so are we. That is the glory of the Gospel,
isn't it? We'll look on the one and that we have pierced, says
Zechariah 12. So Paul came, he came, he reasoned,
he persuaded, and he testified. But Paul also was a man of fellowship. Paul loved the company of God's
people, and Paul was energised by the company of God's people.
You see, in Acts 2, the first thing he did when he gets to
town is he goes and finds some other believers. He found a certain
Jew named Aquila, born of Pontus, and later he came to Italy with
his wife Priscilla. And he came to them, and Paul
worked with them. The Lord Jesus Christ was a carpenter. God honours work. We mustn't
for one moment think that somehow not working is an honourable
thing. The Lord Jesus Christ was a worker. I know there are
circumstances in all sorts of people's lives that make it difficult. But Paul was a worker. Our Lord
Jesus Christ honoured the normal work of men in this world. by being a carpenter for all
that time. He abode with him. And we go
down to Acts chapter 18 verse 5. But Paul also was energised
by the fellowship of believers. We read in 1 Corinthians chapter
1 last week that The fellowship of believers is the fellowship
that the Lord Jesus Christ has called you into. God is faithful. By whom you were called into
the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Acts 18, 5,
and when Silas and Timotheus had come from Macedonia, see
Paul had been on his own, he'd been on his own all that time
in Athens, and he'd come to Corinth and he'd been on his own until
he met these others, and now his friends had come, Silas and
Timotheus. And Paul was pressed in the spirit
and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus was
the Christ. Paul was emboldened by brethren
joining him together. See what encouragement we receive
from faithful brethren, from co-labourers. I have no harm
in saying, brothers and sisters, I need you. I need you. I love the fellowship of the
Lord's people. I need you. God's people are
needy people and we need each other. And we don't realise,
we don't realise the wonder of the encouragement we receive
from little things. We don't realise how much we
miss people until we haven't been with them for a while. Paul
had been with these men in all of those trials in the early
part of this journey and he hadn't seen them and he wanted to know
how it was with them. He was emboldened. To be on your own like Elijah. Elijah thought he was on his
own, didn't he? Elijah, if you recall, had been used by the
Lord mightily to proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ on Mount Carmel.
And there he was emboldened as all of those prophets of Baal
were put to death. And then he fled at a word from
Jezebel. He showed both the extraordinary
courage of the Lord's people when emboldened by him and the
extraordinary weakness of our flesh. But then he ran, didn't
he? He ran all the way down to Mount
Horeb. And he says, oh Lord, take my
life away. God said to him, Elijah, I've
got 7,000 of them back there in Israel. You don't go to God
at Mount Horeb, Elijah. You go back across the Jordan,
and you'll meet Elisha back there, and you'll meet the brethren,
and then I'll take you back. You see, believers need each other
in the trials of this world, and I know we have particular
trials in Acts, but the particular trials in Acts are just typical
of the trials that the Lord's people go through in this world. We go out into this world and
we get buffeted again and again and again. And that's why we
come back and church is a sanctuary where we hear yet again, your
God reigns. All of those things that you
seemed were against you are actually for you. Because our God works
all things for the good of his people. And we need to hear again,
don't we? We need to hear again. I need
to hear the story again. of how sovereign he is. I will
need to hear the story again of how much he loves his people. When Peter and John were cast
into prison, they came back, didn't they? They let them go
and they went to their own company. When they were all in Acts 4.24,
when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one
accord and said, God, which has made heaven and earth and the
sea and all that in them is, who by the mouth of thy servant
David has said, Why do the heathen rage?" When you go out into this
world, you go out into this world that is in enmity against our
great God, is in conspiracy against our great God, but we come back
into the church and we hear yet again the words of our God. Why do the heathen rage and the
people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood
up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and
his Christ for a truth against thy holy child Jesus whom thou
hast anointed. Both Herod and Pontius Pilate
and the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together
for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before
to be done. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings,
and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak
thy word, by stretching forth thine hand to heal, and that
signs and wonders may be done in the name of thy holy child
Jesus. And when they prayed, the place
was shaken where they were assembled together, and they were all filled
with the Holy Ghost, and they spoke the word of God with great
boldness. And the multitude of them that
believed were of one heart. and one soul. That's what happens,
isn't it? We go out into this world and
this world beats us down in so many different ways and then
we come back into the fellowship of the Lord and his people. It's
the fellowship of his son and he ministers to us and he says,
everything's fine, I'm sitting on the throne. Brothers and sisters,
I've done the work, it's finished. And all things are now working
for your good. Paul was emboldened. He was emboldened by the presence
of these other believers, but also he was emboldened by the
fact that the gathering of the believers together is a sign
to the ones on the outside. And this is what the ones on the
outside do, Acts chapter 18 verse 6. Paul testified that Jesus
was the Christ, and what did the Jews do when they opposed
themselves and blasphemed? See, enmity against the Gospel
is opposing yourself, and it's a blasphemy. The very same Gospel Very same
gospel, which is like that pillar of light to the children of God,
is a pillar of darkness to the enemies of God. So you might
recall what happened to the Egyptians. God makes a difference between
people. He sets up that pillar between people. He makes a difference.
And what was light to the Jews was darkness to the Egyptians. Paul is once again reiterating
what the Lord says over and over and over again throughout the
Scriptures, that salvation is 100% the responsibility of God.
It's for His honour and His glory and His alone. And damnation,
damnation is 100% the responsibility of people. They'll meet Him on
that day and they'll have no excuse whatsoever. They oppose themselves. It's
interesting what that word oppose themselves means. It means they
refused to be arranged in orderly manner. They refused, didn't they? Paul
testified and he persuaded and he reasoned with them and he
showed them that this Jesus is the Christ of God. He's come. The Messiah has done the work
that he's promised at the promised time in exactly the promised
way. And now the Spirit of God is going out and He's gathering
all those people who the Lord Jesus Christ saved, and He's
gathering them into churches, and He's gathering by the preaching
of the Gospel. And these people are standing
alongside in the house very next door and saying, as all of Adam's
children always do, what do they say? We will not have that man
to reign over us. We will not have that God to
reign over us. They opposed themselves and blasphemed. Blasphemed. So there they were
in their synagogue. There they were in their synagogue
with their Bible open, reading their Bible, talking about all
the morality they could and talking about all the things that they
did. and they were blaspheming God. You might say, well, didn't
they oppose Paul? They took him to the judgment
seat and they would have killed him if they had the opportunity. But
didn't they oppose God? Of course they did. But really,
they opposed themselves. These Jews acted in opposition
to what was for their great gain. The greatest The greatest problem
we have in this world is not our sins. The greatest problem
we have in this world is our righteousness. And the worst righteousness that
this world ever, ever sees is religious righteousness. Righteousness
done with the Bible, open, righteousness done, attending to a place of
what they think is worship. Religious righteousness is the
worst righteousness you can ever have. What did Paul say to the
Jews? He said, Brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel, Romans 10 verse 1, is
that they might be saved. Paul wasn't hard-hearted to these
Jews. He loved them and he cared for
them. He wept over them in Romans 9. He pleaded with them. He spent the rest of his life,
wherever he could, dealing with the Jews and talking to them.
He wasn't turned away from them. They were turned away from him.
His heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel, as it might
be said, for I bear them record that they have a zeal for God.
There they are in churches. There they are singing their
hymns. There they are doing their Bible reading. There they are
doing their missionary activity with their Bible colleges. You
can read about it in Matthew 23. The Lord spoke about them.
All of their religious activities, they have a zeal for God, but
not according to knowledge, for they being ignorant of God's
righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
They're ignorant of God's righteousness. God's standard is simple, isn't
it? He requires of everyone who comes
to heaven absolute perfect holiness. And anything less than absolute
perfect holiness is not acceptable to him. And where he meets something
that is not absolutely perfectly holy, his holy wrath must destroy
it. That's the ignorance of God's
righteousness, isn't it? They had no idea that the law
which they thought that they could keep was a law which did
nothing but condemn them. They have their Ten Commandments
plastered all over the place, and they don't realise that they've
never kept one of them. They've never kept one of them. They go about to establish their
own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness
of God. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. He's the termination
it means. He's the end of the law for righteousness. So any religious organisation
that's telling you in any way whatsoever that you can go back
under the law of Moses and look to the law of Moses for morality
and for life in this world are people who are opposing themselves
and blaspheming according to the word of God. The real issue is that they were
never made sinners. They were never made to be sinners. You can imagine how eloquently
and how powerfully and how consistently and how wonderfully Paul expounded
the scriptures to them. Wouldn't it have been lovely
to have been there in that synagogue and hear Paul open up Isaiah
53 or him take Psalm 22 and explain why the Lord Jesus Christ cried
out on Calvary's tree, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? Wouldn't it have been lovely
to hear him speak? He had those scriptures at his fingertips.
He knew them intimately. And he could have brought hundreds
and hundreds and thousands of scriptures to them. And they
opposed themselves and blasphemed. What did he do? What do you do?
What do you do when the door is closed in your face? When people oppose themselves
and blaspheme and refuse? refused to just stand alongside
and stand with the declaration of who the Lord Jesus Christ
is. What do you do? I love what Paul does, again
and again. You can beat him to death and
you'll just move to the next city. And here, Paul, he shook
his raiment and said unto them, your blood be on your own heads. I am clean. He has testified
to them of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Gospel.
He says in Acts 20 to those Ephesian elders, He says, I am again,
He says, I am free of the blood of all men. He says, because
I have not failed to declare to you the whole counsel of God.
The whole counsel of God is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He's clean. He says, from henceforth
I will go to the Gentiles. I just love this, isn't it? And
he departed and entered into a certain man's house named Justice,
one that worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue. Side by side, side by side, there
are these two groups of people meeting. Both of them with the
Bible in their hands. Both of them claiming to worship
God. One is blaspheming God. I love what he says about justice. One that worships God. One that worships God. And Paul joined with him there.
And the chief ruler of the synagogue, Christus, believed on the Lord. So not only was Paul there, but
the chief ruler of the synagogue was there. And we know from history
that hundreds of years later that synagogue was still there.
Still there doing the same things. Lisa's mum used to live in the
sort of centre of one part of the Jewish religion in Sydney
and there were Jews all around and you would see them going
to synagogue on Friday and they'd be dressed in the most pious
gear with all the hats and all the twirls and all sorts of things.
And the great big synagogue down the road from her has this sign
enormous there with me, wasn't it? And it was to say he's coming
soon. Something like that, isn't it?
Something about the Messiah coming. 2,000 years later, 2,000 years
where there has been reasoning and persuasion and testifying
of the Lord Jesus Christ. One lot were opposing themselves
and they were blaspheming God. The other lot were worshipping
God. See, God is only worshipped when
the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed. God is only worshipped where
the Word of God is honoured. The Word of God is honoured where
the Word made flesh is honoured. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
God and our Saviour and our Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ reigns
and rules over all things. So you cannot worship a God who
is not absolutely sovereign. There is no such thing of worship
of a God who is not absolutely sovereign. There is no such thing
of worship of a God who is not completely successful. That was the great cry of the
prophets, isn't it? Our God reigns. You cannot worship a God who
can be moved and manipulated by men. You cannot worship a
God who needs anything from you. You'll only worship God. You'll only worship God when
you see Him as He is. and bow to Him as He was revealed
in His Son." I love the story of the Canaanite woman in Matthew
15. We don't have time to look at it really closely, but this
lady had a demon-possessed daughter and she was desperate. And even
though she wasn't a Jew, she had nowhere else in the world
to go except to the Lord Jesus Christ. She was made to be needy,
the Canaanite woman. And she comes to the Lord Jesus
Christ and the apostles want to send her away because she
keeps crying out to him. Needy people cry out to him.
And then he says to her, I'm not sent, I'm not sent but unto
the lost sheep of the house of Israel. I came for a particular
people. And then she came, having been,
as it were, snubbed by him, and she worshipped him and said,
Lord, help me. And the Lord said, it's not right.
It's not right to take the children's bread and cast it to dogs. It's
not right. I've come for the lost sheep
of the house of Israel. And she says, truth, Lord. She
worshipped him. She says, truth you, Lord. Then
she made this request. She said, yet the dogs eat the
crumbs which fall from the master's table. She acknowledged that
he was absolutely sovereign. She acknowledged that she was
completely unworthy. She acknowledged that there was
no help for her outside of Him, and His will to do it was absolutely
sovereign. And then He said to her, O woman,
great is thy faith, be it unto you even as thou wilt. So side by side we have these
two religions. One religion comes bowing, comes
bowing to Him. One religion has people in it
who are needy sinners, who need a Saviour and need a Redeemer. One group had heard, see what
it says there in verse 18? And many of the Corinthians,
along with Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, they believed
on the Lord. Many of the Corinthians they
heard. So the people of the synagogue
heard, didn't they? They heard and they didn't hear. They didn't hear. They didn't hear the voice of
God at all. They heard and they believed. You'll only worship God. You'll
only worship God when he reveals himself to you. You'll only worship
him when you acknowledge it's his right to reveal himself to
you or to hide himself from you. And whatever he does is right
and good. Throughout the scriptures there
is this juxtaposition of these two religions, isn't it? It's
law and grace, works and faith. See, the false religion of their
day and the false religion of our day says, if you believe,
God will save you. The truth of God says, I will
save you. I saved you in eternity, I saved
you on Calvary's tree, and I will save you in time. I will save
you and you shall believe. The false gospel says, if you
repent, God will forgive you of your sins. God says, I have
forgiven you, and you shall repent. The false gospel says, if I can
just serve God, He'll bless me. If I can do these things for
Him, He'll bless you. The true God says, I've blessed
you. I've blessed you with all spiritual
blessings in every realms in my Son. I've blessed you and
you will serve me." God is not dependent on us for
anything. They heard. They heard the declaration, didn't
they? They heard the declaration that
Jesus is the Christ, verse 5. And from the ruler of the synagogue
to those Corinthians who we saw last week lived in such notorious
sin. that they are infamous. And you
can imagine how those Jews lived there in the middle of Corinth.
Those Jews would have been very, very righteous. They wouldn't
have been involved in any of that fornication down the street
in that temple where there are a thousand prostitutes to entice
all the travellers there. They wouldn't have been involved
in all the wickedness that that extraordinarily successful and
wealthy city was involved in. and they were involved in prostitution
and fornication in their churches with their Bibles opened. These people heard. They heard
the Gospel. They heard the Gospel as the
power of God unto salvation. They heard the Gospel as a word
from God and not a word from men. They heard, they believed, and
they were baptized. Baptism is such a beautiful picture. It's a glorious picture of salvation. It's a glorious picture. There
are just two ordinances that the Lord has left with his church,
as well as the gathering of the church, and that is believers'
baptism and the Lord's Supper, and both of them are just glorious
pictures of the Gospel, aren't they? He gathers his people together
to hear of his Son, and he gathers his people together in such a
way that he pictures his salvation of them in remarkable and remarkably
simple and beautiful ways. He pictures the fact that salvation
is entirely in Him, and there's absolutely nothing you can do
to add to it. God has, in heaven right now
before Him, a perfectly holy man, and everyone who's in Him
and united to Him are perfectly holy and righteous, and you can't
add anything to perfection, and you can't take anything away
from it. The hope of salvation is believing. The hope of salvation is that
we are now, believers, 100% righteous and 100% truly holy
before God. So that's the wonder, isn't it?
That's the wonder of the gospel coming in power. It's the wonder
of the Lord Jesus Christ revealing himself. That the gospel is sent
by a sovereign hand of God. Paul had no plans to go to Athens. He had no plans to go to Corinth.
He was pushed and pushed, and the Spirit of God led him. And
the Spirit of God led him to these people, and they heard.
They heard him reasoning, they heard him persuading, they heard
that testimony, and they believed. They believed God's testimony
regarding his son. It's God's testimony regarding
his son is what we proclaim again and again in 1 John 5. He that
believeth on the Son of God hath a witness in himself. And he
that believeth not God, see these people blaspheming in this synagogue
were believing not God. They have made him a liar because
he believeth not the record God gave of his son. We have a record
from God, gave his son. In baptism, there is immersion. No other baptism is baptism. If you've only ever been sprinkled,
you haven't been baptised. It only ever is immersion. That's
what the word means. The reason we have the word baptise
is the religious people who translated things hundreds of years ago
didn't like the idea of immersion and wanted to cling on to some
of their Catholic garments from years gone by and so they just
took the Greek letters and made an English word and we end up
with this new English word four or five hundred years ago called
baptise. But the word baptise means to immerse. To immerse. To be immersed. It pictures so many remarkable
things, doesn't it? To be immersed. To be a believer
is to acknowledge that you're 100% sin. To be immersed is to believe
that your only hope is that 100% of your sins were transferred
to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a glorious picture, isn't
it? When Tom gets baptised, he will disappear from the view
of this world. and he'll only be seen in the
Lord Jesus Christ and by the Lord Jesus Christ. Baptism is
an acknowledgement that we are dead with him, we are buried
with him, we are united with him. See, we are immersed from
this world and immersed in him. Our life as Colossians 3 is now
hidden with Christ in God. Your life is hidden in Christ
in God. in your flesh, nothing. And you
have nothing to contribute to your salvation at all. Immersion
pictures that salvation is 100% gracious. And 100% of your works,
100% of your sin is actually hidden and buried. Hidden. And the activities of
it are hidden from this world. They are hidden from this world.
Turn with me to Romans chapter 6, and Paul would no doubt have
led these Corinthian believers to see these wonderful things. The question, of course, that's
raised in verse 1 of chapter 6 is whether he shall continue
in sin that grace may abound. The answer from God is no, God
forbid. And then he speaks about what
we know. Know you not that so many of
us as were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his
death? Therefore we are buried with
him by baptism into death. We are buried with him. See,
baptism is a picture of our union with the Lord Jesus Christ and
it's hidden from this world and unseen by this world. The reason
for salvation is because of the glorious substitutionary work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whenever He did, whatever He
did, He did as a public person, and whatever He did, He did in
union with His people. He was one with them from before
the foundation of the world. He walked this earth before God
and before man, perfectly obedient to the law of God, and we were
walked in Him. We walked in Him. On Calvary's
tree, he was so united to his people and they were united to
him. The scriptures say that we were crucified with him. He
was so closely united to us in that covenant of grace that our
sins are declared by God to be his sins. And when God the Father
in righteousness and holiness slew his son on Calvary's tree, a righteous and holy God, punished his son because his
son deserved it. His son was guilty. His son bore
our sins in his own body on the tree. We were buried with him. We were baptized into his death. and we're buried with him by
baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from
the dead, and I love what it says in Romans 6.4, he was raised
up from the dead by the glory of the Father. The cross is this
glorious declaration, this glorious revelation of this glorious God
and Saviour. Even so, we should walk in newness
of life. Knowing this, that our old man
is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed."
What have you earned with this body of sin? You've earned the
judgment of God upon it. The wages of sin is death. And in the Lord Jesus Christ,
the law got its perfect satisfaction. It got a death. It got a death. a death under the wrath of God. The old man is crucified, the body
of sin might be destroyed, henceforth we should not serve sin. He that
is dead is free from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live with Him. Knowing that Christ
was raised from the dead, dieth no more. Death has no more dominion
over him. For in that he died, he died
unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise
reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but
alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's the reckoning
of believers. We reckon that. We reckon that. We reckon. that now we are, in
the Lord Jesus Christ, 100% righteous before God, and we're 100% holy. And when God says, without holiness
no man shall ever see the Lord, then it must be perfect to be
accepted. We are satisfied because my God
is satisfied. We're a new creation, a new creation. These believers are new creations
according to Ephesians 4.24. We're a new creation in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Created in righteousness and
true holiness. The new man, the resurrected
man comes out of that waters as the Lord Jesus Christ came
out of that tomb. The new man walks in this world. According to God, according to
God, they are partakers of the divine nature. According to God they are. According
to God, 1 John 4, as he is, so are we in this world. Is he holy? So are we in this world. Is he
righteous before God? So are we in this world. Is he
accepted of the Father? So are we in this world. Is he infinitely and eternally
and justly loved of God? So are we in this world. So baptism pictures what the
Lord Jesus Christ did. And it pictures our union with
him and our union in him. And that's what he says, doesn't
he, to believers. He says he takes up residence
in them. He says we'll come to them and we'll live with them.
That's what he says in Romans 8.10. And if Christ be in you, the
body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because
of righteousness. Christ in you is the hope of
glory. And Christ takes residence in
believers. He makes them He makes them His
dwelling place in this world, and He gathers them together.
He gathers them together, that mutually they are a habitation
of God by the Spirit. And He comes again and again
to them, and He does the most glorious and simple things. He
says, I've done it. I've said I'd do it, and I've
done it. It's done. That's what he said
on Calvary's tree, brothers and sisters in Christ. He said it's
finished. It's finished. The price has
been paid. You believers in this God, in
this Christ, are perfectly fit. perfectly fit home for the Lord
Jesus Christ to dwell in. He comes. He comes to his own. He takes them out of this wilderness
world. like he did that Ethiopian eunuch. The Ethiopian eunuch had been
in religion and he was no better off when he left. In fact, on
his way home he was in a desert. He was in a desert, wasn't he?
He was in a desert place. Philip preached the gospel to
him, this man that was humbled. And he says, what does hinder
me to be baptised? And Philip said, if ye are believest,
with all thine heart thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Isn't that remarkable? In the middle of that desert,
now there was water. Now there was the water of life.
And he was baptised. See, it's what you believe about
him. It's what you believe about him. Do you believe the testimony
of God about his son? The joy and peace of believing is
the promise of the scriptures. May God grant it to us again
and again. that we might simply be granted
the faith to believe that Jesus Christ, this Jesus Christ who
we proclaim here from the scriptures, is the Son of God and life is
in Him now and forever. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we do thank you yet again for gathering your people together.
We thank you for the glorious gospel of your son, our Lord
Jesus Christ. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for your testimony of him and we thank you for giving your
people, Heavenly Father, the hearts to simply believe what
you say about your Son in your Word. And we thank you for the
blessed operations of the Holy Spirit, Heavenly Father, who
has promised to take the things of the Lord Jesus Christ and
come and reveal them to your people, that we might know that
we have eternal life. We might know that our sins are
forgiven. We might know the things that
you have promised to reveal and give to your blood-bought children. Oh, our Heavenly Father, we pray
that you would cause your Son to be honoured amongst us, that
you would care for and fulfil your promises to Tom as he walks
before you in this world. and Heavenly Father, that you
might grant us the grace, as your fellowship here, to care
for and nurture him. That we might, Heavenly Father,
simply be led of you to proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ to each other again and again. That we might just see
him, Heavenly Father, and that we might know his promise, as
he promised Paul, that he'll be with him He will promise that
no harm will come from him. And he'll promise that there
is a fellowship of his people in this world for him to be gathered
to. Oh, our father, bless your word
to the hearts of your people and cause us to honor and exalt
your son. For we pray in Jesus' name and
for his glory, our father, amen. Okay, we're gonna pop down to
the river.