I wanted us to turn to Acts chapter
14 verse 19 and 20. We've seen in Acts chapter 14
that Paul has had this preaching ministry,
the first missionary journey. You might recall that when Paul
was commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ, Ananias was told
that Paul will have to know how much he will suffer for the Kingdom
of God. And the suffering of the Lord's
servants throughout time is but a reflection and an extension
of the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says in Colossians
that we fill up in our bodies the sufferings of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is a reminder As we think of the life of Paul,
it is a reminder of the depths from which we have been redeemed. We've just sung, hallelujah,
what a saviour. What a saviour to rescue his
people from what they are. What a saviour to rescue his
people from Satan. What a saviour to rescue his
people from their sins. He is, our Lord Jesus Christ,
a complete and an absolute and a wonderfully successful saviour. So here in Acts chapter 14 we
have this picture. It's extraordinary, isn't it?
There he came preaching the gospel to these people, preaching salvation
to these people. There he came healing a man who
was lame and crippled in both his feet. and he saw that he
had the faith to be healed, he saw that he had the faith to
be made whole, he had the faith to be saved. The man's healing
was a picture of the gospel that saves people like him, crippled
and unable to walk, captive to the flesh that they were born
in. And there came As a result of all of this activity, verse
19, and there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium,
who persuaded the people, and having stoned Paul, drew him
out of the city, supposing he had been dead. You might recall that the people
of Antioch found it offensive when they were told that the
Lord Jesus Christ The Lord Jesus Christ brings faith to people. The Lord Jesus Christ justifies
people. By His activities and His alone,
He frees His people from sin. To be justified is to be in the
presence and in the court of God with no sin whatsoever. That's what it is to be justified.
He says in verse 39 of chapter 13, and by him all that believe. He brings faith. He brings faith. He brings justification by his
own activities and his alone, justified from all things from
which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. And at that moment, the Jews
in that synagogue were stirred up. And I put it to you, as I've
said before, if you had been in Antioch that morning and you
had watched these Jews get themselves ready for church, probably fasting
and gathering their families together and their little ones
and taking their Bibles under their arms and walking down to
synagogue, they were zealous. They were moral people. They were religious people. They
were knowledgeable people. They were people who were out
evangelising other people. They had Greeks come to their
synagogue. Many Greeks come to their synagogue.
And yet, those very same people are the people that come now
and stone Paul and leave him as a dead man. They stoned him
in that city, these religious people. It's so hard for us to contemplate
what stoning looks like, doesn't it? Just imagine, just imagine,
they just picked up the rocks off the stones and the sides
of the roads, and as big a rocks as they could get, and they smashed
them into his body. covered in blood and bruised
and mocked, and then they drag his body out of the city like
a bit of refuse and leave him there to die. Moral, religious people did that. moral religious people, as they
walked into this city with its temples of Jupiter on the outside,
they would have been proud of the fact that they were not worshippers
of these pagan idols. And yet in this city, on that
day, they joined hands with those pagan idolaters to kill the Apostle
Paul, and thought they had done so. thought they had done so. They
supposed he had been dead. So what causes decent, moral,
upright, knowledgeable, evangelistic, for want of a better word, people
to be murderers? So they're just exposed. People
are exposed by the gospel. People are exposed by the Gospel
to who has taken them captive. The Gospel exposes your Lord. The Gospel exposes you before
a God. The Gospel strips people of all
of their righteousness, all of their religious activity. The
Gospel is just simply the one thing in all of this creation
that exposes man for what man is. The Gospel exposes, as we see
in these chapters, exposes the activities of Satan. See, in
chapters 14 and 15, we have before us four activities of Satan clearly
laid out. And I want us to look at them
briefly this morning and then I want to look at a particular
parable of the Lord Jesus which describes what happens in the
hearts of religious people when they are reformed on the outside
and unchanged on the inside. In chapter 14 and 15, we have
these four examples of Satan's response to the Gospel. See,
the Gospel is a declaration of the lordship of our Saviour,
as I read out of Daniel. It's a declaration that the Lord
Jesus Christ reigns. It's a declaration that on Calvary's
tree, he defeated Satan and made a public mockery of him. At the
very point of Satan's activities where he thought he finally had
won, he was made a mockery of by the Lord Jesus Christ. And
on Calvary's tree, he disarmed Satan. He removed the fangs and
the poison from that serpent. because on Calvary's tree, the
Lord Jesus Christ, under the law of God, bore the curse of
God. And all of the sins of all of
God's people are taken away. And he took that law of God in
all of its perfect obedience, and in all of its disobedience
in the lives of his people, when he was made sin for us. He who
knew no sin, the holy spotless lamb of God, went to Calvary's
tree. And he took that law there. He
took that law there. having fulfilled all of its holy
requirements and having fulfilled all of its just punishments. And now Satan is disarmed. He has no law to bring against
the children of God. And the gospel, as Paul declared
it there, all that believe are justified from all things which
couldn't be justified by the law of Moses. God's people are
justified. Satan has no accusation against
a justified people. Satan despises the gospel. despises the gospel which declares
the glory of the Lord and despises the gospel which declares his
defeat. That we see him in activity here
We see him stirring up the Jews in Iconium. Their legalistic
righteousness was taken away from them and their legalistic
righteousness, their moral righteousness, their religious righteousness
was revealed as just fig leaves of man's invention. It was nothing more than idolatry
at heart. Their religious zeal for the
law, their religious zeal for the history of the Jews was just
exposed as nothing other than a satanic delusion. See, they
were envious, and they spoke against, and they contradicted,
and they blasphemed, and they put the word of God from them.
And Paul says, they judged themselves unworthy of eternal life, and
they raised persecution. And the extraordinary thing is
that they didn't ever stop. They went from Antioch to Iconium
and they followed Paul around and hunted him like an animal
to be disposed of. Last week we saw in Lystra Satan's
activities. when these people who worshipped
Jupiter and worshipped Mercurius, they were these people captive
to that delusion that so infects Adam's children throughout this
world. They heard Paul preach the gospel,
these people, And they saw a miracle performed. And then they attribute
the healing and the miracle to the gods visiting them in human
form. And they want a sacrifice to
Barnabas and Paul. The sacrifices of the pagans
are sacrifices to demons. And Paul had to go to the utmost
lengths to restrain them. So there were these people these
Jews from Antioch, and now in chapter 14 they join hands, don't
they? Verse 19 of our passage, there
came through the certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium who
persuaded the people. One minute these people were
declaring Paul and Barnabas to be gods, and in a heartbeat they
were joining others in stoning them to death. The crowd that
cried out, Hosanna, Hosanna to the Lord Jesus Christ, within
days were led to say, Crucify Him, Crucify Him. Just as in the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ, there was a coalition of Satan's forces, wasn't it?
The Jews joined hands with Herod, and the Jews joined hands with
Pilate, and they joined hands in enmity against the Word of
God, against the Lord, and against his anointed. You see, if you told these Jews
when they were going to church in Antioch that they would join
hands with the worshippers of Jupiter in the murder of one
of God's saints, they would have said, no way in the world would
I do that. I've never been a murderer. I've never broken God's law.
And yet here they are in our text before us, treating Paul
as a bit of refuse. So we see Satan stirring up the
Jews, stirring up the self-righteous ones. We see Satan at work in
this crowd. We see Satan at work causing
his forces to join hands against the Lord and against his anointed.
Join hands with people that they would, by nature, despise. And in Acts chapter 15, just
over the page, we see Satan again. Satan masquerading as an angel
of light. Satan masquerading as an angel
of light. In Acts chapter 15 we have the
Jerusalem council and those teachers came lying. to the church in Antioch, telling
lies about their pedigrees. But they came to Antioch, declaring
the wonders of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then saying to them,
that you have to be circumcised, that is verse 5, that it's needful
to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses. And such is the world that we
live in today, brothers and sisters, that Satan operates in those
ways again and again and again. He is, he is named in the scriptures. He has all these names which
declare his character. He is, as the Lord Jesus said,
a liar and a murderer from the beginning. He's called Abaddon
or Apollyon, which means he's a destroyer or destruction. He's the angel from the bottomless
pit. He is Beelzebub. He is Belial. worthlessness. He is called that
old dragon. He's called the father of lies. He's called Lucifer, the shining
one, or the brightness of the morning star. The Lord Jesus
declared him to be a murderer from the beginning. He's called
Satan, the god of this world, roaring lion. Our Lord Jesus
Christ came, came to destroy the works of the devil. And as
we contemplate the works of the devil in the lives of people
who are religious and moral and zealous, it's good for us to
be reminded yet again of the wonder of the salvation that
the Lord has wrought for us. It's a great danger to think,
as we look at these people and look at the evil that goes on
and the murderous intent of people, the great danger is that we can
say, well, I'm not like that. And if I was there, I wouldn't
have done that. Brothers and sisters, if we think
that for a heartbeat, we are as deceived as them. Satan, the
word Satan means accuser and an adversary. The Lord Jesus
was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. I love what
the Lord said. He said, He has nothing in me. He has nothing in me. He can't
accuse the Lord Jesus Christ of anything. And the Lord Jesus
Christ defeated him in that temptation in the garden. And what did he
do? What did he do at every occasion when Satan came at that time
when he was tempted and struggling from thirst and hunger? He says
it is written, it is written, the word of God is our defence
as it was his. Satan, as we see him in the scriptures,
we must always remember that he's God's creation and he's
under God's control. And people want to say, well,
he's on a very long chain. And if you think he's under control
and the Lord Jesus has defeated him and he's on a long chain,
it doesn't matter how long the chain is, brothers and sisters,
it's a matter of who's holding the other end. And the Lord Jesus
Christ has the chain in his hand and Satan is God's devil. And the activities of Satan are
only ever going to work for the spiritual good of the Lord's
people. There are things that we need
to remember as we contemplate him, that we're not strong enough
in ourselves. to know His ways or to defeat
Him. Our only strength and our only
hope is in our all-conquering Saviour. And He must rule till
all His enemies are put under His feet. There will come a time
when Satan will be cast away forever. But the Scriptures warn
us. In Revelation 12, there's a remarkable
passage of Scripture that says, Speaking of this great dragon,
in verse 10 it says, And now I heard
a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation and strength
and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ. For
the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them
not before our God day and night. He's cast down because the Lord
Jesus Christ has won that victory on Calvary Street. He has no
access to heaven now. In the Old Testament he had access
to heaven, but he has none now. But then it speaks of the believers,
and they overcame him. by the blood of the Lamb. We don't overcome Him by anything
that we do, we overcome Him by the blood of the Lamb and by
the word of their testimony. The word of our testimony about
who the Lord Jesus Christ is and what He's achieved. But the
word of their testimony is sealed, isn't it, in these wonderful
words at the end of verse 11. And they loved not their lives
unto death. They loved not their lives. When
Satan poisoned all of Adam's race in the garden, there was
one thing that we wanted to do all the time, and one thing we
continually want to do, is to love our lives, to pamper our
lives, to please and appease and justify our flesh all the
time. They loved not their lives. unto death. They overcame him. It doesn't say they might possibly
overcome him. They overcame him by the blood
of the lamb and the word of their testimony. He is an accuser. He does come amongst the people
of God and operate in ways which cause them to be horrified by
the things that they do. But he causes his people to be
reminded yet again and again that our God reigns. He entered Ananias and Sapphira
and caused them to lie to God. He came upon that early church
again and again to destroy it as vigorously and as viciously
as he possibly can. The whole world lies in the hands
of the evil one. The only place and the only people
in all of this world against whom he has enmity are those
that are indwelt by the Lord Jesus Christ. Those that bear
the testimony of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those
that declare the blood of the Lamb as their only hope and their
only salvation in this world. Satan has according to Luke 11,
he has a palace and he keeps his goods in peace. He keeps all this world in peace. He keeps people in peace by their
religious activities. He keeps people in peace by their
pagan religious activities as well as their so-called Christian
religious activities. and he doesn't disturb them one
tiny bit. It is only the gospel that disturbs
them. So just some quick lessons before
we move on. These men, these men in Antioch,
these murderers, these brutal murderers, these religious people,
they did as they wanted to do. They did it voluntarily, and
they are fully responsible. They are acting against reason. They are acting against God's
witness and God's warnings, because Paul warned them in Acts 13,
as clearly as you could possibly be warned about the danger they
are in. And they heeded it not. They were led by Satan, and they
are fully responsible. Man is responsible. Don't blame
Satan for anything, ever. Own your sins and bear the testimony
of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Be honest about
it. Satan must smile delightfully
when he finds these Pentecostals and Charismatics and other people
going around the world saying that they can identify demons,
and if you can identify them, you can cast them out. Satan
smiles at all that nonsense. It was the blood of the Lamb
that they overcame him. Any place where the testimony
of God and the declaration of the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ on Calvary's tree, the completed, perfect, substitutionary
sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, any place where that is not declared
openly and clearly lies in the hands of the wicked one. And
Satan is an implacable enemy of God and His children. At the
end of the day, his great enemy is the Lord Jesus Christ, and
he can't get to Him in heaven now. And so he goes after the
Church. He's always been an enemy of
God and His Christ. He's always an enemy of the souls
of the saints. He's always an enemy of God's
messengers. No wonder the Lord Jesus Christ
encouraged us to pray, lead me not into temptation, but deliver
me from the evil one. If you're led into temptation,
what's going to happen? If I'm led into temptation, what's
going to happen? I promise you every single time
I'll fall. every single time. Lead me not
into temptation. Watch that you fall not into
temptation. The flesh is weak." Again, the
other lesson about the enemies of God, the enemy of God, and
the enemy of our souls, is it is only ever exposed when the
gospel is revealed. And the gospel is the Lord Jesus
Christ. You might wonder why in the New Testament there is
so much demonic activity. There was so much demonic activity
because the demons are stirred up and Satan is stirred up only
when he who will defeat him and has promised to do so is revealed. As I said earlier, he keeps his
goods in peace. He can keep them in peace in
their understanding and their success in this world. He can
keep them at peace in religion. by their thoughts of their own
righteousness, by their own giving themselves messages of peace. He can give them peace like he
did to the Pharisee that went up to the temple and then he
says, I thank God. I thank God that I'm not like
these other people. I thank God. I fast. I give. Look at my life. Look how clean it is. The scriptures encourage us to
be wise and to be aware of his schemes. See, he's a liar. He's a liar and a murderer. But the one thing that he never
has to lie about is lying about your sins. Never does he have
to tell a lie to come as an accuser of me or you. See, his lies are
lies about our union and our relationship with the Lord Jesus
Christ all the time. He lies about our Saviour. He
doesn't have to lie about us, but he lies about the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's a liar, he's an accuser
of the brethren. He reminds us His activities
remind us that we have every reason to be humble about our
supposed victories in this world. Because it's when we're weak
that we're strong. God's power is revealed in our
weakness. Satan is there as an accuser
of the brethren in all of his deceitful schemes, that we might
cling, cling desperately to the Lord Jesus Christ, cling to the
word of his grace, cling to the word of his promise. The Lord
Jesus overcame him in that temptation by quoting the words of God,
by quoting the scriptures. So we judge all things in light
of his word and the word of his gospel. We don't judge things
by human wisdom and human reason and human sight and human worth
and human appearances. What say ye of Christ? What do you say about him? Is he all? Is he all? Is he all and is he all in all? And the response of the Church
to all of the attacks of the evil one remains the same. Just come back to Acts chapter
14, it's just lovely what happens, isn't it? They came there hither
certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium who persuaded the people,
and having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing
that he had been dead. I'm sure they made sure there
were plenty of extra rocks. that came upon that body to make
sure that he was completely silenced and wouldn't rise again. And
then we have this remarkable word, isn't it? How be it, verse
20, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up and came
into the city, and the next day he departed with Barnabas to
Derby. Isn't that wonderful? And when
they had preached the gospel in that city, See, God raised
him up by a miracle. God raised him up. And what happened? He went straight back into that
same city where they'd stoned him to death to strengthen the
brethren, to preach the gospel. And as we'll see later on, he
goes back to that city, confirming the souls of the saints in that
city. It's impossible. It's impossible
for God's servants not to finish their course in this world. The
Lord Jesus said, He's going to be my witness. He's going to
bear witness to me. And it doesn't matter what the
enemies of God's people ever do. God's servants will bear
witness as long as the Lord sustains them in this world. He bore witness
and he went back to confirm the brethren. See, the Lord Jesus
Christ is victorious. He reigns. Our God, in all eternity,
by the eternal election of grace, secures all of his children. They are safe. I love what it
says, isn't it? Our lives are hid with Christ in God. So he can't get to us, brothers
and sisters, unless he deals with our Saviour, unless he causes
us to look away from our Saviour and look to ourselves and look
to this world. We will go through trials and
we will go through storms of life. But our God has made a
promise. Our God has made a promise. I
love that story, as they crossed the Sea of Galilee, and there
was that storm, and these experienced fishermen thought that they were
about to drown in that boat, and the waves were covering it.
These men knew what storms were, and they knew what boats were. They were experienced, and when
they were frightened about being drowned, they had a reality about
it. But they'd forgotten a promise. They'd forgotten a promise. So
when they got into the boat, the Lord Jesus said, let us cross
over to the other side. That's what God said in eternity,
isn't it? That's what the Son said in eternity. He said, let
us cross over the other side. And the storms will terrify us. And the waves will be enormous. And we, like those apostles in
the boat, will think that the Lord Jesus Christ is absent.
And all he does is he wakes up and he just says a word. He just
says a word. And immediately they're at the
other side of the sea. He says to the ruler of this
world, the prince of the power of the air, as he said to Satan,
let my people go that they may worship me. He's come as a saviour. He's come as a deliverer. The whole world, says John, lies
in the evil one. The whole world is captive. That's
what Ephesians 2 says, isn't it? And you have he quickened. who were dead in trespasses and
sins. He's made you alive if you were
dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience. Among whom, also, we all had
our conversation in times past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
children of wrath, even as others. That's what we were, weren't
we? And then we had one of those glorious, but God. But God, who
is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even
when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ. By grace, ye are saved, and has
raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. that in the ages to come he might
show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward
us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved, through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should
boast, for we are his workmanship. created in Christ Jesus unto
good works, which God hath before ordained that we should work
in them. Part of the reason for God allowing
the rage of Satan and his activities in this world is that we will
see again and again the depths of the wonders of his grace,
that we might see this world and the things of this world
through the eyes of faith, that we might not be dismayed when
we see people acting irrationally, acting contrary to the things
that they have promised. You see, why do religious people
behave in such irrational, wicked and hypocritical ways when the
Gospel comes? When people who appear to be
sane and moral and reasonable and reasoning in all the things
of their lives, when the gospel comes they act in the most extraordinary
silly ways. In every other activity of life,
people want to be told the truth. When you go to a doctor, you're
wanting to tell you what is really true. When you go to your accountant,
you want to hear the truth. And yet, when it comes to religious
things, people will swallow the biggest lies and be deceived
in the most extraordinary ways. just like these people in Antioch. They joined in a coalition with
those that they would normally despise. They wouldn't eat with
these Gentiles, but they'll gather hands and join hands with them
in the murder of the Apostle Paul. The Jews hated the Romans
and hated Herod and yet they joined hands with them in the
murder of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why do people seem so deaf to
the evidence and the history and the scriptures? Nothing could
be more clear presented before men than that the Lord Jesus
Christ is the Messiah of God. And yet the response of these
people whilst continually, let's destroy him. And the more he
revealed himself, the more irrational they became. He raised Lazarus
from the dead, and the response of these Jewish people was, let's
kill him again, as if four days rotting in a tomb isn't enough.
Let's kill him again, and let's kill the Lord Jesus Christ. See,
people, when it comes to religious things, are absolute and utter
fools. And they continually display
themselves to be so. In the early days of our church,
we thought that we could, by bringing enough evidence before
people, and enough scriptural evidence before people, we would
have them come to a point where they'd have to say, I put up
the white flag. The Lord Jesus Christ really
is who he said he is. The Lord Jesus Christ really
did what he said he'd do, and he really did it for a particular
people, and he did it before the foundation of the world.
And here are the scriptures, and it's clear. And what was
the response? Again and again, the response
of people to the greatest news that you could ever possibly
have is exactly what happened in Antioch
2,000 years ago. Let's kill him. Let's get rid
of him. Let's silence his voice. This man, captive to Satan and
not set free, is a fool to his own soul. A fool to his own soul. No amount of evidence No amount
of argument is going to bring people out of a kingdom of darkness
and place them in a kingdom of light. This is a work, a sovereign
work of our great God. I'd like to finish by declaring
some of those works out of Colossians. There are seven of them listed
here in Colossians and I just love them. In Colossians chapter
one, God's people give thanks to the Father, verse 12, which
has made us meet. It means he's qualified us, he's
fitted us, made us to be perfect, to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light. He's made us. It's a creation
of a sovereign God. Verse 13, He has delivered us. You see, all these are in the
past tense. I love how God declares again
and again in the Scriptures that His works of grace are always
in the past tense. Because they are finished from
the foundation of the world, they are finished, brothers and
sisters. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and
has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son. He's delivered
us from that kingdom of Satan, and He's taken us into the kingdom
of His dear Son. And we see Him as a dear Son. We see Him as precious. In whom,
verse 14, number 4, in whom we have redemption. through His
blood. The price has been paid. The debt has been paid. The captives must go free, because
the Lord Jesus has paid that price. Redemption through His
blood, even the forgiveness of sins. The forgiveness of sins. The next verses go on to declare
the wonders of this man, our God-man who has done it. He's
the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.
He talks about him being creator, for by him were all things created
that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities of power. All
things were created by him and for him. He rules and reigns
in every sphere of everything in this universe, and He is before
all things, and by Him all things consist. He rules and reigns
over all of his creation. And he is the head of the body,
the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased
the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. What a great
description of our Saviour. They overcame Him by the blood
of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. They just have a testimony
which agrees with the testimony of God about His Son. And they
love not their lives unto death. The fifth thing that the Lord
Jesus Christ has done for us is, having made peace through
the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto
himself. By him, I say, whether they be
things in earth or things in heaven. Reconcile, bring them together. all things are reconciled in
him. There is no reconciliation outside
of union and outside of his person, whether they're in earth or in
heaven. The sixth thing that he's done, and you that were
sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works. What a great description of us,
brothers and sisters. We were enemies. enemies in our
minds. Do you remember being an enemy
of the Lord Jesus Christ? I remember being an enemy. I
remember being an implacable enemy of him. And I remember the wicked works
that went with it. You were sometime alienated and
enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. And that reconciliation of all
things in heaven on earth, that reconciliation, verse 22, in
the body of his flesh through death, to present you. This is the great work of our
Saviour, isn't it? All of the activities of Satan
and all of the activities of the men of this world are never
going to stop our Saviour achieving what He's done, to present you
holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight. See, when Satan
comes along to accuse you, he doesn't have to lie about you,
but he has to lie about what your Saviour has done. It's the
Saviour's work, isn't it, to make you and present you holy.
That's free from sin, unblameable. There's no condemnation now for
those who are in Christ Jesus. Unreprovable. And it's in the
sight of the one who sees best. The one whose sight is the only
one who matters. No wonder over in verse 10 he
can say, chapter two, and you're complete. You are complete in
him. Complete in him. How complete
are we? We're as complete as verse nine
says, for in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. How much fullness of the Godhead
was in the Lord Jesus Christ? All of the fullness. How complete
are God's children in him? So when Satan comes along and
accuses you of breaking God's law, And Satan comes along with
his accusations against the people of God, we overcome him. We overcome him not by anything
that we do ourselves, but the blood of the Lamb. And we say
to him, you can say whatever you like about me, but this is
what my God says about me. His word stands. True forever. Our God reigns,
brothers and sisters. Our God delivers. Our God defeats
the enemies of our souls. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we do pray that you'd cause us to be aware of the schemes of
our enemy, to be aware of the fact that he lies about your
dear and precious son and lies about the relationship your people
are in with him. That union, that covenant union
from all eternity secures the salvation of all your people.
We are made complete. in our dear and precious Saviour. Heavenly Father, we thank you.
We thank you that on Calvary's tree he bore the infinite, eternal
wrath that all of our sins deserve, and the law of God was satisfied. It had a death. And now Your
justice demands the salvation of all of Your people. Heavenly
Father, Your people find comfort in the revelation of Your character
as revealed in Your Son and Him crucified. And we pray, Heavenly
Father, that in the midst of the storms of this world, You'd
cause us to find our comfort yet again and again in your character,
revealed in your Son, promised in your Word, fulfilled in time,
fulfilled in the lives of your people in this world, Heavenly
Father. And we pray, Heavenly Father, that you would preserve
and protect us as a fellowship that bears testimony to the blood
of the Lamb, that we would be kept by you to be faithful, Heavenly
Father, despite what men and the enemy of the souls of God's
people might ever do, that we might hold him up and lift him
up, and that we might find ourselves again and again finding His blood
to be precious, a balm to our souls in the midst of this troubling
and trying world. Heavenly Father, help us to remember
Him, cause us to know Him, so that we can have this remembrance
meal of Him, that broken body and that shed blood, poured out
for all of your people. O our Father, make him precious
in our sight, for we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.