We are called upon to be witnesses. These apostles were witnessing
to who the Lord Jesus Christ is, and they were witnessing
not only to who He is, but they were witnessing to Him out of
the Old Testament Scriptures, and they were witnessing to what
he had done in the lives of people. Those who heard that testimony
about what they were, they were nothing but wicked. They had
been responsible for the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. They
acknowledged their wickedness. They acknowledged their evil.
they gladly receive the word of God. And they gladly receive
the word of God about who the Lord Jesus Christ is. He is now
seated upon the throne of this universe as he always has been,
a sovereign ruler over all things. And that's what we come to bear
witness to in this remarkable deliverance of these men out
of the prison. They were locked away. The world
continually, and the religious world especially, wants to try
and hide the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what
these religious people in Jerusalem were doing, weren't they? They
were saying, you be quiet. So they started by saying, stop
speaking any more in this name, and they let them out. And then
in Acts chapter 5, we'll see that they Instead of locking
them up in a room at the temple, they now lock them up in a common
prison with the prisoners. And then God, in His sovereignty,
just goes and opens the prison doors. And there's a lovely description
of what the keepers of the prison did when they came back to look
there. They found no man within. It's a great description of the
complete sovereign deliverance of these people. But it's a deliverance,
as we saw last week, it's a deliverance that people might go out and
proclaim the name of the Lord. They might go out and preach.
They might go out with the courage that these men had that it is
better to obey God rather than man. It's better. Who should
we obey? That is the question always,
isn't it, for people who stand in my place and people who sit
where you are. It's better to obey. It's better to obey God than
to obey man. With some of that in mind, the
sovereign deliverance and the perfect and complete deliverance
of our God. I'd like us to turn to Revelation
chapter 11. We have been through, in this
last little while in this country of ours, through things that
are incredibly challenging, and the Church in so many ways, the
professing Church in so many ways, has come before the world
with confusion about what's going on. We've had the legalisation
of homosexuality and we must remember as Christians that our
war is not against flesh and blood and we are never, ever,
ever to fight with carnal means. Our fight is with spiritual forces. Our one weapon that we have to
overthrow all of those things is the declaration of the Gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. So there is no place for vilification,
nor is there any place for physical activities. The people of God
never fought physically. You go through the New Testament,
you will see that they never once, when escape was available,
they escaped. led by God, but never once did
they raise their hand against another person, nor did the Lord
Jesus Christ, nor has His real Church throughout this last 2,000
years. Our weapons, our weapons are
spiritual weapons. And the greatest thing we can
do is turn our hearts and our minds to the Scriptures and to
see what God is doing. So in this Nation of Ours, we
are now about to embark on a complete change of what marriage means. We have changed what God says
about sin and we have For the first time,
enshrined in the laws of our lands, things that God says are
contrary to His will and His purpose. We have for the first
time enshrined sin in our constitution and in our laws. Not only that,
we have We have enshrined and will enshrine, and increasingly
so without doubt, we will enshrine the reality that those who speak
on account of what God says and obey God will be considered in
one way or another, as they are now, they have a psychological
problem, they will have a real criminal problem in time to come.
And one of the things that's extraordinary is that we now,
for the first time in our history, have actually allowed for there
to be an excuse for sin on account of how we were made. It's an
extraordinary thing, isn't it? Sam, next time one of your mates
gets into trouble at school, and he goes up to the headmaster,
and is about to get, in our day you got belted, but in your day,
I don't know what happens, but imagine if he goes up to the
headmaster and he turns to the headmaster and said, I was born
that way and I couldn't help it. Imagine standing before a
judge as a murderer and saying, I was born that way and I couldn't
help it. He'd be looking out for his book, wouldn't he, to
see how long he could lock that person up. But we're actually
saying now that something that God declares to be sin, something
that God says is offensive, something that God as Creator has the rights
to determine good and evil, we now want to proclaim that we
have the rights. We have been looking at Psalm
Chapter 2 and one of the great cries of the people in Psalm
Chapter 2 is, let us cast off their bans. Let's cast God's
bans and cause away from us. Let us have freedom, is the great
cry of our age. Freedom. Freedom to do as we
want to do. And my point, simply, as we look
at Revelation 11, is that what men see as freedom, God declares
to be Him giving people over. And God, our great God, reigns
and rules. So I just want to briefly go
through it. I spent some time with it on Thursday evening,
but we won't have much time to do that now. But we'll just look
at this chapter of the scriptures. John had taken this little book
out of the angel's hand in chapter 10, and it's a book that's sweet.
It's sweet in his mouth, as sweet as honey, and then as soon as
he's eaten it, in his belly it was bitter. There is a sweetness
about the Word of God to God's people because God said it. When
God said it, it's right. When God speaks, God speaks reality
into existence. When God speaks, it's right.
But also, in our human nature, we understand, don't we, that
the things that God has declared are very, very good for His people.
and very, very bad for those that turn opposed to Him. And
we have people in this world that we love and care for. So
the Word of God is both sweet because it's God's Word. The
Word of God can be both bitter in our belly because in lots
of ways it reacts with our flesh, but in lots of ways it stirs
up passions in us about the fact that this This God reigns sovereignly
and supremely, and people will stand before him and give account. Let's go and have a look at chapter
11. I want us to see that what unfolds in all of human history,
and has unfolded in all of human history since the fall of Adam
and before that, everything that happens, everything that comes
to pass, is exactly according to God's will and decree and
purpose, and He's written it down. Not that we see with absolute
clarity, but we see in such a way that we are reminded again and
again that our God reigneth. Our God reigneth. He reigns absolutely
sovereignly and He's supremely and He reigns exactly according
to what He has written. And we must, in the midst of
all of our unbelief, in the midst of all of the trials, we must,
if the Lord will allow us, to be drawn back to the fact that
our God is absolutely sovereign over this world. He created a
universe by speaking a word. He says the nations are a drop
in the bucket. He says that they are dust on
the scales. Just imagine telling that to
President Trump. That's what America is. It's
like you're going down to the supermarket and buying a bag
of potatoes and saying, I do not want. Take the United States
of America off that scale. That's exactly the analogy that
they're saying. All of mankind, you put them
all together, it's vanity. I shouldn't pick on the United
States, we ought to be talking about Australia. Here we are, as puffed
up as they are in so many ways. But that's the analogy the scriptures
use. Read it in Isaiah chapter 40,
a drop in the bucket. When you spill a bucket of water,
do you care about the drop? You don't care about the drop
at all. That's how insignificant it is.
But also it's a picture of how great and big our God is. But
also our God is precise in all of His dealings and just in all
that He does. So let's look here at Revelation
chapter 11. Now Revelation chapter 11 is
in the middle of the book so it's a summary in some sense
of what has gone on and it's also giving a summary of what's
going on into the future in the succeeding chapters in Revelation.
It is what has been and what will be. And there was given
me, this is John, there was given me a reed like unto a rod. And the angel stood, saying,
Rise, measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that
worship therein. I'll just make simple points
about these things as we go through. But the temple of God is the
church. You can read about that in 1
Corinthians and in Ephesians 2 and in many other places. The
temple of God, the real temple of God, is the church of God.
They are the people with whom God dwells. They are the people
that God gathers to himself. They are the people who worship
God and the altar. They worship God on the basis
of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So he measures
this, you measure the temple and then the worship therein,
but the court which is without. So what you have here is a court
outside without the temple. There is a picture here of the
fact that in the world God has his true church and outside Outside,
wanting to get in in some way and looking as if they are the
genuine article, is the world and the world's religions. It's
a picture of all false worship of God. That which is without
the temple, you leave it out and you measure it not. So John's
not even asked to measure it. It's there, it surrounds the
temple and in surrounding the temple of God it does exactly
what false religion does today. If you stand on the outside and
look to try and find the true church of God, you have to look
through Catholicism and Anglicanism and all the other isms of the
world. You have to look through all
of those. And it's like that weapon that they used, the defence
weapon they used in the time of the Vietnam War, those huge
bombers they had. They had a thing called chaff.
Have you heard of chaff? What they did is had billions
of bits of foil, aluminium foil, and when one of these big planes
was under attack, you would let out the chaff. And the missiles
that were coming to shoot the plane down would mistake all
of that aluminium foil for the real one. It is, it is the purpose
of Satan in his lying delusions to people. It is to masquerade,
isn't it? To masquerade around the church
as if they are true. The number of people in our world
that associate biblical Christianity with Catholicism is striking
and remarkable, isn't it? Or associate Pentecostalism or
Anglicanism or all those other isms, all that formality, all
that religion of man's flesh. The simple statement of John
is an important statement for us, isn't it? You measure it
not. The true church is measured by God. It is precise, it is
there and God sees it and they are people that worship. You
measure it not. It is given unto the Gentiles
and the holy city, they shall tread They shall tread under
foot forty and two months. That's his time from the rise
of the Lord Jesus Christ to glory until his return. And then he
speaks of these witnesses. We've been looking at the witnesses
in these opening chapters of Acts. That's the purpose of the
church, is to bear witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. And I
will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy 1,203
score days, which is the same as the 42 months. It's three
and a half years. It's half of seven. It is this gospel age.
They shall prophesy 1,203 years clothed in sackcloth." So the
true witnesses of God, they prophesy because of the power of God.
That's exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ said of the early
church, that power will come upon you and you'll be my witnesses.
And they shall prophesy, but they'll be clothed in sackcloth.
All of God's true servants are clothed in sackcloth. Sackcloth
is a symbol of humility and repentance. The religious world comes before
us with its pride and its arrogance and all of its show, but God's
true servants are weeping. God's true servants are aware
of the fact that they are just a sinner. And they have no problem
about looking out on others and seeing them, esteeming them better
than themselves. I can't see the sin in your life,
but I can see the sin in my life. And it grieves me to bits. I
can't see the temptations that you go through, but I see them
in myself. I, like all of God's servants,
are clothed in sackcloth. We don't stand above others. and to be clothed in sackcloth
is to be seen by this world to be as nothings. You don't take
much notice of someone who is clothed in sackcloth. If you
go to that temple and you see all that show on the outside,
you will find that none of them are clothed in sackcloth. They
haven't been broken hearted because they haven't met the Lord. clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees. I don't have time to go to Zechariah
chapter 4, but if you go to Zechariah chapter 4, there is a great description
of these two people. They bring forth the oil of grace
as the two olive trees and the two candlesticks. They bring
forth the oil of grace. They bring forth that oil, that
comforting word of the gospel that everything that God looks
to for all of his chosen people he finds in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and it comes to broken-hearted sinners by the grace of God. It's a powerful oil that anoints
the children of God. And the two candlesticks, they
are. In the Gospel there comes light.
There's light from God in the Gospel, a light that shines,
that light that shines in the darkness of the human heart and
it shines in the hearts of God's people, as 2 Corinthians 4 says,
to give the light and the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. You see, in sackcloth, it's not
about the glory of man. It's not about the glory of man,
it's about the glory of God. And these two, verse 5, if any
man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devours
their enemies. And if any man will hurt them,
he must in this manner be killed. And you can think of the Old
Testament prophets. You stood up against Moses. Moses was the
meekest man in all the earth. Pharaoh, the king of the greatest
superpower on that earth, stood opposed to Moses. and who won. Elijah stood opposed to all the
prophets of Baal, hundreds of them, hundreds of them, just
this one man dressed in sackcloth stood there on Mount Carmel and
the fire of God came down and devoured the sacrifice and the
fire of God's wrath came down and killed every one of those
prophets. just one man. You see ultimately you cannot
hurt God's witnesses and you cannot harm them without doing
harm to your immortal soul. God says touch not mine anointed
and do my prophets no harm because they stand in God's place, they're
God's witnesses. And God holds them accountable,
but God also is accountable for holding them and holding their
testimony. And so when you speak against
the ambassador, which is what God's servants are, you are speaking
directly against the king who sent them. They are not private
individuals in that matter. When they stand and speak on
God's behalf, they are speaking the words of God. And so they
have, they have an authority from God. To hear them, as the Lord Jesus
says, he that hears me, he that hears you, he said to his apostles,
hears me. And he that despises you, despises
me. And he that despises me, despises
the one that sent me. The words of God are like a fire. They are a consuming fire and
the people are like wood and God's fire will consume. These have power. 6. These have
power to shut up heaven that it rain, not in the days of their
prophecy. 7. They have power over the waters
to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues
as often as they will. 8. Elijah shut up heaven's rain,
and shut up heaven's dew on nation Israel for three and a half years. 9. Moses smite the earth with
all those plagues that you can read about in Exodus 10-12. And
when they shall have finished their testimony, I love this
fact, isn't it? The testimony of God will be finished on this
earth. He has a testimony. The testimony
of God is the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. God will have
that testimony. It shall be finished. That testimony
will go out to all of the people it needs to go out to. It will
go out to all the nations it's designed by God to go out to.
It will go out. And it will go out in the midst
of all of that opposition. We read about the opposition
in Acts chapter 4, it gets worse and worse. In the next chapter
they kill Stephen, and a few chapters on they behead James.
The opposition continues, but God's testimony will go out because
God sovereignly makes it go out. The beast that ascended out of
the bottomless pit shall make war against them and shall overcome
them and kill them." There is an enmity, there is a spiritual
battle going on between Satan and the declaration of the Gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is as if, if you've got
your scriptures open there, you'll see that the serpent, this great
dragon, this this one that ascended out of the bottomless pit. In
chapter 12 verse 15, the serpent cast out of his mouth water as
a flood, which is exactly what's happened in this world. Satan
has cast out of his mouth water as a flood. Every false religion
every form of religion, and it doesn't matter what name it is,
and it doesn't matter where it is, any religion that denies
that the Lord Jesus Christ is God, and that the Lord Jesus
Christ, by his death on Calvary's tree, purchased eternal redemption
for his people, and by his perfect obedience he has robed his people
with the robe of perfect righteousness, and they stand before God holy
and perfect, not on account of anything that they do, but purely
on account of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. To deny the simple
facts of His sovereignty and His particular effective death
on the cross is to deny Him altogether. And it doesn't matter what name
it bears. It doesn't matter what name it
bears. That's Satan's purpose, isn't
it? If you read Colossians 2 you'll see that Satan was defeated on
Calvary's tree and the Lord Jesus Christ marched to Calvary not
as a victim but as a victor. And on Calvary's tree he defeated
Satan and he defeated death and he defeated sin. He did it all
by himself and he made, according to Colossians 2, he made a public
mockery of Satan on Calvary's tree. Which is why? which is
why all of Satan's attacks for all of these thousands of years,
from the time Cain and Abel came to worship, all of his attacks
are focused on that one thing. The one thing is the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. What happened at Calvary? If
he can mask that in any way, if he can masquerade in any way
by talking about it but talking about it as if it hasn't the
power that the scriptures declare it to have, all of this religion seems as if all of this fog of
this religion in this outer court seems as if it has overcome and
killed them. And not only does he want them
killed, Their dead bodies, verse 8, shall lie in the street of
the great city which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where
also our Lord was crucified. Verse 9, and they of the peoples
and kindreds and tongues and nation shall see their dead bodies
three days and a half. They will see the corpse of real
religion as it seems to them. And look what it says. at the
end of verse 9, and they shall not suffer their dead bodies
to be put in graves. Not only does false religion
and Satan want the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ to be
killed, they want it to be killed in a way that humiliates it as
much as possible, that makes a public spectacle of it. And
what have we seen? What have we witnessed in this
land of ours in these last years? We've seen the ridicule and the
mocking by all the false religion being exposed in some ways for
what it is. We have seen the name of the
Lord Jesus trampled and blasphemed in this land of ours. And they
that dwell on the earth shall rejoice over them. See last week
there was a party in our land and a party throughout the world.
Prime Ministers of other nations sent gifts and congratulatory
telegrams and letters or emails, whatever it is, to our Prime
Minister saying what a wonderful thing that they had done. And
the people rejoiced. There was a party in Nauru. There
was a party of 10,000 people in Sydney last Wednesday night. There was a party. They rejoiced. So they rejoiced. What are they
rejoicing over? They're rejoicing over the fact
that no longer do God's bans hold them and no longer does
God's Word rule. They have freedom. They make
merry and they send gifts one to another because these two
prophets that tormented them that dwelt on the earth. Now
all of that seems very gloomy. I want you to know a couple of
things. One is that this was written 2000 years ago and it's
a very accurate description of what's going on right around
us and in this world today and it will continue to be an accurate
description until the Lord Jesus Christ comes back. But the other
thing is you've got to remember that when God writes it, it's
written as a promise. So we're actually living in the
fulfilment of the promises of the Sovereign God. And it's not
the end of the story. I'll read the rest of the chapter
and make a few comments because it's just lovely, isn't it? And
after three days and a half, after a little time, the Spirit
of God entered into them, these two witnesses, and they stood
upon their feet, and great fear fell upon them which saw them.
And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them,
Come up hither. So they weren't to go and witness
any longer. Their witness is finished. They
are now taken out of this world as all of God's children will
be. come up here, and they ascended
up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies beheld them. And
the same hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth part
of the city fell, and in the earthquake slain had been seven
thousand, and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to
the God of heaven. The second woe is past, and behold,
the third woe cometh quickly. And the seventh angel sounded,
and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms
of this world All the kingdoms of this world, the kingdom of
this world, are become the kingdom of our Lord. You see, all of
this, in everything, remember brothers and sisters, our God
reigns. Nothing from earth troubles the
throne of God in heaven. And nothing on earth stops the
throne of God in heaven ruling absolutely and sovereignly. The kingdoms of this world are
become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall
reign for ever and ever. The four and twenty elders, which
is the church, which sat before God in their seat, fell upon
their faces and worshipped God, saying, We give thee thanks. O Lord God Almighty, which art,
and wast, and art to come, because thou hast taken to thee thy great
power and hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and
thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead that they should
be judged, that thou should givest reward unto thy servants the
prophets and the saints, and to them that fear thy name, small
and great, and shouldst destroy them which destroy the earth.
See, ultimately all of this is a destruction of this earth,
isn't it? When I lived in India for a number
of years, one of the things that really struck me was that there
was this extraordinarily beautiful country, geographically and pictorially,
just it's beautiful and it's trashed. It was so trashed. Trashed in so many ways, but
trashed most of all in human relations. There are 250 million
people over there who according to Hinduism are not human beings. Just the trashing of that. And I kept thinking that there
is a religion that worships the creature rather than worshiping
the creator. There was no worship of the creature,
no worship of the creator in that land. And the temple of God was opened
in heaven and there was seen in his temple the ark of his
testament and there were lightnings and voices and thunderings and
an earthquake and great hail. The simple reality is that our
God reigns and rules. And so whatever we see, when
men proclaim their freedom, they are declaring, we are declaring
that God reigns and He rules over what they see as freedom. They see it as freedom. God's
Word says it is judgment. They build, they build, as Peter
said, of the people in Jerusalem. They build, but when God builds,
there's a different building altogether. And God's people
will be taken through these trials and will be caused and called
upon to stand and give account, to give account in this world.
I pray that the Lord would give us the strength to keep looking
away from the things that we see with our carnal eyes and
that we would keep looking again and again to the Lord Jesus Christ
and Him crucified and Him reigning and ruling over all things. What
man see in our world as freedom is the judgment of God. What
man sees as an ability to stand opposed to God and reject Him
and rebel against Him is actually the judgment of God upon them. The greatest gift of God, the
great gift of freedom, if we just turn back briefly to Acts
chapter 4 before we close. But the great gift of the Lord
Jesus Christ is to bring freedom, isn't it? is to bring freedom
from all of that, to bring freedom from that smoky, cloudy, deceitful,
outside of the temple religion. and to be brought free freely
by a sovereign hand into a place where we worship God in spirit
and truth. That's the great purpose of freedom,
isn't it? In Acts chapter 4, the angel,
verse 19, he opened the prison doors and he brought them forth
and he said, go and stand and speak in the temple to the people
all the words of this life. That's the great freedom, isn't
it? To actually go and stand and speak of Him. and they entered into the temple.
The great freedom of God's people is that they entered into the
temple early in the morning. The great freedom of God's people
is to actually get up and do as God says and do it early in
the morning. We don't delay. We don't have
any reason to delay. When He lets us free, we go early
in the morning. And our going and our standing
makes a mockery of this religious world. It is extraordinary how
embarrassing it must have been for that great Sanhedrin with
all of their troops and others to have gathered there together
for this Council and to have Bring the prisoners out, bring
that dozen scoundrels out here. We've had them locked up in a
common prison overnight, so they've been mixing with murderers and
all sorts of other, the commonest dregs of society. We've had them
polluted as much as we can. Bring them out here. And there
they are all in their pomp and ceremony, all 70 of them, all
surrounded there. And the people come back and
say, they're gone. They're gone. They're gone. They're
not even there. So then they have to scurry around
Jerusalem like mad things that morning trying to find them.
And someone comes, well, they're not in the prison anymore. There's
none of them left there. Where are they? They're out in
the temple courts. They're out in the temple courts
and they're telling the people about the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 25, they're standing in
the temple teaching the people. And there's one thing about the
freedom of God's people, isn't it? That they don't suffer from
other... The people of this world live
in fear of all sorts of things. The religious people live in
fear. They are fearful of what their religion does to them.
You take it away from them. You tell them that it's worthless.
You take away their righteousness from them, their religious righteousness
from them, and you'll see that they're trapped by it. They can't
let go of it. And they're fearful. These people
feared, verse 26, the captain of the officers brought them
without violence, for they feared the people. They were frightened
that they were going to be stoned. And they set them before the
council and the high priest asked them, saying, Did we not straightly
command you that you should not teach in this name? And behold,
you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring
this man's blood upon us." They can't bring this man's blood
upon us. Only the Holy Spirit can bring
this man's blood upon them. They will stand. guilty and accountable. Isn't it extraordinary that after
all of the testimonies about the Lord Jesus Christ, from all
of the things that we've read in Acts, that these men, these
ones who are outside and not measured, they can't even bring
themselves to declare His name. They can't even call him the
Nazarene. They can't even call him Jesus
the Carpenter's son. Just this man, this man. Peter has another word about
this man. Peter at verse 29, Peter and
the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God. They call him a man. Peter and
the others call him God. We ought to obey God rather than
man. It is a great freedom, isn't
it? What a great freedom to obey
God rather than man. What a great freedom, what a
great gift from God to hear from Him, to preach Him, to be part
of a group of people who are raised up in this world to be
like His two witnesses, to stand in this world and to declare
that our God reigns and to declare simply and plainly that His word
is not bound. They found no man within. They found no man within. They found no man in that tomb. They found no man within. One of the great Great pictures
in the Scriptures is that when Moses was taking the people out
of the bondage of Egypt. Egypt represents this world.
Pharaoh and all of his machinations represent Satan. And Moses says,
we want to go over and over again. Let us go that we may serve or
that we may worship God. That's all they wanted. Let us
go that we may worship God. and Pharaoh harasses him and
all of the judgments fall upon him as the judgments have fallen
upon this earth in this last thousands of years and yet the
judgments of God in pestilence and earthquake and war bring
no repentance whatsoever. just hardened, a hardened heart,
a heart hardened by God and a heart hardened by his own sin. But Moses says, Pharaoh wants
to compromise at the end. He said, well, you men can go.
Then he says, you can go but you leave your cattle behind.
It's a great picture of the deliverance in Exodus Exodus chapter 10 verse
36, I think it is, it says, and not a hoof shall be left. 10.26. Our cattle are going with
us. We're taking everything with
us out of Egypt. All of what we are is all coming
out of Egypt and not a hoof shall be left behind. The most insignificant
thing, when God rescues His people and delivers His people, there's
not a hoof left behind, nothing left behind. It is a picture
of God's glorious sovereignty in delivering His people from
all of that bondage and delivering them in His glorious sovereignty
to reveal the fact that He is Almighty and that He is an effectual
Saviour, to declare in that salvation the complete victory And here
in Acts 5 we see that we found no man within. There is in the
Lord's deliverance a complete victory. The prison is completely
emptied of all of God's people. Not one there at all. Not one. We long and wish and pray the
Lord would continue to cause us to declare that successful
substitutionary sacrifice of sins. It's that altar that is
measured by John in that temple. That's where the worshippers
worship. We have, Hebrews 13 says, we have an altar. And the people outside who don't
worship, they don't have an altar. If you go back to the law or
go back to religion of works, you don't have an altar. We have
an altar. They don't have an altar. And
our altar is the Lord Jesus Christ, his successful substitutionary
sacrifice for sinners, our Lord Jesus Christ as a complete saviour
of his people. Before there was ever a sinner,
there was a saviour. Before we fell in Adam, we stood
in the Lord Jesus Christ and God declares about all of his
people, there shall not be a hoof left behind, there will not be
one man found within this prison of legalism and religion. Deliver
him, says our Lord. Let him go. Deliver him from
going down to the pit. Why? Job says, I have found a
ransom, says God. God has found a ransom which
is perfect for him. Deliverance. Deliverance in such
a way that God gets all the glory to his great name by allowing
the enemies to rise up against him, that his victory might be
seen to be more great. And the deliverance of his weak
and frail and fickle family. is seen in the glory of His power
because we have none of our own, brothers and sisters, deliverance. There is no man found within.
In the face of all the enemies and all of their schemes, all
of their schemes to silence the Word of God and to hide the Gospel
in this world, God delivers his people to declare his praises.
That's what church is about, isn't it? Delivered people declaring
the praises of his God. There's a deliverance from temptation.
You will not be tempted beyond which you can cope and God will
find a way out. It's deliverance from this world.
Ultimately it'll be deliverance from this body of flesh. And
in this world there'll come a time when there'll be no man found
within it. No man of God will be found.
This earth will be taken and every one of God's children will
be liberated from it. And the Lord Jesus Christ will
pour out His wrath upon this world. Delivered. Delivered. No man within. There'll come
a time when there'll be none of the Adam man within us, brothers
and sisters. None of the Adam man. Death for
the God saints is a deliverance. The Lord Jesus Christ's victorious
triumphant return. They will see no man, but they'll
see Him. And then on that Day of Judgment
they'll see us all, brothers and sisters in Christ, and we'll
be robed in the very righteousness of God. And they won't see Adam. There'll be no man within. Just
be Christ. Christ in you. The hope of glory
forever and ever. Let's pray.