As Cole was speaking out of that
amazing psalm, I was reminded of a minister who went to see
an old lady in his congregation, and she was on her deathbed,
and he said to her, Sister, are you sinking? And she looked at
him quizzically, wondering what on earth he was saying, and he
said again, Sister, are you sinking? And she turned to him and rebuked
him and said, Have you ever heard anyone sinking through a rock? We're secure, my brothers and
sisters. God's children are eternally
safe and secure. One of the wonderful things about
the opposition to the Gospel like the opposition to the Lord
Jesus, the more he was opposed and the more he was challenged
by wicked men, the attacks of Satan and his minions, the more
he had the opportunity to reveal his glory. And such is the story
of the book of Galatians, isn't it? There is this little flock
deeply loved by Paul, And he's enraged because of the attacks
that come upon them. But the antidote to the issue
is always, the antidote to all of our problems and trials in
life is the Gospel itself. And so in the midst of these
appalling things that are happening to these people, this terrible
bewitching, Paul has opportunity to delightfully proclaim the
Gospel with such boldness and clarity and such simplicity. I think it's one of the wonderful
things, isn't it? This chapter 3 has been a blessing
to me because he just asks at the beginning, he asks a simple
question, who's bewitched you? What do the bewitchers look like? And then he asks six simple questions
of them. Simple questions. How did you
receive the Spirit? Are you made perfect by your
fleshly activities? Do you receive supplies of the
Spirit by things that you do or by the Gospel, the hearing
of faith? And these verses before us that
I'll just look at some of it briefly today and more again
next week, we have in verse Nine, he says, they which are of faith,
those whose origins, those who can trace their lineage, trace,
describe their hometown, they which be of faith, they which
be from faith, are blessed with faithful Abraham. And then he
makes these simple statements from verse 10 down to 14. For
as many as are of the works of the law, for as many as whose
home, whose origin is of the works of the law, are under the
curse. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. that no man is justified by the
law in the sight of God, it is evident. For the just shall live
by faith, and the law is not of faith, but the man that doeth
them shall live in them. And here we have one of the best
and clearest and most emphatic and amazing descriptions of the
Gospel in all of the Book of God. Christ hath completed finished
work, redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse
for us. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone that hangeth on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham
might come upon the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we
might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. What a glorious passage of Scripture.
Let's pray. Our Father, we do thank you for
your word. We thank you that it's true.
We thank you that with the illumination of the Holy Spirit it reveals
your dear and precious Son and causes us, Heavenly Father, to
pause over the wonders of redeeming love. that caused your son to
be made a curse and to be made sin for us. We praise you, Heavenly
Father, that his death was not in vain. His being cursed was
not without serious and powerful effect. And we praise You, Heavenly
Father, for the ongoing and lasting effects of it that we see in
us and around us. And we pray, Heavenly Father,
that You might cause us to go forth in strength and in peace
with our great God who hath redeemed us from the curse of the law.
O Heavenly Father, we pray that we might know something of what
it is to have the blessings of Abraham, the spiritual blessings
of Abraham. and that be our portion and that
be our place of comfort and rest and peace in this troubled world
that you might cause us to look to the Lord Jesus and continue
to look to Him again and again our Father in awe and wonder
and deep gratitude and thankfulness for His great and awesome work
which reveals His awesome person and the remarkable union, the
remarkable husband that all of you children in this world have,
our Father. Bless us, bless your word to
us, for Jesus' sake. Amen. I seem to be struggling both
with my head and my lungs today, so we will continue on until
the Lord causes a pause. As I said, the false teachers,
and Paul is obviously deeply grieved about them, he declares
in chapter 1, he declares that they are to be accursed. Let them be accursed who bring
this message, this message of a Christ, another Jesus. whose work is incomplete, another
Jesus whose work can be added to, that you can do something
to enhance the work, the glorious work of the triune God in your
salvation. He says, For as many, because
as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse, under
a curse, under the curse it is, under the curse, for it is written,
Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law, to do them. As I begin I want to remind
you that Paul is really here just adding scripture to scripture
to scripture to scripture to bring out his point, to declare
the Gospel and to expose the enemies of the Gospel. As I said
earlier, that word of, many as of, of the works of the law,
it relates to origins, it relates to where things come from. And so it's a simple thing, isn't
it? If the origin of any aspect of
my salvation is dependent on me doing anything to any degree
at the beginning, during or at the end of my life, that's salvation
by works. If the origin of anything that
takes my sins away, brings me some righteousness before God,
if there's any aspect of it is dependent on me to any extent
whatsoever. It's salvation by works. Salvation is by grace. By grace you stand saved, Ephesians
2 says. By grace you are saved through
faith. And that's not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are His workmanship. It means we are His masterpieces. God makes no mistake, no mistakes
whatsoever in making His people. He makes no mistakes whatsoever
in the path that He leads His people on. Created, we are His
masterpieces, created in Christ Jesus. unto good works which
God hath before ordained that we should work. For it is written, Paul is taking
these people back to the Scriptures, and this particular verse is
in Deuteronomy 27. And the people of God, as they
entered the land and were settled, they were to divide into two
companies, and one to be on Mount Gerizim and one on Mount Ebal. And they were to recite the law, the cursings of the
law and the blessings of the law across that valley that was
between them. And in Deuteronomy 27, 26, it
says, Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the works of the Lord
to them and do them. And all the people shall say
Amen. The false teachers had come. with the Scriptures in their
hand and Paul takes them back and shows them what the Scriptures
are really saying. God has so written the Bible
that it is possible for a false teacher to be very learned in
the Scriptures and bring many Scriptures to bear to make their
point. But if they don't have the Gospel,
And they're not declaring who the Lord Jesus is with the clarity
and the simplicity of the scriptures. And they're not declaring who
man is. Man in his fallen state and man
who he is as redeemed and in that eternal covenant with his
Lord and Saviour. They're not declaring the truth
of God no matter how much scripture they quote. We test all things. We test all
things against scripture and we test all things against the
gospel as it's declared. The law brings a curse. What an extraordinary word it
is, that word under. It's as if the curse is just
sitting above people and it's waiting to fall upon them. And for God's children, the curse
of the law has fallen upon our Saviour and it can never fall
upon us. in religion in Paul's day and
in religion in our day, continue to want to put people back under
the law and then they ignore the scriptures. They ignore the
scriptures. 1 Corinthians 15 says, the power
of sin, the strength of sin is the law. To put someone under
the law is actually to encourage and to strengthen their sin.
Romans 5.20, moreover the law entered. that the offence might abound. Romans 3, 19 says, by the law
is the knowledge of sin. It exposes sin. Paul in his own
biographical testimony to his life as a saved man looks back
and says, sin, Romans 7, 13, sin by the commandment. that sin by the commandment might
become exceedingly sinful." He says he was alive once. He said
he had a life. He had a life as a Pharisee. But when the commandment came,
sin revived and I died. as many who are of the works
of the law, as many who trace their origins, the origins of
their salvation, the origins of their righteousness, the origins
of their keeping themselves clean and morally upright, as many
who are of the works of the law are under a curse, under a curse. The reality is that these people,
in unbelief, neither know what the law says, they neither know
how holy the law is, and they know nothing of themselves. What a shocking ignorance that
is, brothers and sisters. you have in your bulletin is
a small article from Horatio Barnard. It says, in all unbelief
there are two things, a good opinion of oneself and a bad
opinion of God. Man's good opinion of himself
makes him think it is quite possible to win God's favour by his own
religious performances, and his bad opinion of God makes him
unwilling and afraid to put his case wholly into his hands. The object of the Holy Spirit's
work in convincing of sin is to reduce his estimate of his
own character, that he shall think of himself as God does,
and so cease to suppose that it is possible that he can be
justified by any excellency of his own. The spirit then alters
his evil opinion of God, so as to make him see that the God
with whom he has to do is really the God of all grace." What a
blessing it is when God reveals us to ourselves, reveals God
to us at the same time. So the law is a package, James
2.10 says. The law is one. You break one,
you have broken all of them. In modern theology as I was taught,
and no doubt some of you were taught, I was taught at the Bible
colleges in Sydney that the law comes along to the cross of the
Lord Jesus and some of it gets changed, some of it gets taken
away completely, some of it is transformed into sort of modern
evangelical law and the moral law continues on exactly the
same. There is not a single word in
all of scripture that allows us to break the law up like that,
ever. It's never mentioned in the scriptures
that you can break it up. And you can pick and choose which
little bit of it you want to do. Cursed is everyone that continueth
not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do
them. You turn to the law, you are
obligated and under the curse of the law to do all of them. And then you find out, verse
11, but that no man is justified by the law and the sight of God
is evident. It's evident. He's made it clear. We've just seen, as Paul's argument
goes on, he's made it clear by the life of Abraham. Abraham
was blessed with God, had all the eternal covenant blessings
of God, and was in relationship with God, a friend of God, years
before he was ever circumcised, 430 years before the law ever
came. Abraham was a friend of God. He had all of the blessings of
God. But no man is justified by the
law and the sight of God is evident. And then he has this verse, this
remarkable verse, which I'd just like to spend a little time looking
at. It's a beautiful verse. It's quoted in four times in
the scriptures, in Habakkuk chapter 4, chapter Chapter 2, verse 4. I'd like you to turn there. In
your peer Bibles on page 862. It's a wonderful book, Habakkuk. I love some of the promises that
he speaks of. He loves, I love the thought
that, for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of
the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, in verse
14. And his prayer, his prayer is
a great prayer in verse 3. He says, O Lord, I have heard
thy speech and I was afraid, O Lord, revive thy work in the
midst of the years. In the midst of the years make
known. In wrath remember mercy. What a great prayer to pray in
this age that we live in now, an age where this world is so
clearly and evidently under the wrath of God. But to go back
to our verse, in verse 4 it says, Behold his soul which is lifted
up is not upright in him, but the just shall live by faith. I left out a word, didn't I?
It's remarkable, isn't it? The just shall live by his faith. Habakkuk 2 verse 4. And here we have a contrast between
two people, don't we? A person whose soul is lifted
up, anyone whose soul is lifted up is not upright in him. It is not right. He might think it's right. He
might have it lifted up by himself. We see in this verse, and Paul
I think is bringing it to our notice in Galatians and bringing
it to the notice of the Galatian false teachers and the Lord's
flock amongst those troubled group of churches there in Galatia.
He's reminding them that this is the character of those whose
soul is lifted up, lifted up by their works, lifted up by
their sense of righteousness. You see, faith is the opposite
of pride and self-righteousness. Faith abases us and causes the
children of God just to look away from themselves, to cast
the anchor of their souls out of the boat of their human flesh
and its deeds and have it fixed on a rock that's outside of themselves. Faith is the opposite and faith
excludes pride and self-righteousness. The Gospel, the revelation of
the Gospel exposes the hearts of people. It exposes people
like nothing else can in all of this creation. When Simeon
spoke to Mary about that baby who he saw as God's salvation. What a great gift that was. And he said, a sword will pierce
your own heart. And then he says, and the thoughts
of many hearts may be revealed. What can be hidden from men will
be revealed by the gospel. It was pride that was going to
be exposed in this letter coming to that Galatian church, wasn't
it? Imagine what it was like for it to be read out the first
time in one of those churches, and there you are gathered around,
there are the false teachers and then alongside them they've
been swayed and all the others wondering who's right. Who do
I follow here? These men seem very impressive. They've got lots of scriptures
and lots of works and lots of morals. Lots of zeal. Or do you follow this man? Do
you follow this man who brings these simple words of God? There is a day, Romans 2.16,
there is a day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus
Christ. There is a day now where God
reveals the secrets of men according to my Gospel. See, faith is the
opposite to pride. No one is justified by the law
in the sight of God for it is evident that just shall live
by faith, live before God, live with God, live for the glory
of God by simply looking to and simply trusting and believing
what God says. In Romans 1 this same verse from
Habakkuk is revealed again. Romans 1.16-17 Paul says, I'm not ashamed. I'm
not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it, the Gospel of
Christ, is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes,
to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein is the
righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall
live by faith. Here this phrase is used to show
that those who live by faith possess the very righteousness
of God. The very righteousness of God
is theirs. Not because they do something,
but because it is theirs as a gift. It is theirs in their union with
the Lord Jesus. It's theirs because the Gospel
has come. All believers have the very righteousness
of God. If they have the very righteousness
of God, they need for no other and they would not dare want
to establish any other. If you have Him, you have everything. The next time this phrase is used
in the scriptures, the one that we will go to is in Hebrews 10.38 It says, Now the just shall live
by faith, and if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure
in him. This word here, to draw back,
is the same word that's used to Peter in Galatians 2.12, when
Peter drew back, withdrew himself from them. It means, it's a nautical
term, it means to slacken the sails. to not go with a full
sail, to draw back. And here the essence
of this phrase is used in terms of perseverance. The just persevere
by faith. See, faith, according to Hebrews
11, faith is the substance of things hoped for. It's the evidence. Faith is the evidence. Not my works, not my activities,
not my law keeping. Faith is the evidence. The only way to persevere is
to look to the Lord Jesus Christ. So to go back to Galatians 3,
here the phrase, the just shall live by faith, shows that life
Life is not achieved by law. See, law and faith are opposed
to each other. God's children are children of
faith. They trace the origins of their
life. They trace the origins of their
perseverance. They trace the origins of their
pride being knocked out of them. They trace the origins of very
life itself. to him. They are of faith. It's a repeated phrase, isn't
it, in Galatians 3 verse 2 and verse 5, verse 7, verse 8, verse
9. And it's always compared to the
works of the law. It's the opposite. It's the enemy
of the works of the law. Paul says, doesn't he, But no
man is justified by the law and the sight of God. It is evident. It's evident. He's saying to
these Galatians and all the false teachers, it's been evident.
It's evident all the way through the Scriptures. It's exactly
how God has saved everyone. Babel was righteous. Thousands of years before the
law, Abraham was righteous, Noah found grace in the eyes of the
Lord. God saves all of his children exactly the same way. He's got
no need to change. It's perfect the way it is. It
perfectly honours him. It perfectly, as Cole was telling
us earlier, he does it for his name's sake. It honours his character,
it honours his purposes. who want to put people back under
the law. Verse 12 is an extraordinary verse, isn't it? What a powerful,
powerful verse. And the law is not of faith. The law's origin is not of faith. See, any belief, any sense of
believing, any sense of salvation, any hope that a man has that
comes from law in any form whatsoever, moral or ceremonial, anything
to do with the law. It didn't come from faith, is
what Paul is saying. It didn't come from faith. I
love what Romans 14.23 says. It says, all that is not of faith
is sin. All that is not of faith is sin. Whatsoever is not of faith. I'm so pleased that Cole quoted
John 1.17 because I had it in my notes. The law came from Moses. But grace and truth come through
Jesus Christ. We are recipients of grace upon
grace upon grace. See, the doers of the law shall
live in them. That's where they live. They
have their life there. They have their origins in there.
What a life. What a life. To start looking
at the law means that you never finish looking at the law. To
start looking at the law means that you live in the law. Paul would later on say, don't
you hear what the law says? What a burden it was for anyone
with a sensitive heart at all. I've spoken to you earlier about
it, but imagine you get out of bed in the morning and as you
take your first breath you have to think, am I defiled? Am I
defiled as I start the day?" And then you put your clothes
on and you say, you have to think, are these clothes a mixture of
fabrics? And then you look around your
house and you think, dear oh dear, are there moles on the
wall? And then you go to the food and you think, dear oh dear,
is all of this clean or has something got into it and defiled it? Even
the beautiful things of creation. You go out and look up at the
sky and there is an unclean bird flying around. You might go for
a walk in a beautiful meadow and you get down beside a lovely
stream and you think, wouldn't it be lovely to have a drink
there? And what if I swallowed a prawn? Even a tiny prawn. And then you
meet your friends, and you think, dear oh dear, have they touched
something? Are they unclean at the moment?
This sin just devours. To live in it, to live in it,
to think that you can earn some righteousness, to think that
it was anything but a disciple. burden that weighed over you
day by day by day, which is why the Day of Atonement and the
sacrificial system for those who had exercised hearts would
have been such a joy. Here I can go and I can lay my
hands and lay my sin on another. And it will suffer the punishment
of that sin. It will die and it will have
its blood shed. And my sin will be taken away
by it. And under the law you walk out
of that temple and again you have to look, dear oh dear, am
I defiled yet again? There is no peace. There is no rest. It was never designed as such
by God. It wasn't designed by God that
you look, look, look at it. It was designed by God that you'd
be horrified and you'd look away and you'd look to where Abraham
looked. And then we come. We come to
this great rescue. What an amazing verse, verse
13 is. Christ hath, I love that word,
it's finished and completed and has an ongoing wonderful work,
washed, washed again and again. He hath redeemed He's paid a
price, it means He's bought them out. They're His. Christ by Himself
has purged our sins, Hebrews 1.3. He bear our sins in His
own body on the tree that we being dead to sins should live
unto righteousness by whose stripes you are healed. He hath redeemed
us. What a sweet little word. He
has redeemed us. There is an us in this world,
isn't there? There is an us. He shall not
fail. He'll see the travail of His
soul and He'll be satisfied. For the joy set before Him, He
endured the cross and scorned the shame. He is now as satisfied
and successful saviour, glorious. There is an us, isn't there?
There's an us that belonged to him in the immediate context. It would be Paul and the brethren
with him. We have been redeemed, he said,
from the curse of the law. As we saw in Galatians chapter
2, Paul went down to Jerusalem, he received the right hand of
the fellowship, the us is Paul and the apostles with him. in
Galatians 3 as he mentions Abraham, it's Paul and the brethren with
him and all the apostles and the brethren with them and Abraham. It's all of the children of God
is the us. One of the things that is still
a shock to me is when Simon was having his discussions with people
some years ago about the whole issue of particular redemption
and how vital it is to the glory of God, how vital it is to the
souls of God's children in this world, how vital it is to just
the truth of the scriptures. And in one of the discussions
he went along and he was told by these intelligent people that
you cannot use pronouns. You cannot define the pronouns.
Is that right Simon? You cannot define pronouns in
this debate. So we can make the pronouns as
broad as we like. We can make them to mean anything
you like. rubbery plasticine, not according to our God. You see what he says in Galatians
1.4, who gave himself for our sins, that He might deliver us
from this present evil world according to the will of God
and our Father. He gave Himself for our sins,
not for sins in general, but for our sins. He gave Himself
for our sins that He might deliver us. Us is the blood-bought children
of God. And again it needs to be stated,
because this world finds it so offensive, that any declaration
of the Gospel which does not declare from the Scriptures Give
it a name if you like, but we call it Real Redemption, Particular
Redemption, Effective Redemption, Complete Redemption, Limited
Atonement, anything that comes to you, you young people at schools
and declares that God loves everyone and Jesus has died for everyone
and the Holy Spirit wants to save everyone. God has done all
that He can do and it's laid out before you and salvation
is there for your taking. It's now up to you. That is salvation
by works, brothers and sisters. God will not have any part of
it in honouring it for His glory in the lives of His people. It's
salvation by law. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law. And how did he do it? How did he do it? Being made
a curse for us. He has redeemed us from the curse
of the law, being made a curse for us. He was made to be seen,
wasn't he? He was made of a woman. He was
made under law. He was made to be seen. He was
made a curse. There is, in salvation, at the
very heart of the Gospel, there is a transaction A transaction
between God and God. It is at the essence, at the
heart of that eternal covenant that Cole spoke so well of earlier.
It is at the very heart of salvation. God must do something for God
before He does something for us. It's so easy to say the words,
isn't it? My prayer is that God would cause
us to take a verse like this and it would just be like a fire
in our hearts that's unquenchable. And it would just be there and
it would go, as verses do occasionally with me, it would just go round
and round and round and I just can't get away from it. How does a man get any way towards
describing what this means? How can we do it? Talk about
feeling dreadfully inadequate. He was made a curse. And all that the curse was, is
what He was made. And Paul appeals to the scriptures. He goes back to an extraordinary
scripture in Deuteronomy 21. If you recall from the scriptures
you will see again and again where people who had blasphemed
as the Pharisees and Saul thought our friends in Acts chapter 9
had done, when they came to stone Stephen, what was the punishment
for blasphemy? The punishment was stoning. When
the woman was brought to the Lord Jesus in John chapter 8,
the punishment was stoning. There are 22 capital offences
in the scriptures, 22 things for which people could be put
to death by the law of God. And they were stoned and stoned
and stoned. And yet in Deuteronomy 21, 22, Verse 22 says, And if a man have
committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and thou
hanging on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the
tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day. For he that
is hanged is accursed of God. You see, it's a law, but it's
a prophecy, isn't it? It's a prophecy of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Jewish way of killing was
stoning. Again and again they stoned people.
Hanging on a tree was a Roman way of killing people. And hanging
on a tree until just before the crucifixion was a Roman way of
killing But people died being tied up there. There was no blood
involved in it. It was invented by the Romans
just before the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. Our God is sovereign
over the details of all history. It's a prophecy, isn't it? being
made a curse. He's redeemed us from the curse
of law, being made a curse. Isn't it remarkable? He was made
a curse and we are redeemed. Brothers and sisters in Christ,
we can never ever be cursed by God. We can never be cursed. He took my sins." He took all
of the sins of all of his people and owned them as his own. He became, as that cross was
lifted up from the ground, so as it was lifted up, he was cursed. And God in justice can curse
his son according to the scriptures. He became He opened not his mouth. Why didn't he open his mouth? He had nothing to say in his
defence, brothers and sisters, as he bore the sins and bore
the wrath of God. He took them as his iron. He
took their curse. He took their guilt. He took
their shame. He took their wrath. And now in Him, 1 John says,
there is no sin. And in His people there is no
sin. And God in justice has no evidence
to convict or to curse any of those that He has redeemed. It's interesting reading things
that I see written by Christians these days. It's a common, common
thing. I see it again and again and
again. The people are wanting to say these days that the Lord
Jesus bore the consequence of my sin. All He did was bear the consequence
of it. That's not good enough. for great
sinners. That's not effective enough for
someone. I need not just the consequences
of them to be dealt with, I need them to be dealt with completely
and perfectly. He's taken them away. What an
amazing verse. May the Lord cause you to go
home and ponder it again and again and the blessing and the
benefit of it. is remarkable, isn't it? What
did he achieve? What did our great saviour, what
did our extraordinary husband, he that is altogether lovely,
what did he achieve? that the blessing of Abraham
might come upon the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we
might receive, not earn, that we might receive the promise
of the Spirit through faith. The Spirit is God, isn't it?
So often you hear people talking about the Spirit as if He's some
sort of influence or something that can be manipulated in some
way. He is omnipotent God. He is all of God. He is no less divine than God the
Father and God the Son. To have the Spirit is to have
all that God is. To have the blessing of the Spirit
is to have all There is nothing more. There
is nothing more, brothers and sisters, to have Him, to have
the Lord Jesus, is to have everything. And all of our blessings, all
of the blessings of all of God's children are blood-bought blessings. To have the Spirit of God is
to be a new creature, to have a new nature, to have a new birth,
to have the Spirit of God, only those with the Spirit of God,
see sin for what it really is. Only those with the Spirit of
God see that legalistic righteousness is filthy rags and the most wicked
blasphemy against the triune God. To try to add something
to the work of the Lord Jesus, to try and put God under some
obligation, to give you some extra shiny jewels in your crown
in heaven, to do something here. Dear, oh dear, how deluding of
His character, how uplifting of the pride of men. See, only a holy nature sees
what sin is. We have the promise of the Spirit
through faith. I do love verse 20 of chapter
2, I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith. I live by the faith of the Son
of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. the Spirit of
God causes us to look to Him. I keep quoting that verse out
of John 16, He will take. This comforter, this one, this
advocate, this one who stands beside us, He takes the things
of the Lord Jesus. You could spend the rest of eternity
fleshing out what it means for those things, isn't it? The things
of the Lord Jesus. All that He is He takes them and He reveals
them to us. The Holy Spirit causes His people
to persevere over trials. The Holy Spirit causes His people
to see false teaching for what it is and see the enticing of
it, the attractiveness of it as nothing but bewitching. Those who are blessed with the
Spirit, they thank God for His hand, His chastening hand upon
their lives, that He's hedged our way in with thorns. He won't
let His people go out of that sheepfold. All of God's children have the
blessing of Abraham. they might receive it just as
a gift. They worship God in the spirit
and have no confidence in the flesh. I've been reading Exodus on my
journey through the scriptures and I love the picture of the
way God brought his people out. And as those people went out
that day, when the curse of God fell upon that land and there
was a death in every house, a death in every family, no matter where
they were. And God's children were redeemed
and they were passed over. And as they walked out on the
doorposts, above the door and on the sides was the blood of
the sacrificial lamb. No matter which way they looked,
they looked up, there was blood. They looked to the left, there
was blood. They looked to the right, there
was blood. Their journeys are protected
under the blood. But the greatest blessing of
all is what the Lord said that night, wasn't it? He says, when I see the blood,
When I see the blood, I will pass over. God sees perfectly
and clearly all of the time. Perfectly. Let's pray.