I love the last verse in Don's hymn that we sang
a little while ago. Justified by God's free grace,
trusting Christ, we now have peace. Peace, O blessed, peace
with God. Peace through Jesus' precious
blood. Peace is a precious, precious
thing. In this world the Lord Jesus
promises us that we will have troubles. We will walk through
this world as He walked through this world. It will be a place
for us like it was for Him where He had no place to lay His head. May God use his words today and
his spirit's work in our lives to give us peace. What a wonderful
thing to have peace. And the Lord Jesus in Mark's
Gospel, as we've been looking at these last few days of his
life, is just remarkable the way He
triumphantly marches into Jerusalem. He triumphantly claims the temple
as His own. And in the verses that we looked
at last week and we'll look at again today, He triumphantly
and miraculously portrays the religion of the Jews in this
fig tree. Mark 11.20, As they were passing
by in the morning, They saw the fig tree withered from the roots
up. So much of what we see is just
the leaves that are on show before men. But as we are reminded,
when Samuel was choosing David, men look at the outside, but
God looks at the heart. Being reminded, Peter said to
him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree which you cursed has withered. Jesus answered saying to them,
have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says
to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea, and does
not doubt in his heart, but believes what he says is going to happen,
it will be granted him." So the Lord Jesus, as we've seen
the last few weeks, pronounces a judgment on the religion of
the Jews, the religion of all natural men in this world. And in this city, which was the
place chosen by God, the place to bear his name, the place where
he was to reveal himself in his glory and in that temple which
typified the meeting place, the mediator that Simon talked about
between God and man. Every little bit of it was there
to picture the Lord Jesus. This city and this temple is
no longer the place of God's dwelling. God in human flesh
leaves that city behind. Each evening goes over the Mount
of Olives and He resides with the people of His love. What an amazing picture of what
God is doing amongst us and in this world today. He dwells with
the people of His love. The temple now is us. The meeting place of God and
man is the Lord Jesus dwelling in His people. He is a triumphant
and glorious Saviour. I've been caused much to think
about that wonderful verse in Habakkuk 2 verse 4. And all humanity is summed up
in two parts of this verse. All humanity. The context of
Habakkuk is a bit like the context that the Lord Jesus was facing
in his day. Judgment was coming from God
upon the nation. Awful, awful judgment was coming. And if we don't see this world
as a world upon which the judgment of God rests right now, the wrath
of God, according to Romans 1, is being revealed now against
all the ungodliness and the wickedness. God is right now judging this
world. There will be a great day of
judgment to come. Judgment occurred at the cross
for his people and for this world. But Habakkuk 2.4 is a verse that's
quoted three times in the New Testament, in Romans 1.17, Galatians
3.11, which we looked at last week, and Hebrews 10.38. And so it says to us at the beginning
of this verse, behold. It's saying to God's people who
have God's eyes to see through faith, look around, behold. Behold, his soul which is lifted
up is not upright in him. Behold, The souls of people who
are swollen, or presumptuous it means, in their own abilities,
in their own works. And you've got to remember that
he's talking to a religious people. Religious people who are trusting
in what they can do. As Simon so clearly expounded,
the people of Israel, having seen the blessings of God in
deliverance and in the manner and miracle after miracle, presumed
upon God and said, you just tell us what to do and we will do
it. As so many legalists today do
say, just give me some laws to do and I will do them. swollen, they presume upon their
own works and they reduce God down to a standard of righteousness
which is attained by the works of men. Behold, look at them,
says God. His soul which is lifted up is
not upright in Him. His soul is not straight in Him. Like a fig tree, which from a
distance looked like it promised much, achieved much, had much
to show to the world. And the Lord Jesus came to it.
He saw that it was swollen with presumption as the nation Israel. And it was not upright. It bore
no fruit. And this is one of the wonderful
buts in the scriptures. The but, the just, the righteous
shall live by his faith. So there we have all of humanity
described. All of humanity in that one verse. Behold, look at them, says God. Look at those who are swollen,
and upright in their own estimation and then look at the righteous. They live by faith. They live, it says in the text,
live by His faith. And of course people would turn
to Ephesians to 8 and 9 and other passages and say, well faith
is a gift from God. It surely is, but when God gives,
God causes His people to receive. So faith is something which is
both a gift from God and it's sustained by God, but it is the
possession of God's people. It's something that is ours,
ours as a gift. Before we come to look at faith,
we need to be reminded that like the fig tree and like nation
Israel and like the world around us today, false faith abounds
and false faith can be extraordinarily productive. The only way a counterfeit
is successful is that the counterfeit must look in every way possible
like the real thing. So there is real faith. There
is the real faith that God gives his people and there is the false
faith that ends up with those words of Habakkuk too. A faith
that causes people to be swollen in their own estimation. And
God who looks at the souls of these people, sees that their
souls are not straight. So false faith may be greatly
enlightened and knowledgeable of gospel truth. Judas was a
great preacher for three years and a miracle worker. The true
faith receives the love of the truth. False faith excites the
emotions, like the stony ground here is in the parable, and causes
people to spring up like shooting stars, only to fade quickly. True faith is an abiding, a resting,
and a growing gift of God. False faith reforms the outward
life and causes people to live better before men. True faith
arises from a regenerate heart and causes people to seek the
will and the glory of God. False faith may speak well of
Christ. These Jews did, and Lord willing
we'll see it in chapter 12 as they came to Him. They might
speak well of him, but true faith loves Christ and loves his word. False faith confesses sin. King Saul confessed his sin. But true faith confesses sin
like David, who saw that sin was not just something he'd done,
but was something that he was, from his mother's womb and infected
all of his life. Ahab had faith, a false faith
for a while, and he humbled himself in sackcloth and ashes. True
faith humbles itself before God. False faith may repent in terror,
like Esau and Judas, but true faith repents in contrition,
being convinced of God's way of salvation in Christ alone. False faith performs religious
works very diligently, just ask the Jews. Saul did. Perfect, he said he was, in Philippians
3. True faith is a faith which works
by love. False faith is sometimes very
generous and very charitable. Ananias and Sapphira gave away
much of their wealth. True faith causes ransom sinners
to be generous, to be willing, constrained by love and gratitude. False faith may for a while tremble
at the word of God like Felix did. True faith trembles and
bows. False faith often experiences
much in religion. True faith trusts no experience,
no matter how great, and looks to Christ alone. False faith
often enjoys great religious privileges, like Lot's wife. True faith places no confidence
in the flesh. False faith may preach and perform
miracles, cast out demons like Judas, True faith rejoices in
having one's name written in heaven. False faith often attains
high office in the Church, like Deotrophies, and it walks with
great preachers, like Demas did with Paul. But true faith is
honoured to do whatever humbling work is before it. true faith
walks with Christ. False faith may be peaceful and
carnally secure like the five foolish virgins or like the many
in Matthew 7 who with great confidence swollen, presumptuous confidence,
will come to the Lord Jesus on the Day of Judgment and lay out
their works before Him, proclaiming Him, Lord, Lord. And the Lord Jesus tells those
chilling words, away from me, you lawless ones, I never knew
you. True faith presumes nothing but
looks constantly to the Lord Jesus. So there's nothing in the world
more precious for God's people than the faith that God gives. And this is a beautiful verse
because as the great minister of the New Covenant, the great
sealer of the New Covenant. In fact, as Isaiah 42 and 49
says, the Lord Jesus is the Covenant and the Covenant is wonderfully,
wonderfully portrayed before us. It's so different from that
Mosaic Covenant that Simon spoke about. In the New Covenant, God
promises and God performs, and God's people rejoice in receiving. I will, says God, and they shall. So when the Lord Jesus says,
have faith in God, it's a command, but it's a promise. How can we
have faith? How can we have that living faith
that gives peace in the midst of the storms of this world?
Unless God comes and gives faith. Man, all of mankind, all of Adam's
race, spends their lives running away from God. We spend our lives
stitching together the fig leaves of our own morality. finding
a place to hide from God, hide behind our works. But true faith
is a promise and a gift. It's both the gift and it's the
possession, as I said, of God's people. True faith is passive. Jesus says, have. It rests on
what God has done, who God is, and what is promised. And then
God wonderfully makes that faith active in our lives. It is really
exercised by God and it functions as a reality in believers' lives. Abraham is just such a wonderful
example, isn't he? Abraham who was happy to lie
about his wife to protect his own skin. was given over that
next 25 years, example after example of God's wonderful provision
for him. And finally in that great test
of his faith, he says to those men at the bottom of the mountain,
Isaac and I are going up on this mountain and we are going to
sacrifice and we'll come back again. He had a word from God
to kill his son. But he trusted what God had promised
about his son. Abraham, as Romans 4, which I
so often quote to you, is just such a wonderfully encouraging
and powerful verse. Abraham did not waver at the
promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith,
giving glory to God, true faith, is a growing and a strengthening
faith. But true faith gives glory to
God. And the reason Abraham could
do so is being fully convinced that what he had promised, he
was able to perform. So often we are challenged by
people who say, are you saying because of what we declare about
who the Lord Jesus is, Are you saying I'm not a believer? Or are you saying I don't have
saving faith? The reality is I can't see the
hearts of any of you or any other person I ever meet. God alone
sees the hearts of people. So often we cry out like the
man in Mark 7, Lord I believe, please help my unbelief. As the Apostle said, Lord please
grow our faith. But God says that if you have
saving faith, if God has come and given you faith, you will
know about it. It might be weak, it might be
wavering, But you will know it. 1 John 5, 10 says, he who believes
in the Son of God has the witness in himself. There are so many
other passages. The Lord Jesus promised in John
8, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. I am the good shepherd, says
our great Saviour. I know my sheep and they know
me. At the end of Paul's life, we
have those wonderful words that we sing often. I know whom I
have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep what
I have entrusted to him on that day. So the essence of faith, the
reality of faith, is its object. It's the object of our faith.
It's where our faith rests, not its seeming power. There is just
so much false faith these days as there always has been. If
you ask those Jews in Jerusalem, hundreds of thousands of them,
do you trust God? Are you an elect child of God? And they would have, as one,
said, yes, I am. And the Pharisees and others
would have been horrified that you might have questioned them.
And yet it was men like that publican who stood far off, beating
his breast, and said, Lord, have mercy on me. The sinner went
home righteous before God. As it was in the Lord's days,
it has always been and will be till he comes back again. Robert
Hawker has a beautiful definition, description. He has such a wonderful
way with words. He says, faith is no more than
a sincere and hearty assent and consent. of the mind to the belief
of the being and promises of God as especially revealed to
the Church in the person and redemption work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's a sincere and hearty assent
and it's a consent of the mind True faith has met God, and delights
in the character of God as it is revealed in the Scriptures,
in all of His redemptive work, in all of who the Lord Jesus
is, and in all of what He has done. He goes on to say, the
hearty cordial, hearty warm and sincere belief in these blessed
truths of God is called faith. Because it is giving credit to
the testimony of God and relying on His faithfulness for the fulfillment
of them. And so it is not the greatness
of the blessings which demands our faith. But it's the greatness
of the one who makes the promises. He is faithful and he will do
it. Polycarp was being taken to Martyrdom
and he'd been walking with the Lord for I think 86 years. And they were pleading with this
old man to save his life by renouncing his saviour. And he says, for
eighty and six years I have served him and he has never let me down. Why should I renounce him now? For those of you who have been
walking with God, for those of you who have had that testimony
in your lives, has he ever failed once? Has He ever let you down
once? It might seem so from an earthly
perspective. But God is interested in our
spiritual good, not in our pleasures in this world. It's the greatness
of Him who makes the promises. In fact, so big are the blessings,
and Simon spoke to you of some of them, so huge are the blessings. that it's difficult to believe,
isn't it? The Gospel is such amazingly
big and good news that it's so big it's hard to believe. The
problem with the real Gospel, it is such good news that unbelieving
people find it difficult to believe that God could do it all. They're
happy to believe God doing all these other things, but they
can't believe that the Gospel is so good. The Lord Jesus has
promised to present this bride, this scruffy, sinful, messed
up bride, walking in this pigsty of an earth, He's promised to
present them holy, spotless and blameless. If any of you think
that you're holy in yourself, spotless in yourself or blameless
in yourself, all the very best to you on that day. We can't
meet God like that. The Lord Jesus has done it all. So we are called upon and Jesus
calls upon his disciples to have faith in God. He cannot lie. It is impossible
for him to promise something that he cannot do. As Fawkes
says, an almighty promiser that can never out-promise himself. So big are the promises that
we need a big God to fulfill them. And we need a faithful
God to fulfill them. The scriptures are just full
of descriptions of the faithfulness of our God. Psalm 89 verse 8
says, O Lord God Almighty, who is like you? You are mighty,
O Lord, and your faithfulness surrounds you. Righteousness
and justice are the foundation of your throne. Love and faithfulness
go before you, which is why Romans 12 says it's a reasonable thing
to do. It's a very reasonable thing
to do to trust God. Know therefore in Deuteronomy
7, 9, know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the
faithful God. To be unfaithful to His promises,
to be unfaithful to His people is an impossibility. Even if
we are at times disbelieving, if we believe not, yet He remains
faithful, because He cannot deny Himself. When the Lord God, the
great God of this universe, came to this earth as the man Christ
Jesus, it said of Him, Righteousness shall be the belt of his loins,
and faithfulness the belt of his waist. It surrounds him. God is not a man that he should
lie, nor the son of man that he should repent. Has he said,
and shall he not do it? Or has he spoken, and shall he
not make it good? So believers, like Jeremiah in
the midst of the most appalling things that could imaginably
happen in Jerusalem. Say, great is your faithfulness. Your compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Every
day is a new day for God's children. Great is your faithfulness. All the promises of God are yes
and amen in our Lord Jesus. When we see a promise of God
in the scriptures, we need to go no further than look to our
Lord Jesus, and we will see it fulfilled. He is faithful, says
Hebrews 10.22. He is faithful that he has promised. His faithfulness leads his children
to wait. His faithfulness causes us to
wait for him like Abraham did, to do what he had promised. Abraham
received his son back from the dead because he had a promise
from God. Now may the God of peace himself
sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit, soul and body
be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus. What promises from God? He who
calls you, says the next verse in 1 Thessalonians 5, 24. He who calls you is faithful,
who will also do it. But the Lord Jesus has placed
us in situations in this world where we are made to wait. We are made by God to live by
faith and not by sight. There will come a day soon, very
soon, where God's children will no longer need faith. We will
have sight. And every child of God in that
day, we'll see God's perfectly loving hand of providence. In
every dark time, in every painful time, in every moment when we
thought through human wisdom and the wisdom of this world
that God has abandoned us, we will see that he has never left
us, never forsaken us. He who is our Saviour sits on
an eternal throne and rules infinitely everything. We will see, soon
we will see love, infinite, passionate, powerful, loving kindness, rules
everything, still rules now, has ruled, will rule forever
and ever. That's what the hosts of heaven
are singing right now, are they not? They're singing about the
faithfulness of their God. And in this verse the Lord Jesus
is reminding us that faith is to rest in God alone. We cannot have faith and God
will make it clear to us that faith in anything in this world,
faith in anything of ourselves is just a refuge of lies and
God will sweep it away. It's a supernatural thing, faith. We see only what true faith is
when we look at this world through spiritual eyes. And we see through
the eyes of faith what intelligent men never see. The Lord talks about these mountains
that can be thrown into the sea. I can't remember, I don't know
if you can help me, I can't remember one mountain being thrown into
the sea. So what is the Lord talking about? They're not physical
mountains visible to our eyes, but they're spiritual things,
aren't they? In Isaiah 40, that great passage
that John the Baptist used to proclaim the coming of the Messiah. Make, prepare the way of the
Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every
valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill brought
low. The crooked places shall be made
straight, and the rough places smooth. As we journeyed with
the Lord Jesus through the three years of His ministry in Mark's
Gospel, have any of the mountains that confronted Him been an obstacle
to Him? Have any of the valleys of despair
been an obstacle to Him? He just marched triumphantly
as God, claiming to be God no matter what the opposition was.
Demons, a raging storm, death, sin, Satan, The Lord Jesus just
came to those mountains and they were laid out smoothly before
him. God says that we live better
and we are blessed when we do not see. Faith according to God
is better than seeing. Thomas doubted the Lord Jesus,
doubted his friends, for that long week. The Lord Jesus left
him in his doubts and he came to him and Thomas was given the
opportunity to see. Thomas, because you have seen
me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not
seen and yet have believed. So we cannot see our eternal
union with the Saviour and with God in Trinity. We cannot see
that we were justified from eternity. We cannot see our election. We cannot see divine predestination. We cannot see often God working
all things for our good. We cannot see from the world
around us that God, our Lord Jesus, sits on a throne and rules
this universe with absolute power. We cannot see His glorious return,
even though it might happen in a moment. We can't see Heaven's
glories with physical eyes. We can't see the new creation. And as Simon reminds us, we will
be like our Redeemer. But we will see Him as He is,
because we will be like Him. We cannot see that right now
the one standing before you is a man who has no sin before God. My family and those who are close
enough to me see sin all the time. God's children live by
faith. They see by faith. And before
all of us are mountains of sin. Mountains of temptations, mountains
of our doubts, mountains of our failings and fallings. But all
through this, God's children cling to His Word, cling to the
Lord Jesus, cling to the promises. True saving faith is produced
by God. It's grown by God. It's perpetually
nourished by God. It is indestructible. Almighty
God is its author. Almighty God is its sustainer. Satan cannot defeat it. He's
been defeated by the Lord Jesus. The world cannot overcome it.
The Lord Jesus has overcome the world. Your sin cannot defeat
it. The Lord Jesus has taken away
the sins of his people. He's buried them in the depths
of the sea. He's hidden them behind his back and he remembers
them no more. The great principle, says Octavius
Winslow, of all holiness and happiness is faith in God. His character justifies it. His word invites it, His promises
encourage it, His Son imparts it, His Spirit creates it, His
blessing crowns it. Believe and you will see the
glory of God. The Lord Jesus commands and the
Lord Jesus promises. Faith causes God's people to
be at rest in the stormy seas of this world. That doesn't mean
that the wind and the waves won't buffer us, but we will find our
peace and our rest in God. And just to finish, there's a
remarkable story on the Last Supper. In Luke's Gospel, the
Lord Jesus says to Simon, who has been so courageous, and so
bold in what he can do. Simon, Simon, Satan has asked
to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith
may not fail. What a remarkable thing to have
the Lord Jesus praying for us that our faith may not fail.
What happened to Peter that night? Did he fail? The promise from the Lord Jesus
was, and when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. What a remarkable statement from
the Lord Jesus on the night he was to be betrayed. Peter, from
a worldly point of view, failed like all of us do, and failed
miserably. But the Lord Jesus prayed that
his faith would not fail. Ultimately, his faith didn't
fail. It wavered for a while, but came
back. But when you are turned back,
when you have turned back, Peter, strengthen your brothers. How
was Peter to strengthen his brothers after all that he had been through?
What strength could his brothers get from someone who ran away
weeping from a little girl as a coward. The strength is that
the Lord Jesus came back to him. And the strengthening is that
our confidence is not in what we do. Our confidence is in what
the Lord Jesus has done. It's not about our works, says
Peter. Our relationship with God is
not based on what I've done. Hopeless as it might be, it's
based on the faithful one, isn't it? It's based on the faithfulness
of our Lord Jesus. We strengthen our brothers, not
by boasting about what we've done, presuming and being puffed
up. We strengthen our brothers by saying to them, our God is
faithful. Our God is faithful. Our husband
is a faithful husband. He'll never leave us nor forsake
us. He is faithful. He has promised. He is God and He will do it. Let's pray.