Alright brethren, let's go back
to Luke chapter 1. My brother Greg read that and
I was thinking how well it goes with our message. Those brethren that day at Pentecost,
they were not speaking just this nonsensical gibberish. They were speaking by the Spirit
of God and they were speaking in the languages of those different
people there at Pentecost, at Jerusalem. And they were speaking
the wonderful works of God. They were preaching the wonderful
works of God. And a part of that message is
given there for us in Acts. And Peter declared that David,
as a prophet, was speaking of Christ. That's what all, that's
who Moses was writing about and that's who David was writing
about. We saw in Psalms this morning, David was writing about
Christ being in his mother's womb and speaking to the father
about how he was fearfully and wonderfully made. And this whole
book, Paul began Romans 1 and he said, God by his will sanctified
me, separated me, made me an apostle, to preach the gospel
of God, and he said, which is concerning his son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. He was made of the seed of David,
a body was prepared for him, and he came made of the seed
of David, but declared the Son of God. He's always been the
Son of God, with power, according to the spirit of holiness by
the resurrection of the dead. And that same gospel is the gospel
we preach today. because that's the message through
which, one, God gets all the glory, and He will have His Son
honored and magnified and given all preeminence, and two, it's
the message through which He saves His people. Now this morning
at the first hour, we saw in Psalm 139, we heard the Lord
Jesus speak of Himself in the womb of the Virgin, and we heard
Him speak of how God had formed His body and how he was separated
from his mother's womb. God possessed his reins. His
heart and affection was on God. He was holy from the womb. So
when he came into the world, he was serving God for his people
and always pleasing God. And his people were in him. Each
member of his body was in him. And God saw us and knew us. We
were written in the Lamb's Book of Life. He knew us. Now, we're
gonna pick up right here We hear Christ this morning speaking
of himself in Mary's room. Now we're going to hear what
happened to Mary. What was going on with Mary and
Elizabeth while this was going on. The angel came and declared
to Mary that she was going to be the one to do what every woman
in Israel had hoped she would be the one to do. Go with me
before we get to our text. Go back to Genesis. Chapter 3. Adam sinned in the garden and
he fell and he hid himself in the trees. If God had not come
and saved Adam, that would have been it. That's what we all would
have done if God hadn't come and saved us. Hiding from God. But God came to Adam, called
him out of the trees, and God made him confess his sin, and
then God slew a lamb in his place. Picture Christ dying for his
people. Then God took the coat of that,
the skin of that lamb and covered Adam with it. Picture God making
his people the righteousness of God in Christ. Robing us in
Christ's righteousness through God-given faith. And then the
Lord made this declaration. He declared this to the devil,
but he declared it in the ears of Adam and Eve, and this is
what every woman was hoping she would be. He said in Genesis
3, verse 15, he said to the devil,
God said, I will put enmity between thee and the woman. Between the devil and the woman.
Who is that? Look, between thy seed, the devil
has children. That word seed there, there means
children. Between thy seed, the devil has
his children. He said, I will put him between
thy seed and her seed. This woman has a seed. A woman
doesn't have a seed. The seed comes from the man.
And the man, it's by him that the woman conceives in her womb.
But one woman had the seed. You know what? The seed is the
life. The seed is the life. Christ
is the life. Christ is the life. And he's
speaking here and he's saying, there's going to be a woman that's
going to bear the seed, the life, that's going to be the life of
my people. And he said, it shall bruise thy head. It's going to
strike the death blow to the devil and to sin and death. And he said, and thou shalt bruise
his heel. The devil, that's how Christ
would accomplish this. The devil would be permitted
to bruise his heel, to put him on the cross, where Christ suffered
for his people. Well, every woman throughout
the ages wanted to be that woman. That's why we saw last week when
Cain and Abel were born, when Cain was born, Eve said, I've
gotten a man child from the Lord. She thought she had the woman's
seed. They failed to understand this wasn't gonna be a child
born without the aid of a man. Their husband wasn't gonna be
involved with this. But every woman thought they were going
to have the promised seed, and they were looking forward to
that. And the devil knew this. God declared it to the devil.
That's why he had Pharaoh kill all the male babies. That's why
he had them Haman wanted to kill all the
Jews during that Mordecai's day. That's why when Herod was born,
when Christ was being born, Herod had all the male babies slain.
The devil knew the woman's seeds coming through a woman. God's
going to work a new thing in the world. A woman shall compass
a man, the prophet said. She's going to have this man
child without the aid of a man. And so, Finally, God comes, the angel
comes to Mary and says, you're the woman. You're the woman. Declared to Mary that God had
chosen her. He said, you found favor from
God. Just grace of God. Mary didn't do anything to earn
it. God said, you found favor. You're
the woman that's bearing the seed. And Christ Jesus, the son
of the highest, is coming through you. Gonna be the salvation of
his people. Well, verse 36, the angel says,
behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son
in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her, who was
called barren. For with God, nothing shall be
impossible. With God, nothing shall be impossible.
Now, that is so of our God. With God, nothing shall be impossible. Let me show you something else
that's so with our Lord. Look down there at the end at
verse 45. This is also true of God. There shall be a performance
of those things which were told her from the Lord. There's going
to be a performance of everything God's told you, and the Lord's
going to do it. All things are possible with
God, and everything God's promised his people, he shall perform.
Now, when the angel made this announcement to Mary, that she's
with child of the Holy Spirit, and this is the seed of woman.
Now, we looked at this a while ago, is how we see in Mary a
picture of how God regenerates his child. He forms Christ in
us. Now this was a special thing
that was happening with Mary, but that's what has to happen
to us. Christ has to be formed in us in spirit and be born again. But I want to see now in Mary
the same picture, but I want you to see this is what Christ
works in us when he has made us to know Christ and believe
on Christ. This is what he does. The focus in this message is
the Lord Jesus, okay? We're gonna be looking at Mary,
we're gonna be looking at Elizabeth here, but the focus is the Lord
Jesus because even though the Son of God is in the womb as
that one that's the seed of woman, the God-man, he's God. He's God and he's God who works
all things. He's God with whom all things
are impossible. All things are possible. He does
what he will. And he's the one performing everything
promised to his people. So when we're going to look at
Mary and Elizabeth, we're seeing what God our Savior works. Okay? Now, this is the miracle
of God's grace. When you're born again of God
by the Spirit, and this is what he works. He made Mary hasten. run to get to Elizabeth's to
declare Christ, to declare what the Lord had done. He made her
run to her house. And I want you to see, this is
what he does in us. I've titled this, Hasten to Declare
Christ, Hasten to Preach Christ. We're in this world to preach
him. That's what the Lord's put us
here for. And that's what he makes his child eager to do,
eager to declare the Lord Jesus. And here's the first thing, by
the word of the Lord, The Lord has to create a new spirit in
us. We don't have this spirit to begin with. He has to create
a new spirit in us. Listen to this spirit of Mary
now. Listen to her spirit. Verse 38.
After the angel said, you're going to have the seed of woman,
Christ Jesus, And he said, and Elizabeth is six months pregnant
with John the Baptist, listen to Mary's spirit. She said, verse
38, behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according
to thy word. The Lord Jesus said, out of the
abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Now I'm not saying Mary
was born again right here. She already was born again of
God, but this is what happens when we're born again of God.
This is the spirit the Lord puts in us from that day forward.
Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. This was Mary's
heart. This is the heart the Lord created
in Mary. She was humble. She said, be
it unto me. She said, I'm your handmaid,
be it unto me, Lord, as you say. Use me and do with me what you
will. That's not the spirit in us by
nature. That's not the spirit we're born
into this world with. We're proud by nature. We come
into this world sinners, so we're proud by nature. The devil said
to Eve in the garden, he said, when you disobey God, you eat
of this fruit God said don't eat, you will be as gods. And
when we sinned in Adam and we were conceived and we come into
this world as sinners, we We're proud by nature. We're
coming into the world proud by nature. And we think we are as
gods and we cannot know God as we come into the world. Look
at John 6 in verse 44. Now this is the Lord Jesus speaking. I've kind of lost my thought,
but I'm trying to show you when the Lord creates a new heart,
he gives us this heart that Mary had. Lord, I'm your handmaid. Do with me what you will. And
here the Lord is speaking. He's declaring he's the bread
of life. He's declaring no man can be saved except through faith
in him, trusting him. And they began to murmur. at
him saying this. In verse 43, Jesus answered and
said to them, murmur not amongst yourselves, no man can come to
me except the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will
raise him up in the last day. It's written in the prophets,
and here's what it says, they shall be all taught of God. That's so of everybody he saves.
Every man therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the
Father, been taught by the Father, he comes to me. You see that? He comes to me. And it's not
that any man has seen the Father. It's not that he's coming and
teaching you face to face. No man has seen God. He's teaching
you through this Gospel, through the Spirit. And so now hear what
Christ said. He said, no man can come to Me
except My Father drawing. You must be taught of God. And
He's going to do it through this Gospel. He's going to do it in
Spirit into the new heart that He creates. Now, we're proud
by nature and when we hear that, we do what they did. They murmured
and they turned around and said, we can't hear that. And they
left. They walked away. And listen,
Christ didn't chase them. He let them walk away. He let
them go. He's not going to lose His people. He just said, everybody
the Father's teaching shall come to me. He's calm, composed. He's
not worried about it because He knows He's saving His people. And the Father's going to teach
each one that are His. Look with me at Psalm 110. I'm
trying to show you we have to be given this Spirit that Mary
had. We have to be given this Spirit by the Lord. We don't
have it by nature. This is what the Lord said. We
know this is the Lord speaking of His Son Christ Jesus. Verse
1, He said, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou at my right
hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool. We just saw, Brother
Greg just read it, that Peter said David was writing of the
Lord Jesus Christ. This was Christ he was speaking
about. Well, look what God the Father said to Christ in verse
3. He said, Thy people speaking to Christ, he said, thy people,
that means Christ has a people, doesn't it? He said, thy people
shall be willing in the day of thy power. Your people are gonna
be willing in the day of your power, in the beauties of holiness
from the womb of the morning, thou hast to do of thy youth.
You know what we see in Mary? We see a willingness. The angel
came and, imagine this now, the angel came and tells her, you're
gonna have a child without a man. And He's going to be the Son
of the Highest. He's going to be the Savior. And Mary was made
willing to say, I'm your handmaid, Lord. Do with me what you will. Do with me what you will. Only
the Lord creates that spirit. And by the power of the Lord
Jesus, Mary believed the Word of the Lord. That's the only
way she believed. We're not just saved in the first hour. I said
to you, Mary wasn't just regenerated. She'd been born again. prior
to this. But we're always saved by the
same way. It's always by the power of the
Lord. And anytime He teaches you anything and grows you in
Him, it's the same way. And so He comes and He says this
to Mary, and she had a contrite heart. She bowed. She owned herself
to be the Lord's handmaid. That's the same as saying, I'm
your willing bondservant. I'm yours, I'm bound to you,
I'm your handmaid. She submitted to the Lord. Verse
38, Luke 1 38, behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according
to thy word. The reason I'm dealing with this
is we just don't realize what a confession of faith that was.
We don't realize the faith the Lord gave to Mary for her to
say that. Listen, this pregnancy, is gonna make her husband Joseph,
and it's gonna make everybody in town think she's committed
adultery. There's a death penalty for adultery.
God had given the death penalty for adultery. And everybody in
this town's gonna think she's committed adultery. And God gave
her the faith to trust the Lord and say, Be it as you will, Lord,
be it as you will. See, the Lord took away, Elizabeth
was barren and we saw how she had been reproached because she
was barren and people slandered her because she couldn't have
kids. Oh, she must have sinned, she can't have kids. Well, we
also see the meanness of natural born sinners in that the Lord
took that reproach away by making her have a child in her womb,
but when he made Mary to have the Lord Jesus in her womb, there's
going to be great reproach toward her. One, he took the reproach
away with Mary, she's going to receive a lot more reproach.
That was faith in Mary. God gave that faith. Mary didn't
muster that up. You and me don't muster that
up. She was taught of the Father. She was taught by the Lord and
made willing by the Lord Jesus. The one in her womb made her
willing. Has God given you that kind of heart? Has He made you
contrite? Can you hear the Gospel say? The Gospel is offensive to natural
man. The Gospel says, God chooses whom He will and passes by whom
He will. Does that offend you or do you
bow and say, Lord, according to Your Word. I'm Your handmaid,
be it according to Your Word. Do you hear that Christ laid
down His life for everybody the Father entrusted to Him, and
accomplished our righteousness, and made us the righteousness
of God, and saved everybody He laid down His life for, so that
then He's going to send the Gospel to every one of us? He just told
us, you can't come to Me except you be taught of My Father. We
just saw He said, you can't be made willing to bow to this Gospel
unless I make you willing. And when a sinner hears that,
if he hadn't been given this heart and he hadn't been taught
of God, he won't say, I'm your servant. I'm your handmaid. Do
with me what you will. The sinner will get mad and angry
and say, I'm not having that man reign over me like those
in John 6. This is a hard saying. Who can
hear it? And he'll go away. It takes the Lord to give this
heart that he gave to Mary. And that's who The proud he knows
are far off, but those he's given his heart, that's who he's with
and that's who he teaches. Listen to Psalm 51, 17. The sacrifices
of God. He's not interested in your sacrifices. He's not interested in your works
whereby you're gonna try to come to God and impress God and indebt
God. He's not interested in your sacrifices. The sacrifices of God, what he
is pleased with is a broken spirit. a broken and a contrite heart,
O God, thou will not despise. That's what Mary had. She's bowed
down. She's bowed down. Look at Isaiah
57 while you're there. Isaiah 57, 15. Thus saith the
high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy,
I dwell in the high and holy place. With him also that is
of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble
and to revive the heart of the contrite one. All right, go back
to Luke 1 now here. Secondly, so this was the spirit
that the Lord put in Mary. She was humble. She said, I'm
your handmaid, Lord, be unto me according to your word. She
could face death. Now listen. When you're saved
by God and He reveals the gospel to you, you're going to be rejected
by family, friends, just like Mary's going to be rejected by
men. You're going to receive some of that because the gospel
is offensive to sinners, that's just so. All right, secondly,
but He'll give you that heart to trust Him and He'll revive
you and He'll keep you and you'll be used as His servants. She
said, I'm your handmaid, use me. Well, He's fixing to use
her. Secondly, the Lord creates a good zeal in the heart of those
born of him so that we preach him. That's what we see next. She said, I'm your handmaid,
be it according to your word. Use me as you will, Lord. All
right, what did he do? Verse 39, and Mary arose in those
days. She immediately arose and went
into the hill country with haste into a city of Judah. Mary hears
this, she got up and she took off. She took off with haste. She took off running to Elizabeth's
house to tell Elizabeth the good news that the angel had told
her. You know in scripture the angel
is, in Revelation, the angel is the Lord's pastor. So you
have a picture here of the gospel being preached to Mary, Christ
being formed in Mary, And Mary being given a new heart to bow
to Christ and given a zeal to go spread this word. That's what
he does in his people when he calls us. So Mary takes off down
to Elizabeth. You know David once said this,
he said the king's business requires haste. And this is the king's
business. Mary's going to declare the king.
There's urgency with our Lord in saving his people from our
sins. When we believe, we don't make haste. That's what Scripture
says. That means you're not shaken by what this world's shaken by,
and you're not, you know Christ the Rock, and you know He's omnipresent,
and He's all-knowing, and He's all-powerful. But there's an
urgency with our Lord in, because the time is short. We come into
this world perishing sinners, and none of God's elect can save
themselves. Christ has come and redeemed
the people. And they're redeemed, they're
justified, they must be called, but they're lost, they're perishing,
they don't know the Lord. And the Lord's going to get the
Gospel to them. They're going to be brought under
the sound of the preaching of the Gospel. And the zeal we see
in Mary, that hastiness, hasty to get down there to tell Elizabeth,
that's the Lord's Spirit in her. That's the Lord doing that. And
when you and me are given a heart to speak of Him and to be zealous
for Him with a good zeal, that's the Lord doing that. Christ accomplished
settling judgment for His people by this zeal. That's what, when
our Lord Jesus came into this world, look over at Isaiah 9. Here it is, this is what I meant
to quote to you this morning. I said Isaiah 7, it's Isaiah
9, look here, Isaiah 9 verse 7. Verse 6 is what I was thinking
about this morning where he said his name should be called Wonderful
Counselor. But look here now. Watch this, verse 7. I'm talking
about zeal. How did the Lord accomplish our
redemption and how is he going to accomplish getting the gospel
to his children and saving his people? Verse seven, of the increase
of his government and peace there should be no end and upon the
throne of David and upon the kingdom to order it and to establish
it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever
the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. He will hasten
this work. Look with me over at Isaiah 37. Why are you there? Isaiah 37. And look at verse 32. Out of Jerusalem shall go forth
a remnant, and they that escape out of Mount Zion. The zeal of
the Lord of hosts shall do this. God's saving a remnant right
now called the remnant according to the election of grace. And
they're going to be brought out from this world, brought out
from our sin, brought out from our death to Christ and trust
Him all our days. And the zeal of the Lord our
host will perform this. When our Savior walked this earth,
He didn't make any delay in going about to do the will of the Father.
When He was 12 years old, they left Him by mistake Mary and
Joseph left him by mistake and they come back to the temple
and he's sitting there astounding these grown men because he knew
more than they knew. He wrote the scriptures. Of course
he knew the scriptures better than they knew the scriptures.
But he's sitting there speaking to them and Mary and Joseph told
him, you about worried us to death. He said, don't you know
I must be about my father's business? He didn't delay. He said, I must
be about my father's business. His mind was on honoring God
and declaring God the just God who will not clear the sinner.
And declare God the justifier who alone can justify His people
from our sin. He did both those things in Christ. That's what Christ was sent for,
to manifest God's righteousness. To show that God will not clear
the sinner. God had to kill everybody He
saved and that's what happened on Calvary's Cross. God was slaying
everybody He shall save in Christ. And at the same time, God was
justifying everybody He shall save. He's a just God and a Savior. Christ, it made no delay. He
went about, He had to fulfill all the law. He went about fulfilling
the law. He had to fulfill all the prophets.
He went about fulfilling the prophets. How many times do you
read, He went to this city because thus it's written. Or He went
there because He had one of His people there. Everything He was
doing was for the glory of the Father, it was to fulfill the
Law and the Prophets, and it was to save His people from our
sins. He was calling His apostles to
establish them so they would be sent forth to preach this
Gospel by which He would save the rest of His people. Everything
He did when He walked this earth, He was doing to finish the work
God sent Him to do. And the last thing He said on
the Calvary's cross before He committed His Spirit to the Father
was, It is finished. He finished the work. He said
in John 17, Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self with the
glory which I had with you before the world was. I finished the
work You gave me to do. He finished the work. That means,
brethren, When He calls you, He's not calling you to make
yourself righteous. He's not calling you to make
yourself holy. He's not calling you to do anything
by which you're going to be saved. He has finished that work. Well,
why is He calling us? He's calling us to give us a
willing heart to trust Him to save us. And He calls us to give
us a willing heart to speak Him, to preach His Word, to do what
I'm doing right here together. Well, I'm not a preacher, but
he unites us together, and he uses us all to send forth this
gospel. And we're sending it forth just
like Mary's hastening down there to tell Elizabeth this good news.
We're hastening to get this good news out into the world. And
that's what he's using us for. so that He's going to call His
people through this Gospel. Everybody He saved. It pleased
God through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
How can they believe Him of whom they have not heard? And how
can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach except
they be sent? It's God doing this. It's Christ our Savior
doing this. And right now, from heaven, He's as zealous for this
work as He was when He walked this earth. Our King, our Savior,
our Priest, our Prophet, He has a heart right now to call His
redeemed and to create this good zeal in each of His people. The
Pharisees had a zeal. But they had a zeal without knowledge.
There's a lot of folks in religion that have a zeal and they're
out doing all these works and all of this. They're trying to
feed the poor and they're trying to do all these humanitarian
works. And I'm thankful they do them.
They're good works to do. But they're not preaching the
truth of the gospel. They're not telling sinners they're
dead in sins and that Christ is the only Savior. They're not
telling sinners that it's only God who can make us willing.
Only God can create a new heart. Only God can give faith. They're
not shutting sinners up to God alone and declaring that the
sinners are sinful. They can't save themselves. Listen,
we have to be given the living bread, not just physical bread.
We have to be given the spiritual coat, not just a physical coat. We have to be given Spiritual
life, not just medicine to heal our physical life. Because listen,
if you do all the humanitarian efforts you can do for somebody
in this world, and you give them clothing, and shelter, and food,
and you give them medicine, they're going to die. And then they're
going to meet God. And if you meet God without Christ,
there's no hope for anybody. Our preeminent mission in this
world is to preach the gospel of Christ Jesus. He's the way. He's the truth. He's the light.
It's His code of righteousness we must have. He's the refuge. He's the shelter we must have
from the storm of God's justice or we can't be saved. They had
a zeal, but it was not a good zeal. They, Paul said in Romans
10, he said, he said, I'll bear witness, they have a zeal for
God, but it's not according to knowledge, for they're going
about to establish their own righteousness and they have not
submitted themselves to the righteousness of God, Christ Jesus the Lord.
But Paul said in Galatians 4.18, it's good to be zealously affected
always in a good thing. Always. Christ commands His preacher
and all who He saves. We're all His witnesses together.
And He commands us to spread this gospel with no delay. Here's
what He said through Paul. He said, redeem the time. Mary, she heard this good news. She jumped up and she took off
to go tell it. When brethren came to our Redeemer's
grave, they came there to that tomb, what did that angel tell
them? go quickly and tell his disciples
he's risen, he's not dead. Christ commands us not to be
distracted from this mission. 1 Corinthians 1, 7, 29, he said,
brethren, the time is short. The time is short. Let nothing
turn us from our mission to preach Christ and then crucify. He said,
it remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they
had none. That's how important the message
is. When the Lord sent his disciples to preach the gospel, he told
them to not be distracted by your daily needs. He said, don't
be distracted by any man by the way. He said in Luke 10, 4, carry
neither purse, that's, nor script, that's money. He says, nor shoes. Don't carry extra shoes with
you. He says, and salute no man by the way. Don't get distracted. Go preach my name. Christ effectually
works in the hearts of His people through this gospel. And He works
in the hearts of you and me who He uses to keep us from being
distracted. He keeps providing us what we
need. shoes and whatever earthly thing
we need, and he keeps providing us with good brethren to keep
us encouraging one another, and he's gonna keep you provided
with anything you need because he's gonna have you preach this
gospel. And Christ has provided us everything
spiritually. God gave us his son. Don't you
think he'll give you whatever else little thing you need in
this life? Of course he will, especially when it's for preaching
His son. He spared not his own son, but
delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him freely
give us all things? He said to them later, after
he told them, don't take purse or script or shoes and don't
be turned aside by any man. When they came back later, he
asked them this, when I sent you without purse and script
and shoes, lacked you anything? And they said nothing. Brethren,
we're not going to be, he's not going to let you lack for anything
when he sent you to preach his name. You're not gonna miss out
on anything. He's gonna make sure you got
everything you need. Look at Luke 10. I wanna show you something
here. Christ works in the hearts of his witnesses, you and me,
who he's gonna use, just like he did Mary. He took off to declare
this word. He's gonna work in our hearts,
and he's gonna work in the hearts of those that he speaks to through
this gospel. but he gives us a word concerning
those to whom he hasn't spoken. Art, listen to this. I mean,
Walt, listen to this. This is something we talk about
a lot. Listen to this right here. Luke
10, five. He told them, you know, when
he sent them, he said, don't salute any man by the way. And then
verse five, he said, into whatsoever house you enter, first say, peace
be to this house, and if the son of peace be there, your peace
shall rest upon it. giving somebody a willing heart
to hear you, your peace will be on it. He said, if not, your
peace should turn to you again. Verse 7, in the same house, remain. If peace is there, remain. He
said, verse 10, but into whatsoever city you enter, and they receive
you not, go your way. Don't dilly-dally around with
them. That's what he said. You declare this gospel to somebody,
and the Lord's going to make it obvious if they really want
to hear the gospel, If he's working in their heart and they want
to hear it, you keep preaching it to them. They may get frustrated
and they may ask questions and sort of kick against it. As long
as they keep wanting to hear it, you keep preaching to them.
But now, if you got somebody that is obvious they not want
to hear it, they want to tell you what they know and what they
already think they know and they want to argue and debate and
all that stuff with you, leave them alone. That's what the Lord
said. Go your way. He'll make it known
if he's speaking to somebody's heart. If he's not, he'll make
it known. When the enemy heard they were rebuilding Jerusalem.
Let me show you something, Nehemiah. Nehemiah 6. God sent them to
rebuild Jerusalem. And when the enemy heard that
they were rebuilding Jerusalem. Ben, turn that light on in my
office up here. When they heard they were rebuilding
it, look here, Nehemiah 6.2, it says, Sanballat and Gishom
sent unto me, saying, come, let us meet together in some one
of the villages in the plain of Ono. But they thought to do
me mischief. And I sent messengers unto them,
saying, I am doing a great work, so I can't come down. Why should
the work cease while I leave it and come down to you? That's
the zeal we're talking about. The Lord said, don't get distracted. Don't turn from this work and
be distracted. Can you imagine Mary stopping
along the way? She's got this great news and
her stopping along the way and say, I'm gonna go shopping a
little while before I get down to go see Elizabeth. Or I'm gonna
stop and look at a piece of land. She had to get down there with
that word. Our Lord Jesus declares to all sinners, right this minute,
He's declaring right this minute to any lost sinner that hears
this, right this minute Christ is saying, time is short. Redeem
the time. Hasten to call on the Lord. You can't be saved any other
way. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him
while he is near. No sinner can come but by him.
But there's no salvation in any other but him. And this, for you and me, brethren
that believe, this life's not true life. Christ is the life.
And for you, anybody that don't believe Him, this life's not
it. Christ is the life. Psalm 90 verse 10 says, the days
of our years are three school years and 10, and if by reason
of strength they be four school years, there's strength, labor,
and sorrow, for it's soon cut off and we fly away. Teach us,
Lord, to number our days. Remember now, thy Creator. In
the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, or the
years draw nigh, when thou shouldst say, I have no pleasure in them,
I pray Christ, give you an urgency to need him, and I pray Christ,
give us an urgency to preach him, to preach him. We'll look
at this last point another time, but it's something I really want
you to see. I'm out of time. Listen. Christ Jesus the Lord. Go with
me to 1 Corinthians 1 verse 30. Here's why he sent us to preach
this word. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 30. Verse 29, that no flesh, this
is the chapter in case anybody doesn't know, this is the chapter
In verse 18 where he says, the preaching of the cross is to
them that perish foolishness, but to them that are saved, it
is the power of God. God has said that he will save
through this gospel right here. Verse 21, for after that in the
wisdom of God, the world by its wisdom knew not God, it pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. All
right, here's why, verse 29. that no flesh should glory in
his presence, none. Verse 30, but of him are you
in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom. We gotta
be given our mind to know Christ. He's that wisdom. And righteousness,
we have to be justified before God. No sin, perfect obedience
to God. Christ is that righteousness.
Look, and sanctification. He has to be holiness to us,
separation, severedness, and redemption. The only liberty
you're going to have is when you're delivered from men that
want to yoke you and tell you you need to be doing this, that,
and the other thing, and you can't be saved if you don't.
You've got to be redeemed from that. You've got to be redeemed
from your sin nature. You've got to be redeemed from
the law, the curse of the law. You've got to be redeemed from
this world. And the only one that can redeem you out of this
world is Christ. Well, He's the only one that
can redeem us from the law, from our sin nature, and from wicked
men. And here's why. That according
as it's written, he that glories, let him glory in the Lord. You
see that? It's of God we're in Christ.
And God's made everything to us. And when that happens, we
give Him all the glory. That's what made Mary hasten. She heard this savior has come
and she's going to declare it to Elizabeth. I pray he make
us declare him to anybody that'll listen and together send this
word out and hasten, redeem the time. All right, we're gonna
observe the Lord's table. If this is your redeemer, you
trust him alone. This is his table. He says, remember
me. This is a, piece of unleavened
bread, because Christ was sinless, and this is a cup of wine, real
wine, because we're saved through the blood of the Lord Jesus,
and we're remembering Him. Brother Adam, can you and Brother
Jeff pass this out?