Alright brethren, let's go back
now to Hebrews chapter 3. Hebrews chapter 3, it says, Wherefore
holy brethren, that's what all God's people are. He's speaking
to those called and made partakers of the heavenly calling. partaker
of the heavenly calling. He says, consider the apostle
and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus. Christ is the apostle,
that means he's the preacher, and he's the high priest, that
means he is the one who put away our sin, who made atonement,
who represents us to God. He was faithful to him that appointed
him. God the Father made him the apostle
and high priest. He's faithful as Moses was faithful
in all his house. For this man was counted worthy
of more glory than Moses, and as much as he who hath built
the house hath more honor than the house. For every house is
built by some man, but he that built all things is God, and
Christ is God. Moses verily was faithful in
all his house as a servant for testimony of those things which
were to be spoken after. But Christ is a son over his
own house, whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence
and rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Now the difference
between God's church and the religious social clubs in this
world is that the Lord has made us
to truly believe and trust Christ is the Apostle and High Priest
of our profession. He really has brought us to believe
Christ is the Apostle and High Priest of our profession. This
is the power that men with a form of godliness deny. And they deny
in all their extra means and methods they use. They deny that
Christ is the power, that He is the Apostle and He is the
High Priest. God appointed His Son, He appointed
Him to be the Apostle, to teach each of His saints in the heart
affectionately without fail. And that's what Christ does.
He teaches us each in the heart without fail. He shall not fail
till He has set judgment in the earth. He did that at the cross,
but He sets that judgment, that discernment in our heart by the
Gospel. God the Father appointed Christ
to be the High Priest. That means He reconciled all
God's elect to God. That's what He accomplished.
He reconciled. He made atonement for us. And
He entered into the holiest of holies into God's presence and
where He ever lives to make intercession for us. When we sin, every day
He's making intercession for His people. And it's through
the apostle teaching us and drawing us near to his throne of grace
and mercy that we come asking for grace and mercy. And it's
because of Christ our high priest interceding for us with the Father. And it's for his righteousness
sake that God the Father keeps showing us mercy and forgiveness
and cleansing us of all unrighteousness. And so rather than using any
other means, because we believe Christ is the Apostle, effectually
teaching His people, and He's the High Priest who we preach,
we don't use any other means but the preaching of Christ and
Him crucified. We preach salvation is of the
Lord, because we really believe Christ is the Apostle and High
Priest of our profession. We don't give altar calls. We
don't try to coerce sinners to make a profession. Because that's
not trusting the apostle and high priest of our profession.
We don't use committees to check in on God's saints. And we don't
set up disciplinary committees to correct God's saints who fall
into sin. That's not trusting the apostle
and high priest of our profession. That glory belongs to him. Christ
is head over all things to the church and He alone filleth all,
in all His people. And therefore we preach Christ
and Him crucified. Every time, not just sometimes.
We don't have a Christ-centered message. Christ is our message. We preach Christ and we preach
Him crucified and what He accomplished, where He is now, what He's doing
now, who He did it for, His elect. And then we pray to God our Savior,
to our Apostle and High Priest, and ask Him to work in His people,
and draw His law sheet. And then we wait on Him to work. And then we give Him all the
glory for doing all the work. You know, that's exactly what
Christ taught Ezekiel to do in the Valley of Dry Bones. He said,
you preach me. He said, you pray to me. You
wait on me, and when I've done the work, you'll glorify me."
And that's what God's people do. Christ is faithful as a son
over his own house. Moses was faithful, but Moses
wrote of Christ, and everything Moses wrote in the first five
books of the Bible, Christ fulfilled, as well as all the Psalms and
the Prophets. And Moses was a member of that
house. He was a living stone saved by
Christ. So let's consider now how Christ
has been the Apostle and High Priest of God's elect from the
beginning. And let's consider how He shall
be the Apostle and High Priest of His people to the end. If
we see how He was the Apostle and High Priest in the beginning,
then we'll know He's always been the Apostle and High Priest,
always will be, till He is called the last elect redeemed child
of God. Now we're going to see this by
going back to the garden. what Brother Greg just read.
And it's the best place to see that Christ is the Apostle and
High Priest of His people, because there was no other person in
the garden to help our fallen parents, Adam and Eve. There
was nobody else to help. Nobody else to help, but Christ
only. Christ only. What our Apostle
and our High Priest did for them, He does for each of His people. He does it the first hour He
calls us. He keeps doing it the rest of
our days. He does it for each of His people. He uses us to
work it in His lost sheep and keep working it in His other
saints. And then in the end, when He has called all His people,
we'll see it was the Apostle and High Priest of our profession
who worked it all. Now let's go to Genesis 3 and
let's see this. Genesis chapter 3. It was our triune God in Christ. Every person that God had had
a part in this, but it pleased God that Christ have all preeminence.
And he appointed Christ to be the apostle and the high priest.
So he's been the apostle and high priest since the foundation
of the world. And so it was Christ who gave
Adam one law in the garden. And he gave the consequence of
breaking that law. I've titled this, Our Apostle
and High Priest, but if I had a subtitle it would be Sin and
its Consequences. Sin and its Consequences. He
appointed one law and he declared the consequences of breaking
that one law. He says in Genesis 2 verse 16,
he said, the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree
of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that
thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Now, he did not say
If you eat of that tree, you shall die." That's not what he
said. He said, in the day that thou
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Adam's sin and his death,
plunging all his children, all of us into sin and death, was
Adam's fault. But it was according to God's
eternal purpose to glorify His Son in the salvation of His people. God knew it was going to take
place. Christ, the Apostle and High
Priest of His people, knew it was going to take place. Christ
had already agreed in eternity to be the Apostle and High Priest
to save us from our sins before as yet Adam sinned. When He gave
that law to Adam and said, When thou eatest, thou shalt surely
die, He knew He was going to die. Now brethren, that is a
comfort. That is a comfort. That will
keep us from being anxious and surprised and torn all to pieces
when anybody sins. Because here's why. Not one sin
ever takes Christ by surprise. Not one sin ever surprises our
apostle and our high priest. Not one. Not one. Now you remember
that when your brethren fall. You remember that, that Christ
is ruling all things and He always is going to bring glory to His
name and save His people even when we fall, and actually using
our fall. That was necessary to glorify
Christ. It was absolutely necessary.
So when Adam sinned, he and all who he represented died, just
like the Lord said he would. He lost the image of God, his
nature became spiritually dead, he became guilty before God,
and we all did in him. That was the consequence that
the Lord declared to him. Look at verse 7. And the eyes
of them both were open, and they knew, Genesis 3, 7, I'm sorry. The eyes of them both were open,
and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves
together and made themselves aprons. That's the very first
act that took place after man fell, right there. The very first
act. Man tried to save himself by
his own works. The very first act after the
fall. Men will say, I turned over a new leaf. Changed my life. I decided I'd straight things
up. It's time to get saved. Well, literally, Adam and Eve
turned over a new leaf. That's exactly what they did.
They tried to cover their sin and their nakedness. Nobody taught
them to do it. Nobody had to teach them to do
that. They did that immediately. Man is naturally religious due
to a guilty conscience. You take sinners in jungles,
they've never been in a civilized nation anywhere, and they will
sacrifice animals. And they know the necessity of
blood. They always have blood involved. They'll even sacrifice
their own children who've never read the word of God, never heard
it. Why? Because they know there is a
God and they have a guilty conscience. That's so of everybody. Adam
did not have to be taught that. He did that on his own. In civilized
nations, opposed to uncivilized jungles, in civilized nations,
men change their life. They become moral. They do good
deeds to make up for their sin. Others do the same thing while
taking on a form of religion. But it is all fig leaves. There's
no blood in fig leaves. And the fact of the matter is
the consequence for our sin is we must die. We must die. So how were Adam
and Eve saved? Nobody else existed but them.
There's no brethren around to help them. No brethren around
to say, well, this is my responsibility to help. Nobody around. It's
just them. How are they going to be saved? It's by the apostle
and high priest of our profession. The one mediator between God
and his sinful elect people is Christ Jesus. And they heard
the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of
the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence
of the Lord from the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.
And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where
art thou? Now that is the first call of
grace in the scripture in the history of this world. That's
the first call of grace. Who is grace from? It's from
God. Who did the calling? Christ the
Apostle. He's the preacher. He did the
calling. It pleased God to save through
the foolishness of preaching. And you won't find, now listen
to me, you won't find one sinner in the New Testament, not a single
sinner in the New Testament was called to faith without Christ
using a man to preach the gospel to them. That's so. But right here, there's no other
person in the earth. There's nobody else in the earth.
And so Christ himself called Adam and Eve. Now, let's learn
what that means. Christ gives his pastors to preach
his gospel, and it's a privilege to be called to preach the gospel.
That's how he saves in this day in which we live, because it
pleased God. And listen, he doesn't save any
other way. He saves through the preaching
of the gospel of Christ. But it's Christ who is the apostle
who calls effectually. We're just a privilege to be
used, but he does not need us. He showed us that right here.
It's Christ who does the calling. He said in Isaiah 52 6, he said,
my people shall know my name. Therefore they shall know in
that day that I am he that does speak, behold it is I. When he
walked this earth, he said he is the shepherd. You know what
that word means? It means pastor. It means pastor. He's the apostle. He's the shepherd
and bishop of our souls, Peter said. All those words are concerning
the same office. And he's the pastor, the sovereign
pastor. And here's what he does, John
10 3, he calleth his own sheep by name and leadeth them out. That's what he does. He made
Adam and Eve confess their sin to our one high priest. You see,
he's the apostle that calls and teaches us, and he's the high
priest to whom he draws us. And he made them confess their
sin to this one high priest, Christ himself alone. He asked
them, how do you know you were naked? And he brought them to
confess their sin. Papists teach sinners to go to
a confessional booth and confess their sins to a man. But God
makes His child confess our sin to our one high priest alone. That is Christ's glory. That is treading underfoot the
Son of God and doing despite His holy office as our high priest
to go to a man and confess your sins. We confess our faults to
one another. We let one another know that
we sympathize with them in their falls because we ourselves are
sinners. But the details of our sins,
you confess to nobody but the Lord Jesus Christ. To nobody
but the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's what he did for them.
That's how he began this thing. But now secondly, what about
the consequences for our sins? The consequences are in the hand
of Christ, our Apostle and our High Priest. The consequences
are in the hand of Christ and our High Priest. He declared
the consequences to them and He brought the consequences to
pass. The consequence for sin is eternal
death. The soul that sinneth, it shall
surely die. That's the consequence for death.
Death under the justice of God. So is our apostle and high priest
just going to kill these two? That would have been the end
of it, wouldn't it? There would have been nobody else born. You
don't want the consequences of sins to be in your hand and to
be up to you to answer. You don't want that. We would
have died and that would have been the end of it. As our apostle, this is what
he teaches his children in the heart. He teaches that he dealt
with the consequences of sin for his people. He did. Look here in verse 14, and the
Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this,
thou art cursed above all cattle. He said this to the serpent.
to the devil. You're cursed above all cattle
and above every beast of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou
go, and thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. Now catch
this next word. And I will, I will put enmity
between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed,
and it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Do you see what amazing grace and mercy he's declaring right
here? This is amazing grace and mercy
right here. The apostle and high priest declared
the good news of Christ and him crucified to Adam and Eve. That's
what he just declared in those two verses. This is what he declares
in the hearts of each of his people, the gospel of substitution. Adam earned the wages of sin,
which is death. He earned those wages. That's
what he earned. That's what he deserved. That's
all he deserved. That's what you and I have earned.
That's all we deserve. He's dead. But Christ didn't
say, Adam, you're cursed. He did not say that. He didn't
say, Adam, you were cursed. He announced another to be cursed. He announced the curse to be
upon the serpent in Adam's place. Christ declared then that the
seed of woman was coming. That's Christ himself who knew
no sin. The seed of woman, not born of
a... Adam's the only man in history that ever sinned to become a
sinner. You and I sin because we were conceived and sinned
in our mother's womb and we come forth sinning because we're sinners.
Adam sinned to be made a sinner. But Christ Jesus, the last Adam,
knew no sin. He's the seed of woman, not of
a man's corrupt seed. Holy from the womb. And he would
come forth and bear the justice of God in place of Adam and Eve
and in place of all his elect. That's what he's declaring here.
Now look at the grace here. In order to bring this about,
he's ruling everything. He rules the hearts and minds
of all men and all everything. And he said, I will put enmity
between the devil and the woman and her seed. He's saying, I
will make the devil hate me. That's what he said. He's the
woman's seed. I'll make the devil hate me.
So that very enmity was used to put Christ on the cross, to
bruise Christ's heel. The devil moved religious men
to hate Christ with every fiber there being, call him a deceiver,
and nail him to the curse tree. Christ did that. He said, I will
put the enmity there. He did that. He did that. But by going to that cross and
bearing all the justice that his people deserved, Christ purged
our sins entirely and made his people the righteousness of God
in him so that Satan has absolutely nothing anymore to go before
the Father and accuse us with. He shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect, it's Christ that died. Go with me to Hebrews
2 and let's read this. Hebrews 2 verse 14. For as much then as the children
are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took
part of the same. that through death he might destroy
him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver
them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject
to bondage. For verily he took not on him
the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham,
that's his elect. Wherefore, in all things it behooved
him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a
merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God."
That was the first reason he did it, was for God. To make
reconciliation for the sins of the people. He came and reconciled
his people to God so that God's just to receive us. And then
he's able also now to comfort and strengthen his people as
our high priest, for in that he himself has suffered being
tempted, he's able to succor them that are tempted. Wherefore,
holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the
apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, who
was faithful to him that appointed him." He was faithful, wasn't
he? In the garden, he said, I'm putting the enmity there. And
what the result is going to be, I'm going to be nailed to a curse
tree. That's faithfulness. That's faithfulness. To work
it, to work it, so that he would be hated, so that he would be
nailed to a cursed tree, so that he could honor God and save his
people from our sin. That's mercy. That's faithfulness. But to save us, our great high
priest not only made atonement for us, he must clothe us in
his righteousness through his gift of faith. And Adam and Eve,
They've sinned, and Adam and Eve's nature is corrupt. So he
had to come and teach them this gospel, and he had to create
a new heart in them, and he had to give them faith in Christ.
And that's what he did, and that's what's pictured. Look down at
Genesis 3.21. Unto Abel also and to his wife
did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothe them. He slew
an innocent animal in their place to make coats to cover their
nakedness. That's Christ. The innocent Lord
Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, willingly gave Himself to be
made sin for us, that He might make us the righteousness of
God in Him. That's Christ our High Priest.
He took the place of His people as the Lamb of God, and He was
slain in our place, and He made His people the righteousness
of God in Him. But see, that wouldn't do us any good, because
it's only by believing on Him that we're going to be saved.
And we can't do that. So he not only provided righteousness
by his obedience, Christ is the apostle as well as the high priest
who came and teaches us and effectually gives us faith to believe him.
And so he closed us through faith with his own righteousness. That's
what he did for Adam and Eve. That's what he did for Abraham
when he called Abraham. The blessing of the Spirit that
he promised to Abraham was when he brought Abraham to believe
on Christ, he gave him the righteousness of Christ. And that's what he
does for every one of his elect people. Go with me to Galatians
3. This is what Paul was declaring
there. Galatians chapter 3. They were turning back again. And he said there in verse 8,
he said, or he asked them there, how were
they saved by the hearing of the law or by the hearing of
faith? Now, get that. Let's go back to Adam here just
a minute. There was no law but that one
law they had broken, right? So they can't be saved by the
hearing of works, can they? They already broke the only one
law they had. They're guilty of it. So they can't be saved
by keeping it now. They broke it. That's so of the
whole law for us, brethren. We can't be saved by keeping
it because we've broken it all. But how was Abraham justified?
He said, verse 6, he believed God and it was accounted to him
for righteousness. Righteousness was imputed to
him because he trusted Christ. Know ye therefore that they which
are of faith the same are the children of Abraham and the scripture
for seeing that God would justify the heathen, Gentiles, me and
you through faith. He preached before the gospel
unto Abraham saying in thee shall all nations be blessed, not just
Israel. So then they which be of faith,
they're blessed with faithful Abraham. For as many are of the
works of the law are under the curse. It's written, Cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God, it's evident. The just shall
live by faith and the law is not of faith. We cannot be saved
by faith if we're trusting our deeds to the law, our works to
the law. We can't have both. The law is
not of faith. But watch what he says here.
But Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us, for it's written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the
Gentiles through Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise
of the Spirit through faith. That's what he did for Adam and
Eve. That's what he did for Abraham. That's what he did for David.
That's what he did for Peter, Paul. That's what he's done for
every one of his people. He's come to us as the apostle
and preached the gospel to us, made us to see he's our high
priest, and the lamb who laid down his life, who made atonement,
and who intercedes for us with God, and he gives us mercy and
gives us faith to trust him. Now, I want you to see one more
thing. There's more consequence for sin. There's more consequence
for sin. We're going to have to go, not
only from the hour we believe, we have to go all the way to
the end of our life. And because Adam sinned, and
because we have sinned, that means we must believe on Christ
and trust Him to save us unto the end. That's the consequence
of sin. Let me show you here now. Look
back up in Genesis 3.16. Unto the woman, he said, now
the woman, don't forget this, the woman represents the church,
all God's elect, male and female. All of us is represented by Eve.
He said to the woman, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and
thy conception, and sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and
thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
The reason women have sorrow in conception is sin. That's why. But there's a whole
lot more than that being said here. Knowing Christ would be
the seed of woman. knowing he was coming through
a woman. He didn't know which woman. He
just knew he was coming through a woman. That's what Christ told
the devil. And so many times the devil attempted
to slay the male children in Israel, trying to slay Christ. He even tried to slay the children
of Israel at times. Haman tried to kill all the Jews.
Moses, during Moses' day, Pharaoh killed all the, ordered all the
male babies be killed. And then Herod, when he heard
Christ had come into the world, he ordered all male babies two
and under be killed. Who did that? The devil did that
through these men. That is the sorrow in conception
he's talking about. So how's the woman going to be
saved? How are you and me as a church
of God going to be saved the rest of our days? Christ declared
we must be in subjection to Christ our husband. We must trust the
apostle and our priest of our profession. He must rule over
us until the end. That's what the Hebrew writer's
saying. It's only proven we're his if we believe him to the
end. We're saved only by continuing in Christ to the end, submitting
to the apostle and high priest of our profession. What does
that mean? Well, we believe in our own self.
We trust in our own self to be our only righteousness, our only
acceptance with God. But we're trusting him also to
rule over his house. The Hebrew writer says he's faithful
as a son over his own house. All his elect are his house.
And he's the head of his house. It pleased God to give him the
preeminence, to make him the firstborn among many brethren.
So we're trusting him to teach us and our brethren. We're trusting
him to correct us and our brethren. We're trusting him to grow us
and our brethren. And at last, to present us faultless
and without blame before God, as he will do all his elect.
We're trusting the apostle and high priest of our profession
to do this. Now, go with me to correct 1
Corinthians 14. This is no slight on women, and
this is no reason for any man to be puffed up. The church is
represented by the woman, but this is so in the church. Listen
to this, 1 Corinthians 14, 34. Listen to this. He said, Let
your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted
unto them to speak. But they are commanded to be
under obedience, as also saith the law. And he's talking about
what Christ just said in Genesis 3. That's the law. And if they
will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home, for
it is a shame for women to speak in the church. Now let's see
why. Go over to 1 Timothy. I'm just trying to reiterate
what I've been preaching to you. 1 Timothy. And we'll see why. 1 Timothy 2. Now look at verse 11. He said,
Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer
not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man,
but to be in silence. We cannot attempt to usurp authority
over Christ. He's the man. We can't usurp
authority over Christ. We can't take that office of
apostle and that office of high priest. We can't usurp his authority. And here's why. For Adam was
first formed, then Eve. Christ is first. He is first. The church was formed out of
his wounded side. And look at verse 14, And Adam
was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
Christ Jesus laid down his life for his bride willingly. Adam
is a picture of Christ. Christ laid down his life for
his bride willingly with his eyes wide open, knowing what
he was doing. But we sinned. We were deceived. We sinned. So Paul repeats what
Christ said in Genesis 3. How will we be saved? He said,
notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing if they
continue in faith and love and holiness with sober-mindedness,
with sobriety. Notwithstanding Adam's sin and
notwithstanding their fall, Christ saved Adam and Eve, didn't he?
He came to them and saved them. And so he shall save all his
elect, notwithstanding our sin. We're saved by being separated
unto Christ. That's what continuing in holiness
is and that's how we do it. We're separated by Christ just
like He called them out and separated them to Himself in Genesis 3.
We're separated unto Christ. We're made holy by Christ and
we're kept holy by Christ. By our Apostle teaching us affectionately
in our heart, His love for us and laying down His life for
us, we continue in love, constrained by His love. And being constrained
by His love, we continue believing Him until the end. That's what
the Hebrew writers declare in Hebrews 3. That's how we're made
known to be true children of God. Now, the devil's objective,
go back to Genesis 3, the devil's objective is to turn that order
upside down. And that's what he did in the
garden. That's how Adam fell. He turned that order upside down.
His objective is to make the church usurp the authority that
belongs to Christ the Apostle and High Priest alone. He wants
to see men try to take that authority. That's what the devil wants.
That's what the devil did in the garden. Look at verse 17,
Genesis 3, 17. Unto Adam Christ said, Because
thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, That's how
the fall entered. You hearken to the voice of your
wife instead of Christ. And you ate of the tree of which
I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it. So cursed
is the ground for thy sake, and sorrow thou shalt eat of it all
the days of thy life, he said, till you go back to the dust.
All the thorns and thistles, all the sorrow and death of this
life entered because the devil turned Adam away from trusting
Christ alone. That's how it entered. And if
we turn from the apostle, we turn from the high priest of
our profession, all we can expect are thorns and thistles and sorrow
and death. When Christ drove him out of
that garden, he's telling us we got to be saved as the woman. Every one of us, male and female,
God's elect, to be saved as the woman, we have to be in subjection
to Christ our husband. We have to continue looking to
the apostle and high priest of our profession alone. And when
Christ drove him out of the garden, he showed them that. He showed
them grace. He showed it to us. Look here,
down at Genesis 3, 24. So he drove out the man, and
he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims and
a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of
the tree of life. Cherubims are angels that represent
Christ's preachers. All through the script, they
represent Christ's preachers that he sent. The flaming sword
represents the gospel of Christ and Him crucified which we preach,
and Christ himself is the tree of life. The apostle and high
priest of our profession gives pastors who feed his church with
the gospel of Christ and crucified. And so Christ, our apostle, works
affectionately in our heart. He gives us faith to submit to
Christ as our high priest who has reconciled us to God, who
intercedes for us, for whose sake we're not consumed because
of his righteousness alone. And so we don't use any other
means but this gospel. You know why? You've discovered
it. You've discovered it. He's shown
it to you by the power of God. He calls us. He corrects us. He keeps us to the end. Just
as real as it was the only one that could have done it for Adam
and Eve. He's the only one that can do it for any of us. Only
Christ. Abraham was saved this way. The
gospel was preached to him. Christ corrected him. Christ
kept him all his days. When David sinned, There was
no way, absolutely no way Nathan would have went to the king and
had the boldness to preach the truth to the king who could have
took his head off, except by Christ, the apostle sent him.
And he went there and he declared to Nathan his sin, and then he
declared the good news to him. He said, your sin is forgiven.
Christ has put away your sin. And then he told him there's
going to be some consequences For your sin, a sword is never
going to leave your house, the child is going to die. And he
left David with Christ, for Christ to take care of the consequences.
And you know what he did for David? Christ used every bit
of it to make David subject himself to Christ and trust Christ all
the more to save him to the end. The consequences are in Christ's
hand, and He's using them to teach you and me we can't be
saved any other way than trusting Christ, our Apostle and our High
Priest. That's the only way. He gives
pastors authority, but He's going to break our hearts so that we
don't want to use that authority unless we absolutely have to. Paul said, the Lord's given us
this authority for edification, not for your destruction. And
if he ever uses his pastor to have to use that authority, he
makes you remember the mercy, the mercy, the mercy God's shown
you from the very beginning right up to this present day, so that
your heart's broken, you see Christ doesn't break the bruised
reed, he doesn't quench the smoking flax, because you know it about
your own self. And so he humbles us to consider
our own selves, lest we be tempted, because if a man think himself
something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. That's what
Christ's going to do before he uses his preacher. This is why Christ, because He's
the Apostle and High Priest, it's why Christ tells you and
me, don't try to separate the wheat and the tares. He said,
you will root up the wheat and you'll leave the tares. He said,
let them grow. He's the Apostle and High Priest. Now brethren, this is the difference
between Christ's church and vain religion. This is the difference. Vain religion, if you've ever
been in it, it's evident. They don't believe Christ is
in their midst. They do not believe Christ is working in power in
his people. They do not preach the gospel
alone. They use every other kind of method and means there is. God's people trust because we've
experienced the power. He's the apostle. He's the high
priest. So we do what Christ taught Ezekiel
in the Valley of Dry Bone. We preach Christ. We pray to
Christ. We wait on Christ. And when he's
worked, we give Christ all the glory. That's what we're going
to do the rest of our days. And when we get to glory, we're
going to give him all the glory for working it beginning to end.
Can you say amen? That's what he does. Father,
we thank you for this word. Thank you, Lord, for assuring
us that you're always working your will and your good pleasure. Lord, our hearts break and we're
sorrowful and we We're in this veil of tears continually. But
Lord, you've given us great reason to rejoice. We see how powerful
you are to save. We've experienced it ourselves,
and this is our hope. This is why we pray to you, Lord,
to keep, to ask you, Lord, to send the
gospel to our loved ones and to lost family and to your lost
sheep wherever they are in this world. This is why we pray for
one another that you keep teaching us. We need you, Lord, as our apostle.
We need you to intercede for us with the Father. We're thankful
that we have the word that you are able to save to the uttermost
them that come to God by you. Lord, make us steadfast to speak
Christ, preach Christ, make us continually cast all our care
on you in prayer with thanksgiving. Give us the patience to wait
on you to not be anxious to know you're at hand. And Lord, we
do. We glorify you and we pray you
make us glorify you even more. Thank you, Lord, that you appointed
your dear son to be our apostle and our high priest. Keep us
until the end, we pray. Amen. All right, Brother Greg.