All right, brother. Now, John
18. John 18. Now, the Spirit of the Lord,
speaking through the apostle Peter, exhorts God's saints to
abstain from fleshly lust at war against the soul. To abstain
from fleshly lust at war against the soul. Lust doesn't only mean
sexual sin. It's any sinful desire. And every
lust that comes from our sin nature, they all come from our
sin nature, and every lust that comes from our sin nature is
sin. The only thing that the lust
of our flesh does is war against our soul. That's all, wars against
our soul. Against the new spirit, the new
heart, the new man, which the Spirit of God has created within
every believer. fleshly lusts at war against
the soul. God's given us a new heart in
regeneration and created a new will in his people and freed
us from our sin nature to believe him. and freed us from being
the servants of sin, and made us servants of righteousness.
He'd given us faith to believe Him, and hearts to want to serve
Him and honor Him, and that's what every one of us, by His
grace, want. We want. We look for the day
when we won't have sin, where we can really, truly worship
and serve our Lord perfectly. And the desire of our new man
is really to do all the things that our Lord Jesus commands
us to do. That's the desire of the heart
God puts in his people. We know all things that the Lord
teaches us are for the good of our soul. They're for the good
of our brethren. They're for the glory of our
Lord. Everything, everything that our Lord has taught us.
And everything Christ commands us in the Word is summed up in
believing and seeking Him preeminently. Everything He teaches us, that's
the sum of it, is to seek Him, believe Him preeminently. He taught us not to be anxious
about things we need in this life, and He said, but seek ye
first. That is preeminently at all times. the kingdom of God and His righteousness. That is, Christ our King and
His righteousness and everything that pertains to Him. And concerning
brethren, His commands are summed up when He said, love one another
as I have loved you. And concerning all men, brethren
and unbelievers alike, Our Lord said, all things whatsoever you
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. Now, the Lord's thoughts are
always on his people. His thoughts are always on his
people. There's never a moment, even when we didn't know him,
there was never a moment his thoughts were not on his people.
And there never is a time in the life of a believer that God
is not thinking upon his people and looking upon his people.
He said in Psalm 139, 17, how precious also are thy thoughts
unto me, O God. How great is the sum of them.
If I should count them, they're more in number than the sand.
When I awake, I'm still with thee. Do you ever feel like that
when you wake up in the morning and the first thought that comes
to you or you start thinking on the Lord and that's what the
Psalm said. When I awake, I'm still with
you. When I was asleep, not thinking on you, you were still thinking
on me. And you kept me. Kept me another night. So he
tells us, because his thoughts are always on us, he tells his
children to set our affection on him preeminently all the time. Colossians 3.1 says, If you then
be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where
Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on
things above, not on things on the earth. And that's what the
Spirit of God does in His people. He makes us mind the things of
the Spirit. We used to just mind carnal things.
We minded our sin and we minded our religious deeds, our touch
not, taste not, handle not. It had a real good show in it,
but it didn't do anything to mortify our flesh. All it did
was puff us up because we thought that was the kingdom of God.
So knowing that the Lord's always looking upon His people, thinking
upon His people, and that He commands us to set our affection
on Him, the subject I wanna preach on is a word to live by, a word
to live by. And here's what I'm getting at. It's wise, I've said this many
times, it's wise to start each day reading a passage of scripture,
even better, a verse. Setting it just one thing, one
thing. Maybe the Lord's giving you some
light on it and it jumps off the page at you. Maybe it doesn't.
Sometimes we're cold. Sometimes things aren't being
blessed to us like they are at other times. But find you one
verse. Maybe you don't have light on
it at the time. Find you one verse. Set your mind to thinking
on that. and ask the Lord to give you
light on it. And when you go through your day, think on it.
I think sometimes we have so many sermons we can listen to,
so many scriptures we read, that we don't just stop and take one
thing. And what does that mean? One
thing. And find you one verse and think
on that as you go through the day. And the Lord usually will
show you and give you some light on it as you go through the day. He said, in all thy ways acknowledge
him and he shall direct thy paths. Our text tonight is just such
a word to live by. This is a good word if we get
the meaning of what he's saying here to have in our heart from
the first hour we wake up to the last hour we go to bed at
night. He said, and after he had went forth from the garden
of Gethsemane and he spoke to them and said, I am, and he manifest,
he's the son of God in power. They fell backwards. After he
did this, he goes forth again, or he speaks again. In verse
eight, Jesus answered and said, I have told you that I am. Now
here's the word to live by. Here's a word to live by or to
remember every day right here. If therefore you seek me, Let
these go their way. He's saying to them, take me
and let these go free. That's substitution. That's substitution. That's the gospel of Christ and
Him crucified by the Lord giving Himself, turning the attention
completely to Himself and giving Himself to these officers who
came to uphold the law. But giving Himself to them in
place of His people, He goes to the cross and through everything
that He bore, He freed His elect people. Because He said, take
me. Now He says to His people, let
these go free. That's the word of our Savior
that He blessed. That's the gospel that He blessed
to His people to free us in the first hour. It's the gospel of
substitution. This is what he blessed to us
to hear. And it's gonna be this gospel
that's gonna keep us remembering Christ and gonna keep us believing
Christ and keep us putting away everything else and loving him
and following him and loving one another. It's gonna be this
gospel whereby he's gonna keep our heart and our minds set upon
him. The one weapon we have against
the lust of our flesh is the word. The scripture says the
sword of the spirit is the word of God. So we take a verse like
this, and we look at it, and get what it means, and think
on it, and set your heart on it, set your affection on Him,
and ask Him to really speak this word into your heart. Now I want
to show you what I mean, and I want to look at this one phrase
as we go through our message tonight. Now why did the Lord
say, if you seek Me, let these go their way? Why did He say
that? Well, one reason is he was the only fit one to go to
the cross. He was the only fit man who could
go to the cross. Concerning all his sheep, all
the elect he came to save, the scripture says, all we, like
sheep, have gone astray. That's so of everybody he came
to save. All we, like sheep, have gone
astray. We looked every one to our own
way. We sinned in Adam and we came
forth corrupted by Adam, wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. But Christ Jesus is not like
us. He's the spotless Lamb of God. He was fit, he was the fit man
that could go forth. Remember the old covenant, the
lamb had to be spotless. It couldn't have any blemish
in it. If they took a lamb and they're gonna put this lamb up
that they're gonna take in, it's gonna die in their place. They
had to examine that lamb completely, thoroughly examine that lamb.
Now if they started at the tip of his nose and they went over
him every inch of this lamb and down his legs and under his belly
and they looked him over completely and there's not a blemished one
and they get to the end of his tail and there's a blemish. A
hair's the wrong color. Can't take that one. We gotta
find one that don't have a blemish in it. And that pictures our
righteous, our sinless Lord Jesus Christ, His sinless humanity. The Son of God, God Himself came
down and took a body prepared for Him. He took a body prepared
for Him. A real man, real flesh and blood. He's not born of Adam like we
are. He was without sin. That's the significance of him
being born of a virgin. He is the woman's seed, not of
a man. He's the incorruptible seed.
He's the holy seed. He's the living word that came
down. He came forth born of a woman
without sin whatsoever and was made under the law. And he was
examined by the law for 33 and a half years. and there was no
blemish in him, not any, not in his nature, not in his thoughts,
not in his words, nothing, not in his deed, nothing. He was
the one fit man who was, could say, take me and let these go
free and go to the cross and do what was required. He's the
only one that could do it. When he went to the guard of
Gethsemane, John doesn't talk about this, but when he went
there, the devil was trying everything he could to get him to sin. Attacking that humanity in our
Savior with everything he had. He'd done it throughout his life.
He'd done it in the wilderness. He's doing it again. And our
Lord Jesus resisted sin unto blood. He sweat as it was great
drops of blood. Then he went to the cross. and
he resisted sin unto blood. He had to be spotless. He had
to be sinless. He had to be perfect to accomplish
redemption. And he resisted sin unto blood. Unto blood. Now, we start going
through our day and something happens throughout the course
of the day and we start wanting to feel a little bit more exalted
over somebody, a little bit more accomplished than somebody, a
little bit better than somebody. Scripture calls it thinking ourselves
something when we're nothing. He'll take a word like this.
If we're really setting our affection on him and just got one word
like this and really think on it as we're going through the
day and we face something like that, So many times the Lord
will take a word like this and he'll bring it to your remembrance. How that the Son of God, God
humbled himself and took on him the form of a servant and was
obedient to the Father unto death, even the death of the cross. That's true humility. That's
perfect humility. And he came here and he said,
take me and let my people go. Let them go. Anytime we're going
through the day, we begin to thank ourselves to have overcome
our sin. And the lust of pride comes upon
us. We start thinking we've accomplished
something. Or we start thinking lightly
of our sin because our sin's just in thought. Well, that's
just in my thought. I didn't do it. As far as guilt
goes, you're guilty just in thought. Or we become weary and we become
faint in our minds because we're opposed by sinners. And our Lord strengthens us,
and He turns us to Christ to remember He's the sinless, perfect,
spotless Lamb of God who resisted unto blood, and He speaks a word
in your heart. This is just what the Hebrew
writer was telling the Hebrews to do. What I'm saying here about
consider Christ. And when I say look for a word,
look for something particularly that points you to Christ and
the substitution He's accomplished, the redemption He's accomplished
for you. and really think about it. And this is what the Hebrew
writer said. He told us to run this race,
look into Christ, and he said this, consider him that endured
such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be
wearied and faint in your minds, you've not yet resisted unto
blood. Striving against sin. If we really
want to think, oh, I'm really striving against sin, have you
ever busted out bleeding yet, striving against sin? Have your
capillaries ever busted, striving against sin? He did. That'll humble you on it, but
that'll also comfort you to know because he did that, he says
to his people, he said, take me and let them go free. Why
did the Lord say this? Well, he alone, by himself must
be made sin and made a curse for his people that he might
eternally let us go free. He had to do this and suffer
alone. He had to drink this bitter brook,
this bitter cup all by himself that he might set us free. We
saw this brook Kidron and how it typified our Lord Jesus last
time. Back there in verse one, he went
forth with his disciples over the brook Kidron. And I tried
to remind you how that when David was being persecuted and betrayed
and he crossed the brook, he crossed this brook, he went up
the Mount of Olives and all the people went with him, just like
Christ had all his people in him when he crossed over this
brook. But as I read Psalm 110 to you, do you see this is the
fulfillment of Psalm 110, verse seven. It said, he shall drink
of the brook in the way. Now really think about what that
means. I'm talking about dial it in
here now and think about really what this means. Go through your
day with it. The metaphor is not of our substitute
drinking from a clear, refreshing spring. That's not it. It's the Black Brook. It's the
sewer ditch. The metaphor that's given here
is to picture what Christ willingly actually was made and what he
bore on behalf of his people. The sin and the curse, the wrath
of God that he bore for his people. Now you just stop for a minute.
This is exactly what that metaphor is teaching us. As sickening
as it would be for you or me to stoop down and take a drink
out of that sewer ditch. Could you just turn yet to think
about it? Well, it was unimaginably worse
to our sinless savior to be made sin and to be made a curse in
place of his people. Unimaginably worse than if you
drank from a sewer ditch. concerning the great innumerable
multitude of his elect. This great innumerable multitude
of his people. It says, all we like sheep have
gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. And the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. Not one transgression left out. That's what he was facing. That's
what he was going to bear. He hath made him sin for us. Really get that. He hath made
him sin for us who knew no sin. that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. And then with the sin of His
people on Him, now just like the lamb had the sin put on it,
now it's fit to be cursed. And then our Lord suffered the
fierceness of God's wrath. He hath redeemed us from the
curse, being made a curse for us. being made a curse for us. Being our sin bearer and facing
that, that's another reason in that garden why He sweat great
drops of blood. He said, Father, fill me possible.
Let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will,
but as Thou wilt. But now, in our text, he's come
forth, and he's gone to those that came to arrest him. And
this bitter cup, this bitter cup that the Father has given
him, he goes forth now as the substitute, willingly, and he
drank this cup. Peter pulled the sword out. We'll
look at this another time. He pulled the sword out, cut
off the man's ear, and verse 11, the Lord then said, Jesus
unto Peter, put up thy sword into the sheath. The cup which
my father hath given me, shall I not drink it? Scripture talks
about the cup of God's wrath. It talks about the cup of God's
fury. It talks about the cup of trembling.
And now listen, that's the judgment of God that every single sinner
that ever lived on this earth will have poured out on them. Every one of us. Not a one of
us won't have that judgment poured out on us. Not a one of us will
not drink of that bitter cup. Everybody that sins will drink
it. The good news is for an elect
multitude, our Lord Jesus Christ said, take me. And he drank that bitter cup.
that he might give to you and me the cup, the sweet cup of
salvation. And he had to do that all alone.
God has to get all the glory, and he did it all alone. We did
not do one thing. He did it all. He tread the winepress
alone. And of the people, there was
none with me, he said. Now, as we're going through our
day and we're thinking on a verse like this, and we face some cross,
Something that's painful. And it's just the lust of our
flesh to draw back from it. We don't want to bear it. Spirit of God sets our affection
on Christ to behold him drink that bitter cup. If you've got
a verse like this in your heart, and you're really thinking on
it, and you face something that's just painful, and your lust of
your flesh would be to draw back from it, and the Spirit blesses
it to your heart, and you remember, He drank that bitter cup. He bore the cross for me, and
said, now, let him go free. He brings us to say, concerning
our light affliction, When you're in that situation, whatever it
is, no matter how bad it is to us, it's light. And by him showing
us a word like this and really speaking it to our heart, rather
than complaining and murmuring and whatever, he brings us to
say, the cup that my father has given me, shall I not drink it? Can I not bear this? He drank the bitter cup His Father
gave Him. And He's not giving us that cup.
He's giving us the cup of salvation. Whatever we face is light compared
to that cup He bore. And it's for our good and it's
to teach us. Now do you remember what Psalm 110.7 says after it's
said, He shall drink of the brook in the way? It says, he shall
drink of the brook in the way, therefore shall he lift up the
head. Now he drank it, and because
of what he accomplished, he lifted his head up. When he was suffering,
he couldn't lift his eyes to heaven. You remember that? But
when he finished it, he lifted his head up. He arose and sat
down at God's right hand. And because he accomplished that,
when he brings us to a situation like that, he's going to lift
your head up. You that are his. He's going to lift your head
up. The psalmist said, thou, O Lord, art shield for me. You're
my glory and the lifter up of my head. David experienced this
power of our Lord. He experienced it over and over
and over, the Lord blessing his word to his heart. When a day
brings trouble, it might be the enemy of our own flesh, the lust
of our flesh, as I've been trying to show you. It might be the
devil's accusations. It might be some enemy rises
up from without at your workplace or in your community or wherever. and the lust of our flesh being
to save ourselves. But David said in Psalm 27.5,
he said, in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion. In the secret of his tabernacle
shall he hide me. He shall set me upon a rock. And now shall mine head be lifted
up above mine enemies round about me. How does He do all that? How does He put you in a pavilion?
How does He become a shield to you? How does He set you on a
rock? How does He lift your head up? His Word. Nobody sees it. Nobody knows
what's going on. It's in your heart. It's between
you and Him. And He reminds you of His substitution
in your room instead, in the place of His people, and what
He accomplished by it. And He lifts your head up. He
lifts your head up. He puts you in the pavilion.
He sets you on the rock. This is entirely in your spirit. This is entirely the Word that
He works in you. And the result was, David said,
therefore will I offer in His tabernacle sacrifices of joy. I will sing, yea, I will sing
praises unto the Lord. Now here's the good news of it
all. This is how He lifts our head
and strengthens us. This is what our Lord accomplished
by His death as our substitute. He said, it's me you seek. Take
me and let these go their way. Our substitute declared God was
absolutely just. What He accomplished, He declared
God's absolutely just. There's no wavering in the justice
of God. There's no wavering in the righteousness
of God whatsoever. He satisfied justice for each
and every one of His elect by His death on the cross in our
place. And by that, He hath redeemed us from the curse being made
a curse for us. because he's eternal God in human
flesh. You remember how when they brought
the sacrifice to the altar, it was the altar that sanctified
the sacrifice. The sacrifice was his humanity
and he offered that upon the altar of his deity so that what
he accomplished in his humanity and his manhood is eternal because
he's also God. He hath obtained eternal redemption
for us. There's only one judgment sinners
have to face, just one. I said God's gonna pour out this,
make every single soul that sins drink this bitter cup. There's
only one judgment, just one. And because Christ came forth,
it says now once, there's just one judgment, now once He went
to the cross, one time, and on behalf of His people, He drank
that cup dry. He drank of that rook. Made sin
for it. Made a curse for it. He drank
it. He bore that wrath. And once now, in the end of the
world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself. He put it away. He put it away. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.
And by this finished work our substitute made each of his people
righteous." Better than that. Better than that. Can it be better than righteous?
Yeah. You could be right in this world.
He made his people the righteousness of God in him. The righteousness of God in him. He crushed the devil's head.
He took his power to accuse away from him by making his people
righteous. Our body of sin was crucified
with him and now we live with him. And His Spirit abides, Christ
abides in each one of His regenerated children. We are not in the flesh,
but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of Christ dwells in you. And
that will never be undone. Nothing undoes that. You're not
in the flesh, you're in the Spirit. In the Spirit. And therefore,
when He makes you know this, And He teaches you this, and
He brings you to behold Him by faith. He makes you to know that
for each and every one for whom He died, now mercy cries out. Mercy cries out. Mercy has a
demand. Mercy cries out. But mercy doesn't
cry out alone. Justice cries out in perfect
harmony with mercy. It says, let these go free. Let
Him go free. Why? Because he said, take me.
Let him go free. Isn't that good news? Payment
God cannot twice demand. First at my bleeding shirt, his
hand, and then again at mine. And thus saith thy Lord, thee
Lord, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people. Behold, I've taken out of thine
hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury. Thou shalt no more drink it again. Or as Paul put it in Romans 8,
there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
Not any. When we're accused, and you're
accused, and you're accused, Remember this, and the Lord will
make you, he'll speak this to you and this will be some comfort
to you when you're cued. By those officers. coming there
and Christ going to meet them and saying, it's me you seek,
take me. Let these go free, let these
go their way. By doing that, those officers
turned their attention completely away from the apostles and it
was all on Christ, every bit of it. And so they went away
free. They went their way. Christ stepped into the ground.
He turned the accuser away from his people to him. And by making
you know that, and speaking this into your heart, when you're
being accused, he makes you thankful. How? Because when your accusers
are accusing you, the focus is on you, and they're not accusing
those you love. They're accusing you. They've
turned their focus from those you love to you. And Christ makes
you say, I can bear that. I can bear that. That's what
He did for me. When we're offended in the lust
of our flesh, it is that we just don't want to forgive. When that
bitter lust of our flesh is worn against our own soul, it may
hurt those we love. but it's hurting us worse. It's
hurting you worse. It's warring against your soul.
The Lord Jesus comes, and our Savior speaks in our hearts,
and our God says, my son willingly drank the bitter cup. I've taken
it out of your hand for that reason. You'll no more drink
it again. Your sin and your iniquity, I
will remember no more. seeing that I have forgiven you
for the sake of my Son. You forgive for the sake of my
Son. How many times, Lord? How many
times have I forgiven you? How many? Or the next time the lust of
our flesh is to say this, you know, have you ever said this?
Well, I've done enough. I've done this. I've done that.
I've done that. I've done enough. Let these others finish it up.
Let them do the rest. I've done enough. Look at everything I've brought
to the table. Let the others finish. Let the
others do the rest of it. The Spirit brings to our remembrance,
our substitute, having loved his own which were in the world,
love them until the end." To that point where he said, it
is finished. Just think about it, what he's
facing. If you were drinking, about to be made to drink of
a sewer pit, would your mind be on your brethren?
Would you be saying, take me and let them go free? That's
what he did. And he did it till it was finished.
He did it till it was finished. And that'll make you say, I believe
I'll go on and do a little more. I believe I'll go on and help
out a little more. If we behold someone else's sin,
and the lust of our flesh to say, Lord, I thank you I'm not
like other men are. Now we wouldn't probably say
it that way, but we say it in a lot of ways. Or when we sin, when we just
flat out sin and fail. He keeps blessing His Word. He
keeps us coming to His throne of grace to confess our sin to
Him. He keeps you crying out, but
showing you what He's done and showing you that I bore that
sin for you. You were This is what you deserve. He became the least, you deserve
to be the least, nothing. This is what I bore for you,
the sin I bore for you. And he shows you that again. And it brings you to cry out
in bitterness for him and say, Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. Just like you did as new as you
did at the first hour, Lord have mercy on me, the sinner. And he shows you again, just
as new as he did the first hour, that he is a merciful high priest
and a faithful high priest. And just to forgive you, and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness,
to wash your feet. Showing you all over again, I'm
your advocate. Yes, I will, Lord God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. Be propitious to me. I will,
because I'm your propitiation. I'm your advocate with the Father.
And he washes your feet. makes you hate what you did,
makes you hate what you are, and makes you come out of that
wanting to serve Him so much more with such a firmer conviction
than you had before. Don't you wish you could keep
it, and it would just stay that solid, firm, faithful conviction? Because it also makes you very,
very, very compassionate. A little while. We'll have to
go through it again. But He just keeps on. He keeps
on. He keeps on showing you He's faithful and He's merciful to
you. And He's just. Somebody might say, I'm going
to do this. I'm going to take a scripture with me through the
day the rest of the year. I'm going to do this the rest
of the year. Or I'm going to take a scripture and all next
year I'm going to do this. Or all next month I'm going to
do this. We're always biting off too much than we can chew. The Lord said, we need grace
today. Just today. He said, take no
thought for tomorrow. Tomorrow take thought for the
things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the
evil thereof. You need grace today. We need to be brought to set
our heart on this word and just take a little phrase that shows
us Christ. Start looking to Christ. This
is the engine that powers the car, the gospel is. You can go
to the letter and just obey it in the letter, that's what carnal
men do. If you want the spirit, go to where it shows you what
Christ has done for you and finds you a verse and hone in on that
and think about what he's done for you. And ask him, Lord, would you
just give me this day my daily bread, just today? Lord, just
from right now when I woke up to noon, would you help me just
think on you and keep this fresh in my heart? And then when noon
gets here, Lord, will you just help me from now till bedtime?
And I'm serious. Something simple that points
you to Christ. Then maybe when that boss says,
you know, this coworker over here is in the weeds. Can you
take their work and do it for them and free them up? Whereas you might be prone to
say, I did all this. I don't want to go have to do
his work, too. Instead, you say, that's exactly what my Savior
did for me. I'll be happy. I'll be happy
to do it. I'll take that burden off of
him. Take me. Let these go free. And as long as we're in this
world for His people, no matter how you fall, no matter how you
fail, no matter how you're persecuted, no matter how, whatever you face
in this afflictive circumstances in this world, this is what our
Lord promises He's going to keep doing in the heart of His people.
Because this is how He's going to keep you, trusting Him. and
walking after Him and growing in His grace. And this is what
He's going to make you do. He's going to make you keep worshipping
Him from the heart. The psalmist said, Bless the
Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. That's what
I'm saying. That's what the Scriptures are teaching us. We just go through
the day. We listen to all these sermons
and we read all these big long passages of Scripture and we
don't just hone in on the benefits. He said, forget not all his benefits,
who forgiveth, ongoing, E.T.A., forgiveth all thine iniquities,
who healeth, ongoing, all thy diseases, who redeemeth, ongoing,
thy life from destruction, constantly, who crowneth thee with loving
kindness, and tender mercies, because you need them every day,
who satisfyeth your mouth with good things, keeps giving you
the bread, keeps bringing these words to your heart, you keep
feeding on it. You know what the result is? Just what I'm
saying. So that thy youth is renewed like the eagles. That's
every day. That's sometimes multiple times
in an hour that we need Him to do that for us. That's a word to live by. Find
you a word to live by and ask God to bless it to you
just today. Amen. All right, Brother Greg. you.