Thank you, Kevin. Alright, let's
turn to Psalm 19. Psalm 19. Let's begin reading
in verse 1. We'll just read six verses here.
The heavens declare the glory of God. The heavens declare,
they declare the glory of God. And the firmament showeth his
handiwork, the work of his hands. Day unto day uttereth speech,
and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech
nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone
out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the
world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the Son, which is as a bridegroom
coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to
run a race. His going forth is from the end
of the heaven and his circuit unto the ends of it, and there
is nothing hid from the heat thereof." Now when we went through
this psalm before, we saw that the glory of God and His works
are shown just literally in His creation so that it leaves men
without excuse. That's what Romans tells us. It leaves men without excuse.
But in these first six verses, there's a whole lot more to this
than just looking at His glory in nature. God's natural creation, it declares
God's glory. and the work of His hands in
Christ Jesus, His Son. In this text, that's what we
see here. That's what it's used as a picture. It's used as a
picture. All things that God made were
created for one purpose, to glorify His Son. Everything that's made. Listen to the Scripture. By Him,
that is, it was given into Christ's hands to do it. And by Him were
all things created. that are in heaven and that are
in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions,
principalities or powers, all things were created by Him and
for Him, for Him, to glorify Him. Listen, He's before all
things, and by Him all things consist, and He is the head of
the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence.
Now that's why they're created, that first and foremost, pre-eminently,
that Christ might be glorified. Alright, let's see it. First
of all, the Holy Spirit here, speaking of the Son rising, shows
us a picture of the rising of Christ Jesus from the grave. From the grave. Listen to verse
4, the end of verse 4 says, the Son, verse 5 says, which is as
a bridegroom coming out of his chamber. The son is a picture
of Christ. Turn over to Malachi 4. It's
the last book before Matthew, so you can just find Matthew
and look at the book right before it. Malachi chapter 4, look at
verse 2. Unto you that fear my name shall
the son of righteousness arise with healing in his wings, and
you shall go forth and grow up as calves of the stall. The Son
of Righteousness is the Lord Jesus Christ who heals His people
of our sins. Look at Matthew 17 while you're
there. I want you to see the glory of
the morning sun. When the sun comes up in the
morning, the glory of that sun shows Christ's resurrection glory. You remember the Mount of Transfiguration?
He took Peter up there and when he was on the Mount of Transfiguration,
they saw His glory. They saw His glory. And look
how the glory of Christ is described. Matthew 17, 2 says, "...He was
transfigured before them, and His face did shine as the sun,
and His raiment was white as the light." So, this sun arising
is a picture of Christ, the Son of Righteousness, arising in
His resurrection glory, shining in all His glory. Now, our text
says the Son is as a bridegroom coming out of His chamber. A
bridegroom coming out of His chamber. Christ is the bridegroom. He is the bridegroom of His bride. Did you know Christ has a bride?
Christ has a bride and He is the bridegroom of His bride. Ephesians 5.25 says, Husbands,
love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave
Himself for it. We're one with Christ. We're
one with Christ. He says later in that chapter,
that's the reason God ordained from the beginning for a man
to leave his father and mother and be joined unto his wife because
it's a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and His bride. That's
why. That's exactly why. Now, it says
the chamber. It says the bridegroom. The sun
when it rises is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and
it pictures Christ, the bridegroom, rising out of his chamber. The
chamber is the room where all the preparations are made before
the wedding comes to pass. But now think about this, aren't
we used to, wouldn't we think that the The bride would be the
one in the chamber. The bride is the one, you know,
who she goes in the chamber, and the bridegroom don't see
her, and he waits, you know, and then she comes out of the
chamber, and the music plays, and everybody looks at the bride,
and she's so beautiful, and he just, oh, look at my bride. But
see, in grace, in grace, in God's dealings with His people, the
bride in herself is a harlot. She's a harlot. She's polluted. She's defiled. She's a harlot. That's all she is. And so in
order for her to be prepared to come out of the chamber in
all her beauty, Christ had to come to where we are. And He
had to come into the chamber and He had to make all the preparations
himself. And so Christ, Jesus the Lord,
came to where we are and He's in the chamber. He was in the
chamber in this earth representing His bride. And everything Christ
was doing was He was giving Himself for His bride. He was cleaning
His bride. He was washing His bride. He
was perfuming His bride with His ointments. He was robing
His bride in the snow white wedding dress of His righteousness. That's
what Christ was doing when He walked this earth, when He was
in His chamber upon this earth. And He was doing it that He might
present His bride to Himself without spot and without blemish. Holy, perfect, righteous. That's what He was doing. And
so while Christ was in His chamber, while He walked this earth, this
whole earth and everything around Him was darkness the whole time
He was here. Remember He said, I'm the light.
This place is darkness. I'm the light. He is the day
star that visited us. He is the light shining in a
dark place. The whole time He was in this
dark chamber. And when the sun goes down, we
watch the sun go down. The sun goes down and the sun
is in its chamber. That's the picture that's painted
here. The sun's in its chamber when it goes down and everything's
dark. And so finally at the end as Christ works these works,
He goes to the cross. And on the cross of Calvary,
there's where the work is finished. There the Lord Jesus Christ takes
the place of His people. He takes the sin of His people.
He takes the judgment of His people. He takes the wrath of
God for His people. He takes everything His people
deserve. Everything His bride deserves.
And you know when He was on that cross, you know what happened?
The sun refused to shine. It was darkness all around. And
at last He cried out, it's finished. And He retired to His dark chamber
in His body in that tomb. And went to that chamber. But
you know when the new day comes, the sun goes down into His chamber
and it's dark. But when the morning comes, a
new day comes, and the sun begins to come out of His chamber. And
when the Son begins to come out of His chamber, He comes out
of that chamber like a bridegroom in all His glory. And three days
after our Lord Jesus laid down His life, He came out of His
chamber. The Son of Righteousness began
to arise. And then a little while later,
He began to ascend to the Lord in all His resurrection glory,
all of His glory. And you know what that is? That's
Him arising out of His chamber. A bridegroom, adorned, glorious,
and all just beautiful. You know what that is? That's
His bride coming out of the chamber. In Him. And that's Her coming
out in all His glory, in everything He accomplished for Her. There
She comes, out of the chamber. And that's when He went to the
Father and He presented Himself to the Father in all His glory,
in all His perfection, in all His righteousness, in all His
holiness. That is Him presenting His Bride to Himself. when He presented Himself to
the Father. He's presenting His bride to Himself. Glorious. Beautiful. Because His glory
is our glory. His beauty is our beauty. Everything
He did, He did for His bride. And so, you know what the Scripture
tells us? Wherefore, my brethren, wherefore, my brethren, you are
become dead to the law by the body of Christ. That you should
be married to another. even to him who is raised from
the dead that you should bring forth fruit under God. Now we're
married to Christ. Now we can actually have some
children because we have a fertile husband and we're his bride and
we can have children and we can bring forth some fruit. I want
every believer here to get this. I want you to get this down in
your heart and understand this. You wake up in the morning And
I know how this is. You wake up in the morning, and
you're out the door, and you're going to work, and you got a
thousand, a thousand troubles running through your head. A
thousand cares running through your head. And they're legitimate
cares. They're the cares for those you love. They're the cares
for those that you're responsible for. They're the cares for those
you have influence over. and you have all this troubled
heart and over all this heavy weight that you have upon you,
when you head off and you're driving and you're thinking those
things and you begin to see that sun peeking up over the horizon,
you just remember, the Son of Righteousness has arisen. And
when He arose, I arose in Him. And when He arose in all His
glory and there He sits with the Father, there I sit with
the Father in all His glory. There I am, risen with Him. And
there He is, ever living, to make intercession for me. There
He is, to come forth as a bridegroom, as a bridegroom. Now, that will
put a stride in your step. That will make those troubles
not seem as big a trouble. The trouble might still be there,
but He puts the comfort in the heart. When those rays come forth
from that sun and they shine on you, they begin to warm you
and they begin to make you comfortable, in this cold world. That's what
He does through this Word. He begins to shine into your
heart and comfort you in your heart. Alright, there's the first
thing we see. We see Him rising in His glory.
Here's the second thing we see. We see what God the Father gave
to His Son. Look here in verse 4. It says,
In them... See the second part of verse
4 there? It says, In them... He's talking about the heaven
and the firmament. He says, "...in them God the
Father hath set a tabernacle for the sun." He set a tabernacle
for the sun. Now, the literal picture is,
God stretched out the heavens as a tabernacle, as a curtain,
as a tent. And He made a tabernacle for
the sun in the sky to dwell in. The house for the sun. But the
spiritual picture here, brethren, is when Christ the Lord, the
Son of God, finished the work of redemption, God the Father
set a tabernacle for the Son of Righteousness, for the Lord
Jesus. Turn to Hebrews 8. What is this tabernacle? Turn
to Hebrews chapter 8. We have limited understanding,
so we're going to have to describe them using two different terms.
But this is really just one tabernacle. It's just one tabernacle. Let
me show you here. Hebrews 8, 1. Of the things which
we've spoken, this is the psalm. We have such a high priest who
set, he set, God set a tabernacle for the Son. He set on the right
hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens a minister of
the sanctuary. That word sanctuary is like the
word tabernacle. He's a minister of the sanctuary
and, but there's something else listed here, and of the true
tabernacle. which the Lord pitched and not
man. So we got a sanctuary and a tabernacle listed here. What
are these? They're really just one tabernacle
because they're one. This first, this sanctuary, that
means a holy place. He's the minister of the holiest
of holies. Whenever he finished the work,
God the Father raised him to his right hand in the very presence
of God. And that's where he sits, on
his throne, in the presence of God, with all power, working
all things. good, bad, ugly, and otherwise
in this world, He's working them together for the good of His
people on purpose because He purposed it from the foundation
of the world. That's what Christ is doing with all power in heaven
and earth. And then this word, the true
tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man, that's His people. That's His church. That's every
individual believer in particular in whom He dwells. It's His tabernacle. It's His church. In them hath
God set a tabernacle for the Son. This is what He promised
the Son. When He finished the work, He promised to raise Him
and He would have His people. And this is the tabernacle in
which He dwells. You remember Thursday night I
told you about the ark when the Philistines had it? And they
didn't want it to be in their presence anymore. That ark represents
Christ, and they wanted to send it to its place. And so they
were told, you take these two kine, these two buffalo, and
you attach them to a cart, and you put the ark on that cart,
and you just let them go. And wherever they go, they're
going to go to the place of the ark. That's where they're going.
And the first place they went, they went straight as an arrow. They went to the place of the
ark. They went to his place. They went to Beth Shammah. That's
where they went. And you know what that word means?
Beth means house. Shammah means for the sun. They
went to the house that God made for the sun. That's where they
went. And so, whenever the Lord raised Christ, Christ went to
the house made for the sun. Brethren, you know what we are?
We're the house of the risen Son. That's what we are. That's
what the Church of God is, the house of the risen Son, the tabernacle
of God. Now, that's how real our union
is with Christ. That's how the Scriptures portrays
our union with Christ. Recluse 3 says you're dead, you're
seated with God at the right hand of God in Christ the Lord.
And yet at the same time it says, of all you that have been born
of God, it says Christ dwells in you and you dwell in God.
At the same time. We are there with Him and He
is here in us at the same time. We are talking eternal spiritual
things. We are not talking these little
temporary, physical, carnal, weak, dumb things. We are talking
about spiritual, heavenly, powerful things here. Things that we can't
even get our little puny minds around. We're in glory with Him,
and yet He's in us right now. So when we lay off these bodies
at death, we're not passing away. We really ought not say that
about foe. He passed away. We're not passing away. This
earth and everything carnal is passing away. We have eternal
life. It's just that simple. So don't
miss this. God's giving you a reminder.
Every day of this, believer, when the sun comes up in the
morning, God's reminding you. There you sit with God at His
right hand. And when you feel that sun on
your skin, He's reminding you, and He's dwelling in you. He's
dwelling in you. Here, look at this next thing.
Thirdly, we see what Christ is doing now. Here we see what Christ
is doing right now. Look at verse 5, Psalm 19, 5. He says He has a bridegroom that's
come out of His chamber, and He rejoices as a strong man to
run a race. in the morning when the sun rises,
it comes forth a strong, unstoppable, like a strong, unstoppable man,
ready to run a race. And here's its race, here's its
course. Verse 6 says, His going forth is from the end of the
heaven and His circuit unto the ends of it. And there's nothing
hid from the heat thereof. You see the sun come up in the
east, it comes up and it makes its circuit. And it goes all
the way to the other end of the earth. And it does it every day.
Faithful, unstoppable, every day it does it. So it is with
our risen King and Savior. Our Lord shines forth. He arose
to shine forth in glory that He might be the salvation and
comfort of all His people. He arose that He might shine
forth and fill all in all His people, giving us life and faith
and all things that pertain to God. That's why He arose. That's
His glory. That was given to Him of the
Father to do this in this gospel age. Now, our risen Lord Jesus
Christ is the strong man that's rejoicing to run a race. He has
something to do. And He's doing it right now in
this gospel dispensation. And He rejoices to do it. And
we rejoice in Him, don't we? You know why? He's the strong
man. You think about it. Do you think anybody, there's
any man anywhere that could stop the sun from coming up in the
morning? Or stop it from running its course? There's nobody that
can do that. He gives the power the sun has
to the sun. We're talking about one stronger
than the sun in the sky. We're talking about the one the
sun in the sky gets its light from. We're talking about Christ.
You could sooner stop that sun in the sky from running its circuit
than you could stop the Lord Jesus Christ from working His
will in this earth. That's just so. That's just true.
As He didn't fail when He went to the cross and He set judgment
in the earth on the cross, He shall not fail till He has set
judgment in the hearts of all His redeemed. He won't fail to
do that. Look here. The tabernacle that
Christ dwells in, I want you to make sure you understand this.
The tabernacle Christ dwells in is His people, His church,
in this earth right now, you and me who are born of Him. And
just as unstoppable as that morning sun is, Christ right now is running
the circuit, His course, in His people, in this earth. And He's
using us to speak. And I was trying to think, how
could I illustrate this? I was thinking a minute ago. And it's
sort of like this for a believer. When you open your mouth to speak
the gospel to somebody, He's like a giant ray of sunshine
coming out of your mouth, coming from the Son of Righteousness. And all the power and all the
strength is His. That tells us, brethren, if He's
got a place He's going to have you to preach the gospel, you're
going to end up in that place. And nobody's going to stop you
from being there. Nobody's going to stop you. And we don't let
that hinder us. We don't, you know, we're accused
of, oh, you people, y'all just, y'all don't do anything for the
cause of Christ because you believe God's sovereign. No, that don't
stop us. That don't make us sit on our hands. That gives me the
encouragement to go drive to Philadelphia and get on an airplane
and fly somewhere and go there and preach the gospel and get
on a plane and come back and get snowed in and have to stay
somewhere and be all inconvenient. Because I know, all along the
way, God's just opening the door for me to just shine some light
the whole way. The whole way. And that's what
He's doing. And it's through His light from
one end of heaven to the other as He sends His people into all
the earth. He's shining His light in every
place in this earth just like that sun is shining His light
everywhere on this earth. That's what He's doing. Now look,
here's what He does. Look at Isaiah 60. Isaiah 60. Here's what He does.
Isaiah 60 verse 1. Arise, shine. You know, I read
that and I thought, we get everything from the Scriptures. Arise and
shine. Where did that come from? Right
here. Right here. Arise, shine, for thy light is
come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For behold,
the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the
people. But the Lord shall arise upon
thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee. You remember
when they were in Egypt and God made everything to be total darkness
in Egypt. And the Egyptians couldn't see.
They groped about in the darkness. They could not see for anything. But the children of Israel had
light the whole time. They had light. That's what He's
saying here. Your light's coming. While they're in darkness, you're
going to have light. Now look, what's going to be the result
of this? That Christ's going to work in His people. Verse
3. The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness
of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about
and see. All they gather themselves together,
they come to thee. Thy son shall come from far,
and thy daughter shall be nursed at thy side. You see, believers
are a new creation. God made a creation in the beginning
of the world. Believers are a new creation. God made the heavens
and the firmament in the beginning of the world. Believers are the
new heavens and the new firmament. And you know what God put in
the new heavens and the new firmament when He made it? When He made
it, the first one, it says God made two great lights, the greater
light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night.
And He made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament
of the heaven to give light upon the earth and to rule over the
day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness.
And God saw that it was good. Believers get all our light from
Christ, just like the moon and the stars get all their light
from the sun. We get our light from Christ.
And Christ is the great light that rules the day. He rules
the day all the time, every day. He's ruling the day. And His
people are the light that He's given to shine in this dark night
we call this earth. That's what He's done for His
people. And by His light, Christ Himself separates the light from
the darkness. He separates them. This is what
He does. And His light, His heat, that
is the truth of the gospel which we preach. Listen to this psalm
in Psalm 43. Send out thy light and thy truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring
me unto thy holy hill and to thy tabernacles. When you're
in darkness, what do you need to walk? You need light. You
can't walk in darkness if you don't have some light. Christ
is the light of His people. He comes and shines and we have
light. The light that shines, the light
that guides us is His Word. Look here. Notice in the Psalm
how the text goes from speaking of the heat of the sun's light
to speaking of the Word of the Lord. It's showing us here the
heat is the Word. Look, verse 6 says, There's nothing
hid from the heat thereof. Talking about the sun. There's
nothing hid from the heat of the sun, the Lord Jesus Christ. The law of the Lord is perfect
converting the soul. That heat is the Word. Just like
the sun's rays come down and there's nothing hid from the
rays of it, there's nothing hid from the Word of God. Nothing.
So as Christ dwells in His church, His word, His light, His heat
goes forth through the gospel that He gives us to preach. And
what does He do through it? What does He do through it? Well,
He's going to make all hear His gospel. Everybody's going to
hear His gospel. The heavens and the firmament
are a type of His people. And they're a type of the gospel
that we preach. And because this is why, this
is why that's a type of us. What do all God's true people
declare? Look at what the Lord says here.
The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows
the works of His hands. And that's what we declare. That's
what we declare. That's what we show. The glory
of God, the excellency of God, His faithfulness, His mercy,
His justice, His judgment, His longsuffering, His goodness.
We declare the glory that belongs to God and God alone. And we
declare the works of His hands, what He's accomplished in the
redemption of a chosen people by His Son, and what He accomplishes
in calling us out and separating us out of darkness, and what
He accomplishes in keeping us until He brings us home with
Him. This is what we declare. And I want to show you something
now. We look at 2 Corinthians 4. Here's why we preach this. 2
Corinthians 4. We declare the work of His hand.
The only time we talk about works of men is to do this, is to say
that your works and my works outside of Christ are vanity
and corrupt and don't accomplish anything. Or to tell believers
as you're preaching this gospel, adorn the doctrine of Christ
so that men won't be looking at you and charging you, but
they'll hear the gospel. That's the only thing we say
about the works of men. It's all so Christ can have the
glory. But look here. For we preach not ourselves,
2 Corinthians 4-5, but we preach Christ Jesus the Lord. What else
you got? Nothing. You know, man, I say,
when are you going to get around to preaching something else?
I'm not a hope if the Lord keeps me. Look, and ourselves your
servants for Jesus' sake. For God commanded the light to
shine out of darkness. He sent somebody to us some vessel
of mercy, one of His tabernacles, with the heat of His Word, and
as they opened their mouth, a beam of sun came out, and it hit us
right in our heart. And you look what He did. He
shined light out of darkness. And He shined in our hearts to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. Now He's sending us forth, but
we have this treasure in an earthen vessel, that the excellency of
the power may be of God and not of us. So, He's sending us forth. Everyone everywhere hears the
word of the heavens and the firmament. There's nobody in this world
that doesn't hear and see the glory of the sun in the sky and
all the stars in the moon and all that. Everybody sees it and
everybody feels the heat of the sun. You're either close to it
and you feel the heat of it really heavily or you're further away
from it and you feel the lack of the heat of it. But you feel
the result of that sun wherever you are on this planet. And that's
true of His Word. Look here. Look at this, verse
3. There's no speech nor language
where their voice is not heard. Now you mark these words right
here. Listen to this. Their line is gone out through all the earth.
Their line is going out through all the earth and their words
to the end of the world. He's talking about the firmament
and the heaven. I just so showed you that's a picture of believers
preaching the gospel. Now turn to Romans 10 and I'm
going to show you that's exactly what Paul said it pictured too.
You know, say, well, you over-spiritualized the Scripture. No, carnal men
carnalize the Scripture. The Scripture is spiritual. The
Scripture speaks of Christ, and you've got to worship Christ
in spirit and truth. And we have some discernment here, and we
can see what's all this mean over there. Here's what it means.
Their line went out into all the earth, the words to the end
of the world. Paul is here preaching, telling of the necessity of the
gospel going into all the world by his preachers. In verse 18
he says, But I say, have they not heard? Yes, verily, their
sound went into all the earth, and their words into the ends
of the world. That's our text. That's what he's preaching from
our text. So he's saying that firmament in that heaven and
their words going forth, their glory going forth like you see
in the sky and all the things. That's a picture of God's preachers
and his word going forth and everybody's hearing it. Everybody.
All his witnesses are like the sun and the stars and the moon.
That's what he calls his preachers stars in the scriptures. The
stars, they declare in all the earth God's glory in the work
of redemption. That's what we declare. And so
when you stand out there next time and you're looking up and
you're admiring the sun and the stars and the moon, just think
on this. God's Word won't return to Him
void. Everybody on this earth has seen that right there. And
He's going to make sure everybody on this earth hears His Word and the truth of Christ. He's
going to make sure they hear it. They might not save them with
it, but they're going to hear it. They're going to hear it.
Look here, verse 6. There's nothing hid from the
heat thereof. Men can't hide from the heat
of the sun in the sky, and they can't hide from the Word of the
Lord either. Shortly after that, the sun of righteousness arose.
Shortly after Christ arose, there were some men trying to hide
from the sun of righteousness. from the heat of the sun of righteousness
from Christ. You know where they were trying
to hide? At Jerusalem in the middle of religion. They were
sitting up there doing all the law and doing these things and
they were trying to hide from God right there. These were men
who had just been walking around crucifying Christ with the rest
of them. And Christ sent a preacher there. He sent Peter. And Peter
stood up and he said, this same Jesus whom you've crucified,
He's arisen. This is the Son of Righteousness.
And He's arisen with healing in His wings. And He's both Lord
and Christ. He's working His will in this
earth. And as He spoke that, the Son of Righteousness shined
through Peter into the hearts of 3,000 men and they couldn't
hide from Him. And He saved them. Right there.
And then He went on His circuit a little bit further. And just
shortly after that, there was another big host of men. And
He sent preachers to them and they preached. And He shined
into their hearts. And He healed them too. And then He continued
on His circuit. As His disciples, He told them,
go into all the world and preach the Gospel. And they saw those
3,000 saved and these others saved and they said, we just
can't, we'll just stay right here. He's doing such a mighty work
right here. So he sent persecution to them and scattered them in
all the world. And they went forth. And you
know what they went forth doing? Listen, they were scattered abroad
and they went everywhere. preaching the Word. You look
up there sometimes and you see the sun shine and the clouds
are just right. You can see just about every ray of that sun coming
out and going through those clouds. When it says they went everywhere
preaching the Word, that's the picture. Just beams of sunlight
going everywhere as they went. And the Word is like the rays
of the sun. And then Christ continued on His circuit some more. It's
like the sun goes on its circuit and He called the Apostle Paul.
You know how he called him? Paul said, I saw a light brighter
than the sun. Knocked me off my horse and knocked
me in the dirt. I couldn't see a thing until
he gave me light to see. And then he sent me forth to
the Gentiles to preach this gospel. You know why he sent him forth?
Because God said of Christ, it's a light thing that thou should
be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore
the preserved of Israel. I'll also give thee for a light
to the Gentiles that thou mayest be my salvation to the end of
the earth. That's why he sent Paul. And
so brethren, not only that, it continues to this day. The son
of righteousness continues on his circuit shining his light
through his gospel. Because there are some of His
redeemed who are yet in darkness. They're yet hiding. They're yet
trying to escape the sun. And He's going to find them.
And He's going to bring the light to them. And He's going to redeem
them. And not only that, the heat of His wrath shall be felt
by everybody that opposes Him. The heat of His grace is going
to be felt in mercy and grace to His people. But the heat of
His wrath is going to be felt to everybody that opposes Him. You
know that sun shines and it's beautiful and it heals you. You
get out there in it. It comforts you and it makes
you feel so warm and so pleasant. And that same sun will burn the
fire out of others. That's the gospel. This gospel
will heal some and it just burns others out. That's what the gospel
does. Christ the Lord. That ought to
encourage us though. It ought to make us to where
we stand in front of just an out and out God hatin' rebel
or God hatin' self-righteous man. Either one. In order to
make us confident. Just tell them the truth in love,
simply, plainly and clearly. Because God's gonna accomplish
His purpose. Christ is gonna accomplish His purpose. And it's
not for us to know the results. Are you going to do it in wrath
or mercy? Just speak the truth. Just speak the truth. Alright,
now lastly, let's go and take home a few things with us today.
Let's go back over there. Go to Matthew 5. Let's go to
Matthew 5. I'll hurry here. This is what the Lord tells all
His people. Matthew 5, verse 16. We need some instruction on this
because the world has butchered this. Matthew 5 verse 16. He said, Let your light so shine
before men that they may see your good works and glorify your
Father which is in heaven. He is our light. Just like the moon is reflecting
the light of the sun, Christ is our light. And He says now,
I have lit you on purpose. Let your light shine. And Paul
tells us exactly what that means over in Philippians 2. Paul said
in Philippians 2.14, Do all things without murmurings and disputings,
that you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without
rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom
you shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life. holding forth the word of life.
Now that's what it means to let your light shine. You know, okay,
you say, you got somebody standing over here, they don't know me,
they don't know Christine, and they're standing over here by
themselves just talking. And all of a sudden me and Christine
are sitting here and I say, you know, I think we ought to go
this way. And she goes, no, I think we
ought to go that way. And I say, I think we really ought to go
this way. No, we ought to go this way. And we start arguing
and murmuring and disputing with one another. You think we're
going to be able to turn around and talk to that person over
there about the gospel and they're going to pay us any attention? No.
No. You want to let your light shine?
Don't do anything to make people look at you and go, look at that
bumbling idiot. You mean make myself invisible?
Can you see light? I mean, we see the effects of
it, but you can't see light. It just lights things up. Well,
He said, without murmurings and disputings, that you may be blameless
and harmless, without rebuke, in the midst of this crooked
and perverse nation. Because you're shining as lights
of the Lord. And then here's the second thing. Hold forth
the light. Hold forth the gospel. Hold forth
the word of life. That's what it means. Make yourself
invisible so you can just preach the gospel to people. That's
what it means. The moon and the stars, they dwell where it's
dark. But they're full of light that they get from the sun. And
that's how it is with us. We dwell in a dark place and
we don't have any light in ourselves. But by Christ shining in our
hearts, He says, now you let your light shine. Now, a city
set on a hill can't be hidden. That's what He said there. A
city set on a hill can't be hidden. If you've got a city and it's
dark all the way around it and there's just one city out there,
you're going to see that for a long way off. And so He's telling
us, brethren, This perverse and crooked dark generation, they're
going to see you. They're going to see you. So
don't do anything that would make them blame you and blaspheme
the name of our God. That's what he's saying. That's
what he's saying. Alright, secondly, think how
consistent the light of the sun is. That sun has been shining
the same since God said, let there be light. It has not changed
ever. It's shed the same light since
day one. It's still as full of light as
it was then. Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.
And His doctrine has not changed. He never changed His doctrine
when He walked this earth. And our doctrine will not change.
The light will be the same from the beginning to the end. And
so, we don't change our doctrine. We don't change our method. We
don't change our ways. We just keep on preaching this
Word, the same Word. Here's the third thing. Remember,
all things in God's creation revolve around the sun and the
sky. God made it that way. Everything
revolves around the sun. And everything in the gospel,
everything in the believer's life revolves around the Lord
Jesus Christ. Everything does. What would happen? Just think of this. What would
happen if the sun stopped shining? We'd all die. Every one of us.
And everything that lives would die. Believer in every decision
from the least to the greatest in everything you have to decide
on. Where are you going to live? Where are you going to go to
school? Where are you going to eat? Where are you going to drink?
Where are you going to hang out? Everything. Where are you going
to worship? Everything. Remember this. Christ is everything. Christ
is all. And you'd sooner do without the
sun in the sky than you can do without Christ and His Word.
We'll die if we don't have it. We'll die. We'll die. The sun's
the only light. It's the only life. It's the
only fruitfulness. And that's Christ. That's Christ.
And you think about this too. That sun, it's giving life and
it's nourishing the tenderest, smallest little herb in the ground. And I was out there in California
this year and I went to see those redwoods. And man, there's these
350 feet tall, big old giant trees. And the same sun's nourishing
them too. They need that sun just like
that little tender herb does. And that's how we all are. You
never outgrow the source of life. From the least to the greatest,
we need the sun. Christ the Lord. And then here's
the last thing. Here's the last thing. Well,
here's another thing. The sun's the magnet. The sun
is the magnet. The sun is the point from which
our compass gives us direction and gives us our bearings. The
sun. And that's Christ. Christ is
the one that gives us our bearings. Christ is the one that gives
us our direction. Christ is. If you're out in the woods, you're
out in the forest somewhere, the wise man is always doing
this. You might not notice he's doing
it, but he's always doing this. He's always either checking his
compass or he's watching that sun so he knows what direction
he's going in. Because if you don't, you're
going to end up lost. Christ is the sun by whom we're always
knowing our bearing and always knowing our direction. And if
you don't have Christ, In your life, if he's not leading you
and guiding you and not the anchor point that's turning you every
way by which you walk and do everything in this world, you're
just like a man out in the middle of the woods on a dark, cloudy
day, just aimlessly wandering about and don't have a clue where
he's going. That's true. You got no bearing. You got no anchor. You got no
compass. You're just wandering, wandering lost. Well, here's
the next thing. Now, this is the last thing.
Turn over to Matthew 13. Matthew 13. You know, when the
sun comes up in the morning, it's going to run its circuit.
But you know what's going to happen at the end of the day?
The sun's going to return to the earth. You watch it, you
watch it. It comes up out of its chamber,
goes, and at the end of the day, it goes back in its chamber,
comes back down. back down to earth. Christ is
risen and He has gone to glory and He is working this in His
people. When He has called out the last of His people, shined
the light into their hearts and given them life, He is coming
back. He's coming back to the earth.
He's coming back here. And this is what's going to happen.
Matthew 13, 40. As therefore the tares are gathered
and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of the world.
The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather
out of His kingdom all things that offend and them which do
iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire, and there
shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. And then shall the
righteous those made righteous by Him. Then shall the righteous
shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Now
let me tell you something. All these folks walking around,
religious folks right now, walking around this earth and talking
about I'm going to let my little light shine and look at me and
how I'm shining for Jesus and all that stuff. They're not shining. And they're not going to shine
in that day either. But all His people that are walking around
invisible, humble, contrite, broken, because they want the
glory to be on Christ and they want Christ to be seen, they
want Christ to be glorified. In the day of visitation when
Christ comes, you know what's going to happen then? Then his
people are going to shine as the sun. Then he's going to lift
them in his glory with him and he's going to say, these are
my people. These are my people. They gave
me the glory. That's right. That's what's going
to happen. You remember Moses come down
from that mountain? He was up there with the Lord and getting
the law, and he'd come back. He was with Christ. Anytime God's
dealing with a man, it's the mediator dealing with that man.
And that's who he got the law from, was from Christ. And he'd
come down off that mountain, and his face was shining so much,
they had to put a veil over him, because folks couldn't look on
him. Listen to this. Beloved, now are we the sons
of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know
that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him. And here's
why. For we shall see Him as He is. You can't look into the
sun. If you look into the sun now,
it just blinds you. But when we're conformed, we
look into Him. We're going to be made like Him.
To shine like Him. To be in His image. To be like
Him. Brother Bob Ponser He didn't
pass away. All the things that was bothering
him, this old broke down body he had, and all this perverse
and crooked generation that he lived in, and all this world
that's perishing and will be gone in just a little while,
yesterday all that passed away from him. And he closed his eyes
in that wrecked body, and he opened his eyes, and he opened
his eyes to behold Christ. Would you try to think on that?
See in Christ. And you know what that look does?
It's a transforming look. I mean, we see Him now by faith
and we're renewed in the inner man by the Spirit of God just
looking through a glass darkly. But when you see Him without
any impediment, when you see Him not by faith but by sight,
when you see Him face to face, He transforms you inside and
out. Makes you like him. That's some
kind of shining. That's some kind of light. And
there he is now. He don't have that broke body.
He don't have all this perversion. He don't have sin. And He closed
His eyes with everything that was just so unsatisfying to Him
and opened His eyes fully satisfied. And He'll be satisfied for all
eternity. It won't diminish. You ever had
a satisfaction in this earth that didn't diminish and usually
right quick? Just being with Christ. Never
a diminishing of that satisfaction. There'll be everything there.
will be righteous, and everything there will be holy. And you know
what else about that? In that new creation, there's only going
to be one light. There's not going to... Listen
to this. Revelation 21-23, the city had no need of the sun,
neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God did
lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. There won't be
no moon there because we won't be reflecting light then. We
will be light. We'll be light with Him, like
Him, and He'll be the light. Won't that be something? Everything you see right now,
poor sinner going through this life, got your blinders on, dark,
dead, don't know nothing. Walking through the world like
a lost man out in the woods, just walking in circles. No compass,
no direction, no nothing. And all around you, you can't
even see this, there's just the glory of Christ shining forth. And believer, you see it. By
His grace, you see it. And rejoice. I pray. I really,
really, really, I pray for you. I pray God will make you see.
Make you see. Give you life. Make you delight
in this gospel. Because you know what? Everybody
else is passing away. But us who conform to Him, we're
going to be with Him forever. And that's the reality. That's
the real heaven and the real earth. This one right here, just
a little while longer. The day is almost over. The day
is almost over. Amen.