It truly is the love of Christ
in the hearts of His brethren, of the believer that causes submission
to God, faith in Christ, to trust Him and turn away from the vanity
of our flesh. And through trial, through His
Word and through trial, He grows us in this love, in faith, in
submission to Him. And He makes the believer ready
to die. Paul is the example before us
in Acts 20 verse 22. Paul says, Behold, I go bound in the Spirit
unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there,
the particulars, save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every
city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things
move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself. so that I might
finish my course with joy and the ministry which I have received
of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God. Now Paul is ready. And on his
way to Jerusalem, the Lord used Paul to teach others along the
way. that it truly is the love of
Christ that constrains us to submit to God and it's more for
their benefit than it is for Paul's, although Paul is being
instructed along the way too. Now this begins at Ephesus and
the Lord had done a great work in Ephesus. There was a great
congregation of believers there by God's grace and these brethren
believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. They believed him and they loved
Paul and Paul loved them. He was the one through whom they
had heard the gospel preached, through whom the Lord used to
save them and bring them to Christ. And his departing from them was
a great trial for them. And it was a trial for Paul to
leave them there. But this is the first thing we
see, love makes brethren dwell together
in unity. In verse 37 of Acts 20, it says,
They all wept sore and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him, sorrowing
most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see
his face no more. And they, all of them, accompanied
him unto the ship. Have you ever known this kind
of love in a congregation and amongst brethren? It's agreement. It's rejoicing. in the gospel
of Christ, in the free grace of God in Christ Jesus that's
set forth consistently, plainly, clearly, and there's rejoicing
in Christ. It's agreement and it's thankfulness
for your pastor and for the brethren that God's put you together with.
It's commitment to Christ. It's commitment to this gospel
and to the brethren so that everything else in your life becomes arranged
around and used for the worship of Christ and the good of His
saints. It's contentment to rest right
where God has placed you because you know it's of God. These hearts are bound together
like this by Christ Himself. It's through the Spirit that
the inner man is strengthened. And as Christ dwells in our hearts
by faith, the fullness of God, which is Christ, the fullness
of God, fills us, fills the believer so that with all our brethren,
with all the saints together, we behold the vastness of Christ's
love for us. And it causes us to be very content,
be very thankful and submissive because we behold what Christ
has done, what God the Father has done in His Son through the
Spirit. And where He's created this unity,
the believer will never leave that place unless Christ who gives that
unity moves us away. No matter how Christ had used
Paul, or uses any believer for that
matter, it's temporary. It's only temporary. The ministry
of every vessel that Christ uses is gonna come to an end, either
by death or by the direction of the Holy Spirit. Whenever
John the Baptist came, he said, I'm the voice of one crying in
the wilderness. And that one is Christ. He was the voice of Christ crying
in the wilderness. And it's not the vessel Christ
uses, it's Christ himself that shall keep his people. As long
as the gospel stayed in Ephesus, his brethren would stay in Ephesus.
even though Paul left Ephesus. But if the gospel left Ephesus
when Paul left Ephesus, they'd go where the gospel is. Whether
it's Paul preaching to them or somebody else preaching to them,
they'd go where the gospel of Christ is preached. Because that's
how this unity is created. And unity of love that is created
this way, love, it's trusting Christ is what it is. It's submitting
to Christ above all else. That was an appropriate scripture
that you read, Scott. This is my example to you. The
Lord allowed us to see our own utter weakness by using his own
apostles to show it. He said to them that night that
he was going to be betrayed. He said, this night I'll be betrayed
and you will all be offended because of me. and you'll flee. Because it's written in the Scriptures,
I will smite the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered.
Now this was for his glory. This was the fulfillment of the
Scriptures. It was coming to pass. It doesn't excuse the fact
of the unbelief, but it was going to come to pass. But even their
unbelief glorified him and we see it here. Because John tells
us at the same time that he told them that, He said, a new commandment
I give unto you, that you love one another. And he said, as
I have loved you, that ye also love one another. How did the
Lord love us? He loved us by, as the righteous
servant of God, the son of man, as submitting himself to the
Father. That's how he loved us. He laid
down his life in submission to the Father for his brethren.
And so, believing on Christ, submitting to Christ, rather
than insisting on our own fleshly wisdom, is our greatest love
toward one another. When the apostles' love began
to be interrupted by the flesh, what happened? They began to
question. Questions arose. And strife arose
among them. And they began immediately to
have these problems. Because they weren't trusting
Christ. And immediately the Lord gave
them the cure for that. He just said, love one another
as I have loved you. Don't look to yourself. Don't
look to your wisdom. Don't look to how you worry about
what you think tomorrow is going to hold. He said, here's the cure. Let
not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me. You see, love, as He loved, is
trusting Him even as He trusted the Father. Casting our care
into His hand, trusting Him. When we do that, we'll submit
ourselves to Christ and to one another in love. Now here in
our text, the Lord shows us the opposite of this. He shows us
what grace does in the heart. This is a testimony of His grace
and it too is for His glory. The same grace that created these
tears in the Ephesian brethren, the same grace that caused them
to long for Paul and sorrow that Paul was leaving, is the same
grace that made them submit to Christ and trust Him even though
Paul was leaving. No fuss, no division, no strife,
just trust in Christ. You see it here? They did it
because they believed on Him whom Paul preached. Look down
the page there at Acts 21.14. We'll see this in a moment. It
says when he was at Caesarea, when he would not be persuaded,
we ceased. We didn't strive, we didn't keep
on. We ceased saying, the will of the Lord be done. Now, you're
familiar with this scripture in Psalm 133.1. Behold how good
and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Let me read this to you. It's
like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the
beard, upon Aaron's beard that went down to the skirts of his
garment. It covered Aaron. It started
here and went all the way down and covered him in saturated
Aaron. This ointment did. The scripture
says, this unity is like the dew of Hermon. It descended upon
the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing,
life forevermore. This anointing ointment, the
Spirit of God's grace, It's just like that anointment that anointed
Aaron. You know what that ointment did
that anointed Aaron? It consecrated him to the Lord
God over everything else. Over everything else. That's
what it did. Now you get this and let this settle down in your
heart. The love that binds believers together in harmony. is love of Christ for us, which
makes Christ preeminent over our love for each other, even
for our own lives. Natural man can't get that now.
The love that's gonna bind me and you together is love that
loves Christ preeminently above the love we have for each other.
You know what that love will do? That love will cause us to
seek the glory of Christ over what we want for our brethren
or for ourselves. And whatever we seek for the
glory of Christ is always the very best thing for our brethren
and for ourselves. Always. Always. And that's what bound Paul to
go to Jerusalem. And that's what bound these brethren
to submit to the will of God in the matter. That's unity that's
created by the love of God working in the heart. Now here's the
second thing. This consecration to Christ,
submission to Him, love to Him, it's increased as the Holy Spirit
bears witness in our hearts of the faithfulness and the power
of God to fulfill His Word. We see it in His Word and He
bears witness in our hearts in the midst of trial that God is
faithful to fulfill His Word. And as He does so, He increases
our faith in Him to submit to Him rather than to our own fleshly
wisdom. Let's see that. Acts 21.1. I'm going to skip through some
of these scriptures. I read them to you earlier. So they leave
from Ephesus. Now look at verse 2. And finding
a ship sailing over unto Phoenicia, we went aboard and set forth.
Now when we had discovered Cyprus, we left it on the left hand and
sailed into Syria and landed at Tyre. For there the ship was
to unlaid her burden, and finding disciples, we tarried there seven
days. who said to Paul through the
Spirit that he should not go up to Jerusalem. Now, this is
the case of what Paul had just said in Acts 20, 23. The Spirit
bears witness in every city that bonds and afflictions await me.
These brethren, it had been revealed to them by the Holy Spirit that
bonds and afflictions awaited Paul at Jerusalem. And they told
Paul this. And then they began to tell Paul
what they thought he ought to do. And like any brethren would
do for another, if we saw a brother in harm's way, they began to
tell Paul not to go up there. But they didn't know what the
Holy Spirit had, had, how he had bound Paul in his heart to
go there. They didn't know that. Paul knew
bonds and afflictions awaited him, and he was willing to go
because the Spirit had made him willing. They didn't know that.
They tell him, and then they say, now, Paul, you probably
should go up there. But trials like this aren't designed
by God to turn us away from Christ, they're designed to increase
our faith in Christ. You know, these saints are at
Tyre, they're at Phoenicia, at Tyre, and they bear great witness
to God's faithfulness to fulfill His word to His saints. What
makes, the Lord said, ye shall be witnesses unto me. And when
we were in the first chapter of Acts, I think I gave you this
illustration then or sometime thereafter, but what makes us
witnesses unto Christ? What makes you a human being?
Being. Being. in the womb before you
do everything, anything. You're a human being because
you exist, you've been made, you've been created. What makes
us witnesses unto Christ? Because we have a being, we are
created, we have life. because of Christ, and we trust
Him. Here's my point. In Isaiah 43, 8, let me give
you, I'm reading you the RSV translation. Bring forth the
people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have
ears. Let all the nations gather together. Let all the people gather together. Who among them can declare this,
that they've been able to give blind men eyes to see and deaf
men ears to hear? And who among them can say they
said they would do it from ancient time, from days of old, long
before it ever came to pass? If they can do it, let them bring
forth their witnesses to justify themselves, or else let them
shut their mouth and say, this is so. You know that cartoon, Charlie
Brown? Was it the teacher that when
he would talk, the students would just hear, walk, walk, walk,
walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, you know? Well, while these brethren
at Tyre are telling Paul what the Spirit has said will befall
him, that there's bonds and afflictions awaiting him, Paul's listening
to them. But what happened for me when I read this is sort of
like that, what, what, what, what. What they said after that
was their word. That was the excess that we thought
we saw in James. They said, now we don't think
you ought to go up there because of this. And I can just picture
Paul hearing them speak about the Holy Spirit and what he had
said that bonds and afflictions awaited them. But then when they
began to go on about, now Paul, we don't want you to go, Paul's
just here and wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. But
he's sitting there amazed at the faithfulness of God to keep
him when he goes there by simply looking at these disciples in
Tyre who trust Him, who trust Christ and believe on Christ.
We saw this Sunday, and I was so eager to preach from Isaiah
23 on Sunday because I knew we were coming to this text in Acts,
but the Lord declared way, way, way, way before in His Word,
and Paul knows His Word. And He declared in Isaiah 23,
He said, for my elect remnant, I'm showing you a grand illustration
here in what I'm doing with Tyre. For my elect remnant, I'm going
to strip them of every vain confidence they have and make them to behold
that I've poured out judgment upon my own son in their room
instead and declared them righteous before me. and I turn my hand
on them in mercy and bring them to believe on me and I sanctify
them so that they and all their substance is holiness unto the
Lord. And here they are. Here they
are after all that time later. And I can just, when I read this,
Again, I thought of Isaiah 43, and I could see Paul as he's
just sitting here looking at these brethren in Tyre, knowing
the providence of the Lord and the power of the Lord and what
His Word was of ancient time. I can hear Paul thinking of this
scripture. Listen, these are my witnesses. saith the Lord. This is Isaiah
43, 10. These are my witnesses, saith
the Lord, my servants whom I've chosen, that you may know and
believe me and understand that I am He. Before me no God was
formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the Lord, and
there's none besides me. There is no Savior. Look, if
you want to look there with me at Isaiah 43, let me give you
the context and the reason why this would have given such hope
and confidence to Paul. Because here's the context of
that chapter. Here's what the Lord's declaring through that
chapter. And as Paul, Paul knows bonds and afflictions await him
at Jerusalem, but seeing the faithfulness of God and the power
of God to fulfill the word that he prophesied so many years before,
Here's the confidence. Verse 1, now thus saith the Lord
that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel.
You see, we're Jacob in ourselves. We're worms in ourselves. He
always includes that. And he says, but in my Son, you're
my Israel, washed and redeemed. Look, fear not. Why? Because I have redeemed you.
I bought you with my blood. I bought you. I've called you
by thy name, thou art mine. So when you pass through the
waters, I'll be with you. And through the rivers, they
won't overflow you. When you walk through the fire,
you won't be burned. Neither shall the fire kindle
upon you. That's exactly where Paul's headed. He's going to
pass through some deep waters. He's going to pass through some
fire. But he knows the Lord said it won't overflow you. It won't
burn you. Why? For I am the Lord thy God,
the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Since thou wast precious in my
sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee. Therefore
will I give men for thee and people for thy life. Fear not,
I am with thee. I'm going to bring your brethren
from the north and the south and the east and the west. I'm
going to bring them all together. Everyone that's called by my
name. Look at verse 7. For I have created him for my
glory. I formed him. Yeah, I made him.
So, perhaps that's what Paul saw in them as well. That's what I saw in them when
I looked at them. The Word of God. The excess is
the wah, wah, wah. The word though, this is the
fulfillment of God, what He did. And perhaps that's what Paul
felt, because in verse five it says, when he had accomplished
those days, when we had accomplished those days, we departed and went
our way. And they all brought us on our
way with wives and children. We went out of the city. We kneeled
down on the shore and prayed. And when we had taken our leave
one of another, we took ship and they went back home again.
Why? Why didn't they all just stay
together and go together? Because the same Lord is with
them both. My sister called me this morning.
She called me and told me this. I just thought of this and it
applies here. Good illustration. I have some nieces that are six
years old and they hear Darwin preaching there in the service
down there in Arkansas. And I hear him pray and ask the
Lord to meet with us here this morning, just as we do here.
And on the way home from service, one of my nieces said to my sister,
Mother, does the Lord, does He go home like we go home after
we've met together? Why didn't they all stay together
when they left? Because He stays with us. He goes with those that went
back home to Tyre, and he went with Paul as Paul went on. He
abides with it. He said, Lo, I'll be with you
always. And he's the one we're trusting. We're not looking to
men. We're not looking to each other. We're looking to him.
And this is the unity. This is the Tyre that binds subjection
to him. Now here's the third thing. We've
seen here that love causes brethren to dwell together in unity, submitting
to Christ, that which glorifies Christ. We've seen here that
this consecration is created through the Holy Spirit as we
behold His faithfulness toward us in His Word and through trial. Paul experienced it. He came
into this experience of this Word by coming face to face with
it, those in tire. And then thirdly, this consecration
is because every believer is taught of God personally, and taught of God
to trust Christ and obey Him alone. Verse 8, Acts 21. The next day we that were of
Paul's company departed and came unto Caesarea. And we entered
into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of
the seven, and abode with him. And the same man had four daughters,
virgins, which did prophesy. And as we tarried there many
days, there came down from Judea a certain prophet named Agabus.
And when he was come unto us, he took Paul's girdle, and bound
his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So
shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle,
and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. There's
the same, same thing happened here. The Holy Spirit bears witness
through this man that bonds and afflictions await Paul. But now
it's a, it's a greater illustration of it. This man took Paul's girdle
and bound himself in this grand illustration here before their
eyes. And something different happened this time. The trial
gets a little more intense here. Watch. Verse 12. And when we
heard these things, Luke's writing this, got all these Paul's got
all these traveling companions with him. And when we heard these
things, both we and they of that place besought Paul not to go
up to Jerusalem. Not only those of Caesarea, but
Paul's dearest traveling companions. They were with him when before
he said that in all the cities, the Holy Spirit bears witness
that bonds and afflictions await me. They stood with Paul through
that. When they went to Ephesus and Paul was leaving Ephesus,
they stood with Paul there. When they came to Tyre and they
were told this by the brethren at Tyre, they stood with Paul
there. But here, when they see this demonstration before, they
wilted. And they began to waver. They began to wonder about this
thing. They said, Paul, don't go up
there to Jerusalem. Don't go to Jerusalem. Paul stands
here without any support, without any man, without anybody to side
with him for encouragement. Only the Lord. Only the Lord. No one ever came between our
Savior and the Father. He perfectly, faithfully trusted
His Father in every thought. Can you imagine how many thoughts
we've had? In every word. Think of how many
words we've said in our lifetime. In every thought, in every word,
He trusted the Father perfectly. Nothing came between Him and
the Father. But our Lord Jesus Christ knows exactly the feeling
of these infirmities, the feeling that Paul feels right here. He
knows it exactly. Exactly. His dear friend that
sat at the table with Him betrayed Him. The disciples left and fled. But our Savior, the righteous,
faithful Son of Man, was always dependent upon the Father alone. Always. And on the cross, we
see it most clearly, brethren. At the cross is where we see
it more clearly than any place. There was no one between God
the Father and His Son. No one. No one. He said, I've trodden the winepress
alone, and of the people there was none with me, nobody with
me. I did this alone. But God the
Father, in perfect righteousness and perfect faithfulness, did
what He promised to do. When Christ was made sin for
His people, the Father glorified Himself and He glorified His
Son. by separating himself from the
substitute in holy judgment. And Christ our Lord, the righteous
Son of Man, the servant of our God, cried out, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken
me? Through it all, the Son glorified
the Father by laying down His life, offering up prayers and
supplication with strong crying and tears in perfect faith toward
His Father. And even in the furnace of affliction,
heated to perfection on the cross, He trusted none but His Father
alone because He knew, He believed He was able to save Him from
death. And we've heard it said in this that it's God forsaking
God. But I'll tell you what this is
that we see right here. It's God glorifying God. It's
God glorifying God. Satisfaction made by God for
His people. The just one and the justifier. Justly justifying His people. the faithful one manifesting
His righteous faithfulness. And here's faithfulness. Father,
into Thy hands I commend my spirit. And He gave up the ghost. And
here's faithfulness. He was heard in that He feared. He believed His Father. He trusted
His Father. Faithfulness in the Son. Faithfulness
in the Father. And He raised Him from the dead.
Now in our text, just like our Lord Jesus Christ, Paul has no
brethren standing with him. None at all. But he's been taught
in the heart of God personally through His Word and through
every trial he's faced. He's been taught of God in the
heart. And here's faithfulness. Look
at verse 13. Then Paul answered, What mean
ye to weep and to break mine heart? For I'm ready. For I am ready. Not only to be bound, but also
to die at Jerusalem. For the name of the Lord Jesus. You see, Paul loved these brethren.
He loved these brethren. That's why I said, why are you
breaking my heart with this weeping? But he loved Christ more than
he loved these brethren. And so he taught these brethren.
He sang to them exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ said to
his apostles when he was going to the cross. He's saying to
them, don't try, to deliver me from this trial. I must suffer
these things. Peter, put your sword up. I could summon 12 legions of
angels to help me. I must suffer these things. And he's saying to them what
the Lord said to his apostles. Instead of drawing the sword
and trying to save me by your strength, by your wisdom, by
your power, watch for your own souls. This is what was breaking
Paul's heart. Not that Not that they loved Him. Not
that He loved them and it was breaking His heart that they
weren't just trusting Christ and saying, this is of God. This is God's will. Trust Him. That's what He said. Watch for
your own souls in this thing and pray. Ask God. You know what? When the Lord
said that in the Garden of Gethsemane, His brethren slept. And then later they drew the
sword. And you know what? While they
were sleeping, instead of watching and praying, you know what? While
He was watching and praying Himself, you know what He was praying?
For the Father's will to be done. I'm telling you, The only prayer
we pray that is not to consume it upon our lust is for God to
give us more faith to trust his son, for God to turn us away
from ourselves, for God to cause us to behold the glory of Christ,
for God to cause us to be increased in the wisdom and power of our
Lord to save us. I know there's a lot of scriptures
where we find prayers of folks. Lord, fix it. Do something for
us now. But when the Lord prayed and
He taught us to pray, He said, Father, Thy will be done. Thy kingdom come on earth as
it is in heaven. He said, pray for the Father's
will to be done. Pray for your daily bread. But
pray for him to be glorified. That's the only thing we pray
that doesn't consume it upon our own lives. Because in that,
what we want is not going to be brought about. We're going
to be made to submit. We're going to be made to see
that there is no power in our flesh. There is no strength in
our flesh. And it's going to be done through a painful manner,
usually. And we don't want that. We want
to be delivered from that. But truly, that prayer that is
brought down to the singleness of Christ, that's the prayer. That's the prayer. And that's
what Paul is telling them here. And he's telling them he will
do this. He's going to do this. He said, I'm ready, not to be
bound only, but to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. Faith in Christ, we talk about
stunts that men do. Oh, he did a death-defying stunt,
you know, and he was just a dummy and, you know, walked a tightrope
or jumped off a cliff with a pair of skis on or something, you
know, something ignorant. Oh, he's death-defying. You know
what death-defying is? Faith in Christ. That's death-defying. You believe Christ, you can walk
right into the face of the lion's den, declaring Christ is all
and man is nothing, and defy death, whether you die in the
flesh or not. That's death defying. And that's
what Paul is teaching here. And this fullness, that's what
fullness is. That's the fullness of God. It's
knowing that it's Christ that died, that's risen, that's making
intercession, and that there is absolutely nothing that can
separate us from the love of God in Christ. We're just sheep,
brethren. We're just sheep. just sheep
that are counted for the slaughter every day, constantly, continually. We got no power. We got no defenses. And we're not all that smart.
And we're just stinking in ourselves. But this is our strength and
our power and our wisdom and our confidence, our hope, our
submission, the increase of faith, repentance, everything is knowing
this. Nothing, not tribulation, not
famine, not any kind of distress, not powers, principalities on
this earth or in heaven, seen, visible or invisible, nothing,
not life, not death, Anything is able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ. The fullness of cry, the fullness
of God that fills the heart when Christ dwells in the heart is
being persuaded of this. Paul was persuaded of it. Turn
over to Philippians 119. I'll give you one more scripture
before we close. Philippians 119. Here's what Paul's telling them. He wrote this later to the Philippians
when he was in jail after he had gone to Jerusalem. But here's
what Paul's telling them before he even goes to Jerusalem. He's
telling those at Caesarea this. Verse 19, For I know that this
shall turn to my salvation through your prayer and the supply of
the Spirit of Jesus Christ. according to my earnest expectation
and hope. This is an earnest, a fervent
expectation and it's a great expectation and hope that in
nothing I shall be ashamed. I won't be brought to be ashamed
in anything I'm about to do. But with all boldness, as always,
so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by life or
by death, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. Paul knew this because he had
experienced this grace of God in his heart. He had been given
faith and repentance to turn from himself to Christ and he
trusted Christ. He knew he was clothed in the
righteousness of Christ. This ointment had went down his
head, his beard, his whole body and had consecrated him to Christ
above everything else. And no matter the sin in his
own flesh, no matter the unbelief in himself, he was ready. He was ready by the righteousness
of Christ, by being clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
He was ready, and he knew that whether Christ was pleased to
magnify His own name in His life through the gospel where He went,
or whether it was to magnify His greatness and His power through
Paul's death, regardless, Christ is going to magnify Himself.
And Paul knew, and it's going to turn to my salvation either
way. I'm going to be saved either way. Either from a temporary
death right now to die another day or from this whole thing
I'm going to be made perfectly well and be with my Redeemer. Can you say that you're ready
to die? Can you say that Christ is your
life? Can you say that Christ is your
righteousness? Can you say that Christ is your
all? His dying came to you? You know, before this grace came,
we were like those ten virgins who had a lamp, but they didn't
have any oil. We had the form of religion,
but we didn't have the power. We didn't have the spirit. We
didn't have the oil of His grace. We could look into this doctrine
of love just like men look into the acts of the apostles, or
into the words of the prophets, or into the law, and we could
see no further than our own nose. We couldn't see any further than
the flesh of men. And we tried to imitate what
they did, and we tried to make others imitate what they did,
and we were critical of those who didn't measure up to this
love to the degree we thought we had measured up to it. And
we went on as slaves in this world with absolutely no commitment
to Christ whatsoever. But when this grace comes, when
this grace comes and we're taught of God in the heart by the Holy
Spirit, made to have Christ dwell in us through faith, filled with
the fullness of God that we behold how incomprehensibly beyond our
knowledge and our understanding how God, the triune God, loved
us in Christ Jesus. Brethren, when that happens,
the believer He looks beyond the acts of men, and He sees
the acts of our King. He looks beyond the prophets,
and He sees the prophet, and the work of God, and what God
has done. He looks beyond the law, and
He beholds the righteousness of Christ who fulfilled it in
every jot and tittle for Him. That's what the believer beholds.
And not only in the Word, but we behold it in our daily lives
as He He teaches it to us and then we depart from one another
and go out into the world and He goes with each of us just
like He goes like those that went back to Tyre and Paul who
went on. He goes with each of us and in
these trials, just as we see Paul going from place to place
here and these brethren being taught this and Paul being taught
this, He teaches each of us every day in the daily occurrences
of our lives and the believer is not looking at the thing. The believer is made to look
beyond the thing, just like we look beyond the acts of these
men and we see Christ doing this, working this. We see in everything
that takes place in our lives, God working and God bringing
this to pass and we're made to submit to Him and to trust Him
and to look away from ourselves, look away from the waves, look
away from the circumstance, look away from the thing that's occurring
and realize that thing is just given to turn us to Christ and
see Him. And when it's served its purpose,
God will provide whatever thing it is we need, whatever the thing
is that He'll go on providing that for us too. But, oh, we
do it every day with our children. And it just, we do it every day
with our children. And we just can't see, we just
gotta be taught over and over, it's the very same thing God's
doing with us. We take something away from Him
and say, now listen to me. Don't you wish you had the power
to take that thing away from Him and make Him really listen
to you and hear you? He does. He does. And He makes
us ready, not only to be bound for His namesake, but to die
for Him. When my father and my mother
forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. And if I haven't forsaken my
father and my mother, that's not said to me. But if we've
forsaken all by His grace, when our mother and our father forsake
us, He'll take us up. Well, let me read this last thing back
in our text. He does this, and He makes us
willing not only to submit to Him, but to support one another
in that which glorifies Christ. Give of ourselves sacrificially
of our own substance to help our brethren, to know that they're
going to be provided for. I know you need this, and I know
you need that, and I know it appears right now you don't know
how you're going to provide this or that. Look, that's what I'm
here for as your brother, is to provide that for you. So that
you don't look at that, don't be concentrating on that, but
listen to the Father and hear what He's teaching you through
that. not to look to that, but to look to Him, and to know He's
going to provide for you. And He'll use His brethren, just
like He used Paul here, to teach us that, and to teach every one
of us that. And that's what we're here for,
to trust Him, and to provide for one another as He teaches
us, and as He teaches our brethren. And He'll do this, and He does
it, and He makes us willing, and He does this, and here's
proof of it in our text, verse 14. When Paul would not be persuaded, if Christ has persuaded you,
no man can persuade you otherwise. And so they saw it. And when
Paul could not be persuaded, we ceased. We stopped trying
to persuade him, saying, the will of the Lord be done. And after those days, catch this
next word. Well, he said, Paul, go on up
there by yourself. After those days, we took up our carriages
and we went up to Jerusalem with him. Did you see that? He didn't go by himself. They
went with him. The Lord's able to do this. And
He is going to use brethren to do it. I pray God to give us
grace to cease and submit to Him. Cease and desist and trust
Him. And one day brethren, very soon
by His grace, every single one under the sound of my voice who
He has made ready, We all, very soon, shall take up our carriages
and we'll all go together to Him in heavenly Jerusalem. He's promised that. Has He made
you ready? Are you ready to die? If you're
robed in His righteousness, you're as ready as you're gonna get.
That's right. All right.