I please God to bless us this
evening as we meditate in his holy word. We'll turn to the
chapter that we read, which is in the Gospel of Luke, chapter
18, and we'll read verse 27. So the Gospel of Luke, chapter
18, and reading verse 27. And he said, the things which
are impossible with men are possible with God. The person that made this statement
was indeed God himself. So he knew what he was saying
and he knew what had occurred in this world and he knew what
would occur And so it's good to be able to understand that
Jesus said, the things which are impossible with men are possible
with God. And you and I can bring that
down to our own lives here on this earth. Things which we may
have before us, which may seem impossible, may seem impossibilities,
yet to realise that although they may seem impossible with
us, God is able to do great things. And we need to remind ourselves
of the greatness of God. And we're thankful that we have
the Bible that describes in detail many things that God has done. And it's good if you and I believe
that the truth contained in the Bible does have a wonderful record
of things which would have appeared impossible. And it would be good
if God gives you and me faith. That means to believe things
which perhaps we might think are impossible. Faith to believe
that God is able to do great and wonderful things. As we know, we have a record
in the Word of God in the Bible, right from Genesis, right from
the very beginning of the history of the world and the history
of the universe. And it tells us very clearly
how the world came into being. And it was all through the power
of Almighty God. And what a good thing it is.
Therefore, if you and I can believe the Bible as face value, we don't
have to try and argue why it's wrong. we have to rather receive
it as the truth and find and prove how wonderful and how truthful
it is. And therefore if God gives us
faith to believe the Bible as we read it and as we read it
to recognise the things which are recorded are true and have
come to pass, not only from the very beginning in the first chapter
in Genesis when God created the world and it came into being,
but all the things which have occurred since then. And the
Bible, as you know, is split into two parts, the Old Testament
and the New Testament. And there are many prophecies,
that means things which were spoken of that would come to
pass. later on, have come to pass in
exactly the same way that they were described. And that should
be a comfort to us to realise that we do have God's Word. The Bible is God's Word. And we're told how that came
into being. God moved, spoke to people to write the Bible. There were some 40 people that
were involved in writing the Bible. And every one of those
was influenced by God himself. He breathed into them as they
wrote the words. And that's why we can believe
we have the Bible, which is true. And the proof of it in those
things which have been spoken of in the Old Testament which
have come to pass, and there are those things which will still
be, still come to pass, and we should be thankful for them.
And so what a blessing it is that we have the Bible today. We live in a world where there
are so many things which are not true, most things which we
hear of in the media, we don't know whether to believe them
or not, we don't know if they're true or false. But we do have
the Bible, which we know indeed is true, and therefore we can
be thankful for it. In the beginning of this Gospel
of Luke, Luke was one of the disciples of Jesus, and Luke
wrote this Gospel of Luke, and we're told what happened in the
first chapter of the prophecy and the things which were spoken
to a woman named Mary. Mary was, of course, the mother
of Jesus. And what a great, wonderful truth
it is. And we're told an angel came
to Mary and said, Hail thou that art highly favoured. The Lord
is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. Now, Mary had never seen an angel
before. And we're told when she saw him,
she was troubled. at his saying and cast in her
mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel
spoke to her and said, fear not Mary, for thou hast found favour
with God. What a wonderful blessing that
was. And he tells her, thou shalt
conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shalt call his
name Jesus. And he shall be great and shall
be called the son of the highest. And the Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of his father, David, and he shall reign over
the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom. There shall be
no end. And then Mary asks the question,
she says, how shall this be, seeing I know not a man." She
wasn't married, you see, and she said, how shall this be?
And the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall
come upon thee. The Holy Ghost is God. We believe God is three persons,
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, God the
Holy Spirit. The Holy Ghost shall come upon
thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore
also the holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called
the Son of God. Well, what a great and wonderful
blessing this is. And then we read, for with God,
nothing shall be impossible. And so, as you probably know,
in due time, Mary did conceive and Jesus Christ was born to
her and he proved to be the son of God. and he lived that perfect
life on this earth for 33 years. And why did Jesus come into this
world? We hear a lot about Jesus at
Christmas time, don't we? But why did Jesus come into this
world? Well, very simply again, and
we can't go into all the details, but the Bible has many words
telling us that Jesus would come and he came into this world to
remember his people who had sinned against God. And if we sin against
God, which we do, we need to be forgiven of our sins. And you and I cannot forgive
ourselves. We need to be forgiven. And the only person that could
forgive us was Jesus. We termed him the second person
in the Trinity. And the only way he could save
us was by paying the price to take away our sin. All of us
need our sin to be taken away. And we can't take it away ourselves. And Jesus came into this world
to do just that. To take away our sin. And how was that to be done? Well, the great truth is that
Jesus had to give his life. He had to die. for us. He had to die in our place. We use the word as a substitute. Instead of us dying, which wouldn't
have satisfied Almighty God the Father. But Jesus came and lived
that perfect life without any sin and then he died in our place. And how did he die? He died upon
that cross, he was crucified. And he died that death which
satisfied the demands of God the Father. And so we have hope
today of eternal life which we can't have if we have sin. But to believe that Jesus came
to take away our sin, and the great cost that was paid, Jesus
paid in that death upon the cross at Calvary. And here we have,
in this first chapter in Luke, about the birth of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And as most of you know, if you
read through the Gospels, we have a record of his life, many
of the things that he did when he was on the earth. And then, how he did come to die, and how
he did satisfy God's holy law. And so today, we can be very
thankful for the Lord Jesus Christ. We can be very thankful that
Jesus loved us so much that he came and died upon the cross
to take away our sins. Well, that's a wonderful and
glorious testimony and example for us today to realise the fulfilment
of this word, the things which are impossible with men. We could not have done them,
you and I ourselves. They are possible with God. This is the great God that you
and I read about in the Bible and there are many other examples
of God's greatness. In the Old Testament we have
the account of a man called Abraham and his wife Sarah and They didn't
have any children. And God had given Abraham a promise
that his children would eventually be as many as the stars in the
sky, be a vast number. Well, the years went by, and
the years went by, and there was no child born. And the time came when Sarah
was past childbearing. She was too old. And therefore,
how was this promise to be fulfilled? How was she to have a baby when
she was an old woman? Well, God came by an angel and
appeared to Abraham and told him that his wife in her old
age would conceive and have a baby. And so eventually it came to
pass and she did conceive and she did have a child. Do you
know how old Abraham was? He was a hundred years old when
that came to pass. But what we find is God was faithful
and this word was proved. The things which are impossible
with men are possible with God. What a wonderful situation that
is. Now, we should be encouraged
to come and to believe today that in our little lives God
looks upon us, which he does. God knows all about us. Perhaps
we can understand how great God is in some way when we think
that God breathed, spoke the world into being. He spoke and
the world came into being. This is the greatness of our
God. And that's the God who you and
I can come to in prayer today. We can come to God the Father
in prayer. It's amazing, isn't it? To think
that you and I here on the earth, very small, very insignificant,
there are billions of people on the earth, and yet because
God is so great and so powerful, he knows all about us. And he
knows every detail about us. And do you know, he even knows
what you and I think. That's the greatness of the God
we have. So powerful, so great. You may think, well I don't want
God to know everything that I think. Well, he does know everything
that you and I think. But the great blessing is that
also he knows if we have a desire to know the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, we read in this chapter
about two people who prayed to God. One was described as a Pharisee
and the other was described as a publican, who I've already
told you was in those days a tax collector. They were normally
extortionate people. They weren't very nice people.
And these two people were given an example of how they prayed. And we're told about the Pharisee. This is what we're told. He stood
and prayed thus with himself. He didn't pray to God. He prayed
to himself. And he wanted people to be impressed
by his wonderful prayer. Well, the other person was very
different. This person who was despised,
this publican, he's still a long way away. And we're told, he
would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven. but smote
upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Now what that shows us is this. God had shown to this publican
that he was a sinner. That means that he disobeyed
God and that he needed mercy. Whereas the other person, the
Pharisee, was very content with his religion. He thought he was
a great guy and he didn't need any mercy. But this publican
recognised he did need mercy and every one of us should come
to this position where we realise before God we do need mercy. We do need forgiveness. We do
need God to be gracious to us. And so, what was the result? Well, we're told, Jesus says,
I tell you, this man, that means the publican, went down to his
house justified. That means he was made just. He wasn't just, but he was made
just through the Lord Jesus Christ. he went down to his house justified,
rather than the other. For every one that exalted himself
shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.'
So it would be a great blessing for you and me if we come to
God realising that we have disobeyed God and that we have sinned and
we have done those things which are against God and come and
pray for mercy. See this is a very short prayer
isn't it? Very short prayer. God be merciful
to me a sinner. It's not very hard is it? To
remember a prayer like that. And it would be a great blessing
if you and I come and pray Just like that. God, be merciful
to me, a sinner. Now, you might think, well, it's
not possible. I'm just too bad. I'm just too
great a sinner. God will never forgive my sins. Well, be encouraged there is. forgiveness with God and again
we won't go into the details but in the Bible there is a record
of people who were very bad who did many wrong things and yet
they came and prayed to God for mercy and God heard their prayer
and blessed them with mercy what a wonderful God therefore we
have this great God who you and I can come to. What a blessing
that we can come to such a God who is kind and gracious and
therefore to realise it doesn't matter how bad we may feel to
be and when we realise that God looks and understands all that
we're thinking it reveals to us sometimes how really bad we
are We wouldn't want other people to know about the things that
we think. And yet God knows all about them.
And therefore what a mercy it is to be able to come praying
that God will forgive us, that God will be merciful to us and
to come believing. You see, the great essence and
truth of the Bible is that when we come to God, this great God,
which we can, We are to come through faith believing that
we come to a God who does hear our prayer and a God who does
answer our prayer. It is so important that we therefore
come believing. The Bible tells us in so many
places of this great truth. And what a blessing it is, therefore,
if God comes and gives us prayer. You know, God knows if we pray. God knows if we come honestly. And it's good to be able to come
to God honestly. You don't have to make a big
display like this publican who made a big display. It wasn't
any good at all. The Bible encourages us. to pray
in secret. Pray to our God in secret. Because this God then can reward
us openly. And what a blessing it is to
realise that we have a God who complies with such a statement. The things which are impossible
with men are possible with God. Never forget that. Never forget
that. The things which are impossible
with men, you and I cannot save ourselves. You and I cannot forgive
ourselves. But we have a God who can. And we have a God who encourages
us to pray to him in a time when he may be found. You may think,
well, God is so great and so big. How can I pray to him? Well, everybody can come and
pray to God. Nobody is excluded. And as I've already said, no
one is too bad. No one is too sinful. And it's a wonderful blessing
to realize that we have a God who is most kind and most gracious
and a God who really indeed understands us. You know, we have a wonderful
statement towards the end of the Bible in a book called the
Hebrews. It's called the Hebrews because
it was written by the Apostle Paul and it was written to the
Jewish people who were, of course, the Hebrews. And the Hebrews
were the ones that we read of in the Old Testament, that God
was blessed with so many wonderful, wonderful favours, but they didn't
understand the blessing of Jesus Christ coming into this world,
and the blessing of Jesus Christ to save their souls. And therefore,
the Apostle Paul when he wrote to the Hebrews, explains really
some of the great truths which they did not understand. And one of the truths is this. In the seventh chapter of the
Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews in verse 25, we read this about
Jesus. Wherefore, He is able also to
save to the uttermost that come unto Him, unto God by Him, seeing
He ever liveth to make intercession for us. So we find that however
bad we are, to the very uttermost, the very farthest sin as it were,
the very smallest sin, We can come to our God and He saves
us. That means He delivers us from
our sins. What a wonderful, great and glorious
Saviour we have, the Lord Jesus Christ. And when you think that
Jesus came into this world, He was born of Mary, that Virgin
Mary, all those years ago, and He lived on this earth for 33
years, in order to do that which his father instructed him to
do. And that was to die, to take
away our sins. The Old Testament shows us, and
we won't go into details tonight, but the Old Testament again and
again proves to us that the only way that there was forgiveness
was through death and it was symbolised by an animal, usually
a lamb, a death, and the blood was taken as a picture and a
fact that the animal had been slain and then that animal was
offered up as a sacrifice to God. Now that was done again
and again in the Old Testament and it was brought about when
a man called Moses was born and was the one that God ordained
to deliver Israel who were captives in Egypt for 400 years and to
free them from that captivity and brought them out and then
when they were brought out God instructed him to teach them
about these sacrifices typifying or showing that which would come
to pass they were only a picture and the picture was to demonstrate
that there would be a Saviour There would be someone who would
be slain, who would die to take away sin. There, for many years,
there were these animals slain to typify the death which would
come about. And so Jesus then came into the
world. And if you read the New Testament,
you will find, and in the Old Testament, Jesus is described
as the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. That means takes away the sin
of all his people. Jesus as the Lamb of God. Well then Jesus therefore then
fulfilled that which was a picture. and did give his life and he
did die. He was slain and he died upon
that cross at Calvary to fulfil that picture which was set before
the Church of God for so many years. He shed his blood and
his death was that which took away the sins of his people. The price that was required to
free them From their sins, Jesus paid that price and the price
was his death. Well, we think about Jesus, we
read about Jesus, but I wonder how often we realise the great
significance of the death of Jesus, dying to take away our
sins. So you and I could not free ourselves,
the things which are Impossible with men. It was impossible for
you and me to die to take away our sins. We needed a Saviour. And Jesus is that Saviour. And Jesus came into this world
to die to take away our sins. But of course, he didn't stay
in that dead condition. No, he rose again, a conqueror
over sin, death, hell and the grave. And we read here about
that. After three days, he rose from
the dead. Death could not hold him. You
might say, why did he have to rise? He had to show that he
was a conqueror. He had to show that death could
not hold him and therefore he rose from the dead. What a blessing
for that. If Christ had never risen from
the dead we would not have a good hope today. But we can come today
to the same Jesus who after he rose from the dead He was 40
days on this earth, and then he rose and went to heaven. And there he sits today, on the
throne, on his father's right hand, there to speak for us,
to speak for utterly unworthy sinners. Isn't it wonderful to
think that we have a God like that? A God who was so willing,
to die in our place and to make that wonderful way whereby we
as utterly unworthy sinners can approach unto the majesty on
high. Not only that, but we're told
about Jesus. And it's very wonderful in the
Gospel of John, we know we have four Gospels which explain to
us about the life of Jesus and he tells us this in chapter 14
he says let not your heart be troubled you believe in God that's
the great thing to be blessed with faith to believe you believe
in God believe also in me in my father's house that means
in heaven are many mansions If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that
where I am there, ye may be also." So to think that Jesus today
is in heaven and is preparing a place for each of his people,
each of those for whom he gave his life, each of those who believe
the glorious truth of the Gospel. And therefore, what a blessing
it is for you and me today to realise that we are wonderfully
blessed to be able to read about these things, There are many
people in the world today who do not have a Bible. Some do
not even have a Bible translated into their language. But we are
wonderfully blessed to have a Bible that we can read. And it explains
to us in detail everything that you and I need. It explains all
about ourselves How bad we are, what sinners we are, explains
to us all about Jesus. His birth, His life, His death,
His resurrection, His ascension, and His life now. Oh, my friends,
what a great and blessing truth it is to have the Bible to read. Let me just go on for a moment. This evening, as most of you
know, we hold what we term the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper
is for those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and those who
followed him by being baptised in his name. And this Lord's
Supper supersedes that which we just
very briefly mentioned called the Passover in the Old Testament. The Passover was instituted in
the days of Moses and as I've said there was a lamb taken,
the lamb was slain, the blood was taken and when it had occurred
it was put on the doorposts and the lintels of the houses of
the Israelites because it was the time when an angel was to
pass over Egypt and take the lives of all the firstborn, of
all the Egyptians and all those who did not have the sign of
the blood over them. And then the lamb was to be roast,
burnt up. And it's a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ dying in our place. Now, Jesus came right up to the
end of his life the Passover continued for hundreds of thousands
of years but Jesus came to show that the Passover had been fulfilled
and it was passed and now he was the fulfillment of this Passover
that which was a picture in those lambs was now to be fulfilled
in his death and therefore on that night before he died he
partook at the Passover and that was the last time that there
was any need for the Passover to be taken and he instituted
what we have tonight as the Lord's Supper and it's in two parts
first of all there's the picture of his broken body and the symbol
of that is bread which we take as a symbol which is broken and
then it's partaken of. So we all enter in, in truth,
in faith, into his death, recognising his broken body. And then we
have the wine which represents his blood, his shed blood, the
blood that was shed when he died upon that cross at Calvary. And
that signifies his death as well. And so we have these two very
simple symbols. And the Lord Jesus, on that night,
when he instituted this supper, it was in an upper room, he was
with 11 disciples, one of them Judas, who betrayed him, had
gone out, and there were 11 disciples and this supper was instituted
and this was the instruction Jesus said do this in remembrance
of me there was no time scale it wasn't that we had to do it
every day it wasn't that we had to do it once a year it is as
often as we do this we are to remember the Lord's death and
that's why tonight we remember the Lord's death it is something
to remember by those who have testified by their faith that
they do believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that they do believe he's
died to take away all their sins and that they are privileged
therefore to join together with other like-minded believers who
have followed the example of Jesus. Jesus, when he was 30
years of age, was baptised in the River Jordan. We won't go
into the details of that tonight. But he was baptised and therefore
true believers come and confess that they desire to do the same
that Jesus did, to follow his example, to testify their desire
to be true disciples. and therefore they follow that
example and are baptised. Well, it's a very simple ceremony,
the baptism, and also so is the Lord's Supper, which those who
are members are privileged to take tonight. So I hope you've
found it just a little bit of interest to give you a background
to why we do this, we do it here on a monthly occasion the first
Lord's Day in a month and we're thankful for it and we pray that
each time it may be a blessing to our souls so coming back to
the words which we brought to you tonight the things which
are impossible with man are possible with God. You may say, well,
I don't think I can ever believe in these great things. Just remember,
it may seem impossible to you, but they are possible with God. And we have so many wonderful
examples of those possibilities being fulfilled. And may you
and I be blessed with faith to believe the Bible and the great
truths it contains, and to be found believing on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and to know the fulfilment of that word, and thou shalt
be saved. Amen. Our final hymn this evening is
number 103, 1-0-3. The tune is 411. Hymn 103. Jesus,
thy blood and righteousness, my beauty are, my glorious dress. Amidst flaming worlds in these
arrayed, with joy shall I lift up my head. Hymn number 103. Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness,
Thy beauty, O my glorious dress, This flaming world's With joy shall I lift up my head. When from the dust of death I
rise, to take my mansion in the skies. Even shall this be all my plea. Jesus has lived I stand in that great day For
who or to my charge shall lay While through thy blood Thus Abraham, the friend of God,
Thus all the armies of Saviour of sinners, they protect
sinners. The same appears When ruined
nature Sinks in years Though age can change its course Christ is ever new. O may the dead now hear thy voice, Once rejoiced, their beauty this Jesus the Lord's our righteousness. May the grace of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, and the love of God our Father, and the
fellowship and communion of the Eternal Spirit, rest and abide
with us each, now and for evermore. Amen.