The Bible Baptist Church, located
at 2015 Beulah Road in Madisonville, Kentucky, would like to invite
you to listen to a message of the sovereign grace of God in
the Lord Jesus Christ by their pastor, David Edmondson. After 40 years and approximately
one month of wandering in the wilderness, The people of Israel
are about to cross Jordan's river and enter into the promised land. And what a picture this is of
the believer's salvation in Christ. What must a sinner do to be saved? How does any sinner enter into
God's land of promise? Well, in Joshua chapter three,
verse eight, the Lord through Joshua who's a beautiful picture
of Christ, tells Israel what they must do. And the command
is very clear, it's very plain and very instructive. Verse eight,
the priests are to come to the brink of the water of the river
Jordan, symbolic of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
what are the people to do? Ye shall stand still in Jordan. Did you know that the phrase
stand still in the Hebrew language means to present oneself? How
are we to present ourselves to God? We're to present ourselves
standing still. What does the sinner do in order
to be saved? They're to do nothing. They're
to stand still. Salvation is given without moving
or working. Everything the child of God does,
they do standing still in the Lord Jesus Christ. I can remember
as a young boy going deer hunting with my dad and being in a deer
stand with him. And you know how young boys can
be rambunctious and excited and I'd say, Dad, when we gonna see
a deer? When we gonna see a deer? And my dad very patiently and
calmly said, son, you gotta be still. You got to be quiet. If you're moving around, you'll
miss seeing. Oh, how that applies to seeing
the Lord Jesus Christ. We live in a day where preachers
tell sinners to take a stand and do something for God. Be
a mover and a shaker for Jesus, they say. They sing onward Christian
soldiers, march on into war, but there's no war for us to
fight. The war is over. There is no more war. It's finished. The conflict is over. It's finished
and Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus Christ has finished the
work of the believer's redemption. Our Lord doesn't need us to do
anything. The only need there is, is that
we feel our need of Him. And we have need to stand still. And that's when we'll see the
salvation of the Lord. We stand still bearing the Ark
of the Covenant. We stand still holding up Christ
as our offering for sin. We won't offer God our hearts. They're deceitful and desperately
wicked. We stand still in Christ-finished
work. In a day where religion is trying
to win the battle against evil and obtain a righteousness by
their own doing, folks have no understanding that the war against
sin and death has already been won. He, the Lord Jesus, will
swallow up death and victory, and the Lord God will wipe away
tears from off all faces, and the rebuke of his people shall
he take away from off all the earth, for the Lord has spoken
it, Isaiah 25a. Friends, the burden's been lifted,
the work's been finished, and we stand still and rest in Christ. Death is swallowed up in victory.
Every believing child need not fear death and can rightly ask
with confidence, oh death, where is thy sting? And oh grave, where
is thy victory? But thanks be to God which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And when our Lord
said it is finished, that is what He was talking about. Because
of Christ's finished work, death has no sting. The grave has no
victory. We stand still in Him, and that's
why we can stand still and rest. We can rest because there's no
work to be done. The work's finished. In Luke
chapter four, when our Lord came to Nazareth, where He was brought
up, His custom was to go in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and
on this particular day, he stood up to read, and he took the scroll
of the writings of Isaiah in our Bible, it's found in Isaiah
chapter 61, verses one and two. And these are the words that
he read. Listen to them closely. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the
poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight
to the blind. to set at liberty them that are
bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed
the book and he gave it again to the minister and he said to
him, and the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were
fastened on him. And he began to say unto them,
this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. Now this is speaking
of God's redeemed people. They are poor. with nothing to
offer God. They are brokenhearted over their
sin. They are captive and sold under
sin. They're blind and must be given
sight. Sin has not only bruised them,
but slain them. They're dead in trespasses and
sin. And Christ is the only one that
can deliver them. And he does so by us standing
still and beholding him. All the pictures and types of
the Old Testament pointed to the Messiah, the Savior of sinners,
and they had all come to pass. The Lord said, today is this
scripture fulfilled in your ears. Christ came into the world to
save sinners, and that's exactly what He did. While Jesus Christ
is the mystery of godliness, Jesus Christ is manifest in the
flesh. God is pleased with His Son and
nothing else, and that is why we must be found in Him. Until
God reveals to us that we must stand still, we will never have
any peace and rest. Now that phrase, stand still,
is used seven times in the scriptures, and in most instances, the term
is used in conjunction with salvation, redemption, and deliverance. Let me give you a few examples.
In Exodus chapter 14, God has delivered Israel out of Egyptian
bondage. You remember the story. sent
plague after plague till Pharaoh let the people go. And now as
they travel on their way to the land of promise, they hear the
thundering of Pharaoh's chariots behind them, and there's nothing
before them or in front of them but water. What are they gonna
do? It is then that they hear the
voice of Moses cry, fear ye not, stand still. and see the salvation
of the Lord, which he will show to you today. For the Egyptians
whom you have seen today, you shall see them again no more
forever." Moses said, the Lord shall fight for you and you shall
hold your peace. What does it mean to hold your
peace? It means to be quiet and be still. The Egyptians representing
the sin that plagued us all the days of our life will plague
you no more. What must you do to be saved?
Hear me clearly, stand still, and see Christ as your salvation. Look to Him and Him alone. Look
to Jesus Christ and live. Secondly, we must stand still
to be reasoned with by the preaching of the gospel. In 2 Samuel 12,
verse six, Samuel the prophet said to the people, it's the
Lord that advanced Moses and Aaron and that brought your fathers
up out of the land of Egypt." Friends, salvation's of the Lord.
Samuel went on to say, now therefore stand still that I may reason
with you before the Lord of all the righteous acts of the Lord,
which he did. to you and to your fathers. Friends,
salvation is the free gift of God's perfect righteousness in
Christ. Our righteousness is all the
righteous acts of the Lord. We do no works of righteousness.
Our righteousness is filthy rags. His righteousness, His perfect
righteousness is imputed, charged to us. His righteousness is now
my righteousness. When we preach the gospel, we
reason with men. Though it's God himself that
must cause a sinner to see and to hear, yet we reason with men
and women through preaching so that they may see that they have
no righteousness of their own, but reason that their righteousness
is nothing but filthy rags. And we reason that the only righteousness
that God accepts is the righteousness of God in Christ. God through
Isaiah said, come now and let us reason together, saith the
Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white
as snow. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool. We are accepted only in Christ's
perfect righteousness. And then thirdly, we must stand
still and consider some things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the book of Job, chapter 37, verse 14, it says, stand still
and consider the wondrous works of God. Our Lord said, consider
the lilies. Shall God not clothe you as it
clothes them? Consider the ravens. They don't
toil or labor, but shall God not feed them? And shall he not
feed you? We need to stand still and consider
some things concerning Christ our Savior. The Lord told Joshua,
when you come to the brink of the water of Jordan, ye shall
stand still. Well, we must stand still in
order to come. A sinner must not move to come. There's no salvation in moving
from one place in the church to the front of the church. Works
religion says, work, move, do, don't do, work some more, do
some more, and don't do this and don't do that. But the good
news of the gospel says, stand still. Come without moving a
muscle. Come while standing still. This is the declaration of Christ's
propitiation. That's exactly what the gospel
is. It's the declaration of Christ's
satisfaction of all that God requires of you. There's nothing
for you to do. Christ has done it all. Yet it
pleased the Lord to bruise him. He had put him to grief. God
put him to grief. He should have put us to grief.
But God put him to grief and bruised him when he made his
soul an offering for sin. That being the sin of the elect,
that being my sin. the sin of those who love Him
and trust Him, and we love Him only because He first loved us.
God the Father shall see the travail of His, Christ so, and
shall be satisfied. And it's in Christ that God is
satisfied with us. with those who believe him, those
who trust in him. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, not all, not everyone in the world, no,
but for those that he came to die for. For he shall bear their
iniquities, Isaiah 53, 11. What must I do to be saved? We
must stand still. There's nothing that I can do
to save myself. If I'm saved, it's because of
Christ's finished work. If there is nothing I can do
to save myself, then there's nothing I can do to lose my salvation,
because my acceptance is in Him, in Him alone, and not in me.
And that's the best news that any sinner has ever heard. And
it's called the gospel. May God enable you to believe
it. You have been listening to a message by David Edmondson,
the pastor of Bible Baptist Church in Madisonville, Kentucky. If
you would like a copy of this message, or to hear other messages
of God's free, sovereign grace in Christ, you can write to our
mailing address at P.O. Box 652 Madisonville, Kentucky
42431. or log on to our website at FreeGraceRadio.com. If you would like to come and
worship with us, we meet at 2015 Beulah Road, Madisonville, Kentucky,
and our service times are Sunday morning Bible study at 10 o'clock
a.m., worship services begin at 11 o'clock a.m., Wednesday
evening services at 7 o'clock p.m., Please tune in again next
Sunday morning at 10 o'clock AM for another message of God's
free and sovereign grace in the Lord Jesus Christ.