Thank you, Joe. Thank you all
for inviting me. I bring you warm greetings from
the Brethren in Orlando and in Sarasota. They are praying for
you and for this weekend's meetings. I've just been so encouraged
in the little bit of time we've been here already, and I'm so
thankful for this opportunity. I want to ask you, if you will,
to take your Bibles and open them with me to Psalm 87. Psalm
87. I've been particularly encouraged
in talking to several of you of the desire that the Lord has
put on your hearts to have a church here. The message tonight from Psalm
87 has to do with what the Lord says about His church. Notice in verse 3, Glorious things
of thee are spoken, O city of God. glorious things of the year
spoken. Lord, literally, I want to bring
a message from Proverbs 31 tomorrow morning. If you'd like to read
that between now and then, it might be helpful tomorrow in
hearing the message from Proverbs 31. But I just thought that it
would be helpful for you to see and to hear what God has to say
about His Church. And I'd like to begin with an
agreed upon, settled presupposition, and that is that things are as
God sees them. That's simple enough. Things
are as God sees them. The way we see things is not
really that important, is it? And if we don't see things the
way God sees them, it's because we're confused. Things really
are the way God says they are. And faith is agreeing with God. The scripture says that faith
is the substance of things hoped for. It is the evidence of things
not seen. And so, when God speaks, faith
just says, Amen. Amen. That's the way it is. When
the Lord says, As He is, the Lord Jesus Christ, so are we
in this world. that by virtue of our union with
Christ, our position before God is just as sure as is the position
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I look at myself and I think,
how could God consider me as He does Christ? But how I see
things don't matter. Because God said it was so. He
said it was so. And so my hope is that as He
is, I am, before the Lord right now. When God says, I shall separate
your sins from you as far as the East is from the West, and
remember them no more. I can't get through very few
minutes in my life without being consciously aware of my sin.
I mean, I remember my sin all the time. But God says, I remember
them no more. I've separated them from you.
So things are not necessarily as I see them to be. Things are
the way God says they are. And there's my hope. When the
Lord said, Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are
not under law, but under grace. I look at myself and I think,
Sin sure seems to have dominion over me. But God says it doesn't. It doesn't. There was a time
when sin had total dominion in that I was not able to believe. And when the Lord was pleased,
opened the eyes of my understanding, and shed the grace of His gospel
in my heart, in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, I can't not
believe now. I can't not believe. And so,
the Lord says sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are
not under the law, but you are under grace. I've got to believe
that sin doesn't have dominion. It doesn't have dominion. And
the sin that that is in my flesh, the Lord uses for my spiritual
good. The older Esau, the old man,
shall serve the new man. And so it's my sin that drives
me to Christ. And so things are as God says
they are. I love that story in 2 Kings
6. when Elisha was surrounded by
the army of the Assyrians and they had come to destroy him. And Elisha's servant goes outside
the house and he sees this army of chariots and horsemen and
spears and arrows. And he comes back in and he says,
Master, what shall we do? You know, the Assyrians have
us surrounded. And Elisha says to him, he says,
don't be afraid. They that are with us are more
than they that be with them. And the young man must have thought,
you know, the old man's lost it. He just, you need to come
out and look. No, you need to have eyes to
see. And so Elisha prays for his servant
and says to him, Lord, open his eyes that he might see. And Elisha's
servant goes out and what does he see? he sees flaming chariots
of angels between him and the army of the Assyrians. So which
way was it? Was it the way God saw it? Or
was it the way Elisha's servants saw it? Faith is believing God. It's disregarding whatever feelings
or thoughts He shall make everything beautiful
in His time. You know, we look at the circumstances
of our lives and we think, boy, there's times we think things
are falling apart. It isn't very good. No. He's working all things for good,
for them that love Him, those that are called according to
His purpose. Faith just believes God. It disregards what we see
with the natural eye and it believes what God has to say. And here's
what I want for you and me tonight. I want us to believe what God
says about His church. Because if you're a part of the
church, you know what? This might sound like psychology,
I don't mean it to be. It is true. I'm not much on self-esteem
and all the kind of self-esteem stuff that people talk about
today, but the truth is that we see ourselves in the same
way that the most significant person in our lives sees us.
That's particularly true with children, isn't it? What their
parents tell them they are, is what they believe about themselves.
And so, if that be true, there's only two questions that each
of us have to ask. Who's the most significant person
in my life, and what does he say about me? And what freedom
there is, if the Lord Jesus Christ is, in fact, the most significant
person in our lives, and we are enabled by His grace to believe
what He says about us. glorious things of thee are spoken,
O city of God." The Church of the Lord Jesus
Christ is called, in the Word of God, the City of God. It's
the place, the Scripture says, of His habitation. It's the place where He's pleased
to make Himself known. And we know that our God is omnipresent. There's not a place where you
can go and get away from God. David said in Psalm 139, he said,
if I go up into the heavens, thou art there. If I go down
to the depths of the earth, thou art there. If I go to the east,
to the rising of the sun, or from the far east to the west,
Lord, you're everywhere. And that's true. And that's true. But it's in the church where
God's people gather together and where God's called men are
enabled by the Spirit of God to preach the gospel that the
Lord is pleased to make himself known. Pleased to show forth
his grace. Pleased to birth into his family
his own children. He said, I inhabit the praise
of my people. And when John saw uh... that vision of the book of revelation
and he saw the seven churches and the seven golden candlesticks
and uh... the lord jesus christ was walking
among the candlesticks uh... glorious things of thee are spoken
oh city of god this is the place where the lord jesus christ is
pleased to save sinners This is the place where he's pleased
to make his glory known. This is the place where his Gospels
preached. This is the house of bread. You remember in the book of Ruth,
when Ruth's husband was living in Bethlehem, the house of bread. He was in the church. And there
was a famine in the land. And rather than waiting on the
Lord there in Bethlehem, what did he do? He went down to Moab,
didn't he? He thought, well, I'll just take care of my family
down in Moab. What happened? He died. His sons died. Ruth,
his wife, was left destitute. Naomi, I'm sorry. And Ruth the
Moabitess, his daughter-in-law, ended up coming back and they
met Boaz where? in Bethlehem, the house of bread. That's the church. And this is
the place where God's pleased to feed His children. And oh
how I hope that the Lord will give us a higher estimation of
the church. That He'll cause us to see how
precious and how rare and how special the church of the Lord
Jesus Christ is. And what glorious things He has
said about His bride. Glorious things of Thee are spoken,
O city of God. Listen to what the Lord says
in Psalm 46, verse 4. There is a river. the streams of which make glad
the city of God." Now, again, in the book of Revelation, when
the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven, the Holy Jerusalem,
the city of God, that's the church, and John sees a throne fixed
in the middle of that city, And the Lord Jesus Christ is sitting
upon that throne, and what flows out from the throne? A river.
A river, which makes glad the city of God. That's the river
of life. That's the same river the Lord
was talking about in John chapter 4, when He was speaking to that
woman at the well, and He said, if you drank of the water, if
you knew who it was that saith unto thee, give me the drink,
I'd give you living water. You wouldn't have to come back
to this well. You'd come to Me for all your water. for all your
life. If any man thirsts, let him come
unto me, and out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."
That all happens in the church. It's the city of God. This is
the place. Oh my God, put on our hearts
a desire, a greater desire. I'm so encouraged that you all
have a desire to have a church here. I'm encouraged that the
Lord's put on your heart a desire to have a pastor. And I want
to just reinforce that. I want the Lord to increase that
for you and for me. and to believe what He has said
about His church. So in this city, the city of
God, there's a river. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
river. And the streams of that river make glad. They make glad
the city of God. We come and we rejoice and we
sing. You just read that, Joe, in Psalm
49. joining our hearts together in
singing. As a matter of fact, look in this chapter, look at
verse 7. As well as the singers, as the
players on instruments shall be there. All my springs are in Thee. The spring of joy, the spring
of life, the spring of forgiveness, the springs of grace, All the
things that the world can't offer. That's a dry and thirsty land
out there, you know that. There's no satisfaction for a
hungry soul to be found anywhere in this world. The only place
where one who has a concern for his soul and a desire for life
can find it is in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. This
is where we rejoice. Listen to what the Lord said
in Psalm 46. He goes on to say, The holy place
of the tabernacle of the Most High God. This is the place where
He tabernacles among His people. In the beginning, John said,
was the Word. And the Word was with God. The Word was God. The
Word became flesh and He tabernacled. He made His presence known. This
tabernacle is a place of worship, and He tabernacled among us.
And we, the Scripture says, beheld His glory as the glory of the
only begotten Son of God. This is the place where we behold
His glory, where He tabernacles in the city of God. Glorious
things of Thee are spoken by God. O city of God, and the glorious
things is the tabernacle, the river of life that's in this
city. God is in the midst of her, she
shall not be moved, and God shall help her, and that quite early. Psalm 46. It all happens in the
city of God. There's no greater place in all
this world The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is but a taste
of the fullness of His glory that we will experience when
we see Him as He is, face to face, and are made like Him.
The glimpses of His glory. We look through a glass dimly
now. Where do we see that glass? Where do we look? In the church
where the gospel is preached. Where God's people are gathered
together. Glorious things of thee are spoken, O city of God. I've said some glorious things
about you. Men glory in a lot of things,
don't they? Men glory in beauty. They glory in wealth. They glory
in power. They glory in possessions. But
all that glory is vanity. It's all vanity. Solomon had
a lot to glory in. Richest, wisest man in all the
world. And as he considered all the
things that he had, what conclusion did he come to? Vanity of vanities,
all is vanity. The things that men glory in
don't satisfy the soul of a believer. They just don't do it. He wants
to know what real glory is. You remember when Moses was speaking
with the Lord on Mount Sinai? Moses had, I mean, he had seen
the plagues that God sent in Egypt. He had seen the dividing
of the Red Sea, the destruction of the Egyptian army. He had
seen the death angel come through. He'd seen the manna fall from
heaven, and the water come from the rock. He saw the mountain
quake. And in Exodus 30, what does Moses
say? After all that, Lord, show me
thy glory. Show me thy glory. Lord, I want
to see your real glory. And that's when the Lord took
Moses and put him in a cleft of the rock. and put his hand
over the rock and allowed Moses to see his backside. Moses, there's
my glory. There's my glory. I'm going to
show you, Moses, where I've been. The glory of God is seen today
in the same way. First of all, we've got to be
put in the cleft of the rock. Christ is that rock. God has
to put into our hearts a desire to see his glory. Glorious things
of thee are spoken old city of God. And the Lord's going to
have to show us what it is He's accomplished in the past. That's
where He's glorious. His glory is not in an experience,
or in a feeling, or in a whatever. His glory is in faith. Faith
is the substance of things hoped for. Faith is the evidence of
things not seen. Faith is believing what God has
said to us about what He's accomplished. Where do we see God's glory?
We look back 2,000 years ago, don't we? We see the Lord Jesus
Christ hanging on Calvary's cross, satisfying the demands of God's
holy justice. as our substitute, as our sin-bearer. We see the glory of God looking
back even further than that. God said, I'm going to let you
see my backside. I'm going to let you look into the halls of
eternity. And I'm going to let you see
what I have done in establishing a covenant of grace before time
ever began. In taking and elect people, my
church, and putting them in Christ. And having the Lord Jesus Christ
enter into that covenant as the Lamb slain before the foundation
of the world. There's my glory. So glorious
things of thee are spoken. That glory that is spoken about
the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is found in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the river that makes glad
the city of God. He's the tabernacle. He's the
one who God blessed in His perfect sinless life and His sacrificial
death. Look what he says in verse 1.
This city of God. A building is only as strong
as its foundation. And a city is only as strong
as its foundation. Look what he says about the city
of God. His foundation is in His holy mountain. Now what does
God say about the foundations of the city of God? Isaiah 28,
verse 16, Behold, I lay in Zion a foundation stone. A tried stone. A precious stone. That's the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's the stone that makes up
the foundation of the city of God. Glorious things of thee
are spoken, O city of God." The foundation? Abraham looked for
a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker was God. Now, a builder is the one that
constructs a building, and the maker is the one that designs
the building. So, Abraham was looking for a city whose architect
and whose builder was none other than God Himself. And that's
the church. The church was designed by God
from eternity past. The only reason this world exists
is for the church. That's the only reason this world
exists. When the last of God's elect are brought by God's grace
into the family of God, this thing's coming to an end. It's
of no consequence. I gave Egypt and Ethiopia and
Saba for thee. The Lord said in Isaiah, The
nations are a drop in the bucket to me. They are a speck of dust
on the scale. They're nothing. It's all about
the church. Glorious things are spoken of
thee, O city of God. You've got a foundation. It cannot
be shaken. In Hebrews 13, the Lord says,
turn with me to Hebrews 12. Turn with me to Hebrews 12, please. Hebrews 12, verse 27. And this
word yet once more signifying the removing of those things
that are shaken, as of the things that are made, that those things
which cannot be shaken may remain. And when God speaks, everything
is shaken. And there's going to come a time
when God's going to say, that's it. It's over. It's the end.
And everything's going to be destroyed. we receiving a kingdom which
cannot be moved. Let us have grace whereby we
may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for
our God is a consuming fire. When this consuming fire of God's
wrath comes against this world, there's only one thing that's
not going to be shaken. There's only one thing that's
not going to be moved. There's only one thing that's
going to survive. And that's His church. That's His church. That's His people. That's it. Turn back with me to our text. His foundation is in the holy
mountain. Now, you remember when the Lord
asked the disciples, whom do men say that I am? And Peter
said, some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elijah,
some one of the prophets. And the Lord said, who do you
say that I am? Peter said, thou art the Christ,
the anointed one. The one who has come to save
his church, all Israel, shall be saved. Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God. And what did the Lord say to
Peter? Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah. You've been blessed
with God. You didn't make that confession
on your own. You didn't figure that out on your own. God blessed
you with that truth. You heard the gospel, and you
were able to believe it by the grace of God. Blessed art thou,
Simon Bar-Jonah. Flesh and blood has not revealed
this unto you, but my Father which is in heaven, and upon
this rock." What rock? The confession you just made.
That I am the Christ, the Son of the living God. I'm going
to build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it. All of hell is not going to be able to stop. the church
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I'm going to use the church,
the preaching of the gospel through the church, to reach into the
very pits of hell and bring out those who are held captive. That's
our hope, isn't it? Not only for our salvation, but
for the salvation of others. It happens in the church. It
happens through the ministry of the church. It happens through
the preaching of the gospel. It happens through the witness
of God's people. That's the means. God uses the
foolishness of preaching to save them which are saved. You remember the rock that followed
the children of Israel around the wilderness? And Moses was
instructed by God to take his rod. What's Moses a picture of?
He's a picture of a wall. Moses wasn't able to come into
the Promised Land. Joshua! which his name means
the same thing Jesus means. Jehovah is salvation. That's
what his name means. Joshua had to bring the children
of Israel, and Moses couldn't bring them in. Why? Because Moses
is a picture of the law. And when Moses took that rod
and struck that rock in the wilderness, and rivers of living water came
forth out of that rock and sustained the life of God's people in the
wilderness, that was a picture of the rod of God's law striking
the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. out from which comes rivers
of life. He's the tried stone. He's the
precious cornerstone. He's the rock upon which the
city of God is built. And He's the one that makes the
church glorious. Glorious things of Thee are spoken,
O city of God, because of your foundation. because of the river,
because of the throne, because of the architect, because of
the builder, because of me, because of my glory. Glorious things
of thee are spoken. My glory is not demonstrated
anywhere else in this world except in the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And men can talk about, well, I can go out and worship
God by looking at the stars. They may be worshiping the God
of their imagination. God's people worship God through
the preaching of the gospel, through the gathering together,
the assembly of God's saints. This is where the glory of the
Lord Jesus Christ is made known. You're not going to find it anywhere
else in the world, no place else. All those books out there in
that library, unless there's a Bible out there and a preacher
to preach the gospel out of that Bible, You can read every one
of those books in that library and learn nothing about the glory
of God. Glorious things of thee are spoken,
O city of God. Because of the foundation. And
look at verse 2. Because of the gates. The gates. You remember the first time the
word gates, there is a principle of biblical interpretation that
is called the law of first dimension. Whenever a particular item is
mentioned first in the scriptures, the definition that is given
there is generally the idea that is carried out through the rest
of scripture. And the word gates is first mentioned in Exodus
chapter 20 when God was giving Moses the law. And part of the
law had to do with the Sabbath. And the Lord said, he said, the
seventh day shall be your Sabbath and your wives and your children
and your servants and your handmaids and your Strangers that are within
thy gates shall do no work. Now, most folks violate the Sabbath
in their attempt to keep it. But all you have to do is go
to Hebrews chapter 4. Well, so many other places, but Hebrews
chapter 4 is so clear. Enter into your rest. The labors
have been accomplished before the foundation of the world.
The work is finished. The work is finished. Righteousness
is established. The law is kept. The Lord said,
when you come into the gates of the city of God, you're not
coming in to work your way to heaven. People are kept out of the city
of God by the very thing that they're doing to try to get into
the city of God. It's their works. It's their
righteousness. It's not man's sin that keeps
them from God. It's their righteousness. Their
self-righteousness. People are trying to earn their
way to heaven. They're trying to get into the city of God.
The Lord said, "...all that are within your gates on the Sabbath
shall do no work." The work's finished. When the Lord Jesus
Christ bowed His mighty head on Calvary's cross and said,
It is finished. The work was done. The work of
redemption. The work of sanctification. The
work of salvation. He did it all. He did it all. And He gets all the glory for
it, doesn't He? And He's that gate. When that new Jerusalem,
the holy city, the city of God, John sees coming down from heaven,
and how many gates are on that city? Twelve gates, representing
the twelve tribes of Israel. All Israel shall be saved. And
there's three gates to the north, and three gates to the south,
three gates to the east, and three gates to the west. For
God has a people of every tribe, nation, tongue, and people. And
there's no limitations of geography that's going to keep him from
getting the gospel to one of his elect. But the scripture says that all
twelve gates were made of one pearl. One pearl. Who's that? The Lord Jesus Christ,
He's the Pearl of Great Price. There's no getting into the City
of God. What makes this City of God so glorious? The foundation
makes it glorious. The gate! The gate, if you will. John chapter 6, the Lord said,
John chapter 10, the Lord said, I'm the door of the sheepfold.
No man can come in except through me. Now the hireling tries to
hide, tries to climb over the wall, but you want to get into
my city, you have to come through me. The only way. I am the way. He didn't say, I'll show you
the way. I'll teach you the way. He said, I am the way. There
is a way that seems right unto man. But the end thereof leads
to death. What's the way that seems right
unto man? To be right with God. How can I get into the city of
God? How can I be terminated? How can I be saved? Well, I've
got to do something, don't I? No. In Exodus chapter 20, when
God said, all that are within your gates shall do no work on
the seventh. That just means when you're looking
to the Lord Jesus Christ for all your salvation, you're not
adding to what he did to try to make his work work for you.
You're looking to Christ alone. You're resting labor to enter
into his rest. you're resting in the finished
work and glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in Exodus
20, after the Lord told them, don't work on the Sabbath, they
caught a man picking up sticks on the Sabbath. I thought, you
know what? It's the first Sabbath. Maybe
he's cold. Maybe he didn't even make a fire. But they caught him picking up
sticks on the Sabbath and they brought him to Moses. Moses didn't
know what to do with him. Moses had to go to the Lord.
Lord, what do I do? He's working on the Sabbath.
Stoning. God said stoning. And they stoned
him. Make an example out of it. to all the Church of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That wasn't a cracking of the
whip of the wall, like some churches do in disciplining their members.
That's not what Sabbath is about. It's all about adding to the
finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Matter of fact, most
churches that practice church discipline are violating the
Sabbath in their attempt to practice church discipline. They just are, aren't they? The church is called the body
of Christ. Let me ask you a question. Other
than perhaps a few extra pounds, what part of your body do you
want to get rid of? What part of your body is not
important to you? Every part of your body is important
to you, isn't it? All you got to do is just smash your little
toe, your little finger, and you find out how important the
smallest insignificant things in your body are. That little appendix that they
say has no use, you let it get flamed and see how much pain
you're going to be in from that little insignificant part of
your body. Every part of your body is important, isn't it?
And when a limb in your body gets sick, what do you do? And the rest of your body gives
every bit of attention to the healing of that limb. You don't
say, you know what, my hand hurts, let's just cut it off. And the hand doesn't say to the
eye, I don't need you. You see, that's what people do
when they practice church discipline. They just cut off members of
the body saying, we don't need you. You're sick, you're in sin,
we're just going to kick you out. No, in the church of the
Lord Jesus Christ, every other member of the body tends to the
need of that member, ministering grace and love and affection
and the gospel to that member, helping them to recover. This is the body of Christ. It's
His body. He's the hand. the gates to Zion. This church is the bride of Christ. Glorious things of thee are spoken,
O city of God. Glorious things of Thee are spoken
in terms of your foundation, your gates, the river that's
within you, the tabernacle that's there, your builder, your architect. Glorious things. There's no glory
in the world like the glory that is seen in the church of the
Lord Jesus Christ. None. No comparison. It's all vanity. It's all emptiness. Glorious things have been spoken
in the terms that the Lord used to describe His church. He calls
it the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ. He calls
it the Bride of Christ. Husbands, love your wives. A
lot of churches like to focus on that. I read that and I think,
oh wow, I want to love my wife. Has Christ loved the church and
gave Himself for her? Oh, what a perfect husband the
Church has. He says that He might sanctify
and cleanse her by the washing of the water of His Word. And
so every time we come together, what do we do? We open up His
Word for the washing and the cleansing of the body of the
Bride of Christ. I went to preach for a legalistic
group out in another state one time, And I never met them before
and got together as a group, at least this big, maybe bigger.
And the very first question they asked me, they said, we want
to know how you practice church discipline down there in Orlando. And I said, well, we practice
church discipline every single time we come together. And their
eyes got big and they thought, boy, This is a really spiritual
church. This guy's, you know, he's got
it. I said, I stand up, open the
Bible, preach Christ. God's people are disciplined
and encouraged and blessed. And the unbelievers eventually
leave. And that's how we practice church system. And if a member of our church
gets in trouble with sin, we rally around them. And we love
them and encourage them and try to help them through it. And the only reason that anyone
would ever fall away is if they weren't a member of the church.
You know, we've got a lot of fruit trees in our yard. And
if I go out there and tape an apple to one of my orange trees,
one thing I know for sure, that apple is going to dry up and
die and fall off the tree. It doesn't belong on that tree.
But the oranges that are on there, they're going to continue to
mature. They're on there right now. In about December, they'll
be ripe and we'll be able to pick them and enjoy them. Why? Because they're natural to that
tree. So, John said they went out from us because they were
never of us. Had they been of us, they would have remained.
And God's people remain. They remain. Do they get in trouble?
Do they sin? Yeah. Yeah. But they're part
of the body of Christ. They're part of His bride. He
cleanses them by the washing of the water of His Word. I hope
He's doing that right now for each of us. That's the means. And the church is the only place
that's going to happen. He goes on to say that he might present
her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing. That's how he does it. Through
the preaching of the gospel, he cleanses his bride, and he
presents his bride to himself, a glorious bride. You know, we
have a tradition when we have weddings, the husband's standing
down front and the bride comes in. And all the attention's on
the bride, isn't it? And I thought, you know, that's
kind of backwards, because the bride's the church, and the bridegroom
ought to be getting all the attention. But the truth is that there is
going to come a day when the Lord Jesus Christ, as the husband
of His bride, is going to parade His chaste bride before all of
creation to declare His glorious grace. Look, look what I've done. Look at the object of my grace.
Look what I've accomplished. Look how beautiful she is. Look
how chaste she is. That's what John saw as a bride
prepared for her bridegroom coming down with the new Jerusalem and
the holy city. And it was a great wedding feast,
wasn't there? That's the bride of Christ. Glorious
things of thee are spoken, O city of God. What more glorious things? You say, well, I don't see myself
that way. Well, that's the way God sees
us. How is it? Is it the way we see ourselves?
Or is the way God sees it the way it is? Now where does he get this bribe
from? Well, where did Hosea get his bribe from? Gomer. Hosea, take unto thee
a harlot. And he did. And he made Gomer
his wife. And she continued to play the
harlot. And he continued to provide for her. She'd go out in the
mornings after being with her lovers that night, and she'd
find gifts on the front porch, thinking her lovers left it.
It was Hosea leaving her gifts. Until she finally ended up on
the auction block as a slave. Who bought her? Hosea bought
her. Brought her home. Are you like Gomer? Playing the
harlot? Looking away from your husband?
Being drawn away by others? That's our sin, isn't it? And
the Lord continues to provide for us in the church. Why? Because we're His bride. We're
His bride. I mentioned Ruth and Naomi a
while ago with Boaz. And I love when Naomi says to
Ruth, When Ruth goes to the threshing floor, Naomi says, uncover his
feet and lie right there and don't move. For the man will
not rest until he has finished the work. Naomi knew what a man in love
looked like. Naomi knew that Boaz loved Ruth. Naomi knew that Boaz was going
to do everything necessary to redeem Ruth to himself. And he
said, he's not going to rest until he finishes the work this
day. This day. And the Lord Jesus
Christ did not rest until he finished the work. He finished
it, didn't he? But Boaz, in finishing the work,
said to Ruth, he said, there is a kinsman nearer to you than
me. And he's got to be given an opportunity
to redeem you before I can have a chance. Because he's closer
in kin to you. Boaz goes to the city council
and gets the other kinsmen, the other elders together, and says
to that kinsman, he says, Naomi's back from Boaz, and you've got
to redeem her and her property back into Israel. She's lost
everything. You're her new kinsman. And the kinsman said, I'll do
it. I'll redeem her. That's my responsibility.
I'll redeem her. And here's what Boaz said. In
the day in which you redeem Naomi, you must also redeem Ruth, the
Moabitess. And the kinsman said, Oh no,
I can't do that. She'll bar my inheritance. I
can't redeem her. Now, you and I are like Ruth. We're outsiders. We're Moabitess. And that kinsman that was nearer
to Naomi than Boaz was the law. And the law can't redeem. The
only way the law would be able to redeem us is to lower its
standard down to where we are. And the law says, I can't redeem
them, Boabitis. If I do that, I'll mar my inheritance. You buy it. So Boaz reckoned
with the law. settled things with the law,
and then he bought Naomi and Ruth, and made Ruth his wife. What a glorious picture of the
gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ, by His perfect righteousness,
has silenced the law. There was a law, there is a law,
that demands exact perfection from every one of us. And the
only one that can settle that is our kinsman redeemer, Boaz,
our husband, who's gone to the law and satisfied things with
the law. You're the bride of Christ. Glorious
things of thee are spoken, O city of God. Look what he says in verse four.
I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know
me. Behold Philistia and Tyre with
Ethiopia." This man was born there. Now those cities, those
countries that are mentioned there are the same ones that
are mentioned in Acts chapter 2 when Peter preached the gospel
on the day of Pentecost. And all these nations from around
the world were gathered there in Jerusalem. And God says, I've
got to elect children outside of Palestine that I'm going to
save. And I'm going to say to them,
this man was born there. He was born there. He was born
in the church. is born in Israel. This is the
man that can save you." It has saved you. It's the only man
that can save you. Look what he says, "...and of
Zion it shall be said, This and that man was born in her, and the Highest Himself shall
establish her. The LORD shall count when he
writeth up the people that this man was born there. Now most of the time in the Bible
the word for man is the word Adam. Adam is the common word
used in the scriptures for man. But this is not the word Adam.
This is the word Ish. And an ish is not just a man,
it's a man of renown. It's a man of great wealth. It's
a man of great possessions. It's a special man. He's talking
about the church. Glorious things of thee are spoken
of the city of God. Read the Song of Solomon, chapter
5, in the Song of Solomon. And if you understand that, you
know, people say, well, I can't read the Song of Solomon, it's
too... If you understand there's anything
other than Christ and His Church, you just don't have any discernment.
That's what it's about. And look at the way in which
the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of His bride. and he speaks of
her as glorious things. But here he's, this is a man
of power, a man of prestige, an eminent man, a famous man. Look what the Lord says. The
Lord shall count when he writeth up the people that this man was
born there. He's counting the people of God.
He's counting the issues. The renowned, princes, children
of God, children of the King. Glorious things of thee are spoken.
There's no possessions in this world like the possession of
salvation. What does it profit a man if
he gains the whole world or loses his own soul? What will a man
give in exchange for his soul? Tell him what he'll give. He'll
give a pile of soot. That's what Esau did. Esau traded
a bowl of soup for his birthright. And the natural man is going
to do that. He will choose the things of this world over Christ.
God's people are the only ones that won't. They labor not for the meat that
perisheth, but for that meat which leadeth to everlasting
life. So, here the Lord says, I'm counting
my people. They're going to be burst into
the family of God through the church. Through the preaching
of the gospel. And I'm going to save every one
of them. And they're going to be renowned. They're going to
have riches beyond measure. Riches the world knows nothing
about. They're going to have the wealth of being a child of
the King. being saved, having righteousness,
justification before God, I'm going to adopt them. And as a result of the glorious
things that I have said about my church, they're going to sing.
They're going to sing. They're going to be glad. These
rivers are going to make glad the city of God. This is not,
our religion is not a, you know, some people think, well, you
know, if I'm going to be spiritual, I got to be, I got to be real
somber and sober. And, you know, and you've seen
religious people like that. You know, we passed some, what
do you call them, Mennonites today, you know. I've been around
a lot of people. That's spiritual. No! When you hear what God says about
you, you break into singing. You rejoice. You're glad. Lord, thank you. And I can't believe what I see. But I can believe what you summon. Things are the way God says they
are. And that's what God says about
the city of God. Are you part of the city of God?
Is this a place where the Lord is going to establish another
one of his cities? Another one of his tribes? I
hope so. I hope so. And I pray so. I think you have
reason to be encouraged to think that this is what the Lord is
doing. Keep praying and believe that glorious things of Thee
are spoken. All right. Let's pray together.
Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful for Your Word and how we pray
that Your Holy Spirit would give us faith to believe You. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.