John chapter 18 and verse 1. John chapter 18 and verse 1.
We'll be also looking at Psalm chapter 110 verse 7. The title of the message this
morning is the brook in the way. The brook. In the way. In the way. When Jesus had spoken
these words, He went forth with His disciples over the brook
Ketron. We have before us here a seemingly
obscure passage of Scripture. On the surface, it seems as though
this was just an aside. This was something to give direction
as to where the Lord Jesus Christ and His disciples were going,
as to which way they were coming from the city. If you were to
just read that, that's kind of, oh, there's a brook there and
they must have crossed over and get over here. It seems that way on the surface.
But this was the same night that the Lord was betrayed. He crossed
over this brook and went into the Garden of Gethsemane. He
and his disciples crossed over and he and his disciples went
into the garden where Jesus' soul was made sorrowful even
unto death. This was a place where we see
our Lord in great agony, in great pain, in great suffering and
trial and difficulty. He was in such great agony, the
Scripture says, that he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. Friends, I have no idea what
it is to face that kind of agony. And I have heard of men in great
peril, in great trials, even unto their death, and none of
them sweat great drops of blood. The agony. The sheer force of the agony
that would bring His blood to the surface of His skin. The
agony that He felt is undescribable. So much so that the Son of God
Himself prayed unto God the Father and said, Father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from Me. And that scripture for many years
has bothered me. I could not figure out why he
would say that. Did he not come for this hour? Was it not purposed in eternity,
agreed upon in the covenant of grace, from eternity that Christ
should come and be a substitute for His people? Yes. He said, for this hour I've come. Remember how many times he said,
my hour is not yet, my hour is not yet. His hour was come. And it was so great that the
deity, the son of God himself bowed down in agony. And said,
if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. You see, I struggle with this
scripture. But let me ask you this, what
else could a perfect man pray? What else could the sinless Son
of God ask for but to remain without sin? He was about to drink the cup
of the dregs of sin for His people. And he is the perfect man, the
perfect son of God. What else could he say? Nevertheless, not my will. What was his will? Not. Nevertheless, not my will. But thy will be done. He humbled himself in submission
to God as the servant. To obey the will of God, to honor
what pleased God. And what pleased God? It pleased
God to bruise him. To set him to grief. It was the
will of agony that God had for this man of sorrows, acquainted
with grief. It was that he should bear the
sins of his own people in his own body on the tree. that he
would be made sin by the imputation of the father and that he would
be made guilty before the justice of Almighty God. And this friend is pictured here
in the crossing of the brook, Ketron. Psalm 107 says, he shall drink
of the brook. in the way. This is not by accident
that we read this. This is not by anything but other
than divine, sovereign purpose. It was the purpose of God that
the King, the Mediator, should drink of the brook in the way. And it was that Jesus Christ
crossed the brook Kitron and He did drink of this brook. He did drink. of this brook. God promised that Christ would
be King. He said, The Lord said unto my
Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy
footstool. He said, Thy people shall be willing in the day of
thy power. He's going to have a people. He's going to be king.
And He's also going to be a high priest. He said, Thou art a high
priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. We talked about
this this morning concerning the mediatorship of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And how there is one mediator
between God and men, the man, Jesus Christ. And God promised
to him to be the high priest, not of Aaron's line, because
Aaron's line died. Every time there was a high priest
and he got old, he died. And in Aaron's line, they had
to get another, and then another, and then another, and then another.
Well, this priest is not one that changes. This priest is
an eternal priest, Jesus Christ, the Lord. He was made a priest
by an oath, not of men, but of God. God swore that he would
be the high priest, the mediator. That He would offer a sacrifice
to God's people and the Messiah would be victorious. Let's read this together. Go
to Psalms 110. Go to Psalms 110. Let's read
this language here that the Holy Spirit has given us. Listen to this. This just sounds
like victory. It just smells of victory. The Lord at thy right hand shall
strike through kings in the day of his wrath. Does
that sound questionable? Does that sound like, well, maybe
he'll strike through some kings? Maybe he'll be... No! This is
victory! He shall judge among the heathen.
He shall fill the places with the dead bodies. Isn't that a
picture? You see a man standing on a hill
with a sword and beneath his feet are millions of bodies of
his enemies. That's a victor, isn't it? That's
a conqueror, a king. That's exactly what Jesus Christ
was purposed to be. A king to strike through kings
in the day of his wrath. Take out his enemies before him. And they should fall as dead
bodies. He shall wound the heads over many countries. How's all this going to happen? How then can we say this speaks
of Christ who was meek and lowly in heart? How can this Scripture who speaks
of such a victorious King, and then we see Him there in the
garden struggling with agony, and on the cross suffering unto
death. How can this be that He would
come forth victorious? You remember the disciples, they
didn't think that, did they? They went back fishing. They
thought it was over. Surely we thought this was the
Christ. We were wrong. We were wrong,
He said. How can this be Christ? How shall
He conquer His enemies? Look at verse 7. This is how
He does it. He shall drink of the brook in
the way. That's how He'll conquer. Therefore,
because He has drank from the brook, therefore He will lift
up The head. God will lift up the head, Christ. The head of His church. Three
things I want us to see about this brook this morning. First
of all, let's look at the brook. What is this brook, Ketron? Why
is it such an important picture? Number two, what is this drinking
of the brook? What does that mean? How did
Christ drink of the brook? And thirdly, what are the results
of his drinking? What is the result of his drinking
of this brook, Kittron? First of all, the brook. And
Jesus had spoken these words. He went forth with his disciples
over the brook Kittron. Now, what do you think about
when you think about a brook? You think about a nice sparkling
little stream running through the mountains, over some rocks
and a little waterfall, and it's crystal clear. You think of a
brook and you could bend down, and in a desert place, and you
could bend down and grab some of that water and refresh yourself. That's what everybody thinks
when they think of a brook flowing from a mountain stream. Oh, the
garden of Gethsemane. It must have been just a beautiful
brook. You see that picture of that hippie man. I don't know
who he is. They say he looks like Jesus.
He's not. And he's sitting over this little brook. He's crossing
over this little stream. It's all clear and white. This is not The brook, Kittron. This brook was called Kittron
because the word means black. Black. This brook might have better
been called a ditch. Now does that bring a pleasant
image? The ditch, Kittron. The Lord crossed over the putrid
black ditch of Kittron. Now you're getting a better picture
of what this brook is. Blackness. You see, every day,
there were at least two sacrifices a day from the altar, where they
would take that ram or that goat or the bull, and they would slice
his throat, and the blood would pour out, and they would cut
him open, and the entrails of the animal would fall out. Where
did all that go? There was a ditch that they put
this stuff in. It was the ditch Ketron. It was the place where all of
the animal carcasses and all of the animal blood, all of the
animal dung from that temple flowed down this ditch. It was a vile stench to pass
over this ditch. It was a stagnant ditch. In other words, it never ran
down well. My father, as a plumber, he said,
two things you need to know to be a plumber. You need to know
payday is on Friday, and all things roll downhill. That's
how you know you're a plumber. That's it. This ditch did not
even go down into the water. It just remained a ditch full
of stagnant things. The most vile things you can
imagine were in there. Most people believe this was
a common sewer from the city. Common sewer. And this brook, this ditch, do
you realize it is mentioned 11 times in the Old Testament? How
important is this? How important is this muddy,
stagnant, vile ditch? What does it do? What is it picturing?
What is the Lord saying to us? Friends, this is a picture of
our sins. In 2 Kings chapter 23, when Josiah
the king, he tore down all those altars and all of those idols
from Jerusalem, from Judah. And he took those idols, and
guess where he took them? Ketron. He took them to the ditch. And they burned their ashes there
and sprinkled their ashes all into this ditch. Ketron. Full of blood and dung. Because that's what God thinks
of sin. That's how God smells every man
by nature, as though he is black and as filthy as the ditch Chitron. This was a stagnant brook and
it was only during the summertime, only during the rainy season
did this ditch ever fill up and flow out. And guess where it
flowed? The Dead Sea. The Dead Sea, where nothing lived. That's the only place this stuff
can go, is to the Dead Sea. When we were born into this world,
we were given a nature, friends, that was free, free from righteousness. What is it to be free from righteousness?
Is it not to be full of sin? You see, righteousness is not
a middle ground. It's not something that you can
have part of. Righteousness is an all or none
principle. You are either righteous or you
are full of sin. There is no, I'm okay. I'm going
to do well. No, you're either full of sin
or you're full of righteousness. That's it. And friends, we are full of righteousness. Man's nature is stagnant, unmoving,
vile waste water. He may get religion. You may
straighten up your act. You may reform yourselves and
do well. You may go from being a bum to
having a nice job, a nice house, a nice family. You can stop saying
things bad about God and you start saying good things about
God. You can stop touching and eating
and drinking certain things, but all these things are nothing
but vain and empty religion. This is nothing less than the
foolish, arrogant pride of works and free will religion. To think
that man's heart can be changed from the outside in. Let me ask
you this. If you had a cup of water and
I just put one drop of poison in it, just one, just one drop. You want to drink that? You want
to drink that? There's just one drop. Don't
worry about it. The rest of the water is clear. Go ahead. Just
drink the rest of it without drinking the poison. You can't.
Why? It's one. And friends, our water
is not filled with just one drop. It is filled with multitudes
of poison. It says the poison of asps is
under their lips. Our nature is full of the refuse
of sin. How then can you bring good out
of that? You see, man wants to do something
outward to affect the ditch that is inward. If I take good water and pour
it into Kittron, what does that do? It doesn't do anything but
contaminate the good water. Religion never works for your
salvation. You cannot bring salvation from
the outside in. Salvation must come from the
inside out. It must. Jesus said, To the Pharisees,
you hypocrites, you whited tombs." In other words, on the outside,
their tombs are white. On the inside, it's full of dead
men's bones. Man by nature may be white on
the outside, but inside, he's full of Ketron. He's full of
the refuse and adultery and idolatry of his sin. The heart of man is black, ungodly. and does not need to be reformed. It needs a resurrection. It needs
a miracle. I tell you that a man cannot
know this about his heart. Know that his heart is as bitter
as the waters of Mara unless God reveal it to him. We by nature cannot cleanse ourselves
from sin, nor could we ever see how Christ
could do it. Man cannot and will not by nature
come to Christ so that he might have life. Is that not the most
foolish and arrogant thing that a man could do is not come to
Christ? What does that say? Christ is
not enough. Isn't that the most arrogant
thing a heart could say? And yet that's the heart of every
man. No man can come and no man will come. The natural mind,
he receiveth not the things of God. For they are foolishness
unto him, neither indeed can he know them. cannot and He will not. If you
don't believe in Christ, you cannot and you will not, because
your heart is full of sin. You can't do it. Therefore, the only hope for
such a brook of sin is that God send the flood of
Christ, the flood of the Spirit to wash away our I told you that brook was only
clean by a flood, an act of God. A whole bunch of people could
have got out there with water hoses and kept trying to spray
that brook clean, and it never would have done anything. It
took the power of Almighty God to send a flood to wash it out. It's the same way with a man's
soul. The only hope is that somebody else take away
this ditch. Our hope as sinners must be in
the act of another to cleanse us from such vileness before
God. Well, I have one, only one. I have one, according to the
word of God, that drank the brook dry. He shall drink of the brook in
the way. This is my second point, drinking
of the brook. Friends, the law could never
remove us our sin or bring in righteousness, because the flesh
was weak. The flesh was weak. The law was
good. The flesh was weak to obey the
law. So God sent Jesus Christ to cross
over this brook that was in the way. I like that. In the way. You see, sin is in the way. No man can come to God because
sin hath separated us from God. There's something in the way.
Christ was going somewhere. Where was He going? He was going
to the garden. I'll get to that in a minute.
He was going to the garden. But how? There was a ditch in
the way. Putrid ditch. And the only way
for him to get to the garden was to cross the ditch. Was to take the ditch out of
the way. Out of the way. Man, that sinners would see how
their sin is in the way. Don't the natural man think sin
takes things out of the way? Man, if I do this, then that's
just going to take all this out of the way. And I'm just going
to be fine. No, there's something else in the way. Oh, what if
I get rid of that? Then it will be clear. Then it's
okay. Then I'll be fine. Something
else in the way. Always something in the way.
And you keep thinking it's something in the way. Friends, it is your
sin in the way between you and God, and there is no satisfaction
in it. There's no hope of happiness. There's no hope of joy unless
the sin is removed from you, from your way to God. It must be a reconciliation that
must be made. God and sovereign mercy. God in sovereign mercy, before
there was ever a law broken, before there was ever a sin made,
before there was ever a creature to sing His praise or to curse
His name. God in sovereign, unmerited,
undeserved grace! Purposed that Christ would come
and take the brook out of the way by drinking it in. By drinking it in. And He did this for His people. Not because they were great.
Not because they were good, not because they were smart, not
because they were better than anybody, but He has chosen the
most vile things of this world. He has chosen sinners to save. That's pictured in Deuteronomy,
isn't it? When God chose a nation of Israel. He said, I didn't
choose you because you were the mightiest. Matter of fact, you
are the most stiff-necked, weak, and horrible, rebellious people
on the face of God's earth. But I chose you. I chose you. This eternal election of God's
people is always unto salvation. Those He purposed to save, He
will. Matter of fact, He already has.
He already has. And some of them have not even
experienced it yet. They will. They will. They'll hear this message. They'll
hear the gospel. And they'll believe. I know they
will. Why? Because Christ drank of
the brook of their sins and took it out of the way. He was purposed
to do this from eternity. It was the love of God and the
grace of God for His people that He chose to salvation, that He
would save. Not at the expense of His justice. Never at the expense of God's
justice. Is that not the most vile thing
that you'd ever hear? Is that God's going to accept
you because you tried your best? Because God loves me. People think because they think,
well, God loves everybody. Therefore, it doesn't matter
about justice because God loves me and He'll just overlook His
justice for me. No. No, He won't. God is just and He will punish
every single sin that has ever been committed against Himself
and He will not miss one. I can't even think of the amount
of sin that I committed in the last five minutes. I probably
couldn't count it. Imagine this. God sent his son
not to drink of the cup of sins of one man, but of every elect sinner from
the foundation of the world even to the end of it. How black was that brook? And you just think of your sin. But he took the sins of all his
people. To show you how much the justice
of God matters to him, You can only see the justice of God truly
in the cross of Christ. God was so strict in His justice
that sin, that even the love for His people could not save
them without justice being satisfied for them. Being satisfied. In order for the leg to be saved,
God's justice must be satisfied and righteousness fulfilled. Fulfilled, filled full. The brook of our sins must be
swallowed up and the justice of God must be poured out on
the guilty. Therefore, Jesus, the eternal
High Priest, came to satisfy the justice of God, for His elect
is pictured in crossing this brook. You remember David crossed this
brook, didn't he? When Absalom ran him out of the
kingdom, you remember he was sorrowing for his son when he
crossed the brook. He was in great agony because
he had to cross the brook Kitron, running away from his son. This pictured Christ definitely
in the grief that He bore for His children. But you see, Christ
was not running from His Son. He was crossing the brook to
get His Son. Christ was going the opposite
direction. David was going away from the kingdom. Christ was
coming to it. David lost his son. Christ crossed
it the other way and saved his. And to do that, crossing over
the brook, he must drink of the brook in the way. He has come to drink death itself. He who is the author of life
drank death. He who is the perfect, holy,
sinless Son of God drank in our sins. Think of it. How much weight of sin did He
actually bear? You could spend an eternity in
hell for your own sins and never pay for one. God imputed our sins to Christ
and He took them all. And God's justice truly punished
him guilty. I didn't say as he was
guilty, guilty. I don't know how that is. God in grace to the elect was
not willing to punish them. I'm not willing to punish my
people for their sins. I'll punish my son for them. He'll bear their guilt. He'll bear their shame. He hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He made His soul an offering for sin. And friends, when God found all
of the sins of His people on His Son, do you know how much
mercy God had on His own Son? None. You remember that wicked man
in hell who said, send down Lazarus that he give me one drop of water
to cool my tongue in this place. And Christ Himself bearing all
the sins of His people said, I thirst! And there was no mercy
given. No mercy. He shall see of the travail of
his soul. For what? What did Christ do? What did He do wrong? Where was
His sin? He had none. He was a sinless
offering to God. And you know what? Though He
was guilty, He was still the sinless Son of God. He did not
lose His deity at all. He did not lose His sinless nature. How do I know that? He remained
faithful to God even while bearing all of our sins. He remained
faithful to God. He remained true to God, faithful. Remember, it is by the faithfulness
of Jesus Christ that we have His righteousness imputed and
imparted to us. And He drank all of the sins
of His people and He bore the weight of them on the cross. What then is the result? Because he was made a curse for
us, because God's justice was satisfied, because the law of
God was honored and righteousness brought in, what is the result? He shall drink of the brook of
the way. Therefore, when he's done that, therefore, he shall
lift up the head. The head. Jesus, who being in the form
of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made of Himself vanity, empty. He emptied Himself all but deity. He couldn't empty Himself of
deity. It's who He was. But He emptied Himself of all
of His will and His design, His purpose, so that He might humble
Himself before the Father, in taking our sins, and being took
upon him the form, the nature of a servant, and being found
in likeness as a man, found in fashion as a man, he humbled
himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross. Wherefore, because of this, God has highly exalted him. and given Him a name that is
above every name, that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee
shall bow in things in heaven, in things in earth, in things
under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And you know it does not matter
what men think about that. It does not matter. I will not
have that man to rule over me. So what? So what? God has exalted him and you have
nothing to say about it. Nothing. He is higher than you. He's higher
than me. And He's higher than anyone else
we can think about. Don't you dare put anyone above
Him. God didn't. Why would you? There is nothing above Him but
God. God set Him on the throne and
God is doing whatsoever He wills. In your life and in my life and
in the life of every man, He is doing exactly what He wills
to do. And what is that? To save His
people from their sins. That's what He's doing. To save
sinners in need of mercy and grace. And He alone will be judge over
all the earth. God has lifted up the head of
the church, even Christ. Even Christ. So that we that
have believed, we who have come to Christ, we have been given
a new heart, a new nature, a new life, and a new song. A new song! Where does that come from? It
comes from the heart! A new heart! Not one of that
old vile nature. I still have that one. It's just
dragging me down like a corpse on my neck. But I know this,
I have a new nature and it's clean, pure, and white because
of the robe of Christ's righteousness given to me. It's white. And that new song, it says this,
worthy is the lamb that was slain. Men say, worthy is my free will. Worthy is my good works. Well,
that's the old song. I can recognize that because
I had that old song. That's an old one. This is a
new one. A new one given to me by the new birth. And I can't help but mention
this. Go back. I know it's going a little long, but man, you've
got to see this. It's beautiful. Go back to your text. Who crosses, bro? Jesus and His disciples. When Christ bore our sins in
His own body on the tree, so did I. When He was righteous, before
God and exalted to heaven, so was I. They crossed over the brook Ketron. Where'd they go? They went into
a garden. If you remember, that's where God created man perfect,
in a garden. And what happened in that garden?
Man sinned. What did God do? God kicked him
out of the garden. Threw him in the ditch. Kid-drawn.
Out of the garden. And what did God do so no man
could get back in there? He put a sword. A tarot with
a sword that turned every which way so that no man could enter
this garden unless what? Justice be satisfied. You see,
it was a sword of justice God put there to divide paradise
from the sinner, to keep sin out of His garden. Christ, therefore,
bearing our iniquity, went under the sword. God's sword fell on
Christ, and now the garden is open. The garden is open. It's
open to us who believe on Christ. Not by accident. These things
are not accidental. These things are spiritual and
they are truth. They are meant for us, for our
assurance, for our comfort. When that thief hung on the cross, he said, Lord, remember me when
thou comest into thy kingdom. And Christ said to him today, today, you will be with me in paradise. Why? Christ was bearing his sins
and God was striking him down. Thief was just dying physically. And when he died physically,
he ascended into paradise because the man next to him had died
for his sins. And God has lifted him up. Without sin in the way, what
else is there? What keeps you from God? What keeps me from
God? Nothing. Nothing! Nothing. He's taken the brook
out of the way to the garden. I pray God will bless this to
your hearts. This stand will be dismissed in prayer. Oh, I'm
sorry. Man, I'm so excited. Sometimes
I get so excited. If the men will come forward,
please.