Well, good morning. Good to see
you this morning. We trust the Lord will bless
us as we meet around his word. Let's commence our worship in
prayer. Let's all pray. Loving Heavenly Father, we thank
thee once again for bringing us together in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ and under the sound of his gospel. We rejoice that Thou hast given
us yet another day. Thou hast been pleased to bestow
Thy providential mercies upon us. We thank Thee for a good
night's sleep. We thank Thee for the sunrise
this morning and for the anticipation of this day which Thou hast made.
We thank Thee that for all the things that we must do in the
coming week, all the responsibilities that we have, all the work challenges,
all the relationship problems, all the labours that have to
be undergone, Thou has given us this hour this morning. And we pray that we will be benefited
by it. that even in our worship of thee,
in our fellowship together, there will be that nourishment of our
soul, that preparation of our heart and mind, that challenge
laid at our foot, that we might serve thee better in the days
that lie ahead. We thank Thee for all that we
possess in the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank Thee for Thy love, for
Thy mercy and Thy grace towards us. And we pray that in these
few minutes that we have together, once again, the Lord Jesus Christ
will be lifted up and a restatement of that great work of redemption
will be a blessing to each heart gathered here. May it be so for
Thy name's sake. Amen. This morning I want to take you
to the last book of the Old Testament, the book of Malachi, the prophet
Malachi, who closed that Old Testament canon with so many
beautiful pictures of the imminent arrival of the Lord Jesus Christ. He spoke of John the Baptist
and how that messenger would come quickly and announce the
Lord Jesus Christ's arrival. And he spoke of the coming of
Christ and all that would be accomplished, and how that old
system of ritual and religion, which was part of the Jews' inheritance,
would be done away with. and how the ways in which men
had so prostituted those things that were intended to show the
beauty and the loveliness of Christ for their own ends and
their own satisfaction that they might be bettered and that the
Lord God might be diminished and jeopardized by their worship,
by their sacrifices, by their talk, by their words. The Lord
said, I'm about to sweep it all away, and I'm about to bring
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, into the temple. And in chapter
3 of Malachi, we read of some of the changes that the Lord
God is going to make, that even amid the unfaithfulness of the
people of Israel, the people of Judah, those who had benefited
so much, from the revelation of God to them, that he would
not change, that his faithfulness would be sure and steadfast. And in verse 6 of Malachi 3 we
read, I am the Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob
are not consumed. Isn't that a lovely thought to
begin our service with this morning? We deserve to be consumed. We deserve to be destroyed. But the faithfulness of God,
even in the midst of our sinfulness and unworthiness, is sure and
steadfast. He does not change. Though we
are variable, though we can get up in the morning and we walk
around with a big depression over our heads and shoulders
all day, He is unchanging. Though we succumb to temptation
and fall in our witness and our testimony, He is faithful who
has called us. Though we struggle with the temptations
of life and sometimes have doubts even about God Himself and the
promises that He has made as the evil one and as Satan comes
in and attacks us and challenges us, yet He does not alter. And that is the wonderful thing
about the Lord. He is there and He is ready to
sustain and deliver His people. For He changes not. And in that
mercy, the sons of Jacob are not consumed. So let us never
imagine that it is our own strength, that it is our own ability, that
it is our own commitment and dedication that gives us this
place in the mercy of God. But it is of His grace and His
faithfulness and His unchangeableness that we are blessed. This morning
I want to think with you for a little while about some of
the thoughts that might be gleaned from the verses at the end of
chapter 3, particularly verse 17, where the Lord says of His
people, They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day
when I make up my jewels, and I will spare them, as a man spareth
his own son that serveth him. The first point I want to draw
to your attention from this verse is the Lord's statement, and
they shall be mine. This Lord who is speaking here
is the great Jehovah, is the great God, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. And He is the Lord of hosts. All things are His, even the
very devils. live and act under His authority. All men are His. The wonders
and glory of the universe are His. The wicked in their ways
are His. The angels that fly before His
face singing, holy, holy, holy every day are His. All in this world is His. He is the Lord of hosts. But
he makes an interesting statement here, for while the people of
God have always been his as part of all that he has created, yet
they too have always been his in the eternal covenant which
he has established. Here is a people, here is a people
who once were children of wrath. Here are a people who once were
afar off, but a people who within God's covenant purposes have
always been closely bound to him. Indeed, their spiritual
standing and condition has always been one of complete unity by
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That lamb who was as one slain
before the foundation of the earth. The benefits of Christ's
death were there recognized within the covenant of grace before
even the world was created. This is God's decrees that are
being spoken of. This is God's purpose in eternity
to save a people for himself. And that people have always been
His, justified by that eternal sacrifice that the Lord Jesus
Christ accomplished on the cross. And God, who does not change,
we see that same love, that same mercy and grace always directed
towards His own. And the people of God always
recognized as being his special inheritance. And yet the Lord
says, they shall be mine. What is it that he is directing
us to recognize here? That there is a time when they
begin to experience what the Lord God has always had in store
for them. This is speaking of those changes
that will come to pass when the Lord Jesus Christ comes into
the world and he takes those people and he owns them publicly,
he owns them personally, and he takes them for his own. There always has been this eternal
relationship between God and His people, but they are not
always seen to be in relationship with Him. They are not always
known to be so closely united to Him. That is the experience
of us all, for we once If we have been brought into a knowledge
of the truth, know by our own personal experience that we have
wandered far from Him. Those pictures, those parallels
that we see, those parables that are spoken of in the New Testament
of the sheep that wanders away. It always was a sheep, though
it was a lost sheep. Never was it a goat, always a
sheep, always one of the Lord's own little flock. Yet he had
to leave and go out and seek and to search and to bring that
sheep home. They shall be mine. Who is this then that are being
spoken of? Who is this group? These that
are the Lord's. They, he says, shall be mine. What is this group and this special
way in which the Lord shall own his people? Well, The first thing
we're told about these people we discover in verse 16, if you'll
just look back there with me. Then they, that's the same people. Verse 17 it says, and they shall
be mine. But before that we've been speaking
about these people. And he says of them in verse
16, then they, that feared the Lord. So here is the first characteristic
that we have of these people. They fear the Lord. This is something
that we ought to remember and recognize. This isn't talking
about a slavish fear. This isn't speaking about the
terror that terrorizes. The fear that ought to be upon
the sinful men and women of this world if they could but see the
terrible destruction and condemnation into which they are falling. But rather, this is a fear that
is put into the hearts of the Lord's own people. It is a recognition
of who He is. It is an awareness of the glory
and the majesty and the power of God. It is a beginning of
understanding of the great privileges that we have in Him. And this
is one of those Ironies. This is one of those, as it were,
contradictions that we discover within ourselves. That at the
very time when we discover the love and the mercy and the grace
of God, when we discover the friendship of God, that brings
with it, too, an awe and a reverence for Him. We once used to take
His name in vain, without any thought whatsoever. We would
readily use the name of Christ in a swearing way. We would never
think about having the care to reverence His name. And yet when
we see Him as He truly is, then we begin to understand all of
the majesty and glory of God. And we have a reverence for Him
that is placed within our hearts. That is the fear, the proper
fear of God that the children of God possess. And we can see
it spoken of throughout Scripture. Let me just give you a couple
of references to show you what I mean. In Jeremiah chapter 32
and verse 40 we read these words. And I will make an everlasting
covenant with them. Here is the Lord speaking about
that covenant, an everlasting covenant made amongst the persons
of the Godhead for the redemption of this people. I will make an
everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from
them, to do them good. And how is that characterized?
Listen. I will put my fear in their hearts. How we know that we are members
of that covenant of grace that God has put in place is that
we have a fear for Him in our hearts. That's what He does.
I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from
me. Do you remember Peter's words
to the Lord when he asked Him, whom do men say that I am? Oh,
some say this prophet, some say that prophet, some say John the
Baptist risen again from the dead. Who do you say that I am? Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God. Are you going to go away? Are
you going to go back? Are you going to turn aside?
Are you going to go away when you hear my doctrine, when you
hear my preaching, when you hear the message that I have brought
from God, the revelation of the gospel to men? Will you turn
aside because that doctrine is too hard for you? Because you
can't understand or accept these things? Lord, Where else can
we go? You have the words of eternal
life. That's the fear of the Lord in
the heart of His people. There isn't anywhere else we
can go. You know, if you want to try
it, if you want to wander in the world, if you want to go
your own way, go ahead. Take that step, do what you want,
do whatever. If you are one of the Lord's
people, He will bring you back. It might hurt, it might be grievous
to you, but He will bring you back. Do you know why? He will
put the fear of the Lord into your heart. And in the end, you
will say, there is nowhere else I can go. The world with all
its attractions, means nothing to me. What is it the hymn writer
said? I've tried the broken cisterns,
looked for refreshment, looked for the satisfaction of this
world, tried all the experiences that the world has to offer and
what did I find? They were bitter in my soul.
Fear of the Lord brings us to that place where we confess that
He alone is the one who can supply all our needs according to His
riches. And so, the fear of the Lord
is the first thing that we see. And indeed, the psalmist speaking
in Psalm 111 tells us a little bit more about the way in which
the fear of the Lord is manifested in the experience of the Lord's
people. He says this, The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom. You see, if we would be wise
in spiritual things, if we would know the things concerning the
Lord, that fear of the Lord must first be placed within our hearts. A good understanding have all
they that do His commandments. His praise endureth forever. But that beginning of wisdom,
the Lord Jesus Christ, we're told in Corinthians, has made
unto us wisdom. And that is the wisdom unto salvation. That is knowing the way in which
we should walk. That is knowing Christ who is
the way, the truth and the life. And to be wise in spiritual things
is the gift of God, is the fear of God in our hearts. Proverbs
speaks about exactly the same thing. The fear of the Lord is
the beginning of wisdom. The knowledge of the holy is
understanding. We're probably not very smart. If you put the whole of us together
and sat us down in front of an IQ test, maybe we wouldn't get
so very high scores. But you don't have to be a super
genius in this world. You don't have to be a university
professor. You don't have to be someone
who is accomplished in all the skills of the world. You know
what true understanding is? An understanding of holy things. An understanding of that one
who is himself holy. That is true knowledge. To possess
a knowledge of Christ is to be streets ahead of the most high-flying
professors in all of the most prestigious universities of our
land. To know Christ is to know true
wisdom. There are men who can sit in
front of this book and tell you all the meanings of the words
in the original languages, and all of the imagery and the philosophies
behind it, and the history of the construction of this book,
and they know nothing of the author. And they know nothing
of the personal relationship that is to be discovered in Him. True knowledge, the beginning
of wisdom, is the fear of the Lord. And it is placed within
the hearts of those who are placed in the covenant of grace by Him. In Isaiah 11 we read, the spirit
of the Lord shall rest upon him. The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of
the fear of the Lord. This is speaking about the Lord
Jesus Christ and some of the characteristics and qualities
that we see. But this shows us that the spirit
of the fear of the Lord rested upon Christ. We see where this
fear of the Lord comes from then. It is the Holy Spirit. that brings
it to the Lord's people. That fear of the Lord causes
us to serve Him, causes us to look to Him. They that feared
the Lord spoke often one to another. The Lord hearkened and heard
it. If we fear the Lord, then we
will trust in Him. If we fear Him, we will be brought
to that place where we recognize all that He has done. We will
be given that wisdom. We will profess His name. For
the fear of the Lord takes in the whole experience of life,
this life and the life in the future. And it shows us where
our true interest always must lie. They have a fear of the
Lord which is a filial fear. It is a fear which comes to those
who love Him as their Father. Indeed, we could say it was a
fearless fear. It's a reverential affection
for Him as those who are true and sincere worshippers of a
holy God. This people are characterised
by their fear of the Lord. But that fear also leads them
to do something else. We're told here in verse 16 that
they speak often one to another. Here we are this morning. This
is how the Lord has arranged things. He has ordained that
we should not be isolated in this world. We might just be
a few in number. We might just be a little flock.
Fear not, little flock, He says. And that's the reality of the
Christian walk. These churches that have their
hundreds and their thousands, their tens of thousands, There
is a question I would ask about them, if only for the size of
their congregations, because it appears to me that the testimony
of Scripture is that we are always just a remnant in one place,
always just a few, wherever the Lord places us. But yet, He places
us within the context of a family. He gives us fellowship. That
is one of the Characteristics of the church of Jesus Christ.
He gives us those with whom we can talk often together. And that is a blessing of the
Lord to his people. They spoke often one to another. What did they speak about? They
spoke about the things that concerned the Lord. They spoke of the things
that concern themselves in this world. They speak about the sin
that they see around about them. They speak about how their souls
are grieved with the profanities that they encounter day by day
in this world. They speak with great concern
about those people that they see around about them that are
going to a lost eternity. And they lament the way in which
the society of which they are a part appears to be deteriorating
so rapidly. These are the things that the
Lord's people speak about. And they speak about the great
things that they have discovered. They speak about the good things
that they have encountered in the Lord. They speak about the
everlasting love of God the Father. They speak about the grace that
He has demonstrated in His choice of them as his people. They enjoy to speak about the
covenant of God, that everlasting covenant. That is why we respond
so favorably, we respond so positively when we hear the gospel truly
preached. That is why when we go to places
and hear men that don't know the gospel speaking, we come
away empty and barren. Because we enjoy to speak with
those who are the Lord's people on these great, holy, and marvelous
things. They speak about the redemption
of the Lord Jesus Christ and how He has gone to the cross
and laid down His life for His people. They speak about the
glories of His person, the fullness of His grace. They speak about
all that He has accomplished on their part. They speak about
the Holy Spirit and the work of the Spirit and how they struggle
with temptation and yet find peace nevertheless through the
mediation of the Spirit to their souls as He ministers to their
spirit. Spirit to spirit, grace to grace. They speak about the triumphs
of the gospel as it goes forth conquering one and another here
and there and establishing the glory of God amongst men as the
powerful word of truth goes forth and is declared faithfully. They
speak about their hopes for heaven. the things that they are looking
forward to and the fact that they are weary of this body and
they are happy to lay it aside and someday soon they hope to
enter into the fullness of that rest and those blessings which
God has prepared for His people. And all this they talk about,
they speak often one to another because of that fear of the Lord. This is the great blessings that
the Lord gives to those who are his people. Then he says, of
them, these that fear the Lord, they shall be mine. This is the
people who shall be his when the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed. So what is he telling us here?
And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts in that day. when I make up my jewels. In that day when the Lord makes
up his jewels, they shall be his. Now it's speaking about
the incarnation. This is the coming of the Lord
Jesus Christ into the world. Hebrews chapter 10 and verse
5 says this, Wherefore when he cometh, Into the world, he saith,
sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou preparedst
me. This is the coming of the Lord
Jesus Christ into the world. He has come And He has redeemed
His people. He has redeemed us, not with
corruptible things like silver and gold, but by His own precious
blood. As a Lamb without blemish and
without spot, He has come into this world in order to redeem
His people and to bring them to Himself, that He might deliver
them as a righteous offering to His Father. Christ comes into
this world as a man. Christ comes in the incarnation. Christ comes in the body prepared
for him. There was a time in the history
of this world when God himself entered into the experience of
humanity. It's such a marvelous thought. It's such a wonderful theme that
God became a man to unite himself with us who could not be united
to Him in our present state. And so the God-Man, the Lord
Jesus Christ, enters into the world in order that He might
make up His jewels, in order that He might bring His people
to Himself. And He comes as a man, and He
comes in the gospel. When the gospel is preached,
the Lord Jesus Christ comes. When the gospel is declared faithfully,
the Lord Jesus Christ comes. He comes to the hearts of sinners.
He comes in the preaching of the cross. We were thinking about
that. The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. But to us that are saved, it
is the power of God. And when we have ears to hear,
when we have that gift of the Spirit bestowed upon us and that
illumination granted, then the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ
is as a sweet sound to our hearing. And we understand that which
He has accomplished. In the preaching of the gospel
the Lord comes, and in the reception of the gospel the Lord comes. For he has made to us that rest
which we require. Come unto me, all ye that labour
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Trust in the Lord
with all thine heart, and lean not upon thine own understanding. Thou shalt confess with thy mouth
the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God has raised
him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. This is
the coming to Christ. This is the experience that Christ,
as He has come, brings to the hearts of His people, as we then
come to Him. And in that coming, there is
a union. In that coming, there is an experience of the grace
that the Lord God has for those who have the fear of the Lord
in their heart. In Mark chapter 13 we read, He
shall send His angels and shall gather together His elect from
the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost
part of heaven. That's the great commission that
we have to preach the gospel and the holy angels of God go
forth in the power of the declaration of that word. carrying that message
to the hearts of men, hearts that have been prepared by the
Holy Spirit, hearts that have been made alive and quickened
to receive that good seed as it is sown. The end is that there
will be a population in heaven, that the uttermost corners of
heaven will be populated by a redeemed people who come to Christ through
the preaching of His Word. The Son of Man has come to seek
and to save that which was lost. Here's a wee verse for you, which
is so full of interest and profundity and meaning. Listen to this.
Zechariah 10, verse 8. I will hiss for them and gather
them, for I have redeemed them. Do you know what the Lord is
saying there? Listen. He's going to whistle for His
people and they will come to Him. Isn't that amazing? You
know we do that, don't we? Trying to attract someone's attention. The Lord says, I will hiss for
them, and they shall come, for I have redeemed them. When the
Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to redeem his people, these
are they of whom it was said, then they that feared the Lord
speak often one to another. The Lord hearkened and heard
it. And a book of remembrance was written before him for them
that feared the Lord and thought upon his name. He sent the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ has come. As that gospel is preached, as
the Holy Spirit goes forth, he hisses for his people. And out
of the midst of the degradation and sinfulness and wickedness
of this world, one and another. Hear that sound, that gospel
sound, that joyful sound, as the Lord whistles, as the Lord
hisses, and we come to Him by His grace. And Christ is coming. He is coming again in judgment.
He is coming to glorify His people. Matthew 25 says this, When the
Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels
with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory. And before Him shall be gathered
all nations, and He shall separate them one from another as a shepherd
divideth His sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on
his right hand, but the goats on his left. Then shall the king
say to them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
the world. This is the gathering in of the
Lord's people when he cometh. To make up His jewels. The Lord Jesus Christ comes and
He comes to make up His jewels. Jewels are precious things. Jewels are valuable. Jewels are
something to be treasured. A man that has jewels will be
careful about how he handles them, how he deals with them.
And this is the picture that the Lord gives us of the way
in which he looks upon his people. The Lord looks upon us who believe
in him as his jewels. If somebody gave you a jewel,
I bet the first thing that you would do, you would think to
yourself, I wonder how much that's worth. Wouldn't it? You probably wouldn't say, well
that's beautiful. You would probably say, I wonder
how much that's worth. Well, how much is it worth? How
much are Christ's jewels worth? I'll tell you how much they're
worth, his whole life. They're worth the very blood
of Christ. Lord Jesus Christ gave everything
in order to secure the deliverance of his jewels. Those who were
so precious to him, that he laid aside that place in heaven in
order to come into this world. He humbled himself. We're told,
he who came and walked in the dust and the mud and the muck
of the streets of this world, who endured the contrariness
of men, who went to all lengths in order to find out his people
and bring them to himself. who went even to that garden
in Gethsemane, and there, broken before the weight of all that
he had to endure, cried out, if it's possible for this cup
to pass from me, nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. And who suffered on the cross,
and who gave his life's blood, that's how much the jewels of
God are worth. And we are privileged indeed
to be so valued by God that He would give His Son to redeem
us from our sin. The kingdom of heaven is like
unto treasure hidden afield, the which when a man hath found,
he hideth. For the joy thereof goeth and
selleth all that he hath, and buyeth the field. And again the
kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly
pearls, who when he hath found one pearl of great price, went
and sold all that he had, and bought it. And the Lord Jesus
Christ gave all that he had, and he bought that peril. He bought that jewel. He brought
those people to himself with the price of his own precious
blood. These jewels will be gathered.
If a man's house was in fire and he realized what was happening,
he would reach for those things that are most precious to him. Maybe a man would seek to gather
his valuables out of the fire. There is a fire coming. There
is a day of wrath coming. But God's jewels will be preserved. God's jewels will be brought. And we will see that Christ will
give His people all that He has promised, all that He has prepared
as He places them in that day, in that relationship with Himself
and His Father. We are Christ's by gift in the
eternal decrees of God. We are loved by God and we have
been given to the Lord Jesus Christ as a bride, as one betrothed
to Him, one that He loves. We will be His people for all
eternity. Christ's by redemption, for He
has given His life's blood on the cross, that He has justified
us by His perfect righteousness, made us beautiful, made us to
sparkle in His presence, given us an attractiveness that we
could never have by ourselves, but which is called the jewel
of God's own possession. We are Christ's by profession. Through conversion in this life,
we have the graces of God bestowed upon us by the Holy Spirit. They
are gifted to us. They are demonstrated in us.
And we are the Lord's people. He says, when I come to make
up my jewels, and we are His by profession. And we are His
by His open declaration. He calls us His people. He says, you are My people. His little ones. His peculiar
people. Separated from all others. Separated unto Himself. For whom Christ has the strongest
affection, takes special care of, and looks after, as a man
would guard and preserve those things which were most valuable
to him. This is the Lord's coming. This
is the Lord's work. This is how he gathers up his
jewels. A final thought, and then we're
finished this morning. They shall be mine, saith the
Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels, and I will
spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Where have you heard that phrase
before? A man that spareth his own son that serveth him. Or at least something like that
phrase. We read it yesterday evening
from Romans chapter eight, except it was different. In fact, it
was almost contradictory. Because what we read in Romans
chapter 8 and verse 32 was this. He that spared not his own son,
that served him. See what it says in Malachi?
And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day
when I make up my jewels, and I will spare them as a man spareth
his own son that serveth him. And what did the Lord Jesus Christ
do? He served His Father perfectly. He served His Father absolutely. There was not one single thing
that His Father required Him to do. Indeed, He hung upon the
cross and with His dying breath He said, it is finished. All
that he had been given to do was completed. He had fulfilled
perfectly every last demand and requirement that his father had
given him. And what did the father do? He
spared his own son because he served him. No! Indeed, to the
contrary, he slew his own son who served him. There we see
the vicarious substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ
in all of its glory, in all of its depth and meaning. That God
Himself looked upon His Son and He did not see the Son who served
Him. He saw the wayward, the wicked,
the evil. He saw all of that sin that was
rightly ours on the very Son who had served Him perfectly,
but was now regarded as Himself the bearer of the sin of those
people. And those who were the wicked
and the wayward, those whom He loved as His precious jewels,
though they were wayward, I am the Lord, I change not, therefore
ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. And out of that unchangeable
love, out of that unchangeable mercy, out of that unchangeable
covenant of everlasting grace, we find that the Lord God Himself
punished His Son as the wayward disobedient one. That those who
truly were disobedient would be regarded as those who had
served Him perfectly. Oh, the wonder of the plan of
salvation. These are the great truths that
cause us both to love the Lord and to fear the Lord. These are
the great truths which cause us to talk together of the things
that we have seen and heard. These are the great truths that
have made us into something precious, something special, something
beautiful that the Lord calls his own precious jewels. These
are the wonders of the great plan of salvation which he has
so liberally bestowed upon his people. May we find occasion
and opportunity to rejoice in those truths as the Holy Spirit
opens our eyes and ears to receive them. Amen.