As I was preparing to preach
the funeral for our brother Brian Gilbert, I had in mind what I
would say, but Bonnie sent me an email. She works at the hospital and
they call on the various employees that want to, to write a little
devotional on a portion of scripture. And this scripture, how beautiful
are the feet of those who bring good news. That scripture had
been put out there, you know, and Bonnie wrote an article about
it. A few people commented on it
positively. And well, they should. She had written a very nice piece
on the meaning and significance of these words. And I got to
thinking about them and how well that they could be used as a
sermon to be preached at the funeral of a believer. Now, I've
been called on to preach funerals. Of course, I've done the ones
for anyone within this congregation who has passed away. But I've
been called on to preach funerals for others who were estranged
from church, whether they were estranged because they had no
interest in the things of God, or they had been estranged from
their church because they no longer believed things the way
their church believed them. But I've told people for quite
a few years, I was kind of the preacher of last resort for weddings
and funerals of people who weren't attached to a church. But no
matter whose funeral I'm preaching, I am going to preach the gospel. In fact, they called on me to
deliver the address out there at the cemetery on Memorial Day. And of course, they would expect
you to say something in honor of those who have died or at
least risked their lives in the defense of freedom. And I have
no problem doing that. I do respect those who are willing
to do that hard work, but I don't ever stand in a pulpit and not
preach the gospel. I don't care what subject they
actually want me to speak on. If I can't get the gospel in
it, I'll just say, no, that's okay, you'll need to find somebody
else. But when you preach the funeral
of a believer, you can preach the gospel maybe with a spirit
that you wouldn't preach it. If you had the feeling that the
person who had passed on was not a believer or didn't have
any measure of certainty of it. Well, with Brother Gilbert, I
have no reason to believe that he did not believe. In fact,
one of the things I pointed out in the funeral message is that
concerning the natural things of life, Brian and I did not
have very much in common at all. The only thing we actually had
in common was the gospel. And he loved the gospel that
I preached so much that he continued to refer to me as
his pastor. many years after he left this
area. Didn't matter what church he
was attending to. And that's what his boys told me, you know,
that he always referred to me, that I was his pastor. We had the gospel in common.
And I got to thinking about that and how the gospel binds God's
people together. You know, God's people, they
are from every kindred, tongue, tribe, and nation. There are many of God's people
that if you were to go among them, you might think, because
they're from a culture so different than the culture you're accustomed
to, you would think, well, I'm not even sure these are believers.
Because we have this mistaken thought in our mind that the
way we live as American citizens is the way Christians should
live. Now that's probably the people in other countries think
the same way about, you know, the way they live. That's why
it takes a particular kind of person to be a missionary. Because
they've got to go into a culture where people have different values,
different ways of doing things. I mean remarkably different ways
of doing things. And not be so offended by the
differences that they cannot see. But these people, they do
believe this, this is what they believe, this gospel. Brian and I, you all, you who
believe, whatever other differences there may be among us, in the
way we perceive the world, in the way we live our lives in
this world, whatever differences there may be, this one thing
binds together all the people of God. The gospel. Paul said there's one body, one
faith. He didn't say there should be,
he said there is one faith. There is a body of truth on which
all the people of God are in agreement. So much so that those who believe
it have and affection for the preachers of that gospel that
they might not have otherwise. I sometimes joke, and maybe it's
really not so much a joke, I said, you know, the gospel and Bonnie
get me in a lot of places I would not otherwise be allowed. People speak to me in terms I
think far above what I deserve. And I realize it's because when
I preach to them, they hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ
and they impute to me that which they see in the gospel. I'm not going to tell them not
to. I like having friends. I'm glad that there's a lot of
people I can call on, and they'll treat me as though I'm worthy
of good treatment. But I know it's for this reason,
the only part of me that they pay attention to is my feet. And how beautiful are the feet
of the one who brings good news. But I'm not the first one to
bring that news, nor am I the best at it. That distinction
belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the first and best gospel
preacher ever. He was the first to declare the
promise in Eden. And in all that he said and did
in his life, he declared that gospel. And by his spirit, he
works in those whom he has called and sent into this world as preachers,
he works in them to cause them to say what they never would
have said on their own. I once was making this same point,
you know, and Paul says, let God be true and every man a liar,
but such is the power of God that through His Spirit, He takes
men who are liars and causes them to freely and willingly
tell the truth, a truth they could not even know apart from
Him, lest would there be any willingness on their part to
tell it. Imagine that. Now, I was raised
a good little church boy. Really, I was. I had all the
adults in the church I attended. They all thought highly of me,
which means I had them all fooled. Because I knew how to play that
game. Now, as a kid, I don't know that
I was cynical enough to realize I was playing a game. But I knew
what they wanted, I knew what they expected, and I knew how
to do it. And then I went off to Bible
school and, by the providence of God, came in contact with
some men who, other than the providence of God, they wouldn't
even have been there because of what they believed. They actually
believed God's sovereign grace. And that was not the doctrinal
stance of that college. And God confronted me with the
truth. And he's been confronting me with it ever since. You know,
I came to believe that doctrine called total depravity, but as
time goes on, well, I don't learn the doctrine any better. I mean,
you know, once you say total depravity, okay, how much more
can you learn total depravity? But I know this in my own experience,
I've come to know more and more what the Scriptures mean when
they speak of us as sinners because I see it in myself. When you're
young, you might think you're going to overcome some things.
When you're young, you might think you are, you know, going
to achieve some victories over this or that kind of sin. And
unless your experience is different than mine. That's not really
the case. You're going to find out new
areas and levels of sinfulness in yourself. I'm not saying this
to excuse you. I'm not saying this, I say you
or me, not saying this to excuse us or to give us any sense that
it's okay that we're like that. I'm just saying we learn that
truth of ourself as time goes by. Paul said, in me, that is in
my flesh, my natural self, there isn't anything good. And when we learn that there's
nothing good in us, then how glorious is the message
of the gospel of Christ, which isn't looking for anything good
in us. You think of that in a minute, for a minute. God did not come to earth looking
for anything good. He does not send His Spirit into
the world, does not send His preachers into the world looking
for good people. Because the Lord is convinced
of what He inspired His prophet to say, there is none good, no
not one. There's none that works righteousness. None. He knows that. And He, who is
wise infinitely, did not design a gospel that was not suited
to the needs of the people He intended to save. If there's
no good in the people that He intends to save, it would be
no good to make a gospel that required something good from
them, right? Well, God didn't make a gospel
that requires anything righteous or good from us. And if God has given you a heart
to understand at least something of your helpless wickedness,
and then He gives you the ability to understand something of the
grace of His gospel, It is such good
news that you'll be able to say, brother, this is from brother
Scott Richardson, a preacher from West Virginia, who's now
with the Lord. But he he's quoted as saying, ever since I heard
the good news, I haven't heard any bad news. Good news. Now Paul quotes here in Romans
10, verse 15. He quotes from Isaiah 52, verse
7. But how beautiful are the feet
of those who bring good news. And the picture that's being
set before us is that of the messengers that would be sent
from the field of battle back to the city that was being protected
by the battle. You know, the kings would go out and do battle,
they didn't, generally speaking, you know, the warfare wasn't
carried out right in the cities. Warfare was carried out on battlefields
somewhere. But here's the thing, in those
battles, as they waged them back then, the battle would go out
on the field, but whoever won would then go to whatever city
had been defeated and sack that city. Probably they'd go in and
take everything they considered to be of value and kill everyone
and everything else. So everyone inside the city had
a vested interest in how things went on the battlefield. Well,
if it's miles away, They couldn't send signals, you know, like
semaphore. People couldn't see it. Only
way to do it is there were people, athletic men, who could run fast
for long distances. And they would be given a message,
probably written down or maybe just told to them, whatever.
And there they'd go. And they're going down the valleys
and up on the hills. You know, they'd be back at the city, and
there would be watchmen on the city, and they'd be looking out
there, and here comes somebody, and they'd see a guy running
that way. And they would look to see if they could determine
by the way he runs, even, whether the news is good or bad. But
you can imagine, when he arrived at the city, well, anybody that
can run like that, their feet are probably pretty thickly calloused. And if they've run for a long
time and, you know, they didn't have fancy running shoes like
we have nowadays, it could be that there were some blisters
on their feet from the way their sandals rubbed on them or whatever. They would not be considered
something pleasant to look at. But if they carried a message
that said, the king has been victorious, the city is safe,
those calloused, gnarly, dirty, blistered feet became beautiful,
for they brought good news. Now one of the things that's
written about our Lord Jesus Christ in the book of Isaiah,
chapter 57, there is no beauty that when
we should see him, we would desire him. And there was not anything in
or about our Lord in his natural life that would have caused the
natural eye to say, that's the savior. That's the king in victory. That's the one on whom I want
to hang the destiny of my soul. Other translations say the word,
we might better understand it as majesty. And it's the same
thing. Again, it's just saying there
was nothing natural in the appearance of our Lord. In fact, the way
he conducted himself was so contrary to the way that the kings and
the religious leaders and everybody else conducted themselves. They
would dress themselves in the finest robes they could find.
They would put on some kind of special hat or a crown or whatever
it is. They robed themselves in majesty. And of course, that's because
they had no majesty of their own. They've got to put on fancy
clothes. to look respectful. But people would see them. And
because of the clothes they were wearing and the ornamentation
they put on themselves, they would see symbols of majesty
and they would think these people were something. Our Lord came
not having any such majesty and evidently not putting any on. He did not look like a king. But boy, did he bring good news. He was the only one bringing
good news. Everything that all the religious leaders were saying
was bad news, because they were continually laying the burden
of Moses' law on them, and then they would add a bunch of their
own stuff to it to make it even more difficult. And all they could deliver was
bad news. I hear of people who are in churches
where they do not preach the gospel. They preach law of some
sort or another. And I just want to ask them,
you know, and they'll stay in these churches their entire lives.
Stay in these churches, either putting on a fake smile to cover
up the agony of their soul. Or they put on a mournful look
because they think that's what's suitable for the message they're
hearing, and probably it is. And I want to ask them, isn't
the gospel good news? And they would have to say, yes,
that's what the word means. And I'd say, well, haven't you heard the good news?
And if you have, why are you frowning? That would be like one of those
messengers, you know, comes running across the mountains, breathless,
as it were, up to the gate of the city, and they open the gate,
and they let him in, and he walks in and says, we won! And some
guy goes, oh, we won. But we might not win the next
one. And I know he won, but I don't know if I'm included among the
ones for whom he won. Good news, when you hear it. I was going to say, should make
you happy? It will. It will. And if what a person lives on
religiously does not result in that fruit of the Spirit called
joy, joy within his heart, a joy in the knowledge of sins forgiven,
if it doesn't result in that, they need to go somewhere else
till they find that message that does bring joy. But I want to speak some of the
feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. Just take some of the times in which our Lord's
feet are referred to and just use them to teach us some things
about this good news that he brought. And these are just,
they're visual references from the scriptures. You'll be familiar
with the stories that back them up, but they're just, they made
me think about the Lord's feet. How beautiful are the feet of
him that brings good news. Let's think of our Lord's feet
for a few minutes. There was a time when our Lord's
feet were little feet. We're at that time of year we
celebrate this, you know, once a year in our culture. There
was a time when our Lord was indeed a newborn infant with
feet probably about that big. And yet those feet brought the
gospel. Those little feet were the feet
of him who is the gospel. That same night, there were shepherds
out in the fields with their flocks. And an angel from the Lord appeared,
and as is needful for every time some heavenly being appears to
one of us on earth, they said, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. This angel from the Lord, it
says, the glory of the Lord was around him. And they were terrified. But he said, don't be afraid,
for behold, I bring you good tidings, good news. The word translated
good tidings is the word nearly everywhere else translated gospel. I bring you the gospel of great
joy which shall be for all peoples." And what was that good news?
For unto you is born today in the city of David a Savior who
is Christ the Lord. Now everything that that angel
said was important. Everything he said. I wish I
could speak more like him. Maybe you do too. Because he
said in one sentence what it might take me 45 minutes of preaching
to try to get out. But he got it done in that one
sentence. At least it makes an awful good outline of the gospel.
For unto you. Now think of this. A gospel unto
you. A savior unto you. Now I'm saying unto you, and
I don't mind saying that. I would even say it in a much
larger crowd with people. I realize that he is a savior
for the people of God. But as people, as we as human
beings look on the events, God has sent only one savior. It's
the only savior there is in the world. And God has set Him before men. And while we understand that
men cannot come to Christ unless the Father draws them, or as
the word would be better translated today, drags them. Nonetheless,
I can say this with a full authority of Scripture to anybody. This
is the Lord Jesus. He is the Savior sent. And if you call on Him, you'll
be saved. Well, He came only for the elect. Well, if they're elect, they'll
call on Him. And if they aren't elect, they
won't call on Him. But I don't address people as elect or non-elect.
I have no idea who is and who isn't. But I do know what the
promise says. And so I can say, unto you is
born the Savior. especially to you who believe.
And I would imagine that these shepherds, and these would have
been, well, shepherding was considered a low-class job. I mean, you
know, you could shepherd like this, even if you couldn't do
anything else. And you consider their work in the night shift,
so probably they were low on the totem pole, even in whatever
sheep owner they worked for. Otherwise, they'd have had the
day job, you know, and they'd be homeless. They're out in the
middle of the night. The Lord comes to them. The lowest. The most insignificant. Unto you. We spend most of our lives trying
to be somebody, and God came to nobodies. I bring you good news. Unto you
is born The Savior that's to come, He
did not descend from heaven like some glorious angel, because
look what happened when just an angel appeared. It terrified
those shepherds. He came, born of a woman, born
under the law, that He might redeem us who are under the law.
He was born. Now, people talk about the virgin
birth. They say, the virgin birth is
miraculous. Well, with our understanding of biology, we realize it's not
the birth that was miraculous, it's conception. The birth was
perfectly natural. Mary went into labor, just like
a woman of today would. And through the travail of childbirth,
she brought forth a son, and they named him Jesus. But the
fact is, and the point of the angel is, this is someone who's
born a human. One of us. Yes, his father is God, though
the angel didn't deal with that particular aspect of it. It wasn't
an important point to make at that point. It says, for unto you is born. That's the little feet part.
He didn't come into this world fully grown. He went through
every stage of humanity until full maturity. We've got some children here
today. He was once your age, living in subjection to his parents. This is God we're talking about. Kids, for the most part, They
don't want to be in subjection to anybody, just like the rest
of us. We don't want to be in subjection to anybody, but kids,
you know, they're in the home and they kind of realize, well,
they're feeding me, clothing me, I guess I ought to at least obey
them when they're looking. But boy, they hit the teen years,
and we find out they have a will of their own, just like we did. I don't know
why we're surprised by the way teenagers act, because we were
once that way. And we don't like the fact that
we are told what we must do. Our Lord is God, and yet he subjected
himself to the authority of his parents. Little feet. Unto you is born this day, finally. They'd heard about this one for
a long time. It had been prophesied from the very first in the Garden
of Eden. But now it's here, this day. When's it gonna happen? When's
it gonna happen? All the prophets say, he's coming, he's coming,
he's coming. And the angel said, he's here,
he's here. Oh, can you imagine how that
sounded to a believing heart? He's here, finally, finally. The waiting's over. in the city
of David. Why does it make a difference
where he was born? Well, that would have been Bethlehem. But
he didn't say born in Bethlehem. He said born in the city of David.
Why? Because the one who's been born
is within the lineage of David, meaning he's the king. God had
entered into covenant with David and told him that he would always
have a descendant sitting on the throne. Well, that went on
for a while. But eventually, after Solomon,
the nation broke into two, and the people that ruled in the
north were not always descendants of David. The people in the south,
I suppose that they were physically in his lineage, but the majority
of them didn't have a heart like David did. He was called a man
after God's own heart. The fulfillment of that covenant
that God made with David was not in that succession of men
who sat on a throne. In fact, when our Lord came,
there was a man named Herod. They called him Herod the Great.
He probably made them call him Herod the Great. And he wasn't
even a Jew. And he's sitting on the throne
of Israel. But in Bethlehem, was one of
the descendants of David, and he has occupied that throne ever
since. City of David, a savior, not
just a prophet, not just a miracle worker, not just a king, a savior,
a rescuer. Now, God doesn't provide things
that are not needed. If God provides a savior, then
we can take it that he's under the impression we need one. We
need one. We don't need a helper. We don't
know what, you know, we don't need someone to just kind of
give us a helping hand. You know, we're trained to be
self-sufficient. And in this world, we ought to
do that as much as we can. But as people age, one of the
most difficult things is to get them to understand they need
help. Because they were used to being
independent for so long. But let us never get the sense
that we, in spiritual things, we can be independent. We can't.
And we don't just need some help. As a drowning man, we are as
one who has already drowned. You know, and a drowned person
is, you know, kind of a good picture of being, you know, dead
and trespasses and sin, because a drowned person, he's unconscious
of his need. And he's in a situation that
if there is not someone to come to him and do for him what he
cannot do at all or even doesn't even understand needs to be done,
then that drowning is going to result in a death from which
there can be no or will be no rescue. The religion that so much of
Christianity preaches would have the lifeguard see a man drowned
out there and have him come up to the edge of the water and
say, hey, I'm a lifeguard. I am trained in rescue. I know how to get you breathing
again. So you just come on over here. And I'll do some artificial
respiration. That's what they called it when
I was young. And we'll get you going again. What good is that
to a drowned man? It may be nice, you know, for
the lifeguard. I'd do that for you if you just come on over
here. If the lifeguard's going to do him any good, he's got
to get in the water. He's got to go where the man
is. He's got to drag the man out. And the interesting thing is,
you know, for at least some videos I saw on lifesaving, they'll
go out there and they, you know, if the person's not breathing,
they'll hold on to him and try to get him breathing even before
they bring him to shore. And when drowned people regain
consciousness, you know, their brain boots up again, all at
once they realize, you know, remember what happened, they
become very hard to save. They'll grab ahold of the lifeguard,
make it, you know, He can't hardly swim back. And to the Lord, sometimes
He breathes life into a person, but the first reaction of that
person, when such an understanding comes to his mind, he begins
to try to save himself still. And it takes a little bit of
time till the Lord convinces him, just settle down. I got
you. I got you. That's the Savior. That's the
rescuer we need. Someone who does all the work.
And who is this Savior? He's Christ the Lord. Christ,
the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah. The one promised. And He is the Lord. And that is the way that the
Jews would refer to their God by name. They wouldn't say His
name. You're not to take the name of
the Lord your God in vain, so their way of making sure they
kept that, don't ever say it at all. And so when they were
reading the Bible and they would come to His name, Jehovah, they
would say the equivalent of the Lord, Adonai. And that became such a common
pattern. You'll notice whenever the apostles
were quoting the Old Testament, They didn't use the name of the
Lord where it shows up. They wrote down the Greek word
for it, Lord. So this angel comes and he talks to them in the way
that they talk. So when he says, this savior
is Christ the Lord, he said, this is the Messiah, Jehovah,
Jehovah God. Now there's a savior for you. Our God comes to save. He's walking
feet. He has little feet. He had walking
feet. He was the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden
to bring this good news. Yes, they had sinned. Yes, this
sin was going to bring a curse on them. But here's the good
news. There would be this seed of the
woman born. And though the serpent would strike at his heel, he
would crush the serpent's head. And some thousands of years later
he was walking and he stopped and walked up the side of a mountain
and he began to speak good news. He said, blessed are those who
mourn. Well, if you have any spiritual
life in you, there will be some mourning on
your part. Your heart will be vexed just like Lot was, vexed
with the conduct of the people around him. But most of all,
vexed over what you find in your own mind, in your own way. Blessed are they who hunger and
thirst for righteousness. The religious leaders, in particular
the Pharisees, paraded themselves. They weren't hungering for righteousness
because they believed they already had it. They went around, so
to speak, with big bellies. full of their own righteousness, and they were considered to be
the blessed ones? The Lord said, no, you who hunger
for it, you who don't think you have any of it, you who thirst
for it, you know, hunger, you can ignore for quite a while,
but have you ever really been thirsty? I mean, that is an immediate
thing. You've got to have it, you know?
That's the blessed one. Blessed are those who are poor
in spirit. That's good news to those who
have been under the yoke and bondage of the law, because certainly
they have been ground down. On the night of the Passover,
he was the only one in the room with dirty feet. If you remember,
as the night got on, at one point he said, Having loved his own who were
in the world, he loved them to the very end, meaning he demonstrated
what his love would do. And he took off his outer garment,
which meant all that he had on was what a slave would commonly
wear. And he took a basin of water
and he went around and he washed the feet of the disciples. And that was picturing our Lord
coming to us, those who believe him, whose
sins have been washed away in the ultimate sense, yet our feet
keep getting dirty. And our Lord comes by and washes
them clean. But while he washed the feet
of all his disciples there that night, no one washed his feet. So if you're trying to spiritualize
this, well, the Lord didn't have any dirt on his feet. Yes, he
did. Realistically, he'd have had
as much dirt as any of the disciples did because he walked the same
path they did. But in the spiritual significance, his feet has been
made dirty with the dirt that was on our feet. And nobody washed
that off of him. He bore it. He walked those feet
made dirty with our sin. He walked up to Calvary and there
he bore the penalty of that filthy dirt that he washed off of our
feet. I remember, you know, that when
I first thought God had called me to the ministry, my view of
the ministry was, you know, preachers tell people how to live, or at
least that's part of it, you know? And I was operating under
the mistaken notion I would tell people, and that's what they
do. But that attitude makes judges
out of preachers. Because if you tell people what
they ought to do and then they don't do it, well, what are you
going to do about that? And it's surprising how much
emphasis many churches put on what they call church discipline. What our Lord, he said, after
he washed their feet, he says, you don't know what I just did
to you. Well, they obviously wasn't talking about physically
washing their feet because they understood that. But he said, what I have done
for you, you do for your brethren. He was teaching them what the
ministry is about. As you're as the pastor in this
congregation, it is not my job as you come in on Sunday morning
and stand there at that door in the sanctuary and point out
the dirt on your feet. That's not my job. My job is
to take this good news brought upon the feet of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Take this good news and wash
your feet with it. When I found that out, I started
liking the ministry a lot better. I've not been sent to point out
to you how dirty your feet are. You know why? If you're a believer,
you already know. You already know. I've not been
sent here to tell you to wash your feet. I've been sent here
to wash your feet through the preaching of the gospel. And if you go away from here
thinking you've got dirty feet, one of two things happened or
a mixture of both. I didn't preach what I was sent to preach or
you didn't hear it. Because it's my intention what
I preach will make the feet of the saints clean. What did he
tell the prophet? Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
says the Lord. Tell her that her sins are forgiven,
that her hard service is completed. Brothers and sisters, that's
what I tell you this morning. You may come here. You may have come
here this morning burdened with a sense of guilt. Let me tell
you something. Your sins are forgiven. They are. Well, I haven't
confessed them yet. Doesn't change the fact they're
forgiven. They were forgiven before you did them. They were
forgiven before you got here. They were forgiven before you
heard the words. I'm just here to tell you the
words of forgiveness that within your own consciousness, you'll
realize your feet have been washed clean by Christ. That's good news. On one occasion, they were stumbling
feet as he carried his cross out to the place of crucifixion. In his body, he had been so beaten,
already lost so much blood, he could not bear that weight. And
it was just designed to be a picture for us, how the burden of our
sin represented by that cross being that instrument of cursed
death. That represented the burden of
our sin that he bore. And you say, yes, but he could
bear it. Yes, but in the bearing of it, it bore him down to death. It broke him. He was not some giant weightlifter
that victoriously lifted Him up. He bore our sins in His body
on the tree and in the process of burying them, it broke Him.
It dragged Him down to the grave and made Him subject. And He
experienced all that a holy God can do in response to our wickedness. He died. And He's the only one
that ever fully died. Everybody else spends eternity
dying and never get it done. He did. They were cursed feet as they
nailed it, his feet to the cross. Paul said, Christ has redeemed
us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for
us as it is written. Cursed is everyone who is hung
on a tree. As we think about the feet of
our Lord Jesus Christ, we think of Him nailed to that piece of
wood, cursed by God because of what we did. Oh, but those cursed,
nailed feet, they bring good news. For it is through His cursedness
that we are made blessed. They're victorious feet, because
a few days later, He comes out of the tomb. He was cursed, yet
three days later, here he comes. Someone once said the angel rolled
the stone away from the door, not so Christ could get out,
he was already out. He rolled the stone away from
the door because a bunch of women were coming, they couldn't roll
it out of the way, and they needed evidence, they needed testimony.
He's not in there. The angel told him, he is not
here, for he is risen from the dead, you know, and here, look,
see, he's gone. Our Lord came out of there feet
scarred, but victorious. He came out of there no longer
to bear sin, but to bring salvation. Like the high priest coming out
of the temple on the day of atonement, having offered a sacrifice, and
that sacrifice has been accepted by God. Going there into the
presence of God was just like our Lord did when He went into
the temple not made with hands, and He offered Himself without
spot to God. And so that high priest, picturing
Christ, goes in there in the presence of God, bearing the
sins of the Jews, but also bearing the blood, and he pours it out.
God accepts it. And the high priest, again picturing
Christ, comes back out of that place of death and judgment.
And he comes out there, and he holds up his hands, and he blesses
the people. And it was on occasions like
this, on the times when the blood offering had been offered, It
was the only time that the priests were allowed to pronounce the
name of the Lord. And our Lord Jesus Christ, who
is the name of the Lord, comes out and blesses us. He came out of the tomb with
this blessing that the priests were told to say. The Lord bless
you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine
upon you. and give you peace. He was victorious. Yes, the Satan, the enemy struck
his heel, but the enemy's been crushed. And our Lord has put
our sin away. He has reigning feet. He stuck around for about 40
days and then he ascended to heaven. And as he ascended to
heaven, he fulfills what is written in the Psalms. He approached,
and remember that any descriptions of heaven we find in the Bible
are symbolic, because nobody knows what heaven's like, but
they were symbols that people would recognize, and heaven's
pictured as a walled city. And our Lord approached it, and
he said, lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted
up, you everlasting doors. You know, the gates of cities
didn't swing outward. They lifted straight up. And
it says, where heaven had been shut up, no one in or out. Why? No king. The king had left. He'd gone
to earth. And the angels were in wonder
of that. It's written. These are things that angels
desire to look into. It still amazes them. They had
seen Him. They knew Him. And they saw Him
leave His place and come down here to where we are. And it's
as though the gates to heaven were shut up. And He comes back
and He says, Lift up your heads, O ye gates. Be ye lift up, ye
everlasting doors. Why? that the King of Glory may come
in. Not the bruised and battered,
barely alive Savior who done all he can and hopes things work
out. It's the King of Glory. I'm back home. I'm victorious. I have finished the work my Father
gave me to do. And they lifted up the gate and
our Lord walked in. And coming from the throne of
glory, God said, sit here at my right hand until I make your
enemies a footstool for your feet. And those feet that brought
good news are resting. Our Lord's not worried about
anything. He's reigning. And Paul says he must reign until
God makes every enemy a footstool for his feet. It's easy for us
to look at all that's going on in this world, and it looks like
it's out of control, and we think the enemies of God are gaining
an advantage. No, they are not. Our Lord's
feet are resting on them, and he has raised them up to serve
his purpose, and when he's done with them, he'll take them out
of the way. He will either turn them into friends, or he will
destroy them forever. Oh, wouldn't it be good news
to know the Savior's resting and reigning. He's not waiting
for us to make him Lord. He's not waiting for the last
day that maybe he can be a king over there in Jerusalem. He right
now sits on the throne. He has all authority in heaven
and earth. Everything happens according
to his will. That's good news. In fact, that's
exactly what Isaiah was referring to. Because when he spoke these
words, he says, how beautiful on the mountains are him that
is him that brings good news, the feet of him that brings good
news, that publishes peace, that brings glad tidings, who says
unto Zion, your God reigns. Oh, it's no good news to the
city. if the king's not in charge.
But our king is in charge. They were at one time kissed
feet as a sinful woman came into a room full of self-absorbed
religious hypocrites who had brought the Lord Jesus in among
them to find a way to accuse him. And while he reclined there
at the table, that's the way they ate, you know, kind of on
their side, holding their head up, feet sticking out, and she
come into the room, and she comes there down to his feet, and she
begins to weep, and her tears fall. on those feet and her hair,
she uses it like a rag and begins to clean those feet. I say no
one washed the Lord's feet. She did, but it had different
significance there. What did it mean? Our Lord referred
to her as a woman whose sins were many, but they'd been forgiven. And such was her love for the
one who brought the good news of forgiveness. Those feet were
beautiful. And she was glad to take the
place of a servant at his feet and wash them. How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of Him that brings good news. Can you apply that
to anybody more than you can apply it to our Lord? Is His message not good news?
And do we not count Him as did that woman in the Song of Solomon? All together lovely, even His
feet. For with those feet from the
very beginning, He has brought us the message from the battlefield.
Your God, your Savior, your King, your Prophet, your Priest reigns. And no matter what you see going
on, understand this, He's in control. And in His time, you
will know the fullness of His salvation. And in the experience
of our lives, for every one of us, unless we're here when the
Lord returns, he shall come to us and deliver
to us the last bit of good news. And in the hour of our departure
from this life, he will as much say, your work is done. Your race, your course is completed. Time to go home. Time to be done with all the
trouble and the confusion and the disappointment that attends
this life, even in the minds of believers. I look forward to seeing Christ. That is the greatest thing of
all. But there is also this. I long to be done with this.
And I don't mean the preaching. It kind of figures in. I don't
feel like I ever do anything well. I'm weary. As I think all believers are
in a certain measure, our personalities are different, so we feel it
in different measure. But as a believer, aren't you
tired of not being what you want to be? I am. I don't know how much more time
God will give me, and I'm content to be here as long as he Thinks that'll serve his purpose. Oh, to be perfected. To be done. Dear Him, bring that good news.
Come on home. Heavenly Father, what good news
in the gospel for us. Blessed to our hearts in Christ's
name.