for today's devotional. It's
in today's bulletin if you'd like to read along with me. Pastor
Gene, once again, wrote an article. And once again, he wrote it according
to God's timing. Isn't it wonderful to see how
the Lord does that? It just goes right along with the message
the Lord laid on my heart. He writes, we read these words
in Isaiah 1, verse 18, come now, And let us reason together, sayeth
the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as
white as snow. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool." Pastor Gene asked this question, he
says, was our Lord trying to reason with men and women who
do not have His Holy Spirit dwelling in them? Absolutely not. Unregenerate sinners are unreasonable. All of them. Read it in 2 Corinthians
3. Human reason and human logic
have absolutely nothing to do with salvation. It is the spirit
that quickened. The flesh profiteth nothing.
That's what John 6.63 says. To portray our Lord as one who
is trying to reason with a spiritually dead sinner is to imply that
he might fail. Brethren, Jesus Christ is the
Almighty God. He cannot fail. Our Lord Jesus
reasons with those who have been convicted by God, the Holy Spirit.
Those who know that they are polluted in their own blood.
Those who know their sins are as scarlet. Those who have a
sincere desire to be clothed in the perfection righteousness
that will make them as white as snow in the sight of a thrice
holy God. A thrice holy God who cannot
even look upon sin. God gives us His Holy Spirit
that we might know the things that are freely given to us of
God. That's in 1 Corinthians 2.12. When we experience the
miracle of the new birth, we hear these words, Come unto me,
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Those are the sinners our Lord
reasons with. Those who feel the burden of
sin, those who labor seeking God's forgiving grace, And all
of His enlightened sheep will have Jesus Christ revealed to
them as their perfect Savior. By God-given faith, we believe
Jesus Christ has made us perfectly righteous before God by His perfect
obedience to His Father's will. We believe the precious blood
of Jesus Christ has cleansed us from every spot and stain.
We rejoice with a heartfelt praise to our God, our Savior, knowing
that there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are
in Christ Jesus. You see why I sang this song?
There's victory in Jesus. And in Him alone. Salvation is
of the Lord. And of the Lord alone. Bow with
me if you will, please. Father, we do thank You and praise
You. Praising You, Lord, for Your wonderful grace and mercy
upon Your people. It has been revealed to this
new heart This born-again heart, the heart that You have placed
in us, Lord, that You rule everything. You could have easily just said,
let them be. Let them be to themselves. And
You do that to so many, Father, for all deserve that, even us. Yet, Lord, You look upon us as
white as snow. what mercy and what grace you
have for your people that you would wash away our sins and
say to each and every one of your people, your iniquities
I will remember no more. Lord I ask for you to give me
this morning the unction, the words to speak comfort to your
people. Give me the words Lord to stand
before your sheep those that you declare my sheep will hear
my voice. My sheep shall hear my voice. Give me the words, Lord, to feed
your sheep. And we know, Lord, that those
words are the words of your Holy Scripture. We ask this, I ask
this, Lord, in the name of my Savior, for His sake and for
His glory alone, Christ Jesus, Amen. I'd like to ask you to
turn in your Bibles once again to the book of Malachi. Again,
it's the last book of the Old Testament. And this morning we'll
be looking at Chapter 3. Last week I just got excited. I love to tell the old, old story.
I love to tell the story, the wonderful story of how my Lord
came down from glory for my sake. how He was made flesh for my
sake, because He has loved me from before the world ever was,
because He has loved all of His children before anything was
ever created. And as I was leaving, after locking
up, Brother Bill says, will there be a part three? I said, I don't
know, we'll see. My title this morning is Complete
in Him, Part 3. So Bill, my answer is yes. You
know, in reality, complete in Him is actually the message of
every message, is it not? It's all about our completeness
in our Lord and Savior. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.
What is more comfortable to a sinner than to know that their sins
are made as white as snow by the Savior who saved them. Can
there be anything more comforting than that? And being complete
in Him means that I don't have to worry about going out and
trying to earn my salvation like many of the world are taught
to do. If you'll just do this, God has done His part. If you'll
just do this, or do that, or whatever it is the church wants
you to do, Oh, there's no peace in that. I know people who have
been saved multiple times. I know a person who's been baptized
five times and they think that each time they've been baptized,
they were saved again. You realize that that means that
their God didn't do the job. Well, that's what's being taught
from most pulpits, isn't it? I love to tell the story about
the one who did this job. Did it completely, did it perfectly,
and I am complete in Him. It's always about Him. Our hymnal
singing, our songs, there's victory in Jesus. Not victory in John,
not victory in you, not victory in the church. There's victory
in Jesus. And that is so important to know.
Because that's where the peace of every sinner lies, in Christ
being complete in Him. Our worship is worshiping Him. It's all about who He is. Oh, can we comprehend? Can we comprehend
what it means that God came down and was manifest in the flesh? The Gospels. We've been looking
through the book of Luke, following the path of Peter. We started following the path
of Peter from where the Lord called him by the seashore to
where we are right now, where the Lord has died, been buried,
and has been risen again. And he's just about to ascend
into heaven. These men stood and the presence
of God Almighty, their creator, the very one who put them in
their mother's womb. In John 1, he created everything. Some people have changed the
words of John 1 to say that he was a god. They put the word
a in there. I don't need to tell you who
that is. Most of you probably already
know. Jesus Christ is God. Plain and simple. Three distinct
persons, absolutely. How can I explain that to you?
I can't, but the entire Bible talks about it all the way through.
It's all about Him. It's all about what He has done,
being made flesh. Did you know that Christ came
here to be a servant? He humbled Himself. He humbled
Himself from the glory of being the Creator of everything. He
humbled Himself, became flesh, to serve the ones that He's loved. That's exactly what He did. He
served each and every one of us, Pauly. He got down, God Almighty
got down and washed the feet of His chosen people. Just like
He did with His disciples. And if that wasn't enough, He
laid down His life for us. He says, I laid down my life. Wicked hands crucified Him, absolutely. And there's no excuse for what
they did. But He is the one who went to that cross by the determinate
counsel of His own will. He laid down His life and then
He raised it up again. That's what He says. That's the
power of God. We worship what He's doing right
now. Aren't you thankful? Aren't you thankful that there's
somebody in heaven representing you right now? We brought this
out in our Bible study. He said to Peter, He said, desires
to sift you as wheat. And He says that to each and
every one of His people. Every one of us have the devil
desires to sift us. He goes about roaring as a lion,
as we saw last week, if it were possible. But it's not. Because we belong to the Lord,
nothing can ever pluck us out of the hand of God. Does that
not help the peace that we might have in this world? I never get tired of telling
you this. John Reeves can't even pluck himself out of God's hand.
And I try all the time. It only takes ten seconds of
walking out that door in the morning when my mind starts going
other directions and starts thinking of other things. Thinking of
the things of the world. Seeing all the glitterous things
that bring They call it tinkling ears. Make your ears happy to
hear. People love to hear good things
about themselves. Oh, how thankful I am that my
Lord sits on His throne right now, working everything out for
the good to those that love Him. And as we brought out in Bible
study, I love Him. Not like I should. Not like I
want to. And not like I will, but love
Him yet I do. And it's because He loved me
first. This book that we read from,
this book containing all these words that talk about our Lord
and Savior right from the beginning of Genesis 1-1. In the beginning,
God created the heaven and the earth. All the way to the end,
to the last page in Revelations. For I testify unto every man
that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any
man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues
that are written. And if any man shall take away
from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take
away his part of the book of life and out of the whole city
from the things which are written in this book. He which testifieth
these things say, Surely I come quickly, even so come, Lord Jesus."
Oh, even so come, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you all. It's a hymn book. Today we turn
to see a promise, this One who has created all things made,
a promise that could not be broken. God made a promise to the people
of Israel, but that promise was based on what their following
His law would be. It was a promise based on what
they would do. And as all mankind do, they come
up short. As you and I will do, if we were
left to ourselves, we come up short. As it is with all mankind,
the carnal man cannot see the depth of their depravity, the
depth of their sin. Our Lord describes it this way
in Jeremiah 17, the heart is deceitful above all things, and
desperately wicked. Who can know it? We talked a
little bit in Bible study about our faith, our feelings. Our feelings of love. Love is
a feeling. Don't ever put any stock in anything
that you have in this flesh. It says right there, the heart
is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can
know it? This promise that we are about
to see today is not a promise made on the condition of men
though. This is one of those promises
that the Lord makes on condition of Him, the condition of what
He will do. In chapter 1 and 2 of Malachi,
Malachi is sent to speak to the preachers, speak to the priests. Malachi says, In
chapter 1, verse 1, the burden of the Word of the Lord to Israel
by Malachi, he says, I have loved you, saith the Lord, speaking
to those priests. I have loved you, saith the Lord,
yet you say, wherein hast thou lovedest? Was not Esau Jacob's
brother, saith the Lord? Yet I loved Jacob and hated Esau,
and I laid his mountains and his heritage to waste. He's speaking
to the priests. In chapter 2 verse 1, And now,
O ye priests, this commandment is for you. If ye will not hear,
and if ye will not lay it to heart to give glory unto my name,
saith the Lord our host, I will even send a curse upon you. He's
speaking to the priests. And we went over all this last
week. But our Lord did not leave His people in that condition,
did He? Look at verses 1, if you would. 1 through 4 of chapter 3. Behold,
behold all you who bring tainted, tainted sacrifices. And that's
what the works of men are, they're tainted sacrifices. Behold, all
of you who do that, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare
the way before Me." Notice where the promise is here. It's not
in what man shall do, it's what our Lord will do. I will send
My messenger, He says, and He shall prepare the way before
Me. And the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to His temple,
even the messenger of the covenant whom you delight in. Behold,
He shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who? Who may abide the day of His
coming? And who shall stand when He appeareth? For He is like a refiner's fire
and like a fuller's soap. And He shall sit as a refiner
and a purifier of silver, and He shall purify the sons of Levi
and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer unto the
Lord an offering. in righteousness, then shall
the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as
in the days of old, as in the former years." Did He say, go
out and do your sacrifices correctly? No. He said, I will come. When the Lord comes to one of
His chosen blood-bought children, reveals who He is, what He has
done and where He is now to that sinner, Oh, the sacrifice becomes
clear to our Lord and Savior. It's the sacrifice of His Son,
and it's His blood He sees. Notice in verse 3, if you would. Before I get there with that,
I want to just say this. If I was to have a subtitle to
today's message, it would be the word purged. It means to
be cleaned. It means to have all the filth
washed away. That's a pretty good word, isn't
it? Purged. If you're a sinner, that's an
awesome word. Purged. Notice what it says in verse
3. And he shall purify the sons of Levi and purge them. Did you notice the pretense in
the word purge? This is important, for the Lord
of glory had not come yet. You see, there'd be another 400
years or so before the One who this speaks of would come. The
Lord whom ye seek. The Old Testament saints looked
for the coming of the Savior. We look to what He has already
been here. It's done. It's finished. Salvation is complete. It's accomplished. Turn, if you will, over to the
40th chapter of Isaiah. My message today is as always. It's a message of finished work. Just as the prophets and the
priests of God, not the false prophets, not the false priests,
but the priests and the prophets of God, what did they do? They
pointed the people to what Christ would do. They pointed the people
to where their salvation laid, and that was in the Lord Jesus
Christ and His coming. Well, that's what we do today.
Only now we can point to what He's already done. If you're
a child of God, if you're one for whom the Father hath given
to the Son, if you are one of those, he says, my sheep hear
my voice. And he said that right after
he said to some unbelieving Jews, you don't hear me, you don't
see what my miracles are, you don't see any of that because
you are not of my sheep. As I said unto you, My sheep
hear My voice. If you're one of His chosen people,
His elect as it says in 1 Peter, one of those for whom the Son
laid down His life, shed His own blood, then these words will
bring much comfort to you as you walk through this valley
of the shadow of death. Look with me if you would at
Isaiah chapter 40 beginning at verse 1. Comfort ye my people, saith the
Lord." He's speaking to Isaiah. He's telling Isaiah, go out and
comfort my people. Those who know what they are.
Those who know that they're just like that man in the temple who
was down on his knees crying out, Lord have mercy on me for
what I am. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem
and cry unto her. What is it He is to cry unto
her that her warfare is accomplished? That's kind of what I've been
saying ever since this message started, isn't it? You're complete
in Him. That's the same thing. Your warfare
is accomplished. Everything for salvation for
His people is accomplished and done. Look further. that her warfare is accomplished,
that her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received of the
Lord's hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth
in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight
in the desert a highway for our God." Highway is something that
goes along and has no stop signs on it. A highway to heaven is
through the Lord Jesus Christ and there are no stop signs if
He's your God. You don't have to stop here and
do that. You don't have to stop there and do that. It's a highway
all the way through the Lord Jesus Christ. Make straight in the desert. A highway for our God. Every
valley shall be exalted, verse 4, and every mountain and hill
shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the
rough places plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath
spoken it. Does He not say, Ye are complete
in Him? If your God speaks something
and you don't believe it to be true, then you don't have a God.
The true and living God, when He says something, it shall be
done. It's a promise made of Him, not
of wicked hands. Now if you would turn over to
Hebrews chapter 1. We'll be looking in Hebrews chapter
1, but I want to read from chapter 9, verse 22, if you would first
allow me this. And almost all things are by
the law purged, washed, cleaned with blood. And without the shedding
of blood is no remission. Folks, this is not talking about
the blood of men. For men will spend an eternity
in death. It's called the second death.
And their blood will never redeem them. The blood that our Lord
is speaking of here for the remission of sins, it must be sinless.
It must be perfect. It must be perfect in order to
satisfy the justice of God, which is perfect. The Lord God has
never been satisfied with the blood of bulls and goats. He
has never been satisfied with the works of men. The priest
of that day when the prophet Malachi was sent had taken the
things of God, the oracles of God, and they polluted them by
adding their own works. Am I not describing what we do
this very day? They polluted them by adding
their own works. But not only that, they went
further. They made the worship of God a profitable thing. A
man I work with, we were in a motel room one night up in Oregon.
And we had laid over up there. We had emergency runs up to Medford. And we laid over, and we were
all sitting around talking. And he said, you know, I used
to go to church. He goes, I used to go to church. He goes, yeah,
my dad was a preacher. He still is. He still is. But I will never set foot in
a church again. Wow. Wow, what happened? Well, I was
sitting there one day. One evening, him and some of
the elders were sitting around the table in the kitchen. He
goes, I was in the other room. They thought I was just watching
TV, not paying any attention. And their entire conversation
was, oh, how do we go about getting more people in to bring up the
coffer? We got some things going on. The pastor's got to do this.
We want to bring in somebody else, and we don't have to pay
him to do that. It was all about. And he sat around and said, well,
we can't do that. We can't do that. People will
know what that is. He says, when I heard my dad say that, he says,
that was the last time I ever wanted to believe anything he
said. And now the man's a grown, full-grown man. And still, he
won't go into a church. That's what the priests of the
day of Malachi were doing. They were making church. They
were making worship a profitable thing to fill their pockets.
Profit became more important than the truth. So they began
to deceive the people. People would come into the church
with their sacrifices. And they would say, oh, no, look,
there's a spot on this one. You have to get rid of that.
It's not good enough. Here, take this one over here. Oh, by the
way, you need to pay me $5 for it, or whatever the cost was.
They were polluting the worship of God for the profit of their
own pockets. Am I not describing what the
world is doing today? Our Lord is our Savior. He is our all in all. We either
rest in Him or we are not of Him. I know that's hard to see. John is one of those kind of
people who feels he has to dive in and get something done. The
hardest thing for me to do is rest. I'm so foolish at times
that I jump in and try to do things and mess it all up. And
I mess it up really bad. And you can apply that statement
I just made to a lot of stuff. Oh, how I wish to rest in my
Lord more. He knew no sin, nor was there
any guile in His lips. You see, all that our Lord has
done, all that He did, all that He was, glorified the Father
perfectly. Everything He does is perfect.
And salvation is most assuredly that also. Our Lord doesn't save
something halfway. He saves. Jesus saves. It's perfect. It's complete. It's a finished work. Again,
in Hebrews 9, we read this, "...neither by the blood of goats and calves,
but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place,
having obtained." Did you catch that? Obtained. That's done. It's finished. It's accomplished.
Israel, your warfare is accomplished. obtained eternal redemption for
us. Notice the past tense of it.
It was done. The works of salvation are done.
Our Lord said as He hung on that cross, it is finished. In Matthew
11, 28, He tells us this, Come unto Me, all ye that labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Let's look at Hebrews
chapter 1. The people of God are complete
in Him. And He makes this very, very
clear to us, not only in His Word, but in His actions towards
us. When we start thinking it's our
own, that we need to start doing something to help God out a little
bit, what's the first thing He does? He lets us stub our toe. Everybody knows what that's like.
Walking around in the dark, you stub your toe, it hurts like
all get out. We, the people of God, are complete in Him. Period. Are you with me in Hebrews? Look at verses 1 through verse
3. And God at sundry times and in
diverse manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the
prophets. hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son,
whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made
the worlds." See our description of who the Son is? Who is He? He's God in the flesh. He made
all the worlds. Verse 3, "...who being in the
brightness of His glory, and the express image of His persons,
and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had
by Himself..." What? What did it say in Malachi? He
was going to purge them, wasn't it? He was going to come and
He was going to purge them. We're complete in our Lord and
Savior. Everything is done in Him. He
purged us from our sins. That's what it says right here.
He had by Himself purged our sins and sat down on the right
hand of the Majesty on High, being made so much better than
the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name
than they. Now turn again over to Colossians
chapter 2 and read with me the title for today's message. Colossians
chapter 2, just a few pages to the left of Hebrews there. Verse 1, Paul writing to the saints at
Colossae. He writes, for I would that ye
know what great conflict I have for you and for them at Laodicea,
and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh that their
hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love and unto
all riches of the full assurance of understanding. to the acknowledgement
of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ, in
whom, speaking of Christ, are hid all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge. And this I say, lest any man
should beguile you with enticing words. For though I be absent
in the flesh, yet I am with you in the Spirit, joying and beholding
your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. As ye
have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in
Him, rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith
as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware,
lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after
the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not
after Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead, and ye are complete in Him. We are complete in this
One which is the head of all principality and power. This
One in whom also ye are circumcised. This One who comes to us and
circumcises with the heart, with the hand of God, not the hand
of men. With circumcision made without
hands and putting off the body of sins and the flesh by the
circumcision of Christ. Buried with Him in baptism. wherein also ye are risen with
him through the faith of operation of God, who hath raised him from
the dead. And you, all of you, all the
people that belong to him being dead in your sins and the uncircumcised
in your flesh, hath he quickened." That means made alive. Oh, to
be made alive in Christ together with Him, having forgiven you
all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of the ordinance
that was against you, which was contrary to us, and took it out
of the way, nailing it to His cross. I close with this question. What think ye of Christ? I know
I close with that question a lot, don't I? I ask myself that question
every time I get up in the morning. Lord, thank You for another day.
Help me walk today, Lord, glorifying my Savior, not John. Don't leave me to myself. Because
just like Peter, I'll take my eyes off of You, Lord. Thank
God that He doesn't take His eyes off of me. Thank God that
He has had His eyes on His people since before the world began.
and nothing can separate us from the love that is in Christ Jesus
my Lord. Lord, help me to walk, help me
to walk glorifying your name and your name alone. Amen.