And the Lord spake unto Moses
and unto Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall
be unto you the beginning of the months. It shall be the first
month of the year to you. Speak ye unto the congregation
of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall
take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their
fathers, a lamb for a house. And if the household be too little
for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take
it according to the number of the souls. Every man, according
to his eating, shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb
shall be without blemish. A male of the first year, you
shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall
keep it until the 14th day of the same month. And the whole
assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the
evening. And they shall take the blood
and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post
of the house, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the
flesh in that night, roast with fire and unleavened bread, and
with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Eat it not raw nor sodden
with water, but roast with fire, his head and his legs, and with
the pertinence thereof. and you shall let nothing of
it remain until morning, and that which remaineth of it until
morning you shall burn with fire, and thus you shall eat it. with
your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, your staff in your
hand, and ye shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land
of Egypt this night, and I will smite the firstborn in the land
of Egypt, both man and beast. And against all the gods of Egypt,
I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. And the blood
shall be to you for a token upon the houses wherein you are. And
when I see the blood, and when I see the blood, I will pass
over you and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you
when I smite the land of Egypt. Let's pray. Oh, dear Lamb of
God, what amazing grace, what amazing love this is, that you
would give yourself to be our Lamb. Lord, we pray that when
you come looking for us, you search us, Lord, that you will
see your work, that you will see your blood, and that you
will pass over us, Lord, each of us gathered here today. We
pray for your grace and your mercy upon our households, that
you will shut us in and keep us where we should be, Lord,
day by day, week by week, and lifetime upon lifetime, Lord.
In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, Brad and Phil. If you want to turn in your Bibles
to the book of John again in chapter 2, I really like that
song we sang last, and Brad is right, I chose that song because
of the sermon today as well as because of that text that he
read from Exodus chapter 12, nothing but the blood of Jesus. We repeat that often in that
song, and we sang six verses of it. My voice is not able to
sing anymore, and I'm very frustrated by that. But it says in there, what is that phrase? I had it here a minute ago, but
I can't see it right now. Anyway, I was looking at that.
It says, basically, as long as I have breath. And I hope that
as long as I live, I can at least sing and speak of the Lord's
grace in this way. But it's in the Lord's hands. Notice in this song though, he
asks many questions and many statements are made. What can
wash away my sins? What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. For my pardon, this I see. For my cleansing, this is my
plea. Nothing can for sin atone. Nothing
of good that I have done. This is all my hope and peace.
This is all my righteousness. Now by this I'll overcome. Now by this I'll reach my home.
Glory, glory, this I sing. All my praise for this I bring. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
That's a well-written hymn, isn't it? And it seems repetitive,
but repetition is good. I know that my own children will. I was just the other day, was
whistling the tune to, oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. And
I hadn't said any words, and my daughter started singing that
too. So you get these hymns in your head when you're young.
and you benefit from it when you get older. The Lord bless
that to you. So that's just the background
on that hymn. I like that hymn. Back in John chapter two, we're
gonna begin reading here in verse 12. I'm sorry, I've got the wrong
chapter. Yeah, verse 12 of John chapter
two. I've entitled this message, The
Zeal of Christ. Christ's zeal and ours, or the
zeal of Christ and the zeal of His people. So that's what we're
going to cover today, and you'll see how that ties into what Brad
read shortly. We won't get to the last couple
verses of this chapter, but we will hopefully get to that next
time. John chapter 2 and verse 12. After this, after the marriage
at Cana of Galilee, after this, Jesus went down to Capernaum,
he and his mother and his brethren and his disciples, and they continued
there not many days. They didn't go there, they weren't
there for very long. That's what that means, not many
days. And the Jews, Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up
to Jerusalem. and found in the temple those
that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of money
sitting. They were exchanging one currency
for another so that people could use the money they brought to
buy these things. And when Jesus had made a scourge
of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple and the
sheep and the oxen and poured out the changers' money and overthrew
the tables. You can imagine what that was
like. And he said to them that sold doves take these things
hence, make not my father's house and house of merchandise, a place
of profit. And his disciples remembered
that it was written, the zeal of thine house hath eaten me
up. Then answered the Jews and said
to him, What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest
these things? Jesus answered and said to them,
Here's the sign. Destroy this temple, and in three
days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and
six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear
it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of
his body. When therefore he was risen from
the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this to them,
and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had
said. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover in the feast
day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which
he did. But Jesus did not commit himself
to them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any
should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. And I hope
to cover those last three verses next time. So the first verse
we read, Jesus and his mother and his brethren and his disciples
all went to Capernaum and didn't stay there very long. And I don't have much to say
about that. I know that Capernaum was a place where Jesus did many
miracles and most of the people in those cities didn't believe
on him, even though he did the miracles that he did. And he
pronounced a great woe upon those cities, Capernaum and Bethsaida
and other cities. But in the next verse, in verse
13, it says, the Jews' Passover was at hand. Now notice carefully,
it says the Jews' Passover. It's not labeled as Brad just
read, the Lord's Passover, but the Jews' Passover. Because the
Jews had taken what was God's and designed by God for his people
to show them the true Passover, and they had changed it and distorted
it and perverted it for their own profit. They had made it
not only for their profit, but they had made it a work that
people would do in order to get approval from God. They had made
it a work. And so that is the setting, these
people in Jerusalem. The city is full of people who
would come there for the Passover. And in the very temple, the temple
where the Passover lamb evidently was sacrificed, these people
were buying sacrifices, oxen, sheep, and doves. And these people
were selling them. And in order to buy them, I understand
it this way, that in order to buy these things, they would
exchange the currency so that they would be able to buy them
in the right currency. So it's like one of these places
you walk into where tables are everywhere and people are all
around. And these tables have things you can buy. And people
are parading around, looking at things to buy and buying them.
And before they go in, they have to get a ticket. They have to
change their money. There's a lot of commotion. It's just a complete
mess. But it's all done in the name
of keeping the Passover. God commanded Israel to keep
the Passover, as we just read from Exodus chapter 12. And he
gave them instruction what the Passover was all about. It was
for the people of Israel. It was instituted on that very
night when God brought Israel out of Egypt. He told them, get
ready, put your shoes on, get your staff ready, and put your
dough into the kneading trough, but don't leaven it. And so they
were to get ready and they were each one, each household was
to take a lamb, a lamb for house, and they were to number according
to the number of people eating in that household. Eating means
believing. So they were to believe on the
Lord through this sacrifice. And of course, it was the 10th
plague that God brought on Egypt. This was the last plague. This
was the plague that God used to finally break Pharaoh and
caused him to release Israel from their bondage. 400 years
of bondage. And the king of Egypt, Pharaoh,
was was set in his ways, he was opposed to God, he blasphemed
God, he resisted all attempts by Moses to release the people
of Israel from Egypt. But God broke him. over and over
brought on a plague, and Pharaoh said, okay, and then he relented
and turned back and said, no, he won't let them go, and you
can read about that. It's a great fight between the
Lord and Pharaoh. Of course, the Lord is not having
to work at all. He's not fighting. But this little
pipsqueak man, Pharaoh, is fighting all he can, and he's resisting. His heart gets harder and harder.
And finally, in this plague of Passover, God brings his people
out. He redeems them by the blood
of the Lamb. And the significance of this
Passover was so great that we're reading here in verse 13, it
was the Jews' Passover, so it was already distorted. And Jesus
went up to Jerusalem and he found all these things in the temple,
these that were selling ox and sheep and doves and the money
changers. And so when Jesus saw this, he
was greatly moved, greatly moved. And we're gonna talk a bit about
that. The Lord Jesus Christ was greatly
moved about this scene that he saw. And so what did he do? Well,
he made a whip, a scourge, And then he began to chase out the
people and the animals from the temple. He overthrew the money
changers' tables and all their money scattered. And it says
here, that after he made this scourge of small cords, so it
was going to be stinging whoever he hit with it, it says he drove
them all out of the temple and the sheep and the oxen. So the them here are not just
the animals, but the people who did this. Now this is a very
amazing thing, and it seems out of character for the Lord Jesus
Christ to treat men so. But he did it for a reason. he
had a zeal for his father's house. And that's what it says next.
It says, when he had done this, and he told them, don't make
my father's house a house of merchandise, in verse 16, it
says, the disciples remembered that it was written, the zeal
of thine house hath eaten me up. Now that's written in the
Psalms, in Psalm 69. The zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up. To be eaten up with zeal means
to be consumed by it, to be controlled by it. Everything you're doing
is driven by this zeal. What is zeal? Well, in scripture,
if you look at the word zeal, it actually means literally,
according to Strong's, it means heat. And it also means the color
of your face changes because of a deep emotion. That's what
the root word means. Heat, and that word heat actually
is the same word that's used in Revelations 3 where God says
to the church of Laodicea, you're neither cold nor hot. Hot is the same word here as
zeal. And because you're not cold or hot, you're lukewarm,
I'm gonna spew you out, I'm gonna vomit you out of my mouth. The
Lord Jesus Christ had this heat. The color of his face was inflamed,
in the root word it would mean this, because of the emotion
that he had. And we don't normally think about
the Lord Jesus having much emotion, but as I thought about that,
I realized that if, what would it be like if God were to be
a man? Because he was a man. Jesus Christ
is God and he is man. He's so much God as if he were
not man and so much man as if he were not God, but in one person,
he's both God and man. And as man, he's perfect man.
And here we see Him, the perfect man, expressing out of Himself,
His zeal, which is consistent with God's own nature, the perfect
blend of God and man. And so we learn something from
this. He was not passive. He was not
apathetic. He was not just, well, just take
it or leave it. He was not lukewarm. He was hot. He had a heat that
was this zeal. And in Scripture, the word zeal
is also translated in our Bibles as jealousy. Jealousy. And in the Proverbs, in Proverbs
chapter six, it says, don't commit adultery with another man's wife
because the man will want vengeance and he will not rest until he
gets it and it doesn't matter how much you pay him for it because
of his zeal, his jealousy. And the Lord expresses this towards
His people. He says, the Lord thy God is
a jealous God. His name is jealous for His people. So it's no wonder that the Lord
Jesus Christ had this heat of zeal that he's expressing here
by what he did by taking this scourge, making a scourge. He
deliberately took it and blended it or braided it together in
order that he might effectively use this to drive these people
out and the animals out of the temple and tell them, this is
my father's house. The zeal of my father's house,
you see. So he was a man A perfect man
who in everything that he did expressed God in his nature,
in his character, in his will, in his work, and in his glory.
He was a man of great purpose. He didn't, I don't know what
I'm gonna do today. That's a man who doesn't have
purpose. He was directed by the purpose of God. He was a man
of purpose and he set his face like a flint to go up to Jerusalem. That's an example of a zeal.
Everything he did in life, he did with a purpose and a zealous
purpose about it. He was not passive and apathetic. He was fearless. He was a man
of great courage. He had a great zeal to defend
his wife his people. He had a great zeal for his father's
glory and his father's people, like David did for his father's
sheep. He had a great zeal to protect
those sheep because they were his father's sheep. Or as David,
when he was king in the nation of Israel and Judah, He was the
man, if you think about scripture, David was a man of zeal, wasn't
he? The Lord Jesus Christ, the son
of David, had a zeal greater than David. If you could have
been there in the days of King David, you would have been, like
I am, and I read scripture about David, amazed of the wisdom of
David. And when he did things, like
when he heard that Saul was killed and the man who brought that
news to him and thought he was bringing good news, he had that
man killed. He wasn't like somewhere in the
middle wondering, let's see, is it this way or that way? He
was hard nailed to the edge and made a judgment and he executed
that judgment. He was railed, wasn't he? He
was on the hot, as we say in electrical things,
he was on the bar, he was on the high side there. He was a
man of zeal, David was. When he went against the people,
the enemies of the Lord, he defeated them and he brought back the
spoils and gave it to Israel. He protected them, he was a man
of great justice because he had a zeal for the Lord. The Lord
Jesus Christ had a zeal greater than David. The Lord Jesus Christ
was a great captain, greater than Joshua. A mighty king, greater
than David. He did nothing partially or half-heartedly. He knew the mind of God. He didn't
just do righteousness, he loved righteousness. He didn't just
not sin, he hated iniquity. He was a man of purpose and conviction
like no other man. And all of his purpose and all
of his conviction was right. No one could find any fault with
his emotions because it was the heart of God being expressed
through this man, the Lord Jesus Christ. He loved like no other
loved. He had compassion like no other
ever had compassion. He was tender and meek. more
than Moses, who was the meekest man on earth. He was a prophet
greater than the greatest prophet, like John the Baptist or Elijah.
He wept more than Jeremiah. He was wiser than Solomon. He
was stronger than Samson. He was God's own son. He is God's own son and he gave
himself fully. We just read in Exodus 12 how
the lamb was to be taken and killed and roasted and nothing
of it was to be left. And if anything was to be left,
then it was to be fully eaten or it was to be burned up. So the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Passover lamb, was given fully. He gave himself in love fully. Nothing was left back. He didn't
hold back anything. And all of it was out of love
for his father. His father gave him. to save his people, and he pursued
that purpose with a hot zeal. No one could deter him. No one,
not even Satan, could keep him from that purpose. He came to
save his people from their sins. He could not fail. There wasn't
a power in the universe that could keep him from doing what
he came to do. He was a man of zeal. Whatever he did, he did
it to the max. He was the wisdom of God and
is the wisdom of God and acted according to the wisdom of God
in everything without doubt. I do everything with doubt, don't
you? But he didn't have doubt. He
did it with full conviction, fully expecting that God was
going to accomplish his will and glorify him because he sought
in everything to glorify his father. He prayed more than Daniel. He suffered more than Job. He
was more righteous than Job. He was afflicted more than Joseph. He was meeker than Moses. He
was a high priest greater than every other high priest. He was
made a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, an eternal
high priest. He's the king of righteousness
and the king of peace. I love to think about his zeal,
don't you? Here's a man who was on fire
to do everything that his father gave him to do in order that
he might make his father known to his people and that he might
remove every barrier, absolutely nothing, no impediment left to
bring them to God, that they might know him and give them
eternal life. who were dead in their sins.
He designed and He came to do this, to give Himself, to give
His people eternal life. And He will not be satisfied
until every one of His people stands before Him without fault
and without blame in love, because that's His purpose. And He will
fulfill that purpose. He had a zeal. And I love to
think about his zeal. He had a zeal to be gracious,
a zeal to forgive, a zeal to love, a zeal to be kind, a zeal
in waiting and being patient with the Lord to bring about
his purpose at the cost of his own sufferings. He patiently
fulfilled everything his father gave him to do. And so he drove
these men out. They had perverted the very thing
that God set up in order to teach how He would save His people
from Satan and from sin. The eternal purpose of God was
going to be fulfilled in what would fulfill that sign of the
Passover. 1 Corinthians 5 verse 7 says,
Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. These had distorted it. They had made it a work, and
that was as far as it went. They completely obscured, they
put, as it were, under a basket, the light God meant to show in
this sign of the Passover. And so in verse 18, it says in
John chapter two, the Jews, after he told them this, After the
disciples said, it says that they remembered the zeal of his
house that has eaten him up. It says in verse 18, then the
Jews said to him, to Jesus, what sign showest thou to us, seeing
that thou do these things? You really, you really are taking
things into your own hand here, like you're somebody. Show us
a sign to prove you have the authority to do these things.
Notice when he had the whip in his hand, people weren't asking
him for a sign. They just fled, didn't they? And so what did he say to these
men? Well, he said in verse 19, here's the sign, destroy this
temple and in three days I will raise it up. That was what it
says in verse 19. Now later, when they were seeking
to find fault with him, when he was on trial, they twisted
these words and they said, oh, we heard him say that he would
destroy this temple, the building, and in three days raise it up
again. That's not what he said, is it? They said, you destroy
this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. He was referring
to the fact that the very men who were questioning his authority,
the Jews, the rulers of the Jews, those who had instituted the
Passover and had set this up in the temple that day, those
men would destroy his body, but he would raise his body up. It
would seem like they were going to have the advantage, but he
would win. He would win. And this sign is
exactly what the apostles said in Acts chapter 5 later when
this came up, this matter came up again there in Acts chapter
5. The apostles John and Peter had come to the temple, and there
was a man there who was lame, and let's see, was it Acts chapter
five or four? And he raised them up, and the
people were gathered around, and they were thinking that Peter
had done something because he was a great man, but it was not
that, and he explained it to them. No, it was by the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it says, in verse 15 of
Acts chapter 4, when they commanded that the rulers When they saw
this man had been healed, they marveled at Peter and John, and
they told them, they commanded them to go aside out of the council,
and they conferred, and they said, oh, I'm sorry, when they
had commanded them to go aside out of the council, then they
conferred among themselves, so they told Peter and John to leave,
and verse 16, it says, what shall we do to these men in their council?
They were asking one another, for indeed a notable miracle
has been done by them, It's plain to all them that dwell in Jerusalem,
we cannot deny it, but that it spread no further among the people.
Let's threaten them that they speak henceforth to no man in
this name. And they called them and commanded them not to speak
at all or teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered
and said, whether it's right in the sight of God to hearken
to you more than God, judge ye, but we cannot but speak the things
which we have seen and heard. and they would threaten them
further, it says, and they let them go. But before that, if
you look back in Acts chapter four, it says in verse nine,
verse 10, Peter is talking to these very men who told him to
be quiet. He says, be it known to you all
and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ
of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead,
even by him does this man stand here before you whole." And this
didn't happen just there, but throughout the book of Acts.
He held them accountable for crucifying the Lord, and then
he says, but God raised him from the dead. So all their opposition
to him was silenced because God raised him from the dead. The
Lord Jesus Christ rebuilt that temple, his body, in three days. All right. So here we see the
zeal of the Lord, and we see his sign that he's going to set
forth to the Jews, which was that they would destroy his body,
but he would raise it up. But think about with me now what
this Passover had to do with. I want you to think back with
me what the Passover was given for. If you look at Exodus chapter
12, the key verse there, which Brad emphasized correctly in
Exodus chapter 12 and verse 13, look at this. He says, the blood
shall be to you for a token, Upon the houses where you are
and when I see the blood, I will pass over you and the plague
shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of
Egypt. Egypt was the land that held
Israel captive. It was the land and its king
represented sin and Satan. All of God's people were held
captive because of their sin under the captivity of darkness
by Satan. But they really were captive
according to God's will because of their offense against God
and His law and His justice. And there was only one way they
could be brought out of that captivity. If God received a
ransom for their redemption. The ransom price? God required. Only God could provide it, only
God would accept it, and on accepting the ransom price of the blood,
he released his people from their sin, and therefore, he overthrew
Satan and his kingdom in that blood that Christ shed. But here
he says, what would deliver Israel, what would deliver his people
from Egypt, was what? When God sees the blood. When
God sees the blood. Now, we've heard this before. It does us well to hear it again
and to take it to heart, doesn't it? Our salvation is not what
we see. Our salvation is not what we
do. Our salvation is the blood Christ
shed and what God sees in His blood. It's what God thinks of
the blood of His Son that saves us. Do you see that? If you were to write it out in
the mathematical equation, you wouldn't have, you wouldn't be
a factor, you wouldn't be a term in that equation. There's only
two terms, only two factors. What Christ did and what God
responded, how he responded to it, what he thinks of what Christ
did. That's what he's saying here. When God sees the blood
of his son, then he passes over his people. He doesn't visit
judgment upon them, his judgment, that they deserve because he
sees the blood of his son. It's the blood that of Christ
shed for his people that satisfies the justice of God and takes
away the wrath of God. This is the gospel, isn't it?
And that's what the Passover was telling us. It was teaching
us. The Lamb is Christ. The blood
is the sacrifice of Christ, offered not to men, but to God, for our
sins. Our offense is against God. Only God can forgive, because
our sins are only against Him. But because only He can forgive
and because He's good, He has forgiven. But He didn't do it
by anything else other than His grace and the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. God sees the blood. And as Brad
was saying in his prayer, Lamb of God that you would offer yourself
in order that God's judgment would be taken from us. God's
wrath would be removed from us. My sin would be purged away by
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing but the blood. This is
what the Passover is about. God seeing. God's people being
saved by what God sees and what God requires and provides Our
acceptance with God is God's acceptance of his son. Doesn't
that mean something to you? All my life I lived under the
burden of wondering how can I be acceptable to God, until I heard
I was accepted because of what God thought, not of me, but of
His Son, of His blood. Do you know that only the blood
of Christ is required to bring you into glory, into the very
presence of God, in all of His glory, without fault? The blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's it. We come, we have boldness
and access into the presence of God by the blood of Jesus. Hebrews chapter 10 and verse
19 says so. And so when the Lord Jesus saw
these men, making the Passover a complete religious ritual,
works of man in order to obscure the great work of God and the
exclusivity of all of man's contribution. Nothing that man can do can contribute
here. This is a transaction between
God the Son and God the Father. Christ offered himself by the
eternal spirit, and by that offering of himself, he obtained our eternal
redemption. He did it. He couldn't be stopped
in it. And so, no wonder the color came
into his face and the heat of his zeal in defense of his people. He had a concern for them that
they wouldn't have anything other than the pure, Passover before
their eyes. Look at 2nd Corinthians. The
same zeal and the same word for zeal is used here in 2nd Corinthians
chapter 11. The Lord Jesus Christ was jealous
over his people, like a man whose wife was at risk of another committing
adultery with her, he became jealous when these men would
pervert the Passover. When false religion makes salvation
the result of our work in any way, it's cause for God's people
to be zealous in defense of the truth. Paul told the Galatians
in Galatians chapter 4 that the Judaizers were zealous, or that
they were zealous over these Galatians. They wanted them to
follow their false religion. And here in 2 Corinthians chapter
11, it says in verse 1, would to God you could bear with me,
Paul says to the Corinthians. Would to God that you could bear
with me a little in my folly, and indeed bear with me, for
I am," there's the word zeal, jealous over you with a godly
jealousy. We know what that is, don't we?
Something that belongs to us and someone tries to take it
from us, it's like, what? That's mine. especially a man
and his wife, especially Christ and his church, and here the
apostle over those he preached to. I'm jealous over you with
a godly, not just a sinful, but a godly jealousy. For I have
espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste
virgin to Christ." In other words, you have only one salvation,
it's Christ. And you need to know this, and
you need to depend on Him only, and forsake everything else.
Don't trust, don't depend on, don't look to another Savior.
There isn't another. There's one name under heaven,
and there's only one husband to God's people. They're virgins
because they don't seek salvation in any but Christ. They're virgins
also because the Lord has made them so. But verse three, 2 Corinthians
11 verse 3. Paul says, but I fear, lest any
by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety,
so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ. And it means not just simple
mindedness. It doesn't mean that. It actually
means the singularity, the only of the Lord Jesus Christ in salvation. Paul was jealous over them because
he could not tolerate any perversion of the gospel of God's free grace,
that it was all by Christ's work and only his work that were saved. And so he writes to the Corinthians,
he says, you're listening to false prophets. You're listening
to those who promote themselves. I won't have it. I want you to
know I have espoused you to one husband, Christ. And just like
Satan beguiled Eve when Adam was there, The Lord Jesus is not going to
allow his wife to be beguiled by Satan. He will not allow it. His zeal rose up. He made this
scourge of cords in order to demonstrate that for his people,
he will not allow them to be taken and beguiled by the devil. And if you look over at 2 Corinthians
11 and a little bit later in verse these men who do this,
he says in verse 7, have I committed an offense in abasing myself
that you might be exalted because I have preached to you the gospel
of God freely? And then in verse 11, he says, why he would say these things,
he says, because I love you not? No, God knows. But what I do,
that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which
desire occasion, that wherein they glory, they may be found
even as we are. For such are false apostles,
deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles
of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself
is transformed into an angel of light. It's no great thing,
therefore, if his ministers be transformed as the ministers
of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works."
Their works are deceitful and their end is going to be accordingly.
The Apostle Paul is saying, the people who are deceiving you
are those who are teachers and preachers who come with another
gospel preaching another Jesus, but there is no other gospel
and there is no other Jesus. There's only one who can save
a sinner, it's the Lord Jesus Christ, and He saves by Himself
without the help of the sinner. He has to, because there's no
help a sinner can provide, and there's no way that God could
accept anything less than the blood of His Son to save sinners. And this is the message of the
Gospel, and that's what Christ was zealous with. Now, just briefly, Here, obviously,
the Apostle Paul had a zeal. But look at Titus chapter 2.
Because God's people also have a zeal. This zeal of the Lord
results in our zeal. His zeal for us produces a zeal
in us for Him. It's a reciprocal zeal. In Titus chapter 2 verse 9, it
says, Exhort servants to be obedient to their own masters and to please
them well in all things, not answering again. So he's saying
here that even slaves on earth are to be obedient. And employees,
obviously, because they're paid like slaves. I mean, they're
paid, so they're not really slaves in that sense, but they have
to do what the boss says, right? He says, tell your servants to
be obedient to their own masters, to please them well in everything,
not answering again, not arguing back, not purloining, which means
to keep back and embezzle something by withholding your devotion
to the labor they've hired you to do, but showing all good fidelity
in order that, this is why, those servants who are to obey their
masters. Notice, that they may adorn the doctrine of God, our
Savior, in all things. Why do we humble ourselves? Because Christ humbled himself.
Why do we not try to make our own way by forcing things in
this world? Because Christ didn't do that.
He trusted his Father to bring about his own will, and he committed
himself, even in death, to his Father's will. Why don't we get
out then and have political rallies? Because our kingdom is not of
this world. Why don't we use placards and billboards and movies
and music in order to get people to come? Because the weapons
of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, through
the pulling down of strongholds. Why don't we take up the things
that businesses and corporations use in order to get advertisements
and that sort of thing? Because it's not by power nor
by might, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. We trust the living
God and we're zealous in trusting Him. We're absolutely convinced
that if God saves anyone, it will be His work and we will
get no credit for it. And we're happy to have it that
way. We're zealous for God's glory. We're zealous that Christ
get all the glory, because if we get any, it means that our
salvation depends in some way on us, and far be it from me
that my salvation would depend on me. It cannot. God won't allow
it. It's an affront to God's justice,
and especially an affront to the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're jealous. We're zealous about this, aren't
we? Everything we do, we're to do in order to adorn the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the doctrine of our God and Savior.
Verse 11, he says, for the grace of God that brings salvation
has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and
worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly
in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and glorious
appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. There
he is called God, our great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ,
who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity. Christ did that. He gave himself
to redeem us from all iniquity and to purify to himself a peculiar
people, notice, zealous of good works. What is a good work? What's a good work? When I was
a kid, good work meant showing up for Sunday, or showing up
for the Bible study, or giving money, or witnessing, or all
these different things that people could measure. You know what
good work is? Anything done out of love for
Christ. Anything done out of love for
Christ. And you know how you love Christ? because He first
loved us. You can only love Him with God-given
faith. It's God who is at work in you
both to will and to do of His good pleasure. That's a good
work, to love Christ and to do all that you do. Whatever you
do, don't do it, I don't know, maybe I'll do that. No, don't
do it half-heartedly. Whatever you do, do it as unto
the Lord with all your might. Isn't that what scripture says?
Do it for the glory of God. Do it in honor of Christ and
His gospel. Whether you are subjecting yourself
in humility, without raising your voice and getting all red-faced
about your own rights, you have none, really. You're committing
everything to the Lord. Let Him defend you. Whatever
seems right to Him is the best. Can't we do that? It's adorning
the gospel of our Savior. The angels will see it. God will
see it. The Lord gives us grace to do this. It's only as we know
we're forgiven that we can love him at all. Isn't that what scripture
says in Luke chapter seven? Jesus said, she loved much because
she was forgiven much. How do we adorn the, how do we
do these good works out of love? Having been forgiven much by
Christ, we want to do nothing. We have actually a zeal. to promote
the grace, the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Don't we? We do. The Lord Jesus
Christ has put it in our hearts to do this. A zeal for His grace,
a zeal for His sovereign authority, for His holiness, for His righteousness. We have a zeal for God's righteousness. And we can talk a lot about that,
but I can't take time now because I'll wear you out. We have a
zeal for repentance, don't we? A zeal to be patient with others.
We fail. We fail all the time. And that's
why it hurts us so much, because God has put in us a zeal to please
our Savior. Christ had a zeal. It was for
his Father. for his father's work and his
will, for his glory and for his people. That was his father's
joy, was to save them by his own blood. So he loved his law
and gave himself to do it. And he didn't do it like, well,
I really don't want to do this. I think I'll do it, but man,
I really wish I didn't. No, he had a zeal. He set his
face like a flint. He gave his face to those that
smite and spit and pluck off the hair. his back to the smiters,
his cheeks to those that pluck off the hair, all for the love
of his people. He wasn't like a half-hearted
husband who said, yeah, she's a pretty good wife, you know.
I don't want to talk about it in public, but no, he stood in
the highest mountain and hung on the cross and proclaimed his
love so that all the world could hear. This is our Savior. He had a zeal for his people.
May God give us grace. to have a zeal for Him, to do
all that we do out of love for our Savior. In Revelation 3,
I mentioned earlier to the church of Laodicea, I would that you
were either cold or hot. And I think to be cold means
to be a poor sinner who has nothing and doubts his salvation. And to be hot is to know you're
a sinner and know Christ is all. But those who were lukewarm in
Revelation chapter three, they thought they were rich, but they
were actually poor. They thought they were dressed
in fine clothes, but they were actually naked because they didn't
know their own sinfulness. So the Lord said, here's my counsel
to you. Buy from me gold tried in the
fire, that you may be rich. And clothing, white and white
clean clothing from me, that you might be clothed. because
they were bare naked and stupid and didn't know it. May God not
let us do that. We don't want to be like that,
do we? I want to know my Savior as a sinner saved by His grace,
and I want my children to know it. I want you to know it. And
I will be red-faced because of this zeal if someone tries to
come and say that you can be saved by some contribution on
your part. Let's pray. Lord, save us by
your grace alone, for Christ's sake alone. We have nothing to
bring. We trust that when you see his
blood, you are satisfied with us by your own will according
to what pleases you and glorifies your grace and your justice and
righteousness and wisdom and faithfulness and all of your
goodness. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.