Morning. Morning. Pastor Fortner
would say, turn with me to the gospel of Ruth, Ruth 1. And it came to pass in the days
when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land. And
a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to sojourn in the country
of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. And the name of
the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife, Naomi, and
the name of his two sons, Melon and Chilion, Aphrothites of Bethlehem,
Judah. And they came into the land of
Moab and continued there, and Elimelech Naomi's husband died
and she was left and her two sons. And they took them wives
of the women of Moab. The name of the one was Orpah,
the name of the other Ruth. And they dwelt there about ten
years. And Malon and Chilion died also, both of them. And
the woman was left of her two sons and her husband. Then she
arose with her daughters-in-law, that they might return from the
country of Moab. For she had heard in the country
of Moab how that the Lord had visited his people in giving
them bread. Wherefore, she went forth out
of that place where she was, and her two daughters-in-law
with her, and they went on the way to return into the land of
Judah. And Naomi said unto her two daughters-in-law, go, return
each of you to her mother's house. The Lord deal kindly with you
as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant you
that you may find rest, each of you, in the house of her husband.
Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept.
And they said unto her, surely we will return with thee unto
thy people. And Naomi said, turn again, my daughters. Why will
you go with me? Are there yet any more sons in
my womb that they may be your husbands? Turn again, my daughters. Go your way, for I am too old
to have a husband. If I should say I have hope,
if I should have a husband also tonight, and should also bear
sons, would ye tarry for them till they were grown? Would ye
stay for them from having husbands? Nay, my daughters, for it grieveth
me much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord is gone out
against me. And they lifted up their voices
and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law,
but Ruth clave unto her. And she said, behold, thy sister-in-law
has gone back to her people and to her gods. Return now after
thy sister-in-law. And Ruth said, entreat me not
to leave thee, or return from following after thee. For whither
thou goest, I will go. Whither thou lodgest, I will
lodge. Thy people shall be my people. and thy God, my God. Where thou diest, will I die,
and there will I be buried. And the Lord do to me, and more
also, if aught but death part thee and me. Let's pray. Lord, we would pray that you
would entreat us not to return from following after you. But
you would give us grace, Lord, that you would draw us to yourself,
that you would guide us along the way, Lord, that you would
be gracious and merciful to each of us. that you would never let
us lose sight of the cost of your mercy, Lord, of your redemption,
that we would never lose sight of Gethsemane, your agony, Lord,
Mount Calvary, and the work that you've done for us. We pray that
you would bless each person here with your salvation. In Jesus'
name, amen. Those are some of the most dearest
words in all of scripture. Don't ask me to leave you, Ruth
told Naomi. What a blessing that is. It's
a picture, a historical picture of the attachment that all of
God's people have for the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we want
to look at this again in John chapter one where these disciples
became disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. Entreat me not
to leave thee or return from following after thee. What a
blessed thing that is. when the disciples who heard
Jesus in John chapter six, as we read last week, when they
heard him preaching that he himself was the bread of life, that they
must eat and drink of him, eat of his broken body and drink
of his blood in order to have life, and that this was something
God himself must do, he must bring us to himself, to Christ,
that they went backward, they left him, And it is a sobering
thing to note that in so leaving him, the Lord Jesus didn't call
after them again. He didn't call for them to come
back. He let them go. And so in Naomi's case, she told
her two daughters-in-law, Naomi told Ruth and Orpah, she said,
you go back to your husband's households, to your people, to
their people and to your gods. And of course, Orpah was okay
with that. At first she protested, but then
she realized it was probably best to go back to her people. But Ruth couldn't leave. And
that is the heart of everyone the Lord saves. What we find
here in John chapter one is the Lord Jesus Christ making disciples. He makes disciples. He makes
disciples of himself. And this is the command he gave
to his church when he left this world in Matthew chapter 28. He told them, he says, you go
and you make disciples of all nations. To make disciples is
to make followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. And to be a follower
of the Lord Jesus Christ is to go in his way. As we mentioned
last week, the way of salvation, the way of life, the way to heaven. The way to heaven is really just
saying the way to the Lord Jesus Christ because he is heaven.
He is the heaven of heavens. But in John chapter one, what
we're going to see here again is the calling of the disciples. So really this is the way God
makes His people follow Him. And the way He did that, if you
see it here in what we've been reading, is He first sent John
to bear witness of Him, of Himself. And having sent John to bear
witness of Him, He had John to preach, and the message God gave
John to preach was to believe on Him who would come, on Christ.
And John preached that he was the Christ, that he was the Son
of God, and that he was the Lamb of God. And so this message,
the message that God gave John to preach, is the message. It's the only message that God
uses to make disciples. Now, I say that very carefully
and deliberately in order for it to really sink in, the importance
of that. that the only way God makes disciples,
as we just read in Ruth, is the message of the Lord Jesus Christ,
of his person as the Son of God, of his office as Christ, and
of his work as the Lamb of God. It's all about him. And unless
we are preaching the message of the Lamb of God, we are not
sent of God. It's that clear, that crisp.
If we're not made disciples of Christ, to hear of Him as the
Lamb of God, then we are not disciples of Christ. We haven't
followed Him. If we follow him who is the Lamb
of God, that's the only way we can be the disciples of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so we see that here in these
words, this account of Christ sending John and John preaching
and Andrew, who was a disciple originally of John, heard that
message and followed the Lord Jesus Christ with his other disciple
who goes unnamed. So let's pick up the reading
here again in John chapter one, and I don't mean to revisit the
same thing that we talked about last time, but there will be
some overlap, and necessarily so. But on the one hand, I try
to avoid overlap, but on the other hand, I can't avoid it.
So there's a tension, always a tension with me about this.
The message of scripture is always the same in that sense. It's
always the Lamb of God. And so in that sense, we're always
going to be repeating ourselves, but we never repeat ourselves
because God's word, even though it has that one message, it presents
him like a diamond in a multifaceted way. The light shines and every
angle we look at it, we see the glory of Christ in his person
and in his offices and in his saving work. And so let's read this together
in John chapter one. He says here in verse, I'm going
to read from verse 26 again. These are going to be familiar
words to you. They asked him in verse 25, they
asked John why he was baptizing, if he's not Christ, if he's not
Elijah or the prophet. And John answered and said, I
baptize you with water, I baptize with water. In other words, that's
just the sign. The water baptism is just a sign
of the true baptism. But there standeth one among
you whom you know not. And that he's really pointing
them away from his act of baptism to the one of whom baptism speaks. Get that in what he says here.
There's one who stands among you whom you know not. And that
kind of hurts, doesn't it? You don't know him. Well, how
am I going to know him? Isn't that what you, when I read
this, I want to not be those who don't know him. I want to
know the Lord Jesus Christ. John says, he it is who coming
after me is preferred before me whose shoes latch it. I am
not worthy to unloose. Not even worthy to do the lowest
service to him. These things were done in Bethabara,
beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing. The next day, John
seeth Jesus coming to him, obviously to be baptized, and saith, Behold,
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. At
some point, I'm going to be dealing with that phrase, the sin of
the world, but I'm not going to do it today. This is he of
whom I said, after me, cometh a man which is preferred before
me, for he was before me. And I knew him not. But that
he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing
with water. That's the purpose of his baptism,
to declare Christ in order that Israel might see their Messiah. And John, bear record, saying,
I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove and it abode
upon him. God the Holy Spirit came from
heaven in the visible form of a dove and it stayed upon him. It remained upon the Lord Jesus
Christ. That is the anointing. The anointing. When we use the words Jesus Christ,
or if you hear people say Christ, sometimes the name Christ, we
think of it as sort of the last name that describes him, Jesus
Christ. But it's not a last name at all. It's the title of the offices
God gave him to fulfill, to fill. And the name Christ, or the office
of Christ, which means in the Old Testament is Messiah, it
has a three part meaning. The Christ would be the prophet,
promised, as Moses said in Deuteronomy chapter 18. He would be the prophet,
he would be the priest, and he would be the king. And in the
Old Testament, whenever God sent a prophet, that prophet would
be anointed. Whenever he would set up a priest,
the priest must be anointed, and the king must be anointed,
because it was God's prophet, God's priest, and God's king,
and they could only fulfill that office if they were anointed
by God, and that was signified in the Old Testament by pouring
of oil on the head of the prophet. Usually in the case of Samuel,
for example, he poured the oil on the head of David, King David.
Or in the case of Aaron, Moses poured the oil on Aaron's head,
the priest. Elijah was also, or Elisha, I
think, was anointed with oil. So all of these cases teach us
that the Lord Jesus Christ is the prophet anointed of God,
the anointed prophet, the anointed priest, and the anointed king.
And the anointing was not with oil here, but it was with the
Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit of God came upon
Christ and stayed upon him. And in the same chapter, it says,
I mean, in John chapter 3, in verse 34, John said that the
Spirit of God is upon him without measure, no limit, limitlessly
upon him. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Christ. There was only one. And to be
the prophet of God, the Lord Jesus Christ wasn't like other
prophets who were mere men, although he was a man, but he was God
and man. The man who is God and God, the
son of God, who became man. He is the word of God, the message
of God. the one who also speaks the message
from God. He's the prophet. And he never
said, as Todd Nybert pointed out when he was preaching to
us, I love what he said there, he never said in his ministry,
thus saith the Lord, as all the other prophets said. But he said,
verily, verily, I say unto you, because he is the Lord, the messenger
and the prophet, the anointed prophet. He makes God known and
he himself is God. Jesus told his disciples, if
you've seen me, you've seen the father. So he's the prophet and
he's anointed to that office. If you want to hear from God,
you'll have to hear from Him. If you want to know God, you
can only know God in Him. We will know nothing of God,
but what we know of Him in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the
way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father, Jesus
said, but by me. And so we see this, it's the
full, explanation of the Lord Jesus Christ as Christ. He's
the prophet, and he's the priest, the anointed priest. Now, in
the Old Testament, there were men who were made priests, and
all of the priests were taken from among men, and they were
ordained by God for men in things pertaining to God. That's the
office of the priest. Christ is the high priest. He is, as Melchizedek, he was
the high priest before he came into the world, because he had
been appointed to that office in eternity. When he came into
the world, he fulfilled the office of the high priest. He was taken
from among men, and he was ordained by God for men in things pertaining
to God. In the Old Testament, all the
men who were priests were sinful men. The Lord Jesus Christ knew
no sin, He did no sin, and in Him was no sin, because He is
the sinless and spotless and holy Son of God. And yet He came
in our nature, but it was a sinless nature, a spotless, sinless nature. All the Old Testament priests
would offer a sacrifice, so the Lord Jesus Christ had a sacrifice
to offer. They offered animals. and the
blood of animals. He offered himself and his own
blood. The priest in the Old Testament
would lay their hands upon the offering and they would transfer
the sins of the people to that offering. And then that offering
would be killed and burnt or sent out away to carry away to
make satisfaction to God for the sins of the people. But none
of those sacrifices ever made any satisfaction to God. It says
in Hebrews chapter 10, sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not,
but a body has thou prepared me. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
offered himself. And as the high priest laid his
hands on the head of the goat in Leviticus 16, verses 21 and
22, the Lord Jesus Christ confessed our sins upon himself, owning
them as his sins. and then bearing those sins as
his before God, the guilt and the filth and the shame of them
and the punishment of them, he is the sin offering. He knew
no sin, yet God made him sin for us that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him. He's the high priest. the anointed
priest, who is not only the priest, but the lamb that was offered
and the altar on which that lamb was offered, his divine nature. And by the Holy Spirit, his own
spirit, he offered himself to God and he actually obtained
eternal redemption for us. Hebrews 9, verse 12. So this
is Christ, the prophet and the priest. The priest represents
his people to God. He comes into the presence of
God on their behalf. And when he comes, he brings
them with him. And the priest also makes intercession
to God for the people. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
makes intercession for his people, and he's the king, the anointed
king. The king in the Old Testament
was given all the authority over all of God's people, and he had
to execute judgment. The Lord Jesus Christ executes
judgment. But in executing judgment for
his people, he justifies them in his own blood and he condemns
their enemies. He condemns their sin, Satan,
and all that are opposed to their salvation. And he stands before
God and he makes intercession for them as the king. The king
of righteousness, the king of peace, because in his life he
established the everlasting righteousness. And then God gives the king everything
that he would give to his people. He gives it to the king for the
people with the king. And so, as David gave to everyone
a flagon of wine and a good piece of flesh and gave all the blessings
God gave to him, so the Lord Jesus Christ gives everything
that God the Father has given to him with his people. And as the king takes to himself
a beautiful and spotless bride, so the Lord Jesus Christ takes
to himself a woman God has given to him, the church of God, the
elect of God, and he laid his life down for her in order to
make her spotless and holy and to clothe her with his own robe
of righteousness. He's the Christ. the prophet,
the priest, and the king. He gives his people everlasting
life and eternal glory with himself. This is the Christ. This is the
one John the Baptist declared. He's the Lamb of God. This is
the way he fulfilled that office of the Christ is by becoming
the Lamb of God. Because He took our sins and
put them away, He rose victorious, justified, and He reigns forevermore. And He sits on the right hand
of God with all power and all authority, the sovereign of the
universe, in order to give to His people all that God promised
them by His own sacrifice of Himself. So you see, The scope
and the extent and the importance of this message reaches from
everlasting to everlasting. and its height cannot be measured.
It reaches to the depths of our sin and hell in order to raise
us up and make us children of God, holy and acceptable in God's
sight. Now, when John the Baptist said
this, when he was baptizing Jesus, he saw the Spirit of God descending
upon him, anointing him to this office, prophet, priest, and
king. And he says in verse 33, and
I knew him not, But he that sent me to baptize with water, the
same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending,
and remaining on him the same is he which baptizeth with the
Holy Ghost. What does that mean? What does
it mean that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit of God?
Well, it means the word here, with, It says he would baptize
with the Holy Spirit, should actually be in the Holy Spirit. It's not the word that is normally
translated with, it's the word that's translated I-N, in. And if you were to look at the
transliteration in the Greek, it's E-N, or that's not those
letters in Greek, but that's the way they write it. in the
Holy Spirit. And what he's saying here is
that the Lord Jesus Christ, having accomplished our redemption,
would give to his people his own spirit and they would be
so immersed into the spirit of Christ that they would be in
him and he would be in them. And so he says, for example,
let me just read this to you in Titus chapter three, so you
can see how this is stated here. In Titus, in chapter three, Titus
is after Timothy. He says in verse three, notice
this, this is beautiful, beautiful beyond words. In verse three,
we ourselves, you and me, and all those to whom the apostle
was writing and Paul himself, he said, we ourselves also were
sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lust
and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating
one another. But when we were like that, After
that, the kindness and love of God our Savior towards man appeared,
not by works of righteousness, which we have done, not works
of righteousness before we were converted, nor works of righteousness
after we are converted. Not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. How? By the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit. Notice the next
words, which He shed or poured on us abundantly through Jesus
Christ our Savior. He poured out His Spirit as an
overflowing abundance And we were immersed. We were baptized
into the Spirit when we were born of God. And this occurs
continuously in the lives of God's people. So that the Spirit
of God is given to us from Christ. And this Spirit of God given
to us from Christ is both our life, and causes us, it springs
up in us, the Spirit of God does, to continuously draw us to Christ
and make Christ known to us. In John chapter seven, let me
read this to you, Jesus, in the last day of that great feast,
in John seven, verse 37, in the last day, that great day of the
feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, if any man thirst, Notice,
this was after the feast. If you're still thirsty, what
is he saying? There is a thirst that human
and physical drinking cannot quench. And that thirst, only
Christ can quench. And it's a thirst given by God,
it's a thirst in our soul, and it's a thirst for Christ. He
says here, if any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. How do we come to the Lord Jesus? What does it mean to come to
Him? It means to believe on Him, to understand by God-given understanding
and with God-given persuasion that He is the Son of God. The
fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him, and He is the Christ
of God, and He is all of my salvation. and thus thirsting for Him to
be my Savior, coming in reliance and dependence upon Him, trusting
Him and Him alone without any contribution from me, but in
spite of all my sins, trusting Him alone to save me. That's coming to Christ. If any
man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink, and he that, notice
this coming is explained, he that believeth on me, looking
to Christ to save me, to give me not only life but faith, everything
I need, and to be all that God requires for me, to answer God
for all my sins. and to clothe me in all of the
obedience of his righteousness. He that believeth on me, as the
scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water. But this he spake of the spirit,
which they that believe on him should receive. for the Holy
Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified. In other words, he hadn't yet
risen from the dead after his atoning work and ascended to
heaven and taken his place on the right hand of God and then
sending his own spirit to baptize his people and give them life
in their spirit. Look at John chapter 10. We may
never actually get to our sermon today because of these preliminaries.
In John chapter 10, notice he says, just look at
verse 10. John 10.10, the thief cometh
not but for to steal and to kill. He's talking about regarding
the sheepfold, where his sheep are. And the thief would be someone
who comes with a false Christ, a false gospel, not the gospel
of Christ. As John the Baptist came with
the true gospel, and obviously the Lord Jesus Christ did too,
anyone else is a thief and a robber. So the thief comes not but for
to steal and to kill, but and to destroy. I, Jesus said, I
am come that they might have life, and that they might have
it more abundantly." Life. What does that mean? It first
of all means that we don't have life unless Christ gives life to us. Now, and you and I, we trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ. He says here that he's come to
give us life more abundantly. And how many of us feel like
we have abundant life? I suspect that if we were to
talk with one another, we would describe our life as something
less than abundant, because we live in this body, don't we?
And in our body, we don't perceive this life. And this is something
that is not obvious to us. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
give us His words, which are spirit and life, and yet we don't
have it until He gives it to us. And when we hear scripture
or when we hear it preached that God elected a people, Christ
died for a people, and then He sends His spirit to give them
life, All of that is really God's work. We can't, with our body,
get a hold of it, can we? We can't see it with our eyes
or our ears. They take it into our physical
ears, but those ears really don't make it known to us. Something else has to happen.
Christ has to give us life, and this life that He gives is life
in our spirit. And the spirit is born of God. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh and only flesh. My body can't perceive or give
life to my spirit. I can't acquire this life by
doing something because that's fleshly. There's only one way
I can have this life. It's the life Christ gives, obviously,
and he gives it out of his grace because of his righteousness
and his life when the Spirit of God makes Christ and him crucified
the object of all my confidence and trust and desire. So when we hear he came to give
us life and that more abundantly, we begin to look within ourselves
and wonder, do I have this life? There's only one evidence of
this life. What is that? It's faith in the
crucified Christ. He says in Galatians chapter
two, I'll just quote this to you. The apostle Paul said, I
am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life that I now live
in the flesh, I live, notice, by the faith of the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me." His faith was the evidence
of Christ's life. His life was not his own production. Christ was his life. The life
of Christ, Christ himself in the apostle, was the apostle's
spiritual life. And so it is with us. We can
never look within or look at our emotions or our feelings
or our circumstances or our abilities or our intellect or our memory.
We can't look at anything about ourselves in order to discover
spiritual life. There's only one thing God has
given to us. It's by grace that you're saved
through faith. And that faith is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. We are His workmanship. He created us in Christ Jesus
unto good works. And that work that we work is
trusting Christ alone. Do you see that? One more verse
on this score that the Spirit of God gives us life, and that
life is Christ in us, and that life in us, that Christ in us
gives us faith in Christ, is Romans 8.10. If Christ be in
you, if Christ be in you, the body is dead, because of sin,
but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." You see that?
Why is the Spirit life to His people? Because of Christ's righteousness. The only way we can have life
is to be righteous. The only way we can be righteous
is if Christ stood before God and bore our sins. He who knew
no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. And being made the righteousness
of God in Christ, He gives us His own Spirit, and we have life
in our Spirit. He that is joined to the Lord
is one Spirit. The Spirit of God comes to us.
He directs us through the preaching of the gospel to the Lord Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. We hear the message of the Lamb
of God. We follow Him, trusting Christ,
and that is the life of Christ in us, giving us grace to believe
on Him, to cast all of our case upon him, and to be glad that
it is so. We worship God in trusting him."
Now back to John chapter 1. So, knowing these things, we
see the work here of the Lord Jesus Christ making his disciple. I talked about the baptism of
the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ immerses us in his
spirit and he gives us the grace of life in our spirit. He joins
us to himself in union in our spirit. The Spirit of God actually
dwells in us, so that when our body dies, the Spirit of God
is going to make our bodies alive again, and He's going to transform
our bodies to be just like Christ's glorious body. Amazing grace. That's what Christ did. He sits
on heaven's throne to bring this work to its ultimate fulfillment,
bringing us to himself. And it begins here in the experience
of Andrew, when he hears the Lamb of God, he sees who he is,
he follows him, and Jesus turns and says, what are you seeking?
And with the very question, he draws out of Andrew the answer
that he put into him. Notice what he says here. After
they followed him, Jesus turned in verse 38. And he saw them
following, he said to them, what seek ye? They said to him, Master,
where dwellest thou? Where are you? Where are you? That's where they want to be.
We want to be with you. Don't you? Do you want to be
with him? Where is he? We have to know
where he is. They weren't asking him for his
place of residence, although in the physical sense that would
have been wherever he was staying. But no, this is the spiritual,
you see that God's, the scripture is a spiritual revelation. And when God reveals to us these
words here, He's not talking merely about the physical location
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's talking about where He is.
And His disciples, having heard of Him, they have a great desire
to be with Him where He is. That's what this is saying here.
The disciples of Christ want to be with the Lord Jesus where
He is. They want to be with Him. They
want Him to receive them into His own presence. and they want
him to make himself known to them? This is what's being expressed
here in their question, where dwellest thou? Where is the Lord
Jesus Christ? What does scripture say? Well,
remember in the first verse of John chapter one, in the beginning
was the word and the word was where? Where was the word? With
God, with God. Remember it says in verse 14,
and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. The one who is
God was with God, and he came to us. He dwelt among us. And the us he's talking about
here doesn't mean every person in the world. It means his church. It means his body, those he came
to, those he came to give life and give it more abundantly.
Yes, physically, he was with people who were not believers,
but he didn't come to them. He came to his own and he was
made flesh and dwelt among us. And we therefore beheld his glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the father, full of grace
and truth. When he came to us, we saw grace and truth. Remember
when God gave the law to Moses on Mount Sinai, what did the
people, what were the people, what was their attitude? What
did God tell them then? He told Moses, he said, now you
make sure the people do not come near the mount. If even a beast
come near the mount, it shall be stoned to death or thrust
through with a dart. Kill it if it touches the mountain
where God is giving the law. But when the Lord Jesus Christ
came, the one who is God and was with God and came in the
flesh, what happened? Andrew said, where do you dwell?
And Jesus said, come and see. He didn't say, stay back. If
you come near me, you'll have to die. No, he was full of grace
and truth. The revelation of God in his
heart, in his character, in his mind, his will, and his work
in the person of his son, now made known to his people in the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The fullness of the Godhead dwelling
in him bodily. And they came and they said,
Lord, where do you dwell? I dwell with God, I dwell with
my people. And he says, come and see. He
brought them to his place to be with him, to hear from him. And this is the desire of everyone
who has been called by the Lord Jesus Christ. He comes to them. Now, before we get too far into
this, I want to emphasize that we can only know where Christ
is from the scripture. In John chapter five, I'm going
to quote this again. He says, you search the scriptures,
for in them you think you have eternal life. but they are they
which testify of me, and you will not come to me that you
might have life. The scriptures are the place
where Christ is revealed. So Christ is made known in the
scripture. We can't know him apart from
them. But having said that now, look at Psalm, Psalm chapter
80 and verse one. I want you to see this verse
of scripture. Psalm chapter 80 and verse one. This is a Psalm, a prayer. to
the Lord to turn us and to turn us again. How often do we need
to be turned every day? He says in Psalm 80 verse one,
give ear, O shepherd of Israel, that would be the Lord Jesus.
Thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that dwellest,
where, where does he dwell? Between the cherubims shine forth. Where is the Lord Jesus Christ?
He dwells between the cherubims. Now, what are the cherubims?
Well, you can read about this in several places in the Old
Testament. But these were These were angelic-looking beings,
I guess, if you could know what an angel looks like. But in the
Old Testament, in both the tabernacle and in Solomon's temple that
he made for the Lord, they had these cherubim, these two cherubims
that were facing each other, and their wings would spread
out, And in Solomon's temple, they actually just touched the
edges. Their wings filled the whole
chamber, which was the holiest of all, and their faces would
look down as they faced each other upon the mercy seat. which was the lid over the Ark
of the Covenant, the place that was named after God's name. God himself named him. His name was on the Ark of the
Covenant. It was called with his name.
And the Ark of the Covenant with that lid, the mercy seat on it,
which was overlaid with pure gold with a cherubim looking
down on it, is the place where the high priest would sprinkle
the blood once a year and make atonement. Now, here in Psalm
80, it says, the Lord dwells between the cherubim. And so
when we ask the question with Andrew and the other disciple,
where dwellest thou? The answer from scripture is
that the Lord Jesus Christ dwells between the cherubim. He also
said he would meet with us there between the cherubim. His glory
would be seen there. And what is this mercy seat?
What is it that God signified by the cherubim looking down
upon this mercy seat? Well, if you want to know, look
at Romans chapter three. Remember that the law left us
absolutely guilty before God. The law identifies our sin, but
it can do nothing to remove it because all the Old Testament
sacrifices could never take away sin. And I'm gonna jump to the
conclusion in Romans 3 in verse 19. He says, now we know, Romans
3, 19, we know that what things soever the law saith. In other
words, whatever the law says, it says to them who are under
the law that every mouth may be stopped. In other words, you
have nothing to say. You're silent before God because
you're guilty and you have no answer. That's where the law
leaves us. Brought to God to stand before
Him guilty without an answer, unjustified, and with nothing
we can say or do to justify ourselves. That's what the law does. He
says, every mouth may be stopped, all the world may become guilty
before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by
the law is the knowledge of sin. But now, given the fact that
the law exposes our sin and concludes us to be guilty before
God and therefore condemns us, but now, the righteousness of
God without the law, without our own law-keeping, being witnessed
by the law and the prophets, the law pointed to Christ, even
the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ to
all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference for
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, So the righteousness
of God, in verse 21 and 22, is Christ doing, Christ dying, and
our believing in Him as our righteousness. That's His righteousness. We've
all sinned. Notice in verse 24, this is where
I want to focus. What does it mean for Christ to dwell between
the cherubim? What does it mean that God would
make himself known there? What does it mean to be with
him? Where dwellest thou? He says in verse 24, being justified
freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. not justified by the law, the
law only condemns, but justified by God's grace freely, not for
any cause in us, but through the redemption, because of the
redeeming work of Christ. Verse 25, notice, whom God has
set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. Okay,
stop right there. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
propitiation. And that means that God set him
forth as the mercy seat represented in the Old Testament. This is
where the sacrifice for sin was made to God and the sins were
removed and God was satisfied. Because God was satisfied, He
was pleased with the sacrifice, the offering of His Son, He justified
His people on the basis of that and that alone, freely. And this is where Christ is.
This is where God meets with His people. This is where we
go when we dwell with Him. To the place where He made propitiation
for our sins to God. He took them away. He appeased
God's wrath because He satisfied God's justice. The blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. You see that? That's where he
dwells. He's with God. He's with his
people. He made atonement for our sins.
And there's many other places he is with his people. And we
could go to those. But let me take you to one in
Luke chapter 23. Look at this. In Luke chapter
23, we are with him. He says, I will never leave thee,
nor forsake thee." Once Christ is with his people, he is forever
with his people. Once we are with him, we never
depart. If we're Christ's disciples,
we never leave him. We never have another savior
that we flee to, another salvation that we look to. We don't trust
another, we trust him only. We have nowhere else to go. Remember
John chapter six and Ruth chapter one? Don't entreat me to leave
you or to return from following after thee. Your people will
be my people. Your dwelling will be my dwelling.
Your God will be my God. That was Ruth's cry, and that's
the cry of every disciple. But in Luke chapter 23, notice
it says in verse 39, one of the malefactors, meaning one of those
guilty thieves that were hanging next to Jesus, which railed on
him saying, if thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the
other answering rebuked him, saying, Don't you fear God? Speaking about the Lord Jesus
Christ, don't you fear God? Seeing thou art in the same condemnation,
we indeed justly. His mouth was stopped before
God. This thief's mouth was stopped, not the other one. We justly,
for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man has
done nothing amiss. And he said to Jesus, this thief
who was hanging next to Jesus while Jesus was bloody and dying
on the cross, he said, Lord, remember me when you come into
your kingdom. What grace was given to this
thief to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? He's the Lord,
he's God, and he's coming into his kingdom, though he hangs
here a bloody, unrecognizable man. And Jesus said to him, verily
I say to you, notice, today shall thou be with me. in paradise. He will never leave his people
because he laid his life down for them. The son of God who
loved me and gave himself for me. Where do you dwell, Lord? He says in Psalm 27, he says,
one thing have I desired of the Lord and that will I seek after. What is that one thing? That
I may dwell in the house of the Lord to behold the beauty of
the Lord and to inquire in his temple. And so we ask the Lord,
Lord, bring us to your place. Bring us to yourself where you
laid your life down as the Lamb of God to make propitiation to
God for our sins and let us there commune with you and know you
and to be found in you and never depart. Let's pray. Father, we
pray that you would give us this grace to be with the Lord Jesus
and He with us, to be found in Him and His Spirit with us and
in us, that we, baptized into His Spirit, that we might truly
know Him and have this life that we live by the faith of the Son
of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us. We desire nothing
greater, nothing else. We trust no other Savior. You've
given to us this heart and desire and trust in Him. And we worship you because you
have been so good to us to show us Christ as our all and to bring
us to this place where we say with the Apostle Peter, where
else would we go? You have the words of eternal
life. and we're sure that you are the Christ, the son of the
living God. In his name we pray, amen.