You may be seated. Thank you, Sherry. Once again, we take up our study
here in this Christ-filled portion of scriptures, and we couldn't
go wrong if we apply most of this to Christ again, like last
Wednesday night's study. I think we'll see clearly
once again how this all applies to Christ. But we would be in
error if we didn't apply this to ourselves as well, so we'll
do both. Christ is the first and the last
and all in between. And everything in between, though,
goes in making up or making us like Christ. Everything in between,
that is our life. Because Christ lived, because
Christ died, Because Christ lives now. I live. I live. Because he lives, I live. And
now, the life I live, I live by the faith of the Son of God
who loved me and gave himself for me. And I want, like our
brother prayed, I want more than anything to be conformed and
be made like Christ. It's my, I want to serve him.
It's my reasonable service. for what he did for me. The love
of Christ constrains me. Let's look at it. Let's dive
right in. Verse 113 is where we take up tonight. Remember,
we're going to apply this to Christ. I hate vain thoughts. I hate vain thoughts, but thy
law do I love. I hate. I hate. Now, there's a lot of talk today
about the love of God in there. A lot of talk, a lot of ignorance
concerning the love of God, the love of Christ. A lot of talk,
but there's very few people that know anything about the hatred
of God. Scriptures are not silent here.
Scriptures speak many, many times about God's holy hatred holy
hatred. God Almighty is absolutely holy. That means he cannot, it is not
within his nature to love anything but holy things. It is not within
his nature. He can only love holy things,
and he must hate all evil. And that means people, too. You hear people talk about God
loving sinners and hating their sin. You can't separate the two. I am what I do, right? What I do is me what I think
that's me my sin is ever before me David said my sin. My sin
is me and God is angry with the wicked every day and Jesus Christ
is God. Jesus Christ is very God of very
God. He loves righteousness and hates
iniquity. He hates everything else but
righteousness. Listen to this. Psalm forty five
seven says concerning Christ, you know, that's the psalm that
says my heart is indicting a good matter. I speak of things that
my lips have made is touching the king. And that's Christ. Thou lovest righteousness and
hatest wickedness. Therefore, God, thy God, hath
anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. Listen to these verses of Scripture.
The foolish shall not stand in thy sight. Thou hatest all workers
of iniquity. That's people in it. That's on
five five. Psalm seven six says this. Arise,
O Lord, in thine anger. Lift up thyself because of the
rage of mine enemies and await for me to do judgment. Listen
to this, Psalm seven, eleven through thirteen, God judges
the righteous. God is angry with the wicked
every day. If he turned not, he'll wet his
sword. Bend his bow, he's made it ready. He has prepared for him instruments
of death. God is love. He ordained his arrows against
the persecutors. These six things doth the Lord
hate, and he goes on to name these things, and right down
at the end of it is he that soweth discord." That's a person, not
a thing. It's not his sins, it's a person.
Scripture says there's a time to love and a time to hate. David,
echoing the words of the Son of God, said, Do not I hate them
that hate thee? Yea, I count on mine enemy. I,
the Lord, love judgment, I hate robbery. It is written, Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated. That means utterly despised.
Find him odious, detestable, and will lay him waste. God has a holy hatred that very
few people know anything about. And look what he says here. He
says, I hate vain thoughts. Vain thoughts, and the vainest
of thoughts, the worst of all vain thoughts is this, and God
said it, thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as
thyself. But I'll reprove thee," he said. I'm going to set things in order
for you. Men are going to see, aren't they? We read it in Psalm
94. They're going to see him. He's going to set things in order
before their eyes, isn't he? Yes, an angry God of vengeance. That's what we read. Pouring
out his wrath and his holy hatred upon sin and everybody that's
in it. And the worst form of blasphemy
that God hates is this, thou thoughtest I was altogether such
a one as thyself. That which makes God like a man. That's the vainest thought that
a human being can have about God, isn't it? It's the most,
it's the greatest error. that a human being can have is
to think God's like a man. Yet 99 out of 100 do not. God says it's an abomination
to me, an abomination to make God like a man in character.
Now, God is love, and I didn't mean to say that verse in a flippant
or careless manner. I was mimicking these people
out here when I did that. God is love, but God is first
and foremost holy, and he loves only holy things and holy people,
and only people that are holy are those that are in his holy
Son. But to make God have just a sentimental love or pity upon
all people and love indiscriminately, that's to make him like a man.
And this love that can't do anything for a man, you know, loves, I
wish I could help you, but I can't. Done all I can do. That's abomination. That's a vain thought. And God
says, I hate it. I hate it. To make God helpless
in power, to make God dependent on a man, To make the creator
dependent upon the creature, that's the vainest of all vain
thoughts, isn't it? Yet that's what people are saying
today. God needs you, God wants you, God has a wonderful plan
and you must help Him out. It's a cooperative effort here.
No, it's not. No, his salvation is 100% of
the Lord. No cooperative effort here. And
for anybody to think such a false notion of God, God says, I hate
it. It brings him down. It's the
worst. It's the greatest dishonor. It
degrades God. It robs God of his essential
glory. That is, his character, his power. His sovereignty, his strength,
his godhood. You make him less than sovereign,
he's less than God, isn't he? God hates it. He hates it, the
Son of God hates it, and so does everybody else who is jealous
or zealous for the glory of God. Hate it. Won't stand for intolerant
of it. They call us hard, don't they?
They call us hard, can't be hard enough on such notions. They're
going to find out what hard is, aren't they? People are going
to find out what hard is when God rains his vengeance upon
all these vain thoughts of men. I want to be set in order right
now, don't you? I want to set things in order
for me right now, right? Before it's everlastingly too
late. That's what David said over in Psalm 94, didn't he?
Blessed is the man whom you chasten, who you correct now. When he,
he's not going to chasten in the end, he's going to punish.
There's a difference between punishment and chastening, right?
God chastens his people right now. He's going to punish workers
of iniquity then. I want to be chasing now, I want
to be set in order, set things right before me. Another vain
thought that God hates, that Christ hates, and this is the
vainest of all thoughts, to ever utter these words, Christ and. That's a vain thought. The word
doesn't belong behind the name, does it? Christ plus, that's
a vain thought that'll send your soul down in the hell. It'll
send your self-righteous religious soul down in the hell on it.
Christ plus, or Christ minus anything. God hates that. That's
to take away from the person and work of Christ. It's a vain
thought, it's an abomination to God, and he won't stand for
it. He says, I hate it. I hate it. It's to make disparaging
remarks about the love of God for his son. about the power
of God's son, about the power of his blood. To say that Christ
died for every single individual who ever lived is to dishonor
the love of God for his son, the wisdom of God in sending
his son, and the power of Christ to do the work. Right? God hates
it. That's to say, to say these things,
that God loves everybody, Christ died for everybody, and your
faith is what it depends upon. To say those things, in other
words, is to say Christ didn't need to come. He died in vain,
right? If He died for everybody and
somebody goes to hell, didn't He die in vain? You're talking
about a vain thought. You're talking about taking away
from the glory of Christ. God hates it, and I do too. We're
not just defending particular redemption here. We're defending
the glory of the Son of God. We're defending the power of
the person and the work of Christ here. And I'll take up for him. And I'm taking up for John Calvin. This was around a long time before
Calvin was. The blood of Christ, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's
Son, cleanses. He has now entered into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption. I believe God. And Christ says, I hate thine
thoughts, but thy law do I love. Thy law do I love, thy perfect
holy law, the revelation of God's character, of God Almighty, and
all that is true, just, good, and righteous, thy law." He says,
I love it. I love it. Now, practically, to apply this to us, listen to
this quote by Thomas Manton. Thomas Manton said this. Now
listen, you have to listen carefully. He said there are two great influencing
affections in man, love and hatred. Two affections that influence
us. One serves for choice and pursuit. The other for flight and aversion. I'll paraphrase that. Love serves
for choice. You choose what you love and
for pursuit. You go after what you love. Hatred
is to keep you from something. It serves to make you run from
it and detest it, despise it. The great work of grace is to
fix these affections in their proper place. You see, man's
holy nature, man's nature in the garden, which was holy. Man used to love God and hate
evil, right? Man used to be obedient and hated
disobedience. Now we've got this thing 180
degrees now. We've got this thing all backwards. Man loves iniquity,
drinks it like the water, and hates righteousness. And the
work of grace The work of God is to write this thing, right? That's the work of grace is to
turn it. See, man is subverted. Man's
upside down. He's got his. Feet up, he shows
it, he's upside down and God's work is to turn him right side
up, right? To make him love God and hate
evil. And that's the work of grace. I hate vain thoughts,
but thy law do I love. I hate man's thoughts, but God's
word I love. Anything and everything that
has to do with man in this world, the believer hates it. But everything
that has to do with God and his world, the believer loves it.
That's the work of grace. That's the new birth. Your affections
change. All right. Verse 114. Thou art
my hiding place and my shield. I hope in thy word Christ took
refuge in the God of his salvation. He did. His rock, his fortress,
his deliverer. We got a blessing one time and
looking at Hebrews, how that Christ learned obedience through
suffering, how he had to learn to live by faith as a man. If
he's going to represent us as a man, Christ had to learn to
live by faith and he had to learn to depend upon God. He was God.
He could perform anything he wanted for himself, but didn't
because we can't. So he had to call upon God. He
had to depend upon God. God had to protect him. He said,
I could call down ten thousand, twelve leadings of angels right
now, but I'm not going to. I'm going to call on God instead.
Because we can't call down twelve leadings of angels. We have to
call on God instead. So Christ lived by faith in God
his Savior. God was Christ's Savior, though
he was our Savior. He says, I hope in thy word.
Christ pled the promises of God and on every hand he continually
resorted to God's word in every affliction and in the face of
Satan he said it is written and that's the only place we can
go. It is written. You know in the garden I thought
about this. In this. In this passage here thou art
my hiding place in my field I hope in thy word I hope in thy word.
I thought about when Christ was in the garden and what was going
through his mind. Scripture says he sweated blood. And we can't even enter into
this. But Christ, when he was just thinking about his soul
being made sin. I've often likened that to taking
a young, innocent, humanly speaking, innocent, virginal, young girl
and casting her into the midst of a pack of street gang to do
with her as if that's what Christ felt 10,000 times more when he
was made sin. All the wickedness of all the
God's people throughout the generations were met together on him. And it went through his mind,
his heart. And the thought of that, his holy nature recoiled
at the idea. And that's the reason in the
garden he said, if it be possible. That's the reason he called on
God. If it be possible. Let this cup. I'm going to die
right here. Just think of it. if it be possible. He went through hell in the garden.
He didn't have to get to the cross yet. He went through hell
on earth. We talk about that. Don't anybody
ever say that. Christ's the only one who went
through hell on earth, from the cradle to the grave. He did. He went through hell. The Holy
Son of God, when he stepped foot on the earth, he was in hell.
Right? His holy nature was absolutely
averse to everything about this place, and he recoiled at it. And just thinking about that
being made sin, just thinking about God, who he loved dearly. Who he dwelled with throughout
eternity in love, like a child in her bosom baby. Loving as
the apple of his eye. To be thought of being wrenched
from the bosom of the Father for the first time ever. It tore
him up. It tore him out, and he had to
resort to the scriptures. He had. Surely he must have thought
of Psalm 1610 to comfort himself. He said, I hope in thy word.
Surely he must have thought of this. If it be possible, he said,
but. You said thou wilt not leave
my soul in hell. Neither suffer thine holy one
to suffer corruption. I, Lord, I take comfort in that.
Surely he might have thought of Isaiah 53 verse 10. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he'll see his seed. He'll prolong his days.
The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He'll see
the travail of his soul. He'll live to see it and be satisfied. And by his knowledge shall my
righteous servant justify many, he shall bear their iniquities,
therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, because he poured
out his soul unto death." Christ must have comforted himself with
those words and teared up, and so must we. Our brother prayed,
Christ is our hiding place. Isaiah 32 says that a man shall
be a hiding place from the wind. a covert, a hiding place. Brother Ron preached about it,
a city of refuge from the avenger, from God's law and justice, a
man, a man, our shield, our shield, the song says, our shield and
defender, the ancient of days, pavilioned in splendor and girded
with praise. Our hiding place and our shield,
our righteousness, our covering that even the omniscient eye
of God can't see through. We need this hiding place, don't
we? We shall be perfect, be accepted.
We've got to have this robe on, this righteousness, this blood
to cover our sins. I hope in thy word, same way
Christ did. I hope in Christ. I hope in thy word. I hope, I
don't know about you, but I hope in God's word. And it's not a
book. It's a person. It's a person. I hope in God's Christ, God's
Word. Verse 115. Depart from me, you
evil doers. Get thee behind me, Satan. That's
what I thought of immediately. That's Christ talking there.
Get thee behind me, Satan. Depart from me, you evil doers.
I'm going to keep the commandments of God. You're not going to find
anything in me. Oh, I must fulfill all righteousness for my people.
You're not going to find one thing in me, Satan. Get behind
me. Depart from me. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord
thy God. You can't tempt him anyway. You
can't tempt God to sin. I'll keep thy commandments. Christ,
our substitute, our representative, our go-between. Our captain stood
at the hottest part of the battle, Calvary's cross. He stood at
the forefront of the battle and took the mightiest, the hardest,
the intensest part of the assault from Satan. He hung on that cross
and took all the fiery darts of the wicked one and withstood
them all. So we won't have to. Right? Our
captain went out front, said, y'all stay back on the back lines.
I'll go out and meet him. Our David met the Goliath, and
cut his head off, didn't he? Cut his head off. Depart from
me, you evildoers. I've got a job to do, and nobody's
going to keep me from it. I've got some commandments to
fulfill. I've got a righteousness to fulfill. I've got a people to save, and
nobody's going to keep me from it, Christ said, for our sake. I read this. Turn in your hymnal
to this number 36. Look at verse 2. Did we in our
own strength confide? Our striving would be losing.
We can't fight the devil. You hear these people say, step
on the head of the devil, resist the devil. How? They tell you,
well, just grab him or something, toss him, wrestle with him, do
something. That's not it. We don't fight the devil in our
strength. Michael the archangel wouldn't even do it, would he?
If we in our own strength did confide, our striving would be
losing. We're not the right man on our side. The man of God's
own choosing. Our giant killer. Our captain.
Do you ask who that may be? Do you have to? Christ Jesus
it is he. Lord's Sabbath is his name, from
age to age the same, and he must win the battle, because we can't. Right? Depart from me, you evildoer. I've got some commandments to
keep. So Christ was tempted in all
points, like as we are, yet worse, yet without sin. Without sin. And practically speaking, for
our sake. We resist the devil. We resist the devil by pleading
Christ. By pleading Christ as our substitute,
our redeemer, our captain. We don't resist him in the fire
of the flesh. We don't just grit our teeth and say, I'm not going
to do that, I'm not going to do that. Satan's got you right where he
wants you. The flesh is his territory, right? The only way you can resist
the devil is to plead Christ, plead the blood. Plead the blood,
right? I'll give you an illustration.
When I was... We've got to plead our elder brother, you see. When
I was growing up, I had two older brothers. Now, I've always been
a runt. I've always been small for my
age, but I had two older brothers. My oldest brother was All-State
football, captain of the football team, All-State. My second brother
was just mean. And nobody bothered me, buddy. Nobody touched me. Why? Because I was tough? I thought
I was. I talked tough, you know. Little
guys are bad about doing that. Yeah. Don't touch me. And they'd look at me, and we
didn't look like much, but he's got two older brothers. Right? He don't. Well, I can take him.
Robbie Mahan's his brother. Oh, well. Pleads your older brother. That's
the only way. Only way. Because we're not much,
are we? We're not much. One little flip
by Satan would fail us. But one little flip by Christ
would fail him. Depart from me. That's the only
way we can resist the devil. Don't let anybody tell you differently. 116. Uphold me according unto
thy word, that I may live. Uphold me. according to thy word
that I may live. God had to. God must. God can't punish a righteous
man. God had to uphold Christ. Listen to this. Christ is righteous.
He can't. That's the reason he couldn't
suffer death until God made him sin. God can't kill a righteous
man. God can't die. A man can't. Man's lifted up. He can die.
That's the reason God had become a man. God can't die, but man
can. Man can't satisfy, but God can. So God became the God-man. But God the righteous, Christ
the righteous son of God can't die. He can't be cut off from
God. Christ the sinner made sin for me, my substitute. Paul Mahan
in Christ can. Listen to this. Job said, Remember,
I pray thee, whoever perished being innocent, where were the
righteous ever cut off? Never. David said this, Thou,
Lord, wilt bless the righteous. You will favor the righteous.
The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous. The righteous
cry, the Lord heareth. Many are the afflictions of the
righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. The arms
of the wicked will be broken, but the Lord upholdeth the righteous.
David said, I've been young, and now I'm old, and I've not
seen the righteous forsaken. Christ said, Uphold me according
to thy word. I'm righteous. How are we going to be assured
of being upheld by God's mercy and grace? In Christ the righteous
one, right? We're not righteous. We deserve
to be killed. God must punish. He will by no
means clear the guilty, but he will by no means punish the righteous.
Dare we come with any other righteousness but the perfect one? Hmm? Oh, we'd better plead Christ's
righteousness, hadn't we? And once again, it's not just
a doctrine here. This is my hiding place. This
is my hope, right? That I may live. This is life.
Life, my life, depends upon Christ's righteousness, or the Christ,
the righteous one. Uphold me according to thy word
that I may live, and let me not be ashamed of my hope. Let me
not be ashamed of my hope. Christ said he, the scripture
says he despised the shame. He despised the shame and loved
the shameful. Thought nothing of the shame
for the joy that was set before him. And we better not be ashamed
of him. Better not be. God put us to
shame. Isn't that what he said in one
place? He that denies me, I'll deny him before the angels. Verse
117. Hold me up. Hold thou me up,
and I shall be safe. Now, if the Son of God depends
upon God holding him up, what about us sinners? Hold thou me up as a man, and
I shall be safe. And I will have respect unto
thy statutes continually, if Christ needed God's Spirit to
strengthen him. You know, Terry, when he got
weak from fasting and temptations and all, The angels came and
ministered to him, the Spirit of God ministered to him on many
occasions. If Christ needed a ministering
spirit and ministering angels, what does that tell about you
and me? Need them bad, don't we? If Christ had to grow in
wisdom and stature and favor with God, and that was said by
Christ, what about us? Won't this be the believer's
plea until the day he dies? Not, I'm sure for heaven as if
I'm already there. It's this, hold thou me up and
I'll be safe. Right? Not, I'm going to march
into God's presence and claim what's coming to me. No, hold
thou me up, kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation,
ready to be revealed. At the last time that's going
to be our. Our work till the day we die in. Because we know
ourselves. And I'll have respect only if
God holds me up by his spirit will I have respect or be obedient
to his statue. One eighteen thou has trodden
back. Oh I like the. Thou has trodden
down all of them that err from the statutes. So their deceit
is falsehood. Turn over to Matthew 22 with
me, and you're going to see this firsthand. Matthew 22. We just read there how the Christ
said, the Spirit said about Christ, thou hast trodden down all them
that err from thy statutes. Their deceit is falsehood. Falsehood. Time and time again,
the Pharisees challenged him, didn't they? Time and time again,
the Sadducees, the doctors, the lawyers, priests, high priests,
the religious rulers, the people tried to tempt Christ, tried
to catch him up in his word, tried to disprove him. They asked
endless questions about the law. They tried to trick him. And
time and time again, he turned back their assault. Look at it
here in Matthew 22. I'll read a few verses here with
me. It says, let's see, on down here, And the Pharisees took counsel
how they might entangle him in his talk, and they sent out their
best fellows, their best, most educated fellows to catch him
up at Herodians. And they said, Master, we know
that thou art true. Well, can't you just see the
venom pouring out of their lips now? You see it on TV all the
time now, don't you? We know that they are the way
of God and to teach us the way of God and truth. Neither cares
down for any man. Thou regard is not the person
of me. Tell us. Therefore, Joe, this is one of those fellows.
These are some of these fellows that asking questions, not to
see what you know, but to tell you what they know. Henry, poor
old Henry, he gets assaulted on every hand by everybody coming
and going literally. And this is them in the Henry.
I've got a question to ask you. They're not asking for information.
They want to tell you what they know, what they think. Not what
is God's Word. Let's sit down and read God's
Word and study and find out the truth together about what it
says. That's not what they're saying, is it? Wait and find out what you think,
what they preach up there at Central. Then they're going to
tell you, well, this is what I think. It's what we believe. Tell us,
therefore, is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar or not? And
you remember Christ said, Doug, show me a penny. He told them
to render unto Caesar what Caesar unto God was God. Verse twenty-two,
when they heard these, they marveled and laughed. Well, there went
the Pharisees. Then came the Sadducees, verse twenty-three.
Here they come. Now, these fellows, they're smart. They're smart. They say there's no resurrection.
Teacher Moses said, if a man die having no children, his brother,
and they went on and on about this endless hypothetical question
about a man marrying over and over again. Whose wife will she
be after she's been married seven times? Verse twenty nine, Christ
said, you do err. Not knowing the scriptures, nor
the power of God in the resurrection, they don't marry, neither are
given in marriage, but they're like angels of God in heaven.
And then he put him straight on the on the resurrection I
didn't believe in. He said God said he's the God
of the living not of the dead. And verse thirty three when they
heard this they were astonished. Well they got together verse
thirty four the Pharisees heard they put the Sadducees together
they sent a lawyer. First thirty five they hired
him the best lawyer. to F. Lee Bailey of this day
and sent him. Well, he'll get him. Go get him,
boy. Master, which is the greatest
commandment in the law? Tell me. Jesus said, Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,
with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.
The second's like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor. On these
two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Well, the
Pharisees gathered together and they all in one voice asked him,
these things. And Christ asked them this question.
He asked them this question. He had something to ask them
in verse forty-two. What think ye of Christ? You've asked me
some questions. Let me ask you. Whose son is
it? What family does Christ supposed
to come from? They say, well, son of David.
Everybody knows that. All right, then. If he is the son of David,
Christ said, How then, verse forty-three, doth David in the
Spirit call him Lord? Saying, The Lord said unto my
Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy
footstool. If David call him Lord, how is
he his son? You might know the answer to
that. Look at verse forty-six, this is great. And no man was
able to answer him a word, neither does any man from that day forth
ask him any more questions. Thou hast trodden down all them
that do err from thy statutes. Who's that talking about? Trodden
them down, put them underfoot, got at their foot, answer me
if you can. No more questions. No more questions. Their deceit is falsehood, Christ
said, falsehood. Evil men and seducers shall wax
worse and worse, Christ said, deceiving and being deceived. They've got a refuge of lies
and made a covenant with hell and death, the scripture said.
That's this generation. 119, Thou puttest away all the
wicked of their earth like dross. Now, once in the end of the world,
he hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Thou puttest away all the wicked
of the earth, all the sins of God's people, Christ put away.
He put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and like Dross, like
Dross, as Scripture said, he is refining his people in the
fires of affliction. and tribulations and trials and
removing everything that does not look like Christ, like the
old whittler whittling a hound dog. Everything don't look like
a hound dog. He's taking it away. Therefore, I love thy testimonies. Christ said for the joy that
was set before him and he endured the cross, despising the shame.
At the thought, John, at the thought, Christ at the thought
of because of his love to the Father, at the thought of glorifying
God as a man, because that's what God, that's what man ought
to do, and at the thought of glorifying God as a man, at the
thought of, at the zeal for God's glory, his word, at the joy,
the thought of joy for our salvation, Christ said, I just love thy
testimony. I just love thinking about this
job I've got to do. This putting away of sin and
saving the people, he made his soul an offering for sin, to
put away all sin once and for all. And to me, this verse speaks
to me, because he has put away my sin, I love the gospel. Because he's put away my sin
and because one day he's going to put away all sin, I'm going
to say amen. Right now I say amen when I hear
the gospel. And then, in that final day,
when he cast hell and death into that lake of fire, I'm going
to say, Amen. Amen. I love thy testimony. I
just love this. One point. My flesh trembling
for fear of thee. Did Christ fear God? Did he? You better believe it. Scripture
says, all his saints fear him. God is greatly to be feared in
the assembly of the saints and to be had in reverence of all
them that are about him. Christ feared the Father, yet
it was with a holy fear, a reverence and awe, a wonder. That's the
reason we said a while ago that he sweat, as it were, great drops
of blood in the garden at the thought of being faced with the
judgment and wrath of God. as a man, and men ought to fear
God. They ought to. That's the beginning
of all wisdom. Christ, who is wisdom, feared the Lord, feared
God perfectly. And like I said, that's the reason
he sweat blood at the thought of facing a holy God. And Martin
Luther said, we don't want anything to do with an absolute holy God. Man doesn't want anything to
do with a holy God. You want to deal with a mediator? Do you
want to deal with a go-between? If Christ feared God, what about
this old sinner? Huh? If Christ dare not take
upon His lip that name except in awe and reverence and fear,
what about this filthy, vile, wretched creature who God's wrath
is abiding upon? Joe, this generation is about
it. Swinging over hell in a rotten grapevine, aren't they? And Christ
said, and I say, I'm afraid of thy judgments. We don't want
anything to do with a holy, absolute, just God. We need a mediator. Who shall ascend into the holy
hill of Zion? He that hath clean hands and
a pure heart, never lift up his soul unto vanity or sworn deceitfully.
I can't say that. Only one man ever can say that.
Right? And I need a mediator. I need an advocate. I need a
good lawyer to stand before God's bar of justice and plead my case. I need one, not just a good one.
I need the court-appointed one. public
defend public and defender. I need a public defender. God
appoints him to. You can't just pick one. Well,
I'll pick. I'll pick Moses or I'll pick Elijah. I'll pick. You have won't do. Well, it's
only one that's never lost the case. And God said he's right
here with me. The righteous son of God, the
holy one of God, the advocate, the only one. That's who I need. I hate all vain thoughts, but I
love thy holy law." That can't be speaking of anybody else,
can it, but Christ, and us in Christ. We can say the same thing.
Stand with me, and I'll dismiss this. Holy God, righteous Father, merciful,
gracious Father, in Christ's name we pray. Thank you for your
word. Not just a book, though. We thank
you for Christ's incarnate word. He came down here and made sin
for us, reconciled us to God, bring us to God, sacrificing
himself. How we thank you for Christ. Make him more real to us. We
believe in your son. Lord, help our unbelief. your magnificent person the glory
of your wonderful son we pray and ask the same. Amen.