Now tonight we're going to be
looking into God's revelation of the old gate in Nehemiah chapter
3. It's in Nehemiah chapter 3 and
verse 6. This is the third gate that's
mentioned in the book of Nehemiah chapter 3 revealed by God in
this list of the ten gates that were to be rebuilt and or repaired. in the rebuilding of the walls
of Jerusalem, the Old Gate. Now, you recall that the first
gate that we looked at was the Sheep Gate. And that gate symbolized
the redemptive, finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That
gate, the Sheep Gate, which was the gate to where the shepherds
would lead their sheep in and bring them to market, but it
was also the gate that they would bring the sheep in for sacrifice,
going right to the temple. And it signified the blood of
Christ, the way of salvation. This is where everything begins
in salvation with Christ and Him crucified, buried and risen
again. The Sheep Gate represents the
way of the cross, the way of blood, the way of righteousness
in Christ. And that's where everything in
our salvation begins. The cross is the center and the
crux of time and eternity. And so it's only fitting that
that's the first gate that was revealed here. Christ must have
the preeminence as the Redeemer and as the Sovereign of the Church.
And so as you continue on in studying these gates, what we
understand is that nothing is to be understood or done or thought
of without having in mind the glory of Christ, glory of the
crucified, risen Christ. who is our hope and our stay,
for Christ is all and in all." And then the next gate, you recall,
was the fifth gate. And that fifth gate represented,
symbolized evangelism because out of the death of Christ, out
of His death, burial, and resurrection, out of the shedding of His blood
and the establishment of righteousness comes the fruit of the salvation
of His people. Christ said to His disciples,
I'll make you fishers of men. And so we go out and preach the
gospel seeking his people, seeking those who would listen and hear
with the circumcised ear. Jeremiah spoke there in Jeremiah
6, he said, hearken unto me, but they wouldn't hearken. And
he said, and Stephen quoted this after he preached in Acts chapter
7 as recorded, Their heart and their ears are uncircumcised.
So what are we doing when we evangelize? We preach the gospel
to everyone who will listen. Go into all the world and preach
the gospel to every creature the scripture says. And the reason
we do so is because Christ has a people. He said, if I be lifted
up, will draw all men unto me. You see, if Christ had not done
his great work of redemption, it would be useless for us to
go out and preach the gospel. We would have no gospel, no good
news to tell. So the fish gate represents,
that's what immediately follows, the very fruit of Christ bringing
His people in like a net going out to sea and catching all those
fish that He died for, that He would save. Well, the next gate
is the old gate. That's in verse 6. Look at Nehemiah
3 and verse 6. He says, Moreover, the old gate
repaired Jehoiada, the son of Passiah, And Meshulam the son
of Bithodea, they laid the beams thereof of the old gate, they
set up the doors thereof, and the locks thereof, and the bars
thereof." Now, what does this old gate represent? Well, the
old gate represents the old truth, the old gospel, the old doctrines
of God's grace in Christ. That old, old story that we sung
about. Before I get into that, though,
I want you to turn in your Bibles to John 18. The book of John,
chapter 18. And I want to show you something.
Here is our Lord. He's on trial. And He's standing
in front of the Roman governor. The representative of Caesar.
And in this is Pontius Pilate. And in this you could almost
say Pontius Pilate sort of is speaking and representing the
general thought and philosophy of that day. And I want to show
you how similar their general thought and philosophy in their
unbelief, in their own ways, is so similar to what is the
general thought and belief of unbelievers today, the general
population. and how people think, and how
we all think by nature but for the grace of God who brings our
heart and our minds, our affections and will in submission to Him.
But look at verse 33 of John 18. It says, Then Pilate entered
into the judgment hall again, and he called Jesus, and said
unto him, Art thou the king of the Jews? And Jesus answered
him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself? Or did others tell it
thee of me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? In other words, what he's saying
there is, do you think I'm really interested in who the Jew's Messiah
is? I'm not a Jew. He said, Thine
own nation and the chief priest have delivered thee unto me.
What hast thou done? And Jesus answered, My kingdom
is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world,
then would my servants fight. that I should not be delivered
to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore
said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest
that I am a king. To this end was I born, for this
cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto
the truth. Every one that is of the truth
heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is
truth?" What is truth? Now, what Pilate is expressing
there, he's not just genuinely asking a question to try and
find the truth, but he's stating out the general thought of that
day, which is this, all truth is relative. In other words,
if you believe it, it's true. Whatever is truth to you, that's
truth. Whatever it is to me, that's truth. Doesn't matter
if it contradicts. Whatever's true for you, that's
true. Whatever's true for me, that's
true. And that's the way people are. You think about it. I want
you to see something. You know, that's why there are
so many varied denominations that call themselves Christian
today. Somebody says, well, that's the way you see it. And that's
OK for you. We're all going to the same God.
We're just going different ways. All they're simply doing is preaching
Pontius Pilate's message. What is truth? Nobody can really
pin it down. Nobody can really know what it
is. You may spend the rest of your life seeking truth, and
you may climb the high mountain to find the old gray-bearded
wise man and find out what truth is then, but listen, somebody
else has got another idea. What's true for today, they might
say, was not true a hundred years ago, and vice versa. So nobody
can really know what truth is. It's just whatever it is, that
makes you feel good, whatever it is that floats your boat,
whatever it is that keeps you going day to day in this very
old, boring world. And that's what people think.
But I'll tell you something, that is far, far from God's testimony. That is far, far from the message
of truth that stands pat all through eternity. as it relates
to God and His Christ. Do you know that all truth must
be judged as it relates to Christ? That's what he meant when he
said, I am the way and the truth and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. If you want to know the truth
about God, where would you go? The Scripture says, look to the
Lord Jesus Christ. He told His disciples, if you've
seen me, you've seen the Father. He, the Spirit, testifies of
Him. In the book of Colossians, chapter
2 and verse 9, it says, for in Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. That's the fullness of the Father.
That's the fullness of the Son Himself and the fullness of the
Spirit. If you want to know anything
true about God, look to Christ. For in Christ, and especially
in Christ as the sufficient, victorious Redeemer, you can
see every attribute of God. I mean every attribute of God
on sovereign, glorious display, being honored and magnified.
You can see how God can be both a just God and a Savior, how
He can be holy. and still be merciful, how he
can be a righteous judge as well as a loving father. You can see
all of that in the person, the glorious person and finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so if you're going to know
any solid eternal truth about God, the Godhead, about the Spirit,
about the Son, about the Father, you must look to Christ. And
then you want to know the truth about man. What about man? Well, the book of John chapter
16 speaks of the conviction of the Holy Spirit. And one of the
things, he says the Spirit, when He comes, He will convict us
of three things, he says, beginning in John 16 and verse 9. He will
convince the world, or convict His people out of the world of
sin, because they believe not on Me, Christ said. And then
he said, of righteousness, because I go unto the Father, and of
judgment, because the Prince of this world is judged. talking
about Satan being judged on the cross when Christ put away our
sins. Well, listen to what he said there. He's going to convince
the world of sin. How? Because they believe not
on me. What does that teach us? Well,
that teaches us the truth about man. And here's what it says,
that without Christ, without being washed in his blood and
clothed in his righteousness, without faith in Christ, all
we are and all we do and all we think is sin. And that is
the best you can say of us in the sight of God. Man with all
of his differences, man with all of his accomplishments, man
with all of his ideas, man with all of his religion. The best
you can say about the best of men that ever have lived, are
living, or will live without Christ is S-I-N. Now, that's the truth, and it
has been from old. That's the truth. We're born in sin. We have a
fallen, sinful human nature that cannot rise above itself and
attain unto God, make its way to God. We cannot do it. The
best of our religion, the best of our morality without Christ
is sin. And sin demands death. Now that's
the truth. Christ said in John chapter 3,
he said, he that believeth on him, he that believeth on Christ
is not condemned. But he that believeth not is
condemned already because he hath not believed in the name
of the only begotten Son of God. John 3.18. And then, And this is the good news, the
truth about salvation. We've seen the truth about God.
He's holy. He must punish sin. That's what
He showed on Calvary. He is a merciful God. He is a
loving God. We've seen the truth about ourselves,
sin that demands and deserves death. Well, is there any way
out? In man's search for truth in
philosophy and theology and denominationalism, that's really what he's searching
for, a way out. A way out of this mess that we call physical
life. Oh, it has its good moments.
And when we're young, it's pretty good for the most part to the
most of us. But when we grow older, and when
the pains and the sorrows and the suffering, not only that
comes physically, but from others, all of that, we're looking for
a way out. A way out. Not only that we can just live
forever, because none of us would really want to live forever like
this, but how can we live forever in a better way? Well, what is
the truth about salvation? Well, man doesn't have the answer,
but Christ said it. Here it is, John 14, 6. I've
already quoted it. He said, I am the way, I am the
truth, I am the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. Now, that's the truth. Now that
brings us back to Nehemiah chapter 3, verse 6, the old gate. This
old gate, it was literally the oldest gate in the city of Jerusalem. Literally the oldest gate. And
what does it speak of? As I said before, it speaks of
the old ways of truth, not the outdated ways, not antiques to
be put on the shelf, not vintage paintings to be hung up on the
wall and admired, but the old way of salvation, the old way
of truth about God, about man, and about salvation in Christ,
and it is the only way. The old way is the only way. It is the old ways of God's truth. Do you know something? God's
truth, gospel truth, never changes. It never changes. It never diminishes. It never changes. It never improves. You can't improve on it. Men
have been trying to, and all they do is corrupt it when they
try to improve it. And usually their improvements
are no more than just watering it down or denying it to make
it palatable to the natural man. And we'll see that. This old
gate represents, now listen, it represents God's covenant
promises and the foundational truths of Christianity. The gospel. Now how old is that? You can't
put an age on it, it's eternal, isn't it? That's how old it is. Truth is always old. The scripture
says there's nothing new under the sun, and literally there's
not. But truth is always old. And it's upon old things that
everything new has to rest. If anything comes new to us,
it may be new to me and it may be new to you, but it's got to
rest on the old. And if what's new to me and what's
new to you doesn't rest on the old, then that new is a lie.
Somebody has well said, I don't know who said this, but it's
true, it says, whatever is true is not new, and whatever is new
is not true. And that's pretty much it, isn't
it? Well, think about it. Now, how does this make sense
in the order of it? Well, think about this, the gates
again, the sheep gate, the fish gate, the old gate. And there's
such a wisdom of God here in the order of these things. Well,
after having been brought through the fish gate of evangelism,
and that's what happened to you and me when we first heard the
gospel with the hearing ear, the new birth. We were spiritually brought through
the fish gate of evangelism, weren't we? The Word found its
mark. It was sown on good ground, made
so by the sovereign power of God the Holy Spirit. And how
did we come through that fish gate? We came through it by looking
at and seeing and resting in and believing in the truth of
the sheep gate. Christ and Him crucified. Look
into Christ as the author and finisher of our faith. Well,
what's the next thing that needs to happen then? Well, then we
need to be established in the old, foundational, immutable
truth of God's Word, His doctrine. Well, the problem is this, though.
Now, the problem with the natural man is this, 1 Corinthians 2.14. Let me read it to you. But the
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.
You see, that's why we have to be brought through the fish gate
of evangelism before we'll receive the things of the Spirit of God.
We have to be born again. by the Spirit of God. We have to
see the glory of Christ and Him crucified and risen again before
we'll ever be established in the old truth. And the Scripture
says, "...for their foolishness unto him, neither can he know
them, because they are spiritually discerned." You know, the Lord,
when He dealt with the Pharisees and the religious powers that
be of His day, who continually shut their eyes and their ears
and their minds to the preaching of the truth, One day a group
of them came to him and they said, are you the Christ? Are
you the Messiah? And you know what he said to
them? He said this. He said, if I tell you, you will not believe. That's man's problem. He believes
not. Brother Craig read there in Jeremiah
chapter 6. You know, that whole thing is
describing. And you remember this city being rebuilt? The
walls and the gates, it had been destroyed. about 70 years before
by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian army. Well, right before Nebuchadnezzar
and his army hit, Jeremiah was prophesying. And he was prophesying
to a wicked nation that did not stand in the old truths, the
old gospel, the old ways that God had given to their fathers,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and which was really given even before
then in the gospel. They wouldn't stand for it. They
wouldn't listen. That's why Jeremiah continually
said, O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. And
remember what he said down here? In verse 16, I believe it is,
says, Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and
ask for the old paths. Where is the good way? The good
way is in the old paths, you see, not in this new doctrine
that's coming along by these false prophets who heal the hurt
of the daughter slightly by saying, peace, peace, when there is no
peace, like they do today, in the name of Christ, but they
lie. He said, ask for the old paths, where is the good ways,
and walk therein, walk in those old paths, the good ways, and
listen to what he says, he says, and you shall find rest for your
souls. Now where does a guilty sinner
find rest? Christ said, come unto me, all
ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you what? Rest.
Christ is our Sabbath. We rest in Christ. He is the old way. He is the
old path. And what's amazing about it is
that to a believer who's been convinced of sin and brought
to Christ, every time you hear it, it's like it's new, isn't
it? It's like it's new every day. It never gets old to you. Even though it is an old way,
it never gets old, does it? That's an amazing thing. I'm
just amazed as I study the Scriptures and go through this word verse
by verse, how it just builds and it just gets newer and newer
to me. And I know this is an old story.
This is an old way. But that's how we find rest in
Christ. I'll tell you what, you may wake
up tomorrow morning and you may feel good and you may be ready
for the day. But tomorrow night, if you work
a hard day, you're going to be ready to rest again. And you're
not going to say, well, shoot, that sleep's old, you know. I'm
not going to do that. No, no, it's just like a new,
new time. That's the way it is with the
gospel. We rest in Christ. But look at
the sad, here's the sad part of this. In Jeremiah 6, 16, it
says, but they said, at the end of that verse, they said, we
will not walk therein. Now, that's man by nature. That's
us by nature. Who makes us to differ? God does.
He goes on, verse 17, and he said, Also I sent watchmen over
you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. That's the warning
trumpet. And they said, We will not hearken.
Oh, my soul. How sad that we'd say that. But we will by nature. You know,
turn to 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, and I want you to listen to
this very carefully. Do you know the majority, and
I don't say this with delight, and I'm not just trying to be
judgmental, but I know, I've been there, you've been there. The majority of professing Christians
today have broken down the old gate. They will not rest upon
the old, unchangeable truth of God's covenant, God's grace.
They are always looking for new and novel things, aren't they?
New ways to worship, new ways to get people in, new ways to
entertain, new ways to keep their attention. And it always comes
at the expense of the old gate, doesn't it? It always comes at
the expense of the old truths, the old doctrines. All those
are outdated. All people today won't listen
to that. Somebody said, well, I've preached the doctrine of
election, but people won't hear it. No, they won't by nature. They will not walk in the old
paths. That's what Jeremiah's day was
the same way. You see, even that's not new. Somebody said, well,
it's worse today than it was then. Well, ask Jeremiah when
you get to heaven. They threw him down a well. He'd
probably say, no, fellow, it was worse in my day because I
didn't have a constitution that allowed me to preach it. They
threw him in a hole in a dungeon. But they won't walk in the old
ways. They want newness, you see. They want whatever method
they use, you see, the means, the end justifies the means.
And they'll deny truth. And you know what the Scripture
calls that? The great apostasy. Paul spoke of it here in 2 Thessalonians
2 that he said before the Lord comes back, there's going to
be a great falling away. Now where are they going to fall
away from? They're going to fall away from the old gate. They're
going to fall away from the old paths, the old truths. They're
going to come up with something new. And look at verse 10. We'll read verse 9. He says,
talking about him whose coming is after the working of Satan,
that's the spirit of Antichrist, with all power and signs and
lying wonders, you see. They want powers and signs and
wonders, but they're lies. And he says in verse 10, "...and
with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because
they receive not the love of the truth." That is, they receive
not the love of the old ways, the old paths, the old gospel
that they might be saved. That is apostasy, you see. These
are the days, sad as it is, we are living in the days when the
old truth, has been forsaken. Men have thrown away what the
church has stood for. Paul told Timothy that the church
is the pillar and ground of truth, the old ways. And the reason
is that natural man cannot stomach God's truth. Where do you hear
much preaching today on television, for example, on God's sovereignty? You don't hear it. You hear a
lot about man's will, man's freeness, man's decisions, man's works,
man's investments. What's you to do? How to live
about? But what about God's sovereignty?
What about God's electing grace? I'll tell you, the old ways,
the old writers, the old preachers, the apostles, they didn't hold
back on that. Somebody said, well, I don't understand all
that. My friend, it's not up to you
to understand all that. This is what God's Word says.
It's what it's always said. That's the old way. Preaching on justification by
the imputed righteousness of Christ. You know, I came out
of a seminary in around 1976 and had never even heard of the
imputed righteousness of Christ. Never even heard that term. I
didn't know what it was. That God saves sinners, justifies
sinners, based not on their own righteousness, which they've
done, but based totally upon the obedience unto death of Christ,
accounted to them, charged to their account. Never even heard
of it. The old ways. Righteousness in
and by Him. The righteousness of grace. Preaching
on the new birth by the sovereign power of God. Preaching on repentance
from dead works and idolatry. The old ways, you don't hear
them. So man denies or ignores the truth to please the natural
man. That's why Paul had to tell his
generation, he said, for if I yet please men, I should not be the
servant of Christ. Unregenerate men deny or ignore
truth they cannot understand. They say that we don't need these
things anymore. They replace them with lies,
watered-down versions of truth, or different doctrines altogether.
But I'll tell you what, if we allow this old truth to go, we
find that the wall crumbles and the enemies outside gain access
to the soul. You know something? God's truth
will never change. You don't have to worry about
that. It was true when it was first uttered. Listen, I'll tell
you this, it was true even before it was uttered. Do you know that? It was also true 100,000 years
before it was uttered, and it'll be true 100,000 years after.
It'll be true throughout eternity. Truth is always the same. It
never changes. And I'll tell you, that's what
we as a church, that's what the lesson is here. We need to continue
to rebuild the old gates of truth. Proverbs 22, 28. Let me read
you these scriptures. It says, remove not the ancient
landmark which thy fathers have set. Proverbs 23 and verse 10,
remove not the old landmark and enter not into the fields of
the fatherless. You know one of the keys to the
success of the New Testament Church in its beginnings is written
in Acts chapter 2 and verse 42. Acts chapter 2 and verse 42. Now you know Acts chapter 2,
that's when Peter stood on the day of Pentecost and preached
the gospel in Jerusalem And God saved what? I think 3,000 souls
in that one day. And it says after that in Acts
chapter 2 and verse 42, it says, and they continued steadfastly
in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in the breaking
of bread and in prayers. What do we need to do today?
We need to continue steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, the
old path. And Paul said that the apostles'
doctrine was the same as the prophets' doctrine. And it all
goes right back to eternity. Ephesians 2, verse 20 says the
church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. 2 John says
that those who transgress and abide not in the doctrine of
Christ I believe that's verse 9 or verse 7. I can't remember
which one it is. But 2 John, you look it up. But
those who transgress and abide not, continue not in the doctrine
of Christ, have not God. But he that abideth in the doctrine
of God, he has both the Father and the Son. That's salvation.
Let me give you this about this old gate, about these old paths,
the old truths. First of all, we need the old
truths because we have an old problem. And that old problem
is sin. Sin is an old problem. Look back
at Romans chapter 5. I mean, it's an old problem.
It's nothing new. It's an old problem. Look at
verse 12 of Romans chapter 5. It says, as by one man sin entered
into the world." Now, who's that one man? That's Adam, the first
man. How old is that? And death by
sin. God said to Adam, in the day
that you eat thereof of that tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, in that day thou shalt die. Thou shalt surely die. Or
literally, dying thou shalt die. Right then and there, the process
of physical death began. Spiritual death came immediately. That's an old problem. And men
have been born in sin and dying in sin ever since. And he says,
and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. We all sinned in Adam. We fell
in Adam. This is an old problem. It's
not new. I was thinking about this as
I've been studying here in Nehemiah. We all say, now we say this,
and I want to give you a little perspective here. Now we all
say, look at how bad things have gotten. It's the worst that it's
ever been. And in many ways that may be
true. I suspect that mainly the problem is more of a problem
of publicity than anything else. I mean, back in the biblical
days they didn't have television sets and radio sets and they
didn't have reporters standing there watching it all happen.
and reporting it to you and bringing it into their living rooms, like
we have. But you say, well, it's gotten
worse than it was. Well, in some ways it may have.
But listen to it. You know, if you go down and
if you've got one of those papers that has the drawing of the walls
of Jerusalem, and you go on down from the old gate to the next
one, and I'm going to preach on Sunday night at the Valley
Gate, Well, right outside that valley gate, or down a little
bit from it, was the Valley of Hinnom. And you see down at the
bottom there, there's the dung gate, and they took all the refuge
and all the dung and all of the waste out of the city of Jerusalem
down to the Valley of Hinnom, which burned continued. They
kept that fire going. And that's where they burned
it. Well, do you know that before Jeremiah, about A hundred and
some years before Jeremiah. And you know, you read, Craig,
you read that Jeremiah 6, that's pretty bad stuff. I mean, you
know, you live in a generation like that, that's pretty bad.
But about a hundred, 120 years before Jeremiah, there was a
king, I believe it was King Manasseh, who was the worst king of it,
right out there in that valley of Hinnom. Do you know what they
were doing? They were taking their little babies, and sacrificing
their little babies to the god Molech. And the babies would
scream. And you know how they drowned
out the screams? By banging drums. Pretty bad, wasn't it? That's
how bad it was. You say, what's worse than that?
Well, I don't see anybody doing that except if you want to equate
that with the abortion clinics today. Because it is murder. But they were burning their children
to Molech. Now, my point is this. Sin is
not a new problem. Even the worst of sins is not
a new problem. As bad as it has gotten in our
generation, and as bad as it will get before the Lord comes,
it's an old problem. It's an old problem. It began with Adam. It filtered
right down through his sons. Even Abel was a sinner. How do
I know that? Because he realized he needed
the blood of a substitute. Cain murdered Abel. That's not
even where it began. It began back with Adam. It's
an old problem. But here's the second thing.
We need the old truths because the only remedy for sin is older
than sin. Isn't that something? Do you
hear that? We need the old truth because
the only remedy for sin is older than sin. The covenant of grace
and mercy and redemption is an everlasting covenant. It is an eternal covenant. The
covenant of redemption is older than creation and older than
man's fall into sin. Look at it in Ephesians chapter
1. Listen to the word of God. And so if you preach a new, new
path, you're going to miss this. Isn't that right? You know what
the gospel is? The gospel is the preaching out
of the terms of an eternal covenant. It speaks of an eternal Savior,
who deals with the problem of sin in time, but was set up from
everlasting. Look at Ephesians chapter 1 and
verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. That's before the
world was created. that we should behold him without
blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ himself, according to the good pleasure
of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein
he hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption
through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches
of his grace." Now, that's an old, old, old, old message. And Christ came in time and fulfilled
that on the cross. But the message and the purpose
and the reality of it was already in effect. Isn't that right?
Do you know how I know that? Abel testified of it. Enoch testified of it. Noah testified
of it. Go on down the line, the Hall
of Faith in Hebrews chapter 11. Isn't that something? Look at
2 Timothy. Let's look at this one. I'm running
out of time, but look at this. 2 Timothy 1. Listen to this. Verse 8. Paul writes, Be not thou therefore
ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. 2 Timothy 1.8. Nor of me,
his prisoner. But be thou partaker of the afflictions
of the gospel according to the power of God, who hath saved
us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." Before there was a sinner, there
was a Savior. Before there was guilt, there
was grace. Before there was the punishment
of death, there was the promise of life, all in Christ. Now, this doesn't cancel or diminish
the need of the actual event of the cross in time, as some
would say. For in the fullness of the time,
God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law
to redeem them that were under the law. But we must understand
this. Now, listen to what I'm going
to say very carefully here. The cross in time did not change
God's mind from something old to something new. It revealed
the very same eternal mind of the same eternal God from old. What He thought all the time.
And that's marvelous. I mean, that's amazing to me.
God's covenant promises are sealed with the blood of Christ. Christ
called it the blood of the New Testament. The New Testament
is the fulfillment in time of the terms and conditions and
requirements of the eternal covenant of grace. But He also, in Hebrews
chapter 13, verse 20, called it the blood of the everlasting
covenant. This is an old message. It was revealed in Genesis 3.15
in the seed of woman. Paul said it was preached by
the prophets, this gospel. Christ said Moses preached it.
John 5.39. Well, note this in closing. These men had a genuine burden. God gave Nehemiah a genuine burden
to see the old ways established. Back up there in Nehemiah 3.5,
at the end of it, it says the nobles wouldn't put their necks
to the work of their Lord. They wouldn't do it. The nobles
wouldn't. That's a great sin, the refusal of men to do the
work of the Lord. There's no reason for them not
to work, but every reason to lead by example. The nobles,
if anybody, should lead by example. They ought to have led the way
in the work of the Lord. But he goes on down through and
he says there's all kinds of people who are working in here.
Rulers, daughters, apothecaries, that's the druggist of that day.
And all of these, he says, put their necks. This man Jehoiada,
you know what that name means? It means Jehovah known. You can
look at it two ways. It is in the repairing and rebuilding
of these gates that God makes Himself known to His people. But you can also look at it this
way. Jehovah knows. The foundation of the Lord standeth
sure. The Lord knoweth them that are
His. And there are those who work for Him. Jehovah knows. God's eyes are upon them, watching
over us day and night. and in God's sight, we're in
Christ. Then he mentions this fellow,
Meshulam. Meshulam has several meanings. It means friendly,
it means to be safe, it means to be rewarded, it means to make
an end, that means to finish it. The old paths, the old truths
speak of a finished work, doesn't it? These men finished the work
because Christ had already finished His work. That's the issue. The
finished work of Christ, the preaching of the old ways, and
the only way of salvation.