Good morning everyone, and I
also echo Winston's sentiments in welcoming our visitors. Glad
to have you all with us today. Today's message is the second
of a two-part series that we began last week, a series I titled
His People and Their God. And to refresh your memory, the
idea for this series was derived from our study for an earlier
message where the text was taken from Ezekiel chapter 36. And
in the latter part of verse 28 of that chapter, we read these
words that were spoken by God through the prophet Ezekiel.
As God said, and ye shall be my people, and I will be your
God. You may recall I was struck,
as I told you last week, by the similarity of those words to
those spoken by Ruth to her mother-in-law, Naomi, in Ruth chapter 1, where
we read of Ruth's resolute assertion to Naomi that thy people shall
be my people and thy God my God. Well, this biblical declaration
to some that they shall be God's people and that He will be their
God is repeated in many various contexts. And this morning, as
we did last week, we're going to continue to examine that declaration
within these various contexts. hopes of heightening our understanding
and our appreciation of this very simple but glorious truth. If you heard last week's message,
you'll remember my emphasizing there are two truths here that
cannot be separated. One, all of God's people, that
is His elect, are chosen people unto eternal salvation in Christ.
They will be His. There are people, see, purchased
by the very blood of Christ. And so therefore, secondly, they
all, without fail, shall come to know Him as their God. They will be saved. Now, whereas
last week we concentrated on the first part of this declaration,
the phrase, ye shall be my people, I want to focus your attention
this week on the second part, where God says, and I will be
their God. And although again this week
we're going to consider quite a few scriptures, I chose one
verse from among the many as my primary text for this message,
Zechariah 8.8, where God, he was speaking through the prophet,
he says at the end of verse 8, and they shall be my people,
and I will be their God in truth and righteousness. And I selected
that as my primary text to list because I think it communicates
the Essence of what each and every one of these God's people
come to see with the eyes of God-given faith When he is made
known to them as their God They come to the one true God in truth
and righteousness And so I've titled this morning segment just
that theirs as in their God theirs in truth and righteousness So
today I'm going to direct your attention to how the one true
God who has determined to have a people in that everlasting
covenant, as we saw last week, a covenant of grace first. Secondly,
a covenant of peace. A people, thirdly, that are described
as a people of inheritance. Well, as we saw that last week,
this week we're going to see how that same God shall just
as surely and each successive generation be known by them."
Again, two inseparable truths. Not only does God declare they
shall be his people, as he's so determined, but he also says
of those who were chosen in Christ from all eternity, that he shall,
without fail, be their God. So this is speaking of the sure
and certain realization in time of God's eternal purpose to save
them. They shall be born again. They
shall be made spiritually alive so as to have the eyes of their
understanding, the very faculties of spiritual life, have those
eyes enlightened whereby they come to know Him, whom to know
is life eternal. So in keeping with the first
segment of the series here, we're going to again look at this phrase. different context, some of the
same ones we looked at last week, but with a concentration on the
latter part of the phrase where God says, and I will be their
God. And so we're going to examine
these different facets of that which God's people all experience. That is, in their regeneration
and conversion, in the new birth, their spiritual conversion, that
which inevitably takes place in each of their respective lifetimes,
the lifetimes of these God's people. And so we're going to
see more, hopefully, and grow in our appreciation of what it
means for a sinner to come to know the one true and living
God as their God. And the first thing I want you
to see is, and I'll show you here in the scriptures, that
this work is described as a heart work. a heart work. And when
you know I say heart, I'm not referring to that organ in our
chest cavity that pumps blood, but I'm referring to our inner
being, our entire inner being. You know, even in our modern
day vernacular, we'll speak of, well, I just know something to
be so in my heart of hearts. You know, and the heart, as we
speak of it in that context, it involves the mind. It does
involve knowing something. But it also involves our affections
and our will, our entire being. When this hard work takes place,
you know, God says that he makes his people willing in the day
of his power. So it's more than the mind. We
saw that in the context of that earlier message that I alluded
to in Ezekiel chapter 36. There in verse 28, God had said,
you shall be my people and I will be your God. But just before
making that declaration, in that context, just a few verses back
in verse 25, God had said, then will I sprinkle clean water upon
you and you shall be clean from all your filthiness and from
all your idols will I cleanse you. And of course that's speaking
of their being cleansed and forgiven from all eternity based upon
Christ's shed blood, his cleansing blood. and that which he shed
and was shed on their behalf. But notice he continues in verse
26 there saying, a new heart also will I give you, and a new
spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. So that inflexible, kind of hard
to make an impression upon, stony heart. will be replaced, so to
speak, as their hearts, that is, their minds, their affections,
their wills will be made pliable. They'll be impressionable by
God the Holy Spirit as they are made willing, see, to receive
God's truth as it is set forth in God's gospel of grace. These
God's elect people will be irresistibly drawn to Him by the regenerating
power of God the Holy Spirit in God's appointed time, in the
day of his power. You see, there will be, most
certainly, a change of heart. We see that knowing God as their
God is a hard work also from the context of Jeremiah 24-7,
where God says, and I will give them an heart to know me, that
I am the Lord. And they shall be my people,
and I will be their God. For they shall return unto me
with their whole heart. And then again in Ezekiel 11,
beginning in verse 19, we read, And I will give them one heart,
and I will put a new spirit within you. And I will take the stony
heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh,
that they may walk in my statutes, and keep my ordinances, and do
them. You see, here we're seeing that
there is, in fact, a resulting walk of faith and obedience,
but it's from a new heart now. It's from a new motive of grace
and gratitude, whereas before we were going about to establish
a righteousness of our own, that is, with a mercenary motive in
order that we might gain favor with God. or from a legal motive
that we might avoid his disfavor, remove his wrath. Now with this
new heart, we still obey, but we obey because we're thankful
out of gratitude for God having shown mercy on us. And it continues
there in verse 20, it says, and they shall be my people, and
I will be their God. As you can see, this is real
similar to the language we just looked at in Ezekiel 36, but
I wanted you to see it here and make a mental note of how God
qualifies it further here by referring to it as one heart. And I'll come back to that in
just a moment. But for now, clearly these God's people shall all,
without fail, experience a second birth, a spiritual one, and that
involves a radical change of heart. So that tells us that
knowing God as his people come to know him is more than mere
concurrence with gospel doctrine and truth. It's more than gaining
a mere head knowledge of the truth. When this gospel doctrine
of Christ, of salvation by God's sovereign grace, when it's effectually
applied by God the Holy Spirit, it reaches to the heart, to our
whole being. Now, it most certainly does reach
and affect the mind, but also the affections and the will.
Now, secondly, what I want us to consider is how this works,
whereby God's people are given spiritual life so as to know
Him as their own, as in keeping with that declaration, that He
will be their God. That in being a heart work, that
does not mean that it does not involve substantive knowledge. You know, on occasion, men, even
preachers, will scorn clear gospel preaching. that would distinguish
the gospel doctrine of sovereign grace from the many false gospels.
The false gospels were warned about in the scriptures, especially
in the epistles over and over again to be aware of and to be
wary of. And this scorn sometimes will
have them referring to such gospel identifying distinctions as cold,
hard doctrine. As they often go on to suggest
that since it's a hard work, It's just something you feel,
but you can't really define any substance to what is different.
It's as if they are repulsed by substantive or definitive
gospel doctrine. So there is a lack of interest
among many in delving into that that would distinguish the true
gospel doctrine of Christ from its many counterfeits. They will
say, well, let's just talk about love and obedience. and those
things that you can do. And I don't know about all of
that. I'm just trusting in Jesus. There'll
be generalities. You see, many will acknowledge
that the gospel is good news. That's what the word means, good
news. And they will even agree it's good news that pertains
to Jesus Christ. But when it comes to preaching
the scriptures which identify who he is and what he truly accomplished
on the cross of Calvary, There's often generalities, or a vagueness,
or ambiguity. I've heard some say this, they'll
insist, well I'm not going to try to describe to you what is
different about the true Christ and the true God that I now profess
to know, but you know, if it's happened to you, you'll just
know it, or you'll feel it like I do. And you know they do, there
is a reality to their feelings, just as there was to mine in
years past. when I was ignorant of the truth,
of the knowledge that's revealed in the gospel. You know, many
will hide behind cliches such as, I'm not sent to explain it,
only to proclaim it. And you know there's an element
of truth in that, but I fear it's often invoked in the interest
of blurring true gospel doctrine so that you can retain a larger
following. You know, if you speak in generalities, people can kind
of assign their own definitions to whatever fits their need,
but that's contrary to scripture. Scripture says there's only one
way of salvation, and as Christ told us, he said it was a straight
gate, a narrow way, and few be that go in there at. Sadly, some
will border on portraying salvation as something purely mystical,
detached from any definitive gospel knowledge that must be
and is made known to all those whom God saves. And so while
we concur that regeneration and conversion of the sinner is indeed
a miraculous work by God the Holy Spirit, it involves more
than gaining some mere head knowledge. Indeed, it is a hard work, and
yet we cannot and we should not deny that according to God's
word, the people of God are also identified by what they know,
the doctrine of Christ as he's revealed in God's gospel. In
2 John verse 9 declares to us, it says, whosoever transgresseth
and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. Do you see that
doctrine? That God's people, these who
will be His people, they're identified by their doctrine. So salvation
involves knowing right doctrine whereby we know God. Last week we looked at Jeremiah
31 with an emphasis then on God's declaration to a people that
they would be His according to that covenant language of grace. But I want to look at it from
a slightly different perspective again this morning. Beginning
in verse 31 of Jeremiah 30, 33, excuse me, of Jeremiah 31, we
read where God said, but this shall be the covenant that I
will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord,
I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts
and we'll be their God and they shall be my people. And they
shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his
brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from
the least of them unto the greatest of them, all of them, saith the
Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity,
and I will remember their sins no more. Clearly all these to
whom God has declared that they shall be his people. who experience
this work of the heart, they shall come to know Him as He
is. Recall Jesus Himself said in
His high priestly prayer in John 17 3, as He prayed unto the Father,
He said, and this is life eternal, that they might, what, know Thee,
the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.
This radical change of heart, see, involves a radical change
of knowledge. spiritually alive, saved sinners
are those who have come to know Christ and thereby know God the
Father. And they know Him in a way that
is totally opposed to what they previously thought with that
old stony heart. In other words, in their spiritually
dead, blind state which we all enter into this world. So what
is it that these come to know that we can equate with knowing
God in Christ. Let me direct you to our primary
text again, Zechariah 8, and beginning back in verse 7, we
read, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will save my
people from the east country and from the west, and I will
bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and
they shall be my people And I will be their people, I will be their
God, excuse me, in truth and in righteousness." In truth and
righteousness. Some of you will remember how
in Jeremiah chapter 23 it said of the promised Messiah that
his name, the name is how we identify someone. It says, his
name shall be called the Lord our righteousness. And then in
Jeremiah chapter 33, just 10 chapters later, it's said of
the church, those God saves, that she, the bride of Christ,
see, she'll take on His name, that she too shall be called
the Lord, our righteousness. You see, her righteousness is
His righteousness. God's people come to know Him
in truth as the righteousness of God in Christ is revealed
unto them and made precious unto them, to their very hearts, by
God-given faith. Paul wrote in Romans chapter
1, as we also looked at last week, that the gospel was the
power of God unto salvation. He said, because, in verse 17
of that chapter, therein is the righteousness of God revealed.
As we heard Bill during the 10 o'clock hour say, as Romans 10.4
teaches us, Christ, it says, is the end or the fulfillment
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. So
that means righteousness refers to that perfect satisfaction
to God's holy law and justice that Christ, and Christ alone
rendered in His obedience unto death on the cross. And Christ's
person and His work are not to be separated. To know God is
to have been given the revelation of faith, whereby we know of
His righteousness, that which Christ fully accomplished for
His people by His finished work on the cross. So with the eyes
of God-given faith, God's people come to see how all of salvation's
conditions or requirements were fully met by Christ, their substitute
and Savior. Their salvation not being conditioned
on them in any form or fashion. They embrace the gospel of God's
grace, that gospel that's the power of God unto salvation,
because why? Because therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. In other words, it's His righteousness.
not a presumed one of our own making. So with their new hearts,
they embrace the doctrine of salvation by grace and they repent
of ever thinking, as we all did by nature, that something they
did or something they did not do could possibly do for them
what actually took the doing and the dying of the Lord of
glory. They embrace the one true God
as their God as they see the necessity of being made one with
their Savior. They must have the very merit
of His finished work, His righteousness made to be theirs for they've
come to see the reality of God's truth that nothing else they
will fit their desperate need as sinners and reconcile them
and bring that peace that's made between them and God the Father
that they might be acceptable into His holy presence in heaven.
I love that passage that describes believers as holy, unreprovable,
unblameable. Sinner? He's talking about sinners
like me. That's how those who stand in
His perfect righteousness stand before the Father in Christ.
As 2 Corinthians 5 21 teaches us, just see as the demerit of
their sin was imputed or charged to the account of Christ. in
order that he might pay the just penalty due unto their sin. Sin,
see that Christ had no part whatsoever in producing himself. He, the
verse there says, he who knew no sin was made sin for us. Well, in the same way God has
imputed our charge to their accounts, the accounts of his people, the
very righteousness that Christ rendered in perfect satisfaction
to the law of justice. righteousness. See, they had
no part in producing. He rendered a perfect obedience
unto the very revealed will of God, but he was doing it as a
substitute for sinners. And so justice demanded a penalty
and only the precious blood of Christ was of value enough to
put away and pay the penalty due unto all the sins of these
his people. See, this describes those who
come to see God in truth and righteousness. They now see how
God can be true to himself and his character. They see how he
doesn't have to dispense with his justice in order to save
sinners and just pretend that you really didn't sin. There's
no pretend about it. No, we see how he can be both
a just God and a savior in justifying ungodly sinners such as you and
me. Look again at that passage from Jeremiah 32, which we looked
at last week as well. There in verse 38 we read, and
they shall be my people, and I will be their God. And he says,
and I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear
me forever. And that, of course, that fear,
as we talk, is that reverential regard for God's character, looking
at it from his perspective. Well, today I want to revisit
this to emphasize that those who come to God, they do so with
one heart, and they come to Him one way. You may remember a few
moments ago, I asked you to make note of that from Ezekiel chapter
11. Well, in John chapter 14, Christ
told us what that one way was when He said that He was the
way, the truth. and the life, and that no man
cometh unto the Father, but by Him." We must have been made
one in Christ. You see, there are not many different
paths to this one destination of Heaven's eternal glory. We
have to be made one in Christ, and all those who come to the
Father, they do so because they've been united with Christ, made
one with Him. and they do so by virtue or on
the basis of His imputed righteousness, and that alone. Their entire
fitness is that which Christ rendered for them. And so with
one heart, they all come that one way. Now, follow me here. If regeneration and conversion
of a sinner is a heart work, first as we've seen, whereby
sinners come to, secondly, know God, and more specifically, or
thirdly, know Him in truth and righteousness. Now they do so
with a new heart. That means they come to know
something of which they previously were ignorant. And so thereby
we know that when God becomes their God, that is, in their
minds and in their experience, that this also involves repentance. a turning away from having relied
on their dead works, a turning away from the former idols of
their spiritually dead imaginations. You know, if we're turning to
God with a new heart, with a newfound truth of who He is, then by definition
we're turning away from something else. So what we have is this
inseparable gift here of faith and Repentance. Repentance always
accompanying God-given faith. And that will be evidenced by
those who come to know God in truth and righteousness as their
God. Look again at Ezekiel 36. We read in verse 25, Then will
I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all
your filthiness. And look, it said, from all your
idols. will I cleanse you? And if you
recall from there, he went on and started talking about giving
them a new heart. And then when he gets to verse
31, God adds, then shall you remember your own evil ways and
your doings that were not good and shall loathe yourselves in
your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations. See,
God's people shall repent of their former idolatry. You remember,
I think it's Luke, where it says, that which is highly esteemed
among men is an abomination unto God. In Philippians 3, when Paul's
describing his own repentance, he says, those things which were
gained to me, which I thought recommended me to God, which
accounted for something, I now count but loss. You see, that's what, when he
says there in verse 31, then shall you remember your own evil
ways, he's saying after I give you that new heart. Again from
Ezekiel 37 verse 23, we read, neither shall they defile themselves
anymore with what? Their idols, nor with their detestable
things, nor with any of their transgressions, but I will save
them out of all their dwelling places wherein they have sinned
and will cleanse them So shall they be my people, and I'll be
their God." Do you see how this repentance from idols is integral
to the realization of God's purpose to save them? As he adds, so,
in this manner, shall they be my people, and I'll be their
God. And then, finally, in the New
Testament, Paul, in writing to the believers at Corinth, is
interesting because he's borrowing the language from Leviticus chapter
26, which is there that declaration is made as it pertains really
strictly there to national Israel. But we see how national Israel,
that nation chosen under that temporary covenant, or how they
are pictured of spiritual Israel, those chosen from every nation
unto eternal life by virtue of Paul's quoting it here in 2 Corinthians
6. And there in verse 14, Paul writes,
be not unequally yoked, together with unbelievers. For what fellowship
hath righteousness with unrighteousness?" Now, he's not forbidding all
fellowship here. We're instructed to get along
peaceably with all men if at all possible, but rather he is
making reference to religious fellowship. For he goes on and
he says, and what communion hath light with darkness, truth from
ignorance? And what concord hath Christ
with Belial, speaking of Satan? Or what part hath he that believeth
with an infidel, an unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple
of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the
living God. As God said, or hath said, I will dwell in them and
walk in them. Speaking of the indwelling presence
of God, the Holy Spirit. And he says, and I will be their
God, and they shall be my people. So, see how this turning from
idolatry. And, you know, men and women
in our day, we often have a hard time thinking of ourselves as
idols until God shows us how wrong our thoughts were about
God. But, idolatry involves having wrong thoughts about who God
is. And those thoughts are exposed
to us as we see how we were wrong about how God saves sinners,
our gospel, our gospel doctrine. See how this experience of repentance
is part of the identification of these people who shall be
His and who shall know Him as their God. They're marked, as
we see here, as a people who have no religious agreement with
the idols. You see, why would they? That's
what they've been delivered from. You see, for in time they were
or they will be enlightened under the gospel of God's grace. They're going to be delivered
out of darkness into His marvelous light. And I think we can see
here how this distinction between their former idolatry And they're
now having come to know the one true God is the distinction found
in what we believe as it pertains to how God saves sinners, our
gospel. You see, right now, all of us,
I know there are many different denominations and sects and thoughts. There's a smorgasbord of religion
out there. But right now, all of us, we
believe one of two things. We've been blessed to see that
salvation is all of grace. or else we continue in the false
presumption that salvation is conditioned, at least in some
degree. Perhaps we'll call it some small
way. But nonetheless, by some work
of our hand, because we did our part and believed, or because
we accepted Jesus, or because we repented, things that a believer
does do, but they don't assign a causal role to those things.
You see, It's either the religion of grace, or wherein we see all
of our hope for salvation in Christ's person and finished
work, or it's that idolatrous religion of works. And listen,
we, many, like me in years past, we called it grace. But if it's
conditioned in any way on you, the sinner, just think of it
this way. There's a group of people who end up in heaven,
and there's a group of people who end up in hell. What makes
the difference? If Christ died for all men without
exception, he didn't make the difference. He didn't do any
more for this group than he did this one. And though we might have
in years past spoke highly of Jesus and his cross work, when
we thought, as I once did, that the real difference in heaven
and hell, saved and lost, was what I did with it. My brother
had shared with me a friend who talked to him, it's like a gift.
They'll agree with you that faith is a gift to God, but then they'll
add, but you gotta And they make the opening of it, the crowning
event, to accomplish that which in their doctrine, in my former
doctrine, I presume Christ didn't quite get it done. You see the
evil of such notions? Salvation by works, no matter
what you call it, is a way of unrighteousness. We read there,
what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And Paul
wrote of that to the Thessalonians as he warned the believers there
to beware of Satan's agents who would deceive them if possible
with what he calls there the deceivableness of unrighteousness. Now unrighteousness is what?
Not righteousness. It's anything others see than
the one righteousness. that perfect satisfaction that
was rendered unto God by the Lord Jesus Christ. Anything else
is unrighteousness. And one who has come to see his
hope wrapped up solely in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ, he can no longer abide the fellowship of those who would
dare to approach their God for acceptance based on anything
else. We've seen the deadly evil of
such, and so they turn from that idolatry which casts shame and
reproach upon the very character of the one true God. If you'll
just stop and think about that a moment. If Jesus Christ came
and died for all men, as so many profess and as I once believed,
then what does that say about who God is? What about his love?
We said he loved everyone, but that love must have been a worthless
love because He did not engage all of his being to ensure their
salvation. He said, oh, I wasn't going to
step on their free will, so I'll let them perish. He's talking
about people who come into the world blind, spiritually dead.
Or we may say, well, then what does it say about his omnipotence,
his power? Well, maybe he really did love
them, but he just wasn't powerful enough to save them. What does
it say about his omniscience? Maybe he loved them, but he wasn't
wise enough to overcome the obstacles. What does it say about the justice
of God to presume that Jesus Christ died on the cross? His blood was shed to pay for
the sins of a people? And God says, but a bunch of
them I'm going to send on to hell anyway. What an unjust monster. Do you see how those thought
were no less of an idol than if we built one up here of stone
and bowed down in front of it? They were idols of our imaginations,
but they cast shame and reproach on the true and living God. And
that's where we can see how all who come by God-given faith to
trust in Christ and Him alone, they are repenting of their former
idols, those idols of our imagination. Well, now, any who have experienced
this, first of all, this heart work, whereby they come, secondly,
to know God, Specifically, thirdly, in truth and righteousness so
as to, fourthly, repent of their former idolatry and dead works
and having dared to imagine a holy God would save them based upon
anything they as a sinner did or did not do. Any whom this
describes, there's good news. You see, often I know when God
begins to work with His own, to draw them unto Himself, There's
a question that naturally arises. I know it did with me. I go,
okay, I hear what you're saying. I may see in the scripture the
truth of what you're saying, but how do I know if I'm one
of these, his people? Well, the good news that assures
these that I've just described is this, that all of God's people
and only his people come to know the true God as he's uniquely
revealed in the person and work of Christ, so as to trust in
that and that alone. So if you, in your heart of hearts,
if you come to this Christ for all of your salvation, He'll
receive you. We would have read that, and
we will here as we continue in 2 Corinthians 6, picking up where
we left off there in verse 16, where he said, and I will be
their God, and they shall be my people. He says, wherefore?
come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord,
and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will
be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters,
saith the Lord Almighty." Didn't Christ essentially say the same
thing of God's people? That is, those whom the Father
had given him? In John 6, 37, when he said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out." See, flee to this Christ. This is the equivalent
of God's command. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. Not believe on your believing,
believe on Him. Not on what you did to believe,
believe on His doing and His dying. You see, that coming to
this Christ, it's the evidence that justified sinners have that
they are indeed his people. And I think that's key to understanding
what King David was saying when he referred to having been blessed
in that everlasting covenant of grace. In Samuel 23 5, we
read of David saying, although my house be not so with God,
yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant. ordered in all things
and sure." He said, four, this is all my salvation and all my
desire, although he make it not to grow. David is saying that
although it hasn't sprung up yet, it hasn't grown yet, that
is the promised Messiah has yet to come. He has not arrived on
the scene at the time David was writing this. He has not fulfilled
yet the terms of that everlasting covenant of grace and yet David
knows it's ordered in all things, and sure, because he's already
experienced the fruit and the effect of what his Savior would
in time purchase for him. See, he, like all of God's chosen
people in Christ, whether they live before the cross or after
the cross, they come to see, as David had, that Christ is
all their salvation and all their desire. Does your hope lie there? In this series, we've examined
again and again this clear declaration to some that you shall be my
people and I'll be your God. And recall in the first segment
of our series, we reviewed those words that had a similar ring
to them, the words voiced by Ruth to Naomi that said, thy
people shall be my people and thy God my God. Is this the resolve
of your heart? Consider. Consider this, if King
David were alive today, where you could sit down and talk with
him, could you, with the sincere conviction of your own heart,
truthfully say those same words to King David, just as Ruth said
them to Naomi? David, your people shall be my
people. You're God mine. Could you sincerely
say to David, well, David, I've got the same covenant you have.
It's ordered in all things and sure, and I too know it, You
see, because now Christ is also all my salvation and all my desire. You see, it's
as if, could we say, David, you know nothing else will do for
me either if you've been so blessed by God to know him in truth and
righteousness. So you can identify with King
David. You can identify with Ruth. You can identify with every
believer in every generation as they identify with none other
than the Lord Jesus Christ himself. You see, seeing the necessity
and therefore the reality of having been made one with him,
desperately needing and so having, his very righteousness is their
own. Well then rejoice. You see, for
this only describes those with this new heart. who come to Christ
by God's irresistible grace. As I noted last week, all who
believe God's gospel, they have the evidence thereby to say with
all assurance why he'd been talking to me all along when he said,
you shall be my people and I'll be your God. God has a people
and he, the one true God, he is their God, theirs in truth
and righteousness. His people and their God.