For the living flame from his
own altar brought To touch our lips, our minds inspire And wing
to heaven our thought God is our strength and song and His
salvation ours. Then be His love in Christ proclaimed
with all our ransom powers. Stand up and bless the Lord,
the Lord your God adored. Stand up and bless his glorious
name, henceforth forevermore. You may be seated. We thank the Lord for enabling
us one more time this side of eternity to gather and to engage
by his spirit or endeavor by his spirit to worship him in
spirit and in truth. We pray for those that are away
today. Some are sick and have various
problems. We pray for them and remember
them before the Lord and pray that he'll bring them safely
back. I understand that a lady that
a lot of you know and Kenan's sister-in-law, Patsy Bryan, passed
away this past week on Friday, I believe. We want to be sure
and pray for that family and remember them before the Lord.
Others that are experiencing various trials, I thought about it as I was sitting
here this morning, about to read this psalm, Psalm
142, for our reading this morning. Because the heading for this
psalm in the King James is, this is a Masculine Prayer Psalm of
David. A prayer, it says, when he was
in the cave, the cave of Adullam. And I thought about it, how often
the Lord's people, through believers, find themselves in a cave. A cave. Listen to the words of
this psalm this morning as we read it. I cried unto the Lord. With my
voice. With my voice unto the Lord. Did I make supplication? I poured
out my complaint before him. I showed before him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed
within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I
walked have they probably laid a snare for me. I looked on my
right hand and beheld, but there was no man that would know me. Refuge fail me, and no man cared
for my soul. I cried unto thee, O Lord. I said, thou art my refuge and
my portion in the land of the living. Attend unto my cry, for
I am brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors,
for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison,
that I may praise thy name. The righteous shall compass me
about, for thou shalt deal bountifully with me. I like the last praise,
thou shalt deal bountifully with me. Our Father, we come in our great
weakness, our great sinfulness, our great
frailty of the flesh, our great unbelief. And we pray that you would do
exactly what David pleaded for. And do it on the same basis that
he cried out to you on. And that is the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that in him and through
him, you would deal bountifully with
us, with the great bounties of your grace and your mercy, giving to us that which we do
not deserve in ourselves and keeping from us that which we
do deserve for our sinfulness. We thank you that this is the
declaration that you make to your people, that you will hear
their cry, that you would help them at all times, that you will
deliver us from all that would be against us and work all things
together for good. For these people. That you love. And they are brought to love
you. The called according to your
purpose. And we pray this morning that
you would hear us as we cry out all the various. Needs. All the helps. We desire. all our situations, all our sins,
our failures, that they may all be met together in the great
all-sufficiency of Christ Jesus our Lord. We have nothing but Him. And yet in him we have always
bread enough and to spare. We have that great eternal sufficiency. Eternal life. Which is to know
you. And we asked this morning that
you would enable us. By your spirit to worship. to
enter into true worship. That we might not be engaged
in simply a ritual, or a ceremony, or a habit, or a practice. That we might, by your spirit,
be engaged in true worship, and praise, and adoration, and thankfulness
to you. We pray that we might be able
to see. Spiritual things. To hear. To understand. All that great
salvation. That is in Christ Jesus. We know
that it in us that is in our flesh. Dwells no good thing. Never any
good thing. All our good is in Christ Jesus. We pray for these that we mentioned,
the sick, these that are away, these that grieve over lost loved
ones. We ask and plead that you would
help us according to your wisdom and the knowledge that you possess
far, far above ours, of what is right and good, and especially
good for us and good for your glory. We pray that you'd help
us in every way, that you would strengthen us, that we might
walk according to your word, that we might lean upon you and
trust you and have you only as our Savior. We pray in Christ's
name. Amen. All right, turn to 352. And Anthony,
if you will, wait on the congregation this moment. 352. Like a River Glorious. Like a river glorious is God's
perfect peace over all victorious in its bright increase. Perfect yet it floweth Fuller
every day Perfect yet it groweth Deeper all the way Stayed upon
Jehovah Hearts are fully blessed Finding as he promised perfect
peace and rest Hidden in the hollow of his blessed hand Never
foe can follow, never traitor stand. Not a surge of worry,
not a shade of care, not a blast of hurry. Touch the Spirit there. State upon Jehovah, hearts are
fully blessed. Finding as He promised, perfect
peace and rest. Every joy or trial falleth from
above, traced upon our dial by the sun of love. We may trust Him fully, All for
us to do They who trust Him wholly Find Him wholly true State upon
Jehovah Hearts are fully blessed Finding as he promised perfect
peace and rest. Next Sunday, the Lord's willing,
we'll receive our offering for the missionaries. Put that in
your memory. The passage of scripture that our text is in this morning, Every time I read it, I almost
feel like I'm intruding in a way. Because we're allowed to slip
into the place where the Lord is praying. And we are allowed to hear Him
pray to the Father. It says in verse 1, these words
spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father,
the hour is come. Glorify thy son that thy son
also may glorify thee. But he's praying to the father
not only as the son, but he's praying to the father as the
great high priest of his people. As a matter of fact, that's what
Many call this the great high priestly prayer of Christ. And you cannot read this, you
cannot hear him pray without knowing, without plainly seeing
that he is interceding for a particular people. Just like when the high priest
went into the holy place, just like as he performed all the
duties in the tabernacle and in the temple, always for a particular
people that he describes as being given to him by the Father. These people, out of Adam's race,
are distinguished here as being given to him as his bride, but mainly as his responsibility,
those you've given to me. And he says in verse two, he
says, as thou has given him power over all flesh, he has power. dominion, sovereignty over all
flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast
given him. This power given him by the Father
is for what? To give eternal life. To who? For these that the Father
has given him. Look down in verse six. I have
manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out
of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest
them me, and they have kept thy word. They're given to Christ. Look down further in verse nine. I pray for them. I pray not for
the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they
are thine. He's praying for these that were
given him by the Father. And then verse 16, he says, they
are not of the world, even as I am not. of the world. So he's praying here for these
that are described as belonging to the Father and who are given
to Christ, given to Him. And then notice particularly
what he says in verse 17. He says, sanctify thee. Sanctify them through thy truth,
thy word is truth. He says in his prayer, he asked
the father to sanctify these that were given unto him. As a matter of fact, this becomes
in scripture in the New Testament a name for these people. Turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter
1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. And look at verse 2. 1 Corinthians
1 and verse 2. Paul writes this epistle. He says, unto the church of God,
which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus. Call to be saints, or call saints,
with all that in every place, call upon the name of Jesus Christ
our Lord, both theirs and ours, to them that are sanctified. He's writing this to believers,
and he's referring to them as them that are sanctified. All right, go over to the book
of Jude. The book of Jude, that one little
tiny book, one chapter, 25 verses. And listen to the description
that Jude gives. Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ,
and brother of James to them that are sanctified by God the
Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. These that are sanctified. What does the word sanctify or
sanctified Well, it means what it means
as God the Spirit is pleased to use it in the Scriptures,
in the Bible. Not your definition and not mine,
but how God uses it to refer to these that are given to Christ
by the Father. What does it mean? Does it mean to them that are
made holier? Or even about a million different
definitions that are made so by men describing sanctification. Does it mean to be made holy
or to be made better or to progressively get more holy? No, it simply means to separate, separated, to them that are separated,
to them that have been separated by God. And we know this because
if you look back at our text, in verse 19, Christ says, and
for their sakes I sanctify myself. Can Christ get better? Can He, if that word means more
holy, can Christ become more holy? Can He improve, the perfect
Son of God? Can He dare improve? No, it means that He, for their
sakes, set apart Himself to this task of saving them. of redeeming
them. He set them apart unto himself. He took them for himself, that
they also might be sanctified through the truth. Christ separated himself to the
work of the cross, to die in the place of his people and to
save them completely, entirely. And these people, these separated
people, and if you notice here, it's in the past tense. These separated people were separated
unto God and by God in a divine election. He chose them. He made them his choice. He had
the right to do so as God. He chose them and set them apart,
separated them unto himself, and then he separated them in
Christ's redeeming work. Christ died for them. These sheep
that are separated from the goats and made manifest in that final
day, the sheep brought unto God himself, they were separated
in Christ's work on the cross because he said, I lay down my
life for the sheep. for these sanctified ones, for
these separated ones, not because they're holy. And so the father is said to
have sanctified this people, and the son in his death is said
to have sanctified this people. But what about the Holy Spirit? You see, God is our Savior. God in the Trinity of His person,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, co-equals in the Godhead. Well,
what about the Holy Spirit? Well, you see, that's what this
priest is praying for. This is what he's there interceding
for them. He's praying for the comforter,
to be sent to them in time to take and do His work, His separating
work, and He prays for their sanctification by the Holy Spirit
using a particular means. What is He going to use to sanctify
them? Well, he tells us in this text. In verse 14, he says, I have
given them thy word. And the world hath hated them
because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Well, let me ask you this. Didn't
all the Jews have the scriptures? Didn't they all have the word? Didn't they often wear little
scrolls with writings from Isaiah and all the prophets rolled up
and tied in their beards and on their garments? Didn't they
have the word? They had the scriptures. But
they did not understand what they meant concerning the word. Christ said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. They had the scriptures. They
had the written word of God. But when Christ came on the scene,
they did not even know or have any understanding about who he
really was. And that is the way it is in
every generation. They may have the word, they
may have the words, they may have the scriptures, but they
have no understanding of the scripture. They have no revelation
of what God is talking about and what he has promised and
this good news that he sends to his people unless the Holy
Spirit reveals it to them. I was watching a documentary
on Egypt a while last night and this man was being led in
all the tombs and all the temples and stuff and there were all
kinds of Egyptian hieroglyphics and all these things and symbols
and And there were the writings of the Egyptian, and he was like
me. He didn't have a clue what they
were saying. He could see them, but he didn't
have a clue. But when the archaeologist, the
guide that was guiding him, who had understanding of what those
hieroglyphics and writings meant, told him exactly the story that
was written there. And you know what? It made sense
then. You and I are dead spiritually. We're blind spiritually. The
carnal mind is enmity against God. The natural man receives
not the things of God, receives not these things of the Spirit
of God, unless God gives him eyes and ears and faith to see
and understand and believe it. And when he does that to us,
he sanctifies us and reveals who he is and reveals this glorious
salvation through the scriptures as being all in Christ. Amen. And this is what Christ died.
God the Father purposed in His sanctification, setting them
apart in election, purposing, predestinating all things concerning
them in love. He's done all this. And Christ
the Son dying in order to assure this happens and guaranteeing
by His death that it'll happen. He says in verse 19, for their
sakes I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified
or set apart From what? From this present evil world. From those who are going to perish. From these reprobate human beings
all around them. How is he going to do it? That
they also might be sanctified through the truth. Through the truth. And men are deceived. They're
deceived in our day. They were deceived in every day,
every age, by men speaking true things. They have some true things to
say. They say, he's got a little truth. He may have some true things,
but if he has this body, this revelation of grace of Christ,
then and only then Does He have the truth? They say, well, Christ is God
in human flesh. He is. That's true. But if we don't rightly know
how He, in His coming as that person, what He did and actually
accomplished for men who were these given to the Father, then
we don't really know Christ. We don't know the truth. And so he says here that the
work of the Holy Spirit, the work that the Father's purpose
assures and Christ's work assures even demands this, the work of
the Holy Spirit is to reveal who Christ is and what he's done
for the elect and to those for whom Christ died for, to let
them know, if you will, or to enable them to see and understand
and believe this gospel. I was reading this morning the prophecy of Isaiah. I just
stumbled across this. But it's in Isaiah 53 where the
Lord is talking about His Israel. that he's going to save, that
he's going to call out from the east and the north and the south,
he's going to bring his daughters from the ends of the earth. I'll
say, he says in verse 6, to the north, give up, and to the south,
keep not back. Bring my sons from afar and my
daughters from the ends of the earth, even every one that is
called by my name. For I have created him for my
glory. I have formed him. Yea, I have
made him. Bring forth the blind people
that have eyes. That sounds kind of foolish,
doesn't it? These blind people who are like
all the rest of the blind people, but I've given them eyes. And
the deaf that have ears. Let all the nations be gathered
together and let the people be assembled. Who among them can
declare this and show us former things? Let them bring forth
their witnesses that they may be justified or let them hear
and say, it is the truth. When God reveals the gospel of
His glory. When He shows that wretched sinner
like me that Christ has done all the saving, He's done all
the work. When He showed us what we are
as sinners, when He showed us the Father's purpose When he's declared to us that
it's all of his grace and mercy that God has done justly in saving
us as wretched sinners. And what do they say? That's
the truth. We fight against it all our day. We offer up our self-righteousness. We go back to our experiences. We base our assurance on something
we did or failed. All these things till God, the
Holy Spirit, deals with our heart, gives us that new heart of faith. And when he enables us to see
and behold and understand that it's all in Christ Jesus the
Lord, say gratefully and joyfully from our hearts, it is the truth. That has to be the truth. And that's the greatest day of
our life. And people say they're born again
because they have all these kind of feelings and experiences,
but they don't see Christ. They see Christ plus their works,
or Christ plus their efforts, or Christ plus their attendance,
or Christ plus their giving, or Christ plus something. Christ
plus the law. But we behold how that God has
saved us. When he enables us to see this,
we look away from ourselves and we behold that one who hung
on the cross, now sitting at the right hand of the throne
of God, a success And our heart cries out. It is
the truth. I don't care if the preacher
down at the local first church believes it or preaches it. I
don't care if my mama, my daddy, my grandfather, old brother so
and so, the best person I ever met. I don't care who it is.
This is the truth. Look over at Romans chapter one. If you notice here in chapter
one of Romans, verse one, Paul describes himself in this way. And for this purpose, he says,
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated
unto the gospel of God. God separated him from men to
preach the gospel of God, which is the gospel of grace, which
is the gospel of Christ, which is the gospel of peace made by
the blood of Christ. You see, if God separates a man
for himself as his instrument, that's what he's gonna preach. But when you look down at what
he says also in verse 16, saying he's ready to preach, whether
it's to Jew or Gentile, he says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for therein
is the righteousness of God. revealed. What's it revealed to? To the
faith that the Spirit of God gives to His people. They're
not born with it like anybody else is, but He gives them in
that new birth, He gives them that enablement to believe the
truth. Truth. And to them is revealed the righteousness
of God. Nobody wants to hear about the
righteousness of God. That's what the gospel is about.
The imputed or counted or reckoned righteousness of all God's elect
in Christ. Not on the basis of anything
in them or done by them. Not the basis of anything that
they were in themselves. Blessed is the man that God imputes
righteousness without their words. It's the good news of one who
has Save them. It's not about a Jesus that has
made something available or will, if you will. The only will you have is the
will that is connected to your fallen nature, and it acts accordingly. And only when God makes his people
willing in the day of his power, do they ever will to believe
and do spiritual things. Over in John's gospel in chapter
14, John chapter 14. This one that
the son has in this prayer, praying to the father that he would send
this one, this sanctifier. He says in John 14 and verse
16, and I will pray the father and he shall give you another
comforter. that he may abide with you forever. What's this comforter? That means paraclete. It means one who walks along
beside you, one who guides you. And he says, even the spirit
of truth. There's no Holy Spirit without
the truth, apart from the truth. Whom the world cannot receive
because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but you know him,
for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. The spirit of truth. Look over in John chapter 16.
There's always this prayer, always this revelation of the Father's
purpose to do something in all of His elect. But in John chapter
16, look down at verse 13. He says, how be it when He, this
third person of the Godhead, the Spirit, the Spirit of truth,
is come he will guide you into all truth for he shall not speak
of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak
and he will show you things to come he shall glorify me for he shall receive of mine
and shall show it unto you All things that the Father hath are
mine. Therefore I said I that he shall
take of mine and shall show it unto you. He's going to show you all things
of the Father. He's going to show you all things
of the Son. And he's going to reveal to you
that all things are in me. You see, the gospel reduced to
its finest essence. The message to his elect people is simply Christ has saved his
people. Well, preacher, what's there
for me to do? Did you not hear what I said? Christ has saved
his people. And when the Holy Spirit teaches
us and reveals to us this truth, he does so also reveal to us
that that's the only way that we could ever be saved. We can't even make a New Year's
resolution. Some of you made a New Year's
resolution on the first day of this year. It's not even the
end of the month yet. You've already blown it. All our pledging, all our promising,
all our resolving means nothing. But the good news is that his name is Jesus. The angel said his name shall
be called Jesus for he shall save this people, his people,
from their sins. And the gospel of good news is
he's done it. I'll never be more saved If you're
saved, you'll never be more saved than you are right now, if Christ
saved you. Poor old David was in the cave. He was fleeing. Everything was
not right in his household. His own sons, King Saul, they
were all trying to kill him. Didn't matter. Because he said,
although my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me
an everlasting covenant ordered in all things, and sure, and
this is all my salvation. He made me a covenant in Christ
Jesus. Christ has saved his people,
and he saved us by work of righteousness. He saved us in honoring God's
justice at the same time. He did it righteously, justly. He's just and the justifier of
those that believe on Christ. It's done. It's finished. It's irreversible. It's unchangeable. Every part of our redemption,
our salvation was accomplished before we were born except the
revelation of it. They found a skull in that archaeological
dig that I was talking about in Egypt. You know how curious man is. This skull was described as the
small one, I believe. So they took this skull and they
did a scan on it. They scanned the skull and they
From that skin, with all the technology, they could make a
skull and they could print out exactly a skull just like it
was, even though it had some holes. And so they made, printed
on one of those printers that can print in plastic. They made a skull. They got a
woman who was a renowned facial restoration artist. And she put
clay and formed it and everywhere in her experience that flesh
would be on this person with this skull. And the only thing that they
had to identify this Egyptian queen was a mask that had been made
when she was alive. It won. And so they took that mask, they
set it down there. It was a lot of drama, you know.
And here's this woman, she had her rendition, I guess you'd call
it, her sculpture under a black scarf. So they set it up there. And they pulled that off. And
it was amazing. That woman was obviously that
woman. So it was her remains that were
in that tomb. One of three great Egyptian queens. And God takes his word. And by
His Spirit, He forms and He molds a Christ, not a picture that
looks like Wild Bill Hickok or somebody. Not a cross, but He
reveals this picture from His Word of who Christ is and what
He actually did. And when the Spirit of God pulls
the black scarf over our eyes, We say this is the Christ. It is the truth. He did save. He did all the work. He left nothing to us, even faith. Faith that he gives, he gives
because he finished the work. If I had enough knowledge to
know a Rembrandt, somebody pulls a curtain off a Rembrandt, I
say, that's a Rembrandt. Did my saying that it was a Rembrandt
make it a Rembrandt? Did anything I do, did my approval
of it, did my believing it was a, no. It's just the revelation. It's just the sanctifying work
of the Spirit, sanctifying us with the truth. Every part of our salvation accomplished
before we were born except the revelation of it. The revelation
that it was done by another. The revelation that it's in Christ
Jesus. The revelation that it's because
God made us one with Him. Listen to these words in Hebrews
2. For both He that sanctifies and they who are sanctified are
all of one. We look just like Christ, because
we are in Christ, who the Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter
1 and verse 30, that we are made, He's made unto us. We don't make, but He's made
unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification. He is our sanctification. God set us apart in Christ. God viewed us in Christ. God
took us to the cross in Christ. God raised us from the dead in
Christ. God seated us in the heavenlies
in Christ. We reign in Christ our head even
now. while we await the change of
this body. But men, preachers of self-righteousness
and works, they use this word to steal this good news. They use the word of God to steal
the very good news of the gospel from God's people. They apply
wrong definitions of the word. They set men to doing to accomplish
their sanctification. They say it's a progressive thing
that you're involved with. My friend, if you have any involvement
in your salvation, then you got to have some glory in it. And if you think you have any
involvement in it, if that's what your sanctification is about,
you will glory in it. But the gospel of the sovereign
grace of God, The gospel of his predestinating love. The gospel
of the finished work of Christ on the cross. The gospel of full
and free and eternal salvation sets apart. Sets apart the elect. from this condemned world. Amen. It liberates them from
the bonds of works religion. It gives them a true and a lasting
and enduring peace. It alone motivates to good works. That's the only thing. How can
I, if God in grace and mercy and Christ set me apart unto
himself, how can I not obey his word? Oh, I just failed. He didn't fail. It never depended
on me at all. They're led by the Spirit of
God. They're sanctified. They're not
sanctimonious, just the opposite. They're sanctified, set apart
in Christ. They were that way from the beginning. They've never been condemned.
Oh, they fell in Adam, they fell, they did everything. just like
everybody else. But they've always been in Christ. One day in time, if they're His
sheep, if they are His, if they're not, they'll just go on in their
own sanctification, their own work, their own righteousness,
their own experience. But if they belong to Him, God will answer this prayer and send his spirit to sanctify
them with the truth. Altogether, Christ is the truth. But what identifies Christ as
the truth is the truth about Christ. and they'll hear the shepherd's
voice and follow him. One more verse, 2 Thessalonians. So many verses here, statements
Paul uses to speak of the mystery of iniquity, the wicked one,
the one whose coming is after the working of Satan with all
powers and signs and lying wonders and with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness in them that perish because they receive not
the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this
cause, God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe alone. That they all might be damned
who believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Most people think that means
they have pleasure with illicit sex or pleasure with illegal
drugs, or no, no. They have pleasure in their own
righteousness, their own standing, their own ideas, their own religion. But Paul says something, writing
to these believers at Thessalonica, But we are bound to give thanks
always to God for you. Brethren, beloved of the Lord,
because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation. Now notice this last part. Through
sanctification of the spirit. Why is he thanking God? Because
God, instead of all these people, everybody being deluded with
lies, the Spirit of God had revealed the gospel that Paul preached
to many of them who now believe. And they knew that God had from
the beginning chosen you to salvation through the sanctifying work
or setting apart of the Spirit and enabling them to believe
the truth and belief of the truth. Where unto he called you by our
gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Every true believer has been, is, and will be sanctified
for all eternity. Separated unto God. Separated
by God from this present evil world. Separated and placed in
Christ. To behold Him and that eternal
inheritance in him forever. Our Father, we thank you in the
name of Christ, who is our only hope, whose righteousness is
the only righteousness we possess. For grace that made us the righteousness
of God in him, for grace that reigns in righteousness. We thank you. And we pray that you would ever
keep us in this world until we're presented faultless before you
at the throne of glory. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.