Well, it's a great joy to me
to be with you. I really look forward to seeing you all again.
Your dear pastor is, I don't know why, but he's my dear friend,
and that has more to do with his love than mine, I think.
But I know you've been praying for us, and I thank you for your
love, your support, your prayers. Gary and Betty used to come across
quite a bit to England, where we were, but they don't come
to Down Under, I don't know why. It's about two and a half times
as far. I remember when I first met your
pastor and he was speaking at my induction when Brother Bill
Clark had just passed away and Brother Edgar Andrews was there. I had asked Bill, who he would
like to speak at the induction and he had said I have a friend
named Gary Sheppard and I hope he'll become your friend and
he has and he spoke on 2 Corinthians and the fourth chapter and he talked about this ministry
that we've received, the gospel ministry And he said that there
was a fraternity, a group that he never wanted to be among.
And it's down there in verse 5. For we preach not ourselves. He didn't want to be among those
who preach themselves. But there was a group that he...
wished to always be among, and he dared not deny, which was
those who preach not themselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and
ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. And I have remembered that
these 15 years or so, and I think it's a very, very important
principle. So, let's look at the One whom
we preach, because He is our salvation and our joy, and He
is the glory of God come to us by grace, and we are saved. And in Nehemiah, there's many
things that we could look at. It's a very moving book. And
I know with the Aboriginal people, they're in the same state as
the people of Israel were in. They're lost in sin, their society
is ruined, and everything is broken down. And the Australian
society generally is in that state, although it sees itself
as the lucky country and the best country in the world, as
we love our countries. But there's a tragedy about a
people that are just swept away before a greater nation and a
greater society and a more prolific conqueror. And in some ways Aboriginal
people are like that. They're only 2.5% of the population
of the country of Australia. 23 million people come from somewhere
else. But that wouldn't be the right
way to look at this. And we could look at it another way. We could
say, well, you know, we're like Nehemiah. We've got to rebuild
those walls. Now, whether we talk about Fortress
America, when we see what's happening in the Middle East and in Africa
with ISIS and Boko Haram and these other groups. And we could
say, that's what we've got to do as a people. That'd be wrong,
wouldn't it? That'd be wrong. Or we could say, here we are
in Onslow County, here we are in Jacksonville, Sovereign Grace
Baptist Church. We've got to rebuild those walls
of Sovereign Grace. And our pastor, he's just like
Nehemiah, he's leading us. We've got to have that vision
to gather together. That'd be wrong. That'd be wrong
too. Because our Lord Jesus has told
us, whether we know exactly, whether we can put it into words
or not, He said, these are they which speak of me. In John 5,
He went to another group of men who were fundamentally against
Him. but who thought they were great scholars, had much knowledge,
they knew what to do with the Scriptures. And he said to them,
search the Scriptures, for in them you think to find eternal
life. These are they which speak of
me. And even his disciples who walked
with him for three years did not understand why he had come. And will you at this time restore
the kingdom to Israel? And two men got so discouraged
with him fulfilling what he'd promised, and they'd failed to
hear, that they were walking away from Jerusalem, and he appeared
to them on Nehemiah's road, and he opened their eyes to understand
the Scriptures. Then he appeared to them all
in the upper room, and he went through the Psalms and the Prophets,
and he opened up the things concerning himself. We've got to be like
those Greeks who came to the disciples and said, Sir, we would
see Jesus. So I hope the Lord will help
us, because if it's left up to me, we're all in trouble. We're
in trouble. But over these three days, I
hope that we will see three things in this book. The servant of
the Lord, the saviour of the city, and the strength of His
people. The strength of His people. So we come and we see a man here
named Nehemiah and he has great privilege and tremendous, well,
responsibility. He is the prime minister of the
country. He is the man next to the king. He is the cup-bearer. He wasn't just the poison-taster,
he was the cup-bearer. This was the man that the king
trusted. He was like Joseph was to Pharaoh
in Egypt. And he's a long way from the
trouble. He's not in trouble. He has a
very powerful and a very prominent and a very permanent position
as far as humanity and the bravery of this life. But he has brethren
who are in trouble. And he's not ashamed to call
them brethren. And he calls them brethren in the first chapter
there. Hanani, one of my brethren, came. Came from where? Not a high and
lofty position, came from a ruined people. And I think it's good
to look at it that way. That Nehemiah is a man, he's
the servant of the Lord, but he's a man of sorrows. He's acquainted
with grief, he's a man of sympathy. And in that he's Christ-like,
but I'm rushing ahead, so I better just slow down a bit, I'm getting
there. I just wanted to say about a
book like this that it really shows us the difference between
the Old and the New Covenant, between being under the Law and
under Christ, between Law and Grace. And it points from one
to the other. The shadow of what we see in
the Lord Jesus Christ is here in this story. What you've got
here is you've got two cities. First city is the Jerusalem that
is below. Paul called it, he said, the
Jerusalem that now is. And at Paul's time, that city
was surrounded by those walls that Nehemiah and those people
four or five hundred years before had rebuilt. And the Jerusalem
that now is, that Paul spoke about, was that city whose walls
and gates had been rebuilt. in Nehemiah's time. But he said
that that city, and we can look it up in Galatians 4, it's good
to follow and not just take it for granted that the preacher
is always telling you the truth, as far as Bible references go.
And I might need you to help me, because if I don't find it,
none of you will. But in Galatians chapter 4, it
talks about there are two things that are in allegory, Hagar and
Sarah. Abraham had two sons. And it
compares the old and the new covenant, what it is to be in
bondage and what it is to be free. So we're here in Galatians
4 and 25 and 26, and you know, he's talking to those who are
turned aside from the gospel to another gospel, and desire
to be under the law as a covenant, as a creed, as a commandment,
and as a course of life that they think will lead to salvation,
a fuller salvation. And it's written, it says that
Abraham had two sons. One was a slave, one was a free
woman, one was bonded, one was free. One that was bonded, her
offspring are after the flesh, the fallen sinful nature. The
free woman, her offspring are after the promise, the free grace
and sovereign promises of God. And these things are an allegory,
they're something that speak of something greater, those two
figures. And I believe it's the same for Nehemiah and everything
in the Old Testament. They're an allegory, they show
us one thing, but they mean us to look and see a greater thing.
So they're a picture of something else. They're real, they're not
fantasy, they're not fairy tale. They're not like what Lizzie
loves, Frozen. My daughter Jessie loves it as
well. But that's just a fantasy. Those people, you could make
them represent anything, but they're not real. But these people are
real, and they represent something greater that is also real. And
here's what they represent. These are the two covenants.
Okay? And you know that there's the
law and then there's the covenant of grace. And the law was a covenant
under which Israel came into being. And it was for a time. It had a great purpose. And it
was to point us and to usher in and to bring us into knowledge
of a new covenant. To bring God's people, His people,
His chosen people. Israel were a picture of a people
chosen after, you know, earthly, fleshly, physical, material things.
But the people that they point to are people chosen in God from
before the foundation of the world to inherit endless, eternal,
spiritual realities. And so there's two covenants.
The one from Mount Sinai, that nails it down, doesn't it? We
know where that covenant was, we know what was given. The other,
he says, which engendered bondage, which is Agar. For this agar
is Mount Sinai in Arabia, an ancestor to Jerusalem, which
now is, and is in bondage with her children." Well, you see
them in bondage in Nehemiah. Not only are they under the law,
but they've broken the law. Nehemiah confesses their bondage.
He confesses their wretchedness. He confesses their undeservedness,
and that all these disasters have come upon them because of
their state of sin and separation from God. They're utterly ruined. And all their children are utterly
ruined. And he says, but Jerusalem which
is, is in bondage. But the Jerusalem which is above,
is another Jerusalem. Now, this is a wonderful thing. It's not the Jerusalem that is
today. We really shouldn't be too concerned to be obsessed
with the Jerusalem which is today's Jerusalem. There's too much of... Yeah, I just... I've got folks
out there, Aboriginal folks, they've gone over to Jordan and
been baptized, they've gone to Jerusalem and they came back
saying, how the Jewish people love the Word of God and it got
written on their heads. You know, these are the things
that... Really, the Lord dealt with in His day that somehow
there was this special place and this special city and God
was going to restore that city materially and that people politically. Well, that's not what God's intentions
are. He has a city which is called
Jerusalem which is above and it is free. There's no bondage,
there's nothing to chain it down, there's nothing to constrain.
It's free, which means not under sin, it's not under law, but
it's under the grace and freedom of being righteous in the eyes
of God and accepted in the Beloved. There are people who are free. Now, that's the most wonderful
thing. And we know that in our flesh
there dwells no good thing, but we know that in Christ we have
every good thing, and we're accepted in the Beloved, and we are free.
And this Jerusalem which is above is what we should be looking
for, because you see, Jess is... Well, I knew I'd work her in
here somehow. I've got a little new granddaughter.
She's my first granddaughter. She's the only granddaughter.
And my eldest daughter Joanna is her mother, and she's born
two weeks ago. So the mother of all my grandchildren
is my daughter Joanna, and there's just one of them. Well, I can
tell you the mother of all God's children, and this is a type,
it's a metaphor. The church doesn't exist except
in Christ. But what is the Jerusalem that
is above? It is the mother of us all. That is, that city that's above,
that's pictured in Revelation, that's where we're going next.
We could go to Revelation 21. It's the mother of us all. All
of God's people, all of God's chosen, all whom He calls, all
whom He foreknew, all whom He predestined. Those who are justified
and glorified as far as God is concerned already. They are members
of that city, which is above. So when we go to Nehemiah, we're
looking for the Jerusalem that's above. Because we are, and I
trust this is so, I pray God would reveal it so to you if
it's not. We who are chosen, we who have
been brought to Jesus, weary and worn and sad, as Lorna sang,
and found in Him a resting place. And now He's made us glad. We seek a city. Here we have
no continuing city. But we seek a city whose builder
and maker is God. And that New Jerusalem should
be very precious to us because it says that the King is the
light day and night. It's there that every tear is
wiped away, and there's no more death, nor suffering, nor sorrow.
It's there that we shall see Him as He is, and we shall be
like Him, and nothing will ever part us or Him again, and there
is only righteousness. There is only righteousness and
love and peace and truth, and all the wonders and glory of
God for us to enjoy, because we will enjoy Him. We will enjoy
Him. And I know many of you and you
enjoy Him, but you know that your lives are checkered lives
like mine is. Checkered with the sorrow of
sin and of love misdirected. And it'll be good to be free. of selfishness, sin and sorrow
and suffering and pain. But you see, here is that city,
and we need to... I don't want to press this too
much, but I need to press it enough, because... What did John
see in chapter 21? of revelation. He saw a new heaven
and a new earth. Now, new means endlessly alive,
unsullied, endlessly growing and created. It's just new. There's
nothing old, there's nothing degenerate about it. It's just
this fountain of invigorated life and constancy. It's always
new. It's a new heaven. It's a new
earth. It's the opposite to the heavens that are above this earth,
where destruction and death and degeneration, they're aging. Even the scientists say that
it's all dispersing. But this is new. It's perpetually
relevant, current. First heaven and the first earth
have passed away. There's no more sea. And what did John see?
He saw the holy city. All right, so he was looking
down at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. No. He saw the holy
city coming down out of heaven from God. So, you know, this
is something that doesn't need to be rebuilt. This is something
that doesn't depend on earth. but comes from heaven. You know,
I was thinking about this this afternoon. You should know the
thoughts that you haven't really thought about. But when Jesus said, I
go to prepare a place for you, I believe this is what he's talking
about. But he's building it with living stones. The walls of this
city and the foundation of this city, they're alive. It's living
stones. It's a picture again. But coming
down from out of heaven from God, prepared what? as a bride
adorned for her husband. And this is how we know this
is the church, because you go a little bit further into this
chapter, and you go down to verse 9, and it says, And there came
unto me one of seven angels, which had the seven vials full
of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come
hither, come here, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife. Who is the Lamb's wife? God's people, His people, the
Church, the Church of Jesus Christ, purchased by His blood, for whom
He gave Himself, for whom He came. So we want to look for
a Jerusalem that's above, and therefore we want to look to
one who is a servant of the Lord, and He's greater than Nehemiah.
But Nehemiah points us to Him, and actually Nehemiah depends
upon Him. Nehemiah depends upon him. Because the first thing
is that we see his sorrow and his sympathy. Well, I don't think anything but a
true work of grace can bring a genuine sense of sorrow and
sympathy and of mercy and compassion towards. We have naturally our
comfort zones. I can tell you my comfort zone
is not naturally to love Aboriginal people. And theirs certainly
is not to love someone with white skin. You know, so there's something
of the spirit of Christ in Nehemiah that he calls these people who,
he's had a very different life. You know, he's been the child
of the exile, he's never known Jerusalem. He's grown up in privilege
and power. He's not even naturally accustomed
to them, and there are tensions between them and him when he
comes. But he's got the spirit of compassion, because I believe
he has that spirit of Christ. And so we've got to look from
the lesser. For it's one thing for us to feel compassion and
a true sense of mercy that's unconditional, as much as fallen
flesh can do that. But the author of it is the one
who is not ashamed to call us brethren. So this servant of
the Lord, the first thing is he's not ashamed to call those
who are broken and ruined and separated from him by great distance. And he has high privilege and
they have nothing. He's not ashamed to call them
brethren. And you'll see that he feeds
them. If you read this book, he has a tremendous number of
people that he's feeding from his own hand as soon as he gets
there, because they have nothing. Later on, if you get into chapter
8, when they're weeping under a broken law and they've become
conscious of their state before God, He tells them to go and
prepare for those for whom nothing is prepared, and to eat the fat,
and to drink the sweet. And where is that going to come
from? It's going to come from His hands, as the one who's been
given every provision for them. So He's unashamed to call them
brethren, and He's given provision to rebuild. from the ruins and
to restore what was lost and to redeem. And you see Nehemiah
giving that, don't you? The king says, what we need.
Now God without measure has given his son his spirit and he's given
all the kings of the earth into his hand. There's nothing that's denied
or limited. Everything is given. for the
redemption of a people, for them to inherit a kingdom, for them
to have a city whose builder and maker is God and to be citizens
in it. And there is safety. These are the people that are
being plundered, ruined. And you know Sambalat, Tobijah
and another fellow named Geshem the Arab, they're at the head
of the wolves that are wanting to rip them to shreds and keep
them like stall-fed calves until they're fattened for the slaughter.
And he, this man Nehemiah, what's he come to seek? I think it's
beautiful because it shows us a greater Lord and a greater
Saviour, but it shows us the Spirit of Christ here to be found
in this book. In verse 10 of chapter 2, when
Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard
of it, it grieved them exceedingly. Why? That there was come a man
to seek the welfare of the children of Jerusalem. It grieved them, they hated it.
Why? Because they profited in not
seeking the welfare of the children of Jerusalem. And they would
lose their profit and their position and their advantage. They cared
nothing for those they fed on and kept captive. But someone
had come to seek their welfare. And that to me is the sympathy
and the one who is touched with our infirmities. We're told in
Hebrews 2 that we do not have a savior who cannot be touched,
a high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.
And in every way is tested as we are. And that's what Nehemiah
does, doesn't he? He doesn't say, well, thank you,
my Lord the King. Please send all your builders
and your best architects and go down to Jerusalem and get
them to report back and you and I can work out how they're doing.
He says, send me. I can't stay here while they're
in this state. Here am I, send me. Well, the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit covenanted together in old eternity. that
the Lord Jesus would go and he would do the work that no man
could do and he would take a ruined people and he would restore to
them Not just the image of God, but He would give them much more.
He would redeem them to Himself. And they would inherit His image
as a free gift from the Father through the Son by the Living
Spirit. So you've got a greater... This man, he's not just touched
with the filling of our infirmities. He's sent by a sovereign. He's
sent by a sovereign Lord. Now, in the book it would seem
there's this king, Artaxerxes, who's sending him. But that king's
just an instrument. The sovereign Lord who sends
him is the sovereign Lord to whom he has prayed. It's the
sovereign Lord who has stirred his heart up to pray, has stirred
his heart up to mourn, has made him a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. And you see those parallels?
The greater man of sorrows, the greater man of grief. And he
has said, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God that
keeps covenant and mercy for them that love him and observes
his commandments. Let your ear now be attentive
and your eyes open that you may hear the prayer of your servant
which I pray before you now day and night for the children of
Israel. Confess the sins of the children
of Israel. We have dealt very corruptly.
Remember I beseech you the word that you commanded your servant.
And then he talks about a people that are redeemed. And that troubled
me. I'm thinking, how can they be
redeemed when they've done all this? And I believe Nehemiah
in his prayer is laying hold of the work of Christ. He sees
the end of what God intends. That they are redeemed because
of what God is going to do. Let now your ear be attentive
to the prayer of your servant." So he's sent. And what happens
is, you know, first of all he starts the Jerusalem Relief Fund.
Then he gets the young people to form the Name and Claim Jerusalem
Club. Then he marches down through
Chislev, the capital. Then he produces pamphlets, calling
upon people to petition the king. Lobby the government. Now what
does he do? He just goes about his business.
He just goes about his business. There have been people seeking
to convert Aboriginal people for a hundred years. There is
more money and more education and more equality and more medical
services and more religious interaction than there has ever been. And the situation is worse than
it's ever been. The flesh grows corrupt according
to deceitful lust, the wound is incurable. The only answer to the ruin of
sin is the righteousness of Christ in redemption. And that is in
the hands of God. You can't work it up. You can't
lobby for it. And you cannot make things happen.
until God makes things happen. And then it's out of our hands
and into His. So Nehemiah is a vessel. He's an earthen vessel. But entrusted to him are immeasurable
riches. So what happens is, he is serving
the Lord in doing what he's called to do every day. And then He
knows that God is going to hear, and he's worried about what's
going to happen. He says, I'm very afraid, because
I'm the king's cup bearer. And suddenly he's gone from a
position of privilege to a position of real vulnerability. Because
the world does not love the Lord Jesus Christ. The world does
not love the God of heaven. Many kings these things have
been hidden from there's not the mighty and the noble that
are chosen not many anyway And so he doesn't know what the sovereign
Lord intends But he waits he has the patience and the perseverance
of a saint and I don't mean st. Jude or these other Fellas that
are made up as if they're cut above everybody else. I mean
one of God's people called holy chosen separated and He has that perseverance and
He is patient. That's one of the fruit of God's
Spirit. The fruit of God's Spirit is
one whole fruit, it's not all these different things. One of
the attributes of that fruit that the Spirit imparts is patience.
And that's what he imparts. And one day the king says, what's
the matter? You see, because if you serve an earthly potentate,
you serve someone who is the head honcho in the country, he's
the man to be with. You mustn't look sick in his
presence. You mustn't look unhappy. Why would you be unhappy? You're
with the king. Gary was telling me about Lee
Myers and carrying the football. I just hope the President didn't
expect him to smile about that all the time. It's just so great
to be here. That's what kings expect. Why
would you be unhappy with the greatest man on earth? If you
are unhappy, is it because you don't wish to be with the greatest?
And if you're the cup bearer, well, that was the one way to
get rid of the king was to put poison in. And so the king says
that to him and suddenly he's the choice between whether the king will say, well
if you're unhappy in my presence you'll be happier in a dungeon,
or the king's saying this because his heart's been moved to consider
something. So he tells the truth. How can
I be happy when? And what happens is he is sent
by his king. but is sent because of his sovereign
Lord. The Proverbs says it, doesn't it? The heart of the king is
in the Lord's hands and he turns it whithersoever he will. Artaxerxes
is a despotic, idolatrous, fallen, murderous sinner. And God turns
him in his hand to be the handmaiden of salvation. Yeah, so that's
a great thing. And so he's not just a servant
who's a man of sorrows and sympathizing Nehemiah, but he's a servant
who's sent by a sovereign Lord. And you know, our Lord Jesus
was sent by the Father. And he submitted himself to his
Father in everything, and that didn't mean a loss of glory or
honor or divinity. but it meant an act of salvation
and service. And it talks about it, doesn't
it? It says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ
Jesus. You could look it up there in
Philippians. It's good to look it up, because
this is, as the hymn writer says, mild he lays his glory by, born
that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth, born
to give them second birth. He came into this world He entered
into the human condition, not a fallen condition. He was without
sin. And he has always been without
sin, and he will always be without sin. And there was never a time
when he was not the righteous, sinless son of God. But he came
into this world, and we're told that the same mind that was in
him should be our mind. who being in the form of God,
verse 6 of chapter 2 of Philippians, who being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but what did
he do? He made himself of no reputation, and it took upon
him the form of a servant, and he was made in the likeness of
men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself
and he became obedient unto death, even death, of the cross, wherefore
God also hath highly exalted him, and given him the name which
is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow." And you see here where this servant of the Lord
far exceeds Nehemiah. But he did take the form of a
servant, and he was obedient, and he came in the likeness of
men. Now we see that Nehemiah doesn't send someone else. Nehemiah
comes to Jerusalem. And like our Lord Jesus, he doesn't
come with a great trumpet and fanfare. You look how he comes
into the city, what he does. And we'll look at this a little
bit more tomorrow night, God willing. But it says there that,
so I came to Jerusalem. In verse 11 of chapter 2, And
I was there three days, and I arose in the night, I and some few
men with me. Neither told I any man what my
God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem. Don't you think
that's, you know, the Lord Jesus Christ came, didn't he? To whom
was he revealed? A handful of shepherds. A caravan
of strangers coming from the East. Just a few. Mary and Joseph
there. There's no great fanfare. 30 years he was veiled. His mother
knew a little. It's just wonderful. It's hidden
from us still, isn't it? You can't go through Jesus' teenage
years. He was veiled. It was hidden.
The people didn't know. And then he was revealed. And
I think Nehemiah points us to that. And we'll look at some
other things that that tells us too about our Saviour. But
the final thing is this. He has come into the world to
seek the welfare of the children of God. And they are sinners like all
the others. But he is going to save them.
Now, such is the evil of the human heart that the prospect
of complete actual rescue from everything that is the source
of human sorrow is hated. Unless we can do it ourselves.
We've got to be able to do it ourselves. There's got to be
something in it for us. Sam Belat, our Horonite, and
Tobijah the servant, the Ammonite, have been in Jerusalem for a
very long time, and they've been peddling everything that the Israelites
need at a price. And it hasn't improved their
condition at all. Now, isn't that the testimony
of every false and flawed and impotent religious and commercial
thing that people try to do to improve the human condition?
Look, I tell you, prone to wander, Lord, I feel
it, prone to leave the God I love, when you're confronted with the
way things are, And whether it's in Jacksonville or Galaganbone,
if you can say that. Galaganbone, it means the place
of birds in Gamilaroi, but a little town of 500 people. It doesn't matter where it is.
Change and decay is all around. And if you're looking for a silver
bullet, if you're looking for some way that you can contribute
You don't have to look very far to find that there are a lot
of people who can testify. We see people who are absolutely
full of cynicism. Others are full of anxiety and
anger. And the reason is because everything
they try fails. And a good friend of mine said,
you want to be careful out here. He said, you need to get two
things clear in your mind. And the first thing he said is
this, what your identity is. He said,
there are going to be times when you see what the laws of our
country robbed the aboriginals of. And when you visit massacre
sites, and when you hear, even today, the way the majority of
people out there, particularly the farmers and others, talk
about the blacks, you're going to hate the fact you're a white
man. And he said, you're going to see these aboriginal people,
and we're given more opportunity now than any white man's ever
given, and who are lost in drink and drugs and their children
are just consumed by the worst evils of their culture and the
Western culture joined together. You're going to hate the black
people. You're going to say, what a waste. But he said, you've
got to get something. You're not white or black primarily. Your identity has to be in Christ. You're a child of God and a servant
of the Most High. and not come to choose a racial
loyalty and despise one and embrace the other. The second thing is
this. Don't be fooled into thinking
that there's some other solution. The only solution for any ruined
sinner is redemption in Jesus Christ. So you have to preach
the gospel because it's the power of God under salvation. And there
is no other remedy. Christ is everything. And if
He is declared, then He will save His people. And that was
good advice. That was good advice. I'm a bit thick, but sometimes
I recognize good advice because it's reflected on the pages of
scripture. So the third thing, here's this man of sorrows, here's
this servant sent by a sovereign. The third thing is this, he is
going to suffer the contradictions of sinners against himself. Isn't this what happens to Nehemiah?
Because these men that are grieved, they form the opposition. And
they get Geshe-min as well, and they stir up other men. At one
stage they've got an armed insurrection, they're just about to descend.
And another time they're ready to murder him, and they say,
come down to us, come to him, we need to talk. You know, when
people say to me, we need to talk, I'm always a bit worried. And if they want to speak to
me in love, I'm even more worried. Now, we should speak to one another
in love, but people veil their intentions with, hey, well met,
good fellow. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ, He
was the one who suffered contradictions at the hands of sinners. We're
told it, aren't we, in Hebrews, that it's something that was Worthy for us to consider when
we're feeling faint or weird in our minds Now I don't know
about you, but you know Well Gary and I lost a bit of weight
we were comparing belt sizes and he'd gone down from 40 to
36 and I got from 46 down to 40 and It's mainly because we
realize that our diabetes we can't keep feeding it sugar and It hasn't all been living in
the outback and, you know, off kangaroo, which we do eat and
it's fat free. But there is something noteworthy
about that, I guess, but there's something more noteworthy about
what our Lord Jesus suffered. We have these infirmities and
they change our form. But he suffered the contradiction
of sinners against himself. And the apostle, and therefore
our Lord, wanted us to consider this. That we should look unto
Jesus. the author and the finisher of
our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the
cross and despised the shame and is set down at the right
hand of God, we should consider him that endured, not a disease,
he endured the contradiction of sinners against himself. Now,
would you think that that was the opposition that was worthy
of mention? He endured the satanic opposition
of demonic hordes. That's not the worst evil. You
know, people pump this up. And I tell you, they pump it
up to Aboriginal people out where I am. There are demons under
every bed, and people have got to be exorcised. It's just nonsense,
because no amount of that sort of activity or any other activity,
that's not the worst evil. The worst evil is the opposition
of sinners. That's the greatest trial that
our Lord Jesus endured, other than the cross. The cross was
where he met the wrath of God in our place, and the justice
of God in our place. when he stood and he received
the condemnation that we should have if we were standing in that
place. But the biggest opposition and
trial in this earthly life that is noteworthy here is the opposition,
the hostility of sinners against himself. Now why do you think,
why do you think God chose that to encourage us to run the race
that is set before us and to set our eyes upon Jesus. Well,
if you tell people the way that God really is, and if you tell
people the way that they really are, and if you tell people that
the only way of salvation is through who Jesus really is and
what God has chosen to do, they will contradict you every time.
until in a sovereign work of salvation God opens their eyes. I'm sure there are people here
who contradict that can't be the way, that's not fair. The contradiction of sinners
against himself still happens as we present him as he is in
the gospel. And I believe that in some ways that is how we carry
the reproach of Christ. At times our trials are called
the sufferings of Christ because we're His body, we're His people. Nehemiah had to endure it. And
it wasn't just, you know, these men outside the wall. Even the
temple rooms were rented out by one of the priests to the
same man who was opposing him. So that contradiction of sinners
can be a bit closer at hand sometimes than we expect. But I say to
you again, brothers and sisters, what should encourage you and
I is that we have our Saviour who is a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. that He is sent from a sovereign
Lord, and even to the point of enduring contradiction of sins
against Himself. For the joy that was set before
Him, He endured the cross and He despised the shame to bring
us to God. And that's something worth rejoicing
in.