Well, we ought to give thanks
that we live in an area with so many churches reasonably close. We've got a deep bench, you know. And you know, when I was a kid,
I was kind of the last one on the bench, you know. They were
reaching deep when they got down there. That's OK. I'm thankful. And I notice this sometimes more
than at others. I'm so thankful that I am among
those whom God was pleased to lay his hand to make him a preacher
of the gospel. Now, I understand that in some
sense, every child of God is a preacher of the gospel. But
we also realize from the book of Ephesians when it describes
the gifts that God has given These are all miraculous gifts,
every one of them. And one of them was pastor and
teacher. And I've been doing that for
37 years almost there in Iowa. I did it for three and a half
years before that in Owensboro. But I've seen some things happen. And knowing me and knowing what
I can naturally do I must affirm it's miraculous. You know, the
churches that call themselves charismatic have no right to
the name because charismatic comes from the Greek word for
grace. And they don't even know what grace is, much less do they
possess it. And they think charismatic means
something that is, um, miraculous in a sense, everyone would recognize. Well, those sign gifts, which
they emphasize so much, it's my opinion, and I think that
it comports with scripture, though the scriptures do not address
the issue directly, but I think they were for the first generation.
They were there to confirm the message of the apostles. And
once they got done writing down what they said, we don't need
confirmation. We've got this, we got the book. So it's not like I think God
can't do those miracles, there's just not a need for them. But there is still a need for
pastor teachers, there's the need for those who can do works
of mercy. Everybody in the church, I believe,
has a miraculous, has the ability to do miraculous things, may
not have any idea what those things are, probably will not
see the fruit of them until they're on the other side, and that's
a good thing. You see what happens when supposed miracle workers
can see the fruit of what they're doing. And well, you don't need
two messages tonight. I'm getting off the thing. Open
your book, your Bibles to Daniel 6. Daniel chapter 6. Now this is
a story that probably every church goer over six years old knows.
Daniel in the lion's den. And it's a good story. Much can be gathered from it,
but I want to focus on one thing in particular, but we're going
to begin reading at verse 16. Then the king commanded and they
brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions. Now the king
spake and said unto Daniel, thy God, whom thou service continually,
he will deliver thee. And the stone was brought and
laid upon the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his
own signet, and with the signet of his Lord's, that the purpose
might not be changed concerning Daniel. Then the king went to
his palace and passed the night fasting. Neither were instruments
of music brought before him, and his sleep went from him. Then the king arose very early
in the morning and went in haste into the den of lions. And when
he came to the den, he cried with a lamentable voice unto
Daniel. And the king spake and said to
Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom
thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions.'
Then said Daniel unto the king, O king, live forever. My God hath sent his angel, and
hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me. For
as much as before him innocency was found in me, and also before
thee, O king, have I done no hurt. Then was the king exceeding
glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out
of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of
the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him. because he
believed in his God. Now, the theme for this evening
is in verse 20, is thy God whom thou service continually able
to deliver thee from the lions. Now, this is a great question
for religious people. It gets to the very heart of
the matter. A God who cannot save is not
God. It's that simple. And we're not
saying that to be mean to anybody. We're not saying that to make
us look better. Because the fact that we believe
in a God that can save doesn't make us better than other people.
It means we worship a better God. But that's not something for
us to glory in. We glory in our God, but we don't
glory in the fact that we worship him. I would hate to try to get
to heaven on my worship. But a God who cannot save is
not a God. Some need this question posed
to them, for they need to question whether it is their God who is
doing the saving in the first place. You know, when you, you
listen to some preaching that goes on and, and we'll just pretty
much limit our conversation this evening or talk to those groups
that consider themselves to be Christian, to take the name.
When you listen to them preaching really their God doesn't have
a whole lot to do with saving, or at least has very little to
do in determining who is saved. I was driving, if you've been out to Brian and
Mary's, you know there's about a three quarter mile road that's
a one lane road that you sometimes have to share. And all the way
out there is what I call, somebody's got in their yard, I call them
Bathtub Marys. I've called them that ever since I lived in Owensboro,
which is a very Catholic town. And the people with enough money
could go out and buy the little alcove shrine and then put their
little Mary in there. And the ones who didn't have
enough money, they could get the Mary but not the shrine.
They'd find an old tub, turn it on its end, bury it enough,
you know, and make a little alcove that way. They don't even talk about the
Savior much. I mean, it's obvious who they
worship, no matter what they say. Words are really cheap,
you know. But the one, you know, they say,
well, we don't worship Mary, we venerate her. I'm saying,
well, I see images everywhere. Almost never even see an image
of Jesus. Not that I think that would be
a good thing, but you would think if the Lord Jesus were the focal
point of their faith, that's what you would see. No, many of them use the name
of God. They quite literally use it.
I made a statement from the Pope at one time as one, I didn't
know if I'd get away with it, but I said, God is useless. And, you know, you pause for
a second and you say, you see, God is not used by anybody. He doesn't, I've said, He doesn't
serve any purpose. He is the purpose. He doesn't serve anything. Our God saves because he wants
to, because he can. His will and his ability join
together to save those who are in more trouble than they can
get themselves out of. And he's glorified in that. Most professing Christians are
not really trusting God to do the saving. They actually think
that it's something to do with their decision making or their
religiosity, how dedicated they are, how committed they are,
all these things. None of that is a cause of our
salvation. Some of those things may be the
result of it, but they are not the cause. Some need this question for they
do believe they have served or worshiped their God continually. They believe that he is able
to save in the abstract sense of the word, but they do not
believe that they have been saved or at least they have no real
assurance of the fact that God has saved them. Now, when I developed
this message, I was thinking of the people that I pastor there and most of them who began that
church came out of a church that they never say it in so many
words, but this is what it came to, you can believe the gospel
and still be lost. If you've not had some confirming
experience, or you know, and I don't have time to go into
all the different confirming experiences I heard of, some of them just
plain silly, but there's gotta be something that gives you a
warrant to believe. And I remember when I first realized
that's what these people were coming out of, I thought, I've
never heard such a thing. Half the group that's trying
to start that church didn't believe that God saved them. And I said,
man, right where I come from, everybody's been saved. Some
of them, two and three times, you know? to run into a group
of people. But see, they had a corrupted
version of the gospel. And literally, doctrinally, they
had the gospel. They had it there in their doctrine.
But there were those who had twisted it and made it mean something. They had taken the blessedness
of the sovereignty of God and salvation. And see, I don't see
that as hardness. Some people say, oh, that's hard
doctrine, that's tough. It may be to the flesh, because it takes things out of
the hands of the flesh. But I love that God is sovereign
in salvation. I don't see it as a doctrine
that we need to sneak up on people with, that we need to kind of
ease them into. We don't have to beat them about
the head and shoulders with it. It ought to be something that
when we tell them that, they should rejoice just like we do.
Why? Because God is sovereign in salvation,
somebody is going to be saved. If he wasn't sovereign in salvation,
how many would be saved? None. But a proper answer to this question
will reveal whether a person needs to change gods. If you
have really served a god and he has not saved you, you need
a different god. You don't need to change your
theology. I mean, that's not gonna be enough. You don't need
to change your conduct. You need another god. Because
when you're serving, it doesn't work. First thing to note in this story
is that the believer has bitter enemies in this world. This whole thing with Daniel
was a setup. It was a setup by people who hated him. They despised him so much, they
got a proud, self-inflated king to write a stupid law. And you know those kings, boy,
once they got their head full of power and thought they were
something, you could talk them into anything. As long as you
made, oh, king, you are really gonna be something. You built
this statue of yourself, you'll go down in history, I'll tell
you. You do this, you do, and they just played him. And they
made him do something he'd have never done if he'd have known
what was going on. I'm not saying that this guy
was a believer, but among the empire builders of history, it
seems like he was a relatively decent guy. He liked Daniel.
He respected Daniel. But those who hated Daniel got
him caught up in his own law, such that there was no way out
for him, but to put Daniel in a lion's den. Daniel did nothing
worthy of their hatred. but they conspired to destroy
him. It says of our Lord, they hated
me without a cause. Now brethren, I mentioned here
that the world hates us. Sometimes we give them good reason.
And we can't say we're being persecuted when we do. Not all
the sufferings that Christians endure is persecution for the
gospel's sake. Sometimes it's for being a jerk.
It's for being so full of ourselves, even as we're trying to preach,
that we come off self-righteous and judgmental. And I don't blame
the world if they think ill of us. But Daniel hadn't done anything
to these men. There was no reason for them to hate him. They were
not his enemies through any fault of his own. As believers, we're
exhorted to do all we can to be at peace with all people. I remember, and I know we're
going back nearly 20 years now, well, at least 20 years. But anyway, that group of, sad
to say, I didn't realize this until I looked them up, they
were Sovereign Grace Baptists. Westboro Baptist Church, they
go to all those, whenever anybody, any soldiers got killed over
there in Iraq or wherever we were fighting, and they go and
picket with those signs that God hates fags. Well, no wonder the world looks
poorly on believers. That's what they did. We are
to remove from our hearts and lives all malice, all envy, unkindness,
and selfishness. We are to exhibit love for all. Now, don't have time to go into
a lengthy definition of what love is. Love doesn't mean you
like them. You can love them and think that
the crimes that they have done are worthy of being locked up
for the rest of their lives. You can love them and even think
the best thing would be that they be executed for what they've
done. Love is just like when you had
children. Love didn't always mean you treated
them the way they wanted to be treated. But brethren, we ought
always to love people. And this is one aspect of love. Love is a selfless thing. Love
is looking for what is best for the object of love. But the enmity of our enemies
is prompted by at least three things. It's, first of all, prompted
by their hostility toward the God we worship. The Lord said
to the disciples, if they hate you, they hate me first. Just
keep that in mind. and they'll hate you because
of me. Romans 8, 7 says, because the
carnal mind is enmity against God. Now, that's a pretty strong
statement about the natural mind. The carnal mind, when the Bible
speaks about carnal things or fleshly things, and that's the
same word. In the Hebrew, I mean, excuse
me, in the Greek, it's the word sarx. But you can, you know, the word
carnal, you find that in other languages used for like meat. You know, if you get chili con
carne, that's chili with meat. Well, carnal, it's the flesh.
And as near as I can tell from the scripture, that's exactly
what it means. It's this, it's what you were born. Everything
you were born with is flesh. Flesh begets flesh, and that's
all it can beget. So whatever you were when you
were born, that's flesh and the mind associated with that flesh. And I think by mind, we could
put in there the way of thinking. The way of thinking of the flesh
is enmity towards God. It's enmity towards God, even
if the person's never heard of God, because it runs contrary
to all of God's ways. You know, I've told folks at
our church, I said, there's two things you need to teach your
children. It's the most important things you'll ever teach your
children. First of all, there is a God. Secondly, it's not
them. You got to get that through to
them, because I've even read this, you know, in works of psychology. Supposedly, when children are
born into this world, they think they're the only one that is.
If they had words, they would say, I am. Well, then they learn
there's mom, but they kind of think mom and themselves is all
one. And they, it's a process. They
call it separation and individuation. They go through this process
of, okay, mom's another person. Well, here's another person.
And they go, it's a long 20 year drug out affair because we come into this world
thinking we're God. Consequently. even as we learn
decent manners in society so that we can live our lives together
in a reasonable amount of assurance that our neighbor won't kill
us. Everything a man does, he does contrary to the way God
wants it done. I hate to say the word want,
but there's not another word I can think of. You know what
I mean. The world hates our God. Therefore,
it hates his followers as well. Now, this hatred does not necessarily
appear as malicious, a seething hatred. Quite often, it's simply
a dismissal of him. What if Pharaoh said, when Moses
came and said, thus saith Jehovah, let my people go. Who's Jehovah? That I should listen to him.
And God gave him 10 lessons on who he is. He should have asked
it with a little more reference maybe, but it was a legitimate
question seeing that he did not believe. And it really doesn't
appear that the Jews were even worshiping him by that time in
Egypt. Well, who is this God? And God
showed him who he is. Another thing that causes their
hatred towards believers, their envy of the believer. They might
be envious of the life of a believer. Not all believers are equally
able to live out the grace that they have received. But the more
a believer is able to live that grace out, the more envious the
unbelieving world will be. The believer's life is characterized
by love, joy, and peace. These are things the worldling
wants. but can't get. Now we're almost, you know, the
adults here, with the exception of my son and his family, we
remember the 60s. Remember, give peace a chance. The problem with giving peace
a chance is you've got to be humbled enough to let another
man do what they want to do. When they say give peace a chance,
what they're saying is, would you just do things the way I
want them done so we can be at peace? It's really what it is. And yet they look at believers,
and if believers are living out the grace that they've been given,
they are a people at peace. Especially are they at peace
with one another? They have peace. They love. These are things the worldly
wants and pretends he has, but he can't get it. The religious world is envious
of the freeness with which the believer enjoys all these blessings
from his God. The worldly religious person
is like the older brother of the prodigal son. You know, the
prodigal son was perfectly happy I'm not, the brother of the prodigal
son was perfectly happy until the prodigal son came home and
dad threw a party. And he said, you just hear him. That good for nothing comes home. I've been working. I've done
what my dad wanted me to do. My dad's got it easy right now
because I've taken on the burden of the farm. I'm the one in charge
now and I'm the one raising the sheep. I'm doing all this and
that guy who wasted half dad's substance comes home and they
throw him a party. And I love what the father said
to him. He said, son, everything I have
is yours. Come inside. You're the only
one not having a good time. We ought to have a great deal
of pity on the religious people of these worlds, really. Think
of what a mess they're in. They cannot enjoy what we enjoy. And when they see that they have
worked and worked and worked and been unable to get what they
want, and we, without lifting a finger, get it all, no wonder
they're upset. And the goodness of believers'
lives condemns the sinfulness of their own lives. Now, I know
we don't like to talk about our goodness. Understand there's
a difference between righteous and good. And Paul considers
being good superior to being righteous. Remember he said,
well, you're not gonna get someone to die for a righteous man. Maybe
for a good man you'd get someone to die. So that cues you into
what goodness is. Righteousness always pertains
to law. And there are a lot of people
in this world you would not be able to convict them of anything
under a moral law. They give 100 cents for every
dollar. If they have employees, those
employees get everything that was contracted, but nothing more. You know what good works are?
You know what goodness is? You realize that the Levite and
the priest who passed up the guy in the ditch were doing what
was right. They were preserving themselves
from uncleanness through touching what they suspected was a dead
body. You'll notice we call that parable
not the righteous Samaritan, the good Samaritan, because he
did not concern himself with merely fulfilling some kind of
righteousness. He did what that person needed
done. And believers' lives should be
characterized by that. Certainly we are, as Paul says,
to do good to all men, especially those of the household of faith.
We ought to look for opportunities to do good for one another, to
improve their lives, and especially if they are in need. There should
be no such thing as a believer in need when there's believers
who have excess. That's just the way it is. Always doing what is good. Now, when we talk about people
being envious of the goodness of believers' lives, we're not
speaking of a strict morality here, for often the worldly religious
person, they have a stricter morality than the believer does.
Rather, it's the believer's love and kindness and gentleness and
goodness to those around him. And what that does, it puts the
lie to their righteousness. That's not what we're trying
to do. We're just trying to be good folk. Do you remember where
it says that this is the verdict, light came into the world, but
men loved darkness rather than light for their deeds were evil.
Now that doesn't mean that when light came into the world, it
suddenly exposed all the drunks and prostitutes. You don't need much light to
figure that out. Who was it hiding in the shadows of the law with
their righteous robes? I thank you, God, I'm not like
other men. And the light came into the world and all at once.
Yes, you are. You're like other men. You express
your sinfulness differently, but still sin. And when a believer
lives in goodness, as I've described it, it just, it puts the lie
to the fake righteousness. of religious people. As believers in our Lord Jesus
Christ, we should never be surprised if the world hates us. It hates
him. The second thing to note in this
story is a remarkable example of faith in the conduct of Daniel.
Faith is a miraculous thing. That is, faith in the living
God, saving faith, however you want to describe it. All men
have faith of a sort. but there is a faith that's a
miraculous faith. And I think this is an important
point, because a lot of people think that faith in God, that's
simply taking the faith you had in another God and putting it
in the right God. No. Whatever you had that was
called faith before you were born again, that faith, even
if it's in the right God, all you've become is an Orthodox
believer. You've become a believer according
to the right forms, This faith, this miraculous thing, is a matter
of knowing Him. Paul said, I know whom I have
believed. I know this systematic theology.
I've read this set of books. I am a follower of this particular
form of Christian religion. I know whom I have believed. And I'm persuaded. Persuaded
of something. In fact, the Greek word for faith,
as I understand it, what study I've done, it's most essential
meaning, or maybe what you call us etymology, it's a persuasion.
It's a persuasion. But it's not a persuasion about
me. I'm persuaded that he is able. Abraham's faith was described
as he believed God was able to do what he promised. Now it can't
be faith until there's a promise. Until there's a promise, it's
just presumption or hope. But when there's a promise, and you
believe it, and you rely upon it, that's faith. But he goes
on, he says, I'm persuaded that he's able to keep that which
I've committed unto him. Now you could know about the
living God, know about him accurately, so far as doctrine's concerned,
You could be absolutely persuaded that he can save you. But there's
one more step, if that's the way to put this. You actually
commit the care of your soul to him. You say, okay, I can't
do this. You handle it. And that is the trust aspect
of faith. Some banks are called, you know,
such and such bank and trust. The bank just means where they
store up a bunch of stuff. But then you want a bank you
can trust. You want a bank you can entrust
their integrity that they won't steal it from you. And you want
a bank that you have trust in their facilities that you, you
know, the robbers can't come in there and get it. But we trust
God. That's faith. We need to be careful that we
never diminish the value of faith. We have to make sure that our
declaration of faith is not merely a reaction to what's wrong. Because here's what happens. We say, well, those free willers,
they make everything out of faith. So we're going to make nothing
out of it. Oh, wait a minute. Just because they misunderstand
what faith is and they don't understand what faith's part
is in this doesn't mean faith is irrelevant. He that does not
believe shall be damned. Sounds pretty important to me. We come into this world as unbelievers. And somewhere along the line,
if we are to be saved, somewhere along the line, there will come
a time when we actually do believe God. We consciously call upon
His name and ask for His salvation. If that doesn't happen, it doesn't
matter the orthodoxy of your creed. It doesn't matter the
seriousness of your commitment to your orthodox creed. Without
faith, it's impossible to please God. With faith, it's impossible
not to. Daniel's faith is exhibited in
several ways. He habitually served the Lord. Darius asked him, as your God,
whom you serve continually, Is he able to save you? You want to know who your God
is or what your God is? Whatever you serve, that's your
God. Boy, words are cheap. You know,
that's what James means when he says faith without works is
dead. He's talking about faith in words. Words only is a dead
thing. If it's not backed up, and the
examples he uses are not moral works, their works of faith. Abraham, by faith, offered his
son. Rahab, by faith, hid the spies. Now Rahab could say, well, I
tell you, I've seen what your God does. I believe your God.
Well, then hide us. No, no, I'd get in trouble with
people. Okay, that wasn't faith. She was impressed. How do we
know it was faith? She took sides with them. And
she took sides against her town. Not in a malicious way, it's
just, she said, I'm going with this God, you all are going that
way. Okay, I'm with this God. His habitual service. And that
word, when it says whom you serve, essentially it means to worship.
Whom you worship. Daniel's habitual service both
proved his faith and strengthened it. Daniel's faith endured testing.
All faith is tested. If there's no testing, it's because
there's no faith to test. Now, it's not my job to figure
out whether you've been tested or not. Quite often the ways
that God tests his people are unknown to everyone but the person
being tested. But I think I'm correct in saying
this. Every trouble that comes across
the horizon of a child of God is a test of faith. Because in
every one of these trials comes this test. Are you really a son
of God? The devil makes use of these
things. What did he do to our Lord when he tempted him? He
cast doubt on whether he's the son of God. Well, I'm not the
son of God, but I am a son of God. At least I claim to be.
And you know, he said, if you're a son of God, and that when he
said, throw yourself off the, here, an angel will catch you.
Well, the devil can come to us and say, now, if you're really
a son of God, would this kind of stuff be happening to you?
What kind of God do you serve anyway? What did he say to Eve? God's
trying to keep some things back from you. Every trouble is a test. And in virtually every test we
confront, we fail a few times before we get it right. But that's
irrelevant. The righteous fall seven times. Now that doesn't mean once, twice,
okay, that's the seventh, now I gotta get it right. Seven means
completely, a face plant. But the Lord delivers him every
time. And eventually we learn, just
rely on him, just rely. Daniel's habitual service did
not change the face of the king's decree. Faith does not alter
God, does not change his law, does not change his judgments,
not one whit. Faith really changes nothing
except your attitude towards what God has done. I note this about Daniel's faith. His habitual service did not
change. We read in verse 10, now when
Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his
house and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem,
he kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave
thanks before his God as he did a four time. Daniel didn't go, oh no, they're
gonna throw me in the lion's den. Woo, sudden revival. Daniel
gets religious. Daniel starts praying, boy, I
gotta pray three times a day. He didn't change anything. And he did not draw back even
in the face of death. And the third thing we note is
the Lord's salvation. Darius asked his question well.
He did not say, are you safe? Were you able to escape the lions? He didn't say, did you survive?
Daniel had been faced with a problem for which no hope could be found
in himself. His only hope was in the intervention
of his God. I once read what I thought was
a really good definition of faith. I don't remember what, maybe
the whole book was about faith. I can't remember. I just remember
this one line. Faith is trusting God to do what
only God can do. That's how you know most people
don't have faith. They're looking to him for help.
I can do most of it. I'm trusting him to do something
that only he can do. Note what God's salvation did
not do. God's salvation did not kill
the lions or cause them to sleep. God's salvation did not silence
their roaring or restrain their pacing. God's salvation did not
remove the lion's hunger nor their desire to eat Daniel. How
do I know their hunger was still good? They pulled Daniel out
and then they threw in the men who had charged him and the lions
tore him to pieces before they could even hit the floor. These
lions were ready for a meal. And God's salvation is not going
to make things look good. It is not gonna make the troubles
of your life any less troublesome. But most of all, it's not gonna
make your sin look to be any less sinful than it actually
is. God's salvation is not, hey, you didn't do that bad. And I
can let the rest fly. No. God's salvation. And our brother asked, you know,
what scripture to read? And I've mentioned that. Neither
one of us knew exactly where it was. I just knew it was in
one of Peter's letters about our adversary. The devil goes
about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Now, our
faith doesn't change that fact. The devil's still out there,
and he's pacing around, and he's hungry. He wants somebody to
devour. If he can devour one of us, just
one, the whole thing would collapse. The glory of Christ would be
destroyed, and that's who he's really after is Christ. But he
failed at that, didn't he? But he knows this, if he can
get one of his people, just one of them, chew him up, swallow
him, then it's over. The Lord has failed. God's salvation did not silence
their roaring. What does this lion roar? In
other places, he's called the accuser of the brethren. Now, I'm thankful to God he gives
us a conscience, a mechanism that alerts us that's wrong.
It says he's written the law on everybody's heart. I'm glad,
or civilization wouldn't be possible. But when that conscience that
merely is designed to point out what you've done wrong, when
it's also used to condemn you, it has become a tool of the devil.
for the believer. And so this roaring lion is roaring
out our guilt. And isn't he loud when some pet
sin gets the best of us again and again? Not to make a big deal out of
age, but again, with the exception of my son and his family, Let's
just say all of us have lived more than half our lives. I've
known these brethren for a lot of years, and it shows on all
of us. We're getting closer and closer
to that point where it's no longer a game. It's time to lay down
the cards. And then the conscience can really
be used as a tool. You say you've served the Lord
all these years, and look at you. You're no different than
you were at the beginning. Of course, we should have recognized
who it was was speaking when they said, look at you. Don't
look at you. You're not going to like what
you see. Not going to like it. What did the Lord's salvation
actually Well, it sent an angel. Isn't that what it says? Verse
22, my God hath sent his angel. Who do you think that was? Who
is the angel of the covenant? The word angel, both in Hebrew
and Greek, the general meaning is messenger. Most of the time
they were talking about some heavenly being as a messenger
from God, but basically it's just a messenger. Our Lord is the messenger of
God. In the garden, he's called the
voice of the Lord God. In the book of John, he's called
the word of God. He's called the messenger of
God. What do all of these things tell us? Hebrews puts it this
way. He's the image of the invisible
God. No man has seen God at any time.
Why? Because he's outside of time
and space and we're locked here. So what did God do? This is the
only way I know how to express it. He made a created version
of himself. He became part of this space-time continuum you
and I live in. Why? So we could see him. He
is the revelation of God. Everything we know about God,
we know through our knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
can sit and ponder on God, what God is like out there in his
spaceless, timeless existence, but we're kidding ourselves if
we think we understand. We can't think without reference
to time and space. Our language just won't even
do it. We have to stand our language on his head to talk about eternity.
What did Paul say? He has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in the heavenly places before the world began. Wait a minute. Before the world
began, there was no such thing as before. Because that's a time
word. And there was no time. And I
would say there was no time until then, but then until is another
time word. See what I mean? We can't even
talk about it, much less think about it. All we know of God
is in Christ. To know Him is to know God. He
sent His messenger, His agent, Himself, and hath shut the lion's mouths. The accuser of the brethren come. And he hurls accusations and
God says, shut up. Why? He no longer has standing
in that court. And even in the court of our
own conscience, what does it say? They, the saints, overcame
him by the word of their testimony. What was their testimony? The
gospel and the blood of the lamb. He shut the lion's mouth. He
can pace all he wants. He can roar, but no one has ever
been harmed by the roar of a lion. Never. When I was a kid, we used
to sing a song about this, and it was to the tune of In the
Cross. I just remember the chorus went,
even then in the den, fears could not alarm him. God just shut
the lion's mouth so they could not harm him. Has your God, whom
you serve continually, been able to save you? If he hasn't, find out if you're
really serving him or not. Have you called on him? And if
you've done everything he said you're supposed to do for salvation
and you still ain't saved, find another God. Because the God
of scriptures never fails to save.