So, for a message for the new
year, I want to turn to Daniel chapter 11 and verse 33. Sorry, verse, did I say 33? I
meant 32. Verse 32, the people, the second
half of it, the people that do know their God shall be strong
and do exploits. This is from a time which is
between 200 and 150 years before Christ came. I love history,
I love to read history, not for its own sake, but because it's
His story, it is God's story, it is the outworking of God's
sovereign will. That's what it's all about. He
ordains it. He ordains the end from the beginning. He is the one who controls all
things. How do you think Romans 8, 28 can be possible? For he
causes all things to work together for good to those who love God,
who are called according to his purpose. He does so because he
is God over all. This year, if we believe the
calendars, and I think there's good reason to, it's 2023 years
since what was said in Galatians chapter 4 and
verse 4, came true. When the fullness of the time
was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under
the law, to redeem those who are under the law. John the Baptist,
his mother's cousin's son, Mary, and her cousin Elizabeth, she
gave birth to John the Baptist a few months before Mary gave
birth to Jesus. and he is the one preparing the
way in the wilderness, and he was the prophet of the Lord that
ushered in the New Testament age. He ended, John the Baptist
ended, 400 years of prophetic silence since the prophet Malachi
closed the Old Testament. There had been the Babylonian
exile of 70 years, from about 600 BC to about 530 BC. I'm not going to go exactly,
so historians please don't pick me up on minor details, but it
was about that period. And then there was the restoration
from when Cyrus the Mede gave the instruction to go back to
Jerusalem and build the temple. the restoration up to about 400
BC. And that was in the time of Ezra
and Nehemiah and the prophets Haggai and Zechariah and Zerubbabel
was the king and Joshua was the high priest. All of that you
can read about it in those prophecies and the books of Nehemiah and
Ezra. And the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem, that
which Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed was restored. and worship was
reintroduced, true worship. It was maintained by a few, it
was maintained sincerely by a few. But most of the people, as in
all situations, most were just nominal Jews, they were just
nominal believers. And then there were all sorts
of conquests going on. The great empires that the prophecies
of God had foretold. The attempts of Satan to establish
globalism, worldwide government, started at the Tower of Babel,
and God frustrated it and destroyed it, and so the beast from the
earth had a wound in his head. Read in Revelation 13. And the
empires went on, and there was the Egyptians, and the Assyrians,
and then there was the Babylonians, the Chaldeans, And then they
were taken over by the Medes and the Persians when Belshazzar's
feast was brought to an abrupt end when they invaded. And they
did the restoration. And then arose one, and again
you can read about it all in Daniel, Alexander the Great.
Alexander the Great, the absolutely tremendous warrior who the Greek
Empire, ruled most of the known world. And there were others
who came after him. Alexander was so successful,
but in his mid-thirties, I think it was, he died. Suddenly he
died. God controls all things. And
all of this was given in vision to Daniel, shall we say, I don't
know, about 540 years BC. You might be able to correct
me on that. And chapters 7 to 12 of Daniel are detailed historical
prophecies about Persia, and Greece, and the Seleucid Empire,
and interaction with Egypt, and then the Romans coming, and Messiah,
chapter 9, clearly Messiah will come, the time when he will come.
It's all difficult to unravel, But God revealed it before it
happened, because God ordained it. Our God is in control of
all things. As we go into this new year,
bear that in mind. Try and keep that in your mind
all the time. Our God is in control of all
things. Now in this period, this... period
from about 200 BC to about 150 BC, one man stands out in the
dealings of the Jewish people in Jerusalem, trying to maintain
temple worship, temple sacrifice, all of which spoke of the Messiah
who was to come. And that man's name was Antiochus
Epiphanes. and he was descended from Alexander,
and the Greek Empire split up into four different kingdoms.
Again, read about it in Daniel. He was born in about 220 BC,
and he ruled, he had a kingdom in the south that ruled over
the land of Israel, the place where Jerusalem was, from about
175 BC to 164. Now let's read some things that
this tells us about this man. Remember, written 300 years before
he came, Daniel 11 verse 21, look, and in his estate, that's
the estate of a king before him, shall stand up Antiochus Epiphanes
is called a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honor
of the kingdom. He got it by subtlety. He shall come in peaceably
and obtain the kingdom by flatteries. This is Antiochus Epiphanes,
it's so obvious. Verse 27, both these kings' hearts
shall be to do mischief, and they shall speak lies at one
table, but it shall not prosper, for yet the end shall be at the
appointed time. And so he says he'll return to
his land and do exploits. And verse 29, at the time appointed,
he shall return and come toward the south. But it shall not be
as in the former or as the latter, for the ships of Chittim shall
come against him. Therefore he shall be grieved
and return and have indignation. against the Holy Covenant. This
Antiochus Epiphanes was absolutely furious with the Jews and their
temple worship. He wanted to destroy it. Why
did he want to destroy it? Because he's Satan's puppet in
the kingdom of this world, seeking to destroy the testimony of God
concerning the Messiah who would come and redeem his people from
the curse of the law. indignation against it. He tried
to stamp it out. So shall he do. He shall have
intelligence with them that forsake the Holy Covenant. Some of the
Israelites, obviously, as in all societies, were not true
to their Jewish religion. They forsook the Holy Covenant.
And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary
of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice. You see,
he stopped it. and they shall place the abomination
that maketh desolate, and such as do wickedly against the covenant
shall he corrupt by flatteries. You know, it's all determined
on the part of Antiochus Epiphanes to stamp out the true worship
of God. It's a satanic attempt to silence
the gospel, to do wickedly against the covenant, to crush temple
worship. And he greatly physically persecuted
the Jews of his day. I think almost certainly Hebrews
chapter 11 and verse 36, when you read these words, I think
several scholars believe that these words apply to that time
of Antiochus Epiphanes. And others had trial of cruel
mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn
asunder, they were tempted, were slain with the sword, they wandered
about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented,
of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and
in mountains and in dens and in caves of the earth, all these
having obtained a good report through faith, received not the
promise. But you see, those words are
speaking to that persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes against
these people of that day. But we can't find it in Scripture,
but we know from history there was a man and his followers called
Judas Maccabees, one of the apocryphal books that the Roman Catholics
have in their Bible is the book of Maccabees. But Judas Maccabees
and his followers, they As the end of verse 32 says, they were
the people that do know their God. And despite the persecutions
and the attempts to crush the worship, they were strong and
did exploits. By guerrilla warfare, they rebelled
and they kept the covenant going. You know, what do we make of
it? You say, well, here we are on
the first Sunday of a new year, and you're giving us a history
lesson. Well, that's all well and good, but what's it got to do with
us? Romans 15, verse 4. Whatsoever things were written
aforetime were written for our learning, that we, through patience
and comfort of the scripture, might have hope. What's the hope
that believers have? We have this hope. We have the
hope that God promises to his people. He says in Jeremiah 29
verse 11, I know to his people, he says this, not to everybody,
to his people, I know the thoughts that I think toward you. thoughts
of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. What is that? It's eternal life
in the Kingdom of God. That's the hope, eternal life
in the Kingdom of God. That we, through patience and
comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. Whatever worldly satanic
opposition, the hope of God's people cannot be frustrated,
because it is God that guarantees it. So let's look at this. The
people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits. Do we claim to know our God? You know, mankind is polarized
into just two categories of people. Those who know their God, and
the rest who don't. There's a whole lot that think
they know the true God, but as Jesus said he will say in Matthew
chapter seven, verse 25, he said, many will say to me in that day
of judgment, Lord, you know, we've been on your side, didn't
we do this in your name and that in your name and so many other
wonderful things in your name and surely you must let us into
the kingdom of heaven. And he said, depart from me,
I never knew you. There are many that think they're
in it, but they're not. They don't know God. But mankind
is divided into the people that do know their God, and the people
that don't, the majority that don't. The people that know their
God have strength against the opposition to God from this world. And so, they do. Look what it
says, shall be strong and do. You note exploits is in italics,
the translators have put that in. The people that do know their
God shall be strong and do. We'll look at that in a moment.
Towards the expected end, towards the promised end of God. The
coming in triumph of God's kingdom, of righteousness and peace. What
makes the difference between those who are the people of God,
the people that know their God, and those that don't? The answer
is the calling of God. It's the calling of God. It is
God and Him alone. He, salvation, is of the Lord. Not of me, not of you, not of
my decision, not of your determination to do this, that or the other.
It's of God. Look at Romans 8 verse 28. I've already quoted this.
We know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
It's the call of God that calls out this people. For whom he
did foreknow in everlasting love. That speaking, not of gazing
into a crystal ball, but that speaking of determining, before
the beginning of time. He says, I have loved you with
an everlasting love, before you ever existed, I have loved you.
Whom he did foreknow, he did also predestinate, to be conformed
to the image of his Son, He has made us the righteousness of
God in Him, if we are His people, for He bore our sins in His own
body on the tree. That He, Christ, might be the
firstborn among many brethren, moreover, whom He did predestinate,
them He also called. He called them with His name
before the beginning of time. When He united them with Christ
in the covenant of grace, He put a people, a multitude that
no man can number, into covenant union with His Son, that His
Son might determine all the righteousness of God for them and in them.
And whom He called, them also He justified, justified from
sin, justified from the curse of the law, redeemed from it.
And whom He justified, them He also glorified. What shall we
say then to these things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? They shall be strong and do exploits.
If God be for us, who shall be against us? It's all according,
as Romans 9 verse 11 says, that the purpose of God according
to election might stand. You know, you say, this is a
bit of an extreme doctrine, you know, we don't have to go down
there, it causes such division, you know, why don't we just have
a happy church where we all get together and let's leave that
for the higher theologians among you to think about it. No, no,
no, this is absolutely fundamental, absolutely fundamental. If you're
truly the people that do know their God, you're one of those
who Ephesians 1 verse 4 that was read to us earlier says,
chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love. Chosen. Whose choice? God's choice. Sovereign election. Sovereign election. Particular
redemption. Who? The people that do know
their God. 1 Thessalonians 1, verse 4. Knowing, brethren, your election
of God. You know, it's not some obscure
doctrine, is it? It's on every page when you start to read it,
with those eyes. 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 13. We are bound to give thanks always
to God for you, brethren. Beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth. 2 Timothy chapter 1 and
verse 9, I read it so often. God who has saved us and called
us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according
to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ
Jesus When? Before the world began. You see? Scattered strangers. 2nd Peter,
sorry 1st Peter. 1st Peter chapter 1 and verse
2. He's speaking to, he's addressing
the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia, Bithynia. Elect according to the foreknowledge
of God, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience,
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you,
and peace be multiplied. This is what makes this people
the people that do know their God. It's because God ordained
it. And so, how does he call those
he's ordained, those he's cleansed in the blood of Christ, those
he's justified by the doing and dying of Christ, those whom he's
raised up with Christ to sit in heavenly places. How is it?
Through preaching. It's through the foolishness
of preaching. Paul and Silas preached in Acts chapter 13 to
the Gentiles. In Acts 13, 48 we read, and as
many as were ordained to eternal life believed. They didn't need
tricksters and gimmicks to try and twist them psychologically. You know, you might do if you're
selling goods to somebody, that might work very well. But in
this, it is the doing of God by His Spirit. As many as were
ordained to eternal life believed. They're sinners, like absolutely
everyone else. Romans 3 tells us that. Romans
3, 23, this people who do know their God, this is who he's talking
about. I know people always apply this
verse 23 of Romans 3 to everybody, and it's true, it is true of
everybody, but he says, all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God. And if you read it in the context,
he's actually talking about believers. All believers are sinners. All
believers are sinners and have come short of the glory of God,
but all believers are justified freely by His grace, through
the redemption, the paying of the purchase price, the paying
of the sin debt that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth to
be a propitiation, a turning away of the wrath of God through
faith in His blood, because He is the blood. In the blood is
the life, the life is in the blood. And when Christ shed His
blood, His life was poured out as the payment for the sins of
His people. So then, these people are converted
from unbelief. The people that do know their
God are converted from unbelief to believers. They're converted
from the world. They're not conformed to this
world, as Romans 12, 2 says. Be not conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind with the truth of
God, by revelation from God. There's a new man, a new man
created by the Spirit of God. Life in the soul, the life of
God in the soul of a person. This is what it is to be amongst
the people that do know their God. These people shall be strong
and do do exploits. Are you among them? Am I among
them? Have you heard the call of God? Are you, as Peter calls
for the people of God to do in the last verse he wrote, 2 Peter
3.18, growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ? Are you an object of God's gracious
thoughts? I know the thoughts that I think
to you, of peace, not of evil, to give you an expected end.
Is that whom you are among, the people that do know their God?
Well, you shall be strong. That knowledge is as knowledge
that strengthens. This world, isn't it, like never
before in history, is full of what it thinks is knowledge.
You know like the Athenians of Paul's day, 2,000 years ago when
Paul preached in Athens, he went to Athens and there were the
philosophers and the people who were counted as wise in this
world. They always wanted, you can read about it in Acts 17,
to search out some new thing. Didn't matter what it was. It's
like that today, isn't it? People are always wanting some new idea. Nearly all of it's brought through
these devices. You know, mobile phones, computers, the internet.
All brought by those means. to debate, to philosophize. In Athens, they even had a monument
to what they called the unknown God. And Paul said, the one you
don't know, I'm declaring to you the true God. Their worldly
knowledge didn't open the truth of God to them. It didn't open
life to them. You know, when, as 1 Corinthians
1 says, when in the wisdom of God, you know, it pleased God
to confound the wisdom of this world. You know, the true wisdom
from God comes from Him Himself. And the wisdom of this world
cannot work it out. There, the Athenian knowledge,
which is today highly respected as such liberal, open thinking,
the use of the mind, the expanded use of the mind, it didn't bring
them to the knowledge of God. But... The revelation of the
Holy Spirit does. Psalm 9 verse 10, they that know
thy name will put their trust in thee. They that know thy name,
they that know the name of God, they that know their God, put
their trust in him. They put their trust in him and
they'll be strong and do exploits. They'll put their trust in him.
Knowledge of God's name Knowledge of his name is knowledge of his
characteristics, of his person, of what he's like. of what he
can do, of his power. And it gives solid reason for
trust. They that know thy name put their
trust in thee. There used to be a chorus that
we used to sing. How great is our God. I remember
in Liverpool, the kids of Liverpool could sing choruses. How great
is our God, how great is his name. He is the only one forever
the same. He rolled back the waters of
the mighty Red Sea and he said, I'll never leave you, put your
trust in me. That, in a way, I know it's simple, but that
is pretty much foundational. They know they're God, and are
strong to do exploits. Knowledge of God's name is solid
reason for trust. driving a truck in some remote
place, and I come to a river, and there's this rickety old
bridge over the river. If I know the specification of
that bridge, if I know what it's really like, I might be persuaded
to trust that I can safely drive my truck over it. If I don't,
I might look at it and think, that doesn't look safe enough,
I'm going to get halfway across and end up in the water with
my truck. So what is the knowledge of God that gives us the confidence
to trust Him? It's that that's revealed in
the Bible, in the Scriptures, by the Holy Spirit and the pride
in the heart. It isn't just head knowledge,
it's that which becomes heart knowledge. It starts up here,
when it comes in through the eye door and the ear door, it
comes in there, it gets mulled over, but it comes down and it
becomes heart knowledge. Knowledge of God. in the mystery
and the triunity of His person. Not knowing about Him, but knowing
Him. Knowing Him as your personal
and intimate Heavenly Father. Why did Jesus teach His people
to pray, Our Father, Not great God that we daren't approach,
our Father. What do they cry when they receive
the adoption of sons? Whereby we cry, Abba, Daddy,
Father. This heavenly Father, who is
the eternal, unseeable, unknowable God, is the Father of His people. But how do we know Him? In His
Son. In His Son, whom He sent forth,
made of a woman, made under the law to redeem those who are under
the law. We know God because no man has
seen God at any time but the only begotten Son, who is in
the bosom of the Father. He has declared Him. He has made
Him known. I'm going to say it again. Philip,
John 14 verse 8 and 9, is it? Show us the Father and that will
suffice. Philip, have I been so long with you, said a man,
that you have not known me. He who has seen me has seen the
Father. Oh, that we might see the Father
by looking at the Son. I and my Father are one, said
Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, who takes of the things of Christ
and applies them to our hearts and minds, gives us new life
as we believe, as we come out of the darkness of unbelief.
Children of wrath, even as others, he gives us light, to know him
as our creator, the one who has made all things. I don't tiptoe
around anymore sort of trying to make excuses for believing
in God as a creator when this world is so overwhelmingly taken
up with evolution and its hideous timescales and all of this sort
of thing. I'm confident God is the creator. The God I know.
Do you know your God? You'll know him as your creator.
The intelligent designer. I'm not ashamed of it. They wouldn't
let me be a science teacher today if I went and said that. There's
one thing I'm not allowed to say. Intelligent design. God
made all things and designed it. He's the omnipotent one. The people who don't know their
God. Is there anything that our God cannot do? He's omnipotent.
Do you know what that means? All-powerful. Nothing He cannot
do. He's omniscient. What does that
mean? He knows all things. He's omnipresent. Psalm 139. Where can I go from your presence?
Where can I flee to get away from you? I can't go anywhere.
For God is omnipresent. He fills everything. In flesh
we struggle, but Thomas even, one of the disciples, who didn't
believe, when he saw Christ as his risen Lord, what was his
response? Not, oh Jesus, I'm so glad you've
come back to life. No, he fell on his knees, my
Lord and my God. This is it. The people who do
know their God, seek to know him more and more. As we start
a new year, whatever level of knowledge you have now, seek
to know him more and more. Study his ordering of history.
Study the fulfillment of his foreordination of salvation for
his kingdom, to populate his kingdom with redeemed sinners.
His dealings with Israel, you know, he drove back the waters
of the mighty Red Sea and he said, I'll never leave you, put
your trust in me. study the history of God's dealings with his people,
encountering the enemies of God's truth. Hezekiah in Judah was
surrounded by the mighty Assyrian Empire and the emperor was Sennacherib
who came and he was going to gobble up that little state and
subsume it into Assyria as he'd done with Israel in the north
and kingdoms all around. And Hezekiah went to the temple
of the Lord. It was the days of Isaiah. And
he laid the letter on the ground in the temple before the Lord.
And he said to the Lord, look what this man is saying against
you. Look what this puny man, who
happens to be the most powerful emperor in the world, look what
he's saying to you, the mighty God. Look what he's saying, Lord.
Deal with him, we pray. And God dealt with him. And the
next morning, they were dead. And the next morning, Sennacherib
went back to his kingdom. And a few days later, his sons
killed him in his temple there, in, where was it? Can't remember,
never mind. All of that knowledge that Judas
Maccabees knew from his scriptures, from his history, Seeing how
God had dealt with them, surely that strengthened Judah, Judas
Maccabees, and the people who supported him. He'd studied what
had happened and how God had dealt with his people and with
his people's enemies, and it strengthened him. He became strong. He and his followers became strong.
They knew their God. They knew what the temple meant.
They knew what the sacrifices pointed to. They knew the gospel
there. in Old Testament, implicit in
Old Testament rites. And he was strong to do exploits
against those who would seek to destroy that testimony and
thereby destroy the coming of the promised Messiah, the seed
of the woman. Study the Gospel. My friends, study the Gospel,
major on Christ. You see, it's not just the Gospel
for academic sake, it's Christ. Christ, the Gospel is a person,
the Lord Jesus Christ, and the grace and truth that came by
him. The law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. Think on the things that are
Christ. We heard a sermon last week,
you know, we finished Philippians. two weeks ago. But there's a
verse I didn't touch on, which is verse eight, which is, whatsoever
things are good, whatsoever things are noble, whatsoever things
are honest, whatsoever things are of good report, think on
these things. We heard that message, it's available
on sermon audio. Very, very good. What are all
those things? They're Christ. They're Christ. Every one of
those things is Christ. Think on these things. Grow in
this knowledge, and you will be strengthened. There are false
ideas in religion abounding. For example, Arminianism is simply
ignorance of gospel doctrine. There are people who I've heard
have come to the conclusion they used to believe in election but
now they think it's absolute rubbish and they try and put
together a presentation of how it is that
election must be nonsense. I'm sorry. It's ignorance of
gospel doctrine and of gospel. You cannot read this book without
coming to the conclusion that God is the God of sovereign grace
and particular redemption. These are things that not only
should we look into, if we're the people that do know their
God, the angels of God desire to look into these things. They
desire to look into these. These heavenly, pure, sinless
beings desire to look into these things, yet the flesh chases
after the things of the world and its desires. You say, but
I struggle to understand. So do I. Understanding is not
the key. You know, at the start of Revelation,
it doesn't say, blessed is he who understands these words.
He says, blessed is he who reads them and apprehends them and
takes them to heart. You can study to grasp it, to
apprehend it, without comprehending it. Comprehension's too difficult,
but you can apprehend what it says and grasp hold of it. That
which has pleased God to reveal to us, though you don't understand
it, you can apprehend it. Hearing the truth that I apprehend
brings me to believe it. It says in Romans 10 verse 17,
faith, cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. It's
objective, absolutely objective. Without the apprehension of objective
biblical truth, you can't believe it. Not as the mystical religions,
not as Catholicism and Anglicanism all around us in this country,
with their cathedrals, and their icons, and their robes, and their
rites, and, oh, I don't know what it is, but I go there, and
I don't know what I really believe, but just being there makes me
feel right with God. I'm sorry, that is totally non-objective. That is totally subjective nonsense. Many slavishly follow all of
that with no idea of the workings of any tangible benefit from
them. Why is it that going into a place with incense and altars
and robes and icons and all of these things gets you closer
to God? It doesn't. It's objective truth that does.
It's the light of revealed truth, not mystical, symbolical darkness. The former, light of revealed
truth, is the religion of Christ. The latter is Antichrist. It's the religion of Antichrist. It's light revealed, not mystical,
symbolical darkness. So then, Judas, Maccabees, and
his followers, they stood fast and did exploits in the knowledge
of gospel truth, the knowledge of God, the strength to stand
fast. Finally, my brethren, says Paul
to the Ephesians, be strong in the Lord. Not in yourself, be
strong in the Lord. I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me. When I am weak, then I am strong.
My grace is sufficient in thy weakness. Be strong in the Lord
and in the power of His might. I'm going to be quick. Where
do we get the knowledge? We search the Scriptures. Search the Scriptures. It's objective. It's absolutely
objective. The Bereans in Acts 17. The Bereans were unlike most
that Paul and his companions went to. The others stoned them,
beat them with rods, put them in prison, did dreadful things
to them. But the Bereans were called the
noble Bereans. Why? Because it tells us They
searched the Scriptures daily, whether the things they heard
Paul say were true, according to this world. This was the benchmark.
This book was the benchmark. If you love the truth of God,
if you love the Christ of God, to you who believe, says Peter,
He is precious. Is He precious to you? Think
of the things you count as precious. If you love the truth of God
and Christ is precious to you, and you love the God of truth
because you only love Him in Christ, it will be your obsession
to the exclusion of all else. Yes, you can have other interests,
but oh! You know when Jesus said, if any man loves mother or father
or husband or wife more than me, he is not worthy of me. That's
what he meant. He must be at the pinnacle of
the whole thing. It's a new year. What are you
going to do? Get yourself a new year daily reading schedule.
Determine to get to know this book. Get to know the Bible like
the streets of your town. Seek him where he feeds among
the lilies. I think I've told you before
that in the 1980s, We didn't know much of the gospel, but
our friend Bill Clark used to send us bags of tape, boxes of
tapes through the post, cassette tapes, the old C90 cassette tape,
one sermon on each side, from Don Fortner, from Henry Mahan,
from Scott Richardson, from Maurice Montgomery, and if I've forgotten
any others, forgive me, but they were the ones. And we just fed
on those tapes. It was our obsession. I used
to go away on a lot of business trips. I used to go down to Bath
quite a lot. And rather than sitting in the
hotel on a summer's evening, I'd drive out in my rental car
up to a lovely place with lovely views, and I'd consume three
or four messages in one evening before driving back to the hotel
to bed. Get to know the Bible like the
streets of your town. Seek him where he feeds. Song
of Solemn, chapter 6. In his garden, among his lilies.
This is the speaking of the church and his people. Christ is amongst
his people. Get to know him. Just one word
of caution, of course. I'm not saying become puffed
up with knowledge for its own sake. You know, 1 Corinthians
warns against this. Knowledge puffs up. Knowledge
that where, you know, oh look at me, haven't I done well? No,
no. Not cramming to become a Bible mastermind. but growing in grace,
and the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And
then, strong to do exploits. Strong to do. Maccabees knew
the Gospel. He had it in Old Testament form,
but it was the Gospel nonetheless. He knew it, he knew God, He knew
the promises of God. He knew the promises concerning
the Messiah that was to come. He knew that the line needed
to be preserved from which the Messiah would come, the seed
of the woman promised in Genesis. He knew all of that. He knew
of the hope of the kingdom of God, that that was his hope.
That was the good thoughts that God thought toward him, to give
him a hope. He trusted God. He looked for
a city, as it says in Hebrews, a city which has foundations,
whose builder and maker is God. And so, what did they do? They
did exploits. They resisted Satan. They resisted
Satan, the kingdom of this world. They resisted the evil servant
of Satan, Antiochus Epiphanes, until God killed him suddenly.
When he was at the height, take courage from this, you know,
when he was at the height of his evil, God took him out of
the way, as he did Herod some time later in the days of Christ.
He took him out of the way. What exploits do we do as those
strengthened in the knowledge of their God? In short, We aim
to do that which spreads, or that which supports the spreading
of, the knowledge of God's truth, as God's witnesses. God's witnesses,
Revelation 11, standing on their feet, in this world, because,
I just want to finish with this, in Romans chapter 10, this is
the reason why we want to do these exploits, verse 9, It says
there in Romans 10 and verse 9, If thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with
the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture
saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed, for
there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the
same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. This is
expanding the kingdom of God, populating the kingdom of God.
How then, how then, shall they call on him in whom they have
not believed? And how shall they believe? You
see, if they haven't believed in anything, they can't call on him, can they?
And how shall they believe in him, if they haven't heard of
him? And how shall they hear, unless God sends a preacher to
them? And how shall they preach, unless God equips the preacher
to preach it, as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of
them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings
of great joy. For they have not all obeyed
the gospel, for Isaiah saith, Lord, who has believed our report?
So then, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Judas Maccabees knew Christ was coming. He couldn't stand back
and let Antiochus Epiphanes and his evil followers obliterate
gospel testimony. Neither can we who know our God. Let us go into this new year
determined to stand for the truth of the kingdom of God and his
gospel. And if any, any cross our paths and ask a reason for
the hope that we have, let's be prepared to give them that
reason. Amen.