Morning, everybody. It is a pleasure
to be with you all again here this morning. If you'd like,
turn over to Judges Chapter 3. Judges Chapter 3. We looked at Judges 4 probably
a month ago, something like that, the story of Deborah and Barack.
I was reading around there, came across Judges 3. And this is
a very interesting passage of scripture. It's very dark and
a very graphic and a very vulgar passage of scripture as well.
It's intentionally that way. This is very deep. This is very
dark. And I'm not going to sugarcoat any of it. I'm going to tell
you exactly how the scripture portrays it. But if you want
to know what this is all about, Judges chapter 3, I want you
to look down at verse 20. came unto him, Ehud's the judge,
and he was sitting in a summer parlor, which he had for himself
alone, and Ehud said, I have a message from God unto thee. God has a message. God has a
message for men. What is that message? God is. And whether you've ever
heard the gospel before or not, you know that. You know that
God is. You know by the very light of
creation, the fact that on time, every single morning that sun
rises, and on time, every single night that sun sets, you know
that God is. And He is the Almighty. He is all-powerful. And you know,
intuitively, that you're accountable to Him. What does He have to
say? What is his message to men? And I find that interesting,
that there is a God, and everybody knows that. And we are accountable
to him, and everybody knows that. And no one, by nature, has any
interest in what God has to say. Not by nature. But he has a message
for men. And I was thinking of these people.
You remember, it was probably a month or so ago, we looked
at Luke 5, when the Lord revealed himself to Peter. And the Lord's
standing by that lake, Gennesaret, the Sea of Galilee. And these
people come, and they're pressing upon him. They're insistent,
they're persistent, they want something from Him. Do you remember
what they wanted? They said they wanted to hear a word from God.
They were tired of hearing their own opinions. They were tired
of hearing what men had to say about God. They wanted to know
the truth from God Himself. They just wanted a message from
God. And I hope that's how I approach
every single worship service. I just want to hear what God
has to say. What does God have to say to me? What does God have
to say to man in this generation? He has one message. One message.
And that message is found here in Judges chapter 3. It also
tells us one other thing. There's another picture here.
I'm telling you all this, I just can't see the other ones. But
one other I can see is what happens when the Lord makes that word,
that message, effectual. What happens when he speaks it
to a man's heart? What does that look like? You'll
find that here in Judges chapter 3 as well. So let's read this. Let's find out what's going on
here. So look at verse 12, Judges chapter 3. And the children of Israel did
evil again in the sight of the Lord. And the Lord strengthened
Eglon, the king of Moab, against Israel, because they had done
evil in the sight of the Lord. And he gathered unto him the
children of Ammon and Amalek, and went and smote Israel, and
possessed the city of palm trees. So the children of Israel served
Eglon, the king of Moab, 18 years. 18 years is a long time. Real long time to be in hard
bondage. The Lord sold them under this
man, this king, Eglon, this tyrant. Probably much worse than Pharaoh. It's very interesting how he
employed the children of Israel. He made them work in the quarries.
We'll read about those here in a little while in the stories,
but you know what they did in the quarries? They mined huge
rocks all day long. Big old stones, back-breaking
labor. But it got worse. You know what they had to do
with those stones after they mined them? They had to make idols for the Moabite
gods. So this was their existence.
Every day, all day, back-breaking labor, mining these huge rocks,
and having to turn them into the false gods of their enemies
so their enemies could worship them. That was their existence,
day in, day out, all day, all night. That's everything they
did. And that was horrible. You can
imagine how terrible that would be for a child of God, especially. But I will say this. This is
both sad and interesting. It was the worship of those idols
that got them in this mess in the beginning. They had a cycle in Israel. They would forget their God.
That's what it said over and over and over in the Book of
Judges. They'd forget their God and they would turn to the idols
of their enemies. They'd worship their enemies'
gods. And the Lord's anger would be kindled against them. And
he would sell them into the hands of their enemies under this hard
bondage under this hard labor. And this was wicked, and this
was evil. This was all their fault. They should have never
done this. They never should have turned to Baal. They never should have
turned to anyone else. And this is a very befitting
punishment. It's almost as if the Lord is saying, you love
those idols? You want to be around those idols? You want to worship
those idols? Fine. I'm going to give you exactly
what you want. You can make them all day long. You can mine those
stones all day long. You can make those idols. If
that's what you want, if you want those gods, I'll give them to
you. You want to be under that bondage? I'll give it to you.
It's right here. This was a terrible cycle, and this was all their
fault, but this was all according to the Lord's adorable providence
and goodwill toward them. It does not say that Eglin strengthened
himself, and it does not say that Eglin became so strong that
the Lord couldn't stop him from overtaking Israel. It says the
Lord strengthened Eglin. Whatever power Eglin had over
Israel is because the Lord gave him that power. This was all
according to the purpose and goodwill of God towards his people. Why? So that verse 15 would take
place. But when the children of Israel
cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised them up a deliverer. This was all done that they would
be made, that they would be caused to do this very thing, that they
would cry out for a deliverer. They would cry out for the Lord
to raise up somebody to deliver them from their enemies and to
lead them out of this very, very harsh bondage. And a man might
read that and he might say this, well that's the cause of salvation.
A man begs for mercy, he begs for a deliver, and the Lord responds
to his begging by giving him that deliver. No. No, not in
the least. Not at all, as a matter of fact.
No, this is how the cry of mercy works. No doubt, every elect
child of God, you know what you're going to do? The Lord save you?
You're going to cry for mercy. And you're never going to leave
that spot. Day in, day out, your constant cry is, Lord, be merciful
to me, the sinner. And you're never going to graduate
past that. That is a perpetual cry over and over again. But
a man does not come to that point because he sees something naturally
about who God is, and his sovereign character, and his demand of
righteousness. And he doesn't get to that point from seeing
that he is a sinner naturally before God, and he needs mercy.
We have none of those natural knowledges. A man cries out for
one reason, and one reason alone is because he's already been
shown mercy. because it has always been the
purpose of God to show that man mercy in Christ. And what is
the end state of that divine purpose, that adorable prophets?
That man does exactly what the Lord causes him to do. He cries
out for a deliverer. He cries out to have one champion
for him. He cries out to have one to do
something about his enemies, his sins, put them down, put
them away, make me acceptable before God. Salvation does not
begin with a man begging for mercy. It ends with it. Now, look at verse 15 again. Let's read it again. But when
the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised
them up to deliver. Ehud, the son of Gera, a Benjaminite, a
man left-handed, and by him the children of Israel sent a present
unto Eglon, the king of Moab. Now, Ehud here, his name has
two meanings, two definitions, and in both of them you see a
beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, a very powerful
type of Christ. The first definition of his name is this. His name
means an undivided union. You think about that, what type
of union is shared between the Lord Jesus Christ and his people?
One that is absolutely undivided. My pastor uses this example constantly
and it speaks to me. That same vine, that stem that
runs through the vine, it's the same stem that goes into the
branches and there is no connecting point on the vine. He's the vine
and we're the branches, all part of that same stem. You want to
see what the reality of salvation actually is. And the reality
of what being a child of God and having a true union with
Christ actually means. It literally means everywhere
he's been and everything he has done, we've done. That means
in him we are righteous and it really is our righteousness because
we are in him. It's ours. That righteous vine,
we're the branch off that righteous vine. It's our righteousness.
It's his. He did it. It's ours. Everything he has
with the Father presently, we have in him. This is the reality
of every believer's situation, not later on, now. As he is, so are we in this world
that's present. And you can't see that right
now because we still have this flesh. But one day when we put
it down, we will see things as they really are. But that's right
now. The second meaning of his name
is this. It is, I will be praised. And in that we see the purpose
of this undivided union. What is the purpose of the bride?
What is the purpose of the church? It's simply this. Somebody is
going to worship God. Somebody's going to praise God. Somebody's going to sing songs
and praise of worship to God. And it's going to be the bride
of Christ. It's going to be the elect. Now the Lord has all kinds
of spiritual beings in his kingdom. He has angels, all kinds of angels.
And they all do the exact same thing. They do his will and they
worship him. But hear me on this, see if you
can understand what I'm saying. None of them worship him or praise
him from the standpoint of a creature who has been saved by him. When
Satan and his angels fell, there was no redeemer for them. Now
the angels that didn't fall, the only reason they didn't fall,
because they were elect angels, because the Lord held them up.
That was the only reason. Before the angels, there was
no redeemer, there was no salvation for them. The only creature that
knows anything about being saved by God himself is the bride. And that's the purpose of the
bride. She's going to be the one. We, the elect, will be the
one who can truly worship God and truly sing praises to God
because we're the only one who personally knows anything about
salvation. And we know something about it
right now. Later on, we're going to know everything. Everything.
Faith is going to give way to sight. We are truly going to
see the great love of Christ for us. We're truly going to
see the depth of his sacrifice to us. And what are we going
to do? Sing praises. Appropriate praises. Not like
now. Not like now. But later on, perfectly. Perfectly. And we get some information
about Ehud here. We find out he's a left-handed
man. Did you catch that? He's left-handed. And also, too,
he's a Benjaminite. You know what Benjaminite means?
It means son of the right hand. That's literally what it means.
So we have the scripture pointing out this man is left-handed and
he's also a Benjaminite. He's a son of the right hand. Now I did some reading on this.
And so back then, much like now, a large majority of the population
was right-handed, right? So everything was fashioned,
everything was made for right-handed people. And so if you were left-handed,
they didn't look at it as if you were left-hand dominant.
What they looked at you as was, what's wrong with your right
hand? Why can't you use your right hand? What's wrong with
you? They didn't view it as being left-handed. They viewed you
as having an impediment, as a natural disadvantage. What's wrong with
your right hand? Doesn't it work? Now, what's
this all about? Why would the scripture point
this out, that this man is a Benjaminite, but he's also left-handed? Son
of the right hand, but left-handed. Well, here's what I took from
it, right? Who are God's people? I've used that word over and
over and over again this morning, elect, elect, elect. Who are these people? They're
a bunch of left-handed folk. What do I mean by that? How were
they looked at back then? Naturally disadvantaged. Who's the Lord's people? A bunch
of people who are spiritually, naturally disadvantaged. This
is the scripture that I was thinking of here. 1 Corinthians 1, 26
and 29. You guys are familiar with this.
It says, for you see your calling, brethren, How that not many wise
after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble or cold, but God
hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty, and base, the things that are
polluted, things of the world, and things which are despised
hath God chosen, and things which are not to bring to naught things
that are that no flesh shall glory in his presence. Who's God's people? They're a
bunch of lefties, a bunch of naturally disadvantaged people,
foolish, despised, sinful, polluted, without strength, not. Not what? Not righteous, not capable of
making my peace with God, not getting any better by nature. They're a bunch of left-handed
folk. I think it's interesting here, Ehud is the deliverer of
the message. So in that, he does take on the
type of the gospel preacher. Well, who's the preacher? He's
left-handed folk. When you look in the scripture,
the right hand always talks about strength and power and ability. The left always talks about inability
and weakness. What is he? He's a weak earthen
vessel. That's it. Nothing more. The
only thing special about him is that message that the Lord
gives him. That's it. Now, look what Ehud
does. Look at verse 16. But Ehud made
him a dagger which had two edges. It's very important. of a cubit
length. And he did gird it under his
raiment upon his right thigh. And he brought the present unto
Eglin, king of Moab. And Eglin was a very fat man."
I like sometimes how the scripture uses really fanciful language
to get his point across. And then sometimes it just says
in real, real simple language, who is Eglin? He's a really fat
man. That's who he was. Big fat guy. Lawrence Miller. But see here
what Ehud is doing, right? This is all an elaborate ruse,
right? Ehud's going to get a present.
He gets this present together that he's going to give to Eglon,
his oppressor, right? And so he gets his buddies, some
of these children of Israel, and he says, we're going to go
to Eglon. We're going to give him this present. I don't know what the present
is. But before he gives Eglon this present, before he goes
to meet with the king, what does he do? He makes a knife. He makes a double-edged dagger
about 18 inches long, and he straps it to his right thigh.
He puts it under his clothing where he can keep it secret.
It's a hidden weapon. Now, at this point, Ehud's disadvantage
is going to be his greatest advantage. Why? Because Eglin's not stupid.
This man is Eglin's slave. Ehud has every reason to hate
Eglin and want to take him out, and Eglin knows that. He's not
just going to let Ehud come into his presence without the guards
searching him first. Where are the guards going to
search? On his left side. Because the majority of the population
is right handed and you carry your weapon cross draw. So they're
going to search that left side over and over again to make sure
he doesn't have a weapon. Where are they not going to search?
The right side. where Ehud has his weapon. And
it's going to slip right in. Everything is working out to
Ehud's plan perfectly. He's setting everything up just
perfectly. Now, look at verse 18. And when he had made an end to
all for the present, he sent away the people that bear the
present. But he himself turned again from the quarries that
were by Gilgal, and said, I have a secret errand unto thee, O
king, who said, keep silence. And all that stood by him went
out from him. So Ehud goes. He makes the king
feel real comfortable with him. He earns his trust. Oh, you're
a great king. We really appreciate all this
oppression you have us under. This is awesome. Here's the present.
And we give that to him. And he sends everybody away.
All right, guys, let's go, right? And he leaves with them. And
then as soon as he gets to those quarries, he turns back, all
according to Ehud's plan. This is all an elaborate plan,
all on purpose. I think it's interesting where
he turns around, though. It's by those quarries. So the last thing he sees before
he goes back into Eglin, he sees his people out there making those
idols under that back-breaking labor. Can you imagine how that
must have fired him up? That righteous indignation that
was in him. And he turns around and he goes
back to Eglin, all according to his plan. And he says, wait
a second, King. Hold on a second. I forgot something. I forgot
this. I have a secret. I have a secret
I'm going to tell you. And the king says, a secret?
Well, don't tell everybody. If it's a secret, that needs
to be just between me and you. You keep silence. And the king
does this. He sends his whole court out.
Sends all his guards out. Sends his whole court out because
the king wants to hear this secret. He wants it to be just for him.
Playing into Ehud's hand just perfectly. And he takes Ehud
and they go into his summer parlor. It's just Ehud and Eglon now.
This is exactly how Ehud wants it. Look at verse 20. And Ehud
came unto him, and he was sitting in a somber parlor, which he
had for himself alone. And Ehud said, I have a message
from God unto thee. And he rose out of a seat. Now,
this is interesting. Ehud says, King, I have a message
from the God of Israel for you. And Eglint. The king, he stands
up. This is not common. Kings don't
stand for their slaves. This is an uncommon thing. And
Egelin's a pretty big guy. He probably didn't get up a whole
lot anyways. But he's standing for his slave right now because
Ehud says, I have a message from my God to you. You know what
Egelin's thinking right now? He's thinking, of course he does.
Of course his God wants to talk to me. I'm ruling over his people
right now. I have them enslaved. He probably wants to bargain
with me. He probably wants to make a deal. He stood because
he thought he was standing toe-to-toe with the God of Israel, and he
was looking at him like he was his equal. You're a God. I'm
a God. You're powerful. I'm powerful.
Now we're going to negotiate. We're going to negotiate. Maybe
we'll strike up a deal, and he's about to find out how wrong he
was. Look at verse 21. And Ehud put forth his left hand
and took the dagger from his right thigh and thrust it into
his belly and the haft also went in after the blade and the fat
closed upon the blade so that he could not draw the dagger
out of his belly and the dirt came out. Now I want you to visualize
what happens here. Ehud gets up there and he takes
that dagger, that 18 inches of steel and he drives it into Eglin's
belly, and that blade goes in, and that haft, that gourd went
in, and that handle went in, that entire dagger went into
Eglin's belly, and the fat closed around it. You could literally
say that dagger became a part of Eglin. It went all the way
in, and it disappeared inside that man. And when that dagger
was put in his belly all the way in, so much so that it became
a part of him, what happened? The dirt. That means feces. The dirt, the filth, that which
is repulsive, it spilled out. Everything that was inside of
him, all that repulsiveness, it spilled out on the floor,
and the last thing Eglin saw before he died was all the filth
that was inside of him. That's what went on here. Now,
look at verse 23. Then Ehud went forth through
the porch and shut the doors of the parlor upon him, and locked
them when he was gone out. His servants came, and when they
saw that, behold, the doors of the parlor were locked, they
said, Surely he covereth his feet in the summer chamber. So
Ehud, cunning man, everything's happening according to Ehud's
plan. He comes in, he kills Eglon, he locks the doors to outside.
He escapes through a porch. The guards come and they're pressing
against the door. They're thinking, why does Eglon
lock himself in there? And he says, he must be covering
his feet. They think he's using the restroom.
Probably from the smell of what just came out of him. Now look
at verse 25. And they tarried till they were
ashamed. And behold, he opened not the doors of the parlor.
Therefore they took a key and opened them. And behold, their
Lord was fallen dead on the earth. And Ehud escaped while they tarried
and passed beyond the quarries and escaped unto Sarath. Now, what is the teaching here?
That is a very bizarre and kind of gross story. What is the teaching
here? I already told you. Here's what
we get from this. What is God's message? Ehud went
up to Eglin and said, I have a message from God for you. What is that message? Paul made
this statement in 1 Corinthians 2. He says, for I determined
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. Paul was a very well educated
man. Paul knew all kinds of things, but here's what he means by that.
There's only one message that saves. There's only one message
that God has for men. He only has one thing to say
to men. It's the only thing that's worth
listening to, and it's the only thing that's going to do you any good. It's Christ
and Him crucified, His cross. That's God's message. He said
in another place, in 1 Corinthians 15, 1, He said, moreover, brethren,
I declare unto you the gospel. What He means by that is everything
I say after this, this is the gospel. If you want to know what
it is, if you want to know what the message is, this is it. Which
I preached unto you, which also you have received, and wherein
ye stand, by which also you are saved, if you keep in memory
what I preached unto you, unless you believe in vain. For I delivered
unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ
died for our sins according to the scriptures. and that he was
buried and that he rose again the third day according to the
scriptures. What is the gospel? What is the
gospel message? What does God have to say to
men? The cross. That's what he has
to say to men. The entire counsel of God, everything
God has to say to a man in this world is found at that cross. Now I'm going to take a few moments
to talk about an inexhaustible subject. So you're just going
to get a little chip off the mountain, just the tip of the
iceberg. But I have four things. What
does the cross say? What does the cross say to you
and me today? Here's the first thing the cross
says. It says that the house of Adam deserves to go to hell. Everybody from the house of Adam
deserves to go to hell. Why was he there? Why did our
Lord hang on that cross? We'll put him there. This is
what Peter said in Acts 2.23. He says, him being delivered
by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have
taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. Why was
he there? Because it was the purpose of
God for him to be there. Because this was God's divine
plan. This is omniscience working out
in time. God had to find a way. He had
to do something to remain just, true to his just character, and
justify the ungodly. And the answer, that wisdom,
is found in Jesus Christ and his cross. Christ is the wisdom
of God. But a crime takes place here.
A man was murdered. We can't call it anything else
but that. An innocent man was murdered. Who did that? We did. I did. You did. Everybody from the house
of Adam, we all have the same heart. We all have the same intentions.
We all have the same motives. We all do the exact same thing. There's no difference between
men. Who did that? Who murdered God's son? You did. And so did I. And that's what
God holds against me. Now, not all of you have children,
but most of you do. If someone murdered your child,
and I'm not talking about an accidental death or something
like that, I'm talking about intentionally tortured your child
for hours and then put them to death, would anything satisfy
you? Would you have anything but indignation
and hatred and wrath for the person who did that? That's all
I would have. That's God. That's what we have
done to God. When the restraints were removed,
we murdered his son. And we can talk about all day
long about this evil heart that we inherited from our first father
Adam. And we can talk all day long about it. It affects everything
we do. So where our most wholesome deed is nothing but unrighteousness
and sin before him, but it does not scratch the surface. What
is my crime? My crime is murdering God's son,
an innocent man. And for that, for all of us,
we deserve to go to hell. And that's not too strong a language.
Which leads me to my second point. Since that is the case, that
we are all guilty before God and our crime is horrible, he
doesn't owe you and me anything. He doesn't owe me a scrap of
mercy. He doesn't owe me an ounce of grace. He does not owe you
and me anything. We have no rights before God. We send away those rights. We
lost every one of those rights when we tortured and we murdered
his son. Not a one of us deserve any mercy, any grace, not a crumb
before God. We deserve his wrath. That's
it. Here's a third thing. The cross tells us, that message
it has for us. God is not going to allow any
sin to go unpunished. On that cross, the sins of God's
people was found on his son. He put the sins of his people
in his son, and he bore those sins. And when God saw those
sins on his son, he fired his wrath down upon him because God
is absolutely just. He would not spare his only son.
Therefore, he's not going to spare any man if sin is found
upon him. He is a just God. We get a picture
of this cross right there in our text. I should have said
this earlier, but I wasn't thinking. It's in Eglin's death. Ehud came
up to him and he took that knife and he drove it into Eglin's
belly. And that blade, that two-edged
blade, went all the way in and the fat wrapped around it. And
Eglin, that dagger, actually became part of Eglin. And the
dirt, the waste, the filth came out. What happened on the cross?
The father plunged that knife of the sins of God's elect into
Christ. It went all the way in and they became his. So much
so that he suffered under the wrath of God. He then took his
fiery wrath, that knife, that dagger of his wrath, and he plunged
it into him. And what happened? What's the result of his death?
For everybody he died for, the dirt came out. All the repulsiveness,
all the filth, all the shame, all the sin, it came out and
it has been taken away as far as the east is from the west. England's death is disgusting,
it is. It's a beautiful type of the cross. That's what the
cross tells us. God's not gonna let one sin go
unpunished. The cross also tells us this. It tells us that he is a God
of great love, mercy and salvation to lefties, to sinners. While he was on that cross, there
were two other men who were being crucified next to him. Two malefactors,
two criminals. And these men begin the day by
railing God and mocking God. But along the way, something
beautiful happens, something amazing happens. The Lord, in
this man's last moments, he revealed himself to one of those malefactors.
To one of them. He chose one, and he chose to
reveal himself to one of those malefactors. And that man's heart
was changed. He was given a new heart. And
this is what he said. He said to the other malefactor,
does not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation,
And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our
deeds, but this man hath done nothing amiss. That thief was
saying to the other one, this is God. He just revealed himself
to me. I didn't know it. This is God
hanging next to us. And he's done nothing amiss.
He's the spotless lamb. He committed no sin. We, me and
you, we indeed justly, we're just getting exactly what we
deserve. We're hanging on this cross justly. We're just getting
what we deserve. And if we wake up in hell, we're
just going to be getting exactly what we deserve. And the Lord
calls them to say this. Lord, remember me when thou comest
into thy kingdom. I have no doubt this man didn't
know all the ins and outs of justification and sanctification
and faith and repentance and the new birth and the two natures.
I don't think he knew anything about that. Makes the story more
beautiful he didn't. All he knew was he was a guilty
man. He was getting what he deserved,
and if he woke up in hell, he would be getting exactly what
he deserved. But he had one hope, if Christ
would just remember him. If he would just will his salvation. This is God. He can do anything
he wants. There is nothing outside of his
power. I can't do anything, but if he's willing to save me, all
he has to do is will it. If he wills my salvation, he'll
do everything necessary to make it happen. If he's willing, Lord,
remember me when you come in your kingdom. All he has to do
is will it. Is he willing to do it? Because
I got no claims on God. And this is how the Lord responded
to that man. Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with
me in paradise. Now am I one of these ones whom
he was bearing on that cross, that he took my sins out of me
and he put in him, and through his death he actually put those
sins away and I stand justified before God this very day. Am I one of these people? Does
the cross speak peace to me? Two very important questions.
Do you personally deserve to go to hell? That's a very sobering question.
Do you personally, in and of yourself, deserve to go to hell? If God were to send you to hell
tomorrow, is he just doing what's right and what's just and what's
fair? Second question, is your only hope that God willed your
salvation before the world ever began and Christ did everything
that was necessary to accomplish it on his cross? I'm not asking
you if you think you're safe right now. I'm asking you, is
your only hope is that this man remembered you? That he did this
for you and he did everything for you. And folks, if that's
you, you're a man who deserves to go to hell, man or woman,
and your only hope is that he remembered you on that cross. He died for you. This cross,
it speaks peace to you. You're sinless. You have absolutely
nothing to worry about. You are a righteous man or woman
before God this very day. Now, there's one more picture
and type I'd like to show you for a second. We talked about
what the message was. It's the message of the cross.
But what does it look like when the Lord delivers that message
to a man? What happens when he makes that
message effectual to a man? Well, what happened with Eccles?
Who was Eccles? Very simply in the scripture,
it points out that Eglin was a very fat man. That's how it
describes him. He was bloated, and he was swollen,
and he was gluttonous. Just like we are. Just like all
men are by nature prideful, puffed up, spiritually self-confident,
believing we have power, we have ability with God. There's something
I can do to attract his attention. There is something I can do to
make my peace with God. I can at least meet him halfway.
I can at least do something that would spur him to show me mercy. There has to be something I can
do to gain his respect, at least in part. At the very least, I
can get better, can't I? I may be bad right now, but at
least I can get better. That's what it means to be a
very fat man, very swollen, very bloated, puffed up in spiritual
pride. What happens when the Lord takes
the message of the cross and he drives it into your heart?
Puts it in you so much so that it becomes a part of you. The
dirt comes out. Last thing Eglin saw before he
died, he saw all the filth and all the wretchedness that was
inside him. It was all on the floor there for him to see. And
this is exactly what happens when the Lord takes his word,
his message, that two-edged sword, his gospel, and he makes it effectual
to a man. He sends it in there and you
see the filth. You see the wretchedness that is inside of you. You see
that all your righteousnesses are as filthy rags before God,
and you cry out for a deliverer, just like the children of Israel
do, and you find that deliverer in Christ. Let me give you a
commentary on this. Turn over to Hebrews chapter
4. We'll look at this last. Hebrews 4 and look at verse 12.
Remember that Ehud's blade is two edged, double edged blade.
Hebrews 4 verse 12. For the word, the word of God,
the message of God, the written word of God is quick and powerful
and sharper than any, how many edge? Two edged sword. piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirits and the joints and marrow and his
discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. This is
what happens when the Lord takes this message, the message of
this cross, and he makes it effectual to a man's heart. Number one,
it quickens him. It actually gives life. And that is a cause
for hope and optimism. If the Lord takes his word today,
he may bless it to a man's heart. He may actually breathe life
into somebody this very morning. None of us will know it. But
it may happen this very morning. He may take his word, as poorly
as it is spoken, and bless it in somebody's heart and actually
give them life because this is a powerful word. This is the
power of God unto salvation. That's what Paul said. And then
he says this, it divides. It divides asunder. It immediately
causes a division in a man. It actually causes a war. Why?
Because when he quickens him, when he makes him a partaker
of that new birth, he has a new man inside of him. He has a holy
man inside of him. He actually has the Spirit of
God dwelling inside of him. And that Spirit immediately goes
to war with that flesh. And that flesh immediately goes
to war with that spirit. And that believer now, that man
who's born of God, he now lives in a war the rest of his life
where he hates what he does and can never do what he actually
wants to do. And he lives in that war of the flesh and the
spirit. This is a message that actually creates a division of
man because it gives a holy man. It puts a new man in him that
actually owns the sins of that old man. And it says this at
the end, I really enjoy this. It says, and is discerner of
the thoughts and intents of the heart. Who discerns? Does God
need this to discern a man's heart? God looks in every man's
heart. It ain't even hard for him. He
doesn't need a mechanism to do that. Who discerns? Who can see
now when this message comes in? You can. you can actually discern
what's in that old, wretched, weak, broken heart. It's nothing
but evil. Just like when Eglin, all the
contents of him were spilled down there on the ground. All
that filth was all out over the place. As soon as this message
comes in, you see what's really inside there. I am nothing but
a sinner before God. But here is the great news about
being a sinner. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came to this world
to save sinners, of whom I am chief. If you are the chief of
sinners, a man deserving hell, you're a safe man. Christ died
for you. That's a strange story. I hope
you got something out of it. It's been a pleasure to be with
you this morning.