So we come back to Psalm 119,
and this time to the section headed Jod, that letter of the
Hebrew alphabet. Verse 73, thy hands have made
me and fashioned me. Give me understanding that I
may learn thy commandments, that they that fear thee will be glad
when they see me, because I have hoped in thy word. Of course,
we set out to look at this very long psalm. There's another hundred
verses and more to go yet before we get to the end of it. And
how we'll go through it, I don't know, but from week to week,
I look to see if there's a message here. And it struck me straight
away. Thy hands have made me and fashioned me, and then they
that fear thee will be glad when they see me. So this got me thinking
and praying as to what it could, entail, what it could be telling
us. You see, last week, we were considering verses 65 and 66,
and we were considering Christ, Jesus the man, as the servant
of God. You know, in Isaiah 52, it says,
My servant shall deal prudently. God is talking about his servant,
whom he would send, who would deal wisely, prudently. That
servant is Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ. the Son of God, one made
like unto the Son of God. He came into this world for the
purpose of redemption. He came to do the will of God. And what was the will of God?
This is the will. They asked Him, what's the will
of God? This is the will of God, said Jesus, that of all that
He has given me, I should lose nothing, that he should save
all of his people. The will of God was that his
elect multitude, that no man can number, of every tribe and
tongue and kindred, should be redeemed from the law's curse,
should be bought back, the penalty paid, for their offence against
the justice and holiness of God. They should be redeemed from
the law's curse, and thereby qualified for the kingdom of
God. qualified for eternity, qualified for his heaven. That's
the will of God. That where I am, said Jesus in
his high priestly prayer, they may be also, that they may behold
my glory, the glory which I had with the Father before the beginning
of time. This is the will of God in redeeming
his elect multitude from the curse of sin. And you know, it's
the theme of the whole of Scripture. If you haven't got that, it doesn't
matter what else the Scripture teaches you, it teaches you nothing
worth knowing. Just a few moral lessons for
this life. The purpose of the Scripture is to teach, is God
declaring the salvation of His multitude that He has chosen
in Christ before the beginning of time by His redeeming blood. by His Son coming into this world,
being made man, that as a man He might die, that He might pay
the penalty due to the sin of the people that He loved. The
Scripture answers Job's question. You know what Job's question
is? How should a man be just with God? How can I, who am fundamentally
sinful and completely contrary to everything that God is in
His infinite purity and holiness, how can I be just with God? How can I be accepted by God? How can God look upon me and
not demand my destruction? and under the curse, under the
wrath of God, under the curse of the law. How can that be?
This book answers that question. It's in Christ. It's a question.
Have you asked it? How many of you ask that question?
How can I, a sinner, be just with God? Have you asked it?
It's the most important question. You know, there's all sorts of
questions that crop up in life. What things should I do? What
career should I follow? What things should I try to obtain? All sorts of things are questions
that arise, but there is none more important than this. How
can I who am a mortal being, a sinful being, one who must
die for it's appointed to man to die once and then the judgment.
How can I be right with God? How can I be accepted by God? How can I be sure that I can
lay me down in peace and sleep because I know that God's keeping
me? How can I know that God has good thoughts towards me and
not thoughts of wrath and anger? How can I know these things?
The answer is in this book, in this thing, of the Gospel of
Grace, of Christ redeeming his people from the curse of the
law. In verse 73 it says, Thy hands have made me and fashioned
me. Who's writing? Remember the question
we asked last week, whose words are these? Well of course they're
David's words. David's saying that. And of course every one
of us can say this. I'm a creature made in the image
of God. In the image of God made he them.
Male and female made he them. As much as this society in this
evil day can't stand that fact of biology and of truth, male
and female created he them. I am made in the image of God.
I am the product of intelligent design, not of random evolution. I am not the product of random
processes. God made me. God made me. And I am fearfully and wonderfully
made, as Psalm 139 says. So yes, of course it's talking
about that, but supremely, it's not just that that it's talking
about. Thy hands have made me and fashioned me. This is the
servant of God speaking again. This is Christ the Messiah speaking. This is the Lord Jesus Christ.
speaking a thousand years before he came, thy hands have made
me. It was God who fashioned him.
Now don't get me wrong for one second. I am not saying that
the Lord Jesus Christ is a created being of God, as the Jehovah's
Witnesses say. I am most emphatically not saying
that. But what I am saying is that
the eternal second person of the Trinity, the eternal Word
of God. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. By Him all
things were made, and without Him was not anything made that
was made. This is the infinite God, who shared the full glory
of God, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God. But there
came a day in time when God was made man. when God became that
which he hadn't been before. He'd appeared in types, theophanies,
pictures, but when he was born, when Jesus was born of Mary the
Virgin in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king,
that day when the angels of God rang out glory to God in the
highest and peace on earth, goodwill toward men, that was a day when
God became that which he hadn't been before. He took upon him
flesh. For a little while he was made
lower than the angels. The one who is above, the one
who in everything has the preeminence, the one who is the supreme God,
the one who alone is the way in which we can know God and
approach God. There was a day when he was made,
for a little while, lower than the angels. A little lower than
the angels, another way of saying it. He laid his glory aside. For that period, 33 years or
so, he laid his glorious side to walk this earth in the flesh
Same as we do, yet without sin, in the likeness of sinful flesh,
but without sin. This is speaking of the Lord
Jesus Christ, God's servant, God's servant, coming to accomplish
the purpose, the mission, for which God, His Father, sent Him. This is supremely speaking about
Jesus Christ. And if we miss what this is saying
about the Lord Jesus Christ, then we miss entirely the most
important aspect of it. Look at this, how can it be anybody
else? Look at verse 74. They that fear thee will be glad
when they see me. We'll come back to that later,
but how can it be anybody other than Christ? His coming into
world history is the pivot of world history. Galatians 4 verse
4, when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his
son, his son who was his eternal son, made of a woman, made under
the law to redeem those who were under the law. How did he redeem
them? Look back a chapter in Galatians
3 to verse 13. How did he redeem them? To redeem
them from the curse of the law by being made that curse in their
place, for them, in their place. And that coming in time 2,000
years ago is the Great Divide. Do you know it was always called
in Christian Western cultures, BC and AD, of course the smart
alecks who are rewriting history and rewriting morals and rewriting
everything that is good have changed that and they call it
now before the current era or after the current era or something
like that. It's before Christ came and Anno Domini is in the
year of our Lord after Christ came. We measure our time. Why
is it 2021? Because it's measured from when
Christ was born and let no woke liberal-minded person trying
to deny that which God has established. B.C. and A.D. Before he came,
everything was looking forward to his coming. From that day
in the Garden of Eden, when man fell, and in Genesis 3.15, God
said that the seed of the woman would come. The seed of the woman
would come. to put right the fall that Satan
had captured as it were, the vice-royship of this world which
God had delegated to Adam. And in that verse it was promised
that that would be put right by the coming of the promised
seed of the woman, made of a woman. The seed of the woman would come
who is the Son of God. And he spoke of a lamb being
sacrificed, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of this world.
So then, in verse 73, up until then all of the types and the
shadows were looking forward to the one that God had promised,
the Messiah, the Christ that God had promised. to Him coming
as a man. And here we are, verse 73, prophetically,
a thousand years before He came, thy hands, God's hands, have
made me. Does God have hands? Well, physically,
I don't know, but metaphorically, we read again and again about
the hands of God. The heart of the King is where?
In the hands of God. The heart of the rulers of this
world are in the hands of God. It's a metaphor for God who works
all of his purposes. The purposes of God made and
fashioned Jesus the man. Jesus the man in whom God was
made flesh. And when he came, all of the
pictures that had spoken of him coming, they were all removed. The removal of the pictures,
this is my first point. until Christ appeared, until
thy hands have made me and fashioned me, if you would approach God,
you had to approach Him in pictures of redeeming grace. All of the
Old Testament, all of the Mosaic law, all of the priests and the
sacrifices and the temple and the tabernacle and the altar
and the showbread, And all of those things were pictures of
redeeming grace, were pictures of how sinners are redeemed from
the curse of the law, from the just condemnation of their sin.
And there were many in Israel, the descendants of Abraham, You
know, those descendants of Abraham that he set apart, made a covenant
with, and gave them the covenant of circumcision, the sign of
circumcision, as a sign of the covenant he'd made with them.
And that people, symbolical of the true people of God in all
ages, the true Israel of God, the true Israel of God that has
heart-faith in all ages, that people then, amongst them, were
the true people of God then. And they had faith, many of them
had faith. And by faith they looked. even
from Adam, Adam and Eve, and Abel, and Seth, and Enoch, and
Noah, and right the way down through the patriarchs, Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, and so on. They looked by faith. When they
sacrificed lambs, according to what God had specified, they
were looking to the promised Messiah, the seed of the woman
coming. They looked on the picture. The picture was not the reality. The picture the animal sacrifice,
its blood being shed, they looked on that, but by faith, if they
had true faith, they saw the reality of the promised seed.
They saw not a lamb which was the baby of a sheep, they saw
the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world. The
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, as Revelation 13.8
says. They saw Him making atonement
for sin. And looking at the picture, they
were by faith enabled to envisage the reality, and to grasp the
reality, and to find acceptance with God. and to know the presence
of God and to know the Holy Spirit's indwelling and showing them all
truth. Abraham believed God in this
way. This is what was accounted to
Abraham for righteousness. It wasn't Abraham's believing,
it was what he believed in. What did he believe in? That
the seed of the woman, the Messiah, the promised Christ, God in flesh
would come as the Lamb of God. and he would make atonement for
sin, so that his people for whom he makes atonement would be made
the righteousness of God in him. Now for many in that nation,
increasingly down the years, there was no heart faith. It
all just became legal ritual. It was just an outward legal
ritual. So that when the Lamb of God
came, you see again and again in the Gospel accounts, the hard-heartedness
of the Pharisees, and of the scribes, and of the Sadducees,
and all of these religious hierarchy, who Legalistically went through
all of the rituals, but there was no heart faith. Even the
Apostle Paul when he was Saul of Tarsus, he was a Pharisee.
above all of his equals in terms of his conformance. He said,
none of them could blame me of anything. I was blameless amongst
them as far as this legalistic implementation of the requirements
of Scripture were concerned. There was no heart-faith there
though. For many, for most perhaps, it
had become empty hypocrisy. You know, do you like nuts? Do
you like nuts? Well, you know when somebody's
been at the bag of nuts and has cracked the nut shells and has
taken all the kernels out of the nut shells and just left
a bag of shells, and you think, oh, I'd like a nut, and you go
to the bag and all that's left is a load of shells. Are they
any good? Of course not. You don't want to eat them, do
you? This is what it had become like. The religion of the Israelite
nation had very largely become like nutshells without any kernel
of value. There was no value in communing
with God in it. Look at Psalm 40. You don't have
to look at these, I'll turn over to them. Psalm 40 verse 6. Listen what God says to those
people about heartless religion. He says, Sacrifice and offering
thou didst not desire. Mine ears hast thou opened. Burnt
offering and sin offering hast thou not required. You see, it
was empty. It was empty. Then said I, Lo,
I come in the volume of the book it is written of me. Hebrews
chapter 10 and verse 5. Listen to this. And he's quoting
Psalm 40, verse 6, that I've just read. You didn't want When he came into the world,
the pictures were no longer needed. You know, when the house is built,
the plans for the house are no longer needed. You don't live
in the plans of the house, you live in the house that has been
built. It's just the pattern, it's just the design, it's just
the picture. It isn't the reality. You can't take a shower in the
plan of the house. It has to have a house there
and a real shower. Wherefore when he cometh into
the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not.
But a body hast thou prepared for me. A body was prepared for
Christ to come. The pictures were taken away.
By faith people looked, they saw the promised seed, Abraham
believed God in this way, and then it was taken away. Why should
the infinite God need man's contributions anyway? Look at Psalm 50, Psalm
50 and verse 9, I will take no, this is God speaking, I will
take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy foals,
for every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon
a thousand hills. God doesn't need us to give him
anything, I know all the fowls of the mountains and the wild
beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, this is God
speaking, I would not tell you. Who are you, puny little sinful
man? You're not going to do anything
for me. The world is mine and the fullness thereof. Will I
eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? offer unto
God thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto the Most High. Sacrifice
had become empty legal ritual. In 1 Samuel it says this, 1 Samuel
15, 22, hath the Lord, this is Samuel speaking to Saul who had
greatly sinned, hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings
and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord. Behold,
to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of
rams. That era ended. when Christ came. The looking
forward in pictures and types ended when Christ came. A body
was prepared. Thy hands have made me and fashioned
me. They will be glad that fear you
when they see me. A body has been prepared. Christ
has come. All of the pictures are ended
now. Do you know, I can say it still goes on, 2,021 years after
Christ came. The Catholic icons you know, the images, the statues,
the stained glass pictures, the masses, all of these things,
the Anglican cathedrals, great works of architecture from the
1100s, 1200s, 1300s, you know, you cannot cease to be amazed
at the ingenuity of man, but they are all trying to recreate
what was the picture looking forward in the Old Testament.
with the temple, and its ornamentation, and its altars, and its priests,
and the priestly robes, they're taken away. They were but mere
pictures, the reality has come. To go back to them, as all of
that kind of ritualistic so-called Christianity, it's idolatry in
truth, to go back to them is not, as so many think, to move
nearer to the truth, it's to move away from the truth, not
towards it, So the reality appeared. Thy hands have made me and fashioned
me. 2,000 years ago, God was made
man to redeem his elect by dying the death that was due to them.
Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. Christ is not a created
being. Christ is the eternal Son of
God, the Word who was in the beginning with God. This one
became on this day, 2,000 years ago, a man, clothed in human
flesh. As it says in Hebrews 2, verse
10, it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all
things, Christ who made everything, in bringing many sons unto glory. That's his purpose, to make the
captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. To make the
captain of their salvation Christ, the Redeemer, the promised Messiah.
To make them perfect, His people, perfect through His sufferings.
For both He that makes holy sanctifieth, and they who are made holy, sanctified,
are all of one. They're all of the same flesh.
for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren." Do you
know God, who became man in Christ, calls His people His friends,
His brethren. He is our Lord God. He is the
one who is over all, but He is the friend of sinners. And he
says, I will declare thy name, God's name, unto my brethren,
his people, in the midst of the church, his body, I will sing
praise unto thee. And again he says, I will put
my trust in him, and again, behold, I and the children which God
has given me, listen to this, for as much then as the children
that he's redeeming, are partakers of flesh and blood, aren't we
all? He also himself likewise took part of the same. Why? That
through death he might destroy him that had the power of death,
that is, the devil, and deliver them, who through fear of death
were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took
not on him the nature of angels to accomplish redemption, but
he took on him the seed of Abraham, those who have like precious
faith as Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved
him, it was necessary for him, God, the second person of the
Trinity, to be made like unto his brethren, to be made like
unto us who believe him, that he might be a merciful and faithful
high priest in all things pertaining to God to make reconciliation
for the sins of his people. This is what he came to do in
Psalm 139. flushing around to lots of scriptures,
but the scripture's the best commentary on itself. In Psalm
139, verse 14, I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and
wonderfully made. You, me, David, yes, of course,
but above all, Christ, the man Christ Jesus. I will praise thee,
for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are thy works,
and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance, look, it
gets more and more. person of Christ. My substance
was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret and curiously
wrought in the lowest parts of the earth." Remember what Peter
read to us earlier from Luke's Gospel? The angel speaking to
Mary, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, conceived of the Holy
Ghost, in the lowest parts of the earth, wrought wrought, curiously
wrought there, made of God there, a body, a body hast thou prepared
for me, a body hast thou prepared, a body prepared in which he would
come and accomplish redemption. This is truly the mystery of
godliness, is it not? Back to Luke, Back to Luke's
Gospel and Luke's Gospel chapter 1 and verse 31. Behold thou shalt
conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shall call his
name Jesus. You see he was made a man. He was made a man there.
Verse 32. Mary said to the angel how shall
this be seeing I know not a man. Verse 35. And the angel answered
and said unto her The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the
power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy
thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son
of God. Here is the great mystery of
godliness revealed. As 1 Timothy 3.16 says, great
is the mystery of godliness. We sung it in Wesley's hymn at
the start. God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made
man. You can't understand it, neither
can I. God was manifest in the flesh. See again Psalm 40, see
again what he says there, verses 7 and 8, Lo, I come. This is
Christ announcing to his people, Lo, I come. He himself announces
it. In the volume of the book, which
book? The Word of God. In the volume of the book it
is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God. What's
the will of God? That of all that the Father has
given to the Son. he should lose nothing, but should
raise it up at the last day. Of everything that was said of
him, again quoting in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 7, Then
said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of
me, to do thy will, O God, And verse 10, by the witch will we
are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all, all as pictures oft repeated, and then once for all
in Christ. This is why God had to be made
flesh. This is why God had to become
man. You see, only as infinite God
did he have the capacity to redeem a multitude that no man can number.
Only as God can He do that, but only as a man could He pay redemption's
price. God, who is Spirit alone, could
not suffer the penalty due for man's sin. God could not. God had to become man to suffer
that penalty, to pay it. And as a true man, in the likeness
of sinful flesh, yet without sin, He sought divine understanding
of his mission. You know, the man, as he grew
from a child, give me understanding that I may learn thy commandments.
This was the prayer. You wonder, why did Jesus keep
praying to his father? Surely this was it, if we're
scratching the surface of understanding something of this mystery of
godliness. And then I want to talk about his reception amongst
his people. Verse 74, they that fear thee
will be glad when they see me. They that fear thee will be glad
when they see me. Not all are glad that Christ
has come into the world. Not all. Only those that fear
God. What is it to fear God? Those
who believe that He is, you know it says in Hebrews, you know,
you must believe that God is. Well, is that just saying that
there is a God? No, no, no. It's not just intellectual head
knowledge. It's an awareness. a feeling,
a sensation of the being of God, something of his majesty and
his holiness, something of the great I Am. You know, when Jesus
said, in the Garden of Eden, when they came to arrest him
and Judas, betraying him, brought that tribe of soldiers and officers
to arrest him, and he said, who are you seeking? And they said,
Jesus of Nazareth, and he said, forget the italics in your King
James Version, he said, I am. And I don't know what it was
about the power of that, but you know when Moses asked who
the burning bush was speaking to him, the great I am. I am
that I am. God who is. I am. The great I am. They fell backwards. There's a psalm that says they
fell backwards when he announced his presence. They fell backwards.
The great I am. Those that fear Him are given
a sense of the Divine Being and of His presence. They're given
a sense, by revelation of the Holy Spirit, as to who He is. A sense of awe and reverence. at who the person of God is in
his holiness. Do you know what the Proverbs
say? Proverbs 9 verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. It's the beginning of true knowledge.
If you would have true wisdom and true knowledge about what
this life is about, then you start with the fear of the Lord.
You know nothing truly outside of the fear of the Lord. Listen
to what God said via Jeremiah the prophet, in Jeremiah 9 verses
23 and 24, Thus saith the Lord, God speaking, listen, listen
up, God speaking, Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man,
glory in his wisdom, the one who thinks he's wise in the things
of this world, and aren't there plenty of those around us in
these days, Aren't we surrounded by experts in absolutely everything? In truth, they know next to nothing
about anything, but they're all in the world's judgment, judged
as wise men. Let not the wise man glory in
his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, those
that are stronger than the rest and who can win all the fights
and who have all the resources. Let not the mighty man glory
in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches. Oh,
how much men and women love to glory in their riches that they've
gotten, and that they've accumulated, and that they've made to grow
into bigger riches. No, don't glory in those things,
things of this world, things of the flesh, but let him that
glorieth, and I'm talking truly glorying, let him that glorieth
glory in this, This is what God says. This is what to glory in.
You listening? This is what to glory in. Not
your riches, not your might, not the things that you have,
not your wisdom that you think you have. Glory in this, if you
have any understanding and any knowledge of God, that I am the
Lord which exercise, this is the Lord to glory in, knowing,
who exercises loving kindness. who exercises judgment and righteousness
in the earth. For in these things I delight,
saith the Lord. The Israel of God, the true Israel
of God, Galatians 6.16, the true Israel of God, not that empty
kernel, that empty shell, of a religion, the Israel of God
is glad at his appearing. They that fear thee will be glad
when they see me. They will be glad when they see
him appear in time. I know I refer to it often, but
it's so instructive. Luke chapter 2. Luke chapter
2 verse 25. Behold, there was a man in Jerusalem
whose name was Simeon, and the same man was just and devout.
Listen what he was doing. He was waiting for the consolation
of Israel. Who's the consolation of Israel?
Answer, the Redeemer that was promised to come, the Messiah,
the Christ. And the Holy Ghost was upon him,
and it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should
not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came
in by the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought
in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law,
then he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord,
see the Holy Spirit showed him, Lord, now let us thou thy servant
depart in peace. Let me die in peace according
to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. God's Spirit
teaches his people to fear him, to reverence him. He shows them
something of their sin against God. He convicts them. He confirms
just condemnation, that I deserve just condemnation. He draws forth
from them pleas of mercy at the hands of a just God, who is angry
with the wicked every day. A God who is a consuming fire. Is, not was, is. Our God is a
consuming fire. into whose hands it is a fearful
thing to fall, but points to the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sins of the world, a world of sinners. And if free grace,
why not for you? Why not for me? Behold, He says,
behold the Lamb of God, look at Him, look at Him, you who
want to know the answer to Job's question, look at the Lamb of
God. Who is it that's got the answer to how are people going
to be justified for eternal glory? Look at Him, behold, He takes
away the reason for God's just condemnation. He justifies a
multitude. by coming into this world, and
being made their sin, and paying its penalty, and establishing
righteousness, and honoring the law, and implementing God's kingdom
plan. You know in Revelation 5 and
6, you know the seven sealed scroll of the purpose of God
to establish His kingdom, And it's all done in the strength
of a lion. You know, the call goes out,
who is worthy? Nobody's found worthy. And John
weeps much, and the elder says to John, don't weep, but look
there in the center of the throne of God, at the lion of the tribe
of Judah. And John looks. in the center
of the throne of God where the elder points him. And he doesn't
see a lion, he sees a lamb as it had been slain. In the strength
of a lion, but in the capacity of a slain lamb. And the result? Rejoice greatly. Rejoice greatly! Worthy art thou, honour and glory
and power and dominion. Behold, the King cometh unto
thee. Rejoice greatly, your God is
coming among you. This is our God who has come
to accomplish redemption. Finally, his announcement to
you. He said that his people will
be glad when they see him. His people will be glad when
He's made flesh and dwelt among us. His people will be glad,
as Simeon was glad, and so many more, and everyone that believes
in Him. Verse 79, look at this. There's so much more in this
section, but just look at verse 79. Let those that fear thee,
has God put His fear in your heart? Let those that fear thee
turn unto me. Who is speaking? It's not King
David. It's not me. It's Christ, isn't
it? It's the Christ of God. Let those
that fear thee turn unto me, and those that have known thy
testimonies. Let my heart be sound in thy statutes, that I
be not ashamed, that I be not found wanting in that day of
judgment. Have you learned to fear the Lord? Has the Lord God
put anything of His fear in your heart, of reverence for His person? Well, look what this verse says.
Turn unto Him. Turn unto Christ. Turn to Him. See Him by faith. You won't see
Him with your eyes like you see things in this world around,
but you'll see Him by faith if God grants you that faith. Ask
God to grant you that faith, as all your soul needs for acceptance
with God. That's what you need to see,
Christ as all your acceptance with God. Hear him say to you,
lo, I come. Lo, I come, in the volume of
the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Hear him
say that to you, Lo, I come, in all the glory of his divine
person, yet made like you his brethren. Why? To pay your debt
to divine justice, if you are in him as your surety and substitute. to hear God's judgment regarding
Jesus, because you know that applies to you as well. God said
this, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And
if we're in Christ, he says that of us too. He says that of all
his people. He is well pleased with his people
in Christ, for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He has
now returned to eternal glory. He's seated on high. He was raised
from the dead. His mission is accomplished.
Everything He came to accomplish, He accomplished. And God vindicated
it. And He's returned to glory, to
that glory He had with the Father from before the beginning of
time. And His elect, that multitude that no man can number, are qualified
in what He has done for His kingdom, and are certain of a good end,
which is why God says, I know the thoughts that I think of
you. that I think toward you, thoughts of peace to give you
a good end. And as he is, as John says, so
are we in this world. You his people, you his failing
sinful people, yet by faith in him, as he is, so are we in this
world. And God says, this is my beloved
child in whom I am well pleased for the sake of Christ. Do we
need perfect conformance to God's word, to his law, to his testimonies? Religion will tell you, no, just
try your best. I'm telling you, don't even bother.
You will fail. You are guaranteed to fail. Do
we need perfect conformance? Of course we do. Nothing that
defiles shall enter therein. But all his people have that
which God requires in him, in Christ. So why not you? Will
you come to him? Hear his word. Just listen to
this. It's about three verses before the end of the scripture.
It's Revelation 22, verse 17. The Spirit and the bride say,
come. You know, if you're wavering
or in any doubt, listen. The Spirit of God, the Bride,
His Church, they say, come. And let him that heareth say,
come. And let him that is athirst, come. And whosoever will, oh
that God would make you willing in the day of His power. Whosoever
will, let him take of the water of life freely. Amen.