Well, we're continuing in what
is looking like a series, The Gospel in, The Gospel in a Burning
Bush, The Gospel in the Fall, and today, a most strange title
you might think, you might still think it's strange when we get
to the end of it, but it's The Gospel in a Wounded Beast, The
Gospel in a Wounded Beast. You know, we're spanning scripture
today from the earliest chapters of Genesis to the final chapters
of Revelation. And the whole thing is just such
a self-consistent, amazing revelation of the truth and grace of God.
You know, any of you who do those incredibly complicated jigsaw
puzzles, I know somebody does big jigsaw puzzles, and sometimes
you can start out on one, and if you've got no idea, oh, it
can take you ages to get going. But then after a while, some
bits come together. And when some bits there come
together, it sheds light on bits in other places, and gradually
the whole picture comes together. I'm not saying for one moment
that understanding all the scripture is as simple as doing even a
complicated jigsaw puzzle, but nevertheless there are similarities.
The whole of God's revelation, written by so many different
people down so many years, is such a consistent message. of
grace, and of salvation, and of righteousness, and of justice,
and of holiness, and of judgment against sin. And so today we're
coming to the portion which is at the end of the flood, the
flood of Noah's day. When God brought the flood, God
justly punished sin. That's what it was for, because
the sin that was in the world was rampant, and God said, it
repents me that I have made man. In other words, not that God
changes, but that the course and direction of the plan of
redemption made a change. It was quite deliberate, it was
always God's intention, but the change of direction came. Hence
the term, he repented God that he'd done this, and he said,
I will destroy all flesh from off the earth. And the reason
he did that, you know, in chapter 6 and verse 5 of Genesis, God
saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
As Jeremiah says, the heart of man is wicked, desperately wicked
above all things. Who can know it? God knows it. And then when we look in, you
know, he brought the flood. And then we look in chapter 8
and verse 21, and Noah had come out of the ark as God had bidden
him, and the first thing that Noah did was he built an altar
in verse 20, and he made offerings to God, and it says, the Lord
smelled a sweet savour, and the Lord said in his heart, I will
not again curse the ground any more for man's sake. But look
what he says, the sin is still there. You know, it would be
just to. For the imagination of man's
heart, even though he's come through the flood, the eight
in the ark, including Noah, were still sinners, still evil from
his youth in his natural fleshly state. But nevertheless, neither
again will I smite the earth. Eight people came out of the
ark alive. Eight people. Can you imagine
this world that had been widely populated, very widely populated.
I don't know how many there were, there must have been millions
of people on the earth. But they were all swept away
apart from eight. And in Genesis 9 verse 19, it
talks, well verse 18, the sons of Noah went forth of the ark,
Shem, Ham, and Japheth. and Ham is the father of Canaan.
These are the three sons of Noah, and of them was the whole earth
overspread." You know, the genes that you and I share, you know,
we've had our pack of cards of genes dealt to us. But they come
from those four men, Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. That's where
they come from. That's where the descent comes
from. You know, no need to believe mystical stories of anthropologists.
This is what the Word of God says. This is the truth. Eight
people had seen and experienced salvation from judgment in the
ark, the picture of Christ. But even one of them, Ham, was
a reprobate. Ham hated the gospel of God's
grace. From him Despite what he'd seen
and experienced, from Ham came the seeds of the godless world
that we live in today. Just as Judas Iscariot was one
of the twelve disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, but betrayed
Christ and hated the gospel of Christ in exactly the same way
Ham, even though he'd come through that ark and through that experience
and he'd seen salvation from judgment, Nevertheless, he was
a reprobate. And Noah, there's an account,
you know, after the flood, Noah lived 350 years. It tells us
that in verse 28 of chapter 9 of Genesis. That's a long time,
isn't it? And, you know, believe it or
not, that is what the Word of God says, and I believe it. I
believe absolutely that that is what is said, and the world
was populated. It was very, very largely populated. You know how much population
rises. I mean, as I've often said, in
my lifetime, the population of the earth has more than trebled.
It's absolutely phenomenal. That has happened in my lifetime.
But look in chapter 9 at the end of it, at verse 20, and we
read of an account, only one account. Noah was a preacher
of righteousness. Noah was the man who found grace
in the eyes of the Lord, and nevertheless Noah was a sinner. And we have one account of Noah,
and it's for one purpose. It's to teach us something about
the way things are in the purposes of God in His grace. The one
thing that is told us about Noah in the 350 years following the
flood, is an incident of drunkenness. Noah began to be a husbandman,
and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine and was
drunken, and he was uncovered, naked, within his tent, and Ham
the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and
told his two brethren outside without. And Shem and Japheth,
the brothers, took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders,
and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father.
And their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's
nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine,
and knew what his younger son had done to him. And he said,
Cursed be Canaan. He didn't even call him Ham.
He called him Canaan, who was one of the descendants of Ham.
Cursed be Canaan. A servant of servants shall he
be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord
God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge
Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan
shall be his servant. Noah lived after the flood 350
years and all the days of Noah were 950 years and he died. That prophecy, that account of
Noah's drunkenness was not to show us how Noah was being spiteful
after his son found him naked because he'd gone and lost his
control and got drunk and it was a disgraceful thing to do
for the man who had seen so much and experienced so much of the
grace of God. But nevertheless, the Word of God is always honest
about its heroes. And here is Noah, exposed for
what he is. He got drunk, and he lost control,
and he was naked. But the key to it all is that
ham, in ham are the seeds, the genes, that which goes on to
make a large proportion of the peoples of the earth. In him
was hatred of the gospel of grace, and hatred of the gospel that
Noah had taught him. And here he catches Noah having
fallen, seemingly fallen from that grace, and he makes the
most he can of it. Oh, does he rejoice in it. Now
look at him, because Ham hates the gospel of God's grace, but
Shem and Japheth believe it, and they fear God, and they try
to do the honorable thing. You see, from them, if we read
the account of chapter 10, from Shem comes the Jews, the Israelites,
because Abram, Abraham, is descended from Shem. And Israel comes from
Shem, and that's the godly line. You know, it started with Abel,
and then right the way down through Seth, and Enos, and Enoch, and
down to Noah, and so on. That godly line, Shem, was the
father of Abraham, or the ancestor of Abraham. And Japheth was the
Gentiles, and the Gentile believers were in him, because it says,
Japheth shall dwell in the tents of Shem. In other words, come
into the same gospel grace that was shown to Abraham. We are
children of Abraham. By faith, by promise, we're the
children of Abraham. And Ham, on the other hand, rejected
the Gospel, and from him comes huge swathes of humanity. And
he was cursed in Noah's prophecy, but the curse was what the world
would regard as great blessing, because the worldly resources,
the bulk of them, went to the line of Ham, the great empires
of the world. When Peter was reading Revelation
17, you probably got a bit confused in the verses that we're talking
about. There are five kings, and five have gone, and one now
is, and there's one that is not yet, and the five that have come
and have gone, and oh dear, where are we? You know, it's very easy
to get confused. But they're talking about the world empires,
Assyria. Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, the
Chaldeans, the Medo-Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, that's
the ancient world empires. That's what that passage in Revelation
17 is talking about. And they came from the line of
Ham, because they were blessed with abundant worldly riches. But do you know the great blessing
the great blessing of God is not in great worldly riches.
Because what the world counts a great blessing, which is material,
you know, we keep, I hear the adverts on the radio, I like
listening to classic FM because of the music, but I do get tired
of the adverts saying that this Wednesday is going to be a Wednesday.
for somebody, and that somebody could be you. And this could
be life-changing money. This could be wonderful. This
could be the greatest blessing that ever came upon you. That
you pay your, whatever the stake is, just a tiny amount of money,
and you come back a multi-millionaire. Oh, wouldn't that be the most
wonderful thing? It would be the greatest curse
that could ever happen to you. you know, the greatest curse
that could ever happen to you. What shall a man be advantaged
if he gain the whole wide world, said Jesus, and yet lose his
soul? This is it. This is what happened
to Ham. His blessing of great worldly
resources was actually the curse of God against him. You see,
like it was between Abel and Cain, Abel, the godly line, the
godly line, what did they know? The godly line knew the way to
the tree of life in the Garden of Eden. The way to the tree
of life is in Genesis 3, 24. It's there where the Lamb is
sacrificed, looking to Christ, who is the way, the truth, and
the life. If you would come to the tree
of life, the tree of true, eternal life in God, you must come by
Christ, the Lamb of God. The godly line knew that, and
always sought to worship God, and wouldn't worship God any
other way. than in the blood of a lamb. But the ungodly line
still aspired to the tree of life, to its notion of the tree
of life, to a God who is an idol, and it tried to establish their
own way to God. That's what they always did.
They always tried to establish their own way, saying, who's
God to tell me that I'm not good enough? Now Noah lived after
the flood 350 years, and there was huge population growth. You
know, they were told to go and be fruitful and cover the earth,
and they did. There would be millions of people. You know,
just do some simple maths on, you know, generations. Just imagine
that, you know, couples have children at a pretty rapid rate,
and plenty of them, and soon, in 350 years, there's millions
and millions of people. And if you read Genesis chapter
10, you read the account of these, and down it goes, all descended
from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And you read down chapter 10,
and we're not going to do it now because there's some complicated
names in there, but you read down there, and this is how the
different tribes and nations and kindreds overspread the world. So then we get to chapter 10,
and we come to verse 8 of chapter 10, and we read about this man
Nimrod. Now, I know you've heard me mention
it before. Nimrod and Babel, for he was
king of Babel. He established a kingdom in Babel. Babel, Babylon. Babylon. Babel, confusion. You know, you
say, oh, the racket in there, it's just like a babble. It's
Babel, confusion. And we'll see why it got that
name. But look there in verse 8, Cush
begat, this is one of the descendants of Ham, Cush begat Nimrod. And he began to be a mighty one
in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before
the Lord. Wherefore it is said, even as
Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of
his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Akkad, and Kalneh, in the
land of Shinar." Here's this man, Nimrod, whose name actually
means, rebellious panther. He's a mighty rebel and it's
not before the Lord but against the Lord would be a better translation. Nimrod is a mighty rebel against
God and the gospel of his grace. Don't think for one minute they
didn't know about the need for blood redemption. There it was
where God had put the way to the tree of life before the flood. God had put it there at the east
of Eden. And there God met with his people,
his believing people, on the basis of redeeming blood, the
redeeming blood of a sacrificial lamb, pointing to the lamb that
was slain from the foundation of the world. The Lamb of God,
Christ our Passover, is sacrificed for us. But Nimrod was a mighty
rebel against that. He was a rebel against God, and
he was a rebel against the gospel of God's grace. as are so many
in the days in which we live and which have always been, there
are those who will not have this man, Christ, to rule over them. They have proud hearts. They
have self-righteous hearts. Whatever they do, what does it
say in Proverbs? they do whatever seems right
to them. Whatever, in their own mind, whatever seems right, that
it is that they do, irrespective of the consequences. This man
Nimrod was deified in his kingdom. He was treated as a god, you
know, as the Roman emperors were deified and treated as gods.
He was deified in his kingdom. I was looking up, I was prompted
by one of our listeners to look it up, and I was looking up some
of the ancient literature to do with this, and would you actually
believe this? that the strong hints in the
ancient literature of evergreen trees being decorated in the
depths of winter comes from Nimrod, and from the false religion of
Nimrod, and numerous pagan, Catholic, superstitious practices. You
know, the idea of the worship of Mary and all of that sort
of thing has its roots back here in this false religion. The roots
of Christless, Antichrist, religion in the world in which we live,
they're here in Nimrod's kingdom of Babel. And from its various
branches, the descendants of Ham established the great world
empires. As I said, what Peter read to
us in Revelation 17, 8 to 14, the earthly manifestations of Satan's kingdom
in rebellion against God. That's what the world empires
were. They were all seeking to crush the kingdom of God, to
wipe out the kingdom of God, to stamp out any trace of Israel,
the line of Shem and Abram from which Christ would come. Those
empires, as in the days of Hezekiah, Sennacherib, the Assyrian empire,
sought to just subsume. He didn't want to destroy Israel,
just subsume them so that they weren't distinct and a distinct
line of pure descent from which Christ would come. No, they wanted
to just subsume them and make them just blend in with the rest
of the world because this is Satan's objective, to remove
all distinction between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Antichrist. And this, this world then, these
people that had overspread the world after the flood, this was
the manifestation of Satan's kingdom against God. And this
is the beast from the sea. Look at Revelation chapter 13.
Revelation chapter 13, John tells us there, In verse 1 of chapter 13 he says,
And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise
up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon
his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was
like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear,
and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him
his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one
of his heads as it were wounded to death, and his deadly wound
was healed. And all the world wondered after
the beast. The beast is the empires of the
world, it's the kingdoms of the world. United in opposition to
God, is there not so much desire for world unity? You know, people
are not being extreme when you look at what's happening with
this coronavirus pandemic. You see more than just a respiratory
viral illness. Yes, it's a nasty one, but quite
honestly, there have been others just as bad, and we've never
reacted like this before. There's an awful lot looking
at this, that there is something much deeper behind all of this. This is the empires of this world.
This is the world united against God. This is the world and its
false religion, contrary to God's truth. and grace. In chapter
17, as Peter read earlier, chapter 17 and verses 4 to 7, the woman
was arrayed, saw this woman gorgeously arrayed, sitting on, you know,
she's committed fornication with the kings of the earth, and she's
sitting on a scarlet-colored beast. this beast, Revelation
13, this beast, this beast, empires of the world, Genesis 11, empires
of the world, Nimrod, Babel, all of these things together
against God and against the gospel of His grace. This woman was
arrayed in purple and scarlet color and decked with gold and
precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand, full
of abominations and filthiness of her fornication. And upon
her forehead, this woman that looks like respectable religion
and is pompous and alluring to the eye, she's got a name, mystery,
Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots. and an abomination,
and abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunken with
the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
And when I saw her, this translation isn't very good, I wondered with
great admiration means I was utterly shocked. John was utterly
shocked. that that which he first thought
was the church of Christ was actually completely false and
deriving all her power from the red beast on which she sat. The
red beast on which she sat? That same one that came up out
of the sea in Revelation 13. That same one that has its roots
and its seeds in Nimrod and Babel in Genesis chapter 11. This is
what it is. Look at Nimrod's godless ambition. Genesis chapter 11, go to Genesis
chapter 11 and verse 1. This is Nimrod's godless ambition. The whole earth was of one language
and of one speech. They were united together. There
was this great confederacy. of godlessness, confederacy of
rebels against God. The whole earth was of one language
and one speech. And it came to pass, as they
journeyed from the east, and they found a plain in the land
of Shinar, and they dwelt there." Shinar, you see, we read that
at the end of verse 10 of chapter 10, which is where Nimrod's kingdom
was. And they said one to another,
this confederacy of rebels against God, Go to, let us make brick,
and burn them thoroughly, throughly. And they had brick for stone,
and slime they had for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us
build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven. And let us make us a name, lest
we be scattered abroad from the face of the whole earth. You
see, their intention was the attainment of heavenly bliss,
of some sort of utopia, without any mention or acknowledgement
of the holiness of God and the justice of God. And that's the
kingdom of this world. And that's the kingdom of Satan.
reaching heaven without satisfaction of divine justice, a union of
peoples for a common godless good, exactly as the world is
today, so many striving for unity to solve humanity's issues, the
United Nations, the World Health Organization, the Bill Gates
Foundation, the European Union, Extinction Rebellion, Communist
China, etc., etc., etc. It's all an evil heart of unbelief. Genesis 8, 21, still you see,
though there'd been a flood, sin was still there. The imagination
of man's heart is evil from his youth. There's only one thing
that saves from that evil heart, and that's the grace of God,
the sovereign grace of God. They aspired to the tree of life,
but they refused the only way to the tree of life. Jesus said,
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the
Father but by me. It's the religion of humanism.
It's despotic in its intentions and its practices. It's a religion
of self-improvement, of idolatry in multiple forms. It's God's
kingdom of Eden surrendered by Adam to Satan, and it's that
kingdom working out its evil, godless intentions, but God frustrates
them. God frustrates the intentions
of Satan and of the kingdom of this world. In Revelation 5 you
read about a seven-sealed book on the hand of God who sits upon
the throne. And that seven-sealed book is
God's plan for the triumph of His kingdom of righteousness
and peace. But that plan needs to be implemented. The seals on it need to be opened. Recovery of the kingdom that
Adam surrendered to Satan needs to be implemented by this plan.
But who is worthy? Who is worthy to open the seals?
And the cry goes out, who is worthy to open the seals? And
there's great silence. There's no response. And John
weeps much, John the Apostle weeps much because he sees there's
nobody to come and implement God's plan of salvation, God's
plan of triumph of His kingdom. And one of the elders says, don't
weep, but look into the center of the throne of God. Look at
the lion of the tribe of Judah. You know this, I've said it so
many times before. And John looks and he doesn't
see a lion, but he sees a lamb. as it has been slain, and that
Lamb is worthy to implement the plan. Thou art worthy, for you
have redeemed us unto God by your blood, is the cry that goes
up. You see, first of all, the plan, as the first seal is opened,
must declare and establish the righteousness of God in this
world, and the white horse rides forth when the first seal is
opened. The white horse is the going
of the message of grace. It's the message that was promulgated
through Israel, through the patriarchs. It's the gospel that came with
Christ riding his white horse, that went by the power of the
Spirit in the apostles' doctrine and overspread the world, the
white horse. It may only be Christendom as
such, but the world is less bad even so, because of Christendom.
I know there's falsehood and error, but nevertheless it is
still less bad, because through it, Satan's ability to deceive
the nations was limited. But then the second seal is opened,
and a red horse rides forth. The plan must confound the world's
confederacy of godless rebellion. The red horse is the horse of
war. How are the nations going to
be set against each other, rather than in worldwide unity? You
know, if you hear like the message that was reported of the Pope
in Rome, you know, you would think he was an ambassador for
Satan's kingdom, wouldn't you? It's always about worldwide peace,
isn't it? It's always about all these things. The purposes of God are to stop
this world finding a peaceful confederacy outside of the grace
of God, outside of the justice of God. Here's how it starts.
In verse 5, the Lord, this is chapter 11, Genesis 11 verse
5, the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which
the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the
people is one. You see this? This is the kingdom
of Satan. This is the red beast upon which the woman is going
to sit. And they have all one language, and this they begin
to do. And now nothing will be restrained from them which they
have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there
confound their language, that they may not understand one another's
speech. So their union will be broken
up, because they won't understand one another. And you know that
phrase, that England is separated from France by, what is it, 22
miles, something like that, of the English Channel. And yet,
if you're English-born and you never study French and you never
learn it, and you go to Calais, you cannot understand a word
they're saying, and vice versa. the confounding of the languages
is incredibly effective. I remember once having a taxi
ride in Bremen, in northern Germany, back to the airport, and the
woman taxi driver and I were trying to talk, but it soon became
apparent she didn't have a solitary word of English, and I didn't
have a solitary word of German, and it was totally confounding. And the Lord scattered them.
Because of that, they couldn't understand each other. Misunderstanding.
So they split into nation-states. This is where the nation-states
began. And conflict between the nation-states
began. Because, of course, because of
sin, somebody wants what somebody else has got. And world wars
started, and unity was mortally wounded. That's the wound that
we saw in the head of the beast in Revelation 13.3. But the deadly
wound was healed. and the aspiration grow into
world empires of Egypt and Assyria and so on, the ones I mentioned
before, then the kings, the ten kings, and especially today as
it seeks unity for its perverted notion of the common good. Do
you know, You know, we're not guided by human literature, but
nevertheless, there are some works of human literature, like
1984, which is really quite remarkable in describing 2020, actually. The things that have been done,
you look and you think, wow, that is just so much like this
world in its godlessness is trying to control us. Big Brother is
trying to control us for the common good, for what it considers
the common good. This is it, what it considers
the common good. That's the situation in which
we're living. The seeds of today's world are right here in Genesis
9 to Genesis 11. We saw the woman on the beast
in Revelation 17 verses 1 to 6. How does this world hope to
reach its own heaven without divine justice being satisfied? Answer? in the form of worldly
false religion of all sorts, but basically, it's the religion
of Cain, who brought the works of his own hands to God, and
God didn't accept it. This world brings the works of
its own hands. The woman is the church, or looking
like the church, the bride of Christ, in initial appearance,
but it's soon shown to be Nimrod's religion. It's soon shown to
be the religion of Babylon. Babylon, Babylon, adulterously
unfaithful to the true God, vehemently opposed to the truth of Christ.
Turn back to Revelation. Now, Revelation 17. We've only
got a few minutes left, but we'll get through this. Revelation
17 and verse 14. All these kingdoms, this union
of this world against the gospel of Christ and the justice of
Christ, these shall make war with the Lamb. But listen. The
Lamb shall overcome them. Why? For he is Lord of lords
and King of kings, and they that are with him are called and chosen
and faithful. You see, this world is vehemently
opposed to the truth of Christ, yet it's doomed to certain defeat. Even the kingdoms of this world,
we read at the end of chapter 17 of Revelation, come to hate
the woman. Is that not what is happening
today? Increasingly, you see the kingdoms of this world hating
that which stood as the church of Christendom, if you like.
She is fallen. Look at chapter 18 and verse
2. Look. He cried, there's an angel comes
and he cries mightily with a strong voice saying, look what's his
message? Babylon, where did that start? Genesis 10, verse eight,
Babylon, Babel, Nimrod's kingdom. Babylon the great is fallen,
is fallen. You'll read that several times
throughout scripture. And it's become the habitation
of devils and the hold of every foul spirit and the cage of every
unclean and hateful bird. She is fallen. She is without
any hope of eternal life. There is no way to the tree of
life via Babylon and its religion, the kingdoms of this world. There
is certainly no eternal hope. What is it? It's the broad way.
Jesus called it the broad way that leads to destruction. The
narrow way leads to eternal life. The narrow way leads to the tree
of life. The narrow way is the grace of
God in the blood of Christ. Redemption accomplished. The
broad way is the way of Nimrod, and this fallen world, and this
confederacy of rebellion against God and His truth. It's the broad
way that leads to destruction. It doesn't lead to the tree of
life. Now you say, I thought the title of your message was
The Gospel in a Wounded Beast. You've told us all about where
the wounded beast comes from, and how the wound was healed,
and the empires and all that sort of thing. Where's a gospel
message in this? Answer is here, I believe. There
is a people which is not of this world. My kingdom, said Jesus,
is not of this world. If it were, my servants would
take up swords and fight, but they don't, because it isn't.
Look at Verse 14 and part B. They that are with him, there
is a people that is not of this world that are with the Lamb,
the Lord of lords, the King of kings. They are called by him,
they are chosen by him, and they are faithful to him, made that
by the Spirit of God. It's a people that were, as Ephesians
1 verse 4 says, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the
world. It's a people who are redeemed to God by blood. He
has redeemed us to God by His blood, it says in Revelation
5, as they're singing the praises of the Lamb who alone is worthy
to unloose the seals of the book. They sung a new song saying,
thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof,
for thou was slain And because he was slain, thou hast redeemed
us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and
people and nation, the elect of God, a multitude which no
man can number, much people in heaven. There is a people which
is not of this world, a people redeemed by blood, a people who
are made meat for God's kingdom. Meat, it's an old word, it means
qualified. made fitted. Look in Colossians
chapter 1 and verse 12, giving thanks unto the Father, God the
Father, which hath made us meet, has qualified us to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints in light. That's the tree of
life. That's the life of God. He's
made us meet. How? He's delivered us from the
power of darkness. The kingdoms of this world, the
kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of Nimrod, the kingdom of Babylon
is darkness, spiritual darkness. He's delivered us from the power
of darkness. He's translated us into the kingdom. of His dear Son, of the Son of
His love, is what it actually says. In whom we have, His people,
His elect multitude, we have redemption through His blood. It is blood that satisfies the
justice of God, even the forgiveness of sins. Who are these people?
Singled out, From the reprobate world of Nimrod's rebels, they
are the multitude that God has called and saved. 2 Timothy chapter
1 verses 9 and 10, God has saved us and called us with an holy
calling not according to our works, not because of what we
are or what we do, nothing whatsoever to do with that, as Galatians
tells us, but according to his own purpose and grace. It was
the purpose and grace of God that has accomplished his purpose,
that is accomplishing his purpose. It was given to us in Christ
Jesus before the world began, before Nimrod established Babel,
before the flood, before the creation, before the world began,
this grace of God, this saving grace of God was given to His
people before the world began, when we were put in eternal union,
betrothal, union with His Son. but is now made manifest by the
appearing. Christ has come. It's made manifest. It was hidden in type and shadow,
but now it's made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour,
Jesus Christ. Listen, for His people He has
abolished death. abolished death. It's appointed
to man to die once, and then the judgment. We all die, and
he died, and he died, and he died, but Christ has abolished
death, for he has made open the way to the tree of life. He's
brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
The call of gospel preaching is what calls his people. The
naming with his name before time began is all part of the calling
of his people. The inner call in time of God's
Spirit, what he says here in verse 4 of Revelation chapter
18, I heard another voice from heaven saying, look, what does
the Spirit of God Say to those people, the multitude which no
man can number, many of whom even today do not know that they're
among this number, but the Spirit of God calls, and calls this,
come out of her, my people. Be not partakers of her sins,
that you receive not of her plagues. How can I come out of her? Christ
has made a people fit. How do I know I'm amongst those
people? The Spirit of God will make you
willing to believe it in the day of His power. He will He
will draw you with a grace and a drawing that you
cannot refuse. You cannot turn it away. It's
irresistible, is the grace of God. He says, come. Look at verse
17 of chapter 22, just five verses before the end of the book. The
Spirit and the Bride say, come. Come, come, come unto me, all
you who labour and are heavy laden. Are you labouring and
heavy laden under a burden of sin that will condemn you to
hell? If you are, that's because God's Spirit has put that in
you. And Christ calls you, as this calls you, come, and let
him that heareth say, come, and let him that is athirst, come,
and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.
The world we live in is the product of Nimrod's rebellion against
God. It's the beast from the sea,
it's the world of union, confederacy of rebellion against God. And
here it is, the gospel call is a call out of it, for Christ
has made the way. Christ has made the way. Come,
you say, I don't fully believe. What would that man say? Lord,
I believe, help thou mine unbelief. And you shall find rest for your
souls. I'm sure that in this strange
year, this is the last Sunday of it, God is teaching his people
in this year. It's in my article in the bulletin.
To loosen their grip on the things of this world. That's it. To
set your hearts and minds. Look what it says in Colossians
chapter 3. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things
which are above. Isn't that where our ambition
should be, if we're the people of God? Where Christ is sitting,
on the right hand of God, set your affections, the things that
you want, the things that you aspire, do a good job while you're
on earth, take your responsibilities seriously, but set your affection
on things above, not on the things of the earth, for you are dead
to this world, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ Who is our life shall
appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. What a marvellous
hope. Amen.