So, last week we were looking
at Psalm 16, and the title of the message last week was Pleasures
Forevermore, being that which God promises in his word for
his people. That's the promise of heaven,
of eternal life, pleasures forevermore, eternal bliss in the presence
of God. But how can we be assured that
we are possessors of this pleasure forevermore? You see, all religion
gives its followers a hope of sorts that they are going to
have some sort of eternal bliss. The Muslim thinks that heavenly,
carnal pleasure will be his if he is judged to have lived better
than he lived bad, you know, if the balance is in his favour
of living well rather than living badly. He thinks he will have
a heavenly pleasure which is very carnally described. The
Catholic is taught that if he goes to Mass often enough, and
does penance as required when confessing sins, and has a requiem
mass sung for him when he has died, and has the priest undertake,
in exchange for payment, priestly intercession to get him out of
purgatory, that all of that might do the trick. The Arminian rests
on his decision, what's your basis of your, well I made my
decision, I came out to the front, I signed my card to say that
I wanted to follow Jesus, I exercised, I, rather than the others who
didn't, I exercised my free will in God's favour, surely he's
going to count that in my favour? You know, look at all the rest
who reject him, I voted for God, you know, that's what the Arminian
thinks. Even the Reformed Baptists, oh yes, the Reformed Baptists,
they say it's all in Christ, but so many of them still insist
that to be right for heaven you need progressive sanctification.
conforming to what is a downgraded, amended version of the Mosaic
law as your rule of life, and that if you progress well enough,
that will give you comfort, that you have a place in heaven. But
all of these are shallow, and empty, and without foundation,
and without any solid basis of hope. Because all of them, to
a greater or lesser degree, all of them rely on what you do,
what the flesh does, what the flesh thinks. But there is, according
to the Scriptures, there is a truly solid basis for confident assurance,
and it is in the sovereignty of God, and his certain purpose
of uniting his elect. Elect? People don't like that
word, but it's in the Scriptures. If you want to get rid of election
out of the Scriptures, you'd end up with not many pages in
your Bible. His elect, the multitude, the innumerable multitude, the
multi-ethnic multitude that He chose in Christ out of pure love
and grace before the beginning of time. That's where the solid
hope, that's where the solid basis of assurance is, it's in
the sovereignty of God. The text this morning is verses
30 and 31 in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. But of him are ye in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. I might have mentioned
before, but it's some 32 years ago, I think, where for trying
to take a midweek meeting at a Reformed Baptist church in
Southampton, I got into a great deal of trouble for trying to
open up this text and show that Christ Jesus was indeed made
unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
They were all right with three of them, but when I said he was
our sanctification, oh boy, did they get angry. No, no, we are
our sanctification. We're the ones that make ourselves
fit for heaven. You see, dynamite is this text. Let's think first of all then
about the sovereignty of God. The sovereignty of God. The Bible
declares God's absolute sovereignty. And I mean every word of that.
Absolute sovereignty. that He rules over everything,
He does exactly what His will determines, nothing can alter
His will, He does exactly as He pleases. but fleshly, sinful
minds struggle to grasp it. In our flesh, you and I, doesn't
matter if we're a believer or not, in our flesh, we struggle
to grasp it. We cannot grasp it. How can we
understand God? Think about it, as Paul writes
to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6, 16, God only has immortality. He is the only one who has immortality
in himself. dwelling in the light which no
man can approach unto. How are you going to find him
out if you can't even approach unto the light in which he dwells,
whom no man has seen nor can see? How are you going to find
out God if you can't see him, if you can't comprehend him?
His will is unalterable. He's the majestic being who dwells
in eternity in unapproachable light, and his will is unalterable. Whatever man tries to do, his
will is unalterable, as was revealed in Daniel chapter 4 verse 35. He, God, doeth according to his
will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the
earth, and none can stay his hand. None can stop him doing
what he wants to do. He is all-powerful. Look at Job
chapter 11. In Job chapter 11 and verse 7,
this is Zophar speaking, not Job himself, but one of the comforters. But nevertheless, a lot of what
the comforters said was true. Zophar says, Canst thou by searching
find out God? The implication being, no, of
course you can't. Canst thou find out the Almighty
unto perfection? No, of course you can't. You're
too small. Your brain is too puny. You're
too restricted by space and time. You cannot find out God. God
is as high as the heaven. What canst thou do? He's deeper
than hell. What canst thou know? The measure
thereof is longer than the earth and broader than the sea. You
can't span or take all of that in. You just can't do it. It's
impossible. But as far as man, he's vain. For vain man would be wise, oh
yes, vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild
ass's colt. Vain man, puny vain man, born
like a wild ass's colt, would try to be wise concerning the
things of God. But you cannot. He's over all. He's everywhere. Psalm 139, read
it for yourself, it says, where can I go from his presence? If
I go into the depths of the sea, He is there. Wherever I go, He
is there. I cannot escape Him. His eye
sees everything. He reigns supreme over everything. Isaiah 40 verse 22, He that sitteth
upon the circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof are
as grasshoppers. That's us. You know when you're
out for a picnic and you hear a grasshopper nearby and you
see it hop and you think, well there's an interesting little
thing, but it's no more than that, is it? We're just as grasshoppers
compared with God. And He stretches out the heavens
as a curtain. When I consider the heavens,
the works of the hands of God, this universe that He has created,
this magnificent, awesome universe that He has created, that has
got His fingerprints all over it, the living God. When I think
of that, who am I to understand God? You see, religion all around
us, and most so-called Christian religion, it doesn't exalt God,
it exalts man and his will. It puts man on the throne. Oh,
I wonder if man will let God save him. I wonder if man will
cooperate with God. And there's poor God sitting
on the sidelines, wringing his hands in frustration because
we're making such a mess of his world, and we're polluting it,
and we're changing its climate, and we're being unfair to this
race or that race, and all of these other things that are the
righteousness of the day. God isn't like that. God is supreme
over all. Man exalts, so-called Christian
religion exalts the will of man, but God is the master potter. What does the Word of God say?
What saith the Scripture? That's the thing. It says that
He is the master potter, and we are just the clay. And of
the same lump of clay, says Paul to the Romans, it's His choice. to make of that pot a vessel
for honour and a vessel for dishonour. God is sovereign over everything. What, you might ask, has this
got to do with assurance? Because the question was, how
can I be sure that pleasures for evermore are mine, will be
mine? Well, the answer, I believe,
is at the start of verse 30 of 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Of Him
are ye in. Of Him are ye in, in Christ Jesus. Of Him, of God, of Almighty God,
are you in Christ Jesus. You believers, of Him. Why are
you a believer? Because of Him, because of His
sovereign choice, of you, to put you in Christ Jesus. And having put you there, That
secures everything regarding your eternal future. That secures
your pleasures forevermore. If Almighty God, by His sovereign,
unalterable decree, has put you in Christ before the beginning
of time, nothing can change that, because it's God. Of Him are
you in. Not of your decision are you
in, of him are you in, Christ Jesus. He's decreed it and nothing
can change it. This doesn't give us any license
to sin, don't think that, oh he's saying that God having done
that then they can do whatever they like and it won't change
that. No, this is not giving license to sin at all, but it
is giving full assurance to rest in the salvation that God has
decreed and God has accomplished in Christ. Being confident of
this, says Paul to the Philippians, chapter 1, verse 6, being confident
of this very thing, that he which has begun a good work in you
will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Has God begun
a good work in you? Has he chosen you in Christ before
the foundation of the world and put you in union with him? Has
He, when Christ came to this earth, caused you to walk in
Him, to live in Him, to fulfil, to honour the law in Him, and
then to die the death that was due for your sins in Him? I am
crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ
lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live
by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself
for me, says the Word of God. If He begun that good work of
salvation in you, then it says clearly that he will perform
it, he will finish it. God never leaves something he
intends to do unfinished. He will always accomplish it.
What assures the true believer of pleasures forevermore? What
is it that gives us that assurance of pleasures forevermore? It's
God-given faith. to believe that God purposed
your salvation, putting you in union with Christ before time
began. Of Him are ye in, ye if ye believe,
if you believe, if you believe the gospel of grace, if you believe
this God, this only true God who is declared in the Scriptures.
Believing in Him proves that you are in Christ Jesus. Not
believing in your version of Him, Not like all the Christian
religion that says, oh yes, well I believe in Jesus and Jesus
teaches us lots of good things. Sorry, the Jesus they're talking
about is not the Jesus of Scripture. They don't believe the Jesus
of Scripture. They're like the crowds in John
chapter 6 who liked the feeding of the 5,000 and they liked some
of his sayings and watching his miracles. But when it came to
it and he started talking about sovereign grace and about particular
redemption and that no man can come to me except my Father draw
him, And of all that the Father gives me, I should lose nothing.
This is the will of the Father. When he started talking about
those things, about how we have to be in Him, how we have to
partake of His flesh and blood, how we have to... He has to be
part and parcel of us, at the very core of us. When he started
talking about that, many people said, oh, I don't like this.
Many of those disciples said, I don't like this. This is a
hard saying, who can take it? And many of them went away and
walked no longer with Him, because their fleshly reasoning told
them that this wasn't the sort of God that they wanted. When
they saw what the true Christ of God was like, and what He
said, and what He taught, they walked out on Him. And Jesus
said to His disciples, will you also go away? And Peter said,
and you can see it implicit in his response, is that well the
flesh is crying out to go with them because the flesh finds
these things hard. But Peter said, but to whom shall
we go? We may not understand everything.
We may not understand the sovereign decrees of God, but we know this.
You, Christ, have the words of eternal life. We can't go anywhere
else. We must continue with us. And
that's what true faith does. It continues. It perseveres to
the end because Jesus said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.
He has his people in his hands. This is it. Nothing more, nothing
less. So let's think. about the fact
of the union that believers, true believers, have with Christ,
the blessings of it, and the response to it. In Christ Jesus,
of Him ye are in Christ Jesus. If God decreed me to be in covenant
union with His Son, nothing can frustrate that decree. It's the
most powerfully binding legal contract that we're talking about.
God decreeing that a people, a multitude that no man can number,
should be united with his Son, such that the Son represents
them legally before the justice and decrees of God in every respect. If God has decreed by covenant
grace, contract grace, to put this people in Christ, nothing
can take them out of it. We rely on contracts all through
our lives, don't we? Christine and I are retired,
and we live on pensions, and those pensions are all based
on contracts of sort, and we are reasonably comforted, financially,
that there is the solid weight of the law and financial regulation
behind it, to ensure that as long as we live, we draw those
pensions. That's just the way it is. That's
the nature of the contract. unless this world bankrupts itself
so much throughout this period that there just simply aren't
the funds left and that we're going to have to take a cut.
But anyway, we won't go down that road. But you know what
I mean. We rely on contracts. Well, listen, child of God, if
you're a believer, if you believe the Lord Jesus Christ, the covenant
of grace between the persons of the Godhead, not subject to
any human frailty, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, the Father who chose
in love and grace, the Son who covenanted to come and redeem
as the God-man, in the place of sinners, as the substitute,
as the surety of the covenant, and the Holy Spirit who undertook
to give life, that life which is from God, that quickening
life which is from God, it cannot fail. It's a contract which absolutely
cannot fail. My decision hasn't secured it,
nor my personal attributes. nor my personal progressive sanctification. None of it. It just makes no
difference. It's God's immutable. You know
what immutable means? Unchangeable. It cannot be changed. Nothing can change it. Nothing
we do, nothing can change the decree of God. It's a covenant
sealed in eternity. Listen to what Paul says to Timothy
in 2nd Timothy chapter 1 and verse 9. He says, God has saved
us. and called us, us, the people
who believe Him. He saved us and called us with
an holy calling, not according to our works. Not according to
our works. Works? Decision. Quality of life. Holiness of life. Not according
to any of that. But according to what? According
to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ
Jesus before the world began. Did you hear it? That's what
the Word of God says. That's what the Word of God says.
These people that call themselves Christians all the time saying
how much they want the world to believe, it's not Christianity.
It's not biblical Christianity. It's not the Christianity of
this book. It's the Christianity of this book amended by what
they think is human wisdom. But it's foolishness. God will
confound that wisdom. His wisdom is the wisdom that
is in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 1 verses 4 to 11, just
turn there with me now. I know we turn here often because
it's just so rich. But blessed, verse three, blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,
according as he has chosen us in him. Us, again, the people
who believe. chosen in Him before the foundation
of the world that we should be holy and without blame before
Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Christ Jesus to Himself. Why? Why did He do that? according
to the good pleasure of His will. According to the good pleasure
of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace. You could
carry on, you could just, in whom we have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of His grace. You could just go on and read the whole chapter,
as we often do. In whom we have obtained an inheritance
being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who works
all things after the counsel of His own will. And you can't
alter that, and nothing can alter that. Nothing can change that.
Do you believe this? The child of God does. The child
of God submits to what the Word of God says. The child of God's
doctrine is the doctrine of Scripture. We may not understand every detail
and nuance of it, but if God says it, we believe it. That's
the truth. We believe it. By sovereign choice,
If I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, I know that by sovereign
choice, God put me there before the beginning of time, legally.
But not in a cold way. No, he didn't do it in a cold
way. He did it in love, in love. Look
at John 17. John 17, the great high priestly
prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ, the night before he was crucified,
and in verse 23 of John 17 he says about his relationship with
his people, the people whom the Father gave to him before the
foundation of the world, the people that He has been given
power, verse 2, as thou hast given him power. God the Father
has given God the Son power over all flesh, that He should give
eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him. That's what it
is. That's the truth of God. And then verse 23, I in them
and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that
the world may know that thou hast sent me, now this is the
key, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. You see, this
is not just factual, objective cold, it's based on the love
of God. God has loved his people in Christ
before the foundation of the world. How much has he loved
his people in Christ? Jesus says that you've loved
them as much as you've loved me. Father, I will that they
also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they
may behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovedst
me before the foundation of the world. It's all based on the
love of God. This grace of God is based on
the love of God. The love of God. Song of Solomon
tells us that love is as strong as death. Love is as strong as
death. Death is strong. None of us can
escape it, but love is as strong. Love is as strong. God's love
for his people will not be left without its object. If God loved
his people, This is the will of the father who sent the Lord
Jesus Christ, he said, that of all those whom he has given me,
I should lose nothing. He won't lose it because he loves
it. He's loved it from the foundation of the world. They will all be
with him. This is the will of the Lord that the people whom
the father loved before the beginning of time, he said it in John 17,
that they should be with me where I am and behold my glory, pleasures
forevermore. God united His elect with Christ,
and He united His elect with Christ, and it's illustrated
in Scripture by four pictures. The union of the people of God
with the Christ of God. Because that's the basis, that
eternal decree of God and everything that Christ came and undertook
and enacted and completed is the guarantee of our eternal
salvation. Because it's the decree of God
and it's the work of God. It's that which assures us of
pleasures forevermore in heaven. It's not based on what we are
or what we do or how well we study or how often we pray or
anything of those, not of any works that any man should boast.
It's all of God's grace. We're united with Christ. of
him, i.e. in Christ Jesus. In, bound in
him. Now here are four pictures that
the scripture gives. In John 15 we read about the
vine and the branches. Jesus said, abide in me as the
branch cannot survive without the root stock, Down our garden
we have lots of bindweed, and it coils its way around the raspberries
and just about everything else it can. It's a very pernicious
weed. What I do, I just go along and
I just snap the stem of it down as near to the ground as possible.
And do you know something? A couple of days later, that
vibrant, lively, living, strangling bindweed is limp and dead. because
it cannot survive without it be attached to the rootstock.
Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me
and you will bear much fruit. By abiding in him, by being joined
to him, by being united with him, we're like the vine branches
united to the rootstock and deriving life, spiritual life, from that
rootstock. The second picture he gave was
of the temple. The temple was the house of God
in the Old Testament order. It was a picture of Christ, actually,
the body of Christ amongst his people. In all aspects of it,
it pictured him, it foretold of him coming, the presence of
God with his people. And it was all founded on the
chief cornerstone. the architecture was such that
the integrity and strength of the building all derived from
that chief cornerstone. And the stones, they knit together,
and all of the forces that run through them find their object
on that chief cornerstone. And the New Testament tells us
that the people of God are united in Christ, are bound to Him,
just like living stones in the temple are bound to the chief
cornerstone. You can read about it in Ephesians
2, verse 21, and also in 1 Peter, chapter 2, verses 4 and 5. We
won't look at it now for the sake of time, but the picture
is quite clear there. living stones in the temple,
joined, joined in Him, united in Him. A third picture that
the Scripture uses of the believers' union with Christ is this, the
members of the body, right? So, how does my hand do that,
right? The brain sends a nerve signal
to do it. The hand can't do that unless
the brain tells it to. The body and the head. The Scripture's
picture Many times that the Church of Christ, Christ and His people,
the elect multitude, the Zion of the living God, is united
to Him just like the members of a body are united to the head
of the body. The head of the body and its
members. In Colossians 2 verse 19 it says, speaking of Christ,
the head, that he is the head, from which all the body increases. He is the head, and the members
are his body. The limbs are his body, each
with different roles, but nevertheless, members in him. That's how united
the believing people of God are with him. And as a husband and
a wife, you say, well, marriage is not a very good picture. I'm
sure it isn't in these days, but there have been. In times
past, the true scriptural picture of marriage, of a husband and
wife utterly devoted to one another in love and mutual support, that
is the picture, as Paul says in Ephesians chapter five, telling
husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and
gave himself for it, that he might take it to himself, a perfect
church without blemish and without spot. And at the end of it, Paul
says, this is a great mystery. I've been talking about men and
women, marriage. He said, it's a great mystery.
He said, but I really, I'm speaking about Christ and his church.
You see, the picture of marriage, true marriage, not the selfishly
driven pseudo marriage of this world and particularly of the
entertainment world where it's a kind of a casual relationship
as long as feelings last. No, true marriage isn't like
that. True marriage is what the scripture uses to picture the
union between Christ and His church. It's pictured in Hosea. The whole book of Hosea is that
picture of true marriage. He says, call me Ishi, the loving
husband, and no more Bali, the harsh husband. So these are four
scriptural similes of Christ's union with His elect, but We
don't just hear that, understand it, assent to it in our minds,
and we're left there. No, it's actually accomplished. The salvation on which it is
based is actually accomplished, because we are redeemed. The
people who are in Christ are redeemed from the law's curse
in Him, because He, the perfect Lamb of God, the representative,
the substitute, the surety of his people, was made the sin
of his people. He who knew no sin was made sin,
that his people might be made the righteousness of God in him. Made righteous in him. By being
in him and him answering the just demands of the law for his
people, His people are counted the righteousness of God in Him.
They are made the righteousness of God in Him. This is in the
decree of God. Do I understand it? No, of course
I don't. My brain's too small to understand the things of God,
but Almighty God has decreed it and declared it and told me
to believe it. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. Hebrews 10, 14, by one offering, by one offering, He, Christ,
the Lord Jesus Christ, by one offering He has perfected forever
them that are sanctified. Those who are set apart for His
service, set apart in Him, He's made them perfect. You say, I
don't feel perfect, but as far as the justice of God in Christ
is concerned, You are perfect. If you are in Him, God declares
you to be perfect. Jeremiah 50 verse 20, the sins
of Judah and of Israel were looked for and they were not found.
And that's saying the sins of the people of God will not be
found. Does that mean they're not sinners? No, of course not.
But it means that sin has been paid for. How do I have a confident
hope and expectation of pleasures forevermore? God's sovereign
decree bound me by covenant love in Christ who satisfied divine
justice for me and qualified me, made me fit, made me meet
for heaven. And how do I know it? You say,
well this is all well and good, this is all head knowledge, this
is all academic. How do I know I am one of the
multitude that is in union with Christ and therefore eternally
secure? It's by the gift of faith. This
is it. Each and every one who was put
in Christ before the beginning of time, for whom Christ came
to live and to die and to rise and ascend, satisfying offended
divine justice on the behalf of them, every single one in
time is made alive. Where they were dead in trespasses
and sins, where they were in darkness and could see no spiritual
light or truth, the Holy Spirit comes at the appointed time. causes a preacher to cross their
paths to declare the truth of God. and gives what the natural
man cannot do, what the natural man does not have, which is the
sight of the soul, faith, to see and to believe those things.
He makes a people which is fundamentally, inherently by nature unwilling
to believe. You say, I'm not willing to believe
that. Well, that's right, you're not by nature. But Psalm 110
verse three, the Holy Spirit makes the people of God Children
of wrath, even as others, as they're found, he makes them
willing in the day of his power. And being willing, they believe
when they hear. 1 Thessalonians 1, chapter 1
and verse 4, Paul says to the Thessalonians, knowing, brethren,
your election of God. How does Paul know that they
were elect of God? He tells us later in 2 Thessalonians
2, verse 13, we're bound to give thanks to God always for your
brethren. Beloved of God, for God has from the beginning chosen
you unto salvation. How does he know that they're
elect, chosen to salvation? Through sanctification of the
spirit and belief of the truth. When the spirit sanctifies, sets
apart for his purpose and gives faith, they believe the truth
and follow it. In the Acts of the Apostles,
the apostles and other leaders in the church, they preached
the gospel of grace. They just declared what the Word
of God told them. And it says, those that were
ordained to eternal life believed. Think about that. Those ordained
to eternal life believed. Jesus said to the Pharisees one
day, in John chapter 10, talking about him being the good shepherd
and his sheep hearing his voice, and he said, you believe not. The reason you don't believe,
you Pharisees, is because you're not amongst my sheep. You're
not amongst that elect of God. That's why you don't believe.
Your belief does not make you a sheep. Your belief proves that
you are a sheep. That's what it does. It proves
you are a sheep. It isn't just an objective fact,
all of this. It isn't just objective facts
where we put ticks in the box. No. It's an experience of divine
life in the soul. It's something we experience
in the soul. We experience repentance, true
repentance for our sin before God. We experience faith to embrace
Christ, to believe Christ, to listen to His voice, to follow
His leading, to do His bidding, to seek His will, to seek to
serve Him. He raises a hope in our soul,
that it is well with my soul, that when I die, I'm not going
into some oblivion, but I'm going to heaven. He puts his love in
our hearts, love for God and love for the brethren, love for
one another in him. He gives us a godly fear that
we fear to offend the living. We're not afraid of God in terms
of judgment and condemnation because that is taken away in
Christ, but we fear to offend God, a godly fear, a godly reverence. He puts He puts a desire for
the things of God in us, and he reduces, takes away the natural
fleshly desire for the things of this world. There's an old
chorus we used to sing, and there's not much good doctrine in many
of those choruses, but this one's quite good. It says, and the
things of the world will grow strangely dim in the light of
his glory and grace. and he puts the spirit of prayer
and true humility in. Well, we've just about run out
of time and I'm going to be very, very quick because I haven't
mentioned the benefits that are ours in him, the wisdom from
God that is So different to the wisdom of this world. You know
the wisdom of this world, as we see it all around, I've never
seen it more clearly. We're living in Revelation 13
times in these days. You know this world, the kingdoms
of this world, they're establishing their own righteousness, aren't
they? They've got their own righteous standard. concerning sexual morality,
concerning racial harmony, concerning people being what they want to
believe, and diversity. This has become the morality,
the righteousness of this world. It's not the righteousness of
God. The kingdom of this world wants nothing to do with the
righteousness of God. That's why it's opposed to the
kingdom of God and the things of God. But in Christ, we have
wisdom from God. How is it that we understand
that the worlds were framed by the word of God? By faith. by the gift of faith that he
gives, that's what Hebrews 1 verse 3 says and in him you need righteousness
without which no man shall see the Lord and we have it in him
for he has justified us by his shed blood the law is satisfied
who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect there's
nothing to lay because they're innocent, they're freed from
all guilt, they're righteous in him as holy as God fitted
for His presence, and sanctified in Christ. Sanctification. It's
not what you do. It's in Christ. It's not the
believer's work. There are those who say justification
is God's work and sanctification is the believer's work. I'm sorry,
that's a great error. That is not the truth at all.
God's Word is clear. Every aspect of salvation is
God's doing. And redemption is freedom from
captivity. It's the payment of a ransom
price, the price of liberty to set the captive free, free from
that captivity of sin in which Satan holds this world, so that
he accuses the brethren and says that they deserve not to be in
heaven, but in his kingdom. But in Christ there is redemption,
the payment of that sin death. He's freed his people from the
curse of the law by himself being made that curse for them and
bearing that curse on the cursed tree. So Jesus said simply, to
those who heard him, as he says to you now, verily, verily, I
say unto you, he that believeth in me hath everlasting life. In other words, he that believes
in me can look forward to pleasures for evermore. It's certain because
God decreed my union with Christ. He bound me to him legally in
redeeming grace, he satisfied justice for me and clothed me
with the garments of salvation in the robe of righteousness,
the seamless robe of righteousness, the righteousness of God in him. That's what I need. That's the
garment I need to be at the marriage supper of the Lamb, and he gave
me faith and life to trust and follow. So very briefly, the
result, that according as it is written, he that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. If you know anything of this,
then you say, well, it's all of God. There is nothing that
is of me. It's all of God. And the result
is praise, and glory to God. Praise to God for His goodness.
It quotes this verse, Jeremiah chapter 9, verses 23 and 24.
Listen to this. Thus saith the Lord, Let not
the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory
in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches, but
let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and
knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness,
judgment, righteousness in the earth, for in these things I
delight, saith the Lord. Amen.