Well, as I said, we've been looking
in Isaiah so far, for quite a few months now actually, and we got
to chapter 26. And we've been the last two weeks
in chapter 26, and we've been thinking about knowing God. What it is to know God. I'm not
talking about knowing about God, I'm talking about knowing God,
to know him. And if you know somebody, you
talk to one another, you commune together. communing with the
living God. As a friend, it says of Moses,
he talked with God face to face as a man speaks with his friend.
It talks of Abraham being the friend of God. This is what it
is. For the children of God, it's to be in a living relationship
with the living God. And it's described in scripture
in various ways. You're members of the kingdom
of God. We read earlier in John 3, and
Jesus is talking to Nicodemus about not being able to enter
or not being able to see the kingdom of God. But if you're
in a living relationship with the living God, you're a member
of the kingdom of God. You live in Zion. Zion's a dirty
word in these days because it's so confused with the political
state of Israel in the Middle East and Zionism and ill-treatment
of Arab neighbors and things like When Scripture talks about
it, it's got nothing to do with that. When Scripture talks about
it, it's talking about Zion. Glorious things of thee are spoken.
You might have sung that hymn at some stage. Zion, city of
our God. It's the city of God, and the
people who live there are citizens of Zion. It's the church. Zion
is the church of God, the church of the living God. That multitude
that no man can number, from every tribe and tongue and kindred,
the Bride of Christ, also known as the Bride of Christ. He loved
the church and gave himself for it. And there's going to be a
marriage supper at the end of time, the Marriage Supper of
the Lamb. And if you know that your state is, if you know that
you're in a relationship with the living God, your state is
described in this chapter 26 of Isaiah as being inside a strong
city. Remember two weeks ago, it's
the song of Judah, we have a strong city. Salvation will God appoint
for walls. You're inside a strong city protected
by walls of salvation. Walls of that which puts you
right with the living God. In a state, he says, peace, peace. Thou wilt keep him in peace,
peace, perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. A state of
blissful peace, knowing, as that other hymn says, it is well with
my soul. It is well with my soul for eternity. Trust in God, he says there.
Trust ye in the Lord, because he trusteth thee. Trust in God.
Same with Paul, when he writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1 verse
12, he says this, he says, for I know whom I have believed.
And I'm persuaded, I'm convinced that he is able to keep that
which I've committed unto him. What's that? His eternal, his
immortal soul. He's committed to the keeping
of Christ for the day of judgment, for everything that is to come.
I know whom I have believed and I know that he is able to keep
that which I've committed unto him against that day. And then
last week, we were looking at verses seven to nine, how the
citizens of God's kingdom have new desires. They have desires
to seek the living God. They want communion with God. Psalm 63 describes it, that they're
thirsty. You know, if you see the picture
there is of a stag that is being chased by the hunters and it's
a hot day and the stag is running and it's totally exhausted and
out of breath. And what's the stag longing for?
A stream of cool water. And the psalmist says, I'm longing
for communion with the living God, just like that thirsty stag
is longing for cool water. We have a desire to seek him
and to follow him. Follow me, said Jesus. My sheep
hear my voice and follow me. They follow me. And to commune
with the living God, to pray to him, to hear his voice speaking
through his word, and to wait, to patiently wait. What is it
to wait? It's to trust, it's to believe,
to trust the living God. And then he says again in verse
12, Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us. The peace of God, peace
with God, the peace of God, peace with God. We who by nature are
enemies of God because God hates sin and we are sinners. But in
what he's accomplished in Christ, There's peace, peace with God,
peace for his church. He ordains peace for his church,
for those who believe his word and trust his salvation. But
throughout, we're reminded that these things are spiritual. They're
not natural. These are not things that you
learn in a college. These are not things that you get the tick
in the box by passing the exams. These things are spiritual. They're
not natural. They're not fleshly. They're
not to do with your intellect, or your mental powers, or your
connections, or your family, or your descent, or your lineage,
or where you've been, what you've done. No. They're spiritual,
not natural, not fleshly. To see the things of God, requires
a new sense. To see outside, I need the sense
of sight. To smell things, I need the sense
of smell. To taste, I need the sense of
taste. To touch, I need the sense of touch. But to see the things
of God, I need a new sense, and that new sense is faith. Faith. And says the scripture in Ephesians
2, by grace are you saved. It's the grace of God, nothing
to do with you. It's entirely the volition of God. It's entirely
the choice of God. He says by grace are you saved
through faith. Faith. The sense of faith is
the means by which we discern and we are conscious of the things
of the living God. And it says, and that faith,
not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. So what I want to
do is to stop a little while here this week and consider a
bit more about this gift of God, which is essential if any of
us is to truly to know the God who has made us and the God to
whom we're accountable. And that's why we read John chapter
3. So turn there with me because
that's where we'll spend the rest of our time this week. John
chapter 3. The book of John is regarded
by many, and I wouldn't disagree, as the most profound set of words
ever written. It is. Profound? French word. Profond. Deep. Deep. They're
deep. They're full of meaning. Very,
very deep. It's a very familiar chapter. It's made wide use of by lots
of religion. It's deeply profound. Here, Jesus
teaches Nicodemus the absolute necessity of divinely given spiritual
life and the blessings that flow from it. So I want to see with
you, first of all, the need for spiritual birth, the need for
it. You see, we're all religious
and self-righteous by nature. We all are. That's what we're
like in our flesh. We're all, to an extent, religious
and self-righteous by nature. And we stand in a position where
we think we will judge God. We will judge him. We will see
whether what he says matches up. We will judge God and decide
whether God is worth our allegiance or not. Now, Nicodemus considered
himself to be an authority. Look at him. A man of the Pharisees,
verse one of chapter three, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
Oh, he's in a powerful position. He's one of the Pharisees, the
ruling council, the religious zealots who kept order in the
society. He's one of them. He's amongst
their number. We read of him again and again,
appearing in the Pharisees' council, deciding what to do with Jesus
later on in this book of John. There he is, Nicodemus, a ruler
of the Jews. But he's got a problem because
his fellow Pharisees want to destroy this man, Jesus, but
he thinks there must be something else about it, but I don't know
what it is. So the same came to Jesus by
night. Why did he come by night? He
didn't want anybody else to know he was coming. He came by night
so that his fellow Pharisees wouldn't see him. And he came
to Jesus and isn't it remarkable? Jesus allowed him to find him.
You know, he allowed him to find him. And when he came, he said,
Rabbi, which is a word of respect. It's a title of respect. Teacher,
teacher. We know that you're a teacher. We know. We're not stupid. We know that you're a teacher
come from God. Look at the things you're doing.
We cannot deny them. There are miracles being performed.
There are wonderful works being performed. The natural order
of things, the normal way things fall out, is not falling out
that way. The sick are being healed. The lame are being made
to walk. The dumb are being made to speak.
The lepers are being cleansed of their leprosy. Even the dead
are being raised. No man can do these things, these
miracles that you're doing, unless God is with him. Unless God is
with him. But what's the implied question
there? Is it not, but why are you here? What's it for? Why have you come?
What are you doing this for? There must be something behind
it. What is it all about? We know you're a teacher come
from God, and he's conscious that his fellow Pharisees want
to get rid of him and destroy him. But he says, why are you
here? Why have you come? And Jesus
answered and said to him, truly, truly, verily, verily, I really
mean, listen to me. This is the son of God speaking.
I say to you, except unless a man be born again. See, Nicodemus
has come saying, well, we know quite a lot about the kingdom
of God. You know, we're the authority in this country. We're the teachers,
we're the rulers. And we want to know why have
you come? And Jesus says to him, unless you're born again, Nicodemus,
we can't even have a discussion about the kingdom of God. You
cannot see the things of the kingdom of God. You have no sense
of it whatsoever without being born again. You can't do that.
Even though you're an authority, you must be born again. And Nicodemus
says, well, how can that be? What am I supposed to do? Be
born again, you say. I mean, you're born as a baby.
Surely a grown man cannot re-enter into his mother's womb and be
born the second. Surely. Oh, come on, Nicodemus.
Don't be stupid. Don't be trivial. Don't be, you
know, take it a bit more seriously than that. Jesus answered and
said, Verily, verily, I say to you, unless a man is born of
water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
How do you get in to this kingdom of God? You must be born of water
and of the Spirit. You must be. You must come down
off your high horse and listen. We went to see, I'm not a great,
I think I've told you all before, I'm not a great fan of West End
musicals. Some of them get me a little bit, but my sister loves
West End musicals, and we went to see The King and I in London.
It's about the King of Siam and an English teacher and her son
who go there, and she basically has a profound influence on the
society of Siam. And in the presence of the king,
who was basically a nice-natured man, But he did insist that everybody
bowed and scraped before him. And the moral of the story by
the end of it, when the old king is dying and his son is becoming
king in his place, the new king has learned from this gracious
English teacher that really we should stop all this bowing and
scraping because that's not a good idea. You know, it's demeaning.
We shouldn't be bowing. There will be no more bowing
and scraping. Yeah, that's a good principle in human relations,
but when it comes to the things of God, do you know we need to
get down off our high horse? I like the words of Ecclesiastes,
chapter five and verse two, the words of Solomon, the words of
the man of wisdom. The one who said to God, this
is what I want, don't give me great riches. He said, give me
wisdom. And God gave him wisdom. He also
gave him great riches, but he gave him wisdom. And this is
what he wrote. Be not rash with thy mouth, and
let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God. For God is in heaven and thou
upon earth, therefore let thy words be few. Those are wise
words. Those are wise words concerning
the things of God. No, we need to listen to what
God says. Jesus said to Nicodemus, Nicodemus, your natural qualifications,
your leader of the Pharisees qualification, that's no good.
If you want to know about the kingdom of God, if you want to
know why I am here, If you want to know why I have come doing
these miracles, your natural qualifications will not help
you. You're a ruler of the Jews, you're a Pharisees, but Jesus
says you must be born again. He says in verse six, that which
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
spirit is spirit. The flesh bit won't help you
concerning the kingdom of God. You need to be born, as it says
in verse five, of water and of the spirit. What does that mean?
Do you know, I have to be honest, but strictly speaking, I don't
know. I can't give you a definitive answer about the being born of
water bit, but I tell you what, it's probably at least one and
possibly all of these. Water, we read in the scripture
of the water of the word. The washing, in Ephesians 5 verse
26, washing of water by the word. The word of God is pictured as
water that washes us. As we read it, it's pictured
as water. The water of the word. born of water and of the Spirit. The Word of God comes, and the
water of its washing washes our minds, washes our attitudes,
washes our thoughts about things, and the Spirit of God comes and
applies it. Could be that. It could be, an
element of it could be natural. You know, you've got to be doubly
born. You've got to be naturally born, of course, of your mother.
And those ladies of you that have born children, and I think
that's all of you here, will know. There's the expression,
have your waters broken yet? There's quite a bit of watery
kind of fluid associated with the birth of a child. It could
mean you've got to be naturally born as well as spiritually born.
It could be the spiritual water. If you just look over at John
4, And verse 14, when Jesus is speaking to the woman at the
well in Samaria, whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give
him, not this stale water in the well, but the spiritual water
that I shall give him, shall never thirst. But the water that
I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing
up to everlasting life. It could mean that spiritual
water. You've got to have that spiritual
water from God in the Lord Jesus Christ, that which he gives.
It could be what was accomplished at Calvary. There could be a
hint of that because you know when Christ died on the cross,
the soldier there pierced his side with a spear and it says,
and out came blood and water. Could it be referring to some
extent to what was accomplished at the cross of Calvary when
divine justice was satisfied? on behalf of the people of God
by Christ, their substitute, their Redeemer. All these are
the means God's Spirit uses to bring God's people to belief
of the truth. And without spiritual birth,
without life from God, salvation and eternity remain hidden. It's
To me, of all the things that I could lose, my sight, I guess
many of you, my sight, that's what I dread more than anything
else, is to lose my sight. I mean, no doubt the rest of
the senses are equally disabling in different ways, but to me,
I would hate not to be able to see. And you know, you take a
blind man, and I've known some blind people who genuinely can't
see a thing, and my heart goes out to them. And when I go and
I look at the most beautiful Lake District scene, or wherever
it might be, And I think, and I'm trying to describe it, and
I know they can't see it. And they've never seen it. If
they've been blind, they've never seen it. It's like that with
spiritual things. It's just like that with spiritual
things. You must be born again to see
the things of the kingdom of God. You must. It's essential.
A woman kept, she said to Charles Spurgeon, she'd been listening
to him preach for years, and she said, Mr. Spurgeon, She said,
um, you keep telling us we must be born again. Why do you keep
telling us you must be born again? He said, because, madam, you
must be born again. You absolutely must. Let's say,
for example, give an example of this. The only people who
could live in the United Kingdom were people who were naturally
born here. of parents born here. Let's say
that was the case. I know it's not the case and
I'm not making any political statement whatsoever and I'm
not talking about Brexit or any other of these things at all
but let's say that was the rule that if you were to live reside
in Britain and have the right to reside here you had to be
born here. Let's say that was the case.
So a foreigner from another culture and another part of the world
says I'd love to go and live in that place called the United
Kingdom but I wasn't born there. Tell you what I'll learn English.
And I won't speak it with an accent. I'll do my very, very
best to speak it just like the people there speak it. I'll learn
English. And I'll tell you what, I won't wear my tribal dress
from where I come from. I'll dress like the British dress. I'll dress as they do. And not
only that, I'll show that I'm willing. I'll volunteer to serve
in their armed forces. I'll volunteer for the army to
go and fight for the country. But the rule remains, you must
be naturally born here. However good your intentions,
however convincing the things you might try to do to look like
it, the rule said, and obviously I'm only using it for illustration
purposes, the rule said you must be born here. Well, so Jesus
is saying to Nicodemus. So with spiritual sense and experience,
you must be born again. So what do I do to get it? What
must I do to get this? Look at verse eight. The wind
blows where it listeth. It blows where, it's as if it
blows where it wants and you've got no control over it. You hear
the sound of it, but you can't tell where it's come from or
where it's going. So is everyone that is born of
the Spirit. This is of the Spirit of God.
The Spirit of God, it's the same word. Wind, the Spirit of God. The wind of God, the blowing
of the Spirit of God. This is what it is, it's sovereign
grace. We must, whether we like it or
not, trace all of this up to the absolute sovereignty of God. If God is God, the God who made
all things, and you know, you know me, I make absolutely no
apology for saying absolutely dogmatically, I am totally and
utterly convinced that God has made all things. No way could
any of this just have invented itself, it just couldn't. The
idea that you take a universe full of trillions and trillions
of subatomic particles and you give them a very good shake and
you leave them for an awfully long time and the result is that
life, it isn't. It cannot be. It never is. And
you know why scientists say that? Because they don't like to retain
God in their knowledge. They don't want to have any accountability
to the living God. God is absolutely sovereign and
he's sovereign in this issue. Romans 9 verses 15 and 16 say
this, He says to Moses, God says to Moses, I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will
have compassion. So then, it is not of him that
wills, nor of him that runs, but it's of God that shows mercy. And this is the offense of the
cross. This is the offense of the gospel. Religion doesn't preach that,
and therefore, Mostly the world can get on nicely with religion,
but you preach that, that salvation is entirely of the sovereign
grace of God, and the flesh doesn't like it. But that's the offense
of the gospel. It is God's eternal good pleasure. You cannot trace it up to anything
else. If you would know the message of this book, that's what it
says. A natural man responds, but that's not fair. But God's
word states that we'll all eventually see it God's way. It says in
Philippians 2 verses 10 and 11, at the name of Jesus, every knee
should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things
under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Jesus said to
Nicodemus, Nicodemus, you must be born again. You must be born
again. And when you are born again,
You see, the implication is, if you're not born again, don't
talk to me about the kingdom of God, because you can't see
it. You can't sense it, and you can't enter it. Don't talk about
it. But when you are born again, you can see it, seeing the kingdom
of God. Look there in verse 3. Except
a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. The corollary
of that is that if he is born again, then surely he can see
the kingdom of God. And verse five, he can enter
the kingdom of God. A healthy baby is born with eyes
to see its surroundings. And it might be a bit blurred
to start with, but after five or six weeks or thereabouts,
I am right on that time scale, aren't I? There they are, the
little chubby chaps smiling away at you because they can see,
they can see. So is the one born of the spirit
of God. He's given faith to see the truth
of God. is given faith to see the nature
of God, something of it, something of the nature of God, to sense
something of the holiness of God. Do you know, more and more
I feel it, the older I get and the more I go on in the faith,
that when we come to prayer, this idea that I can just casually
breeze into the presence of the sovereign of the universe without
any respect, to the holiness of God. Oh, that God would give
us a sense, an increasing sense of His holiness of character,
of His justice, of His hatred of sin, of what we are as sinners
condemned before His justice and His law, of the judgment
that must come, of the penalty that must be paid to the justice
of God, to the offended law of God. And so that we're brought,
like Jesus pointed out, two men that were praying at the wall
of the temple. That wall actually is still there physically in
Jerusalem. That's the only bit of the temple that remains, the
wailing wall. And he pointed out and he said, look at that.
And there was a Pharisee stood and he was of the camp of Nicodemus
and very proud of himself and he stood there and he's saying
I thank thee God that I'm not like other men for I give tithes
of all that you've given me and I do this and that and the other
and I'm I'm so well respected and so much I oh I'm so glad
that I'm not like this publican and the publicans were regarded
as as common as muck as it were they were the lowlife they were
the people that extorted from the ordinary people they were
regarded as crooks and criminals And there's a publican and he
stood there and he's beating his breast because he's cut to
the heart and he's saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner,
as if there were no other sinner. God, what's his plea? Oh, I've
done this. No, his mouth is shut that every mouth may be stopped.
His only plea is, God, please be gracious. Be merciful to me.
Give me the gift of repentance that I might turn from it. Repentance,
rethinking, turn around. I turn from being on my side
when it comes to my sin and my condition before the God of eternity,
and I turn around so that I'm on God's side regarding it. And
I know what I am, and I know what I deserve, and I know where
I stand, and I cry out, what must I do to be saved? How can
I be qualified for heaven? and he gives that sense, that
faith to see, he gives to his people, his church, he gives
that faith to see, and to commune with him, and to commune with
one another, and to delight in the worship of God, and a desire
to seek God and commune with him. All that is a result of
being born again, seeing the prospect of heaven. He's appointed
to man to die once, The judgment is what scripture says. The prospect
of eternity. You know, you've seen that picture
many times, haven't you? Revelation 21, and I saw the
new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven as a bride adorned
for her husband and everything is made new and there's nothing
that defiles, nothing of sin there. There are no tears, there's
no more death and no more crying for God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes. A picture of sinless bliss in
eternal communion with the God who has made all things. Without
regeneration, the prospect of that is grim. To the natural
man without regeneration, the prospect of heaven is grim, is
grim. The sins that we love will not
be there. The prospect of heaven is grim. But with that sense
from God, with that rebirth, you must be born again. With
that rebirth, The soul cries out, how can I be qualified for
it? As Job cried out, how should
a man be just with God? This is my problem. I know this
is my problem. I am not justified with God.
I know that I stand condemned before God. How can a man be
just with God? What must I do? That Philippian
jailer, in that moment when he saw eternity stretch before him,
and he cried out, what must I do to be saved from exclusion from
that eternal kingdom? To the eye of faith, the mystery
is uncovered. God reveals to his saints, it
says in Colossians 1.26, the mystery, meaning the mystery
of the gospel, that man naturally doesn't understand, now is made
manifest to his saints. Who are his saints? They're not
the folk that the Roman Catholic Church goes and, what do they
call it, canonizes them or whatever, and we all have to call them
saints so-and-so and saints somebody else. If you read the scriptures
honestly and objectively, all who believe are saints. Those
who believe are the set-apart ones of God, and that mystery
of the gospel is made manifest to his saints. So what is it
that is revealed to the one who is born of God's Spirit? And
the answer is, redemption is revealed. Salvation is revealed. Look at verse 14. In verse 14,
Jesus still speaking to Nicodemus, he says, as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted
up. To Nicodemus, as a teacher of
the Jews, who knew the Old Testament scriptures, this would have been
a very familiar picture. It comes from Numbers chapter
21. The people They'd come out of Egypt, they're wandering in
the wilderness wanderings because they didn't trust God and go
into the promised land when he told them to. So he said, you're
going to wander around in this wilderness for 40 years till
this generation that has disbelieved me, till this generation who
did not believe me, till they've all died and their children are
of age and they will go in. But you will wander around for
40 years. And in their wanderings, they went through all sorts of
experiences. And one brought them to murmur and to complain
against the living God. He'd fed them. He fed them every
day. He gave them water to quench their thirst. He did everything
for them. The sole of their shoe, it says, it didn't wear out in
40 years. Boy, that would be good for us,
wouldn't it? You know, if you could... Not good for fashion, but you could
go and buy a pair of shoes and it would never wear out. That's
what happened to them. That's what it says. All of those things
he did for them, yet they murmured and complained. And he sent venomous
snakes among them. And they were bitten by serpents,
poisonous snakes. And the people were dying. And
they were crying out to Moses, what can we do? What must we
do? And God told Moses, make a bronze serpent. Make in bronze
metal an image of the thing that's biting the people. The remedy
for the deadly snake is you make an image of the thing that is
biting them and causing them to die. A likeness of the very
thing that is causing the curse of death on them. They're dying
of snake bites and what did he have to make? A serpent. It was
a serpent. They were serpents, snakes, that
were biting them. In the Garden of Eden, Satan
came as a serpent. Genesis chapter three, the serpent
was more subtle and wily than all the rest. And the serpent,
it was Satan in the guise of a serpent who came and accomplished
the fall whereby Adam and Eve sinned. The serpent came and
these were serpents. And Moses was told, make something
that's in exactly that likeness and put it on a pole and lift
it up in the midst of the congregation and say to them, You who are
bitten, believe God and look at this and you will be cured
of your snake bite. You will not die. How is the
curse of sin to be atoned for. The curse of sin? Galatians chapter
3. It's all quoting from the Old
Testament but it's easier to read from the New Testament.
Galatians chapter 3 and verse 10. Galatians chapter 3 verse
10 says this, cursed is everyone who does not continue in all
things written in the book of the law to do them. That's the
curse of the law, the curse of sin. So how is that going to
be atoned for? If you turn Just to Galatians
chapter three, let me show you this. Galatians chapter three,
and starting at verse 10. As many as are of the works of
the law are under the curse, for it is written. Cursed is
everyone. Everyone that's trying to get
right with God by doing the right thing by the works of the law.
You're under a curse for it's written. Cursed is everyone.
You see the trouble is, it's okay But you have to be 100%
consistent. 99.99% consistent is not good
enough. You have to be 100% consistent.
Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them continually. But no man,
that no man is justified by the law, no man is justified by trying
that in the sight of God is evident. For how? Well, Scripture again
and again tells us the just, the justified ones, shall live
by faith. They shall live by faith, the
sight of God, not by the things that they do. And the law, the
things we do, is not of faith, but the man that does them shall
live in them. You're bound in them, you've
got no choice. Now this is it, this is how we're
redeemed from the curse of the law, Christ. The Son of God,
the God-man has redeemed us from the curse of the law. How did
he do that? By being made a curse for us. For he bore the sins
of his people in his own body on the cursed tree and thereby
paid the debt to the law. Cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles. The blessing of salvation might
come on the Gentiles. Moses preached to the congregation
who were bitten by snakes. He said, look, look at this snake,
this brass snake on a pole. And all who believed and looked
were cured. So with Christ. How can I, a
sinner, guilty of violating God's law and justice every day, how
can I be accepted by a holy God as justified? How can I be accepted
into the presence of God who is holy. How can I be justified? Answer, by the one and alone
in the one who bore the curse of sin for the people of God
and paid its penalty and satisfied offended divine justice so that
the law and the justice of God cried out when Christ died on
Calvary, enough. It is enough. Enough penalty
has been exacted, no more payment is needed, for He made Him who
knew no sin to be sin for us, that we, His people, might be
made the righteousness of God in Him, and thereby God remains
perfectly just. He in no way clears the guilty,
He in no way sweeps sin under the carpet, He's just, strictly
just, because He punished it in His Son on the cross, and
thereby He justifies the ungodly. He justifies, He declares just,
He makes just, He makes the righteousness of God in Him, those who are
in Christ. He's a just God and a Savior. He has finished the job for all
the people. Which people? His elect people.
That multitude. Who are they? A multitude that
no man can number. He is a just God and a Savior
for them. And there are people from every
nation. And that's why it says God so
loved the world. He doesn't mean every one individual
in the world. How can he? Because in John 17,
before he goes to the cross, he says to his father, I pray
not for the world, but for those you've given me out of the world.
And so it's for the people that come, not just from the Jewish
nation, but from every nation on earth, that he took their
sins to the cross and paid for them. And in time, in the experience
of every individual, The Holy Spirit comes and gives life.
That's the new birth. A man must be born again. Faith
and a willing nature to look and to trust and to rest. To
rest, to believe that it's done. And so Paul, writing to the Thessalonians,
says this. He says, what manner of entering
in we had unto you? You turned to God from idols
to serve the living and true God. What does he mean? He means
he went to this place in Greece, Thessalonica. He went there where
there were these Gentiles who knew nothing of the religion
of the Jews. And he went there and he preached this gospel.
And God the Holy Spirit came and gave them life and gave them
rebirth. And what manner of entering? Rather than their hearts being
closed and barred, the Holy Spirit opened. What manner of entering
in? the word they preached it went in and they turned to God
away from their idols to serve the living and true God and so
later writing in his second epistle to them he says this well-known
verse that I often quote 2nd Thessalonians 2 verses 13 and
14 where he says we're bound to give thanks always to God
for you doesn't give thanks to himself for being an eloquent
preacher that persuaded them doesn't give thanks to God for
the clever things that they did to persuade people to turn aside
off the street and come and, you know, have a burger or an
ice cream or whatever else it might be that you might entice
them. No, he didn't do that. He just preached the truth to them.
He says, I'm bound to give thanks to God for you, because it was
God that opened your hearts. Brethren, beloved of the Lord,
because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation. What?
When? Before the beginning of time,
we're told elsewhere. He chose you to salvation. through sanctification
of the Spirit, setting apart by the Spirit of God. And how
do I know it? Belief of the truth. These Thessalonicans,
these Greeks, believed what Paul had preached. They believed it.
Whereunto he called you by our gospel when he preached it, to
the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was
their belief. And listen, this is important.
It was not their act of believing that secured their salvation.
but what they believed in. What did they believe in? As
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, and all who looked
at what he'd lifted up were cured, so all who looked to what Christ
accomplished at the cross, when he bore the sins of his people,
my sin or the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part,
but the whole is nailed to his cross, and I bear it no more.
Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. What
must I do? What must I do? I just want you
to turn to Romans 10. Very brief. You don't have to
turn to it because I'll take you through it. What must I do?
Right? Hearing all of this, what must I do? Let me read verses
13 to 17. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call
on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they
believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they
hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed
the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, Who has
believed our report, meaning so few, so then, faith cometh
by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Let me put that
the other way round to explain what it means. Number one, you
hear a preacher preach the truth of Christ's salvation, just like
Moses said, look to this. You believe, you mentally assent
to the truth of that salvation that has been accomplished. and
mentally assenting to it, believing it, it then says, you call, Lord,
save me. There's that hymn, I love that
hymn, it says, whilst on others thou art calling, do not pass
me by. Whilst on others you are calling,
do not pass me by, gracious Savior. For, when you call, it says,
we have his promise, whosoever calls on the name of the Lord
shall be saved. and shall enter into the blessings
of eternal life, knowing the true and living God.