Well last week I was bringing
to you some thoughts from the book of Micah, the prophet Micah,
where the question was asked, what does God require of you?
It's a very important question. It's what every one of us should
ever, what does God require of me? There is a God. the world,
the so-called scientific world tries to tell you that there
isn't but that's just foolishness that really is, that's just foolishness
nobody with a grain of enlightenment from on high can think for one
minute we were on holiday we were watching a pair of peregrine
falcons flying around and the thought occurred to me, it was
in that book that I shared with you some time ago how on earth
could random mutations design that amount of genetic phenomenal
complexity. It couldn't, couldn't possibly,
never does. Nobody's ever known of anything inventing itself.
Explosions in builders' yards never ever put together mansions.
It requires thought and strength and effort and courage and, you
know, it doesn't happen by chance. So then, if there is a God, what's
he like? And more important, what does
he require of you? and what does he require of me?
And we found, to put it in a nutshell, we found that everything that
Christ is and has done for his elect people is what God requires
of you. That's it. Everything. To be
just with God, to agree with God about your sin, to walk uprightly,
to be in Christ Jesus, to learn the righteousness of God. Everything
that Christ is and has done for his elect people is what God
requires. Does he not require me to do
this, that and the other? No, he requires you to look to his
Son who has done everything for you. You see, peace with God,
surely if there is a God who is so powerful, and we're mortal
and we're going to die, you want peace with God, with God who
is holy, for people like you and me, and what are we? we're
sinful, we're sinful, we're utterly unholy. That peace is entirely
on the basis of the grace of God alone, not in one respect
on what we are, or what we do, not in one respect. You see,
concerning relationship with God, who is divine, who dwells
in unapproachable light, nothing good comes from the flesh. This
flesh is fallen and corrupt. None of us, you nor me, none
of us have any innate. Do you know what innate is? It's
what you're born with. Innate. Innate ability. None
of us have any innate ability. None of us have more intelligence
than others so that we are going to do better with God. No, in
the flesh there is nothing that will do anything for you when
it comes to God because as the scriptures say, 1st Corinthians
chapter 2 verse 14, the natural man doesn't receive the things
of the Spirit of God. You and me, in our flesh as we
are, the brains we have, the flesh and bones that we have,
the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God.
They're foolishness to him. Neither can he know them. Why?
because they're spiritually discerned. If you would know anything about
God and a right relationship with him, you must have spiritual
discernment. You're unable by nature to know
anything about God. You're unable by nature to do
what God requires. You are, as Paul said to the
Ephesians, dead in trespasses and sins, spiritually dead. In
terms of relationship with God, you by nature, and me by nature,
we're spiritually dead. You go down to the mortuary,
don't, I'm just using it as a metaphor, but go down to the mortuary and
try and argue with the corpses lying there. And you have an
argument with them, and you tell them to get up, and you tell
them to listen to you. You see, you're dead. in trespasses and
sins. As far as the things of God are
concerned, you're dead. You're as dead as a corpse in
terms of hearing and seeing and understanding God and eternity. So if we're to know anything
of God, if we're to know anything about peace with God, if we're
to experience eternal life, God alone must teach us. And so I
want to turn your attention to John chapter 16, the passage
that we read earlier, And let me read again, verses 7 to 15. This is the night before Jesus
was crucified. He's with his disciples in the
upper room. They're full of sorrow because they know he keeps telling
them he's going away. And they cannot believe that
this man who has been everything to them for three and a half
years is going away. And he's telling them not to
be sorrowful. He says in verse 7, he says, the time has come
for me to go away. Nevertheless, I tell you the
truth. It is expedient for you. It's good for you. that I'd go
away. For if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come to you. Now the Comforter is the Holy
Spirit of God. God is a Trinity. God is a tri-unity,
a three unity, one in three. God is one God, there is only
one God, but God is manifest in three persons. There is the
Father, God the Father who dwells in unapproachable light, who
man cannot see and live. There is the Son who is the manifestation,
of everything that God is. He is the one in whom dwells
the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In Him, we are complete in Him,
and in Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily. There
is the Son, and then there is the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit
of God. Not just a force, not just an
influence, but a person, the person, the comforter. Jesus
said this, if I go not away, the comforter will not come to
you, but if I depart, I will send him unto you, Him, Him,
a person. I will send Him, the Spirit of
God. And when He, the Spirit of God, has come, He will reprove
the world of sin. He will reprove, what does that
mean? He will convince. He'll convince you. People in
the world, He'll convince you. He'll convict you of sin, of
righteousness, and of judgment. Of sin, because they believe
not on Me. Of righteousness, because I go to My Father and
ye see Me no more. Of judgment, because the Prince
of this world is judged. And then he says to them, and
remember this is before Christ was crucified, this is the night
before, and they're still without the full measure of the Holy
Spirit to teach them and lead them and guide them. You know,
the Holy Spirit had to come to them on the day of Pentecost,
some weeks later. And he says, I have yet many
things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. Why can't
you bear them now? Because you haven't got the fullness
of the Spirit yet. How be it when he, the Spirit of Truth
is come, when I send Him to you, when I've accomplished the work
on the cross and gone back to glory and I send the Spirit of
Truth to you, when He is come, then He, the Spirit, will guide
you into all truth. What the natural man cannot do
because he's spiritually blind, I'll send the Spirit of God to
you, and He will guide you into all truth, for He shall not speak
of Himself." You know, these that go on about the Holy Spirit
all the time. And, oh, we've got the Spirit of God in our
midst, and they wave their hands in the air, and they... they
pretend to speak in garbled tongues and all sorts of stuff like that
and they throw themselves on the floor and they do the sorts
of things that make the world think, as Paul said to the Corinthians,
he said, if the world comes in and sees you doing that they'll
say you're mad. Well I've always thought that they look mad when
they do these stupid things in the name of religion. No, He
shall not speak of himself. The Holy Spirit doesn't speak
of himself. But what does he speak of? He
speaks of Christ. Whatsoever he shall hear in the
councils of the triunity of God, that shall he speak. And he'll
show you things to come. Who will he glorify? Who will
he glorify? He shall glorify me, said Christ. For he shall receive of mine
and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father has
are mine, says Jesus. Therefore said I that he shall
take, he the spirit shall take of mine and shall show it unto
you. Unto who? Unto who? Unto the people he
has loved. Hold on, hold on, that's not
fair is it? Surely he shows it to everybody. I'm afraid if you
think that you're fully mistaken, because the scriptures are very
clear. What do we say to the law and to the testimony? If
they speak not according to this word, there is no light, there
is no truth in them. Our doctrine is the doctrine
of this book. Our doctrine is not the doctrine
of catechisms and creeds, however well respected they might have
been down the years. Our doctrine is not the doctrine
of popes and bishops and cardinals and all the rest of it. Our doctrine,
as far as God enables us by His Spirit, is the doctrine of this
book. And the doctrine of this book is that God is gracious
to a people of His choice, from before the beginning of time.
That is the message of this book. It is absolutely clear. He doesn't
try to hide it. God says, I will be gracious
to whom I will be gracious. He will decide to whom he will
be gracious. He will have mercy upon whom
he decides to have mercy. Don't charge God with unfairness.
Read Romans chapter 9. If you think like that, read
what Paul says. Who are you? Has not the potter power over
the same lump of clay? to make one vessel for honour
and one vessel for dishonour. God is sovereign. The Bible declares
God's absolute sovereignty over everything, even whether He reveals
His truth to you or not. He's sovereign over it. Now then,
proud, arrogant people that we are, get back down where you
belong in the presence of God, in the dust, and bow before Him. You have no rights You have no
claim. You have nothing that you can
scream at God about Him being unfair. All you can do is get
down in the dust and plead for mercy. I will be gracious to
whom I will be gracious. That's that hymn that says, whilst
on others you are calling. Savior, dear Savior, hear my
humble cry. Whilst on others you are calling,
do not pass me by. Oh God, please do not pass me
by. Do not leave me in darkness, be gracious to me. Perhaps God
has been speaking by his spirit to you. I remember a day in my
teens when I was, I'm a rebellious person now, but when I was a
rebellious youth, and I remember powerfully being struck by the
presence of God. I'm not talking about anything
weird, I'm not talking about anything funny. I was in the
sixth form at school, and we were given all sorts of books
to read, and just the one that happened, did it just happen
to land on my desk, was one which was quite, I don't know what
it was like, I couldn't find it now for you, I couldn't tell
you what the message was, but it really started to make me think,
there's got to be something more. What am I? What is this thing
in me that is thinking, that has consciousness? that what
is it? What is it? There must be something
more. This cannot just be mechanical.
God started to speak to me then. Maybe you've got just the faintest
flickering of an awareness of God. Maybe you've been listening
to preaching. I'm talking about true preaching,
not the garbage that's out there in such huge amounts, that which
is from this book. Maybe the preached word has been
permeating your inner man, getting into you. your worldly darkness
of spirit, which we all have by nature, has been pierced by
a shaft of heavenly light. So how does God, by His Spirit,
teach the people of His choice the truth of eternity? For be
sure It is God alone who must do the teaching. God alone must
do the teaching. I can't teach you, though I stand
here and preach. Preaching is only that declaration
of what God has said in his word. That's all it is. And you're
to test what you hear preached. You have to test it like the
noble Bereans in the Acts of the Apostles. The noble Bereans,
why were they more noble than all the others that threw Paul
and Silas in jail and beat them and all that? The reason that
they were more noble was they searched the Scriptures daily
to see whether what Paul was preaching was in accordance with
this book. They searched the script. He
said that they looked, comparing and looking and studying and
digging to see whether it was true. Preaching is only the declaration
of what God has said in his word. And we have a responsibility
to compare what you hear preached with the word to say, does this
ring true to this word? And when it's preached properly,
with God's Spirit anointing to teach his people, that is how
God teaches his people. That is how God the Spirit comes
and speaks to his people. My text is John 6, verse 45,
and it says this, this is Jesus talking to the people, and he
quotes the prophets, he quotes Isaiah, chapter 54, verse 13,
and it says this, and this is my text, they shall all be taught
of God. They shall all be taught of God. Who? the people of God's choice
from before the beginning of time. For there is a people whom
he loved in Christ before the foundation of the world. I don't
need to prove it to you, look at your scriptures, look at Ephesians
1 verse 4 and numerous other texts. God chose a people, a
multitude which no man can number from every tribe and kindred
and tongue and nation without any distinction of race or color
or creed or language or age or social class, the richest down
to the poorest. the wisest down to the stupidest.
He chose a multitude that no man can number. And it says they,
all they, shall be taught of God. All of them, every single
one, shall be taught of God. How does God teach his people? How shall he teach them? By his
Spirit. And the answer is given, I believe,
in verse 8 of John 16, which is what we read earlier. When
he is come, when the Spirit of God is come, He will reprove
the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. He reproves.
He convinces. He convicts the world. Who's
the world? You and me, people in the world.
His people are in the world. They're living like everybody
else. They're children of wrath even as others. There's no difference,
no difference between any of them as we are in our natural
state. And He, the Spirit of God, comes and He reproves the
world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. I'm probably
in trying to deliver this message in the next 25 minutes, no more
than that, biting off way more than I can chew. there's a good
chance that we'll come back to it and look at it again more
fully next week. But let's see how far we get.
He convicts the world of sin. He convinces the people he loved
from before eternity of sin. That's what he does. Convinces
them of sin. There was a pastor in Scotland,
up in, I think it was Aberdeen, in the early 1800s, Robert Murray
McShane. And he was a young man, he died
at the age of 29. You know, they used to die early. You get an
infectious disease, we now get antibiotics and it tends to cure
us. But then, very often, an infectious disease, a bacterial
infection, it would kill you. It would kill you very rapidly.
And that young man, powerfully as he preached and ministered
to his people up in Aberdeen, at 29 he was dead. But when he
was 20, he wrote this in his diary. He wrote, clear conviction
of sin is the only true origin of dependence on another's righteousness
and therefore, strange to say, of the Christian's peace of mind
and cheerfulness. Now you're saying, hold on, run
that past me again, I didn't quite. grasp all of that, clear
conviction of sin. Have you ever known what it is
to have a clear conviction of sin? Because you see, if you
in your heart have any knowledge of what you are as a sinner before
a holy God, if you have any sense whatsoever of what you are as
vile and corrupt before the holiness and purity of the living God,
That's the only thing that will cause you to look somewhere else,
to depend on another's righteousness for the righteousness, the holiness
that you need to be acceptable with God. And having found it,
therefore, strange to say, that's what gives the Christian peace
of mind and cheerfulness. It is, truly. Knowing how bad
you are by nature points you to where the only place is where
you can find what you need for peace with God. And that brings
peace and cheerfulness. For you to know God and to know
peace with Him, you begin with conviction of sin. That's where
you begin. The Holy Spirit of God is the
one who teaches you this. The generality of mankind, the
people all around us in general, only deal in relative goodness
and badness. You know, we just compare one,
oh, that was a nasty thing that he did to some, so, oh, he deserves
to go to jail for that, and we only deal with relative goodness
and badness. But God's Spirit teaches absolute
holiness, the absolute holiness of God who dwells in unapproachable
light, and the contrast of sin. You know, when, if you want to
see whether something's clean or not, put it up against something
that you know is pure white. If you want to know whether a
shirt is a nice clean white shirt, you might have to wait a long
time at the moment because of the heat we've been having, but wait
for a fresh snowy day like we had some last winter, and when
the sun comes out. There's no whiteness that can
compare with that. It's the whitest of white, fresh
snow with the sun gleaming down on it, and then put your clean
white shirt up against it, and you'll immediately see the contrast.
You'll see whether it really is clean. And when we see something
of the holiness and purity of the God who has made all things,
we see the contrast of our sin. Sin, what is it? It's the transgression,
the breaking of the law of God. The transgression, the breaking,
the going against the perfect nature and absolute holy character
of God. It's imperfection compared with
God's absolute perfection. You see, we see the hand of God
in creation all around us. You know, it's not by science,
it's by faith we understand that the worlds were made by God.
Hebrews 11 verse 2. We see something of the magnitude
of God. We're brought to glimpse the
contrast between what God is and what we are. And we begin,
as we saw last week, to take sides with God concerning our
true state, as sinful and accountable to him. We take sides. Deal justly. What that means? With thy God.
Deal justly with thy God. Micah 6 verse 8. Deal justly
with thy God. That means take sides with God.
When God judges you as a sinner, you take sides with him. You
don't go, ah, but, ah, but all of this, and oh no, but you don't
realize, no. Yes, Lord, I know I'm a sinner. I know. In me, that is in my
flesh, said the apostle Paul, there dwells no good thing. The apostle Paul said he wasn't
worthy to be called an apostle. He wasn't worthy to be counted
amongst them. He said he was the least of all the apostles.
And then he said, I am the chief of sinners. Jesus Christ came
into the world to save sinners, he said, of whom I am chief. Was he just trying to make a
pious statement for its effect? No, he meant it. He meant as
far as he was concerned, he knew what he was. like that man crying
at the wall of the temple you know there was the Pharisee who
went to the wall of the temple and Jesus pointed them out to
his disciples and there's the Pharisee saying I thank you God
that I'm not as other men I'm so religious and I'm so good
in your sight I give tithes of my goods and I do this that and
the other and I fast and I pray and oh how I thank you how good
I am and he said look at this poor publican the publicans were
known as the sinners, the people who were anti-social in all their
behavior because they corrupted things, they stole people's money,
they had a reputation for being what anybody would regard as
sinful and there's the publican and he's standing not far away
by the wall of the temple and he's beating his chest and he's
crying, God be merciful to me the sinner as if there were no
other sinner, God be merciful to me the sinner, take sides
with God concerning our true state as sinful and accountable
and you see when the Holy Spirit comes, he gives the new birth. He gives that new birth. When
Nicodemus came to speak to Jesus in John chapter three, you know,
he came from the Pharisees and wanted to know a bit more about
this man that was so radical in what he was saying compared
with the doctrine of the Pharisees and he came to him and he said,
I know you're from God because nobody can do what you do unless
he comes from God. And Jesus said to him, Nicodemus,
I tell you, you don't know a thing unless you're born again. You
must be born again. The Spirit of God must come.
They shall all be taught of God. He must come and teach you. Chapter
3, verse 7 of John. You must, this is why he says,
he said, I keep saying it, but this is why, you must be born
again. A woman in Charles Spurgeon's
congregation 150 years ago came up to him and she said, Mr. Spurgeon,
she said, I keep coming here and you keep telling us that
we must be born again. Why do you keep telling us we
must be born again? And he said, because dear lady,
you must be born again. You must be born again. The Spirit
of God must come and shine that divine light into your heart.
And by it, He gives you faith. What is faith? It is the sight
of the soul. It is that spiritual sight, to
see our true condition and to see the things of God. We start
to see, by that enlightenment of the new birth of the Holy
Spirit, what Romans 8 verse 7 says, that the carnal mind, the fleshly
mind, the mind that you're born with, the mind that you grow
up with, is enmity. with God. It's the enemy of God. It's against God. It merits only
the eternal condemnation of God. Our society all around us talks
only of how good we are, doesn't it? Think of the adverts, you
know, the adverts. Because you're worth it, you
know. I'm sorry, that is not the language of Scripture. You've
got to, you know, you cannot really love anybody else until
you've learned to love yourself. That's not the language of scripture. That is not the language of scripture.
No, no. The spirit of God teaches us
what we are by nature. He teaches his people as he taught
Job. You know, Job is the oldest book
in the Bible. You'll find it just before the Psalms, the book
of Job, 42 chapters. Deep, deep, profound. Written
probably before the time of Abraham. Deep, deep, profound. The holiest
man that had ever lived, Job. Nobody could accuse him of anything.
He was such an upright man. He was such a holy man in everything
he did. And God said to Satan, have you
considered my servant Job? Why don't you go and have a look
at him? Because he intended his eternal good. And do you know
Job suffered dreadfully. He had all his possessions taken
off him. And then he had his health taken
off him. And he was in absolutely terrible condition. And he thought
this was so unjust and unfair and his comforters came and just
told him it must be his own fault and how good they were and how
lacking he was. And so it goes on. And then we
start to see the truth right at the end. And in Job 40 verse
4, Job sees what God is really like, and Job says, in the light
of what I've seen, I know I am vile. The most righteous man
that ever lived, by the testimony of everybody around him, he said,
I know that I am vile. He said, I had heard of you with
the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye sees you, by faith,
by that faith given by the Spirit of God. Now mine eye sees you,
and I abhor myself, I hate myself, and I repent in sackcloth and
ashes. You see, if you know anything
of the fact that you're mortal, that you're a sinner, it's the
Holy Spirit who is teaching you and who is showing you that you
have an appointment. Did you know that? You've got
an appointment. You know, you get appointments for job interviews
and things like that. Do you know we've all got an
appointment? Hebrews 9, 27, it is appointed to man to die once,
and then the judgment, the judgment. We must all stand before the
judgment seat of Christ and give an account of what we are by
nature, in our flesh, the things that we've done against the law
of God. It's appointed to die once, then the judgment. And
vainly trying to reform and constantly failing, the soul that sees something
of this by Holy Spirit revelation cries out, what must I do? What
must I do? How am I going to cope with this
judgment that is coming? What must I do? How should a
man be just with God? I know I can't, that was the
question of Job. How should a man be just with God? You must come
to the knowledge that the greatest sin of all, do you know what
the greatest sin of all is? Look at verse nine. Of sin, because
they believe not on me. The greatest sin is the sin of
unbelief. That's the greatest sin. What
should we do that we do the works of God? Asked the Pharisees,
the Jews of Jesus in John chapter 6 verse 28. What should we do
that we do the works of God? How should a man be just with
God? What must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said
this, this is the work of God that you believe on him whom
he has sent. of sin because they believe not
on me. The Spirit brings you to seek
another's righteousness. That's what Robert Murray McShane
said. Clear conviction of sin is the only true origin of dependence
on another's righteousness. In Ezekiel chapter 16, turn there
with me now if you can. If you have a Bible, turn to
it. Otherwise, don't worry, you can look it up later and I'll
read it out for you now. But in Ezekiel chapter 16, this
is God speaking in metaphor to his people. In verse 6 he says,
God speaking, when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in
thine own blood. By the way, if anybody watching
wonders why I'm using this old version of the Bible in 1600s,
1700s language, when we've got so many nice new modern ones
in modern language, I'll tell you why. It's because, and I
make a bold statement now, I'm known for making bold statements,
I'm known for speaking my mind on subjects like this, but every
one of the modern versions is corrupted. they're not the truth.
This is the nearest one that we've got to the truth of the
original. And if the these and the thous and the eths and the
eths and all those funny endings of words cause a problem for
you, well try and get used to it because this is the nearest
thing to the truth of God. You can't find it in these modern
versions, they're corrupted, they're wrong. In so many ways
they teach what is not the truth of the living God. Anyway, so
that as a little aside. When I passed by thee and saw
thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, when thou wast
in thy blood. In other words, he's talking
metaphorically about seeing his people in their sinful state.
I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live. live. Yea, I said unto thee when thou
wast in thy blood, live. I have caused thee to multiply
as a bud in the field, and thou hast increased, and waxen great,
and thou art come to excellent ornaments. Thy breasts are fashioned,
and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. Now
when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was
the time of love. And I spread my skirt over thee,
and covered thy nakedness. Yea, I swear unto thee, and entered
into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest
mine. Then I washed thee with water.
Yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed
thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broided
work, and shod thee with badger skin, etc., etc. Is that not
a word of grace? to the people that God has convicted
of their sin, has convinced of their sin, and He's shown them
the reason He's done it. Today is the day of love. Is
today the day of love for you, sinner, when you discover the
blessings of God and of his salvation. Jeremiah 29 verse 11. These people,
they shall all be taught of God. They, they, these people. I know
the thoughts that I think toward you, said God to his people,
to the they, in Jeremiah 29, 11. I know, God knows the thoughts
that he thinks towards his people, says the Lord. Thoughts of peace
and not of evil. He causes his people to look
to Christ. In their desperate need for the
righteousness and the holiness and the purity that we must have
to stand and be accepted in the presence of God, he causes his
people to look to Christ. Zechariah the prophet, next to
the last book of the Old Testament, chapter 12 verse 10, I, God,
will pour upon the house of David, that's these people, and upon
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that's these people, we're not
talking about that city in the Middle East, the spirit of grace
and of supplications, they'll pray to me, they'll be supplicants
to me, and they shall, listen to this, listen to this, this
is five or six hundred years before Christ came, they shall
look upon me whom they have pierced. He teaches his sinful people
to look to Christ. They shall look upon me whom
they have pierced. Who did they pierce? Christ on
the cross when they nailed him to that cursed tree. Zechariah
13 verse 1. In him going to that cross and
dying and shedding his blood there to make satisfaction for
the sins of his people, it says a fountain is opened for sin
and uncleanness. A fountain of cleansing. A fountain
of cleansing blood is opened for sin and uncleanness. And
it's New Testament reality, we read of that in 1 John chapter
1. The New Testament makes explicit
that which is implicit in the Old Testament. 1 John chapter
1 and verse 7. But if we walk in the light as
He, God, is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
And the blood, that fountain, the blood of Jesus Christ, His
Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Of course, of course
we have sin. But if we confess our sins, if
we confess, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, cleansed from all unrighteousness. So that in the presence of God
and in the standing of God, we're clothed, as Ezekiel said, we're
clothed. I have clothed you. He clothes
his people with the righteousness of God in Christ. For he made
him Christ who knew no sin. to be made sin, he took responsibility
for his people. As in the old marriage covenant,
the husband took absolute legal responsibility for everything
the wife was and did, and Christ took legal responsibility for
everything that his bride, his church, his people, from before
the beginning of time, everything that they are as sinners, he
took responsibility for it, and he went to the cross of Calvary
and he paid its legal debt to the justice of God. He discharged
the debt. This is what redemption is all
about. This is what the atonement is all about. He made peace with
God. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned,
we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. In bringing conviction,
the Spirit's purpose is to teach dependence on Christ for the
righteousness that God requires. Here's another Ezekiel text,
Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse 25. Then says God to his people,
whom he has made overwhelmingly conscious of the fact that they're
sinners before him, he says, Then will I sprinkle clean water
upon you. You who, as Job says, are vile. I abhor myself. I know what I
am. I'm a sinner. I will sprinkle
clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness
and from all your idols and I will cleanse you. A new heart also
will I give you, that's the new birth. A new spirit will I put
within you, the new man of God. And I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh, that hard heart that will not hear
the voice of the living God. And I will give you a heart of
flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, what's that other
than the new birth? And cause you to walk in my statutes
and you shall keep my judgments and do them. He's going to write
his law, his principles of righteousness and justice in the hearts of
his people. He brings us to know what we
are, as sinners, and then he shows us the Saviour. You see,
the saving gospel, the gospel is good news, that's what that
word means. The saving gospel was only intended for those brought
to a knowledge, to a conviction of their sin. In Mark chapter
2 verse 17, Jesus said this, they that are whole have no need
of the physician. They that are well, those that
are not ill, don't need a doctor. If you're feeling perfectly well
and you go to the doctor, what's the doctor going to say to you?
Stop wasting my time, there's nothing wrong with you. They
that are well don't need a doctor, but they that are sick, they
do. Jesus said likewise, I came not to call the righteous, Now
we know there are none righteous, no not one, but there are an
awful lot who think there are. There are an awful lot of people
who think they're good enough for God, and if I'm not good
enough for God then I don't want that God, is what people say
in their arrogance. I came not to call the righteous
but sinners to repentance. Has God's Spirit taught you something
of what you are as a sinner before a holy God? We hear The call
of Jesus Christ, have you heard it? Will you hear it now? He
said, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden. Labor
and are heavy laden doesn't mean hard work. He's talking about
the burden of sin, of knowing that you're a sinner before a
holy God. He says, come unto me, all you who labor and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest. You say, how do I come? I'll tell you how you come. You
don't use your feet, you believe. What must I do to be saved? Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Now, we're
rapidly running out of time, so I'm not going to finish this.
I'm going to come back to it next week. But in John chapter
16, then the next two things that the Spirit convicts his
people of, of righteousness and of judgment. Of righteousness,
because I go to my father and you see me no more. Of judgment,
because the prince of this world is judged. I think because of
the time that we're at and how much more there is to do, it
would be to the benefit of all of us if I didn't go on any further.
But my prayer is that all who hear this may find this to be
the truth of God as it is in the scriptures, and that finding
it will know the blessing and the riches of eternal spiritual
life. There is no greater riches. We
all like to be comfortable. We all like to have things. We
all like life to be easy for us. But I tell you, there is
no riches, there is no comfort, there is no treasure. in the
whole of this world that you might ever experience that comes
anywhere near the treasure and the blessing of peace with God
because of salvation in Christ Jesus. So we'll leave it there
for this week. Amen.