Well, we'll turn back to the
first chapter of 1 Peter this morning. This chapter is absolutely
full and rich. The more you read it, you must
admit that in these 20, what is it, 25 verses, you just cannot
plumb the depths of it. There is so much in here. There's
every aspect of the gospel, and it's explicit, and it's clear,
and it's accessible, and it's all lying on the surface there.
It's like a summary guide to what the whole of the rest of
scripture teaches. You know in English literature,
if you're studying English literature, I remember when I did my GCEO
levels years ago, and rather than reading the novel that was
set, well I did read it, but rather than do that and study
it in detail, I got one of those little tiny guides that was about
20 pages long, and it had all the summary of this 300 page
novel and it was all there making it easy. Well in a way this is
a little bit like an abbreviated guide to the whole of the scripture.
It invites study, it invites inquiry, it invites research. Look at verse 10. Of which salvation
the prophets, the prophets, have inquired and searched diligently
who prophesied of the grace that should come to you. They searched
out what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was
in them did signify when it testified beforehand the sufferings of
Christ and the glory that should follow and to whom it was revealed
that not to them but to us they did minister these things that
are now reported to you by those who preach the gospel unto you.
These prophets, they studied it It wasn't a passing interest,
it was their complete and utter obsession. And then look at the
end of verse 12. These things of the gospel, preached,
reported to you by them that have preached the gospel to you,
with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Which things the
angels desire to look into? Can you imagine the scene? It's
as if, it might even literally be true, that now as we are here,
talking of the gospel, the angels in heaven, as it were, are kind
of leaning over the balcony, looking down in. What is it they're
talking about? Can we ever plumb the depths
of this? You see, these prophets and these
angels were majoring in salvation. majoring that's the title of
the message majoring in some majoring is a word that comes
from north america united states uh... university education where
you take a number of modules but they say which is the subject
you are majoring in oh i'm majoring in physics i'm also studying
maths and a bit of this that but i'm majoring in physics i'm
majoring in whatever it is majoring in salvation Now if these prophets
found it so captivating, if these angels find it so captivating,
so intriguing, so full of life and vibrancy, ought not we who
claim to believe it want to major in salvation? I've got three
main points this morning. Number one is the end of your
faith. Number two is the substance of
your faith, and number three, majoring in salvation. The end
of your faith. Look at verse nine. Receiving
the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. Receiving
the end of your faith. Faith is God-given spiritual
sight. That's what it is. God-given
spiritual sight. Because in verse 8, you need
spiritual sight to see things that are of a spiritual nature.
You need that spiritual sight to see things that are of a spiritual
nature, whom having not seen, talking of Jesus Christ, we haven't
seen him with physical eyes, Peter writing to these scattered
strangers and writing to us and other Christians like us says,
you haven't seen him, you haven't physically seen the Lord Jesus
Christ. But though you see him not, you
believe, faith, you believe, you have faith, you see him by
faith. That's what believing is, it's seeing by faith. And
you rejoice when you see by faith what he is and what he's done
and who he is and the glories and the salvation he's accomplished
and the inheritance he's laid up for us in heaven. You rejoice. with, describe your joy to me,
I can't, it's joy unspeakable, and full of glory, receiving
the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls, you
rejoice then, and you receive it, you possess it in trust,
we haven't got it yet, we're not yet there yet, we possess
it in trust, we know it's guaranteed by the word of God, and by the
character of God, who cannot lie, and who cannot change, and
we're receiving the end of it. What does that mean? The objective.
The end? The objective. The goal. The
consummation. The finality of it, which is
the salvation of your souls. The salvation of your souls is
the end of it. And what does that mean? What
is it that we receive, this salvation of our souls? It's release, release
from law bondage. We're released from the bondage
of the law which tells us do this and live and we know that
we can't and we never do and we never will do. And we're in
bondage to the law which we can never keep as God requires. We're
free, we're released from sin's condemnation, for as Paul tells
the Romans, there is therefore now no condemnation to those
who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh
but according to the spirit. We're released from the prospect,
the certainty of the eternal misery that is hell in the second
death, in the judgment. We're released from that, we're
saved, salvation, saved from it. We're released into, not
a vacuum, but the experience of heavenly bliss, which Peter's
been talking about. Sinless. Holiness. intimate fellowship
and communion with God. That's the prospect. What a glorious
prospect. I've told you it before, but
I love the little story of the old lady that was dying and she
was very seriously ill and she was on her deathbed and she was
dying and she had visitors come and visit her day by day. And
one of her good friends came and said, Oh, I see you're still
in the land of the living. And she said, no, I'm still in
the land of the dying. I hope soon to be in the land
of the living. This is the land of the dying.
This is the land where people die. But heaven is the land of
the living. That's where we live forever. How amazing, isn't it? How amazing
that sinners When you know what a sinner is, you know a sinner
is a sacred thing, the Holy Ghost is, there's not many sinners,
oh yes there are, they're all sinners, but who knows that they're
a sinner? Who knows that? Only the children
of God, only true believers know that they're sinners. And the
more we know of God, the more we feel what we are in the flesh,
utterly at odds with God. How amazing that such as we should
be made like him. Like him. We should be made like
him. 1 John 3 verse 2. And to enjoy him for eternity. How amazing that is. No wonder
John Newton wrote Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. Is it not
amazing But what is the substance of that faith which accomplishes
this end? The end of your faith, what's
the substance of it? It's all here in 1 Peter chapter
1. All of it is here before us.
Look at verse 2. Let me take you through and remind
you of some of these things. Look at verse 2. What is it that
has accomplished the end, or is accomplishing the end of your
faith which is the salvation of your souls? Well first of
all it's the election of God. The election of God. God is not
ashamed. Men and women are ashamed, naturally,
of the doctrine of election. They're ashamed of it. They find
it repulsive to their concept of that which is fair and just.
But God isn't ashamed of it. God declares it, because without
it there is no effectual redemption. This idea of a universal redemption
that is available to anybody that wants to say yes has no
concept, no understanding whatever of what it is to establish justice. Has no concept. In the banking
world, banking just wouldn't work if the banks were to say
there is an unlimited fortune for anybody who just fancies
wandering up to the bank and saying I'll have some of that.
No. The banking world, money counts. It really counts. Money
exchanges hands. The government can't just build
railways willingly. It's got to pay for them. The
money has to come from somewhere. In the justice of God, it had
to come. If he's going to save some sinners,
it had to be particular. It had to be paid for, specially,
particularly. And he did that by electing some
sinners who he put into the Lord Jesus Christ. There's election
there. There's the foreknowledge of
God the Father. What has accomplished that salvation
which is the end of our faith? The foreknowledge. What does
that mean? It doesn't mean crystal ball gazing. It means his sovereign
grace. It means his intimate love of
a people for no other reason than he is a gracious God. He
chooses some. Jacob have I loved, he says.
Why? Because he's God, and he's entitled to. Jacob have I loved,
and Esau have I hated. The foreknowledge, the foreknowledge
is setting aside specifically in his love, by his grace. Through
sanctification of the spirit unto obedience and sprinkling
of the blood of Jesus Christ. We'll come back to the sanctification
in a minute. But blood sprinkling. Chosen
to be sprinkled by the blood of God who became man that he
might in a human body pay the price to the law for human sin. The soul that sins it shall die. Die? Lose its life. Where is
the life? Deuteronomy. The life is in the
blood. That's why you read so much in
the book of Leviticus and those Pentateuch books. That's why
you read so much about the temple sacrifices. It's very gory. It
sounds like an abattoir, and a butcher shop. There's blood,
and there's all the innards. It's very graphic, the way it's
pointed out. But the blood is where the life
is, according to the scripture. The life is in the blood, and
that blood must be poured out to make satisfaction to the offended
justice of God. And God himself came for his
people, in the person of his son, second person of the Trinity,
the Son of God became the Son of Man, that He might redeem
His people, that He might shed that blood which was His. Without
the shedding of blood, we read in Hebrews 9.22, there is no
remission of sins, and jump down to verse 18 of this chapter.
You know, for as much as you know, What is it redeemed you? What is it that paid the price
of your release? We could read that as. What is
it that paid the price of your release from the condemnation
of the justice of God for your sin? What is it that did that?
You were not redeemed. This didn't pay the price. Corruptible
things, such as silver and gold, from your vain conversation,
your sinful life, received. Where did you get it from? Your
father's, you inherited it. It's what you are by nature.
What was it that redeemed you? Verse 19. What was it that redeemed
you? Not those corruptible things,
but with the precious blood of Christ. The one who is God is
infinite, and his blood was true Chemically it was human blood,
absolutely like yours and mine, but without any taint of sin. And as such, as the infinite
sinless one, he was able, he was fitted. Do I understand it?
Of course I don't. But the word of God declares
it. He was made the sin of his people. Read the article by Todd
Neibert on the back of the bulletin today. Read that. Very, very
clear. Very clear. He was made sin,
and being made sin, God punished him as if that sin was his. It was his, it was made his,
he never committed it in any way at all. He was spotless,
he was without any guile whatsoever, but he was made the sin of his
people, and that precious blood was poured out The lamb without
blemish and without spot, that's referring to the Passover, when
the lamb was chosen, and they examined it, and they looked
at it for 14 days, and do you know what that was symbolical
of? The Lord Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem as a baby and
grew and people looked at him, his parents, his earthly parents
looked at him, the mother who bore him and the husband of the
mother who bore him, to all the society around he was his father
but he knew he was the son of God. And the whole of society
looked at him. And at the end of his life, Jesus
could say even to the Pharisees, which of you convicts me of sin? And not a solitary one could,
because he was without blemish and without spot. Why did he
obey the law of God perfectly? Because he is the righteousness
of God. He obeyed the law perfectly to
show that he is that Passover lamb. So our Passover is sacrificed
for us. and that made satisfaction. And
how was it demonstrated? Verse 21, who by him do believe
in God that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory.
Why did God raise the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead? He raised
him from the dead physically in his physical body He raised
him from the dead to show, that's it. It's paid the price. The
justice of God is satisfied. There is no more anger to be
poured out. There is no more wrath to be borne. He has borne
it, and he raised him from the dead. He was delivered up in
his body for our transgressions, bearing our transgressions, but
raised for our justification. Because him being raised, that's
it. The legal announcement is made.
The reporters are on the steps of the court of divine justice
and they declare all the people that were in Christ when he died
are released from their bondage. They're saved from their sins
because he has been raised from the dead. And what flows from
that is what it says in verse 2. I know I'm jumping around
but stick with me. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. The result of all that Christ
has accomplished is grace and peace. Oh, to be the objects. This is what I mean when I say,
if you tell people round and about, oh, God is gracious to
you, they'll go, well, I couldn't care less, I don't know. But
you tell a sinner. You tell a sinner. You tell you
and me when we know that we're sinners. You tell a sinner that
God is gracious to sinners. Oh, wow. Wow, is there any better
news? Could there possibly be any better
news? God is gracious to sinners. Instead of God being angry with
me every day, I have peace with God through the blood of His
cross. He's made peace through the blood
of His cross. And He's given me, verses 3 and
4, we looked at it a couple of weeks ago. a heavenly inheritance. There it is! The will is written
out, it's clear, the lawyers have stamped everything, it's
clear there is a heavenly inheritance. He calls us in time. Verse two,
sanctification of the Spirit means setting apart for God's
holy purposes. His people are sanctified. They're
sanctified in eternity when they're chosen in Christ before the foundation
of the world, but then in time, they're sanctified by the Spirit.
When the Spirit of God comes, you who were dead in trespasses
and sins, He has Himself quickened together with Him, made alive
by His Spirit coming. The wind blows where it lists,
and you don't know where it comes from. And you hear the sound
of it, but you're not sure where it comes from or where it's going.
So is the Spirit of God who comes. And there's one here, and he
works in the heart of that one there. And that child of wrath,
even as others, is given the new life of the Spirit of God,
to believe. And is, verse 23, look down at
verse, I told you, you've got to keep up with this. Verse 23,
being born again. not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible by the Word of God which lives and abides
forever. There's the new birth, the new
birth according to the abiding Word of God. You see that everything
else changes in this life, in this world, everything else changes,
but the Word of God abides forever. All flesh is grass, the flower
of the grass fades and withers and falls away, but the word
of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached to you. The gospel is that which preaches
that word to you. And he not only saves us and
calls us and brings us to himself, but verse five, How are you going
to cling on to this? Life can be a long time and we're
very weak, we know, in the flesh. How are we going to keep going?
You're kept. You are kept by the power of
God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed. God's powerful
keeping ability to withstand worldly fleshly trials and all
of those things that we read of in verses 6 and 7 last week. He does all of those things for
his people. And we live in the light of it. Verses 13 to 17. Verses 13 to
17, wherefore gird up the loins of your mind. That's like with
the clothing of the day, which was not so much tailored fitting,
but flowing robes. And if you wanted to run, well,
you'd trip over them if you just ran as they were. So you would
gird up your clothes around your loins, around your middle, you
would tie them up so that you could run and your legs wouldn't
be encumbered and wouldn't trip. Well, he uses that analogy. gird
up the loins of your mind, get ready to be active in your mind,
be sober and hope. You know, false religion has
this idea of meditation as an emptying of the mind and having
nothing in the mind. No, no, no, the Christian the
Christian, the true concept of meditation is that you get ready
to think, you use your brain, you think about these things
that God has declared to us. Gird up the loins of your mind,
be sober, don't let things Make you less than compass mentis.
Don't let the things of this world, don't let the things of
life, don't let drink and drugs and other things, the things
of entertainment and all of those things distract you from sobriety
to gird up the loins of your mind and hope to the end for
the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus.
That's it. Set your heart on these things.
Set your heart on those things. And it's all living in the light
and good of all of this. Wearing the uniform of faith,
verse 14, as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according
to the former lusts in your ignorance, but as he which hath called you
is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, because
it is written, be ye holy. for I am holy." And he goes on
to say, live your time here in fear, for the fear of the Lord
is the beginning of knowledge. What is this? Is this calling
for some sort of legal obedience? No it isn't. It's not a bare
precept. It's not, this is what Robert
Hawker wrote, it's not as a bare precept, i.e. as a struggle in the power of
the flesh to try to be holy, but the communication of enabling
grace by God's Spirit. And that's why I saw this by
Henry Mahan, Carnal Religion, it's in the bulletin. The peculiar
crowning feature of salvation by grace in Christ is that all
of God's work begins within and bears fruit without. Other religions, like that of
the Pharisees, begin with outward forms, rules, duties, hoping
that these things will commend us to God and motivate men to
godliness. Carnal religion, the religion
of the flesh without the Spirit of God, gives men a day to keep. Oh, you keep that day, you don't
do this, that or the other on that day. A tithe to pay. Oh,
have you got some money? You better give a tenth of it
here, there and everywhere. Rules to obey. Don't go here,
don't go there, don't do this, don't wear that, don't... All
of these things. Duties to perform. Oh, you need
to go and do such and such a thing for so and so and... Laying burdens
on men and women's backs. But our God, in regeneration,
gives a sinner a new heart, and a new spirit, and sheds abroad
the love of God within. This always results in an obedient,
godly walk. Surround a tiger with bars, whips,
and rewards, and he will do no harm. But he is still a wild
tiger. However, give that tiger the
nature of a lamb, and you can remove the bars and put the whip
down. You don't need that, he's got the nature of a lamb. Do
you see what he's saying? Do you see what is being said
there? This is what this is talking about. And what is the unifying
theme of all of these doctrines? They're all here in this chapter.
Study them. Look at them. You know in physics
They're always searching for the unifying theory of everything. There was that movie, wasn't
there, about Professor Stephen Hawking called The Theory of
Everything. And the idea is always trying to find the rule, the
law, the theory that will bring all the diverse forces, gravity,
electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force and the strong nuclear
force, bring them all together and say we understand them all
as one thing. And one of these days maybe they'll
get a bit closer to it. But in the same way, all of these
doctrines They're not diverse, they're not independent that
you study and you learn as branches of study. What are they? What
is the unifying theme of all of them? You know, of course,
the unifying theme of all of them is Christ. How could it
be anything else? It's Christ. Christ, the manifestation
of God. Christ, the Savior that God has
sent. He is the substance of our faith. To know Him is to know the depths
of the mystery of the purposes of God. We read it often, but
it won't hurt to read it again. Philippians 3 and chapter 3,
and I'll start at verse 7. What things, says Paul, very
religious man, he had lots of religious credentials, but all
of these things that were gained to me, I counted as value, of
value, those I counted loss for Christ." They're worthless. "'Yea,
doubtless, I count all things but loss for the excellency of
the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.'" This is all, all the
doctrines of salvation, they're all about Christ. "'For whom
I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them What
do you rate them as, Paul, all of those religious things that
you put so much store by once upon a time? I count them as
a pile of dung. Ooh, ooh, ooh, we're shocked,
we're shocked. Ooh, language, Paul. No, he means
it. They're worthless. Why, that I might find Christ,
that I might win him, and be found in him, not having my own
righteousness which is from the law, my law works, but that which
is through faith of Christ, of, note of, the righteousness which
is of God by faith, that I may know him, and the power of his
resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, be made conformable
to his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection
of the dead." That's it. This is the most important thing
to know in life. This is the essence of true living. To be without this is to be without
God and without hope in this world. To have it is to be blessed
with all spiritual blessings, as Paul tells the Ephesians,
blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ. The end of your faith, the substance
of your faith, majoring in salvation. Think of all the things that
occupy your thoughts and your time. Think of them. And some
are highly legitimate, and others are less so. You have to go to
work and earn a living. You have a family and a home.
to look after. You want to make a comfortable
home for your family, and it's good that you bring them up in
safe and comfortable surroundings. You take care of your health
and your fitness. You don't neglect it. You watch
what you eat. You try to exercise. You do the
things that look up. These are all commendable things.
You have projects in this life that you need to do. You need
to make things happen. You have entertainments that
you partake in, and you go to, and you have hobbies that you
follow, pastimes, interests. But the doctrine of salvation,
and the teaching of the gospel, and the things that we see here
in 1 Peter chapter 1, where does that figure? in your list of
studies. If I can say that work and family
and home and health and fitness and projects and entertainments
and hobbies are all legitimate things that you spend time on,
but where does the study, the searching, the seeking out of
the teaching of the gospel, of the knowledge of Christ, where
does that figure? Is it relegated to an hour or
so on a Sunday? Look at what the prophets did
in verse 10. They searched diligently. They dug into it. They expended
their time and effort searching the Scriptures, looking for the
promised Christ in all Scripture, because they knew what Christ
said. These Scriptures are they that
speak of me, right from the earliest time, able The son of Adam and
Eve, Abel, knew that the Scriptures would speak of Christ, for he
looked to Christ, and that's why he brought a lamb. Seeking
the truth of God by prayer, and where? Where do we look? Where
do we look? We look in the Word of God. The
abiding word of God, how firm a foundation, ye saints of the
Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word. Listen
to this line. What more can he say than to
you he has said? Where has he said it? In this
book. What more can he say than to you he has said? You who unto
Jesus for refuge have fled. It's there in chapter one of
Romans, the first four verses. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God, which
he had promised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.
The Holy Scriptures are about the Gospel of God, because they're
about, what? Concerning his Son, Jesus Christ
our Lord. That's what they're about. His
Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the seed of
David according to the flesh and declared to be the Son of
God with power according to the Spirit of holiness. And what
else declared him to be the Son of God with power? The resurrection
from the dead. His resurrection from the dead
is not optional. He rose from the dead and that
declares him to be the Son of God with power. And so these
men of old, they prayed. and studied, women of old as
well. They were given light and understanding by the grace of
God. They saw Christ by faith. They saw, they looked. Abraham,
it says, Jesus said this to the Pharisees. He says, your father
Abraham, you make a big thing about Abraham, your father Abraham,
he rejoiced to see my day. Thousands of years before Christ
came, Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Christ. Why? Because
he knew that there was salvation in none other. He even thought,
as I've told you before, I'm not sure whether I'm stepping
beyond what scripture reveals, but it seems to me that when
he took, when he obeyed God and took Isaac to sacrifice him on
Mount Moriah, that he was wondering, is this, this is the only Isaac,
not the only son, the only Isaac that God would send, he was looking
to Christ, he was expecting Christ. And all down the ages, men and
women of God in that largely apostate nation of Israel which
fell apart with sin and idolatry, Yet there were always, God always
had his 7,000 who had not bowed the knee to Baal, and they expected,
and they waited. And so when it came to the time
of the birth of Christ, there was Simeon at the temple. Remember
that old man, Simeon, at the temple? What was he hanging on
for? God had told him he wouldn't die until he saw the Lord's anointed. And when he saw Mary bring in
that little baby, and he knew that that was the Messiah come
in flesh, and he said, well, now I can depart in peace, for
mine eyes have seen the salvation of God. The old prophetess, Anna,
was there at the same time, and she praised God, for she saw
the magi, the wise men from the east. Where from? The old Babylonian
Empire and the Medes and the Persians, they've got the scriptures,
because they took them into captivity in Babylon, and the Medes and
the Persians took it, and the wise men studied the book of
Daniel and the other scriptures, the book of Jeremiah, and all
of these things, and they knew now must be the time when he's
coming. They were looking for Christ. Zacharias, the father
of John the Baptist, and Elizabeth, his mother, they were looking
and waiting for these things to happen. They were all like
the noble Bereans that we read of in Acts 17, verse 11. They
received the Word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures
daily, whether these things were so. Whether the things they heard
preached were so. This is it. This is what it is
to major in salvation. They searched the Scriptures
daily. I've heard this preached. Is
it so? Is it so? Like Paul to Timothy. Paul, the older, the one who
led Timothy to faith in Christ, showed him the truth and set
him as an elder and a preacher in the church, writing to him,
he says, study to show thyself approved unto God. Oh, well,
doesn't he get it automatically? No. No, no, no, the worker, God's
worker, God's preacher, study to show thyself approved unto
God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing
the word of truth. But not only the prophets, but
verse 12, the angels. The angels of God, I'm going
to whiz through this because it's so good just to meditate
on. Angels too, intrigued. Intrigued is nowhere near a strong
enough word. Utterly engrossed, fascinated. by the Gospel. They themselves are sinless.
They've never fallen. They've always obeyed God perfectly.
They don't need saving grace. They've never fallen. But they're
fascinated with God's determination to redeem an innumerable multitude
of sinners. They're real beings. Angels really
do exist. We don't normally see them. In
fact, I don't think anybody, truthfully, has seen an angel
since the scriptures were finished. Why not? What more can he say? Remember that line of that hymn? What more can he say than to
you he has said, other than his word? That firm faith. It's completed. It's been completed since the
end of Revelation. What more can he say? So he's
not going to send angels to tell us anything. If they will not
believe Moses and the prophets, They won't believe that one should
rise from the dead or an angel should come. We have the completed
Word of God. But people who in the past did
see them were terrified at the sight. But these beings are full
of the love of God towards God's people. They're God's messengers
in the past to men. They were present at the giving
of the law at Sinai. They protect Down history we
see them protecting God's people in danger. In 2 Kings chapter
6 there's Elisha and his servant, and the servant is terrified
that the Assyrians are going to kill them any minute now,
and Elisha says, Lord open his eyes that he can see. And the
Lord opened the boy's eyes, and he saw that they were surrounded
by a great company of angels, and the Assyrians were defeated.
They came, And they announced Christ's birth to the shepherds
on the hillside. And one came and said, unto you
is born this day in the city of David a savior which is Christ
the Lord, and this shall be the sign unto you. And then they
were joined by a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God
and saying glory to God in the highest. They announced his birth.
They ministered to Christ in his temptation. They were with
him in Gethsemane when he sweat as it were great drops of blood.
They were present. Who did the disciples and the
women who first went to the tomb, the empty tomb, on the third
day? They were present at his resurrection.
Angels were there to greet them. Jesus said of them, the angels
of God, and it applies today, there is joy in the presence
of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. They are
ministering spirits, as Hebrews 1.14 tells us, serving the purposes
of God. They fight with the fallen angels,
the forces of Satan, about the justification of sinners on the
grounds of the satisfaction made by Christ. We saw that in Revelation
chapter 12. In Jesus' parable of the rich
man and the beggar Lazarus, it is the angels who carry Lazarus
to Abraham's bosom. In Pilgrim's Progress, they're
the shining ones, beckoning Christian over the chilly river of death
to the celestial city. These sinless, glorious, servants
of God most high, they major in the subject of God saving
his sinful people from their sins. For it was one of them,
the angel of God, who was sent to Joseph to tell him, call his
name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Now
then, If they major in it, let me ask you the question that
Lamentations 1 verse 12 asks. Is it nothing to you or ye that
pass by? Is it nothing to you? Is it of
no consequence? All around us, in this world
today, we can see all around us, the generality of mankind,
it is nothing to them. It's there, clear, but it is
nothing to them. Where does it rank in importance
in your thoughts? in your use of time, in your
study, in the things that you read. If you are truly a child
of God and you're heading for that eternal inheritance, it
will be your eternal theme in heaven. How can you expect to
major in it then, if you possess that lively hope, if you have
little interest in it now? Those who say it's not fair that
I don't go to heaven when they've got no interest in heaven now,
They're hardly going to be disappointed, are they? When the time comes
and they go to hell, because they've got no interest in it
now. So shouldn't we major in it now? Shouldn't we take these
things seriously? Shouldn't anybody listening to
this take the subject of salvation seriously? I'll close with just
one verse, 2 Corinthians 6, no, two verses, 1 and 2. We then,
Paul's just told them, that God made him who knew no sin, Christ,
to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. And then he says, we then, as workers together
with him, we beseech you also that you receive not the grace
of God in vain. You don't treat it with contempt,
that you major in it. For, he saith, I have heard thee
in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation I have succored
thee. Behold, Now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.