Pull up our last point, the gift
and obedience of preaching Christ. And I will make that the premise
upon which we will now contemplate the last four or five verses
in our text. We have looked at the obedience
of Philip. Most of you may know the story
of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, and it becomes a model for us
of many things. The model of what it means to
walk in the spirit, We learned that in earlier days that the
latter portion of this text, Philip was a man full of the
Spirit and full of faith. And he listened to God, did he
not? And after Philip had done ministry in Samaria, he was called
by God in verse 26. Look at it. And the angel of
the Lord spake unto Philip, saying arise and go toward the south
unto the way that goes down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is
desert. You guys see that? And we captured
verse 26 fundamental statement, and that is the Lord speaks to
his people and those who are walking in the spirit hear him.
Philip was such a person and by application, the question
would be raised. Are we walking in the spirit?
Are we living in the spirit? Are we in the way of obedience
so that when God gives us a command, a mission, a commission to do
what he would have us to do, we would be ready and available.
Remember what I stated? That Philip was doing well in
Samaria. Samaria was a burgeoning ministry.
Everyone was listening to him. He had seen conversions, multiple
baptisms were taking place. And when you and I are in a subtle
situation, which appears to be the will of God, and certainly
it was, and it's favorable and it's growing, why would we want
to leave that? Well, we wouldn't if we failed
to understand that that situation is not about us, but about God. So follow this logic now before
we really begin to deal with Philip for the last time. He
is in Samaria. Samaria has blown up. The ministry
has gotten large. God delivered Philip from a crook.
Remember that? The fellow that wanted to kind
of mimic him and then take over the ministry, God delivered him.
Philip continued in the joy of preaching and ministry. And then
the apostles came down and took over for Philip. And in his joy,
the spirit of God said, leave that metropolitan area and go
to the desert. Now immediately, if you and I
were telling God what to do, we wouldn't tell him to tell
us to take an assignment where we leave the multitudes and go
to the desert. But that's how God works with
people who are willing to do his will wherever he wants them
to do it. And so we see that Philip is
led by the Spirit of God. Is that not one of our points?
And so then we see again over in verse 29, then the Spirit
said unto Philip, go near and join yourself to the chariot,
right? So the second point we learned was this, after a man
or woman really is submitted to the Spirit of God, where the
only thing that matters with them is no matter where they
are or where they go or what they're doing, so long as God
is in it, it's good. So God moves him from the people
to the desert and mark this he doesn't tell him yet what his
assignment is Until he is actually up on his assignment Longitude
with latitude is meeting in the context of obedience He's simply
walking by faith in the desert and then he receives a revelation
from the Lord attach yourself to this chariot right and So
that's what we call the obedience of what? Faith. But now he has
left the city. He is in the desert and he is
now called upon to go meet this dignitary. And we talked about
it, didn't we? This was not some Tom, Dick and
Harry. This was the treasurer of Ethiopia. That means he had
an entourage with military and guards and the like, of which
it means that now Philip has to now endanger his life. In his own mind, he has to attach
himself to a chariot. I told you, in our present day,
he'd be dead. Either a drone would have killed
him, or one of the men with those long rifles that can shoot miles
away, here comes an adversary, pick him right off. But see,
when you are walking in obedience to God, You let God take care
of your adversaries while you seek to do the will of God And
so it is no small thing that philip is even going to find
himself in the company of this great dignitary Because God opened
the door for it So he's there So the angel tells him to go
the spirit of lord says join yourself and you and I from there
began to work on principles of evangelism I'll just recap them
for you Evangelism is not when you tell people about you, it's
when you tell people about whom. Evangelism is not about you.
You don't even start off saying, well you know, this is how I
came to the Lord. That's not evangelism. When you
say this is how I came to the Lord, first get the construction
right. You didn't come to the Lord,
the Lord came to you. You didn't get the lord. He got
you. He called you. You didn't call him. He saved
you. You didn't save him He drew you to himself. Let's so let's
get the language, right? Turn the eyes around and once
you do that, all you're doing is witnessing To the grace of
god in christ to you that's called witnessing remember two categories
witness over here evangelism over there witness can be a precursor
to evangelism Or it can be a post script, meaning after you share
the gospel with someone, they may ask you, how did you come
to know Christ? Now you share your story. By
the way, in witnessing, you want to be always ready to share your
story. Why? Because no one ought to be compelled,
impaled, provoked, evoked, invoked to buy your product if you haven't
yourself also purchased it. Why should someone take your
Savior when you are not willing to declare to them that you believe
on him? Am I making some sense? This
is why I've said it before God doesn't save through lost people
You can get mad You can take it to the bank do whatever you
want to with it I know God can do anything, but God doesn't
do anything without qualification You guys understand that right?
So he works through save people to save people every seed bearing
herb brings forth fruit of its own kind a bad tree Cannot bring
forth good fruit. I'm sorry, so he doesn't save
through crooks And he doesn't save through unregenerate man
and unregenerate man woman of people can't do a thing for God Get that rule in your system
see so God is not so desperate to that he has to use a lost
person to save people. He can prepare a man all his
life to meet God in an impossible situation because God is a God
of impossibilities, like he's doing with this Ethiopian and
his servant, Philip. Am I making some sense? Philip
is going a mighty long ways to meet one cat in the wilderness
to change the trajectory of his life forever. Why are we having
this account? Because God uses means and he
doesn't compromise his means when he uses them. Is Philip
a saved man? Does Philip know the gospel?
Is he full of faith in the Holy Ghost? Well, those are the requisites
for ministry. Only those persons are called
to go into all the world and preach the gospel after they
themselves have proven the validity and the substance and efficacy
of the gospel themselves. So Philip is going to demonstrate
for us the model of evangelism, effective evangelism. What we
learned last week was when God is calling you to share the gospel
with someone, he actually opens the door for the opportunity
to communicate, to be simple and to be obvious. He goes to
verse 31 saying, and Philip ran thither and heard him read the
prophet Isaiah and said, are you understanding what you read?
And he said, how can I accept a man should what? And he desired
Philip that he would come up and sit with him And so we've
learned in verse 30 and 31 that we are not to twist scripture
like 1st John chapter 2 where it says and you have an anointing
from the Holy Ghost and you need not that anyone teach you So,
you know you find mavericks all over the world who will say no
one taught me but God and what we would say is you are a liar
and If you were taught, you may have
been taught of God, but God used means to teach you. Am I making
some sense? Please follow this. No one is
taught of God by themselves. So a pastor, I read my Bible.
Well, at least the Bible was a vehicle to get to you. How
do you think you got your Bible? Did an angel drop your Bible
out of heaven? Or did God use the church Holy
men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost to Articulate
and then write down as we learned Psalm 68 11 the Lord gave us
the word and great was the company that published it That means
God used means Debbie. So if I get a hold to a Bible,
which is a gift that gift came through the church. I He gave
gifts unto the church, apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists,
pastors, teachers for the edifying of the body. So I'm not getting
a direct revelation from God. That's the arrogance and pompousness
of people who do not understand the way of the gospel. Here,
let me share this with you before I jump on in with Philip in the
Ethiopian and unpack Isaiah 53 for you. If you and I are going
to be saved, God's going to humble us first. You're never coming
to the true and the living God, being able to own a testimony
that's so radically different than the rest of his children,
that somehow you got a special plaque on the wall. You know,
God saved me this way. He ain't saved nobody else any
other way, but this way. No, God saves us all the same
way. It's by his word, through his
spirit, in the gospel of Christ, by someone preaching or teaching
the word to us. That's right. A lot of times
God decides to use mom and daddy. Many of us, I didn't, but many
of us have grown up in the church where the incorruptible seed
was sown into us at an early age. Remember that? Now this
is funny because you'll get knuckleheads that'll go around saying, you
know what? God didn't use anybody to share
the gospel with me. Just one day it dawned on me that Jesus
was Lord and I accepted him as Savior. You idiot. How did it
dawn on you unless first the word was placed in you? Faith
is a fruit of grace That means it's a consequence of the word
sown in No seed sown. No fruit manifested Am I making
some sense? You ain't gonna just bear fruit
without somebody sowing the incorruptible seed This is why we're called
to broadcast the word so that seed everywhere. So yes, you
inadvertently receive some seed That's to the glory of god And
then one day that seed bore fruit and you going around talking
about I'm a tree without a seed No, if you are a tree Somebody
sowed the seed in order for you to become a tree of righteousness.
Isaiah 51 50 61 3 trees of righteousness the planning of the Lord that
he might be glorified Am I making some sense? So sometimes God
will sow that seed in your in your life when you are three
or four or five years old by a faithful Grandmama auntie cousin
uncle with mom and daddy all jacked up Because he knows how
to prepare his elect for salvation Way before he cuts the lights
on he gives them the necessary training wheels to come into
the kingdom of God and then he'll quicken that seed when you're
in the dope house in the jailhouse in the hospital In the crazy
ward. Am I making a little bit of sense?
Cuz see, he has to break you down first. So that it's just
you and him. It has to be you and him. The
God you've been running from all your life. Willing to change
the way God works and make yourself special. You and I are only special
in Christ. Outside of Christ, you and I
are just like everybody else. You know what that is? A hell-bound
sinner. So that's one of those words
we don't use in church no more. Long ago, long ago, you veterans,
we used to hear that word all the time. Remember? Hell-bound
sinners. Hell-bound sinners. I get it. I get it. Pastor, don't
use the term hell-bound sinners. Why not? That's what we are outside
of Christ. Hell-bound. That's right. But people get mad at you. I
don't care. Listen, God has never been hindered from saving someone
because they got mad. Yeah, I'm in hell cuz I was just
too mad to be saved Most of the time I actually enjoyed
people getting mad because it means they still got some sensitivity
on that callous heart of theirs Because he wants the heart is
overly calloused. It's reprobate. You can't do
nothing with it. I So the man or the woman that's
indifferent to the gospel, I'm scared of him. But the person
that gets fuming and mad and upset when we say Christ is sovereign,
salvation is of the Lord, you can't do a thing about it, but
beg God for mercy and he has a fit. Good. Good. I mean, he's still got a little
tenderness on that heart. Am I making some sense? But if
he can laugh at you or go his way as if he'd never heard it
before, he may be past feelings. 1st Timothy chapter 4, 2nd Timothy
chapter 4. Past feelings is when the word
can come and come and come. Don't do nothing to the heart.
Are you guys hearing me? So this Ethiopian is blessed
because not only did he have the gift of the word, we learned
that last time, right? Don't listen. The scripture says
this Ethiopian was headed home in his Escalade, his Denali,
his long extended limousine, right? Now this is a brother.
I already told you he's a brother. That's how they roll it, right?
And he's reading the scriptures, is he not? Didn't we learn that
the scriptures are a gift? See, right now, the vast majority
of Christians around the world don't even have a Bible. Never
did. Lived and died without a Bible.
But faith comes by what? And hearing by what? So all I
need is to have somebody to preach the word to me and they can sow
the seed through their proclamation. Now, God, if God is gracious,
we can get Bibles. You guys heard about the missionary
we had here a couple of weeks ago, Brother Lance. And the Papua
New Guinea people, the arduous work of translating the Bible
into people's indigenous native tongue is very difficult. And
in many cases, the only way those people can begin even the possibility
of reading a Bible is for them to leave their native language,
their host language, and get a targeted language. And from
there, learn to read the Bible. But how can they be saved? By
hearing. You know what that means you
gather everyone around in the village like you guys saw in
the picture Gather them around and tell them i'm coming by to
preach the gospel at such and such time So the word of god
says blessed are the feet of them that preach good tidings
that publishes peace upon the mountains Their word drops as
honey It's sweeter than butter It's the gospel of the grace
of god and the spirit of god can give people ears to hear
can they not? All I need is a translator When I go to Mexico, Jamaica,
the Virgin Isles, when I go to Africa and other parts of the
world, I just try to hook me up with a dope translator. Give me a dope translator, somebody
that knows how to work it. Translate my stuff because I'm
running. You know how I do. So if you can run with it, I
don't have to actually know the language. All I need is a good
translator. What a gift, a translator. He
on one ear is listening to you. And then with that other ear,
spitting it back out to the people in the target language or in
the host language, man, that's sweet. And so I would go and
thus said the Lord, he would go, and then I would go the word
of God, he would go, and I would go dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. So
it was kind of a, sort of a single patient going on by the way. Yeah. At the, at those times
I have to slow down hard, slow down hard. Cuz you know, I'll
be there said you have to believe on Jesus Christ and he going
on for two three minutes explaining what he's saying When you done
man, I'm ready to roll But it's a beautiful thing because what
we're talking about is the fact that God saves by the vocalized
word Are you hearing me? God's not limited. He knows how
to reach his people The privilege however is to be able to have
the Bible in your hand, right? That's the point of scripture
didn't so he raises the question. Do you understand what you're
saying? And we said last time that the average proud person
in Western Christianity would say yeah, I already understand.
I don't need your help. I know the Bible. Right? I don't need your help that person
would have missed it. If that Ethiopian would have said that
he would have went back to Ethiopia still lost. He would went back
still lost because we can tell by our contacts. that he had
not yet had a revelation of the glory of God in Christ, right?
Can we tell? How can we tell? Because he did
not know the author of the book. So this is how you can tell lost
people from saved people in terms of what we call the initial revelation.
He actually said, who is this talking about? See, and so until
people understand that the scriptures are talking about Christ, we
are certain that they have not had a saving revelation of God. If you're reading your Bible
and all you're getting out of your Bible is history and grammar
and little personal revelations and isolated anecdotes, you have
missed the revelation of the Spirit of God. You've missed
it. This whole book is about one
person. And who is that? So what the
Lord did was send a servant of God who was a preacher of the
gospel to this man who needed to hear? Words by which he could
be saved Let me just say that as we begin to go into the text
any old word doesn't save people You have to hear a specific word
and that specific word has to be about a specific person Declared
the right way before God uses it to save people This is why
churches must, as I said last week, understand the danger and
the privilege of preaching Christ. You don't get people in your
church, eternity bound souls, let them come in and worship
with you for an hour or two and they never hear the gospel. That's a tragic, tragic, tragic
betrayal of your office. Can you imagine if Philip, Started
at the text and started talking about his Jewish upbringing or
his Grecian upbringing And how the Lord did this with him and
how the Lord did and didn't deal with the text That man would
have went back to Ethiopia impressed with Philip never knowing Jesus
Christ never knowing Jesus Christ Never knowing Christ and so this
is a great place to press down upon my brothers and sisters
old and young men and women You are wasting your time If you're
breathing in and out talking to people about yourself and
never get to the main subject, which is Jesus You are wasting
your time And actually you are standing in the way of sinners
entering into the kingdom Remember what Christ said to the Pharisees
you guys have the key of knowledge. I That's Luke's gospel. You have the key of knowledge,
but you hinder other people from going in and you won't go in
yourself. So a lot of times people are
hindered from entering into the kingdom because we're not preaching
the door. I am the way, the truth and the
life. No one comes unto the father, but by me, I am the door of the
sheep. They go in and out and find pasture
for their soul. Christ is the what door. And
we don't preach Christ. We are betrayers of the kingdom
of God. Betrayers of the kingdom thus philip being a gospel preacher
Clearly helps us understand the task at hand for which he seized
upon this moment in his obedience to the spirit of god A spirit-led
man or a spirit-led woman or a spirit-led people are always
going to look for an opportunity To exalt god in the person of
christ because only that message saves fortunately Philip had
the whole plate laid out for him. He didn't have to do any
cooking. All he had to do was serve. The brother had the scriptures
and then he was at the heart of the gospel in Isaiah 53. You got to be a mess not to be
able to preach Christ out of Isaiah 53. This was a softball
going straight down the pipe for Philip. He could have been
blind and hit that one out the park. And so he starts at the
same passage, and let's deal with this now. Here are the mechanics
for witnessing. Here are the mechanics for sharing
the Word of God. And here are the mechanics for how God saves. This here is the methodology,
the invariable methodology by which God saves. He always saves
through His Word. He always saves through the preaching
of Christ through His Word. And He saves when Christ is exalted
in that Word by those who are obedient to that Word. So we read over in verse 31,
The latter part, he desired Philip that he would come up and sit
with him. What a blessing. Door open, didn't die, didn't
get wounded, didn't get shot. He's sitting with the dignitary.
It's amazing. Look at verse 32. And the place
of the scripture which he read was this. He was led as a sheep
to the slaughter and like a lamb done before his shearers, So
opened he not his mouth So now we are dealing with the purpose
of the spirit in evangelism Under our final point the gift and
obedience of preaching Christ It's laid out for Philip. All
Philip has to do is be obedient And he starts with the same scripture
After we read in verse 33, in his humiliation, his judgment
was taken away, and who shall declare his generation? For his
life is taken from the earth. Verse 34. And the eunuch said
unto Philip, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet? This,
of himself or of some other man. You know, it's interesting. We
would automatically recognize that the eunuch is struggling
with interpretation, is he not? But we also are thankful because
he's at least what? Thinking. Because, you know,
a lot of people don't think. Certain folks don't even know
how to ask questions about Bible propositions. They just keep
rolling. At least this man is asking the
question, who is the pronoun here? He. He who? I want to understand this passage.
We saw it in Psalm 119. David says, you know, open my
eyes that I may behold wonderful things out of your law. Make
me to understand the way of thy precepts. So shall I keep your
commandment. Well, that's what I want to do.
I want to understand. So the Ethiopian obviously is revealing
his heart. Does he not want to know what
the scriptures teach? And whenever a man is hungry
for truth, will God send someone who knows the truth? That's exactly
right. That's exactly right. The preparation
of the heart and man and the answer of the tongue comes from
the Lord. If God gives you a heart for him, he's going to give you
somebody that can explain the scriptures. It's going to always
be that way. God's never going to leave his
hungry birds, his hungry sheep, his hungry people hungering for
him without him filling their soul. Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst for righteousness for verily they shall be filled. You believe that, don't you?
Now watch it, watch it. Let's go to work a little bit,
something to learn. Verse 35, then Philip opened his mouth
and began at the same scripture and did what? Preach unto him
Jesus. That's the rule. That's the inviolable
rule. His job was to preach Christ.
So in your fifth point, point A, the point of scripture is
Jesus Christ. Do you see that? The point of
scripture is Jesus Christ. We challenge everyone in the
world to examine the word of God and raise the question, for
what did God give us the scriptures? To find basic principles of life
out of them? No. For what did God give us
the scriptures? So that we could be another philosopher
of wisdom? No. Why did God give us the scriptures? That we might know the way of
salvation that he has provided in his son, Jesus Christ. That's
why. So the bible tells us in first
corinthians chapter 2 when it comes to teachers of the word
I am determined to know nothing among you except christ and him
crucified Is that what the text is? So now here's what paul does
paul confines The usage of his mind and his heart his intellect
his will his soul the whole of his being to one thing Knowing
christ and preaching christ You know what? That means he was
sold out on this truth that only the preaching of Christ saves
people. Learning human wisdom, learning the different disciplines
of philosophy, Socratic, Aristotelian, Platonic, and the others, all
of the ancient Eastern philosophers that went before Paul and went
after Paul, Paul said they're all vain. According to 1 Corinthians
1, God has already made them foolish. He's already confounded
the wisdom of the wise. He has already brought it to
naught He's already demonstrated that none of the wisdom of humanity
could ever bring one soul out of hell He did that by the demonstration
of the Spirit in the revelation of Christ and his death barrel
and resurrection Only the gospel brings a soul up out of hell
only the gospel And so Paul has chosen not to hold in tandem
all of the different philosophies of the world along with Christianity,
which is what a lot of people try to do. But he already told
us in Colossians 2, leave it alone, because the philosophies
of men are contrary to the philosophy of God. The two systems are mutually
exclusive. Men's philosophies exalt men. They never exalt God. Are you hearing me? Man's wisdom
never exalts God. It only exalts man, which means
human wisdom, human philosophy, human, human ideologies and constructs
based upon man's wisdom will appeal to you and me. Yes, it
will. This is why our seminaries are
all jacked up. Do you know why? Because our
seminaries have had, incrementally, seeped into them, over the multitudes
of generations, man's philosophy. As now a presupposition, as a
substratum, as a premise for how to understand the world and
actually go after the world for Jesus. And as a consequence,
guess what they lost? The Bible. Our seminaries have
lost the Bible. In other words, through philosophy,
they became vain. and were unable to actually rightly
divide the word because their philosophical constructs raised
a gazillion questions that they could not answer. Are you hearing
me? The questions are so powerful
on a human level that if you try to resolve the tensions and
the conflicts and the transcendent implications of the questions
that come from human philosophy, you'll lose your mind. If God doesn't take that swollen
balloon head of yours that's floating up to Pluto and Mars
and all of the other new planets that are starting to emerge now,
you know we get new planets, right? If God doesn't put a string
on that balloon and put a brick called faith on it and bring
that balloon back down to the ground, you will perish in the
vanity and emptiness of human philosophy. Do you know what
I mean? This is what I mean. Without
faith, it's impossible to please God. And faith is always anchored
in objective truth. Faith is born out of what the
Word of God says. What that means then, unless
human philosophies subject themselves to biblical faith, their philosophies
will damn them to hell. And whenever you get all discombobulated
by human philosophy and your feet start leaving the ground
and you floating up in the air, getting a little proud about
what you learned in college, Phi Beta Kappa, you know, tell
God to put a brick on that balloon and bring it back down to the
ground. I either put a pin in that bubble and bust it and let
you crash and tell him to raise you again from the dead and give
you some humility because you're going to hell. The pride of man
is sending him straight to hell. Am I making some sense? So see,
here's the thing that happens. I've been talking, I've been
thinking about this over the last couple of weeks because of what I see
going on in the church. And that is people are distracted.
We're easily distracted, folks. Easily distracted. The one thing
that you and I should be pursuing, we are not. And the things we
should be assessing objectively and putting in their proper categories,
we're not doing that. We're wholesale going after things
that don't matter. Can I get a witness? So now watch
this. We are distracted by things that
are almost important. And what the devil is saying
is, another 24 hours that that person did not see Christ. Another
24 hours that that person did not see Christ. We got them.
Just keep them going. Keep entertaining them. Keep
distracting them about wars and rumors of war. Keep distracting
them about making money. Keep distracting them about a
good house, about a good wife, about a good husband, about good
health. See, all that stuff distracts you. Yes, it does. Because you think you need that
stuff. You don't need any of it. Am
I making some sense? So now watch this. Whatever it
is you think you need, if the substitute is time with Christ,
you don't need it. And people are, people are being
depleted spiritually. They are effete. They are weak.
They are just, it's a very, very ominous state to be in when God
has given us everything necessary for life and godliness. Now we
learn how to put on a front in church, don't we? We pretend
we didn't spend time with the Lord. No, you didn't. You didn't
spend no time with the Lord. You just barely made church today.
You didn't spend no time with God. Now, God knows and the preacher
knows. Well, maybe the preacher don't
know, but God knows you haven't spent any time with God. Because
most of us, this is why we're going through the seven churches
of Asia Minor and Sunday going to hit us upside the head again.
I'm sorry. Most of us follow the trend of
the culture. We default to the culture. If
your culture is lazy, most of your Christians going to be lazy.
If your culture is scandalous, Most of your Christians are going
to be scandalous. If your culture is slothful,
most of your Christians are going to be slothful. I'm telling you
the truth. Very seldom do we rise above the level of our culture
independently or aggregately as a whole. I haven't seen it.
But now, if you ever rise above your culture, this is what you're
going to look like. This is free. This is healthy.
I got 30 minutes, so I'm milking this. If you ever rise above
the culture, you are going to be Fish swimming upstream You
understand what I just said you're gonna be a fish swimming upstream
you're gonna be a salmon who automatically has indigenously
in their DNA a honing mechanism to take them back home and Back
home is always opposite of the current. Whoa Did you get that
Every true believer is a salmon Headed back home swimming against
the stream. Can he make it? Yes. Why because
God designed him to swim against the stream And you're not gonna
be happy in Jesus until you get away from running with the current
Because you are designed to swim against the stream You're not
building spiritual muscles until you swim against the stream.
I You're not going to see the revelations of His glory until
you swim against the stream. And you are not going to be used
of God effectively until you are used to people saying, Hey,
you're going the wrong way. Now I know I'm going the right
way. Because everybody's saying I'm going the wrong way. And
every time I continue going the right way with God, He shows
me more of His glory. While everyone else is going
the wrong way. And I've become used to understanding
the current that's headed to hell. while I'm swimming upstream. And I'm thanking God for the
strength to swim upstream. Are you hearing me? I'm thanking
him for the strength. I'm thanking him that he does
not make me comfortable with the cultural norm. I'm thanking
him that he just does not give me over to just sort of religious
platitudes and the kind of Christianity that's in our families. You know
what that is. We come to church every now and then. We all know
how to talk about Jesus, but we are living low lives. I'm so thankful that God has
given me grace, not the default to that process. I know it's
his grace. I'm just, I'm just important
to you to let you know. See, it's all right, child of God,
for you and God to run upstream all by yourself. It's all right. See, you don't need anyone to
agree with you that this is the right way. Now he will give you
witnesses because every faithful believer is swimming upstream
right along with you. Are you hearing me? But see you
don't need the world to love you and affirm you and we we
don't need all the family members to think well of you They didn't
think well of jesus So what i'm saying is God called us to be
counter-cultural And i'm fighting against everybody Just not being
distracted by what they up to You see as I get a little bit
older and i'm old now i'm an old dude As I get a little bit
older now, I am acutely aware of every second of the day. So now don't lie. How many of
y'all bear record with me? I only want the one seat. Yeah,
not good. Don't get no trouble. So you
got this is for the veterans. You young people don't know what
I'm talking about. You young people don't know this. As we
get older, that tick in the clock gets louder. And when we wake
up in the morning, You know what we say? My goodness. Lord, another
day than going by that quick. I actually see myself headed
into the haven of rest. I see my ship headed on in. I see it headed on in. I see
it, Jan, I see it headed on in. I'm no longer in a delusion wondering
where the North Star is. I don't need the North Star.
I'm so close to my haven of rest. I can see it with my eyes There
it is right there and every day God is bringing me closer and
closer to it And the only assignment he's telling me is Jesse. Don't
you be distracted? Are you hearing what I'm saying?
It's so clear. This is why Paul said to Timothy
young Timothy Timothy. I didn't fault my fight pastures
I didn't ran my race pastures. I didn't finish my course pastures. I'm looking at the haven of rest
That's what he told him That's what he told him. And you know
how happy Paul was? You know what he said? Watch
this. I kept the faith when multitudes abandoned it long ago. He even
named some in that same chapter who had abandoned the gospel.
Are you hearing me? See, do you understand the gift
of satisfaction that God gives you when you just about to give
it up? Head on in the glory and you
can look back and say God kept me and therefore I kept the gospel
Because the evidence that God kept me is I kept the gospel.
Are you hearing me? You ain't going to heaven if
you lose the gospel See, that's what we're dealing with right
now the takeaway thing right the takeaway principle. Do you
have it? You better hold on to it? That's
your only ticket in the glory Your only ticket in the glory
is the gospel And because God loved this black man in our text,
he loved him this black man. We already learned didn't he?
God had a whole bunch of people in Ethiopia of which he was gonna
make them open their hands wide mouth wide and run to God. Daddy,
daddy, daddy, have mercy on me. Show me your grace. Help me to
live for your glory and your honor. And some Ethiopians are
doing that right now, even though they're being persecuted. Are
you hearing me? And have been doing it now for
2000 years. One of the oldest churches in
Christianity. See how that seed perpetuates
itself from one generation to the next? You can persecute it,
but you can't exterminate it. So let's do a little bit of exegesis
and go into the heart of the Gospel for a moment, because
there's just a couple of points I want to make with that to close out
our text. Verse 31, the Spirit of God in Luke gave us the words
of Isaiah chapter 53 in this portion. In His humiliation,
His judgment was taken away. and who shall declare his generation
for his life was taken from the earth. Verse 33. Do you see that?
Go with me back to Isaiah, which is what we call our pointer passage.
Isaiah 53. I just want us to see the passage.
I'm not going to bore you with a whole lot of critical exegesis.
In fact, all I'm going to do is actually give you two interpretations
to help you understand the awesome and magnificence of the person
of Christ His submission to his father's will for your salvation
in mind in Isaiah chapter 53 Where we are reading Phillips
portion of scripture. Here's what it says in verse
8. Are you there? he was taken from prison and
from judgment and Who shall declare his generation for he was here's
the word cut off of the land of the living for the transgression
of my people Was he stricken? Wonderful, wonderful truth. First
of all, the language, what I want to call your attention to is
in that first clause, first line, he was taken from prison and
from judgment. You guys see that he was taken
from prison and from judgment and where you and I want to contemplate
and fix our attention is on that verb taken. He was taken. Okay. I want you to stay there. He
was taken. And what that means is that he was captured. He was
actually seized and brought into the authority and power of others.
He was taken from prison and from judgment. So now we have
to work through this seizing of Christ, this getting a hold
of the son of God, this taking into control of the prince of
glory, because somehow he was taken, see? And taken is one
of those verbs That means that you are now brought under the
authority and control of others. How many of you guys watched
that movie Taken? Good, good portion of you. I watched it
several times, loved it. Wasn't that daddy sharp? Wasn't
that daddy bad? Every daughter ought to want
to have a daddy like that. Cold, wasn't he? Cold! Man, I loved every minute of
that movie. Because you know what he said?
I'm getting my daughter back. See, he was a great type of Christ.
I'm getting my elect back. You're not going to take my elect
without me getting them back. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
And so the word taken here means to be seized by a power greater
than yourself. And this is remarkable because
infinite God in the person of Christ allowed himself to be
taken. See, actually what you and I
are dealing with in this context, this is in my outline, it's not
yours. What we are dealing with in this particular context is
the whole idea of submission. Submission if I were to to sum
up this verse verse 8 in our in Isaiah 53 in verse 33 in our
text in terms of he was taken from prison and from judgment
the word that I would use is Submission is that a legitimate
proposition? Of course, let's think this through
and and we can learn some things about submission here because
you know, we're not a submissive people No Children aren't submissive
to parents wives are not submissive to husbands husbands are not
submissive to God and we all call ourselves Christians I'm just telling you the truth
I'm just listen help. Let me help. Can I help you?
Let me help you understand something until you learn submission. You
may not be saved That's the key word in all relationships
Let me help you Lock that door so they don't get out. I'm kidding.
So, see the way God set it up was a chain of commands. So that's
the other word we don't like in this post-Christian, you know,
post-patriarchal culture we're living. Commands. God set up
a structure of commands. Order. In order for the good
of society to be had. Like you and I know that our
children that don't obey us, they are headed for trouble.
Now, you know that, right? There's no good thing that can
come out of children who don't obey their parents. You and I've
been through that. See, and everybody thinks they
can carve out their own course and still get to God. Now, if
you ever get to God by carving out your own course, you have
made God a liar. And there's three things I know God can't
do. He can't lie, change or fail. Did you hear what I just said?
So the problem with submission is this. Submission requires
a revelation of the glory of God. on your part that allows
you to be submitted to a process because you love God. Did you
get that? Submission requires the Spirit
of God giving you such a revelation of Christ that it allows you
to be submitted to a process because you love God, because
you actually see God as sovereign. This is why children have a hard
time with parents, because once egotism dominates, it's all about
them. And this is why wives have a
hard time with their husbands, because when egotism dominates,
it's all about them. And this is why husbands don't
actually know how to love their wives, because they're not submitted
to Christ. Because egotism dominates them. Am I telling the truth?
Right. And so once you break this cycle
all the way up, everybody out of the will of God, the children,
the wife, the husband, out of the will of God, everybody going
to church and chaos is everywhere. And see the model, the model
for all of us is Christ. Now I want to help you. He was taken. Now, how do you take omnipotence? How do you, how do you, how do
you confine the wind into your hands? How do you restrain, limit,
put boundaries on infinity? Unless he voluntarily allows
you to do it. See our text is John chapter
18, because we are at the crucifixion here, are we not? So they came,
didn't they? The whole bastion of legion of
soldiers. We're going to take this dude. Jesus turned around
and said, who you looking for? We're looking for Jesus of Nazareth.
I am he boom Whole crew got knocked down. Remember that And after
the stars cleared up They got back up and re-reordered their
ranks. Let's go at this dude again Now
I'm asking you again who you coming after boom Jesus of Nazareth,
you know what? He said let these go and you
can have me You know what? We call that submission to the
will of God The trade-off was his elect. That's me. That's you, if you believe. Justice
had to let me go in order to have Christ. But the only way
it could take Christ is when he submitted himself. So the
analogy was that of a sheep, a lamb. You see the analogy? Because lamb and sheep are docile
creatures that are easily led. And that's the metaphor for the
Son of God. It's a powerful contrasting analogy
in his humanity. He was submissive was he not
see this is what we call in theology the kenosis doctrine The kenosis
doctrine has to do with him emptying himself out emptying Himself
out. This is Philippians chapter 2
where it says even though He was equal God he thought it not
robbery But he made himself of no reputation His equality of
nature with his father, bearing the same nature as his father,
as his spirit bore the same nature, being God in his own right. He
did not call on those attributes as he made his way through this
world. Now, I want you to think about that for a moment. If you
have the capacity, by virtue of the intrinsic abilities and
predicates and attributes of running the universe, and you
have your little snotty-nosed human beings that you created,
come to take you and run you through a mock court system and
you let them do it. You had to let them do it. Is
that right? And see, so this is what we mean
by he was taken from judgment and he was taken from prison.
Now I want to deal with that last, those last two words, because
those are objective words. He was taken from prison. Do
you guys see that? And from judgment. So now the
word prison there means bondage. It means captivity. So don't
think of it in terms of a classical place where they have bars and
you get fed. You know how it was when we,
and you know, you know what I'm saying? No, Jesus went in that place. He
was in prison in, in the sense that he allowed them to bind
him and control him. As he said in Luke's gospel,
this is your hour and the power of darkness. And so he willingly
allowed himself to be bound up. Are you following me? he allowed
himself to be bound. But when this term, he was taken
from prison and from judgment is laid out before us, it's forcing
us to contemplate two realities with regards to God's sovereign
will in the suffering of Christ as an atonement for his people.
One is this, that in the physical context in which he was taken
by the rulers, he was not taken to be brought into a legitimate
court system. where he could have a legitimate
trial and a legitimate opportunity to defend himself. He was taken
from that and placed under a mock system where they would rig the
outcome and kill the Son of the Living God. Are you hearing me? He was taken from that. That's
why they did it at night. That's why they caught up with
him when the people weren't around. That's why they mugged him in the middle
of the night and made sure he was dead before the morning.
He was taken from that and the point is this he didn't even
get a lawful trial Are you with me that's the son of the living
God and guess what he let us he let us do it See that submission
He let us do it. Why did he let us do a pastor
in order for us to see his glory and For us to see our nature Now, let me ask you the question.
If you had have been there with the Sanhedrin, if you had have
been there with the Roman soldiers, if you had have been there with
Pilate, you had have been there with Herod, if you had have been
there with the high priests, if you had have been there with
the disciples, would you not have done the same thing? Exactly
the same thing. No different. So see, Psalm 33
tells me that God has fashioned all of our hearts alike. Do you
know what that means? By nature, we're no different. By nature, we're no different.
When you and I are given over to our own will, we will kill
God. Not me, Pastor, especially you.
He was taken from prison and from judgment. He was taken from
prison and from judgment. And who shall what? Declare his
generation. That's an interesting clause
there, too. It's an interesting propositional term there, too,
because that word declare also means to expose. to reveal, to
make manifest. It's the idea of telling on someone. Okay? In fact, our text, our
word in the New Testament can be translated several ways. Go
with me in your Bible to Mark, chapter 5, 16. I'm going to elaborate
a little bit here. Mark, chapter 5, 16. Listen to
what it says. I'm going to give you a few verses
around this to give the intimation of what is being stated when
the author asks the question, who shall declare his generation? In the gospel of Mark, chapter
5, first of all, verse 16, let's find a context for it. Two verses,
two places where this is used. Same term mark 5 verse 16. This is how it's used here. Are
we there? Okay, so I'm gonna start at verse 15 and they came
to Jesus It's to see him that was possessed with the devil
and had the Legion sitting and clothed in his right mind These
are the folks who had heard about Legion and how Christ had healed
him a notable miracle, right? You guys know the context and
they were afraid You see that they were afraid of Because they
had never seen a person with this bad a case of demonism ever
healed secondly, they were afraid because of the implications of
Messiah's ministry actually healing folks See some folk make money
off of folk being sick mentally and if the Lord would ever start
healing people certain institutions would have to shut down and And
so the implication of this man being healed means now that these
people with their superstitions and their different weird ideas
and notions now would be exposed as being defunct, not only defunct,
but now completely irrelevant. Completely irrelevant. They would
no longer be in vogue. So you guys know what they did?
Notice what the text says. And our word is used here in
verse 16. I'm believing listen to what
it says and when they saw that They told them how it befell
to him that was possessed with the devil see verse 16 a word
It's a little word. It's the word told See the word
told that's our same Greek word to declare But I want you to
understand it in the context they weren't going and declaring
it like they were happy about what happened they were going
telling on Jesus and Exposing Jesus. Hey, this is what he did.
This is what's happened. He's the one who did it This
is what he did now. I want you to mark that connotation
and stay with me at Isaiah 53 8 Because in Isaiah 53 8 the
question of the author under inspiration of the Holy Ghost
is this Who is going to tell on those cats? Who mistreated
Jesus so bad? Who shall declare his generation
So stay with me for a moment if this is evading you. This
is important theological truth. Very important theological truth.
Who is going to actually say that the Jews crucified and killed
the Prince of Glory? Who's going to repeat the historical
facts of the actual methodology, means, method by which the Son
of God was put away? See when that phrase is used
who shall declare his generation? It's asking the question who's
gonna tell the truth about how they took him from prison and
judgment Now the answer is given to us in the book of Acts Because
we've been going through the book of Acts now for seven or
eight months Have we not and every time the Apostles preached
what did they say you with wicked hands? Both crucified and killed
the Lord of glory What were they doing declaring their generation?
See, the word generation there has to do with the people group
of that culture who did what they did. The most heinous crime
that Israel could have done was kill Christ. And it was necessary
every time the gospel was preached to the Jews that they had their
generation declared. Are y'all following me? It was
necessary every time the apostles preached that those Jews were
exposed in the darkness that was leading them to do what they
did. Now follow this. So what we do when we preach
the gospel is we expose the unfruitful works of darkness. We renounce
the hidden things of dishonesty. When we preach the gospel, we
expose false prophets and false teachers. We declare their generation
as Paul declared their generation, because men and women need to
know when false prophets and false teachers rise up to take
your soul captive and lead you to hell. Am I making some sense? Let me ask you a question, if
you don't believe me. Did Jesus do it? Did Christ declare his
generation? You generation, of vipers. That's his cousin. And then he
did the same thing in Matthew 23, didn't he? He called them
vipers. He called them serpents. He called them graves, white
walled supplicars, tombs, open tombs, rotten tombs, sneaking
corpses. He said, you are crooks. You
are wicked men. You devour widows' houses. He
declared their generation. He said, you are a generation
of adulterers. You wicked and perverse generation. Isn't that what he did? Ladies
and gentlemen, are you hearing me? Are you getting a sound exegetical
approach to that text? See, because the Holy Ghost is
saying, who gonna stand up for Christ? Who gonna tell it like
it was? This is the son of the living
God. There's no way he could have
gone through what he went through without hell being marshaled
together against him. And our job is to tell it. See,
that's ground zero. That's ground zero. Ground zero
must be dealt with if we're going to build new life out of it.
You can't walk away from ground zero and start somewhere else.
Am I making some sense? You have to actually tell the
truth. And by application, just in case y'all scared of talking
about the historical context and the people that put their
hands on him, you and I, had we been there, we'd have done
the same thing. It was wicked men and women who put the son
of the living God to death. And they were the ones who were
pretending to be righteous. And so by application, I can
tell you why we have to declare their generation. Can I tell
you why we have to declare their generation? Because that generation
still exists today in the church. Those of you who come to grace
and you come to gospel churches where we boldly proclaim the
word and and we fearlessly expound scripture It's because we're
not attached to massively large denominations Which drag you
down with threats and fears of cutting off? Payments and taking
care of your preacher and all of that kind of stuff unless
you buy into the new morality We're not tied to that stuff
We're just not tied to it. We don't have to be and therefore
we don't have to hedge our words We don't have to we don't have
to cut the edges. We don't have to we don't have
to as it were modify our Communication so as not to make the gospel
offensive. We can say it just like it is
We say it just like it is because see we're called upon to declare
his generation Just like Paul did He plainly declared his generation. For he was cut off out of the
land of the what? That's right. Cut off out of
the land of the living. And all this is saying is get
the historical facts around the gospel right because the application
is necessary. See, it wasn't rank pagan heathen
who killed Christ. It was religious folks who thought
they were righteous before God. And it's always religious people
who will seek to destroy the gospel because the gospel lays
everybody low God resists the proud He resists
the proud and some of the most obnoxious proud folks wear collars
and big old funny fish hats And they come off nicer than
your pastor And if you're superficial, you'll believe them instead of
the truth. Because you're blind to appearances and false forms
of humility, whereby they lay in wait to deceive the simple. So as we learned in Revelation
chapter 13, they have horns like a dragon, but they speak like
a lamb. That's oxymoron, right? So they talk holy, but as soon
as they can, they're going to rip you through with their horns. And then behind closed doors.
Hey, Deacon Joe, set the fire, man. We getting ready to eat.
That's some barbecue here. We can make barbecue or some
brothers here. So declaring a generation really
has to do with the response of those who comprehended the atrocity
committed against Christ in the proclamation of the gospel. You
cannot faithfully proclaim the gospel without dealing with that
caveat, that fundamental error of which the Jewish people and
the rulers took our Lord and they crucified him. That's all
seen in the book of Acts. And then it goes on to say the
last part here, who shall declare a generation before he was cut
off out of the land of the living. That phraseology cut off means
that he was brought under judgment. That means he lost his life.
And we have multiple passages to affirm that for the transgression
of my people was he what? That's right. That's right. And so what God does is insert
as the last clause that the reason for which he gave his son into
the hands of sinners. was to make an atonement, a penal
substitutionary atonement. a real vicarious atonement, a
real judicial atonement. This was not a fake atonement.
This was not a social atonement. This was not an egalitarian atonement. This was not an atonement in
model. This was an actual substitutionary
atonement for every one of God's elect from the beginning of time
to the end of time. The only way you and I go to
heaven is because Christ took our place under the wrath of
God. When God poured His wrath out
on His Son, He really, truly poured His wrath out on me. This
was the rate of exchange. Trading places, y'all got that? The doctrine of substitution
means that that individual can occupy my spot, and in so doing,
he takes on the whole of my person as my surety and as my substitute.
And everything that was demanded of me was poured on him, and
he had to make the payment. I.E., we are looking at Genesis
chapter 22. where Abraham and Isaac goes
up to the top of Mount Moriah in an absolute submission to
his father. The boy lays down on the altar
in absolute submission, not once equivocating, not once arguing,
not once questioning our game saying remarkable. And Isaac
was a human being and God gave him grace. to lay down. Do you know why? He loved his
father. I can start right there. I can
start right there. Can I start right there? See,
I can start right there. Because see, this is what we're
talking about in terms of the chain of commands. This is what
we're talking about. See, if Isaac was a rebel child,
he wouldn't have fit the model. He couldn't have been a type
of Christ. Because the only way he could have been a type of
Christ is that he loved his daddy. The reason why Christ came is
because he loved his daddy. The reason why he died is because
he loved his daddy. The reason why he rose again to be the mediator
of the world, because he loved his daddy. Did you get that? This is critical. So as families,
our job is to make sure love flows from the top down. It has to flow from the top down.
I'm talking with the love of God first, anointing the crown
of the head of fathers, and that love affecting wives so that
they voluntarily submit. See, we're not trying to control
you. Just so you can get it. We ain't trying to control you.
See, look, everybody in hell knows. Everybody and hell, not
in hell, and hell, that's plus, knows we can't control y'all. But if you say, this is my husband,
and you don't submit, you are in trouble with God. You are
in trouble with God. And of course we teach in the
rules of engagement, your job is to submit to love, not to
a rebel, not to a violent man, not to someone that is not actually
occupying the office of father and husband, because those roles
belong to God, don't they? If I'm going to be a husband,
I got to line up with God because I can't be a husband unless I
know God. This is his office. This is institution. I'm occupying
the CEO seat and he has to give me the rules in order for me
to execute them. But when once I do, my wife,
who is the CFO, she better line up. Are you hearing me? If our children are going to
have any chance of seeing the glory of God, mom and daddy got
to line up. If our children have any in this
generation that hates what we call the traditional family If
our if mom and daddy doesn't get it, right our children are
going to be lost Because the whole world system is ready to
devour marriages right now Because they want the children to be
servants of this fascist state system called the beast and And
they are hoarding them in by the hundreds of thousands every
day. Little bastards, little orphans, little children without
moms and dads, because in their own little twisted mind, it's
all right, I'm autonomous, did nobody make me, nobody can rule
over me. Now we got monsters. I'm telling
the truth. Now we got monsters. So, see,
what I'm actually doing is I'm actually massaging the gospel.
on a practical level. Because what we actually think
is that the gospel is simply an objective message about my
own personal soteriological benefit. So, so religious folks think
that as long as they save, they cool. But if they saved this,
so hook that, hit the little NES on the end, NESS. If they
saved this, Israel, it better have reverberating implications
all through the house, at the job, And in the church and in
the world, did you hear what I just said? It better have reverberating
implications because see, we, we didn't done church for 2000
years. You know what that means? No one's impressed with church
folk. So you go get your new job. So
what'd you do? I go to church. Oh, okay. Okay.
Okay. We got you. We got you. Cause we got a whole litany of
you, you church folk. Y'all come in late. Y'all leave
early. Y'all steal everything. Y'all
lie cheap. Don't clean nothing up. Keep the toilet seats up.
Y'all ain't no good. Your church work ain't no good.
Your bar don't pay back. Ooh, it's cutting. Is it cutting?
It's cutting deep, right? Cutting deep. See, so what I'm
saying is church don't do anything to the dark kingdom. The only
thing that affects the dark kingdom is a vital walk with god individually
and collectively nothing else You can come to church all you
want. The church is the fastest way to hell The fastest way to
hell By the way, did you know god came to save you? That's
a new thought I got five minutes. I'm gonna sit down like my middle
eastern brother I told you one day sister Nancy one day we gonna
be sitting down at the table like I'm Middle Eastern brother
You know, they stood up to read and sat down to talk teach You
guys remember that that's how that's how the brothers did it.
They sat down to teach See now I can sit up for two whole hours
now and keep y'all till 11 o'clock It's only Westerners that get
up and prance around the stage get all wore out and tired and
everything I Our Middle Eastern brothers sit in square, they
lay, they got tea over here and water over here and they can
give pregnant pauses for two minutes. Listen to what the text says.
There's one more verse there in relationship to this that
I want you to see. And that'll be, we'll use our
Acts chapter 9, 27. Am I boring you guys? I got five
minutes anyway. I got five minutes with you.
You can't leave. You in prison anyway for five more minutes.
Five more minutes. Acts chapter 9 Listen to how
this word is used in Acts chapter 9 27. It'll also help you I'm
at verse 26 in verse 27 and when Paul was come to Jerusalem He
has saved to join himself to the disciples, but they were
all afraid of him and believe not that he was a disciple. I But Barnabas took him and brought
him to the apostles. And here's our word declared
unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way and that he had
spoken to him. That is the Lord and how he had
preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. See that word
declared. What is he doing? He's completely exposing this
man's background, his history, so that the people can know who
he really is. He's telling it. This is an expository
word. So who shall declare his generation
who shall expose the people? That's how the word is used One
more term go back to act chapter 8 and we'll close here one more
term It says For he was take his life was
taken from the earth His life was taken from the earth What
does that mean? two two ways to understand this
most of our Conservative scholars would say his life was taken
from the earth also implies That they killed him which means,
you know, he lost his life But but the word taken again is a
very strong word in this sense that he was taken from the earth
after that God had given the people over to their will and
After that Christ had accomplished eternal redemption And after
he had paid the penalty for our sin, God the Father took him
away from this world as a reward for his voluntary sacrifice. Taken from the earth in this
context then would allude to the triumph of the resurrection
and ascension of Christ. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? Follow the logic. We've always stated this. This
is critical theological truth in the area of justification.
Not anyone could have died for your sins. Only a spotless human
being could have died for your sins. But more than that, he
must also bear a divine nature in order to endure the extent
severity and weight of your guilt on him not only individually
per se an Individual per capita like me but all of us put together
from the beginning of time to the end of time the multitude
of human beings for whom Christ died Think about it Think about
the weight of sin that was laid on him, for he laid on him the
iniquity of us all. An enormous weight laid on the
Lamb of God like the wood that was laid on Isaac, laid on the
Son of God. Amount of guilt and sin of which
you and I cannot even begin to contemplate Let me help you even
get just a small measure of this Human beings from the beginning
of time to the end of time In every generation there was an
elect people for whom Christ died you believe that In the
book of Revelation says a number which no man can what? No man
can number Now think about that, saints. We're pretty smart today
with technology and algorithms and all that. We can do some
numbering, can't we? Are you with me? But the Holy Ghost says
you cannot finish this number. Huge! Here comes the philosopher
arguing. It has to be an end to that number.
Well, you argue with God all you want to. I understand we
could be using what we call another extrapolated metaphor of just
the largeness of the number. But I want you to understand
that one man, at one time, in one place, bore
the wrath of God. The equivalent of all of my sins
and yours. 100 plus people in here. Are you ready? My sins are infinite. That's just one person. Multiply
that times 100. That's a lot, isn't it? Multiply that times billions.
That's a lot, isn't it? The enormity of the weight of
the wrath of God that was placed on Christ assures us that we
are dealing with the divine nature in the transaction of the judgment
and that this was not merely a man. Do you hear me? It was not merely
a man because no mere man can take away your sin. Let alone take away all of all
of our sins. See right here, we supposed to
go shouting Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. How great is
our God? How magnificent is our Savior?
Past finding out, words cannot tell it. How marvelous you are
in your salvation. How mighty you are in your works.
Your wisdom is infinite. How glorious God is in his saving
mercy to sinners like us. Worship the Lord. Worship the
Lord. who died for your sins and rose
again and gave you eternal life. Exalt Him among the people. Declare
His glory, His saving glory to the ends of the earth. He saved
you. So you know how we clap in church? This is so funny. I hear preachers
and they, you know, they, they folks be clapping, but they never
clap over the gospel. Isn't that crazy? They'll clap
out a joke. They clap when the preacher,
you know, says something complimentary to them. But if he ever should
get a little gospel out, I don't hear a clap. You know what I
say? They haven't been taught the
songs of Zion. They haven't been taught the songs of redemption.
Those folks hitting the wrong keys. They're hitting the wrong
notes. Am I making some sense? See,
you shout whenever Christ is exalted. You worship whenever
atonement is declared. When you hear death, burial,
resurrection, atonement, justification, redemption, sanctification, when
you hear regeneration, you hear the fruit of the Spirit, you
hear the vicarious work of your Savior, you shout in your soul. You say, can I have permission
to glorify God?