Thank you, Pastor. Well, that
was such a great, great message. who is Christ our Passover sacrifice
for us, that man who is the King. I want to say one thing about
him, and one thing only, and I will say it in several ways,
and hopefully you can get something around the ages. His glory is
great. His glory is great. That's my subject this evening.
I have recently enjoyed sweet meditation on the great glory
of our God and Savior, and I believe I've got a message for you. One
of the plainest, most obvious truths of Holy Scripture is the
fact that God is and must be first in all things. His glory
The glory of the triune God is the first and the ultimate end
of all things. Those magnificent attributes
and perfections of God's nature, those things that are the very
essence of his nature and being, those things are the things that
make him and him alone God. When we speak of God's attributes,
we're not talking about attributes like we have. We're talking about,
how do you turn that thing off? There we go. We're talking about
God's attributes. We're not talking about attributes
like we have. Our attributes, whatever they may be, describe
something of our character, something of our nature. God's attributes
are God. You can't take away any of those
things we call God's attributes and not take away His Godhead. His attributes set forth the
very essence of His being. His attributes are His glory. God's glory is the perfection
of His being. It's much like speaking of His
holiness, Jennifer saying of that Holy One. He is holy. Brother Scott Richardson some
years ago, he and I were preaching together down at Rocky Mountain.
Brother Scott made a statement saying, God's holiness, H-O-L-I-N-E-S-S,
has got something to do with his wholeness, W-H-O-L-E-N-E-S-S. His holiness is his whole being. God's glory is his whole being. And God Almighty will glorify
himself has glorified himself and is glorifying himself in
all things. The glory of God is so immense
a subject. And that's not hard for me to
do this. I like to get subjects over my head. I'm way over my
head now. But God's glory is such an immense
subject, such an immense thing, such an infinite thing that he
has purposed and created an entire eternity, if I can use such words,
in which he will reveal his glory to us. Listen to the scripture.
That in the ages to come. Now Paul wrote this in what John
called the last time. Is that right? But it says in
the ages to come. As if to make us understand that
we can't get a handle on this thing called eternity. in the
ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace
in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Not only shall
the glory of God be revealed to us throughout the endless
ages of eternity, but it shall be revealed and made known to
us only in the person of the God-man, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ the Mediator, the
Word, is all God we shall ever know. He is all God. In Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, so that all the glory and greatness and
being of the infinite incomprehensible God is in that man you just heard
about. He is God Almighty. And yet there is a peculiar preciousness
about the everlasting revelation of God's glory in Christ. Listen
to this. The Holy Spirit tells us that
the glory of the triune God is revealed in Christ directly and
inseparably It is connected with his grace toward us. We are now
and shall forever be to the praise of the glory of his grace wherein
he hath made us accepted in the beloved. Now we see some aspects
of God's glory in creation. We see some aspects of God's
glory in his providence. We see some aspect of God's glory
in just reading the scriptures in the word of God that he's
exalted above all his name. Yet the glory of God is seen
fully and it shall be seen fully only in the face of Jesus Christ
our Savior. Now turn with me if you will
to this 21st Psalm. You'll recall when Moses asked God that he
might see his glory, the Lord put him in the cleft of the rock.
The Lord to whom he is speaking is Jesus Christ, Jehovah our
God, the incarnate God in one of his pre-incarnate manifestations. He is that same Savior who came
here in time and assumed human flesh. But in one of his pre-incarnate
manifestations, which are all the places in the Old Testament
where you see God talking with men and men talking with God,
where the angel of the Lord comes to men, all of those passages
speak of Christ revealing himself in one way or another as our
God-man mediator, our Savior. And the Lord Jesus speaks for
the triune God and says, I'll put you in a cleft of the rock. The rock is Christ and the cleft
of the rock is Christ. He said, no man shall see my
face and live. What a strange word. God's face,
God's spirit. Spirits don't have faces. No
man shall see the fullness of my absolute being and live. The Lord Jesus speaks as the
triune God speaking through him. But I'll put you in the cleft
of the rock, and I'll put my hand over you, and I will cause
my back parts to pass before you." His back parts? I'm just
guessing. I'm just guessing. But I believe
I've got a pretty good guess. His back parts? The man, Christ
Jesus, walked in front of him. God showed himself to Moses as
he beheld him later on the map to transfiguration. God showed
himself on that day in his glory in a man, Jesus Christ the Lord. Here in Psalm 21 5, the psalmist
declares, His glory is great in thy salvation. Our Lord Jesus
in the book of Revelation reveals himself frequently as that one
who is and was and is to come. And whatever can be said about
him now could be said about him yesterday and can be said about
him tomorrow. He's the same yesterday, today,
and forever. And his glory was great in God's
salvation. His glory is great in God's salvation. And his glory shall be great
in God's salvation. What a message. But be sure you
see where the greatness of His glory lies. It is wrapped up
in and cannot exist apart from the salvation of your soul. His glory is wrapped up in and
cannot exist apart from the salvation of His people. What a theme of meditation. Psalm
21 verse 1. We'll work our way down to verses
5. The king shall joy in thy strength, O Lord, and in thy
salvation how greatly shall he rejoice. But brother Don, is
this Talking about David, the psalm at the head has a title,
Psalm of David. Yes, he's talking about David.
He's talking about the true David. He's talking about the king.
Some of you have Bibles, I'm sure, that have notations through
the psalm. They'll have a star by it or
some kind of note saying this is a Messianic psalm. That's
a mistake. There are 150 Messianic psalms. This psalm, like all the others,
speaks of our Redeemer. Now, when I say that, do not
misunderstand me. Yes, these words were penned
by David. Yes, these words are applicable
to David. Yes, David spoke these words
concerning himself and they are true of David. But they cannot
be absolutely understood of David. They can only be absolutely understood
of him of whom David was a type, our Lord Jesus Christ. This is
a prophecy of our Savior's joy as the result of that salvation
he would accomplish. You remember how the writer in
Hebrew speaks of him, said, who for the joy that was sent before
him endured the cross? Now what joy was there in that?
What joy was there for him in this world? What joy? He was the man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief. What joy was there for him while
he walked on this earth? What joy was there for him in
Gethsemane's garden? What joy for him as he hung upon
the cursed tree? None. None anywhere to be found.
But there was joy set before him. And the joy set before him,
Bob, was you sitting with him in glory. That's his joy. The joy of his
soul is the salvation of his people. Look at verse 2. Thou hast given him his heart's
desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips. What
was our Savior's heart's desire? Lo, I come to do thy will, O
God. What's that? By the witch will
we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. Lo, I come to do thy will, O
my God. Father, glorify thy name, he
prayed. That's his heart's desire. Thy
will be done. It has been, and now is, and
is forever given to him. The request of his lips and his
heart's desire. He asked the Lord God to give
him his people. John 17. describes for us the
request of his lips. He desires his people. I will that they also whom thou
hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my
glory. The Son of God counts nothing
so dear to his heart as our redemption by his blood, our regeneration,
sanctification by his spirit, our comfort in time of trouble.
is a faithful and merciful high priest, touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. And he took on himself our nature,
became what we are, flesh and blood, so that he might be such
a high priest. And now he is able to succor
them that are tempted. I love that word, succor. One
of our men at home, Brother Ron Wood, a couple of weeks ago was
out playing in the backyard with his grandson, 18-month-old boy.
They were kicking a ball, and a little fella kicked over the
top of the ball and fell backwards and twisted his leg, broke his
leg and hip, and he's now in a body cast for six weeks. I can just picture Ron going
over and picking that boy up. Yeah, come on, son. Not hardly. Not hardly. Oh. Touched with what touched that
boy. And God could never be that,
Paul. God can't be touched. God can't be touched. And He
can't touch you. But God in human flesh is. He's
touched with what touches you. And He touches us with sympathy,
a feeling, and heart compassion. He delights and rejoices to comfort
his people in trouble, to preserve them in trial. He rejoices in
the holiness of his people. He rejoices in our happiness
forever. Now look at the last line, last
word in verse two. When I read the Psalms, I seldom
ever, seldom ever read this word, Selah. Because really, it's a
punctuation point. It's really just a Hebrew punctuation
point. It simply is like a real long
period. It has the idea of, now pause,
don't rush over this. Stop here and meditate a while. Stop here and think about these
things. These are things before which
we should bow in thoughtful adoration, that adoration, and linger for
a while in meditation, eternity will be too short for us to comprehend
it fully. Look at verse three. For thou
preventest him, thou preventest him. We lose so much in the way we
abuse language. After a while, You abuse the
word for long enough, enough people pick up to abusing the
word, and it takes on a totally different meaning. We use this
word prevent, and we usually think of the word prevent as
to hinder, to stop, or to thwart something. This old English word
prevent means to go before, to precede. Thou preventest him,
thou goest before him with blessings of goodness. Thou sentest a crown
of pure gold on his head. The meaning of this verse then
is this, the Lord God bestowed all the bountiful blessings of
his goodness, all the blessings of his grace upon us in Christ,
even before Christ came into this world. Indeed, we're told
in Ephesians 1, 3, that he hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. According as he hath
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world still there's more
God's goodness toward his elect goes out to us Goes out to us all the days of
our lives Preceding the day appointed of love when he would come to
us in his saving grace you remember how Hosea Describes his love
for gold where he he found his harlot wife in the arms of another
man And she was embracing her lovers. He said in Hosea 2 verse
8 I'll paraphrase it for you said I'd go up to the Room where
she was in the arms of her lovers at night, and I'd set a bag of
groceries down by her door And she'd get up every morning said
look what my lovers gave me and they gave them to bail She didn't
know That I took care of her all those days She didn't know
I provided for her all those days. Psalm 23, the psalmist
said, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days
of my life. I've known deep hearts all your
life. And I remember when you didn't
know this. Goodness and mercy have been chasing you all these
years. That's the picture. Goodness
and mercy, like hounds on the trail, chasing you, chasing you,
chasing you, chasing you, terrifying at times, but goodness and mercy,
chasing you into the arms of the Savior at the appointed time
of love. And I shall dwell in the house
of the Lord forever. Goodness and mercy then precede
Christ's coming. They come with Christ. And they
follow Christ. Oh, how good that goodness and
mercy is now that we know something about it. Goodness and mercy
continue to follow me into the house of God. The Lord God, the
triune Jehovah, has set upon our Savior's head a crown of
pure gold. A pure, everlasting, precious,
indescribably glorious crown. This is the reward of his obedience.
This is a crown he set upon him in the hearts of his people,
so that all his people, as our brother just declared, bowed
to him adoringly as king. Look at verse four. He asked
life of thee, and thou gavest it him. Even make the days forever
and ever. This certainly refers to our
Savior's resurrection He was made sin for us and suffered
the wrath of God for us to the full satisfaction of divine justice. And then he was buried in the
tomb. But three days later he came
out of the tomb justified in the spirit. He asked life of
thee and thou gavest it him. Turn back to Psalm 16, Psalm
16, look at verse 8. Now if you want to compare it
in Acts chapter 2, the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Peter to
tell us this psalms talking about our Lord Jesus. I have set the
Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand, I shall
not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, my
glory rejoiceth. My flesh also shall rest in hope,
for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, that is in the grave.
Neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Lazarus
began to see corruption, you remember? But our Lord Jesus
wasn't raised on the fourth day, he was raised on the third day.
Before he could see corruption, thou wilt show me the path of
life. In thy presence is fullness of
joy. At thy right hand there are pleasures
forevermore. John 17, you don't need to turn
there, it's very familiar to you. Our Lord, in his high priestly
prayer, as he has finished his work of obedience on this earth,
all except for laying down his life in our stead, these words
spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father,
the hour has come. Glorify thy son, that thy son
also may glorify thee, as thou hast given him power over all
that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given
him. Now let me just show you a few
aspects of our Savior's glory. First, as the Son. Christ's glory
is great in salvation, in Jehovah's salvation personally as God the
Son. His glory is great in thy salvation. Three things here. Salvation,
as it is revealed and spoken of in this book, is God's. It is God's. It is God's by design. It is God's possession. It is
God's performance. It is for God's praise. And God
gives it to whom he will. God gives it to whom he will.
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
but of God that showeth mercy." Salvation is of the Lord. No aspect, no aspect of God's
salvation is in any way attributed to man, or in any way dependent
upon man, or in any way determined by man. Brother Don, the way
you fellows are preaching tonight sounds to me like that unless
God does something for us, we're lost. That's the way it sounds,
doesn't it? If God leads you to yourself,
you're going to hell. If God leads you to yourself,
you're going to hell. The only hope for your soul is
if God Almighty might be pleased to have mercy on you. if God
might come to you and give you life and faith in Jesus Christ
the Lord. Every believer, speaking of God's
salvation, rightfully ascribes it to the triune God. We call
our salvation, thy salvation. When it is finished, when everyone
who ever shall be called has been called, when everyone of
God's elect has been regenerated, justified, sanctified, and glorified,
when every blood-bought, blood-washed member of God's family surrounds
the throne of God, God shall have the praise and God alone.
There will not be one thing attributed to any man, nothing inwardly,
nothing outwardly, nothing done by you, nothing experienced by
you. This is God-salvaged. Second, salvation comes from
God and belongs to God and is just for His glory. Why would
God save you? Why me? For His glory. For His glory, that's all. For
His glory, not ours. Though we shall indeed forever
be glorified. Though we shall indeed forever
be possessors of that glory which the God-man, our mediator, now
possesses as he sits in our flesh upon the throne of glory. The
glory he had with the Father before the world was, he said,
I have given it to them. Yet this is not for our glory,
it's for God's glory. We shall have God's glory for
God's glory. Did you get that? We shall have
God's glory for God's glory. Robert Hawker put it this way,
God's glory is the first object proposed by salvation. God is
more concerned for the promotion of his glory than any of his
people can be for their happiness. How anxious are you for the bliss
of heaven's glory, Larry? How anxious, Glenn, to join the
Redeemer? How anxious to be like Him when
you see Him as He is? How anxious to put off every
trace of the serpent's slime and every trace of sin's defilement,
and every evil consequence of the fall. How anxious! Oh, God's
in the day! And that doesn't come close to
how God desires His glory. Everything for His glory. His
salvation is by the glory of God. and for the glory of God,
and the work of the glory of God. If we cannot and must not
count anything a contribution to it that we do, then salvation
is the Lord's. It is God's and only God's. But that means that salvation,
salvation as it's described in this book, is exactly suited
to the most helpless sinner there is. You've got nothing to bring.
You've got nothing to give God. You've got nothing that you can
offer God. You've got nothing to commend
yourself to God. Not even a thought. Not even
a feeling. Not even a desire. Nothing. You're
just the person for whom God has designed his salvation. Find
me a sinner. Is there such a sinner here now?
Any sinner. Find me a sinner utterly bankrupt. Nothing in your hands to break.
Nothing. A sinner with nothing to offer
God, nothing to contribute to God, nothing to commend yourself
to God. God Almighty has sent His Son
to save you. Every such sinner has this salvation. Every such sinner. Christ's glory as God the Son
is great in Jehovah's salvation. And we're Trinitarians. We delight
in the purpose and election of God the Father and sovereign
predestination. We delight to lift our hearts
to heaven and call God our Father, my Father, my Father. We rejoice
in the work of God the Son, our covenant head, surety, mediator,
our Savior, our Redeemer. And we rejoice in the blessed
work of God the Holy Spirit, regeneration, conviction, effectual
calling, preservation, the sealing of the Spirit. But all the revelation
of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is in the face of Jesus
Christ. We behold the glory of God in
the face of our Lord Jesus. Listen to this. I've already
referred to Colossians 2. All the fullness of the Godhead
is in Him. And all the fullness of God's
salvation, all the fullness of grace is in Him. Who of God has
made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Christ is made of God unto us
everything God requires of us. Everything. Christ is made of
God to us wisdom so that now by the word who is God we know
God. He is made of God unto us righteousness. Righteousness imputed had righteousness
imparted. He is made of God unto us sanctification,
holiness. He is that holiness without which
no man shall see the Lord. You see, in order for you and
me to enter into glory, we must have righteousness. And we must
have holiness. We must have a righteous standing
before God, generally spoken of as justification. And we must
have holiness within us. Generally spoken of as sanctification.
It's called Christ in you, the hope of glory. You must be born
again. You must be made new creatures
in Christ. But there's something else. You
got to have redemption. And Christ is that too. Redemption. Redemption by blood. Redemption
by the atonement. Redemption by His sacrifice.
Redemption by power. But another form. Redemption
by resurrection. This body. Flesh and blood. cannot inherit the kingdom of
God. That's what our Lord said, isn't it? But this body is going
to inherit the kingdom of God. That's what our Lord said, isn't
it? Job said, in my flesh I'll see God. First Corinthians 15
speaks of this corruptible putting on incorruption. This mortal
putting on immortality. This terrestrial thing somehow
being transformed into something celestial. This physical being
made spiritual, that's called resurrection. And all these things
are vital. Now, sadly, puny brains like
ours like to divide things up in categories. And we like to
sort things out in categories. We love to figure God out. We love to And this thing about
God, this thing about God, this thing... I've got... I'm a theologian. That means I have mastered the
study of God. No, no. God's bigger than you. And bigger than me. And it is
a serious mistake to read this book and make any distinction
between one work of grace and another work of grace. They all
stand and fall together. And none shall fall. They all
are continual works of grace. And they shall all be brought
to the culmination in the glory of God in saving our souls. So that justification and sanctification
and glorification all are vital. Got to have them all. You got
to be redeemed, you got to be regenerated, and you got to be
resurrected from the dead. Either by our Lord coming again
and transforming us, or us going to the grave and rising again
in that great day. And all the fullness of glory,
all the fullness of God is in Him, all the fullness of grace
and salvation is in Him, and all the fullness of glory is
in God the Son. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. I'm like a dying saint. I read
about some years ago, someone in the old lady's room began
to speak about the greatness and grace and glory of Christ,
and somebody else tried to Get the fellow to be quiet and let
the old woman rest. And as they did, she said, oh
no, speak some more. Let me hear more. Don't stop
telling me his praise. I long to see him soon, but I
love to hear about him now. Surely, I can't say too much
of Christ Jesus the Lord. I can't speak adequately. of
His great glory, His majesty. Let's move on and I'll be very
brief on these next things. Turn to Hebrews chapter 7. Impossible as it is to talk about
salvation, let's talk about it in biblical terms. And you can't
talk about salvation in biblical terms without talking about salvation
in a surety. And by a surety, And Christ's
glory is great as our surety. Hebrews 7, 22. By so much was
Jesus made a surety of a better testament, a better covenant.
A surety is a person who stands in the room of another and assumes
all the responsibility of another in a given area. The best thing
we have in modern times that I can think of that's familiar
to folks, that's similar to a surety is a co-signer. Co-signer on
a mortgage. Some of you have done it. And
I suspect if you've done it, you've regretted it. My father,
when I was 15 years old, he didn't buy me a car, but I persuaded
him to sign for me to buy a car. I paid for it for a long time,
$225. And I totaled it before I got my license.
And you know who's responsible? The fellow who signed that note.
Not me. The law couldn't do anything
with me. I was too young. The law couldn't come after me for
anything. I'm 15 years old. The whole of the responsibility
was on his back. Now, he could come after me,
and he did. But the law couldn't. He was
responsible. Before the world began, will
you hear me? Jesus Christ, the God-man, our
mediator, stood before God and stepped forward as our surety. And he struck hands. with the
triune God. And He said, I will save my people. And from that day, from the beginning
forever the earth was, God Almighty never looked for anything from
you. Doesn't seek anything from you.
It's all the surety's responsibility. Does God demand satisfaction?
He looks to the surety. Does God demand punishment? He
looks to the surety. Does God demand righteousness?
He looks to the surety. Does God demand that His sheep
be called? He looks to the surety. Does
God demand that the sheep follow the shepherd? He looks to the
shepherd. Does God demand that His people believe Him? He looks
to the surety to give them faith. Does God demand that we continue
believing Him? He looks to the surety to continue
supplying us with faith. Does God look for His people
when they fall to rise again? He looks for the surety to lift
them up. The surety is the one responsible
for His people. People like to talk about man's
responsibility, and I guess there might be a place for that. I
told our folks last Sunday morning, I have a very dear friend who's
with the Lord now. As a matter of fact, I just got a note. His
wife sits and celebrates her 90th birthday, Brother Harry
Graham. I learned so much from him when I was a young man, sitting
on his heart. I was 19 years old. We'd go over
there and talk, and I remember saying to him one time, I said,
Brother Harry, I believe the Lord's trying to teach me something.
He said, oh no, he doesn't try. If he goes to teaching, you'll
get the lesson. And we were talking about responsibility, and I was
trying to make an argument, you know, for Maine's responsibility.
He said, Don, I'll tell you something about responsibility. It's our
response to His ability. The surety is the one who bears
responsibility, not me. Not me. You mean you have no
responsibility before God? Not if Christ is my surety. Not
if Christ is my surety. I owe no debt except gratitude
and love. I owe no debt. Christ paid it
all. He is an everlasting surety,
a voluntary surety, and a trusted surety. When Robert Hawker was
laying on his deathbed, someone was reading to him from Ephesians
chapter 1, and it got to that passage in verse 12, in whom,
that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted
in Christ. And Hawker said, wait, who first
trusted in Christ? Who first trusted in Christ?
And they paused a little bit, waiting for the old man to answer.
He said, why, the triune God first trusted in Christ. He trusted
Him before ever the world was, with everything, right down to
His glory. All right? His glory is great
as God the Son. His glory is great and his glory is great as Jehovah's
righteous servant. Remember in Exodus 21, I believe
it is, God gave a law concerning a servant, a bond slave. If a
man's a servant to another and his time of service is over,
he's to go out free. But if his master has given him
wife and children, then the wife and children stay in bondage
to the master. But if the man says, I love my
master, I love my wife, I love my children, I will not go out
free. He shall come before the elders
at the gates of the city and have his ear bored through with
it all. The Lord Jesus says, thou hast
opened mine ear. A voluntary servant to God. Because he loves God. He loves his bride, his church.
He loves his children, his bride and his church. And he said,
I will not go out free. He could have gone out free at
any time. Did he not say, I could right
now call my father and he'd send 10,000 angels down here to take
care of me. He could have gone out free at any time. It was
totally his voluntary will that kept him in obedience to his
pledged surety ship. And his voluntary will by his
own honor kept him there. Turn to Isaiah 42. Let me show
you something else about this servant. The great glory of Christ
the Lord's servant. Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth. I put my spirit upon him, he
shall bring forth judgment, righteousness to the Gentiles. Now watch this,
he shall not cry. That is, he's not going to look
for somebody to pity him. Now lift up his voice. Now cause
his voice to be heard in the streets. No matter what happens, no matter
what's laid on him, you're not going to hear him begging for
somebody to take up his cause. You're not going to hear him
begging to be relieved. A bruised reed shall he not break. When I was a boy, we used to
go cut an old cane pole and go fishing. But you know what you
can do with one that's bruised? You can't do a fragile thing
with it. It's useless. But a bruised reed, poor useless
sinner, he won't break. And the smoking flax, that flax
that stinks, All it gives off is just smoke, blackness and
darkness. Shall he not quench? He shall
bring forth judgment, righteousness unto truth. Now watch this. He shall not fail. He shall not
fail. One of the greatest statements
I ever heard in my life about the sacrifice of our Redeemer,
when I was in college in Winston-Salem, they brought a fellow in from
Wales. Welchman and then with Tommy Lawrence Thomas George
Lawrence, and he was became a professor For just a little while, but
he was there for the first time preaching in Chapel I sitting
on the front row so they keep a good eye on me and he was preaching
from Galatians chapter 6 verse 14 on the glory of the cross
and Things got real quiet except just between me and him. We kind
of enjoyed talking to each other and he said I must glory in the
cross and of our Lord Jesus Christ because the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ shall never be discovered in miscarriage. I thought I was
going to float away. He shall not fail. Failure is
an impossibility with Him. He shall not fail nor be discouraged
till He has set judgment, righteousness in the earth and the aisles His
people among the Gentiles shall wait for His law. All right,
one more thing. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter
5. The greatness of Christ's glory
and salvation is right here as our substitute. His glory as our substitute is
seen in the objects of His love, in the purpose of His death,
and in the efficacy of His atonement. Verse 17, Therefore, if any man
be in Christ, oh, what a place to be. He's a new creature, new
creature. When God saves a sinner, He makes
him Something he wasn't before. He's a new creature. He doesn't
change what he was. He makes him something he wasn't
before. He's a new creature. Made partaker of the divine nature.
Christ in you, the hope of glory. When you find yourself believing
on Christ, as I pray you shall this night, you just find yourself
believing Him. It's not really a conscious choice
and decision. You just This morning you refused
to believe him. You walked in the doors and I
said, I won't have him. But then before you go to bed
you just find yourself believing him. It's because he's made you
a new creature. Christ is now in you. And Christ
in you is the hope of glory. Christ in you. Old things are
passed away. All your guilt is gone. All your
sins are gone. Behold, all things have become
new, a new will, a new heart, a new nature, a new record. And
all things are of God, this is altogether God's work, who hath
reconciled us unto himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to
us the ministry of reconciliation. To wit, for that is, this is
it. that God was in Christ reconciling the world, and you can write
it this way, it's exactly what it means, the world of his elect
unto himself, not imputing, not charging their trespasses unto
them, and hath committed to us the word of reconciliation, the
message of the gospel, the message by which God causes rebel sinners
to lay down their arms and raise the white flag of surrender,
and this is it. Now then, we're ambassadors for
Christ as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's
stead, be ye reconciled to God. Quit fighting God. Oh, sinner, quit fighting God.
It's a losing battle. You're either going to lose now
and be glad you did or lose later and hate it forever. Be reconciled
to God. Be reconciled to God. That is,
be reconciled to God for this reason. He hath made him sin
for us. Brother Don, how far do you carry
that? Just as far? as you can carry that horrible,
obnoxious load of corruption and depravity and guilt. For all the host of God's elect
through all the ages of time, that's what He made Christ, who knew no sin, this Holy One. And he did it for this reason,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Christ was made to be what he could never perform, sin, that you and I might most
assuredly be made to be what we could never perform, righteousness,
the very righteousness of God in him. Do you ever wish that Your life
was kind of like one of those videotapes or cassette tapes
we used to use before we got to the desk. You just push the
rewind button and start over. What would you give if you could
push the rewind button and start over right now? Start over with
a completely clean slate. Not just clean, but righteous.
With no possibility of ever defiling it again. No possibility of ever messing
it up. No possibility of ever ruining
it. If any man be in Christ, by the
time he's a new creature, and we can't mess that up, We can't mess that up. Believe
on the Son of God. If right where you're sitting
right now, you can trust God's darling Son, it's because He
has made you the righteousness of God in Him. And you can't mess it up. My dad died in 88, I believe. And I use his Bible, not because
I'm sentimental, because it's got big print in it and I can
read it. But he's got a lot of notes that he wrote in here.
He underlined 2 Corinthians 521 and bracketed it. And I believe
he wrote a pretty astute theological explanation, I guess, or response
to that verse. You know what it says? Wow. That's about all you can say
about that, isn't it? Wow. I told you I was happy as you
ever saw me a while ago. That's why. That's why. Thank God for His grace. What
grace that this gospel means anything to us. That we hunger
and thirst after Him. What grace. And it's attributable
to His grace and redounds to that glory, the glory of His
Son. What a wonderful, wonderful evening
it's been. And I'm glad I was here with
you to enjoy it. Well, let's be dismissed in prayer.
Stay and eat with us if you can. I'm going to just have the ladies
just stay. We'll worship and someone will thank the Lord for
what we've just heard and what we're about to enjoy together.
And then we'll worry about the other stuff. I'm going to ask
Brother Paul if you'd thank the Lord for us. Our Lord, thanks seems such a small thing to say, but we
thank you. mercy, love, and grace for great
salvation. We thank you for the gospel of
our salvation as we heard tonight. Thank you for these men, for
giving them your message, and for giving it to us through them.
Thank you for this church, pastor, people, Let us give blessings
upon them. The days ahead are just a lighthouse
in a dark world, a haven for sin. Bring your sheep into the
frozen air. Bless us. Bless us the remainder
of this meeting tomorrow, the Lord's Day. Be with us in your
Holy Spirit without whom we cannot worship, in spirit and in truth. Amen. We pray for your glory,
our good, Amen, amen. In the morning, 10 o'clock. And ladies, now you can go. I don't even want to do this.