Turn with me to Psalm 74 and
just hold your place there for a minute. Psalm 74. I have an announcement to make
that I am sure will get your attention. It should if it doesn't. I believe in signs and wonders. I believe in signs and wonders. We're told that this is the day
of signs and wonders. And I've been asked for the last
40 years by people, do you believe in signs and wonders? And I've
always said no. I was wrong. I believe in signs
and wonders. The title of my message tonight
is Signs and Wonders for Today. Signs and Wonders for today. The Church of God has always
been blessed of God with distinctive, special, supernatural signs and
wonders. Signs and wonders by which God
assured his people of his abiding presence, of their acceptance
before him, of their redemption, of their being his people by
choice and by covenant. Signs and wonders that were sometimes
visible, but still supernatural. Extraordinary signs and wonders
that are continually with his people upon this earth. This
74th Psalm is given the title, Maskeel of Asaph. The word maskil
means instruction or instructive. It is a very, very instructive
psalm. This psalm is a lamentation of
the children of Israel with regard to God's absence from them during
the time of their Babylonian captivity, when the temple of
God had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. When the children of God had
been carried into Babylonian captivity and there for 70 years,
their hearts hung upon willows and they could not sing the songs
of Zion because they were in a strange land. And in the first
11 verses of this psalm, it is all lamentation. And then beginning
in verse 12, the psalmist picks up some reasons for hope and
rehearses the experiences of God's people in days gone by,
reminding them continually of what God had done for them. Because grace experienced is
the assurance of grace to come. Mark it down, my friends. Remember
the days of old and the wonders of God performed for you and
in you. when you cannot see anything
presently. When you cannot see the signs
and the symbols and the tokens, remember what God has done for
you and have hope. That which God has done is but
the pledge of what God will do. He who has been gracious will
yet be gracious. I've got two texts tonight. Let's
look at the first one. It'll be verse 9, but let's begin
in verse 1. Psalm 74. O God, why hast thou cast us
off forever? Why doth thine anger smoke against
the sheep of thy pasture? Lord God, why? deal you with
us as though we were under your wrath. Remember thy congregation, which
thou hast purchased of old. Lord, your anger smokes over
us, but we're your congregation. You purchased us of old. By these
things, you've distinguished us from all other people. You've
chosen us as your congregation, your assembly, your church, and
you redeemed us, you purchased us. Remember what you did for
us on the night that you passed through Egypt and by the blood
Applied to the door that you had appointed and the blood that
you had ordained You said when I see the blood I will pass over
you and by that blood and by your mighty hand you brought
us out of Egypt Remember Lord you have redeemed us Thine inheritance
The Lord is our portion. Oh But we are the portion of
his inheritance. I Thine inheritance. He's the
only thing we've got. Our portion. Now hear me, children
of God. We're the only thing he's got
in this world. We're the portion of his inheritance.
He wants nothing else. What a way to pray. Lord, remember,
remember, we're yours. You purchased us. We're your
inheritance, which you, which thou hast redeemed. This Mount
Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt, this holy hill of Zion, which
we are, which is that place wherein you have dwelt all this time. Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual
desolations, perpetual rubbish heap, perpetual emptiness, even
all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary. Nebuchadnezzar came in, came
in with a great horde of armies, leveled the city of Jerusalem
and leveled the temple destroyed the house of God and cast down
the altar of God. And now they say, remember and
lift up your feet unto this perpetual place of desolation. Verse five. I'm sorry, verse four. Thine
enemies roar in the midst of thy congregation. They set up
their ensigns, their banners for signs. They set up false
signs, fake signs. A man was famous according as
he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees. But now they break
down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers. Once men were famous in Israel.
Who hewed the wood and prepared the wood for the building of
the temple and made the carvings But now these men come in your
enemies and ours and they cast everything down Verse 7 They
have cast fire into thy sanctuary They have defiled by casting
down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground They said
in their hearts Let us destroy them together. They have burned
up all the synagogues of God in the land. Verse 9. We see not our signs. We see not our signs. Signs you gave us. Our signs. There is no more any prophet
No spirit of prophecy. Neither is there among us any
that knoweth how long. Oh, God, how long? How long? Now, what are these signs? What
were they? If you wish at your leisure to
begin in Exodus chapter 25, you'll find God giving instruction to
Moses about the establishing and erecting of the tabernacle,
making that tent in the wilderness and all its furnishings. and
follow through the instructions. God gave a pattern to Moses. And the pattern he gave him was
not an architectural blueprint. The pattern he gave him was the
revelation of Jesus Christ crucified and the accomplishment of redemption
by him. He said, now Moses, you build this tabernacle to be a
picture of this one whom I've revealed to you. And the Lord
gave Moses this tabernacle in the wilderness to erect. And
when he did, he gave him five specific signs that were always
with the tabernacle. Five signs that were always there,
that were special, supernatural signs. Of course, you're familiar
with the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat. That symbol
of God's presence where he said, I will meet you between the cherubs. I will meet you upon the mercy
seat and thou speak to you and make known my will to you. The
Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat, the covenant, that golden
lid where atonement blood was sprinkled once a year on the
day of atonement, where God Almighty declared himself one with his
people and his people one with him. The other was fire. Remarkable fire fire upon the
brazen altar, but not just fire that man had lit This is fire. You will read about it in the
in the book of second chronicles particularly when Solomon had
offered his prayer before the temple was going into the temple
and they they finished building it and the fire came down from
heaven and Consumed the sacrifice that continually abiding fire
was given back here with Moses and They built this brazen altar
and God put fire on the altar by which he consumed the sacrifice,
demonstrating his satisfaction with the sacrifice and his acceptance
of the people for whom the sacrifice had been made. And then there
was the Shekinah. That is the manifest glory of
our God. The cloudy pillar that went before
the children of Israel by day is a pillar of cloud and went
before them by night is a pillar of fire. That pillar of cloud
rose up from between the cherubs on the mercy seat, rose up from
the sacrifice, symbolizing, of course, the sacrifice of our
Lord Jesus Christ and the high priest in Israel. When he wore
his breastplate ministering in the tabernacle and later in the
temple, he had two things called Urim and Thummim. The words mean
lights and perfections. Jesus Christ, our high priest,
walks before God continually as lights and perfections for
his people. He is our light and he is our
perfection. And then there was the spirit
of prophecy. In Exodus 25 and Exodus 40 and
Numbers chapter 6 and Leviticus 16, over and over again, there
is something that was referred to by the Jews throughout their
history, though it is never specifically referred to by these words in
the Old Testament, called the spirit of prophecy. God commanded
Moses to go into the tabernacle And he told Moses, I will speak
to you from between the cherub, from the mercy seat. There will
I commune with you and speak to you. And the spirit of prophecy
throughout the Old Testament All the time from the building
of the tabernacle through the days of the building of Solomon's
temple until that temple was destroyed, the spirit of prophecy
was with God's church. The spirit of prophecy, God speaking
by chosen men, but speaking by chosen men, that which was revealed
in the sacrifice on the mercy seat, giving light and direction
to his children. Now, lest I fail to say it later,
That's how God still speaks to his people. We just heard God
speak. The spirit of prophecy speak
from the sacrifice God accepted through the cherub, the angel
God sent to speak to our hearts. That's how God continually speaks
to me. And these were the five signs.
Now let's jump ahead. Solomon is ordained of God to
build a temple. Now a permanent place of dwelling,
a place erected where God would continually abide, where God
would continually meet with his people. And those who were carried
away even into captivity, Solomon cried, they'll turn toward your
holy temple. It wasn't referring to some silly,
idolatrous thing like a Muslim getting out of the map and turning
his face toward Mecca. Turn toward the place of sacrifice. Turn toward the atonement. Approach
you through the blood you have ordained. Hear from heaven and
forgive their sins. And when Solomon built the temple,
these five signs went with it. And the spirit of prophecy in
a most distinct way, as well as that fire that consumed the
sacrifice upon the altar. But then during the days of Jeremiah,
The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar invaded Jerusalem. He destroyed
the holy city. He destroyed the temple. He carried
the children of Babylon, our children of Israel, into captivity
in three successive waves, conquering them again and again until at
last they were carried down into Babylon and there they were held
captive for 70 years. When Nebuchadnezzar took the
children of Israel into Babylon, He took all the vessels of the
Lord's house, all the silver and all the gold back to Babylon
and put it in the house of his gods, put it in his temple in
Babylon. When the Jews were then set free
under the hand of Cyrus, Ezra tells us that Cyrus took all
those vessels of gold and silver out of the house and gave them
to the hand of the appointed governor of Jerusalem and they
carried them back to Jerusalem to put in the temple because
God had sent the Jews back with a specific commission. They were
to go back there and rebuild his house, rebuild the city of
Jerusalem, representing, of course, his church. and to rebuild his
house, the place of his worship, to reestablish in the city of
Jerusalem, to reestablish in Zion the worship of God Almighty
in a public display of his glory and of his word. And they carried
these silver and gold vessels back to Jerusalem with them by
Cyrus's order. But those five signs those five
standing wonders, those supernatural things that God gave as signs
of his abiding presence, signs of his approval of his people,
signs of redemption and signs of covenant grace, the lights
and the direction, those things they didn't bring back from Babylon. Because they were gone. They
were gone. Jewish historians acknowledge
it. They were gone. Nobody really knows what happened
to them. I read a good bit in preparing this message. Some
suggest, and most do, that Nebuchadnezzar simply destroyed them. I suspect
that's probably so. But I don't know. It doesn't
really matter. Others think that Manasseh, when he was setting
up his gods in the temple, took these things out and destroyed
them, making room for his gods. That might have been true as
well. And then other folks, I guess those folks who made Raiders
of the Lost Ark movie, they would go along with this one. They
say Josiah, good King Josiah, knowing this was about to happen,
took these things and dug a hole and found a cave and hid them
so that nobody could find them to destroy them. But no one knows. This we do know. Those sacred
signs and wonders by which God's church had been assured of these
things all these years were gone. Now stop and think about the
ramifications of that. They were gone. They never were
in the second temple. They never were there. That means the Jew Their leaders,
their preachers, their scribes, their priests faked it for five
centuries. One after another, concocted
things together, and faked worshiping God. Faked offering the Passover
sacrifice once a year. Faked going into the Holy of
Holies and sprinkling blood on the mercy seat. Faked having
light from God. Faked hearing from God. Faked
seeing the Shekinah glory. Faked having fire from heaven
to consume their sacrifices upon their altar. For 500 years they
faked it. They just faked it. Now jump forward another 500
years and turn to Luke chapter 23 Luke 23 Now we've come to the fullness
of time Now we've come to that which is called the due time
The Lord Jesus Christ God's darling son has come into this world
to save His people from their sins. The Word was made flesh. I've been saying assumed flesh
for so long I can hardly not say it, but that's not what the
book teaches. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. He who is God the Son became
a man, a real man. Just like us, nothing accepted
except sin. The Word was made what we are,
and lived here in perfect obedience to God as our righteous representative,
bringing in everlasting righteousness by his obedience in our stead,
and, O righteousness, he brought in not for himself, but for us. But righteousness alone could
never save our souls. Justice must be satisfied. Our
sins must be punished to the full satisfaction of divine justice. And now the Lord Jesus, having
finished all other things, comes up to Mount Calvary. He wasn't
drug here. He set his face like a flint.
He gave his face to the smiters. He turned not a way backward.
He went up to Jerusalem as a voluntary, willing sacrifice. More anxious,
oh my soul, more anxious to drink the cup of woe for Don Bell than
you are to drink water when you're thirsty. He went there to die
in our stead and now his suffering is about over. Verse 24, it was
about the sixth hour and there was darkness over all the earth
until the ninth hour. and the sun was darkened, and
the veil of the temple was rent in the midst." Here are the last three hours
of our Savior's agony upon the curse tree. Three hours of torture indescribable. when He has made sin for us. Three hours when His heart is
crushed within Him. Three hours of utter darkness. Darkness, we just read, over
all the face of the earth. A supernatural eclipse of the
sun so that at one time the whole world is covered with darkness. covered with darkness for three
hours. How the world must have shook. How men must have trembled. All over the world, the pagan,
the heathen, the barbarian, the well-earned. Darkness the world's
never heard of and never seen, covering the earth for three
hours. This darkness displays clearly the heinousness of the
crime being committed Though the Savior died willingly by
the hands of divine justice as our sacrifice, he was put to
death by the hands of wicked men doing their will. Pilate delivered Jesus to their
will. If you want an indictment against
free will religion, there it is. Pilate delivered Jesus to
their will. And wicked men with their wicked
hands, according to their wicked wills, crucified the Lord of
glory because man hates God in all that he is. All those things
you just described that cause us to burn with love for him.
We once hated him for those very things. I say that to say this. Yes, Jesus Christ died according
to the purpose of God, and God Almighty used the hands of wicked
men exactly as He had ordained, and He had ordained the very
men who would drive the nails in His hands. I question that
not at all. But don't you ever imagine that
you shall hide behind God's sovereignty as an excuse for your rebellion
and sin. You might before this world and you might before men
and you might call some folks to think you're sincere. You
realize it was predestined. I just had to do it. Take it
up with God in a day of judgment. I dare you. Not only did this
darkness display the heinousness of man's sin, it displays the
blackness and blindness of man's heart by nature. No impression made upon any man will ever convert
him. It won't happen. It won't happen. Well, don't you believe God uses
things? I know he does. I know he does. But I'm going
to tell you, I don't care what you see, feel, or experience. Be it good or bad. Be it remarkably,
unexplainably supernatural. Be it something that cannot be
explained in any way except by divine intervention. If that's
all you experience, you will never turn to Christ in faith.
It won't happen. So obstinate is the heart of
man. These men standing right here at the foot of Calvary as
they are clearing their throats to spit in the face of God himself
again. Suddenly, darkness! And soon
as it gets light, they go on spitting. I can imagine standing there
terror-struck for three hours. And the light comes and the terror's
all over. That's the reason honest preachers don't chase ambulances.
We don't try to maneuver men into making a profession of faith.
We don't try to talk somebody into coming to Jesus. We proclaim
free grace and wait for free grace to do its work. Not only does the darkness display
those things, oh how it displays the emptiness and darkness of
Christless religion. Judaism had become nothing except
ritualism. I'm talking about the religion
God gave by the hand of Moses. Well, we're historic Baptists. These folks were too. They had a better history than
you. And they had for 500 years been
nothing but an empty shell. of religion. That's all. For 500 years. Religion without
Christ is religion without life, and without faith, and without
hope, and it's all darkness. No matter how historic it is,
no matter how orthodox it appears, No matter what creed they wave
around and say, we believe this. Fourth, the darkness that passed
upon and engulfed our Savior's holy soul when he was made sin
for us is displayed by this darkness. Matthew tells us at about the
ninth hour, about three o'clock in the afternoon, which was just
about the time of the slaying and the offering of the evening
sacrifice. That sacrifice that was an imminent type of our Lord
Jesus. Jesus cried with a loud voice. He cried as one in great distress. Oh, Brother Don, you didn't mean
to say that, did you? Oh, yes. He cried as one in utter
distress. My God, my God, oh my God, why
have you forsaken me?" At the height of his obedience, at the very apex of his mission,
while he is fulfilling his father's will, he cries, oh my God, I
cry to you in the morning, and in the daytime I'm not silent,
but you will not hear. Why have you forsaken me?" This cry expresses the very soul
of our Lord's sufferings as our substitute. Oh, how great the
price of our ransom. The Lord our God is infinitely
holy and just, so infinitely holy and just that He must and
will punish sin, and the soul that sinneth, it shall die, no
exceptions. And when God Almighty made His
Son sin for us, justice cried Awake, O sword, against one that
is my fellow. Smite and slay the shepherd. And justice plunged its sword
into the holy heart of Emmanuel, and justice was satisfied. So thoroughly, completely, absolutely
satisfied, this is God's word to Jacob. Fury is not in me. Did you get that brother Paul?
God says to you, fury is not in me. I can't be angry with
you ever. The things you do may displease
me, but I can't be angry with you. And I'll show my anger against
what you do. But I can't be displeased with
you. I love those words that Nathan spoke concerning David,
the thing that David did displeased the Lord. Not David, the thing David did. Listen to me, if you're in Christ,
if you're in, oh, if right now, God Almighty has opened the windows
of heaven and dropped the pail of His grace in your heart, and
for the first time in your life, you believe God's Son right now! If you're in Christ, it's not
possible for God to be angry with you anymore, again, forever. He's forgiven your sin. Put it
away. Now, after that veil, After that darkness,
we're told our Lord Jesus cried with a loud voice and yielded
up the ghost, died as our voluntary substitute. He said, Father, into thy hands
I commend my spirit. He cried, it is finished. And the veil in the temple was
ripped. Matthew describes it a little
more detail. He says, behold, the veil in
the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. That thick, heavy, symbolic veil. Try to picture it. Here we are in the outer court.
Back here behind this curtain is the Holy of Holies, wherein
is the Ark of the Covenant. and the mercy seat, and the cherubs
facing one another, looking down toward the blood on the mercy
seat, into which Aaron could go once a year with the blood
of the Paschal Lamb. But that curtain is a foot thick,
made of fine woven tapestry, and suddenly, just exactly as
the Son of God cries, it is finished, that thing ripped right smack
dab into it. from top to bottom. It wasn't
burned up, it was rent in two. It didn't wear out and rip up
gradually from the bottom, it was rent from the top to the
bottom. Obviously, rent as though God
Almighty had stooped from heaven and taken that piece of wet tissue
paper and ripped it in half. Indeed, not as if, that's exactly
what God did. And the hands by which he did
it were the hands nailed to the curse tree. The blood of God's
darling son rent the veil into. Why? What's the purpose? Well, certainly it involved these
things. It exposed this fact. for everyone to see if they would
just open their eyes and see. All false religion. Now mark it down. I'll take the
blame. You can say Don Fortner said
it and then you can quote me. All false religion. I mean by
that every form of free will works religion. I don't care
whether it's called Islam or Baptist, Papist or Pentecostal,
Presbyterian or Methodist. All false religion, every form
of religion that makes salvation in any way hinge on you is utter
hypocrisy. It is the practice of a vain
show of hypocrisy. I'll call you to witness. I'll
call you to witness. You've heard me say it, some
of you have. Well, I believe they're sincere. That ain't so. That ain't so. You bear me record. Some of you have been saved out
of such nonsense. All the time you're practicing it. How many
times have you said, I knew something was missing? I knew something wasn't right. I knew that wasn't right, but
we just went right on. How come? To keep up the show.
That's all, just to keep up the show. All false religion is the
show of hypocrisy. It is the display of an inward
deceitful heart. Our Lord said, woe unto you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You're nothing but whited sepulchers.
And I lay that charge upon all false religion and all who practice
it. If you worship your will, you
worship that which you know is fake. You worship your works,
you worship that which you know will give you no acceptance with
God. You come to God on an altar you've made, you climb up on
the steps that you've made, and all you do is expose your nakedness
and your shame. And God won't have it. And it's
time folks tell you plainly, it's just a show of hypocrisy.
Well, I know this is not all there is. There's got to be more
to it. Well, find out what more it is. All false religion, just
like these Jews. They have an altar, and they've
got fire. But it's wonderful Pentecostal
fire, they say. It's not fire they bring down
from heaven, it's fire they work up from within. And there's a
big difference. They have light, but it's the
light of the sparks of their own hearts, the prophet Isaiah
says. They have a sacrifice. But it's
a sacrifice that accomplishes nothing. They have an altar,
but it's an altar they have built it and God won't accept the sacrifice
or the altar and won't accept them. They have a high priest.
They have someone to represent them, so they say. But that high
priest has neither light nor perfection and cannot well represent
them. They talk about a word of prophecy,
but they have no spirit of prophecy. That's intimately connected with
the mercy seeds and the sacrifice on the mercy seeds. So rather
than speaking to you by the spirit of prophecy, they prophesy to
you about what you're going to get if you give them $10. Is
that the way things are going? You
sinned to me, you sow your seed in my wallet, and God will paint
you a big harvest in your wallet. It's fake. It's not sincere,
it's fake. And if you send the $10, you
know it's fake. And you're just putting on the
show. You're going along with it. Suddenly, though Haggai and
Malachi had ceased to prophesy long before, and the spirit of
prophecy was gone, suddenly, as though the sky opened up at
one time, we're lifted up and carried into the Holy of Holies
to see things clearly. And now, The Spirit of Prophecy
has come. Here it is. The testimony of
Jesus. What does it say? Is the Spirit
of Prophecy. The gospel of God's free grace
is the Spirit of Prophecy. What does the Spirit of Prophecy
say? It says to sinners. It says to sinners. Come and welcome. Come and welcome! There's a door open in heaven
for wretched, worthless, doomed, damned sinners like you! And
that door is Christ Jesus the Lord. When the veil was rent
on that beautiful piece of tapestry, there were embroidered emblems
of cherubs. Like the cherubs overshadowing
the mercy seat, but these are On the, on the curtain, those
cherubs on the mercy seat, Revelation 4 clear, it makes it clear they
represent God's messengers, God's servants. These, like the messengers,
part of his church. When that veil was rent, it speaks
of the death of Christ. Is that what Hebrews says? That
veil speaks of his death. His sacrifice, when He was made
sin for us, He died in our stead. Hang on now. When that veil was
ripped, the cherubs were ripped with it. You see, children of God, we're
one with Christ. When He died, I died with Him. I have fully Get hold of this,
and I promise you, it'll help you in tough times. I have personally,
fully satisfied every demand of God's holiness, justice, and
truth. I have lived in perfect righteousness,
and I have satisfied divine justice with a sacrifice and a death
of myself, of infinite worth. Because when Christ died, I died
in Him. I'm one with Him. And when He
arose, I arose with Him. And when He entered in, the Scripture
tells us that He opened the book of Revelation. Don't need a temple
there because the Lamb is the temple in that city. That Old
Testament temple was a type of Christ. Yeah, but Paul says you're
the temple of God. Must be a contradiction or a
great truth. Christ is the temple of God in
whom we live and dwell. And we're the temple of God in
whom he lives and dwells forever. And now we have before God no
longer, no longer any physical sign or symbol. Don't want one,
don't need one, won't have one. If you've got them at your house,
throw them away. If you happen to have a cross made of gold,
I guess you melt it down and make your ring out of it or something.
But get rid of that stuff. We don't have any physical symbols.
They're just pieces of idolatry. Oh, I thought you said we ought
to believe in signs and wonders. Here it is. Christ is our altar. And He is the fire. upon the altar by which he himself
has been consumed as our sacrifice and we are before God perpetually accepted and God
is perpetually satisfied with his own and Christ is our light
and our perfection to guide us in his way and he guides us with his word from the mercy
seat between the two cherubs by the light of his cross. And the Shekinah is with us all the
time. We behold the glory of God, the
very glory of God. in the face of Jesus Christ. Come on in. The mercy seat is
open for anybody who needs it. Let us therefore come boldly
to the throne of grace. You spoke about that throne on
which our sovereign God and King sits. Only one thing better than
the fact that our God and Savior sits on the throne of absolute
sovereignty. Blessed be His name. His throne of sovereignty is
a throne of grace. And come now that you may find
mercy and grace to help if you need it. Amen.