If you have your Bibles, turn
to Luke chapter 2. I run across something I want
to share with you. something that came out in the
newspaper, a very provocative letter. It said, Dear Sir, it
seems ministers feel their sermons are very important, spend a great
deal of time preparing them. I have been attending church
quite regularly for thirty years and I've probably heard three
thousand of them. To my consternation, I discovered
I cannot remember a single sermon I wonder if a minister's time
might be more profitable spent on something else. Well, after
a few weeks, there was a letter that arrived that said, Dear
Sir, I've been married for 30 years. During that time I have
eaten 32,850 meals, mostly my wife's cooking. Suddenly I've discovered I can't
remember the menu of a single meal. And yet, I have the distinct
impression that without them, I would have starved to death
long ago. So we need to hear the Word of
God. We need to feed on the Word of
God. And I recognize that a lot of times people do not Remember
for 15 minutes what they heard when they were in the service. But I think that God's people
do remember, and I think that the Word refreshes them, and
the Word encourages them, the Word builds them up. If you have
your Bibles open to Luke chapter 2, notice verse 25 down through
verse 30. And behold, there was a man in
Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and the same man was just and
devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Ghost
was upon him. And it was revealed unto him
by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen
the Lord's Christ. And he came by the Spirit into
the temple, And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to
do for him after the custom of the law, then took he him up
in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou
thy servant depart in peace according to thy word. For mine eyes have
seen thy salvation. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation. There seems to me to be two things
that the natural man, that the flesh, our flesh, tenaciously
holds on to in this world. Two things. Number one, I believe
it holds on to the earth itself. We know that we're made of dust. Scripture says, Dost thou art,
and to dust thou shalt return. But if we speak honestly, we
would have to admit that there's none of us that really want to
leave this world. That we are subject, the Scripture
says, to the fear of death all of our lifetime. And someone
might say, oh Lord, just take me on home. But do they really
mean it in their heart? You see, God hears not only the
words that you speak, He hears the thoughts of your heart. And
He knows what you're really thinking in your heart. And I don't think
there are very many people, even people who are sickly, and whose
tent is being taken down, as we sometimes say, and who is
frail, they still hold tenaciously on to life itself, flesh life. And they are not very eager. It kind of reminds me of the
story of the preacher who asked everybody in the congregation
to raise their hand if they wanted to go to heaven. And of course
everybody raised their hand except one gentleman down in the front
row. And after he had noticed him, he said, Well, you
mean you don't want to go to heaven? He said, I didn't say
I didn't want to go to heaven. I just thought you were getting
a load up to go tonight. And he wasn't ready to go. He
wasn't ready. He didn't feel that he wanted
now to leave this world. And so we do hold tenaciously
on to life and to our existence in the flesh. And the only thing
that can break that, the only thing that can loose us from
that is a revelation of Jesus Christ. The only thing that can
possibly break that desire is the grace of God in our hearts,
in our lives. And the second thing I think
that we hold to in this flesh of ours, this natural
life, is we hold to self-righteousness. Self-righteousness. Now, beloved,
I believe that until death do us part, we shall hold to our
self-righteousness. And then even after death, when
we're at the judgment, I believe there will be some of us who
will say, Lord, have we not preached in thy name? Have we not cast
out devils in thy name? Have we not done many wonderful
works? Right, that is, we'll say that
right before the Lord says, depart from me. I never knew you. Depart
from me. We'll hold on tenaciously to
our self-righteousness. Now, beloved, self-righteousness,
well, let me say it this way. Human righteousness is fiction. There is no such thing. There
is no such thing that God recognizes, that God is going to honor. There
is no such thing as human righteousness. And any time that we focus on
or look to our self-righteousness, we are damning ourselves. Because we know that whatever we think that we have
accomplished, whatever we look on as being something that God is going to
recognize as being something worthy of trading eternal life
for. We know that it's flawed, and
the idea is foreign to the teaching of the Word of God. Self-righteousness
will damn your soul. It'll damn your soul, and it'll
keep you from Christ. It'll keep you from the Son of
God. It'll keep you from trusting fully and wholly in the Son of
God and His shed blood and His work. It'll keep you from doing
that. Because you'll keep saying, well,
look at me. I've got this, I've got that, I've got something
else. It kind of reminds me of a story that I read that I'd
like to share with you. There was a doctor who attended
or whose family went on a vacation early in the spring one year
to Niagara Falls. And as they looked into the river
there by the falls, they saw the ice rushing down the river.
And they viewed the large blocks of ice flowing toward the falls. And he said, I could see that
there were carcasses of dead fish embedded in the ice. and
gulls by the score were riding down the river feeding on the
fish. And as they came to the brink
of the falls, their wings would go out and they would escape
from the falls. I watched one gull which seemed
to delay and wondered when it would leave. It was engrossed
in the carcass of a fish. And when it finally came to the
brink of the falls, out went its powerful wings. The bird
flapped and flapped and even lifted the ice out of the water,
and I thought that it would escape. But it had delayed too long,
so that its claws had frozen into the ice. And the weight
of the ice was too great, and the gull plunged into the abyss. And beloved, I'm afraid that
that's exactly what happens with people who hang on tenaciously
to their self-righteousness. You're going to hold on to it
too long. You've got to repudiate it and look only to the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only His righteousness is going
to get us into heaven. And self-righteousness and good
works and good deeds, whether it be toward man or God, if trusted
in will damn your soul. Christ alone is salvation. Christ alone can save. Christ
alone provides us with what God the Father demands of us. And that is a righteousness which
cannot be improved upon, a righteousness which not even God Himself can
find any fault with. And we must have that righteousness
or we cannot appear before God. We will not be saved in eternity
if we're not saved in time by trusting alone in the Lord Jesus
Christ and His righteousness. Now, beloved, I am going to preach
just for a little bit this morning out of this text of Scripture,
just for a while. I give Aaron every opportunity
that I can possibly give him. When he is able, when he has
the time to prepare and to preach, when he feels satisfied that
he has the message, I step out of the way. And I will do that. I will continue to do that. But
this morning it seems that it fell out to me to speak for a
while, and so by the grace of God we'll attempt to do so. But
I want us to notice, and there's several things in this story
here, this man Simeon, who was a priest and who was a prophet,
And he was a man who had a son by the name of Gamaliel. And
Paul had sat at his feet, Gamaliel's feet, and had been taught the
law. And this man Simeon had been
waiting for the Messiah to come to Israel. And the Holy Ghost
was upon him. Now this was before Pentecost.
And the Holy Ghost was upon those before Pentecost. Then after
Pentecost, the Spirit of God would come in to believers. But the Holy Ghost was upon him.
And we see the moving of the Spirit of God both in verse 25,
26, and 27. how that the Spirit of God was
in this situation. Now, we don't hear about this
man anymore in the New Testament. We don't hear anything about
him anymore. But God certainly blessed him and had sent him
a message, and that is that he should not see death before he
had seen the Lord's Christ. It had been revealed to him that
he was going to see the Messiah before he left the world. And
what an encouragement that must have been to this old man, that
he knew that the Messiah was coming and that he was going
to live to see Him. He was going to live to be able
to look into the face of God's Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's three things that
stand out to me in this portion of scripture. And the first is
Simeon's resolution. And the second would be the revelation
that came to him. And thirdly was his request. Those three words you can remember
that will kind of help you to keep this story in your mind.
First of all, His resolution. He was looking for the Lord's
Christ. He believed that He was coming
and He was looking for Him. He was seeking, as it were, the
Christ and looking for Him to show up and to appear at any
time. Now, beloved, one of the things
that I believe with all my heart is that very few people ever
find the Lord Jesus Christ by accident. Very few people ever
find Him, just happen on Him. I think that most people that
find the Lord, find the Lord by seeking Him. And the Scripture
talks about that. About that if you seek the Lord
with your whole heart, that you will find Him. That you will
find the Lord. And the Scripture says, Seek
ye the Lord while he may be found. indicating that there seems to
be time when Jesus passes by, and when He comes near, and that
we're to seek Him while He may be found. We're to call upon
Him, it says, while He is near. Call upon Him while He's near.
While He's a neared hand, call upon Him. Seek the Lord. Recommend to anybody here this
morning, if you have the least desire in your heart to experience
the Lord's salvation, continue to seek it. Seek it with all
your heart. In the book of Malachi, I want
to read this verse to you out of the third chapter. It's verse
1. Listen to this. And it has to
do with this very story here. Behold, I will send My messenger,
and he shall prepare the way before Me, And the Lord, look
at this now, and the Lord, whom ye seek, whom ye seek, shall
suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant,
whom ye delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith
the Lord of hosts. So I believe that God has reserved
salvation for those who desire it and those who seek it. Now
we're convinced that the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of God had
such a profound interest in and certainly effect
upon Simeon here in this that he does also have an effect upon
all the elect and he brings, he's the one that creates the
desire. He's the one that brings a soul
to where that they long after and desire to be freed from their
bondage and from their sin and to be brought into the saving
knowledge of Christ. They come to the place where
it's Christ or I die and they're brought there by the Holy Spirit,
by the working of God's Spirit. Nobody is ever saved apart from
the workings of God's Spirit in the heart. Unless the Spirit
of God draws a man, he will not come. He cannot come unless he
be drawn by the Spirit of God. Unless God intervenes and brings
a man. And so if you're here this morning
and you have no hunger, If you have no thirst, if you have no
desire for the salvation of God in Jesus Christ, then nine times
out of ten, you're going to remain lost, and you're going out of
this building this morning without a ray of hope in Christ. But
the Lord Jesus Christ, my friend, will be sought after by His people. They will seek Him. They will
seek Him. I sought the Lord, and I found
out that He had been seeking me a good while before I began
to seek Him. And so it is that God puts it
in the hearts of His people to seek Him. And so, I believe it
was after the Lord had said to him Before you will not die before
you've seen my Christ I think that he began to go to the temple
he began to go to the temple every time he felt moved he went
to the temple and he would go to the temple and Finally that
day came when the Lord Jesus Christ the consolation of Israel
when he was brought into the temple as a babe and There he
was there's old simeon there and There he is waiting for this
babe to see him. And so his resolution was that
he was going to see Christ. Is that your resolution? I will
see him. Now beloved, I know the Word
of God is plain on this subject. I want you to turn with me to
John 6. And I want you to look at verse 40. I want you to look
at verse 40. He knew that he was going to
see the Lord's Christ. And in verse 40 it says, And
this is the will of Him that sent me. Now this is Christ speaking,
this is the Master speaking. And this is the will of Him that
sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth
on Him, may have everlasting life, and I'll raise him up at
the last day. So my friend, the Lord is saying
here that everyone that sees the Son, and that's with spiritual
eyes, that's with the eyes of the soul, that's with the eyes
which God gives His people so they can look upon Christ and
see His glory, the glory of God in His face. and to see His salvation
and see Him as the one who was appointed and anointed of God
to be our Savior, our surety and our deliverer. And so we
must see Christ and see Him by faith. We must be enabled to
see Him. And so the resolution of Simeon
was that he was going to see Him before he died. Could you
promise me that you're going to seek the Lord before you die?
Well, I tell you, my friends, we know by experience of even
the last week that people sometimes have very little time to seek
the Lord before they leave this world. Sometimes we're called
out just like that. And life is so uncertain. The
most certain thing about life is that it is uncertain. And
you cannot, there is no guarantees how long you're going to be here,
how long you're going to be here. But would you seek the Lord ere
you die? Would you seek Christ before
you die? Make that your resolution. I
will look for the Lord Jesus Christ. I will call upon Him.
And you know the scripture says that everyone that seeks Him,
everyone that seeks Him, finds Him. Now that's what the scripture
says. I didn't make that up. Everyone
that seeketh Him, they find Him. And those who come and knock
as it were on a door, the door is open. The door is open. Now
that's true not only of seeking the Lord in salvation, but also
seeking Him in prayer. This is true. And so God has
reserved the best for those who want it and desire it. And thanks
be unto God that there was a day whenever He'd give us the desire
to want what He had in the person of His Son, and enabled us to
receive it through faith. Thanks be unto God. Alright,
now that was His resolution. And you resolve, too, with me,
resolve to seek the Lord, and to call upon His name, and to
find Him precious to your soul. A sinner needs Christ, and he
needs to find Him precious, and he will find Him precious. As
Peter said, He is precious to those who believe. Precious,
precious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the second thing
was, the revelation. And this happens, beloved, to
be the way God saves sinners, is by revealing Christ to them.
Now that's the only thing that can break the power, the cord,
that holds us to this earth, is the revelation of Jesus Christ
to the heart. The Lord Jesus Christ being made
known to a sinner, being made known Oh, it's amazing how ignorant
we are in the state of nature. And then whenever God is pleased
to teach us to Christ and to draw us to Him and make His Son
known to us in our hearts, how amazing, how wonderful it is
when the Word of God then begins to open up to our hearts. And
we cannot make heads or tails out of this thing about being
saved until Christ is revealed to our hearts. And then when
He's revealed to our hearts, and we have so many people that
wonder about assurance, and wonder about whether you can know whether
you're saved or not. Well, whether you can know for
sure that you pass from death to life. But beloved, you know
once Christ is revealed to the heart, then these questions immediately
disappear. They are cleared up once Christ
is revealed to the heart. Because it's Christ in you who
is the hope of glory. Christ in you. Now, I want you
to look at this here. And when the parents, in verse
27, brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom
of the law, then Simeon took him up in his arms and blessed
God and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace
according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. Mine eyes have seen your salvation. And so the revelation here was
given. and he was able to see the babe
Jesus. Now I want you to take note of
something here, because he tells us that his eyes, although they
were old and although he was feeble, and maybe he had cataracts,
I don't know, but he saw the babe Jesus, and he said, mine
eyes have seen thy salvation. Now he looked upon this baby,
Now how could that be? Somebody said, well, you must
trust in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But beloved,
the work wasn't finished yet. But here's the day. Now you see,
the revelation is of Him. And you know, brethren, sisters
in the Lord, that we rejoice in the work accomplished and
finished. We rejoice in it. Praise God
for the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said it's
finished. But you know that that work that
was accomplished, that that work would have meant nothing if it
hadn't have been for Him who accomplished the work. It was
His merit, it was who He is that gives efficacy to what He did,
to what He accomplished. It's who He is. And here is the
babe Jesus, but He's God's salvation. And what that tells us is that
when a man sees Christ by the eye of faith, that he has this
revelation given to him, and he has looked upon a person whom God says is salvation. God says that salvation is not
a decision that you make. God says salvation is not some
decision that you make or some agreement that you enter into.
But salvation, He says, is not some work you do. He says that
it's a person. That salvation is a person. And
that the only way to be saved is to be joined to this person
through faith and that if you are joined to him then you have
all that God has for a sinner in him in him the scripture talks
about Christ in you being the hope of glory Christ in you being
the hope of glory now beloved we need this revelation the revelation
must be given And the revelation was given to Simeon. Christ appeared,
and he held him in his arms, and said, Mine eyes have seen
thy salvation. Now, whenever this happens, verses
like we find in 2 Timothy where Paul said that the foundation
of God standeth sure having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that
are his, that means something to you. You've had the revelation
of Christ in your heart, you belong to God, and the foundation
of God stands secure, having this seal, the Lord says, I know
you. And in John 17, it says that this is life eternal that
you might know. Me, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom I have sent. So this is life eternal, a union
with Christ. being joined to Him. They that
are joined to the Lord are one Spirit. And this all takes place
when the revelation comes. Paul said that this is what happened
to him in Galatians chapter 1. He said that he received the
gospel by revelation of the Spirit. The Son of God was revealed in
his soul, was made known to him. And it happens today whenever
God saves a sinner. where he shows him the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now that brings me to the last
thing that I see here and that is Simeon's request. His request. We talked about
his resolution and we talked about the revelation and his
request. Now beloved, he came into the
temple by the Spirit. came in by the Spirit into the
temple. Anybody that gets saved, gets
saved by the work of the Spirit. I think we mentioned that. But
I want to make sure you understand that. that the Spirit of God
brings the lost sheep and then they receive this regeneration,
this revelation of Christ. They're brought into the family
of God and they're joined to Christ. And Christ is in them,
who is the hope of glory. But now his request, he said in verse 29, that's where
we have the request, Lord, now let us thou thy servant depart
in peace. according to thy word. In other
words, he said, now Lord, I've been like a bird in a cage. Now Lord, open the cage. Let
me go home. Let me go home. The cord that
held Simeon to the earth is broken now. It's broken. There's no
need to stay around any longer. He's had Christ revealed to him.
He knows Christ. He's seen Christ. And now, let
me depart. It's like a prisoner that is
let out of a prison to go back home to family and friends. He
said, let me depart. Let me depart. One of the things
that we learn here, from this is the peace that he wanted to
depart in peace. He said, now let us thou thy
servant depart in peace. The scripture says, therefore
being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ. You cannot have peace in eternity
if you don't have it in Christ in time and in life, my dear
friend. You have Christ, here you have
peace. Christ is our peace. He is our
peace. He made peace with God for us. You cannot have peace, let me
just say it again, in eternity, if you haven't had it in this
life, in your heart, in your soul. Peace through faith in
the Son of God who loved you and died in your place, paid
your sin debt, satisfied God on your behalf, and met all the
demands of law so that you wouldn't have... One of the things that
struck me about Simeon, you know, he'd been in the temple only
God knows how long. In and out, in and out. But he
heard the law over and over and over and over again. He was accustomed
to all the religion of the Jews. But he never said anything about
salvation until he saw Christ. And that's when a man is saved,
is when he sees Christ. Say I've heard the law, I've
heard it over and over again, raised on it. But there ain't
no salvation in that. Salvation, the law, the law condemns. The law judges. No life in the
law. Life in Christ, salvation in
Christ. Never said a word about salvation
in religion. He saw the babe Jesus and said,
this is your salvation. This is God's salvation right
here. Okay, now he wants to leave. He wants to leave in peace. It's
settled. The cord's broken. I mean, there's
no more power of this old flesh and it's desire to stay here.
The cord's snapped and it's over. I'm ready to go. And no man is
ready to die until he knows Christ, until he's seen Christ. You're
not ready to die. But oh, once you see Him, then
you know, Now this is very important that you get this. He said, Lord, he calls upon
the Lord, you let thy servant depart in peace. That no believer
dies without God's ordination. Without God's, it being God's
will. it being God's time, it being
God's will and purpose. No believer dies, passes from
this life until God says, your work is done. We're immortal
until God is finished with us. And did he pray? Was this a scriptural
prayer? Was he right in his doctrine?
Lord, now let thy servant depart in peace. In other words, Lord,
it's in your hands. You can let me die now and leave
this world, depart from this world, or you can hold me here. Thy will be done. Thy will be
done. But let thy servant depart in
peace. Let him go. The cord is broken. The chain has been snapped. Now
brethren, those are just some of the thoughts that you could
get out of this. Certainly, the Lord Jesus Christ
is still calling out his people. Certainly, he's still revealing
himself. In spite of what some religious professors are saying,
Christ is still being made known. And this is real experience.
Knowing the Lord. So let me just hurriedly recap. Make a resolution. You're going
to seek Christ. You're going to find Him. By
the grace of God. Secondly, that you're going to
see Him. That you're going to see Him
before you leave this world. And thirdly, that is with the
eye of faith, you're going to see Him. In all of His glory. Saving power and glory. And then
thirdly, your request, then you can say, this fear of death I've
been subject to all my life, snapped. It's gone. And I rest
in the Lord, and my case in His hands. May God help us to pray
about some of these things, and to seek the Lord about them,
that we would have the right mind about these matters. But I'm not a novice in some
of these things. I've been around a while. And
I know that my time is short. I know that it is. And I know
that the consolation, comfort and consolation, is in these
matters we talked about this morning. Seeking the Lord. Finding Him. Having the revelation
of the Spirit of God in the heart. And then leaving it with the
Lord, Dan. Because you're at peace. You
got peace in your heart, peace in your soul, and so you can
leave it with Him. At His bidding, at His time,
Lord, let Thy servant depart and be with You. God's will be
done in all matters, but certainly in these matters we talk about.
Now, I'm used to, and you people know what I'm used to in the
past, preaching long, hard sermons, intricate, messages, but I can't
do that anymore. I don't have that anymore. I
don't have that ability to concentrate and think like I used to. My
mind don't work like it used to. But we got a good brother
coming up here that's able to articulate these matters, and
we're thankful to God. But we'll be used as long as
God permits, whenever He allows. We use whatever way we can. May
the Lord bless you. And Mitch, if you would.