I do thank God that He included
me. Turn with me, if you will, to
Psalm 119. Psalm 119. Thirty years ago, I was preaching
in a Bible conference over in Appomattox, Virginia. I was just
24, 25 years old. and studying, trying to prepare
to preach. Brother Henry Mahan came by my
room, and he knew I was somewhat concerned to preach to a bunch
of preachers. I was just a young man. And he
chatted a little while, and he said, Brother Fortner, forget
about those preachers and theologians out there. You can't teach them
anything. Don't try. Find you somebody sitting out
in that congregation. In your mind's eye, it looks
like they've been digging ditches for 20 years, and their hearts
are heavy, and their souls are hungry, and they're broken, humbled,
and in great need. And preach to them. If the preachers
want to get anything, they can. And so that was great help. The
next time I was scheduled to preach, a day or two later, he
came by and we had a similar conversation. He got ready to
leave and he said, Brother Don, when you preach to us, find something
you need. Something in that book that speaks
to your own heart. If you need it, chances are pretty
good somebody else out there needs it. But if you don't need
it, if it doesn't speak to you, nobody else needs it and it won't
speak to anybody else. Well, I found something that
I need and it has spoken to me. I pray God will speak to you
by it. Psalm 119 verse 18, Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things
out of thy law. Now the word law, as it is used
in this passage, refers to the whole word of God. As we read
the book of God, as I endeavor to study this book, as you come
to hear the word preached to you, Let this be our continual
prayer. Open thou mine eyes, that I may
behold wondrous things out of thy word. Now there are certain
specific things revealed in the scriptures that we're called
upon to behold, to look at with astonishment, being amazed, to
look at with confident faith and reverence, to stand in wonder
at, to behold with deep gratitude and exulting praise. I want to
show you six of them this morning. I don't have anything new at
all to declare to you. I want to call on you to behold
these six wonders of our God. Let's begin in John chapter one.
John chapter 1. John the Baptist has been preaching,
preaching the kingdom of God, preparing the way of the Lord.
He is that Elijah who must first come, according to the prophecy
of Malachi, to open the way, to prepare the way for the Messiah. And he has been telling the people
around him about one who's coming. who is before him, who's preferred
before him, who's shoelatched, he's not worthy to unloose. And
one day he looked up and saw his cousin coming across the
hills. And he said in verse 29, there he is. Behold the Lamb
of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Oh, how I want
to behold Him. How I want you who hear me to
behold the Lamb of God. As you hear the Word of God this
day, as you hear this man's voice, may God call you to hear His
Word and to hear His voice. And hear this Word specifically,
behold the Lamb of God. as the sin-atoning sacrifice
of God himself. Behold the Lamb of God who bore
our sins, bore our sins in his own body on the tree, and bore
them away forever. Some of you here are yet without
Christ, dead in trespasses and sins, without life, without faith
before God. It may be that a sense of guilt
terrifies your soul. It may be that the weight of
guilt before God's holy law is crushing you down to hell itself. And you feel utterly helpless.
As helpless as you are miserable, you're at your wit's end. And
you think to yourself, I just can't go on like this. I hope
there's somebody in just that position. Brother Don, I feel like I'm
in hell. You ought to be. You ought to
be. And I have hope for folks who
feel like they're in hell and they can't go on anymore, who
are guilty, who've been made no something of their depravity.
their corruption, their helplessness. You say, well, you're not talking
to me. Well, if I'm not, I'm not. But
I hope I'm talking to you. Behold the Lamb of God. Look away to Jesus Christ, the
Son of God. There's life for a look at the
crucified one. Faith in Christ is described
in so many blessed ways in the scripture. Faith is described
as coming to Christ. Faith is described as walking
with Christ. Faith is described as believing
on Christ. Faith is described as leaning
on Christ. Faith is described as touching
Christ. Faith is described as laying
hold of Christ. But faith in its essence is looking
to Christ. Looking to Christ. A blind man
can look, he might not conceive, but he can look. Look. Look away to Christ. The children
of Israel, as they sinned against God, were bitten of fiery serpents
in the wilderness, and they were perishing under the wrath of
God, justly perishing because they believed not God. And God
commanded Moses to make a serpent of brass, a serpent in the image
of those serpents who had destroyed the children of Israel. And he
said, lift it up on a pole, and it shall come to pass that everyone
who looks on that serpent shall be healed. And Moses made the
serpent and held it up. And he said, look! God said,
look! Look, and you'll live. And sinners,
laying out in the desert, perishing, burning with fever, convulsing
with pain, in their last gasp of breath, look away to that
brazen serpent. But they weren't looking at that
serpent of brass. They were looking at what it represented. Christ,
the Lamb of God, made to be sin for us, who is lifted up upon
the cursed tree, suffering the wrath of God in our stead. Now
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son
of Man must be lifted up. And it shall be so, that whosoever
looketh on Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. This
is what He says. Look unto Me, and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth, for I am God. And there is none else. Look to Christ and life is yours. Look to Christ and life is yours. I know lots of times preachers
meaning well said all kinds of things between the sinner and
the Savior. And they tell you, you must know
this, or you must feel that, or you must experience the other.
Hear me, sinner. As a sinner, with nothing to
offer God, as a sinner, in your hopeless, helpless desperation,
in your emptiness, look to Christ. Look to Christ. And He says,
look unto Me and be you saved. That's His promise. That's His
promise. Look and salvation is yours.
Believe and you have everlasting life. Lay hold on the Son of
God and eternal life is yours. My message is the same to you
who are born of God. To you who are already the heirs
of eternal life. Whatever your soul's trouble
is, whatever your present need is, whatever your heart craves,
whatever your present condition is, this is what you need to
do this hour. Behold the Lamb of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Lamb God provided. Abraham said to his son, my son,
God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. Christ
is that lamb. Christ is the lamb God sacrificed
for us in our room and in our stead. He is the Passover lamb
whose blood the Lord God looks upon, has looked upon from eternity,
and looks upon to this day. Christ is the lamb that God has
accepted, the sacrifice already accepted in heaven. And Christ
is the Lamb who is Himself God. He is that Lamb who is God incarnate. That means that He is a Lamb
of infinite merit, infinite value, infinite efficacy, so that He
is a Lamb able indeed to take away the sin of all His people
scattered through all the world. Behold then the Lamb of God and
worship God. You won't worship Him any other
way. Behold the Lamb of God and be
amazed. Stand in awe. wonder before Him. Behold the Lamb of God and be
ravished with His mercy, His love and His grace. Behold the
Lamb of God and find inspiration to cause your heart to be devoted
continually to Him, the inspiration to consecrate yourself to this
One who loved me and gave Himself for me. Behold the Lamb of God
and be broken. Blessed are they that mourn,
for they shall be comforted. God looks to the broken and contrite
heart. And God Almighty has mercy on
the contrite ones. A broken and contrite heart,
O God, thou will not despise. Our hearts need continually to
be broken. Broken. God uses broken things. He won't use anything else. Just
broken things. And the brokenness I'm talking
about is not a brokenness because of providential circumstances. It's not the brokenness of one
in bereavement. It's not the brokenness of one
who's lonely. It's not the brokenness of one
who's going through a time of homesickness. None of those things. This is brokenness before the
Lamb of God. They shall look on me whom they
have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth
for his only son. Look on the Lamb of God, and
may God break your heart as you consider Him, and what He endured
and suffered in your room instead, that you might have life forever
before God. Behold the Lamb of God, and be
revived, renewed, ravished in your soul. Behold the Lamb of
God in all the book. This book. is all about Christ. It's all about Him. How can I state this clearly? So that you understand,
this is not just a book that reveals Christ. Christ is the
revelation in this book. This is not just a book that
has Christ in it. Christ is that of whom, of which
the book speaks. He is the living word of whom
the written word speaks. Our Lord said, search the scriptures.
They testify of me. All of them do. All of them do.
This is not a book about morality. It is not a book about history.
It's not a book about church dogma. It's not a book about
religious order. It is a book about Christ in
its entirety. And no portion of this book is
understood rightly until we understand this book to be revealing Jesus
Christ and Him crucified in its entirety. I'm getting so weary,
so very, very weary. of being wrangling and fussing
and fighting about church order and church ordinances and church
doctrine and church dogma and fussing about how you say the
right thing or don't say the right thing. I'm weary of it. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of it.
This book is about God's darling son. Salvation is not in a system
of doctrine. It's in a person. Salvation is
not in what you believe, but whom you believe. Do you understand
the difference? Salvation is not facts, it's
faith in the Son of God. I think all hell must hoot with
laughter as they listen to preachers stand up before eternity bound
sinners and fuss about the way another preacher says something. Truth is vital, but truth is
a person. And truth separated from a person
is as useless as error. And you can sure separate truth
from the person. I like sound doctrine. You understand
that. Proclaim it all the time. But
I'm not in love with doctrine or any system of doctrine. I'm
in love with the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for
me. I don't believe in election. I believe in Christ. And because
I believe in Christ, I rejoice that election is so. There's
a huge difference. I don't believe in predestination. I believe predestination, but
I rejoice in Christ and believe in Christ who predestined all
things. There's a huge difference. Salvation
is in a person. This book's all about a person.
Let me tell you something else about this person. Turn over
to Lamentations chapter 1. And if we ever have our hearts
enwrapped in this thing, we won't be terribly inclined
to wrangle about other things. Lamentations 1, verse 12. Let's
listen and hear the Lamb of God Himself as He speaks. and calls
for us to behold with reverence his sufferings and his sorrows
as our substitute. Is it nothing to you, all ye
that pass by? Behold and see if there be any
sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the
Lord hath afflicted me. In the day of his fierce anger,
look, my soul, upon the Lamb of God, hanging upon the curse
tree, suffering all the horrid, ignominious wrath of God Almighty,
as He is made to be sin for me, bearing my sin in His own body
on the curse tree. and stand amazed. Is it nothing to you? Is it nothing
to you? The hymn writer put it this way,
yonder amazing sight I see the incarnate Son of God expiring
on the accursed tree and weltering in his blood. Behold the purple
torrent run down from his hands and head. The crimson tide puts
out the sun as groans awake the dead. The trembling earth, the
darkened sky proclaim the truth aloud and with the amazing cheering
cry, this is the Son of God. so great, so vast a sacrifice,
may well my hope revive, if God's own Son thus bleeds and dies,
the sinner sure may live. Oh, that these chords of love
divine might draw me, Lord, to Thee. Thou hast my heart, it
shall be Thine, Thine it shall ever be. Is it nothing to you? All ye that pass by, behold and
see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow. Let's see what
the source of his sorrow was. He says, it is sorrow wherewith
the Lord God hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
Turn to Isaiah chapter 53. We read in verse 9, he made his
grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, because
he had done no violence, neither was any deceit found in his mouth,
yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. Christ did not die as the
helpless victim of circumstances. He did not die because God couldn't
do any better. He died according to the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God, according to the purpose
of God, and by the hand of God. It was the Lord God who bruised
him, because he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
God the Father laid on him the iniquity of us all. No one else
could do it. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong
his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his
hand. Why did he endure such sorrows? He endured all the agony
of hell that he might redeem unto himself
a peculiar people. He endured all the agony of hell
for me. that He might make me to be the
righteousness of God in Him. He endured all the agony of God's
horrid wrath, all the agony of God's offended justice, all the
agony of God's fierce anger. In the day of His fierce anger,
He says, God put the sorrow on me. He endured all of this to
the full satisfaction of justice for every sinner who looks to
Him. who believes on Him. Believe
on the Son of God and be assured that the agony He endured, the
death He died, the satisfaction He made, the atonement He accomplished,
the redemption He obtained is yours. It's declared so in the
book of God. A preacher, how can I know He
did this for me? Believe Him. Believe Him. Now
I have a little secret insight to this. I saw Shelby bringing
the water out here today. And being as how it's been her
habit for years to do so, I presume she put it there for me. But
nobody told me it was there for me. I'm just thirsty. It was sure enough for me. It
was sure enough. I know it was. Because I took
it. And it's mine. And it's quenched my thirst.
And I'm telling you. Christ is here presented in the
gospel of God's grace to sinners. Sinners everywhere. Sinners in
every condition. Sinners in every circumstance.
And this is the declaration of the gospel. He that believeth
on the Son of God hath everlasting life. If you can believe Him,
He died for you. If you can lay hold of Him, He
will redeem you. If you can, by His grace, look
to Him. He died to save your soul, and
save you He shall. Now, turn if you will to 1 John
3. It is in consideration of all these
things that the Apostle John calls us with deep gratitude
and joy and exalting confidence and praise to behold the love
of God for his elect in Christ. Behold what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the
sons of God. How can I talk to you about the
love of Christ that passes knowledge? Oh, I want to know the indescribable
length of His eternal love, the breadth of His everlasting love. the depth of His love that reaches
to the deepest things of God and reaches to the deepest depths
of man's depravity and the height of His love that lifts me up
to heaven's everlasting glory by the sacrifice of Christ. I
want you to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge
to. But how can I describe it? Could we with ink the oceans
fill? And were the skies of parchment
made, were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe
by trade? To write the love of God above
would drain the oceans dry. Nor could the scroll contain
the whole, though stretched from sky to sky. But God commendeth
His love toward us." Maybe that's the best way to
describe it. is by its commendation. Remember
our Lord's words, for God so loved the world. So. What a word. How did he love
the world? He so loved the world. How much? So. So. For God so loved the world, yes,
indeed, the world of his elect, a world of lost sinners, yes.
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting
life. He commendeth his love toward
us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Hereby perceive we the love of
God, because he laid down his life for us. This much I can
tell you about God's love. It is sovereign and free. He says, I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. It's His to give to whom He will.
And it's free. He says, I will love them freely. Without cause or condition. God's
love for His own is eternal love. everlasting love. He said, I
have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn thee. His love for his own is a sacrificial
saving love. Now people today talk about the
love of God as though his love is some kind of a helpless frustrated
passion in the heart of God and wasted on multitudes who perish. Nonsense. Those who are loved
of God are saved by God. His love is saving love. If I
talk to you about loving my grandson, and he gets out here as he'd
want to do and does what he wants to. He's kind of stubborn sometimes. He gets that from his daddy's
side of the family, I guess. But he, you can say no to him,
he'll act like he didn't hear you. And you know good and well
he did hear you. But if there's a truck coming up the road, he
doesn't see it. Just flying up the road. And he decides to take
off down there on his tricycle, on his four-wheeler. And I said,
Will, don't do that, son. Will, don't do that. Will, now
don't do that. And he said, why don't you grab
that boy and get him out of the way? And I said to you, well,
I just love him too much to interfere with his will. You check me into
the funny farm. You see, that man popped the
cork. He's lost his mind. And yet preachers tell us that
about God's love all the time. God loves you so much, he won't
interfere with your will. God loves you, but he's a gentleman.
He won't make you do anything you don't want to do. What nonsense. What stupidity. That kind of love is no love
at all. Love saves. God's love, everlasting love,
pitched on us from eternity, saves his own. And that love
is immutable, indestructible love. Ron, he loved us before
we had any being. And it didn't change our mind
when we came into being. And it didn't change his mind
when we went forth in our father Adam speaking lies. And it didn't
change his mind when we came forth from our mother's womb
speaking lies. And it didn't change his mind
when we lived in rebellion against him all the days of our lives.
And when he called us by his grace, it was because the time
of love had come. And though we harden our hearts
against his goodness, his mercy, and love, that we are insensible, utterly
insensible to his love so much of the time. His love hasn't
changed at all and can't be destroyed. It's called free love, unconditional
love. I know sweet-talking therapists
like to talk about unconditional love. You ain't never known such
a thing, not from a human being. No such thing exists. Not even
the love of a mother for her child or the father for his son. Not the love of a woman for a
man or a man for a woman. Oh, but the love of God for this
sinner is absolutely unconditional love. Absolutely free. Absolutely. Now, come back to
Psalm 121. And behold this great fact. The
Lord God Almighty, all that He is, in the totality of His being,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is our ever vigilant keeper. Look at this. The psalmist says, I will lift
up mine eyes unto the hills, the everlasting hills, from which
cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord
nowhere else, which made heaven and earth. He who is the creator,
the sustainer, the upholder, and the ruler of all things,
he's the one to whom I look for help. He will not suffer thy
foot to be moved. Now watch this. He that keepeth
thee. He that keepeth thee. Like a
guard keeps watch. Like a loyal soldier keeps his
post. Like a safe keeps your money. Like a bodyguard keeps the one
he protects. He that keepeth thee. He that He will not slumber. He'll never take a nap. He'll
never be caught nodding off. He will not slumber. Now watch
this. Behold, he that keepeth Israel, what a name for God.
He who is the keeper of Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. He's ever vigilant. ever keeping,
ever protecting his own. The Lord is thy keeper. He is thy shade upon thy right
hand. But what does that mean? It means
the sun shall not smite thee by day. You mean the sun's not
going to shine on you? That's not what it says. It's
talking about trouble. and heartache, and danger, that which comes
in the daytime, the day of adversity, the day of affliction, the day
of trial, the day of trouble, the sun, whatever it brings,
will never hurt you, nor the moon. The darkness of night. the lonely
hours of the night, the night of weeping, the night of heartache,
the moon shall not hurt you. No, no. How come? The Lord shall
preserve thee from, look at this, all evil. What did our Lord promise? There shall no evil happen to
the just. No such thing. No such thing. Well, Shimei cussed David. That
was an evil thing, wasn't it? It was for Shimei. It's a blessing
for David. That's right. There shall no
evil happen to the just. No evil. Well, Saul persecuted
David. That's a horrible thing. It was
for Saul. It's good for David. There shall no evil happen to
the just. But look at all the evil things in this world. Surely
you can't say that those things are good. No. No. But they're
good for me. Good for me. He shall keep thee
from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. That's talking about your spiritual
life. No, no. That's talking about
the totality of your being. He shall preserve thy soul. The
Lord shall preserve thy going out. Going out where? Anywhere. And by coming in, coming in where?
Anywhere. From this time forth and even
forever more. Lift up your eyes to Zion's everlasting
hills. Look unto thee and be you saved.
All the ends of the earth. And this is God's declaration.
He that keepeth thee shall neither slumber nor sleep. He shall preserve
thee. He shall keep thee from all evil. The sun will never smite you
by day. The moon will never smite you
by night. When you go out, the Lord's with
you. And when you come in, the Lord's
with you. He is our ever vigilant keeper. Now, turn to Revelation 21. And here the Son of God, our
Savior, declared another wondrous thing revealed in His Word. Revelation 21, verse 5. And He that sat upon the throne
said, Behold, I make all things new. He's done it for us in His grace. If any man's in Christ, he's
a new creature. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things
have become new. And He's going to do it for us
in glory. Make all things new. A new heaven. A new earth wherein
dwelleth righteousness. Give you a new name and a new
city. Make all things new. All things. But can you be sure about that?
He said unto me, right, for these words are true and faithful. John said in verse 1, I saw a
new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and first earth
were passed away and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw
the holy city at New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great
voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with
men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people,
and God himself shall be with them, and be their God, and God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be
no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there
be any more pain. How can that be? For the former
things. are passed away. And behold,
I make all things new. I'll assume all things temporal
shall be done, and all things eternal be God. Soon all sin
and all the consequences of sin shall be removed from us who
believe God forever, the former things, past one. Because He makes everything new,
everything new. And when I think about that glory
awaiting us, My very heart and soul cries out, How long, O Lord,
how long? And then I turn to chapter 22
of the book of Revelation. And my heart is reminded that
our hope, this glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior,
this making of all things new, is coming very quickly. Three
times in this chapter, our Lord says, I come quickly. Verse 7,
verse 13, verse 20. Look up verse 1. Revelation 22. He showed me a pure river of
the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne
of God and of the Lamb. Now, that's not talking about
something literal. I suspect maybe He's talking
about Christ himself. From whom all life flows continually. In the midst of the street of
it, on either side of it, there was a tree of life. Tree of life. I know this. Talk about Christ.
Which had twelve banner of fruits and yielded her fruit every month.
And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
The fruit of this tree, that which Christ has done, is for
the healing of the nations. His elect through all the world.
And there shall be no more curse. Not a trace of it. Not a trace of it. Not a trace. Not a trace of that which fell
on Adam in the garden and falls on the sons of men through time
and falls on the dead in hell forever. No more curse. But the
throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall
serve Him, and they shall see His face, and His name shall
be in their foreheads, and there shall be no night there, no darkness. They need no candle, neither
light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and they
shall reign forever and ever." And he said to me, these sayings
are faithful and true. Behold, verse 7, I come quickly. I come quickly. Verse 12. Behold,
I come quickly, my reward is with me. To give to every man
according to his works shall be. He's talking about rewarding
every man with his reward according to our works. What's he talking
about? He shall come and come quickly
to give us that which we have earned and merited and obtained
in Him who is our substitute. For God Almighty has taken His
righteousness and made it to be ours. Look at chapter 22 verse
17. And the Spirit and the bride
say, Come. And let him that hear it say, Come. And let him that
is athirst come. And whosoever will. I reckon that includes just about
anybody who wants to come, don't you think? Whosoever will. Oh, you can't say that, you've
got to explain that. You explain it, you explain it
away. Whosoever will. Let him come and take of the
water of life freely. For I testify to every man that
heareth the words of the prophecy of this book. If any man shall
add unto these things, God shall add to him the plagues that are
written in this book. And if any man shall take away
from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take
away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city
and from the things that are written in this book. And he
which testifieth these things saith surely, I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Now, the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ be with you all. Amen.