And I have three verses that
I want to read for a text this morning. And my message this
morning is on the subject, Three Precious Things. Three Precious
Things. I invite you to look at verse
7 of 1 Peter chapter 2, where it says, Unto you therefore which
believe, he is precious. But unto them which be disobedient,
the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made
the head of the corner. Now turn with me, if you will,
to the book of 2 Peter chapter 1, and I want us to look at verse
4. I'm going to read the text in
the very manner in which I intend to present these precious things
to you this morning in the order that I intend to present them.
Verse 4, whereby are given unto us, 2 Peter chapter 1, whereby
are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises. that by these ye might be partakers
of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is
in the world through lust. And then notice verse 1. This
is the third one. Simon Peter, a servant and an
apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious
faith with us, through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. And so we have three precious
things. First of all, a person. Secondly,
a promise, the exceeding great and precious promises of the
Word of God. And thirdly, we have the like,
precious, or equal faith as God's elect that we want to talk about
this morning. Now then, this morning, let me
begin by saying that these three precious things, when put together,
Or we might say, when these three jewels are strung on a string,
they present to us a treasure of priceless things which is
unparalleled. Now in the book of Deuteronomy
chapter 33, and I'd like for you to hold your finger here
in our text in Peter and turn back to the chapter that our
brother read to us this morning. We see here when Moses was about
to die that he pronounced a blessing upon all the tribes of Israel.
But the blessing which he allotted to the tribe of Joseph was remarkable
because it contained in it an extraordinary collection of precious
things. And I'd just like to contrast
these things that Moses blessed the tribe of Joseph with and
the blessings which God has given us in these three priceless things
that we've read about out of the book of 1 and 2 Peter. Here
in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 33 beginning with verse 13, and
of Joseph he said, Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the
precious things of heaven, for the dew and for the deep that
coucheth beneath, and for the precious fruits, brought forth
by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon,
and for the cheap things of the ancient mountains, and for the
precious things of the lasting hills, and for the precious things
of the earth, and fullness thereof, and for the good will of him
that dwelt in the bush. Let the blessing come upon the
head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was
separated from his brethren. Now then, this blessing, large
as it is, were it not for that part which speaks of the good
will of him that dwelt in the bush, let me say that if it were
not for that part of it, it would fall far short of our three texts
which we are about to consider this morning. No blessing in
all of that which Moses pronounced upon Joseph and upon that tribe
come anywhere near to the blessings which we have presented to us
this morning in our text. Now the blessing here called
by Moses, precious, were after all only temporal mercies. Now, the dews exhale from the
channels of water under the earth, but we know that one day all
of those channels will be dried up. The precious fruits brought
forth by the sun, they'll wither, they'll wither. The precious
fruit that's ripened by the moon will rot. There are no chief
metals, as it were, in the ancient mountains, whether they be silver
or whether they be gold, that are eternal. all of them are
temporal, or that these things can never enrich a spiritual
being. There are no precious things
of the lasting hills, though they be copper and iron. These
things may be precious in some science and in some employment
of men, But they'll perish with the using. They'll perish with
the using. As for the precious things of
the earth, are they not earthly? Are they not earthy? Is it not
vanity, these things that Moses blessed the tribe of Joseph with? Were it not for the blessing
of the goodwill of him that dwelt in the bush. Now we know who
dwelt in the burning bush. It was the Son of God, the Lord
Jesus Christ. It was Jehovah God. Oh for the
blessing of him that dwelt in the bush. in the bush. That's
to be sought after, no question about that. Do we not want the
blessing of the greatest blesser that ever was? The greatest blesser
is God Almighty and we desire that eternal blessing with which
He can bless His people. Now then, we see that all these
other things that Moses gave or blessed the tribe of Joseph
with can never contain a blessing that would satisfy an immortal
spirit or give bliss to a spiritual man. They wouldn't be a blessing
to a spiritual man. So today, brother and sister,
we have a string of things that's more precious in these texts
than Moses strung together. This is my point for the tribe
of Joseph and his benediction. We have here three precious things
which will outlast the sun, which will outlast the moon, which
will outlast the stars. They're all heavenly, they're
spiritual, soul-filling, satisfying things when we get the grasp
of them in our hearts. Precious things, which if a man
has them, they'll make him rich, and it'll add no sorrow unto
his life. Now these three things bear,
I believe, a certain relation to one another, which will help
us to remember them, and we'll point that out as we go along. First of all, then, we begin
with a costly or priceless person. We have here a precious person,
that is, Jesus Christ our Lord is in Himself to believers most
precious. Oh, that we had the power to
speak! of His preciousness as it ought to be spoken of, the
preciousness of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now if you
had an angel this morning to speak to you, he could not tell
out all of his worth. Make no difference how loose
his tongue were, he would not be able to tell out all of the
worth of this priceless One, the Lord Jesus Christ. Well,
let us attempt. Let us make whatever attempt
that we can make. I came here this morning vowing
before God to make whatever attempt I could to tell out the preciousness
of my Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, He that loved my soul
out of the pit, He that brought me back from spiritual death,
raised me out of the spiritual grave, and put within me the
life of God. I came here this morning vowed
to attempt to exalt Him and to glorify His name. First of all,
let me say that the Lord Jesus is essentially precious. He possesses
an intrinsic worth belonging to His nature, belonging to who
He is. We worship Him as God. We worship the Lord Jesus Christ
as God. We believe Him to be very God
of very God. And though most assuredly he
is man, and in that respect bone of our bone and flesh of our
flesh, he's our brother, born for adversity, yet is he co-equal
and co-eternal with the Heavenly Father. So you see, we can never
too reverently speak of Him, nor set too high of a value upon
Him. He must be precious, who is infinite
God. He must be precious, who is infinite
God. Being, however, God in man, He
becomes remarkably precious to us in His complex nature. He is precious because he came
into this world with no corruption, and he lived out his life in
this world without committing a transgression. He's immaculate,
yet he took upon himself, the Bible says in the book of Philippians
chapter 2, the form of a servant, and was found in fashion as a
man. He became obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross. And viewing him like this, Viewing
Him as He became man, as He was God incarnate, become man, took
upon Himself the veil of our inferior clay. Viewing Him as
being bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, one of us if you
please. Viewing Him as this. We see the
connecting link between our sinful, groveling condition and the holiness
and the righteousness of the Most High God. There is a connecting
link, you see, because He's God and man. We see that He is precious
because He is our mediator. There is only one, you see. There
is only one mediator between God and man. There is only one
who can touch you and receive you, and at the same time reach
up and touch a Christ holy God and connect you to the living
God. Only one can do that. There is
only one who can speak to God on your behalf. There is only
one who can intercede for you on your behalf before God. God
Almighty will neither speak nor be spoken to apart from this
Mediator. There is one Mediator and He
is precious because of who He is. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ
He's in the presence of God now, carrying on this intercessory
work. Now when we see him, how by God's
coming down to man, man goes up to God through his mediator
and his intercessory. Emmanuel, God with us, becomes
our peace and brings us nigh to God, though we were at one
time far off. Yes, there was a time when God
was angry with us. The Bible says God is angry with
the wicked every day. There was a time when we were
estranged from God. There was a time when we could
not approach God. There was a time when we could
not pray. We could not be heard by the God of heaven. But Jesus
came down and we, by His grace, go up unto God through His work,
and therefore He is precious because of His mediatorship.
Now to every sinner who feels his sin, Christ is precious. And to you that believe, He is
precious. And to any sinner, anybody who's
ever been made to feel their load of guilt, their load of
sin, anybody who's ever been bowed down under heavy conviction
of what they are before God and who they are, listen to me, the
Lord Jesus becomes precious unto that soul because you see, there's
really no way. Now the philosophers and the
psychiatrists can talk to you and talk to you and talk to you.
They can get you on the couch and they can tell you various
and sundry things that might somehow or other relieve your
situation temporarily here in this world. But I'm here to tell
you this morning there is no way No way to escape the wrath
of God. No way to have the conviction
and guilt of your sin lifted off your poor soul except through
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. And so I say
to every sinner who feels his sin, Christ is precious. Now to every child of God who
is saved, the Savior must forever be fairest among the fair. To every heir of heaven who has
experienced the sweetness of His saving grace, Christ must
appear to be the chief among ten thousand and the altogether
lovely one. Is that not true? Amen, it's
true. May God enable us to get into
this. And may our hearts embrace again this morning this precious,
costly person. Now brother, sister, Christ is
so precious that He cannot be bought. He cannot be bought. If a man should give all the
substance of his house, to purchase an interest in the Lord Jesus
Christ, it would be utterly contemned, rejected, disdained, and scorned
if he were to give all the substance of his house, saying, I just
want an interest in the Lord Jesus Christ. Get all the rich
men in the world and let them pool all of their wealth. They
couldn't buy an interest in Christ for one of them. Not for one
of them. If they had the wealth of the
world to attempt to buy Christ, they could not buy Him. Now,
beloved, let me say that He gives Himself away freely according
to the riches of His grace, but He is utterly unpurchasable. He is not that glorious that
He gives Himself away. He gave Himself to me. He gave
Himself. I stand here before you this
morning and tell you that He gives Himself away freely, but
He cannot be purchased. He cannot be bought next. He cannot even be priced. He
cannot be priced. He is infinite, and shall a finite
mind tell us of His worth? Where is the man that can tell
us of His worth? Now listen to me. His value cannot
be comprehended. It cannot be comprehended because
the Bible says he's God's unspeakable gift. If a man had to wade, hear
me now, if a man had to wade hip-deep through a thousand hells
to get to the Lord Jesus Christ and to get an interest in Him,
it would be well worth the venture if he ever come to the place
where he could say, my beloved is mine and I'm his. I'll tell you, Christ is priceless. Next, Jesus is precious because
there is none like Him. As Samuel Rutherford would say,
black sun, black moon, black stars, but oh bright, infinitely
bright, Lord Jesus. That's what He would say about
this one. He is the express image of His
Father's person, and He is the brightness of the Father's glory. Oh, my friend, don't go around,
keep looking around, and saying, I'd just like to see the image
of the Father's person. Oh, if I could see the brightness
of the Father's glory, what a wonderful blessing it would be. Look to
Christ. Look to Christ. Oh, the Bible says in the book
of Psalms that they looked unto Him, they looked unto Him, and
they were lightened. And beloved, if you look to Christ,
you'll see the brightness of the Father's glory. The fairest
of the fair are unkindly and deformed when compared with the
Lord Jesus Christ. If you ramsack time and space,
you'll find none. that are like unto Him. Miss
Him as your Savior and you have lost the only salvation that
is possible. Acts chapter 4 and verse 12 says,
Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none
other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be
saved. None other name, for He is made
of God unto you. Now listen to me, if you get
into Him, You'll want no other. You'll want no other. There's
none to be compared with Him. And there's no name under heaven
given among men whereby we must be saved. And if you get into
Him, get into Christ, then you'll want no other. For He is made
of God unto you wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. He Himself is the All in all. Let me say 1 Corinthians 1.30
is where I get this. If you search eternity and ransack
immensity, there shall never be found one fit to even stand
in second place to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is so precious. Again, precious He is to us because
He cannot be lost. He cannot be lost. Now, beloved,
all precious things in this world are losable. Are they not? All precious things. We talked
about the water drying up under the earth. We talked about the
silver and the gold and the iron and the copper and how all these
things perish with the using. Someday it will be gone. But
listen to me, beloved. All precious things in this world
are losable. The jewels stolen, the house
broken into by the thief, the safe taken away. But hear me
out now this morning. Hear me out this morning. This
is a blessing to me. The jewels, as we said, can be
stolen. But Christ, he is such a jewel
that even Satan himself can never rob the soul of him when once
he, Christ, has that soul. Once Christ has that soul, and
that soul is in possession of this jewel, he can never be robbed. Now I rejoice more and more in
this truth every day I live. Because the longer I live, the
better I know myself. And the more I know about things
that are of great value, the more I can discern between what
is valuable and what is not. And I rejoice more and more in
this truth. Let Jesus Christ be once mine
as the gift of God, and I am safe forevermore, eternally safe
in the arms and the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gifts
and callings of God are without repentance. The Lord does not
begin a work that he cannot finish. Any work he begins, he always
finishes. He that has begun a good work
in you will perform it until the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 1 and verse 6. The
Lord never repents of what he has done. He never takes back
a blessing which he has once bestowed. Christ is a priceless
and precious jewel since He cannot be lost. I'm hurrying because
I want to be able to deal with all these things. I'm taken up
with this and I can't get away very quickly from this precious
person. This precious person. You see, beloved, without this
precious person in my life, it wouldn't make any difference
who else was in it. It wouldn't make any difference. I'm here
to tell you the only hope this center has This side of heaven
and hell is Christ and the only one I've got that I really feel
liberty and that I can really, in my soul and heart, really
feel liberty to talk about to you is the Lord Jesus Christ. Now is not the Lord Jesus Christ
precious because of the service which He renders to us? Here,
I will be brief, I'll try my best to be brief, and give you
just a bare outline of what I'm talking about. The Lord Jesus
is precious because of the service which He renders to us. Now,
there are four precious things that Jesus is to me as a believer. And remember the text that he
is precious to those that believe. There are four things quickly
that I want to give you that he gives or that he is to a believer. First of all is life. Life. Life. You know there's a difference
between being alive and dead. You know that, don't you? Well,
the only people that are alive spiritually are the people in
whom this Jesus dwells. Listen to the Word of God. In
Him was life, and the life was the light of men. As the Father
raises up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son makes alive
whom He will. Jesus said, I'm the resurrection
and the life. Now Jesus is the bread of life
and He's the water of life to those who live unto God, those
whom the Spirit of God has come into. Now life and food that
sustains life are among the most precious things that man can
possess in this world, and these are stored up for your souls
in heaven. Christ, Jesus. You've got to
learn how to talk all over when you have less teeth or more teeth. And so don't anybody get panicking
thinking the preacher's lost or anything, but I'm just doing
the best I can with what I've got. And I intend to do that
as long as the Lord allows. And so we see then that life,
Jesus has given it, and that He's the bread and He's the water
of life, and the Lord Jesus Christ sustains our life. And these
things are precious. If you have life and you have
food and you have all that you need to sustain life, my friend,
you've been greatly blessed. Well, those that are saved, Christ
is precious to them because He is both life and the food that
preserves and sustains that life. Number two, light. Light. The Lord Jesus is light to our
poor souls. Oh, did you ever read about the
darkness in Egypt? When God was sending the plagues,
three days of thick darkness was over all the land. Even a
darkness that may be felt, it said. It could be felt, this
darkness. Oh, do you suppose light was
something that they would have treasured in that day? Paul and
those on that ship, you remember, they went for three days and
nights and neither sun nor moon nor stars appeared. And they
were on the waters and drifting. They couldn't see anything. Total
and absolute darkness. Oh, for light! Light! How precious
it would be to you if you were in one of those dungeons in old
Venice. Deep down, even under the level
of the water, winding passages down into the earth, not a ray
of light could ever reach the prisoners. They sat in total
darkness, not even able to see their hand in front of their
face. And Solomon says, the light is
sweet, and it's a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun.
You remember there, I remember, let me say it this way, one passed
away here a while back, a few years ago, and the day he was
dying, I remember a nurse coming into his room, and the sun was
shining brightly through the window blinds, very brightly. And she closed the blinds to
keep the light from shining into the room. And he said, open it,
open it, open it, because you see the darkness of death was
setting in upon his very life. And all to see the sunshine going
into a place where the sun would never see it again, never forever. Oh, the light, the light. That's
what Solomon means. The light is sweet and a pleasant
thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. Now the soul of a man
has no light. He has no true light, no heavenly
light, but what the Lord Jesus Christ brings. Christ must bring
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. in his own
face in order for a man or woman to have light in their soul.
It's in his own face that light is. He made the light, the scripture
says, and he flipped the switch on in our souls. Did he not do
this? He is precious because he made
the light and flipped the switch and turned it on. There was a
time when I was in total absolute darkness as to my soul, having
no hope without God in this world. But God flicked the switch, turned
on the light. Has He not given us to rejoice
in the light of His countenance? Yes, He is precious because He
raises the dead and because He gives us light. Now the third
thing that our Lord Jesus is to believers that makes Him so
precious to us is, and that is His love. This is the next precious
thing which Jesus brings into the life of a child of God. Romans
5 and verse 5 tells us that the love of God is shed abroad in
our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. The love
of God is shed abroad in our hearts. Now some think that love
is unimportant, but I think that those who are as they should
be count love to be the dearest of treasures. Love, I say. I'd rather be loved by God Almighty
and my fellow believers than to have a pyramid of treasures
in Egypt. Now that's the way I feel about
it. We were talking about this, my daughter Susan and I, here
some time back and I told her that that's the way I felt about
it. That I'd rather be loved by God
Almighty and my fellow believers than to own a pyramid of treasure
in Egypt. He is a rich man who has somebody
to love him. He is a rich man who has a loving
spouse and affectionate children, or that soul is a living, or
he is a blessing and has a blessing, who has a spouse and affectionate
children to surround him, and a select circle of true and faithful
friends. Men and women, listen to me,
die for the one of love. They do. They die for the one
of love. It is wretched, hear me, it is
wretched to isolate ourselves and to float like an iceberg
all alone, melting amid a desolate sea. It is wretched to live in
this world and to be unloved. But my friend, you know we've
said it before and we must say it again, that in this world
human love is not unconditional. We must love if we're going to
be loved in this world. Now God loves us freely. He loves us and His love is unconditional. But human love is conditional. A man, listen to me, will love
a dog He'll love a bird sooner than be loveless. I've heard
of captives and prisoners who have fallen in love, this is
true, with rats. I've heard of prisoners that
fell in love with spiders on the wall. They had to love something. They chose these to be objects
of their affections. I remember reading about one
old man who was in prison that fell in love with a flower that
was outside his window and fell in love with that flower. We
must have something to love. Oh, what well... Careful in this world, very careful. about this but the Lord Jesus
you can love him as much as you want you have one to love who
can never betray you one whom you may trust and yet never be
unwise for having told to him the secret of your very soul
he'll never leave you nor forsake you and death will only draw
you nearer to him only draw you nearer to the Lord Jesus Christ
love him He first loved you, 1 John 4, 19. Love Him with all
your might. Love Him with all of your heart.
The Lord Jesus is to be loved. And He is precious because He
loved us first. And a believer can return that
love. And Jesus is precious. Fourthly,
another precious thing we have in Christ is liberty. Liberty. Now this is wonderful. Liberty. All of this is wonderful. And
probably I should have just dedicated a whole sermon to this precious
person. But I'm hurrying and I'm moving
along. The other two precious things
will not take me quite as long as this one has. But this is
as it should be, right? This is as it should be. Okay,
precious things we have in Christ here is liberty, the fourth thing.
Liberty is a precious thing. Give me liberty or give me death. I believe Patrick Henry said
that, and that is a tremendous quote. The highest liberty hear
me, is that which emancipates the soul from sin. The Bible
says in John 8 and 36, if the Son shall set you free, you shall
be free indeed. Now that's a glorious liberty
that emancipates the soul from sin. The grandest liberty is
that which sets the heart free from fear, which leaves the soul
without a dread and enables the spirit to walk even in God's
presence without any alarm. in that wonderful grand liberty,
the liberty which delivers us from the felon's dread and bids
us demand, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth, since
Christ has died and risen again. Oh, the glorious liberty of the
children of God. the liberty to pray, the liberty
to talk with God as a man would talk with his friends, the liberty
to grasp the promise of God, the liberty, you see, to lay
hold of God and claim all of his attributes as our very own. What a liberty. Isn't that wonderful?
You know, I'm thankful to have this Almighty One for me, aren't
you? to have God for me you know Jesus
said all power is given to me in heaven and earth all power
he has all power well he's for me he's for me he's on my side
if God be for us what good would it do anybody to be against us
God is for his people and we have the liberty the liberty
somebody said where do you get off saying that God is for you
well we get off my friend when we see that Christ has been liberty
given to us, that he's given liberty to us, and that we can
lay hold of God through Christ and claim all of his attributes
for ourselves. This is what Christ has given
us. Is he not therefore precious? Is he not most precious? Well, beloved, you bear with
me now a few minutes, and I'm going now to the second promise
that we have here. Trust that we'll be able to appreciate
these next two things, and I'll be brief, very brief on these.
We have here an exceeding great and precious promise. We read
about it in 2 Peter, over here, in chapter 1 of 2 Peter. and
in verse 4, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious
promises. Very costly, precious, that's
what that word means, promises. All that the early saints of
God had before Christ came into this world was just the promise
of His appearing. Christ did not come yet, but
they had the promise in prophecy of His coming. And it was a precious
promise that said that God is going to come and that the seed
of the woman is going to bruise the head of the serpent. That
was a precious promise indeed. we are favored both with the
promise and the fulfillment of those promises which are the
Lord Jesus Christ. The fullness of the Lord is ours. The law came to Moses but grace
and truth came by the Lord Jesus Christ and of his fullness have
all we received and grace for grace. Now then the wealth of
heaven now is ours in fulfillment. the fulfillment of the promise.
But the promise was precious because it promised of Him who
is precious to our souls. Now, why are the promises precious? Further, they're precious because
they're divine. The sacred utterances of God,
that's what these promises in the Bible are. Every word is
inspired this book. I believe in the inspiration
of the Bible. I believe that every word is
to be believed. Now, beloved, if I was like some
who can do away with the inspiration of the scriptures, they never
miss a lick. They just tell you they don't
believe that the Bible is the Word of God. Well, beloved, I'd
take this Bible and burn it tomorrow morning if I didn't believe that
these are the sacred oracles of God, that these are the utterances
of God Almighty. I believe that every promise
in this Bible, I believe this Bible is inspired of God. They're precious because they're
of God. They're divine. That's why they're
precious. You ask yourself when you're
reading this book, why should I value this book? You value
it because this is the Word of God. The Bible tells us that
God is a speaking God. He's a talking God. And this
Bible is God in voice. That's what it is. And when you
read these promises, you're hearing the voice of God. It reveals
to you the mind of God. Now, again, they're precious
because no promise of God ever changes. Forever, O Lord, thy
word is settled in heaven, the scripture says. His truth endureth
to all generations. Hath he said, and shall he not
do it? Well, if God speaks, then God
is spoken. He's not going back on his word.
Hath he commanded, and shall it not stand fast? If the Lord
has commanded it, it shall stand because the word of God is as
immutable as God himself, the author of it. Now the Lord has
never yet called back a promise. He made a promise, never called
it back. Isn't that glorious? My friend, there are many, many
promises upon which we've hung our hearts. And isn't it good
to know the Lord hasn't canceled? and that he hadn't called it
back. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall
never pass away. Again, the promises are precious
because there is one to meet our every need, our every situation. It is like the old time locksmith,
he had a big ring of keys. And if you locked yourself out
or if you needed this locksmith, he'd come and he'd go through
them keys and eventually he'd find one on that big ring that
fit your lock and unlock your lock. Now the promises of the
Word of God are just like that. There's one in the Bible somewhere
to meet your need and to fit your need. You search the Scriptures
and you will find a promise which will be so aptable to you as
to appear to have been written after your trouble occurred. Is that right? It's true my friend. It's true. Just search the scriptures
and you will find the promises are indeed a great service to
us. Just let a child of God appropriate
a promise to himself and you cannot make either his heart
or his house dark. He's heard from God. God's made
a promise to him, and he's got a word in his soul that came
from the living God. The promise believed is as a
sun, S-U-N, in the soul. A song in the heart, merit to
the bones, and joy to the spirit. A promise from God. Now those
of you that have never read through the scriptures and had a scripture
made flesh to you, or a promise just leap off the page to your
heart, then you don't understand what I'm talking about. But those
of you that have believed God and believed the Word of God,
and when you read the Bible, you don't read it like you read
a newspaper. You read it to get something for your soul. And
whenever the verses leap off, the promises come to your heart,
then bless your heart, you rejoice in it. The promises of God are
precious like some of the items, keepsakes, that maybe we have
in our homes. I remember a woman one time,
she lost her little girl, she was three years old, had a brain
tumor and died. I preached at the first funeral
I ever preached in Indiana a long time ago. I was very, I was a
young fella at the time. And I remember hearing later
about how this woman would take that little girl's shoes out
of the dresser drawer and for considerable length of time afterwards,
and sat silently holding those shoes, weeping, weeping. The memories that those shoes
brought back. I've heard about an individual
who had a ring that was once worn in happier days by a loved
one, and how that after their departure from this life, they
would hold that ring, treasure it, because it was so meaningful
to them. Well, there are promises in the
Word of God that are carved on our hearts. There was a day when
God, times of personal trials, some family memory, some personal
mercy that these promises brought. There was, well, I can't talk
about these things too much because they're very personal to me.
But there's a verse in Matthew 18, 19 that says, if any two
of you agree on earth as touching any one thing, it will be done
for you by my Father which is in heaven. One time, where Susie
and I was talking here a while back about this particular occasion,
connected with our oldest son, Stephen, and how that God mightily
and marvelously worked, and through fulfillment of that verse of
scripture. Then there's another verse, Isaiah 42, 16. It says,
I will bring the blind by a way which they know not, in paths
which they have not known. I'll make the darkness light,
the crooked way straight. This will I do unto them and
not forsake them. I'm here today. I've been here 23 years since
that promise was given to me. And if it hadn't been for that
verse of scripture, I would not have been here. I would not have
been here. The church that I used to pastor
in Indiana was without a pastor for one year. They called me
to come back there in 1975. It was that verse of scripture
that kept me from going. I could not go because God said,
I'll bring the blind. I was the blind. I didn't know
what to do. But I'll bring the blind in a way which they have
not known. A way that they've never known
in past which they've not known. I'm going to bring them in another
way. I'll make the darkness light the crooked way straight. This
will I do unto them and will not forsake them. And it was
on that verse of scripture, carved into my heart, that kept me from
going back to a place I really would have liked to have went
to. But God would not allow it. God would not permit it. He had
other things for me. Now there was a poor woman, a
Christian woman, who was accustomed to make notes in her Bible, in
the margin of her Bible. And she placed a T and a P besides
the verse here and there in her Bible. And one day the preacher
noticed that she had her Bible marked up in this way, and he
asked her, he said, what does it mean? What do you mean by
having this T and this P beside some of these scriptures? And
she said it meant tried and proved. Tried and proved. For I tried
the promise on such and such a date, and found it true." And
if you'll do the same, you'll find it true. But he said further,
the preacher did, my dear sister, I see up and down these pages,
wherever there's a great verse, you have just a capital P. And what does that mean? And
she said, precious, sir, precious. These are precious promises indeed.
Well mark your Bibles. Mark them, and may God grant
that we may all die with one of these exceeding great and
precious promises upon our lips, and maybe even upon our hearts. Well then, the third precious
thing is like precious faith, found in verse 1 of 2 Peter chapter
1. Now this word precious here means
of equal value. Now this is very important that
we see this. Now you would say that the faith
of Abraham was great faith, wouldn't you? Now Abraham was the father
of the faithful. You would say that the faith
of the Apostle Paul was great faith, wouldn't you? You'd say
that he was a great believer. a man who could sit in the dungeon,
and a man who was said that he didn't even count his own life
dear unto himself, that he might finish the course that God had,
and the ministry that God had given him to witness to the grace
of God, counting on his own life dear unto himself, a man of faith.
And you say, that's great faith! But I want to tell you something.
What this verse says here, that faith, the faith of God's elect
is precious because it's equal It's all equal. You've got the
same faith in you that Abraham had in him, and you've got the
same faith in you that Paul had in him, and every believer has
the same faith, the same God-given faith, like precious faith, all
of us. Now then, faith is precious because
it opens and reveals the treasures that are hid in the promises
of God. Unless you have this precious faith, you'll not see
the value of the promises of the Bible. The Bible will be
to you as a dry book. It'll mean nothing to you unless
you have the faith of God in your heart. Unless you have the
precious faith, and until one does have the faith of God's
elect, he thinks very little. of Christ. He might confess that
he's a good example or a wise teacher, but he does not say
with old Thomas, my Lord and my God. Faith is to our souls
what our eyes are to our bodies. Faith is precious, let me say,
because it's rare. It's rare. You cannot produce
it. Nobody can raise it. You can't
do it. The Bible says faith cometh by
hearing and hearing for the Word of God. But it's got to come.
It's got to come. It's got to come down from God.
Faith is a gift of God and it's rare because none have it but
the elect. The election hath obtained it
and the rest were blinded. Remember that. The election hath
obtained it. God given faith. So if you had
it, it's not because the preacher gave it to you. If you got it,
not because mom and daddy gave it to you. Not because it was
slipped to you by your grandma. No, no, no, no, no. It's because
God has given it to you. Faith, true faith, that's of
equal value, priceless, along with the faith of all God's elect.
That's just like their faith. comes from God. It's a gift of
God. Faith is precious because wherever it is, it saves the
soul. Now there's no such thing as
a man believing God and having the faith of God in his soul
where that soul is not saved. You're saved if that faith is
there. It's there. There never was a soul that believed
in the Lord Jesus Christ that rested themselves on the merits
of his precious blood that was or could be ever cast away, cast
into eternal hellfire. Sooner might the eternal pillars
of divine truth begin to quiver. and the throne of infinite sovereignty
be shaken from its place, than that one of those elect by God
in Christ before the foundation of the world, and given faith,
that they would be cast away. they shall never never be cast
away did he not say I give unto my sheep eternal life and they
shall never perish neither shall any man pluck them out of my
hand and my father which gave them me is greater than all and
no man can pluck them out of his hand well as precious as
these things are precious person Christ precious promise the word
of God and a precious faith the weakest and the poorest Christian
here, they have them as their present possession. The weakest
and the poorest Christian here have these precious things. You
see that? They have them because they have
the faith of God's elect. Now then, if these things be
yours, here's my admonition to you in closing, live like it. Don't live like a spiritual pauper.
live like somebody who has in their possession things that
are more precious and will outlast, as we said, sun, moon, and stars. Live like you had precious jewels
and possessions. Live like you are spiritual,
wealthy, an heir of God through Jesus Christ, that you're spiritually
wealthy. Live like it. Serve Him with
your best. with your best. Give him what
is precious to you. Give him what is precious to
you, your life, your heart. Give him your substance, not
your odds and ends such as you can give without ever feeling
it. Give him your best. He died to give me himself. I
will give him myself in return. The poet said, and if I might
make some reserve and duty did not call, I love my God with
zeal so great that I must give Him all. I must give Him all. I pray God will give us all greater
appreciation for these precious things. It's been my delight
to talk about these things. I just wish that I could preach. I would like to preach sometime.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to hear somebody preach on these three
precious things with a tongue of an angel, with a tongue that
was loosed by the Spirit of God. These three precious things.
Don't ever get over them. Don't ever get over them. May
God bless you. Father, in the name of Jesus,
Receive the glory and the praise. Instruct this people and give
them all the ability to possess these things in their hearts.
Oh, give faith this morning. Lord, give faith. It's in your
hands to give it. And Lord, there are souls here
that are trembling. Souls that need, need these precious
things this morning. Reveal Christ. Oh, make the promise
live to their hearts and souls. Father, make them to have this
faith that saves the soul. Give it to them. Give it to them.
Thou would be no poorer for giving it to these poor sinners here.
Thou hast given it to me, and you've given it to others here,
Lord, and you're no poorer for it. And so be pleased to give
out of your treasure these precious things. In Jesus' name we ask
it. Amen.