I want to read the first seven
verses of this passage. 2 Kings chapter 4 and begin in
verse 1. Now there cried a certain woman
of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elijah, Elijah
the prophet, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead, and thou
knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord, And the creditor
is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen. And Elijah
the prophet of God said unto her, What shall I do for thee?
Tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid
hath not anything in the house, except a pot of oil. Then he
said, Go borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbors,
even empty vessels, Borrow not a few. And when thou art come
in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons,
and shalt pour out unto all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside
that which is full. So she went from him and shut
the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels
to her, and she poured out. And it came to pass, when the
vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a
vessel." And he said unto her, there is not a vessel more. And
the oil ceased. It stopped. It stayed. Then she
came and told the man of God, and he said, Go, sell the oil,
and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children upon the rest. I often think about these passages
when we read them, especially in the Old Testament. I often
think of two scriptures when we read in the Old Testament. One is, all scripture is given
by inspiration of God. The word means it's God-breathed.
It comes from the mouth of God. Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And
it's profitable. It comes from God and it's profitable. It's profitable for doctrine.
It tells us what we're to believe to be saved. And it tells us
how to live, doesn't it? It's profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for instruction and correction and so on. The
second scripture I often think of is this. Whatsoever things
were written aforetime, and this was written long, long ago, it
was written for our learning that we, through patience and
comfort of the scriptures, The Scriptures will give us comfort.
The Scriptures will give us grace to be patient and to wait upon
the Lord. Whatsoever things were written
aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience
and comfort of the Scriptures might have. You know there is
no book like this Bible. Sometimes in my utter foolishness
I get bored with reading the Bible. I'll just confess that
to you. I've read it over and over again,
and sometimes I open it up and I say, I've read this story so
many times, and in my utter foolishness I forget, this is not like any
other book. You can be reading a passage
that you've read a hundred times, and there it is. It's life, isn't
it? It quickens you. It comes to
you. It refreshes you. It instructs you. It comforts
you. The Bible says about itself,
it makes this wonderful statement about itself. The Word is quick. That means it's life-giving.
It's active. It's quick. It's powerful. Where
the words of the King is, there's power. And it's sharper than
any two-edged sword. And listen to this. It's a discerner
of the thoughts. It's a judge of the thoughts. It can judge your thoughts. It
can tell you what you're thinking. It can tell you what you're thinking
and the motives behind what you're thinking. It's a discerner of
the thoughts and intent of the heart. How many things do you
and I do and we have no idea why we did them? We have no idea
of the motive behind what we just said or what we just did.
But you know something? The Word of God knows our motives. It can reveal to us the intents
of our thoughts and our actions. There's no book like it, isn't
there? There absolutely is no book like
it. I was talking with a young couple
just the other night, and I was telling them why I believe the
Bible to be the Word of God. And the reason I believe it to
be the Word of God is because it makes me to know that it knows. Me. The Bible knows me. It knows
me thoroughly. It knows the utter recesses of
my heart. There's nothing that goes on
inside of me, but the Bible can tell me about it. What's wrong
with the world? People's trying to figure out,
why is there wars? Why is there suffering? Why are
we like we are? The Bible tells us, doesn't it?
You know the answer to why things are happening like they are,
don't you? When you look at all the uncertainty that's going
on in the world, the uncertainty with you, there's no doubt about
it. The Bible tells you why things
are like they are. And only the Bible tells us that. And you know something else?
The Bible tells us that God knows why things are like they are.
And God has given us the remedy for what else? You go to every
other book. You go to the old men of old
that used to talk and write. And they tell us if the world
was just educated, if we could do this, if we could do that,
we could get men together and solve our problems. They gave
all of these remedies. And every time they've been applied,
none of them works. None of them works until you
go to this Bible. And here is the remedy. God knows
the problem with us. And God has sent His Son, Jesus
Christ our Lord and our Savior, to deliver us and to remedy the
problem that we have. And our problem is what? Sin. It's sin and God's judgment upon
it. That's our problem, isn't it?
And only the Bible tells us the remedy for sin. And that's Jesus
Christ and His atoning sacrifice upon the cross. That's the Holy
Spirit, the Spirit of Promise coming to us and regenerating
us and giving us the life of Christ in our heart. So as we
read this passage, it's just got good instructions in it.
It's profitable to us. This passage here will be profitable
to us this morning as we read it and comment on it just for
a few minutes. Let's look at the first thing. I want us to
look that's profitable to us. And it's really a practical thing,
but it's this. Everybody dies. Everybody dies. We just saw where Castro died
down in Cuba. Fidel Castro. And I just saw
where the people down in Savannah was shouting about it. And who
can blame them? He killed a lot of their parents.
He was a wicked man, and I'm not surprised when he died, and
I'm not rejoicing over his death, but we're not surprised when
bad men die. But good men die. This was a
servant of Elijah. He served one of the greatest
prophets that ever lived, and he was a prophet himself. His
wife said he's of the sons of the prophets. He was a good man. He had the grace of God in his
heart. He feared the Lord. The Holy Spirit opened this man's
heart. God called him to be a prophet.
He was a man of God. And you know something about
him? He died. He died. I tell you, there's
something that we can't get a hold of that's a mystery to me, that
I'm going to die. One of the greatest mysteries
that we cannot face death and realize that I'm going to die. I'm going to die. There's a passage,
I think it's over in Zechariah, maybe chapter 1, around verse
4, 5, 6 in there somewhere. The Lord asked Israel this question. He said, Where are your fathers?
And the prophets, do they live forever? And the obvious answer
is no. No. Everybody dies. It's appointed unto men once
to die. And after this, the judgment.
I don't know how many people I've talked to since dear brother
Cody Gruber, our missionary, died the other day so suddenly.
And everybody says the same thing about it. I can't believe Cody
died. I can't believe Cody died. But
he's dead, isn't he? He'll never participate in the
things of this world again. He's dead. He's gone out into
eternity to be with the Lord. He's gone. And he was a great
man in my eyes. He was a blessed servant. Left
his country here and went to serve another nation. But you
know something? There have been greater men than
Cody Gruber died. Where's Moses? The man who was
faithful in all his house? Where's Abraham who left his
father's house and obeyed the Lord and went out into a country
that God gave him? Where's these great apostles
that were filled with the Spirit of the Lord and preached for
the glory of God and the good of the people? Where are they?
We could say of them the same thing that this woman said to
Elijah. Thy servant is dead. They're dead, aren't they? And
you know something? It may be this week you'll meet
your appointment. For I'll meet my appointment.
God has appointed us to die, hasn't He? And you know something? If this prophet died, if Moses
died, if Paul died, if James died, if our forefathers have
died, you think God's going to spare us? He's not, is He? Men die. Thy servant is dead. He's dead. He's dead. That's the first thing that we
can learn that will hopefully profit us. The second thing is
this, and I think this is profitable to us. There are good men, God's
little children, who sometimes, for some reason or another, struggle
with poverty. Struggle with poverty. Here was
a man, and he was a prophet of God, and yet we're told here
that he lived under the burden of debt. And after he died, he
left his family with this burden. I don't know why that this man
lived in poverty. Sometimes we bring ourselves
there. You know what the Bible says
about being careful in our business and taking care of our finances
in this world. It says, be not slothful in business. You know it's possible through
our neglect that we can bring ourselves into poverty. That's
possible, isn't it? Sometimes, and this is, we have
to be careful with this. We have to be careful with being
neglectful in our daily business in this world, in our finance,
and with this vain hope that, well, the providence of God will
take care of me. I can be neglectful, I'll be
slopful, and I'll be wasteful, but the providence of God will
take care of me. Don't we get to thinking that sometimes? We
leave the instructions His Word gives us with this hope, well,
God will take care of me. Oh, God will take care of me.
He takes care of His own. But I tell you what, it's nothing
but deceiving ourselves to think that we can be neglectful and
yet depend upon God to take care of us and let us live comfortable
lives in spite of our neglect. I've often wondered, as I read
in the Bible, there's two people, two groups of people that stand
out to me. that through their neglect they lost just about
everything that they had. Remember when Lot looked at Sodom? He looked at those well water
plains and he chose those well water plains. And he had herds
of cattle and so many servants that him and Abraham couldn't
even dwell close together. Have you ever wondered what happened
to those cattle? Have you ever wondered what happened
to all those servants? He seemed to have lost it all
and died in a cave, as far as we know, with nothing. The providence
of God did not hold him up, did it? It did not let him continue
to live his comfortable lifestyle. Another instance that I read
about is within Elimelech and his wife Naomi. Remember them
two? And they left the land of Israel
where God is worshipped. And they said, we're going down
to dwell a while in Moab. Now why would a person do that?
You say, well, Bruce, they were in need. No, they weren't. No,
they weren't. Because when Naomi came back
after losing her husband and her two sons and all the money
they had was gone, she came back and this is her confession. She
said, I went out full. And God has brought me back empty. She said, don't call me Naomi
anymore. Don't call me pleasant. Call me bitter, for the Lord
has brought me to bitterness. I don't know if it was through
neglect that this prophet lost everything. I don't know why
he did. But sometimes if we're not careful, you say, Bruce,
what in the world does that matter? I tell you, the Lord in His providence
can bring us to nothing. Can He not? And I don't want
to live with the guilt of wasting and abusing what He's entrusted
me with. I just don't want to do that.
And it's possible to do that. This may seem like it's just
worldly on my part, but you know something? I want to have enough
that when a friend has need, I can help him out. I want to
have enough that sometimes I can go out and eat outside of my
home. I want to have enough that sometimes
I can go on vacation. I don't want to be, because of
my abuse, in debt and burden myself and burden my family when
I'm gone. These are good instructions,
aren't they? Firm it in business. Careful in business. Maybe this
guy was. Maybe this prophet was very fervent
in business. You know God has some dear children
that He's purposed they're going to live in poverty all their
life. If you ever read the story about John Warburton, his biography,
you'll see that God purposed that that man had nothing. I
mean, He couldn't even raise potatoes. He raised potatoes
and tried to raise hogs. His potatoes rotted and the hogs
were dying. He had to sell them. And his wife said, John, God
ain't going to give you anything. He's going to make you poor all
your life. He set you here to preach the gospel and that's
all you can do. Quit trying to do anything else. And that's
what He did. The Lord has His lazers, doesn't
He? He has His lazers that remain almost beggars and sickly. And when God purposes to bring
His children to that place, they can't get out of it. They're
a burden to themselves. That scares me, don't it you?
That scares me to death. Because I know the Lord can bring
you there, bud. You say, yes, but I'm a child
of God. It's going to be well. It's going to be well with you
in the world to come. And you're accepted of the Lord's
here, and you're one of His loved ones. But I'm telling you what,
He brings a lot of His loved ones to nothing in this life.
The wise man was so concerned about it, this is what he said,
ìLord, feed me with food convenient for me. Donít give me too much
riches. Why would you want to be rich?
Iíll forget you and Iíll say, ìWho is the Lord?î Donít bring
me into poverty. Why donít you want to be in poverty?î
Thus I get desperate and still and take the Lordís name in vain.
Riches can make us presumptuous, can't they? We can trust in uncertain
riches. But I tell you what poverty can
do. It can make you desperate. Here's a woman that said to this
prophet, something's going to have to be done. My husband was
in debt to the lender, and now the lender's come to take my
sons away. I don't want to be there to you.
I want to be careful as I can be with what God's given us. There's another kind of riches
in poverty, too, that we think of, and that's spiritual. That's
spiritual. I'd rather be in physical and
financial poverty as to be in spiritual poverty, wouldn't you?
Let the words of Christ dwell in you richly. Oh, to have the knowledge of
Christ and His grace, to be rich in faith. The Lord was writing
to the church of Sermon, and He said, I know your works, and
I know your poverty, but you're rich. They were poor in the things
of this world, but they were rich in faith. They believed
God no matter what. They believed Him. They didn't have much of this
world's goods, but they had the love of God abounded in their
hearts. I want to be that way, don't
you? I'd rather be poor. I'd rather be sickly and weakly
and be rich in the grace of God and have the riches of Christ
in my heart as to be like those, the Odysseans who said, I'm rich
and increased in goods. And Christ said, you don't know
that you're wretched and miserable and blind. and poverty and riches. Something else we can learn from
this passage here, I thought that was a blessing to me anyway,
in a practical way. When the Lord puts His blessing
to what little we have, then we'll always have sufficient.
Here in verses 2 through verse 7, He said, What do you have
in your house? All she had was this little pot
of oil. And He said, go get these empty
vessels and pour this oil in them and this little will pay your debts and you can
live off the rest. When the Lord adds His blessing
to what little He gives us, I'm telling you, it's always sufficient,
isn't it? It's always sufficient. My wife
and I have been poor. I tell you, we've been poor.
My brother-in-law used to say, we're so poor we couldn't pay
attention. And we've been there, buddy. But looking back on those
days, you know something? We never had a need for anything.
The Lord, I often said my wife could take a dime and stretch
it into a dollar, but it wasn't just that. It was the Lord, blessed
what little you have. And he's able to stretch it,
isn't he? I remember I preached a message one time on the anxiety
of self-security. And it's trying to secure our
own means of living in this world and worrying ourselves sick about
it. And remember what the Master told us about that. He said,
don't be anxious about what you're going to eat. Look at the little
fowls of heaven, He said. The Father feeds them. Are you
not much more than worth than fowls? And he said, look at the
grass of the field. Don't be anxious about what you're
going to wear. Consider the lilies, how the
Father clothes them. And you know what he was teaching
there? Be content. Trust God. He's your Father.
And He's able to stretch what little we have, and we'll have
need of nothing. We'll have need of nothing. The disciples came to the Lord
Jesus one day, and He had told them to feed the multitude. They
said, we don't have enough money to feed them. There was 5,000
men, not counting the women and children. And they said, well,
you can't take 200 pennies worth and feed this bunch. And Andrew
came up and said, there is a little lad here that has five loaves
and two little fishes, but what are they among so many? But what
did the Lord do? He blessed the food. He handed
it out to those thousands and thousands of men and their wives
and their children. They all eat and were filled
and took up twelve baskets full. He can take what little we have
and stretch it out and bless it. Well, we'll have need of
nothing. That's wonderful. You say, Bruce, you know, we're
not interested much in this, are we? And you know why we're
not interested in this very much? Because we're doing fine. We're
just doing great. I'm not worried about tomorrow.
Got a little bank account. Got food in the pantry. Got clothes
in my closet. You know, there are some people
in this world, they've got a meal that they eat today, and they're
God's children. They don't know where the meal
is coming from tomorrow. They don't have a pantry. They
don't have a grocery store. They barter for what they get. You know what? They're trusting
their Heavenly Father to take what little He's given them and
stretching it out so they can live in this world. I often think
about old Samson. His picture is back there. I
keep his picture on my computer. Old Samson, the black guy over
in New Guinea. He has nothing. Lives in an old
house that's propped up. He's a preacher of the gospel.
But the Lord cares for him, doesn't He? Takes care of him. I hope
we don't ever come to that place, but we might. But we might. But that's what we see here.
Thirdly, this has some excellent spiritual lessons in it. Not
just practical lessons, but lessons to prop it up spiritually. And
the first thing it teaches us here in spiritual terms is it
teaches us exactly how a sinner is to come to God to be saved. We learned that in this passage.
How is a sinner to come to God to be saved? Empty. Empty. The prophet says, go get
these vessels. And what kind of vessels were
they to fill? Empty vessels. How do we come
to God? We come empty, don't we? Empty
to be filled just like had one pot of oil and all the vessels
were empty and had to be filled from this one pot of oil. Aren't
we self-righteous? Aren't we ignorant? We are so,
aren't we? Because we think, we really think
that if I'm going to come to God, I can't come empty. I've got to have something to
bring on my own. That's not the way to come to
Him. The way to come to Him is empty. He doesn't require anything
else. He forbids us to bring anything
else, and we have nothing to bring. And yet we try to put
something in our little pots, don't we? Well, I've got to pray
so much. I've got to read the Bible so
much. I've got to attend worship services so much. I've got to
pay so much tithe. And I've got to do this for a
while. I've got to be faithful. And we put that in our little
vessels and we bring it to Him. Can you imagine this woman saying
it in her mind? Now listen, sons, we can't bring
those empty vessels. You've got to put something in
them. What would they have put in them? Go out there to the
water hole and put some water in them. What would that have
done to the oil? We have nothing to bring. And you know something?
God knows it, doesn't He? And yet the most difficult thing
a sinner ever did in his life is to come to God with no price
in his hand. In my hands no price I bring,
simply to the cross I cling. Come empty to be filled. Oh my,
what a difficult thing. Come blind for your sight. Come
dead for your life. Come lost to be saved. And yet we dream on that we can
bring something. We've got to have something to
bring. Someone asked Charles Spurgeon this question. They
said, Mr. Spurgeon, do you think the greatest
hindrance to a man's salvation is his sinful self? And Mr. Spurgeon didn't think or thought.
He said, no sir, I do not. The greatest hindrance is our
righteousness. The greatest hindrance is our
goodness, not our badness. No man is too bad to come to
Christ. But he said many are too good
to come to Christ. And that's so, isn't it? That's
so. There was two women that prayed
these prayers, and listen how they prayed them. Mary, the mother
of our Lord, she said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my
spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. For he that is mighty
hath done for me great things, and holy is his name. And his
mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.
He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them
of low degree. He has filled the hungry with
good things and sent the empty away. He sent the rich away empty. Fills the hungry and he sends
the full away empty. That's just the way God saves
it. Anna said this, the bowels of the mighty are broken and
they that stumble are girded with strength. They that were
full have hard themselves out for bread, and they that were
hungry ceased. The Lord kills and He makes alive.
He brings down and He gives grace to get up. He maketh poor and
He maketh rich. He brings low and He lifts up.
He raises up the poor out of the dust and lifts the beggar
from the dunghill and sets him among princes." Why does God
do this? He does it so He'll get glory
for Himself. That's what salvation is about,
isn't it? God has determined to get glory for His Son, Jesus
Christ. And He does that by putting salvation
in His Son. Everything that God requires,
everything that we need is in His Son. And when we come to
Him, we come to Him with nothing. And He has everything. All of these empty vessels were
filled from this one pot of oil worth it. This one pot of oil
filled all these empty vessels. And it's the same way in salvation.
Jesus Christ is the only person that God has put salvation in.
And we all must be saved by His merit, by His worth, by His power. Guilty, vile, and helpless we. Spotless Lamb of God is He. Full atonement. Can there be? Hallelujah. What a Savior. It don't matter how big these
vessels were or how little they were. What shape they were, what
color they were, nothing mattered but this. Are they empty? Are
they empty? And when a man comes to Christ,
that's the way he comes. and comes empty to be filled,
lost to be found, filthy to be washed. And just as there were
enough oil in this one pot to fill every empty vessel, so there
is enough merit in the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse us
from every sin that we've ever committed against heaven. Full. Full. You notice that the
Bible says twice here in our text that she poured oil in the
vessels until the vessels were full. They were full. Not half full, not three quarters
full, but they were full. They were full. When the Lord saves us, He doesn't
partly save us, does He? It's a full, complete, He don't
forgive most of our sins. It's full forgiveness. Complete
forgiveness. When Paul was writing to the
Colossians, he said, He has quickened you, raised you up in heavenly
places with Christ, having forgiven you all trespasses. All trespasses are forgiven.
All of them. Complete forgiveness. Complete
forgiveness of every sin that you've sinned against God. The
blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanses us from all sin. There's not a thing the court
of heaven holds against the child of God that has come to God through
Christ. Full salvation. I love that passage where Paul
tells us, I think it's Colossians 2, You are complete in Him. You are complete in Him. That word complete means lacking
nothing. There's no room for anything
else. You're complete in Him. We can't get a hold of that,
can we? Oh, salvation is so foreign to us, we can't get a hold of
it. We read it with our eyes. Complete in Him. You are as accepted
of God today, dear brothers and sisters, as you will ever be.
When you get to heaven, you'll be no more accepted there than
you are now, because you're completely accepted in the Beloved, the
Son of God's own heart. Paul was writing, Paul was preaching
to those Jews there in Acts 13, and he said, All that believe
in Him are justified from all things. by which you cannot be
justified in the law of Moses. From everything? That sounds
like that's complete justification, doesn't it? A full, complete
justification. You're justified from all things. You look back at your life when
you were lost. And how do you look back on your
life? I tell you, I look back on my
life and I am ashamed. I'm almost devastated when I
look back. I'm discouraged. I'm disappointed
as I can be. And all I can say is guilty,
guilty, guilty. And now to imagine that all of
that is gone and I'm justified from it and will never be condemned
for it anymore. Completely justified. It's like
going down here before the court and pleading guilty. And the
judge said, This court finds nothing we're
with to condemn this man. Let him go free. Give him his
liberty. Oh, in Jesus Christ there is
full justification from everything we've ever done. Fill the vessel
full. Fill it so full that it can't
contain one more drop. And that's the salvation that's
in Christ. One pot. One pot of oil filled all these
empty vessels full. And I tell you one thing, I tell
you one thing, if He has filled you with His salvation, there's
nothing like it. There's nothing like it. In your
heart, your soul, you are complete in Jesus Christ. Completely full. Completely full. In Him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him. Notice something else about this.
He said this in verse 7. I love this. He told her after
she had filled all these vessels. She used this oil for two things.
Notice this. One, he said, sell the oil and
pay your debts. And then he said, live off the
rest. If that's not a picture of Jesus Christ, I don't know
what it is. I mean, Christ, use Him to pay your debts. Sins are debts, aren't they?
And every time I think I've committed a sin, and every time I remember
my past sin, you know what? I bring Jesus Christ, His blood
sacrifice in my arms of faith, and I just yield it up to the
court of heaven. And I say, debt's paid. Debt's
paid. I don't try to hide my sin anymore.
I don't try to excuse my sin anymore. I don't try to explain
it away or sweep it under the carpet. I just say, Jesus Christ
is the surety for my sins. He paid my debt. And you know something else about
Christ? He'll not only pay your debts, but you can live off of
Him. You can live off the Son of God.
Live off the rest. See, He's not just the Savior
of sins that are past. He not only forgives our sins
that are past and justifies us there. You know what? He's the
sanctifier of His people in their daily lives. He separates us
from this world, doesn't He? We talk about sanctification.
We're sanctified in Christ. He is our sanctification. But
aren't we being sanctified? Aren't we being set apart for
His glory to follow Him and to live for Him in our daily lives?
Of course we are. But how can we do that? It's
only through Christ. It's only through Him. I tell
you, nobody has responsibility to live for God and to honor
God and glorify God like the Christians. You don't expect
it from lost people. But boy, what a responsibility,
what a duty, what a blessing that a believer does it. But
how can he do it? It's through Christ. It's through
His grace that He gives us. Is it Hebrews 12? I was trying
to think. Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth
easily beset us." Don't we have weights? And we're commanded
to lay them aside? Don't we have sins? Besetting
sins? And how are we to obey that command? Looking unto Jesus. We can't do anything without
Him, can we? We can't a bit more live the Christian life without
Him and His strength and His grace than we can justify our
past. But boy, in Him we can't. I love
the Law of Moses, brothers and sisters. I delight in the Law
of Moses after the inward man. But I tell you, this is my personal
testimony. The Law of Moses has never helped
me towards heaven. All it's done is accuse me when
I've sinned. It's never strengthened me when
I'm discouraged. It's never offered mercy to me
when I'm guilty. It's just never helped me much. I love it. And if a man don't
love the law, the law, the moral law, he's got a problem hasn't
he? But I tell you what, you don't look to that law for sanctification. You don't look in that law to
find strength to live for the Lord and enjoy Him. It's not
there. I remember preaching the message
one time on Christ is our life and Christ is our living. And
I left the pulpit and a man came up to me and said, how do you
know how to live if you don't look to the Law of Moses? I tell you, I can know how to
live, but I can't live it except Christ
works in me and gives me grace and power to do it. I haven't
found anything to help me live the Christian life and enjoy
God, but look into Jesus Christ alone. Brothers and sisters,
He'll do the live on. Live on the rest. This one part. Fill all these parts and say,
now live on the rest. Live on the rest. One man said, a Christian has
to have two eyes. He has to have one, he looks
to Christ, and the other, he looks to Moses. One eye looks
to Christ and the other one looks to Moses. My son had a friend one time
that had the ability, he'd take his eyes and look in two directions.
And my son said somebody would come up and he would give them
directions and he would look that way and they were standing
there confused on their faces, him looking right and looking
left. And I asked him about it one day. He said, yeah, I can
do that. But he said, it gives me an awful headache. You know something? If I had one eye on Christ and
one on Moses, I'd get an awful hang of it. The Bible says, let
your eye look straight on. Set your affection upon Jesus
Christ, upon His grace and His love and His faithfulness, His
offices as our mediator and high priest and prophet. Live upon
Jesus Christ. He'll do to live on, and I'm
telling you, He'll do to die on. He'll do the dial. Lastly, quickly, when did the
oil stop? When the last empty vessel was
filled. It stayed. Bring me another empty
vessel. And he said, there is no more.
And then the oil stayed. And you know what this teaches
us? As long as there's an empty vessel, the oil will flow freely. As long as there is a poor sinner
in need of grace, grace will be given. As long as there is
an empty sinner who cannot save himself, mercy will flow freely. Where you have a spiritual need,
there will be mercy for that need. Where there is a sinner,
there will be a Savior for sinners. But when men are full, and rich
and increased with goods and have need of nothing, the oil
of God's grace will stop. Will stop. The Lord is building a spiritual
temple. When that last stone is put in,
His work is finished, is it not? When the last member of Noah's
family entered the ark, the ark, the door was shut. When the last
needy, elect sinner is put in Christ, judgment will come upon
this earth. Oh, thank God this is our prayer
and our hope. That if there is no needy sinners
around us now, God will empty some. That He may give them grace and
fill them with Christ the Savior. Let us pray.