Malachi chapter four. It has come time to depart the Old
Testament for now. And someone mentioned to me a
little bit ago, I can go back 50 years from now and it'll be
new all over again. And it's right. It's true. It's
it's a new every morning, every day. It's new. Never girls old,
never wears out, never decays. It's new to the Lord's people.
As we depart the Old Testament, I'd like for us to remember what
we saw in every single book, every single book that we've
been in. We faithfully, by the Lord's grace, by the Lord's doing,
we faithfully saw his gospel from Genesis to Malachi. Every
single book truly is written of the Lord Jesus Christ and
his finished work. Good news to dead dog sinners,
isn't it? God's gospel. That's the only
good news we have. It's the only good news we have
now. Malachi is no exception in declaring this gospel. And here in Malachi chapter four,
by grace and throughout the entire book, he has great insight into
what the Lord Jesus Christ, who he is and what he's going to
do and how the Lord is going to save his people. And he faithfully
preached God's revelation of Christ. That's exactly what we
preach, isn't it? That's what we hope is that the
Lord would reveal Christ. And that is salvation. If he
does, that's our hope. That's our hope. Salvation is
all of grace, it's not of works, and God must do it. That's what
we've seen from Genesis to Malachi. Let's read Malachi chapter four.
For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all
the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble.
And the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord
of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
But unto you that fear my name, saith the Lord, But unto you
that fear my name shall the son of righteousness arise with healing
in his wings. And you shall go forth and grow
up as calves in the stall. And you shall tread down the
wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet
in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts. Remember
ye the law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded unto him in
Horeb for all Israel with the statutes and judgments. Behold,
I will send you, Elijah, the prophet before the coming of
the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the
heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children
to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. Now, Wednesday night, we looked
at that passage of Elijah and we know by what the Lord's revealed
that that is John the Baptist. And I remember mentioning this
the first hour, but John the Baptist was the last prophet
in whoever was, last prophet in the New Testament. And then
we have in the Old Testament, this is the last prophet of the
Old Testament, as I mentioned the first hour. But what is the
message of Malachi here? Well, it's a message of judgment,
but also mercy. It's a message of declaring what
he's going to do to the wicked and what he's going to do to
the proud And yet what he's going to do to his people, he's going
to save them. He's going to raise up to them
the son of righteousness. Now, I find it interesting last
Sunday, if you remember the titles of last Sunday messages, one
was God's branch and the other one was in that day. We literally
have both of those right here in that day. They won't have
a branch and they won't have a root. That's what he's saying.
It's just going to be judgment. There will be no mercy at that
time. God's declaring there will be no root, no life, no branch. The proud will be burnt up. Who's
the proud? Are we prideful? By birth we're
prideful, aren't we? Very prideful. But we are no
longer prideful in that the Lord has revealed himself and given
us repentance. And in doing so, he's abased
us. He showed us that we're nothing
and that he's everything. So who's the prideful? It's those
that justify themselves before God. Those that say they are
good enough for God. Those that'll be there saying,
but Lord, we've done all of these wonderful things in your name.
I've prayed, I remember the Pharisee, whenever he was in the temple
with the publican, he said, Lord, I thank you that I'm not like
this man. I thank you that I'm not like this one. I tithe, I
give my time, I fast. I'm glad, thank you, Lord, I'm
not like this publican. And the Lord said, the publican
wouldn't even lift up his head, but cried out, Lord, have mercy
on me, the sinner, while smoting upon the breast. And Christ said,
who do you think went home justified? Who was justified in the Lord's
eyes? Was it the self-righteous Pharisee? Or it was the dead
dog sinner needing a new heart. It was the sinner, wasn't it?
It was the publican. It was the publican. That's the
difference between the proud, the non-believer and the believer.
The non-believer will hear this declaration that we're talking
about and they'll justify themselves and they'll think they're okay.
They think they're good enough for God. But God's people hear
this. and they fear being left to ourselves.
We fear being left to ourselves, don't we? When we hear this message
of judgment that's going to come, neither root or branch, we cry
out, Lord, you've got to give me Christ, our branch. As we
heard last, we heard last Sunday. We got to have that branch, that
life giving, holy seed of the Lord Jesus Christ that was raised
up for his glory and honor that his people are birthed from.
We have to have him. He's the root system, he's everything,
the foundation. If we don't have him, we're lost. Only God's people, his elect,
have this hope. It's because he's given us his
fear, his true repentance that drives us to Christ, as we heard
the first hour. I look in verse two again, Malachi
chapter four, but unto you, Now, first of all, I want us to pay
close attention that he says in the chapter, or the verse
before, all the proud, yea, all that do wickedly shall be stubble.
But then he says, but unto you, so there's a them and there's
a you here. It's important that we notice
that. But unto you that fear my name shall the son of righteousness
arise with healing in his wings. And ye shall go forth and grow
up as calves in the stall. But unto you, unto you that fear. Now is fear a choice? Do you
choose to be afraid? Or is it a natural response that
the Lord's instilled in us? Now he's talking about a spiritual
fear here. He's not talking about a physical fear. Yeah, we fear
the Lord because he could do whatsoever he will with us. But
the fear that God gives us drives us to Christ, doesn't it? That's
the repentance that he gives his people and then the faith
that looks to Christ. Are you and I those that fear or are
you and I those that do wickedly? Well, the only difference is
the Lord has to give that fear. If he doesn't, we're gonna be
stubble. That's what drives us to the
Lord when we see our sin and we see what we are, we know.
Lord, if you leave me to myself, I'm not gonna be one of those,
one of the ones that are called you here. I'm gonna be one of
the wicked ones that it's eternally separated, eternally separated
from him. Let me cry out. We cry out into Him, I want to
be a you, don't you? I want to be part of the you's
that are here, you's guys. I was writing down my notes and
I said, well, I get to say you's guys from the pulpit and it's
in context. I want to be one of these you's that are here.
Part of the you's of the Lord Jesus Christ, His chosen people.
I must, we must brethren. It's our only hope. If we're
not a you, then we're a they and they are going to perish
in hell forever. And the only difference is, The Lord is the
difference, salvations of the Lord, what he's done, what he
accomplished. And to you, his people, the son
of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings. I've
titled this message, The Son of Righteousness. The Son of
Righteousness. Now we have, in this verse, we
have two pictures. We have the son of righteousness
And we have the healing that's in his wings. And we're just
going to look at both of those this morning. First, we'll look at
the Son of Righteousness. What does the Son do? This is
S-U-N. Now we know that it's S-O-N also. We know who this is talking about.
It's the Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament is Christ hidden,
Christ concealed. But we know now, we have the
New Testament, we know that Christ is in the New Testament, Christ
revealed. We have the full canon of scripture, so we know that
he's the only one that could be righteousness. What did we hear
just a minute ago for the call to worship? God hath made into
us Christ, who is wisdom, who is righteousness, who is sanctification,
and who is redemption. This is who we're talking about,
the Son of God, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of
righteousness. What does the Son do? Why didn't
the Lord put an O in this? Why did he put a U? Well, because
he wants us to take note of what the sun does. The sun illuminates,
does it not? The sun illuminates, the sun
heats. The sun gives life, and without
the sun, there would be no life on this earth. Everything would
die, but in mercy, You say, well, you're talking about the physical.
What's the same thing spiritual, isn't it? Does not the son of
righteousness illuminate? Is that not what God does in
sending forth his gospel? It illuminates and shines upon
us and we see ourself exposed, naked, needing a substitute,
needing a righteousness. Well, here he is. He arises for
his people upon them in time. He illuminates, shines upon them. Then he warms us up, takes out
that cold heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh that's
warm unto him. He gives life. He gives life
by this light in mercy God chose in his time to illuminate his
people. He could have left us in darkness,
couldn't he? He had the right to do it. He chose whom he wanted.
It wasn't anything we had done, but he chose a people. He chose to love. He chose to
love and He chose to die for those people. He didn't choose
us to illuminate in time and not leave us to ourself in this
dark world in which we live. We have the picture of this being
the very first account given in the scripture. In the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without
form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And
the spirit of the Lord moved upon the face of the waters.
And the very first words that were spoken by God recorded in
the scripture was, let there be light. Who is that? That's him. That's the son of
righteousness. That's why the earth was created
for his glory and for his honor and for his people, for his people
to be redeemed back to God. This is, it starts in Genesis
and it doesn't end until you get to Revelation. It's all about
him. Let there be light. And what did God, what did God
say when he saw that light? It was good. It was good. God was pleased with that light.
And we must have his light in us in order for the father to
be pleased with us. God sent forth his son in the
fullness of time into the blackness, the abyss of this sin filled
world. In the fullness of time, God
became a man. And the Lord Jesus Christ successfully redeemed
his people. And now his gospel shines light
out of darkness and into our hearts. That's what the scripture
tells us. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
4. First hour, we didn't turn anywhere.
This hour, we're going to turn to four places. So just bear
with me. 2 Corinthians 4. Look at verse
one. Therefore seeing we have this
ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not, but have
renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness
or handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth,
commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight
of God. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are
lost. in whom the God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light,
here it is, brethren, clearly, lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto
them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and
ourselves serve it for your sake, for Jesus' sake, ourselves, your
servants, for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. This light reveals Christ. And
it was all by God's choice. It's all God's doing. In the
fullness of time, he reveals his gospel to his people. What
does that light shine upon? The face of Jesus Christ, the
son of righteousness. That's what his light always
points to. That's what his light always
directs us to. That's what his light was purposed
to do, is to lead his people to Christ. We know that if it's hid, it's
hid to them that are lost. And the God of this world had
blinded their minds, lest the light of the glorious gospel
should shine. Who is the one that shines the light? Do we
shine a light? No. He does. He owns the light. He is the light. and he chooses
to illuminate or he chooses to remain hidden. How often do we
see in scripture when the Pharisees wanted to lay hold of him and
kill him? And you've heard me mention this many times. They wanted
to kill him and he passed right by them. Passed right by them,
they couldn't see him. What is that a picture of? It's
a picture no man's gonna lay hold on Christ by force. No,
we must come confessing we're nothing, begging for mercy. And the only way we do that is
if he chooses to illuminate by his gospel. His gospel reveals
Christ's finished work and reveals Christ as God. You know how he
reveals that? He literally says, let there
be light. And it's the same as live, the
same as receive thy sight, the same as Lazarus come forth. It's
all the same. Let there be light. And now there's
light that shines forth out of his people. And God says, when
I see that light, I'm satisfied. That's good. That light's good. This light does not reveal that
he is the son that tries to do righteousness. He is the son
of righteousness. It's his name. It's what he does. It's his character. It's his
attribute. It's what he produces, righteousness. You and I don't produce that,
do we? But that's what God demands. So what do we need? We need the
light of the glorious gospel to shine into our hearts. showing
us that we have a substitute before him. The son of righteousness
must arise on this cold heart and warm it unto him. And he
gets all the glory for it. I wrote down a thought that I
had whenever I entered into a room. We can choose to turn a light
switch on and we can choose to turn the light switch off. Is
that not true? And whenever we're constantly fussing at my children,
turn the lights off and we choose to turn it off, we choose to
turn it on. But when it comes to salvation, that's impossible. That's impossible. We can't choose
to turn this light on. He has all the power. He has
all the authority. He has all, he gets all the glory.
No, he chooses to shine forth his light in his time. And we
can't control him. We can't stay his hand. We can't
say, what doest thou? But aren't you thankful he really
does illuminate his people. He truly does choose to shine
into them and show them. All he had to do is leave us
in darkness. All he had to do is leave us to ourself. And where
would we have been the end result of that? Eternal hell, eternal
darkness, eternal separation. He chose to pass by. A couple
of dead dog sinners, his people, a few. Well, we act like it's
a small number. John said, it's a number no man
can number. And the Lord wasn't limited in what he did. He redeemed
every single person he intended to. And the number is more than
a man can count. He chose to say, let there be light to this
one. Let there be light to that one.
Let there be light to this one. And that same light that we see
in the Lord Jesus Christ is now manifest in our new man, looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Harmony as brethren's
come together. This is where our hearts are
knit together is by this light itself. This is what draws us
unto him. You know, it's true when we leave
this place, it seems like you're just stepping right back into
darkness, isn't it? Go throughout the motions of
life. You look around and we can't find any hope in this world.
We're pilgrims and strangers. We come here. And that light
shines and we see his face. Oh, there's rest in that. Lord,
arise, son of righteousness upon my cold heart. Lord, warm me,
illuminate, shine forth. You're going to have to do the
work. You're going to have or it won't be done or it won't
be done. God must do all the illuminating. Verse seven, if you look, you're
still in second Corinthians four, this is what verse seven is saying,
but we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency
of the power may be of God and not of us. How clear is that?
That the excellency of his power, this illumination that he does
for his people, this light shining forth would be for his glory
by his power. He gets all the glory and it's
clear, isn't it? Excellency of the power may be of God. and not of us. Brother, we have
a treasure. We have a hidden mystery in this
gospel. We have it right now in earthen
vessels. We don't have to wonder about
what happened on the cross of Calvary. We know that he put
away the sin of his people. We don't have to wonder if God
was trying to do something or he did it. We know that he did.
This is what his gospel reveals as God's finished work. And by
the faith that he gives us, We put all of our rest in that when
the son of righteousness arises by his gospel. Everything about his light points
to him. How do you know if somebody is a believer or not? What is
their confession of the light source that they have? Where's
the righteousness? Because if there's anything that
I've done, That's not the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. No,
His light always points to Him. I wrote an article a few weeks
ago where the Lord said, let your light so shine before men
that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which
is in heaven. And I was speaking to someone about that, and they
were accusing me of not preaching good works, that we're supposed
to have good works. What is the good work? It's the confession
that Christ is all, the confession that His light is all by His
choice, by His choosing, by His doing. It's the confession, the
confession that salvation is of the Lord and not of man. That
is the light that points to Jesus Christ, is it not? It doesn't
point to us in any way. If we go about thinking that
we are doing a good work and glorifying the Lord, if it's
not pointing to Christ in everything, it's not His light. It's not
me changing attire that points men to Christ. Now, certainly
we should be kind to our fellow man, but that's not what he's
talking about. He's saying, confess Christ to
men that he is all. Tell them about the gospel. Get
them to church. Invite them to come and hear
the gospel. This is the only place that he's going to illuminate
is where the preaching of the gospel is. We've got to have
him. We've got to be here. It's our only light source. I love the thought that it's
literally why He created everything. Literally why He created everything
was for the salvation of His people, for His glory. And He
is everything to His people, isn't He? He is everything to
His people. By Him, the worlds were made.
By Him, He speaks to our cold, dead hearts and says, live, or
He chooses not to. Gives us a new heart. no longer
hard towards Him, no longer cold, no longer dead. It's all His
doing. It's by His power and His will,
His choosing, His saving, His calling. He gets all the glory
in it. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
one. Hebrews chapter one echoes this. Hebrews 1 verse 1 says, God who
at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto
the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken
unto us by his son. Now in your Bible, you'll notice
that that word his is in italics. And I'm going to say this every
time just about probably that we read this. It's very important.
He doesn't just say by his son. He says by sons. He's a person. whom he hath appointed heir of
all things, by whom also he made the worlds, who being, this is
who he is, the Son, the Son of righteousness, verse three, this
is who he is, who being the brightness of his glory, the glory of the
Father, and the express image of his person. and upholding
all things by the word of his power, when he hath by himself
purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty
on high." This is the brightness of the glory of God. God manifest
in the flesh. Jesus Christ is God, 100%. 100%
man, 100% God. He was manifest in the flesh
to bring forth the light that would give life to his people. Philip asked one time, and one
of his disciples said, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth
us. He said, Philip, have I not been
with you so long? And yet, when you've seen me,
you've seen the Father. Jesus Christ was manifest in the flesh, being
God himself. God himself. Who else but God
can reveal that? Who else but God can reveal that
Jesus Christ is God? The baby that was in the manger
was God. The man walking on the water
was God. The man sleeping in the boat
was God. Everything that he did was perfect. And that's what
he, he manifested all the works. That's what he said. And then
by himself, by himself, purged our sin. He sat down by his own
blood. Everything that he did was in
order to bring this light of this gospel to you and I, his
people. That's our hope. That's our hope. The son of righteousness is the
sole singular source of life, the sole singular source of light,
the sole singular source of righteousness. In him there was no guile, there
was no unrighteousness, nothing that he did was ever wrong, everything
was right. He was perfect. James 1 tells
us, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and
cometh down from the father of lights. See, God's the father
of it. Father of lights and with whom
there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own
will begat he by the word of truth, that we should be a kind
of firstfruits of his creature. Here's the picture, brethren.
The Lord Jesus Christ chose to become a man. He chose to die
on the cross. He chose to redeem his people
by his own blood. And now, because of everything
he did, we're the firstfruits of his labor. We're the firstfruits
as his people. Our righteous son has brought
life to light and immortality through the light of the gospel.
birthing his people by his light. He said, first fruit, I was thinking
about, I planted a garden and it's actually doing well. I was
really thankful in Florida. My gardens were terrible. I was
just, couldn't grow anything. I had plenty of sunshine, plenty
of water. What was the problem? It was
too hot for one, but God didn't give the increase. What does
the plants require in order to bring forth fruit? The sun and
water, that's it. I mean, they need the nutrients
of the soil. I understand that. That could be argued, but primarily
it's sun and water. Am I right? Christ is both. He's the son of righteousness
and he's the living water. He's both to his people. That's
what brings forth the fruit. Christ is the one that does it
and gives the increase. He's the one that shines in darkness.
He's the only one that could shine in darkness. He is light.
Christ is both the son of righteousness to his people and the living
water. Psalm 112 tells us unto the upright there arises light
in the darkness and he is gracious and full of compassion and he's
righteous. God's elect are made upright.
The crooked are made straight because he's gracious, he's full
of compassion and he's righteous. The dead live, the blind see
all by his doing. See, those ones that the Lord
resurrected from the dead. Did they have any hope of coming
back from the dead, of doing anything, to being brought back
from the darkness? No. No. God said, let there be
light. He said, live. Lazarus, come
forth. This is the picture that, Lord,
arise, son of righteousness, on me. That's what we're begging
for right now. Lord, illuminate your gospel
in me. Cause me to see Christ as all.
And we hear these precious words that He is gracious, that He's
full of compassion, and that He's righteous in doing so. Because
Christ Jesus hath put away our sin, He is now just and the justifier. He can deal with us in righteousness
and in love and in compassion because we have no sin anymore.
This is what the light of the gospel reveals. God chooses to
illuminate. this truth to his people, all
by his gracious compassion, all by the good pleasure of his will.
Let me show you that in John chapter one. A moment ago, I quoted Genesis
chapter one, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the
earth, but in John chapter one, you'll find the same starting
words. Genesis says, in the beginning,
God, this says in the beginning was the word. Well, that is God.
And he just tells us that in the word was with God and the
word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made by him and without him was not
anything made that was made in him was life. And the life was
the light of men and the light shineth in darkness and the darkness
comprehended it not. I love the thought whenever the
Lord said. And I meant to elaborate on this a moment ago, but he
said that there in him, there is no shadow of turning. Well,
that can mean multiple things, but you know what it means. He
don't cast a shadow because he's light. There's nowhere for us. He is the light. Do we see that?
And that's what he's saying here. When it says the light shineth
in darkness and the darkness comprehended it, not it had to
flee away. The darkness can't stand in his presence. It must
go. It must depart just as we see. light and darkness. When
you turn the light on, where does the darkness go? It flees,
doesn't it? Can't comprehend it. Well, here's the picture.
We are the darkness. We are the darkness. And when
we see the light of the gospel that comes, the wrath of God's
fiery judgment that is righteous, we see we have no hope. We have
no hope. And then the Lord turns the light
on and shows us Christ's face. And we have a place of refuge. We have a place nigh unto Him,
and He is satisfied with us for that reason. Our very nature is darkness,
and our very nature cannot comprehend His light. It's impossible. We talk often about where we
have salvation as a choice. It's God's choice. We know that.
Man don't have a choice in salvation. We know that to be true by His
scripture. But what we don't talk a lot about is man's will.
Man has a will, but it can never overpower God's will. Man has
a will that's bound to his nature. Man's will is bound to his nature.
What are you going to choose by nature? That which is natural. That's all we can choose is darkness.
That's all we can choose by nature. We're dead. We're dead. Our nature
says, I got to have darkness. I've got to have darkness. When
the light of the gospel comes forth and he illuminates the
heart, What do we say? Oh, wretched man that I am. Lord,
if you hadn't have chose me, I would have never chose you.
No, my nature's contrary, but you've given a new nature. The
branch that we heard about, the righteous one, the root. Lord,
you've grafted us in, you've made us partakers of your righteousness,
partakers of your gospel, partakers of salvation by his will alone. Men will always remain dead unless
the Lord shines the light of the gospel, unless the Lord says
live. This is our hope. Now let's read,
skip down to verse 10 with me. It says, he was in the world. Who
was? God was. And the world was made
by him and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and
his own received him not. But as many as received him,
to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them
that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor
of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word
was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and full of truth. He was in the world, God manifests
in the flesh, the light of the world was in the world, and the
world knew Him not. Think about that. The world did
not know Jesus Christ was God. Whenever you see all the miracles
that was done for the children of Israel as they came across
the Red Sea and they saw the pillar, the burning pillar, and
you see the manna coming, their food fell from the sky. Their
food fell from the sky. Their water came out of a rock
and yet that was not enough to cause them to believe God. He didn't illuminate His light
upon them. He left them in darkness. And
that's the picture. We would not choose Him. We would
not come to Him, even if manna fell from heaven. It would not
be enough to call someone to believe. You remember when Lazarus
died and the rich man And the rich man lifted up his eyes being
in torment. He said, Father Abraham, send Lazarus. He may dip his
finger in water and cool my tongue for I'm tormented in this flame.
And he begins to have a conversation with Abraham. He says, send Lazarus
back that he may warn my brothers. What did Abraham say? Even if
one was raised from the dead, still wouldn't believe. Why?
It takes his illumination. It takes his light to be given
through this glorious gospel. And the beauty of it is, is he
chooses to do so. He didn't leave us in darkness.
He didn't leave us alone. He didn't leave us cold and dead
where we belonged. No, he said, I claim you as my
portion. And he redeemed his people. And now he hath brought
life and immortality through the light of his gospel. Pharisees
couldn't see him when he was on the earth. You know why? They seen themselves as righteous. If we have a righteousness in
and of ourself, we will not see the son of righteousness. We'll
see ourself, but only the Lord's people. When we see ourself,
we, it's almost like you, you leave yourself behind and you're
clinging unto Christ. Say, no, I, and you're taking
sides with God against yourself. You're literally saying, no,
I'm wrong in every way. And you're right. And you're
true. I'm darkness and you're light. This is, this is what
the gospel does. We see ourself as naked and dead
and polluted. No, we beg for the son of righteousness
to arise upon us. The Lord was speaking to the
Pharisees in Matthew 5. He told them and said, for I say unto
you that except your righteousness. So he's talking to the disciples.
I misspoke. I'm sorry. Talking to the disciples said,
except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees. You shall in no case enter into
the kingdom of heaven. Everyone that's not called of
the Lord, that hasn't had this light brought to them has a self-righteousness
in some way, shape or form. Do you know that's what we struggle
with even now with this flesh? How many times we justify ourself
for things that are happening? How many times do we get angry
at circumstances? How many times are we not reminded
that we must be given repentance? It's a gift. We must be brought
back to him. And how does he do it? the light
of his gospel, the son of righteousness shines forth again. And we say,
Lord, I have mercy. Lord, have grace. We often use the expression,
put my foot in my mouth. And I can totally relate to that
being married. I mean, I get what that saying,
but how much worse it is for the child of God. Every time
we open our mouth, we're just like Peter. Then when he said,
Lord, raise up three temples for Moses and Elijah and for
you. And we just put our foot in our mouth, don't we? But what
grace there is in the Lord revealing His righteousness, His light.
And then what do we say? Oh, I see the King again. I see the Son again. There He
is. There's the one my heart desires.
There's my substitute. There's my surety, the one that
I need. I must have Him. I must have Him. Lord, my righteousness
has got to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. I have
no righteousness in myself. I've got to have Christ. Now notice the simplicity here
in verse 12. As many as received him, to them
gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe
on his name. Men in religion will use that verse and say,
you should receive him. Let Jesus into your heart. Receive
him. They'll say, believe on his name. Now, is that true? If you believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll be saved? Yes. Absolutely. But the only way you and I are
going to believe is if we're made alive, because we're dead
and trespassers and in sin. We know that to be true. So what
is he saying here? Well, he tells us in the next
verse, the Lord never gives us a verse that's contradictive
of anything else in the scripture. The next verse says, which were
born. Wait a minute. So to them that received him,
he gave power to become the sons of God to them that believe on
his name, which were born. You mean they were dead? Yes,
they were born. Well, who, who birthed them?
who brought them to life, not of blood, nor of the will of
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. See, God did the choosing. God
did the saving. God does the calling. He does
the birthing. He does it all. The son of righteousness arises,
revealing himself as our only hope before God, and by his will,
births us into the family of God. The mystery of the gospel
is we've always been there. We just didn't know it. We just
didn't know it. By his own will begat he us.
God saw this light, his light, and it was good. It was good.
The son of righteousness arises in the fullness of time according
to his will. And he makes us, he makes Christ
necessary for us, don't he? He makes him a requirement. We
can't do without him anymore. I remember in false religion,
I could take or leave going to church sometimes. I did it as
a work and sometimes I'd get bored or get tired of doing it.
Oh, I've got to have this gospel. It is life and it is death. I've got to have the son of righteousness
reveal himself. Lords, we got to have him, don't
we? We got to have him. Now back to our text in closing. Run to you that fear my name,
shall the son of righteousness arise with healing in his wings. Last thing I want to look at
is the healing in the Lord's wings. We have a picture here. We have
a picture that we cannot fly to the Father. The Lord's unapproachable. We're sin and he's holy. But
it says he's going to arise the son of righteousness with healing
in his wings. We're dead. We're broken. We're
unholy. but he's the son of righteousness
and he has healing in his wings for his people. He's a hiding
place for his people. Some time ago, I read this and
some of you may have heard this story as well, but it's a good
analogy for what I would like to declare to you in closing. But there was a forest fire that
happened. And as the firefighters are going around trying to put
out the hot spots of the barn that burnt down and the forest
fire, it consumed everything. And they were trying, it was
contained, it was contained now, but they were trying to put out
the hot spots. They didn't want it to start back up. And the fireman noticed
that there was a hen that was charred and dead, that the fire
had consumed. And he didn't understand why
didn't she just fly away? Chickens can fly. Why didn't
the hen just fly away? Why didn't it just leave? And
after moving the corpse, it was revealed that baby chicks underneath
were perfectly fine. They just ran off. They were
just nothing happened to them. Nothing. They were good. They
were fine. They were unharmed. It's a weak analogy, brethren,
but that's what Christ did for you and I on the cross of Calvary.
Whenever He endured the wrath of God, the fire of God's wrath,
and we were in Him, nothing could touch us because He had gathered
us into Himself. We were His. What did Christ
say? Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often
would I gather you together as a hen would gather her brood,
but thou wouldest not. That's the picture. See, we're
safe underneath the wings of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's
our healing in His finished work. by His own hand, His own will
begat He us. And that fire could never have
touched us because we are in Christ, seated in the heavenlies.
Why didn't the hen fly away? Why didn't Christ come down? The men said, well, He can save
others, but Himself He cannot save. No other words have been
more true. Or if He would have came down,
we would have had no hope. But we have hope. The son of
righteousness arises for his people with healing in his wings. And the day on the cross of Calvary,
he flew us straight to the throne room of God and presented us
as perfectly righteous. He hath healed his people. He hath saved them from their
sin. And he gets all the glory. Darkness fell on the sun during
that day and he endured the darkness. He endured the wrath. And he
successfully redeemed us, successfully saving his people from their
sin. And after everything necessary
was accomplished, the son of righteousness cried the most
precious words we know, it is finished. It is finished. He
presented them as perfectly righteous to his father. That's the healing
in his wings. Do we see that? You've been healed. I've been healed. I was sick,
I had leprosy. I was a rotting corpse and the
Lord healed us and brought us back to life. How did he do it?
Through the light of his gospel, the son of righteousness arose
with healing in his wings. And what did the father say after
the Lord did that? He said, sit there, sit thou
right here. Sit thou at my right hand until
I make thine enemies thy footstool. And God saw the light. He said,
it's good. It's good. What do we say when
we see the light? It's good.