Nearer, still nearer. That is
our heart's desire this evening is to be nearer unto him. That
he would draw us unto himself, reveal himself. We are on the number six tonight.
And the number six represents man. If you'd like to turn with
me to Genesis chapter one. Genesis 1 and verse number 26
says, And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness,
and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over
the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the
earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the
earth. So God created man in His own image. In the image of
God created He Him. Male and female created He them. And God blessed them, said unto
them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue
it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the
fowls of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon
the earth. And God said, behold, I have
given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face
of all the earth and every tree in the which is the fruit of
a tree yielding seed to you, it shall be for meat. Into every
beast of the earth, into every fowl of the air, into everything
that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have
given every green herb for meat, and it was so. And God saw everything,
everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.
And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Man's number
is six, created on the sixth day, being the last thing that
the Lord had created, giving him complete dominion over everything
that he, in creation, everything, literally. In Revelation 13,
18, it says, here is wisdom, let him that hath understanding
count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. And his number is 600, three
score and six. So that's three sixes is what
that amounts to. The number of man we know is
not the number of God. Man is not, Adam was not created
perfect. Adam was created sinless. There's
a big difference. If Adam was created perfect,
he would not have had the capability to sin, but he was created sinless.
And therefore we know it was all given in order for the Lord
to show forth his mercy, in order for the Lord to show forth his
grace. But we see what the number six always does. It always points
to man. It always gives man all the glory.
the mark of the beast, as it's mentioned. It talks about how
that men would worship the beast, and Satan was the one giving
power unto the beast. Now understand, brethren, whenever
you hear of these things, we're not gonna travel down Revelation
and try to pull things out that doesn't exist. These things that
men say in today's time about different things from Revelation,
it doesn't exist. It's a revelation of Jesus Christ. That's who it
reveals. And so we see that the beast
having the number, the three sixes in each person that was
with him, bowed unto Him that worship Him having the same number,
that could be likened unto false religion, couldn't it? That man-made
religion, that all it does is give man the glory, and that's
the spirit of Antichrist, isn't it? That's exactly what the spirit
of Antichrist is. Anything that's not Christ-centered
or Christ-focused, it's Antichrist. It's that simple. Many antichrists
that are in the world, many false spirits that's going out into
the world trying to deceive men and are deceiving men. And if
it were possible, would deceive the very elect of God, but it's
not possible because God keeps his people. Now look in chapter
two in verse 16, and the Lord gives man one law, one commandment, that's
it. Genesis 2 verse 15, and the Lord
God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress
it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the
man saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest eat freely.
Thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it for in the day
that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Now understand
this was not a conversation between God and Adam. God did not have
a conversation with Adam. God gave Adam a commandment.
There's a big difference. Adam didn't get to put his two cents
into it and say, well, what about this? Or what about that? It
was very clear. There was nothing to be discussed. Adam had no
reply to this whatsoever, did he? We know that he heard God
though, because in the next chapter, or in the next chapter, we find
that Eve knew about this information that had been given to Adam.
So Adam had to go to Eve. I've preached on this before
for us, and I mentioned that Whenever Adam tells, whenever
Eve says, we're not even allowed to touch it, Adam didn't say
you couldn't touch it. He said, he may have said that just to be
overdramatic to make sure she understood the importance of
it. But what I'm trying to tell us this evening is that Adam
knew the law that God had given him and he passed it along to
Eve. He was very clear in saying, do not eat of the tree thereof.
Now, It's important that we understand
that Adam had no knowledge of good and no knowledge of evil.
Yes, he was created sinless, created in the image of God,
but he was not perfect. He was just sinless. We know
this by chapter three in verse one. Let's read. Now the serpent
was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord
God had made. And he said unto the woman, yea, hath God said,
ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. The woman said
to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the
garden, but of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of
the garden, God hath said, you shall not eat of it, neither
shall you touch it, lest you die. And the serpent said unto
the woman, you shall not surely die. Now there's the lie, isn't
it, brethren, right there. Clear and simple from the very
beginning, the very first lie ever spoken was just one word
that was changed, as I've mentioned many times to us. Verse five,
for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your
eyes shall be open and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and
evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food
and that it was pleasant to the eyes and the tree to be desired,
to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat,
and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. This lie that was given by Satan. This temptation that was given
by Satan from the very beginning is that she would be made as
gods. And that was the same word as
God himself. So he's literally tempting her
with the ability, in her mind, that the ability to be like unto
the Most High, to be like unto God. And we see that when she
saw the tree was good for fruit, pleasant to the eye, and would
make one wise, that's when she took it. Now you remember whenever
Paul was addressing and he said that The sin that doth so easily beset
us is unbelief, but our unbelief stems from one of three things.
It's the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride
of life. All that is is power, popularity,
and pleasure. That's what it comes down to.
That's what tempts every man some way, some shape, or some
form, and that's exactly what Satan is tempting Eve with here.
It's the same temptation that he tempted our Lord Jesus Christ
whenever the Lord came down off the mountain fasting 40 days.
tempted him about bread. Command these stones that they
be made bread if you be Christ. Well, that was that's pleasure,
isn't it? That's the taste. And then he takes him up on a
place that says cast yourself off. Well, that was popularity.
So the people would have seen him do that. It would have been
popularity and then power. That was the last one, wasn't
he? Takes him up on the mountain. He says, all that you see, I will
give unto you if you bow down and worship me. That's power,
isn't it? It's the same temptation that
befell Eve. It's the same temptation that's
given to you and I. This is where our sin comes from
is the temptation of power, popularity, and pleasure. That's just how
it's been from the very beginning. Men justly merit their damnation
because of one of these three or all of them. We justly merit
our damnation because any choice that we've ever been given is
going to equal death because we can't, we would not choose
God. We would choose the power or
we would choose the popularity or we would choose the pleasure.
There must come an interjection of the gospel to give us repentance
so that God has changed our mind about who God is. When we see
who God is, we'll realize that we cannot attain the power necessary
for salvation, that no amount of pleasure is gonna satisfy
us because Christ has been made into us the bread of life and
the fountain of living water. He's the only one that can satisfy
us. And there's no popularity. We need popularity with the Father.
We need to be one with the Father. We need to be found in Christ
and one with the Father. So we see that men cannot merit
salvation. No matter what we do, no matter
where we go, no matter what we say, no matter what work we perform,
no matter how many ceremonies we go through, we cannot merit
salvation. If salvation could have been
merited by man, it would have been merited under the Levitical
covenant. It would have, because of everything that they did,
all the ceremonies, all the sacrifices, dotting every I, crossing every
T, and yet it still did not bring salvation to the Lord's people.
It took a perfect sacrifice, didn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ
was that perfect sacrifice. I've titled this message Six
Cannot Equal Seven. Six cannot equal seven. Seven is the number of perfection. Seven is the number that the
Lord rested upon. Seven represents our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, I'm getting ahead of myself,
I know, because next week is the number seven, so we're gonna
have a little foretaste of that, I suppose, and that'll be okay.
But seven, six can never equal seven. Six cannot equal seven. No matter what you, what me and
you do, in and of ourself, we cannot add anything to our stature. The scripture talks about that.
Can you add one cubit to your stature? Can the Ethiopian change
the color of his skin or the leopard change his spots? We
cannot become seven with something that we do. And God demands seven. God demands perfection. Six cannot
equal seven. It was said by Henry Mahan that
if you're wrong on the fall, you're wrong on it all. And that
is so true. If we don't understand how far
down we fail in our father, Adam, how truly abased we are, how
truly depraved we are by nature. If we don't understand that,
there is no foundation to build upon after that. We must realize
that depravity means totally depraved, not a little bit depraved,
not mostly depraved. Men by nature have this mentality
that they're not that bad. Well, he's not that bad of a
guy, or she's not that bad of a lady, and people like to hear
the terms, well, he's a good guy. You ever heard that before?
Somebody mentioned to me, about coming to service, he's like,
yeah, I'm gonna try to bring my brother with me. And I said,
well, that's great. She was like, you'd love to meet him. He's
a great guy. And I'm like, well, you know, I instantly wanted
to say, well, Christ said, why you call us me good? There's
none good, but God. And that was God speaking to
him. So he took that glory and gave it to his father immediately.
Do we see that? But we're not good, are we? There's nothing
good about us. Nothing that would make us a
seven. Nothing. We're just a bunch of sixes.
That's it. That's all we can be. I mentioned to us when we
first started the numbers, we're a bunch of zeros, and that's
true. Zero and six are basically the same, if you want to consider
it that way. We need the one, don't we? You take a bunch of
sixes, and you add a one to a six, what does it become? That's the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's the interjection of the
gospel. That's what he did for his people, is he became a man. He became a number six, but he
was perfect. He was sinless. He was separate
from sinners. He was undefiled. He is the just
one and the justifier for his people. And so those that are
found in him are a bunch of sevens, not a bunch of sixes anymore. God gave man from the beginning
dominion over everything. complete power as far as this
earth is concerned. There is no beast that is present
that a man cannot take down with the technology that we have.
There's no, everything in this world, the Lord has given man
the dominion over. And yet that power is not enough
to slake man's lust. They want to be God. By nature,
we want to be God. We want all of the power. We
want all the glory. We want all of the praise, but
that's, not going to happen because God is going to have all the
glory. God is going to have all the praise. Men would dethrone
God if they were able to because they hate him. Everything about
the Lord leaves us empty, leaves us desolate, shows us that we're
nothing but sixes, that's it, not good enough. Men by nature
do not want to hear that you're not good enough. Is it not true
that the society that we live in goes about saying, you're
good enough? All you gotta do is try a little
harder, do a little better, you're good enough, you can do anything.
Yes, that's true when it comes to, if I wanna become successful
in life, that's a good attitude to have, but the truth of the
matter is, when it comes to mounting up to God's standards, there's
none good. There's none good, no not one.
I'm not good enough. You're not good enough. We need
a substitute. We need a savior, and we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. That's
our hope. Romans 5.12 says, wherefore,
as by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin.
And so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Boy, if that was the end of the
chapter, we wouldn't have a whole lot of hope, would we? Matter
of fact, we'd have zero hope. Death by sin, that's the end
of it. But, and I'm thankful for the buts of the gospel, the
interjection of the gospel, the hope comes from verse 19, for
as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, So by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. What we lost
in Adam, we gain back. You can't multiply the fold how
many times we gained it back in Christ. Whatever we lost in
Adam, we have been restored completely unto the Father. We've been made
perfect. We've been made justified. We've
been made sanctified. Adam was not holy. He was just
sinless. Do we see that? Adam was not
perfect. He was just sinless. There's
a big difference. Holiness is what God demands in order for
us to see Him face to face. Adam could not have looked upon
the face of God being a man even though he was sinless because
no man can look upon the face of God and live. But you and
I get to look upon his face one day because we are in Christ.
When we die, when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, this
mortal shall put on immortality, the scripture tells us that we
will be conformed to the image of his son because we will see
him as he is. We will be made like him for
we shall see him as he is, 1 John. This is the good news of the
gospel to the Lord's people. This is the truth that all have
sinned and death by sin, but men do not want the truth, do
they? They didn't want Christ, and Christ was the truth. Christ
was the truth embodied. He was the truth incarnate, and
men did not want him. They said, away with this man.
Let his blood be upon us and upon our children. Eve, she didn't
want God or God's ways. She wanted to be God, and that's
why she chose the fruit. went with his wife in regard,
Adam chose death, is what Adam chose. Adam, the scripture talks
about it in the New Testament, whenever he, he was not beguiled
by the serpent, Adam wasn't. But Adam knew that she was gonna
die, so he took the fruit with her. And that's a picture of
the Lord Jesus Christ taking our sin unto himself so that
you and I can be one with him. We would have no idea. We would
have no idea of our depravity. had it not been for the law.
And I think I've preached on the law the last two or three
times we've been together. We love the Lord's law. The Lord's
law is our schoolmaster that brings us unto the Lord. The
Lord's law, death passed from Adam until Moses, the scripture
says, and there was no communion with God in that regard, if you
can think about it. They could not worship because
the ordinances had not been given. In order for men to worship,
blood must be given. Now sure, there were sacrifices
that were made, But until the promise came and the law was
established with Moses, the scripture is very clear that death passed.
But whenever the law was given as our schoolmaster, it then
exposed our sin. It showed us what we are. It
showed us our depravity, showed us our need of a savior, of a
substitute. You and I have Adam's blood.
It showed us that having Adam's blood is enmity against God.
We must have the blood of Christ. We must have the blood that pleased
Him, God's own blood. And that's what He gave us. That's
what He gave us in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. When David saw this, you remember
when Nathan came to him and told him the account of the rich man
taking the one ewe lamb rather than taking one of his flocks
and herds. And he said, David, you're the man. Nathan asked
him, what should happen to this guy? And David said, he's gonna
die. And I've told you this recently, so I'm summarizing it quickly.
But he said, David, you're the man. And that was the judgment
that was passed. And we see that that's the law given right there.
That's the truth given. And men do not want the truth.
But whenever the Lord gives you the heart, when the Lord gives
the believer the heart to look into him, when you hear the truth,
it sets you free because it drives you to Christ. You'll know the
truth and the truth shall make you free. And if the Spirit hath
made you free, you're free indeed. Nathan said, you're the man,
David. And what did David cry out? Did he say, well, I'm justified
in myself. I don't think that I'm really
that bad. He said, woe is me. Same as Isaiah, when he saw the
Lord high and lifted up his He was not complaining about the
children of Israel no longer having unclean lips. He said,
I'm a man of unclean lips. Me, I'm the one, I'm the man. And what is the prayer? What
is the confession that the Lord gives us because of the gospel?
When we see our fallen state, when we see our sinful nature,
when we see what we are, It's the same as David in Psalm 51
verse four. Against thee, thee only have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest
be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest.
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me. His confession is our confession,
isn't it? We see that we are nothing. And
the beginning of that passage in Psalm 51 tells us have mercy
Upon me, O Lord, according to thy lovingkindness, according
to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgression. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall
be clean. Hyssop was what they used to sprinkle the blood on
the mercy seat. Purge me with hyssop, purge me with the blood,
and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be made
whiter than snow. We see ourself as nothing but
a bunch of sixes, don't we? We see ourself as being full
of crimson, but we need to be washed in his blood. How do you
take blood? Our polluted blood and take the
precious blood of Christ, both being red and you get white,
I don't know, but that's exactly what happens because the Lord
said it is. He sees us as perfectly righteous. Now, naturally, we
are like our father, Adam, and our mother, Eve, being of their
loins, literally, having their blood, having their sinful nature,
everything about them that's against the Lord. We do the exact
same thing that they did in verse seven of chapter three. And the
eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were
naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves
aprons. Is that not what we do? As a bunch of sixes being born
in this world, we try to sew fig leaves together to become
a seven. That's as clear as I can put it. That's what men do by
nature, isn't it? We try our best to become whatever
it is that we think the Lord is pleased with by nature. Now,
the believer doesn't do this. You know why? I'll tell you.
If you look down, you'll find that the Lord, the
Lord took in verse 21, unto Adam also and to his wife did the
Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them. Do you know
why the believer doesn't sew fig leaves together? Because
God's clothed them in his righteousness. The Lord's made a coat of skin
for his people. What is that? That's the Lord
Jesus Christ's righteousness, isn't it? That's how he makes
us sevens, is he robes us in his righteousness. He no longer
sees us as what we are. He no longer sees our depraved
nature. He no longer sees our iniquity.
And that's what iniquity is, is us sowing fig leaves together,
trying to become a seven, trying to be pleasing unto the Lord,
trying to be made righteous before him. The believer doesn't do
this, do they? The believer does not do this.
The believer looks to Christ as all in their salvation, looks
to Christ as all in their life, looks, Christ is our life. Our life is hid in Christ. That's
what he does for his people, reveals that Christ is all. Now all this iniquity that men
try to do, Solomon compared it unto vanity. Solomon was considered
the preacher of the Lord, the one that declared the truth of
the gospel, the wisest man that's ever lived besides Christ. By
the way, wisdom is Christ, just so you know. If a man is given
wisdom, he's given Christ and therefore looks unto Christ.
And so Christ has made unto us wisdom. But Solomon literally
tells us that all this that we do, the toil that we go through
in this life, the experience that we have, every up and down
that we're facing, it's all vanity. Whatever we produce at the very
end is vanity. You know what the word vanity
translates as? Breath or vapor. That's all that
we are. James 4.14 says, whereas you
know not what shall be on the morrow, for what is your life?
What is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth
for a little time and vanisheth away. Turn with me to Ecclesiastes
chapter one. Somebody might ask, you mean
everything that I do is vanity? Everything that you do. Everything
that we are, everything that we do is just iniquity, and vanity
on repeat. That's all that it is. That's
all that it is. Ecclesiastes chapter 1, the words
of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of
vanity, saith the preacher. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. That don't leave out much, does
it? I mean, that's every bit, everything. There's not just
a little bit there that's not vanity. All, period, is vanity. That's it. What prophet hath
a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun? One
generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth
abideth forever. The sun also ariseth and the
sun goeth down and hasteneth to its place where he rose. The
wind goeth towards the south and turneth again to the north.
We heard about the wind a few Wednesdays ago, didn't we? The
wind goeth towards the south and turneth about to the north.
It whirleth about continually. The wind returneth again according
to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea
if the sea is not full. Unto the place from which the
rivers come, thither they return again. All things are full of
labor. Man cannot utter it. The eye
is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
I had a conversation with somebody recently, and we were talking
about kind of being burnt out, burnt out on life. You wake up,
you do your responsibilities, you rest, if you have a chance
to rest in the evening, and you sleep and you get up and it's
all over again. This is what Solomon's talking about here.
The sun come up, the sun goes down, the waters flow into the
sea, the wind blows where they're so at lista. Everything that
he's experiencing, everything that he's noticing, no matter
what he's doing to try to get gain, no matter what he's doing. Actually in chapter two, after
he figures all this out, he says, well, I'm going to do something
else because this didn't work out. This is vanity. So let me
try this, I'm gonna get maidservants, I'm gonna get menservants, I'm
gonna build me gardens and houses and vineyards, and I'm gonna
get all the land, I'm gonna have musicians from all over the world,
and the most beautiful music you've ever heard, I'm gonna
have the best food, I'm gonna have everything. And he does,
the Lord gave him the ability to do that. But you know what
he called it at the end? Vanity. That's us, brethren,
in this life. We are nothing but vanity. I
had a dear brother down in Florida, whenever they sold their house,
they were moving into a smaller place and they had to get rid
of almost everything they had. And this dear brother, he's in
his 80s and he's doing well. But as I went to his house, my
intention was to haul off the stuff that he didn't need. But
in his mind, it was still valuable stuff. It was valuable junk,
if you will. And so he said, I want you to take this and I
want you to use this for your company. I had a company at the
time doing work. And so I realized that I didn't
want to hurt his feelings by saying, dude, I don't want your
junk. I didn't want to say that to him. And I can be blunt about
it, because me and him had this conversation even recently, and
we laugh about it, whatever else. And so I loaded up everything
he had, and I put it in my truck, and I took it, and I got rid
of most of it. I'd say at least 90%. At least 90%. But in his
mind, this was valuable things. This was items of some form of
value. But it came down at the end of
his life, it was just vanity. It was just empty. It was just
nothing. It was a bunch of nuts and bolts that never accomplished
anything but to be thrown in a dump and buried in a landfill.
That's our life without Christ. That is our life without Christ.
Empty and useless and void and nothing. But in Christ Jesus,
we have it all. In Christ Jesus, he's taking
a bunch of nothings and made them something. He's taking our
empty efforts and he's blessed them because we're in him. His
work is our work. He's given us the benefits of
the Lord Jesus Christ in the person of his son. He's given
us glory. He's given us the earth. The
scripture says the earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof,
but that's what he's given unto his people. This is the Lord's
gift to his people, if you will. In Christ Jesus, we have it all.
And we don't pursue vanity anymore. Although we do, we do work. by
the sweat of our face. And we see the curse. I didn't
read it in Genesis, but that's exactly what happened. His man
shall eat bread by the sweat of his face. So we're cursed
to go through this vanity of life, but we're not like all
men. We have hope. Paul said, if we'd
be of all men, we'd be like all men, we'd be most miserable,
most miserable. We'd be of all men most miserable
if we had hope only in this world, but we have hope in the Lord
Jesus Christ. So as we're going through these motions of life,
as we're going from sunup to sundown, As we see all the waters
going into the ocean and it not being filled and it raining again
and everything, the seasons, I'm noticing the beautiful leaves
out there, but it's just another year. Another year has passed
and it seems like it's all vanity, just like Solomon is saying here. You know what he comes down to,
his resolve at the very end, what it's all boiled down to?
Christ is all. Christ is my hope. Christ is
what I need. I need the wisdom of Christ.
I need to rest. in the Lord Jesus Christ, because
everything else that I'm doing is vanity and it amounts to nothing. Everything that I am, everything
that I touch, I mess up, but everything he is and everything
he touched is made perfect and beautiful. And he did that for
his people, didn't he? He took us to sixes and he made
us a seven. That's what he did for his people.
That's the glorious news of the gospel. Silly to think that men truly believe that they're
gonna be something in this world, that they're gonna be something
before God. We come in this world speaking
lies, born wearing diapers, and we leave speaking lies wearing
diapers, don't we? It's just how it is. And in between, we're
just going through life with trials, tribulations, sorrows,
all these things. The Lord Jesus Christ, he tells
us that. He says, in this world, you shall
have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. Brother, my intention here tonight
is to try to help us. If the Lord would help us, if
the Lord calls us to just see Christ for a moment, to forget
these troubles that we face, to just lay our burden at Him. Come unto me, all you that labor
heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Do you need rest? I need
rest. He said, I'll give you rest if
you come unto me. The Lord calls me to come unto you, calls me
to come unto you. Make me a seven. Don't leave
me as a six, please. I need to be found in Christ. No matter how hard we try in
and of ourself, it's all vanity and it's all iniquity because
six cannot equal seven. We cannot produce anything to
please Him, and we know that. We've been made to know that,
haven't we? You believe that, don't you? But we also know this. This is why God had to become
a man. The Lord Jesus Christ, being perfection incarnate, being
the Holy One, being truth, became a man for his people. And the
Father trusted Christ before we ever trusted Christ to redeem
us. We trust Christ, we do. But the
Father trusted him first. And God redeemed his people,
resting on the Sabbath day, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the
only time the Lord rested was on the Sabbath. That's the only
time the Lord rested. It's amazing. I can't get over
the thought that God became a man. If we ever get past that, I mean,
there's no way we can get past that. That's a miracle, it's
miraculous, it's glorious. God condescended. made under
the law, born of a woman, made in the flesh, in the likeness
of sinful flesh, to enforce sin, condemn sin in the flesh, God
became a man and saved his people. In order for us to be made of
seven, God became a man. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
two. I have a couple more places I'd
like to turn to tonight quickly. Hebrews chapter two being one
of them. Hebrews chapter two and verse
14. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,
he also himself likewise took part of the same. The Lord Jesus
Christ became a partaker of flesh and blood, that through death
he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the
devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not him the
nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore
in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren,
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For
in that he himself had suffered being tempted, he is able to
succor them that are tempted. The Lord Jesus Christ took part
of the same blood and flesh of our nature, yet without sin. He did this. He did this that
he might deliver us from the power of Satan, to destroy Satan,
to deliver us. We had no hope other than fear
of death. That was not hopeful at all.
But the interjection of the gospel and God becoming a man for his
people, that he would conquer the devil, that he would put
away our sin, and that he would fulfill the law, that is the
glorious news of the gospel. He did that for his people. The scripture says that Christ
thought it not robbery to be equal with God. What does that
mean to be equal? He was a number seven also, wasn't
he? The Lord Jesus Christ is a number seven, and the Father
is as well. And we see that he thought it not robbery to be
equal with God. So in Christ Jesus, in Christ Jesus, this
is how he made us. The number six, seven. For if by one man's offense,
death reigned by one, Much more they which receive abundance
of grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus
Christ. Therefore, as by the offense
of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so
by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men
unto justification of life. The Lord Jesus Christ's obedience
has given us justification to life, justification of life. Last place is 1 Kings 3. 1 Kings
3. The Lord has appeared unto Solomon
in a dream. In verse five it tells us, in Gibeon, the Lord
appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, ask what
I shall give unto thee. Christ gives Solomon a heart
to ask for the same thing that every believer asks for. And
it's found in verse nine. Give therefore thy servant an
understanding heart to judge thy people that I may discern
between good and bad, For who is able to judge this thy so
great a people? And the speech pleased the Lord
that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said unto him, because
thou had asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long
life, neither hast thou asked for riches for thyself, nor hast
asked the life of thine enemies, but hast asked for thy self-understanding
to discern judgment. Behold, I have done according
to thy words, Lo, I have given thee a wise and understanding
heart, so that there was none like thee before thee, neither
after thee shall any arise. And I have also given thee that
which thou hast not asked, both riches and honor, so that there
shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days.
The reason I had us turn here is for a very simple reason.
In the garden, Eve wanted to be God. She wanted to have popularity. She wanted to have power and
she wanted to have pleasure. And that is what befalls every
man in some way, shape or form. But to the believer when we are,
he was literally asked by God, what do you want? If God came
here this night, if you're a believer, you're going to ask the same
thing. If God looks at you and says,
what will you ask me for? You will not ask him for riches.
You will not ask him for time. You will not ask him for power,
anything that could buy pleasure or popularity. You will ask for
one thing, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ, because you see
yourself as a six. You see yourself as not adding
up unto the Lord Jesus Christ. You and I, if the Lord has purpose
to reveal Christ unto us, we see We need a substitute, the
substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray the same thing. And
the Lord's response unto us will be the exact same as it is unto
Solomon. I will also, I've given you this.
I've given you this heart that looks unto Christ. I've given
you wisdom, which is Christ, but I've also given thee that
which thou hast not asked for. I've given you everything in
Christ. I've given you righteousness.
I've given you wisdom. I've given you sanctification.
I've given you redemption. Now, yes, we are going to have
to work in this life to try to make our way through it. But
this life, we're going to wake up when we get into glory and
realize we've always been there. And this was a figment of our
imagination, just just fleeting time. And it's just time, just
a blip in eternity. It's just a I don't know. How
do you even describe that? And it was all vanity. And yet
the Lord brought us these vain creatures full of sin, totally
depraved, and presents us as perfectly righteous unto Him,
having no iniquity, having no sin. That's what He's done for
His people in making us sevens. That's the glorious news of the
gospel. 1 Corinthians 1.30 says, but of
Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto you, made
unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Six cannot equal seven, but six
plus one equals seven. That's simple math, isn't it?
Father, give us Christ. Let us be found in Him. Cause
us to be perfect in Him. Cause us to rest in Christ, knowing
that nothing He did was in vain, but He accomplished that which
He set out to do. Lord calls us to hear your voice
and rest in his finished work. In Christ's name we pray, amen.