Faith Fundamentals by John MacArthur

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April 18, 2000

Faith Fundamentals by John MacArthur

Our God-Breathed Bible
2 Timothy 3:16-17
"All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness that the man of God may be adequate, fully equipped for every good work." All Scripture is inspired by God.  I would like to do that in order to enrich all of our understanding of what it means to have in our hands the word of the living God. It is His very word, His very self revelation.  That is a tremendous reality. That gives confidence to everything we do. It also binds us to obedience and submission to everything the Scripture teaches. What is meant by "all Scripture or every Scripture is inspired by God?"
Hebrews 1 "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers by the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son."  This is the essence of revelation. Revelation in its simple sense means to reveal, to make something known that prior was not known, to make something understood that was not understood, to disclose truth never before known. God has revealed Himself. God spoke long ago and God has spoken in these last days.
The writer of Hebrews is saying God spoke on two occasions. He spoke once long ago, He speaks in these last days by His Son. Now I believe that we are fair in assessing the fact that he has in mind here Old Testament revelation and New Testament revelation. God spoke long ago to the Jewish fathers. Those were the Old Testament prophets, those who received God's Word long ago under the old covenant. He spoke to those fathers by means of the prophets in many portions, polumeros, many books, many sections.  There is the Pentateuch and there are the prophetic books and the historical books and there are the books of poetry. And in many many portions and in many books, God spoke. He spoke to the Jewish fathers. He spoke by means of the prophets.
He also spoke, it says, in many ways, polutropos. That means through vision and prophecy and parable and type and symbol and ceremony and theophany and sometimes audible voice. He even wrote with His finger on stone. There were many ways in which God spoke many things, collected in many texts, put into many books and He spoke to those of old by means of the prophets. That is a statement with reference to the fact that the Old Testament is God speaking.
The Old Testament is not a collection of the wisdom of ancient men, the best of religious thinking or a collection of the good musings of godly people. The Old Testament is the word of God. It's not the thinking of any men, good men, godly men or ancient men in and of themselves. The writer of Hebrews says God spoke. The Old Testament was God speaking to the fathers by means of the prophets. In these last days since the coming of Christ, He has spoken again in the Son. The gospels record God speaking through His Son - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The book of Acts, God speaking through the extension of the proclamation of the message of His son. The epistles, God speaking through the deep and profound understanding of the meaning of the life and ministry of the Son. Even Revelation, the consummation when the Son comes back in glory, the consummation of God's communication to this world.
The Old Testament is God speaking and revealing Himself. The New Testament is God speaking and revealing His Son. The Old Testament is God's self revelation and that is the theme of the Old Testament. From Genesis to the very end of the Old Testament, to Malachi, and all in between, the main character is God. It is the revelation of God, who He is, His attributes, His attitudes, how He reacts to every possible given human situation, what is He like, what does He do, that's the Old Testament. It is the revelation of God. It is not the story of man or the story of Israel. Those stories are there but it is the revelation of God and we see God revealed through man, through history, through Israel, through all that happens. God's attributes are sometimes listed very clearly as in the Psalms.
The Old Testament is the revelation of God to show man what God is like, who God is, what God tolerates and does not tolerate, how God desires holiness and punishes sin. The New Testament is God revealed by His Son in the life of His Son, in the message of His Son, in the understanding of the work of His Son and in the culmination and the coming of His Son to establish His eternal Kingdom. But in either case, Old Testament, New Testament, God spoke. This is not the word of man.

     The New Testament writers wrote down the Word of God. Jesus promised, "I will bring all things to your remembrance. I will teach you all things. I will lead you into all truth. I will show you things to come." In so promising gave those Apostles and along with them the other writers of the New Testament the promise of divine inspiration, that they like the Old Testament prophets would write the Word of God. What we have in our hands, beloved, is not the word of man, it's not the word of religious, wise and godly men, it is the word of God.
The process God used to reveal Himself and that has come to be known as inspiration. In 2 Peter 1:20 it says, "Know this first that no message," the word "prophecy" here has a very generic sense not meaning some kind of prediction of the future, but message, no telling forth, "no message of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation," epilusis. Now notice this, no message of Scripture is a matter of one's own epilusis.
This could mean releasing and that might be the truest essence of the term. No message from Scripture is of one's own releasing. Some have suggested that the best way to translate it would be inspiration because that's what it's intending to say. No message of Scripture is a matter of one's own inspiration. That is to say Scripture does not come out of inspired men in the sense that some men are inspired because of some level of religious genius. The genitive case here suggests that Peter has in mind source or origin of Scripture and that he's really not talking about interpreting the Bible in the sense that you would describe what it means, but he's talking about the origin so that it could say this, "No prophecy of Scripture is a matter of origination in one's own mind." No message of Scripture comes out of any human source, that's the idea.

     "For," verse 21 says, "no message was ever made by an act of human will." Scripture is not the product of men. It is not the product of the will of men. "But men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God," very clear and very vital. No message was ever made, aorist passive indicative, the verb is phero, means to bear, carry along, convey, produce, bring forth, bring along. No message was ever conveyed, borne, carried along, produced, brought forth by an act of human will, but men‑‑same verb, phero‑‑ were borne along, carried along, conveyed, brought forth by the Holy Spirit to speak from God. The Holy Spirit filled them. The idea is like putting your winds...your sails to the wind on a ship and being borne along by the breeze. The Spirit of God moved them along, blew them along. And that tells us the process.

     The content of the Bible is revelation. The process by which that content was written down is called inspiration. And it wasn't a high level of human activity, it wasn't even a high level of religious human activity. Men were in the process but it didn't originate with them and it didn't come from their desire and their will, they were used as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit and enabled to speak from God. They spoke divine words. God used them. It was their personality. It was their background, some of their insights, their experiences, their perceptions, but ever word was the word of God. That's the miracle of inspiration. Men...they were used...carried along by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. That's what the Scripture says.

     So, when you pick up your Bible, you're not reading the word of men, you're reading the Word of God that was written down by men who were moved along in the process by the power of the Holy Spirit. Not apart from their personalities and not apart from their experiences and not apart from their vocabulary and not apart from their heart passion and compulsion, but integrating all of that into the power of the Spirit of God and never compromising the truth that every word came from God...a great and glorious miracle, so vital.

     So, God spoke in the Old Testament to the fathers by the prophets in many ways and in many portions. And God has spoken in the New Testament by His Son in the gospels and then about His Son in the rest of the New Testament. The process by which God gave us that revelation is inspiration and inspiration was God putting His revelation in, as it were, the hands of men to be written down first to be spoken and proclaimed and then written down as they were energized, carried along by the Holy Spirit. Men were used and yet no word of God was ever violated. The totality of Scripture, pasa graphe, all Scripture, every Scripture, is theopneustos, God breathed. It is the breath of God, the writing of Scripture. The totality of it, according to Romans 3:2 is called the oracles of God. When Paul is talking about the benefit of Israel, what is it that they had that set them apart from other nations, he has reference to the Old Testament which he calls the oracles of God...the speeches of God...the words of God.

     And Jeremiah is a good illustration of this process. Jeremiah, called by God from before he was born, "The word of the Lord came to me," verse 4 of chapter 1, "before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you. I have appointed you a prophet to the nations. Then I said, Alas, Lord God, I do not know how to speak because I am a youth." Verse 9, "And the Lord stretched out His hand, touched my mouth, the Lord said to me, Behold, I have put My words in your mouth." What a tremendous statement. I have put My words in your mouth, that was the promise for the writers of Scripture. All Scripture is God breathed. All holy writing comes from God.

     We recognize that. We recognize the divine uniqueness of Scripture. The early church recognized it. Even though it wasn't until 393, 397, the Council of Hippo, the Council of Carthage, about that time, that the church sort of officially established the canon of Scripture comprehensively. It didn't take that long for people to recognize it. The church didn't invent the canon of Scripture any more than Newton invented the law of gravity. Newton discovered gravity which God invented and the church from the very earliest discovered inspired documents which God Himself wrote. And though there was some time before some official church laid down some official label on all of it, it was eminently clear to the early church what was the Word of God and what was not the Word of God. And there are all kinds of erroneous books that have been left out. But what was the Word of God was the Word of God. God is the author of Scripture.

     In fact, in the scriptures frequently God and the term Scripture are used interchangeably. In Galatians, "And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, All the nations shall be blessed in you. The Scripture says all the nations shall be blessed in you. If you go back to Genesis 12 you see that God said that. God said, Scripture said, same thing, what Scripture says, God says. What Scripture says, God says.

     In Acts chapter 13 is a most interesting note in the sermon of the Apostle Paul. He says in verse 32, "We preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers that God has fulfilled this promise to our children and that He raised up Jesus as it is written in the second Psalm, Thou art My Son, today I have begotten thee. Then and as for the fact that He raised Him up from the dead no more to return to decay, He has spoken in this way, I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David therefore He says also in another Psalm, Thou wilt not allow Thine holy one to undergo decay." In other words, God is speaking in the Psalms. And that's exactly what the Apostle is affirming. When the Psalms speak, God speaks.

     In Romans, I was thinking just a moment ago of chapter 9 verse 17, the Scripture says to pharaoh, "For this very purpose I raised you up," and so forth. The Scripture didn't say that in the Old Testament, God said it, but when God speaks that's Scripture, when Scripture speaks that's God. So you find such terminology interchanged.

     God breathed into them and they wrote it down, word by word what God breathed into them. It was more than dictation. They weren't just listening to some voice and writing mechanically every word, it was flowing through their heart and their soul and their mind and their emotions and their experiences. But it came out every word the word of God. As God breathed into them the message and they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, they said it and some of them wrote it down. Miraculous, supernatural, inexplicable process that yields to us the Word of God.

     Now let me talk about it from a negative viewpoint, just to illustrate the major thrust. And what I want to point out is that when we talk about the Bible being inspired, we're not saying that there were some men who had a high level of human ability, some kind of religious geniuses. The world is full of people like that. There have been geniuses in music who were prolific, who were profound, who were way beyond the common people and maybe way beyond even the best of men. There were geniuses and are geniuses in literature, geniuses in prose and geniuses in poetry, great men and women of monumental capability that we would say were inspired poets, inspired musicians, inspired writers, inspired thinkers or whatever. But when we talk about Bible inspiration, we're not talking about some high level of human achievement, not so. We're not talking about men, as I said, who could because of their religious genius write Scripture any time they wanted to, no. None of them could do that. Only when God gave them what He wanted said or written could they do it and under the work of the Spirit of God.

     They, by the way, haven't produced anything else, any other writings. If Peter was inspired, why aren't there a whole lot of stuff...isn't there a whole lot of stuff floating around that Peter wrote or said that we're collecting? Why didn't they write other books? Why didn't they go on and write more and more and more and more and more if it's only a high level of human genius? Bible writers themselves claim that what they wrote, God wrote, they didn't write. It's kind of curious to me that they had a sort of a strange air of infallibility. They said they wrote for God and they never seemed to be self‑conscious about it. I mean, you basically look at the Bible writers and for the most part they are unlearned and common men. And yet they're supremely confident that they write the Word of God. In fact about 4,000 times in the Bible the writers claim to be writing the Word of God. And they're never self‑conscious about it. I mean, you would imagine that somewhere along the line...the way they would say, "And this is the Word of God, now I know you find that hard to believe that I'm giving you the exact Word of God but you've got to understand, this is really true, guys. I mean, cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye, I'm not woofing you. This is really true." There's none of that. There's none of that "I don't know why you ought to believe this, but I'm telling you, this is really the Lord, He told me to tell you this." There's no sense of self‑justification. There's no sense of self‑defense. And even though most of them had no extensive education and were in no earthly position to be in a role of a literary genius particularly, they wrote this profound, far‑ reaching, supernatural wisdom, prophecies of the future, things to come to pass that were absolutely accurate. They wrote on the nature and character of God. They wrote on God's divine purposes unfolding in the world. They were right about every single thing they ever said and they all claimed that it came from God and yet they were never self‑conscious about such a claim. Amazing...amazing. They just assumed it was the Word of God and they wrote it as such.

     James described the authority of the Scripture when he said in chapter 4 verse 5, "Do you think the Scripture speak for no purpose?" They're authoritative. Paul said the law of God was holy, just and good and he had in mind that revealed law of God, the Old Testament. New Testament writers, yes, affirmed they wrote the Word of God just as Old Testament writers had. There are about 320 direct quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament, about 1,000 inferences. The New Testament writers clearly believe the Old Testament was inspired. They also clearly believe their own New Testament was inspired. They knew they were writing the Word of God. And it wasn't just some high level of human genius. They were moved by the Spirit of God to do what they otherwise could never do...never.

     Secondly, there are some people who say, "Well, the Bible is inspired but only concepts, not the real words." And I have tried to deal with that through the years, people who think that they were inspired by God with great religious thoughts and they wrote it in their own words, so we don't really have the words of God. So don't get bogged down in the word, just kind of grab the concepts and kind of go with the ideas and the flow, don't worry about the words, that's just details that get in the way." You hear people say, "Well the spirit gives life, the letter kills," and that kind of thing.

     Well I would like to ask somebody how you communicate ideas without words. I'm not sure I understand that. How in the world could you communicate if you were God to somebody an idea without words? It doesn't make any sense. And when Moses wanted to excuse himself from speaking for the Lord because he wasn't eloquent, God didn't say, "I will be with your mind and teach you what to think," He said, "I will be with your...what?...your mouth and teach you what to say."

                         END OF SIDE ONE

                            SIDE TWO

     Isaiah said, "I heard the voice of the Lord saying, and He said go and tell this people." Jeremiah said, "The word of the Lord came unto me saying..." Ezekiel said, "He said unto me, Son of man I send thee to the children of Israel, all My words that I shall speak unto thee receive in they heart and hear with thine ears and go and speak to them." It was words, not thoughts, without words, whatever they are. Amos said, "I was no prophet neither was I a prophet's son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees and Jehovah took me from following the flock and Jehovah said to me, Go prophesy unto My people, Israel. Jehovah said to me..."

     Paul's marvelous conversion experience, he was confronted by Ananias, he records it in Acts 22, "The God of our fathers has appointed thee to know His will and to see the righteous one and to hear a voice from His mouth." God appointed Paul to listen to Him and speak what he was told.

     John said, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and I heard behind me a great voice saying, What you see write in a book, write therefore the things which you saw, the things which are, the things which shall come to pass hereafter." Even Christ, the Word made flesh, said that He received His message from His Father. Isaiah said of Christ, "Jehovah has made Him a mouth like a sharp sword." And the Lord Jehovah has given me, he said, the tongue of them that are taught. He even taught Christ what to say.

     You can't have thoughts without words, that kind of concept is foolish. You might as well talk about a tune without notes, or music without a melody. You might as well talk about sun without light, or a sum without figures, or geology with rocks, or anthropology without men, as thoughts without words.

     Quite the contrary. Look at 1 Peter for a moment, show you an interesting thing. First Peter 1:10 and 11, this illustrates a principle. Peter is writing with reference to the Old Testament prophets as they recorded truth regarding the Messiah. He says, "As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful search and inquiry, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating." In other words, here they were, prophets of the Old Testament, being borne along by the Holy Spirit and being borne along to speak and write about the Messiah. And as they were speaking or writing about the Messiah, they were making careful search and inquiry to figure out what they were talking about. The point is this, not only does the Bible not teach that there are thoughts without words, it does teach that sometimes God gave words without thoughts, in that sense. I don't mean mindless mechanical dictation, but there were many things that the writers of the Old Testament wrote that they did not fully comprehend. It is not a question of them writing down the distillation of their religious genius, it is a question of them writing the words that God gave them whether they understood them fully or not. And that's why in Matthew 24:35 it says, "Heaven and earth shall pass away but My words...not My thoughts...shall not pass away."

     Then somebody else comes along and says, "Well, but the Bible is inspired when it speaks of sacred things, not when it talks about secular things like science and history and geography and all of that." And you have to deal with that periodically. There are those who say the history of the Bible is in error. The geography of the Bible is in error. The mathematics of the Bible is in error. The scientific statements of the Bible are erroneous. But don't worry, inspiration only guarantees the sacred not the secular...which is like saying God is good at religious things but He really needs help in other areas...doesn't do well with other data. And there are all kinds of people who want to attack the Bible on that basis.

     Let me give you a couple of illustrations...kind of curious ones. In...well one that you probably are somewhat familiar with is given, and we won't look it up, in Joshua 10 where it talks about the fact that the battle was going on, Joshua 10 about verse 12 and following, and it says that in the middle of the battle the sun...what?...stood still. And the critics for years, you know, have laughed and mocked that and said the sun stood still...now how scientific is that? If there was an unchanging relationship between the earth and the sun what it meant was the earth stood still. See, that's scientific they say, the Bible is so unscientific. But the fact is, if you were there that day it would look to you like the sun stood still. And that same critic who wants to despair of what the Bible says would be the first guy in the morning to bounce out of bed, look out the back window of his house and say, "What a beautiful sunrise." That's not a sunrise, by the way. But nobody goes out and says, "Oh, what a lovely earth revolving." And nobody says that at night either.

     And we say things like that all the time. We say people in Australia live down under, down under what? That's not any more down under than being here is. But that's a figure of speech. We say, "Well, we searched the four corners of the earth." What corners? There are some things we speak from human perspective that are not intended to be statements of the technical elements of scientific data.

     Then there is the record in the book of Kings, 1 Kings chapter 8...2 Kings rather, chapter 18 where you have Sennacherib and you have the transaction that's made with Hezekiah and it says there that he gave 30 talents of gold and 300 talents of silver which doesn't seem like any kind of issue until archaeologists discovered the Assyrian records of that transaction between Hezekiah and Sennacherib, in fact they have discovered Sennacherib's own record and in Sennacherib's record he has 800 talents of silver instead of 300 talents and the critics said, "You see, this is the kind of thing the Bible messes up on because it's not careful about little numbers." And then further archaeological studies have revealed that the standard of calculating gold was the same in Judea and Syria but the standard of calculating silver was different and a Judean and Syrian talent were so different that it took 800 Syrian talents to equal 300 Hebrew talents and that's exactly what the Scripture said. Scripture speaking in the Hebrew and the Sennacherib record in the Syrian.

     Let me show you another one. There are many like that where the Bible is supposedly in error and it isn't if you look closely. One very curious one is in Numbers 11, turn to it, it's the fourth book in the Old Testament, you can find it. Numbers 11 verse 31, this I think to be an interesting one. "There went forth a wind from the Lord." Now the children of Israel wandering around the Sinai at this time and they have to be fed. And so the Lord is going to feed them. And how He feeds them is quite curious. He sent a wind and it brought quail from the sea. This wind blew in quail. And the quail came into the camp. And it says they came beside the camp about a day's journey on this side and a day's journey on the other side. So not only were they around but they were around for quite an extensive range of area.

     And it says not only were they one day's journey on that side of the camp, one day's journey on this side of the camp all filled with quail but two cubits deep...two cubits deep, about two cubits deep. A cubit was originally sort of from your elbow to the end of your hand, maybe 18 inches give or take. So you're talking three to four feet, it's an about kind of figure. Let's take the critic who decided that it was kind of four feet so he thought he'd do some calculation. He said this is one of the most of the most ridiculous things he ever read. You mean at one day's journey on that side and one day's journey on this day that that whole entire area around the camp of Israel is four feet deep in quail? So he calculated. That would be nineteen trillion, five hundred and thirty‑eight billion, four hundred and sixty‑eight million, three hundred and six thousand, six hundred and seventy‑two quail. And so naturally that was cause for great laughter. Sure, 19 trillion quail all piled up.

     But he only showed his ignorance. The Hebrew scripture doesn't say they were stacked up from the ground up. What scripture indicates in the Hebrew text is that God blew the quail into the wilderness from the Nile valley and the birds all came flying in about two cubits above the ground, that's what it says. Quail don't usually just come in and hover about two cubits above the ground but they were blown in there by the Lord. And it was easy for the people to get them that way, they just reach out and say, "Which one would you like?" "I'll take that one." Take a stick and wap that one in the head. The quail were coming in, flying at that level and hovering in the area until all the people had all that they wanted.

     Listen, when the Bible talks about science, when the Bible talks about history, when the Bible talks about mathematics, whatever it is the Bible talks about, it is the Word of God. And God is infallible and His Word is equally infallible. Critics want to mock the Scripture and yet the Bible is scientifically accurate, contains the basic principles of science. You could take science, for example, in its most basic element, the most basic elements of science, time, force, action, space, matter. Those five things, Herbert Spencer, 1903 he died. He reduced everything that is to those categories...time, force, action, space, matter. He said everything in the universe fits into those. That is the matrix of existence.

     In 1903 he died having been hailed as a great brilliant man because he discovered that. And what he didn't realize, it's in the first verse of the Bible. In the beginning‑‑that's time‑‑, God‑‑that's force‑‑, created‑‑that's action‑‑, the heavens‑‑ that's space‑‑, the earth‑‑that's matter. The matrix of existence was in the first verse. The universe is a continuum of time, force, action, space, matter. And one can't exist without the other therefore the entire continuum must have existed simultaneously from the beginning.   It all had to begin together. Science has to be in that matrix. No one element of that matrix can be missing or you can't have what we have in existence today. And once the universe had been created, its processes were designed to operate in an orderly fashion, all of energy and matter was sustained by their interplay so that no further creation was needed.

     Once you generate time, force, action, space and matter, that's it, that's all you need. And Genesis 2:2 says God ended the work which God had made. He did it and it was done. He did it all at once, created the whole matrix, that was it. There's never been any creation since then because there doesn't need to be any creation since then. The complete cessation of creative activity has been called the first law of thermodynamics by science, or the law of conservation of mass and energy, which Einstein spent a lot of time on. It is the most basic universal certain of all scientific principles and it's right there in the Word of God. He ceased from doing what He done, it was over, He did it all at once and that was it and it would conserve itself by its very nature.

     The second law of thermodynamics is the law of increasing disorder, that all of that system in that matrix is running down, disintegrating and will eventually come up dead. And that we're seeing in no uncertain terms. The whole creation, Romans 8 says, is groaning and groaning and groaning and waiting for the curse to be reversed. Science cannot explain, are you ready for this, the second law of thermodynamics. They don't know why everything is decreasing into disorder, all running down heading toward deadness. The Bible is the only place you can go for an explanation and the explanation is a little three‑letter word that says "sin...sin...sin." You can't even be a half‑baked scientist if you don't believe in sin because you can't explain the nature of the matrix of existence.

     The Bible is accurate on everything it talks about. It says He hangeth the earth on nothing. The Koran says the earth is on the back of elephants who produce earthquakes when they shake. Foolish statement. Whether you're talking about geology, geodesy, meteorology, physiology, biology, anthropology, astronomy, hydrology, I don't care what you're talking about, when the Bible speaks it's accurate.

     And then you look at things in the Bible like prophecy. For example, maybe we have time to show you at least one. Look at Ezekiel chapter 28 and I'll just give you this one insight which is so great to show you the accuracy of Scripture historically. Ezekiel 26 to 28, we'll go back to 26. Here comes a prophecy to Ezekiel about the destruction of the city of Tyre. Tyre was a Phoenician stronghold. Tyre was a fairly significant city, large city on the coast of Phoenicia, now known as Palestine. And the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel in verse 2 of chapter 26 telling about the destruction of the place. Son of man because Tyre has said concerning Jerusalem, Aha, the gateway of the peoples is broken, it is open to me. I shall be filled now that she is laid waste.

     In other words, because Tyre mocked Jerusalem, therefore thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, I will bring upon you many nations against you as the sea brings up its waves. They will destroy the walls of Tyre. Break down her towers. I will scrape her debris from her, make her a bare rock. She will be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea for I have spoken, declares the Lord God. And she will become spoil for the nations. Also her daughters who are on the mainland will be slain by the sword and they will know that I am the Lord. For thus says the Lord God, Behold I will bring upon Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, king of kings and horses, chariots, calvary and a great army. He will slay your daughters on the mainland with the sword. He will make siege walls against you, cast up a mound against you and raise up a large shield against you. And the blow of his battering rams he will direct against your walls, and with his axes he will break down your towers. Because of the multitude of his horses, the dust raised by them will cover you. Your walls will shake at the noise of calvary and wagons and chariots when he enters your gates as men enter a city that is breached. With the hooves of his horses he will trample all your streets, he will slay your people with the sword and your strong pillars will come down to the ground. Also they will make a spoil of your riches and a prey of your merchandise, break down your walls and destroy your pleasant houses and throw your stones and your timbers and your debris into the water. So I will silence the sound of your songs and the sound of your harps will be heard no more. I will make you a bare rock. You will be a place for the spreading of nets. You will be built no more for I the Lord have spoken, declares the Lord God, thus says the Lord God to Tyre.

     Now that's pretty detailed stuff, folks. I mean, that is not some kind of general prophecy. Very specific. This is a great Phoenician city. From the seventh century B.C. it controlled Phoenicia. It had strong walls, about 150 feet high was the wall...that's very high, fifteen feet thick. And it was flourishing when Joshua led Israel into Canaan. Hiram the first was its king. He helped David build the palace. And according to 2 Chronicles 22...1 Chronicles 22, he helped Solomon build the temple.

     Three years after this prophecy was given, Nebuchadnezzar came and laid a 13 year siege on that city. See, they were walled cities so all you had to do was, if you couldn't get into the city, you just cut off anything coming into the city and they eventually starved. Took him 13 years from 585 to 573. Finally the city surrendered because they were all dying. And Nebuchadnezzar broke down the walls and the towers, destroyed the city, did every single thing Ezekiel said he would do and of course he wasn't reading Ezekiel when he did it.

     He got in the city. He didn't find the spoils. He thought he was going to find spoils but they had used their fleet to take the spoils out. They took all the spoils to a half‑mile away island off the coast and, of course, in chapter 29 Ezekiel said you will gain no plunder, you'll gain no plunder. Just exactly that happened. When he got there they had taken all the valuables off to the island, Nebuchadnezzar had no naval force to go off and get it. The island then became the new city. And it flourished for 250 years out on that island.

     Only part of the prophecy was fulfilled. The part about Nebuchadnezzar, the part about destroying the walls, smashing it down, slaughtering the people, not getting the spoil, but not all of it was yet complete. The ruins were still on the old sight. The rubble was still there. After 250 years, a 24‑year‑old guy came by the name of Alexander the Great. He had 33,000 infantry men, he had 15,000 calvary. He had just defeated the Persians and he was on his way to Egypt. He needed supplies. So he came by the now island city of Tyre and he sent word, "I want you to supply all of my men and all of my horses and all of my army." And they said, "You don't have a navy and we're on an island, we're not going to help you at all."

     He didn't like that. And it wasn't good to get Alexander mad. He didn't have a fleet so he decided he had to get a way to go to that island so he did what Ezekiel, the prophet, said would be done. It said that the place would be scraped bare as rock and all the rubble would be thrown into the sea. Well what conqueror in his right mind would ever do that. Why waste your time once you've conquered the place, picking up everything and throwing it in the ocean? All the stone and all the rest of it. But that's exactly what had to happen. So Alexander did it. He took all the debris and built a 2,000 foot wide, pardon me, a 2,000‑foot long, 200 foot wide causeway all the way to the island with all the debris.

     Now the island had fortified itself as well with powerful walls that reached right down to the edge of the sea. And as Alexander got closer he realized he's going to have to get over those walls. So, in order to pull it off he built these massive towers called Heliopolis(?), 165 feet high, according to the record, 20 stories high and they held artillery and they held a drop bridge. And just pushed the towers out the causeway, shot at the people from them, when they got to the wall, dropped the bridges down and walked right in. In the process,, of course, all the way along the people are throwing things and shooting things off the wall and they invented what were called tortoises, big shells that they held over the workers who were building the causeway. It took him seven months. He went in and murdered 8,000 people, over a period of a few months executed 7,000 more and sold 30,000 into slavery and fulfilled every single detail of the prophecy. And though the city of Jerusalem has been rebuilt 17 times, Tyre has never been rebuilt. And that's exactly what God said. You will be built no more.

     And you know what they do? Go there today, you'll find out what they do. They drive fish nets there, just what it said. What's the probability of that? About one in 75 million, happening by chance.

     By the way, a sister city by the name of Sidon also received a prophecy. Verse 22 of Ezekiel 28, "Thus says the Lord God, I'm against you, O Sidon, I'll be glorified in your midst. Then they will know that I am the Lord when I execute judgments in her, I'll manifest my holiness in her for I'll send pestilence, blood to her streets, the wounded will fall in her midst, by the sword upon her and every side then they will know that I am the Lord."

     Hmm, going to make it a bloody mess. It's the center of Baal worship, by the way, about 20 miles north of Tyre. Prophecy said blood in the streets, swords everywhere, but no prophecy of ultimate destruction. That's what happened. Blood everywhere, swords everywhere. That poor city was beleaguered and besieged again and again and again and again but it's still a city. And today it's called Saida and it's still there. In 351 B.C. it was ruled by Persia. There was a seizure of that city in the revolution then. All hope of saving the city was gone. The people being attacked by the Persians, 40,000 of them chose to die rather than submit to Persian violence so they set themselves on fire and burned themselves up with their own houses. Blood flowed in the streets over and over again. That city, Sidon or Saida, was taken three times by the crusaders, three times by the Moslems. In 1840 it was bombarded by the combined forces of England, France and Turkey. But it's still there because God didn't say it would be destroyed, it's still there.

     You can study the Bible and it will predict things historically that are absolutely accurate. Ezekiel 30 predicted the destruction of Egypt. Nahum 1, the destruction of Nineveh. Isaiah 13, the destruction of Babylon. Hosea 13, the destruction of Samaria. Ezekiel 25, the destruction of Moab and Amon. One mathematician by the name of Peter Stoner took eleven of the prophecies with all their detail and calculated the probability of that occurring by chance, one in 5.76 times 10 to the fifty‑ninth power.

     You say, "What does that mean?" I don't know. I can't even think like that. How do you calculate that? I mean, how do you understand that? Well, he estimated it this way, that if the whole universe contained two trillion galaxies and each galaxy of two trillion had a hundred billion stars, we could make all the stars in all those galaxies two times ten to the fifth power out of silver dollars. Incredible number. These kinds of probabilities just don't happen. So when you see the Bible speak scientifically, geographically, historically, or whatever it is, it's accurate.

     This is the Word of God. And what is the benefit of it? Let's go back to our original text and end up there. Second Timothy 3, what's the benefit of it? "All Scripture is inspired by God, profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, fully equipped for every good work." What a tremendous thing. We not only have the Word of God but we have the Word of God which can fully equip us for every good work. I mean, it would be one thing if we just had a nice word from God, but we have a life changing word from God.

     And what should be our response? Believe it, first of all, believe it. Secondly, study it. Thirdly, honor it. God is exalted above His name. Love it, "O how I love Thy law," David said in Psalm 119:97. Obey it, do what it commands. Fight for it. Jude 3, "Earnestly contend for the faith." And preach it, 2 Timothy 4:2, "Preach the Word."

     Do you realize that in your life time you will probably eat 150 head of cattle? Maybe a little more. You'll eat at least 3,000 chickens, conservatively, 225 lambs, 26 sheep, you'll eat 310 pigs in bacon and ham alone. Twenty‑six acres of grain you will consume alone. And you will eat 50 acres of fruit and vegetables. Can I remind you of what Jesus said? Men shall not live by...what?...bread alone, but by every word that...what?...proceeds out of the mouth of God. Dear friend, while you're eating all the rest of that, a little time in this book...let's pray together.

     Every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. What a statement. Father, how thrilled we are to know that that's what our Bible is, words that have proceeded out of the mouth of God. The God who not only knows history but writes it, who not only understands science but created it, who not only understands the spiritual dimension but is that reality. O God, what a treasure. Help us to love Your Word, to honor Your Word, to believe Your Word, to study Your Word, to defend Your Word, to proclaim Your Word. Make us people of the book who while we're feeding ourselves all the rest of the things in this life do not forget that we really live by every word that comes out of Your mouth.

     Father, help us to make the commitments that we each need to make to refresh our devotion to Your Word, for in it You're revealed. And we long so to know You. May we realize that knowing You comes through Your Word and through those trials and experiences of life in which we apply that word. Meet every need of every heart in Christ's name. Amen.
How to Study Scripture
Selected Scriptures

All right let's begin by looking at the first little outline there, and it would probably be best if you would just pull it right out of your note book and set it on top so you can take notes right on it, on how to study the scripture. Now we're assuming that you are a Christian and that you know the Lord Jesus Christ and you have received Him as your savior by faith you've opened your heart and invited Christ to come in, take over your life to rule your life to be the Lord of your life. You've confessed your sin you've acknowledged that on your own you can't make it and you've received the Lord Jesus Christ and now after that what do you do, this is kind of like the hut one hut two of boot camp, this is the first few steps of learning the march.
Just some practical things and the first one is how to study the Bible. It is very obvious, I think to every Christian, that the Bible is the revelation of God. That God has written His word for us. It is the only rule we have for life. It is the only standard we have for behavior. It is the only authority. There may be other things that you learn in life that help you through life but they don't have the authority that this does. When the Bible speaks, that is the voice of God. And it is authoritative and it becomes, then, for us, the standard of life.
Now if that's the case then it is very important for us to learn what the Bible says. To be able systematically to approach the scripture and find out what it says. Not only what it says but what it means by what it says. There are a lot of people who read what it says but they don't know what it means by what it says. So it is basically important in the Christian life to acknowledge that the Bible is the authority. There is no other authority equal to the Bible.
There are some Christians who read all kinds of books rather than the Bible. And we say they study about the Bible but they don't study the Bible. The primary thing to do is to study the word of God. Through it God speaks. Now there are other good books that other men speak through with emphasis on scripture and application and interpretation but there is no substitute for the Bible. So in the life of every Christian there must be that daily nourishing in the word of God, it is critical. Now first of all you'll notice in your outline that there is a thought there regarding the necessity of Bible study, that it is necessary. We want to spend just a minute on that.
We've given you some reasons why it is necessary. First of all it is necessary to study the Bible in order to grow. In I Peter chapter two, verse two says, "As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow by it."
Throughout the New Testament Christians are spoken of as having been born again. You become a child of God. Repeatedly you're called a child of God, repeatedly you are-called a child or a son of God. You have been born into the family of God, you have been adopted as a son of God, you sometimes are even called babes. Now that implies that there is the capacity of life and growth within a new Christian and that,of course,is obvious. We are to be growing.
Here he says, Peter does, in I Peter two, that we are to grow by the pure milk of the word, like babies grow. If you don't feed a baby the baby dies, obviously. You take a baby out of a hospital like some people do and they want to get rid of it and every once and a while you read about finding a dead baby in a trash can and what happens is you don't feed the baby it dies, it's obvious and the same thing is true with a Christian, we are babies we are to grow and in order to grow the word must be taken because the word is our milk that brings us growth the word is our food the word is our sustenance. In I Corinthians chapter three and verse one, we read in regard to the same thing, "And I,brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with solid food; for to this time you were not able to bear it, neither yet now are you able." Now, just pulling one thought out of here. The apostle Paul says, "I feed you." Wish I could feed you meat but I can't so I have to feed you milk, but nevertheless I feed you. This just shows us that Paul understood the priority of feeding and we know what he used to feed them he used the scripture. Some times the scripture can be milk and sometimes it can be meat. Now that doesn't mean that some parts of t he Bible are milk and some parts are meat. Really all of it is either milk or meat it depends on how deep you go.
For example I can say to you God so loved the world and if you are a brand new Christian you say yea, I understand that that's kind of milk. But then if I took off and began to develop the character of God, the character of His love, how His love works, what His love is defined at in the scripture, the depths of all that that concept means then that gets deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and gets into the meat aspect of that same simple truth. We say for example, God knows everything and that,s a milk statement, but we could develop that to the place where it becomes very complex and that would be the meat end of it. So the apostle Paul recognized the need to feed, sometimes milk sometimes meat depending upon the situation involved. Depending upon the aptitude and the receptivity of the people.
In Colossians Chapter two it says in verse six, "As you have, therefore, received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk you in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith." And here again the idea that Christians are to grow. Rooted and built up and the way that that happens is through the faith, that is through the content of Christianity. The more we understand the Christianity ' the more established we are, the more built up we are. In Jeremiah in an Old Testament passage, Jeremiah fifteen sixteen, Jeremiah said, "Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and the word became within me the joy and rejoicing of my heart." Jeremiah consumed the word of God as it was food to him. In Acts Chapter twenty in verse thirty two where Paul is saying good-by to the Ephesians elders, he says, "I commend you to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up."
So the word is necessary if we are to grow. And growth is basic to usefulness. Babies aren't really that useful, I mean they are nice to have around, they are kind of cuddly and you pet them a lot and kiss them and do that kind of stuff but you can't really do much with them. You can't say all right baby go out and clean up the bed room or whatever. You know they are not really too helpful. And there are a lot of Christians like that that are just in the way, you know you trip over them they are always crawling around the floor messing with stuff and they are really not a whole lot of use to anybody and the longer they stay that way the more tragic it becomes. And so we assume that you want to grow, we assume in Christian life that where there is life there is growth. And so we desire that Christians would grow and the way to grow is from the Bible and so we must study the Bible. Second thing and we'll move ahead.
The second reason that it is necessary to study the Bible is to defeat sin. We will never be able to defeat sin unless we defeat it with the word of God. In Ephesians Chapter six what is the armor that is used to fight again Satan? What is the one weapon the Christian has? The sword of the Spirit which is what? The word of God. The thing that defeats Satan's temptation is the word of God. There are a lot of scriptures that relate to that. It says in Psalm one nineteen, eleven, "Thy word have I hidden in mine heart that I might not sin against Thee." When a Christian takes the Bible in it becomes a preventative to sin.
To give you an illustration just simply from my own life, the more scripture I learn the more difficult it is for me to sin. You know I used to be able to sin and just kind of enjoy it. I could enjoy a good sin just live it us and have a great ol time, now I can't even get into one without thinking of fifteen Bible verses.
Now I get just my foot into the deal... thou shalt not....you know, because I know the truth of God and it's in my mind it comes to my mind, if you don't know the truth of God the Holy Spirit has nothing to bring to your mind. And so the defeating of Satan, the sword of the Spirit is the knowledge of the scripture. The knowledge of the principles of the word of God that become your defense against temptation.
Listen, it says in verse nine of Psalm one nineteen, "Wherewithal or how shall a young man cleanse his way?" How do you clean your life up? People come to me from time to time and they say I wish my life was clean, it's a mess, how do I clean it up? By taking heed according to Thy word. You see the way to clean your life up is to learn the book. So that it becomes the dominating factor in your mind. You are like a computer. You know what they say about computers, GIGO, garbage in garbage out, what every you put into your computer is what's going to come out in your life and if you put in to it the word of God that's what's going to come out, righteousness and godly and holiness that kind of behavior results from the truth of God being planted within you. It says in I John two fourteen, "I have written unto you, fathers, because you have known Him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one." The only way to overcome the wicked one is to have the word of God abiding in you and there are other scriptures there that cover basically the same thing.
Ok, 'C' it is necessarily thirdly to study scripture in order to prepare yourself for service. In order to prepare yourself for service. You will find that when you get into the service of the Lord, the knowledge of the word of God becomes your support so that when you get into a tuff situation you have confidence in it, it becomes your information so that when you get into a situation you know the principles to solve the situation, you know how to serve, you know the direction, you know how to operate to please God. It's critical that if you are going to serve the Lord you know the scripture, otherwise you will go blindly into some activity thinking you are serving God while violating His principles. So you must know the principles. It's like a manual you know, if you come in and you've got a very complex job you're supposed to fill and the guy says well have you had any experience, no I never did it before, well go in and take a whack at it. You are going to go in there and make an idiot out of yourself. You need to have some kind of instruction. Some kind of training.
The word of God prepares you for service. Joshua one eight gives us insight into this, "The book of the law (God's word) shall not depart out of they mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night." That's a good way to go to sleep you know, go to sleep reciting Bible verses. Go to sleep reciting the word of God because it tends to hang in your mind. "Meditate day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein; for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success." Success in your life is dependent upon the occupation with the word of God, this brings success. "Have not I commanded thee?" Verse nine says. "Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee wherever you go."
Now here is a young man in this particular book who is going to go out and do a tremendous job, he's got a tremendous task and the Lord says to him, look Joshua, if you'll meditate in my word you can handle the job. It will give you the direction you need in your life, it will show you how I operate, it will give you comfort in times of discouragement stick into the word and you are going to have good success. So it's necessary to know the word in order to be useful in Christian service. Also added to that would be I Timothy chapter four in verse six, "If you put the brethren in remembrance of these things, you shall be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine." What makes a good minister of Christ? And the word minister which means servant, what makes a good servant of Christ, somebody who is nourished up in the words of faith and good doctrine. When you know the word of God you make a good servant of God. And you know you see so many people who want to go around serving the Lord but they don't know enough about the Bible to do it right so they do it wrong and then they get into problems.
All right, 'D' in your outline. It is necessary to study the scripture in order to be blessed. I don't know about you but I like to be happy rather than sad. I'd much rather be happy than miserable. And I know that life is made up of miserable times and happy times. I also know this that the more I study the word of God, the happier I am no matter what the circumstances are. The word of God makes me happy. That's really practical. When you see miserable people the first question to ask him is; have you studied the Bible today? Simple question. You say where does it say that? Verse one of Psalm one, "Happy is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law does he meditate day and night." That's a happy man. A happy man is somebody who studies the Bible. That's a happy man.
I've talked to a lot of people who have said, "I just kind of floundered around and man all of a sudden I started studying the Bible my whole life has changed, etc., etc., I have great happiness in my life..." And that's exactly right, that's exactly what Psalm one says. Joshua, one, eight and nine, I read you earlier, said the same thing. You will be happy if you meditate day and night in the word of God.
All right, 'E' then, it is necessary also to study scripture to help others. You really can't help anybody else unless you know something. God never put a premium on ignorance. Your ignorance not only makes you unable to help yourself, but it makes you unable to help anybody else, and Christianity is all about helping other people, isn't it? How best can you help a person in trouble? By showing them God's solution to their trouble, right. How best can you solve a persons problem by knowing-what the Bible says about their problem, and how to handle it.
So you help others when you know the word of God. For example II Timothy two,two says. "We are to teach faithful men in order that they may teach others also."
The only way we can teach other people the principles, the only way we can help other people is to learn the principles ourselves. In I Peter three fifteen, also I think you have that one down on your list, "Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you the reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear." You need to know some answers.
You can't help anybody if you don't know any answer. I had a fella come to me the other night, that I've been discipling, and he said he got into a situation and just, this guy was asking him questions and he couldn't think of the answers, and then when he thought of the answers he couldn't think of the verses to support them so the guy thought he was just giving his opinion. And so he said that did more to convict me of my lack of Bible study than any thing that had ever happened to me. So he went right back in, got his Bible and he started studying the Bible like mad because he realized that he couldn't help the guy.
Now those are some of the basics. Roman numeral two in your outline: How is it done? And if you have any questions as we go right them down and we'll talk about them in just a minute. How is it done? How do we study the Bible? Well first of all there has to be some preparation. If you are going to read the Bible, study the Bible there are some basic things you have to do to prepare.
Again we would look at I Peter two verse one. Verse two says we are to study the word to grow, verse one says,"Laying aside all evil, all evil, and all guile, that's deceit, all hypocrisies, or phoniness, all envy and all evil speaking, that's talking about somebody behind their back, put all that aside, then desire the milk." Now what does that tell us? Before you can ever study the Bible with any affect, you gotta get rid of what? Sin. You gotta deal with it. So before you approach the scripture what's a good way to start? With confession, a time of prayer. When you lay those things before the Lord and you confess your sin to the Lord, you purify your mind before God and you become a willing and capable pupil of the word of God. As long as your mind and heart and life is cluttered up with sin you are never going to be able to grow.
So preparation involves purification and that is a good place to start. In James one,twenty one, "Put away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your life." There is a general principle there. Sin being set aside you become able to receive the word of God and so this is important. So that's the preparation. Before you study each day you spend a little time in prayer and confession. And you just acknowledge to the Lord whatever the sin might be and set it right and then you go into the word of God.
All right now 'B'; How do you actually study? First of all it's important that you read. If you don't know how to read you need to get the New Testament on tape. But if you know how to read you read and you know you have to believe that just reading the Bible is an exciting thing because God promises to bless somebody who reads the Bible. I have had people say this to me in different school and say well, a, some parts of the Bible I don't understand.
One guy said to me I always avoid the Book of Revelation, I never read that because that's just too weird. I don't understand it. So I quoted him Revelation one, three, "Happy is he that reads and they that here the words of this prophecy." You want to be happy? Read Revelation. That's a happy thing to read Revelation. You say happy? Who could be happy reading about all that horrible stuff. You got to read all the way to the end then you get happy. You get happy that you weren't in the other part. Revelation can be a very happy experience. John says when I tasted all of this it was sweetness in my mouth even though it was bitterness in my stomach.
And so we are blessed, we are happy if we read, so it is important to read. When Paul was giving instruction to Timothy about how to preach, he says first of all read the Bible, read it. We need to do that, set aside a time every day to read the Bible. Now I'll tell you how to do it and I suggested this in the little book God's Will Is Not Lost.
This is a plan that really helped me. I used to struggle with the reading of the Bible. I'd read it and I'd forget what I read the day before. Every time! And I'd read through a book and I'd get done and would know anything about the book. And then I'd read another book and then I didn't know anything about that one either. And I was just piling up tremendous ignorance and spending a lot of time doing it. You know. I was working real hard to be stupid and I couldn't retain anything. So I thought this isn't the way to go and then I picked up a little book on "How to master the english Bible"by James M. Gray and I heard a speech by a particular guy who was telling how he studied the Bible and I just started putting some pieces together and I decided that the way I learn is by repetition and I found that that's what Isaiah said when he said we learn line upon line, line upon line, precept upon precept, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little. So I realized the only way to learn was repetition Every time I had a test in seminary, I didn't just read it over once and leave it I had to go over it and over it and over it. You know how you study for a test.
You know how you should study for a test. By repetition and you work out little formulas to remember things and you got all these little keys and signals in your brain and everything because you have to remember things and repetition helps you remember. Well I realized that and so I began to think, well probably the best way to read the Bible is to read it repetitiously. So I decided to start with I John and that? what I would do. Now I'll tell you how it worked. You start with I John, it's a good place for you to start. I John is not an easy book, it's a simple book in many ways but it has some great complexities and you'll find the more you read it the more meat you will be able to receive. You take I John you sit down you read it straight through at one sitting. Now it'll only take you about twenty, twenty five minutes because it's five chapters, and it's not that tuff. You just sit down and read it through.
Maybe you need to pick the translation you like, I would suggest to you the New American Standard or the King James or the New International Version would be the three best. But any way you read it through, that's it. Just read it through, close your Bible, have a little time with the Lord and then leave. And later on in the day you might want to do it again, but just once a day.
Now the second day do the same thing, third day, fourth day, fifth day, sixth day, seventh day, you do the same thing. Do the same thing for thirty days. Every day for thirty days you've read through I John one time. At the end of those thirty days you will know what? in I John.
Somebody will say to you where does it say if we confess our sins, You say I John l right hand column half way down. You know that will be in your mind. You know if I were to say to you right now quote me Romans twelve one, what's the first thing you see in your mind? You see a page, you see a column and you see a chapter heading, right, because your mind creates a picture. You cannot learn without a mental picture and so what's hard about Bible memory is that all the pages look alike. That's why I draw in my Bible a lot. Because then every page has it's own little quirks and I see that page in my mind and I remember it. People ask me how I remember scripture, that's one way. I have little squiggles in different places in the Bible, little sweat marks or tears or rips or something and I remember those see. Whatever works right? And so at the end of thirty days you know what's in I John.
Somebody says where does it say Love not the world neither the things that are in it,. I John two fifteen, right hand page, right hand column. You begin to know what's in first John, now you haven't defined everything, you haven't studied everything out but at least you know what the book is about. Now about the tenth day you are going to feel like you got it all licked, I don't need to keep doing this I know this thing, but you keep doing it and keep doing it and the thirtieth day you'll realize that you really don't know much at all because the more you read it the deeper ii becomes. I remember when I did this, I went through ninety days, because I began to get excited about I John.
Now you finish I John then you go to the Gospel of John, now you say well wait a minute John that's twenty one chapters. I don't have time, well that's good, you just divide it into three sections of seven chapters and you read seven chapters every day for thirty days then the second seven chapters from chapter eight through fourteen then chapter fifteen to twenty one. So the first thirty days you are reading one through seven over and over and over. The second thirty days you are reading eight through fourteen, the third fifteen to twenty one. At the end of ninety days you've knocked out the gospel of John. If somebody asks you where's the woman at the well, you know where the woman at the well is, that's in chapter four. If somebody asks you where Nicodemus is that's chapter three. Somebody asks you about the Bread of Life, that's chapter six. Somebody asks you about the shepherd, that's chapter ten, if they ask you about I am the vine, that's fifteen, the intercessory prayer, that's seventeen. The capture in the garden is eighteen, twenty one is the restoration of Peter. Chapter twenty is the resurrection and so forth and so forth.
I'm no scholar you know, I read it ninety times what do you expect. That's the point. At the end of two and a half years you've knocked off the whole New Testament. In two and a half you will be the only one on your block to do it believe me. You are going to study the Bible the rest of your life any way so you might as well do it so you learn it. And then the thing that's going to happen is you are going to be able to cross reference.
You'll be going through, Oh yea, that's over there in Philippians two, oh I know that's over there..... and pretty soon you'll cease to be a concordance cripple. Somebody ask...well I don't know where it is but I'll look up the word in the back here see, and you can't ever find any thing. Pretty soon, by repetition you will begin to know where things are and then you will be able to go to those things and then when somebody wants an answer to a question you have that answer. So just imagine if you had started two and a half years ago. Isn't that an exciting thought, it's a depressing thought, I'll buy that. Let me suggest to you as I said earlier that if you want the best translations of the scripture would be New American Standard, The New International Version,. or the King James, King James though is not the most up to date one, it is true to the original text, in most all cases it's a beautiful edition, I think it has a dignity that some of the others lose.
Now beyond reading it is important that you study. You've read it, you've been reading it for two and a half years, and really if you didn't do anything but just read it and come to church and listen and come to Bible studies and listen, that's fine, that's a great way to start, but once you've gotten it all read you're going to find out that you already are pretty well able to interpret it because the Bible is interpreted best by itself. Some of you who come here know that this is how I do interpret the scripture. If I want to explain a passage I'll go to another passage or several other passages to explain that passage. So by just reading through the New Testament again and again and again, you'll begin to be able to do that. Now when you get to the Old Testament don't do it that way just read it through once. and go back and read it through again and go back and read it through again through your life. Don't try to read it repetitiously, it's not that kind of thing that needs to be done that way, it's just history and narrative and you can get it pretty well by just reading straight through it.
All right, so then once you've read it all then you begin to study it. Now how do you study the Bible? For example let me give you an idea. What about if you just decided I!m going to study all the prayers of the Bible. That would be a great study, it would take you a long time to do it, you start out in Genesis, find every time there was a prayer there and study about it. What did they say, who prayed, what was he praying for, what was the answer? Terrific!
Then maybe you want to say, I think I'll study all the prayers of the Apostle Paul what a tremendous study that would be. You can make any topic you want. I would like to study the subject of forgiveness. So you could go to the book store and' you could buy a little book that's called a topical index and you could look up the word forgiveness and it would tell you every passage in the Bible where forgiveness is discussed, and you could take that, look them all up, do a little study on that. And that would be exciting. I would suggest, and I'll suggest some things in a minute, that you take some notes on some books that I suggest for you in a minute because they can really be a great help to you. You could say for example, I want to know about God's judgment so I'm going to go through the Book of Isaiah and find everything I can find in there about judgment and then I'll know something of why God judges and how He judges and what the response is.
Another great way to study the Bible is biographically. Take somebody like Elijah and do a study on Elijah. Or take somebody like David and study the life of David, that absolutely is fascinating, or Joseph, or find somebody really kind of offbeat like Ahithophel or something like that. Somebody who is just kind of a little bit of a strange character or somebody that's not talked about too much in the New Testament and try to dig a little bit and find out all that the New Testament says about him.
Maybe somebody like Andrew who isn't quite as predominant as others. Now also in your study, read good books. Whatever your study is going to be on find some good material on that or get some tapes on that and get some outside input. We have a library here to provide that and you aught to find a good library wherever your area is. A good Christian library where you can check books out or where you can go and just sit and do some reading in reference books.
There are good tapes available that supplement and you aught to purchase good books. Don't spend a lot of your money buying popular kind of Christian books, you know what I mean? The kind of Christian book you read once because it's the testimony of somebody and that's it you put it away. That's fine if you want to check it out of the library or maybe once in a while if somebody gives!you one or you really want to buy one once and a while, but build your library on the books that are going to become reference books that you will use again and again and again. For example it's good to have a concordance, not the one in the back of your Bible, but one that has much more information than that, because that one is very limited.
There are three major ones, they are easy to remember, Strong, Young and Cruden's. Strong for the strong, Young for the young and Cruden's for the crudes. I have Cruden's myself, I also have Strong, but get a good concordance where you can look up words, that's very important. And then it's important also to have a topical index, there are many of them. There was a paperback one that I used by R.A. Torrey that was given away by Billy Graham Organization sometime back. There is Monser's Topical Index, there is Naives Topical Bible, there's all types of topical index books and all that means is you can go to that book and it will tell you every scripture on any subject you want so you can study it, find out all there is about it. Really a helpful thing to have.
One other thing that I would suggest is that you have a commentary. Commentary is a book that explains the meaning of the Bible. There are many good ones. I'll suggest probably the simplest one for a new Christian to use would be Wycliff. Wycliff Bible Commentary. One volume, you can look up any passage in the Bible and it gives you a basic
explanation of what it means, very, very helpful. 0k, in studying the Bible then you want to study subjects, you want to study outside books so that you are studying in the Bible and you are studying those who have commented on the scriptures as well.
One other thing in studying the Bible, very, very important. While you are studying find somebody else that you can share your information with. If you are a parent it may be one of your kids, it may be your spouse, if you don't have a family situation it may be another Christian it may be another person you've lead to Christ, but find somebody that you can share your information with. Otherwise you're not nearly as motivated to learn.
People say to me, well how can you possibly study as much as you do?And I say well, I come out here every Sunday and there's three thousand people sitting there saying say something MacArthur. What do you expect? I have to say something. The greatest motive that I have to study the scripture is the responsibility of the ministry.
I have to be faithful to God to teach the people He's given me, if you don't have anybody. that you are teaching then you really don't have any motive beyond yourself and sometimes it's hard to drum that up, but if you've got some little bird in the nest that keeps opening it's mouth and hollering for food then you are going to have to be responsible to give it something.
You say yea but I'm a new Christian, yew but there's a newer Christian than you, or maybe there's somebody who isn't even one yet and you need to teach them. So find somebody that you can share the information you are leaving with. Maybe it's even somebody who knows mere than you do believe me there are people who know less than I do about the totality of Scripture who can minister to me because they have fresh insight, or they see new things that I have never seen, or they see new applications in their life. Find somebody that you can share it with.
One other thing in studying, and that is find a pattern that you can follow. Find a human pattern that you can follow, very important. Maybe somebody like me if you know me well enough to be able to see the pattern in my life, it may be somebody like your teacher in a Bible study, it may be a very godly person that you know very well, another Christian brother or sister, it may be one of the other pastors at the church, it could be any number of people but find a pattern that you can follow and you aught to some how try to establish enough of a relationship with that individual to be able to speak with and to concern yourself with the things in their life that would apply to you.
All right one other area in terms of how it is to be done. Preparation, reading, studying, fourthly teaching or 'D'. Teaching.
Now what we mean by this is submit yourself to teaching, good Bible teaching. May I add that this is never a substitute for your own study, don't every think that because you came to church and heard the sermon on Sunday morning and Sunday night and you went to the Bible study on Friday that you don't need to study on your own. If that's the case you know what you have just forfeited, all those things we gave you in point number one in their fullest possible capacity.
You are being benefited by teaching but you are most benefited when you are being taught and when you are studying on your own. And you say well, I have not been a Christian long enough to study on my own, if you've been a Christian ten minutes that's long enough, get at it. Start.
So you want to be sure you submit yourself to a teacher, be in a Bible class,be in a church service where somebody is teaching the word of God. I see so many new Christians whose only orientation to Christianity is they sort of follow around the Christian stars, you know, tonight we are having da da ta da and his orchestra, wonderful saved Christian something or other. And so they gravitate over there and they hear Christian music, or over here they are showing the latest Christian movie and over here they have got the greatest Christian ex-convict and over here is the.... you know and they just go they are sort of like vagabonds, they just travel around to what's ever happening. Submit yourself to systematic teaching of the word of God someplace, that's very, very important. You know one of the things that we see so much in Christianity is when somebody gets saved if they have anything that is marketable the Christianity community will suck them up and make a commodity out of them.
I talked to a guy on his death bed who told me his life was destroyed as a Christian because he was a celebrity, he got saved, the Christian community marketed him as a saved celebrity and he spent the rest of his Christian life going around telling how wonderful it was to be a saved celebrity and never learned a single thing about the Christian life consequently his whole life was defeated and he had terrible, terrible guilt because of all the sin in his life, he was trying to get up and tell everybody what a wonderful thing it is to be a saved celebrity and the truth of the matter was that he was eating his heart out because he wasn't growing. That's a problem in Christianity. I don't care if you are a celebrity you still have to submit yourself to some teaching and some solid feeding by men who are gifted of God and given to the church to teach you, very important. All right that covers what I wanted to say about how to study the scripture, and it's a little bit more lengthily maybe than some of the others but that's because it's so very important.
Now we want to give you some time to ask questions and we'll give you plenty of time so feel free and just any question that you want to ask come right up to the mike and just fire away. I realize that this question will require a long answer but I was wondering in which order you are supposed to read, you said l John and then the Gospel of John.... All right, that's a good question. I would suggest that there is no particular order but that you alternate a short book with a long book. Like when you finish John you can go back and read Philippians, when you finish Philippians you can go back and read Romans, when you finish Romans which is sixteen chapters go back and read l Timothy which is six chapters then go back and read Mark which is sixteen then go back and read Colossians, alternate between a large book and a small book at your own discretion. And you may find the Holy Spirit drawing you to different books because there are different needs in your life at any given time. OK?
You said the necessity to study like a babe that would die if it didn't get fed, what do you mean by death? Would you clarify that?
I simply said that a baby who doesn't eat dies and a Christian who doesn't feed himself on the word of God will find that in a metaphorical sense he will die in the sense of usefulness, he will die in the sense of joy, he will die in the sense of blessing. Obviously he will not forfeit his salvation, that's another subject that we could cover but we've covered it in other areas. OK? If a person professes to have accepted Christ but shows no hunger for the word, can we conclude anything about their salvation and then also is there anything we can do to make a person like this more hungry for the word? I think that's a very important question and it relates to two scriptural passages, the first one is in John eight, thirty one. Some Jews came to Jesus and said we believe and Jesus said to them if you continue in my word then you are my real disciple.
One of the marks of a true Christian is the desire for the word of God. Now that desire may vary. There may be some new Christians who have a very minimal desire and I think very often the fault of that can be in the church they are in or in the Christian community that they are in where there is no emphasis on the word and they don't really understand what that means. It is true, I think and Jesus pointed out, that if somebody does really believe and their faith is really saving faith and they have really come to Christ they will continue in His word, in other words they will desire to know the word, more than that they will desire to obey the word. But in certain cases that will vary. Obviously some have a greater tenacity for the word than others.
Now it may be that for some that commitment comes along later, that real total commitment comes along later. It may be that some are in an environment where there isn't the peer pressure to get into the word that there should be and I think the only thing that we can do to encourage them is to do what we are trying to do here, to point out the benefits and blessings . you become victimized of doing this. And the consequences of not doing it, So continuing in the word of God is definitely the mark of a Christian. And I am very suspect of someone who just has absolutely no interest in scripture because Jesus said if he's a real disciple he will continue in the word.
Part of my question is along what she was asking about, I was wondering too that sometimes even though the desire is there to study is just in the area of discipline, some people seem to, I mean, maybe you've been brought up a certain way that it's very easy for them to discipline themselves to study where other people really have a hard time with it even though they want to but it's hard to be consistent.
All right, I'll answer that question two ways, one is yes it's true that some people are more disciplined than others, two, that's no excuse, because the Lord says we are to study the word. You know I've met some very undisciplined scattered brained people who study the Bible a lot and I've met some other military type who don't so I'm not sure you always have to equate spiritual hunger for the word with humanistic self-discipline.
Now it may be easier for a very very self-disciplined person to set a time and get into it but the facts are maybe he doesn't get as much out of it as somebody who does it a little more scattered but has a greater intensity of heart. So I really don't think you are dealing with an absolute in that sense.
I think that when the word of God tells us to study to show ourselves approved unto God, that's a general command to all of us, and that we can't say, well I've taken a psychological survey and I'm undisciplined so that lets me off the hook. And the second thing I would say; if God makes a command He gives us the energy in the Holy Spirit to fulfill that if we are walking in the Spirit.
You mentioned under study about finding a godly person and a patter in their life that you could follow, could you explain a little bit more about what you mean about a pattern? Yes. The Apostle Paul said to Timothy, be thou an example of the believers in word and conduct and purity and everything. The greatest feature of leadership is example and it is true that, and I see it so often, it is true that people mimic other people, we all do it. You know, I know that when I go to the south and spend two weeks in the south I come out talking lak this. Have you ever notice you do that? Or when I go to Mexico and I'm there for two weeks and I come home and everybody I see I say buenous dias, because you are an imitator, and the Apostle Paul picked this up and every where he went he said be ye imitators of me as I am of Christ. We imitate.
It's not enough to have somebody like Christ as a pattern because He's God, we need somebody who's human to follow. That's why Paul always went around saying follow me, follow me because I'm following Christ, you need some flesh that you can see the pattern of life and it's very important that you find that kind of patter and that's why I day it's dangerous for Christians who just .flit around and never have any godly people to whom they submit themselves so that they can watch the pattern of their lives, does that answer it? Ok.
About the people followers thing, pretty soon a person is going to find out that that person they are following is human and they have sin in their life, it just seems to me that you aught to say something about that, and that's obvious, we all have sin in our lives, the first thing the guy should do is admit it like Paul who said I am the chief of sinners. So let,s get that straight at the beginning, let's not wait till you find that out, but the second thing is it isn't so much the absence of sin that makes the example, it's how it's dealt with. It's not, you know, you are not following the guy because he's perfect, you are following him because he knows how to handle his imperfections. I understand that, but I think though that there's a real danger in that just becoming a person follower, and I'm like so and so, therefore I'm godly, you know what I mean? Well sure, and you'll find that in every good thing like that Satan would want to push you to the limits so that you become a little rubber duck who quacks the same way everybody else quacks. But that isn't the point, right, I understand what you are hitting at, we follow the person as long as following them is the equivalent of following Christ and we have to keep that perspective. It's as if you were following a transparent man through whom you could see Christ.
When you stop seeing Christ and the man ceases to be transparent then he ceases to be what he should be to you. I think it's the man who is leading you, it's his responsibility to make sure he's transparent so that you see Christ as soon as he becomes like Diotrephes, whom we will study Sunday night, who loves to have the pre-eminence the interesting thing about that is the concept of pre-eminence is used only one other time in the scripture and it's in relation to Christ, so here was a man who was a leader in the church who was usurping the place of Christ and he wanted the pre-eminence, when a man does that then he ceases to be transparent, you can't see Christ anymore and he ceases to be functioning as a true example, but as long as the person continually points to the pre-eminence of Christ and keeps the focus there I think that there is a validity in it. OK I would like you also to hit on basically what you are trying to do with reading the Bible, reading l John for thirty days, you are trying to build a habit in our life of getting God's word into us and could you say a little bit about habits and about how to build them. Good.
Yes, you know habits are just doing things repetitiously and that's exactly what it does. If you can ever get the habit begun, we are creatures of habit, we do the same things all the time we put on which ever pant leg goes on first always goes on first by the time you get to be forty years old and which ever sock goes on first, you know you're just creatures of habits, you have the same kind of routines if the youngest of you don't you'll find out when you get old like us that everything.... you know what happened to my thing? Why is it over there it's not here? And you get into these little deals but, and you can see this creeping up, so we are creatures of habit the best thing to do is to start habits when you are young, routine really helps and you can say well I just flow in the Spirit man I just kind of go and blow where ever, well, you know you can even trace habits in the life of Christ, He spent most of the night in communion with the Father, that was His time. He retreated to the Mount of Olives night after night after night after night in prayer with the Father and that was His time when He was here on earth and I think habits are very important, I don't think that the habit performed ritualistically or legalistically is a substitute for what really should be going on, but I think if you can get into a pattern it helps.
Just one more thing. Are you saying that this reading of scripture and then studying the scripture on your own for yourself is something apart from any sort of ministry you are doing, is it something that you do , yourself, apart from studying for Sunday services. Not necessarily. I feel that if I've studied the word of God I've studied the Word of God. If I go into the study at nine o'clock in the morning and have prayer for a while and then I study until five o'clock in the afternoon and go home, I don't say Oh, I'm defeated today I didn't have my devotion, not if I've spent six or seven hours studying the Bible. You know people talk about having your devotions I'm not sure what that means even, having your devotions, if it means reading without understand I'm not sure it's even valid. If it means going through a little formula or reading something like Our Daily Bread, that's fine, it's a little bit of input but when you've spent time in the intensity in the study of the word of God that's what you are after, I don't think we need to label little segments and say well if you didn't do it in this context and read this kind of a thing with this mind it doesn't count.
But just for the ordinary Christian because you are a little different setting every single day, would you say that suppose they were involved in a weekly Bible study which they did a little study during the week for that, would you say that it would be important for them to do this reading scripture? Yes, I think you should set the patter any way and then if you did additional things they would be done additionally. Don't break your pattern on a normal basis. But I don't think that's a crucial thing I think maybe there is a day when you will break the pattern because you have to work on your lesson, that's fine. I don't see a problem with that. I would like to ask you maybe if you could explain the details of what you did this week in order to study for I Corinthians and also what you would recommend for a new Christian, how he should study the scripture, how it differs from the way you would study for a particular passage. Well, it probably would differ.
The way I study, first of all I would read the text in several versions along with the Greek text handy there until I understand it. Like I was working on I Corinthians Four, fourteen to twenty one this week and so I read it and read it and read it and read it and just kept reading it again repetitiously until I Corinthians fourteen, twenty one is so much in my mind I could probably stand here and quote you the whole passage and I haven't even tried to memorize it. But I've saturated my mind with it.
Now when I do that and do that then it begins to mean something to me, then in the middle of that I see concepts, I see in that passage Paul making a very, very clear statement about that he's the spiritual father of the Corinthians and that that means this and this and an outline develops and once that develops I put that on paper then I go verse by verse through the passage and I get commentaries and I line up about ten or eleven commentaries and I read everything everybody has ever written on that passage because I want to know the whole breadth of information about that verse and so I may read twelve commentaries on every verse in that whole section and I take all kinds of notes on that and then I throw all that together and our comes Sunday morning. Good, bad or indifferent.
But I feel as I said earlier that the way to study is first of all to go through the scripture and get all you can get on the scripture and supplement that scriptural understanding with any books that you have available. And as I said you can study a book going through it to get the understanding of it or you can study a topic like prayer or judgment or any of those things we mentioned, you can study a character or a biography, anything you want and you can do it by just reading the verses, putting them together on a paper and working through, you may want to study a chapter and you might want to say what's the key thought of the chapter and you write that down, what are the other thoughts that build to the key thought, write all of those down, what don't I understand, write that down, what do I understand, write that down, what are other subjects introduced in the chapter that I could also study, write all of those down and you'll find that out of the chapter will come so much stuff you won't believe it,just loaded with things. So there are a lot of ways to approach it. Does that cover it?
John do you do like your word studies and your grammatical right out of the commentaries or do you do it ia some other way? That's really hard for me to answer personally because I do it so many different ways, I sometimes, like today, I got this concept that came across where there's a man named Gaius, I was working on 3 John, there's a man named Gaius and Gaius is commended as a man who not only knows the truth but walks in the truth and I thought now that's an interesting commendation for a man, and I got to thinking about the idea of commending. So I just took my Bible and I started in the Pauline Epistles with the first one, Romans, and I found every time that Paul ever commanded anybody. And I went through every one of those passages and he starts out in sixteen, one, he commends Phoebe for being a servant and a fellow helper and then down, down, Mary and Urbanus and all this, I just went through every single book and I put down everybody that was ever commended and why they were commended, so that was one way to do the study.
Other times for example, I had that thesis on Third John and I wanted to do some study into a Greek phrase and so I got out that particular thesis and studied through that to see what the Greek phrase meant and I read B.F. Westcott and the Greek test and found out what he said it meant, and then I would do it from that angel.
Sometimes I'll do the study myself. I wanted to do a study on a particular word hupolambano so I took out my own Greek text, Lexicon and what I call well what's it called the Englishman's Greek concordance and I did my own study on that so there's all different ways that you do it, but it gets kind of hairy with me because I go all different directions and there is no one way. John what do you do when you just get up in the morning and you go through a day and you just don't feel like reading the Bible? Well usually you don't read it. Right.
Well one of the things that I think is important is if you don't feel like reading the Bible you just recognized the truth that this is when you most need it.
And if you can kind of get that into your mind it will help. Be aware of the fact that the times that you don't want to read it are the times you most need it and there are indications of the fact that maybe your approach to the scripture isn't all that it aught to he. Let's face it as rigid as we would like to set ourselves we are sinners and one of the ways we sin is disobedience and disobedience will take the form of a failure to do a lot of things and that's one of them and we all fall there even myself.
Practically from my view point the toughest time for me is my vacations because I tend not to have that constant pattern of study, and I tend to skip two three days at a time without studying the scripture and of course for me that's like not eating because I'm so used to doing it and it has a devastating effect so I really struggle too with that, I think all Christians do because of our human weakness. I think if you recognize that when you feel that way that's when you need it most, maybe that's a help.
John with your children twelve, thirteen years old would you recommend the New Testament or other books? There are several good translations for children. There is one called the Children's Living New Testament that is designed around an eight hundred and fifty word vocabulary. Very simple. I use that with my children every day, they can understand everything in there, it is the New Testament, but I also think the Old Testament is great for kids too. The Living Bible would be the best Old Testament to use. Is that what you were getting at? And there is another book that I use with my kids, it's just great, it's called Leading Little Ones to God, by somebody named Scoonhaven or Scoonover or something. It's all systematic theology for a child, basic doctrine. Like today we were studying, we were studying the doctrine of salvation in relationship to sin and mercy and all of that.
Today we were going over the concept that God is good and God is forgiving and it told the whole story of Joseph, how that even though his brothers were evil and his brothers threw him into a pit and sold him into Egypt God was good enough to put Joseph in a position in Egypt to give them the grain they needed to say alive when the famine came. How God was merciful through the very one that they had sold and it turns out to be a perfect picture of Christ, the very individual the world killed was redeeming them at the very moment they were killing Him. So a book like that is helpful and there are many good aids that you can use with children and in fact they become very helpful, you notice I remembered the story very well. I'm very. susceptible to simplicity I want you to know.
John if you know someone who is a new Christian and they are far away from and they can't attend a church in your area how do you, what advice do you give them on choosing a church and what to look for. Well you know there are several things, we have some tapes like the marks of an effective church, or other tapes on the church and what would be the marks of a church that you would want to go to, that's one way, but to send them the principles so they know what they are looking for, but the only thing you can do is maybe send them some books or some other tapes so that they become built up in the faith somewhere and can make a proper judgment of a church and this is a very practical problem. Somebody comes to Christ in another are, they don't know where to go to church so they go to some church because somebody takes them there and the church is all goofed up and so they find that they lose out, they don't really grow. they don't mature, so it's important to pick a good church. And I think that one way to do it is to send them books or tapes that will strengthen them and help them to grow to a position where they can make a proper evaluation. I know a lot of people in our church do that.
I get asked every Sunday to recommend a church in some city. I don't always know so I say well send the person some tapes and some books so that they can begin to study some basic things about what the church should be. in fact this book is the good book to do that it,s just a simple biblical picture of the church and once they have made that evaluation then they will know how to judge a church, then the only thing they can do is just follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. Do you think there is a danger in over emphasizing relying on helps and concordances and so that cutting down on the time after you've read and really allowed the Holy Spirit to just speak to you individually and really let you know what the verse means. I know in my life, the first time I got a hold of some helps and commentaries I just read the verse and hit the commentaries.
Well in answer to that I would say this. You really can not know what the Holy Spirit is saying to you until you know what the Holy Spirit is saying because He's not saying anything different to you than He's saying there.
Do you know what I mean by that? It doesn't say, Oh isn't this wonderful, what this says to me is, well I'm not interested what it says to you, I'm interested in what it says. You know, we have a lot of people going around saying the Bible means this to me, well... if you interpret the Bible that way everybody has got their own thing so you can? just say well I want to read it and whatever God says to me that's good, half the time at least you are going to be out of context or misinterpret the scripture and you miss the whole point so I would say that study the scripture. read the scripture, study the commentary and then sit down and meditate, after you already know what it means. and go at it that way, but don't miss the meditation, because it says and we read it already in the Psalms and Joshua, meditate on these things day and night. We don't meditate in our day and age and that's an important part of Bible study.
I was reading some interesting things recently about the fact, I think it was Marshal McLuhan was saying that we live in a world that is so oriented around something happening all the time and conversation going on and music that no one ever thinks. He said in the article, the best way to avoid God is, Number one, never be alone and Number Two, always have the music on. He even went so far as to say there is nothing to talk about anymore in our world, there's nothing to say, the media has said everything, there aren't any opinions that haven't been expressed a zillion times, there aren't any conversations that haven't been held so everybody sits around like a blank and stares at a box. There isn't anything to talk about. We have a whole world of media that Satan has used to so dominate our thinking, you see people going around with little things in their ear,they get into the car, bingo turn on the deal, you know, they get home turn on the tube, turn on the radio, it's got to be noise going on see. The whole idea of meditation then you have somebody coming in from the outside with his legs crossed and a silly suit on and his hair hanging down his back who says you sit in the corner and meditate and that's the other extreme there you sit there and think about nothing.
And really you know why that's popular today, it's popular as a social reaction to a world where your brain has been just bombarded and people are sitting in a corner trying to figure out who they are. But I think the Christian in the Biblical approach is to meditate on the word of God. Philippians four says "Think on these things, you've got to meditate on them, but you want to be sure your meditation is correct, that you are thinking on the proper thing and you have to interpret it properly to do that. Now I'm not saying that just meditating on the word is wrong but if you are going to be through then you aught to go at it that way.
Also, I had somebody mention to me, a fairly new Christian, or I haven't read about that yet, I don't know about that particular king, in reference to a new Christian who has just got to the third chapter and that particular subject isn't covered until the fifth chapter and maybe that's used as a cop-out on peoples part do you believe that that's not an excuse or that the Holy Spirit must really be ministering to that person and not allowing them apart from bare knowledge of scripture not allowing them to go into a sin or something like that. Yes I do believe that, I believe that the Holy Spirit keeps us, and I believe that any sin at any point in your Christian life is a violation of what you know is right. I do think however that there may be some things that aren't such moral things that we really just don't know about for example, it may be sometime, I'll give you an illustration, that a law suit would occur and a Christian would sue another Christian simply because he didn't know what the Bible said about that.
So there are some areas where there are more of the practical principles more than the ethical or moral things which I do believe we know, in fact I believe even unregenerate man knows those by conscience, but there may be some principles of behavior that God has laid down for the Christian, for example a Christian might not know to give what he has on the first day of the week unless somebody told him that. Until he gets to II Corinthians eight and nine he wouldn't really know that he was supposed to lay by and store the first day of the week as God has prospered him. He may feel he wants to give but he wouldn't know the pattern, or unless somebody taught him about...about communion he wouldn't know to keep communion, because that's not a moral and ethical thing, that's a practice in the church so there are some things that, yes, a person would have to learn, but there are other things in the moral area that I believe God would teach through the Spirit?
A good illustration would be Romans fourteen where he says there are some of you who don't understand the liberty in Christ so wait until they grow up, don't hassle them, if a man regards a day, let him regard it, if he wants to keep the Sabbath it doesn't matter, he will grow to the place where he understands his liberty, so there's both sides of it there. While we are growing personally by repetitive reading is it possible also to be teaching,say a family of small children by reading aloud? It sure is. Yes, I think if you wanted to do your reading thing with your family that would be a great way to do it. Just read it together and you would all benefit from it. Ok I think at this time we will stop session number one, that was good I think it's profitable and we covered sore basic things I think will help some other Christians, new Christians around the country on these tapes.
God: What Is He Like?, Part 2
Selected Scriptures

To know God and all that God has revealed about Himself is the highest pursuit of life. Proverbs 9:10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding." A man never even starts being wise till he knows God. A man never gains any understanding until he has the knowledge of the holy. To know God is the highest pursuit of a man's life.
In John chapter l7, and verse S, our Lord in His high priestly prayer made the statement that He had come to give eternal life and that eternal life was to know Thee, the only true God.
To know God is the highest goal of a man's life, for that Jesus came into the world that we might know God. That's a synonym for eternal life. People often ask what eternal life is, it's simply to know God...to know Him intimately...to partake of His very nature and life.
The wisest man who ever lived got some good instruction from a man who gave evidence, sometimes, of not being very wise, and that was David giving instruction to Solomon. Sometimes what David said was very wise. In I Chronicles, chapter 28, verse g, David told his son, "And thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve Him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind." Good advice. Solomon, know God. And when you know Him, serve Him...willingly with a perfect heart, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. If you seek Him He will be found by thee, but ii you forsake Him He will cast you off forever.
Peter said, "Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
In II Thessalonians 1:8, it says that the Lord will come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them who know not God.
To know God, you see, is the crux of existence. To know God is the highest pursuit of life. To know God is everything and then to know all there is revealed about Him in the pages of this book.
Not only to know God is man's highest pursuit, but to know God is God's highest purpose. Not only does He want us to know Him, but He cooperates from His side. God desires that we know Him. The Bible is so explicit about this. In Hosea chapter 6, in another context where God through the prophet is rebuking Israel for their hypocrisy, they carried out the sacrificial system with hearts that were totally estranged from God and he says this in Hosea 6:6, "I desired mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." More than any other external thing does God desire that we know Him. Men are to know God and God desires that men know Him, this is meaning to life. This is what we're all about. This is our highest pursuit and God's highest purpose for us.
I was trying to think of a way to graphically illustrate to you how important it is to God that we know Him. And it came to my mind that the prophet Ezekiel sets about to reveal the glory of God. In the first chapter of Ezekiel we find the vision of God, and you might look at it for just a minute, Ezekiel chapter 1 begins with God. It says, "Now it came to pass in the thirteenth year and the fourth month, the fifth day of the month as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God." Ezekiel begins his prophecy by talking about this vision of God that he saw. Then when you would go to the end of the book of Ezekiel, you don't need to turn to it, it simply says in 48:35, the last statement of the book, "The Lord is there." It begins with Ezekiel's vision of God and it ends with the eternal God reigning in His eternal throne in His eternal Kingdom. Ezekiel presents God in 1:1 and closes out with God in 48:35, and you know, everything in between is an emphasis on the character of God.
Well, as I looked at those two extremes in the book of Ezekiel, I thought ‑ I wonder what it is in the middle that Ezekiel really keeps pounding home, so I just did a little study on Ezekiel by myself and I discovered a very important thing about what God wants you and I to know. Let's look at chapter 8 together. Now I want you to follow with me. Ezekiel chapter 6, verse 7, and I'm going to read one statement out of these verses and you'll find it sometimes at the beginning of a verse, sometimes in the middle and sometimes at the end, and I'm just going to read it.
Verse 7: "You shall know that I am the Lord."
Verse 10: "And they shall know that I am the Lord."
Verse 13: "Then shall you know that I am the Lord."
Chapter 7, verse 4, end of the verse; "You shall know that I am the Lord."
Verse 9: "You shall know that I am the Lord."
Further, and we may be skipping some in between, go over to chapter 11, verse 12: "You shall know that I am the Lord."
Chapter 12, verse l6: "They shall know that I am the Lord."
Verse 20: "You shall know that I am the Lord."
Chapter 13, verse 9: "You shall know that I am the Lord."
Fourteen: "You shall know that I am the Lord."
Twenty‑one: "You shall know that I am the Lord."
Twenty‑three: "You shall know that I am the Lord."
Fourteen: Eight: "You shall know that I am the Lord."
There's a message here somewhere, folks. Are you getting it?
Chapter l5, verse 7: "You shall know that I am the Lord."
Going over further to chapter 20, verse 12: "That they might know that I am the Lord."
Verse 20: "That they may know that I am the Lord your God."
Twenty‑six: "They might know that I am the Lord."
Thirty‑eight: "You shall know that I am the Lord."
Forty‑two: "You shall know that I am the Lord."
Forty‑four: "You shall know that I am the Lord."
Now that takes us through 2l...22:16: "You shall know that I am the Lord."
Twenty‑four:24: "You shall know that I am the Lord God."
Twenty‑four: 27: "They shall know that I am the Lord."
Well, I'm not going to beg the point. It goes on and on and on and on, right on out of the end of the book. I didn't even bother to count how many times, but just looking at chapter 39 I see it two times, once in chapter 38, and it just keeps going and going until you get to chapter 40 and then God appears in His great glorious millennial Kingdom, it's just one entire prophecy geared so that you may know that I am the Lord. Now what then is God trying to say to us? He wants us to know Him. This is God's desire for man. God is not hiding. God is not sort of a...sort of a cosmic Easter bunny, stashed in a bush and we're running around and He's saying ‑ "You're getting warmer." God is not trying to cover Himself up. God has disclosed Himself and He wants us to know Him and that is the highest purpose of a man's life.
How is it that we can know Him? How can we know God? Well, you know, the prophet said. "If you seek Me with all your heart, you'll surely find Me," didn't he? Solomon gave some wise information in Proverbs 2:3. He said, "If you cry after wisdom, or knowledge, and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God." Solomon said ‑ There's only one way to really know God and to know all that's revealed about God and that's to make that the pursuit of your life. Ii you're looking for money, if you're looking for success, if you're looking for something else, you'll not really discover all that there is to know about God. But, he says: "My son, if you seek God like silver and search for God as if for hidden treasure, you'll find the knowledge of Him." God wants us to know Him. God wants us to pursue Him. And that's why we're making this little study, in order for us to better now Him, in order for me to help you to know Him better.
Now let's get into our outline. We've already answered the first two questions ‑ Is He? ‑ and ‑ Who is He? ‑ and we're working on question number three, ‑ What is He like? What is God like?
Now we said that God is defined for us in the Bible in terms of certain attributes or characteristics. And the definition of an attribute is this: an attribute is anything that is true of God...anything that is true of God. The only ones that we can discuss are the ones revealed in the Scripture. How many attributes did I tell you God has? You remember? How many? An infinite number. You can't number them. There are only some who've been revealed here and of all the ones that have been revealed here we're just picking out a few to better understand God.
Now what have we studied already? Number one, we studied that God was immutable. That means He doesn't change and He can't change...God never changes.
The second one we studied ‑ God is omnipresent. That means He is everywhere at the same time with total consciousness.
The third one we studied, last Lord's day, ‑ God is omnipotent. That means He is all powerful. He can do anything. He can do anything as easily as He can do anything else and He can do anything He wants to do. God is unchanging, everywhere at all times, and all powerful.
Now today I want to share with you two other attributes about the character of God. The fourth one ‑ He is omniscient. That simply means He knows everything. God knows everything...everything. In Psalm 147:5 the Bible says, "His understanding is infinite." That means limitless. His understanding is infinite. He not only knows the knowable, He knows the unknowable.
First Timothy 1:17 calls Him the only wise God. Jude 25 calls Him the only wise God. Romans l6:27, Paul called Him. "God only wise." He not only is wise, He not only knows everything, but He's the only one who knows everything that He knows. Now the angels know a lot but they don't know what God knows. And you and I know some things, nobody knows as much as God...unrivaled, infinite wisdom and understanding and knowledge.
Did you know that God never learned anything? When you pray you don't say ‑ Now, God, I want to inform you about my mother‑in‑law who is ill. Oh...I'll write that down. No. No, you didn't give Him any information that He needed. He needed to know you cared and He chooses to work through your prayers but there are no surprises with God. He never learned anything. Who would teach Him?
Isaiah 40:13, "Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being His counselor has taught Him?" Who taught God? Of course ‑ no one. Romans 11:34, Paul says: "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?" No one. Who taught God? Nobody. God knows everything.
Now, people, when you stop to think about it, here we are sitting here, and most of us know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, most of us know God, have you ever stopped to realize that the most astounding fact about God's omniscience is that He knows us and still we're here? Yeah, that's amazing. God knows everything and still loves us. Incredible. When you match up the attribute that I'm going to mention in a minute, His holiness, God despises sin, God knows everything and then try to figure out how you got into His presence. Then you'll come up with one other attribute, love. God knows everything and still He redeems us.
You say ‑ Why? Isaiah 48 explains everything to us. Isaiah 48:8, he says: "Yea, you heard not," you didn't listen to Me. "You knew not, from that time thine ear was not opened," you never listened to Me. From the very beginning when I made man, they never listened. "For I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously and was called a transgressor from the womb." God says ‑ I knew you were a sinner from the very womb. You talk about when does a person become a person in the eyes of God? Pretty clear in the Bible, already in the womb. "For My Name's sake will I defer Mine anger, and for My praise will I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off. Behold I have refined thee, but not with silver. I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction, for Mine own sake, even for Mine own sake will I do it." God looks down and He knows everything ‑ I knew you...I knew you were rotten from the beginning. I knew you were a transgressor from the womb and I hate sin but I saved you anyway. Why? Not so much for your sake but because I wanted to display to the world another of My attributes, and that is the attribute of love. And to the angels another one ‑ the attribute of wisdom for My sake.
People, the marvel of marvels to me is that God knows everything and still loves me. Nothing is hidden from God. Do you know that everything about your body God knows? And the hairs of your head are numbered? For some of you that's no trick. Everything about you, God knows. You say ‑ Why would God...why would God bother to count your hair? He didn't have to count it, He intrinsically knows it. God isn't doing that just to prove a point. Going around keeping a record book on hair. Anything that is...He knows. And doesn't have to learn it or find it out. He knows it. He knows your body. But do you know something? He knows beyond your body, your body is transparent to God. In Revelation 2:23 He said: "I am He who searches the hearts and minds." Your body doesn't cover anything. He sees your heart and your mind just as well as He sees your outside. The clouds, the darkness, the night are no canopy to Him. The night isn't any curtain to God. In Psalm 139:12 it says, "The darkness hideth not from thee." I...I suppose that it's...that men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil has something to do with the fact that most sin is conducted in dimly lit places. But that's certainly in the...in the brilliant light of God's omniscience. Night doesn't hide anything from God. Whispers are no muffler to God's ear.
Psalm 139:4 says: "There is not a word in my tongue but, Lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it all together." God hears your whispers as if they were broadcast.
You say ‑ What about my thoughts? Listen, your mind couldn't conceive the subtlest thought outside the knowledge of God. Isaiah 66:l8: "I know their thoughts." Jesus in John chapter 2 gave evidence that He was God when He said nobody needed to tell Him what was in the heart of a man, He knew what was in that man. When Jesus confronted Nicodemus, Nicodemus asked one question with his mouth another one in his mind and Jesus answered the one in his mind that he never asked with his lips. There isn't a secret place in your house, or a secret place in the world that you can go to that hides you from God. Same chapter, Isaiah 88, same verse: "I know their works." He knows. And listen to me, everything He knows is right because according to Deuteronomy 32:4 He's called a God of truth. It's impossible for Him to lie. He has never made a mistake. He cannot err. He knows everything and He knows everything right and truthfully...everything.
You say ‑ Well, what about....I'm counting on Hosea 13:12, man, I've made this my life verse. It says: "The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up, his sin is hidden." I'm hoping on that one. I'm hoping that there are a few little things He doesn't know about. Sorry about that. You say ‑ Well, what does that verse mean? I know people who say this means that God doesn't know all the sin. God knows everything. The Bible makes that clear everywhere you read about the character of God it's obvious He knows everything. You say ‑ Well, what does this verse mean? Well, it's certainly not a contradiction. It means this, the iniquity of Ephraim is bound up. His sin is hidden, that is for the moment his sin is laid up against a future day of judgment. It's the divine lay‑away plan‑‑‑sin now, pay later.
That's right. You know, you look at it, sometimes the godly people seem to be under more stress than the ungodly. Right?
Why is it that sometimes the ungodly prosper? They will not always prosper. Maybe like Ephraim their sin is for the time hidden, bound up against the day of judgment to come in the future. That's the meaning of Romans chapter 2, verse 5 and 8 where Paul says: "But after thy hard and impenitent heart treasures up under thyself wrath against the day of wrath."
In other words, you're sinning, and piling up a stockpile of sin against a future day. The revelation of the righteous judgment of God who will render to every man according to his deeds. There's coming a day when that judgment will come and that sin which is now being hidden, or bound up against a future day, will be unmasked, punished. God knows everything...everything.
And that leads us to a footnote. Another attribute of God that we'll just slide in cause we don't have time to cover them all is the attribute of wisdom. Now listen to me. what is wisdom?
I'll give you a simple definition. Wisdom is omniscience acting with a holy will. It's omniscience acting with a holy will. If God knows everything then everything He does is absolutely wise.
If He knows the end from the beginning then He knows every step in between. If God knows that this is what you are and this is what you will be, you may not understand what's going on in between but He does. And it's all right. If He has perfect knowledge, He has perfect wisdom. Practical omniscience...He knows everything...everything.
You know, you can get a lot of illustrations of God's wisdom, you can look at creation...everything from the macrocosm of the universe to the microcosm of the minutiae of life and you can see wisdom. It's absolutely incredible how wise God is is...staggering...wisdom. Can you imagine how God puts an entire universe together, the component parts of which run beyond the capacity of numbers, and that every single thing functions in harmony with every other thing to bring about exactly the thing which God intends?
Incredible. Talk about a computer that can do this and that, God can put together every piece of an infinite universe to come out to the end result that He desires. And every result along the way is perfectly fulfilling His wisdom. God's creation is a monument to His wisdom. Psalm 104:24 says. "O Lord, how manifold are Thy works, in wisdom Thou hast made them all."
The wisdom of God...we see how everything works together according to Ephesians 1:11, after the counsel of His will. And then you have to agree that redemption is an act of wisdom. God took the ones who weren't mighty and weren't noble and weren't smart and made of them His people. And then God takes the church, according to Ephesians 3:10, puts them on display before angels that the angels might see how wise He is. The wisdom of God, my friends, is seen in the redemption of us who are His church. God is wise. God knows everything.
What are the practical lessons of this? Let me give them to you. What is the practical thing for a Christian, first of all? What does this do to me to know God is wise and knows everything? Number one, it's a great comfort to me to know that He knows everything. You say ‑ Why so? Well, in the first place, it's good to know He knows me. He'd have to just about know everything to know me, I'm not that significant in the universe.
Have you ever wondered ‑ Well, I wonder if He knows that I'm here? I imagine there are some folks that just are kind of there in the world and they're not very...very famous or anything and they may check in once in a while and say ‑ I wonder if He really knows I'm around? I don't make a lot of noise or anything.
You know, there were some people like that in Malachi's time. God was really breathing down judgment on the people and Malachi the prophet was really flailing away. And there were a group of little folks that got together and they got kind of shaky. And they were saying, you know ‑ we might get drowned in all this judgment. God might forget and just start whacking everybody.
I wonder if He remembers us? And in Malachi 3:16 it says: "Then they that feared the Lord spoke often one to another." They were doing a lot of talking. "Boy, you know, this is getting pretty bad...I wonder if God knows we're here." "And the Lord hearkened and heard it and the book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord and thought on His name, and they shall be Mine, said the Lord, on the day when I make up My jewels and I'll spare them as a man spares his own son that serves him."
God's got a book, my friends, and He doesn't forget who belongs in it. Isn't that good to know? I'm glad He knows everything. He knows John MacArthur and He knows that I know Jesus Christ, and so He knows I belong in the book. In fact, He knew that so long ago He wrote me down before the world began. It's a comfort to me to know God knows everything...to know there is absolutely nothing outside of the knowledge of God. He knows me and He knows that I belong to Him. That's a comfort.
In Psalm 56, verse 8, I love this: "Thou numberest my wanderings; put Thou my tears into Thy bottle?" It could be a statement rather than a question. You put my tears in your bottle. You know, in the Orient when the mourners would come, that was a pretty customary thing, everybody cries. Some of the mourners would catch their tears in a bottle. You paid the mourners. I suppose it was one way to prove you did your job...hand over a bottle of tears...take your money. But they had mourners who came and mourned. And they would catch their tears in a bottle and they would leave them as a little token.
David says, "God catches his tears in His bottle." God remembers my tears. God not only knows me but He knows my tears. Is that good to know? Is it comforting for you to know that God knows every trial that you ever go through? That God catches your tears in His bottle? He must have a very big bottle. Maybe He just fills the ocean with them and that's why it's salty, I don't know. God catches your tears in His bottle. That means to me that God cares about me. I'm glad to know that.
In Matthew chapter 6, not only does God know my anxieties and my pain, not only does He know who I am, but He knows all my needs. In Matthew 6:25, He says: "Don't be anxious for your life, what you eat, what you drink, what you wear on your body, the life is more than food and the body than raiment, look at the birds of the air, they don't sow neither do they reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them, aren't you better than they?" You're better than birds. "Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to your stature?" No sense in worrying, you can't help yourself with it anyway. "And why are you worried about your clothes? Look at the lilies of the field how they grow. They toil not neither do they spin and yet I say even Solomonn in all his glory wasn't arrayed like one of these.
If God's going to clothe the grass of the field which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe ye, O ye of little faith? Don't be anxious saying what shall we eat, what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? These are what the heathens seek, your Father knows you have need of these things, you seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and...what?...all these things will be added.
My Father knows me and my name is in His book. My Father knows my tears. And my Father knows my needs and He takes care of them all. I'm better than a bird. I'm more important than a lily. Lilies are nice and birds are okay. And I'm better than the grass that's here today and gone tomorrow, cause God takes care of me. It's a comfort, people, to know that God knows everything. He knows me, my anxieties, my trials, my tears, my needs. And listen, in the midst of all of that He never ever ever makes a mistake....ever. Listen to me, if God has an infinite amount of attributes and an infinite knowledge and you don't understand something don't say God made a mistake, just realize you don't know very much. Don't chalk it up to God's stupidity, chalk it up to yours. God doesn't make mistakes.
Further, to the Christian omniscience means comfort, secondly, I think, it means confidence. Boy, I use to think the doctrine of omniscience was anything but confidence. When I was a little kid my parents use to say ‑ We may not know what you do but God does.
He sees everything. Remember that beauty? I use to get that. He knows. And, you know, I use to think the doctrine of omniscience was really a bummer. Boy, I mean, what a deal.
Then I studied John 21 and grew up a little bit. And I remembered Peter there and Peter kept trying to convince the Lord he loved Him. Remember that? Lord, I'm telling You, I love You. And the Lord kept asking him and asking....finaIIy, he says ‑ Lord, look, You know all things, You know that I love You. What did he appeal to? What doctrine of God? What attribute? Omniscience...omniscience is a great thing, people, it's not so much that God looks down and spies you out, that's only half of the thing. Do you know that if it weren't for omniscience there are some days when God wouldn't even know you loved Him because it isn't obvious? And if He didn't know everything He wouldn't even know you cared. I suppose in my life there are plenty of days when I am indistinquishable from one of the world's people. Would agree for that for your life? How does He know I care? He has to know a lot. He has to know everything. He has to know my heart. Oh, that gives me confidence that even when I blow it, my love is still secured because He knows my heart.
A third thought, and this I alluded to already, its correction. Listen to this. If you knew that God didn't know everything what would you do that you don't do now? Think about that one. That's a real winner. If you knew God didn't know everything and that He would never find out, what would you do? Ohhhhhh My paper's not long enough. Hmmm Hmmm Hmmm To write it all out.
And so, I say the third, good, practical result of the doctrine of omniscience is correction. God is one teacher who never leaves the room. And yet it's always with love, isn't it?
He knows everything. If you knew, and think about this, if you want to know where you really hurt, if you want to know your sins, if you want to know where you're the rottenest just imagine what you would do if you knew He wouldn't know...and you'll find yourself there. But He does know. And as I told you last time, because He's everywhere every sin you ever commit is if you crawled up into the throne room of God, walked up to the foot of the throne and did it right in His face.
But the New Testament tells us that sometime all the things that we've done in the body are going to be accounted for, II Corinthians 5, and it also tells us in I Corinthians 4:5 that that day is going to bring to light the hidden things of darkness. Everything God knows...all our ways, thoughts, attitudes, everything. For the Christian that's correction, boy. If He knows it, I don't want to do it...I don't want to affront Him...I don't want to dishonor Him...that's correction.
And then the confidence I have in knowing that He knows my heart, and the comfort I have in knowing that He knows I'm His, He knows my tears, He knows my needs, He never makes a mistake.
What about the non‑Christian? What does the doctrine of omniscience mean to you? You're here, you don't know God, you don't know Christ, you're just kind of looking in, you're kind of hearing us out, what does this mean to you? Number one, let me say this. It ought to reveal to you the stupidity of hypocrisy. If you think you can play a game and get by, you're wrong. God knows everything. Don't think for a minute that God buys your act. He doesn't. He doesn't buy it. Your hypocrisy is absolutely unmasked. When Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount took off after Israel, He just stripped them naked, didn't He? He just tore the masks right off of them. "You hypocrites!" And they were running for cover, believe me, by the time He got done with them.
Listen to Ecclesiastes, a word of wisdom from Ecclesiastes 12:14, it says this: "For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or it be evil." Listen. God doesn't buy your routine, God doesn't see your mask and say ‑ Oh'. God isn't like man. Man looks on the outward appearance, God looks...what?...on the heart. He reads you loud and clear. Listen, my friend, if you don't know Christ you might as well realize, to begin with, that you don't know God and whatever games you're playing to try to appear to be good before God doesn't make it. The stupidity of hypocrisy ‑ if God knows everything He knows a lot more than you're thinking He knows.
Second thing that I would say to an unbeliever, or to one who doesn't know God, is that there is the promise of accurate judgment. In Romans 2:2 Paul says ‑ "God will judge according to truth." When it comes down to the final judgment and the lake of fire and who is sent to hell, believe me, that judgment will be a just judgment. God will judge on the basis of truth because He has absolute knowledge of truth, nobody but nobody fakes God out.
In Jeremiah 16:17 the prophet said: "Their iniquities are not hid from Mine eyes." No hiding. In I Samuel 16:7, "Man looks on the outward appearance, God sees the heart." Judgment will be according to truth and there is no way to hide it from God. He knows if you're a sinner. He knows if you're unforgiven. He knows if you're churchianity was all you had. He knows if your good deeds were all you had chalked up. He knows whether your name is in the book. He knows whether you've repented and come to Christ. He knows. He knows everything. And your games don't fool Him, neither do mine.
Another thing that I would say to an unbeliever is this, to know that God knows everything ought to point up to you the folly of human wisdom. God knows everything so if you want to really be wise you ought to get in on His knowledge. As Solomon told his son, "Seek knowledge." Seek knowledge, he says it over and over again, particularly chapter 8, just repeats it from verse 1 right to verse 36 ‑ Get knowledge, get knowledge. And knowledge is the knowledge of God. A foolish man pursues the knowledge of the world. First Corinthians 1:19, "I will destroy the knowledge of the world. I will destroy the wise," he says. "The wisdom of the wise shall come to nothing."
So, to the unbeliever I would say ‑ There's folly in hypocrisy...God is going to judge you according to truth...don't trust human wisdom. God knows everything. That's a comfort to us and it ought to be a stern warning to others. God is unchanging. God is everywhere. God is all powerful. God is all‑knowing.
Lastly, I want to talk to you fifth about God's holiness...God's holiness. God is holy. I...I feel that this is the most significant of all of His attributes. This. to me, is the sparkling jewel on the...on the regal crown of His head...this is the ultimate.
God is holy. When the angels sang they didn't say ‑ Eternal...eternal eternal. They didn't say ‑ Faithful...faithful...faithful. They didn't say ‑ Wise...wise...wise.....Mighty...mighty...mighty. What did they say? "Holy...holy...holy, Lord God Almighty." This is the crown of all that He is. He's holy.
Exodus 15:11, "Who is like unto Thee? Who is like Thee," it says, "glorious in holiness, fearful in praise, doing wonders?" Who is like Thee? Glorious in holiness? Nobody. Do you know that that's His name? Psalm 111:9 says, "Holy and reverend is His name." Holy is His name. Job 6:10 calls Him the Holy One. Isaiah heard them say, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory." Revelation 4:8, the living creatures, "Holy, holy, holy." First Samuel chapter 2, verse 2 talks about His holiness and that there is none other that is as holy as He.
God is holy and I don't know of any other way to get to the holiness of God than by comparing it with sin. I would say that in the Bible, at least in my mind, probably the most revealing passage regarding the holiness of God is the sixth chapter of Isaiah. And you don't need to turn to it, let me just mention it to you. Isaiah says, "In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord high and lifted up and His train filled the temple." He had a vision of God and he said, "Around God were the seraphims, and they had six wings, with twain they covered their feet, with twain they covered their faces and with twain they did fly." And one of those angels, you remember, took his tongs and took a coal from off the altar and touched the tongue of Isaiah, but before all of that what really is the issue in that passage? Isaiah says, "I saw the Lord and I cried out, Woe is me for I am undone, I am a man of unclean lips for mine eyes have seen the King." He was absolutely shattered to the very core of his being. He shook fiercely. He violently was being shattered. Why? Because he had seen the holiness of God and in...in seeing the holiness of God he was rattled to the very base of his being by his own sinfulness. You see? And I tell you something, people, it...it is not until a man understands the holiness of God, that that will never happen without a comparison with his own sin. It's not until you understand your own sin that you'll ever know the holiness of God. The two go together. You can't know your sin until you know His holiness and you can't know His holiness until you see your sin. Isaiah saw God lifted up and then he saw himself and he just poured his inner heart out...Oh, woe is me...I am undone.
Between you and God there is an absolute gulf of holiness and unholiness. You are unholy. He is holy. And you ought to be, and I ought to be, just absolutely shaken to the very roots of our being when we see ourselves in comparison to Him. God is holy.
Now listen to me. God doesn't conform to a holy standard. He is the standard. He's absolutely holy. He never does anything wrong. He never errs. He never makes a misjudgment. He never makes a mistake. He never makes something happen in your life that isn't the right thing to happen in your life, or it doesn't have a right end in mind. Always He does right. And there are no degrees to His holiness...He is absolutely infinitely holy.
And because, you see, God is holy, that's His condition for anybody who wants to exist in His presence. When the angels sinned ‑ what did He do to them? Immediately what? Threw them out and prepared a place for them separated from His presence.
When men choose not to come to God, when they choose to reject Jesus Christ, what happens to them ultimately? They're sent to the same place prepared for the devil and His angels, out of the presence of God. Why? Because to be in God's presence, in His universe you must be...what?...holy.
You say ‑ But, John, how in the world can I be holy? You can be by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, it is through Christ that God gives us Christ's holiness and sees us holy...positionally. God made us holy in Christ.
To the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul said, "Now are you holy. Now are you sanctified....in Christ." Further, thinking about this, the only way to understand God's holiness is in contrast. We have to see His hatred of sin. We can't just understand His holiness independently of His hatred of sin cause we have to take it from the sin side cause that's what we understand so well. God despises sin...just hates it.
In Habakkuk 1:13 it says: "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity and cannot look on evil." God can't tolerate sin. He can't tolerate evil. He's totally removed from it. It cannot enter His presence. It cannot abide with Him.
When the sinfulness of Sennacherib was exaggerated, you remember, the Holy Spirit said ‑ You have lifted up your eyes on high, even against the Lord the Holy One..of Israel. You see, the sin of Sennacherib was evident because of God's holiness.
When the evil Egyptians were drowned, in Exodus 15, do you know what drowned them? Some people say the power of God. No. Not really. Listen to Exodus l5, "The sea covered them, they sank as lead in the waters," then this, "who is like unto Thee, O Lord, glorious in holiness." Do you know why they drowned? Not by the power of God but by the holiness of God, He couldn't tolerate their evil. God's holiness is best seen in His hatred of sin.
In Amos chapter 5, some strong words, "I hate, I despise your feast days. I will not take delight in your solemn assemblies, though you offer Me burnt offerings and meal offerings I'll not accept them, neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take away from Me the noise of your songs, I will not hear the melody of your harps." God loves all those things cause He instituted all of them, but when those kind of deeds, even though those deeds were right, come out of impure hearts, God hates them. God doesn't want people doing right things with wrong attitudes. God says ‑ I hate it all....stop it. Sin is the object of His displeasure. God loves holiness.
In Psalm 11, verse 7, it says this, "For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness." What a beautiful statement. God loves holiness.
Now God's holiness we've seen from a negative standpoint, His hatred of sin. The amazing thing here, though, and you have to interject it, is God's love. Even though He's holy and absolutely hates sin and even though as I just mentioned to you earlier, He is omniscient and knows everything, isn't it amazing that He redeemed you? It's amazing that He knows me and He despises my sin and yet He loved me. That's where love comes in, you see. God's holiness, God's omniscience and God's love all act in the same. What a fantastic realization. God knew everything about me and God hated every bit of sin in me and still He loved me.
I tried to think of an illustration for that and I suppose it would be like cancer. You know, you would love your body but you would hate the cancer. And you would do everything you could to preserve your body and keep it healthy and strong and minister to its needs and everything you could at the same time to destroy the...the cancer. You would hate what's there but...but not the total self. And somehow God looks at man and He...He loves the body and He despises the sin.
Where do you see God's holiness revealed? Well, you see it in a lot of ways. God never wills sin. No, no...never. He wills to allow you to sin if you choose to but He doesn't will the sin. God never tempts anybody to sin. God doesn't want you to sin. Some people must think God wants them to sin. Some people have said to me, ‑ You know, what you really should do is have a real sinful life and tell everybody about it and then when you tell your conversion a lot of people will believe it and say what a transformation, isn't it wonderful....so God must really want you to go down to the dregs so you'll have something to say. Very convincing. No, no. God doesn't celebrate in anybody's sin. Never. And God never tempts a man to sin, James 1:13 and 14, "God tempts no man."
But God's holiness is seen in some very positive things. For example, His holiness is seen in creation, to begin with. In Ecclesiastes 7:29, we're going to close with these thoughts, in Ecclesiastes 7:29, he said, "God has made man upright but they have sought out many devices." God made man upright. When God made man he was holy. God's holiness is seen in creation.
Secondly, God's holiness is seen in the moral law. The moral law that still pervades though man has tried to mess it up and try to wipe it out, the moral law that still pervades in the world shows God to be holy. Romans 7:12, Paul said, "The law is holy, the commandment is holy, just and good." God's moral law shows that God's a holy God. When God laid down a righteous moral law He proved Himself to be a righteous moral holy being.
And I think, too, that God's holiness is not only seen in His creation and not only in His moral law but I see God's holiness in His sacrificial law. When I see God laying out all those animals as a sacrifice I see God saying that death is the result of sin and I want you to see that and I want you to see it good. And every time those people made a sacrifice they saw the deadliness of sin. And that proved the morality and the holiness of God.
God's holiness is seen in creation, in moral law' sacrificial law. God's holiness is also seen in judgment on sin...in judgment on sin. When you study the Bible and you see, for example, in II Thessalonians chapter l, Jesus coming in flaming fire and taking vengeance on those who know not God and obey not the gospel, when you see in Jude 4 those ungodly who are damned and condemned for their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly done against God you see how God hates sin and His judgment on sin is a reflection of His holiness, He must punish it.
And perhaps supremely, the holiness of God is seen in the cross. Yes. The holiness of God is seen in the cross. You say ‑ But that's where all the sin was on Him. Yes, and that's the greatest illustration of His holiness. Listen to me, God was so holy that He paid the absolutely supreme price that was necessary to satisfy His holiness.
In Hebrews chapter 9, and verse 26, we pass over that but it is a remarkable statement, listen to what it says, "For then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world." In other words, if it was a sacrificial system Christ would have had to die again and again. But, listen, "Now once in the end of the ages has He appeared." Listen, God Himself showed up. God Himself appeared, "To put away sin by the sacrifice of....whom?...Himself." God's holiness was so infinite that He had to pay the supreme price of dying Himself, bearing sin because the price had to be paid even if it cost Him His own life. That's holiness. His holiness is seen in the death of Christ. God's holiness required payment even if He had to pay it Himself. He is holy...holy.
What are the practical lessons...of holiness? For the non‑ Christian, just this ‑ the holiness of God demands holiness in your life and it's only through Jesus Christ. In Ephesians 4 it talks about putting on the new man renewed in holiness. God wants you holy and the only way you'll ever be holy is to be in Christ and have His righteousness given to you.
On the other hand, if you're not a Christian and you reject the holiness of God offered you in Jesus Christ then another attribute of God goes to work and that attribute is called justice. If you reject God then you will receive what you deserve. That's justice and God is just. And for the impenitent, His holiness demands justice.
What about the Christian? What does holiness mean to a Christian? What is the practical idea of God's holiness in my life? It's simply stated in I Peter and I want you to listen, chapter 1 verse 15, "As He who has called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of life because it is written, Be ye holy for I am holy." If God is holy what does He want out of us? Holiness.
Now listen to me, He made us holy positionally...positionally in Christ we are holy but He wants our practical lives to match our position. He wants us to live holy. Not just be holy positionally, but live holy lives because when we are holy that distinguishes us from the world. That lets the world know there's a difference. That's why in II Timothy 2:19 he says, "Let all that name the name depart from iniquity." If you're going to name the name ‑ then live the life. Let the world know there's a difference.
I'll tell you something else. Holiness in your life gives you boldness before God. If you're a Christian and you're living a holy life, you're dealing with sin, you're doing godly things and holy things, you're living an upright life then you're going to have a boldness before God. Listen to this beautiful illustration out of Job 22 and I'm just going to read it to you, listen: "If you return to the Almighty you will be built up. Thou shalt put away iniquity very far from thy tents." Listen, you're going to go back to God and get things straightened out, the first thing you're going to do before you get back there is put sin away. Verse 28, listen, "Then shall you have delight in the Almighty and shall lift up thy face unto God." You can't go to God and lift your face and delight in Him when there's sin in your life. Have you ever experienced that? Did you find out in...in your life what I found out, that whenever there's sin in my life I have a tough time praying? Job says...Job 22 says, "Take care of your sin, you'll be able to lift your face up into the face of God." No guilt.
Listen, holiness distinguishes us from the world. Holiness gives us boldness. Holiness gives us peace. There's no peace to the wicked, Isaiah 57:21 says, Holiness....God wants us holy even if He has to chastise us, according to Hebrews 12:10, He'll chastise us to make us holy.
What should a Christian do? Well, maybe what David did in Psalm 51. Be sure you pray for a clean heart. And then according to Proverbs 13:20, ‑ Walk around with clean people. "Be holy as I am holy." Let's pray.
Father, thank You, this morning, for Your revelation of Yourself to us. We commit these words and thoughts to Your care. May they bear fruit in our lives. Confirm to our heart these truths, Father. Dismiss us with Thy blessing to bring us back tonight anticipating that we shall learn more about the adversary and be victorious in Your power. We praise You in Christ's name. Amen.
Christ Above All
Colossians 1:15-19

We are tonight going to look again at Colossians chapter 1, and a very vital portion of scripture; one that speaks to me of the most important Personality in the universe; that is the God of heaven, revealed as the Son. This is the very heartbeat of Christianity. This is the very essence of all that we believe; the very foundation of our faith. This is the battleground over which we fight with the cults, and the isms, and everything that wants to take out of Christianity its very lifeblood, and that is the issue of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is Paul's theme in Colossians 1:15‑19. Now this is a very vital passage to the argument of the book, and a much more vital passage to the argument for the whole of Christianity.
Somebody once called, and it's been repeated multiple of times, called the Bible the "Jesus Book," and in a sense that is true. If you understand the Bible, you understand that it is the Book about Christ, the Book about the Lord Jesus. In the Old Testament there is the preparation for Jesus coming. In the Gospels there is the presentation of Christ; lie is come. In the Acts there is the proclamation; the message of salvation in Christ is announced. In the Epistles we study the personification, that is, for to me to live is Christ, or how Christ, who has died and risen from the grave, returns to live in His people, and in Revelation there is the predomination, or the Christ on the Throne, the reign of the King, the Lamb on the throne.
So in every sense the Bible is Christ's story. It is the Book that tells us all about Him. In Acts, chapter 8, that is indicated to us in verse 35, when Philip, talking to the Ethiopian eunuch on the road to Gaza, the Holy Spirit says, "Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus." Of course, he was beginning in the Old Testament with the prophet Isaiah.
You can begin at any point in the scripture and teach Jesus. In Luke, a familiar passage, chapter 24 and verse 27, Christ, after His resurrection, meeting the disciples on the road to Emmaus, "And beginning at Moses," or the Pentateuch, "and all the prophets," or, the prophetic books "He expounded unto them in all the scriptures," or, the Hagiographa, the holy writings, "the things concerning Himself." The Old Testament was to the Jew, and still is, divided into three parts: Moses, the Pentateuch, the prophets, all the prophetic books, and the Hagiographa, or the scriptures of the sacred writingsthat make up the books of the poetry and history, and in all of those things, Jesus gave them the things concerning Himself.
     So the Bible is the Book about Christ; it is the Book about the Revelation of God, and the coming of Christ into the world, and it is about God becoming a Man. In every aspect of the Bible, facets of this are made clear.
But of all the statements in the Bible, and the Word of God about God becoming man, none is more significant than the one in Colossians chapter 1, verse 15, for here we have the identification of the Son as God, very, very clearly. Let me read it to you: "The Son," in verse 13, is the antecedent of the word "who" in verse 15. "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation: For by Him were all things created, that are in that heaven, and are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him:" And He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together." And He is the Head of the Body, the church: Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things, He might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell;" Now that is a tremendous statement, a vital statement to the understanding of the Christian faith, and the removal of any confusion over who our Lord Jesus Christ really is.
Now let me just put it in its setting, if I may, in terms of the book of Colossians. Paul understands that there is a certain false system of doctrine being propagated at Colosse and he understands that because Epaphras has visited him, Epaphras undoubtedly one of the pastors of the Colossian church, and perhaps it's founder, has come to visit the Apostle Paul, and the Apostle Paul hears from Epaphras that there are some terrible things going on in terms of propagation of heresy in Colossia.
One such heresy relates to the deity of Jesus Christ. The heretics are saying that Christ is not God; that He is not sufficient for salvation; that in addition to Christ, there must be the worship of other spirits, perhaps other angels, if you will. There must be special visions; there must be certain knowledge that is sort of super knowledge, beyond that which is attainable in Christ. In fact, the heretics had said that Jesus Christ is only one in a long line of emanating spirits descending from God, and Jesus was one of those good emanations; He is not God; He is not even an adequate Savior; knowledge beyond Him is the only way to salvation.
So the attack of this particular heresy, which apparently later developed into what we know as gnosticism, the attack was at the deity of Christ, and His total sufficiency as Savior.
     So in the first three chapters of Colossians Paul takes this issue on. For example, in 1:27 of Colossians, "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:" and what Paul is saying there is that there does not need to be anything in addition to Christ to bring a man to perfection. And he is arguing against the theology of these heretics who are saying it is Christ, plus knowledge, plus special visions, plus worshipping angels, etc. A man can beperfect in Christ Jesus.
Chapter 2, verse 2, further develops Paul's argument, "That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; In whom are hidden," not some, not many, but "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."
Again, the sufficiency of Christ; there is no knowledge added to Christ necessary for salvation. Look at verse 9, "For in Him," and the "Him" modifies Christ in verse 8, "dwells all," not some, not a lot, but "all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Verse 19, "The Head," that's Christ," the Body," verse 17," is Christ," that is, in the fulfillment sense of the Old Testament, being a shadow of the fulfillment of Christ, but here the Head, in verse 19, is Christ, "from Whom all the Body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increases with the increase of God. In other words, the Head of everything is Christ, and all the growth and all the nourishment, and all of the knitting together and increasing is related to Christ. There is no other necessary.
Chapter 3, verse 1, "If ye then be risen with Christ," that is , if your Christian, "seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things of the earth, For ye are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, Who is our life," or better, when Christ our life, "shall appear," everything is Christ. Our life is Christ; our hope is Christ; all wisdom is in Christ; all knowledge is in Christ; all growth is in Christ; all perfection is in Christ. That is his whole argument in the first three chapters of Colossians. He is saying to the Colossian people, "please don't let anybody make you think that you need Christ plus some other super‑knowledge, plus some other visions. All you need is Christ. That's all you need." Verse 19, 1 think, says it so beautifully. "It pleased the Father," implied that in Him, that is in Christ, should how much fullness dwell? "All fullness." It's all in Him.
And so the Apostle Paul is counteracting the heresy that had arrived at Colosse. And heresy was pretty well based upon a philosophical dualism, as we saw in our introduction, to Colossians. Philosophical dualism says that matter is evil and spirit is good, and since God is Spirit, He is good. But since all of creation is matter, it is evil. So a good God can't create an evil creation.
So what happened was God started sending out emanations, or spirits started coming out of God like ripples in a pond; and they kept coming, and coming, and coming, and the first ones were good, and good, and then they got neutral, and then they got bad, and a zillion emanations downthe line you got some bad emanations, one of whom was bad enough to create the world.
Now Jesus was just one of these process of emanations, a good one to be sure, but nonetheless, one of them. He is equal to an angel, and that is why they worshipped these emanations, or spirits, or angels, and Paul's point here is to tell the Colossians Jesus is not an emanation fromGod, He is not something down the ladder from the character of God, He is God in human flesh.
Paul has pretty well dispensed with the opening thoughts; he has greeted them initially; he has thanked God for them in verses 3, and following; he has prayed for them that they would be filled with all the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, and they would walk worthy unto all pleasing, etc., etc. He's gotten all the amenities out of the way, and now he drives right in on the main issue. He thanks God for the salvation that they enjoy in verses 12 to 14; the redemption, the forgiveness, and then he moves right in from there to make his point; that this one, who has redeemed us, who has forgiven us, who has delivered us from the power of darkness, this one who is the dear Son, who possesses the Kingdom, this one is the image of the invisible God; that's vital to his message.
Now, as we look at these verses 15 to19, we want to see Jesus Christ in relation to five things: we see Him in relation to God, in relation to the universe, in relation to the unseen world, in relation to the church, and in relation to anything else that might be left, just a sort of a catch all, First of all, Jesus in His relation to God, in verse 15, and here's a great definition of Jesus in terms of His relationship with God, "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation."
     Now the heretics had tried to show that Jesus was simply an emanation; He was just some ripple from the character of God; one of an infinite series of lesser being that finally reached to evil, and were able to create the world. But Paul says Christ is God, and in fact in verse 16, he says, "He created everything." He's the One that did it. The heretics went so far even as to teach that God could never enter a body. Because if God entered a body, then good God would be in evil matter. A good emanation could never have a body, because a good emanation couldn't take on a bad matter body.
     So they taught that Jesus didn't have a body, but He was a good emanation, who was phantom. And you remember that I told you that wherever this emanation Jesus went, He left no footprints, because it was only an ethereal phantom like, ghost‑like body.
And so Paul wants to make it clear that Jesus is God; that He is God in flesh, and that He is the Creator of the universe, and that alone will take one great swoop, and wipe out their whole position.
Now, let's look at it. He says in 15 that "He is the image of the invisible God." He is the image of the invisible God. To begin with, God is invisible. In I Timothy it tells us that God is invisible; it tells us in the Old Testament that God is invisible, God cannot be seen. God is not visible to the human eye. God is a Spirit, and "a Spirit," said Jesus, "hath not, "what? "flesh and bones." God is invisible, but God became visible. God became a man; and Christ was God made visible; He is the image of the invisible God.
Now, back in Genesis 1:27 we have the use of the term "image." It says, "God made man in His own image and likeness." But that is not really what Paul means here. It's a different concept. I Corinthians chapter 11, we need to at least brush by it, says this in verse 7, says, "A man is the image and glory of God."
     Now God created man in His image, I Corinthians 11:7 says, "man is the image of God," again repeating the same truth. But man is not a perfect image of God. You say, "In what way is man the image of God? In what way am I, are you, human beings made in God's image? And what is the significance of that?" Well, I think basically, we are made in God's image in terms of the ability to think, and to feel, and to decide. We are certainly not made in the moral image of God, right? He's holy; we're not. Even Adam was not created holy; he was created innocent; he failed the first test. lie are not created in God's image morally; we are not created in God's image essentially, that is in essence, because we are not floating spirits, we are not able to move freely through the universe; we are not all omnipotent, omnipresent, or omniscient, or immutable, unchanging that means.
So we're not created in God's image essentially; we're not created in God's image morally, but we are created in God's image in the sense of personality; and that is, we can think, we can feel, we can make decisions; and in that sense we are in the image of God.
Now to be sure it is a very marred image, and it marred at the fall, the vision of God in Adam was much more clear. In a sense Adam was close enough to God to represent Him in a sense morally, Adam was close enough to God in a sense to represent Him essentially, because he could not die, therefore, he had an eternal quality about him; there was a certain immutability about Adam.
And so that whole thing was in a part, the image of God in other ways, but it was all lost in the fall, and the only way it can be restored is when a person comes to the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
You see, when you get saved, then the image of God in you is restored. There's a sense in which, now mark it, you, you come into the moral image of God when you're saved, right? Because God morally makes you to be like, whom? Like Christ, and in a sense, you come into the quality of God's character essentially, because God makes you a possessor of, what kind of life? Eternal life and that is the quality of God's existence, and someday you will know as you are known, and some day you will lose all spatial limitations, so there is a sense in which the thing restores in you the image of God, and I think maybe Ephesians 4 will help us.
     And I can't be too definite on these things. I'm just giving you general things, because I really can't get any more definite. I don't like to pin things down to a fine tooth comb and say, "this is precisely where it is." But in Ephesians 4:24 it says this, and I think that this helps me, "And that you put on the new man, which after God is created," did you get that? The restoring of a man into the image of God is when he puts on the new man. And then God, in a sense, is restored in him, in righteousness, and true, what? Holiness. "In the image of God" then, comes when you put on the new man.
You say, "Does that mean salvation?" Well, in part, but it also means when you behave yourself like a new man, it becomes visible; it becomes manifest. In Colossians new, "that is renewed in knowledge again, after the image 3:10 we find this, "And have put on the new man," or the image of Him that created him."
Now there is the same truth again, that the image of God is restored in man when he becomes a believer, and allows God to be manifest through him, when he puts on that new man. When he not only is that new man, but when he wears that new man, when he manifests that new life, then God is made visible.
So there is a sense in which man reflects the image of God. All men, I think, reflect the image of God in terms of being able to think, and feel, and make decisions. And I think all men, I mean decisions, that are based on fact and logic, not just what you would call animal instinct, but also, when you become a Christian there is a sense in which the moral image, and the essential image of God is restored to you, But all of that added together beloved is imperfect. The best that we can do is going to fall short.
And so it is Christ, and here we come back to Colossians 1 "who is the only really, true, graphic, perfect, flawless, absolutely accurate image of the invisible God." And beloved, were it not for Him being in the image of God, none of us would ever be able to approximate it.
Look at Hebrews chapter 1, verse 3. And here again, you have a statement about Christ, "who", and "who" refers to the word, "Son," in verse 2, "the Son" or His Son, "who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person."
Now here we find first of all, that the Son, that is Christ, is the brightness of His glory. Now what that means is the setting forth of God. Now the best way to illustrate it, and the thing I always think of is the sun. The sun is the sun, and the sun has brightness that is not the sun but is the brightness of the sun. I mean, the sun is just a ball, but the sun emanates brightness, and that is like God, who is God emanating the Son; the Son of righteousness. Christ is the glorious light of God's, spiritually, as the rays of the sun are the glorious light that comes from the sun. The brightness of the sun is the same nature as the sun, ‑it is as old as the sun, never was the sun withoutit's brightness, and the brightness can't be separated from the sun, yet it is not the sun and so is Christ God.
And so we see that He is the brightness of His glory. He is that which comes from God to reveal the essence of God.
Secondly, notice that in Hebrews 1:3, "He is the express image of his Person," the exact image, the perfect image, the substance is the same. The word there, incidentally, "image" is used in classical Greek for 4 stamp, or an engraving tool made in the exact stamp, the exact reproduction. Jesus is the exact reproduction of God; nothing missing, altered, nothing changed. In John 1:18 it says, "No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." "And when we saw the Son,'' John says, "we beheld His glory, and it was the glory of the only begotten of the Father." It was obvious, that He was manifesting God. In Philippians chapter 2, verse 6, "Who being in the form of God, Christ having all of the character and form of God, became a man, made Himself of no reputation, took upon Him the form of a servant,'' etc.
The Hebrews always thought of the revelation of God's personality in terms of what God said. They couldn't see God, but invariably, they could hear God, couldn't they? How many times in the Old Testament do you hear that "The Word of the Lord came to so and so, and the Word of the Lord said..." They always thought of God being express in terms of speaking. God's manifestation was verbal.
     No wonder when Jesus Christ came into the world John wrote "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was," what? "God." Because the Jew always thought of God as revealed in His Word.
God is revealed verbally. And no wonder it says in Hebrews, chapter 1 that "God, at sundry times and in diverse manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Has at these last days," what? "spoken unto us by His Son." The revelation of God was always His Word, and the Word is Christ, and Christ is the identical thought and expression of God. That's why Jesus said in John 14:9, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." In Matthew 17 Jesus even let them have a little glimpse of the fact that He was God.
This should end for all time any speculation, or argument about it where we find the Lord Jesus Christ revealing Himself; Matthew 17 a transfiguration, verse 2, "He was transfigured before them: His face did shine like the sun, and His raiment was as white as the light..." And a voice out of the cloud, 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;" said God, "hear Him." He revealed, He rolled back His flesh, and said, "you see God now in His shekinah glory."
The Son then is the only perfect representation of God. Men are not; they are a marred image. Even when restored in Christ they are less than adequate. Only in Christ is God seen in absolute perfection.
     In II Corinthians 4:6 this is beautiful, "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God..." Now how did fie do it? How did God give to man the light of the knowledge of the glory of God? Here it comes, "in the face of," whom? "Jesus Christ." God has declared His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. That is where God is manifest.
Now going back to Colossians 1 and looking at that word "image" means a precise copy; a replica. Christ is the perfect, unblemished replica of God. And you know He's not just a sketch; He's all filled in. Colossians 2:9, "In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Colossians 1:19, "It pleased the Father that in Him should all pleroma dwell, all fullness." Jesus then, beloved, is the full, final, only revelation of God with nothing missing, and to think anything less than that of Jesus Christ is blasphemous toward God; idolatry, as we saw this morning.
You know what I think? I think that in Exodus 33, when Moses saw the glory of God, I think he saw the Son. I think he saw a preincarnate manifestation of Jesus Christ. I think he saw the Son, God's only perfect revelation. In Genesis 32, 1 think it is, isn't it, verse 30, "and Jacob called the name of the place Peniel," verse30, "for I have seen God face to face." Peniel means the face of God, "I have seen God face to face." Who did hesee? I believe he saw the Son, preincarnate manifestation. We are a marred image, inadequate; Christ is the only adequate one. But I'll tell you something that is exciting for me to think about is I John 3:2 that someday we will be like Christ. That's a staggering, staggering reality. And to think that God became a man. God invaded the world in human form is a staggering thought.
Ephesians 4:13 says that our objective as Christians, here and now, is "to come in the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of stature of the fullness of" whom? "Christ." We're going to be like Him. We're marred now. We're, going to be like Him. We ought to strive to be like Him, even now.
And so Christ is God revealed in the world. If you want to know what God's like, look at Christ. He'll tell you what God is like. If God were man, we would expect Him to be sinless; Jesus was. If God were a man, we would expect Him to speak the greatest words ever spoken; He did. If God were a man, we would expect Him to exert a profound influence on human personality like no other being that ever lived, and He did. If God were a man, we would expect that He would do miracles with ease, and He did. If God were a man, we would expect Him to love, and He did, because He was God, and God cannot be known other, than through Jesus Christ. And Paul says, "you can't even call Jesus Lord, except by the Holy Spirit." So it's a matter of Divine revelation.
Further, Colossians 1. We don't want to get bogged down on those terms. "Who is the image of the invisible God," secondly, in verse 15, "the firstborn of all creation." That particular phrase has caused people a lot of trouble, because they don't understand what He is saying. "The first begotten," or the "firstborn of all creation," this is a reference to a position, not time. It is a reference to position, not time. He is not the first created being in terms of time.
     There are two good reasons for that: #1 reason, He never was created. He said, "Before Abraham was,"
what? "I am," in John 8:58. Revelation calls Him the One who was, and is, and is to come." People say, "Well, He was created." No He wasn't created. People say, "The firstborn of all creation? Why He wasn't the first one created. Plenty were created before Him if you want to look at it that way."
     What does firstborn mean? Prototokos the Greek term refers to position. Now mark this, very important. It refers to rank; it refers to right of authority; to primacy, not to chronology. The firstborn is the one who has the rights of inheritance. 'In the Jewish context everybody knew that. And even in the Gentile context everybody understands that. They had no question in Colosse about what he was referring to; that Christ was the honored One, the privileged One, the prestigious One, the Father's heir.
Jacob and Esau, you remember, Esau was born first, Jacob was the prototokos. He got the blessing. Psalm 89:27, "1 will make him my firstborn," and then he defines it, God does, "the highest of the kings of the earth." What is a firstborn? The highest. Psalm 89:27, there's a definition of it. Somebody who is the highest; the elevated.
Back to Hebrews 1 again he says, "in these last days, God has spoken unto us by His Son." Now listen to this, "His Son whom He has appointed heir." The heir was appointed by the Father. Normally it was the firstborn, but if the firstborn was disqualified for some reason, the father wanted to give it to another he had the right to do that. But he had to be appointed by the father.
Do you remember in the Jewish situation the father had to confer a blessing on the firstborn? And the issue wasn't who was born first necessarily, but who was to be the honored, prestigious son to inherit all that the father possessed.
The inheritance goes to Christ. In Revelation chapter 5, God is on the throne, and the scroll is in His hand. The Title Deed to the earth, sealed with seven seals, as was customary with Roman law, for sealing a Will, it had to be sealed seven times, or you couldn't unroll without making an obvious distraction, "when I saw a strong angel proclaim with a loud voice, 'Who is worthy to open the scroll and loose the seals? Who is the possessor of the earth? Who is the heir to take over the world? Who has the right to control the earth? To take it back; to inherit it and no man in heaven and earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the scroll or even to look at." And John says, "I cried a lot because nobody was found worthy. Where's the firstborn? Where I s the prototokos? Where I s the primary One? Where's the heir? Weep not, one of the elders said to me, the lion of the Tribe of Juda, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll, and loose its seven seals, and I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood the Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. "And He came and took the scroll out of the right hand of Him that sat on the throne."
   And here's Christ taking the Title Deed to the earth as the prototokos to take over and reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. From chapter 6 to chapter 19 is the takeover of the earth until He finally reigns in chapter 20.
   And verse 13 echoes the sentiments of heaven. "Every creature that is in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them heard I saying Blessing, and honor and glory, and power, be unto Him that sits on the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever."
And you see all the universe echoes in chiming in that this One is worthy. And the sad fact is, beloved, that the one thing Satan wants to do is make sure nobody understands that; make sure nobody really believes Jesus is God; make sure nobody really believes that He is not a creature, but that He is the primary one of all personalities.
And so in II Corinthians 4:4, "in whom the god of this age," who's that? Satan, "has blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, Who is the image of God, should shine unto them."
Satan doesn't want people to know He's the image of God. Satan doesn't want people to know He's the only one who has a right to rule in the world. Satan doesn't want them to know so their minds are blinded by unbelief. That's a good verse to show somebody when they tell you Christ isn't God, and you could explain to them why they believe that.
In John 10:33 the Jews answered, Jesus made a lot of claims, but the Jews got the message. People say, "Well, Jesus never claimed to be God," Oh baloney! And that's mild. Jesus never claimed to be God, the Jews answered, John 10:33, "For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy and because thou, being a man, makest thyself God." They got the message. Believe me, they got the message. They knew exactly what He was claiming; He had claimed Divine authority over angels; He had claimed Divine authority over men; He claimed, in fact, Divine authority over everything when He said, "All authority is given unto me in heaven and earth." Matthew 8:18. He claimed Divine authority over the Law, over the Sabbath, over the tradition of the elders, every bit of it. He claimed power to forgive sin, power to raise Himself from the dead, and He proved it.
     No, Jesus is no emanating sub‑God. So we see Jesus in His relation to God so powerfully in verse 15. Now look at verse 16. Jesus in His relation to the world. Jesus, in His relation to the world. "For by Him, were all things created that are in heaven, and in earth, visible, and invisible, whether they be thrones, dominions, principalities, powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him."
Now we've just learned that He has the primacy over all creation, and you know why? Because He created it all. John 1 says, "Nothing was made unless it was made by Him. Without Him was not anything made that was made."
Look at it again in verse 16, "For by Him were all things created." Who created everything? Christ; not some sub‑God, some demiurge minor emanation, not some evil being; Christ; He is Creator‑God.
     And He created for Himself and He created for His glory, as well as by Himself. Hebrews again, 1:2, "By whom also He made the worlds by His dia. In the Greek it means through, "through Christ the worlds were made." And I'll tell you, when you think about it, it's absolutely incredible.
Al Oliver who waswith us for a little dedication an hour or so ago, has a little baby, not very little, a big baby, a cute little guy name Matthew, and he was sitting there holding Matthew in his hands and he said, "The other day I was looking at this little guy, and I was thinking, could you believe, that the God of the universe became one of these, and put Himself at the mercy of man. Incredible!" And I said, "That's really a heavy thought." Do you believe that that little thing was the Creator of the universe. Look at yours. Could you believe that? Ba, ba, ba, ba, you know. Incredible! God became a man. God took on a body. God that created the...
     You stop to think, and I'm no scientist, I mean by any stretch of the imagination am I no scientist. I remember all I did was burn up the Bunsen burners when I was in science. I cracked the beakers. I am no scientist. But I'll tell you one thing; I know enough, and I read enough to know that this world is a pretty complex thing, and Whoever put it together is something.
You stop to think that you could have a hole in the sun. Let me show you how big the sun is. You can have a hole in the sun, and you could put into it 1,200,000 earths, and still have room for 4,300,000 moons to lie around in. That's big! The nearest star is 200 billion miles away. The North Star is 400 billion miles away. One particular star, the name of which always amazes me, "Betelgeuse" it's called, that star is 880 quadrillion miles. Don't ask me how far that is. 880 quadrillion miles, and science says it is so big that it's diameter is bigger than the earths' orbit. That's a lot of material.
Jesus Christ made it all; and people say, "I don't believe that miracle about turning water into wine." Oh come on! I don't believe He actually healed that lame man." Guess again fellow. If you want to argue to me about His creative power you'll have to get past me, because I'm a new creation, and I know what He can do. That's why I reject evolution. Evolution to me is absolutely inane. There's only one reason a person could believe in evolution. Two reasons, I take it back, two reasons; one, ignorance; I mean you just didn't know, right? You just, you never heard the truth. Just plain willful unbelief. Like I read an article by a scientist once, he said, "I reject the idea of a transcendent God, so what other option do I have?" There you are. He made it all. That's the only thing you could possibly believe, if you thought about it.
So Paul is laying down a super foundation for who He is. Just another thought in verse 17 that I think is really something, "And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. He is before all things."
     You know what I love? That statement in John 8:58, "Before Abraham was, I am." I wished I'd have been
there. I would have loved to see the reaction. That's just shattering. He is before all things. Before there was anything, there was Him. That's necessary if you're going to make everything. He said, He said, Revelation 1:17, "1 am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end,    the first and the last. I am He that liveth, and is alive forevermore." Revelation chapter 2: "These things sayeth the first and the last, who was dead, and is alive;" great statement. The first the beginning source. Revelation 22:13, "I am alpha and omega, the beginning, and the end, the first, and the last." Verse 16; I love this, "I am the Root and the offspring of David." Think about it. How could you be the Root and the offspring of the same person? How could you be David's father, and David's Son? He is. He is before all things.
     And I love this, it says, "And by Him all things hold    together." You see it there? "By Him all things hold together." Hebrews 1:3 says, "He upholds," present tense, "all things by the word of His power."
Now I want to get some ideas on this. I was reading this little book that Bob Heinmiller gave me, and it had some very interesting things in it, and I'll just share some of them with you in just a minute; but when you think about how the earth is held together it's really incredible. I mean it is incredible! If the earth's rotation slowed down we would alternately freeze and burn. So it has to rotate at the same speed constantly. If the temperature of the sun changed from, and I think it's 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the same thing would happen. Our earth is tilted at, I think, at a 23 degree angle. It enables us to have four seasons, and it wasn't like that, vapors from the ocean would move down over the North and South piling up the continents with ice. If the moon didn't remain at the exact distance that it is, the ocean tides would drown us. I mean, who holds that whole thing together? Paul says, "The Son of God, Christ of God.
This article that Bob gave me was written by a man named Chestnut, a doctor, a nuclear physicist. He says some fascinating things. Let me share some of them with you. These are just really mind‑bending.
Nuclear Science tells us that all substance in the universe is constructed from three fundamental little particles called protons, electrons, and neutrons. And you've all studied this in school; you have a nucleus in which you have protons and neutrons and little electrons shooting around the outside. And that's, you can't see that, it's just infinitesimal in size, but those are the basis building blocks of all matter.
Now he says in this thing, that since these subatomic pieces are the smallest fragments of the universe, they must hold the secret facts of design and behavior; and if God is God, then these things will point to Him. The protons and neutrons make up the nucleus, while the electron is a long ways off, relatively speaking, shooting around. So we'll just disregard the electrons for our little thought, and let's concentrate on the nucleus of an atom which is a combination of protons and neutrons.
     Now, Dr. Chessnut says, and this is simply, this is known material, each proton carries a positive charge of electricity. The neutron does not carry any electrical charge; and scientists avoid discussing why, frankly, they don't know why. But the strange part of it is for decades scientists have had an inviolable law which says like charges of electricity and magnetism repel each other, and the point is, if you've got a whole pile of little protons shooting out an electrical charge, how come little neutrons hang around? Why aren't they blasted out? What is it that holds that nucleus together? The law says protons and neutrons should not be able to live side by side in the nucleus of an atom, because the charges repel each other.
Nuclear scientists in the 30's concluded that Colomes Law of mutual repulsion between objects is at work in the nucleus of every atom, trying hard to destroy it from within. They had this law, Colomes Law, it's called, and they said it is that work that is trying it's best to shatter that atom.
Now in modern time we've figured out how to negate the force that holds it together and let it shatter. It isn't easy.
Have you ever seen that thing up there by Palo Alto that goes on for miles, and miles, and miles, and miles, for it to do that. But they said, strangely enough, and this is something we cannot understand, there is a second force in a nucleus that fights against the force that splits and holds it together; they call it "nuclear glue." They haven't got the faintest idea what it is. We know, so here is an atom. So here is an atom that exists with two conflicting laws present. I mean, when man with all of his scientific knowledge gets down to the very most basic thing, he comes up with an unanswerable problem. His laws of science tells him that baby is going to blow up, but something holds it together. Something resists the splitting factor. There is one law, the Law of Colomes it's called, trying to destroy the atom, and an overriding thing holds it together.
Carl Darrol, physicist with the Bell Labs in New York City said that "these nuclei have no right to be alive at all. In fact, they never should have been created, and if they were created, they should have been blown up instantly. Yet there they are."
And there they are; they are everything. Some inflexible inhibition is relentlessly holding them together. I'd like to introduce you to an inflexible inhibition.
George Gammal, professor of physics at George Washington University said this, "Every object is a potential nuclear explosive, without being blown to bits." It's incredible, isn't it. Who holds it together? We know who. Science can call it "nuclear glue," they even come up with the name "Colossus." It isn't "Colossus," it's Colossians. I say it's Colossians 1:17
     Just to give you an idea, my dad was talking about this last summer, and I look at II Peter 3:10. Now, you're going to be much happier that God holds things together, aren't you, because if He ever lets go‑goodbye! II Peter 3:10, "Day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night." That means unexpectedly, in which, now watch it, "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, the elements will melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works in it shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be," what's the word? "Dissolved." It literally means to loose something that has been bound. Do you know what that describes? That describes the end of nuclear glue.
     Some day when it gets to be God's time, He's going to unstick the atoms, the universe will explode, and nuclear fusion, the heavens will pass away with an explosion that is called a great noise, and I can imagine that it will be something unbelievable. And the elements will melt with fervent heat, another result of this terrible electrical charge that is going across the universe, every thing is going to melt, it's going to be literally dissolved, luo to loose, that which to loose is the word, it means to loose that which is bound. The nuclear glue is gone, and everything is dissolved, and melts the releasing, the loosing of the binding force destroys the nuclei of all the atoms, the law of repulsion takes over, Colomes Law will destroy the universe. And when Paul says, "He upholds all things," or, "By Him all things consist," he tells us who it is that holds it all together.
Back to Colossians 1 again. I want to show you Christ in His relation to the unseen world, and we'll hurry and be done in a minute. Christ and His relation to the unseen world is in verse 16 again. "For by Him were all things created that are in heaven, in earth, visible, and" what? Invisible," and here comes the names of different kinds of angels, different ranks: "Thrones, dominions, principalities, powers." All were created by Him.
And there you have the classes of angels. We don't know the difference in the ranks; we don't know what their organization is; we do know they do have different ranks; some are called principalities, some powers, some authorities, some dominions, and some powers or thrones. So whatever ranks of angels there are, He created all of them. He made them. He isn't one of the emanations, He made all the emanations, Paul is saying. Hebrews 1:7 is helpful. "And of the angels He says, "Who makes His angels winds, and His ministers a flame of fire."
There you have the idea of angels being made. "Unto the Son He says, 'Thy throne, 0 God, is forever, and ever: a sceptor of righteousness and a scepter of thy kingdom." And incidently, here you have in Hebrews 1, won't take time to go into it, seven Old Testament quotes to demonstrate Christ is superior to angels. The angels are created; Christ is superior; He's the Son. In fact, it tells us in Philippians 2, isn't it, that "Every knee shall bow, in heaven, and earth, and under the earth; whether they be angels." Whatever they are, they're gonna bow. In Ephesians chapter 1, verse 21, he says, "Christ is far above all principalities, and power, and might, and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age, but in that which is to come." All things have been put under His feet. That's a symbol of reigning. A King sat on an elevated throne and everybody was under His feet. All the angels, all the principalities, all the powers, all the dominions, all the ones who were reigning in the angelic realm and operating in that realm, are subject to Jesus Christ. He's not one of them.
     In I Peter 3, it says in verse 22, "He is Jesus Christ who is gone into heaven, is on the right hand of God, angels, and authorities, and powers, being made subject to Him." So He is not an angel; He is over the angels. We see Jesus then, in relation to God, in relation to the world, in relation to the unseen world.
     Fourth, verse 18, we see Jesus in relation to the Church, and we've been over this a lot, and I'm not going to spend time on it; I just want to point it out, verse 18. "He is the Head of the church, the Body, who is the beginning, the prototokos again, or the primary one from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence."
Now, four great truths are presented here about Christ; Number 1, He is the Head of the Body, the church. The church is called the Body of Christ. There are many metaphors used for the church. We are called a family, a kingdom, a vineyard, a flock, a building, a bride.
But I think most singularity, and the one with no Old Testament equivalent for Israel is the church, is a Body. it's an organic thing. Christ is like the Head, and we are the limbs, and the organs, and those parts that function in response to the domination of the brain. This is Paul's I think, most dominant metaphor for the church; and as we get into I Corinthians 12 in our morning studies in a couple of weeks, we're going to get into this in great depth and intensity, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time dealing with it tonight.
Suffice it to say that the church is an organism. We are inseparatibly tied together by the living Christ, as He lives within all of us the same life, we are joined inseparably to Him, and inseparably to one another, and all of us minister as a body. We have to minister in conjunction with each other. All of us have a responsibility to fulfill toward one another.
I Corinthians 12 just lays this out in beautiful detail. The Body is to be characterized by unity; that is, we're all one body going one place; we're not a spastic body. We're unified and we're obedient to the controlling of the mind.
In the Body there is, secondly, diversity, even though there is a one-mindedness, and a unity of response to the Head, who is Christ, there at the same time, is the diversity of different gifts, and different ministries, and different operations.
And thirdly, there is in the Body mutuality, that is, the common ministry of one member of the Body to the other member. This is vital. So, we're the Body, and Christ is the Head. He is the Divine, guiding, directing dominating force. We are not dependent on angels, Paul says to the Colossians, we're not dependent upon supervisions, we are not dependent upon some knowledge other than Christ. Christ is the Head, and He will rule the church.
You know what's at the base of your skull is located the pituitary gland that, among other things, controls the growth hormone. You grow in response to your head. The cerebellum in the brain is called the harmonizer of muscular action. You move, and function, and are guided by the brain, and likewise, Christ causes growth, and causes guidance to occur in the Body. He is the Head; He rules the church. We are in response to Him. He dominates. He's not just one of many; He's not just one angel that we choose to worship, and we have to add supplements, He is the Head of the church, the Body.
Then he says secondly, "He is the beginning of the church." The beginning, arche beginning in this sense; the sense of source and rank. In the sense of primacy He is the beginning in this sense; the sense of source and rank. In the sense of primacy He is the arche. It can be translated "chief," or can be translated "pioneer." The out front, the up‑top the number 1, and also it means "source." He is both the source of the church that is it's originating power, and the chief or primary one in the church.
And then Paul says, "He is the firstborn, prototokos again from the dead. And I told you what that means, people, of all the people who've ever been raised from the dead, He is the chief. He is the One who is primary. He is the leading One; the ranking One. The greatest of all.
And fourthly, that in all things He might have the preeminence, and the thing that gave Him the preeminence, beloved, was the fact that He was raised from the dead. Because He died on the cross and was raised from the dead, the Father highly exalts Him. He has the preeminence.
It stands to reason, I believe, that the One who is first in rank in the universe, One who is the point of reference for history, One who is the Agent, the Goal, the Forerunner, the Sustainer, the Governor in the sphere of creation, the one who is the Head of the church, and the One who is the‑beginning, the source, and chief One, the One who is the ranking one of all those resurrected, the One who is the First Fruits, if you will, of them that slept, that one has the right to the title preeminent. Wouldn'tyou say?" It's all in relation to God, the universe, the unseen world, the church we see Christ.
Lastly, Christ in relation to everything else, verse 19, this just picks it all up. "For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell." Just in case anything got left out, there is nothing in anybody else of God. It's all in Him. Just in case somebody didn't get covered, the power, now mark this, the powers of deity, listen to this, the powers of deity, the attributes of sovereignty were not distributed among a multitude of beings. They are possessed by One manifest in this One, Christ.
You don't need other angels to help you get saved; that's what they were teaching. You don't need other spirits, you don't need other beings. In Him all fullness dwells." He had no supplements, chapter 2 verse 3. "In Him were hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." He has no rivals, chapter 2, verse 9, "In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him." There is no other necessary.
And what's incredible, when you become a Christian, I love it John 1:16 says, "Of His fullness have we all received, and grace upon grace." When you become a Christian all that He is becomes one, yours. Great truth. John Owen well said, "The revelation made of Christ, and the blessed gospel is far more excellent, more glorious, more filled with rays of Divine wisdom and goodness, than the whole creation. And the just comprehension of it, if attainable, can contain or apprehend. Without the knowledge hereof, the mind of man, however priding itself in other inventions, and discoveries, is wrapped up in darkness, and confusion. This therefore, deserves the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations, our utmost diligence in them, for if our future blessedness shall consist in living where He is, and beholding of His glory, what better preparation can there be for it than in a constant previous contemplation of that glory in the revelation that is made in the gospel unto this very end that by a view of it, we may be gradually transformed into the same glory."
My response is in the words of Peter. "Sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord, and grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ."
Our Father, we are grateful for what you've taught us again tonight, as we've seen Christ. Thank you for the marvelous miracle of you entering the human stream. I thank you for these precious people for the love for you, for the faithfulness to come, and hear, and teach, and to go out, and live these truths. Thank you for what they mean to me, for how they encourage me, how they rub against me as stone upon stone to sharpen me; how they force me to be diligent, Lord, that I might feed their souls.
And I thank you for you, that I can come to you and be fed. That I, in turn, might feed them. And my greatest prayer tonight was to exalt the Son, and I just ask Father, that that has been done, and that we would go from this place seeing Jesus Christ in all majesty of His Person.
     While you're still praying, and meditating, and contemplating our blessed Christ, it might be well if we allowed some response in your heart. I am confident there are some in our midst tonight, who do not know Jesus Christ as Savior; you have heard about Him, you have certainly heard about Him tonight, and He came into this world as God, and died on the cross for your sin and mine, died that you might live; paid the penalty for your sin. And He offers you a free gift it is a gift of God. Not of works, or we would boast, and that free gift is salvation and He says, "If you'll just take out your hand and put it my wayI'll give you the gift. I don't ask anything except that you turn from your own self for Me. Just trying to live your life your own way and do your own thing, and that you'll let Me take over and rule it, and make it fulfilled."
I don't know about you, but I tell you, I'm thrilled that I have received the fullness of Christ as John 1:16 says it. I just say to you, if you want to take the gift, won't you just tell Him that. You can even say that, "Lord I just don't understand everything about this, but I understand that you died for me, and you provided salvation as a gift, and I want to take it. Can you pray that in your heart? If you do, you'll hear an answer; He always does.
Maybe you've got some trials, and anxieties, and you've finally come to the end of your rope, and you don't know where to turn. Turn to Jesus Christ, and you're going to be restored. You can't really lose. It's a personal thing between you and God.
     Father, thank you for our fellowship tonight; it's been so good. We've just had a great time with the family tonight. And this has just been rich. And we thank you for being able to get to know the people around us a little. Thank you for being able to sing, and express our love to you, and teach us how to truly love one another, because you first loved us.
And most of all we thank you for Jesus Christ; we just will never understand the mystery of why you have chosen us, but we say thanks, and ask that you bring to yourself tonight those that your Spirit is wooing, for your glory. Give us a good week to share the truths we've learned in Christ's name. Amen.
The Suffering Jesus: Our Substitute and Shepherd
1 Peter 2:24-25

     As we look together to the Word of God, we come to 1 Peter chapter 2 in our study tonight. I can't tell you what a rich and refreshing and pertinent study this has been, as we have been looking at chapter 2, particularly from verse 11 on. And how we have seen that God has called us as believers to a submissive role in society. It's been a very great interest to me that this particular series of messages has come at the express time that Christians are engaged in civil disobedience even in our city, as they were again yesterday, in Operation Rescue. And we've been learning, I think, rather explicitly what the Bible has to say about our duty as believers to live a kind of life that manifests Jesus Christ in the midst of an ungodly culture.
     In the process of Peter unfolding to us these elements of our Christian conduct, he has come to speak about Christ at the end of chapter 2 because Christ is the model which we are to follow. We looked at that last time. We considered the suffering Jesus as our model or as our standard. Now in our message tonight, we're going to go on from there to consider the Lord Jesus as Peter does not only as our standard but as our substitute, then finally as our shepherd in verse 25.
     At the heart of the church's worship is the beautiful ordinance of the Lord's table, with which we are very familiar. There at the Lord's table we take the bread and the cup in remembrance and communion with Christ. At the heart of the Lord's table is a doctrine and that doctrine is the very core of the Christian gospel. At the heart of the church then is the Lord's table. At the heart of the Lord's table is a very significant doctrine. It is summed up in the words of our Lord who said, "This is My body which is given for you...for you." The essence of the Christian gospel is that Jesus Christ has done something for us. Most specifically, He died for us. That's the point. His death was for us. And that is precisely what Peter is saying here. It says in verse 21, "Christ also suffered for you." He suffered for you. It was for us that Christ suffered, that's his point.
     In three ways we look at the suffering of Christ. First of all, we've already noted that Peter looked at the suffering of Christ as the standard for how we ourselves suffer under unjust treatment. Christ suffered for you, he says in verse 21, leaving you an example or a pattern or a standard or a model for you to follow in His steps...who committed no sin nor was any deceit found in His mouth and while being reviled, He did not revile in return, while suffering He uttered no threats but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously.
     Christ suffered for us on the cross to give us an example of how we also are to suffer patiently, enduringly, in the midst of unjust treatment. Christ, as we noted last Sunday night, was treated more unjustly than any creature will ever be treated because He was the only perfect person. So all that came against Him was utterly undeserved and hell as well as humanity massed its powers against Him. And so He suffered in a way that none of us will ever really know as to extent. And in doing such suffering, He was the perfect example of patient endurance, though the suffering was more unjust than any other, He nonetheless gives us the perfect model of patient endurance. He then becomes our standard, our pattern. He suffered to set an example. We will suffer unjustly as believers in an ungodly society. We are to follow the pattern of Jesus Christ.
     But there is a greater way that He suffered for us. He suffered not only as our standard but tonight I want you to look at the fact that He suffered as our substitute...He suffered as our substitute. Notice verse 24. This is a great text, one that ought to be underlined in every Bible. "And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness for by His wounds you were healed."
     That great verse speaks of Christ as our substitute. It speaks of Christ as the one who took our place. By the way, we noted last time that as Peter unfolds this closing section of chapter 2, he's thinking of Isaiah 53. And he will be alluding to Isaiah 53 verse 4, verse 5, and verse 11 here because in those verses in Isaiah 53, Isaiah writes about the substitutionary sin bearing death of Christ. And here again I say is the heart of the Christian gospel. The great doctrine of substitution, that is that Christ was our substitute in dying is basic to our faith. In fact, we could safely say that all other elements of salvation merely surround this great core truth.
     One of my favorite writers is now with the Lord, a man by the name of Leon Morris, you do well to read anything he ever wrote. Leon Morris writes, "Redemption is substitutionary for it means that Christ paid that price that we could not pay, paid it in our stead and we go free. Justification interprets our salvation judicially and as the New Testament sees it, Christ took our legal liability, took it in our stead. Reconciliation means the making of people to be at one by the taking away of the cause of hostility. In this case, the cause is sin and Christ removed that cause for us. We could not deal with sin," says Morris, "He could and did and did it in such a way that it is reckoned to us. Propitiation points us to the removal of the divine wrath and Christ has done this by bearing the wrath for us. It was our sin which drew it down, it was He who bore it.
     "Was there a price to be paid? He paid it. Was there a victory to be won? He won it. Was there a penalty to be borne? He bore it. Was there a judgment to be faced? He faced it," end quote.
     And what Leon Morris is saying is whether you're talking about redemption, justification, reconciliation, whether you're talking about the removal of sin and transgression, whether you're talking about propitiation or covering, all of those are corollaries, in a sense, to the great truth of substitution, that Christ took our place on the cross. So the Apostle Paul sees Christ as substitute.
     In 2 Corinthians he says there what Peter says here. "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him," and there he echoes Peter's words...does Paul. Peter says it's substitution. Paul says it's substitution that is at the heart of the Christian gospel. Paul also says in Galatians 3:13 that Jesus was made a curse...then these two words...for us...for us.
     To put it as simply as I can put it, if Christ is not my substitute, then I still occupy the place of a condemned sinner. If my sins and my guilt are not transferred to Him, and He does not take them, then they remain with me. If He did not deal with my sins then I must deal with them. If He did not bear my penalty then I must bear it. There is no other possibility. It is either Him or me. Some have suggested, by the way, that it is immoral to teach the doctrine of substitution. Some theologians have suggested that, that it is immoral to teach that God in human flesh took on sin and bore my sin and your sin. But it is not immoral because you are not pushing something on God that He wouldn't want. You are not tainting His holiness...not at all. The truth of the matter is that in the process of salvation, mark this, God is not transferring penalty from one man guilty to another man innocent. No, He is bearing the sin Himself for Jesus was God in human flesh.
     The point is this, nobody is pushing substitutionary death off on God, God took it on Himself. It is not immoral. It is not an affront to a holy God to say that He bore sin. He did it by His own will. He wills that sin be punished and He wills to be the victim who bears its punishment. The bottom line is this, either Christ took my sins and bore them or I will. Either He paid the penalty for my sin or I will pay it in hell forever.
     Now what does the text say? It begins with these words, "And He Himself bore our sins..." "He Himself" is emphatic and it means to emphasize that this is God in human flesh bearing our sins, not because somebody outside the trinity pushed it on Him, but because He chose it Himself. He Himself bore our sins. He did it alone, the emphatic personal pronoun indicates that He did it alone and it also indicates that He did voluntarily. Voluntarily and alone God took on our sins. He came into the world to save His people from their sins, as John said of the Lamb of God in John 1:29. Peter is simply affirming that Jesus willingly took on Himself sin, He Himself with no outside influences bore our sins. That's the key.
     Some people think Jesus died as a martyr, you know that. They think that Jesus is just a great example of someone who died for a cause. That's the "Jesus Christ Superstar" mentality, that Jesus was a martyr who lived for a good cause and sets a great example of how to be so sold out to a cause that you're willing to die as a martyr. And admittedly, a martyr can be an example of suffering but a martyr cannot be a substitute. A martyr cannot take away my sin by the sacrifice of himself.
     Look at 1 Peter 3:18 for a moment where Peter reiterates this same great truth of substitution, "For Christ also died for sins once for all...here it is...the just for the unjust." He the just died as a substitute for us the unjust. He took our place. The verb "bore" there means to carry a massive heavy weight. And that's exactly what sin was...a heavy weight that Jesus bore for us. In fact, if you want to know how heavy the burden is, read Romans 8, it says that all creation creaks and groans and moans under the burden of sin. Jesus took the heavy weight of our sins.
     You say, "Who is our?" I believe it's unqualified here. It must mean Peter. Who else does it mean? It must mean those to whom he wrote. There is no further qualification. I think it means all men who are sinners. He took our sins, the sins of sinners and He bore them.
     Now let me follow that up with some thoughts for a moment. What does it mean that He bore our sins specifically? I chased that around a little bit in the Old Testament because it comes from the Old Testament and I wanted to have you understand it. It is not common in the New Testament to use that phrase "Jesus bore our sins." It only appears here and in Hebrews 9 verse 28. But it appears frequently in the Old Testament. And if you understand how the Old Testament used it, you'll understand how Peter before he was a New Testament saint who was an Old Testament saint, would have understood it.
     When you turn to the Old Testament, it becomes very clear what bearing sin means. Let me tell you what it means. Israel, for example, it says bore her sins by wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. You remember when God brought Israel out of Egypt and brought them to the land of Canaan to Kadesh‑Barnea, the spies went into the land for 40 days, they came back out of the land and they told the people, "Don't go near that land, they're giants in there, we can't handle it. They'll destroy us." And God says, "All right, for your unbelief and lack of trust in Me, I will punish you by causing you to wander in this wilderness for...how long?...40 years...40 years." God punished them by making them wander in the desert for 40 years instead of going right into the promise land.
     What's the significance of that? Listen to Numbers 14:33 and following, I'll just read it to you, Numbers 14:33. "Your children...God said to them...shall be wanderers in the wilderness 40 years and shall suffer for your unfaithfulness until your corpses lie in the wilderness, according to the number of days which you spied out the land, 40 days, for every day you shall bear your iniquities one year." What does it mean then to bear iniquity? It means to be...what?...punished. That's what it means. For every day in the land you will bear your iniquities one year in the desert. In other words, you will suffer the punishment of your sin. Bearing iniquity means to suffer punishment. In Ezekiel you have another illustration, there are many more, I'm only selecting a couple. In Ezekiel chapter 18 verse 20 it says, "The soul that sins, it shall die." And listen to this, "The son...s‑o‑n...shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son." What does it mean? No son will be punished for his father's sin, and no father will be punished for his son's sin. To bear iniquity means to be punished, in that case the soul that sins shall die. He says, "Sons, you won't die for your fathers sins, fathers you won't die for your sons sins."
     So to bear sin meant to endure the penalty of sin. And that's a very important biblical distinction to make in order to clearly understand what Jesus did on the cross. He bore punishment...the wrath of God against sin was put on Him instead of us, that's precisely what it means. In Leviticus...pardon me, in Numbers chapter 18 verse 1, "So the Lord said to Aaron, You and your sons and your father's household with you shall bear the guilt in connection with the sanctuary, you and your sons with you shall bear the guilt in connection with your priesthood." What is he saying? He is swearing the priesthood in, as it were, and he says when you violate the sanctuary and when you violate the priesthood, you will bear the guilt. What does that mean? You will suffer the punishment.
     In verse 23 of Numbers 18 it says, "Only the Levites shall perform the service of the tent of meeting and they shall bear their iniquity." In other words, if they violate the law of God, the Levites in the course of their duties, they will endure the punishment, that's what it means. And you find this repeatedly in the writings of Ezekiel. I read you chapter 18, I might just note chapter 4 verse 4, "As for you...He says to Ezekiel...lie down on your left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it, you shall bear their iniquity for the number of days that you lie on it." He went through a symbolic punishment, demonstrating to the people of Israel what happens when you are punished for your iniquity. You find it again in the forty‑ fourth chapter of Ezekiel and other places in the Old Testament.
     So Peter says, and let's go back to 1 Peter, and what does he mean? He says He bore our sins in His body. What does that mean? Does that mean that He became a sinner? Well, Paul says He became sin for us, but that's a different issue.   When he says He bore our sins it means that He took on the punishment. He endured the penalty. And it wasn't just physical death, it was spiritual death..."My God, My God, why have You...what?...forsaken Me?" That is the cry of spiritual death, spiritual death is separation from God. He bore that for us. Yes, our iniquity was placed on Him. Yes, He carried in His body our sins. But that's not what Peter is talking about. What Peter is talking about is He took the punishment for that...thus satisfying a holy God, He bore our sins. What an absolutely thrilling truth...thrilling truth.
     You say, "Well how extensive was it?" Well I believe that He bore the sins of all sinners. Let me show you a few verses that I believe indicate that. John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." God so loved the world that for the world He gave His Son. How extensive was His atoning work? It has to be as extensive as His love. How extensive is His love? He loved the world.
     In 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 19 it says that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself...the world. I know there are many good students of the Bible who want to limit the atonement only to the elect, who want to limit the substitutionary work of Christ only to the elect, who want to limit the punishment of Christ only to the sins of the elect, but I believe that God loved the world and to the extent that He loved He provided a sacrifice for sin. In 1 Timothy 2:6 it says He gave Himself a ransom for all. In Second Timothy 4:10 it says He is the Savior of all men, especially of believers. There is a sense in which He has shown Himself, at least on the physical level, to be a Savior of all men, and that becomes reality on the spiritual level to those who believe. So when people say, as I was asked Friday night and I was out signing autographs at a Christian bookstore, they were asking me, "What do you believe about the atonement?" I believe that Jesus' death was sufficient for the world but efficient for the elect...those who believe. I believe that Jesus Christ loved the world, gave a gift to the world, the gift He gave was His Son who paid the penalty for the sins of the world but that penalty is only applied to those who believe.
     In Titus 2:11 the Scripture tells us, "For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all men." And again I think you can play around with qualifying all but the essence of it is the same world He loved, is the same world to which He gave His Son, is the same world for which the Son paid the penalty for sin. Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 9, "He was made for a little while lower than the angels, His name is Jesus and He suffered death...it says...for everyone...for everyone." First John 2:2, "He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for those of the whole world." First John 4:9, "By this the love of God was manifested in us that God sent His only begotten Son into the world to be the propitiation for our sins," verse 10 says. And again it's tied in with His love. He loved the world, He sent His Son to the world. His Son paid the penalty for the sins of the world. So I believe that's what Peter is saying. In the little word "our" is embodied an extensive provision, a sacrifice that pays the price for the sins of all men in the sufficient sense. But it's only applied to those who believe.
     Now what are we saying here? We are saying that Jesus paid the penalty for the sins of the whole world. But that's only applied to those who believe. Let me give you an illustration of it. Turn to Leviticus chapter 16...Leviticus chapter 16 and I think this will help you understand this very important point. We come in Leviticus 16 to the day of atonement in Israel. And I want you to understand the purpose of it so verse 17 will get us kind of into it. "When the high priest goes in to make atonement in the holy place, no one shall be in the tent of meeting until he comes out, that he may...now follow this...make atonement for himself and for his household and for all the assembly of Israel." He's going to make an atonement not only for himself, not only for his house, but for all of Israel. This is Yom Kippur, this is the day of atonement...the one day a year when atonement was made for the sins of the whole assembly of Israel.
     Notice verse 22, "And the goat...that is the scapegoat, the goat that was sent away depicting sins being taken away...the goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land." Here the idea is that this goat is the symbol of punishment being sent out of Israel to a wilderness place, as it were, to perish, bearing all their iniquities. All whose iniquities? All Israel. The point I want you to note, all the sins of all the people were covered in the day of atonement sufficiently...the sacrifice was sufficient to cover all the sins of all the people.
     Now turn to chapter 23, let me show you a parallel. Chapter 23 and verse 27, the Lord is speaking to Moses and more about this day of atonement, "On exactly the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement." That's the day when all the sins of all the people were taken care of by a sacrifice and then a goat symbolized the bearing away of their sin. "It shall be a holy convocation for you and you shall humble your souls and present an offering by fire to the Lord. Neither shall you do any work on the same day for it is a day of atonement to make atonement on behalf..on your behalf before the Lord your God," now listen to this, "if there is any person who will not humble himself on this same day, he shall be cut off from his people. As for any person who does work on this same day, that person will I destroy from among the people."
     Now here's the point. The point is this, that God provides a provision for all the people except the disobedient ones. And so what you have here is a universal atonement that's only applied to those who obey. That's a perfect analogy really to New Testament atonement. Christ provides a total provision that is only applied to those who believe. Universal provision with particular application. When it says that Christ bore our sins, I believe He bore all the sins of all sinners but that doesn't do them any good unless in obedience they believe.
     Spurgeon, who has to be everybody's favorite preacher, loved the doctor of substitution. He absolutely loved it. If you've read at all extensively in Spurgeon, you come across it over and over and over again. And he knew it was at the core of Christianity. Let me read you some of the things he said, these are taken from all different areas of his writing.
     He said, "In one word, the great fact on which the Christian's hope rests is substitution. The vicarious sacrifice of Christ for the sinner, Christ being made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him, Christ offering up a true and proper substitutionary sacrifice in the place of as many as the Father gave Him who are recognized by their trusting in Him, this is the cardinal fact of the gospel." What he is saying there is atonement is at the center, substitution is at the center. He says, "There is no doctrine that fires my soul with such delight as that of substitution. Substitution is the very marrow of the whole Bible, it is the soul of salvation, it is the essence of the gospel. We ought to saturate all our sermons with it for it is life blood of a gospel ministry." He says, "I am incapable of moving one inch away from the old faith, the gospel of substitution and one thing I do is preach it." He says, "If you put away the doctrine of substitutionary sacrifice of Christ, you have disemboweled the gospel and torn from it its very heart."
     I jotted down two times more quotes than I read you from Spurgeon. He said, "I pray, God, that every stone of this tabernacle may tumble to its ruin and every timber be shivered to atoms before there should stand on this platform a man to preach who denies the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ, or who even keeps it in the background, for this is our watch word." You know that. Jesus was our substitute. He not only became sin for us but He bore the punishment for us.
     How? Back to verse 24, "In His own body on the cross." Through crucifixion. He had to die on the cross, He had to be lifted up. He had to be crucified. That was the plan. He had to even be hanged, as Paul says, to fulfill the curse of one who is hanged on a tree, He had to be crucified on wood. In His own body He felt the potent punishment of God as He hung on the cross. By the way, the word "cross" there is literally the word wood. He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the wood...the wood. He felt the wrath of God in its full fury against all the sins of all the world.
     Why did He do that? Verse 24 says, "In order that we might die to sin and live to righteousness." Oh what a great statement. He did it in order that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. Did you hear that? It didn't say He did it that we might go to heaven. It didn't say He did it in order that we might have peace. It didn't say He did it in order that we might experience love. He didn't do it for that reason primarily. He did it, would you please note, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. He did it to transform us from sinners into saints. He did it to change us. He did it to regenerate us. That is why, beloved, that I believe it is not regeneration first but salvation works regeneration. And so regeneration has to follow saving faith. He bore the punishment in order that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. And that transformation occurs at the moment of saving faith. Regeneration is the result of justification.
     So the purpose of Christ's substitutionary death is not just the forgiveness of sin, not just the removal of guilt, not just a change in our standing or our position. Please note that. It's not just forensic, it's not just some declared change. It's a real one. He took our place in order to transform us that we might die to sin. By the way, the word "die" here is a unique word in the New Testament, not the normal word for die, in fact, it's the only time it's ever used. It means to be away from, to be missing or to depart or to cease existing. In fact, the particle is used in classical Greek to refer to the dead as the dearly departed. What he is saying is that the purpose of this substitutionary work of Christ is that we might depart from sin. That's what he's saying...that we might depart from sin and that we might live to righteousness, that we might enter into a new life pattern.
     Peter here is on the same track as Paul in Romans 6. Having been crucified with Christ we die to sin and rise to walk in newness of life, it's a real change. That great passage in Romans 6 is at the heart of everything in the Christian's life. If you haven't studied that carefully, oh how much you should study that. I've written that little book on it, on Romans 6 and 7 and we have tapes on it, every Christian should master that material. We have been crucified with Christ in which we have died to sin. How? We've paid the penalty, that's one part of it. But not only that, we have departed from sin. And Peter goes beyond what Paul intends in Romans 6. Paul is saying we have in paying the penalty of sin through the death of Christ, we have died to sin in terms that we have paid the penalty in Christ and so sin has no claim on us. Peter says, "Further, we are saved to depart from sin." Now Paul talks about that when he talks about living according to that new life. But Peter explicitly uses the word that means to depart from.
     So, beloved, Christ died for you in order that you might depart from sin and live to righteousness, to change your life pattern, to convert you, to regenerate you, to make you a new person from sinner to saint. And then he alludes to Isaiah 53:5 when he says, "By His wounds you were healed." The word "wounds" molops...molops, you know what it means? Scars from flogging is exactly what it means, bruises, welts, scars from whipping. By His scars, by His pain, by His bearing punishment, we were healed. It's not unfair to say that even the whipping of Jesus, the flogging that tore His back, was part of the punishment of God which He bore for sin. And they became the means of our spiritual healing. He's not talking about physical healing here, primarily he's talking about spiritual healing, he's talking about transformation from death to life, from sin to righteousness. He took our place to make that a reality.
     Somebody always says, "Well look, when it says right there by His wounds you were healed, I hear people all the time say that means you're to claim healing in the atonement." That's fine. I believe there's healing in the atonement. But not yet. The healing in the atonement is going to come in our glorification. Do you understand that? There is healing in the atonement, I won't argue that. And by His stripes we were healed spiritually, and by His stripes we will be healed physically because the day will come when we will have no more physical pain, no more physical problems.
     In Matthew 8:16 you remember Jesus was casting out demons and healing everybody who was ill in order that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled saying He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases. And people say, "You see, you see, He took our infirmities, He carried away our diseases when He healed those people." That's right. And He was showing as an example to those people what all of us will experience in the glory to come, healing from physical disease. But physical disease isn't the issue in this text. There is physical healing in the atonement promised, not yet realized. Beloved, listen, if there was physical healing in the atonement given now, no Christian would ever...what?...be sick or...what?...or die. How obvious is that? But He did promise healing in the atonement...in the future...in the future.
     So our Lord suffered. He suffered as our standard to show us a pattern of virtuous suffering in the midst of unjust treatment and He suffered as our substitute...and this is so basic...He took our place. It's really unfathomable isn't it that the lovely Son of God, pure and untouched by sin, untainted at all, would take upon Himself not only our sin but our punishment and do it willingly?
     Finally, Peter says He is not only our standard and substitute, He's our shepherd...He's our shepherd. I love this. Verse 25, see the Lord had to do that because you were continually straying like sheep. You see, if the Lord hadn't provided a sacrifice, He never could have brought you into His fold. If the Lord hadn't provided a substitute, He never could have saved you. Peter is still thinking of Isaiah 53:6, he must have just read it before the Spirit inspired him in this text. Isaiah 53:6 says "All of us like sheep have...what?...gone astray, each one of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has laid on Him...what?...the iniquity of us all." What does that mean? He bore the punishment for it all. And because of that you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls. He had to bear your sin to be your shepherd. You and I are like sheep gone astray and he says, and so did Isaiah, you're like straying sheep but there was a shepherd who brought you back because He gave His life for you.
     When he says you are continually straying like sheep, he's talking about their unsaved condition in the past. But now because of God's provision in Christ, you have turned toward is what the verb means. You have turned toward...that refers to repentant faith. That was the prodigal who turned toward the father. Would you please notice, you have turned toward not a system, not a theology, not a religion but a person? I love this. You have turned toward the shepherd and guardian of your souls. Literally your lives and has the whole person, your shepherd and guardian. Who's that? Who is the good shepherd? The Lord Jesus Christ.
     You say, "Well, that's out of John's gospel." That's also out of Peter's epistle. Look at verse 4 of chapter 5. He calls Christ the chief shepherd, the chief shepherd. It's so wonderful. Peter calls Christ the chief shepherd in chapter 5. He calls Him the shepherd and guardian right here. By the way, that's a very significant thing because in the Old Testament who was the true shepherd? The Lord is my shepherd. So what Peter is saying is Jesus is the Lord...Jesus is God. This is an affirmation of His deity.
     The term shepherd is His title. The term guardian is His function. What is the function of a shepherd? Guardianship‑‑ guardianship. Interestingly enough the word "shepherd" is poimen which is the word "pastor." And the word "guardian" is the word epitropos which is the word "bishop or overseer." Both of them are applied to elders. We are the shepherd guardians of the flock under the chief shepherd guardian. By the way, in Ezekiel 34:23 and 24 and Ezekiel 37:24 the title of shepherd for God becomes Messianic. So even in Ezekiel, the Messiah will be shepherd. Every Jew should have understood that that was a promise that the Messiah would be God. He is the shepherd who guards, oversees, leads, supervises and further gives His life for the flock. In John 10 Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd, I lay down My life for the sheep." Jesus put His life on the line for us to bring us to Himself.
     The suffering Jesus, He suffered to be our standard. He suffered to be our substitute. He suffered to be our shepherd, to gather us to Himself. Spurgeon said, "When the pangs shoot through our body and ghastly death appears in view, people see the patience of the dying Christian. Our infirmities become the black velvet on which the diamond of God's love glitters all the more brightly. Thank God I can suffer. Thank God I can be made the object of shame and content, for in this way God shall be glorified."
     What did he mean? Well he's really summing up Peter's point. This all started when Peter wanted to say to us as a Christian you should expect to suffer.   Back in verse 11 he said, "Look, you're aliens and strangers in a hostile world and not only that, you've got fleshly lusts waging war against your soul. You've got pagans slandering you," verse 12. "You've got human authorities abusing you. You've got unkind masters taking advantage of you. You're going to suffer and it will be unjust. So look at Christ. And look at the one who is the standard."
     You say, "Why didn't he stop there?" Because he couldn't. Once you've identified Jesus' suffering at all, you can't just say He suffered as an example. You've got to then say He suffered as a sin bearer and He suffered as a shepherd gathering His sheep. But the main point here is that Satan wants to heap against us unjust suffering. And in the midst of it we lose our victory, we lose our testimony. We sin with our mouth. We sin with our actions. We sin with our attitude. We retaliate. We are vengeful. And Peter wants us to know that that is not consistent with what God has called us to do. Even though we suffer unjustly, we can overcome.
     There's a good hint at how. I close with this. Look at Revelation 12 verse 11. This is a description of some godly saints that have been under attack by Satan, the accuser of the brethren relentlessly assaulting their character. But it says in verse 11 they overcame him. Who's him? Satan. They overcame him. They overcame all his onslaughts, all his insults, all his persecution, all his efforts to destroy them and their testimony. They overcame him. How did they do it? Because of the blood of the Lamb, because of the word of their testimony and because they didn't love their life even to death.
     How do you overcome? First of all, through the blood of the Lamb, that's salvation, that's the power of God. You overcome because through the blood of the Lamb you have the power of God to overcome. Secondly, they overcame because of the word of their testimony and that is to say they overcame because they would not forfeit their testimony. And when they were persecuted and hostilely treated, they would not retaliate, they wouldn't lose their testimony. There was bold courage and an uncompromising spirit.
     I tell you, there's so much compromise today, so much. These people wouldn't compromise. How did they overcome? Because in salvation they had the power of Christ, because they would not compromise their testimony and finally, because they really didn't care about their lives. It was no big thing to them whether they suffered or didn't in this life, it just didn't matter that much. And if you have through salvation the power of God, if you have through conviction the non‑compromising boldness not to equivocate on your testimony, but at all costs keep your testimony pure, and if you really don't care that much about your life here, you're going to overcome. It certainly would be our prayer that it might be said of us. They lived in a hostile world, Satan threw everything at them he could but they overcame him. They never lost their testimony, they never cared about their life. Let's bow in prayer.
     Father, thank You for the great reminder of who our Christ is. We bless You, we praise You that He is our standard by which we accept patiently unjust suffering and pattern our response after Him, taking it and entrusting the equity and the righteousness into Your hands. Thank You that we have seen Him as our sin‑bearing substitute, the one who paid the penalty for our sins, who died in our place. Thank You that we have seen Him as the suffering shepherd who gives his life for his sheep in order that he might rescue them and gather them in the fold. It's all about Christ, Father, we want only to love and exalt Him. As we saw this morning in Philippians 3, "All else is loss, all in Him is gain." May He be praised in our lives. Amen.
Exchanging Living Death for Dying Life
Ephesians 2:1-10

     The fact that Jesus rose from the dead is not merely a historical novelty. It's not just an event that somehow upstages all those who have made claim to near-death experiences. Neither is the Resurrection of Jesus merely a testimony that the Spirit of Jesus is somehow alive in a mystical way, as in the pain of poor people and the smile of a child.
     Neither is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ intended as an illustration...sort of means of teaching by object lesson...that people can overcome their difficulties and triumph over their tragedies. It's not just an illustration that sometimes dead-end roads of disappointment can have hope. All of those are nice sentiments, but have nothing to do with the meaning of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
     In fact, to understand the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, you need to understand that it is the means...and the only means...by which people may enter eternal Heaven and escape eternal Hell. In the bottom line, that's what the Resurrection means.
     It is the means by which people enter Heaven, and escape Hell. And any definition or discussion of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ that doesn't deal with that issue misses the point.
     The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is therefore the most determinative event of all time, because by it, the destiny of every person is ultimately determined. It is the most impactful thing that ever happened in the history of this world. How you respond to the Resurrection will determine whether you spend forever in Heaven or Hell.
     Now in approaching the Resurrection this morning, I want to approach from the vantage point of the paradoxes of Christianity. There are a number of paradoxes in Christianity...things that appear contradictory, but are not.
     For example, when we talk about Christianity or the Kingdom of God, the rule of God in the hearts of those who believe in Him and know Him; when we talk about Christianity, it's filled with paradoxes. For example, it is a Kingdom on earth, with a capital city in Heaven. It is a Kingdom on earth without earthly country. It is a Kingdom on earth despised by men, but beloved by God.
     This Kingdom, paradoxically, is made up of exalted people who once were all slaves, righteous people who once were all wicked, honored people who once were all criminals, loyalists who once were all defiant rebels, friends who once were all enemies. It is made up of rulers who are at the same time servants, vanquished who are at the same time super-conquerors, heroes whose glory is their weakness, overcomers whose highest goal is humility.
     And all of these people in the Kingdom are governed by a Law which produces complete freedom, and a freedom which is completely bound to the Law of God. Everyone in this Kingdom is ruled by a King who died for His subjects, a Judge who was punished for the guilty in His court, a Ruler of Heavenly Glory crowned with earthly thorns, the Lord of Life who was murdered, the Creator of men who was executed by them. And the paradoxes culminate in a dead King, who rises to life.
     Because of that reality, we can exchange living death for dying life. It's that last paradox that I want to talk about...exchanging living death for dying life. Those are both paradoxical statements, but make perfect sense if we understand scripture.
     The Bible indicates that everybody outside God's Kingdom, outside the Christian faith apart from Christ; everybody outside are the living dead, and those inside are the dying alive. Outside everybody has a living death, inside everybody has a dying life. What do we mean by that? Well let me take you to a passage of scripture that opens it up for us under the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit, Ephesians, chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2, I want to bring to you the Word of God this morning, not my word, but what Scripture says.
     The issue of the Resurrection is at the heart of this matter, of whether or not you are among the living dead or the dying alive. And this is indeed the message of this wonderful passage in Ephesians, chapter 2. Now the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was designed by God to move people from living death to dying life...and we'll explain that in a moment. Let me read this text to you. Ephesians 2:1: "And you are dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the heir, of the Spirit that I snow working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly live, in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and whereby nature children of wrath even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the Heavenlies, in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace, in kindness toward us, in Christ Jesus."
     Now we're going to look at that text more carefully. But I want you for the moment to look at verse 5: "Even when we were dead, he made us alive". This is the meaning of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the crux of the Christian faith. This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the distinction of Christianity. This is the Truth of God.
     Apart from God, all men are dead...dead. Let's talk about that living dead. Look at it in verse 1: "...and you were dead". He's writing to those who now believe, and reminding them that they used to be among those who were dead. Physically alive...yes. Spiritually...dead. Spiritually and eternally dead. And not only was it true of the ones to whom he wrote, but you'll notice at the end of verse 2, that little phrase "...even as the rest", and he throws in all humanity. This is a universal condition. "Not only you, but everybody else".
     Nobody would deny that our world is in trouble, nobody would deny that we've got problems, we have problem solvers all over the place. People tell us the answer is in changing this or changing that, better education, better understanding of earliest each other, the lessening of racial tension, the elevating of people's psychological self esteem...etc. etc. etc. People tell us that the real problems that man faces are social problems, it's an inability to live in harmony with his social environment, he can't get along with the people around him, he needs to be socially aware, socially sensitive, socially educated.
     Other people come along and say well, the real problem of man is psychological. It's not social, it's not about his relationships with others, it's about his relationship with himself, he can't get in touch with his own inner feeling, he can't calm down his own inner anxieties, he needs somehow to be at peace with himself, he needs to cultivate self esteem, he can solve his psychological problems and get together with himself, he can easily get together with somebody else.
     There are others who would tell us that man's problem is really not social and it's not psychological, it's environmental; it's the way he's been treated. People have traumatized him and abused him and beaten him and done all kinds of thins to him and he can't quite get along in the complexity of the world, and he's misunderstood and can't achieve his dreams and it's really his environment that messes him up.
     So, man is out of harmony with the people around him, he's out of harmony with himself, he's out of harmony with his environment, and that's his problem.
     That's not his problem...that's not his problem at all. Those are symptoms of his problem. Man's problem is he's dead...he's absolutely dead. He's alienated from the life of God. Chapter 4 of Ephesians, verse 18, that's what it says: "excluded from the life of God". He is spiritually dead. His body lives, but man is dead. He is destitute of the life that recognizes God. He can't' know God, he can't understand God, he is insensitive to God, he can't comprehend God, he can't have a relationship with God, he can't do God's will, he can't fulfill God's Word, and so he can't enjoy God's blessing. The unbelieving man is not merely sick, he is dead. He is dead. And what is death...?...it's an inability to respond to stimulus. He can't respond to God. He can't responds to divine reality. He's dead to it.
     I was in my office up there one day, and a phone call came in from a frantic mother right down the street on Roscoe Boulevard who cried over the phone that her baby, she found her baby dead in his crib and could someone come. And I ran down the street as rapidly as I could, and I knocked on the door, and I was ushered in. she was alone with this little baby lying on her bed, blue and dead and cold.
     She picked up the baby, of course, as a mother would, and she was kissing the baby and she was hugging the baby and rubbing the baby and doing everything she could to this little baby, and there was absolutely no response at all. And if there is anything that is true of human life, it is that a baby responds to the love and affection of its own mother. But this little baby, only a matter of months old, made no response at all. And that is the nature of death...it is an utter and total inability to respond to any stimulus. And that is precisely the definition that the Scripture gives of people outside the Kingdom of God. They are totally shut off from God altogether. They live as if he did not exist. They are not able to respond at all to him.
     I have had a number of funerals through the years, where little babies have been lying in the casket at the funeral home, and mothers have gone up and lifted the little head and kissed that little baby in a final effort, as it were, to sort of breath life into that little child, and there is absolutely no response. That is death. The inability to respond.
     And the Bible says that people apart from Jesus Christ are alienated from the life of God...they are dead to all divine stimuli. All sinners are in the same condition, they're all absolutely dead. Therefore, they cannot do what pleases God, therefore they cannot enjoy his blessing and his favor. All sinners are dead...all sinners. The only difference between sinners is the state of their decay. They're all dead. The world, then, is the graveyard of the living dead. They move around as if they're alive, but they're not. Scripture says they're dead while they live.
John Edie, the 19^th Century Scottish preacher said, "Men without Christ are death walking. The beauties of holiness do not attract man is his moral insensibility, nor do the miseries of Hell deter him". You can talk about Heaven to him, he's not interested. You can talk about Hell to him, he's not afraid. Now this kind of man doesn't need renewal, this kind of man doesn't need repair, this kind of man doesn't need restoration, resuscitation; this kind of man needs resurrection. He needs life, because he's dead.
     That's the problem with mankind. That's the problem with the world...it's full of the living dead, who are literally shut off altogether from the life of God. They can't know him, therefore they can't hear his voice, they can't understand his truth, it is foolishness to them, it is folly to them, it is incomprehensible to them, they do not respond to it, and therefore they cannot enjoy His blessing.
     Now, this state of living death can be easily understood with six words that describe it in the text before us. The first word, we'll just use the word sin. The first word that gives us the nature of this spiritual death is the word sin. Notice in verse 1 you were dead in your trespasses and sins, both of those words simply referring to the category of sin. Moral evil. Doing what is against God. Doing what breaks the Law of God. And of course, if man is dead to God, alienated from the life of God, if he's a corpse and can't respond to any sort of divine stimulus, then of course he cannot do what pleases God, what honors God; he is dead in the sphere of sin. "In" means the sphere, the realm, the position. We don't become sinners because we sin, and we don't become dead because we sin, we are sinners, and we sin because to start with we're dead. We're born dead...we're stillborn spiritually. We sin because we are born dead, in a condition of deadness. In trespasses and sins. Sins is the word hamartia. It literally means to shoot something and miss it. To fail to hit the target is what it means. And what is God's target? "Be holy as I am holy", God said. Jesus said, "Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect". God's standard is perfection, and nobody hits it. That's why Romans 3:23 says, "All have come short of the Glory of God"...we all fall short.
     Most people think of sinners and robbers and murderers and child molesters and rapists and gangsters. But sin has much more to do with what man cannot do than what he does. While certainly what he does is sinful, the nature of man's sinfulness is manifest in his inability to meet God's standard. It's what he can't do that shows his sin, and what he can't do is be perfect and holy. Even a moral man who hits the target of human goodness misses God's perfect standard of absolute holiness.
     Now the second word that is used here is the word trespasses, and that simply means to slip or fall or get off the path. It means to lose your way. It was used if somebody was strayed away from the road and got lost. Man has a severe problem. He is dead, and he is completely incapable of hitting God's target, therefore satisfying God, and he's lost his way. He's wandering around in a state of death, utterly insensitive to God, unable to respond to a divine stimulus, falling far short of what God requires, and lost as lost can be. That's why we talk about lost sinners...they have wandered off the path. They've gone the wrong way in terms of truth and virtue, away from God. And there is a way which to them seems right, but the end is the way of death as Thomas said.
     So these two words simply describe man in his dead state. He is engulfed in unbroken patterns of sinfulness, unrelenting sinfulness, in which he falls short of God's standard and wanders further and further away from God. Those two words include every from of sin, every manifestation of sin in thought and word, and in action. It is comprehensive inequity. Comprehensive and monumental failure. Comprehensive insensitivity to God's Way, as man wanders around lost in his sin, falling short of God's standard, because he's utterly insensitive to God.
     Second word, is worldliness. Verse 2 he says in which you all, of course before your conversion, formerly walked, according to the course of this world. What is worldliness? What is the course of this world? What is the path of this world, the way of this world? Well, he's really talking about the world's system. The word world, I'll just give you a little thought on that, is the world cosmos...cosmos. Now what that word means in the New Testament is the system of life on earth apart from God. It's the system of life on earth apart from God. It's a word that means order; it's opposite of chaos. Chaos means disorder, cosmos means order. It's disordered world system. And as we look around this world, it's very organized. The world is very, very organized. Amazing how much of an organizational being man is, how well he networks himself and creates societal links and connections and how he organizes himself both to structure his social life and his economic life and his political life and his recreational life and his entertainment life and whatever else he does. He's a very organizing kind of creature.
     And as he organizes himself, he develops this cosmos, this order of life. But it's the order of life that's according to the world, not God. It's the spirit of the age, that's what it is. It's the world's system. And let me tell you something...while man is dead to God, he is alive to the world's system. He feels all its impulses. He is dead in God's world, but he's alive in this one. What does it mean to go according to the course of the world? It means a way to conduct your life according to the age. Whatever the issues of the times are, that's what you're into. Whatever the times advocate, whatever the times allow, whatever they call for, whatever values they articulate, whatever they tell you is important, whatever their priorities are, whatever their tolerances are, whatever they promote, you buy. Because those are the stimuli that move you. People take their cues from surveys, they take their cues from the newspapers and the magazines and the books. And from their peers and from television and from movies and from music and from politicians. And from educators. Whatever values they're world's system holds, that's what values they hold. Today, it's dominated by humanism, materialism and sex, and people just buy into the spirit of the age.
     But there are some, of course, who are religious, and that's part of the spirit of the age...the spirit of the age also invents highly sophisticated, highly organized, false religious systems. And men and women are engulfed in the thoughts and words and deeds of the world's system. And there's no escaping it, because they're dead to any other environment but that, and they're really alive to that one, susceptible to all its influences.
     Now the description continues to descend into more bleakness as we come to the third word. And that's the word Satan. I use that word because it describes the one who's named in verse 2, the Prince of the Power of the Heir, also called the Spirit that is now working. Man, being dead to God...follow very carefully...man being dead to God can only respond to his earthly environment. And his earthly environment is a system of evil that dominates his age. And behind that system of evil is a supernatural power orchestrating all of it. he's called here the Prince of the Power of the Heir. The Heir is the realm, the environment in which the death walkers live. It's the atmosphere of the death walkers, and he's the prince over it. Satan is also called the God of this world. People like to think they're free, oh they love to think they're free...that's the biggie nowadays. Everybody's free to do his own thing, do whatever you want, do whatever feels good...that is not free. You don't do your own will. You are locked in spiritual death, you are utterly insensitive to the realities of God, to the Divine Realm, you are hypersensitive to the influences of the evil word system around you, you are engulfed in your own personal sin, and the evil system is coming against your sinful character under very sophisticated terms being orchestrated by a supernatural being the Bible calls Satan, who once was the most powerful angel in God's Heaven.
     This doesn't mean that Satan is actually personally individual at work in the life of every nonbeliever, but along with his demons, he is behind the world system. The world system of anti-God, evil influences dominating sinners, and Satan is the one who has designed the world system. They're not free. And may I add that religion is Satan's most sophisticated tool of deception. He wants to undo the Work of God, he wants to oppose everything that God desires, and so he knows that in order to do that, he has to invent false religious systems for those who would be religious, and otherwise might turn to the Truth. And so he appears as if he were and angel of light, in his evil world systems that are religious.
     This is the condition of spiritual deadness...shut off from the life of God, engulfed in unrelenting sin, under the influence of the world system around us and all its values, which is being totally controlled by the primary anti-God supernatural being in the universe, namely Satan, and is carried out through all of his millions of demons who do his bidding.
     The picture gets even bleaker as we come to the fourth word, and the fourth word is disobedience, and to verse 2. "This spirit, the prince, Satan, is now working, he's working in the sons of disobedience". Satan is at work in the lives of these walking dead. By the way, the "sons of disobedience" is a Semitic form of reference to describe a life characterized by disobedience. When a person was characteristically disobedient, they would say he's a "son of disobedience". In the Old Testament if he was characteristically wicked, they would say he's a "son of wickedness" or a "son of Belyle", which is the old name for Satan.
     Naturally, people cut off from God, engulfed in sin, susceptible to all the influences of a system orchestrated and energized by Satan...obviously, those people will disobey God...obviously. They can't obey God. Satan hates all that God desires, and Satan feeds into the world system and all this hatred of God. And since people buy into what the world is selling, they get in on the God-hating, anti-God, anti-Christ activity.
     When scripture says they are sons of disobedience, then it's not some small issue. It simply says they are characteristically against God. Disobedient. All God desires men to do, Satan opposes. His goal is to lead sinners to defy God at every possible turn...whether with there overt, gross wickedness, or with their hypocritical religion which is false. Satan works to get men to defy God. This is the state of the living dead.
     Sinking yet deeper into his description of human depravity we come to a fifth word, lust, verse 3. We all used to formerly live in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind. You're dead to God, you cannot respond to God like a corpse can't respond to a physical stimulus, you are literally buried in inequity, you are under incessant influence by the wicked world system around you, cleverly energized and orchestrated by Satan, so that you live a constant pattern of disobediwn to what pleases God. And behind it all is this driving, personal motivation of lust. You do whatever your body or mind desires, that's what he's saying. Whatever your body wants, that's what you do. Whatever your mind wants, that's what you do.
     It may be that some people keep the two in sort of a balance, some people fulfill some of their fleshly passions, and some fulfill some of their intellectual passions at the same time. There are some who flop all the way over on the mind's side, and become lost in academia, or lost in the intricacies of false religion, and some fall all the way on the side of bodily passions and become lost in sexual perversion. Whatever the case, whatever the extent, those are the areas where lust operates.
     Without the Law of God moving your heart, without the Will of God moving you, without being able to understand God, you then become God in your universe; you become the center of your world, and what matters to you is whatever you want. Whatever your body cries for, whatever your mind cries for. Here is the corrupt human nature, controlled and driven by its internal passions, as it tries to exist and fulfill itself utterly apart from God. Life is controlled by personal longings. So Satan orchestrates into the world system, all of the worst, most gross anti-God fulfillment of those personal longings, and they act as temptation upon us. And as I said, for some religion is the passion, self-righteous hypocrisy, for others sexual perversion is the passion and everything in between.
     It is the nature, then, of unregenerate people without Christ to be dead. What that means is sinful, worldly, satanic, disobedient, and driven by personal lust.
     The last word, and the sixth word, tells us where this ends up. It's the word wrath. And in verse 3, "They were by nature children of wrath". That's where it all ends. They are so associated with wrath that they can be said to be the sons of wrath just as they were called the sons of disobedience. It is their nature to be destroyed. They are born to be damned. That's why I call them the living dead, really...they're dead now and they're gonna enter into eternal death, which is another word for hell, which is conscious suffering, but a kind of terrible death in that it is a permanent separation from the life of God. Born to be damned. Born to be condemned. In fact, Jesus on John 3:18 said they're condemned already...condemned already.
     So, he describes living death. That's where everybody is. Everybody comes into the world that way. And what the dead need is resurrection.
     And that takes us into the next section, starting in verse 4 just wonderfully, and briefly I want you to look at this. Verse four. Here is dying life. First was living death, here is dying life. "But God". Friends, I want to tell you something...it had to be initiated by God, because dead men can't raise themselves. We can't even respond at all. It had to be outside us, and it was. "But God, being right in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive". Verse 6: "And raised us up". that's exactly what we needed. That's exactly what we needed. And here is the great, wonderful truth of Easter, the great truth of Resurrection. This is it, folks: dead people can come to life. Those spiritually dead, eternally dead, can come to life. We can come alive. It say in verse 5: "He made us alive". Verse 6: "Raised us up".
     Six key words define this life just as six key words define the death.
     Word number one is mercy. Verse 4: "But God, being rich in mercy..." What is mercy? Well simply defined, mercy is not giving sinners what they deserve. Mercy is not giving sinners what they deserve...holding back what should come. In fact, in Psalm 103, there is probably as good a definition of this as anywhere, I'll just read it to you. Psalm 103:10 says, "He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our inequities. Mercy speaks of what God doesn't do to us even though we deserve it. We deserve to be punished, we deserve to be judged, we deserve to be condemned, we deserve we deserved to be sent to Hell, but God being rich in mercy, holds back his judgment. Mercy pities. And by the way, God doesn't have just a little to spread around, it says in verse 4 he is rich in mercy. Plucias in Greek, it means limitless. Exhaustless. Boundless.
     Second word is grace. Notice again in verse 5 toward the end of the verse, "By grace you have been saved or delivered from death". By grace. Mercy pities and holds back, grace pardons and releases. Mercy withholds God's judgment, grace releases God's forgiveness. Mercy doesn't give us what we deserve, grace gives us what we don't deserve. In spite of our trespasses, in spite of our sins, in spite of our worldliness, in spite of being dominated by Satan, in spite of living in disobedience and being driven by our passions and desires, in spite of being on schedule for deserved divine wrath, God steps in and shows sinners mercy and grace. Why does he do that? That's the third word. Why does he do that? Well it's not because of anything in us; we're the opposite of everything attractive to him. God is of pure eyes, and to behold evil, can't look on iniquity. God hates sin, God hates the sinner, God is angry with the sinner every day. God will not have sin in his presence, God despises iniquity. Scripture says all of that.
     And yet, God comes to sinners with mercy, which withholds the judgment, and grace which releases the forgiveness... why?...verse 4, because of his great love with which he loved us. This is a love which is beyond our comprehension. We know about love in our live...we know what it is to love. We love what's lovable. We love what attracts us. We love what suits us. We love what we like. We love what fits into our formulas for life. Certain things appeal to us, certain things don't. Certain people appeal to us, certain people don't. We basically love on the basis of an attraction of some kind. That's quite unlike the love of God...God loved those who were opposite everything that was attractive to him. He loves sinners who were the absolute opposite of everything he loved. This is the kind of love the likes of which is foreign to us.
     Paul calls it a Great Love, and I'm sure he could have lined up a dozen or so adjectives, but he just sort of bailed on it and said Great Love. It's in explicable, it's beyond comprehension, God loved us while we were enemies, God demonstrated his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Romans 5:8, Christ died for us. He demonstrated his love toward us in the love we were yet sinners. He gave his Son to die for us. The immense love of God can see in that he would give his son to die on the cross for those who were the antithesis of everything attractive to him. And greater love hath no man than this that a man would lay down his life for his friends, the greatest love of all loves is the sacrifice of life, and God loved us enough to give his life for us.
     The fourth word, and here we come to the main word, is resurrection. Mercy, grace and love from God lead to resurrection, verse 5. Even when we were dead in our transgressions, He who loved us, God who was rich in mercy and grace, He made us alive. Verse 6, He raised us up. That's what we needed...that's what we needed.
     Now, what is he talking about? Well he's talking about resurrection. What kind of resurrection, what kind of death? Spiritual death. So he gave us the spiritual resurrection...what does it mean? Well a spiritual death means we were insensitive to God, spiritual resurrection means we became sensitive to God. We were awakened in terms of our ability to comprehend God, to know God, to fellowship with God, to hear God, to serve God, to be blessed by God. There's only one thing a dead man needs; that's life. And that demands resurrection.
     That's what men need, that's what our society needs, that's what our world needs...they don't need better education, that's not gonna do it. We don't need better psychoanalysis, we don't need better capability to handle our emotions, we don't need that. We don't need better relationships from our people groups, our family groups on the surface, we need life. That's what we need. WE need the life of God in the soul of men, and that's exactly what is given us here. God looks at those spiritually dead, and because he loves them, he wants to show them mercy and grace. He makes them alive. He just infuses life into them. What kind of life? Spiritual life, and eternal life.
     How did he do that? Well the next word tells us. The next word is Christ. How did he do it? Verse 5: "He made us alive together with Christ". Verse 6: "He raised us up with Him". Now you're getting to the color of what the Resurrection means folks. Jesus said, "Because I live, you shall live also. Whoever lives and believes in me", John 11:25, "will never die", Jesus said. What is he saying? Well what the scripture is saying is that Jesus not only died for our sins, but he rose to provide our life. The amazing truth of the Gospel is that sinners were dead in trespasses and sin. And as such, were objects of God's wrath called here "Children of wrath". But God took his wrath, diverted it away from the sinners, and poured it out on Christ on the cross, who died under the wrath of God, took the wrath for us.
     Then, he went into the grave, and rose out of the grave for us. His death was applied to us, His resurrection is applied to us. Together with Christ, that's what it means. Together with Christ. In Romans 6, probably better than anywhere else, versus 3-5, "We have been buried with him into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the Glory of the Father, even so we too walk in newness of life". When he went into the grave, spiritually that was for us. And when he came out, it was for us. And God applies it to us. Verse 5, "If we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection".
     This is the great miracle of the Gospel. This is the heart of the Christian faith, my friend...this is what you must understand. This is Christianity. It is this: sinners are headed for eternal damnation because they're in a state of spiritual death. God offers them life. How? By taking care of their sin, which as justice requires, pouring out all his wrath on Christ, by raising Christ from the dead, having conquered death, for us. His resurrection can be our resurrection. That's the meaning of Christ's resurrection...it wasn't just somehow an illustration of the fact that you can triumph over your trouble, it wasn't just a spiritual, mystical, whimsical kind of resurrection in that the Spirit of Jesus, who was nice to poor people and children, oughtta be alive in us today; the resurrection was a historical fact...Jesus died, and he rose again. But when he died, he was bearing our sins, and when he came out of the grave, he was providing our life. And God applied his sacrifice and his resurrection to us. That's the glory of the Resurrection.
     There's a sixth word, beyond the word Christ, and that's the word Heavenlies...Heavenlies. Verse 6: "Raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in", the Greek says, "the Heavenlies in Christ Jesus". Now what happened after our Resurrection? Listen, this is very careful...very clear. I want you to understand it right here. When we were raised from the dead by the power of Christ's resurrection, we were seated in the Heavenlies...we were literally lifted up. What does that mean? Well it simply means all of a sudden, we became alive to God. The Heavenlies is the sphere in which God lives. It's the realm of God's presence. We came alive to God, where heretofore we had been dead to him. All of a sudden, we knew God. All of a sudden, we understood who he was. All of a sudden, we loved Him. All of a sudden we desired to serve Him and know him, and to fellowship with Him and to commune with Him and to worship and to praise Him. And all of a sudden his Word made sense to us, and we longed to do His will and follow His way, and fulfill His purpose and bring honor to his name. All of a sudden the whole world of spiritual reality dawned on us, and for the first time, we began to love what was pure and only and just and good. And for the first time, we set our affection on things that were above and not on things on the earth. And for the first time, we began to battle the flesh and battle the desires of the mind, and we began to battle tithe influences of the world around us because we had a new Heavenly agenda. And we had a new power, and a new will, and a new life, and a new disposition and a new direction. That's the Heavenlies.
     He took us and seated us right in the middle of that environment, where we have Heavenly life now, and shall have it forever. God didn't just raise us and leave us to wander in the graveyard. He lifted us up into another world altogether. We are citizens of Heaven. That's why the little song says: "This world is not my home, I'm just a'passin through, my treasures I'll lay up somewhere beyond the blue". Our whole life is up there. We see things completely different Everything is viewed in the light of eternity. Everything is seen through the eyes of God, as it were. All the world is different to us, because we life in the Heavenlies.
     Sure, the flesh is there, the desires are there, the world is there, Satan is there, the battle is there...but we understand the battle. And we understand the alternative, and we understand the will of God and the glory of God and the purpose of God and it's all fresh and vivid and beautiful and clear to us.
.
     That's the difference between the living dead and the dying alive. That's the difference between existing with a living death, and a dying life...we're dying physically but we're alive spiritually, and shall be forever.
     The final matter is to answer the crucial question, how do I move from one to the other, isn't that the question? How do I stop being among the living dead and come to be among the dying alive? Answer, versus 8 and 9. Here is the sum of it all ... this is the answer. How does it happen? For by grace we've been through that; yes, we've been delivered by grace, but how does it happen? Through faith. And that not of yourselves. It's not a work that you do, it is the gift of God, it's not a result of works that no one should boast. There's no place for self effort, there's no place for boasting, no place for self-congratulation, no human achievement, it's not of works, it says it's of faith, through faith. So what is that? What do you mean through faith?
     Give you a simple definition of faith. Faith is a God-given conviction...a God-given conviction...that the promise of resurrection life, forgiveness of sins, and eternal Heaven, through Jesus Christ, is true. Did you get that? Faith is the God-given conviction that the promise of resurrection life, forgiveness of sin, and eternal Heaven, through Jesus Christ, is true. And, that conviction moves the will to ask God for that gift. That's saving faith. The conviction that it's true, that moves the will to ask God for that gift.
     The fact of the Resurrection is indisputable, Jesus rose from the dead. The evidence commands belief in that event and in that person.
     Furthermore, the facts of the Gospel are true; that in Christ there is resurrection from spiritual death, there is the complete forgiveness of sin and the promise of eternal Heaven. Pray to God, that he would give you that conviction, so that it would act on your will to ask you to simply ask him for that gift. If you have that conviction, have you asked, "O God give me the gift of life in Christ, forgiveness of sin, and eternal Heaven". Have you asked that?
     I think it's Tuesday, is the anniversary day of the sinking of the now-famous Titanic. One night, in the cold Atlantic, a grim countdown reached zero for over 2,000 people. The Titanic, the unsinkable ship, sank. The amazing part of the story, and I think what fascinates people about it, is that many reach their dead-end voluntarily. I even understand, while the band played on. How did they reach their dead end voluntarily? They refused with scorn a life boat. It pulled away half empty, convinced the ship couldn't sink. So they went to their death.

     It seems to me that the Titanic is a metaphor for the world, and that the world is nothing but a larger Titanic. Let me tell you something folks, this world is sinking fast. And all the environmentalists, and all the politicians, and all the educators, and all the psychologists, and all the religionists, can't stop the leaks. The whole world is sinking fast. And the band's playing, and with some people it's life as usual. But we're going down, folks. We're going down. And Jesus is the only lifeboat...the only lifeboat...who saves from inevitable death, and takes you to the shore of God's immortal Heaven. What fool dies voluntarily? Jesus offers himself as your lifeboat.
     Let's pray together. O God, how we pray that you would be gracious to all of us today, that you would be gracious to love us and grant us grace and mercy, and resurrection through Christ, and deliver us from this sinking world, about to plunge into the abyss. Save those Lord who otherwise would die on a ship of fools, spurning the lifeboat. O Father, be gracious to all of us, cause us to have that God-given conviction that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sin and the promise of eternal life are in fact true. And having that conviction, may we ask to receive the gift of life in him. We just pray that the lifeboat would go away full today, of sinners who have been delivered from their terrible death.
     For those of us who already know you and love you, we praise you and thank you for the life we already enjoy, because of Jesus Christ. We pray in His great name, Amen.
Be Filled with the Spirit, Part 1
Ephesians 5:18

Let's look together at Ephesians 5:18 to 21, you follow in yourBible as I read, "And be not drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God."
Let's pray together. Father thank You for this great word and Lord I feel somewhat inadequate ah, even to deal with such a grandiose concept as the filling of the Spirit, and yet I know Lord how practical and essential it is and that it is indeed a command, and so Lord give Your wisdom as I speak and wisdom to those who hear that we might be obedient and comprehend the fullness of this that You say to us, in Christ's name. Amen.
Now you will remember if you've been with us for any time that we are discussing the Book of Ephesians verse by verse and have been for a long time now but, we have, have found out that we are to walk a worthy walk, we are to live a certain lifestyle, that God has defined for us the perimeters of our living very, very clearly and we've gone through 4, 5, and 6 or 4 and 5 of Ephesians and we'll go through chapter 6 in the future, and we find that all of these chapters really describe how the Christian is to live. And the key to how the Christian lives in right here in chapter 5 verse 18. Do you realize that if 5:18 was not in the Book of Ephesians the Book of Ephesians could never be fulfilled? If this one verse was deleted from this Book everything in it would be legalistic. If this one Book was removed you would be the great engine, the great vehicle described in chapters 1 to 3, you would still have your road map in chapters 4, 5, and 6 but you wouldn't have any fuel to get you going anywhere. You'd be functioning completely in the flesh apart from this beautiful statement in chapter 5 verse 18, "Be filled with the Spirit." That is the heart of the whole matter, that is the energy of the worthy walk, that is the key to living the Christian life, that's at the bottom of all of it, you can never walk in humility, you can never walk in unity, you can never walk different that the world walks, you can never walk in light, you can never walk in love, and you can never walk in wisdom unless you are energized by the Spirit of God. The life of God in the soul is the only thing that can produce that kind of living, you see. If that weren't true then unregenerated people could live like that.
And so this is the heart of the matter in verse 18, it opens up to us horizons of tremendous understanding. And by the way I guess we'd have to say that ah, if you don't obey chapter 5 verse 18 you're the biggest fool of all. In verse 15 it says, "See that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise." And the biggest fool of all would be the one who tried to walk a humble oneness, a unique kind of life, walk in love, walk in light, walk in wisdom, fulfill all the will of God and do it in the flesh, that's the biggest fool of all. A Christian must do it in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Now what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? Well many people are confused about this. Some people think it means you get some divine zap, some people think that this is what happens when you speak in tongues and you know there are peoplewho say, well have you been filled with the Spirit, they sort of isolate you, they have the zapped and the unzapped, you know if you've had some kind of ecstatic experience you've got it, if you haven't you don't, and there's a lot of you know, variation and discussion about this concept. There are people on the one hand who say it's when you get some ecstatic zap and there are people on the other hand who approach it very stoically and simply recognize it as ah, the idea that the Holy Spirit is present and so forth and so on, it has very little impact on anything practical. But both are wrong, it is not a stoic kind of thing and it is not an ecstatic zap, it's not either one. The filling of the Spirit is a very profound reality and we want to understand it as best we are able, as we share this morning.
Now let's look at three points just to give you a framework for what we're going to say. We are going to look at the contrast, the command and the consequences. Now we've already looked at the contrast, we're going next time to look at the consequences so today we're going to focus on the command itself, and the command is, "Be filled with the Spirit." That's the command. Now let me just mention the contrast for you that may have forgotten or may not have been here.
First the contrast in verse 18, "Be not drunk with wine, in which is asotia," or dissipation or debauchery or hopeless incurable sickness, and that's what that leads to, "but be filled with the Spirit." There is the contrast between drunkenness and being filled with the Spirit, and we've tried to point out to you in the last couple of weeks that drunkenness was a method used in pagan religions to induce a supposed communionwith the deities. In other words it isn't a social issue that he's talking about primarily although that certainly is true ah, before you were a Christian you might get drunk when you become a Christian you shouldn't, it's true in a social element, but it's a theological issue that, that he really focuses on. The pagans would be drunken and thus they felt they would induce a high level of religious consciousness and commune with the gods, and I mean when they got drunk they really got drunk, they would even vomit so that they could drink more, and we have even discovered archaeologically that there are places where they had pits for just that purpose. They would induce a, a stupidity of drunkenness that they believed would elevate them to commune with the gods, and the Apostle Paul is contrasting that very starkly by saying, you commune with God, you go through your worship of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, you live your lives of wives submitting to husbands and husbands loving wives etc. You do all of this not as it is induced by drunkenness but as it is induced by the filling of the Spirit of God, you see. Completely different. Paul points out that we find our joy and we find our exhilaration and we find our communion with God, we find the basis of our worship, the motivation for our liturgy if you want to call it that from being filled with the Holy Spirit. They are evil, vile, orgiastic, debauched, liturgy of, of ah, evil music connected with evil dancing connected with sexual immorality was induced by drunkenness. Our true worship, our beautiful music, our communion with God is brought on by the power of the Holy Spirit. And so the, the stark contrast between the drunken orgiastic worship of the pagan systems and the Spirit filled beauty of the worship of the true   God is in the mind of Paul, and he's saying, as a Christian you'vegot to leave that stuff and you've got to come to this point, that you're filled with the Spirit.
Now this is a common contrast in the Scripture, look at Luke 1:15 for example. It says in Luke 1:15 regarding John the Baptist, and we discussed this at length in an earlier message, "For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord," and here is one of the things that will characterize him, "shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; but he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb." There's that same contrast, he won't be a drinker, he will be Spirit filled, he will not have his religious attitudes induced by wine and strong drink but by the Spirit of God, he will not be influenced on the inside b drinking but by the Spirit of God, he will not be motivated by what alcohol does to his brain but by what the Spirit of God does to his mind. In other words he will be guided by the Spirit of God in contrast to that which guides so many people in drunkenness.
Look at Acts chapter 2 and we find the same contrast again, on the day of Pentecost you'll remember it says in chapter 2 verse 4 that "They were all filled with the Holy Spirit," they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, "and they began to speak with other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance." And here were the disciples and they began to speak all these languages and it even names the languages over in verse 9, it lists the various languages again in verse 10 and verse 11, and they were speaking all of these wonderful works of God in languages they'd never learned, the Lord miraculously gave them the ability to do that and, and the point was when they were filled with the Spirit at the day of Pentecost this is what happened. So being filled with the Spirit they did this, but the people said, in verse 12, "They were all amazed, perplexed, and they said, What meaneth this? And others, mocking, said, These men are full of (gleukous) new wine." This is just another pagan orgy, this is just a typical Gentile pagan kind of religious activity, see. They were seeing it and to a Jew it would be a very distasteful thing, of Gentiles who induced their worship through drunkenness, this is just that, they have stooped to a Gentile kind of worship, they have stooped to a paganism, they expressed their worship to God in this unacceptable manner, and it's a mocking thing because they use the word gleukous they're, they're, they're full of new wine. In other words ah, even the mildest stuff, they can't restrain themselves from getting drunk on even the weak stuff and here it is early in the morning. In other words they must have set out to get drunk.
Gleukous was fresh wine; it would have a minimum amount of fermentation and would be mixed with water as we saw in our last couple of studies. And they say here it is early in the morning and they're already bombed on the fresh kind of wine, they're mocking them, boy they've induced this drunkenness, these are typical pagan activities, and so they mock them. And then they say who wants to listen to what they have to say? Peter stands up and says in verse 15, "These are not drunk, as you suppose." This is not drunkenness; this is the filling of the Spirit. But the world in its stupidity sometimes doesn't know the difference between the expression of a pagan worship and that that is real. And so the comparison is used several times.
Now let's go back to Ephesians 5:18 and we find the same comparison again, "Be not drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the Spirit." And I'm sure Paul has in his mind the account at Pentecost, I'm sure he's looking back and thinking of that very thing, the day when the apostles and disciples were first filled with the Spirit of God they did things which looked to others as if they were drunk and exercising a pagan style of worship. And so there's the contrast.
Now let's look at the command, and we're just going to spend our time on this and it's just a tremendous truth. Many of you know this and you've studied it before but many of you haven't and many of you are new and, and so we want to take our time and share these thoughts with you, just a tremendously rich command. Look at it in verse 18, "Be not drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the Spirit."
Now what he's saying is that this is something that I demand of you, this is a command. There is in the Greek language an indicative mode which is the statement of fact and there is an imperative mode which is a command, this is an imperative. Be, being, kept filled with the Spirit. This is a command for the believer, this is not an option, this is not a suggestion, God rarely if ever has made a suggestion. He makes commands and He states facts, He doesn't deal in suggestions. In fact there are very few optional things with God, this is not one, this is a command. And you know it concerns me deeply that many so called Christians never know what it is to be filled with t he Spirit. Do you know there are, there are some Christians who are never really committed to this principle, and all of us at some times in our lives fail to fulfill it, but it is no less a command. And you know I really worry about this because today you know there's a lot of material coming out and there's a lot of literature and there's a lot of discussion about the fact that you can be a Christian and not even bother with any of these things, there's a sort of a new category in the middle. Over here you've got the natural man, unsaved, unregenerate, on the way to hell, over here we've got the spiritual Christian loves the Word, loves the Lord, obeys the Lord, walks in the truth, walks in the commandments, walks in the light, and in the middle you've got this new box that you can stick people, they're the saved and indifferent, you know?They got them out of hell but they're never going to get them into much kind of Christianity, I mean they're just sort of the uncommitted ah, I, I ah, read yesterday an article by a prominent theologian who says, these are the people who ah, who are saved but never walk in the light. I don't understand that myself, I can't quite comprehend that if you were saved out of darkness into the Kingdom of His dear Son and if we walk in the light as He is in the light I don't know what that's supposed to mean. But anyway what he was saying was, they come‑they're saved but they never get out of the darkness, they're saved but nothing ever happens and we've made a little convenient box, we've got the natural and the spiritual and the carnal, we just jam everybody in there and we can say, well you're all right, you're saved, you're going to go to heaven, it's okay if you don't choose to really get on with the Christian life uhm, you know you'll still make it all right, you're not going to lose your salvation, you'll go waltzing into heaven and you just won't have as big a place as the rest of us but that'll be all right, it's heaven after all. And you have that very comfortable category, but you know that isn't the way it is, with God. The Lord doesn't say, now if you want to be one of the committed then do this, if you just want to be in the carnal box it's an option, He doesn't deal like that this is a standard that God established, and I don't think the Lordship of Christ is optional, I think it's essential to saving faith. And I don't want to pile people up in a comfortable little box that says you can be a Christian and not do anything.
Listen, the Lord has commanded us to be filled with His Spirit and anything less than that is flat out flagrant disobedience, and if your life is characterized by that kind of disobedience First John says you're not a Christian no matter what you think. So this is critical people. True Christians whose faith is real will not be content to deny the Lordship of Christ, true Christians who faith is real will not be content to deny the filling of the Spirit of God, they will not be content to live comfortably in a carnal box where they can just sort of say, well I'm one of those who doesn't choose to go to step two. No. I think this is a command and I think it's a command because God says it binds itself on every believer, and the only thing to do with a command of God is obey it.
Now let's talk specifically about the meaning of filling. What does it mean? Okay, what does it mean? I'm going to give you several thoughts here so I think you'll find this fascinating. And I want you to get the basics clear, all right?So let's start at the ground floor, okay? First point, every Christian possesses the Holy Spirit in all His fullness, all right? Every Christian possesses the Holy Spirit.
Recently I heard a Christian say, oohh, you know I've been a Christian for a long time and I just found out that I didn't have the Holy Spirit. And since I, I asked God, He gave me the Holy Spirit everything has changed. Yeah, well you've been a Christian a long time but you didn't have the Holy Spirit? Well you know bless that person's heart, I heard what they were saying and I understand it was a, you know that they‑what they discovered in their life was what obedience will do for you not getting the Holy Spirit. The point is this, every Christian from the moment he believes possesses the Holy Spirit, there is no such thing in existence as a Christian without the Holy Spirit. You see it is the life of God in you that, that is the redeeming reality. When you become a child of God, God takes up residence by His Spirit within you, there's no such thing as a Christian without the Spirit of God.
Let me show you that, look at Romans 8:9, Romans 8:9, I'm going to try to approach it from maybe a little different angle, but Romans 8:9 is a fascinating Scripture. By the way, most of the time that the word carnal or fleshly is used in the Bible it's used to speak of unsaved people not Christians. And here's a good illustration, "Carnal mind" he says in verse 7 "is enmity against God; is not subject to the law of God, neither can be. So, then, they that are in the flesh (or carnality) can't please God." Here carnal means unsaved; here he's saying if you're carnal you're unsaved. People say, well I'm just a carnal Christian. The reality may be you could be a carnal Christian a la First Corinthians 3 or you could be carnal period, a la Romans 8 and not even saved at all. So if you, if you're comfortable with your carnality you'd better examine yourself to see whether you're really saved, because it's just as possible that you're carnal, Romans 8 rather than carnal First Corinthians 3. There can be Christians who act carnally but carnality is mostly characteristic of unbelieving people, they're there are at enmity against God, they are not subject to the law of God, they can't be subject to the law of God, they can't please God. But verse 8, "You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit," If you're a Christian you're in the Spirit, if you're a Christian you're not in the flesh. Now look at the end of‑then he says, "if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you." In other words, you are, when you're a Christian you are in the Spirit, because the Spirit of God dwells in you, and then at the end of the verse, "Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." Do you see? If you don't have the Holy Spirit it's not that you're carnal, it's not that you haven't gotten Him yet, you're not saved. If anybody doesn't have the Spirit of Christ he doesn't belong to Christ, transverse, if anyone belongs to Christ he has the Spirit of Christ, do you see? It's a simple statement. The end of verse 9, "Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. But if Christ be in you," verse 10, see? In other words if you're a Christian with Christ in you, you possess the Holy Spirit. I just want you to get that from the very beginning, some of you are new Christians and you might not understand that. You as a Christian possess the Spirit and He's there in fullness, He's there in totality there's no doses, you don't get Him in bits and pieces, you don't have to say, oh God, I've heard people say, give me more of Your Spirit. There isn't anymore to get, He doesn't come in units, He's there totally. Every believer possesses the Spirit.
Now look at First Corinthians 12:13, another important verse dealing with the same reality. First Corinthians chapter 12 verse 13, now here again we have the same emphasis and it's quite interesting to me to know that the Corinthians were carnal Christians. Their carnality was the carnality of, of the Christian, they were Christians living like they weren't Christians in many cases, and I'm sure some of them weren't Christians at all they were just faking it. But he says to those, even though they were sinful people, even sinful Christians he says, "For by one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Greeks, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink one Spirit." The word into is best left out. We have been all made to drink one Spirit. All believers have taken in the Spirit; all believers have been baptized into the body of Christ. And beloved let me hasten to tell you that the baptism of the Spirit is not an experience, the baptism of the Spirit is non-experiential, you don't feel it, you don't know it happens, you can't experience it, nothing happens to you physically speaking when that occurs, because here it tells us that by one Spirit were we baptized into the body of Christ, the baptism of the Spirit of God is the act by which the Holy Spirit puts you into the body of Christ when you believe, it is a theological reality, it is not an experience it is an act by which Christ, the baptizer through the agency of the Spirit places you in the body. So when you're saved you're put in the body of Christ, and then the end of the verse says, "and you drink the Spirit." That is you take in the Holy Spirit. Every believer, it says it right there, we were all baptized and we have been all made to drink one Spirit, there's no Christian who hasn't taken the Spirit, none, we all possess the Holy Spirit.
Now go back. First Corinthians 6:19, to chapter 6 verse 19,/now here he's telling the Corinthians about their, their immorality, they were committing fornication, they were going to bed with harlots, ah, they were doing just rotten, evil, vile things, and he says to them, "What?" And you expect him to say, why don't you get the Holy Spirit, so you can get your life cleaned up? But he doesn't say that. He doesn't say, what you Christians need is the Holy Spirit. Well if you'd just get the Holy Spirit you wouldn't have this problem, no he doesn't say that. On the contrary he says this, "What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you," he says, look, he doesn't say, if you'd just get the Holy Spirit you wouldn't act like that, he says, you'd better stop acting like that because you're defiling the Holy Spirit who's already there, do you see? Don't you know your body's the temple of the Holy Spirit? Don't you know you're defiling the Spirit of God who's in you?
You see even when a Christian lives in sin the Holy Spirit is still there, do you see the point? He's still there He's just defiled there. Or if you want, Ephesians 4:30 he says, "Grieve not the Spirit of God." Or First Thessalonians 5:19, "Quench not the Spirit." You can quench the Spirit, you can pour the water of your sin on His fire of holiness, you can grieve the Spirit, by the way the Spirit is He not it, He is a personality and He sorrows and He grieves and He is anguished by our sin, and He is defiled when the temple which is our body is defiled. So you see every believer possesses the Spirit, "If any man have not the Spirit, he's none of his." Every believer is baptized into the body and drinks of the Spirit, every believer is the temple of the Spirit of God. Galatians 2:20 puts it another way, he says, "For I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth (where?) in me." You see? The Spirit of Christ lives in me. Look at John chapter 7, you know whenI first understood this doctrine it was the most mind boggling truth imaginable to me that the God of the universe, the very God of very God, God Himself sovereign, Almighty and majestic could take up residence in my body was an inconceivable reality to me, what a thought, and that is exactly the truth of the New Testament. In John 7:37, "In that last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water."
Now who gets the rivers of the living water? He that believes, anybody that believes, anybody that comes and says I'm thirsty and I want to drink and takes Christ gets the rivers, and what are the rivers of water? Verse 39, "This spoke he of the Spirit, whom they that believe on him should receive." Stop right there, who gets the Spirit? They that what? Believe. You see it's the simple act of saving faith that gives you the Holy Spirit, He becomes the river of living water, and He takes up permanent residence in our lives. And you can never lose that. We're not like in the Old Testament where you hear the Old Testament saints say, "Take not thy spirit from me." God doesn't do that in this age, the Spirit is a permanent resident in the life of the believer. And that's why, now listen, that's why of all the commands in the New Testament, and there are myriads of them, of all the commands in the New Testament listen to this, there is never a command to be baptized with the Spirit, never, never. There are seven references to the baptism of the Spirit in the New Testament, not one of them is in the imperative mode, not one of them is a command, you are never commanded to be baptized by the Spirit because the baptism with the Spirit is when you're placed in the body of Christ and that happens at the moment you're saved.
Second, you are never commanded anywhere in the New Testament to be indwelt by the Spirit, never, that is also a promise already guaranteed, you're never commanded to be sealed by the Spirit or kept secure, that is also a gift of God, Ephesians 1 you've already been sealed, you've already been baptized, you've already been indwelt, those are never given as commands. The command is this, Ephesians 5:18, "Be (what?) filled with the Spirit." That's different. Not indwelt, baptized, or sealed but filled. You say, well what does it mean? Well in the first place it's the very opposite of the pagan kind of activity and the pagan ecstasy, the verb means this, let me give you the verb rendering in its literal sense and then I'll show you how it works out. It means to‑the literal present tense indicative says, be, it Is a passive, be, being, kept filled with the Spirit. And the idea of be, being, kept is a constant, be, being, kept. You don't say oops I'm filled with the Spirit, that does it I'm in for the rest of my life. Be, being, kept filled, moment by moment by moment by moment, see? Day by day by day by day by day it's not a once for all, it's not a zapper here and a zapper there and a zapper there next year, it's moment by moment by moment by moment by moment, see? Be, being, kept continuously filled, it's passive, that is something fills you, you don't fill yourself, you receive the action, and it is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God who fills you. Present tense; be constantly in the present tense being kept continuously filled by the Spirit of God. You may be baptized into the body, you may be indwelt by the Spirit, you may be sealed by the Spirit unto the day of redemption, but you know something? You can live your Christian life in defeat if you don't know what it is to experience moment by moment the be, being, kept continuously filled by the Spirit of God experience.
It expresses the idea of a moment by moment continual work. It's not some second thing that's good for the rest of your life. My being filled with the Spirit five minutes ago isn't any good for this moment, none, my being filled with the Spirit tomorrow isn't any good for today. It's moment by moment by moment.
Now, when you think of filling you think of a glass you know and you fill it or a box and you stick something in it or a container and you dump something in it, but that's not the idea. I'm going to give you three concepts to hang onto. The word pleroo is used of, of a wind filling a sail and billowing the sail out and moving the ship along. You know when we say that the, the sails are filled with wind, and that's in Paul's mind for a beginning thought, to be carried along, to be carried along, a beautiful thought, to be moved along, to have the, the thrust of your life and the energy of your life and the pressure of your life be the power of the Spirit of God.
In other words you don't move in your own energy, you don't move in your own flesh, you don't move with your own ideas, you don't move into your own ideals, you don't generate your own will, you are blown along under the wind of the Spirit of God , you are carried along the path that He will go. It's in a very real sense almost like those who wrote the Scripture who were borne along by the Spirit of God, it's as if you are nothing but a stick in a creek, and have you ever watched a stick when you were a little boy, you drop a stick in a creek and then run down and watch it come down, you're carried along by the Spirit of God, you're blown along like a sailboat in the wind, that's one thought. To be filled with the Spirit is to be carried along from day to day, from moment to moment from enterprise to enterprise from thought to thought from word to word from deed to deed by the power of the energy of the Spirit of God. So it has the idea of, of pressure, of pressure of carrying you along in God's will.
There's a second one, and that's the idea of permeation. Pleroo is used sometimes of something which permeates, and I think a good illustration of that is salt, salt permeates, in fact it permeates so well that if you put enough of it on something it will preserve it, won't it? But when you want to eat something and you put all that salt on it, it gives it flavor; it permeates the whole thing so that the whole thing is flavored. I used to use the illustration also of a fizzie, and if you've read my little book called, Found: God's Will you've read about the fizzie principle. Fizzies were a, kind of a flavored Alka‑Seltzer, a little uhm, thing about the size of an Alka‑Seltzer only they made them in grape and orange and root beer and cherry and all of that, you know and you'd get a little deal of those things and you'd drop them in a glass of water and they'd phwww! You know, like an Alka‑Seltzer does and they'd fill it up and it was permeation you know, you put a grape fizzie in there and the whole glass of water tastes like grape juice and, what it did was flavor the water, and pleroo is used in that sense. There's the sense in which the Spirit of God wants to flavor your life so that you taste like the Spirit of God, and so that when anybody gets next to you the flavor of your life is that of God, so that being with you is like being with God, you see. So it's the idea of, of pressure to move you along and it's the idea of permeation so that, you know when somebody gets around you they think maybe they've been with Jesus, because He flavors your life. But the dominant thought here in my mind as compared with the Gospel record particularly, the dominate use of pleroo is to speak of control, to speak of total control. That's kind of the idea, you've got the idea of moving along, you've got the idea of permeation but the control idea is the key.
Let me see if I can illustrate it to you. Whenever in the Gospel record the writer wants to talk about somebody who, who just is dominated by an emotion he will use the word pleroo which is used here. In other words in, in John 16:6 it says, "They were filled with sorrow." In other words sorrow to such a degree that it can't be balanced off by happiness and they're just totally sorrowful. In Luke 5:26, "They were filled with fear." In other words that they couldn't no longer feel secure and they were just seared to death. And in Luke 6:11, "They were filled with madness." And in Acts 6:5, "They were filled with faith." And in Acts 5:3, "Filled with Satan." And so it goes.
Now let me give you an illustration to help you understand this, ah, most of the time we can kind of balance things in our life, can't we? Take the concept of sorrow, okay we've got sorrow over here on the scale and happiness over here, right? And we go through life and a little bit of sorrow and then we think of something happy, see. Or, well it I s not going too well at home I think I'll go to the office, see, and it's better, no it's not going too well at the office I think I'll go home, see? We balance this thing off. You know we talk about sad things, and we don't want to talk about it anymore let's talk about something happy, see? We do like this see. But every once in awhile we can't keep that balance, you know? The person we love the most dies, phoom, see. All of a sudden the scale is all the way down on the sorrowful side and nothing anybody says and nothing anybody does can take away the sorrow. Filled, and that's when that word would be used, it's totally dominating. On the other hand you're going along happiness over here and sadness over here, Aunt Martha dies and leaves you fifty thou‑whoaa on the happy side, you know and it doesn't matter, the world can go down the tubes I got fifty thou, see? Never expected it, now all of a sudden you're filled with happiness and that's the concept of the word, you're totally dominated by it and you don't need any equilibrium and the saddest thing going on around you is totally uninteresting to you, you're happy. And that's the way life goes, you know. Ah, there may be things that keep us secure and things that scare us and give us fear and we go along a little bit and, and oh you know, a husband gets a raise and we get a new house and the kids are doing great and we feel so ... we're filled with security.
On the other hand some disaster happens, terrible, we Ire scared to death, you know it is the middle of the night and somebody is poking around the windows and whoa, see? You know that's, that's pleroo it's to be controlled by that emotion so that you no longer can keep your balance, you're out of it‑you're out of control, you're controlled by that which influences your thinking and your emotion. Now the same thing is true with how we live the Christian life, you know this is the way most of us go, here's self over here and here's the Holy Spirit, and we say a little bit for self, a little bit for the Holy Spirit, oh, little bit for me, see, and that we, we kind ... But all of a sudden at some point in time we yield to the Spirit of God and when totally self disappears and we're filled with the Spirit, everything is controlled by Him, all of our emotions, all of our acts of will, all of our thinking processes, that's what it means to be filled with the Spirit, you see. That's the heart of the matter. It is the idea of being moved along, it is the idea of being permeated so you have the flavor of Jesus Christ but it is also the idea of being controlled by, and a firm hand of control.
Let me give you an illustration, look at Matthew 4:1, Matthew 4:1 says this, "Then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil." Now here's the Holy Spirit operating in the life of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit it says, led Jesus, He led Jesus, all right? Now let's go to Luke 4:1. He led Jesus in Matthew 4:1 to the temptation, in Luke 4:1 we have the same incident, the temptation, the same situation, but here it says, now watch, "And Jesus, being full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness."
Now what was the condition by which the Spirit led Him? He was what? Full of the Spirit. Do you see what being filled with the Spirit means? It means to be led by the Spirit, to be controlled by the Spirit. Now if you were to go to Mark chapter 1, Mark chapter 1 the same thing is dealt with again, the temptation of Jesus, and in Mark 1:12 it says, "And immediately the Spirit (and it uses the word ekballo) drives him into the wilderness." And that is a really strong word. He drove Him into the wilderness; He thrust Him into the wilderness. In other words, Jesus Himself was under the power of the Spirit of God, so that the Spirit of God literally drove Him where He wanted Him to go, He was controlled by the Spirit of God, and that's why later on when they came to Jesus and they said, "What you do, you do by the power of Satan." He said, "You have blasphemed not me, but (whom?) the Holy Spirit." Why? Because He had yielded the control of His life to the powerof the Spirit of God. He was full of the Spirit, and that's why He was driven by the Spirit.
Listen, to be filled with the Spirit beloved is that same thing; it's the idea of being driven by the Spirit of God, of being moved by the Spirit of God, of being permeated by the Spirit of God, of being controlled by the Spirit of God. That's the issue. And that's what we're talking about, we talking about living your life under the control of the Spirit of God, He's there and if you don't live that way you grieve Him on the one hand and you quench Him on the other hand. You grieve Him, that's how He personally feels sorrowful; you quench Him, that's how you restrict what He'd like to do, so you are really dealing with His person negatively and His purposes negatively. And by the way unless you're filled with the Spirit of God you're no use.
I used to use the illustration of a glove, if I have a glove laying here and I say, glove go play the piano, what's the glove do? The glove doesn't play the piano it just sits there. If I put my hand in that glove and then play the piano what happens? Chaos, March Of the Wee Folk, you know? That was it, I quit after my first recital, went into baseball. But you know the glove, you put a hand in the glove and a glove just goes, the glove doesn't get pious and say, ooh fingers show me the way to go, it doesn't do that, and a glove doesn't fight you, you say, glove please respond, no the glove just goes. Well as a Christian you're a glove and you can lie around on the table and grunt till you die but you're never going to affect anything for God until you're filled with His Spirit. Because a glove can't do anything without a hand and you can't do anything without the energy of the fullness of the Spirit. Everything you try to crank out on your own is done in the flesh and is useless; it's at best stubble, not gold, silver, precious stones. So what the Scripture is saying here is that you need to be filled with the Spirit of God to be effective, to fulfill the worthy walk, to fulfill the love walk, light walk, wise walk, to do anything for God, to walk in wisdom, you must be filled with the Spirit of God, you must be permeated by His person, you must be borne along by His power and you must be controlled by His presence.
Now let me show you something, you know unless you're that way you're useless to the Lord, I mean He can't do a thing with you, you're ‑ it's a waste of time, functioning in the flesh reaps absolutely zero, whenever the Lord wants a job done He always gets somebody full of the Spirit. In Acts chapter 6 and verse 5 they needed some men for a special job, and so what were the qualifications? Acts 6:5, "And the saying pleased the multitude; and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit." They chose him because he was full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit. It was a good thing because in chapter 7 of the Book of Acts verse 55 they started to stone him and there was that dear Stephen lying on the ground beneath their feet, they picked up the great boulders to drop and crush his head, and it says in 7:55, "But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God." Boy, I'll tell you to be filled with the Spirit just takes you right out of this world, doesn't it? To be filled with the Spirit gives you a view of God while your head is about to be crushed with a boulder, to be filled with the Spirit detaches you from the system, to be filled with the Spirit means I could care less what happens to me as long as He is glorified. He just looked up and saw the glory of God, how could he ever see the glory of God in the midst of being stoned, because he was what? Filled with the Spirit, it's a transcending thing, it's a transcending reality, you move right out of the world, right out of your circumstances, right out of your vicissitudes, right out of your trials to see God, see. Whenever God wants a man for a job He wants a man full of the Spirit because it may wind up the man getting stoned and if he isn't filled with the Spirit he'll never be able to handle that.
Later on in chapter 9 He needed a man, He needed a man named Saul who was a tough nut to crack, frankly. He was a persecutor of the church but the Lord got a hold of him and the Lord had one basic condition for him in chapter 9 verse 17, "Ananias went his way, entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul," this is after his Damascus Road experience, "even Jesus, the Lord, has appeared unto thee in the way that thou camest, and he sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be (what?) filled with the Holy Spirit." Saul, before you begin your work you've got to be filled with the Spirit or it'll be done in the flesh. Being filled with the Spirit beloved is just living one moment at a time under the control of the Holy Spirit, that's all, it's a yieldedness, it's a yieldedness, it's the emptying of me so that He can fill, see? You find further as you go into chapter 11 verse 22, the Lord needed a man named Barnabas to help a man named Paul, and when the Lord wanted to pick a man named Barnabas He had some conditions. Verse 22, "They sent forth Barnabas." Why Barnabas? Verse 24, "For he was a righteous man, and (what?) full of the Holy Spirit." I mean it had to be that way, what else would God require? And later on you find in chapter 13 verse 9, "And Saul, filled with the Holy Spirit, set his eyes on him." Here he is sometime later still filled with the Holy Spirit. Chapter 13 verse 52, I love this, "And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Spirit." And what happened? "It came to pass in Iconium that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spoke, that a great multitude, both of the Jews and of the Greeks, (what?) believed." Isn't that great? When God wants somebody to minister to His church, when God wants somebody to pioneer a missionary work, when God wants somebody to win people to Christ He finds somebody, what? Filled with the Spirit. Somebody who is borne along in the will of God by the pressure of the Spirit of God, permeated by the flavor of Jesus Himself, and somebody who's absolutely controlled by that power. That's the standard that God has set, people.
You say, well that's the meaning of filling, but what's the means? How do I get filled? Let me give you this real quick and we'll be done. How do I get the filling of the Spirit, how can I know this? If it's, if it's commanded. Well you know it's amazing, I hear people praying for the filling of the Spirit. You don't have to pray for it, it's not a prayer request it's a command. You don't say, Lord, oh, I want to be filled. He's up there saying, want you to be filled, I want you to be filled, and you're saying, I want to be filled; I want to be filled, see. There's sort of a roadblock there. If He gave you a command then you have the resources, right? And the resources to empty yourself of yourself, it's a matter of the confession of sin. But let me give you a simple way to look at it. It involves a surrender of your will, your intellect, your body, your time, your talent, your treasure everything to His control, it's the death of self, it's the crucifixion of self, it's the slaying of your own self‑will, it's the mortification of the members of your body, as it says in Colossians 2. It's the death of you, when you die He fills, when you empty yourself of yourself, He'll fill it up, He'll fill it up.
Now let me give you an illustration of it, now look at Ephesians chapter 5 very quickly, you have in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 18 this statement, "Be not drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the Spirit." Now what happens when you're filled with the Spirit? Here's what happens, you'll speak to yourselves in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, verse 19. Verse 20, you'll be thankful; you'll give thanks always for all things. Verse 21, you will submit yourselves to each other. Verse 22, Spirit filled wives will submit to their husbands. Verse 25, Spirit filled husbands will love their wives. Chapter 6 verse 1, Spirit filled children will obey their parents. Chapter 6 verse 4, Spirit filled fathers will lot provoke theirchildren to wrath. 6:5, Spirit filled servants will be obedient, and 6:9, Spirit filled masters will treat their servant s right.
Now do you notice that, isn't it amazing? All this filling of the Spirit never produces anything ecstatic at all; it produces singing, saying thanks, submitting, and a whole lot of right human relationships. Nobody gets zapped and goes off the deep end, amazing. Nobody falls over flat on their back; nobody gets into some kind of ecstatic experience, what happens? Simple, all relationships become right, your relationship with God is right because you sing and say thanks, your relationship to other people is right because you submit whether it's in a marriage or family or in an employment situation, it's all very practical, it's all very clear, the filling of the Spirit affects all these relationships to God, to our families, to others.
Now let me show you something, look at Colossians chapter 3 this is a parallel, this is a fabulous parallel, Colossians 3, now look, verse 16, it says in the middle of the verse, "teaching and admonishing one another," here we go again, just exactly like Ephesians 5, "psalms, hymns, spiritual songs." All right, verse 17, "Whatever y ou do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, give thanks." Now we go through the same routine again, it's condensed but it's all here, wives submit to your husbands, husbands love your wives, childrenobey your parents, fathers provoke not your children, servants obey your masters, and then in chapter 4 verse 1, "Masters, give your servants what is just and equal."
Now do you see that? The same sequence, you've got it all right there, you've got the singing, the saying thanks, the submissiveness, the wives, the husbands, the children, the father, the servant, the master, identical. Now well we know what produces this in Ephesians 5, the filling of the Spirit, what produces it here? Oh, it's different here, look at verse 16, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you (what?) richly, in all wisdom."
Now hang onto your seat folks, let me tell you something, being filled with the Spirit is the same thing as letting what? The Word of Christ dwell in you richly, do you see? It's got to be the same because it produces the same results. People say, oh the filling of the Spirit is mystical, very mystical. No, the filling of the Spirit is taking the Word that Christ has given us and letting it dwell where? In your heart. If you want to be Spirit filled don't go sit in a corner somewhere and plead God. If you want to be Spirit filled feed yourself the Word of Christ, and as you're fed and filled with the Word and as it results in dwelling in you, plousios, abundantly, richly in fullness you'll find yourself coming under its control. Who is the author of the Word of Christ? The Spirit. And when you pour the Word in it becomes the thing that controls you. Like Spurgeon said, "Your blood will become Biblean." He's right. It's a simple thing and there's no reason to make it confusing. Being filled with the Spirit is simply letting the Word dominate my life. If you want to know what it is to be Spirit filled then feed yourself the Word of God, because when the Word goes in the Spirit has the truth with which to give you the direction and the guidance, you see.
A closing illustration, and I've used this many, many times. Peter. Peter wanted to be where Jesus was, I tell this story in my little book on God's Will, he wanted to be where Jesus was always, I mean I'm sure Jesus walked down the road and stopped and Peter ran into the back of Him. Peter trailed Him everywhere. The Lord went up in a mountain; Peter went up in a mountain, the Lord said, will you go away? He says, where am I going to go? Peter was always around. And so you know, I know why he was around, because when he was near Jesus three things stand out in the Bible, he did the miraculous, said the miraculous, and had miraculous courage. The first thing you know he, the first time you see Peter he, he's in a boat on the sea and boy it's nervous time, right, the storm and own they're all alone and they're shaky and they're out in the middle of the Sea in the Galilee and all of a sudden they look off in the distance and here comes Jesus walking on the water. And then Peter thinks to himself, I'm here, He's there that's no good, I've got to close the gap, see, and he's going to go be with Jesus.
Now he's been a fisherman all his life, lived on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, never walked on it yet. Every time he ever stepped into it he went right to the bottom, he knows that, it's never been any different and yet he jumps out of the boat and takes off across the water, he gets out a little ways and says, ha, ha, ha!!!! You know. Well ah ha, you see he was unconscious of what he was doing because his compulsion to be with Jesus absolutely over rode everything, he just was going to be where Jesus was, and of course he met Jesus and he for a while he started to sink and the Lord reached down and lifted him up and they walked back to the boat, you know, and I can just imagine you know him walking along with Jesus back to the boat feeling pretty hot, you know hum, look at us fellas hum‑hum, you know, see?
And ah, I'm‑I always laugh because one writer wrote had a sandbar, that they were walking on a sandbar, but ah ... he's the same writer who said that there wasn't a great fish that swallowed Jonah either, that was just the name of the dinghy tied on the back of the ship. Of course my question was whoever heard of a dinghy that vomited, but anyway that's on the side. So anyway Peter and Jesus are walking, Peter and Jesus are walking to the, to the boat and, and you know what you have to admit that when Peter was near Jesus he could do the miraculous, I mean he couldn't walk on water but he could when he was near Jesus, right? The next time we see him in our little analogy he's gathered with the disciples, "And Jesus says, Who do men say that I am?" Matthew 16, "And they said, oh Some say you're Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. And he says, well who do you say that I am? And Peter goes; Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." And I'm sure he thought to himself, where did that come from? You see Peter's mouth was available, a little while later in that chapter Satan used it remember? And Jesus had to say, "Get thee behind me, Satan." His mouth was available, and then God used it, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." What a shock and Jesus looked at him and said, "Flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you Peter, my Father in heaven did." My Father just used your mouth for a moment there. Well no wonderhe wanted to be where Jesus was, he could do the miraculous and say the miraculous.
The third thing, he could have miraculous courage, in the garden you know all the soldiers came in to catch Jesus, capture Him, take Him to trial, and Jesus said, "Who seek ye?" And the whole Roman army fell over, fell over like dominos, flat on the ground. And Peter thought to himself, this is going to be easy, I mean one and, and they all fell over already. And so he's standing next to Jesus and he's getting more and more irritated and pretty soon he decides he going to just lash out, so he takes his sword and he starts with the first guy in line, he was going to go through the whole pile. There were maybe five hundred of them from Fort Antonius, he just whacks off Malchus' ear and he was going for his head but Malchus ducked, no question in my mind about it, he wasn't just going, got your ear, you know, that wasn't the idea, he was going for the whole deal. And he started with the first guy in line, he was going to work his way through the whole troop. We say, we wo, where did you get the courage man, where did you get the courage? Well he knew that all he had to do wasjust look at Jesus and Jesus would go like that again and they'd all fall over, so he didn't have anything to worry about, see.
See he had the ability to do the miraculous, say the miraculous, have miraculous courage when he was near Jesus, no wonder that'swhere he wanted to be. No wonder when Jesus said, will you go away? He said, where would I ever go Lord? And yet you know what happens the next time we see him? He's separated from Jesus, Jesus is inside being ‑ tried, he's outside washing his hands or warming his hand rather, and the Bible says three times he did what? He denied Him, isn't that awful? You know all it took for Peter was to get separated from Jesus and he was a failure. A great principle in that, isn't there? You say, he was a coward when Jesus was a hundred feet away or so? Yeah. The next thing that happened Jesus went to heaven, you say, ah, that's the end of Peter, he's a coward at a hundred feet what's he going to do now? The Lord's clear back in heaven we might as well bury the guy. No, you know what he does? He stands up on the day of Pentecost and he says, "Ye men of Judea, and all ye at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words." And he goes on to preach about Jesus whom you crucified as the Lord and Christ, and he preaches a fantastic masterpiece and God is using his mouth again and it's going with divine inspiration and he gets all done and "they were pricked in their hearts, and they cried out, what are we going to do? And he said, Repent, and be baptized, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the Holy Spirit." And three thousand of them were. You know what you see him doing? Saying the miraculous again, he's opening his mouth and God's talking. The next time you see him he and John are going over to the temple to worship and there's a guy laying there he's been a beggar and he looks at him and he says, "Silver and gold have I none, but, such as I have, give I unto thee. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk." And the guy jumps up and jumps around and dancing and goes right on through the temple doing all that. He not only could say the miraculous, he could do the miraculous and so they didn't like what he was doing and they dragged him in before the Sanhedrin and they said, stop preaching! And he said to them, you tell me whether I ought to obey you or God, and he let him go and he went right out and started a prayer meeting and they prayed that God would give them more boldness and they went out andpreached all the more.
Listen, it's amazing to me that when, when Peter was with Jesus he could do the miraculous, say the miraculous, had miraculous courage. Later on, when Jesus was clear back in heaven he could do the miraculous, say the miraculous,had miraculous courage, you say what's the connection? Before he ever stood up on Pentecost the Bible says in Acts 2:4, "They were all filled with (what?) the Holy Spirit." Now listen, here's the conclusion, being filled with the Spirit is the same thing as living as if you're standing next to whom? Jesus Christ. Being filled with the Spirit is the same thing as letting the presence of Christ dominate your life. It's not a mystical thing people; it's filling myself with the Word of God so that the truth of Christ dominates my thinking, and then the Spirit of God as I yield to the truth of Christ in me will lead me to do and say and be what God wants me to be. More about that next week. Let's pray.
Father I pray that You'll bring into the prayer room and the counseling room those that You want to come. Bring us back tonight Father, to meet You in a special way. Thank You for the Holy Spirit who lives in us and wants to fill us a moment at a time as we yield to the presence of Jesus Christ, help us to practice His presence, to think Jesus from morning till, till night as we feed on His Word so that the Spirit can lead, so that we can be useful to You in Your purposes, for Your glory in Jesus' name. Amen.
Praying Unceasingly
1 Thessalonians 5:17

1 Thessalonians 5:17
     Our text this morning is one verse, chapter 5 and verse 17. First Thessalonians 5:17 says, "Pray without ceasing."
     The Apostle Paul in this simple and specific command calls on Christians to pray basically as a way of life. I used to say praying is like breathing, it's just normal, it's just natural, it's just living for us. We inhale, we exhale the atmosphere of the presence and the power of God. And while that is true, it is also true that we who are dependent on God and who if genuinely Christians do commune with God do not pray as unceasingly as we ought to pray. We are guilty, I think, of spiritually holding our breath. While we would assume that the pressure of the very environment of God's presence would force us to pray even as air pressure forces us to breathe, that's not necessarily the case. And we as Christians restrict our intake, the very presence of God, due to our own sinfulness. And so comes the injunction of the Apostle Paul to pray without ceasing, to pray at all times. Continual persistent, incessant prayer is an essential part of Christian living and it flows out of dependence on God.
     I want us to understand this principle of praying without ceasing and while just reading it gives you certain clear understanding, there is much more to enhance the significance of that statement found in Scripture and I want to see if I can't give you some of the riches of what the Word has to say. A good starting point is to look at two parables that our Lord gave. In fact, among the many parables of our Lord, these two stand out as unique. They are unique for a very simple and interesting reason. All other parables relate to God by comparison. All other parables relate to God by comparison. In some way they are like God, they are like God's Kingdom, they are like the way God operates. These two parables relate to God by contrast. They are not like God. They're the only two parables Jesus ever gave that relate to God in a contrasting way. These two parables show us illustrations of someone who is utterly unlike God and in so doing make a very very strong point about this matter of persistent praying without ceasing.
     Let's turn to these two parables. The first one we find is in Luke chapter 11. It is called the parable of the reluctant friend, Luke chapter 11. Our Lord gave it in a context of prayer. In fact, the disciples had come to Him and they said, Luke 11:1, "Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples. And Jesus responded to them with the very familiar words, When you pray say, Father, hallowed by Thy name, Thy kingdom come, give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not in to temptation," the familiar Lord's prayer or Disciple's prayer.
     So in verses 2 to 4 Jesus taught them what to say. He taught them basically the content of prayer. When you pray you are to honor God and hallow His name. You are to pray for those things that relate to His Kingdom. You are to seek the daily provision that He alone gives. You are to confess your sins and seek His forgiveness. And you are to ask for His wisdom so as not to be led in to temptation. Those are the component parts of prayer, that's how to pray, what to say when you pray.
     But beyond that, "He said to them, Suppose one of you shall have a friend and shall go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey and I have nothing to set before him. And from inside he shall answer and say, Do not bother me, the door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything." You have to remember that in those days when it was cold, the whole family got in the same bed for the sake of warmth and they were all tucked in and warm and it was midnight and this was not a time to get out of bed and get some bread for your friend.
     Verse 8, "I tell you, Jesus said, even though he will not get up and give his friend anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs." In other words, what he wouldn't do for friendship he'll do for sleep because the guy won't go away until he gets his bread. So Jesus is saying, here is a man whose friendship will not allow him to make this gesture of sacrifice, so the man just keep irritating him until he finally has no choice. This, our Lord is saying, should instruct us about the benefits of persistence. But the point He is really making here is that when you consider how unlike the reluctant friend God is the parable becomes all the more striking. If a reluctant friend will do something for you because you're persistent, imagine what a God who is not reluctant will do if you're persistent. That's the contrast. And Jesus goes on to talk about a father who is asked by his son, verse 11, for a fish, he won't give him a snake, will he, instead of a fish. Or if he asks for an egg he will not give him a scorpion, will he? In other words, an earthly father is not going to give something that will harm his child. An earthly father will hear the cry of his child. Then in verse 13, "If you then being evil," that's the point, "know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father, implied, who is not evil give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him."
     God is so different, but God responds to persistence. If an unfaithful friend, a reluctant friend, an unsympathetic friend, a friend who lacks compassion, a friend who has no mercy and feels no grace will because of your persistent asking respond, what do you think a God who is loving, gracious, merciful, compassionate and tender hearted will do if you're persistent? Praying without ceasing moves the hand of God.
     So, first He told them what to say and then Jesus said, "Now I want to remind you to keep saying it...to say it with persistence because God who is good will hear and respond."
     In Luke 18 there is another parable that follows the same contrastive style. In verse 1 of Luke 18 Jesus again has been teaching about prayer and He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not lose heart. If you don't get an immediate answer, if things aren't exactly the way you want them to be, if things don't turn around as quickly as you might have planned, don't lose heart, you need to continue to pray. You need to pray at all times incessantly, continually without ceasing. And then to illustrate this He says, "There was in a certain city a judge who didn't fear God and didn't respect man." Now you'll have to figure out for yourself how he got to be a judge, but he did. "And there was a widow in that city, at least in this story, and she kept coming to him, this judge, repeatedly saying, Give me legal protection from my opponent." Apparently someone was doing everything possible to take away her meager substance in life and she was pleading for justice at the court of this judge. "And for a while...verse 4 says...he was unwilling. But afterward he said to himself, Even though I do not fear God, nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me I will give her legal protection lest by continually coming she wear me out." This woman is a pain. "What I will not do for love of God and will I not do for love of humanity, I will do for peace of mind," he's saying. I can't take this constant badgering.
     And then verse 6, "And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge said, now shall not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night and will he delay long over them? I tell you, He will bring about justice for them speedily." You see, God is different than an unjust judge. God is different than a reluctant friend, but if a reluctant friend and an unjust judge will do what is asked because of the continual pleading, then certainly a compassionate loving gracious kind tender‑hearted God will do more. That's His point.
     And so, Jesus is saying in effect, pray, pray like this, pray persistently, pray consistently, pray at all times, don't give up, don't lose heart, keep knocking, keep asking, keep seeking and good, compassionate, faithful, loving, gracious, merciful Jehovah, your God, will hear and answer.
     Now some have imagined that such parables are contradictory to other things that Jesus taught. For example, back in Matthew chapter 6 He said something it may on the surface appear contradictory and needs to be understood, in Matthew 6 verse 7 Jesus said, "And when you are praying do not use meaningless repetition as the heathen do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words, therefore do not be like them for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him."
     You say, "Now isn't this contradictory? Isn't He saying don't be repetitious in your praying?" No, He is saying don't be meaninglessly repetitious, that's the key word. What do you mean meaningless repetition? Well the kind of prayers that the pagans pray. They suppose they will be heard for their many words. In other words, it isn't that the deity cares about their heart, it isn't that the God understands the compassion, the passion, the pain, the longing, the desire of the heart, it is that there is some formula, some religious ritual, some ceremony, some mantra, some chant, some something or other, some sequence of beads, some repetitious formula that's going to somehow make that God do something that he otherwise wouldn't do. Jesus was simply saying to them don't pray in that way. He is not forbidding meaningful repetition. He is not forbidding the pleading of the heart. What He is forbidding is empty ritual, heartless babble that flows only from the mouth and assumes that God will be responding because of the words rather than the heart.
     So when Paul says pray without ceasing, he's not in disagreement with Jesus. He is simply supporting the principle taught in Luke 11 and Luke 18 that prayer is to be incessant. We are not heard simply for our many words, but we are heard for the cry of our heart. The man who came to his friend's house and needed bread did not pray a formula ritual prayer, he pleaded for something he needed. The widow who came to the judge did not offer to the judge some mantra or some chant or some recitation of ritual prayer. The woman gave the cry of her heart for protection from one who had the power to do that. And such heart crying repetitious prayer is that which moves the heart of a compassionate loving God.
     In fact, we can even start to understand praying without ceasing by looking at the life of our Lord Himself since He did that. He was obviously in constant communion with the Father. And we see Him in Scripture rising up early to pray. We see Him spending all night in prayer. It must have been an unending and non‑stop communion between Himself and the Father. Hebrews tells us that He offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears. That is a fascinating insight. There was an intensity in the prayers of Jesus that is utterly unique, that is utterly amazing. When He prayed on a number of occasions, there was a great agonizing. And we can assume that even though the Scripture does not chronicle for us all the details of all of His praying, that it had much of the same kind of intensity as those prayers that we do see and have revealed to us in the text. When the Bible tells us that He went in to the Mount of Olives and prayed all night, there was no doubt an intensity in that kind of praying that we know very little about, if anything.
     The one great classic illustration we have of the intensity of His praying comes in the garden prior to His death where we see Him praying there in sweat in an agony of blood. He is kneeling down and praying, Luke writes in chapter 22, saying, "Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me, nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done." And Luke writes, "And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly and His sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground."
     There is an agonizing intense kind of experience here that causes the Lord Jesus Christ to sweat and then to begin to bleed in that very environment of prayer. That strikes me. It also strikes me that in Matthew chapter 26 verses 38 to 46 it tells us that Jesus repeated the process of His pleading in the garden for three consecutive times. This was a prolonged prayer experience. In fact, we know well that it was prolonged so long that the disciples fell asleep on several occasions. And so in this prolonged agony of prayer we get an insight into the life of our Lord Jesus Christ which is quite unique.
     Let me tell you what I mean by that. The Lord Jesus Christ wrought many mighty works when He was on earth. In none of them is there any apparent expenditure of energy. Though the Scripture says virtue went out of Him, there is nothing that He does in all of the holy scriptures in terms of the record of the New Testament which would indicate that there was any agonizing in the process of performing that miracle...whether it would be giving sight to the blind, or hearing to the deaf, or speech to the dumb, or giving health to the sick body or giving walking capability to a lame person, or whether it was raising someone from the dead, or whether it was feeding 5,000 men plus women plus children, 20,000 people by the seaside, or whether it was calming a storm, or whether it was walking on water...it didn't matter what it was there is no record that there was any apparent expenditure of energy, any toil, any sweat, any drops of blood in some kind of agonizing to make that thing happen. There seem to have been no weariness involved, no toil involved, no strain involved, no travail involved until it came to prayer. And when He prayed there was an agony, there was a wrenching of His heart, His very being that showed up in His physical body. He prayed in an agony unto blood, a level of intensity that certainly speaks of the persistence that Jesus indicated in Luke 11 and 18 and what Paul had in mind when he said pray without ceasing.
     The early church was marked by this kind of continual passionate unceasing prayer from the very start. Even before the day of Pentecost in Acts 1:14, all the believers were one, it says, one mind and continually devoting themselves to prayer, incessant prayer, constant prayer, persistent prayer marked the early church. When the Apostles were structuring the church so that all the ministry could be accomplished, they themselves said, "We can't do all of these routine things but we will devote ourselves to prayer....we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word."
     In Acts chapter 12 again we see the early church. Peter was kept in prison but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church of God. Fervent prayer, incessant prayer, persistent prayer marked the early church.
     When you come into the epistles, whether you're reading Romans, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, whether you're reading 1 Thessalonians, you hear Paul exhorting believers to prayer. In fact, perhaps as significantly as any of those epistles is Ephesians in marking out the importance of prayer. He says in Ephesians 6:18, "With all prayer and petition, pray at all times." It's the same idea. Pray at all times. In the very epistle we're currently studying, 1 Thessalonians 3 verse 10, he gives his own example, "We night and day keep praying most earnestly." Just a way of life, incessant unending ceaseless prayer.
     Colossians, I love the testimony of Epaphras, a bondslave of Jesus Christ, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers. A man of prayer. And in chapter 4 verse 2 of Colossians he says, "Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving." Unceasing prevailing persistent insistent incessant prayer is so essential.
   Maybe...maybe Coleridge(?) was right when he said, "Prayer is the highest energy of which the human heart is capable and the Christian's greatest achievement on earth." But I fear that if we conceive of prayer as some high energy noble glorious achievement, we'll isolate it to a few grand moments in life. It is that but it is also an incessant kind of communion that should make up the very fabric of our every day existence. It does involve intensity, that is the essence of prayer. God is found, you'll remember, by those who seek Him with all their heart. Wrestling in prayer prevails with God. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much, said James.
     So while there are those great noble moments of energized energetic agonizing prayer, prayer also for us is a very very evident daily way of life. Sometimes it just gets more intense than others. Pray without ceasing then is the mandate of God to us. The word "pray" here is just the general word, proseuchomai, the most common New Testament word for pray. It could be praise, it could be thanks, it could be confession, it could be petition, it could be intercession, it could be submission. It's just pray in general. "Without ceasing" is a word that basically means recurring. It doesn't mean non‑stop talking, it means recurring prayer. As I said, just a way of life. We're to be continually in prayer...continually in an attitude of prayer.
     You're probably like I am. I rarely ever fall asleep at night other than in the middle of a prayer. I rarely ever wake up in the morning other than praying. It's so much the fabric of my life to be in an open state of communion with God, sometimes more intense than others, but always conscious of His presence that I find myself going to sleep in the middle of my prayers and waking back up in the middle of them again. Scripture gives example of people who pray in the morning, people who pray at noon, people who pray at night, people who pray seven times a day, people who pray at midnight, people who pray all night, people who pray before dawn, people who pray for days, people who pray for weeks, some who prayed long, some prayed short, some prayed kneeling, some prayed standing, some prayed lying on a bed, some prayed lying face down on the ground, some prayed hands up, some prayed hands down, some prayed hands out, some prayed face down, some prayed face up, etc., etc. Every way, everywhere, prayer. Pray unceasingly.
     Now if you'll look at our text again you see this is kind of a companion to verse 16. Verse 16 says, "Rejoice always." Verse 17 says, "Pray always." Really they're partners in spiritual life and they have a beautiful balance. The believer all through his Christian life feels his insufficiency. So he lives in total dependence on God. As long as you feel your insufficiency and you feel your dependence, you're going to pray without ceasing. At the same time, while feeling insufficient and dependent you also know that you are the beneficiary of stupendous blessing from God. So on the one hand you are praying independently, on the other hand you are rejoicing in the reception of the multi‑ full blessing of God. So we rejoice always because God is pouring out blessing in answer to our unceasing prayer.
     If I as a Christian live in a perpetual state of personal insufficiency, a perpetual state of recognizing my dependency on God, if I live continually thankful for everything He does for me, continually repentant over my sin, continually expressing my love for others, that is going to flow in unspoken prayer to God and it's also going o cause God to open the slue(?) gates of blessing which will result in my joyful response. And so we are not just to rejoice always but we are to take the path to that rejoicing which is the path of unceasing prayer which results in blessing which results in joy.
     Now how does this verse 17 fit in to the whole context here? Paul as he closes this letter to the Thessalonian church wants to help them set their church on the right course for the future, it's a good church, a great church, a noble church, a spiritual church. But he wants to remind them about how to grow into a healthy mature flock. It's a young church, a baby church, only a few months old, and he's got a growth plan for them. In verses 12 and 13, growing a healthy flock involved the right relationship between the shepherds and the sheep and the sheep and the shepherds. In verses 14 and 15, growing a healthy flock demanded the right relationship between the sheep and the sheep. And here in verse 16 through verse 22, a healthy flock demands a right relationship between the sheep and the Great Shepherd.
     So the church is made up of those relationships. Leadership to people, people to leadership, people to people, people to God and no church can rise higher than the spiritual life of its own people. So your relationship to the Great Shepherd is crucial and the first thing you need to do is to be rejoicing always and the second thing, to be praying to Him always. That's how you keep that relationship what it ought to be. And that's essential for a growing church, for a healthy church. If we are to be a healthy church, we must be praying unceasingly, we must be tapping the divine resource, we must be knocking on the door, seeking the loaves of bread. We must be bowing the knee at the foot of divine justice, pleading for our case to be resolved with equity and justice. We must be going before God on behalf of ourselves and others, praying without ceasing, for therein do we release the greatness of the power and blessing of God.
     Now, there's nothing more really to be said about the verse. You understand what it means. But I want to go behind it a little bit and I want to give you a little list of things that I'm going to call motives to prayer because I know something is true about your life because it's true about my life. No matter how much I pray I always feel like I don't pray enough. Do you feel that way? I have a sort of a continual state of guilt about a lack of prayerfulness. It doesn't matter how much I pray, I always feel like I haven't prayed enough. And that is partly due to the fact that I haven't prayed enough and partly due to the fact that I'm in a position to be inundated with so many prayer requests that it's impossible for me as a human being to even attempt to keep up with all of them...which makes my burden heavier.
     I have to go back then and ask myself if I'm really motivated to pray when I don't pray as I ought. And I want to help you to get a grip on some motives for prayer. I want to give you ten of them, just a little grocery list here, ten motives for prayer that I believe produce an unceasing prayer life.
     Number one is a desire for the Lord's glory...a desire for the Lord's glory. Prayer, Jesus said, should start this way, "Our Father who art in heaven...what?...hallowed by Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done." Now what you're praying when you pray there is that God would be glorified, that God's purposes would be accomplished, that God's name would be exalted, that God's will would be done. That's what you're praying. You're not praying for yourself, you're praying for Him.
     Yes, the first motive for prayer is a desire for the Lord's glory. When your heart longs that God be glorified you're going to find yourself praying to that end. You're going to find yourself in an unceasing cry to God, "Be exalted, be glorified, be lifted up, accomplish Your purpose, build Your kingdom, do Your will."
     Secondly, a second motive to prayer is a desire for fellowship with God, a desire for fellowship with God. The psalmist so beautifully gave words to this truth in Psalm 42 verse 1, "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for Thee, O God, my soul thirsts for God for the living God, when shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night." Now there is a longing for God. There is a heart crying out for fellowship, the feeling of being estranged from God, the feeling of being cut off, the feeling of loneliness that reaches out and says, "God, I want Your fellowship, I want Your company, I want Your presence."
     Psalm 63, more magnificent words, "O God, Thou art my God, I shall seek Thee earnestly, my soul thirsts for Thee, my flesh yearns for Thee in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Thus I have beheld Thee in the sanctuary to see Thy power and Thy glory." I just want to see you, I just want to be with You, I just want to experience Your wonder.
     In Psalm 84, the first two verses there again, "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts. My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord, my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. How blessed are those who dwell in Thy house." The longing to be in the presence of God.
     And maybe most magnificently of all, Psalm 27. Just listen to these wonderful words, "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life. Whom shall I dread? One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple." I just want to be where He is.
     Do you have that? You have that longing for fellowship, sweet communion? There's a third prompter to prayer, to incessant and unceasing prayer, and that's a desire for needs to be met...a desire for needs to be met. Not only ours but those around us, "Give us this day our daily bread," Jesus taught us to say in Matthew 6:11. It is right to pray that our needs would be met. It is right to ask God for the basic things of life. That's a prompter to prayer. A few of us, however, are prompted in that way because we have so much...so much. But there are across this world many folks who pray to God regularly just for their daily needs to be met. We don't understand that in this affluent culture but it is the way of life for many of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
     In fact, we have a dear brother who has come from Africa, Sam and his wife Nora were in our church for six years, maybe, before they went back to minister in Africa. He has come from Africa because he cannot feed his family. It is not like it is here around the world, because he cannot get medicine for his diabetes. We live in a world, we live in an environment where asking God for our daily needs is pretty foreign. But we should not be so foolish as to assume that because God has graciously provided our daily needs without asking should we become indifferent to Him they might not be taken away from us.
     Fourth motive for persistent prayer is a desire for wisdom...a desire for wisdom. James put it this way, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men liberally and holds back nothing." If you are under the illusion that you don't need the wisdom of God, you are really deceived, are you not? When Jesus taught us to pray He said this, "Pray like this...do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil." I really do believe that that is a prayer for spiritual discernment, that is a prayer for spiritual wisdom. Lord, please by Your spirit give me the ability to discern when I am facing a temptation. Give me the wisdom to discern when I am being led in to something that is evil. We need to be incessantly praying that. We need to be praying all the days of our lives...Lord, please deliver me from temptation and do not lead me in an evil way, give me the wisdom and the discernment and the insight and the scriptural sensitivity and the leading of the Spirit of God so as not to allow me to fall into Satan's traps and the traps of the flesh and the world.
     What prompts prayer? Incessant prayer? A desire for the glory of God, a desire for fellowship with Him, a desire for needs to be met and a desire for wisdom in walking through the mind field that is this world. Number five, prayer is prompted by a desire for deliverance from trouble...a desire for deliverance from trouble. There are so many texts in the Psalms that speak of this, let me sum them up in one that says it all, Psalm 20 verse 1, "May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble," surely He will...surely He will. When we come to those times of great distress, they tend to prompt our unceasing prayer, don't they? And the greater the trouble and the greater the distress that we have found ourselves in, very often it's because we failed to ask for wisdom and so we fell in the trap in our ignorance and now we need to be delivered from it and there is no human way out. We cry out to God for deliverance.
     It's reminiscent of Jonah who, by the way, had a very specific prayer life. He found himself in the belly of a great fish and says in Jonah 2:1, "Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish." And I'll tell you what, he didn't pray for all the missionaries first. He said, "Get me out," in so many words. And the Lord did it, the Lord delivered him. He said, "I called out of my distress to the Lord...to the Lord and Thou hast brought me up from the pit, O Lord my God." He said, "I was down there and I remembered the Lord and I cried out and He delivered me."
     We come to God in those times of tremendous trouble, pressure, stress, pain, affliction and we need His deliverance. That prompts our unceasing prayer. Six, a desire for relief from fear and worry...a desire for relief from fear and worry. That will make us pray if we are wise and spiritually minded. In Philippians chapter 4 we need so often to be reminded of this. It says, "Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
     When you're in fear and anxiety and worry, you are in distress, you are in depression, what should you do? Very simply, stop being anxious and go to prayer and pray with a thankful heart and the peace of God which surpasses all human comprehension will protect your heart and mind. What does that mean? Guard it from anxiety, guard it from depression, distress, fear, worry. If you want a humanly comprehensible solution, go to a person. If you want a humanly incomprehensible solution, go to God. In the time of fear, in the time of worry, in the time of anxiety, in the time of emotional distress and pain, the formula is simple, just go to the Lord in persistent continual unceasing prayer with thanksgiving and the peace of God promised will guard your heart and mind.
     Why do people go to other sources than that? When you want that relief from fear and worry, our God has promised it is yours through prayer. The psalmist wrote in Psalm 4, "Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness, Thou hast relieved me in my distress, be gracious to me and hear my prayer." You did it in the past, would you please relieve me again?
     Number seven, another motive to prayer is the desire to offer thanks for past blessing...a desire to offer thanks for past blessing. If you have a thankful heart, if you're a thankful person and if you remember all that God has done in all His goodness, it will make you pray if for no other reason than just to say thanks. In Psalm 44 we read, the psalmist says, "O God, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us the work that Thou didst in their days in the days of old. Thou with Thine own hand didst drive out the nations, then Thou didst plant them, then Thou didst afflict the peoples, then Thou didst spread them abroad, for by their own sword they did not possess the land and their own arm did not save them, but Thy right hand and Thine arm and the light of Thy presence for Thou didst favor them, Thou art my King, O God." That's just praise and that's not praise for anything God had done for him, that's praise for what God had done for others in the past...learning to be thankful to God for all that He has done throughout redemptive history, having a grateful heart on behalf of all the good things God has done, not just for you.
     The Apostle Paul writes the Philippians and he says, "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, my prayer is always offered with joy in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now." I just can't help but pray all the time, thanking God for what He's doing in your life and what He has done and is doing. If you really are grateful to God for all that He has done, it's going to prompt you to pray a prayer of thanksgiving.
     Number eight, here is a very important motive to prayer and that is a desire to be freed from the guilt of sin...a desire to be freed from the guilt of sin. That classic penitential psalm, Psalm 32 speaks to this, and I'm only giving you select scriptures out of many that could be used in these points, but listen to Psalm 32 and hear this. Starting in verse 3, just to give you the flow, "When I kept silent about my sin...David says...my body wasted away." I had psychosomatic illnesses as a result of guilt. "I was groaning all day long. Day and night Your hand was heavy upon me, my vitality, my life juices were drained away as with the fever heat of summer." I was a mess, I was a mess, the life juices have to do with the blood flow system, saliva system, the nervous system which is conducted by fluid. All my life juices were dried up, saliva was dried up, the flow of blood wasn't right therefore I had physiological problems. My nervous system was haywire. I was a wreck. I had a fever. I was moaning. In verse 5 he says, "Then I acknowledged my sin to Thee, my iniquity I didn't hide, I said I will confess my transgression to the Lord and Thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin." I confess and You forgave.
     Then back to the beginning of the Psalm. He says this, "How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord doesn't impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit." The deceit is over, you're not covering the sin, you've opened it up, you've confessed it and now you're forgiven and now you're blessed. Yes, prayer incessant, unceasing, penitential confession is prompted by a desire to be freed from the guilt of sin.
     Number nine, another motive to prayer is a desire for the salvation of the lost...a desire for the salvation of the lost. YOu will be moved to persistent prayer when you're compassionately concerned about lost people. They're all around us, they're all around us. And if you care about their salvation, there will be an almost unceasing commitment to pray as they cross your path and your mind.
     Listen to Romans 10:1, "Brethren," says Paul, "my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation." Paul says I'm praying for their salvation. I cannot see unsaved people and not pray for their salvation.
     Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 2 is told by Paul that God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. And then he says, "Now I want men to lift up holy hands, praying always." And what are they praying for? The salvation of the lost people for whom God has provided a salvation. A desire for the salvation of the lost prompts prayer. If you don't pray unceasingly, then something is wrong with your compassion for the lost.
     And number ten, incessant ceaseless prayer is prompted by a desire for the spiritual growth of believers...a desire for the spiritual growth of believers. In Ephesians, for example, chapter 1 verse 15, Paul says to the Ephesians, verse 15, "For this reason I too having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you while making mention of you in my prayers." Now what are you praying for, Paul? "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of glory may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so you may know what is the hope of His calling and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe."
     I'm praying for you. Well what are you praying for? Your wisdom. Your knowledge. Your enlightenment. Your hope. I'm praying for the power of God to be released in your life, I'm praying for your spiritual growth. In chapter 3 verse 14 he says, "I bow my knees before the Father and I'm praying for you." What are you praying? Verse 16, "That He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with power through the spirit in the inner man." I'm praying for spiritual power. Verse 17, "I'm praying that Christ may settle down in your hearts and that you would be rooted and grounded in love and that you would understand that love that surpasses knowledge," verse 19, "and that you would be filled with the fullness of God." And verse 20, "That you would do exceeding abundantly above all you can ask or think." I'm praying for your spiritual growth.
     We have a lot to pray for, don't we? What moves you to pray? When you desire the Lord's glory, when you desire fellowship with Him, when you desire needs be met by the one who alone has the resources, when you desire wisdom and discernment, when you desire deliverance from the troubles of life, when you desire relief from fear and anxiety and worry, when you desire to offer thanks for all His past and present blessings, when you desire to be freed from guilt and sin, when you desire the salvation of others and when you desire the development and growth of the believers.
     There should be in your life enough reminders of these things to keep you praying all the time, right? So do a little spiritual inventory. If you're not praying without ceasing, it's because something is wrong at the desire level...something is wrong in the underlying motivational level. How do you prompt that?
     From my own life years of experience, I can only tell you that my prayer life is prompted by the Word of God. It is my time in the discipline of the Word of God and the study of the Word of God that prompts my prayer life. Oh, there are other times when the Spirit of God moves upon me as I'm living in obedience to the Lord that I'm prompted to pray...of course. But if I want to develop a real longing for God to be glorified, then I find that that longing is developed out of a study of His Word. As I see His Word unfold and His marvelous plan, I'm like Daniel, once I read what God has planned for His own future glory, then the longing begins to rise in my heart that He be glorified. It is like John who at the end of the book of Revelation has just told all the glories that are going to come to Christ and he can't help but cry out, "O Lord, come quickly and it's not for my sake, it's for Yours."
     So as I gaze at the glorious plan of God outlined in the Word of God, I become consumed with His Kingdom and His glory that prompts me to pray to that end. As I study the Word of God and in it I fellowship with God as He reveals Himself in the Word, as I learn more about His person and His character and the majesty of who He is, I have a greater desire to fellowship with Him.
     As I study my Bible and find all His promises and all the things He longs to do for His children and how He will meet all of our needs and how He will provide everything, I am therefore prompted to pray to that end.
     And as I read the Scripture and study it and find His majesty revealed in His wisdom, His amazing discernment, His perfect understanding of everything, it causes me to long for that same wisdom to be my wisdom so that I can work my way through this difficult world.
     As I read the Scripture and see the chronicle of the times He has delivered His people over and over and over and the promises that He has given that He will always do the same for His people, it prompts me to pray for deliverance from the troubles of my own life and the lives of those around me. And when I look at the Scripture and find how many of His special beloved servants were delivered from fear and worry and anxiety, how many of them sang hymns in jail and how many of them could stand on the edge of a fiery furnace and praise the God who had allowed them to come there because they so completely trusted Him, it allows me to be relieved from my own fear, of my own worry as I realize that I can cast all my care on Him knowing He perfectly cares for me, I am delivered from anxiety.
     As I study my Bible also and find the record of all His past blessings and His past deeds and the glories of all of redemptive history, and all that He has done to bring redemptive history to where it is now that I might experience the glories of the gospel of Christ and the blessings of His indwelling Spirit and the treasure of His Word, it causes me to offer thanks for His blessings.
     And as I look at the Scripture and I see the perfect forgiveness provided in Jesus Christ, the majesty of the plan of atonement and how it was worked out by grace through faith in my own life and how that I have access to complete forgiveness and cleansing every moment of my life, it leads me to confess my sins. And as I see the tears of God in Jeremiah 13 and the tears of Jesus in Matthew's gospel chapter 23, tears that are shed for those that refuse salvation and refuse the goodness of God, it makes me desire the salvation of the lost, even as God does. And as I see the longing revealed in Scripture of God's heart for His people to grow spiritually, that continual call from the beginning of the Scripture to the end to His people to live in obedience and holiness, it reminds me to pray for the spiritual growth of believers.
     So, if I want to have a persistent, consistent prayer life, I'm going to have to have certain desires in my heart that generate that, that motivate that, those desires become in my life the fruit of my faithful and intent study of God's Word which reveals these things to me in fresh new ways every time I study it, and therefore prompts my own prayer life. Rarely do I ever come out of a study time in the Word of God without a new kind of commitment to pray in one dimension or another more faithfully than I have.
     Pray without ceasing, Paul said. And saying it he said much. It is to be our way of life. Let's bow together in prayer.
     We thank You, Father, for the promise of 1 John 3:22 that whatever we ask we receive from You because we keep Your commandments and do the things that are pleasing in Your sight. So we know our prayers are effective and powerful. And that if we pray out of the context of keeping Your commandments and doing what is pleasing, You're going to hear and You're going to answer our prayers. And as You do that, we're going to be blessed. And then You're going to receive all the glory. We know that's the plan, to that end we pray for Jesus' sake. Amen.
Praying Unceasingly
1 Thessalonians 5:17

1 Thessalonians 5:17
     Our text this morning is one verse, chapter 5 and verse 17. First Thessalonians 5:17 says, "Pray without ceasing."
     The Apostle Paul in this simple and specific command calls on Christians to pray basically as a way of life. I used to say praying is like breathing, it's just normal, it's just natural, it's just living for us. We inhale, we exhale the atmosphere of the presence and the power of God. And while that is true, it is also true that we who are dependent on God and who if genuinely Christians do commune with God do not pray as unceasingly as we ought to pray. We are guilty, I think, of spiritually holding our breath. While we would assume that the pressure of the very environment of God's presence would force us to pray even as air pressure forces us to breathe, that's not necessarily the case. And we as Christians restrict our intake, the very presence of God, due to our own sinfulness. And so comes the injunction of the Apostle Paul to pray without ceasing, to pray at all times. Continual persistent, incessant prayer is an essential part of Christian living and it flows out of dependence on God.
     I want us to understand this principle of praying without ceasing and while just reading it gives you certain clear understanding, there is much more to enhance the significance of that statement found in Scripture and I want to see if I can't give you some of the riches of what the Word has to say. A good starting point is to look at two parables that our Lord gave. In fact, among the many parables of our Lord, these two stand out as unique. They are unique for a very simple and interesting reason. All other parables relate to God by comparison. All other parables relate to God by comparison. In some way they are like God, they are like God's Kingdom, they are like the way God operates. These two parables relate to God by contrast. They are not like God. They're the only two parables Jesus ever gave that relate to God in a contrasting way. These two parables show us illustrations of someone who is utterly unlike God and in so doing make a very very strong point about this matter of persistent praying without ceasing.
     Let's turn to these two parables. The first one we find is in Luke chapter 11. It is called the parable of the reluctant friend, Luke chapter 11. Our Lord gave it in a context of prayer. In fact, the disciples had come to Him and they said, Luke 11:1, "Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples. And Jesus responded to them with the very familiar words, When you pray say, Father, hallowed by Thy name, Thy kingdom come, give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not in to temptation," the familiar Lord's prayer or Disciple's prayer.
     So in verses 2 to 4 Jesus taught them what to say. He taught them basically the content of prayer. When you pray you are to honor God and hallow His name. You are to pray for those things that relate to His Kingdom. You are to seek the daily provision that He alone gives. You are to confess your sins and seek His forgiveness. And you are to ask for His wisdom so as not to be led in to temptation. Those are the component parts of prayer, that's how to pray, what to say when you pray.
     But beyond that, "He said to them, Suppose one of you shall have a friend and shall go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey and I have nothing to set before him. And from inside he shall answer and say, Do not bother me, the door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything." You have to remember that in those days when it was cold, the whole family got in the same bed for the sake of warmth and they were all tucked in and warm and it was midnight and this was not a time to get out of bed and get some bread for your friend.
     Verse 8, "I tell you, Jesus said, even though he will not get up and give his friend anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs." In other words, what he wouldn't do for friendship he'll do for sleep because the guy won't go away until he gets his bread. So Jesus is saying, here is a man whose friendship will not allow him to make this gesture of sacrifice, so the man just keep irritating him until he finally has no choice. This, our Lord is saying, should instruct us about the benefits of persistence. But the point He is really making here is that when you consider how unlike the reluctant friend God is the parable becomes all the more striking. If a reluctant friend will do something for you because you're persistent, imagine what a God who is not reluctant will do if you're persistent. That's the contrast. And Jesus goes on to talk about a father who is asked by his son, verse 11, for a fish, he won't give him a snake, will he, instead of a fish. Or if he asks for an egg he will not give him a scorpion, will he? In other words, an earthly father is not going to give something that will harm his child. An earthly father will hear the cry of his child. Then in verse 13, "If you then being evil," that's the point, "know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father, implied, who is not evil give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him."
     God is so different, but God responds to persistence. If an unfaithful friend, a reluctant friend, an unsympathetic friend, a friend who lacks compassion, a friend who has no mercy and feels no grace will because of your persistent asking respond, what do you think a God who is loving, gracious, merciful, compassionate and tender hearted will do if you're persistent? Praying without ceasing moves the hand of God.
     So, first He told them what to say and then Jesus said, "Now I want to remind you to keep saying it...to say it with persistence because God who is good will hear and respond."
     In Luke 18 there is another parable that follows the same contrastive style. In verse 1 of Luke 18 Jesus again has been teaching about prayer and He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not lose heart. If you don't get an immediate answer, if things aren't exactly the way you want them to be, if things don't turn around as quickly as you might have planned, don't lose heart, you need to continue to pray. You need to pray at all times incessantly, continually without ceasing. And then to illustrate this He says, "There was in a certain city a judge who didn't fear God and didn't respect man." Now you'll have to figure out for yourself how he got to be a judge, but he did. "And there was a widow in that city, at least in this story, and she kept coming to him, this judge, repeatedly saying, Give me legal protection from my opponent." Apparently someone was doing everything possible to take away her meager substance in life and she was pleading for justice at the court of this judge. "And for a while...verse 4 says...he was unwilling. But afterward he said to himself, Even though I do not fear God, nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me I will give her legal protection lest by continually coming she wear me out." This woman is a pain. "What I will not do for love of God and will I not do for love of humanity, I will do for peace of mind," he's saying. I can't take this constant badgering.
     And then verse 6, "And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge said, now shall not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night and will he delay long over them? I tell you, He will bring about justice for them speedily." You see, God is different than an unjust judge. God is different than a reluctant friend, but if a reluctant friend and an unjust judge will do what is asked because of the continual pleading, then certainly a compassionate loving gracious kind tender‑hearted God will do more. That's His point.
     And so, Jesus is saying in effect, pray, pray like this, pray persistently, pray consistently, pray at all times, don't give up, don't lose heart, keep knocking, keep asking, keep seeking and good, compassionate, faithful, loving, gracious, merciful Jehovah, your God, will hear and answer.
     Now some have imagined that such parables are contradictory to other things that Jesus taught. For example, back in Matthew chapter 6 He said something it may on the surface appear contradictory and needs to be understood, in Matthew 6 verse 7 Jesus said, "And when you are praying do not use meaningless repetition as the heathen do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words, therefore do not be like them for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him."
     You say, "Now isn't this contradictory? Isn't He saying don't be repetitious in your praying?" No, He is saying don't be meaninglessly repetitious, that's the key word. What do you mean meaningless repetition? Well the kind of prayers that the pagans pray. They suppose they will be heard for their many words. In other words, it isn't that the deity cares about their heart, it isn't that the God understands the compassion, the passion, the pain, the longing, the desire of the heart, it is that there is some formula, some religious ritual, some ceremony, some mantra, some chant, some something or other, some sequence of beads, some repetitious formula that's going to somehow make that God do something that he otherwise wouldn't do. Jesus was simply saying to them don't pray in that way. He is not forbidding meaningful repetition. He is not forbidding the pleading of the heart. What He is forbidding is empty ritual, heartless babble that flows only from the mouth and assumes that God will be responding because of the words rather than the heart.
     So when Paul says pray without ceasing, he's not in disagreement with Jesus. He is simply supporting the principle taught in Luke 11 and Luke 18 that prayer is to be incessant. We are not heard simply for our many words, but we are heard for the cry of our heart. The man who came to his friend's house and needed bread did not pray a formula ritual prayer, he pleaded for something he needed. The widow who came to the judge did not offer to the judge some mantra or some chant or some recitation of ritual prayer. The woman gave the cry of her heart for protection from one who had the power to do that. And such heart crying repetitious prayer is that which moves the heart of a compassionate loving God.
     In fact, we can even start to understand praying without ceasing by looking at the life of our Lord Himself since He did that. He was obviously in constant communion with the Father. And we see Him in Scripture rising up early to pray. We see Him spending all night in prayer. It must have been an unending and non‑stop communion between Himself and the Father. Hebrews tells us that He offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears. That is a fascinating insight. There was an intensity in the prayers of Jesus that is utterly unique, that is utterly amazing. When He prayed on a number of occasions, there was a great agonizing. And we can assume that even though the Scripture does not chronicle for us all the details of all of His praying, that it had much of the same kind of intensity as those prayers that we do see and have revealed to us in the text. When the Bible tells us that He went in to the Mount of Olives and prayed all night, there was no doubt an intensity in that kind of praying that we know very little about, if anything.
     The one great classic illustration we have of the intensity of His praying comes in the garden prior to His death where we see Him praying there in sweat in an agony of blood. He is kneeling down and praying, Luke writes in chapter 22, saying, "Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me, nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done." And Luke writes, "And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly and His sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground."
     There is an agonizing intense kind of experience here that causes the Lord Jesus Christ to sweat and then to begin to bleed in that very environment of prayer. That strikes me. It also strikes me that in Matthew chapter 26 verses 38 to 46 it tells us that Jesus repeated the process of His pleading in the garden for three consecutive times. This was a prolonged prayer experience. In fact, we know well that it was prolonged so long that the disciples fell asleep on several occasions. And so in this prolonged agony of prayer we get an insight into the life of our Lord Jesus Christ which is quite unique.
     Let me tell you what I mean by that. The Lord Jesus Christ wrought many mighty works when He was on earth. In none of them is there any apparent expenditure of energy. Though the Scripture says virtue went out of Him, there is nothing that He does in all of the holy scriptures in terms of the record of the New Testament which would indicate that there was any agonizing in the process of performing that miracle...whether it would be giving sight to the blind, or hearing to the deaf, or speech to the dumb, or giving health to the sick body or giving walking capability to a lame person, or whether it was raising someone from the dead, or whether it was feeding 5,000 men plus women plus children, 20,000 people by the seaside, or whether it was calming a storm, or whether it was walking on water...it didn't matter what it was there is no record that there was any apparent expenditure of energy, any toil, any sweat, any drops of blood in some kind of agonizing to make that thing happen. There seem to have been no weariness involved, no toil involved, no strain involved, no travail involved until it came to prayer. And when He prayed there was an agony, there was a wrenching of His heart, His very being that showed up in His physical body. He prayed in an agony unto blood, a level of intensity that certainly speaks of the persistence that Jesus indicated in Luke 11 and 18 and what Paul had in mind when he said pray without ceasing.
     The early church was marked by this kind of continual passionate unceasing prayer from the very start. Even before the day of Pentecost in Acts 1:14, all the believers were one, it says, one mind and continually devoting themselves to prayer, incessant prayer, constant prayer, persistent prayer marked the early church. When the Apostles were structuring the church so that all the ministry could be accomplished, they themselves said, "We can't do all of these routine things but we will devote ourselves to prayer....we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word."
     In Acts chapter 12 again we see the early church. Peter was kept in prison but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church of God. Fervent prayer, incessant prayer, persistent prayer marked the early church.
     When you come into the epistles, whether you're reading Romans, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, whether you're reading 1 Thessalonians, you hear Paul exhorting believers to prayer. In fact, perhaps as significantly as any of those epistles is Ephesians in marking out the importance of prayer. He says in Ephesians 6:18, "With all prayer and petition, pray at all times." It's the same idea. Pray at all times. In the very epistle we're currently studying, 1 Thessalonians 3 verse 10, he gives his own example, "We night and day keep praying most earnestly." Just a way of life, incessant unending ceaseless prayer.
     Colossians, I love the testimony of Epaphras, a bondslave of Jesus Christ, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers. A man of prayer. And in chapter 4 verse 2 of Colossians he says, "Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving." Unceasing prevailing persistent insistent incessant prayer is so essential.
   Maybe...maybe Coleridge(?) was right when he said, "Prayer is the highest energy of which the human heart is capable and the Christian's greatest achievement on earth." But I fear that if we conceive of prayer as some high energy noble glorious achievement, we'll isolate it to a few grand moments in life. It is that but it is also an incessant kind of communion that should make up the very fabric of our every day existence. It does involve intensity, that is the essence of prayer. God is found, you'll remember, by those who seek Him with all their heart. Wrestling in prayer prevails with God. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much, said James.
     So while there are those great noble moments of energized energetic agonizing prayer, prayer also for us is a very very evident daily way of life. Sometimes it just gets more intense than others. Pray without ceasing then is the mandate of God to us. The word "pray" here is just the general word, proseuchomai, the most common New Testament word for pray. It could be praise, it could be thanks, it could be confession, it could be petition, it could be intercession, it could be submission. It's just pray in general. "Without ceasing" is a word that basically means recurring. It doesn't mean non‑stop talking, it means recurring prayer. As I said, just a way of life. We're to be continually in prayer...continually in an attitude of prayer.
     You're probably like I am. I rarely ever fall asleep at night other than in the middle of a prayer. I rarely ever wake up in the morning other than praying. It's so much the fabric of my life to be in an open state of communion with God, sometimes more intense than others, but always conscious of His presence that I find myself going to sleep in the middle of my prayers and waking back up in the middle of them again. Scripture gives example of people who pray in the morning, people who pray at noon, people who pray at night, people who pray seven times a day, people who pray at midnight, people who pray all night, people who pray before dawn, people who pray for days, people who pray for weeks, some who prayed long, some prayed short, some prayed kneeling, some prayed standing, some prayed lying on a bed, some prayed lying face down on the ground, some prayed hands up, some prayed hands down, some prayed hands out, some prayed face down, some prayed face up, etc., etc. Every way, everywhere, prayer. Pray unceasingly.
     Now if you'll look at our text again you see this is kind of a companion to verse 16. Verse 16 says, "Rejoice always." Verse 17 says, "Pray always." Really they're partners in spiritual life and they have a beautiful balance. The believer all through his Christian life feels his insufficiency. So he lives in total dependence on God. As long as you feel your insufficiency and you feel your dependence, you're going to pray without ceasing. At the same time, while feeling insufficient and dependent you also know that you are the beneficiary of stupendous blessing from God. So on the one hand you are praying independently, on the other hand you are rejoicing in the reception of the multi‑ full blessing of God. So we rejoice always because God is pouring out blessing in answer to our unceasing prayer.
     If I as a Christian live in a perpetual state of personal insufficiency, a perpetual state of recognizing my dependency on God, if I live continually thankful for everything He does for me, continually repentant over my sin, continually expressing my love for others, that is going to flow in unspoken prayer to God and it's also going o cause God to open the slue(?) gates of blessing which will result in my joyful response. And so we are not just to rejoice always but we are to take the path to that rejoicing which is the path of unceasing prayer which results in blessing which results in joy.
     Now how does this verse 17 fit in to the whole context here? Paul as he closes this letter to the Thessalonian church wants to help them set their church on the right course for the future, it's a good church, a great church, a noble church, a spiritual church. But he wants to remind them about how to grow into a healthy mature flock. It's a young church, a baby church, only a few months old, and he's got a growth plan for them. In verses 12 and 13, growing a healthy flock involved the right relationship between the shepherds and the sheep and the sheep and the shepherds. In verses 14 and 15, growing a healthy flock demanded the right relationship between the sheep and the sheep. And here in verse 16 through verse 22, a healthy flock demands a right relationship between the sheep and the Great Shepherd.
     So the church is made up of those relationships. Leadership to people, people to leadership, people to people, people to God and no church can rise higher than the spiritual life of its own people. So your relationship to the Great Shepherd is crucial and the first thing you need to do is to be rejoicing always and the second thing, to be praying to Him always. That's how you keep that relationship what it ought to be. And that's essential for a growing church, for a healthy church. If we are to be a healthy church, we must be praying unceasingly, we must be tapping the divine resource, we must be knocking on the door, seeking the loaves of bread. We must be bowing the knee at the foot of divine justice, pleading for our case to be resolved with equity and justice. We must be going before God on behalf of ourselves and others, praying without ceasing, for therein do we release the greatness of the power and blessing of God.
     Now, there's nothing more really to be said about the verse. You understand what it means. But I want to go behind it a little bit and I want to give you a little list of things that I'm going to call motives to prayer because I know something is true about your life because it's true about my life. No matter how much I pray I always feel like I don't pray enough. Do you feel that way? I have a sort of a continual state of guilt about a lack of prayerfulness. It doesn't matter how much I pray, I always feel like I haven't prayed enough. And that is partly due to the fact that I haven't prayed enough and partly due to the fact that I'm in a position to be inundated with so many prayer requests that it's impossible for me as a human being to even attempt to keep up with all of them...which makes my burden heavier.
     I have to go back then and ask myself if I'm really motivated to pray when I don't pray as I ought. And I want to help you to get a grip on some motives for prayer. I want to give you ten of them, just a little grocery list here, ten motives for prayer that I believe produce an unceasing prayer life.
     Number one is a desire for the Lord's glory...a desire for the Lord's glory. Prayer, Jesus said, should start this way, "Our Father who art in heaven...what?...hallowed by Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done." Now what you're praying when you pray there is that God would be glorified, that God's purposes would be accomplished, that God's name would be exalted, that God's will would be done. That's what you're praying. You're not praying for yourself, you're praying for Him.
     Yes, the first motive for prayer is a desire for the Lord's glory. When your heart longs that God be glorified you're going to find yourself praying to that end. You're going to find yourself in an unceasing cry to God, "Be exalted, be glorified, be lifted up, accomplish Your purpose, build Your kingdom, do Your will."
     Secondly, a second motive to prayer is a desire for fellowship with God, a desire for fellowship with God. The psalmist so beautifully gave words to this truth in Psalm 42 verse 1, "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for Thee, O God, my soul thirsts for God for the living God, when shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night." Now there is a longing for God. There is a heart crying out for fellowship, the feeling of being estranged from God, the feeling of being cut off, the feeling of loneliness that reaches out and says, "God, I want Your fellowship, I want Your company, I want Your presence."
     Psalm 63, more magnificent words, "O God, Thou art my God, I shall seek Thee earnestly, my soul thirsts for Thee, my flesh yearns for Thee in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Thus I have beheld Thee in the sanctuary to see Thy power and Thy glory." I just want to see you, I just want to be with You, I just want to experience Your wonder.
     In Psalm 84, the first two verses there again, "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts. My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord, my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. How blessed are those who dwell in Thy house." The longing to be in the presence of God.
     And maybe most magnificently of all, Psalm 27. Just listen to these wonderful words, "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life. Whom shall I dread? One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple." I just want to be where He is.
     Do you have that? You have that longing for fellowship, sweet communion? There's a third prompter to prayer, to incessant and unceasing prayer, and that's a desire for needs to be met...a desire for needs to be met. Not only ours but those around us, "Give us this day our daily bread," Jesus taught us to say in Matthew 6:11. It is right to pray that our needs would be met. It is right to ask God for the basic things of life. That's a prompter to prayer. A few of us, however, are prompted in that way because we have so much...so much. But there are across this world many folks who pray to God regularly just for their daily needs to be met. We don't understand that in this affluent culture but it is the way of life for many of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
     In fact, we have a dear brother who has come from Africa, Sam and his wife Nora were in our church for six years, maybe, before they went back to minister in Africa. He has come from Africa because he cannot feed his family. It is not like it is here around the world, because he cannot get medicine for his diabetes. We live in a world, we live in an environment where asking God for our daily needs is pretty foreign. But we should not be so foolish as to assume that because God has graciously provided our daily needs without asking should we become indifferent to Him they might not be taken away from us.
     Fourth motive for persistent prayer is a desire for wisdom...a desire for wisdom. James put it this way, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men liberally and holds back nothing." If you are under the illusion that you don't need the wisdom of God, you are really deceived, are you not? When Jesus taught us to pray He said this, "Pray like this...do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil." I really do believe that that is a prayer for spiritual discernment, that is a prayer for spiritual wisdom. Lord, please by Your spirit give me the ability to discern when I am facing a temptation. Give me the wisdom to discern when I am being led in to something that is evil. We need to be incessantly praying that. We need to be praying all the days of our lives...Lord, please deliver me from temptation and do not lead me in an evil way, give me the wisdom and the discernment and the insight and the scriptural sensitivity and the leading of the Spirit of God so as not to allow me to fall into Satan's traps and the traps of the flesh and the world.
     What prompts prayer? Incessant prayer? A desire for the glory of God, a desire for fellowship with Him, a desire for needs to be met and a desire for wisdom in walking through the mind field that is this world. Number five, prayer is prompted by a desire for deliverance from trouble...a desire for deliverance from trouble. There are so many texts in the Psalms that speak of this, let me sum them up in one that says it all, Psalm 20 verse 1, "May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble," surely He will...surely He will. When we come to those times of great distress, they tend to prompt our unceasing prayer, don't they? And the greater the trouble and the greater the distress that we have found ourselves in, very often it's because we failed to ask for wisdom and so we fell in the trap in our ignorance and now we need to be delivered from it and there is no human way out. We cry out to God for deliverance.
     It's reminiscent of Jonah who, by the way, had a very specific prayer life. He found himself in the belly of a great fish and says in Jonah 2:1, "Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish." And I'll tell you what, he didn't pray for all the missionaries first. He said, "Get me out," in so many words. And the Lord did it, the Lord delivered him. He said, "I called out of my distress to the Lord...to the Lord and Thou hast brought me up from the pit, O Lord my God." He said, "I was down there and I remembered the Lord and I cried out and He delivered me."
     We come to God in those times of tremendous trouble, pressure, stress, pain, affliction and we need His deliverance. That prompts our unceasing prayer. Six, a desire for relief from fear and worry...a desire for relief from fear and worry. That will make us pray if we are wise and spiritually minded. In Philippians chapter 4 we need so often to be reminded of this. It says, "Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
     When you're in fear and anxiety and worry, you are in distress, you are in depression, what should you do? Very simply, stop being anxious and go to prayer and pray with a thankful heart and the peace of God which surpasses all human comprehension will protect your heart and mind. What does that mean? Guard it from anxiety, guard it from depression, distress, fear, worry. If you want a humanly comprehensible solution, go to a person. If you want a humanly incomprehensible solution, go to God. In the time of fear, in the time of worry, in the time of anxiety, in the time of emotional distress and pain, the formula is simple, just go to the Lord in persistent continual unceasing prayer with thanksgiving and the peace of God promised will guard your heart and mind.
     Why do people go to other sources than that? When you want that relief from fear and worry, our God has promised it is yours through prayer. The psalmist wrote in Psalm 4, "Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness, Thou hast relieved me in my distress, be gracious to me and hear my prayer." You did it in the past, would you please relieve me again?
     Number seven, another motive to prayer is the desire to offer thanks for past blessing...a desire to offer thanks for past blessing. If you have a thankful heart, if you're a thankful person and if you remember all that God has done in all His goodness, it will make you pray if for no other reason than just to say thanks. In Psalm 44 we read, the psalmist says, "O God, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us the work that Thou didst in their days in the days of old. Thou with Thine own hand didst drive out the nations, then Thou didst plant them, then Thou didst afflict the peoples, then Thou didst spread them abroad, for by their own sword they did not possess the land and their own arm did not save them, but Thy right hand and Thine arm and the light of Thy presence for Thou didst favor them, Thou art my King, O God." That's just praise and that's not praise for anything God had done for him, that's praise for what God had done for others in the past...learning to be thankful to God for all that He has done throughout redemptive history, having a grateful heart on behalf of all the good things God has done, not just for you.
     The Apostle Paul writes the Philippians and he says, "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, my prayer is always offered with joy in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now." I just can't help but pray all the time, thanking God for what He's doing in your life and what He has done and is doing. If you really are grateful to God for all that He has done, it's going to prompt you to pray a prayer of thanksgiving.
     Number eight, here is a very important motive to prayer and that is a desire to be freed from the guilt of sin...a desire to be freed from the guilt of sin. That classic penitential psalm, Psalm 32 speaks to this, and I'm only giving you select scriptures out of many that could be used in these points, but listen to Psalm 32 and hear this. Starting in verse 3, just to give you the flow, "When I kept silent about my sin...David says...my body wasted away." I had psychosomatic illnesses as a result of guilt. "I was groaning all day long. Day and night Your hand was heavy upon me, my vitality, my life juices were drained away as with the fever heat of summer." I was a mess, I was a mess, the life juices have to do with the blood flow system, saliva system, the nervous system which is conducted by fluid. All my life juices were dried up, saliva was dried up, the flow of blood wasn't right therefore I had physiological problems. My nervous system was haywire. I was a wreck. I had a fever. I was moaning. In verse 5 he says, "Then I acknowledged my sin to Thee, my iniquity I didn't hide, I said I will confess my transgression to the Lord and Thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin." I confess and You forgave.
     Then back to the beginning of the Psalm. He says this, "How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord doesn't impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit." The deceit is over, you're not covering the sin, you've opened it up, you've confessed it and now you're forgiven and now you're blessed. Yes, prayer incessant, unceasing, penitential confession is prompted by a desire to be freed from the guilt of sin.
     Number nine, another motive to prayer is a desire for the salvation of the lost...a desire for the salvation of the lost. YOu will be moved to persistent prayer when you're compassionately concerned about lost people. They're all around us, they're all around us. And if you care about their salvation, there will be an almost unceasing commitment to pray as they cross your path and your mind.
     Listen to Romans 10:1, "Brethren," says Paul, "my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation." Paul says I'm praying for their salvation. I cannot see unsaved people and not pray for their salvation.
     Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 2 is told by Paul that God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. And then he says, "Now I want men to lift up holy hands, praying always." And what are they praying for? The salvation of the lost people for whom God has provided a salvation. A desire for the salvation of the lost prompts prayer. If you don't pray unceasingly, then something is wrong with your compassion for the lost.
     And number ten, incessant ceaseless prayer is prompted by a desire for the spiritual growth of believers...a desire for the spiritual growth of believers. In Ephesians, for example, chapter 1 verse 15, Paul says to the Ephesians, verse 15, "For this reason I too having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you while making mention of you in my prayers." Now what are you praying for, Paul? "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of glory may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so you may know what is the hope of His calling and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe."
     I'm praying for you. Well what are you praying for? Your wisdom. Your knowledge. Your enlightenment. Your hope. I'm praying for the power of God to be released in your life, I'm praying for your spiritual growth. In chapter 3 verse 14 he says, "I bow my knees before the Father and I'm praying for you." What are you praying? Verse 16, "That He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with power through the spirit in the inner man." I'm praying for spiritual power. Verse 17, "I'm praying that Christ may settle down in your hearts and that you would be rooted and grounded in love and that you would understand that love that surpasses knowledge," verse 19, "and that you would be filled with the fullness of God." And verse 20, "That you would do exceeding abundantly above all you can ask or think." I'm praying for your spiritual growth.
     We have a lot to pray for, don't we? What moves you to pray? When you desire the Lord's glory, when you desire fellowship with Him, when you desire needs be met by the one who alone has the resources, when you desire wisdom and discernment, when you desire deliverance from the troubles of life, when you desire relief from fear and anxiety and worry, when you desire to offer thanks for all His past and present blessings, when you desire to be freed from guilt and sin, when you desire the salvation of others and when you desire the development and growth of the believers.
     There should be in your life enough reminders of these things to keep you praying all the time, right? So do a little spiritual inventory. If you're not praying without ceasing, it's because something is wrong at the desire level...something is wrong in the underlying motivational level. How do you prompt that?
     From my own life years of experience, I can only tell you that my prayer life is prompted by the Word of God. It is my time in the discipline of the Word of God and the study of the Word of God that prompts my prayer life. Oh, there are other times when the Spirit of God moves upon me as I'm living in obedience to the Lord that I'm prompted to pray...of course. But if I want to develop a real longing for God to be glorified, then I find that that longing is developed out of a study of His Word. As I see His Word unfold and His marvelous plan, I'm like Daniel, once I read what God has planned for His own future glory, then the longing begins to rise in my heart that He be glorified. It is like John who at the end of the book of Revelation has just told all the glories that are going to come to Christ and he can't help but cry out, "O Lord, come quickly and it's not for my sake, it's for Yours."
     So as I gaze at the glorious plan of God outlined in the Word of God, I become consumed with His Kingdom and His glory that prompts me to pray to that end. As I study the Word of God and in it I fellowship with God as He reveals Himself in the Word, as I learn more about His person and His character and the majesty of who He is, I have a greater desire to fellowship with Him.
     As I study my Bible and find all His promises and all the things He longs to do for His children and how He will meet all of our needs and how He will provide everything, I am therefore prompted to pray to that end.
     And as I read the Scripture and study it and find His majesty revealed in His wisdom, His amazing discernment, His perfect understanding of everything, it causes me to long for that same wisdom to be my wisdom so that I can work my way through this difficult world.
     As I read the Scripture and see the chronicle of the times He has delivered His people over and over and over and the promises that He has given that He will always do the same for His people, it prompts me to pray for deliverance from the troubles of my own life and the lives of those around me. And when I look at the Scripture and find how many of His special beloved servants were delivered from fear and worry and anxiety, how many of them sang hymns in jail and how many of them could stand on the edge of a fiery furnace and praise the God who had allowed them to come there because they so completely trusted Him, it allows me to be relieved from my own fear, of my own worry as I realize that I can cast all my care on Him knowing He perfectly cares for me, I am delivered from anxiety.
     As I study my Bible also and find the record of all His past blessings and His past deeds and the glories of all of redemptive history, and all that He has done to bring redemptive history to where it is now that I might experience the glories of the gospel of Christ and the blessings of His indwelling Spirit and the treasure of His Word, it causes me to offer thanks for His blessings.
     And as I look at the Scripture and I see the perfect forgiveness provided in Jesus Christ, the majesty of the plan of atonement and how it was worked out by grace through faith in my own life and how that I have access to complete forgiveness and cleansing every moment of my life, it leads me to confess my sins. And as I see the tears of God in Jeremiah 13 and the tears of Jesus in Matthew's gospel chapter 23, tears that are shed for those that refuse salvation and refuse the goodness of God, it makes me desire the salvation of the lost, even as God does. And as I see the longing revealed in Scripture of God's heart for His people to grow spiritually, that continual call from the beginning of the Scripture to the end to His people to live in obedience and holiness, it reminds me to pray for the spiritual growth of believers.
     So, if I want to have a persistent, consistent prayer life, I'm going to have to have certain desires in my heart that generate that, that motivate that, those desires become in my life the fruit of my faithful and intent study of God's Word which reveals these things to me in fresh new ways every time I study it, and therefore prompts my own prayer life. Rarely do I ever come out of a study time in the Word of God without a new kind of commitment to pray in one dimension or another more faithfully than I have.
     Pray without ceasing, Paul said. And saying it he said much. It is to be our way of life. Let's bow together in prayer.
     We thank You, Father, for the promise of 1 John 3:22 that whatever we ask we receive from You because we keep Your commandments and do the things that are pleasing in Your sight. So we know our prayers are effective and powerful. And that if we pray out of the context of keeping Your commandments and doing what is pleasing, You're going to hear and You're going to answer our prayers. And as You do that, we're going to be blessed. And then You're going to receive all the glory. We know that's the plan, to that end we pray for Jesus' sake. Amen.
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The Body of Christ
1 Corinthians 12:12-27


     If you have your Bibles, turn to the 12^th Chapter of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians Chapter 12. The title of our message to you tonight is The Body of Christ.

     There has been in the last couple of years tremendous amount of dialogue on this particular subject. And there is today in the frame of Christianity a rebellion against denominationalism and against the organized church. And an emphasis on the body of Christ with extreme emphasis give to non-structural type of format. No organization of any kind at all.

And of course, I feel that that's going a little too far, because in the New Testament you had very definitely certain organizational structures. They were obviously elders and presbyteros and bishops. Of course, all those are the same thing, it just means pastors. It's not a hierarchy. There were also deacons who ministered. There were also these elders to be ordained in every city. There were those who had the oversight of the flock. So there was to a degree a certain organization, which was necessary in order to assure that every particular flock had a shepherd and had those to minister to it. So there was a minimum of organization.

And so there's been much discussion in recent days about the idea of the body of Christ. And most decidedly, I suppose the saddest part of all the discussion is the ignorance of most people on the subject altogether. When it is, in fact, perhaps the greatest subject in understanding Christian relationships. We don't know where we belong or who we really are without understanding the concept of the body of Christ.

And when we do understand it, we understand not only our obligation to God and relation to Him through Christ, but our obligation and relation to every other believer in the world. And what our ministries are to be together, and so it's very, very strategic that we understand the concept of the body of Christ.

There is today so much organization and structure that it is true that the true church is often lost in the fog. And many major denominations are nothing but great groups of people who want to rally around some point other than Jesus Christ. Tragically that's the case. And they exist purely as an organization structure without any life. Without any proper function in relation to Jesus Christ.

And they are in many cases helationists. What is the church? And what is it that we are, the body of Christ? What does it mean. Well, before we look particularly at the body of Christ, I want us to see exactly what we are as a church by looking at several metaphors that are given in the New Testament.

Some of these metaphors come from the Old Testament. Three very dominant ones, if you're taking notes, you'll want to get these down. Three very dominant metaphors that the New Testament uses to describe the church, which are also Old Testament metaphors to describe Israel, are these, the bride, the vineyard, and the flock.

Now, each of these metaphors was an Old Testament designation of Israel. Israel was God's bride, God's vineyard, and God's flock. All of them are repeated in the New Testament. We are Christ's bride, we are the branches of which He is the vine, and we also are His flock of which He is the shepherd.

Now, in the Old Testament, God looked upon Israel in her maidenhood, Hosea tells us this. God betrothed Israel to Himself. God entered to a marriage covenant with Israel. Spiritually Israel became God's bride people. And then from that point on God had to deal with Israel's continual unfaithfulness, continual acts of spiritual adultery as Israel went after other gods incessantly.

And Israel, Hosea says, "was indeed an unfaithful wife." Also in the New Testament, the church is seen as a vine, as well as we are seen as a bride. And in the Old Testament, the vine was or the vineyard, either particular metaphor, represented Israel. God said that he went and planted and a vineyard. He said, "I planted it in a very fertile hill." And this was a picture of God taking Israel out of Egypt and putting them in Canaan. God said, "I removed them and I planted this vine in a very fertile hill." There it took root and filled the land.

And then God built a watch tower and from the watch tower, God guarded that vineyard and He also built a wine vat to prepare the vintage. And He looked over his vineyard, Isaiah tell us, and He wanted His vineyard to yield righteousness, but his vineyard yielded wild grapes of injustice, unrighteousness, oppression, and sin.

And so Isaiah 51 says, "God made His vineyard a waste." And He did. The third Old Testament metaphor God used was that Israel was the flock and He was the shepherd of Israel. He led Joseph like a flock, the Bible says. As He had redeemed them from Egypt says Isaiah, he lifted them up and carried them like you would carry a lamb.

So after the Babylonian captivity, Isaiah again says that He gathered the lambs in His arms and gently led those that were with young. And God has a relationship to Israel that is that of a shepherd to a flock. Now, there we see three images that God used to determine His relationship to Israel in the Old Testament.

Each of those images shows God's relation to Israel. And it stresses, now mark this, it stresses that God's dealing with His people was direct. It was direct and it was a sovereign saving ministry, as well as a keeping ministry. So in the Old Testament, God chose Israel as His bride. He planted Israel as His vineyard. He shepherded Israel as His flock.

Now, when we come to the New Testament, Jesus boldly applies these very same metaphors to the church. He emphasizes even more strongly the personal relationship. Let me illustrate it. First of all, the Old Testament metaphor of the marriage, Jesus applies to us by saying He is the bridegroom and we are what? The bride. He says, "I am the bridegroom," and you remember in the gospels that when the bridegroom showed up, fasting became unnecessary. Let's get on with the festivities, the bridegroom is here.

Paul describes this metaphor in greater detail with a reference to Christ's loving self-sacrifice for the church. He talks also about Christ's leadership over the church, His final purpose for the church. Christ has taken the church as a bride in order that, and this is the book of Ephesians, "that He might present that church to Himself." That Christ has taken us as a bride to present us to Himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or blemish or any such thing. In other words, He gathered us as a chased and pure virgin.

And so we as church are related to Christ as a bride to the bridegroom. In fact, at the end of Revelation when we go to be with Jesus Christ in glory, the Bible says we shall have a supper. What kind of supper is it? It's a marriage supper. That's right.

Not only that in 2 Corinthians Chapter 5, it tells that "God has given two us the arrahbon of the Spirit." And the Greek word arrahbon literally means engagement ring. And the reason we know we're going to be married to Jesus Christ is because we have an engagement ring who is none other than the Holy Spirit. So the marriage metaphor is carried all throughout Paul's writing particularly and culminating in John's vision of the great marriage supper of the lamb in the new Jerusalem at the end of the book of Revelation.

So Jesus uses the marriage metaphor to describe the church. Jesus also took up the image of the vineyard. In the parable of the wicked husband in Mark 12, and there he refers it to Israel, but he also extended it, because in John Chapter 15 He says, "I am the true vine and ye are all," what, "branches." And the same metaphor is used there. The church are the branches which are dependent upon the vine. We must abide in Him and we must be subject to the purging of the vine dresser. We are the branches and He is the vine.

And so Jesus used the vine metaphor. But He did not stop there, He also used the shepherd metaphor. We are a flock, John 10, are we not? "My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me." And Jesus is the good shepherd. He goes out into the wilderness to save just one of His lost sheep. He lays down His life for the sheep. He leads the sheep into good pasture. He protects the sheep from wolves. This metaphor is expanded all throughout the New Testament.

So there you have three basic Old Testament metaphors that are applied by Jesus to the church. These are the main ones. Now, there are four other ones. These are the main ones that are in the Old Testament. There are four other ones that are eluded to in the Old Testament that Christ also uses or the New Testament applies to the church.

They are these, God's people are also a kingdom, a kingdom. And by that we mean a kingdom is a spear of rule. A kingdom is a dominion where somebody rules. And we as Christ's on beloved sons, children, brothers, God's sons, Christ's brothers, are in the dominion of God's rule and Christ's rule. We are literally right now in His spiritual kingdom in the sense that He rules us. We are a kingdom.

For example, Paul says in Colossians 1:13, "That God has delivered us," now watch this, "from the kingdom of darkness and translated us to the kingdom of," whom, "His dear son." That's right, His dear son. And Christ even exercises His rule over us through the Holy Spirit. If you read carefully between the lines kind of this is what is being said. This is what's being said in Romans 14:17 where it says, "For the kingdom of God," mark it, "does not mean food and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit."

We are literally a kingdom. Then not only that but another metaphor that we are designated by in the New Testament, we are also a household or a family. We are sons of God and brothers of Christ, aren't we? We are joint heirs according to Romans Chapter 8. Brothers according to Hebrews Chapter 2.

God has begotten us again has He not, into His family. He has adopted us. He has sent His Holy Spirit into our hearts whereby we call him Abbah Father, which Greek...in Greek means papa, a term of endearment or closeness. And we are to take no anxious thought for tomorrow, because we know our father knows our needs before we ever even think of them. We are to occupy ourselves with the kingdom of God and all the other things will be added unto us.

Then thirdly, we are not only a kingdom in this little section and a household or a family, we are also a building. The church is a building. A building incidentally not made with hands, but a building nevertheless. Who is our foundation? Paul said, "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ."

And we are built up on that foundation. The Apostles being the first ones on the foundation and we from there on up. We are a building of God. Then fourthly, we are a body, the body of Christ. And this particular metaphor, watch this, has absolutely no Old Testament equivalent. None at all. The first three have major Old Testament equivalence. The second three in a minor sense eluded in the Old Testament, this one has no Old Testament illusions whatsoever. The concept does not even exist in the Old Testament.

You say so what. So this, this is our unique position in Christ. We are the body of Christ. This is unique. It has no Old Testament equivalent. This is our single identity. We are the body of Christ. We are not a building. These buildings are totally extraneous. We have them because have to come and sit somewhere to hear the Word of God. The church is not a physical building. We are a spiritual building, as we've said, not a physical one. This is not the church, you are the church. I am the church. We are not an organization. We are a koinonia. We are a communion. We are a fellowship of one body, the body of Christ.

Now this unique metaphor is going to form the basis for our study tonight. And incidentally, in many weeks to come as we study verse by verse through the book of Ephesians, which is the account reckoning to us the doctrine of the body of Christ.

Now, as we begin, before we go to Ephesians, we want to look at 1 Corinthians Chapter 12. And I want you to see three things about the body, three things and we'll explain to you what the body of Christ means. This is strategic and I want you to really put on your thinking cap and get your brain in gear. Get it out of neutral if it's just kind of spinning around and get with it.

All right, three things I want you to see. Three things that characterize the body and they are completely detailed in the 12^th Chapter. They are number one, unity; number two, diversity; number three, harmony. Unity, diversity, harmony if you want an i-t-y ending, mutuality. Unity diversity, and harmony or mutuality.

Now these are keys things for you to understand. Part of the reason the church...well, really the reason the church is so crippled is because people aren't functioning as the body. Strategic words. All right, first of all let's look at unity. The first and incidentally mark it the dominate character of a body is its unity.

Beginning in 1 Corinthians 12 and verse 12. 1 Corinthians 12:12, "For as the body is one," and here he's talking about a physical body, "and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ." Now here Paul takes the physical body and he says, folks you must know that a physical body as...must be one. You cannot take a physical body and put an arm here and a leg there and a head there and a heart there and a couple of feet over there, and say now body go do something.

You cannot say to those disconnected members, pull yourself together and function. A body is a unit or it does not exist. It must be one. Paul says, "The body is one and has many functioning members." The physical body. I cannot say, you know, my hand is so gifted, I'm going to cut it off and send it over. Your hand will not be gifted. After you have cut it off, it will die. It has to be attached to the body. So the essence of a body is unity, unity. We are one. "So also is Christ." We are, friends, a body. Christ is the head. We are the body, all the members. We are one.

If we detach we are dead. We cannot be detached. We function as a unit or we do not function. We are one and Christ is the head of the body from which all the instruction comes, all the brain power, all the energy and all the resources to make every part of the body function. The head is the life. You can cut off the hand and the arm and the head will maintain the life and you can cut off parts of the body and the life is still there. You keep going, you'll get to it sooner or later.

But if you cut off the head, the life is gone and the same thing is true in the body of Christ. A perfect analogy. Christ our head is the source of our life. Ephesians 5:23, Paul said, "Christ is the head of the church." Colossians 1:18, he said, "And he is the head of the body, the church." Christ is the head.

You know, that sounds like a simple thought, but you know some people think they're the head. They do. They think they're the head of the church. I know one man that has that very title. He is not the head of the church. Jesus Christ is the head of the church. All believers are one in Him, one body, unity. Receiving all resources and all our strength and all our wisdom and all our instructions from the same head.

Now, notice verse 13. Here's how you get into the body. Here's how the body begins, the unity of the body, verse 13. "For by one Spirit," and I want you to notice how many times the word one is used, back in verse 12, one...one body, one body, twice. Verse 13, "For by one Spirit were we all baptized into one body." That's three times, four times he's already said one body, four times in a verse and a line.

Do you think he means to emphasize unity here? "For by one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether it be Jews or Greeks, whether it bond or free, we have been all made to drink into one Spirit." Listen, we are one. And salvation is the initial point of our unity. We all came by one Spirit into the body.

We all came through the one way. Whose that? Jesus Christ, one door, Jesus Christ. We are one in one body because we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body we...and now have the one same Spirit dwelling within us. Notice it in verse 13. "By one Spirit, were we all baptized into one body."

People say what is the baptism of the Holy Spirit? The baptism of the Holy Spirit is right here in this verse clearly this. It is God's Holy Spirit placing a believer into the body of Christ. That's exactly what it says there. "By one Spirit were we all baptized into one body." You came into the body of Christ at the moment of salvation by being placed there by the energy of the Spirit. From the moment you received Jesus Christ, my friend, you were a part of that one body and you were put there by that one same Spirit.

Not only were you put there, but verse 13 says you also have the same indwelling Spirit. See, we've all been made to drink, that is a simulator appropriate the one Spirit. Now, you notice he's emphasizing our unity? Sure, it's the whole point. He is stressing our unity. We were born of the Spirit, right? We put faith in Jesus Christ. We were born of the Spirit. By the one Spirit placed into the body of Christ, right?

By being placed in the body of Christ, we were indwelt by the same one Spirit, right? So the Spirit redeemed us by faith in Christ, the Spirit actually does the work of regeneration doesn't He? The Spirit regenerates us, places us in the body of Christ, comes to indwell us. You say does every Christian have the Holy Spirit indwelling? You better believe it. Romans 8:9 says, "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." There is no such thing as believer who doesn't have the Holy Spirit. No such thing.

"If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." Turn it around. If you belong to Him, you have the Holy Spirit. You receive the Holy Spirit...first of all He regenerated you, placed you in the body, then you received Him, you drank of Him, He came within you. Now, now you notice how our unity is all wrapped up in the Spirit? See? That's why Paul says in Ephesians 4:3, That we have, are you ready for this, "the unity of the Spirit." Because it is the same Spirit who regenerates us, baptizes us into the body and indwells us. Our unity then is not based upon an artificial denominational basis. It is not based upon the fact that we're just all believers in Christ, it is based on the fact that we have all been identified in the work of one single Spirit.

That's the point of our unity, isn't it. We have one Spirit. He's the same in me as He is in you. Same Spirit. I came to Jesus Christ, believed in Him, I was regenerated by the same Spirit and the same way, placed in the same body by the same Spirit in the same way, indwelt by the same Spirit in the same way as you were. And therefore our unity is in the Spirit. That's why when a believer operates in the flesh he operates contrary to the functioning of the body, because the body must operate in the unity of the Spirit.

Now, there's no other way to get into the body of Christ, except to be baptized into the body by the Spirit. And there's only one way to be baptized into the body by the Spirit and that's to be redeemed by Jesus Christ. We all come one way by one Savior, through one Spirit, by one salvation and thus our unity begins doesn't it? In the body of Christ, we all came through the blood of Jesus Christ by the Spirit of God.

So we start out with basic unity don't we? Isn't it interesting how once we've all gotten that unity and gotten into the body, we all scatter? See? We all came in the same way, experienced the same Spirit, have the same indwelling Spirit and whoosh we're gone. And then we spend all of our ministry trying to get the body back together again to realize our unity. We are one friends, we are one. There are no such things as super saints. There aren't, really there aren't.

You know, one minister said this, he said, "The church is so cold and the body is so dead that when somebody arrived with a 98.6, we see...we think the guy is sick. We think he's got a fever and he's normal." See? Our temperatures are so cold that when a guy comes in with a 98.6, we think the guy's a hothead. He's got a fever. Cool him a down, he's running amuck.

Listen, to be totally committed to Jesus Christ and totally absorbed in the Spirit's ministry is not to be super, it's to be normal. There are no great people in the body of Christ. Nobody can come in and say, "well, how did you get here?" "Well, I did this and 49 of those and 74 of those and I got here." See?

No you didn't. You came by one Spirit into one body just like everybody else did. That's the point of our unity. There's nobody can stand up in the body of Christ and say, "I got here like this. You stay down there." No, we came the same way. And it was by grace wasn't it? It wasn't works was it? If it was works we'd all be boasting, wouldn't we? We are all trophies of grace brought into the body by the same way. We have nothing to glory in, nothing to boast in, nothing to stand up and say, "I'm going to Lord it over you," and the whole clergy laity, dichotomy is unbiblical. I am not any higher than you except that this platform is, I don't know, it's 36 inches up.

That's the only elevation that I have over you. And if it bothers you from now, I'll preach down there. I am not...I am not somebody above you and you are not somebody above somebody else and you are not somebody below somebody else. We are one. Get that. There is no hierarchy in the New Testament. There are varying gifts, but no hierarchy. If you want an organizational chart of Christianity, it's got Christ at the head and then from then it's a big circle. That's all. It's not filtering down.

We all came into the body the same way. We are all trophies of God's grace. There is no hierarchy. We are all one. And you recall this in your mind now. Just a few minutes ago, we presented to you metaphors didn't we? Metaphors of the church. Did you notice how that every single one of them without exception emphasize unity?

Did you notice that? Watch this, review. We are one wife with one husband, right? We are one flock with how many shepherds? One shepherd. We are one set of branches of one vine. We are one kingdom with one king. We are one family with one father. We are one building with one foundation. We are one body with one head, Jesus Christ. We are one. The Bible doesn't say the fat branches and the skinny branches or the lame sheep and the super sheep.

The message of the body of Christ is the message of one. We are one. We are one in Christ. There is no room for hierarchy. There is no room for upper class, lower class. And I'll tell you something else, there's no such thing as an isolated believer. There's no believer who is not a part of the body who's just sitting over here by himself. You are in the body. You're part of it just as much as I am or anybody else.

There are no such things as upper class, lower class Christians. And there are none who are out of the body. You're all in the body. Just to emphasize your unity, let me read you the catalogue of unity. We'll study this in weeks to come. Ephesians 4:4, listen to this, "There's on body, one Spirit, as you are called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who's above all and through and in you all." One, one, one, one, one, one, see?

And I like this, 1 Corinthians, backing up from where we are, in Chapter 1, just to illustrate this. You know what happened in the body of Christ in Corinth, they got all fractioned up and they were all going around saying well, "who do...who are you with?" "Well, I'm an Apollos man myself." "Oh Apollos is out, I'm a Paul man." "Well, you know, you guys are both out, Cephas is in." "I follow Peter myself."

Well, listen folks, I follow Christ, see. There's always one of those in every crowd. So they were going on with this kind of a deal back in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 12. Now this I say, "Every one of you said, I'm a Paul, oh I'm Apollos, I am Cephas, I am Christ." See?

Then verse 13, "Is Christ divided?" See what kind of stupidity is that? What are you fractioning up the body for? You're not a follower of this or a follower of that. Is Christ divided? Now look at Chapter 3, verse 21. "Therefore, let no man glory in men." You don't go around saying well, I follow him or I follow him or I follow him. You don't glory in that. "For all things are yours whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come all are yours." He throws it all in there. "And you are Christ," and what, "Christ is God's."

We'll you just get off this division and get back on the oneness? You see that's really a potent section in Chapter 3 here. He just says everything you can think of, things to come, death, life, all...it's all yours, you're one. You're one with Christ and Christ with God.

So Paul emphasizes our oneness. The church is a people, an assembly of redeemed people who owe their distinct existence, they're life together to the fact that they were by one Spirit put into one body and indwelt by the one same Spirit. We are not separated believers my friends. We are one. Your life never ends. Did you know that? It just picks up where mine begins, and the whole body of Christ just keeps going like that. There's no breaks. It's an endless chain.

We have been called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. We're all apart of His body. You say what got us into this thing? We're the call of God. We are God's ekklesia, from ek ka le o, to call out. We are God's called out ones. Called apart from the world to exist as a separate entity. His body with Him as the head and we are to lead a life worthy of His calling, aren't we?

So that we may become in character and conduct what we are in status, called apart, saints. Separate unto Him, His body. So the church then is God's people. Called out of the world and separated to exist for Him. One in holiness, one in mission, we all have the same mission. One in suffering and one in glory, we are one.

In Ephesians 2, verse 12, listen to this. "At time you were without Christ being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, ye who once were far off are made near by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace who hath made both one," that is Jew and Gentile, "hath broken down the middle wall of partition, abolished in His flesh the enmity," see, "and made of two, one new man." See. "So making peace," now watch it, "that he might reconcile both unto God in one," what, "body by the cross."

See, and then he goes on to say, "for we have access to Him by one Spirit." We are one. "There is neither Jew, Galatians 3:28, "Gentile, Greek, slave, free, male, female," none of those distinctions exists in the church in terms of our position in the blessing of Christ. This one new man, you see, that's what we are. We're a new man, a new body, the body of Christ, a brand new thing. It's never existed before.

And Christ has abolished all barriers to make us one. He's abolished the barriers of nationality, the barriers of race, the barriers of class, the barriers of sex, every single barrier has been abolished to make one new man. And that's a glorious thing, we're one. It doesn't matter who you are if we love Jesus Christ, we're one. Some people can't get this in their mind. They think there are these Christians up here and then there's those low class ones. That is not so.

So the days of discrimination are over. The church that Christ has created headed by Christ tolerates no distinctions, not at all. None at all. There are some places my friend where you can't preach that message without getting thrown in jail.

In Romans Chapter 10 that message is again repeated for us by the Apostle Paul in verse 12 and 13. "For there is no difference between a Jew and Greek for the same Lord over all is rich unto all of them that call upon Him for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." You see all the barriers are gone. There are no barriers left in Jesus Christ. We are one new man.

And as a result all Christians, whether Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free man, whatever, uncouth, barbarian, or educated Greek, whatever the case, we're all fellow citizens. Paul calls us four things using Greek words that I'm going to go into right now. He calls us fellow citizens, fellow heirs, fellow members, fellow partakers. Fellow, fellow, fellow, fellow, one, one, one unity.

So in all the metaphors, unity is emphasized. You know, this is my prayer for this church that at least this portion of the body of Christ may sense our oneness. I need to hurt when you hurt, you know? And you need to hurt when I hurt. And I need to be sensitive to your needs and you need to be sensitive to mine. And I need to love you when you need love and you need to love me when I need love. And I need to exhort you when you need exhortation and you need to exhort me when I need it. And when you need rebuke, I need to rebuke you and when I need rebuke, you need to rebuke me. That goes for everyone but my wife.

I don't want her to get carried away. She already does it. You and I need to function together, sensitive to each other. You do not want to isolate yourself Christian, you want to get yourself into the mainstream of the life of the body. Did you know that? See that's what's wrong with so many Christians now, they come to church on Sunday morning and come in here and sit down and think well God, I know you're just really blessed by my being here. See...that's right, one for you, see.

And they have no concept of operating in the mainstream of the body life and so they are...they are non-functioning member crippling and maiming the body of Christ and the rest of us are limping along trying to compensate for their inabilities. You need to be in the mainstream of the body life. See, sensitive to me and I need to be sensitive to you. We're one.

Oh Jesus, He wanted this. Desperately did He want it, so much so that in John Chapter 17, I just love this chapter and what an insight into the heart of Jesus Christ. Listen to Him, He's praying to His Father. Listen to what He prays for. He could have prayed for a lot of things, but listen to what He prays for.

John 17 in verse 20, "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also who shall believe on me through their word." In other words, I'm not just praying for my disciples, I'm praying for those who shall believe on me through their word in the future. Now what am I going to pray? Verse 21, "that they all may be," what, "one," see, "as thou Father art in me and I in Thee." Just super sensitive to each other.

Oh it's so beautiful. "That they also may be one in us. That the world may believe that Thou has sent me." You know what'll convince the world who Jesus is? When we're one, that' what'll do it. That's what'll do it. "And the glory which Thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one." He put His glory in us didn't He?

That we might be one and His glory is the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Holy Spirit is our point of unity, right?   With all of the same Spirit, that's our contact for oneness. "I and them, Thou and me that they be made perfect in one and that the world may know that Thou has sent me and hast loved them as Thou hast loved me." You know when we're really going to turn this world upside down, when we are really going to shatter the complacency of this world when we are one.

I'll tell you if this church ever became one in terms of body life and ever began to minister to each others needs spiritually and sensed a super sensitive oneness, the world would never be able to cope is what would happen here. Because we would release the unity of the Spirit and all the energy that's wrapped up in it.

Now you say well how does this...this oneness work? Well, I'll show you the key, this unity. It's based on humility, that's the key. Now turn with me to Philippians 2, because I want you to see it. Verse...let's look at verse 2. Philippians 2:2, now Jesus prayed that we'd be one, right? Paul also desired the same thing and the Philippians evidently hadn't fulfilled this so they can perhaps give us a good of example of what we need to hear.

Listen to verse 2. Paul says to the Philippians, "Fulfill ye my joy, my highest joy, that ye be," what, "like-minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind." See what is Paul want the Philippians to be? One, just be one. Have the same kind of love. You know there are different kinds of love. Well, you really love her and you don't love her too much. Well, you can tolerate her. You know, just have the same love, be one, be like-minded, having the same mind. You say what mind is it? I'll tell you what mind it is. Look at verse 5.

"Let this mind be in you which was also," what, "in Christ Jesus." What mind are you to have? The mind of Christ. You say well, what is the mind of Christ? I'll show you what the mind of Christ is, verse 6. "Who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God," in other words something to hold onto, "but Himself of no reputation took upon him the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of man, being found in fashion as a man. He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

Now, you know what mind that is my friend? That is the mind of condescending humility. Do you see it there? Here is the mind of Christ. He was there, He came and was obedient to death. That is humility, you see? You know how we get to be one? Verse 4, "Look not every man on his own things, but every man on the things of others." You know how we get to be one? By being like Jesus and saying look, I don't care about myself. I just want to get down here and if it means to suffer to show my love to you, I'll suffer see. Humility just says I don't care about me. All I care about is you. Can you imagine what would happen if all of us went around caring nothing for ourselves and everything for everybody else. Listen my friend, you'd get your care. You'd have this whole body caring for you.

But most Christians spend so much time caring for themselves that nobody else could tolerate the care for them. Listen, if we ever learned, and by God's Spirit we can, to just start caring for each other, you would be drowned in care and love. See that's the mind of humility. I don't care about myself. Why should I care about myself? I just want to care about you.

No wounded egos, no toes have been stepped on. Well, I'm not going over to that thing anymore. I'm not speaking to Mrs. So an So. That's the last time for that. That's that humility. You know what that is? That's ego, that's just ego going whoosh, rising to the top.

The mind of humility was the mind of Christ. Listen, Christ never...He never tried to maintain His ego when He got here. They spent on Him and He just stood there. They nailed Him to the cross. He just hung there. He didn't say you can't do this to me, I won't tolerate it.

See the mind of humility says if this means your salvation, and you're...if this means that you can have something, if this means your benefit and your blessing, I'll suffer because I only care about you. You know, that's...that's kind of a foreign thing isn't it? Sadly, but that's what the body concept is all about folks. It's...it's all about caring for somebody else and not caring for yourself, did you know that? That's what it's all about.

In Romans 12:3, listen to what Paul says. "For I say through the grace that is given to me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. For as we have many members in one body." See. We're all in the body of Christ. How do we get our unity? By not thinking about me but you.

You don't need to worry about your own ego. You don't need to worry about your own little problems. You don't need to be so self-directed in all of your thoughts that it's always you. Just start reaching out and touching somebody's life and forget about yourself.

We are one. And the point of contact for our unity must be humility. You say, well how far does it go? I mean, you could get trampled. So get trampled, get trampled. You think God can restore you? Yeah. 1 Corinthians 6, this is really going to get you. I hope none of you are in litigation at this point. 1 Corinthians Chapter 6 you're about to get devastated. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 7 and 8, I love it. I love it. Paul here is condemning a Christian who sues another Christian, you know, goes to court and hassles publicly with him. Listen to this, verse 7, 1 Corinthians 6, "Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because you go to law one with another why do you not rather take wrong." Just take it. You say but you don't know how much it was. Take it.

"Why do you not rather allow yourselves to be defrauded?" Allow myself to be defrauded? Nay you do wrong and defraud and that your brother." Take it, just take it. Just learn to care and care so much that you could care less what happened to you. And you want to know something, some brother may defraud you, but some other brother is going to pick you up, because a giving person and a loving person receives what he gives and gets back the love that he gives away.

Christ is our head, we are the body and we are to minister to each other in love. Now, humility is the key. If there's a second key, an equal key we will not say that these are unequal, but equal, the second key equal to humility and completely detached and they both overlap is love, is love.

And there's a verse that is so exciting John 13:34. Where Jesus says this, "A new commandment I give unto you that ye," what, "love one another." Now you see what does love mean? Love means well, I like so and so until he does me wrong. No, no, no, see love doesn't care what happens. Love is uncircumstantial. Love just splatters out on anybody, it doesn't matter what they do. See, that's love. Love doesn't pick and choose. Love is just there and whoever gets in the way gets loved.

See, and it doesn't matter what...you know, I always liked this, people say well I love her in the Lord. Which is like saying I hate her. Same thing, right? You know, as if you had a little valve and you could say I'm going to squirt you with eight drops of divine love unmixed with my own. Pssst, you know, and shut it off.

You can't love somebody in the Lord. You either love them or you don't. And Jesus said, this is not an option folks, this is a new, what, commandment. You say, well how can he command it, we don't have the capacity. Oh yes. The love of Christ is shed abroad where? In your heart, Romans 5:5. Okay, "a new commandment, I give you that you love one another," how? "As I have loved you that you also love one another." And watch this, "And by this, shall all men know that ye are my disciples if you have love one to another.

Do you know how to convince the world that Jesus is for real and that we really love Him? Just start loving one another. Listen the greatest evangelism in the world is not going out necessarily or having a big revival. The greatest evangelism in the world is so much love that the world can't figure it out. Oh listen, if the principal that brings our unity is humility, the mark of our unity is love, isn't it, love.

Paul said to those Thessalonians, he said, oh, he said, "the Lord make you to increase and abound in love toward one another." John said this is a message that you have heard from the beginning that ye should love one another. Do you really love? I mean, do you love like Christ loved? Or are you so protective of your ego that every time something goes wrong, you retaliate and you react and you get bitter and if everything isn't like you like it and if the church isn't like you like it and if sister so and so or brother so and so, is that the kind of person you are? Or are you just the kind of loving person and it doesn't matter what the circumstances your love just gushes and whatever's out there gets it?

Listen, we are one and the principle of our oneness is humility and the mark of oneness is love. It's the kind of love that humbles you know. The kind of love that goes to his brother and says brother I have had a bitterness against you and I want to ask you to forgive me and I want to begin to love you. That's the kind of love it is.

And then it's the kind of love that says brother, I forgive you. And it's the kind of love that says hey I'm sorry brother. I'm sorry. It's the kind of love that doesn't criticize others to build up itself. And it's the kind of love that loves no matter what it costs, money, prestige, position, doesn't matter.

Our oneness will rise and fall on our humility and love. Now let me say this way. If you have anything but love for any single believer, before the body of Christ is ever going to be healthy, you're going to have to pray to God, repent and confess and go to that believer and make it right.

Listen, we must have your love. That's right, you. Everyone, we must have your love for the unity of the body. We'll never have it without yours. We have unity positionally, we've got to have it in practice or the world's are never going to know. And we're not going to experience the joy of the body life. And so we are one, let's practice our positional oneness.

Second thing about the body, let's go back to 1 Corinthians 12 for a minute. If the first aspect of the body is unity, the second aspect is diversity. Diversity, we're one and yet we're many. Now verse 14 of 1 Corinthians 12. "Where the body is not one member, but," what, "many." All right, unity is our base, diversity is our operation isn't it?

Sure the body's one and yet there are arms and fingers and all various parts and ears and eyes and all of the various members of the body each with a unique function operating distinctly and yet as one. Verse 14 says, "The body is many members." There is diversity within the body.

You know, we're all different aren't we. Romans 12, "we have been given different gifts and the measure of faith to go with the gift." In other words, if God gives you a spiritual gift, He gives you the amount of faith to operate doesn't it? Can you imagine what happened if God gave you a particular gift and then not the faith to operate it? It'd be frustrating. Or if God gave you too much faith for the measure of the gift that He gave you. So God matches the measure of faith with the gifts so that you always have the exact amount of faith to operate the right gift.

All right, these are going to be brief. We'll just mention them to you, but the diversity is important. We all have distinct gifts. We'll talk about the gifts of the Spirit as we get into Ephesians, so we won't belabor the point. But looking at verse 4 of this chapter. Let me just read them to you. "Now there are diversities of gifts." Now these aren't talents friends. These aren't innate abilities. These are Spirit given gifts. When you're...when you become a Christian, God, through His Spirit, gives you a specific gift.

Watch them, these are Spirit given, divine gifts that you have. "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit." Now you see the body needs this, right? We've got to all compliment each other. We all can't be everything, right? So I can do one thing, you can do one thing, somebody else can do another thing and we minister to each, don't we? See, for the health of the body.

Any organ that doesn't function maims and cripples the body. All right, so there are diversities of gifts with the same Spirit. There are differences of administrations the same Lord. There are diversities of operation, but the same God. See how it's...it's diversity in unity. All right, "For the one is given by the Spirit, the word of wisdom." There's a gift some people have wisdom. "To another the word of knowledge." Some people have or learn it. They know the Word of God. "To another faith." Did you know that faith is a Spirit given gift? Some people have that gift. Some people don't.

Now all of us have faith to believe God, but some have the gift of faith, which is faith beyond the normal kind of faith. "To another gift of healing," by the same Spirit. "To another working of miracles." "To another prophecy. To another discerning of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues. To another the interpretation of tongues." And of course, if you study carefully the Word of God, you'll find out that there are all kinds of other gifts mention in Romans 12 and Ephesians as well.

Some of them are temporary, some of them are permanent, some of them are for the unbelievers, some of them for the edification of the body. We won't get into all of that. But basically there are diversity of gifts. Verse 11, "But all these work that one and the very same Spirit," see, "dividing to every man severally and you will." So in order to allow for functioning in the body, so that we can all minister to each other and I can work with you and I can be to you what you can't be, I can instruct you and you can perhaps do something operating another gift for me, we can all work together, the Spirit has divided up the gifts in beautiful balance.

And I'll put it simple, if you're not using your gift, somebody's getting cheated. Ephesians tells us that even the diversity of gifts make for unity. You know that? Listen to this Ephesians 4:11, "He gave some Apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, teachers, all these gifts for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry or the edifying of the body," watch this, "until we all come unto the unity of the faith." You see the diversity of gifts brings unity.

You say how? Well, because as we all minister to each other as all of us are being ministered to and ministering our gifts in a perfect exchange, we're all together maturing, aren't we? And the full compliment of gifts is being bestowed upon every member. You see? So we're coming together. Because if you're ministering to me and I'm ministering to you and together we're ministering the gifts that God's given us, we're all together growing into one perfect mature body.

And so diversity is so important. Your spiritual gifts are a sovereign God given blessing and you must operate them. You say well, I applied to the Sunday School, they don't need a third grade teacher. Bless your heart, I don't know if we need a third grade teacher. I don't really care in your case. Do you know why? Because of this, the Bible doesn't say find an organization and assign your gift to it. It doesn't say that.

If you have a spiritual gift, operate it. You say there aren't any openings. Oh yes there are. If you have the gift that helps, go help somebody. You don't need the church organization. Go do it. If you have the gift of teaching go find a class and teach it. If it's a class of one, two, in your neighborhood. Go find somebody that needs to be taught.

If you have the gift of evangelism, go find somebody that doesn't know Jesus Christ and evangelize them. You don't need the church organization. So many people sit around, they've got spiritual gifts that the body of Christ is just craving and somebody needs you to minister to them. Don't wait for the organization to fit you in the slot. Go find somebody and minister your gift.

And I'll clue you, if you can't find somebody to minister your gift to then you're probably not in the mainstream of the body life to begin with. We need your gift to be ministered. The Spirit didn't give it to you to stick it on a shelf. You say well, I don't even know my gift. Then find out how. Read the list of gifts in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4. Find out the one that is your by prayer and by studying the gifts and determining what you like to do and what your do with the Spirit's blessing and the measure of success.

I mean, you know you don't have the gifts of pastor/teacher if you're a woman. So that eliminates that. Secondly, you know you don't have the gift of evangelism if you can't stand to get up in front of people and speak, at least on a large scale. If you love to work with people, maybe have the gift of help. If you're great organizer, maybe you have the gift of administration or ruling. Whatever it is, you read them over, you discover them and I promise if you're honest and you want to know, the Holy Spirit will show you.

And then don't worry about this church. Don't worry about Grace Community Church, you go find somebody that needs to be ministered to and minister to them. And when I need a Christian and he'll start talking to me, you know, and I'll say maybe something, you know, we've got a lot of needs in our church, could you help us? He'll say gee, I'd love to help you, but listen I am too busy. I've got this class over here and I'm working with so and so. And I say terrific, you know, go on get out of here, see.

You don't need this organization to minister your gift. If you do, you're just leaning on a crutch. Oh listen, you that are working here, this is where God has you. Use your gift, but if you can't find an opening, if there's not a place as far as you know in the structure, just go and minister to somebody. Go teach somebody. Go find somebody who wants to know. You say where are they? This church right tonight is full of people who need to know the Word of God.

You could probably strike up an acquaintance, go home with somebody, meet them on a daytime and just sit down and teach them some things. There are so many new Christians in this church that need to learn. Find a ministry. If your ministry is the ministry of compassion, caring for people, go visit some sick people. We have a list of them. Call the office, go find them. Don't wait for the structure. Minister your gift. As the kids say get it on. Fast.

Point three, harmony. The last thing that the body must have is harmony. We're all ministering our gifts and yet it's got to blend doesn't it? I love this. This is so good. Verse 15. If there's not harmony in the body it's ridiculous. "If the foot shall say because I am not the hand, I am not of the body. Is therefore not of the body?" Of course not.

"And that the ear shall because I am not the eye, I am not of the body. Is therefore not of the body?" You know, the idea of insignificance. Well, I'm so insignificant, I don't even belong in this situation. That's not true you have a function.

Verse 17, "If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing?" You know, a lot of people...well, if I was only an eye, I'd really operate. I'm just a foot. You know? And so Paul says, "If the whole body was an eye where would the hearing? If the whole body were hearing where would the smelling?" See, there's got to be diversity. There's not place for envy or jealousy, because there's no hierarchy. You don't need to envy somebody else's gifts. God's given you yours. They are as absolutely 100% critical to the life of the body as mine or anybody else's gifts.

And then in verse 18, "But God hath set members." God knows what He's doing. See, everyone of them in the body as it pleased Him. He's got a master plan for unity. And if they were all one member where were the body? Why everybody can't do the same thing, discover your gift and use it. We're all part of the same body. We have different things to do.

Then humility is the key. Verse 21, "And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. Nor again the head to the feet, I have not need of you feet." You see this is the idea of, you know, Lording it over, see. You know, you're just...you're nothing. You down there, I'm the head. You know, see.

Then I like verse 22, "Nay much more those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary." In other words, you know, some...the ideas like this, somebody will say well, I'm the nose. Really beautiful, makes for nice looking and the real thing, the most important thing is it's not the nose, it's the feet that get your somewhere. You'd be better off to have an injured nose than crippled feet. That's what He's saying right here. You know, the ones who are always saying well we're the public ones see. We're the ones that everyone sees, and he says wait a minute, it's the stuff going on the background that may be really the necessity.

That's how you learn that in the ministry. I see people coming to Christ in our services and I go into the situation of people coming to Christ, and you know what I discover, somebody's been working with them. Some feet or some hands in the broddy have been laboring just because I happen to be the mouth who stands up and gets the preeminence. That doesn't prove anything. My gift is not one bit more significant than yours. In fact, it may be less necessary than yours.

"And those members, verse 23, "of the body which we think to be less honorable upon these we bestow more abundant honor. And our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness." See, you know, like parts that aren't so handsome and fancy, they're the ones that are really doing the job. That really takes the stuffing out of somebody who stands up and says we'll I'm really the beautiful part of the body. See?

Verse 23, "For our comely parts have no need." What do they do? Just look...just look good? When God hath tempered the body together and having given more abundant honor to that part with which lacketh." Those internal organs that are ugly, that are not pretty at all, they are the essence of life. It's not just the visible beautiful things.

It's that part that does the work that's not anything to look, but functions to keep life in the body. And you know, we've got to be sure we don't get this kind of a dichotomy don't we? Where we say well we're the fancy parts and you're just this. No, sir. Verse 25, "Don't do it that there should be no schism in the body, no division, but that the members should have the same," what, "care one for another." There's no difference.

See, no difference. "And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it. One member be honored, all the members rejoice with it." Now you're the body of Christ, unity, and members in particular, diversity, now harmonize. Don't set a hierarchy. See, oh we've got to be a healthy body folks. We've got to be. We must be healthy and we need you. We don't need more structural unity. We don't need more organization. We need more body unity, more body ministry.

That's what Jesus prayed for. Let's answer His prayer. Our unity is the unity of the Spirit, not the unity or the denomination or the church or the organization. And there will be true spiritual unity when we humble ourselves, when we look every man on the things of others, when we love with a love that could care less what happens to us. And when we begin to minister in harmony our spiritual gifts to each other.

Oh I pray God, every day that this will be the case here. And that the world will look at us and say, yes, Jesus is real. We can tell because of their love.

Father, we thank you tonight for these words. We've abbreviated them somewhat Lord, but you know. You know the truths and thank you for teaching us about the body. What a glorious truth it is. Thank you for Jesus who is our head from whom surges the power and the resource and the wisdom and the impulse into this body. Oh God, teach us to operate. Teach us to function. Help us to just go out and find somewhere to minister our gift that we might really begin to work for You, for the health of the body. That we might be so united that we might set a torch that'll flame across the world.

While your heads are bowed for just a moment, as we close our service, I want to have just a moment of silent prayer. And I want you to just pray a short prayer with me. Something like this, Christ I recognize my place in the body. I want three things, number one, Christ teach me to be humble. Number two, teach me to love. Number three, show me my gift, teach me to use it. Will you pray that prayer? Teach me to be humble, to love, to know my gift and use it. You may have more than one, most Christians do. Oh pray that prayer right now.

I trust that you did. And I know that the Spirit of God will honor your prayer. We need you. Desperately the body needs you to operate to be sensitive. I need you. We must work together. Whatever the cost, caring for each other as one. That's what Jesus prayed for, that's what we want for His glory.

Our Father we pray that You'll really embed these truths in our minds that we might indeed be one. Teach us to be one. Soften our hard hearts and make us one in the Spirit. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.
Miracles, Healings and Tongues
Selected Scriptures

     Now we've been studying these gifts and the principles upon which these gifts operate. And we found out that it's very important that all believers minister their gifts for the building of the body. And if the body is built, then the witness is effective because the building of the body brings unity and unity brings single testimony to the world.
     Specifically, we began to enumerate the spiritual gifts. We found in 1 Corinthians 12 a list of them and also in Romans 12 a list. We put the list together and we came up first of all with what we chose to call the permanent edifying gifts.
     These gifts were given for the building of believers. They are to be ministered among the believers and they build believers up individually and thus they build the body up as a total. But there were also some other gifts that were not designed for edifying the body. They were designed to confirm the word to unbelievers. These gifts did not have a design in connection with the church itself, but with unbelievers. They were to confirm the word.
     For example, three preachers came to town and all three preached different messages and you were living in the time of the New Testament era, whom would you believe? Well, you would be likely to believe the one who performed the miracles. And even as Nicodemus said to Jesus, "We know that you're a teacher come from God because nobody could do what you do except," what? God be with him. It was obvious that Jesus was from God because there were miracles confirming His testimony.
     He claimed it and then He said, "If you cannot believe what I say, believe me for the very," what? "Works sake." A confirmation of the claims of Christ was miracles. Miracles were never ends in themselves. They were always signs pointing to His claims.
     Now when the church continued, the early church, the apostolic era, these gifts were given to confirm the word of the apostles and the prophets. This is clear in Scripture. They were given certain miracle gifts. They were not for the church. They were not for believers. They were for unbelievers to confirm to them that the message preached by the apostles and prophets was in fact from God.
     Now there are four of these gifts listed in the New Testament, miracles, feeling, tongues, and the interpretation of tongues, or better languages and the translation of languages. That's the exact Greek rendering. Now they have no continuing role in the body we believe from Scriptures, we shall see, but existed for the apostolic era, designed to confirm the Word before the New Testament canon was completed and specifically while God was still directly doing signs in the face of Israel. We'll get into that.
     Now let me suggest their nature from several passages. Mark 16. And we just want to look at these passages. While you're looking up Mark 16, let me say this. I trust and pray that you will hear what I say this morning as it is given. I believe and I have many dear and precious friends who are involved in movements that believe these gifts are for the day.
     I have preached in their churches. I have fellowshipped with them as believers in Jesus Christ. And at all points we agree to disagree when we run into each other at this point, and I desire not to ride my hobbyhorse. I trust and pray to God that I'm not that deductive, but to be objective with Scripture.
     I am open to anything that the Spirit of God will teach me. I pray that. I pray that God will keep my tongue from saying anything that is not of Him, at the same time knowing that it's an awful tough thing for Him to get past my blind spots. But nevertheless, what I say I say in love, and yet I say with a boldness that can only be mine from study of the word of God and I trust you'll hear it in that way. It is no reflection upon the salvation and the genuineness of many people who are involved.
     All right. Mark 16:14. All we're trying to do is bring it all to the light of Scripture. Mark 16:14. "Afterward He appeared unto the eleven as they sat eating and abraded them with their unbelief and hardness of heart because they believe not those who had seen Him after He had risen." You remember the testimony came to the disciples that Jesus was risen and they weren't too sure about that.
     "He said unto them," verse 15, "Go ye into all the world. Preach the gospel to every creature, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow those who believe." Now He says to the eleven that attending your message to confirm the faith of those who believe will be certain signs. "In My name you shall cast out demons." And here He, I believe, is talking directly about the eleven. "They shall cast out demons. They shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents. They shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them." That is, they can take poison with no effect.
     "They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover." Now here is an interesting thing. Here is a Scripture that suggests to us that these who were to go out and proclaim the message would have attended miracles. And really all of the four gifts that we talk about are here. The gift of miracles, for example, would certainly be the ability to take up serpents and drink any deadly thing and not be hurt. That is a miracle. The gift of healing is indicated here. It says that they will be able to lay hands on the sick and they will recover. And tongues is indicated here as it says they will speak with new languages.
     All of those gifts then are represented here as our Lord promises to the eleven that they shall be confirmed by these gifts and by these miracles. Now if today we are to assume that anyone still has all of this that is meant for them, then we must find ourselves agreeing with the Appalachian snake handlers and with those who would perhaps from the church of the firstborn, as it's called, drink poison and so forth and so on. It doesn't work like they want it to work very often.
     But nevertheless, if we take part, we must take all because it says, "These signs shall follow those who believe." If it's a permanent thing, then we're stuck with the whole thing. 2 Corinthians 12:12. We continue just to look at some passages to set a frame of reference. 2 Corinthians 12:12. Paul's talking about his apostleship here. And he's verifying the fact that he was an apostle by saying this. "Truly," now watch it, a definite article. "These signs of an apostle were wrought among you in paces - signs, wonders, and mighty deeds." Definite article. Not some signs, the signs. A definite identification of certain signs given to apostles. The signs of an apostle.
     The apostles had certain signs granted to them. Now what were they? Well, apparently they were granted back in Mark 16. Now for a further word, I want you to notice Hebrews 2. Now remember, the book of Hebrews was written to just who it says, Hebrews to Jews, which becomes very important. Verse 3 of chapter 2. "How should we escape what we neglect great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord?" Of course, they didn't hear it from Him. "But it was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him."
     Now the Lord confirmed, which means made believable or made finally true, that which was affirmed or stated was confirmed, made believable. How? Verse 4. "God, bearing them witness with signs, wonders, diverse miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit." Now these certain gifts of the Holy Spirit were to confirm the word in the hearing of these Jews. That's exactly what the passage says. "These words were confirmed to us." The preaching was done. The confirmation came through the deeds done by the gifts of the spirit given to the apostles.
     So we conclude then that certain spiritual gifts called gifts of the Holy Spirit were the signs of an apostle and that they had therefore their significance in the apostolic ministry, which was a foundational ministry. And in the early church when there were myriad voices giving all kinds of messages, God confirmed the truth by these special gifts granted to apostles to confirm in the hearing of those who heard.
     Warfield - Benjamin Warfield. Perhaps not superseded by any, as a Biblical scholar in his own right, and that in itself is not an accreditation, only a statement of fact, said this. "These miracle gifts were part of the credentials of the apostles as the authoritative agents of God in founding the church. Their function thus confined them to distinctively the apostolic church and they necessarily passed away with it."
     If we believe that Ephesians 2:20 says the apostles and the prophets were the foundation, then the signs of an apostle went when the apostles went. And if the signs of the apostles were the confirming gifts of the Holy Spirit, then we can tie the whole thing together and we can see then that as the apostles passed from the scene, so did the gifts of the Spirit given to them as confirming signs pass from the scene with them.
     Now certain passages in Acts specifically assign and associate these gifts to the apostles. And just to pull out maybe one here in Acts 14:3 just to give you an idea, it just says this. "A long time therefore abode they, Paul and Barnabus in Iconium, abode they there speaking boldly in the Lord and gave testimony under the word of His grace and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands." Here's an example of how God used these gifts. They would preach and their preaching would be confirmed as divine because they did miracles.
     Now I don't believe that the church today needs this kind of confirmation. The church today does not need confirmation. I can tell you right now if three people come into town and all three have a different message, I can tell you immediately who's from God and the standard is not who does miracles. What's the standard? The Bible. Because here is that standard that God has granted to confirm anybody's message.
     Paul even said in 1 Corinthians 14 to the prophets, he said, "When you prophesy, be sure that your prophesy ties into the doctrine that I taught you." And so we must be careful then to realize that the verifier today of any man's message or of any man's experience or of anything spiritual is the word of God. It is the final test and is the final authority and rule of faith and practice.
     So we cannot assume then that these verifying or confirming gifts any longer are needed to confirm the Word. The Word is established. To say that we need miracle signs today, particularly of all places in our society in America and in churches where the Word is in everybody's hands, is to overlook or deny the finality and the authority of Scripture. I'm reminded of Luke 16:31, you know, where it says, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither would they believe that one rose from the dead."
     When you have the Scripture, that suffices. That's the point. Even by the time Paul wrote Ephesians, he says, "There will be evangelists and teaching shepherds." And he says, "They will build the body." But he makes no mention at all of any of these miraculous gifts. And then when you read Paul's letters to Timothy and Titus, you find that the tool is the Word of God. He continually says, "Teat sound acra." Teat sound acra.
     Now if in fact these confirming gifts do exist today, as some say they do, if they do exist today, then they would accompany great Bible teachers or they would accompany people who are giving out the gospel in lands where there was no Bible to confirm their message. But they would not accompany groups of Christians who have in their hands the Scripture. That has absolutely no significance at all. It's nothing to do with the Biblical gift.
     The great historic Bible teachers agree that these gifts do not belong to them. And if you go back in history and trace the men who have committed unto us the great works of theology, they were not involved in this. These gifts were for apostolic times then as a foundation ministry.
     Now let's look at the gifts. We can only do a cursory look at them. First of all, the gift of miracles. 1 Corinthians 12:10. In listing the gifts, he talks about miracles, the working of miracles. Now you say, "McArthur are you telling me that miracles have ceased?" No. I don't think miracles have ceased. I know they're going on all over the place. I've seen miracles constantly. God is a God of miracles. You say, "Well, and let me - give me a definition of a miracle." A miracle is no big thing. Everybody gets all, you know, the unbeliever gets all upset about a miracle. It's nothing. It's nothing.
     Let me show you what I mean. We live in a little natural world. Let's call it a pond, okay? Our little pond. And we say, "Everything in our little pond is just the way it ought to be." Well, a miracle is no different than God, if He exists, sticking His finger in the pond and making a ripple. I mean, if there's a God up there, then a miracle is no big thing. It's just like throwing a rock in the pond and the ripples go on. Pretty soon the pond calms down and goes back to normal. Read C.S. Lewis' book on miracles. He covers the whole subject very aptly.
     A miracle is God just sticking His finger in the pond and making a ripple. And if there is a God and He made the pond, He can stick His finger in it anytime He wants. So a miracle is nothing to get upset about. In fact, miracles prove God exists. That's why the general rationalists crucified their souls when they eliminated all the miracles from the Bible. They came up with humanistic philosophy. No. God does do miracles. And miracles go on all the time. Miracles are healing.
     I even believe that God could give to a missionary somewhere the ability to speak a language he didn't know. That's a miracle. I don't think that's the Biblical gift of tongues. That was an apostolic gift. But I think God can do miracles with people's mouths as much as He can do with any other part of their body. God still does miracles. We see Him do them all the time. The greatest miracle He does is the miracle of the new birth. I mean I'm a miracle. You have to be powerful to change me. You know, like the little boy says, "He's not even finished yet, you know."
     Our Lord, when He was on Earth, did many miracles. And He always did them to attest to His truth. But God today may do some miracles so that you can give your testimony and someone could say, "Well, a God that can do that must be real." That may be true. But no longer to substantiate written revelation, which is a closed system. So I'm not saying that miracles have ceased. I'm only saying that miracles are different today and that the gift of miracles has ceased because it was apostolic.
     You can study this history of miracles and you'll find there were four great periods of miracles in the Bible. And that the other periods in the Bible, they just don't even exist. The period of Moses, a time of miracles. The period of Elijah and Elisha, again. Then a great long period of time with no miracles. And then all of the sudden during the life of Christ and the apostolic era. Miracles had a limited purpose and a limited time always. And people just don't continually do miracles.
     The gift of miracles, today, we believe has ceased with the ceasing of the apostolic era. To be able to drink poison, to be able to walk around and perform all kinds of wonders and signs and mighty deeds is something that belonged to that era. There is nothing in all of Paul's writings to Timothy about being an evangelist and a pastor to Titus there is nothing at all about miracles. There is no indication of the doing of miracles as even an emphasis in Paul's own life. After he went to Philippi for a period of two years at least, it says nothing about miracles.
     There never was any record of miracles in Antioch, in Corinth, in Thessonichid, Jerby, Beread, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Very limited. Very temporary. I was driving to Hume Lake and I passed a big tent out on the vacant lot and the sign outside said, "Miracle services. Miracles Monday through Friday." Miracles Monday through Friday. Assembly line miracles.
     We believe that the word of God to us says nothing about the gift of miracles for this age, but that those are the gifts of the apostles. They have been temporary in any age, and with the completion of the New Testament Scripture, the authentication of any messenger is not his ability to do miracles, but his ability to teach the Word accurately. Adherence to the Word is now the attestation of any man. And we could say more about it, but let's go on.
     Healing. What about healing? This is certainly a miraculous gift and it's a basic indication in 1 Corinthians 12, as it's listed there as the ability to heal to another. It says, "Healing," verse 9, "Now you say that then God doesn't heal the sick." Of course not. God heals the sick. He restores the sick. But there are no people today walking around who at will heal everybody in response to a gift as in the apostolic era.
     Today God heals by His sovereign will and in response to prayer. You can find even if you go into the book of James. And maybe you ought to look at chapter 5 for just a moment with me. And James incidentally was written before 1 Corinthians. It says in the book of James, verse 13, "Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray." Verse 14. "Is any sick among you? Let him cough for the elders of the church. Let them pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick." That's what it says. God shall raise him up.
     Even in James, which may be the first book in the New Testament in terms of chronology, maybe the oldest. Even in the book of James, when anybody was sick, it doesn't say, "Go get the one who has the gift of healing." It says, "Pray for him." God never intended the gift of healing to have any real particular relationship with the church at all. This was a sign to confirm the Word to unbelievers. And you can study Jesus Christ and you will find that those He healed were unbelievers.
     He was involved in confirming His claims in the minds of unbelievers. When the church got sick, they prayed for each other and God answered prayer. I believe the gift of healing enabled one who was an apostle or a prophet as a proclaimer of the Word to be confirmed in the minds of unbelievers by miracles. And I say again, if the gift of healing existed today, it would not belong to so-called healers. It would belong to Bible teachers. It would belong to people who were out proclaiming the Gospel as a confirmation that it was true, not to a certain segment of people, revivalists or whatever we call them.
     Even in the later years of the apostle's ministry this thing began to wane. It's interesting isn't it that Paul, when Timothy was sick, said to him, "I know how to get yourself fixed up. Take a little wine for your stomach's sake." Now if there was the gift of healing around, somebody could have taken care of it a lot easier than that. And I've often thought too, it was interesting in 2 Timothy 4 that Paul says, "I left Profinius at my latest sick."
     Now if Paul had the gift of miracles at that time and the gift of healing, he could well have healed Profinius. But there never seems to be any instance in the New Testament where this gift is ever exercised toward a believer. And yet in all this healing that's going on today, so much of this is just all these people who have historically been in the church getting in these long lines to get healed. That doesn't follow the Biblical pattern.
     I was interested this week, and certainly wouldn't classify all of them in this category, but the testimony of this Marjo Gortner. I don't know if you heard about it, but he finally told all. He was the one who at four years old was supposed to have the gift of healing and his parents put him on the stage as it were, and he began a ministry of healing and went on and on.
     It was an interesting thing that I was with my dad last week and we were sitting there talking about this. He said, "You know I ought to go see that movie. They just made a movie about it because they called me on the phone when they were making that movie," my dad said. "And they asked me if they could use a news release and a news interview that I did when he was only four years old and they came to my church and asked me what my opinion was."
     And he said, "I told them what my opinion was, that it was a fake, that it was a hoax, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera." Now I don't know whether he's in that movie or not. He doesn't need it. But anyway, apparently the movie exposes the whole thing as a fraud. And he said, and I heard him say it on Dick Cabot or somewhere that he didn't know of one really physically legitimate healing in all the years of doing it. But he was aware of the fact that there was a great service done to people who had psychological problems.
     He was also aware of the fact that the people that were there on Monday night were back on Thursday with a new disorder. And that's very common. I did a study in college on this whole thing and this came up again and again and again and again. And so we have to be very careful in understanding the Biblical directives for healing.
     I believe God heals, but I believe He heals in response to His sovereignty and in response to prayer. And if there are people today who seem to see God heal in response to their ministry, then I say from Scriptural evidence, they may have the gift of faith to which God responds as they pray, but the gift of healing was apostolic. And they could go about healing the unbelieving to confirm the Word. And thus when the Word came, that gift ceased to have any point.
     And don't forget for a minute too that some of the healings may be real. God may desire to heal somebody. Satan also can heal. Matthew 7. Read it. You can read about it in Acts 8. You can read about it in Acts 13. Satan can heal. In fact, Jesus Christ did all of this and they finally concluded that He was from Satan, didn't they? What He did He did by the power of Balesibob. They were so familiar with the fact that Satan could counterfeit everything that the Jews assigned Jesus to Satan and said its Satan doing the healing. Satan can do these things.
     The idea that certain people can heal in assembly line fashion in non-Biblical. And I've often thought if they really had the gift of healing, they'd be in the hospitals, not in tents. And they'd be going to unbelievers and they'd be preaching the Gospel and confirming the Word to them. So the gift of healing, we should do a study all on that entire thing sometime in the future because it is important.
     So the gift of healing again, never was intended for believers, never was intended as a permanent thing. It was a sign of the apostles. It was one of the gifts of the apostles. And today, and even in the oldest book of the New Testament, James, the injunction is pray for the sick. All right. Then thirdly, we come to tongues and interpretation. We'll take that together because we're not gonna spend a lot of time, but just some Biblical thoughts.
     I want you to consider several things in regard to this. What was the gift of tongues and what is its use? Well, the gift of tongues as it's known thanks to the King James, should be known as the gift of languages. The word is glosads, the traditional, historic word for language. It doesn't really mean anything but language. The gift was a Spirit given ability to speak a foreign language. It was just a miracle that God could use as a sign to confirm the Word.
     The most important thing that happened in Acts 2 was the preaching of Peter, right? That tremendous sermon. It was in response to that sermon that 3,000 people repented, right? But what really confirmed in their minds that Peter's sermon was from God? What was it? It was all those people speaking in their own languages the wonderful works of God. It was a confirming gift. It was intended for unbelievers.
     He'd only pointed to the sermon. It never was an end in itself. It only was a pointing of a sign to hear the sermon. It was a confirming gift. How else would they know it was from God? But when they saw that miracle, where else could they assign that thing? They heard Peter, after having done this, stand up and preach, in effect they said, "Whoa, after that miracle, we must assume this is God's message." At least the 3,000 believed that.
     Now let me take it a step further. In addition, tongues was a sign only...say it again. Only to Jews. It never had any point to Gentiles. In Acts 2, Jews. In Acts 10, "They of the circumcision heard it and believed." All the way through Acts, every time tongues occurs, Jews are present. It is pointless to Gentiles. So we concluded two things. It was pointless among believers. It is pointless among Gentiles. To them, look at the movement today where a lot of Gentile believers do it to each other, it is totally anti-Biblical.
     Now let me show you what I mean by that. Look at chapter 14, verse 21. 1 Corinthians 14:21 says this. "In the law it is written." And here it goes back to the Old Testament. Isaiah 28:11. Isaiah 28:11. "In the law it is written with men of other tongues and lips will I speak unto this people." That little phrase, this people, refers in the context of Isaiah, to Israel. So God says, "I am gonna talk to Israel, but I'm gonna talk to Israel with other," doesn't really say men of in the original. Just says, "With other tongues and other lips. I'm gonna talk to Israel with a miracle of the mouth," is what he said. With tongues and other lips, I'm gonna talk to Israel.
     That's the whole point of tongues. It was to Israel. "This people only," refers to them. Now watch in verse 22. "Wherefore tongues are for a sign. Tongues are for a sign." What does a sign always do? It always points to something else. Here it is always pointing to the Gospel, always, always to the Gospel. Now watch. Is the sign not to them that believe? Tongues never had any point to believers. It never had any meaning to believers.
     That's the whole problem in Corinth. They were exalting this thing, pushed it all out of whack, confused it with the oracles that they were so familiar with in their pagan worship, in which there was much ecstatic speech. And they had the whole mishmash going on there and Paul is trying to straighten it out without totally eliminating it because there are a lot of Jews still in Corinth.
     And he knows that there are times when it can be used to confirm the word to an unbelieving Jew. So in straightening it out, he says, "First of all, get it right. It is not to them that believe." And yet today in this movement, all you ever hear is that you're not a real Christian until you've done it. And all these Christians, you're not the fullest kind of Christian you should be. I shouldn't say real. That would be inaccurate.
     You haven't experienced the fullness of the whole thing. And then you have a whole lot of Christians doing it to each other. There is no reason for that. They have all the revelation God ever intended right here in this book. When the word of Christ dwells in them richly, which is what it is to be filled with the Spirit, they will experience all the experience there is to experience. And so we see it's got to be brought to the test of Scripture.
     Now in quoting from Isaiah 28:11, he assigns it definitely to Israel. Now I take it a step further in verse 22. "Tongues are not for them that believe, but to them that believe not." What them that believe not? The Jews who believe not. And he says, "Why don't you try preaching? That's good for everybody. That's good for those who believe." He says in affect to the Corinthians, "You don't need any more experience folks. You need doctrine." That was their problem.
     Now watch verse 23. This is confusing if you don't understand it. "If therefore the whole church be come together." Here's what was going on in Corinth that all the Christians would get together. This was the whole church, the Christians in the one place and they're all speaking with tongues. They're all really going on and on speaking in all these languages. And perhaps most of them weren't languages at all, but just kind of gibberish. We'll talk about that in a minute.
     "There come in those that are unlearned or unbelievers. Well, they not say they are mad." Now you say, "Well, wait a minute. It doesn't make sense." In verse 22, it says, "Tongues are signs of them that believe not." In verse 23, it says, "If them that believe not come in, they'll think you're mad if you do it." You say, "What's the difference?" The difference is this. They are a sign to Jews that believe not. Corinth was not a Jewish city. What was it? It was a Gentile city, Greeks. And the problem was Gentiles were coming in and they couldn't figure out what was going on.
     They were having to be exposed to a phenomenon God never intended for a Gentile. That's what Paul has to mean here. They're coming into your assembly. You're all doing that. I'll give you an illustration. I have a Gentile neighbor that lives next door to me...right next door. And we've been endeavoring to share Christ with this lady and her husband. My wife has shared with her. I shared with her. I went to visit her in the hospital. She had a severe heart attack and prayed with her and explained the Gospel and all of this. And we've been through it and really endeavoring to win them to Christ. And they come out of a very difficult background, a religious background, which is always the hardest to get people to Christ because they're very religious people, very good people.
     And we have really been working and praying and passing back and forth information and giving them tapes and having them turn on the Voice of Calvary and watch it on TV, and just everything we could do. She came over to my wife the other, just in, all broken up and just really a mess and said, "Boy, I gotta ask you about something." She said, "A lady came over and took me to a meeting." And she said, "Those people were crazy." So my wife probed a little bit, and this lady had come and taken her, an unbelieving Gentile into a tongues thing. She had sat there and she concluded the whole thing was mishmash and slammed the door shut on our opportunity to communicate Christ to her.
     She thinks that people who would do that are out of their minds. And since they named the name Christ and they carry the Bible and they go to the same thing we go through, we must be a part of the thing. She like us, so she doesn't go that far. But in her mind that's what's happening. And exactly what Paul said. That is never intended for Gentiles. That was a special sign God gave to Jews in a special era.
     Now mark this, beloved. That is clear from Scripture that it was to Jews. That is clear. We cannot argue with that. That is not my opinion. That is the Word of God that says that. Now if in 70 A.D., God destroyed Jerusalem and stopped dealing with Israel and turned to the Gentiles, then by that fact alone, tongues had to cease because God no longer is in the business of giving special signs to Israel. True?
     He has for the time temporarily done what to Israel? Set them aside and what? Blinded them. The signs to Israel are over for the present time, therefore, this is a sign to Israel has ceased. If it has ceased is a sign to Israel, that's all it ever was to begin with. It must have ceased.
     Now what are we saying? We're trying to bring to testimonial Scripture all these truths. Now today what we have is an out of context exaltation of this gift in verse 20 that says, "Brother, be not children of understanding, however, in malice be children, but understanding be men." Immaturity is to take a gift overlooking the purpose for which it was given and to use it for another purpose or to pervert it.
     The gift has clear design by God. Always to unbelievers had no point, never had any point in building the body. It never had any effect on the body, and always to Jewish unbelievers. And every time tongues is ever seen in the New Testament, Jews are present. And because they weren't present in Corinth, it is condemned. And yet He allows for it to exist because of the tremendous Jewish population moving in and out of the Corinth center of commerce.
     Read Acts 18. There were Jews there and so the gift needed to be in Corinth because of the many Jews. And it could be rightly used toward those Jews. But it had been pushed way out of whack, and especially so since those Corinthians had come out of the Oracles. And that which involved ecstatic speech was a part of their whole worship.
     There's a recent study being done on this to go into the history of this thing. And it's been found that they spoke in ecstatic languages. They called it the language of the Gods. And they dragged this in and confused the whole mess. And Paul in love is endeavoring to straighten the issue out. Let me add another thing.
     In addition, it was always a known language. It may have been foreign to the speaker, but it was always genuine. And there are many reasons for that. In Acts 2,________ languages, and it lists them. Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and Mesopotamia, Egypt, Cretans, Arabians, tells exactly which languages they were. It even uses Geneglosa in 1 Corinthians, which means kinds. Gena, genus, from which we get genus, kinds of languages, varieties of languages. There couldn't be varieties of gibberish. Gibberish is just gibberish. So it has to be languages and varieties.
     Then when it says, "The gift of interpretation of tongues," that's the word Armineah, which means translation of languages. These were languages. In 1 Corinthians 14:7, he even says it's gotta have grammatical structure. It says, "Even things without life giving sound, whether flute or harp, except they give a distinction of the sounds, how shall it be known whether it's pipe or harp?" They were just mumbling. These Corinthians had just really perverted the whole thing. And he says, "It's not even distinct. It's not genuine. It can't be translated."
     And so these things must be brought to our attention. Now, according to modern linguistics, we look at the tongues movement today and conclude that it is language. Well, I give you the testimony of a man, and there are many things about this that we could talk about.
     Let me just give you this thought. William Samuron has recently written a book, and it's the title I think of The Tongues of Men and Angels. Now he is a linguistics expert. His life has been spent studying linguistics. He is a Ph.D. in linguistics. He is the professor of Linguistics at the University of Toronto in Canada. He was raised in the United States in the Russian Malachan community in a part of it that was totaly absorbed in tongues.
     He spent his entire life as a child growing up in the tongues thing. He finally decided to study this thing, and he spent most of his life studying it. He said this. "Over the period of years I have taken part in these tongues meetings in Italy, Holland, Jamaica, Canada, United States, etcetera. I have observed old fashioned Pentecostals and neo-Pentecostals." That's 1960 on. That's the new movement in all the denominations.
     "I have been in small meetings in private homes, as well as mammoth public meetings. I have seen such different cultural settings as are found among the Puerto Rican's of the Bronx, the snake handlers of the Appalachians, Russian Malachans in Los Angeles, the Poromanias in Jamaica, etcetera." He goes on. "I have interviewed tongue speakers and tape recorded and analyzed countless samples of tongues. In every case...in every case," he says, "Glossolalia turns out to be linguistic nonsense. In spite of superficial similarities, Glossolalia is fundamentally not language." Now that's the testimony of a linguistics expert. This has been the findings of many of them.
     Now let me say this. As I said earlier, if...you say, "Does that mean that God could not do this today? That couldn't be genuine." No. Who would ever say that? Who would ever say God couldn't do anything, except lie? That's what the Bible says. But let's say this. If God desired to give some missionary the ability to speak a language he didn't know for the sake of communicating the Gospel at a crisis situation, He could to that. That's not the gift of tongues. That's just a miracle God performed on the spot.
     This gift was for Jews. It was always a known language. It was not so much to speak the Gospel as it was to show a divine supernatural act that they might hear the Gospel when it was preached. So the true gift was always a known language, always an unbeliever's sign, and always a Jewish unbeliever. It had absolutely no point for believers. And that's what's so hard for so many people to understand. There are believers just getting together and speaking to each other in tongues, which is not what the Biblical pattern is all about.
     Now you say, "Well, how did the Corinthians abuse it?" Well, when we study 1 Corinthians, which we'll do in some years from now, decades, whatever. We'll find out that they abused this like they abuse everything. Any way possible to abuse it, they abuse it. That church was a mess. There was division, carnality, sexual perversion, lawsuits between Christians, moral abuses of the believer's body, ignorance of marriage relationship, ignorance of the purpose of virginity, violations of Christian liberty, insubordination of women, abuses of the Lord's Supper, ignorance of spiritual things, even the denial of the resurrection of the body.
     That was a messed up church. So when you come to 14, you expect them to be messed up in the area of Spiritual gifts, and truly they are. And so Paul writes to correct the abuses. And in chapter 14, just a couple of things he says. In verse 1, "Follow after love." All the gifts that are ministered truly are ministered in love. Theirs wasn't ministered in love, but in division, carnality, therefore it wasn't the true gift.
     Desire spiritual gifts. That is in your congregation when you come together. Desire that God minister to you through the gifts, but rather the gift of prophesy or preaching. And he defines that gift in verse 3 as speaking to edification, exertation, and comfort. Then in verse 2, he says, and this is what they were doing. "He that speaks in a tongue speaks not of the men, but of the God." You're speaking mysteries in your spirit. Why don't you do something we can all benefit from? Like teach, preach, which pre-supposes study, which is where you get spiritual truth, which is how you grow.
     At best, verse 4, he says, "You're liable to edify yourself," which is selfish. Because the same problem today is selfishness in exercising this thing. Oh, we must not be selfish. The exercise of spiritual gift is in its true sense is selfless. It is to build you up. It is not to build me up. It is not to be centered on me at all, but for me to go out and create some kind of a spiritual experience for myself is the height of selfishness.
     As a minister, edification to everybody else. What a blessed thing that is. And he says...then he...as I say, he must allow for it to exist for the sake of Jews so he put some qualifications on it in verse 27. "In the church of Corinth, if any speak in a tongue, only two and only three." Because they were just going all over the place. Only two and only three. Anytime they meet together and God designs to do this, there may have been unbelieving Jews there that needed this gift to be ministered. Only two and three and that, one at a time and with an interpreter.
     And if you don't have an interpreter, verse 28, then don't say anything. Just sit there and pray. Verse 28. "Speak to yourself and God." Then he says this. Verse 34. "Let your women keep silence in the churches." Now if that was adhered to, 75% of the movement would be over tomorrow because it's dominated so much by women. "For it is not permitted unto them to speak." You see, that was the problem. Women had taken this thing and run away with it.
     Now what are we seeing? Well, we've seen that Paul put some very strict regulations on its use, even in Corinth, and then he shows us its significance. And we know that it was for Jews and for unbelieving Jews, therefore when God ceased to deal with Jews, He ceased to give signs to Israel. There ceased to be any need for this gift because that's what it was, a sign to Israel. In Corinth, it became a massive confusion.
     Now we've talked about how we know it's ceased. Our theology tells us that. It had a temporary purpose. We see that. But let me give you another thought. 1 Corinthians 13:8. If we look at verse 8, I think we'll see a good place to begin. "Love never fails." Then he must be gonna compare it with something that does. "Whether they be prophesies, they shall hatargetal." Be rendered inoperative or be superseded. "Whether there be tongues, they shall cease." Pauo, stop. "Whether there be knowledge, this will vanish away." Now the word vanish away in connection with knowledge, and done away in connection with prophesy, same word. Tartargetal. It means rendered inoperative or superseded.
     Now prophesy and knowledge will be superseded. What it means is that there will come a fulfillment when all prophesy and knowledge will be superseded by full knowledge. What about tongues? Well, that's a different word altogether. Tongues shall not be rendered inoperative. Tongues doesn't even appear in verses 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13, which talks about when the perfect thing comes.
     Tongues is already gone. It says this. "Whether there be tongues, they shall Pauo." P-A-U-O, cease. The word in the active voice means to make to cease. In the passive voice, it means to cease by itself. Tongues shall cease by themselves. Now watch this. This is interesting.
     It says, "Tongues shall cease by themselves. Knowledge, it will be rendered inoperative. Prophesy rendered inoperative." And then he goes on to talk about those two in verse 9. "We know in part, we prophesy in part." Tongues has already vanished. He goes on to talk about the perfect thing coming. Then he goes on to talk about prophesy and knowledge, but no tongues anymore.
     Now if we understand that it was a gift to the Jews, we can assume that it stopped at least by 70 A.D., true? When Jerusalem was destroyed and God began to work with the Gentiles. And since we look at the Greek word carefully, and Paul chose a very distinct word. We could translate it in the vernacular sense. Tongues shall fizzle out by itself. That's what it means. It'll just stop all by itself. You see the difference? Uses a different verb and a different voice and a different tense. Must be wanting to say a different thing.
     You say, "Well, when did it fizzle out?" Well, as I said, the indication at least would be 70 A.D. is a good starting place. Listen to what George Dollar says, from Dallas Seminary. I read, "Some 35 years ago a distinguished American educator, Dr. George Cutton, of Colgate University took a close look at any historical instances of the speaking in tongues. After research, it was Cutton's conclusion that in the ancient church, the Church of the Fathers, there was not one well attested instance of any person who exercised speaking in tongues or even pretended to exercise it."
     In the early church, listen to it again. The Church of the Fathers, the first centuries, there was not one well-attested instance of any person exercising tongues. Apparently, historically it stopped all by itself, just as Paul said it would. The voice of church history then is also against the modern movement, and would label it as unhistoric.
     Cleon Rogers says this, "After examining the testimony of the early Christian leaders," and he spent much time and study as a historian in this. He says, "His ministry represents practically every area of the Roman Empire, from 100 to 400, it appears that the miraculous gifts of the first century died out. They cannot be found in those first 400 years of the church."
     Now you can say, "Well, yes there was. There was Montenous and there was Tretolian in the early church. And you're right. But Montenous was a heretic who was branded as demon possessed and claimed that God only spoke through him. And he was the one in whom the Holy Spirit dwelt and he alone." Now that guy's got a problem. "And Tretolian was his disciple."
     Well, during the dark ages, there were some Catholics that spoke in tongues. The shakers was the first modern American sect. They were celibate. They were communistic. And their leader was Mother Ann Lee, who said the second coming was fulfilled in her. The seventh article of faith in Mormonism advocates tongues. It's a part of Mormonism. The modern movement was born in the Izusus street meeting in 1914.
     Now beloved, listen to this. If tongues ceased historically around 70 A.D. or the end of the first century, and then for 1,800 plus years they didn't exist. What is there to make us believe that what's going on today is real? I mean has the Spirit of God sucked out that strategic gift for 1,800 years of the church? There's nothing in the Bible to say it will be regiven again. Where has it been for 1,800 years if it's an integral part of the life of the church? Has the Spirit of God made a gross mistake? I think not. I think we need to bring what's going on today to the light of Scripture.
     You say, "Well, what is going on? What is it then?" Well, there's so many explanations. Number one, some of it, and again, some people are so sincere and so genuine and so desirous of this that I don't want to discourage that at all. I want to be accurate only in the sense of evaluating.
     First of all, some of it is just plain fake, just fake. I'll never forget preaching one time and a lady stood up and began to speak in tongues in the middle of my message. And I was just a young guy in Seminary and I was really kind of hard pressed as to what to do. So I just simply said, "I really think the Lord will probably only have us speak one at a time. Since prophesy is the greater gift, why don't you sit down and do yours later?" You know, that's about the best I could think of at the time.
     I really didn't know how to handle it. But the point was she just turned it off and sat down. Just sat down. If it was of the Spirit, I doubt very seriously I would have had that sense or whether it would have come and gone that easily. Samuron, in his book said, "Speaking gibberish is child's play." And if you read Brettison's little thing about how to speak in tongues, and he's one of the key leaders in the movement. He says, "Just keep saying, 'Ba, ba, ba,' over and over as fast you can." And Paul says, "When I was a child, I spoke as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things."
     God doesn't want baby talk. He says, "I'll pray with My spirit, but I'll also pray with My way, with My understanding." Don't talk to God in those kind of words. God is not interested in hearing that. So some of it I think is just put on. Some people so desirous of something experiential and of pressure from their peer group just do something to be doing it. And they get good at it. Then other of it I think even has to be psychological. When you stop to consider that it's a thing that's done by many groups and has been historically having absolutely nothing to do with Christianity, it's very much can be catalogued in a psychological phenomenon.
     People bring upon themself a self-induced state of hypnosis, etcetera, etcetera. Much of it is psychological. Some of it I believe is Satanic. And I have had personal encounter with demons vocalizing through an individual. I'm not gonna go into details, just believe me. It is true.
     Isaiah 8 says this in verse 19. "And when they shall say unto you, seek those who are mediums and wizards that peep and that mutter, should not a people seek under their God?" Israel was looking for some kind of weird supernatural experience. They got it. They got some demons that peep and mutter. In the Septuagen, the Greek word, Agostrithamuse, translates ventriloquist, demons can impersonate. There are ventriloquist demons. That's the indication of that text.
     Somebody I read last week in the paper said they had just had a conversation with Dr. Pike. Nobody had a conversation with Dr. Pike. Dr. Pike is removed and there's a great gulf fixed. What they had a conversation with was a demon impersonation of Dr. Pike. And they can speak and say what they want to say. Just because it happens doesn't make it true. You bring your experience to the light of Scripture.
     One writer said, "You simply lapse into silence, resolve not to speak a syllable of any language you have ever learned. Your thoughts are focused on Christ and you simply lift up your voice and speak out in confidence that the Lord will take the sound you give Him and shape it into language." What is that? That is not speaking to God with your understanding.
     Paul says, "I will pray with my understanding. I will sing with my understanding." You say, "Well, John, why do people seek this? Why do they do it?" Well, let me give you four reasons. Just quick. One, there's a departure from systematic Bible interpretation. They don't know what belongs where in God's plan. I talked to a guy who was having problems with this. And he was not into this movement, but I knew he would be soon because he couldn't figure out the second coming and he didn't understand the distinction between Israel and the church.
     He was fowled up on the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. He graduated from a seminary in this area and he just really had no definitive theology at all. He just floated all over the Bible. Everything was sort of spiritualized into a big mishmash. And he say, "I have decided." He was really a frustrated soul. But one time, finally, he said, "I have decided to just apply all of it to everybody." I said, "Good. What time are your sacrifices?"
     You can't apply all of it to everybody. That doesn't work. God operated in different times and in diverse manners according to His own design for specific reasons. And when people do not understand systematic Bible interpretation, when they didn't understand what goes into what categories theologically, then they run into all kinds of problems. And I dare say there are many of those who would say that who aren't drinking cyanide, etcetera or playing with snakes. You cannot do that. There must be systematic Bible interpretation and if they're not taught that, then they fall prey to this.
     Second, I think another reason people go into this is because they're starved for the Word of God and supernatural experience. And this is true. My heart goes out to these people. My heart longs to teach them the Word of God because there is everything. When the Word of Christ dwells on you richly, everything is yours, right? And these people don't have that. And so they starve for the Word of God. They starve for something real, something divine going on in their life. And they grasp at anything they can grasp at. And the fall of the thing lies right at the feet of the people who stand in front of them and should be teaching them, but aren't.
     Third thing is I think many people want physical feeling and emotional experience because they have a lack of faith. They don't really believe. And they have to continually be shown their faith is so weak. You know, that's doubt looking for proof. People want some kind of a supernatural thing and then I'll believe. And you know, they keep grasping.
     Then fourthly, I think people seek it because it's been offered as a quickie way to spirituality, that you can get there that fast. You're automatically in the upper group. And so what am I saying? Well, the modern movement has no base in Bible doctrine, experiences no standard, the flesh and Satan can make counterfeit experience. Tongues is not unique to Christians. We can't say experience verifies it.
     Do you know that in 11 B.C., there are reports from Biblos on the coast of Syrophenecia that tongues was going on there. They were speaking ecstatic languages. 429 to 347, when the Dialogues of Plato talk about it. Seven to 19 B.C. Virgil and the Innead describes the civil increases on the Island of Delos in these ecstatic languages. The Pythenus of Delphi recorded by Chrisostum did it. The mystery religions, the Greek or Roman cults, they're all involved in this. This is age-old stuff. You know, Mohammedan's do it. The Durvishes of Persia today utter the name of Allah and go into violent shaking, spinning trances and ecstatic speeches.
     The Eskimo's of Greenland engage in it. Their religious services are lead by the Angicook, who is the medicine man or priest. And there is dancing, nudity, all kinds of orgiastic things. And in the midst of this, they speak in these languages, these non-languages. Fraiken in the Arctic Adventure, which I think came in National Geographic, said this. "Suddenly one of the men, Cresuk went out of his head, unable to control himself to the regular rhythm of the service. He leaped to his feet crying like a raven and howling like a wolf in ecstasy. He and the girl Evalu began to yell in a language I couldn't understand. If there's such a thing as speaking in tongues, I heard it then."
     It's not necessarily confined to Christianity. Tibetan monks do it. In fact, they recorded some of the Tibetan monks, and talk about demonic. Some of them speak English and haven't got the faintest idea about English. Others are quoted in English great pieces from Shakespeare. Some of them have even quoted Fraud in German, demonic activity. We must bring everything to the test of Scripture. And the dangers of the modern movement, they confuse the doctrine of the baptism of the spirit. They subordinate Christ frequently to the Holy Spirit. They create two levels of Christians, those that have and those that haven't, the upper and the lower group. And they create a false unity.
     You know, the Bible predicts in Revelations 17 there will be a one-world church. I used to wonder how in the world that would ever happens, when everybody's got their own theology. But there's something happening today that for the first time in history is just tearing across all the denominational lines. 30,000 Catholics are now at least involved in the inner workings of a charismatic movement. Eight to 14 million people are involved in this right here.
     It's crossing all the denominational lines. People are getting together sans doctrine, you know. It doesn't matter what your doctrine is as long as you have this. It could well be that this could be that which could be the catalyst to bring the ecumenical movement that results in the false church in Revelations.
     I close with this. 2 Peter 1:3. And this is for you to mediate on. It says this. "According as His divine power." That is Christ, Jesus our Lord. "According as His divine power hath given unto us all things." What has He given unto us? Some things. Will we need more? "All things that pertain to life and godliness." How do we get them? "Through the knowledge of him."
     And when you are saved, you receive all you need. You don't need to seek for anything else. You seek to know the Word of God and you seek to know Christ better. There's no spiritual commodity dear one that you need that you don't have. The only question is a question of yield to obedience to that which is yours in Christ. Let's pray.
     Father, we thank you this morning for giving us the time to consider these truths. We speak with boldness Lord because we speak from your book. And yet we know Father that many dear ones, whom we love, whom we cherish indeed, are part of this. And we would not be unkind. We would not be unloving. We would not be unfair. Least of all God, we would not be Biblically inaccurate. And so we have endeavored to rightly divide the Scripture. And Father, as the shepherd of this flock, I feel the responsibility to protect them, secure them from those that would try to threaten them and destroy the unity and to discourage their completeness in Christ.
     So Father we've spoken these things, trust in the Spirit of God to do His work. And we pray that each of us would search his own heart and recognize indeed that all that we need is ours in Christ and be content with such as we have, but not content until we are ministering in faithfulness, in yielded ness, and an obedience. Thank you Lord for your Word and for these who gathered to learn it. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
     As we close our service this morning, we all ought to be commissioned and sent somewhere specific to deliver what we've learned. But maybe God has somewhere specific for you to go. Maybe this has helped answer some questions in your heart. Let me just say that when you're dealing with folks who are in this, don't come on perhaps as strong as I've come on to you. Come on in love. Share the Biblical principles. What I say to you, I say because you're my charge.
     When you're trying to share these principles, don't be shy about the principles. Be sure they're shared in love, less we become guilty of doing that thing which we desire not to do. Exercising our gifts outside of the context of love.
     Father, thank you again for this morning. Thank you for every precious life here, for every soul that you've laid claim to. God, just really multiply their ministry. Use them all. Bind us together in a common love of each other because we love thee. In Jesus name. Amen.
Fishing for Men
Matthew 4:18-22

Matthew Chapter 4, one of the most wonderful texts in all the word of God because that great statement of our Lord is here, "Follow Me and I'll make you fishers of men." Some years ago I was reading the Presbyterian Journal and I read this parable and I thought it was a fitting way to introduce our thoughts from Matthew 4 tonight. This is what it said: "On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a little crude little lifesaving station. The building was just a hut and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea and with no thought for them selves went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Many lives were saved by this wonderful lifesaving station so it became famous.
Some of those who were saved and various others in the surrounding area wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and their money and their effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new lifesaving crews were trained and the little lifesaving station grew.
"Some of the members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. So they replaced the emergency cots and beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely because they used it as sort of a club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work. The lifesaving motif still prevailed in the club's decorations and there was a liturgical lifeboat in the room where the club held its initiations.
"About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast and the hired crews brought in loads of cold, wet, half drowned people. They were dirty and sick and some of them had black skin and some had yellow skin. The beautiful new club was considerably messed up so the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwrecks could be cleaned up before coming inside. At the next meeting there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out they were still called a lifesaving station, but they were finally voted down and told if they wanted to save the lives of various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast a little ways, which they did.
"As the years went by the new station experienced the same changes that occurred in the old one. It evolved into a club and yet another lifesaving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself and if you visit that coast today you will find a number of exclusive clubs along the shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters but most of the people drown."
What a simple and striking illustration of the history of the church. But the work of lifesaving and the work of evangelism is nonetheless the purist and the truest and the noblest and the most essential work the church will ever do. The work of evangelism, the work of fishing men, as it were, out of the sea of sin, the work of rescuing people from the breakers of hell is the greatest work the church will ever do. It is God's great concern.
I John 4 tells us, "We only love Him because He first loved us." And John 3:16 tells us, "That God so loved the world that He gave." The greatest work in the heart of God, the greatest concern in the mind of God is evangelism. Winning the lost is God's great concern. It is also Christ's great concern. Luke 19:10 says, "For the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost." The work of winning the lost is God's concern and Christ's concern, and also the greatest concern of the Holy Spirit, for it is the Holy Spirit who comes, according to John 16, to convict men of sin and righteousness and of judgment. It is the Holy Spirit who comes upon the church and after we have received the Holy Spirit, "We are made witnesses," Jesus said, "Unto Me, in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost part of the earth." The great concern of God is evangelism. The great concern of Christ is evangelism. The great concern of the Spirit is evangelism, saving the lost.
When you come into the New Testament you find it is also the apostles greatest concern. Certainly it was true of Paul. In Romans Chapter 1, Paul echoed what is a divine sentiment, "I am debtor to the Greeks and the Barbarians, to the wise and to the unwise, so as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one who believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." Later on in that same wonderful epistle of Romans Paul shared his heart in the 9^th Chapter by saying this: "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." It was his great concern.
In Chapter 10:1 he says, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved." In I Corinthians 9:20-22 he says, "I will become all things to all men that by some means I might win them to Christ." Listen, God's greatest concern is to win people to himself. Christ's greatest concern, the Spirit's greatest concern, the greatest concern of the apostles and it was the greatest concern of the early church. When they were scattered in Acts Chapter 8 they went everywhere preaching Jesus Christ endeavoring to win people to Him.
Even in the Old Testament it was no different. In the Old Testament God's great heart was a concerned heart and it was concerned for those that were lost. In fact, in Proverbs 11:30, we have this great statement: "He that winneth souls is what, is wise." And if you know anything about the term wise in the book of Proverbs, you know that the term wise is a synonym really for righteous living. The truly righteous person, the person who really lives with understanding, the person who doesn't just know but lives it out is the one who wins souls. He is truly wise.
At the end of the book of Daniel in the 12^th Chapter and the fourth verse it says, or rather the third verse, "And they that be wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever." People who turn others to righteousness are wise and they will shine like the stars forever and ever. I think that's the source of the name Starlighter, one of our classes in our church. The word of God is clear. Our text echoes the same sentiment. Look at it: Matthew Chapter 4, the great word of our Lord Jesus Christ in verse 19, "And He saith unto them, 'Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.'" What a promise! He doesn't just say I want you to do it. He says I'll make you into those who can. This is our task.
Did you know that the term evangelize, the Greek term is used no less than 53 times in the New Testament, and it is all summarized, as it were, in the great commission in Matthew 28 when the Lord said, "Go into all the world winning people to Christ and baptizing them, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Someone said, "Evangelism is the sob of God." Evangelism is the anguished cry of Jesus as He weeps over a doomed city. Evangelism is the cry of Paul when he says, "I wish myself were accursed from Christ for my brother and my kinsman according to the flesh." Evangelism is the heart-winning plea of Moses who said, "Oh these people have sinned, yet now if Thou wilt forgive their sin, if not block me, I pray Thee, out of the book, which Thou has written." Evangelism is the cry of John Knox, who said, "Give me Scotland or I die." It is the cry of Wesley who said, "The world is my parish." Evangelism is the sob of parents in the night weeping over a lost son.
This is the greatest task and we must be about this task. At the same time evangelism is a great paradox. Winning people to Jesus Christ is paradoxical in this sense: Jesus said, "Whosoever would save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake the same shall save it." In other words in saving others we lose ourselves, or in losing ourselves in the task we will win others. In fact, we might put it this way: the one who would win the world must be rejected by the world. You can't have both.
In John Chapter 15 Jesus said this: verse 25, "This cometh to pass that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law. They hated Me without a cause, but when the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, He shall testify of Me and ye also shall bear witness." In other words Jesus says you're going to be My witnesses. You're going to go into the world and bear witness.
What's going to happen? Verse 2 of Chapter 16, "They shall put you out of the synagogues. Yea the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service." He who would win the world, he who would reach the world must be rejected by the world. He who would save his life must lose it, he who loses his life will find it used to save others. This is Jesus' way. Our Lord who saves us from death by conquering death had to yield to death.
And so evangelism, in a sense, is the sacrifice of the greater for the lesser. It is the worthy for the unworthy. It is the strong dying that the weak may live. It is not the loveless theory of the survival of the fittest, but is the sacrifice of the fittest that the feeblest may walk. The Bible is clear that we must be committed to this, that we must be committed to face the world of people without Jesus Christ and lose ourselves that we may win them.
I was rummaging through an old book this week, and I like to do that, because I find that all of the things that we think are so new and so wonderful and just discovered by this generation of alert Christians are always buried in some treasure of the past. And God's Holy Spirit has always disclosed these great truths to all His people through all the years. And I was rummaging through an old book written in 1877 and I found this little note here and I thought it was interesting. The writer was trying to incite to evangelize.
This old man of God, whoever he was, and it was anonymous, no doubt some preacher, was trying in an impassioned plea to get people to go out and win others to Christ. He was probably saying to the church, "Be a lifesaving crew not a club." And these were his words and I thought they were so interesting. "If we were supposed the present population of our globe to be sixteen hundred million, which would be 1.6 billion, in 1877, which is probably an overestimate, and that in all that vast number there was but one true Christian and that he should be instrumental in the hands of the Blessed Spirit during the coming year of the conversion of only two others to Christ, and that each of those two new converts should be instrumentally used to lead two others to Christ during their first year of spiritual life and that the work should thus continue each new convert leading two others to Christ within a year of his conversion how long would it take at this rate starting from one Christian to bring the whole sixteen hundred million to Christ? The answer will doubtless startle many of our readers, but if we may rely on figures the whole world would be converted in a little less than 30 ½ years, within less than a single generation. Is such a work too mighty for God's Spirit to accomplish or for the church to strive to achieve?
But let us bury somewhat the conditions. Instead of supposing as above that there was but one true Christian in all the world let us with a nearer approximation to the truth suppose the number to be at least 20 million. This is probably much below the truth. If each one of these 20 million Christians should bring to Christ one single soul within the coming year the whole number would be double before the end of this year 1877. If similar blessed results should follow prayer and effort in 1878 and be continued year after year each true Christian becoming instrumental by prayer and personal effort in the salvation of only one soul a year long before 1883 would have come to a close the grand chorus would be heard in heaven the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ."
Want to know something? They didn't do it. Did you know that? That's right. They didn't do it. You want hear something interesting? If one person at Grace Community Church trained two other people how to present Jesus Christ and they each led one person to Christ and this process continued every six months, in six and a half years the entire San Fernando Valley would be converted to Christ and the rest of Los Angeles in the last six months.
Now the reason why I say that is not to get into an argument about whether God wants the whole city of Los Angeles saved or not, but simply to show you that it is not an impossibility. The commission hasn't changed. It's got to start somewhere, people. It can start with us. And you know it's got to start right where you are, not up here. You know a stationary foghorn has its value, but nobody ever got rescued out of the sea by a stationary foghorn. I can come in here Sunday after Sunday and honk and blow the whistle, but it's going to take well-trained lifesaving crews who are out there picking the souls out of the sea. You see? We're being fishers of men.
Henry Ward Beecher, great preacher, said this: "The longer I live the more confidence I have in those sermons preached in which one man is the minister and one man is the congregation, where there is no question as to whom is meant when the preacher says, 'Thou art the man.'" Evangelism is the realization in time of God's eternal redemptive purpose. Personal evangelists winning people to Jesus Christ, and beloved, it all began in Matthew 4:18-22. Let's look at it.
"And Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the se, for they were fishers. And he saith unto them, 'Follow Me, and I will make you fisher of men.' And they straightway left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets, and he called them. And they immediately left the boat and their father and followed him." This was the first lifesaving crew ever gathered in the New Testament, the first band to be trained for evangelism to start the process to fulfill the Great Commission. It all began here.
Now let's look at the context again. Matthew is introducing us to the king, King Jesus. That's his theme all through 28 chapters of his gospel. And everywhere in this gospel we're going to meet the royalty of Jesus Christ. We're going to see him as king. And I've been telling you that in Matthew 4:12-25, this whole big section here is really one unit, in Matthew 4:12-25, he concentrates on the official ministry of the king. This is where Christ's official kingly ministry begins and we called it The Light Dawns. Finally the king arrives. After all the years of preparation, after the ministry of John the Baptist, after the baptism, after the temptation, finally Jesus embarks on his official ministry, the light dawns in Galilee. Everything is in perfect order. Every thing is ready.
And as Jesus' ministry begins you'll remember our outline, it's in the bulletin if you need to refresh your mind, He begins His ministry right here in verse 12 to 25 and we've given you several points to consider. First of all in verse 12 we saw He began His ministry at the right point, at the right point.
Secondly in verses 13 to 16 in the right place in Galilee. Thirdly by the right proclamation, you remember that in verse 17, "From that time Jesus began to preach and say repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Listen, Jesus was on a divine clock, a divine calendar, functioning in response to God's plan. He began His ministry at the right point when John was cast into prison, in the right place in Galilee of the Gentiles where He would have the greatest hearing, where there was the most openness, the most potential, and the greatest need and by the right proclamation. There was a kingdom coming, but somebody had to be converted to participate in it.
God had a kingdom, Jesus said, and if you want to be a part you've got to repent and be converted. So He began at the right point, in the right place, by the right proclamation, and now we come to verse 18 with the right partners, with the right partners. Jesus never intended to do it alone. He never did. Oh He could have, sure He could. He had the power. He had the right, but it wasn't the plan. He never intended to do it alone. Mark this one. He also never intended to do it just with preaching. There was to be fishing for men.
Dr. Duryea said many years ago, "The sixth soul needs more than a lecture on medicine. He needs a personal prescription." And Jesus needed some people to go beyond the lecture on medicine that He would give and take the personal prescription to the souls of the people they would meet. We don't know how all twelve disciples were called to start that first lifesaving crew, but we do know that they were all called personally by Jesus Christ. We know the circumstances around seven of them. The other five we don't know the specifics, but we know that Jesus called them himself. He picked out His crew. He picked out the individuals that he wanted to go out to be a part of this marvelous opportunity of fishing for men. Listen God always chooses His partners carefully.
You can look all the way back in the Old Testament and you can read with great wonder how God chose Israel to be his partners in evangelizing the world. They were to be the ones who were to be His mouthpiece. In Isaiah 49, he says, "Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified." He chose the Jewish people to be His partners in the Old Testament. Then He chose from among them some special people like Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel and many many more. And when we come to the New Testament Jesus chose His partners just as carefully.
In John 15:16, Jesus looked those twelve in the face and He said, "You have not chosen me," but what, "I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go forth and bear fruit." You didn't choose me I chose you. Jesus chose His partners very carefully. In John 6:70, "Have not I chosen you twelve," he said. John 13:18, "I know whom I have chosen." Luke 6:13, same truth. "And when it was day He called unto Him His disciples and of them He chose twelve." When Jesus chooses His partners He chooses very carefully.
You say, "Boy, do you think He's chosen me to be a fisher of men?" Oh yes. Everybody in Christ has that commission. We're all to be witnesses. We're all to preach Christ. We're all to speak of Christ. We're all to labor in the fields that are white unto harvest, all of us. You see it in the book of Acts as it unfolds all the way through as the church expands and grows and everybody becomes a part of the lifesaving crew. So to the prophets of the Old Testament to the apostles and disciples of the New is added everybody whoever came to Jesus Christ. It's all our task. In Luke 24:46, "He said unto them, 'Thus it is written and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day,'" now watch, "And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem and ye are witnesses of these things."
Do you notice that repentance and remission of sins were to be preached in His name among all nations and it was only the beginning at Jerusalem? It's to go way beyond that. We're all a part of that continuity. That's why in Acts 1:8, it went a step further. "After the Holy Spirit's come upon you, ye shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, in Judea and in Samaria." And that's why in II Corinthians 5:20, Paul says, "And we are to be ambassadors for God beseeching men to come to Christ." Peter echoed the same refrain in I Peter 2:9, "You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of His name, that you should show forth His praises." It started with the twelve, extended to the early church in Jerusalem and then to Judea, then to Samaria, then to the world and to us. This is our work. We too are to follow Jesus and be fishers of men.
You know I think it's a strong word for us here at Grace because I think this is a time in the life of Grace Church when we really need to emphasize this. Somebody said to me the other day, "Why does it seem that you're emphasizing evangelism right now and you're emphasizing kind of a new depth and dimension in the spiritual life?" And I said, "Well you know, really it's for me I'm caught up in the flow of what Christ is doing here." I don't calculate all these things. I don't sit down and say, well now let's see I ought to do this and do this. I ought to emphasize this and this. To a degree I have to do that, but I find that this is Christ's church. He's building it and I'm caught in the flow of it and sometimes I don't even know what's going on until somebody evaluates it for me. And they'll say, "Did you notice that you're talking a lot about evangelism lately?" Oh? I guess I am. That's the adventure of being a part of what the Spirit of God is doing. It isn't me that's driving it in a direction. I'm just moving with it trusting that God is leading.
And I think this is the time for Grace Church to look at the subject of evangelism. We've had the great fellowship. We've learned the great truths. We could become so absorbed in our wonderful riches that we forget all about the lost people. You know we could be so busy singing our own music that we forget that they need to hear the song too. We could like it so much here that we forget about out there.
Once there was a man named Luigi Toreszio. Luigi Toreszio was found dead one morning in his house without scarcely a comfort in the entire place, but stashed away in Luigi's house, get this, were 246 exquisite violins, which he had been collecting all his life and crammed into his attic, the best of which were in the bottom drawer of a rickety old bureau. Luigi, in his great devotion to the violin had robbed the world of all of its music. All the time he treasured the violins the world never heard their song. Others before him had done the same. Do you know that the greatest Stradivarius violin ever made was first played when it was 147 years old because somebody stashed it away? I wonder how many Christians are like old Luigi Toreszio? In your very love for the church, in your very love for the treasures of the word of God you get absorbed and the world never hears their music. Tragic!
Somebody told me a statistic that I don't want to believe. 95% of all Christians have never led anybody to Jesus Christ. 95% of all the world's great spiritual violins have never played. You can hold on to the things you love in the church, but you've got to reach out too. I love the story Moody used to tell. He said he was visiting a Chicago art gallery and he stood before a painting entitled what Ruth played for us, Rock of Ages. The picture showed a person with both hands clinging to a cross that was embedded in a rock while a stormy sea smashed against the rock he hung to the cross. Moody said, "I thought it was the most beautiful picture that I had ever seen." "Years later," he said, "I saw a similar picture. This one showed a person in a storm holding a cross but with one hand while he was reaching to a drowning man with the other." Moody said, "That was lovelier yet." We're rich at Grace Church. I hope we're not forgetful of those that desperately need what we possess.
In one of his books, S. D. Gordon pictures Gabriel as engaged in a dialogue with Christ shortly after the ascension and the angel is asking Christ about the plans for evangelism. And Jesus said, "Well I asked Peter and James and John and Andrew and a few others to make it the business of their lives to tell people and then those others would tell others and finally the whole world would hear the story and feel the power of it," and in the legend Gabriel said, "But suppose they don't tell others what then?" And Jesus answered quietly, "Oh I have no other plans. I'm counting on them. I have no other plans."
What does it mean to be a fisher of men? Let's find out. Verse 18, "And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers," walking by the sea of Galilee. Gary mentioned something of the precarious that it is. I've eaten what they call now Saint Peter's fish. It's the fish that's indigenous only to the Sea of Galilee. It looks bad, tastes great. Some of you've been there and you know about that. That beautiful area, just one of the most beautiful areas in all the earth. A little lake, at it's widest point, the sea of Galilee, and by the way Luke who was a world traveler never called it a sea. He always called it a lake from his perspective. The widest point is 7½ miles. At the longest point it's 13½ miles. So at best 7½ miles by 13½ miles, not very big. It's oval, wider at the top than it is at the bottom. About 618 feet below sea level and it's at the higher part of that whole valley that goes all the way to the Dead Sea, which is over 2,000 feet, or nearly 2,000 feet below. It is one of the most fertile productive areas in the world.
In Jesus' time you might be interested to know, the time in which this text was taking place, there were nine populous cities on its shore. By 1930 there was one little tiny village, Tiberius, and today there's just one town left, Tiberius. It was literally thick with fishing boats in Jesus' day. In fact Josephus writes of one fishing fleet that numbered 240 boats. That's a lot of boats on one like 7½ by 13½ mile little lake. It was there that Jesus walked and found two brothers. Who were they? It tells us Simon, later called Peter and Andrew his brother.
Now this is their call. But I want you to notice something. This is phase two of their call. I'm going to give you a little technical thing that will help you in your study of the gospels. We have several different calls of the disciples in the gospel. Each gospel writer, for his own purposes, chooses one or the other. There was a sequence of things. In other words there are at least five different times when Jesus sort of called them, each one taking them to a different level. Kind of like you, once you were called to salvation, right? And then maybe there was a time in your life when you were called to a new level of commitment. And then maybe there was a time in your life like in my life when you were called to serve Jesus Christ in a specific way. And then maybe there was a time in your life when you were called to a specific place, to Grace Church or some other specific ministry. In other words the way God directs us may have phases and that is true in the case of the disciples.
The first call is in John Chapter 1, and you can study it on your own. We're not going to take the time. This was their call to salvation. Andrew, John, Simon, Phillip, Nathaniel and James called to salvation. This was the initial call. And you remember it was when John the Baptist said, "Don't follow me any more, follow Him," and they took off after Jesus Christ and it was the call to salvation.
Now this is phase two in Matthew 4:18. This is the call to be fishers of men. They're now going to follow Jesus, but you know it was only a kind of momentary thing here. It isn't the full final departing from everything. For now they followed Him. For this moment, for this day, for this time, they were called to win souls. They were called to fish for men. They were called to come after Him.
There's a third call. Luke records it in Chapter 5. This comes after the one in Matthew. It's different. There are some similarities, but there are some distinct differences. As you look at Luke Chapter 5 for a moment you'll see them, and I'll show you the level of call here. In Luke 5 comes along and the situation is a little different. They're still fishing, which indicated that the second phase they did not leave their profession permanently. They simply followed Him for that moment. And now it's going to be a little more firm. He's not going to say I want you to just be fishers of men generally; he's going to say I want you to be fishers of men only.
This is the next step and this time he stood by the Lake of Chinnereth, which is another name for the Sea of Galilee, and of course Luke calls it a lake, as I said, 'cause he's been around. He's seen some big stuff and that doesn't rank with it. He saw two boats standing by the lake, fishermen were gone out of them, and so forth. He entered into one of the boats, Simon's, and now there's a difference here. All of a sudden we're in a boat, different than the situation in Matthew. He says, "Launch out, let down your nets, and there's a whole fishing miracle that occurs here. This is a completely different account. And what it is is a time for them to come to grips with a real commitment. And Jesus reiterates it in verse 10.
There were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, partners with Simon, Jesus said to Simon, "Fear not from henceforth," doesn't matter you can't catch fish anymore, you remember the story? They couldn't catch fish on their own, not without the Lord. He was going to control the fish. He said, "You want fish? Put it down where I say and you'll get fish." Without me you won't get anything. Don't worry about whether you're going to be able to catch 'em without me. "From now on you shall," what, "catch men. And when they had brought their boats to land they forsook," what "all and followed Him." You see this is another level of commitment.
I guess, you know, this is a part of our life, isn't it? At some point in time you come to Christ and it isn't long after that somebody says to you, "You're to fish for men." But maybe it's a long time after that and maybe it's never for a lot of folks that you forsake all to catch men.
In Mark 3, there was another call. They were not just going to catch men; they were going to be official apostles. In verse 14, "He appointed twelve," Mark 3:14, "That they should be with him that he might send them forth to preach, and to cast out demons." Boy, now they've got miraculous power, and they were given the power also to heal diseases. So they went from salvation to a general call, to a specific total commitment, and now to a miraculous power.
And then finally a fifth phase is recorded in the 10^th Chapter of Matthew, in the first verse. "And when He had called to Him those twelve He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, to heal all manner of sickness and diseases. He said go," in verse 7, and He told them all how to go and He sent them out. Verse 16, "As sheep in the midst of wolves," and they went to preach. Now do you see the progression here? Beloved, it is to be so with us. It all begins at some point in time when we meet Jesus Christ and we accept Him as Savior, and then a little later the prodding of the Spirit of God fish for men, and hopefully later you forsake all and your life is geared for that, and then the time comes when in the midst of that you sense the power of God and you move out, an official sent one to do His work.
Well this is just phase two, but it's a beginning and He met these two, Simon and Andrew. What were they doing? It says, "They were casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers." Now there were three methods of fishing in those days: the first one was by line, you know rod and reel type, only they use a stick with a string on it. They could fish by line.
Second is what is called the drag net. Now a drag net was used from a boat, or better two boats. It was cast into the sea with ropes at each of the four corners and it had weight at the foot of it so that it would sink right down into the water. And, of course, when the boat rowed it would just scoop up the fish, they would pull the ropes tight at the top and the net would be full of fish. The Bible talks about a drag net in Matthew Chapter 13. And so as the boats were rowed it became a great cone, as it were, in the sea, weighted at the very end it would fall into a cone shape and it would just scoop up the fish. They would tie the ropes tight at the end and they would be caught.
And then there was what was called the casting net and that's what they were using here. They were casting a net, not saganae, which is the drag net. They were casting it. This is a circular net about nine feet in diameter and they were really skillful at it. They knew how to cast it from the shore. From the edge of the lake it could be knee deep in water and it had pellets all around the edge kind of weighted down with little stones or whatever they would use and it would sink and surround the fish and they would pull the rope and pull it in. That's what they were doing. You say, "Why are you telling me all that for?" I think it's interesting. The word, incidentally is amphiblestron, from which we get amphibious, having to do with standing on the shore and throwing something into the water, sort of a two ways.
But what interests me is this: Jesus said, "You're going to catch men." And He played on that metaphor and the way they did it was they threw out a big net and caught a whole bunch of fish and I like that thought. I'm glad they weren't fishing just for one. I like the fact that Jesus said there's going to be a lot of 'em. The Lord, when He thought about evangelism, He had a lot of folks in mind. So He called these Simon and Andrew, but also look at verse 21. "And going from there He saw two other brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them."
Now He's got four here and He has a plan for them. They're rough jewels, these guys, I want you to know that, they are rough jewels. They are tough, crusty, outdoorsmen. No doubt a certain crudeness, we know that in the case of Peter, and no doubt true of the others to some extent. They had a lot of problems. They had a lack of spiritual perception. It didn't matter what Jesus said for the first few months of His ministry. They never did figure it out. He would speak to them what the Hebrews called the Massahal a veiled saying, and they'd scratch their head, "What are you talking about? We don't understand that." They had very limited perception of the spiritual dimension. The parables of Matthew 13 just went right on by them. They didn't get the message. Jesus continued to talk to them in terms that they couldn't understand. They were scratching around for a long time trying to figure them out. Jesus had to unravel everything. They had a lot of learning to do. They had a terrible lack of sympathy. They were really an unsympathic bunch.
If you read, I think it's Matthew 14:15, "And when it was evening, his disciples came to Him saying, this is a desert place, and the time is now late. Send the multitude away that they may go to the villages and buy food." Get rid of this crowd or they're going to get hungry. We're going to have to feed 'em. Well that's not exactly hospitality at its best. They were unsympathic. They had a terrible lack of humility. They were just a lot of proud guys and I imagine hanging around Jesus they sort of felt better than anybody else.
A little child came along in Matthew 18, and they said, "Kick that kid away. We can't be bothered with children." They weren't even very forgiving guys. Peter said, "Lord if a guy offends me I mean how many times should I forgive him?" The Lord said, "490 times." Gulp! They were terrible at prayer meeting. They kept falling asleep. They didn't have a whole lot of courage. When the shepherd was smitten the sheep were scattered, right? Great bunch! No spiritual perception, no sympathy, no humility, no sense of forgiveness, not able to persevere in prayer, and a bunch of cowards. Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. That'll tell you what the Lord can do with you and me. He's terrific with raw material that shows little or no potential.
It's a good lesson too. I know something, though, Jesus saw something there didn't He? He saw something in them. He knew what He was doing. He picked out a potential. He saw it there. I thought to myself as I was going through this the fact that He picked fishermen is sort of a rebuke to the whole Jewish system, isn't it? I mean why didn't He pick Rabbi's to be His team? Great, brilliant, astute, knowledgeable Rabbi's or great leaders of Israel! Fishermen, what do they know, never been to school. Maybe they can't even read. He relied on something better, didn't He, than worldly wisdom, something better than human influence, something better than formal religion something better than education, something better than ritual. "Not many noble, not many mighty," said Paul. He's chosen the foolish things of the world, the base things of the world.
Matthew Broadis, the great commentator, who's written the wonderful work on Matthew says, "They were perhaps less prepossed by the follies of Pharisaic tradition and thus better prepared for receiving and transmitting new doctrine, and they were imminently men of the people. It is probable that all of the twelve were men comparatively humble life without the learning of the rabbinical schools. And in Acts 4:13, the people said, "Who are these people and what do they know?" Galileans!
Look at verse 19, "But it was to them that He said, 'Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.'" Beloved, look, we Christians miss the point. So many times you say, "Oh if so and so famous person could just become a Christian, think of how many they'd win." You know the Lord never picked those people from the start. If such and such, if he ever became converted what an influence he'd have. He never picked them. He didn't come in and pick the Olympic team. There's nothing wrong with them. He didn't come in and pick the great geniuses. He just picked the humble fishermen. They were people of the people, and God is always identified with the people, with the poor, as well as the poor in spirit.
Now notice verse 19, I love it. "He said unto them, 'Follow Me and I'll make you fishers of men." Isn't that a great promise? I'll make you fishers of men. I'm not asking for something I'm not willing to commit myself to do. They were already believers as we found in John 1, and this is now their second phase. I have a task; you're to be fishers for men. Boy they got the message. That's such a vivid picture to them. They knew exactly what He was talking about.
Did you ever think how you could apply fishing, I don't know anything about fishing, especially fishing with a net. But did you ever think about how you could apply fishing skill to fishing for men? Good fishermen have certain qualities. Number one: patience. When anyone says to me, "I cannot stand fishing," I know there's an impatient person, right off the bat. Fishermen learn to wait, so if we're good at fishing for men got to be patient. Secondly: fishermen have a quality of perseverance. It's amazing. They do it over and over and over and over and they go and they'll come back, "Well we didn't catch anything, but we'll go again." Over and over, perseverance. The third thing that fishermen have is courage. My boat is so small and the sea is so large, the prose line goes. They'll face the sea for the cause of the fish.
Fishermen also seem to have an eye for the right moment. If you just talk to a fisherman who knows his stuff he'll tell you when and where. So the good soul winner chooses his moment his location carefully. And have you ever noticed that good fishermen will always tell you to stay out of sight? I remember when I was a little kid and I went fishing with my Uncle Charlie, back east, I'd hang out of the boat and he'd say, "Don't hang out of the boat." He was worried that the fish, well he probably worried they'd see me and be scared or something, but don't hang out of the boat. You're not supposed to be seen. If you're going to catch fish you have to stay so they can't see you. I guess, I don't know if it's true or not, but it's a good analogy. A good soul winner keeps himself out of the picture. He hides his own presence, even his own shadow, and makes sure that the gaze is fixed on Jesus Christ.
So he said, "You men know about patience, you men know about perseverance, you know about courage, you have an eye for the right moment, and you know how to hide yourselves to accomplish your end. I choose you to fish for men." And then he said, "I'll make you fishers of men." You know that was a commitment on the part of Jesus to train 'em, to teach 'em. You know there's only one way to teach somebody to win people and that's to take them out and do it. That's why I think our ministry here thought our Evangelism Explosion ministry is so great because it's people making people into fishers of men. You can't just get up and say, "All right everybody run out and be fishers of men." You've got to teach them. You got to teach them. Some of them don't know how to bait the hook. Some of them don't know how to reel it in. Some of them don't know how to throw the net.
Jesus said, "I'll make you fishers of men." I'll teach you how and He did. You know how long it took Him to train these guys? How long? Three years! Three years, isn't that amazing? First what He did is this: He spent a little while with them, get them kind of shipshape, and then He let them go out two by two, Matthew 10. Just kind of go out and then they come back, and they'd go out and they'd come back, always having to come and report. Two-by-two they'd go out and they'd come back. Finally in Matthew 28 he said, "I'm leaving, you're on your own." You've graduated. Jesus training method: call them to Himself, let them know the commission, train them, out and back to give a report, and they'd come back and say, this happened and this happened, and you know what happened here, you know what happened there, send them out again, they'd come back again. Finally they were trained and He left.
How did He do it? Have you ever analyzed how Jesus trained soul winners? Let me just give you some brief insights. Our time is nearly gone. First, listen to this: as you look at the New Testament this is what you find. How did Jesus win people? They watched Him. He didn't give them 45 lectures. He just did it and they watched and they learned.
First of all here are the methods Jesus used in brief: Number one he was available. As I study the life of Christ I notice that He was always in the throngs. Ever notice that? He was always where the crowd was. He was always where the sinners were. In fact they said about him, "You're always hanging around sinners." He was there. And they got the message that's where they needed to be.
Secondly, he had no favorites. He didn't run around with the fancy folks. He didn't run around with the rich. He didn't run around with the famous. He didn't run around with the religious. It didn't matter what their social standing was, oh He would reach a wealthy Jarius, but He'd also spend time with a harlot. He knew no favorites. He was available and He had no favorites.
Third thing I see about Jesus in his approach to winning people was He was totally sensitive. Boy He could spot an open heart just that fast. Can you? Have you learned how to see an open heart? Remember Jesus in Mark 5 in the crown and everybody was shoving Him and He said He could hardly move because of the press? They were just, not the press like we know the press, but the press of the crowd. He could hardly move. He was just crushed in and then the Bible says, "He turned around and said, 'Who touched Me?'"   And you say, "Are you kidding? Who touched You?" "Yes, who touched Me?"
And there was a woman with an issue of blood who had reached out for one of the four tassels that always hung from the robe of a rabbi and grabbed it and He knew there was a sensitive heart and He called that woman out of the crowd and He healed that woman's issue of blood and He elicited out of her heart a confession of faith in Him. He was sensitive. He could spot that one in the mob with the open heart. Sensitive to the Spirit. You know, you can do that. If you're walking in the Spirit, I believe the Spirit of God will lead you to that person.
He was available, he had no favorites, he was sensitive and fourthly, and I already hinted at it, He secured a public confession. He didn't let people just run away. I remember that woman in Mark 5, He made her call out her confession. She couldn't get away. She touched the hem of His garment, she was healed, but that wasn't enough. By the way Mark says she had really been through it. She had suffered many things at the hands of many physicians. Mark says that Luke doesn't record that part for obvious reasons. The disciples said to Him, "What do you mean who touched You? Can't you see the crowd?" But Jesus drew that woman out of the crowd, He said, "Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. Go in peace and behold of they plague." He drew out of her the confession of faith. We need to do that, you know. To be effective with people you need to cause them to come to the place where they will publicly with their mouth confess Him as Lord.
Another thing about Jesus, he used love and tenderness. I think about it in so many ways. Look what He did in John Chapter 8 with that scarlet woman, that woman who had been abused by all kinds of men, who was a harlot of the worse category. What about Mary Magdalene? What about all these times in Matthew, for example in Matthew 8, do you know that in Matthew 8 Jesus reached out and touched a leper? He had tenderness toward the sinner.
And then one other thing, He always took time. He always took time. Boy the Lord speaks to me about this. I'm always in a hurry, always got to go, always got a big project, always got a meeting got to get to. Got so much time for the ministry, got no time for the people. He took time in the midst of the mass of people in Mark 5, Jairus comes and He takes time and Jairus tells Him a long story about his daughter. Many people, but He took time.
You know for three years Jesus trained His men how to be available, how to have no favorites, how to be sensitive, how to secure a public confession, how to use love and tenderness and how to take time and to apply everything they ever knew as fishermen, patience, perseverance, courage, and eye for the right moment and hide themselves in the midst of all of it. And I think whoever said it is right when he said, "Evangelism is not taught as much as it's caught," like everything else I the Christian life.
And so they learned. He trained them. And that's our desire, people. You know several years ago we brought, I guess all of your know Jim George on our staff. We could have hired a man to do visitation, to go out and evangelize. You know what we did? We decided to support a man who would train others to evangelize. If we had just hired a man to evangelize you know what we'd have now five years later? We'd have a man evangelizing. But instead we've got between two and three hundred people trained to catch men. That's what Jesus did.
But what was their response? And this is the conclusion. "They straightway left their nets and followed Him." And verse 22 says of the others, James and John, "and they immediately left the boat and their father and followed Him." I love that. Instant obedience. Boy, as Jerry said, "That speaks of authority." When you walk along the shore and you say to these guys, "Follow Me," and they do, that says something about You doesn't it? And whenever I see a picture of Jesus as some emaciated, puny, shriveled up, little character who looks like he couldn't scare a flea, that is not the Christ here. You walk along with these burly guys and say, "Follow Me," and they drop everything, walk away from their father, and follow You, you've got something going. And they did. Obedience. You say, "Well did they have a great passion for souls?" I doubt it; seriously doubt it. I'm quite confident they didn't have a passion for anything. So what they'd do it for?
Listen, you want to know something? You want to know how to get a passion for souls? Try obeying to start with. That's where it all begins. Just be obedient. And I put it this way: obedience is the spark that lights the fire of passion. The way to gain a passion for souls, the way to have your heart burn for the lost is to obey God and move out and watch God take the pilot light of obedience and fan it into a forest fire. David Brainerd, that great missionary to the Indians who died so young in his twenties, said, "Oh if I were a flame of fire in my Master's cause." Henry Martine said, "Now let me burn out for God." Alexander McClaren, that great preacher said, "Tell me depths of a Christian's compassion and I'll tell you the measure of his usefulness."
Where does it all start?   Where do you get such a passion? Where do you get such a desire to burn for God? Where does it come from? It comes right out of the pilot light of obedience. Dr. Courtland Meyers in his book, How Do We Know? Writes of Robert Murray McShane, one of Scotland's greatest preachers who died at the age of 29. This is what Meyers says: "Everywhere he stepped Scotland shook. Whenever he opened his mouth a spiritual force swept in every direction. Thousands followed him to the feet of Christ.
A traveler eager to see where McShane had preached went to the Scottish town and found the old church. An old gray haired janitor agreed to take him through the church. He led the way into McShane's study. "Sit in that chair, the janitor ordered." The traveler hesitated a moment and then sat in the chair. On the table before him was an open Bible. "Drop your head in that book and weep, that's what our minister did before he preached," said the old man. He then led the visitor in the pulpit before the open Bible. "Stand there," he said, "and drop your head into your head into your hands and let the tears flow. That's the way our minister always did before he began to preach." And so Courtland Meyers said, "With such a passion for souls lost and needy is it any wonder that the Holy Spirit gave McShane a magnetic personality, which drew so many to the Savior?"
Well where does it begin? You say that seems so far from me. Where does it begin? It begins in the pilot of obedience. That's the spark that starts the fire. So the Lord listened. He needs special people to help Him. He needs a well-trained lifesaving crew at Grace Community Church. He does not need a comfortable club. He doesn't need that. The church has had enough of that stuff. He needs well-trained lifesaving crews. He needs fishers of men. Say, "Can I do that?" Yeah. Say, "How?"
Listen, number one: be a believer. You can't be on the team unless you are. Number two: be available. Learn how to win people to Christ. If that means getting involved in an evangelism ministry then get involved. If that means reading the New Testament and underlining everything about evangelism and cataloging it and learning it, do it. Be a believer and be available. Three: be concerned, be concerned. Maybe that means reading some books. Surely that means meeting some unsaved people and it all starts with obedience, so be obedient. Go out and do it even if the passion isn't there, do it. Reach out to that neighbor. Speak the words you've always wanted to speak and never have. And then realize Jesus is your pattern. Study how He did it. And then find somebody else you can follow and let them be your model. Be a believer, be available, be concerned, be obedient, be following Jesus, and be taught by an example.
So Jesus began at the right point, in the right place, with the right proclamation, and the right partners. The light dawned, beloved, and we're to carry it to the rest of the world.
I'll close with this: when I was in college Dave Hawking and I and Bruce Peterson, whose a deacon in our church, Dave Hawking is the pastor of Grace Brethren Church in Long Beach, Ed Burn, associate pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Los Gatos, Lenny Sidell, you remember now ministering in the east, we all started a quartet. And we had a theme song and that theme song, the title of it, some of you probably have heard, Let the Lower Lights be Burning, remember that? We used to sing that all the time. In fact, I know the baritone part so well I don't think I know the melody. That was our theme. You know I didn't really know what that meant. We used to sing let the lower lights be burning somebody came up to afterward and say, "What are the lower lights?" And we'd kind of grin, "It's a nice melody." What are the lower lights? You know that whole hymn came from a story that D. L. Moody told? This is it.
Moody said a vessel was coming in to Cleveland harbor on a stormy stormy night. And in order for the vessel to know where it was there were two sets of lights in the harbor. One set on the bluff, very high, and one set right on the coastline so there was always a perspective in the blackness and they could see by the upper and lower lights where they were. But this night the pilot saw the upper lights on the bluff burning but not the lower.
And so the pilot asked the captain if he'd better put back out into the lake again lest they go in to far and hit the rocks. But the captain was so afraid of the storm on the lake he thought they'd better try to make the harbor. Moody said they made it but they were wrecked and many drown all because the lower lights had been put out by the storm.   And then Moody said, listen, "The upper lights in heaven are burning as brightly as ever they've burned. What about the lower lights?"
Father we thank you, we thank you for the calling that we have to do this work for You. We give you praise and ask that You would make of us the kind of people who are fishers of men. For Jesus' sake, amen.
Love and Obedience
John 21

      I'm so appreciative of the choice of song that the Nichol sisters made because that whole idea of loving the Lord Jesus Christ is really on my heart today. I thought, meditated, looked through the Word of God for a long time this week in some quiet moments, sort of searching my own heart and seeking the Lord as to what I might say to you in preparation for this His table. And as I sort of succumbed to the leading of the Spirit of God, my mind was flooded with the need to emphasize this whole matter of loving the Lord Jesus Christ.
      The church is a complex thing. And life for us gets infinitely complex. And sometimes it becomes so complex that we lose sight of the bottom line, the basic. And I really think that the basic ingredient or element of the Christian life is to love the Lord Jesus Christ. And sooner or later we have to deal with that, we have to get back to that. That's not easy. I don't know if you've thought much about it but it's come upon my mind with an awful lot of force lately that we live in a world that has so many options that it's almost staggering.
      In fact, I was reading a book this last week in which the thesis of the author was that we have so many alternatives and so many options and so many choices that people have just given up on everything. And one of the major contributors to the fact that people don't have any convictions about anything and don't really know what their priorities are is because they are literally devastated by the myriad of choices. I mean, it can be as simple as standing in one spot for 15 minutes arguing because you can't figure out which fast food place to take the kids to. And you have an infinite number of choices.
      That's a simplistic approach. But we live in an incredibly pluralistic society and we have choices and choices and choices and choices. Choices about what we eat, choices about what we wear, choices about how we entertain ourselves, choices in terms of education, choices in terms of recreation, choices, choices, choices. And in a life where people are literally living by choice, what kind of car, what kind of house, what kind of clothes, what kind of whatever, somehow our approach to Christianity and our approach to the church has gotten meshed into those choices so that the things we do regarding the Kingdom and the things we do in regard to the Lord and the things we do in relation to the church seem to us to just be somewhere on that massive list of choices...just about as optional as anything else. I mean, it sort of comes down to the fact that either we're going to go to church or we're going to play golf or we're going to take a drive or we're going to go to brunch or whatever. Or we could have a prayer meeting with our family or we could watch television or we could go to a ball game or we could take a picnic or...
      In other words, it seems as though in this myriad of choices that we have there has been a loss of the distinctive category of the non-optional which is the spiritual dimension. It's gotten blended in. And with an infinite number of choices, we sort of fit the things of the Lord in there some place...of they are, in fact, the thing we desire to choose. And what I guess we could say in terms of the subject of loving the Lord Jesus Christ would be that we have learned to love the Lord Jesus Christ rather selectively. We want to love the Lord Jesus Christ and we'll sing to that effect...we'll sing about how much we love Him. We've said it many times and if we were asked, "Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ?" we would say, "Oh yes." And if we were asked, "Do you love Him with all your heart?" "Oh yes." "And all your soul and all your mind and all your strength?" "Well I certainly...I certainly desire that." And we would verbalize our love for the Lord Jesus Christ but the question is whether or not that in fact fleshes out in the way we live. Or whether in fact on the one hand we say we love the Lord Jesus Christ, on the other hand those things which would prove it are merely a series of options and alternatives along with everything else in the world and we really find ourselves loving a whole lot of other things just as much as we love the Lord Jesus Christ.
      I mean, we love the Lord Jesus Christ if the price isn't too high. We love the Lord Jesus Christ if it makes us comfortable. We love the Lord Jesus Christ if that's the best choice.
      And I'm concerned about this because I think that we have created in many places in our own nation, in many churches and in our hearts even here potentially a real problem where we have lost all sense of the sanctity and the holy and the obligation to that which is divine...the sanctity of the holy, I should say, and the obligation to that which is divine. It's just a part of the whole sweep of life which is filled with all kinds of options. And I'm concerned about that. And I wanted to see if I can't this morning set your focus...reset your focus along the lines of loving the Lord Jesus Christ. And I speak to my own heart, believe me, as well.
      What was the primary mark of an Old Testament saint? If you want to identify the saintliest feature of an Old Testament saint, what would it be? Turn in your Bible for a moment back to the book of Deuteronomy. And in Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse 5 I think you have the bottom line in Old Testament spiritual behavior, the bottom line in Old Testament saintly commitment. You have the very basic foundational element of spiritual virtue, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might." It was a whole souled, wholehearted, whole strength devotion to God. It was a consuming single priority which could be compared with nothing else. There was no sense in which loving God was an option. There was no sense in which obeying God was an option. There was no sense in which worshiping God, serving God was an option. It was a consuming dominant life priority.
      In chapter 10 of Deuteronomy and verse 12 it says, "And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee?" And that is a very important statement. What does God want? What is the bottom line request from God? When it's all boiled down, what does God want from you? "But to fear the Lord your God to walk in all His ways and to love Him and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command thee this day for thy good."
      What is the bottom line? It is to love the Lord your God to the extent that you walk in all His ways, that you serve Him with all your heart and all your soul, that you keep His commandments and His statutes which He commands you.
      In other words, to boil it all down to one word, loving the Lord your God is a matter of obedience. It is a matter of doing that which He has commanded to be done, of serving Him with a whole heart and a whole soul. Now there's no room for anything else and that's why it says in the book of James that anything less than total abandonment with God becomes a prostitution. He says that if you try to love God and love the world, you become an adulterer or an adulteress. You prostitute yourself off to an invasion into the unique and intimate and wholehearted relationship you're supposed to have with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the bottom line. We are to love God.
      In chapter 11 verse 1, again that Old Testament saint is told to love the Lord thy God and keep His charge and His statutes and His ordinances and His commandments always. I mean, there's no loopholes here. There's no out. This is a single consuming priority. Is it any wonder that when the lawyer came to Jesus and said, "How do you sum up all the commandments?" He said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength." The whole thing boils back to that. And the same is true in our lives today. We need to be focusing on the same need to have a consuming love for the Lord Jesus Christ that parallels the command in the Old Testament to the saints of that time to love the Lord their God. And you will notice also that back in Deuteronomy 10:12 it says that it's for...10:13 it says it's for your good. It is not a non-reciprocated love. It is a love which pours out abundant and profuse blessing on the one who offers it to God.
      Do you remember the prayer of Daniel in chapter 9 as he began to pour out his heart on behalf of his people? He said, "I prayed to the Lord my God, made my confession, said, O Lord, the great and awesome God...listen...keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love Him and them that keep His commandments." God keeps and fulfills His promises and God pours out His mercy to the people who love Him. So loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength puts you in the position to benefit from the covenant and to experience the mercy of God. By the way, that same prayer offered by Daniel was also offered by Nehemiah almost word for word. Nehemiah 1:5, he prays, "O Lord God of heaven, the great and awe inspiring God who keeps covenant and mercy for them who love Him and observe His commandments." And the fact that those two individuals, Nehemiah and Daniel, so utterly unrelated prayed identically the same prayer leads me to believe that that may well have been a common prayer among the Jewish people. And it is a recognition that the people who know the mercy of God and the people who are blessed out of His covenant promises are the people who manifest a whole souled, wholehearted love for Him...an abandonment to devotion in love.
      That was on the heart of the psalmist, wasn't it, in Psalm 18:1, "I will love Thee, O Lord my strength, I will love Thee, O Lord my strength." It is a volitional act. It is a choice made to love the Lord rather than to distract that love to other things. In Proverbs 8:17 God says, "I love those who love Me."
      Now is it true in the New Testament? Is it the same? Is this our calling in the New Testament? I believe it is. Peter sums it up for us in 1 Peter 1:8, speaking of Christ, he says, "Whom having not seen you love." Whom having not seen you love. That's the mark of a true believer. Ephesians 6:24, "Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ with sincerity, with integrity, with honesty, with undivided, unhypocritical devotion." In fact, in Matthew 10 and Matthew 16 Jesus says, "If any man does not love Me more than father, mother, sister, brother and anybody else, he's not worthy to be My disciple." And in 1 Corinthians 16:22 it says, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed."
      So, we are called, I believe, to love the Lord Jesus Christ, to love Him with a whole soul, whole heart, whole mind, whole strength kind of love. And we would say we do but I look at our society, I look at the church and I don't see that same kind of devotion, you know, that same kind of commitment, that same kind of abandonment to the priorities that are the divine priorities. I see us defused into a myriad of options, giving equal weight or even greater weight to some of the passing things in favor of some of the eternal things.
      And so, we need to ask ourselves as we come to this, the Lord's table, do we love the Lord Jesus Christ? We would say we love Him because He first loved us, 1 John 4:19. And we would recognize that this, His table, is an expression of His love, is it not? Because it reminds us of the cross. And the cross is the greatest symbol of God's love. And so when we come here we think about love, we think about how much He loved us and how much He gave for us. And I don't know how it effects you but it makes me stop and think I'm so eager to receive all the love that God can give me and I'm certainly less eager to give Him back all that I could give Him. I mean, it's a no-way equal. In fact, I tend to trade on His grace. I tend to want all of the love that He can pour out to me with little in return. And this too is a spirit of our age, it's the spirit of the church even. My heart is continually sickened by the self-indulgent theology that's developing in the churches, by the "name it and claim it" perspective, by the "Jesus has to do this for you" approach, where Christianity has so reversed its mentality that instead of my life being an act of devoted love to Jesus Christ whatever the price, my life becomes a demand on His love that He deliver all the goodies that I ask for. And it's a twisting of the whole intention.
      I read yesterday the spiritual autobiography of John Bunyan in which he traces his spiritual pilgrimage to the embracing of the Savior. And it's an incredible thing to read that because you think you've just been transported by some time machine into another era of thought. Here is a sinner pounding on his breast realizing he is a sinner, realizing he is damned to hell, scared literally out of his wits that he's not elected to salvation, fearing that there's no way the grace of salvation will come from sovereign God to him because he's so utterly unworthy, crying out that he should please be chosen to be redeemed and when finally comes to full faith in Jesus Christ then can do nothing but recite over and over and over and over the endless list of his evil and desires only one thing in all the world and that is to totally abandon himself in every sense of life to the service of Jesus Christ whatever it cost him. And you know what it cost him, it cost him prison, didn't it? And you read something like that and you say, "This guy would get thrown out of most churches." I mean, he goes contrary to the self-esteem doctrines, contrary to the prosperity, health and wealth doctrines, contrary to the easy believism cheap grace doctrines. You see, we have made a Christianity that will accommodate the myriad of alternatives and options so that anybody can sort of slid in on any level they want to and unwittingly. It isn't that we have stopped and said, "I choose not to love the Lord Jesus Christ," it's just that we sort of get diverted subtlety and this is the plot of the enemy and he's been very effective. Satan has done his work very well. I said to the elders at the last meeting, I said, "I think it would be good to just strip Grace Church naked of everything except the worship of the Lord on Sunday morning and Sunday evening, training classes for how to evangelize the lost and prayer. That's all we're going to have, everything else is over. And then we'll find out where people are at." Instantly we'll know where the commitment levels are.
      You see, we just...we just need to get back to the priorities. And one of those very basic things is an understanding that we are to love the Lord Jesus Christ.   And as I say, I say that, "I love You, Lord, I love You," I don't have any problem saying that it's just living up to it that's trouble. And we all recognize that. So I want you to sort of test yourself against another life.
      Look at John 21, very brief as we prepare for the Lord's table but I do want you to focus for a moment on John 21. Do you remember when the Apostle John wrote in 1 John 3:18, "My little children, love not in word but in...what?...in deed and truth?" Yeah, that's the issue. It isn't what you say, it's what you do. That's the issue.
      Now in John 21 we have an encounter between Jesus and Peter. Let me just give you a little background. If you were to read the twenty eighth chapter of Matthew you would find out that Jesus had said after His resurrection and He had appeared to the disciples a couple of times, He said, "Go to a mountain...Matthew 28:16...go to a mountain and stay there. Wait for Me and I'll come." Told the disciples.
      So they did. And verse 2 tells us there was Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, sons of Zebedee, who would be James and John and two others, no doubt Philip and Andrew. So they all go to the mountain. They're with their leader Simon Peter. And this sets up for us a scene that is very instructive in this regard to loving the Lord Jesus Christ. The first thing I want you to see is the failure of love...I want you to see the failure of love.
      Now remember in Matthew they were told to go and wait in the mountain. Now Peter had affirmed his love. Oh, had he affirmed his love in the twenty-sixth chapter of Matthew verses 33 and 34 he said, "Though all men shall be offended of Thee...by Thee, yet will I never be offended." He says, "Though I should die with Thee, yet will I never deny Thee. And all the disciples chimed in," it says. Peter said, "I love You, I'll love You if it cost Me my life, I'll love You no matter what the price, I'll love You, I'll never forsake You." He had all this verbal commitment, all the words were right.
      So the Lord gave him a little test, he and the other disciples who confirmed their love. He just said, "Go to a mountain and wait," and not very tough to fulfill, is it? I mean, not really one of the great challenges of all time, just go sit in the hill till I get there. And the verbalizing of love sort of set them up for the kill, in a way. We see the failure of their love in verse 3. "Simon Peter said to the rest," and he says it with finality, "I'm going fishing." I believe he was saying I'm going to go back to my old profession. He was given a simple command, wait in the mountain till I get there. He disobeyed it. I don't know what all of the factors spiritually and psychologically were in his mind, but the fact is he disobeyed it. And they also said to him because he was the leader, "We're going with you." And they all left the mountain. I mean, they have just instantaneously disregarded the very simple and direct command of the risen Jesus Christ whom they've already seen and twice on two occasions, they know He's alive. They went forth and entered into THE boat, the Greek text says, which may well indicate it could have been the very boat that Peter once had used as his own fishing boat, now he was going back to his old profession.
      Here was the failure of love. All the verbalization in the world was meaningless when given a simple command, a simple priority, "Do this because I've asked you to do it," he couldn't hold on to that. He abandoned that and his love went right down the proverbial drain. Disobedience to a simple command.
      Now I want to suggest to you a very obvious point. Love fails when it disobeys. And I don't care how much sentiment you feel, I don't care how much emotion you feel about Jesus, I don't care how many tears you might shed, or how certain songs make you feel misty and weepy, I don't care about sentiment. That is not the issue. Your love fails when you disobey...plain and simple. Because that's always the test. Jesus put it this way in John 14:21, "If you love Me you will...what?...keep My commandments." So love failed. And, of course, they fished all night and caught...what?...nothing...nothing. The Lord was in control of that. They didn't catch anything. And you can just see Peter saying to these guys, "Well I don't know about, you know, evangelism and I don't know about all this Kingdom preaching, but I know there's one thing I can do and I'm going to go do it." And that was one thing he couldn't do...catch fish. He caught fish all his life. He probably knew where they were in the Sea of Galilee. He could probably follow the movement of the fish pretty well at any given season, any given time of day but he couldn't catch them now. You see, the thing he thought he could do he couldn't do anymore because God had put His hand on his life and was in control. And this is the beginning of the lesson.
      And so we see the failure of love. But happily we see then the restoration of love. And this is good to know because all of us have failed, all of us have said, "Oh we love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength....oh, we really love the Lord Jesus Christ," and we may sing those songs and we sing them with emotion, we feel sort of sentimental about singing them. But we have failed because we have gotten our priorities all fouled up. I mean, you pick up the spiritual biography of John Bunyan and you feel like...you feel like the all-time lightweight, you know, the all time birdbath Christian, about an inch deep. Or you hear about the dedication commitment level of some missionary whose life is literally wasted out although not wasted in terms of purpose, wasted in terms of physical capability till death comes. Or you hear about the martyrdom of only God knows how many thousands of people in the Chinese revolution. And you wonder what kind of commitment level you have when you can't even get your act together to do some very, very simple things. I suppose it's kind of like the Lord giving them a test that was basic so they could handle some of the tougher ones later. All He says here is go stay in a mountain for a while. Later on He's going to say go get crucified for Me. But we've all failed.
      And it's a happy thing to realize that there's a restoration of love. Notice please in verse 5, "The morning...verse 4 says...was come, Jesus was on the shore and this disciples didn't know it was Him." And by the way, they never knew it was Him after His resurrection unless He revealed Himself to them, there was some transformation in His person, there was some glory that was His after the resurrection that caused His identity to be somewhat veiled until it was disclosed to them. And so they did not know by looking at Him who it was although they were only a hundred yards or so off the shore and that may have contributed to their inability to distinguish Him. And Jesus then calls out to them, "Children, have you any food? Have you caught anything." And He knows full well what the answer is and they respond, "No," and it was sort of, I think, a clenched tooth kind of response. He said, "Cast the net on the right side of the boat and you'll find. They cast therefore and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fish. Therefore the disciple whom Jesus loved," who is that? That's John. Why call yourself John when you can call yourself the disciple whom Jesus loved...I can understand that. So he says, "The disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, It is the Lord." How does he know that? Who else controls the fish? Who else can say drop your net on the right side of the boat, they're all there?
      When Simon Peter heard it was the Lord, he put on his fisher's coat because he was literally stripped down to just a loin cloth. And threw himself into the sea. I mean, he didn't even think about what was going to happen, he just knew he had to get back to the Lord. He was in a big hurry for the restoration of love, wasn't he? And the other disciples were left in the boat trying to get the whole mess to the shore. Peter's long gone. They drag the boat along with the net and the fish. "Soon then as they were come to land they saw fire of coals there and fish laid on it and bread and Jesus said to them, Bring of the fish which you have now caught. Simon Peter went up, drew the net to the land full of great fish." I don't know, he must have been a strong guy, he just took a hole of the net and pulled it all in with 153 huge fish. "And there were so many yet was not the net broken. And Jesus said to them, Come and have breakfast. And none of the disciples dared ask Him who are You because they knew it was the Lord."
      Now this is the restoration of love. And it's a happy thought, people. Listen, no matter how my love has failed, no matter how your love has failed, there is restoration. And I want you to notice one thing out of this text, there are many things we could say but this one thing I want you to note, the restoration was initiated by the Savior who was offended. You understand that? It was the offended Savior who initiated the restoration. And it will always be that way. And I fear sometimes that Christians who know they have failed to love as they ought to love will drift away from the Lord and they feel some anxiety or shame about coming back. And what they need to realize is that He is eager for them to come back and when they get to the shore He doesn't have a whip to beat them with, He has breakfast for them. You understand that?   That is the heart of the restoring love of the Savior.
      And so we see the failure of love and then we also see the restoration of love. And I'm happy for that because I've been out on the sea a lot of times when I should have been in the mountain and I'm always glad when I come to the shore and He's not there with a whip, He's there with breakfast. He's there to have a meal with me. And that's the way it is with the one who restores. That's what it says in Jeremiah 31 I think it's verse 3, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ, even our own disobedience, even our own lack of love from time to time cannot violate that love which is unending on His part and which reaches out to bring us back and bring us back and bring us back. And I'm glad for Peter's eagerness, I mean, he just dove in and swam, he wanted it right. He knew. His conscience was pricked the moment he knew it was Jesus Christ, he had no business being out there on the water when he was supposed to be in that mountain. And he knew he was out of line. But the reason he was such a useful man was because as fast as he would fail, twice as fast he would be restored. And when you look at your life, beloved, it is not that you have never failed that makes you useful to God, it is that when you do fail you are in a hurry to be restored. All right? It is when you fail and you keep failing and you become complacent about that failure and you do not desire that restoration to be what God wants you to be and you find yourself comfortable with some shallow kind of Christianity that avoids the real priorities of God's Kingdom. That's when you should be worried for that's when God finds little use for you. It's not that you do not fail, it's that you fail and hurry back to the place of blessing.
      So we see the failure of love and the restoration of love. And then the requirement of love, they're there having breakfast. Jesus comes in verse 13, takes the bread and gives them, and fish. Not only did He prepare the meal but He served it. Isn't that something? He serves them. You know, He didn't sit down and say, "Now I'm the King and you've disobeyed Me. Now you guys bow before Me." I mean, there's such a...there's such a beauty about this. He not only makes them breakfast...and you know how the Lord makes breakfast...Breakfast! So the Lord makes breakfast, they come all around and instead of Him demanding them to serve Him, He serves those loveless disobedient disciples. It makes my heart glad because as often as I have failed to love Him, so often has He not failed to love me to the point where when I come back He serves me. And this is the third time that Jesus had showed Himself to His disciples after He was risen from the dead, says verse 14.
      Now we come to the requirement unfolding in this very, very familiar passage in verse 15. "So when they had finished breakfast," the word "dined" in the King James means to have breakfast, "When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonah...He calls him by his old name because he's acting like his old self...Simon, son of Jonah, do you supremely love Me more than these?" He uses the word agapao, the highest kind of love, the greatest kind of devotion. "Do you supremely love Me more than these?" You see, Peter had said, "Oh, though all others forsake You, I will never forsake You." And it may be the Lord is saying, "Oh, do you really love Me more than all the rest of these love Me?" Or, these may refer to the boat and the nets and the sea and the fish and all that stuff that Peter loved and grew up with, all the trappings of his life. Not evil...not evil, just not what God called him to do. "Do you really love Me more than you love your own way and your own life and your own fulfillment and your own desires and your own enjoyments?" I mean, it's easy to go back and go fishing, it's tough to preach the Kingdom, it will cost you your life. Easy to fish. Do you really love Me more than you love this stuff?
      And Peter says to him in verse 15, "Yes, Lord, You know that I like You a lot." The Lord used agapao, Peter used phileo. There's no way Peter could have said, "Yes, Lord, I supremely love you." Then the Lord would have said to him, "You hypocrite, how can you say that when you've just disobeyed Me?" So Peter knows he can't claim that, not in front of the Lord and not in front of the others. So what he says is, "Well I like You a lot." And the Lord says, "Well if you do then feed My lambs, don't catch fish, feed lambs. You're not a fisherman, you're a shepherd. And you're not catching physical fish, you're feeding spiritual lambs." In other words, if you say you love Me, then let me see the demonstration of the priorities in your life. What do you spend your time doing? What do you spend your money doing? What do you spend all the energy in your physical frame doing? What do you spend your mind planning to do? Where are your priorities? If you really do like Me a lot, then feed My lambs.
      He said to him the second time, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you really love Me, supremely love Me, super love Me, if you will, agapao? He said, Lord, You know that I like You a lot, says the same thing. And He said then, Feed My sheep, shepherd My sheep." The first and third have to do with the feeding primarily, the middle one has to do with shepherding. Take care of My flock. Don't worry about fish, you take care of My sheep, you stay in the Kingdom. Keep your priorities clear. And what He is saying here is if you really love Me then show you love Me by loving Me with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and putting all your energy that you have into the thing that is most central to My purpose.
      And then He said it to him the third time, and I believe He did this three times because Peter denied Christ how many times? Three times. So He gave him one shot for each one. "Simon, son of Jonah," and watch what He says here, "Do you really like Me a lot?" And He comes down to Peter's word phileo and says, I even question whether you like Me a lot. See, Peter couldn't say, I super love You, but he thought he could get away with I like You a lot. The Lord says I wonder if you even like Me a lot. And Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, do you like Me a lot. He wasn't grieved because He asked him three times, he was grieved because the third time He questioned even Peter's love at the level Peter thought he could away with it. And he said, "Lord, You know everything, You know that I like You a lot. Then Jesus said, Do this, will you, feed My sheep?"
      The test of love is not your emotion, is not your sentimentality, it is not your spiritual goosebumps when you sing certain songs. It's not having warm feelings about Jesus. The test of your love for Christ is whether or not the priorities of your life are spiritual or physical, heavenly or earthly, whether you're in to catching fish because you enjoy it and you do it well and it's an earthly deal, or whether you're in to feeding sheep which is a spiritual dimension. The requirement of love is obedience.
      Now I want to just wrap this up with an interesting kind of approach, I hope, for you that helped me as I was developing spiritually in my own life. I used to think that there were some people who loved God and loved Christ in a sort of far out mystical way. Have you ever had that? In fact, some of you may think that about me or about other pastors or spiritual leaders or missionaries, like they've got...they're at another level, they're at another plateau. They're up in some kind of dimension that you don't yet understand. I remember as a kid I used to read these mystics and they loved God in this very strange mystical way. And I used to think that some...something happened in your life to make you jump to that level. I guess you could call it a holy hop, you just went boing...see. You just...there was some kind of a catapult, you just catapulted up to some level. And I would go to church services or camp meetings or whatever kind of things and some guy would pour out his heart about consecration or dedication and he was really calling for what theologians have called triumphalism, or the holy hop is what I call it...just a sort of a big leap up somewhere...and now you've arrived on another plateau. And people tell you it can happen, it can happen when you understand the deeper life...or when you understand the second blessing, or when you understand the baptism of the Spirit, or when you speak in tongues, or when you're all is laid on the altar. Then you make your big hop.
      I want you to know, folks, that frustrated me because I just, I couldn't pull it off. I couldn't hop. And I, you know, and I saw people trying to hop and I looked later and they were right back where they used to be and I wondered what happened. I figured you could also hop back. But this is the idea that there's some kind of ethereal mystical sort of area where super Christians live who have unearthly abilities to love. You know something? That's just a lot of nonsense. That's a lot of nonsense. It's just a question of gradual growth toward Christ's likeness that comes about through daily obedience. There are no holy hops. Oh there may be crisis moments in your life, there may be moments in your life when you come to an understanding of a biblical truth, you come to a point where you relinquish a sin that you've held on to for a long time, where you decide you're going to be faithful and you make a volitional choice. But that doesn't catapult you into some new dimension, that's just one step in the process...maybe a bigger step than some other steps but it's a process of growth. And I didn't realize that until I realized that I was growing to love the Lord Jesus more and more and more and more. That's the issue. That's the key and it comes from obedience. That's the requirement of love. Not some mystical thing.
      The cost of love then He says in verse 18 and 19, you're going to die. It could cost you your life. The cost of love is everything. So you have here the failure of love, the restoration of love, the requirement of love, the cost of love and after He's given all of that at the end of verse 19 He says to Peter, "Follow Me," at the end of verse 22 He says, "Follow Me." You see, the bottom line is as I said it's obedience, it's obedience. It's the kind of obedience that pleases the Lord. He wants His people to love Him. Kind of like the little girl, you know, who was loving her doll and came in and gave her mother a big hug and her mother said, "What's wrong?" "Oh nothing's wrong, I've just been loving my dolly for a long time and she doesn't love me back and I came in to love you because you love me back."
      And I think there's a sense in which we have to understand that the God who pours out such infinite love to us expects that we should love Him back. And in some sad ways in the life of the church we've lost that love, that whole hearted, whole minded devoted love and we're all goofed up with our priorities. And as we come to the table this morning let's come confessing our failure to love, seeking restoration, committing ourselves to the requirement of obedience at any cost.
Knowing and Doing God's Will
Selected Scriptures

     One of the most enduring questions that people ask, and this has been suggested to me by several people that I might address it, is the question, "How can I know God's will for my life?" I remember when I was just a college student, and I was very involved in athletics. I was playing football and basketball and baseball and all of that, and athletes gain a certain amount of notoriety. And I was asked, because I was a Christian, if I would come and if I would speak. And so I began speaking as a college student here and there. It was my first sort of attempt at...at being a preacher. And, in the process, it became apparent to me that people were always asking the question, "How can I know God's will for my life?"
     And so very early on I began to study that and to try to discern the pattern of Scripture for knowing the will of God. Early on, then, in my preaching, that was sort of a substantial element of...of the content of what I would give when I spoke to young peoples' groups, as I did very regularly. For a number of years, probably about three years, I preached about 30 to 40 times a month, all across the country to youth groups. And...and one of the main subjects I was always asked to address was this issue of knowing the will of God.
     Now, I had the occasion during those years to come to the Moody Bible Institute. And Phil Johnson reminded me of this. He reminds of it, has reminded me of it several times. He was a student there when I came to speak, and he said somebody, perhaps Darlene. But they were not married at the time. "I hear there's this guy named MacArthur who's coming. What's he gonna speak about?" And I had told them that I was gonna speak on the will of God. And Phil said, "Doesn't he know that everybody who comes here speaks on the will of God? That's all we ever hear in chapel. What makes him think he can say anything that already hasn't been said?"
     Well, I didn't know that everybody spoke on that, and I didn't know it was a pertinent subject. And Phil said that he, in spite of the fact that he did not want to hear me and did not wanna hear another message on the will of God, he did want to sit by Darlene. So, as a result of that ill-conceived motive, he showed up in chapel, and he has reminded me that I preached on the will of God. Now, I don't know what it did to anybody else, but Phil has been following me ever since. So I think it was God's will that he hear that message that day. You never know the turn that the will of God may take you.
     Now, it is an enduring question, and young people ask it, and not only young people, but it is asked repeatedly throughout our Christian experience. You know, where do I go to school? Who do I marry? What is my career path? Do I take this job, that job, this opportunity, that opportunity? Do I buy this, sell this, do this with my children? Do I home school? Do I put 'em in a Christian school? There's an endless string of decisions that are being made by people all through their lives. When am I going to retire, and what am I gonna do when I do, etc., etc. I mean that is not just the...the big decisions. It is those routine things that we face day in and day out.
     And the question is a compelling question. How can I know what God's wants me to do? Now, there's a general confusion about this. There are some people who think that God is somehow reluctant to let us know His will, because He gets some kind of strange pleasure out of hiding it. And so we go through life sort of like we're in a divine lottery, hoping we can kind of get the lucky ticket and that God is sort of dispensing scratchers and maybe yours says, you know, the right number and maybe it doesn't. And God is somehow gleeful about the fact that it's limited to just a select few. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are other people who think that God's will is some kind of a...of a almost transcendental experience. You're running down the street in the rain, and you're...somehow slip on the pavement, fall down, land in the gutter on a map of India. And this constitutes the divine call. And so you rush off to sign up for missionary work. There are others who are waiting for a voice. They're waiting for some kind of inner voice or some kind of external voice commanding them to do something. This is very, very common.
     This week I received an e‑mail, and interesting e‑mail. It...it was a...a lovely gesture telling me that someone generously had given a copy of the MacArthur Study Bible to every member of the United States Supreme Court. That's a wonderful thing to do, and I was appreciative of it. The person sending me the e‑mail said they were very excited about this, because the person who did it said that God told them to do it, and that they were doing, therefore, the will of God. The person who sent the e‑mail was thrilled that God had told the person to do that. I'm glad that they were generous enough to give those Bibles to the Supreme Court, but I doubt that God told them to do it. There may have been a strong impulse to do it, a strong feeling that they interpreted as God telling 'em to do it. But there wouldn't be any way to know that. God doesn't reveal Himself audibly anymore. He has closed the canon of Scripture. The Word of God is complete. It is the faith once for all delivered to the saints. God now speaks to us through His Word.
     Does He...does He give us impulses? Does He direct us? Yes, He does. But we don't have any way to know that for sure. I don't have a red light on my head, as I told you some time ago, that goes on when it's God and goes off when it's me. I don't have any way to know that. You do what you do. And maybe in retrospect you see the hand of God. But how can we know the will of God? We...we can't hear voices in our heads. We cannot know that they...those impulses we feel are God moving us. We cannot wait for some monumental experience to occur before we sort of get insight. How can we routinely, day in, day out, know God's will?
     Lemme take you to the place you have to start, Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6. I'm gonna be very practical and somewhat condense this morning, because I need to get this all in the next 35 or 40 minutes. It'll go pretty fast.
     In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus is instructing His disciples about how to pray. It's very familiar territory. And He says, "Pray...verse 9...then, in this way. This is what I want you to pray for. This is the routine kind of praying. This is the daily kind of praying. Pray like this: 'Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." Now this is a mindset. And the mindset is, "I am concerned that God's name be honored. I am concerned that God's Kingdom be advanced. And I am concerned that God's will be done." So if you want to know God's will, this is where you start. You start by praying for it, by praying for it. Yes, you wanna know God's will, pray for it. Pray, "Your will be done on earth." Now that doesn't mean simply in the broadest possible sense that God would fulfill His will and encompassing all of time and eternity and creation. It isn't just that God would fulfill His will on behalf of the church or my local church or...or the group of people that I most often socialize with or my family or my marriage. It's a personal thing.
     I...I am saying, "God, I want Your will done." That is the initial and necessary mindset that establishes a person in the will of God. You have to want that. You never even get to, "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, and don't lead us into temptation," which are those personal things with regard to ourselves, until you have passed through the gate of Your will be done. That is to be our daily position. That is to be our mindset. We want to be in the place of God's will. We want God's will done through our lives. And, of course, the Lord Jesus set the example. The perfect servant, who when facing the worst possible scenario, a painful death on the cross at the hands of...of those He had come to preach to, and at the hands, if you will, of God, His own Father. Facing that painful death on the cross, He said, "Not My will but Yours be done."
     You remember in the Garden, He was saying, "If there's any way that I can bypass the cross, if there's any way that I can escape having to drink this cup, let it happen. Nevertheless, not My will but Yours be done." That is the essential mindset. If you are still concerned with your will, your way, your plans, your fulfillment, you really have little or no hope of fulfilling the will of God.
     Jesus earlier, before He ever got the Garden in anticipation of the cross, much earlier in His life said, "I have come to do the will of Him who sent Me." Paul, who followed Jesus' example and himself stood in the fact of potential death, said, "The will of the Lord be done." Now that, I think, has to be the underlying foundational mindset for every believer.
     Turn to Ephesians 6:6, and there is an expression there that sums that up, I think, in a very helpful way. In Ephesians 6:6, the end of the verse, I just wanna borrow this expression, because I think it is a...is a somewhat ubiquitous expression. That is it can be transported into a number of categories and isn't limited to the immediate context. The expression at the end of verse 6 Ephesians 6 is this: "Doing the will of God from the heart." And that is, again, reflective of an attitude expressed in that prayer. "Your will be done." Doing the will of God from the heart. Not reluctantly, not only outside, externally, but from the heart. That's where we have to begin.
     So you wanna know God's will for your life, then you have to want God's will above everything else, whatever that will might be. Whatever it might involve. It has to be, in a sense, the mortification or the slaying of your own agenda, your own will, your own desires, your own longings, your own hopes, dreams, plans, and ambitions. That's where you have to start. I can promise you that if you do not have a from the heart commitment to the will of God, you will not experience it in its fullness.
     The Apostle Paul, a number of times in his writings, used the little phrase, "By the will of God. By the will of God." For example, the first chapter of Romans, I think it's verse 10. Again in the 15th chapter of Romans, he uses it again. Colossians 4:12 talks about, "By the will of God," or "In the will of God." Peter even talks about that. He says in his epistle, 1 Peter 4, that, "We are to live for the will of God rather than the desire of the flesh." There...there are two competing issues in your life. One is the desire of your own flesh, what you want, the way you want it, when you want it, how you want it. And there is the will of God. You either live according to the will of God or according to the will of your own flesh.
     And so, as we begin to talk about the will of God, we have to start with that foundation. Are you willing to do the will of God from the heart whatever it involves? Whatever it needs. That is where you begin to take the steps necessary to experience the will of God. As long as you are still holding onto your will, your agenda, your plans, your ambitions, your purposes, there is a conflict there that will not yield the will of God.
     Now, lemme just define the will of God for you so we know exactly what we're talking about. If we were to take this comprehensive concept of the will of God, we could break it into three categories. First of all, there is the will of purpose. Or theologians might call it the will of decree. There is a will of God that is bound up in His eternal plan. That is referred to a number of places in the Bible. I'll just give you one illustration. Jeremiah 51:29. it says, "For every purpose of the Lord shall be performed." There is a will of God that is His purpose that He does accomplish. It is not something He wishes that doesn't happen. It is what he purposes that does happen. It is that will of God that is essentially expressed in Romans 8:28, "All things are working together for good to them that love God and are the called according to His purpose." It is the will of divine purpose. He purposed to create man. He purposed to redeem man. He purposed to save those that the Father chose. He purposed to elect the nation Israel to be the transmitting nation of His law and His Gospel. He purposed to set that nation aside in unbelief, but someday to restore that nation and save them. He purposed to send His Son into the world to live and to die and to rise again and ascend to the right hand and to send the Holy Spirit and establish the church. He purposed that the church would go into the world and preach the Gospel. He purposed that the church would be the collected redeemed who would be raptured. Then He has purposed there will be a time called the Tribulation, which will end with the return of Christ, the establishment of a thousand-year millennial Kingdom which becomes the fulfillment of all the promises to Abraham and David. And the end of that time, the destruction of all the ungodly men and demons, and the establishment of the new Heaven and the new earth, which is the eternal state. The sweeping plan of redemption is God's will of purpose. And every purpose of the Lord shall be performed.
     To show you that again, back to Ephesians chapter 1, if you're still in Ephesians 6, verse I commented on a moment ago. If not, look at Ephesians 1. It's worth examining briefly. In Ephesians 1:9, we see the phrase, "He made known to us the mystery of His will." He has a will here, and it is the will of that eternal plan and purpose, which was mystery before he revealed it. He has revealed it to us, and here it is: "According to His kind intention which He purposed in Him...meaning Christ." All right, now we're looking at the will of purpose. This is the God's will which was hidden, is now revealed, which He purposed to express His kind intention toward us in Christ. So, therefore, it is the purpose of God to be kind to sinners and redeem us through Christ.
     Verse 10 says, "It is a dispensation or administration that includes or fits into a scheme that culminates in the fullness of the times." What is that? That is the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth. So that's the big picture from God's intention, which He purposed before time began in Christ, through the whole redemptive plan, into the fullness of times, which is the summation of everything in the glorious millennial Kingdom and the eternal new heavens and the new earth. That is His will of purpose.
     We share in that, verse 11, "We have obtained an inheritance, because we have been predestined." He planned, at the very beginning, that we would receive an inheritance at the very end, and he did this, verse 11, "According to His purpose, and He works all these things after the counsel of His will." So there it is said at least three ways. God has a will of eternal purpose which He is working out. That refers to His eternal plan.
     The second element of God's will is His will of desire. Let's call it His will of desire. In the first, the will of purpose, everything God purposes happens exactly the way He purposed it. In the second category, His will of desire...God wills things that do not happen. God wills things that do not happen. And this, too, is mysterious to us. This element of His will is not fully explained to us in Scripture, but there are things that do not please God...They do not please Him. For example, God says, "I have no pleasure in the death of...whom?...of the wicked." He desired Jerusalem to be saved, Luke 13:34, and they were not. He does not desire that any should perish...that all should come to repentance. That is a limited one. We'll say more about that in a few moments. But it is also true that God says to Jerusalem how oft through the words of Christ, "I would've gathered you, but you wouldn't." The Old Testament, God says to the prophet, "Why will you die?"...The New Testament, "Come unto me...Jesus said...all you that labor and are heavy ladened, and I'll give you rest." When Jerusalem didn't repent, Jesus wept...
     You see, there is a desire on God's part that doesn't get fulfilled. God doesn't find any pleasure in sin, an act of sin. God doesn't find any pleasure in perpetual sinning. And listen to this, He doesn't find any pleasure in...eternal sin, which is essentially what hell is. It is beings, angels and people, existing forever in a state of sinfulness and permanent hatred of God...and yet He allows it. That's the mystery. Why does He allow it? Because it suits His own glory to allow it. It suits His own glory to manifest His nature in wrath and judgment against those who refuse the Gospel.
     So there is His will of purpose, which always comes to pass. There is a will of desire, which goes against the grain of His own pleasure...But the one that we're talking about is that third category. It is God's will of command. It is God's will of command. There is an element of God's will in the Scriptures that embodies the commands that He desires His people to obey...He wants us to obey them. He gives us freedom to obey them or disobey them...
     That's what we're talking about. What is God's will for my life, not in the sense of His eternal plan? What is God's will for my life? If I am His, if I belong to His, if I am one who has been chosen by Him and predestined, one selected to belong to Him, what is His will for my life? That's the question. For the living of my life here, that will which relates to His commands for life here. There aren't any commands in eternity, because there's only obedience and nothing else...What does He want from me?
     All right, I'm gonna tell you. But first I'm gonna tell you this. God does want something from you. He has a will for your life. Now, if He has a will for your life, I think it's pretty obvious that He would like you to know it. Would you agree to that? Can we at least make that rational link? God does have a will for your life in terms of the will of command. He does have a purpose and a direction for your life here and now in this world. And if He does have a will, He would like you to know it. If He would like you to know it, then it is conceivable that He would've revealed it in the clearest possible place. Right? So the question then remains, where would you look to find it? Well, you only have one place to look. Christian faith is limited to one book, and that's the Bible, and that's where we're gonna go.
     "Yeah," you say, "well, wait, there's no chapter about me in there. There's no chapter in there that says, well, who I'm supposed to marry or where I'm supposed to go or what I'm supposed to do and all...all of those." Oh, yeah, you'd be surprised. You're here. You're here. It's not 1 Albert or 3 Elizabeth, but it's here, and I'll show you.
     First of all, the compelling question is this: Has God revealed His will in Scripture? Answer: Yes. Now, if He has revealed His will in Scripture, and you aren't doing His will revealed in Scripture, then what gives you the right to think you can demand from Him His will that isn't revealed here? Basically, that's the issue. You don't have any hope of knowing His will for you, specifically, that isn't revealed unless you're obeying His will which is revealed. So let's start there.
     If you move along with us through some of these passages, you may see this little outline. I put it in a couple of the footnotes in the MacArthur Study Bible, hoping it would be helpful. Let's take the first thing we know is God's will. God's will is that you be saved. God's will is that you be saved...God's will expressed as I noted earlier in 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 9, and I wanna define that passage a little bit for you. Here is God's will expressed toward those who are His. Verse 9, "The Lord is not slow or slack about His promise, as some count slowness or slackness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, not willing for any to perish...actually...but for all to come to repentance." God is not willing that you perish, but that you come to repentance. God wills that you be saved.
     Now, this is a very interesting verse. We'll just briefly look at it. The...the...the context is judgment. Look at verse 7. Talks about the heavens and earth, "The present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, for the day of judgment, the destruction of ungodly men." And down in verse 10, "The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and the heavens are gonna melt, pass away, the roar, elements destroyed with intense heat, the earth and its works burned up." So we're talking about a final judgment here. Final judgment. And...and Peter understands that this is coming. But the question that remains is why...why does God not bring judgment? Why...why does He allow things to get worse and worse and worse? Why doesn't God step in? I mean, you know, we're watching our watches and our calendars, and...and we're saying, "It's time to come and end the misery and end the sin and end the effrontery to Your holiness. God, why don't You move? Time is going by needlessly." Is the Lord slow? Literally, is He loitering? Is He just wasting time? Is He just slack?
     And we're reminded in verse 8 that the divine Creator of the universe doesn't operate on time. "One day is a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day." What seems like a long time to us is no time at all to Him. So He doesn't operate according to our timetable or our clocks and...and our calendars. So just keep that in mind.
     The fact that God hasn't fulfilled the promise of judgment, the fact that He hasn't come and destroyed the universe is because He is patient toward you. Or, as the other alternative text says, toward us. One in the same. And that is because He doesn't will any of His own to perish, but He waits until all that have been chosen come to what? Repentance. So the reason God hasn't...shut down the world, the reason He hasn't come in destructive power is because not all of His own have yet been saved. God's will is that sinners be saved. And He who promised His faithful, He will fulfill His promise of judgment, but He waits patiently until the any who are His own, the you and the us and the all, come to repentance and can be saved.
     Delay is not because He's loitering. It's because He patiently waits for His own to be saved. It is God's will that you be saved. You...you can't even enter into the category of experiencing God's will if you're not saved. It only belongs to those that are saved. Lemme tell you very simply. If you're not a Christian, if you're not saved, if you haven't confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior, repented of your sins and embraced Him, there isn't any will of God for you except one thing. God wills that you perish forever in eternal hell. That's it. The rest really doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.
     So if you haven't been saved, don't ask a question, "What do You want from my life?" If you are not going to enter into faith in Jesus Christ, you aren't even capable of knowing or experiencing the will that God has for those who are saved.
     Now, look at 1 Timothy 2, 1 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 4. Verse 3 introduces God as the Savior. "God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." This is all who are His. All whom He has chosen. All whom He has decreed or purposed to be saved. God desires them all to come to Him. As I said, there's no pleasure in God in the death of the wicked. He hates sin. He hates its consequence. He doesn't desire people to remain wicked forever in eternal hatred of him and hell. But He allows that to happen. He...He endures, it says in Romans, He endures vessels fitted for destruction...but He will wait to fulfill His desire that His own would come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved. Only those people who are saved, only those people who embrace the Savior, only those people who do the will of the Father, in the words of...of Matthew 12 and Mark chapter 3. Only those who do the will of the Father by believing in the Son even have a ca-- a capacity to know the will of God...
     Those who do the will of God by believing in the Son, embracing the Son, according to 1 John 2:17, have eternal life. So that's the first element of God's will. You wanna know God's will, then be saved. Embrace Christ as the Lord and Savior.
     Second...turn to Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5, the second point in the will of God. We're showing you what the will of God is that is revealed. And then I'll show you how to know the part that's not revealed in Scripture, the part that applies specifically to you. And you're gonna love that when we get there. Ephesians 5, "So then do not be foolish." Another word for stupid. "Do not be stupid, but understand what the will of the Lord is." So if you don't understand the will of the Lord, what are you? That's right, stupid. That's what it says. Paul doesn't mince any words, does he?
     Now, you say, "Well, what is it? What is it?" Here it is, verse 18, here it is. Here it is. "Don't get drunk with wine. That is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit." Now lemme give you a context for this. This is so ridiculous. Believers coming out of pagan religion had experienced the worship in the Greek mystery religions and, within the framework of that worship was the idea that if you wanted to commune with the gods, you could commune with the gods through the means of drunkenness. That was very much like the '60s deceptions of Timothy Leary and the drug culture that said that if you take drugs you get a high, and that high is a religious high, a religious experience that elevates you to commune with the deities. And that, that is something that was borrowed directly from the Greek mystery religions where you would go to the temple of Bacchus. I've...I've been there in the...in the ruins way back in east of Damascus. The great Bacchanalian feasts. And what they would do was they would go in there, and they would be involved with priestesses in sexual orgies, and then they would eat in a gluttonous fashion, so that there was a massive hole in the middle of the...the hall where they would vomit and then go out and eat again. And then they would, at the same time, drink. All the columns there have vines and grapes celebrating Bacchus, the god of drunkenness. And so this was the way you got yourself into a state, by sexual orgies and gluttony and drunkenness, in which you were elevated to commune with the deities. Paul comes and says, "Wrong. If you do that, you're not going up, you're going down. That's dissipation." And what is dissipation? It's a synonym for disintegration. It's the very opposite of elevation. It's a destructive kind of thing.
     If you want to commune with God, if you wanna go up, if you want fellowship with God, to know the heart and mind of God, then don't do that, do this. Be filled with the Spirit. That's what produces communion with God. That's what produces intimacy with God. That's what produces the knowledge of the mind of God. All Christians possess the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:9, if you're...if you don't have the Spirit, you're not a Christian. If you are one, you do have the Holy Spirit. First Corinthians 6:19 and 20, "Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit." First Corinthians 12:12 and 13, "We've all been made to drink of that one Spirit."
     What we need then is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. That is really indicating the idea of total control. The word "filling" is the word "playraho." Lemme give you a little...little insight into what that word means. To be filled is not static. It's...it's not the idea of filling up a glass, as such. It's...it's best illustrated by looking at its use in several Gospel illustration. You know, I think you'll see it very clearly. For example, the word "playraho" is used in John 16:6, "Sorrow filled the heart." That's talking about sorrow dominating a person. Sorrow taking control. Luke 6:11 says that they were filled with madness. Luke 4:28, "Filled with anger." Luke 5:26, "Filled with fear." And, in each case, the word is indicating a dominating emotion. Literally, the loss of any sense of balance and equilibrium.
     When you say somebody is filled with sorrow, you mean that that sorrow is not any longer able to be mixed with the joy that helps us maintain our balance emotionally. When you say someone is filled with madness, you say they have gone off the deep end. Boom. The scales are tipped completely on the one side. When you say someone is filled with anger, we say they lost it. They blew their stack. Lost their temper. When we say someone is filled with fear, we say they're in a panic. There's no way to...to see any balance left in their emotional stability, and, you know, basically, we go through life, and there are things in our lives that make us happy. There are things in our lives that make us sorrow, sorrowful. And they're there all the time. They're...they're...and we just sorta keep a balance. You know, when...when you're going through life, and you start to look at the sorrowful things, and you concentrate on those, the scale starts to tip and...and you try to cheer yourself up and think about all the good things that are happening. You basically balance your way through life. And the same is true with anger. There are plenty of things you can get upset about, mad about. Then you think of all the things you oughta be thankful for, and you maintain your balance. There are things that could frighten you. If you think about earthquakes and fires and floods and drive-by shootings and car crashes and plane crashes and on and on and on and cancer and heart disease, you'd go through life in a total panic...
     But you don't do that. You think about your kids. You think about your grandchildren. You smell the flower. You have a good meal. Kiss the person you love, and you balance your life. Until the person you love dies, and you're filled with sorrow. Or until you walk in your house one day, and there's a guy there with a gun, and you're staring down the barrel of the gun. And you can't balance your fear anymore. Or you're flying on that airplane and all the engines go out. And you're saying these things don't glide...and your heart's in your throat...
     Those...that's the word "filled." It's control. It's no longer to keep the balance. And you live your Christian life. Sad to say, most people do that way. There's a bal..."Oh, the Holy Spirit over here and me over here and we're just keeping this thing as level as we can. I went to church a couple times last month. Sunday morning, I stayed for the whole deal. I didn't leave early...Holy Spirit, you gotta be happy about that. I read the Bible twice in the last month, and I did a few good deeds, and now, over here, I got a few things for myself. I've given You a few. I'll...I'll take a few."
     That's sick. To be filled with the Spirit means you're gone. You're gone. There...you don't have any will. You don't have any goals. You don't have any ambitions except those that belong to the Holy Spirit, right? That's to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Means to be dominated, controlled by the Holy Spirit. Total control, scale tipped completely in the favor of the Holy Spirit. The idea is to be totally under the control of the Holy Spirit. It simply means you're dominated by the mind of the Spirit.
     Now, how can that be? Well, it's not just some ecstatic experience. It's not some...some supernatural cloud that comes into you and does certain things. To be dominated by the will of the Spirit, to be dominated by the mind of the Spirit is to be dominated by the Scriptures. I can't say it any more ser...clearly than that. It's not ecstatic. It's not some emotional thing. It's not some transcendent thing. To be controlled by the Spirit simply means that you obey the Word of God, because the Word of God is revealed by the Holy Spirit, isn't it? Who is the author of Scripture? All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, by the breath of the God, the Spirit of God. Holy men of old were moved by the Holy Spirit.
     And, of course, in Ephesians chapter 5, you know this passage. It says, "Be filled with the Spirit," and then it tells you what happens. "You speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. You sing and make melody with the heart to the Lord." You start to praise and praise and, when you're filled with the Spirit, you praise and praise and praise, because you're dominated by the Holy Spirit. And then you give thanks. You give thanks for everything that's come to you through the Lord Jesus Christ. You give thanks to...to God the Father. And then you submit to each other in the fear of Christ. And if you're a wife, you submit to your husband. And if you're a husband, do you love your wife? And...and if you're children, in verse 1 of chapter 6, you obey your parents. And if you're parents, you...you don't provoke your children to anger, but you raise 'em in discipline and instruction of the Lord. And if you're an employee, you're obedient to your employer, in verse 5. And if you're an employer, verse 9, you take care of your employees.
     All relationships are affected by it. First of all, you praise God. You thank God. You submit to one another. You're...you're what you oughta be as a wife, what you oughta be as a husband, what you oughta be as a child, what you oughta be as a parent. And even outside the home in your social relationships, you are what you should be. It affects every area of life. That's being filled with the Spirit, Ephesians 5.
     Turn to Colossians 3. Lemme show you a parallel here. Colossians 3...verse 16. You're gonna see the same things here: teaching, admonishing one another, psalms, hymns, spiritual songs...verse 16 Colossians 3...singing, thankfulness in your hearts to God. Exactly what is said in Ephesians 5. Exactly what is said. And verse 18, wives are gonna be submissive to their husbands. Verse 19, husbands are gonna love their wives. Verse 20, children are gonna obey their parents. Twenty-one, fathers, including parents, are not gonna exasperate their children, and then employees in verse 22, and then employers in chapter 4 verse 1. All that very same category, and the very same outcome, except one difference. Go back to verse 16. Doesn't say be filled with the Spirit and this'll happen. It says, "Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you" and this'll happen.
     Listen carefully, if the effects are the same, then the cause is the same. Right? If the effects are the same, and they are in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3, if the effects are the same, the cause is the same. In one place it says, "Be filled with the Spirit." In another place it says, "Let the word dwell in you richly." Conclusion: Those are the same. To be controlled by the Spirit, to...to literally be dominated by the Spirit, is no different than being controlled by the mind of the Spirit, which is revealed in Scripture.
     So what is God's will for your life? God's will is you be saved and that you be Spirit-filled, which means under the constant control of the mind of the Spirit expressed in the Word...
     Thirdly...turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. This is practical, very practical...1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Now, we've said God's will is that you be saved...God's will is that you be Spirit-controlled or Spirit-filled. Thirdly, look at chapter 4, 1 Thessalonians verse 3. Listen to this. "For this is the will of God." How about that? Wasn't as hard to find as you thought, was it? Right there all the time. "This is the will of God, your sanctification." What does that mean? Holiness, purity, separateness from sin. That's God's will. That's God's will.
     What do you mean by that? Well, what...what do you mean? That's a big category. I'll tell you what I mean. "That is...verse 3...that you abstain from sexual immorality." Ooh, principle number one. God's will is that you stay away from sexual sin. Did you get that? Stay away from sexual sin. Somebody says, "How far away?"...That's a fair question...Far enough away to be holy. Far enough away to be unspotted. Far enough away to be unstained. Far enough away to have no...illicit thought being fed...in your mind...Stay away from it. That's a negative. Stay away from it.
     There's a positive in the next verse. Verse 4, "Also, each of you should know how to possess his vessel or body in sanctification and honor." Principle number one, stay away from sex sin. How far? Far enough away to be unstained by its influences at all. To be apart from any illicit thought. Secondly, handle your body so it honors God. That's the positive. The negative is stay from sex sin. The positive is use your body to God's glory. Don't do what would dishonor Him, and do what would honor Him...
     Third principle...in verse 5, "Don't operate in lustful passion, like the pagans who don't know God." Don't act like the world around you. Don't get sucked up into the kind of life the world around us lives. Don't act like godless, heathen people. Don't behave like they behave. That...that is not what God wants out of you. You cannot succumb to the culture...
     And how do they behave? How do the godless behave? They...they behave on the basis of lust. They...they...they want it, they take it. And then they justify it. You can't live that way. You cannot live based upon the way the godless live. They live according to their own lustful passion. It's what it says. You can't live that way. That's not God's will.
     Stay away from sex sin, handle your body so it honors God, don't act like a godless heathen, and fourth...don't cross a line. That's what transgress means. And defraud your brother in the matter. Don't ever take advantage of another person sexually...Don't you cross that line. Don't take advantage of someone else. You are defrauding that person of their virtue, of their holiness, of their purity. Don't do that. That's God's will.
     Sometimes a couple comes in. They want marital counseling. Typically, the first question we ask is, "Are you having sexual relationship?" 'Cause if you are, how would ever know whether God wanted you to get to marry, marry each other? How would you know the part of God's will He hasn't revealed when you're not even obeying the part He has? God's under no obligation to show you His will on a personal level when you won't obey the will that He's revealed on the pages of His Word...
     It's pretty serious, verse 6, you...you should do this, verse 6, "Because the Lord is the avenger in all these things." You wanna have trouble in life? Just get under the vengeance of God. We told...and He says, "We told you this before and We solemnly warned you." And this is one of those kinda things you can't say once...I told you. I told you. I solemnly told you, and I'm telling you again, don't live like this, because God is the avenger. Why? Verse 7 repeats really what was back in verse 3, "Because God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification." And somebody's gonna say, "Well, I don't have to take that from you." Fine, take it from God. Verse 8, "He who rejects this...he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His...whom?...His Holy Spirit."
     You see, the will of God be saved. If you're saved, He gives you the Spirit. If He gives you the Spirit, then He expects you to be holy, because you have the capacity by virtue of the strength of the Spirit to be holy when you're controlled by the Spirit through the controlling power of the truth in you. You're in this church. That's why we teach you the truth and teach you the truth and teach you the truth, to give you the mind of the Spirit, so that the Spirit of God can control your life. The God who gave you the Holy Spirit to do just that expects you to be sanctified.
     What is God's will? You be saved, Spirit-filled, sanctified...You can start asking what, who I should marry, what job, what school, what this, what this, what...when you have begun to obey the will of God that has been revealed. Then you can ask God for what part he hasn't revealed.
     But there's a fourth, and I'll just mention this, 'cause time has gone. Submission...submission. First Peter 2, it...it very clear, again. It says in 1 Peter 2, "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, to the king and the governor, those who punish evil doers, and praise those who do right." And, by the way, Biblically, government has one dominating function...Government, as we know it in America and the rest of world is way beyond what God ever intended for government to do. But what government was instituted to do was to punish evil doers and reward people who do well. That's essentially what it was. It was for the sake of the protection of people so you weren't living in a society of the survival of the fittest.
     So he says you need to submit to government, because it is ordained by God, as Romans 13 says, verse 15, "Because this is the will of God." That by doing right, you will silence the ignorance of foolish men. If you are submissive to the society, we don't expect it to godly society. It's not a Christ-honoring society. Neither was the society that Peter was addressing in his day. You submit to the institution of government, and you silence those who criticize Christianity. It's a sad thing today. So many Christians are caught up in all this lobbying and all this government stuff, that they are a discredit to Jesus Christ, because the world begins to view us as just another political party instead of those who have a redemptive message.
     So if we wanna shut the mouths of the critics, then we need to live godly lives. And part of living a godly life is being submissive. That's part of why I wrote this book, Why the Government Can't Save You, to get Christians back on the right track. But it is God's will that we live godly lives in an ungodly society. And we submit to the authorities when they hold up the standards of right and wrong. In other words, we do right in our society. So be saved, be Spirit-filled, be sanctified, and do what's right as a citizen in your society. Submit to the authorities.
     There's a fifth S in my little outline, suffering. Here in 1 Peter, you can look at chapter 3 verse 17. "It is better if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right." Now, lemme tell you, folks, this is really important. You, if you're gonna do the will of God, being saved, Spirit-filled, sanctified, and submissive, there is a collision at some point. Because if you're living this kind of life, you will collide with the people around you who aren't living that kind of life. And what'll happen is persecution will come. Some level of suffering will come. Could be a fiery ordeal, as it says in chapter 4 verse 12. I mean it could be something, you know, very, very serious...
     So we...we could suffer, down in chapter 5 verse 10, we may suffer for a little while here in this life, according to the will of God. And we know that God uses that suffering to perfect us and to shape us and to humble us and to help us be more prayerful and more trusting in Him, and to also demonstrate His grace to us. But what it's really saying, folks, is don't compromise. Because the way you can mitigate your suffering is by compromising, right? It's hard to live your Christian life in your family, so you compromise. It's hard to live your Christian life in your school, so you shut your mouth and you compromise. Hard to live your Christian life with your friends, so you compromise, or at the job or wherever it is, and so you compromise. The will of God is that, if you suffer, you suffer for doing what is right. Just keep doing what is right, believing what is right, proclaiming what is right. And if you have to suffer, you suffer.
     It's a hard message to get across today, because the church has bailed on this. We're in an avalanche of decline in the evangelical church today. There are three steps in that decline. I was preaching this week, all week, to the students, every day of the week at the college or the seminary. And I was telling the seminary students there are three kinds of preaching that show the disintegration of the church. And we're...we're in the process now.
     Number one, there is Biblical preaching which is, listen, Biblical doctrine in Biblical dress. What that means is you preach the truth of Scripture by the Scripture. You understand that? That's Bible exposition. In other words, you give divine truth in its Bible dress. And God gave us divine truth, and He dressed it in the Scripture, didn't He? He put it in the prophets and in the law and in the holy writings of the Old Testament. He put it in the Gospels, and He put in the history of Acts, and He put it in the epistles, and He put it in the Revelation. But he dressed it in Scripture. So Bible dress covers divine truth. And when the church is strong, and when it's healthy, you will hear Bible doctrine preached in Bible dress, because that's how God gave it. You will hear the Bible exposited.
     You won't hear that much today. You'll look long and hard to hear that. The new wave says, "People don't like the Bible. They don't relate to the Bible. They can't connect to the Bible. It's an antiquainted paradigm. They can't think that way." So we believe in...we're still evangelical, and we believe in the truth of the Bible, but we gotta get it out of that Bible dress. So we preach on...on the Chicago Bulls, and we infuse into some message on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, something about divine truth. Or we preach on...on some parable that we have invented, some narrative story that we have invented, or whatever it might be. Or we preach on the theological implications of Harry Potter, or whatever it is. You just grab whatever is coming out of the air in the culture. You say you're an evangelical. You hold to the evangelical truth. But you strip it of its Bible dress, and you redress it in the culture. And you say, "That's how we're gonna win the culture." Truth is, you have just moved away from the Word of God. God gave us Bible truth in Bible dress, because that's the way He wanted it taught.
     Next step, you've already stripped that truth of its Bible dress. Next compromise you jettison the truth. That's step 3 and we're fast on the way to that...The...that's compromise...So what does God want out of us? He wants...Biblical doctrine lived out in Biblical dress without compromise, and that may lead to suffering.
     So what is God's will for your life? That you be saved, Spirit-filled, sanctified, submissive, living righteously in the society, and that you be willing to suffer because you will not compromise the truth. That's God's will for your life. You say, "This is not helpful. I still don't know where I am here. You don't understand. I have to make a decision by tomorrow. What are you telling me?"
     Well, I got one more S. Saying thanks. First Thessalonians 5:18, "In everything give thanks, for this is the...will of God concerning you." Is that one hard? That's not hard. So be saved, Spirit-filled, sanctified, submissive, uncompromising, willing to suffer, and say thanks for everything. No bitterness, no complaining, no ingratitude, no disappointment. Accept every single thing that comes into your life as that which God has brought for your good and His glory, and have a thankful heart. That's it. That's all. That's what God says about His will...
     You say, "But...but...but...but what about me?" Are you ready for this? Hum, if you're saved, Spirit-filled, sanctified, submissive, suffering, and saying thanks, you know what God's will is? Whatever you want. You like that? Do whatever you want. Go do whatever you want. You say, "You're kidding." No, I'm not kidding...No, I...you say, "What do you mean? How can...I can't just go do what I want." Yes, you can, because if that's how you're living, guess who's in charge of your wants?...
     Hum...you see, that's Psalm 37:4, "Delight in the Lord." He's your delight, you're consumed with delight in Him. You want His will from the heart. You're doing all those things, and He will give you what?...Why? Because He's in control of 'em. Because the desires that you have are the desires that He has. So go do what you want. People say to me, "You know, why did you come to Grace Church?" I wanted to. I didn't...I didn't hear a voice, except my wife. She said, "Go there."...But I didn't hear any supernatural voice. I came because I wanted to come...I never heard any voices. I just do what I feel I...I feel I wanna do, and I feel that the wants fit within the framework of living a godly life. And that God is planting the want. When it says He'll give you the desire of your heart, it doesn't mean that He will give you what you want. It means He will cause you to desire what He wants...So go do what you want. Your heart's right.
     Is that good news? Is that freedom? But you gotta be obedient to the established pattern. Let's pray.
     Father, thank You...thank You that when we start out, as it says in Genesis 24:27, "I being in the way the Lord led me," once we get rolling in the direction that we...we desire, You will take over and lead us, and bring us to that perfect place of Your will. Help us to do what we know You've revealed in order that we might rejoice in being free to do that which is particular for our lives. And as we move out, to follow the desires that You've planted there. Guide us into that perfect place of fulfillment and we'll praise You in Christ's name. Amen.
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Ravings from Tokyo

April 18, 2000

Faith Fundamentals by John MacArthur

Our God-Breathed Bible

2 Timothy 3:16-17

How to Study Scripture

Selected Scriptures

God: What Is He Like?, Part 2

Selected Scriptures

Christ Above All

Colossians 1:15-19

The Suffering Jesus: Our Substitute and Shepherd

1 Peter 2:24-25

Exchanging Living Death for Dying Life

Ephesians 2:1-10

Be Filled with the Spirit, Part 1

Ephesians 5:18

Praying Unceasingly

1 Thessalonians 5:17

Praying Unceasingly

1 Thessalonians 5:17

The Body of Christ

1 Corinthians 12:12-27

Miracles, Healings and Tongues

Selected Scriptures

Fishing for Men

Matthew 4:18-22

Love and Obedience

John 21

Knowing and Doing God's Will

Selected Scriptures

usalapinhazzer

I can't find it, either!