FULNESS IN CHRISTIANITY

J. Spinks

Galatians 4: 1–5; Joshua 10: 12–14; 2 Samuel 8: 1, 2

These scriptures refer to the thought of what is full, or fulness. The first scripture refers to the “fulness of the time”, the second refers to a “full day” and the third scripture refers to a “full line to keep alive”. Fulness is a word that belongs to Christianity and involves all that God is towards His creature. It is not a word that belongs to the world, there is nothing in the world that is full but rather what is empty, what is void of good, void of satisfaction. Many of us have proved that; we have tried it and found it sadly lacking in anything that gives real and lasting satisfaction. The gospel of God comes to you where you are tonight and God would make certain proposals to you. He desires to fill your heart, to give point and purpose to your life. I put the question to you. Is your life full? Or is it empty? Have you a purpose in your life or are you just drifting along day by day? The gospel is a wonderful message of hope. It emanates from the heart of God who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2: 4).

I want to speak firstly of the “fulness of the time”. What a time that was, the incarnation of Christ. We referred in the reading to the incoming of sin and the effect it had on the race. The world is full of violence and corruption at every strata of society, and that was the situation when Christ came in. It says of God that it “grieved him in his heart” that He made man (Genesis 6: 6). It is the first reference to the heart of God in the Scriptures. Think of what God’s thoughts were for man, the top-stone of His creation. God created the world with man in mind; He brought the dry land into being, and then on the sixth day He created man in His image and after His likeness. Think of the terrible degradation of man, the disparity there is between God’s thoughts of humanity and what exists at the present time. Who can deny it? Who can say that man, as such, is a reflection of God? Who can say that man is walking here as God intended him to walk, in piety and uprightness. What do we find around us? What do we find in our own hearts? We find lust, pride, malice, selfishness; everything that is opposed to God. What went wrong? Sin came into the world; it was introduced by an act of disobedience. Think of the feelings of God as He takes account of the terrible effects of sin. Do you not think He feels the effects of man’s maladministration, the millions who are starving in Africa and other places when the earth has abundance? It says the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof (Psalm 24: 1); there is sufficient to feed everyone. Do you not think God feels it when these ethnic groups are killing one another in the most brutal manner? Of course He does. He feels it.

Persons say, Why does God not intervene? The truth of the glad tidings is that God has intervened, “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son”. Of course, we have to bear in mind that the Lord Jesus as a divine Person came of His own volition. He could say prophetically, “Lo, I come (in the roll of the book it is written of me) to do, O God, thy will”, Hebrews 10: 7. One who was in the position of God, dwelling in light unapproachable and enjoying holy relationships of love, emptied Himself, and came in to take up man’s case! How wonderful! Think of One who came to this earth with the will of God in His heart. Only one Man has come into this world with the will of God in His heart, and He was the only One with the ability and power to bring it about. He was freighted with the thoughts of God, freighted with the purposes of God, but He came into the world to take up man’s case. He would love to take up your case.

Think of those private years of the life of the Lord Jesus, God looking down with holy delight at His boyhood and then His manhood. Every day of that life, every

moment of every day, every act and every thought were all pleasing to God. His birth was miraculous. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit; “the holy thing also which shall be born shall be called Son of God” (Luke 1: 35); everything for God’s pleasure was centred on that holy Babe. As “come of woman, come under law” He took on the title of Son of Man. What a blessed title that is! He took upon Himself all the liabilities that lay upon the race and discharged them to the glory of God. Blessed be His name, what a wonderful Saviour He is!

He went through this world and took up every case—He never turned any away, whether they were blind or lame or dumb, He was able to meet every condition. But all that would have availed nothing unless He had gone to Calvary. He could have gone right to heaven after glorifying God on the earth, but before He was received up in glory He resolved the sin question, the great issues of sin and death. It says, “by one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death”, Romans 5: 12. Death is not just a natural consequence of man’s mortality, it is God’s judgment on sin. Men think that through medical advances they can halt the ageing process and eventually live for ever, but they ignore the moral question. God said of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “in the day that thou eatest of it thou shalt certainly die”, Genesis 2: 17.

Thank God for the one man Jesus Christ; the Man of whom we delight to speak, the second Man out of heaven. Think of the blessed footsteps of Jesus, the One who came to serve, “the Son of man did not come to be ministered to, but to minister, and give his life a ransom for many”, Mark 10: 45. In Luke 4 we see Him preaching in the synagogue in Nazareth where He was brought up, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor; he has sent me to preach to captives deliverance, and to the blind sight, to send forth the crushed delivered, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord”, Luke 4: 18, 19. Then in verse 21 He says, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears”. Was there ever such a preaching

as that? The Son of man came in as a bondman; not as a mighty deliverer in the way that God’s earthly people expected Him to deliver Israel, but He came in as a bondman to serve the whole race and to liberate, to send forth the crushed delivered. Are you crushed? Is your spirit crushed? Thank God for the One who is able to send forth the crushed delivered; the One who came in at the appointed time to redeem those under law, that we may receive sonship.

What is sonship? It means that God can take you from the status of your sinnership and set you up in relation to Christ, a very precious thing. You must first come to God in repentance; put your faith in the precious blood of Christ and own Him as your own personal Saviour.

Oh, come to Christ tonight, I appeal to you. The message that He preached has not changed from that day to this, and as under the sound of the gospel, everything is in your favour. God has the greatest blessings for you but you have to receive them by repentance, “repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ”, Acts 20: 21. There is not one person who has accepted Christ as their Saviour who has ever regretted it. There is not one who has come but blesses the day that he yielded; persons who were in a hopeless, helpless condition, whose lives have been transformed by coming to Christ.

I would like to refer now to the scripture in Joshua. I have been speaking about the way the Lord took up man’s liabilities, and how His death has established a righteous basis for man’s blessing. From this scripture I would like to point you to a glorified Saviour. That was the first preaching after the death and burial and resurrection of Christ, “God has made him, this Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ”, Acts 2: 36. Have you the light of that in your soul? Do you believe that there is a Man in heaven with the same feelings and compassions that He displayed when here on earth? Do you believe that He is able to do now what

He did then? Of course He is, only the scope of His operations is far wider. When He was here, the scope of His operations was limited to a small area in Palestine, but now it extends over the whole world. The sun is like an expression of what there is in Christ, there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. I love to think of the message of the glad tidings reaching to the far corners of the world. It says here,

“Sun, stand still upon Gibeon;

And thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon!”

The literal meaning of this scripture is that it stood still till the nation avenged themselves, but this is not a time of avenging, it is a time when Christ is in heaven and He is toward you in grace. It is a time when the whole world lies provisionally in reconciliation. What does that mean? It simply means that God is not thinking of judgment when He looks upon the world, he is thinking of the Man, His blessed Son, who has brought in salvation and is crowned with glory and honour. He is the One who is ready to come into your heart, ready to come into your life. It is a wonderful thing, I wish I knew more of it. Just allow the Lord Jesus into your heart, let Him take over your life. Not only will He give you the consciousness of your sins being forgiven, but He will fill your heart with His love. It says, “And the sun remained standing in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a full day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that Jehovah hearkened to the voice of a man”. That is the present day; there has never been a day like it, the day of grace. You may say, Well, I do not see any difference. It may be that there has been no outward change, but if God opens your eyes you will see that He is doing great things. God has come in in power in the glad tidings and He is transforming the lives of persons. The gospel is “God’s power to salvation, to every one that believes”, Romans 1: 16. Let Him into your heart and you will prove the truth and verity of what I am saying.

“Jehovah hearkened to the voice of a man”. How precious that is. It has often been likened to the words of the Lord Jesus on the cross when He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”, Luke 23: 34. Think of God’s infinite pleasure in these words. The Lord was about to bear in His body the judgment of God against sin; suffering in a way that is beyond the compass of man’s mind, because He was infinitely holy. He could say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, Matthew 27: 46. It has been said that the Lord was the only man who cried to God from a righteous position and was forsaken of God. He was made the sin-offering, to atone for sins and meet the righteous judgment of God. In these three hours of darkness Jesus resolved the issue of sin and sins to God’s entire satisfaction. Every sin is taken account of by God. All men from Adam onward have had their sins recorded by God. Paul says, “Blessed they whose lawlessnesses have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered”, Romans 4: 7. Oh, how blessed it is to know that our sins have been borne by Jesus. Peter says, “who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree”, 1 Peter 2: 24. Is everyone here able to say with conviction and with certainty—He bore my sins in His body on the tree? There is no day like it, but it will not go on for ever.

Some think that if they can get conditions outwardly right the effects of sin will be eliminated, but anyone who knows their own heart knows that can never be. The only way into blessing is to come to the Saviour, accept that you are a sinner before a holy God and that the Lord Jesus has borne your sins at infinite cost. There is no day like it when you know peace in your soul for the first time; not only peace in your soul but power in your life. I want to touch on that, because God is not only offering forgiveness of sins, but He is offering the gift of the Holy Spirit. That is a divine Person come down to take up residence in those who have come to Christ, but have learned their own weakness and their inability to please God in the flesh. The Holy Spirit will come into your heart and He will shed abroad the love of God there, that comes in early in your moral history. It is a very important part of the gospel.

There are many in this room who would testify to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. There may be young believers here who know that their sins are forgiven, but are troubled by what they find springing up in their hearts. The answer lies in the gift of the Spirit. How full the gospel is; not only has God given His Son for us, but He gives His Spirit to us so that we can be here as those who are truly pleasing to God.

We read in Samuel about David, another wonderful type of the Lord Jesus. It says, “David smote the Philistines, and subdued them; and David took the power of the capital out of the hand of the Philistines”. You remember how Goliath, that great enemy of God’s people, vaunted his might against the men of Israel; David smote him with a sling and a stone and cut off his head. Here we see an extension of that. Taking the power of the capital out of the hand of the Philistines means typically that God has committed everything into the hands of Christ.

When we think of some of the men who wield power in the world at the present time, how thankful we can be that all power is in the hands of Christ. Soon He will wield it in a universal way for blessing. The whole world will come under the beneficent sway of Christ, when His power will be wielded for the blessing of men. Every element of insubjection will be removed and dealt with, and God will publicly establish His King. What a blessed thing it is to come into the power of this kingdom now, as coming to know Christ as Lord, the One whom God has made both Lord and Christ. The present character of the kingdom involves Christ on high and the presence of the Spirit here.

Then we see how David dealt with the Moabites. He measured them with a line, making them lie down on the ground. I think that in the gospel God would make us aware that we are coming under the divine measure. David measured two lines to put to death. God is not literally putting anyone to death now.

What does it mean? I think the two lines to put to death is a testimony to the fact that in the death of Christ God has removed the man that dishonoured Him. I want to emphasise the one full line to keep alive. Would you like to come into this great life line? One full line to keep alive, God is able to do that. I speak, of course, in a moral and spiritual sense; He will keep you alive morally, keep you in a state of contentedness. I do not suggest for a minute that we do not often fail, but as a believer in the Lord Jesus you will prove the abundance of divine resources to maintain you in life. You will be both a benefactor and a contributor in this wonderful system. It says in this passage that they brought gifts, meaning that they had something to contribute to David’s kingdom.

You remember when David was in rejection, there were those who gathered round him in the cave of Adullam. All who were in distress, all who were in debt and of an embittered spirit collected round him, and he became a captain over them (1 Samuel 22: 2). David was a type of Christ. It is a wonderful thing now to come to our Lord Jesus Christ. You will find He is able to maintain you in life, to keep you happy and contented. He will also bring you into a circle of affection; a circle composed of lovers of Christ who know something of real life. It is far greater than anything you can have naturally. It is a life that is not terminated by death.

These wonderful things are all in the glad tidings, all in our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord is appealing to you, we are appealing to you and the Holy Spirit would appeal to you in your very inwards. Come into it, yield to love’s entreaty. Do not turn away the message, but come into the knowledge of Christ Jesus as Saviour and Lord and know something of the blessedness of yielding to His claims. May it be so for His name’s sake.

Preaching at Glasgow
17 June 2001