PREACHING OF THE WORD OF GOD
James Alex Gardiner
Revelation 3: 20; Acts 16: 23, 24
It is a wonderful time in which God is concerned for the blessing of persons. Persons are being blessed by coming to know God as a saviour God and that the distance between them and God has been removed in the death of Christ. He is able to bring you into perfect nearness to Himself to enjoy the blessedness of His heart of love. This is available for all who are here this afternoon to hear the word of God, and my responsibility is to present it to you in such a way that you might believe it and be affected by it.
I read this scripture in Revelation 3. The persons written to were indifferent: they were neither cold nor hot (see v 15). How do you feel about God? Do you have anything to do with God? Would you like to have to do with God? You can have to do with God right here and now, He is so available, He is not at a distance, He is right near you. It says, “The word is near thee”, Rom 10: 8. Think of the blessed way that God has made Himself so available to persons; it really draws out the believer’s heart to consider how near He has come in Jesus. The persons here were indifferent, they were neither cold nor hot. Why should that be? They thought that they had no need of God, they had had a letter read to them that brought out the greatness of Christ – the epistle to the Colossians brings out the glory of the greatness of Christ, God’s Son. They were persons who gave thanks to the Father, “who has delivered us from the authority of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love”, Col 1: 13. Then Paul went on to tell them about the greatness of the Son of the Father’s love. Beloved, are you in the kingdom of darkness, are you under that domination, that rule; that will make you indifferent – a sad matter to be indifferent. How foolish can people be? That is the present day, the present world, persons are indifferent: they are not hostile, they just cannot care. This letter here is written for the present time, the last days when we are waiting for the Lord to come to take us to be with Himself in heaven. Are you going to be in heaven? Would you like to go to heaven? I am not speaking about the other places, I am speaking about heaven. The day is going to close very shortly and these persons are indifferent although professing to be Christians. It is not Thyatira, it is not the time when Rome was dominant, it is after what is called the Reformation, when the Church of England and the Church of Scotland came into being. This letter is written after there had been the recovery in the assembly prior to Philadelphia. These are persons who would have known the greatest things and enjoyed them, and they had declined, fallen away, and were in this situation where they were neither cold nor hot, they were unaffected by it. They were overcome by materialism; they say, we have become rich and we are in need of nothing, no need at all. We have all we need. The Lord Jesus has words to say to them, He says you had better have a transaction with me, we will find out how rich you are. I will show you how rich you are, you are really poor, you having nothing, you are poor, naked, blind. I have all you need. Think of Jesus, beloved, presenting Himself to you like that this afternoon, telling you, ‘Have to do with Me, I am ready to transact with you, I am ready to do business with you’. You can do business with Christ right here. Are you prepared for that, have a consultation with Him? What does He want? He wants your heart: that is what He wants, that is the currency. Are you prepared for that, to give your heart to Christ to be revived? This is revival, to be ardent in your affections; how awful to be indifferent, neither cold nor hot.
What happens? We find as we go on through this letter that He is outside: He is not in the place, He is knocking, “I stand at the door and am knocking”. Have you ever had a knock on your door to waken you up? Go and open it, somebody is there and He is knocking. Have you ever heard this knock, has He knocked in your life? It happens providentially; the jailor found the knock in the earthquake; that was the knock that woke him up! What is going to waken you up? Think of the Lord’s knocking. Why do persons remain indifferent? Do not be indifferent, open the door for Him. We used to sing:
Swing your hearts door widely open,
Bid Him enter while you may.
Make room for Him and He will come into your circumstances and He will sup with you. What does that mean? He will identify with you, where you are, He will sup with you. Look at Luke 24, He supped with them. He took part of a broiled fish and a honeycomb (v 42). He will revive your affections and will bring you into circumstances in which you will sup with Him. How great that is! This is for you and He is speaking to you. Have you had a knock like this in your life, have you had an earthquake? It does not have to be an earthquake, something that knocks and wakens your conscience, and He knocks again and again and keeps on knocking. Why? Because He loves you, because He has paid the same price for you as He has paid for everybody else in this room. Every single one, every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has cost God the very same. Peter did not cost Him more than I cost Him, He did not cost Him more than you cost Him. The cost was the precious blood of Christ. He wants you back into the enjoyment of that love of His. He was thinking about you when He was on the cross – do you ever think of that? What happened in these three hours of darkness we do not know, but in those three hours He was making atonement for my sins, He was making atonement for your sins. You say, how could that be? He paid the price and made atonement for sins – sins are forgiven, sin is never forgiven, it is condemned, God has condemned sin in the flesh in the Person of His Son. Jesus has borne the judgment of God against sins and sin and His blood has been shed, the price has been paid and redemption has been accomplished and He wants you.
Are you going to go on in indifference in the presence of the knock and the appeal of His love? To continue indifferently is a very sad position because eventually He is going to dissociate Himself from you. What do you mean by that? He says here, “I am about to spue thee out of my mouth”, Rev 3: 16. In plain language he says you make me sick; that is what it means. Meanwhile He carries on knocking: the gospel still goes out as it is now. When the Lord Jesus comes at the rapture, profession will be going on as it always has gone on. What a solemn consideration that is, it hardly bears thinking about. But beloved, He is knocking and He is asking for you. Are you going to swing your heart’s door widely open, not just a crack to peep out to see who is there, you will know it is Him. Open up your heart and let Him in.
In Acts 16 there is the jailor. You may be like these people, you may lock up the preachers, lock up the word of God, you do not want to hear it. They are not indifferent in Acts 16, they are hostile – the gospel is going to affect our living, in fact it has affected our living – lay stripes on them, put them in jail and make sure that they do not get out. That is the attitude to the word of God. There were Paul and Silas in their preaching, they are representing Christ, representing God, representing the glad tidings and persons are listening to them, but the devil is in opposition to them. Here they are put in prison, stripes are laid on them, innocent people being whipped. What a miscarriage of justice, but what more can we expect, because the greatest miscarriage of justice has been on the cross of Christ. Think of the awfulness of it, Pilate washing his hands. What a pretence! The poet speaks of it as ‘the pride of careless greatness’ – I am rich and need of nothing but he was poor, naked, blind. There was the Saviour, the Son of God before him. Think of it, the judge of all the earth. Pilate washes his hands. Mr Darby says:
The pride of careless greatness,
Could wash its hands of thee,
Priests that should plead for weakness
Must thine accusers be.
What a miscarriage of justice. Beloved, are you on Pilate’s side or are you on the priest’s side? Surely that is not society to keep. The society that you need to keep is the society of those who love the Lord Jesus Christ and have come under the shelter of His blood. That is good society, they stand by the cross. We read in Revelation that, “without are the dogs, and the sorcerers, and the fornicators, and the murderers, and the idolaters, and every one that loves and makes a lie”, Rev 22: 15. That is awful society. Wash your robes and get into the city as fast as you possibly can because without there is awful society. Every city, every town, every village abounds with it and God in His wonderful grace invades the place, He has invaded Edinburgh, Aberdeen, He has invaded the earth, the universe, in the glad tidings. It is as if they are going forward and nothing can stand against them. Beloved, He wants you to open up your heart and let Him in.
Here is the jailor. They had been looking for a man. Paul had a vision, a Macedonian man in his vision says, “Pass over into Macedonia and help us” (v 9). He was not sure what he could do as the Holy Spirit forbade him to go to Phrygia and the Galatian country (v 6), and they moved tentatively into Macedonia. They come to Philippi and find certain things. They found some women praying, they identified with them, and the Lord had opened the heart of one of these women, to attend to the things spoken by Paul. Would you like that to happen to you? It can happen to you. He is quite willing and quite available and able to open persons’ hearts to attend to the things spoken by Paul. Your affections are drawn out to the wonderful truth of Christ glorified and His body here and you are a part of it. But he was looking for a man and he cannot find him. Then the devil is active trying to help the work forward and that is part of his craft. Paul passes a judgment on it and consequently they take him and Silas and put them in prison, and they fasten their feet in stocks. That is what man naturally wants to do with the word of God, ‘shut it up, we do not want to hear it, keep it out of the way, in fact put it in the inner prison’. Is that effective? Think of them in suffering as they are but praying, counting on God, waiting for this man. Silas does not say to Paul, Are you sure about the vision, maybe it was not too clear. He does not say that, he has faith in the things spoken by Paul. How blessed that is! He is not going to undermine his faith. They are together in this and “in praying, were praising God with singing”, the like was never heard of in this jail before. It was not drugs or drink, it was nothing like that; it was persons who were in the enjoyment in their souls of the wonderful glad tidings of God and nothing was going to stop their enjoyment of it. What wonderful persons they are!
Now the knock comes – the jailor is fast asleep, quite happy that the prisoners are secured, nothing to worry him. The Lord knocks – what happens? An earthquake. Can man cope with that? That is no person, however great, however able they are, that can cope with creatorial upheavals. Think of the tsunami that happened, earthquakes that happen, floods that happen, man cannot cope with it, but God can. Here is this earthquake, the foundations of the prison shake, the prisoners are all loosed – that is what God does. He wants men to be free, to be liberated. He does not want them to be held in prison. They do not run away. Why do they not run away? They are held there by what they find in Paul and Silas. What personalities these men were! You can see what God can do, He will make you somebody, not only does He want to save your soul and take you to heaven, but He is going to make you somebody like Christ, so that you are an influence for good. Think of the wonderful influence of Paul and Silas here. The jailor rushes in, the prisoners are loose, he has drawn a sword, he is going to commit suicide. Do not become suicidal, listen to the word of God. That is the first thing that Paul says; he does not say, you will have to pray, he says, “Do thyself no harm”. That was the immediate need, do not be suicidal, we are all here. There is no need to be upset, we have not run away we are all here. He is thinking, Is this the Macedonian man that I was looking for? “Do thyself no harm, for we are all here. And having asked for lights, he rushed in, and trembling, fell down before Paul and Silas. And leading them out said, Sirs, what must I do that I may be saved?” Beloved, would to God that that was the question on every lip in this city today, “what must I do that I may be saved?” What does he say, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house”. Can you get anything better than that? Not only will you be saved but your whole house will be saved. A marvellous proposal that he makes, you will be saved and your whole house will be saved. Think of that, the house saved and completed for Christ. God has the wherewithal to effect that, to cause it to happen. Nothing is impossible with God, He can make things happen and He will make things happen. It happens here – “thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house”. The knock has been effective, He is coming in and He is going to sup with them. Think of the wonder of that, the blessedness of that, the immensity of that. What turmoil went on in this man’s soul and now he is relieved. Instead of feeling suicidal now and shutting them up in prison, he cannot do enough for them. Is that you? Are you going to be like that? That is conversion, that is change. He has taken on change because he has seen the glory of the Lord, he has seen moral greatness in these men, seen how they can cope with the situation. Think of the greatness of that, an earthquake, the foundations of the prison shaken, the prisoners loosed, the jailor running in about to commit suicide, and these two men are able to handle the situation. What a calming influence in these words, “Do thyself no harm”. What influence Paul had on all these people in prison. The man wants lights, which he gets. “Sirs, what must I do?” He is respectful now, no more locking their feet in the stocks, “what must I do that I may be saved?” He does not go into all the details of the gospel; all he says is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved”. He meets the need immediately and adds “thou and thy house. And they spoke to him the word of the Lord, with all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed them from their stripes; and was baptised, he and all his straightway”. See the wonder of that – “I will come in unto him and sup with him”, marvellous display of the spirit of Christ. That is the Lord Jesus coming into this man’s house and he was baptised straight away. “And having brought them into his house he laid the table for them, and rejoiced with all his house, having believed in God”. Is that not marvellous? This is your opportunity to believe on God, to have your house as it ought to be in the sight of God, “thou and thy house”.
Think of the household secured for God in Philippi. Philippi is a wonderful place. The gospel is now in Europe. Have a look round the meeting there, Lydia was a fine lady who sold purple. She had her own business; then there is the jailor, a rather different sort of person who was in the prison service, and then there was Paul’s fellow labourer who was unnamed, and a brother called Epaphroditus and some others who had attended to the things spoken by Paul. It is not a wealthy meeting, it is not a Laodecian meeting. It would seem they are mainly poor people but they are large-hearted who give according to their means and beyond their means. Why? Because Christ is in their hearts. See the change that comes about through the glad tidings. A knock has affected something and caused the door to be opened so that Christ has His way. Do this and your life will be different altogether. See this man now, he is saved in the power of the life of Christ, reconciled to God, “For if, being enemies, we have been reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much rather, having been reconciled, we shall be saved in the power of his life”, Rom. 5: 10. How practical that is, how real! That is the glad tidings. I think it is a very wonderful thing and I would appeal to anyone here who has shut out Christ to open the door and let him in, to open up widely and let Him in, and He will come into your circumstances and attend to them. He will sup with you and will take you into His circumstances and you will sup with Him. How wonderful that is! May the Lord bless the word.
EDINBURGH
23 April 2006