THINGS GOD HAS PREPARED
I count on the service of the Spirit at this time to bring into our hearts something of the great things that God has prepared for them that love Him. He has operated from His own side when all was lost, when man had forfeited everything.
God gave man time but then came in Himself with the resources of His love to provide everything for man, in a Man who was able to do it, blessed be His Name! “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself”, and He established a righteous basis so that He was able to operate in blessing. It says, “not imputing their trespasses” (KJV). Oh how wonderful! What guilt lay on man—had not the law proved it? The law had but magnified how guilty man was, but God coming in in Christ said, as it were, I will set that aside for the moment. The Lord did not raise the law with men; He was not imputing their trespasses. Think of that scene in Simon the Pharisee’s house. It says, “he forgave both of them their debt”, Luke 7: 42. As sent He said, “He has sent me to preach to captives deliverance, and to the blind sight, to send forth the crushed delivered”, Luke 4: 18. Whatever state was there, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. What a heart He had! Nothing of all that had come in in man’s history turned Him away, but He came in a Man so approachable, who came so near to the circumstances in which men lived to bring men back to Himself, whoever they were. Luke loves to record the outcasts of society, and God in Christ bringing them back to enjoy the resources of His love, and that is still going on. God was in Christ: that was who was there in spite of what they said about Him. In disdain they said, “Is not this the son of the carpenter?”, Matt 13: 55. They would mock who He was because of the lowliness that was there, but yet God was there, my friend, and that was irrefutable. In spite of the circumstances and the surroundings God was in Christ operating by Himself on His own behalf irrespective of what was found in humanity. This is what the glad tidings brings: it brings what is needed into the circumstances of the present day, and I pray that the Spirit of God will bring something into your heart of the resources of His love to be enshrined in your affections, the great things that He has prepared and would bring you into. He comes in Himself from His own side to do things, I may say, in His majesty. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their offences”. As I have said already, He was there to dispense, not to receive, and how richly those resources flowed when He was here! Oh what a matter that God came in in such a way introducing this great dispensation of blessing to which we belong that has gone on for nearly two thousand years, unfolding as it has gone on the great blessings that God has in Christ for humanity!
In what we have read here in Corinthians it is presented that God has operated in reconciliation, that however great the distance He has come in to remove it, and when Jesus was here, God found a spot in Him where He was pleased to dwell. He stood out from the race, so much so that the heavens were opened upon Him declaring who He was. There was heaven expressing its pleasure in Christ here with all the grace and all the resources that man needed to bring him back. How attractive He was, to heaven at least, and to some others who found everything met as they came to Christ. It says, “him who knew not sin”. If the work of reconciliation was to be effected it required that He, my friend, as He alone could, took upon Himself the whole question of sin and sins. He did not know sin, that is why as we read in some of those readings earlier His holy soul shrank from it. It was foreign to Him, yet how His feelings were moved as He saw it all around Him. “Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us”. There is God acting to establish the work of reconciliation immutably in the death of His Son, taking away what had come into the race. Can you fathom it, my friend? There is the way God has acted to establish a basis in righteousness, to come out in the blessings of His love to fill your heart and to bring you to be at rest and at home in His house. That is what God has in mind in the glad tidings, but that required a basis in righteousness and it meant that the Holy One in whom God was operating when here was made sin for us. See the love of God in that, that He should reach out to those rebels, that He should reach out to those who were afar off, and He has made Him sin for us, that we might become God’s righteousness in Him. What thoughts God has for you, my friend, far greater thoughts than you can ever conceive about yourself! God wants you not only to be forgiven but He wants you to be God’s righteousness in Him. What a wonderful plan God has in His mind, what wonderful thoughts He has for you, that He wants to look upon you, and what will He see? He will see Christ. I think that is what it would imply. That is God’s thought for humanity, that He can look on men and see them clothed in all the precious worth of His beloved Son; but if that was to be, His Son had to be made sin for us, to take away from God’s sight all that we were and the whole principle of sin in which man lives. He measured it and He met it in the death of Jesus. “Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us”. That meant—we were speaking about it in those readings and we can never speak about it except worshipfully and in very measured terms—it meant that He was forsaken, forsaken for us. What a God, that He would spare you and spare me, guilty sinners, and forsake His own Son as He took our place. It is what the race should have been, it is what you and I would have been as of Adam’s race without God and without Christ, having no hope, but God forsook His Son. I often think of that scene in Jerusalem, Christ on the cross and God coming in in blessing on all around. If ever the world was ripe for judgment, it was when they crucified the Lord of glory, but what did God do? In a few days He blessed three thousand souls. This is the kind of God He is. He could do it in righteousness because sin and all that had come into the race was met on the cross in the forsaking of Jesus. But ah! my friend, there was more to it than that. It says, “that Christ died for our sins ... and that he was buried; and that he was raised the third day” (1 Cor 15: 3, 4)—glorious matter! The work was completed to God’s eternal glory and praise and satisfaction, completed in finality. He was forsaken of God, He died, but He who bore our sins was buried and was raised by the glory of the Father that a new day might dawn, a day of blessing, a day, my friend, when forgiveness is preached in the name of Jesus. What a day it has been! Have you started to enjoy the blessings of it? To the woman we spoke of in Luke in Simon’s house He says, “Thy sins are forgiven”, chap 7: 48. That is the first step, that God, because of what He has established in righteousness in the death and rising of Jesus, is able to come out in forgiveness to those who put their faith in Jesus.
I just want to speak of some of these steps of blessing. Romans brings us into it. If in Corinthians where we read God was acting on His own side and in His own way to establish the matter, we see in these verses I have read in Romans how the believer can come into the blessings of the house through being justified by faith in Jesus. These things are wonderful, you have heard them often. Have you put your faith in the Lord Jesus? You have heard the story of God’s boundless love, everyone in this room has many, many times. My friend, I ask you again, Have you changed your man? We used to hear that expression often. You see that in the scripture we read in Romans, where all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That man can never be reconciled, nor can ever come into the blessings of God’s house, but by putting your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour, and in the work that He has done, your sins can be forgiven, you can be justified through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. These are the things that God has come out with, because through the death and rising of Jesus, God has come out with the wealth of His house and He is proclaiming it tonight in the gospel for faith that you may come in to enjoy the blessed fulness He has in mind for you. So it says now the righteousness of God is manifested. He is perfectly right in doing it. Man’s righteousness is as filthy rags and, my friend, all that you can do is of no avail in God’s sight, of no avail whatever, but righteousness of God is manifested, proclaimed in the gospel, the righteousness of God that He has condemned sin in His Son, He has made Him to be sin who knew not sin for us. There God established His righteousness to come out to forgive the sinner. Nay, more than that, friend, He established His right to justify the ungodly, persons who put their faith and trust in Jesus. What does it mean? It means, my friend, that God has cleared the whole matter completely, righteously, and as you put your faith in Jesus God looks on you as in Christ, He looks on you as belonging to that family of faith. What a family they are! Are you one of them, are you one of those who have put their faith and trust in Jesus, seeing there was no hope outside of the Man that God has brought in? God says here that He would justify him that is of the faith of Jesus. It is a very fine thing to have a sense that you are justified. We may speak in more detail about it in Mephibosheth, but there it is, God has operated to bring you on to entirely new ground, and He is just in showing forth His righteousness. I want to emphasise that because you can never enjoy being justified if you do not see that God has been perfectly right in doing it, because He has paid the debt to the glory of His own throne and majesty, so that He is perfectly just in justifying those who put their faith in Jesus. I say again, Have you changed your man? Have you still faith in the man who can do works, have you still some hope that things will come right some day? My friend, I appeal to you tonight to forsake the path of man’s independency and scheming and put your faith and trust in what the Lord Jesus has done. “That he should be just, and justify him that is of the faith of Jesus”. He does this individually, each person is justified individually. God would speak to you tonight where you are, that you as an individual may come to know what it is to be justified in the sight of God. It says here that having been justified we have peace with God. I know of no greater thing than to be at peace with God. Think of the world we are in, think of the uncertainties of life, of all that lies ahead upon humanity, terrible things, but having been justified on the principle of faith we have peace with God. You think of Martin Luther, and the great forces and power of Rome that were against him: he says, ‘Here I stand’. There was a man who knew that if Rome would condemn him, God would justify him. “Who is he that condemns?”, Rom 8: 34. It is God who justifies and He is perfectly righteous in doing it. I ask again, Have you put your faith in the finished work of Jesus?
It says here, “Therefore having been justified on the principle of faith, we have peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ”. See how that name comes into all these scriptures. It is not in a creed, it is not in a text, it is in a Man, “through our Lord Jesus Christ”, the Man of God’s appointing, the Man of God’s choice, the Man who could say while here on this earth, “I have glorified thee on the earth”, John 17: 4. In answer to that God has glorified Him and given Him a name and preached salvation in no other name so that those who put their faith in Him have “peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ”. The hymn writer says—
I stand upon His merit, I know no other stand
Anne R Cousin (1824-1906)
That is a man justified. Let persons accuse, let the accuser of the brethren bring up matters to you, my friend, as he will—I am justified through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, we are not justified now fully, or for things here, but the full extent of it will be that we will be raised from the dead. God is going to raise that whole glorious company who have been justified through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So it goes on here: “having been now justified in the power of his blood”. It is irrevocable, you know, the power of the blood which has met God’s holy throne; and it has met my conscience too. It has met all that can come up in my history, “the power of his blood”. God speaks about the blood in these passages as having met His eye and at the mercy-seat the sinner is standing upon it. There it is, sprinkled once upon the mercy-seat meeting God’s eye, but seven times before the mercy-seat that the sinner may stand in God’s presence and have his heart opened out to hear the unfoldings of His love. He goes on: “having been now been justified in the power of his blood, we shall be saved by him from wrath”. My friend, is that all you want? There are many, many persons today and that is all they look for, and there are many gospels preached that stop there, that you will be saved from wrath. It is a marvellous thing, a wonderful matter to be settled about your sins and never to be condemned, but God has far more than that in His heart for you, far, far more. He has come out with these blessings and that is one thing settled, that we will be saved from wrath in the power of His blood, but then it says, “For if, being enemies, we have been reconciled to God through the death of his Son”. Reconciliation, you know, is something more. It brings you in to be in the enjoyment of God’s glorious thoughts. The younger son in Luke 15 is often spoken about; you see those steps that he took, you see him coming into some sense of being justified. The Father came out to do it, as He has come out today in the gospel. He has come out with the best robe, the ring and the sandals to clothe the younger son. There he is being reconciled, being made fit for the house, not only saved from wrath. There he is with the robe, the ring and those shoes that he may come inside and enjoy sonship. Now these are the things that God has come out with in the blessings of His love in the gospel. Friend, are you prepared to take the step? Paul pleads in Corinthians where we read, “Be reconciled to God”. God has come out with the resources of His love, He has done the work, He has made known His attitude, and in the gospel Paul was saying he was an ambassador and, as going on today in the Holy Spirit’s grace we beseech, Be reconciled to God. Take the step, my friend, of confessing your sins, take the step of owning how far away you are as away from God and allow the blessings of His love, as faith operates in your heart, to clothe you with justification and reconciliation and the blessings of His house. It says that here: “For if, being enemies, we have been reconciled to God through the death of his Son”. How often God brings up the righteous basis for it, the unchallengeable way that God shows that He can do these things for His own glory and for your blessing through the death of His Son. It was all a love matter, my friend. Who could measure what it meant, the death of His Son, save it conveys this, how much He loved men. The kindness and love to man of our Saviour God has appeared. There it is in the death of His Son. “He who, yea, spared not his own Son” that you may come to be reconciled. That means that you are brought in suitability to be in the presence of God through the death of His Son. Let us never, whatever blessings we enjoy and however glorious they are, forget the foundations, and as we think of the way that God has done it, it endears Christ to our hearts. Then it says, “much rather, having been reconciled, we shall be saved in the power of his life”. What things God has in mind that you should be here in the enjoyment of! These are glorious matters but they are very feeling matters. They are wonderful things to be enjoyed. May I ask you, Do you enjoy what it is to be justified? You may give out hymns in the meetings, you may say many things, but you will never enjoy being a worshipper until you know what it is to be justified in the power of His blood. Reconciled through the death of His Son: what power it gives to the worship, what praise it invokes in the human heart that God has brought us so near that we may enjoy the fulness of what is in His heart for us. It says, “we shall be saved in the power of his life”. That same Man that died for me, He lives for me. He lives there at God’s right hand above. “Saved in the power of his life”: one part of it is His priesthood, that He is serving you in daily grace that you may not become enslaved, that you may not become burdened in a world that is without God and without Christ. There are many temptations on us all, on the young people I know, there are many temptations in various phases of the world, but you can be saved in the power of His life. The appeal of sport, the appeal of pleasing yourself with your time, the appeal of business, the appeal that the world would insidiously enslave you in its system—there is a Man at God’s right hand above to save you from being ensnared in the bondage of this world. Blessed be His Name, you will saved in the power of His life. Friend, are you taking this step tonight? Are you going to allow the wealth of God’s love to come into your heart, to respond to the appeals of His grace that He would set you up here in the body that you are in, in the circumstances that you are in, saved in the power of His life, a life that can never be assailed as He is there at God’s right hand above serving you in all your weakness? Do not be afraid to speak to Him about your problems, for that is how salvation and the power of His life comes in. Do not be afraid to speak to Him when you are tempted by the world of sport, or commerce, or whatever. He will put His hand upon you and He will say, My son, I have something better for you listen to Me, I have something better to bring you into. And so Mephibosheth did just that.
Mephibosheth was one who was there an outcast of society. The tribes were coming up to David, and he was not able, for he was lame, a son of Saul. You say, it would not have mattered. Friend, you may think at times, what do I matter? Now God is sending out the appeal of His grace to you where you are, in Lodebar or wherever you are tonight. David says, “Is there yet any that is left?” Is there one still in this room that has not come into the joy of Christ on the throne? It says he sent and fetched him , and what did he do? He gave him the blessings of his house. Mephibosheth there says, I am but a dead dog. I think you can see in Mephibosheth’s life a man who was justified. He was misrepresented, persons told lies about him, but he says, What does that matter?—
I stand upon His merit, I know no other stand.
What does it matter what Ziba said about him, or how he maligned him, or would seek to deceive him? He says, My lord the king. There was a man who was reconciled, who was justified. He was justified as he came by the grace that shone in David, and there David brings him into all the wealth of his house, he brings him in to eat at his table as one of the king’s sons, perfectly suitable. If you went into that room, you could not have told which was a natural son of David or Mephibosheth: he was there as one of the king’s sons. He had the same robe, he had the same blessings, he had the same meals at the table: there was the wealth that he was brought into. We sang this morning:
Brought to rest within the circle
Where love’s treasures are displayed.
(Hymn 136)
Think of God bringing us into His house to display His treasures. Think of the table being set, forgiveness, justification, reconciliation all spread on the table, and that is only the start of the meal. Think of God’s house and all the wealth that is coming into that table, all the dishes that were carried in and Mephibosheth enjoying them all, eating them as one of the king’s sons. My friend, I ask you, Is that your happy portion, settled peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ? You see Mephibosheth later on. It says he had neither trimmed his beard nor washed his clothes during the time of David’s rejection. That was him in the world, that was Mephibosheth in the circumstances of reproach. He identified himself with an absent lord because he enjoyed justification and reconciliation and sonship. He says, David is not here, it is not the time for me spreading myself. Every man that looked at Mephibosheth would see that he was loyal to an absent lord, he was waiting for him to come again in peace. But when he came in he took those clothes away. You do not bring these clothes to the meeting. These are the clothes outside, the way we conduct our lives as justified persons; he neither washed his clothes nor trimmed his beard. He walked in a separate path and that is salvation for us, society would not want us. They would not want Mephibosheth, he would always be speaking about his absent lord, and they would not want him. But there as the king comes in peace, he comes into the king’s arrangements. He comes there ready for when David comes, to eat at the table, which is like the local meeting. As the Lord comes in there he finds a company of justified reconciled persons who are enjoying what it is to eat at the king’s table. May we be encouraged, every one of us, to take these steps in faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, that we may eat at the King’s table as one of His sons. For our blessing?—Yes, but for God’s glory and praise. What a joy God has in seeing those persons eating together in those glorious circumstances. Think of Him coming in, in the wealth of His love and enjoying their company. This is what reconciliation has in mind, not only that you are blessed, set up before God, but that God can enjoy your company. Do you ever think of that? Do you ever give Him some of your time, do you ever give Him some of your company, do you ever tell Him how glad you are that in His sovereign mercy He reached out to you, to justify an ungodly far-off sinner? He loves to hear you speak to Him about the greatness of His love. You say you are busy, but it does not take moments to lift your heart up to God and praise Him for the resources and richness of His love, and so God has His portion too. He has His portion in His people. He will soon have it eternally when the whole praising company are there in heavenly circumstances praising the glory of His grace, but may it flood our hearts tonight for your blessing. Make sure it is yours tonight, my friend, make sure you do not miss out on the great wealth and blessings that God has that you should be justified, reconciled and find what it is to be here as one of the king’s sons. May it be so, for His glory.
GLASGOW
16th August 1988
At three-day meetings with Mr Jim D Gray