THE SALVATION OF GOD
S. McCallum
I want to speak about “the salvation of God”, as John the baptist refers to it. It is a wonderful expression. We can thank God for the salvation which has been so wondrously provided through the work of redemption on the cross and the way the Lord went into death, came out of death, and ascended into glory—exalted by God as a Prince and a Saviour, made both Lord and Christ. What a wonderful message the gospel of God contains! Earlier in this gospel there was another man who was greatly affected by the salvation of God—Simeon, “a man in Jerusalem”. When he received Jesus the Babe into his arms he blessed God and said, “Lord, now thou lettest thy bondman go, according to thy word, in peace; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples; a light for revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel”, Luke 2: 29–32.
Simeon was a remarkable man, imbued with the power of the Spirit. So he puts the Gentiles first, whereas the apostles in the ordinary way would have put Israel first, because Israel had such a remarkable place in the ways and counsels of God; but Simeon was so much in the current of God’s thinking. It is a wonderful thing to be in the current of God’s thinking. There are a few persons in the beginning of Luke’s gospel who were in that current. Luke himself was in the current of God’s thinking; Mary was in the current of God’s thinking; Elizabeth was in it, and also Anna the prophetess. Anna spoke of Christ to all those who waited for redemption in Jerusalem. But Simeon was the one who had the Gentile world supremely before his view, and he mentions the Gentiles first.
Luke was a remarkable man himself. He wrote this gospel in order that we might be fully and accurately instructed in regard to the truth of it. So he speaks of John the baptist in a way that no other evangelist does—Matthew does not, Mark does not, and John does not. They all refer to John the baptist in certain relations and facets of the truth that he had to do with in his preaching, but I want to refer now to how John the baptist speaks of the different features of the salvation of God.
He says, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord”. Well, that is what the gospel has in mind in every one of our hearts, to prepare the way of the Lord, because in regard to our hearts naturally the Lord does not have a way in them. David says in Psalm 51: 5, “Behold, in iniquity was I brought forth, and in sin did my mother conceive me”. Therefore there has to be a remarkable occurrence in our lives, that is, conversion. There has to be a wonderful contact with God, through Christ, in order that the way of the Lord might be prepared and that the Lord might have a right of way in our hearts. He has not a right of way in everybody’s heart. Some people resent the Lord; some people stand in His way. Satan has a way in most hearts—a remarkable thing.
But the gospel is to prepare the way of the Lord, and the way of the Lord is to make way for God, for God to shine ‘in light divine’, as the poet says, ‘in glory never fading’. That will carry the rise of the millennial day, but the wonderful thing is that, through the gospel, God is working in our hearts to prepare that way now, that He might have the supreme place in our hearts.
It says, “make straight his paths”. It is a great thing that everything should be straight in connection with the way of the Lord; there is to be no crookedness, no deviation, in regard to the way of the Lord so that He may have full way in our hearts to work out the great thoughts of God in unmatched blessing. What wonderful blessing the gospel has in mind in bringing us under its sway, in bringing in the forgiveness of our sins, and in bringing in justification from our guilt and all that we have committed in the way of sins, for we have all sinned, and come short of the glory of God, according to Romans 3: 23. So John the baptist brings in his gospel in this way and he says, “every gorge shall be filled up”. Thank God for the gorges in any one of us that have been filled up. You know what a gorge is; there are plenty of gorges in this country, and it is a great thing that the gorges should be filled up. You take the woman of Sychar’s well—what a sinner she was! What a gorge there was in her life as she had sunk in the depths of sin as a woman of the city. Instead of finding joy and peace, her life was one of misery, distrust and unhappiness. But think of how that gorge was filled up! She was accustomed to coming to the well and drawing water, but when the Lord spoke to her saying, “Give me to drink”, and spoke of living water, she said, “Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep—whence then hast thou the living water?”, John 4: 11. She did not realize that she was faced with the Creator of the universe, who could do what no one else could do. She was just thinking of the well naturally.
That is just like the things of the world. The well is deep, you know. Think of the theatres; the well is deep, and it gets deeper all the time. Think of the night clubs; the well is deep, and it gets deeper all the time. People feel that once they have touched it, they have got to go deeper and deeper; it becomes a habit with them. But the gospel proposes, and the Lord proposes in the gospel, just as John the baptist did, that every gorge shall be filled up. The Lord Jesus said to that woman, who felt the gorge that was in her life, the valley that was in her life, “The water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life”, John 4: 14. And the gorge in that woman was filled up. She says, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst nor come here to draw”. What a filling up there was in that woman! She went to the men of the city and said, “Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done: is not he the Christ?”, John 4: 29. They came and listened to Jesus, and then they told her that they did not need her to tell them any more. They had found the One whom she had found, who was the Christ. The Christ is the One who does everything for God and everything for us. He filled that woman’s soul, filled the gorge that was there. He filled it with water, it was a fountain within her of the living water.
Well, the Lord intends that through the gospel we should all have the Spirit. The living water is the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit becomes a fountain of living water—a fountain of endless joy, not only for time but throughout eternity.
And then John says, “Every mountain and hill shall be brought low”. Oh think of the mountains and hills morally in the world today, people who think so much of themselves, who elevate themselves. These mountains need to be brought low. Think of Saul of Tarsus and what a mountain he was, and how he had to be brought low. The Lord appeared in the light above the brightness of the sun and he was brought low—he fell to the earth under the impact of the power that was linked with what shone out of heaven as the Lord converted Saul of Tarsus.
Then it says, “the crooked places shall become a straight path”. God is able to make what is crooked straight!—a wonderful thing that, how God can affect crooked places. Deborah spoke of the people going by crooked paths (Judges 5: 6). You take the malefactor who was on the cross by the side of Jesus; think of his crooked life. There were two malefactors; one had no use for Jesus and was full of disrespect for Him; but the other one was convicted as to Jesus. He says, “This man has done nothing amiss”, Luke 23: 41. Think of what a crooked life he had led; he was a malefactor, a dying thief. Yet the work of God began in that man as he was affected by Jesus and the way that Jesus spoke, and he says, “Remember me, Lord, when thou comest in thy kingdom”. Luke 23: 42. In the kingdom of God there will be no crookedness, everything will be straight. Ezekiel shows how all the boundaries of the inheritance will be straight lines. And this crooked place, this crooked, dying malefactor, becomes a straight path, that is. a path that leads to glory, and a path that leads to the supreme blessedness of all that is linked with Christ and our association with Him. The Lord answered his appeal; He said, “Verily I say to thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise”. You see, there is no time to be lost; procrastination, as has been said, is a thief of time and souls. But that man did not procrastinate, he did not put things off. So many of us put matters off in the things of God. The Lord said to him, ‘ Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise’.
So it says, “and the rough places smooth ways”. You could have talked to that man and instead of the roughness that had marked him in his crooked life as a malefactor, he would tell you about Jesus and the way that leads to Jesus, the smooth way that leads to Jesus. Then it says, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God”. How wonderful is the salvation of God, that it affects young and old, and rich and poor. The wise preacher of the Proverbs says—“The rich and poor meet together; Jehovah is the maker of them all”, Proverbs 22: 2. There is no difference between the rich and the poor when it comes to the gospel because all have sinned, whether rich or poor, and come short of the glory of God. The rich and the poor are born the same way into the world, and are judged by God to be guilty as passing through this world.
The rich and the poor fall in the line of battle in the same way when war is waged; the rich and the poor die in the same way. We all have to face death if the Lord has not come. And the rich and the poor will meet together at the great white throne when the books will be opened and sinners will be judged before God. Well, how wonderful the salvation of God is, and that is what one had in mind to refer to, the wonderful changes that come about through the operation of God in the power of the Spirit. May we all be more and more affected by the glory of the gospel in this light, for His name’s sake.
Preaching in Villa Grove, Ill.
1977