PREACHING OF THE WORD OF GOD

Kenneth Robinson

Ephesians 4: 32; Acts 5: 30-32; Romans 8: 30

Each of these scriptures has references to God. I trust everyone in this room has some knowledge of God. I would like to speak to you about God and the blessings which God has in mind for you and for me. There is no greater matter to occupy you. These blessings centre in His Son, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. We could go out and we could tell to every man that God is interested in them for blessing. That is the attitude of God today. “Now is the well-accepted time … now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6: 2); tomorrow may never be. God may close the dispensation of grace tonight. This could be the last gospel preaching in this room, which is a sober matter. It is so important, therefore, to know such a God, and to know the fact, to understand, that you have a knowledge of God, such a God, the God that has revealed Himself in Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The first is what God has forgiven you, the second is God giving the Holy Spirit and the last scripture is God calling, justifying, glorifying. Does that arouse your interest? There are no doubt other blessings that could be referred to, but this is the desire of such a God that everyone in this room would have these matters for personal blessing, belief, understanding and enjoyment. It is remarkable that such a gospel can be preached at this time. God desires that not one person should be without the knowledge of Him. He is “our Saviour God, who desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth”, 1 Tim 2: 4. That means that God desires also that none should be lost. What a God! God has decreed to use the glad tidings and the presentation of His Son for the acceptance of faith of every man, woman, boy and girl. Hebrews tells us that it is necessary to have faith to believe that God is (see Hebrews 11: 6). Everyone needs to have faith to believe that there is such a being as God, who is both omnipotent and omnipresent.

I remember hearing of a person down in Ayrshire who was very anxious to get away from any thought as to the existence of God, so he thought he would become a miner. On the first day he went down to work on the shaft and at the first break the person next to him took off his cap and gave thanks for his sandwich. That soul was immediately broken down, because even though he was down there in the mine, God was there. These are real things to come to. Have you a faith and a belief in God? The God that He is, the God who is before you, the God who is not bounded by time, not bounded by man’s imagination, by man’s constraints, by man’s science, by anything of that nature – God is God. What a great privilege for men, women, boys and girls to have faith that there is such a Person as God. But more than that, to have faith in a God who has come near. In the wonderful facts of the gospel, He has come near in His own beloved Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. What a wonderful matter, “the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2: 5), the theme of the gospel. Every soul needs to have faith in God and faith in the Man Christ Jesus and to realise that the basis for us to be able to talk about a God who forgives is on the basis of the work of His Son. The only basis for forgiveness is the finished work of God’s beloved Son, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Now, every one of us has to say to God. This is the God in whose very hand our breath is, the God indeed with whom we have to do, according to Hebrews 4. Every soul will have to do with Him in one of two categories: – as a believer placed before the judgment seat of Christ, but for the unbeliever who rejects the glad tidings, a word of warning, that such souls will stand before the great white throne. What an atmosphere that will be, with not a trace of divine grace. Pure, holy judgment as God has to say finally to evil and to every man who has rejected the presentation of grace in the glad tidings. God will say to that, but we preach the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work at Calvary, that God may have the joy of saying, and I trust He has had, over every soul here. ‘I forgive you, because you have faith in the finished work of my beloved Son’. How wonderful! The God who has been offended by sin now has the basis for forgiveness. He has been justly and righteously appeased by the finished work of God’s beloved Son. Do you realise that? It is not by an amount of money, nor by any act as far as what is philanthropical is concerned or anything of that nature, but the basis for all our blessing is the sacrifice of Jesus.

The parable in Mark it says “Having yet therefore one beloved son, he sent also him to them the last, saying, They will have respect for my son. But those husbandmen said to one another, This is the heir: come, let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours”, Mark 12: 6,7. Consider what it meant to God to look on and see His Son rejected. He had come out in the law in Moses and had a relationship with the people on one principle, but in Christ He came out in the principle of grace and righteousness and this was presented both to men, and also to the Jews, “He came to his own, and his own received him not”, John 1: 11. Think of Him presenting grace even to the Pharisees and the scribes, various conditions of learned men, as it says, “which none of the princes of this age knew, for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory”, 1 Cor.2: 8. But man in his responsibility put Christ on the cross. No place for Jesus, no place for God’s beloved Son, the stone that had become worthless to them has now become head of the corner (see Matt 21: 42). Judas was prepared to betray Him when someone offered him a particular sum of money (see Matt. 26: 14-16) – solemn fact – he was prepared to take that sum of money in his hand and to receive it and for that he was prepared to betray, “and Judas Iscariote, who was also his betrayer”, Luke 6: 16. These things are very sobering as we realise the cost that it has been to God to be able to reach and secure and recover the creature that He loved, the creature that He created in the world that He had created, into which sin had entered. God has demonstrated in a magnificent way in the incoming of Jesus, the life of Jesus, the sacrifice of Jesus, what He was prepared to do to find a righteous basis in order to dispense forgiveness of sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit and the blessings which are available in the gospel.

Christ suffered; He went to Calvary. That was the place that He was given, He was hanged upon a tree. As we referred to yesterday, “humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death and that the death of the cross”, Phil. 2: 8. The public spectacle of the cross was there for all to see as the Lord of glory was placed upon a Roman gibbet, with a malefactor on one side and a malefactor on the other. Was He there because of any penalty on Him? No, He was there vicariously in the perfection and glory of One who in love committed Himself and was devoted to the entire will of God. What a matter! What a committal! Abraham saw a ram caught in the thicket (see Gen 22: 13). This all looked on to the Lord Jesus having been held in the full committal and obedience to the will of God. How much is in these words in Gethsemane, but it does touch your heart as a believer when He says, “not my will, but thine be done”, Luke 22: 42. Luke emphasises it by saying, “And his sweat became as great drops of blood, falling down upon the earth” (v.44), and “an angel appeared to him from heaven strengthening him” (v.43) – one of God’s creatures, one of God’s agencies who ministered to the will of God, looking down, seeing the Creator there in manhood. How much was bearing in upon the spirit of the Lord Jesus, knowing that the whole matter had to be faced. He endured much at the hands of men, but far more when He was made sin. “From the sixth hour there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour” (Matt 27: 45). Man cannot apprehend it, we cannot apprehend or understand it. These are deep matters between Christ and His God. As He could say at the ninth hour, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? “ (v.46). Dear friend, dear believer, is there an answer in your heart to that cry? Is there an answer out of deep conviction to that cry that you can say, ‘For me Lord, for me’? It says, “he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities”, Isa. 53: 5. The Lord Jesus in the perfection of His offering was able to sustain the judgment of God in the perfection and holiness of His humanity. The fire of God’s judgment came against the victim, but the victim was able to consume the fire. The judgment of God, you say, was it held back? It was not held back. The full fury of the judgment of God on sin came upon the head of His beloved Son, and yet the Lord Jesus in the perfection of His manhood in John’s gospel could say, “It is finished”, John 19: 30. How preachers rejoice in the fact that they can present tonight a completed work to God’s glory and to God’s righteousness. This is what Jesus has accomplished.

Then He went into death, and having gone into death His blood was shed. The basis of God forgiving you is the blood of Jesus. This is the basis for every one of us to be brought into the joy of forgiveness of sins. If we confess our sins then God is ready to forgive us our sins because of the availability of the blood of Jesus. It is what God thinks of that blood that matters and eternity will show that. I stress it is what God thinks of that blood. How wonderful, and our faith can rest peacefully and complacently on that. It is not what I think of the blood, it is what God thinks of the blood and this will deal with my history. So the Lord Jesus completed the work, His blood was shed and He died and was buried for three days and then He was raised from amongst the dead by the glory of the Father. God has raised His Son and now God can set forth that Person according to Romans 3 as “a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood” (v.25). Has everyone here faith in the blood of Jesus? Has everyone here faith in that God who has a right to forgive you and who will forgive you? Do hasten to take advantage of that. That would be the word in every gospel preaching tonight, hasten to take advantage of the fact that if you have faith in the finished work of Jesus God is ready to forgive you your sins. The woman in Luke 7 is just one example of one who hastened to take advantage of the fact that Jesus was available. For us we would say the work of Christ is available and the Lord says to that woman, as He could say it to every one of us at some point in our history, “Thy faith has saved thee; go in peace” (v.50). Have you got faith? Do you know that your sins are forgiven? Do you know the God who has forgiven you your sins? Have you got that assurance? I do not ask you if you know it as light, I ask you have you got the belief in your soul in a God who has forgiven you your sins and that for eternity, and that you know that the enemy can never question it because God has done it and God has forgiven you your sins on the righteous basis of the completed work of His Son. These things are wonderful. These things are great stimulation and joy to speak of. It is a great privilege to present such glad tidings, to present such a God, such a Christ, such a work that has been accomplished. I cannot convince you by argument, God has to work in your inner being, He has to operate, as He will do sovereignly we trust in new birth, giving you the capability to respond to these things, but then God also reaches your conscience to bring you to the point that you repent towards the God who has been offended by your history, and then you claim the finished work of Jesus and go out of the presence of God as a forgiven sinner for eternity. What a glorious gospel it is! “so as God also in Christ has forgiven you”. I trust every one of us is in that “you”. I trust every one of us can say Amen in inward conviction, and in enjoyment and peace, of knowing that God has forgiven us our sins because of the finished work of Jesus.

Then the believer goes on. In Acts 5 as Peter is going over and giving another of his powerful preachings, he brings out that, “God must be obeyed rather than men. The God of our fathers has raised up Jesus” – that we have spoken of, we have referred to the slaying of Jesus, “having hanged on a cross. Him has God exalted by his right hand as leader and saviour”. God has exalted His Son and given Him a position at His right hand. He could not have given Him any other position, no higher place for Him could He have found. He is sitting there at the right hand of God. Your Saviour is there! My Saviour is there! God is proclaiming as Lord and Christ for the believer. Then Peter says, “the Holy Spirit also, which God has given to those that obey him”. The gift of the Holy Spirit of God, following on the exaltation of Jesus, is to be received. Man is now in glory, where God is down here in the Spirit. In the air? No, in believers who are covered by the redemptive work of Jesus. Does everyone here know about the truth of the Spirit? Does everyone here have the joy of the reception of the Holy Spirit? Have all the young believers received the Holy Spirit of God? God is ready tonight to give you the Holy Spirit. God is ready, if you ask. Luke’s gospel tells us, “the Father who is of heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (ch 11: 13). When you obey the glad tidings, you realise that Christ is exalted, but God gives you the assurance of these things by the power of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps even an older believer might be reached to give a greater place to the Holy Spirit. Take your bearings, take your soundings, so that you are sure of the reception of the Holy Spirit of God. As we touch on these things, does it bring joy in your heart, a confirmation in your soul that you have belief in a Man who is in heaven exalted and glorified and you have a resource in the Holy Spirit within that changes your taste down here, changes the principle of your life in many aspects, gives you a power over evil? How great and important these things are for all of us irrespective of age to realise the power of the Holy Spirit and to be able to say ‘No’ to evil, to overcome both outward things and our innermost thoughts and desires. The Holy Spirit desires to fill our hearts with the love of God and to fill our hearts and our beings with the greatness and glory of divine things. Another has said, ‘The greatest friend we have in heaven is Jesus, the greatest friend we have on earth is the Holy Spirit of God’. Have you proved that? Are you proving that? Is that your experience? Moments in time may come upon us when we are in some anguish of soul, or some situation, or circumstance, and you sense you have no one to turn to. You do have someone to turn to. You have the Lord Jesus in glory and have the Holy Spirit inwardly to turn to as a resource and a power?

Then in Romans 8 we have a God who blesses. I cannot explain them all, but they are very attractive. You begin to realise that God had a place in glory in mind for you. He predestinated you so that your destiny is glory. Do you realise that? The only future for the Christian, as another has said, is glory. Your final destiny is glory. Mr. Stoney’s hymn finished:

Yon heaven is our home            (Hymn 7)

How wonderful that is, God pre-destinating you, taking the time to personally select you for glory. Who has done it? God has done it. Who can challenge it? No one can challenge it. God is supreme in His own affairs, and if God has predestinated you for glory, dear believer, let me tell you, it will happen. He has sovereignly called you. Have a sense of that and treasure it. He may not have called your next door neighbour, yet you would pray that that may be so: He may not have called people that you work beside, and yet you can go through daily matters realising that God has called you for blessing. God has called you out into the testimony, out of a world which is going on to judgment. He has not only blessed you in relation to eternity, His call is in that, but more “and whom he has called, these also he has justified”. He has blessed you in justifying you. Your history is gone completely as far as God is concerned. How wonderful is the truth of justification. God looks at you now in Christ. But you say, I am just a forgiven sinner. That is true and thank God for that, but God looks at you now as justified in Christ for another world altogether. No sense of penalty or fear! And more still – “these also he has glorified”. God has glorified us with the gift of the Spirit, and glorified us also with the light of the truth of the assembly and a heavenly calling and a heavenly inheritance. Such a God! Do you know such a God? Have you a knowledge of such a God? May I encourage each one of us to enjoy and develop in our link with such a God. It is our knowledge of such a God that we take through to eternity. May these things just encourage us all. God has done it all in Jesus and He desires the blessings which are there for us in the gospel in His beloved Son, are there for our enjoyment now. For His Name’s sake.

LONDON

November 2002