PREACHING OF THE WORD OF GOD
John Welch
These words are the words of a man who is living with an object; that object is a Person. We say it reverently of Him on account of who He is, but his object is a Man in heaven, no less. He would make it plain in this scripture and in many others, that that glorious object has afforded for him total satisfaction. He does not need to add a thing to this marvellous object of that life which he lived; Christ fills the vision of his soul – Christ. As he says of Him in his own words in verse 8: "Christ Jesus my Lord". I wonder how many persons in this room could take up those words just as they stand inscribed in t 1s scripture. I wonder how many persons in Grimsby could take up these words Just as this scripture presents them. Some perhaps would say, I am a Christian. Thank God if they can say that, but what does i really mean to be a Christian? Just what this verse presents – "Christ Jesus my Lord"; that deep conviction wrought in the depths of a soul not just the working of the mind, but something far deeper, an experience in personal history of what there is for your gain and blessing in this glorious Person.
The writer of these verses had been at enmity with the Lord Jesus to the extent of laying hold of His disciples to prison or to death; he had been, as the scripture itself says, "breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord", Acts 9: 1. This is the writer of this scripture, Paul the apostle. And following in his plan of campaign – for such it was – he secured letters to religious authorities in Damascus, having in view to follow this dastardly purpose of apprehending, for punitive action of some kind, the disciples of the Lord. But as he drew near to Damascus the Lord Himself stopped him, appeared to him out of heaven, came out of heaven to appear to him. What did He do? Strike him down as deserving of the extreme penalty? No, He stopped Him with a question, with no forceful measures: "Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?", Acts 9: 4. That is what he was doing, persecuting those who belonged to Christ, he was persecuting the One to whom they belonged – Christ. But the questioning voice came – "why dost thou persecute me?". I believe the questioning voice is coming towards many this afternoon – "why" – if you have left the glorious Saviour, the Lord Jesus, out of your life thus far, "why"? What has He done for your damage? Nothing. What has He done that you might be blessed with forgiveness of sins, justification, peace, the gift of the Spirit? He has done everything in view of that for you, everything. He has a right to ask these questions, and a right to secure by way of answer from any and every soul in this room, and indeed any and every soul anywhere, an answer. The potent word in this question is "why" – a conscience searching word. If you have lived a life which ignores the claims of Jesus, why should this be? He has a right to seek a reason and to receive an answer; in the long term He has a right to every man, and the time is soon coming when every one shall bow the knee and confess Him Lord. If you have just lived a life without Christ you will not be missing then. It is a solemn fact, but it is a fact, and why should there be resentment of His raising questions, when, as I proceed to show, He raises them in view of your being brought into the very best that life with Christ as object can afford – the very best? Why do you evade these questions? Why do you turn aside your ear? Why? What have you to fear by answering the question of most intimate concern to you from One who seeks nothing but "your peace and blessing and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Why should you avoid a question from such a One? This beloved man whose writing I have read was searched out by that question; in consequence he came into blessing, assurance, security of soul, power for a new life in the gift of the Holy Spirit; a life of which Christ, a Man in the glory, is personally the object. Saul came into that, but it is all towards you that you may come into like matters, tasting in so doing what a God of love we know, what a God of love it is that speaks to you, what a God of love it is who spared not His Son to secure you.
All these things are blessedly true, but you can consider this beloved man, Saul of Tarsus, see what he went through, and how he writes now of what he has lost. He had been a great personage in a certain sense even in the religious order of the day, an eminent person age – it is all gone. The things that he counted for Christ loss; how graphic the language is but how meaningful! He counted them to be but filth – reputation, pride of position, self-indulgence, all these things; we could name many such features as the scripture does. He counted them to be filthy; he has a new and glorious interest, its whole centre and character in heaven, in Jesus, Christ the object of his heart; and what is more, though related to it, the object of his life. If something presented itself that did not make way for Christ in his soul, he would say, No. He learned to be definite: "I count also all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord" – the excellency of the knowledge of Him. What fine language in a positive sense! O, what it is to taste the excellency of it! Many of us here this afternoon could speak of that with deepest feeling, the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. There is nothing like it; a poor dark world that rejected and crucified Him has nothing to offer, nothing that stands comparison with the One whom they crucified, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And why was He crucified? He was condemned to be crucified by men through hatred for Him, but as He went to the cross and suffered, laid down His life on the cross, shed His precious blood on the cross – He did this for you. You may object and say you have just said that men condemned Him to be crucified, Yes, they did, but behind this was the wise and wondrous hand of God, for He went to the cross by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, Who had you in mind for blessing, and Who would lay the basis of the blessing in a way that no power could challenge. The basis of blessing is a right basis, for God has not passed by those sins of yours; He has not just passed them by, He has provided a settlement, a just settlement for them in the death of His Son. He spared not His Son but delivered Him up for us all. Have you found the gain of that? Have you come into the blessedness of your sins all forgiven, forgiven because Jesus the Saviour bore them, not only at the reproaching hands of men and the vicious violence against Him, but He suffered under God's mighty hand, because it is God that your sins have offended; the effect of those sins of yours was against God. It is with God that the matter must be settled, and that is just exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ has done, going into the suffering, bearing from God divine judgment, sustaining divine anger. You may say what extra ordinary language to use, but the gravity of what was effected on the cross is just the answer to your need as a sinner. The measure of your need as in your sins is seen in what transpired at the cross by which God, the blessed God, is sending forth glad tidings this day. He is just appealing to you about it, as to the immensity of what divine love has effected, and effected, we would say simply, by the most drastic measures. What could be more drastic than the pouring out of divine judgment upon One who as to Himself was innocent of sin? You were never innocent of sin and you desperately need that which alone the Lord Jesus can furnish, the settlement of the guilt of your sins.
Well, all this manifestly had affected Saul of Tarsus, not all at once maybe, but he has Christ before his heart as the One who endured untold suffering on his account. Is Christ before your heart as the One who endured untold suffering on your account? Is He? You see, the divine thought is that that glorious Person who has suffered so much for you should assert His claim to have you for Himself and fill you with an impression of His glory, the glory of the Saviour, the glory of His place as made both Lord and Christ, the glory of His Person, God's beloved Son, the One who has met death by going into death and broken its power, and come forth from death, God raising Him even from the dead, from the grave. These are things which are quite outside the ken of man in everyday affairs, but they are vital things for me and for you, for every man and woman and young person, if they will but listen to God's glad tidings. Here was a man who did this on that road to Damascus, and who speaks so feelingly of where he now stands in reference to Christ. "I pursue" – "Not that I have already obtained the prize"; that is to say he is not assuming anything unjustly, but he says, "but I pursue, if also I may get possession of it, seeing that also I have been taken possession of by Christ Jesus". That is the key point that he reached – he had been taken possess ion of by Christ Jesus. The glory that shone from heaven in that glorious Person shining into his soul has given him an impression of the claim, the undeniable claim, that the Lord Jesus has for him. Have you ever thought of that claim, the depth of it? There is no other can claim you with the same justness of claim as the Lord Jesus. I can say that quite without challenge for no other has laid down his life for you, no other has shed his blood in respect of your sins, no other has been raised from among the dead that you might stand justified in God's sight – no other. The claim of the Lord Jesus is total, and here is a man who accepted it. "I pursue, looking towards the goal, for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus" – "the calling on high". That is, God has a place for you up there with His beloved Son. This touches the vital present character of Christianity, that you have a place where Christ is, inasmuch as He has laid claim to you to have you for Him self, and your interests shall be centred up there while you remain down here, pursuing, that is going forward with Christ as object, living a life not in any sense based on human conceptions of life, but knowing a life which has Christ, God's beloved Son, as its centre. This is God's thought for you. This is what the writer of this scripture pursued, the prize that he pursued, but what a prize to have One before your soul, before your gaze, before your life, who loved you to the extent that what He affected for you is the measure of it! He would claim you tonight, and you cannot refute the justice of His claim, nor· can you in any sense cast question on the immense positive character of the blessing into which you come – forgiven, justified, enjoying peace toward God, knowing the precious gift of the Holy Spirit: all these things. Is it not just that He should just claim you for Himself? Maybe He has asserted that claim before for you; if not, He would assert it tonight, and what is in view for you as affording an answer to that claim is the fulness of blessing which this beloved writer so manifestly enjoyed. It is for you. It is not in any sense for him only; he is presenting the precious truth of Christ in glory, the glad tidings relating to that, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. He has all this in His mind and in His heart to be known in the experience of men and that is where you come in tonight. That is where you come in as coming into the fulness of this blessing.
Well, dear friend, read this scripture through again; read the whole chapter if you will, and will you not find that the scripture is full of the conviction of a soul that has had to do with God, had to do with Christ, and now is set that Christ is the living object in heaven in an order of life pleasing to God, of which you shall know the fulness and blessedness through that precious gift of the Holy Spirit? May this portion be yours – Christ as object, the Spirit as your resource for life. For His Name's sake.
GRIMSBY
31 July 1988