PREACHING OF THE WORD OF GOD

Willie Lamont

Genesis 3: 14,15; Luke 4: 13, 24: 49-46; Acts 2: 34-36

I want to say a short word as to how God has met the great issue of good and evil that comes in so early in the history of humanity. I am sure everyone here knows about the issue between good and evil. It has come down to the present time and the battle between good and evil is in your heart and mine, but God has met it in His own way. We know that here the serpent is an allusion to Satan, to the devil. I trust everyone realises that there is an active evil person called Satan, the devil, and he is against everything that God is doing, and against anything that God may be doing in your soul. I do not know how long it was from the time that God put Adam and Eve into the garden before corruption came in. Scripture does not reveal but it came in early. God’s enemy, your enemy, and the issue arose as to good or evil. The conflict has been going on ever since. If you go into any library in this world you will find section after section on the wars that have been, the conflicts there have been; Scripture itself gives us them, the many conflicts there have been. From Genesis right through, there is great conflict, David and the Philistines, David and Goliath, all symbolic of this great conflict between good and evil. How is it to be met? Can you meet it? Can the greatest man that ever lived meet it? Never. All have come under the effects of the work of the devil. He works in two ways. The devil is a great adversary, Satan, he works so subtly. Here God addresses the serpent, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall crush thy head, and thou shalt crush his heel”. You might say, who is the writer speaking of? My friend, so early again, there is indication of how God would meet the matter. The woman’s seed is a prophetic reference to the Lord Jesus. Who else could meet the great issue of good and evil, who else but He, the holy perfect One, could take up the matter of good and evil, the matter of sin and sins, and meet it for the glory of God, and then for your blessing and mine? Only one Man could do it, the holy precious Saviour, the One who came in as a babe of whom it said “the holy thing also which shall be born shall be called Son of God”, Luke 1: 35. Not as the Authorised Version puts it, “Born of thee”, but “born”. Mary was simply the vessel by which he entered into the world, the holy precious Saviour, “the holy thing also which shall be born”. He was never contaminated by the issue of good and evil, but He was the One who could settle it, never affected by sin and its awful consequences, never corrupted by it. “The ruler of the world comes, and in me he has nothing” (see John 14: 30). The wonder of it, the glorious Man on the earth, for the praise and glory of God and the fulfilment of the will of God, the One in whom the enemy had not one tiny point of contact, impervious to sin in all His holy perfection. Our hearts go out undoubtedly in worship to Him, and in thankfulness to Him.

So I read in Luke where the enemy attacks almost immediately after God announces His pleasure in His beloved Son. The enemy is there again ready to attack. Luke gives here the details of these temptations, then it says “the devil, having completed every temptation, departed from him for a time” (Luke 4: 13). “Having completed every temptation”. He had exhausted his armoury, that is what it means, he had used all his forces, he had marshalled his forces and used them all in an attempt to contaminate and bring down this holy One. But the strong man had been bound, Mark 3: 27. From that standpoint this holy and blessed One went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil. Oh the wonder of it! He bound the strong man, the only One who could do it, because He Himself was impervious to his wiles, “in him sin is not” (see 1 John 3: 5), He did no sin. Oh the glory of the perfect manhood of Jesus! The enemy tried his utmost, using all his ingenuity, all the wiles at his disposal. He had succeeded with every other man, but he found himself bound, and as bound the Lord Jesus went about and plundered his goods.

We are here tonight, I trust that we all believe; you young ones, I trust you have given your heart to Jesus. How simple the glad tidings are, just give your heart to Jesus, confess His Name, confess your sins, confess that you are a sinner in the sight of a holy God, and put your trust in the precious blood of Jesus. The gospel is so simple. It does not require great human effort; it is available to the youngest, just to put your trust in Jesus.

He has bound the strong man and He has plundered his goods. Persons here are the evidence of that fact. It speaks elsewhere of David’s spoil (see 1 Sam. 30:20); it is the result of the defeat of the enemy. It was not an easy matter – “he shall crush thy head, and thou shalt crush his heel”, Gen 3: 15. I think we see that in the sufferings of Jesus. We see the fulfilment of that part of the prophecy “thou shalt crush his heel”. It was not easy. The resolution, the settling, of the issue of good and evil, the question of sin and sins, was no easy matter. No one else could have done it. I ask you, I would almost challenge the universe, to produce a name from all the great men of history who could have met the great issue of good and evil, the question of sin and sins. The answer would need to reverberate through the universe – no one else could have done it, but the holy spotless Son of God.

If we look at the end of Luke it sets that out for us. It does not specifically, in Luke 24, mention the devil, but again I think he marshalled what he had and brought to bear on the holy soul of Jesus the awfulness of the moment that he faced. Some have said that Luke does not give us the forsaking; he does, when He says of the cup “this cup” (see Luke 22: 42). He is shrinking from it in His holy soul, because the cup meant the awfulness of the forsaking of a holy Man by a holy God. That is what the cup involves. The word says “Father, if thou wilt remove this cup from me”. My friends, it is no easy matter, the agony of soul in Gethsemane. I think someone said, He went through these sufferings anticipatively in the garden, actually on the cross. What it must have meant! Who else, I ask you again, could have endured this? “Father, if thou wilt remove this cup from me”. The anticipation of the awfulness of what He was going to suffer in reality, especially in these hours of abandonment – “forsaking”, scripture says. I sometimes wonder why we use the word abandonment; Scripture says “forsaking” – “my God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?”, Matt 27: 46. The answer is “because thou art holy”. As Mr Darby said the answer to that question was found in the heart of every repenting sinner. Has it been found in your heart? Have you wondered about the answer to that question, that holy cry, “My God, my God why has thou forsaken me? “ I think someone said that the emphasis should be on “me”. Mr Darby also said that He was betrayed, forsaken by His own, suffering from men, He turned to God, His only resource, and found Himself forsaken. Oh the holy feelings of the Saviour! My friends, does it not attract you, does it not bow you before Him, all that He endured, all that He suffered? If you want to become morally strong, I would advise you to think tearfully and long and feed on the great matter of the sufferings of Christ.

Then it says “not my will, but thine be done” (Luke 22: 42), a holy Man in perfect accord with the will of God. He accepted the cup as being the will of God, “not my will, but thine be done”. And then heaven in sympathy with Him, “an angel appeared to him from heaven strengthening him”. What a remarkable statement: I do not pretend to understand it. How He did it, I do not know. Scripture leaves it at that “an angel appeared to him from heaven strengthening him”. Think of an angel doing that, the holy Saviour in suffering, and a mere creature, an angel, appearing from heaven and strengthening Him; that angel taking account feelingly and sympathetically of the sufferings of the Saviour.

Then it says “being in conflict he prayed more intently”. Every prayer of the Lord would be perfect and intent, but we accept what Scripture says. I think, even in the conflict He was facing, the great issue of the solving of the moral question, the question of good and evil, the solving of the awful matter of sin and sins in the sight of the holy God, would involve also the enemy’s attempt to get at Him, to make Him resist the will of God. I think the conflict would involve all these things. “His sweat became as great drops of blood falling down upon the earth”. These were the anticipative sufferings, then on the cross, being made sin. Think of the awfulness of it, the thing that He hated most, the thing that he recoiled from, He was made sin. Not made to sin, that is impossible, but made sin. The concentration of the immensity of sin, the human mind cannot take it in. He was made the very thing in the judgment of God, and on account of that was forsaken for three hours by a holy God in order that the whole matter should be settled for the glory of God. And it has been! The greatness of it! The triumphs of our mighty Saviour, victorious in the conflict. Not only did He die and satisfy the glory of God, satisfy the claims of the divine throne, but He provided a basis for God to come out in blessing to you and me. As the word says “whom God has set forth a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood”, Rom 3: 25. God has provided, in His mercy, for every human being on the basis of repentance, the forgiveness of sins on account of the blood of Jesus, then His being raised from the dead by the glory of the Father.

In the Acts it speaks also of His enemies. There are many; we have spoken of one, we have spoken of the defeat of Satan. He is allowed scope at the present time, but the sentence has been passed, the work as far as God and for faith is concerned is complete. The devil is a vanquished foe. The Lord Jesus has also tackled the matter of death by going into it. It defeats human thinking, that by going into death, that very article, He has destroyed its power and annulled Him who had its might, so that the believer is set free in liberty by this glorious Man, this glorious Saviour. Think of this first preaching. As we read it I could almost hear Peter preaching. Let the whole house of Israel therefore know assuredly – no doubt about it. My friend, there is no doubt about the glad tidings. There is no doubt about the fact that God h as made Him “this Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2: 36), sitting there as Lord and Christ, victorious over the power of the enemy, victorious over the power of the grave, and having settled to God’s eternal satisfaction the question of sin and sins, and from that basis Peter says “Repent, and be baptised, each one of you”. To come into the benefit of the work of Christ repentance is needed and it is not repentance en masse. Peter says “Repent, and be baptised, each one of you”. You children, the faith of your parents will not avail for you, repentance is an individual matter and leads to the gift of the Holy Spirit, so the believer is set up down here, in dignity and triumph. It is also a triumph for the Father that Christ’s victory is complete and total and from that place on high has come the blessed Holy Spirit to fill the heart of the believer. He gives a resource which the world can never give and fills the heart and mind with a deep and permanent satisfaction that the world can never yield. May we all be in this and let our hearts go out to Him in thanksgiving and praise for the glory of God. For His Name’s sake.

BUCKHURST HILL

1 January 1999