FROM FAMINE TO FULNESS

G. W. Brown

2 Kings 6: 25; 7: 1, 2; 1 Thessalonians 4: 14–17; Matthew 25: 31; Luke 10: 29–These verses are familiar, no doubt, to all who are here. A still more familiar passage of Scripture I would quote from John 3: 16, which is perhaps the best-known text in the Bible—“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”. That is God’s proposal in the gospel. Man perishing, as men are all around, not only in the toll that years take, but perishing morally as estranged from God. What a cost that God should have given His only-begotten Son! He is going to have many sons eternally, sons by adoption. One, only-begotten, He gave! As to what is involved in that, I suppose, each one present would have some understanding, that that blessed Saviour who once lived here on earth was delivered up, as Peter says, “by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God”. As to man’s side, Peter went on to say, “Ye by the hand of lawless men, have crucified and slain”, Acts 2: 23. But He was delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. That is a wonderful thing to keep in mind, that no one could have harmed Him, not only because of His own inherent power, but because God spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all (Romans 8: 32).

Nothing could be more important for any man than that he should believe on God’s only-begotten Son. Believe on Him where He is! Not only believe what you may have been told, or have read, about Him, but believe on Him where He is as glorified, as having the highest place there is, as being there, as one said very early in this dispensation, “as leader and saviour”, Acts 5: 31. As it also says, “neither is there another name under heaven which is given among men by which we must be saved”, Acts 4: 12. Must be saved!—conveying that God desires that you should be saved. Indeed, He desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. What need there is today to be saved!

What a situation exists in this city, and in every city in the world, corresponding with what we have read in the second book of Kings as to the situation that existed in Samaria where it says that the famine was such that an ass’s head was worth eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove’s dung five silver pieces. It is like the situation as it is today all around us. Men and women are feeding their minds on what normally would be repulsive.

They are in such a strait as perishing that they feed their minds and their souls on modern publications, and what comes to them through other sources of so-called entertainment, which bring with them moral death. So men and women are perishing! What a situation! The story we read records how a man in the position of highest opportunity, favour and privilege died without tasting the blessing that God brought into that beleaguered city. It is a solemn thing to die without tasting the blessing that God has brought in and is offering men today in the gospel. Present and eternal blessing is offered to us. Thank God, we can say humbly that we are speaking about that which we, know and prove, not a theory, not mere religion, but something which we know and prove.

We have known what it is to be perishing. Thank God, we came to recognise that we were perishing, but that God has given His only-begotten Son that whosoever believes on Him (without exception) might not perish. The price of salvation was paid by Jesus, the Saviour, by God’s Son, and there is nothing more for anyone to pay. All God looks for is the readiness to believe His word in the glad tidings, to believe on the Son, the Saviour, and if you do, surely you will repent. Every true preacher of the gospel presents Christ as Saviour, the only Saviour, and God commands all men everywhere to repent.

It may be that each one present would take the ground of being a christian. Sometimes persons are somewhat ignorant of the position and they say, I am not a Jew, I am not a Mohammedan, therefore I must be a Christian. Paul says in the word that we have read, “If we believe that Jesus has died and has risen again ...”. Do you believe that Jesus died and has risen again? Do you know Jesus? Not, ‘Do you know about Jesus?’. Not, ‘Do you wear a chain with a crucifix on it?’. I would ask whether you know Jesus. We prayed about this preaching, as we always do before the preaching, that God’s word might come. God hears the prayers that go up with regard to the preaching of the glad tidings. Without any self-advertisement—God forbid—I am assured that God has something to say to us in this place this afternoon by His word. We have the written word of God, and there is nothing like it in the world. God grant that every person here would read it. Read something of it every day of the week. Read it alone; however little time you may think you have to spend on it, read something. But believe on Him where He is, glorified, the One who died, and has risen again.

This is the witness that God is sending to men today. God is testifying to men that Jesus died and rose again. It is quite a challenge, you know, as to whether persons who hear receive God’s witness through the preaching, or through the written word of God; whether they really believe. If God speaks, man is responsible to believe.

If you believe that Jesus died and rose again, why did He die? Do you believe that it was because He brought error into the world, as His adversaries affirmed? Do you believe that He taught men to rebel against their religious customs? Do you believe that He taught men to break their allegiance to Caesar? The Spirit of God would bring home to you that nothing of that was the case. He did not die for any such offence. He died, I can say with the assurance of God-given faith, because I was a sinner and because, without Him, I should have been at a distance from God for all eternity. Man’s present condition is mortal, but man is the offspring of God and he can never be annihilated. The dead will be raised, every one of them. There is the first resurrection and the word says, “Blessed and holy he who has part in the first resurrection—over these the second death has no power”, Revelation.20: 6. There is a second death. One says, “I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne”, that is for judgment (Revelation 20: 12). After referring to the blest who have part in the first resurrection, the word is, “the rest of the dead did not live till the thousand years had been completed”. Then they will be raised. The apostle John saw it in a vision. The unreconciled dead will be raised for judgment and there will be no revocation of that judgment. How solemn it is!

We have read of a man who mocked at the promise of what was wholesome being available in plenty. He says, “If Jehovah should make windows in the heavens, would this thing be?”. And the next day it was so. That is a type of the present day when there is abundance, an abundance of divine blessing. I can assure you that it is so as having enjoyed it. I have enjoyed it with persons who are here. For many years now I have enjoyed it. The man who mocked died that day without tasting it. What a solemn thing! One says also, “How shall we escape if we have been negligent of so great salvation, which, having had its commencement in being spoken of by the Lord, has, been confirmed to us by those who heard?”, Hebrews 2: 3. This man mocked. You or I could be negligent. What a solemn thing to be negligent of so great glad tidings! You could hear nothing so great as God’s glad tidings concerning His Son.

I say, Why did He die? Paul says, in writing to his fellow believers, “Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures”, 1 Corinthians 15: 3. We referred to this last week and remarked that they are the Old Testament Scriptures. I wonder if anyone has taken time to look up the Old Testament Scriptures referring to Christ dying for our sins. Then it says, “and … was buried”. He paid the penalty, the wages of sin, divinely ordained, “the wages of sin is death”, Romans 6: 23. I mention again what we read earlier in Hebrews 9: 27—“forasmuch as it is the portion of men once to die”—no one can dispute that; no mocker can dispute that! “and after this judgment”. Thank God that is not the end, for the writer goes on to say, “thus the Christ also … shall appear to those that look for him the second time”. Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many and to those who look for Him He shall appear the second time without sin, having nothing to say to sins, but for salvation, that is, the salvation of their bodies. What a prospect to be looking for Jesus, for the coming of Jesus! It

transcends every other hope and prospect, waiting for Jesus.

In this passage we have read from the letter to the Thessalonians. Paul says, “If we believe that Jesus died and has risen again, so also God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus”. That is the way to die, you know! And who knows who amongst us who may have died a week hence? Quite a question that, is it not? Paul puts it elsewhere, to depart to be with Christ, which is very much better (Philippians 1: 23). But then, Jesus is coming; He is coming in His glory. God used the evangelist Matthew to record Jesus saying that, “The Son of man comes in his glory” and shall “sit down upon his throne of glory”. That is what believers are looking for—Jesus coming in His glory! Paul puts it another way, he speaks of those who love His appearing. Oh how wondrous is the grace of God that persons who once may have loved unrighteousness are so transformed that they believe on Jesus, and now love His appearing! God-given faith assures them of the coming, the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul says, “so also God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus”.

How will He bring them with Him? Well, first He will come, as Paul goes on to say, “The Lord himself, with an assembling shout, with archangel’s voice and with trump of God, shall descend from heaven; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we the living who remain …”. If it should be tonight, you see, we should be above—“the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we shall be always with the Lord”. I am looking to meet the Lord in the air. It does not say He is coming to the earth to take me up, but He is coming into the air. We believers shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and thus we shall always be with the Lord. What a prospect! No one has such a prospect as a believer in Jesus.

Is it yours? God would have it so. He would offer it to you in the glad tidings today; God is offering you all this blessing. The mocker may die without tasting that which has cost the sufferings of Calvary’s cross, cost the Saviour so much—His death, and the shedding of His precious blood which alone could remove the stain of sin before God. How comforting that is!

‘Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were an offering far too small’.

The precious blood of Jesus alone could remove before God the stain of your sins and mine, and He did not draw back. He went into death and into the grave, as Paul says, “He was buried”. I am so thankful to know that, because I understand that He went into the grave for me as well as to the cross. The judgment and the punishment due to my sins He bore in His body on the tree; He bore God’s punishment due to me for my sins, all of them, but He was buried so that I never need mourn again the kind of man that I am by nature. I have known what it is to mourn the kind of man that I am, but I have been comforted to know that He was 4

buried. He took that kind of man out of sight into the grave so that God would be free to give me a new start and a new standing, not in Adam now, but in Christ, His own beloved Son. Blessed be His name!

So we are looking for Him. God is going to bring the dead saints with Him; when He comes He will raise them and He will catch them up to meet Him in the air and then very soon afterwards God will bring them with Him and, thank God, I shall be there. Will you be there?

The pleasure of God is that you should be offered this salvation this afternoon. Oh beware of mocking, beware of neglecting! What an alternative! Blessed are those in the first resurrection—but how solemn, “The rest of the dead did not live till the thousand years had been completed” (Revelation 20: 5), and then they are raised for judgment. Judgment is not part of the gospel, but it is the alternative, left in your sins, neglecting, maybe despising, the work of the one and only Saviour, Jesus, left to bear alone the penalty of your sins; how solemn! May God preserve every one present here from that!

You may say, Well, Paul wrote that and he has been dead many centuries; maybe I will have to wait for the rest of my time here with nothing but the hope. Oh no! that is why I have read from this well-loved passage in Luke’s gospel about the good Samaritan, as we call him, who came where the robbed and half-dead man lays And though the man was wounded, robbed, and half dead, he immediately poured in the oil and wine and, because he could not walk, supplied the power; he set him on his own beast. Many a sinner has had the oil and wine, as listening to God’s glad tidings and believing on the Saviour. He has felt the warmth of the wine being poured into him and then maybe he said, ‘I am so badly damaged that I cannot walk; I have no strength’. But the Saviour says, ‘I have the power of transport for you’. John the baptist said of the Saviour, ‘I have learned that He it is who baptises with Holy Spirit; I baptise with water, but I have had pointed out to me One who baptises with the Holy Spirit’.

Have you received the Holy Spirit? It is part of God’s promised blessing in the glad tidings that you should have the power to walk, though you may have been morally half dead. The Samaritan set him on his own beast and took him to the inn

and took care of him, and he stayed the night with him. Remember that; he did not go away immediately, he stayed the night with him. And on the morrow as he was departing he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, “Take care of him, and whatsoever thou shalt expend more, I will render to thee on my coming back”. Do you understand the meaning of this? How we thank God for what the inn means and the One in charge, the Holy Spirit, who is commissioned by the Saviour to take care of me whilst I wait for Him to come.

Do you understand anything of the relations in such a place as is portrayed by the inn? It is a place of refuge, a place of light and warmth and life in the midst of the darkness, and the One over it has the resources and supplies to keep all who are in that inn—to keep them as God would have them preserved while they wait for the Saviour to come.

How I long to see Him! Do you long to see Him? Are you waiting for Him? There is no better occupation for any man than to be waiting—waiting for the Lord, loving His appearing, when He will appear in His glory, first having taken us, having caught us up and met us in the air, and then taken us into His own home, into eternal conditions. He might come before this day is ended and if He comes and catches up His own we shall be changed—changed into the conditions suitable to eternal glory. Even the dead in Christ are not in that condition yet, but if the Saviour comes today and they rise and are caught up to meet Him in the air, they will meet Him in a changed condition. There will be no grave clothes on any of them, and no grave clothes on us either who are living. We shall all be changed. Blessed prospect! And in the meantime, as I say, we have the light and the warmth and the spiritual comfort of the inn, the care of the One whose resources are sufficient to

maintain every one of His own, the blessed Spirit of God, and the believer’s hope, the coming of the Lord. May faith be found with each one of us to lay hold of this blessing for God’s glory, and for our present as well as our eternal blessing, for His name’s sake!

Preaching at Vancouver, B.C.
7 December 1975