PARDON, SALVATION, AND PEACE
Ten addresses published in booklet form.
These are taken from the 7th edition of the booklet and are not dated.
CONVICTED, CLEANSED, CLOTHED, CROWNED AND COUNSELLED
It is easy to see that this scripture has an application to a later day. My object now is not to interpret, but to preach the gospel from it; only I just say in passing that it is the way God will in the future bring back His people Israel, and then the last verses I read will have their proper fulfilment. That is the true interpretation of it; but I also find here the principles upon which God in grace deals with sinners now as well as then.
Now let us look for a moment at the verse with which I began: “Be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord: for he is raised up out of his holy habitation”. Have you ever been present in a law-court? Some poor creature is there, it may be, charged with murder. A great deal of curiosity is shown, there is a crowded court. The greater the crime the greater the crowd: nothing shows our depraved taste more than this. There is a hum of voices; all are curious to see the poor prisoner, and are discussing the case. Suddenly a little door opens and the clerk of the court cries with a loud voice: ‘Silence!’ There is a hush at once. What has happened? The judge has entered the court and taken his seat. So here in our scripture: silence is called before the Lord. He takes His place as Judge.
Our attention is next called to the prisoner. “And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord”. He is standing in the dock. It is a great thing to take your place in the dock. You will have to one day if you do not now. You may evade the thought, endeavour to forget God and shut your eyes to the fact, but in spite of that the day is fast approaching when you will have to face God. The throne of God holds you responsible for what you have done. You must have to do with God then; why not have to do with Him now? May you have grace given you to go into the dock, and it shall be for you the dawning of an eternal day. Joshua the high priest stands at the bar. It will be a solemn thing to stand before that awful tribunal, the great white throne. The heaven and the earth flee before the face of Him that sits on it. Solemn moment! Sinner, how will you stand? Thank God, I shall never stand there, because I have already taken my place in the dock by the side of Joshua. God give you to do the same even now, before it is too late. John says, “I saw ... and the books were opened”, Rev 20: 12. Man, you live in sin and forget that God has got His ledger. What about all that black list down against your name? God will be God. He will maintain the dignity of His throne. I will show you presently how God can maintain the dignity of His throne and yet save the sinner. “Another book was opened, which is the book of life”. There are two books, the book of deeds and the book of life. Professors may put their names in the book of life, but God will blot out the names of those who have not stood in the dock with Joshua. You may put down your name because it is respectable to do so, but it will not stand. There is the book of responsibility as well as the book of life. Mere profession will not do. If you have not life, your name will be blotted out of the book of life5. You may resist God now, but He will bring you out of your grave and you will stand before Him at that terrible tribunal, and what will you do then? If you take your stand here with Joshua, you will anticipate morally that great white throne, and never have to stand before it.
We have seen the Judge and the prisoner at the bar; and now there is another thing, “Satan standing at his right hand to resist him”. When God works you always find Satan busy. Satan is there to turn him away from God, and more, he is there to accuse him. The man is guilty, and he is speechless. What can be done for him? I pursue the illustration of the law-court. The day passes on, the witnesses are called, the case is thoroughly investigated, all that can be said for and against is said, and the judge has summed all up, and now the jury retire to consider their verdict. The prisoner looks at those men as they file off, for he knows his fate is in their hands. In the court the hum of voices is again heard, for the judge also has retired for a moment. Some are speculating as to what the verdict will be; some are even betting on it; all are waiting to know. At length the door opens and the jurymen appear. The judge resumes his seat. The clerk again calls, ‘Silence!’ The jurymen have come to a decision. The prisoner looks at those men anxiously. There is silence; not a voice is heard. The clerk says, ‘Gentlemen of the jury, what say you? Guilty or not guilty?’ How the poor prisoner stretches forward to catch the answer! ‘Guilty!’ is the reply that settles his fate. The judge draws on the black cap and passes sentence, and the poor man is led away to await its execution. Solemn scene, but a feeble picture of what it shall be for the Christless soul in the day of judgment. Sinner, will you come into the dock now? Will you take your place before God saying, I am guilty? If so, it shall be the dawn of an eternal day for you. Do you ask, Can I take that place? Yes, though God be holy, that throne is favourable to you. It will not be in the day that is coming. I will tell you why it is favourable to you now. It is because all its claims have been met by the blood of Jesus, and God can say, “The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan ... is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” The eternal burning - think of it, who can pluck you out of that? God Himself can do it. He can deliver your soul because He has found a ransom. He has found that in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it meets the claims of the throne in respect of any poor sinner who takes the place of a guilty one.
There were two men in America who had been brought up together; one got on in the world and rose, and the other went down. The one eventually became a judge, and the other a criminal at his bar. Their original connection was well known, and the court was crowded with people curious to see how the judge would treat his former friend. The case was gone into and the jury returned a verdict of ‘Guilty’, and the judge inflicted the heaviest fine possible, an immense sum of money, or else imprisonment. People whispered, ‘What a shame!’ They thought of their early days. But the case was not ended. Having pronounced the sentence, the judge stepped down from the bench, and coming to where the criminal was, said, ‘I remember our early days, how we were brought up together, and I have come down to pay the heavy fine I have inflicted; the prisoner may go free’. It was an easy matter for that judge to pay the fine; but in order that we might be cleansed, the blessed Saviour had to come down here and pay the debt in blood, and thus He has turned that throne of judgment into a throne of grace.
“Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” How can you be plucked out of the fire? God says, as it were, My Son has been into the fire. Ah! dear soul, it is only because Jesus has been into the fire, that God can pluck thee as a brand out of the fire.
The first thing I see about Joshua is that he is convicted. The next thing is, he is cleansed. I come now to the cleansing. “Take away the filthy garments from him”. You cannot take away filthy garments from a sinner, but God can. He can cleanse our sins. To the one who takes his place by the side of Joshua - to you if you take this place - come the words, “I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee”. My reader, has He cleansed you? Has He caused your iniquity to pass from you? He will do it now if you take your true place. In that awful moment when Jesus hung upon the cross, God caused our iniquity to pass on Him, and thus He can cause it to pass from us who believe. If He does not cause it to pass from thee now, He will cause it to pass on thee in that terrible day that is coming, and thou wilt be placed with all thy sins on thee in the lake of fire that awful burning. But, oh! He desires to snatch thee as a brand from the burning: “The Lord ... is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance”, 2 Pet 3: 9.
But you must stand where the fire has been. You have heard, no doubt, how that out in the far west of America, in the prairies, where the grass grows long, it gets very dry in the summer and readily catches fire. It is a terrible thing when it happens, for it rushes on as fast as a horse can gallop, overtaking everything that lies in the way, and men and animals flee for their lives. The only way of safety is to burn away a huge space around before the fire reaches you, and then to stand in that blackened spot. When the wave of fire comes up it has nothing to burn. Stand then, dear soul, where the fire has been. The cross is the place where the fire has been. Will you stand there? That is where the preacher stands. Own your guilt and stand there. You may know all about this, but you have not, it may be, taken your stand there yet. Take your stand there and hear the words, “Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee”.
Have you taken your stand there, and yet are troubled about your sins? Let this word take every troubled thought out of your heart. God has laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all. From the throne that word comes. Stand back, Satan! Thou canst not say that God is unrighteous in doing this; on the contrary, He is perfectly righteous, and the blood of Jesus is the witness of it.
Well, that is the cleansing: now I come to the clothing: “I will clothe thee with change of raiment”. He has caused our iniquities to pass away in the death of Christ. Sins and sin, gone for God in the burning. But that is not all; we are clothed. What is that? We are in Christ, “made the righteousness of God in him”, 1 Cor 5: 21. “Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him” Luke 15: 22. That is what Christ is to God; can you be more complete, more beautiful? Covered all over with Christ, you are thus made suitable to God. God makes you suitable to Himself. Can you better that?
What said the king when he came in and found the man without the wedding garment? You know the story. A wedding garment was provided for each guest, as was the custom in that country. I think I see that man as he comes into the hall. There hang all the wedding garments; he looks at them and then at his own coat, and he says, I think this will do. What will do? It is like your saying, I am a temperate, church-going man. I never cheat any one, I pay my way. There is no clothing for you in that. That will not do. Our first parents found that out. They found that a covering of their own providing left them naked in the presence of God. Well, the man goes in without the garment, and presently the king comes in and looks round on that festive scene with an eye that nothing can escape. The king's eyes rest on him; he has dishonoured the king and he has dishonoured the king's son, and the king says to him, “Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth”, Matt 22: 12, 13. He is searched, silenced, and sentenced. Nothing but Christ will do for God; if you are not clothed with Christ, God will search you out and there will be no escape.
“Let them set a fair mitre upon his head”. He is crowned. They put a mitre of fine linen on the priests in Exodus 39, and on the mitre a plate of gold on which was engraved “Holiness to the Lord”. So we are made priests to God. Every Christian is a priest. Many do not think so; their idea is that only a certain class are priests. But Peter says in his first epistle, chapter 2, that we are a “holy priesthood” and a “royal priesthood”, vv 9, 10. We are priests to worship God, brought from being prisoners in the dock to be priests to God. Look at that! Made a priest to praise Him for ever.
The next thing is that he is counselled. This comes last. God does everything first. When you know what it is to be convicted, cleansed, clothed, and crowned, God will speak to you about your ways. See what He says: “If thou wilt walk in my ways, and if thou wilt keep my charge, then thou shalt also judge my house”, &c. And again, “Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee; for they are men wondered at”. Who are the men wondered at? Those who are washed from their sins, clothed with Christ, and crowned as priests. Men wonder at or observe them. When a man is cleansed, clothed, and crowned, he shows it in his ways. God counsels us respecting our ways, and what does He counsel? To look away to the Stone. “Behold”, He says, “the stone that I have laid”. How are you going to walk through this world on to the glory? You must look away to the Stone. Keep your eye upon Christ. “Upon one stone shall be seven eyes”. The stone is power and the eyes wisdom. There is the power and wisdom of God in Christ to carry us through this world to the glory of God. You are left here, dear Christian, to exhibit in your ways the grace that has cleansed, clothed, and crowned you, and you will only do this by looking away to the Stone. I often think of that verse in Hosea 14: “Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?”, v 8. God has met me and blessed me; what have I to do any more with idols? What is an idol? Anything that keeps you away from God. Now listen. God says, “I have heard him and observed him”. Then Ephraim speaks, “I am like a green fir tree”. He is turned from idols, he is heard and observed, and is like a green fir tree. He has made us green fir trees, but where is our fruit to be found? Another voice is heard, “From me is thy fruit found”. “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in me”. “He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit”, John 15: 45. In proportion as we look away to Christ, so will our ways be pleasing to God. There is perfect power and perfect wisdom there. “Behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone shall be seven eyes”. God grant that we may look away to Christ!
And now, in conclusion, if not yet saved, will you take your place in the dock with Joshua as a convicted sinner? If you do, you shall be cleansed from your sins, clothed with Christ, crowned as a priest to worship God, and counselled by God to walk to His glory.
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