THE PRESENT TRIUMPH OF THE GOSPEL
I have read this verse to introduce my subject. No doubt you are familiar with the circumstances that led to this remark of the Lord. It is His comment on the act of this woman. It is recorded three times - in Matthew, Mark, and John. The Lord says, “Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her”. Why should the act of this woman be thus recorded? For many years I could not have given you a reason, but I think I can now. The reason why this should be told is because it presents to us the present triumph of the gospel. We limit the thought of the gospel too much. Christians need the gospel. I do not say they need a gospel to take them to heaven, but they need a gospel to deliver them while here. You think, perhaps, that the triumph of the gospel is to snatch a brand from the burning, and to place that one in glory with Christ. All that is quite true, but it is not the present triumph of the gospel, and it is not the point of this passage.
I am taking it for granted that every Christian here has the assurance the gospel gives as to the future - that if you departed hence this moment it would be well with you. That is a good thing. Many have not reached it. But that is not the present triumph of the gospel! What is the present triumph of the gospel? I beg you to weigh it. It is to make you forget yourself and think of Another. That is the proposal of the gospel. It gives me an object outside myself. The action of this woman sets it forth. She takes that which might have given her distinction in the eyes of others. She had gathered her pence together; she takes the ointment she had purchased, and, led by the instincts of affection, lavishes it on this blessed One. I think this sets forth the present triumph of the gospel, and therefore the Lord commends it in this way.
The assurance that you will go to heaven when you die will not make you happy for the present; we need another aspect of the gospel that will set us free from ourselves and occupy us with Another. The gospel will produce this: it will place you in the company of this woman.
What I desire to set before you is, first, the necessity of deliverance, then the way of deliverance, and finally the effect of deliverance. I trust it will be made clear to you by the Spirit.
I will now read a passage in chapter 11 of this gospel, verses 1-9. I have chosen this scripture to illustrate my subject. I suppose you are familiar with Exodus 13, where God puts the firstling of an ass and the firstborn of man together. When we come to scripture we do not find ourselves flattered by the company we are put into; we are humiliated, and it leads to blessing if we accept it.
The firstling of an ass had to be redeemed with a lamb, or else its neck had to be broken; it could only live on the ground that the lamb had died.
I now turn to a passage in Mark 11: 2-5. We see the colt tied. Here I see a picture of myself. I look at that colt and say, Why is that colt alive? Because the lamb had died for it, otherwise God had said its neck was to be broken, but there it is. I believe as to the strict interpretation of this passage that it has reference to Israel, but the same thing applies in principle to us. The colt was allowed to live because the lamb had died. That is, the judgment of God rested upon us, but the Son of God took it in our stead. He died and we live. That is the first thing you are sensible of: the Lamb has died for you, and you live; because He has gone through the judgment, you will never have to bear it.
What is the next thing? The Lamb who died for you is the Lord to guide you. If the lamb died for the colt, the Lord must sit on it; it is to be for the Lord’s pleasure. That is what you are set free for. “The Lord hath need of him”. I ask you, Do you acknowledge His claim? He claims you because He died for you. Do you answer, Yes, the Lamb that redeemed me is the Lord to control me henceforth?
There is no such thing as salvation apart from the acknowledgment of the lordship of Christ. It is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved”: Acts 16: 31. I feel how necessary it is to press the claims of the Lord, for it is as we recognise His claims and desire to answer to them, that we feel the need of deliverance. The reason people do not get deliverance is because they do not feel their need of it, and the reason they do not feel their need of it is because they do not own the Lord’s claims; they are not conscientious; it is the laxity of the age; the gospel is preached so much as relief. There is relief, I admit, but connected with it is the lordship of Christ. The scripture reads: “If we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead”, Rom 4: 21. It is not believing a text. I do not think any person has ever been saved through merely believing a text. You have to believe God, the One of whom the text speaks. There is a very great difference. “To whom it shall be imputed” - righteousness shall be imputed - “believing” (it should be) “on him that raised up Jesus our Lord”. You are introduced to God, and the testimony of God points you to Jesus our Lord. You may think this is a very simple thing to bring before you, but it is most important.
Let me quote another passage: “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus” (or “Jesus as Lord”, as it should read), “and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved”, Rom 10: 9. There you get the two things - the confession of the lordship of Christ, and salvation. With the mouth confession is made unto salvation, with the heart man believeth unto righteousness: Jesus is confessed as your Lord.
Let me give you a case in scripture, because I am anxious about this point. You remember how Saul of Tarsus was on his way to Damascus with a high hand, and with authority to persecute those who called on the name of the Lord; how he was arrested by the light from heaven that struck him to the ground, and how he heard the voice of Jesus saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”, Acts 9: 4 Now I want you to notice what he says when he learns who it is that speaks to him: “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”, v 6 He owns Jesus as Lord. He has not peace yet, but he has come under the sway of the Lord.
Perhaps you say, What has this to do with deliverance? It lies at the very root of the matter. If there was a sense of the lordship of Christ, the need of deliverance would be felt, and it would then be sought. Just come back to Saul: he goes into Damascus and spends three days and three nights without food and without sight. Is he happy? No; he goes down in overwhelming distress. What is the matter? He has owned Jesus as Lord, but he has discovered within him a principle that will not go that way. The man who has led a blameless life has discovered that. Now you are on the road to deliverance. You must learn that lesson, and you will never be happy or do a single thing for Christ's glory till you have learnt it. It is the recognition of the Lord's claims that needs to be pressed.
The next point is, you want to please the Lord. To put it in a simple way, you say, I own His love and desire to do His will, but have not an atom of power. What shall I do? That is terrible anguish for a soul! Not to have power to please the one you love, that is agony. Have you ever passed through that? There was anguish in the thought of possibly going to hell, but that is all settled now; it is not that you cannot go to heaven, but oh, the anguish of learning this lesson of one's own powerlessness for good that there is in one a principle that will not go God's way!
The first four chapters of Romans would have been sufficient for one who had gone to heaven the day he was converted, but if he lives he needs a gospel to teach him how to live. We think we only want a gospel that will take us to heaven; we really need a gospel to teach us how we should live on earth, to make us happy while we are here. This is the great need; it is not a question of people going to heaven, that is not the trouble, but they are not happy because they are not clear of this evil principle that will not go the Lord's way.
It is not knowing the doctrine; you may know the doctrine as clear as noonday, but you must take the journey. It is possible for a man to get up and lecture on deliverance, and not be in the good of it himself. We must experimentally take the journey, and there is a very blessed end to the journey.
You say, perhaps: You have described my case exactly. Will you now tell me what will set me clear of myself? Come then to the twelfth verse of this beautiful chapter (11). The verse before this is very touching. The Lord had entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple, and had looked round upon all things, and when evening came had gone out to Bethany. The temple was the religious sphere of the Jew - of man in the flesh. He would not stay in the temple; He would not even sleep in the city where the temple was. The next day, coming from Bethany, he saw a fig tree. He was hungry, and seeing a fig tree He came to it, if haply He might find anything thereon; and when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves. And then He says, “No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever”. “And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots”, v 20. When Peter calls attention to it, the Lord answers, “Have faith in God”. If I can only convey to you what is in this passage, I shall be glad, for it is a most interesting and helpful scripture. The Lord came seeking fruit for God. “He was hungry” - really it means He was hungering for something for God. But He did not find it. That tree sets forth man under culture - Israel, if you like, but our history is in it, for in the history of Israel you get the history of man after the flesh. What is to be done? God has looked for fruit from man in the flesh, and found none. My friends, have you got hold of that? If so, the next thing is to know God's judgment of it; you have to learn first what that man is, and the character of that man who will not go God's way, and then the judgment of God that is on him. God will prove to you the necessity of the cross. In that cross God has pronounced His judgment on that which troubles you. “No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever”. “They saw the fig tree dried up from the roots”. Withered, WITHERED - God has withered it. It was God’s act. The man after the flesh has been blasted by the judgment of God.
Peter called his Master's attention to it, but the Lord, in effect, says: I will never look that way again. You may look that way and get your disappointments, but God will never look that way. He has done with it. If that is not good news to you, I do not know what will be. If you have learnt in anguish of soul what that fig tree is, if you have had a sickening of yourself, what a relief it is to know that God has done it! It is an immense help to accept God's judgment of it.
How then did God judge it, and where did He judge it? Look at the third verse of Romans 8: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh”. Look at that verse, and do not think as you do so that you know all about it. Do you know the relief of that verse? The law could not produce anything for God from the flesh. It was “holy … just, and good” (Rom 7: 12); but it was weak to produce anything for God “through the flesh”. Here comes in the gospel - God sent His own Son! Look at the cost of it. He sends His own Son. What to do? First of all to be in the likeness of sinful flesh - wondrous grace! - and then as a sacrifice for sin to condemn sin in the flesh. When God made Him to be sin - when God made His sinless Son to be sin for us - He condemned sin in the flesh. That is how and where God withered it up. Do you know what it is to have the relief of that? Do you think any one can know that who has not really felt what the flesh is?
In Romans 7: 22 we see one who loved the law of God after the inward man, but was powerless to fulfil it. Let me say there are three ways of learning our badness. First by the practice of evil. This is the most superficial way; that is to say, a man has been into all the mud and filth of this world, and because of this he knows what his badness is; but it is a mistake to think that he knows more about it than the person who has been outwardly moral. The second way we learn our badness is by the effort to be good; that is Romans 7 - the effort to be good, without object or power. The third and most effectual way is in the presence of perfect goodness, and this is without a bit of anguish. You learn it in the presence of that blessed One who is before God's face for ever. The more we learn His perfections, the more we learn the true character of the flesh by way of contrast, and we get distanced from the man here. But let me come back to my point. The tree is withered from the root right up. Well indeed for us that it is so. It is a gospel fact that God has condemned sin in the flesh, and it cannot be altered. This gives me a title to turn from myself to Christ. How could we turn from ourselves if God had not done so? It would be ignoring the question, not settling it. Peter could say, “Master, behold, the fig tree!” but the Lord says, as it were, No, I will never look that way again; I have done with it. Have faith in God. You will need to have faith in God to be off the ground of the responsible man. What I mean is, that on the cross God pronounced His unalterable judgment of that tree; and the condemnation is absolute. If you know the badness of that tree, what a blessed thing it is for you to know that God has judged it, and you are entitled to have done with it.
On what ground does the Spirit of God dwell in us? “After that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise”, Eph 1: 13. We have the Holy Ghost dwelling in us if we are Christians, if we have believed the truth of the gospel. The Spirit of God will never leave you; and yet you have in you - not that you are in it, but you have in you - a principle as opposed to the Spirit of God as hell is to heaven! That is not a bit too strong. On what ground then can the Spirit of God dwell in you? God has condemned the flesh in the cross, and we are not in it, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in us: we are in a new state.
I want to show you the wonderful work effected for you. I need not look the way of that tree any more. God is not looking that way; He never will; He will not regard it for a moment.
I will now turn to some other passages to show you the effects of deliverance, and first to Psalm 41: 12. Mark the simple words that begin the passage. “As for me”. That is contrast. It is in contrast with the fig tree. “As for me, thou upholdest me in mine integrity, and settest me before thy face for ever”. One's heart thrills with pleasure at the thought of it. There is a Man who is, for God's satisfaction, set before His face for ever, and He will never turn from Him. I read that passage hundreds of times, but one day the Spirit of God showed me that “As for me” was in contrast with “the children of men”, Ps 66: 5.
The great lesson of the First Book of Psalms is that God has found His ideal man. He has found Him morally and in resurrection. That righteous Man traces His way through this sad world where we have our histories, and at the end is found in death. I do not go into the way He is found there - Psalm 40 gives it to us; it was for the establishment of the counsels of God. But now He is set before God's face for ever. I will give you a New Testament passage for it. “In that he died, he died unto sin once; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God”, Rom 6: 10. He lives to God in resurrection. Resurrection is brought out in the First Book of Psalms. He traces His way through this world. All that a man should be for God was found in Him, without a flaw. His righteousness was to seek the glory of the Father who sent Him. That is righteousness. We have our thoughts about it, but we have such poor moral sensibilities, we must get near to Jesus to know what sin is, and what righteousness is. Our thought is that it is to pay twenty shillings in the pound. That only touches the fringe. Christian morality, if we may use such an expression, goes far beyond that. “He that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him”, John 7: 18. The moment you have your own glory before you, you are positively unrighteous to Christ. That blessed One pursued His way through this world to God's pleasure. He lived here for His satisfaction and joy, and He went to Calvary’s cross and died for us. “In that he died, he died unto sin once”. He who lived a perfectly holy life here died to sin. Why? Because He took our place. That righteous One died to sin once. “But in that he liveth, he liveth unto God”. Can you afford to forget yourself, and think of another, and find pleasure in the fact that God has found a Man to satisfy Him? My point is not what we have found, but that God has found a Man for His eternal satisfaction.
You say, I should like to be a better Christian. Yes, you would like to be satisfied with yourself. I ask you this, and your answer will prove whether you know anything of deliverance: Does it not delight your heart that God has found a Man to His satisfaction, a Man to suit Him? He has turned His face to that Man, and He will never look away from Him.
Now look at the next Psalm. “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me?”, Ps 42: 5 You say, Ah! that is where I come in. When are you cast down and disquieted? When you look to that tree. Selfoccupation is the bane of your life. The eye is turned away from Christ. You are cast down and disquieted when you look in upon yourself. May God enable you to turn from it! “Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him” - gleams of hope. Is that Christianity, little gleams of sunshine streaming in? No! Christianity is to bask in the sunshine.
Now look at Psalm 43: 3, another remarkable verse: “Send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me”. Where can light and truth come from? Light and truth are found in the One who is set before God's face for ever. A remark made here by another a few months ago, helped me as to this scripture. He was speaking of some one in danger of falling over a precipice through having lost his way in a dark night. A light streaming from a mansion crosses his path, and he sees the precipice and is saved. You say, What a grand thing that light was! It saved him from destruction; but that light shines on his pathway in order that he may reach the place whence the light comes. That light shining on your path is conversion. But where does it lead to? You say, Thank God, I am saved from judgment! That is good, but wait a bit. “Send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles”. The fulness of the gospel is that you have reached the place from which the light and truth came; it will lead you to His tabernacles. And what do you find there? The Man who lives to God's pleasure set before His face for ever; and we are accepted in Him. Do you wonder at the bride saying, in Canticles, “Look not upon me, because I am black”? SofS 1: 6. That is what we are in Adam. But in chapter 2 she says, “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valley”. And He answers, “As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters”. He says, as it were, It will be my joy to take you out of the thorns and put you in my bosom for ever. It is a blessed thing to reach that point, to see that Christ lives to God's pleasure, set before His face for ever, and to know that you are in His beauty before God. You can be at home with Him; you know that you are suitable to Him. You lose yourself; you are gone; and Christ fills your soul, You are invested with the beauty of that blessed One in whom the light and truth are.
If every saint knew that he was invested with the beauty of Christ, he would be set free from himself. What meetings we should have if every saint had reached that point! “He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one!”, Heb 2: 11. You are in His beauty in order that you may enjoy the perfect revelation of God in Him. You cannot get beyond that. “We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ”, Rom 5: 11. “Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy”, Ps 43: 4. How can God be your exceeding joy until you are suitable to Him? Have you reached that spot where all speaks of God? “Send out thy light and thy truth ... let them bring me ... to thy tabernacles”. What Christ is as man to God, we are made; and all that God is to us, He is in that blessed Person, for He is God. “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him”. Let the light shine brighter and brighter; it will only discover the beauty of Christ. Now you have reached the region of satisfied desire. I am not conscious of a single want when Christ fills the vision, and I have no need to look at or think of myself.
Now see Psalm 45. Here we have the language of a delivered soul. “My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king”. The effect of deliverance is that Christ is our theme. Our hearts must be inditing something. Oftentimes our hearts are inditing, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” but our proper theme is, “My heart is inditing a good matter: I will speak of the things which I have made touching the king”. Many times I have said, Lord, let me preach like that. Getting up sermons, or points, will not do. Get near to Christ and the tongue will go. “My tongue is the pen of a ready writer”. The moment the heart is filled with Christ, the tongue will speak. And what will it say? Not, “Why art thou cast down?” but “Thou art fairer than the children of men”.
Now we have reached the woman of Mark 14. Her action says, “Thou art fairer than the children of men”. She has found an object and lost herself. You can see the difference between ministering truths and ministering Christ. We must be under the full control of the Spirit to minister Christ.
Let me quote a passage very much misunderstood: “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory”, 1 Pet 1: 18. Now mark: “Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls”. Receiving soul salvation. You say, That means that my soul is saved from hell. No, not that. Your soul needs saving from present things. Who can give it? Only Christ. “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: receiving”, etc. We received the saving of our souls, in a way, the moment we believed on Christ but this scripture goes beyond that. You want salvation in the sense of being saved from the power of present things; and this is what is proposed as the present triumph of the gospel.
The effect of deliverance is beautifully set forth in 2 Samuel, chapter 23. “These be the last words of David”. “Although my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire”. His eye is now fixed on Christ. Some people reach this point when dying, and then there is what is called a ‘bright death-bed’. I want a bright and happy course; it is not a question of the end, it is now. On a death-bed people give up everything that has been hindering them, and then they reach it. It ought to have been reached years before. No doubt it is often so because of the poor way the gospel is preached. Why not give up the things that hinder now, and have a bright and happy life?
Learning what you are produces brokenness of spirit in you.
That is what we want. It is a great thing to be broken.
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