THE QUALITY OF LIFE ACCORDING TO GOD
S. Perret
1 Kings 4: 1, 25; Luke 3: 21, 22; 9: 28–36; Romans 8: 32; Ephesians 1: 17–23; Jude 20–25
What I wanted to speak briefly about was the only true life which is from God. I read in 1
Kings to show that a certain quality of life will be secured for God. Man, in government, has in view to maintain a certain quality of life, which, in this western part of the world, no doubt is the result of the flow of Christianity, but now we are in the time of apostasy. When the Lord Jesus comes, and He is the only One who is worthy to reign, then He will be King over the whole of Israel, over all the earth, and the result will be as in verse 25, that Judah and Israel will dwell safely, and every man will be satisfied. It is not exactly our hope, it is not our portion, it is Israel’s portion; but we rejoice because He will be vindicated at that time when it will be manifested that He is the only one who is able to reign according to God. A period of one thousand years will be a sufficient testimony, according to the mind of God, to show the qualification of the Lord Jesus to maintain, in flesh and blood conditions, a certain order of things and ensure a certain quality of life. He will reign at that time.
It is something which we would like to come into the hearts of those who are in government today and no doubt in some it may have a place. But we are not in that time, we are in the time of the Lord’s rejection, and the only way for us to come to know life according to God and to enjoy the quality of life which is according to God is to come to the Lord Jesus as typified as the true Joseph. The word today is to come to Joseph, and I wondered if we can do this. Everything for us depends on the knowledge of God; the greatest thing to have in our hearts is the knowledge of God. Somebody said that all blessings in the present time lie in the knowledge of
God. That is not a material order of blessings; it is a moral and spiritual order which resides in the knowledge of God.
I want to speak briefly about two features of the knowledge of God. The first one is the knowledge of the love of the Father, and the second feature is the power of the Father. These will bring joy and divine satisfaction into the heart. According to the epistle of Jude they will maintain us unto the end, because as you will discern, you find these two elements, love and power in the expression, “to him that is able”. But to appreciate the love of the Father and the power of the Father, first of all you have to come a certain road. This road is to learn the preciousness of the Person of the Lord Jesus to the heart of the Father, and that is why I read these two scriptures in Luke’s gospel.
The first scripture shows the perfection of the secret life of the Lord Jesus. It is only in this gospel that it says, “all the people having been baptised, and Jesus having been baptised and praying”. This reference is an insight into the kind of life the Lord Jesus had as a Man in His thirty years of private life. He was not at that time in the three and a half years of service. He was not a servant of Judah. He was “as a root out of dry ground”. He did not draw anything from His parents, nor from His environment. We were saying in the house that when the children are small their characteristics are just the same all over the world, but when they are men they are very different because they have taken on national characteristics, family characteristics, and so on. It shows how we come under influences, much more than we are aware of I think, but the Lord was under no influence. He grew by Himself, and He grew in consistency with His links with the Father because He enjoyed sonship, even if it was asserted publicly only at this time. But there is no doubt that He enjoyed sonship because He was born Son and He speaks about “my Father’s business”, Luke 2: 49. He knew what was in the
heart of the Father. He was baptised after all had been baptised. I think it was one characteristic of the Lord in His movements to take such a place. There was nothing to minister to Him; He could not find anything for Himself, for His heart, for His mind, to feed them from His surroundings. All His life He derived evidently from Himself, because He is a divine Person; but He derived too from His links and the enjoyment of His relationship with the Father, so He is unique.
It is something we have to come to, that when the Lord Jesus is presented here in view of His service. He is presented as the Man of God’s heart; God in this gospel is speaking to Him,
“Thou art my beloved Son”. Up to His coming there was no resting place for God. Man has been of the greatest interest to the heart of God. He has dealt with the race of man in a very tender way. There was no pleasure, no rest for Him in man, there was only grief and sorrow for His heart. But think of the joy of the Father now there is a Man to whom He is able to say,
“Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight”. It is enough. It is not a long sentence but a complete one. The coming of the Holy Spirit expressed the fulness of this, because the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form. It was not so in the beginning of Acts, it was tongues of fire. But here He received the Holy Spirit in His fulness “in a bodily form as a dove”, in a peaceful character. Think too of the joy of the Holy Spirit, a divine Person, to identify with this Man. If I dare say, speaking carefully, He rejoiced to identify with the Man who will be the vessel of the testimony. So as we have been taught, the first thirty years of the life of the Lord Jesus were like the shittim wood, what was under the eye of God; and here we have the gold, what was seen in testimony. Here the Lord Jesus is set in a very distinctive way. He is alone, the perfect Man. I think it is something we have to come to, there is no other Man before God.
In the section read in Luke 9 we see the distinction
of the Lord Jesus; He is no longer alone but He took Peter, and John and James with Him. It shows the Lord in connection with the saints. I do not want to say too much, but we see in this section that the Lord Jesus was ready to go alone into glory. I think if heaven were opened upon Him in Luke 3, you see here that it was ready to receive Him up, because this kind of Man does not belong to the earth, this kind of Man is set to be in the heavenlies. He was so characteristically, but He is presented as being able to change into another condition, a condition which was in correspondence with what He was in His own characteristics. What I wanted to show is that in verse 34 “there came a cloud and overshadowed them”. You do not have a cloud in chapter 3, but here you have a cloud. It relates to the thought of the divine presence in connection with the tabernacle system; the cloud comes in view, if I may say, to close the mouth of Peter. You see the Lord is related to His saints as they maintain Him in His personal distinction. It does not mean that because the two greatest servants of the Old Testament were talking with Him that they were on the same level as the Lord Jesus. The Father is very jealous about His distinction. What happened first is that the cloud came, just to show that there is one testimony and there is only one vessel of the testimony which is the Man of Luke 3. It is something we all have to learn because it says “as he was saying these things, there came a cloud and overshadowed them”. You see the divine way to close the mouth of Peter, but it is very tender because it says that it “overshadowed them, and they feared”.
Then comes the testimony from the Father, “This is my beloved Son: hear him”. Divine speaking is in Him. You cannot divide the testimony; there is one testimony, that is what Paul says, “the testimony of our Lord”. It is one thing we have to learn which relates to the greatness of the Person of the Lord Jesus as above, as glorified. It is the truth which came to the heart of those who were at the beginning of the recovery; there was one Head in
heaven and one body down here. I think it belongs to the teaching, it is one application we can make in this section; there is one Head above, the glorious Man above in another condition; but we are to learn that there is only one cloud, there is only one testimony, and the vessel of the testimony is Christ personally and Christ characteristically in the saints, expressed in the thought of the body and of the new man. Then we have to learn that divine speaking, in the divine system, is only there; no other man, as great as he may be, is equal to Christ. The Father in a personal way comes into the matter. He is not speaking to the Lord Jesus here. He is speaking to us. He says, “This is my beloved Son, hear him”. The writer took up this matter in the epistle to the Hebrews. It shows that all the divine speaking is in the Son; as somebody said, when the Son has spoken there is nothing to add to it. Then it says,
“Jesus was found alone”. This is the right state to be in, to see Jesus alone.
So now in Romans 8 we have some impression of the preciousness of the Lord Jesus to the heart of the Father. You start to get some moral elements of the knowledge of God in your heart. We have come to appreciate the Man who is according to the heart of God. The test is, I have to choose between Christ and me. But if you are attracted to the Lord Jesus and are honest, you will say, This Man is the only One who has the right to live, which is true because death is upon all of us; but He could have entered from the mount of transfiguration into this glorious condition. But the Father has been prepared not to spare His own Son. I have been impressed, that in the Roman epistle the affections of God are presented in a full way. In Romans 5 it says in verse 10, “For if, being enemies, we have been reconciled to God through the death of his Son”, but here it is “who, yea, has not spared his own Son”. You get a further impression of the intensity of affection of the Father in that, on our account. He has undertaken not to spare His own Son. I cannot say
much, but we can read a scripture which illustrates in a beautiful way the feelings of God the Father in this verse. He did not spare Him. In the book of Zechariah, chapter 13, verse 7,
“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, even against the man that is my fellow, saith Jehovah of hosts—smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered”. Not sparing His own Son involved that the sword had to be taken against the Man whom God was speaking of,
“my shepherd”. He was the only One able to gather, and it says not only “my shepherd” but
“the man who is my fellow”. Think of what it meant for the Father to be separated from Christ, from the Man who was His Fellow. The Lord Jesus said, “the Father is always with me”, but it is true that He was always with the Father.
I think Paul, in Romans, gives us the intensity of affection of God. You cannot understand the love of God if you do not have an appreciation of the manhood of the Lord Jesus and that He was really the only Companion of God. In the type, it says, they went both of them together (Genesis 22: 8). So you might say these elements I am speaking of, love and power, are generally connected with the initial part of the believer’s pathway, which is true. You find that in chapters 4 and 5 of Romans, righteousness, power and love are manifested towards us in view of delivering us from the world, and speaking in a typical way, to bring us into the wilderness. What I wanted to speak about too is the love and the power of the Father connected with making us enter into the land, and to bring us into the sense of association with Christ. So it says, “how shall he not also with him grant us all things?” You get here an Ephesian touch, “with him”. “With” is a characteristic word in the book of Ephesians;
“through him” and “in him” are characteristic expressions in the Roman epistle; but “with him”, association with Christ where He is and association with Him down here in the testimony is Ephesian truth. So there is no doubt about it, He shall “grant us all things” with Him.
It is one thing to know His love, but then there is His power. His power is available. We often connect His power with creation, and rightly so, but the greatness of His power has been expressed in the resurrection of Christ, and that is what was in the mind of the apostle in his prayer here in Ephesians 1. He wanted the saints to get the light, but we need to be in an attitude of reception. To get an impression about the love of God, the love of the Father, you must be in a receptive attitude. He desires that “the Father of glory, would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of him”. I do not want to explain what is in this section, but just to show that it speaks about “the surpassing greatness of his power towards us who believe, according to the working of the might of his strength, in which he wrought in the Christ in raising him from among the dead, and he set him down at his right hand in the heavenlies”. Ephesians presents the Man Christ Jesus, the Man who is the object of God and for God, it is the Man of Luke’s gospel, it is this kind of man, a praying man, a humble man, a perfect man. It is the Man of Luke’s gospel who has undertaken not to do His own will; He always took the last place, ready to wait His time. Now it is the time, after He laid down His life; it says that the Messiah shall be cut off and shall have nothing, but He receives everything in resurrection; He is the object of the Father’s operation. Think of the joy of the Father in raising Him from among the dead! It was a selective resurrection. Christ is the first fruit, He has been raised up. It was the joy of the Father to exert His power in His favour and to set Him up as the Head of all things. He is the Man who will dominate not only the earth but all the universe of God, “head over all things to the assembly”. So this power is towards us, the same power. Ephesians 2 shows how we come into the gain of it today, this power is available. We can know what it is to be raised up together “with him”.
I think you need first to know these things if you want to understand what Jude means when he says
“building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God”. If you did not have some knowledge of the intensity of the love of God in your heart, the love of the Father, “he who spared not his own Son”, you could not understand what Jude is saying here, “keep yourselves in the love of God”. It is a collective idea, it is not just individual, it is a collective idea, “in the love of God”. We are to have this attitude, the same attitude as the Lord Jesus took; He took the attitude of a Man who in dependence and perfection awaited the right time (see Psalm 16: 5–11). It says, “awaiting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life”, and then in verse 24, “But to him that is able to keep you without stumbling, and to set you with exultation blameless before his glory”. We should have some knowledge in our hearts of the power of God. This is very much connected with the matter of quickening, “to him that is able to keep you”.
I think we can go on in these days of apostasy. Jude is the one who goes the furthest in writing of the days of apostasy, referring to “the gainsaying of Core” which is a revolt against the Lord Jesus as Apostle and High Priest; it is the clerical system, but there is a way to be maintained in these days of apostasy. If you have these two elements which belong to the knowledge of God in the present time, the knowledge of His love and the knowledge of His power, you will be maintained until the end, and you will be maintained in power and in the spirit of worship, because this epistle which speaks about such terrible things finishes with a doxology. It says, “to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, from before the whole age, and now, and to all the ages.
Amen”. So it is in this way that God will go on in the scene of the testimony; even all the exercises connected with it promotes another doxology as we can find resource in the knowledge of God. It is not merely objective knowledge, it is subjective knowledge, but we need the Holy Spirit. He is the only One who gives us the sense of these things. He gives this conscious knowledge because He is the Spirit of the Father and He brings to us the sense of His love and of His power. So it is simply these things I had in mind, and I trust they are understood, and that the Lord might bless His word, for His name’s sake. Amen.
Address at Glasgow, 3 August 1996
HOW WE RETURN FROM GOING ASTRAY
R. Taylor
The first-fruits of the gospel were for God. God feels deeply that men have gone astray, but He found in the Person of His Son, our Lord Jesus, a way to bring man back in righteousness.
A glorious morn it was for God when He could look upon men and shine upon them in blessing and forgiveness. The pleasure of God in the work of Christ is seen in that preaching by Peter when three thousand souls were saved. God, as it were, announcing His joy, that in virtue of what Christ had done He could bring thousands at once into the blessing of His house.
This chapter is most beautiful. A gentleman reading it many years ago said, Who is the prophet speaking about? He was a learned man, he must have known the society of his day; as he read the chapter he could not think of anyone who would fit into it. He said, Who is it?
Philip says, It is Jesus who is the theme of the chapter. He is the One who came here and grew up before God as a tender sapling. All had gone astray, every one had turned to his own way, but here was a Man who grew up before God as a tender sapling. What winds and storms there were, but there He is, a tender
sapling bending against those winds. He drew no resources from the circumstances in which He was found, but there He is, a tender sapling growing up before His God. He could say,
“The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven roosting-places; but the Son of man has not where he may lay his head”, Matthew 8: 20. It says, “He is despised and left alone of men”, Isaiah 53: 3. Think of the Lord Jesus; He fed five thousand at once, cured lepers, raised the dead, and yet He was left alone. The hymn-writer says, ‘None cared His worth to know’.
There was nothing there in the way that they treated the Saviour to encourage God to bless men. It says, “like one from whom men hide their faces”, Isaiah 53: 3. They had no room for Him in their arrangements. There He is a tender sapling, growing up before His God, the pleasure of heaven centred upon Him. At last, upon this earth, there was a Man for God; and a Man who was expressing towards men, God in all His grace.
He had not come to raise questions. He had not come to condemn. They brought to Him one of the most guilty cases they could think about and He says, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more”, John 8: 11. O, the grace of the Saviour! Whatever need there was He was ready to meet it. It says about the lepers that He handled them freely. He entered into the sorrows of humanity as He bore them in His spirit day by day. The very children were the objects of His grace. The disciples would have turned them away, they thought they were not important, but He said, “Suffer little children to come to me”, Luke 18: 16. He had room for them all. That man called Legion who sat outside the city, think of the Saviour taking a journey to reach a man like that whom men would not touch. One beloved servant of God, as he was contemplating the gospels, said, His holiness set Him apart from the race. He was holy, different from every other man, but His grace made Him a Servant of all. How beautiful! Holy, blessed Man, the Servant of all. He came to serve men.
Even in the hour when they rejected Him, and put Him on the cross, think of those precious words that have come down through this present dispensation in all their blessed fulness,
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”, Luke 23: 34. There is that tender sapling, there is the Man that has come in here to glorify God, oppressed and afflicted, every ignominy that the enemy could heap upon Him was heaped upon Him, and in that hour of deepest sorrow, the hour when the nation was guilty as never before. He says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what not they do”. How beautifully the scripture speaks about Him, “as a sheep dumb before her shearers, and he opened not His mouth”, Isaiah 53: 7. I often contemplate the Lord Jesus in Pilate’s hall, He opened not His mouth. He could have spoken. What accusers there were and He could have met them all. Where were those He had raised from the dead? Where were the lepers He had cleansed? Where were the thousands He had fed? In His hour of need no eye was found to pity, no heart to share that grief. He was alone. What delight God must have found in Him! He opened not His mouth.
Had He spoken and taken up His own case, there would have been eternal damnation for the race; but there in the presence of His accusers He opened not His mouth.
Wherever He was placed He was perfect; be it on the mount, or in the desert, or in Pilate’s hall, or on the cross; He was the perfect, precious, glorious Man, and yet men would have nothing to do with Him. There in the presence of Jesus’ hour of sorrow, in the presence of Pilate’s questions, it was said, “Not this man, but Barabbas”, John 18: 40. Think of the guilt that lay upon the race as they refused God shining in grace. God had sent the prophets. Jesus Himself says in that beautiful parable, that God had sent prophets to appeal. Here is one of them, the appeals of Isaiah how beautiful they are, and He has sent other prophets, and they refused them. The Lord Jesus says, Last of all He sent His Son. I think of the feelings of Jesus as He said those words,
“And at last he sent to them his son, saying, They will have respect for my son”, Matthew 21: 37. O, the feelings of God! As if He would pass by that they had neglected the appeals of His grace in Isaiah and the others. He says, Perhaps when they see My Son they will reverence Him; but it only brought out how far we have gone astray—“All we like sheep have gone astray”.
This passage will be the language of Israel in a day to come when their eyes are opened and the veil is removed. In their hearts they will come to see how beautiful their Messiah is, they will come to see then that God was there in all His fulness and all His grace. Friend, it is here for us tonight, that you and I, who like sheep have gone astray, may come to see that in the Person of Jesus, there is a Man in whom God’s love, grace and mercy are shining in all their blessed fulness. In those very circumstances He was always perfect and perhaps more beautiful to heaven’s eye, than anywhere else in His pathway here. There He is in the presence of His accusers, as Mr. Darby says in ‘The Man of Sorrows’—
‘Priests, that should plead for weakness,
Must Thine accusers be!’
And again he says in the same poem—
‘A Judas only owns Thee—
That Thou may’st captive be’.
Judas identified Him to betray Him. Oh, the betrayal of the heart of man. How precious in those circumstances that He opened not His mouth. He had something greater to do. What a work was laid upon Him! What a mission He had come to accomplish! And in full devotion, committed to the will of God, His Father, He opened not His mouth. He went to the cross and took on the liabilities that had been incurred by the race, the race that had gone astray. He went forward there into the circumstances where it says that God “laid upon him the iniquity of us all”, and He was able to bear it. You think of the enormity of what has come into the race, and God laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. That was
from Adam right down, and blessed be His name. He bore it to God’s eternal satisfaction.
The types are full of those animals upon whose head the iniquities of men were confessed.
The animals were slain, their blood was shed, some were led away into a land of forgetfulness, and God looked in mercy afresh for another year upon His people. But friend, in the offering of Jesus and what was laid upon Him. God has looked on for nearly two thousand years, upon the race in blessing. He is offering mercy, forgiveness, wonderful blessings to those who put their faith in Jesus. God alone could estimate the glory and value of what was done on the cross by Jesus, when alone, forsaken. God is fully satisfied with that work; involving His death and that His precious blood was shed; and that He was buried in the grave for three days and three nights; and that God raised Him by His glory. The work was completed, and He has given Him a Name that is above every name.
Now we come back to the verse that we read, “All we like sheep have gone astray”. How far you have gone you would know. However far the distance, Christ has measured it. You remember that parable where it says that He went after the sheep until He found it. No journey was too long, no circumstances were too grievous, He went after the sheep until He found it. As I said, in the day to come, the distance and the guilt of Israel will weigh heavy upon their hearts, but they will come to see that there was a Man in Jesus who met the distance. You read these chapters of the Old Testament and see how grievous was the sin, how deep the mire into which they had sunk, but it is all met in the offering of Jesus.
The gospel is proclaimed that there might be on the one hand conviction in the soul that we have gone astray. There are none excused from it. Some may think they have not gone so far as others, but they have gone astray. Who in the presence of this chapter,
reading of this precious sapling, a root out of dry ground, could say they have not gone astray? Tested in every circumstance, perfect, there is God’s standard, there is God’s Man, and in contemplating Him we have to say, “All ... have gone astray”. My friend, the gospel is proclaimed, the work that God had laid upon Him has been done. In the work that Jesus has accomplished, once and for all. God has found a way that there is forgiveness preached in His name, to those who believe. Alas, the darkness and distance of sin has hardened our hearts so much. Maybe you have heard the gospel time and time again, you have heard of the Saviour and His saving grace, but you are still astray, still perhaps feeding on these foods that would lead you further away. The sheep keep going further away, they do not realise how far they have gone from the shelter of the shepherd’s care and environment; each step is going further and further away till they are arrested as to how far they have gone. Maybe God brings in certain matters so that you realise that you are no longer under the protection of the divinely prescribed environment. His love, my friend, comes to meet you where you are that you may return.
Another beautiful word of the prophets is to return, return. The value of the work of Jesus remains the same in all its value and efficacy. It is not only that we have confessed our sins, but maybe we have confessed our sins and know Jesus as our Saviour, and yet we may have gone astray. The work of Jesus is enough—it is never to be repeated. I may have to come afresh to the appreciation of it; but the value of the work of Jesus remains in all its efficacy however far astray we may have gone. John tells us, speaking to believers, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins”, 1 John 1: 9. Things come up and cause us to wander away from the circumstances in which grace would have us, but the work has never to be done again. God is ready in the fulness of His love, as we return in confession of our sins, to forgive in the precious name of
Jesus. Precious substitute for all that was due to us; He has taken our place. He has taken the place of believers. The wider aspect is He has taken the place of all. John says, “he is the propitiation for our sins; but not for ours alone, but also for the whole world”, 1 John 2: 2.
That means that the work of Jesus is enough for all that has come into the race; but those who get the gain of it are those who put their faith and trust in Him. Ah, friend, where are your sins? Are they lying upon your heart? are they upon your conscience tonight? Or are they gone, as the hymn-writer says—
‘My sins—O the bliss of this glorious thought—
My sins—not in part, but the whole—
Were borne on the cross, and are gone evermore,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!’ (No. 238) What a rock, that what He has done He has done once and for all!
Then there is a need to see that there is a present enjoyment and a present realisation that our sins are gone; they are gone before God and they are gone for me through faith in what Jesus has done. The blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son has met God’s eye; and the precious character of the offering is what meets my eye; I know that those sins are gone in His death, they are gone evermore in the fact that I have put my faith and trust in Him where He is at God’s right hand, a Prince and a Saviour.
The chapter is full of the down-stooping love of Jesus from the manger to the cross, but God has given Him a Name that is above every name. A very beautiful verse says, “he was with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was there guile in his mouth”, Isaiah 53: 9. God took care of Him. When men had done everything they could do, crucified Him between robbers, they appointed His grave with the wicked; but the Spirit says that He had done no violence, neither was there guile in His mouth, and He was with the rich in His death. God saw to it that He
was taken care of. When men had done everything, God took over and raised Him from the dead, raised Him from the tomb into which men had placed Him, and He has given Him a Name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.
What blessing comes by putting our faith and trust in the Man whom God has appointed, the Man whom God is proclaiming as a Saviour, the Man who is to be trusted in all His grace.
This chapter shows how trustworthy He was in the presence of all that was against Him. It is not only in what He has done but in who He is. It says, “Surely he hath borne our griefs”. Can every one here put themselves into verses 4 and 5, and say, ‘Surely He has borne my griefs, He has carried my sorrows; I did regard Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He was wounded for my transgressions, He was bruised for my iniquities; the chastisement of my peace was upon Him, and with His stripes I am healed?’ There is the language of faith.
Another prophet says that he would put the very words in your mouth; and there they are in verses 4 and 5, the words are put into your mouth that you may put your faith and trust in the Saviour that God has provided. How beautiful it will be to hear Israel use those words, “he was wounded for our transgressions”. He was there in our place, that is what Israel will be saying. My friend, can you say. He was there in my place? He took my place on the cross; He took my place in the grave; and in virtue of what He has done He has given me a place in glory. O, what grace! He was there in the grave for me but tonight He lives at God’s right hand, for all who put their faith and trust in Him.
May all have a fresh assurance of the great love and kindness of God towards men. He has done everything possible, He has cleared the ground entirely, and He puts these very words in your mouth that you may say, He bore my griefs; He bore my sins. Peter puts it so beautifully—“who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree”, 1 Peter 2: 24. That is where they have been judged, and the Lord Jesus has also put them out of God’s sight. May it be, my friend, that through faith in His name, they have gone from your sight, so that you are no longer a sheep gone astray, but you have been brought under the Shepherd’s care to know the food that the Shepherd gives, to know the grace and protection of the Shepherd’s love. Instead of being a sheep who has gone astray, may you be one of the sheep that hears His voice; He calls them by name. Maybe He is calling you, calling you by name, to come into the shelter of all that is provided in the Shepherd’s care.
May no one here turn a deaf ear to His voice. He calls as a shepherd calls in His grace; calling, calling, and calling again that you may come to prove the blessedness of abiding in His love, and abiding under His care, for His name’s sake.
Preaching at Bendigo
16 April 1995