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THE RICHNESS OF DIVINE GRACE

D. Robertson

It is a wonderful matter to have some understanding of the glory and the richness of divine grace, involving the unfolding of the heart of God and His longings to bless His creature. It may never have occurred to you that God longs to bless you. There is nothing in the heart of God but blessing for you. It is a wonderful matter that it should come into your soul consciously that God desires to bless you, and He has provided ground upon which you can be blessed.

These three instances of which we have read speak of the ground of God’s blessing for man.

The first one sets forth a person who comes to the mercy-seat; it is a wonderful thing to come to the mercy-seat. God says of the mercy-seat, “there will I meet with thee, and will speak with thee”, Exodus 25: 22. Think of God being prepared to meet the sinner and to convey the thoughts of His heart to him. Here is a poor woman, she is a woman of the city. This city would not be like the city David speaks about, God’s city. Remember what David said about God’s city—“Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God”, Psalm 87: 3. All the inhabitants of that city would understand perfectly the way God has set forth His rights for man in mercy. They would understand the heart of God. It is a city marked by order and regulation, a city where every inhabitant would know the love of God. Alas! this city was marked by disorder. It would provide plenty, but it would be that the sinner might go on with his lust. That is what this woman was, she was a sinner, there was no mistake about it. The scripture says so and she knew it. I think God had operated in her heart. She was an awakened soul. I know that God might operate in hearts in this room and awaken you to your need of a Saviour. For

you are a sinner, just as I am, but thank God I can take the place of being an awakened sinner and a saved one too through divine grace. God longs that you might know salvation, and more than salvation. He longs that you might know the fulness of His heart of love.

So this woman comes into the hard atmosphere of a Pharisee’s house. You are in an advantageous atmosphere where God would speak to you, you are in the presence of faith, where prayer is actively going up to God that you might be blessed. God had operated in this woman’s heart and she breaks through and she comes to where Christ is. My friend, if you are a sinner that is what you need to do. You need to come to where Christ is. You will not find Him in the world. He is not in the amusement places of the world, but there is a place where you can meet Him and that is at the mercy-seat, where God will speak with you, where He will meet with you. We have here a beautiful picture of a sinner coming to the mercy-seat and finding the Saviour God in Christ. Again it says of the mercy-seat, in the great day of atonement, that the blood was sprinkled once upon the mercy-seat and seven times before it (Leviticus 16: 14). We are brought to a point where there is divinely prepared ground and everything is propitious and favourable for us to be blest. It involved that God, in the cross of Christ, has settled the whole question of sin, and sins too, it involved those three hours of darkness when the Saviour bore the wrath of God against sin, when He cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, Matthew 27: 47 and Mark 15: 34. Here is the reason in this very chapter, and the reason is in this very room. Christ suffered the abandonment of God that you might never be abandoned of God, but be brought into the fulness of divine blessing.

I can remember the joy that filled my soul when I proved that there was salvation in Christ for me, and that God had provided ground in the sufferings and death of Christ, righteously, upon which He could bless me. He is a righteous and holy God, and yet He can bless the sinner. The whole work of Christ, involving the abandonment, His death, the shedding of His blood. His going into the grave, His rising again and His ascension has provided God with the fullest ground on which He can bless the sinner because God has met the whole question of sin without compromising what He is in His holiness. How glorious that is! What we are preaching is not unsound, it is sound, it is God’s gospel. It is what God has provided in the work of Christ, first of all to meet His own holy claims and to satisfy the righteousness of His throne, and to provide ground upon which He can bless the sinner. I wonder if you have ever met God at the mercy-seat? It is not a question of religious dogmas, it is a very, very real experience and a necessary one.

If you live without Christ and die without Him there is nothing before you but the judgment of God. There is no need for anyone to have that for their portion. The mercy-seat is available as it was available here in the figure of this scripture; available in the light of the full value of the atoning power of Christ’s blood. We have been taught that the blood sprinkled once before the mercy-seat was enough to satisfy the eye of a holy God, and seven times before means it is available to the sinner in all its fulness. It is available to the whole world. There is plenitude of power in the blood of Christ. There is not a sinner who is vile enough to be outside the pale of the blessing because of the blood of Christ and the righteous ground that has been provided before God. But each one must come into the blessing through repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. Now I would go further and ask those who have known Him, Are you still in the joy of a personal Saviour? because, alas, all too readily things come in to mar the joy of it. Oh that all here might be in the joy of having a personal Saviour. The psalmist said to God in his prayer, “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation”, Psalm 51: 12. Not the joy of my salvation, but the joy of God’s salvation.

I do not go into the details of the chapter, but what I wanted to show was that here was a woman who had come to the place where the full value of the work of Christ is available, and then the Saviour had a word for her. He said here, “Thy sins are forgiven”. There is no religious dignitary who could speak the word of pardon. There is only one Person who can speak the word of pardon, and that is the Saviour who died for the sinner. The hymn-writer says—

‘Hear Him speak the word of pardon;

Trust in Him who died;

And thy heart shall lose its burden.

By His side’. (Hymn 344)

Let me appeal to you, have you heard the Saviour speak the word of pardon? Have you heard the sweetness of that blessed word from His own lips? Those lips that uttered that cry of awful anguish to God, those self-same lips speaking to the sinner and saying, “Thy sins are forgiven”. Oh what a necessity it is! You will never enter into the joy of Christianity unless you have proved the blessedness of the word of pardon from the Saviour’s lips. He longs to speak it to you.

The Holy Spirit of God would be active in this very meeting to convict you that you are a sinner; not merely to bring you into a sense of complete disgrace as to yourself, although you would feel it, but He would convict you that you are a sinner so that you might feel the need of a Saviour. Have you ever felt the need of a Saviour? You young boys and girls, have you ever felt the need of a Saviour? The fact that you are brought up in a Christian household is a very fine blessing but it is not enough! You must, and I say again, you must have a link with the Saviour. He is not only a Saviour who has suffered, He has burst the power of death, He is risen from the dead and is now glorified at God’s right hand. He is a risen and ascended Saviour and He lives in the power of an indissoluble life. He is there in the presence of God and He is presented to you in the gospel, that you might come to know a living Saviour and have a living link with Him.

I think, beloved brethren, it is easy to forget how to preach the gospel. Oh that it might be revived amongst us, a good sound earnest preaching of the word of God, the gospel of the grace of God. What a burden of judgment lies upon those who take the place of religious ministers, and who only preach ethics. They do not preach a gospel that can save the sinner. It is a bloodless gospel. God would not have such a gospel preached. God preaches a gospel that is based on the value of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord says more to the woman—“Thy faith has saved thee; go in peace”. Now I just ask you a simple question at this point—Have you peace as a result of the finished work of Christ? There is no ground for peace otherwise, and the sinner has a great need of peace. This is not peace that will change, it is settled, eternal peace. Have you got it? Is your conscience ever troubled about the burden of your sins, ill at ease, unrestful, distressed? I speak earnestly to you, and I would ask you again, have you this peace that is a consequence of the redemptive work of Christ? It is the only settled peace you can have and thank God it is available. “Thy sins are forgiven”, and then He says, “Thy faith has saved thee”. Think of that, “Thy faith has saved thee”. There is nothing more needed for the sinner than salvation and it is provided by God. The Holy Spirit is operating in the preaching to help you to come to Jesus. He says, “Come to me, all ye who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest”, Matthew 11: 28. What an appeal of the Saviour to every sinner and every heart here!

He is the only One who can give you rest. So the word is, “Thy faith has saved thee; go in peace”. What a transformation for this woman! She had known the disorder of the city, but she has now a peaceful state of soul. I trust that is the experience of all here at this time.

In Luke 10 we have the well-known incident of the man descending from Jerusalem to Jericho, and we read—“and fell into the hands of robbers, who also, having stripped him and inflicted wounds, went away leaving him in a half-dead state”. What a description of a man in need, man at a distance from God! Jerusalem in Luke’s gospel represents the divine centre where God was working and blessing, and here is a man who is going away from it. How descriptive of the sinner going away from God! What a course! It says, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is the ways of death”, Proverbs 14: 12. He was not quite at the final stage, he was ‘half dead’, but what a sight it is to see a person at a distance from God. We have known such. The priest comes here and the Levite and all that could be said is they passed by on the opposite side. I make no comment about that. The world is full of priests and Levites, full of persons who can do nothing to help the sinner.

They cannot point them to a Saviour God. They cannot point them to the atoning work of the Saviour. They cannot point to the blessed Man who has robbed death of its power. They cannot point with the assurance of faith to a Man who is raised and ascended, and there at God’s right hand a Prince and a Saviour. That is the priest and the Levite, bound up with ordinances and laws. The Lord is going far beyond an ordinance and the law here. He is bringing in new principles. That is what Luke involves. He is bringing in new principles to meet man in his need, to meet the sinner where he is.

This man had gone down but it says of the Samaritan that he came up to meet him. That means that the Samaritan had been down further than the man, and that is the truth. I present a Saviour who has been down farther than the sinner in his need. It says, “But that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth?”, Ephesians 4: 9. How far the Lord has gone down! Who of us could measure the infinitude of the work of Christ? Who of us could

compass the infinitude of the depths that the Saviour has gone to in order to meet man in his need? Then it says, “But a certain Samaritan journeying came to him”. It speaks of the journey of divine grace that the Lord took through this world. What a journey it was! “And seeing him, was moved with compassion”; what the Lord Jesus represented here as among men was the feelings of the heart of God for them. In the Psalms it says God looked down, but the gospel involved that God came down, not only looked down, but came down. He came down in the person of Jesus. As Paul says in Corinthians: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their offences”, 2 Corinthians 5: 19.

What a glorious day we are in! Then it says, “came up to him and bound up his wounds”. I think there is the suggestion of the infinitude of tenderness. Do you know that the Lord Jesus has feelings for you? If you are a sinner in your sins the Lord Jesus has feelings for you, the most tender feelings. He longs to bind up your wounds, the wounds that sin has inflicted.

“Pouring in” is the unrestrained action of God’s heart expressed in Christ, with no stinting, no holding back.

Sin brought man to the point where he lost his confidence in God; that is what happened in the beginning. God is acting here to restore the confidence of the creature in Himself. He has come out in such a way to refute the lie of the devil. The lie of the devil was that God had held something back from man, but God is showing in Christ here the unrestrained love that He has for man, “pouring in oil and wine”. How He would calm that wounded spirit of yours, that wounded heart of yours, with the calming effect of divine grace. He would say, I have all that can meet your need. He brought the resources with Him. That is what is available in the gospel, the resources of heaven, and in the skill of His divine grace He pours in the oil to calm the wounded spirit, to calm the wounded heart. What grace, what tenderness marks the Saviour! Then the wine is to invigorate and stimulate with the knowledge of

divine love.

Then it says, “having put him on his own beast”. I think we may regard that as a type of the Holy Spirit. It speaks of a great resource that the Saviour had so as not to leave the man where he was. The gospel finds man where he is, but does not leave him there. It is the Lord’s heart that he might find you where you are and take you to a place of safety, take you to a place of comfort. Luke is a most interesting writer and deals with details. Luke is the only gospel for instance that speaks about the man in a little couch (Luke 5: 19). It is the divine carefulness, and the divine feeling for man in his circumscribed conditions, uncomfortable in his sins. How God feels for such! So these details that Luke gives us are very precious. It says, “having put him on his own beast, took him to the inn and took care of him. And on the morrow as he left, taking out two denarii he gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, Take care of him”. There is a Christian circle, and God would help you to find it. In fact, He (the Lord Jesus) would put you on His own beast that you might find the Christian circle where you will be taken care of. He will take care of you and ensure there is a rich supply of food for your soul.

The two denarii represent, I think. Paul’s two ministries. The first is the ministry of the glad tidings, involving the glad tidings of the unsearchable riches of the Christ; involving the unfolding of the fulness of God’s heart, because, make no mistake, in the gospel we are speaking of God’s heart! And the second is the ministry of the mystery of the assembly. God wishes to bring you into both. Not only would He leave you here blessed and free from discomfort, but He wants to bring you into a place where you will prove the glory and blessedness of what lies in the thought of these two denarii. The Lord has left here, in the charge of the Spirit, all that is sufficient for every believer secured through the whole course of the dispensation: that is the

fulness of the glad tidings and the blessedness of the ministry of Christ and the assembly.

What a wonderful matter! Paul says, “I speak as to Christ, and as to the assembly”, Ephesians 5: 32. Then the Samaritan says, “whatsoever thou shalt expend more”. Oh how like divine grace! He said if anything more is needed or anything else expended, “I will render to thee on my coming back”.

James tell us that “he gives more grace”, James 4: 6. If you need more grace He is ready to give more. You have received grace today and you will receive it tomorrow. So the inn is representative of a sphere of Christian love, and Christian care, where the Holy Spirit is active, building up our souls and nourishing them in the ministry of the glad tidings and in the ministry of the assembly. It is also a sphere of hope. We are living in the hope of Christ coming at any moment, “my coming back”. That is what we are waiting for. Those who know the end are waiting for Christ’s return. It is burning within our hearts, and may it burn more deeply, beloved believing friend, that Christ is coming, and coming very soon. Have you lost the hope of Christ’s coming? Are you becoming absorbed in this world, in its sports, in its activities, in its religion or anything that belongs to the world? Are you waiting for the Lord to come? It speaks about those that are looking for Him, “the second time without sin for salvation”, Hebrews 9: 28. May the hope of Christ coming burn in every heart here!

Well, I will go on to John 4 for the time is going. That is another feature of the glad tidings. The time is going. Make sure you do not miss the opportunity of blessing. It says about the ark, that God shut the door; Noah did not shut the door, God shut the door. There is no other that can shut the door of the day of grace, but very soon God is going to shut the door of grace. It will be too late then for blessing. Do not miss it, friend. God would appeal to you, do not miss the opportunity of blessing. It is awful to think of having preached, and preached even in this room, and the possibility that someone might miss the blessing. It says, “Because there is wrath, beware lest it take thee away through chastisement—then a great ransom could not avail thee”, Job 36: 18. How solemn to think that someone in this room may miss the blessing. Friend, there is no need for it. The mercy-seat is available. Divine love is available to break your heart down, to subdue your will that you might surrender to the appeals of God.

The hymn says, ‘Let your answer be, I will!’ (Hymn 439). I heard a brother here say that the night he was converted. The preacher made a powerful appeal, when he finished his preaching by quoting that verse, ‘Let your answer be, I will!’. Our dear brother said, ‘Yes, I will, I will!’. There was joy that night and there would be joy this night if there was someone here who would say, ‘Yes, I will’. Oh that you would say it to God, that you might say it to Jesus tonight. ‘I will surrender to the claims of divine love’. I tell you this, if you do not surrender to the claims of divine love, not all the terror of hell could make you yield. There is nothing so powerful as the appeal of divine love. The Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Saviour God and the blessed Holy Spirit would indeed, I believe, unite in saying to you, ‘Let your answer be, I will!’

I want to finish with this simple touch about John 4. John is a wonderful gospel. I think we see the Lord Jesus in His pathway here in John not exactly in relation to man’s need. I think we see here, a divine Person in manhood and every step of His was regulated by the light of divine counsel. That is wonderful food for the soul. There was nothing in the way of accident in the steps of Jesus, there was nothing haphazard. It was a pathway absolutely directed by the light of divine counsel. So that when we come to chapter 12, it says, “Except the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it abides alone” (John 12: 24). It was an action of His own, that He came to that divinely appointed spot and that He fell into

the ground. It was no question here of wicked hands crucifying Him, but He came to the spot, and there He laid down His life. It is a wonderful matter to see that the death of Christ, in the light of John’s gospel, was death in the light of divine counsel. Think of the glory of that, “I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself”, John 10: 17, 18.

You young believers, think about it and seek help about it and look into the good teaching.

Read the scriptures about it and see the glory of Christ’s pathway in John’s gospel. Here it says, “he must needs pass through Samaria”, John 4: 4. It was a divine necessity. He must pass that way. Something had to be filled out in relation to the divine thought. You say, Yes, a sinner was met here, a sinner in her need, and typically she would receive the Spirit, the living water, another great matter in the gospel. She would receive not only the forgiveness of sins but the gift of the Holy Spirit. I trust we all have the Holy Spirit! Every believer here, God desires that you should have the Holy Spirit. Make sure you have. If you are not sure ask God for the Holy Spirit. That is what one of the hymns says, ‘Ask then for the Spirit Holy’

(Hymn 394). What a blessed gift it is; it is the greatest gift of the gospel! It is what God proposes for man, not only the forgiveness of sins but the gift of the Holy Spirit. I say that there is no believer complete without the Holy Spirit. It is an imperative matter.

The Lord’s pathway here went far beyond the blessing of the sinner. He was securing worshippers. Mr. Darby, in one of his gospel addresses says, ‘Come then and praise Him’ (Coll. Wrtgs. Vol.16, p.82). It is not only that you come in all your need, but the great end of the gospel is that you might come and praise God. The Lord says, “the Father seeks such as his worshippers”. The “such” refers to persons whose beings are absorbed with Christ, and with the power of the living water; who

have become absorbed with the glory of the outshining of God in Christ. I address myself to my believing brethren in this room. Are you such that your whole being is absorbed with the glory of the divine nature that has been seen in Christ? The Father seeks “such” as His worshippers. It points to a person who is full of joy, who is full of satisfaction, whose whole being is irradiated by the love of God. That is “such”, a person who worships. If you are discontented, if you have one foot in the world and one foot trying to get on with the brethren, you never can be a worshipper. No murmurer can be a worshipper. The person who can worship is a satisfied person, and from that overflowing heart there is a yield to the heart of the blessed God. Oh that we might know something of it!

These were the thoughts I had in mind. I trust that God will use them for the blessing of all.

Moreover that there might be a yield to the blessed God who has wrought so wonderfully to bring us into blessing and to secure us for Himself. As the word says, “I have borne you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself”, Exodus 19: 4. May it be our experience that we are brought to God. May it be that there is not here a straying believer. The Lord would recover you in His grace.

I do not wish to put any legal demand upon the young people, but I would ask you to bear in mind every day of this week what I have said. May it regulate your pathway. Do not think because you are a believer you can act in any way you like; you cannot do that. I remember a brother speaking about Simeon, in Luke 2, who had the promise from God that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Christ. Our brother raised the question with us as to how we thought Simeon would live, as having such an assurance. Would he live carelessly? Would he amuse himself with the things of the world? Would he abuse his body, that body that has been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ? “Do ye not know ... ye are not your own? for ye have been

bought with a price: glorify now then God in your body”, 1 Corinthians 6: 19, 20. Our brother said simply that he thought Simeon would always cross the road at the safest point. You see the point I am trying to make; do not put yourself in danger, neither morally nor physically.

Seek the Spirit’s help that you may live as a Christian, that you might represent God. Seek to live as owing much to Christ. Recognise the claim that Christ has on you every day and every moment of the day. God will bless you in doing so. I make that appeal. You will know what I mean. Do not tamper with things you should not tamper with. Do not tempt God in any way.

God is not mocked. It says, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatever a man shall sow, that also shall he reap”, Galatians 6: 7. I feel ending this time with such a solemn note but I trust you will bear with me and accept it. I trust from what we have said that the sinner might be blessed and the believer might be full of blessing, and that the blessed God might be fully praised, for He surely deserves it. May God bless the word.

Preaching at Calgary, 7 July 1996

EXTRACTS

What a word to brothers and sisters advanced in years, if I may speak respectfully to them. It is fine to see an old brother taking his share in the responsibility of the testimony and not depending on others, not handing his conscience and responsibility to others but holding them for God, maintaining his balance. Look at this special feature of David here! What is he occupied with? The house of God, God’s chief interest on earth. We are left here in our old age to be engaged with the house of God. David says, ‘I would have built it, I desired to build it, but God would not allow me’. He was a subject man. It is most important to be subject in old age as in youth. The desire of his heart was to build

God an house, but he was denied the honour. It is a very fine moral trait, if an old brother gives way because the will of God is that a more suitable one is brought forward, and David is delighting in it, for he says, ‘I know what it is to be chosen; I know God has chosen Solomon; I was chosen, too’. He knew what divine choice meant, for regarding himself, he says, ‘God chose the tribe of Judah, and He chose my father’s house, and He chose me from all my father’s sons because He liked me’. Precious instruction! to be conscious of being a chosen one! And if I have been chosen, why not let God choose another? It is His privilege.

Can I deny that privilege to God? Can He not choose another? It is an excellent thing morally for an old brother to pass away with a recognition of divine choice. David is standing upon his feet, being balanced, and able to say that God has chosen Solomon, and he is satisfied.

J. Taylor (Vol. 28, p.339, 340)

Public and collective departure is the result of private and individual departure, so let us see to ourselves in this matter. It is a searching question for each one of us; are we ministering delight to Christ, or are we hankering after other things? What are the desires, that really govern us in a practical way? Perhaps some of us would be ashamed to say? Suppose we were let go according to our desire, where should we go to? The Lord does not retain people unwillingly; if my desire is to go He may let me go. Many disciples went away from the Lord (John 6: 66), and He let them go. He said to the twelve, “Will ye also go away?” If I desire to be spiritual, and to minister to the delight of Christ, He will grant it. But if I want the world He may let me have it. “Demas has forsaken me, having loved the present age” (2 Timothy 4: 10); “All who are in Asia ... have turned away from me” (2 Timothy 1: 15). With sorrow of heart he had to let them go.

C. A. Coates (‘An Outline of Deuteronomy’, p.275)

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