CELEBRATIONS

Dr Robert Gardiner

Luke 22: 1-6; 12: 16-21; 14: 15-24; Psalms 149: 1-4

At this time of year it is party time! It doesn’t matter where you go out there, there are some arranging parties, some going to parties, some coming from parties, many with sore heads after parties and a good many with sore hearts. I have read about four parties tonight.

When you have a party, it is because you are celebrating something. And these poor souls who are having their parties, are supposedly celebrating something. They are supposedly celebrating the birth of my Saviour, Jesus. In their celebrations, they do not remember that, when He was born, there was no room for Him in the inn, only a manger, ‘a lowly cattle shed’. All the party-goers in the inn had no time for Jesus. Whatever they would be celebrating that night in the inn, they said there is no room for Him in here. Put Him out in the shed. My friend, if you get down to it, you will find that these party-goers are not celebrating the birth of Jesus; they are pleasing themselves. “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die”. The other thing you will not hear them saying is anything about the Name of Jesus. Oh they love to speak or sing a carol or two about the lowly, beautiful babe that was born in Bethlehem. There is nothing wrong with that, perfectly right and legitimate; it is all in the Scriptures anyway. But what you will not hear them saying is “Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for He shall save his people from their sins”, Matt 1: 21. Oh no, they won’t quote that because they wouldn’t be celebrating then. But they might repent. They might be brought to their knees. “Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for He shall save his people from their sins”.

The first celebration that I read about was an awful celebration. I want to paint this picture tonight to sober you. I want you to realise that if you are partying with people who do not know Christ you might well be partying with people who have been in the company of the betrayer. Because Judas was one of the twelve. The Lord Jesus said “If it had been an enemy, I could have borne it, but it was thou, a man mine equal, min intimate, my familiar friend …”, Ps 55: 13. That was Judas. And here is Judas, having been three and a half years in the company of the Lord Jesus, seeing all that He was doing, His undoing all the works of the devil in men and women wherever He met them. Here he was now, Satan having entered into his heart, here he was, and he was offering a way, an agreement, that they might take Jesus and crucify Him. It says “Then they rejoiced”. What a basis for a celebration! What a basis to rejoice! My friend, would you rejoice alongside them? If you are a sinner and you do not know Jesus as your Saviour, according to the Bible you are classed with these awful people. They rejoiced that they had come to an agreement how they could take Jesus and crucify Him. There is another side to that story. When Peter preaches at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles he says “Given up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men have crucified and slain”, Acts 2: 23. Men in all their wanton awfulness, in all their hatred against the Lord Jesus, they were the ones who put Him on that cross. They were the ones who said “crucify, crucify Him”, Luke 23: 21. But God had foreseen all that. “Given up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by wicked hands have crucified and slain.” My friend, God foresaw what man would cruelly do. And God knew that if these self-same men, and you and me, were ever going to be saved, there would have to be a sacrifice, and that sacrifice was Jesus. Let me remind you that this is the Man who moved about this scene for thirty three and a half years. For thirty years unknown in a certain sense, moving about His business, moving about His day to day duties, exemplifying perfection. Jesus had never an imperfect thought. He never said an untoward word. He never did a wanton deed. And then for three and a half years demonstrated the love of God to men, when He met men in all their need. When He met men blind, lame, halt. He could meet them wherever they were, however they were, the lepers, the fevered, it did not matter what condition men were in, the deranged, the one who was going about without clothes on, one held in chains, the Lord met them all and in loving grace. He put out His hand and touched them. “Be thou cleansed”. Remember too a woman coming, “if I should only touch His garment I shall be healed”, Matt 9: 21. In such a crowd, nobody noticed – crept in and nobody noticed. I love to think about that. You think about all those crowds of people, and here was one poor woman and she was needing a saviour. She crept along and touched the hem of His garment and immediately she was made whole. Remember the old hymn:

She only touched the hem of His garment

As to His side she stole,

Amid the crowd that gathered around Him

And straightway she was whole.

Oh touch the hem of His garment

And thou too shalt be free,

His saving power, this very hour

Shall give new life to thee

My friend, this is the gospel! Man celebrating, and rejoicing when he’s doing his worst; God doing His best, by providing a Man. A Man at Calvary,

“Look unto Me”, the Saviour cries

Behold upon the tree

My friend, He is available for you tonight. He is not on the cross now. He has shed His precious blood, and remember, without the shedding of blood there is no remission. The blood had to be shed. That soldier in his cruelty took a spear and “pierced His side, and immediately there came out blood and water”, John 19: 34. And that blood is the necessity for us tonight if we are going to know what it is to have our sins forgiven. Are you washed in the blood? “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool”, Isa 1: 18. My friend, that blood of Jesus is still as efficacious tonight as it was when that soldier pierced His side. It is as available tonight as it ever has been and tonight God is pointing you to the blood and He says “When I see the blood, I will pass over”, Exod 12: 13. Oh how many myriads of persons have claimed that blood for themselves, and they have found that God has justified them and given them peace. And so, my friend, that is the message of the gospel – when man was celebrating and rejoicing, doing his worst to put Christ on the cross, God was providing on that same cross, a perfect sacrifice that we might be saved. I commend Him to you. He is the greatest man that has ever lived. He is the greatest man that will ever live. He is the only man that is worthy of bowing the knee to.

I read the other scriptures to demonstrate other kinds of celebrations. You find when we get to Luke 12 that here is a man who is not exactly a betrayer, he had been blessed of God in a certain way. And have not we all! Even if we are sinners, God has blessed us in a certain way. He has blessed us by giving us the opportunity of being here tonight to hear the gospel. But He has blessed us in other ways. And this man had been blessed, he had been prosperous and now he sits back and does a little soliloquising, speaking to himself, discussing with himself. ‘I have all this food, fruit, what am I going to do? Build another granary! Store up my food, my fruit and say to my soul, “Soul, repose thyself, eat, drink, be merry”.’ That is man. Even men who have heard the gospel are like that even some men who have accepted the Saviour are like that; “Soul, repose thyself, eat, drink, be merry”. God says “Fool!”. I do not think God was being hard when He said that. I think He was being gracious to this man. He was just trying to draw his attention to the fact that he had no wisdom, he was just going on thinking about himself and he was foolish. Oh, I do not want anyone to go out of this room foolish tonight. I do not want anyone to go out tonight, God having to say “this night thy soul shall be required of thee, and whose shall be what thou hast prepared?” That never-dying soul! The man was interested in his body. He said “soul” , but that was what he was really meaning, just me, the ego, me. He didn’t realise that he was going to have to meet God, and he was going to have to say to God. God was pointing to him, saying “Fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee”. Now dear friends, it is a word to all of us. What are we living in? Oh you say ‘I am not one of these people that have denounced Christ and put Him on the cross’. What are we living in? What are we producing for God? This man was producing for himself. All his thinking was around himself. And if you analysed the thinking of every man and woman in this world, it is all around themselves. Tonight it is the opportunity to change tack. Stop celebrating your own wilfulness. Stop celebrating your own superiority. Stop celebrating the very fact that God has been good to you but enjoying it away from God. God wants you near Him. He wants you with Him. He wants you to celebrate in His company.

And so I come to the next party, and there you find the Lord Jesus talking about a celebration. He calls it a supper, another celebration, a supper. You marvel at the way the Lord kept appealing to people, do you not? There He was. He was God, as Man. He was the Creator of the universe. “By whom also He made the worlds” it says in the beginning of Hebrews. And here He was, in condescending grace, appealing to men and women when He was moving about during those three and a half years. And so it says a great man made a supper and invited many. No takers. It must have been some party that nobody wanted to go, you would say. Fancy being invited to a celebration and nobody wanted to go to it. Why? Because of the man who was providing it. That is why. They did not want to go because it was Jesus who was providing it. “A certain man”. There is only one certain man in the scriptures. It is Luke’s gospel we are reading you know. You know about Luke? Luke, accurately acquainted, set out with method, that is Luke. He doesn’t use words higgledy piggledy. He set it out with method. And so he says “A certain Man”. My friend, there is only one certain Man and that is Jesus. And here He is, providing a supper. He sends out an invitation. Ah, I bought some land, need to go and have a look at it. Bought five yoke of oxen, I have to go and prove them. I have often wondered what these people would have done if they had gone and found that the five yoke of oxen had been lame and tottering about with BSE. And what would the man have done if he had found the field was full of nettles? He would not have been celebrating, I am assured. But these were the puny excuses that they made. And another could say “I have married a wife”. He doesn’t say “Please excuse me”; he just says and “therefore I cannot come”. As if that was a real good reason. Did you ever hear anything so audacious? Did you ever hear anything so ridiculous? He is invited to a celebration and he does not say to his wife “come on, let us go to the celebration”. No, no: he says to the man “I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come”. The puny excuses that men make, when you analyse them, when you take them down word by word and have a real good look at them, they are worthless. Then He says “go out, compel them to come in”. The halt, the lame and the blind, the people He has met in such need, He says bring them in. And that is what He is doing tonight. He is looking at people who have needed a saviour and found a Saviour and He is bringing them in. And then they say, “it is done and there is still room”. You know, there is still room. This house has been filling for nearly two thousand years. Have you ever thought about the number of persons who have been converted in two thousand years? A man said to me he had been to China last year, and when he came back he said “its awesome, a billion people. They could send a million men to war and never miss them. Awesome.” I tell you there will be some people filled with awe when they see the thousands upon millions of people who have answered the call of love and come to the supper. Will you be among them? Will you share the celebration with Christ? Compel them to come in. Oh, my friend, the Lord Jesus tonight is appealing to you, in a compelling way. He is appealing in a way that you will have no resistance, no excuse. That you won’t go out of that door tonight and say ‘I will not put in my lot with these people at all.’

Where is this supper anyway? Ah! I was at this celebration this morning. What a celebration! We started with half a dozen people. Seven to be exact. In flesh and blood. Around a table with emblems on it. We sung a hymn. The celebration started. But wait. The bread was broken. There was an increase in power. The Lord came in. What a difference! Hearts awakened, responsive. It was not seven people in a meeting room in flesh and blood. It was the myriads of Ephraim and the thousands of Manasseh. All in the power of the Spirit. Linking on with one another in response to that glorious Man who had given Himself for us, but now a living Man, Prince, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The One who was worthy to have the first place among His brethren. Were you there? Did you break bread this morning? Oh you say ‘I am young enough. I’ll wait for a while’. Just let me appeal to anybody that did not. You have an opportunity now to cast your lot with those that rejoiced in celebrating His supper and leaving these other celebrations of men that have no time for Him.

What happens then at the Supper as it proceeds? That is why I read that verse in the Psalms. Because there you get the inside story. “Hallelujah! Sing unto Jehovah a new song”. See, it was new people, in a new environment, singing a new song. “Behold I make all things new”. “Sing unto Jehovah a new song, sing his praise in the congregation of the godly”. Oh you say, ‘you are taking high ground’. Why not? Do you want me to go along with those who are grovelling down here? He has taken me from the dunghill, and set me among nobles. The Psalmist has just changed the words, “and set me among the godly”. “Let Israel rejoice in his Maker; let the sons of Zion be joyful in their King. Let them praise his name in the dance”. My friend, if I take you back to another celebration in Luke 15, there was a young man who was what is called a prodigal. He had gone into a far country and dissipated his living, living in debauchery. And then his father found him. He found him at the moment when he came to himself. And we all, who were at the celebration this morning had at one time come to ourselves. The Father had found us. He had given us a ring, shoes on our feet, the best robe. He had killed the fatted calf. And there we were, making merry! That is a real celebration. That is the celebration that goes right on into eternity in the Father’s house. That is the celebration where you sing unto Jehovah a new song, where you praise His name in the dance. My friend, the gospel has a message that is a way beyond any other message that has ever been presented in the universe. It is a message of hope. It is a message of joy. It is a message of eternal blessing and present enjoyment with those that know God and Christ as their Saviour. I commend it to you, my friend. Time is short. But time now is available for every one of us once more to recommit ourselves to being with Christ, celebrating His perfect work and going with Him into the presence of the God who pre-ordained that He should come and secure us for all eternity. Be with Him in the presence of that self-same God, known to us as our Father, and there to sing that new song forever.

May you accept the terms of the gospel. May you accept the Man of the gospel. His loving heart and healing hand are outstretched to you tonight for your eternal blessing. May it be so, for His Name sake.

Now let us sing “Oh what a Saviour is Jesus the Lord” (Hymn 169).

 

GLASGOW

December 1998

 

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