GOD'S DELIVERANCE AND RECEPTION
GOD’S DELIVERANCE AND RECEPTION
Exodus 3: 7, 8; Luke 15: 11 - 32
I have been pressing on previous occasions the judgment on man which had to be removed. The judgment on man is, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”. The man under judgment must be removed in judgment. There is a judicial termination of man in the cross of Christ.
Now I desire to set forth, the judgment being removed, the greatness of God’s gift and reception. If you do not see that all of the man who has offended against God has been removed in judgment - alas! this is where many converted souls are - you cannot enjoy His gift and reception. Until you see every atom of the old man removed from the eye of God, you are occupied with yourself; the distance between Him and you has not been fully removed. Our old man is crucified with Christ. It is not “our old man is dead” - no, crucified. Crucifixion was the judicial end. Hence, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus”. Christ was delivered for our offences and raised for our justification. You cannot enjoy the favour of God until you believe that every element of disturbance between Him and you has been removed by Christ; then you are justified by Him, and then you have entrance into this favour wherein we stand.
Now when you are brought from everything contrary to God, you begin to apprehend that you are brought to God. Many desire to enjoy the favour of God, but they do not, because they do not see the judicial removal of man in the cross. If man has been judicially removed from God’s eye, he could not be revived on God’s side. It is immense blessing when you believe that all this has been effected for you. You have peace [p. 330] when you are justified, and you are justified when you believe that God has raised Christ from the dead.
Now I turn to set forth the greatness of the favour into which we are brought. I have read those verses in Exodus because they give you a good idea of the purpose of God. He saw the affliction of His people who were in Egypt, and He said to Moses, “I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land”. If you stop there, much would be effected for them. They would be free from the oppressor when they had walked through the Red Sea; they were then delivered from Pharaoh and the Egyptians - surely a very great deliverance. But that is only a part of the purpose of God; and bear in mind that it is not some great blessing which will be given hereafter, but which is given at once; you will be delivered out of your misery at the present moment, and you will be received into the greatest favour the same moment. The grace of God has two parts: one is to bring you out of your misery, and the other is to set you up in a new condition in the spot where your misery was. I mean at this moment, not merely when you go to heaven; of course all will be complete then, there will be no interruption to your blessing then. If you were not set up in a new condition, Israel would be better off than you are, because they were to be brought out of the place of oppression, and brought into “a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey”. It was not merely to get them out of one, but to bring them into another. Is it only judicial, only inexorable hatred of sin? That is one side of it, but when that has been met, there is unbounded love. It is a great thing to understand the heart of God. All that is contrary to the holiness of God must be removed before the heart of God can be disclosed. When Christ died, then the veil was rent - God could declare Himself.
[p. 331] In Luke 15 you will see this explained. In Exodus Israel was to be brought out of one place into an infinitely better place. If I were addressing a young man, full of aspirations in this world, I should say, I offer you infinitely more than all you seek here, and at this moment. You have to learn that it is not merely a future blessing, but a present one. Hence we read, “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound”. There are christians who could not explain this passage; they know that their sins are forgiven, but they do not understand that “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound”. The much more abounding is unknown in the righteous government of the world; when a man commits an offence, he incurs the penalty of the law; and when the penalty is paid he is set free. If in prison for a debt, and a friend pays his debt, he is discharged; his debt was paid through grace, but there is no abounding there. It is, of course, a great thing to be free of debt. But there is not only forgiveness with God; God has laid help on One that is mighty; His own arm hath brought salvation to Him. In John 4 Christ says to the woman of Samaria, “If thou knewest the gift of God”. God has come out in quite a new way, so that “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound”. The man saved by grace is infinitely better off than man was before he had sinned. I am pressing the wonderful greatness of the love of God, so that He can say, ‘All in you contrary to Me has been removed, to My infinite satisfaction, in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ; and now My heart is at liberty to do as I please for you’. This is the gospel of the blessed God, and therefore your new state bears no comparison with the old. There is no comparison between Canaan and Egypt. You read in Deuteronomy 11 of the contrast between them. In Egypt there was no rain, but when the overflow of the river came, they had to conduct the water to the roots of the trees. “For the land, whither thou goest [p. 332] in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs”. But the land of Canaan is “a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven: a land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year”. The land to which Israel were going was infinitely superior to the land they were brought out of. That is a type of the magnitude of God’s grace.
In Luke 15 we get three parables. In the first, the shepherd goes after a lost sheep until he finds it, and when he finds it he lays it on his own shoulders rejoicing, and brings it “to the house” (the right reading), and calls his neighbours together to rejoice with him - it is the joy of the finder. If that little sentence is wrought in your soul by the Spirit of God, it will be for much blessing. We think of our joy in our salvation, but did you think of the joy of the Finder? “Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost”.
The second is the woman with a lighted candle sweeping the house diligently (properly the work of an evangelist) for the lost piece till she finds it, and the light rests upon the piece; and then when she has found it, she puts it along with the other nine. One is the shepherd, who seeks and finds; the other is the light by which the soul is turned to God.
In the third, there were two sons, and the father divided his living between them; one remained as usual with him, but the other went into a far country, and wasted his goods with riotous living. This is a picture of man naturally. The temptation to man in the garden of Eden was that he could do better for himself by doing his own will. Hence every one, sooner or later, be it from bad health or some other cause, comes to the end of his resources; like the prodigal, “he began to be in want”. It is a terrible moment when death stares you in the face. The prodigal made several attempts to retrieve his position, but they were ineffectual. He “joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him”. It is in this state of need and desperation that the light arrests him; as the scripture describes it, “when he came to himself”. The goodness of his father awakens confidence in him: he says, “I will arise and go to my father”; he can say nothing for himself, but “the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance”. It is a faithful description of the sinner reduced to the lowest point, like the thief on the cross; still more markedly Saul of Tarsus.
The unspeakable misery of the lost will be when they wake up to the fact that there is goodness in God, and that they never turned to Him. Is there any one in this room who has not turned to God? No one turns to God until he is brought to the lowest point; while any other hope remains, man will not turn to God. Hence the word to the servant, “Compel them to come in”. It is not enough for the blessed God to announce, “All things are now ready”, but He compels you to come in. Anyone here who has turned to God knows that, like the Philippian jailor, he was reduced to the lowest point before he turned to God. You were like the four lepers at the siege of Samaria; they said, If we stay here we die, and if we go into the city we die there; the only one door open to us is the mercy of our enemies, but they trusted mercy and they were not disappointed. A beautiful type. God favoured them, because they trusted in mercy. I may say to each one here, Have you trusted in the mercy of God? The prodigal says, “I will arise and go to my father”. This is the history of every converted soul. You have not anything to say for yourself, not one word. But you count on His goodness. “I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants”. That is the prodigal’s gospel. And, alas! many truly converted have no better gospel than just to get within the door of heaven. At any rate the work of grace has begun, he has left the far country - all the fruit of the shepherd’s work.
As I have already said, the moment Christ died God rent the veil, the distance between God and man has been removed by a Man - a Man who finished the work God gave Him to do, the One in whom He is well pleased. The question is, Do you turn away from the man who ruined you, and do you believe in the Man who wrought out your salvation? “The just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”.
Next the prodigal “arose, and came to his father”. Now we have the father’s side. People are constantly telling me of their feelings about God. I want you to know His feelings about you. Believe me, it will make a wonderful difference if you learn His feelings about you. He came to his father, because he had no one else to count on, he could not say anything for himself, he could only count on his father. Now while he was yet a great way off his father saw him. And what did he do? It is too much to describe. He “ran, and fell upon his neck, and covered him with kisses”. Is there any one who can describe the greatness of that act? No one. The father ran. Yes, he says, as it were, I take a greater interest in the prodigal’s conversion than the prodigal himself. This would deeply touch any one who believed it. The gospel is often spoken of as if the prodigal only had an interest in it; but the Father has an interest in the gospel, and therefore our blessed Lord says in John 4, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.... My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work”. Christ [p. 335] worked from God to the sinner; from the highest to the lowest. Put yourself in the place of the prodigal, and what would your feeling be? It would be, How much my father cares for me! he has nothing against me; he is on the best of terms with me. Of course the prodigal was so surprised at the graciousness of his father’s reception that he could not say all he had intended, but as has often been remarked, he only says, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son”. And the father said, “Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him”, etc.
Now mark, the first impression the prodigal got on coming to his father was the tenderness of his love. I lay great stress on this, because the lack in many is that they do not believe it. Here is verified, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself”; and hence when known, “We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation” - not “the atonement”. God Himself has effected it, and therefore He can greet the returning prodigal in the most loving way. The prodigal at the same time has a deeper sense of unfitness; that is repentance. “But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet” - that is, he is made meet, “accepted in the beloved”.
The prodigal is given an infinitely higher position than the one he had lost. Because God has been glorified by Christ in the work He has done, God can now do more for us than if we had never sinned at all; He can satisfy His heart, so that “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound”. The moment the prodigal was fit for his father’s house he was in it. The word now is, “Bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry”. The meaning is that the believer shares in heavenly festivity. You may admit that Canaan is superior to Egypt, but here [p. 336] you share in the joys of heaven. Do you think there are no joys with God? Do you think man only has joys? Inconceivably great is the believer’s reception; but the joys of God are immense: “In thy presence is fulness of joy”. “And they began to be merry”. May we apprehend the nature and greatness of the reception vouchsafed to the returning son, even to share in the joys of the Father’s house, and that his home is there; for though no one here has gone to heaven, yet every one who has tasted of the Father’s reception has the joys of his heavenly home along the road. May the Lord lay this on your heart.
The greatest festivity is accorded to every returning wanderer. The elder brother, who was self-righteous, traduces his own brother, because he was received by his father in such a loving and remarkable way. You may wonder and say, Why should the prodigal’s position be better because of grace than if he never needed grace? Simply because it is grace, and that grace has come by the Son, who has glorified God when man had dishonoured Him, so that He is now at liberty to open out all His heart, and do all His pleasure for those who are brought to Him by His Son. The answer is, “It was meet that we should make merry and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found”.
I desire that it may remain in your heart that your need is not the measure of God’s grace; but that the measure of His grace is His own heart. Do you know the measure of it? “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us”. It is a very simple statement. May you lay hold of this, that not your need, but His heart, is the measure of His grace. This utterly confounded the elder brother. The believer is altogether a debtor to grace; all has been effected for him by the blessed God, so that there is nothing which could be done for him which is not done.
[p. 337] The Lord grant that each one here may be led to do as the prodigal son had done. Do not make light of it. He began by thinking of his father; that is the beginning: but how great was the end! I could understand the prodigal standing up at the end, after the feast, and saying to his father, How blessed you are to have blessed me so much!
The Lord grant that your eyes may be opened to the completeness of God’s salvation, and the blessedness of the reception which He vouchsafes to each returning one, for His name’s sake.