PREACHING OF THE WORD OF GOD
J.McKay
Judges 16: 1 (Gazah), 2,3; Luke 22: 39-46; 23: 44-47; Psalm 46: 1
We have spoken together today about the greatness of the manhood of the Lord Jesus. I want to continue, if the Lord gives grace for it, to focus your attention upon Him, to refer to the strength that is in Christ. Men look for strength in these days. The problems of the nations increase, the problems that confront families and individuals, coming right down to the problems that are present in this room. God knows about them. The greatness of the message today is that He has the answer to them. He has the answer to every situation in one glorious Man. His name is Jesus. It is a privilege to speak about Him. It is a privilege to have the opportunity to commend Him as One whose love in some measure we have proved.
I have read this first passage because it gives the solemn background to what I want to say, and what it shows is the world's attitude to the One who is God's appointed Saviour. The world’s attitude to Jesus continues to be one of hostility, one of opposition. The young ones know about Samson; the story of Samson is well-loved. When the lion rose against him and he slew the animal it says, "and nothing was in his hand" (Judg 14: 6), the power of Christ personally is demonstrated in a man who so long before typified the greatness of the One who on God's behalf would intervene for man's blessing.
But sadly people were hostile and as he comes to this city of Gazah, they surrounded him. It is not the city that is their object. They surrounded him. The hostility of Satan is directed against Christ. "And they laid wait for him all night at the gate of the city" through a period of darkness. The darkness is increasing in man's world. Scripture speaks elsewhere of a darkness that could be felt and darkness characterised this time and the hostility of the Philistines was focused against a man who on God's behalf was acting in view of the deliverance of the people. And it says, "and were quiet all the night, saying, In the morning light we will kill him". I ask you, what are the prospects in this world? You young people, what are the prospects in this world? We are living at a time when there is great activity politically in this country. What are the prospects? What does the future hold? What these men were saying was that hen the morning comes - there is a new day coming and we can promise you something then. What kind of a day is in prospect for man's world? They say, "In the morning light we will kill him". What they have in prospect is a day without Christ. That is the world's prospect. Are you going along with that? Oh, let us tum aside from man's world and all that it offers and let us listen to God's proposals in blessing in the glad tidings!
So it says, "And Samson lay till midnight". This is a figure of the way the Lord Jesus entered death: it says he "lay till midnight". Wonderful fact that the Saviour of the world, the Prince of life, the One who called all things into being by the word of His power, actually lay in death. Samson lay until midnight when the darkness was at its greatest. And then it says, "He arose at midnight, and seized the doors of the gate of the city" - the whole administration of the place - "and the two posts, and tore them up with the bar, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron".
What a tremendous victory, a man in whom was strength to overthrow the whole of the opposition that was against him, but more than that, strength for the establishment of all God's thoughts in blessing. He took the administration, the gates of the city, right up to Hebron and established them there. As we know, according to the scripture, Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt. It pre-dates the whole world's system. The Lord Jesus is great enough not only to overthrow what is hostile, but to bring in a great realm of things positively according to God's thoughts in blessing for men. Do you know a Saviour like that? You young ones, have you had to do with Jesus - as the One who not only makes proposals but fulfils them? He is my Saviour and I would like to commend Him to you today, the One who has met the opposition on God's behalf and has established an order of things in which His richest thoughts can come in without restriction for the blessing of persons so undeserving as you and I. We do not deserve blessing. We have forfeited every right to life, and yet God's overture towards us in blessing in Christ is completely undiverted. What a God we have!
So I just begin with this very solemn picture of man’s world. As far as man is concerned, when the morning comes there will be no place for Christ. I can tell you on the authority of Scripture that such a morning will never dawn. Such a morning will never come because God's will involves that the Man whom this world rejected will fill all things. The mystery of His will is that He will head up all things in the Christ so that not only has he gained the victory over what is hostile, but He will bring in everything for God's pleasure and for His glory. He will give the final touch to the whole scene according to 1 Corinthians 15: “Then the end, when he gives up the kingdom to him ... all things in subjection to him, that God may be all in all” (vv 24,28). That is the Saviour we preach, the Man who has come in on God's behalf and has reasserted God's supremacy in His own creation. On the way He has accomplished redemption, laying a basis for our eternal blessing, that every burden should be lifted in order that you should be brought in to what God proposes in His heart to give.
Now, the way to that is portrayed for us in Luke's gospel. God has laid strength, the Psalm tells us, on One that is mighty. The gospel writer testifies that the One who had such strength came into circumstances of suffering. How wonderful is the language that this writer uses as to the incoming of Jesus! If you want to nourish your soul, read the early chapters of Luke's gospel! There in the presence of the greatness of the Roman empire, you have described the incoming of Jesus in the lowliness of a babe in Bethlehem's manger. The word of the angel is, "For to-day a Saviour has been born”. As soon as Jesus came, the work of redemption was assured! The One who came was great enough to accomplish all that God's will involved. Elsewhere we have the recorded words and they are majestic in their meaning, "To do thy good pleasure, my God, is my delight” Ps 40: 8. These are words spoken in power, words spoken, as another has taught us, before He came into the place of obedience, a statement of divine competency to undertake what God willed. That was prior to the incoming of Jesus, but, as He came, what grace is seen! Not coming in majesty, pomp, and outward greatness, but a babe in a manger. What grace in order that man should be disarmed from any prejudice he should have against the God who sought his blessing. And those who received such testimony said, "Let us make our way ... and let us see this thing that is come to pass", Luke 2: 15.
I wonder if you have ever made a move yourself to see that what God said about Jesus was true. We need faith for that. Perhaps you will surrender today to God's overture towards you in blessing and you will make a move to find that what He testifies as to Christ is true. It is wonderfully true! The One who trod the earth and was the object of divine favour on the banks of the Jordan, heaven opening upon Him and the Father’s voice saying, "This is my beloved Son", a mature man standing on the earth, the object of heaven's favour. There had never been anything like it before. How many men there had been, and God had taken account of every one of them, but in every one of them there was a defect. In this wonderful Person there was no blemish. We were reading about the red heifer recently and it says, there was no blemish and there was no defect. That is, there was nothing wrong but every positive feature that God sought. That was Jesus, unique under heaven's eye. Here where evil's challenge had swept the whole scene, where all had been dominated and influenced by it, was a Man totally unaffected by the intrusion. He was here for God.
And God's claim was fully recognised as He comes to the end of that beautiful pathway. In His life God's grace had been demonstrated towards men, lifting their burdens, healing their diseases, causing the blind to see, the lame to walk, making deaf to hear, even causing dead persons to rise from the dead. What grace, what power was evidenced in the life of Jesus! But at the end of that pathway, He comes to this remarkable moment in chapter 22 of Luke when it says, "And going forth he went according to his custom to the mount of Olives".
Can I attract your heart, dear fellow-believer, to take account of this beautiful picture as Jesus appears here as a dependent Man, and yet is here as God's strength? We referred in the reading to the ark as God's strength and here is the great antitype of that. "He went according to his custom to the mount of Olives". The greatest challenge that the universe has ever seen was about to come against Him. Satan had come before, had attacked in wilderness circumstances. He had attacked the Lord Jesus. As an undefeated foe Satan had brought every pressure, every temptation, to bear upon Him, and he was defeated. It says, "And the devil, having completed every temptation, departed from him for a time" (Luke 4:13), and at this point he returns. There were those who went with the Lord Jesus: "and the disciples also followed him". The Spirit of God would help those whose affections are available to draw close to Christ as He moves into this situation of great testing. "And when he was at the place He said to them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's throw ..." He was not too far away. They were close enough to Him to realise that this was a suffering way. Do you know that it meant suffering for Jesus if you or I were to be brought into blessing? As the hymn-writer says:
No act of power could e'er atone,
No wonder-working word
Gould from the brightness of the throne,
Make love's sweet voice be heard.
If sinners ever were to know
The depths of love divine,
All Calv'ry's weakness and its woe,
Blest Saviour, must be Thine. (Hymn 431)
There was no alternative to Gethsemane as we have it in Matthew's gospel, no alternative to the way He went here on the mount of Olives. Here He is going through the matter in spirit with His Father. As in Genesis 22, "they went both of them together" (v 6). The Father's will involved that Christ should meet the immense challenge of Satan's return, bringing all that he had, even death itself, to bear upon Him. "And having knelt down he prayed, saying, Father, if thou wilt remove this cup from me". He does not ask for it to be modified. He says, if it is possible for it to be removed. It was not possible. It was divinely necessary, and the Lord Jesus took the cup, not from the hand of Satan, but from the hand of His own Father. He went forward. In His strength He was totally undiverted in the presence of this character of pressure in view of the securing of your salvation and mine. I trust your heart is softened by the contemplation of this.
Then it says, "And an angel appeared to him from heaven strengthening him". That is a very fine touch. We have spoken about His might; we have spoken about His power, as it is particularly seen in John's gospel where according to John’s account He enters death, as an invader, overthrowing the power of it Himself personally. But it is very affecting that an angel appears from heaven strengthening Him. The angel did not bring in what was additional. Through the service of the angel, what was there already was enhanced. "Strengthening him": everything that was needed was in Christ but it was brought out in its fullest character and endurance by the service of the angel. "And being in conflict he prayed more intently. And his sweat became as great drops of blood, falling down upon the earth". What endurance, what pressure, my Saviour went through. Moses of old, as anointing the tabernacle system, when he came to the altar, sprinkled it seven times as if to emphasise the power of endurance that was in Christ in suffering. He alone was equal to sustain what was needed. There was never a moment like it before; there has never been a moment like it since and, thank God, the Saviour was equal to it. He went through this in view of the effecting of the work of redemption.
When we come to chapter 23, "And it was about the sixth hour'', things have progressed. The Saviour has been through the mockery of a trial at the hands of men and, rejected of men, has been placed on a cross. There the object of men's taunts and scorn, the evidence of total rejection by man's world, and yet what was of God was being carried through. The strength of what was to be accomplished for God and on man's behalf was totally unaffected by the fact that men were acting against Him as powerfully and as effectively as they possibly could.
Then it says, "And it was about the sixth hour, and there came darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour''. This was a unique moment too in the history of the world when there came darkness. There is something that is beyond our understanding in what happened at the cross. We shall always wonder at it. We shall never penetrate its depths. God found it necessary to bring in darkness and for three hours the Saviour endured the weight of the wrath of a holy God against sin. Sin was a challenge to God's holiness, to His majesty, and it was necessary that someone should be found to be the sin-bearer and there was only One who was equal to it. In Revelation 5 there was One who was found to be worthy. John wept much that no-one could be found and then the Lamb - the One who suffered - is seen as worthy. Jesus alone went into the period of the forsaking, there to secure God's will - I speak carefully I trust as to such a holy subject - in isolation. He who knew the sweetness of communion, He who had never wavered from contact with His Father in the presence of the greatest hostility from Satan and from man, now did that will, as Himself forsaken of God. Because the judgment was exhausted God can conduct Himself towards persons who are sinners like you and me on the principle of grace because He has a righteous basis in the finished work of Jesus to forgive our sins.
I wonder if every one of us has come in repentance to acknowledge that Christ was our Substitute, that He took our place at the cross. That what He bore justly and righteously at the hand of His God should have been my part but because He bore it on my account, I can put my trust in His finished work and know Him as my Saviour. You young people, do you know the Saviour? Have your burdens been lifted? God would delight in persons who today come to Christ and trust Him for what He has done. I would be urgent with you today lest there should be any who do not know the salvation that comes through putting your trust in the only Saviour.
His blood was shed. John's gospel refers to that. "But one of the soldiers pierced his side" (chap 19: 34): Man's cruelty brought out the expression of love and "without blood-shedding", the scripture tells us, "there is no remission", Heb. 9:22. But the blood has been shed and remains an eternal witness to the fact that God was satisfied with the life that was laid down on our account. He entered death. He lay there for three days and three nights and then the Father's glory intervened. What a tremendous thing it was! David says in the Psalm prophetically, "He reached forth from above, he took me ... And he brought me forth into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me", Ps 18: 16,19. The Lord Jesus at the present moment is in a large place. He has plenty of room to operate and He wants to reach persons today from that position of tremendous advantage. It is like David when he came to the throne. He said, “Is there not yet any of the house of Saul, that I may shew the kindness of God to him?" 2 Sam 9: 3. The Lord Jesus is able to show the grace of heaven to persons who are sinners and far from God. He would draw you to Himself tonight and you will find that He is able to carry your burdens, the mighty Saviour! Isaiah says, "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with deep-red garments from Bozrah ...?" and the answer is "I that speak in righteousness, might to save", Isa 63:1.
Oh the sight in heav'n is glorious!
Man in righteousness is there (Hymn 212)
He is established beyond all challenge. As we said today, life out of death is manifested in Him the glorious Saviour and living Redeemer, the One who would love to have your confidence and your trust. You will never regret putting your trust in the Man to whom God Himself has entrusted the whole universe. God says prophetically, "I have laid help upon a mighty one", Ps 89: 12. God has done it. Will you trust Him? I trust there will be an answer today to the appeal from heaven that you should learn to trust Christ.
So He becomes your resource. I just refer to that verse in the Psalm because it is a very affecting one: "God is our refuge and strength". We have been speaking of Christ as God's strength and it is wonderful to realise that the stability of Deity came into manhood in Jesus. All the fulness of the Godhead was there in Him. But when we know God, a measure of strength begins to show itself in the life of the true believer. Have you got that far? Can you allow God's work to assert itself so that He becomes your strength? We need to develop in our knowledge of God so that we find Him a refuge - yes, we flee to Him - but He is also our strength. Refuge involves a safe place in a time of trouble; strength is something that you know inwardly. The light of the glad tidings includes the proposal that God would give His Holy Spirit to you. To those who have received the forgiveness of sins, God will administer, through Christ, the gift of the Spirit. That involves inward strength so that you have power through your link with Jesus to go through a scene that remains hostile, preserved in some measure in keeping with the God who has brought you to Himself.
"A help in distresses": how much pressure there is! The sorrows of humanity, God knows them - "a help in distresses, very readily found". In the midst of the sorrows He is available today. He is available to all men; but He is available to you. Do not put the gospel off in its application to somebody else because that is the way to miss the blessing. May you discover today that He is available to you. The Saviour is available and God as a refuge is available. Learn to trust Him and you will find that He will see you through to the end. We shall not continue here always, the saints do not belong here. God has come into the world and He has called persons out of it in view of taking them to heaven to be with Christ. Heaven is our place according to divine purpose and counsel. It is wonderful that the Lord Jesus, the One who has undertaken the detail of the work of redemption, is also the Man in whom God's purpose is fully secured.
The triumph of God is in Christ. May you trust Him and may you learn to know Him better! For His Name's sake.
DUNDEE
20 April 1997