‘NOT A CLOUD ABOVE – NOT A SPOT WITHIN’
R. Hibbert
1 Chronicles 12: 32; Acts 17: 30; 2: 37, 38
These scriptures speak about times. The children of Issachar “had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do”. We all know the importance of time. If you have to catch a plane at a certain time you know what to do—get ready, and get out there to the airport! That applies very much in spiritual things, to understand the times and then, when you know that, to do something, as affected by it. We sang in our hymn (Hymn 133) that this is a wonderful time. There has never been such a time, nor will there ever be again. God is a God of time and He works in different ways in different dispensations, as we read in Acts 17. In past times, in “the times of ignorance”, He overlooked things, but then it goes on to say that it is not so now, but now (in contrast to the times of ignorance) He “enjoins men that they shall all everywhere repent”; that is what we are to do. It is not only the character of the times, but what we are to do in this time— repent. It was not exactly so in past dispensations. Man was under probation. In the different dispensations he was in a different relation to God as to responsibility. But now, in this dispensation, “each of us shall give an account concerning himself to God” (Romans 14: 12); hence the importance of understanding this time, that it is not like the previous times, nor is it like the coming time either.
You will remember that at Philippi a woman with a spirit of Python followed Paul and cried, “These men are bondmen of the Most High God, who announce to you the way of salvation”, Acts 16: 17. That sounded quite good, quite plausible, but it was not the truth for that time. In fact the devil was using her to divert to a coming time when God will be known as the Most High God; but that is not the way He is being presented now. The way that He is being presented now is that man is responsible to Him, and we see from Acts 17 how clear that is made; and it is to all men, not just the Jews. It is to a Gentile company that Paul is speaking, and it is very fine that he says that God is very near; he says, “He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17: 27).
Did you ever think about God being near? Perhaps you think of Him in heaven—a long way off—but the fact is that in this time God has drawn near. He has drawn near in Christ, and He has drawn near in the Spirit. It was Paul’s special service to go to the Gentiles, for the Lord said to him, “Go, for I will send thee to the nations afar off”, Acts 22: 21. The Gentiles were afar off; that is what they were; but not now. So this is a time when God is near. It is a wonderful time—we sang of ‘the wonder of the moment’—when God is so near. The wonder is that the vilest sinner, no matter at what extremity he is, can just, so to speak, reach out his hand and he will find God is right there, ready to listen to the cry of the vilest and weakest repenting sinner. So what a time it is! Paul says that in Acts 17, “He is not far from each one of us”. Do you ever think about that? We cannot say that in the same way about the lower creation; not that God does not care for it, for He does, “who provideth for the raven his food”, Job 38: 41. What a God He is! But this is a question of what He is morally, and that He is not far from any one of us.
I also want to speak about the way God acts in relation to persons of different ages. God has something to say to every age group. Moses says, “So teach us to number our days, that we might acquire a wise heart”, Psalm 90: 12. God is concerned about our years. He is concerned about you, what your age is, what kind of exercises you are going through. How is He concerned about the children? You say, Is God interested in them? What does He require of all the children under years of responsibility? It says, “What doth Jehovah require of thee?”, Micah 6: 8. What does He require of you children? He requires obedience to your parents, as Scripture says (Ephesians 6: 1); and God would give us to convey to you dear children that He loves you. He loves all the children. You will remember that the Lord Jesus, when the disciples said they should not trouble Him with the infants, said, “Suffer little children to come to me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of God”, Luke 18: 15, 16.
But before we turn from Acts 17 we should see what God says we are to do. The men of Issachar knew what Israel ought to do. What should we do, what should men do, now that God has changed His dispensational ways toward men, and is holding men responsible? What should we do? Paul says in verse 30, “God therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, now enjoins men that they shall all everywhere repent, because he has set a day in which he is going to judge the habitable earth in righteousness by the man whom he has appointed, giving the proof of it to all in having raised him from among the dead”. So what we should do is repent; that is what Scripture says, that we should repent. God is now holding man accountable, and is going to have to say to every man about his sins, either now, or later, so the thing for each one to do now is repent. And I do not think it means to repent once for all, it means that it is to characterise us. Heaven rejoices, the angels of God rejoice, over one repenting sinner. But still we have got to begin somewhere, and I want to raise this solemn question with everyone here; I want this to get into your conscience, so I want everybody to be awake, and I want you to listen to what God says; He “now enjoins men that they shall all everywhere repent, because he has set a day in which he is going to judge the habitable earth in righteousness by the man whom he has appointed”.
There is not much righteousness in judgment now (not that one would attack the government or the judiciary), but there is very little righteousness here, but “judgment shall return unto righteousness”, Psalm 94: 15. God is going to judge the world in righteousness, by the Man whom He has appointed. What a blessed thing it is that God has placed judgment in the hands of that Man! You could not bribe Him. He is not a Man to whom you can give favours to make some kind of a deal. God is going to judge the earth in righteousness by that Man whom He has appointed, giving the proof of it to all in that He has raised Him from among the dead. Acts shows us that there is absolutely infallible proof of the resurrection of Christ. It has been well said that the testimony of the apostles in the Acts to the resurrection of Jesus would be accepted in a true court of law. Peter says, “This man God raised up the third day and gave him to be openly seen ... of witnesses who were chosen before of God, us who have eaten and drunk with him after he arose from among the dead”, Acts 10: 40, 41.
Now it would be no use going to Peter with that lie that the Jews circulated, “Say that his disciples coming by night stole him while we were sleeping”, and that His resurrection is a myth (see Matthew 28: 13, 15). ‘Oh’, Peter would say, ‘there is no use telling me that! I ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead’ and, furthermore, above five hundred brethren at once saw Him. You say you want two witnesses? You want three witnesses? Well, God says, I have given you over five hundred. Above five hundred brethren at once saw the Lord Jesus in resurrection. So He has given the proof of it, that He has raised Him from the dead, and, furthermore, He has exalted Him by His own right hand.
So, have you ever repented? Have you? This is not a question of saying, Well, I will become a Christian. That is not the point at all. The thing is, Have you repented? Have you acknowledged that you are a sinner? Have you in the presence of God acknowledged your sins? Have you done that? This requires a specific acknowledgment in the presence of God that you are a sinner, and of what you have done. Do not say, ‘Well, I have been a very bad man’. Be specific; say, ‘I got drunk’, or, ‘I stole’, or did other wicked things. Tell God. He knows anyway. He knows all that you have done. Tell Him all the things; in fact you can finally say, “O God, have compassion on me, the sinner”, Luke 18: 13. That covers a lot, but no doubt that publican would have all these things in his mind. I solemnly press on you how essential it is that you should repent. The men of Issachar knew what Israel should do. What you should do, this scripture says, is repent.
Now Acts 2 goes further. Peter pressed on them their guilt in crucifying Jesus—these very men. Think of the boldness of Peter standing up before these very men who had crucified Jesus. He says, You are the men who did it; you crucified the Son of God. He spoke in such power that they were convicted and said, “What shall we do?” How I wish somebody here would say that. ‘I realise I am in a sad plight; what am I going to do?’ We read in Romans the other night, “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world be under judgment to God”.
But the wonderful thing about the glad tidings is that “God hath shut up together all in unbelief, in order that he might show mercy to all”, Romans 11: 32. What a God He is! What a time it is! God is seeking to convict you of your guilt, not to fix it upon you eternally, but to exercise you so that you can take advantage of the means He has provided whereby that guilt can be met.
So it says, “Having heard it they were pricked in heart”. I wish I could prick somebody’s heart today! They said to Peter and the other apostles, “What shall we do, brethren?” It is a good thing, if you do not know what to do, to ask the right persons—What shall we do? Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptised, each one of you”. What does that mean? Mass revival campaigns have no scriptural basis. Repentance is an individual thing. I am not asking whether you have ever been at an emotional meeting where people were ‘repenting’ all around you. Repent ‘ each one of you’, it says. It is your matter. At the great white throne God is not going to ask about your neighbour. He is going to ask you about yourself, so it is “each one of you”. Have you done it?
Then he adds, “for remission of sins”. Not that the measure of your repentance is the basis for forgiveness. That is bad doctrine. Remission is through faith in Him, but you receive it through repentance. The basis of remission of sins is the blood of Jesus, and faith in it too,
“through faith in his blood”; “that he should be just, and justify him that is of the faith of Jesus”. Well,
you have got a certain way if you have got that far. All the sins gone! Are you conscious of that? If you have been to God about your sins, and have repented of them, you can go out with a clear sky above.
Why did God bring in the law? “In order that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful”, Romans 7: 13. He knew that man could not keep the law. But if you are a true believer I doubt very much your sincerity if you have not tried to keep the law. Mr.
Herbert Gill used to say that anybody who was a sincere Christian at some time was legal.
Have you been through that phase? Have you tried to keep the law? How did you get along?
Oh, I have been through it! I used to read the seventh chapter of Romans over and over again to see if I could see some light through the dark tunnel. Is that where you are? You say, I have got my sins forgiven, but I find my heart is just as bad as ever; the flesh in me is just the same as ever. When you are first converted you sing, ‘Not a cloud above’. Oh, you say, is that not wonderful? I have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; but then you find you are still subject to the same awful power of sin in the flesh.
So then, what about the spot within? That hymn (Hymn 22) says, ‘Not a cloud above—not a spot within’. Well, thank God if you acknowledge that the spot is still there within. Are you happy? You may say, I am a Christian, and breaking bread, and have got my sins forgiven.
Are you happy? No, you say, I am not happy, because there is still sin there inside. I am doing my best; I keep turning over a new leaf; I have turned over so many new leaves now, and yet I am still no better; I still find that wretched sin in the flesh inside. What are you trying to do with it? Are you trying to improve it? God has tried out the flesh
now for thousands of years. Has man been able to change the flesh? No. It cannot be changed. The flesh is incorrigible. You will never change it. If God could not change it, you will not. What then must you do? You must see that God has condemned it. He condemned sin in the flesh, and so must you. So read Romans 7 again. I do not know how many times I read it, but it took me quite a while before I really got the gist of it. And the gist of it is that you have to distinguish between the “I” and the flesh. You say, ‘That is the flesh that is doing that’. God has condemned sin in the flesh in the death of Jesus; that is the brazen serpent, in the type. You look away, and you see that God has condemned sin in the flesh in the death of Jesus.
But then, how am I going to get power to continue? That is where Peter goes further than Paul does in Acts 17. Peter says, You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. That is not Romans 7. That is Romans 8, that you have power in a divine Person here. Talk about God being close to any one of us! God is right here indeed; He is prepared to indwell the believer.
So if you have not received the Spirit, ask for it; that is what the Lord says, “If therefore ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much rather shall the Father who is of heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”, Luke 11: 13. Are you having problems with the flesh? Do not think I have not been through it; do not think I am not sympathetic with you. Do not think that God is not sympathetic with you. He knows; but He says, I will give you Holy Spirit when you ask. You go to God and ask Him; say, I have been wrestling with this problem for all these years, and I am not getting anywhere; the flesh is no better; I am no better than I used to be when I first got converted; and then ask for the Holy
Spirit, and you will realise the power in the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the body (Romans 8: 13).
I remember a brother who, years ago, lived out on a farm all his life away from the brethren, and he came in from Saskatchewan to get right. He was a very shy man and he said to me, ‘I do not usually talk about my private life, but I want to tell you that is why I came to this place’. He smoked like a smoke-stack. I never knew anybody who smoked as much as he did.
As soon, as he entered the room you knew he was there. He said, What are the brethren going to say about the smoking? Well, I said, you know the brethren will not go on with smoking.
He said, ‘What can I do? I have been smoking for all these forty or fifty years, and I cannot give it up; I cannot do it, I know I cannot’. The poor man was just steeped in tobacco. So I said to him, I am glad to hear you say that you cannot do it, because if you tell the Lord that and cry to Him, “Who shall deliver me out of this body of death?”, He will deliver you, and you will be able to say, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord”. Two weeks later that dear man came to me and said, ‘It is all right now; I have not touched the tobacco since our talk. So please tell the brethren I want to remember the Lord’. He lived a consistent tobacco-free Christian life for many years afterwards, and could sincerely sing, ‘Not a cloud above, not a spot within’. Do not you be satisfied with anything less! May God bless the word.
Preaching at Calgary
(Date not known)