(iii)
Richard Brown
I would like to say a few words as to coming to know Jesus as Saviour and as Lord. Coming to know Him as Saviour is essential for the great question of our eternal salvation. It has to do with our sins, the judgment to come, heaven and hell. Coming to know Him as Lord has to do with our present salvation here in this world. I would like to suggest that coming to know Jesus as Saviour includes understanding that He has given His life for you, whereas coming to know Him as Lord involves more the side in which we are called upon to entrust our lives to Him.
I would use this scripture to simply speak on that. I connect coming to Him as Saviour with what the Lord says as to ‘being converted’; and then knowing Him as Lord with what He says as to ‘becoming as little children’.
I will speak firstly of Him as Saviour, because clearly there can be nothing more important than the question of where we stand before God in relation to our sins. No matter is more important than where you and I are going to spend eternity. I would therefore ask whether you have ever been converted. I do not ask whether you agree with the gospel, or whether you are in fellowship, but have you ever been converted? That simply means ‘changed’. Have you ever been changed by the word of God - changed perhaps in the way in which you view God, changed in your opinion of the Saviour, the Lord Jesus, changed as to your judgment of yourself? I suppose the first point as to conversion is that we come to realise what we are in God’s sight. Have you ever discovered that there is distance between you and God? I wonder if there is. Have you ever spoken to God? Or if you have, when was the last time you did? If you have never spoken to Him, or if it is a long time since you did, that would indicate that there is distance between you and God. What is it that brings in the distance between God and us? It is our sins. Because God is holy. He cannot tolerate sin in His presence, so that if we sin it brings in distance between us and God. But I would suggest that that in itself is not sufficient. If you think about it, it is quite easy to say that we are all sinners. We have often heard it said. It does not, of itself, seem to have much effect on persons. But I wonder if you realise that whenever you have sinned you have offended God; and because you have offended Him, you are responsible to remove the distance between Him and you. To put it simply, you owe Him. If you are a guilty sinner you owe God. That is what is so serious about having sinned, that as having offended God, you and I are responsible to remove the distance that stands between us and Him. It is a principle that we are familiar with, (we were taught it by our parents) that if you injure or hurt somebody, if you take something that belongs to somebody else, you are responsible to make it up to them; and if you cannot do so you must bear the consequences. Well in a far greater and more serious way that principle applies in our relations with God. The fact is that we owe God because we have sinned against Him and if you cannot offer what will satisfy God in respect of your sins then you must suffer their consequences. Scripture tells us that “the wages of sin is death”. If God does not judge sin He is less than righteous. Thus the predicament that each of us finds ourselves in, as persons who are guilty of many sins, is that we are responsible to God to remove the distance that has come in between us, by offering what will satisfy Him with respect to the passing by of our sins; because if it does not we must suffer the consequences of what we have done.
Now I think we know that there is nothing that we can offer to God as satisfaction for our sins. We have often heard it said, that not all the gold and silver in the world would be sufficient in God’s sight to atone for even the smallest of our sins. But it is not simply that. The fact is that you and I, as guilty sinners, are incapable of understanding how offensive to God our sins are. As one man of God has said, “One sin of ours is more horrible to God than all of the sins of the world are to us”. Sin has impregnated even our minds, and we are not capable of understanding what our sins are in God’s sight, let alone what would be required by Him if those sins were to be removed. Consequently, you can see that there is nothing we can offer to God. Therefore we are dependent on God’s willingness to show us mercy. Unless God is prepared to show us mercy we must suffer for what we have done, and that can only mean eternal judgment. What a solemn point that is to come to in our souls. I wonder if you have come to it, dear friend? An important step if you are to be converted is the realisation that you are nothing and you have nothing that could ever satisfy God with respect to the passing by of your sins, and unless He is prepared to show you mercy, you must suffer the consequences of them.
If there is anyone in this room who feels the need of God’s mercy, then you are the person we need to speak to about the Saviour. If you are feeling a need of mercy from God we want to tell you about one blessed Man who has taken up your cause with God and has undertaken to answer to God for your sins. Think of that for a moment, one Man - He is a real Man, this person, Jesus, of whom we speak - has undertaken to offer God a satisfaction for your sins. You say, How could He do it? The truth is this, He understood, as we cannot, what our sins are in God’s sight because He is God. Glorious, is it not? He understood what would be required from God if our sins were to be put away to God’s satisfaction because He is God. The glory of the gospel is that He came into the world with the specific object of saving sinners. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”. He understood that the sentence of judgment lay upon you and me, and He was prepared to suffer that judgment in our place. He understood that the penalty of sin was death, and He was prepared to die in our place. He understood that without the shedding of blood there could be no remission of sins and He was prepared to shed His. How glorious! Think of this glorious Saviour, a heavenly Man, coming down out of heaven to take the place of guilty sinners like you and me. I wonder if you know Him? One purpose of the gospel is that, if not already, you may be changed in your view of Christ, to understand what He has done for you, to lay hold of Him as your blessed substitute, the One who has answered to God, and satisfied Him with respect to the passing by of your sins. So He says, “Unless ye are converted”. Have you been converted, have you exercised personal faith in the Saviour and in His precious blood? Have you spoken to God about yours sins? “Unless ye are converted”.
Perhaps to illustrate we could look at Isaiah 53, which is a classic conversion chapter with very sweet and precious touches of Christ in it. It recounts, if you take its strict interpretation, the conversion of the remnant in a day to come. It speaks of the way in which the remnant of the Jews will have their eyes opened as to Christ. The Jews know about Jesus. If you ask them you will find that they know about Him, they know the things that He said, they know what claims are made in respect of Him; but as it says in verse 4, “we did regard him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted”. The Jews looked at Jesus on the cross and thought He was suffering under the righteous punishment of God for things that He had done. They regarded Him as an impostor, as a blasphemer, as a rebel. They looked at the cross and said, We thought He was being punished by God for sins of His own. But then here comes the moment of conversion, “But he was wounded for our transgressions”. What a moment! What an eye-opening to understand that He was suffering for them. Even as they thought in all their hatred towards Him that He was being punished for the things that He had done, in fact He was suffering in their place. What a glorious Saviour He is!
I love to look to the cross and see there, not the guilty sinner, not me, the one who was due to die, the one who had offended God, the one who had tried God’s patience and deserved nothing but the severest of His judgment, but I see a blessed heavenly Man in my place, and I see that “Jehovah hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all”. What a point it is in our souls when we come to that; to see that the cross is the place where I should have been, but instead of me the guilty sinner, there I see a blessed Man who has offered to answer to God for my sins and to receive from God’s hands everything that I deserve. Sometimes I sin so lightly, and yet Jesus had to bear the burden and the pain of every single thing that I have done. He “bore our sins in his body on the tree”. All the burden and all the pain of the things that I have done was borne by Jesus personally while alive on the cross. God meted out upon His head His just judgment of sin. You say, Was there no mitigation because it was Jesus? Did God not hold back because it was the One who so pleased to Him? No, if He was to be a substitute for guilty sinners it required that He should bear the unmitigated wrath of God, until God was satisfied. Think of that tremendous cry that went up from the cross, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Can you understand, dear friend, that even as He uttered that cry He was receiving from God what you deserved as a guilty sinner? What a Saviour! I trust He means something to you. He has so exhausted the judgment of God, that God is able to freely forgive all those who put their trust in Him. I hope that we all have. That is conversion that we have to do with God as to our sins, that we turn to Him in repentance and in faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ.
So He died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, and was buried and rose again the third day. I think the truth is that Christ on the cross is what meets my conscience; Christ in the glory is what assures my heart. I understand that by raising Him from amongst the dead God is telling me that He is satisfied with Jesus. I see that in receiving Jesus with honours God is telling me that because He is completely satisfied with the work that He has done He has given Him the highest place. “We see Jesus … crowned with glory and honour”; God’s great testimony to His satisfaction with this blessed Person in His work. It assures my heart. You say, How can I be sure that all my sins have been dealt with? How can I be sure that maybe the smallest one or two have not been overlooked? I ask you, dear friend, Is God satisfied with Jesus? Well He must be, look at the place He has given Him. Would Jesus be there if one or two of my sins had been overlooked? Absolutely impossible! I look up and see my Saviour there, crowned with glory and honour, and I say God must be satisfied with Him; and if God is satisfied with Him then my sins have gone. And for those who put their trust in Him we can be assured of this, on the testimony of God’s word, that once our sins have been forgiven by God they can never be raised again. We have been forgiven, justified, and we shall never come under judgment. God gives us the blessed hope of going to be with the Lord Jesus when He comes or when we die. A precious hope for those who have put their trust in the Saviour.
If that is where it ends nothing more need be said. We would be in the same position as the malefactor on the cross who, in the eleventh hour of his life, was converted and went straight to heaven. It is not so with most of us. Most of us discover that after conversion we have a few years to go, and that we remain in this wicked world where Jesus died. We need salvation from it. We need salvation from the judgment to come, and we can be assured of that through the work of Jesus on the cross. But the simple fact is that we are still here in this wicked world, what is described in the Scriptures as an “evil world”, and we need salvation from it. Therefore I would like to suggest to you the importance of coming to know Jesus as Lord. I give thanks if you know Him as your Saviour; I say again, that your eternal salvation hangs on it. In a sense there is nothing more important than that. But I would like to present to you this idea of knowing Him as Lord as the means by which you can be presently saved, saved here and now until that moment when He comes to take us to be with Himself.
The Lord Jesus speaks of ‘becoming as little children’. I would like you to think about that in connection with knowing Him as Lord. It is true to say that knowing Him as Lord involves the subjection of our wills, involves coming under His authority - all these things are true, we cannot avoid that. But the Lord Jesus here speaks of becoming as little children. Children are meant to obey their parents and do what they say; but if you think of a child’s relationship with its parents, we are not always emphasising obedience and authority. It is a relationship of love and affection normally, one in which a child would simply depend upon its parents. I would like you to think of that in connection with knowing Jesus as our Lord. If He is your Saviour, if you understand that this Person who has died for you is now living in heaven, the question is, are you prepared to entrust your life to Him? If you have trusted Him with the eternal salvation of your soul, why should you not entrust Him with the direction and the planning of your life? I believe that the Lord Jesus would put in His appeal, put in His claim upon you afresh in the gospel preaching; because you will find that sooner or later you will have to make the decision for yourself in any case, and He would desire that you might make it now as He has your best interests at heart.
He speaks of becoming as little children and entering into the kingdom of the heavens. I would turn to a passage in 1 Samuel 22 to illustrate this thought of entering into the kingdom of the heavens. It is an incident in the life of David. It says, “And David departed thence, and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And his brethren and all his father’s house heard it, and they went down thither to him. And every one in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one of embittered spirit collected round him; and he became a captain over them; and there were with him about four hundred men” (vv 1,2). I would like to use this scripture to illustrate what the Lord Jesus has in mind when He speaks of entering into the kingdom of the heavens. We know the background to this chapter is that Saul was the king of Israel, and he was a hard and unscrupulous man. His rule was hard. The Israelites were going through a hard time under him. The passage speaks of persons who were in distress and in debt and of an embittered spirit. That is like the world in which we live. It is governed by the will of man; which is what Saul represents. It is Satan’s kingdom. Although outwardly it may have a fair appearance, it is still the place where Jesus died; and if He were to come back today and men were given the opportunity, they would again put Him to death, because men and women morally have not changed. In the midst of that - if you think of Israel under Saul as a picture of the world – was this cave where David was. David was a fugitive, he was on the run; but remember that some time before this he had been anointed by Samuel. And that is a picture for us of the Lord Jesus’ present position, that He has been anointed by God. Peter says in his preaching of Jesus that, “God has made Him both Lord and Christ”. This is a crucial point, because there are many believers who say they are looking forward to the day when the Lord Jesus will establish His kingdom on the earth, when He will reign a thousand years – what we speak of as the millennium – and truly it will be a very blessed time. But the fact is that He is king already, “God has made Him, both Lord and Christ”. David illustrates that, he had already been anointed by Samuel, as God’s king. These persons were feeling the harshness of Saul’s reign, the harshness of the world, and they collected round David. I would like to suggest to you that in that cave they entered into David’s kingdom. In a private, unseen, very small scale way, they discovered the principles on which David lived. They discovered in that cave the principles which David would one day apply to his reign over the whole of Israel. They were not the cream of society - debtors, distressed persons, bitter persons, persons who were conscious of having a need. They came to David and it says, you note the word, “he became a captain over them”. You might say, Why should they come to David? If you were a debtor in Saul’s kingdom, why should you go to David? David was on the run. But they discovered under David care and protection that could not be found anywhere else. I believe that illustrates in a simple way what it means to enter into the kingdom now.
You might say, What has this got to do with the glad tidings? I believe what it has to do with the glad tidings is this: there is salvation in it. There is present salvation in coming under the authority and the sway of Christ. I would illustrate the point further like this: only four hundred people gathered in the cave of Adullam; one person was not there who should have been. If there was one person who should have been in the cave of Adullam it was Jonathan. Think of his love for David; if ever there was a man who should have been with him it was Jonathan. Why was he not there? I present to you the case of Jonathan as perhaps a negative example of the fact that there is salvation in coming to know Jesus as Lord. Think of the life of Jonathan – he first came into contact with David after David had killed Goliath, when it says, “his soul was knit with the soul of David”. He appreciated what David had done, and he represents a believer who has come to know Jesus as their Saviour. For a while David and Jonathan deepened in their link together. But it was not long before it became obvious that there was a distinction between the house of Saul and the circle in which David moved. Eventually David had to leave Saul’s house for fear of his life. This presented Jonathan with a terrible dilemma. The time came when David would have to go into rejection. The time came when Jonathan had two paths before him. Either he could follow David as a fugitive and an exile to be hunted like “a partridge on the mountains”, or he could return to Saul, his father’s house, where David was hated, but where nevertheless he, Jonathan, had a place. What a decision! Jonathan had the light of what David would be, he said, “Thou shalt be king over Israel and I shall be next to thee”. Jonathan knew what David was going to become, and here he was presented with this decision: should he follow David though the prospects did not look good or should he return to his father’s house? Dear friend, that decision that Jonathan had to make represents the decision which you and I and every believer is called upon at some point in their lives to make. Is it to be the world or Christ? At some point or other you will be called upon to make that decision. We urge you to make it tonight, and we urge you to make it for Christ. It says in 1 Samuel 20, “And he [David] arose and departed; and Jonathan went into the city” (v 42). That was Jonathan’s decision; he was not prepared to follow David into rejection. He returned to Saul’s house and he ended his life slain on Mount Gilboa. He lost his life as a result of this decision. That is why I say to you that coming to know Jesus as Lord involves your practical salvation. You will never lose your eternal salvation if you are trusting in the precious blood. Nothing can change that, no amount of back-sliding, or whatever circumstances may come into your life can change that, because it is based on the finished work of Christ. But your present salvation depends on entrusting your life to Christ in the assurance that He, and He alone, has your best interests at heart. So in the gospel He puts in His claim. Think of this, if you have entrusted Him, this blessed Man, with the eternal salvation of your soul why should you not trust Him with the details of your life? Has He not proved by what He has been prepared to do for you, that He has your best interests at heart? Who has done more for you than He? I believe that the Lord Jesus would put in His claim for you in the gospel, and on His behalf we would urge you to make your decision for Him. If you have not made a decision before, or if you have made the wrong decision, we would urge you to make the decision for Him tonight, and discover for yourself that there is present salvation in it.
I press upon you the importance of coming to know Him as Saviour and as Lord. I make one simple point more before I close. I think you will find that invariably, wherever those two titles are put together in the Scripture the title ‘Lord’ is put first, “Lord and Saviour”. I think the simple reason for that is this: you will never fully appreciate Jesus as your Saviour until you come to know Him as your Lord. I think some of us have proved that. Some of us, from our little experience, have proved that as a result of surrendering ourselves to Him we have grown in our appreciation of His glorious work, His precious sufferings, and the joy of knowing what He does for us in His present position, living on high for us. I trust that increasingly it may become the portion of each one of us here, for His Name’s sake.
WALTON
20 May 2001