THE COMING OF CHRIST INTO THIS WORLD (GOSPEL ADDRESS)
THE COMING OF CHRIST INTO THIS WORLD (GOSPEL ADDRESS)
I would like to say a word as to the coming of Christ into this world. I think one can say without fear of question, that His coming here is the greatest event of all time, and in view of the greatness of the One who came, the issues for men are profound.
First of all, I would like to tell you that I know and accept that He came. The apostle Paul says, “Christ Jesus came into the world.” That cannot be said of anyone else. There is no other man of whom it could be said that he came into the world. Everyone else was brought here. Everyone else, dear friends, is here without responsibility resting on them as to their birth; indeed they had nothing whatever to do with it. Their responsibility begins as being here; but none of us have the slightest responsibility or part in our being brought here. But the One I want to speak about came — denoting without question that He was before He came; that He subsisted before He came; it was His own act to come — He came.
The apostle John tells us that the spirit of antichrist is abroad in the world today; it began even in apostolic days, but it has greatly increased — and that it denies Jesus Christ come in flesh. Few deny that He was here, but the spirit of antichrist denies “Jesus Christ come in flesh.” That is, that He “was” before He came into manhood, which means that He was no mere man, but a divine Person. Now we might ask, “Where did He come from?” The Lord Himself answers that, He says Himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The truth about everything is in Him, and this is what He said, “I came down from heaven.”
People think a lot of the earth, and live for it, but heaven is far, far greater than earth, dear friends. I may be speaking to earth-dwellers, people who live as if the earth were everything, but heaven is manifestly far greater than the earth. No one could live without heaven — not even physically. We might live without a great deal that we are accustomed to have belonging to the earth, but men would perish if it were not for heaven. Let us suppose that the sun did not shine, that its control of the earth should stop for a few seconds — what would man do? Could he alter it? Suppose there were no more rain from heaven for a year or two — where would we be? God says, “Heaven is my throne.” That is where God is, and from whence He rules the earth. The Lord Jesus says, “I came down from heaven.”
Now I could understand that if you had never heard the gospel you would say, Why did He come? What brought One so supremely great to this earth? Why did He come? God Himself desired to draw near to men. God had spoken through the prophet Isaiah as to the coming of Jesus, and said “they shall call his name Immanuel,” Isaiah 7: 14. and Matthew tells us “which being interpreted is God with us,” Matthew 1: 23. He was God, come right down to where we are. Every human heart should ask why? Why should God come so near to me? It cannot be to destroy, for if God wanted to destroy men He need not have come down to the earth to do it. His lightnings can destroy; His floods can destroy; He could open the windows of heaven you know, and people forget about that. Scripture speaks of the waters above the firmament; God has divided between the waters which are below the firmament and the waters which are above it. God could open the windows of heaven and destroy men if He wanted to do so. Then God could just shake the earth a little. That dreadful disaster in Japan, ten years ago, took just three minutes to destroy two of Japan’s greatest cities! I only mention that to show that if God Himself has come down to His creatures, it clearly cannot be that He wishes to destroy them. It must denote a most profound interest and regard for His creatures. The truth is God has missed man. When sin came in and separated man from God, God’s voice was heard, saying, “Adam, where art thou?” Behind those words is an intensity of feeling — God felt the loss of man. So, dear friends, God has come down.
You will remember that the Lord Jesus was asked “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar,” and He replied, “Show me a penny; whose image and superscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” He indicates that if Caesar’s image is on the coin then Caesar has a right to it. We speak of the king’s money today, and dear friends, the fact that it is the king’s money denotes that if he wants it, he can claim it, he has a right to it. People would not like that, of course, but if a penny or a coin, or a note has his image on it, if there is a representation of the king on it, that denotes that he has a right to it. The Lord makes that clear. But then what about God’s coins — what about that which bears His image? When He made man, God said, “Let us make man in our image.” God put upon mankind His own image, so that every human being should be tribute to God. In the Law, God commanded, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind,” but the tribute did not come. God had lost this. He had lost the love of His creature through the work of the devil. What did God do? He came down to get it. That is what we are here for; that is the purpose of the gospel. You may say, I thought it was to save me from hell? It would indeed do that, but that is not its object. God wants man’s heart; He wants man to love Him. So the Lord says, “I came down from heaven.”
The passages we read, tell us some of the reasons why He came. In the first passage it says, “To seek and to save that which was lost.” To seek it. Oh, how wonderful that the Lord should seek us? We are enjoined to seek Him: “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found,” — and He may be found — “Call ye upon him while he is near,” — and He is near. He is “not far from any of us,” and God is looking into our hearts to see if there is a desire after Him. God takes account of those that feel after Him. We are enjoined to seek Him. How right indeed that He should be sought. People are seeking all kinds of things today. One man devotes his whole life and heart and mind to flying; another man to wireless; and another man to making money in business. But God says “Seek ye me, and ye shall live,” Amos 5: 4. Then God says, Seek Him who “maketh the day dark with night.” Man cannot do that — nobody can bring the night.
What a wonderful thing the night is; as the day closes and the dusk sets in and the darkness comes down and all can rest. Who made it? Oh, say some, it is just an accident; it just happens. Seek Him who “turneth the shadow of death into the morning.” The dark night gradually fades away then comes the wonder of the morning. Seek Him who makes that. Seek Him who “calleth for the waters of the sea and poureth them out upon the face of the earth.” Who makes rain? Oh, say some, still just an accident; it just happens; some atoms exploded and somehow it just happened. That is what men are saying. God says, Seek Him who calls for these waters, and takes them up and sends them back again. You can understand, dear friend, that we should seek Him with all our hearts — “seek and ye shall find” — but that He should seek us is indeed wonderful. That is what the Lord says “The son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”
In yonder city of Samaria, there was a poor woman; she has had five husbands, and he whom she now had was not her husband. Her heart is empty and thirsty. She has learned that the pleasures of sin do not satisfy. She is longing for something, she does not know what. She says, “Give me this water that I thirst not” — that is the cry of her heart. Jesus must seek that poor woman, it says “He must needs go through Samaria.” Oh. dear friend, take it into your heart. He came to seek and to save the lost, and He tells that woman about being a worshipper of God. He tells her that He wants her to be so happy in the knowledge of God, that she should be a worshipper of God. In the joy that He brings her in the knowledge of God there springs up out of her own being an answer to God. In John 7, it is flowing out to man, but in John 4, the response is out of the woman’s heart — such a heart as it had been — and as she learns to know God, there is a movement upward and God gets a response to His coming down in Jesus, the One who came to seek and to save the lost. If, dear friend, your heart is thirsty, say to Him as did this woman, “Give me this water that I thirst not.”
The word of God says, “The eye is not satisfied with seeing”; you may go round the earth looking for something to see, but you will not find that which will satisfy you. Then it says, “The ear is not satisfied with hearing.” You may listen to everything that the world could pour into your ear, but it will not satisfy. But the Lord says to this woman, “He that drinks of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst for ever.” Will you not come to Him? I believe He is seeking you now; although personally He is in heaven, He can operate throughout the whole world. He has gone up “far above all heavens,” that He may fill all things — why not let Him fill your heart today — He is seeking you!
The Lord said on another occasion as He pursued His journey seeking what was lost, “Let us go over unto the other side of the lake.” — this wonderful Person that came to seek and to save. No, said the devil, if I can prevent that, He shall never get there! great storm comes up and the wind blows, and the waves rise and come into the ship, but the Lord had said, “Let us go over unto the other side,” and nothing could turn Him back. Why does He want to go to the other side? He is going to seek somebody, there is somebody there He wants, and He is going to find him and to save him. Who is he? Oh, an awful man! It says of him that he had devils a long time; for years and years the devils had controlled that man. It says, he “wore no clothes,” — his life is utterly shameless. That is what is fast coming on the present world — and the devil is doing it. The demons are coming back and they are producing the abandonment of the present moment. It says he lived in the tombs. You say, What a place to live! It is living in unspeakable corruption. He lived in it, just like men and women and children today, alas. What about the vile books that are pouring out from the printing press? Tombs — filthy tombs many of them, and people are living in them. Many of the things people find their pleasure in today are sepulchres morally; and this man was like that; he lived in them. And it says “he was exceeding fierce.” The ferocity of the present day is coming from the devil.
Well there was this man — and the Lord says, “Let us go over unto the other side.” What did He want? He wanted to find this man. He went there to seek and to save him. That is God! God is not like us. We read, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways than your ways.” (Isaiah 55: 9) So the Lord finds that man and saves him; there he is sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. Everybody in their right mind sits at the feet of Jesus. The power of these awful things is broken by coming into touch with Christ. You never want to go to another tomb; you will always dress decently; all the ferocity that sin brings about is gone, and the demons have fled when you really meet Jesus. The man is “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind: and they were afraid.” I wonder why! They ought to have been afraid of a demon-possessed man; but it does not say they were afraid of him. The marvel is they would prefer to see a man in utter wickedness, to one sitting at the feet of Jesus, converted.
To be converted so that you love the Lord and you only want to please Him, is more dreadful in the eyes of the world than to go into evil and live in tombs and wear no clothes. It says that they were afraid, and begged the Lord to depart. Are you going to do that? The Lord went on with His journey; He had come to seek and He will go wherever man is.
I would remind you of another man: he had behind him a history of wickedness, he had before him death and after death, judgment. He is right at the door of eternity, just about to go through, and this wonderful Seeker is travelling the road where He will find him. I refer to the dying thief. There comes this blessed Saviour, come from heaven to seek and to save that which was lost, and He finds this man in that state — dying. Dear friend, that might be you, might it not? You say I am not a robber. But you are a sinner, and as such you have robbed God.
This robber with the guilt of his sins upon him, is about to die, far away from God; but the great and blessed Seeker has sought him and found him and saved him, so that he is relieved of the burden of his guilt. He speaks of it — what a burden it was: “We indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds,” he says to his fellow. I have seen a number of persons die, and have noticed that God gives many a vision of their past; it seems as if God brings up in a flash before a man’s soul, his own history. He did with this man, he says, “Our deeds.” Oh, what a list! What will he do with them? What will you do with your sins when you have to meet God? This man realised that he had to meet God; he says, “Dost not thou fear God?” — he says you have to meet God, there is no escape from it. God says that every knee shall bow to Him and every tongue confess to God. “As I live saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God,” Romans 14: 11. This man is about to meet God, but he finds the blessed Seeker at his side, “the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which is lost.” I do not dwell now upon the Lord’s work for him at this time, but I would like to leave this with you, that the Lord Jesus came from heaven into manhood; He became the Son of man, standing in wonderful relationship to men, in order to find men for God; to seek them where they were, wherever they may be, even at the door of death, and save them and bring them to God.
Matthew 20: 28, tell us another feature of the Lord’s coming. It says, “the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” Great people in this world must be ministered to. But the Son of man did not come to be ministered to; He came to minister. The apostle Paul says “ourselves your servants.” And the blessed Lord came to serve — “I am among you as one that serves,” He said to His disciples. It says He “took a bondman’s form” — the best translation gives it thus — a bondman is a slave, and He took the form of a bondman; He came to serve. These three instances disclose how He served, and whom He served. He was prepared to serve all, “whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” That is Christ. Nobody can take His place there. There are not many people prepared to serve lepers, demoniacs, outcast women, dying robbers, blind beggars. The One who will serve them is Jesus. Others are not great enough to do it as He did. The Lord says, “He that is greatest among you let him be... as he that doth serve.”
Then it says, “and to give his life a ransom for many.” What do you think is the value of the blood of Christ? Judas valued it at thirty pieces of silver; when he came in and threw them down they said “it is the price of blood.” That blood was the blood of Christ. But dear friends, that is not heaven’s estimate, but hell’s. The Spirit of God speaking to believers says, “Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold...
but with the precious blood of Christ,” 1 Peter 1: 18-19. All the silver and gold on the face of the earth could not effect redemption, nor pay the price of the ransom. “None can by any means redeem his brother nor give to God a ransom for him: for the redemption of their soul is precious.” The life of Jesus was precious. The blood means the life, it is by the giving up of the life of Jesus — that life which was of such infinite value in the sight of God — that the ransom has been paid. What silver and gold could never do; and what mere human righteousness could never effect, for “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags,” that sacrifice at Calvary has effected. The giving up of the life of Jesus as a ransom, has established God’s righteousness in blessing the guiltiest sinner.
Paul says, “He gave himself a ransom for all,” — such is the value of the death of Jesus in the sight of God! How beautifully Peter speaks of it, he says, “Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold... but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” May we have a right sense of its value. The Lord Jesus Christ came down from heaven and became Man to give Himself a ransom for all, so that every soul that turns to God in repentance, is accepted in the value of the Person and work of Christ. God commands men to repent; God will not accept less than that from you. And so the dying thief says “We indeed justly,” he says in effect, I have been all wrong; my life has been all wasted and spoilt; it is right that I should die and be judged. “We indeed justly.” Though he may not have understood it, nevertheless it was true, that the value of the ransom was available to him, and the Lord says, “Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” Will you not come to Him? There is no other ransom, there is no other way of meeting your need as a sinner, save by the sacrifice of Christ, “who gave himself a ransom for all.”
“God commands all men everywhere to repent,” — that is your side; that you judge yourself and your guilty past; and if a soul says “I have sinned and perverted that which is right, and it profited me nothing,” then God says, “Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom.” But God insists that there should be repentance, and repentance means that you turn to God in self-judgment. You own your sin and your worthless past. The repentant sinner says, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” and the Lord says of such an one, “he went down to his house justified.”