WHERE ARE YOU?
Genesis 3:10 (to “thou?”); Revelation 20:11-15; 21:1;
I have been impressed by these three words in Genesis: “Where art thou?” That is God’s word to each one of us tonight: ‘Where are you?’. Where are you in relation to God, in relation to your sins, in relation to your never-dying soul. Where are you in relation to your eternal destiny? Then for those of us who, through grace, are believers, where are we in soul progress, where are we in relation to growth? Are we growing by the true knowledge of God, or am I following some other path?
In Genesis 3, we have God’s account of what happened when man disobeyed Him. People in the world might say that that is just a fable, but this account gives us the kernel of, and the reason for, all the terrible problems that are in the world today, all the fruit of man’s disobedience. First, we have the account of creation: “In the beginning God …”. How important it is to lay hold by faith that “the worlds were framed by the word of God” Heb.11:3. There are many different theories about the origins of the universe, but you can simply cling in faith to the word of God: “In the beginning God …”. We have the account of the creation through to the top stone of it – God making man. No other creature was breathed into as Adam was at the beginning of chapter 2; what a link there was between Jehovah Elohim and His creature, man. Then we get God’s consideration for man; “It is not good that Man should be alone” (v.18), and we have Eve being built by God from man. I feel that these truths should be before us, because they are assailed and under attack in today’s education system. It is simple faith that will hold us in these days; we need faith to believe the glad tidings and I would seek to present the word “on the principle of faith, to faith”, Rom.1:17.
Man was the top stone of God’s creation, and Jehovah Elohim was walking in the garden in the cool of the day (v.8). He was looking for something from man, but what had happened? How sobering it is that Adam and Eve had believed the word of the serpent; they had trusted Satan rather than God. These insidious suggestions mark this world and deceive those who listen to them. In Revelation, you see Satan going out to deceive the nations (Rev.20:8). Satan would deceive you by putting a facade on this world: he would seek to make it and its prospects seem bright, but it has been described as only froth on the cup of disappointment of this world1. Let each one of us know where we stand. Romans 5 says “by the offence of the one death reigned by the one” and then “by the disobedience of the one man” (vv.17,19) – that was Adam. In a state of innocence, there was only one thing that Adam and Eve had been told by God not to do, and that was to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The devil had suggested that God was withholding good things from them and that if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would be as God. God had placed them in the garden of Eden where everything was so favourable to them, but they disobeyed God, and in trusting Satan rather than God, all they obtained was the knowledge that they were naked. They were certainly not as God; He is holy, and we are not like that naturally.
So Jehovah said these three words: “Where art thou?”. Through the fall of man, distance had come in, but then we see God’s love in His seeking Adam. God was not giving Adam and Eve up; He wanted to speak to them. What God did not say speaks volumes. He did not say ‘You have failed me, you have disappointed me’. No, and in the glad tidings we are not preaching judgment. We will touch on judgment later, but there is blessing available for you now: today is the day of salvation (2 Cor.6:2). We marvel at God’s long-suffering, at His goodness in providing another opportunity to hear the glad tidings. But can you answer the question: Where are you? Where are you in relation to God, in relation to Christ? The Saviour God desires your blessing. It is plain to see that Satan is the enemy of your soul. Let none of us be deceived; it says that Satan transforms himself into an angel of light (2 Cor.11:14). It has been said that Satan’s master stroke is to deceive people so that they do not even believe that he exists. But he does, and he is seeking your destruction, to spoil what is for God and to keep you away from God.
Who are you listening to? That would be another question for us all. Are you listening to God’s word in the glad tidings, to God’s overtures in grace? Or are you listening to another voice? Adam had listened to another voice. It is most striking what he said: “I heard thy voice in the garden, and I feared”. Oh friend, do you fear in relation to your never-dying soul? If you do, it shows that your conscience is working. In coming to Christ, there is no need to fear. There is no fear in love, “perfect love casts out fear”, 1 John 4:18. What we present to you in the glad tidings is God’s perfect love shown out in what took place on the cross. Adam almost blamed God; he said, “The woman, whom thou hast given to be with me …” (v.12). He suggested that she was the problem, and blamed her; “she gave me of the tree, and I ate”. It is most important that you are convicted that you personally are a sinner. It is easy to look around and point out other persons who you think are worse than you are, but that will not do. Where are you? If you are convicted that you are a judgment-deserving sinner in the eyes of a holy and righteous God, all that you can look for is the mercy of God.
I trust you have been brought to that position. Perhaps you have been convicted in a previous gospel preaching and have said, I will see about that next week. There were those in Acts 17 who said, “We will hear thee again also concerning this” (v.32). Do not be like that. You must make that move now, reach out in faith and lay claim to the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour. We were affected in the reading by where He is: He is in heaven as a glorious Saviour! He is the Saviour who suffered, His blood has been shed, He went into the grave and He has borne the judgment that lay upon all those who believe in Him. God had said to the devil, referring to the seed of the woman, “he shall crush thy head”, Gen.3:15. God was speaking about Christ, the perfect One who all these four thousand or so years later would be born in Bethlehem’s manger. It is lovely to think of that. Adam was placed in the best of circumstances in the garden of Eden. He had everything that he could have desired, food that was good, no pruning or cutting of the grass needed. He was placed in an area that God had designed, paradise on earth, yet, as Mr Darby says, the first thing that Adam did was to fail2. Christ could choose and command, the One who was in the form of God, the One who as God had neither beginning of days nor end of life (Heb.7:3). It was Christ’s own act to come into a world where there was no room for Him when He was laid in a manger in Bethlehem. Our hymn said:
‘If sinners ever were to know
The depths of love divine’ (Hymn 431).
God chose that way; it was divinely appointed. For there to be blessing for you, Christ had to come into this scene and take your place – Christ the perfect Man, the Man for your affections, the Man who is waiting for you!
Where are you in relation to Christ? Where do you stand in relation to God’s Man? Each one of us has sinned and come short of the glory of God (Rom.3:23), and Christ sets forth the glory of God. He sets forth every wonderful feature of what God is towards man, as the hymn says:
‘The light of mercy dawned on man’ (Hymn 366).
So the curse was not put on Adam, it was put on the serpent, and the Bible gives us the working out of good and evil. We started with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and we see the resolution of these matters at the cross. There was a time when the Lord Jesus was forsaken, He who was so pleasing to His God and Father, gladdening His heart at every step of the way – the only Man who has fully pleased God. In Psalm 22 we have prophetically the words of the Lord Jesus; “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou far from my salvation, from the words of my groaning? My God, I cry by day, and thou answerest not; and by night, and there is no rest for me” (vv.1,2). The Lord Jesus took the sinner’s place. He had to go into the distance and had to face being forsaken on the cross because He was made sin, and in all this, He glorified God in relation to sin. God had been outraged by the incoming of sin; it is lawlessness (1 John 3:4), it is disobedience, doing what we want. The Lord Jesus “hated lawlessness” (Heb.1:9) because of how it affected God and intruded on His rights. I think He also hated it because of the impact it had on the creature, on each one of us, the havoc it has wreaked on the human race. If you are still in your sins, you are in a perilous position, but because of the judgment that Jesus has borne, because He has suffered and died, and His blood has been shed, I can point you to the Saviour where He is, risen and glorified! We can say that Christ has died to make salvation available to all, but for you to come into the good of Christ bearing your sins, you must trust in Him and then you will be able to answer the question ‘Where are you?’. You are safe in the arms of Jesus, resting in that One in all the glory of His work and His present position.
Romans 5 says, “we shall be saved in the power of his life” (v.10). Jesus has died for us and He lives for us and He is coming again for all who believe in Him. Oh, where are you in relation to Christ and to God, in relation to your sins? I can say my sins have been put away behind God’s back: “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us”, Ps.103:12. Can you say that? Satan may suggest that you have failed so badly that you are not saved at all, and maybe we become burdened, but the simplest cry of faith will be answered. The jailor at Philippi was saved as soon as he accepted the Lord Jesus as Saviour. As believers, we should spend the rest of our lives growing in our appreciation of Christ and His work, and enjoying the blessings He gives, but it is open to the simplest soul. How many people have been convicted by one verse of scripture, or by a very simple or hesitant preaching, but if they believe, they are saved, and their eternal destiny is secure.
But to have full assurance and enjoyment, we must have the Holy Spirit. Where are you in relation to the Holy Spirit? He is a glorious divine Person come forth from the Father to indwell believers. It would be normal for believers to have the Holy Spirit, but it is not automatic. If you are in your sins, you can cry out in repentance and in faith, ‘Lord save me’; you can ask the Lord Jesus to take that burden from you. You can say to Him, ‘I know that You stood in my place’; that is substitution. We must know the Lord Jesus as our Substitute, that is He suffered and died for me. By that work, God has been propitiated, He has been glorified by the work of Jesus in relation to the meeting of sins. These are great truths, but we will not progress along the way unless we know the power of the Holy Spirit. Ask for the Holy Spirit and God will give Him to you. It is a great proof of having our sins forgiven that we want to ask for the Spirit. God would give us the enjoyment of having our sins forgiven and it is to be enjoyed, it is something to be thankful for, something to praise God for.
I trust none of us will be at this scene at the great white throne. Think of the purity of that scene. In the book of Esther chapter 8, the king held out the sceptre to Esther; the throne was favourable there (v.4). God’s throne is favourable tonight, and if you come to Christ in repentance, you will find a mercy-seat. We know that righteousness and judgment are the foundations of God’s throne (Ps.89:14) and it is favourable; there is nothing but blessing. The needy sinner who comes will find nothing but mercy, nothing but a warm reception. It is also true that the Lord Jesus is coming soon to take all His own to be with Himself. Every single blood-bought saint of His who is alive when He comes, and all those who have died in faith, will be taken to be with Him. Where are you – will you be among them? I trust that you will. John writes, “I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it”: it is the Lord Jesus, but at that future time He will take the character of a judge. Do you know the face of Jesus? We will soon actually see Him, but by faith we can see His face now, which was once marred more than any man (Isa.52:14). But Revelation refers to a time to come when the face of the One on the throne will be such that the earth and heaven will flee and “place was not found for them”. It is the scene of the judgment of all who have died in their sins.
This is part of the truth of the glad tidings, because God in His goodness does not hide things from us. He makes things plain, that if we die in our sins, we will be raised in our sins. You might ask, Where is the glad tidings in that? Well, each one of us in this room through God’s mercy is alive, and we can come to Christ and shelter under His atoning work by repenting of our sins. In Luke 16, the Lord speaks about Lazarus and the rich man, and Abraham says to the rich man, “between us and you a great chasm is fixed” (v.26). That is what will be then; a great chasm fixed between the lost and the saved. But if at this present moment you are still in that category of being lost, you can join those who are enjoying mercy now, who have found the Saviour and are no longer lost!
Is your name written in the book of life? How utterly fair God is. Books will be opened; there are no mistakes with God, the mistakes are all on our side. God will judge then according to the things written in the books, according to those persons’ works. You get the sea giving up its dead; “they were judged each according to their works”. It is a necessary part of the righteousness of God that there should be such a scene. At the cross, the great matters of good and evil, of righteousness, were worked out, but sins that are not repented of will be suffered for. We see the lake of fire here. It was not prepared for man, it was prepared for the devil and his angels, but how solemn that those who die in their sins will be cast into the lake of fire. We trust that it will not be the portion of any here. We may think about persons with whom we are at school or work or are neighbours – we need to be urgent in season and out of season in presenting God’s word to them. Each one of us here is favoured to have been at a gospel preaching most weeks for many years. There are people who have not heard the gospel but God will ensure that they have had opportunities; He is infinitely fair. Every mouth will be stopped at this scene; no one will be able to say, I did not have a chance. But dear friend, your opportunity is now! Where are you in relation to the Saviour? You can have your eternal destiny secured. For the lost it will be one endless night of woe, but for the saved it will be a glorious and endless nearness to Christ. Someone once spoke about the delightful surprises that will greet believers in heaven. I love that touch.
Revelation 21 shows that the heavens and earth will have served their purpose. There is concern about what will happen to the earth, but we can have peace about that; the earth and heavens, the scene of God’s grace and operations, will be rolled up. Where will you be then? I trust that you will be in the eternal scene with Christ. In the next few verses, we get one of the few descriptions of eternity in Scripture. How lovely it is – nearness to God, the dwelling of God being with men, and His own action in wiping away every tear from their eyes. How tender God is. God desired to be with Adam in the garden and His desire is still that man should be near Him. Adam was in innocence before he sinned, but believers know God’s love, know God’s forgiveness, know what it is to be justified and reconciled, to have the Spirit, to know what it is to be sons, and to prove the priesthood of Christ. We will see in the eternal day the results of the wisdom of Godt.
1 John 3 says “See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God”. God’s desire is for each one of us to be one of His children, to be of the family of God, take character from Him and to know the love that the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God. What dignity, what joy, that God should involve us in His plans. Then, “For this reason the world knows us not, because it knew him not”. The world is going on to destruction, for it has a moral character completely different from what is of God. Peter refers to the sink of corruption in this world (1 Pet.4:4); that is why the world does not know us, because it did not know the Lord. As children of God, believers are to derive their lives, their moral being and existence, from Christ. What we shall be has not yet been manifested; John may be speaking of our body of glory – we know that it will be wonderful, but we do not know much about it. John says, “if it is manifested” – that is not an “if” of doubt but of consequence – “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”. We are in relation to that scene. Faith longs for that time when we shall see the Lord Jesus in actuality. He remains a Man for ever, and we cannot limit Him, but we shall see the glory of God in Christ, the glory of God in the face of that blessed One. It could be at any moment. How we long for it!
But there is a moral edge to this: “every one that has this hope”, that is, I trust, each one of us here, “purifies himself, even as he”, that is, the Lord Jesus, “is pure”. Sometimes we fall short and think we are not as we should be, but this scripture would help us in practical purity. We have the hope of seeing the Lord Jesus as He is, of being like Him, and we are to purify ourselves even as He is pure. You may say that is an impossibly high standard. It is a high standard, but it would not be in the Scriptures if it was not possible. God has taken infinite pleasure in Christ, and now He is taking pleasure in believers who have the hope of being with Christ and seeing Him, and in the light of that hope within them are purifying themselves. What resources are available in the advocacy and priesthood of Christ, and the support of the Holy Spirit.
Well, where are we in relation to the truth? Is what is true of me as a believer standing in Christ true about me? We are not looking to make a show of it, but can persons take account of the features of the Lord Jesus in us?. Can they see some evidence of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal.5:22)? Long-suffering, meekness – all these beautiful features that marked the Lord Jesus are to mark us.
I just leave the question – where are you in relation to the Saviour, where are you in relation to God? Is each of us assured that we are saved, that our sins have been forgiven? Then where are we in relation to soul progress, in relation to my understanding of the Scriptures and the glories of the Lord Jesus? Are they the same as a year ago, or have they increased? Our progress should be “manifest to all” (1 Tim.4:15). There is that which takes place between ourselves and divine Persons in private, but there should also be what can be seen for God’s glory. It is all part of the body and its self-building up in love (Eph.4:16); it is all to do with these finishing touches, so that the Spirit and the bride can say “Come”, Rev.22.17. May each one of us be encouraged, and assured of where we stand as believers in the Lord Jesus, for His name’s sake.
Preaching of the gospel, Linlithgow
8 November 2020
A Barrie Brown