The kingship and love of God (Quality: Average)

[0:00] the Lord's help, we will speak from verse 17 in the chapter that we read. The first official of Paul to Timothy, the first chapter in verse 17.

[0:14] Now unto the King, eternal, immoracle, invisible, the only wise God, the honor and glory forever and ever.

[0:30] Amen. Now unto the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, the honor and glory forever and ever.

[0:46] Amen. It isn't very often that we get a benediction in the first chapter of an epistle.

[0:58] But here we do. Here the apostle, in his first remarks to Timothy, comes to even an amen in this text.

[1:16] Amen. Amen. His benedictions are always very ripe, mature utterances that are long or short.

[1:32] That one in Corinthians that we always use, or nearly always, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all, is well known.

[1:48] But it isn't, of course, the only one, by any means. He's a blessed one, and he includes his epistle to the Hebrews with. He speaks in nearly the same way as he does here, and says, Now, the God of peace, the fruit of God from the dead, our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever on a blessed benediction.

[2:46] Here you are. Now, it is as if he takes Timothy to a certain point, as he does, and as we were speaking on Wednesday.

[3:00] This is a painful saying. He takes him to this high point, this high peak. It is as if you took a friend now to one of the beauty spots in your neighborhood, and after a long walk, you came to a particular spot where you stood still, and you said to them, Now, from this spot, you look round.

[3:36] This is the spot, this is the place. You'll see all the beauty. We've seen it, you may say, to the many times before. You won't see it so fully a hundred yards back, but now, you stand here.

[3:55] Now. Moses decided to see and enter the goodly land, didn't he? And he begged the Lord that he might see that goodly living up.

[4:13] One's heart goes out with Moses as he so earnestly longs to see and tread the land of which God has spoken so much, the land of Cain.

[4:30] But God forbade him, as he tells the people in the third of Deuteronomy. O Lord God, thou hast begun to show thy servant thy greatness and thy mighty hand for what God is there in heaven or in earth that can do according to thy works and according to thy might.

[4:57] I pray thee, let me go over and see the good land. Let me go over and see the good land. that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain and Lebanon.

[5:15] It had stood out so boldly, you see, on many of his journeys. It could be seen for miles and miles around that goodly mountain, but the Lord was rocked with me for your sakes and would not hear me and the Lord said unto me, let it suffice thee, speak no more unto me of this matter.

[5:46] Get thee to the top of Pisgah, lift up thine eyes westward, northward, southward and eastward and behold it with thine eyes for thou shalt not go over this door.

[6:02] That's how God dealt with his faithful servant Moses because of his sin. His one particular sin where he failed to do what God did him.

[6:18] This is God. This is the ninth history of heaven. And the point we were at was this desire to look all round, see the beauty of the land.

[6:32] and so Moses was permitted to see it. Thine eyes, hence the promise, shall see the king in his beauty.

[6:47] And thou shalt behold the land which is very far. and how that has rested in Zion to those who want to see and only those the good land as a word of solace and comfort to them from the very beginning.

[7:14] So with such a thought as this in our minds we look at this word now. Now, gentlemen, I've spoken to you of these things that you will encounter and I'm going to warn you that it is a warfare that is before you.

[7:42] You shall not be left under any delusion. But now from this point, and what point is it? What point is it?

[7:57] Why, if you look at the previous verses, remember what we spoke of on Wednesday, you who were here. This is a painful saying, worthy of all that temptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save them.

[8:16] is this a high point? Is this a blessed place to come to? Is it an arduous road up this hill, this mountain?

[8:32] is it an end? Is it the only place from which the pen may be seen in his beauty? no other spot afford such a view as this?

[8:49] the how the eyes can drink in the field up.

[9:01] And in nature, the more you look, the more you can see, that wonderful organ, in the eye, or the eyes, which is so intense and intense and can look so close, pick out after observation, minute detail, stands there with pleasure and views the sea.

[9:34] and so from this point, now, now, and as far as the apostle is concerned, where has he come to?

[9:51] Of sinners, to save sinners of whom I am chief. A very solemn word there, be much ill-used.

[10:07] We must be very careful about it. You don't want to take it up unadvisedly. Each heart knows its own bitterness and there it is best left.

[10:22] But don't use it unadvisedly, will you? In case you do not really feel what the words indicate.

[10:35] It is the same word, we are told, as the word first, albeit for this cause I obtain mercy that in me first, Christ Jesus might show forth all longsuffering.

[10:52] of sinners, of whom I am first. He put himself first for once and once over in his life.

[11:10] First, Jesus, greatest, and an examination of what he was, and his blasphemous behavior, language, and those things as which, and before were his life, injurious, how he persecuted the church of God, who was a blasphemer.

[11:38] don't take these words up quickly on your lips. When to God help you, go as far as the measure that he teaches you, we must not extend that there's going to be one person ever to excel in sin, the dear apostle.

[12:08] now, he was an example of a pattern. And that savoring pattern is set before the church of God for their encouragement and teaching.

[12:29] You are brought up out of the valley. We still keep in mind our thought of climbing the hillside to spot the point of mountain.

[12:44] And brought up from the hillside. You may say, well, it sounds as if they are brought down instead of up. Yes. Whichever way you like.

[12:55] there is the place that the apostle now has stopped at now under the king.

[13:08] He turned. You see from this spot, says the apostle, as I have seen, I, the chief of sinners, you will see the king.

[13:20] you will see the king, the king of all kings, God the father.

[13:31] You will see the king, the king eternal, he that hath appeared to hear and I to see.

[13:44] let him hear and let him say the king. We may fully understand the apostle's knowledge of the father, thereby his many references to it.

[14:04] The God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The father, God, majesty, eternal God, revealed in his holy word, self-revealing, the most glorious attribute, a self-revealing God.

[14:32] It's quite impossible for human beings to be self-revealing. We may tell a little of what we feel within and what we are, but with regard to the majesty king of heaven, he is self-revealing, but without him revealing himself, we should know nothing of him.

[15:01] It may aimless trials to discover the poor heath died. we have read of the palm tree being worshipped by the poor evil for the simple reason that he gets everything he wants to live out from.

[15:28] It is the sole source of his supply in the dead's guttel. he worships that tree and that's the hearest people a man can touch.

[15:47] So is the self-revealing God. He reveals this tremendous attribute of eternal.

[16:01] But who to? Have we got to go to London some sea or source of great ability wisdom?

[16:17] Have we got to look to the scientists of the day, the philosophers of the day, have we to search deeply in their writings to find the eternal kingdom?

[16:32] Have we got to have particular ability to understand what they teach us? Have we got to be well educated? No, it is not so indeed.

[16:47] education did it. The very education and ability not that I'm saying anything against education as such was a stumbling block to the apostle.

[17:07] He had to discard it. the Lord then began to bring him up from the empty place to which he brought him after he cast all his own wisdom aside.

[17:26] And so there is again every hope, comfort and prospect for those who are poor. their own minds, hearts, abilities, or name what you like.

[17:43] This is the beauty of it. This is the characteristic of it. And they are shown the king.

[18:02] His great work is here must be alive. It is said to be given to the whole world. If anyone cares to accept, they may, but if they don't, they will be lost.

[18:22] But he himself describes it in this way, that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up.

[18:34] And the father, the king, the eternal king, lifted up his son in his purposes from all eternity, as of a lamb flying from before the foundation of the world.

[18:52] We stand silent upon the first of earth and the first of Genesis, there to us is the beginning, as we are told, in the beginning, God.

[19:13] When we come to these later self-revelations of Jehovah, we are told that before this there was an eternal covenant made, in eternity, for eternity, that covenant was nothing to do whatever with creation, but it was to do with creatures, and it was to do with salvation, and it was to do with sinners, and it was to do also with a gift, with the discovery of that gift by those who benefited under it.

[20:02] That gift was the gift of his son, and that gift not merely as one who came down to live here, which would have been appreciated, no doubt.

[20:17] had he lived a hundred years, or as old as Methuselah upon earth, the life of the Lord Jesus would have no doubt been appreciated, but it was not to live a long life, it was to endure for a season, and having endured for a season, he then accomplished what he had come to do.

[20:51] That is, a faithful saying, a true saying, found by the utmost verity, certainty, of God's eternal love to his people, that whosoever believeth on heaven should not perish, but have everlasting life.

[21:23] It is this manifests, among so many other scriptures, the view that we have of the vast extensive Satan before us, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, not to add one detail to creation, no, not to put one feather upon the humble little sparrow that is spoken about, no, that was already perfect, not to pint to the wing of the butterfly, shall we say, with one extra spot, no, not to alter the course of rivers, or by earthquakes chimes the whole stain of nature, no, it had nothing to do with this, he kind to bear his people's sicknesses, time to fulfill the law, it came to save sinners, so that this view of him in his eternal nature is so clearly set before us in the word of God that God gave, and he and here we see the unspeakable majesty of the eternal nature of this king, but not only this, but his love.

[23:24] You and I cannot comprehend, and it is not to be comprehended in its coolness love and love and love.

[23:37] This writer says that it passed that knowledge months. You see, in our lives here below, especially in married lives, there are a thousand opportunities for love to manifest itself and grow, unusually in adversity.

[24:05] That's where the test comes. That's where love professed at the beginning is manifested when the opportunity arises to display that love.

[24:19] We may talk about it, we may profess it, and if it be so in the family life, between husband and wife or children and parents, that is so children grow to appreciate their parents.

[24:40] They learn to love them in a normal, regulated family, not always, of course, in these solemn times. They learn to love their parents, and although they may have been dead for many years, that love still grows.

[25:04] So that human love has a measurement that we can assess. You may with deep affection remember your parents or one of them, and you may be well able to attest that it is true.

[25:27] But for the love of God is immeasurable. And it is immeasurable in this particular way that it is set upon those who you would least expect.

[25:45] Now, see, our natural love has a sovereign element in it, it can settle it upon whom we will. The love of God has a sovereign element that he may be just and righteous and love whom he will.

[26:15] And this love is set upon an individual who astonished us. And this brings us back again to the faithful saying and to a gradual understanding of this, that it's worthy of all acceptance.

[26:38] divine grace begins her fair work then, does not the sinner feel caught up in a scene and sense of strange wonder?

[26:56] Can it be true? true? Can it really be true what they teach in that chapel of ours or what I read in my Bible?

[27:08] Can it really be true? true? Is this so, that God loves and that that love is revealed and the strangeness of it is that it's set upon other such strange people?

[27:32] Why, this writer has every cause to call himself the first of sin. was it not to him, an ever growing source of wonder and fear should ever have been doubted in love and blessings?

[27:58] And it's not just one, it's everybody that is that flesh of God who all have the same feeling. you ever stood on this point?

[28:15] Sometimes up the mountain side or hillside you know you can catch a glimpse of the distant sea. You can begin to visualize what it's going to be when be when you get to the top.

[28:32] Some of us have been going up the mountain side a good many years now and we've been at those places where we've caught a glimpse of what's going to be that.

[28:48] we have a little hint in the cryptic hymn book where it says we speak of the realms of the blessed, the power of the just and the free.

[29:06] What must it be to be there? There are those views of the majesty of God in ever having to deal with such as we are.

[29:24] Now this reveals something more than it is temporary. It's not something of a passing nature.

[29:40] It is eternal, like a giver. his love is as himself, eternal.

[29:56] Another vast expanse that we are permitted to meditate upon, handle, of the word of life.

[30:09] As to ever coming to the final paragraph of it, we never can. But it is eternal.

[30:22] And still calls it a tremendous sound, which it is. And therefore we must stand and view this amazing dream as far as we are given the vision.

[30:40] what is that vision? Paul gives it quite clearly here that in verse 14 the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundance, that is to him, with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus.

[31:02] These were the eyes with which he saw the Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom he loved to extol.

[31:15] But this eternal scene is one that he was caught up into heaven to see more foolish.

[31:30] And to him was given what was given to no one else. And he says he saw their things, that it was impossible to us.

[31:44] And this eternal view was balanced, counterbalanced by the thorn in the place, lest he should be exalted above measure.

[32:02] God would not let this sacred view of eternity and the third heavenly ill-used.

[32:13] He wouldn't let his dear servant make a mistake in speaking of it, where he should. He gave him a thorn in the flesh, so that he was kept with his precious treasure sealed in his lips.

[32:36] He knew what he got that to. So that God guarded him, but it was the same sacred, being eternal.

[32:49] And what he was told and what he saw in that vision was precious to the church of God, because we believe he did reveal it as he understood and knew it.

[33:13] In this, therefore, God highly honored him that he had this view of eternity. the eternal God is thy refuge.

[33:30] Did you ever think of such a disparity as this? The eternal God is thy refuge? A refuge?

[33:41] What? What for? Why need a refuge when you have the eternal God? Why, it is a refuge?

[33:57] The refuge? The eternal God is thy refuge, said God, through Moses of old, and under me, are the everlasting arms.

[34:10] arms. Why, it is a mountain in itself, this beautiful declaration, isn't it? And how many have found that underneath, and it is only known by experience, I can assure you of that, underneath are the everlasting arms.

[34:38] This is the refuge, prepared from eternity into time, and then again, when time ends, eternity forever.

[34:52] This covenant was made, therefore, in eternity. It was executed. Christ Jesus came. What a simple word, came.

[35:15] It came into the world. Now, supposing we had no knowledge of this, whatsoever, and at what loss we should be, shouldn't we?

[35:30] No doubt, the student sometimes finds caught with their textbook, and says, well, look, there's a point here that I've made clear.

[35:43] If I only knew this, I should then know the other. I'm at a loss. But not so with the word of God. Christ came.

[35:54] How? We're not at a loss to know. glorious revelation of how he came.

[36:10] Yeah? This also is worthy of all acceptation. Of course it is. In the saying, in the faithful saying, Christ Jesus came.

[36:30] And he came in a way we're told. By the overshadowing of the holy spirit, virgin Mary, and the fall of a woman.

[36:43] And that holy thing marked the world. it it has given some long unintelligible night.

[36:58] Oh, the majesty of it. T-H-I-S sinners.

[37:11] Sinners. Poor sinners. Lost sinners. Sinners that can't write their own name in.

[37:24] And listen and hand listen to the joy for this saying that Christ Jesus came. And he came willingly at the behest of his father.

[37:42] The glory of this is twofold. First the healing and then the acceptance. Then said I, now I come. And not begrudgingly.

[37:59] Now I come to do thy will. O my God. Thy law is continually within my heart.

[38:12] This is a faithful saying. And worthy of all acceptation and all how it's accepted. Look how this has echoed and re-echoed through the hearts of hearts of the Lord's people.

[38:34] Acceptance? Why yes. Every word of it. Worthy of all acceptance. Of course it is.

[38:47] And they drink it. They eat it. They receive it into their hearts in its fullness that he came. And he came into this world not to some previously prepared place that was free from contamination and where there were very few inhabitants and those if we may say so good people he came into this world this polluted world.

[39:20] where there were those possessed with devils where there were those who were possessed by the devil who sought to make his pathway as rough as they could.

[39:43] He came and he came unto his own and his own receipt did not. The very place where reception could be you naturally expected.

[40:00] I rejected him. And he foreknew that he came and he came into this world.

[40:12] Now have I taken you a little higher? nearer this sacred spot at the top now. Now unto the king.

[40:26] Can you see him in his gift, in his giving, in the success of it, the outworking of it, the perfection of it? Only if you're a convicted sinner.

[40:43] As your life changed, the whole course of it ought to. That's all. That's all. He will mean nothing to you if your heart is not being opened by divine grace.

[41:04] And then, if it has, you will be in the sinner's seat here. You will have a sinner's eye, but it will be an eye in pain. otherwise, it will be a complete mystery to you.

[41:20] Paul declares what he was when it was a mystery to him. He says, ignorantly, unbelief. The unbelieving eye is totally blind.

[41:37] We can never be humanly educated to sin. Now, unto the king eternal. I would say that it is not merely for this time state.

[41:57] A sinner, we are told by Godfard, is a sacred thing. and so, of course, he is.

[42:12] And it is a wise saint, a gracious saint. It needs full qualification. It's not sacred that he's made himself sacred, but he's sacred because of what God has made him, and what the Holy Ghost has made him.

[42:35] And therefore, a little flock, though he be a member of this little flock, and a little flock it is, I shall never perish, is saying, neither shall any man pluck them out of my father's land.

[42:56] act. It is for the future. The goodly Lebanon, the distant scene, hope I'm not quoting too many hymns this morning, but my mind goes to yonder shore, where what stood with fields beyond the spreading flood, stand clothed in Vernon Green, and here is the other side.

[43:32] That other side is likewise revealed, and the view of the other side is distant, but you can catch a glimpse of them, and you're given a view of them in the revelation, you can see them, and you hear a description of them, there's a conversation going on in heaven.

[44:01] Who are these, the riding white robes? Who are they?

[44:16] When came they? these questions which divine wisdom proposes to us are very beautiful and instructive of them.

[44:34] See, in a few words what that continues. Who are these? Well, there is the vision of John, here is he asking the question, when's came that?

[44:49] And here is somebody with knowledge, ability, and truth to give the answer. These are they which came out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the land.

[45:14] For this was nothing new to them the other side of your money. And now they see the king in his duty.

[45:26] They enter into the land afar of. And this is a faithful saying. And worthy of all that septic soul.

[45:42] And oh how the heart opens to receive it as far as God enables the seeking soul. to know that Christ Jesus came into the world to science in us.

[46:04] Here they are. And the one that is telling us is the chief of sinners. Now this is the beauty of it.

[46:17] And this is why I said just now what I did. Be careful. I know that it is often used and one must not judge.

[46:30] Each heart knoweth its own bitterness but this dear writer was in his own experience the chief of sinners.

[46:43] The first of sinners. And he was as I said on Wednesday a pat of and a most excellent pattern too.

[46:57] Yes. So you can come in here who feels your need. You won't be excluded from this.

[47:08] Here is a door here is an entrance as unworthy as you may be. and know yourself to this.

[47:19] As outside as you may put yourself and say well I shall never be like one of those won't you? Aren't you?

[47:30] Are you sure? Are you sure that it will never be your birthday? Is not this the very feeling of the chief of sinners?

[47:43] What have you done in the past? Why ignorantly and unbilly that describes your past life of them.

[47:57] You are an unbeliever and now the light is gradually dawning on your eye from the king himself now unto the king eternal.

[48:10] But I know the subject is vast so we must leave it. The Lord blessed is the spirit of it to us.

[48:21] Let pass.