[0:00] The 8th chapter of John, the 3 verse 56. The 8th of John, verse 56.
[0:15] You are calling Abraham to rejoice in my name, and ye rejoice in the flesh.
[0:30] You will have gathered in the reading of this chapter. They did a great song, and searching the source of our Lord with the fury of his death.
[0:47] All of those hearts they seemed to be perfectly satisfied with tracing up their genealogy to Abraham's and their national father, and quite the need, they can say, that we all should be in one in order to be a child of the kingdom of God.
[1:13] You will remember, son of Jesus, that when John the Baptist came reading the gospel of the kingdom, he soon told the people of his period that, if not to save thee yourselves, we have Abraham to our father.
[1:33] For God had made these stones to raise up children under Abraham. Genealogical descent from Abraham is no good.
[1:47] And of course that means that our descent from godly ancestors will not put us inside the kingdom of God.
[1:59] And it is a blessing to have godly ancestors. Though you don't always see it follow, that godly parents have a godly descent.
[2:13] Sometimes, sometimes reverse. Sometimes, too, you must have noticed that the worst kind of parents seem to have found of the best of children of thy grace divine.
[2:30] It shows the sovereignty of God in the whole matter. He calls whom he will. They whom he calls do not rest upon their descent from anyone.
[2:48] They are very deeply concerned, far more than they talk about to anyone, that they be born not of the will of the flesh, but of God.
[3:02] They want to have the clear mark of that heavenly birth, that birth which alone introduces the soul into a spiritual existence.
[3:16] That means to say that until one has really been born of the spirit, he or he is only a natural person.
[3:28] Whatever they may have picked up religiously, outside is only a mere religious purpose. The spiritual life, the life that matters, the life that will endure forever, that comes by a new birth.
[3:51] And the more one is exercised about that, the more one becomes, may I say, with the beauty and the glory of the work of grace, in creating us anew in Christ Jesus.
[4:12] The old creation stop so that he counts for nothing. The new creation in union with Christ is our lone hope, and it is our lone security for heaven.
[4:31] So Christ uprooted their idea that descending from Abraham would be done. to tell us that if they were the children of Abraham, in a spiritual way, they would have done the works that their father Abraham did.
[4:51] They were going about to kill him. Your father Abraham wouldn't have done that. No, indeed not. He was a friend of God.
[5:03] And still is, and will be, forevermore. Now, if we look, first of all this afternoon, at the special death that is nailed here, I know who will be drunk with you.
[5:21] Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my death. My death.
[5:31] My death. Have you ever noticed that beautiful scripture written by the prophet My death, many years before the world's crash?
[5:46] He said that thou Bethlehem, ex-practor, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth among me that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings for have been from our home, from everlasting.
[6:10] The marginal rendering is very expressive from the day of eternity. Jesus belonged to eternity past.
[6:29] He was perfectly distinct from his Father and the Holy Spirit, and yet intimately related one to the other, and the three are the one.
[6:45] Yet is my death. Meaning is day here on earth. What a day that was to be sure.
[6:57] How did Abraham see the day of Christ? He had been dead many years when Christ had lived.
[7:11] Yet of course, before he died, what Christ said was true of him. Do not you think, to begin with, that he saw the day of Christ in that beautiful statement God made for him, when he called him abroad, and to behold the star in heaven, and told him, that so in number should he see me, and making that beautiful covenant statement, that in thee, and in thy seed, shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
[8:01] When God gave him the promise of Isaac, and Isaac himself, there was wrapped up in that particular Isaac the promise of the day of Christ, that in Isaac the seed should be called.
[8:19] And Paul, writing many years after that, in the Galatians, in the Galatians epistle, he refers to that. And he said, that he sent not and to seeds, as of many, but to thy seed, in the singular number, which is Christ.
[8:43] Oh, Abraham saw something in that promise of our life. He saw Christ in Isaac, Christ the head of an innumerable race of people.
[9:03] And what did he do when he had that promise and the promise fulfilled? Why, he called it, boy, I laughed at it.
[9:14] He rejoiced. He had something to laugh over. It was not the laugh of a mere world thing. It was the expression of his soul, rejoicing in that what God had promised he knew he would most surely and faithfully fulfilled.
[9:37] And he did, and in the promise, saw the day of Christ. In a very lesser, and mayier, it would be true to say that if God ever gives you one promise, one promise, if God ever gives you one promise, warm in your heart, you'll see something of Christ in it too.
[10:12] Unrolling, unfolding. You may not see immediately the promise he gives, but the promise will be like seed sowed in your heart, germinate, grow up, open out, and you go along the path of life, you will see, oh, what that promise meant.
[10:35] And even now, that one promise awaits its perfect fulfillment because after all is said and done, a promise once new is intended by God to remain to you and me as long as we live.
[10:56] It's not just for that particular service when first it was given. It was very applicable, very profitable, very sweet to us then, granted, but it was intended for every life case you might be in until you lose yourself eternal.
[11:17] and have you rejoiced when you see the promise on your own if only partially? Haven't you, as it were, taken hold of the very heart of God in your heart and rejoiced in him beyond what some would say all your image?
[11:36] Miriam went forth in the dark and what in the world he does.
[11:48] And we've gone, do you know what is the dark in their heart, in their spirit, literally just from the earth on our man with the power of the joy in God with regard to a promised life?
[12:09] Then, surely coming along a stage and further, Abraham saw the day of Christ when God put him through a tremendous trial that he didn't all gather in honey and honey go to be a son or daughter of Abraham.
[12:32] Isn't heaven on earth complete? No. Heaven will come, though, but in the meantime you'll have your dose of trial. Abraham had him.
[12:44] Now, Abraham, you take that child out of you and that child of promise and that child you laughed over and rejoiced in whether you might.
[12:56] Now, take him, none other than him. Take him and offer him up. Now, I'll tell you all, how to reconcile that with God's wisdom and plan Abraham could not possibly have known.
[13:15] It looks absolutely good. God goes the pain of giving him a promise, making him 20 years for the fulfillment of it, then directly he's given him so to say, take the shrink.
[13:32] Ah, don't you think, ah, thoughts of your God's faith. He knows what he's doing, you don't, I don't. He knew what he was going to do in the finish, so did Abraham find that out.
[13:48] Well, Abraham was given praise, he obeyed, and he went along, three days journey, plenty of time to think about what he was doing, and there he was perfectly ready to offer up his sun eyes upon the altar.
[14:06] Ah, he took the night, and in a very short time he would kill him, he would slit his throat right enough, but the voice from heaven called out, lay not thy hand on the land.
[14:21] Now I know that thou appearest made, not that God didn't go before, but now Abraham had been put to the test, the proof, and it worked beautifully as God knew it would, and what happened then?
[14:37] Well, just behind Abraham was a ram caught in the thickest, and Abraham went to that, and off that up in the stead of his son, us.
[14:52] Did you see the day of Christ there? Ah, no one clearer, and no one fuller up to that time that Abraham had that junction.
[15:07] He named the flame Jehoja, Jai. The Lord will provide, meaning primarily, he will provide himself with a lamb for a birth on.
[15:23] He'll provide an atonement, he'll provide the sin offering, he'll make the redemption of his people, oh, he skipped and jumped about that altar that day, sealed the day of Christ as a substitute for his own soul, as well as for his people.
[15:49] Third, he would see then how he, Abraham, was made righteous before God.
[16:01] I don't say he'd not see it before in Beca, but on that occasion, he would see it more abundantly clear.
[16:13] And the Holy Ghost has virtually written the whole of the form of the Romans about Abraham and its faith and how he could justify. In arguing the point as to how a man was justified before God, he goes to Abraham and tells there, only in such an argumentative epistle, you want a lot of grace and a lot of scriptural understanding and a lot of right experience before you and we can really drop a great deal from that wonderful epistle, but still for the little light we've got we're thankful on.
[16:57] We can see what Abraham saw. Paul said, was he justified by works? No. He was justified by faith.
[17:08] Was he justified by the law? No. He was justified by faith. And how did he get this? Well, God gave him his truth, but the faith he's talking about is the objective side of faith.
[17:24] Christ, the Lamb, called in the thicket, that was the object, had a chittified Christ. He was looking there and that's the faith, the objective of faith and the grace of faith.
[17:38] Christ, Jesus, and Jesus alone. Neither the ceremonial nor the moral of the Lord, but Christ has broken all Lord, all statutes, all just.
[17:51] There's no hope for me, none, whatever. and here there is. In what is that hope then? Why in this holy one God be made sin for us while he himself knew no sin that we might be made the righteous of God.
[18:16] I have thought all right and here we watch. Well, that was the particular day, the day that God gave him the promise that the day of either being taken all right and substituted to the ram and the day when he saw the righteous of Christ clearly showed now let us know this.
[18:44] Secondly, who was Abraham after all? Your father Abraham saw my name?
[18:57] He saw it and was glad. Who was he? You will say I'm mortal man like the rest of when I draft that and that's not a thought, a small thought because we are all active things.
[19:16] The final characters were made of very different material for we that there must have been something about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and David and the rest.
[19:28] Or they couldn't have been like me who made the greatest thing. They just were. Flesh and blood sinners like you and we. If they were, they would be different.
[19:40] They were. It was by the sovereign grace of God. Now, no letters to get that. The point I'm thinking about is this.
[19:51] Abraham said on one own nation that it was dust and ashes he's pleading before God for Sodom and Gomorrah.
[20:04] Dust and ashes. That's all I ask. There are even that few people from a man like Abraham. There's no mock humility there.
[20:18] It's not a sanctimonious air put on the old game. He meant it. He felt it. It was true. True.
[20:29] Dust. Well, that's what he would have made from. Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return as God.
[20:43] God much strength there is I surely not. What I'm trying to behold to you and myself is this, that it is of the weak, the unworthy, the poor, and the needy, and the destitute, poor, dusty people in their own estimation.
[21:04] It is these that see the more of the day of cry and are glad. And you. Well, you don't get any antigenes only by fire.
[21:18] And April had it with fire. Fiery trials were allotted him all right. And what did they do? Well, by the blessing of God they did to him what they do to you and me.
[21:33] As sanctified, and brought up a lot of what we thought was good stuff. A lot of your inventory of mine buried up in the combustion.
[21:45] Ah, and what do we do? We sit down with a heap of ash all out of high pretensions and wonderful experiences and our know-all business when God puts a match to it and firms it you will not have got nothing left to back.
[22:11] Not a bad experience for you not at all bad. Poor Why are you sitting sacked on the ashes in other words a poor weak despicable good but nothing indivisible in your heart of heart feelings before God what is God doing?
[22:35] God is looking on with approval with delight to give him a sacred pleasure to see his children take this low place of himself to this man what I look that is of a humble and of a contrite spirit and the treachery of my world think of that and what you would I do when we sit among the dust and the ashes well that was Abraham running for it was he that saw the day of Christ and was glad now let us come a step further he said that when he saw it he was glad I think it's quite possible that you could render that word glad something like this elite or
[23:36] George you can't be quiet all together with a real manifestation of God in Christ yourself no just that you can't be quiet when you are being tempted driven plain misstep and bothered with sin and infidelity you can't sit quiet you can't lie quiet you don't know what you're doing sometimes you seem a miserable wretch as if you could yell out with grief and misery and despair just on the concrete when Christ finished that troubled earth with his love and his partner you want the whole world to hear it you do when God was pleased to bring dear John
[24:36] Bunyan out of his heavy load of temptations which has been reserved to right he had for about two years that's a long while you know isn't it two years misery in temptation well when God brought him out and he was walking along the road and fend to where the snow such was the discovery of the love of God in his heart that he said he could preach Christ to the crow that were in the field I believe it I like to have more understanding that love from the land you and I can't always talk as we do about things that are immaterial really if only the heart out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaking and the leaping of the spirit the joy
[25:37] I can understand Abraham doing that very well what is a bit of a puzzle to make and if any of you can help me to understand the puzzle I'm going to tell you about I am very pleased to hear you do it there was a child unborn but he leaped the joy while he was an unborn child at the sound of the good tidings that Mary brought to his mother and you tell me how that came about at the hearing of the news that the angel had told Mary that the power of the high should come upon her and that she would know the shadow of the holy ghost and that holy child that shall be born of thee where he shall be called the son of God
[26:48] Jesus saving his people for his sins their sins he leaped for joy I can't understand I don't know if we understand but one thing that little story about young John the Baptist three months before he was born ought to make you and me very careful if we should hear of a young child very young or even a reader such being brought to a saving life we shouldn't koo-poo it and say oh two young you think of young John the Baptist before he came into this world at all was a believer in Christ and a joyful believer in Christ too one none of two young thank
[27:53] God none of you are everything turns on the sovereignty of a good and blessed God he leaped for joy let me say this that the joy of Abraham and the joy in my case there is not the joy that well you know the world of flesh design which often leaves a person worth off for having it there are not the joys of the present season of the year which are all right as far as they go they don't go very far there's nothing in them that satisfies the soul well this is something that's done because this joy is the fruit of the spirit that's it the fruit of the spirit is love joy it's not me working myself up into a friendship it's not me imitating somebody else it's not me using somebody else's language about experience that I may have read it's the fruit of the spirit in one's own and the spirit is free to reveal someone Christ in you and me just so far as the revelation goes just so far our joy goes the joy may be hard it may be low it may be missing never mind it is all right when it comes from the outcome the good spirit of God the good spirit of God and it's a joy sometimes
[29:56] I don't know how to describe it better it's mixed with a few tears they're not tears of sadness God can make you shed a few tears through sheer joy you can do it you can do it you can do it you can do it you can do it ah Miss Marl sometimes how unexpected people come and you can't make them come no we wish we had them more frequently we seem sometimes if God passes you by and gives you just a little touch of the Holy Spirit through his divine word and your heart is filled with it and a little water comes in your eye at the same time you're not sorry you're glad but the nature of that spiritual gladness it makes you contrite broken before God with lovely experience what I call a clean one a clean one the fruit of the spirit he saw it and was glad now sometimes one may have joy in the hope of yes you know that individual who will escape from prison he wanted a hope some idea to date when he might be set at liberty and the knowledge of that who would give him some reason to be bright well after flesh and blood style put myself in that man's place locked up in prison
[32:00] I would love you well understand that spiritually when a dear person is under the bondage of the law and knows nothing but condemnation and guilt dread of fear though not soul and body those in peace dare think about death cause such feel they're not ready for it if only a little bleed of hope might come into their heart that one day God would speak pardon to them that will give them a measure of joy joy in the hope that one he will do but such may say I don't think that day will ever be mine I think my day of grace as they took it is far I'm completely lost
[33:01] I'm undone forever don't talk like that friend no not while there's a God of the Bible living and Jesus Christ finished work still in heaven for saying what would it be really and thrilling when we fund what Abraham had already come to the joy of actually possessing this when Abraham has been in heaven now over four thousand years to say the least on he's come to since the days of Isaac yes but what he saw then in principle now he's seen outward better and deeper than anybody could have done here and similarly so can he spiritual child of Abraham the joy in anticipation or even hope is nice with the joy of actually seeing him as he is without availing well you've got no idea he can't while we are there and then I would like to say in a final way this afternoon the apostle Peter associates a joy unspeakable and full of glory but the people of the room he's speaking about are in the midst of a fiery child yes he says
[34:55] I know that fiery child is only to try you is not to destroy you or make an angel but do you know that this trial of your faith not the faith but the trial of it the pile that is necessary that the trial of your faith works for you above or exceeding what why joy the deeper the trial we have the more better the deliverance out of it the hotter the fire the more will the calm be appreciated so that though and Peter still speaking of the same people though you're in the midst of the fiery child now yet present the day will come when you shall joy with joy us be capable and full of the
[35:56] God and Jesus Christ who said to his disciples when giving them a surfing parable he finishes with enter thou in the joy of thy Lord that car coming to you in his foolish measure you have got to enter in that well please God give us a little love in the heart now while we're here and when our time comes to go to translate us into the fullness of it forever and that's not because we've been children of Abraham nationally or any other people religiously so to cause his savior from his
[36:58] God has his questions may you all have a comfortable and a profitable time at this season again