Turn please to Exodus chapter 19 and prepare
to turn to Isaiah chapter 43.
I shall read the first six verses of
Exodus 19 and several verses from Isaiah 43.
In the third month, when the children of
Israel were gone forth out of the land
of Egypt, the same day came they into
the wilderness of Sinai.
For they were departed from Rephidim, and were
come to the desert of Sinai, and had
pitched in the wilderness.
And there Israel camped before the mount.
And Moses went up unto God, and the
Lord called unto him out of the mountain,
saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house
of Jacob, And tell the children of Israel,
Ye have seen what I did unto the
Egyptians, and how I bear you on eagles'
wings, and brought you unto myself.
Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice
indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall
be a peculiar treasure unto me above all
people, for all the earth is mine.
And ye shall be unto me a kingdom
of priests, and an holy nation.
These are the words which thou shalt speak
unto the children of Israel.
Now to Isaiah chapter 43, if you will.
But now thus saith the Lord that created
thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee,
O Israel, Fear not, for I have redeemed
thee.
I have called thee by thy name, thou
art mine.
When thou passest through the waters, I will
be with thee, and through the rivers they
shall not overflow thee.
When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt
not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee.
For I am the Lord thy God, the
Holy One of Israel, thy Savior.
I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and
Seba for thee.
Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou
hast been honorable, and I have loved thee.
Therefore will I give men for thee, and
people for thy life.
Fear not, for I am with thee.
I will bring thy seed from the east
and gather thee from the west.
I will say to the north, Give up,
and to the south, Keep not back.
Bring my sons from far, and my daughters
from the ends of the earth, even every
one that is called by my name, for
I have created him for my glory.
I have formed him, yea, I have made
him.
Bring forth the blind people that have eyes,
and the deaf that have ears, that all
the nations be gathered together, and let the
people be assembled.
Who among them can declare this and show
us former things?
Let them bring forth their witnesses, that they
may be justified, or let them hear and
say, It is truth.
Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and
my servant, whom I have chosen, that ye
may know and believe me, and understand that
I am he.
Before me there was no God-form, neither
shall there be after me.
I, even I, am the Lord, and beside
me there is no Savior.
I have declared and have saved, and I
have showed, when there was no strange God
among you.
Therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord,
that I am God.
Yea, before the day was, I am he,
and there is none that can deliver out
of my hand.
I will work, and who shall prevent it?
Thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy
One of Israel.
For your sake I have sent to Babylon,
and have brought down all their nobles, and
the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.
I am the Lord, your Holy One, the
Creator of Israel, your King.
Thus saith the Lord, which maketh a way
in the sea, and a path in the
mighty waters, which bringeth forth the chariot and
horse, the army and the power.
They shall lie down together.
They shall not rise.
They are extinct.
They are quenched as so.
Remember ye not the former things?
Neither consider the things of old.
Behold, I will do a new thing.
Now it shall spring forth, shall ye not
know it?
I will even make a way in the
wilderness and rivers in the desert.
The beast of the field shall honor me,
the dragons and the owls, because I give
waters in the wilderness and rivers in the
desert to give drink to my people, my
chosen.
This people have I formed for myself.
They shall show forth my praise.
And now I turn to 1 Peter and
the 2nd chapter, and tie these three scriptures
together.
I begin reading with verse 9, just verses
9 and 10 of 1 Peter chapter 2.
You'll notice the same words are used in
this second chapter that were used in Exodus
19.
But he is now writing to someone else.
Perhaps if we go back to the earlier
verse and begin there, we will see the
picture.
Wherefore, laying aside all malice and all guile
and hypocrisies and envies and evil speakings, as
newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the
word, that ye may grow thereby, if so
be ye have tasted that the Lord is
gracious, to whom coming is unto a living
stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of
God and precious.
Ye also, as living stones, are built up
a spiritual house and holy priesthood, to offer
up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus
Christ.
Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture,
Behold, I lay in thine a chief cornerstone,
elect, precious, and he that believeth on him
shall not be confounded.
Unto you therefore which believe he is precious,
but unto them which be disobedient, the stone
which the builders disallowed, the same is made
thy head of the corner, and a stone
of stumbling and a rock of offense, even
to them which stumble at the word being
disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed.
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, and holy nation, a peculiar people, that
you should show forth the praises of him
which called you out of darkness into his
marvelous light, which in time past were not
a people, but are now the people of
God, which had not obtained mercy, but now
have obtained mercy.
Now back in your thinking, and if you
wish in your Bible to Exodus the nineteenth
chapter, there God has gathered this people Israel
from Egypt to himself at the foot of
Sinai, where they will have a revelation of
himself, a revelation of his nature, a revelation
of his righteousness and his justice, a revelation
of his power and of his grace.
For here at Sinai God has chosen to
reveal himself to his people.
Moses has gone up into the mountain and
for forty days has been in the presence
of God.
There God has given to him the tables
upon which he has inscribed the Decalogue, the
Ten Commandments, and he has given to him
also the pattern of the tabernacle and the
law of the offering.
For God has desired a people, a people
to whom he could reveal himself, a people
to whom he could share all that he
plans to do for the nations that are
still residing in heathenism and in darkness.
God wanted a witness, and so he called
Abram and from Abram Isaac and from Isaac
Jacob and Jacob's sons and these out of
Egypt now in his delivering power, and he
has gathered them to himself in order that
there he might have this people, formerly slaves
in degrading service to Egyptian taskmasters, now to
become fellow servants with the living God in
his purpose to have a nation that would
show forth his praise.
And God's plan?
Well, God's plan was to get this witness
through natural generation.
It would be the sons of Abraham.
First it was Isaac, the promised son, and
then of the two sons of Isaac he
chose Jacob, and then the sons of Jacob,
and one became a member of this new
thing that God was doing by natural birth,
by the will of man, by the will
of flesh.
And so it was that he had now
a company comprising some two to two and
a half million persons.
There had been a marvelous revelation of his
grace as he had drawn this people out
of Egypt, drawn them across the Red Sea,
and now had gathered them to the foot
of Sinai.
You see, God's purpose was that they, in
understanding him, should realize his presence in their
midst.
So he gave to Moses, as we said,
the law of the offerings and the pattern
of the tabernacle.
This, as you understand, was to be the
house of God's dwelling.
It was to be a picture of the
life of the believer.
It was to be a revelation of God's
grace, an unfolding of the means whereby men
could come into fellowship with God.
Oh, it was to be the center of
Israel's life, for there would be in the
daytime the pillar of cloud, and at night
the pillar of fire, and from any part
of the encamped people they could look up
and see that God was still in the
midst of his people.
It was in God's intention that this people
should abide by his rules, should obey his
will and wish, should respect his plan, and
should share in his purpose.
And so he gave them every reason to
cooperate with him, every incentive, every blessing, everything
that it was possible for God to do
to have a people enthusiastically cooperative, God did.
And thus here at Sinai he has said
that if you will obey my voice and
keep my covenant, then you shall be a
peculiar people, a peculiar, a pecuniary, a purchased
people, and you shall be a kingdom of
priests, a royal priesthood, and you shall be
a holy nation.
And this was what God intended Israel to
be, but actually what happened, as we saw
last night within just a few generations, that
generation that gathered there at the foot of
Sinai died in the wilderness.
Their bones bleached the path along which Israel
encamped, for God could not fulfill his purpose
until that generation of unbelieving men should have
died.
And then after he did get a company
that would follow him into the land, it
was just two generations later that they began
to serve Baal and Ashtoreth.
And so the history of Israel was one
of declension, one of bondage and captivity and
recovery, and further declension and bondage and captivity
and recovery, until we come to this forty
-third chapter of Isaiah, which we will have
to call the continental divide of the scripture.
Some years ago as a lad, friends took
me up to northern Minnesota, and I recall
when a relative broke a stick in two,
walked out on a little bridge that the
state park service had put over this little
stream, this spring or whatever it was, and
he dropped the stick as far as he
could, one here and one there, and as
we watched, one began to slowly float to
the north and the other to the south.
We were to that place called the continental
divide, and all the water north of that
particular spot would then finally go up to
the Hudson Bay or on further north.
The water to the south would end up
in the Gulf of Mexico.
We were to the place where the waters
would flow in opposite direction.
And so Isaiah 43, in a sense, becomes
the continental divide of scripture.
For here, God tells this people Israel of
what he has done.
And then he says, bring forth your witnesses
and show me where I have failed you.
Bring forth those that will testify against me
and say the fault was mine.
Blame me if you can, I'll accept the
responsibility.
If I have failed you, I am willing
to rectify.
If I have not done what I should,
I'll make it up to you.
But if the fault is yours, then understand
that I'm going to exact it of you.
And so here in Isaiah chapter 43, he
says something like this.
Israel, I'm through with you.
You are no longer going to be my
prime objective and purpose any longer.
I'm going to do something else.
And we find this set forth here explicitly
in verse 18.
As here through the prophet, he turns to
this nation and says, Don't boast of your
past.
Don't be so proud of your heritage.
Don't rest on what Moses and the judges
and the prophets said and did.
It's far too late for that.
It's far too long a time since then.
Remember not the former things and neither consider
the things of old.
Don't look backward any longer.
And then he said, Behold, I will do
a new thing.
God is going to do a new thing,
an entirely new thing.
What will this new thing be?
First he says, I will make a way
in the wilderness.
I am going to go to that place
that is called wilderness, where no water is,
where no life is, where only death reigns.
And the picture would be of the desert
out west of Palestine, that desert in which
hardly so much as a cactus could grow.
And there would be the thought that would
come to the minds of the people when
they heard the word wilderness.
A place of desolation, a place where no
life was, only the hardiest of beasts could
survive, and man only if he took his
provision with him.
But he says, I'm going to go into
this wilderness and I'm going to make a
way.
And I'm going to make rivers in the
desert.
And the beasts of the field, these are
unclean, these that you've been forbidden to eaten,
these that you look down upon, these that
you call heathen, these that are vile in
your eyes and condemned by you.
These I have, beasts of the field will
honor me.
If I can't get honor out of Jacob's
sons and out of Isaac's family and Abram's
kin, then I'll find someone that will honor
me.
I'll make a way in the wilderness, and
I'll put a river in the desert, and
the beasts of the field will come, and
the dragons, or those little things that would
climb up the wall of our house in
Africa, these little lizards and the owls, which
Israel was forbidden to eat, all of them
unclean, the kind of thing that was in
the sheep that was let down from heaven,
that Peter saw.
He said, I'm going to take this that
you consider of no value, this that you
consider beyond your use, that you've been told
is valueless, and because I give to these
waters in the wilderness and rivers in the
desert to give drink to my people, my
chosen, these, the beasts of the field, these,
the lizards, these, the owls, they will drink
of this water.
They will be changed by the drinking, and
I will have from them a people formed
for myself.
I will have a people that will show
forth my praise.
And here you have that prophetic setting forth
of a new thing that the Lord is
going to do.
Now, what was the reason for the failure
of Israel?
I'll tell you why.
Because they got into the place the wrong
way.
They came by the will of flesh.
They came by the will of man.
They came by way of blood.
They were born of natural generation into Israel,
and they saw the pillar of cloud and
the pillar of fire, and they were carried
down to the court of the tabernacle, and
inside they could see the badger skin covering
the house of God's dwelling.
They were told about the Ten Commandments that
resided in the Ark of the Covenant, and
it was right in the midst of the
village where they lived, or nearby.
But do you know something?
The reason that Israel as a nation failed
was that God was too far from the
people.
He was too far removed from them.
There was too great a distance between them,
and the consequence of this was that when
they turned their back on the tabernacle and
the pillar of cloud and the pillar of
fire and went about their business, they forgot
about the Ten Commandments.
They forgot about God's presence.
They forgot about God's glory.
They forgot about God's purpose, and they became
consumed with their own interests.
And as we saw last night, they began
to serve Baal and Ashtoreth.
They began to seek for things and experience
and position, and the consequence of this was
they utterly failed God.
And so God said, this isn't going to
do.
It won't work.
I'm too far away from the people, and
so I'm going to do a new thing.
This time, however, I'm not going to do
it the way I did with Abraham.
This time it's not going to be by
the will of flesh.
It's not going to be by the will
of man.
It's not going to be by blood.
But I'm going to put a river.
I'm going to put a spring.
I'm going to put a well of water,
and the only ones that can be part
of my new thing are the ones who
come in their death and drink of that
living water and live because they drink.
There'll be no other way to get in,
for they'll have no heritage to boast of.
They will not be able to say, look
at our past.
They will not be able to say, look,
we are the people.
They'll have nothing to which to boast.
They're going to have to come, each one
for himself and each generation for itself, and
drink personally of that living water, for if
they do not, they will have absolutely no
part with me, and they will be but
beasts of the field, dragons and owls.
And so God has now begun to picture
to us something of what he's going to
do, and he has shown us the failure
of what he did.
The failure was this, that being in a
tabernacle, a tent of dwelling, in the midst
of the land, was to be too far
away from the people.
It had to be closer than this.
So what else did he have to say?
We see something here from Isaiah, chapter 43,
but if you'll turn now to Jeremiah 31,
you'll find that God gives a further revelation
concerning this new thing that he's going to
do.
Behold, the days come, and I read from
verse 31, Behold, the days come, saith the
Lord, that I will make a new covenant
with the house of Judah and with the
house of Israel, not according to the covenant
that I made with their fathers in the
day that I took them by the hand
to bring them out of the land of
Egypt, which my covenant they break, although I
was a husband unto them, saith the Lord.
But this shall be the covenant that I
will make with the house of Israel.
After those days, saith the Lord, I will
put my law in their inward parts and
write it in their hearts and will be
their God and they shall be my people.
And they shall teach no more every man
his neighbor and every man his brother, saying,
Know the Lord.
For they shall all know me from the
least of them unto the greatest of them,
saith the Lord.
For I will forgive their iniquity and I
will remember their sin no more.
Do you notice?
He said, I'm going to make a new
covenant.
We'll find out a little later, but bear
it in mind now.
This new covenant begins with forgiveness of the
past.
It begins with the washing away of the
guilt of other days.
It begins by removing all of the transgressions
and the guilt that those transgressions have acquired.
It begins by taking one out from the
sentence of death.
But it doesn't stop there.
He said, I'm going to make up for
one of the deficiencies of the past.
There I inscribe the law on a table
of stones and put it in the Ark
of the Covenant.
But when I do this new thing and
when I make this new covenant, I'm going
to take great care that the law is
far closer to the people that are expecting
to keep it than simply on a table
of stones.
And so he said, in that new day,
I'm going to write my law in their
heart.
I'm going to inscribe it right there within
them.
So that every place they go, they'll carry
the law with them.
And they will not need to look down
at a memory card.
And they won't need to look up at
something that's inscribed on the wall.
Because in this new thing I'm going to
do, I am going to put the law
right in the very center of their being.
And I'm going to inscribe it so indelibly,
enlighten it so clearly that wherever they go,
the law will go with them.
And there'll be no question with this new
thing.
For the law is going to be right
upon their hearts.
And so this implies two things.
That those that have been forgiven have had
a changed attitude toward the will of God.
I believe that we see in this a
picture of biblical repentance.
I believe we see a people that have
in the past been guilty of breaking the
law.
And now they've come to the place where
they have abhorred themselves for their crimes and
completely changed their minds about them.
They have decided that instead of going on
in their anarchy, in their treason, in their
rebellion, that they have now come to the
place that the purpose of their hearts is
to please God.
And that therefore they are intending that in
everything they shall do henceforth and hereafter, the
purpose of their life will be to please
God.
This law is not going to be an
involved list of 613 deep things to be
done as it was in the Old Testament.
Some 285 negative things that Israel was not
to do and the rest that they were
to do.
In this new thing it's going to be
simplified.
It's going to be far more extensive because
it is simplified.
It's going to be far more extensive.
It's going to reach in a much wider
arc.
It's going to go higher and deeper because
the heart of the matter is going to
be in the individual and it's no longer
going to be a matter of details, but
it's going to be a matter of principle.
For I am going to write a new
law upon their hearts, said he.
What is this new law?
I believe it's the very thing we were
talking about this morning.
That that person that has come to see
the enormity of his sin has seen it
thus, that in its essence, sin is living
to please oneself.
That a sinner is a person that has
committed his will to the policy and practice
of pleasing himself at the expense of God
and of others and he lives to this
end.
This is the reason for his being.
Self-gratification, self-satisfaction, and anyone is a
sinner regardless of what his profession may be,
regardless of what scripture he knows or the
ceremonies he's experienced, as long as the intent
of his heart is to please himself at
the expense of God and others.
And a person repents when he comes to
the place that he discovers that the will
of God is the government of his life
and the glory of God is the reason
for his life.
He only has repented who has changed his
mind about his reason for being.
It is this, that the sinner is headed
in this direction.
I am going to do what pleases me.
If it pleases me to lie, I'll lie.
Steal, I'll steal.
Swear, I'll swear.
The reason for my being is my pleasure
and I am God to decide how to
be pleased.
In other words, he is committed.
He's headed in the direction of self-pleasing.
But then there comes a time when he
sees the nature of this.
He abhors himself and he completely repudiates this
principle of life.
And so it's an utter right about face
from pleasing self to pleasing God, from governing
oneself to accepting the government of Jesus Christ.
And so it is that there is a
new law that is written upon his heart.
It isn't ten items nor six hundred and
thirteen items, but it is a new central
principle, a new motivational springboard in the life.
Here it had been to please self and
here it is to please God.
And so there will be a touchstone, a
magnet by which everything can be tested.
It will be this.
Is this to please God?
Will this glorify God?
Is this for his honor?
Is this for his praise?
And so there will be a lodestone, if
you please, by which one can test all
of the actions and all of the thoughts
and opportunities, all the words and deeds which
shall come.
For this new people are to be a
people of the passion, a people whose passion
is to glorify Jesus Christ.
And so it is that he says, I'll
write my law on their hearts.
Not that he's going to have a great
scroll that'll need to be turned or an
IBM picture machine that'll need to be spun
where a person says, well now, what was
I supposed to do when this happened?
Oh no, it's not this kind of a
memorizing of the minutiae of life, but it
is something far, far more effective than that.
It is that there has come a new
governing principle into the life which is, the
whole reason for my being is to glorify
God in Jesus Christ.
And when one sees this and understands this,
then they realize why the Lord Jesus said
when he asked, which is the first and
greatest commandment, Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart and mind and
soul and strength.
The essence of love is to seek the
best interest of, and the greatest good of,
and the chief happiness of another.
In this case, to love God is not
to carry a slushy sentimental feeling about him,
a kind of a, a paperizing of the
emotions.
For when you speak of love in the
scriptural context, it has no relationship whatever to
that that's being merchandised 24 hours a day
on the radio.
No, no, it's not this.
It's not some slushy sentimentality, I say it
all.
Love for God is not in the realm
of the emotions, but it's in the realm
of the volition.
It is the committal of the will to
the pleasing of another.
And he loves God whose whole being is
committed to this purpose, to please, to glorify,
to satisfy God.
And this, thus, the law is written upon
the heart.
Ten items were written upon tables of stone.
Six hundred and three other items were prescribed
in the writings.
And all of this Israel broke.
And so he said, now I'm going to
put a new law in your heart.
It's going to be this.
Thou shalt seek to please, seek to gratify,
seek to satisfy, seek to glorify, seek to
glorify God with all your heart and your
mind and your soul and your strength.
In other words, the focus of your entire
personality and your whole being on this end.
Then he said, thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself.
Here again, it's not sentiment, it's not emotion.
Here again, it is to seek the best
interests of one's neighbor.
It is to seek to provide, to bring,
to do, to have, to say that which
will be to the eternal best interests.
Now as a father, it's my responsibility to
seek the best interests of my children.
And this means that there are times when
it's necessary for me to do that which
incurs their momentary displeasure.
For instance, when a little child will look
into the daddy's face as Sarah did one
day when she was some old enough to
know better at least and I said, Sarah,
stop pulling the leaves off mother's plant.
And she smiled at me and pulled another
leaf.
I said, Sarah dear, stop doing that.
She smiled and pulled another leaf.
I said, Sarah, stop that or daddy'll thank
you.
She looked at me and put her little
foot down on the floor and said, I
won't.
Well she did.
I got to the seat of the problem
immediately and began to broaden her understanding and
applied where it was appropriate and so the
consequence was she did.
But you see, it was necessary for me
at that time to incur her momentary displeasure
in order to secure her lasting best interests.
And so it always is with a parent
that their concern is not the pleasure at
the moment but the good for the future.
And thus the Bible is said about pastors,
reprove, rebuke, and exhort.
Mind you, it's extremely costly because most church
members would far rather be damned by faint
praise than to be saved by helpful criticism.
And the consequence of it is that this
is an extremely costly part of your ministry.
But nevertheless, for your neighbors, for your friends,
for your family, for everyone you meet, to
love your neighbor as yourself is to seek
the best interest, the eternal best interest, greatest
good, and highest happiness of all men, including
yourself and God.
Now this is the law written upon the
heart.
It's a simple thing, isn't it?
It isn't a great code of details that
you'll have difficulty remembering.
It's a matter of principle that from now
on your life is to be committed in
the direction of seeking the glory of God
and the good of others.
Well, we can see that, I think, that
this is essentially what's involved in repentance.
I would have called to your attention something
that I'm not commending.
I'm simply using it as a contrast to
show you that the churches we know it,
the evangelical churches we know it, have not
learned this principle.
I want to say it again.
The churches we know it in America, the
Protestant church in America, have not learned this
basic principle of repentance.
There is a group in America that is
called moral rearmament.
I'm not proposing it, I'm not advocating it,
but I must use it as an illustration
of the dynamic of this principle when it's
released with nothing more energizing than human personality.
Years ago, a man by the name of
Frank Buckman, a Presbyterian preacher, established something that
he called the Oxford Movement after John Wesley's
class meeting.
It had a short history for some years
and then it was dissipated by its own
inner weakness and it, but it had great
good in the lives of many and touched
many lives.
I meet people all over the country that
got started in the direction of reality because
of something there.
But again, I'm not either commending or condemning
that.
It's just a matter of history that Frank
Buckman started moral rearmament and then it stopped.
But then it started the Oxford Movement.
Then in Europe and in Switzerland particularly, he
became aware of the necessity for the release
of moral energy in our chaotic world and
so he formulated a group called moral rearmament.
It had some of the principles of the
old Oxford group movement, particularly the four absolutes.
But it did not, wasn't Christian.
It had no recognition of Christ but it
was simply the means whereby there could be
the release of moral energy in the world.
In moral rearmament the four absolutes are these,
absolute love, absolute unselfishness, absolute truth and absolute
purity.
This has its appeal particularly to the up
and out, to the wealthy, to those that
have some influence.
We find that there is out in Mackinac
Island an annual gathering for this group and
there are papers and publications that they are
disseminating especially in the east.
But the essence of it is this.
If a person that's been living a typical
materialistic selfish sensual life feels that there is
something more and they're approached by moral rearmament
the approach is this.
They ask the individual to list all the
things in his life which are contrary to
these four absolutes.
All selfishness, all hatred, all untruth, all impurity.
List them all and then in the presence
of somebody else verbalize them, say them, put
them, say them out loud and then having
done that to make a verbal committal in
the presence of others to live the life
from that time on governed by this four,
these four absolutes, these four principles.
And so what they are is a, what
it is is a public committal of the
hope of the individual to live a life
of absolute love, absolute unselfishness, absolute truth and
absolute purity.
Now it hasn't gotten very far in America
because it's difficult to get people to be
willing to make that kind of a committal.
But there's been a startling success in Europe.
For instance, about twelve or fourteen years ago,
Buckman and his followers went into the Ruhr
Valley of Germany, in West Germany.
At that time, about seventy to eighty percent
of the laborers, the union members, were card
-carrying communists.
And so we had a very difficult field.
The Ruhr was in a chaotic condition and
the communists were doing their best to keep
it that way, to keep Western Germany from
experiencing a reconstruction and a return to industrial
strength.
So, the, all they did, the moral rearmament
representatives was to go among these men, present
this to them and say, look, it's to
your advantage.
And so they got the union leaders, the
union followers, and the industrialists, the employers, the
owners of factories, and together they made a
commitment to absolute truth, purity, love, and unselfishness.
Two, three, four years ago, Konrad Abenhauer, Chancellor
of West Germany, wrote to Frank Buckman and
he said, during the years that you first
went into the Ruhr, we have seen a
surprising change.
For instance, there's been a minimum of work
stoppages due to strikes.
There's been a maximum of cooperation and a
minimum of friction.
And furthermore, the communist interests have decreased tremendously.
In fact, today we're happy to report that
it's less than eight percent, somewhere just over
seven percent, as against the seventy to eighty
percent when you began, that are now interested
in the communist cause.
Some months ago in New York City, a
film was shown.
It was a documentary film.
It was called The Crowning Experience.
It was made by the followers of moral
rearmament in West Germany and in France.
You will find, I'm sure, Bethany, something that
echoes in your heart when I tell you
that people sold their insurance policies, sold their
homes, and sold their cars, and took their
life savings in order that they might produce
a picture that could be shown in America
which somehow would get to the root of
the selfishness, the materialism, and the sensualism of
this land in every country of the world,
in Japan, where they had those riots that
kept President Eisenhower from going a few years
ago.
Moral rearmament came.
And so it was in South America, in
Brazil, in Uruguay, in Venezuela.
The same thing was true.
Are you there?
You say, are you commending moral rearmament?
And the answer is no, no, I'm not.
You know why?
Because I believe that these four absolutes are
nothing more than repentance, codifying.
That's all.
But when I tell you that moral rearmament
has released into our society energy and power
to change conditions, it is the greatest indictment
of the Church that it's possible to make.
Because the Church has this.
Press the Bible and press Christ.
And it's still failed to release energy into
society.
What does it mean?
It means that our Church members have never
repented.
They've picked up a box full of doctrines.
They've picked up a bag full of theological
ideas.
But they have never, for the most part,
committed themselves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ
in repentance.
That's what it means.
They're making Him an end, a means instead
of an end.
They're trying to use Him to protect them
in their selfishness rather than to save them
from it.
And I tell you today that America is
ripe for judgment.
I love this land.
But as I kneel before God, I cannot
bring it into my heart to say, Oh
God, protect America from her enemies.
Because if I have any insight into right
and wrong, America is absolutely ripe for judgment.
No nation in history has had the benefit
and the privilege and the truth and the
light that ours has had.
And no nation in history has so systematically
and commercially gone about to corrupt the rest
of the world.
If any of you have ever traveled, you
know how disgraced you are when you go
into a bookstore and find filth and pornography
the rest of the world has refused, being
purveyed in gaudy covers as against the dignified,
intelligent literature of the Communists.
And the filth that stinks to hide in
it are national export corruption.
And the world says if that's what decadent
America is, we're not going to go to
the West.
We'll go to the East.
Oh, dear heart, today, if the members that
name the name of Jesus Christ, that have
professed faith in Him and know the plan
of salvation had ever come to the place
that they had been delivered from their past
sins and had a new law written upon
their hearts, the law to seek the glory
of God and the good of others, just
this, to which they had bought the commitment
of their human personality and energy, we would
not stand back in amazement at the accomplishments
of moral rearmament.
The Church of Jesus Christ would have by
sheer weight of just natural force have had
far more influence than it's had.
And it has to begin here.
I believe we have a need for a
clarion call to our people to repent from
selfishness and to repent from all of that
which is represented by these four absolutes and
commit ourselves to love and unselfishness and truth
and purity.
For this is the description and the codification
of repentance.
And this is what he said and this
is what he was going to do.
He was going to write his law upon
their hearts.
Has this happened to you?
Have you come to the place where the
whole purpose of your being is to glorify
God?
You say, well, that sanctification is a no
-no.
No, that's just repentance.
That's just repentance.
To please God is just repentance because the
opposite to pleasing God is nothing but sin.
Sin and a commitment to sin.
And to repent is to change from pleasing
yourself to pleasing God in purpose.
Now you need the sanctifying grace of God
and power of the Holy Spirit and cleansing
of the blood to implement that purpose.
But I'm talking about the purpose now.
Has the law been written on your heart?
Have you come to that place?
Have you come to that level of repentance
where you've repented?
Where you've actually come to the place where
you've committed all of the fiber and resource
of your being to the end of the
glory of God and the good of others?
That's repentance.
That's the law written upon the heart.
Now will you turn to Ezekiel 36 so
that we'll see what God had?
Lest we should, before any moment, think that
this is the whole of it.
Let us see here in the 25th verse
of Ezekiel 36 the implications.
As we cry out for our land and
as we pray and we must pray, let
us pray, O God, make America blessable.
Make America blessable.
Do you know how it's going to become
blessable?
Through you.
This is a personal matter, an individual matter.
This is what God said in Israel.
He said, I look for a man who
would stand in the gap and fill up
the hedge.
And the whole responsibility is yours.
It isn't they in Washington or they in
New York or they somewhere else.
This is me.
It's got to be a personal matter.
And so we see it's personal here.
Verse 25, Then will I sprinkle clean water
upon you and ye shall be clean from
all your filthiness and from all your idols
will I cleanse you.
A new heart also will I give you
and a new spirit will I put within
you and I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh and will give
you a heart of flesh.
And now notice in verse 27, And I
will put my spirit within you and cause
cause cause cause cause you to walk in
my statutes.
I will cause you to do it.
I didn't say I will command you.
He says I will cause you.
I will cause you.
And ye shall keep my judgments and do
them.
And ye shall dwell in the land that
I gave to your fathers.
And ye shall be my people.
And I will be your God.
And I will save you from your uncleannesses.
And I will call for the corn that
will increase it and lay no famine upon
you.
Do you see what he has said?
I'm going to do a new thing.
I'm going to go to the heathens.
I'm going to go to these that have
had no part in the promises.
These that you call dragons and owls.
These that are the beasts of the field.
And I'm going to bring a river of
living water.
Who will drink of that and the first
thing that's going to happen is they're going
to have a new heart.
And the law is going to be written
upon their heart.
And I'm going to take away the heart
of stone of rebellion.
I'm going to give them a heart of
flesh, pliable, moldable, directable.
And I'm going to cause, I'm going to
bring you to a place where the purpose
of your heart and life is absolutely contrary
to what it was before.
Previously you lived for self-interest and self
-gain and self-honor and self-pleasing.
But now because of what I've done, because
you've drunk of that water, you've drunk of
that well, that river of living water has
come to you, you're going to be inwardly
an entirely new person.
New aims, new goals, new objectives, new directives,
new power, new government, new rule.
Do you see?
And then he said, in addition to making
you want to do what's right, and then
leaving you utterly frustrated because you can't.
Oh, I'm going to do something wonderful.
I'm going to write my law on your
heart, repentance.
I'm going to take away the heart of
stone, your identification with Christ, the sanctifying power
of his grace.
You're not going to have to carry that
weight any longer because I'm going to make
it possible for you to have deliverance.
I'm going to bring you to that place
where you will be free from that weight
any longer.
It's not going to tyrannize you and terrorize
you and control you.
And in addition to that, I'm going to
put my spirit within you and cause...
There's the Christian life, my dear.
There it is.
I'll sprinkle clean water upon you and you
shall be cleaned from all your filthiness, from
all your idols.
I'll cleanse you.
Isn't that marvelous?
The past under the blood.
The past cleansed.
The guilt of the past removed.
Justified.
Forgiven.
Pardoned.
We don't have to carry that weight any
longer.
Don't have to drag that thing with us
any further because He's going to sprinkle clean
water upon us.
He's going to cleanse us from all filthiness
of the flesh and of the spirit.
Do I speak to someone tonight that came
into this house eaten up by the cancer
of memory of your sins, the guilt of
the past, the crimes you've committed against God
and yourself and others.
And it's like a weight, you know, in
China years ago when a man killed another.
The sentence was that the murderer had to
have the corpse of the man he'd killed
tied on his back until the murderer went
down in death with the one he'd killed.
And, you know, many a person has carried
the corpse of his sins on his back
and on his heart.
He thought sin would be so pleasant.
It seemed to be such a delightful thing
and smart thing and clever thing at the
time.
And now when he wakes up in the
morning it's there and when he goes to
bed at night it's there.
Oh, what will I do?
You remember that Shakespeare said of one that
they looked into their hands and saw blood
spots that no soap could remove, no apothecary's
ointment could take away.
And in desperation the cry was out, out,
out.
There was no way to take it out.
And so there's many a person that has
the past just weighing upon them.
Do I speak to someone like that tonight?
Oh, there's a fountain of cleansing, there's a
fountain of living water, there's a fountain of
grace.
Can't you see God's new thing began with
the cleansing of the conscience and the cleansing
of the mind and the cleansing of the
spirit and the washing away in the flood
of the crimson tide of Calvary all the
guilt of the past.
Can't you see and that's for you.
Do I speak to someone that's come in
with a load of guilt that I have
good news for you?
The Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross
of Calvary and there he was smitten and
out of his side flowed water and blood
and it became a fountain of cleansing.
He died for you.
He died in your place and in your
stead.
He said, I will sprinkle clean water upon
you and you shall be clean.
But not only that, he's not only going
to cleanse you from the guilt of the
past, but he asks you to come as
the condition for that cleansing, completely purposing from
this moment on to please him, to glorify
him.
He didn't say you had to do that
before you could be cleansed.
He said you had to purpose to do
it.
You had to want to do it.
You had to intend to do it.
It had to be the goal and aim
of your life and God knows whether this
is real or not.
This is what repentance is.
It's why he says repent and believe.
Change your mind about who's boss.
Jesus Christ is going to be boss from
now on.
Change your mind about for whom you're living.
Not yourself, but for him, for his glory
and the good of others.
But I speak to you tonight, dear heart,
under a weight of guilt.
You come.
I speak to you, church member, that have
lived for years under the cover of theology,
but you've never had your heart exposed.
But tonight or in days past, you've discovered
that you have an impenitent heart.
Won't you come tonight to him?
I speak to you, dear Christian.
You say, oh yes, my purpose is to
please him.
My purpose is to glorify him.
The law has been written upon my heart,
but oh, I carry the body of this
death.
My traits, my tendencies, my natural disposition, and
my appetites, these things haunt me.
Oh, is there not victory?
Yes, there is victory.
There is victory.
For he says, I will take away the
stony heart.
He took it with him to the cross.
That's why he's taken it away.
He went there as you.
He went in your place and in your
stead.
And if you will realize that he died
for you and he died as you, that
he could deliver you from the domination and
the control and the bondage to your tendencies
and your traits and your disposition and your
nature, and if you will deal with trait
and tendency and disposition and nature as the
evil thing it is, and come confessing that
you need deliverance not only from what you've
done but from what you are, then he
will take away that heart of stone.
He will take, he took you with him
to the cross.
And if you will see yourself crucified with
him, then God will release the moral victory
of Calvary into your life and deliver you
from the tyranny of yourself.
That isn't all.
There's one thing, as we've said, not to
do what you shouldn't.
But oh, how can I be caused to
walk in his statue?
Isn't there some way that this purpose of
my heart can be implemented?
Isn't there some way that power can be
released in my life?
I know that I ought to give light.
I know I ought to illuminate the darkness.
But where is that power?
I know I ought to witness.
I know I ought to speak.
But where is that release, that freedom, that
power?
And he said, I will put my spirit
within you and cause you to walk in
my statues.
So tonight the invitation to you is to
come to him and allow him to deliver
and to deal with whatever need you have.
To put his spirit within you, quick in
empowering, covering, baptizing, immersing, submerging, equipping, undoing,
anointing, until it's no longer you but it's
Christ living in you.
This is his new thing.
Don't you see?
A river of living water that would take
away filthiness and put a new law in
our hearts, take away a heart of stone
and put his spirit within us.
And he wants you to come.
And he wants you to want all that
he's provided, all that he's intended.
And I said you'd hear about the new
covenant again in 1 Corinthians chapter 11.
Paul is writing of what he'd received, and
he's telling there as it relates to the
Lord's Supper something of what took place.
And he said in verse 25, after the
same manner also he took the cup when
he had stopped saying, This cup is the
new covenant in mine.
And everything that he purposed to do in
that new covenant he sealed and he accomplished
and he delivered by his blood.
And the blood of Jesus Christ testifies that
his new covenant is now in operation.
Cleansing, a new heart, the law, his law
written in upon the heart, the heart of
stone removed, and his spirit put within it.
And everything he purposed to do in his
new thing, in his new covenant, he's accomplished
and sealed by his shed blood.
And the blood of Jesus Christ tonight is
the testimony of the full provision of the
new covenant.
For this is the new covenant in my
blood.
And if you trusted the blood of Christ
for deliverance from past sins, you can trust
the blood of Christ for deliverance from the
tyranny of self, and for his sanctifying, heart
-cleansing, purifying grace, you can trust the blood
of Christ for the empowering, baptizing presence of
the Holy Spirit.
For it's all accomplished by his blood.
This is the blood of the new covenant.
And it's all in the new covenant.
Now why should it be?
What is the reason?
Do you remember what we read in Peter
and we see it again?
For there in that second chapter of Peter
he said, You are a chosen generation.
You are a royal priesthood.
You are a holy nation.
You are a purchased people that you should
show forth the praises of him who has
called you out of darkness into his marvelous
light.
And this is why you need the new
covenant.
This is why you need cleansing from past
sins.
This is why you need deliverance from the
tyranny of the flesh and your nature.
This is why you need the fullness of
his spirit in order that you can show
forth the praises of him who has called
you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Have you added into the full heritage of
the new covenant?
You can.
For this is his purpose for you.
He will have a people which will show
forth his praises.
But what if you don't?
What if you refuse?
The word that he said then is the
same today.
If God can't succeed in getting you to
be what he intends and wants you to
be, all he'll do is bypass you and
turn to others.
But he said, I will.
I will.
I will do a new thing.
Now you choose whether you're part of it
or not.
But he will do it.