Take up your Bible and turn with me
to the second chapter of Paul's epistle to
Philippians, Philippians chapter two.
We're reading from verse five of this chapter.
Let this mind be in you, which was
also in Christ Jesus, who being in the
form of God, thought it not robbery to
be equal with God, but made himself of
no reputation.
And took upon him the form of a
servant, and was made in the likeness of
man.
And being found in fashion as a man,
he humbled himself and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross.
For for God also hath highly exalted him,
and given him a name that is above
every name, that in the name of Jesus
every knee should bow, of things in heaven,
and things in earth, and things under the
earth.
And that every tongue should confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father.
For for my brethren, as ye have always
obeyed, not as in my presence only, but
now much more in my absence, work out
your own salvation with fear and trembling.
For it is God which worketh in you,
both to will and to do, of his
good pleasure.
And then turn over with me to the
second chapter of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter two, reading
from verse five, For unto the angels have
they not put in subjection the world to
come, whereof we speak.
But one in a certain place testified, saying,
What is, ma'am, that thou wert mindful
of him, or the Son of man, that
thou visitest him?
Thou majest him a little lower than the
angels.
Thou crownest him with glory and honor, and
didst set him over the works of thy
hands.
Thou hast put all things in subjection under
his feet, for in that he put all
in subjection under him.
He left nothing that is not put under
him.
But now we see not yet all things
put under him.
But we see Jesus, who was made a
little lower than the angels for the suffering
of death, crowned with glory and honor, that
he by the grace of God should taste
death for every man.
For it became him for whom are all
things, and by whom are all things, in
bringing many sons unto glory, to make the
captain of their salvation perfect through suffering.
God will stamp with his own divine seal
of approval these readings from his very own
infallible book.
My theme is the God-exalted Christ.
In the Godhead, Christ is the second person.
He is the everlasting Son of the first
person.
The everlasting Father.
And together with the third person, the Holy
Spirit, indivisibly the one God.
Yet in the Godhead, the Son was always
characterized by loftiness and by loveliness.
Now as God, he could not be crowned,
for no one can crown God.
God is absolutely as high, as high as
he can be.
There is no advance that God can make.
He has done all the advancing.
There is no peak that he must climb.
There is no place where he must go.
He stands supreme.
God cannot be crowned, for none could make
a crown worthy to be put on the
head of God.
God from all eternity has been exalted far
above all.
God is already crowned.
There has never been a time or a
place or event when God was uncrowned.
And there will never be a time, and
there will never be a place, and there
will never be an event when God is
uncrowned.
Our Lord's loftiness before his coming into this
world was the loftiness of God, a co
-equal person in the adorable Trinity.
Christ was no less God than the Father.
He was no less God than the Holy
Spirit.
He was co-equal.
He was co-eternal in the Godhead.
But there is a loftiness different from the
loftiness of his place in the Trinity.
Christ has a peculiar and special loftiness, a
loftiness that has to do with his mediatorship,
and it is upon that I want to
speak to you at this time.
Christ also had a loveliness from all eternity
before his coming into this world, the loveliness
of the beauty of the holiness of God.
There is nothing so lovely than the beauty
of the Godhead, O the beauty of eternity,
O the beauty and the loveliness of the
triune Jehovah Father, O the loveliness of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in
the beauty of the eternal.
Immutable holiness is sovereign and supreme
loveliness.
But on his entry into his covenant obligation,
our Lord Jesus Christ had a loveliness peculiar
only to himself.
It stands alone.
That loftiness and that loveliness of Christ in
my text is not that which is eternally
Christ as God, but it is the loftiness
and loveliness of his covenant obligation in the
tithes of his covenant.
I cannot see God, but thank God I
can see my mediator, and Christ is the
mediator of his people, the one mediator between
a thrice holy God and sinful man.
And this loftiness and loveliness came about through
the God-man passing down into loneliness and
loneliness.
Where did Christ get his loveliness from?
Where did Christ get his loftiness from?
He got it through loneliness and loneliness.
It was the loftiness that he obtained.
It was the lovingness that he molded, and
that came to him by indefinable loneliness, loneliness
and inexpressible loneliness.
This is a tremendous subject.
I am completely inadequate in attempting to speak
upon it.
It is a sublime thing, but with God's
help this night, I want to deliver my
soul to you on this subject.
We can never view with the eye of
blessed contemplation the heights of Christ's loftiness until
we have peered into the depths of his
loneliness.
I must look down into the depths before
I can contemplate the heights.
We can never be transported with the miraculous
loveliness of Christ until we are transfixed in
our spirit with this overwhelming mystery of his
loneliness.
I was pondering the yidith of sin, and
I was struck with this Spirit's words, Turn
us, O God, of our salvation, and cause
thine anger towards us to cease.
Turn us again, O God, and cause thy
face to shine, and we shall be saved.
Turn us again, O God of hosts, and
cause thy face to shine, and we shall
be saved.
O turn us again, O Lord God of
hosts, and cause thy face to shine, and
we shall be saved.
May the light of the Savior tonight, and
the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ, lighten us and enlighten us tonight
as we gaze upon he whom our soul
loveth.
I would say, and I trust you'll say
a prayer with me, O Holy Spirit, reveal
to us all the loneliness, the loneliness.
Reveal to us all the loftiness and loveliness
of Christ, and reveal it to us in
our hearts by the unfeeling Spirit of God.
I want to sketch on the canvas of
this sermon tonight, first of all, the loneliness
of Christ.
We learn of his loneliness by considering the
heights from which he descended, heights which angels'
feet have never trod and couldn't tread.
The only print, the only footprint on the
heights that Jesus has walked are the footprints
of God.
These places are no-go roads as far
as angels are concerned, and no-go roads
as far as men are concerned.
Heights of inexplicable love, the love that Jesus
had for me is more than a tongue
can tell.
There is no vocabulary able to give me
words to express it.
Heights of inconceivable power, the power that makes
a slave of hell into a son of
God, who can talk about that or exclaim
it?
Heights of unexplored majesty, heights where the mystery
of God remains untouched by mortals, heights of
the fullness of the El Shaddai, the God
who is already at the climax, the God
who is enough, heights which rest upon the
eternal foundation of omnipotence, heights which are the
environment of omnipresence, heights that are the sole
domain of omniscience.
From the divine heights of the mount of
God, Christ descended, and he descended for me,
and he descended for you.
Oh, the love that drew salvation's cloud.
Oh, the grace that brought it down to
man.
Oh, the mighty gulf that God himself did
span at Calvary.
Mercy there was great, and grace was free.
Pardon there was multiplied to me.
There my burdened soul found liberty.
Where?
At the place where Christ revealed his love
to my soul.
He descended from the bosom of God.
He descended from the throne of God.
He descended from the mount of God.
He descended from the palace of God.
He descended from the house of God.
He descended from the home of God.
He descended from the sanctuary of God.
No wonder Charles Wesley could take his pen
and say he left his father's throne above,
so free, so infinite, his love.
The seven descending steps which he took, each
one of them was a quantum leap, and
they're all set before us in that great
scripture.
Her being in the form of God thought
it not robbery to be equal with God.
But he did something.
One, he made himself of no reputation, willingly
and voluntarily.
Two, he took upon him the form of
a servant, the suffering servant of Job.
Three, he was made in the likeness of
man.
Yes, thank God, without sin, without sin.
He was found in fashion as a man.
If he had never been fashioned as the
son of man, you would never have been
fashioned as a son of God.
He humbled himself to the Lord's death.
He became obedient unto death.
He must die if I would ever live.
Even the death of the cross, the shameful
death of the cross, the slow death of
the cross, the suffering death of the cross,
the sacrificial death of the cross.
Rome talks about the way of agony, but
Rome knows nothing about that way that my
Savior walked.
But I have been on that way of
agony, and I have seen my Savior walk
there, and I met him in his loneliness.
But in that loneliness, he was Christ.
I was thinking of three men, Peter, James,
and John.
They walked with Christ.
They talked to Christ.
They lived with the Savior.
But one day, the seals were taken off
their eyes, and they saw him as they
never saw him before at a point called
the Mount of Transfiguration.
Oh, my Christian brother and sister, God wants
us to get the seals taken off our
eyes and to have a face-to-face
look at the blessed Son of God.
Let me come secondly to the loneliness of
Christ.
The brand mark of loneliness is the brand
mark of the Son of God.
Loneliness was Christ's environment.
He made this great gate, and he himself
drawed the narrow way.
And he calls his people to walk in
the way of his making.
He made this great gate and entered it
himself.
He constructed the narrow path, and he trod
it.
From his rejection at his birth, his whole
life was marked with rejection.
He came unto his own, and his own
received him not.
Rejected.
There was no room for him in the
end.
He was rejected.
He was the forsaken Christ.
And in Gethsemane, all his disciples ran away.
And what did he do when he hanged
the cross?
He gave his mother to a new son,
John the Apostle.
And upon the cross, he went out into
the darkness.
And in that darkness, he cried a prayer
that no man will ever measure the depth.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me?
He is despised and rejected of man.
He's a man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief.
Many, many years ago, when I was only
a little boy of ten, my revered father,
who's now in the glory land, and to
which I owe so much, gave me a
little pamphlet.
I keep it.
I treasure it.
And this is what this little pamphlet says.
It is human to stand with the crowd.
It is divine to stand alone.
It is manlike to follow the people, to
drift with the tide.
It is Godlike to follow a principle and
to stamp that tide.
It is natural to compromise conscience and follow
the social and religious fashion for the sake
of gain or pleasure.
It is divine to sacrifice both on the
altar of truth and judaism.
No man stood with me, but all men
forsake me, wrote the battle-scarred Apostle in
describing his first appearance before Nero to answer
for his life for believing and teaching contrary
to the Roman world.
Truth has been out of fashion since man
changed his robe of fadeless light for a
garment of faded leaves.
Noah built and voyaged alone.
His neighbors laughed at his strangeness, but they
perished in style.
Abraham wandered and worshiped alone.
Sodomites smiled at the simple shepherd.
They followed the fashion and were fed on
the flame.
Daniel died and prayed alone.
Elijah sacrificed and witnessed alone.
Jeremiah prophesied and wept alone.
But my Savior lived and died alone.
Of the lonely way his disciples should walk,
he said, straight is the gate.
And Nero is the way which leadeth unto
life, and few there be that find it.
Of their treatment by the many who walk
from the broad way, the Lord Jesus Christ
instructed them.
And he said, If ye were of the
world, the world would love its own.
But because ye are not of the world,
the world hateth you.
The church in the wilderness praised Abraham, but
then persecuted Moses.
The church of the kings praised Moses, but
then persecuted the prophets.
The church of Caiaphas praised the prophets and
persecuted Jesus.
The church of the popes praised the Savior,
but persecuted the saints.
Multitudes now, both in the church and in
the world, applaud the courage and the fortitude
of the patriarchs and the prophets and the
apostles and the martyrs, but condemn, condemn a
stubbornness or foolishness like faithlessness.
But we know this of the truth today.
Wanted today men and women, young and old,
who will obey their convictions of truth.
And today, at the cause of orphans and
friends and life, how lonely was Christ in
the sweat of blood and darkness and through
that loneliness.
I must go.
How lonely was Christ in the scourging of
blood in the devil ray of Cabbatha.
I must go, not only to Gethsemane, but
I must go to Cabbatha as well.
How lonely was Christ in the death of
blood of Golgotha.
Where is Christ today?
He is still the forsaken and lonely Christ.
As far as the world ecclesiastically, politically, and
socially is concerned, Christ is the lonely Christ
in prayer, in watchfulness, in compassion, in love,
in tenderness, in grace.
He suffered, he bled, he died alone.
Where is he?
He is not with those who reject his
person, who tremble with his gospel, who defy
his cross, who make little of his salvation
and his redemption.
He suffered without the camp.
And the call of my Savior today to
us all and to this church, this free
Presbyterian end time witness is this, let us,
therefore, go unto him without the camp, bearing
his reproach.
Outside the camp, unto thy great name, draw
me, O Lamb of God, far from the
world, with its sin and its shame, hallowed
is every soul.
Outside the camp, it is a lonely place.
Outside the city wall, there on my breast,
let my soul ever rest, outside the camp
with thee.
O, if God would open our eyes tonight,
we would see that the blood-sweat of
Gethsemane were the rubies of his cross.
We would see that the streams of blood
started by the piercing of the thorns, what
were they?
If I only had eyes to behold, I
would know and recognize the indescribable jewelry of
his cross.
Have you noticed the passage that I read
to you in Hebrew?
It's a passage we need to think more
about.
And what does it say?
It says, Thou madest him a little lower
than the angels.
Thou crownedst him with glory and honor, and
didst set him over the works of thy
hands.
And then it says, But we see Jesus,
who was made a little lower than the
angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with
glory and honor.
In the midst of the dishonors that were
poured on Christ, the jewels of his crown
shone forth in tremendous glory at the cross.
Brother Ford said, The bright eye is not
her garment, but her dear bridegroom's face.
I will not gaze on glory, but on
the King of Greece.
Not at the crown he giveth, but on
the pierced hand.
The Lamb is all the glory in Emmanuel's
land.
God has highly exalted him.
God has given him a name that is
above every name, that at the name of
Jesus every knee should bow.
And thank God, every knee will bow.
As for Christ's human body, as far as
it is concerned, God raised it from the
tomb.
That same body that was bloodstained with the
blood he shed, that body lay in the
tomb for three days and three nights.
But it was suddenly exalted from the grip
of death.
It never saw corruption.
Up from the grave he arose.
Hallelujah!
Christ arose.
The jewels that were there, concealed from man's
view, burst forth into dazzling splendor.
God exalted Christ's human soul and spirit from
the place of death and brought them back
into his body.
There in that body, God the Son, having
taken into union with his deity, his risen
humanity, cries out, I am he that liveth
and was dead.
Behold, I am alive forevermore.
Amen!
And have the keys of hell and of
death.
God highly exalted the one Christ, the God
-man, to his right hand.
God has highly exalted Christ by sending forth
upon his people the Holy Spirit.
The coronation of Christ won for me the
crowning of the Spirit and I become a
partaker of the Holy Ghost.
God has highly exalted Christ by giving him
all power in heaven and in earth.
God has highly exalted him to the highest
place in the heavens of heaven.
Paul in Hebrews chapter 11 tells us some
things.
I used to have a bother with this
portion of Scripture, to know where the divisions
began and where they ended.
And I read an old Puritan one day.
These old Puritans knew their book and they
said, when you're reading that verse, put a
mark under every and in it and you'll
find it's pure meaning.
You'll find the right breakup of the text.
And it says, and unto the city of
the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
That's where we've come.
And to an innumerable company of angels, to
the general assembly.
I am the church of the first God,
whose names are written in heaven.
I am to God the judge of all.
I am to the spirits of just men
made perfect.
I am to Jesus a mediator of a
new covenant.
But at the climax, at the end, at
the seventh, perfection to the blood, the blood
of spirit.
Notice the twofold description in each case.
But they climax in the sprinkled speaking blood
of the Lamb.
The precious lifeblood of the God-man on
earth is the apex in Emmanuel's land.
The blood is the life.
The life of the God-man's flesh is
in the blood, exalted forever to the summit
of the heaven of heavens.
God has highly exalted him and given him
a name that is among every name.
And his blood shall never lose its power.
And when God winds up this earth of
ours, the Savior will appear with a vesture
dipped in blood.
And we will heal him as the one
who has saved his people from their sin.
O my friends, let us look again at
his name, the name of Jesus.
I think the J in that name stands
for the just one.
He was holy.
He was harmless.
He was undefiled.
He was separate for sinners.
But thank God he's just and the justifier.
Get your eye on Christ tonight.
Don't get your eye on the church or
a sacrament or anything you can do.
Just get your eye on him.
He is the expiating one.
He expiated our guilt by dying for us
and shedding his life's blood.
He is the sinless one.
He's spotless.
He's stainless.
He was without sin but made sin.
He had no sins of his own, but
he took our sins and by his stripes
I am healed.
Hallelujah!
What a Savior and what a salvation.
He is Jesus the unique one.
There never was anyone like him before and
there'll never be anyone like him again.
He's the true lover of our souls.
Thank God he's Jesus the Savior.
He came into the world to save sinners.
He saves to the very uttermost all who
come unto him.
Dear unsaved soul in this meeting tonight, I
trust that God will bring you to an
experience of his divine saving grace in the
silence of your heart.
Just say, Jesus, I do now receive him.
More than all in him I find.
He has granted me forgiveness.
I am his and he is mine.
That at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow.
That things in heaven and things in earth
and things on the earth and that every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
To the glory of God the Father.
All of us one day will have to
bow to Christ.
Dear sinner, bow not and be saved.
To refuse to bow you will be lost
forever.
But on God's great judgment day you will
be forced to bow and confess him as
Lord.
How foolish of you to dare to delay
confessing Christ and postpone the salvation of your
soul and maybe lose your own soul.
Let me come lastly to his loveliness.
It is his loneliness and his lowliness which
led him to his loveliness as far as
redeemed sinners view him.
In his loneliness we see the beautiful love
of the Savior and patient endurance in order
to accomplish the salvation of poor lonely sinners
astray from God the playthings of hell and
the devil.
In his loneliness we see the beauty of
the extent to which he descended into hell
in order that we might ascend up to
heaven.
Here is a beauty that knows no parallel
and a loveliness which knows no challenge.
Prose is so inadequate to express it or
describe it.
Poetry is insufficient to define this weakness and
the emotion of the pent up feeling of
an inward soul.
Only our broken heart sobs can convey an
amazing demonstration.
Only penitential tears can cleanse our eyes to
survey this indefinable mystery.
A little child can go down to the
sea, it can put its tiny hand into
the sea and it can carry up just
a little bit of water.
The sea is too big, too great and
the child's hand is too small, too small.
I feel like that when I come to
bow before my Savior.
My hand is too small, the ocean of
his love is too great and I come
away with just a little.
Oh, to know what it is not ever
to turn away from the lovely Christ and
never cease from contemplating him.
I know the lover of my soul, but
I don't know him the way I should.
The saintly Rutherford said, he is so new
every morning, so fresh every day.
In excellency, every day he's so new to
those who search more and more in him.
As if heaven could furnish as many new
Christs, if I might speak so, as there
are many days between him and us and
yet he is one and the same.
I cry with pause, said Rutherford, that I
might know him, that I might know him,
that I might know him in his loveliness,
for he is still to me very much
the unknown lover.
Happy are they who are found watching, said
Rutherford.
Our sand class is not so long as
we need to be weary.
Time will eat away and root out our
woes and our sorrow.
Our heaven is in the bud and growing
up to harvest, why then should we not
follow on?
Seeing our span length of time will soon
diminish and one day we will meet him
face to face and there'll be nothing between
ourselves and our blessed Lord.
Oh, to have nothing between while I walk
earth's journey.
No passenger ever falls overboard from the gospel
ship.
The storm may toss it, the passenger may
get seasick, but thank God, God will bring
him safely to land.
And every one of us who are blood
-marked, we will have a safe landing on
the other shore.
I am in a sweet communion with Christ,
said Rutherford, as a poor sinner can be.
I'm only pained that he has much beauty
and fairness and I have so little love
for him.
He has great power and mercy and I
have little faith.
He has much light and I have bleared
eyes.
By the glory of his blessed countenance, by
the touch of his tender hand, by the
tenderness of his eye, which is the mirror
of his heart, I beseech you, make your
eternal Christ with God, your Savior now.
Turn from the emptiness of the world.
Turn to Christ in all his fullness.
Seek him who is the way, the truth
and the light.
Never give your mind rest, nor your heart
peace, nor your conscience sleep until you are
sure you can say, I am his and
he is mine.
Never rest until you can sing.
Ten thousand charms around me shine, but best
of all, I know he's mine.
I have come to this house this evening
to plead for my master.
I have come to be an ambassador of
God's dear Son.
Sinner, you're on the wrong road.
You're hastening to the wrong place.
I would like to come and put my
hand upon your shoulder.
I would like to arrest you in the
Savior's name.
I would like to be Christ's ambassador.
I would like to pray you in Christ's
name.
Be ye reconciled to God.
If you do not heed me, and do
not respond to my summons, then I must
exhort you and I must ask you the
question, pointing to the wounds of Jesus, why
do you refuse such a master, such a
Savior, such a lover, such a bridegroom?
And if those exhortations fail, I must entreat
you and tell you, he, that being often
reproved and hardened of his neck shall suddenly
be destroyed, and that without remedy.
Dear sinner, be in time.
Be in time while the voice of Jesus
calls you.
Be in time.
If in sin you longer wait, you'll find
overgift and your cry will be too late.
Be in time.
I would endure you, dear sinner, by the
thorns which pierced my Savior's brow, by the
whip that plowed his back, by the nails
that pierced his hand and his feet, by
that spear that stabbed his side.
Do not in God's name neglect so great
salvation.
Oh, why will you die?
That's the question God is asking you.
Why will you die?
Life is too short to gamble about the
eternal whereabouts of your soul.
And if my exhortation fails, then let me
go and as I kneel down and have
my night devotions with my God.
I pray that God will give me tears
to weep over the yearning one, to lift
up the thorn, to tell them of Jesus,
the mighty to see Him.
I trust that tonight, sinner, you will bow
your head on this solemn occasion, and you
will say then, O my Lord, prepare my
soul for that great day.
Oh, wash me in the precious blood and
take my sins away.
Let's bow our heads.
O God, our Father, we thank Thee for
Thy presence and the wonder of the cross
and the wonder of Your Son and the
wonder of our grand redemption.
And I pray for the dear unsaved ones
here.
O God, send upon them the Holy Spirit.
Enlighten their eyes of the knowledge of the
truth and grant that they may be found
at the cross tonight and whosoever shall call
on the name of the Lord be saved.
Help them, O God, this night to come
to Christ.
As our heads are bowed and our eyes
are closed, we're going to sing one verse
of that well-known hymn.
I hear Thy welcome voice that calls me,
Lord, to Thee for cleansing in the precious
blood that flowed on Calvary.
I am coming, Lord.
Coming now to Thee, wash me, cleanse me
of the blood that flowed on Calvary.
Make it the prayer of Your heart, sinner.
Close with Christ.
He's here tonight.
His hands are outstretched.
His blood is ready to cleanse you.
Make it tonight and make it for eternity.
Your servant for Jesus' sake if we cannot
be of any help come and speak with
us after this service.
But remember you don't need a preacher or
a pastor.
What you need is Christ.
And He's right beside you tonight.
He awaits your cry.
Cry.
Cry upon Him.
And He will not cast you out.
Father seal Thy word mightily to every heart.
And as we separate from this congress, Lord
go with us.
We're all going back into the battle.
We're all going back into the fight.
We're all going back into the night.
O Lord, enlighten our darkness and grant that
we'll fight the good fight of faith and
lay hold of eternal life.
Amen and Amen.