Chapter 2, verse 12.
Chapter, with just two verses from the preceding
chapter, verses 12 and 13.
And after the 13th verse of the second
chapter, then comes with me to the first
verse of the third chapter.
Now, Martians 2, verse 12.
Buried with him in baptism, that is with
Christ in baptism, wherein also ye are risen
with him through the faith of the operation
of God, who hath raised him from the
dead.
And you, being dead in your sins in
uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together
with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek
those things which are above, where Christ sittheth
on the right hand of God.
Set your affection, or mind, on things above,
not on things on the earth.
For ye are dead, and your life is
hid with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is our life, shall appear,
or shall be manifested, then shall ye also
be manifested with him in glory.
Mortify, that means put to death, put to
death sentence on these things.
Mortify therefore your members which are upon the
earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence,
which may well mean sexual sin, and covetousness,
which is my God afraid.
For which things take the wrath of God
cometh on the children of disobedience, in the
which ye also walked sometime when ye lived
in them, but now ye also put off
all these.
Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of
your mouth, lying on one to another, seeing
that ye put off the old man with
his deeds, and have put on the new
man which is renewed in knowledge after the
image of him that created him.
Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised
nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but
Christ is all, and in all.
Put on therefore, as the elect of God,
holy and beloved, vows or hearts of mercies,
kindness, that's a nice word, I like that,
kindness, humbleness of mind, most essential, meekness, very
rare, long-suffering, rarer still, forbearing one another,
and forgiving one another.
If any man have a quarrel against any,
even as Christ forgave you, so also do
ye, and above or over all these things,
put on love, charity or love, which is
the bond of perfectness or the perfect bond
of union.
And let the peace of God rule or
umpire in your hearts, to the which also
ye are called in one body, and be
ye thankful, or be ever more thankful, is
a beautiful rendering there.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you
richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one
another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing with grace in your hearts to the
Lord, and whatsoever ye do in word or
deed, do all in the name of the
Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the
Father by him.
May God bless to us those wonderful words
of life from his precious book.
Will you turn to a sweet hymn, a
beautiful hymn, 189.
Father we thank thee that thou hast given
the word, the Lord gave the word, great
the company of those that published it, and
as we speak to publish thy word this
morning, with a special emphasis to thine own
people, will thou be pleased to accompany the
word with the life-giving elements of thy
spirit, that the word may be preached with
the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and
grant to thy servants who are worshipping the
open ear, the open heart, the receptive spirit,
and may they receive with meekness the engrossed
word which is able to save their souls.
Hide the messenger, O Lord, so insufficient and
so conscious of its own defects, but grant
that the message, perfect and pure from thine
own heart, may reach through with mighty impact
to every listening soul this morning.
We ask it through our risen and exalted
Redeemer, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
I am hopeful if the Lord tarry and
spares to finish my ministry tomorrow afternoon on
a burst of victory, and I would urge
you if you can possibly wait to wait
for that message, because not often preached on
the theme which I have, we are in
a great conflict, a deadly, darkening conflict with
the powers of darkness.
And you would be wise if you possibly
can, of course, to wait to hear what
victory is and how victory can be obtained
in our Lord's own way.
Now keep that in mind, breathe, and pray
about it.
Would you open your Bibles to the third
chapter of Paul's epistle to the Colossians and
listen to me reading the first four verses
according to that new amplified translation, which may
make one or two things a little clearer.
I don't use new versions much, but only
just to clarify a point here and there.
You follow in the author's eyes for the
first four verses, will you?
And then I'll read from the amplified New
Testament.
If then you have been raised with Christ
to a new life, thus sharing his resurrection
from the dead, aim at and seek the
rich eternal treasures that are above, where Christ
is seated at the right hand of God.
And set your minds and keep them set
on what is above, the higher things, not
on the things that are on the earth.
For, as far as this world is concerned,
you have died, and your new real life
is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is our life, appears, then
you also will appear with him in the
splendor of his glory.
That's nice, isn't it?
It gives us some light, perhaps a little
more illumination on those first four verses.
You have noticed in the paper, I have
no doubt, that General Douglas MacArthur is in
a very low condition.
Lord, I know he may have passed the
border, but he is suffering severely at the
age of eighty-four.
And in one of our local papers down
south a few days ago, it mentioned that
Douglas MacArthur, one of the greatest soldiers and
generals in American history, had stated a time
ago he desired to live as long as
it was possible to attain to the ideals
he had.
He didn't tell us, or the paper didn't
tell us what his ideals were, but he
wanted to attain to his ideals.
And I want to speak to you this
morning on the ideals of the risen or
the resurrected life.
Here they are for you in the first
four verses of Colossians 3.
Just glance back to two verses that I
read in Colossians 2.
Remember where you came from.
In verse 13, being dead in your sins
and the uncircumcision of your heart, or happy
quitting.
That was your old death.
You were dead in trespasses and sins.
Your burial, you'll notice, buried in verse 12,
buried with him in baptism.
And then your resurrection, wherein also ye are
risen with him through the faith of the
operation of God to have raised him from
the dead and come down to the next
birth, quickened together with him, having forgiven you
all trespasses.
And then, very grandly, the great apostle presents
to you the ideals.
If ye then be risen with Christ, if
you claim to be a risen, resurrected soul,
born again and quickened of the spirits and
units of life, the ideals are very precious
to you.
And the verse is the ideal search.
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek
those things which are above, where Christ sitteth
on the right hand of God.
Or, as that Amplified Version gives it, aim
at and seek rich, eternal treasures that are
above, at the right hand of God.
Yes, that's the search.
And it is a search all the days
of your Christian life.
You're searching upward, searching upward.
Do they hold on to appropriate, to experience
the things which are above?
In all circumstances, all conditions, all conflicts of
life, the risen soul, the risen one, seeks
the things which are above, not the things
below.
When I was a boy at school, I
remember our teacher told us a little story
one day.
She didn't tell it as an illustration in
this way, but I've used it as such.
She said, you know children, there was once
a man in the city here, I think
it was Sydney, who in a dark night
struck a match and began to search along
a gutter and round the corner of the
gutter in the very fore part of the
city.
And almost immediately, a lounger on the opposite
corner slouched across and said, what are you
looking for, mate?
Oh, he said, a sovereign.
In those days, the pound note was not
about.
We had a gold ring, a sovereign.
His Majesty then, His Majesty's portrait on one
side.
Oh, he said, looking for a sovereign, I
have to say.
And he got to work on the other
end of the gutter.
And in a few moments, children, the teacher
said, there were about five lounging men, all
searching hard in the gutter and on the
pavement.
And they only searched for about three or
kept on lighting matches all the time.
Where did you drop it ever?
He said, I didn't drop it at all.
I'm only looking for a sovereign.
That's what a lot of people are doing,
you know.
They're searching down in the gutters of the
life, gutters of the world, the muck of
a poor foreign world.
They're searching for treasure, searching for satisfaction, searching
for the things that satisfy and delight and
make them happy.
That's what they're searching for, happiness really, joy.
And here the Apostle said, don't do it
below, seek the things above.
And how beautifully he illustrated that in his
wonderful ministry.
I've only time to quote a few of
the incidents.
You remember how poor sinful woman came to
a well near Saika in Samaria, and she
wanted the water below.
She was searching down into the well for
water.
And Jesus didn't give her that water from
below.
He lifted up her thoughts slowly but surely
until he said to her, whoso drinketh of
this water shall thirst again.
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I
shall give him shall never thirst.
You drink of those fountains above.
And she began that day to drink of
living water from the fountain of living water,
our Lord Jesus Christ himself.
And then you'll remember on another occasion, I'm
back in Luke's Gospel, the twelfth chapter, and
said to our Lord, Master, speak to my
brother that he divides the inheritance with me.
Jesus said, man, who made me a judge
over you?
Take heed, he said to the people, take
heed and beware of covetousness.
And then he lifted their thoughts up.
If you read that whole passage, he told
the story of a rich fool who got
everything and thought he had satisfaction for life
and died that night.
And then he went higher and he said,
see ye first the kingdom of God, since
the treasure above.
And then you'll remember in the same book
of Luke, the fourteenth chapter, that our Lord
was invited to a feast by a Pharisee
and he noticed that he had a great
number of his own class there, rich people,
and people that could repay him well.
And he said to this Pharisee, when you
make a feast again, don't ask the rich.
They'll repay you for it.
Ask the poor, the lame, the lame, the
blind.
They cannot repay thee.
But look up, look up, thou shalt be
recompensed at the resurrection of the just.
Think high, search high.
And then you'll know a little later, somewhat
considerably later, they said to him, Master, is
it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or
no?
Caesar said, probably a penny.
And they gave him a penny, a Roman
penny, and he said, whose image and superscription
is that?
Caesar's, they said.
Well, render to Caesar, he said, the things
that are Caesar's.
Look up, render to God the things that
are God's.
Seek the things that concern the currency of
heaven.
And then again, you might remember, that on
one occasion our Lord sent out seventy disciples
and gave them power over unclean spirits and
great instructions as how to work as evangelists.
And they came back rejoicing.
Oh, they said, Master, it's wonderful.
Even the unclean spirits, the demons, were subject
unto us through thy name.
That's a very real danger, you would-be
evangelists, and to an old evangelist too.
We do like to tell the story of
great victories.
It's not wrong if it's told in a
humble way.
It can be very dangerous if it's told
in a self-praising manner.
Because our Lord almost instantly, after passing on
a mark about the falling of Satan from
heaven, he said, notwithstanding that the spirits were
subject unto you, rather rejoice that your names
are written in heaven.
Think high.
It's a greater thing to have your name
on the road book of glory than it
is to have power over the demons of
hell.
If we could really enjoy salvation, if we
could really enjoy the fact that our names
were in heaven, we'd be happy even when
we don't see results.
And I'm preaching it myself pretty solidly there,
my dear friends, because I am expected whenever
I go by certain pastors and friends to
have a weeping.
And sometimes it hasn't come to the weeping
hour.
Then I've got to rejoice.
If they don't receive Christ, I have.
My name is written in heaven.
Ultimately, you must love Christ for his self
-love and not for his bliss.
That's the last thing, said Samuel Rutherford, of
a true believer's life.
Well, you say, Mr. Ridley, that's not an
easy search, you know.
No, it isn't, I agree with you, friends.
It's just an easy search to seek the
things which are above, but I'll give you
the secret now of the search.
If you are humble enough to take it,
I try to take it, imperfectly at times,
but I do try to take it.
At least I can speak honestly here.
Verse 2, will you?
In the authorized version, set your attention on
things above, not, not, not on things on
the earth.
I wish you'd take that to heart.
Listen, in the amplified, set your mind, and
keep them set on what is above, the
higher things.
Not on the things that are on the
earth.
Now, that's the great secret of the search.
What are the things above, you say?
Well, first and foremost, our resurrected Lord Jesus,
who once walked this world, and talked to
neighbours and nuns, and died and was buried,
and rose again.
The man Christ Jesus, love him, love him,
set your mind on him above every human
love in the world.
I don't mind whether you've just fallen in
love, you must love Christ more than that
dear girl or dear man, because he is
the one above the great lover.
And then I remind you that the house
of, all house of, all house not made
with hands, I pray for thee while dwelling
within these borderlands.
I don't know, beautiful soul, I'll keep saying,
oh don't you sing beautifully, won't you touch
me, and go out to seek the things
of God.
Did you ever think what a wonderful thing
that Jesus Christ hath prepared a place in
the many mansions for you?
Set your affections, set your mind on the
many mansions, and not so much on the
beautiful home, and carpets, and cars, and amenities
of a well-flavoured state, and country like
Australia.
Set your mind on.
And then again you'll bear with me that
the robe of righteousness in its visible form,
that is white linen.
See, white linen, that robe is divine.
Ah, there's a robe for me, a covering,
all perfectly white.
They shall walk with me in white amongst
the world.
May I ask you, and particularly emphasise to
the men as well as to the ladies,
you can waste a lot of time on
the fashion of this world, you can set
your mind so much on keeping touch with
the fashion of this world, Oh, may I
ask you to set your mind more upon
the clothes that you will wear than what
you wear now.
Set your mind on the beauty of holiness.
Do you know what they said of Jonathan
Edwards' daughter, whose name later became Esther Burr,
and she died early?
They said Esther, to Esther, the beauty of
holiness was the all of beauty.
How many of the sisters could say I
am an exceptional and pure
one.
When I stand before the throne, dressed in
beauty not my own, when I see thee
as thou art, love thee with unfailing heart,
then, Lord, shall I fully know, not till
then, how much I own.
Look up also, because there's something else above,
it glitters and flashes before the eyes of
some.
I discovered its beauty in the war of
World War I, and there is a crown
prepared for them that love him.
The Christians, they said, in the distance shine,
like a bright beacon glittering above him, and
whispers, and whispers mine.
Have you set your mind on winning the
crown?
Oh, isn't it wonderful?
Do you know Mr. So-and-so has
just received the MBA, and fell in love
with so-and-so, decorations in the green,
oh, dear friends, military crosses and Victoria Crosses,
when you think of a crown, CDs that
LCH has bought back, oh, so-and-so,
when you think of a crown, I will
give him the crown of life.
That's worth winning, isn't it?
Set your mind on the crown that's above.
Or have I agreed with you to set
your mind on these things, and not, not
on the kings of the earth?
I think there's one other here that you
could set your mind upon.
There's a kingdom.
It will have to come with the king.
Set your mind on the kingdom that is
above.
A dear friend wrote to me after our
wild days of World War I, he'd gone
through the YMCA, and was a leader in
the YMCA, and he wrote over the seas
from England to me, and he said, John,
I'm going back to the ministry, and I'm
going back to the work of the only
worthwhile kingdom.
He's entertained so much, he's done so much
in social work, he suddenly was jerked out
of the kingdom in its grand centre, spiritual
work.
How can I do it, priest, do you
say?
I don't know how to keep my mind
on all these things, but I'll give you
a little hint.
Look on the roadway, rough as it may
be after the rain, and think of a
narrow lane that leads to light.
Look on that rock at the side of
the road if you go down and think,
rock of age, a threat for me, let
me hide myself in thee.
Look at that grand gum tree stretched up
there in the midst of those smaller trees,
and think he hung upon a tree for
me.
And if I am true to him, the
trees of the Lord are full of spiritual
light.
Yes?
Look upon the glittering lights of Brisbane from
one of your lovely hills, and as you
say, what a delightful sight, just lift your
eyes, see those twinkling in the milky way,
see Venus in her excellent glory.
Watch those stars a while, and then, watch
those stars a while, and then think, they
that turn many to righteousness shall shine as
the sun forever and ever, and the lights
will go out below.
Yes, these lights will fade.
Yes, the idea of looking at things corporally,
that's what the poet Blake said, I see
things corporally.
He said, what do you mean, said a
man, see things corporally?
Why, when you see the rising of
the sun, I see us grown, high and
lifted up, and the train of the Lord
filling the temple.
That's the way to get your mind on
things.
There's a certain hymn you too hardly ever
sing, but in the early days of my
evangelism, we used to sing it with great
gusto.
It's a lovely hymn.
It came from the Chicago Exhibition, a way
back in the days of Moody and Sankey,
and at the great Chicago Exhibition, there was
a fountain stretching out in the middle of
the Exhibition, and people used to like to
meet there at the fountain, and it became
a slogan, I'll meet you at the fountain.
Yes, meet at the fountain, such and such
a time.
And Mr. Sankey tells us that Paul did
a bliss whose mind was always set on
things above, said Sankey, caught hold of that
slogan, and he wrote that lovely hymn we
used to revel in.
Will you meet me at the fountain when
I reach the glory land?
Will you meet me at the fountain shall
I clap your friendly hand?
Other friends will bid me welcome, other kindly
voices cheer.
Will you meet me at the fountain?
Will you meet me, meet me there?
Yes, I'll meet you at the fountain.
How we used to sing it in those
early days of revival, in those missions, but
it dies out.
I'll tell you why.
Heavenly minded listeners know.
You'll be a social star.
You'll be a person doing a lot in
the front of men.
Then you're the man.
You do something practical.
There'll be a great awakening one day, and
when we see him as he is, it's
the lovers that will have the great welcome
at the fountain.
Will you meet me, meet me there?
Dear Philip Paul, Paul Philip Bliss, he took
hold of anything he could and swirled it
into a hymn.
His mind, said Sankey, was set, set on
things of our own.
Well, those are the few hints, if you
will take them, on the secret of the
service.
And then, come to the security of the
risen one, the security of the risen one.
Here you'll find it in the authorised, ye
are dead, for ye are dead, and your
life is hid with Christ in God.
And in the amplified, for as far as
this world is concerned, as far as this
world is concerned, would that the Lord would
underline that to us, you have died, and
your new real life is hid with Christ.
That's ideal security, brother.
When Jesus Christ was on the cross, Pilate
submitted the priests to have their desire that
the legs of the free sufferers might be
broken, so that they could die instantly.
Roman soldiers came along with their spears and
they smashed the legs of one priest and
smashed the legs of the other priest.
But they agonized by fire.
But when they came to Jesus, he was
dead already, by bright knowledge made.
What was his security?
Death.
Death secured him against the smashing or the
breaking of a bone.
Death is a remarkable security.
It didn't hurt Oliver Cromwell, one of the
greatest characters of English history.
It didn't hurt Oliver Cromwell that when that
voluptuous king, Charles II, came back again, he
had the body of the great Puritan dug
up and his head chopped off and stuck
up there to be a laughing stock of
his crowd.
It didn't hurt the great protector, whose bust
had Jesus, who did more for England than
England has ever recognized, and gave to her
tolerance of worship.
In a day when you were almost forced
to worship according to the ideals of the
House of Stuart, that didn't hurt, no.
I remember standing once in the East Salient
with my adjutant, while we buried three bodies.
It was evening time, a horrible time.
The roar of guns was in the distance
and we had to hurry through the burial
service.
There was no chaplain.
A few words were said in the prayer
and we were holding our steel helmets over
our heads lest a splash of fractional would
come upon them and as they dropped, the
bodies of those poor fellows in their graves
just tied with the blankets.
I thought in those days if you boys
would believe us, if you really are Christians,
you're far better off than we are, going
forward to something worse in this titanic struggle,
death is the cure.
You and I, in Christ, are in, and
in Christ, with Him involved.
For Christ is perfect.
Fail we may, stumble we may, poor we
may be, no one knows, in the meat
of a day, you're more than I do,
but believe me if you're hid with Christ
in God securely for all time, and as
the old negro once said, yes, my brethren,
he said, here is a beautiful manuscript, hid
with Christ in God.
Do you see that big barrel there?
He showed them a big barrel.
Now he said, I take up this smaller
barrel, and I pump it in, now I
take up this little barrel, then you see
I bang it, and I stamp it,
hid with Christ in God.
You've got it, brother, you've got it, said
the negro, you've got it, haven't you?
Yes, I've got it all right, a good
illustration, hid with Christ, all Christ, our
God.
No need to say, to decide, he's mine.
He belongs to me.
I've covered him, he's mine.
Yes, I know, father, failed many times, and
that's just the purity.
Now you've got that clearly, haven't you?
The fourth point, we must come to the
close.
You've got there, the ideal search, the secret
of the search, which is, what?
A mind set on things above.
You've got that, lad, you've got a mind
set on things above, you've got that, my
young brother, a mind set on things above,
far more than set on the things above.
Oh, you say, Mr. Good, it's all right
for an old man like you to speak,
but I'm young and full of life, so
was I when I became a Christian, and
I soon, before I passed my twenties, was
full of the longing to reach souls.
Because, you see, I was taught under a
great sinner who never pandered to us and
said, oh well, you must have your fill
of pleasure and your fill of enjoyment in
this world, who kept before us the glories
of heaven, and told us we were pilgrims
passing through from long before down to here.
Just in closing, there is a secret in
gaining some measure of the risen life in
Christ, and if you'll turn, please, in just
a brief epilogue to the message, the book
of Romans, the book of Romans, the sixth
chapter, and at the sixth chapter you've got
two attitudes that are taught by Catech teaching,
tremendously so.
We've not been able at this Easter time
to dwell over much on the Catech teaching,
because you must dwell on the great facts
of the crucifixion.
This is Catech teaching, as I often heard
it in earlier conventions.
Verse eleven, Romans six, Likewise reckon ye yourselves
to be dead indeed unperceived, but alive unto
God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The word reckon literally means count as true.
Count as true that you're dead indeed unperceived.
Count that as true.
Count as true that you're alive unto God
through Jesus Christ the Lord.
That's the reckoning.
Will you reckon that?
We say, couldn't Mr. Ridley, because I fail
so often.
Never mind, question, that you're dead indeed unperceived.
Your real self is dead indeed unperceived.
And alive unto Christ the Lord.
If you're not rebellious to the Lord, if
you're not holding Jesus Christ with an invisible
arm and saying, keep out of the way
and let me have my own body and
vanity.
If you're not doing that, which is honestly
seeking to get the real blessing of the
Spirit, you've got to reckon that.
Reckon that God does count upon us.
And then, let not sin therefore reign in
your mortal body.
Don't let sin just control your directions and
everything.
Don't let sin overrule the word of God
and the truth of God, that you could
abide in the lust thereof.
Neither yield ye your members, but members may
just be hands or feet or eyes or
ears.
Our ears can listen to nasty stories and
to gossip about a good man or woman
of God.
Our ears can listen to anything that's a
spite, a fuss, a discourse, will sometimes think
that so-and-so who was doing so
well, given a good dose of guilt.
Do not fail to tell others the ears
are not yielding to the Lord, nor perhaps
the hands.
One wonders if the heart is sometimes.
Neither yield ye your members as instruments of
unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves as
those that are alive.
Resurrected from the dead in Christ, and your
members hands, feet, eyes, ears, mind, ears
up your nose.
...of righteousness, instruments.
It means really to others that you reckon
yourself under the death sentence of the cross.
So you often come to life in the
poorness of your battling.
...and reverently to the Lord, without
whom you would have sold your hands, your
ears, your sons, without his
disposal.
Just as when in that most critical moment,
1918, Marshal Post took over the three armies,
France, Britain, America, and General Pershing, Commander-in
-Chief of the American Army, said to Marshal
Post, Here we are, folks.
And they had the best men, the biggest,
I don't say the best, the biggest army,
just the most magnificent of them.
He said, Here we are.
Infantry, artillery, aviation, everything.
Take us and use us as you will.
...to Marshal Post, he had a conflict from
the hands of the American command.
That's what the great saints of God have
ever come to in full and mad surrender.
I give myself to thee, thine evermore, thine
only, thine utterly, ...to breathe.
Forget the rain a moment, dear friends, as
we're about to bow in prayer, and I'll
forget the rain if possible.
Remember to breathe.
And as we bow, think, as I'm following
thee, I say, the Lord help thee.
The ideal servant, the
ideal infant,
our children, our
gracious, loving son, give
grace to thy dear servant, bowed in prayer,
that they may rejoice in the security of
being hidden, the hidden ones of God, hidden
with Christ in God, anticipating the hour of
that blessed appearing, supported by the hope that
when he appears they also will be with
him, to live and reign with Christ a
thousand years, and to be with him forever.
Oh, that thy word will own our hearts
today, through Jesus Christ, our exalted Redeemer.
Amen.