As the Holy Spirit, who is our teacher,
once more tonight, will delight to take us
into the treasure house and boast, boast of
God's Son, so that he may become precious
and real and vital in our experience.
Tonight, we're going to turn to one of
the simplest illustrations that the Lord Jesus used.
And of course, he delighted to illustrate the
most profound spiritual truths in the simplest possible
way.
And this is one of them.
And it's found in John's Gospel and the
twelfth chapter.
John, chapter twelve, verse twenty-three.
And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is
come, that the Son of Man should be
glorified.
The hour is come, that the Son of
Man should be glorified.
And from that introduction, we recognize that this
is to be an hour of unusual significance.
Which at first, we might find a little
strange, because the testimony of the Lord Jesus
was this, I do only, always, those things
that please him.
In other words, there was never a moment
at any time, on any occasion, in the
thirty-three years, in which as God incarnate,
he walked this earth as perfect man, in
which everything that he ever did or said
or was, was anything but an absolutely valid
expression of his Father's mind and will and
purpose.
Therefore, at first, we might think it a
little strange, that there could be any moment
of time of greater significance than another.
But this is an hour to which reference
is made on several occasions.
For instance, in the seventh chapter of John's
Gospel, in verse thirty, they sought to take
the Lord Jesus, but no man laid hands
on him, because his hour was not yet
come.
In the twentieth verse of the following, the
eighth chapter, these words spake Jesus in the
treasury, as he taught in the temple, and
though him, for his hour was not yet
come.
In the thirteenth chapter, and the first verse,
before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus
knew that his hour was come, that he
should depart out of this world unto the
Father, having loved his own which were in
the world, he loved them unto the end.
And in his prayer, in his prayer recorded,
glorify thy son, that thy son also may
glorify thee.
And of course, in the same chapter from
which I quoted the first verse, and the
twenty-seventh verse, twelve, twenty-seven, said the
Lord Jesus, now is my soul troubled.
And what shall I say, Father, save me
from this hour?
But for this cause came I unto this
hour.
So quite obviously, this hour was to be
one of unusual significance.
And of course, the Lord Jesus, as you
know, leaves us in absolutely no ambiguity as
to what was to occur on that occasion.
For he goes on in the twenty-fourth
verse of that twelfth chapter of John, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, accept a corn
of wheat, fall to the ground, and die.
It abides alone.
But if it die, it bringeth forth much
fruit.
I'd like to read you those two verses
out of the Amplified New Testament.
In the twenty-third and the twenty-fourth
verse of John twelve, Jesus answered them, the
time has come for the Son of Man
to be glorified and exalted.
I assure you, most solemnly I tell you,
unless a grain of wheat falls into the
earth and dies, it remains, it remains just
one grain.
Never becomes more, but lives by itself, alone.
It remains and lives alone.
Will never, ever become more.
But if it dies, it produces many others
and yields a rich harvest.
Now, there, in all its sublime simplicity, is
the illustration used by the Lord Jesus to
comprehend the total purpose for which the Father
God in heaven, together with the Holy Spirit,
sent Him as the Son incarnate into this
world.
What's the main thrust of the illustration?
Not His death, of course, though His death
will be imperative.
For without it, He will live and remain
alone.
The main thrust of the illustration is this,
that when a grain of wheat falls into
the ground and dies, it is not that
it might perish, but that through death its
life might be released in resurrection to be
shared with countless others.
And in this marvelous, simple way, the Lord
Jesus spelled out loud and clear the purpose
for which as God incarnate He came into
this world, lived that sinless life and then
died that atoning death, in resurrection He might
share His life with you and with me.
Without which death He would live and remain
to be eternally lonely.
You see, it's sin that separates man from
God.
The wages of sin is death.
So that had the Lord Jesus never ever
been God, as God He was, but just
supposing He had never ever been God, but
just man, man as God created man to
be, man so perfect that the Father God
from heaven could look down with utter satisfaction
and find in the person of the Lord
Jesus the kind of man that in the
counsels of eternity God intended man to be.
This is my beloved Son.
So that had He never ever been God,
but only, always, only man, He would have
had the absolute right to enter into God's
presence and stay there forever as God, as
man.
The inalienable right to live and remain forever,
to be eternally lonely.
You see, there are some folk who would
have us believe that the Christian life simply
derives from our ability or attempt to emulate
the beautiful life that He lived.
That there was no particular significance in His
atoning death.
They would have us believe that His death
was simply the unfulfillment of the life of
a noble idealist who philosophized and who paid
ultimately the price of being too progressive for
his age.
He died the death of a martyr.
There's no particular atoning efficacy in the blood
that He shed.
The significance of His coming was simply the
life that He lived.
There was no particular significance in the way
He was born and there was no particular
significance in the way that He died.
In point of fact, there are some who
will go so far as to say in
point of fact it wouldn't really have mattered
whether He was born or ever died.
For He is the composite man.
He is simply the one upon whom we
gaze and in our noblest endeavors and motivated
by the sincerest desire, we seek to copy
the life He lived and the measure in
which we emulate His example, that is the
measure in which we have become Christians.
In other words, you do your best to
be like Jesus.
All right, let's examine that for a little
while.
Now, born as He may have been and
there being no significance in the death that
He died, the only important thing being that
He lived that kind of life as a
target that we should aim at, just supposing
the Lord Jesus did only come into this
world to live that kind of life and
then return to be with His Father in
heaven.
What could the life that the Lord Jesus
lived then in its perfection, in its sublime
majesty and beauty, what could that life have
done for you and for me now?
Now, that's an important question because if you
and I are going to stake our eternity
upon our capacity to emulate the example that
He set and copy the standard that He
established, we need to know for our intelligent
satisfaction what actually His life then, purely as
an example, could do for you and for
me now.
Is it a solid, genuine premise upon which
we can establish our claim to be Christians?
I am a Christian because I am making
Jesus Christ my example.
He is the one whom I emulate.
It is the life that He lived I
try to copy.
And I believe that I am a Christian
because to the uttermost of my ability I
am trying to do just that.
All right?
Then if that is going to be the
ground upon which I ultimately expect to stand
before God and find acceptability in the presence
of my Creator, I need to have some
solid substantiation of that hypothesis.
Therefore I suggest that it would be very
intelligent, a very sensible thing for us to
do to take a few minutes of research
and discover what, in point of fact, the
life that He lived then could do for
you and me now.
Let's turn to the tenth chapter of the
Epistles of the Romans as a starting point
for our research.
Romans and chapter ten.
And here the Apostle says, Brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel is
this, that they might be saved.
His prayer and concern for his own kith
and kin in Israel, says the Apostle Paul,
is that they might be saved.
And, of course, that presupposes that they're not.
But his concern is that they might be.
For, he continues in the second verse, I
bear them record that they have a zeal
of God, they practice religion, they're
found regularly in their place in public worship,
they've testified their faith, they conform to the
requirements imposed upon them by the ecclesiastical hierarchy,
they practice their religion with no little sincerity
and no little integrity, says the Apostle Paul.
I have to credit them with this.
They practice religion with a zeal of God,
but not according to knowledge.
So he is concerning himself here with sincere
men and women who practice religion with a
zeal of God, but they're not saved, and
the reason is that they are practicing religion,
not according to knowledge.
I bear them record that they have a
zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
Now, if you do something which is not
according to knowledge, of course you do it
being uninformed and ignorant.
So there must have been something of which
they were ignorant in the practice of their
religion, which disqualified them from being saved.
Now, what was the nature of their ignorance?
They practice religion not according to knowledge.
What then was the nature of their ignorance?
Well, we're not in doubt about that.
The next verse goes on to tell us.
I bear them record that they have a
zeal of God, but not according to knowledge,
for they being ignorant of God's righteousness.
They were ignorant of God's righteousness.
Well, what did that do for them?
If they were ignorant of God's righteousness, what
was the damage that that did to them
in their practice of religion?
Well, being ignorant of God's righteousness, in other
words, the minimal requirements that he as their
creator has the absolutely reasonable right to make
upon them as creatures made in his complete
and total image, being ignorant on the basis
of their practice of religion to settle for
a standard of righteousness that fell tragically short
of the standard of righteousness that God as
creator has the right to demand of them.
They were ignorant of the righteousness of God
and being ignorant of the demands of that
righteousness were prepared to settle for another kind
of righteousness that in God's eyes is totally
inadequate.
Let me read the total verse of the
third verse there of the tenth chapter of
Paul's epistle to the Romans.
They've been ignorant of God's righteousness and in
that ignorance going about to establish their own
righteousness have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness
of God.
You see, if you're ignorant of the demands
that God's righteousness makes upon you then you
will go about to establish your own righteousness
on some standard that is other than God's
standard.
And of course, the standard by which they
evaluated themselves and established their own righteousness was
a standard that was being arbitrarily set by
the ecclesiastical authorities of their day and generation,
the scribes and the Pharisees.
In other words, respectable religion.
Because the scribes and the Pharisees had presumed
to substitute their procedures for the demands of
the Holy Spirit.
Now, they were ignorant of God's righteousness because
from their earliest days, from their earliest childhood
they had been taught by the scribes and
the Pharisees that so long as they attended
church on so many occasions, so long as
they paid their tithe, so long as they
did this and they did that, so long
as, in other words, they conformed to the
requirements of that in itself that would be
acceptable by God, you do, said the scribes
and the Pharisees, your stuff and we'll take
responsibility of getting you into heaven.
Now, bear this in mind, if you had
been a little child and for the earliest
days, from the year dot, you'd been taught
that all you had to do was to
go to church, pay your tithe, do this,
do that, exactly what the priest said was
righteousness and God would accept you on the
basis of your performance.
Well, wouldn't you expect to get to heaven?
Once you'd done your stuff?
After all, you put the penny in, you
ought to get your gum.
How tragic that there are tens of millions
of people today in the world who are
reared in the same abysmal ignorance of God's
righteousness and in their pathetic ignorance are
settling for a righteousness which is abysmally inadequate.
Do you know what the Lord Jesus said
about the righteousness to which they submitted?
He called it the righteousness of the scribes
and the Pharisees, the respectability that was credited
to those who were good churchgoers and conformed
to reasonable ecclesiastical requirements.
He said, the Lord Jesus, except your righteousness
exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the
Pharisees, you will in no wise enter into
the kingdom of heaven.
Any ambiguity about that?
Could the Lord Jesus have spelled it out
more categorically than that?
Except your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes
and the Pharisees, you will in no wise,
under no circumstances, enter into the kingdom of
heaven.
They, being ignorant of God's righteousness, going about
to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted
themselves to the righteousness of God.
Of course, if in the ignorance of God's
righteousness and its demands that that makes upon
you, you go about to establish your own
righteousness on some other basis of evaluation, all
that you produce by virtue of your behavior
is not righteousness.
And self-righteousness is hopelessly, hopelessly inadequate.
For, verse 4, the same chapter, Christ is
the end of the lawful righteousness to everyone
that believes it.
In other words, the Apostle Paul, as we
shall discover in a moment, recognizing that there
is no boy, girl, man or woman who
has ever been born into this world since
Adam fell, who could ever, on their own,
satisfy the minimal demands of a holy God,
of a man made in his own absolute
image, recognizing that fact, sees as the only
possible hope for any boy, any girl, any
man or any woman to enter acceptably into
God's presence, is that that boy, that girl,
that man, that woman should be clothed upon
with a righteousness that is not inherently their
own, but which has been credited them in
the infinite mercy of a holy God, in
the beloved Jesus, wearing the wedding garment of
His sparklessness.
As the Lord Jesus indicated in His parable
of the wedding breakfast.
And you will remember, the invitation was given
to all in the highways and the byways
and the alleys to come to the wedding
feast.
But in the parable there used by the
Lord Jesus, of course, as the custom was,
there were servants at the door equipped with
the wedding garments that each guest must receive,
placing it over their own clothing, so that
each might find equal acceptance in the presence
of their royal host.
But here's a man who comes and says,
I don't need that.
I consider that I'm completely adequate.
I'm offended at the suggestion that I am
not adequately attired for such an occasion.
And the faithful servant at the door says,
I'm sorry, sir, but I have received strict
instructions from the king that no boy, girl,
man or woman invited to this wedding feast
is to be allowed in other than clad
in the wedding garment that he by royal
decree has made available for those who have
been invited.
I am sorry, sir.
I do not have the authority to let
you in other than wearing the wedding garment.
And that man, in proud indignation, considering himself
completely adequate, incensed at the suggestion that he
needs anything other than what he is and
has got, stalks off in a rage.
But in the parable you remember that the
Lord Jesus told, marvellous illustration, an unfaithful servant.
Rounds up, taps him on the arm and
says, Sir, I understand exactly how you feel.
If I were you, I would be just
as angry as you are.
I think it's preposterous that a man in
your position, your standing, your financial backing, your
family pedigree, your culture, your education, should receive
such an insolent rebuff.
I'll tell you what, sir.
I'll get you in.
Come with me.
So he takes him round the back.
I don't know how he got him in,
but he got him in.
He got him in, the unfaithful servant.
That's really the name of the parable.
It's the parable of the unfaithful servant, who
defied his king, lied to a man, and
said he could get him in.
And he got him in.
And my, he was just as pleased as
punch.
All these stupid simpletons, who at the door
had received the wedding garment, and here he
was, talking around, advertising his own adequacy.
Yes, everything was fine, until the king came.
And there was a strange hush.
And every eye followed the gaze of the
king.
As he focused upon one man, without a
wedding garment.
And there was a hush.
Every heart beat that little bit faster as
the king, never for one moment shifting his
gaze, walked straight across to that man, and
he said, Friend, how camest thou in, without
a wedding garment?
And the story tells us, that though this
man had so much to say, to the
servant at the door, in the presence of
the king he was speechless.
And the king said, Bind him hand and
foot, and cast him out, into outer darkness.
Yes, a marvellous picture, you see, of a
man who practices religion, not according to knowledge.
Who insists on parading himself, in the presence
of a holy god, in a self-righteousness,
that he considers he has achieved, in his
ignorance, of the minimal demands of God's righteousness.
Those minimal demands, that have been penned, as
I have already reminded you, by the finger
of God, in which
God plainly indicated, I, as God, made you
in my image, and I expect of you,
that you give a valid expression, in all
that you do, and say and are, of
my absolute righteousness.
And when, as I have reminded you, the
law says, thou shalt not steal, God is
simply saying, I, as your God, made you
in my likeness, as my creature, and I
am not a thief.
And when the law says, thou shalt not
bear false witness, God is simply saying, as
your creator, I made you in my image,
and my controversy with you, is that having
created you, in my absolute likeness, so that
all creation can look at you, and know
what God is like, by what you have
been doing, and what you have been saying,
and what you have been, you have been
telling lies about.
That's why the Bible tells us, of course,
that God isn't measuring how good you are,
and God isn't measuring how bad you are.
He's not particularly interested, because so much of
that is the accident of birth, the kind
of family you were born into.
He's not measuring how good you are, He's
not measuring how bad you are.
The only thing that God measures is how
good you're not.
For there is no difference if all have
sinned and come short of the glory.
And any boy, any girl, any man, any
woman, who has been instructed in the righteousness
of God, knows perfectly well they have come
short.
And there is only one possible remedy for
each one of us who has come short
of God's glory, and that is that there
should be credited to us something that we
do not deserve, nor could ever earn.
For Christ is the end of that law,
for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Any boy, any girl, any man, any woman
who is prepared to admit I've come short
of God's righteousness, I can never attain to
it, for I claim by faith what I
do not deserve, the righteousness of the one
who upon the cross had credited to Him
my guilt.
And God has pledged His name, His honour
and His glory to accept for His dear
sake who bore our sins in His own
body on the tree.
Who suffered the just.