Let's turn to Scripture, shall we?
Chris has reminded me, or made me aware
of the fact that this is the fourth
Thursday running I've been with you.
Wow, that's nearly a record, isn't it?
I hadn't realised that.
And it's been a joy.
Let's turn, shall we, this morning, tonight, to
the Gospel of John again.
That's right, perhaps we'd better have some lights
on.
And in the first chapter.
One of the things that thrills my heart
about our Lord Jesus, and I suppose you
could almost start every sermon you preached on
that note, something about the Lord Jesus that
thrills you.
One of the things that thrills you about
the Lord is his absolute directness.
Now, let every one of us here tonight
realise this, that he's direct, absolutely direct.
Unlike the majority of us, he never went
in for using words very much.
To him, being an economist, he only just
used everything for the particular purpose that he
had, and language was one of that, one
of those things.
When you think that we're dealing with the
eternal God, and he's been speaking to men
through the millenniums, and we've only got a
Bible as big as that, which you've got
in your hand, that's absolutely fantastic.
I mean, when you can walk along a
bookshop and see, say, Enid Blyton produced I
don't know how many books for children, and
somebody, Potter, did something else, and Dickens produced
I don't know what, and even our beloved
Wesley, there never seems to be any end
to the things that he wrote, and all
these kinds of things.
And yet God, being an economist, God helped
me, and yet in all his economy, absolutely
simple and direct, in that, for instance, I
might use a word because it would save
me using a sentence, but God didn't ever
do that.
He used simple language right down to earth
with us, because all he was concerned about
was reaching men's spirits that were dead.
And that was very, very wonderful.
And so direct is our Lord Jesus Christ.
He comes right to the point.
Sometimes leaving us quite wondering whatever he's saying,
really.
Have you ever read through your Gospels and
wondered what the Lord Jesus was talking about?
And seeing that his statements and his actions
were related to the eternal purpose of God,
and that's why they fell so strangely on
human ears, because of ourselves we are just
taken up with the projects of men.
If we're not careful, we'll find that most
of us can say more about what happened
on the Isle of Man a few days
ago than what happened on the Isle of
Patmos, or what happened on the cross.
Really, if you come to think it out.
And here, then, is one of the tragedies
of the lives that we live.
But our Lord Jesus Christ, he was concerned
to relate the eternal purpose of God to
everybody.
For instance, in this first chapter of John's
Gospel, we see this thing.
Verse 35.
The next day, after John stood and two
of his disciples, and looking upon Jesus as
he walked, he says, Behold the Lamb of
God.
And the two disciples heard him speak, and
they followed Jesus.
Then Jesus turned and saw them following, and
said unto them, What seek ye?
They said unto him, Rabbi, which is to
say, being interpreted, Master, where dwellest thou?
He said unto them, Come and see.
They came and saw where he dwelt, and
abode with him that day, for it was
about the tenth hour.
One of the two which heard John speak
and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.
He first findeth his own brother Simon, and
saith unto him, We found the Messiah, which
is being interpreted, the Christ.
And he brought him to Jesus.
And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou
art Simon the son of Jonah.
Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by
interpretation, a stone.
Now, I know that I have made reference
to this section only the other week.
But I want to come back to it
again, chiefly with reference this time to Peter.
I don't know what you would have thought,
perhaps you would have thought, if you had
come to somebody, a man, as Jesus was
on the earth, and all he said to
you was, Your name is Simon, you are
the son of Jonah, and thou shalt be
called Cephas.
The rest is put in for our information,
which is by interpretation, a stone.
What would you have thought of somebody that
talked to you like that?
You would have wondered, if he was a
Messiah, what he was Messiah of, wouldn't you?
Really, I mean honestly, on a human level.
No preamble, he just went directly to this
man like that.
And I expect Peter thought, what on earth
is he talking about?
And I don't, I can't really say I
blame Peter for not saying anything.
This is one of the few places in
scripture where Peter keeps his mouth shut.
He's usually got it open.
He's a great talker, Peter.
But when Jesus talks to that, he's left
dumb.
He can't say a word.
What's it all about?
And well may he ask.
And well may we ask.
Go with me, keeping your finger there of
course, into Luke's gospel.
When we look into this second chapter of
the gospel according to Luke, we find toward
the end of the chapter the account of
Jesus when he was twelve years of age,
staying behind on the Passover in Jerusalem, sitting
in the temple.
And verse 46, this is where Mary and
Joseph find him.
After three days they find Jesus in the
temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors,
both hearing them and asking them questions.
And all that heard him were astonished at
his understanding and answers.
And when they saw him they were amazed.
And his mother said unto him, Son, why
hast thou thus dealt with us?
Behold, thy father and I have sought thee
sorrowing.
And he said unto them, How is it
that ye sought me?
Wished ye not that I must be about
my father's business?
Now there was his statement when he was
twelve years of age.
And your margin may give you a rendering
which says, Jesus said, I must be in
my father's house.
About the things of father's house.
Do you see that there?
All right.
Now see then his directness of purpose.
As soon as he is announced as the
one that's going to bear away the sin
of the world, the Lamb of God, he's
going to baptize in the Holy Ghost and
fire, and then they start to follow him
the next day.
This is the first thing he says after,
you know, What seek you?
What are you following me for?
And they come home and they see where
he lives.
And then Andrew goes and finds Peter.
And as soon as he sees Peter, he's
on it.
There.
Straight away.
You might say, Well, why did he say
Peter was a stone?
For this reason.
That he had come to be about building
his father's house.
First thing.
You see, the absolute directness of purpose.
Now I know this.
Every one of you in this room, including
myself.
This is God's great purpose with you.
You've got to be brought into the stone
kingdom.
You've got to be brought into the place
where you are, like Peter, a stone.
A stone.
It's an amazing thing, how in the beginning
of the Lord's life, and this is one
of the wonders of the Bible, and the
utter consistency of it all, this great truth
of the stone comes out more and more.
The Lord Jesus Christ is absolutely connected with
it.
And he's, if you like, nearly obsessed, if
you want to put it this way, in
that his parents once thought he was mad
anyway.
They sought to restrain him.
He was getting beyond bounds of it.
They wanted to lay a restraint on Jesus.
If he'd have lived in days like today,
he would have been under a psychiatrist, if
they could have got him under a psychiatrist,
of course.
They said, What's the matter with our son?
He's gone all queer.
He's left home.
He's calling all men around him.
What will he do with his family?
You know, all this sort of thing.
This is the kind of idea that would
have gone for Jesus, as sure as anything.
Lots of people thought he was round the
bend.
And the whole thing about the Lord is
that he was totally possessed with this great
thing.
More and more.
It got right into his system.
In the second chapter, for instance, you'll find
this.
He goes to, there's another Passover talked about
in verse 13.
He goes to Jerusalem.
He goes to the temple.
He's always there, apparently.
And he finds in the temple those that
sell oxen and sheep and doves and the
changers of money sitting.
And when he'd made a scourge of small
cords, he drove them all out of the
temple, sheep, the oxen, poured out the changers'
money, overthrew the tables, and said unto them
that sold us, Take these things hence.
Make not my father's house and house of
merchandise.
And his disciples remembered that it was written,
The seed of thine house hath eaten me
up.
Then said the Jews unto him, What signs
showest thou unto us, seeing that thou didst
these things?
Jesus answered and said to them, Destroy this
temple, and in three days I'll reign.
You see, he's got directness of purpose.
And there's only one way of explaining Jesus
Christ, in that he was our man on
this earth.
We know it was our God made manifest.
But he'd come only to do Father's will.
That's all he was concerned about.
Nothing else mattered.
He didn't care whether he lost friends, lost
family, lost life, lost anything.
He didn't care about anything else but just
this.
He's taking up with the purposes of his
Father on the earth.
More and more, I want to be taken
up with this great man, Christ Jesus.
I really do.
And this is what he expected of Peter.
As soon as Peter came, You're a stone,
Peter.
Left him speechless.
But you see, how true it was.
Turn over with me a moment, into the
book of the Revelation.
Right in chapter 21, most of you probably
will anticipate what I'm going to say, as
you see the great city, the house, the
temple city of God, in the new creation.
It says this.
As he sees the city, he sees the
foundations.
And in the foundations, which were twelve stones,
wonderful stones, verse 19, the first foundation was
Jasper, the second Sapphire, the third a Chalcedony,
the fourth an Emerald, the fifth Sardonyx, the
sixth Sardius, the seventh Chrysalite, the eighth Beryl,
the ninth a Topaz, the tenth a Chrysoprisus,
the eleventh a Jason, the twelfth an Amethyst.
And in those were written the names of
the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
Verse 14.
There it is.
And so, Peter, you see, he was Jasper.
Glory.
The first foundational member, glory be to God,
was Peter.
A precious stone.
God.
The Lord took him.
Amen.
I'm going to build Father's house.
That's God's purpose with you and I.
And it will explain everything of Jesus' dealings
with our lives.
Everything.
You come to Him.
He claims absolute sovereignty over you.
Absolute.
You can't belong to Jesus unless you're prepared
to let the Lord do anything with you.
So, Lord, to you that He'll rename you
and whatever He does, He'll make you what
He says.
Praise God.
This is tremendous.
You do understand this, don't you?
That when the Lord calls you something, He,
in His heart, has made sure that you
are that very thing.
And everything in life, He will use to
that end.
Do you believe that?
Amen.
And I hope you believe that the chief
sculpting tool is called a cross.
I hope you believe that.
That He's going to make you and I
what He wants us to be.
He's got everything in hand here.
Let's go back to John, chapter 1.
And in this first chapter, he goes on
from that verse 42, and in 43, the
day following, after the Lord had had this
meeting with Peter and said, now, you're a
stone, He goes forth in the Galilee and
He finds Philip and says unto him, follow
me.
Now, Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of
Andrew and Peter.
Philip finds Nathanael and saith unto him, We
found him of whom Moses in the law
and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth,
the son of Joseph.
Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good
thing come out of Nazareth?
Philip saith unto him, Come and see.
That's the best way, isn't it?
I mean, if you can sort of invite
people to Jesus, better than going for a
long theological argument about it, to try and
establish something.
You just come and see.
That's a marvellous thing, isn't it?
All right.
Jesus sees Nathanael coming to Him, saith unto
him, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is
no guile.
Nathanael says unto him, Whence knowest thou me?
Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that
Philip called thee, when thou wast under the
fig tree, I saw thee.
Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou
art the Son of God, thou art the
King of Israel.
Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I
said unto thee I saw thee under the
fig tree, believest thou, I don't want you
to get convinced just because I've exercised a
gift of knowledge.
Amen.
Lord, teach me that secret.
Thou shalt see greater things than these.
And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I
say unto you, Hereafter you shall see heaven
open, and angels of God ascending and descending
upon the Son of Man.
When did Nathanael see that?
You see, beloved, here is something tremendous.
I love the Lord, and I love the
way He shows us and is the key
to Scripture.
For you will remember that He's going way
back now in the history of these people.
And He is talking about an occasion when
Jacob ran away from home in fear of
his life.
And Esau was after him because he twisted
Esau twice.
The first time he'd stolen Esau's birthright.
The second time he stole the blessing.
You see.
And Esau was after his blood.
And I can't say that I really blame
him.
You know, looking at it quite on the
natural side.
But off goes Jacob, and he's being sent
out finally to find a bride.
He's got to go back to the place
of Abraham's nativity pretty well.
He's got to go back to that family
anyway.
And he's got to find a bride.
And he's tired out, and he goes to
sleep one night in the desert.
And he brings a stone for a pillow,
and he goes to sleep.
It's a place called Luz.
And at night he has a dream.
I think I might dream too if I
had a stone for a pillow and a
wilderness for a bed.
I think I might.
That is, even if I got to sleep.
He must have been really tired.
And he dreamt that he saw a ladder
set up from heaven to earth.
And he saw God at the top of
it, and the angels of God ascending and
descending upon the ladder.
He wakes up in the morning.
He says, I surely God's in this place,
and I didn't know it.
And he had yet to learn, of course,
that God is everywhere.
He was just an ignorant, natural man.
That's all.
Although he'd been blessed, like so many of
us were, by our parents a long time
before we knew anything about it.
We're still natural, and we've got to be
dealt with by God, ourselves.
And God comes to deal with him, and
you know what happened.
And God promised him things, and he promised
God things.
And he raised up this pillow upon which
he had been sleeping.
It couldn't have been such a tremendous-sized
thing.
And he poured oil on it, and he
said, This is Bethel, the house of God.
Now you see, the Lord has gone right
back to that.
Now notice the connection with stone.
He's on this great truth of stone.
He's going to build this temple.
He's going to see that this thing is
absolutely right.
But you see, he said to Nathaniel, If
you really are an Israelite indeed, and you
know how that Jacob's name was changed to
Israel.
If you are a real Israelite, I'm going
to tell you this much.
He said, you're going to see the angels
of God ascending and descending on the Son
of Man.
When did that happen?
Well, when Jesus, like Jacob, when his head
was laid on a stone in the tomb,
that's when the angels of God came.
That's when they saw these great things.
When Jesus was laid in a tomb, you
remember, and the angels of God came down
into the tomb, praised him.
And from that rocky bed, the Lord Jesus
Christ rose.
And how again that day when he ascended
up, two angels came down.
They said, you men of Israel, you men
of Galilee, what are you standing gazing up
into heaven for?
This same Jesus is so gone, he's going
to come again in like manner.
And he's there in his great resurrection.
Praise the name of the Lord.
And he's going to build his glorious temple.
That's what he's going to do.
Each one of us has got to be
changed by the Lord so that instead of
being jelly or sand or mere ashy earth,
we've got to be changed into the stone,
the precious stone, not common stone.
That's the thing.
We saw the foundations of the city were
precious stones.
The glorious city, this great temple city, beloved,
is built of the precious, precious people of
Jesus.
They're precious because he is precious.
They've been made from his preciousness.
Hallelujah.
This is the thing that old Peter talks
about.
Let's go, if you'll come with me, into
1 Peter.
This is what makes Peter talk like he
talks.
He loves this great thing.
Peter never got away from what the Lord
did and said to him that day, you
know.
And in this first epistle of Peter and
the second chapter, this is how we read.
He says, oh, let's start at verse 1.
Wherefore, laying aside all malice, all guile, and
hypocrisies, and envies, and evil speakings, because none
of those are precious, they're rotten.
None of them are precious.
You can't have anything in you but preciousness,
brother, sister.
And your speaking has so much more to
do with it than you think, that reveals
what's inside you and me.
What you say.
Jesus talked out what he was, and in
the end bled out what he was.
That's wonderful.
That's where our redemption lies.
That's why in the first chapter we're told
that we've been redeemed, verse 19, with the
precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb,
without blemish and without spot.
Oh, this is tremendous.
And in verse 22, you've purified your souls
in obeying the truth through the Spirit and
to unfeigned love of the brethren.
See, all these words that speak of genuineness,
preciousness, unfeigned, hypocrisy, feigned, put on.
All these kinds of things, beloved, God has
dealt with.
And it says here that we've been purified
with a love one another, with a pure
heart, fervently.
My word, when you get down to the
heart of these stones.
They've got a fire in their heart.
Purity at heart.
Glory.
We're gone.
Born again, verse 23.
Oh, look at 24.
All flesh is grass.
The glory is man's the flower of grass.
Bless the name of the Lord.
Now then, we're in the second chapter.
We're making the great approach.
Laying aside all malice, all guile, all hypocrisy
and envies, all evil speakings.
Hallelujah.
As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of
the word that you may grow thereby.
If so be you've tasted that the Lord
is gracious to whom coming is under a
living stone.
There he is.
The great chief cornerstone got up off the
slab of rock in the tomb.
Amen.
Unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men,
chosen of God and precious.
You also as living stones are built up
a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer
up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus
Christ.
Isn't that lovely?
Verse 6.
Wherefore, also as contained in the scripture, behold
I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect
precious.
He that believeth on him shall not be
confounded.
Unto you therefore which believe is the preciousness
actually.
That's the Greek of it.
Is the preciousness.
Oh, bless the name of the Lord.
I want to be a believer.
I want to be a real believer.
To believe all his preciousness.
The preciousness of his character, of his life.
Oh, I want to be a precious stone.
Perhaps I born of mortal man like I
am.
It's too much to even expect to be
a precious stone.
I'm only rubbish of myself.
Over there where I've been staying these few
days there's a marvellous quarry.
It's a marvellous view.
One of the views of Cove.
A glorious quarry there.
Tremendous quarry.
Great cliff face.
Wonderful stone.
But you know wherever you get a quarry
there's also a lot of rubbish.
Great piles of old slack and muck.
That's no good.
Thrown out during the course of quarrying.
Don't want that.
And that's only, I don't know what it
is.
I don't even believe it's granite.
I don't think they have any granite in
Devon, do they?
Perhaps they do.
Do they?
In Dartmoor?
Oh, all right.
Yes, all right.
I'm corrected.
But that's not Dartmoor.
It's only Exvale up there.
The whole tremendous thing though, beloved, is that
I want to be precious.
God.
Hallelujah.
I want to be precious.
I want that about me which is indestructible
because it has the preciousness of Jesus about
me.
That's what I believe, beloved.
Do you believe that?
You've got to have it.
Peter, he was the great foundation stone Jasper.
Now, if you read through Revelation 21, you'll
find that the greatest characteristic of the city
is precisely that, Jasper.
Jasper.
Now, isn't it a marvellous thing?
Now, isn't this a marvellous thing?
Note it.
If I asked you what was the most
precious stone known to us today, you would
say, oh, diamond isn't mentioned.
You see, the thing that men go for,
God doesn't want.
He's not included it.
Do you think?
Did you notice that?
You say, oh, rubies!
I'm not included.
See?
Ah, even in that, God has shown us
where his heart is.
That he isn't aiming for what men aim
for.
When they say, diamonds are forever.
Are they?
God has a heat that's even going to
burn up diamonds.
So my Bible tells me.
And the whole glorious truth, beloved, lies here.
That we're going to be built into this.
Oh, and how wonderful it is, beloved.
How wonderful it is.
Are you being built into this temple?
Are you a stone?
Your name's a stone.
Ah, it'd be wonderful if we were all
renamed stones, wouldn't it?
We might think we anticipated that which is
coming.
And such a stone, beloved, that the glory
of the Lord is going to shine through
it.
Amen.
Catch the light, reflect the light.
Be moving in the glory of the Lord.
This is why God is dealing with us
like he's dealing with us.
This is why Peter was dealt with as
the Lord dealt with Peter.
To bring us there.
And you and I, there's got to be
something for God to build on.
I don't know whether God's got anything to
build on in your life and in my
life, has he?
I thought it was all built on Christ.
Yes, that's the chief foundation stone, but another
stone's laid on top of the chief one.
They've all got to be built on in
their turn.
Something's got to be laid on top of
this stone and another one on top of
that one and another one on top of
that one.
Oh yeah.
That's why you can't have these jelly babies.
That's why God can't have sandy characters.
This is why we've got to be solid
and real.
This is why the scripture comes out with
such verses as Be ye therefore steadfast, unmovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord.
This is why it comes out with things
like that.
Because this is what's got to happen to
us.
God's got to be able to put you
down like that and know where he'll find
you, if I may use that word.
If I may use that expression.
You're laid.
Thank God it's not feathers he's dealing with,
but stones.
A character built on solid, real, precious, glorious,
partaking of the nature and character of the
Lord Jesus Christ, immovable, always about his Father's
business.
That's it.
First thing was on his lips, you see.
Look, take We'll come back a moment to
John, but take the very fact of the
temptations.
He was led of the Spirit when he
came out of Jordan into the wilderness to
be tempted to the devil.
What was the first thing the devil said
to him?
Take these stones and make them into bread.
Do you see the consistency of it all?
Take these stones, he said.
Turn them into bread.
That's what he said to the Lord.
What really the Lord said to him?
Yeah, I will do but not under your
direction, Satan.
Not these stones, anyway.
Peter, you're my stone, come here.
There came a day when Jesus said to
Peter, Give ye them to eat, Peter.
Peter had to say, I can't.
Because he'd never let Jesus get at him
with the cross.
And when Jesus wanted to get on to
the cross, he said, Jesus said, Oh yeah.
You get behind me, Satan.
So God takes a satanic and a satanically
controlled and a satanically speaking man and makes
him in the end to be a god
man.
A godly man.
And speaking the words of God.
That's what he does.
Isn't that a marvelous thing?
How the Lord can do this, you see.
It was all stone in the wilderness.
Do you remember?
Took him up on a temple.
That was the stone building.
Put yourself down hence.
The Lord said, You see.
Or, further again, in the second chapter of
the gospel according to John, where we were
a little earlier.
Remember at the end of the first chapter
we saw how the Lord was connecting up
with this stone episode where Jacob laid his
head on the stone and rises up.
He says, You're going to see the angels
of God ascending and descending on the Son
of Man.
That's a tremendous thing.
And he was speaking of his resurrection.
So you're not surprised that the next chapter
starts off with and the third day.
This is the consistency of scripture.
Once you have the key it's all plain.
It's all so simple.
Mysteries become simple things that God wants us
to see.
And the third day there was this wedding.
And what was he going to do at
the wedding?
Into the stone kingdom he was coming.
There were set six water pots of stone.
There they were.
They were there for the, you know, just
after the man of the Jews.
He says, after the man of the Jews.
We'll change those stones to after the man
of Jesus.
Alright.
You see.
When they run out of wine along comes
Marian.
He says, son, or whatever it is, you
know, they've got no wine.
Make them some wine, she would have liked
to have said.
And he would have said, I'm going to,
but not under your suggestion any more than
I've got stones in the bread under the
devil's suggestion.
I'm about father's business.
Glory to God, isn't it?
Wonderful.
It seems so marvellous.
And so after Mary, who apparently didn't know
one thing apparently, knew how to keep things
in her heart.
And ponder them.
That's one lovely thing that said about Mary.
After she'd left him, he saying to the
servants, now whatsoever he says unto you, you
do it.
She thought, he can't be in a situation
like this and do nothing.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
I wish you had as much confidence in
Jesus as that.
He can't be in this kind of situation
and not do anything about it.
But what he won't do is that your
dictation, he won't do that.
He says, fill the water pots up to
the brim.
So, they did.
They filled them up to the brim.
And he gave a demonstration of what should
come out of the stone.
What should come out of the stone?
Wine.
The best wine should come out of you,
beloved.
Now this is how I'll know whether you
really are one of the precious stones.
Because out of you will become precious drink.
What I drink from you will be precious.
Ah, that's the best wine I've ever tasted.
Glory.
Can I say that about you, brother and
sister?
Can you say that about me?
Best wine I've ever tasted.
Yeah.
So, that's what's got to happen.
It's so overwhelming.
He takes these stones.
There they are.
And they fill them up with water.
And he doesn't seem to do anything except
say something.
They did it all.
He just spoke.
That's all.
He'll speak, says Mary.
You do.
She didn't put it like that, but that's
what it was.
He'll speak.
You do it.
Glory be to God.
You remember another case, he moved a lot
in this stone position.
Do you remember?
Another position.
Another time when, uh, if somebody had been
there, they only knew would have said the
same thing.
He'll speak.
You do.
Know what occasion I'm talking about?
Yeah, raising of Lazarus.
Roll away the stone, he said.
Glory be to God.
Roll away the stone, you see.
He'll speak.
You do.
Have you learned this lesson?
Well, anyway, there are the six water jars
filled with water.
Pour out beer to the governor of the
feast.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
It's absolutely right, beloved, you know.
Is wine pouring out of you?
You know, wine comes from fruit.
Wine comes from fruit.
Hallelujah.
You just don't want to believe, beloved, and
don't let anyone of us get it into
our hearts.
But all we are, are these sort of
wonderful, strong, strong, strong, strong people.
Um, you know, we are glittering, we are
brilliant, we are tough, we are hard.
We can support this, we can support that.
Right at the center of us, right inside
us, is there something which can be poured
out all sweet?
All lovely?
Is there?
What pours out of us?
It's like that with the Lord.
He was strong, He was tough, He was
precious, He was glorious.
But oh, what poured out of Him?
What really poured out of Him?
You know, it says that out of your
belly is going to flow rivers of water.
You know that, don't you?
That's what Scripture says.
That's right.
But out of His mouth flowed wine.
That's right, isn't it?
Out of His mouth flowed wine.
And it's what comes out of your mouth
that's important.
What does flow out of that?
I, I, I like this because you see,
if we say well out of our belly
is going to flow rivers of living water,
well that's quite sort of, um, of the
Spirit, this speaking of the Spirit.
That's what Spirit is flowing out of you.
That's quite invisible and inaudible.
It's the, it's a power that's reaching you,
flowing through someone.
It's the power of the Spirit.
It's the actual life of the Spirit.
It's the life that's flowing out of you.
But wine is what comes out of your
mouth.
What came out of Jesus' mouth was the
love of the ages.
Yes.
The matured fruit of eternity.
Jesus is the fruit.
And Him crushed.
You know, just about contracted to a span,
to use the glorious words which I, I
love to use, I must confess, when speaking
about Jesus, because I don't know any better.
Our God contracted to a span incomprehensibly made
man.
But, but, but, uh, beyond the miracle of
the incarnation, which is all that Wesley is
drawing our attention to there on the surface,
there is that which made the writers of
the Philippians write these words.
Let this mind be in you.
Which was also in Christ Jesus, who being
in the form of God thought nothing to
be grasped at to be equal with God.
Made himself of no reputation.
Ooh, my, everything who crushed
up there like that.
Absolutely.
The fruit of eternal life and living, living
from all eternity, just contracted down to this,
this being, this man, this, how are you
going to describe him?
Hmm?
And it poured out of his mouth.
And every precious droplet, see?
Now Peter, Simon, Simon's going to be called
to see this.
Right.
How about there?
Uh, we might have gone in for describing
a stone crusher or something like that.
Uh, we would have thought it was very
good.
In fact, we could have put on half
an hour on the television about it if
we'd have been talking about it.
But Jesus said, God bless you.
Glory.
And he stands up on the day of
Pentecost.
Oh Peter, with water flowing from his belly
and wine coming out of his mouth.
That's right.
Ah.
And he starts.
Economy of words.
Absolutely right down to the truth.
Pouring out.
Oh.
Hallelujah.
You know.
Don't you?
Isn't this a wonderful thing?
And when the precious truth poured out of
his mouth, lo and behold, all that the
water was for was fulfilled.
For the Lord had said, catching him on
the sea, he said, you follow me, I'm
going to make you fishers of men.
And three thousand fish he caught on the
day of Pentecost.
When the wine came out of his mouth.
Ah.
Beloved.
What is it that you're pouring into people's
ears?
Let's lay aside all malice, all guile, all
hypocrisy, all evil speaking.
Do you make sure you only ever speak
good of other people?
Do you?
If your motives are good, that's all you
will do.
And that's something that's right down in the
heart.
Are you sure?
And am I sure that I don't use
guile?
Now Jacob was a man of guile.
Jacob was a man of subtlety.
Look what God had to do with Jacob.
He laid his head on a stone.
He said, this is the house of God.
And he only laid his head on a
stone.
That's all he'd done.
He'd had a vision.
May our Lord lead us into all the
fullness of this, beloved.
That we should be real stones in this
temple, in this great building of God.
I want to go at least one step
further.
I don't know the times these have gone
so quickly.
In Ephesians, verse
19 of chapter 2.
Now therefore, you're no more Jacob's because Jacob
was a stranger and a foreigner.
You're no more strangers and foreigners, 19.
But fellow citizens with the saints, who are
of the household of God, and are built
upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner in
whom all the building fitly frayed together groweth
into a holy temple in the Lord in
whom ye also are builded together for an
habitation of God through the Spirit.
Amen.
Habitation of God through the Holy Spirit through
our spirits.
That's right.
Amen.
We're all being built together.
Is that right?
Build it together.
Fit it in.
That's lovely, isn't it?
As long as you're a stone.
You may think you're a pretty common stone.
Don't worry about that.
Let God's comment freely be the only one.
What you think of yourself isn't the important
thing, and what other people think of you
isn't the important thing either, because they may
not have the right idea, they may not
understand, they may not be able to rightly
assess these positions.
They don't know.
Not in the long run they don't.
Amen.
But God knows.
And when He's dealing with us beloved, let's
just all love one another so that when
God is doing these things, the only thing
we can find in one another is love.
Because we're to build up one another in
love.
Did you think that you could build in
this temple of God?
Build up one another.
You know, it's nice to think that God
puts me in my position.
Or you think that God's put you in
your position.
But if I can, I'm going to give
a hand too.
For there's a word in the Bible, and
I listen to it, we're workers together with
God.
That's right.
We're workers together with God.
When did you last put your hand on
a stone and try and help it into
position?
When did you last do it?
Or when did you first do it?
A worker together with God.
Send a hand.
I can remember that beam going up there.
People pushing it into position.
Straining, pushing.
I'm sure God put it there.
And I'm absolutely certain about that.
That the whole glorious thing, beloved, is to
be in this.
Ever.
Position.
Glory.
Marvellous.
Are you being built in?
Now, this is God's direct purpose.
The Lord Jesus speaks directly of it.
So far as he's concerned, this was his
great mission on earth.
Well, I thought his mission was to sort
of die and shed his blood.
Well, that was not an end in itself.
It was a means to this end.
He shed the precious blood that the precious
stones may come.
Amen.
It was a means to an end.
You must never think of Calvary as a
terminus.
Always a way through.
I mean, we should always worship God because
of it.
We shall always glory in God because of
it.
We shall always do that, because this was
the point where sin, the great disqualifying factor,
was dealt with.
Amen.
That's right.
But now, beloved, oh, he had one great
purpose.
He sat in the temple and said I
must be in the things of my father's
house.
Nobody understood a word of what he was
talking about.
Because, so far as he was concerned, that
wasn't his father's house anymore.
Not really.
They destroyed the ark centuries before this.
There was no ark being put behind the
veil in the days of Jesus Christ in
the temple.
It had been destroyed.
I mean, they went through all the powerful
angels that there were telling them, but there
was no mercy seat to sprinkle the blood
on.
Do you know that?
I hope you do anyway.
It had been destroyed centuries before.
It's all a paraphernalia, this business of animals,
goats and sheep and ducks and all these
things.
Absolute facade.
The high priest knew very well there was
no mercy seat behind it.
Yet they went through it.
That's why God ripped the veil to show
it wasn't there.
Everybody could see.
It wasn't only just to let us know
that we could go in.
It was to let everybody see that there
was nothing there in that empty shell.
Nothing at all.
They'd all been going through a pantomime.
Good religious people singing their psalms, reading the
Bible every Saturday or the equivalent of our
Sunday sort of thing, but there was nothing
there.
No glory there never had been all the
time Jesus was on the earth.
The glory of God was Him walking round.
He brought the glory.
We beheld His glory.
The glory is of the only begotten of
the Father, you see.
Bless the name of the Lord.
You see.
I've got to be about the things of
my Father's house.
Amen.
And so God wants us to see this
precious thing.
And in the end He had the temple
pushed over.
Wasn't one stone left on another.
Not one.
And in its place a stone eternal precious
stone building of God to us that should
believe.
Love it.
It's the preciousness.
We've got the preciousness.
It's to us.
Isn't that lovely?
All the preciousness that was in Him.
Everything that made Him wonderful and precious and
glorious come to us.
This is lovely, isn't it?
So that we could rejoice and live in
the wonder of it all and let God
deal with us and build us up.
It doesn't matter if He has to knock
some chips off here and there.
That's alright.
But I mean if we've all laid aside
hypocrisy and that, we've got to find a
cover up.
We don't want anything covered up.
We only want this thing dealt with.
Amen.
And rather than have anything to cover up
or be ashamed of let the blood wash
it away now.
It's precious that blood.
All glory and everything gone.
Everything that's trashy and earthly and fleshy and
of this world building us up in this
life as though there was anything in that.
Let that all go.
Let's just live as the Lord wants us
to live.
I want this more and more and more.
I suggest we pray.
Amen.
Glory to God.