Our theme tonight has been advertised as Blessing
the Blesser, and you will find our text
in Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 3.
Paul's letter to the Ephesians, the first chapter
and the third verse.
Blessed be God, the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us
with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in
Christ.
This letter has been called the Queen of
the Epistles.
Whether that is a proper designation, we shall
not assume to judge, but one thing is
evident.
It has been so called because its content
is of the richest variety and of rarest
quality.
Within its six comparatively brief chapters we have
a goldmine of spiritual truth.
No man who is prepared to spend a
few hours in this remarkable document will be
quite the same again.
If you would know spiritual truth, that leads
to spiritual power and spiritual transformation and moral,
I counsel you, spend a couple of hours
a week in this wonderful letter penned by
the Apostle Paul.
Now, our text is the first of many
expressions of praise and of gratitude woven into
the texture of this document.
I say it is the first of many.
There are quite a number here, interspersed throughout
the six chapters, but it is a very
remarkable key in a phrase.
I seem to imagine the Apostle taking the
stance of a soloist, and yet a soloist
who wants every man and every woman redeemed
by the blood of Christ, every man and
every woman in the church that received this
document soon to join him, and to praise
and adore and worship the God, the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, in and through
whom every redeemed is redeemed, and from whom
comes our every saving benefit.
It's this tremendous enthusiasm of the Apostle.
You know, my friends, it seems to me
that it's a great test of a man's
genuine faith.
Have you ever felt your soul running away
with you in prayer?
Do you really know what it is to
be fired in your soul?
It's not when people are listening.
Oh, we need to praise God when we're
together.
It's wonderful to have singing which is really
praise.
But I'm not talking about that.
It's easy to join with a multitude in
the song of praise.
What I'm asking is this.
Have you ever felt your heart running away
with you, ablaze with joy and gratitude to
God when you're on your own, contemplating the
glories of his grace, the immensities of the
divine benefits and blessing?
Our opening hymn was one such hymn, When
all thy mercies, O my God, my rising
soul surveys.
Transported.
That's it.
I take wings.
Transported with a view.
I'm lost.
You've left everybody behind.
And you're entranced with the realities of the
spiritual life, with God and his Son and
his Spirit and his grace and his goodness
and his mercies to men and to your
self-believer, if you're a believer in the
Lord Jesus.
Well now, we're going to try to follow
in Paul's footsteps tonight, in the steps of
his thought, if we may so speak.
And it's almost impossible.
This man takes flight.
And we can only follow afar off.
But oh, that the Lord would give each
one of us such a sense of his
grace, such a knowledge of his peace, such
an experience of his salvation, that somehow or
other we shall feel our souls leave the
body and sense ourselves not only to be
one with him, but with a redeemed of
the Lord in every age, lost in wonder,
love, and prayer.
Well now, we begin this with the song
upon the lips of a saint.
The song upon the lips of a saint.
Blessed be God.
The one word which Paul used to express
this sense of praise, this blessing of God,
is one which very obviously exposes the pent
-up emotion of his heart.
Gratitude and praise are felt bursting forth here,
like a mighty river in spate.
You can almost sense it, gushing out of
his great soul.
He's not writing these words just because they
ought to come at the beginning of a
letter.
He could have begun otherwise.
He's penning this word, this one significant, this
one pregnant word of praise, because his big
soul is ablaze with fire and gratitude.
It's no mere duty, it is a delight.
Now, one word about this.
First thing I want just to say is
that biblical religion has always been a religion
of praise.
Not only praise, but it has been a
religion of praise right back from the beginning.
I don't think this is commonly realized among
us.
If we read through our Bibles oftener, we
should notice that you very rarely go through
a book without praise.
You never do, actually.
In fact, it's difficult to turn over many
pages of the Bible without coming up against
this note of praise.
God must be praised.
Job says that at the creation, the morning
stars sang together, and all the sons of
God shouted for joy, right at the beginning.
You come to the book of Exodus, and
you hear of the song of Moses and
others.
Deborah in the book of Judges, she's only
an illustration.
Solomon not only uttered three thousand proverbs, we
are told in the book of Kings that
his songs were a thousand and five.
Ah, don't become concerned about the number, but
see the principle behind it.
There was a song in his soul, too.
We read in Chronicles, these are the men
whom David put in charge of the service
of song in the house of the Lord,
after the ark rested there.
I'm not concerned with the details.
I'm only concerned about this.
There were men that were put in charge
of the song of the Lord in the
house of the Lord.
We tend to think of Old Testament religion
as a boredom.
It was not.
Men that really knew their God in Old
Testament times were men who had to express
it in song, in praise.
Elihu speaks in the book of Job of
God as one who gives songs in the
night time.
The Psalter is not only the product of
Old Testament religion, it is the hymn book
of Old Testament saints.
I need say no more.
My first point in relation to the praise
on the lips of a saint is this.
It was evident in Old Testament times.
Biblical religion has always been a religion of
praise.
But when you come over into New Testament
times, praise is even more evidently the product
of the evangelical religion of the New Testament.
The product of the good news brought to
us in Jesus Christ and received by men
and women out of every kindred and tribe
and people and nation, simply by faith.
When this gift of God in Jesus Christ
has been received and the grace of God
is known, men begin to sing.
The whole atmosphere of the New Testament is
charged with such emotions as joy, love, peace,
hope.
And I defy you.
You can't have love and joy and peace
and hope in the soul without somehow or
other beginning to sing.
These things, these things ignite.
You can't keep them in.
They've got to be expressed, and this is
song.
No, no, New Testament saints need not be
cajoled to sing.
They don't need a conductor.
They don't need a choir for that matter.
They don't need an organ for that matter.
Put them in prison and they must sing.
Let me remind you, Paul and Silas did
not simply sing at midnight in a Philippian
jail.
At least four of our most precious New
Testament documents that speak of joy and of
grace were written in prison.
Why did Paul write his prison epistles in
prison?
Was there a taskmaster standing above him and
say, Now, Paul, you get on with a
job.
You've got a job to do?
Not at all.
But his great soul was so full of
it, and his heart was so enthralled with
the Saviour, and God was such a living
reality to him in prison.
Well, he just had to write.
The churches needed to know more.
Paul had the knowledge of him, and sometimes
with the chains on his wrists, he wrote
the epistle.
It is not surprising, therefore, that every evangelical
awakening results in a new pill of praise.
You always have a wave of hymnology following
upon a wave of revival.
I've got no time to try to prove
that tonight, but I don't think I need.
If you know anything about the history of
revivals, you will know that in the train
of a real spiritual awakening, men and women
always come to life in praise.
And you have new additions to your hymn
books.
And that spirit of praise is evidently and
eloquently illustrated in our text.
Blessed be God, says the man.
Blessed be God.
No sooner has the apostle penned the fairly
normal Christian greeting that we have in the
first two verses, and just begun to think
of the theme that is going to occupy
his mind, he has to praise God.
I don't know whether I need to continue.
Let me say this much.
Paul is so full of praise that it
upsets his style.
Now, writers are very careful about their style.
Of course, you must have everything right.
And this man was a scholar.
And I suppose, all things being equal, Paul
would have liked to have the rhythm and
the momentum of the Greek language, everything in
order, you know.
But when a man becomes obsessed with God
and his grace, he even forgets his style.
Do you know, in the Greek language that
Paul wrote, you only have one long, meandering
sentence from verse 3 to verse 14.
And it comes out almost like, like dashes
of water springing up, or allowed out of
an overfull dam.
One writer expresses it in this way.
I wrote it down.
I thought it was so significant.
The sentence begun by blessed be rolls on
like a snowball tumbling down a hill, picking
up volume as it descends.
Its 202 words and the many modifiers which
they form, arranged like shingles on a roof,
or like steps on a stairway, are like
prancing steeds pouring forward with impetuous speed.
Do you know, it's true.
You read verses 3 to 14 again and
you will see Paul just like a prancing
steed, a horse in gallop.
And you can't stop him.
So fully of the sense of the glory
and the greatness and the wonder of God's
grace.
My friend, have you got anything that makes
you sing?
You know, it's a real test of a
man's faith.
Again, let me repeat.
I don't mean publicly.
We will sing publicly.
But what I mean is this, in your
soul, when you write to men who are
in difficulties, is your soul ablaze with a
knowledge of the grace and of the glory
of God that you are on fire and
passing it on, as sung at the lips
of a saint.
But now, what is going to occupy us
particularly tonight is the substance of the boom
that excited such praise.
Why such excitement?
Why such praise?
What conceivable blessing can make a man sing
so lustily or praise God so ardently?
Well, now, the reply to that question will
not only disclose the composition of the benefits
received, but it will also expose the transformation
of the sense of value of the beneficiary.
Because, you see, when a man has really
received the grace of God and proved it
and lives by it, even in a prison,
that man's sense of value soon changes.
All the glitter of material things pale into
insignificance.
Everything that once glittered is now tawdry in
comparison with the grace of God and the
God of grace.
Come then with me, and let's try to
examine this just a little.
Will you note, first of all, the composition
or the nature of the blessing that elicits
Paul's praise?
Let me read again.
Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
The blessings that gladden Paul's soul are spiritual
in their composition or in their nature.
Paul specifies them as spiritual, has blessed us
with all or with every spiritual blessing in
the heavenly places in Christ.
They're spiritual.
This word spiritual describes their texture, if you
like, the texture of God's blessing.
They are positively spiritual, spiritual as opposed to
carnal, spiritual as opposed to material, spiritual.
I'm quite sure that many of you who
read the Bible will have noticed quite a
difference of evaluation between what we have here,
for example, and what we often encounter in
the Old Testament.
There, in the Old Testament, in the days
of shadows and of types, the material was
often symbolic of things beyond itself.
So that in the Old Testament times, people
prized material benefits and material possessions, not just
for what they were, but they were symbolic
of something.
You find an emphasis upon material possessions in
the Old Testament that you don't have in
the New.
Why is that?
Well, because those were the days of the
types and of the shadows.
And when a man had material benefits, when
he had a lot of children, when he
had a lot of cattle, well, it indicated
the divine favor and spoke of God's blessing.
In other words, material benefits were symbolic of
certain things beyond themselves.
They were prized not only for themselves, but
for this.
Canaan was not simply so much land to
be possessed.
Not at all.
We shall see later that Abraham saw something
far beyond the land of Canaan with its
hills and its valleys, its deserts and its
fertile crescent.
He saw much beyond that.
Oh, he saw that.
But it was also symbolic of something bigger
and greater.
The tabernacle and the temple, they were not
only appreciated for what they were and what
they contained, they contained some very precious instruments.
There was much silver and much gold that
went into the temple, for example.
But they were prized not as material possessions,
but they were symbolic.
They spoke of something beyond themselves.
God was among his people.
And this was the real thing, you see.
God was there.
This was his place.
And he'd come to dwell.
Now, in this connection, it is interesting and
instructive to me.
I've already hinted at it, that though Abraham
was given the promise of land for an
eternal inheritance to his children, his seed, the
New Testament tells us something that the Old
Testament doesn't about Abraham.
In the light of the fact that Abraham
was given land as an inheritance for his
seed forever, you would expect Abraham to get
exceedingly excited about the land.
But when you come to the epistle to
the Hebrews, you find that nothing is mentioned
hardly about this.
Abraham was on the lookout for something different.
What was he looking for?
Well, let me read to you.
By faith he sojourned in the land of
promise, as in a foreign land.
Oh, he had a good look at the
scenery, and he took it all in.
He didn't minimize the value of the land,
but he was there.
He was there like a foreigner, living in
tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him
of the same promise.
Well, why did he treat it in that
insignificant way?
For this reason, he looked forward to the
city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker
is God.
Abraham was on the throat.
He didn't want to settle down here, significant
as the land was.
This is not the ideal.
This is not the ultimate.
He saw something beyond it.
Oh, blessed is the man, blessed is the
man that has grasped the vision of the
city of God.
The land was not the goal.
His eyes were beyond its rugged hills and
fertile crescents.
He looked for the city full of square,
whose builder and maker is God.
Now, here in Ephesians, the material has receded
more and more into the background.
We are in the New Testament ethos and
atmosphere and outlook.
Everything is spiritual.
You see, New Testament saints, since Jesus Christ
came, we are living in the days of
reality.
The Old Testament saints were living in the
day and in the period of signs and
promises and signals of things yet to come.
But when Christ came, the end came, in
one sense.
We have now the firstfruits of what we
will have in heaven.
You know, heaven will not be so different
from the sense of God.
We shall have the same quality of life
there.
Oh, we shall be perfect.
We shall have a new body, like unto
the glorious body of our Lord.
No sin shall enter.
But fundamentally, the Christian is given the life
of God to live here upon earth.
He has the Spirit of God, the Spirit
of heaven, right in his heart now.
We are living in the times according to
the Bible.
This is the last hour, says John, he
goes so far as that.
Not just the last times, we are living
in the last hour, he says.
And when once we see and recognize this,
we begin a life where values are altogether
different.
Once we see that God's ultimate is spiritual,
we shall hold material and carnal things in
perspective.
Not until then.
Now, lest there be anyone who will doubt
the supremacy of God's spiritual gifts over his
total material benefits, I want to say one
word about it in passing, and I'll put
it in this way.
Whereas God could bring the vast, complicated cosmos
into existence by the word of his mouth,
God could not give one spiritual benefit to
a sinner apart from the work of his
Son.
All the universe sprang into being by the
word of his mouth.
But no mere fiat of omnipotence could bring
pardon of sin for sinners into existence.
Christ must needs die.
Let me put it to you like this.
The difference between the costliness of material and
spiritual blessings, on the one hand, and the
expenditure involved in our salvation, on the other,
is the difference between the expenditure of God's
breath in creating the former and Christ's blood
in procuring the latter.
The breath of God, a word of his
mouth, brings creation into being.
Nothing less than the blood of Christ brings
pardon of sin and the hope of glory.
Spiritual things in the Bible, spiritual things in
the New Testament, are everything.
As sure as the word spiritual has reference
to the texture of the divine blessings, however,
so also does it refer, according to quite
a number of New Testament expositors at any
rate, to the agent of its transmission.
Now, I feel I must say this in
order to be honest and fair with the
text.
And it's the preacher's main business to be
fair to the text.
It is one of the main considerations for
us who stand in the pulpit and preach
the word.
It's to be honest with the text.
And there are those who tell us that
we do not simply have here a reference
to the texture of God's blessing as spiritual,
but to the mode of its transmission.
In other words, they tell us, and there
are some great names among them, that Paul
also wanted to imply by this word that
these benefits, these blessings, are ours only by
the Holy Spirit.
And the name of the Spirit is right
at the heart of that word spiritual.
These imponderable spiritual treasures must be handled by
one whose expertise matches their value and their
nature.
And in all the world there is only
one such expert.
Who is it that can bring the things
of God and the benefits of Christ's redemption?
Who is it that can bring them to
me?
My dear people, let me speak to you
of the inabilities of preachers.
I can't bring the grace of God to
you.
And you may have an archangel in the
pulpit, he couldn't either.
Men can't convey the grace of God to
men.
If there is a man or a woman
to be blessed by the grace of God
in this service tonight, it's only the expert
handling of the Holy Spirit who can bring
of the things of Christ and impart them
to a believing heart.
You can only be spectators of divine grace
apart from the ministry of the Holy Ghost.
This is why, you see, ultimately the preacher
of the gospel has to send all inquirers
to the Lord.
If ever you hear a minister of the
gospel who says, come to me, come to
me, come to me, tell him to go.
No man is indispensable.
The only indispensable in a work of grace
is God the Holy Ghost.
The Father has planned salvation, the Son has
procured redemption, and the third person of the
blessed Trinity is the only expert who can
take of the finished work and bring it
to a lost, destitute, needy sinner.
Therefore, if you have need of grace tonight,
I'll tell you what to do.
Pray that the Spirit of God will impart
it to you, such as the composition or
nature of the womb that makes the apostles
so full of praise and marks these opening
words as so utterly remarkable.
Now, next, I want you to notice that
matching their composition is their comprehensiveness.
I don't know whether you tend to believe
that the Apostle Paul must have made a
little slip here.
Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
Why?
Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in thy heavenly places in Christ?
Yes, we may well hold our breath as
we take in the significance of that gigantic
statement.
Some may be tempted to question as to
whether he's made a slip.
How is it that God has blessed us
with all spiritual blessings, every spiritual blessing?
Doesn't matter how you translate it.
Is this true?
If so, if you do doubt and have
some sneaky notion that the Apostle Paul made
a slip, well, let me remind you that
Peter must also have made a slip, because
Peter tells us in his second epistle, chapter
1 and verse 3, his divine power, he
said, has granted to us all things that
pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge
of him who called us to his own
glory and excellence.
Did you catch it?
Has granted to us all things that pertain
to life and godliness everything?
Startling as it is to read of our
being blessed with every spiritual gift, I want
to tell you of something here which makes
it even more startling.
The Apostle Paul puts the verb in the
past tense, and it is a special verb.
It indicates that the thing has been done
once for all and forever.
It's the aorist tense.
And what it means is this.
Paul tells us that God has already blessed
his people, already blessed believers in Jesus Christ,
already so blessed them that they've got every
spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
every solitary blessing.
Now, my friend, let's get our breath back.
What he's saying is this.
He's saying that if you are a child
of God, if you're redeemed by the blood
of Christ, if you're born again, if you're
a child of God and the Spirit of
God dwells in you, if you're a true
Christian, God has already put in your account
every conceivable spiritual blessing that you will ever,
ever, ever need.
And he's done it.
Paul says that by one solitary act, God
has finished giving, in a sense.
He's put everything there.
He's given.
He's bestowed.
He's blessed us thus.
No spiritual blessing that we shall ever need
is omitted, not one.
The composition of the blessing, or of the
blessings, but now somebody will ask, surely that's
too much to take in.
Here am I tonight sitting in Knox, or
preaching in Knox, for it's as true of
the preacher as of others, but I have
spiritual need.
How is it, then, that God can have
once for all blessed me with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places in Christ?
How is it so?
The thing must be false.
Well, now, look at the location of the
blessings with which we have been blessed in
Christ Jesus.
He hath blessed us, says Paul, with all
spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ.
Two things need to be said by way
of exposition of these words.
Speaking generally, God has blessed us with every
spiritual blessing in heavenly places.
Now, I know that there are different, there
are people who understand this differently.
I'm not going to attempt to expand in
detail now, but I'm going to say that
I, for my part, accept what the King
James Version tells us, and understand Paul's word,
which is a vague word, as unto spiritual
places, not spiritual things.
Blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Now, you say, what does that mean?
Well, I think you see what it means
when you go on.
In the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
The general statement becomes clearer and more meaningful
when we link it intimately with this particular,
this personal location of our blessings.
Blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly
places in Christ.
Our blessings, our inheritance with which God has
so richly blessed us, are localized in one
person.
And that person is big enough, and great
enough, and good enough, and wise enough to
contain all the spiritual benefits and blessings that
any lost sinner will ever need to gain
the glory of God's presence.
He is the Alpha, and he's the Omega.
He's the fount of every blessing.
He's the treasury of divine grace.
He's the reservoir of all our needs.
And, says Paul, everything that you'll ever need
has been deposited for you in the heavenly
places in Christ.
Christ is in the heavenly places.
Every spiritual benefit, let me repeat, that you
can ever need is there in Christ Jesus.
Now, here lies the secret.
Here lies the open secret of salvation and
of the Christian living.
It is to get into touch and to
keep in touch with the one in whom
all the fullness dwells.
You see, God does not come to us
like this.
Will you pardon an illustration like this?
The principle by which God sets us a
going with life eternal in us and keeps
us going is not the principle operating and
driving a car.
I'm sorry, it's not the principle of getting
10, 20 gallons of petrol and then go
for so long and do what you please.
It's rather the principle of your trolleys.
You have some of them here.
Saw them the other day.
I don't, not quite sure whether I noticed
this much, but when we had trolleys in
England, they had two arms stretching upwards to
the electric pylons above, and I thought it
was a very symbolic picture.
And, you see, these went moment by moment
in touch with the power above.
That's how they started off and that's how
they kept going.
And when they were severed from the power,
they could do nothing.
Without me, says Jesus, you can do nothing.
And that's the principle.
This is the secret of life.
This is the secret of possessing eternal life
and this is the secret of living it.
It's to keep in touch.
It's to be able to draw.
Moment by moment I'm kept in His love.
Moment by moment I've life from above.
Moment by moment.
My friend, are you in living vital touch
with Him in whom all the fullness dwells?
Oh, how gracious God is.
Just imagine what would be the case if
He had put a so much grace in
a Buddha, so much grace in a Muhammad,
so much grace in this, some that, and
you and I would have to travel round
the world, have a little bit from Him
and a little bit from Him, and where
would we be?
God has deposited all the treasures of His
grace in one, and that one is on
the throne of the universe.
And we may come to God in Him
and find mercy and grace to help in
every time of need, wherever we are.
Is it any wonder, Paul sang?
Hallelujah.
I tell you, my friend, if you know
what this means, you'll want to sing a
little tune.
Anywhere in the universe, by day and by
night, alone and in company, in summer and
in winter, in youth and in age, in
life and in death.
My Lord has all, and God has put
everything in Him.
Do you know, it reminds me of the
picture of Joseph in Egypt of old.
Some of you know that Joseph is a
favorite character of mine.
Do you remember, do you remember how the
Pharaoh said, when the days of need and
poverty had come and there was no food
in Egypt, by this time Joseph had got
all the provision necessary, and the Pharaoh had
put the key in the hand of Joseph,
and Joseph was in charge of all the
grain.
And you read in the book of Genesis
that what Pharaoh said to everybody was, go
to Joseph, go to Joseph, go to Joseph.
Do you want food?
Go to Joseph.
You're rich?
You've got to go to Joseph.
Are you poor?
You go to Joseph, just the same.
Where have you come from?
It doesn't matter.
But you've got to go to Joseph.
He holds the keys to the granaries.
There is none other name under heaven given
among men whereby we must be saved.
Why?
Because God has appointed one Messiah, and in
Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead,
and we, says Paul, or you Christians, are
complete in Him.
There's nothing missing there.
A song on the lips of a saint.
The substance of the boon that kindled such
a song.
I can only mention the closing thought, though
it locks up the hole, and you can
pursue it as you go.
The source of such substantial benefits, and the
real inspiration of Paul's song and gratitude.
Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us.
You see what he does now?
He traces the river of divine benefits.
He traces the flood of divine blessings.
He traces them all, or he traces it
in its totality, right back to its source.
And the source of every good and perfect
gift is ultimately in the heart and mind
and will of God.
Blessed be God.
But then he goes on to designate and
to define.
He says, blessed be God, yes, yes, yes,
but, but, but, but, the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And I suggest to you we had a
very special reason for putting it like that.
The source of our every spiritual blessing is
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
Jesus Christ as man looked upon God as
his God, and he looked upon God as
his Father, as man, and as Son of
God.
Now, I have to be brief.
When Paul spoke of God as the God
of our Lord Jesus, what did he mean?
Well, the God that Jesus worshipped, and the
God that Jesus served, and the God that
Jesus obeyed and trusted in life and in
death, his God, the God that sent him
forth in the beginning, the God that was
with him all the way, and the God
to whom he went to the end, the
God of our Lord Jesus Christ, God as
revealed in his coming, God as manifested in
his life, God the trustworthy one to whom
he could go at the end, even via
the cross and its shame, the God of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
You see, we Christians do not worship and
follow a mythical deity.
We follow a God who has been revealed,
who has been revealed in his Son, Jesus
Christ, and we see him also in the
relationship of Jesus as man with God.
He knew him.
He exhibited him.
And in his relationship with the Father, he
showed us what kind of a God he
was.
Yes, and let me hurry to the other,
what kind of a Father?
I'm going to preach on this one day,
so this is only an introduction.
I don't think there is any theme in
the New Testament which is quite as precious
as this.
The fatherhood of God as exhibited in the
life of his Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ so acted in his relationship to
the Father that he made it evident that
he was a real Father, not just an
omnipotent and almighty God, a sovereign deity.
He is there.
Oh, of course he is, and I'm not
taking away from that.
I'm not suggesting that Jesus said or did
anything to detract from the almightiness of God,
not for one moment, but along with his
almightiness and his omniscience and so forth, he
was Father, my Father and yours.
As Father he was with him right at
the beginning.
You read in the New Testament where our
Lord refers to his God as his Father,
and they're very significant.
The only thing I want to say now
is this, that right through his life, whenever
he spoke of his Father, his Father was
always to be trusted.
He could never contemplate his Father saying or
doing or demanding anything that was wrong.
Read, for example, Matthew chapter 6.
And he's telling the disciples, why do you
fuss and bother sometimes about what you should
eat or what you should drink or what
you should put on?
You know, the world doesn't change very much,
does it?
This is what we all fuss about, what
we should eat and what we should drink
and what we should put on.
Well now, he says, all the Gentiles, all
the pagans are looking for these things.
Why should you worry?
Look at the sparrows, he says, look at
the birds.
There's not a sparrow that falls without your
Father, notice, your Father knowing.
He's not a father to the sparrow, but
he's your Father.
He cares for the sparrow, not a creature,
but he's your Father.
Your Father, man, if you're in Christ Jesus,
he's your Father.
But he cares for the sparrow just because
he's the sparrow's creator.
And can you add one cubit to your
statue?
You're going to try and add to your
height.
Poor fools, so to say.
Don't be so stupid, you can't do it,
you can't care, you can't do anything for
yourself anyway.
Take a good look around if you want
a suit of clothes, look at the grass.
And the grass are closed today, tomorrow they're
cast into the earth.
You seek first of all the kingdom of
God and his righteousness, and all these things
will be added to you.
And the context and the background is the
background of the fatherhood of God, the fatherhood
of the King, the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
He must be praised, but he must be
praised above all because in his Son Jesus
Christ he becomes and our.
Now, my friends, I'm going to close very
simply like this.
Permit me to ask the question.
You don't have to answer me, but the
very response of your soul to the question
is indicative of your true soul's state.
Do you know God as your God, my
God, my Father?
Now, you see, this is the meaning of
the gospel.
God has ordained that the gospel should be
preached here enough tonight because he wants you
to know the God of our Lord Jesus
as your God, and the Father of the
Lord Jesus as your Father, and all the
grace that is necessary, and all the provision
is all wrapped up in one parcel, and
the name of that one parcel—may I be
forgiven for putting it thus—is Jesus.
He's everything.
He's the beginning, and he's the end.
And if Jesus Christ is yours, you have
the grace to begin and to enter into
the Cayman, which is God, and the secret
of going on until in eternity.
What now you possess in part, you will
then possess in whole.
I commend Jesus Christ to you, and to
those of you who have received him and
who've got a little bit stale by the
way, don't think that God has anything at
all outside of Jesus Christ.
I think this is one of the great
sins of the Church today.
I have heard people say, I have heard
people say that there comes a moment in
a supposedly Christian experience when you leave Jesus
Christ behind, and you begin to live on
another level.
My friend, that's not biblical Christianity.
Here is a well that is so deep,
the waters will fill it for all eternity.
Bring your little cups.
When you and I are drunk and quenched
ourselves for many a long year, the ocean
will be as full as it ever was.
Don't you want to praise God?
Blessed be God.
Blessed be the God and Father of all
others.
You see, he was Paul's God and Paul's
Father, as Jesus Christ was Paul's Savior.
Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings.
And if you have any questions you think
we could help you about in relation to
him, we shall only be too pleased to
be of service.
But ultimately, it's the Spirit of God alone
who can bring of the grace and of
the things of Christ, and give them and
impart them and make them all to you
and to me.
In these closing moments, then, let us bow
a moment before God in prayer and commend
ourselves to him.
Let us pray.