WAR ON GOD AND THE BIBLE

5. My next position is this — Do we believe that the glorious Person in heaven who approached the Father and took the book out of His hand, and who today is ruling in heaven and in earth, is the Speaker in the text, the Man Christ Jesus? Very solemn it is to be under His control. Do not forget what He said: “Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth; nay, but a sword, a fire, and what will ye if it be already kindled?” Things are just working out according to divine determination (Eph. i. 11). God said to the serpent in Eden, “I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed”, the Seed of the woman. And Jesus said, “I have come to light a fire in the earth — father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother”, and so on. And His word is being fulfilled. Do you believe in the Person who rules in heaven and earth, the Man Christ Jesus? Do you believe this Book was inspired and and that all that is here is true, that Jesus is fulfilling the very prophecies, the predictions therein, in the awful things that are now taking place? “If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins.”

6. But why did He come forth, what brought Him to the earth, what made Him “a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’? The Holy Ghost has told us this great mystery. It is said by Paul that His Father “made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin”. The evangelical prophet Isaiah tells us the same things: “The Lord hath laid on Him” — made to meet in Him — “the iniquity of us all”. He stooped, this Jesus stooped, coming from His Father’s bosom, and He came into this world to have His people’s sins laid on Him that He might bear them away, as the goat for the sacrifice for sin, and as the scape-goat to carry it away into the land of forgetfulness; the same Person answering to both these types. It is an amazing thing to see almighty God sighing human breath, to believe that the Lord of life experienced death. And if we believe it not we shall die in our sins. The same Person who created the world, who made man, who rules now in heaven and earth — that same Person incarnate is before us in Holy Scripture as a “Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’. Having taken on Him all the responsibilities and debts and guilt of His people, He must bear them and receive into His human soul and body everything that was due to them as sinners. He must be dealt with as if He Himself were a sinner, because the sins of His people were imputed to Him. This is a cardinal doctrine? There is no salvation but in it, and no experimental salvation but by believing it. You will never be right with God unless you are right with Him in His Son Jesus Christ. He who made us must re-make us, so to speak. He who breathed into the nostrils of Adam the breath of life so that he became a living soul, must breathe eternal life into our dead souls that we may live. He who said, “Let there be light”, must say to us,”Let there be light of life in your consciences”. This a great and grand truth. The perfections of Deity, the claims of justice, the honour of divine holiness, and the fulfilling of every threat as well as of every promise, you will find centering here, finding their life and their beauty and their glory in this Person. His enemies were saying, “Who is your Father and where is He?”-They always were wrangling and cavilling and disputing with and hating Him. Now said He — and this is the point: “If you do not believe that I AM THAT I AM, if you do not believe that I am the Substitute for all that shall be saved, that I have come to bear their sins in My own body on the tree, to deliver them from sin and make them righteous before God, you shall die in your sins”.

Come then, dear hearers, to this point and ask yourselves — and I would press it on your attention: Do we as a congregation, as individual persons, believe in the substitution of Christ, in the imputation to Him who is God of the sins of the church? Here is the hope of a sinner, here is the foundation on which God builds the church. And if men dispute it, then we may apply to them the wondrous, the majestic chapter which I read, Job xxxviii: “Where were you when God decreed to make this and that? Where were you when He laid the foundations of the earth? Say, where were you when He decreed that His beloved and only begotten Son should become incarnate, and that He, the eternal Father, should impute to Him the sins of the chosen ones?” Men before these questions must be dumb. And a believer is brought to say with his Lord and Saviour, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight”.

7. Next, if we do not believe that Christ really died, that He really offered Himself to God without spot, thereby putting away our sin, we shall die in our sins. We must die in our sins unless Christ put them away by the sacrifice of Himself. Look then at this great question, face it dear friends: Do you believe in the vicarious death of Jesus Christ? They tell us today that this is an impossibility, and therefore that justification is an impossibility; that it would be unjust to punish an innocent person for a guilty person. But again we may say, “Have they sought and found out the secrets of infinite love and wisdom and power? Shall the Almighty, the infinite God, be judged by a finite principle?” Though it is impossible for us to do away with any man’s sin, is it therefore impossible for God to put away the sin of the sinner and constitute him righteous? O judge not God by yourself! He silenced Job, He silenced Job’s unwise friends, when He spoke out of the whirlwind. May He speak out of the whirlwind to any of you who may now not believe that He is the God that spoke to Job. Do you believe that He died in the place of some men? That He by dying took away their sins? That He put them away so absolutely that they are in the sight of His Father and in His own sight, and in the sight of His good Spirit, spotless, without blame, without anything blameworthy, without “spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (Eph. v. 27; Col. i. 22)? Such must be the effect of Christ’s death or no sinful man can enter heaven. It was not an attempt to save that Jesus made when He died; it was a real salvation which He effected when He said, “It is finished”, bowed His head, and gave up the ghost. This is foolishness with man and a stumbling-block to the Jew (I Cor. i. 21, 22). That He whom they looked for to be their King should be a poor, despised, crucified Man, was such a stumbling-block that they could not pass. They stumbled at that stumbling-stone, and there they are fallen as having stumbled. To the Greek what foolishness the cross is! But to all believers it is “the power of God unto salvation”. Are we among the believers? “If ye believe not that I am He on the cross, that I put away sin once and for ever, that I then perfected for ever My people, that then I satisfied infinite justice and met all the claims of divine holiness — unless you believe this, you shall die in your sins, you shall bear your own sins.” Come then to this point. Says Paul, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith or no”. Are you in the faith? That is, not the grace of faith, but the doctrine of faith — are you in that doctrine? Can you honestly sing the hymn:

“Payment God cannot twice demand,

First at my bleeding Surety’s hand,

And then again at mine”?

Can You look up to God and humbly sing that? Then what a favoured person you are!

8. The next position I take up is this — that this Person who gave up the ghost, who entered into paradise that day, is there today and “ever liveth to make intercession for them that come unto God by Him”. This Man, the God-Man, is there today. Said John — O wonderful sight! — “I saw in the midst of the throne a Lamb as it had been slain”. It was a solacing sight to him; it dried up his tears, it filled him with a wonderful view of divine mercy and peace and with admiration. And if you get it, it will have just the same effect; it will dry your tears, raise your hope, comfort your heart, and bring strength and adoring love into your faith. “A Lamb as it had been slain.” The reason of that sight and the effect appears to me to be this — that He is there to intercede. It was as if it should be said, those wounds intercede; they say to the father: “The people for whom I had those wounds are Mine and I am to bring them to glory. They are dumb, for their guilt makes them dumb. They themselves are weak and they cannot come through their difficulties, but I now in heaven intercede, and I will send angels to be ministering spirts to them, and I will send the Holy Ghost to them, the Spirit of promise to be their teacher.” O guilty person! do you believe in the intercession of Jesus in heaven? Who can fail for whom He intercedes? Paul says to the Romans: “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died; yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us”.

Now my friends, is this an encouragement for you? Can you cast anchor here, even into that which is within the veil, and feel at times that no matter how guilty, how polluted, how wandering, how foolish, how wicked you may be, here is an encouragement? Here is a Man, the God-Man, in heaven living “after the power of an endless life”. And His ability “to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him” is made to hang on this: “Seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Heb. vii. 25). Come repenting sinner, come poor broken-hearted believer, come you who have not a price to bring in your hand, nor a good feeling to boast of, nor a good frame to talk about on your knees, come with woes and wants and wounds and sins; and as you believe in this blessed Intercessor you will find your sins taken away.

9. “If ye believe not that I am He” in these particulars, “ye shall die in your sins.” Then this follows — that when a man, when a sinner does believe that Jesus is the I AM, that HE is what the Scriptures declare Him to be, that He did what the Scriptures say He did, that He is where the Scriptures say He is, and is doing what the Scriptures say He is doing, he shall be saved, he shall not die in his sins. The sinner that by precious faith — faith which stands in the power of God, fixes here, stands here, casts himself down here before the God-Man Jesus Christ, he upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”. Well, that is a kind word respecting some of us, is it not? We go to Him by necessity, by choice, by attraction, and this threefold cord cannot be broken. We go as lost sinners to call on the name of this great God-Man, the Lord Jesus; and remember — the Lord help you to remember, that the gospel is for sinners. It is the sinners’ gospel; we are undone without it. Take this Man away and we are all undone; but He abides in this blessed Book. The testimony of Him and for Him is here. He abides in heaven, and He abides in the church. Yes, He abides as the Saviour, as the Prophet, as the King, as the Priest. He abides with His people, and their faith brings them more or less distinctly to abide in Him. “Abide in Me, and I in you.”

And may I in conclusion say again what I have already said — that He and His Father are so one that though distinct in Person, They are not different in nature. No division in the divine nature. And therefore when He is with a sinner, the Father is with a sinner, and the Spirit proceeding from them both is also in the sinner. “I in them”, and how? “As Thou Father art in Me and I in Thee.” What an amazing mercy — the Trinity in a sinner! The Trinity loving a sinner, saving a sinner, blessing a sinner, guiding a sinner, and ultimately taking a sinner to be with Himself!

So far I have set before you, as God I hope has helped me, fundamentals gathered up into one fundamental. We are face to face today with the most appalling infidelity, but let all the many that stand on the side of that terrible word uttered by a bishop in Westminster Abbey, “If there be a God” — let them approve of evolution and the destruction of theology, but we have this BOOK, and we believe some of have the Holy Ghost who spoke by holy men of old. We have His word for our teacher and our guide. Stand here, dear friends. Young people, you have much to meet with, much to contend against, if you fear God; but stand fast by this, and remember one thing if you can -that when the Lord Jesus was tempted of the devil He said, “It is written, it is written “. Say that also if and when you are tempted. If a subtle argument is brought to you, reply “It is written”. This Book is written, these instructions are written. This Jesus is given, God sent Him. He freely came, He lovingly came. He freely, lovingly died; He rose again, He is in heaven. “It is written.” That, if you are enabled to hold it, will keep you. The word of Jesus: patience will keep you, and you will keep it; and in the end this will be your blessed happy lot: “Come ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world”.

Now I have delivered what was in my mind. Last Monday morning when I saw the terrible thing that the Bishop of Birmingham said to boys in Westminster Abbey, O how I felt for those boys! I felt such indignation and sorrow in my soul that made my cry to God to arise and vindicate His name and honour. And my mind has been with you young people more or less all the week. I have felt for you, and I feel for you. It may be that as I am an old man, God may remove me before the terrible day that is coming; but depend on this — you will meet with much “opposition of science falsely so-called”, and if you have faith you will need it, Christ said to His disciples, having taught them many things: “Let these sayings sink down into your ears, for the Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men”. As if He should say: “When I am weak, when I am crucified, when I seem to have no power, then remember I have taught you these things”. God help us to believe and to remember.

Let those preach smooth things who will venture to answer at the great tribunal; we dare not. Let those be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ who feel no obligations to Him for His dying love, we cannot, and by the grace of God we will not. — Newton.

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