JESUS SITTING IN THE TEMPLE

Part II

After three days they found Him in the temple. They found Him "Sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions." Thus, first, hearing them; and then asking them questions. There is a connection between hearing and asking questions. In Israel it was a custom that students or boys who came in contact with doctors of divinity, never sat; they always stood up out of fear and reverence, listening to those doctors. But now here in the temple the Lord Jesus was not standing, but He was sitting in the midst of the doctors. What was the reason that He was sitting there and not standing up? “The glory of the latter house shall be greater than the former.” As soon as that Boy of twelve years old entered the temple, those doctors gave Him a place of honor. They realized in their hearts that He was a special person. Later on you read in the Bible that they were astonished at what they heard from Him. They could not understand it.

And there in that temple, when Christ was twelve years old, He gave evidences already that He was the only begotten Son of God and that He was the Mediator and the Surety of the church. He had that full consciousness that God was His Father; and then His mother said: “Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.” With this saying you can realize, people, that although Joseph and Mary experienced much, they had little knowledge of the Son of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. In our days it is all Jesus, and it is all Christ. But how few shall there be who really have some knowledge of it; because we can never have knowledge of Christ unless it is personally revealed in our own heart and soul. Even Joseph and Mary were people with grace in their hearts, but they were so ignorant concerning the knowledge of the Son of God that it was as a dark wall before them. Of course, His mother said: “Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.” No, Mary; you know better. Joseph was not His father; God was His Father. Then how can you say: “Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing?”

Oh, Joseph and Mary, learn now that if you had to take care for the salvation of your soul, you would lose it entirely. The Catholic Church says: Mary, the mother of Christ, is a holy woman. Not so many years ago the pope declared to the people in the world that they should pray for the peace of Vietnam in the name of Mary; they should not go directly to the Lord. He said that in this case they should honor Mary, the mother of Christ. However, it were sad, people, if we had no one other than Mary. We have another Person Who saves to the uttermost and Who is the unmoveable foundation for our eternal salvation. And that Christ asked: “How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” These were words full of majesty and full of authority, because Christ knew that He was not only the begotten Son of God, but He knew that He was also the servant of His Father. It was His honor, His joy, and His gladness to be in the business of His Father. In the first place, the Father had elected Him from eternity— “My servant Whom I have appointed;” and in the second place, “in the business of His father,” because Christ was called to do the work of His Father, a work which could never be laid upon the shoulder of any creature, man or angel. There is not one in the world who is able to satisfy the justice of God; there is not one creature in the world who can pay for his sins and transgressions; there is not one man in the world who can bruise the head of Satan; there is not one man in the world who can deliver himself and others from the curse of the law and from the judgment of a holy and a righteous God. In our days the people say we have to reconcile ourselves with the Lord; we have to do this, and we have to do that.

When those three thousand people were converted and pricked in their hearts on the day of Pentecost, they all said: “What must we do to be saved?” The jailer in Acts 16 also said: “What must I do to be saved?” When the Lord opens our eyes and comes into our hearts in the time of the first love, we are ready to do everything. If, humanly speaking, the Lord would ask you to sell your car, your house, or your business at that time, you would be willing to do it. You would give everything for the eternal welfare of your soul. You read in Psalm 110—”My people shall be willing in the day of My power.” There is nothing too much. If church were held every day, God’s people would be there. They would have no objection if it were twice or seven times. When Whitefield was in this country, he sometimes preached seven times a day in the fields; and I think there were many people who were there. Huntington, too, preached many times. Sometimes he began preaching the Gospel for thousands of people at six o’clock on Sunday morning. But that was a time when they were hungry and thirsty after the truth. It is the best time of our lives, people, when we are willing to give everything for the welfare of our souls. It is not too nice when we stay in bed till nine and nine-thirty on Sunday morning and have to rush to church; then there is even no time to eat or to read the Bible. Are there some of these people in our midst, also? If the Lord makes us impressed, it is different. Then we go to bed on Saturday night with the thoughts: “Tomorrow it is Sunday and we will hear the words of eternal life. ‘ ‘ Then we are happy to be awake at five and six o’clock already. Sometimes we lay in bed praying, sighing, and crying: “Oh, Lord, visit me today; oh, Lord, come into my heart and reveal Thyself to my soul.” Is this a nice time? Oh, yes; it is far better than when we say: “Oh, must we sit an hour and a half in church again and come home so late?” David said: “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in His temple.”

I began with saying that although we read nothing in the Word of God about Christ’s twelfth to His thirtieth year, He was still the Surety, the Mediator, and the Head of the church and was busy in the business of His Father. And why was this so? For the answer we must go back to Paradise. In Paradise Adam and Eve were in the business of God, the Father. We read about this in the first Psalm—”His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law doth he meditate day and night.” The life of Adam and Eve in Paradise was to honor the Lord, to serve the Lord, to glorify the Lord, and to live in sweet communion with Him. But we have ruined everything. What is our life now? World! World! World! What we shall eat; what we shall drink; how shall we clothe ourselves; running after the world and worldly things, and no time for the Lord. We can do anything until it is for the cause of the Lord or the sake of the Father. Then we are too tired or it is too heavy; it is too early or it is too late. And that is the outcome, that is the result of sin in Paradise. But Christ as the Surety said to Mary: “Wist ye not?” You could know it; oh, yes, for Gabriel declared unto you that I would not come into the world to please you, but that I would come into the world to please My Father, to perform the labors and the work of My Father, and to open a new and living way by My blood and righteousness whereby God could be reconciled with a sinner and that sinner reconciled with God.

“Wist ye not?” The Lord spoke that to a converted woman; yes, to a converted woman, but to one without knowledge. That woman had sung once and she had glorified the Lord once, but later on you read in the Word of God: His mother “Kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Then she talked no more, but was quiet. And, people, it took thirty-three years before the sword of God’s righteousness and God’s justice went through her soul. Time and again the Lord Jesus placed His mother outside. You read in John 2 that Christ’s mother was also at the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee, and she was so proud that she was with her Son. She, too, had something to say there, but then Christ said to her: “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” He placed her outside. At another time when He was preaching in a house, she knocked on the door. Those people interrupted Him saying: “Behold, Thy mother and Thy brethren without seek for Thee. And He answered them, saying, Who is My mother, or My brethren? And He looked round about on them which sat about Him, and said, Behold My mother and My brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.” He placed them outside.

“Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” Oh, people, if the Lord has converted you, there comes a time when you know nothing; you do not know how to be converted; you do not know how to pray or how to sigh. You know nothing. At first we thought we knew something; but we learn that we know nothing. We become more stupid, more ignorant; not only if we are ten, twenty, and thirty years; no; but also when we are fifty, sixty, seventy, and eighty years old and more, is the time we realize a little of what David says in Psalter No. 325, “Teach me, O Lord, Thy way of truth; And from it I will not depart.” We become more and more ignorant, knowing nothing.

“Wist ye not?” No, she knew not. Was she converted? Yes! Hypocrites know everything. A poor child of God must be instructed; he becomes ignorant in the ways of the Lord. Christ came to do the business of His Father in order to reconcile the Father with His child and to reconcile that child with the Father, to bring that child back into communion and fellowship with Him. We have no words, people, to explain the depth of it to you, but we will try with only a few words. What a wonder of the Father, what a wonder of the Son, and what a wonder of the Holy Spirit, that the Father has given His Son. There was never one prayer sent up to heaven that the Father would give His Son. It is certainly a hard saying, but it is the truth that by nature, whether the Father gave His Son or not, it is the same to us. You have heard about Napoleon in the 1800’s. He did not believe in the Bible; he believed in nothing. There was once talk about God and heaven and hell. Publicly he said: “If I can keep Paris, then that Lord can keep heaven.” What an awful saying, but friends, within it is all the same. It shall be an eternal wonder if it is ever different in our hearts and lives. If the Lord did not step in, we would go thoughtlessly to eternity. By nature I want my own way. And what is my own way? It is that I have no desire in the ways of the Lord.

Oh, for many years you and your fathers and mothers have heard the true doctrine. When I entered the church yesterday, I had to say: “We are not worthy that You give us this place.” I have times in my life when I think it is a wonder that I am not laying at the bottom of hell. After all my years of preaching in the church, should the Lord say tonight: “I am sending you to hell;” I would have to accept it; I would have to say: “Lord, it is right.” But I would also say: “Lord, if that has to be, I hope that I shall never curse You; but that I shall receive a little corner at the bottom of hell in which to say that the Lord is right.” Maybe not all of you shall be able to follow it, but, nevertheless, I shall say it: With all the Lord has given me since I was fourteen years old (and the Lord has given me much), most of the time I have to go to hell. There is one Who knows it; and I know it too. Yet, I shall not come in hell! No! I was there, but was delivered out of it. “And the gates of hell shall not prevail against” the church of God. That is not because I have been such a good man; oh, no; or because I have done something. But that is only because that Lord, that Mediator, that Savior said to Mary: “Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” There is my hope and my expectation.

Oh, I have preached many times in your midst. Perhaps I shall not preach many more times for you because I, too, am getting older; and it cannot be that I am much longer in this world. Soon my time is up also; but, oh, there is one thing, people, which is true: you shall hear my voice in the day of days! Great is your responsibility! I have not done one perfect sermon in your midst; not one. I said on my bed last night: “Lord, if You do not come with Your blood, I cannot stand before You, not even with my preaching.” But, one thing I know: I have never deceived your souls for eternity, but have preached the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. I am so firm of this in my heart that even should I have to die for it this evening, I would die.

Friends, what shall you do with it? Boys and girls, men and women, children: is there one who has been sitting this Sabbath Day with a broken heart and a contrite spirit? Is there one who came to the church, saying: “Oh, Lord may it be the day of Your good pleasure for my soul? Oh, Lord, may something happen today that will stay with me forever and forever?” Please do not harden your hearts; but, oh, that you would break down before the Lord cyring for mercy and for grace while it is the acceptable time. You can now be converted; maybe tomorrow it will be too late; and then too late forever. How awful it will be to hear: “Go away! I have never known you!”

Young and old, I have to conclude; the time is there. But, oh, I hope that the few words in those sermons preached in your midst, shall never testify against you in the day of days. May they be a means in the hand of the Lord to convert you. We must be converted! We must be renewed by the Holy Spirit! We must be restored into fellowship with God through Christ, and only through Him. May the God of all grace be with you and remember you with your children and grandchildren for time and eternity. I commend you together with your needs and wants before the Throne of God. If this should be the last time I preach for you, I hope that in the great day of Judgment I shall hear of some in your midst, for whom the Lord had used my preaching for their salvation to His honor and to His glory. The Lord be with you in all your needs and wants. May the Lord strengthen and sustain you. May the Lord prepare us together to meet Him in righteousness and in peace so that soon the day of death shall be better than the day in which we were born. AMEN.

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