AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH July 8, 15, 22, 29, August 5 2007

A CONTINUATION OF THE THRUST AND BASE OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
OF AUSTRALIA ON BIBLICAL LINES …

The WAY of LIFE 13 Testimonies

of Entry, Growth, Aspiration and Eternity

Sermon Notes

4. Romans 5:17, 10:3 - Not without the gift of righteousness, duly and freely received.

"For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one,
much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ."

 "For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish
their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God."

Receipt of your righteousness as a GIFT means there is no shift or shiftlessness about your honour, merit, goodness or grace. You being bankrupt are bankrolled. Like it ? Take it. It is there freely (Romans 3:23ff., Isaiah 55:1-3).Dislike it ? Then live on your own righteousness, as one "seeking to establish" it, in hope or deed, and do not submit. This qualifies you as rebel.

5. John 6:53-54,61-63 - Not without eating and drinking what Christ provides by His death.

"Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

"Does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe."

Notice that in John 6:51, Christ uses another image of His self-giving to man. This time, instead of using the figure found in the former sacrificial slaughter of animals, where the flesh of the lamb as at the Passover so famously, would next be eaten, showing both the sin-cancelling power of the death as a portrayal of that of Christ to come (cf. John 1:29) and the life sustaining power of the Lord of life in those who know Him, He used that of bread. It was based on that other historical fact, the Exodus, when in the desert the equally famous manna sustained their physical beings.

In this reference to 'eating' the 'bread', receiving the spiritual manna, that other form of referring to His own self as sacrifice and resurrected Lamb, the ONLY one of its kind! Christ uses what grammatically is called the aorist subjunctive. It is not present tense. It signifies that ONCE you eat of this bread, you will live for ever.

Precisely the same message is to be found in John 4:14, where ONCE you drink of this water (instead of laboriously coming day by day to draw), there will be this amazingly delightful, and most restful phenomenon, that this water will THEN be IN YOU.

Not only so, it will have an intrinsic power, and will SPRING UP UNTO ETERNAL LIFE.

That in turn is precisely as John 5:24 indicates, that of the one who believes in Him who sent Christ and in His own words 1) has eternal life 2) does not come into judgment and 3) has passed (Greek perfect tense here) from  a state of death to a state of life.

Thirdly, like a three-rail track, this is in perfect parallel to John 5:11-12 where John is at such pains, as inspired by God, to make it clear that believers in Christ, not some fag end of philosophy which seeks to reconstruct Him, but the eternal Son of God become  flesh who died to take the penalty of sin and give life to those who know Him, HAVE eternal life.

To return to John 6, it is one such that Christ will raise up the recipient on the last day (John 6:54) and live "for ever".

To think that once you receive this free gift (Romans 5:12-17) of Christ and His righteousness,

	the whole calamity of man, severance from the God of his Creation, the eternal and almighty, is remedied, and
	the sequences of sequestration are annulled, so that
	not oddities but sovereign steps are in view,
	not events as indifferent (Psalm 1), like winds blowing chaff, but events as under the knowing watchfulness of the Shepherd occur, so that
	eternity comes in its meaning and depth, its vitality and delicious drama, and not as a dream when it departs:

this is delight.

This is as in Colossians 1:21-22:

"And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight..."

There are no ruses, negotiations: instead, there is realisation, repentance and reception of Him who saves.

There are no substitutes, creative thinking programs from man or casuistries for his spirit.
Take it or leave it, God your own Saviour, Christ the Redeemer - or flee.
Indeed, flee to or from Him (Hebrews 6:18, Hosea 7:16 -

"they are like a deceitful bow, they return, but not to the Most High").

Yet even standing still is just to remain as one who has already fled, and is dead to God.

6. Matthew 18:3-  Not without being converted and becoming as little children.

"Assuredly, I tell you, unless you are converted and become as little children,
you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven."

Notice the dramatic, emphatic exclusion "assuredly not enter".  God's promises are both positive and negative, like those read out from Mount Ebal and Mount Gerazim as shown in Deut.  27,28, the blessings and the cursings. While salvation is by grace through faith, and not of works, yet damnation is by the disgrace of rejection of redemption. Both are sure - John 8:24, John 3:16, 5:24.

Little children are taken as those whom He could take in His arms, unresisting, trusting, looking, learning, ready for instruction (I Peter 2:2), willing to receive joy from the Saviour's might, accepting His words as "new-born babes", learning from His lips the wisdom which understands. Consider the opposite to what is apposite in Matthew 13:14-15:

‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,

And seeing you will see and not perceive;

For the hearts of this people have grown dull.

Their ears are hard of hearing,

And their eyes they have closed,

Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,

Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,

                       So that I should heal them.’ "

The entire wonder of the kingdom of heaven is there for exploration, in this guidance, for in it Christ gives strength, by Him is inspiration, as for one living in the Alpine marvels of massifs of splendour.  

GROWTH  RESULTS ... SECONDARY

7.  James 2:26  - You are born into a faith that is not a piece of furniture, but functional -

"For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."

Faith is not an arm on which you rest, or an inspiration by which you breathe. It is trust in the living God which like a tube, brings from Him, and to the one trusting in His mercy,  what is required for spiritual life. You could no more squash its power or betray its reality than make yourself invisible, or squeeze out the visible world so that you need not see it. It is there and it operates: it is so with faith WHEN it is placed in the saving power of God, and is in Him. He uses it not as an arm, but a channel for operations. Even a student with alienated mind is all but impossible to teach, but the wise draw wisdom from the teacher,  and the people of God have promises of power (Eph. 1:19).

8. Galatians 5:22 -25 - Fruit is not a hope but a happening.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."

What law is needed against the very righteous works of the Holy Spirit which anoints the eyes, subdues the hearts, enlivens the thought and makes keen the spirit in man! As Paul declares in I Timothy 1, the law is for law-breakers.

" ...the law is not made for a righteous person,
but for the lawless and insubordinate,
for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane,
for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers,
for liars, for perjurers,
and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine,
according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust."

Notice that the law is for murderers of mothers, and in the same category, with others, for sodomites and the like. Thus the 'churches' which would allow as godly what is consigned to law to condemnation (as expressly in I Corinthians 6:9) and would even take as pastors those who, as the apostle states, cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, are no churches but those who wage war on the word of God, and seek to subvert the law which nothing can subvert, and hence mislead many.

Why, says Christ, do you call  Me, Lord, Lord and not do the things that I say! (Luke 6:46). A short reference to Matthew 7:21-23, completes the picture. 

Weakness and correction, that is one phase; but rebellion, this is as woeful as witchcraft, says the Lord (I Samuel 15:23).

That is the way amiss.  What however of the highway of holiness, where though sinners still, one recognises the rules of the road, and seeks to follow them as part of the heritage of regeneration (I John 3:9) ?

To translate once more to farming, what then is the result ? Then,on the contrary, what is the wonder of the fruit when the red  and black spot, the fungus in the roots of the tree are all removed, and the tree being planted by God, will not be uprooted (Matthew 15:13).

9. Ephesians 6:10-18 - Armour is not a lounge suit, or suite. It is both granted and needed!

"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

"Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit ..."

10. Philippians 2:14-16 - Light that shines from God is not ashamed, but valiant in vigour.

"Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain." 

The  tendency to complain is inherent in the flesh (I Corinthians 10, Galatians 5), but men ought not to faint but to pray (Luke 18:1), and as to complaints, Exodus and Numbers show a moiety of them. To be harmless is at odds with the fierce struggle to the death of survivalists, who like rats have no thought greater than the desirability of continuing, quality apart, meaning apart, destiny apart, as long as possible, as if the calibre of the gun and the nature of the bullet were all, and the point of having one were nothing. Such blindness is to be regarded like lice in the hair, and if in Paul's day it meant being contrary to a "perverse" generation, how much more now, one perverse in spirit, so that mental and bodily oddities alike, are mere 'fruits'.

ASPIRATION AND CULMINATION DESIRE AND DESTINY, TERTIARY

11.  Philippians 3:8a - There are loss leaders.

"Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish …”

A store may advertise things that are sold at a loss, to attract custom; but a child of God, a saved sinner now named saint in Paul's letters, this one COUNTS on loss, not to secure custom, but as a customer of Christ, to remove dead weight and be free for function, not friction, to soar, not slave for this world, its wits or its ways, to be groomed, not doomed.  

12. Philippians 3:8b-9  - There are heart ravishers (I Peter 1:5ff.).

"...that I may gain Christ
and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law,
but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith ..."

There are things most ravishing in righteousness, just in praise, and there is their epicentre, like an earthquake in reverse, which brings not destruction but creation of joy in truth, spreading outward through the entire life. This is Christ, God's declaration of Himself (Hebrews 1:1-9).

Such is NOT to be found in self-love, self-will, whether individual or corporate, but in Jesus the Christ, that personal exhibition of the glory of God in definitive fashion, that incarnation of the eternal word of God, that One who so humbled Himself that He became man, not bread, not a door, not wine. He did not creak, nor turn, nor grow mouldy with age. It was Himself, not symbol,  far less idolatrous symbol who was to be credited. No more for that matter did He become a geological exhibit because He is, as God, the ONLY ROCK that God tolerates for man (Psalm 62:1-2, II Samuel 22:32-33), the only LORD, the only AUTHORITY and the only STAY and ENVIRONMENT of mercy.

Those who defy His word defile themselves, for it remains pure. AS a rock, a door, wine, bread, a shepherd, Christ indeed acts, but not as part of a building to be planed down to shape, or part of the mountains, to be sat on. Is mind to return to the dust that lust be indulged to uttermost while man makes another Christ, "God Almighty on earth" as the New York Catechism of Romanism has made the pope! What a travesty of truth and peril to the flock to have such false teachers, when ONLY Christ is your teacher and ONLY God Almighty is your Father (Matthew 23:8-10).

Our topic is Christ and His name which is above every name that can be named in earth or heaven, as equal with God (Philippians 2: 1-12), and our warning concerning Rome's old ways, is to avoid them.

Thus when we read in The Advertiser, July 26, 2007, that there is a return to that old 'Mass' in which Latin was the often uncomprehended language of its narration, it is in one sense only fitting. And why is that ? It is because in this, there is an additional lack of comprehension which mirrors and rebukes the other! It is rather like the uncontrolled laughter seen in many Pentecostal circles, amid the sort of effusions and profusions of disorder which came in unscriptural irreverences (Psalm 89:7) or spiritual 'slayings'. As to these, they were an anomaly founded on the fact that when God is to come to render vengeance to evil on this earth (as He did once before in the flood), that many will be ‘slain’, but this is misused. Isaiah 66:14ff. in particular has nothing to provide for such actions, but is wholly contrary, concerned with fiery vengeance to unrepentant rebellion, not gracious pity in spiritual mercy! The contrast is complete.

It is felt by some that words such as these of Isaiah, in some intoxicated seeming sense, relate to the clean beauty of repentance and faith, that may be evinced inside a church building! Vengeance and devastation in fury is to be conceived as contrition and pardon in mercy! Is plus minus ? Is zero infinity ? Is mercy judgment ? When will the will cease to wander into idle avenues and gaunt distortions!

Such 'spiritual' types of 'slaying'  are not mandated by such words, as Isaiah 66:16, with parallels in Habakkuk 3 and Joel 3 make most clear. Nothing is found in the word of God either to exhibit, authorise or demonstrate such a thing. It starts in imagination and ends in disorder, and should be avoided at all costs. Being ‘crucified with Christ’ (Gal. 2:20), however, this is the biblical, normal and perpetually appropriate condition as Paul here asserts.  Romans 8:1-17, Gal. 5:24 (cf. Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch. 3) have a similar message, in line with Christ’s commission (Luke 14:27ff.).

In this Pentecostal fashion, however, folly reveals itself, and error shows its heart by its dealings, extravanganzas and impracticalities as well as from the word of God direct. Errors of adding to the word of God (Proverbs 30:6) and distorting it abound; but let us return to the Roman case.

What then did Romanism desire ? The new pope has authorised wider use of the Old Latin Mass, as in former times, prior to Vatican II,  and now we find that there are those of such zeal concerning it that a volume of 850 pages has been produced to show the details of the idolatry, one not acknowledged to be such, though bread is worshipped! As to that, had it in fact been Christ's intention to vacate the human body in favour of edibles, He would in this second incarnation, have committed suicide in being broken into pieces at the Supper! The words that I speak to you are SPIRIT and they are LIFE! He cried. The flesh profits nothing (John 6)! Yet they ignore this as we saw in point 6 above.

We are to be shown, we read in the newspaper report, or rather the priests, the exact order in which to don the several layers of vestments, while the precise placement of priests' hands is given, in centimetres, for the ceremony. It does not cease till hundreds of pages of unscriptural verbiage fashion the shape of this idolatry. The report indicates that many of the young are feeling the reality of the supernatural and seek something sacred to express this. How just the feeling and how loathsome the exhibition of it! How sad and hideous a thing that as in Israel of old, the desire for God should be diverted to an idol, a thing not God and prohibited by God for worship!

Alas, this search for the supernatural within the realms of idolatry, of the power and authority of man expressly replacing the counter-claims of Jesus Christ, who REFUSES to ANY man the power and place of teacher or father, because HE ONLY has the former, and the Father Almighty only, the latter (Matthew 23:8-10, cf. I John 2:19): this is precisely the mode to come for this generation.

By no means is Romanism the final crux or criterion of such a motion (SMR pp. 727ff., 732Bff., 743), though it has had a central place in such ways; To be sure, statistically over time, it has been a major party to it, and the destruction of Rome, especially its basic religious sector, is biblically declared. Rome’s burning,  statedly for religious reasons, fits with the very concrete participation in the past of that body (as affirmed in Vatican II), and no less with what is foretold in Revelation 17-18 (cf. Deserts ... Ch. 8, SMR pp. 946ff.). Yet that is not the end of the Age, which comes in Revelation 19, when these things past, the ultimate aspirations of the devil, not through a single medium but with numbers more directly deployed, appear and then, suddenly disappear in a devastation not merely due, but a deliverance for many (II Thessalonians 1).

To that hour the world moves, seeking the supernatural in the midst of its secular muddle, torturous mud and calamitous thud of assassin, national and international, racial and religious, as the blood toll mounts and even efforts to deliver, being ungodly in conception, become increasingly godless in execution. Despising the truth, distorting and torturing it, just as Christ, its crux and criterion was tortured, it moves to the kill; but the people of the Lord will be delivered (Matthew 24, Luke 21), before the flame of reality consumes the tirades and task forces of the cruel crusaders of force. But as to force, that is not the way and its leading proponents, including the false prophet and deceiving spirits emitted from his mouth, corrosive and corruptive, polluted and impure, perish in their infamy (Rev. 16:13-14, 19:20). If the ship, misused, sinks, then the salvation is in the life boat, the Christ of desire!

Therefore let those who KNOW the Lord, experience for themselves in their own hearts and in their own worship with the people of the Lord, the power and the presence, the peace and the pardon, the joy and the goodness, the elevation of His name, the Saviour, above every name, and the love of Him who is measured not in centimetres in ceremonies in order to be moved about, but in hallowed glory; for He has been received up into heaven until He returns like lightning (Matthew 24, Acts 3) as we have seen. Now is He, who is invisible, who became man, and who has to come ONCE more (Hebrews 9), to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, for such worshippers the Father desires (John 4).

13. Ephesians 3:17-21, Philippians 3:20-21 - There is the overflowing knowledge of Christ's love and its result, of His intimate comradeship and constant care. It is no insurance against suffering, but it is guarantee of His goodness as the will of God is done, His face blessing.  

This requires no idols, being personal, intimate, glorious and practical, reliable, proceeding from the eternal God to the hearts of His people, with power not priesthood (Hebrews 7-9), for ONE is your priest even Jesus the Christ, and He is your friend as you abide in His word, who is faithful in much, as in little, in things grand and minute alike.

So to live in Him, it is no insurance against suffering, but it is guarantee of His goodness as the will of God is done, His face blessing.  This is an "earnest of our inheritance" (Ephesians 1:13-14). It is the he Spirit of God who "seals" the Christian and confirms to his heart his eternal inheritance (Romans 8:16, Ephesians 1:11), among the children of light, aiding the believer's eyes to focus on the Author and Finisher of faith (Hebrews 12:2). This, it is the faith that works, that has worked for millenia in the multitudes of humble saints whose love of the word of God transcends all desire to wander, add or subtract (Proverbs 30:6, Revelation 22:18-19), and who abide in Him (John 15:7), with such beautiful results to His glory.

For what do they wait ? It is for His SECOND coming where His majesty will be again seen direct on this earth; and with what do they endure ? it is with the word of God in their hearts, and  the Spirit of God in their lives who is sent to strengthen and comfort in the inner person (Ephesians 3:16), in the comforts of the God of all comfort (II Cor. 1).

It is His love which falls like a waterfall with the rainbow of mercy, upon the receptive hearts below, the rainbow of mercy shining in the midst of the resultant mist of glory. So Paul writes ...

" ...that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."

 “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.” 

Notice that what God is able to do is first of all above what we ask or think. His is the imagination, ours the hope. Secondly, it is abundantly beyond, as in a good father, but the more so, for this One is God Almighty. Again, it is not merely abundantly beyond, but exceedingly abundantly beyond. It is the work of the Lover of all time and beyond time, the Lord God whose ways do not bend, so that His enemies curse His name or call Him cruel or the like. Yet heaven with sin means no heaven for any, and life without God means a car on an expressway without steering. What can you expect!

 More, it is conspicuous in this scripture, that what God has and is able to do is exceedingly abundantly beyond not only what we ask or think, but above ALL we ask or think. It is as with the good father, above us entirely, and though He be aware of our littlenesses and needs, as a kind pater is, yet His dealings transcend our thoughts, without failing to inspire them as He acts, and as we ponder the wisdom of His abilities and desires, and the intensity of His pure love. When GOD is one's father, how blessed each day! How to serve Him becomes the becoming desire...

Resurrection of the body becomes the culmination of the blessing of Jesus Christ, who works through it on the way. When that day comes, faith becomes sight. The resurrection of the body becomes the culmination of the blessing of Jesus Christ, who works through in us with this sight before us.

When that day comes, when the trumpet sounds and the dead in Christ will be raised incorruptible, then faith becomes sight. It is already a means of spiritual sight for the Christian (I Peter 1:5ff.), all throughout the night (cf. Hebrews 11:27, I Corinthians 15:42-58, Romans 10:9). It is indeed THIS Jesus and not some other one (II Corinthians 11) who comes, and He, He without the aid of any sinner, HE is Lord of all! To Him then let us look, putting aside the burdens of the flesh, the lusts of spirit, whether in would-be churches or in wanton desire of mind, spirit or body. Reside in Him, hidden like Moses in the cleft of the Rock, in Him who is not symbol, but man, and at that, God as man. Then with all saints, let us rejoice and await His ultimate blessings as we travail for His service while day is still called day. When the night comes, no man can work (John 9:4-5)!