AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH May 19 - June 2 ... 2013
A Presbyterian Church following
the Bible without Qualification
and the Lord
Jesus Christ
without Compromise by Faith
IN ACCORD
WITH THE ORIGINAL THRUST OF THE CONSTITUTION
OF THE
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF AUSTRALIA 1901
THE
ENCOMPASSING ROCK OF SALVATION
1 THE NATURE OF THE ROCK
The Living, the
Only and the All-Sufficient Rock
None saved are
omitted from its cover
None rejecting it
fail to receives its crushing.
It is not biddable,
but it will answer to faith.
The salvation is
singular in kind, not repeatable in basis.
It is strong, has
no spurious space, but does have a viewing cleft!
as Moses learnt.
Consider now what
this all-sufficient Rock is ready to give,
and what is to be found there!
2
THE PROVISIONS OF THE ROCK
30 Aspects
1. ROCK of REFUGE Psalm 71:3
"to which I may resort continually".
Not only is this a perpetual access, but part of a
"commandment to save me." Salvation for the children of God IS not only
donated but directed, commanded. First eternal life has been promised (Titus
1:2, "before time began". Secondly, it is no mere
additive (Ephesians 1:4, II Cor. 4:4, Romans 8:29ff., II Timothy 1:8-12,
Luke 12:32, Acts 14:22, I Cor. 15:52, Philippians 3:20-21). Thirdly,
continuation is its nature (John 10:9,27-28), and certainty is its element
(Ephesians 1:11).
2. ROCK AS EVERLASTING FOUNDATION
Proverbs 10:25
3. ROCK AS UNIQUE FOUNDATION I Corinthians
3:11
4. A TRIED AND PRECIOUS, A SURE
FOUNDATION STONE Isaiah 28:16
His restfulness is
sensational, exclusive of hastiness, sure (cf. Isaiah 30:15).
"In
returning and rest you shall be saved;
in quietness and confidence shall be your strength."
5. A ROCK FOR BUILDING
Matthew
7:24-25
6. A MIGHTY ROCK Isaiah 32:3.
When He is received
as hiding place, shadow of relish, then,
the Spirit poured out with understanding (32:15),
"the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness,
quietness and assurance forever." It is eternal, for all nations (Isaiah
49:6),
and brings peace with God, incomparable, divine.
7. THE ROCK
-
"He is THE ROCK."
"Ascribe greatness to our God, the Rock," is the
phrasing of it.
He is not a rock, but THE Rock. There is definition. His work is perfect
Deuteronomy 32:3-4. In this case, we read,
"All His ways are justice, a God of truth and without injustice,
righteous and upright is He."
Incomparable and exclusive of competition,
inclusive of every good thing is He, and its source. HENCE in 32:17,
"they sacrificed to demons, not to God."
Indeed, in 32:21, such things are grouped in the hyphenated term, NOT-GOD.
The term here used to indicate the alternative to God is one indicating
vanity, worthlessness, futility; and in Jeremiah 2:5, what follows such
invented entities becomes as futile as they are! (cf. Harris, Archer and Waitke,
Theological Word Book of the Old Testament). The statement is this:
following futilities (noun), they become futile (verb).
Not only are these empty things, but cracked wells, bringing emptiness and
futility
(Jeremiah. 2:13).
As
they witlessly provoke the only God with not-God substitutes,
He then will provoke them with a contemptible people, a NOT-PEOPLE.
How be low except without the God who made them,
fathered and founded them! So they too will fall. Faith in fiction is no faith
at all.
If
some of mankind seem inhuman in reckless and racked heart,
then these optional choices for the spirit of man
represent a grab at an abased remnant of mere thought, an imagination,
an idol: instead of being invested with God, they become infested with NOT-GOD.
At least the fallen peoples are there, whose invasion they invite (Deuteronomy
32:25);
but unfounded, they are foolish.
Fathered by the Father of spirits (32:18), His people yet forgot and indulged in
fantasies. They are so very modern! a very prototype of the foundering without
foundation found today.
8. AN
INCOMPARABLE ROCK
Deuteronomy 32:31, Even enemies can see in action, that
"their rock is not as our Rock!". It is objectively true and evidentially
shown.
9.
THE ROCK FROM WHICH YOU ARE HEWN
Isaiah
51:1, with Romans 2:29
10. THE ROCK WHO SPOKE (to me)
II Samuel 23:3 cf. I Corinthians 2:9-13
11. THE EXCLUSIVE ROCK
"For who is God, except the LORD ?
and who is a rock except our God!" II Samuel 22:32, Psalm 18:31, cf.
Matthew 23:8-10
12. THE ENCYCLOPEDICALLY SINGULAR ROCK
"Besides
Me, there is no God, and who can proclaim as I do!"
"There
is no other Rock, I know not one!".
These are two
categorical statements. Chant the texts, observe the data, who can begin to
compare: it is because there is not any! There is emptiness and zest about zero;
and "besides Me there is no Saviour," Isaiah 43:11. Indeed,
"Before me was no god formed, nor shall there be after
Me." It is categorical, inclusive, exhaustive, and exhibits the idle
options chosen instead, delusive (cf. II Thessalonians 2:4ff.).
i) God also asks and
answers the simple question: "Is there a God besides Me
? Indeed, there is no other Rock," Isaiah 44:8.
ii) No other God,
Rock, reliability is there. "No one is holy like the
LORD, for there is none besides You, nor is there any Rock like our God,"
I Samuel 2:2.
iii) There are no
other gods, no other strengths to heart and soul, able to found without
foundering, function as the base while from the heights! To follow
such nonentities as these, as one's strength or basis, we find, it is
substitution of falsehood for God, indeed (Isaiah 28:16ff.), take to a
"refuge of lies"(Isaiah 28:17): these, they do
not mix. Take zeros without a quantitative number in front, and you still have
only zeros.
Yours then is an
inglorious substitution, a vanity, an exercise in mere emptiness,
an ineptitude in ardour.
iv) Indeed, it is a
matter of "agreement with hell" or with God
(Isaiah 28:18).
A "covenant with death" is its mortal and
mortifying status.
The exquisite divine features, on the other hand, unique to Him, in creation,
salvation, power and provision, are the constant focus for faith in the Lord,
and he who has it makes no haste when so founded (Isaiah 28:16), since the God
of eternity is its wisdom source, resource and Rock (Isaiah 40:28-31).
Vacancy here with philosophic quiddities, baseless propositions, eclectic
nostrums,
provides merely a vacancy, like an open wound, making a ground
for infestation of the soul, and dispersion of the life.
As to the only God,
the Rock: HE will act (Isaiah 40:10-11) as only God can. This
constant message towers over the earth, echoes throughout the Bible, first for
His coming to save, then to rule and to judge (Deuteronomy 32:36-47, Psalm 16,
22, 40, 67-68, 72, Isaiah 66:5-16, Micah 7, Zechariah 12-14 - as in
Ezekiel 36ff., Revelation 19, I Thessalonians 3:113, II Thessalonians 1 -
these giving various elements of these events, many already come, some looming).
In Him, nothing is missing; over all there is none but He, the triune God
(Isaiah 48:15ff.).
13. ROCK OF AGES
-
chronometrically
alone, to be trusted forever Isaiah 26:4
(The preceding verse: "You will keep him in perfect
peace whose mind is stayed on You,
because he trusts in You.")
Trust forever since
He is everlasting Rock, Rock of Ages, author of all times, repose for all rest,
assurance for all action, immovable in truth, with that caressing niche within,
as for Moses, which protects even amid majesty..
14. The ROCK THAT IS HIGHER THAN I,
Psalm 61:2.
Hence not only
foundation, rigorous strength but encompassing defence is provided. Towering
with strength, the Rock is an unimpugnable foundation.
15. The ROCK AS FOUNDATIONAL FOR FAITH Matthew
16.
He is
faith's object, whoever may - like Peter at that time, a sad episode - object!
(Matthew 16:22-23). Peter's lordly advice, in contradicting Christ, was rejected
as devilishly sourced, far from faith or faithfulness alike. It was not only
error; it was fundamental error. The issue was this: WHO is Christ ? The answer
was shown: Jesus, the Christ, is the Rock for the Church, discerned by God-given
faith. God gave that faith to discern to Peter, and Peter the pebble (the kind
of Greek contrast in the pun) figured only in rebuke and rebuttal of his false
expansions from his first correct answer. It was this, approved by Christ, which
would remain. Personal authority to contest with Christ or add, was null,
evanescent, evil, worthy of major rebuke. It got it.
16. MY ROCK AND FORTRESS
Psalm 31:3;
AND MY DELIVERER
II SAMUEL
22:2..
The names and the actions agree: what He is, is what He does, as
a basis, a perpetual warrant, received in wisdom, the one as the other.
17. A ROCK OF OFFENCE
Isaiah 8:14,
cf. I Peter 2:8
He is also
a stone of stumbling, on whom one falling will be broken,
who, if falling on anyone, crushes to pieces - Matthew 21:44.
Notice that the place then current for Israel, of presenting the Lord to the
peoples,
was for a time, taken away (as in Romans 11);
but that the same CONSIDERATION applies to any other nation which,
drawing near, then drifts, for example with its President intrusively
declaring this
"We are not a Christian nation!"
18. THE ROCK OF MY STRENGTH
Psalm 62:7 -
The Energising Rock (cf. the application through the Spirit in Ephesians 3:16).
19. MY GOD AND THE ROCK OF YOUR SALVATION
Psalm 89:26
Salvation has this one Rock, and it is not a pocket rock, such as pebbles or
stones like Peter (in
comparison
in the Matthew 16 pun), which may be flung here or there. As to our "my Rock,"
His is singularity in appointment for this purpose, for ever and for all peoples
as in 89:27ff.. This is the Psalm of the singular, whose scope is universal, as
far as life shall reach; though alas, many declining from His offer (John 3:36)
"will not see life."
20. THE ROCK OF YOUR STRONGHOLD -
The Distinctive Rock
Isaiah 17:10 becoming in this context,
The Forgotten Rock.
Not MINDFUL of Him, the mind not full of Him, the memory not coded with His
words, the spirit not subjected in joy to His glorious rule, as Maker and
sustainer, Redeemer and donor of immortality: in multitudes, man lapses from
Him. For many, He is the forgotten
Rock, as if a man were to omit his own heart, in counting his powers.
21. THE SMITTEN ROCK
Numbers 20:11
- twice!
Because
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once suffices
for the baneful splendour of the sacrifice of Christ (Hebrews 9),
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His singularity,
salvation and voluntary sacrifice to death (John 10) once,
barring repetition with loathing,
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whereas Moses struck
the rock twice in pursuit of water,
rather than speaking to it as commanded, turning symbol into human
vigour,
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and Christ set in
symbol here,
WAS the Rock which followed them (I Corinthians 10),
and because "Must we ..." was the personalised word of Moses",
'we'
as if the water was at their own mere will:
therefore this
same Moses was excluded
even from the promised land, in his lifetime on this earth!
God would have
none of that style of conduct, either the repetition of the smiting of the
Rock, signifying the sacrifice of Christ (Isaiah 53: 4, I Cor. 10:4), or the
self-assertion. No such leadership will He suffer. The singularity of His
salvation has a singularity of performance on His part, and requires a
singular realisation on ours (John 20:25-28). It is all of God and nothing
of man. Neither Rome nor any other can do what only Christ could do, and the
work of eternal redemption is done but once (Hebrews 9:12-28), incapable of
duplication or restoration, or substitution, being that of the sinless deity
Himself, as Himself, by Himself, as His due (John 10:18, Hebrews 7-10)
Indeed, you need
neither to grope and just hope, nor to indulge in a repetitive thud
hammering the Rock. Once smitten, as written, He has the real singularity to
bear sin and break death, both actual and required for man, both enemies,
sin and death, defeated, wrought by God. Here is the infinite singularity of
deity.
Adding to the
sacrifice is as biblically horrid as subtracting from His glory. It is as
such as He is (cf. II Corinthians 10:12-11:15) and as He has done,
that Christ must be received. Likewise once risen, not a mist, but in a
singular body, He has acted through an event which makes the unique human
destructiveness of the atomic bomb look small, as well as horrendously
negative by comparison. The work there of man is a revolting additive to the
earth. The work of God, however, in the resurrection of the body of Jesus
Christ (I Cor. 15, Luke 24), It is an epochal epic, His alone, supernal,
supernatural, deliberate, dynamic, deep and eternally effective. as was His
unrepeatably redemptive death (Hebrews 9:12-28).
Applying this, He
works through the power of the Holy Spirit, in His own gracious
administration (Titus 2-3, Acts 1:1ff.). Sent by Christ, the Spirit and not
man is the activating authority in the name of Christ (John 14:16-18,
16:5-15); and even He does not speak of Himself (John 14:13-14).There is a
sacerdotal purity in Christ and a deity at work in the Holy Spirit (Hebrews
7:28, 8:1-6,13, John 6:62-63), whether in conviction or cleansing through
the blood of the stricken Saviour, now in heaven till the reconstitution of
all things (Acts 3:19ff.). THIS Rock, this ONE God, it is He who having come
as Saviour once, being smitten once, rose once and will return once.
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22. THE ROCK OF GUSHING WATERS
Psalm 78:20.
This verse also evokes the time (Numbers 11:1-3), when having been given water
by miraculous divine appointment (Exodus 17:1-4), they wondered, Can He give
food also!
It was a grievous error.
Omnipotence should not be mocked, nor history forgotten, nor kindness ignored,
nor character mangled by mischief, let alone the character of God! He is
all-sufficient (II Corinthians 3:4-6).
Once risen, the
magnificent Messiah
is always able, and enables (Ephesians 1:19).
As the bread of life
and the Lamb of God (John 1:29, 6:48), it is because He is given from
heaven to His people (John 6:57-58), and broken and so received for life, and
again, like the sacrificial lamb, once killed, and so sacrificially stricken
(Hebrews 9:12): it is because of this that the Spirit, symbolised by the water
gushing, is given as He declares (John 16:7). Without that, not this (I
Corinthians 3:11-12).
23. THE LIVING ROCK, THE BLESSED ROCK
AND THE ROCK OF MY SALVATION
II Samuel 22:47. His ROCK is GOD! (as in 12 above).
24. THE SOLE LORD ROCK
Psalm 18:31 The
Alone but Not Lonely Rock.
The LORD is the only God and
God is the only Rock.
25. THE NOT SILENT ROCK
(Psalm 28:1)
The Communicative Rock, The Apostrophised Rock
26. THE ROCK TO BE REMEMBERED
Psalm 18:46-49
"Therefore I will give thanks ..."
(bold added).
27. THE UPRIGHT ROCK
Psalm 92:15
28. THE ROCK FOR HIDING
Song of
Solomon 2:14, Isaiah 32:2
The Rock with a Cleft from which to speak
29. THE ROCK THAT FOLLOWED THE PEOPLE
BEING LED I Corinthians 10:4
The Rock for the Thirsty
The 31st focus is different.
3
THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE ROCK
THE ROCK NOT BITTER BUT BETTER
DEFINITION BY
NEGATION
It is NOT the
STAR
which fell from heaven
as in Revelation 8:10, that brings shiny-eyed joy and romance to the heart of
man.
The divine Rock is
NOT the STAR which fell from heaven
as in Revelation 8:10, nro is it one that brings shiny-eyed joy and romance
to the heart of man.
It is entirely
different. In that case; it is more incendiary,
and if packed with meteorological rock, or an asteroid, it can savour of
bombardment,
such as earlier evidences attest to have hit the moon.
That is past; this is to come. It is amid the announcements of judgments
in stock, that comes the impactive object of Revelation 8:10! in horror not
happiness.
The Celestial Rock, however,
presented as alternative to judgment: THAT IS sublime.
As to
Revelation 8:10, that is named Wormwood, that makes bitter.
You face options: better than man, or bitter for man; remedy or ruin.
The Lord when He came to earth, made better,
with a better covenant and a better ministry and a better sacrifice
and the blessed Resurrection (Hebrews 8:6).
The Lord's promises
are pure, and not of promiscuous origin.
His path is peace, and it is His hammer, His word which breaks
any illusory rock on which man may ruinously rest (Jeremiah 23:28-29,
Micah 2:10), so that there may be peace, not fragile foundations.
"Arise
and depart,"
He says of any other way,
"for
this is not your rest."
Why ? It is because
it is defiled.
It is deity, not
defilement, Rock not ruin, reality not surrealism,
spirituality, not spiritism that is needed... and provided (Matthew 11:25ff.).