Transcription
[Music] Grab your Bibles this morning and turn, if you would, to Second Corinthians, chapter three. Second Corinthians, chapter three. Very excited about this portion of scripture, and I think you'll see why in a moment. Absolutely awesome. The title of the message this morning is "Nothing Can Be Greater," and we're going to be looking at this for probably the next few weeks. It is too wonderful to run through. It is great, great stuff.
Listen, a little bit of a hint up front. If you know anybody, uh, who is a legalist, if you know anybody, maybe some friends of yours, somebody you know who's just really, really, really thinking that they're pretty amazing, how they themselves are such an epitome of example of legalism, and how you ought to be like them, bring them next week. We'll have stretchers and gurneys, we'll have fire trucks nearby with paramedics to revive them. And we'll start this morning looking at what the gospel means and how powerful it is. "Nothing Can Be Greater" is the title of the message this morning. Second Corinthians, chapter three, beginning now, picking it up in verse four. Follow along with me, if you would. Verse four, chapter three. Paul said to the Corinthian believers, "And we have such trust through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life."
But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadfastly at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away or fading, how will the ministry of the spirit not more be glorious? Verse nine: "For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels." Verse eleven: "For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious."
"Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech, unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadfastly at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day, the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away." We ought to say amen to that. This is awesome. This is challenging. This is powerful. Nothing can be greater.
I don't know about you, where were you? Do you remember? Were you even born in 1971? I remember this. The first time I personally ever encountered a Bible, it was a Bible that we had in our home. Nobody read it. I didn't have a Christian home, but that Bible was from my grandmother. And I remember this. Do you remember this? It was just seconds after 6 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. You know what I'm saying? On February 9, 1971, Sylmar. I was sleeping. I would have been getting up probably at six o'clock to get ready for school. I was 13 years old, and the ground shook in Orange County, which was a great distance from that earthquake. The ground shook. I remember jumping out of the bed. Things were falling off of our shelves. I remember running down the hallway and falling down because the hallway was moving as I was running to my parents' bedroom. It was a big one, and I was terrified.
School was canceled that day, and people were losing their lives. As I was running to my parents' bedroom in the Los Angeles area, people were dying. And during that day, I somehow found a Bible. That Bible. And I took it. Now, listen carefully. I took that Bible, and unbeknownst to my family, they still don't know about it. I took that Bible, and I was afraid to go to sleep at night. Have you ever been near or in a big earthquake? It's terrifying. At night, it's worse. You don't know what's going to happen, and there's a great amount of aftershocks taking place. And I took that Bible, and I remember holding it against my chest, and I went to bed. And when I woke up in the morning, I hid it under my bed because I didn't want anybody to think I was scared or a wimp or whatever. But I thought, I had this thought: If I have the Bible next to me, God won't allow me to be killed because I'll have the Bible next to me. Listen, I didn't know what the Bible said. I never opened it. I just thought if I had it near me, I would be saved. Completely knowing that it was important, but completely ignorant of what it said.
A lot of people are like that today. They own a Bible. They might even carry a Bible, but they never open the Bible. They're thinking, "If I have a Bible, look, I've got a Bible, and I've got a rabbit's foot. I'm good. What evil can befall me?" And yet, that's not how God works in our lives. You can be associated with so many religious things in life and be completely void and vacant of God in your life. Things. My point is this: things on the external cannot change your life. Things that are outside of the inside of you cannot change you.
This is vitally important as you consider this study. In Jeremiah 31:31, we looked at it last time, but it bears repeating today before we dive into the study. Jeremiah 31:31, written nearly a thousand years before Jesus was born. Keep this in mind. Put yourself in their sandals. Be Jewish for a moment. You've got the law, you've got God on your side, you've got the temple, you've got everything. You are God's people. You've got the priesthood, you've got all of the commandments. You are the voice of God to the world. Jeremiah 31:31 says, "Behold, in light of all that, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord." Any idea what that covenant is, church? The Old Testament covenant, the law, the Ten Commandments, and God's requirements. God says right here in the Old Testament, "I'm going to do away someday with my law." This is written in the Hebrew scriptures. Verse 33: "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord." Notice something is going to expire, and a new covenant is going to be instituted. "I will put my law in their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." That is God's word to the nation of Israel, and by the way, he will fulfill that. He is going to do that. But right now is a time where the dispensation of the church age, and that is also prophesied in scripture.
But notice this: all of the Old Testament, God is saying, everything of the old, the giving of the law, the tablets of stone, the priesthood, the tabernacle, the temple, the Ark of the Covenant. Amazing. Think of it all. Was it not glorious? It was glorious. But could it save you? Not one bit. Nowhere in the Old Testament is salvation promised by the keeping of the law. Isn't that interesting? God never said, "Take these Ten Commandments and preach them to the end of the earth," did he? It is absolutely awesome. God is saying, "There's going to come a time when that is going to be done with, and I'm going to implement an entire new covenant." Was it glorious? Yes. But was something more glorious coming? Oh, yes. It is a glorious and wonderful thing to consider.
Our first point this morning, mark it down, if you would: Nothing can be greater than absolute assurance. You see, the Old Testament saints had no assurance if they were going to approach God by the law. Verses four to six. This is what we know is that it's absolute assurance into the presence of Almighty God. Will you write that down? Nothing can be greater than absolute assurance. Christian, and that is having the assurance of being in the presence of God. Isn't that what you, as a believer, are always yearning for? Listen, as Christians today, we know what the Bible says: "To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." The Bible says our citizenship currently, right now, is with God in heaven. You and I live right here, right now. Frankly, we're supposed to be living right here, right now, to be God's instruments in this earth. But everything about us as real, true, uh, authentic Christians is that our minds are in heaven, our treasures are where? In heaven. Our citizenship in heaven. Uh, we are ministers of what concerns heaven. That is, if we're going to be real Christians. We are simply, remember in the hippie days, anybody that, that hippie picture of the guy standing there with the peace sign, and it says, "Just passing through." We are just passing through this world.
Absolute assurance is what's promised in the gospel. The Old Testament saints only had a deep. Listen, are you listening? I'm so excited about this message. The Old Testament saints only had assurance of God's presence if they knew, knew the word carefully, understanding what the word of God said, that they experienced a New Testament relationship in the Old Testament economy. Abraham. Was Abraham justified by the law? Was Abraham justified by tithing? Was Abraham justified by working in the children's ministry? Surely that's going to get you into heaven. No. Abraham was justified by faith in God, exactly how you are today. David. Did David walk around saying, "Hey, God, look, I kept your law. I'm right on." No. David cried out, and David had a relationship with God. Was David a sinner, church? Did David blow it? I don't know how many people you've murdered or how many people you've slept with, but David messed up. And God, yet God says he's a man after my own heart. Why? What was going on inside David's life? He knew, he understood, and had an understanding of a relationship with God that was living in the presence of Almighty God and accepted based on God's love, not on performance.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that you can go out and sin up a storm and God accepts you. This was an exception in David's life, and it was an exception in Abraham's life when he blew it. They practiced the presence of God because they loved the presence of God. How did that happen? Because what God was got inside their hearts. And when Moses saw the glory of God in the burning bush, what happened to him? He longed, he yearned to draw closer to God. The experience that he had only excited him to pursue God more. And every Christian I'm speaking to right now this morning knows this. They've got Christ, they've got heaven, they're in route, and they love the Lord. But there's this dichotomy where we are grieved that we don't love the Lord more, and we ask God, "Please, God, have me to love you more." We obey him, but we want to obey him more. And listen, we've got him, but we want more of him. You know what I'm talking about? It's amazing. We are completely satisfied, and we're starving at the same time. We are thirsty, and yet we are satisfied, but we thirst all the more. Why? Because we have gotten a taste and a drink of God, and we are completely satisfied in this life, but we will not be complete, totally. We know this until we awake in His presence, in His likeness. God bless y'all. See you later.
I mean, what is that? What's more than that? It's absolutely exciting to know the presence of Almighty God. Verse four: "He says, 'And we have such trust through Christ.'" Look at the word "through Christ." Circle the word. "Toward God." "And we have such trust through Christ toward God." Verse five: "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves." It's all through Christ. Here's Paul, a Jew, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, circumcised on the eighth day, from the tribe of Benjamin. Regarding the law, Paul was blameless. He had more zeal than all of his Jewish brothers in the ministry. Nobody could come close to Paul. And what is Paul saying? "I have been, and we have been as believers, revealed to the presence of God through Jesus Christ. It's not any of our efforts. It's not any of our works. It's not any of our righteousness of our own. It is absolutely liberating."
The word "through" here is a word that means as a highway or a thoroughfare to come and go on, on the same route, like an interstate or a freeway. The word means an ongoing occasion. Listen, an ongoing occasion to traffic back and forth into the presence of God and into this world. Paul is saying that we knew of God, we knew about God in the Old Economy, in the Old Testament. We had, as it were, the Bible near us, but we didn't have an "in us." But it wasn't until we knew God through Jesus Christ that everything changed. Listen, my friends, just get this down in your mind: the Bible teaches you cannot know God the Father without going through God the Son. Jesus is the door. He is the way into the everlasting presence of God. That's why Jesus said in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through Me." This is His word. Jesus is the great door that leads us into the presence. He understood that Jesus Christ was that promised great high priest, that there would be no earthly priesthood that could satisfy you ultimately. He knew that He was Israel's deliverer, that is Jesus. That he knew that Jesus was the Son of God. Why? How did Paul know this? And what was his great power, and his great boldness, and his great trust? Because the scriptures, church, listen, the scriptures are fulfilled in the New Testament. What is, what is concealed in the New Testament? In the Old Testament, what is concealed in the Old Testament is revealed in the New Testament.
The Bible says in Psalm 34, verse 8: "Taste and see that the Lord is good." I read this, uh, little statement from J. Vernon McGee. You got to love that guy. He's always so colorful. He put it this way: "Yeah, it's been, it's been said that the proof is in the pudding. Well, God put it this way: 'Taste and see that the Lord is good.'" I like that. Context. Listen, my grandson right now, he's just, he's got mama's milk. I mean, he's, that's all he gets. He's not old enough yet. But my granddaughter last night, she's, she had a waffle with whipped cream on the top, and she's, she saw it. Mommy put it down in front of her. And this is what happened. She goes, just like this, with her tongue, and then she touches it, and she goes, "Mmm." And it's funny because she had this big waffle and a little bit of whipped cream, and she took that whole waffle. And there was, she kept saying, "More cream, more cream." And I like that. "Taste and see that the Lord is good." And once you taste of Him, isn't that your cry? "More of the Lord, more of the Lord, more of God." I've got to get more of God. And you'll pursue Him, you'll long after Him, you'll seek for Him. More of God.
The Old Testament saints, if they were to approach, or I should say, the Old Testament believer, if they didn't come to the knowledge of what God was really saying in the Old Testament, there was the frustration of these animal sacrifices. Look to a non-believer today. An animal sacrifice sounds gross in the Western world. To a Christian in this age, it's unnecessary. In the Old Testament, it was a necessary nuisance. Because, listen, you made an offering. Think about it. You went, you went, made an offering for your sins, and you took a dove, and you had it offered, and you walked down the street. You're leaving the temple, and you're going, and you go across the Kidron Valley, and you, uh, somebody you know runs, drives by in their brand new donkey, splashes mud all over your robe, and you say, "You know something? Like, you meathead! Oh, excuse me, I need another dove. Thank you. Okay, I'll be right back." And you had to go make sacrifice constantly, having to go back constantly with blood. What was God saying? He announced to them in the very beginning that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin. It could only cover it. He was setting them up. He was setting them up to know the greatest revelation that the world would ever know: that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment who brings absolute assurance and gives us advent into the presence of God.
He says in verse five: "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves." Paul is saying, "Nobody can earn such assurance." The word "sufficient" is a tremendous word that means this: that none of us can be able, listen, talented enough or skilled enough to earn God's excess. Well, Billy Graham, he's led millions of people to Christ. He's going to go to heaven because of that, right? No. Well, Chuck Smith has been the agent by which more churches have been planted around the world than any other known individual in church history, right? Is that, is that how he's going to go to heaven? Right? No. J. Vernon McGee, the most listened-to Christian radio broadcast around the world. Is that how much he got to heaven? He's there now. You know, a lot of people don't realize he's dead. He's there. Actually, he's more alive now than he ever was here on earth. That's not how you get to heaven. Paul is saying, "Wow, through Christ, we have this access toward God, and it's all about Jesus." Christianity is not a higher level of realization. Christianity is not a higher plane by which your life can be lived. If your New Year's resolution is, "I'm going to be a Christian and live a good life," what is today? The 13th or 15th or whatever it is, you should have by now greatly disappointed yourself. It doesn't happen that way. You cannot sign up for Christianity and say, "I'm going to just better myself." No, it doesn't work that way. Christianity is something that unless the Holy Spirit is living it inside of you, out, whatever your other approach to what is called Christianity is, of yourself will be a great hindrance to your salvation. The danger about you and I trying to earn some position with God is that we begin to believe our own propaganda. "My, aren't I something? Oh, look at me. Why can't more people be like me?" And we become a legend in our own mind. It's a remarkable thing. Somebody will say, "Pastor, oh, this is fine, but I keep the Golden Rule." Do you know I don't think so? Listen to what Paul the Apostle said in Philippians 3, verse 2. Listen to this. This is properly placed sufficiency. He said in verse 2, "Beware of dogs." He's not talking about, he's not talking about puppies. He's not talking about dogs. Dogs was a, was a word for legalists. Dogs. "Beware of dogs. Beware of evil workers of the mutilation." Do I need to expound on that? Beware of those who say, "Believe in Jesus, but you've got to be circumcised." Paul called them the mutilation. Yikes. "For we are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." Do you guys all hear the difference here? He has no confidence in the flesh, but he has absolute bold assurance before the presence of God. And yet he's not trusting in his own efforts. "Though I also," verse four, "might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so." Verse five: "Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is of the law, blameless." Wow. But look at verse seven: "But what things were gain to me." Stop right there. Look at that on the screens. Everything gained to me in these religious external efforts. You guys, all of us combined, would not match up to Paul's external life lived in righteousness. None of you. None of us. He would put us to shame. While you're watching TV, Paul would be at the hospital helping people. While you're commuting to work, he would have been feeding the homeless. Well, I mean, on and on it goes. And at the end of the day, he would have so many more righteous works than you and I would have. He says, "Yet indeed, I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things." Watch how this continues. Watch what this says. "And count them as rubbish." You ought to circle the word "rubbish." It's, uh, it's fertilizer. Bandini. "That I may gain Christ." Everything I've achieved in my life, I have found out, Paul said, is absolutely manure, that I may gain Christ. And be found in Him, not having my own righteousness which is from the law." And that's a sarcasm, by the way. You might say, "I'm being sarcastic." I know you wouldn't, but I'm just saying, somebody might say, "See, there is a righteousness I can do from the law." You don't get it. This righteousness that Paul speaks of is from the law, is absolutely horrific in the presence of God. But that which is through faith in Christ, righteousness only comes through faith in Jesus Christ. There's nothing greater. There's nothing greater.
The next thing is this: absolute acceptance into the acceptance of Almighty God. Nothing can be greater than absolute assurance. And what does that look like? Acceptance. Acceptance of Almighty God. Verse five goes on: "But our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient." And here's what's exciting for all of us as ministers of the new covenant. Don't think for a moment that that is Paul now speaking to seminary students, pastors, evangelists, and missionaries. No. Who's he speaking to, church? The Corinthian believers. This is every one of us. How many of your Christians? Raise your hand. You're Christians. Guess what? Right here, as we raise our hands, in all truth, then our lives are to be ministers of the new covenant. That's what we do. We are priests now of a better, new covenant that God had promised. Our sufficiency, and that's a sobering thing, is completely of God. The word carries with it this, listen to this: sufficiency, according to Albert Barnes in his great old commentary, says that the source of this word carries with it that we will not only survive but be sustained by God himself in all things. In the context, it is speaking of the faculty of reason and of logic and of understanding in an individual's life. Our sufficiency, meaning this, listen everybody, as a Christian, the Holy Spirit is at work in you, giving you the ability to understand the promises of God. If you today are saying, "I don't get it. I don't understand. I don't really care to get it. It's boring to me. I can't follow this." Know what the Bible says: the Bible says that when God is at work within you with this sufficiency, you will be supernaturally excited about the things of God. This is a divine work of God. And that makes sense, doesn't it make sense to you that wherever God is working, he's not bored? God doesn't mold and shape and and have you on, on the wheel, and then realize, "I don't know. I'm just making an ashtray out of them," and sets it up to the side. He's not like us. If it doesn't work, make an ashtray. He doesn't do that. He works. He works. He works. And he molds and he shapes, and he's constantly doing that until we stand before Him. And all that God is doing in your life and in my life, we're to be telling other people about that. You know, listen, um, I don't know if this is done much anymore, but, uh, I remember being at Calvary Costa Mesa. Uh, you better be ready for this, because man, people would come up and say, "Hey, how you doing?" "I'm doing great. What's the Lord doing in your life?" Remember those days? "Hey, what's the Lord doing in your life, dude?" You better have an answer. And you will. "I'll make something up." People can tell. "What's the Lord doing in your life?" "Uh, he's doing a lot of things. Uh, uh, but I tell you what..." There's a little bit of purifying with that question, isn't there? "Hey, man, what's God, what's God been doing in your life lately?" You should have an answer for that. We are ministers. God's called us to do this. But the glorious thing is that the sufficiency from God is that we have a right mind, a clear mind. This is never more clearly lived out than in Mark chapter 5, verse 15. Mark 5:15. The Bible there says that, and you know, many of you have been with us to Israel. On the opposite side of Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, there are those graveyards that are still there, the remnants, the archaeological excavations. It's awesome. There are graveyards that have been there since before Christ. And Jesus gets in a boat and he goes directly to the other side of an area, listen, of an area where Jewish people are not allowed to go. It's considered unclean. They don't traffic among the dead. And in that area of Gadara, there were pig farmers. And need I talk to you about Jews and bacon? That's how cursed that region was. What does Jesus do? He gets on a boat and goes to pig land. Can you imagine the disciples going, "Gosh, we're kind of heading right straight toward pigville. I mean, what's going on?" Jesus, the boat reaches the shore, and you guys know the story. There are two demoniacs that are living in the tombs, and they run down, and they're actually professing the person of Christ. "What have we to do with Thee, O Jesus, Son of God? Have You come to torment us before the time?" The demons knew who He was. And then the story focuses on one individual specifically, one of the demoniacs. And Jesus delivers him. And listen to Mark 5:15: "This is what happens when Christ comes into your life." "Then they came to Jesus, and saw the one who had been demon-possessed, who had the legion of demons, sitting and clothed in his..." What is it? Right mind. A mind that was thinking thoughts of God. A mind that was now hot in pursuit of God. You say, "How do you know?" Because the Bible goes on to say that that man said, "Jesus, I'll follow You anywhere. I'm coming with You." Jesus did an amazing thing. It's one of the rare moments that Jesus didn't say, "Follow Me." He usually says, "Come and follow Me." Jesus turns to that formerly demon-possessed man, who has now been repossessed by God, and Jesus says to him, "No, no. You're not coming with Me. Go back home and tell your friends what great things God has done for you." Whose ministers? Who are the ministers of Christ? You are. You just raised your hand a moment ago. I got you. I sucked you right into it, didn't I? You raised your hand. You, you signed up for the job. I am the one. When you go back to, uh, Northrop tomorrow, or IBM, or when you go to your neighbors, or when you go home today, you're the one. Wow. The Bible says in Ephesians 3:8, Paul says, "To me, who am less than the least of all saints, this grace has been given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." Paul is our example. Second Corinthians 8, verse 9: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich." Now, I know if you turn on certain Christian television programs, they will tell you, "That's right. Send me the $100 bill, and God will multiply." Jesus became poor so you can become rich. That is doctrines of demons. That's heresy. That verse means Jesus Christ, the very gospel incarnate, came to give us the gospel. That, that unsearchable riches, that, that treasure, that this remarkable and awesome richness that you and I have is, in fact, possessing the gospel of God. It's not your Rolls-Royce. It's not your cufflinks or your diamond-studded this or your gold-plated car. It's the gospel. Jesus said in the opening throes of His ministry that the Lord has anointed Me to preach, and He said, "To give the gospel to the poor." Why? That's how the poor are made rich. Jesus says, "The poor will have with us always, but they don't have to stay poor." Once the gospel comes into their life, though they may not have maybe two nickels to rub together, they have the unsearchable riches of Christ. Wow. I have been yelling. I've given myself a headache this morning. That's, I love this stuff. Listen, what A.W. Tozer said, as you know, I'm a fan of his. A.W. Tozer said, "The Christian experience is not easy. It's not comfortable." And yet, once you have encountered Christ Jesus, you are compelled to press on into Him more. The Christian faith is a disruptive faith. It is an unsettling faith. What I mean is, it wiggles down deep inside of you and turns things over. It makes demands of you on the inside. Isn't that not a good word? Does that not describe what has happened to us who have been converted to this great and glorious gospel?
The next thing is this: Nothing can be greater than absolute assurance. Verse six: "Into the life of Almighty God." Look at verse six: "Not of the letter." This does not come of the letter, but of the spirit. Why? "For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life." You see the words "letter" and "kills." You write down there: the law. You can say the Old Testament, specifically the Ten Commandments. That's what he's referring to. I said this in the opening, I want to repeat it: A clear reading of the Old Testament, the clear reading of the law in the Old Testament, reveals that there's no provision for man's salvation and for sin to be taken away from him, only a covering. And here's, as I mentioned earlier, where the salvation is experienced. Church, I need your, I need your attention. All of you. Wake your friend up. Abraham, David, the saints of old. They all understood that God would have to save us somehow, some way, if we were going to be saved. They looked ahead. Everything, listen, everything they offered in their worship, in their giving, in the sacrifice. These people were smart, okay? They built temples, they built pyramids. These guys were smart. They knew doing can, can, can an animal born from an animal save me from my sins before an eternal God? How can something earthly satisfy the eternal? And yet God said, "Do this," and all the while He was saying, "Look ahead. Look ahead." How were the Old Testament saints justified? They looked ahead to what was coming. The prophets spoke of what was coming. The prophets prophesied of what would come. That's why you have the eschatological salvation or messiahship of Christ. He will be born in Bethlehem. Who will the Messiah? Isaiah tells us that He's going to be bruised by the Father in heaven. He's going to be crucified. He's going to be pierced through. Zechariah says. Micah says He's the eternal God who will be born in Bethlehem. All of these things, a litany of facts. And here's the thing: you can know all these things. You can write a book on these things. And if you have that book just near your chest, and you sleep with it at night, and it never gets inside of you, you know what? It's all external. You can quote the Ten Commandments. You can read them backwards. You can say it in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin. If you don't have it inside you, external things cannot save you. The whole giving of the law was to show mankind that was on the outside had no power to save what was on the inside, the real, eternal you, the part that will live forever. The Almighty God. I've, I've used that three times in our teaching this morning about the Almighty God, El Shaddai, or El Shaddai, depending on how you say it. El Shaddai. And listen, that's, uh, it's a difficult, it's not a difficult name of God to know. It's not publicly. It's always looked. El Shaddai means often the, the absolute sovereign one. And it does, the one who is all-providing because He is the one, one sufficient one. And it's true. But the root "Shaddai" of "El," which is God, is, listen, breast. Say what? You know when Jesus appears in the book of Revelation, and it says in the Old King James, which is accurate, it says across, across His paths. You ever heard that term? You've ever heard that word? It's a golden girdle or a band of gold. You stop right there. If you're a Bible student, you go, "What? How can the eternal Son of God, who's coming to earth in power, have this band across His not chest? Could have used the word chest, breast." God doesn't have breasts. No, He doesn't have breasts. What is He trying to say to us? The word El Shaddai means this: the one and only sufficient God who alone has all that you need to satisfy all your desires. That's the meaning. A child is taken up and placed upon the breast and given everything the baby needs. God knew this in His engineering. Are you excited about this? A baby can hear when they're nursing the heartbeat of the mother. That's got to remind them of home, right? In the tummy, it's all they can hear. On top of it, I love this. The Hebrew women, when they nurse their babies, they say, "The Lord, He is God," right in the ear. When you nurse your baby, the ear of the baby's right by your mouth, and the first thing that the Hebrew mamas do is, "The Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God." Why? Because the baby hears the heartbeat of that which is internal. The baby's getting nourishment from mommy, life being sustained. They're getting everything they need. And then also added to that is all that you're receiving. It is because the Lord, He is God. Someone say amen. Oh, man. I gotta tell you, I gotta start pastoring a Pentecostal church. This is my last week. I'll see you guys. Oh, my goodness. No wonder why the book of Revelation has got Jesus in His great judgment, in His second coming to earth. There's a bit of comfort to those who will see Him. The nation of Israel, who will call out to Him. David wrote in Psalm 51, verse 11, regarding this: "Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation." Look, he's looking ahead. He's not trusting in some animal. "And uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You." When, listen, from Psalm 51, you know when he wrote that, by the way? After he got busted for his adultery, and God took him to the woodshed, and he confessed to sin, then he writes Psalm 51. By the way, listen, when you study the Psalms, all of the Psalms leading up to his encounter with Bathsheba, they're all like this: "I'm great. My enemies are wicked. Break their teeth off in their mouth. You know my heart, oh God. There's none like me. I'm amazing." Read David's psalms before he fell. "I'm fantastic. There's nobody quite like me. It's amazing. I can kill bears, I can kill lions, I can kill giants. I'm something." And then he falls. Boom. Satan's plan, no doubt, was to destroy David, and thus the lineage of the Messiah that would come through him. What happens? God's mercy is extended. When he's convicted of his sins, mercy and forgiveness. After he was convicted of his sins, God had all the mercy and forgiveness ready. But He will not deliver it unless you repent of your sin. And David said, "O God, I have sinned." And the Lord said, "David, your sin is removed. Your sin is taken away from you." And from that point on, David starts writing in his psalms, "His mercy endures forever. God is gracious. God is kind. Although He be angry, yet He shall not destroy us." And on and on. And that's how you and I know Him. Imagine if God, listen, I came to Christ 35 years ago. What if Jesus would have come just an hour after I was saved? I would have been in heaven right now. Saying, "Yeah, but what if you came to Christ after that time? I would have been in heaven." Or Christ would have come back, and you would have been living through the tribulation period or something like that. And imagine that. Look, the thing is, we get so excited, and we should, and we get so happy about ourselves, and so we should. But listen, until the Lord does come back, and we ought not to be fiddling around with, "Well, is He coming today? Or is He coming tonight? Tomorrow? How about, can someone set a date?" Uh, don't do that. Live like He's coming today, which should be the propellant that causes you to tell people that there's salvation through Christ. David got up after being forgiven. Can you imagine? The guy was the king of Israel. Hello. He was a little bit famous. And David gets up, and then he says, "That's it. Yeah, I'm going to go tell sinners all about You." Can you imagine? I mean, I'm making this part up right now. Can you imagine David comes out of his prayer closet with God? "Hey, what's your name?" "This..." "He's the king." "Uh, my name's, uh, Hepzibah." "Hey, Hepzibah, did you know that God's mercy endures forever? He's amazing. And that if you just put your faith in Him..." Can you imagine people could have said, "Aren't you the adulterer?" "Or, David, didn't you kill that woman's husband?" "Aren't you, who are you to talk to me?" He said, "I'm going to go tell sinners about You." Why? Because only a sinner can tell sinners about Him. Amen. And God calls us to minister. The gospel. Is that amazing? Oh, Pastor, I'm such a huge sinner. I'm just ginormous of a sinner. Well, guess what? Then you, you're qualified. We'll have to end this, uh, with this. We're out of time. It's a great verse. It's a good verse to end on. Galatians 2:20. Some of you know that verse. Isn't that a great verse? Galatians 2:20. It says this: "I have been crucified with Christ." Stop right there. We'll just dissect this. "I have been crucified with Christ." What on earth is he talking about? He's saying this, listen carefully: "God, I know that everything near and dear to you was placed into the personage of Jesus Christ Himself." And it is no wonder you turned to the disciples and said, "Philip, if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father." It's no wonder why in Him dwells all the fullness in bodily form. But what does that verse go on to say? You guys go ahead and leave it up on the screen. What is that verse going to say? "It is no longer I who live." Stop right there. Does that mean a Christian has to die before they can live? Answer: Yes. Oh, you expect me to go kill myself? No, silly. That's worthless. He's not talking about an easy thing like physical death. Anybody can do that. It is a hard thing, my friend, to die every day. The Christian, remember what Tozer said? It's, uh, to be a real Christian is, it's a hard thing. It's difficult. It's not, it's not comfortable. Why? Because every day we have to get up and die all day long. You know that? Do you know what I'm talking about? If you're a Christian, the world says, "Hey, how about this? Hey, look at that. Hey, what about that?" And you have to die to that stuff. You have to grab your eyes and look the other way. You gotta pull your hands back. You've got to, whatever it is in your life, die daily. Die daily. So, look, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." Remember I said the Bible on the outside, no good unless it's on the inside. Christ has got to be in you. "And the life which I now live." See, Paul's alive, but who's living in him? Jesus Christ. "The life which I now live in the flesh, in this world, I live by faith in the Son of God, why? Because He loved me and gave Himself for me." Galatians 2:20. This verse, when I became a Christian, set me free. I tried so hard. I've shared with you guys before. I could out-pray anybody. I could, I could, I did it all. I read more, I prayed more, and I, I just, I became an absolute, arrogant, self-righteous, legalistic, self-impressed, self-sufficient creep. And then Jesus gave me a left hook and knocked me on my back, and He took me to the woodshed of the Holy Spirit. And this verse is what I got. How I came out of that period of time. God gave me that verse. Right now, over and over again. "Jack, I want you dead." See, I wasn't out doing bad stuff. I took external righteous things, you see, go into church, reading Bible, and made it my approach to God, instead of relaxing and resting in the everlasting arms of Jesus. And I related to God on that plane of, "See what I've done for You today?" And God never heard or saw a thing. It was all stench to Him. I want to encourage you. Capture this reality. Nothing can be greater.
Father, we thank You for Your liberating truth and power this morning. As we are here right now, there are those, all of us combined, have lived the most sordid, strange, antichrist life, offensive to You. We have caused angels to blush. And then we met You. And in all reality, and I know, Lord God, how You work. There's the realization of You. There's that moment that we're saved. But there's a lot of baggage we carry into the relationship with You. And maybe there are wonderfully saved Christians here right now, but they relate to You on a legalistic plane. It's hard. Their Christianity, if they were honest, they know they're saved, but it's bitter. It's difficult. It's a drudgery. Oh, Lord, I remember those days. There was no joy, and there was nothing to tell anyone about because it was so hard, until, Lord, Your light broke through. And Father, we pray even now that for many of Your children right here right now, they would be coming now to that freedom of being liberated, that by the keeping of the law, no flesh is justified in the sight of God, but by faith in Jesus Christ, that causes us to rise up and to go out under the power of the Holy Spirit to live in a newness of life that we are now dead, but alive in Christ, alive in God. And that life that we now live, as of now, this moment, we live by faith in the Son of God. Father, thank You for Your liberating truth. May we go from this place today energized by Your work, by Your salvation, by Your Spirit, in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, Amen.
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