~Archibald Brown
“A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon
An evil is in the “professed”
camp of the Lord, so gross in its impudence, that the most short-sighted
Christian can hardly fail to notice it. During the past few years this evil has
developed at an alarming rate. It has worked like leaven, until the whole lump
ferments!
Hebrews 12:2, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus!"
“In the
beginning, God (Elohim) created
the heavens and the Earth.” Gen. 1:1
John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God.”
We all know the creation
account in Genesis chapters 1:1 through 3:24. Chapters that require much study.
And those of us who have put in much study (relatively) need to put in
much more study...unless we think we know it all (again, relatively and with
all due respect).
The WHOLE Bible is about GOD! Many, many Christians, down through time, have become “Jesus” worshippers to the exclusion of God the Father, especially during and after the “hippie” era. I lived through it. Some would say, “Yes, but they generated interest in Jesus.” Yes they did... some good, but a lot bad. Bad because it was from a wrong perspective and motive. The “Jesus” movement took away from God. But that’s another sermon.
Jonah 2:6+9 says, “You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, my God. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer went up to You… Salvation is of the Lord.
There is much in that whole chapter of Jonah that relates to God, and to Jesus, and to Israel, and to us. But I would direct our focus this morning to, “Salvation is of the Lord.” How does God save sinners? By taking the penalty for sin (death) which was due man, onto a body of His own to enter death, undeserving, under His own power wherein death had NO power over Him so He could destroy it, and sin, and satan. That is my nutshell version. There is SO much more there on that theme that you could write a book on it. In fact… He did. You’re holding it.
When
a believer begins to discover something of the awful tyranny of the self-life,
or has been endlessly struggling against that tyranny, he becomes intensely
concerned about the denial of self with the resultant freedom to rest and grow
in Christ. Man has many ways of seeking to escape the thralldom (bondage)
of self; God has but one way. First then, some of these man-centered methods.
Lamentations 3:22-23 says, The steadfast love of the LORD (Jehovah) never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
In the four Gospels we read the accounts of the life and
death of Jesus (Jehovah incarnate). There is an infinite volume of truth about Jesus’ life, His
birth, His death, His purpose(s), His words, His miracles, His righteousness,
His divinity, His judgments, His sorrows, His joy, etc., which we will not
fully comprehend in this life.
In John 18 and 19 we read of Jesus’s arrest. Then He was sent to Caiaphas, then to Pilate who questioned Him and scourged Him. After that, Pilate brought Him out to the crowd and said, “Behold the Man!” John 19:5
Pilate was essentially saying, "Here is Jesus. He is not your
Messiah, He is not your king, He is not God. He is just a man."
Let us consider the man... Who
for the joy set before Him endured
the cross.
What
joy could possibly be worth enduring the pain, torture and humiliation of
crucifixion? Could it be that Jesus would be exalted above all else in Heaven
and Earth? Or that He would be King of Israel... and the world? Wouldn't that be selfish and vain of Jesus? The joy set
before Jesus was redeeming the human race and all of creation, for God so loved the
world.
See
also John 10:11.
John 1:1, In the beginning... was the Word, and the Word was WITH God, and the Word was God.
This study begins with “the beginning” because it requires understanding. In the beginning is a vague and indistinct phrase. There is no definite place in time specified. We naturally think of Genesis 1:1 as the beginning of the time of creation. But in John 1:1, we should consider a “time” before creation, which was not a “time” in our sense of the word, but the eternity before time, or it could mean during the time of creation. In any case, the entire triune Godhead is outside of time but works within time as well. We are here introduced to a relationship before anything is created; the relationship of “the Word” to God.
Jeremiah 2:27-28 says, "They have turned their backs to Me and not their faces. Yet when they are in trouble, they say, 'Come and save us!' Where then are the gods you made for yourselves? Let them come if they can save you when you are in trouble!"
God warns His people of old, that if they persisted in looking to their false gods in the time of prosperity--that they would have none but their idols to assist them in the season of adversity. In the same way, in times of prosperity, the unsaved not only neglect God but despise Him as well! They cast off all fear of God and serve their idols, to the utter neglect of God.
