WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.740 Well, thanks for your kind welcome. 00:00:04.740 --> 00:00:11.040 I'm back in a place of very happy memories, but God is no memory. 00:00:11.040 --> 00:00:12.040 God is here. 00:00:12.040 --> 00:00:13.040 The Holy One is here. 00:00:13.040 --> 00:00:22.199 And in that context, I want to turn to this theme, Christ alone, and to begin by looking 00:00:22.199 --> 00:00:34.600 at the words of 1 Timothy and chapter 2 and verse 5, referred to our very earlier on. 00:00:34.600 --> 00:00:38.480 And we have a reminder here. 00:00:38.480 --> 00:00:45.439 There is one God and there is one Medi-Britain God and mine, the man Christ Jesus. 00:00:45.439 --> 00:00:50.960 There is one God and one Mediator. 00:00:50.960 --> 00:00:59.480 You have discussed already the great issues of Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide and Sola Gratia. 00:00:59.480 --> 00:01:02.160 And now we come to Sola's Christos. 00:01:02.160 --> 00:01:10.640 In many ways, the most fundamental of all of these alone words and reformation, the only 00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:16.560 because at the end of the day it all does come back to Christ. 00:01:16.560 --> 00:01:26.040 The Bible points to him, her faith is in him, and God's grace incarnate in him, as 00:01:26.040 --> 00:01:29.640 her Lord and her Saviour. 00:01:29.640 --> 00:01:34.480 We have the emphasis here on Christ's own Mediatorship. 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:39.359 There is one and only one Mediator. 00:01:39.359 --> 00:01:46.320 And it is, of course, a Bible doctrine before it ever was, or a formation doctrine, were 00:01:46.319 --> 00:01:53.279 told a month ago, some would say it's a rediscovery, not an invention of the Reformers. 00:01:53.279 --> 00:02:01.839 The word Mediator, or Medizites, in this context refers to Christ as a middleman, the one between 00:02:01.839 --> 00:02:05.679 God and the human species. 00:02:05.680 --> 00:02:16.599 He speaks for God to us and speaks for us to God, and that's for God in the work of 00:02:16.599 --> 00:02:17.599 our salvation. 00:02:17.599 --> 00:02:24.640 And we have the context in the Old Testament, of course, we read in the Pentateuch where 00:02:24.640 --> 00:02:32.520 we saw that great vision, almost sighing at that dramatic moment that mountain had burned 00:02:32.520 --> 00:02:35.319 with fire. 00:02:35.319 --> 00:02:44.319 Even how the people then said to Moses to come and act on their behalf, because they 00:02:44.319 --> 00:02:51.120 said or thought, we don't want that mountain to speak to us, that fire to speak to us. 00:02:51.120 --> 00:02:57.759 So when you go and speak to them and then come and tell us what the fire is saying, 00:02:57.759 --> 00:03:03.000 we can't go close to him, we can't ourselves approach him. 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:09.960 So when you go and learn from him, we have to say to us and speak for us to God. 00:03:09.960 --> 00:03:18.560 It's a very fundamental human instinct, the sense of the awfulness of deity, the distance 00:03:18.560 --> 00:03:26.759 between ourselves and God, because of our creativeness, because also more fundamentally 00:03:26.759 --> 00:03:28.759 of our sin. 00:03:28.759 --> 00:03:36.840 And how can we in finitude and in sinfulness, how can we approach the fire, this mountain 00:03:36.840 --> 00:03:38.840 that burns? 00:03:38.840 --> 00:03:48.039 And so in all cultures we have a need for a mediator, some person or the class who 00:03:48.039 --> 00:03:51.759 act for humans in relation to God. 00:03:51.759 --> 00:03:58.079 And the Reformation, of course, the Pima Reva Reformation Church, there was a large 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:00.840 number of such mediators. 00:04:00.840 --> 00:04:09.520 We had saints and angels, we had the priesthood, we had the papacy, all of these acting as 00:04:09.520 --> 00:04:15.600 go between us, between God and the members of the church in Western Christendom. 00:04:15.600 --> 00:04:22.040 And above all, of course, the Virgin Mary, the so-called Mother of God, who spoke to 00:04:22.040 --> 00:04:33.640 her to her August son on her behalf, a seawater, as a seafie, as some kind of burning mountain. 00:04:33.640 --> 00:04:41.200 Luther comes and protests against that whole emphasis on a multi-mediatorship and says 00:04:41.200 --> 00:04:49.879 there is only one mediator, that is the Lord Jesus Christ, only one go between, between 00:04:49.879 --> 00:04:57.879 ourselves and God, only one who can speak for God to us and for us to God and in Him 00:04:57.879 --> 00:05:01.480 alone, God's grace is incarnate. 00:05:01.480 --> 00:05:09.480 And we have this great, almost simple concept of Christ as the one and only way to God. 00:05:09.480 --> 00:05:17.000 We come to God through Him and there is no other way but this one way to God. 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:25.240 And so we come to this foundation concept, Christ as the one go between, between ourselves 00:05:25.240 --> 00:05:26.240 and God. 00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:34.360 But then, as Calvin began to reflect on that idea and to focus on the Messiah, she would 00:05:34.360 --> 00:05:40.040 use it, he saw that he was anointed as Messiah for this specific role. 00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:48.120 The Messiah is the Anointed mediator and God's best on him for the purposes of his 00:05:48.120 --> 00:05:50.879 mediatorial work. 00:05:50.879 --> 00:05:57.480 And Calvin ponders and sees that the Messiah should be linked to three great offices, the 00:05:57.480 --> 00:05:59.920 prophet, priest and king. 00:05:59.920 --> 00:06:03.920 All of these were anointed as specific offices. 00:06:03.920 --> 00:06:13.040 So Christ has one office, that is mediator, but within that there are those three subdivisions, 00:06:13.040 --> 00:06:16.840 those three functions of prophet, priest and king. 00:06:16.840 --> 00:06:24.879 And so let's grasp that this one mediator, this one bridge builder, this one go between 00:06:24.879 --> 00:06:27.280 between ourselves and God. 00:06:27.280 --> 00:06:33.879 But as such, he functions in those three different ways as prophet, priest and king. 00:06:33.879 --> 00:06:41.519 And he is eventually the only prophet and the only priest and the only king. 00:06:41.519 --> 00:06:50.000 But that's linked to three other concepts, our needs, our human spiritual condition, 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:57.800 our need for knowledge, our need for forgiveness and our need for divine protection. 00:06:57.800 --> 00:07:04.520 And in all these, we have a link between the theses, prophet, priest and king, the prophet 00:07:04.520 --> 00:07:12.680 brings knowledge, the priest forgiveness and the king brings protection and deliverance. 00:07:12.680 --> 00:07:19.920 And I want to build my thoughts, such as they are, around those three notions. 00:07:19.920 --> 00:07:25.600 First of all, in Christ we have the knowledge of God. 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:30.920 And it is fundamental to a reformed religion. 00:07:30.920 --> 00:07:36.439 Because without knowledge, it can be no faith and no godliness. 00:07:36.439 --> 00:07:44.400 Augustine said famously, how can I call on you unknown? 00:07:44.400 --> 00:07:50.000 If we don't know God, we cannot call upon God. 00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:54.200 How can we trust someone that we don't know? 00:07:54.199 --> 00:07:59.159 Or as Paul says, how do we believe in someone of whom we haven't heard? 00:07:59.159 --> 00:08:03.199 So knowledge is fundamental. 00:08:03.199 --> 00:08:09.560 I want to come back for a moment to Luther here because Luther began to be very concerned 00:08:09.560 --> 00:08:17.519 about the tendency among Protestants to focus on the abuse of the papacy on such things 00:08:17.519 --> 00:08:26.519 as the corruption of monasteries and the immorality of priests and the papal abuse. 00:08:26.519 --> 00:08:31.240 And so he said, these things don't matter. 00:08:31.240 --> 00:08:34.039 They're not the real issue. 00:08:34.039 --> 00:08:37.759 It's not these corruptions that are the problem. 00:08:37.759 --> 00:08:47.159 The problem he said is not the apiety of these men, but their ideas. 00:08:47.159 --> 00:08:53.679 It's what they preach and teach that does the damage. 00:08:53.679 --> 00:09:03.079 They teach against the Bibles being the only authority against justification by faith alone, 00:09:03.079 --> 00:09:08.240 against Christ alone, and it's in those errors that the poison lies. 00:09:08.240 --> 00:09:11.799 And he used that word deliberately. 00:09:11.799 --> 00:09:18.439 He said, we always said, a little poison spoils the whole drink. 00:09:18.439 --> 00:09:23.639 And therefore he says, it's the ideas we must focus upon. 00:09:23.639 --> 00:09:29.679 And we owe our ideas, as believers, of course, to our great prophet, to the Lord Jesus Christ 00:09:29.679 --> 00:09:40.639 because he comes as God's own spokesperson, as a prophet who has had an audience with God 00:09:40.639 --> 00:09:45.399 as the son who alone knows God the Father. 00:09:45.399 --> 00:09:54.199 He comes from that intimacy, from that eternal familiarity with God his Father, and comes 00:09:54.199 --> 00:10:05.240 and tells us, gives us an idea of who and what God actually is and what God wants and 00:10:05.240 --> 00:10:07.319 what God offers. 00:10:07.320 --> 00:10:16.200 And so he comes as, at one level, the revelation of God, and another, he has revealed God, 00:10:16.200 --> 00:10:19.560 but above all for the moment, he is the self, the revealer of God. 00:10:19.560 --> 00:10:23.879 It tells us what God is like. 00:10:23.879 --> 00:10:30.080 Now he's done it, of course, through the Old Testament prophets because he endorses 00:10:30.080 --> 00:10:32.440 all that they teach. 00:10:32.440 --> 00:10:38.560 And again he does it through the apostles after resurrection, again commissions them 00:10:38.560 --> 00:10:45.000 to be his own mouthpieces, but also in his own life and ministry we have the same emphasis 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:48.640 on Christ as speaking. 00:10:48.640 --> 00:10:57.680 And the remarkable thing is, the emphasis here on the orality, on the spoken word in 00:10:57.680 --> 00:11:01.720 the Lord's life and ministry. 00:11:01.720 --> 00:11:07.600 Horace Fox said to me, why don't you write an okay, that's in its own way okay, but 00:11:07.600 --> 00:11:11.040 the Lord wrote nothing. 00:11:11.040 --> 00:11:21.320 But the word spoken through its own personality, in its own unique way of communicating and 00:11:21.320 --> 00:11:30.519 sharing with us some of what he knows about God his Father, that's the glory of Christ 00:11:30.519 --> 00:11:36.759 as the mediator, as her prophet gives us a correct idea about God. 00:11:36.759 --> 00:11:43.519 Now of course, I used to do that in this postmodern world, we don't, he doesn't tell us all he 00:11:43.519 --> 00:11:53.279 knows and we don't grasp all he teaches us, but yet he gives us the truth, I am the truth, 00:11:53.279 --> 00:11:55.799 and he speaks the truth. 00:11:55.799 --> 00:12:03.559 And he does that as I said orally through the spoken word, I can't go through the various 00:12:03.559 --> 00:12:08.879 ways he does that, but just give us some examples to remind us of what he did come and teach 00:12:08.879 --> 00:12:15.079 us, what ideas he left us with, for example in the Lord's Prayer. 00:12:15.079 --> 00:12:23.159 I mean also well since we're three, four years old, our Father was art in heaven, and yet 00:12:23.159 --> 00:12:29.759 the glory, the sheer glory and uniqueness of these words, because no Jew before Jesus 00:12:29.759 --> 00:12:35.159 ever, ever, ever addressed God like that and called God Abba. 00:12:35.159 --> 00:12:46.000 But Christ is to us, you call God Abba, the burning fire, this terrifying mountain, call 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:50.600 it, call him Abba Father. 00:12:50.600 --> 00:13:00.680 His vision of God's paternal care, and as Calvin said, that's what faith is. 00:13:00.680 --> 00:13:08.519 It is the persuasion, it is the certainty of God's goodwill towards us, and that's 00:13:08.519 --> 00:13:15.360 so basic to the Lord's teaching that on our knees, yes, we know we're approaching the 00:13:15.360 --> 00:13:24.240 mountain that burns with fire, and yet this very same God is my Father in heaven. 00:13:24.240 --> 00:13:32.960 This one who gives me daily bread, who gives my sins, protects me from evil, that God is 00:13:32.960 --> 00:13:39.360 our Father in heaven, who cares for us in every aspect of our lives, and so there we 00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:51.600 share in the measure of faith, in the intimacy and boldness that God's eternal Son has with 00:13:51.600 --> 00:14:00.639 His own Father, and it's so important to grasp that, because sometimes we see God only as 00:14:00.639 --> 00:14:09.639 the holy other, as the awesome, dreadful, tremendous God who makes us trembling, and 00:14:09.639 --> 00:14:18.480 I don't want to lose that altogether, but still this God of uncompromising integrity, 00:14:18.480 --> 00:14:27.679 this God who is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present, this God is my Abba in heaven. 00:14:27.679 --> 00:14:36.639 That's what Christ, the only mediator says to us, that is what God is like, He is your 00:14:36.639 --> 00:14:37.639 Father. 00:14:37.639 --> 00:14:41.959 I'll take another key moment in the Lord's teaching ministry. 00:14:41.959 --> 00:14:49.799 The parable of the prodigal son, or has been called the waiting Father. 00:14:49.799 --> 00:14:57.639 It may refer to the prodigal son in the far country of unbelief, or of rejection of God, 00:14:57.639 --> 00:15:05.720 or to the believer, Bachsludin, who comes to herself or himself. 00:15:05.720 --> 00:15:16.559 And we go back to God, we've all been there in the far country in one form or another, 00:15:16.559 --> 00:15:25.679 but however far we've gone, or far the distance, or deeper degradation, or at feminist or heartless 00:15:25.679 --> 00:15:35.439 return, or at hesitant interpace, still we find this not a burning mountain, not a fire, 00:15:35.439 --> 00:15:44.120 but the waiting Father who comes to worship us, to worship penitent in the embrace of 00:15:44.120 --> 00:15:45.919 his own love. 00:15:45.919 --> 00:15:49.039 That's the idea that God gives us. 00:15:49.039 --> 00:15:52.479 Now I know it's not the whole truth. 00:15:52.480 --> 00:16:01.080 Let's say again, Christ endorsed the whole of the Old Testament, but there is nothing 00:16:01.080 --> 00:16:08.600 there comparable to that parable of the waiting Father. 00:16:08.600 --> 00:16:19.759 I don't know how lousomous we get in our spiritual despair, or how we think it unimaginable 00:16:19.759 --> 00:16:28.480 that God would welcome us back, but the Lord is saying go back, because you're guaranteed 00:16:28.480 --> 00:16:30.960 a welcome. 00:16:30.960 --> 00:16:39.720 If you've never been before, never come to yourself till now, then having come to yourself 00:16:39.720 --> 00:16:51.240 and done the most difficult thing a man can do, that is, face the truth about yourself, 00:16:51.240 --> 00:16:54.639 and then go home. 00:16:54.639 --> 00:17:04.120 Or if having once gone home, you have backslidden, and you know the depths of your own unworthiness, 00:17:04.119 --> 00:17:14.679 then again go back, because you have this Christ-given idea, the idea of the waiting 00:17:14.679 --> 00:17:15.679 Father. 00:17:15.679 --> 00:17:25.599 And again, go back to that enacted word on the cross of Calvary. 00:17:25.599 --> 00:17:30.039 It has, of course, its own orality. 00:17:30.039 --> 00:17:37.240 And all the Lord said about it before it's happened, and the words he spoke on the cross. 00:17:37.240 --> 00:17:45.079 But it's also itself an enacted word where Christ says, not only, this is how much I 00:17:45.079 --> 00:17:58.519 love you, you, and the world, but also this is how much God loves the world, because he 00:17:58.519 --> 00:18:03.279 gave us one and only Son. 00:18:03.279 --> 00:18:08.400 And all he asks is a response and faith. 00:18:08.400 --> 00:18:14.960 Now, whether conditioned or not, I leave aside for the moment. 00:18:14.960 --> 00:18:23.920 But there is such a disproportion between what God has done for us and what God acquires 00:18:23.920 --> 00:18:24.920 of us. 00:18:24.920 --> 00:18:32.920 He gave us Son, of us, of me and you, who requires only faith. 00:18:32.920 --> 00:18:41.920 And I add just one more thing to this, and that is, you shall know the truth, and the 00:18:41.920 --> 00:18:46.120 truth shall make you free. 00:18:46.119 --> 00:18:55.439 There is no bondage, there is a bondage of ignorance, every dictator and tyrant knows 00:18:55.439 --> 00:18:56.439 that. 00:18:56.439 --> 00:19:05.119 But the truth makes free, and Christ, through the above all truths, makes free. 00:19:05.119 --> 00:19:08.679 It frees from the burden of guilt. 00:19:08.680 --> 00:19:17.600 It frees from the fear of death and judgment, and it frees from the tyranny of human opinion, 00:19:17.600 --> 00:19:24.000 and the peer-grip pressure and prejudice, know the truth, and the truth shall make 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:27.000 you free. 00:19:27.000 --> 00:19:33.680 And then secondly, in Christ alone, we find forgiveness. 00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:39.240 And go back again to Luther, and what a problem that was. 00:19:39.240 --> 00:19:48.480 How can I, Martin Luther, how can I be right with God? 00:19:48.480 --> 00:19:57.640 And he knew as few people post Moses knew, he knew that terror and dread, or that mountain 00:19:57.640 --> 00:20:06.080 that burned with fire, this God of infinite and demanding rectitude, this God of whom 00:20:06.080 --> 00:20:11.440 one said, God forgives but condorns nothing. 00:20:11.440 --> 00:20:19.040 How can that God, how can he forgive me? 00:20:19.040 --> 00:20:23.160 I'm Luther of course, as you've been told him, shoot him in again. 00:20:23.160 --> 00:20:25.120 He did so, try. 00:20:25.119 --> 00:20:32.839 He tried so hard to earn that righteousness before God. 00:20:32.839 --> 00:20:39.519 He struggled in self-denial, sleeping on stone floor, self-flatulation, fasting up to the 00:20:39.519 --> 00:20:48.159 point of death, to earn righteousness before God, and to struggle through of him only to 00:20:48.159 --> 00:20:54.399 despair and almost broken to the point of insanity. 00:20:54.400 --> 00:21:02.000 So then gradually, and it was gradually, comes to see what you've seen already, justification 00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:05.400 by faith alone. 00:21:05.400 --> 00:21:13.560 And in that discovery, gradually dawning the dawn breaking, there he found his peace with 00:21:13.560 --> 00:21:15.560 God. 00:21:15.559 --> 00:21:26.279 And that idea, and again it is an idea of faith alone, it's an incomplete idea, because 00:21:26.279 --> 00:21:30.279 then we ask, well, faith in whom? 00:21:30.279 --> 00:21:33.599 Or faith in what? 00:21:33.599 --> 00:21:41.279 And that brings me back again to Christ alone, faith in Christ alone. 00:21:41.279 --> 00:21:52.399 Now the medieval church of course had faith, but here we have this emphasis on faith in 00:21:52.399 --> 00:22:03.759 Christ alone, not in my own works, my own experience, my own sincerity, my own doing 00:22:03.759 --> 00:22:12.359 my best, but on Christ the solid rock I stand. 00:22:12.359 --> 00:22:24.039 My faith is in him as the one person on whose activity by standing before God depends and 00:22:24.039 --> 00:22:35.200 depends absolutely and exclusively, nothing else but what Christ did, harsher bearing 00:22:35.200 --> 00:22:42.720 on my standing before God as a judge of all flesh. 00:22:42.720 --> 00:22:48.960 But of course that leads to the second idea I mentioned of Christ as priest, because our 00:22:48.960 --> 00:22:55.360 faith here is above all faith in Christ as priest. 00:22:55.360 --> 00:22:58.559 And what does a priest do? 00:22:58.559 --> 00:23:05.000 We find the word priest, or used to Christ only in Hebrews, and it also tells us that 00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:12.640 a priest as one great thing he offers gifts and sacrifices to God. 00:23:12.640 --> 00:23:16.960 And that's what Christ did. 00:23:16.960 --> 00:23:27.039 He didn't come and simply teach, though that of course wasn't indispensable. 00:23:27.039 --> 00:23:34.920 But he comes and gives himself an offering for sin, if I can go back further. 00:23:34.920 --> 00:23:44.000 He didn't only negotiate as mediator between God and the human race, and which in agreement 00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:57.400 with God about our salvation, but he stands surety and he says, I will pay their debts, 00:23:57.400 --> 00:24:00.119 and I will bear their sin. 00:24:00.119 --> 00:24:11.960 I'll atone for their sin, and by that atonement I will reconcile God, my Father, to the human 00:24:11.960 --> 00:24:15.360 race and on the cross. 00:24:15.360 --> 00:24:17.160 That's what he does, that's what he did. 00:24:17.160 --> 00:24:26.720 And Luther goes on to tell us, oh Christ becomes the greatest sinner that ever was, and when 00:24:26.720 --> 00:24:32.640 Simon Rutherford there read that he shattered and disagreed. 00:24:32.640 --> 00:24:41.759 And I think it's tremendous and it's so, so important because he's bearing this sin 00:24:41.759 --> 00:24:46.640 of the world as an entity, as an organism. 00:24:46.640 --> 00:24:54.880 And Luther goes on to say that he became David's sin, and he became Peter's sin and 00:24:54.880 --> 00:25:04.160 Manasseh's sin, and you can mention all the most deeply abandoned sinners that God's 00:25:04.160 --> 00:25:14.720 grace reached, and then you know Christ became the sin of each of these and on that cross. 00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:22.400 My burden gladly bearing, he bled and died to take away my sin. 00:25:22.400 --> 00:25:32.080 And in Hebrews we have this great contrast between the Aaronic priests of the Old Testament 00:25:32.080 --> 00:25:36.000 and Christ our great high priest. 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:46.960 And one fundamental difference is this, they went in with blood, indeed they did. 00:25:46.960 --> 00:25:59.759 The blood of dumb animals, and he goes in with blood, but not the blood of a dumb animal, 00:25:59.759 --> 00:26:02.640 but with his own blood. 00:26:02.640 --> 00:26:13.799 With a ball called so boldly the blood of God, the blood of his own person. 00:26:13.799 --> 00:26:21.119 And if I can go back again to the covenant idea, which I don't want to linger on too 00:26:21.119 --> 00:26:28.799 long, in that agreement between God the Father and God the Son that lies behind us coming 00:26:28.799 --> 00:26:43.759 into this world, the negotiated price of redemption, that is of irredemption comparts, which has 00:26:43.759 --> 00:26:45.879 your name on it. 00:26:45.879 --> 00:26:55.599 The price is the blood of the mediator, doesn't only negotiate but says that he will meet 00:26:55.599 --> 00:27:09.079 the conditions, and on that cross the blood of God's eternal Son, that blood is shed. 00:27:09.079 --> 00:27:18.799 The obedience given in our place is that of God's own Son, the one enduring the curses 00:27:18.799 --> 00:27:28.519 God's own Son, the one who in those enigmatic words he sends into hell before he dies or 00:27:28.519 --> 00:27:34.720 in dying is God's own Son. 00:27:34.720 --> 00:27:45.039 It is, yes, my sabers obedience and blood hide all my transgressions from you, but it's 00:27:45.039 --> 00:27:55.640 not simply that official my sake, it is also God's beloved Son, this person of divine 00:27:55.640 --> 00:28:04.680 grandeur who obeys in my place, obeys my debts, and cries on the cross of Calvate last 00:28:04.680 --> 00:28:18.360 night, it is finished, teteleste, I paid in full, he cries, our debts paid in full. 00:28:18.360 --> 00:28:28.200 That tremendous idea that when we stand before God as judge, do you know that you owe him 00:28:28.200 --> 00:28:46.920 nothing, cancelled, paid in full, hide all my transgressions from you, there is no condemnation 00:28:46.920 --> 00:28:57.240 to those who are in Christ Jesus, and now a risen Saviour and a glorified priest, but 00:28:57.240 --> 00:29:05.680 still priestly active in their sitting for you and for me, and just a word of that, he 00:29:05.680 --> 00:29:17.759 does was one who has touched with the feeling of our infirmities, who are stood in the stream 00:29:17.759 --> 00:29:30.559 of all our human tribulations, all the crushings that our human spirits know, all the emotional 00:29:30.559 --> 00:29:42.839 turmoil he has been there, and so tonight many of you prostrate me with remarkably problem-free 00:29:42.839 --> 00:29:56.720 lives, but not all of us, and it is so important to know that the high priest can turn to his 00:29:56.720 --> 00:30:07.439 father and say, I know how he is feeling, and I know how she is feeling, because I have 00:30:07.440 --> 00:30:15.440 been there, I have been flesh and blood, I have been tempted and tested, I have suffered 00:30:15.440 --> 00:30:27.880 loss, I have suffered fear, and so I remember them graciously and give them what I have earned 00:30:27.880 --> 00:30:39.000 for them by my death on the cross, and then at last the emphasis on earth salvation requiring 00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:50.480 divine protection and deliverance, because we are the king, because we live in a world 00:30:50.480 --> 00:31:03.599 where we are subject to so much danger and so much temptation and so much pressure, not 00:31:03.599 --> 00:31:17.480 only secular, but demonic, because every day the parliament of pandemonium meets to planet 00:31:17.480 --> 00:31:31.839 strategy, and it has one core element that is your spiritual overthrow and your apostasy, 00:31:31.839 --> 00:31:45.880 that is the whole policy of pandemonium, and here we are so frail, so fragile, experience 00:31:45.880 --> 00:31:58.800 isn't enough, knowledge, ideas even aren't enough, where then is there an enough, in 00:31:58.800 --> 00:32:14.320 that great principle, a sovereign protector I have unseen, yet always at hand, and I come 00:32:14.319 --> 00:32:28.359 back again to Martin Luther, he speaks at one point of the wonderful jewel between himself, 00:32:28.359 --> 00:32:41.039 between Christ and the devil, how on the cross you have this mighty battle between the mediator 00:32:41.039 --> 00:32:54.000 and the powers of darkness, because here Satan thinks that he has him, and he will pull him 00:32:54.000 --> 00:33:03.720 down to death and hell and hiddies and pull all his children down with him, why? Because 00:33:03.720 --> 00:33:16.559 the devil sees Christ as bearing sin, and as a sinner he has to go come down with me 00:33:16.559 --> 00:33:30.640 to hell, but Christ fights the battle, and the battle is to complete an atonement for 00:33:30.640 --> 00:33:42.040 our sin, to bear the curse, to go to that dereliction, that place that love cannot 00:33:42.040 --> 00:33:54.280 reach, to face and bear his own person what our sin deserves, and you know it's not in 00:33:54.279 --> 00:34:01.920 the pain of pain or in suffering or suffering that the wonder and the virtual eyes, but 00:34:01.920 --> 00:34:15.599 in this, in the quality of that dying, its quality as obedience, its quality as loving 00:34:15.599 --> 00:34:26.799 obedience, because right through that struggle, that titanic struggle between Christ and the 00:34:26.799 --> 00:34:38.360 demonic, he loves, his love for God doesn't waver, and his love for humanity doesn't 00:34:38.360 --> 00:34:52.800 waver, and his love for you as a believer doesn't falter or waver, and so at last, that obedience, 00:34:52.800 --> 00:35:04.240 it robs the devil of his power. He is no longer the prince of this world he is cast out, and 00:35:04.239 --> 00:35:17.839 what is so glorious is that, yes we live amid many dangers, toils and snares, and sometimes 00:35:17.839 --> 00:35:26.759 we think oh here we are, poor believers living in enemy territory, you know it's a wonderful 00:35:26.760 --> 00:35:37.280 thing that's not true, because this world is not any longer the devil's territory, there's 00:35:37.280 --> 00:35:50.080 been a change in regime, and now every inch of this planet and all this almost infinite 00:35:50.079 --> 00:35:59.799 universe belongs to you Lord and Savior, he has bought it with his own blood, and you 00:35:59.799 --> 00:36:11.799 can never be in a place that doesn't belong to Christ, and furthermore I can say government 00:36:11.800 --> 00:36:21.880 forces are never far away, I think some would neglect to think of the angels so often, but 00:36:21.880 --> 00:36:36.360 they're there too, the glory of the Lord is shining all around, we have indeed the sovereign 00:36:36.360 --> 00:36:48.000 protector, but then this king is a Davidic king, he's a shepherd king, that shepherd, 00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:58.039 that king who carries the lambs in his bosom un-gently leads those that are with young, 00:36:58.039 --> 00:37:09.480 and how as a good shepherd he says to John chapter 10, the Father has given him to me, 00:37:09.480 --> 00:37:19.800 God in his eternal, invincible, infallible determination gave you to Christ, and said 00:37:19.800 --> 00:37:33.200 to him, hold her and bring her safely home, and no one is able to pluck them out of my 00:37:33.200 --> 00:37:36.560 hand. 00:37:36.559 --> 00:37:49.519 Of course we are kept by God's power through faith, and you must exercise our faith, and 00:37:49.519 --> 00:37:57.519 you must keep and step with the Holy Spirit, and you must follow the voice of the good 00:37:57.519 --> 00:38:09.759 shepherd, but still your confidence lies in those almighty hands. 00:38:09.759 --> 00:38:16.159 When I read these words, my mind goes back to the broadcast made by George VI through 00:38:16.159 --> 00:38:32.399 the Christmas day 1939, when the world faced the dark present and even darker future, on 00:38:32.399 --> 00:38:42.440 the speech closes as a king stammers these great words from the 20th century American 00:38:42.440 --> 00:38:57.800 point, and few in Alaska and so I think it was, and these lines came with John 10, no 00:38:57.800 --> 00:39:06.079 one could pluck them out of my hands. 00:39:06.079 --> 00:39:14.880 I said to the man standing in the gate of the way, in the gate of the year, give me 00:39:14.880 --> 00:39:30.719 a light, that I may thread my way safely through the darkness, and he replied, go out into 00:39:30.719 --> 00:39:46.039 the darkness and put your hand in the hand of God, and that shall be to you better than 00:39:46.039 --> 00:39:53.879 light and safer than a known way. 00:39:53.879 --> 00:39:57.039 Put your hand in the hand of God. 00:39:57.039 --> 00:40:00.559 May God bless to us His word and to you. 00:40:00.559 --> 00:40:01.559 Amen. 00:40:01.559 --> 00:40:30.559 Thank you.