Australian Bible Church

April 29, 2007   

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

Part III

THE RISE AND FALL OF VINEYARDS,
AND THE FOLLOW-UP

THE JUDGE SUMMING UP FOR JUDGMENT: IT IS GOOD TO LISTEN,
LEAVING SHOVE FOR LOVE,AND SHAN’T FOR WILL! 

The Indolent Vineyard, Rapacity for Riches, Dreamy Delinquents, Ignorant Savants, Sin Breeders, God Mockers and Moral Transvestites  

THE MIGHT OF THE MAJESTIC MESSIAH,
OVER ALL NATIONAL AND PERSONAL BARRIERS

Towards the end of Part I above, we were noting the wonder of the answer of God to sin, judgment apart. This is not something provided for this world, which sins into judgment at increasing speed, but not for those elected to salvation from within it; for Christ having transferred the choice payment of redemption to those to whom it belonged, they are covered.

Their overdraft is annulled, their debt is cancelled, their deficiencies are met by the gift of righteousness, and their peace is beyond all understanding (Romans 5, 8, Philippians 4).

Thus we had something like this.

Now for the beautiful part … In Isaiah 7, there is the prophecy of the Virgin, in an event beyond all mere human conception, comparable with any miracle, staggering; for she is to bear a Son in whom we will have this: GOD WITH US, Immanuel. Then in  Isaiah 8:21-9:7, we find that in the very midst of torment and anguish (and Isaiah 6 has shown enough of it, with Isaiah 5 the cause of it!), there is to come light, with peace and gladness, and the dominion of the mighty God, in the very person, amazing as it is, of His own Son, one also to be called the Mighty God. Here is the Messiah, the one sent from heaven to earth, bringing the holiness of heaven with Him, and its pardon. For ever is His time, without end is His kingdom (Isaiah 9:7).

Here then appears the Messiah, and in Him is neither guile nor deceit (Isaiah 53:9, I Peter 2:22ff.), nor did sin achieve even calling card approval. How vast the gulf between Him and the practice in the nation, of calling evil good and good evil, this being just one of the divine accusations against Israel which we noted in Section I above. How wonderful apt and accurate, ample and majestic is the remedy for such confusion!

It is precisely because the horrid disjointing crushing and crumpling of the Cross of Christ is so anti-design in its depressive dynamic, that it is so apt. Here is the very picture of sin and its due judgment, in the very milieu of the Master, bearing it without deformation of character, declination of commitment or deviation from duty; and with that, there is the love which surges into forgiveness to the last, saving souls as He dies to save souls, summoning one of His companions in crucifixion, to the kingdom the man was seeking.

Behold the Messiah, the One sent from heaven to earth, bringing the holiness of heaven with Him, and its pardon. For ever is His time, without end is His kingdom (Isaiah 9:7).

We see now the Lord, in princely and priceless peace, poured into human form to achieve divine transformation and redemption for man; and in terms of calling evil good and good evil, consider the remedy for such confusion.

Here shines like the sun arising on a misty morning, the magnificence of the Messiah. Now are we moving to the domain of the Messiah of Isaiah 7, 9 as indeed of 11, 22, 32, 40, 42, 49-55, 60-61 and so on.

All is expounded, expressed with a sympathy (to those loved), an antipathy (to what defiles them) and an empathy (in bearing sin where it is discarded onto Him freely), which processes impurity, and restores a healed heart at peace with the purity of God through this same Lord Jesus Christ.

It is a double transformation: of Him to sin bearer and slain Messiah, and of those who seek Him, His body arisen and His word fulfilled, to purged premises and people with promises, even children of God, equipped with the very spiritual genes of His generation, which is for ever (I John 3:9).

I The OPPOSITE, the Blessed Righteousness of God

As sin estranged man, by its spread, so God's righteousness spreads like a saving net, to bring back fallen man. As the one brought devastation, loss, negation, a spendthrift spirit, so this brings reconstruction, through a vast endeavour, a rebuilding, as of Europe with Marshall Aid after World War II, courtesy of the United States in no small measure. As one destroyed, the other restores; as one lent on the wall to break it, the other constructed the wall, to make it serve. As the one defiled beauty, the other was defiled, to remove the ruin in Himself, and provide the beauty of holiness to the now redeemed, covered in the Cross of Christ by the blood of the New Covenant (Matthew 26).

It is here as in Romans 5:15:

 “But the free gift is not like the offense.
For if by the one man’s offense many died,
much more the grace of God and
the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.”

Here the action of Christ and Adam is seen, the latter to confound, the former to restore, and the restoration (like Europe with NEW equipment when rebuilt after World War II) is even more prodigious than the loss.

2 The APPOSITE, the Gathering in of the Elect

Again, as sin brought extension, like a plague, the spiritual sedition and sedation moving by birth and environment, moral, social, intellectual and physical, to many others, so salvation brought intensity, EACH one being revived to life on an individual basis, by the power of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus, like so many polluted streams, each renewed at its source, and then all allowed to flow into one huge river of life.

Romans 5:20 gives the keynote to this: “Moreover, the law entered that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more…”

Here the contrast is in the atmosphere, the kindness, the grace that floods the drought stricken deserts of sin. The whole area is green not with wilted hope to conserve species, but with a regenerated life that abounds, and binds.

This is fitting, for as Christ is one, so is His body; and hence we who receive the Biblical Gospel should seek fellowship, not with falsely named rebels, pretending, but with those of like precious faith (Ephesians 2:14-22, Jude). Such is the power of achievement in the Messiah; and those who seek Him, find, and those who desire Him, are free to come; and His call is categorical (Matthew 11:28ff.), and heartfelt (Matthew 23:27), and seeks for all that they might avoid judgment (John 3:17, Luke 19:42ff.).

There is nothing merely verbal in it, as if a politician make loose statement. God would have all come to a knowledge of the truth, and in this One mediator, He seeks all to be reconciled to Himself (Colossians 1, I Timothy 2). He does not carry on in lachrymose lassitude: He DESIRES, and all the power of God is available. Desire Him ? Trust Him, for the wind and window of opportunity alike are present. The way ? it is there. The entry ? it is there (John 10:9).

Enter then. If not, why protest!

Ephesians puts the perspective like this:

“For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one,
and has broken down the middle wall of separation,
having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace,
and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross,
thereby putting to death the enmity.

“And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near.
For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.

“Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners,
but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone,
in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord,
in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

3. The REQUISITE, the spread of the Gospel
in Hospitable Soil
with Godly Seed

Just as sin spread by its evil news, so the Gospel is spread by lively 'epistles' as Paul says of one church (II Corinthians 3:2ff.), those whose lives and words attest the truth of which they speak. Instead of infecting others, the Christian is called not to inspect them - God's affair - but to bring anti-biotic to their infection. Thus the Gospel of God's grace is death to sin and life to those afflicted, as surely as small pox was virtually wiped out years ago, through the vaccination program. Although life in Christ does not mean NO sin can enter; it DOES mean that no sin can stay (cf. Romans 8:8ff., 12-16).

Sin shall not have dominion over you (Romans 6), so that by the Spirit of God you put to death the deeds of the erratic freedom of fancy (Romans 8:11-13), that makes body, mind and spirit a plaything for sin, and a course for carrier disease (Romans 8:13). There is no room for two sovereigns in the Christian life, and though many try it, none surmount it. With the deity, there can be no duplicity: He knows your heart and spirit better than you do. It is Christ who reigns (Romans 5:17ff.).

Thus as we began to see last time, in the most amazing fashion, as if to search for height to heaven (as Isaiah offered Ahaz in Isaiah 7), and to hell for depth, and then apply the solution to the nation's troubles, we find a virgin is to be the encompassing one (as in Jeremiah 31:22-31), providing the human form for the irruption of God into humanity, which brings in the New Covenant. How ? Why she is to bear one who is to be “the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace,” and in His coming what do we have ? It is this: "God with us” (Isaiah 7, 9 Jeremiah 31).

From her is to be born into mankind, the ONLY ONE who can heal it, save it, bring it peace in man or nations, women or wisdom, heal its sores and govern it in goodness.

Thus does God taking flesh, deliver all in it, who seek Him, and seeking find. In Isaiah 42:6, 49:6, we find that the Gentiles have NO LESS NEED than the Jew, that all need the same salvation and the same gift, with the same overdraft to be annulled, each in its own form (Isaiah 53:6), but all with the same eventual result.

It is when, and only when many have found this irresistible, as will come at the return of Christ, all drawn and Christ in command of this world as it flies to judgment, that the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14, Isaiah 11). It is then that Christ has world-wide, conquering impact, before the world itself is removed from the scene and scenario (Isaiah 51:6, Matthew 23:35).

Even now the Gospel calls; then it leads to the day of divine JUDGMENT, when its neglect finally condemns. What IS the condemnation ? It is this as John 3 tells us. The true LIGHT has come into the world (John 1:9-10), but "this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."

Christ did not come to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved (John 3:17). He SAYS so. He came that anyone believing might be saved. That is the positive and negative of it. The divine motivation is stated here as in Colossians 1. It is the human motivation which is subject to sentence.

This is the reason: reject salvation, and there is no other; ignore the appeal, and truth executes judgment. Keep your sin under wraps, and on the show day, its sentence is sure, just and certain.

The Prince of Peace is the ONLY way to avoid war, both personal, national and international.  It is the only way to find God. It is the only way the vineyard, yours or that of Israel, being replanted with regenerated stock, can grow in grace.

It is as in Jeremiah 31:28-29:

“Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast. And it shall come to pass, that as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, says the LORD.”

Otherwise mildew is mandatory. There is no sun, the Sun of Righteousness, and disease is rampant; and there is no heart to fight for the right. Morals become topsy-turvy, and men act as their own auditors. But audit rather the world of the living God:

"Of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice."

As Romans 6 declares, “…if we have been planted together with Christ, in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.”

Eternal life has no end; the eternal Lord neither had beginning nor does He have end. Therefore find Him, do business with Him, and follow Him.  His is the love and He is lovely.