[0:00] as some of you will know this morning, we looked at what we've styled the musts of Christ and identified those that he must be lifted up in death.
[0:11] He must be raised to life or else there is no salvation. He must reign in glory till he has put all his enemies under his feet.
[0:22] Of course, we could add more. He must ascend into heaven. He must come again. And all these things, because he has come, we could increase and multiply, but those are the three we looked at. He must be lifted up.
[0:33] He must be raised to life. And he must reign in glory. And as we mentioned this morning, we'll look this evening at what we might call the musts of men. That which mankind, which sinners in their needy condition, will of necessity face.
[0:50] And these are we must die. We must be born again. And we must be saved. Now, of course, we'll have scripture for each of these things.
[1:04] But we might say, these are not exactly the same, because whilst we all must die, it doesn't follow that we all must be saved. Lots of people will be lost. It doesn't follow that we must be born again.
[1:15] We might choose not to be, and we just end up being lost. Well, that's perhaps true, but death is an inevitability. Well, it's not necessarily an inevitability. The Lord may come back first.
[1:27] But that doesn't mean that your case will be any better if the Lord comes back before you are born again and saved. So the necessity of being born again, the necessity of being saved, unless we are to face a continuance of death from time into eternity, is every bit as essential as it is claimed to be.
[1:50] And the fact, the inevitability, of our physical death, unless the Lord comes back first, that too has, we might say, an out clause.
[2:02] It has a means of escape, if not from the physical effects of death on the flesh. It has an escape from the eternal effects of death upon the soul. So this is, we could say, summed up in the two relevant questions in the larger Catechism.
[2:17] Question 84. Shall all men die? And the answer given is, death being threatened as the wages of sin, it is appointed unto all men once to die, for that all have sinned.
[2:30] And then the next question, death being the wages of sin, why are not the righteous delivered from death, seeing all their sins are forgiven in Christ? The righteous shall be delivered from death itself at the last day, and even in death are delivered from the sting and curse of it, so that although they die, yet it is out of God's love to free them perfectly from sin and misery, and to make them capable of further communion with Christ in glory, which they then enter upon.
[3:08] However, from a physical point of view, that which we find stated in the 14th verse of the chapter that we read is nevertheless true. Let's take it that unless we are here, when the Lord comes back, we can take it that it applies to all of us.
[3:22] For we must needs die, says the wise woman of Tekoa to King David, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again.
[3:34] You can't get a second go. You know, if you can gather up water once it's been poured out on the ground, then you can have another life, and another life, and another life in this world.
[3:44] People would love to do that, perhaps. They wish they had maybe two lives, five lives, ten lives, but it wouldn't matter if you had a hundred lives. If you are outside of Christ, and not redeemed by him, you would expend each and every one of them in exactly the same state of rebellion and unbelief.
[4:01] One is all we are given here upon earth, and that life will either continue with the Lord if we are redeemed by him, or else that state of separation from God, which of course is what death is, will likewise continue for all eternity.
[4:18] For we must needs die, verse 14, and are as waters spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. Neither does God respect any person.
[4:29] He's not going to say, well, you're a good person, so you can live till you're 95, or you can live till you're 110, but you're not a good person, so you can die in infancy at two years old, or whatever, or you can die when you're 40, or whatever.
[4:41] God is not a respective person. There's no question that sometimes good things happen to bad people, and vice versa.
[4:51] That's part of what the book of Job is all about, recognizing that the wicked seem to flourish. Psalm 37, David says, I've seen the wicked spreading himself like a green bay tree.
[5:02] There doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason that links in good with blessing in this world, because God's view is so much longer and larger than our so limited horizons.
[5:15] But we must die. We must needs die. Neither does God respect any person, yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him.
[5:30] Here you've got a little snippet of the gospel, here in the depths of the Old Testament, in this book of Samuel. Yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him.
[5:41] Now, of course, this state of banishment from the Lord's comfortable presence, this separation from God, this is what death is. And that is what begins with Adam's sin in the garden.
[5:54] Just as we read, for example, in Romans 5, where we are given to understand the reason for it all. Romans 5, verse 12, Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin.
[6:08] And so death passed upon all men, for they all have sinned. For until the law of sin was in the world, that sin is not imputed, where there's no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, which is the figure of him that was to come.
[6:26] I think, well, why is that fair? I mean, Adam sinned, fair enough. So he should die. But what about all this posterity? What about all those that came after him? They didn't sin the same way. Why should they be affected by it?
[6:38] Well, as I think I've used this example in the past, if you think of it this way, because we are affected by what our forebears do, and we inherit their decisions.
[6:49] If, for example, your forefathers were to say, well, we're going to immigrate now, we're going to pack up and sail to Canada, which a lot of people do, then, you know, you might be descended from a similar ancestor, let's say, three, four generations down, and you've got these cousins over in Toronto or Calgary or whatever it happens to be, and they are just the same amount of descent from your common great-great-grandfather, whatever it may be, but he may have been an Islander, naked Scottish person, Gaelic speaker, the whole lot, and yet these people who are related to you are just as much descended from you as you are.
[7:26] They are complete and total Canadians, complete and total, because one of their forefathers decided to up and emigrate and settle in Canada, and because he did that, all his subsequent children will effectively be Canadian.
[7:40] They will inherit the fruit of his decisions. They're in a completely different country. They imbibe completely different customs and styles of language and behavior and laws and so on.
[7:52] They are completely different people from you who continued in the native country. So although they're related to you, they are like chalk and cheese with you. They have inherited the decisions of their forebears.
[8:03] I might say to them, well, you know, don't you feel disadvantaged being Canadians? And I say, well, not actually. I mean, do you feel disadvantaged being Scottish or being British or whatever? That's all they know. And so likewise, we inherit the decisions of our forefathers.
[8:18] Adam chose to take this decision to separate himself from God. It's not a physical emigration from one country to another, but it is a spiritual emigration from that state of being with God to being totally separated from God.
[8:36] And then it means that all his posterity, all those who are born to him and Eve and all their descendants, grow up, are born, conceived, grow up in that other country, in that completely alien environment, separated from God.
[8:52] They are not in the native condition now. They are not in the state in which man was created. They're in a different country. They're speaking, as it were, a different language.
[9:02] They're different culture, different customs, different emphases, completely different priorities, because they have been affected by the decision of their forefather.
[9:12] So, likewise, we inherit Adam's decision. We inherit his sin. We imbibe this state of separation from God. And we just drink it in and we think it's natural.
[9:24] Likewise, I mean, if you've got a polystyrene cup, for example, full of coffee or water or whatever it was, and you put it in the table and somebody makes a tiny little pinprick in it with a pin, and that little hole that's in it may be minuscule, but the water of the cookie doesn't just begin to ooze and spread out all over the table, make a complete total mess from that tiny one little hole.
[9:46] So from that one sin, all of mankind, they spread out with this infection. And so as in Adam, as by one man's sin entered into the world and death by sin, so death passed upon all men, for they all have sinned.
[10:03] But nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression. Likewise, in 1 Corinthians 15, we read verse 21, Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
[10:21] We needs must die. We all die because Adam bought us into this situation of death and we have inherited it. That is the state in which mankind is by nature.
[10:37] Yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him. When did God begin to undertake the relief and the restoration of those who would be his children by the Spirit?
[10:52] Not at Calvary, merely. Not even when the law was given on Mount Sinai, but right there in the garden when the Lord instituted the covenant of grace.
[11:03] Covenant of works have failed. Adam had not kept it. So the covenant of grace of the free gift of God is given, whereby Adam and Eve are forgiven, are clothed, not in any righteousness of their own, but in the skins of animals who are put to death.
[11:20] Death enters into the garden, but the innocent victims, the sacrificial victims we might call them, the animals whose skins the Lord clothes them with, their blood is shed and they die as the innocent victims in the place of the guilty.
[11:37] That is what the covenant of grace is all about. The innocent dying in place of the guilty. The clothing of the nakedness of sin with that which is not their own.
[11:49] That's where grace begins. And it continues to be outworked through the days of the patriarchs and throughout the law and the prophets and so on to the fulfillment of it all in Christ.
[12:02] We must needs die. Yes, we must. And we cannot escape that. And as water spilled in the ground, yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him.
[12:15] The Lord does not leave us in that lost condition. The Lord is full of grace for the king will hear to deliver his handmaid.
[12:26] You know, often the Bible talks about the church as the bride of Christ, the handmaid of the Lord. The king will hear to deliver his handmaid out of the hand of the man that would destroy me and my son together.
[12:39] So it's not just us we're concerned for, it's our children and our children's children for whom we pray and for whom we desire grace. Because just as all Adam's posterity inherited sin, so we pray to the Lord that as we seek to bring up our children in the covenant of grace, so they having received it will bring up their children and grace will continue.
[13:03] We have no guarantee from one generation to the next. If we could save our children or our grandchildren, we would do it. If we could pay some price to ensure their salvation, we would do it.
[13:14] This is what Martin Luther before he was converted thought he was able to do when he went to Rome and visited all these holy shrines and crawled up that flight of steps that supposedly was the flight of steps at the head of which Pilate had stood when Jesus was brought before him.
[13:31] And if you crawled up this flight of steps, you were meant to pray as you might, you were meant to ease the so-called burden of purgatory for your loved ones or your family members or your ancestors.
[13:42] He prayed at the time, he regretted at the time that his own parents weren't dead because if they were already dead, they'd be in purgatory and all his crawling up of these steps so many times would help their situation and he just wished he could help them then.
[13:56] That's the level of darkness and superstition that mankind is in even with a veneer of religion. Religion is not contrary to fallen human nature.
[14:07] You'll find religion all over the world. You'll find that in all manner of societies, however primitive, however barbaric, however anti-Christian they may be, you'll find religion.
[14:18] And even some things that call themselves Christian religion are completely the antithesis of the gospel, the free grace of God in Jesus Christ. But what we have with the Lord is that the King will hear to deliver his hand made out of the hand of the man that would destroy me, the man of sin, the devil, and my son, to gather out of the inheritance of God.
[14:42] Then thy handmaid said, the word of my Lord the King shall now be comfortable. But as an angel of God, so is my Lord the King to discern good and bad.
[14:53] Therefore, the Lord thy God will be with thee. this is the promise. Now you might say, yeah, hang on a minute, that's not the context of what you're talking about here. That's not the original context. That's not what the woman of Jehoah is talking about.
[15:05] That's not what David himself may be talking about. But when Abraham says to Isaac, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for the sacrifice, is he seeing ahead to Jesus of Nazareth?
[15:18] No, he doesn't know who Jesus of Nazareth is. But the Lord inspires him to speak these words because he intends to convey not only to himself, but to his son Isaac, his heir, and then to his posterity, how it is the Lord who provides the sacrifice.
[15:35] How it is the Lord who stands in the gap and delivers his people because there are layers and depths of truth in God's word. There's this superficial, easy little layer that we can understand and we can think about a little child can know about Noah and the flood or Jesus rising again the third day or on the first day of the week and so on.
[15:58] But it'll be years perhaps before they recognize the spiritual significance of the flood and God's punishment for sin and his deliverance of a remnant and so on.
[16:09] This is an ocean in which a child can paddle in the shadows but in which the deepest, most learned professor can never plumb the depths. such is the grace that the Lord has given but there is no doubt we must needs die.
[16:26] But the Lord does not leave us there neither but he doth devise means that his banished be not expelled from him and there is a way back and that way back is that we are to be born again.
[16:39] Our life in this world is being born in human nature, born in the flesh but the Lord offers the opportunity to be born in his spirit and this is one of the musts of men.
[16:51] The musts of men. We must die. In a sense we don't have a choice. We must be born again if we're to be saved at all and it is not we who say this, it is not me or men who say this, this is the word of the living God of Christ.
[17:05] It says John chapter 3 verse 3, Verse 5, Verse 7, Verse 7, Verse 7, Now flesh cannot redeem itself.
[17:36] In John chapter 1 of course, at the outset, remember what it says, As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of God.
[17:56] To be born in the flesh is one thing. Animals procreate. Human beings can procreate in the flesh but they cannot redeem. They cannot save. They cannot cause someone to be born of God.
[18:08] Those who are redeemed, who are enabled by grace to believe in Christ, were born, not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of God.
[18:20] This is what the Lord does. First Peter puts it thus in chapter 1, verses 23 onwards, Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, that which doesn't die, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.
[18:38] Remember what Isaiah says, The grass wither, the flower fatheth, for the word of our God shall stand forever. For all flesh is grass, Peter says, and all the glory of man is the flower of grass.
[18:49] The grass wither, the flower fatheth, they don't fall away, but the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Remember that when the Lord speaks his word at creation, it comes into being.
[19:04] God's word doesn't fade away. That word is personified in Jesus Christ. In the beginning was the word. The word was with God. The word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.
[19:16] All things were made by him. Without him was not anything made that was made. The word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory. Glory as of the only God of the Father, full of grace and truth.
[19:30] This is the word that endures forever. This is Christ, by which if we are born, we live as he lives. But this is something which we have to recognize, that it is only by him, never by our own efforts.
[19:48] If the righteous scarcely be saved, Peter says, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? We cannot do this for ourselves. It is something which God does. We must be born again of him.
[20:00] It's not something we can make happen. Whosoever, 1 John chapter 5, verse 1, Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And everyone that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him.
[20:14] And verse 4, For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. But if we have been born of God, we likewise recognize and love that which is born of God.
[20:29] Those of you who are natives to the island, if you were in Spain or Portugal or something like that or France, and whilst you were busy trying to communicate with French or Spanish, people are trying to get out your dictionary and find out French words or Spanish words, and then you hear somebody behind you talking Gaelic.
[20:45] You would turn at them and you'd get into a conversation. You'd be so pleased to see them. You'd ask them, you know, you'd get into maybe sit down and have coffee with them somewhere or whatever because you found somebody who belongs to you and your place and your area.
[20:59] It'd be to an extent less so for somebody who finds an English speaking person because they speak an awful lot of English in most countries of the world. But if you find somebody who's your own, well, of course you've got a natural affinity with them.
[21:11] And if we are born again of God, we have a natural affinity with all others who are likewise born of the Spirit, whether they be Episcopalian or Baptist or all any matter of Presbyterian denominations or Congregationalists, if they are truly the Lord's.
[21:28] We all know of people in every branch and every denomination who whatever their badge may be don't actually love the Lord. You know, they may go along from time to time and they may say, oh yeah, I belong to such and such a church.
[21:42] But, you know, clearly the Lord is not their priority. But there are those who are and those who do regardless of what country, regardless of what badge and when a true believer encounters another true believer, they know it.
[21:57] By this, verse 2 says in 1 John 5, we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments for this is the love of God that we keep His commandments and His commandments are not grievous.
[22:11] We love the Lord's Word. We love His commandments. We love the brethren because they are His. And likewise at verse 18, we know that whosoever is born of God sineth not, that he that is begotten of God keepeth himself and that wicked one toucheth their lives.
[22:31] If we are born again and we must be born again, it is Jesus who says we must be born again. It's not a sort of church doctrine invented in 1843 or whatever it might be.
[22:43] This is the law of Jesus Christ saying we must be born again. And if we are not born again, we can't enter the kingdom of God. But this is something God does, not something we do.
[22:55] We have no control over it. And you might think, well, that's not terribly encouraging, is it? But God is ready and willing to bring us alive. Ephesians 2, you have be quickened.
[23:07] That doesn't mean speed it up. It means brought alive. who were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of the disobedience.
[23:22] But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us, brought us alive together with Christ.
[23:32] By grace, you're saved. Now, if somebody is actually dead, there's no point going around saying, oh, you're dead, you know, you're really dead. You were dead yesterday as well, you know.
[23:44] He's talking about our spiritual death, we who were dead in trespasses and sins. He's got alive. He's changed us from being merely creatures of the flesh, and that says, no different from the brute beasts, from animals, to being those who have God's seed planted within and seed that begins to grow and to flesh, and that which is of God cannot sin, but that which is of God is constantly at war with that which is of the flesh.
[24:11] The flesh withers. That which is of the flesh passes away. That which is of the flesh cannot save. It is the Lord alone who saves and redeems.
[24:22] We must be born again and we must be saved. You might think, well, surely, that's the same thing you're talking about, isn't it? If you're born again, you say, well, yes, but if you think about being born again, you think about being born the first time, yes, you're brought into the world as a baby, and you could say, okay, I've lived now, that's enough, I can exit this world, but it wasn't much of a life, was it?
[24:45] It wasn't very long, was it? I mean, there's life, and there's, yes, being born. We hope when a child is born that it's going to have a whole life ahead of it. There's so much to do, so much to live, so much to experience.
[24:58] If a child has the opportunity to grow into the fullness of maturity, and learn all the skills, and all the opportunities, and abilities, there's a life to be lived. If a baby was born, and then died within a few days, it would be a tragedy, and parents would be brokenhearted, and yes, they might say, we're thankful for the few days we had with our infant child, but they would break their hearts over all that might have been, because to be born again is simply to begin with the Lord.
[25:31] Every soul that is to be born again is intended that they will go on to live with the Lord, that they will grow into the Lord, and having begun with the Lord, they will continue.
[25:44] You might say, well, come on, if somebody's born again, they'll say, regardless, yes, surely. Well, the good seed of God's word is good regardless, and if it is scattered, whether it's by the wayside, where the birds of the air eat it up, it's still good seed, and it falls on the rock, but it's shallow, and it springs up quickly, and then it withers away.
[26:03] There's nothing wrong with the seed. That's not why it withers away, and if it falls amongst thorns and thistles, and they grow up and choke it, there's nothing wrong with the seed. It's not God who is at fault and fails.
[26:14] It is we who fail, we who do not continue with that which the Lord has blessed us. Is this, I have to say, chilling couple of verses in Hebrews?
[26:27] It is impossible for those who were once enlightened that have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame.
[26:52] Now, you might say, but if they're born again, they can never fall away. Well, that's true if they're truly born again, but we ourselves cannot see who is and who isn't. God knows, but we don't.
[27:02] People may have symptoms or outward appearances. They may be like the shallow soil that springs up quickly. They say, oh yeah, what a great harvest there's going to be there. But the Lord only knows there in their hearts.
[27:13] People may show some operations of the Spirit. Jesus says in Matthew chapter 7, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but everyone who is born again and everyone who goes on and perseveres and is saved will definitely be with them in glory because we not only must be born again, we must not only begin the life with Christ, we must go on with Christ.
[27:42] We must be saved and there's no other way to be saved. This is what Peter says in Acts 4, in verse 10, be it known unto you all and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucify, whom God raised from the dead, even by him that this man whom they healed stand here before you all.
[28:02] This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
[28:18] And we must. It is one of the musts of men. We must die. We must be born again. We must be saved if we had life at all.
[28:28] None other name whereby ye must be saved. And this is the name that the world will not want. Just as we mentioned a few minutes ago how religion is perfectly compatible, across all the world, religion is perfectly compatible with the natural state of man.
[28:43] And you'll find that the most anti-Christian elements in the world, the most bigoted, prejudiced, anti-Christian elements anywhere, in this country or any other country, will be quite happy with religion.
[28:56] They'll be quite happy for people to go through religious motions and practice religious rituals and festivals and so on. But they will not be content for people to receive Christ as their Savior.
[29:07] That they recognize to be not of this world. That they recognize to be a threat by the forces of this world. But there is no salvation in any other. None other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved.
[29:22] And when the Philippine jailer speaks to Paul and Silas and says, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? They said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved on thy house.
[29:38] But to believe is not merely to think it in the mind. It is to live it out in the life of the day-to-day priorities and actions of our lives.
[29:49] So that we begin the day, each day giving it to the Lord. We conclude each day giving the night to the Lord and acknowledging our sinfulness and our need of forgiveness and all the things we've done that day and the Lord's blessing and help throughout the day to bring us through it.
[30:06] Each day is given to the Lord. Each meal is consecrated to the Lord in prayer. Every activity or decision we take, we bring it to the Lord in prayer. He breathes through us.
[30:16] He works in us. He becomes the driving force of our lives. He becomes the very mind within us. He is all things to us.
[30:28] And we then being his children who begin to bear his image outwardly as well as inwardly in the things we do, the way we speak, the priorities that we have.
[30:40] Listen to what Hosea says in the first three verses of chapter 6. Come and let us return unto the Lord. For he hath torn and he will heal us.
[30:52] He hath smitten and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us. In the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord, his going forth is prepared as the morning and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain upon the earth.
[31:15] Now, we've had quite a bit of rain in the last few weeks. But prior to that, of course, it's a long dry spell. And if in this country we begin to find out what it's like with a long dry spell where the burns go dry and the ground gets hard and begins to get all kind of cracking up, how much worse is it in a hot dry country if they don't get rain?
[31:36] We don't get rain. We don't have water. We don't have life. All life is dependent upon water, fresh water, in order to live. When the Lord comes down like the former and the latter rain, it is gentle.
[31:50] It is widespread. It is refreshing. It is replenishing to the earth. Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord. It's not just us born again.
[32:01] That's it. I can put my hand back. I can relax. I can do whatever I like. I can just live my life as I want. If I am truly born again, what I want becomes more and more in line with what God wants.
[32:15] How will I know what God wants? By waiting on him in prayer and by reading his word day by day, by making every opportunity to be with his people, to worship, to live according to his commands and teachings.
[32:30] His word becomes my desire to follow on to know the Lord. And this we cannot do of ourselves, as we say. I think, well, that isn't really very encouraging, is it?
[32:42] I mean, surely what I want tonight is something you can tell me or if I can say, do this and you'll be okay. Do that and you won't be. I want to know what I can do. All you can do, friend, is cast yourself upon the mercy of the living God.
[32:57] You try to do it yourself, you will make things worse. If, despite being somebody who, let's say, loves his country and who is interested in sport, loves football, if my country was in a World Cup final and let's say Scotland's in the World Cup final and they're about to play Brazil or Germany, whoever it is, and I'm there at the World Cup final and I think, I really, really want my team to win.
[33:23] I really want them to do the best they can. So, so I go off down to the touchline and I say to the manager, look, we've really got to win this. He says, yes, yes, we do like to. I say, right, you've got to let me help.
[33:34] Give me a strip. Come on, give me a dark blue jersey and I'll get out there and I'll help the lads and that way, you know, I'll really, I'll really help and make things better. And he might, you know, if he's patient and courteous, he might say, well, look, you know, I appreciate the offer, but A, you're not fit, B, you're not trained, C, you don't have any talent and D, you'll just slow us down.
[33:58] These guys are the best players in your country. They've been picked from all the teams in a country and other countries around about. They've trained together, they've played together, they've got skill, they've got talent that's been honed over years.
[34:12] They're in the World Cup final. They are the best that your country has ever had. If you go out there, even if I give you a strip, even if I send you out there and take a good player off so that you can go on, are you really going to help things or are you going to miss things?
[34:26] You can't keep up with the opposition. You're playing World Cup finals. You're playing the best opponents in the world. What do you think you're actually going to do? If you really want the help, get back up there in the stand and cheer them on.
[34:38] That'll help. Likewise, if you were taking a journey or going to Glasgow, and you're saying, oh, I'm late for a meeting and you're checking your watch, and what you don't do is you don't get out of your seat, take off your belt and go past the stewardess and barge into the pilots and say, right, come on, I'm taking over now.
[34:56] I'll sit down at the controls and I'm going to speed this plane up because look, I'm late for this meeting. I can do it better than you guys. No, you can't. If you really want to get there safely and quickly in time for your meeting, sit still and hope that the pilots will have the skill and the ability and the strength to get the plane down.
[35:13] that's what they do. We do not help by trying to throw in our lack of ability and experience and talent and strength in with those who really know what they're doing.
[35:27] If we want them to do the job and succeed and we want them to, we have to let them get on with it. And likewise, with our salvation is concerned, you cannot help your salvation.
[35:42] You cannot add to it. You cannot increase it. You cannot make it better. You pull on the dark blue jersey and run out there onto the field. I don't know about you, but I'm going to be puffed out inside like two minutes.
[35:54] I'm going to be losing every tackle. I'm not going to be able to keep up with the opposition. I'm going to make things worse. I'm going to let the whole team down. And likewise, if we try and interfere with our salvation, we just mess up the perfection that Christ has already accomplished.
[36:14] If we would be redeemed, if we would be saved, if we would have that perfection, all you can do is throw yourself upon the mercy of Christ and ask him to come into your life to redeem, to save.
[36:31] Jesus has said, it is on record, all that the Father giveth me shall accompany. Him that cometh to me I will have no wise cast out, for you must be saved.
[36:42] And there is no other way to be saved but through Christ. You must be born again if you're going to be redeemed at all. But whether you are or not, you and I, we must needs die.
[36:55] And that as water spilt from the ground, which cannot be gathered up again, neither doth God respect any person, yet, doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him.
[37:10] There is a way of escape, there is a way of redemption. Shall all men die? Wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
[37:23] Death being threatened is the wages of sin. The Catechism says, It is appointed unto all men once to die, but it all has sinned. And then the next question, Death being the wages of sin, why are not the righteous delivered from death, seeing all their sins are forgiven in Christ?
[37:41] The righteous shall be delivered from death itself at the last day. And even in death are delivered from the sting and curse of it, so that although they die, the flesh dies, of course.
[37:53] You don't die, the flesh dies. All flesh is as grass as the flower of the hill of the Word of God stands forever. Although they die, yet it is out of God's love to free them perfectly from sin and misery.
[38:06] How much of your sin and misery is due to the confinements and constraints of the body, the flesh, in this world? When you're free of that, think of how much pain and suffering you are spared to free them perfectly from sin and misery and to make them capable of further communion with Christ in glory, which they then enter upon.
[38:29] In other words, death itself is put to death. The failing, the sin of the garden is reversed, is overcome through the second Adam, through the last Adam, through Christ.
[38:42] Yet, that he devised means that his banished be not expelled from him. And that means is Christ. There are the three musts of Christ.
[38:54] He must be lifted up. He must be raised to life. He must reign in glory. But there are the musts of men. And these are that he must needs die.
[39:05] He must be born again. He must be saved. And when I say he, of course, I'm speaking genetically. Men and women, mankind, of which Adam, of course, was the symbolic head.
[39:17] And Christ is the head of perfected humanity. He is the bridegroom. He is the king. He is the chief. The king will hear to deliver his handmaid out of the hand of the man that would destroy me and my son.
[39:32] The king, my lord, the king, so is my lord, the king, to discern good and bad. Therefore, the lord thy God will be with thee. And so he will be with all who will come to him and throw themselves on his mercy.
[39:46] Let him do it. If you really want to help, turn your life over to him. If you really want to win, then let the winner do it and commit yourself to him and repent of all that has been before and ask him to come into your life and to save and redeem because we must each die and because we must be born again and because we must be saved and there is none of our name but this, Jesus Christ, by which we shall be.
[40:22] That is a prayer.