GOD’S PLAN
David Martin
Genesis 2: 1-2 (to “made”)
Acts 3: 16
Revelation 20: 15
Philippians 1: 6
Revelation 21: 9 (from “Come”)-10
Last week, we were affected in the gospel by the thought of God’s rest; the rest that God has desired and has sought throughout the history of time. In connection with that, I have thought a little as to the fact that what God does will always be completed. This means that, for whatever God does, there must be a plan. There must also be knowledge of every question that could be asked as to that plan, and that those questions can be answered. Everything that needs to be built can be built, and everything that opposes can be answered to; all the resources that are needed, God must be able to provide.
Everything that God does has started with a plan and has been perfectly designed. Despite the overt opposition to what He has sought, God will fulfil what He has planned. What confidence we can have therefore in the gospel and in our knowledge of God. We may contrast that, topically, with the plans that man has: we are seeing today the effect of man’s actions in situations such as Afghanistan, where governments went in without a plan, without the resources, without the questions being understood. And twenty years later, they are left in a situation with little secured and the same difficulties as when they began.
God presents to us something that, as we can see in Revelation, has a plan and is real. John was shown the end result; he was shown what the glory of the coming day would look like. I am sure if we were able to have the opportunity to speak to John now, we might ask, ‘Was it a dream; was it something that was imagined?’ He would say, ‘No, God showed it to me, it was real’. Dear friends, I would ask you in the gospel preaching, how real is God’s plan to you, and also, how complete do you feel your salvation is?
We have started by reading in Genesis, at the end of the period of the creation, when it reached a completed state where God was able to rest; “God had finished on the seventh day his work”. In the creation, in the vastness and the power of it, in the smallness and the detail of it, God had a plan. It was created through His power. Man was placed in the midst of it and God had a desire to have to do with man. All I wanted to say as to this was that the plan God had as to creation was that it was to serve an end; this was the stage that God was setting upon which to speak to man about His greatness and His love. The creation was to be a stage upon which He would place man in order to have to do with man.
Persons may seek to find the end in creation itself; to find the answers in the universe and the things that are in the universe. God created this stage upon which He could be made known and demonstrate His love. His power is shown in the wonder of that creation. Man estimates fourteen billion light years to the edge of the universe. Persons try to fathom the depths of the oceans, and as far down as they go they find the tiniest of creatures, able to survive pressures which are almost immeasurable; and yet these little creatures are able to see, their hearts beat; God has created the detail of them. God set this stage to show how great He is. And uniquely, He has sent His only begotten Son into this world to demonstrate His love for man.
That love we can see in Genesis, as Jehovah put man in the garden. He sought man; He sought to have company with him. But we know that sin had come in, and man hid from God. The creation itself was complete; everything that God had designed in it was complete. And whilst man tries to find the full scope of it still, for God there was a point reached, in the very first chapter of the Bible, where having designed it and formed it, God was able to be at rest as to it.
In Acts 3, we read of a time many years later. We see a man in this section living under the effects of sin, as we all are; “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”, Rom 3: 23. The man had needs for his own sustenance, and here were Peter and John who came past, and he called out to them. Here is a man who lived on the stage that God had set, a man who had needs that none had been able to answer. The provision from man was inadequate, and yet Peter and John came, and they had resource that was of God and was full. These were persons who were able to demonstrate the love of God towards man, in Christ, and immediately pour the knowledge and power of Him into the circumstances of this man.
For this man to come into the fulness and completeness of salvation, it required that one Man, Jesus, should suffer. We see in Jesus that He was the fulness of God; the fulness of His power, the fulness of His love, His wisdom and His mind. And in this simple transaction, we see the power of that Person, the salvation that is available only through Him, given to a man who was under the effects of sin. The fulness of the salvation offered was available because of a Man who was perfect, a Man who became the sacrifice for sin, entering into death, shedding His precious blood. How many sacrifices have been offered in the generations past, where blood had been shed? They provided for a time the satisfaction of conscience, but they were not complete; they were not full. And here was a man who came into salvation, because of the efficacy of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus.
I ask whether your appreciation of Christ is such that you can see in Him - what He said, what He did, the lowliness of His pathway - that there was a sacrifice presented to God from a Man of love and righteousness. Having a glory which no other man had and going a way which no other man could go. He was nailed to the cross, entering even into death itself.
This man came into the blessing of that salvation. He stood and entered into the temple “walking, and leaping, and praising God”, Acts 3: 8. This was a man into whom life had come, a man into whom the love of Christ had entered. He was a man who realised now that the resources of this world were not what he needed, and were not what he wanted. He had needed a salvation that was complete, and as it says here, “by faith in his name, his name has made this man strong whom ye behold and know; and the faith which is by him has given him this complete soundness”.
Dear friend, that is the answer in the glad tidings; acknowledging your sin before God and feeling what your sin is; the hopelessness of it, as this man must have felt his own personal hopelessness. Lay hold of the blood of Christ for yourself, and you will know what it is to have complete soundness.
So, when we think of completion, there needs to be a plan, everything that was to oppose must be answered, everything that was needed in resource, provided. Here was a man for whom God had a plan. Here was a man who did not understand the questions, but God understood them, and He provided the answers to those questions, in fulness. And, as laying hold of that and having faith that God knew the questions and was able to answer them, this man came into blessing. How wonderful it is then, that the glad tidings and my salvation, are not dependent on me understanding everything, or on me doing anything; it is simply dependent upon the faith that I have in Christ, that the work and God’s plan is sufficient. How wonderful, and what grace there is in the presentation of Christ in the glad tidings.
I read in Revelation 20 because, as God has provided completeness of salvation, He has also provided completeness as to the judgment of sin. The work of Christ on the cross answers every question as to sin and the horror of sin for those who believe. It is complete and it is full in the eyes of God. For you if you are a believer, and for me, there is no further question to answer as to sin: the work is complete. But we pass through a world which has largely turned its back upon God, where sin is rampant and where man is blinded to the whole question of sin. And you may think it is out of control.
I touch on this briefly, but as to that also, God has a plan. There is a place, and there is a time, and there is a judgment which God has designed for that specific purpose. And it is the place in which every one that has not put their faith and trust in Christ will be contained; in a place where judgment will be eternal, it will be full in its answer to the unfaithfulness of man and the incoming of sin.
So there is a complete blessing - in salvation there is complete salvation, and there could only be rest if everything that was not faithful to that offer of salvation was also addressed completely and fully. I would urge you in the gospel to realise and to accept your place with Christ, rather than find yourself in the place that God has established for the judgment of everything that has opposed Him. God’s plan is complete; there are no grey areas, there is no negotiation, there is no alternative path, there is no ‘plan B’. God has established salvation, and all that is not saved will come under judgment. The plan is perfect. The execution of God’s plan is perfect.
Then we read in Philippians, because God is still working with those who believe. A person may say, ‘Well, I am a believer in the Lord Jesus and that is sufficient, because I know I will go to heaven’. What a wonderful blessing and certainty that is. We might say, though, that God is not satisfied with that alone, because that was not the fulness of God’s plan. God’s plan is greater than that; God’s plan is that He should have a universe of persons who are made like Christ and who appreciate the glory and greatness of the Person of the Lord Jesus. And He continues to work with them. If you think of somebody that you are near to and you love, you do not just have one initial interaction with them and accept knowing them as your friend. No, if it is somebody you love, you want to stay near to them, you want to keep conversing with them, and you want to share interests and you want to share thoughts. And that is how God operates. God’s love is perfect love, and the completeness of your relationship with Him will only be fulfilled as He continues to work with you, to demonstrate Christ to you, to demonstrate what eternal blessing is, to make Himself known through the power of the Holy Spirit. And what we have here in Philippians is the assurance that “he who has begun in you a good work will complete it unto Jesus Christ’s day”. The result of the gospel and the establishment of a relationship with Christ means that there is certainty that God’s work in you will be complete. We have the Holy Spirit to help us, we have the scriptures, and we have occasions of gathering together. We have prayer, the opportunity for prayer, whether individual or collective. We can say that God has provided every resource. He has a plan for you. He knows the temptations that you need to overcome, He knows the blessings that are available to you, and He has provided you and me with every resource that we should enter into them. The completeness of God’s work with us is a completeness that will be fulfilled at the end of time. There is however completeness now in His operations with us; there is nothing wanting. We cannot say we do not have what we need for God to complete His plan with me. That cannot be said because it is God who is executing the plan. And my faith, as with the man in Acts, and my obedience towards God, is what will bring me into the good of what God has in view, and that work will be complete and I will have my part with Him.
We then read in Revelation as to what John saw, as to the heavenly city. We could have read these two chapters and got a sense of the glory of the completed work of God in relation to both the millennium and to eternity itself. Everything that is of this sinful scene will have been judged as we have in the beginning of Revelation 21. The effects of sin will be removed, the tears and the sorrows no longer existing. There will be the glory of a company of persons secured who have been made like unto Christ and in whom God’s work is complete. It is formed in us, united as one in the assembly; the heavenly city that will be seen having the glory of God. Think of the wonder of that vessel descending and the effect it will have upon the earth. We then read in chapter 22 of a time where Christ is at the centre, and we see there that the centre of everything is in Christ. Neither the sun or the moon is now needed; Christ is light and is the centre. There is the river that flows forth from Him; there is the nourishment that is needed.
All of the things that man will need, even in his condition in eternity, God has provided, and God has established. And again, we have confidence that this plan was established before time, was secured in time and will be fulfilled in eternity. John was able to look at the living blueprint in a time period. But the fulness of it, and our entrance into it will be in that day, which is certain. It is a day that has been set, the timing of it has been set, when the Lord Jesus will return, and we will be taken to be with Him.
So, I leave these few thoughts with us; may we contemplate a little and draw confidence a little, from the fact that what God does, everything God does, He completes. Everything that He does, He has a plan for. Everything that could oppose it, He knows and has answered to. Everything that needs to be built, He is building. And ultimately, with every resource that He has, the eternal scene is set and will be perfect with nothing lacking. How wonderful this is. How great the God with whom we have to do! May our portion be for ever more with Him.
For His Name’s sake.
Colchester
15th August 2021