Galatians 4: 4-7, 3: 13-14
Ephesians 1: 3-6
I had in mind in this hymn (No 212) that we have sung that God wants to bless. God wants to bless. How wonderful that is! We see it in the Old Testament, how God blessed men. It says of Isaac that He “blessed him ... and he became continually greater, until he was very great”, Gen 26: 12. He grew continually greater; God blessed him. He blessed Jacob too, although he was a bit of an underhand person in many ways, but God blessed him. We see it right through in the gospel, how God worked with men, men who were prepared to be obedient and to do what God told them, God blessed them. But you see, dear friends, in the incoming of sin God has been, I would say reverently, hindered in blessing men and women and boys and girls. You say, ’Well, why is that, because naturally we are disobedient?’. These men we have spoken about, Isaac and Jacob were unusual men; I would say that carefully, they became obedient men as God had worked with them, men who were unique in their time - Noah also, all of these persons were unique, as God had worked with them. But sin has increased and man is constantly disobedient, and God has been restrained in blessing man. Do you think God feels that? God has blessings, storehouses of blessings, which have been withheld because of man’s disobedience, and wretchedness, and sinful condition. God feels that. He wants to bless. That is God’s disposition. He does not want to curse; He does not want to condemn: He wants to bless men but He has been held back. God cannot bless a sinner as away from Him who is revelling in the things of this world. They take pleasure in sin; it says man takes pleasure in things which we would naturally be disgusted at: you read it in Romans 1: 32. It is quite disturbing. God cannot bless men while they are like that.
Well, dear friends, God had in mind that men should be blessed. He was not going to be held back. These were thoughts in His mind long before this world even came into being; God had in mind to bless men. These things may be beyond you to understand at the moment, but God had in mind that He would have a worshipping creation, worshipping men like Christ, like His beloved Son.
So here it says, “but when the fulness of the time was come”; it is almost as if God has said, ’Now, I have been held back for thousands of years. I have worked with man, I have given him the law. They have failed and now I am going to give them Christ, and in Christ I am going to bless them’. Think of what He had in this Man, this blessed Man, dear friends, who came here. It says that He came under law. The law was right in its own regard, but God realised that man could not fulfil it. We read in Deuteronomy that, if they did not fulfil the law they were cursed. “And all the people shall say, Amen”, chap 27: 15. They all said ’Amen’ to it. Then it says that if they fulfilled the law, "Blessed shalt thou be in thy coming in, and blessed shalt thou be in thy going out". You can read all the blessings if you fulfil the law, Deut 28: 1-6. I suppose that the lawyer in Luke 10: 25 had fulfilled the law in some degree, and he came into some part of God’s blessing in relation to that, but he lacked something: he was lacking in appreciation of Christ, he was lacking that Man in his life. He stood up, full of his own importance. I suppose he came to the Lord, thinking, ’There is not really much you can say against me; I have really done pretty well. I am really an upright man. The locals look on me and admire me’. I suppose he was expecting that from the Creator, the Creator of the world, the Saviour Jesus. Well, he did not get it. There was something missing. ’Well’, you might say, ’I have a lot of things; I have a lot of blessings. I have a good wife, I have a nice house, I have a good job, with holidays planned’. These are all very nice things, material things that we wrap ourselves up with for a lot of our lives.
There was a man who had everything he needed, Belshazzar the king, in Daniel 5. He set a big feast up, a thousand people he invited to it. They were all drinking out of golden vessels. He had the greatest kingdom on the earth. What more could he need? Well, dear friends, it says, “In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote ... upon the plaster of the wall”, and it says, “his knees smote one against another”, Daniel 5: 5, 6. Such a mighty man, such a mighty king, “his knees smote one against another” when he realised he had Someone greater to do with, the Almighty God. It says, “Thou art weighed in the balances”. God weighed all these things he had: "Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting", Dan 5: 27. Dear friend, if you do not have Christ in your life, you might have everything else you need, but if you do not have Christ, God tonight is saying, ’I am weighing you in the balance, and I have found you wanting. I cannot bless you with what I want to bless you with’. If you are without Christ, dear friend, God cannot bless you. He wants to. Do not hold back the blessing of God. God’s deep innermost desire in His heart is to bless you.
Well, friend, come to this blessed Man here. How many came to Him; what blessings men proved as the Lord moved amongst poor and needy men who were sinners. What blessings men proved! The blind received sight; how wonderful! No one had ever given one who was born blind from birth sight, but this Man could. What blessings He was able to bestow. The flesh of the lepers healed became like that of a little child. What blessings He bestowed! What blessings flowed out from Jesus. He could not be held back. I was noticing in the footnote in Mark about the little children: it says in the verse, “having laid his hands on them, he blessed them”, and the footnote says, ’Some read ’blesses’, perhaps rightly, but the word is a strong one: ’blesses them abundantly’, Mark 10: 16. That was the Lord here as He moved about amongst men, He was blessing them abundantly, and He loved to do it. It was the Father’s will that He should do it, but He loved to do it because He knew He was pleasing the Father. The Lord realised the Father’s feelings for men. He realised that His Father was being held back from blessing men because of the condition they were in. They were in bondage and fear of death all of their life. Well, here was a blessed Man who was going about undoing the works of the devil, setting men free. And we see the man at the gate of the temple. What he was looking for was money, but he got something far greater. He was blessed with Christ. He was able to rise up and praise God, "walking, and leaping, and praising God". What a blessing he received through the hands of Peter and John, Acts 3: 8.
Well, here is Jesus, “but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, come of woman, come under law, that he might redeem those under law, that we might receive sonship”. I was affected by that, “that we might receive sonship”. I suppose it is the highest of God’s blessings. If you look at Jacob and Esau in the Old Testament, Esau did not appreciate sonship. He did not appreciate the position he was given as the firstborn. It says, "Thus Esau despised the birthright”, Gen 25: 34. He lost out on all the blessings. Jacob did things in an underhand way, but he received the birthright. He had a valuation of it, and he got the blessing. God took him up, and blessed him, and He says later on in Malachi, “I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau”, chap 1: 3. As you move on in Genesis certain things Esau did were directly opposed to what God had in mind. God says, “I hated Esau”. I have thought about that, these men are both dead long ago and one day they will be raised, Jacob raised; as beloved of God. There are certain persons in Scripture, Daniel too, they were greatly beloved. How fine to be raised up out of the grave as greatly beloved of God. But, Esau is going to be raised up too, “I hated Esau”, hated of God. Dear friend, if you are in your sins as away from Christ, and you have rejected Him, I would say carefully that God hates that. He cannot bear it. If you die in your sins, you will be raised in them, every single one of them, none of them left behind, and God will judge you in relation to that.
But I do not want to preach judgment. I want to make you understand, dear friends, the blessing of sonship, but before the blessings came out, this Man we are speaking about, Jesus Christ, had to die. Before the blessings could come forth, this One had to be cursed, “Cursed is every one hanged upon a tree”, Gal 3: 13. He became a curse so that His people could receive the blessing. How wonderful that is, He was prepared to take up such a position of terrible suffering. It says, “Christ has redeemed us out of the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, (for it is written, Cursed is every one hanged upon a tree)”. Dear friend, He hung there on Calvary’s tree, that One of whom John could say, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”, John 1: 29. He was made sin; He was made that which God abhorred. Dear friend, He hung there as if all the wrong, all the sins that He bore there, were His. He took them on as if they were His own. How wonderful that is! Sinless, holy, undefiled, separated from sinners, this blessed Man took my sins upon Himself. I say that carefully, not that He did them, for we know that He was sinless, “holy, harmless, undefiled”, Heb 7: 26. We know that but, dear friends, He was able, willing. Who is able to take away sins? Who is able? Here is a Man who was able to take away my sins. It is fine in the glad tidings to look at things personally. You may say, ’our sins’. I like to look at things personally and say He took away ’my sins’. He is prepared to take up the things that I would shudder to even speak about, or have them known about; He was prepared to take these up. He was prepared to take them on. He was made sin for me. If only men fully realised that the Lord Jesus was prepared to take up such a position as bearing the wrath of God, so that they should receive nothing but blessing. How wonderful that is!
Well, I do not seek to dwell on this too long, but He became a curse. He hung there, bearing sins, and yet one could say, “we indeed justly ... but this man has done nothing amiss”, Luke 23: 41. There was something there that could be seen. He was still “holy, harmless, undefiled”. Even on the cross it could be said, “this man has done nothing amiss”. If we had all been there, dear friends, we would all have been there rightly, but the Lord Jesus was there because of me, a Substitute. He became a curse, He was hung upon a tree, and there He was crucified, there He cried with a loud voice, and expired, and the soldier "pierced his side ... and immediately there came out blood and water", John 19: 34. That is the basis of blessing. I do not want to be irreverent, but I think God was longing for this, a time when that blood was going to be shed. He had said, “and when I see the blood ...”, Ex 12: 13. How long He had waited, for hundreds of years. That blood had been determined before the foundation of the world. He says, “and when I see the blood”. Think of God’s delight in seeing that blood, that precious, shed blood of Christ. It says, “And lo, the veil of the temple was rent ...”, Matt 27: 51. God was coming out. He was not going to wait, He was not going to hold back for another twenty or thirty years. God was coming out. The blessed God, having been held back for so long, is coming out through the perfection of that blessed work of Christ. The centurion says, “Truly this man was Son of God”, Matt 27: 54. I think he would have been a believer; I think he might have been the first believer. Well, we know that the man on the cross became a believer, but I think that centurion might have been the first believer after the Lord’s death. God is coming out. Nothing could hinder Him now. Dear friends, the blood was there. Persons who put their faith and trust in it could be there as un-condemned persons. If God justifies, who are we to condemn? How wonderful that God was coming out, and He was coming out in blessing. He was not coming out as a Man of war. He was not coming out to avenge the death of this blessed and holy Man, His beloved Son. He was coming out to bless men, and the first gospel preaching was in that city that crucified Him. God wanted to bless them. What a God! He could say, ’Well, the first gospel preaching is not going to be there. That is the place where my Son became a curse. That is where He was rejected fully by men. The gospel preaching will not go out there’. But, dear friend, God does not think like we think. God is rich in mercy, rich in blessing, going out to the very place that had crucified the Lord Jesus. How blessed that God should move in such a way towards His creature.
I thought to read in Ephesians because it says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”. Now, maybe you have known your sins forgiven, and maybe you are rejoicing in that. You should be; it is a wonderful thing to know your sins forgiven, to know they have been lifted and removed for ever, for time and eternity. It is a wonderful blessing to receive but it is just the beginning. There are so many more. As we have said, there is reconciliation. You were once an enemy, foreign to God, without hope, without any of the promises, without any of the blessings. Israel had some blessing; you had nothing. Because of what we were as Gentiles we had nothing, but now as we have trusted in Christ Jesus we have been brought nigh by the blood of the Christ, and we have been “blessed ... with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”. We now may become a confidante of God. How wonderful that is! He becomes your Friend, One to whom we are reconciled. God looks on you now in Christ. He does not look on your past history, its guilt is gone evermore. How blessed that is! Praise the Lord! That is the greatness of His work. God is looking on you in an entirely different way now, not as a sinner but as a saved sinner and as one of His sons. He has not only reconciled you, He is justifying you too. All of these blessings are flowing out. Have you put your trust in Him? Have you taken Him on? Are you enjoying Him, dear friend, or have you just stopped at your sinful condition being removed? Have you stopped there? God says, “I will pour out my Spirit”, Joel 2: 28. How great it is that God has not only given His Son, He has also given you His Spirit. God is so rich in blessing. And then sonship, that is a great blessing, to be one of the sons of God. The firstborn son in some countries receives everything. There may be seven daughters before the son arrives but he is the firstborn son, and he receives everything. Maybe the whole title to the land, to the monies, to the cattle, whatever, he gets everything; the daughters get nothing. Well, how wonderful that in Christianity we are all firstborn ones. You might say, ’Well, Christ is the Firstborn’. Yes, Firstborn from the dead. What a glorious fact that is, Firstborn from the dead, but we are firstborn ones too. You say, ’Well, that is an impossibility; you can only have one firstborn’. There is nothing impossible with God, dear friend. He has placed us on that footing as firstborn ones; so we get everything. God is giving us everything; He has held nothing back; He is giving us everything in Christ because He has placed us on the same footing as Him. How blessed, how great God is! “Every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”. He has given us brethren to walk with. How wonderful that is. He has given us like-minded persons. We are not just going along on our own. I would be miserable if I were the only Christian. Dear friends, God has given us persons to walk with. He has given us the knowledge of the assembly, the mystery, these hidden mysteries. It speaks about the mystery hidden. That is another thing; God is wanting to reveal the mystery. It was there before the foundation of the world, the assembly, Christ and the assembly, “This mystery is great” (Eph 5: 32), but it was held back until, through the death and resurrection of Christ, God can reveal it, that you can be part of a vessel that is soon to be taken up. It is unique in its character, and you can be part of it, and you can be working in it; it is a blessing. These are things that are flowing out from Christ in heaven. I think we have to realise it is “every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”, in nobody else but Christ. God has based everything in Him, “in him is the yea, and in him the amen”, 2 Cor 1: 20. All the promises are there in that blessed Man, and they can be had no other way. This is treasure in heaven; these are spiritual blessings, these are not earthly ones. We will have to leave behind everything earthly, but spiritual blessings, dear friend, will go on throughout eternity. How wonderful that is - where moth cannot spoil, where thief cannot break through. These things are treasures in heaven, and we have to value them, value them now.
So it says here, “that we should be holy and blameless before him in love”. What a difference, instead of being “an insolent overbearing man” (1 Tim 1: 13), as Paul could say; we can now be before Him, “holy and blameless”. “Holy”, we who were once sinners, wretched sinners; it shows the marvellous work and power of Christ, the precious power of the blood that we can be holy before God and in Him in love. We are not in Him in fear, but we are in Him in love. It settles everything.
Doubts have vanished, fears are groundless,
Now I know that love to me.
(Hymn 212)
Dear friends, we are “before him in love”, before God in love, “having marked us out beforehand”. You come into a depth of things, you come through mercy’s door, and what does it have on the door, ’Whosoever will’, and as you look behind you see, “chosen ... before the world’s foundation”. It brings out a deep sense of worship and adoration in your soul as you realise, dear friend, that God had you in mind, He chose you in the Beloved before you were even born. How wonderful that is. You have to come through that door before you realise these things. It says, “he has taken us into favour in the Beloved: in whom we have redemption, through his blood”. Well, dear friends, you are in the Beloved now. You are like Daniel, "greatly beloved". Why is that? Those who have their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s beloved Son, you are "taken ... into favour in the Beloved”. You are going to be raised in that favour too. If you are left here, and fall asleep through Jesus, dear friends, you will be raised in the Beloved. What favour that is. That is another blessing to look forward to, to “put on immortality”, 1 Cor 15: 53. That is a wonderful thing, to have a body of glory like "his body of glory (Phil 3: 21); what a great blessing that is. We are not going to be on any lower level. God has raised us up together, and He has poured out the same blessing on everyone. Dear friend, are you holding back the blessing because of where you are; where you are in your soul? Are you holding back God’s blessing? Well, dear friends, I trust that your life indeed may be full of spiritual blessings.
Just in closing, an old preacher standing by the harbour eventually gathered quite a crowd and he said, ’All these boats, all these ships are all different sizes, but they all have three things in common. One, they have a captain; two, they have a cargo; three, they have a destination.’ He said, ’If you are in your sins, Satan is your captain, your cargo sin, and your destination hell. But what I want to present to you tonight, if Christ is your Captain, your blessings are untold - “every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”, and your destination heaven’. Well, dear friends, I trust that your vessel is not laden with sin. I trust your cargo is “every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”. What a cargo, dear friend! God will take it right up into heaven, and what an area of blessing that will be, untold blessings, far beyond what I can ever say or introduce you to but, dear friend, it will be a sphere of bliss. It is something I would hate you to miss. God does not want you to miss it either, but now it is offered free. Everything I have mentioned tonight is offered free but the offer might finish tonight. It might finish after this gospel preaching. Think of that, dear friend, if you have rejected Christ, if you have decided against having Christ as your Saviour: everyone here who has put their faith and trust in Him will be blessed “with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies” and will be taken to heaven but you will have lost out; think of that. Do not miss out on the blessing but first come to Christ, know what it is to be saved, know what it is for your sins to be removed by the power of that blood, and come into the blessing. God is waiting for you. His hands are outstretched. Do not hold back, dear friend. He wants to bless you. May He do so, for His Name’s sake.
Edinburgh
14th March 2010