Genesis 6: 5-7 (to “earth”), 8

Romans 5: 5

2 Corinthians 4: 5, 6

Galatians 4: 6

         It is in mind, beloved brethren, to speak about our hearts, remembering the word in Proverbs that says, “Keep thy heart more than anything that is guarded; for out of it are the issues of life”, chap 4: 23.  The heart of a believer, I believe, is very precious to God, and what is formed in it in the way of affection for Himself and for Christ and, indeed, for one another is precious to God.

         I read in Genesis 6 to begin with because it speaks about man’s heart; it also speaks about God’s heart.  The heart of man here is under the influence of sin, darkened by sin, the working of sin.  It says of God, “it grieved him in his heart”.  I do not know if we would have much capacity to understand that grief, divine grief, the grief of God, but the scripture says that: “it grieved him in his heart” to see His creature in such a grip, we might say, a grip of evil.  It says, “The wickedness of Man was great on the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil continually”: no power to do anything but evil.  That is man under the power of sin, and I say again, beloved, God felt it.  He felt it as no other could feel it: it grieved him in his heart.  We read, “and Jehovah repented that he had made Man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.  And Jehovah said, I will destroy Man, whom I have created”.  The kind of man that gave God grief, God could not allow that to continue.  The flood came and man in all his wickedness was submerged.  No doubt it is a type of the death of Christ where judicially God not only dealt with man‘s sins but He ended the man that sinned.  He did that judicially. 

         Then in verse 8 it says, “But Noah found favour in the eyes of Jehovah”.  That is another man.  Typically it is the Man that we read of in Romans chapter 5, “he one man Jesus Christ”, v 15.  Noah’s name means rest and God had found a point in Noah that pleased Him in the face of all that multitude of evil that marked man continually.  Many would have been involved in it, millions I suppose, but God found a point in Noah, typical of Christ, which has been described as a point of reconciliation.  I do not go into the teaching of that at the moment but I commend it to my younger brethren.  That is what Christ provided God with in this evil scene.  He provided God with a point of reconciliation.  God could look on Him without grief in His heart, just perfect joy.  I sometimes feel for myself, beloved brethren, that I scarcely understand how precious Christ was to God as a Man down here, providing rest for His heart, providing continual joy.  Think of the Man of Psalm 16: “I have set Jehovah continually before me”, v 8.  That was the kind of Man that filled God’s heart, and He undertook the work that was necessary to remove the sinful man judicially from the sight of God.  It had to be that Man.  No sinner could do it.  A sinner could not even deal with his own state, but there was One great enough to deal with the whole matter judicially: that was the Lord Jesus, “the one man Jesus Christ”.  I would long to say more about that but it is not my subject at this time, but God has operated in His grace and has secured a foothold, we might say, in persons like you and me and He has attached our hearts to Christ.  Wonderful matter that we are in this company today and Christ has a place in our hearts!  He has won that.  Mr Stoney says He has won it in His humiliation, and He satisfies it in glory, vol 2: 23.  That is the Man down here in all His suffering.  Paul says, “The Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me”, Gal 2: 20.  He has won our hearts and He holds our hearts in all His precious worth.  He is no longer here; His work is accomplished and, as the scripture says, “in that he lives, he lives to God”, Rom 6: 10.  He is still the blessed Man who is filling God’s heart with joy, but that joy is extended now to persons like you and me who find their joy and satisfaction in Christ.  I trust every one in this room has found that, found in Christ a true source of joy and satisfaction.  I would say that if you have not, I feel very sorry for you.  I would commend Him to you, and God commends Him to you.  It says, “whom God has set forth a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood”, Rom 3: 25.  It is as if God comes out with Christ in His hand and presents Him in the glad tidings as an object for faith.  Oh that you might, and each of us might, have reached that point where we have accepted what God offers in that blessed Person. 

         I want to go on from that and speak about our own hearts.  I can only tell you now that the Man who was here and became the point of reconciliation is now in glory.  He is filling the presence of God and filling the heart of God with eternal delight and joy.  As a consequence of the exultation of Christ, the Holy Spirit has come down and He has in His service this wonderful matter that is touched on in Romans 5.  I touch on these things very briefly, beloved, because I do not feel able to be long, but it is a wonderful scripture to me and it says, “and hope does not make ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us”.  That is a wonderful matter, to be conscious of the love of God being “shed abroad in our hearts”.  “Shed abroad” means that it was no longer limited to a nation.  Wherever you might be in the world, you can come into the value of this service by the Holy Spirit.  It is “shed abroad” in that sense, “in our hearts”.  The love of God was declared fully in the death of Christ.  It was fully declared there, and God commends that love to us.  He commends His love to us.  But His idea, His thought, is not only to commend it, but God’s thought is that the love of God might become resident in your heart and in mine.  It is not at a distance but resident: “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit”.  I find that most attractive.  Of course, the love of God in its full extent was proclaimed in the death of Jesus.  We have often heard that where sin was judged, God’s love was declared.  The death of Christ was not only sacrificial.  God was judging something there but it was declarative and what was declared was the fulness of God’s love.  But now Christ is on high and the love of God is there.  As the word says, “the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”, Rom 8: 39.  That is the love of God in totality.  It was there, declared at Calvary, and it is resident now in Christ in glory, but in measure we have to come into it that “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts”.  It is a touch of what we had in the reading.  Your heart is not great enough to contain it all, but you can be immersed in it.  It is like the bucket in the ocean.  The bucket is full, but the ocean is still round about it.  The ocean is there in all its vastness.  That is the love of God: it is vast and yet your heart and my heart can be filled with it.

         Mr Raven has another very fine point.  If the brethren will excuse me, we owe so much to these men, but he said that the first breath of life that the Christian takes spiritually is that he breathes in the love of God, vol 5: 67.  That is beautiful.  You think of a person that had been recently converted and before that all his life or her life they had been breathing in the noxious influences that fill this world, these noxious, damaging influences in the world which is full of sin and wickedness.  Think of that!  We have been saved from much, but we knew something of it.  But think of the lives of men who were completely dominated by sin and God acts mercifully and sovereignly and saves them, converts them, and instead of their heart being full of these damaging and evil influences of the world, there is the love of God.  What a transformation!  I trust, beloved brother and sister, you are enjoying it.  I trust you are conscious of it.  It is by the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is the power for it, the power in which this can be known, that the love of God is actually, in measure, filling your heart, and you are conscious of it.  What a blessed privilege and what a blessed thing it is!

         Well, I leave that and will go on to 2 Corinthians 4.  Again it speaks of our hearts.  Paul says, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus Lord, and ourselves your bondmen for Jesus’ sake.  Because it is the God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine who has shone in our hearts”.  It has often been pointed out that it is not only shone ‘into’ our hearts but shone “in” them; that is, that the believer’s heart not only becomes a residence for the love of God, but it becomes a residence of the glory of God, the effulgence of God, God revealed in Jesus.  Think of that: “who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”.  Dear brethren, these are wonderful things, wonderful!  A brother told me that he and another brother had visited an old brother, over one hundred years old.  He was sitting with a Bible on his table, and this affected me when the brother told me.  He greeted them but he kept looking at the Book.  It was open at 1 Corinthians 15 and he said, ‘Look at this!  Look at this!  “Christ died for our sins”, v 3.  Is not that wonderful?’  Well, is it wonderful or has it become customary to you?  Has it just become a term to you or is the glory of God shining in your hearts?  You can have no part in the testimony unless it is shining there, not into your hearts, but in them.  What a thing that is!  It says, “who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”.  I came across again a touch in beloved Mr Taylor’s ministry just this week.  He said, ‘that lovely face‘, vol 50 p 425.  There is not a face like it in the universe!  It is not now the face of His humiliation; that face was marred; this is His face in glory, God’s glory shining there, shining in all its fulness, and it is to be shining in your heart and in mine.  Well, I do not think I can say any more about that, “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”.  How wonderful that is!  Another wonderful matter!

         And so we come to Galatians.  It says, “But because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father”.  Think of that, God having sent “the Spirit of his Son into our hearts”: “the Spirit of His Son”.  We spoke about the Spirit of the Father today, but this is the “Spirit of his Son” and “God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father”.  No doubt it is the Holy Spirit, but it is presented as the Spirit of God’s Son.  It is to bring out the feelings of sonship in us, beloved brethren.  The Lord Jesus in ‘becoming’ man took the place of a Son.  That is an absolute statement of wondrous truth.  The younger men and women should lay hold of that because it is disputed widely in Christendom.  He is the only begotten Son.  We receive sonship on the basis of redemption and by faith and through being adopted.  What a gift it is, the gift of sonship.  It is the highest blessing that man can know, and in result it provides satisfaction for God.  Paul says, “But I know that, coming to you, I shall come in the fulness of the blessing of Christ”, Rom 15: 29.  I believe that is the blessing of sonship.  What a blessing it is, “the fulness of the blessing”, creatures like you and me who once were afar off brought into nearness and receiving sonship, and the Spirit of His Son is sent into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father”.  In Romans 8 we cry it, by the Spirit, but here it is the Spirit that is crying, “Abba, Father” in our hearts.  I believe the Holy Spirit is attesting to the great fact that God has operated in that heart and secured pleasure from it.  He is attesting to the quality of sonship in the heart of the believer, and it is in such a heart that the Spirit is free to cry, “Abba, Father”.  Think of that, brother and that sister; think of the Spirit crying out of their hearts, “Abba, Father”.  It is not the person that is crying, it is the Spirit, but He is crying it from your heart.  He is attesting to the quality of what God has secured in that heart of yours and mine, a heart that was once “estranged from the life of God” (Eph 4: 18), and maybe in many a case a heart that was subject at one time to the darkening influences of sin in the world.  No doubt that was true in degree of all of us, but here it is a heart providing the Holy Spirit with a base in which to cry, “Abba, Father”.

         Beloved brethren, these are wonderful things!  May God bless the word!

Glasgow

27th February 2010