Richard Smith
Psalm 72: 18
Matthew 27: 42 (to “cannot save”), 50-54
2 Kings 5: 1-3, 9-15 (to “Israel”)
1 Peter 1: 3, 4
I have an impression, dear friends, as to this verse in the Psalms. I read it in the week and was affected by it. It says at the end, “The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended”, v 20. It seems he finishes with this. “Blessed be Jehovah Elohim, the God of Israel, who alone doeth wondrous things!”. How often do we think of how great God is? We are often in occasions like this; most of us have the privilege to go to fellowship meetings and evening meetings, three day meetings. Sometimes I tend to gloss over the words of Scripture but a verse such as this, I think, shows that God would have us to think of the One, “who alone doeth wondrous things!”. It does not just say that God does wondrous things but it is He “alone”. Men seek to build up their achievements, whether it is great sporting events, or businesses, or whatever it may be. Early on that happened, early after the flood, where we read of this morning. Men sought to build the tower of Babel, Gen 11: 4. It says, “let us make ourselves a name”. David here attributes wondrous things to God. How great He is. A brother recently spoke to us of the Sustainer of life. He sustains life, He sustains my life and He sustains your life. It does not matter whether you believe it or not, the fact is that He does. We went yesterday to see a little one born last Friday. God gave that child life. He gave it to that child individually. It makes you think. Doctors speak of the baby being quickened, but they do not know when exactly. One scripture says,
“If he only thought of himself,
and gathered unto him his
spirit and his breath,
All flesh would expire”,
Job 34: 14.
Many great men have come to that, as to the greatness of God. Job comes to that. God says to him,
“Where wast thou when I founded
the earth?…
Who set the measures thereof –
if thou knowest? or who stretched
a line upon it?
Whereupon were the foundations
thereof sunken? or who laid
its corner-stone”,
Job 38: 4-6.
God did it all.
The beauty of creation, the hymn writer could say -
Is marred by man’s ungrateful hand.
(Hymn 150).
The wonder of creation, we can look at it, even marked by sin, how wondrous it is. Do you have any appreciation of the wonder of the things that God has done? He has done wondrous things in creation, wondrous things in the lives of men. Has He done anything for you? Has He done anything for me? How much do I appreciate Him? I did not want to dwell too much on creation as such but it says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”, Gen 1: 1. It is one of the wondrous things that we can take account of too. The children will hear many different teachings at school. They tell you that things came from nothing and so they did, but God made them. Do not forget that, dear young one. God created the world around you and He sustains the life that is within it. Whether men believe it or not, the fact is that it is so: God did it.
I read in Matthew, because I wanted to speak just a little of the wondrous things that God has done through the Lord Jesus Christ. How early on in creation it was that man fell short. Man and woman fell short of God’s standard; it was not their standard, but God’s standard and we all fall short of that. We know the story of sin coming in, of a huge gulf coming in between God and man, and how that man then hid himself. He tried to hide himself from God; how foolish! We cannot hide ourselves from God. “All things are naked and laid bare to his eyes”, Heb 4: 13. Scripture says that. We cannot hide from Him. He says to Samuel, when Samuel is told to go and anoint the King of Israel, “Jehovah looketh upon the heart”, 1 Sam 16: 7. He looks upon your heart, dear friend. He knows your motive and He knows mine. He knows what is deep inside us. Solomon speaks of guarding the heart. It says, “for out of it are the issues of life” (Prov 4: 23); that is what God looks upon: He looks upon my heart. Sin came in. He knows I am sinful. What wondrous grace it is that God sent His only beloved Son, Jesus. It is a wondrous thing that God did. He sent Him before I knew that I needed a Saviour; God sent Him. God was not taken by surprise. God knew that Man, His well-beloved Son, and what did Jesus do? Jesus accomplished the work of redemption. How simple the gospel is, at least for us, but what it cost the Lord Jesus. He said to one when He was here, “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy couch and walk?”, Mark 2: 9. Which was easier for Jesus? One was accomplished by divine power, and the other could be said because of His wondrous love and His work to be accomplished. The hymn writer says,
No act of power could e’er atone,
No wonder-working word
Could, from the brightness of the throne,
Make love’s sweet voice be heard.
(Hymn 431)
The work of redemption could not be accomplished in power alone; it needed the love of the Saviour; it needed the love of God, who was prepared to send His only Son, who alone could do it wondrously. What sufferings belonged to the Lord Jesus Christ! We were touched affectionately this morning as we remembered Him in the breaking of bread. Our brother said in his thanksgiving, that ’He went all the way‘: dear friend, did He go that way for you? He did go that way for you, and He went that way for me. The question is, have I put my faith and trust simply in all that Christ has done? The jailor said to Paul, “what must I do that I may be saved?” (Acts 16: 30); “Believe on the Lord Jesus” (v 31), repent and believe on Him. The gospel is so simple. We mentioned too in our reading this morning “the foolishness of the preaching” (1 Cor 1: 21); that is, according to men. We cannot take it in, in our natural minds; it seems foolish, and from one perspective it seems too good to be true. The work is done, and the precious shed blood of Jesus poured from His side when that spear was thrust into Him by a soldier.
Himself He could not save,
He on the cross must die
(Hymn 240).
He could not save Himself. It meant He could not come down. Well, men in their mockery were right. He was prepared to stay there; He was prepared to stay there and suffer on the cross, having been scourged of men, bearing the hatred and malice of man, and then enduring the judgment of God. Not many words are spoken there, dear friends, but what it meant to Jesus! And it says, “When therefore Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished”, John 19: 30. Here it says He “gave up the ghost. And lo, the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom”. The temple had a veil across it and nobody was allowed in, except the high priest once a year. Nobody was allowed in there. So when Jesus died the veil was split in two. Now that means that God has come out in blessing to us, and that we can go in in grace before Him. That is what it means, dear young one; through the death of Jesus God can come out in blessing to us. God alone can do wondrous things. Who else could conceive it? The work of redemption, who else could accomplish it other than Christ Himself? And He did it to God’s complete satisfaction; and at the end of this scripture we read even the centurion said, “Truly this man was Son of God”. You see there is nothing ordinary about Jesus. He is the Son of God, God’s only beloved Son. God Himself, manifest in Manhood, what a Man He was! He bore my sin, He bore the judgment and He exhausted it on Calvary’s tree. He went into death and came forth triumphant. We do not preach a dead Saviour. The Lord Jesus is living and exalted on high, and He lives in heaven. Do you know that? Do you know it for yourself? What does He mean to you? The centurion acknowledged these things, and he knew who the Person of Jesus was and he judges rightly, “Truly this man was Son of God”. Now the work of redemption has been accomplished, what does it mean to you?
I read in Kings because there are a number of people mentioned here. Firstly, Naaman is mentioned and he was a soldier, and “captain of the host of the king of Syria”, and he was a great man. Scripture says he “was a great man”, but he was also “a leper”. Lepers have dreadful sores in their skin that do not heal. It is not a pleasant condition, and in the Bible leprosy, of which we do not see much in this country, speaks of sin. It speaks of what is inside coming out, and we are all sinful. Naaman was a great man but he had a need; he had a need to do with God, and the way that he came to Him was through this little maid. This little girl had been taken from her home by the army and taken into another country; no longer with her parents, she served Naaman’s wife. Think of that, she was taken from her home and she was taken by force to be with another; how sad that was, and she had no contact with her parents, it seems. There were no telephones in those days, speaking simply, she was with Naaman’s wife, but she rendered a testimony to God and to the great things that God was able to do. She says to Naaman’s wife, “Oh, would that my lord were before the prophet that is in Samaria! then he would cure him of his leprosy”. She knew God could cure Naaman. How she exhibited God’s heart of love. She had been taken away by this man’s army, and yet still she was prepared to point to the place where he would be healed. She knew the great things that God could do, and Naaman did not, not yet; but he goes to see the prophet Elisha, God’s prophet, and he stands before the house of the prophet. He is told to “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times”. He was told to go and wash in the river; you may say how simple that is, but it says, “Naaman was wroth”. He was angry; it says, “he turned and went away in a rage”. He was told to wash to cleanse himself of leprosy, and he went away in a rage. Are you going to go away from the gospel in a rage, dear friend; or maybe worse, complacent; and caring nothing at all? You see, even though Naaman was cross, help came in. At least maybe if we are not just indifferent to the Lord Jesus, someone can bring help in. All he had to do was go and wash, and he says, “Are not the Abanah and the Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?”. These are the rivers of the capital city of Syria; why can I not wash there? The rivers of this world are no good whatsoever; they are no good. The reason he could not go there is because they would not work. He was told to go and wash in the Jordan. We are told to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ: nothing else, dear young one; nothing else matters. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, which in type was what Naaman was told to do. The Lord Jesus can wash us clean; His blood alone can redeem us from every sin. There is no one like Jesus, and Naaman’s “servants drew near, and spoke to him and said, My father, if the prophet had bidden thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it?”. Dear friend, if we have felt our need in relation to our sin, would we do great things to get right before God? Naaman wanted to do some great thing, but the wonder is that the great things have been done. Jesus did them all, because only He could do them, and He has done them to wondrous completion. There is nothing else to do, except believe. I remember a brother preaching when I was younger and he said, ‘There is nothing to pay, nothing to doubt, nothing to fear’. It has all been done, as Naaman found out; all you have to do is believe, and be obedient to the gospel. “Go and wash”, and his servants helped him; what immense wisdom. Has someone guided you to the gospel tonight, dear friend? Have they? Have they pointed you to Jesus? Take advantage of it. Naaman, although he left in a rage, was not too proud to listen to his servants. What a display of the grace of God. How many times our loved ones, those we know and love, may have prayed for us, and guided us towards the Saviour. He washed in the Jordan and he became clean. It says, “his flesh became again like the flesh of a little child”. No marks were left. When you see a little baby, generally their skin is so pure, so soft and clean, and that is how Naaman was. We can marvel at it, no marks, no, nothing left, no scars. The work of Jesus is too great for that. Nothing is left because it was washed so completely. God’s forgiveness cleanses us completely, every trace of guilt is gone, and nothing is left. It says, “their sins and there lawlessnesses I will never remember any more”, Heb 10: 17. How many have we committed? How many have I committed? How often may be they come back to our minds at the most inappropriate times, but when we are forgiven by Jesus no guilt is left that God would hold against us, everything is cleansed. Do you know that for yourself? Do you know what it is to be like Naaman, to be washed completely clean? He says, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel”. He came to what David said, “the God of Israel, who alone doeth wondrous things!”. We can read of so many; Nebuchadnezzar is another one, the greatest king maybe in all the earth. What power he had. But there is no God but the God of Israel; how great He is. No one can wash away sin as Jesus can. As one could say -
What though the accuser roar
The ills that I have done!
I know them well and thousands more:
Jehovah findeth none.
(Whitlock Gandy)
Naaman’s leprosy was washed away; he was made completely clean; how great the God with whom we have to do.
I just wanted to finish with Peter. Peter goes on a step. God not only has salvation in mind for us, but “an incorruptible and undefiled and unfading inheritance”. Soon Jesus is coming back; soon He is coming back to take all those who believe on Him to be with Himself. No others are going to go, just those who are the Christ’s. Now, are you going to go? Because God not only has salvation in mind for us (we have spoken about it), but He has an inheritance for us too. I remember reading somebody saying that ‘when we get to heaven, I think we will be extraordinarily astonished’. What God has in mind for us! Why would we pass up that opportunity? Peter speaks of it, “incorruptible and undefiled and unfading”. What else in this scene could ever be described in such a manner? The answer to that is, "Nothing"; everything fades, it wears away, it breaks, and it needs renewing; but not the inheritance that God has laid up for us in Jesus. Do you know something of it, dear friend? We are given the gift of the Spirit, another wondrous thing that God has done, given of His Spirit to dwell within the believer. It says, “in the last days, saith God, that I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh” (Acts 2: 17); but in this dispensation He dwells within. The Spirit dwells within, a precious gift; do you know something of it? Do we know something of the wondrous things that God has done? I trust we do, because to those of us who believe in Him that is to be our portion eternally. What will we do with the time that is left here to us? What will we do? Our brother also said in thanksgiving this morning, ‘Jesus has not asked us to do nothing, but to remember Him in the breaking of bread’. Will you partake in that service of remembrance and praise to Him? Some of us, maybe most here, remembered Him in the breaking of bread this morning, because we love Him. Maybe this is a challenge more to myself than anybody else here; how much do I do for Him? How much am I prepared to commit myself to Him in the time that is left? The past is gone; it cannot be brought back. The future lies with God, but what about now? What am I prepared to do for Him in the weeks and days that may be left to me? Nothing else matters really but what Jesus has done, and what we can do for Him. Everything else we leave behind. As one man could say -
To lose one’s wealth is sad indeed,
To lose one’s health is more,
To lose one’s soul is such a loss
That no man can restore
(The Clock of Life, Robert H Smith, 1932)
God alone can restore it. God alone can give us salvation. How much He has done for us. God alone does wondrous things. May we be in the benefit of them. May we come to know Jesus as our Saviour. May we put our faith and trust in Him and may we, in our measure, in the time that is left to us, commit ourselves afresh to Him. He has done so much for us. May we be given the strength to do just a little for Him.
May He bless the word, for His Name’s sake.
Gillingham
4th March 2012