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At the beginning of our session this evening, I have two very important questions that could not be got through this afternoon, and I would like to take the opportunity of answering them to the best of my ability now. The first one is a question relating to things that I said last evening, and I welcome the opportunity to, uh, clarify any, uh, things that I said less than clearly. The question runs, you said last evening that when the Lord Jesus comes back for us, he will take his people who are walking with him.
You did not say saved, he will take his people who are saved. You said he will take his people that are walking with him. Why did you say that? That's a very important question. Please understand what I did not mean. I did not mean that when the Lord comes, there will be two groups of believers. Some believers that are walking with the Lord Jesus, and he'll take them to heaven, and some believers that are not walking with the Lord Jesus, and he'll leave them behind. When the Lord comes, he will take every believer that there is.
Let's hear what scripture says again, uh, Jose, what will happen when the Lord comes. One Thessalonians four is a key passage. It says that when the Lord Jesus comes, the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Let's think of them a moment. Not all the dead. Did you notice that? In that sense, the Bible does not teach a general resurrection at the last day. When the Lord Jesus comes back again, he's going to take, raise first the dead that are in Christ Jesus.
The important question there is, if you, uh, want to be among the dead that are in Christ Jesus, you'll have to be in Christ Jesus while you're still alive. Yes. What does it mean, the dead in Christ? It means people that, when they were alive here on earth, personally came to the Savior, received the Savior. They heard him say, so to speak, I am the door, by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved. They took him at his word. They entered in. They were saved. Forever after, they can be described as those in Christ.
They were in Christ, therefore, from the moment they trusted the Savior until they, uh, departed this life. Their bodies lie in the grave. They themselves gone to be with the Lord. Like the thief on the cross, you remember him, the penitent thief, the one who repented and said, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And the Lord said to him, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. I love those words. Today, no delay, you know. No long interval for purgation or anything like that whatsoever.
Today, immediately. With me, says Christ. Not only in paradise, that would be lovely, but with me. And a believer in the Lord Jesus, when they come to die physically, their body goes into the grave or is, uh, cremated or something, but the person themselves, they go to be with the Lord Jesus. Today thou shalt be with me in paradise, said the Lord. When the Lord Jesus comes again, their bodies will be raised.
That's what this verse means, therefore, when the Lord comes, there will be two groups. The first is the dead in Christ. We'll say once you are in Christ, you are in him forever. The other group is those that are here described, we which are alive and remain. Paul doesn't mean every man, woman, boy, and girl that happened to be alive on the earth at the time, of course not. He says we. And to be fair to his letter, you must read it all and see who are the people that are included in the term we. Writing to Thessalonians, here is their experience. They had been converted. They had turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivereth us from the wrath to come.
In other words, they were people that had been saved. They had personally trusted the Savior. They had been born again. They belong to the Lord Jesus, those that are his. And when he comes, he'll raise the dead in Christ, then all believers that are alive on the earth at the time, he will gather them up together with the risen dead, and together they shall be forever with the Lord. So let me make that first clear. Every believer will go when the Lord comes. None shall be left behind. Why did then I, why didn't I say then, I, I mean, stupid preacher?
Also, why didn't I say when the Lord comes, you'll see, he will take his people that are saved instead of saying he'll take his people that are walking with him. Well, for that reason, how could you tell if anybody was saved or not? It is the mark of a true believer that they do walk with the Lord. Yes? Listen to the Lord Jesus. There were some people, uh, and they are recorded in John chapter eight. They came to the Lord Jesus.
They said they believed in him. So our Lord, says John chapter eight, said to those who, disciples who believed on him, for that's what they said they did. He said, if you continue in my word, you shall, uh, know, uh, you shall be truly my disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. You're really a disciple of the Lord Jesus, you will continue in my word, says Christ, and knowing the truth, you will progressively be made free. They said, free from what? Well, he starts talking about sin, you see. You see, he explained, uh, everybody that continues in sin, constantly sins, and doesn't intend to do anything else is the slave of sin.
And I was pointing out, said the Savior, now if you really are my disciple, you'll continue in my words, and progressively I shall set you free from sin. And they got furiously angry. Who do you think you are, they said, and who do you imagine you're talking to, coming here and telling us we're slaves of sin and we need to be set free from sin? You go and sing in the next street. We didn't ask you to come here. It wasn't long after that that our Lord had to tell them straight. They professed to be believers in the Lord Jesus. They said that God was their father. Sorry, said Christ, God isn't your father.
You are of your father, the devil. You see, it isn't enough to come to Christ, is it? Thousands of people come to Christ. The condition is if we walk in the light as he is in the light. We have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanses us from all sin. Do you say that m- m- does that mean I've got to be perfect as a Christian? No, you'll not be perfect this side of glory. But the mark of a Christian is that they walk with the Lord. And when they stumble and sin, and all of us sin, every day we sin. And we don't run away from the Lord, we keep with the Lord, and we confess our sin and seek his grace to deliver us from sinning.
That's the mark of a true believer. Well, it's possible, isn't it, for true believers to wander off and get a long way off. When true believers wander away, that raises a big question, you know. God knows their hearts, of course he does, but it raises a question. Are they people like Peter who were true believers at heart, but have now fallen and are living inconsistently? Or is it that they were never true believers to start with? The mark of a true believer is that he or she walks in the light, walks with the Lord.
I don't wish to unsettle anybody, but if you say to me, but oh dear, am I hopeless then because I, I thought I was a believer, but I've been living a long way away from the Lord. Well, now, my dear friend, my dear brother, my dear sister, the Lord waits to welcome you back again. There is forgiveness if we confess our sin. He's faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The thing you can't do is to say, I'm a Christian, but I've no intention of walking with the Lord. I'm a Christian, but I don't want the Lord to save me from sinning. I want to enjoy myself. I'm going on my own way. I want to keep on sinning.
I don't intend walking with the Lord, but I hope to be taken to heaven when he comes. True believers don't talk like that. Second question. Please enlarge on what you said about when in heaven we will want to have been happy here to be happy in heaven. Please try and put my mind at rest and tell me what, tell me that we will really be dead then and have new dispositions to enjoy heaven. Is that so? I think that question arises from things I said this morning. I said, if you don't enjoy the Lord now, what does that mean?
Do you really want to go to heaven? If you don't enjoy talking to the Savior now, what makes you think you'd enjoy talking to him then? And the question is, but what are you saying? You see, surely, uh, when we go to heaven, we shall lose our old sinful nature, and we shall be perfectly like the Lord. To see. So let's get this clear from scripture. Yes, every true believer saved by God's grace, they enjoy salvation as a gift. When the Lord comes, what will happen? One John chapter three. Beloved, now are we the children of God. It is not yet made manifest what we shall be, but we know that when he is manifested, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
What a lovely thing. True of every believer, right down to the weakest. When the Lord comes and is manifested, and the Lord takes us home to be with him, then we shall see him as he is, and in seeing him, we shall be transformed. We shall be perfectly like him, and that eternally. And just like an emerging butterfly leaves the chrysalis behind, so when we go home to glory, we shall leave behind forever the old fallen nature that so bothers us still, and we shall be perfectly conformed to the blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, let me affirm that.
I do believe it because scripture teaches it. Every believer then, like the Savior perfectly when he comes and they see him. So every believer will enjoy eh heaven, of course, to the maximum of their ability. Well, you say now you are a funny preacher now if you're contradicting what you said this morning. Well, no, I'm not really. For listen to what John goes on to say. Now everyone that has this hope in him purifies himself, purifies herself, even as he is pure. Notice, please, that is not an exhortation, that is a statement of fact.
Show me a man, show me a woman, and this is a woman who's trusted the Savior, and her hope is real certain hope, the Lord is coming, and when he comes, he's going to take her home. That's marvelous. And she, she knows that when she sees the Lord, she's going to be like him. Well, I'll tell you something else about that woman, because God says so. If that woman really has that hope, then she will day by day purify herself. Everyone that has the hope purifies themselves. You'll find me somebody who says, yes, I want, I'm going home to be with the Lord tomorrow, and when I see the Lord, I'm going to be like him. But then adds, well, I don't want to be like him now.
That would spoil my fun. Uh. Well, the person just isn't telling the truth then. If they don't want to be like Christ now, they don't have the hope, that's all. That doesn't mean every believer is perfect, of course not. But you can't say with this one and the same breath, I want to be like Christ, but I don't want to be like Christ. Can you? You want to be like Christ. You have the hope that when he comes, you're going to be like him. You'll want to be like him now. Oh yes, so many of us get wayward and we wander away, don't we?
And we lose sight of the goal, and we live carelessly. Yes, scripture reminds us that dear old Peter, you know, he actually denied the Lord with oaths and curses and used all the swear words he knew to prove he wasn't a believer. Underneath he was a believer, and the Lord Jesus brought him back and restored him. But a man or woman that goes on for years and years and years and years and there's no intention of trying to be like the Savior whatsoever. Well, John says, if such a person claims to be a believer and claims that they want to be like him when the Lord comes, that person just is not telling the truth. They are not children of God. They are the very opposite.
That's important, isn't it? There's the other thing too. Every believer will be like Christ when he comes. What there is of him. You say we shall all be dead alike. Of course we shall. No, we shan't. You say, you just said it, you have man. We're all going to be like Christ, and we'll be absolutely. Shall we really? We shall be like Christ, what there is of us. I must ask the forgiveness of many of my friends here present because I've used this illustration so many times, it's like a broken down old seventy five rev record, you see, and it scratches horribly, but I can't think of a better one, particularly at this late hour of night.
So I picture myself at Christmas party, and at the party there's a little child, you see, of, uh, one year and a half old, you see, nearly two, and then there's a boy, he's, uh, uh, seven, and there's a sweet young thing of seventeen, and there's mum and dad, you see, and at this Christmas party, they're all at the party, having a whale of a time, every one of them. The laddie of a year and, uh, a half, he's sitting in his high chair and he's managed to get hold of a spoon, soup spoon, he's dipped it into the cream and he's pouring the cream all around his hair and down on the carpet. He's having a magnificent time. And when six o'clock comes, he goes to bed delighted. Now and again, he peers over the edge of his high chair and sees his brother on the floor playing trains.
Hasn't got a ghost of a notion what's going on, of course. So he doesn't miss it. Goes there, goes to bed absolutely content, his heart as full as his little heart could be with joy at being at the Christmas party. Nipper on the floor, seven years old, he isn't getting a soup all around his head and the cream either. Josie, he's playing trains, father, as a fore said this morning, on the carpet, you see. What's made the difference? Well, the seven-year-old has grown up a bit. Of course, if you looked at the baby in the chair, he's like his dad. Uh, the boy of seven, yes, he's like his dad, you can see he's like his dad. But one boy's grown up a bit more.
He's able to enjoy more. There's sweet seventeen. She's not putting the soup label full of cream around her hair either, I don't see. Nor is she sitting on the floor. What would that dress on? A half an hour time, there's coming some very special company to the Christmas party, and she's been down to, I I don't know where the shop she gets it, but it's a magnificent outfit. And for the rest of the evening, or the most part of it, she's sitting on the settee there with this young gentleman, and they're talking. And seven-year-old can't make it out. Why doesn't he come down on the floor and play trains? Just sitting there talking.
Can you imagine anything so boring? Uh, sitting, just looking at somebody and talking, nonsense. Of course, she's like a dad too, but there you are. She enjoys the party more than seven-year-old. Seven-year-old hasn't got a ghost of a notion what's going on anyway. He goes to bed content. And the difference is growth. Now, all believers will be in glory, every single one of them. Of all thou hast given me, I shall not lose one. You can be like the dying thief, if you like, come in the last minute before twelve o'clock, and as a broken sinner, confess your sin, put your trust solely in the Savior, and you can be guaranteed an eternal heaven.
There need be no doubt. But it's one thing to get into the eternal kingdom, says Peter, two Peter chapter one. Every believer will be in, solely on the grounds that they have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. Every believer will be in glory. But there's one thing to enter, another thing to have an abundant entrance. You say, what is an abundant entrance? What do you think heaven's going to be? Kind of a, a, a big castle, well and castle or something, and some sit on comfortable seats in the middle, and some have to sit by the drafts at the door or something? What do you mean to get a rich entry into glory? It means how much you're going to enjoy it.
Everybody will enjoy it to their full. The difference will be some will have grown a lot, says Peter, and they will, by God's grace, have added their character in the power of their faith. They will have added virtue and knowledge and self-control and endurance and brotherly love and love, and by the Savior's grace, they would have built up and developed their Christian character. They will get an abundant entrance, and they'll have the bigger capacity to enjoy heaven. But those that have not done it, if they're true believers, they'll get in, of course, but they won't get an abundant entrance.
This life matters, doesn't it? And with that, I leave it, for now we come to our passage in Hebrews. If I still haven't said enough to clarify you, or if my answer, instead of clarifying things, has made things worse, well, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Only don't throttle me, and I'll do my best, even if we have to stay up to midnight, to answer your question individually. Now let's read from our passage. It is the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter eleven, and we read tonight at verse uh seventeen. By faith, Abraham, being tried, offered up Isaac. Yea, he that had gladly received the promises was offering up his only begotten son, even he to whom it was said, in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
Accounting that God is able to raise up even from the dead, from whence he did also in a parable receive him. By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even concerning things to come. By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshiped, leaning upon the top of his staff. By faith, Joseph, when his end was nigh, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel and gave commandment concerning his bones. And the Lord give us good understanding of his word.
And we've been talking together in our session so far, haven't we, on what it means to be a believer. And we found a first of all, the mark of a believer is that he or she believes the basic doctrines of the gospel. And then this morning we went further and said, what does it mean to be a believer? True believers, according to the New Testament, are marked by this, that they become resident aliens in our world, and they are found to be pilgrims deliberately pressing forward to the prize that lies ahead, the high calling of God in Jesus Christ, looking for the Lord to come and for the day when they shall be conformed to the image of God's Son.
Spiritual pilgrims, and as far as this world is concerned, here on the Lord's business, ambassadors for Christ, using life and its tasks and its duties, its joys and its sorrows as material through which the Lord can train them and develop them in their spiritual progress, but with their eye on the goal at last, looking for the Lord to come and one day to be at home with him and eternally like him. Now, tonight we move on one stage further in our study of faith. If we are genuine believers, sooner or later our faith will be tested, and then our faith will be refined and redirected so that eventually it becomes triumphant.
It is exceedingly important that our faith be demonstrated to be the genuine thing. And you say, what for? Well, first of all, for a reason that you might not have thought of recently. God has his enemies, and very powerful enemies they are. And supreme among them is his satanic majesty. The Bible tells us how from time to time he comes before God in the heavenly council of God's presence and accuses the brethren, that is genuine believers in Christ. He accuses them before God day and night. One day Satan is going to be cast out of heaven and all his hosts, and the Bible has it that true believers in Christ will be raised above angels.
For not unto angels has he set in subjection the age to come of which we speak. That glorious position is given to Christ and all his redeemed, who shall be supreme above every name that is named, not only in this age, but that which is to come. And his satanic majesty doesn't give up all that easily. And constantly and constantly does he accuse true believers in the presence of God, aiming to show that either they're sheer humbug or that God is acting unjustly in giving them salvation and guaranteeing them a heaven. According to the book of Job, he did it with Job. Satan came with the sons of God and presented himself before God, said God to to Satan, Satan, have you considered my servant Job?
I have indeed, said Satan, and don't really think much of him anyway, says God. There's none like him in all the earth. You know, an upright man that trusteth me, trusteth you, my foot, he says. Oh, well, if you can believe that, you'll believe anything, God, he said. Ha, of course Job trusts you. What do you think? Prospered him, haven't you? Got 3 or four Mercedes, Job. Beautiful country ranch, lovely big family. I can afford to have parties every night of the week. Do you see? Well, I wouldn't trust you. Well, quite so. Says Satan to God, you know, you'd be mistaken to take that for genuine faith. That's simply cupboard love. I'll tell you what, says Satan to God, do you see, if you'd let me have a go at him, I could soon show you what, uh, Job really believes in his heart of hearts.
All right, says God, you may touch his goods, but don't you touch him. And so Satan destroyed his house and his goods. But Job's faith wouldn't wobble. So Satan said, let me have another go. And under Satan's instigation, the man was hurled into terrible illness of pain and suffering, scared out of his wits nearly, sitting in absolute disaster. What for? To start with, that God might demonstrate to Satan that this man's faith was genuine. And before you get home to glory, if you are a genuine believer, God will allow your faith too, to be tested, that God himself might be put into the clear before our great spiritual accuser, his satanic majesty, and all the hosts of heaven.
And God be able to demonstrate through you as a believer that your faith is genuine faith and not simply cupboard But love. So, uh, Abraham was called upon eventually to have his faith tested. And he who had received the promises, as we said this morning, those promises were vested in Isaac, and apparently all his future depended on Isaac. There came a day when God said, right, oh Abraham, you say you are a believer, that your whole hope for salvation is simply through faith, not your works, nothing at all, not yourself, nobody else.
Your faith is solely in me. Right, oh Abraham, then we'll demonstrate the point. Please give me Isaac, and then it will be seen that your faith is in none other than me. An elderly Abraham walked up the mountain with all his future in his hand. It was all in Isaac, and by God's grace, he laid it on the altar and was left with nothing but God. That's faith. That is faith being justified by works. And when we're ready for our examination, God doesn't put us through examinations of that order every day of the week, but when we're ready for the examination, God may well allow us to pass through that kind of examination where we are called upon to give evidence that our faith is in God and solely in God.
I know a good man in in East Germany. The horrors he went through through the war, I could not begin to begin to relate to you. He had a beautiful family, a boy and a girl who, coming through the East German system of education, refused to be members of the Young Communists, engaged in Christian work. That meant that they had to forego, uh, good careers, because if you don't join the Communist Party in school, very often there's no higher education for you. The teachers will tell you that to your face. They gave themselves unreservedly to the Lord's work amongst young people.
They were traveling, these two lovely people, a girl and a boy, they were traveling to a young people's weekend like this. They had a car crash, and both of them were killed. You imagine that when you've done your very best to serve the Lord and you've made all the sacrifices. Oh, how do you stand and preach when you see a father in the first row that has suffered that and believes still? You say, where did Abraham get the strength from? He must have worked himself up into a tremendous feeling. No, he didn't. You say, yeah, surely he went up the hill of Moriah dancing and clapping and shouting hallelujah.
No, he didn't. If I have any idea, he went up as grim-faced as a man could be grim. You say, what moved him? Well, it was the logic of faith. Did you notice what the verse says? He offered up his son, verse nineteen, accounting. It means logically working it out. He did his sums, did Abraham. He went through the argument, and he logically worked it out that if God had promised, God would keep his promise.
God had said that in Isaac shall your seed be called. Now God was asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on the altar, and the man wasn't married yet, had no sons, and if Isaac was killed, that would seem to be the end of all hope, the end of any possible family, grandchildren, or a- or descendants. And Abraham had to puzzle it out in his mind. Well, he said, I don't understand it, you see. I don't know how God is going to do it if I got to slay Isaac on this altar. I don't know. How will that work? For God has promised that Isaac's going to have a family, and I'm going to have descendants through Isaac. The only way I can work that out, says Abraham, is this, God will have to raise him from the dead, that's all. For God will keep his word, and Isaac will have children because God has said it.
All right, if God now tells me to put him on the altar, that's God's business. That I will do, but logic compels me to think that God will keep his promise. He'll have to raise Isaac from the dead. And it wasn't emotion, it was logic that led Abraham to make his great sacrifice. And you know, when we come to other parts of the New Testament, it becomes apparent, doesn't it? How logic lies or should lie behind our decisions to serve the Lord. Not great torrents of emotion necessarily, but logic.
The love of Christ constrains me, says Paul. It sort of grips me and urges me and drives me on. The love of Christ. You say, but how does it work, Paul? Please tell me. What kind of feelings do you get? Well, he says it isn't a question of feeling. The love of Christ constrains me, he says, having judged this, you'll see, that if one died for all, there all died. And he died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again. Do you notice the word?
The love of Christ constrains us because we judge this. Paul was coming to a logical conclusion, namely this, that to, uh, save Paul, Christ had to die. Why? Because if Christ hadn't died for Paul, Paul would have died. Oh, says Paul, I begin to see what that means. If Christ had to die to save me, I wouldn't have had a life to spend apart from Christ. Well, then... that life must be his, mustn't it? He died for all that they which live should hereafter live, not to themselves, but to him.
Not a matter of great emotion, it's a matter of coming to the only sane, logical conclusion. Paul says the same thing in one Corinthians six, doesn't he? He says, know you not this, that you are not your own, you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify your, uh, God in your bodies and in your spirits, which are God's. So it's a matter of morals, isn't it? And sheer morality. If you go and take something that belongs to somebody else without getting their permission, there is a very homely word in Irish to describe the effort.
You are a thief. Yeah. Let me remind myself and you that if you are a believer, you are not your own. Christ has bought you. We wouldn't have a life to live, would we, were it not for Christ. And for me to take my body and my person that Christ has bought, that no longer belongs to me, and use it simply to live for myself regardless of Christ, that, ladies and gentlemen, is thieving. It is stealing.
It is stealing what has been bought at the immeasurable cost of the blood of Christ. It's not big gales of emotion that we need. It's some clear-headed, calm, logical thinking. And Abraham came through his test on the strength of logic, that if God had promised, God would perform, and if it meant that God would have to raise Isaac from the dead, well, then God would do it. There are other ways in which God had to deal with our faith.
He has sometimes to redirect it. He tests it, then he redirects it. And that we learn if we will follow the hint of Hebrews eleven and verse 20. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even concerning things that are to come. And that simple verse covers a very long story in the book of Genesis. The story of what happened when, uh, Isaac came to bless his sons, Esau and Jacob. It says that by faith he blessed them, and so I mustn't dispute what God says. A- uh, Isaac did really believe.
He believed that he had inherited from his father Abraham the divine blessing, and now as a parent, it was his responsibility to pass that blessing on to his sons. He believed it. He was a believer. But poor old Isaac got a little bit muddled up in the process because his faith was directed half the time in the wrong direction. And you'll see, he made a mistake. God said, Isaac, I want you to dwell in this land, and I will bless you. Now I want you to come, please, Isaac, and I want you to bless your sons. What do you mean by blessing?
So say, what is blessing? Well, I must, uh, go aside here and, uh, use an analogy, if I may. So you'll think I've wandered from the scripture and from the truth, but I haven't altogether. Uh, bear with me. One of these days, Miranda Hickenbotham will come down the stairs, and there on the mat at the hall in the early morning will be a long envelope. It's from the Ministry of Education, you'll see. And this is her GCE results or GSESESES results or whatever they are. Now, now, you'll see. And you know what, the kind of a feeling that takes hold of you in that situation, you don't know whether you dare open the envelope or not, you'll see.
It takes sometimes a little bit of courage to open the envelope. At last, she opens the envelope, and oh yes, it says you passed A grades in every subject, you'll see. So now what's happening? Well, first she's read the word typed on the letter, so it's the word that started it. It said she'd passed. And then she got the blessing. She believed the word, she got the blessing. What was the blessing? Well, she qualified. Nothing would ever take that from her now. She got it, passed the exam, you'll see. Oh, what happened then? Well, then, because she'd got the blessing in the form she'd passed the exam, oh, she felt a tremendous surge of emotion.
We call it joy, you'll see. Ran through a marvelous feeling. She jumped upstairs, five at a time, to tell her parents she'd passed, you'll see. And then it sometimes happened, and it did with this Miranda, you'll see, because I'm making up a story. She was so full of joy. She not only got the blessing, she passed the exam. She got the emotion that was joy. She got, uh, sensations. The tears began to flow. They were tears of joy, of course. Isn't it funny? We, sometimes we shed tears for sorrow, and sometimes we shed tears for joy. They're a funny thing, tears are, aren't they, what ho? Yes. Ha ha. And, uh, so she got a lot of things that day. First of all, she got the word. Then she got, she believed it and got the blessing.
She was got the exam. Then she got the emotion of joy, and then she got, on top of that, sensations of tears running down the face. Marvelous day. She'll never forget it, you see. Mm. But, uh, later on, you know, she couldn't believe it, really. She thought she'd done badly. She couldn't believe it. So, how did she make sure she'd got it? Well, she said to herself, look, if I had this exam, I should feel joyful. She tried to work up the joy. And what happened when I felt really joyful? Oh, I shed a few tears. So she tried to, to shed a few tears to convince her that she's really got the exam.
She'd say, of course she didn't. There isn't a Miranda on the face of God's earth that would do anything so stupid if she doubted that she'd got the exam, she wouldn't try to feel the feelings. She'd go back to the beginning and get out the old letter and look at the words. To confuse the feelings with the blessing would be stupid, wouldn't it? Because if tomorrow morning she woke up and felt down in the blues, she still got the exam. How do you know? Not because she feels joyful, but because the the letter says, you've got it, my dear, congratulations, you've passed. She got the word, she got the blessing. And whether the emotion follows or it doesn't follow, or whether the sensation comes or doesn't come, doesn't matter much, does it?
She's got the blessing. Do you know old Isaac made a mistake here? He came to bless his sons. Now he had a word, at least his wife had, what he was to do. You'll see that God had chosen Jacob, and he was to give the blessing to Jacob. But Isa- Isaac, uh, must have forgotten that word of God, I think. And he said to himself, now I have to be in a suitable mood here to pass on this blessing, can't I? So instead of consulting the word of God, he said to Esau, my dear Esau, my boy, go out into the field and get me some venison that my soul loves, and I'll eat of this venison, you'll see.
And you know what it is when you've had a good real tuck in of venison and you're feeling real good and at peace with the world, and you get all the lovely feelings inside him, you see, and then he'd pass on the blessing. Yeah? Because the blessing is the feelings, isn't it? So Esau went out to get this venison, you'll see. Now, Isaac, he was dim of the sight. He was nearly blind, so he couldn't see, you'll see. And his wife, I don't understand how wives do that, but she did. Uh, his wife heard what Isaac had said to Esau, so she called in Jacob because Jacob was her favorite. And she said, you know, uh, your father is going to pass on the blessing to Esau.
We must stop that. So come quick, she said. So she got a takeaway Chinese meal thing and spiced it up, you'll see, and made it taste like venison, you'll see. You could get the stuff in those days from the stores to make anything taste like venison. And she said, you take that into your father, he won't know the difference. Oh, wait a minute, says Jacob, if I go in and, uh, he'll say, who are you? And I say, Jacob will recognize me, and if he were to feel me, he'd know it wasn't Esau, because Esau's all hairy and I'm smooth. How we get round that, says Mama. She, she got a goat skin, and she put that on the nape of his neck and down his arms like this, and put this stew in his hand, you'll see, and in he went. And here was Isaac about to bless.
I bought the venison, says, uh, Isaac, says Jacob. I bought the venison, dad. He said, who are you? He said, I'm Esau. He said, you don't sound much like Esau. You sound like Jacob. Are you sure you're Esau? He couldn't see anyway, but his ears told him it was Jacob. But alas, he didn't, he couldn't trust his sight because he hadn't got much. He didn't trust his hearing. So what did he do now? He said, come let me feel you. So he felt him. I mean, that was solid enough. Yes, he says, that's hairy.
And he trusted his sensations. And then he said, tell you what, come let me smell you. Well, that's a funny thing, a deciding blessing, isn't it? If a man's been out hunting all day, I, that wouldn't be my concept of blessing to smell him, would it be? He says, that smells right. Oh, gorgeous. And then he got the stew and ate it. Oh, he said, it's the best venison I've tasted for years. It wasn't the best venison, it was a Chinese takeaway spiked up. Going by his sensations and his emotions, and they all deceived him.
And, you know, he stands on the page of scripture to be a warning to us, because from time to time we all make that mistake, don't we? Instead of going by the word of God and resting our faith in God's word and being assured that we have the blessing, we start putting our faith in our feelings and in our sensations. You see, some people come to the Lord Jesus, and they're sinners, and they seek salvation, and they suddenly see what it is to trust the Savior, and they trust him, and they get forgiveness of sins and the assurance they've got eternal life. So they got the blessing, and of course, naturally, their hearts swell up and they feel full of joy, and some of them even shed tears, you know.
Marvelous save, what a marvelous thing it is to be saved. And then as the days and weeks go by, the old sensations begin to go down, and the emotion goes down, and they don't feel so full of joy. And they say to themselves, I don't know, I don't feel so wonderful as I did when I first came to the Lord, so what shall I do now? So they try to wind up the joy once more and wind up the feelings. They're making the same mistake as Isaac, aren't they? Instead of depending on God's word, they're depending on the feelings and the sensations. You know, feelings can deceive you horribly. Our blessing doesn't depend on having marvelous feelings.
How can we be sure we've got the blessing? By starting the other way round with God's word and believing God's word, and if he says it, then we have it, and we let the feelings take care of themselves. Yes? You know, we need to take notice of that, don't you? Because some people organize enormous great meetings, and what they're doing, instead of preaching the word, they're working up people's feelings and getting them excited and feeling they're having such a wonderful time. But, you know, that could be merely feelings and emotion and sensation, couldn't it? That's not the solid thing.
If you want real blessing in life, the way is to not put your trust in feelings. The way is to take God's word and expound his word till people's faith is in God's word. And if they believe God, they have the blessing that God says they've got. If it works itself out in feelings, marvelous. If the feelings subside and don't come back, well, what does that matter? If God has says it, it is true. And when we come to pass over from this world to the next, it won't be our feelings that count. It will be God's immovable word. Two other little lessons are taught us.
If Abraham gives us his secret in his great life of faith, he was moved to that final sacrifice by logic, and now we've seen how God redirects E- uh, Isaac's faith away from feelings to his word. Now we think briefly of Jacob and Jacob's faith had to be refined, didn't it? See, God promised to bless Jacob. Jacob was a true believer, but he didn't always behave as one, and God had to refine that man's faith because, you know, he got up to some very funny practices.
He cheated his father, he impersonated Esau, then he ran away. And when he got down to Laban's house, he used his business skill to empty Laban's bank account and put it into his own, do you see? Until his in-laws nearly cursed him. And he thought that this was God's blessing on him. But you know, he was terribly mistaken, wasn't he? God was determined to bless him and did, but God had to refine his faith, and presently God began to put Jacob through the mill.
So having deceived his father, when he came down to Laban, he found Laban deceived him and gave him Leah as his wife and not Rachel. And then when he made a pile of money and his brothers-in-law got very angry, he had to run away. And as he ran back, he found Esau was coming to meet him, and scared out of his life, he had to give back to Esau droves of farm animals, sheep and cows and bullocks. God made him give it all back, all back, all back. You see, you don't have to cheat in business to get God's blessing.
And God went further still, didn't he? Presently, Jacob lost his son Joseph, thought he was dead. And then there arose a famine. And Jacob, who'd been once so rich, was now poverty stricken and facing starvation, and he had to let his sons go. And when they came back, Simeon was gone, imprisoned down in Egypt. And the boys came back telling their father, now look, I said, father, the next time we go, the man down in Egypt said, we'll have to bring Benjamin. You never will, he said. I'm not going to let Benjamin go. He'll kill me if Benjamin goes. I said, you'll have to, Dad. No, he says, I never will. But when famine was staring him in the face, then there was nothing to it, and Jacob had to let Benjamin go, and now he'd lost three sons, a quarter of his family gone, and starvation staring him in the face.
Why did God do it? Well, to refine Jacob's faith, you'll see, God had promised him glory. When he got down to Egypt at last, Jacob found out what God meant. He found that Joseph was still alive. He found that Jacob- Joseph was second in command in Egypt, and he was introduced as the Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed the Pharaoh, and without contradiction, the lesser is blessed by the greater. And Jacob lived to see the vast glory that God had designed for him and his children, and in particular Joseph down in Egypt. And you know, I wonder when Jacob saw what God had really meant, whether he looked back on his life and said to himself, what a fool you've been, my boy.
When he saw all the glory of Egypt, I think he felt a worm, didn't he, for the way he had cheated in business and told lies and deceived and used his technical business know-how to ruin his family relations with Laban and his brother-in-laws. What was it all about? And you know, let me speak very straight to you. I have known churches ruined from one end to another by Christian men and women, brothers and sisters, falling out over businesses. Have you never known it? I've known of believers do some very funny things in business and cheat.
Oh, they say they're on the way to glory and they're saved by faith, but in business, you see, they cheat, and then they think that God has blessed them because they make a lot of money. Well, God will have to teach us differently from that before he gets us home, won't he? You imagine if old Jacob had got to Egypt before he'd learned his lessons. He'd have had every pyramid in Egypt in his back garden, wouldn't he? He would have taken it over, the man would. God couldn't have him up in heaven, ah, before he taught him his lesson. He'd have bought up the whole of heaven. Yeah. One day, you know, 'tis God's good pleasure when the Lord comes to take us home to be with Christ, and we're going to reign with Christ.
And God wants to put into our hands the solemn responsibility, the glorious responsibility of running the whole universe along with Christ. But before he puts that into our hands, he's got to teach us what it means to be faithful stewards and stewardesses. And it's in our daily business that we learn to live as faithful men and women. And says the Lord Jesus, according to how you act now as stewards of your life and of your Lord's goods, what you do with your life now, how you work at business, what you do in the home as servants of the Lord, according to how well you do that, so will your reward be.
And if we act unfaithfully here, well, then we shall not get a reward there. So God has to refine our faith. And finally, there is the triumph of faith. And that is taught us in Joseph. Joseph is a remarkable man in this, that he rose to tremendous heights in Egypt and became second in command to Pharaoh. But through all his life, he maintained two things. One, he maintained his devotion. That's marvelous, isn't it? Rising to very high office, yet in his private life, he continued his devotion to the Lord.
He had his quiet time, I'm sure. He maintained his faith in the Lord. That was marvelous. I tell you something even more marvelous. He maintained his hope. You say, what do you mean? Well, when he came to die, he gave commandments concerning his bones. He could have had the biggest tomb in Egypt and a tremendous memorial, said he to his children, I don't want that. God is going to visit the nation, and when God visits the nation, he's going to take the nation out of Egypt and back to Palestine, and God has got a colossal great future for our nation. Our nation is going to be the key to world history. That is my hope, because that is what God promised my forefathers. And when you go out of Egypt, please take my bones with you.
The future of the world is with Israel. He maintained his hope. That is a very important thing. You'll see there are men and women that have prospered in the world as believers, and behind the scenes they've maintained their devotion to the Lord, but they've not always maintained their hope. Ask them what their view of the future is, and you'll find they've lost the hope they once had. Daniel didn't, did he? He's another example of a man who rose to very high office in the civil service, first of Babylon and then of Persia.
He not only maintained his devotion, he maintained his hope too. He worked in the civil service and was a tremendous testimony for the Lord in the civil service of Babylon and then Persia, you know. And when old Nebuchadnezzar need witnessing to, which he did from time to time, Daniel was bold enough to witness to old Nebuchadnezzar and tell him about the Most High God who rules in the kingdoms of men and call on old Nebuchadnezzar to repent, otherwise he'd be chastised of the Lord. You remember the stories. But when Daniel looked forward to the future, you'll remember that Daniel maintained his hope. What was his hope for the future? Was his hope that now, by working in the civil service and claiming the promises of God, presently Babylon would become the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God would be established in Babylon by all the believers claiming the promises of God, and the kingdom would be, uh, set up in Babylon.
He believed no such thing. Daniel's hope for this world was for the coming of the Lord Jesus. And that still remains our hope. And one of the things that will test our hope is apparent success in this world. It is good if we maintain our devotion. It is even better if we maintain our hope. What is your hope for this world? Might I be frank with you? You will have to watch some of the choruses you sing these days, for they are putting before you a false hope. They are preaching that the church can claim the power of the Holy Spirit and conquer all demonic opposition and human opposition, and eventually the church will be established as the biggest institution on earth and will bring in the kingdom of God on earth, a victorious kingdom, the kingdom restored on earth before the Lord comes.
That is false. And if you allow yourself to entertain that hope, you are destined for a very big disappointment. Scripture tells us plainly that in the last days, evil men and seducers shall act worse and worse. There will be a dominant religion at the end of this age. It won't be the church, it will be Babylon the Great. This age shall end in the judgments of God as the blessed Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God. That is what our Christianity says. It's a false hope that the church is going to succeed and become the restored kingdom, and people shall disarm, the nations shall disarm, and the church will be supreme before the Lord Jesus comes.
That is false. Our hope for this world is this, that the Lord Jesus is coming, coming to take his people home, coming then to execute the judgments of God, coming then to set up his kingdom. And to think the kingdom will be set up other ways is false to our Christian hope. The Lord used these remarks, take them in the spirit in which they are set.
