Gooding, David: 1 - Overcoming the Prince of this World

Now we can begin our study this evening by reading two passages from scripture, the one to be found in the Old Testament and the one in the New. The Old Testament passage is to be found in the book of Exodus in chapter three. Exodus chapter three, And we take up our reading there in verse thirteen. And Moses said unto God, When I come unto the children of Israel and say unto them, The God of your fathers has sent me unto you, and they shall say to me, What is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I am that I am. And he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. God said, moreover, unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say unto them, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you and seen that which is done to you in Egypt, and I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, unto a land flowing with milk and honey. So much for our Old Testament reading, and now for our New Testament counterpart in the gospel by John, beginning in chapter sixteen. These things have I spoken unto you in Proverbs. The hour comes when I shall no longer speak unto you in Proverbs, but shall tell you plainly of the Father. In that day you shall ask in my name, and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from the Father. I came out from the Father and am come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go unto the Father. His disciples say, lo, now thou speakest plainly and speakest no proverb. Now we know that thou knowest all things and needest not that any man should ask thee. By this we believe that thou camest forth from God. Jesus answered them, do you now believe? Behold, the hour comes, yea, is come, that you shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. These things have I spoken unto you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. These things spake Jesus, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, Father, the hour is come, glorify thy son, that thy son may glorify thee, even as thou gavest him authority over all flesh, that whatsoever thou hast given him, to them he should give eternal life. This is life eternal, that they should know thee, the only true God, and him whom thou did send, even Jesus Christ. I glorified thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which thou hast given me to do. Now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. I manifested thy name unto the men whom thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest them to me, and they have kept thy word. Verse twenty six: And I made known unto them thy name and will make it known, that the love wherewith thou lovest me may be in them, and I in them. It is impossible, good friends, to read the Gospel of John, and particularly its closing chapters, without becoming aware of a great and vigorous warfare. A warfare in which our blessed Lord Jesus Christ himself was involved when he was here on earth, and a warfare to which we as Christian people are called in our day and generation. It is true that the talk everywhere throughout John's writings is of triumph and of victory. From our Lord's own triumphant statement, in the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. To the assurance statement and claim of John the Apostle in his other writing, his epistle, who is he that overcometh the world, save he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God, for everything that is born of God overcomes the world. And finally, the gracious promises of our Lord, frequently given in John's final writing, the book of the Revelation. To him that overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame and am sat down on my Father's throne. Full triumph then, is the note that John's bugle sounds as we read all three of his letters. But the very talk of triumph presupposes, does it not, battle and warfare. And we cannot avoid the impression as we read his chapter. Stalking through the end chapters, then, of John's gospel is this shadowy and sinister figure whom our blessed Lord himself called a prince. He is, said our Lord Jesus, the prince of this world, and he most certainly, ladies and gentlemen, is not a figure of fun. The scripture tells us he has status enough to dare to approach the Son of God incarnate and tempt him even when he was here upon earth. The scripture also informs us seriously that this great prince, the prince of this world, has access to the presence of God in the council of the high principalities and powers, and there has been known publicly to mock God. The book of Job tells us that Satan, as he came into the presence of God, dared and hesitated not to mock God with God's own trust in his servant Job. Said God, Satan, have you considered my servant Job of recent times? You know, Satan, there's none like him. Said Satan, is that really what you think? Well, if that's what you think, the reality is different, my lord. I tell you to your face, he makes out he trusts you. Of course he does. You've featherbed at him, haven't you? You have given him everything a man could possibly desire. Of course he doesn't mind singing a few hymns and choruses in your praise. Of course not. But should you allow me to touch him, his goods, possession, his skin, then I'm telling you now, said Satan, he'd curse you to your very face. What you think is his faith and love is nothing but cupboard love, and I can prove it to you. In similar vein, Holy Scripture tells us that this great prince, the prince of this world, hesitates not day and night, for he is exceedingly industrious, to accuse the brethren, the brothers and sisters in the presence of God. And it's no answer to his accusations, is it? To say, look who's talking, be quiet, do. Who are you to accuse anybody else? Or Satan's accusations of the brothers are based on morality, and hence their power. He accuses God of being immoral in his scheme of salvation, and proposing to bring to glory men and women who are sinners equally as is Satan himself. And he charges God with the most dishonesty in his program of redemption and salvation. Since the accusations are based on moral grounds, answer has to be given on those same moral grounds, and as you know well, the answer to Satan's accusations have cost God the blood of his own dear son. This great prince's influence, moreover, is not largely or particularly that he tempts people to degrading vice. I've no doubt he has his hand in those operations. But as far as we learn from the New Testament, Satan is far more concerned with people's thoughts, with their mental attitudes, with their heart attitudes, than he is with enticing them to degrading vice. He blinds, says Scripture, the thoughts, the thinking processes, and the end resulting thoughts. He blinds the thinking of those who believe not, lest the light of the glory of God should shine through to them. He is busy also, Paul warns us in his letter to the Corinthians, he's busy also in attempting to corrupt the intellectual loyalty of Christian people to their sovereign Lord Jesus Christ. I have exposed and espoused you, says Paul, talking to his fellow believers. I have espoused you as a chaste virgin to Christ, and I'm sorely afraid, lest that old deceiver, the serpent and Satan, corrupt your thoughts from undeviating loyalty to the Lord Jesus. The power base, as far as we learn it from the gospel by John, the power base of this great prince is what is here declared to be the world. It is the prince of this world who comes, says Jesus Christ, though he has nothing in me. And in further describing his triumph, our blessed Lord says, I have overcome the world. Now there is no difficulty in recognizing and identifying who the enemy is. Now we shall be given some pause this evening, perhaps, trying to decide in our minds what his power base is. What is meant by the term world when we talk of the prince of this world? And when the Bible talks of overcoming the world, what in the term is the world as the Bible talks about it? It obviously isn't surely this lovely world that God himself has made with all its color, music, and work. Then what is it? Past generations, in their attempt to define what worldliness is and to avoid it at all costs, sometimes concentrated, perhaps unduly, on our outward clothing. I do remember when I was a boy, it was felt to be very worldly of Christian women to wear anything other than brown or black stockings of the woolen variety that tended to crumple down concertina-like upon the feet. And surely it was a good thing, and is a good thing still. For that the Bible tells us, and our lovely apostles tell us, that it is our Christian duty, even in the matter of clothes, to see that we represent the Lord Jesus well as dignified princes and princesses in the household of God. But simply concentrating on outward things could lead us, could it not, uh, to miss the heart of the matter. I do remember, as I say, in my boyhood, when it was thought that any colored stockings that the ladies wore, different from brown or black, were evidence of high worldliness of heart. But then the aforesaid stockings went out of fashion, as you know, and all the ladies came to wear these, um, I don't know what you call them, see-through stockings or something, you'll see, and they became the norm. And so it went on for some years, until there came to our home church in my faraway town a bright young thing from the capital city of London. Whereas all the other ladies were wearing their side nice modern see-through fawn stockings, this young mother came with black stockings, I remember it well, and there was a minor uproar in the church. Fancy that daring to come here with black stockings. It was, as you see, because fashions had changed. But of course, it goes nowhere near the heart, does it, of the matter. To concentrate on the color of stockings. What then is worldliness? What is this world that we have to overcome? And what part does the great prince of this world play in warring against us and trying to overcome us by the world? We shall be helped tonight because of one of the ways that the New Testament writers, and particularly John, are at to compose their gospel. Throughout John's gospels, you g- gospel, you will have noticed that John frequently makes reference to some Old Testament story or other. For instance, in chapter six of his gospel, he tells of our Lord, who likens himself to the manner that Moses gave to the Israelites in the wilderness. There for you a deliberate and explicit allusion to the Old Testament story. But a careful reader will notice that not only does John explicitly refer to the Old Testament from time to time, but very frequently he refers to the Old Testament implicitly, without actually telling you what he is doing. John expects that you will know your Old Testaments, and of course you, all of you here tonight, know them very well. You will have no difficulty, therefore, in following some of John's allusions to a very famous story in the Old Testament. I refer, of course, to his allusions to the story that is told us in the book of Exodus. Allow me first, then, to remind you of some of its leading features, this story in the book of Exodus, and then I shall quote you its counterparts in the gospel by John. You'll remember then that in the book of Exodus, Israel were slaves in the country of Egypt, still busy building storehouses and treasure cities for the Egyptian people. They had over them a cruel prince by the name of Pharaoh, who did his best to keep them in subjection and lashed their backs as an earlier one had thrown their infants to the crocodiles of the Nile. When Israel found themselves in this grievous slavery, Exodus tells us they cried to God, and God sent Moses. I ask you to notice the verb. God sent Moses. Come now, he said to Moses, and I will send you to Pharaoh, and I'll send you to deliver my people from his grip. So while God was commissioning Moses to being sent to Israel and then to Pharaoh, Moses bethought himself of the difficulties that might arise. God, said he, when I come to your people and I tell them that God has sent them, sent me to them, and they say to me, and what is his name? Please, what name shall I say? And God said, this is the name that you will declare me by. I am that I am has sent me. The God of your fathers, of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, has sent me to you. Moses thought himself of another difficulty then, did he not, as you remember? Said he, but God, you see, suppose I come to these Israelites and that they still don't believe me. What then? I said, God, well, then I'll give you some signs to do, so that you may able to do them before these Israelites and bring the Israelites to faith both in you and then in me, so that by taking me at my word, they may find courage to walk out of Egypt. Signs then. And Moses forthwith preached to Israel, and Israel, for the time being at least, believed. Followed Moses as he conducted the Passover, put them through the Red Sea and out into the wilderness, where as they journeyed to their inheritance, they built a tabernacle in which to serve God. So much for the bare bones of a story that you have long since known and loved very well. Now I ask you carefully to notice the way that ancient story is paralleled in the gospel by John. Not now Israel in servitude in Egypt, but God's people originally in the world and having to be taken out of the world, so that, in the words of our Lord Jesus, they are no longer of the world, but I have chosen them out of the world. And just as Israel in Egypt were ruled by that sadistic prince, the ruler of Egypt, Pharaoh himself, so as we have been saying, this world from which Christians have to be taken is ruled by this exceedingly sinister prince, the prince of this world. Then if we ask, what is John's story? How does God propose to deliver people from the grip of the prince of this world? Then the answer is come in the words of our Lord Jesus. The Father has sent me. On an occasion, he said to the Pharisees around him, say you of him whom the Father has sanctified and sent into this world. It is a typical title of our Lord in this fourth gospel. He is the sent one of God. And then comes the interesting observation, does it not? The significance of it we shall later have to see, but let's observe the sheer fact at the moment. If it was a key element in Moses' delivery of Israel that he should be able to come and tell them and declare to them the name of God, so that when they said, this God that has sent you, Moses, what is his name? If I say it was a significant part of his tactics to be able to tell them the name of God, is it not more than interesting that describing his own tactics for the delivering of the people of God from the prince of this world, our Lord Jesus twice over says to his father, I have declared to them thy name and will declare it. The declaration of the name. And finally, for the moment, we notice that our Lord in this fourth gospel is like Moses in the book of Exodus, isn't he? When Moses said to God, and what if they don't believe me, says God, I'll give you some signs to do that they may convince the people. The fourth gospel is written, is it not, with these words summing up its purpose. Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book, but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing have life through his name. Our blessed Lord then, the sent one from God to declare the Father's name, the name of God, and to do those signs which will provoke his people's faith. Of course, there are thereafter explicit illusions, aren't there? Our Lord, as I say, is the one in John who gives the manner far superior to the manner that Moses gave. And in the crucifixion story, it's he who is the great Passover lamb, a bone of whom was not broken. So much then for the so- the the similarities that lie on the surface between these two books and these two famous stories. But now we must ask, how does it come to be? And what is the nature of these similarities? Are they, so to speak, just like a little decoration upon a birthday cake that's largely irrelevant to the contents of the cake. Well, what are these similarities? And the first explanation of them is this, that, uh, they are a kind of prototype, the one of the other. Satan didn't begin his operations, you know, when Jesus Christ our Lord was born. Satan has been at work in our planet almost from the very beginning, has he not? He's a past master and has ages of experience behind his tactics. He didn't begin to tempt people when we were born either. And the same enemy of God who had approached and tempted our blessed Lord Jesus, trying to do battle with him, ages before had had his schemes to thwart the purposes of God and of his people. And so it is in the book of Exodus, behind the hardness of heart of a Pharaoh, behind his sadistic cruelty, behind his attempt to genocide of the people of Israel, lay a deeper and more sinister mind attempting to blot out the purposes of God in history before they were well and truly started. And of course, when it came to God's great battle against Satan, that didn't begin either, did it, when Jesus Christ our Lord was born. Way back in the Garden of Eden, God began his counterattack against Satan's machinations to destroy the human race. What has happened is that the war has been going on many, many long centuries, and the events that clustered around the Exodus were but a prototype of the coming great battle. You'll say, what do you mean by prototype? Let me use a little analogy. When I was a boy, and you'll guess now how old I am, when we were at school as children and an airplane passed over, we ran out to see the thing, and very comical things they were. Biplanes generally held together with brown paper, wood, elastic bands, and a little spit. And nevertheless, you'll see they went, well, most of the time, more often than not, they crashed, but they did manage to fly now and again, these very primitive machines. Now, if you look at the great jumbo jet that speeds over your head at thirty five thousand feet, you'll scarce see the similarity, would you? So far higher is the jumbo jet than the old-fashioned biplane. And yet between them there is a similarity because the principles of aeronautics that were expressed in the biplane are nowadays expressed at a far higher level in the jumbo jet that flies over your head. It is no accident, of course, that the principal features of the story of Israel's deliverance from bondage bear a certain similarity with the great work of God through Jesus Christ our Lord to deliver mankind from the bondage to Satan. It's the same war, only by the time of our blessed Lord conducted at an infinitely higher level. And so those ancient stories come for- become for us what I like to call a thought model. In much scientific thinking, of course, it is a common thing, isn't it, to use models to think with. Physicist who is examining the insides of an atom uses mathematics so abstruse that the physicist himself can scarcely imagine and visualize the reality to which his sophisticated mathematics point. So they make models of the thing. They're quite aware that their model isn't exactly the same as reality, but they use the model to think with. Many times in the course of in nuclear physics investigations, the physicist has examined the model and said to himself, now, according to the model, there ought to be a particle here at this position inside the atom. And he's gone with that supposition to his machine, the cyclotron, and bombarded some thousands of atoms to see whether there is in reality something that corresponds to the thought model. And in the wisdom of God, God has in these Old Testament stories, these Old Testament prototypes, given us models to think with, thought models to analyze our spiritual situation, models to analyze what the New Testament terms mean, and among them, of course, is this term worldliness. My suggestion to you tonight is precisely this, that if we would be earnest in our battle against the prince of this world and the worldliness with which he tries to enslave us, then we shall find a very helpful tool here in the book of Exodus, with which to analyze the whole concept of worldliness. So let us think now, uh, in that spirit, of the situation that Israel found themselves in, in that far off day. They were slaves in Egypt. They hadn't always been slaves, of course. When they had come into Egypt, they came with a tradition in their family that God had appeared to their ancestor Abraham in the dim and distant past. They'd had a past when they came into Egypt. They were given to understand that their stay in Egypt would only be temporary. It would be long, some four hundred years, but it was never intended to be permanent. It was only to be temporary. When the time was up, they were told there was a future for them. Egypt was not their goal, was not their end. It was but a stepping stone to a glorious future that lay over the horizon, a God-given inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey. In that belief that they'd had a past, in that belief that they had a future, they came into Egypt pro tem in the purposes of God. They had been warned, however, that when they were in Egypt, attempts would be made to oppress them, and they were to be ready for it. And indeed, so it fell out. There arose pharaohs that knew not Joseph, and they began sorely to oppress the Israelites and set them to hard work under the taskmasters to build them their treasure city. In the end, God, listening to the cries of his people, sent Moses to deliver them. Moses was to go to Pharaoh and say, in the name of God, Pharaoh, says God, let my people go that they may worship me. For the God of their fathers has appeared to me, sent me to you with a command that you let my people go, that they may worship me. Excuse me, said Pharaoh, what did you say? Did you, did you say something about your God, Moses? Well, get it into your head, my good boy, said Pharaoh to Moses that bright morning in the palace. Get it well and truly into your head that I don't actually, as a matter of fact, I don't recognize your God. So there you are, Moses. Stop that drivel, if you don't mind. And what did you say? Your people have had a past? Some mumblings about Abraham and the Old Testament and all that kind of stuff. Oh, come off it, Moses, man, come off it. What have we been doing all these years educating you in the wisdom of the Egyptians? Did you still believe that dribbling nonsense? No one believes that nonsense around here these days. Old Testament. Abraham, my foot. We don't believe it. And as for there being a future for your nation, what did you say? A land flowing with milk and honey out there in the blue somewhere. Well, you can give up that idea. For I'm telling you now, said Pharaoh, that as far as you and your people, as you like to call them, are concerned, there was no past, there will be no future. Life for your people, settle it now, Moses. Life for your people is now here. There's nothing else to life for them. It's work, eat, sleep, sleep, eat, work, and a game of football now and again, and that's it. That's all life is. As for your God, we don't believe him. There, ladies and gentlemen, you have a classic expression, one aspect of what the Bible means by the world. And so has the prince of this world succeeded, hasn't he? But there are many people who hold the same philosophy to this very present. There are many that would tell us, would they not? That all our belief of God's promises to Abram are nonsense. I don't believe he was even a historical figure. Ah, but more serious than that. They just outright deny that there's a God out there at all. And as for there being a future for us beyond this world, they deny that too, do they not? According to the philosophies of multitudes of modern men and women, this world is all there is. Eat, sleep, work, play a bit, have a family and grow up, be successful or otherwise in business, die. That's all there is, they say. That is worldliness. You would wonder sometimes, wouldn't you, why the notion has become so popular? And yet you can understand it from one point of view, can you not? For multitudes of men and women, getting rid of the idea of a God out there is striking a blow for freedom. Now would you be free, they say. Delivers reward. When the Marxists came into Czechoslovakia with their atheist philosophy, many a workman roamed the streets of the Czechoslovakian towns and cried, now we shall decide when the sun shines. Now we shall decide when it rains. Many men thinking, think, do they not, that by getting rid of God, they have struck a tremendous blow for freedom. But let's examine this world, the world of the atheists and the humanists, the world of the no-goders. What is it? Is it true that behind the physical world, the physical universe, there's no God? And that all that we have and are comes as a result of blind forces working on mindless matter. That there never was any plan, never was any purpose. Sheer mindlessness of energy, of matter, working by chance, compound chance, if you like, but by chance, and producing us. And see also the consequence of it. Then there is no purpose in the future, is there? We like to think of purpose. We plan for improving our world. The scientists warn us that our world is doomed. Doesn't particularly matter which theory you, uh, uh, embrace. Whether you hold that the sun up in the sky will one day collapse in upon itself and then explode and become a great red giant, or if it does it that way, then in that very split second, Earth will evaporate and be no more. All man's advance and progress will have disappeared into meaninglessness. Or whether you hold it will come to, to its end some other way, as other scientists say, in the end it makes no logical difference, doesn't it, does it? If there be no God, there never was any purpose. There's no point, ultimately, in the whole thing. Ladies and gentlemen, not to be too, uh, dramatic, but it isn't only the world itself that is, um, doomed to perish, is it? One day, a little virus without Tub and Satany worth of sense in its head will enter your body and proceed to tear you to pieces. Your bodily strength, your mental energy, your aesthetic sense, it will destroy you. You will have the intelligence to see what it is doing, but you will neither have intelligence nor power enough to stop it doing it. And yours will be the anguish of being an intelligent, rational creature, being destroyed little by little by an irrational virus. Could you imagine any more horrible prison to be in? It's like one of those medieval dungeons, isn't it? Where, through the dimness and darkness of the windowless cell, the prisoner would get the impression one day that two of the walls were getting nearer, and painfully he would tread them out and find, yes, today the walls were that little bit nearer than they were yesterday. And when he repeated the experiment many times and found the walls were progressively getting nearer, he would come to the horrifying conclusion that the walls were meant to come nearer, and he could calculate what day it would be when they would crush the life out of his body. And there was nothing he could do to prevent it. That's some prison, isn't it? But if there's no God, then there is no purpose, no plan, no future. Human progress is a mockery. Human rationality will in the end be defeated by the forces of mindless, mindlessness. Oh, I say to my atheist friends, I say, come, come. Come and tell me. Come and speak. Here's a young lady, she's a mother of thirty three, she's two children. She's just been diagnosed as having terminal cancer. Let's come and talk to her, shall we? I shall go first. I shall say, my dear, I'm exceedingly sorry to hear the news. The doctors say there's no physical hope, but there is hope, my dear. You're not an accidental machine. You were made in the image of God, and though, like the rest of us, fallen, your creator loves you still. And there is salvation for you. And you may know God and be reconciled to your creator. And there is hope for you, for there will come a resurrection. One day you shall be conformed to the image of Christ, if you will, and share in the governing of the universe with your redeemer. I say, come on, atheist, now you talk to her. What will you tell her? And if he's honest, he'll say, well, I'm sorry. There's no hope. You might as well shoot your brains out. That's worldliness. The creation in people's mind that somehow freedom is in getting rid of God and being left with a world that's just the here and now. How would God deliver his people from it. First of all, he sent Moses with some signs to do, and the signs were first a package of them to do for Israel, and then a package to do for Pharaoh, do see. And the signs given for Moses to do for Israel were signs to impress upon them that the God who was now proposing to redeem them was actually the God of nature. He was no fairy story. He was no oddment of a legend that had survived. The God who proposed now to redeem them was in fact the God of nature and had nature under his control. So he said to Moses, Moses, if the people won't believe you, well, here's a sign or two, Moses. What's that in your hand, Moses? He said, a rod, Lord. He said, throw it down on the ground, would you? And the thing became a snake, and Moses was going to run from it. And God said, all right, Moses, now grab it by the tail, would you? And he grabbed it, and the thing became a rod again. Interesting story, isn't it? Did I hear you say you can't believe that? You're too much of a modern man to believe that. You would agree with me, wouldn't you, that nature could be lethal. The little pen in my pocket is made of atoms, isn't it? It would only require two or three of the atoms to be split. It would blow you into the middle of next year, would it not? What keeps the whole thing together? The answer the Bible gives to that is not that the laws of physics keep the whole thing together. The laws of physics keep nothing together. The laws of physics are but the description of what we see go on. The Bible says that it is God, indeed it is the Son of God, who holds the whole thing together in him the whole universe stands together. He keeps the atoms in their place and their nuclei that make life possible. Yes, this world has in part become unhinged. The Bible doesn't deny it. Man is a fallen creature, and with him the world, says the Bible, has been subjected to vanity. But listen to the sign that God gave Israel. This world, with all its potential lethal qualities, will be restored. God can restore it. The rod that was turned into a snake can be turned back into a rod and become a perfectly harmless thing. So it was with the next sign, wasn't it? God said, put your hand into your bosom, Moses. Moses put it in, and it came out, um, it came out white and leprous. Perilous, you say. But then we've learned enough about biology to know, haven't we? How finely balanced are the cells of the human body? Why, even within one cell, there are things called lysosomes, aren't there? Whose job it is, when the time comes, to destroy the cell. What keeps the cells of the human body together? And the answer is not biology. Biology doesn't keep anything together. Biology is but a description of how it keeps together. The thing that keeps it together, the Bible says, is God holds all things together. It is not that he originally made the universe and has gone away and left it to its own devices. In Christ was the whole thing made, and in him it stands together. He keeps it so. True nature has been allowed to decay, has it not? Ever since man fell, nature has been subjected to frustration. Death and disease have come in, and sooner or later our bodies show the result of nature being allowed by God to go to decay. Won't last forever. God is saying to Moses, I am the God of creation, and I am the God who can restore it. Put your hand back into your bosom, Moses, and he put it back, and it came out clean. Ah, this is a wonderful gospel. And we need to preach it, do we not? Our gospel story is not little, some little fairy story made up to comfort children when they go to bed in the dark. The God of redemption is the God of creation. He is the one that keeps the mighty universe together. He is the one that ultimately keeps our very bodies together. Though nature since the fall has been lo- allowed to go to decay, hear the good news of the New Testament. There is coming a time of the restoration of all things that the prophets have ever spoken. The resurrection of our blessed Lord Jesus is the first fruits of that coming glorious restoration. This very planet has a future. Nature has a future. Nature shall be delivered from its bondage to corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. But let Israel and let Pharaoh know that men and women will not believe. The end is death, unqualified death. If they won't believe the two signs, said God to Moses, then come, put your rod in the river and take up a little water and sprinkle it on the land. And he did so, and the thing became blood. Nature blighted. Dying. Israel believed. That was more than Pharaoh did. When Moses went into Pharaoh with his sign. All right, said Moses, Pharaoh, you got a miracle to do, Moses? Well, carry on, do a miracle, my boy. So Moses threw down his rod, and it became a serpent. Oh, come, come, said Pharaoh to Moses. You call it a miracle, my boy? You know, my scientists could reproduce that in the laboratory. And he pressed the bell, and in came the white-coated magicians, you'll see. And he said, uh, gentlemen, this Moses here thinks he's done a miracle. Just show him, can you, that we can reproduce this, uh, miracle, supposedly. We can reproduce that in our laboratories. And they threw down their rod, and the whole thing became a serpent. There was, said Pharaoh, you have to do better than that, Moses, my boy, to have convinced me of a God who can do miracles. Interesting thing was, wasn't it, that Moses' serpent went and gobbled up the other serpents. If you're in the business of destroying nature, well, God is better at it than Pharaoh's magicians, I warn you. God did a number of signs, did he not? And the magicians did them again. They made the river turn to blood. They produced a plague of frogs. But so what's clever about that? We've learned too that we can pollute the rivers and kill nature, can't we? We've learned we can upset the balance of nature and produce plagues of one kind of spider or animal or the other by unwisely killing one breed and allowing their predators to multiply. Modern science has taught us the awesome balance of nature. Of course, men can do some things to destroy nature. What does that prove? That there's no God? I could destroy a computer with my axe. That wouldn't prove that there was nobody sophisticated enough to make the computer in the first place, would eat. There came a point when even Pharaoh's magicians couldn't do what Moses did. And the plagues multiplied till life on earth became almost impossible for Pharaoh. But he hardened his heart, and in the end God destroyed him. The thing is not only history, but it is prophecy, isn't it? And prototype. The last book of the New Testament warns us that there will come days when God will do again on earth what he did in Pharaoh's day. God didn't judge Pharaoh at once by slaying his firstborn at once. God began to put his finger into nature and dislocate nature as a warning to Pharaoh and as appeal to Pharaoh to repent. And when Pharaoh wouldn't repent, God destroyed him. The book of the Revelation says, there will come plagues like came on Egypt, but a thousand times worse and more. When one day God rises up, and the blessed Lord Jesus takes the scroll and unleashes its seals, and thereby unleashes the forces of men and nature that will begin to destroy Earth. As God's final appeal, that there is a God in heaven. Once more, says God, I will shake this planet. By shaking it, men and women might be brought to acknowledge their creator and repent and be saved. God's demonstration in nature that he is the God of our planet. There is a creator. The world is still his. There was more to the deliverance than that, wasn't it? We come to the last tactic, the declaration of the name of God. Go to my people, says God, and if they ask you my name, say, I am the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He's the God of our past. We apply the lesson to ourselves. Our blessed Lord Jesus, when he came to declare the name of God, said thus. Did you hear him in he- i- i- to his disciples? Now, gentlemen, he said, have you got it? Do you know what I'm at, what I'm about, and who I am? Now get this straight, if you get nothing else. I have come out from the Father. There is a world beyond. There is a God beyond. And I have come into this world from a world beyond. Again, I leave this world, and I go to the Father. This world is not a self-contained flat inside of which men and women may get and lock the door and feel they are secure against Almighty God. Blessed Lord has come in, and he's gone out. More than that. He said to his father before he left, Father, glorify thou me with the glory I had with thee before the world was. Oh, there is a past behind our planet. Our planet is a moderately young concern, you know, so is human life on it, but there has been an eternal past. And I preach you the gospel again tonight in these terms. The Bible says of every true believer, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. You're no mere accident of nature, are you? You came into this world with an eternity of planning behind you. That's you. Made to be a creature for a little while on planet Earth, that you might have the chance of meeting God's eternal incarnate Son and receiving him, be joined to him. Joined to the very Son of God, who came with infinite of years of planning behind you. And go and tell my people, says God, that I'm the God of their future. I have come down to bring them out of Egypt and to lead them to an inheritance flowing with milk and honey. There is a future for them. And we apply the analogy to ourselves. Marvelous, isn't it? Chosen in Christ before the very foundation of the world. And long before you came here, God had his eyes on the remote future, seated with Christ in the heavenlies. For there is an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. That is God's gospel. Go and tell them, says God, I'm not merely the God of their past and the God of their future. I am the God of the eternal present. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That is a very significant statement, as our Lord pointed out, did he not? You'll say God doesn't describe himself of terms, in terms of people that once were and have ceased to be. If you ask Queen Elizabeth, then perhaps you wouldn't. But if you ask Queen Elizabeth, you'll see who she is, she wouldn't say, I am the Empress of India, would she? Because she isn't anymore. And she wouldn't say, well, I was the emperor- empress of India, because she isn't anymore. When God said, I am the God of Abram, it carried tremendous implication, didn't it? It implied that Abram still existed. For God doesn't describe himself in terms of people that once existed and have deceased and gone and disappeared forever. You'll see, if you came to me tonight and said, you're English, I'd say yes. You'll say, well, tell me, uh, uh, do you know Churchill? I said, you mean Winston Churchill? You say, yes, Winston Churchill. I said, sorry, Winston Churchill's been dead many years, you know. No, I don't, I, of course I don't know him, he's dead. I didn't even know him when he was alive anyway. No. Yes. But if you went to God and you said, God, tell me, did you know Abram? God would rebuke you and say, what do you mean, did I know Abram? I know him now. He's there, look, there's Abram. He lives as far as I'm concerned. For all live to God. And the marvelous thing is this, that if you come to know God, he knows you. He's your God. And because he knows you, and God is eternal, you are eternal. Because he's your God, and he knows you and will never let you go. God of my past, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. God of my future, I shall reign with Christ when this planet has long ceased to be. God of my eternal present. He is Abram's God. He is my God. This is the truth about this world. For those who believe it, it breaks the lie of the prince of this world and sets us free. What to do then? Those who believe Moses kept the Passover, gird their loins, took their staff in their hand, put their shoes on their feet, and walked out free to journey to their great inheritance. And says Peter, likewise to us, they who have discovered God, or rather have been discovered by God. Celebrate the great Passover lamb by whom they were redeemed. And then, girding up the loins of their mind and taking their spiritual staff into their hand and their shoes on their foot, their whole philosophy of life is revolutionized. Now life doesn't become an end in itself. Now this world becomes a stepping stone, a pilgrimage to that great, great destiny that lies beyond. So may the Lord tonight draw near again and tell us of his love, tell us what is the truth about us, the truth about our world, and what lies beyond it, and set us on our way the more resolutely rejoicing that we have been delivered from the prince of this world, translated into the kingdom of his son, and are bound by his grace on our road towards heaven and our eternal home and destiny.