In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of allowing Jesus Christ to be the source of victory in the Christian life. He encourages listeners to rest in faith and let Christ be Himself in their redeemed humanity. The speaker also highlights the significance of thanking God not only for Christ's death but also for His life. The sermon concludes with a reference to the concept of a grain of wheat falling to the ground and dying, symbolizing the reproduction of life in the ear of corn, illustrating the transformation that occurs when one recognizes their guilt as a sinner and is condemned by the law.

I'd like to say at my word of appreciation to the choir for their faithful attendance night by night. We appreciate their being here and for the message they bring to us in song. I appreciate, too, the faithful way in which so many of you have been coming night by night. It makes it so very much easier to be able to speak to the same folk consecutively. Thus, we are confronted with the accumulative evidence of the word of God, and not just a text here or a passage there, but the whole accumulative evidence leading us relentlessly to that relationship to the Lord Jesus that enables him to implement in us and through us that purpose for which God first created us and he has redeemed us. Remind you that the midday meetings are of a consecutive nature, too, and it's been lovely to see the folk coming day by day and enabling us to draw the wonderful conclusions to which the Holy Spirit brings us in his word. Remember the purpose of these meetings, not just to entertain, even in a healthy fashion, not just to pack our heads with new facts, but that we may see the sheer logic of it and be compelled to yield that spiritual obedience from the heart that releases divine action in terms of our redeemed humanity. As God enables me, it's my purpose, not hurriedly but thoroughly, to lay open first principles—principles that I trust will never depart from me. It may well be that if you've never discovered the principles that we are examining this week, that it will be calculated completely to revolutionize your Christian life. And I believe sincerely with all my heart, because it always happens, that there are some for whom life will never be the same again from this week—it's a fact. It may well be that some of you who have been coming so faithfully haven't quite got the point yet, it hasn't sort of clicked over, well, keep at it, and one day you'll come up with a smile, and you'll be so glad. We're going to turn tonight to the twelfth chapter of John's Gospel. John's Gospel, chapter twelve, verse twenty-three. And Jesus answered him, saying, The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. The hour is come. Was there a particular hour in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ that was charged with greater significance than any other? Wasn't his whole life, in the thirty-three years that he was man on earth, charged with divine significance? Yes, of course, there was never one moment in the life of the Lord Jesus that was not charged with deliberate, purposeful significance. And yet there was an hour, the hour, without which he would have been born to live in vain. I don't mean that he wouldn't have returned to his Father. He would have done so, for he had the right at any given moment, throughout the whole of those thirty-three years, to return to his Father. He would have shared in the eternal ages to come the glory that he had with the Father before ever the world was, for he had the right to it. He was God. He need never have become man. But apart from this, the hour, he would have been born to live in vain. It is an hour which is referred to on several occasions in this Gospel. Chapter 7, verse 30. John 7 and verse 30. Then they sought to take him, but no man laid hands on him because his hour was not yet come. Chapter 8 and verse 20. These words speak Jesus in the treasury as he taught in the temple, and no man laid hands on him for his hour was not yet come. Chapter 13, verse 1. Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. Chapter 17, verse 1. These words speak Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour is come. Glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee. Yes, this was the hour for which he was born and for which he lived, and without which he would have been born to live in vain. For the Lord Jesus says, in the 24th verse of the 12th chapter, the hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. Reading from the Amplified New Testament, Jesus answered them, the time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified and exalted. I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, I want you to listen to these words very carefully, it remains, I want you to notice there, it remains, just one grain, never becomes more, but lives, I want you to notice there, but lives, goes on living by itself, alone. It remains and lives by itself, never becomes more, alone. And that would have been the result had the Lord Jesus been born into this world miraculously conceived of the Holy Spirit and fashioned in the womb of Mary to live on earth in sinless perfection for thirty-three years, for anything other than this hour. He would have remained and he would have lived by himself, alone, forever. To be eternally lonely, you know, the significance of this hour for the Lord Jesus involves the whole redemptive purpose of God. And as there was an hour for him, so there is an hour for you. What would the Lord Jesus Christ have accomplished had it not been for this hour in which he died and rose again from the dead? Supposing he had only been man in all his sinlessness, what would have happened? Well, he would have gone straight to heaven. There's only one thing that keeps man from heaven, only one thing that keeps man from the presence of a holy God, and that is sin. And the Lord Jesus, even had he only been man, never sinned. Even if he had never been God, only man, and he was both God and man, but supposing he had never been God but only man, would he have had the right to go to heaven? Of course. The Father looked down from heaven and said, this is my beloved son, in him I am well pleased. We are told that God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin. God laid our trespasses upon the one in whom there was no stain. He suffered the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God. And even had he never been God and only been man, the Lord Jesus at any given time would have stepped straight from earth into heaven on his own right. You see, if you turn with me to the tenth chapter of the epistle to the Romans, we read this. Romans 10, verse 4, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. That simply means this, that the Lord Jesus, in his sinless person as man on earth, was the last word in righteousness. Every demand the law could ever make upon him in righteousness was completely and fully consummated in his person. There wasn't any degree of righteousness that the law demands on man on earth that was not fulfilled by Jesus Christ in his perfect sinless humanity. In other words, the righteousness demanded by the law and the life that he lived are one and the same thing. If you want to know the quality of righteousness that the law demands of man, look at Jesus Christ and you will see that righteousness that the law demands. And that is why even as man, Jesus Christ would have had the right to go straight into his Father's presence, for his life was the righteousness that the law demands. What, therefore, could the life of Jesus Christ have done for you 1,900 years ago on earth apart from this, his hour? What does the Bible teach you that the law can do for you? Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3, verse 19. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law. In other words, supposing there were a man or a woman or a boy or a girl here tonight who was prepared to look up into God's face and say, God, I've heard a preacher talking about conversion and the need for repentance. I've heard a preacher talking about being redeemed in the blood of Christ. I've heard a preacher talking about the vicarious atoning sacrifices of your Son upon the cross, that there is cleansing and forgiveness on repentance and faith. Well, God, I want you to know this. I don't need your Son. I don't need redemption. I don't need cleansing from my sin. I want you to know this, that I claim the right to be judged by the law. Because I consider that apart from anything that your Son may have done upon the cross, I am perfectly adequate to stand in my own right in your presence and claim entrance into your kingdom. By virtue not of what your Son has done for me, but by virtue of what I am. I demand to be judged by the law. Because I consider that if I were to put my life contrary to your law, I'd make a pretty good showing. I wonder if there's somebody like that here. Well, I want you to know this. If that's your claim, your claim will be allowed. Your claim will be allowed. If you wish to be judged by the law, you may be judged by the law. If you demand in God's presence that you be judged on your own merits, God will accede to your request, and you will be judged by the law. You have the right to opt, either to be redeemed by the atoning sacrifice of Christ and be accounted a forgiven sinner for Jesus' sake, or alternatively, to stand on your own two feet in your own righteousness and seek to vindicate your own adequacy for God's presence and for God's heaven, according to the demands that the law makes upon you. The absolute demand of God's absolute righteousness, you have the right to opt. That's what conversion involves. A man who is truly, genuinely converted is one who repudiates forever the right to opt trial by law and claims to be redeemed by grace. That's what conversion involves. So what thinks whoever the law saith? It saith to them who are under the law, who have opted to be judged by the law on the basis of their own merits. What will the result be? Read on, verse 19, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Verse 20, therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in God's sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. If you opt to get to heaven on your own merits, God says, all right, I accede to your request, just stand please alongside my law and we'll measure you up. And what happens when your life is measured up by the law of God? Your mouth is stopped, and you are proved guilty before God. That will be the result. You'll be exposed for what you are, a guilty sinner who has fallen short of the glory of God, and you will be condemned. Because the law can only do one thing, and that's teach you that you're a sinner. Just like a plumber, I might be an amateur bricklayer, and my hobby is building walls in my back garden, and I'm pretty proud of my achievement. I invite my friends to see my lovely walls. I always give them a good tea first, and I find that they're most enthusiastic, depending on the nature of the tea. But I'm pretty flattered. I consider that I'm pretty good, pretty cute. But, to be quite frank, I'm not altogether satisfied with the flattery that I have earned from my near neighbors and my relatives and friends. I know a friend of mine who's a master bricklayer, and I want him to come and give his verdict, because what he says goes. And I don't doubt for one moment that he's going to confirm my own estimate and my own endeavors. And so I invite him in to tea, give him especially good tea. And I take him out into my garden, and I show him around. I say, this is my latest. Did it all myself. Hmm. Yes, he said, I can see that. I said, what do you mean, getting rather hot around the collar? Well, he says, it isn't bad for an amateur. The only thing is that it isn't straight. I said, I beg your pardon. It is straight. I built it. He says, I know you built it. That's why it isn't straight. And I begin to get all fussed and bothered. Most indignant. This is entirely unfair. So he says, now don't get all ruffled. Just a minute. I'm not going to argue with you. Just a minute. And he goes into the house, and out of his overcoat pocket, he brings a plumb line. And he puts it against my wall. The plumb line that cannot lie. And it's two and a half inches out at the bottom. And he stops my mouth, and he proves me guilty. I want you to notice that the law doesn't put my wall straight. It just teaches me that it's crooked. And that's all the law can ever do for you. It'll never put your life straight. It'll simply expose you for what you are. A crook. I mean crooked. That's what the life of Christ exposed through a redeemed sinner is intended to do. Exposed to the world the true nature of affairs. Did you ever notice that? Philippians chapter two. When you allow God to work in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure, your life will convict the world of sin. So that in Philippians, in chapter two, you are to be blameless and harmless, verse fifteen, the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation. In other words, you are to be harmless and blameless in the sight of God without rebuke in the midst of a nation of crooks and a nation of perverts. A crooked nation and perverted nation. A nation of crooks and a nation of perverts. Among whom you shine as light in the world. I say, does your life as a Christian show up the godlessness and sinfulness of the world around you? I don't mean are you always standing on a soapbox and thumping your Bible and telling people they're going to hell. I don't mean that. I mean by the unconscious expression of what Christ is in terms of your redeemed humanity. Without you saying a word and without you giving a thought to the situation, instinctively, automatically, manifestly, what Christ is displayed through you stops the mouths of the guilty and proves them sinners. Well, now that's all the law can do. Look in Galatians, chapter 3. Notice first of all that the law was added 430 years after God to Abraham gave the promise of grace. May I just interrupt one moment? There are one or two seats in the front. I'd be so happy if you'd come and sit on them. That's lovely. Thank you. We're very glad to see you. If there are others, please occupy the seats. It'll be more comfortable for you. On the end, folk will move in, I'm sure, to the center. Tomorrow night, folk will eat less supper and there'll be more room for the additional bodies. That's lovely. It's always a good thing to have to squeeze folk in. That's fine. Notice this. Verse 17. Galatians 3. Better read verse 16 to get the true context. To Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not unto seeds, plural, as of many, a nation, a national characteristic, but as one, singular, to thy seed, which is Christ. This was God's promise to Abraham. Not the promise of a nation, but the promise of a person, Christ. This, I say, that the covenant, God's promise to Abraham, that salvation would come through an individual that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was 430 years after, cannot disavow that it should make the promise of none effect. In other words, 430 years after, God promised Abraham that in his seed, singular, Jesus Christ, salvation would be made possible for a guilty, sinful world, God didn't change his mind. And suddenly say, well, when I made that arrangement with Abraham, I wasn't thinking. I've changed my mind about that and I'm going to have salvation another way now. Oh no, God doesn't change his mind like that. We're told by James and the 17th verse of his first chapter, that in him, the father of lights, there is no variableness, neither any shadow of turning. He never changes his theology. He leaves that to the theologians. God never does. And so the law coming 430 years after, the promise of salvation through Jesus Christ, did not render that promise null and void. The legitimate question you may therefore ask is the one that is asked here, verse 19. Wherefore then serveth the law? Why did God give a law 430 years after promising salvation through a person, Jesus Christ? Well, the answer is very simple. To teach people that they need Jesus Christ. To teach people that they're sinners. To put the palm line against their crooked lives and stop their mouths and prove them guilty, so that they will stop being self-righteous. Stop trying to vindicate their own righteousness. Recognize that they fall short in self-righteousness from God-righteousness. And then they will be ready to receive a savior who came to save sinners. That's why you will read, verse 24 of the same third chapter of the epistle to the Galatians, the law was our schoolmaster. What's a schoolmaster for? Well, you may never believe it. The primary intention, the original intention, is that they should teach somebody something. They never succeeded too well while I was at school, but that's the object of the exercise. The law was our schoolmaster to teach us something. To teach us what? That we were guilty sinners whose mouths had been stopped in the face of a holy God who needed desperately a savior. Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, promised by God to Abraham, 430 years before ever he introduced the law, that we might be justified by faith. In whom? In him to whom the law brings us. Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. After the faith has come, verse 25, after you've learned your lesson, after you've admitted that you're a guilty sinner, after you've repented toward God and put your faith in Jesus Christ, we're no longer under a schoolmaster. We've left school. We've learned our lesson. And in true repentance toward God, we receive Christ as Redeemer. You are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus and not by keeping the law. Now, that's all abundantly plain, isn't it? Now, why have I labored to tell you this? Well, I trust that it may have swept the cobwebs out of some folks' ideas concerning how to be saved. It may be that you're not converted. It may be that you have been taught that you get to heaven by trying to keep the law. Well, I trust that this once and for all and forever has banished that thought from your mind because the law can only be your schoolmaster to teach you that you're lost, to teach you that you're cut off from God, to teach you that you were born in sin, to teach you that you were born in this world uninhabited by God and inhabited only by sin, guilty, lost and dead, and totally, utterly unfit for heaven. Unless grace, unless grace makes it possible for a holy God to receive you without doing violence to his own righteousness. G-R-A-C-E, grace. God's riches at Christ's expense. That's grace. God's riches, forgiveness, a clean heart, a place in heaven, peace with God at Christ's expense. Now that's the law. And all the law can do is condemn you, prove you guilty. But half a minute, we have seen that the life of Jesus Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. That his life is all that the law demands. But if the law can only condemn you and the life of Christ fulfills that law, what can the life of Christ do but condemn you? My dear Christian friend, my dear unconverted friend, if you place your life alongside the law, what does the law do for you? Proves you guilty, like the plumb line and the crooked wall. If you place your life alongside the law, what does the law do for you? Proves you guilty, like the plumb line and the crooked wall. Put your life alongside the life of Jesus Christ that fulfills that law, the plumb line. What does his life do for you? condemns you, proves you guilty. So whether it be the law or whether it be the life of Jesus Christ, both condemn you. That's why if anybody gets up into a pulpit and tells you that in order to be a Christian all you've got to do is gaze at the life of Jesus Christ and conform your conduct to his, he deceives you, he's a liar. He may be very sincere, but he's an emissary of hell. Because it would be as futile for you to try to live the kind of life that Christ lived as it would be for you to try to fulfill the law and the energy of the flesh. For the word of God tells us in Romans chapter 8 and verse 3, what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh. God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and forcing condemned sin in the flesh. What the law could not do through the weakness of the flesh. And I'll tell you this, that what the law cannot do through the weakness of your flesh, that is to say, get you to heaven fit for heaven. What the law cannot do through the weakness of the flesh, nor can the life of Jesus Christ that he lived 1,900 years ago do for you, because of the weakness of the flesh. For you can no more live the life that he lived then in your own self-energy, than you can fulfill the law in your own self-energy. The weakness of the flesh disqualifies you from getting to heaven through the law, and the weakness of the flesh disqualifies you from getting to heaven by imitating Christ. Because the flesh is the sin principle of satanic origin, which you are told in the same epistle of Paul to the Romans chapter 8, this satanic principle is at enmity with God. It is not subject to the law of God. Verse 7, neither indeed can it. You are born into this world destitute of divine life, uninhabited by God, spiritually dead. Ephesians 4.18, alienated from the life of God, occupied only by the wrong man, the sin principle of satanic origin. And this sin principle within you can no more imitate the life of Christ than it can fulfill the demands of the law. And that is why if Jesus Christ had been born only to live 33 years on earth in perfection, then go straight to heaven without a cross, he would have been born to live in vain. He would have gone back to heaven to remain and to live alone, just one grain forever. For his life, no more than the law, can never get you there. Now that's sheologic. So what happened? We enunciated last night as we closed this simple principle. The life he lived, a sinless, spotless life, qualified him for the death he died. That the death he died, in its atoning, vicarious, substitutionary significance, is one sacrifice for sin's horror. That the death he died might qualify you to become the recipients by the restoration to you of the Holy Spirit of the life he lived. His atoning death upon the cross was that which satisfied the demands of God that makes it possible for him to receive you back as a forgiven sinner and thereby as a forgiven sinner to restore to you the Holy Spirit that re-imparts to your redeemed humanity the divine content so that the life he lived then condemns you but the life that he lives now in you saves you. But unless somehow the life he lived then can come to be lived in you by him, he was born to live in death. So we may understand that whatever it was that happened in this the hour, it was designed in God's economy to make it possible for him to live today in you the life that he lived then for you. Is that clear? Whatever he did in the cross, it was designed to make it possible for him, the same Jesus Christ, to live today in you the life that once he then lived for you. And if that can't be achieved, then you and I are of all men most miserable because we shall never in the energy of the flesh either satisfy the law or imitate his life. By both we shall be condemned, announced, taught, proved guilty and eternally lost. But this is the genius of the cross. The life he lived then condemns you. The life that he lives now in you saves you. How did it happen? Well, first of all, it is an absolute imperative that the life he lived then should be sinless, in point of fact, fully fulfill the final demands of the law in righteousness. That could only be possible, and may I reemphasize this tonight, that could only be possible by virtue of Christ's miraculous birth. For ever since Adam fell into sin, man was born in Adam's image and not in God's image. Those of you who were with me midday a couple of days ago will forgive if I reiterate the statement made in the fifth chapter of the book of Genesis, verse one. This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man in the likeness of God made he him, singular. Created in the likeness of God in his innocency. But Adam fell into sin. He repudiated his love to war. He repudiated his dependence on. He forfeited the divine presence. The Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the human spirit, and the human soul was invaded by the satanic agency called the flesh. And from that moment on, we are told, verse three of Genesis five, Adam lived 130 years and begat a son in his own likeness, not in the likeness of God. After his Adam's image, not after God's image. Ever since Adam fell into sin, who was created in God's image, all mankind was born of natural birth of a corruptible seed in his image. And inherited a fallen nature, the sin principle that had invaded the human soul, prostituting the human personality, mind, emotion, and will to his own wicked ends. So that instead of God being what God is in terms of man's behavior, righteousness, Satan became what he is in terms of man's behavior, sinfulness. And he that committeth sin is at redemption, springing from the root and producing the inevitable fruit, the works of the flesh. That which coming from within, Jesus said, defiles a man. The dirty water from the dirty well. But what about Jesus Christ? If the Lord Jesus Christ had been born physically, naturally, just as you and I were born, he too would have inherited, as you and I inherit, the same fallen nature. And you do not become a sinner because you have committed sins. From your earliest age you commit sins because you were born a sinner. In sin did my mother conceive me. You didn't even have to be taught to commit sin. From the earliest days before you could ever say boo to a goose, you were stamping your foot through your cot. I'm sorry. Some doors open. Yes, certainly. We'll have those open again. It's always good to have a little cool air together with the hot air. Maybe there are none of the windows open. That's the reason. Hot air always rises. So if one or two of you who are by the windows would open those. It is very warm. Thank you for mentioning. Thank you very much. I've got three boys at home. And as I've mentioned, they're very wonderful boys. They have a wonderful start. They're like their mother. I never had to teach them to be selfish. I've had to teach them to be unselfish. I never had to teach them to be disobedient. We've been at great pains to teach them to be obedient. And you could go all down the line. And we don't have to be taught to sin. We are egocentric, self-centered from the start. And a baby before it can ever talk is the only person that counts so far as that baby's concerned. And everybody has got to be at his demands. And if he wants to pull the tablecloth off with all the best china, he has the right to do so. And if you prevent him, he'll scream until the cows come home. Because he is basically egocentric. There is incarnate in his baby form the basic lie that man is man by virtue of what man is and not by virtue of what God is in man and he's his own king in his own realm. And most of us get disobedient and get irritated and get frustrated simply because we can't have our own will. I have the right to please myself. And if Jesus Christ had been born as you and I were born, there would have been inherent in him by his natural birth of a corrupt seed the same capacity to sin. And he would have sinned and gone on sinning. He could and he would have sinned by virtue of what he was by his natural birth. But whereas you and I as the fallen seed of the fallen Adam are born to this world uninhabited by God, or inhabited only by sin, whether you like it or not, it's true, the Lord Jesus born miraculously of the Holy Spirit fastened in the womb of Mary was born utterly uninhabited by sin but only inhabited by God. For the Father gave to him the Holy Spirit without measure. For thirty-three years on earth he was filled with the Holy Ghost. His whole sinless humanity, his whole perfect personality, completely, unquestioningly, every moment of every hour of every day of every year given over to the Father. This was the nature of his sinless perfect humanity. And it was only possible by virtue of the virgin birth because this holy thing that shall be born of thee, born of the Holy Ghost, shall be the Son of God. So when the Lord Jesus came to this world, he came without sin. So that as I reminded you yesterday, John 14, verse 13, he could say, the prince of this world is come, the devil. He's got his kingdom in all your souls but he hath nothing in me. He doesn't have one iota of territory within my soul. Because whereas you were born the fallen seed of the fallen Adam, uninhabited by God but inhabited by the devil, I was born inhabited only by God and uninhabited by the devil. He hath nothing in me. And for thirty-three years he lived in sinlessness until the hour for which he was born and for which he lived. The hour in which your sinfulness and mine was added to his sinlessness. That's what happened on the cross. God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin. 2 Corinthians 5.21 God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin. In that his hour, all your guilt, all your shame, all mine was added to him. And that was only possible by virtue of his sinlessness. For our sinfulness could never have been added to his sinfulness. He could only have died for his own sins. Our sinfulness could only be added to his sinlessness. And by virtue of that fact he could die and make one sacrifice for sins forever. An atoning sacrifice. A vicarious substitutionary offering. This was the difference, of course, between the picture of the Old Testament and the substance in the New Testament. Hebrews 9.24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands which are the figures of the true. Speaking of the high priest who once went into the holy of holies every year to make a sacrifice for the people. But alternatively, into heaven itself. Not entered into the holy places made with hands behind the curtains, the holy of holies. But into heaven itself. Now to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer himself often as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others. For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world. But now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of men. And unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation for the law. Having a shadow only of good things to come. And not the very image of the things can never with those Old Testament sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. They were only foreshadowings, types. Speaking of the one who should come to implement the promise that God gave to Abraham that in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed. Verse 3, in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. But this man, verse 12, but this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever sat down on the right hand of God. Wherefore, verse 5, when he cometh into the world he saith Sacrifice nothing thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. You have fashioned for me a body. Sinless me. Without one iota of territory available to the devil. A body you prepared for me. And I stepped out of eternity into time to be clothed with that little baby body that you fashioned for me. And then said I, verse 7, Lo, I come in the volume of the book it is written of me. The Old Testament Scriptures. To do thy will, O God. I've come to inhabit this tiny baby body fashioned for me by God to implement the promise made by God to Abraham. But this man, this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever. Notice the difference between verse 11 and verse 12. Every human priest in the Old Testament foreshadowing the coming of Christ standeth daily ministering offering oftentimes the same sacrifices listen, which can never take away sins. But this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, listen, forever. Verse 11, can never. Verse 12, forever. That's the difference between the Old Testament, foreshadowed. New Testament, the substance. Can never, but now in Christ, forever. From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. And this is the peculiar school of thought that derives from the Parkside Baptist Church. Is that what it says? What does verse 15 say? Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to it. This is God's own doctrine. This is the teaching of God, the Holy Ghost, concerning his son. God never changes his mind. I don't care how much you may repudiate what I say if it emanates from me, but in Christ's name, in God's name for your own eternity's sake don't repudiate what God the Holy Spirit says. You can blaspheme Jesus Christ and find forgiveness but you will never find forgiveness if you blaspheme the Holy Ghost. For it is his office to bring you to the truth that sets men free. One sacrifice for sin forever. So on the cross there was added to his sinlessness your and my sinfulness. And in his matchless person the judgment of God upon guilty unholy men was executed in the person of another. He took you for what you are in the flesh destitute of God to the place of execution where the execution was carried out and you in his person were buried. Now that's what happens when you're converted. Now you may not have understood fully what it was that was intended in God's economy to happen when you were converted. That is what happens. When Adam believed the devil's lie he acted on this philosophy. And he gave welcome to a usurper who substituted himself in the place of God's sovereignty, the flesh. Conversion means this that you repudiate once and for all the basic lie that Adam believed you recognize the flesh to be what it is the emissary of hell, the substitute of Satan the energy of the flesh you recognize it to be what it is and you consent to God's verdict upon it and by faith you add it to Christ and allow God to execute it in his person. That's conversion. Do you realize that? When you're truly converted in repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus you are consenting to your death warrant. You are consenting to the fact that God is to execute judgment upon sin. The usurper within you that uses your body as an instrument for unrighteousness for he that commits sin is of the devil. And that's what Jesus Christ did upon the cross. He destroyed him that had the power of death, even the devil who had kept bondage through all their lifetime through fear of death. Those who were subject to his tyrannical rule the demon spirit who now works in the children of disobedience. Now if you have never been converted it means that you still subscribe to the creed of Adam. You still subscribe to the creed of the damned. You still believe in the devil's theology. Lose God, lose nothing. If a man, a woman, a boy or a girl has never been converted you take sides with the fallen animal. You say the devil's right and Adam's right. God's wrong and I'm on the right side. I don't need to be converted. And you retain in his usurped position of authority within your human personality the pledge. But to be converted is to repent toward God and put faith in Jesus Christ as the one who took the usurper the wrong man at the consul into the place of death and executed him. And listen, God commandeth all everywhere to be converted that their sins might be blotted out. We shall discover of course later that the inevitable conclusion to be drawn from true conversion in that you pass a vote of no confidence in the flesh consent to God's execution of sin in the person of Christ of the cross it will involve stepping out into a new maintained unrelenting attitude of dependence upon the one who in the person of the Holy Spirit comes to occupy the place vacated by the sin that has been executed in Christ of the cross. So you give yourself to Christ in true conversion understanding that God takes you in him to the cross executes you and buries you. All right, what's left? A human personality available now once more for God. To those of you who were at the lunch hour meetings Marlon, to whom Ruth was married in all his sickliness as the son of the fallen Elimelech dead. Now she's available. For what? To be married to another Boaz, the mighty man of worth. So, so far as the law is concerned God reckons that you and I are at liberty now to be married to another even to the Lord Jesus who was risen from the dead because that old wicked fallen nature to which we are married by our natural corrupt birth was taken to the place of execution and executed. Now this is the whole significance of the cross. So that when you give yourself to Christ he takes you to the place of death and buries you and the one who out of the place of death rose again on that third day gives himself to you by the Holy Spirit that he may live today in you and through you the life that he lived then for you. That's the gospel. That's why 1 Thessalonians 5.24 says this Faithful is he that calleth you who will also do it. Simple, isn't it? Faithful is he that calleth you who will also do it. Now when God tells you that in the energy of the flesh it's utterly impossible for you to fulfill the law what the law could not do through the weakness of the flesh when God tells you plainly, categorically without an element of doubt that the law can only condemn you is it ever at all likely that God will ever call you in the energy of the flesh to live a holy life? Of course not! If God tells you again and again and again in his word that your flesh is hostile to him not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be is God ever ever under any circumstances in all common sense likely to call upon you to live a life like Christ? Of course not. And yet he called you to live a life like Christ but not in the energy of the flesh. Faithful is he that calleth you who will also do it. He says, I'm calling you to a life of holiness but you don't have the capacity within you to live that kind of life so I'm taking what you are apart from Christ to the place of death and burying you and I'm giving you by the restoration to you of the Holy Spirit the life of somebody who can Jesus Christ. And that's what we discovered yesterday that a person who is truly born of God has within him the divine seed that does not and cannot sin Jesus Christ. That as the Lord Jesus was once fashioned born of the Holy Ghost in the womb of Mary so the moment you are redeemed in repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus he is born in you of the Holy Ghost. And he doesn't just live his life 1900 years ago that you may gaze upon it in wonder, love and praise and try to be like him wonder of all wonders the one who lived for you 1900 years ago died for you that out of death he might rise again and live in you now. And that first took place at Pentecost. For the Lord Jesus said, John 7, 38 and 39 He that believeth on me out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. This spake he of the Holy Spirit whom they that believe on him should receive for the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. But what does he say? Father the hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. But the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified and if he had not been born to live for this hour he would never have been glorified through death and resurrection and the Holy Spirit could never have come for the Holy Spirit can be restored only to those human spirits that have been cleansed in the blood of Jesus reconciled to God restored to a relationship of peace so his atoning death was necessary to qualify you and me to become the recipients by the restoration of the Holy Spirit of his own resurrection life. Now that's simple enough isn't it? That's the whole principle of the grain of wheat going to the ground and dying. Faithful is he that calleth you God calls you to himself but he says you'll never live the kind of life that I want you to live as a fallen wicked seed of the fallen wicked Adam never but if you'll come I'll do it for I will reoccupy your redeemed humanity with myself I will not only die for what you have done but being risen again from the dead I will come to live in you by the Holy Ghost and take the place of what you are then you will be able to say to me to live is Christ I can do all things through Christ who is my strength my life, my victory Now it may well be that some of you are beginning to get a glimpse of the truth because you see for a long long time some of you who have been truly genuinely converted perhaps 20 years ago or 30 or 50 years ago or 10 years ago or 10 weeks ago you have been deluded by Satan into believing that somehow you could re-educate that all fallen nature to live like Christ and if there's one thing the devil wants you to believe more than another it's just precisely there and he'll couch it in the most beautiful plausible language he'll appeal to all your highest motives he'll appeal to all your personal love and loyalty to Christ, he'll come along and whisper in your ear and say I've just heard that you're converted oh how wonderful, I'm so glad you're converted you're going to heaven now isn't that tremendous the devil will say I do want to congratulate you now he'll say out of sheer gratitude to Jesus Christ, out of a sense of duty, out of a moral duty it's time that you pulled your sleeves up and really worked hard on his behalf now you know that old nature of yours well now that's got to be conformed now to live like him see that's what he'll try and do he'll try to keep you busy trying to conform the old wicked nature that God took to death and sentenced 1900 years ago he'll try to get you to try to conform it to Christ's image in other words, and I want you to listen to this very carefully the satanic genius is just precisely this when he first deceived Adam he made him believe that if he lost God he would lose nothing in point of fact he lost everything but if you happen to get converted while the devil isn't looking you become extremely dangerous to him because the chances are that the whole inexhaustible supplies of deity will begin to flow through your redeemed humanity because that's all that God has redeemed you for that your humanity might once more on earth be available to God for him to live his life through you and all you need be for heaven to empty itself into this world is just an empty old drain pipe that's all you need be redeemed humanity cleansed and empty for Jesus Christ to live his life through you, both ends, nothing in the middle that's all you need to be for heaven to empty itself into the world and the moment you grasp that principle and you realize that you of yourself can do absolutely nothing but Jesus Christ living in you in the power of the Holy Ghost, occupying your whole redeemed humanity, exercising jurisdiction in mind, emotion will your whole personality once more available to the Christ rule in his sovereignty within your life, all of heaven can empty itself through you once you grasp that principle, you become desperately dangerous to the devil. So how can he neutralize this? By inverting the basic lie turning it inside out the basic lie, lose God, lose nothing what does he whisper in your ear if you happen to gain God? By the restoration to you of the Holy Spirit on the grounds of redemption, he whispers in your ear although he doesn't use the exact language he puts it another way around so that you don't suspect what he's saying, he says, gain God gain nothing it's wonderful to know that you're redeemed on the way to heaven, it's lovely to think that you can go around the place saying that Jesus Christ lives in you but don't act as though it's true you'll never have the real experience of it until you get to heaven, but until you get to heaven it's all up to you and he turns you into a foolish Galatian for the foolish Galatians were those who had begun in the Spirit, had received the Holy Spirit, and what do you think they then did? All things tried to be made perfect in the flesh that they had before they received the Holy Spirit, can you imagine that? Galatians chapter 3 Galatians chapter 3 verse 1 Oh you poor and silly and thoughtless and unreflecting and senseless Galatians I'm reading from the amplified New Testament but all those words are contained in the original Greek word but we don't have just one word as big as that not in English, we don't have that kind of person in English, see they did in Greece and this is what he says verse 2, it's a rhetorical question because he knows perfectly well they know the answer let me ask you this one question, did you receive the Holy Spirit as the result of obeying the law and doing its works? In other words, did you deserve it? Did you deserve it? Did you measure up to God's measurements? Did God have to admit defeat and pat you on the back and say you're the only exception I've ever had in all time? You're perfect, absolutely perfect Ask the family Or was it by hearing the message of the gospel and believing the good news of a free gift that you never deserved for Jesus sake because of the hour in which he took your guilt added to his guiltlessness into the place of death? This is a rhetorical question. Was it, he says, from observing a law of rituals or from a message of faith? He says, you know that if you ever became the recipient of the Holy Spirit, if God ever came back to live within you, it's because Christ died for you and you accepted the message and thanked him for it Are you so foolish, so senseless and so silly? Having begun your new life spiritually having now received, in other words spiritual new life by the presence of the Holy Spirit, God having put himself in you to live the life in you now that he lived for you once because you could never live it yourself. Are you now reaching perfection by dependence on the flesh? Didn't you have this old wicked flesh nature before you were redeemed? Then why should ever God give to you the Holy Spirit if the old flesh nature that you had before you were redeemed is good enough to get you to heaven? Here the foolish Galatians although they had received a brand new life by the gift of the Holy Spirit, the very life of Christ himself were giving mental consent to the fact that Christ was within them and then completely ignoring his presence and still going on in the energy of the flesh Now my dear Christian friend, that's what you do. Any number of you Any number of you since you were converted Let me put it in a very simple illustrative way When you and I were born, we were born with an old tin Ford in the garage It was a dilapidoled jalopy Dirty plugs Blown out tires Broken springs Ripped up holstery It just rattles through town On square wheels Now that's all you and I were ever born with, that's the flesh And that's all you'll ever have if you're never born again The old wicked fallen nature that is hostile to God not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be That's the flesh, that's all you ever had in the garage when you were born in the world But when you are born again When you are repenting toward God and putting faith in Jesus Christ, you're cleansed in his shed blood, reconciled to God I'll tell you what God does, he puts a brand new Rolls Royce in there The Holy Spirit comes to live within you, to impart to you the very life that the Lord Jesus lived for you that he may now live it in So now in the garage you've got the old Ford and the brand new Rolls And you know what's something you've been doing? You've stood up in meetings and you've said to your friends that you've got a wonderful brand new Rolls And nobody's ever seen you about town except in the old Ford That's what you've been doing You give testimony, you witness to the fact of the lovely new Rolls you've got in the garage and you never go out Instead you climb into the old Ford and you clatter your way through town and everybody says, huh, don't think much of his Rolls And that's why folk have been so little impressed by your testimony You see, you talk cream and you live skin milk Now I say, don't you think it's time that you scrap the old Ford Don't you think it's time you put it where it ought to be on the junk heap And for the first time act it as though God meant what he said when he gave you the Rolls To me to live is Christ I, the old tin Ford, am crucified with Christ I'm on the junk heap Nevertheless I live yet, not I, thank God Christ liveth in me, the brand new Rolls And I'm going out in it Enjoying all the power of it I don't deserve it Any more than I deserve to be forgiven Of course you do You no more deserve the life of Christ in you than you deserve the death of Christ for you You deserve neither, nor do I All we're fit for is death But in the infinite, infinite overwhelming grace of God not only did Christ die for you which you don't deserve, but which you have the right to say thank you to But he rose again to live in you, and you don't deserve that which you have the right to say thank you to And not until you say thank you for his death are you redeemed And not until you begin to maintain an attitude that says thank you for his life are you sanctified And when I say sanctified, don't get me wrong I did Sanctification isn't a peculiar feeling, as I told you yesterday or a blessing Sanctification is a person Jesus Christ When you are in Jesus Christ clothed with his righteousness which takes place when you are redeemed through his death and God imputes to you his righteousness because he imputed to him your sinfulness credited, the word impute means credit on the cross to his sinlessness was credited your sinfulness and now today to your sinfulness is credited his sinlessness You're clothed with the righteousness of Christ That is justification You're justified Just as if I'd never sinned God looks at me just as if I'd never sinned because I'm clothed with the righteousness of Christ I'm in him That's redemption, that takes place in a split second The moment you realize that you're lost cut off from God, repent and receive Christ as your redeemer he clothes you with the righteousness of Christ You're in Christ, you're justified That's justification You in Christ But the moment you're in Christ, God restores to you the Holy Spirit and by him Christ is in you That's sanctification You're in Christ, justification Christ in you, sanctification The one is imputed righteousness clothing you, the other is imparted righteousness In the first instance, the righteousness of Christ clothes you, in the second instance you clothe the righteousness of Christ And that's why God has redeemed you that your redeemed humanity may clothe the righteousness of Christ Not your righteousness but the Lord Jesus living his own wonderful life of righteousness today clothed with you So you get up every morning and say Lord Jesus, it's a wonderful thing to know that 1900 years ago the old inhabitant of this, my redeemed humanity was taken to the place of death and you buried him and you're the one to whom I'm married today for every activity of this day and you and I are one and all that you are, I have Thank you Lord Jesus, there's not a single situation that can ever arise today for which you in me are not adequate Thank you so much I'm out in the rolls Now that's the Christian life It isn't you getting victory It's Christ being your victory It isn't you reeducating yourself to be like him It's just Christ being himself And the one thing God is waiting for you to do is to let Jesus Christ be himself in terms of your redeemed humanity as once you learned in simple restful faith to allow him to die for So will you begin to thank him not only for his death but thank him for his life Now, with this I'm going to finish It always depresses me when I only just get through my introduction by the end of the meeting That's all we've managed to get through tonight But what happens when a grain of wheat falls on the ground and dies? It goes into the place of death and what happens? Out of that place of death, the life of the original grain is reproduced in the year of Corp That's what happens And when the Lord Jesus went into the place of death identified with his sinlessness all our sinfulness on the day of Pentecost after he was risen from the dead he appeared to his disciples for forty days and ascended to heaven the original life of the original grain in all his sinlessness was imparted to the new year of Corp 120 men and women who at his command waited in the city of Jerusalem in the upper room until they were endued with power from on high. What does that mean? The imparting to them of the very life of Christ which he had lived for them which he is now going to live in them And don't you see it was this that revolutionized their lives For three solid years they had heard him preached and watched him live and what did it do for them? Nothing They all ran away when he went to the cross None of them believed, they didn't understand he was an enigma to them Peter went back to his Galilean ways as a fisherman, he cursed and swore and denied to his face that they ever knew him at the jive of a serlant girl This was in spite of the teaching and the example of Jesus Christ because of his flesh which can never either satisfy the law or imitate his life, but on the day of Pentecost he received as a gift by the Holy Ghost the very life that Christ had lived for him that he might now live it in him and on that very same day Peter stood up with the others and they spoke with such authority and power and clarity that three thousand others were converted and received life, the life of the original Jesus Christ, who was it speaking? Was it Peter? No, Christ clothing his activity with Peter's redeemed humanity and that's salvation, that's the gospel didn't only happen then it happens right now in point of fact my dear friend that's exactly what happened when you were converted, when you were born again, but you've never entered into the good of it you don't have to wait for the Holy Spirit the moment you're redeemed and cleansed in the blood of Christ it's instant, automatic the Holy Spirit comes to indwell you, by his indwelling you're baptized into the body of Christ Christ who's the head of that body becomes the very life of every member of that body, and your member in particular, and the one thing the Lord Jesus has been waiting for is your availability for him to live his life through but you've been too busy trying to live your life for him now this was his hour without which he would have been born to live alone forever without you and without me thank God he was obedient unto death even the death of the cross wherefore God hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name this was his hour Christian friend tomorrow I want to talk to you about your hour without which you as a Christian born again, redeemed with your name in the Lamb's book of life and well on the way to heaven without which you too may be born of God's Spirit to live on this God's earth in vain forget to heaven, oh yes alone you will live, yes, forever by yourself forever alone forever because as there was an hour for him in which he had to die there is an hour for you in which you have to die for so long as you hold on to what you are Christ will never be able to make you what he intended you to be maybe that's why till now your Christian life has been so disappointing but look up horizons illimitable lie before you not by virtue of what you are for Christ but by virtue of what he is in you now let's pray we thank and praise thee dear Lord for thy word we thank thee for the Holy Spirit and we trust that he may continue to re-speak the message to our hearts until we not only know the facts but act on them not only know the possibilities but enjoy to the full our joint airship with the one to whom risen from the dead we are married as the bride of the risen Lord for his name's sake Amen