The Lord is My Shepherd

 “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” (John 1:18)

We have in Christ, two extremes. We’ve got a transcendent God who also is imminent and near. We’ve got a God who is so high and so lofty He surpasses the heavens. His righteousness is higher than the heavens (Psalm 71:19), so God has to be higher than the heavens.

God is so far away, that you and I could never get to Him unless He came to us, and he’s done just that in the Person of His Son. In the Person of His Son, the High and the Lofty God that inhabits eternity, that fills heaven and earth, that sits on the circus of the universe, that hides Himself from men, is so close to you and I that all we need to do is believe.

“The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (Romans 10:8)

That’s how close God is. What a God to be so infinitely so far away and yet so intimately close.

Some of us are preoccupied with God 24/7 – God did that. If you’re still unsaved and under the preaching of the gospel, God’s drawing near to you and He’s drawing you near to Him. Even in your darkest hour you still have a sense of His presence. This is called mercy! And this is why we preach Christ: in order for this infinite transcending God to come near. 

I need a God who is not only transcendent, but near. I need to be able to call and know that He can hear me. How about you?

I need a God who is holy and righteous, and yet a friend of publicans and sinners. How about you?

I need a God who can be my friend and at the same time remain holy and righteous. I also need a God who doesn’t change.

Our gods change with the wind. We model a god after our own image and because we’re changing all the time, we change our gods.

I need a God who doesn’t change. I need a God who can’t lie and who can’t fail. I need a God who is immutable, don’t you? I need a God who is fixed in His nature, fixed in His purposes, and fixed in His plan. I need a God who I can depend on. At the same time I need a God who is not so powerful that He doesn’t have enough room to be able to reach down and pick up a smoking flax that’s just about to die and blow on it and bring it back to life. I need a God like that.

I need a God who is able to be omnipotent, and at the same time life giving (One that doesn’t quench the flame or break the reed). You and I are broken reeds.

I need a God who can pick up that broken reed (I’m talking about a God that’s bigger than a billion elephants), and mend it, and heal it. That’s the God I need. That’s the God you need. I need those things reconciled in one person, to be my representative. A God who is inflexible in His justice and in His decrees, yet wise enough to restore lost sinners to Himself. This is the God who is revealed in Christ.

J Gistand

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

This was in order that we might behold His glory. The Word, the Logos - God Himself. God’s Logic, God’s Reason, God’s Son, God’s Decree, God’s Purpose, God’s Testimony, God’s Word, was manifested to us in the incarnation. In the incarnation you and I began to see something of the glory of God. The birth of Christ was designed for us to know who God is in His attributes.

I need to know God, how about you?

The Bible tells me in John 17:3 “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

How am I going to know God unless He reveals Himself to me. If He doesn’t reveal Himself to me, I will never know Him. But the Bible says God has revealed Himself to us, in His Son. This is what’s so beautiful about the birth of Christ to me, that God has revealed Himself to us in His Son. This is so very important. My dark heart, your dark heart (our depraved nature) has the blessing and privilege of the manifestation of God in the Person of Christ. The saving revelation of God’s mercy to sinners, is explained in Christ.

“No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” (John 1:18)

People will tell you quickly that they know God or they know about God, but if they don’t know Christ, they don’t know God. And if they don’t know who Christ is and what Christ did, they still don’t know God. And if they don’t know the gospel of the glory of God in the Person and Work of Christ, they don’t know God. For to know God, is for God to reveal Himself to you. Isn’t that the way God did it all the way through the Old Testament?

 “Can you by searching find out God?” (Job 11:7)

The answer is “no.”

God has to reveal Himself to you. He revealed Himself to Noah, He revealed Himself to Abraham, He revealed Himself to Jacob, He revealed Himself to Moses, He revealed Himself to the Prophets, and if you’re going to know God today, then He needs to reveal Himself to you. He has to reveal Himself to your heart, He has to reveal Himself to you in the Person of His Son Jesus Christ. God is invisible, God is incomprehensible, God is unapproachable in His essential glory. But God can be known intimately, profoundly, covenantaly, and savingly in His redeeming glory in the Person of His Son Jesus Christ.

Do you know Him?

“Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

Jonah 2:9

We are to understand by this, that the whole of the work whereby men are saved from their natural estate of sin and ruin, and are translated into the kingdom of God and made heirs of eternal happiness, is of God, and of him only. "Salvation is of the Lord." To begin, then, at the beginning, the plan of salvation is entirely of God. No human intellect and no created intelligence assisted God in the planning of salvation; he contrived the way, even as he himself carried it out. The plan of salvation was devised before the existence of angels. Before the day-star flung its ray across the darkness, and when the solemnity of silence had never been disturbed by the song of angel, God had devised a way whereby he might save man, whom he foresaw would fall. He did not create angels to consult with them; no, of himself he did it. God devised it, because without God it could not have been devised. It is a plan too splendid to have been the product of any mind except of that mind which afterward carried it out. "Salvation" is older than creation; it is "of the Lord."  And as it was of the Lord in planning so it was of the Lord in execution. No one has helped to provide salvation; God has done it all himself. The royal bath of mercy, wherein black souls are washed, was filled from the veins of Jesus; not a drop was contributed by any other being. He died upon the cross, and as an expiator he died alone. No blood of martyrs mingled with that stream; no blood of noble confessors and of heroes of the cross entered into the river of atonement; that is filled from the veins of Christ, and from nowhere else beside. Christ came to the fight single-handed, whose own arm brought salvation, and whose omnipotence sustained him. "Salvation is of the Lord," as to its provisions; Jehovah (Father, Son, and Spirit) provided everything.   Salvation is of the Lord. Is there anything that a man must do which if he does not do, he must perish?  No! The power must be given to him of the Spirit. He lay dead in sin; the Spirit must quicken him. He is bound hand and foot and restrained by disobedience; the Spirit must cut his chains, and then he will leap to liberty. God must come and dash the iron bars out of their sockets, and then he can escape from the dungeon, and make good his escape afterward; but unless the first thing be done for him, he must perish as surely under the gospel as he would have done under the law. God the Holy Spirit puts new thoughts into men’s hearts; he will give them new wishes; he will give them new wills, and those who hated Christ will desire to love him; those who once loved sin will, by God's divine Spirit, be made to hate it; and here is my confidence, that what they cannot do, in that they are weak through the flesh, God sending his Spirit into their hearts will do for them, and in them, and so they shall be saved.  Well then, says one, that will make people sit still and fold their arms. Sir, it shall not. But if men did so I could not help it; my business is not to prove to you the reasonableness of any truth, nor to defend any truth from its consequences; all I do here is just to assert the truth, because it is in the Bible; then, if you do not like it, you must settle the quarrel with my Master, and if you think it unreasonable, you must quarrel with the Bible. I am the messenger; I tell the Master's message. "Salvation is of the Lord." The Lord has to apply it, to make the unwilling willing, to make the ungodly godly, and bring the vile rebel to the feet of Jesus, or else salvation will never be accomplished. Leave that one thing undone, and you have broken the link of the chain, the very link which was just necessary to its integrity. Take away the fact that God begins the good work; take that away, and you have spoilt the whole of salvation; you have just taken the key-stone out of the arch, and down it tumbles. There is nothing left then.  "Salvation is of the Lord," as to the sustaining of the work in any man's heart. No man of himself, even when converted, has any power, except as that power is daily, constantly, and perpetually infused into him by the Spirit. But, lastly, upon this point. The ultimate perfection of salvation is of the Lord. Soon, soon, the saints of earth shall be saints in light; their hairs of snowy age shall be crowned with perpetual joy and everlasting youth; their eyes suffused with tears shall be made bright as stars, never to be clouded again by sorrow; their hearts that tremble now are to be made joyous and fast, and set for ever like pillars in the temple of God. Their follies, their burdens, their griefs, their woes, are soon to be over; sin is to be slain, corruption is to be removed, and a heaven of spotless purity and of unmingled peace is to be theirs forever. But it must still be by grace. Some saints may say, "It is of the will of the flesh," but in heaven they shall not think so. Here they may ascribe some little to the creature; but there they shall cast their crowns at the Redeemer's feet, and acknowledge that he did it all. Here they may sometimes look a little at themselves, and boast somewhat of their own strength; but there, "Not unto us, not unto us," shall be sung with deeper sincerity and with more profound emphasis than they have even sung it here below. In heaven, when grace shall have done its work, this truth shall stand out in blazing letters of gold, "Salvation is of the Lord." Some have said salvation in some cases is the result of natural temperament. Well, Sir, well; God has effectually answered your argument. You say that some people are saved because they are naturally religious and inclined to be good; unfortunately I have never met with any of that class of persons yet. God has taken the base things of the world, and has just picked his people out of the very roughest of men, in order that he may prove that it is not natural disposition, but that "salvation is of the Lord" alone. Well, but some say, it is the minister they hear who converts men. Ah! that is a grand idea, for sure. No man but a fool would entertain it. If I could convert you all, anyone else might unconvert you; what any man can do another man can undo; it is only what God does that will last. No, my brethren; God has taken good care it shall never be said conversion is of man, for usually he blesses those who seem to be the most unlikely to be useful.  I fear lest God should forsake me, to prove that he is the author of salvation, that it is not in the preacher, that it is not in the crowd, that it is not in the attention I can attract, but in God, and in God alone. "Salvation is of the Lord," and so it must be, even to the world's end. And now in concluding, salvation is of God: then damnation is of man. If any of you are damned, you will have no one to blame but yourselves; if any of you perish, the blame will not lie at God's door; if you are lost and cast away, you will have to bear all the blame and all the tortures of conscience yourself; you will lie forever in perdition, and reflect, "I have destroyed myself; I have made a suicide of my soul; I have been my own destroyer; I can lay no blame to God." Remember, if saved, you must be saved by God alone, though if lost you have lost yourselves. "Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die, O house of Israel." But now remember! You have souls; those souls will be damned, or saved. Which will it be? Damned they must be forever, unless God shall save you; unless Christ shall have mercy upon you, there is no hope for you. Lift up your heart in prayer to God. May now be the very time when you shall be saved.! Remember, that peace is to be had now. If you feel now your need of it, it is to be had now. And how? For the mere asking for it. ' Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find." O! that you may not be despisers, lest you "wonder and perish!" May you now fly to Christ, and be accepted in the beloved. It is my last best prayer. May the Lord hear it. Amen.

The chief goal of our adversary is to keep the human race in a state of spiritual blindness and deception.  He first manifests himself in Genesis 3 where he speaks to the woman and not to the man.  He was smart enough not to go to the man; he came to the weaker vessel. It doesn’t mean that men are the pinnacle of wisdom, it simply means that God ordained the man to be the head of the household and it was his job to watch out for his family, just like Jesus watched out for His family, the church.  Jesus made sure that His wife’s house didn’t get plundered. He’s a good husband; He knows how to take care of His family. When the devil came to Him in the wilderness, the Lord Jesus threw the word on him and sent him running. 

“Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” Then the devil left Him." (Matthew 4:10-11)

 Now that’s what Adam would have done had the enemy come to Adam, but he came to Eve, and the devil dealt with Eve according to a dialectical process by which he can strip you of your authority by engaging in a conversation with you, questioning the authority that you have.

 When men and women are found questioning the truth and veracity of scripture and the clear and explicit claims of the word of God, the enemy’s already got you!  It’s like the salesman that comes to the door, and you know good and well that you don’t want to buy his product, but before he leaves he’s got a cheque from you and you wonder how it happened. He removed you from your foundation, he got you off your positive stand on what you knew you wouldn’t do, he got you to consider, to think through, and to ponder his proposition.

That’s how the devil works.

The first thing the devil does is distract  you. Distraction is the reason we’re in trouble today. There were only two trees in the garden of Eden that God was particularly concerned about: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  They were in the middle of the garden and those two trees were near each other.

 “And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:9)

God told Adam and Eve “of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;  but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17)

The devil knew that if Adam and Eve had eaten of the tree of life, they would have lived forever in an impeccable state of righteousness: never subject to sin again. But the enemy wanted them to fall, so before they could get to the tree of life, the devil distracted them.

We all talk about getting things right, working things out, straightening things up, but every day you and I are constantly being distracted.

That’s the devil’s goal.

Firstly, he DISTRACTED Eve - “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden;  but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’” (Genesis 3:1-2)

Secondly, he DISTORTED the facts of scripture - “Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.” (Genesis 3:4)

Then thirdly, he DELUDED her mind - “For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5)

Fourthly, the delusion brought on DECEPTION - “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise....” (Genesis 3:6a)

And lastly, he brought on the DESTRUCTION - “...she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.” (Genesis 3:6b)

When was the last time you said you were going to do something and haven’t got to it. Why didn’t you get to it? You were distracted. Distraction is so easy for us.

You said “I’m going to spend more time in the scriptures.” But you haven’t. Why? You were distracted.

You said “I’m going to spend more time praying.” But you haven’t. Why? You were distracted.

You said “I’m going to spend more time getting involved in the teaching ministry of the church.” But you haven’t. You were distracted.

The goal of the enemy is to distract so that he can ultimately deceive the masses.

Watch out. That’s what he does best!

Understanding the scriptures is not a consequence of scholarly pursuit. You don't understand the word of God because you go to school and acquire academic skills. If it were true that you understood the word of God based upon a discipline of what was being taught in seminaries and colleges, everyone would have degrees in divinity, and PhD’s in theology would always be straight in their theology. There would never be an error. We wouldn't have apostasy in the church, we wouldn't have false doctrine and false teaching reeking through our major denominations. We wouldn’t have heresies and false teachings in some of the upper echelon denominations. Truth doesn't come by the labours of the intellect, but by the mercies of God to people who hunger and thirst for that truth. God does not reveal Himself to the wise of this world or the prudent of this world, but to babes (Matt 11:25).

"At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. 26 Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight."

Jesus rejoiced in the fact that His Father did not reveal the Scriptures to the wise.  (This rejoicing gives me comfort because I’m not a super bright person, particularly when it comes to the Scriptures. I beg God to show me truth.)

Jesus not only acknowledged God’s sovereignty in people understanding the word of God, He acknowledges that God chooses to open the Scriptures up to whom He will, and to whom He will not they will not be opened. Not only does He not open up the Scriptures to the wise and the prudent, but He hides them. Christ becomes the Mediator of the Scriptures for us and He helps us understand something: simple people will know the gospel and complicated people won’t.