"Let these sayings sink down into your ears: for the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men."
Jesus is speaking to His disciples. He has just astonished a crowd by casting out an unclean spirit from a boy. "They were all amazed at the mighty power of God." But even more amazing was this statement He uttered. "While they wondered every one at all things which Jesus did, he said unto his disciples, Let these sayings sink down into your ears: for the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men" (Luke 9:44).
Jesus proved time and again that He possessed the mighty power of God. Here indeed was the Majesty of heaven walking among men. He did things no one else could do, unheard of things, miraculous things, such as healing the sick and hopelessly diseased, raising the dead, and controlling by a word the forces of nature. Yet with all His power, He confides to His disciples that He shall be delivered into the hands of men.
The disciples did not understand. They would understand in the near future. It is perfectly clear today. Jesus referred to His passion. On other occasions He had told them plainly that He must be delivered up and slain, and then raised to life again after three days in the grave. These facts, when coupled with the reason for their happening, add up to what the Bible calls the Gospel. "Christ died for our sins . . . he was buried . . . he rose again the third day."
My friend today, let these sayings sink down into your ears: the Son of man was delivered into the hands of men FOR YOU. It was for YOU He died. This is why He came. His death paid for your sins. His resurrection guarantees your own.
The cross was the most important thing in the life and work of Jesus. He continually referred to it as He talked with His disciples. He knew that by the death of the cross He would bring many sons into glory. While others marveled at His divine power, Jesus set His face as a flint to go to Jerusalem. It was there He would carry the cross to the place of His own crucifixion. It was there on the accursed tree that He would bear the sins of the world, and thus redeem sinful man with His own precious blood. All who believe shall be saved.
How important is the cross-work of Christ to you? Your attitude here will determine your eternal destiny. Let these sayings sink down into your ears, yes, into your heart.
-- Editor
**********
"If any man serve me, him will my Father honor." -- Jesus
**********
Eighth in a Series
HIS INCARNATION
Over the past few months we have studied the Incarnation of our Lord. We shall make these practical observations in summary and conclusion.
The first practical value of the incarnation of our Lord is that it makes clear the dignity and sacredness of human physical life. Some say this life is not worthwhile. The Monks in the dark ages thought this and as a result withdrew themselves from society and subjected themselves to all kinds of physical privations and tortures. But this life IS worthwhile, the proof being that our Lord Himself entered human life, and more than that, He retains it to this present hour, and shall throughout eternity. If it hadn't been worth anything, would God have stooped to partake of it?
Secondly, the incarnation of Christ proves that sin is not an essential quality of physical life. Gnostic philosophy says that sin is inherent in human life -- that it HAS to be. It is true we all have sinned; but we didn't HAVE to sin. Christ in human life was sinless. Thus, "God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh . . . condemned sin in the flesh" (Romans 8:3). His sinless life showed that sin is not a necessary quality of life.
Thirdly, the incarnation reveals to us the glory of self-forgetfulness in the interest of others. Jesus Christ "emptied himself, taking the form of a servant" (Philippians 2:7). Leaving behind His own glory He came to serve humanity. He bids His disciples to go and do likewise.
Fourthly, the incarnation satisfies man's desire for a saviour truly human. You remember Job said, "He is not a man." That was the difficulty, Job needed a human to intercede. Man has always had this need with respect to his approach to God. Job was expressing the need of us all. Then Christ appeared in human flesh. The need was met. Man had his Go-between, his Intercessor, his Saviour.
Finally, the incarnation of God in Christ assures us that we are dealing with a God who knows human life by personal experience. Humans don't want to deal with a far-off God who needs nothing, who is never bothered as humans are. In human life He experienced everything (apart from sin) that we experience, being tempted in all points just as we are. He knows first hand all about our lot in life. We may be sure when dealing with Him, now or in the future, we are dealing with One who knows human life by personal experience.
We may deny the Incarnation of Christ by denying His deity (as many do today), or we may deny it by denying His humanity (as some did in earlier days). In either case we are showing that we have not the "Spirit of God," but rather "the spirit of the anti-Christ." This is not an enviable condition. The better part is to confess "that Jesus Christ IS come in the flesh." To all such, the Bible promises: "Ye are of God." (I John 4:1-4).
(Next month begins a new series on the Virgin Birth of Christ.)
**********
THE SCULPTOR
A block of hardest marble stood
Before the sculptor; where he would
He smote with hand well skilled,
And thus with blow on blow fulfilled
The vision of his mind.
At first with chisel coarse, and stroke
Unspared, the corners off he broke,
And soon the form appeared;
But then with finer tools he wrought --
And finer yet -- until he brought
The perfect image forth.
So with unerring skillfulness,
With cunning hand and sure,
'Tis as the marble groweth less,
The likeness groweth more.
So God divinely works with those
He in th' eternal ages chose
To show His works of grace,
And thus with blow on blow to trace
The image of His Son.
Though sharp the blows, yet skilled the hand;
If we but feebly understand
The reason of each stroke,
How bless'd to know that He, who holds
The tools, before His eye beholds
His own beloved One!
The cares and troubles day by day,
The sorrows that o'ershade the way,
Together work for good.
For nothing e'er by chance befalls
The one, whom God in purpose calls,
In whom His love is found.
But when we have the glory gain'd,
And Christ's full image have attain'd
We'll praise His wondrous skill,
And bless the hand that dealt each blow
Upon the marble here below
In working out His will.
-- A.J.H. Brown.
**********
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
By FRIEDA J. SCHNEIDER Litt. D.
"Except a man be born again, He cannot see the kingdom of God."
-- John 3:3.
Today marks the anniversary of my birth. On previous birthdays my heart was greatly cheered by numerous greetings, gifts, and guests.
On this, my special day, however, it is not these external things which deserve and receive my primary attention. Why? Because I am reminded not only of my physical birth, but also of my spiritual birth. Our text is a forceful reminder that, without this second birth, we cannot experience the marvelous blessings of the kingdom of God.
Perhaps you are confronted with the same question which perplexed Nicodemus: "How can a man be born again?" To describe the new birth is utterly impossible. Even Jesus offered no answer which would satisfy human reasoning.
He explained the matter with these words: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit."
Thus we realize that we cannot behold the spiritual as we can the physical birth. Only the effect, or the result, indicates its reality. When we are born again (or converted, as some call it), our lives bear implicit evidence that we no longer seek after the things of the flesh, but that our whole heart is set on doing those things, going to those places, and living such lives as are pleasing to our Father God.
Just as we are born into the family of our earthly parents through physical birth, so we are born into the family of our Heavenly Father through the Water (the Word) and the Spirit.
Some consider the New Birth a reformation, but it is more than this. It is regeneration. Albert Barnes defines the two by saying: "Regeneration is radical, thoroughgoing and comprehensive. Reformation is external, local, in spots and often superficial."
It is the difference between a Christmas tree and a natural apple tree. On one, apples develop from within and are lasting. On the other, they have to be tied onto the twigs and in a few days they begin to rot.
"Beware of imitations," is a slogan often used by the advertisers. It is a warning against accepting substitutes, something which is offered with the claim that it is "just as good." In considering the New Birth, I would also warn you to accept no substitutes. There have always been those who claim they have a religion which says in part, "Live a morally good life. Do the best you can. Be bold and brave at all times and you'll be sure to get to Heaven."
If this were true, then, indeed, God made a tremendous blunder in sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross, for man would be able to save himself and thus would not need Christ to be a propitiation for our innumerable sins.
"There is a way which SEEMETH right unto man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Proverbs 14:12). The truth is, "not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost" (Titus 3:5).
If you have depended only on your good works to make you acceptable before God, then you may be absolutely sure that you are on the road to Hell. Even though you have a clean and admirable record before men, you have no better standing before God than the vilest sinner, be he thief, drunkard or murderer.
These are not kind words, but they are written with the fervent prayer that they will strike terror in the heart of every reader who has not experienced the second birth, but who merely looks to man for his help, hope and honor. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by ME" (John 14:6). "Except you repent, ye shall all perish" (Luke 13:3).
This is my birthday message to every mortal on this globe. Are YOU going to respond to it by "being renewed in the spirit of your mind, putting on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness" (Ephesians 4:23,24).
**********
**********
THE BRIDEGROOM COMETH
By the late M. R. DeHaan, M.D.
And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh:
And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell:
But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac (Genesis 24:2-4).
With the exception of the man Joseph, there is none which so perfectly foreshadows and typifies the Lord Jesus Christ as Isaac, the son of Abraham. Given by a supernatural conception, sacrificed on Mt. Moriah, and raised from the dead, Isaac is almost a perfect type of Christ and the story of the Gospel. All this we see in Genesis 22, which tells us of the sacrifice of Isaac on the mountain.
Abraham returned from the mountain, but Isaac was left. Now, of course, Isaac actually came down from the mountain, but the Bible does not say so. As far as the Bible record goes, Isaac stays up in the mountain until he reappears in chapter 24 to meet his bride. We want this to be clear. As far as the record of Genesis is concerned, Isaac is not seen again after his resurrection until he goes out into the field to meet Rebekah, his bride. You will not find Isaac's name mentioned once in the balance of chapter 22, or all of 23. Isaac is absent. How clearly it is suggested:
So Abraham returned unto his young men,
and they rose up and went together to Beer-sheba;
and Abraham dwelt at Beer-sheba (Genesis 22:19).
But where was Isaac? He is not mentioned. Then follows Genesis 23, recording the death of Sarah. (Sarah represents the nation of Israel.) But in the whole account of the death and burial of Sarah, Isaac is never once mentioned. Surely we can see here the dispensational lesson in the death of Sarah. After Jesus, the Greater Son of Abraham, was slain on Calvary, He disappeared and the nation of Israel is set aside and buried, as it were, without her Messiah. From the record, Isaac did not even attend the funeral of his mother, Jesus too, the Messiah-antitype of Isaac, was rejected, crucified, and ascended into Heaven. During His absence the nation of Israel is set aside, as represented by the death of Sarah and her burial.
Calling of the Bride
Then after Sarah was dead, Abraham sent his servant Eliezer to bring back a bride for Isaac. Probably nowhere in the Bible is there found a picture as complete and beautiful of the calling out of the bride for the Lord Jesus Christ as we have in this type in Genesis 24. Isaac was Abraham's only son. When this son was forty years old, Abraham called his servant, Eliezer, which means "God's helper or guide," to go into a far country and bring back a bride for his son. You recall how he set out into a far country and brought back Rebekah after meeting her at the well in Laban's sheepfold. When this servant of Abraham, who typifies the Holy Spirit, met Rebekah, he showed her the riches of Isaac, and told her the purpose for which he had come, after he entered the home of Bethuel, the father of Rebekah.
Now will you please notice the hard proposition which was put to this young bride. This man, the servant of Abraham, asked her to do three things:
1. She was asked to believe a man she had never met before.
2. She was requested to go to a land from which she was never to return.
3. She was asked to marry a man whom she as yet had never seen.
Here, indeed, was a test of faith, and yet we find from the record that Rebekah decided to go with Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, to wed his son, Isaac. She believed the word of the servant whom Abraham had sent, and upon the evidence of the jewels which he presented as a token to her of the word of this servant, she was willing to set out into this strange land.
Rebekah prepared herself and went with this man to a strange country with which she was totally unfamiliar. She hardly knew in which direction they were going, but she simply trusted her leader who had been sent by the master, Abraham. She believed that he knew the way. And then after a long journey, one day toward evening she lifted up her eyes and saw a man walking in the gloaming, and recognized him, not because she had ever seen him before, but from the faultless description which the servant must have given her all along the way. She recognized him, and with a voice filled with emotion, cried out, "What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us?" and the record tells us that the servant said, "It is my master." And you recall the touching incident, how Rebekah, overcome with joy, lighted from the camel and ran to meet him. The blessed scene of greeting is briefly described in these words:
And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent,
and took Rebekah, and she became his wife;
and he loved her . . . (Genesis 24:67).
Surely you have already seen the meaning of this typical and prophetic picture from the life of Abraham and Isaac. God the Father too had an only Son. After He had offered Him up to die on the cross of Calvary, He too sent His servant, the Holy Spirit, represented and typified by Eliezer, into the far country of this old, wicked world to call out a bride, the Church, for His Son, the Lord Jesus. And that Servant was sent out on the day of Pentecost and has been on this journey now for nineteen hundred years, asking men and women to come and become the bride of the Master's Son. The same questions are put to sinners today, which Eliezer expected Rebekah to answer. You remember, they were:
1. Believe a person you have never met before, even the Holy Spirit of God.
2. Go with Him, and allow Him to lead and guide you by faith into a far country from which you will never return as you leave.
3. Be married to a man whom you have never seen before.
This, then, is the simple plan of salvation. It is by faith. We must believe the testimony of the Holy Spirit in this world, or as the Bible puts it, "Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (I Peter 1:8).
When we believe on Him, and accept the offer of the Son of God, immediately the Servant, the Holy Spirit, opens up the treasures of His grace to our eyes, even as Eliezer opened up the bags of jewels to show the riches of the son to the prospective bride. Then He clothes us with the raiment which the Son has provided, even His sinless righteousness. We set out on a new journey with the Holy Spirit, with only Him and the Bible as our guide. We may not know the next step, but we trust Him, and permit Him to lead. Sometimes the days are dreary and hard, but when the journey seems long, the Holy Spirit tells us more about the One whom we soon are to meet and we take courage and plod on again. And then the Holy Spirit takes some of those precious jewels from the Book of our blessed Master, and with the glittering blessed promises of truth encourages us all along the way. All the way the Servant talks, not of Himself, but only of Him whom we are going to meet. This is what John speaks of in the 16th chapter of his gospel when he says:
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you (John 16:13,14).
This is what the Holy Spirit, typified by the servant of Abraham, does today. He witnesses concerning our coming Lord. He reveals the beauty of Christ in the Book as we journey on by faith.
And then one of these days, as the evening shadows of the closing day of this dispensation come to an end, and the night of the world approaches we will lift up our eyes, and there suddenly in the field of Heaven we shall see Him, and the Spirit within us will answer, "That's Him," and lighting off the camel of our mortality, we shall rise to meet Him in the air, into the open arms of Him whom, though we had never seen Him, we had learned to love. In His eternal tent of many mansions He will bring us, introduce us to His Father and our Father, and the eternal honeymoon of bliss and happiness, where sorrow and pain can never come, shall be ushered in with all of its glory and splendor forever.
We have tried to show you some of the precious jewels of our great Lover, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Shepherd of the sheep. Those of you who know Him will find your hearts beating faster in anticipation of that Blessed Hope. May God grant that those of you who have never said "yes" to the Spirit's call, may now say, "Yes, I will believe His Word. I will turn about and follow that Guide. I will go to wed the Man, who, though I have never seen Him, has won my heart by His great love and the revelation of His kindness through His blessed Word."
The Coming Shepherd
Yes, soon the Chief Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, will come again according to His promise, and then only those who have given heed to the Holy Spirit's call will rise to meet Him, and upon all the rest the dark night of judgment will settle, while we are safe in the house of many mansions prepared for us up there. All the sheep will be in, and the Chief Shepherd will pass out His precious rewards for faithfulness and deck us as a resplendent bride in preparation for His reign upon the earth.
May I ask you, therefore, "Are you ready? Are you looking for His return?" Ah, my friend, if you are not, will you not harken to the Spirit as He says, "Follow me, and I will lead you to the Father's House"?
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.
And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely (Revelation 22:17).
Beyond question, the journey which Rebekah was asked to make with this man, Eliezer, seemed long and wearisome and endless at times, and yet one can imagine the joy which must have thrilled her heart when the journey came to an end, and she found that Isaac was far more than all her expectations had ever been able to imagine. He was far more beautiful, far more kind, than she had ever dared to imagine. And, my friend, one of the surprises is going to be, when we meet the Lord Jesus Christ, that we shall cry out, "The half has not been told." It will be so much more wonderful than anything we had even imagined, that our mortal bodies here could not begin to conceive or contain the glory of His blessed Person. And so as we conclude this message, again we press upon you the question, Have you listened to His call, and learned to follow Him?
. . . Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved . . . (Acts 16:31).
(In Portraits of Christ in Genesis, copyright Radio Bible Class, Grand Rapids, MI.)
**********
