with the word behold. Hebrews eight and eight, beginning with that word behold. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts, and I will be to them God. There is no A in the original. I will be to them God, and they shall be to me people. Again, there isn't any A. I will be to them God, and they shall be to me people. And they shall not then teach, the then is mine, but this is a thought. They shall not then teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest, for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that he set a new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth, and wax of old is ready to vanish away. Let's have a word of prayer together, shall we. Our Father, we are very anxious that the only voice that shall be heard this morning, and that voice speaking to our hearts, is the voice of the Holy Spirit, grant that he shall have freedom to speak as he will. and grant that our heart shall be challenged and blessed and encouraged, whatever our need may be. We thank thee that in thee there is everything that we stand in need of today or ever will. Minister to our hearts, then, our Father, we pray, by thy Holy Spirit, in Jesus' name. Amen. And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know me from the least to the greatest. I want to talk a little this morning about knowing God. I think it was nineteen seventy-three, at least in the early nineteen seventies, a Dr. Packer, Dr. J.I. Packer, wrote a book called Knowing God. I wonder how many of you have read that book. Let me see. Yes, there are several of us at least who have read that book. It is worth having in your library and reading. It's a very fine book. Now for those of you who read it not so long ago, but read it recently, you will recall that he opens with his very first chapter with a quotation from a twenty-year-old preacher by the name of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He was, even at twenty, the minister of a very well-known church in London. This was the quotation that Packer gave to us in his book. He says, there is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of deity. It is a subject so vast that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity, so deep that our pride is drowned in its infinity, so that we come to the place where we say, I am but of yesterday and know nothing. Do you remember that little sentence that I heard one day when I was traveling to South Jersey? were a preaching engagement and turned on my radio. I mentioned to some of you before I know, as a radio warmed up, I had an old car and an old radio, and it had to warm up, and when it warmed up, the very first words I heard were these, man is but the creature of a moment on a speck of dust. I turned the radio off so that the rest of the time I could contemplate that wonder. He goes on to say, No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind than thoughts of God. But while the subject humbles, it also expands. He who often thinks of God will have a larger mind than the man who simply plugs around this narrow globe. The author follows with his own comment, Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives. In the little verse that I read to you from Hebrews, the word know is used twice. But it is a different word in the Greek on the second occasion than it is on the first. In that day we read, men will not teach each his neighbor and brother, saying, Know the Lord. And the word there is a Greek word that means to progressively learn about. And then it says, For all shall know me from the least to the greatest, and the word there means to completely comprehend. It is a word that embraces everything and knowledge in the perfect. Now because we haven't arrived at the second, we have to content ourselves with the first and seek to help one another to know the Lord a little more as the days and the months go by. It is obvious to us all, I'm sure, and very deliberately when I prayed, I reminded our hearts that God might reach us through His Spirit, and I asked it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Because the triune God, and I don't know whether you're puzzled by the Trinity, I would like to be able to explain it to you, but I cannot. It is something not surprising that reaches beyond the bounds of human intelligence. We are not able to comprehend it. There are people who say, I don't believe anything, that I cannot reason out. But you know that they do believe in things they cannot reason out. They believe in space, but they certainly cannot explain that, and they certainly do not comprehend it. And if it exists in the sense of the physical, then certainly it's not surprising that it exists in the realm of the divine. God is incomprehensible. at this time as far as knowing him completely and totally in such a way as there's nothing else to discover about him. When the Lord Jesus came, it was his responsibility to reveal the Father to us. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. Do you remember that verse? It's one of the three sixteenths and I preached about it just a few weeks ago. God was manifest in the flesh. And you remember that the Lord Jesus said after telling the disciples, I go to prepare a place for you. I will come again and receive you unto myself, and so on. One of them said, We don't understand. And the Lord Jesus said, He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father. So if we are going to know God, we are going to do it by getting to know the Lord Jesus, increasingly... and more intimately as the time goes by. If indeed the Lord Jesus is God, and there is no doubt at all about the fact that the Bible teaches this, and we who know him as our Savior have already rejoiced in this, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. Only God, said the poet, can make a tree. And so here we are face to face with the word, capital W, the Lord Jesus, the living word, who is indeed very God. Now, if it is true, let me remind you that you have a right to take a look at the baby that was born in the stable and cradled in a manger and look for that which is perfect in the child. You're not going to be disappointed. Why, even before his birth, The Word of God had given us details concerning it. He was to be born of a virgin. He was to be born in the little town of Bethlehem. And there are so many things in the Word of God that deal with, prophetically, with the person of the Lord Jesus. And in his birth, Everything that God said about him in that connection was accurately fulfilled. Not a prophecy left unfulfilled. Not a prophecy only partially or questionably fulfilled, but deliberately and positively and totally. You have... Godly perfection, shall I put it this way, you have the perfection of God in the birth of the Lord Jesus and the infant, only hours old, moments old, there in the cradle, in the stable. You also have a right to look at his life and say, now if he is God, then I am not going to find any imperfection here. I'm not going to find imperfection in anything he says, in any attitude that he adopts, in any deed that he does. Now, are you disappointed when you look into the life of the Lord Jesus? He did no sin, neither was any guile found in his mouth, the Word of God says. Someone has very aptly put it this way. that Peter, the man of action, said he did no sin. And Paul, the man of learning, said he knew no sin, while John, the apostle, who leaned his head upon his breast, said, in him is no sin. So you're not going to be disappointed here, for in the life of the Lord Jesus... The will of God was perfectly achieved, and that meant perfection in word and in deed and in attitude and so on. It's all there. You may say to me, but what about the death that he died? What an ugly death it was. What a dreadful execution. Why, if he was God... would he die in such a fashion upon a gibbet? Now there is perfection in his death, as there is in his birth and in his life, because it was in the dying of the Lord Jesus that every demand that God had to make against sin... every demand that he made with regard to it was completely met. Says the hymn writer, there was no other good enough to pay the price of sin. He only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in. So you meet the same perfection in his death. That was no mistake. That was no happenstance. That was not something that just came about because of the hatred of men. We read very solemnly, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He have put him to grief. Why? Because he who knew no sin was made sin for us. that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And I'm going to ask you a question now. You asked me about his birth, and you asked me about his life, and you asked me about his death, let me ask you about his resurrection. Was not this proof of the fact that Jesus was God? No man taketh my life from me, he said. I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it again. And that is exactly what the Lord Jesus did. So if we want to know God better, all we have to do is look at the person of the Lord Jesus, God the Son. It is very obvious, as we think of the life of the Lord Jesus, that his life was a holy one. Now we are exhorted in the Word of God to be ye holy, for I am holy. And in the life of the Lord Jesus, we find that kind of holiness that we ought to covet for ourselves. But holiness has always been associated with the Lord Jesus from the moment of his birth. In the Gospels, in the Book of the Acts, in the Book of the Revelation. It was the angels in the Gospels that reminded us of his holiness. It was Peter in the Acts that reminded us of his holiness. It was John in the book of the Revelation that reminded us of his holiness. When at his birth the angels came to Mary, they said, that holy thing which shall be born of thee. And when Peter, in his preaching in the Acts, is ready to... to I was going to say scold, but that's not a good enough word. I'll use a word that's already been used by Mr. Erickson earlier on this morning. When he wondered why he's scorching them with his denunciation for their sin, he says to his congregation, you took the Holy One and the gesture took the holy one. And then we find John in the book of the Revelation, seeing the Lord Jesus in his glory saying, O Lord, holy and true. Now God is nothing at all if he is not holy. God could not be God if he were not holy. We know it was the holiness in the Lord Jesus that made him sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground. We know that the horror of Gethsemane and of Calvary was not the agony to which he was to be physically subjected, but the fact that his holy soul was going to be brought into such intimate contact with our sin. It's a very tragic thing that so many of his people do not seek that same kind of holiness. It could only be an echo of his. It can only be an imitation, if it were, of his. It cannot approach his holiness. But it is something that God looks for. in our lives. In Packer's book, I noted he had a chapter on the majesty of God. He had a chapter on the love of God, on the grace of God, and several other things. I was wishing at the end he might have had a chapter on the expectation of God. because God has a right to expect a holy people. A majestic God such as he is pictured for us, a holy God such as the Word of God places before us, is one who obviously is not going to be able, capable, of shrugging his shoulders and turning away and pretending that he does not see unholiness. And I speak to my own heart truly when I say it. We have to search our hearts from time to time and drag that wretched sin to the surface. of knowledge how unholy we are, how unlike the Lord Jesus in this area, and how necessary that we should be changed. And then to look away to the Lord Jesus, begging his pardon for that sin and abandoning it, so that there drops away from our life again something that would prevent us from ever being truly called a holy people. If we get to know God, we shall get to know a holy God. And if we get to know a holy God, we shall find our lives becoming more and more like His. It's just as clear from the word of God that God is a just God. How many times have you thought of this truth that God is a just God? How many times in seeking to witness for the Lord Jesus have you reminded the person that very tenderly you've been talking to about his sin that because God is just, God cannot become an accomplice after the fact. God cannot treat a man's sin as though it doesn't matter. The holy God hates sin. The just God says, I can find no place in my home in heaven for a man who has sinned. unless I find a just way of delivering Him from His sin. That's because God is God, holy and just. He must have been a wise God too, because He devised a plan whereby, in spite of His holiness, He could justly Pardon the sinful sons of men, blot out their sin and receive them into heaven and even place them on the throne alongside of him. And it was all accomplished through the death of the Lord Jesus. God will not payment twice demand, first at my bleeding sure at his hand, and then again at mine. The absence of sin in himself forbids the tolerance of sin in others than himself. God's holiness demands cleansing. It's God's justice that cleanses it. Listen to what Peter says. He is given the just for the unjust. that he might bring us to God. You know what you have there, don't you? That is substitution. No man can by any means redeem his brother or give to God a ransom for him. It is the just God who, because of his holiness, must provide a just way out if indeed there's going to be a way out at all. And here it is, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. Substitution. The Lord Jesus said something about, for a good man, some would even dare to die. And I think that there are men that are so selfless and have a love for their fellows that they would willingly lay down their lives for them. I believe there are missionaries that are motivated to that extent, and it has been proved to us men who have been willing to go out knowing it might cost them their lives, cost them their lives, and knowing that facing the price they have to be willing to pay it, and then going out, saying to God, I'm perfect willing. I think of five young men gathered around a little treadle organ, and singing that beautiful song in our hymn book before they went out to try to reach the alka and all five of them died in that attempt but the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church and we know how powerfully god used their sacrifice to reach the alka and to put there a viable and our enthusiastic body of believers, including some who thrust their spears into the body of those martyrs. John says, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. After substitution, comes forgiveness. Because Jesus died for me, a holy God can turn to me and forgive me my sin. Forgiveness becomes possible for me through the substitution of the Lord Jesus. When Paul comes into the picture, he says, he is just and the justifier of them that believe in Jesus. Now there's justification. Now these are all part of the picture and all part of the plan. Jesus died for me. God is able when I come to him to forgive me and having forgiven me to blot out every evidence of my sin and to make me justified. Remember the little girl? She said justified means made justified never sinned. That's oversimplifying it. It gets the thought to be made as if I had never sinned. When you get to know God a little better, you're getting to know a holy God and a just God. And you're getting to know one who knows you better than you know yourself. You see, beside being a holy, and a just God, He's a very knowing God. Some of us forget that, you know. We are inclined to imagine somewhere along the line, we can put something over on Him. We can get away with something. There are people who need to be saved, but because their lives are not as bad as the lives of other people, they say, Oh, I believe That I've done more good than I've done evil. And in a coming day, God is going to weigh the one against the other. And I don't think I'll lose out. I think I'll find myself in heaven. Don't you believe it? It only takes one sin to make a sinner. And an unforgiven sinner with only one sin will never get to heaven. He must have his sin cleansed. Put away. And just in case you need to be reminded of it again, God knows all about it already. Do you know what is written of the Lord Jesus? He needed not that any should testify of men, for he knew all men, and he knew what was in men. You can't have a greater knowledge than that. You can't have a more intensive or far-reaching knowledge than that. God is a knowing God. There are people running away from God and have been doing it for years. And every place that they find as they create themselves, God immediately turns his eye. He knows there isn't anything can be hidden from God. That's why it's foolish to run away from God. There are children that have left Christian homes. They've said, I'm tired of being forced to go to church. I'm tired of being expected to listen to the reading of the Bible at the breakfast table. I'm tired of being told that this is wrong and that's wrong in my life. And I abominate the being told that I'm a sinner. And so they toss their heads and off they go, running away from home. but really running away from God. It isn't possible to do it. It is not possible to do it. God knows even the thoughts and the intents of the heart. How wise it would be for such a runaway to turn round about and say how stupid I am. How foolish I had a modicum of happiness when I was there. Now here I am. I'm running all the time. My heart is dissatisfied. And I've lived long enough to learn that what they said about my sin was true. And it's destroying me. That's what the prodigal did. He said, I will arise. And go to my father. And say unto him, Father. I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight. And have no more word to be called thy son. So he arose and went to his father. And while he was yet a long way up, his father saw him and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. The son said, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. When he was planning to leave the pigs, he added, Make me as one of thy hired servants. But by the time he got to that place, his father cut him off. There was no question about becoming one of the hired servants, or like one of the hired servants. This, my son, says the father, was dead and is alive again. He was lost and he's found. I don't know whether there's anyone here, and you're actually running away from God. You wouldn't describe it that way, but... You don't want really to be saved. You're afraid of the cost of being saved. And although you may know how to be saved, you're still saying, not now, maybe some other time. You've forgotten again the warning from the Scriptures. Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. I have to touch on one more. This holy and just and knowing God is love. That's what the Bible says. God is love. And if you want to know how much God loves and how God loves, then you listen to Paul who says we are loved individually. The Son of God who loved me. He loved me and gave himself for me. It's one thing to say, God loves the world. For God so loved the world. That's wonderful. But to get to the place where you can say, the Son of God who loved me, he loved me. And that's where you have to get, if you're ever going to be saved. John tells us, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the uttermost. That means to say that his love for us individually... is going to go on eternally forever and ever and ever. It's never going to come to an end. And then Paul comes back into the picture again and says, No life, no death, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. He tells us we are loved securely. Are you afraid that you can be saved and lost again? You do despite to the Lord Jesus and the work that he did. He said, I and my father are one. He says, no man is able to pluck them out of my hand. No one is able to pluck them out of my father's hand. How safely and securely having trusted the Lord Jesus we are held. There is no demon in hell, not the devil himself can snatch you once you're saved out of the hand of the Lord Jesus. Let's pray, shall we? Our Father, we tremble when we think of thy holiness. and tremble again when we think of thy justice. And we still tremble when we realize that your eye never leaves us. You know what is happening every moment, every second of every moment of our lives. But oh, how our hearts rejoice in the fact that God is love. Forbid that anybody here should go away, Lord, without taking advantage of that love. and trusting the Lord Jesus