Gooding, David: 4 - Making Man Whole

I begin this evening with a confession, an apology, and a plea. The confession is that tonight we begin to study the peace offering found in Leviticus chapter three. Now that peace offering, as you will be aware, as described in chapter three, puts one side of a very big question. I had originally thought, as I prepared this series, that I should perhaps tonight have been able to combine both that side and the other side of this story, which is found in Leviticus chapter seven and is contained under the law of the sin- of the peace offering. But wiser counsels prevailed, unusually, I must confess, and uh, rather than keep you an inordinate length of time this evening, it seemed to me better that I should just confine myself to one side of the question this evening and then find some time on another occasion to put the other side of the question. So that's the confession and the apology, and now for the plea. I'm going to ask you to allow me, in the kindness of your heart, just to change things a little bit at the end of this series. As planned in week, uh, on occasion seven and eight, that is the Tuesday and the Thursday of the week after next, I am advertised to speak on the Tuesday on maintaining our zeal, and on the Thursday on the topic of a sense of the holy. Now I, I propose, by your permission, to combine those two topics on the Tuesday evening, dealing both with maintaining our zeal and maintaining a sense of the holy on the Tuesday night, and then on the final occasion to deal with the law of the peace offering under the general title, the practice of peace. All those who wish, as in other matters these days, to block this deal and record their protest should get in their votes as soon as possible. Now let us begin our study proper by reading from Leviticus chapter three. Leviticus chapter three, verse one: And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offerings, he shall offer of the herd, whether male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the Lord. And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his oblation and kill it at the door of the tent of meeting. And Aaron's sons, the priests, shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about. And he shall offer of the sacrifice of peace offerings, an offering made by fire unto the Lord, the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the loins, and the gall upon the liver with the kidneys shall he take away. And Aaron's son shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt offering, which is upon the wood that is on the fire. It is an offering made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. And if his oblation for a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the Lord be of the flock, male or female, he shall offer it without blemish. If he offer a lamb for his oblation, then he shall offer it before the Lord, and he shall lay his hand upon the head of his oblation and kill it before the tent of meeting. And Aaron's sons shall sprinkle the blood thereof upon the altar round about. And he shall offer of the sacrifice of peace offerings an offering made by fire unto the Lord, the fat thereof, the fat tail entire, he shall take it away hard by the backbone, and the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the loins, and the gall upon the liver with the kidneys shall he take away. And the priest shall burn it upon the altar. It is the food of the offering made by fire unto the Lord. And if his oblation be a goat, then he shall offer it before the Lord, and he shall lay his hand upon the head of it, and kill it before the tent of meeting. And the sons of Aaron shall sprinkle the blood thereof upon the altar round about, and he shall offer thereof his oblation, even an offering made by fire unto the Lord. The fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the loins, and the gall upon the liver with the kidneys, shall he take away. And the priest shall burn them upon the altar. It is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savor. All the fat is the Lord's. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings that you shall eat neither fat nor blood. And may God give us good understanding of his holy word. In order to get some just understanding of the particular offering that we now begin to study, I suggest to you that we should pay close attention, first of all, to its name. It is called in our English translations the peace offering, P-E-A-C-E, peace in that sense. Now I am aware, of course, that in the scholarly literature, the exact translation of the Hebrew term has been much disputed in these recent years, and still scholarly opinion remains divided as to exactly the significance of the Hebrew words that underline our English translation. For my part, I join with those who retain the older understanding and say that we should link the word for peace offering as we find it in the Hebrew language with the general Hebrew word shalom and its cognates meaning peace. That this understanding of the name of the sacrifice in the end fits in best of all with the function and use of this sacrifice as we find it described here in chapter three and subsequently in the law of the peace offering in chapter seven. Peace then. But with that, we should remember a thing or two about our Hebrew. And remember that the Hebrew word shalom, which we normally translate peace, is a word of far wider meaning than our English word peace itself is. Of course, like our English word peace, it does mean the absence of hostility or the end of hostility. It is the opposite to strife, the opposite of war. It's the thing that we make when we lay down our arms and come to agreement with our enemies, and we enjoy peace together. The absence of enmity, the cessation of strife. But then, of course, shalom in Hebrew means much more than that. I do remember in my youth, when after the war with Hitler and the Japanese, there came the peace days, of course, and hostilities were over. But while there was no longer enmity, there was no longer war, we in Britain, as you will remember well, were very hard up and still sorely rationed, and with our sweet coupons and our tea coupons and our clothing coupons and all the other coupons, we only had just enough to get through. The Hebrew word for peace doesn't mean simply the absence of hostility, it means the opposite of that second state of affairs, and therefore it means peace, but peace and plenty, prosperity, abundance, well-being. Peace, the absence of strife. Peace in the sense of peace and plenty, peace and abundance. And then, of course, the Hebrew word shalom has deeper meanings, further meanings as well. If one Israeli, uh, meets another Israeli in the street to this very present day in Israel, he is likely to accost his friend with the Hebrew words masilomaka, what is thy peace? And he doesn't mean, have you just had a row with your wife or with your boss, and is it over now? He means, how are you, my good man? Are you well? Because peace means as, uh, well-being, health, wholeness, integration. And as referring to us and our personalities then, and to our bodies, it means health, peace of mind, peace of body, well-being, wholeness, the absence of distress and strife and internal disintegration. And therefore, it is not to be surprised at, I suppose, that when the Israelite brought this offering to the Lord, it not only secured for him forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God, and brought him into peace with God, where he ceased to be an enemy of God, and no longer stood under the wrath of God, but had peace with God, but it introduced him into well-being, into spiritual health and wholeness, reminiscent of the words of our Lord Jesus to those who, repenting of their sin, put their faith in him. He often said to them, your faith has saved you, go in peace. Your faith has made you whole, go in peace. And then when we begin to explore what peace and peace and plenty and health and wholeness mean, then again we find in this great sacrifice that when the Israelite offered it and offered the particular parts that he had to offer to God, then God gave back to the offerer a large part of the sacrifice. And it was, so to speak, in its symbol, as though God and man, now brought into fellowship one with another, feasted on the same sacrifice together, and so enjoyed fellowship together. And oh, what a tremendous wholeness that is, isn't it? When, having been alienated and enemies in our mind by wicked works, men are brought back into fellowship with God, regaining their long lost center through faith in Jesus' blood. And then, of course, as we come to the law, as we shall do, God willing, in another, on another occasion, we shall find that when the Israelite offered this sacrifice, not only did he get forgiveness and peace with God and fellowship with God, but as he was given back his part of the sacrifice to eat, certain regulations were laid upon him that he was obliged to summon his friends and invite them to take part of the meal along with him. It was a, it, they were interesting regulations. They didn't allow the man to go off in a corner a- and eat his piece of roast beef all by himself. They obliged him, as I say, to summon his family, to summon his friends, to summon the meek, and to share with him the bounty that God had given him. And so the man found integration at another level, not only integration with God and fellowship with God, bringing peace to his heart and beginning to unite his own personality once more, but integration with his fellow man and fellowship with his fellow man. For peace isn't just my sitting up in a corner, is it, in the old broom cupboard in the dark and saying, now I'm at peace here, there's nobody out there that can upset me, you'll see. I've got myself on my island, and all is well here, and I've got stocks of provisions, and bother the world, let it go, and if I keep on my little island, nobody can possibly come and destroy my peace. That's how some people look at things, isn't it? They'll be a, have a shock when they get home to heaven. You'll not be able to do that in heaven. Hmm. True peace means wholeness, and wholeness means fellowship, fellowship with God, and fellowship with our fellow redeemed men and women. It is thus then, basing ourselves on the name of the sacrifice and on its function and usage, we come to think of it as it has been traditionally thought of as the great peace offering. For our preliminaries, we should notice one more thing, that the special features that are given us in chapter three about this offering are these, that when the offerer brought his sacrifice and it was offered to the Lord, as usual, the blood was taken and the blood was sprinkled on the altar all around. Reminding us, of course, that while it is called a peace offering and it leads to positive fellowship with the Lord, it is based on the shedding of blood. Because before men could come into fellowship with God and enjoy all the bounty of fellowship with God, the peace and the plenty and the health and the new integration of his personality, the old question of sin and guilt and the wrath of God against sin and guilt had to be dealt with, and the penalty of disobedience paid. So there was peace in this ancient sacrifice by blood. Then I would have you notice that time and time again in our chapter, in the directions we read, how that all the fat of the animal had to be carefully cut away from the other flesh and taken and laid on the altar. The fat that was by the kidneys, the fat that was by the loins, the fat all around the caul, whatever that is, the greater omentum or whatnot. All the fat, and if it was a sheep, then the great fat tail that could weigh a number of kilograms, that was taken, and all the fat was laid on the altar for God. These two features, then, will be very much to the fore of our minds as we think of this great sacrifice this evening. So let's begin then. And as usual, the sacrifice points us to our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. For he is our peace and has made peace, says the New Testament, by the blood of his cross. And we think now of him. Let the very fact that we need a sacrifice to make peace with God remind us of that perilous situation in which we once stood. By your leave, I bid you, like Paul bid you, to remember. Wherefore, remember what you used to be. For a moment, thinking on those dark days when you were away from God, the wonder of your salvation might take root in your heart again, and you perceive once more the dimensions of this glorious peace into which Christ Jesus has brought you. Why did we need a sacrifice and the shedding of blood? Because, as Colossians puts it, we were in times past alienated and enemies in our mind by our evil works. What a sorry condition for any human personality to be in. Alienated, that is from God. We lived in a world made by God. We were the creatures of God's hand. Our very breath was in his power. And yet for years we were estranged from God, alienated from God, living at a distance from God, not on speaking terms with God. Or if we uttered a prayer or two now and again, it was but the formalities of a very distant acknowledgement. And in our hearts, we had no active fellowship with God. We were estranged to him. For many of us, we didn't think very much of God either. If challenged about our own way and our sins, then we were resentful against God, says scripture. Positively enemies of God. It wasn't that we were engaged in lurid crime, it was that all we, like sheep, had gone astray. We had turned everyone to his own way, and God could get on with his heaven, but we were going our own way and doing our own thing and enjoying ourselves. And God seemed to us to be a horrible wet blanket, and the further we kept away from him, the better for our joy and our peace. Alienated and enemies in our mind by wicked works. What a terrible state it was. When we were in it, we didn't realize it perhaps so much as we realize now. To be a creature of God, and yet to be alienated from him, at cross purposes with him, going our own way. That's the beginning of the dissolution of our personality, isn't it? Had we gone on like it, our blessed Lord himself warns us what the inevitable result of such a situation would have been. In the end, we should have perished, not ceased to exist. We should have existed somewhere forever. But as human beings that God designed, we should have ceased to be truly human, but a jangle of powers and desires and motives gone to pieces. You see, don't you, sometimes as you roam the countryside, you come across an old thatch cottage. Well, that's what it was. You have to look twice now to see it was that. Once upon a time, it had a beautiful thatch roof and beautiful painted windows, and there were curtains there and a person inside, and it was all pretty and lovely, but now it has perished. There it is. It is no longer exactly what it was designed to be. And that was how we were on our way to perish, alienated, enemies, disintegrating, lost. And you see, it was more serious than that. The Bible indicates it was not merely us personally that were thus alienated from God. We had got caught up in a vast spirit rebellion against God. For the Bible, though it does not excite unhealthy interest, yet gives us to understand that long before our world was made, there had broke out a rebellion in the very heavens themselves, so much so that the heavens are not clean in God's sight. As the great anointed cherub that covered had lifted himself up to be as God, I will be as God, setting his will against the will of God. And eventually he involved and embroiled our little planet in his great rebellion and caused the fall of our race. And we came into this world all mixed up in this great cosmic rebellion against God. Not only going astray ourselves, but as the result of the fall of our human race, walking according to the prince of the power of the air and thinking the kind of thoughts that he put into our heads. We found ourselves broken men and women, psychologically broken, spiritually broken, bodily broken. On top of all that, our conscience made us aware that our way of behavior and our sins incurred and stood under the wrath of God, and the very thought of the wrath of God drove us further away from God. As like Adam and Eve, we tried to hide in the trees of the garden, away from a God whose presence now seemed to us to be a threat. Oh, and such were some of you. What a sad and a sorry story of human alienation from God, and therefore human alienation from all that it means to be human. And with the result, living in a world that, instead of serving the harmonious purpose of its creator, was all of a tangle with ugly competition, vicious and murderous hate, and war and strife abundant. Oh, what a world ours has been, hasn't it? I am presently from my bedside reading, what bedside reading? Reading Motley's story of the terrible doings of the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands in the fifteen hundreds. Oh, what stories of blood and torture and warfare on our sorry planet. And what hope is there? And now I remember that you who were like that, oh, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were afar off have been made nigh, made nigh by the blood of Christ. He is our peace and has made peace by the blood of his cross. Oh, the wonder of this simple story, that that very cross of Christ, that is the expression of human enmity against God, man wanting to go his own way and break away free from God if he could. Our very cross where man kicked God's shins as hard as he could kick them, that very cross made of God the means of causing our enmity to cease and making our peace with God. You say, how did the cross of Christ do that? Ah, well, it has done it, I admit to you, in part. It has done it in part by changing what you think of God, hasn't it? It's made peace in that sense. You say, I was an enemy of God, for I entertained all sorts of foolish things about God. I was like Saul of Tarsus. I thought I ought to do many things contrary to Jesus at Nazareth. I thought God was my enemy. I thought God was my persecutor. I thought he was a threat to me, and I discovered in the cross of Christ that while I was yet an enemy, God loved me, and Christ died for me, and it's changed what I think of God. You say I've been reconciled by the blood of his cross. Oh yes, my friend, but it's done more than that. There are some theologians, aren't there, that object if you say that God has been reconciled to us, they say he was never your enemy, really. Well, not in any peavy sense he wasn't. But it remains the fact that God, in his holiness, was wrathful and rightly wrathful against our sin. Before we could be reconciled to him, it wasn't merely necessary that we should change our opinion about God and repent of our hard thoughts about God. It was necessary that the thing that stirred God's anger against us and his wrath and his displeasure be removed, that he might be able to accept us. And the wonder of it is that God himself has found a sacrifice that removes his wrath against sin because it pays the penalty and sets him free to welcome the repentant sinner. Oh, what a lovely thing. I know I tell you the very simplicities. You've known it long since, my brother. Now enjoy it tonight, and enjoy it now as you'll enjoy it eternally. He made peace by the blood of his cross, and being justified by faith, we have peace with God. I want to tell you something more. You noticed, didn't you, how the details of the sacrifice said that when they had scattered the blood, then the next thing they were to do was to take the fat of the animal and offer it on the altar. Of course, to have much fat, the animal had to be a very healthy animal, brought up and tended by a very careful and wealthy farmer. I can imagine Farmer Zephaniah, can't you, standing by the altar there and looking on. He doesn't mind else who looks too either, because he's brought his book, and goodness me, his bullock is just an amazing bullock, this bullock, you see. He's fed it and brought it up, and there it stands. Ooh, you can see the fat bulging on it, you know. It's a healthy beast, this one. And then as he kills it and slays it and cuts it in the bit, oh, here comes a mighty great bit of fat. Woof. This will make the fires on the altar blaze, this bit will. And that fat there, and more fat there. No skinny old bony thing this. This is a beautiful bullock, healthy, full of fat, and rich, and the wealth of it goes on the altar. You see, the ancients, they valued fat in that sense. Uh, when they wanted to speak about riches, they used the word fat metaphorically. They would talk about the fat of your wine, or the fat of your barley, or the fat of your corn. They meant the richest part of it. And stand with old farmer Zephaniah by the altar, will you? As he's offering his peace offering, and all these great chunks of fat and all their richness go on the altar, and the flame darts up and consumes the burnt offering, and farmers F and I are very pleased and very proud. Well, you can talk about bullocks all you like, and the wealth of it, and the richness of it. Oh, with all due reverence, I bid you, I bid you stand by Calvary's sacrifice and look on it. Oh, let God the Holy Spirit tell you its wealth. Who is this who has made peace by the blood of his cross? Oh, my brother, my sister, see the wealth of it. For Holy Writ says that in him was all the fullness pleased to dwell and to make peace by the blood of his cross. Can you perceive the wealth of this sacrifice? He who was rich beyond all computation. And God has given him to make peace for us poverty stricken human being. How we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Whose blood? Whose blood? You put that question to Paul, he'll tell you you have redemption through his blood, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him and through him and to him were all things made. All the wealth of this great sacrifice by which our peace is made. And ponder the significance, will you? All creation was made for him. We had the impertinence to go against him, to go our own way. And in his grace, he took his wealth and laid it on the altar and became poor. Oh, how poor. I see that bullock that a minute ago had been standing all glistening, the farmer had brushed its old coat, you know, like they do for a prize show, and brought him to the house of the Lord, fat and healthy, and now an hour later dismembered, and the fat on the altar, and gone to ashes and nothing. And then I think how God, his son not sparing, gave him to die. And he who was rich, for our sakes became poor. Do you measure it? You measure the riches? The one for whom all things were made. And the poverty of him who hung in darkness, rejected of men and forsaken of God. That we, through his poverty, might be made rich. And in a moment we shall begin to think about it. Oh, how rich. Let it suffice for the second. But having made peace by the blood of his cross, now we are reconciled through Christ's work to the Father, and we have peace with God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Yes, but I want, by your leave, just for a moment to turn aside and look now at a little bit more detail at the, uh, re- re- the, uh, instructions for this sacrifice. You see, we have been noticing, haven't we, in our previous studies, that as the Israelite drew near to God and felt his need of forgiveness and cleansing, God pointed him to a sacrifice and assured the good man that when the sacrifice was offered, it met his need completely. And we were reminded how the sacrifice of Christ meets our need. But then we've been noticing. We not only see that the sacrifice of Christ meets our need, but God points us to details about that sacrifice. So just as in the offering, when they cut it up, they inspected it and looked at the parts and saw that they were all perfect and fit to be sacrificed. So now the Holy Spirit points us to the Lord Jesus and says, do you know how it is that he was qualified to be your sacrifice? The answer is that where you failed, he was perfect. We're going to look at that now, and I shall have to be poking around in your kidneys, if you don't mind. So sit relaxed just a little while, because I've got to talk to you about your kidneys and other such, uh, parts, the loins and the core, which is above the liver. Don't get too alarmed, but I shall have to go pushing around a little bit. Yes. You'll see, I warned you last Thursday, I think it was, how that the Hebrews, when they came to talk about psychological states, they based their phrases on the physical parts of the body. Do you remember that? So even the New Testament says, um, I long after you in the bowels of Jesus Christ, meaning the tender affection of Jesus Christ. And again, in the New Testament, the Lord Jesus says, I am the Lord, I search the kidneys, I search the reins and the hearts, meaning those hidden desires and motives within us. Or again, the Holy Scripture says, is your eye evil because I am good? By eye meaning our envy. Or the Hebrew for anger, or at least one of the words for anger in Hebrew is nostril. And if you'd want to understand that, well, you watch somebody who's losing his temper and getting very angry one of these days, if you should have the unfortune to see somebody like that, and when he really is blowing his top, as we say, you watch his nose. Yes. Hebrews, being simple people, when they talked of psychological states, used as metaphors the terms of the body. And that's how we're going to use these terms. How was it that we became so wretchedly poor and alienated and lacked peace? And how was it that he was so perfect and able to be our sacrifice? I want you to notice particularly the word that is said they had to take the fat by the kidneys and the fat that was, uh, over the kidneys by the loins. You notice that word loin, Hebrew for it is kesel, and kesel in Hebrew is a very interesting word because it has all sorts of connotations. It means basically something that is plump. Ha. And hence it is used of the loins of animals, particularly healthy animals, of course, naturally so. And then the Hebrews used it metaphorically. I suppose they'd observed that some very, very fat people, not anybody here tonight, but some very, very fat people tend to be a little bit placid and slow, maybe, and, uh, well, a little bit credulous. And so this word flank, curiously enough, and its its cognate words, came to indicate people that are a little bit stupid and credulous. And then, interestingly enough, the word had another side to it where it took to the good instead of the bad. And from meaning credulous in the bad sense, it came to mean somebody who has confidence in the good sense. And you will find usages in Job and in the Psalms where this word is used in the highest and the very best sense of confidence. If I have made gold my frank, says Job, then let God's judgment come upon me, for he protests, I have not put my confidence in money. My confidence has always been in God, and if I have put my confidence falsely in money, then let God judge me. Kesel is the word he used. We're going to think of the matter of confidence. How is your loins getting on, my brother? Ah. According to Holy Scripture, that's where a lot of the trouble started. In the realm of our confidence. And in the realm of our kidneys. For in Old Testament and New Testament usage, kidneys talk to us of our hidden desires and our hidden motives. I, the Lord, search the kidneys. And perhaps the Hebrews weren't altogether silly, were they, talking about the kidneys as the seat of desire, because modern medicine tells us that the kidneys are where the adrenalin's in, are, are, are placed, and all that they do to us. Come with me to the Garden of Eden itself. And here is man and here is woman, with all the bounty of God around them on every hand, delightful trees, delightful fruits, everything is glorious, the love gift of God to them, and on top of it all, fellowship with God. And here comes Satan. Now watch him get at the kidneys and watch him get at the loins. He's wanting to involve mankind in his dastardly rebellion against God. And the very first thing he does is to try and undermine Eve's confidence in God, isn't it? My dear, he says, I hear you can't eat of any of these trees around here. Shame, you know, really. No, no, says Eve. We can eat of any of these trees we like, except one. Ah, yes, said Satan, I knew there was one, you see. Well, says Eve, God has said that in the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die. Yes, I know, says his satanic majesty, you see. That's just like God, I have to tell you, like God. Actually, you won't die at all if you eat of the tree, but that's just like God. God knows, you see, that in the day you eat thereof, you shall surely be as God. And it's just like God. He loves to keep you down. He loves to withhold things from you. Eve, my dear, open your eyes and look. Oh, what a splendid time you could have if only you didn't have regard to God's word. What a killjoy he is. Oh, what joy you could have, how you could rise in his universe if you just took no notice of God and his word and followed your own desire. Look at that tree. And he started to look. Ooh, ooh, yes. Ah. Well, it was good to look at. And it satisfied her aesthetic desires. And then she saw it was good for food, and that satisfied her physical desires. And she saw it was desirable to make one wise, and that appealed to her intellect and her intellectual desires. There, my dear, said Satan, that's life for you. Set aside your desires, good woman. You're not here for very long. Set it by yourself, enjoy yourself. Physical desire, aesthetic desire, intellectual desire. That's life, my dear good woman. Bother God and his word. In that moment, all Eve's spiritual constitution was unhinged. First, Satan destroyed Eve's confidence in God. She didn't trust him anymore. And then misdirected her kidneys, her desire. Haven't we known enough of His Satanic Majesty's attentions to know that he's wounded us in those two regions of our personality? My dear sister, my dear brother, even since you have known the Lord, have you never had Satan whispering in your ears when life has been difficult? God could do better for you than this, couldn't he? Does God really love me? Yes. Lack of confidence in God. Lack of trust in the love of God. In consequence, Satan used the world and all its lovely things that were meant to draw man's heart nearer to God, into fellowship with God. Satan used those lovely things to draw man's heart away from God. Now what happened? Oh, watch it in the world outside, my brother, and such were some of us once, weren't we? Man's goal, as John puts it, the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the pride of life, going into this world as this wor- as if this world were everything and leaving God out of the question. In the end, that's the way to poverty and perdition. What a sorry thing. You remember the story in John six when our Lord had done a miracle and turned the bread and the fish into enough to feed the multitude. And next day the crowd came. They wanted the bread, and they wanted the fish. They hadn't eyes to see who Jesus was. They didn't really want him as Son of God. Like a girlie with an engagement ring. That's a beautiful ring, but she isn't interested in the fellow who gave the ring to her. She's only interested in the ring. And a beautiful world around us, men and women live for it, and they're not interested in the God who gave it. They have no confidence in their God. Oh, what a miserable plight we were in. And now let me port- point you to the blessed Lord Jesus Christ. See him at the beginning of his ministry in the wilderness, and he'd fasted forty days, and still God hadn't given him the word to make any stones into bread. And there came the tempter and said, if you are the Son of God, make this stone bread. No, said Christ. Why not? Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. He would dare trust God for his daily bread and butter. And see him at the end. At last they nailed him on a cross, didn't they? And they walked by saying, there you are, he trusted in God. Let God deliver him if he delights in him. Perhaps in all those terrors that came upon Christ, this was not the least. After a life of trust in God. Then man mocked him with that trust. It was in those dark hours that our blessed Lord was heard repeating the words of Psalm twenty two: Oh my God, why did you forsake me? Our fathers trusted in thee. They cried to thee, and they were not ashamed. You answered their prayers. I cry, and thou answerest not. I was cast upon thee from the womb, thou art my God from my mother's belly. Every minute of every day had he walked in utter dependence and trust in God. And now when he cried, God didn't answer. Then comes our Lord's reply. Oh, but thou art holy. And he died in absolute unshaken faith in God. I tell you, my brethren, in those moments the whole universe was kept together. For to think the unthinkable, if in that moment Christ's faith in God had broken, the whole universe would have gone apart. Oh, I say it reverently, the faith of our blessed Lord Jesus, utterly unbroken, author and finisher of faith. And you're saved, my brother, and there is a heaven because of our blessed Lord and his unshaken faith in God. Oh, wonder of it. And here we begin to see, perceive what God must be like, surely. But we watch him in the upper room. And now at length the shades of Gethsemane and Calvary were fast spreading across his sky, and he was going out to the torches of Calvary. As Holy Writ says, they sung a hymn, and he says to his apostles, now that the world may know I love the Father, come, let's go. He went singing. Oh, I say to myself, if he could love God like that, if he could trust God like that, what a God God must be. So we are saved, reconciled not through some cuny effort of our own, but by the great sacrifice of Christ, and we worship one so perfect as he was able to be that sacrifice. Now, for a few closing moments, not only forgiven and reconciled, but brought into fellowship with God. Let your mind run for a moment on those multitudinous scriptures, we can only refer to them, that tell us of the wealth of our fellowship with God. See that sacri- that offerer now as the fat is under fire, and God gives him back the major portion of the beast, and he takes it with him and makes a feast for himself and his friends and his family, and God and he and his friends sit down at this meal together. And we, all says John as he impresses upon us what it means to have eternal life. Do you know what eternal life is? This is that life eternal that was with the Father and has been manifested, and we have seen, and we actually touched him when he was here in the days of his flesh, and we write these things to you so that you can have fellowship with us, and we with God and with the Father and with his Son, sharing in the very life of God. This thing we symbolize, don't we, as we come and celebrate the Lord's Supper and sit spiritually wherever we are at his table, and we think how the wine is a fellowship in the very blood of Christ, and the bread a fellowship in his body. Ah, but now, it is God's good pleasure to make us like the Lord Jesus. So finally, let me come back to the question of making men whole. What is God doing? Well, first of all, he gives us peace with God, says Scripture. Whereas before we had no peace with God, we feared the wrath of God, we stood under the wrath of God, our conscience and inner man was depressed by sense of guilt that ever and again would recur and would eventually have destroyed our personalities and quite ruined them. And it's gone, hasn't it? Oh, thank God, with peace with God. Not peace with ourselves, maybe, but peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, the very fundamental of rebuilding our personality. Peace with God. And now listen, says Paul, you peace with God through Jesus Christ, his son. Then, then watch what God is doing with your confidence, my dear guter. For if we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, then we can boast, then we can have confidence in hope of the glory of God. What a lovely thing. I now free from guilt, but God in his mercy is beginning to make me again and renew my confidence. You see, my confidence is the absolute center, isn't it, of my personality and being. If I'm going to cohere together, I shall need a strong confidence and a confidence put in a place that will never let me down. That Christ is beginning to do for you, my brother and sister. What a lovely thing. Have you got that confidence? Have you got that assurance of salvation? Listen to God, peace with God, and now this, you may boast in hope of the glory of God. The word doesn't mean boast in the foolish sense of pride, it means the word boast in the sense of exaltation, of confidence, of glorying in it. Where is your confidence, my good man, to face life with, to face eternity with? You say it's confidence in God, in the sacrifice of Christ, and now listen, in this glorious thing that though I am far from perfect, I can have confidence here and now that I shall attain the glory of God. What a wonderful thing. God is telling you the end before you reach it. My dear good friend, however marred you are, however broken as a personality, however plagued with fears and doubts and uncertainties, however torn your inner man has been, if you are Christ's, God is in process of renewing it. Peace with God, and now confidence. Do you know in my old age, I find, talking to my fellow believers, there are a surprising number of believers that in their heart of hearts miss assurance of salvation. And it's such a pity. It's more than a theological doctrine, you know. This is the beginning of the rebuilding of a saved personality. Confidence. Confidence that one day you're going to be like Christ. Yes, you. You're going to be made all glorious, not only in body, but in personality. You shall attain the glory of God. Confident that you shall never come under the wrath of God, that you will be saved from the wrath of God. Absolute confidence. Thus does God rebuild our personalities. Therefore, let scripture warn us finally, lest we put our confidence in the wrong things. Religion is a past master at misdirecting people's confidence. Therefore, Paul is heard saying in Galatians chapter six, isn't he? God forbid that I should have confidence, save in the cross of Jesus Christ my Lord. My confidence is not in religious ritual, in circumcision, in the keeping of the law. My confidence lies solely in the cross of Christ. Or hear this word from Paul to the Corinthians. My dear fellow Corinthians, says he, what is happening to your confidence? You're beginning to call yourself after men, saying I am of Paul, I am of Peter, I am of Apollos. That won't do, my brethren, he says. That's misplaced confidence. Paul wasn't crucified for you. You surely weren't baptized in the name of Paul, were you? Moreover, listen to what God says. God says, let not the rich man boast in his riches, let not the wise man put his confidence in his wisdom, but he who has confidence, let him put his confidence in the Lord, for of God it is that you are in Christ Jesus, who has made unto us wisdom, sanctification, and redemption. And as I hear that word, it fills my heart and boosts my confidence. You are in Christ tonight, my brother, my sister. Pray tell me, how did you get in Christ? You say there came a very clever preacher. Oh, I've never heard any preacher like him before. He was tremendous. He could speak. Oh, he could read the Bible, shut the Bible, and never look at his notes, and preach a marvelous message, and he convinced me, and so I'm a Christian. Oh, is that how you're in Christ? Poor old you. One of these days, another preacher will come. He'll be a bit more eloquent. He might take you out of Christ. Oh, I should be a bit jittery if I thought that some preacher put me in Christ. Now listen. How are you in Christ? Of God are you in Christ Jesus. He put you in, and God it is that makes Christ to be for you that surpassing wealth, wisdom, sanctification, and redemption. All this was the offering full of fat and riches, and he who was rich became poor for your sakes, that you through his poverty are made rich, and now you're in Christ. My brother, my sister, let God tell you, in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In him are all the riches and treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and in Christ you are made full. The Lord fix our hearts upon his blessed son and fill our hearts with joy and confidence for his namesake.