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This an extract of a sermon preached in 2010 called The Rock. Many people do not feel the detail of the doctrine on the nature of Christ is vitally important but here is a short excerpt that says we are to respect Jesus at one with us as much as his holiness. I hope you will enjoy this sermon as much as I have.
Jesus the Rock
Is He at one with the overwhelmed? He is. As He is at one with the overwhelmed, take it in, believe it. He was on Golgothas hill crying my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He died of a broken heart, but He says:
Psalm 40:1 I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. 2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. 3 And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD. 4 Blessed is that man that maketh the LORD his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
Respecteth not? Are we not to respect all men? No. You cannot respect those who turn to lies. You cannot. Jesus said, blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust. Don’t trust the arm of flesh. Respecteth not the proud nor such as turn aside to lies. We are to respect the rock Jesus Christ in every respect. Jesus one with us with our sin needs to be respected as much as His holiness needs to be respected if we are going to benefit by the rock, by that security. When everything falls down around you, when everything is against you, when every sin is pressing in upon your memory, all of a sudden, God stirs your whole memory of your past before you. That’s what He did to Jesus by stirring His genetic make up of His flesh.
The sins of the people were the sins that came upon Him as he made those sins as though they were his own, they were more than the hair of His head. He died a broken heart, but he waited upon the Lord. Is that what you’re prepared to do? Then you are in Christ Jesus. Then you are going to be brought up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay and your feet will be set upon a rock. This rock, this reality, is strangely an anathema to the natural mind. I’m today no longer ministering in a church that calls itself the Reform Movement. Why? Because Psalm 40:12-14 is an anathema to that organisation and the Seventh Day Adventist church and every other organisation today. What is an anathema? It is a powerful word, it’s an impossible thing, it cannot be, it is totally improbable, it grates upon the nerve, anathema. That’s what you experience when you proclaim this nature of Christ, this rock.
1 Corinthians 1Co 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them,
While we still have our natural man dictating us and we still permit that to govern our life, we will regard these things as foolishness. That is exactly what they have made me to feel wherever I have studied with ministers. Oh John, you poor fellow; foolish. I’ve had to battle through all these suggestions of foolishness. You know what it’s like when some very influential people make you feel like a penny farthing? You think, they ought to know? An me? What do I know? I’ve had to flee to the Lord, I read it, it seems to be what you are saying but they don’t seem to agree. Lord help me here. Then you see, the Lord says it, I can’t deny it. It’s written here. So I’ve had to say goodbye. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to. I would not respect those that turn to lies. To those rejecting the story of the everlasting covenant in all its dimensions, are spoken of in Isaiah 8.
Isaiah 8:14 And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel,
Who? To both the houses of Israel. Remember Israel, they were twelve tribes. They split up into the ten and the two. The two were more faithful than the ten. But both of them stumbled at the stumbling stone. Go to today’s organisational revelations and you’ve got exactly the same. Start from the modern Israel of 1844, they were all together then came the split. Now there we have two houses of Israel. Is it going to be any different? It is written here He is a stone of stumbling to both the houses of Israel. If we are going to build upon the rock, we will build upon a thus saith the Lord and nothing will rattle you. You will be secure.
Romans 9:33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion (Where? Zion is the church) a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
In the church there is the stumbling stone. Only those who believe on the everlasting covenant in all its dimensions will not be ashamed.
1 Peter 2:7 Unto you therefore which believe [he is] precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, 8 And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, [even to them] which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.
Can you see what is meant? It is not just an imaginary stumbling stone; it is the word that they stumble over. Being disobedient whereunto also they were appointed, Predestination. God knew them as he knew all the people through Daniel 11. He knows those who believed and those who don’t and they were appointed to regard the rock as a rock of offence. Strange language but I better believe it. If I start to explain it around as so many theologians do, they explain away the hard reality of what is written in those words and I get very distressed when I see people doing that. Oh it doesn’t quite mean it like that, it means there is a slight deviation come on, doesn’t it say somewhere else that God is such a loving person?
He is a loving person of course but we have to get a right understanding of His loving and His wrath way and what it is all about. Here we see that this rock that we are studying that is precious to those who believe this wonderful everlasting gospel, those who believe make up one class of people and those who stumble over that rock, they become the other class. Where did those two classes start? The serpents seed; Cain and the woman’s seed; Abel. As Cain slew Abel, so this has happened all through the ages.
By this history the Lord would teach everybody that His Word is to be implicitly obeyed. Cain and Abel represent two classes—the wicked and the righteous, those who follow their own way and those who conscientiously keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment. . . . {CTr 35.5} Abel did not try to force Cain to obey God’s command. It was Cain, inspired by Satan and filled with wrath, who used force. Furious because he could not compel Abel to disobey God and because God had accepted Abel’s offering and refused his, which did not recognize the Saviour, Cain killed his brother. {CTr 35.6}
The stone of stumbling? This is the most bizarre experience you will make. If you are going to follow Jesus explicitly, you will be exposed to Cain’s experience. Your own wife, husband, father or mother will do what the brother did to the brother. Your own church brethren who stumble over the rock, will do the same thing. Cain, that class of people, they were Pharisees that crucified Christ.
The two parties represented by Cain and Abel will exist till the close of this earth’s history. The well-doer, the obedient, does not war against the transgressor of God’s holy law. But those who do not respect the law of God oppress and persecute other people. They follow their leader, who is an accuser of God and of those who are made perfect through obedience. . . . The spirit that leads people to accuse, condemn, imprison, and put to death other people has waxed strong in our world. It is this spirit that always works in the children of disobedience.—Manuscript 136, 1899. {CTr 35.7}
This is a very interesting thing when it reveals itself in the church. The church says you are not doing what the church dictates. We have the word of God and we will make sure you will do and if you don’t, we will persecute you whether it be by disfellowshipment or anything else. The principle of disfellowshipment is very poorly understood when you study it according to Gods word. People do not understand the true spirit of disfellowshipment. There is a dictatorial manner of disfellowshipment or a Godly manner of disfellowshipment. Two different principle’s altogether.
I know the experience well as I’ve had to do it many times in the past and it is never that the church stands over the person saying, you are not obeying us, you are out. It is never like that. That is Cain in the church. Follow the appreciation of the process to the consummation. That word was not carelessly chosen by the translators of the Bible because the word consummation is the word that describes the processes that take place that finally come to their conclusion.
Psalm 94:21 They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood. 22 But the LORD is my defence; and my God [is] the rock of my refuge. 23 And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness; [yea], the LORD our God shall cut them off.
How? In their own wickedness. This process will be clearly laid out before us that these two classes will come to the point where they will meet, and in meeting one another the destructive predatory nature of the wicked will shake and rattle your experience. That is what is written. They shall gather themselves against the soul of the righteous but as they do the Lord is our defence. Understand that principle.
Psalm 27:5 For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.
What was the rock? The everlasting covenant. God the rock of ages which Jesus Christ came to demonstrate in giving Himself and showing the way who would believe but He became a stumbling stone, a rock of offence. We will come to the time of trouble and we will need to know the real hiding place. The pavilion the sanctuary, the rock, the mountain. Behold the rock of salvation. Build upon Him and secure your eternal future.
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