tell you tonight I'm captive in more ways than one, hopefully captive by the Word and the Spirit of God, but also by George Calhoun's machine. I know that all of you love this passage and I'm going to read it only to what is undoubtedly for most of us the climax, the 15th verse. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, whereby we know that thou art a teacher come from God. For no man can do these mighty works that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Little Dina said unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. 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." Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, we speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen, and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The Holy Spirit blesses word and to our hearts and that savingly and sanctifyingly. Tonight I would call your attention, my dear friends, to the words that the Lord Jesus has spoken to Nicodemus, as I believe, returned to us here in writing in verses 14 and 15. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Today you and I realize that throughout the length and breadth of the so-called Christian world, preaching has fallen upon very evil days. It's fallen upon evil days because many people no longer know what preaching is. Bad enough is it when the congregation doesn't know what preaching is, still worse is it when preachers think that they are preaching and instead are twisting, corrupting, and obscuring the glorious gospel of God. Yet, as you know, throughout all the ages, and so also today, people are insisting that preaching has had its day. You ask the average world in why you are coming to a session like we have had throughout this week, and that particularly in the evenings, and they'll wonder why you are here, surprise as you sit Sunday after Sunday, and not only that, also during the days of the week you hear a man talk. And that idea that all we come to church for is to hear a man talk is quite current even among those who claim to be the children of God. I had a very interesting and fascinating Bible teacher in Grand Rapids Christian High School, now long translated into glory. And often he told with glee the little story about his daughter. As was custom in those days, we had lady census takers. But on one occasion such a census taker stepped also up to the home of that pastor. She inquired whether so-and-so lived there, whether the wife was alive, how many children there were. The little one of about nine, ten years old answered that very well. Then the lady asked, and what pray tell does your father do? and says, oh, my father doesn't do anything, he's just a preacher, he talks a little on Sunday and that's how he gets his money. And I feel that very often, you know, we fall into that temptation, supposing that as long as we talk a little, people think we are preaching. And the great temptation is that preachers fail to realize that they are men with a very difficult, even though delightful, past. Preaching is difficult work, it isn't just talking. It is indeed communicating the gospel by words that hopefully are to be understood, but such words have to come after much wrestling with the scriptures, meditating upon the word of God, and praying to the Holy Spirit for power. A preacher is a person who ought to be received in the background completely, and that's difficult for a preacher, let me assure you. But I feel that it is even more difficult for a congregation to let a preacher recede completely into the background. For you see, preaching isn't just a one-way street. By the wonderful ordination of God, every one of us is caught up by that Word of God. And if we're caught up by that Word of God, then it's just as hard, and sometimes even harder, to listen to a sermon, to meditate upon it throughout the week, and to put it into practice. For we, a preacher, is called upon so to bring the Word of God that we hear only the message that comes from on high, which in turn makes each one of us responsible for being preachers in turn. Our words and our works have to be a demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit. And that happens when the Word of God has its three courses. precourse indeed in flowing out of the word of God and through the channel that the Lord has ordained and set forth for the occasion, but in such a way that it flows into our life and it transforms our life so that we become, yes, living examples of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but not only indeed, above all in the word that has to be transmitted to every creature under heaven. If we bear that in mind, then preaching is going to be hard work for me, but it's going to be hard work for every one of you also. And the end of the preaching for me, and hopefully the end of the preaching also for you this evening, isn't going to be the saying of an amen at the end of the message and of the prayer. That's why when we speak about the deepening of our spiritual life, there is only one source, and that source is from above. It is God himself who alone can stir up the gift that is in us, transform whatever we are and all the situations in which we find ourselves so that we in turn become exhibits of his marvelous saving grace through the deepening of our own spiritual life which is union and communion with God. So throughout this week we've considered passages from the Word of God, random passages as it And yet I trust that every one of those passages has had a central focus. The wonderful grace of God in our Lord Jesus Christ. A grace that warns us that instead of pitching our tents in the direction of Sodom, we by the grace of God pitch our tents, settle our lives together with our families in the direction of heaven on the road that leads to glory. Now we do so deliberately because we've experienced the wonderful change that the Lord Jesus Christ works in our hearts. But the testing of that change comes when we begin to examine ourselves and in the light of the words of our blessed Savior Himself we see their yes love. Of a kind of love that the Savior has spoken of and has demonstrated, namely the love that has and keeps the commandments of God. so that we experience that the Lord Jesus Christ makes himself manifest unto us, and the love of the Father begins to overflow in our hearts from day to day. And that requires of us, of course, the characteristic of fearing before the Lord. Preaching never stops It's something that it sets its stamp upon our life because we have heard the lively word of God himself leads us to feel before him. And we engage ourselves by grace in response to his friendship, seeking to know his secret. And as he shows us that secret, it becomes a manifestation of a glorious covenant, a covenant rooted in the eternal plan of redemption shown unto us so fully in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the mediator and the surety and the head of that covenant that binds us in the totality of our lives to God. And all that sounds wonderful, and the heart of a Christian will leap for joy. But don't forget that the more you and I seek to draw close to the Lord, spend our time in communion with him even while we're busy with the assignments of daily life, the evil one, together with his minions, will assail us. And how are we going then to be restored to that fellowship? How is it going to sweeten our lives? How are we, let time stumble so deeply into sin, who mar the life of grace by the selfishness that is left over in us, going to be able to return unto Him who is our only life? The answer is in our text. This is a text indeed that has to call the sinner unto the first repentance. It has to be the clarion call of the gospel, even as it was to Nicodemus of old, because I believe Jesus spoke all through these words to Nicodemus. He didn't just stop with the speaking of the New Testament. But it has to be the message that calls us to a daily repentance and a daily return and a daily seeking after strength and hope and joy in the fulfillment of our calling. That's what spiritual life is all about. And this text ends with that. The having of the life that there is by the grace of God. And concerning that, our text says this. life through looking at our Lord Jesus. And may I be very simple and rather brief this evening. You'll hardly believe it, will you? I call your attention to the fact that this is the content of all gospel message, that this is the challenge and the call of all gospel message, and this is the conservation of all gospel message, life through looking at our Lord Jesus. The setting of this particular story is particularly interesting and informative for you and me who are seeking strength in the Savior. Our blessed Lord had already begun his ministry, had begun it up there in Galilee, and upon an occasion when there was a feast in Jerusalem, he goes to fulfill all righteousness by attending the feast at the Temple. And as he begins to do some of his works there in Judea, there in the city of Jerusalem, that's the law that stoned the prophets, there was one of the Pharisees who was deeply touched, his name was Nicodemus. All of us know about him, for that ruler of the Jews came to Jesus by night. And I'm sure that he came to Jesus by night not in the first place because he was afraid of our Lord Jesus, or afraid of associating with Christ, But because Stephen's time was the best time to sit back, on the housetop, in the wind of the day, and in undisturbed fashion to speak about the things that were near to his heart, and which he hoped to learn from this rabbi. He comes indeed prompted by curiosity, but perhaps even by something deeper, by a sense of emptiness within himself. He honors our Lord in a sense. He calls him rabbi master. And that one who had not sat at the seat of any of the learned rabbis there in Jerusalem, but a man who had come from Nazareth and Galilee, a despised town and a despised province. Imagine what that meant for a man like Nicodemus, high in the hierarchy of Judaism. One with a seat undoubtedly in the council of the Jews. A man perhaps endowed with wealth and certainly with tremendous position and power with a great deal of theological lore and learning from the Jews. But he goes to this man of Nazareth and he says, we know that thou art sent from God because no one can do these mighty works except God be with you. But ah, how inadequate such an approach to and such an evaluation of our Lord Jesus Christ is. Now the Savior, though moved with deep tenderness, cuts to the very heart of the matter and says to Nicodemus, There's one thing wrong with you. And the one thing that is needful in your life you are deeply lacking. You come to me and call upon me as a rabbi. You place yourself as a scholar. Now you a learned man of the Jews at my feet and I have come from Nazareth and Galilee. But you understand not at all what it is all about. And that's because there's something wrong deeply within you. You need a new heart. You have to be born again. And all of us know that marvelous message that the Lord Jesus gives regarding being born of water and the Spirit, being born anew, or being born again, or being born from above. All of us know that that's one of the very first messages that has to ring through our churches and ring into our hearts and into our homes. We need that radical change, that deep-rooted that divine change from death unto life and from the bondage of sin into the glorious liberty of the children of God, the application of salvation in the form of regeneration, a new life. And Nicodemus, of course, comes with all manner of questions, almost in the form of rational objections. How is it possible for a man to be born again when he's old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb? How is it possible that these things shall be? And notice the rather sharp rebuke that the blessed Savior has given to him. And it's important in our witness, first of all to ourselves and then to our children and to others, that we mince no words about the absolute necessity of this radical change, this being born from above. There is no way in which a man can have even the least appreciation of what grace is, the grace that leadeth unto eternal blessedness. And as that change is brought within his heart so that his mind becomes enlightened, his heart enlarged and his will directed unto the Lord Jesus Christ and that by the Holy Spirit. But you see, That regeneration needs a solid rock foundation. For which reason I don't agree with these commentators that seem to suppose that somewhere along the line Jesus stopped his discourse and that John is simply later, after the ascension and the glorification of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, adding a great deal of commentary to this. Christ didn't only speak of Nicodemus concerning the new birth, but then Christ begins to link up that new birth with his own appearance here in the midst of this world as the lowly Nazarene who is the son of man, but at the same time the eternal son of God. See what he calls Nicodemus is attention, doesn't he? To the fact that at the heart of every man's problem lies his alienation from God and from the life of God. and that by our searching and seeking out we shall never ascend unto God to bring him down unto us. Not through our works and not through our sighings and not through a multiplicity of our tears can we be reconciled unto God, for we know him not. And we cannot know him by our efforts. It is God who comes down in and through His only begotten Son, through the Lord Jesus Christ, who manifests Himself as the Son of Man, both as the Promised One, but at the same time in all His holiness, for He is the One who has come down to declare the will of the Father unto us. And how does He do that? By pointing out unto Nicodemus that the solid ground for the wonderful change that has to be wrought in our heart, which isn't a purely psychological change, and certainly not one by character reformation, or one achieved by education in all manner of details of doctrine or of historical significance, but by the atoning and precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is Christ who has to be lifted up. That's the whole ministry of the Holy Spirit too. So the Holy Spirit is not going to speak about himself even though he is the wonder worker that turns our heart unto the Savior. But it's precisely his ministry to show us that lifted up Lord Jesus Christ. And as Christ for the first time is making clearly manifest that he has come into this world to be lifted up and that is to die as an atonement for sin. He proclaims this to Nicodemus by recalling an event from the Old Testament. Of course our Lord and also his disciples repeatedly quoted from the Old Testament. The Saviour himself applied many, many, many of the passages from the prophets and from the Psalms unto himself. But this is the only historical event that I know of that Jesus explicitly took and applied to his atoning death. He refers to many other events, for example to Jonah, to the death of Jonah and the resurrection of Jonah as it were when he was swallowed up by the whale. And in this particular instance he takes what is rather an obscure event recorded for us in the book of Numbers concerning the wanderings of the children of Israel through the wilderness. That's important for us to remember if we're going to use the messages by the grace of God for the deepening of our spiritual life. Also Israel's deliverance out of Egypt, its receiving of the will of God at Sinai, and its journeyings through the desert unto the promised land of Canaan are a kind of type and a symbol and foreshadowing of the life of God's people today in this world as they journey to the everlasting rest into which a greater than Joshua has to bring us. We're on such a journey. At least I hope we are. A long journey. A journey with its delights, with its goodies, but also with its distresses. You know the story that comes to us there from the Chakra of Numbers? Israelites have been led through the wilderness. They have the opportunity of entering into the land of Canaan and they turn their back upon it because they fear the enemy. And so they have to wander for many more years in the desert. And as they had done so often, so also upon this occasion they were murmuring against the Lord. That Nana had eaten it ever since they had left the bondage in Egypt. They quarreled with the Lord, at times even complaining and wishing that they were back in Egypt where at least there were leeks and cucumbers and other marvelous vegetables. God had given them quails upon one occasion and then sent a plague. Because in that manner was all that they needed. Everything to sustain them throughout that whole earthly pilgrimage. They wanted something different. something novel, and perhaps something that would remind them of the bounteous luxuries that they claimed they had in Egypt, long forgetting already that their fathers had been in awful bondage there under the whiplashes of Pharaoh, and that their sons had been doomed by the Pharaoh to be thrown into the Nile. No, they remembered only those nice things, those pleasant things, those delectable things that they had, but very rarely. And so the Lord smote them. And murmuring was really rebellion against his leading, a dissatisfaction with his marvelous provision. And the fiery serpents came. And Jesus refers to that. Ah, when those fiery serpents came, then those Israelites realized that they were out of harmony with God. And they couldn't deliver themselves. So you read there that they called upon Moses to pray on their behalf to make intercession for them God in his marvelous and condescending grace tells Moses to fashion that serpent of grass to put it upon a pole and to tell the Israelites to lift up their eyes and look upon it That and that only Well what do we find in that? Well in that serpent of course we find the antidote, the remedy that God has provided for that which would doom those children of Israel. And that Moses was told to make a serpent in the first place is to be understood as a reminder that they were bitten by those serpents. But there's a deeper meaning to it, it seems to me, because the Bible so often refers to that serpent as a symbol of sin and particularly the symbol of the devil who inspires to sin and leads into sin and tends unto sin. You read of that in Genesis 3, the subtlety of the devil. You read of that time after time also throughout the Bible leading up to Revelation where he's called the big old serpent who is also the dragon. And why? Because sin, as the devil tends man unto sin, comes softly. It brings pain and distress and it dooms unto death from which a person cannot save himself by his own efforts or remedies and for which there is no antidote under the sun except God give it from above. And this our Lord wants to underscore when he preaches to Nicodemus. Yes, he needs this new birth, this change in the direction of his life, but what's going to happen when his life is so changed? And the answer that our Lord Jesus has for him here is that Nicodemus must then look upon this Son of Man who is also the eternal Son of God, who abides in heaven, But it was come down here to earth, and it was come down here to earth indeed as a teacher, but much more than a teacher, through his teaching to point unto himself as the great unto-go-to and remedy for the bout of sin. And this the child of God has to remember throughout all the days of his earthly pilgrimage. Because we are simply bitten by sin unto death, my dear friend. Before there's that spiritual quickening and awakening in our lives, but the struggle throughout all the days of our life is against sin and its attacks as they are perpetrated by the evil one against us. Sometimes the bites may sink in very deeply and cause more pain than upon other occasions. From our point of view, one sin may look much more serious than another. But now when we study the history of the children of Israel and begin to see ourselves in the light of that, we understand that so often we consider a very normal expression of ourselves a very understandable reaction to the problems and the perplexities of life, something like our murmuring and our weakness and faith, that God regards as a deadly wound. A deadly wound like the bite of a serpent. And the remedy comes only through the lifted up Christ. He is the one that is to be lifted up. Many commentators, of course, have wondered precisely what that listing up is, but it seems to me that Jesus himself explains it most succinctly and clearly in John, the twelfth chapter. Now in the twelfth chapter, just before our Lord is going to go to the cross, there are Greeks, fossilized in Jerusalem, for it is again a time of the feast. And they come to Philip, who is a Bethsaida, and they say unto him, Sir, we would see Jesus. And so Philip, with another of the disciples, comes to Jesus and Jesus makes himself manifest. And he speaks so very clearly about his death, that such a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth alone. But if it fall into the earth and die there, it beareth much fruit. And as Jesus there proclaims the necessity, the absolute necessity of his death, which is but a day or two or three away, it thunders from heaven. Trembling takes hold of the audience, Jews also among them, and the disciples. And our Lord says, and this voice is not for my sake, but for your sake. And he prays in that connection that God may glorify him, glorify him in this testimony that he is making, for glorifying him then through this testimony unto his own death. For he speaks Now the prince of this world, this devil, this old serpent who's always attacking the work of God, is going to be cast out. For he's going to be lifted up. Jesus speaks there in the first person. And when I've been and lifted up, I will draw all men unto myself. And John, by inspiration, says he speaks there indicating the manner of death that he would die. death by which he offers up himself as the remedy for man's sin. His atonement, if you will. His substitutionary atonement. His absolutely efficacious atonement. That atonement is the remedy against sin. Sin in its guilt. Sin in its pollution and corrupting influences in our life. Sin in its power over us, from which we cannot release ourselves. Sin in its penalty, which is death. And all this is included in order that the children of God may understand that the substance of the gospel, the content of the message that is to be proclaimed, is Jesus Christ coming to the world to seek and to save sinners. And we never graduate from the class where that has to be taught. There is no child of God so advanced that he can pass through one day omitting the lesson which has to teach him again his own sinfulness and the necessity of seeing the impossibility of himself returning unto God and remaining in fellowship with God on this earthly life apart from looking to the Savior. All that was required of his life, and Christ wants to underscore that when he speaks with Nicodemus, is a looking to Christ. Well, that brings us, of course, to the challenge, the call of the gospel, and every gospel has to have a call in it, and otherwise it isn't preaching, otherwise it isn't teaching, otherwise it isn't continuing to make people disciples in our Lord Jesus Christ. It all hangs together. I remember the story that my father used to tell me about those Dutch churches in the Netherlands. He was born and brought up there. Later on, he became a minister of the gospel here in the United States. And then after he observed two congregations, the way was open for him to go as the first American student to study theology at the Free University in Amsterdam, and he was the first American graduate. Well, throughout the three years that he spent there, he preached throughout the length and breadth of the Netherlands. He was quite well known. He hadn't been gone from the Netherlands that long. And the Netherlands in those days was still living, that is, reformed the people in the Netherlands in the light of two glorious reawakenings, revivals, and reformations that had taken place. You've had those marvelous experiences in Scotland, here in the United States also, or we've had them in the Netherlands. And we still feel there are our spiritual roots. The first was in 1834, the second in 1886. They were rather different. My father used to say when you came to a congregation that had its roots in that first revival, they always expected you to preach something on sanctification, on the holy life, on the necessity of seeking after the Lord from day to day, on the experiential side. of the Christian life, so that one might test oneself in the light of the word of God, whether one was of Christ, yes or no. And when one would come to that 1886 congregation, one that had its roots in that reformatory work that was led by Abram Kuyper and many others together with him, the emphasis was much more on what we would call the objective side, the marvelous works and wonders of God unto our redemption, and so you ought to preach justification. It was rather hard, you see, in those congregations to remind them that justification and sanctification belong together. That is, it isn't this way, that if you once believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that then you have attained, and there isn't anything more that you need to do except rest in an assurance that all was taken care of. That often led to a kind of carelessness. Well, as on the other side, the danger was that, preaching the need of scientification, attention was so called to the Christian and to his own experience and to the risings and the fallings in his own spiritual life, that the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and the solidity of the work of salvation became obscured. And I suppose every revival and reawakening and reformation suffers from some one-sidedness, and that's why we have to grow into the fullness. And this passage, it seems to me, tells us something of that. Indeed, there is to be that first looking to the Lord Jesus Christ, that first conscious awareness of the deadliness of faith. and such a turning unto Christ that we know that the remedy is in Him and in Him alone. But that must be deepened in our lives, so that we always go back unto Him and we look to Him not only for the covering of the guilt of our sins, which we need every day, so that a child of God who knows that he is principally forgiven by the blood and righteousness of Christ still prays every day and teaches his children to pray, and forgive me my sins for Jesus' sake, amen. But he proceeds farther than that, and looks to Christ for the covering of the pollution of his sin, and for deliverance from the power of sin, and for the hope of blessings. What then is that kind of looking to Jesus? The words of my text say, that's believing. That's believing. Do I have to bring to your remembrance, as good, sound, confessional Presbyterians, what believing really is? Oh, it's knowledge. Of course, it's knowledge. It's the truth that is according to godliness revealed in the Scriptures. But it's more than that. It is the response, the ascent of the self to that. But it's more than that, too. It is the trust, the letting of ourselves go upon those promises of those who look to the Lord Jesus Christ as the answer to all the problems and the perplexities of life. Because all of them wrote directly and indirectly in the presence, the persistence, and the power of sin that continues to work in us and among us. Even the apostle Paul called of God to wrestle with that problem of sin. Read Romans 7. That isn't Paul before his conversion. It tells of that struggle that Paul had. He sees those two lords in his memory. the desirous of serving the Lord, and a Christian who doesn't desire to serve the Lord Jesus and make progress in holy living ought to put a big question mark behind the sincerity of his faith. How can you and I be delivered from the venom of sin, from its poisonous consequences that doom us unto death, and not show gratitude unto God and say, what wilt thou have me to do, O Lord? The Lord says, you become holy as I am holy, and in that struggle of holiness, on that long pilgrimage, on that wilderness journey, because sometimes it does look like a wilderness even though it's our Father's world and we have so many blessings here. You're again stung, bitten, with the deadly serpent. And then we turn again to look to Christ. That faith has to be the active principle laid down by God, he puts us in union with the Lord Jesus Christ through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, but we exercise it so that it becomes a living, precious communion with Christ. A seeking after him and knowing that those who seek after him, all they find when they continue to seek in the biblical way, and that those who ask, and ask after the Lord Jesus, received and in his fullness. It's the command of the gospel. You don't just peddle information that you and I file away for future reference. One of our speakers so succinctly said throughout this week, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ isn't simply a life insurance policy for heaven, but a fire insurance policy against hell. It's that in a sense that it's much more than that. It is the insurance that gives us the assurance that nothing can separate us from the love of God because we are in Christ and our faith turns unto Him. Sometimes we may look at Him a bit cross-eyed. Sometimes only out of one eye. Often with a trembling hope and with an ashamed face and a broken heart because we've sinned against Him so long. But oh, the mercy, the grace, the overflowing love of God, who calls, who commands us in the gospel to look to Jesus. And that looking is believing. The eyes of the soul are enlightened. It's one of the first fruits of regenerating, renewing grace. And we see Him, and the longer we look upon Him, and the oftener we turn unto Him. the more indescribably precious he becomes. Because the guilt of our sin, the debt, is paid. But the solution is coming. But thanks be to God, its power, its sting is also broken and we lose our taste for that which is contrary to God's will and that which is dishonoring to the Savior who bought us with his most precious blood. You see, that doctrine of the atonement has to be lifted up in all its purity and in its grandeur. But it must become the kind of doctrine that thrills our mind, our heart, and the deepest recesses of our soul. Our faith has to be an embracing of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ together with all of his work. It pours out its benefits upon us, and that is life. Describe life for you? absolutely impossible. The Bible doesn't really give us a definition of it. That's the closest approach we find in the words of our Lord Jesus in his high priestly prayer in John 17. And this is nice that they may know thee, the only true God, in him whom thou would send, even Jesus Christ. Remember what was said during this week about that knowledge of God, that knowing of God. It is the knowing of the whole soul. like a husband learns to know his wife and the wife knows the husband and we stand as the lives of friends are knit together they cannot live without each other. Much more deeply than that is our knowing of God, because our knowing of God is the answer of his eternal knowing of us in the Lord Jesus Christ, the setting of his love upon us by which he wounds us and draws us and wins us unto himself. That's what preaching is all about. And it's those through the minister, but thanks be unto God, not from him. It comes from the Word of God, out of heaven itself, accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit. And its promise, its comfort, is that life. Most people who are alive today and claim that they are alive are dead, dead in their trespasses and in their sins because they are dead unto God. And many are the people adorning the pews of the church and even standing in the focus who give very little evidence of any of being alive and then they are dead. There aren't three kinds of Christians. We talked about that on the beach today. Or two kinds of Christians. carnal Christians and spiritual Christians. Now the most spiritual Christian has a lot of carnality in him for which he shatters every single day. But no one is a Christian who can continue in carnality. A Christian can fall into sin, but he can't love sin and live in it for a long time. That's an impossibility. He desires to be delivered from the body of death and the sting of the sacrifice. The Bible says, when then on the journey through this world, sin has stung you. The serpent has bitten you and injected some of his poison in you. Turn again to the Lord Jesus Christ. Character faults, gross sins, sins of omission. Fundamentally it makes very little difference, for in the sight of God, little sins and big sins are equally deadly and from not one of them can you and I redeem and deliver ourselves. And therefore it is the lifted up Christ that has to be preached and taught and spoken about. He is the answer. Have you found your answer in him? Not just once, but have you tested his faith for us by coming unto him with your little needs and your big problems with the burdens of life but also with a sense of personal guilt and shame. You see increasingly yourself in the light of the blazing holiness and love and tenderness of the Lord Jesus. That, my friends, and that alone begins to melt our eyes to tears and our heart with a sensitivity that confesses sin and turns in faith to Jesus. And as we turn to faith in Jesus, we can only answer with that old servant of God, John Kelvin, whose answer was, my heart, I give thee, O Lord, promptly and sincerely. And as day by day struggles come, the pains come, and the pride overtakes us, and we are reminded again by the lifted up Christ that there is only one remedy. Let us turn unto Him, believe, and experience the inflowing of the life of forgiveness, and sustaining and directing grace, and answer, and Lord, then here is my heart. And feel it for thyself. for thy service here in this world as long as thou wouldst keep me here, and when, and where, and then for thy course through all eternity. Amen.