Our eternal God and gracious Heavenly Father, in the precious and fearless name of Thy dear Son and our only Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, we humbly and reverently bow in Thy holy and sacred presence. We draw near to Thee, our God, tonight upon the ground of redemption, pleading all the efficacy and value and power of the Saviour's precious blood, rejoicing that we are clothed in righteousness divine, and we can plead the authority and the power of His name as we come to God in prayer. We thank Thee for that new and living way that Thou hast opened up for us through the revelation into Thine immediate presence. and become, O God, to worship at thy feet and to magnify thy great and thy glorious name. Lord, we come with due reverence and godly fear, remembering who thou art, the one who dwells in light unapproachable and full of glory. His name is reverent and holy. Become, as thy redeemed creatures, those that thou hast chosen in Christ from all eternity, redeemed by the power and value of that redeeming love and grace and blood of Calvary, resting alone in him and looking to thee for grace for this pleasant hour. We would lift up our hearts in worship and adoration and in thanksgiving as we remember and recount thy great goodness to us. Thank Thee for all the way that Thou hast led, for the hand of providence that has been good to us, for the blessing of God upon this church over these many years, and even, Lord, for Thy blessing and presence in the meetings this week. Thank Thee for the meetings last night and the night before, for a conscious sense of Thy presence, for the word of the Lord faithfully preached, supplied with power to our hearts. Now, Lord, we stand in great need at the commencement of the service tonight. We do pray that Thou wilt have mercy upon us, that Thou wilt look down in grace upon this assembled people, that we'll be conscious from the very outset of the nearness and the presence of the Lord, that His hand may be with us. power of the Holy Spirit will come down and be poured out in fullness upon every deliberation. And may the Holy Spirit govern and direct and control in all that is done and said. We pray that thou wilt bless the choir and the ensemble as they would bring the messages and song to us. We thank thee for blessing them on Monday night. And we pray again tonight that the hand of the Lord will be upon them, and that, Lord, their prayers might be God-glorified, and our hearts might be uplifted and blessed through their ministry. We ask too that Thou would remember very especially Thy servant as he comes to minister the word of God, bring the message that Thou hast laid upon his heart. We pray that Thou would endue him with power from on high, Fill him full of the Holy Ghost and of power. Grant him first unction and then uprinse to declare with boldness the mystery of the gospel. And may he be made unto us the Lord's messenger in the Lord's message. Hear these our prayers. Remember us, O God, as we continue to worship. Grant that tonight heaven may touch earth, and glory to crown the mercy seat. We ask these things in our Saviour's worthy name and for God's eternal glory. Amen. Our scripture reading this evening is taken from the Old Testament, from the prophecy of Isaiah chapter 42. Isaiah chapter 42 And we read from the opening verse of the chapter. Let us hear the word of God. Behold my servant, whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth. I have put my spirit upon him. He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench. He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not feel nor be discouraged till he have said judgment on the earth. and the isle shall wait for his law. Thus saith the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out, he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it, he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein, I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house." Ending our reading at verse seven, We know that the Lord himself will bless the reading of the holy scriptures to each of our hearts. I am delighted to have the privilege of introducing our speaker this evening, Dr. Alan Kearns, Minister of Faith, Pre-Presbyterian Church in Greenville, USA. Cairns in many ways needs no introduction to this congregation tonight for he is well known and highly respected on both sides of the Atlantic. Most of you will know he ministered in Dunmurray and Ballymoney for many years here in Ulster with great profit and blessing before moving at the call of God to North America to pioneer the work there in Greenville. Those of you from Greenville and from North America know the tremendous contribution that he has made to our witness and outreach in the continent of America. Dr. Kearns was also the Professor of Theology at our Whitfield College for a number of years. His clear, concise and powerful presentation great doctrines of God and of grace will be remembered by all of us who had the privilege of sitting under his teaching ministry. I believe he had a profound and lasting influence upon all of the students who passed through our college. We thank God for his contribution to the witness of the Free Presbyterian Church both in Ulster and in North America. We welcome him back to Ulster and to this pulpit and we pray that the Lord will especially bless him and help him as he ministers the word of God to us tonight. What he doesn't tell you is that the lasting impression I left in all those students, at least they tell me, was the enjoyment they had of doing very brief examinations, and some of them never lasted more than, say, ten or twelve hours. He also doesn't tell you that he is the professor of systematic theology. As I told him, this should have been the other way around. I've been very happy to introduce James Beggs tonight. Jim and I go back a long way. and we have enjoyed fellowship over the years and it's good to be with you all and with him tonight. Before we turn to God's Word, let me just take a moment on behalf of all the folk who have come over from North America to thank the Congress Committee here for the great arrangements you've made for us and for the very, very good job that you've done in the various plans and the execution of those plans for this great Congress. We particularly, from the group that have come through our church in Greenville, particularly like to thank a number of churches. I don't want to go down all of this tonight simply for the sake of time, but the churches that have gone out of their way to open their doors to us and they have provided stopping places and we were supposed to stop for a snack here and there. before dinner at night, well, I can tell you, well, you would know this in Ulster, there's no such thing as a snack, but on their behalf, I'd like to thank you all for all that you've done to make our people very welcome. And I hope that there will be personal bonds of friendship forged. I hope that there will be not only among young people, and I do trust there will be that, but even among older folk, there will be a constant to-ing and fro-ing across the Atlantic by e-mail or mail, and then even in person, and that you'll make some contacts, and that these two churches will be constantly kept together not only by the bonds of common doctrine, which is certainly very, very important, but that they'll be held together by the bonds of deep and personal friendship and respect. Now, returning to God's Word this evening in Isaiah chapter 42, There are three kinds of texts. There's a text that's taken for strict exposition. There's a text that some preachers take just as a pretext for what they want to say anyway, no matter what the Bible says. And then there's a text that's a sort of a launching pad, and that's what I want to use our text for this evening. The theme of this Congress is the preeminence of Christ. I think it was Dr. Paisley, I don't know that anybody else would have the sheer gall to come up with this, but somebody came up with the theme, the subject, it sounds wonderful on paper, but it presents an absolute impossibility for a preacher to cover in the time And some rascal went and put a clock in front of me. That's what I think of that. But they put an impossibility in front of me, and the subject given is the preeminence of Christ in the covenant of grace. The preeminence of Christ in the covenant of grace. And our launching pad for a text tonight is in Isaiah chapter 42 verses 6 and 7. I the Lord have called thee in righteousness and will hold thine hand and will keep thee and give thee for a covenant of the people for a light of the Gentiles to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. I don't want us to get hung up on terminology, so right from the very beginning I want to bring everybody with me in the simplest possible terms. By the covenant of grace, we mean simply the plan that God made for the salvation of sinners. It's called a covenant because God's plan of salvation in scripture takes the form of a compact, or what I would say is a legal binding agreement into which the Lord freely enters and the terms of which he himself has sovereignly laid down. It's called a covenant of grace for various reasons. The most obvious being that the whole idea of saving sinners is God's idea. The whole manner of saving sinners is God's way of doing it. This flows out of the pure goodness and love and kindness of the great heart of our God. It's a covenant of grace that expresses the essential goodness and love of God. It's called a covenant of grace, secondly, because there is nothing in sinners that can ever merit salvation from God. There's nothing in sinners that can ever merit anything from God but judgment and wrath. No man has any hold upon God. If the Lord were to deal with us as human beings in mere justice, He would have to do with fallen men precisely what He did with fallen angels. leave them to their own merited destruction. Remember in Hebrews chapter 2 we read verses 16 and 17, For verily the Lord Jesus Christ took not on him the nature of angels. I don't have time to go up rabbit trails and side alleys tonight. In Greenville they would be ready for me now to go up my first side alley and know that it might take over the whole sermon. But there is this basic misconception. You find it sometimes even expressed in the foolish words of otherwise orthodox believers. They wouldn't quite put it this way, but this is the underlying thought that somehow God owes sinners salvation. And He doesn't. When angels sin, God never moved a finger to save them. There's no provision for the restoration, the redemption of one single fallen angel. He took not on Him the nature of angels. But we read, He took on Him, and the Greek text simply has the idea He laid hold of the seed of Abraham. Now the Lord determined in his great goodness to deal with this seed of Abraham in grace while at the same time satisfying his own in it justice. He does that in the terms of the covenant of grace, an immutable agreement by which he confers eternal salvation upon his chosen people. And as Peter says, he gives to them all things that pertain to life and godliness. In Hebrews chapter 10, You're able to discover the precise terms of the covenant of grace as God gives it to sinners. Verses 16 and 17. This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord. Now I want you to watch these words very carefully. They are not the words that any theologian I have ever known or read would have chosen to employ in describing the covenant of grace. And yet these are the words that the Holy Ghost chose. This is the covenant I will make with them, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts And in their minds will I write them. Then comes the part that we would have expected to come first. And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. But here's how he starts. I covenant. I enter into a binding legal agreement that we will, if time permits, see as an agreement settled in heaven and sealed with the blood of atonement to write my law in the heart of my people and put them in their minds. Now, immediately, that makes a point that lies at the heart of every consideration of the covenant of grace. I will put my laws in their hearts. And I want you to get the deduction from that. I'm not going to expound that text, but I want you to get an inevitable deduction that's absolutely vital if you're ever going to understand God's way of salvation. There can be no covenant of grace that does not set the sinner in a right relation to God's law. Now let's understand that because that immediately raises some very far-reaching questions. This promise ends their sins and their iniquities, will I remember no more? But how can a holy God, here's the question, By the way, a question to which no religion of man has ever even approximated an answer. How can a holy God, how can a God of infinite inflexible justice simply forget about any man's sins? Let me put that another way. How can a guilty sinner an offender against God's law under the wrath and the condemnation of a holy God stricken in his own conscience that bears witness with the law of God written in heaven? How can such a sinner legally, that is with full deference to the law of God, with full respect to God's law without in any way deviating from the strictest application of the law. How can a guilty, hell-deserving sinner ever legally be made right with God? Powerful question. As I say, every religion of man is based on trying to answer those questions, and every religion of man is a device of the devil to damn the souls of sinners with a lying response to them. There is only one answer, and the answer is in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the Gospel does answer these questions. and it answers them by explaining the nature of God's dealings with man according to the terms of a gracious covenant. But here's the twist. According to the terms of a gracious covenant that he first entered into before time began. A covenant that he first entered into, not directly with us at all, but with his own dear son, whom he appointed the head, the sponsor, the representative of his covenant people. So the key to the covenant that God makes with men when he says, I'll put my law in your heart and I'll write it there and I'll not remember your sins and your iniquities, the key to the covenant that God makes with men is the Lord Jesus Christ and the covenant that the Father entered into with the Son before the world began. Now I've gone to these lengths to emphasize this. Because this is what we mean by saying Christ is preeminent in the covenant of grace. When I'm talking about the preeminence of Christ in the covenant of grace, I have no intention of comparing the importance of the role of the Father with the role of the Son and saying the role of the Son is more important. That would be heresy and it would be blasphemy. It is essential to biblical orthodoxy to hold that there is no preeminence, there is no superiority, there is no inferiority within the Holy Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God, the same in substance, and equal in power and in glory. By the preeminence of Christ, we mean that in the covenant agreement into which the Father and the Son entered before all time, the Lord Jesus Christ stands at the head of the people whom the Father gave to Him, so perfectly identified with them that in their place He accepts all the responsibilities set forth in the covenant And for their benefit, he promises to procure all the blessings and the benefits that God has set forth in that cup. So what I'm saying is that the person and the work of Christ are the key to the success of God's entire scheme of salvation. I always try, I recommend this to preachers to do. It certainly is an exercise that humbles your pride at times. I always try, whether I'm preaching on a word, on a verse, or as I've done from time to time, believe it or not, and even got it through in one sermon, a whole book, I always try to encapsulate the entire message in one sentence. So if you don't get anything else of what I say by way of exposition, at least you'll get what it's all about. The preeminence of Christ in the covenant of grace. What I'm seeking to establish is simply this, that the father appointed his son as the head of his people for whom he acted in his life and in his death thereby meriting for them the blessing of eternal salvation. Now it's very easy for me to give you that one statement, and it's very easy for you to think now we have got through the message. If you're of that opinion, I can tell you you have never been to Greenville. They're now just settling back, saying we've had the introduction, How many weeks will this take? There are four great themes that arise out of that statement. I'm not promising to get to them all. Martin Lloyd-Jones once said that a preacher, if he's in the spirit, never really knows where the message is going to end. I would add to his semi-inspired words, my own inspired words, that the people sitting down there never know when it's going to end. But anyway, there are four things that arise out of this. We're going to deal first with the appointment of Christ. The father appointed his son. The Lord, I the Lord, have called thee in righteousness. These are the words that the Father addresses to the Son. The Father appointed the Lord Jesus Christ as a covenant person. Now bear with me. Don't turn off once we start doing a little theology. Theology is not a dry subject. If you want to prove that, go to the Whitfield College and listen to Mr. Beggs and it will thrill your soul. And I mean that. In 1 Corinthians 15, verses 45 and 47, we have two terms that I don't want you to rush over. They are immensely important. They are names given to the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 45, He is called the Last Adam. And equally significantly, in verse 47, He is called the Second Man. Now let that sink in. How many men do you suppose lived between Adam and Christ? You're dealing with hundreds of millions. And yet, having called the Lord Jesus the last Adam, the Holy Spirit now terms Him the second man. Those are important references for they tell us how God deals with mankind. He deals with all men in the terms of a covenant. They're either in Adam or they're in Christ. The theological way of putting this is that these are public persons. By public it means they are representative persons. The entire mass of humanity who have ever lived upon the face of the earth are summed up in these two men, Adam and Christ. So in essence, and if you want to take this line out a whole lot more fully than I can develop it tonight, I would recommend you to read the work of historical theology by the great Scottish writer William Cunningham. where he points out that virtually God has only ever dealt with two men, Adam and Christ. In Adam, that's the covenant of works. The special providence that God displayed to humanity upon the creation of our first parents is this, that He entered into a covenant of life with them upon condition of perfect obedience. forbidding them to eat of the tree of knowledge upon the pain of death. So says our shorter Catechism. He entered into a covenant of life. In other words, it was Adam, I have created you sinless, spotless, pure and holy. If I could sum it up like this, It was as difficult for Adam to sin as it is for a fallen person, especially a saved person, to be holy. It was his nature. It was easy to be holy. It was difficult to sin. God made him that way. He didn't leave him balanced between good and evil. He biased him toward the good so that that was his very nature. And when he did that, he entered into a covenant and he said, Adam, I have one simple command. But by the way, in that one simple command, you will find implied and comprehended the full-armed holiness that God expects. One simple command, there's all of my creation, enjoy it all. There's one prohibition. If you do this, you'll live. And not only will you live, but your entire posterity will live because we were in Adam. There's a big theological discussion of what that means. We're in Him as far as the covenant goes. I am what's called in theology a tradution, which means, you agree with me there? Hallelujah, I'm right. Mr. Beggs agrees with me. We were seminally in Adam. The complete human race was in Adam. And had Adam kept the covenant of works, the whole of humanity would have lived in everlasting bliss. But Adam sinned, and we sinned and we fell in him. Our larger catechism says the covenant being made with Adam as a public person, not for himself only, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation, send in him and fell with him in his first transgression, as Paul the Apostle put it, in Adam, all die. There may be in this vast assembly tonight somebody who is still clinging on to the hope of being saved by a covenant of works. There may well be somebody here and you imagine that by doing your best, being in the church, being baptized, being confirmed, coming to the holy table, eating of the bread and the wine, by not doing any harm to anybody that you can see, that somehow you can be saved. What you're saying is you'll be saved. on the basis of a covenant of works, and that's impossible. By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Worse than that, you're committing the awful sin of saying to God, I reject your plan of salvation, I repudiate the ground of grace, and as we'll see, that's saying the righteous merits of Jesus Christ are not good enough for me. There's no salvation. such a ground. But Paul does not only say in Adam all die, he says even so in Christ shall all be made alive. In Christ, you see, that's the covenant of grace. Again, our Lord's Catechism puts it, the covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam and in him with all the elect as his seed. And so fully did our Lord Jesus Christ assume all the responsibilities under the covenant, so entirely did He stand in our place as our representative and as our sponsor, that the Word of God speaks of the covenant of grace as actually being embodied in Him, personified in Him. Listen to what we read tonight again, Isaiah 42.6. I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, I'll hold thy hand, I'll keep thee." Listen, I will give thee for a covenant of the people. Isaiah 49 verse 8 says again, the Lord speaking to His Son, I will preserve thee and give thee for a covenant of the people. So the Lord Jesus was appointed as a covenant person. But again, as we think of the appointment of Christ, the Father gave a particular people to this appointed head from all eternity. God gave a people to Christ so that in their name and in their place he was appointed to act. God gave a people to Christ And he says, you are commissioned to act for them. You are commissioned to act as them. You are commissioned to be their head, their representative. You stand now in covenant legal agreement with me, charged with the great work of doing all that is necessary to bring this people back to me and bring this people back to glory. In John 17, I'll not even turn there because it's such a glorious and huge passage that we may get sidetracked, but in John 17, the great high priestly prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ, He's speaking to His Father just before the crucifixion and again and again. And get the setting here. Understand the circumstances. This is in the shadow of the cross. And as the Lord Jesus is facing Calvary with all the repugnance of the thought of that cursed tree. And it was a repugnant thing. The Lord Jesus, as a man, would thank no personal enjoyment in saying, My God, why have you forsaken me? It was an awful thing to have all the curse of God poured upon His head, to have all the fury of the broken law poured out upon His head. It was an awful thing. And as He was approaching that, there was one thing in His mind that He kept repeating to His Father, Father, here are people, thine they were and thou gavest them to me. Again and again he repeats it. Father, there's a people here. I have lived with them. I have manifested your name to them. I have prayed for them and I'm still praying for them. I'm just about to die for them. They're your people. You chose those people. You gave those people to Me. And in their place, all I have done, all I am doing, and all I ever will do in their place, I have assumed this mighty responsibility. All these people were sinners. Every single last one of them. And therefore the covenant responsibility of Christ was to provide those sinners with a righteous title to heaven. Remember what I said at the beginning. Salvation by grace must be legal. Let me give you an example here. I don't have time to do it, but I'm going to do it anyway. We've all heard this facile, fatuous, foolish, absolutely stupid sort of illustration from preachers. We've grown up listening to it. It comes in various guises. One I heard when I was a little fellow. This is supposed to illustrate the goodness and kindness of God. There's a schoolroom and there was Wee Willie John, he came from a very poor family, he had hardly clothes on his back, he hadn't had a decent breakfast that morning, he was dirty and untempted, he had done something wrong and he needed to get a good caning. And he was hauled out to the front and there was this little quivering frame. The preacher knew how to paint the picture to make you feel very sorry for this wee fellow. And he's about to be killed and there's this fellow, he's a big strapping student, he's been well fed and well nourished and he's from a well kept home and he can't bear it any longer and he says in the kindness of his heart, sure I'll take as punishment for him. Because he got punished he went and sat down. Or a criminal. He's found guilty of a crime. But instead of him being put to death, somebody else comes and says, I'll take his place for him and let him go free. Now, when somebody does that for you, they're very kind. Don't get me wrong here. If I was going to get killed, I'd be very happy for Jim Bex to come and take my place. If I was going to be hung, I would certainly phone for John Wagner and say, would you come and take my place? I'd be very kind. It's not the ghost of the shadow of a suggestion, can I make it any plainer than that, of an illustration of what God does. First of all, if the ungodly criminal goes free, justice has been violated. And if the innocent dead has been punished, then justice is doubly violated. So how does God do it? Remember what I said? God only deals with two men, Adam and Christ. Christ is not an alien person to us. He is the head. We are his body. We are one with him. inseparably united to him. He was charged to provide us with a legal title to heaven. You can only get into heaven if the place there has been well and truly merited, if the place has been earned. And if you don't have an earned place in heaven, you'll be in hell. The gospel is you don't do the earning, See, we need a real righteousness. Only Christ can provide it. That perfect conformity to God's law that pays respect to the precept and that bears the full fury of the penalty of the broken law, that righteousness, as I say, has to be earned. It has to be worked for. That's what the Lord Jesus did. You know, in evangelicalism today, There's hardly ever any mention of what theologians call, rather inaccurately, but it will do for a title, the active obedience of Christ. They speak as if the only thing that mattered was the death of Christ. I agree with Mr. Beggs. I love the hymns about the blood. And if this church ever goes soft on the blood atonement, may God shut its doors forever. Let me tell you very humbly and very reverently, without the life that death would be absolutely powerless. There's an inseparable unity here. What some not-too-orthodox theologians actually call the Christ event, which is a nice title, you can't separate anything from the birth right through the ascension of Christ. All one great event. He lived to fulfill the law of God. We will come to that, if time permits, a little more fully in a moment. He lived to earn that righteousness. Thus through Christ we have God's salvation. For us it is a covenant of grace. I want you to stop and think of this. For Christ, it's the covenant of works. You see, to Christ, God was saying, if you do this, they will live. He worked for it. Our salvation was worked for. It was merited. It was earned. The righteousness we have is not what Professor Davey called the Protestant equivalent of the doctrine of transubstantiation. He mocked this doctrine of justification by faith alone and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. This is a real righteousness which is made over to our account so that by its virtue we stand before God. as righteous as Christ, for he is our righteousness, as accepted as Christ, for we are accepted in the beloved. God appointed Christ a covenant person. God appointed to Christ a covenant people. And God the Father appointed to Christ a covenant kingdom. It's a beautiful verse in Luke 22, 29 where the Lord Jesus said, I appoint unto you a kingdom as my father hath appointed unto me. And in both places, the verb that's translated appoint is actually the word for covenant. I covenant unto you a kingdom as my father hath covenanted unto me. I'm not going to preach in the kingdom tonight, but I want to tell you our Christ is the king. I want to tell you this, when God appointed him a kingdom, he was saying, I am giving you in this covenant agreement the absolute assurance of the total, complete, eternal and irreversible success of the work that you will do, the triumph of the work of Christ is a covenanted promise. Now these are indisputably gospel passages and gospel promises. They bring into view the whole idea of the promise of grace to the Jews, as we have read, and also to the Gentiles. That means this is God's ultimate purpose for the world. I'm not getting into eschatology tonight. Some of my ministerial brethren are altogether wrong in eschatology. They don't agree with me. But I'm not getting into eschatology tonight. That's the doctrine of last things. I'm going to tell you what we all do agree on. Jesus Christ is the absolutely triumphant king. That's God's ultimate purpose in the covenant of grace. So we have the appointment of Christ. Now I've got to sum up the other three in a big gulp and a hop and a skip and a joke. We deal with the advent of Christ. What I want you to understand here is that the Lord Jesus came into the world and he lived in this world according to the terms of the covenant of grace. Hebrews 10 verse 7, Then said I, Lo, I come, this is the Son of God speaking, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Martin Luther, when he came to that, he said there's only one man, that's the man Christ Jesus. There's only one book. We know what that book is. It's the book of God's law, God's will, God's purpose. According to that book of God, prophesied in the Old Testament, Jesus Christ came forth to do what? To do the Father's will. At the very beginning of His public ministry, Matthew 3.15, He answered John the Baptist who was a bit reluctant to baptize Him. He felt, how can I, a poor, miserable man, how can I baptize my Lord and my God? Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. That's what the life of Christ is all about. I like to think of it that in his life the Lord Jesus Christ By every thought, every word, every deed, every attitude, every step that he took, he was weaving a robe of seamless, spotless, pure righteousness. He was, by his life, weaving the garments of salvation and the robe of righteousness that Isaiah the prophet speaks of. Listen, believer, He lived for you just as surely as He died for you. I did put the clock away, but here's something I'd love us to have. We would need a long time to deal with this. And I want to tell you, I wish that every preacher would take this to heart. We have people who are hurting. We have Christians who can't get victory over sin. at least to the level they know they ought to have. We have Christians who are haunted by fear. We have Christians who have memories of guilt and are haunted by the past. And the devil is hurling his darts at them. We have Christians who feel they ought to be doing more praying, more reading, more witnessing, more this, more that. And they come and they say, yes, Lord, I want to yield. And they make a decision and they walk an island, they go back and they're as far back as ever they were. You know, the key to all those things starts with recognizing that Christ lived for you. You don't have to do anything. to impress God, to make God love you. Now listen very carefully because if you don't listen carefully I'll be accused of heresy. God does not love me one bit more or accept me one bit more fully when I pray than when I do. Because my acceptance is not the result of how well I am performing, it's the result of how well Christ has performed. And when that thought comes through to me, far from making me not want to pray, far from saying, well, now you have it, you don't need to worry, God has accepted you anyway. You are set free to be holy. You realize I have a perfect righteousness in Christ. I have a glorious acceptance. I stand invested with all the righteous merit of the Son of God who loved me and lived for me so that He has given to my account His perfect merit. And I'm going to make another statement I want you to listen very carefully to because again, if you don't, I'll be counting a heretic. Are you saved? Are you going to heaven? I'm going to heaven and I'm going to tell you something. I deserve to be there. and God would be unjust not to have me there. I deserve to be there. How can I say that? Everything I've ever thought or said or done merits hell, even after I've been saved. I have never done anything perfectly. I've never done anything the way I want to do it, never mind to the standard that God would want it done. But listen, Christ has done it for me. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 30 says, Of God are we in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and what? Righteousness. Christ is my righteousness. He lived for me. That's where we get that great hymn, Jehovah said Cainu, I once was a stranger to grace and to God. I knew not my danger and felt not my load, though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree. Jehovah said Cainu, the Lord our righteousness was nothing to me but him. Free grace awoke me. by light from on high. Thank God tonight Christ lived for us. Paul says, as by one man's disobedience, that's Adam, the first man, many were made or constituted, legally constituted sinners. So that you're not a sinner because you sin, you sin because you're a sinner. Big difference. So by the obedience of one, that's Christ, shall many be made righteous. The third great theme is the atonement of Christ. I'm going to point a verse out to you that I want you to mark and I want you never to forget its real and true and powerful meaning. Isaiah 53 verse 10 clearly shows how not only did Christ live according to the terms of the covenant of grace but he died according to the terms of that covenant with his father. Isaiah 53 verse 10 reads in our authorized version like this, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Some of you may not like this, but a translation at best is a translation. And unfortunately, by translating in the second person singular, this gives us a totally false impression that if we make Christ a sacrifice, that's not what it's saying. Literally, it simply reads, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. Let me stop there. It's one of the most amazing statements in scripture. How much did God love us? See that bloodied figure of the cross? Man did their worst and they stepped aside. Devils did their worst and they retreated in defeat. And Jehovah bowed his sword awake, O Christ it woke against thee. thy blood the flaming blade must slake thy heart its sheath must be all for my sake my peace to make now sleeps that sword for me when God did that to Christ he was pleased I can't understand it it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. Literally then the text goes on, if he shall make his soul a trespass offering, he shall see his seed. In other words, the covenant is between the Father and the Son, and the Father is saying about his Son, If he will make his soul a trespass offering, if he, having lived for these people, if he will lay down his life in sacrifice for these people, then on my side of this legal agreement, I will guarantee he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. is the covenant of grace. And by fulfilling these conditions, for thank God he made the atonement, he did make himself a sacrifice for sin, God has given him a numerous seat. He shall see his seat. What a beautiful promise. Millions upon millions, and there are millions yet to be saved. Don't ever doubt that God is at his work and continuing. And at the end of the day there will be a company which no man can number, a numerous seed, the pleasure of the Lord, the full purpose of God coming to full fruition in the hand through the merit and the work of Jesus Christ. That's why when God received the sacrifice, He raised Him from the dead. I'm going to challenge you to do something, especially all you young people, So all this choir next time I see you, I'm going to ask you if you can do this. Great to sing, but here's something even better. Go to Ephesians 1. Learn by heart Paul's great prayer for the Ephesian Christians. Then go to Ephesians 3 and learn his other great prayer. That's by the way. But in that great prayer, verse 20, we read of the Father. He raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places. far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world but in the world that is to come. He hath put all things under his feet, gave him to be head over all things, to the church which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. God raised him from the dead. He was crucified. Romans 4.25, He was delivered, that's to the cross, because of our what? Our sin. That's what sent Him there. Our offenses. But He was raised again on account of our justification. His precious blood, Hebrews 13.20, is the blood of the everlasting that blood that he shed and sealed the promise and purchased the benefits of redemption. He has entered into heaven, Hebrews 9, 12, neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own precious blood. He entered in once to the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. That gives me the last great theme. When he got there, he interceded And he still does. That's the advocacy of Christ. We have dealt with his appointment, his advent, his atonement, his advocacy, a vital aspect of the work of our covenant hand. He's interceding for all for whom he died and rose again. In that intercession, he's pleading the terms covenant of grace. Hugh Martin, the great Scots theologian, pointed out that in the intercession of Christ there's always a therefore. Father, you promised this. If I did this, that you would do this. I have done this. Therefore, I'm praying for these things. This is not just Christ in heaven exercising some sort of a moral influence on God. The very thought of that is obnoxious. It's Christ as our advocate, using the terms of the covenant of grace, saying, Lord, I have fulfilled them. Let me see now the fruit. But there's something else. As our living head, he's our forerunner. As our advocate, he's pleading to make sure we get there. I've mentioned John 17. There the Lord Jesus prays for his people. Verse 11, he prays for our security. Verse 15 through 17, he prays for our purity. Verse 21 and 22, he prays for our unity. Then in verse 24, I want you to read this verse with me. This is what Christ is praying for. Father, Father, as I stand in the shadow of Calvary, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold My glory. We have an advocate with the Father. What's the ultimate security of the saints? The ultimate security of the saints is that Christ is saying, Father, you give me these people. I lived for them. I died for them. I intercede for them. And I will. That's an imperial statement. I will. It is my desire. It is my purpose that they come home to glory. We have an Advocate with the Father at all this on the basis of His work as our covenant head. We have skated, you may not think so, but we have skated very quickly over a vast area of biblical truth tonight. The Lord Jesus Christ is not just preeminent because we have a slogan. What I have tried to present to you tonight is the simple, reformed, biblical message of the way of salvation. Our Savior is preeminent in every part of the covenant of grace. He was appointed our head. He accepted our responsibilities. He identified himself with us. He took our place. He united himself with us. He bore our guilt that we maintain his righteousness. God made him who knew no sin, 2 Corinthians 5.21. God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He cannot fail. His kingdom triumphs. And as he said of his elect, not one of them is lost. He is worthy. Someone was praying in the prayer meeting before the service tonight. But at the end of this meeting, people would leave the house of God saying, what a great Christ. I had a letter from a fellow who listened to me on radio and gave me a wigging. It says one minute you shout, the next minute you whisper. I just turned you off. I don't really care what you think of the preacher. I haven't set out deliberately to offend you, mind you, but I really don't care what you think of the preacher. I'll be dead and gone in no time, and so will you. But I do care passionately what you think of Christ. He is worthy. He fills this covenant because He is the covenant. Our election is in Him. God chose one man only one man and the rest of us in him. Our atonement is in Christ. God was satisfied by one man only and by the rest of us in him. Our acceptance is in Christ for God has only ever justified one person because of what he's done and he has justified us in him. whom we receive by faith. Our security is in him. God has only ever exalted one man, and as Ephesians 2 says, he has made us to sit together in the heavenlies in him. God is pleased with Christ. So am I. I have no other argument. I want no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. God has exalted him and he will exalt all of us who are in him to be with him for all eternity. He is the head over all things to his church. What a Savior. Let's bow together in prayer. Let's be silent for a moment before the Lord in prayer. Let us just, those of us who are Christ's, those of us who are redeemed by blood and saved by divine and sovereign grace, let's just take a moment or two to thank God for His saving, sovereign grace. God has been here in this house tonight He has enabled his servant to preach the word with power. I don't think there is another preacher who could have dealt with this tremendous subject in the manner and fashion that Dr. Kearns has dealt with it tonight. Our hearts have been touched. Christ has been exalted. We have seen him in all his excellent glory. in the midst of the eternal covenant, and surely the heart of the child of God should be touched, our love for him should be enlarged, our desire to serve him better, and our lives transformed and changed by the view of Christ, the high view of Christ. that we have received in this meeting tonight. Let's just lift up our hearts in thanksgiving and worship to him, the one who is central in the throne of glory, the Great High Priest, who is constantly engaged in intercession for you and me. But perhaps tonight in this meeting there's a soul or souls, and you have never known or experienced of what the preacher spoke of tonight. The scroll says in Romans 10, you're ignorant of God's righteousness. Maybe you're going about to establish your own righteousness. You've not submitted yourself unto the righteousness of God, tempting the impossible. to keep the covenant of works. But God says Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. And we counsel you tonight at the end of this meeting to flee to Christ with a broken and a contrite heart. Cast yourself on his righteousness trust alone in his atoning blood, and you can know the guilt of sin removed, the wrath of God propitiated, and the guilt and sin of your heart expiated by the work of Christ alone. Let us just seek the Lord in a word of prayer. Eternal God and Father, we rejoice in Thy mercy and in Thy goodness to us this evening. We have felt Thy presence. We have known Thy power. The Word of God has been preached with great clarity, great plainness, and with great power to our souls. And we pray now that the Holy Spirit may take that incorruptible seed and bury it in each of our hearts. Cause that living Word to take root downward and to bear fruit upward. Grant that the Holy Spirit may, in his convicting and in his convincing power, apply it ethically to the hearts of the unconverted, leading them to evangelical repentance and to saving faith and interest in our Lord Jesus Christ. Bless thy servant who is minister to us. Remember him particularly in this series of readings and balimina. We grant, O God, as the word of God goes forth, that men and women might receive it with meekness, that engrafted word that is able to save the soul. So accept our thanks and keep the hush of eternity upon our hearts as we leave this house. Keep the Lord Jesus Christ ever before us. And may we behold him in all his excellent glory, in all his offices as prophet, priest and king. And may our hearts be filled with gratitude, with praise and thanksgiving as we remember all that he has wrought for us. We ask these things in the Saviour's name. and for God's eternal glory. Amen.