It's lovely being with you once again. Thank you very much for the invitation and thank you for the welcome. I'm taking for my text the last verse of this morning's New Testament reading. That is chapter 11 of Hebrews and verse 6 where it tells us that without faith it is impossible to please Him, that is to please God. then explains it in a very simple language for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him but I'm sure you're acquainted with that passage and you understand it and so on so I'm not going to expound that verse as such but to look more generally at things let me sort of put it like this you know in these first few weeks of the new year I'm in the habit of looking back over the previous year I find that time passes quickly and I look to see what's happened and I've been looking in amazement really I've got to that age where so many of my friends and relatives have left this world of time and gone into eternity I'm not going to see them again in this world on perhaps even a more personal note many of you remember perhaps or know that I should have been here at the end of October but I had to go to hospital, I rushed to hospital I had an operation And so I couldn't be here at that time. But it made me realise again, it brought you home to me. That this body of mine, as much as I like it, as much as I appreciate it, and I must admit that in my younger days when people were talking about the resurrection and having a new body when the Lord Jesus Christ returned and so on and I was saying well what I need a new body for this is a perfect good this is fine I like this body you know things happen and you get to realise that there are faults, failures and weaknesses belonging to this body and it's come home to me that this body, much as I like it and appreciate it, will not last forever I have to have a new one can't keep this one and all this has made me think I'm sure it's good for me to do this so I'm just sharing a little bit of my thoughts with you and it made me think especially when I lost soon after coming home from hospital a friend who was actually younger than I am well let me tell you actually what happened I had been home from hospital about a week and had my operation and the phone rang and I I answered the phone and my friend asked, have you heard that I'm dying of cancer? And I said, well yes, my sister was telling me that you were quite ill and he said, I'd like you to take my funeral. And then we rejoiced at the fact that he was going to, he was going first, he was going to behold the Lord, he was going to see the Lord Jesus Christ in his glory, he was going to be with the Lord. and it's lovely just to rejoice and he prepared all his plans for his funeral all the readings and everything and I took the funeral but that sort of got me thinking what do we actually think about dying? about the experience Now each one will have to go through that experience unless the Lord comes in which case the experience you'll have will be that you'll have this body transformed into a body like his glorious body. But do we think about dying? Do we think about what is beyond the veil? What ought we to think? What is true? Are the things that we are taught actually true? Can we rejoice like the Apostle Paul who wrote to the Philippians and said that he had a desire to depart and be with Christ which is far better? A rather frightening thing in this 21st century is that somebody thinks that it is better to die but what is in our minds and in our hearts and this makes it very individual very personal to each one of you but how can we have that kind of assurance that the Apostle Paul had? well as our text tells us you see we have to believe he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder so if we believe that God the Creator exists then it's also quite consistent to believe that he had some purpose in doing so and the Bible, the infallible Word of God tells us that he did have a purpose and it tells us what that purpose is of course if you deny the existence of God and there are plenty of people today I suppose the majority of people today deny the existence of God or at least they neglect him or if you deny that the Bible is the infallible Word of God and I think there are millions of people who do that then have you thought when you think about dying which is really the most important thing that's going to happen to you when you think of dying and if you don't believe the Word of God then the only thing you've got left is your own imagination or the imagination of other people you've only got conjecture and guesswork and you can never be sure, can you? but God has given us an account of how and why he created everything and specially us humans he tells us that he made us quite different from all the other creatures that he made animate as well as inanimate we are different which is very different from what the world thinks today the philosophy of the age says that we're not different but we are very different because we've been created in the likeness and image of God and he made us as a crown of his creating work and he made us to have fellowship with him forever so that he could talk to us and express his love to us and that we could talk to him and express our love to him that's the purpose of our life. So that God can have fellowship with us and we can have fellowship with Him. But having said that, I'm sure you're all saying, well it hasn't turned out like that. That's not how it really is. It's very different. Something must have gone wrong. Yes, something has gone wrong. But the Word of God, the Bible, tells us what did go wrong. It's quite clear when God created everything he created everything very good and it wasn't his plan that at creation that we should die what happened was of course that soon after the first man and first woman Adam and Eve were created that Satan came along and conned them into believing that God was lying to them and that he, Satan, was telling the truth. What Satan used, of course, was the fact that God had warned his children of the danger of eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Now, like a good father, he warned them. Just like a father would say to his child, look those electrical cables are dangerous don't touch them just in case you get a shock and die now the electrical cables have some purpose the child doesn't need to know what the purpose is but they are there for a purpose they are not there just to kill children and you can be sure that the tree of knowledge of good and evil had its purpose but that purpose was never used because Adam and Eve disobeyed but the warning was for their good when a father warns his child it is not limiting the child's liberty it is love protecting the child and so Satan comes along he says it's a pack of liars God is lying to you. God knows perfectly well you won't die. He's lied to you. He knows that if you eat of this fruit that you will become like God's and you will know good and evil. The thing was that they already had been created in the likeness and image of God. They didn't need that. But Satan is so subtle and so he lied to them and So they ate. And hence the fall. I've heard people saying, God must have been very petty. All this curse and fall and things just because of eating an apple. Well, it wasn't an apple. It was the fruit of another tree. Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But I won't surprise you by saying this will I? It wasn't eating the fruit that was the sin. The eating of the fruit was the result of the sin. Had they not sinned they wouldn't have eaten. It was because they sinned they ate. So what was their sin? Well think it through. Here comes the father of lies and says that the God that cannot lie is lying. and the moment that Adam and Eve believed that the father of lies is telling the truth and the God of truth is lying that's a terrible sin, that's a great blasphemy and not only that, you see, it has repercussions in the sense that they are going to obey Satan who they now think is telling the truth and they're going to disobey the God of truth whom they now think is telling lies That's the sin. That's why they ate. God isn't petty. If you think about it, you can see why what happened did happen. Now the Lord Jesus Christ when he was in part of his teaching, you can find it in John chapter 8 if you care after your own time to look it up. But the Lord Jesus Christ said that whosoever commits sins is the slave of sin all you have to do is to sin and you become the slave, you are the slave of sin now that means you see that the moment Adam and Eve sinned he laid claim upon them and he's claimed ownership ever since Because you do understand the slave is not a volunteer who says I do the work and you pay me so much. No way! The master owns the slave and he doesn't pay him. The owner, the slave owner owns the slave, he owns his wife and any children born he owns them too. and ever since the first sin Satan has laid claim to Adam and Eve and all their descendants and that includes you and me that is why the world is full of evil full of hatred and cruelty and all these atrocious things that are happening these days. Why are people so bad? Because they are slaves of Satan. The world lies in wickedness. Satan is the prince of the power of the air, the spirit of worketh in the children of disobedience. He has laid claim owns everything. This is why he thought that he could tempt the Lord Jesus by saying bow to me and I'll give you the kingdoms because he claimed ownership. And this is why you don't have to teach children to be naughty. You have to teach children and you have a terrible job trying to teach children to be good. Nobody ever teaches children to be bad. Why? because sin is natural to the children of Adam it is godliness, holy living those are the things that are unnatural and those are the things that are ever so difficult don't you know by experience? but being sinful comes naturally to you because of Satan's claim upon you now it sounds a hopeless situation doesn't it? Now, please don't switch off. This is where most people switch off. They say, oh, I've had enough of this, all this bad news. No. This is where the good news comes. Because you can't appreciate the good news until you really know what the bad news is. And I want to tell you the good news. Because as soon as that sin, the first sin was committed, the God of grace He doesn't think in terms of punishment, he thinks in terms of restoration, of forgiveness, of bringing people back and he promised at the time of that first sin that he would send a saviour, the seed of the woman to redeem, to claim back the children of Adam. and in the fullness of time of course the Savior Jesus came and it's only just a few weeks we were celebrating the birth of Jesus but who exactly is he? well it turns out that he is none other than the Creator himself who came into this world to be our saviour coming into the world as a human being just like us you think about it, now this is what we celebrated at Christmas I'm not sure what the world celebrated with all the Christmas trees and the lights and all the baubles but I expect that Christians would have celebrated the fact that the Creator became my saviour the incarnation no one less could do it question of course is how can he rescue us from this curse how can he reverse the effect of sin how can he liberate us from the thralldom of Satan because if God says okay I shall disregard your sins I forgive you everything he now compromises his holiness as if sin doesn't matter but if he upholds his holiness because this becomes now a legal matter the law of God has been broken now it means that the law must be carried out and this means punishment, it means the death the eternal death of the sinner so there's a problem how can he solve this problem and the way in which he did save us. The way that the Lord Jesus Christ did this saving work is absolutely brilliant. The more I think about it, the more I realise that nobody but God could come up with something like this. And in so doing Jesus Christ has annulled Satan's claim over us. That's what he's done. We use terms like redemption which means purchase you redeem slaves, you pay for them and so on and you buy their freedom this is what he's done all those terms will be understood when we see it in this way now what he did of course he became a man and because he was a man Jesus the Creator obeyed as a man all that was required of man he never sinned though he was tempted in all points as we are so here we have now a man over whom Satan has no claim at all he lays claim to Adam and even all the descendants of Adam but here is a man who never sinned and therefore Satan has no claim at all over him and then Jesus submitted himself to be treated as a sinful man deserves to be treated and to be punished for his sins and this is why you find in the Gospels that the Lord Jesus Christ was rejected and despised, he was spat upon, he was insulted he was beaten and otherwise mistreated he was given three sham trials, one before the high priest one before Pilate and another before King Herod everybody knew that he was guiltless and yet they all condemned him unjustly and that was through the corruption of officials who should have been upholding justice and law and so on but he was condemned and so he was then tortured to death stripped of his clothes, dressed in a gaudy gown, had a crown of thorns wrung upon his head and then hammered nails into his hands and his feet and lifted him up on planks of wood because that's what a cross is and left there to hang and die in pain But since he was sinless, he shouldn't have died. Death is the wages of sin. He had no sin. And so it follows now that he died not for his own sins, but for somebody else's. He paid the penalty for somebody else's sins. Whose sins did he die for? Whose penalty did he pay? Ours? And as the Apostle John says, not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. What a Saviour! What a device for saving sinners, for freeing sinners from Satan's hold. And there's more. Because Jesus is sinless, death couldn't hold Him either, because though He died for sin, He had no sins of His own, so death couldn't hold Him. and exactly as he foretold on the third day his tomb was empty and he was seen alive by many witnesses on one occasion by a group of over 500 men all at the same time so this is no hallucination this is no dream and then he spent the next six weeks almost teaching as disciples, walking with them, talking with them, eating amongst them and just spending time with them over six weeks before he returned then to heaven with the promise that he would be coming back to take those who are loyal to him to live with him forever. And this is why the followers of Jesus went throughout the world preaching this good news the Lord Jesus Christ commanded that the good news be preached and so they went and they preached it as I'm endeavouring to do this morning the good news that everyone who puts their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ will have all their sins forgiven and granted eternal life believe the Word of God believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and so we Christians are now living in this hope we're waiting for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory when the dead will be raised and they and those who are alive at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ will stand before Him and He will judge and all who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ will have eternal life in glory with the Lord Jesus Christ those who reject Him will not all you need is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ He's come to save you now perhaps someone will say or ask look if the Apostle John says that Jesus Christ died not only for our sins but for the sins of the whole world if he now has sinned has died for sinners all over the world why is it that only those who believe in him have the forgiveness of sins and eternal life oh it's an important question, it's a good question for the answer we need to go back again what was the original sin? it was unbelief when Adam and Eve believed that the father of lies was telling the truth and the God that cannot lie was telling lies they got everything the wrong way well now you have an opportunity of putting that right for yourself because when Adam disbelieved, he disbelieved on your behalf, you're his descendant and so you were born into this slavery but now the Lord Jesus Christ is giving us an opportunity of actually taking God at his word without faith it is impossible to please him For he that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." This is really the Gospel message, isn't it? Believing the Word of God now is an undoing of the fall. We're born of the Spirit of God. We are made the children of God. We're restored. We're purchased. We're freed. We've been bought out of slavery by the Lord Jesus Christ. All we need to do now is to believe. Unbelief was the original sin and now we can put it straight by believing the Word of God. You know, the technical terms in the Bible are repent and believe. Perhaps modern people very often will say, well, what does it mean all this mischief about repent and believe? It means change your mind. And if you've been thinking the wrong thoughts about a God that cannot lie, what you need to do now is to actually take Him at His word. Take Him at His word. Believe Him. If He says He sent His Son Jesus Christ to free you, you're free. It's a matter of taking Him at His word. Satan will deny it and he'll do his best to get you into disbelief. Because God says, for instance, that death is not the end. Because he's given us an immortal soul that will live forever. So that we will not be annihilated at death. Those who belong to the Lord Jesus Christ will depart and be with Christ. Those who reject the Lord Jesus Christ won't. They'll be lost. But we need to ask ourselves, who's telling the truth? We can use our own guesswork, we can take the denials of Satan or we can take the word of God. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Without faith we can't please God. who's telling the truth. God says that he will forgive us every sin for the sake of Jesus Christ. Satan says that he won't. Satan keeps saying, you see, that you've got to work, you've got to do things to win God's favour. He denies God's grace. Grace means that God loves you so that in fact there's nothing you can do that will make God love you more Praise the Lord, there's nothing you can do that make God love you less. He's loved us in the Lord Jesus Christ. He sent his Son to save us so that in fact we don't have to win his favour. Satan says you've got to do things, you've got all these works and you've got to please God and so on before he'll accept you. Who's telling the truth? Are we believing God's word or are we believing Satan's lie? God says that every believer who dies before the return of Jesus departs to be with Christ which is far better and Satan of course will say no that's not true but who do you believe? Is God telling the truth and Satan lying or is God lying and Satan telling the truth? We're back to Eden but the important thing to remember is that our eternal destiny depends on our answer It's that personal. Our eternal destiny depends on our answer. Why do I say that? Well, have you noticed in the Gospels that the Lord Jesus Christ never took anybody's faith for granted? When people believed in him, he would say things like, your faith saved you, go in peace. Even Martha's faith, he didn't actually take for granted. Jesus comes to Bethany. Lazarus has been dead four days. Martha's remonstrating, if you'd been here my brother wouldn't have died. Jesus says, your brother will not rise again. He knows what he's going to do. Martha is saying, yes I know he'll rise again in the resurrection at the end of the world. Jesus says to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? Now he doesn't take her faith for granted, have you noticed? Do you believe this? Now the Lord is asking us that. He says things, he tells us things about the realities of life and death and eternity. And he says, do you believe me? Because that is the big problem. It was a problem of Adam and Eve. And in fact, we've got an opportunity now of putting our faith in the Word of God. That's why our eternal destiny depends on our answer. Because if we believe God and take Jesus as our Saviour, then God will do for us everything that He's promised. If you don't, you'll have all eternity to regret that you never took the opportunity. There are people in eternity now who will be saying, why didn't I believe when I had that chance? Because they'll never have another opportunity. Now is the accepted time. Today is the day of salvation. It follows, you see, that God is now doing for all those who believe his word all the good he promised because he never never breaks his word and he'll do all the good he's promised for you and for me because as the Lord Jesus Christ said to two blind men one day they came to him and said we want our sight and he said do you believe that I can do this and he said yes and he said according to your faith be it unto you and they got their faith because it's easy to say with the lips that we believe what's the heart? what's our heart like? and so the Lord Jesus Christ is saying exactly to us the same thing according to your faith it will be done to you because without faith it is impossible to please him For he that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." In other words, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's his promise. Do you believe that he keeps his word? That he never breaks his word? Let's live our lives in this confidence and in this faith in Him for His glory and our good. Amen.