Go to Calvary!

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, radio friends. If my reckoning is right, this ought to be St. Valentine’s day that you’re hearing this message and if so, I want to wish you a very happy Valentine’s day. I trust there’s somebody around that can say, “I love you,” for your heart and your life. In any case, the Word of God says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love, though art mine.”

When it comes to this matter of the out-poured love of God, nobody can beat Him. And if I’m speaking to somebody who’s all alone, you’re lonesome, your loved ones have long since died and other family, friends or acquaintances seem not ever to come around, or to call up or to write. Remember that your just a prayer away from the One who loves you best of all, Jesus our blessed Lord. “Having loved His own, He loved them unto the end.” Oh, that is such a comfort, isn’t it? When you stop to think of the fact that every relationship on this Earth comes to a close, but the Lord Jesus Christ is there, always, always faithful. He hath said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” So look up, dear one, and pray today to the One who loves you best of all, our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, this is your friend, Dr. Cook and I’m glad to be back with you.

We’re looking at Colossians, the first chapter. And we’ve come now to verses 17 and 18, which of course are a continuation, isn’t that logical, of verses 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16. Paul’s prayer for the people at Colossae included that they might know God’s will, that they might live a life that’s worthy of their Lord, that they might be fruitful in every good work, that they might increase in the personal knowledge, intimate personal knowledge of God, they might be strengthened with God’s never fading, never failing power, that the results of that power might be patience and long suffering and joyfulness and thankfulness. And the basis of that thankfulness is that God has given us a share in the inheritance of the saints, delivered us from Satan, put us into the kingdom of His dear Son, given us redemption through the shedding of His precious blood on the cross. And that redemption, the tasting point of redemption, is the forgiveness of sins.

Still talking about the Lord Jesus, Paul says, “He’s the image of the invisible God,” everything you’ll ever need to know about God is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s the first born of every creature, that is, He’s before all things. Verse 17 explains it. Because He created everything, verse 16. And so He’s got things, all things in Heaven and in Earth. Then visible, what you can see; invisible, what you can’t see; and then the forces that seem to control our world: Thrones, dominions, principalities, powers. Thrones, that has to do with the supreme authority of a king or an emperor. Dominion has to do with the area that he rules. Principality has to do with the delegated areas of responsibility and powers has to do with the authority that is given to those delegated areas of responsibility. And all of this, the organization of the universe and our world, was done by the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so it says He’s before all things and by Him everything holds together. The word “consist” means holds together, He holds it all together. The immense awesome power of the atom is held in the nail-pierced hand of your Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well now, we got about that far the last time we talked together. Took four minutes for me to chat with you in review, but then, maybe it was worthwhile too. It says, “He’s before all things, and by Him all things hold together, and He is the head of the body, the church.” We spoke of that briefly the last time we got together. You, my friend, are part of what God is doing in His church in this day. Your life therefore, is most significant whether or not you think you are highly gifted or whether you seem to have opportunity or not, or whether other people recognize you or not. Still, Jesus our Lord is working in you. We are laborers together with God. It is God that worketh in you to will and to do of His good pleasure, and you are part of that blessed body of Christ, the church.

He’s the head of the body, the church. So your life is significant, beloved, and you ought never to lose sight of the fact that you do matter to God and to people around you. I reminded us just before we went off the air the last time, that other people as well, together with their faults and failings as well as their virtues and gifts and talents, other people are also part of Christ’s body and we should recognize them, accept them, deal with them in love and let God put us together in the work that counts for eternity.

So he says, “That in all things He might have the preeminence.” So he starts with “all things”, verse 16, ends up with “all things” in verse 18. Remember now, what the “all things” include. All things created, that has to do with the world around us. My old philosophy professor in Wheaton, doctor, what was his name? Weir, I think it was, used to talk of mountains, cups and saucers and Model T Fords when he was talking about things. The world around us, the world you can see and feel and smell and experience. Things. He’s before that. He’s preeminent in the things, He’s preeminent in the unseen world, He’s preeminent in the world of the power structure. He is still God whether or not we have difficulty with some mad man in power on the other side of the world. God will accomplish His will.

My old professor in seminary, Dr. Champion, used to say, “God will do His will either with us or in spite of us, but He is still God.” Ah, the sovereignty of our blessed Lord is never in question. And so He’s also the head of the group of believers worldwide that He calls His church. He’s the beginning, the first born from the dead. His preeminence then, goes right straight to the heart of the key problem faced by sinful human nature. It’s appointed unto men once to die but after this, the judgment. And that sublime hope counteracts the awful ultimate insult that is physical death. We were created to live, not to die and physical death as an insult and we resent it and we fear it and we resist it, but He’s the firstborn from the dead. He’s the proof of what God is going to do with each of us by His wonderful grace.

Paul says in Philippians, “He shall change this body of our humiliation that it might be fashioned like unto His body of glory.” God is getting a new body ready for you and you’ll wear it with joy in the rarefied atmosphere of Heaven throughout all of the eternal ages to come. So it says, “That in all things.” Now, it was “all things”, verse 16. Now, “That in all things He might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell.” Everything you need, everything you need to know, everything you need to experience, everything you need to have is found in your Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. What is the key then, to all of this? Make Him preeminent, that’s what God wants for your relationship with Christ. Make Him preeminent. And the way to make Him preeminent is to depend on Him for every need that in Him should all fullness dwell.

Now, how do you get at that? Well, you have to start at Calvary. See, all of this is very logical. How do you get at an experience where Jesus provides the fullness of an experience with God, verse 19? You go to verse 20, “Having made peace through the blood of His cross,” go to Calvary. You and I are at war with God until we surrender and make the Lord Jesus Christ our Lord and accept His shed blood, His atonement accomplished on Calvary. “Having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself.” Now you got “all things” there. All things created, verse 16, all things. “That in all things He might have the preeminence.” Now it says, “To reconcile all things unto Himself, by Him, whether they be things in Heaven or things in Earth,” and you. And you. You come in the “all things” there as well.

“Who were at one time alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now, hath He reconciled.” How do you experience the fullness of God? Go to Calvary, lay down your opposition to the will of God, let the Lord Jesus Christ become your Lord and your Savior, trust Him by faith to forgive and cleanse you and receive that blessed assurance of having been reconciled to God through faith in the Lord Jesus and you’re going to experience the fullness of God’s presence in your life. The Holy Spirit of God comes in to dwell in the believer. Paul says, in Romans 8:9, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” The Spirit of God comes in to dwell in your life when you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and He becomes then, by faith, your Savior.

And you. All things reconciled, all things, He’s preeminent, all things, He’s the Creator, all things, He’s the sustainer, by Him all things consist or hold together. Creator, sustainer and Revealer and Redeemer, all things. There is never a place or a time or a person that cannot be reached by the atoning message of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now. It comes down to be personal. And you, you who were at one time alienated and enemies in your mind because of wicked works, yet now, hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight. What is the condition of a person in his natural unsaved sinful state? He said, “You’re alienated and enemies because of wicked works.” Alienated means the relationship has been broken.

Now, the prophet Isaiah says the same thing, “Behold the Lord’s hand is not short that He cannot save. Neither is His ear heavy that it cannot hear, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.” The relationship has been ruined and you and I are like aliens, we don’t belong anymore, we’re uncomfortable with God. Have you noticed how the ordinary unsaved person is very uneasy if you bring up anything about God? The human heart, apart from the saving grace of Jesus, is uncomfortable about God because you’re alienated. You don’t belong, the relationship has been ruined by sin. Furthermore, the things that we have said and done that are disobedient to God’s will, and in defiance of His commands, have made us His enemies, it says, Enemies in your mind because of wicked works. When you take a position of opposition to God, your only possible option is to keep on opposing Him and being His enemy.

“The unsaved heart,” David Morken said to me one day, “Cannot rest until it is organized in opposition to God.” Oh, today if I’m speaking to someone who’s never been to Calvary, have never bowed and said, “Lord Jesus, I want you to be my Lord and Savior and to forgive me my sins.” Bow where ever you can, as soon as you can. If you’re driving, pull off the edge of the road and bow your head and ask the Lord Jesus Christ to reveal His saving love to you so that you can come in under that all things reconciled.

Dear Father, today, may we be part of Thy blessed “all things” where Jesus is Lord, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!