David, once again, we're indebted to you for coming,
brother, and we appreciate that tremendous ministry.
Do you know, my Jesus, just sitting there thinking is not
the keyword. No, Remember the Lord Jesus
prayed, and this is life eternal, that they might know
thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent.
The sad reality is folks and carried off beyond, the vast
majority of people do not know God and they don't know the Lord
Jesus Christ. We should pray much that God
will visit this place in wrath rather than mercy.
Going to ask Colin to come minister God's word.
Thank you, Colin. Amen.
Thank you very much, brother. Great to be back with you again
tonight. I have the opportunity of
preaching the word. Can we turn to 1st John Chapter
3 please? First John and the Chapter 3.
You know, somewhere has arrived officially because I'm going to
take my coat off. That's it.
Remind the Met Office you've heard from us, Pope tonight,
summer is here, kind of be looking at Parker.
Maybe tomorrow night, who knows, but we'll enjoy that.
We will have it first John chapter 3, one verse that we're
going to look at tonight. It's the words of verse 8, the
words of verse 8. Hear the word of the Lord.
It says he that committh sin is of the devil for the devil
sinneth from the beginning. And then it says and this is
where we want to concentrate our thoughts for this purpose.
For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might
destroy the works of the devil and with our Bibles open before
us. That's that's seek the Lord
again in prayer. Our Father, we thank you for the
meeting thus far. The hymns that we have sung and
have heard sung to us have been glorifying to Thee.
And we remember, Lord, that's what we want, to glorify God and
to enjoy Him forever. We need your power now, Lord, to
preach the word. The arm of flesh, as ever, Lord,
will surely fail. We can't even take a chance on
it. It will surely fail and we dare
not trust our own. But all we can pray, we can ask
God for help and we believe, Lord, we have the right to look
for that help tonight because we are about the master's business.
And what a joy it is to be a preacher of this old, old story
of Jesus under love. We never weary, we never tyre of
it. We never say, well, I've
preached it enough all that we could preach it more, preach it
better. And Lord, we're leaving it with
thee to move in the gallery. Thou knowest those, the hearts
of all who are gathered before thee.
There's nothing hid, Lord before thee, and we're just asking you
now to bless your word, and especially in the salvation of
souls for Jesus sake. Amen.
The text that we're taking this
latter part of first John chapter 3 and verse 8 introduces
us immediately the two powerful beings and then by application
to 1/3 being less powerful but still of the greatest importance
to us. Immediately in our text we are
introduced to the Son of God. He is the first named here in
our text, this part of verse 8. And of course the Son of God is
our Lord Jesus Christ tonight. We are a Trinitarian church and
we believe that He is the second member of the glorious and
Blessed Trinity. We we worship the Saviour in
this church. He is King of kings and He is
Lord of Lords. He is the possessor of all power
in heaven and at earth. The homewriter wrote those
lovely words that we loved to sing so often.
Not his feet, at his feet we we humbly fall, we crown him, crown
him Lord of all. But also then immediately
afterwards that is named in our text, we have the devil.
And the devil is the great arch enemy of God.
The devil is very powerful indeed, but he's not all
powerful. That's not a tribute too much to
him. He's not all powerful, and yet
he is powerful enough to have this title.
In the Scriptures, he is called the God of this world, this
world's chosen God. The rival to the throne of the
Most High is the devil. And in many hearts tonight,
perhaps the vast majority, God knoweth the devil is the God of
their heart and he should never be dismissed.
I think it is one of his greatest achievements.
I hate to use the word give credit where it's due.
That wouldn't be very appropriate.
But we would have to say it's one of his greatest achievements
that he has managed to convince so many people that he doesn't
exist at all. If you were to go onto the radio
in the morning on the Mr Nolan Show or whatever and you were
got the opportunity to affirm your belief in a personal devil,
you would be laughed out of court.
You would have those phone lines to the BBC buzzing and you would
be denounced right across social media.
And many people are convinced that he doesn't exist at all, no
more than that bogeyman. Remember when you were young and
you went to bed, you were sent to bed and you maybe were
messing about a little bit and you maybe got this call up the
stairs. Will you lie down and go to
sleep or who? The bogeyman, I never met this
bogeyman. He never come up our stairs but
just the mansion of him. The tone of my mother's voice
told me I'd better go to sleep. And some people say, well, the
devil was just the bogeyman of evangelical Christianity, but
our text speaks of him as a real person and to the words of the
inspired apostle. We must run.
The third person who is here by the way of application, of
course, is you and me. John tells us why he wrote these
things over in first John chapter 5 just a few over the
page really in my Bible in verse 13.
He says these things have I written unto you, you the reader
tonight, you the hearer unto you that believe on the Son of God,
that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may
believe on the name of the Son of God.
What we are reading here tonight in a fact is one of the earliest
gospel tracts like John's gospel was written that we might
believe on the Son of God and therefore our text tonight is
calling for a personal and an individual response.
Pilot's question, the great question that he asked in
Matthew 27 and verse 22 is effectively asking here in this
text, what shall I do? What shall I do with the Son of
God, the Son of God who was manifest that he might destroy
the works of the devil? I have three very simple
thoughts. I'm just drawing them from the
text themselves itself tonight. And we'll, we'll look at this
here and, and through it preach this glorious message of the
gospel. The first thing concerning the
Son of God, and of course he's the centre of our text is this.
The Son of God was manifested. That's what it says, the Son of
God was manifested. We know that the Lord Jesus
Christ was unique in a sense. We are all unique.
We all have our own fingerprints and so on, our own DNA and all
that kind of thing. But it was really so for the
Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus existed in a
railway before he was incarnated at Bethlehem.
That's why we sang that hymn tonight.
I got to pick the hymns tonight and I said, want to sing 84 It
might be there. Well, I didn't say this might be
there with all those Christmas hymns, but nevertheless, Jesus
my Saviour to Beth the hymn came.
And I say that he existed in a real way before he was
incarnated at Beth the Hymn, in a real way, not merely as an
idea in the mind of God, not merely on paper as a plan, but
as a person. Before Beth the hymn, He did not
possess a permanent human body. He got this body from Mary, the
Mower of Jesus. But as God, because he's not
only the Son of God, we believe he is God the Son.
As God, He is a spirit. That's what it says, John, for
God is a spirit. They that worship Him must do so
in spirit and in truth. And we find this very hard to
picture in our mind. When we hear people talking, we
get little pictures in our mind and we struggle here with this
thought of how of what our Saviour must have looked like,
as it were, so we could picture Him before the world began,
before He came to the cross. Most likely we will picture
maybe a Trinitarian diagram when we speak of the things, but for
all that, even though maybe we struggle to grasp it, we can say
this. He had an existence.
He was in the beginning with God and He was God.
And before the world's in order stood the earth received her
frame before the 1st clock was made and began to take there.
The Son of God was with the Father, and daily his delight.
But there did come that moment in history when the Bible says
the Word. He was in the beginning with
God, and the Word who was God? The Bible says He became flesh
and He dwelt among us. And that means then of had you
been alive at that time, and had you been in Israel at that time
with those great multitudes, then you could have seen Him
with your eyes. In fact, the Epistle opens there
with those words. First John one verse one not
which was from the beginning, which or whom we have heard,
whom we have seen with our eyes, whom we have looked upon, and
our hands have handled of the word of life.
He now becomes tangible. He now is manifested.
That word manifest is translated in so many different ways in the
New Testament and Matthew 6 and verse 4 speaking about the
giving of alms, the giving of charity.
He says Thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee
openly. It have been manifested in God's
good time openly. And then again he, he charged
the Saviour on Mark 3/12. He charged those unclean spirits
that they should not make him known.
Kindred word. These are synonymous here,
aren't they? Mark 4, verse 22 nothing will be
kept secret but that it should come abroad again be manifested
and and spread abroad is used outwardly is used concerning the
one that is a Jew is not one outwardly, but inwardly.
And then first Timothy 4 and verse 15, the word again is used
appear we talk about the appearing of our great God and
Saviour the Lord Jesus. I think we get the idea here.
He was manifested, He could now be seen.
You see for many long centuries, several millennia, the coming of
the Messiah was promised. We have that Romans one verse 2
the gospel of God which he has promised a for or be for by his
prophets in the Holy Scriptures. The Bible tells us God preached
the gospel on the Abraham. What a sermon that must have
been. He preached the gospel on the
Abraham. Jesus could say, Abraham
rejoiced to see my day. He saw it, that is, he saw it by
faith in the promise, and he was glad.
But until Bethlehem there had been no manifestation, no
permanent one, no appearing, no incarnation for thousands of
years. And the reason for that is very
simple and it's very wonderful. The due time of God's
appointment had not yet come. It was in the fullness of time,
that is, on the right date, on God's character, God's calendar.
Our Saviour was born of a woman, so he was still hidden.
He was out of sight in heaven. But think of the night in which
he was born. You think of those shepherds,
they were out in the fields watching their flocks and all of
a sudden the whole sky lit up and there was all the heavenly
angels, the great myriads and myriads of angels, and what that
they proclaim under them, under you is born this day in the city
of David, a Saviour, A Saviour who is Christ the Lord.
Later on, the Lord Jesus could say to his disciples many
prophets, you're thinking of Isaiah and I, Ezekiel, Daniel.
The men are prophets, many prophets and righteous men have
desired to see those things which ye see, that is now with
your natural eyes, and they have not seen them and hear those
things which ye hear. And I have not heard them that
the disciples saw and heard. And at the age of 30 our Saviour
started His ministry, and for three very, very busy years He
traversed the whole country and He preached the many.
This thing was not done on a corner.
The Son of God was manifested. And then we see secondly here as
we go back to our text, verse John 3 and verse 8, we can say
that the Son of God was manifested for a purpose for
this 'cause that's not what it says there for this purpose, the
Son of God was manifested. He was manifested for a purpose.
And other words, these events did not happen by accident.
There was nothing casual about this.
This was no arrow fired out of anger.
We've already mentioned the long term promise, and that long term
promise out of Saviour would come, goes right back, goes back
into the Garden of Eden immediately after the fall and
before the expulsion. And the promise was given there
that the seed of the woman would bruise the seed of the serpent,
the serpent's head would be bruised as a reference to
Christ. Very oblique.
If you were reading the Bible for the first time, you would
maybe wonder what that meant. It would open up to you as you
read on more revelation was coming.
But looking back, we know that that was a reference to the Son
of God being manifested. But you know, it goes back even
further than the garden. It goes back into the eternal
mind and into the purpose of God and what God did, what God is
doing, what God has yet to do has all been decided and
purposed. You and I can't work like that.
You, oh, you and I can lay our plans.
You say, well, I want to go to London.
I, I, I, well, I, I'll have to book a, a flight.
I'll have to get accommodation, let up.
There's a lot of things that we have to do but that mayn't come
to pass. Something could intervene.
We don't even know what, whether they will bring forth.
And if we did, we might know how to cope with it, and precious
little that we could do about it.
But not so. God doesn't know what it says
about God. God works all things after the
counsel of His own will. Ephesians 3 verse 11 says
according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Jesus
Christ our Lord. May I remind you that whatsoever
God purposes to do, it comes to pass, It cannot be hindered.
It cannot be delayed, never mind stopped.
It cannot be destroyed. The Bible says Proverbs 21 verse
30. There is no wisdom, no
understanding, nor counsel against the Lord.
It's not that none of that exists.
Obviously it does, but none succeeds.
Every plan that is hatched against God is going to fail.
It has failures stumped upon it. Isaiah 14 verse 27 says the Lord
of hosts hath purposed. Excuse me, Lord of hosts have
purposed and who shall dis annoy?
I know it. His hand is stretched out, and
who can turn it back? Remember the words of Old
Gamelia. The New Testament church is
getting going. The people, the religious
authorities want to stomp it out altogether.
They say we're going to deal at a decisive blow once and for
all. The old Gamelia, a wise old man,
not a sea of man, not a godly man by any means, but in a wee
bit of grey matter between the head and he said that those
fighting folk, he says, leave these men alone, let's see how
it works, right? Because he says, if it be of
God, if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it.
Lest haply you be found to fight against God, you don't want to
fight against God tonight. God will not fight.
God has never lost a fight. Yet whatever God starts, he
finishes. The Saviour told a parable about
the man who wanted to build the tower.
He must have took this notion about building himself a tower
and he started, he got the foundations down and that was a
a long time at that sort of work.
But then he ran out of money. He had this grandiose idea.
He had his plans there, but he, he wasn't able to finish it.
That's what the book says. And you know what men did?
Men began to mock him. What a fool.
What a fool, starting to work like that.
And he couldn't finish it. Did he not have it all thought
out? But he wasn't speaking about his
Heavenly Father here, was He? Whatever God sets out to do, God
accomplishes. And while it is still in this
present moment in the history of the world of work in progress,
yes, there are still things to be fulfilled.
There are still prophecies to be fulfilled concerning the events
that will lead up to and including the coming again of
our blessed Saviour. Yet all that God has decreed,
all that he has written will certainly be fulfilled.
Ecclesiastes 3 verse one says to everything there is a season and
a time to every purpose under heaven.
Time to live, a time to die, a time to sow, a time to reap, a
time to rejoice, a time to mourn.
And how much more when in the fullness of time, God sent forth
His Son born of a woman. It was then that he was
manifested. You are entitled to wonder
tonight as we expound these things to say, Well, where do I
fit into this great divine purpose as usually worked in
into the question or worded rather than the questions Why am
I here? The great philosophy questions
that men have struggled with. Why am I here?
What is, what is the purpose of life?
But we could bring in, I suppose, if they were here
tonight, the children, the Sunday school, the 10 or the 11
year olds. And we could say to them that
old gem, that old Mary, what is the chief end of man?
And the hand would shake, go up in the right away, the one that
we could all remember, maybe struggle up a little bit on, but
the hand would go up. Please Sir, man's chief end
man's purpose on earth is to glorify God and to enjoy Him
forever. And you need to say to your
heart, and I can how do I rise to this matter?
How do I willingly conform to the will of God that is revealed
in the scripture for my life? Will you remember this?
The purpose of God for your life included involved the sending
forth and the manifesting of His Son.
We see thirdly here removing on the Son of God was not only
manifested and manifested for a purpose.
For this purpose our text tells us that He might destroy the
works of the devil. We first meet the devil in the
Garden of Eden. He comes in the disguise of the
snake. Has He taken over the snake?
Well, one way or another here, here he comes more subtle than
all the other animals. And you know you, you know the
story. How he, he, he tempted Eve, then
through Eve he tempted how a man fell in the garden and being
perhaps in an inquisitive mood. And it's good they ask
questions. We might ask, well, how did the
devil get here in the first place, and especially in the
light of of those consequent events?
He tempted Adam to sin. Through Adam the whole world
fell unto sin. What came with man's sin, sin,
misery and hell? Could God have prevented it?
Yes, I said no, tonight the meeting will be over.
Be a row, Need to be a row. Be a row.
Certainly afterwards. Yes, easy.
The Almighty God. And although the devil may
indeed be as he is, a powerful being, we introduced him as
such. He's not all powerful.
Let me say that again. Furthermore, he is a creature of
God. Somewhere in those six days, God
created him, and the devil tonight is dependent on God for
his very existence, his sustenance, and his future.
So why did God, why did God not prevent all these bad things?
Why did he not nip him in the bud?
Why did he not say, devil, get back, get back into your box
again? You're not going to do that
because God has a purpose. God had a higher purpose.
You know, there's much that we cannot answer here when it comes
to these things. Romans 1133 says, O the depths
of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God,
how unsearchable, unsearchable are his judgments and his ways
past. Finding out, Paul concluded his
look into the deep mind of divine judgement, and he
concluded his words not with a woe, not with a shrub of the
shoulder, not with a look of despair, but with a word of
doxology, a word of praise of him, through him and to him are
all things. So indeed, there are many things
that Paul did not know because had to give up.
I don't know. It's it's unsearchable to me.
I can't answer, but I know enough.
We know enough tonight to praise God, to praise God.
Think of all what the devil has been allowed to do.
He's been allowed to deceive nation.
That's Revelation chapter 12. You think of all those nations
right there, all those Arab nations tonight, all those
nations were Hinduism. If you have been following that
programme, what is it? The race across the world.
It's coming to its climax this week and we've been reading that
or watching that on the television.
And where are they? In the heart of India, Hinduism,
all the idolatry you think of it there he's been allowed to
deceive individuals. Individuals are blinded unsaved
people by the God of this world, the unsafe heart of your unsaved
tonight. This is God's biography of you
in your life thus far. You walk according to the course
of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air.
That's the the devil, the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience. And therefore the devil is the
great Dalmer of men's souls. Remember what Jesus said, You're
off, you're follower, the devil, a murderer and a liar from the
beginning. But here's the good news for
this cause was the Son of God manifest that he may destroy the
works of the devil. They had their big confrontation
in the wilderness. Our Saviour has gone 40 days, 40
nights without food. Afterward, when he was 100, the
devil appeared 3 times. They went into the ring
together. Three times the devil had to get
out of the ring. It is written.
All the power of God's Word, it is written again, it is written.
And the devil had to leave him for a little season.
He went away to lick his wounds. But especially at the cross, at
the cross of Calvary. What did Jesus do on the cross?
He bore the sins off His people. It's not a tremendous truth.
All our iniquities in Him were led, all our indebtedness by Him
was paid. He that believeth the good Book
says, hath everlasting life. He defeated the devil at the
cross. There's a lovely verse over in
Colossians chapter 2 and verse 14.
It says, having spoiled our text here, having destroyed
principalities and powers, that's all the devil and all
hell with them. Our blessed Saviour made a show
off them openly triumphing the language of victory tonight,
triumphing, triumphing over there minute.
The idea there they tell me the commentators O's in the no is
off the victory marks. The great battles would take
part take place and the victor would come home to his people
and there'd be the great victory marches.
And as he's marching along and the people are cheering, usually
in those days attached to the Chariots that are going into the
battle where some of the chief antagonists marching behind,
humiliated, humiliated, my Saviour went to the place called
Calvary. There's victory in Jesus
tonight. Not a wonderful thing.
And here he he displays his defeated enemy and his conquest
that he won on the cross. He makes a blood atonement.
We believe that tonight, but there's victory at the cross
tonight. And not only did Jesus destroy
the word there means not only did he loose the works of Satan,
but he did something else. Here's the proof.
He rose again from the dead. What victory there is in the
empty tomb. Death could not keep its prey.
Jesus, my Saviour, unto him was given the keys of hell and of
death. Remember listening to old Willie
Mullen preaching. Heard him on tape and he quoted
that hymn. I'll probably put you off it now
for the rest of your life. And I thought not.
Great resurrection hymn that we all loved to sing.
He tore the bars away. Jesus, my saviour and moan with
his typical bluntness. He says that's rubbish.
It's not that he's denying the resurrection.
He says when you have the keys, you don't need to tear the bars
away. I thought that was powerful.
But here's the thought, isn't it?
He has conquered the devil. He has conquered the devil.
Satan did everything he could to keep him in the tomb.
Remember how they organised all the soldiers to be there and so
on, never held him back. And then these disciples in
their early days, you, you read it in the early book of Acts,
they went everywhere preaching the resurrection and they were
told never. You preach that again.
The devil wants to keep it quiet, but he can't do it, can
he? He's, he's failed.
He's failed in that. He's failed in that.
He tries to discredit it. He tries to banner he has
failed. But you know, the ultimate
fulfilment of our text is this. Brother and sisters, tonight,
the end is not yet and the best is yet to be.
Our Saviour's going to return someday.
And the Bible tells me in Revelation 20 and verse 10, when
he has made the last use of the devil and the devil is of no
more use to him. He's going to take him by the
scruff of the neck and he's going to put him into the lake
of fire burneth forever and forever, and he'll be nowhere
again in this earth, in this new heaven and new earth.
The devil will not be there because our saviour has
destroyed the works of the devil.
But we need to move tonight, and we'll do it very quickly from
this big cosmic picture that we have been painting to an
intensely personal one. If you're in the gallery in
tonight and you're unsealed and you've never been to this
blessed cross of Calvary and your sins have never been
forgiven you, you're still abiding under the wrath of a sin
hating God. You're still a child of the
devil, then you need to get saved.
You need to get out of the devil's camp.
You need to come to Christ as your Saviour because not only is
the devil cast into the lake of fire, the same chapter in
Revelation 20 says whosoever's name was not written in the
Lamb's Book of Life, they too are cast into the lake of fire.
I don't want to particularly finish on that note tonight
because I've got, it's true. I'm not going to take it back.
It's there, it's in the book, but here you can come to the
Saviour. The gospel mission, isn't it?
Here's your chance of escape. Here's your place of refuge.
It's in Christ our refuge. Have I none?
Ah, Hines, my helpless soul, and thee.
Will you come to him tonight? Will you seek Him tonight?
If you seek Him, you'll find Him.
He was manifested. That He may put away the works,
that He may destroy the works of the devil.
He can do it in your heart. He's able to save to the
uttermost all. You come under God by Him, but
you need to come. If you will not come, you won't
have life. But if you come, he says, I'll
not cast you out, and he'll put you beyond the reach of the
devil. Your life will be head with
Christ and God. He gives his sheep eternal life.
They shall never perish. Neither shall any man word man's
not in the original, neither shall anyone, devil or not,
snatch you out of his hand. I trust that God will give you
that deciding grace even in your own seat where you're sitting.
You ask him to save you tell him that's why he came, to seek and
to save not which is lost. Say, Lord, I am the Sinner You
came to save. Save me now, save me now.
Wash me. Cleanse me in the blood that
flowed in Calvary. Or if you want to speak with me
afterwards, I'll be happy to speak with you.
I am in no hurry away and we'll be glad to speak with you, the
minister here, but glad to speak with you.
May the Lord bless these words to all of our hearts.