The Speech of God

["Alleluia"] Alleluia, sing to Jesus, Jesus sent to his home. Alleluia, he is the child of Israel. All the sons of Israel have the life of mighty God.

He's the child of every nation, and with him God's love is kind. Alleluia, God has told us all the end is over now. Alleluia, he is with us, and with him God's love is kind.

Alleluia, he is with us, and with him God's love is kind. Alleluia, he is with us, and with him God's love is kind. Alleluia, he is with us, and with him God's love is kind.

Alleluia, he is with us, and with him God's love is kind. Alleluia, alleluia, glory be to God on high. To the Father and the Savior who has gave the victory.

Glory to the Holy Spirit, words of love and sanctity. Alleluia, alleluia, to the triumphant victory. Come with me, many crowds, the Lamb of God is born.

Come now, the heavy and the proud, your music rise up. Awake, my soul, and sing of Him who died for me and who has done righteously to all eternity. Come with the Lord on high to triumph all the grave.

And with victorious hymns of strife for those He gave to save. His glory is well we sing to God and those on high to God eternal life to bring and His death let me die. Come in the Lord above, behold His hands and side.

Those whose death is in all above in beauty glorified. No angel in the sky can fully bear the sight but Thou, O friends, is burning eye and His service so right. Come in the Lord of peace, whose power and justice reign.

From old to old and for ages and all the eternities. His reign shall never end and the peace he sent here can also paradise extend when angels ever sing. Come in the Lord of peace, the golden age of time.

Creator of the world we sincerely adore. No angel in the sky can fully bear the sight but Thou, O friends, is burning eye and His death let me die. And Father we thank you as the organ moved to a resonant climax there that we have been able to underpin in our own ascent that our Redeemer has died for us.

We bless you for our Lord Jesus Christ your unique Son who came to this world to do for us what we could not do for ourselves and what clearly no other human being could achieve. We thank you for a full and a free and a tailor-made salvation. Amen.

Let's turn to Hebrews in chapter 1. This remarkable epistle in the New Testament which is rather intriguing as to who the author is. Some wrongly think it's the Apostle Paul. Some even think it was a lady.

Thus it was anonymous because they wouldn't have taken its credibility in those days with the concept of leadership being male. And yet there was an outstanding lady in the Acts of the Apostles who was a great teacher. Maybe God left it anonymous for reasons that are best known to Himself and indicating that the writer, the human writer of any of the books of Scripture really is quite incidental because Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit.

But let's read the first four verses or so of Hebrews 1. In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways. But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son whom He appointed heir of all things and through whom He made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being sustaining all things by His powerful word.

After He had provided purification for sins He sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven so He became as much superior to the angels as the name He has inherited is superior to theirs. I guess if you wanted a sort of subtitle to the address which I want to fairly briefly bring to you this evening I could opt for why Jesus Christ is God's full stop and not His comma. Last week I suggested that in the evening you could relax and be comfortable and then I'd tell you a story.

Well, be comfortable, but let's go back to our English grammar lessons. Worthing is a beautiful resort. Full stop.

Worthing is a beautiful resort, comma however Eastbourne has a better beach. And immediately your first statement is qualified by your second statement and you could put a comma between. Something else in your second statement or your second clause qualifies the first reducing something of the impact that the first would have had if it had stood on its own.

Jesus Christ is God's revelation to the world. Full stop. At three o'clock this afternoon in Trafalgar Square what was being said by however many people gathered I don't know, I didn't tune into the radio assuming there might have been some assuming there was a news release they would have said Jesus Christ is the revelation of God to the world, comma but a greater revelation is that of the Prophet Muhammad.

Do you like Roy Hattersley? At the moment I think Tony Blair may be in double mind as to Mr. Hattersley's contribution. Mr. Hattersley too comes from Sheffield. Support Sheffield Wednesday.

Man of great faith. When you think I'm trying to think why I made reference to Tony Blair it's going right over my mind, it'll come back. It's the Sheffield thing that did it.

Roy Hattersley, that's right. The Manchester Guardian that was, the Guardian as it now is known he writes the tailpiece, that's what I wanted. He writes the tailpiece on a Saturday when you go through the paper or through the magazine you read the editorial and so on and so forth and then you get to Hattersley's bit, the tailpiece.

When the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world he did not come as God's tailpiece. He did not come just as a partial revelation of God. The Bible says that God spoke to the world finally, completely through the Lord Jesus.

In other words, God has nothing more to say to our world than what he has said in his Son. Now this morning when we were looking at the story of Job we highlighted the fact that Job was silenced before God. And there are times as I was arguing when men and women should really be quiet and just take stock.

But over against the silence of Job you get the speech of God. And particularly this is referred to in Hebrews 1.1 where we hear that God in the past spoke to our fathers through the prophets at many times in various ways. But in these last days he has spoken by his Son.

How has God spoken previously to our world? Well, he spoke as again I reminded folk who were present this morning and still speaks through the world of nature. The world that he has created. You've got to be a Cambridge professor to believe that the world just came about by a concourse of a fluke combination of atoms and that humanity is just the scum that floats on the face of the universe.

Not a very elegant description of you and me. I've always felt that one of the greatest evidences though I warrant that you cannot prove God but one of the greatest evidences towards the existence of God is the fact that our natural world is so wonderful. At the natural level you look at a flower.

You consider the human eye and try and tell yourself that all this came about as a result of a fluke and you would need more faith in fluke than what is required to believe the Bible. Malcolm Muggeridge is a man who always attracted me because of his use of the English language. He was a brilliant orator.

And Muggeridge says somewhere that if it's a choice between and he was quoting a professor again at one of our historic universities of a decade or so ago if it's a choice between Professor Fred Hoyle's Big Bang as an explanation for life coming about and Genesis 1, count me in on Genesis 1 every time. God speaks through the world that he has created. But moreover, he speaks through the prophets that he sent into the world in the Old Testament era.

Now prophets were messengers of God and they didn't live very comfortable lives. In fact, if the man from the prew had been around in those days he wouldn't have been issuing policies towards the Hebrew prophets because their lifespan was so short. Jesus makes reference to them as he speaks about Jerusalem and the hostility that the average Hebrew person meted out to the prophets.

Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who despise the prophets, you who stone the prophets. What the prophets had to say about God was generally unacceptable to the Jewish nation. And in the Old Testament you get a collection of their ministry and you get some indication of what God is like.

So from nature and from the Old Testament the jigsaw puzzle begins to be filled in. But it doesn't come to its completion until you move to the point in time when a little babe was born in Bethlehem, miraculously conceived of a virgin, brought into this world, preserved in his early years when there were threats against his life, and eventually at the age of 28 or thereabouts he burst like some meteorite in Palestine, in Israel, and he started to preach from Dan to Beersheba and spoke about God and not only spoke about God but made such astonishing assertions that when I speak the authority of God is behind what I have to say. To the extent that people actually got very annoyed with Jesus.

On more than one occasion they would have murdered him. They picked up stones and would have thrown them at him. For what reason? Well, because he was saying that when you listen to him and when you saw him you are listening to and perceiving none other than God himself.

And for the Jew who did not believe that God could become incarnate in human flesh that in effect was blasphemy. But this is how the writer to the Hebrews tells us that God has disclosed himself to our world. A copy of Time magazine some years ago said why has 2000 years elapsed since God spoke? And the writer of that article was in error because not only did God speak 2000 years ago but the implications of what he had to say then resound now.

And you can hear the voice of Jesus coming down the centuries. You can read what he said in the Gospels in the New Testament epistles. God disclosing to those who are concerned to listen what he wants us to know about himself.

How did God speak? He spoke in the past. He spoke through the world of nature, still does. He spoke through the prophets.

But finally, he spoke in the Lord Jesus. And he has nothing more to say. There is no greater revelation.

God has got no other plan in his mind for the redeeming of men and women than the rescue work of Jesus who took upon himself your sin and my sin and died on the cross of Calvary. God has spoken. But you know when you talk about people speaking it's not just what they say that is of interest.

It is how they say it. I went across to Maybridge on Thursday. I'd received news that Eric had had a baby.

I didn't believe that. I thought that Sarah might have had as much if not more to do with it. So I called on them both.

And sure enough, there's proud dad. And mom. And the two kids.

The recent addition, Abigail. And I said to Eric, what about your little girl before Abigail came? I mean, how's she reacting to Abigail being around? And he said, well, she's so used to boys and girls coming in from the Pathfinders at Maybridge that having a baby there in the home was no problem the first day. But he said, when I came downstairs the second day, she also followed me, looked in the cot and said, she's still there.

She didn't say, she's still there. How wonderful. She's still there.

Competition. No longer myself, central stage. I have to vie with someone else.

Now you immediately react to that sort of story because you can identify. And it cracks open what I'm trying to say, that there's not just interest to be shown in what someone has to say. It's the way, it's the way you say it.

Let me digress just for a moment. I had an experience this afternoon which I thought was very illustrative of the sort of privilege that is mine trying to do pastoral work along with others at the time. I helped two different people in exactly the same way, though they were distanced by about 90 years.

You see, we had a number of friends at home for lunch and stayed the afternoon and were in for tea. And I got the job which I liked actually of feeding one of the babies. Another Abigail.

Hey, mothers, do you know that there are other names that you could choose these days besides Abigail? We're going to be so riddled with Abigail's in Maybridge and the Tab that when Tim and I come round, if I'm still around, when I may be in heaven by then, to marry them, it's going to be a bit monotonous. But here is this little lass and she's in my arms and she's gulping down her milk and precious little beautiful baby. And then an hour later I'm visiting one of the most respected godly women that has ever passed in my time through Worthing Tab.

I refer to Lillian Gardner. I don't know her exact age, but I suggest that she's coming up to around 90. And there she is in Koinonia and the sun's flowing through the glass and she'll be with the Lord not too far distance in time, I imagine.

And she's helpless. And I find myself with a little glass feeding bottle and I put some ice in it and I feed her and take some of the water and just bathe her face with the iced water because of course she's so hot. And she's saying all the time, thank you.

Thank you for the tab. Thank you for what the ministry has meant down the years. And it wasn't just what she said, it was how she said it.

And I was thinking to myself, oh this is extraordinary. Within an hour, doing exactly the same thing, on the one part a little child of just a few weeks of age, on the other a lady possibly with nine decades clocked up and both in need of help at the human level. And incidentally, though the baby couldn't confess it, both in need of help at the divine level.

And if God was dumb, if he had never spoken a word that was concrete into our world, how difficult would be the situation for Lillian Gardner now and how unacceptable would be the world as it opens up in the future for that little baby Abigail. But God is not silent. He has spoken.

He spoke in history. He speaks through nature. He speaks in the person of our Lord Jesus.

And it's not what Jesus had to say alone that is important. It's how he spoke. Those of you who did me the honor of coming this morning, or let me express that more carefully, who brought to the heart of God warmth through your praises as you sought to worship him, did you notice, because I had to drive home this conclusion from the book of Job, that when God spoke to Job, he didn't dangle his list of sins before him.

Not that God deals lightly with people's sins. When the Lord Jesus came onto earth, he always dealt compassionately with the sinner. He spoke strongly against sin.

He spoke strongly against hypocrisy. But when he ministered to the person who'd missed the mark, who'd broken down, who'd lost their sense of dignity, it is with compassion. Always with compassion.

For our Lord Jesus is in the recovery business. And when he speaks, he speaks relevantly to the situation in which he finds himself. And because what he has to say is timeless, when you transfer it to the 20th century, and you listen to his voice as it's echoed in Scripture, again, you see that same relevance, and that same compassion.

Because this is Jesus. He is the friend of sinners. Not for no reason does he plunder the language of the shepherd and the sheep to describe what he is like in doing his job.

He can find no better analogy, because, well, it's a pastoral society in which he does his preaching. What am I like? I'm like a shepherd that goes after the sheep. What do you do when you get to the sheep, Lord Jesus? I don't scold it.

Time for tuition is after recovery. I bring it back into the fold. You see, this is it with the Lord.

He speaks. He speaks through his Son. He doesn't send a legion of fiery angels to execute judgment on the world, though he reserves the right so to do.

He speaks with infinite tenderness to us through his Son in these last days, and he really does not have anything else to say. So it's not just that God has spoken that's important. It is how God spoke that is of value and meaning.

But the greatest challenge is, what will you do with the speech of God? I can't hear you, Lord. So many people, in effect, close their ears and will not, therefore, pick up what he has to say. And you even get the daft conclusion that you're not speaking, even though every avenue for your voice to come into me is one which I have blocked out.

So crazy are moderns. You see, Jesus said there were two opposite effects that his speech would have on the world. One would be for the immediate and for the long-term benefit of all who had to receive him.

For the word of the cross is a word of reconciliation. It is a word of renewal. Jesus said there are two classes of people.

There are those who listen and receive what I have to say. There are those who listen or refuse to listen, and therefore, in both subdivisions, do not make any response at all. When this world grinds to a halt, as it will, and we stand before the judgment seat of God as all of us have to do, the question will not be, were you successful or unsuccessful? Did you consider yourself to be good or did you consider yourself to be evil? The question that will be put to you will revolve around your reaction to the speech of God, those things disclosed by God's representative on this earth, Jesus Christ.

And if you embraced the message of his Son, then actually you pass from death into the immediate enjoyment of God's presence. And judgment in terms of your eternal destiny will be bypassed, for your sins have been forgiven through the shed blood of Jesus. But if you were deaf to the speech of God through Jesus Christ, then the word of the gospel will be brought to your attention once more.

But it will not help you, for the impact of the gospel message in terms of its positive benefits are only experienced this side of judgment. Did you hear that? It is only now that you have an opportunity to respond to the speech of God through Jesus Christ. In eternity it will be too late, and the very word which could have been your salvation will be your damnation.

That's why the apostle Paul, re-echoing the speech of Jesus, could say of his ministry that some it is a message of life unto life, and for others it is a message of death unto death. It separates between those who will be in eternity with God and those who will be eternally damned. So I bring my message to its conclusion.

God has spoken. Jesus Christ is the full stop to the speech of God. He has nothing else to say.

What is required of you is to give consideration to what I shared and knowledge that you have of the gospel supplementary to what has been voiced this evening and to make your response. Jesus is the heir of all things. He is the dispenser of salvation.

No one else. Have you responded? Are you a Christian? Has the word of God taken root in your heart? Have you moved from death to life? From being deaf to the word of Christ to being responsive? Let's pray. Father, we think of the frailty of humankind illustrated in that little babe who needed feeding just three hours ago and that elderly lady who needed cold water.

Lord, we came in frail and dependent. We will go out frail and dependent. And between those two points you allow a certain amount of maturity physical and mental to develop.

In these mature moments help us to make a rational decision so that when the time comes for our departure we may have language of thankfulness to the Lord for all that he has done for us and to look forward to leaving this world and moving into the eternal era. Those who have responded to the speech of God. Lord, bring salvation to the hearts of all.

In this congregation tonight and for all the babies of our creche and for all our elderly people and especially Lillian we commit them and her to your grace. Amen. Amen.

ASCENDED. He came to listen to His voice, He loved the land He see'd, He loved the land He see'd, He came to bear His praise to Him now, For His sons and daughters, For His sons and daughters, He loved the land of Israel, And His house, the land of the poor, And His house, the land of the poor, He came to feed His family, He came to feed His family, And His house, the land of the poor, Thank you Lord for your speech. Thank you that you speak clearly, That even the young child can understand.

Go on speaking through your word to us, And enable us to listen to what you have to say, More than speaking back in return. Send us into this week, To see you more clearly, To love you more dearly, To follow you more nearly, And may the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Rest and remain with each one of us, Now and always. Amen.