Address—Don Rule
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We'll begin this afternoon by singing the last song in the kimbap #85 and the appendix.
Made a starter.
Across the cross.
And one precipitation, one for the earth's water. On the water, on the water, on the water, on the flour. On the flour and the rainbow. The rainbow. The rain drivers are revised by the revised.
Nsnoise.
Right.
Our God, we ask as we open thy word, that thou would speak to us from it.
That each one of us may receive a benefit from thyself this afternoon.
That would affect our lives.
We desire that the Lord Jesus might be honored.
In each one of us, as we go through life, we ask our God and Father for thy blessing in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Would you turn with me first, please, to John's Gospel Chapter 12?
John's Gospel chapter 12. We're going to start reading at verse 23.
And Jesus answered them, saying, the hour is come, that the Son of Man should be glorified.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.
But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me, and where I am there shall also my servant be. If any man serve me, then will my Father honor.
Now is my soul troubled?
And what shall I say?
Father, save me from this hour.
But for this cause came I unto this hour.
Father, glorify thy name. Then came their voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people therefore that stood by and heard it said that it thundered. Others said, An Angel spake to him.
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Jesus answered and said This voice came not because of Maine, but for your sakes.
Now is the judgment of this world.
Now shall the Prince of this world be cast out?
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.
This, he said, signifying what death.
He should die.
I suggest you keep your finger here. We're gonna look at two more places, and then we'll come back to this passage.
Go on to John chapter.
19.
John's Gospel chapter 19 and verse 14.
And it was the preparation of the Passover, and about the 6th hour. And he saith unto the Jews.
Behold your King. But they cried out. Away with him, away with him. Crucify him.
Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priest answered, We have no king but Caesar then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified.
And they took Jesus and led him away.
And he bearing his cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha.
Where they crucified him.
One more verse in Acts chapter 4.
Acts Chapter 4.
Manverse.
10.
Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel.
That by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him, that this man stand here before you whole.
Before me this afternoon to.
Speak on what? Going what Sunday school we had this morning we talked about symbols to speak about crucifixion and the cross and what they mean.
The crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Is the center really? We sometimes sing to him, the center of two eternities.
The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ was the most momentous day in the history of man and ever will be.
In connecting it with the resurrection 3 days later.
Simply stated here in John chapter 12 it says now.
Is the judgment of this world.
And God has divided everything on one side and the other side.
Of that day and that event.
And he declares to us that on that day he judged the world.
Absolutely and completely formed a judgment as to this world.
And the consequences of it.
And it's the desire of one's own heart that as we look at some of these things this afternoon, that we would desire more.
To identify ourselves in our lives with that day.
And the Lord Jesus in the position in which he was in that day.
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Where we read.
When it says to us, the Lord Jesus speaking, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
The world as God sees it.
Before the cross was the world of Adams race.
And it says to us in First Corinthians chapter 15 that in Adam all die.
It then says, In Christ shall all be made alive.
On one side of the cross is Adams Rice.
On the other side of the cross.
Is that race of which Christ is the 1St?
On the one side of the cross from God's perspective.
There was absolutely no fruit.
For God, that's an amazing thing really, to think that man had lived here approximately 4000 years on this earth, and God had watched man and worked with man and interacted with man for 4000 years of history.
And had to say at the end of it.
No fruit.
Nothing that could satisfy God's view of what fruit is.
And so the Lord Jesus in due time is sent into the world.
As that good seed that is described here.
And if there's to be any fruit for God from the whole history of his creation.
It's going to come from that seed.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
But all fruit for God.
Comms as a result of death.
At the cross and it's after that death and resurrection that we have fruit for God. It's true that in the Old Testament there were people who were born again and in received a life in virtue of the anticipation of that cross and that day. But looked at in its general picture.
All fruit for God would come only as a result of the work of the cross through death.
But the character of that day, especially as it's before me this afternoon, is.
Crucifixion and even the word, the symbology to us of cross.
Lacrosse spoke of Shang.
The Cross spoke of rejection.
The cross was that place.
Where man told God what he thought about God's Son.
And he expressed what he thought of God's Son by crucifying him.
And God judged the world for it.
He condemned the world.
There was to be nothing for God from that world.
It was fruitless.
And God could have destroyed it righteously. But we know that His purposes were not that. And the Word of God gives us the wonderful.
Revelation now to us of what his purposes are.
Every one of us lives our lives in reality and in a practical sense on one side or the other, and sometimes we try to do both and leave sometimes very confused lives.
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Because we.
Haven't accepted in practice what God says took place on that day, and we don't live according to what God has said about it, and I trust we'll see that as we go along.
But it's.
That time.
When he says concerning the work of the Lord Jesus there, that if he dies then there will be much fruit for God.
But at the same time from Adam to the cross.
Man was under.
Responsibility and testing by God.
In multiple different ways that are recorded for us in the Word of God.
Man stood responsible before God and was being tested in various ways as to whether he could.
Live honorably with God and in a proper relationship with God, whether he could be righteous and so on.
And God brought out by his ways.
That man was a failure.
He was not, would not be responsible to God.
And God for the.
Ultimate act of man in rebellion and in self will, and in enmity in his heart against God crucified the Lord Jesus Christ, and God pronounced as a result the judgment of the world.
It's important for us as we go through it to live our lives on that ground.
That we are living in a world that God has judged.
So the Lord Jesus immediately having said here and we won't talk about it too much at this point, but notice in verse 24 he said if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit and immediately applies it to your life and mine as soon as he says that if it.
Doesn't die, it abides alone, but if it dies, it bears fruit. He brings you and me into it in the very next verse. And he says he that loveth his life shall lose it.
And he hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal. If you don't judge your atom life, if I can refer to it that way, as God judges your atom life, you'll try to keep on living it, and you will not bear fruit for God in that life.
And so it's an important matter.
He says if you love that life.
That life that's on the one side of the cross, that's now judged, if you love that life, you're going to lose it.
You can't keep it.
But if you treat it as it is before God.
Then you may have that which is eternal in its character and in its life.
And so if you're going to walk properly with God, it says, if any man serve me, let him follow me. And so it's necessary if we want to have a life with God, that we follow the Lord Jesus in that place in which he has received from the world.
And what is that place?
He received crucifixion.
So the apostle Paul, as we'll see later, recognize that truth. And he said I am crucified with Christ. He took his place as a follower of the Lord Jesus. And he said I am crucified with Christ.
So here.
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It's important to.
Except.
That the world is judged.
The reason?
We read the verses in John 19 is because.
The choice that's made by the world is made on that day between two men.
Shall I crucify your king? The question is asked, and the answer We have no king but Caesar.
And with respect to the one that Pilot presented to them, he said crucify him, crucify him. We will not have this man.
Caesar.
Represents.
The top of the world.
That day and that hour, among men, the most important man, that man as man saw it in the world that day was Caesar.
He was the greatest ruler of the world. He was the supreme ruler, if you will, of the whole world at that time.
He was the top of what man might aspire to be among men.
In the exaltation of Man.
And the world says we will have no king but Caesar.
In 2012, the cry is exactly the same. We will have no king but Caesar.
We will exalt man, we will honor man if he excels among his fellows.
We will allow him to be cruel.
And corrupt.
But we will exalt him nonetheless.
Mine will be wowed.
By what the world produces.
Man will exalt those who excel among themselves.
If they can't climb above them and so on.
But the choice was to reject.
God's King, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And God judged the world for it.
We follow Caesar.
Well, we follow Christ.
But if we follow Christ, we have to follow Him. If we're going to follow Him properly, we have to follow Him.
In the way of the cross.
And the way of crucifixion.
We can't have him otherwise.
As God wants us to have him.
We can't mix Caesar.
And God's King.
And please God.
I'd like to just, it's important, I believe I'd, I'd like to expand on this just a little bit. Go back with me to Genesis.
To see God's ways.
In the history of the earth, go back to Genesis chapter.
Umm 6.
Genesis chapter 6 and verse five. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him.
In his heart.
And verse 11, the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence, and God looked upon the earth and behold, it was corrupt, and all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me.
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For the earth is filled with violence through them, and behold, I will destroy them with the earth and then over in the end of chapter 8.
And verse 21.
And the Lord smelled a sweet savour. And the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I again smite any more new living every living. I will not I will I against fight anymore everything living as I have done. While the earth remain us see time and harvest.
And cold and heat and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
The statement in verse 13 of chapter 6 The Lord God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before me.
Was really, from God's perspective, the end of expecting any fruit from man in Adam's creation. He examined all that had happened with man in the 1St 1500 years and he said the end of all flesh.
This come before me, but God's ways are wonderful to trace out in the Word of God, and still he was going to take the matter to its proper and full conclusion. And so he raised up Israel after the flesh, and gave them every privilege to make them a fruitful vine in the earth. He raised up prophets and priests and kings to help people. He established the law for man to see if a proper rule of life.
Would do anything, if you will, to teach man, but from God's actual perspective, the end of all flesh had come before him. At the time of the flood and before Noah goes into the ark, he says the imagination of man's heart is only evil. Continually and immediately after Noah comes out of the ark, he repeats the statement.
The judgment of man at the time of the flood didn't change the flesh in man, and God had seen the end of it. And so he says it's only evil continually. He just adds afterwards from his youth.
Uh, to his statement about it and so.
There are two men at this point.
In this little passage in the word of God that are called that they walked with God. I think it's something God puts there for us to to to recognize and appreciate. We're very familiar in chapter five with one of them, Enoch walked with God.
But I want to point out it also says NOAA.
Walked with God.
In the one case in Enoch's case, I believe it's referring to the heavenly people.
That is ourselves. We should be.
And we want to see, We want to desire.
Jim had a good tombstone statement.
I'd offer another one. It'd be wonderful if at the end of this life, each of us had written.
I trust not all on a tombstone because we aren't expecting all to have tombstones, but at least it could be written like it was of Enoch. He walked with God.
In Noah's case, I believe he's a picture of the earthly people and the ark is that which takes them through the judgments of the tribulation into the Millennium. But it says of Noah, Noah too walked with God, and God would have us, whether we're as we are a heavenly calling or in the case of the others, unearthly calling, that regardless it might be said of us that he walked.
With God.
Now let's go back to the.
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New Testament.
To look at Second Corinthians chapter 5.
2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 14 For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead.
And that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth?
No, we no man after the flesh. Yeah, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Reading the new translation, old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ.
And has given to us the Ministry of Reconciliation.
Well, verse 14 it says we thus judge if one died for all, then we're all dead.
That is, Jesus Christ died for all.
And that statement shows us that all were dead in their relationship to God.
He wouldn't have had to die for everybody if there were some that could say I have a living relationship with my God.
It's a statement along the line that.
Be from Adam to the cross.
Man was dead toward God.
Natural man.
God quickened. God gave life to souls, but in nature, in his in his flesh, man was in a state of death.
In Adam ALDI.
Then Christ shall all be made alive, and He's bringing that truth out.
So he says that they he died for all that they which live.
They which live, thank God. We'd like to say we all live. We're speaking God word.
Were they which live?
But the only way that there will be life with God is through the death of the cross and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and those who receive that life in resurrection.
Because in Adam there's no fruit, in Christ there's fruit. And so he.
Then goes on to say the practical consequence of it. These aren't just doctrines of Scripture, and they are, but they all have a practical effect if we accept the doctrine and live by it. He then immediately says that we which live should not henceforth live unto themselves.
But unto him which died for them, and rose again.
Adams Rice lives for itself.
The race of Christ lives for Christ.
It's easy for us to accept that we are sinners and that we need a Savior, and we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior with the expectation that because we have it's the right expectation, someday we'll go to be in heaven.
But God's message to us is if we're going to walk with God, we're not going to live for ourselves anymore.
We're going to live.
For Kim, who died and rose again, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 16.
Henceforth know we know, man after the flesh.
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To know a man after the flesh is to know him in the relationship to Adam's race.
It's illustrated for us and Mary on the resurrection day. She said she wanted to touch him.
That is, she wanted to continue to have the kind of relationship with the Lord Jesus that she had had before he died.
She wanted to go back on the ground really of Adam's race, and he was teaching her. Mary, you can't know me that way anymore.
Even if you, as he says here about some of them, even if you once knew me that way, you can't continue to know me that way. The only way we can have a relationship with each other from this point on is on the other side of death.
So henceforth, no, we Him no more. After the flesh we go back and we look at the life of the Lord Jesus and we feed on it and we enjoy it as a perfect man on earth. But our relationship with Him is in resurrection and in new life.
And so.
He then says, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature or a new creation.
God has started over.
In that way with a new creation.
It's interesting to me how he's doing it.
He started the first creation by creating a physical thing.
The heavens and the earth.
I don't know where angels came into the time sequence, but with respect to us, he started.
And he created the heavens and the earth.
And the last act of the creative work of God to create that creation.
Was to put life in the human soul in man, was to take that body which he had formed and and breathe into it the breath, the breath of life, and man became a living soul. That was the last act of that creation in the making of it.
Now God has started again with a new creation in Christ.
And he starts by giving life.
Imparting life into the human being.
The last act of this work, which is ongoing and we'll finish, will be the physical New Heaven and New Earth.
So he started one way and he went to the end of it. He started on the opposite side of it, if you will, and he's going to the end of it. And when the work is complete, there'll be a new heaven and a new earth.
And it's in its both exist at the present time, both the old and the new.
Interestingly enough, with Adam, I mean with NOAA, when Noah came out of the arc, he came out of the arc on the same physical Earth.
That of that first creation and God has said the end of all flesh is before me.
But then because of the ways of God, which are wonderful, God says yes, and I'm gonna do a mighty work. Noah, you don't know it, you don't understand it. But in God's way, he had a mighty work before him to do. And it was going to be the introduction of a new creation in Christ, and it was going to go on to a full end for God's glory. But he said while I do it.
I'm gonna maintain this present earth all the way to the end until I finish the hole. So he says I'll make a covenant with you, Noah. I won't destroy the Earth again. He made the covenant with the animals, it says. And it says he made the covenant with the earth itself.
In other words, he said, I'm going to do a work to bring about an end result. That's to my purposes. But I'm going to, in doing it, I'm going to keep this present Earth going until the end of that work. So there's a new creation, and it started.
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And so we are new creatures in Christ Jesus. We're the beginning of the new creation that is in US. We're not finished yet.
We're not finished yet. We have redeemed bodies.
But the work, uh, the claim of that redemption at the cross, it says in Romans 8 that we await the redemption of our body. The work was done, but we still have to have changed bodies before we are fully part of the new, the full work of God in US and new creation.
I want to he talks in this chapter and I want to expand on it a little bit to see some of the other results of the separation that God makes between the old and the new.
He talks here about reconciliation and I'd like to go to Colossians chapter one and comment a little bit on the work of reconciliation.
Colossians chapter one and verse 19. And it pleased the Father, that in him that's in the Son should all fullness dwell, and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself. By him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven, and you who were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works.
Yet now hath He reconciled in the body of his flesh through death.
To present you wholly and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight.
Reconciliation to God could only be accomplished through death.
Nothing short of death.
Would reconcile man back to God.
Put it another way, there was nothing from Adam to the cross in God's ways with man and his perfect ways with man, that would bring about a reconciliation.
Between man and God.
Because.
Of the state of the human heart.
Man has enmity with God.
Because.
Man wants his own way and he does not want to be told no.
We all know it's true. I may have used the illustration in this room before, but I know of no better. If I put a yellow line on the floor here and I say to you, don't cross the yellow line, you want to cross it.
Because.
Man doesn't want to have any authority over him that restrains him.
And because God in the Garden of Eden put one rule before man and restrained him by it to maintain the relationship of Creator and creature, a master and the one who was under authority, the moment man sinned, there was in him an an enmity, an ill will toward one who restrained him, and it's never changed.
It didn't change for the 4000 years of history. Man fundamentally doesn't want to be told no. And if someone says no?
And has authority to force it. There can be ill will in the heart toward them.
And that's got included.
That's why there's not peace.
There's not peace between man and God, because in man's soul there's enmity.
Toward God. We will not have this man. We will not have God's king. We will not have God's authority. We will not get rid of them, crucify them.
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Let us have a man of our own kind, one who will exalt himself after his own will.
And the consequences? Disastrous.
But through death, God in new creation and the work of the cross established a basis of peace. That man can be righteous with God in peace and happy about it and thankful for it. But it includes a change in the human heart. He has to have new life for it to be so.
So we've preached the message of reconciliation. Be reconciled to God.
And if man is reconciled to God, he enters into a relationship of peace with God. But it's in receiving Jesus Christ, and in receiving the life which delights to please God.
And then the pieces, I mean, the war is over. Let's go over to Galatians chapter one.
I'd just like to notice two things to start Galatians chapter one and verse one.
Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.
And go to the last chapter.
The last chapter.
And then verse 15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature or a new creation.
Just want to point out that Galatians book begins with resurrection and the last part of it brings before us new creation.
What's brought out to us in Galatians is that which has to do with the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ and the new position into which it brings us.
But I just wanna say the foundation of it is the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, because everything that's going to bring fruit for God is on the other side of the cross in life. Having said that, let's go over to chapter 2.
And verse 20, Galatians 2 and 20. Thus the apostle Paul, and I hope it's your heart and mind. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
I recognize my.
Rejection by the world.
I should have noticed it. I didn't. In chapter one, in about verse three or four, it says that he might deliver us from this present evil world.
If the truth of Galatians 2 and 20, and the truth that's brought out later, is not active in our souls, we will not be, practically speaking, delivered from the present evil world.
It will more or less spoil our lives from being fruitful for God.
But he says here I'm crucified with Christ.
There was in Romans, it's dead with Christ, but here it takes it, I think in a sense a step farther because it brings out that enmity of the human heart in crucifixion and the needs be of us of identifying ourselves with the crucified Christ.
And that there is not going to be anything, uh, for God in our lives unless we accept that.
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And identify with it and say I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, Christ liveth. That's the Christ who rose from the dead liveth in me and the life which I now live. I lived a life on Adam's side of things. I now live a life on Christ's side of things.
The life which I now live, I wasn't born with that life. That's the life I now live. That's the life I have in Christ.
On the other side of the cross, the life which I now live, I live by faith.
I don't have everything yet that's connected with that life.
I don't. The world lives by sight. Adam's world lives by sight. Show me and I'll believe.
But the other side at the present, the state of things on the other side of the cross, is we live by faith. We embrace faith as a way of life, not only for salvation, but as the way we live. I live by faith.
And what faith is that? The faith which has the Son of God as its object and is constrained by the love of that object. And so I live the life which has Jesus Christ as its object, and that object constrains my heart. It's the one that loved me and gave himself for me.
Go over to Chapter 5.
Chapter 5, Verse 19 The works of the flesh are manifest. Which are these?
Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations.
Wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying murders, drunkenness, revelings, and suchlike.
That's the world living its life in Adam's race.
It says in Romans chapter 8 concerning that condition of life, which is the life in which there's no fruit for God.
It says they that are in flesh.
Cannot please God.
Now there was statement if you're living only have the atom life, you're only belong in this world in that condition. Romans 8 tells us you're in flesh and they that are in flesh cannot please God. There's nothing of fruit for God in that life. The soul that's in that condition cannot please God.
You know, in a practical sense coming down here.
I don't know, but I passed with my wife through dozens of small towns.
Somewhat meandering down here through Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee.
Kentucky.
Then passed through multiple small towns and I often thought as I pass through those towns.
Is there fruit for God in this town or is this a town of people that are living?
Dying. I saw the cemeteries, I saw the hospitals to help them through life.
Thankfully, and I thank God, I saw churches and I trust the light of God and the truth of God in its measure was being presented to the people there and thank God for it.
But I looked at him and I saw these villagers or these towns.
In my mind, the world over.
Like man lives, he dies, another generation comes, it lives, it dies. And I thought of them as their fruit for God there.
Is there gonna be something for God that's gonna last from the cycles of life in those towns? Hope so. I believe so. You know, I enjoyed this. The other day we were going through Acts and we saw the data Pentecost and there were 3000 people saved that day.
That's wonderful. And we stop and we say, oh, I wish we could see 3000, people say.
Look at it this way.
I would be surprised, and so would you, if on this earth during this past 24 hours there have not been many, many more than 3000 people enter the Kingdom of God.
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Today, as far as adding to the Kingdom of God, it would not surprise any of us. I don't think at all if in the scope of where God is working in the Kingdom today, that there's way more fruit today than there was on the day of Pentecost over this period of 24 hours, God is working.
God's not limited by man's weakness and failure. He's producing fruit for himself and someday He will manifest it, someday soon we believe. But the point in here in chapter 5 is to get to verse 22. The fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace, long-suffering, so on.
God brought you into new creation.
I forgot to point it out but in Second Corinthians chapter 5 it says.
All things are new.
And all things are of God. Two things there. In new creation, everything is new. God isn't using the old.
He isn't mixing the old and the new. He says all things are new, and secondly all things are of God.
When the new creation work is finished and it's an ongoing work of God, but when he finishes the the work.
Everything will be new and everything will be of God.
A perfect display of God's glory. In the first creation it was man and responsibility, and there's no fruit from it. In the second creation, it's all the work of God and it's all results in a perfect fruit.
And so in each one of us in this room, God is working to produce fruit for himself.
That new life.
God works in it to put in it his own love.
And they're fruit. We're the recipients of the love of God in US.
And she's the source of it, and he puts it in US.
Let us not hinder the inflow of it into our souls.
Joy.
We know what joy is in these things, peace before there was enmity. But when God saves the soul and reconciles it to Himself, he brings it into a relationship with himself that it is peace.
As it says in Romans 5, we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
It's a fruit that God is producing, and that fruit in the soul wasn't there before.
And it will be there for eternity now.
Blessed be God in the work He's doing. Let's go over to one last verse or times gone.
Chapter 6.
And, umm.
Verse 14 But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
One last appeal to my soul and yours, brethren.
It's an evil world.
Be content.
To be crucified to it.
Take your side with the Lord Jesus.
In your motives.
In your attitude of life, in your what interests you?
It's Satan's world.
He's the controller of it. He controls its entertainment. He controls its attitude. He controls the motives of men through it.
It's an evil world.
And Paul said, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me. That is Paul said, it's a crucified world, I'm crucified to it. And if you truly take your place that way and the motivations of your heart and the character of your life is according to that, then the world will say the second-half of the verse to you.
01:00:21
Go follow your man.
We don't wanna have anything to do with you.
An eye to the world that is. The world will say if you want to follow him, go ahead, but we don't want you either.
Let's pray.
Our God, our Father, we just ask that we each one might.
With purpose of heart accept.
Our relationship to the cross.
And recognize.