ONE day God opened heaven and called out these beautiful words: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.” (Matt. 17:5.) Are they not beautiful words, children? They were spoken to some fishermen, but about the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know that name very well—you have heard it very often, and have sung it in hymns perhaps. But do you know that God, who lives in heaven, loved Him so much that He called out of heaven to tell us so?
Three things God said that day about Him: He called Him “beloved”; He called Him “Son”; and that He (the blessed God) was well pleased with Him.
Children, do you know why God was well pleased with Him?
Because the Lord Jesus could say, “I do always those things that please Him.” “I came not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.”
Which do you like to do? your own will, or the will of someone else?
Do you not like to do your own will best, very often?
But the Lord Jesus always did the will of His Father.
He even said once, when weary and hungry, to His disciples, when they wanted Him to eat, “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.” He loved better to finish God’s work than to stop and refresh Himself.
What was God’s work, dear children, that kept His beloved Son so occupied, and gave Him no time to spare?
Listen! It was the salvation of sinners.
God’s great work was your salvation. Jesus Christ has done that great work for God. He said, “I have finished the work which Thou gayest Me to do.”
It was God’s work, and His servant Jesus accomplished it. Do you know what it cost Him to do that work?
The cost was His life.
No one can give more than his life, can he? But the Lord Jesus gave Himself. He “offered Himself without spot to God.” And the blessed God “laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” so that all who believe on Him can say, “He bare our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24), and also that He suffered “the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.”
Was God satisfied with the work and also the way the work was done?
Yes, perfectly satisfied.
Has another voice called out of heaven to tell us so? No! A greater thing God has done, He has raised up the Lord Jesus Christ out from among the dead, and has put Him at His own right hand in heaven.
He is there now. The marks are in His hands and in His side, of that death upon the cross on which He died for sinners. He is safe now out of all the cruel hatred of man against Him. He is seated at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens.
That is the proof that God is satisfied.
Do you know you never could be forgiven your sins or saved from judgment, unless Jesus had done God’s work? for it is only the blood of Jesus Christ that can clean away sin. His blood can make you whiter than snow.
He is coming again to take those who will receive Him, to be with Him in glory, and all who receive Him not, will (terrible to say) be turned into hell, with “all the nations that forget God.” The last words of the message are, “hear ye Him.”
No one can hear Him for you, dear child; you must hear Him yourself. Are you a sinner? He said, “I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Are you lost? He said, “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
He said also, “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” Are you weary of yourself and all your ways? He has said, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Listen once more to words so sweet and lovely, meant for you especially. He said Himself, “Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
ML 08/12/1917