THE MAN OF GOD’S CHOICE
Rodney Brown
Acts 3:14-15
1 Samuel 16:6-7, 12-13 (to “that day forward”)
Acts 17:30-34 to (to “him believed”)
I have been thinking since our reading on Thursday night about what God has chosen. We read in James 2: 5, “Has not God chosen the poor as to the world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to them that love him?”. It would be true to say in the gospel that God is not presenting you with a choice. He is not: God is presenting Christ for acceptance. Nevertheless, it is also true to say that you in hearing the word have a decision to make. Are you going to accept it or are you going to reject it?
Everyone here has heard the gospel many times; everyone has had an opportunity to turn to Christ as their Saviour; everybody has had an opportunity to take God at His word. I was reminded in our reading earlier as well, that faith takes God at His word. And if faith is operating in your heart, dear friend, take God at His word, and accept Christ as your own personal Saviour, if you have not done so already. It is a matter of the greatest importance; indeed there is no more important decision to be made today if you have not yet accepted Christ. That is an important decision for every man, but you, as under the sound of the gospel again, are responsible to answer to it. It is imperative that you do so. So, if there are any here who have not yet accepted Christ, I would urge you in all seriousness, and with urgency, that you do so today.
Who of us know what tomorrow will bring? Surely the circumstances of the present time would bear that out. Things happen suddenly; things happen swiftly. Who knows when there will be another opportunity granted to hear the glad tidings? It is also true to say that man away from God will always reject Christ. This mockery of a trial which is gone over in the first scripture that we read, the fact that man chose Barabbas over against Christ, would surely bear testimony to that. And man’s heart as away from God continues to choose the wrong man. It continues to choose what appeals to men naturally, and impresses man naturally, which is far removed from the meek and lowly Christ. That Man does not appeal to men away from God, that Man does not appeal to me in my sinful nature, but I have had to come to it that God’s Man will be my Man. I trust that today, if you have not done so already, you may be prepared to make that decision and put your trust in Christ and take God at His word. Why do you think to know better than God Himself? If you think there is a God, if you believe in God, and I am assured that everybody here does, why do you think that you know better than God, and reject the Man that He is presenting for your acceptance?
The Man of God’s choice is such an attractive Man, such a loving Man: He has done everything for God, and He has done everything for you. He is presented for you; accept on the basis of what He has done. He would seek to endear Himself to you. You think of what He has done, the way He has gone in walking that lowly pathway here on earth: what a Man He is for your affections. If you do not know Him I can say very clearly that you are missing something; you are missing out. No one can compare with Christ. You might put your trust in things here, you might put your trust in men, but that is not the Man that I am presenting. I am not trying to present persons that man would normally put trust in. The helplessness of man is testimony to the futile way in which men operate, but there is one Man who will never let you down. We have heard of him recently: “a friend that sticketh closer than a brother” (Prov 18: 24), and He is available tonight as a Saviour. He has done everything for you, dear friend, and He seeks your heart. What a matter that is, that the One who so pleased God in His pathway here, and in going into death, and in His present position, should be presented to you. Think of God really beseeching you that you might receive His Man, the Almighty God Himself drawing alongside of you, presenting Christ, the Man for your affections. I would urge you to take God at His word and come into the blessing of doing so.
We see what appeals to man, even appealed to Samuel in 1 Samuel 16, what might impress men outwardly, but God does not look on outward appearance: God looks upon the heart. God knows your heart, dear friend. He knows whether there is a place in your heart for Christ and He is seeking, He is perhaps knocking on the door of your heart, and seeking an entrance, that Christ may have the place in your heart that He is worthy of. And He is worthy of it because He has gone to the cross for you. He has not gone there on His own account; He has not gone there to do anything other than follow what was in God’s heart, in order that God’s heart should be made known in such a full and free way. Dear friend, I would commend the Lord Jesus to you. How perfect He is; how perfect He was in His pathway here, that lowly pathway. He was rejected by men at His death but He met opposition all through that pathway. It could be said prophetically of Him, “the reproaches of them that reproach thee have fallen upon me”, Ps 69: 9. What did the Lord Jesus do to deserve that? Walking here among men, healing, bringing in relief, answering the questioner as well as the question, bringing in God’s word, bringing God into persons’ circumstances, appealing to men, speaking of those that laid burdens on men unjustly, speaking against the Pharisees. Think of the compassion that was found in the Lord Jesus. What a perfect life it was: how pleasurable to heaven! All this has been displayed; we have been reminded of it recently that when the Lord Jesus was here there was a green spot on the earth. That is a spot, a Man, on whom the Father’s eye could rest complacently. And we see that as He came out of the waters of baptism at the Jordan, when the heavens were opened to Him, and the voice came, “Thou are my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight”, Mark 1: 11. There is no disputing who God’s Man is. There is no disputing that this is the Man of God’s choice, and God has been justified in His choice in the way that the Lord Jesus has gone.
It was always in God’s mind that the Lord Jesus would come into manhood and take the place that He did in lowly grace; but, dear friend, does not the pathway of the Lord Jesus demonstrate that God was justified in that choice? What a pathway of perfection it was. It ended: in man’s eye it ended in the cross. Yet such a life had to be given up there; the perfection of the life was not sufficient for salvation, which required it to be given up in death, and the Lord Jesus went through with everything. He did not let anything turn Him aside out of that pathway of devotion to the will of His God and Father: He went through with it all. He suffered from sinners; He suffered the contradiction of men against Himself. What matters these were: these are things that I could not have withstood. The Lord Jesus went through with it all. He suffered far more grievously at the hand of God when He was made sin in these three hours of darkness on the cross. Think of that, the perfection of that One, the One in whom there was no sin. He was made sin. Not on His own account, but “made sin for us” (2 Cor 5: 21), and as made sin, He suffered and He bore the whole wrath of God against Him. Sin was the thing that God hated, and the judgment of God poured out on the head of the sinless One. My substitute, He took my place there. The One who glorified God on the earth in the work that He did here: think of how He glorified Him in that death. It has been said ‘Never was He more perfect, never more acceptable to God, than on the cross’, JND Collected Writings vol 34 p379. It is difficult to understand that, perhaps, but you can see what ascended to God as a result from that blessed holy perfect Man.
We sang in a hymn this morning about the ‘pathways sore’, Hymn 5. These pathways were necessary, and necessarily sore, in order that you and I might come into blessing, in order that the Lord Jesus should be available as a Saviour; and He is a Saviour. But His pathway did not end in death, His pathway did not end on the cross. He went into the grave, and He is no longer there. He was there for three days and three nights. Prior to that, on the cross, as we know, He died and His blood was shed. Think of these last moments in the malefactor’s life when he turned to Christ. Jesus said, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise”, Luke 23: 43. Well, if a person like that, in extremity, could turn at the end of a sinful life, dear friend, the Lord’s work is sufficient for you if you will only take God at His word. He is blessedly available, and we see here God’s thoughts as to this One, typically seen in David, “Arise, anoint him; for this is he”. There is no other person that God is presenting tonight; He is presenting Christ and Him alone. And He is worthy of your affection. He is worthy of your trust, and if you have not trusted in Him, I would urge you to do so now. He is available, and you may think you have heard all this before, and there will be another opportunity, like these persons did in Acts. But the decision that you have to make tonight is to accept Christ or to reject Him; there is no third way. These persons who said, “We will hear thee again also concerning this” were Christ rejectors. They, in not accepting Christ, were rejecting Him. Some mocked. Really those that said, “We will hear thee again also concerning this” are classed alongside the mockers. But then, blessedly, “some men joining themselves to him believed”. “Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved”, Acts 16: 31. That is the message from heaven tonight. That is the message for you.
I have been interested recently to read about somebody that had died at the wreck of the Titanic; this man was a Baptist pastor, called John Harper, and he went down with the Titanic. One of the accounts is that while they were trying to compel the woman and children to go onboard the lifeboats, John Harper, would shout out, ‘Let the women, children and unsaved into the boats’. And then in the water, one of the accounts stated that he gave his life jacket to somebody who said they did not believe. In the water this man was still asking persons if they were saved; he was asking them if they knew the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour. The preacher had drifted up to a man in the water, and asked him if he was saved, and the man said, ‘No’. John Harper gave him his life jacket and said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved”. When the preacher asked him again, that man was saved and at a memorial service, about four years later, he stood up and gave his testimony. And he had written a tract called ‘I was John Harper’s last convert’.
So, if you doubt what God can do, if you think that perhaps there is not sufficient opportunity, who knows what effect that man had in the last hours of persons’ lives, and in the most unimaginable of circumstances. Think of the strength that he was given. We know of one person who was saved as a result of his testimony, seizing opportunities to present Christ as a Saviour. Clearly this man was able to do that, and what he had in his heart was a yearning for souls. That was the salvation of many, no doubt. And you know he could have made a choice. Perhaps to get into a life-boat and to save himself, but like his Master he sought to be available to save others in their extremity. What that brought home to me is that some persons have not had opportunity to say, ‘We will hear thee again concerning this’. Would anyone that was in the water that night who was on the edge of eternity have said, ‘Well, I will think about it and maybe consider further’. The urgency of the glad tidings, dear friend, requires a decision now. That is what mercy made available to these souls and in God’s mercy He is making an opportunity available to you.
I read further that on the quayside where the rescue ship came in there were two signs: ‘Known to be saved’ and ‘Known to be lost’: the names were written. What a sight that would be: saved to the left, lost to the right: two classes of persons. We are in a situation now where that is not yet fixed, but there is a day coming when He will judge the habitable earth in righteousness, where things will be fixed. And God will judge by the Man whom He has appointed. There it is again, the Man of God’s choice. Make Him your Man tonight; put your trust and faith in Him; choose the Man that God is presenting. It will be for your blessing, your eternal salvation, and your present joy as well. And the Holy Spirit will give you power in this scene to walk here in keeping with that Man.
May you make Him your Saviour today if you have not done so already, and if you have, may you draw closer to Him. There is no one to compare with Him. I commend Him to you for His Name’s sake.
Linlithgow
15 November 2020