The amazing work of Salvation

[0:00] Good morning to everyone and a special welcome to visitors who are with us today.

[0:14] We came coffee started after service and you're very welcome to join us for that. And there's a holiday Sunday school today which is open to all children of primary school age.

[0:25] So visiting children, very welcome to attend the Sunday school. The evening service at 6pm will be conducted by Dr. Anthony Latham.

[0:36] The ladies Bible study meets tomorrow at 8pm. Road to recovery meets on Tuesday at 8pm in the community centre. The prayer meeting is on Wednesdays week till at 7.30pm from Kilda Cruises.

[0:50] There will be a fundraising cafe on Saturday the 16th of April to raise funds for this year's challenge of bus mission and fund day. Food donations and help with this cafe are required and a food list should be at the door.

[1:03] So please add your name for the security. Accommodations on the mission has mainly been arranged. I'm meant to check that with Lucy. It's all been sorted, that's fine.

[1:15] If you want to help with the effect of the mission this year, please speak to Lucy or to Marion. The services next Sunday, 17th April, will both be taken God willing by the minister.

[1:30] And forward announcement for fortnight's time, Ireland Study Conference will take place in the Harris Hotel from 22nd to 24th of April. This year's speakers are Professor John Angus MacLeod of Edinburgh Theological Seminary and Reverend Dominic Smart of Aberdeen.

[1:45] And on the table there, there's some official programmes and also some copies that I've printed off to take away as well.

[1:56] So please do pick up one of those programmes. And people are very welcome to attend any individual or all sessions. Just say, if anyone wishes to attend, for example, the whole of Saturday, and they wish to have a meal in the hotel with their ex-Rosa 10th in the conference, please contact the person listed on the programme, so that you can find out how much it costs for your meals to be happy.

[2:24] Thank you.

[2:54] I'll sing it from the beginning of the psalm, down to death 8. Call thee, my God, and every sick, my soul does rest for thee.

[3:05] My flesh longs in a dry, parched land, wherein no water speeds. And then down to death 7. In shadow of thy wings, I joy.

[3:18] For thou my health hast been, my soul thee follows hard on me. Thy right hand doth sustain. Six stances altogether from the beginning of Psalm 63.

[3:32] Lord be my God, I'll early see. Lord be my God, I'll early see.

[3:48] My soul does the earth for thee. My flesh longs in a dry, parched land, wherein no waters be.

[4:10] That I thy power may behold.

[4:20] And I can show thy face. As I have seen thee here to fall within thy holy place.

[4:43] Since better is thy love, thy life. My gifts be rich of you.

[4:59] I am thy name, where there my hands. And bless thee, choir I live.

[5:15] In as with mud, low and with fire. My soul shall deliver thee.

[5:31] Then shall my world with joy full lips sing. When I do thee upon my bed.

[5:56] Remember with delight. And when of thee I meditate.

[6:10] And watchest of the night. And shall you of thy wings.

[6:27] And shall you of thy joy. For thou my help hast been. My soul defoows hard on me.

[6:46] Thy bright hand doth sustain. Bring us now.

[6:57] I just know that we are near to God in prayer. Let us all pray. Gracious and eternal God, it is good for us to be gathered here for this day.

[7:16] It is good for us to seek your face early in the morning, early in the week, and also early in our lives when we are still in school and still young.

[7:33] And we thank you, O God, for those who have found you, and you found them when they were young children.

[7:47] And you are doing that to this day, and we rejoice to know that your arms are shortened, that you cannot save, and your ear is not dull, that it cannot hear.

[8:00] And so we thank you for the opportunity of being here at the beginning of another new week in our lives. And what better way could we begin the week than to begin it in your house, and seeking your blessing upon us and sitting under the teaching of your holy and inspired word.

[8:26] Father, we pray that you would bless to us this day, and bless this service to our hearts and to our souls. And bless those who are away from us at this time, on holiday, still away.

[8:43] And we pray that you'd bless each one of them and refresh them and renew them, and bring them back safely to us. And thank you to the minister and his wife and the family, enjoying a well-earned rest at this time.

[9:01] Bless them and bring them back to yourself, and back to us here, refreshed and renewed in soul and in body.

[9:12] and we pray for those who are with us from other congregations and from away, those who are visitors. We ask that this time of holiday would be to them a refreshing and a relaxing time as well.

[9:31] We pray for your blessing on our homes and our loved ones. They are precious to us and we bring them to you in our prayers, seeking that you would draw them ever closer and nearer to yourself.

[9:48] Our hearts go out today to those who have lost loved ones in these last couple of days, fishermen who were drowned south of Farah near Mingili.

[10:05] We pray, Lord, that you would be with those whose hearts are bruised and broken. And for the one that has survived, we pray that you would bring him back to health again.

[10:19] We pray that you would comfort those who are today looking at an empty place in their hearts and in their homes.

[10:32] And especially where there are children involved. Lord, these tragedies come to us from time to time.

[10:45] And we pray that you would help us to be more appreciative of the work that our fishermen do as they bring ashore the fish that we take for granted when we go to the fish shop.

[10:59] Lord, help us to appreciate and value the sacrifices of others around us. So hear us in our prayers and bless this time of worship to us now.

[11:14] For we ask all things with the forgiveness of our many sins in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

[11:26] Amen. Amen. Amen. I'm glad that we have some children around, so if they would come forward to the plant here, they would be able to see things better and hear things better as well.

[11:41] Boys and girls are true that most of us today spend more time getting ready to come to Sunday school church, cleaning ourselves, getting showered and all the other things that we do before we come out to church, that we spent more time doing that than we did, asking God to bless the service to us and to give us the spirit of worship so that we would worship him properly in his house. We are all guilty of that. We spend a lot of time in front of the mirror and getting ready and that's all very well and we should be nice and clean and fresh coming to church to worship God. But God is more concerned with how our hearts are. In other words, he is concerned more with what we are inside than we are on the outside. And very often we meet people at the church door and they're so nice and we meet people in the Sunday school and the children are so well behaved and so nice and so good at listening and things like that. But they might be different people when they go home.

[13:14] They might be disobedient to their parents, they might be cheeky, they might be quite different from what they are when they are in Sunday school. And the grown-ups can be as guilty as anybody else. They'll be nice and kind and good at the door of the church and speaking to one another. But maybe it'll be a different thing when they get home. Maybe they'll be crabby that the food is taking a while and the soup is not ready yet and so on. So we can be different inside than we are on the outside.

[13:54] We can be different. We can be different. We can be different. We can be like the Russian dolls. Do you know what a Russian doll is? Do you know what a Russian doll is? Any of you know? Any of you girls know? No? Well, I've got one in my pocket here to show you.

[14:09] This is a Russian doll. It was given to me by an elder that I had in Stornoway. And he was over in Russia with the Slavic Gospel Association.

[14:22] And he brought back this Russian doll. And he gave it to me. And I'll always remember Bangas, he was called. He's now with the Lord. He's in heaven with Jesus.

[14:35] And he's coming to me. So I always think of it when I see that Russian doll. And that wee Russian doll has a lot to teach us. Russian doll you can take it apart like that and there's another Russian doll inside it.

[14:51] See, get that back and you take the top of that there's another Russian doll there. Okay that's three. Another one there. Four of them there inside the one doll.

[15:16] There should have been five but my wee granddaughter who's only three years old was playing with them and she lost the tiny, tiny wee one. I couldn't find it all day yesterday and the day before so maybe it'll turn up sometime.

[15:35] So there you are. The thing about the Russian doll is this, that every one of them is completely different. You know there's something different with each one of them.

[15:47] Maybe the mouth or the eyes or the nose or the way they hold their hands or there's something different with each one of them.

[15:58] And maybe you could say that inside every one of us there is another passion, two and so on, or three or four passions.

[16:12] Maybe inside us as we look so nice and clean and so well behaved. Inside there could be somebody who is jealous. Jealous of other people, jealous of school, pals, jealous of members of the family.

[16:34] Maybe inside us there would be somebody who is. Maybe inside us there would be somebody who is often telling lies. Or things like that. Different from what we are on the outside.

[16:49] Nobody would ever say that we were jealous looking at us. But it's when we go home that we let our guards down and we are showing another side of our lives.

[17:07] And we try to hide that very well. And the thing is that God knows what we are in the inside.

[17:18] Not just the outside. And he looks at the inside of the heart. And it's more important to him what we are in our hearts than what we are on the outside.

[17:30] You know that Jesus, he was a good person on the outside. Doing good works and helping the poor and the needy and the blind and those who needed help.

[17:42] But on the inside, in his heart, he was just as good as he was on the outside. Our feeling is that we are good on the outside, but we fail often on the inside.

[17:59] We are not always what we make out to be. And we should ask God for grace that we would be made more and more like Jesus.

[18:10] That should be our prayer every day. So that we become as good in our souls, in our hearts, as we are on the outside.

[18:23] So that when God sees us, he sees us getting more and more like his own son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what his intention is for every one of us.

[18:37] That we should one day be like his son, Jesus Christ. And he's working towards that end in the lives of his people in every age.

[18:48] So you'll remember the story of the Russian doll. Every one of them is different. And yet, this doll has a lesson for all of us.

[19:02] Let us try to be what we are on the outside, to be the same on the inside, the same in our hearts. To be loving, kind, good.

[19:14] To be obedient to our parents. Not to answer back. And things like that. I'm sure that Jesus, when his parents would tell him to do something in Nazareth, he would do it right away.

[19:30] He wouldn't grumble and complain. He would obey his parents. He would submit to them. And that's what we should be doing as children.

[19:41] But also what we should be doing as grown-ups as well. So there's a lesson for us in the story of the Russian doll.

[19:54] So the next time you see a Russian doll, you'll remember what we were saying here today. Now we'll have a wee prayer and then your hymn.

[20:05] Heavenly Father, we confess before you our shortcomings and our sins. And especially the sin of making out that we are better than we really are.

[20:18] Lord, we give the impression that we are good and that we are obedient and that we are good at listening to the teacher teaching us.

[20:33] But Lord, help us to see that there is another side to all of us. But when our parents ask us to do something, we grumble and we find fault.

[20:47] When we are asked to come to our dinner, we want to watch the television or we want to read on in a book that we are reading.

[20:58] We are not obedient as we should. But Jesus is our example. And he is the one that we are to follow. Help us to become more and more like him.

[21:11] We ask this in his name. Bless now the children as they go off to Sunday school. The holiday Sunday school. Bless them and be with them.

[21:23] And teach them the things that you have for them to learn. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Now we are going to sing to God's praise.

[21:37] The hymn which is 450. 450. 450. Savior teach me day by day Love a sweet lesson to obey Sweeter lesson cannot be Loving him who first loved me The hymn number 450 Savior teach me day by day Thank you.

[22:34] Thank you.

[23:04] Thank you. Thank you.

[24:04] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[24:16] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[24:28] Thank you.

[25:00] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[25:12] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[25:24] Thank you.

[25:56] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[26:08] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[26:20] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[26:32] Thank you. Thank you.

[26:57] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And we'll get to a second prayer that she said down in Dutch.

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[31:47] Glory to You. Definitely.

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[33:08] Amazing to God's grace in hymn 108, hymn 108, Spirit of God, descend upon my heart, wing it from earth through all its pulses move, stoop to my weakness, mighty as though I am.

[33:27] And make me love thee as I ought to love, 108, Spirit of God, descend upon my heart. Spirit of God, descend upon my heart, with it from earth through all its pulses move, and the Lord, descend upon my heart, with it from earth through all its pulses move, and the Lord, descend upon my heart, with it from earth through all its pulses move, and the Lord, descend upon my heart.

[34:19] And make me love thee as I ought to love, and make me love thee as I ought to love. And make me love thee as I ought to love.

[34:37] I have no dream, no prophet, take the seas, no sudden reigning of the hill of clay, O angel visit, and look in skies, and look in skies, and look in skies, and make me love, and my soul flowering.

[35:19] The Word of God Let which my heart to pray.

[35:55] Oh, let me see beyond all every light.

[36:07] Teach me to feel that the heart always died.

[36:18] Teach me to feel that the heart always died.

[36:29] To check the rising down the river's side.

[36:40] Teach me the patience of the cancer care.

[36:51] Teach me to love thee as thine angels love.

[37:03] One holy passion living on my feet.

[37:14] A Cada climactic woah that the center.

[37:26] My heart My heart And all the ground. I love the lend.

[37:37] For a few moments let us turn clearly to that passage that we read in 2nd chapter of Ephesians and from verse 11 to the end of the chapter.

[37:58] Chapter 2, Ephesians and verse 11. Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh, were called and circumcisioned by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands.

[38:18] But at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, from strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.

[38:34] In the last week we saw in verses 1 to 10, Paul giving us a picture there of what we are if we are not converted, if we are not saved.

[38:48] A picture of what we are without the grace of God. A picture that we are before God's salvation comes into our lives. And he describes what happens at conversion as being a spiritual resurrection.

[39:07] As if you would see a dead man lying there on a piece of wood. And then that dead person getting up and standing on his feet and walking and talking.

[39:26] In verses 11 to 22 he describes salvation as being a reconciliation between ourselves and God.

[39:36] When we are reconciled to God, he tells us, by the blood of Christ. The blood that was shed on the cross at Calvary.

[39:50] What happened to us at our conversion needs to be brought home to us. For so often we have a shallow conception of salvation.

[40:04] We speak of it so lightly at times as if it was something we did ourselves. Well, how can a dead man do anything?

[40:15] He can't. So it was God who brought us from death into life. We speak as if it was ourselves that decided to follow Jesus.

[40:30] In a sense that is true but before we decided to follow Jesus, God had decided to save our souls and come into our hearts by his Holy Spirit and grace.

[40:43] So Paul is saying here, if you're going to understand something of the glory of the work of salvation, you need to understand first of all two things.

[40:56] You must understand the awful flight in which the unsaved person is. Remember how we say that the verse, chapter 2 verse 1, is best translated as, He found you dead.

[41:18] And we need to understand not only the awful flight of being unsaved, but also understand our standing now in Christ. What our standing is.

[41:30] That God who is rich in mercy. And the wonder to which he directs our attention in verses 1 to 10 is resurrection from the dead.

[42:03] We have been raised from spiritual death to spiritual life. And the wonder of verses 11 to 22 is that he has brought us near to himself.

[42:18] We have been brought near to God who were at one time a Pharaoh. And if we could grasp that truth, the truth that Paul is teaching us here, I'm sure we would be filled with adoring love and wonder that we who were at far off have been brought near to God.

[42:46] And this is why we would begin to learn truly how to worship. We need to learn a lot of things. And this is one thing we need to learn how to worship as we own.

[43:01] And if we wonder after study and ponder the miracle of grace that lifted us up into this spiritual state and brought us near to God through Christ.

[43:16] If we are never marvelled at that, it may be because we have never grasped the awfulness of being lost and being unsaved.

[43:29] Without God and without hope in the world. Just think of the great honour, the unspeakable privilege which have been given to be brought near to God.

[43:46] Hell-deserving sinner that deserved nothing but to be cast away forever from God's sight, to be brought near to him.

[43:57] We would be elated and we would be surprised and it would be a great honour for us if we received tomorrow morning in the Costa, a letter telling us that we were to meet the Queen somewhere in the next two or three months.

[44:17] We would go out and buy a new outfit, a new suit and be there so happy to meet her.

[44:28] It's nothing, absolutely nothing compared to what the blessing and the privilege which God has given us to be brought near to himself.

[44:42] When Martin Luther was writing on this subject, this is what he said and it is so true. It is the same mystery that a moth should be brought to the fire and not be burned.

[44:58] That a sinner should be brought to God and not consumed. And that is so true. And that is so true. What a mystery it would be if you saw a moth fluttering around the fire and going right in among the embers and coming out again on the other side unscathed.

[45:21] But the mystery that is even greater than that is the mystery of the sinner who is able to come near to God and not be consumed.

[45:36] And this is the greatest miracle that is in the universe today. We talk about the days of the miracles being over or whether they are still with us or not.

[45:50] The day of miracles is still with us as long as there is a sinner to be saved. Because this is one of the greatest and the greatest of all miracles that a sinner be brought near to God and not be consumed.

[46:10] That we can come to the mercy seat of God, to the throne of grace and there pour out our hearts before him.

[46:22] Do you marvel that we can come near to God like that? Or is it something that you and I take for granted? Therefore, he says in verse 11, remember.

[46:36] Now there are some things that the Bible teaches us to put behind us and to forget about them. In Philippians, the same apostle is saying, chapter 3, verse 13, Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

[47:04] There are some things we need to forget. And we need to be careful as Christians for there is a remembering which is of the devil.

[47:16] A remembering that can keep us back in our spiritual progress. And I've seen that happening again and again.

[47:33] I once knew a man in Uist, he ended as an elder in the church. But I'm sure that he would have gone on to be more than an elder, to be a lay missionary in the church.

[47:52] But something happened in his early life. And he was ashamed of it all his days. And it kept him back from being what he could have been in the service of God.

[48:09] The devil would come to him and would say to him, You're going to be a missionary preaching in the pulpit to others. And that is in your life.

[48:22] And there is a remembering that keeps us back in our spiritual progress. There is also a healthy remembering as we remember the rock from which we have been hewn.

[48:38] As we remember the miry clay. As we remember the fearful pit out of which we have been taken by God. He did it all.

[48:50] As in thankfulness we remember how God took us out of that awful place that we were in. And he was spiritually dead and away from himself.

[49:06] John Newton after his conversion had a text above the mantelpiece in his study. It was Deuteronomy chapter 15 verse 15.

[49:17] And you shall remember that you were a bondman in the land of Egypt. And the Lord your God redeemed you. At one time you see, John Newton was a ship's captain.

[49:35] He was a slave trader himself. And he wanted to keep that in mind. And some thought about what he was at one time. And him is the role of pride and self importance to get the better of it.

[49:51] And he had that text above his mantelpiece. And you shall remember that you were a bondman in the land of Egypt. And the Lord your God redeemed you.

[50:03] Paul here in this chapter uses three words to describe the state of the person who is without God and what happens when we come to be saved by grace.

[50:18] There are verse 12, strangers. Verse 13, far off. Verse 16, reconcile. There are two ways in which we can look at the division which came about as a result of the fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden.

[50:40] A division came between man and man there, or between man and woman, as in the case of Adam.

[50:50] And later on in years after that, the division between Jews and Gentiles. Man became divided from his fellow human being.

[51:05] You see that in Adam and Eve. What was the first thing they did when they sinned? They looked and they saw that they were naked. And they were ashamed, something that they were not before the fall.

[51:22] Something came in between Adam and Eve that separated them from what they were before. As a loving couple.

[51:35] And that's what sin caused. And sin also caused a division, not only between man and man, but also between man and God.

[51:46] Whether they be Jews or Gentiles, there was a division between man and God. Adam lost the communion he had with God in the Garden of Eden.

[52:01] No moment. He sinned. He lost it. And you can understand something of that yourself as a Christian. If you fall into sin for some reason or another.

[52:16] You will lose the conscious presence of God with you. You'll feel God so far away from you. And your cry will be as the cry of David of old.

[52:30] Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Oh, it's a terrible thing. When we fall and when we stray from God.

[52:40] And we lose the sense of his presence with us. We lose his communion with us. And we just long for it to be returned to us.

[52:55] And we go on our means. And we cry to God for forgiveness and cleansing and pardon. Now, inside the Jewish temple, there was these things laid out in such a clear way that you would understand what happened when Adam fell.

[53:18] You would understand it so clearly. You would understand it so clearly by looking at the furniture of the temple. But within the temple there was what was called the middle wall of separation.

[53:29] And that fence or wall was there to keep the Gentiles from mixing with the Jews. And if any Gentile went over that wall to the side of the Jews, he would immediately be put to death.

[53:49] Because written on that wall was that if any Gentile passes beyond this point, he shall die. He shall be put to death. So the little wall of separation was there.

[54:03] Walling and dividing the Jews from the Gentiles. And there was a separation also between men and women and God in general.

[54:17] And that was portrayed by the veil that hung heavy in the temple within the inner court and the small room called the Holy of Holies.

[54:30] And there was this huge veil that was there from side to side of the place. And we're told that it was three inches thick.

[54:42] And that it was made of gold and of silk. And it was telling the people that sin separated them from God.

[54:53] Not only did it speak of the separation that sin made between God and man. But it spoke also of something else.

[55:04] The enmity that is now between God and man. Having abolished, Jesus says in verse 15, having abolished in his flesh the enmity.

[55:18] By sin became the enemies of God. And because he is holy and just and true, he became out in him as well. In verse 3 we saw how Paul said that we were by nature the children of wrath.

[55:36] By that he meant the wrath of God that was blazing against sin of any kind. But the glory of the gospel is that Christ brought that enmity to an end by his death on the cross.

[55:55] He reconciled us to God. Took away the enmity from the heart of God that was against us.

[56:05] So that now when a person is converted there is no enmity between him and God. Indeed you find in your heart a love for God that you never sensed before in all your life.

[56:21] You may have respected the church. You may have respected the gospel. You may have respected the people of God. You may have respected the servants of God.

[56:33] You had every respect for God himself as well. But when you become a Christian, you begin to love God in a way you've never loved him before.

[56:45] It's as if you fall in love, if you can put it like that, with Jesus Christ. My Jesus, I love thee.

[56:59] I know thou art mine. For thee all the pleasures of sin I resound. Words of someone who knew from experience what it was for the enmity to be removed.

[57:15] So in verse 16 read. And that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.

[57:28] He also reconciled Jews and Gentiles by breaking down the wall of separation. Verse 14. For he himself is of peace who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation.

[57:44] He chose the Jews in his love. God is the one who made that separation between Jews and Gentiles from one point of view.

[57:59] He chose them as being his own people from among all the nations of the earth. God is the one who made that separation between Jews and Gentiles from one point of view. And he gave them many blessings. And many privileges.

[58:12] Do you know why he gave them all these blessings and all these privileges? So that they would go out to all parts of the world to tell others what a great God they had.

[58:23] They were to evangelize the whole world. Isaiah 49 verse 6 says, I will also give you as a life to the Gentiles that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth.

[58:44] But of course the Jews failed. They became proud of their election and began to look down on other people who were not Jews.

[58:55] And the same thing is found today to a certain extent in some branches of the Christian church.

[59:06] Branches of the Christian church who are strong and the doctrine of election. And they become proud. And they look down upon others as if they are better than them.

[59:21] 開心 When you think of it,.... muchos deseeves God's salvation. in America So would it have the danger of falling to the same trap as the Jews long ago if you are not careful?

[59:42] Instead of focusing on the hidden godliness of the heart It's the heart that helps As we were saying to the little children, not how well-dressed we are or how clean we are, coming to church, but the heart, the heart, the heart.

[60:02] So prepare your heart before you come to God's house. We see this in verse 11. You were once Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands.

[60:24] You'd hear the Jews referring to the Gentiles and saying, oh, they're the uncircumcised. Don't bother with them. Instead of going to them and telling them what a great joy they had, they failed in their mission.

[60:40] Because they became proud. However far, Israel wandered from God and from what he intended them to be.

[60:53] They still had many blessings which other nations didn't have. They had the law. They had the prophets. They had the covenant promises.

[61:05] They had the hope of the coming Messiah. None of the other nations had these things. And Paul sees the Gentiles as being without all these things, having no hope, and without God in the world.

[61:23] But now, of course, things have changed for them. For in Christ Jesus they have been brought near. Christ is the Greek word for Messiah, which is the Hebrew equivalent.

[61:38] The Gentiles had no hope of the Messiah coming. They didn't hear about him or anything like that. And this was the great event that the Old Testament believers looked forward to and longed for.

[61:53] And God would fulfill his promise. And the Saviour would arrive. This was the hope that was in the hearts of the disciples.

[62:04] That caused them to say, we have found the Messiah. We have found the Christ. We have found the promised Saviour. Even the woman at the well of Samaria, with all her failures and all her faults.

[62:23] And all the weaknesses in her life. She said, come and see a man who told me all things I ever did. Is this not the Christ? She had that hope in spite of all her failings and faults.

[62:39] The hope that one day the Messiah was going to arrive. To be without Christ is to be without all the blessings that really matter and really last.

[62:55] For in Christ alone are we going to be blessed with blessings that will last for time and for eternity. What are lost to be without the blessings that God has prepared for needy sinners?

[63:13] Paul continues this letter and goes on to explain what it means to be without Christ and separate it from him. Paul continues this letter and says, In verse 12 he explains it as being aliens from the commonwealth of history.

[63:31] That means being separated from God's people. On the surface people may think, well that's not too bad a thing.

[63:42] What if it is the case that we are going to be separated from God's people? So that's no great loss. But if you are outside the people of God, you are outside the circle into which God is pouring down his blessings and his benefits in a special way.

[64:06] You are outside the circle where his care and his love and his grace and his mercy and his pity are especially concentrated. It is as if you are outside the circle.

[64:19] It is as if you were shut out of the family. Imagine being shut out of the family. Excluded from your family. It would be a terrible thing.

[64:32] But a more terrible thing is to be excluded from the family of God. It means being separated from every lasting spiritual blessing that God has prepared in his love for sinners.

[64:47] A young minister some time ago was telling of how as a family they had decided that they would foster a little girl for a while.

[65:01] She had come from a broken home where she was severely ill-treated by her parents. And for the first time in her life she experienced what love was and what it meant to be wanted and cared for.

[65:23] And this night he was tucking her into bed and she turned to him with a tear in her eyes. And she said, oh if only I could belong to you.

[65:38] If only I could belong to you. It broke his heart. For he knew that her stay with them was only going to be a short time.

[65:49] For some people they would realise too late the blessedness of belonging to the family of God.

[66:01] When we shall all stand before the Lamb and earth and seas are fled. When the righteous will go to the right hand and others to the left.

[66:12] Those on the left will cry out and say, only if we could belong to your family. I wonder if that will happen to anyone in here.

[66:24] I hope not. You will see your brothers and sisters, maybe your father or your mother, on the right hand side of Christ the Great Shepherd.

[66:35] And you will cry on the left hand side only if I could be with your family. Only if I could be over there on the right hand side with you.

[66:52] Ephesians were also at one time strangers to the covenants of promise. God had given covenant promises to Israel.

[67:04] And they were sealed by the blood of the sacrifice. But you see the Ephesians were ignorant of these promises. Yet they were heard of these promises until Paul came among them with the gospel.

[67:18] And that's a suitable picture of all of us apart from the grace of God. Without hope and without God in the world.

[67:30] That's how that then converted question is. But Paul says that God has made both one. What is he speaking about there?

[67:42] Which two is he referring to in verse 15 when he says, So as to create in himself one new man from the two, thus making peace.

[67:59] Of course he's referring to the two enmities. The two enmities, the enmity we had against God and the enmity that was between God and us, rightly so because it's a holy and a righteous God.

[68:15] The enmity that is between man and man on the one hand, and the enmity between man and God on the other hand.

[68:25] These two enmities, he took them together so as to create in himself one new man from the two, thus making peace. He made peace at a great cost, at the cost of his own precious blood.

[68:41] Sin had caused enmity to ourselves and God. And sin had to be dealt with before we could be brought near to God.

[68:54] God made this possible by sending his son into the world to take the place of sinner. It was the blood, and that means the death of Christ, on the cross that reconciled us to God.

[69:14] It was his death that brought us near. He took the awful penalty for sin that we deserved on himself. Within that shame and that punishment was also included being eternally separated from God.

[69:34] He took that upon himself. So that on the cross that day, Jesus Christ suffered what it must be like for a lost soul to be separated from God and lost eternity forever and ever.

[69:51] And multiply that by a number that cannot be counted. And you'll find something of what the atonement was all about.

[70:04] He took what you deserved to suffer for all eternity. As a believer, he took that upon himself. But what about the others here?

[70:14] What about those throughout the world? What about those from the beginning of time when Adam was in the world until the last person that shall be living in this world at the end of time that will believe in Christ?

[70:33] What an awful weight he had to carry on that cross. No one's heart was broken. No wonder when the spear went into his side it plunged into the heart of Jesus and around that heart there is the pericardium, that sack that is around the heart.

[70:58] And it pierced through that pericardium and blood and water came out. You see, he died, in other words, of a broken heart as well as I said to him, yes, because of the awful weight that he had to be.

[71:14] It wasn't the nails, it wasn't the thorns, it wasn't the wee things, it wasn't anything like that, but the spiritual weight that he carried.

[71:26] And in the midst of it all, he cried, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

[71:39] Because he was taking the enmity between man and man, enmity between man and God and himself and creating one new man from the two, thus making peace.

[71:55] What a saviour we have. What a wonderful saviour. The hymn writer was correct when he said, none of the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters crossed, but how dark was the night that the Lord passed through then fell with the sheep that was lost.

[72:21] You'll never understand it and I'll never understand it. And it'll take all eternity for us singing about it, praising him for it, and we shall have all eternity to do just that.

[72:38] Blessed, blessed, blessed be it's me. Amen. May God bless to us. Blessed, blessed be it's me. Blessed be it's me. O Lord, O God, the longer we are on the journey with you, the more wonderful you become to us, and the more wonderful salvation comes to be to us, and the more hopefully we will love you.

[73:09] We will love you as well. As the days and years go by, we will come by. God help us to become more like you, more like our saviour, Jesus Christ.

[73:25] Not to be one thing on the outside and another thing on the inside. We will sing our closing praise.

[73:41] And it is hymn number 354. 354. Glory be to God the Father.

[73:51] Glory be to God the Son. Glory be to God the Spirit. Great Jehovah, three in one. Glory, glory, glory, glory, for eternal ages from you.

[74:04] 354. 354. Glory be to God the Father. Glory be to God the Son. quote,'ve Amen.

[74:58] Amen. Amen.

[75:58] Amen. Amen.

[76:58] Amen.