Where Are You?

[0:00] Well, if we could, with the Lord's help, and the Lord's enabling this morning, if we could turn back to that portion of scripture that we read, Genesis chapter 3.

[0:18] Genesis chapter 3, and if we just read again the verse, Mark 9. Genesis chapter 3 at verse 9. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you?

[0:35] The Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you? As a minister, you're asked many, many different questions.

[0:55] And it's good to ask questions. You should always ask questions, especially if it's to do with the Bible or eternity or salvation. But one question I've often been asked is, How do ministers know what to preach on?

[1:11] How do ministers know what to preach on? Well, when you're going through a series like we did with Mark's gospel, you would just go to the next section. But if you aren't doing a series, like just now, then I believe that as you ask the Lord for guidance on what to preach on, he will press a text of scripture upon your heart.

[1:32] Sometimes it's not always clear. But there are other times like today where it's very clear. Because our text this morning from Genesis 3, it has spoken to me on a couple of occasions now.

[1:46] And for that reason, I believe I should preach on it today. Today, the first time this text spoke to me was during the Thursday morning of the Gaelic service of our communion.

[1:57] And as you know, I don't have much Gaelic. So the Gaelic service, it didn't make much sense to me. But as I was sitting in the service, I couldn't understand what the preacher was saying.

[2:07] So the best thing to do was to pray for those who were there. And I was praying for those who were there, but who are still uncommitted Christians. And as I was praying for them, that the Lord would work in their hearts, the words came to me.

[2:23] Kachabelu. Kachabelu. And as you know, I don't have much Gaelic, but I knew what those words meant. Where are you? But what's interesting is that within a minute or two, the preacher said those words.

[2:38] And what's, I didn't know what he had said prior to that, and I didn't know what he was saying after it. But all I got was those words. Kachabelu. And I knew what he was saying then.

[2:50] But you know, then the other day, after I was just driving somewhere, and I was driving behind someone from the congregation here. And behind them, I knew their car. So I started praying for them.

[3:02] It's always a good opportunity to pray for their soul, wondering where they are with the Lord, where they stand with Jesus. And these words came to me again. Kachabelu.

[3:13] Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? And so my friend, especially if you're unconverted and uncommitted, my hope and prayer today is that these words would speak to you.

[3:28] That they would challenge you as to where you are in relation to Jesus Christ. And that you would answer this question. Because it's a question which God is asking every single one of us.

[3:42] Kachabelu. Kachabelu. Where are you? My friend, where are you? Are you lost? Where are you? Are you saved?

[3:54] Where are you? Are you following Jesus? Where are you? Are you committed to Jesus Christ? Where are you? Do you know where you are?

[4:05] Do you know where you are? Adam didn't know where he was. But he knew that he wasn't in the right place. Adam knew that he had sinned against God. And that his sin had brought him into a state of ruin.

[4:19] Adam knew that he wasn't in a right relationship with God. But he didn't know the extent of his ruin. He didn't know the extent of his sin. And so God comes to Adam.

[4:30] And he stops him in his tracks. And he speaks to him directly. And he says to Adam. Adam, where are you? Where are you?

[4:42] And that's all I want us to hear today. I want each and every one of us to hear God's question to us. Where are you? And there are three things I'd like us to draw out from this question.

[4:55] And the passage of Genesis chapter 3. And they're very simply ruin, running and remedy. Ruin, running and remedy.

[5:06] So we look first of all at ruin. Look at verse 1 of chapter 3. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

[5:17] He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden. But God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden.

[5:32] Neither shall you touch it, lest you die. So Genesis 3, it opens by explaining how our world came to be in the state of ruin that it's in today.

[5:46] And we often refer to the events which took place in this chapter as the fall. If you're using the Pew Bible, that's the title above chapter 3. Genesis 3, it's the account of when mankind and all of God's created order, it fell into any state of sin and misery.

[6:05] Everything we read of in chapters 1 and 2, it was marred and ruined by the fall of Adam. Because in the opening chapters of our Bible, we're given the account of Genesis.

[6:18] Our Genesis. Our origin. Our beginning. And it wasn't a beginning from something. Our Genesis didn't take place by particles just colliding together in this form of a big bang and millions of years of evolution.

[6:34] No, we're told that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God created everything by speaking into the void and into the vacuum. And out of nothing, by the word of his power, life came into being.

[6:48] God said, Let there be. And it was. And he saw that it was good. And by the word of his power, we're told that God spoke this world into being.

[6:59] Light, land and sea, vegetation, the sun, the moon, the stars, birds, animals, mammals, insects, everything. God said, let there be.

[7:11] And it was. And he saw that it was good. But as we know, the last action of God's creative order on day six was to make mankind.

[7:22] Because we're told in chapter one, verse 26. Chapter one, verse 26. Then God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

[7:33] Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image.

[7:45] In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. The creation of mankind was God's greatest act. Because like a potter working with clay, God intimately and intricately, he formed Adam from the dust of the ground.

[8:04] And Adam was made in the image and in the likeness of his creator. Adam was created to reflect and imitate the glory of his creator.

[8:14] That's why Adam was made in the first place. It wasn't to reflect his own glory. It wasn't to seek his own glory, or his own fame, or his own fortune. It even wasn't to enjoy what the world had to offer.

[8:28] Man's chief end, Adam's chief purpose of being created, was to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. It was to reflect God's glory.

[8:41] And because he was made in the image and likeness of God, Adam was the apex of God's creation. Humanity was the climax and culmination of all that God had made.

[8:54] God had saved, you could say, the best until last. Because he had created the kingdom of Eden before he placed the king and queen in the kingdom.

[9:06] And as king of Eden, Adam was given authority to rule in his kingdom. God had given him the responsibility to have dominion over all the creatures and rule as this monarch in the kingdom of Eden.

[9:22] He was crowned with glory and honour. Because when God finished creating the king and queen of Eden, we're told that God looked at all that he had done.

[9:34] And then he said, it was very good. Throughout the creative process, when God said, let there be, and it was, he saw that it was good. But when God created King Adam and Queen Eve, and then he made them monarchs of the kingdom of Eden, God said, this is very good.

[9:55] King Adam was created with knowledge and righteousness and holiness. And he was the perfect king, ruling in a perfect kingdom. And as we were singing just a moment ago in Psalm 8, King Adam and Queen Eve, they were crowned with glory, honour, and dignity.

[10:17] And you know, this is something that we need to rediscover in our day and generation. We aren't here by some random chance of biology. We aren't here by scientific accident. Our generation, our genesis, it began with God.

[10:32] And God has a love and a care towards his creation. Because he has created us in his own image and in his likeness.

[10:42] And he has created us with dignity. And he looks upon us with compassion. Because when we remove God as our creator, you know, we're taking away our dignity.

[10:55] And we're giving to ourselves no purpose for our existence. And no reason to live. Because science, it doesn't dignify man. The world, it doesn't dignify man.

[11:07] In the eyes of scientists and in the eyes of the world, we're no different to animals. We're insignificant. We're just a number. And we're not important to anyone.

[11:19] But the emphasis of the Bible is that as God's creation, we are precious. We're important to God. We're loved by God. We're cared for by God.

[11:29] We're provided for by God. He does everything for us. And God says to us today that every single one of us has been uniquely, personally, individually made and formed in his image and his likeness.

[11:45] And it's in him that we live and move and have our very being. And, you know, we are to worship him as the creator. Because he brought us into being without our aid.

[11:58] That's what we were singing in Psalm 100. Without our aid, he did us make. And he has given to us a beginning. He gave to us an existence.

[12:09] He gave to us a living soul. He made us for eternity. He made us with immortality. But, my friend, this God who made us with so much dignity and so much love and so much care and so much compassion, he thinks so highly of the life that he has given to each and every single one of us, that he will ask us one day what we did with it.

[12:35] He will ask us to stand before him and give an account of our own life. We are as important as that to him.

[12:47] He's not going to ask the animals to give an account. He's not going to ask the hills or the valleys or the stars or the sun to give an account. But God thinks so highly of the life that he has given to us, that one day he will ask us what we did with it.

[13:04] God will ask us where we are in relation to Jesus Christ. And so we can see why Genesis 3 is often described as the fall.

[13:20] Because when Adam and Eve were created, they were given the highest position in God's creation. They were king and queen of the kingdom of Eden. And they were to rule and have dominion over every living creature.

[13:33] And they were given everything that they needed to flourish. They had freedom, they had security, they had perfect happiness. As someone once said, Adam and Eve were given a paradise of yes, but a single tree of no.

[13:49] A paradise of yes, but a single tree of no. Because when God made Adam king over the kingdom of Eden, he gave him one rule.

[14:00] Just one rule. We have it in chapter 2. And verse 16. And verse 15. The Lord God took the man and put him into the garden to work and to keep it.

[14:12] The Lord God commanded the man saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

[14:25] It was a paradise of yes, but a single tree of no. Because with this command, Adam was issued the condition of being king over God's creation.

[14:38] And the condition was that obedience will bring life, but disobedience will bring death. And as you know, both Adam and Eve, they were given free will.

[14:49] They weren't robots. They were given perfect knowledge, righteousness and holiness. They had the ability to refuse sin and seek righteousness.

[15:01] They were given the freedom to make their own choices and their own decisions. They had the freedom to choose between good and evil, right and wrong. But the emphasis of Genesis 3 is that the royalty of Adam and Eve, it fell into ruin when they stopped listening to God.

[15:22] Because we're told that the cunning serpent came to Eve and questioned God's commandment. Did God really say?

[15:35] And the serpent lied to her. And he said that if she ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, she wouldn't die. Now the issue which we should be focused on is not how a serpent spoke to Eve, but that Eve listened to what was created rather than the creator.

[15:56] And by listening to the voice of the creation, she stopped listening to the voice of the creator. And that's what caused Adam and Eve to fall into sin.

[16:08] And that has been our problem since the fall. We've continued to listen to the creation rather than the creator.

[16:19] We've undermined God's commandments and we've questioned their significance in our lives. And we have even challenged their importance to us. Because instead of listening to the creator, we have followed the opinions and the suggestions and the thoughts and the feelings of the creation.

[16:38] We've followed what other people say and other people think. We've put self first instead of God first. And we crave acceptance by our image and our income or our popularity or our knowledge.

[16:54] And we worship self. And we ascribe glory to the creation rather than to the creator. Because being gods over our own life and destiny, it's far more appealing to us than listening and obeying our creator.

[17:13] But the result has been catastrophic. My friend, the ruin we live in today, it finds its root in the fall. That moment in Genesis 3 verse 6, when Adam and Eve coveted what God had forbidden.

[17:30] So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, there was a delight to the eyes, that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

[17:43] And she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. And you know, we might think, how can something as simple as eating a bit of fruit bring this world into a state of ruin?

[17:56] How can all the chaos today be related to a bit of fruit? But sometimes small gestures mean something bigger.

[18:09] Just like the wedding ring. It's only a bit of metal. Whatever it's made of, gold or silver, whatever it is. It's only a bit of metal, but what it represents is huge.

[18:23] And to throw it away, to throw away the wedding ring, or to throw it in the face of the person who gave it to you, it would ruin the relationship completely.

[18:35] And that's what we see here. God had given everything to Adam and Eve. He had made them king and queen of the kingdom of Eden. And yet, they threw it all back in his face when they chose to listen to the creation rather than the creator.

[18:53] And the result was that King Adam and Queen Eve, they were dethroned. And they fell into this ruin, this state of ruin, of sin and misery.

[19:06] My friend, royalty fell into ruin when they stopped listening to God. Royalty fell into ruin.

[19:17] But what we see, secondly, is that royalty not only fell into ruin, royalty started running. Royalty started running.

[19:28] So we look, secondly, at running. We've looked at ruin, but now running. Look at verse 7. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.

[19:41] And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

[19:54] But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you? And the first thing we ought to notice in these verses is that not everything the serpent said was a lie.

[20:08] Because he told them that as soon as they ate the forbidden fruit, their eyes would be opened. And that's exactly what happened. But when their eyes were opened, it was a complete letdown because they came to this knowledge of good and evil.

[20:21] And that knowledge, it enabled them to know that they were naked. And this is important because the last thing we're told at the end of chapter 2, in verse 25, is that the man and his wife were both naked and they were not ashamed.

[20:37] But what we see in this chapter, when the fall takes place, when Adam and Eve transgress God's commandment by eating the forbidden fruit, their eyes are opened to see their own nakedness and they feel shame.

[20:52] They feel shame. And Adam and Eve, they're so ashamed of what they've done that they immediately try to cover themselves up. They sew fig leaves together and make coverings for themselves.

[21:06] Knowledge of their sin and exposure before God and before one another, it makes them ashamed. And the response to their shame was to hide it, to cover it up, to conceal the horrible reality of what they were like.

[21:25] They wanted to present themselves before God and before one another, man and wife. They wanted to present themselves as someone that was different to the reality of what they were really like.

[21:39] They only wanted God to see the outward appearance. They only wanted one another to see the outward appearance and hide from one another their true self.

[21:52] And you know, we're still doing it. We're still doing it. We're still covering ourselves up, putting our faces on towards other people when in reality, when in reality we're hurting and we're broken inside.

[22:10] But like Adam and Eve, the shame and the embarrassment and the guilt you feel, it makes you want to hide everything, keep closed, keep it all to yourself. But you know, it only proves that the fall has not only destroyed our relationship with God, it's also destroyed our relationships with one another, that we can't even be open with one another.

[22:32] But you know what's astonishing about the actions of Adam and Eve is that even though their eyes were open to know how sinful they were, they still didn't understand who God is and what he's really like.

[22:47] Because we're told in verse 8 that when they heard the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they hid themselves from his presence. They tried to hide among the trees of the garden.

[23:00] They tried to hide their sin from the eyes of God. They tried to cover up what they had done and pretend that nothing had happened and everything is okay. Everything's fine.

[23:12] They tried to hide themselves from the sight and from the presence of God but it was an impossibility. Because as David reminded us in Psalm 139, the God who has created us, the God who sustains us, and the God we worship today is the God who saw us getting up this morning and the God who saw us going to bed last night.

[23:39] He knows our rising up. He knows our sitting down. He knows all our actions. He knows where we go. He knows what we do. He knows our heart. He knows all our thoughts.

[23:50] They're all known to him. He even knows what we're going to say before we say it. And as Adam and Eve very quickly discovered, there's no running from this God.

[24:02] We can try and run and hide all we like. We can try and cover ourselves up but God can see us. And God knows where we are today. And God knows where we are in relation to his son, Jesus Christ.

[24:19] But you know the language that is used in this verse, in verse 8, about the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. It's not trying to express that the Lord was going for an afternoon stroll or that he's playing hide and seek with Adam and Eve.

[24:37] The language which is used here expresses that the Lord thundered through the garden of Eden. The Lord was roaring in wrath against the sin of Adam and Eve.

[24:51] The Lord was thundering through the garden with righteous and holy anger in search of sinners. And so when God searches for Adam and asks where are you?

[25:03] It's not the playful and jovial sense of come out, come out, wherever you are. It's Adam, where are you? Adam, where are you?

[25:15] What have you done? Where are you? And Adam, he confesses that when he heard the Lord God thundering through the garden, he was terrified.

[25:29] He was absolutely terrified. He says in verse 10, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.

[25:41] Adam had never seen this side to God before. He'd never seen God's wrath or encountered God's anger. He'd only ever known God's love, joy and peace.

[25:52] He'd never heard God thunder through the garden. But Adam didn't know his sin either before this point. He didn't know anything about shame and guilt and embarrassment.

[26:04] And both Adam and Eve, they're getting to know a lot about God and a lot about themselves in only a short space of time. But you know, when Adam told the Lord that he hid himself because he was afraid and that he realised that he was naked, the Lord asks him in verse 11, who told you that you were naked?

[26:27] Who told you? And the Lord's question to Adam, it reveals everything. And it highlights to us the fact that we know that we need to be saved.

[26:42] Because the only person who told Adam that he was naked was his God-given conscience. his God-given conscience spoke to him.

[26:57] When he was asked, who told you you were naked? Adam confesses he's trying to hide from God because he's naked. And his conscience, it's convicting him of his nakedness and his sin against God.

[27:14] And so when God spoke to Adam and asked, where are you? Adam's conscience, it's awakened. And he knows God is speaking to him and he's convicted of his sin.

[27:26] Adam's conscience, it was alerted and awakened to his nakedness and his exposure before a holy God. And in his exposure, Adam had tried to cover himself up and put a front on and make sure that everything was completely fine so that no one would ever know.

[27:43] He tried to run and hide from God but it was impossible. Absolutely impossible. God knew where he was and when God spoke to Adam, where are you?

[27:54] Adam's conscience affirmed to him that he was lost and in ruin and in need of a remedy. Adam knew his condition.

[28:06] As soon as God spoke, he knew. He knew he was speaking to him. Adam knew that he couldn't run from God any longer.

[28:22] But what about you, my friend? What about you? Are you still trying to run from God and hide from him and cover up your life so that no one will know what's really going on?

[28:39] And you know, I know that people want to present their best to me on a Sunday morning. They're on their best behaviour in church. They're not like this amongst their friends or their work colleagues.

[28:50] They cover themselves up on a Sunday morning so that no one will ever know what they get up to. If they did, if people did know, they'd be ashamed.

[29:02] I was there myself presenting the front having been out the night before. God. But what I came to realise is that it's not the minister, it's not an elder, it's not a Christian that I need to be concerned about.

[29:18] I need to be concerned about the all-prevailing eye of a holy God who sees everything I do and everywhere I go and he hears everything I say. And my friend, as you sit here, you know that God is speaking to you.

[29:33] You know that God is convicting you. You know that God is challenging you. You know that God is asking you, where are you?

[29:44] Where are you? What are you doing? Why are you still running? Why are you still trying to hide? Do you not see that you're lost and in ruin and in need of a remedy?

[30:00] Do you not see that if you stay in your lost condition, the lost condition that you're in and that you're going headlong towards a lost eternity in hell? Surely you know that for yourself.

[30:15] And my friend, you can try and ignore your God-given conscience. You can try and suppress it. You can try and do other things, fill your life with all these other things, busy yourself with life and all the things that life has.

[30:28] You can try and avoid the questions about eternity and about Christianity. You can try and put it off to a later date or a more convenient season in your life but you can't run from God.

[30:42] You can't hide from God. You can't cover yourself up before God because the truth is you're naked and exposed before Him. And when God speaks to you in His Word and you're convicted because of your own sin and your conscience bothers you as to where you stand in relation to Jesus Christ and you know that you feel shame and you feel guilt and you feel disappointment but my friend you can't leave it.

[31:10] You can't leave it. You can't ignore it. You can't bury it. You can't cover it up. You can't walk away. You have to do something about it. You have to seek the Lord.

[31:21] You have to cry out for mercy. You have to ask the Lord to commit your life. You have to commit your life to Jesus Christ. My friend there's no use running.

[31:35] You have to seek the only remedy to your ruin. You have to seek it. Because you know that remedy is precious.

[31:52] You know it. That's what I'd like us to consider last of all. We've considered ruin, running and lastly the remedy.

[32:07] Remedy. The man said the woman whom you gave to be with me she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman what is this that you have done?

[32:19] The woman said the serpent deceived me and I ate. The Lord God said to the serpent because you've done this cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field on your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

[32:34] I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

[32:46] As soon as God spoke to Adam about his sin Adam did what we all want to do when we're guilty we blame someone else.

[32:58] When our conscience convicts us and challenges us we divert attention away from ourselves to someone else. We don't want to be under the spotlight and so we blame someone else.

[33:11] Adam blamed his wife Eve Eve blamed the serpent they all blamed one another for the mess that they were in but the truth was they only had themselves to blame.

[33:22] They couldn't point the finger at anyone else because they all sinned and came short of the glory of God. They had all fallen from the royal estate wherein they had been created.

[33:36] And you know we can do the same. We can blame other people for not being a Christian. We can blame our circumstances. We can blame our job.

[33:49] We can blame our wife. We can blame our husband. We can blame the church. We can blame other Christians not living a Christ-centered life. We can blame our family.

[33:59] We can blame our upbringing. We can even blame Adam and Eve for the mess of sin that we're in. And a classic is that we can blame the devil for all his temptation. But the truth is like Adam and Eve we only have ourselves to blame.

[34:15] we only have ourselves to blame for the ruin that we are in. The only one who is responsible for me is me. The only one who is responsible for you is you.

[34:31] You're the reason you're not a Christian today. You're responsible. You are accountable to God.

[34:43] It's no one else's fault. No one else is to blame for the ruin that you're in. No one will ever wake up in hell and say it was their fault. You are responsible.

[34:57] You are accountable. And my friend let's never forget the extent of our ruin. That the extent of our ruin is horrific.

[35:07] the Bible says that the wages of sin is death. Spiritual death, physical death, and eternal death.

[35:17] the catechism puts it so clearly. All mankind by their fall lost communion with God and are under his wrath and curse and are so made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself and to the pains of hell forever.

[35:40] That's the extent of our ruin. And that's what your sin is going to do to you if you don't do something about it. It's going to take you to the grave and to the pains of hell forever.

[35:57] But you know before death God says to Adam and Eve you are going to experience the miseries of this life. God dethrones the king and queen of the kingdom of Eden and he curses mankind and he brings this whole life and this whole world and he reminds them that the fall is going to be a painful reminder.

[36:24] A painful reminder of what they've done. Because Eve was told that giving birth will be a painful experience. It says in verse 16 in pain and sorrow you shall bring forth children.

[36:40] Adam was informed that it will be through toil and labour that he will feed his family. It says in verse 19 by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken for you are dust and to dust you shall return.

[36:58] Bringing life into this world is going to be a painful reminder of the fall. And what we ought to see is that in amongst the prospect of the miseries of this life with all these curses of pain and sorrow and hard labour and the reality of death and the pains of hell forever in the midst of all the pain the pain of ruin there is this beautiful promise of remedy.

[37:27] In the midst of the pain of ruin there is a beautiful promise of remedy because we're told that when God cursed the serpent he was issuing to fallen mankind the first promise of the gospel.

[37:42] It says in verse 15 this is the first promise of the gospel I will put enmity between you and the woman between your offspring and her offspring he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

[37:56] The promise of the gospel was that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent and of course the seed of the woman was the Lord Jesus Christ that's the story of the Bible it traces this golden thread weaving throughout history and all the time it's the seed of the woman the seed of the woman has been followed all down throughout the generations and it clings to this promise in Genesis 3 15 that the seed of the woman will come and crush the head of the serpent and that's what the cross of Calvary was all about it was about the obedience of Jesus Christ in crushing the head of Satan and destroying death and the power of the grave my friend what we're witnessing in this passage is that in the midst of all of man's ruin in the fall we have the promise of a remedy in Jesus

[38:59] Christ in the midst of ruin we have the promise of a remedy as the apostle Paul put it as in Adam all die but in Christ shall all be made alive in Adam we are all in ruin but in Jesus Christ we have the greatest remedy and because we have the remedy restoration is possible restoration is possible we have sinned in Adam we fell with Adam we've sinned and come short of the glory of God but we are able to be restored by the remedy of the last Adam Jesus Christ and you know and with this I'll close you know we have the greatest illustration of God's promised remedy and restoration in our lives a great illustration the greatest illustration of what God is able to do in our lives if we will but commit ourselves to Jesus

[40:02] Christ this great illustration if you look at the loose castle today if you look at that castle today it's not what it used to be a lot of changes have taken place in recent years and it's even been shown on channel 4 great British buildings restoration of the year but for the most part our generation only knew the loose castle as a as college accommodation or we knew it as a ruin but a previous generation a previous generation knew this Victorian castle as the home of Sir James Matheson and later Lord Leverhulme a previous generation saw the loose castle in all its glory when it was first built they saw the stonework they saw the staircases they saw all the high towers but in recent years we have only known the loose castle to be this dark derelict building that was falling into ruin and I remember when I was a sparky working in it a few years ago and you know I couldn't believe the state of the castle it was a mess there were floorboards missing places of rot there were collapsed ceilings there was windows broken there was no electricity no heating it was cold damp and dark and falling apart and just like us it was in a ruin and it needed a remedy and as you know the remedy arrived the work began on the castle to restore it to its former glory and when we go into the castle today it's nothing like it was when it was first built and it's nothing like it was when it was in ruins there are shadows of its original glory but there are no signs of the ruin and dare I say you could say that the castle has been born again it has been made new and my friend that's what happens when we come to

[42:14] Jesus for salvation we don't come to him as the finished article we don't come to him as the final product no we come to Jesus in our ruin and in our brokenness and in our sin and we come to him because we know that he is the only remedy to our ruin and my friend when we come to Jesus seeking forgiveness and salvation he promises to restore us when we commit our life to Jesus Christ he promises to work in us and make us brand new when we come to Jesus he promises to begin that good work in us and bring it on to completion because at completion which is not in this world when we are completely restored to the royal glory that Adam had before the fall this Jesus he will present us faultless before his glory with exceeding joy that's the promise the promise of remedy to our ruin and so my friend where are you where are you at how is it with your soul do you see that you're in ruin or are you too busy running but is it not about time that you sought the remedy to your ruin by coming to this

[43:59] Jesus and committing your life to him where are you may the Lord bless these thoughts to us let us pray oh Lord our gracious God help us to seek thee while thou art to be found and call upon thee while thou art near that as the psalmist said that he took me from a fearful pit and from the miry clay and on a rock he set my feet establishing my way that we oh Lord would acknowledge that we are in the fearful pit and that we need to stand on the solid rock that we would not try and get out ourselves but call to Jesus and know that he comes to us and he finds us and meets us at the point of our need that he finds us in our ruin and he provides for us the greatest remedy eternal life through

[44:59] Jesus Christ oh Lord bless us each and every one speak to us we pray that thou wouldst leave us leave us not nor forsake us that oh that we would know thy presence that we would know thy blessing that thou wouldst bless this day to us the Lord's day help us to give thee the glory and the honour in all that we say and do for we ask it in Jesus name and for his sake Amen we shall conclude by singing the words of psalm 98 psalm 98 in the Scottish Psalter page 360 psalm 98 we're singing from the beginning down to the verse marked 4 psalm this psalm calls us to sing to the Lord the new song to sing about the wonders that he has done the wonder of providing salvation and a remedy in

[46:02] Jesus Christ oh sing a new song to the Lord for wonders he hath done his right hand and his holy arm him victory hath won the Lord God his salvation hath cause to be known his justice in the heathen sight he openly hath shown down to the verse marked four to God's praise oh sing a new song to the Lord for wonders he hath done this white and dark winners glory oh oh voy to be known.

[47:18] Let us descend the hidden side in open life shows.

[47:37] Be mindful of his grace and truth through Israel's heart shall be on the salvation of our God on the hands of the earth of sea.

[48:14] Let all the earth unto the Lord send forth a joyful noise with the voice of the voice of the Lord the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all now and forevermore. Amen.

[49:00] the Lord to to to to to the Lord the Lord to the Lord to