HOW GOD MADE THE DIAMOND REALLY SHINE!

MF Blume
April 8, 2001 pm

Genesis 2:9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis 2:16-17 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Genesis 3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.
Genesis 3:22-24 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

This morning we discovered that God gave a law, and one mistake in keeping that law would ruin our entire efforts to keep any of it.

James 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one [point], he is guilty of all.

Galatians 3:10 says that existing beneath the works of the Law automatically causes you to be cursed.

Law said that everyone who does not continue to do all the law is cursed.
And Paul knew that nobody could keep all the law, so he simply said that being beneath law brings a curse.

Why did God ever allow a Law to come into being that was so impossible to keep?

Why give a law that nobody could fully obey?

Galatians 3:22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

"The scripture" is synonymous for "the Law".

Paul said that God had a reason.
It was so that everyone would wake up and realize how sinful they all are without God.
It was to get people to fully reach out to Christ and believe, and abandon the very thoughts of trying to work to become fit before God.

There are two roads God provided for us to travel and thereby come to God.

Faith. Galatians 3:9 So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.
Works. Galatians 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed [is] every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. .

And only one will be effective!

Paul was telling the congregation in Galatia to abandon the works of the Law into which someone had convinced them to involve themselves.

He was actually saying, "Without God you can do nothing in your own power!"
Law was only a schoolmaster.

Galatians 3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster [to bring us] unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

It was intended to bring us to Christ.

Man required a grave lesson after the incident in the Garden.
After eating of the forbidden fruit.
After partaking of what can insightfully call the tree of LAW.
Adam indulged in the "Make yourself better" philosophy.

The Law was good.

Nothing was wrong with law.
It showed man how bad off man really was after man sinned.

Romans 7:12-13 Wherefore the law [is] holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

Sin had to be exposed in all its hideous form.

We had to see how messed up we became, and what kind of vile alien entity was inside us.

Romans 7:15-18 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that [it is] good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but [how] to perform that which is good I find not.

Something was in Paul that was extremely evil and wrong.

Romans 8:2 teaches us that the only way to stay in victory while we are still in this flesh is to rely upon His strength alone.
Before Christ came into the world, God laid out the most contrasting picture that He could.
He showed us exactly what we were.
He gave a law that could only be fully obeyed successfully by one who had no sin.

Its like laying out a black velvet cloth.

Black absorbs all light.
The colours that we see on objects are actually colours reflected back to us, that are not absorbed by the surface tones.
Black reflects no colours back but absorbs all colour.
However, there are shiny black surfaces that reflect some light.
Black velvet, though, both absorbs colours and does not reflect.
And when a sparkling, shiny diamond is placed on a black velvet surface, the diamond really shines!

Its absolute contrast to bring out the glory of the diamond.

Jesus Christ is God's diamond!

And He laid out the black velvet of the LAW OF GOD before Christ came.
He made sin appear so sinful so that when Jesus would come, He would truly be appreciated for the work that He was about to accomplish.

If you were a sinner, and I went to tell you about the glory of Jesus and His saving power, and you're not convinced that you even need saving power, you'll regard Him as someone you can either take or leave.

For example, imagine that I came to you and informed you that I sold everything I had in order to finance my work to develop a cure for a vile and destructive disease.

And After telling you how much I sacrificed to make this cure, I offer it to you free of charge.
You would walk away thinking I was quite friendly and considerate, but also quite crazy.
"So what about the cure?", you would think.

However, if I confronted you and told you that you had a disease that was very vile and dangerous, and that you already showed the first symptoms of the disease, and you would die in four months,...

And then told you that I sold all that I had in order to finance the cure that I am giving you free of charge...
You would thank me with more appreciation than you could for most anything else, and would grab the cure and hold to it with everything you had.

That is the reason that God gave Law before Christ came, to show us how sinful we really were, and how wicked and wretched the sin in our lives was.

So that when we discover the answer for our sin in Christ, we grab it and hold to the Lord Jesus with everything inside us!

Paul repeated this thought as follows:

Romans 3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

Sin had to appear truly sinful to us.

Romans 7:13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

The law has a way of converting a person who otherwise does not think that they need Jesus.

Psalm 19:7 The law of the LORD [is] perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD [is] sure, making wise the simple

Peter preached these words, which would be very unpopular in many of today's circles of Christianity.

Acts 2:22-23 Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:

He pointed his finger directly in their faces and accused them of crucifying Jesus after they themselves knew of the miracles that He worked.

That would not be "politically correct" today.
But it would be the truth!

Acts 2:36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

He pointed at them again!

And what did it accomplish?

Acts 2:37 Now when they heard [this], they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men [and] brethren, what shall we do?

They were pricked in their hearts!

Maybe more people would be pricked in their hearts, instead of walking away thinking we were crazy, if we threw out the politically correct principle and simply preached the truth, and made the diamond of Jesus really shine!
That was God's principle.

God thought it best to make sin look as evil as He could, and then bring the lovely Jesus Christ before us!

2 Timothy 4:1-5 I charge [thee] therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away [their] ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.

Think of that.

Some People will only hear what they want to hear.
Their ears are itchy for certain things.
They want to be soothed.
They do not want their hearts pricked.
But they will not receive salvation if their hearts are not first pricked.

Paul told this preacher to endure affliction and preach.

In other words, preaching truth will cause people to become upset with you.
Preach it anyway!
Souls are at stake for eternity!

I don't care who persecutes me, I am holding onto Jesus.

I would not have that tenacity unless I first was shown my sin in all its ugliness, and the cure that is found in Christ.
You can tolerate persecution if you realize your need for Christ.
And God brought Law to show people their need for Christ, before He gave us Christ!
We need to take God's example and make the diamond really shine!

Man ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, so God gave man a pack of it!

LAW.
Law is the knowledge of good and evil.
Law'keeping messes us up so much because it causes us to concentrate upon ourselves and our human abilities.
It urges us to do everything by our power.
And there are some today who still preach but yet have not learned this lesson.

Once you taste of the knowledge of good and evil, you will always measure yourself by it.

That is the reason Adam inspected himself immediately after he ate of the fruit and found himself naked.
It keeps you from the tree of life!

How spiritual are you?

Do you think that spirituality is determined by how much you conform to certain rules in the Bible?
Or do you think it is determined by how much Jesus Christ is formed into your life?

If you picked the second option, you are correct!

Too many pick the first.

The Old Testament is the LETTER.

The New Testament is the SPIRIT.

2 Corinthians 3:6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

Do you read the New Testament as though it was "letter"?

Have you made it out to be a rulebook instead of a means by which Jesus is formed into our lives?
Can you relate at all to the thought of Jesus being formed in your life?
Do you relate more to obeying a set of rules?
Legalists keep rules.
Spiritual saints of God allow Christ to be formed into their lives.

You can make church out to be a dead dry ritual.

You are reading the New Testament through the spectacles of the knowledge of good and evil.
That brings death!

You will become a critic of everyone.

You not only compare yourself to rules, but you compare everyone else to rules, also.
You become a judge of everyone.
You gnit-pick everyone's life.
You pick at gnats and swallow a camel of legalism!

But if you live by spirit, when you read the New Testament, you'll seek to have Jesus formed in your life.

If you eat of the wrong tree, you may change your behaviour, but your heart will be as dirty as it ever was.

You cannot separate light from darkness.
Only Jesus can!

How God made the diamond really shine!

Show the world their sin, so that when they see Christ, they will accept Him.

Speak the truth in love and sincerity.
Some will never accept it, so find someone else who will when you are rejected.
But make the diamond really shine!
Use law in witnessing to people, in order to show them that they cannot make heaven without Jesus.