Eternity to Eternity 07 Genesis 1:9 — Joseph Balsan

And let the dry land appear, and it was so. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he seas. And God saw that it was good, and God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and it was so.

And the earth brought forth grass, an herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind, and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.".

Christ’s Crucifixion and the Two Responses at Calvary

Luke 23, Luke's Gospel, the twenty-third chapter. They were come to the place which is called Calvary. There they crucified him and the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, and they part as raiment, and cast lots.

And the people stood beholding, and the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others, let him save himself, if he be Christ the chosen of God. And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him an offering of vinegar, and saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself.

And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew, This is the king of the Jews. And one of the malefactors, which were hanged, railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.

But the other answering, rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man hath done nothing amiss.

And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.

And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

Now, when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man. Let us turn to Acts chapter four. Acts chapter four, Acts four, and verse 23. And being let go, they went to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them.

And when they had heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God which has made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is. Who by the mouth of thy servant David hath said, Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things?

The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child, or servant Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

May the Lord bless to us the reading of his word. Shall we look to the Lord in prayer? Our gracious God and Father, we desire to thank thee tonight for thy precious word. We thank thee for the truth of these hymns that we have been singing, and that we have heard some concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.

We thank thee this evening that he does live, and we thank thee for everyone who knows this from experience, because he lives in their hearts, because Christ is in us who believe the hope of glory. And we do pray that as we present him tonight through thy precious word, that thou will command thy blessing upon the message.

Remember each one of our listeners in a special way. May they see themselves tonight as never before in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ. May they learn what their true state is before him, and we pray that thou will give help in so speaking thy word that some soul tonight will come to the right side of the cross and trust Christ.

Bless thy word not only here, but wherever thy word is preached. We ask in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. Now, for the past week we have been occupied with this chart, and we have been noticing how that on the chart the days of creation represent, or picture for us, the ages of human history.

Israel’s Calling, Failure, and Restoration

We have been occupied the last few nights, especially with the third day, where God selected one man from the nations of the world by the name of Abraham, and from this man he brought forth a nation, the nation of Israel, who are his people for the earth.

And we have seen how God gave to this man, and how God gave to this people, great promises and great privileges. You notice in Genesis chapter 1 and the ninth verse on the third day, when the earth which was submerged in water, light had been brought in, the atmosphere had been brought in, and it had revealed a sphere entirely immersed in water, why God said on that third day, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and all the waters upon the face of the earth rushed into their various places as they are seen today.

And God said, let the dry land appear, and it was so. Out of those waters emerged the earth upon which God was going to place man, and God saw what he had done, and he saw that it was good. And the second time God spake and said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb-yielding seed, and the fruit-yielding fruit after his time, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and it was so.

God commanded the earth to bring forth fruit, and this fruit in turn to produce seed which would perpetuate life upon the earth, and God saw that it did it, and God said it was good. The reason why God brought the earth forth was that it might produce fruit for the livelihood of the man that he was going to put upon the face of the earth.

And we pointed out how that God separated the nation of Israel from the nations of the world. He delivered them from the land of Egypt by means of the blood which was sprinkled on the doorposts and on the lintel, and God brought that nation through the wilderness into the land of Canaan that that nation might bring forth fruit unto him.

And we have seen how that nation, instead of bringing forth fruit unto him, disobeyed God. It came under the judgment of God. And you notice that here we have that nation divided in two. We have the ten tribes under Jeroboam and his following kings, and for a number of years those ten tribes are far away from God, and then they are taken captive by the Assyrians, and those ten tribes are lost among the Gentiles to this present day.

Now, some people have tried to find those ten tribes. They've been found amongst the Chinese, they say. They've been found amongst the people of India, but they are still lost, and will not really be found until that future day when God will bring them back from amongst the ten tribes, and he will bring them back into the land.

He will reunite those ten tribes with the two tribes, and they will again be one nation under the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are the lost ten tribes of Israel. There were two tribes under Rehoboam.

These two tribes also departed from God, but they had seasons of revival under kings like Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Hezekiah, and Josiah. Every once in a while, a godly king would rise up amongst them and bring those two tribes back again, but we find that finally it got so bad that God delivered those two tribes into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, and they were taken captive into the land of Babylon for seventy years.

Israel’s Neglected Sabbatical Years and the Judgment of Exile

You know, it's very significant, those seventy years. They were taken captive seventy years in the land of Babylon. When God gave them the land, God told them that they were to observe every seventh year.

They were to let the land lie fallow for the seventh year. They were not to sow it. They were to let it lie fallow. But, you know, the land brought forth so prosperously and so abundantly that they just forgot all about God's command.

They plowed the land, they sowed it, they harvested it, and for 490 years they got away with it. But, you know, God took them into captivity, and for seventy years they were outside of the land. The seventy years which they had robbed from God, God got every one of those years back.

They were taken into captivity, and in those seventy years away from that land, that land lay fallow, and God got his seventy years back from the people who had robbed God. You know, friends, it's a very serious thing for a believer to rob God.

We never rob God. We may seem to get away with it for a little while, and we may seem to prosper and succeed, but eventually we find that God gets from us what he desires. You know, for a number of years, the people in America, they disregarded God's commands.

They disregarded God's will. In the last world war, under the world situation the way it was, believers as well as unsaved had to render to God what they had robbed from God they rendered to the nation.

You know, we always pay back what we rob from God. We can never rob from God. Israel tried it, and the result was for seventy years they were in captivity, and then we find that they were brought back, and they were prepared for the great object for which God had selected that nation, and that was the bringing forth of the Messiah.

The Cross as the Dividing Point of Eternity

You notice down this chart, we have in the center of all these ages, and you might say in the very center of eternity, we have the cross. Israel failed to bring forth fruit unto God. Israel came under the judgment of God.

But, my friends, I want to look tonight at that which is central to this chart, that which divides all the ages, that which divides all time and all eternity, and that is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

My friends, tonight that divides all mankind into two classes, because you notice that on this chart we have two sides to the cross. We have the dark side, and we have the bright side. On the dark side we have the words, the wages of sin is death.

That is the dark side of the cross. On the bright side of the cross we have, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Just as that cross divides all time and all eternity, my friends, that cross tonight divides this group into two classes.

Those who are on the bright side, because they have seen in the one who died on that cross the Savior for their sins, and those who are still on the dark side of that cross, they are still tonight under the judgment of God.

They are still tonight going to receive the wages of their sin, which is death. Each one of us tonight are on one side or the other. We are on the side of those who have believed in the Savior, or we are on the side of those who are still rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so, the question is tonight, my friends, on which side of the cross are you? You know, it says here, God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place. You know, friends, the cross is the gathering place where all the nations of mankind were gathered together at the cross.

Humanity’s Guilt in the Crucifixion of Christ

You notice that in the last ecumenical council, while there was quite a bit of discussion amongst the Roman prelates as to whether or not the Jews were guilty of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and they were trying to exonerate the Jews from the guilt of crucifying the Lord Jesus Christ.

And yet, as we read the New Testament, and we have read tonight from the fourth chapter of Acts, we find there that the apostles, as they prayed, they said that against God's holy servant Jesus, both Herod and Pontius Pilate and all the Gentiles and all the children of Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever God's counsel and God's will had determined should be done.

So, we find, my friends, that at the cross of our Lord Jesus, we find all mankind gathered together against the Lord Jesus Christ. They were all gathered together to nail Him to that cross. My friends, that cross tonight brings before us on its seals and climaxes, as it were, the guilt of mankind.

As we have followed this chart from the beginning up to the present time, we have seen the various sins that men have committed in their sins against God. We have seen how in the Garden of Eden, man disobeyed God's law by partaking of the forbidden fruit.

We find how in the days of Noah, men were so evil that violence and corruption filled the face of the earth, and God had to send a flood upon the earth. We have seen also how man in his self-will, how he lifted himself up in pride against God, and how he brought judgment down upon himself, and men's tongues were divided and nations were born.

We have seen how God gave the law, the Ten Commandments to the children of Israel, and how they disobeyed these commandments, every one. These were awful sins. The sin of violence, the sin of corruption, the sin of pride, the sin of breaking the commandments of God.

And as you sit in this meeting tonight, friend, if you're unsafe, you too are guilty perhaps of one or another of these sins. The sin of corruption. God looked down from heaven, and he saw that every imagination of man's heart was only evil continually.

We see the minds of our young people today. They're being fed so much filth. They're being fed so much unbelief. They're being fed so much skepticism. We're living in a so-called day which has been known as the sex age, the discovery of sex.

And we find that today, psychiatrists in our universities, perhaps you even noticed in the last week's paper where a psychiatrist in Harvard University advised that children should be taught from their very childhood how they can drink their liquor so that as they grow up, they're able to know how to handle it.

But, friends, the psychiatrist, though he tells us to know how to handle it, he doesn't give us the power or the ability to handle it. And it is also true with that thing called sex, that people have a lot of knowledge about it, but they don't have the moral power and the moral strength to handle it.

So that what was in the days of Noah is something that is rapidly being reproduced in the days in which we live. Immorality and corruption and pride. Oh, the pride that we see on every hand today. The pride of children against their parents.

Well, after all, Dad, you're a back number. Mother, you're a back number. You know, we're so much more enlightened today. After all, you don't understand the problems that we have to face today. After all, we're so much more advanced today with all of our education.

And they forget the words of that very wise man who said, Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before the fall. Pride. Pride keeps many people from being saved. Pride that they don't want to acknowledge and take their place as guilty sinners before the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, after all, I'm not so bad. I do confess that I do sin, but after all, I don't think I'm so bad that I can't improve myself or make myself better. And then what shall we say for disobedience to God's Ten Commandments?

There we find that standard of commandment. And it's like a woman that I one time spoke to. This woman said, I always thought that I was keeping God's Ten Commandments until I came on that verse that said, Thou shalt not bear false witness.

And I found out that a little white lie was just as black as the blackest lie that anyone can utter. Yes, my friends, a little white lie is just as black as the blackest lie that a person can utter. How many today are guilty of that sin of exaggeration?

Exaggerating statements, exaggerating truth. And what shall we speak about the other commandments? My friends, all of these, all of these sins are awful. But, my friends, the greatest sin of all is the sin that was climaxed at the cross of Calvary when men took their Lord and their God, and they said, Away with Him, crucify Him, crucify Him.

They rejected the Lion Lord of life and glory, and nailed Him to that cross. And, my friends, that sin can be committed by people who are respectable, by people who go to church every Sunday, by people who are good parents, by people who are good, respectable citizens.

And yet, they're committing that awful sin of rejecting, disbelieving in the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, the Word of God tells us, He that believeth on Him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Unbelief as the Decisive Sin

My friends, tonight, you know why men and women are going to be lost? You know why men and women are going to be in hell? Not because of their sins of violence and corruption, not because of their pride, not because of breaking of God's commandments.

All of these sins, my friends, can be forgiven, every one. That's why Jesus died on the cross. That's why He bore sin's heavy load. The wages of sin is death, and that's why Christ died on the cross. That every one of these sins could be forgiven, but there's one sin, my friends, for which there is no forgiveness if a person dies in that sin, and that is the sin of unbelief.

The sin of refusing and rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me ask you tonight, what is your attitude toward the Lord Jesus Christ? What does the Lord Jesus Christ mean to you? You watch that crowd who are still saying, away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him.

I don't want that man to reign over my life. I don't want that man to have his way over me. Bleach, you, you still reject Him tonight? Ah, the cross is the climax of all of Him's sins. Every soul, my friends, is going to be in the lake of fire forever and ever and ever.

They'll be kind. The drunkard there will long for his liquor. The adulterer there will be filled with his lust. The man committed will be there in all of his power. My friends, the thing that they'll look back to is the fact that they rejected the Lord Jesus Christ, and they'll be there because they have refused Him.

Everyone in heaven will be there in spite of their sins because they have believed in the One who died on Calvary's cross. Everyone who looks back from heaven will look back to that cross and thank God for sending His Son, the Lord Jesus, to die for them, because that's the only title to heaven.

The cross, my friends, is the climax of all of man's guilt, of all of man's sin, of all of man's... But you know, the cross does something else. The cross reveals the heart of God. You know, I remember a story about a man who was in jail.

The Cross Reveals God’s Love and Willingness to Forgive

He was a man who was there for life, and he was gloriously saved. And somebody asked him, Well, how did you get saved? He said, Well, all my life I always thought that God hated me. I always thought that God was against me, that God was waiting to smite me down.

He says, When I heard the story of the cross of Christ, and I heard about how Jesus died on the cross, I found that instead of God chasing me to smite me down, God was running after me with outstretched arms, wanting to forgive me and wanting to...

My friends, that cross outstretched in the Son of God, outstretched on that cross, it is God telling to all men and women, boys and girls everywhere, of His love for them, of His unwillingness that anyone should perish in his or her sin.

You know, we're living in a day-to-day when we hear about oh, so many awful things. We hear of the dreadful ravages of disease. We pick up our magazines, and we read about what disease is working in human lives, the sorrow and the misery and the grief.

We listen to our scientists and our statesmen, and they're all telling us the dreadful possibilities of a nuclear war, and what would be left, or who would be left, and how awful it would be. And men listen to these stories, men listen to these things, and they face the fact of these things, and they wonder about these things, and God tells men and women, forever and ever, you can look forward to the end of it, but ten millions upon ten millions of people, you may not believe it, but God believes it, and God reveals it, in the giving of His Son.

If God did not believe, and if God did not testify of the awful coming, my friends, there never would have needed to have been a cross. Jesus would never have had to die. God would have never had to send His only begotten Son, the darling of His bosom.

One has likened it to a conference in heaven, where before Jesus came into the world, the angels in heaven, as they saw the Son of God, the delight of His Father, why they would ask, My, don't you think that the Father loves the Son?

He certainly does. Do you think He would ever allow any sorrow or grief to come to His Son? He certainly never would. Do you think He would ever inflict any pain or any grief on the Son, that always pleases Him?

Do you think He would ever allow anything like that? He certainly would not. And yet those angels see a wonder of all wonders. They see that One come into the world. They see Him born as a babe in Bethlehem.

They see Him grow to maturity. They see Him become a man. They see Him finally get outside the city of Jerusalem. They see wicked men nailed unto the cross, and the Father doesn't do anything. In fact, the Father shrouds the entire scene in darkness, and God Himself hides His face from His Son.

What a tremendous scene that must have been to the angels about. How they must have stood back and said, We don't understand this. Why would the Father deal with His Son so terribly? Why does His Son cry from the depths of His heart, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?

Because there was no other way, my friends, that God could show and declare and reveal His love for you and for me. There was no other way God could save the sinner. There was no other way God could forgive the sinner.

The sinner's sins had to be paid for, and Jesus reveals God's love for you and for me. For God so loved you that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

He reveals God's love for you and for me. The cross in London was lost. She had wandered many blocks away from where she lived. When she arrived at where she lived, she started to cry as it began to snow.

He took her into the station, and he says, Where do you live? And the little girl says, I don't know. Well, what kind of a place do you live in? And he starts describing the various places. Well, is there a place where in school do you go to?

She says, well, I don't go to school. Well, is there any school near where you live? Well, no, I don't know of it. And they tried all kinds of descriptions. And finally the little girl, the man says, Well, is there any church buildings where you live?

Church with a great big cross on it. This cross lights up at night. And when that cross lights up at night, and the policeman says, Why? There's only one cross in this town. And so they named the place.

And they took the little girl to the place where the cross was. And they said to her, Do you know where you live? She says, Why, yes. She says, Well, you have to go down the block there. And that's where I live.

What was it, my friends, that brought her from her lost condition back home? It was the... ...women tonight are lost in their sins. They don't know how to get back to God. Many people are trying many ways.

They're trying to be baptized. They're going to church. They're doing all kinds of things. It's only the cross. It's Jesus who taught. He opened the way for sinners to get back to God. You know, there's a song we sometimes sing, I must need to go home by the way of the cross.

There's no other way but this. I shall ne 'er get sight of the gates of light if the way of the cross be kindest. My friend, the Lord Jesus died on the cross in order to open the way to heaven. In order to provide a place in heaven for you.

Let me ask you tonight. Have you come to that one who died on the cross? Have you come to that one who rose from the dead? And because of that cross, is able to save the sinner? Many people tonight look upon Jesus as a helper.

Salvation Comes Through Christ Alone, Not Human Effort

I remember speaking to a man one time and I asked him how he expected to get to heaven. And he gave me a long list of things that he was going to do. And I said, what if those... After he gave me a long list of things, I said, but how am I believing in Jesus?

What does Jesus have to do with... Oh, he says, I believe in him too. I go to say, well, if all of these things don't get me in, well, then I'll believe in Jesus too. Maybe that'll help me. Just a little bit I lack, that may help me.

My friend, tonight, Jesus is not a helper to heaven. There are many people tonight who want Jesus as a helper to heaven. But my friend, Jesus is the savior from sin. He died on the cross to save men. To save women.

And it's only when people come to him that they get saved. And they're the only ones that know they're saved. Because there's no other way to be saved but through the one who died on Calvary's cross. Jesus is the savior of sinners.

When he hung upon that cross, you remember, the people said, he saved others himself. He cannot save. He saved others. Just like those Pharisees, they can talk about how Jesus has saved others, but they've never experienced salvation himself.

Are you one of those? You can talk about how Jesus saves others. You can look at others who have been saved, and you say, yes, The waters were gathered together onto one place. The dry land appeared, a solid foundation to rest upon.

New Birth, New Nature, and the Fruit of Spiritual Life

And my friends, the cross is a solid foundation to rest upon. The soul that comes to the savior, that soul has a solid foundation to rest on. There's nothing else dependable. And when the earth came forth, there was fruit.

And my friends, it's the very same with the one who comes to the savior. The one who comes to the savior who died on the cross, there's fruit. There's fruit from that cross. And my friends, there's fruit in the life of the one who receives that savior for his or her own personal savior.

I want you to notice, it tells us here in Genesis chapter one, and verse 11, God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth.

And it were so. There were three distinct grades or levels of fruit. There was the grass, there was the herb, there was the fruit tree. And my friends, when a person comes to the savior, these three results are always true in the life of the person that comes to the savior.

Grab the expression of life. When a person comes to the savior, there is a change in the life. There is a character formed that becomes the character of Christ. Because if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.

When a person comes to Christ, that person is born from above. That person receives a new nature, a new life which is the nature and the life of Christ. That is one of the marvelous things that it is not a mere intellectual thing to which you...

It is not a mere intellectual thing that you know. It is a vibration of a life that enters into your soul in which you are really and truly born again. You receive a new nature from God. The profession in the world can't bring this about.

Lots of young people think if they make a profession, I believe, they're on the way to heaven. They know all the facts of the gospel. They can quote, Jesus died on the cross for sinners. Jesus rose again from the dead.

They can say it like a parent. And it's nice to be able to know it, and it's nice to utter it. But they show by their behavior, they show by their actions that they have never received life. They're like the young woman passing out gospel tracts, a teenager.

And she'd gone out that Sunday afternoon with the other young people to pass out gospel tracts, and they all thought that Kay was a Christian. And that afternoon as she came back worn out, tired from passing out gospel tracts, was going upstairs to her bedroom, she sat right on the staircase, which was closed by the door of course.

And there she sat, and she said to her, who am I kidding? Here I'm trying to tell other people how to be safe. Once she received the life. And my friend, all the talking and all the knowing is we don't have this life.

Because if we don't have this life, we can't desire the things of God. We don't care for the fellowship of God's people. We don't care to learn about the Lord. We may go to the meetings as a mere form because we have to and say to ourselves, oh, we like it old enough.

You won't see me darkening the door of this place. Why? There's no life. The first thing that happens as a result of Christ really actually coming into the Ark of Life is that there is a new nature just like the grass.

The evidence of life. And then the herb. What is the herb used for? The herb is the healing element. There is not only a healing of my own soul, but there is a going forth in healing and blessing to others.

In other words, my friend, there is a desire to see others saved. Because the herb bears fruit whose seed is in it. And so whenever a person wants to see others saved, it's only me within me. I couldn't keep it to myself.

We can keep it to ourselves. We want to tell others. And then the third thing is the fruit tree. And what is that? Because where this light comes in and this desire to win others, my friend, there is an evidence.

There is a development of the personality in true Christ-likeness and in true... ...that there was fruit. The Lord brought forth fruit. My friend, tonight, you have this light. There's a bright side of the cross and there's a dark side.

Is your life still barren tonight? Is your life still fruitless? Are you desirous of seeing others, one to Christ as well? Are you desirous to go on to the Lord and to manifest Him and to grow up into Him?

That cross divides all time. It divides all eternity. It divides us, my friend. He that believeth on Him, he that believeth not, is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the Father.