Prisoner in the Third Cell (DCLC – July ’86, Part 3)

Many, but those who weren’t live and die without knowing. The question before the house is not this. The question is not why is He that way. The question before the house is, are you going to follow Him, even though you don’t understand Him? And are you going to follow Him when He doesn’t live up to your expectations? The question before the house, and it’s before you, and one day you’ve got to answer it, and it’s a divisive question, and that question is, are you going to follow Lord, who’s going to let you down, who will not be what you expected Him to be? And frankly, I rejoice in the hour when you meet this God who’s going to let you down and not live up to your expectations because then you’re gonna find out whether or not you’re a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s for better, but it’s also for worse. It’s for knowing, but it’s also for not knowing.

Well, the Lord Jesus ventured a second answer. The kingdom of God is preached, and many rejoice in it. And the twelve disciples of John, with their stoic faces, don’t blink. That doesn’t mean a thing to them. And the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ is heavy. And He wants so much to explain. He wants to tell John what John’s never going to know. He knows what’s going to happen on pages 72 and 73. He knows that one of the most depraved men who ever lived is going to have John’s head cut off.

Now you get clear on this, that John the Baptist is the greatest of all men who have ever lived. That he walked out into that desert never to know a woman, never to know pleasure, never to know marriage, never to know the joys of bearing children, who has lived his whole life for his God and for his God alone. He has been faithful. He has prayed; He has fasted. He has been the brunt of jokes. He has faithfully preached. He has been imprisoned, and now he is going to die without knowing one thing…that will explain all his sacrifice. He’s going to die only knowing he gave and gave and gave again and nothing came out of it. And the Lord Jesus Christ makes His decision. No, John, not for you either. I’ll not tell you about my death and about my resurrection and about my church and about my kingdom and about my glorification. You’re going to die without knowing. You have met the God who did not live up to your expectations.

My dear cousin, whom I love, whom I’ve demanded more of than perhaps I’ve ever demanded of any other human being, John, you’re not going to know. And the Lord only has one thing left. And He says, “The lame were healed. The kingdom is preached.” And tell John, “Blessed is he who is not offended with Me.” Go peek over that dungeon, smell that yeasty smell. Look at those rats. Look down into that dungeon. Grab a hold of that wet slime. Stick your head through the bars and behold your master, John the Baptist, and just tell him, “blessed is not offended with Me and blessed is he who is not offended with Me,” and that’s the God of eternity. And that’s the God of all past time. And that’s the God of all the ages since then. And that’s the God of this very hour. Heartbroken, desiring so much to breach that mystery that separates us in time and space from eternity. The God who wants to explain but knows that He cannot in the onward going of time, the saga of time cannot be interrupted by His explanation of His ways. And He must not tell. “And blessed is he who is not offended with Me.”

A mother has a child born still, and she does not understand, yet she has been so faithful to her Lord. “Blessed is he who is not offended with Me.” A woman is faithful in reading her Bible and doing all the things that God ever wanted her to do and to be as a faithful wife, and yet she ends up in a broken marriage. “And blessed is he who is not offended with Me.” The phone rings, news comes, and a wife is suddenly a widow in the most unexpected way. “And blessed is he who is not offended with Me.” And the doctor brings news that no one wants to hear, that a member of the family must perish with the most dreadful disease, unexpected and inexplicable. “And blessed is he who is not offended with Me.”

A young man is converted to Jesus Christ in the year 1600 out of a Catholic family. He goes to Switzerland. He studies the Bible there. He comes back to his native land of France, and he preaches the gospel. There are men who have successfully passed from Switzerland over into France to preach the gospel secretly and never be caught, and have been able to live and to die after 40 and 50 years of fruitful ministry. And this young man, who has a wife and a newborn baby, sneaks back into France, where the Protestant faith is outlawed. And on his first time to preach the Lord Jesus Christ out in the woods with gathered Christians, suddenly from all sides, the military came and arrested the family. The wife is imprisoned. The child is turned over to an orphanage, and the young man is led down to Marce, France. He’s 23 years old. He’s taken aboard a galley ship. His hands are put in irons and chains, and an ore is slipped into his hands. And he sits there knowing that he will never, as long as he lives, move 2 feet from that spot in that darkened hole in that galley ship. Having preached only half of one sermon, he will live and die in that hole under the service of Louis the 14^th, whom he despises. And he will serve that ore until he grows old and dies, and they’ll cut him loose from his chains only in death and throw his carcass to the sea, and he will never once have one word come to him from God that will explain why. “And blessed is he who is not offended with Me.”

The rope is thrown into the cell. John grabbed the rope, and they pulled him up. The soldier looks at him, shakes his head, and says, “Your head has been purchased for the price of an obscene dance. “And blessed is he who is not offended with Me.” John, walk up those steps to that gate. These are the last steps you’ll ever take. You will not know your cousin is crucified and rises from the dead, nor will you know that you’re remembered as one greater than all men or as great ever born of women, that the record of the chronicle of your saga will be told forever. You will not know that John and “blessed is he who is not offended with Me.”

The door opens, and death is at his side. Kneel, John, in just a moment, everything is going to go blank, and you’re going to die without your question answered. “And blessed are you, John, if you’re not offended with Me.” The blade rises, and a thud reverberates through the courtyard. And blessed are you, John, if you were not offended with a God who is nothing like you thought He’d be.”

The dungeon is empty. In one cell is a man still raging against Herod, swearing and cursing. Now you’ve killed a prophet, you fiend. In the other cell is still a man raging against God. I’ll never call you my Lord again for what you’ve done to me. Of those two men, the one who rages against God has the more correct theology because his war is with the one he should be warring with. The man who is raging against a man is raging at the wrong person.

Now listen, some of you are not offended with God; you’re offended by a human being. You are offended by the wrong person, because behind that man is the sovereign way of God. Your offense is not with man; your offense is with God. Your war is with your Lord. And others of you, you have been so deeply hurt and pained by God, you simply don’t know what to do. You’ve been offended by a God who didn’t live up to what you wanted Him to be to you.

Saints, the third cell is empty, and a prisoner is being led down the staircase right now, and the doors are opening. You know who that person is? You know whose name they’re going to write on that cell? Well, it’s your name. You either inhabit that dungeon, or you’re going to. One man next to you rails against his God and will not come to terms with Him. The other man doesn’t dare blame God; he blames a man. He’s blaming the wrong person; it was God who put him in that dungeon. And my dear friend, when they put you down in that cell and lock that door, it’s not a man who did it. It’s a God whose ways you do not understand and a Lord who will not explain. “And blessed is he who can be put in that dungeon and not be offended.”

And now it’s time you made peace with your God. He’s the only person, and there’s nobody else. Do you think a lot of Christians did you wrong? That was God. God couldn’t have done that. You underestimate your God. “Blessed is he who is not offended with Me.”