Well, good morning. Let's open up this morning's
Bible study hour in the blue hardback hymnal number one. Number
one, if you could please stand. Oh, worship the king. Number
one. O worship the King, all glorious
above, and gratefully sing His power and His love. Our shield and defender, the
Ancient of Days, pavilioned in splendor and girded with praise. O tell of his might, O sing of
his grace, Robe is the light whose canopy's face, His chariot's
soft breath the deep thunder clouds form, And dark is his
path on the wings of the storm. Bountiful care, what tongue can
recite? It breathes in the air, it shines
in the light. It streams from the hills, it
descends to the plain. And sweetly distilled in the
dew and the Frail children of dust, and feeble
as frail, In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail. Thy mercies, how tender, how
firm to the end, our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend. Y'all can be seated. Michael. It is a great blessing to be
here. And I hope I never take it for
granted. So I prepared this, and I was
talking with someone, a preacher, a gospel preacher, and I said,
you know, there's teachers, those who taught some of you, often
teachers so desire for their students to learn and to grow
in knowledge and to grow as individuals. They want more for their students
often than their students want for themselves. I've heard teachers
say, well, yeah, they're pretty good, but they could be better.
They just don't try. And we were talking, I said,
I'm so thankful that the Lord has gifted us with people that
Brother Greg and whoever occupies, Brother Robert this morning,
Brother Bert and Brother Tom, that anyone that ever stands
up here and stand before the people of God. Bree, you know
this. Their heart's desire is that the Lord would enable them
to glorify God, to be truthful to the word of God. And their
desire is that he would enable them to do something that would
benefit the people of God. That is, that's their hearts.
They want to do something that God's people would be of benefit
to them. And I pray the Lord will enable
us to do that this very morning. The title of the message is,
I struggle with this, but I'm going
to leave it as it is. It is The Great Lie. The Great Lie. Now often they
have, and I'm not a theologian by any means, but they always,
what they call it, the first mention. In other words, the
first time something's mentioned, that's usually what it means.
And if you would, let us begin in Genesis chapter 3, because
this is where the first lie of the Word of God is told. And
from that lie becomes the father of all lies to follow. And just like Adam is our head,
and we all are descendants of Adam and Eve, there is this great
lie, and all the lies of religion come from this great lie. And
when I prepared this, I thought, well, what comfort is it to the
people of God to hear that? Well, the comfort we should have
is there was a time when we believed this great lie. And our comfort ought to be is
God himself delivered you from, and I, from that lie. Because
had he not delivered us, we would still believe that lie. And it's
the same lie that just overwhelmed religion. But Genesis 3, let
us begin at one. Now the serpent, who was Satan,
was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God
had made. And the serpent said unto the woman, yea, hath God
said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden. You know, it's just planting
that seed of doubt. Did he really say that? Did he
really mean that? And the woman said unto the serpent,
we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the
tree of which is in the midst of the garden, God has said,
you shall not eat of it. Neither shall you touch it lest
ye die. Eve knew the truth. God had told
Eve the truth. And the serpent said to the woman,
you shall not surely die. You shall not die. You can disobey
God and live. And that's the start, the first
lie. And what's the results of the
lie? For God doth know that in the
day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open, And ye shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil. The first lie is that you
can disobey God and live. And the offspring of that lie
is you can be God. And the heart of every false
gospel today is telling people that you can be God. You can be God. Salvation's in
your hands. Salvation's your decision. And
it's up to you. You can accept it or reject it.
So in fact, you're God. And men and women ever since
have taken God and took him off the throne and put themselves
in his place. And they begin to formulate a
God of their own imagination. A God that's like them. And they
develop and believe a God who they think how God should be,
not how God has declared him in the scripture. The only problem
with that is, God says that's a lie. He said in Isaiah 55,
he says, my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not
your ways. We come into this world believing
the lie. And every thought we have from
the moment we come out of our mother's womb, every thought
we have is wrong and is sin against God. Every thought we have. And if God doesn't intervene,
we'll die in those lies. And we create a false religion
to fit our lives rather than fall down to the word of God. And the result is the same. Men
and women, boys and girls end up worshiping the creature rather
than the creator. And that's what old religion
is. It's creature worship. Men going about, prompting themselves
up. And remember, God delivered us
from that. Oh, thanks be to God. Comparing ourselves to each other.
I Don't want you brother. So-and-so look he knows so much
he can he can quote this scripture and quote that scripture He's
read that book. He's got this title. He's got a library full
of button Whitewash tombs They worship the creature rather than
creator and I want us to see proper 14 says there is a way
which seemeth right unto man and but the end thereof are the
ways of death." Everything we think that seems right about
God in our natural state leads to death, spiritual death. And we're all guilty of it. And
the comfort is, this morning, is God has delivered His people
out of that lie. Please, I don't mean, but we
have some young people here that are advancing their education,
and that's a good thing. And when you get up in colleges,
whatever, you have to, you got all these courses for what you
want to be, and then they make you take all these courses that
you could care less about. Is that still the same? I'm sure
it is. And if you was like me, I'm looking
for some course, what's the easiest course I could take and not have
to work at and find it, and that's the one. I thought logic is what
I took. Well, logic, that ought to be
pretty simple. I could take that and surely
that's an A course I could snooze through. And I got in there and
it was in the humanities section with philosophy and religion.
And I was quite pleased that there's really a lot like math.
If A is true, then B is true. It's like algebra, C is true.
But one of the things about logic, That's logos, man's understanding. And what they taught was the
different ways that men come in to think things to be true.
And one of them was the if-then statements. If A is true, if
I accept A to be true, then B must be true. You understand what
I'm saying? And then if B is true, C is true. The only problem, of course,
if A is wrong, then you've built a whole house of lies. That's
all you've got. And that's what happens in religion today. This lie that you can disobey
God and live is the father of all lies. And I want to deal
with some of the lies that it has brought forth. Man and his
sin, and man will always Always pervert the word of God unless
God gives him understanding and gives him a new heart and the
faith to believe That's what repentance is. We all come to
this world needing repentance, which means to have our minds
changed The children of these lies is
as men thinks well, you know God should love everybody God should love everybody. That
just makes sense. And then they'll hand pluck little
phrases out of the Bible that support their case. And if you've
dealt with them, you know, well, what about, God does this, we're
gonna look some of them. See, God loves everybody. And
they ignore anything that's contrary. They're just like politicians,
aren't they? They'll say whichever it takes to get the vote. But
God loves everybody. Well, if that's true, then, see,
logic, if that's true, then God should want to save everybody.
That makes sense to man in their natural state. Sinful man, a
man with a lost mind, he doesn't have a sound mind, that's a saved
mind. And then if God thinks everyone should be saved, then
it would have been necessary for Christ to do what? To die
for everybody. Well, that just seems logical.
That's what they say. And then the last, of course,
is if Christ dies for everybody, then salvation's possible for
everybody. And then they take it to the
final lie, that salvation is up to you. God loves you. God wants to save you. Christ
died for you. Now it's your decision. You can
accept him or you can reject him. Who's on the throne in that?
Man or God? Man's on the throne. It's man's
decision. Man ultimately is God. And that's
where man wants to be. So you see, they're the father
of all lies. Now, I always, you know, some
of you watch TV, some of you don't. But sometimes you do get
some benefit out of it. I remember there was a TV show,
Seinfeld. I don't know if some of you remember
that show. One of their, for people who've never seen it,
one of their characters was a habitual liar. They said his whole life
was a lie. He'd be an architect to this
person, he'd be a marine biologist, and all of his friends says,
what do you mean tell a lie? You live a lie. Your whole life
is about a lie, even about the unimportant things of life. And
in one episode, there was another character that had lied and got
caught, and he wanted to know how he could get through this
lie without being caught, so he asked him. He said, you're
the greatest liar I've ever known. What can I do to be convinced,
how can I convince them I didn't lie? And the liar said, well,
he said, you're in trouble, my friend. He said, it takes years
and years to be a great liar. He said, well, thanks, you're
no help. So he headed off and he knew he was gonna be confronted,
his lie was gonna be exposed. He said, do you have any advice?
And here's the advice. And this is what people in false
religion hold today. He says, it's not a lie as long
as you believe it's true. Now this is a TV show, but you
might as well put that on the buildings of every religious
organization. It's not a lie as long as you believe it's true.
As if your belief is what makes it true. How many times have
you ever had, I hope, a discussion, we'll say kindly with someone,
and you tell them the gospel and what's the first word out
of their mouth? I don't believe that. I don't believe that. I didn't ask you to believe it.
I'm just telling you it's the truth. I don't believe that.
That's not true. Or my favorite is, well, that's
not my God. You know, kindness keeps you
sometimes from saying, because you're absolutely right, it is
not your God. But that's the God of the Bible.
And that's the God that saves. And this morning, Lord willing,
I want to deal with this lie of God loves everybody. Because what they have done,
they have taken the Word of God and they've twisted it, perverted
it, means into a lie. And they have taken God's love
and they've made it just like my love or your love, a sloppy
emotional feeling. And they've taken justice and
righteousness and holiness out of God's love. And you cannot do that. God's
love is all those things. He cannot change. His love is
a holy love. His love is a just love. His
love is a righteous love. His love is a particular love.
And I'd like God willing for us to look at that. Turn with
me please to 1 John, 1 John 4. Hopefully I'll do better than
that. One of the problems I have is when I'm sitting where you're
at, You know, I have little cheat
notes. I write the page it's on down here, see, so I can go
to it. But when I'm out there and somebody, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa. Give me a couple of minutes here till I find it,
because I'd like to read it with you. But 1 John chapter four. I even got the page and I can't
find it. Okay. Here we are. Chapter four, verse
one. He said, beloved, believe not every spirit. Don't
believe everything people are saying, but try the spirit. See, can you be a brick? Can
you say what sayeth the scripture? Don't just believe it because
someone said it where they have God, because look here, many
false prophets are gone out into the world. We have channels full of false
prophets on TV, don't we? We have monuments to false prophets
right here in this city. False gospel. Hereby I know you
the spirit of God, every spirit confesses that Jesus Christ has
come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that confesses
not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. If
they deny that Christ came and secured the salvation of his
people, it's not a true spirit. Not of God, and this is the spirit
of the Antichrist, where you have heard that it should come,
and even now already is in the world. The Antichrist has been
here. They was here during these days. False gospel. And here's what he says to his
people, you are of God, little children, and you have overcome
them. Because greater is he that is
in you than he is in the world. We have God's spirit. We have
the mind of Christ. We have a new heart. They're
the world. Therefore speak they of the world
and the world hear them. We, his people, are of God. He
that knoweth God heareth us. That he is not of God heareth
not us. Hereby we know we the spirit
of truth and the spirit of error. Because God has put his spirit
in you, given you the faith to believe the truth, brought you
where the truth of God's grace is preached, you can distinguish
between truth and error. And I'll say this, if you're
a believer, You don't have trouble distinguishing, do you? I mean,
you can listen about two minutes, you say, well, I can move on
here. There's no need to watch this
anymore. It's not of the truth. Beloved, let us love one another,
for love is of God. and everyone that loveth is born
of God and knoweth God he that loveth not knoweth not God and
God is love and the false religion says there you see God is love
but he's talking about his love to whom? to his people he's not
talking about love for the world he's talking about love to his
people move on to verse ten here is
love not that we Not that we loved God. Marianne said it. I should just
quiet and let her. Not that we love God, but that
he loved us. I never loved God. In fact, I
hated God. Have you ever hated God? If your
answer is no, I'm afraid you still hate God. Because God loved us, because
that God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might
live through him. And you see how the lies and
logic? Well, he must love everybody. He sent his son to be a perpetrator
of our sin. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one
another. I thought of that. You know, one thing a believer
no matter what we do. I'm so thankful this is true. Sometimes I have, I'm sure, there's
times my brain and my mouth don't work in coordination. And unfortunately,
it's always my mouth working ahead of my brain. And maybe
you haven't had this. I wish if I was a little older
I could pass it off as total dementia, but I can't. I speak,
and two minutes later I thought, why did you say that? That was
the dumbest thing you ever said. Can't you keep your mouth shut?
My answer is no. That's a sin of mine. But you
understand what I'm saying? But the people of God, I'm so
thankful they love me in spite of me. We love one another. When people come here from other
gospel churches, we don't have to wait around to get to know
them. We can embrace them because we love one another. Why? Because
God loved us and he taught us all the same thing and we love
the same things. For no man has seen God in any
time. If we love one another, God dwells
in us and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we
dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his spirit. We all have the same spirit,
don't we, Bert? Not you have one spirit and I have another.
No, we all have the same spirit. And we have seen and do testify
that the father sent the son to be the savior of the world. See there, he came to save the
world. That's what God's Word said, doesn't it? Well, I remind you right now,
who wrote this book? John. What was John? He was a Jew. Who was John's
earthly ministry preached to? Jews. And what was he telling
the Jews? You Jews think that God's not
going to save anyone outside of Judaism. You're wrong. There's
going to be Gentiles that are going to be in the kingdom of
God. And I'll say this to this day, if you know any Jewish people,
they'll tell you that's true right now. Today. You, well, you could come a Jew
and then be saved, but you, you can't be saved outside. He was
trying to teach me that God's going to save people out of different
races, different cultures. That's what world never means
all inclusive mankind. Whosoever shall confess that
Jesus is Son of God, God dwelt in him, and he in God. And we
have known and believed the God that hath dwelt with us. God
is love, and he that dwelt in love dwelt in God, and God is
in him. Herein is our love made perfect,
that we have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he
is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but
perfect love casts us out fear, because fear hath torment. He
that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love Christ. We love God. And here's the cause
of it. Because He first loved us. And we have no fear. I have a
problem. I'll confess this. Some of you
may... I don't take care of myself what I should. I pay a lot of
money to doctors to tell me what I already know. And my doctor last time come
in to me said, look, what do you want me to do? And you could
tell he was a little perturbed. You know what you're supposed
to do and you don't do it. What do you want from me? And I remember, I said, you know,
doctor, I said, I don't have to tell you this in a kind way.
I appreciate everything you do for me. I'm not looking to live a long,
long life. I'm looking to live a quality
life. And if it ended tomorrow, that'd be okay. Of course, that just, you know,
I'm surprised he didn't tell me, you need to get a new doctor.
I'm done with you. The world don't understand that. But as
a believer, there is no fear of death. I can state that from personal
experience. There's no fear of death. You can go into that. Well, I'm going in tomorrow for
major surgery. I may or may not live. What? To die? I can't remember. To live is Christ. Yeah. To die
is gain. If I live, if I die, oh, thanks
be to God. I'm where I want to be anyway.
That's where I want to be. And if I live, Lord, I know it's
your hand too. So either way, the outcome's good because you're
the ones who are tainted. But that is the lie of all lies,
and God is love. Now I want to say this to clear,
God is love. And if it were not for the love
of God, none of us would be here this morning. None of us would
be here this morning. God is love. And the first point
I want to make from this is, God's love is a sovereign love. He loves whom He will, when He
chooses, To love them. He's loved them forever, but
his love is a sovereign love. He's not obligated to love everybody,
nor does he love everybody. It's a sovereign love. And I'm
so thankful that before the world ever began, before there ever
was a Marianne for you, you or I existed, nothing. God, the
father, Christ, the son, Christ, the spirit. God the Father chose
to place his love on a people. And why did he do it? Because if you're a believer,
I'm sure you have, because I have this. Brian, you ever wonder,
why would God choose me? Why would God choose to love
me? I cannot comprehend that. I cannot explain that. There's even some people out
there that say, well, maybe that one I can understand, but why
me? And the only way I can answer you is the truth is the Lord
says, I can't remember, the Lord, the judge of all the earth, shall
do right. He's gonna do right. Whatever
he does is right. And not only right, but it's
good. Father, do, remember, I can't
remember again. The Lord doeth what's good in
your sight. It was good in the sight of the
Lord. That's why he done it. That's the only reason I explained.
He loved the people. And he said, his son, here's my people. You
do all the things necessary. And Christ agreed to save their
souls. And in one day, the spirit covenant
that is going to come to them, right? And he's going to make
them willing and give them the faith to believe God's love is
a sovereign love. Look at John three, please. John three. This is the most famous, probably
the most quoted verse in all of Scripture, right in this word,
John 3. 14, remember John's preaching
to Jews. And as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal
life. For God so loved the world, that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. If God sent not His Son
into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through
Him might be saved. And he that believeth on Christ
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. And here's the condemnation that
Christ came into the world and men loved darkness rather than
Christ because their deeds were evil. They will not come to Christ
because of their own righteousness. They don't want to be exposed.
But he that doeth truth, that's believe on Christ, comes to Christ
that his deeds may be manifest that they were wrought in God.
If I have any good deeds, God has to give me the power and
ability to do. It's all of God. And the point I want to make
is God's love is a particular love. Those that have believed
the great lie, they always struggle because as soon as you say this,
Jacob I have loved, Esau I have, you know what it says next, don't
you? Hated. They don't even want to
talk about that. I've heard that explained to
me. They should have been a politician explaining to me why that didn't
mean what it means. Our children know what it means.
God hated Esau. And he wasn't even born. And
my point being, God's love is a particular love. It's a particular
love. He does not love everybody. He
loves His. And I always try to use, you
remember the Pool of Bethesda. John, there's a multitude of
people, and I can imagine here, they're lying on the ground,
they can't walk, they're lame, they're blind, they can't talk.
It had to be a place of misery, that's all you could say. And
there's one little pool of water. And our Lord came to Bethesda,
and there was literally hundreds if not thousands of them there
every day. Our Lord came to Bethesda, He
came to that pool, and He healed Imagine now, he walked around
till he got where? To how many to heal? One man. He went to one man. He didn't
stand before him, put here I am, I'm here to heal you. He went
to one man. He healed one man. And then what'd
he do? What'd he do? He left. And the remaining people were
left in the same condition as if he had never come. Did the Lord have the power to
heal everyone? Absolutely. Why didn't he? It wasn't right
in his sight. But that one man, and that one
man did say, oh, here comes Christ. I'm finally, he didn't see him
as Christ, did he? He's like you and me. He was
rebellious sinner just like the rest of them. And the Lord chose
him out, placed his love upon him, healed him, and he walked
away. God's love is a particular love. Turn with me please to Psalm
45. We're gonna move quickly if we can here as
I spoke too much about things. Psalm 45. We said God's love is a particular
love. Verse 7, 45 verse 7, verse 6, Thou throne,
O God, is forever and ever, and the scepter of Thy kingdom is
a right scepter. You see verse 7, what does it
say about God's love? God, Thou lovest, what? Do you see what it says? He loveth
righteousness. He loveth righteousness and he
hateth wickedness. Therefore God, thy God, hath
anointed Christ with the oil of gladness above all fellows. God's love is a righteous love
and it is a particular love. God loves, make it very simple,
God loves two things. He loves Christ, and he loves
those who are in Christ. And everybody else outside of
that, he hates. Scripture says, he hates the
workers of iniquity, those who think they do good things all
the day long. God's love is a just love. His
love cannot be outside of justice. Now look here, in Jeremiah, Greg
preached this the other night and it was extremely good. He
said, the Lord hath appeared a vote unto me saying, yea, I
have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving
kindness have I drawn thee. God's love is a merciful and
unchanging love. It never goes away. I believe
it by faith, but I can't understand it. What? God loves me in spite
of me. His love for me is not dependent
on what I do. His love for me never changes.
I can say as a father and a husband, you cannot say that about me. Shamefully, but that's the way
it is. God's love is an unchanging love. In Ephesians love, Ephesians
says, God has called us with a holy calling. He has chosen
us with a holy calling. God's love is a holy love. When
his love is placed upon you, you are as holy as Christ. And you cannot get any better.
That's how, when people talk about the progressive saints,
they are denying the holiness of God. As if his holiness, Christ's
holiness is not enough. You gotta add to it. They're
going back to putting who on the throne? Themselves. Okay? And we know in John that God's
love is an everlasting love. I apologize, but I'll close with
this. In Micah it said, the Lord requires
us to do justly and to love mercy. Can you do justly? Only in Christ,
my substitute can. But there is a great connection
between love and need. Remember the Lord says, he who
is forgiven much, forgives much. He who is forgiven little, forgives
little. There is this connection between
love and need. If I was on my deathbed, And
Cyril had the only potent that could save me. What would be
my love towards Cyril? Please come to my house. I'll
come to your house. I want to be right next to you. I have a need that only he can
satisfy. My love would be great towards
him. And I wrote down five things about this. And I hope that there'll
be a benefit to some people. I think, and this may be a bad
way, it's like an addict. An addict. What's the lie every
addict tells themselves? I probably am a food addict,
Jack. We talk about, what's the lie I always tell myself? Well,
I can stop tomorrow. I can, I'll work myself, tomorrow
I'll do better. And tomorrow comes and the next,
Week and year comes and guess what? Every addict, they fool themselves
into thinking that they can do something to reverse their condition. We can't. The only people, one,
two, three, four, five, six, seven things. The only people
who love mercy are those that need mercy. The only people that love grace.
are those that need grace. The only people that love God's
sovereignty are those that need a sovereign God to save them.
If I can do something to save myself, I don't care about God's
sovereignty. The only people that love the
substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ are those that need
a substitute. The only people who love God's
electing grace, Donald, are those who need to be elected by God.
If I can choose myself, I don't need God to elect me. The only people that love the
gospel of God's grace in Christ, Jennifer, are those that need
God's grace in Christ. If I can take it or leave it,
I don't need it, and I don't love it. And the last one I'll say is
those who truly love the Lord Jesus Christ are those are totally
dependent upon the Lord Jesus Christ. I asked myself, how much do I
need Christ? Even now, my words seem, you
know, you can't speak. You don't even know where to
start. Do you? Well, I need him for my salvation.
Yeah, I need him to keep me every day. I need him to restrain me
every day. Lord, I could go my need for you until the last breath
is drawn and I still wasn't finished. That's how much I need Christ. If it's Christ plus me, not so
much, do I? The only people that truly love
love Christ are those that totally need Christ. Every time I think of that, I
wish, I'll close, I'm sorry, I've told it too many times,
Brother Maurice Montgomery. Most of you may not even know
who he is, some of you, but Mother Maurice came to a conference,
preach for us, I think, that's the first time he'd been out
of the state of Kentucky. He said, I lived so far back
in the woods, I didn't think God could find me back where
I was. But moreover, he said, and he
had went through some major surgeries. He had tumors of the brain and
all those things. Weak. And I remember him stood,
and I don't know if this, but it was in the pulpit, and he
leaned over and he said, He said, you see what I'm doing? He said, and I'm depending on
the Lord Jesus Christ for the very next one. That's how dependent I am of
Christ for my next breath. And brothers and sisters, He's
all I got. And praise be to God, He's all
I need and all I want. I don't want anything besides
Him. Why? Because He delivered me from
the great lie. I thank you and I pray God will
bless His word to our standing. Thank you all very much. Break
here. Thank you very much.