I have a question for those of
you to whom God has revealed his gospel. Have you ever wondered
why so many in religion today have a completely different view
of who God is than you? Have you ever considered why
there are so many of your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers,
even your family, who have a differing opinion of how God saves sinners
than you do? I've heard and I continue to
hear men and women describe their God. and how he saves sinners
and I scratch my head and I think to myself that the God that they
worship in no way resembles the God of the Bible. Have you noticed
that? How can that be? Martin Luther,
once writing to a renowned scholar of scripture said this, he said,
your thoughts of God are too human. The majority of preachers
and even students of the Bible today have just lazily accepted
the doctrines and the teachings of others instead of searching
the scriptures for themselves. It seems that the most dishonoring
and the most degrading thoughts concerning the rule and the reign
of the Almighty God are now believed almost everywhere. Instead of
bowing in the dust at the feet of a sovereign, men have, in
their preaching, brought God down to their level. And they
think that God is altogether such a one as themselves. And that's my text this morning.
It's found in Psalm chapter 50, if you would turn there. Psalm
chapter 50. God says in this verse, thou
thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself. The word
of God here plainly asserts how mankind in general naturally
thinks of God. God says you thought that I was
altogether or in every way like you are. Yes, Mr. Luther was right. By nature,
our opinion of God is way too human. And we can't take God's
holy word and try to make it fit into man's humanistic thinking. And God warns us in this text
that unsaved men and women called wicked in verse 16, that they
think that God is just like them. The God that men preach today,
I call him the little G God. The God who thousands, if not
millions, worship no more resembles the God of the Bible than a dim
flashlight resembles the sun. And here in verse 21, we find
the indictment that God brings against both old and modern day
religion alike. God, who knows the hearts and
the motives of all men and women, describes the character of these
religious leaders, or the religious leaders of every age, for that
matter, by saying, these things hast thou done, and I kept silence. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether
such a one as thyself, but I will reprove thee. and set them in
order before thine eyes." God will reprove sinners and set
the truth in order. Now listen, either in this life
or in the judgment to come, God will reprove sinners and set
his word straight. either in mercy and grace now
or in judgment and condemnation in the day of wrath to come.
He's promised to do so. He said, I will reprove thee. It's for certain. John in the
book of Revelation foresaw that day and he said this, for the
great day of his wrath has come and who shall be able to stand
It would be to our advantage, friends, to bow now than to try
to stand then. And did you notice what God said
in the first part of our text? He said, these things thou hast
done, and I kept silence. Well, what was done by these
who thought so low of God? Verse 16, but unto the wicked
God saith. Now let me first note that God's
not speaking of what this world considers to be wicked men here.
Wicked men have no thoughts at all of God. He's speaking here
to men and women alike who are under a profession of religion. And it's obvious from the following
verses that these were those that had a form of godliness,
but denied the power thereof. And notice God's charge to them.
He says, what hast thou to do to declare my statues or that
thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? Now, in other words,
what he's saying here is what have you done to preach the good
news of the gospel of Christ the sinner? What have you done
to tell my covenant promises to the lost? The gospel of Christ
profits no one if it's not told in truth. True worship is done
only in spirit and in truth. Isn't that what the Lord told
the woman at the well? True worshipers. There are false
worshipers. But true worshipers worship Him
in spirit and truth. And worship that's done in error
is no worship at all. What was God's charge here against
these who profess to know God? Notice in verse 17, he says that
they hated the instruction and the true doctrines of the gospel.
He says, seeing thou hatest instruction and casteth my words behind thee. They despised the word of God. They cast God's word behind them.
They paid it no mind. They gave it no attention. Those
who do not preach and teach the Word of God in truth actually
despise the truth. They hate the true God and His
purpose in salvation. And what do they do? They create
a God of their own imagination. They simply cast God's Word behind
them and believe the lies of man's making. In verse 18, God
charges them as thieves. He said, When thou sawest a thief,
then thou consentest with him. They robbed God of His glory. trying to take the credit for
their own salvation. They robbed widows' houses in
the name of God, and they consented unto these things. And I can't
help but to think in reading this about how they robbed both
God and God's people, that today religion is big business. Don't
ever think it's not. Hirelings are concerned with
what you can do for God and give to God, which basically means
their church and their religion, which is their God. And they're
more concerned with these things than in telling you the truth
and what God has done for sinners in Christ. I had someone recently
ask me if our church gave account of the finances to our members. I thought, what? What a strange
question. And when I told him that we posted
monthly on the back board how every dime is spent, he about
fell over. Really, he said, every dime? Yes, ever done. He said, well,
my church gives no account on their finances. They show no
transparency of how the money is spent. And there were religious
people that thought I was crazy when I decided that we would
no longer take up an offering and simply put a box in the back
for the folks here to put their offerings in. They said, well,
people won't give. God's people are generous. They
love to give to the furtherance of the gospel. I'm telling you,
in this place, we're going to be transparent. We're going to
avoid any appearance of evil. And it's been my experience that
those who aren't, in most cases, though not every, they're doing
something they don't want you to see or know about. A true
assembly that worships God in spirit and in truth. They're
not going to rob God of His glory in their preaching, and they're
not going to rob God's people of their money. They're going
to openly and honestly serve the cause of Christ. Now in verse
18, notice what else these religious but false professors were guilty
of. God says, you've been partakers
with adulterers. And if you're a partaker with
an adulterer, guess what? You're an adulterer. Now, some
were adulterers literally according to the flesh, but all of them,
all of them were adulterers spiritually. By nature, we all commit spiritual
adultery. You see, any love, any attention
or faithfulness that we display for any other than Christ, our
heavenly husband, is spiritual adultery. Christ is all and in
all. He deserves all our attention,
all our love, and all our faith. And then in verse 19, we see
that they gave their mouths to evil and their tongues framed. That word means served and created. They served and created deceit. There's no greater evil spoken
than when men speak wrong of God. Did you hear what I said? There's no greater evil spoken
than when men and women speak wrong of God. The evil doctrines
of free will works religion. It's the epitome of evil. To
attribute salvation to any other than Christ is an unspoken evil. It creates deceit. Deceit is
to misrepresent the truth. That's what it means. And that's
what religion, false religion, has done. It misrepresents the
truth about God and redemption in Christ. To say that God is
willing but not able to save, that's to misrepresent God. To
declare that God needs men to make Him Lord, well that's a
misrepresentation of God. God doesn't need man to make
Him Lord. God made Him Lord before the
foundation of the world. To preach that God wants to save
sinners, we've all heard it. that God is dependent upon the
sinner to let go and let God in order to save them is a false
account of God. It's a false account of who He
is. It's a misrepresentation of God. God has never wanted
and never tried to do anything. He does what he wills in the
army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And
ask this question, who can stay his hand or say unto him, what
doest thou? None can, he's God. And I'm telling
you friends, this is a serious, serious thing to misrepresent
God. Paul said in Galatians 1.8, but
though we are an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto
you than that which we've preached unto you, let him be accursed.
That's serious. In 2 Corinthians 11.13 Paul wrote,
For such are false apostles deceitful workers, transforming themselves
into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself
is transformed into an angel of light. Angel meaning messenger,
light meaning the gospel. Satan himself is able to transform
himself into a preacher of the gospel. A false gospel. One that misrepresents God. Paul
calls them false apostles. He refers to them as deceitful
workers, workers of deceit. He claims that they corrupt the
word of God. These are serious charges. When
we change the word of God to suit us, serious, serious. God said, cursed be the man that
maketh any graven or molten image and abomination unto the Lord,
the work of the hands of the craftsman, and putteth it in
a secret place. And I'm saying to those who attribute
salvation to the will of their own heart and the work of their
own hands, they're doing nothing less than creating a graven image
in their heart to worship. Such men make a God of their
own devising. To misrepresent God and the scriptures
this way is to add to and to take away from the truth. And
it has great, great repercussions and consequences. But to misrepresent
God and His redemption, which is only in Christ, is to take
away from who and what God is and add to what man is. And John
said, for I testify unto every man that heareth the words of
the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these
things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written
in this book. And if any man shall take away
from the words of this book of this prophecy, God shall take
away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city
and from the things which are written in this book. You tell
me that's not serious. And then notice here in verse
20, we see that these wicked men were slanderers. God says,
thou sittest and speakest against thy brother, thou slanderest
thine own mother's son. They sit in the seat of judgment
against others. They did then and they did in
our Lord's day. They spoke evil of Christ himself. They judged the Lord and His
disciples who were their brethren and kinsmen according to the
flesh. And by nature, we are so prone, we're so prone to stand
in judgment and speak evil of others. Oh, I'm being guilty
of it myself. Lord, forgive me. We're like
the Pharisee who went up to the temple to pray and he thanked
God that he wasn't like other men. For any to think that salvation
is dependent on them in any way, shape, or form is to exalt themselves
above God. It's to try to strip God of the
glory that belongs only to Him. Salvation is of the Lord. If
it's attributed to anything or anybody other than Him, it's
a gross misrepresentation of God and His salvation. It's to
speak against God and His perfect Word. And all these things mentioned
here are the result of a low view of God and man's very high
view of himself. God says, thou thought that I
was altogether such a one as thyself, but you were wrong. God's nothing like us, nothing. And friends, that was the problem
in David's day, that was the problem in the Lord's day, and
that's the problem in our day. To countless thousands, if not
millions, even among professing believers, the God of the scriptures
is unknown today, just as he was unknown on Mars Hill in Paul's
day. These are the things that men
do, but God kept silent. Isn't that just amazing to even
read those words? He deferred the execution of
judgment. He exercised long-suffering and
patience. God gave space for repentance. God is so merciful and gracious. God still is long-suffering and
gracious. And I'm so glad that He is. I'm
so glad that He's always been. For I'm telling you, I was one
of those who were numbered with these false professors of truth.
I once thought that God was all together like me. And actually,
men who think this way really think God to be inferior to them. How so? Well, if God is dependent
on you and me in any way, then we're God. Isn't that right?
And if that is what men and women think, then they think that they're
in control of their own destiny. Then they, in their own mind,
are their own God. And that's part of our condemnation
in the fall. We think as that serpent promise
that we have become as gods, Genesis 3, 5. And all the ways
that God differs from us are too many to cover in the time
that we have allotted this morning. But some are very obvious and
very serious. Again, the little G God of our
day, the one that is spoken of in the average pulpit and taught
about in the average Sunday school class and is mentioned in all
the religious literature that we see is but a figment and an
invention of man. What does this book say? What
does God's Word declare him to be? They suppose that God's power
to save is just idle fiction, I guess, and that man and Satan's
opposition to God's purpose is challenged and defeated. They
portray God in heaven wringing His hands together, pleading
and begging sinners to let Him save them. They think that if
God has any purpose at all, then it must be like theirs, constantly
subject to change, because they think God is just like they are.
The true believer takes the position of Job, who proposed this simple
question. We looked at it last week. He
simply said, who can turn God? You and I certainly can. None
can. That's what makes Him God. Who
can question God? None can. He's God. He does what He wills. He does
as He pleases. He says whom He wills. Men think
that God's power is restricted. You know why? Because they think
Him to be like them whose power is restricted. Now listen to
me. A God whose will is resisted. A God whose designs are frustrated. Whose purpose is checkmated.
People checkmating God. He possesses no title of deity
and is as far from being a fit object to worship as man is.
But that's not the God of this Bible. He can't be resisted. He can't be frustrated. His purpose
is always accomplished and He's God and there's none beside Him. And that's the reason the men
think of God this way. They think that He's like them.
Perish the thought. If all the inhabitants of the
earth joined together to oppose and to revolt against God, it
wouldn't cause Him any uneasiness. He that sitteth in the heavens
shall laugh. The God of Scripture is no make-believe
monarch. He's no imaginary sovereign. He's King of Kings, and He's
the Lord of Lords. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness
and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty for
all that is in the heaven and in the earth is Thine. Thine
is the kingdom, O Lord, and Thou art exalted as head above all. Is that your God? He is God. Where is the preaching of this
great God today? O Lord, God of our fathers, art
not thou God in heaven, and rulest not thou over all the kingdoms
of the heathen? And in thine hand is there not
power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? All
through the Bible we see the power of God. At his pleasure
the Red Sea divided, and its waters stood up like a wall.
At his command, the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up guilty
rebels who went down to the pit, in Numbers 14. When he so ordered,
the sun stood still, Joshua 10. And on another occasion, the
sun went back 10 degrees on the Dow of Ahaz, Isaiah 38.8. That's
the God that I'm speaking of. That's the God of the Bible.
To demonstrate his supremacy, he made ravens carry food to
Elijah. He made iron to swim on top of
the water. He ordered hungry lions to be
tame when Daniel was cast into the den. He restrained the fire
to burn not when the three Hebrews were thrown into its flames.
And when they came out, they didn't even smell like smoke.
What a God. This is the God with whom we
have to do whatsoever the Lord please, that did He in heaven
and in earth and in the seas and in all deep places. This
is the God that we're gonna stand before and one day give an account.
Men have endeavored to make God a helpless, pitiful, needy, pathetic
creature because that's what man is. And man thinks God to
be altogether such a one as they are. I heard about man's free
will all my life. I could tell you some stories
that you probably wouldn't believe. I was so indoctrinated and proselyted
as a young child that at the age of 10, there was an evangelist
by the name of E.J. Daniels. He used to have these
big tent revivals in the 60s. And I was so proselyted into
religion that they had my picture in a magazine with him because
I supposedly brought 10 or 12 young people to the Lord. I tell
you, I was a 10-year-old Pharisee. They put me up in front of the
church and had me preach at the age of 11 years old. I didn't
know God from a gourd. Oh, religion is a horrible thing. False religion is. I heard about
man's so-called free will all my life, but I'm telling you
that the supremacy of God is demonstrated in His perfect rule
over the wills of man. In the book of Exodus, chapter
34, God required all the males of Israel to leave their homes
and go up to Jerusalem three times a year. They lived in the
midst of a hostile people who hated them and hated their God. And with only the women and children
at home, I'm asking you, what kept the Canaanites from taking
advantage of the men's absence and taking the land back while
they were gone? Tell you what it was. It was
God's will over the will of man. The hand of the Almighty is even
upon the wills of wicked men. And God made that promise before
the men ever left. He said that none should so much
as even desire your land. You see, King's heart is in the
hand of the Lord. And as the rivers of water, he
turneth it withers, soever he will. That's my God. That's the God of the Bible.
And we're nothing like Him. Nothing like Him. God's eternal
counsel stand because God is nothing like us. And I'm telling
you, men may boast that they're free agents. They may boast that
they have a will of their own, that they have freedom and liberty
to do as they please. But the Scripture says to those
who boast, will we go into a city and continue there a year and
buy and sell and get gain? James said, no, no, no. You ought
to say, if the Lord will, we'll do this or do that. Those who
rejoice in their boastings of such things need to know, and
James tells us, that this kind of rejoicing is evil. We can
do nothing if the Lord does not will it, and do we dare portray
God as one who's like us? Our lives are not the result
of blind fate. Our destiny is not the product
of chintzy chants. Every detail of our lives was
ordained from all eternity and is now ordered by the living
and reigning God. Matter of fact, not a hair on
your head can be touched without his permission. A man's heart
deviseth his way, but the Lord directs his steps. Let me ask
you, does this not give you strength and assurance and comfort? If
it doesn't, something's wrong. Do you not find rest in knowing
that this is God? God's counsel shall stand. He
will do all His pleasure. And the most wonderful thing
of all in that is that child of God, He has your best interest
at heart. He's working all things together
for your good and at the same time for His glory. What a God. Sadly, some men and women never
come to this divine conclusion. That's what it is. And the reason
is that they imagine that God is altogether such a one as themselves. Even God's elect, those who know
God, sometimes fall into this great error. We readily confess
that God is sovereign, yet we often act as though He's weak,
don't we? Let's just be honest. Is that not because we think
that He's like us? When the furnace of affliction
gets hot and we feel as though we can't endure the heat, we
foolishly think that God cannot hold us up under the fiery trial. That's because we think He's
like us. Lord, I know that You can do everything. Everything. And that no fault can be withheld
from You. And if our labor in this life
becomes hard and we feel that we cannot endure it, in doing
so, do we dare dream that God cannot give us the strength that
we need for the task? Is that not because we imagine
Him to be like us? How can we be so foolish as to
think that the power of God is diminished by our weakness? We're
as fickle as the weather. But do we dare think that God
changes as we do? He doesn't. He doesn't. There is no variableness or shadow
of turning than Him. Not even a shadow of it. Well,
we think we can't overcome sin. We think that we can't walk in
the light as He is in the light. We think that we cannot be holy
and blameless. Why? Because we only think of
what we can't do and not of what God can do for us and in us.
Yes, Christ did say without me you can do nothing. But are we
without him? All things are possible to him
that believe. And it's here that we also bring
shame upon ourselves. God is not like us. God is nothing
like us. We can't even believe without
him giving us understanding. John said it best when he said,
and we know that the Son of God has come and hath given us an
understanding that we may know Him that is true. Apart from
divine revelation, apart from God giving us an understanding
of who He is, we can't even believe Him and trust Him. He's nothing
like us. Nothing like us. God is true,
and every man a liar. Are we gonna believe what God
says, or are we gonna believe what man says? Are we gonna follow
man, or are we gonna follow God? Faith is God's gift, and yet
all men have not faith. But as many as were ordained
to eternal life believed. So let me ask you a question
in closing. Do you believe what you heard
today? Do you smell the sweet fragrance of life unto life?
Do you see that it is God who saves by His sovereign grace
and that we who are dead and trespasses in sin can do nothing? If you can say yes to those things,
then thank the Giver of your faith. Now thanks be unto God,
which always, always causes us to triumph in Christ. Oh, don't
you love that? And he maketh manifest the savor
of his knowledge by us in every place. Tell others about this
God. He ain't nothing like me. May
God be pleased to bless you according to the preaching of his word.