more times that the Lord will
give me the opportunity to declare the unsearchable riches of Christ. We all know that our days upon
this earth are numbered by him. Our times are appointed. He has
appointed our bounds that we cannot pass. And we do not know how long that
may be or how short it might be. But it is my desire, regardless
of if it be a long time or a short time, that every time that I open my
mouth, that I might speak forth the
glories of Him who is the Savior of sinners, who has died to redeem us, to
deliver us from certain destruction. I was blessed as Brother Al shared
the word that the Lord had given him. And I thought as he began
there speaking about Noah, And the scripture plainly says that the whole world
was in darkness and rebellion against the Lord. And he didn't find any righteous
before him. There was no righteousness. None. Not even Noah. You know, usually
in the movies and things when they depict Noah, And he's, you
know, that he's this righteous man. He's going about doing all
these good things. And the Lord says, yep, there's
old Noah down there. I think I'll pick him out and
he can build the ark. There's no indication that that
is a true thing. But there is that which we know
about Noah, one thing. And the scripture says Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. And dear brethren, that's the
only thing that makes a difference between one man and another.
There's no good that dwells within us. We can't boast of anything. Brother Ed and I were, Discussing
that as we made our journey yesterday to go up and visit with Sister
Mert Harris and some other dear ladies there in the assisted
living facility up in Moultrie. And, you know, we were, by nature, We're always looking
for some comparison that we can make between ourselves and others. And we always like to make a
favorable comparison. You ever notice that? I mean,
that's usually what we're trying to do. When we get to looking
at somebody and scrutinizing them, we're trying to, we don't
really care about them. What we really care about is
us because we're looking at them and maybe their transgressions
or whatever, their failures and faults and whatever. And we're
looking at them in order that we might feel good about ourselves.
Well, we don't have anything to feel good about. And the only
thing that we can glory in is Christ. He's the Savior of sinners,
and He saves such as call upon His name. What a glorious Savior
He is. In 2 John, where we've been looking
for a few weeks, beginning in verse seven. It
says, for many deceivers are entered into the world who confess
not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. This is a deceiver
and an antichrist. Look to yourselves that we lose
not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive
a full reward. Whosoever transgresseth and abideth
not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. He that abideth
in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the
Son. If there come any unto you and
bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither
bid him God's speed. For he that biddeth him God's
speed is partaker of his evil deeds. Having many things to
write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink, but I trust
to come unto you and speak face to face that our joy may be full. The children of thy elect sister
greet thee. Amen. Now many deceivers are
entered into the world. We talked a little bit about
that last week. And there's really, only two
religions in the world. One is the religion of free will,
and the other is that of free grace. That's a dividing line. Now I didn't say, in saying that,
that everybody that's on the one side or the other has a perfect
understanding of what the ramifications of all of that means. But what
I do mean by that is that there is no salvation in anything that
men can do. And if men believe that there
is, they are outside of the knowledge of the truth of Almighty God. It is a grace. And of course,
John in writing, he understands that very clearly. And he says,
many deceivers are entered into the world. Well, everybody that's
a deceiver, see a deceiver doesn't come into the world saying, hey,
I'm a deceiver. Watch out for me. You know, like
the old guy on the commercial with the insurance that he's
mayhem. You know, he comes out and he
says, I'm mayhem, you know, and he goes about doing that. Well,
deceivers don't do that. Deceivers deceive. And deception
is something that men cannot escape from, most especially
self-deception. You see, if a man is self-deceived,
if you're deceived in yourself, You cannot be rescued by anything
you do. Why? Because you were deceived.
And you can't be rescued by listening to a deceiver. But the scripture tells us how
we can know who the deceivers are. The deceivers are those
that come preaching any other message than Jesus Christ and
him crucified. If they come not with the doctrine
of Christ, then they're a deceiver. There's no mixture. There's no
part Christ and part man. It's all Christ. And those that
come saying, oh yes, it's Christ, but, any time that you hear a
man say that it's Christ, but, And he starts to describe the
things that men need to do. He is a deceiver. Now I'll say
this, all deceivers don't know they're deceivers. All deceivers
don't set out to deceive. But all deceivers nonetheless
do deceive men. And John says many are entered
into the world from the beginning. The Lord put a deceiver into
the world. Just like Brother Al pointed
out there a moment ago about David when he took the census
and the scripture says that, and I believe this is intentional
in the way the scripture gave it one place one way so we might
understand this, is that the Lord moved And David did this thing that
he should not have done. The Lord moved and Satan brought great trouble upon Job.
But make no mistake about it, Job never said, Satan has done
this. What did he say? The Lord. The
Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Now it is indeed true that
a deceiver was in the garden, but he was put there by God in
order to fulfill God's purpose. And all things that transpire
in the world are according to God's purpose. Let no man say
when he is tempted, I'm tempted of God. But what's he tempted?
How's he tempted? How's a man tempted to turn away? Because of his own nature. See,
you don't have to have somebody to turn you aside. You're already
going that way. You need somebody to turn you
to the right way. You don't need anybody to turn
you to the wrong way. You know, it's not like you're
going along the right way and somebody gets you off the track.
No, you're going the wrong way and apart from the grace of God
to put you on the right track, you will perish. You'll keep
right on going, right off the edge. And there are deceivers who are
entered into the world. according to the purpose of God. And what men do is they try to
blame God. Well, Lord, if you hadn't put the serpent
here, I wouldn't have ever listened to him. And Lord, if you hadn't
given me the woman, I wouldn't have done this. Lord,
I was content, I was happy. I'd have served you all days
of my life, but you did it, Lord, you called. No, the Lord showed
Adam what he was. He said, in the day that you
eat this tree, you will perish. He didn't say if you eat it. He
said you will. Now a lot of people get all upset
about that. Hey, oh my, well let me tell
you something, who made you from the dust of the earth? And if
he made you from the dust of the earth, he can do and make
you whatever he wills to make you. That's what the scripture
says. Shall the thing formed say to
him that made it, made it? Why hast thou made me thus? Can
a man blame God for his own transgression? Listen, a man has no grounds
or basis upon which to stand to blame God for anything. How
can you blame God? I mean, in order to blame somebody,
you have to be in a position of higher authority than them. You have to be in a position
of a greater moral standing than they are to place blame on somebody. No, you can't blame God because
you don't have any standing. You can't go to the Supreme Court
in this land. Well, as you got standing, they
laugh at you. If you said, hey, I want you
justices to decide my case, they'd say, get out of here. You got
no reason to be here. How much more? The potsherds
of the earth can come before the Lord and say, well, Lord,
if you hadn't made us like this, we wouldn't be like this. How
foolish is that? But yet that's the thinking of
men, because men will always try to make themselves righteous. You know what Adam did? He said,
well, Lord, I'm good, Lord, and it was the woman. No. There are many deceivers going
into the world, and anybody that will tell you that you have one
speck of righteousness or ability to gain one speck of righteousness
on your own with anything you think, say, or do is a deceiver. You know what, that causes some
people to get mad, but it causes the children of God, whom the
Lord has awakened to see the truth, to fall down on their
faces and say, oh God, Be merciful to me, a sinner. Lord, I can't do anything to
help myself. I'm done for, Lord, if you don't
help me. Like blind Bartimaeus, Jesus,
thou son of David, have mercy on me. He couldn't do it. He couldn't make himself see. He couldn't even get the Lord
to stop. He had no power. But you see, the Lord had the
power to stop. Bartimaeus, he could have cried
all day. He didn't have the power to make
the Lord Jesus stop. I mean, think of all the cacophony
of sounds and things that was going on, and the Lord passing
through all of that, and yet, what did he hear? He heard the
cry of a sinner! because he knew right where blind
Bartimaeus was sitting because he went down that road that he
might pass by. I mean, he could have went down
any road he wanted to, could he not? But he went down that
road where that blind man was sitting. And he heard him. And the scripture says one of
the most glorious things. It says, and Jesus stood still. Oh, what a glorious thing. Jesus stood still. What made him stop? Well, we
know he stopped according to his own will, but he stopped.
In as far as we can understand and see, and him as walking down
that pathway, as a man, he stopped because he heard cry of a person
in need. The Lord doesn't do anything
because of what we do. But we do what we do because
the Lord does what he does. Now, that's a glorious thing. You know, Bartimaeus didn't know
it at the time, did he? But later on, he came to understand
that the Lord made him blind so that he might sit by a roadside. Now, if he hadn't been born blind,
he wouldn't have known he was blind, would he? Huh? What if
he could have seen? Would he have been sitting by
the roadside? No, he wouldn't have. But he was blind. And because he was blind, the
Lord healed him. There's joy in heaven over a
sinner that repented. There's no joy in heaven over
those that are righteous. Of course, in the first place,
there's not anybody but those that think they are. For many deceivers entered into
the world who confess not that Jesus Christ has come in the
flesh. And we talked about that a little bit last week. See,
it wasn't that they didn't believe in the Savior, they just didn't
believe this was the one who was the Savior. See, they didn't
believe that this man Jesus was Christ come in the flesh. They
didn't believe it. And men don't believe it today. Oh, they believe there was a
man named Jesus that lived. Now a lot of people think because
they believe. See, you got a lot of people
that believe that, oh yeah, I believe in Jesus. They'll tell you. Yeah, he was, You know, born
over there across the sea in Galilee. Some even say he was
born of a virgin. I mean, we like Christmas and
we hear about that at Christmastime, so we guess it's so, but yeah,
we believe it. We're not doubting that he lived
and that he died. But see, that's not to believe
that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Because to believe
that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is to believe that
he came in the flesh because he's God. He didn't come in the
flesh just because he just happened to be born. He didn't come just
since some random birth in the earth. I mean, think of all the
people that's been born. People being born right now,
there's probably some baby coming into the world right now. In many ways, they're insignificant.
Now, they're significant in their place. I mean, we're insignificant,
except we're significant to our mama and daddy and our, then
as we go on, we have children, we're significant to them. But
we have no significance in the kingdom of God, except as the
Lord's pleased to give it to us. But Jesus Christ, at most
significant, birth that ever transpired in the world. And
if a man, if you can just say, well yeah, we believe in Jesus,
and you're satisfied with that, you don't believe in him. Because
you see, to believe that Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh
is to fall down before Almighty God and say, how could this be
so? Why would you send your own begotten
son into the world to die for sinners? To pour out his blood,
not some imaginary thing. People talk about, oh yeah, Jesus
died on the cross. Well brethren, if you can speak
about Jesus Christ dying on the cross without any thought in
your mind and heart of the pain that he suffered for your sin,
If you can just pass it off, oh yeah, we believe that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I was taught as
a child, you know, I was growing up, oh, well, you need to make
a decision for Christ. If you do that, I mean, you got
it, you got everything you need, just go on in and do whatever
you wanna do. Because you're in. But see, when a man comes to
believe that Jesus Christ was born in flesh. That's to believe
that what he did, he did in the flesh, that he lived and he died
and he walked among men and is the grandest and most glorious
person who ever lived. Now the world recognizes it whether
they like it or not. Now they've changed it. You know,
used to, time used to be divided up B, C, and A, D. And now it's,
I forget what they call the, there's a current era, C, E,
which that's C, E. But guess what? When does the
current era begin? Huh? The same thing as used to
be called in the year of our Lord A.D. Anno Domini. It's the same thing. Men just don't want to give God
glory. They don't want to recognize
it. But they can't help it. Because
you see, God has purpose. that the earth and all that transpired
in the earth would have a hinge in it. And that hinge is Jesus
Christ. And all those things that occurred
before him were pointing to the fact that he would come in the
flesh. Had all that time from that. As we look back and we say, thank
God. Jesus Christ is born into the
world of sinners to pay the sinner's debt. You know, the blood of bulls
and goats could never take away sin. It didn't make any difference
how many of them that they killed and all the blood that was shed.
Now, I've heard people say, oh, well, you know, back in the Old
Testament, people's sins were taken away by the offerings under
the law. Never happened. Never one sin
was ever expiated. Now, they were walking in obedience
to the Lord, and they were right to walk in obedience to the Lord
and to do what he did, but the only reason that he gave them
these offerings to make was for the purpose of pointing them
to the one who would come and pay the sinner's debt. Because those things could never
take away sin. But God, who's rich in mercy,
with the great love wherewith he loved us, did indeed send
his son into the world to die. in the flesh for sinners. This is a deceiver
and an antichrist. Is the antichrist coming? A lot
of these so-called prophets, they tell us, man, the antichrist
is coming. He's right around the corner.
Well, I'm telling you, he's already here. He's been here since Christ
came. Deceivers. those that would tell
some other message than Jesus Christ and Him crucified, that
Jesus Christ came in the flesh, that He died for sinners, and
that in the blood that He shed, He paid for sin. See, a lot of
people just think, well, yeah, He was kind of a sin-offering,
and God did the best He could, and He made this offering, and
then He said, here, boys, if y'all will believe this, then,
you know, it'll be good for you. Otherwise, you know, it's not
gonna do you any good. Christ obtained eternal redemption. Now, I believe this is a true
thing, that he died and he shed his blood, and he purchased an
exact purchase with the blood that he shed. And every one for
whom he shed his blood has his sins remitted, not because of
anything the man did, but because of what Christ did. Everybody
knows that that's a true thing when they go into the store.
Everybody knows what buying something means. If you go in a store and
you buy something and you put it on the counter and you pay
your money, guess what? Once they've rung up that transaction
and handed you those goods, it's yours. Jesus Christ did not come
into the world to just say, I wanna buy some stuff. He didn't come and say, oh, I
hope I can save somebody. but he came into the world for
a purpose, to save his people from their sins. Oh, what a glorious
Savior he is, and you know what? He didn't just come to do it,
he did it. That's the glorious message of
the gospel, is that Christ did it. Christ paid the price for
the sins of his people. And how did he do it? He did
it in his own body, on the tree. And that's what we believe. See,
that's to believe the doctrine of Christ. That's to believe
that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. It's to believe that
he paid his people's sin debt. He satisfied the claims of the
law that was against him. And there will not be anybody
who perishes for whom Christ paid their sin debt. They belong to Him. Who are they? They're sinners. Everyone. From every corner of the world,
Scripture says, every kindred, tribe, and tongue in the earth. The Lord has a people. And He's
calling them out of the darkness and into the light. And when he awakens them by his
spirit to believe that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, then they are granted forgiveness. Not forgiveness
with him, he's already forgiven them. But dear brethren, you
see, we preach the gospel. We preach so that men might be
reconciled unto God. Now God is not at odds with his
people, never has been. He has loved his people in Christ
from the beginning. He's never been at odds with
them, but they've been at odds with him. They didn't want him. But you see, Paul said, we pray
you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled unto God. And that's
what the gospel, the preaching of the gospel, is for the reconciling
of the people of God to him, to hear the grand work that he's
done, and by the grace of God to believe it. No, you see, that's
the peace that passes understanding. as the Lord is pleased to apply
that to his heart and mind. And only the Spirit of God can
do that. For many deceivers entered into the world who confess not
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver
and an antichrist. Anything that does not give glory
to Christ is an antichrist. May we always give him all glory
and that there be no place for a man to glory. Then he says something interesting.
Look to yourselves that we lose not those things which we have
wrought, but that we receive a full reward. And what's he
saying? Is he changing gears? Is he saying,
well, it's all of grace, but that's up to you now. He's saying
the same thing that he says in every exhortation to the people.
God, the Lord Jesus said, watch and pray. See, the people of God's the
only ones that's gonna be affected by an exhortation. You can't exhort the world, they
don't care. Tell them to watch and pray,
they say, eh, ain't got time for that. People of God, when
they're exhorted to watch and pray, they say, you know, that's
the truth of God. Look to yourselves. Take heed, brethren, what he
said in Hebrews, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of
unbelief. Take heed. I don't want there
to be an evil heart of unbelief in me. Oh Lord, don't let me
have an evil heart of unbelief. See, that's the cry of a child
who knows he needs the Lord. That's what the exhortation's
designed to do, is to drive us to Christ. Any exhortation in
the book is not given so that you might take stock in yourself and find a solution, but that
you might take stock in yourself and know that you have no solution
other than Christ. Examine yourselves, the scripture
says. Oh, what do you see when you examine
yourself? You see yourself as, if you're
in Christ, you see yourself as blind Bartimaeus. Lord, have
mercy on me. Help me. I need you. See, that's what it is to believe
in Christ. is to seek Him, to desire Him. That we lose not those things
which we have wrought, those things that we have believed. I don't wanna be, Paul said,
I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest after
I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway. Now,
did Paul entertain the notion that he had within himself the
power to keep himself in the faith? No. He just recognized the fact that
if the Lord doesn't keep him, he's gonna perish. And that's what the exhortations
of the scripture are given to us for. They were given to us
to stir up our minds, but not stir up our minds to rely on
ourselves and what we've done, or look and say, yeah, we've
done what we've done sufficient. You know, I often think about
when people say, yeah, you need to, you know, take stock in yourself. Well, if you take stock in yourself
and you find anything there that you can rely on, you're looking
at the wrong thing. Because when we take stock in
ourselves, we realize, brethren, we are in need of mercy. Oh, that the mercy of God might
surround us. See, the only way that a man
will lose his reward, and it doesn't say rewards, and let
me say something about this. You know, you hear in the scripture,
speaks about rewards, but we have a reward And the reward
is Christ. That's our reward. I mean, you
know, you got these people, oh, I'm laying up treasures in heaven. You know, I've got me some stuff
laid up up there, but I'm gonna have a wonderful time when I
get up there because you know, there's gonna be stars in my
crown. The only star that I want in
any crown that might be bestowed on me as the star of Christ. You know, we talked about that
as we sang some hymns yesterday with the ladies up there in the
home. And about this, there was one of the songs talked about that we wanted to wear a crown
with Christ, that we would wear a crown How was it, I don't remember,
but anyway, it said that, but I pointed out the fact that the
scripture never says, the scripture does say that the Lord does give
us a crown, but that never say that we wear the crown. We've
been given the crown, but what do we do with the crown? Cast
it down at his feet. That's what it is to believe
in Jesus Christ. It's to cast the crowns at his
feet. See, I'm glad to cast the crown
at his feet. He has indeed rewarded me. He
has blessed me. He has poured out his mercy upon
me. But I'm not gonna strut around
as though I'm something. I wanna give him glory. He alone's
worthy of glory. Why do I believe? I believe because
He wrought in me by His Spirit to believe. I could never have
believed otherwise. I'd never come to Him if He didn't
come to me. I'd have never called upon Him
if He didn't call me. May He have all the praise and
the glory. And may we be mindful that there
are many deceivers sent out into the world teaching many messages. and all of them are designed
to build up men. I mean, that's really, if you look,
and there's a lot of prominent ministries today, that their
primary goal, in fact, they'll tell you what their primary goal
is to build up men. Well, I'm telling you, that's
not what the scripture's teaching us to do. That's not what Paul
went about doing. Now, I believe this is a true
thing. that the gospel does indeed build up men. But he doesn't
build them up to rejoice in being built up. He builds them up in
order that they might rejoice in Christ. What is it to grow
in grace? Am I better today than I was
yesterday? No. But I'm growing in grace. because
every day I come to see more and more and it becomes more
apparent in my mind and heart that it is the grace of God that
constrains us. See, that's what it is to grow
in grace. It's to grow in the knowledge of Christ. to understand
that he is that one. You know, a new believer has
no complete understanding of those things. I mean, when the
Philippian jailer said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And
the apostle said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou
shalt be saved. He didn't understand much of
anything without that, but he knew one thing. And that was
that the Christ of whom these men sang and worshiped in the
midst of that prison, this was one whom the Spirit of God illuminated
his soul and mind to embrace. And he believed. And then as
time went on, I believe, He grew in grace. And every day, he came
to see more and more that it was the mercy of God that put
him in that jail that night. When he left home that morning,
he was just going to jail. Just like Brother Tom, he's just
going to jail down there. They let him out every night
though. But, you know, he had no idea
when he went down to jail that morning, that his life would
be completely upended before that day was through. But the
Lord knew. Because he was there when they
built the jail. He told them what stone to put
down first. He was with the man that mixed
up the mortar that went between the stones. And he purposed it
all that one day there'd be a sinner who said, what must I do to be
saved? And the answer's always the same.
It'll never be different. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. May the Lord help us.