Good morning, good to see you
here today, and we welcome those who are joining us via live streaming
as well. As you can see, our pastor's
out. He's visiting family in Kentucky and will be back in
the pulpit next Sunday. So y'all pray for me as I stand
in today. Over the past few weeks, we've
all seen the many nativity scenes that are typically displayed
this time of year. reminding us that those who profess to
be of the Christian faith, they pay special attention during
this season of the year to the historical birth of Jesus Christ,
the one born in a manger over 2,000 years ago. But once you
get past the historical facts of his birth, there exists a
real smorgasbord of doctrinal opinions, and that's what they
are, regarding who he was and is and what, if anything, he
accomplished by his birth and death and resurrection from the
dead. But as you know, it's not our
opinions that matter. In fact, if you think about the
clear scriptural assertion that says to us that we're all born
spiritually dead, without the spiritual faculties of life in
spiritual darkness, well, that should tell us that our opinions,
they must, and they will be changed if we're to be delivered out
of that spiritual darkness by God's grace. So that should cause
us to more diligently seek to understand what God's word has
to say about Jesus Christ, who he is, what he accomplished.
As the scripture also asserts, none know God the Father but
through the person and work of God the Son. So we know that
to some, the significance of that baby born in a manger lies
merely in the fact that he grew up to be a perfect, sinless example
by which we should pattern our lives. Others, they believe that
by his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus actually made it possible
for sinners to be eternally saved, but go on to imagine that that's
only so if they do their part, so as to make the real difference
in whether they're ultimately saved or not. And I was thinking
about these many sinful thoughts or the sinful lack of thoughts
concerning Jesus Christ, and I recalled a scene from the movie
Talladega Nights, The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. That was a somewhat
irreverent satirical comedy, a spoof, where the main character,
played by Will Ferrell, Ricky Bobby, is a caricature, if you
would, of a southern redneck stop car driver. In one scene
at the dinner table one night, Ricky Bobby is returning grace
before the meal. And he begins his prayer with,
dear baby Jesus. And he repeatedly addresses the
one to whom he's praying as baby Jesus this and baby Jesus that. And that, an argument then ensued
as to who he should be praying to, what Jesus he should be praying
to. And Ricky Bobby, he makes it clear that he preferred the
cute little baby in the manger instead of the hairier adult
version. And I know some may be offended
by that, and it's irreverent for sure. But that scene was presented
in a silly and a comical way so as to not necessarily suggest
to the audience that any reasonable person would have such a ridiculous
and narrow view of Christ as being no more than a baby Jesus.
And granted, I think the Holy Savior's name shouldn't be invoked
in such a frivolous manner. So why do I introduce this with
this fictional movie? It's because I want to emphasize
to you today from the get-go that I'm going to assert that
there are real life notions of Jesus, of his person and work. Views that are held, sadly, by
the vast majority of Christendom, so-called Christendom. Views
that are, I think, are indeed just as offensive just as irreverent,
just as shameful, just as dishonoring to the God of the Bible as that
obvious, ridiculous, fictional example I just mentioned. I'm
speaking of doctrinal views that are not just in error, but that
actually deny the God of the Bible, and that's idolatry. That's
to imagine God to be altogether different than the one living
and true God of the Bible. And I hope to show you that today
as I speak on this topic, the repentance from idolatry. And
if you want to turn to our text, I'll be preaching from 1 Thessalonians
1. By God's grace, through the work
of the Holy Spirit, those who are saved change gods. And I
want us to see that that's the essence of the initial repentance
experienced by all of God's adopted children in Christ. They repent,
not just of doctrinal error, though, like me, it may include
that. They repent, not just of their
sins and shortcomings, though they do, and that on an ongoing
basis. They repent, not just from a former lifestyle of immorality
or of spiritual indifference, although some do, but a distinguishing
characteristic, of all true Christians is that they repent of their
former idolatry. And to help illustrate this,
I'm going to show how my own former doctrine, teachings concerning
Christ that remain popular today, How they were not just in error,
but how by God's grace it was exposed to me that the God, little
g, that I once worshipped, the God of my imagination, was no
God at all. And I know that's a bold assertion
and offensive to some. Many of my friends and your friends
and family and acquaintances, they still adhere to such false
doctrine. The most obvious one being still
that many believe the myth that was passed on to many of us that
God loves everyone in the world, that Jesus Christ came and died
for the sins of everyone that ever lived. And listen, I enjoy
the fellowship. Some of the, I'm talking about,
I've got close friends who believe as I once did. And it's partly
because I really do care about them that I cannot enter into
a religious fellowship with them. See, because I don't dare encourage
anyone to continue on what I discovered to be the broad road that leads
to destruction. And it was thoughts like this
that prompted a question that led me to this topic today. And
that's this, how can many of those who do agree with us on
many true doctrinal facts, such as the truth of particular redemption
that I just mentioned to name one, And yet they can count so
many others to be of like-minded faith, even though their doctrine
stands diametrically opposed to theirs. How is it they can
do what many of us can't, embrace them as fellow Christians? Does
doctrine matter? You know, recently, not long
ago, anyway, was invited to speak before another group, and I told
them, you know, I don't agree. You're gonna hear things contrary
to your church's doctrine. They said, oh, that doesn't matter.
Doctrine doesn't matter to us. Well, does doctrine matter? God
says it does. In 2 John 9, he said, 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. So doctrine certainly
matters. So what gives? What's the missing
element among those who adhere to similar true biblical teachings
and yet who can readily count others as fellow believers, others
who stand opposed to their doctrine? And I believe the answer lies
in this morning's topic, repentance. You see, they may have repented
of something. But God has yet to grant them
genuine faith in the initial repentance from their own idolatry,
the repentance which always accompanies genuine God-given faith. Apart
from this work of the Holy Spirit upon the heart, you know, we
don't even recognize the idol from which we need to repent.
So where this repentance is absent, We can know that Spirit's yet
to change their hearts and minds, not yet having convinced them
of sin and righteousness and judgment. That's how God describes
the Spirit's powerful work in regeneration and conversion in
the new birth in John chapter 16. And I know I'm making some
rather bold assertions that I'm not, haven't backed up yet, so
enough of my assertions. Let's see, check out God's assertions. Look with me in 1 Thessalonians
1. Here we're given distinguishing characteristics that are true
of all who are saved, all who've been given spiritual life. Beginning
verse one, we read, Paul and Silvanus, or Silas, and Timotheus,
Timothy, unto the church of the Thessalonians, which is in God
the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ, grace be unto you and
peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give
thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in
our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and
labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ,
in the sight of God and our Father. And look with me now at verse
four. Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. A literal
reading of that verse would be knowing, brethren beloved of,
or brethren beloved by God, knowing your election. And as we go now
through the rest of the chapter, Paul tells them how he knows
them to be among those chosen unto salvation in Christ from
before the foundation of the world, God's elect. Beginning
in verse five, saying, four, are because our gospel came not
unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost,
and in much assurance, as you know what manner of men we were
among you for your sake. That word power is the same Greek
word we find that's translated power also in Romans 1 16 where
Paul wrote for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it
is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth to
the Jew first and also to the Greek. It's a Greek word deutomus
from which we get our word dynamite. So the gospel, he says here in
1 Thessalonians 1, says it came not in word only, but in miraculous
power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. It blows
things up. It turns your world upside down.
It's not just the mental agreement with the doctrinal facts of the
gospel, but it goes to the heart, to our very inner being, to our
minds, our affections, our wills. The Holy Spirit given us a new
heart and a love for this newfound truth. And it says here, it came
in much assurance. You know, by the work of the
Spirit, these believers, as is true of all believers, they embrace
with the heart what they came to know to be the only sure and
certain way of salvation. Salvation by grace. See, that's
a way that cannot fail because it's completely conditioned on
the infallible Savior. What could be more assured? Continuing
in our text in verse six, Paul goes on to say, and ye became
followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much
affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost. You received the word
in affliction. He's saying you didn't just gain
a mere, a little higher knowledge, but able to avoid the offense
of the cross. Now, when the gospel came to
you, you received something that would cause others to oppose
you, at least when it came to religion, especially if they
figure out how you now judge what you yourself once believed,
which by implication tells them you fear for their eternal well-being
if they're of same, like-minded, false faith that you were. Verse
seven, he goes on, so that ye were in samples to all that believe
in Macedonia and Achaia. Now, that word in samples is
translated from a Greek word that means a dye or a stamp or
a pattern. And so we can conclude here,
Paul is describing identifying characteristics of all true believers.
They were a pattern. It's much like what Paul wrote
to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1 16 when he said, how be it for this
cause I obtain mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show
forth all longsuffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter
believe on him to life everlasting. So here now he's telling these
believers in Thessalonica that likewise they are a pattern to
all that believe. So he's saying, Paul's saying,
we can know your election, as he said in verse four, because
as in samples, they possess the identifying characteristics of
believers. They fit the pattern. And they
have responded in these ways he is describing here that are
characteristic of all true believers. Yes, it's not uncommon for kinfolks
to resemble one another. And here we see that all who
are translated into the kingdom, as children of the king, spiritually
having a kinsman redeemer in Jesus Christ, their substitute,
their surety. They bear resemblance to one
another in this sense. They fit the pattern of those
who believe. And as we read here, even to
all that believe. And so as such, unless and until
we possess these identifying characteristics, we have no warrant
to presume ourselves to be among the beloved of God as one of
his elect. chosen unto salvation in Jesus
Christ. It continues in verse eight,
saying, four, because from you sounded out the word of the Lord,
not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your
faith to God is spread abroad, so that we need not to speak
of anything. That is, they knew their election by the gospel
they identified with, the gospel they preached, the gospel they
promoted elsewhere. it being the one and the same
that had been delivered to them by Paul. It's the gospel of how
God saves sinners through Jesus Christ alone. And then look at
verse nine, he said, for they themselves, that is, those fellow
believers to whom their faith toward God had been spread abroad,
he says, they show of us what manner of entering in we had
unto you. In other words, how we were received.
And look at this, and how ye turn to God from idols to serve
the living and true God. You know, few in our day will
admit to ever having been an idolater. And that's because
we won't naturally recognize our own idolatry, not apart from
the work of God's spirit in our hearts. But consider with me
how even our first religious thoughts, when we get serious
about our eternal destiny, expose us to be idolaters. I've said
this in the past. It's even evident, I think, when
we consider children such as some of ours who are fortunate
to be raised in a church where sound gospel doctrine has been
taught. Well, how is it they repent of
an idolater if they've been taught a rite from their youth up? Well,
recall the account of the Philippian jailer in Acts 16. When God started
drawing him to himself, when he first sought salvation, he
asked Paul and Silas the question that's really just natural to
us all. Sirs, what must I do to be saved? What must I do to
be saved? You see, no matter What we may
have been taught, you grow up in a church where you're hearing
the truth. Salvation's by grace. There's nothing you can do to
be saved. But the Bible says we must be given spiritual life,
faculties, ears to hear and eyes to see. So it's coming in our
physical ear, maybe going out the other one. And then one day,
if hopefully we get serious, And if God's spirit doesn't work
in us, when that gospel is applied, it dispels that notion of that
natural question, that there must be something I can do. For
example, take the doctrine of election. It's preached here,
okay? And somebody here, you may hear
it, you may hear it, but still the first natural question, you're
gonna say, well, what do I have to do to be one of them? It's
just our sinful inclination to imagine we can do something to
save ourselves, but when the gospel is applied, it dispels
that. It tells us, it shows to us that
would be to usurp the role of the savior. That would be to
presume we're the ones powerful enough to save ourselves and
not the God as we imagine him to be. You see, the one who's
really unable to save according to our our previous way of thinking,
unless we cooperate, unless we do something to seal the deal.
I noted earlier in John 16, Christ said the Spirit comes and convinces
those who are saved of sin and righteousness and judgment. And
the next verse he said, of sin, because they believe not on me. See, to think you're saved or
that anyone else could be saved. because of anything you do, or
any decision you make, anything that proceeds from you, see,
is to trust in that, is to trust in your doing for salvation.
That's not trusting in the doing and dying of the Savior. So to
think I'm saved because I believed something about Christ, that's
not believing on Christ for salvation. That's faith in faith. So when
Paul answered that jailer by telling him, he said, what must
I do? He says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
He was correcting the mistaken presumption that was embodied
in the question. As if to say, oh, there's nothing you can do
to be saved. You got to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. You got to believe on his doing
and dying. Now, how do I know that? So,
because the gospel of God's grace says it's all conditioned on
the Lord Jesus Christ. For by grace are you saved through
faith and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. No one will knowingly continue
in idolatry. Yeah, I mean, that just would
make no sense. We won't worship, place our eternal
destiny in what we know to be a false god, a false refuge,
an idol. But it does take the revelation
of God-given faith in the new birth, with its accompanying
faculties of spiritual life, in order for any of us to even
perceive the reality of our former idolatry. The Bible teaches that
repentance, a radical change of heart and mind, a 180-degree
reversal, must and does take place in the hearts and minds
of God's elect in each successive generation when the gospel comes
to them in power, in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance.
The scripture's clear. We read twice in the book of
Proverbs that there's a way that seemeth right to a man, but the
end thereof are the ways of death. It ends in death, destruction.
what seems right. So clearly for the saved, there
must be a U-turn taken somewhere along life's journey. We often
quote from Acts 17, 31. In Acts 17, you know, Paul's
given his famous sermon there on Mars Hill to the Greek philosophers
in Athens. And when he gets down to verse
30, we see God saying, Paul quotes how God now commandeth all men
everywhere. not just some men, all men everywhere
to repent. And he tells us in verse 31 why.
He says, because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge
the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained
or of he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath
raised him from the dead. That's a righteousness we're
going to be judged by that we can't produce, the righteousness
of God. So the standard by which all
are judged, he's telling us, is the perfect, justice-satisfying
merits of the obedience unto death of Jesus Christ. That's
his righteousness. And we're assured of that by
his resurrection. Because just as sin demands death,
the wages of sin is death, righteousness demands life. Grace reigns through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. The
sins of God's elect imputed to, put to the account of Jesus Christ,
demanded his death as just payment for their sin debt, the debt
which he willingly incurred. And his perfect work of righteousness
demanded that he come out of that grave, that he live, along
with all those whom he represented, all those for whose sins he died,
those to whom his righteousness is imputed or put to their account.
What an exchange. He made him to be sin for us
that knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. So based upon an imputed righteousness,
all for whom he died, they live. They'll live both in time and
the day of his power, spiritually and everlasting. And so when
the Holy Spirit attends the gospel message with power, with that
dynamite that changes everything as it pertains to our thoughts
of God and how sinners are saved, that's our gospel, we then align
with God's standard of judgment. See, we find we've got to have
his very righteousness. Nothing else will do. Not when
I've been convinced of sin, righteousness, and judgment. We find that we have to have
that righteousness, which Paul said in Romans 1, is the power
of God unto salvation, as he added in verse 17 of chapter
1 in Romans 4, or because therein is the righteousness of God revealed. Just as God, he commanded in
Acts 17 30, commanded all men everywhere to repent. In 2 Peter
3 9, we're told it's his will. that all of his beloved, that's
in the context back in verse 8 of 2 Peter 3, we see that's
who he's addressing, his beloved, his elect. We're told in verse
9 it's his will that all of his elect repent. It says, the Lord
is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness,
but his longsuffering to usward. not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance." So we have God, He commands repentance. And we see it's His will that
all of His chosen children in Christ, they will repent. And
listen, God's will that they all come to repentance cannot
go unfulfilled. It cannot be thwarted. God's
will shall be done. If you worship a God who wills
and purposes something that does not come about, that's no God
at all. In the Romans, one passage that I mentioned, we see faith
there is depicted as a revelation of God. When he said, for therein
is the righteousness of God revealed, he said, from faith to faith. Reveal from faith to faith, from
that objective body of truth, the gospel, the faith, to your
believing of it, subjective faith. So by faith, the sinner turns
to God. Now if we turn to something which
beforehand had not yet been revealed, then of necessity we return away
from the direction we were heading, down a broad road that leads
to destruction wherein we blindly worship an idol of our imagination. There are as many different idols
as there are false notions about God. But I think we can learn
something about what is common about the nature of the idolatry
that all believers turn from if we'll consider this description
in 1 Thessalonians 1 9 of what God's elect are brought to turn
toward. Here Paul says he knows they
are elect of God because they have turned to God from idols
to serve the living and true God. Living and true God. For your God to be true, He must
possess the qualities of character that are true of deity. For God
to be God, he must be sovereign. He's in control. He must be just. He must be love. He must be all-powerful. He must be all-knowing. He must
be immutable. He must be infinitely great,
holy, in every attribute of character. And you know, many like myself
in years past, I would have said all those things were true of
God. I presumed to ascribe to my God, little G, these character
attributes, and yet in my ignorance of the reality of, and the necessity
of having that righteousness of God imputed to me, that perfect
satisfaction which Christ alone established at Calvary, That
righteousness which is revealed if and when the gospel comes
to us in power and the Holy Spirit and in much assurance. See, in
that ignorance, they expose that they're God, like my God in years
past. God as we perceived him to be,
he is not acting. He is not living according to
his true attributes. So they assume God will save
sinners in ways that actually deny The very attributes they
think they agree belong to the one true God. Now think about
that. Like me in years past, in our
spiritual blindness, we're walking contradictions. I mean, we don't
call God, for example, unjust, but everything we believe about
how he saves sinners says, I worship an unjust God. And we don't see
that apart from the work of the spirit. It's not because we're
stupid. It's because we don't have spiritual life. We don't
have spiritual eyes, hearts, ears. So I want us to consider
this morning how some of the attributes are unwittingly denied,
but nonetheless denied by the majority of so-called Christians
who tragically insist, as I once did, that Christ died for everyone. And I use that because it's still
such a popular heresy today, and an easy one to show how any
false gospel equates to us worshiping an idol. Consider his sovereignty. To say that God is sovereign
is to say God is God. He's in control. It's to acknowledge,
as we read in Daniel 4.35, that he does according to his will
in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth
so that none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? In Ephesians 1.11, we're told
God worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.
In Isaiah 46, verses 9 and 10, God says, remember the former
things of old, for I am God, and there is none else. He said,
I am God, and there is none like me. And how does he distinguish
himself in the next verse? Declaring the end from the beginning. And from ancient times, the things
that are not yet done, saying, my counsel, his counsel is his
purpose contrived by infinite wisdom. He says, my counsel shall
stand, and I will do all my pleasure. Now how different is this sovereign
God of the Bible from the God of modern day Christianity? The
God I once worshipped, you know, I now know was really a helpless
being. He was an object to be pitied
rather than revered. To believe that the one you presume
to be God is not sovereign in any areas is to believe a false
God is an idol. You know, many, like me, would
concede that, oh, God's a sovereign. He's in control. I know he's
still on the throne, but whoa, not in salvation now. They preach
that God the Father purposed the salvation of all mankind,
that God the Son died trying and with the express intention
of saving the whole human race, and that God the Holy Spirit
is trying hard to win the whole world to Christ. And this is
where that walking contradiction comes in. You know, even at that
time when I thought that, I would admit that the great majority
of men and women are dying in sin without Christ, most not
even professing to be a Christian, passing into an hopeless eternity,
which makes that God an abject failure, unable to fulfill what
he purposed. I remember an invitational song
our church choir used to sing. The lyrics began with, the Savior
is waiting to enter your heart. Oh, won't you let him come in?
That communicates that God wants to save you, but that you're
actually the sovereign over your own salvation. See, to deny the
sovereignty of God in salvation, first of all, is to call God
a liar. When he said in Romans 9, 15, he said, I will have mercy
on whom I will have mercy. And not only that, it's to embark
on a road that ends with atheism because a God who's not sovereign,
he's no God at all, certainly not worthy of being worshipped.
And that's because sovereignty characterizes his whole being.
He's sovereign in the exercise of all his attributes. He sovereignly
exercises his power, his mercy, his love, his grace. But sadly,
many presume the will of their creator is subordinate to the,
quote, sacred free will of the creature. Consider the justice
of God that I mentioned earlier. God is just. But think of what
believing that Christ died for the sins of all mankind implies,
knowing that many of these will perish in hell. Now, think of
that. Only an unjust and ruthless monster
would send any folks to hell whose sin debt allegedly had
already been paid by the infinitely valuable blood of Jesus Christ? I mean, does God laugh at derision
and say, I know I sent my son and he gave the most valuable
payment of all for your sins, but I'm gonna send you on to
hell anyway? See, it exposes, that exposes an erroneous concept
of God, which by default requires us to view him as unjust whether
we recognize it or not. You know, in our spiritual blindness,
we don't recognize these slanderous assaults that our doctrine, our
gospel is making upon God. And I know exactly how many would
reply to this, because this is how I replied to it. Well, they'd
say, well, either I choose to not think about it that way,
or as I remember saying when God was doing the work, for me,
I said, I just didn't think about it like that. And our pastor,
I remember gently telling me, that's my point. He said, that's
what it is to have no fear of God before your eyes, Randy.
He said, it's to have no regard for the honor of God's character.
You're busy worrying about what you need to do to make sure you're
going to get yourself into heaven. Accepting, he didn't, he was
much more gentle than I'm being on myself, but the truth is,
that's what I got out of it. Here I was trying to figure out
what I needed to do. Make sure I had accepted Christ
with no regard for how could a holy God accept me? just didn't
think about it. Consider his love. As mere mortals,
you know, we'll engage all we are, every attribute of our own
being, to ensure the well-being of those we love. I see parents
and grandparents here who I have no doubt would give your life
if you had to, to save your child or your grandchild. You've heard
this illustration, I think, before, but I think it bears repeating. Here, consider a young mother,
and she's sitting by the pool with her toddler. And the toddler,
he hadn't learned to swim yet. And she keeps warning little
Johnny, you know, don't go up to the edge of the pool. And
of course, like a toddler, you know, I got to go up to the edge of
the pool now. And he gets too close and stumbles
and falls in. Now this mom, let's say she was
a former lifeguard. So she makes a wise decision.
She dives in and rescues her child as you would expect her
to do. Can you possibly imagine That young mother, wise, capable
enough to save her child, just opting not to do so, to let her
beloved child drown simply because it was, I guess, his own free
will decision to get too close. And she had warned him, but he
got too close to the fool's edge. Well, that would be an unfit
mother, wouldn't it? And that's exactly what today's
popular misconception of how God saves sinners implies about
God, that he's unfit to be God. It says he fails to save many
of the objects of what they'll call his unchanging, everlasting
love. This accuses God of one or more
of the following. Think of it. If we assume he
loves everyone, including those he condemns to hell, then he
must not be all-knowing. are wise enough to foresee the
obstacles to their salvation. And I would have said, no, no,
I know, I've been taught God, he's omniscient, he's all knowing,
he's all wise. Well then, if it's not that,
it must be presumed that if, excuse me, if he loves everyone,
including all those that perish, he must not be powerful enough
to overcome the obstacles, their stubborn will, you know, and
the difficulties in order to save them. It must not be a God
who makes them willing in the day of his power, you see. You
say, no, I was told he was all-powerful. He's omnipotent. Well, what am
I left with if it's not that? What about his love? Certainly
not a perfect, unconditional, unchangeable, and everlasting
love. It's actually a worthless love. Here we imagine is to imagine
God is infinitely wise and powerful. But he just chooses not to intervene
and engage his power and his wisdom to ensure the well-being
of these that he presumably loves with a perfect love, allowing
many of them to perish according to their will, leaving what many
believe to be God's own will as nothing more than an unfulfilled
pipe dream. I hope you can see how such deadly
misconceptions of God's way of salvation. In other words, a
false gospel, any way other than the way that's grounded upon
his righteousness imputed. You see, not the doctrine of
Christ, but any false gospel is a denial of God himself and
thereby equates to idolatry. We can go on. What about his
immutability? In Malachi 3, 6, God says, I'm
the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. He equates his immutability with
their salvation. He changes not, but a reactionary
God, one who reacts to the sinner's decision, you see, by definition,
has to be changing his mind, I guess, in response to what
he learned. What about his holiness? God's holy. You know, holiness
is the excellency of the divine nature. It speaks of the perfection
of every attribute of his character. In other words, his justice,
it's a holy justice. That means it's constant, it's
perfect, it's unerring. His wisdom's a holy wisdom, and
so on. So here you can see that denying
the perfection of any of God's attributes is a denial of who
he is. And that's an idol to be repented
of. Nothing, nothing but perfection and excellency can proceed from
holy God. God's character's not one-sided
as if his mercy can override everything else, as if he's going
to set aside his holiness or his justice or be less than all-powerful
or all-knowing so that he can show mercy and save us, not according
to God's gospel, but in the way that fallen men and women naturally
would choose to be saved by something they do or some decision they
make. so as to make the real difference in their salvation.
Now, who gets the glory in that salvation? They do. There's room to both. Contrary
to the scripture that says, he that glorieth, let him glory
in the Lord. To worship God that does not
save, so as, does not act, excuse me, in a way, live, so as to
save sinners in a way consistent with what must be true about
God, that's to worship an idol. being ignorant of, not submitted
to the righteousness of God that's set forth in the gospel. We're
told in Romans 10, one through four, is by default to be going
about to try to meet the condition yourself, to establish a righteousness
of your own. And in that ignorance, you see,
they worship a God who cannot save. That's how God described
the idol in Isaiah 45. See, for the one living and true
God, He cannot save any sinner at the expense of even one of
His holy attributes. The only way, the only way, God
can be true to who He is, be both a just God and a merciful
Savior. is through the amputation of
the righteousness that Christ single-handedly established in
perfect satisfaction to God the Father's law and justice. That
righteousness that we've seen is revealed in God's gospel of
grace, that gospel that is believed by every elect, justified sinner
by the power of God the Holy Spirit. You see, the living and
true God To summarize that is one, he's true, true to all of
the impeccable qualities of character that belong only unto God. And two, as a living God, God
exercises all of those qualities of character on behalf of all
the objects of his everlasting love. So what about those I mentioned
at the onset who would agree with true gospel doctrine? who,
I guess as the prophet put it, was cry, peace, peace, where
there is no peace. In other words, count others
saved who deny the gospel doctrine of Christ. Well, the only conclusion
is they have yet to recognize their own idolatry, so as to
repent. Even though they may intellectually
agree with many true gospel doctrinal facts, though perhaps more well
learned than others, They expose the absence of the spiritual
faculties whereby they can discern. A natural man cannot discern
the things of the Spirit of God. They can't discern the evil,
the idolatrous faults of God that automatically accompany
belief in a false gospel, a false way of salvation. If they had
repented of their own former idolatry, they could not count
those who oppose God's gospel to be of the same household of
faith. I guess it's really simple to me. If you woke up at night
and you looked out the window and you saw your dear neighbor's
house was on fire, would you call him up and say, I just want
to tell you good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs
bite? No, you'd warn them of the imminent danger they were
in, but not if you didn't see the danger for yourself. So see,
to some, the gospel does come to them in word only. Clearly,
gospel facts can be learned apart from being taught of God through
the powerful, regenerating, converting work of the Holy Spirit. And
the accumulation of right knowledge, a mere intellectual ascent to
truth, by itself provides no reason to be concerned for the
souls of others, no reason to endure the offense of the cross,
Certainly not others if you just imagine they just simply haven't
advanced to your higher level of learning. And you know, absent
the work of the Spirit, that kind of knowledge would only
serve to feed our sinful pride, wouldn't it? But there's some
good news. You know, leave that idol behind
because there's a living and true God. Think of that. That
means there's one who has engaged all that he is, infinite power,
wisdom, justice, mercy, every other holy attribute, to ensure
eternal life for all the objects of his infinite, everlasting,
and unconditional love through his Son, Jesus Christ. So I pray
God's Spirit will do a hard work for someone who hears this message.
the work that he so graciously visits on all of God's elect
at his appointed time, a work I hope and pray he's already
done for you. And we pray this so that God might receive all
the glory, that Jesus Christ might be exalted and receive
all the preeminence, that boasting in the saved center might be
excluded, and so like Paul, we can rejoice with him and enter
into religious fellowship As he put it, knowing of their election
by this distinguishing mark, because they too have turned
to God from idols to serve the living and true God. Thank you.