Good morning, good to see you
here this morning. Some of you will recall that the last message
I preached was titled, The Peaceable Fruit of Righteousness. It was
taken from Hebrews chapter 12. Well, in preparing that message,
I searched for that phrase, the fruit of righteousness, and I
found it again in Amos chapter 6. And I was struck by its usage
there in the latter part of verse 12. where God, through his prophet,
he declares to Israel, ye have turned judgment into gall and
the fruit of righteousness into hemlock. The word hemlock refers
to a poisonous weed. And in this context, God, through
his prophet, he's exposing how the Israelites had taken the
very religion of God that had been given to them through Moses
the religion which for God's true children produces in them
the peaceable fruit of righteousness, and yet instead they had turned
it into poison, poisonous to their very souls. And with that
in mind, I've titled this message Religious Poison. When I first
turned to Amos 6, I noticed my Bible was full of notes in the
margin, and it caused me to recall that not so long ago, we heard
an excellent message on this chapter from our former passage.
So without shame, I've borrowed very liberally from him, but
I'm approaching this with a slightly different emphasis. I trust you
won't find it to be too repetitive. That said, we will once again
walk through the passage verse by verse, First, I want to share
with you what was impressed upon me in my own study, and that's
this, that as it pertains to religion, there's little argument
that each of us can accurately be described at any given time
as either being one, indifferent, or two, in ignorance, or thirdly,
in Christ. If we're indifferent about religion,
it simply means it's just not very important to us, not at
that time. We can take it or leave it. Now,
most that are indifferent about religion, they are admittedly
ignorant about it, not having taken the time to seriously consider
it. But I want you to know for our purposes today, when I speak
of those in religious ignorance, I'm not referring to the indifferent.
Rather, I'm referring to those who are religious. And granted,
folks are religious to varying degrees. There are zealots for
their religion. then there are those who practice
their religion in a way that they don't wear it on their sleeves,
so to speak. But I'm speaking of those in
ignorance. When I speak of those, I'm speaking
of all degrees of zeal, but that which is found among those who,
regardless, are truly religious, at least to some extent. They're
just religiously wrong. And I'm speaking now, there's
no debate about those who don't name the Christ for those of
us who believe this Bible. Jesus Christ said, I am the way,
the truth, and the life, and no man cometh to the Father but
by me. And for our purposes today, I'm speaking of the majority
who name the name of Christ. They are included among the many
that Christ described as traveling that broad road that leads to
I'm speaking of those who are tragically mistaken, though,
in their religion. And in reference to this ignorance,
I want you to know this has nothing to do with intellectual capacity. And in no sense am I suggesting
that those who have been delivered from this ignorance are in any
way smarter or intellectually superior. No, this ignorance,
see, describes all of us, all of us initially by nature. whether
we're indifferent or even perhaps when we became religious. The
Bible declares we all start out our physical lives on this earth
as spiritually dead centers and so spiritually void of the faculties
of life. Blind, spiritually blind, spiritually
deaf, without spiritual understanding in ignorance of God as he truly
is. As the scriptures teach by nature,
that is, the natural man, in our natural spiritually dead
state, we cannot know the things of God, for they are spiritually
discerned, 1 Corinthians 2.14. So, there are those who, one,
are indifferent, and those who are religious, but two, in ignorance,
and then thirdly, there are those who are trusting in Christ. And you know, as I think of the
audience that listens to our messages here, before you think,
thank goodness, I'm glad he's not suggesting I might be one
of those in ignorance because I'm a, quote, Christian. I want
you to consider that most of the epistles are written to warn
us of the deadly deception by those who name the name of Christ,
but who deny the vital doctrine of Christ. And they often do
so in their own ignorance. In other words, they deceive
others, not with malice perhaps, but because they're deceived
themselves. But these I'm describing as in
Christ. They're those who've been delivered from their ignorance
to see the necessity of their standing in Christ, one with
Him. Those who by God-given faith
come to trust in Christ alone for all their salvation. In other
words, a salvation based solely on his finished work of righteousness
on the cross, that being imputed or charged to their accounts,
whereby they discover they have stood for all eternity, excepted
in the beloved, the beloved Son of God, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, as I studied Amos 6, what
struck me was that both those who are one indifferent, as well
as those who worship in ignorance, They're both portrayed and described
in these verses. And that in sharp contrast to
those who are thirdly in Christ. Those who see shall without fail
enjoy the peaceable fruit of his finished work of righteousness
evidenced by their having been delivered from their indifference
or from their religious ignorance, from the poison of man's religion.
So I want you to keep those three categories in mind. As we examine
this passage, beginning in verse one, we read, woe to them that
are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which
are named chief of the nations to whom the house of Israel came. Amos here, he's addressing the
leaders of the entire nation of Israel. Zion represents the
two tribes of the southern kingdom of Judah, whereas Samaria represents
the 10 tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel. And here the
prophet declares collectively to them, woe. Woe to them that
are at ease there. Zion or Jerusalem being the principal
seat of government and religion for the southern kingdom is where
the people traveled to, just as Samaria was where those of
the northern house of Israel came. And this declaration of
woe to them, that means sad for them. Suffering and troubles
are coming their way. Great misfortune, devastation
that will be described later in this chapter, and it's directed
to those who are at ease in Zion. You know, if we see folks at
ease, folks who are doing well, we probably would declare to
them not woe, but happy, not sad. Happy must their future
be. And those at ease typically presume
the same. But here the God of truth, and
he's the only one whose judgment really matters, he's declaring
to this nation here otherwise. Not happy, but woe to them. Now
Zion is also representative of the church state. And it refers
in this specific context to Jerusalem. That's the central city of their
religion where the temple was. And it's in the mountains of
Samaria that the northern kingdom made sacrifices to their idols. So from a spiritual application,
we see in this very first verse that God's judgment is directed
to both the indifferent, those at ease, as well as those who
are religious, those who are at ease in Zion, those who are
religious but remain in spiritual darkness, in ignorance, whose
hope is a false hope, a false assurance, a presumption of being
safe, at ease. religious, see, and thinking
they're safe, religious and thinking they're saved. But to whom God
declares to them now, not so, but woe. Now in the immediate
context, this ease does speak of the comfort and the trust
they placed in their own strength, in their fortified cities, their
strongholds, and in the mountain of Samaria, thinking they were
safe and secure from all their enemies. The enemies that Amos
had been prophesying were going to come and destroy them. And
that would be in keeping with verse 2 where we're told, pass
ye in to Calma and see, and from thence go ye to Hamath the great.
Then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Be they better than these kingdoms?
Are their border greater than your border? He's telling them
to remember these great cities. See, they all were great, even
greater than Jerusalem and Samaria. All of them were destroyed under
the providence of God. So in essence, he's saying, do
you really think you're invulnerable? Do you really think you deserve
better than they? You see, here they can be likened
to those who think that by their own strength, by, in our day,
we would often say by their act of faith or their decision that
they've made that others would not make, in other words, they're
better than them. that thereby they're eternally
safe and secure. So God, in essence, he's speaking
to every generation in that initial state of ignorance, saying, are
you better than others? Better enough to rest in that
betterment, that something that proceeds from you, a sinner?
Perhaps your faith, your free will decision. In verse three,
he continues to address them as ye that put far away the evil
day. cause the seed of violence to
come near. They lie upon beds of ivory and
stretch themselves upon their couches and eat the lambs out
of the flock and the calves out of the midst of the stall. They
chant to the sound of the vowel and invent to themselves instruments
of music, like David, that drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves
with the chief ointments. But they are not grieved for
the affliction of Joseph. Now verse 3 reflects their indifference
to the prophet's warnings of impending doom and physical danger.
And the lesson here for us is how much more devastating is
the eternal danger that extends to those in indifference regarding
their spiritual state. Here they put out of their minds
the coming judgment of which Amos had been prophesying. But
this also alludes to the eternal judgment by Almighty God in which
the indifferent, those who persist in choosing to put it out of
their minds, who perhaps consider themselves maybe too busy to
delve into this religious stuff, figuring, you know, maybe someday
when I'm not so consumed with my work or my family or other
activities, to them, he says, there's a day of reckoning. Like
the day appointed for your own death or even the second coming
of Christ, there truly is a payday someday. And woes, great misfortune,
and eternal grief shall come upon those who remain indifferent
when it comes to Jesus Christ. And to God's one way of salvation
by grace in Christ is set forth in his gospel. And those who
put off the serious consideration of spiritual things, they have
to imagine that They probably don't think they're ever going
to really be called into account. And yet, this passage is teaching
us, and you'll see it as we go forward, that God is a God of
justice and wrath. We're told elsewhere, he's one
who will by no means clear the guilty. And see, as sinners,
we all need salvation. And then we read that by their
indifference, they cause the seed of violence to draw near.
It's in essence telling us that by so mocking God, you know,
that's what we do when we ignore Him. Well, they heap even greater
judgment upon themselves. See, indifference is unbelief. It's not believing what God says
concerning His wrath and judgment against sins. And God says, those
who do not believe His gospel shall be damned, Mark 16, 16. And verse four also then speaks
of their lying around on beds of ivory and stretching themselves
out on couches as they eat of the finest, getting their lambs,
I guess what you could say, wholesale, you know, right out of the flock,
picking the calves out of the midst of the stalls, like selecting
a lobster, I suppose, to get the very best. It's addressing
the ease and the comfort they took in their indulgences or
their excesses, taking all their comfort and pleasure from the
things of this life. And listen, now, there's nothing
wrong in and of these things themselves. The Bible says we're
to enjoy our portion, that which we've been blessed with. So there's
nothing evil in that which they enjoyed. The evil came from all
their happiness, all their comfort, all their sense of safety being
derived from those things at the expense of their reliance
upon God for their chief happiness. They chanted to the sound of
the viol. That's a string instrument, like a harp. It says they invented
instruments themselves to make music, like David. So we see
here, they practiced religion, at least as they so chose. They
even sought to excel, perhaps, above their forefathers, get
that out in a minute, through the invention of instruments.
Or perhaps, you know, I was thinking of that, it's like they may have
been thinking, we'll make it more relevant to our time and
to our desires. But the difference was that while
they were religious, they were simply using their religion for
their own entertainment, not as a psalmist, David, who wrote
songs to the glory of God. And yet, they were at ease and
they took comfort in their religion, perhaps and the fact that it
bore some similarities, see, to David, the one whom God said
was a man after his own heart. And so, in our day, many meet
to worship, and they claim to believe on Christ in the practice
of their religion, while the truth is they merely often just
borrow his name. And how is that true? We know
it's true if they deny his doctrine. They tickle their own ears with
what pleases their natural appetite. So many churches decide, let's
go with contemporary services. Let's do this or do that to attract
a bigger crowd, make it more relevant for our day. And so
they build their congregations. Not by the clear preaching of
God's gospel as found in God's word. You know, you see, they
know that. If you're gonna draw a crowd by that, it'll take the
work of the spirit. We need something that'll work
a little better than that, perhaps. See, it's not by their message
that they attract thousands, but they attract thousands by
their methods, man's inventive means. And they do so in religious
ignorance. and ignorance of the doctrine
of Christ, which is absent. And we'll be talking about that
doctrine of Christ. They're at ease in Zion, and
God declares woe unto them. I suppose my sense of that was
heightened by a recent conversation Susan and I had with some close
friends. They go to one of these megachurches
in a large city, and they major on entertainment. and would seem
only to invoke the name of Christ to soothe their own consciences.
And they readily admit their popularity of their church is
derived from the many enticing activities and methods that they
employ. They recently shared with us
how their church, it met in four separate locations, they were
linked by video, and in their location alone they had 10,000
people in attendance. And they told us how cool it
was that they kicked off their services, not even with what
is called contemporary Christian music, as many churches today
employ, but this particular mega church, they kicked off their
services by having a popular secular performer or band, like
you might hear on the radio or at a concert or in a club. And then they added, of course,
after that, then they would have what they might call a, quote,
regular sermon. and that from their very well-known
popular pastor. And I like many of you not. I love good music. There's nothing
wrong with that in and of itself. But the thing that struck me
was that clearly the draw, unashamedly, was all these other activities
such as this, methods and performances, and in this case with even no
relevance at all to even pretending to be relevant to spiritual things.
much less the gospel of God's sovereign grace in Christ. Well,
we also see there in verse 6, they drank wine in bowls. Now some believe this refers
to the very bowls that were used to pour the sacrificial blood.
In other words, using the things God had provided to point sinners
to the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God. But they were used by
them to entertain themselves in their excesses. Again, Isn't
that what any religious group does when they are ignorant of
the doctrine of Christ? When I say that, I'm speaking
of the doctrine of salvation by grace in Christ alone. Salvation
is based upon His finished work alone. No contribution from the
sinner. And yet, they will invoke the
name of Christ. They'll call themselves Christian.
They'll use God's very words from the Bible. put themselves
at ease in what is really a religion of works, of salvation that's
ultimately see condition on themselves. They don't call it work, but
it's at least a way of salvation in which they imagine that something
they do, their acceptance of Jesus, their profession of faith,
something they do is presumed to be the real deciding factor.
Drinking of wine in bowls rather than cups would suggest, again,
the excesses in which they indulge, just as they did by anointing
themselves with the chief or the most expensive of ointments. But at the end of verse 6, we
see the indictment. After describing all these practices,
he says, but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.
Some believe that the word Joseph here In this context refers to
the northern kingdom of Israel. Others think it's a reference
to all of Israel in keeping with its usage in the 80th Psalm.
But regardless, the point is they put far away the evil day
of God's judgment and the pending devastation that had been prophesied
to them. So in their belief, their unbelief
of God, they didn't believe it was coming. They weren't grieved
over the affliction for which they as unbelieving sinners were
destined. They weren't worried about it.
They weren't truly sorrowful over their sin. And they demonstrated
that they did not truly believe there was a sure and certain
outpouring of God's wrath against them and against sin. Whether
indifferent or in religious ignorance, the problem summed up in our
spiritual darkness, our blindness, which we all start out with.
whereby we do not comprehend the true nature of our sin problem
and how God will not commune with sin and he will deal with
our sins in justice. There was no true sorrow over
sin, so in verse seven he says, therefore now shall they go captive
with the first that go captive, and the banquet of them that
stretch themselves shall be removed. The Lord God hath sworn by himself
saith the Lord the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob
and hate his palaces. Therefore will I deliver up the
city with all that is therein." Now it seems here that this declaration
as to who would be taken captive first is directed to those chief
leaders and nobles that he mentioned at the beginning of the chapter
who were at ease, those who had put off any consideration of
the day of judgment. And he tells them how in their
captivity there's not going to be any more banquets and lying
around on couches of ease. But when we read in verse 8 that
God has sworn by himself concerning the fate awaiting them Listen,
that should awaken our senses. Here God is engaging in swearing
by himself. He's engaging all that he is.
In essence, he's putting the entire honor of his name at stake. It's equivalent to God declaring
that this destruction, it shall come to pass or I'm not who I
say I am. In swearing by himself, he's
asserting this will take place as sure as I am God. And we know
from history it did. And when it comes to eternal
judgment, Likewise, we need to understand it is as sure and
certain as the existence of God himself. He declares in his word,
there are none righteous, no not one, and yet none but the
righteous shall enter into his presence. We best be seeking
to understand how he can be true to those clear assertions in
his word and still save a sinner like you and me. That's what
the gospel of God's grace sets forth. the good news of how that
can be. God's holy. He's not going to
commune with sin. All sin will be punished. And He places the very honor
of His holy name at stake in assurance to us of the certainty
of His judgment. And to remind us of who we're
dealing with here, we're told that this is what saith the Lord,
the God of hosts, as our triune God. The God of Hosts. That God
of Hosts speaks of the massive, invincible army, the legion of
angels at His beck and call, all of nature itself that's at
His command. And He swears by Himself because
there's none greater to swear by. He's emphasizing His all-powerful,
the omnipotence of Himself, of Almighty God. And that's certainly
what God has determined to take place shall come to pass. His
abhorrence of the excellency of Jacob, that's a reference
to their arrogance and to their false assurance. He says he hates
the palaces where they found their comfort. So he says he'll
deliver them up to their enemies. And in verse 9 he begins to describe
the extent of this as we read, and it shall come to pass if
there remain ten men in one house that they shall die. and a man's
uncle shall take him up, and he that burneth him to bring
out the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that is
by the sides of the house, is there yet any with thee? And
he shall say, no. Then shall he say, hold thy tongue,
for we may not make mention of the name of the Lord. For behold,
the Lord commandeth, and he will smite the great house with breeches
and the little house with clefts. There's no security, see, anywhere
to be found, not in the great houses of the high and mighty,
nor in the little houses of the common folks. These verses make
clear that the devastation would be widespread and great, and
that no matter how many might survive the initial onslaught
from the enemy's invasion, that however many are left, that all
of them are going to be touched as God has so determined." See,
whether by the sword, or by famine, or by an epidemic disease, which
the burning of the bodies suggests they were doing to perhaps avoid,
or perhaps by some other means. But note at the end of verse
10, it's suggested that when they go to take the bodies, should
a survivor who is yet to succumb inquire of another one as to
whether there are any left alive, they'll say no. Again, showing
how widespread the destruction would be, but it adds, then that
they shall say, hold thy tongue, for we may not make mention of
the name of the Lord. See, the day of mercy is over.
And now they no longer boast falsely in his name. They dare
not even mention it. The reality of God's judgment
against them and their sins has been realized and now there's
terror. This may also be an answer intended to show that they dare
not mention the name of the Lord by way of complaint. seeing in
hindsight that God was just in giving them what they deserved
due to their sins. But see, their hindsight will
be to no avail. But then it will be too late.
Their destruction will have taken place, and one day it will be
too late for all those who remain spiritually indifferent or in
religious ignorance, too late for their eternal welfare. Then
as we continue in verse 12 to make a point, He sets up a physical
absurdity. As we read, shall horses run
upon the rock? Will one plow there with oxen? For ye have turned judgment into
gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock. Ye which rejoice
in a thing of naught, which say, have we not taken to us horns
by our own strength? Now clearly it'd be absurd to
race horses on rocks where they'd likely fall, break limbs, and
throw the riders. And likewise, no one in their
right minds would choose to plow a field or raise crops on a bed
of rocks. That would be contrary to sound
reasoning and it'd also be a misuse of the horses and the plows and
the oxen. And that describes what the nation Israel had done
in taking those elements of religion that were so graciously given
to them by God under the law of Moses, and instead of exercising
sound judgment, misused them so as to heap even greater judgment
upon themselves rather than reaping the intended benefit of those
elements of the old covenant, that which they had been intended
to be used. Gaul. Gaul is that which is nauseous,
bitter, or sickening, while hemlock refers to a word that is noxious
or poisonous. So in their judgments, in their
indifference, and in their ignorance, they had corrupted the gospel
of God's grace in Christ as it was set forth in picture and
type of all of the sacrificial system, the priesthood, the entire
ceremonial law. And as Christ proclaimed, he
said, Moses wrote of me. promised Messiah to them. And
as the Apostle Paul wrote, he said, the gospel, now listen,
the gospel pictured in that ceremonial law of Moses, that which only
the nation of Israel was privileged to have at that time, that same
gospel is the power of God unto salvation because therein is
the righteousness of God revealed, Romans 1 16 and 17. And that
very righteousness, The entire merit of that which Christ, the
promised Messiah, would accomplish in time on Calvary's cross, that
perfect satisfaction he made to the justice of God on behalf
of all of God's true children, it produces the peaceable fruit
of that righteousness for each and every one for whom he established
it. all those to whom God has graciously
imputed righteousness, having charged it, His very righteousness
to their accounts in the same way that He had charged their
sins to Christ, that He might pay the debt to justice for them
in full. And as a whole, the nation Israel,
they place no real value upon it, taking comfort in their own
strength for their security and safety, and looking to themselves
rather to God For their safety and comfort, they corrupted their
religion, turning what was intended to point them to the righteousness
of God in Christ, whereby they would enjoy the wondrous eternal
fruits of that righteousness, turning that into something that
was deadly and harmful to them. And so in that sense, their very
religion, as it was corrupted by them, would now be their downfall. It would be a poisonous fruit,
or as my sermon title suggests, religious poison. Poisonous to
their very souls. From verse 13, we see that to
trust in your own strength is to trust, take comfort, even
rejoice in a thing of naught, as the verse puts it. In other
words, there's no basis whatsoever for their presumed confidence
and trust. God's declaring that to so trust
in your own strength is as insane as running horses on the rocks
or trying to plow with oxen on the rocks. And so in verse 14
he declares, but behold, I will raise up against you a nation,
and we know from history that would be the Assyrians. I will
raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel, saith the
Lord, the God of hosts. Again, the Almighty God will
bring this about. And they shall afflict you from
the entering in of Hemath, that is from the north, and to the
river of the wilderness. That would be to the south. Some
think that's referring to the Nile River to the south of Israel. But regardless, the point here
is their entire territory would be overrun, north to south. There'll
be nowhere to hide from the just wrath of God. So with that, when
and how is religion that comes in the name of Christ poisonous
to our eternal souls? How do folks in our day turn
judgment into gall and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock
or poison? Well, they do so when they trust
in a thing of naught, trusting in their own strength for their
eternal security. Those who remain indifferent,
they do so because whether they admit it or not, they just don't
believe or choose to put it out of their mind that there's definitely
a day of reckoning or else they're flippantly presuming that somehow
they'll be all right. But here in Amos 6, God is teaching
us He's a God of wrath who will justly punish sins. We all sin
because we're all sinners. And to trust you're going to
come out okay just because you're a good guy, maybe not quite as
bad as someone else, that is to not believe God who declares
that all are guilty. All having sins, and he said
sin, and he says he'll by no means clear the guilty. Sins
are going to be dealt with. There's no sin that will go unpunished
by our holy and just God. Your sins were either punished
and your substitute and representative, the Lord Jesus Christ, or else
you will suffer the eternal punishment due unto your sins. Now, whose
sins were punished in Christ? They're all those who, by that
blood-bought gift of faith, flee to Christ, look to Christ alone
for their eternal safety and security, and repent of ever
having imagined that something done by or found to be true of
me, the sinner, could make the difference. They repent, see,
of ever having relied upon their own strength. So what should
you do? Take God at His word. Trust in
Christ alone for all your salvation. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. But what about those who are
religious? Who, like the nation Israel, invoke the name of the
true and living God, even consider themselves to be Christian. How
is their ignorance exposed? Well, here's what it comes down
to. The basis or ground of your salvation, just ask yourself
honestly, why or on what basis do I count myself to be safe
and secure from the just wrath of God because of my sins? Sadly, most in our day would
misuse the very word of God. They would invoke the name of
Christ and call him their savior as I once did. All the while,
when I was trusting in my own strength to be saved, And you
know, we did so at ease in Zion, blindly heading toward destruction
while trusting in a thing of naught, in our own strength to
save ourselves. Paul wrote of his fellow Jewish
kinsmen and of their religious ignorance in Romans 10. which
we often read here, but beginning in verse one, he said, brethren,
my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they
might be saved. In other words, Paul is, he's
saying they're lost. For I bear them record that they
have a zeal of God. They're religious. They don't
think they're lost. They have a zeal of God, but
not according to knowledge. What knowledge do they lack?
For they being ignorant of God's righteousness. and going about
to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God." Now what is that righteousness?
For Christ is the end, the finishing or the fulfillment of the law
for righteousness. That perfect satisfaction that
he rendered for them to God's holy law and justice. He was
the fulfillment of all that God requires to everyone that believeth. Every true believer looks to
Christ and his righteousness alone for all their salvation,
to his doing and dying alone. Look, he really did get the job
done. He said, the Bible says he came
to save his people from his sin, and he did, from their sins. His righteousness is the only
righteousness by which any man can stand justified. That means
righteous, not guilty before a holy God. And I know what it's
like to have trusted in a thing of nought. I used to be there,
just as many of you were, before God was pleased to reveal Christ
through this preached gospel of grace. See, trusting in anything
other than or in addition to Christ and His imputed righteousness
for your salvation is to rejoice and trust in a thing of nought.
And for the multitudes who, like me in years past, mistakenly
believed Jesus Christ came and He died for all men and women
without exception. I pray for you that God will
expose to you what is so clear in the hindsight of God-given
faith, that in so believing that, you're really left with no other
option than to ultimately be placing your trust in something
other than the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation. See, there's
little argument that God's word is clear that many shall be damned,
eternally punished for their sins. But if Christ died for
any, anyone whose sin debt remains unpaid so that they would perish
in punishment for their sins, then what is left to make the
difference? What makes the difference, the
real difference in your salvation by your way of thinking? My answer
used to have been something like this, oh, but you must believe. And you know it's true. You must
believe. But believing that you're believing
makes the difference in whether you're saved or not. That's not
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. That would be faith in faith.
To believe on Christ is to trust in him alone for all of your
salvation. In his doing and dying, whereby
he established a perfect righteousness for you. along with each and
every one of his dear children for whom he lived and died. And
to think otherwise is to turn judgment into gall. The popular
version of today's so-called Christianity which directs the
sinner to trust in their own strength to save themselves is
nauseous gall, sickening before God. The typical message heard
in our day is, Jesus Christ, He loves you all, He died for
you all, and He's made everything possible. Now, if you'll just
do your little part, if you'll just receive Him, if you'll just
accept Him, if you'll say this prayer, walk this aisle, make
this profession, you do something to make the real difference,
to get yourself saved. That dishonors and it diminishes
the glorious cross work of Christ. And in keeping with the words
of Augustus' top lady, it diminishes his person and work to nothing
more than a pedestal upon which the sinner then can stand and
boast of his or her decision for Jesus. A decision that they
made that others wouldn't make so as to save themselves. That's
the height of religious pride. multitudes feel good and safe
and secure at ease in Zion under this false gospel of salvation
by works. They don't call it works. They
call it grace. It's a gospel cloaked or camouflaged
in the language of grace. But the message suggests that
salvation is at least in some degree conditioned on the sinner
rather than solely on the saved sinner's substitute. And it may
feel safe and secure It's being accompanied with so many of like
minds. You know, we feel safety in numbers, but know that this
corruption and this misuse of the gospel message of God's holy
word is gall, sickening to God, and hemlock, poisonous to your
very soul. Thank God, there's deliverance.
There's deliverance from both our indifference and our ignorance. There is a sure and certain salvation
for that third category of folks that I mentioned, those who are
found in Christ. Back in verse 8, we read of God
engaging His very honor, swearing by Himself of His sure and certain
judgment upon sin. Almighty God, who can and does
do according to his own purpose and will. He's emphasized for
us in our passage today that certainty of his just wrath against
sin, as certain as the existence of God himself, sins will not
go unpunished. But in reading that verse, I
couldn't help but be reminded how the same God of justice and
wrath is a God of mercy and grace. And he has likewise sworn by
himself so as to assure believers of the absolute certainty of
salvation in Christ. A salvation as sure and certain
as the very existence of God himself. So as we close, I want
to look at that in Hebrews 6, beginning in verse 13, where
we read, For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could
swear by no greater, he swore by himself. And then skipping
down to verse 16, we read, For men verily swear by the greater,
And an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.
It settles the issue. Wearing God willing more abundantly
to show unto the heirs of promise. I love that. You know, heirs,
they don't do anything to earn that inheritance. They're born
into it. Wearing God willing more abundantly
to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel. That's his unchangeable, infinitely
wise purpose. He confirmed it by an oath. that
by two immutable things, he purposed it and he promised it, in which
it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation,
a sure and a certain assurance. Who can have that? We who have
fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us, which
hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast,
everlasting, in which entereth into that within the veil. into
the very presence of God, whither the forerunner is for us entered,
even Jesus, made an high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek."
Speaking of the eternality of his priesthood, his intercession
for his people, having offered up the one sacrifice of himself,
his death on the cross, to pay in full the penalty due under
all the sins of all those for whom He lived and died." Now
that's not presumption. Just as sure as sins shall not
go unpunished, the sins of all those for whom Christ bore the
punishment, they shall be saved. He put them away. Our triune
God, Father, Son, and Spirit, He's engaged all that He is to
make certain that way of salvation, a way whereby He receives all
the glory and praise. Well, have you been indifferent
about spiritual things? Have you been in ignorance of
the righteousness of God necessary for the salvation of any sinner?
You know, we all begin life's journey in that ignorance, but
there's good news. And you've heard it today in
the preaching of the good news, the gospel of God's grace in
Christ. So may God's grace shine upon
you and deliver you from the religious poison that would leave
us indifferent and or in ignorance. Christ is the end or the finishing
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. And
I pray that God the Holy Spirit will make that his righteousness,
your heartfelt hope as well, for with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness.