Turn back to our reading there
in Matthew chapter 12. Matthew 12. I thought about it this week how
that we live in a day in which Men try to determine a lot of
things by various polls. They take polls. Most of which, by the way, cannot
be trusted. But often when they're taken, no matter what the issue is,
they have a third category. which they called the undecided. The undecided. But the truth is, when it comes
to one standing before God, when it comes to spiritual things,
there is no such group. No such group. And even though that's the case,
there are many that are deceived into thinking that there is such
a group. But when you listen to plain
statements of Scripture, when you listen to the Word of
God, such as the two verses I'll read to you, You have to know
that it cannot be. John 3,18, He that believeth
on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is
condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name
of the only begotten Son of God, the condemned and the not condemned."
Or in Mark 16 and verse 16, He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned." Just two
groups and no undecided. And in this 30th verse here in
Mark 12, Christ really, as we say, draws a line in the sand. He says, He that is not with
me is against me. And he that gathereth not with
me scattereth abroad." And this is another occasion
and another word that distinguishes between these two groups. And there are only two groups with no middle ground. That's the title of this message,
No Middle Ground. And we are, as the Bible says,
either spiritually dead or alive. We are either lost or saved. We are either the children of
God or the children of Satan. And we might not be the one we
think. Because Christ said of these
very religious scribes and Pharisees, They're immoral, upright citizens,
religious. You are of your father, the devil. He knew that. He knew exactly
what they were. But they were blinded to it.
They were deceived in the matter. So many imagine themselves to
be in some kind of state of neutrality when they are really not. He that is not with me is against
me. And many more imagine themselves
to be on the Lord's side when they are not. They think they
are for Him, but they are really against Him. And if you notice here, Christ
speaks of what distinguishes the two. He says, of those who
are for him, that they gather with him. And those that are
against him, they scatter abroad. And it may well be here that
he's using an illustration of a shepherd and some sheep. It seems that his words have
to do with our relationship with He Himself who is the Great Shepherd,
the Good Shepherd, and to His people who are the sheep, so
that those not with the Shepherd And with him in the gathering
of his sheep are against him. And they assist Satan in the
scattering of them abroad. No middle ground. And it is not whether we are
one group or of another group that we have distinguished. But the whether we are of one
or the other spoken of here, all pivots on Christ Himself. If you remember on one occasion,
Joshua, found himself out in the middle of a battle, and he
saw this striking warrior-like figure, undoubtedly the greatest
of soldiers. And it says, and it came to pass
when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked,
And behold, there stood a man..." It's always over a man. "...the man Christ Jesus. And behold, there stood a man
over against him, with his sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua
went unto him and said, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?" In other words, he was such a
striking figure that Joshua immediately wanted to know whose side he
was on. And he said, nay, or no, neither. But as captain of the host of
the Lord, am I now come. In other words, it isn't whether
or not I'm on one side or the other, it has to do with whether
you're on my side or the other. Because this one, this captain
of the Lord's host, was none other than the pre-incarnate
Christ. Listen to what happens. And Joshua
fell on his face to the earth and did worship. he worshipped
him, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant? It isn't a matter of whether
or not you're on our side or their side, it's whether or not
we're on your side. And now He bows and worships
the pre-incarnate Christ, the captain of our salvation, and
He owns Himself to be His servant. I want to be your servant. Well, what is it to be for Christ
and to gather with Him? It obviously has something to
do with not only a personal, but also a public identification
with Christ. And there are three things that
came to my mind, not only concerning this verse, but the whole of
Scripture. Three things that seem to characterize
Those who are for Christ and who gather with Him as opposed
to those who are against Christ and therefore scatter abroad. And the first one is this, to
be for Christ is first of all to be identified with the true
gospel of Christ. It is to be identified and to
believe the gospel of Christ. When he talks about calling on
the name of the Lord, when he talks about people being saved,
The very first thing Paul does in Romans 10 is ask this question,
this very logical and biblical and spiritual question. He says,
but how can anyone, how can you believe on Him or call upon Him
of whom you have not heard? There are a lot of people out
in this world who claim to be for Christ, but it is obvious
when you talk to them, they have never really heard the gospel
of Christ. And then Paul goes on, he says,
how can you hear How can you hear so as to believe the gospel,
believe on Christ, except someone preach the gospel to you? And
how shall he preach the gospel to you except he be sin of God? So the very first thing, the
very first essential in being for Christ is to believe the
gospel of Christ. And it is obvious that so many
in our day, they find the very essential things of the gospel,
things that the believing people of God find to be most elementary
almost, they find those things to be foreign to them. We've
never heard such a thing. Because believing the gospel
is not just believing some true things in the Bible. The gospel,
the message of the gospel, is a body of truth and it is the
summation of all the Word of God. Because all the words of
God simply make up the Word of God concerning Christ Jesus. Turn over to Mark's Gospel, that
8th chapter, and I want you to listen to what Christ says, because
there are a host of people in this world who somehow imagine
themselves into being in some kind of a state whereby they
believe on Christ and they are for Christ, but they disassociate
Christ from the Word and Gospel of Christ. But listen to what
Christ says. Mark chapter 8 and verse 38. He says, Whosoever Therefore
shall be ashamed of me and of my words." You can't disassociate
between Christ the person and his words. You can't say, I love
Christ and then find yourself in disagreement and hating the
very words of Christ. He says, "...whosoever therefore
shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and
sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed
when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."
What will be the case for those who say, well, I love Jesus,
I've always been for Jesus. I don't really know anything
about His Word. I didn't believe the gospel that
was preached to be His really gospel. I didn't believe what
the truth was about His Word concerning God and His Son. I didn't believe that, but I
love Jesus. He said, they'll be manifest
and demonstrated in that day as being those who were against
Christ. Whoever is ashamed of Christ
and His words. He said, he will be ashamed of
at His coming. And that is what the multitude
of people in our day deny. They deny the words of Christ. They deny the words of His free
grace which assure that He gets all the glory in salvation. You see, it has pleased the Lord
to set forth His glory in salvation by the use of words that set
forth the very doctrines of His grace. You mention in our day the word
predestination. A biblical word. And not only
a biblical word, but a biblical doctrine. That simply states
a fact that is stated over and over again in this book. And that is that God has ordained
all things. He has marked them all, determined
them. by his own counsel and will before
the world began, and works all things after the counsel of his
will, but just mention predestination in our day. And men are shamed
of his words. You mention the doctrine of election,
the word elect or election, which is all in the Scriptures by not
only word but by example. And when people hear that, they
want none of it. They want none of anything really
that ascribes all the glory and all the work and all the will
in salvation to be of God Himself. All the words that men use to
deny His deity. Words that He states His humanity
in. And mostly, the words that declare
His success. They want to make salvation to
be a work that Christ accomplished to make something possible for
men. They want to make salvation to
be a work Christ did to make it available to us. The final
work, the final decision, the final determining factor and
therefore glorifying factor belongs to the sinner and not the Savior. They deny His success, that He
did really save His people from their sin. They deny the scope
of His redemption, that He laid down His life for the sheep. I read a series of articles,
very good articles for the most part, all about the blood of
Christ. But what was lacking was the
very center of it all, who the blood of Christ was shed for. He purchased the church with
his own blood, the Scripture says. And so here are so many
ways and so many tactics used by men that are against Him to
deny His Word when the very essential thing in being identified with
Christ is believing the truth of what He says about Himself. The truth is many never read
His Word. Many carelessly Do not attend the hearing of
His Word. They have no interest in the
shepherd. They have no interest in the
spreading of the shepherd's gospel and the gathering of his sheep. And therein in this Word also
is revealed the only righteousness that those who are for Christ
ever can have any hope in. And that's the gift of God's
righteousness. There are a lot of people who
talk about righteousness in our day, but they make righteousness
to simply be right living, or what they call right living. But the only righteousness there
is, and I am absolutely sure of that, the only righteousness
there is, is the righteousness of God which is said to be given
as a gift to His people, Romans 5. wherein He has made by Himself
all of His people, made them to be the very righteousness
of God in Christ. He has imputed to them a righteousness
outside of themselves given to them in Jesus Christ. And that's all our righteousness. When Paul talked about not being
ashamed of the gospel, the very first thing he said is this,
in Romans 1, he said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. And the reason he said, I'm not
ashamed of the gospel of Christ is because therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. All who imagine any other righteousness. All, as Paul said, of his own
native people who were going about to establish their own
righteousness. All such individuals, no matter
what flavor or what distinction they have among themselves, they
are against Christ, who is the Lord, our righteousness. So the very first thing. that
would characterize those who are for the Lord Jesus Christ,
those who would gather with Him, knowing that the only way He
gathers His sheep is through and by the true gospel. They
would be those who identify with that one message that gives to
Him all the glory, call it the gospel of grace, the gospel of
God, the gospel of His glory, But they identify with that truth
that gives all the glory to God alone. And then I'd say this, and that
is, it is secondly to be identified with the sheep of Christ. Now, if you want to find something
that is totally foreign to this book, to all that is taught in
this book, it is anybody who imagines themselves to be for
Christ, and yet, at the same time, disassociates themselves
with the sheep of Christ. You see, I know according to
what Christ Himself said, that His people are a hated and persecuted
and ill-spoken of people in this world. They are not the in crowd. They are not the favored ones
of this world. And they are especially not the
favored and approved of those in all the false religion of
this world. But I know this about them. Their delight Next to being identified
with Christ's gospel, it is to be identified with His people. You can't be of His people and
against His people. You understand what I'm saying?
You see, it is very easy on this flesh to claim to be for Christ
and at the same time not want to be identified with this despised
and persecuted group in this world. But all who are for Christ are
for His people. They're in small groups. They're certainly not very convenient
often times. They're mocked in the conversation
of false religionists. They are aliens and strangers
and pilgrims in this world. They have no favor by that harlot
religion that we find described all through the scriptures. But they're the Lord's beloved. And being the Lord's beloved, that's who they, those who are
for Christ, identify with. How many times have you watched
or read in the newspaper, watched on TV, religious commercials. Here's how they advertise it.
And this really is revealing as to whether or not they really
have any true interest in anybody's soul or not. They simply say,
be sure you worship on Sunday at the church of your choice. Can you find anything like that
in the Word of God? Man by nature, if he worships
at the so-called church of his choice, number one, he will not really
worship at all. But number two, his choice will
be the same as all the fallen's man. His choice will be the worship
that Satan has set up, not that God has set up. The Lord's people confess themselves
to be sinners saved by His grace alone. They confess themselves to be
wretched in themselves, to be totally dependent upon their
Savior God, ascribing all the glory and all things to Him,
And therefore, they cannot give the nod of affirmation or the
yes of confirmation to all these unbiblical and false notions
of religion in our day. I couldn't sit in this congregation
If the songs that were sung were so man-centered and fleshly and
all this kind of stuff, I'd sooner be taken out and drowned in the
river. I couldn't sit in a congregation
where they blaspheme the name of God when they speak with such
an unholy familiarity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Where everything
is for entertainment, everything is to glorify and exalt man,
everything is not only non-biblical but anti-biblical. You think I could be a member
of a club wherein everything that was done in that club was
totally against my wife? If what was said of her was not
true of her? Of how she was treated was not
right, how she should be treated? Could you do that? Well, neither
can those who are for the Lord Jesus Christ be a part of anything
that is God dishonoring and anti-biblical. We'd sooner die. I'd sooner sit
home. And to be with those who make
a mock of my God, rather than to be with the people of God,
even though they may be despised by the world, I cannot imagine. They're not without fault. I put something in the bulletin
today, and that is since we found out where perfection is, or who
perfection is, we stopped looking for it in each other. And we
have all different kinds of backgrounds and various interests personally
and all this kind of stuff. We're all different. But we have
this one thing in common. We gather together to worship
the true God. I don't want to hear Him misrepresented. I don't want to hear a song sung
that's not biblical. I don't want to see things go
on One day the Lord Jesus went into the temple which He called,
My Father's House. And when He saw what was going
on in the temple, they were selling sheep and oxen and such. They had money changers there
giving change and stuff like that. And so he just simply went
and put together a little scourge, a little whip, and he took that
whip and chased them out of the temple and overturned the money
changers' tables and scattered everything, ran them out. The disciples, they remembered
something. They remembered a verse of Scripture
from the Old Testament. You know what they remembered? Where the prophet or psalmist,
I can't remember which, said of the Messiah, the zeal of the
Father's house, or the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up. Well, why did he get so upset? Now here's the perfect man. So
we know that to get upset in the way he did was not sin. But what was he upset over? What
was his zeal that caused that fervor against what was going
on? What was the basis of it? I can
tell you what it was. It was relationship. It was his father's house. And if he'd had no relationship
with the Father, he'd have no such zeal as that. It wouldn't
have bothered him at all what went on. And the reason why people
in our day can engage in the name of religion and in the name
of God is because they have no relationship with the true God.
They don't mind at all what goes on. My wife, I mean my daughter will
tell you, she lives in my mother's house. My mom and dad built that
house. I don't know that it will ever
mean to her what it means to me. But I'm always on her about
this, you take care of this, you take care of that, and you
take care of the other, and all that stuff. I worry her to death. Because it has something to do
with relationship. And this has to do with relationship. If God, our Father, Holy Father,
Righteous Father, as Christ says there in John's Gospel. If He's
our Father, we're zealous and jealous for His glory and for
His namesake. And we want to be identified
with those who feel the same way about Him. Somebody walked in this pulpit
and started preaching free will, work, salvation, I hope, even
if I had invited them, you'd rise up and say, we won't hear
that. No, we won't hear that. They cannot identify with those
who do not preach the gospel. and those who avoid the gospel,
but their fellowship, these who are for Christ, is with those
of like precious faith." They heed God's command to them,
and they follow Him. Turn over to 2 Corinthians chapter
6. 2 Corinthians chapter 6. This is
the apostle, and he's led by the Spirit of God. He's saying
this to those who profess to be believers in Christ. 2 Corinthians 6 verse 14. Be ye not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers. Now I know, and this is true
too, you can make that application in the wedding, marriage, union. Don't be yoked believer with
unbeliever. It only causes problems. But
that's just a small part of it. It is identifying, especially
identifying publicly with those who obviously hate the truth. Oh, they don't say they do. But if you never talk about the
things that give all the glory to God, if you never insist upon
the things that Christ says, if you never ever find yourself
under pressure for believing the truth, you obviously don't
believe it. I can remember before the Lord
saved me, being a preacher, Thinking like this, well, you know, when
you read what Christ says about what will happen to all his people
that will be despised and cast out of the synagogues and persecuted,
I thought, I'd think like this, I'd think, well, that's the way
it was in the days of the apostles. That's not the way it is today.
Everybody likes me, I think. But almost to the day, when the
Lord began to reveal the truth to this sinner's heart. And I
began to have to say what He says, rather than what men want
to hear. And I began to believe what He
says in this book. From that day to this day, I
found that's the way it is in every age. Every age. If you're for Christ. If you're for Christ. He says, Be ye not unequally
yoked together with unbelievers? For what fellowship hath righteousness
with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light
with darkness? And what concord hath Christ
with Bediel? Or what part hath he that believeth
with an idol? And what agreement hath the temple
of God with idols? For you are the temple of the
living God. As God hath said, I will dwell
in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they
shall be my people." But you need to stay with these
people and help reform them. Is that what it says? Or you
need to be sure you don't say anything against what they believe.
Or you need to be sure that you need to treat them as though
they are really believers too, you know. Just a difference of
opinion or something like that. Is that what he says? He says, Wherefore, come out
from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not
the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a father
unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith the
Lord Almighty. A lot of folks seem to have the
notion that they'll be able to, by their influence, reform individuals,
so-called churches or religions. But I can tell you what always
happens. It is not you that has an influence
on them, it is them who has the influence on you. And the truth
will become less and less important and you'll try to find points
of agreement. But it's just a lie. I'm sorry,
it's just a lie. You hear people talk about living
a lie. That's living a lie. whenever there was something
done by Saul, that God commanded him not to do. He told him to
slay and destroy everything of the enemy. One day the prophet
was sent down there by God and he asked Saul, he said, did you
destroy everything? Oh yeah, I destroyed everything.
He said, well, what is this I hear, the lowing of the cattle and
the blading of the sheep? Oh, well, I did save that part
to offer up sacrifices to God. In other words, I'm going to
disobey God in order to glorify God. No. The prophet said, to obey is
better than to sacrifice, and to hearken, or to listen, better
than the fat of rams. In 1 John chapter 2, John said of an apostasy that
was taking place even at that hour. He said, they have gone out from
us because they were not of us. Now I know that there are times when I've seen it in this very
congregation. People come, they identify with
it for a while, they identify with you for a while, but later
on there was more glory, more appealing things to the flesh
in all these various religions and such, and they were gone. What did they show then? They
showed they were not of us. And that doesn't mean of this
little particular clique or group or whatever it is, that means
of the people of God. And while that's been the case,
it's been the case also where those who believe the truth,
churches change so much, the truth declines and apostasy sets
into a group, and those who love the truth, they have to leave
the church. Why? Because the church went
out, or so-called went out from us. And when they did that, They
showed they were not of us. They didn't believe this truth.
They didn't love this sovereign almighty God of free grace. They didn't love the truth of
His divine sovereignty and His glory. You see, the people of
God are the church. They are called out assembly,
and they are called out by God through this gospel to worship
the living God in spirit and in truth. And they assemble where
the gospel of His glory is preached, if there's any way possible. What do you think you will be
willing to do if you get really hungry? You may find out. I mean, if you couldn't just
hop in your car and run down to the local corner store and
get everything you needed, if a pound of grain or a bag of
flour or a piece of bacon. If it became necessary for you
to drive 50 miles or walk 20 miles to get it in order to live,
you think you'd do it? I'll tell you this, Many people
over the course of history have done that more, much more. Why? Because they had a need. They had a hunger. And if we're
born of God, we have a hunger. The sheep of God, they have to
be fed in the green pastures of His Word. They don't have
to have a celebrity speaker. They don't have to have an entertainer.
They don't have to have a renowned theologian, but they do have
to have the Word. They worship God by the Holy
Spirit and the truth of God. They've got to have the Gospel.
They've got to have somebody to remind them of who God is
and how He saved sinners and how He saved them. I've got to
have that. They're like Israel. You'll always
find them in that wilderness encamped around the tabernacle. We're always encamped around
the gospel of Christ and Him crucified. So I'd say the very
second thing in this matter of being for Christ is being identified
with the true people of Christ. And then lastly, I'd say this.
To be for Christ is lastly, and I'm sure there's much more, but
it's to be identified as Christ's people in our conduct of life. You see, it's not in order for
Christ to save us or bless us that we should live godly in
this world. It's because He has done it. He has done it. You can't do anything to get
salvation from God. He doesn't deal with men and
women on a reward or threat basis. He gives it all to them at the
first. And so their service to Him is
motivated out of love for Him. We love Him. Yes, we do. Not like we ought to, but we
love Him. Why? Because He first loved us. He first loved us. And we have been set at liberty
by Christ in order that we might serve Him and glorify Him in
all things. We are all sinners, continue
to sin, but we do not sin in order that grace might abound. Paul said, God forbid. There's always those who say,
well preacher, if we believe what you preach and what those
folks believe, we just sin all we want to. We sin more than we want to. We sin and we grieve over our
sins. We hate our sins. We hate that
we sin in the light of what Christ has done for us and given to
us. But our goal, though we fail so many times,
our objective in this life, our goal in this life is to live
to the glory and honor of God. We hear commands like, Husbands,
love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for
it. We hear commands like, Wives,
submit yourselves to your own husband. Children, obey your
parents. We hear all those commands that
are the commands of love given to us by our Savior and Redeemer,
that we might bear a true witness before this world. How could I ever say I was for
Christ? Gathering with Christ, and yet
bow myself to live openly and outwardly, shameless and immorally
and ungodly in this world. We are to obey the law of the
land which God has ordained. We are to walk uprightly with
honesty and integrity. And we are to hate the things
that a holy God surely hates. I don't care how well they are
received in our day. I don't care how generally accepted
language is in our day. If it is absolutely ungodly and
immoral, keep your mouth shut. If you can't say anything except
to spew out this same bunch of dribble and words that are spouted
out by a God-hating generation, well, just be quiet. Repeat the filthiness and the
vileness of reprobates. Hate the things that God hates. And we love and we forgive and
we seek to help and have fellowship with our brethren. Let me just
read you a verse. But Paul writes to Titus that says exactly the opposite
of what men say in our day, that free, sovereign grace will bring
in the lives of those who believe it. He says in chapter 2, Verse 11. You have to read the whole chapter.
But it says in chapter 2 and verse 11, For the grace of God
that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching
us that denying ungodliness and
worldly lusts We should live soberly, righteously, and godly
in this present world looking for that blessed hope and the
glorious appearing of our great God and our Savior Jesus Christ
who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity
and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works. These things speak and exhort
and rebuke with all authority, let no man despise thee." Christ said, you can't serve
two masters. You're going to either love the
one and hate the other, or hate the one and love the other. Whenever Christ speaks to that
church, that church of Laodicea in the book of Revelation, He
says of that church that seems to me to picture the church in
the last days. He said, I know you. I know your
works. You're neither hot or cold. You're just kind of lukewarm.
But he said, I would that you were either hot or cold. There's
not going to be any middle ground. He said, but because you're lukewarm,
I'll spew you out of my mouth. We're either for him or against
him. And being such, we're either
gathering with him or we're scattering abroad. One day David met some folks. He's a bit suspicious of them,
I have a feeling. But in 1 Chronicles 12, it says
that David went out to meet them and answered them and said unto
them, If ye become peaceably unto me
to help me, my heart shall be knit unto you. But if you come to betray me
to my enemies, seeing there is no wrong in my hands, the God
of our fathers look thereon and rebuke it." He said, you're either
going to be all for me or against me. There's just no middle ground. Those who would be for Christ,
they certainly will be called about everything. Zealots, fanatics,
what have you. Sticklers. But they'll be for Him. And whoever's for Him, you can
rest assured He's for us. If God be for us, who can be
against us? Oh, can you just imagine what
Joshua must have seen, this glorious person. The captain of the Lord's
host. The captain of salvation. What are we going to do? fall down
before Him and worship Him. Worship the Lord Jesus Christ. Not another Jesus. Not believe
and sit under another gospel. Not be directed by another spirit. But worship God. The Lord seeks those but worship
Him in spirit and in truth." This is a sobering verse. And it's repeated in so many
ways and by so many examples all through the Scriptures. He says, He that is not with
me is against me. and he that gathereth not with
me scattereth abroad." God help us to be for Him. Father, we pray in the name of
this glorious One You've appointed, our Priest and Mediator, the
Lord Jesus Christ, grant that we might truly be
found among those who are for Him, believing His gospel, identifying
and worshiping with His people, and seeking to conduct our lives
in this world for Your glory. We thank You for Your great mercy
to us, and we pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.