that our study in the scriptures
tonight would be the third in our series of studies on the
biblical doctrine of sanctification. But for a number of reasons,
I feel constrained to break into that series. And I do believe
that the reasons which were suggested to my own mind in considering
tonight's service were sufficient to warrant a break into that
series to consider some very vital, simple, basic, yet eternally
important words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly anyone who
is in any way acquainted with the Christian faith would agree
with me when I would say that Jesus Christ, who He is, what
He did, and what He said is central to the Christian faith. I think
we could assume that as a common starting point with almost anyone
who was in the least way acquainted with the Scripture. If anything
is an open denial of or contradiction of what the scripture teaches
about who Christ is, what he did and what he said, whatever
that may be, it is not worthy of the name Christian. And yet
it's interesting and tragic that in the most fundamental issues
of life, great confusion exists even within the pale of what
is called Christendom. simply because people do not
take seriously who Christ is, what he did, and often what he
said. And Christ taught some very simple
and yet basic things regarding one of the most profound and
necessary questions of all life, namely, what must a man be or
do to be prepared to die? Or to state the question a little
differently, What must one do to be prepared to go to heaven
when he dies? And on this most fundamental
issue that even a little child will ask, if my children have
asked me, what must I do to go to heaven when I die? The confusion
that exists is absolutely appalling. If we had the time tonight to
just split up, give everybody a notebook and a piece of paper,
and send you out in every direction of the compass to do a canvas
in this area, and you were to ask in home after home, what
must a person do to get to heaven according to Jesus? Even if you
limited that according to Jesus, I think you would be absolutely
appalled at the ignorance. But closer yet, I think we might
be appalled if I were to do a little survey just with a hundred people
that are here tonight. What did Jesus teach as absolutely
essential if anyone is to go to heaven? And there were four
very interesting verses in the teaching of our Lord in which
our Lord states this so clearly that only someone who is deliberately
attempting to misunderstand his words can miss. the importance
of what our Lord teaches. They are four passages in which
our Lord uses the word, except. And then he says, except such
and such be true of you, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven,
you will not enter the kingdom of heaven, you will perish. And so I want us to consider
tonight those four passages in which our Lord says, except such
and such be true of you, you cannot, you will not, be a member
of the kingdom of heaven now and the realm of heaven in the
world to come. The first one of these is found
in the gospel according to John chapter 3, a passage which we
studied in some detail last spring when I preached on it on a Sunday
night. But tonight we want to look very
briefly at just a couple of verses within this particular portion
of scripture. I read now from John 3, beginning
with verse 1. There was a man of the Pharisees
named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. Being identified as a Pharisee,
we know several things about him immediately. We know, first
of all, that he believed the Old Testament scriptures. So
our Lord could say to him in verse 10, Aren't thou the teacher
of Israel? He was an official teacher, one
whose task it was to open up and to explain and apply and
to enforce the Word of God written. We know that he was a very, at
least externally, upright man, for the Pharisees were the strictest
sect of their day. Jesus could say of them, as he
did in Matthew 23, they appear outwardly beautiful unto men. Their outward demeanor was above
reproach. He was a man involved to the
hilt in the religious life of Israel. He was engaged as a religious
teacher. And yet our Lord addresses this
man who comes to him at night and says in verse 3, Jesus answered
and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Accept. Now here's the word of Christ.
This is not the opinion of a preacher. This is not the spinning out
of the philosophical insights of some self-appointed religious
philosopher. These are the words of truth
incarnate. The one who said, I only speak
the things that I hear of my father. The one who could say,
heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall never pass
away. He says to Nicodemus, except
one be born anew, or born again, or born from above, for the translation
of that Greek word is a difficult one, and so various translations
render it in those three ways. except one be born from above,
he cannot. He cannot see the kingdom of
God. That is, he cannot perceive the
kingdom of God. He can have no perception of
it. Someone is explaining something to us, and we say, I can't see
what you're talking about. I don't see what you're driving
at. What we mean is, that we understand the words, they're
using the English language, they're using a vocabulary that is in
the range of our knowledge, but we can't grasp, we can't lay
hold of, we can't perceive the intent of those words. Jesus
said, except a man be born again, he cannot perceive, he cannot
see the kingdom of God. Verse 5, Jesus answered, said,
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except one be born of water and
of the Spirit, He cannot enter into the kingdom of God. So in answer to the question,
what is necessary for a man to be prepared for heaven, Christ's
words are very clear. A man, a woman, a fellow or girl
must be born again before he or she can see or enter the kingdom. So when a preacher looks you
in the eye, When a Christian, someone who's experienced the
new birth, puts his hand upon your shoulder and says to you,
dear friend, son, daughter, mom, dad, have you been born again? Don't you regard them as some
kind of a wild-eyed fanatic who's got something less than a full
load up here. You just regard them as someone
who takes seriously the words of Jesus. When someone in love
to your soul looks you right back to the retinas and says,
have you been born again? They ask you that question because
they believe what Jesus said, except you're born again, you'll
never see the kingdom, you'll never enter the kingdom. Well, you say, as Nicodemus no
doubt queried, what in the world is this matter of being born
from above? And our Lord explains that. at
least gives a digest of what it is in verse 5. He says this
birth from above is a birth of water and of the Spirit. Except one be born of water and
of the Spirit. And what did our Lord mean? He's
talking to a man steeped in the religious life of the Old Testament.
He's talking to a Pharisee who was involved in a religious form
of existence in which water was a constant companion. For you
remember the scripture says that the Pharisees washed off They
were continually submitting themselves to ceremonial washings, and the
whole concept of ceremonial cleansing with water is found throughout
the breadth of the ceremonial law in the Old Testament. And
what our Lord is saying to Nicodemus is this. By virtue of being a
son of Adam, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, verse
6, in spite of all your religious activity, in spite of all your
external purity, Nicodemus, you are so polluted and defiled by
your sin that you must have this spiritual birth which will involve,
first of all, a cleansing of your nature. except one be born
of water, that is, experience a spiritual rebirth which has
as its fundamental blessing that of a cleansing from sin inwardly. Nicodemus, you know much of external
cleansing. Your flesh doesn't know what
it is to go very long without the application of water to purge
away external defilement, but Nicodemus, until you know an
application of another cleansing agent that cleanses away the
defilement of your heart and of your spirit, you will never
see, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Probably the
analogy our Lord had in mind is the promise of God in Ezekiel
36 in which He says, I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall
be clean from all your filthiness and all your idols will I cleanse
you. indicating that that sprinkling
is not the external sprinkling of the waters of an ordinance,
for no amount of the waters of an ordinance will ever cleanse
idolatry from the heart. Idolatry is an issue of the heart,
and yet God says, I will sprinkle water upon you and cleanse you
from your idols. And it's the pledge and promise
of that inward purging from sin And so this spiritual rebirth,
without which no one can see or enter the kingdom, is a birth
which involves cleansing, and secondly, our Lord says, it involves
renewal. Except one be born of water and
of the Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit. the personal agent of
renewal and again referring to Ezekiel 36 which is the passage
I'm convinced in my own mind our Lord had in mind when he
spoke to Nicodemus God says in that wonderful promise I will
take out the heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh
and I will put my spirit within you and I will cause you to walk
in my statutes and to do them And so this spiritual rebirth
is not only one of cleansing, but one of renewing the impartation
of new life, so that Scripture can say, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. We find this summarized so beautifully
for us in Titus chapter 3, where the Apostle Paul speaks of what
these Christians once were. What he once was, verse 3 of
Titus 3, for we also once were foolish, disobedient, deceived,
serving diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful
in hating one another. Now notice who says this. He
says we also were all of these things. This is the same man
who could say in Philippians 3 that as a Pharisee, his external
life was what? Blameless. He says, touching
the law, I was blameless. He says, if you had looked upon
me as men look upon other men, you would have said, if anybody's
a Christian, if anybody's on his way to heaven, Paul, Saul
of Tarsus is. He said, there was no place where
you could point the finger at me as far as my external conduct
is concerned. And yet after God gave him a
sight of what he was by nature, look at his assessment of himself
here. We were foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving diverse lusts
and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating
one another. In other words, all of these
sins can be going on completely unchecked in the heart while
there is a very respectable external life. That was Saul of Tarsus. Externally,
respectable. Internally, this seething cauldron
of sin and uncleanness. Nicodemus, you look pretty good
on the outside. And if I had said to some Gentile
dog, you must be born again, you could understand it. But
Nicodemus, you're the separated one. You're the clean one, in
your eyes. But inwardly, Nicodemus, you're
polluted with your sin. You're dead in sins. You need
renewal. You need quickening. You need
cleansing. And the Apostle Paul describes
this same experience when he says, though we were this, verse
4, but when the kindness of God our Savior and His love toward
man appeared, not by works done in righteousness which we did
ourselves, but according to His mercy He saved us how? through
the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit which
He poured out on us richly through Christ Jesus our Savior. The washing of regeneration,
that cleansing that comes by this birth of the Spirit and
this renewing of the Holy Spirit, both of which are poured out
upon us richly through Jesus Christ. the Savior. And so in
the light of our Lord's words, I trust you'll not think me a
wild-eyed fanatic when I look you in the eye tonight and ask
you, have you been born from above? Have you experienced that
inward cleansing which only God the Holy Spirit can effect? Has
there been an inward severance from a course of sin, the love
of sin, the practice of sin, the delight of sin, which only
an inward work of God Almighty could accomplish? Have you been renewed by the
Holy Spirit? Have you been born again? That's the question. For Jesus
said, except a man be born again, he cannot. enter the kingdom
of heaven. If anyone who's a stranger to
the new birth enters the kingdom of heaven, Jesus is found to
be speaking untruth at one point, and if he speaks untruth at one
point, he is to be trusted in no points. And so I press the question upon
your conscience. Have you been born again? Where? When? By what means? Did God
bring you to a sight of your filth and uncleanness by nature? When did He show you by what
means that it wasn't enough to be a perfect Christian Pharisee? With a head full of knowledge
of the Scriptures and a life that looks pretty respectable
by virtue of your association with revealed religion in Scripture,
when did God show you the defilement and pollution of your heart by
nature? Where and when and by what means
did God bring you to pray with David? Behold, I was shapen in
iniquity and in sin, did my mother conceive me. When were you brought
to a sight of your corruption by nature? It was an ugly thing. When were you brought to own
the reality of your depravity and your guilt? No one is ever
born of the Spirit without being brought to that sight. And that's
why this was such a difficult thing for Nicodemus, for our
Lord was speaking to one who had everything that the religion
of that day could give him. But this wasn't enough. He said,
unless you're born again, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven. To phrase it a different way,
What is there about you, right now, tonight, that has no explanation
but that Almighty God, by a direct, powerful work of the Holy Spirit,
has made you a subject of the new birth? What is there about
you that has no explanation? It can't be explained in terms
of training, upbringing, natural inclinations, natural aesthetic
sensitivity, religious interest, and all the rest. What is there
about you that when you sit yourself down and look yourself in the
mirror, you say, you know, there's no explanation for the guy that's
in that mirror. No explanation for the woman
I see in that mirror, but that Almighty God has performed this
mighty work of a new birth. Is there anything? If not, my
friend, you better remember the words of Jesus, except a man
be born from above, he cannot enter the kingdom. Now there's
a second except passage in the teaching of our Lord, and I would
direct your attention to it in the 18th chapter of the Gospel
according to Matthew, verse 1. In that hour came the disciples
unto Jesus, saying, Who then is the greatest in the kingdom
of heaven? Here they are jockeying for position.
And our Lord called to him a little child and set him in the midst
of them and said, Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted
and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into
the kingdom of heaven. Now notice what our Lord is saying.
The same Lord who said, except a man be born from above, he
cannot see the kingdom, except he is born of water and of the
Spirit, he cannot enter. Now he says, except he be converted
and become his little children, ye shall in no wise, notice the
force of his words, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom
of heaven. What would be the two key words
that would characterize The attitude of a child, in terms of our Lord's
emphasis here, I believe it's accurate to say that they are
the words, humble trustfulness. What is the characteristic of
a child to which our Lord alludes when he says, except ye be converted
and become as little children, you'll in no wise enter the kingdom.
Remember the context? They were talking about who's
going to be the big shot in the kingdom, jockeying for position
in order to feed pride, in order to find a platform from which
to parade themselves. And in that context, there's
always suspicion, because somebody else is jockeying for the same
thing, so it created arguments amongst them. Anyone who's got
unholy ambition is always a suspicious person. Always. because he thinks
other people are like himself. This is true even in church life.
I'm amazed at the suspicion that exists amongst preachers, because
if they've not died to ambition, ambition to preach in a big church
and to have a big salary and a big name, if those are factors
in their own ministries, they can't conceive that they aren't
the factors of other men's ministries. So if they see someone preaching
to a little bigger crowd than they are, immediately what happens?
Jealousy. You see, this principle follows.
It's the history of kingdoms. You look at the Old Testament
history. It's a principle that's everywhere. Wherever there is
this attitude of pride and ostentation, this desire to excel over my
peers, From an unholy standpoint, there will always be this lack
of trustfulness. There'll be suspicion. And yet,
the little child, you see, the Lord sits on his knee, the child
that has no ambition but to play in the dirt and cuddle up to
its mummy and this loving stranger that was in the town and said,
come here, sonny. No problem, he comes and he sits him upon
his knee. No ambition. He's not trying to be Lord Mayor
of the section of Palestine where he lives. He can have food on
his table, and a mummy and a daddy to love him, and a little sand
to play in in the backyard. Life's all right. Now he said,
that's the characteristic of the child. Ambition and suspicion
are the characteristics of you disciples. Now he says, except
you be converted and become like little children, humble and trustful,
you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven. Now what does that
mean, practically speaking? It means, my dear friend, That
if you seek to use your mind in a way God never intended you
should use it, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven. Perhaps
the worst form of pride is the pride that swells between man's
ears. Mental pride, intellectual pride. God, I have everything proven
to me. If it doesn't suit my idea of what's right and wrong,
I'll hold it in suspicion. And God comes to us speaking
in His Word and says, I never gave you that mind to originate
truth, but to be a receptor of truth. I declare truth in My
Word. Your mind is given to be a receptor
of that truth. Not a judge over it, but a receiver
of it. Why, the preaching of the cross
is to the world what? Foolishness. It doesn't fit the
world's way of providing forgiveness and salvation. They declare it
folly, and yet the Scriptures as God had made foolish the wisdom
of this world. And so except ye be converted
and become as little children, which means what, practically
speaking? Until you're brought to the place where your mind
is brought subject to God's mind as revealed in Holy Scripture,
you'll never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And until you're brought
to that place of the trustfulness of a little child, what God reveals
in His Word, I will believe. What God demands in His Gospel,
I will embrace. And there's nothing more humbling
than the simple act of saving faith. The most humbling thing
in the world is one exercise of true faith. You say, how is
that? Well, you see, faith is the empty,
naked hand that lays hold of God's free offer of salvation
in his dear Son. And no hand, there is no true
hand of faith, but an empty hand. to be brought to the place where
we can say from the heart, nothing, nothing, nothing in my hands
I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. Foul I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die. Oh, how withering to human pride. By nature, every one of us is
a Pharisee, who says, as the Pharisee in Luke 18, I thank
thee God I'm not like other people. Oh yeah, I got some bad habits,
and I've done some bad things, but Joe down the street, he's
worse. And Harry at work. He's a lot work. God, I thank
you. I'm not quite so... Oh yeah, I haven't done all I
should. So I know I've got to sort of make up some of my failures
by a little Bible reading, a little prayer, a little church attendance.
But if I can just sort of add these things to my general presentability
before God, everything will be all right. What a terrible fool's
paradise in which to live. The Scripture says, We are all
as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are as filthy
rags. If our righteousnesses, the best
things we do, are polluted and defiled, what about the bad things? So our Lord says, except ye be
converted and become as little children, you will in no wise
enter the kingdom, which means you must be brought to that place
where pride withers before the blazing light of God's truth,
and you say, oh God, I'll believe anything you say about yourself,
about me, about what I am, about how I can be brought to know
you. God, you know everything about
yourself and about me, and I don't know anything as I ought to know.
I lie humbly at your feet to be taught of you. Isn't that
part of Jesus' invitation? Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon
you, and what? Learn of me. For the woes of
mankind, many of them are rooted in mankind's refusal to interpret
himself and life accurately. He is too proud to analyze himself
through the eyes of scripture? No, no, no, no. We have the modern
science of psychoanalysis, and with our anthropologists and
sociologists, we'll understand, man. And God says, all right,
go on in the blindness of your folly. Dig your own grave and
bury yourself in it. Yet, wonder of wonders, God in
His grace brings a person here, a person there. Or they say,
Oh God, I don't know as I ought to know. Teach me. And then when
they hear the wonderful gospel story, how did Christ die to
do for sinners what they cannot do for themselves. And the only
way of acceptance before God is by casting oneself upon Christ
and Christ alone. The Spirit of God works that
childlike disposition of trustfulness. And they say from the heart,
I to the fountain fly, wash me, Savior, or I die." Now, Jesus
said, except you be converted and become in that sense like
little children, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven.
So I would press the question on your conscience again tonight,
when? Where? By what means did God bring you
to child-likeness of spirit? Where, when, and by what means
did God wither your carnal pride? Where and by what means did God
bring you to the place where you gladly cast yourself upon
Christ and Christ alone? For some of you, the wheels of
your mind begin to work at that question, and you can think back
at the various strands of influence by which God began to zero in
on you. He began to strip you of your
carnal pride and your self-trust. He began to give you a sight
of your heart and your nature that was sickening. Then He began
to give you a sight of the Savior that seemed too good to be true.
You mean simply by looking to Him? Even as those bitten with
the snakes in the wilderness looked to that brazen serpent
and were healed. You mean by looking in faith
and reaching out in a naked hand to take what is freely offered?
It's too good to be true. And yet as you studied the Scriptures
and heard them preached, you said, "'Tis true, "'tis true."
It's the only way of acceptance. Your mind's been able to go back
over. You remember that Christian God put in your path? You remember
that sickness? You remember that servant of
Christ? You remember that sermon? You
remember that book? It's good to look back, isn't
it? God says, look unto the rock from whence you were hewn and
unto the pit from whence you were digged. But listen to me.
There's some of you that draw a pretty, pretty embarrassing
blank when I ask you a question like that. Where? When? By what
means did God bring you to the state of a little child? You're
fishing around in the file drawers of your mind, and they're pretty
empty, aren't they? Pretty empty, aren't they? You're racking the
corridors of memory! You can't find anything on the
walls. My friend, except you be converted and become as a
little child, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven. That's
the word of Jesus. You can go out of here at night
and say, I've never heard anything so foolish in my life. Don't you say that
about the words of Jesus. Make whatever assessment you
want of his servant who's trying to expound his words. That's
your privilege. That has no eternal consequences.
Don't you make that assessment of the words of Jesus. He said,
except you be converted and become his little children, you'll never
enter the kingdom of heaven. And there's a third except of
the Lord Jesus. And I want you to turn, please,
to the gospel according to Luke. May I just say a word to some
of you young men preparing for the ministry? Never get beyond
preaching what I call a Bible school sermon. Never get to the place where
you're too proud of your gifts and your reputation that you
can't preach simple gospel truth. You get beyond that place, my
friend, you've gone too far. May the Lord cripple you, till
he brings you back to the foot of the cross. That's just a little
aside. Luke chapter 13, please. Again,
the first part of the chapter. Now there was some present at
that very season who told him of the Galileans whose blood
Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And the answer then
said unto them, Think ye that these Galileans were sinners
above all the Galileans, because they suffered these things? I
tell you, nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all in like
manner perish. For those eighteen, upon whom
the tower of Siloam fell, and killed them, think ye that they
were offenders above all the men that dwell in Jerusalem?
I tell you, nay, But except ye repent, ye shall all likewise
perish." What's our Lord saying? Here were two instances of what
we would call public calamity. They were well known to the people
of our Lord's day. What they were in detail is not
necessary for our understanding of the passage, but it's obvious
that they were two instances of public calamity well known
to the Jews in that area. Now they lived in a day when
they still thought theistically, that is, they viewed life as
something which had direct reference to the control of God. So when
they saw a natural calamity, they looked upon it as a divine
visitation. They believed that God had a
direct control in all the affairs of his world. So when a power
fell at a certain time and place and killed certain people, they
didn't say, oh, isn't that a terrible accident? They said, wasn't that
a frightening judgment of God? Now, to that point, they were
right, in that they viewed God as in control of all the so-called
natural tragedies. If our Lord were preaching today,
I think he would say, in place of this Tower of Siloam, he'd
say, do you think that those 31 football players and coaches
were sinners above the rest, in that they died in a tragic
plane crash two weeks ago? Most of us heard about the Kansas
State football team and that tragedy. He would have taken
some contemporary experience of human tragedy, well known,
and this is what he said. Now he says, as you look at those
tragedies, you say, boy, they must have been a wicked bunch
for God to have sent such terrible and sudden judgment upon them.
He says, but I've got news for you. He said, your condition
is such that unless it is transformed by a deep work of repentance,
the anger and judgment of God will fall upon you. That's what
he said. He said, you think they were
the worst sinners? Sinners raised to the tenth degree,
and therefore judgment came, and you're down over here at
the first degree, or not at all? No, no, he said. No, no. Except
he repent, ye shall perish. And so I give you this third
except of our Lord. Utterly necessary if we would
enter into the kingdom of heaven, namely, we must experience true
biblical repentance, not penance, which can be raised upon Adamic
stock, but repentance which alone can come out of a heart touched
by the grace of God and by the power of the gospel. Jesus said to them, and he would
say to us, are equally exposed to the wrath of God for your
sin, you must repent, and men who are not sinners can't repent.
So he's telling them, you must own the reality of your sinfulness
or you'll perish. Not only must you own the reality
of your sinfulness and take God's assessment of what you are by
nature and practice to heart, but you must turn from your sin. For the essence of the word repentance
is that of a change of mind, a radical change of mind, where
the thing I looked upon with delight, I now look upon with
hate. The things which I held to with
relish, I now relinquish. The things to which I gravitated
with desire, I now flee from with a deep aversion. I must
turn from my sins unto God through Jesus Christ, or God says I shall
perish. except he repent, he shall perish. And if repentance involves anything,
it involves those few irreducible elements of the hearty acknowledgement
that what God says about me is true. God says that you have
a heart that is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Have you ever owned that as true? Not because it's in the Bible
alone. Because God gave you a little sight of your own heart that
has caused you in some secret place to say, Oh God, it's true. It's true. It's true. My heart, not just men's hearts
in general, or the world of men, is a world of men with bad hearts. But oh God, my heart is deceitful
above all things, desperately wicked. Where? When? By what means did God bring you
to that sight of what you are by nature? Where and when and
by what means did He bring you to see the guilt, not only that
arises from what you are, but from what you've done? You had
a sight of what your breaches of God's holy law looked like
in His sight? Everything you've ever thought
and done and said that was not mathematically parallel to the
standard of His holy law? Every deflection, inattitude,
indisposition to His holy precepts? When? Where? By what means did
God bring you to feel your guilt? As Paul says in Romans 3.19,
Whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them that are under
the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world
may become guilty before God. I shall never forget hearing
a great preacher preaching on the doctrine of justification.
And he was dealing with the fact that no man is justified until,
first of all, he is brought to see his sin. And he was quoting
from Romans 3, the text I've just now quoted, that every mouth
may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. And
he said, you know what a good description of a Christian is?
A Christian is a man whose mouth has been stopped in the presence
of God. See, that Pharisee, his mouth
was running off at a mile a minute. I thank thee, God, I'm not like
other men. I thank thee, God, I do this and I do that and I
do the other thing. The publican was a man whose
mouth was shut. He would not so much as lift
up his eyes to heaven, he beats upon his breast and mumbles in
a whisper that only God can hear. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. When did God shut your mouth?
where you had nothing to say in His presence, but you just
felt and owned your guilt. When? Where? By what means did
God shut your mouth? Except you repent, you'll perish,
and repentance involves, as an irreducible element, the acknowledgement
that what God says about me is true, an inward, hearty, experimental
acknowledgement involved, secondly, some measure of grief over what
I am and what I've done. Godly sorrow worketh repentance
not to be repented on 2 Corinthians chapter 9. No man ever was happyfied
into the kingdom of God. The idea that if we can just
present Jesus brightly and sprightly enough, we'll have people just
tripping up to Him to know the joys of His salvation. It's entirely
foreign to the thinking of Holy Scripture. God says in His Word,
I am the Lord, I wound and I heal. I tip and I make alive. And it's always in that order.
That's why the Scripture says, for by the law cometh the knowledge
of sin. The law is our schoolmaster unto
Christ. Why? It opens up the wound of
sin until the stench of it grieves us as we know it must grieve
God. My friend, I ask you, where and
when and by what means were you brought not only to the acknowledgement
of your sin, but to some genuine grief over it? I'm not saying
how much. because God doesn't give me chapter
and verse to do it. But to think of repentance without
grief is like trying to think of a bright day without the sun,
trying to think of wet roads without the rain. You can't separate
them. And every instance in Scripture
where God says a certain person is repenting, involved in that
description, there is this element of grief. Not grief primarily
of what the sin did to me. That's Esau. He's out there hollering
and crying. Scripture says he wept with an
exceeding great and bitter cry. You and I were standing there
that day. We just said, boy, look at Esau. He's all busted up.
He's really broken up over his sin. No, he wasn't. He was just
weeping out of self-pity. It wasn't the tears of repentance. When you see the publican beating
upon his breast, what's he doing? Play acting? No, no. The pain
was in there. That's where he beat. Inward
breathing. You see a David sobbing out of
his heart in Psalm 51. You look at the prodigal. He
says, I will arise and go to my father and say, Father, I
know you have a wonderful plan for my life, and I haven't been
enjoying it, so I'm going to come home and cash in on it. My friends, that's the perspective
of the gospel being set out in our day as the biblical gospel.
And what he said, he said, I will arise and go to my father and
say, Father, I've sinned against heaven, and in thy sight I'm
no more worthy to be called thy son. The sense of grief. Then the scripture goes on to
say of the prodigal that while he was yet afar off, the father
ran to him. I believe that's significant.
In my mind's eye, I can picture that son starting out the first
day of his trip home, making a good bit of time, but as the
time drew near for him to come closer home, there was a reluctance.
How can I How can I, when my very face and countenance and
physical appearance is a witness to the folly of my sin, how can
I appear before my Father? As he comes up over the brow
of the hill, the Father sees him. I believe if we read between
the lines, we see the picture of the Son who stands there,
drops His head in shame and grief. And he can't believe it until
the Father's footsteps become louder and louder, and he's smothered
in the Father's love and affection. Grief over the course of his
life. My friend, where, by what means, did God bring you to grieve
over your sins? Repentance involves not only
the acknowledgment of sin, A measure of grief over that sin, but all
of this is to no avail unless it issues in a turning from sin
and a purpose of heart to be done with it. Turning from the
sin unto God through Christ? Yes, we dealt with that under
the second except. You become, as little children,
a trustful reliance upon Christ to finish the work But it must
be a turning from the sin, and sins in particular, our darling
sin, the worst sin of all, unbelief. That for years, God
should say, Who He is and what He's done
is your only hope of mercy. Trust Him. Believe in Him. Cast yourself upon Him. Oh, the
horror of it, that for years we've lived indifferent to the
claims of the Savior, to the command of the Father to believe
on Him. And we repent of our sins and
we cast ourselves upon Him. I ask you, my friend, in the
light of Christ's words, have you repented? Now don't evade
the question. I press it upon your conscience,
not for filler, because I've got to preach so long to get
a full paycheck this week. No, no. But because I know you
won't pause long enough, many of you, to press it upon your
conscience when you leave this place. And I love you enough
in Christ to try to help you right now. Let your conscience
do its work. When, where, and by what means
were you brought to a hearty acknowledgment of the truth of
what God says about you, about what you are by nature, of what
your sins deserve, of your guilt? When were you brought to that
acknowledgment? When, where, by what means were you brought
to grieve over your sins? What can memory bring forth from
the past? What can it bring forth from
the present? For true repentance is not an
act of the past, but the acquisition of an attitude that will be evident
in the present. What sins have you turned your
back upon? Sins as dear as right hand and right eye. For Jesus
said, those must be dealt with on your parents. When and by
what means were you brought to turn from the sin of unbelief,
the sin of pride, the sin of ambition, of self-will? If you
can't answer clearly, dear friend, I plead with you, take seriously
the words of Christ. Accept, you repent, you'll perish. And then the last except of Christ
that I want you to look at tonight is in Matthew chapter 5 and in
verse 20. Much of what we've said thus
far in just opening up these other words very briefly is underscored
and enforced in this passage. Here our Lord says in Matthew
5 and verse 20, For I say unto you, that except your righteousness
shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees,
ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. There
it is again. Jesus said, you want to know what's necessary
to get to heaven? Well, one thing he says is your righteousness
better go beyond that of the scribes and Pharisees, or you'll
never make it. You and I can't appreciate what this sounded
like to the hearers the first time these words were uttered.
For if you had lived in Israel in the days when our Lord ministered,
and anyone said, think of a righteous person, immediately your mind
would have thought of scribes, Pharisees. They're the righteous
ones, the separated ones, the holy ones. And Jesus says, if
you don't go beyond them, you'll never make it. What was defective in the righteousness
of the scribes and Pharisees? A defect which we must go beyond,
or we'll never enter the kingdom of heaven, according to Christ.
May I suggest two things? Number one, their righteousness
rested on a wrong foundation, and secondly, it was constructed
on wrong principles. First of all, it rested upon
a wrong foundation. What is righteousness? Righteousness
in scripture can be viewed from two perspectives. Righteousness
sometimes refers to a right standing before God. When the scripture
says that the gospel reveals a righteousness of God, it means,
and I was quoting then from Romans 1, that it reveals a way by which
we may have a right standing before God. Sometimes the word
righteousness refers to right walking here under the eye of
God. It refers to godly living. And the commendations differ
as to what our Lord meant here, and so I'd like to play the peacemaker
and bring them both together and say I believe both are at
least implicit in what our Lord says. For the Pharisees' righteousness,
if viewed from the first standpoint, if viewed from the idea of what
a man must do or be to find acceptance before a holy God, if we do not
have a righteousness that goes beyond theirs, we'll never enter
the kingdom of heaven. For what was their righteousness?
I've quoted from Luke 18. Now look at it for a moment,
if you will, please. For here we have a Pharisee actually
confessing what the ground of his righteousness was, how he
expected to have a right standing before God. And he says in Luke
18.9, our Lord speaking, he spake this parable unto certain who
trusted in themselves that they were righteous and set all others
at naught. Two men went up to the temple
to pray, the one a Pharisee, the other a publican. The Pharisee
stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee I am not as
the rest of men, extortioners, unjust adulterers, or even as
this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give
tithes of all that I get. What is he saying to God, or
attempting to say to God? He's attempting to say, God,
I believe I have a righteous standing before you based upon
two things. What I am, I am better than other
men, and then he specifies it, I'm better than the adulterers
and the extortioners and the unjust and even these crooked
old publicans. And then he says, God, I plead
with you to accept me not only because of what I am, I'm better
than other men, but because of what I do. I fast, I give tithes. So the fabric of the righteousness
of a scribe and a Pharisee was a righteousness based upon what
they thought they were and what they thought they had done that
would make them acceptable before God. And my friend, if that's
the basis upon which you think God will accept you, what you
are and what you've done, except you get a righteousness that
goes beyond that, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven.
For God is of such a nature that there is only one righteousness
that He will accept. And that's the perfect righteousness
reflected in His own character and reveals in His own dear Son. And if you have anything less
than a perfect righteousness, God will reject you. Perfect
righteousness! You say, how in the world can
you be perfect? You can't be of yourself. But there was one
who was. He could say, I do always, in
every circumstance, in every situation, I do always the things
that please my Father. The Father could speak out of
heaven and say of Him, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well
pleased. And from the womb to the cross,
at every point where God's holy law touched the life of the Son
of God, in thought, in word, in deed, at home, on the playground,
later on, in the marketplace, in the temple, in the fields,
in the ship, in every relationship. In every demand God made of Him
with reference to Himself, every demand with reference to others,
our Lord never departed one-tenth of one-hundredth of a degree
from perfect conformity to God's holy law. And that whole perfect
life, that perfect obedience, The righteousness of Christ's
life can be put to my account. And then He went to the cross,
and there satisfied all the demands of God's broken law against the
sins of His people, and His satisfaction for all my sin can be put to
my account. So that to use the words of the
Apostle Paul, I become accepted in the Beloved One. That's the beauty of the Gospel.
Therein is revealed a righteousness of God. And it's only God's righteousness
that will satisfy God. So Jesus says, accept your righteousness,
go beyond that of the scribes and Pharisees. They've got the
best that man can produce, but it's rejected. And it's only
the righteousness God produces that God accepts. Do you have
that righteousness? Could you sing when we sang tonight?
Five bleeding wounds he bears Received on Calvary They poor
effectual prayers They strongly plead for me Can you say with
the hymn writer, Jesus, thy blood and righteousness, my beauty
are, my glorious dress, midst flaming worlds in these arrayed,
with joy shall I lift up my head. From time to time I like to sit
myself down and I ask myself this question in this whole area. I say now, if your life was to
be taken from you in the next two minutes, and you were to
stand in the presence of God, and God were to say to you, on
what basis should I admit you into my everlasting presence?
I try to honestly ask myself with judgment-day honesty, because
nothing less will do, what would my real answer be? Can I say,
almost as the reflex response of my mind and heart, O Eternal
Most Holy God, I seek admittance into your presence on one ground
alone, the perfect righteousness of your dear Son, the righteousness
of His sinless life and His perfect death, I plead that, plus nothing. And I ask myself, can I look
upon any of my poor labors to preach the gospel, any little
smattering of blessing that's come to others? Is there any
tendency whatsoever to take one gram of anything I am or have
done and add it to who Christ is and what He's done? If I find that tendency's there,
I know I've got to go back again. to this most fundamental truth
of our Lord Jesus, except your righteousness exceed that of
the scribes and Pharisees you'll never enter." Now let me ask
you, my friend, if God were to take you out of this life and
summon you to stand in his presence and ask you the question, upon
what grounds should I admit you into my holy presence? What would
you answer? Oh, well, would you fumble around
a while? Or would it be the reflex response
of your heart to say, Oh, eternal God, accept me solely for the
merits of thy dear Son. You see, is this just a lot of
words you picked up, or has it become the sum and substance
of your heart? Accept your righteousness, exceed
that of the scribes and Pharisees, you'll never enter the kingdom
of heaven. And their righteousness was defective
as to the ground upon which they sought acceptance. And then if
we think of it as practical righteousness, living out a godly life, they
missed it by miles, because they constructed their practical righteousness
upon wrong principles. They were more concerned with
externals than internals. Jesus said, Oh, they pray, but
why do they pray? To be seen of what? They fast,
but for what reason? To be seen of men. They give
alms, for what reason? To be seen of men. So Jesus in
Matthew 23, verses 23 or 25 to 28 said, You're like whitewashed
shepherds. You appear beautiful to men,
but within. But with him, that was the constant
emphasis of our Lord with the Pharisees. He said, your practical
so-called Christian life is defective. For my people, as he describes
them in Matthew 5, are concerned about the internal and secondarily
the externals.