There are some things God hates,
and we've been told that in the book of Proverbs. My dad used to say to me, Kent,
just when he was displeased with me, Kent, get that look off your
face. Followed up by, If you don't, I'll smack it off
your face. Say, child abuse. No, he just
didn't like the way I was looking. There's some looks God doesn't
like either. Of the seven things the Bible
tells us that God hates, he hates haughty eyes. God hates haughty
eyes. I just want to ask you the question
today, who are the Pharisees? You examine yourself today and
see the conclusion that you draw. King James says God hates a proud
look. It's the very first thing in
Proverbs 6 that God says he hates a proud look. There is a behavior or an attitude
that God absolutely detests. And it is quite amazing to me
how dominant that which God hates is seen
among church people. I think if I were to go into
most churches, one of the things I would say is, get that look
off your face. Because God has said this, and
God has set this whole thing up where there's no reason for
you to be proud of yourself. There is no reason at all for
you to have a haughty look. The Bible is so very clear. Whether you eat or drink or whatever
you do, do to the glory of God, whatever you're doing, Give God
the glory. You're breathing today. Give
God glory. You had breakfast perhaps this
morning. Give God glory. You're here in God's house. Look
what God has done for us. Give God glory. It's so important
because God will hate that look on your face. and that attitude
of your heart. So there is a behavior or an
attitude that God absolutely detests. It's arrogance. It's
the thought that you actually had any part in saving yourself. God hates it when you think that
way. He said, well, you know, Pastor, I don't feel like I saved
myself actually, Pastor, but you know, the Bible says, for
by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves,
it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And God has done everything except,
uh-oh, get that look off your face. It was my decision. I hear people talking all the
time about their will, as if there was something inherently
good about the way they were born. that they themselves are
better than other people. It was actually not Jesus that
completely saved us. He left this little part, which
becomes a big part, my will, my free will. But the truth is,
your will is enslaved to your nature, and you are a sinner
by choice and practice. You see, sin is not so much what
you do as it is what you are. You are a natural born sinner,
a rebel against God. Proverbs 16, 5 says this, Everyone
who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Be careful
about feeling so good about yourself. Be careful. There is a way to,
I think, feel good about yourself and it's this way. I've been
accepted in the beloved. I was chosen by God. You can
feel good that way. In fact, everything in this Bible
opposes arrogance on the part of an individual or pride. It's interesting, the word Pharisee
comes from a Hebrew word meaning separated. You know, I was raised
in the Baptist church and I'm not knocking the Baptist, I'm
just telling you. You can go astray really quick.
When you start preaching things like, you guys need to get your
hair cut. You girls need to get your skirt
down to your ankles. No playing cards, no going, wait
a minute. Suppose I do get my hair cut. Now I'm right with God. I'm right
with God, now I got white walls around my ears. I feel so good
about myself. I heard a preacher say from the
pulpit, and I thought to myself, how off base. And we were at
a Bible conference. Alcohol has never touched these
lips. I thought, well, how do you do?
You see, sin doesn't come in a bottle. The heart is desperately
wicked and sinful. Now, I would say to all of you
who have a problem with alcohol, leave it alone. Don't touch it. But I personally have no problem. I mean, I don't have that problem.
I have problems. But I could drink a glass of
wine and not go to hell. Or not go out and just drink
till I'm shot drunk. Because sin doesn't come in a
bottle, it comes in the heart. Right? So if you're getting drunk,
it's because something's wrong on the inside. So some of you
have to leave alcohol alone. Some of you have to not go to
the mall as much as you do. Some of you got credit card problems.
Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. We all have problems. But when
you see yourself, when you start talking about you being so separated
and dedicated and consecrated and so wholly by your self-efforts,
you're way off base. Way off base. Whether you eat
or drink or whatever you do, do to the glory of God. Constantly
be saying this. Thank you, Lord, for saving my
soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me
whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to me salvation so rich and free. Separated, Pharisee, separated. My friend, you have nothing to
be proud of in yourself. All of your righteousnesses are
a filthy rag, a minstrel cloth in the sight of God. You are
a dirty rag in the sight of God with regard to your righteousness.
Somebody say amen, that's the truth. A filthy rag. The kind of religious people
called Pharisees, they don't even get along among themselves.
Pharisees never get along. They split and fuss and fight.
Even the Pharisees in the Bible, I was reading this week, in the
days of Jesus, there was two sects of Pharisees, and they
had two rabbis, and they were EXTREMELY Pharisaic, and they
couldn't even get along, so they split in the days of our Lord. They got where they detested
one another. I've seen that happen in Baptist
churches, just split and splinter and go a half a mile down the
street and start. And it all had to do with self-righteousness. It all has to do with feeling
you're better. As long as you're conscious of
this, I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Let's look at the Pharisees and
while looking examine ourselves to see if we have any resemblance
in us. You know, turn in your Bibles
over to the book of Philippians. Saul of Tarsus, you know, he
was a Pharisee. I mean, he was a separatist. Be careful about your separation. You know, even I got a letter from the folks
down at Brother LeSair Bradley's church. This is his 60th year
in pastoring that church in Cincinnati. And they're going to have a,
I hope their folks may be watching, I may be spoiling something here,
but they're doing a little memorial book for his 60th year. They
have a Bible conference in October and they wanted us to write,
they wanted me to write a letter from us about how he has blessed
us up here and I'm going to do that. But they put in there,
they were very careful to put in there, make sure that there
is no glory going to Lysere Bradley. He wouldn't have you do that. And I thought to myself, no,
he would not. There's a lot of that goes on,
though. For instance, I'll just flat out tell you this. Over
at the Ock thing, I met all kinds of, you know, people of position. And there was one person who
came up to me and went like this, oh, I would recognize that voice
anywhere. I've been listening to you on
WMUZ for 30 years. I am so glad to meet you. And I thought to myself this,
and this is the way we ought to think. Be careful about listening
to what other people say about you. I thought to myself, oh,
if you only knew the real Pastor Clark. If you only knew how much
I complain, how much I grumble, how down I get, how depressed. Watch any kind of people heaping
on you too much praise. Be careful, it's okay to honor
people, or to say you love people and you're praying for people,
but give God the glory. give God the glory. So, I was
going to read to you from the book of Philippians. Let's turn
over there and see what the Apostle said after he was converted. And this is the attitude we all
ought to have. Watch this. Let's look at Philippians
2. And let me find it. Chapter 3. Here we go. Verse four, though I might also
have confidence in the flesh. Ooh, that's not good. That's
not good to have confidence in the flesh. He said, I could.
If you wanna compare my life with your life, I could have
confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh he
hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more. Now watch
this. He's going to give you his religious
pedigree. Circumcised the eighth day. Supposedly
male babies have more vitamin K on the 8th day and judicially
it's better health-wise to circumcise. I read all kinds of... So anyway,
back in his flesh days he thought that was important. Circumcise
the 8th day of the stock of Israel. Hey, I got good stock. of the
tribe of Benjamin, oh, that blessed tribe of Benjamin. I was a Hebrew
of the Hebrews as touching the law, a Pharisee. Concerning zeal, I was killing
Christians, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which
is in the law, blameless in outward conduct, blameless in outward
conduct. Nobody may see or everybody may
see your conduct on the outside. What's going on in your heart?
You know, I see people in here every week that have a Bible
in their hand on Sunday morning and relapse Monday morning. I
see people raise their hand almost every service. And the next thing
I know, they're gone. I mean, you can do all of this
outwardly and maybe make a show in religion outwardly, what's
going on on the inside? How well do you know yourself
on the inside? Pharisees outwardly perform very
well, but what's going on on the inside? You know what makes
me a good pastor to you? Because I'm just like you. There
is no difference. No difference at all. So Saul
said this, and have you learned this? Verse seven, but what things
were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. In other words,
all those things that I had accumulated in a self-righteous way that
I was proud of. I count them dung. You know what
dung is. Dung is another four-lettered
word that you use quite often. Dung is dung. count them dung."
And I won't say that four-letter word because some of you in here
are so religious you'd pass out if I actually said the S word.
I count them but dung. They're manure. All my works
are nothing but dung. in order to earn salvation. And
why wouldn't God hate your self-righteousness? He sent His own Son into the
world when you didn't have a righteousness. God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should
not perish but have everlasting life. And then you come along
and talk about you don't roller skate or go bowling or play pool
or cards. And here's what Paul said, verse
8, Yea, doubtless I count all things but loss for the excellency
of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered
the loss of all things and do count them but done that I may
win Christ and be found in him not having my own righteousness
through law keeping. Let's go over to Luke 18. Just something for you to think
about this morning. I know some of you are going
to get mad today and some of you are gonna get so happy today.
Some of you are going, because I'm destroying your church anity,
your little baptism certificate doesn't mean doodly squat to
God. Don't be holding that up in the
face of God. He gave his only son. Amen. Look how the Bible keeps emphasizing
this thing of non-Phariseeism. Look at Luke 18. I love this
story. This was one of my favorite stories
as a kid, beginning with verse 10, the parable Jesus spoke.
Two men went up into the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee,
a separatist. A man that felt good
about himself. Somebody who was always quoting
the Bible. Somebody who was always saying, I don't do this, and
I don't do that, and claiming their own righteousness. And the other was a publican. That's not republican, that's
publican. The other a publican. Oh, the
publican. What a mess he was. But look
at the Pharisee. The Pharisee stood and prayed
thus with himself. I love that. He prayed thus with
himself. Father, I thank you that I'm
not as other men are. I'm better than them. I mean,
I give 10, 20, 30 percent. Lord, I know you've seen me,
you have seen me sewing scriptures on the ends of my sleeves and
on the hem of my garments. You know the Ten Commandments
are down there around my feet, sewn into the hem of my garment. And you know I can almost see
God going, I'll kill you. I'll kill you dead. God's hate is righteous hate. You're talking about your righteousness?
I gave my son, my only begotten son, to die in the sinner's room,
stead and place, and you're talking about not playing cards and how
holy you are? I got a little excited there. I'm not an extortioner. I'm not
unjust. I'm not an adulterer. or even as this publican. He
even points to the old... I'm not at all like him. You
see him, don't you? You see him. You know he's done
all the things that I don't do. You probably ought to kill him.
You know how many times he's relapsed? I fast twice in the week. I give
tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afire
off, verse 13, would not even lift so much up his eyes. God hates a proud look. I'm proud
of myself. I love myself. Lord, I want to
remind you of all my good works. But the old publican smote himself upon his breast. That's where the problem is.
That's where the problem is. Right in here. With the heart. You've got a heart problem. You
don't need a foot problem so you don't go to the theater.
You don't have a hand problem, a nose problem. You got a heart
problem. And only God can give a new heart. And thank God he does. So, this very quickly. Pharisaism
is an attitude of self-salvation, a boasting and bragging in self. It's going about to establish
your own righteousness. Now, if you're honest, you know
this, there are no perfect people in here. And if you're going
to go to heaven by works, you've got to be perfect. Not just on
the outside, you have to be perfect inside too. That means you can't
ever have a disrespectful thought. You can never have a sexual off-base
thought. You can never lust, no concupiscence. You have to be perfect inside
and out. If you're going to establish
a righteousness, well, you were born a sinner, so you've already,
that's all gone anyway. You're born messed up. That's
why you have to be born again. You have to be given a new heart
and a new start and a new life. And I was thinking this week,
been thinking this week about bringing this message about who
are the Pharisees. And I don't even know how to
say this without it sounding like I'm boasting. I'm not a
Pharisee. I know I'm a sinner. I know and
believe that God has done something in me because I hate every evil
way. I hate every evil thought. I
didn't say I didn't have them, I said I hate them. I would not
today stand here and make a boast. Even those things that I hear
all week long, Pastor Clark is with us. You know, he took the nightclub.
and turned it into a church. If I could sing and carry a tune,
I'd like to break out in one of those meetings. I'm only a
sinner saved by grace. Or maybe, just as I am without
one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, O Lamb of God,
I come. Don't go about to establish your
own righteousness. And I'm telling you, if you're
here today trying to go to heaven by church entity, trying to get
off of drugs, trying to do this, trying to do that, trying to
recover, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be
saved. He's the only answer. The only way you're going to
make it or I'm going to make it. So they go about to produce
their own righteousness. Matthew 23. There are seven woes
in Matthew 23. And here's what Jesus says about
the Pharisees, Matthew 23, 3. For they say and do not. That's
true of every Pharisee. You say, do this and that, but
you don't do it yourself, not in mind. You may perform well
in front of the preacher. It's happened for 33 years over
at Grace Centers of Hope. A guy comes in. His lips are
blistered. He's been there two days. The
next thing I see him coming down the hall, he's got a Bible. Pastor, I just want you to know
I've been filled with the Holy Spirit. He's got a Bible. He's two days from having used
crack cocaine. This has actually happened. I
just want you to know I have all the gifts. Shut up. until the swelling goes down
in your lips. And you're singing, what can
wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. These Pharisees, they say and
do not. Verse 4 says, they bind heavy
burdens that are grievous to be born and lay them on men's
shoulders. You know, I could weight you
down religiously so much today. I know the separatist view. I
was raised on the separatist view. I could really put a load
of mess on you. I could make you leave here thinking
you're going to hell for sure. You know, I was raised where
you went to God's house to get beat up. It was like, please,
preacher, abuse me today. Really abuse me. Make me feel
guilty. Make me feel like there's no
hope. Really beat me up. I deserve it. Beat me up, preacher.
No, God told me to comfort you, comfort you, my people. Tell
them that their sins have been washed away in the fountain filled
with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and that your sins cannot
be seen by God. They're removed as far as the
east is from the west. Hallelujah, by God Himself and
His Son. Well, verse 5 says that these
Pharisees do all of their works to be seen of men. You know, hide stuff you do. Don't let anybody know. When
you're good to somebody, try to be good to them without them
ever finding out who it was. Do it for the glory of God. These
men wanted to be seen. Look at verse 6. They loved the
utmost rooms at the feast and chief seats in the synagogues. Verse 7 says, And in the markets
they love to be called Rabbi, Rabbi. The Rabbi is here with us today.
And the Rabbi comes forward and gets a heap of praise. You know,
the only man that deserved to be called Reverend, I guess,
was the Apostle Paul. I would have called him Abraham,
I mean, he had it. But you know when he would write his books
to the church, he'd go, hey, this is Paul. He didn't say Reverend
Paul, Dr. Paul, Pope Paul, Priest Paul. Hey, this is Paul writing to
you. Oh, wretched man that I am. That's what Paul would say. Not
give me the chief seat. Verse 14 says that they had long
prayers. And Jesus said you shall receive
the greater damnation in verse 14 your long prayers aren't cutting
it Look at verse 15. You make proselytes and they're
twofold more the child of hell than yourselves Wow You got people
following you You're telling them to work their way to heaven
and when they become a believer in what you say They got a double
condemnation on them Verse 16, you're blind guides, blind guides,
whited supplicars. That's what you are, blind guides,
whited supplicar. It's really interesting that
Jesus had nothing good to say about the Pharisees, nothing.
In fact, he would say something like this, you generation of
snakes, you vipers, you whited supplicars, You ever gone out to the cemetery
and you've seen this beautiful marker and you go, isn't that
beautiful? Well, if you scrape the dirt
off and you could get into the casket, you'd see a mess and
maggots. When Jesus said, you're whited
supplicants, that's what you are. On the inside, you are a
mess, but on the outside, you're acting like, Jesus even said
this, you're like the dirty cup on the inside. On the outside,
you got the cup all clean. Remember my story, I told you,
I remembered this from the time I was four years old. I went
to Vacation Bible School in Lowe's, Kentucky. They had two gas stations,
a bank, and a grocery store. That's how big Lowe's was. My
dad built a house there and raised hogs and calves and pastored
two churches. But at four years old, he sent
me, of all things, this is a miracle itself, he sent me to the Methodist
Vacation Bible School. I went up there and I can still
see that little pastor. And he had a cup, it was as white
as snow. And I remember him telling this
story. You know, you can make the outside
of the cup look really, really good. And then he turned the
cup over and let us kids see the inside of the cup. And unbeknownst
to us, he'd put mud in there. I mean, just, it was a total
mess. And I've remembered that story
now for several years. You can clean up the outside
of the cup, but where God does His greatest work is on the insides
of you, where you become a new creature. The Scriptures are so very clear
that no man is to get the glory, even in the stories, even in
our stories. What you're seeing here at Grace
Gospel is miracles of grace. God never lets us get any of
the glory. How are you going to get any
glory for even having this building? You didn't buy it. I didn't buy
it. Somebody that doesn't even come to church here bought it.
And then they turned around and gave it to us. And then gave
us another 500,000 to make it look good on the inside. Hallelujah. We don't get any glory. That old warehouse that was just
to my left sitting out here, for years I tried to get that
thing. Couldn't get it. It came up at the tax auction
and I said, okay, the board said you can go out there and you
can give $18,000 for it. Some guy ran it up to $25,000.
At the auction, we hadn't even bought this building, but I was
trying to get property all around this building. I thought, sure,
we'd get that old warehouse and have it tore down to get ready
for a parking lot. When we got here, this guy was going to put a church
in that old warehouse. Who bought it at the auction?
Well, two weeks later, I'm out at the auction. I see Andy Meisner. I'm out there at his office.
I said, man, Andy, I wanted that old building next to Clutch Cargo. He goes, you still want it? That guy backed out of the auction.
We banned him from coming to the auction anymore. You still
want it? I said, well, yeah, how much?
He said, do you have $10? I bought that building for $10. Nobody's getting the glory here,
but God, that wasn't a mistake. God saw all of this, had all
of this purpose. That's why I get a little Pentecostal
up here. God had that all prepared for
us. None of us can receive any glory. And then David came, brought
all that big equipment out there and tore the thing down. Tore
it down. It would cost over $100,000 for
somebody to bring the equipment out here and tear that thing
down. And two weeks after he tore it down, David Mardigan
sent me a check for $7,000. He said, Pastor, we took all
the steel out of that building and I sold it for you. Here's
a check for seven grand. We paid 10. We got 7,000 back. We got our parking lot started
out there. God does things so you don't
receive any glory. God said to Gideon, who was very,
very poor. You ought to read this story.
He was very, very poor. And he was just kind of a boy. Hadn't
grown up quite yet. God said, I'm going to take you.
He said, God came to him and said, hey, thou mighty man of
valor. And Gideon goes, you talking
to me? I'm not a mighty man of valor. You know, God takes nobodies.
Do we have any nobodies here? If we have some nobodies here,
expect miracles. God can do great things with
you. So the Midianites had been beaten up on Israel, and God
took this young man who was a sheep farmer, keeper, shepherd, and
said, I'm going to use you to deliver Israel out of the Midianites. And you remember the story of
putting out the fleeces? Well, you ought to read that
story. Anyway, so he got Gideon about there where he was believing
it. I want to read this to you just real quick. So there was,
I don't know, 28-30,000 people. Gideon had them all lined up.
They were going to go in and take the Midianites. And here's
what the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee
are too many for me to give the Midianites into your hands, lest
Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, My own hand hath
saved me. Here's what God said to us. You
can't be a big, big, big, big, big, big wealthy church in order
for me to give you clutch cargo. You got to have a bunch of nobodies
in there. And I'm going to send out hillbilly preacher from Lowe's
Kentucky over there. And y'all are going to turn Pontiac
upside down by my grace and by what I do. And that's what that's
what's going on. That's what's happening. And
God cut that army down to 300. 300, that's the way God does. Well,
you know, God said, I want you to have a learning center for
your children and you need $25,000. I'm gonna give you that $25,000
a penny at a time. I love the way God, I love telling
this story, the penny story, the penny story. And so we collected
33 million pennies. and bought the computers. Now,
who's ever going to suspect that you're going to buy $25,000 worth
of computers, but you're going to get it through people giving
pennies? You're going to have 12 million pennies in your garage,
and then you're going to sell the pennies to the bank. Who's
ever heard of selling pennies to the bank? This thing gets
ridiculous. It has to be an awesome story
about what God does. Or there's 5,000 men who are
hungry and God sends a little boy with some loaves of bread
and two fishes or so and says, tell all the people to sit down,
I'm going to multiply the loaves and fishes. And he fed 5,000
men plus women and children. Who gets the glory? God does. God gets the glory. All I'm saying
to you is this. Well, let me back up just a little.
I was having lunch with a pastor, and he said, I'm going to ask
you one more time. This past week, I'm having lunch with a
pastor. How does all that happen over there? And then he looked
right at me, and he said, I know what you're going to say. I know
what you're going to say. I know what you're going to say.
It's your little secret message. I'm not trying to keep it a secret.
What we do over here is we give God all the glory. And I make
sure that this church and this people who listen to me is, I
just keep pointing to God and say, to God be the glory, great
things He has done. Lift up your hands and give Him
the praise. Give Him the honor. Glorify God
and watch Him show off. And my friends, that's exactly
what's happened here. Now, I'm closing. To God be the
glory. And I want you to go to Romans,
and then this will be it. It's 12 minutes after 12. Let's
go to Romans, and Romans 4, and beginning with verse 4. Now to
him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of
debt. So all you Pharisees who are working to go to heaven,
God owes you, if you can be good enough. Verse 5, But to him that
worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness. In other words, you can't do
enough work to get this righteousness that God requires of you. You
can't do it. You cannot do it. But to him
that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth
the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness
without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are
forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Isn't that something? The Lord
will not impute sin. How many of you have sinned today?
The rest of you are lying. All of us have sinned today.
We have sinned today. How many of you have believed
on the Lord Jesus Christ? All right, you sinned today,
but what God says, I'm not going to impute that to you. I'm not
going to charge that to your account. You did think it, but
mm-mm. You know why? Because Jesus paid
it all. All the debt you owe. Sin had
left the crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. You
have no debt because it's already been paid by the blood of Jesus
Christ. That's the good news that we're
going to leave here. I'm not going to leave here thinking,
oh boy, it's another Monday. Another day, another dollar.
Boy, I've got to be perfect tomorrow. I've got to work on it. I'm going to leave here today
with the good news. There is a fountain filled with
blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunge beneath that
flood, lose all their guilty stains. There is no condemnation
to those that are in Christ Jesus. Somebody say amen. Amen. Let's stand and praise our God.