You can find my text this evening
in Genesis chapter 1. I would like to speak just a
little from verses 11 through 13. Before we read, let's pause
for a word of prayer again. Father, thank you for placing
us here at this place. when we think of our congregation
where we find people from pretty much all over, not only in terms
of where we came from geographically, Lord, but where we came from
religiously and in terms of our past. And yet you brought us
all to the same Christ by the same spirit, and we honor and
worship the same God, the Father, and all that by your working
in us. Now, we pray this evening, Lord,
that you will continue to do your work. And first of all,
we would ask that you bless our pastor. Do bless him more with
this procedure that they're doing tomorrow. How we pray that if
it would please you that it might not be as devastating as it was
last time, and that you would give him grace to to undergo
it. Lord, how we thank you for him.
And we thank you for using him. We thank you for all that we've
learned from you through him. And now, Lord, I pray that you'd
bless me, that it's the hour for me to deliver your word.
I pray that you would please relieve me from all obstructions,
that you'd cause me, Father, that I might be able to speak
freely, and that you'd be honored and glorified in your word, Lord,
as it truly speaks of Christ. Of course, in his name we pray.
Amen. Let's read these verses. Verse
11. And God said, let the earth bring
forth grass. the herb yielding seed, and the
fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself
upon the earth. And it was so. And the earth
brought forth grass, the herb yielding seed after his kind,
and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed is in itself after
his kind. And God saw that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the third day. speaking
this evening on those three words because they have a very strong
and a very gracious message for us. What does it mean after His
kind and what could that possibly mean for us in terms of the gospel?
You remember what happened before this on the third day after the
Lord made deep reservoirs for the oceans in verse 10. by which
he exposed vast continents of rich and fertile land which had
previously been submerged underwater. God proceeded in verse 11 then
to plant his garden. And with nothing but an almighty
command, he caused the earth to sprout a bountiful assortment. That's just like him. God's not
boring, is he? No. Matter of fact, I can't figure
him out. Can you? No, he planted a very
nice assortment of of plant life, which he divided into two simple
categories of simply herbs and trees. Now, for the purpose of
my message this evening, I want to draw your attention to the
simple phrase that occurs three times in our text in relation
to plant life and continues to be used four more times in this
chapter later on in regard to the creation of animal life. Those words are after his kind. While most folks who read these
verses wrestle to find a way to harmonize the theory of natural
evolution with the obvious fact of divine creation. God, through
the means of repetition, focuses our attention on this apparently
minor but extremely significant detail after his time. There's a great message in those
words. Leviticus 19.19 shed some light on the gospel
message contained in this phrase. If you want to turn with me there. Here he speaks further about
this thought of after his kind, Leviticus 19.19. You shall keep
my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle,
your livestock, gender with a diverse kind. Thou shalt not sow thy
field with mingled seeds. You couldn't plant multiple types
of seed in the same field. And neither shall a garment mingled
of linen and woolen come upon thee. Now, here we find that
the law forbids crossbreeding of animals, it prohibits planting
of multiple crops in the same field, bans the wearing of a
garment made of linen and wool. Now, genetic engineering and
agricultural science or sowing etiquette is not the purpose
of that revelation. No, the issue being revealed
here is that each of these forbidden acts speaks clearly of God's
hatred of defilement by combining things that should never be brought
together. Simple things simple day-to-day
living features that teach us a very great spiritual truth
This teachings presented again in Deuteronomy 22. Let me read
that to you Thou shall not sow thy vineyard with diverse seeds
various types of seeds lest the fruit of thy field which thou
has sown and the fruit of thy vineyard be defiled in the sight
of God Thou shall not plow with an ox or a And it asks together
just not to happen. Thou shall not wear a garment
of diverse sorts. And there we see again, woolen
and linen were not to be mixed. Obviously, God was laying an
Old Testament foundation for a wonderful New Testament revelation.
There are some spiritual realities that God will not allow. to be
mixed, he will not allow to be diluted or otherwise contaminated
without incurring his eternal wrath. Some things can't be mixed. The three which he most plainly
sets forth in his word and which he will not, under any conditions,
allow to be mixed, compounded, or confused are these three.
Law and grace cannot be mixed. Faith and works. cannot be mixed. Flesh and spirit shall never
be mixed. It cannot happen. And for the
next few minutes, by the Lord's grace, I pray that the Holy Spirit
might be pleased to reveal to us why God is so angry with the
religious message of our day, which universally attempts to
make salvation a collaboration between God and man. Is that
not what you hear? That's what I hear. A mixing of things that
should not be mixed. The mixture of both human and
divine requirements, we do our part, God does His, and ignores
the spiritual reality of the truth expressed in those simple
words after His kind. Now, let's take a look first
at law and grace. Look with me in John chapter
1. Verse 14. And the Word became flesh and
dwelt tabernacled among us. We beheld his glory, glory as
of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, pure
grace and truth. John witnesses about him as he
cried out, saying, This man was he of whom I said, The one coming
after me, that is, after me in terms of time, has come to be
before me. That is, in terms of preeminence,
He's way before me. For He was before me. He's eternal. Because of His fullness, we all
received. And grace for grace. Because the law was given through
Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man has ever
seen God. That is, as a result of keeping
the law, no man ever found God that way. The only begotten God
who is in the bosom of the Father, that one declared Him, literally,
that one unfolded unto us the truth about Him. Now, while the
law foreshadowed grace through many Old Testament types, Christ
is the embodiment of it. He is the fullness of everything
God taught about grace in the Old Testament. He's the picture
of it. He's the living, breathing image of it. The law can't offer
grace. There's no place for it. for
grace in law. It only thunders out the perfect
standard of God's absolute holiness. Do this and live. Don't do it
and die. That's all the law can say. There
is obviously a revelation of grace that's woven throughout
the law by the all-wise Holy Spirit of God who taught us even
grace through the giving of the law, but nonetheless the law
makes no allowance for grace. To introduce law-keeping, to
introduce human element, human effort to introduce what every
preacher who probably stood around anywhere in a hundred miles of
here said today, if you will, may probably finish that sentence
with a lot of different things. If you will come forward, if
you will repent, if you will believe, if you will do something,
then God will save you. And that is a mixture that cannot
be. By the way, that's a mixture
that never has been. And if you're here this evening, and you're
trusting in a salvation that you're in, that you've taken
something from you and mixed it in with something from Christ
and you think you're saved, you just think you're saved. Because
you are, if that's where you are in your salvation, God did
his part, I did mine, you're an abomination. Love you. But you're an abomination in
the sight of God. God won't tolerate that. He absolutely will not.
No. Two. To put things, our works
and God's grace together as a means of obtaining grace or sustaining
grace is an actuality to forfeit grace. and we do so in honor
of our own works. You know, it's amazing how, especially
those of us who were raised religious, there were certain things, you
know, we were taught from very early on, you know, like when
you jumped into the, at the dinner table and you immediately started
loading up, you know, and your dad or mom says, what's the matter
with you? We pray at this house. And I
don't know whether that was it or whether it's just what's native
in all of us that after a while, You get the feeling that there's
certain things that you have to do in order for God to be
pleased with you. Like, you know, most folks, there's
a lot of religious folks out there that cannot. It's an unthinkable
thought for them to go to bed at night without uttering some
prayer. They've got to say something.
You know, whether it's that rehearsed one or whether it's one they
made up, they've got to say some prayer before they go to bed
at night. It's their part. It's their part. They got to
put that in there for God to make sure that we can wake them
up in the morning because they're afraid they don't do their part.
He might not do his. Nothing but mixing law and grace
is what that is. The same is true. I've watched
people I've watched people, and I remember back in my religious
days, I've done it myself, where you go out with a group of people
and you're eating in public, and you're used to powing your
head and saying grace, and you're looking around and wondering
if anybody will see you and wondering if you ought to or not, and you
think you're in a bind because you feel like you ought to do
that. Don't want to be ashamed of Christ? I'll put you in hell. I don't want to not do what I
have to to keep God happy. What's a man to do? nothing but
mixing law and grace. That's all in the world that
is. Things that we have, that's a good, that'd be a good rule
of thumb. Things that we have to do or we will not be saved. You need to throw out of your,
of your, of your favorite trunk. You need to rid your trunk of
items like that. They have no place in the grace
of God. We're saved by Christ and Christ
alone and I don't want anything of mine Anywhere near that I
want my I want him to be all my salvation Now look with me
if you would I find a great passage that deals with this separation
of law and grace in Romans chapter 6 Romans chapter 6 let's begin
with verse 1 What shall we say then? Shall
we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid, may it
never happen. How shall we who are dead to
sin, literally, how shall we who died to sin, when did we
die to sin? In the person of our dear Savior,
in whom we were even before we were ever born, as he hung upon
that cross. That's my only hope that I was
there when he was there, and that when he died, I died. And
therefore he says, How shall we who died to sin in Christ
and through union with Him live any longer therein? Know ye not
that so many of us that were baptized into Jesus Christ were
baptized into His death? And he's not talking about something
that happens through going through this pool. He's talking about
what baptism symbolizes. Don't you know that so many of
us that were united with Christ were united with Him even in
His death. Therefore we are buried with
Him. by baptism into death. It's the
symbol of the fact that when he died, we died. And when he
was buried, we were buried. That like as Christ was raised
up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we also
should walk in newness of life. Do you see the way he's taking
that? He's not saying because Christ did this, you should do
that. And because Christ was making
this possible, you should finish by doing your part. No, he's
just saying when Christ did it, I did it. And you did it. And what more do we have to do?
Oh, no. Not a thing left to do. Matter
of fact, to do anything more is to do what? Obviously, to
discount the death. To discount the resurrection.
And to discount the union. No, we're not saved by keeping
laws. We're not saved by doing anything
as an offering. We're saved by what He did. Included in what He did. And
nothing more needs to be done. Don't mix law and grace. Verse
5. For if we've been planted together in the likeness of his
death, he's talking about we were planted under the water
as a symbol. He was planted in that tomb,
obviously fully and completely dead. If we've been planted together
in the likeness of his death, if we were in him when he died,
we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing
this, that our old man is crucified with him. hung right there on
the cross with him in all of its sinful, putrid nature. Our old man is crucified with
him, let the body of sin be destroyed, that henceforth we should not
serve sin. For he who is dead is freed from sin. I remember growing up as a child,
young man in my teens, And I remember the great burden of guilt that
was on me. We were raised in our Free Will
Baptist background where we were working our way to heaven and
all the I's had to be dotted. All the T's had to be crossed.
You couldn't forget one and if you did, you better say, Lord,
I'm sorry or you'd be hell bound for sure. And I carried that
for a long time. That's why I love this verse
in verse seven. He who is dead, and there again,
it's simple past tense. That one who died, I believe
I'm looking at a number of people who have died already in the
person of our Savior. If you died with Him, He who
died is freed from sin. Did He put away the sins that
were upon Him or did He not? My Bible says He did. Can they
come back? Not as long as a holy God is
on the throne in glory. They cannot come back. Our sins
are gone. He who died is freed from sin.
Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also
live with him. Knowing that Christ being raised
from the dead dies no more, death has no more dominion over him,
he's already finished the job. For in that he died, he died
unto sin once, and that has a finality to it, once for all. But in that
he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise, here we go. Reckon
you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin. Sin has no more
claim on us, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should
obey it and lust thereof. Neither yield ye your members
as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves
unto God as those who are alive from the dead, and your members
as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have
dominion over you. Why? For you're not under law. Why? Because the law is satisfied
with me. And if you died with Christ,
it's satisfied with you. And there's nothing else we have
to do. Breathe the free air. Relax. In Christ, everything
is taken care of. There's no need for you to interject
some legal maneuver. some work of the flesh, some
little curtsy, or some little prayer, or some little folding
of the hands, or some activity that you do, put those away. Put those away. There's no prayer
we ever prayed that kept us saved. There's no faithfulness that
we ever exerted that kept us saved. We're saved by the Lord
Jesus Christ, and that's all, and that's why we work. You know,
believers are the workingest people on this planet. Do you
know that? You know why? Because we're thankful. We're
thankful we're not working our way to glory. We're already in
glory in the presence of our Savior. We're not working to
get to glory. We're already in glory. We're working because
we love our Savior. He's put my sins away, and I
no longer have to fear anything. I have nothing to add. May the
Lord keep us from trying to mix law and grace. Now, secondly,
let's talk about that second one, faith and works. Turn with
me to Galatians chapter 2. Galatians chapter 2, faith and
works will not mix. Let's read this passage beginning
from verse 14. Paul was recounting his time
in Galatia when Peter and some others were there. When I saw
that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the
gospel, what we've just discussed, that Christ did it all, I said
unto Peter before them all, if you being a Jew live after the
manner of Gentiles and not as do the Jews, why do you compel
the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? Now what was he talking
about? He was talking about the fact that before some others
came from around Jerusalem up to visit with them up there,
well, he was eating whatever they ate. I'd say he was probably
just munging down on a big piece of pork. I say he was eating
whatever they ate, cooked whatever way they were supposed to, kosher
or not. I'd say it was good and I'd say he enjoyed it. And he
was there somehow or other and he found himself being able to
fellowship with those people across religious lines. What
a wonderful thing. And yet when there were people
who came up from James, apparently very heavily, still very heavily
orthodox in their thoughts and in their practices and washings
and various false imitations of keeping the Old Testament
law. And when he saw them come, he was so embarrassed that he
was, here he was, standing there with pork grease dripping down
his chin. What am I doing? I imagine the fear flew all over
him. Oh no, if this ever gets back
down, I've got to fix this. And he jumps over to another
table. I'll take care of that. No, no, that wasn't me. That
was not me. I did not do that. No. What was he doing? He was
mixing. He was going back to faith and
works. Oh, I'm not saying I'm not saying
that these people aren't saved. I'm not saying that they shouldn't
be trusting Christ for their salvation. I'm just saying that,
you know, we need to do these other things as well. No, we
don't. No, we don't. Not only that,
we dare not. We dare not mix faith and works. Look on down, verse 15. We who
are Jews by nature, Paul says to them, and not sinners of the
Gentiles, we're not like these people from Galatia, knowing
that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by
the faith of which Jesus Christ is the object, that's the faith,
it looks forward to Christ, the faith of Jesus Christ, even we
have believed in Jesus Christ, you see those two phrases back
to back, they're both pointing us to Christ, the faith of which
Christ is the object, even we have believed in Christ as the
object of our faith, that we might be justified by the faith
of Christ, and not by works of law, for by the works of law
shall no flesh be justified. But if while we seek to be justified
by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore
Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build again
the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor."
What's he saying? He says, if I build those things
that I followed from my youth up as a Jew, all those works,
All those rules, regulations, and practices, and little things
that I had to do to make sure God would let me into his heaven.
If I rebuild those things, Paul, Peter and Paul had walked away
from that. They'd walked away from that business. They weren't
doing that anymore. And yet all of a sudden, in the presence
of certain very intimidating people, they did. Or at least
Peter did. Went right back to that to make sure these folks
didn't think that he was any less of a true Christian than
the rest of them. And yet he did. And he did. Now,
faith and works can't stand together. It's either what you do or it's
what Christ did. It's either trusting Him for it or trusting
yourself for it. And I'm looking at a bunch of people, I wouldn't
trust you for half a second with my salvation. I sure don't want
to trust you with yours. I'd point you to Christ. You can't look to Him for a second
and not feel absolutely secure in His accomplishments. You can't
look at Him for a lifetime. and find anything that would
create even the least doubt in his ability to save you. Is that
not true for you? That's true for me. I've never
found any reason to doubt him, and I've never found anything
in him but all I need. Verse 19, Paul says, for I through
the law am dead, literally died to the law. As far as the law
is concerned, I'm not even on the planet. I died. died in Christ
that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ. What a wonderful thought. I don't
remember anything about the experience, just what I read in the scriptures.
I don't remember. I don't remember the awful pain
from the nails going into his body. I don't remember agonizingly
trying to draw breath hanging on that cross. I don't remember
any of that. And yet I can say with the Apostle Paul, and many
of you, I was there. Christ had united himself with
me across time before I was ever born. What a glorious Savior
we have. Finished before 1955 ever rolled around and I entered
this world. Already taken care of. I was crucified with Christ. All believers can lay hold of
that. And if you can lay hold of that, Then of what need do
we have to add any works? No more need. No more need. I was crucified with Christ,
nevertheless I live. Yet not I, it's not just me and
my works, it's Christ that lives in me, it's his works. And the
life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of
the Son of God. And again, I live by looking
to what he did for me, not what I'm doing for him, who loved
me. and gave himself for me. I don't
frustrate the grace of God. I'm not going to mix it with
my works. I'm not going to take grace and
mingle it with anything of mine. I do not frustrate the grace
of God. For if righteousness comes by the law, things that
I must do, then Christ died for nothing because God would hold
us to it. That's the long and the short on that. Let's look
at one last idea here. Flesh and spirit. Here again,
these cannot be mixed. Look with me back in Romans chapter
8. Romans chapter 8, let's begin
with verse 1. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them who are in in union with, united with Christ Jesus, who
walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law
of the Spirit, and here's what that law says, life in Christ
Jesus. Anyone who is in Christ has life. The law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death, the law that says that soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Verse three, for what the law could not do in that it was weak
through the flesh. What is it that I could possibly
do? What is it that you could possibly do? What thought have
you ever had that didn't have some flaw in it? What desire
did you ever desire that didn't have something in it that should
not have been there? What craving, what purpose, what
anything that you've wanted, craved, desired, or done, what
have you ever done that didn't have something that should not
be in it? Some sin, some lust, some desire,
some pride, some other something or other that is absolutely against
God's law. Not a thing. There's no use to
try to help out the spirit with our flesh. He's the problem. I'm the problem. How can I help
the Holy Spirit? He's helping me. I'm the problem
that he's fixing. Verse 3, for what the law could
not do, and that it was weak to the flesh, God sending his
own son in the likeness of sinful flesh. There was no sin in his
flesh, but he joined himself to a whole lot of people with
sin in their flesh, and for sin, condemned sin, In the flesh of
the Lord Jesus Christ, He condemned all the sin of all those sinners. Thank God I was one. That the
righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us. How much
righteousness? Everything the law demands. You know, I don't ever remember,
I can't remember having a day in which pretty much most of
the day, at least off and on throughout the day, I have some
guilty something that comes across my mind, a shadow that comes
across my heart, something I feel guilty about, and most of the
time I probably am. Here it says that the righteousness
of the law be fulfilled in us. Fellow believer, when God looks
at us, he sees every last one of his laws, every commandment
He ever had written, every righteous demand He ever made. He looks
at us and says, got no problem here, got no problem here, got
no problem here. Fulfilled, fulfilled, that righteousness
is no less than the very righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, for
it is His righteousness. Ours is His, we partake of His.
Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they
who are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. but
they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For
to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded
is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity
against God. That's that person who is seeking
to work out his own righteousness. God's against you. God's against
you. You try to add the work of your
flesh with the work of His Spirit, God will be against you every
time. For it's not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can it be. So then they who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh,
but in the spirit. If so be that the spirit of God
dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the
spirit of Christ, he's none of his. And if, but if Christ be
in you, it's true, my flesh, my fleshly nature is dead because
of sin. It can't do anything but that.
But the spirit is life because of righteousness. I like the
way that that's written there. I'm not just alive. No, I have
life. I have the life of Christ. I
don't want to just be alive like Christ or alive beside of Christ. I want the life of Christ. But
if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell
in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken
your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwells in you. Therefore,
brethren, we're debtors not to the flesh. There's nothing we
can do to live after the flesh. There's nothing we can accomplish.
For if you live after the flesh and as if in your religious seeking
after God is what you do, you'll die. You'll die. But if through
the spirit you do mortify the deeds of the body, no longer
look to yourself to accomplish what God demands. Looking to
Christ only, you'll live. You'll live. walk in the spirit
you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh Paul wrote to the
Galatians for the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit
against the flesh and these are contrary one to another we all
feel that we know that every day so that you cannot do the
things that you would but if you're led of the spirit you
can stop trying because you're not under the law Christ fulfilled
it for us Even though our natural tendency,
I believe that I'm enough like you and you're enough like me,
I can make this statement. Even though our natural-born tendency
is to mingle grace with law, there is a nature in us that
wants to prove that there's some good in it. May the Lord grant
us the ability to crucify it every day. May we put it down
every day because there's nothing good in it. Most of you are around
my age. We're old enough to know better,
aren't we? And we've been saved long enough to know better. God
taught us the truth. It's our natural tendency to
supplement faith with some good deed, some act of faithfulness,
some word that needs to be said, and we just stepped up and did
what ought to be done. There's nothing for us to add.
Christ has done a perfect work. We need not add anything. It's
our natural tendency to oppose the Spirit by our flesh, and
as surely as every living thing God created, though, always reproduces
itself after His kind, so will we. He made us, and it works
just like He made it to work. We will always, I'm not saying
we won't sin, We're doing nothing but sinning. And I'm just saying
that everything God created does what he created it to do. And
believers, you know what we do? We always look to Christ. May
God ever make it so. May we be true to the seed of
the Lord Jesus that we are. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you'll bless
us. We meet here and rehearse these
truths, not to make them so, not to cast them out as something
that must be decided or acted upon or made to be. Lord, the
only activity we're interested in in these services is the very
activity of God Almighty, revealing by his grace, the Lord, the Lord
Jesus Christ in our hearts and through his powerful spirit,
making us what we are not by nature. And therefore, Lord,
it is in Christ that we rest all our hopes. Lord, our case,
which is to come one of these days, when life ends, we find
ourselves yonder, Lord, before you. We rest our case with him
who is the apple of your eye, perfect as you are, glorious
in holiness and righteousness and truth. We pray to be found
in him. For, Lord, in him we will lack
nothing. For it's in Christ's glorious name we pray. Amen. Let's stand and sing hymn number
126, Rock of Ages. 126.