The Lord told us in John, book
of John, that you hate me because I tell you the truth. That's
what he told him. You hate me because I tell you
the truth. And Paul has come into a similar situation in our
text. If you want to turn to Galatians
chapter four again, Paul is expressing the love that
the Galatians had for him. And he says to them, you would
have given me your eyes if you could have. And why did he say
that? Well, Paul was afflicted with
a infirmity in the flesh. He besought the Lord three times
for, and the Lord said, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my
strength is made perfect in weakness. And so the Lord didn't heal Paul
of his affliction, but he mentions to them here that you didn't
reject me because of my affliction, but you embraced me and you loved
me and you would have given me your eyes. And so we assume that
there was something going on with his eyes. That's what most
scholars say, but where the spirit of the Lord is silent, we just
remain silent as well. We don't delve into that. But
here he's saying to them, why is it now you despise me because
I tell you the truth? Like you loved me and I loved
you or I love you. Why is it that you despise me
because I tell you the truth? And so I've titled this message,
why do men hate the gospel? Why do men hate the gospel? There has come some confusion.
The Judaizers have came in, and there are a lot of them well
today, by the way. Judaizers are just lawmongers is all they
are. They're saying you have to do this as part of your salvation.
You have to do this as evidence of your salvation. And if you
don't do that, you're not saved. You're not a believer. Judaizers,
they try to keep the law. No man can keep the law. We know
that, but that's what they attempt to do, to find a righteousness
by keeping the law. And that's impossible. They've
completely contradicted Paul in the gospel of salvation by
grace alone. Now how does someone completely
contradict the gospel? How complicated do we think that
that actually is? It's not. It's adding one thing
or taking away one thing from the gospel. And in doing so,
it's no longer the truth. It's no longer the truth. Did
you know a half truth is a lie? So what's a 99% truth? It's a
lie. It's a lie, isn't it? This is why when we come together
and the gospel goes forth, the duty and responsibility of the
man in the pulpit is to give the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth. You've heard that statement before
in a court of law, but he's bearing that before the Lord, begging
the Lord, Lord, cause me to speak your truth. First of all, reveal
your truth to me, then cause me to speak it. And if we do
tell the truth in love, there's going to be some that hate us.
for it, there's gonna be some that hate us for it. He asked
this question, am I becoming your enemy because I tell you
the truth? Am I becoming your enemy because
I tell you the truth? So the message this morning is
why do men hate God's gospel? Let's read Galatians 4 verses
12 through 20. Brethren, I beseech you, be as
I am, for I am as you are. You have not injured me at all.
You know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel
unto you at the first, and my temptation was in my flesh, yet
you despised not, nor rejected, but received me as an angel of
God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the blessedness
you spake of? For I bear you record that if
it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes
and given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy
because I tell you the truth? They zealously affect you, but
not well. Yea, they would exclude you that
ye might affect them. But it is good to be zealous,
zealously affected always in a good thing. And not only when
I am present with you, or not only when I'm present with you,
my little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be
formed in you, I desire to be present with you now and to change
my voice for I stand in doubt of you. Tell me, ye that desire
to be under the law, do you not hear the law? I don't think I
was supposed to read that last verse, but I did anyways. They
hated, why do men hate the gospel? Why did they, why was Paul at
the point of saying, and we don't have to assume, Paul said, am
I becoming your enemy? So he obviously had some hostility
come against him. His Judaizers came in and were
telling people, you have to be circumcised, we have to observe
times and seasons, we have to do this, we have to do that,
as we've seen last message. But the issue is, that they believed
them over Paul. Why would they do that? Why would
they? Because the flesh is enmity against
God. The flesh wants something to
do. The flesh desires something to see, some work to have, to
give themselves credit, credit and validation. So why do men
hate the gospel? because they hated Christ, number
one. They hated Christ, and the elect
are one with Him in God, the scripture tells us. That's why
they hate the Lord's people. Now, in Colossians chapter two,
verse eight, it said, Beware, lest any man spoil you through
philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the
rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete. in Him, which is the head of
all principality and power. We're complete in Him. This is
why men despise us. But why do they hate the gospel?
Because they hated Christ. Christ is truth. Pilate looked
at Christ and said, what is truth? What is truth? They couldn't
see that he was talking to truth. The way, the truth, and the life
couldn't see it, could he? Couldn't see it. The Lord's people
are complete in him, and therefore they're gonna be despised just
as the Lord was. Have you heard the saying, You
are what you eat. You ever heard that before, anybody?
Or you are what you eat. That's the same in preaching
too. It really is. If we succumb our ears to hear
a false prophet declare, and I'm not saying it's somebody
that's completely off base, but somebody that preaches one part
of the gospel or salvation wrong. I mean, that's don't listen to
them. Because if we succumb ourselves to that we become desensitized
to it and it's not feeding us because the only thing that feeds
us is the bread of life, the fountain of living water, it's
the blood of Christ alone. This is what Paul's getting across
to them. Now you're going back to the bondage that you were,
to bondage to being under the law whenever you're free in Christ.
Why? Because men hate the gospel.
The gospel is not enough for the flesh. The flesh wants more.
The flesh desires to be seen. The flesh desires to be heard.
The flesh desires to be in charge. And none of these things can
be true Because God's gospel is true, and it says that flesh
is enmity against God. Preaching points to work rather
than it's not of God, it glorifies the flesh. Flesh's desire above
all else is to be praised. To be praised. What did Satan
say? Lucifer, before thrown out of heaven, he said, I will ascend
above the heavens. I will become as the most high.
I'm going to become like the most high. Why? He wanted to
be worshipped. He wanted to be worshipped. And
why did Eve take the fruit? Well, because she wanted to be
God. It comes down to worship. We're
not born wishing we were God. We're born thinking we're God.
That's the problem. Unless the Lord comes and reveals to us
that we're not God, we will live our life looking to ourself for
salvation. Salvation can't come through
him by that. Somebody said, well, I don't
think really the flesh wants to be acknowledged and praised
like you're talking about. Why does Facebook have three billion
members to it? Three billion. Everybody wants
to be seen. Everybody wants to be heard.
If you heard me say this before, I always repeat what I say next afterwards. I'm not against Facebook. Don't
misunderstand me. I'm just simply implying, why is it? Because
people want to be seen. The flesh wants to be heard.
Look at me. Look at me now, look at what's going on. Do they always
paint a true, perfect picture of their environment, of their
life? No, why? Because we don't want
to be seen as bad. We don't want to be seen as struggling.
We don't want to be seen as what we are. We want to be seen as
good, as a certain type of person. We want to be seen respectable
to our peers. The flesh desires praise. That's
the point here. Here's the problem. And the scripture
is clear on this. The problem is they that are
in the flesh cannot please God. Are you in the flesh? Now he's
not talking about fleshly tendencies. He's not talking about having
fleshly desires. He's talking about being robed
in flesh. They that are in the flesh. Are
you in the flesh? Everybody that's alive is in the flesh. You can't
please God, not in the flesh, not in of yourself. You can't
please God. You have to be born again. See, we can't please God without
the blood of Christ. And even then, it's not the flesh
that pleases God. It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory that pleases God. When he sees us, he sees the
blood of Christ. He sees the finished work of
Christ. He sees all the requirements were met for you and I. And he
looks at us and says, justify because of Christ alone. That's
what he did for his people. But in that, That gospel, there
is no glory for this flesh whatsoever. Not a single bit of that points
to me and says, look what I have done. It doesn't. The new man born of the spirit
has the nature of Christ bestowed inward and that's whereby we
cry, Abba, Father. The spiritual man and the carnal
man hate each other. It might sound hard to hear or
hard to believe, but your flesh and my flesh right now hate God
in every way. We would not come to God in our
flesh. We wouldn't. We couldn't. The
flesh is enmity against God. The flesh is other than God.
is natural and receives not the things of God because the things
of God are spiritual. This is why men hate the gospel
is because the gospel is a spiritual gospel. There is no fleshly involvement
for you or for us. There's no responsibility left
on the table whereby we have to do something in order to make
God's blood effectual or make Christ's finished work effectual.
Otherwise, it wouldn't be finished. It would have been, well, it's
almost finished, but now you have to do your part. No, no,
no, it was finished. That's what he said on the cross,
wasn't it? The spiritual man and the carnal
man hate each other. How far back does that go? Well,
two sons of Adam, Cain and Abel. Cain brought the works of his
hands, the fruit of his labor, and it was good fruit. It wasn't
rotten. It wasn't bad fruit. If you looked
at it, I'm confident it would have been good. He was trying
to have God respect him, he would give the best, his very best.
But our best isn't good enough. Our best is not good enough.
Christ's best is good enough, but our best is not. That's why
we need a substitute. What did Abel bring? He brought the firstling
of his flock. He brought a lamb, and he killed
that lamb. As a picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ being our substitute, shedding his blood on Calvary's
cross, And the scripture tells us when Noah did that, that it
went up to the Lord a sweet-smelling savor. And when Christ did that
on the cross, it went up to the Lord as a sweet-smelling savor.
He had respect unto Abel because Abel was looking to what God
was looking to, the Lamb. Cain was wroth. It said to Cain,
Cain and Cain's sacrifice, he had no respect. Now he says to
them, much like what Paul is telling the Galatians, he said,
do you not know that if you do right, if you do what's right,
You'll have favor with God. Paul's saying, if you go back
to the law, you don't have favor with God. If you're looking to
Christ, you have favor with God. But as we heard the first hour,
it's not that I know him, it's that he knew me. If I'm looking
to Christ, he's the doer of it. He's the reason I'm looking.
He gave me eyes to see and ears to hear, and he gets all the
glory. Otherwise, looking would be a work. We say, well, I'm
glad I started looking. I'm glad I did this. That's just
not, we don't do that, do we? Cain and Abel, what did Cain
do? Well, you know the story. Cain, you know, it's amazing
to me, Cain wanted to kill God when he wanted to kill, because
he was rejected of God, not Abel. But Abel was accepted. But since
he obviously couldn't kill God, he did the next best thing in
his mind, and he killed Abel. He killed Abel. And the Lord
said to Cain, the Lord said unto Cain, thy brother's blood cries
from the ground. What does that blood cry? Vengeance.
Vengeance. Justice. Justice. Aren't you glad whenever the
scripture talks about the blood of our Lord and Savior, the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ crying better things than that of Abel,
it doesn't cry for vengeance. It cries justified. It cries
redeemed. When he sees me, he sees the
blood. And he says, I'll pass over you. I'll pass over you.
This is why men hate God's gospel, is because it strips them of
all their righteousness, it strips them of all their confidence
in the flesh, it strips them of all their glory, all their
glory. You remember whenever Nebuchadnezzar
walked out and he said, is this not great Babylon which I have
made? He was being prideful, wasn't he? A couple of chapters
before, I'll remind you, he makes a statue that's 60 foot tall
and tells everybody to worship it. And you know, I say this
about every time I say that, but whose face do you think he
would have wanted on that statue? His own. He wanted to be worshipped. That's the issue, isn't it? He
wanted to be worshipped. But the children of Israel, the three
Hebrew men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they said, no,
we won't bow. We're not bowing. And so he threw them in the furnace.
And Nebuchadnezzar gets to see God in the furnace. He said,
the fourth that's in the furnace is walking about. He's like the
son of God. He saw the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he said, and he goes and talks, he said, now I praise
and extol the God of the heavens and the God of Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego. Well, then the next chapter or the chapter after
that, he says, is this not great Babylon that I have created?
He still, he might've seen him with the physical eye, but he
didn't see him through faith, did he? And what did God do? Well, Nebuchadnezzar was one
of God's sheep. How do I know? Well, because God abased him
and God only abases those for the purpose of salvation that
are his. Nebuchadnezzar's confession after that, he said, God is God
and I am not. None can stay his hand or say
unto him, what doest thou? Nebuchadnezzar couldn't see the
Lord. And Nebuchadnezzar would have
continued worshiping false gods because the flesh hates God's
gospel. It hates God's truth. And so
what does God do? Well, he puts our face in the
dirt, doesn't he? He knocked Saul off of his high horse, whose
name changed Paul later on. Paul was made to confess, Lord,
what would you have me do? He knew he was talking to him.
He knew he was talking to him, but he had to knock him off his
horse and strike him blind. And it wasn't until Paul was
completely blind that he could see perfectly. He could see who
God was. Well, Cain and Abel, the two, picture
the two natures, flesh and the inward man. But in Matthew, Mark,
and Luke, it says this, and ye shall be hated of all men for
my name's sake. Not might be, not could be, not
potentially hated, but you shall be hated. Why? Because God has
revealed his gospel God has revealed that Christ is your only hope
for eternal life, your only hope of justification before the throne
of God, your only hope of salvation before God. And men will hate
you and men will hate me for that reason. Turn with me to Matthew chapter
10. Why do men hate the gospel? Because
it strips men of all the hope they have in their self. It's important that I mention
every time I talk about your flesh hating God, it's my flesh
too. We're in the same, we're cut from the same mold. We're
exactly the same. And it doesn't get better. No,
we don't get better. Paul didn't say, oh wretched
man that I was. Men believe in progressive sanctification.
They don't understand that Christ is our sanctification. No, if
I'm sanctified, it's in him alone. I'm not progressively getting
better. As a matter of fact, I'm regressing. I see myself as the
chief sinner getting worse and worse. The gospel strips men
of all their hope and their self completely abases us. That's
what he did to Nebuchadnezzar. And that's what he did to Saul.
Look here, Matthew chapter 10, verse 34. Think not that I am
come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but
a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance. That word
variance means cut in two. literally Cleveland too. I am
come to set at variance against his father and the daughter against
her mother and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And
a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he that
is, he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of
me. What does he mean love them more?
What does it mean, love them more? If he doesn't, he that
loveth father and mother more than me. Well, in the other book,
it actually says, he that hateth not his father and mother is
not worthy of me. What is he talking about? There's
people I've talked to, sometimes they say, well, if I believe
what you believe, I would condemn my entire family to hell. And
I said, They're either condemned or they're not. What you believe
or don't believe doesn't determine that. What you believe or don't
believe doesn't determine someone else's salvation. If you believe
God, it's because God has called you, God has saved you, and God
has revealed himself. but that doesn't condemn another
because he saved you, caused you to see. No, the reason that
person wouldn't come is because they hate the gospel. It stripped
them of their righteousness. That was the problem. That was
the problem. Strips them of all their self-righteousness. Our gospel Another reason that
men hate God's gospel, it's unbelievable, literally unbelievable by the
flesh. You can't believe it. I can say
this with full confidence. I've heard other men say this.
We don't understand anything we believe. We just believe it
by faith. We just preach it. How can I possibly understand
how God became a man? I can't comprehend that, but
I believe it. Matter of fact, it's my only
hope. It's my only hope. Men want to keep God in their
pocket to use whenever it's convenient. They want to use God as somebody
that gives them a handout when the time comes of their need,
somebody that can help them if they let him. And this gospel
says, no, God is God and you are not. We can't constrain him.
And we can't restrain him. This is why men hate the gospel.
He's seated on the throne as the successful redeemer of his
people, and there's nothing we can do to change that, nothing.
That's good news if you're a sinner. That's really bad news if you
have self-righteousness. Really bad news if we have self-righteousness. It's literally an unbelievable
gospel without the gift of faith through grace alone. But to those
who believe, is it not true? Would you not say that the gospel
is the best thing you've ever heard? That's what I would say.
Gospel's the best thing I've ever heard. Best news I've ever
heard. Is not the truth your delight? Is not Christ your hope
and your joy and your rest and your peace? We can't rest in
this world as God's people. We're pilgrims and strangers.
This is not our home. No, the Lord went to prepare
a place for us. So if it's our hope and it's
our rest and it's our delight, Then why do men hate God's gospel?
Because God is sovereign and they want to be God. They want
to be God. Turn to John 15 with me. Men do not like free, sovereign
grace. They don't mind to use the word
grace, they just don't know exactly what it means because that's
the only kind of grace there is, is sovereign grace. Look at verse 15. Look at verse 18, I'm sorry,
18 through 26. If the world hates you, you know
that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world,
the world would love its own. But because you're not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hateth you. Remember the word that I said
unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord. If they
have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have
kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things
will they do unto you for my namesake, because they know not
him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken
unto them, they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak. for
their sin. Now that's the root of it, isn't
it? The gospel reveals our sinful
condition by nature. It reveals our inability to fix
it, our depravity. Now they have sin, they don't
have a cloak for their cover. I'm reminded that Adam and Eve,
as soon as they ate of the fruit, they became naked before God
and they knew it and they hid themselves. And that's what we
do by nature, we try to hide ourselves. But on top of that,
they sewed together fig leaves. And we heard Greg recently preached
a message about the fig leaves and how it's actually the shape
of a man's hand, which I thought was really ironic. I mean, amazing that the Lord
purposed it that way. Isn't that glorious? Because
they sewed it together. They sewed man's hands together
to cover themselves. And this is just a picture of
works. The Lord said, no, it has to be the lamb. I have to
cover you. You can't cover yourself. I have
to cover you. This is why men hate the gospel,
because when they see themselves, if the gospel is being preached,
it exposes their sin, they see that they are naked, it reveals
what we are, what we are. Well, let's read on. If I could find my spot, okay, verse
23, and that he that hateth me, hateth my father also. If I had
not done among them the works which no other man did, they
had not had sin. But now have they both seen and
hated both me and my father. But this cometh to pass that
the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, they
hated me without a cause. But when the comforter has come,
whom I will send unto you from my father, even the spirit of
truth, which proceeded from the father, he shall testify of me.
And ye also shall bear witness because ye have been with me
from the beginning. Excuse me. And ye also shall bear witness
because ye have been with me from the beginning. Why did they
hate God? Why could they not see him as
God, the Lord Jesus Christ? Can you imagine all the people
spoke to, and they just thought he was somebody else, just another
person, just another person. Except when he walked up, one
time he walked up to Philip and he said, follow me. Philip just
gets up and follows him. Why would he do that? Because
the Lord revealed it, revealed Himself to him. revealed himself
to them. What about the woman at the well? Whenever she said, well, when
Messiah comes, he'll straighten this thing out. He'll tell us
the truth about all these matters. And what'd the Lord say? He that
speaketh to you, he said, I am, I am. And she left her water
pot. Well, why? Because the effectual
word of God was revealed to her right then and there. That woman
was Born again on the spot, she saw him as God. Come see a man
that told me all things ever I did. Is this not the Christ?
Is this not the Christ? They couldn't look to him, believe
on him because they were in the flesh. No grace or no faith was
given. And when you tell somebody that
your salvation is completely dependent upon God giving you
faith by his grace alone, that you can't produce that faith,
you can't acquire that faith or merit that faith, and without
faith it's impossible to please God, they're going to hate you
for it. Because man wants to be praised. Man wants to be praised. If you want to see what men does,
you wanna see what men and women do with choice. People talk about
choice. You need to make your choice
for salvation. Look at the garden. That's what
men do with choice. They'll choose sin. They'll choose
the one fruit they couldn't have. One fruit. You say, well, I wouldn't
have done that. Yes, we would have. The scripture
doesn't tell us, but I've often entertained the thought. I wonder
how long it took her to take the fruit. Because I don't think
it was very long. I think I'm thinking maybe about
lunchtime first day. I don't know. I mean, just look
at us. If you think if the Lord's made you a sinner, you understand
you loathe yourself. But if left to yourself like
she was to make that choice, how fast would she have done
that? You get what I'm saying? And the scripture is silent on
that. So I'm not preaching that as a truth, but it does. It does
seem likely that it was quickly, just by our nature. Brethren,
if you want to see what men do with the choice of eternal life
or death, look at how they treated Christ at Calvary. That was God,
that was salvation, right there. That was the fullness of the
Godhead bodily. That was the creator of everything. How'd they treat him when they
had the choice? Away with this man, crucify him. They spat on
him, they plucked his beard, they mocked him, they whipped
him, beat him, made fun of him by putting a crown of thorns
on his head. Here's the king of the Jews. Why did they do
that? They hated the truth, the gospel. They hated the truth of the gospel. Are we so naive to think we're
different? We would have done the same thing. His own elect
that was present there before He had called them out of darkness
into light, they were doing the same thing as the others. When
the Lord said, forgive them, Father, for they know not what
they do. If He was praying for everybody there without exception,
then every one of them were forgiven. Every one of them were forgiven.
But in Acts 2.23, the Lord says, Peter's on the day of Pentecost
preaching. He says, by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, you have taken, and with wicked hands, you have crucified
and slain the King of glory. You did that. 5,000 men were
converted that day because they looked at Peter after he got
done preaching the gospel to them. They said, men and brethren,
what shall we do? What shall we do? He said, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, be baptized, confess him, and thou
shalt be saved. We're not capable of believing
unless he enables us, and baptism is just the confession of what's
already happened, what we believe in. That's all that that is.
That's an ordinance. We're about to take the ordinance
of the Lord's table. That's only two ordinances we
observe. We don't observe them as any part of our salvation.
We observe them because we're commanded to, and it's an honor
and it's a privilege. It points to him alone. So why
do men hate the gospel? Well, it reveals salvation is
of the Lord. You know, Jonah, We can relate
to Jonah. The Lord said, go to Nineveh
and preach. Jonah said, I'm going down to Tarshish. I'm going to
Joppa. I'm not going to preach. Yep, that worked out really good.
But that's us by nature, is it not? That's what we would do,
left to ourself. It's the same as Eve, left to
herself. She chose the fruit and gave it to Adam. Adam took
it. He goes down and falls asleep on the side of the ship. You
notice every bit, it keeps saying he goes down to Joppa, down to
the side of the ship, going down, it keeps going down. Every step
away from God is down. Do we see that? Every step in
the flesh left to ourself is further and further away from
God. We can't walk closer to God by choice. He has to bring
us, draw us. He goes down on the ship, falls
asleep. And I don't know, in his rebellion, I guess, He's
able to do this, but he's asleep in a storm. And he must have
been pretty sleepy is all I know. He's in a storm. The ship's rocking. All these things are happening.
You can imagine. And the men come down and tell him, pray to your
gods, because we're going to go down. And they try to lighten
the load, throwing everything over. That's a picture of false
works to try to fix the problem. This is false religion saying,
do this, do this, and we'll be saved from the wrath. And they
cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah and he confessed, yeah,
you're going to have to throw me overboard or you're going to die. And the
gospel picture is that the Lord Jesus Christ had to be plunged
into the dark depths of death for you and I to have peace with
God. Because as soon as he hit the
water, it stopped. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
did. As soon as he said, it is finished. The veil was written
twain from top to bottom. He gave it the ghost. And now
we can enter boldly to the throne of grace. We can have peace.
We not can have, we have peace with God right now. Well, Jonah
got swallowed by a fish, didn't he? A great whale, I think it
says. And he says, out of the belly of hell, I cried. The Lord
is faithful to chasten his people, to draw out the confession throughout
your entire life until your dying breath, these words. He was resolved. You can even say dissolved if
you want to. He had nothing else to declare about himself and
he was in complete humility and surrendered before God and said,
salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. If
you preach that, if we believe that, we're going to be hated
for it. Men hate the gospel because it is salvation that is through
and by God alone. It's God's salvation. In Psalm
51, David was praying and he said all the things that he said,
purge me with hyssop, I shall be made clean, wash me, and I
shall be whiter than snow. It was the prayer of repentance,
the prayer of asking for forgiveness of the Lord, right after he had
sinned with Bathsheba, after Nathan had came. But what does
he say? Restore unto me the joy of thy
salvation, not mine. Yes, the Lord gives it to us,
but it's his salvation to give. It's his salvation. Men hate
the gospel because they want to be able to take by force,
by force, the Lord's salvation. It can't happen. It can't happen. This is why the Lord said, you
will not come to me that you might have life. My word is not
in you. He told him, you're of your father, the devil. He was
a liar from the beginning and his lies will you do. The gospel
is truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And men
hate it because they would prefer the lie. They would prefer to
hear a lie that makes them feel good than to hear the truth that
strips us of everything. What did the Lord say, though,
about making a covenant with death, having a covenant with
hell you're in agreement with? He said, when the overwhelming
scourge comes, he says, I'll disannul your covenant. The only
one covenant, it's the covenant that we preach in this gospel,
it's the covenant of grace. That's the only covenant that
saves, or that saved the Lord's people from their sin. That's
why we preach it, that's why we believe it. Everything else
is the lie, it's the lie. Let's go back to Galatians chapter
four. They despised Paul after loving
him so much it would appear. They didn't want the truth. They
loved their tradition. They loved what it made them
feel. They loved the praise of men. What did the Lord tell the
Pharisees? He said, you love the praise of men more than you
love the praise of God. You walk around, you're dressed up, you
pray loud so everybody will see you. It draws attention to the
flesh. And that's men by nature. That's men by nature. Let's read
this again, verse 12. Brethren, I beseech you, be as
I am, for as I am, for I am as you are. You have
not injured me at all. You know now, you know how through
infirmity of the flesh, I preached the gospel unto you at first,
and my temptation was, which was in my flesh, you despised
not, nor rejected. but received me as an angel of
God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the blessedness
you spake of? For I bear you record that if
it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes
and have given to me. Am I therefore become your enemy?
Because I tell you the truth. They zealously affect you, but
not well. Yea, they would exclude you that
ye might affect them. but it is good to be zealously
affected always in a good thing and not only when I am present
with you, my little children of whom I travail in birth again
until Christ be formed in you, I desire to be present with you
now and to change my voice for I stand in doubt of you. Paul simply saying, why is the
love that you had for me changed? Is it because I'm telling you
the truth? Telling you the truth, you hate that? And that was what
it was, wasn't it? He's telling the truth. He's
like, you're going back to bondage is all you're doing. It's all
you're doing. And they would rather believe
these Judaizers and continue in their traditions and continue
their law keeping, thinking they have good standing before God,
rather than hear the truth of the Lord. He said, I have doubt
for you. that you've left the truth. How?
How do they leave the truth? By adding to or taking away one
thing from the finished work of Christ. When you add one thing
to it, you've made it void for yourself. It's no longer the
full truth. You believe Christ plus something.
God won't allow it. God won't allow it. He'll strip
us of that if we're his. Men hate the gospel because they
find out pretty quickly that they are not good enough for
God in and of themselves. You'll never go to another church,
other than a gospel church, and men look at you and say, everyone
in this room is a liar by nature. You're not good enough for God.
Doing your best is not gonna count for anything in salvation.
Look to Christ. Why? Because men want to be praised.
Men want to be recognized. And this gospel says, you're
not good enough for God. Not the way you are right now.
Not in the flesh. It's very clear throughout scripture.
It is the life of Christ that merited sanctification. It's
the death of Christ that justified his people. It is the blood of
Christ that cleanses us from every stain, every sin. It's
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to his mercy hath he saved us. That's the only way he loved
us, is according to his mercy, according to his grace. It's
his finished work, how he became our righteousness. Jehovah said,
can you, the Lord our righteousness, He made us perfect before the
law. That's why we don't go back to it. Don't go back to the law. You're free from the law in Christ.
Look to him and live. Don't go back to bondage. Egypt
has nothing for you. Egypt has nothing for me. Don't
you love the fact that he was resurrected because God was satisfied,
because we had been justified freely by his grace. There's
nothing else to do, no other work. Rest in the sabbath. The
flesh says, I can't do that. Aren't you glad the elder shall
serve the younger, the scripture says, the new man created in
righteousness. Oh, the Lord says, believe on
the Lord. And the new man believes on the
Lord as all their acceptance before God. He gives us a heart. gives us a heart. Men say, well,
surely there's something I must do. I must come to an altar,
or I must give my heart to him, or I must pray this prayer, or
I must do something. There's got to be something that
shows God I'm sorry. I must live a certain way, maybe
to be sanctified. I got to do this. I got to do
that. God's gospel says three words, and this is why men hate
it. It is finished. Salvation's accomplished. It is finished by the Lord Jesus
Christ himself. Hebrews chapter one, verse three
says, when he had by himself purged our sin, he sat down. There's only one piece of furniture
missing from the temple. It was a chair. There was no
real rest. The work never ended. But now
we can rest on the Lord Jesus Christ, our Sabbath. Look to Christ alone and live,
giving God all the glory. This is why men hate the gospel,
because it gives them zero grounds to approach God in and of themselves.
But what does the scripture say now that we see the finished
work of Christ? We have God's gospel. Whosoever
will, let him come. You don't have grounds to come
on your own merits. Come to Christ. on his merits,
on his finished work. Come believing him that he is
all in salvation. And if you can, you will. If
you can, you will. But he's the doer of it. And
that's why men hate this gospel. Let's pray. Father, we ask that
you would take this and bless it to our understanding for your
glory. Lord, as we're about to partake of your table, we ask
that you would cause us to enter into your body and your blood
and the sacrifice that you made and your great salvation that
you wrought, cause us to look to you and see that their pictures
pointing us to you and cause us to rest on you, believing
in your gospel. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen. Matt, can you come? And Steve,
can you come disperse the elements, please?