We're gonna be in the book of
Proverbs. Book of Proverbs, chapter five. Solomon is continuing his admonishment,
his warning, his counsel. This started out by him saying,
my son, hear my words. And now he changes that to hear
little children, my children. He calls them my children. And
we know why he does this. We don't have to guess. Was he
talking to his actual son at one point, and now he's talking
to the Lord's people? No, it's one and the same, isn't
it? It's just further further evidence that all of Scripture
is written to the Lord's people. All of Scripture is written for
the Lord's people. What a glorious view this causes
us to have when you see the Lord calling you His children, His
children. What did He say in John chapter,
1 John chapter 3? Brethren, now are we the sons
of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know
that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall
see him as he is. Being in Christ, born of his
corruptible seed, means that we have perfect oneness and unity
with him. Not just him, but the Father.
We have unity with God, been united by the blood, been born
of an incorruptible seed. All that we can see is this corruption
that we are, the corruption that we produce, the corruption that's
around us. And all the Lord sees when he
sees his people is the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. No greater peace could cause
a sinner to rest than to know that your sins are covered, that
they've been washed away by the blood. And with that transaction,
the same transaction where the Lord shed his blood, we now have
unity. We now have unity. We're united
to him. Those of you who are married,
you took an oath when you got married. The woman became bone
of my bone, flesh of my flesh is the way that it was spoken
in Genesis. Adam said that about even so
it is like everyone that's been married, the Lord sees the two
flesh shall be one. That's exactly how it is with
the Lord Jesus Christ. We're one with him, literally
one with him. We're united in perfect oneness
and perfect righteousness and true holiness. Now, this is why
I prefaced all this because this is why Solomon is warning the
Lord's elect. Now that we see, okay, we're
reunited to the Lord. Well, Solomon's saying now, don't
go back to where you used to be. Don't go back to the law. Don't go back to free will works
religion. Don't go back to trying to please
God. You're in Christ. You're in Christ, united with
him. You have oneness with him. Don't
turn back. Don't turn back. And the good
news is, those that are the Lord, that are united to him, they'll
never be able to turn back. They may go for a season, but
the Lord will bring them back. He keeps his sheep. He keeps
his sheep. He gives us a detailed view here
in this chapter of what we're about to read. This is probably
the longest text. It's verses eight through 14, but it's probably
the longest text that I've taken since we've been in Proverbs. And the reason I've been breaking
it down so small is a lot of them are individual thoughts,
but this is a complete thought that he's about to give us. It
actually started in verse one, really, and then verse three,
it started over again. He gives us a detailed view of
the destruction that it causes going back, not heeding the Lord's
words, not heeding this admonition. He shows us the end of those
who draw back. Let's read this. Verse eight through 14 of Proverbs
five says, remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the
door of her house. I'll remind us that if you look
in verse three, it says for the lips of a strange woman, drop
as a honeycomb when her mouth is smoother than oil. That's
who he's talking about still yet. Verse eight, remove thy
way far from her. Come not nigh to the door of
her house, lest thou give thine honor to others and thy years
unto the cruel, lest strangers be filled with thy wealth, and
thy labors be in the house of strangers, and thou mourn at
the last when thy flesh and thy body are consumed. And say, how
have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof, and
have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine
ears to them that instructed me, I want you to notice this
verse right here. It says, I was almost in all
evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly. I've titled this
message almost in all evil, almost in all evil. What does it mean
to be almost in all evil? Well, he tells us it's in the
midst of the congregation and assembly. It's in the midst of
what congregation and assembly? The Lord's people? Lord's people? No, not the Lord's people. Somebody
asked me, should they go to a, there's something special a church
was having. They said, do you think we should go to that church
service? Cause it's a, they're having a special event, whatever.
And I want to show support to my family. And, um, if we do
that, we are validating their God. It's not that we have different
viewpoints as other churches. It's not that we have difference
of opinion. We have different gods. I want to make that very
clear. The God that we preach, the sovereign
God that created the universe, the God that saved His people
from their sins, is the one and true God. Any other form of God,
whatever the name may be, is a false God. It's false. So to
go to a church that actually preaches something false, a false
gospel, a false God, is to validate their false God. It's to say
to them, me and you can find common ground. Me and you can
walk together. Me and you can figure this out. But there is no common ground
when it comes to the Lord's gospel. He is the common ground. Meaning
you can't water it down. You can't add to it. You can't
take away from it. It is what it is. Straightforward,
isn't it? If we go to these other congregations,
these other churches, then we're saying, we have the same God
as you do. We have the same God as you do.
And that's not true, is it? We don't. We don't. The Lord
says, come up from among them and be separate. Now the answer
is clear. What do we do? He tells us. Verse
eight, remove thy way far from her and come not nigh to the
door of her house. Don't even step foot on the doorway.
Don't even go near these places. You know, growing up, I'm sure
you all knew the places that were considered sinful, such
as brothels and bars. My family believed the movies
were the devil. That's just how it was. I guess their traditions
made them think that way. The most wicked place on the
face of the earth is the church that is preaching, baby Jesus
cannot save you unless you let him. That's wicked. That's wicked,
that's evil, because it blasphemes God directly. Yeah, there's plenty
of wickedness that goes on in the world with sin and different
things like that, but we're talking about, they're dealing with man's
souls and the severity of it. That's why when we come, we come
in reverence and in godly fear when we come here for that very
reason, because it's such a serious matter. Such a serious matter. And these other churches, they
don't take it serious because they don't know who God is. And
he's saying, don't go near them. Don't go near their buildings,
their assemblies, their services. They're having a big to-do. Don't do it. Don't go near them. void their church as if it was
a deadly disease inside. Because it is, it's called the
lie. That's a deadly disease, the lie, all the way back to
the garden. This is what he actually means
by when he says giving your honor to another. In verse nine, lest
thou give thine honor into another in thy years unto the cruel And
then he goes on, he talks about hard labor and all of our wealth.
He's saying inside these goat barns, I guess what we could
call them, these freewill works religion churches, he's saying
that's what they're going to consume from you. You're not
going to have any honor of Christ. You're going to be, you'll be
giving that away. You'll be giving that up. They'll
be taking that from you. Our honor is the Lord Jesus Christ
and to go to a place or to associate with those who And I want to
make sure I say this as clearly and simply as I can. If you have
friends, we have friends that are non-believers, that's not
what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about don't talk
to people. I'm saying we don't go worship in those places with
those people. That's what I'm speaking of right
now. It's important. I told you whenever I first became
your pastor here that whatever we came across in the text, I'll
just do my best to bring a gospel message from it. And that's what
I'm trying to do tonight as well. But these that are at, The, I
call them goat barns, that's what they are. The free will
works for this. It'll cost you everything, everything,
if you forsake the gospel. It'll cost you everything. And look at verse 14 again. I
was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and
assembly. If you choose to go there, you'll be in the midst
of all evil. That's where it's located. That's where it's located. Not located on a football field.
It's not located in a, television, it's the heart of man. And where's
the heart of man seen to be the most evil? Whenever they're making
themselves God. When they're making themselves
God. I am my own God. I can do what I want to do. I
can let God save me or I can prevent him from saving me. And
that's what these men do. You're asking, somebody might
ask, am I saying churches are evil? Yes. Yes, false religious
churches are evil. That's exactly what they are.
They are lying to people about who God is. The Lord even told
the Pharisees, He said that you, to the Pharisees He said, you
go about all day seeking to make a proselyte. Now a proselyte
would have been a Gentile that was going to convert to Judaism.
He was going to convert to be a Jew. He would have to go through
the rituals and become circumcised. All these things. And he would
have to denounce his family, completely leave his heritage
and everything behind. He said, you go about all day
trying to make a proselyte, and when you do, you've made him
twofold the child of hell that you are. That's what he said
to him. That's what he said to him. That's what these men and
women are doing whenever they're talking about God in a non-truthful
way. He's saying to us here, don't
go near the door. Come not nigh the door of her
house. It's blasphemous. It's the most
blasphemous evil on the planet to preach a God that can't do
something unless you let him. A God that can't save unless
you let him. A God that is trying, he wants to, but he can't. That's
the most blasphemous evil on the planet. It is. Here's why. Because they say, let God have
his way. But you know what we say? He's
God. I'm gonna spend some time now
comparing the two. What do we say? He's God, he
can do whatsoever he will with the armies of the world, everything in heaven, everything
in earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest
thou? He's God, he's sovereign, he's just, and he's true. He
doesn't want for anything, he doesn't need for anything, he
doesn't try to do anything, he's God. That's the God we preach. That's the God we preach. I wrote
an article that says something like this. It'll be in the bulletin
on Sunday. He does what he wants, when he wants, how he wants,
where he wants, to whom he wants. That pretty much sums it up,
doesn't it? That's who he is. That's sovereign. That's what
we're talking about. We're talking about a sovereign
God. You have these churches that are preaching. They have
all the power. and they can constrain God, but
we can't constrain God. That means to obligate him to
do something for us, and we can't restrain him. We can't prevent
him from doing that which he purposes. He's gonna do it. He's
gonna do it. Those that do not preach the
sovereign God, they spend all day to make a convert, just like
the proselyte Jews, just like the Pharisees, but all they're
doing is making a two-fold child of hell that they are themselves.
I remember being in false religion. We did something called soul
winning. There's no such thing by the way, I'm just going to
tell you that. Soul winning is, well we're doing
that right now actually. This is where the Lord will call
his sheep from, is the pulpit. He uses preaching, we know that.
He saves the foolishness of preaching. It's foolish to men, but that's
the means the Lord's used. That's how he's ordained it. I don't think there's anything
wrong with knocking on somebody's door and inviting them to church.
I don't. But I think there's something terribly wrong about
trying to get a profession out of somebody because you've had
a conversation. The scripture doesn't declare that. Do you
know why the Ethiopian eunuch was baptized? Because Philip
preached the gospel to him. Philip preached the gospel to
him. And when he got done, he believed. So Philip comes walking
up to this Ethiopian eunuch, and he says to him, do you understand
what you're reading? He was reading from Isaiah 53.
He said, do you understand what you're reading? He said, how
can I unless a man teach me? That's exactly the point, isn't
it? No man come to the Father but by me. That's the man that
has to teach us. So Philip expounded from Isaiah 53 the gospel to
him, and he believed. God gave him faith. God saved
him, brought him to life. Well, the Ethiopian eunuch was
excited, and he said, well, here's water. What prevents me from
being baptized? And he went and got baptized
right that second, right that second. We don't attempt to make someone
convert or do something, because as soon as we start doing that
kind of stuff, how do you, somebody asked me, how do you become a
member at the church? Well, you come to church. And you don't
stop. You keep coming. And the moment
you quit, you're no longer a member. But if you keep coming, then
you're welcome. Just keep coming. You don't have a book, you don't
have to vote on it. No, you're welcome to come and sit down
and join the church. That's how it works. And all
these things men come up with are so stupid. They don't, it
just doesn't make any sense. No, it's not about, it's not
about look at me. I'm on the ledger now. I've got
my name on a pew. I know places that actually have
names on their pews where they sit. I'm not trying to pick on,
anybody, I'm just simply stating the facts that this is false
religion at its finest. It's all about look at me, look
at me. What's the gospel say? Gospel says look to Christ. He's
the only one that will save your soul. He's the only one. These men say man can choose
God and live. But you know what we say? God
must choose me or I'm doomed. They say, well, you can choose
God and be saved. And what do we say? If God doesn't
save me, I will not be saved. Is that not right? We say, well,
you can, they say, well, you can make a choice to become alive. No, dead man can't make a choice. That's silly, isn't it? Dead
man can't make a choice. They say, let Jesus in your heart.
And God's gospel says, I'm gonna give you a new heart. I'm gonna
take out your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
One that believes me, one that looks to me and everything. One
that honors me. He says, I will, and you shall.
That's the difference, isn't it? Our God says, I will, and
you shall. Their God that doesn't exist
says, if you do, then I will. I don't need a God like that.
Everybody, I could say this, knowing all of us enough to get
by with this, but we're all stubborn, aren't we? Every one of us. We
have to be made. We have to be, he has to grab
us and make us. He has to shake us. Remember,
we looked at Sunday, the things that shaken. He has to shake
us, shake out the unbelief. And that way we, otherwise we
won't believe. They say that God loves everybody. Jesus died for everybody. What
does God say? Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. Not the nations, the two people,
he hated Esau. I read a article, it was about
how that he loved Esau also, but he didn't, I was like, what
is this? All they're doing is is trying
to mix oil and water. You can't happen, he hated Esau
with a perfect holy hatred. It's not complicated. See, our
God's not complicated. It's all about him, his purpose.
It's all about his will being done. It's not about us and our
will. No, Jacob about love, why? Because
God loved those he chose in the covenant of grace before time
ever began. Before time ever began. That's why we can't find common
ground with them. Whenever these others start talking, they say,
well, can't we find common ground? Can't we? We know some of these
words. We know the word Jesus. We know
the word salvation. We know the word blood. We know
these things. Now, can't we find common ground? There is no common
ground outside of the gospel. There is no common ground. If
you take the gospel out of it, this becomes a fairy tale book.
That's what it becomes. But the reason that all of scripture
is written of Christ is because it's God's gospel written. The
only thing that'll save a man or a woman, now there's no compromise. God's
gospel and Satan's gospel, they're as far apart as light and darkness.
Can you mix light and darkness? Can't do it. They're more opposite
than land and water. Land and water. Now you can mix
land and water and I understand that, but we do understand we're
talking about two totally different elements, earth and water. There's no adding to or taking
away from this gospel or else it's evil. It's not God honoring. It's not God honoring to tell
men they have a choice to make. It's not God honoring to tell
men they need to decide something or do something to please God.
As a matter of fact, it's not God honoring at all. It's the
opposite. It's the opposite. What honors
the Lord? Christ does. Christ honors the Father. We
preach Christ and Him crucified. We preach Christ and we preach
Christ and His cross, the finished work of Calvary and our self-servants
for His sake. He says, don't go near the door.
Don't go near the door. God's ways are not man's ways.
His thoughts are not our thoughts. His thoughts are higher than
the heavens. His ways are past finding out, the scripture says. They say in false religion, God
wants to save you, but he can't unless you let him. Nothing could
be further from the truth. You know what God says? When
the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, made
of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under
the law. He made him in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin,
condemned sin in the flesh. For sin, condemned sin in the
flesh. In the fullness of time, when Christ's 33 years had come
to its purpose time, he drank the
cup of damnation dry, all the bitter dregs, the separation
from his father, he became sin who knew no sin. He drank the
cup, what was in that cup, our sin, damnation, whatever it He became guilty because he drank
that cup. He became guilty of what you
and I are guilty of, or the Lord would not have killed him, would
not have killed him. It would have been unjust. There's a lot of arguing on whether
God was made, or Christ was made a sinner, or he was made sin,
and I don't even debate with that. Nonsense, I'll read what
the scripture says. He who knew no sin was made sin
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. That's pretty
simple, isn't it? Was he made a sinner? No, he's made the sinner
substitute. He literally became you and I that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him. He endured wave after wave of
the full fury of the wrath of God on that cross. His very soul
was made an offering for sin. His soul was made an offering
for sin. This is the God we preach. This is the God we preach. He
humbled himself to the death of the cross, being forsaken
by the Father, being in unspeakable anguish and agony, being all
alone so that you and I would never have to be alone, being
separated so that you and I would never have separation from the
Father. We would always have communion and oneness with God. And then through the blackness,
after everything required for the salvation of God's people,
every single detail, minute detail was 100% accomplished. What did
he say? It is finished. He bowed his
head and he gave up the ghost. And that veil in the temple was
rent in twain from top to bottom. What does that signify? That
you can come boldly to the throne of grace now that you may obtain
mercy and find grace to help in the time of need? That the
blood satisfied the father and actually accomplished something?
Wasn't an attempt? Christ offered himself to the
Father, and the Father was well pleased. We know that because
he resurrected his Son, and all those whom were in Christ when
he died were resurrected with him, and they're seated in the
heavenlies right now with him, in perfect oneness. There's nothing
left to do. They say do. There's nothing
left to do. The Lord says rest on the Sabbath. Rest, rest in the finished work
of Christ. We don't go near the doors of
these other places, why? Because we believe the truth,
the true gospel. We can see the poison that's
in the other, it's, that's what it is, is poison. Poison in the false gospel, that's
exactly what it is. I told somebody this recently,
actually, well, a year ago or so or something, they were talking
to me, said, well, the only church that we can go to, they're a
Reformed church, and I don't wanna go off on a tangent on
this, but I'll just say, grace doesn't need to be Reformed,
it just needs to be reread. This needs to be understood.
We don't Reform grace, we just preach grace. We don't Reform
scripture. We don't have to do that. It just needs to be reread
and understood. The Lord has to give understanding. That's
all I'll say about that. But they said, well, it's a Reformed
church, so they do preach grace, And I said, OK. And he said,
I won't. I said, why would you take your
children there? He has young children like me. And he was
asking my advice, so I was giving him my advice. And I try to be
careful with that. You get in trouble. But Lord
gave me something to tell him. I really feel like I hope it
helped him. He said, well, I want my children to have the experience
of going to church and being around people that are there
that believe the same thing. I was like, but you just told
me you don't believe the same thing they believe. He's like, yeah, but
that's the closest thing we can find to it. And I said, okay, if you
had one buffet in town, one buffet, and it was the best buffet ever,
but they put poison in the food, would you take your family to
eat at that buffet knowing that they put poison in the food?
And he was like, well, probably not. And I said, well, that's
exactly what you're doing by going to that church. It's poison. False gospel is not close enough. If it's not 100% accurate, if
it's not God's gospel, it's a false gospel. And it's poison. It's
poison. We don't believe to become saved.
We're saved, therefore we're made to believe. They have it
backwards. I heard somebody say you have
to believe. Oh yeah, the Lord said believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved. They say you have to believe. Believing's not a work. You have
to be enabled to believe or you can't believe. A dead man can't
believe anything. Did you know that? Dead man can't
believe anything. We have to be enabled to believe.
How does he do that? He makes us alive by his will,
his power. He breathes the breath of life
into us and gives us faith that does what? Believes. If you find
yourself believing, it's not because you got saved, it's because
God saved you. That's exactly what happened.
We don't believe to become saved. We are saved, therefore we're
made to believe. What does the scripture say in
2 Timothy 1? You guys probably could quote
it by now with me. It says, God who had saved us
and called us not according to our works, but according to His
own purpose and grace, which was given to us when? Before
time ever began. And now it's manifest by the
glorious gospel. The glorious gospel. Any other
message that denies God's sovereign right and power is a false gospel,
and it's evil. It's evil. Don't ever become
desensitized to the importance of that. Somebody says, well,
this preacher is really good. You should hear him. And you
know he don't preach the gospel? Say, no, thank you. I'm good.
I don't need to hear that. That's garbage. You don't have
to say that to them, but know it in your heart, because it's
true. It's true. The good news is, is I don't
know of anybody in our church that's listening to anything
other than gospel preachers, so I'm not attacking anybody.
That's just to clear that up. I'll say this and we'll come
to a close. Any message that makes the blood's power dependent
upon man is evil. Any message that makes the blood
dependent upon you or me is evil. The blood's not subject to our
will. We're subject to God's will.
We're subject to his blood. He's the alpha and omega of salvation. Any message that says Jesus loves
everybody and he died for everybody, he wants to save everybody, but
he can't unless you let him, that's evil. That's not true.
That's evil. God saved his people from their
sin. That's what he said in Matthew.
That's why his name was called Jesus. Call his name Jesus for
he shall save his people from their sin. And you heard it,
we hear it echoed When scripture says, it's a faithful saying,
worthy of expectation, Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners. That was his purpose. He wasn't
trying, he did it. If we attend these goat barns,
is what I wrote down, and hear their message, we will be almost
in all evil, as he's talking about here. We'll be around it.
We'll be in all evil, it'll be all around us. We will be taking
the glory of God, the honor of the gospel, and trading it for
a lie. That's what Solomon's telling us. You're gonna trade
the honor and glory of God for a lie. When you add, we add one
thing or take away one thing from the finished work of Christ,
that's exactly what we're doing. We're trading the glory of God,
which is only found in Christ and the simplicity of his gospel.
We're trading it for a lie. That's why Solomon says, beware
the strange woman, Don't go near her house. Don't come near her
door. Hear my instruction, he says.
Hear my instruction. What do you think that instruction
is? Look to Christ. Look to Christ. Believe God's
gospel. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's the only thing that's gonna save us. Let's pray. Father,
we pray that you would take this and bless it to our understanding
for your glory in Christ's name, amen.