Good morning. I'd like to read
from Psalm chapter 106. Psalm chapter 106, starting in
verse one. Praise ye the Lord. Oh, give
thanks unto the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endureth
forever. Who can utter the mighty acts
of the Lord? Who can show forth all his praise? Blessed are they
that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times.
Remember me, O Lord, with the favor that thou bearest unto
thy people. O, visit me with thy salvation, that I may see
the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness
of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance. We have
sinned with our fathers. We have committed iniquity. We
have done wickedly. Our fathers understood not what
understood not thy works in Egypt, they remembered not the multitude
of thy mercies, but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red
Sea. Nevertheless, he saved them for his namesake, that he might
make his mighty power be known. Dear Heavenly Father, you are
worthy of more praise than we could possibly give to you. We
are such undeserving sinners, Nevertheless, you saved us for
your namesake. Father, we ask that your word
be proclaimed here this morning. We ask for traveling mercies
for the men that you've called to come preach to us next weekend,
and for all those that are going to come to visit as well, to
hear your word proclaimed. We ask that you give those men
a word to speak to our hearts and give us ears to hear. We
ask for those that are sick and in need of a healing hand this
morning and we pray for our children that you might make yourself
known to them in your time. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Let's stand together once again.
We'll sing hymn number eight in the Spiral Gospel Hymns hymnal,
number eight. Oh Lord, our hearts and souls
aspire ? To lift up from this earthly mire ? ? O may we think
of heavenly things ? ? And know the joy thy presence brings ?
? Lord let us see the Savior's face ? And let us taste of thy
sweet grace, May open ears thy glories hear, And may we smell
thy fragrance near. ? Be pleased to open heaven's
door ? And on our heads thy blessings pour ? All wretched, poor and
needy weed ? Where can we go if not to thee Oh, may this day be blessed the
most, that Jesus Christ becomes the host to feed our souls with
living bread and with our souls in joy to wed. Please be seated. morning again. The first verse that we're going
to look at in God's Word this morning can be found in Acts
chapter 24, Acts chapter 24. I've titled this message, Christ
the Way, with the emphasis on that little word, the, the, Christ
the Way. Often, when we stand for the
truth of the gospel, and seek to honor the Lord Jesus in our
salvation. We are accused of others by, you think that you're the
only ones who know the way. You think you're the only ones
who know the way. And that is not what we believe
at all. What we do believe is that there
is only one who is the way. And he is the one whom he has
revealed himself to be. Just that plain and simple. When the apostle Paul was brought
before that Roman governor Felix and made that same accusation
was made against him. The Jews were accusing him of
denying that what they believed was true. They were accusing
him of having And so in verse 14 of Acts chapter
24, Paul says this, this I confess unto thee that after the way,
which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing
all things that are written in the law and the prophets. before believers were called
people of the way. And that wasn't a compliment. They were accusing the people
of God of the exact same thing that the religious will accuse
us of. They were using this term the
way as an insult. Those people over there think
that they're the only ones that know the way. This was before the believers
were called Christians. And that term was not a term
of endearment, it was also an insult. For the Jews knew that
the Christ would come and these Believers were identifying themselves
with Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ. And they were professing
a gospel that claimed union with Christ. That as he is, so are we. That his righteousness is my
righteousness. That I'm justified before God
in him. that I'm found in Christ. And so when the Jews first called
the believers Christians, that term did not mean followers of
Christ. That meant little Christ. Those people over there think
that they're just little Christ. They think that they're God.
They think that they've got the only way. The accusations haven't changed. None of us like to be told when
we're wrong. It's offensive. That's why you
have to be very diplomatic, don't you? And even when you're diplomatic...
unsolicited advice is always received as criticism and never
welcome, is it? We don't even take advice very
well, much less somebody coming right out and saying, I've got
not only a better way of doing it, I've got the only way of
doing it and the way you're doing it's wrong. Now you just think
about the normal things of life. Somebody comes to you and does
that to you in light of something you're doing, you're gonna take
offense to it, aren't you? That's the offense of the gospel. We're saying that Jesus Christ
of Nazareth is the way. and that there is no other way,
and that all other ways lead to death. The Bible says there is a way
that seems right to man, but in the end, that way leads to
death. I don't want any man's opinion.
And I know you don't want my opinion. And I don't wanna give
you my opinion. I wanna know what God says. What's
God say about it? Is the only hope that I have
of finding the way is if God shows me the way. Everybody's looking for a way. Paul says, this one thing I confess
unto you, they're accusing me, they're mocking me of having
the way. And what they call the way is
in fact the way I worship God, believing all things written
of him in the scriptures. The only way we can be sure that
we have the way is if it's revealed in Scripture. It's what I believe
consistent with what the Bible says. Otherwise, I'm going to follow
a way that seems right to me and that way is going to lead
to death. Proverbs chapter 21 verse 2 says,
every way of a man is right in his own eyes. If we didn't think what we were
doing was right, we wouldn't be doing it. If we thought that
was a better way to do something, we'd do it a better way. But
we do what we do because we think in our own eyes that that's the
best way to do it. You know, I was thinking about
the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11 and I thought about it in light
of men not being able to agree with one another about the best
way of doing something. You know, they were trying to
build for themselves a city, a name and a tower that reached
up into the heavens and God confused their language so that they couldn't
communicate. They couldn't agree with one
another. And I know that that means that the Lord gave one
man Spanish, another English, another French, another German.
Yeah, all the languages came from there, I know that. But
spiritually speaking, do we not see that happen when it comes
to man trying to build for himself a tower that reaches up to heaven?
Can you just see these people in Genesis chapter 11 building
this city? And one of them saying, you know,
I think we ought to do it this way. And another one says, no,
I think we ought to do it that way. You know, slime's not going to
work good as mortar to put these bricks together. We need to come
up with something better. No, slime's the best thing to
use. And one man had an opinion, another man had another opinion.
The first church split was in Genesis chapter 11 when the people
were scattered from the Tower of Babel. And that tower wasn't just a
spire reaching up into heaven, it was an altar. Why do you think
that we are now finding, we found them a long time ago. You look
at the Mayans and the Incas and the Egyptians and what are all
these pyramids, what are they? They're religious idols, they're
places of religious activity. And the more they look, the more
they find these pyramids all over the world. They find them
everywhere. And they're wondering what were
they and why are they so consistent? And here's my take on it. They all came from Babel and
they all had a better way of doing it and they scattered out
throughout all the world and they started building it their
way. And that's exactly what modern
day religion is doing. You drive, you don't even have
to drive, you just walk. a few blocks from here, and you're
gonna find a pyramid on that corner, a pyramid on that corner,
one on that corner, and everybody's got a different way of getting
to heaven. I wanna know God's way. What
does God say about the way? And the Lord Jesus in John chapter
14, if you'd like to turn there, John chapter 14, said, let not
your heart be troubled. Don't let your heart be troubled. You believe in God? Believe also
in me. For in my Father's house are
many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. But I go and prepare a place for you. so that where I am there you
may be also. When the Lord Jesus ascended
back into glory and the Father said to him, sit thou here at
my right hand until I make all thine enemies thy footstool.
He wasn't just talking about those who die at enmity with
God. We all by nature are at enmity
with God. We all by nature treat God the
same way we treat one another. In that you don't want somebody
telling you you're wrong and that there's a better way. And
you certainly don't want somebody telling you everything you're
doing is backwards and you're doing it the wrong way. And I've
got the only right way. You don't want that. We bow up
against that. That's why we need repentance. You'll hear people talk about
repentance in religion as if it's stopping sin. I wish I could never sin again.
And I know if you're a child of God, you have that desire.
You wanna be kept by the power of God. You know, the rotten fruit that
the tree produces. We look at sin only in its outward
appearances, don't we? I'm gonna say something here
for just a moment. This is so important and so critical
to understanding who we are. We look at the outward manifestations
of sin and we think, well, that person's a worse sinner than
that person. When in fact, the root of that
tree is exactly the same in every man. And the only difference, do some
people live horrible lives and some people live worse lives
than other people? Of course. What makes the difference? What makes the difference between
one man and another man? If the root stock is the same,
what makes the difference? The restraining grace of God.
That's the only thing that makes a difference. The only difference
between me and you and Adolf Hitler, or you pick whoever you
want, is the restraining grace of God. Because the root stock
in me and in him is the same. Is that not, that's true, it's
true. We can take no credit. We're
not manifesting our nature of sin as bad as any man has ever
manifested it. Did God give me experiences? Did God give me relationships? Did God give me things to... A restraining grace of God takes
many different forms, doesn't it? That's the only thing that
keeps me. John chapter 14, back to our
text. Thomas said, Lord, we don't know
where you're going. How can we know the way? And the Lord told Thomas in verse
six, I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man cometh unto the father
but by me. If you had known me, you should
have known my father also. From henceforth, you know him
and have seen him. And Philip saith unto him, Lord,
show us the father, and it sufficeth us. Lord, okay, now we're getting
to the heart of the, Lord, just show us the father. Show us who
God is. And Jesus said unto him, O Philip,
have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known
me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen
the Father. How sayest thou then, Show us
the Father? Believe us not that I am in the
Father, and the Father in me, and the words that I speak unto
you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me.
He doeth the works. Now notice in that one verse
that works and words are used interchangeably. The word
of God is a work. One time a man said, what work? can we do to work the works of
God? And the Lord Jesus said, this
is the work of God that you believe on him that has sent him. And
how do we believe? Faith comes by hearing and hearing
comes by the word of God. So the word of God applied to
the heart and giving faith is the work of God. That is the
work of God. And if I'm a believer, it's because
God made me so. He did a work of grace in my
heart. He made me to believe everything that he said. And
in believing God, I have the way. I have the way. The Lord Jesus said in John chapter
seven, broad is the way and many the way to destruction
and many they are that are on it. It's a broad road leading
to hell and a lot of people on it. Narrow, straight is the gate
and narrow is the way that leadeth to everlasting life and few are
they that find it. I want to be a part of those
few. Oh Lord, I want to know the way. You know, we live in a I'm thankful
for our country. I'm thankful for democracy. I'm
thankful for majority rules. It's a good system as men go,
I suppose. It seems like everything else
that men have tried doesn't work. But when it comes to spiritual
things, and when it comes to physical things in a lot of ways,
the majority's wrong. Don't join the majority in thinking,
well, I'm safe because I'm with the majority. Your teenager comes
up to you and says to you, well, you know, you need to let me
do this because everybody's doing it. And you need to say as a
parent, because everybody's doing it, exactly why you're not doing
it. But ain't that the way we are.
We won't be like everybody else. And if we're not like everybody
else, somebody's going to say, well, look at there. Look at
there, they think they're just a little Christ. They think that
they're the only ones that got the way. The Lord said, my ways are not
your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts.
As the heavens are far above the earth, so are my ways above
your ways. Oh, God's ways are completely contrary to our ways. Whatever we believe about God,
naturally speaking, it doesn't just need to be tweaked. It doesn't
just need to be redirected. It needs to be flipped completely
upside down because it's wrong. It's backwards. And men don't
want to hear that. But when God gives the spirit
of repentance, and I don't know if I finished this thought a
minute ago, repentance is not a stopping of sin, I wish it
was. Repentance is a changed mind. I think differently about everything. God gave me a changed mind. He
turned every, I had it upside down, God turned it right side
up. That's what the apostles were accused. They were brought
before the Sanhedrin. These men have turned the city
upside down. And the apostles could have said,
maybe they did. It's not recorded in scripture.
We can turn it upside down. It was already upside down. We
turned it right side up. The man's walking around on his
head. He sees everything backwards than what it is. And he thinks
he's in the way and he thinks he's right. In Jude chapter one, the Lord
warns us of false prophets who have gone in the way of Cain. Cain. Reaching all the way back
to those early days of Cain and Abel. The false prophets have
gone the way of Cain. The way of Cain, and then he
also, warns us against the false prophets
who have gone the way of Balaam. And the way of Balaam and the
way of Cain was the same, the same. It's salvation by works. It's finding the way by something
that I do. It's not looking to Christ as
the way, it's looking to something that I do to make Christ the
way. Cain, you remember, brought the
labors of his hands, offered them up to God, and God had no
regard for the offerings of Cain. Abel, his brother, brought the
firstlings of the flock, a lamb, and shed its blood and poured
out its blood, and God accepted Abel's offering, and nothing's
changed. Cain killed his brother Abel. Men hate being told that they
don't have the way. And they will kill you for it.
And they have over the centuries in many cultures. And if we lived
in, we didn't have the benefits of protection of the law, they'd
be killing us. They'd gone after the way of
Cain and run greedily after the way of Balaam. Balaam was a false
prophet who was looking for personal gain. And the scripture says that the
unbeliever thinks that gain is godliness. They think, here's the way of
Cain. And this is the way of man. This is the way that man
thinks. This is the way that they think
is right. That if I'm gonna gain salvation, I'm gonna have to
produce something godly. I'm gonna have to do something.
I'm gonna have to, you know, I'm gonna have to be repentant
and I'm gonna have to have faith and I'm gonna have to change
this and change that. And I'm gonna have to make some
contribution. that men think that gain, receiving
salvation, is godliness. And the evidence of my godliness
is the gain that I receive in my life. God's blessing me with
this and with that. Oh, you've heard it. I've heard
it. The man that built this building,
I'll never forget it, Brian. The man that built this building
four years ago, he used to talk about, you know, I was living
like the devil and just doing this and that and my business
was going to pot and I was losing everything and I got saved. And now, I mean, he's very successful
now. Here in our little city of Apopka,
he's doing very, very well. A lot of the buildings you pass,
not only built by him, belong to him. And he credits that gain to his
godliness. And the rest of that verse says,
but godliness with contentment is great gain. And then the Bible says that
this is godliness without controversy. This is the mystery of godliness
that God was manifested in the flesh. So I am content in looking
to Christ and resting my hope of salvation in his glorious
person and his finished work without any contribution on myself
for my salvation. All my salvation. The scripture speaks of the way
of righteousness. The way of righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ himself
is all of our righteousness before God. All our righteousness apart
from him is as filthy rags. We can produce no righteousness
that will give us a safe place or a standing in the presence
of a holy God. Nothing to recommend us to God. Every man, every man in his best
state is altogether vanity. So the best thing that I can
produce is devoid of righteousness before God. I've got to have
a righteousness outside of myself. That's why we don't look to the fruit of sin that our tree might be
producing. We look to the root. There's
the, there's the, and it's, it's just, it's corrupt. It's corrupt. Lord, you got to restrain. You
got to restrain me. If there's going to be any fruits
of the spirit, Lord, you've got to give me the spirit, the fruit
of the spirit. And he gets all the glory. The Bible speaks of the way of
truth, the way of truth. Revelation chapter 19, verse
11, his name is called faithful and true, true. And what's the world say? Well,
everybody's got their own truth. Truth is relative. Truth depends
on your experiences and your ideas and your thoughts. And
one man's truth is not necessarily another man's truth. And the
Lord Jesus said, for this cause was I born and for this reason
came onto the world to bear witness unto the truth, the truth. And they that are of the truth
hear my voice. They hear my voice. I am the
way, the truth, and the life. You know, we call that little
word, the, a definite article. And the contrasting word to that
is the letter word, the letter word, a, which we call an indefinite
article. And those are good terms. The definite article speaks of
the definite thing that that little d is put in front of.
And the A said, well, you know, the indefinite, it's just, you
know, could be this or could be that depending on what you
want it to be. As soon as you put that little word the in front
of it, all of a sudden it becomes definite. Definitely defined without any
controversy and faith Says God, you said
it. That little definite article
makes the Lord Jesus definitely the way, the truth, and the life,
and that's it. And dare I change the word the
to a. Revelation chapter 22, verse
six, these sayings are faithful and true. And the Lord God of
the holy prophets have sent his angels to show his servants these
things. We're just reading scripture.
The sayings of God are faithful. The sayings of God are true.
And the messengers that God sends are just been sent to tell God's
people what God says. That's far as any messenger can
go. The Holy Spirit. has to make
us believe it. And I love what the Lord said
to Pilate. I've already quoted this. I've
come to bear witness of the truth. They that are of the truth, they
that are of me. Oh, we learn of him. Who is he? Who is God? God is love, perfect love, he's
righteous, he's holy, he's just. The God, the character and the
attributes of God are on full display at Calvary's cross. We see the love of God, greater
love hath no man than this, he laid down his life for his friends.
hearing his love, not that we love God, but that he loved us
and gave his son to be the propitiation of our sins. We see the justice
of God. When God saw sin on his darling
son, God had no choice but to exercise the full wrath of his
justice and put his son to death. If he did that to his son, what
would he do if he saw sin on me? see I gotta have sin taken
away, I've got to have it removed from me as far as the East is
from the West. We see the holiness of God, God
could be satisfied with nothing less than a perfect sacrifice
which means that God's not gonna be satisfied with anything that
I offer him to atone for my sins Men are all about self-atonement
and self-righteousness. What can I do to find the way? You can't atone for your own
sins and you can't produce a righteousness that'll be acceptable to God.
He has to atone for your sins and he has to stand in your stead
as all of your righteousness before God. Let's look at a couple of verses
quickly before we close. Hebrews chapter nine. Hebrews
chapter 9. And we'll begin reading in verse
8. The Holy Ghost, this signifying that the way into the holiest. Now the writer of Hebrews is
using the Old Testament imagery of the tabernacle and the And
the Ark of the Covenant was in the holiest, or the holies of
holies, the inner sanctum of the tabernacle. The high priest
went in once a year and put a blood sacrifice on the mercy seat.
And God said, here, I'll meet with you. And all of that pictured
Christ. The Ark was Christ. Everything
in the Ark was Christ. The golden mercy seat was Christ.
The veil that separated the holies of holies from the rest of the
Old Testament temple was Christ. And that's the imagery that the
Lord is using here. And so he says the way into the
holiest in the old Testament, the priest would be stationed
with swords drawn, warning men to stay away from the holy place. Only the high priest could come
into there. When the Lord Jesus bowed his mighty head on Calvary's
cross, and he said, it is finished, something miraculous happened
in that temple. The veil was rent by the hand
of God. From top to bottom, God ripped
it. And now the spirit and the bride don't say, stay away. What
do they say? Come. This is the way. This is
the way. Come. Come. The way has been
opened. That's the imagery, look at verse
eight. The Holy Ghost thus signifying that the way into the holiness
of all was not yet made manifest while as the first tabernacle
was yet standing. Only the high priest could go
in and the high priest was Christ. Which was a figure of the time
then present in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that
could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining
to the conscience. So all the sacrifices that I've
done, all the gifts that I make, all the prayers that I pray cannot
sad my conscience of its guilt. which stood only as meat and
drink and divers washings and carnal ordinances imposed on
them until the time of reformation. Something's going to be reformed
now. The old covenant's going to be reformed. It's going to
be refashioned. All of these types and shadows
and pictures of Christ in the Old Testament are going to be
fulfilled in the person of the Lord Jesus. But Christ, verse
11, but Christ being come a high priest of good things to come
by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands,
that is to say, not of this building, neither by the blood of bulls
and the calves, but by his own blood, he entered in once into
the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. Oh,
don't miss the verb tense. Having obtained eternal redemption
for us. He didn't make redemption possible. He didn't make redemption an
offer for us to accept or reject or add something to. He finished
the work. What is faith? It's looking to
Christ. He's the only way. He is the
way. There is no other way. Turn over just one page to Hebrews
chapter 10. And we'll be in reading verse
19, Hebrews chapter 10. Having therefore brethren boldness. And that's not a cocky boldness,
that's confidence. Where's my confidence? My confidence
is that the Lord Jesus put all my sin away. My confidence is
that he, as this passage says in the previous verses, separated
them from me as far as the east is from the west and that God
remembers them no more. That's my confidence. My confidence
is in the perfect accomplished work of the Lord Jesus and the
Father's being satisfied with him. He's my confidence. That's
what this word boldness means. I am looking to Christ with confidence. having therefore brethren boldness
to enter into the holiest. How are we gonna come into the
holy of holies? For 1500 years, only the priest
could do that. If anybody thought of going into
the holies of holies, they would have killed him. The priest himself
went in with bells in case God killed him. Maybe he didn't do
it right. Maybe they'd have to drag his
body out somehow, but no one's going into that holies of holies.
And now God's saying, you got boldness. You come the way. By a new, don't miss this, and
living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that
is to say his flesh. That veil, they tell me, was
18 inches thick. It wasn't just one piece of fabric. It was, I mean, there was no
way of getting through that thing easily. And it was embroidered. And the
scripture tells us the colors of that embroidery. It was blue
on the top, it was red on the bottom, and it was purple in
the middle. And the blue, speaking of royalty,
God, the Lord Jesus, the fullness of the Godhead bodily, was made
in the likeness of sinful flesh and became a man. And he died
and shed his blood on Calvary's cross. There we have God and
man one. You put blue and red together,
you get purple, don't you? And there did God symbolize what
Christ would do. And that Baal was rent. And the
Lord says, now come, the way has been made. The body, that
Baal which is the body of Christ, it was torn. This is my body
which has been given for you. And when the Lord Jesus laid
down his body, God was satisfied. And the Lord Jesus says, I'm
the way. I'm the way. There's no other way. And let men mock us all they
want. They've been doing it for 2,000 years. Well, those people
think they're the only ones that got the way. They think they're
the only ones saved. They're calling themselves a
little Christ. Let them say whatever they want. We believe. that Jesus of Nazareth is the
Christ. He's the son of the living God,
and he is the only way. He's the fullness of God, and
he satisfied all the demands of God. And there's nothing I
can add to or take away from what his glorious life and death
accomplished. And if Christ, who is our life,
be risen, We're risen with Him. The way. Everybody's looking for the way.
Nobody wants to be told they got the wrong way. What hope? We've got the Word
of God. We've got the Word of God to
back us up. We've got the Word of God of which we can stand.
We've got the Word of God that we can look to and rely upon,
we don't have to worry about the opinions of men or all the
Babylonian temples that are built all over. Everybody says they got the way. I know what some people think.
I'll close with this. Well, everybody says they got the way. So why
should I believe you? Don't believe me. Don't believe
me. Believe God. Search the scriptures. For in
them you shall have eternal life. For they are written of him. Our heavenly father, thank you.
Thank you for a Glorious and simple, clear testimony of thy
dear son, who is, we believe, thee, thee way. Lord, make him
to be our way. Give us no other way. We ask
it in Christ's name, amen. 224, let's stand together, 224. I know not how by my wondrous
grace to me he hath made known, nor why unworthy he Christ in
love redeemed me for his own. But I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed
unto him against that day. ? I know not how this saving
faith ? To me he did impart ? Nor how believing in his word ? Brought
peace within my heart But I know whom I have believed and am persuaded
that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him
against that day. ? I know not how the spirit moves
? Convincing men of sin ? Revealing Jesus through the word ? Creating
faith in him ? But I know whom I am believing and am persuaded
that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him
against that day. I know not what of good or ill
may be reserved for me. of weary ways or golden days
before his face I see. But I know, I have believed and
am persuaded that he is able Keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. I know not when my Lord may come
at night or noonday fair, nor if I'll walk the vale with Him
or meet Him in the air. But I know whom I am believing
and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed
unto him against that day. Yeah.