Let's open our Bibles together
to Jeremiah chapter 32. Jeremiah 32. I want to begin
reading at verse 37, and we're going to read down through verse
41. And I want you to notice how many times In these few verses,
the Lord tells us what he's going to do. I will is repeated 10
times in these few verses. I will, I will, I will. When
God says I will do something, then you can rest the hope of
your immortal soul. It'll be done. Look at verse
37. Behold, I will gather them out
of all countries. whether I have driven them in
mine anger, and in my fury, and in my great wrath, and I will
bring them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell
safely." How do we dwell safely? We rest in Christ, all our righteousness
before God. All the hope of our justification
is in his accomplished work. We are safe. The Lord Jesus is
our City of refuge, verse 38, and they shall be my people.
And I will be their God. I will be. And I will give them
one heart and one way. The reason I wanted to read this
passage tonight to begin our service is because of that phrase
right there. And I will give them one heart
and one way that they may fear me forever. for the good of them
and of their children after them. And I will make an everlasting
covenant with them, and I will not turn away from them to do
them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts that they
shall not depart from me. Ah, what a gracious, glorious
God we serve. Yea, I will rejoice over them
to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with
my whole heart and with my whole soul." Not only does our Lord
tell us what he's going to do, but he tells us that he's going
to do it with all his heart and with all his soul. Is there any
way that any of his I wills could fail? Let's pray together. Our glorious, merciful, gracious
Heavenly Father, oh, what great hope and comfort we have in knowing
that you are faithful to your promises, that it is impossible
for you to lie, and that as God, you will do all that you've purposed. Lord, we thank you that you've
revealed to us in your word what that purpose is. The saving of
your people, the calling out and the gathering together of
your elect, the sanctifying of them, making them holy in Christ,
justifying them before thy holy law, making them perfect. Lord, causing them to continue
to be brought to the end of themselves to see their need for you to
do your I wills. They shall be my people and I
will be their God. Lord, give us hope and comfort. Show us the glory of Christ.
We ask it in his name, amen. Number 11 in the Spiral Gospel
Hymns Hymnbook. Number 11. Let's stand together
again. ? A trembling sinner, born I cry
? ? Thy pardoning grace is rich and free ? ? O God, be merciful
to me ? ? I smite a thorn in thy hand ? With deep and conscious guilt
oppressed, Christ and His cross I only plead. O God, be merciful
to me. ? Can for a single sin atone ?
? To Christ the Lord alone I plead ? ? O God be merciful to me ?
? And when redeemed from sin and death ? With all the ransom
from my dwell, My rapture song shall never be. God has been merciful to me. Please be seated. For all eternity, God has been
merciful to me. May the Lord put that song in
our hearts tonight. Turn with me in your Bibles to
Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians chapter four. Jews, even to this day, have
considered Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four, as their theme,
if you will, of all of scripture. The first word in the Hebrew
language is the word Shema, and they call this verse the Shema. And that word translated in the
English language is hear, hear. And the verse goes like this.
Hear, O Israel, for the Lord our God is one Lord. One. Oh, the oneness of our God. Our God is three persons. God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And He is
one. In essence, in character, in
nature, in purpose, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
Oh, a great mystery of our great Triune God. It cannot be understood,
but we know from what he's revealed himself to us that he is one. May God give us ears to hear
from our, our God speaks the same message. Whether it's the
revelation of God, the father, God, the son, or God, the Holy
spirit, it's the same message. It's the oneness of his purpose. his nature, and his person. It's the oneness of salvation
accomplished in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're reminded Sunday
what the Lord told Martha when he reminded her of how encumbered
she had become with unnecessary things, and he said to her, Mary
hath chosen that one thing needful. Paul in the book of Philippians
said, I've not yet apprehended that which has apprehended me,
but this one thing, this one thing I do, forgetting those
things which are behind. I can't live my life off of yesterday's
failures or successes. Forgetting those things which
are behind, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high
calling of God in Christ Jesus. The Lord Jesus Christ himself
is the prize. And He's the one that we're pressing
to see. He's the one that we're straining
to see and to know. And we know Him now in part,
as the Lord tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, we look through a
glass darkly. But then, in that day that we
just sang about, we'll see Him face to face, the fullness of
His glory, and we'll be made like Him. we'll be rid of this
sinful flesh and we'll forever live in his glorious presence,
all because of the oneness of our God. Hear, O Israel, the
Lord our God is one Lord. One. Don't you love the simplicity
of the gospel? Look with me Back at our text
that we were looking at Sunday, there is one body. There's one
church, one body of Christ. All of God's people gathered
together, Jews and Gentiles, free and bound, slaves and masters,
men and women, barbarians, Greeks, all one. one body, one in Christ. There is one spirit. There are
many spirits and the Lord reminds us of our need to try the spirits
to see whether they be of God and hereby we know that the spirit
is of God if they confess that Jesus Christ has come in the
flesh, that he's accomplished the work of redemption, that
he is the successful sovereign fully God, Savior of His people. That's how we know if the Spirit
is of God, because when we hear from this Spirit, we are always
being reminded to look to Christ, to rest all our hope and all
our affections on Him. Any preaching that causes us
to look to ourselves, For either the cause of our salvation or
for the evidence of our salvation is another spirit. It is another
spirit. And you have no comfort whatsoever,
do you? When you hear something that
causes you to have to look to yourself to see if you're saved. But when you are reminded to
look to Christ, And you set your affections on things above where
Christ is seated at the right hand of God. You know that all
of your righteousness, all of your wisdom, all of your sanctification
and all of your redemption is in him. Then we have hope and
we have comfort. Even as you are called in one
hope of your calling, we all have the same hope. The hope
is to see him as he is and be made like him. The hope is that
we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous
one. The hope is that the law has
been satisfied and that we've been justified in the very sight
of God by the accomplished work and faithfulness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's our hope. And it's a hope
that will not disappoint. And it is the hope of our calling.
When God the Holy Spirit calls us out of darkness into his marvelous
light, that's the hope that he gives us. Christ Jesus, the Lord
himself, and his successful work of redemption is our hope. And then in verse five, and this
is where we left off Sunday, one Lord. Hear, O Israel, the
Lord your God is one Lord, one Lord. Not many Lords, lots of
Lords. This word Lord, It can be translated
master, it can be translated owner, it can be translated one
who has authority, and as it relates to the lordship of our
Lord Jesus Christ, he has absolute authority. He has complete ownership,
and he is master. The Lord at the last supper told
the disciples when he was washing their feet, he said, you call
me master and Lord, and you say, well, for so I am. So I am. And if I, as your master and
as your Lord, wash your feet, ought you to wash one another's
feet. And so our Lord commended them for acknowledging him as
the absolute sovereign authority over their lives. What a comfort. What great hope. We don't have
a set of rules and regulations that monitor our lives or that
motivate us. We've got the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I want you to turn with me, if you will, to Acts chapter
2. Acts chapter 2 at verse 36. Here's the conclusion of Peter's
gospel sermon on the day of Pentecost. And notice what he says in verse
36, In light of this gospel message
that I've just preached about the death, burial and resurrection
and successful redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ, therefore
let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made
that same Jesus whom you have crucified both, both Lord and
Christ. God had made him Lord. You know,
it's blasphemy for a man to talk about making Jesus Lord. It is,
it's blasphemy. As if you have the authority
or the power to make Him Lord? God made Him Lord. He is Lord. Whether or not we acknowledge
Him as Lord, He still reigns as the absolute sovereign authority
over the lives of the living and the dead, does He not? So
when our Lord reminds us, he says, there's one Lord, one Lord,
not many Lords. There's one Lord. This is offensive to the natural
man because they, you know, want to look at all the other Lords
that are being promoted and preached. But our Lord is, Well, he's the
only one that's able to make us clean and make us whole. You
remember in Matthew chapter 8 when that leper came to him and said,
Lord, Lord, thou canst make me whole if thou wilt. Thou canst
clean me if thou will. Lord, you're Lord. You have all
power and all authority. I love what that centurion said
when the centurion came to plead with the Lord. He said, Lord,
I'm not worthy that you should come under my house only speak
the word and my servant shall be healed. I know what it means
to be a lord. I know what it means to lord authority over
men over men and to say to this man go and he goes and to say
to another man come and he comes. I have that kind of authority
with a hundred Roman soldiers and they obey me without question
but my authority is nothing compared to yours. Here I am a man of
great authority and yet I have no worthiness for you to come
into my house. You're Lord. That's why the scripture
calls the Lord Jesus Christ Lord of Lords. He's Lord over all
Lords. And God's people rejoice in that.
We love having one Lord, one master. Thomas, when he, When
he saw the Lord after the resurrection, and he fell at his feet, and
he said, oh, the Lord said, here, Thomas, put your finger, you
said you wanted to put your fingers into my wounds, your hand into
my side, here I am. Oh, don't you know Thomas never
touched the Lord? Oh, he fell at his feet, and
what did he say? Oh, my Lord and my God. And he rejoiced in being able
to confess the Lord Jesus Christ as the one Lord. And when the disciples were on
the Sea of Galilee and they thought they were perishing, Lord, save
us. Care us not that we perish? How
do we go to him? We come to him as a leper? Lord,
thou canst make me clean if thou wilt. You have all power and
all authority. God has made you to be Lord and
Christ. And Lord, if I'm gonna be saved
from these troubles that you've stirred up in this sea of life
that I'm going through, Lord, care us not that we perish or
we're gonna die. Oh, you have a little faith. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
chapter 11. 2 Corinthians chapter 11. This is so, you know, people
talk about making the gospel relevant. We don't have to make
the gospel relevant. The gospel is relevant. It's
the only relevant thing in the world. And we see here in God's
word how timeless it is because the same exact thing that was
taking place in the first century is taking place today. Look at
2 Corinthians chapter 11. We'll begin reading at verse
1. Would to God that you could bear
with me a little in my folly and indeed bear with me. Now
the Judaizers had come in behind the Apostle Paul and confused
the gospel with the law. And that's what the law always
does. It confuses grace. And they said, oh yes, Jesus
is the Christ. And yes, God is sovereign. And
yes, he's the only one that can save. And when he does, he takes
you back to the law. And you use the law to motivate
and to monitor and to measure your success and to compare yourself
to one another and to yourself. And here's what, and Paul said,
bear with me just for a moment. For I am jealous over you with
godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may
present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. Only if you remain
looking to and relying on and resting in the Lord Jesus Christ
as your only husband will you be a chaste bride. But I fear
But I fear less by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through
his subtlety." Oh, this legalism is so subtle, isn't it? It's,
you know, they'll say all glorious things about Christ and then
they'll take all your hope away by pointing you back to the law. So your mind should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ. The simplicity that is
in Christ. What is the simplicity of Christ?
Christ is all and he's in all. He's all our sanctification.
He's all our redemption. He's all our righteousness. He's
all our justification. He's all our wisdom. He's all
and he's in all. simplicity we don't add to or
take away from him he's fully God and he's fully man and he
fully accomplished the purpose for which his father sent him
our father sent him and he's seated at the right hand of God
as our righteousness verse 4 for he For if he that cometh preacheth
another Jesus." Lots of Jesus out there, isn't there? Another
Jesus. A Jesus that's not fully God. One of the things that all the
other Jesuses have in common is that they do not possess the
nature nor the power of God. Oh, they may honor him with their
lips, but if you listen to the whole message, they will strip
him of his deity. For if he that cometh preacheth
another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if you receive another
spirit, which you have not received, or another gospel, which you
have not accepted, you might bear with, and you see that hymn
is in italics. It really, Paul's talking about
bearing with me. He said, bear with me. The gospel that I'm
preaching to you is the one and only gospel. And there's a lot
of other gospels and a lot of other spirits and a lot of other
Jesuses that will ultimately deny Christ his glory in salvation
and give you something to glory in yourself. That's how we know
that Christ is being preached. He gets all the glory. Let him
the glory, glorieth in the Lord. There is a Jesus that loves everybody
but can't save most of the people that he loves from being separated
from him in a devil's hell. What kind of Jesus is that? There
is a Jesus who died for everybody but can't make most of the people
that he died for believe in him. You see, he's not really God. He's not really Lord. He's not
really omnipotent. He's not really sovereign. There is a Jesus who kept the
law perfectly to satisfy all of its demands for his people.
And then he sends his elect back to the law for their rule of
life so that they can glory in some accomplishments that they
see in their own flesh. That's another Jesus. And then there's the little baby
Jesus that everybody loves to cuddle, but nobody's fears. Or
there's the Jesus that's still hanging on the cross, who with
sad eyes is pleading with men to feel sorry for him. You see,
there's lots of Jesuses in this world, aren't there? There's
the Jesus whose whole life and death is nothing more than an
example of loving sacrifice that we're to follow. There's lots
of Jesus out there, aren't there? But there's only one whom God
has made to be Lord and Christ. And he's the one we bow to. He's
the one we come to. He's the one that is revealed
in scripture Go back with me to our text in
Ephesians. One Lord, and that is a reference
to Christ, the word Lord there is, because he's going to speak
of one God and Father of us all, and he's already spoken of one
spirit. So this is the triune Godhead. This is what Deuteronomy
6, 4 speaks of. Here, O Israel, the Lord our
God is one Lord. He's one. And he has one body. And there is but one faith. There's one faith. This word
faith, it means a persuasion, it means a belief, it means a
conviction, it means a trust or an assurance, a reliance upon,
a resting in. It's the gift of the Holy Spirit.
We know that, for by grace are you saved and that through faith
and not out of yourselves. It's casting all your hope on
the Lord Jesus Christ. And faith is the evidence of
our salvation. If we look anywhere else, You're
not looking to your faith as the evidence of your salvation,
but your faith is that which enables you to look to Christ
for your salvation. Faith is the evidence of things
hoped for. It's the substance of things hoped for. It's the
evidence of things not seen. Not saying. We can't see justification. You can't open the Lamb's Book
of Life and see if your name is there. You can't look into
the covenant of grace and see if Christ died for you. Through
faith. And faith comes by hearing. And
so, what are you doing? You're resting all the hope of
your salvation on the precious promises of God and on the glorious
person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who himself is both Lord and
Christ. And God says there's one faith.
This is an offense to the natural man. We look out in the world
and we see, well, there's the Jewish faith and there's the
Hindu faith and there's this faith and that faith. There's
the Muslim faith and the Christian faith. And are there not many
faiths? Yes, but there's only one faith
that saves. And that's faith in the faithful
one. the one who by his faith and
faithfulness justified us before God, satisfied and fulfilled
the law of God, so that we look to him and we say, oh, that I
might know him, the power of his resurrection, the fellowship
of his suffering. God says there is one faith,
And what God says is true is true, isn't it? Turn with me
to Galatians chapter five. Back just a page or so, Galatians
chapter five, verse six. For in Christ Jesus,
neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision,
but faith which worketh by love. There it is. Faith, which worketh
by love. It's the love of Christ that
constraineth us. It's God's love for us that causes
us to be born again and to give us the gift of faith. And he
puts the love of Christ in us. These are the high and glorious
things of the gospel that can't be preached. They can be declared,
but they have to be experienced. They really do. And he goes on to say in verse
seven, you did run well, who did hinder you that you should
not obey the truth? Now the same problem that was
in Corinth is now in Galatia. This is the same men that are
going around behind the apostle Paul and perverting the gospel
with the law. That's why he begins in chapter
five by saying, stand fast therefore in the liberty with Christ has
made you free. Don't be entangled again with
the yoga bondage. Don't go back to the law and
try to measure and monitor and motivate your life by the law.
Christ, through faith, by love, he's your life. He's the one
you look to. He's the one who saved you. He's
the one we follow. You did run well, but who did
hinder you? That you should not obey the
truth. You're listening to the wrong preachers. You've listened
to another gospel brought to you by another spirit. And it's
another Lord. It's not the Lord Jesus Christ. Look what he says in verse eight.
This persuasion came not by him who called you. God didn't teach
you this. You got this from a man. This
didn't come from God's word. It didn't come from God's prophet. It came from a false prophet. And what does he say? A little
leaven leaveneth a whole lot. In other words, you let a little
bit of law come in and rob you of your hope in Christ,
and it's going to infect everything. If it is of grace, it can no
longer be of works, otherwise grace is not grace. Oh, free
grace. People say, well, that'll lead
to lawless living. If it's just a doctrine, yes,
it will. If it's just a cold doctrine. then yeah, it would lead to lawless
living because you would say, well, you know, I know the truth
and I live like I want and make all kinds of excuses. But if
it's the Lord, if it's the Lord, if it's Christ Jesus, the Lord
that you're looking to and loving and following after, oh, grace doesn't lead to lawlessness. Grace leads to Christ. It leads
to Christ. I have confidence in you through
the Lord. If you're the Lord's, I have
great confidence that you're not going to listen to these
men that are taking your eyes off of Christ. I have confidence
in you through the Lord that you will none otherwise be minded,
but he that trouble if you shall bear his judgment, whosoever
he be. And I brethren, if I yet preach
circumcision, now circumcision is not talking about just the,
just the cutting away of the physical flesh, the act of circumcision. He's talking about anything man
puts his hand to. What is the cutting away of fleshly
activities? And you know, if you've done
it and you've cut it out of your life, you know, And you're looking
to the fact that you don't do that anymore as the hope of your
salvation. That's preaching circumcision.
I'm going to give you something to look to, to give you some
hope of your salvation, something that, you know, if you'll quit
doing this and you'll start doing that, then you can get some assurance
of your salvation. That's preaching circumcision. Now, this circumcision is a miracle
of grace that takes place in the heart when the Spirit of
God exposes you for what you are, a sinner, and causes you
to flee to Christ as the only hope of your salvation. If I, brethren, if I yet preach
circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offense
of the cross ceased. What is the offense of the cross
to the natural man, to the unbeliever? The offense of the cross is that
the cross gives to the Lord Jesus Christ all the glory, all the
glory. It does not share his glory with
anybody. I am the Lord. I'll not share
my glory with another. This is one Lord. And men are
offended by that. Well, you know, I've had people
over the years tell me, well, you know, you need to, you need
to spend more time teaching people how to live. And what they really
mean by that is you need to tell, you need to correct other people
so that I can glory in the way I'm living. That's what they
mean by it. No, we're not going to glory
in our flesh. We're going to glory in Christ.
And what, what glory we have in him. Oh, he's done it all. And he gets all the praise and
all the glory and all the honor. Turn with me over to Galatians
chapter one, while you're there. Look at verse six, I marvel that
you are so soon removed from him that called you into the
grace of Christ unto another gospel. God calls us into grace,
free grace, sovereign grace, saving grace, loving grace, omnipotent
grace, immutable grace, sanctifying grace, glorifying grace, And you say, you've been removed
to another gospel, which is not another, but there be some that
trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though
we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than
that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. And
you know what that means. Paul's using very strong language
here. God's using strong language.
He said, if they mix works in with grace. That's what
James chapter one talks about of being double-minded. You know,
we all feel double-minded all the time because we've got two
natures. And we say with Rebecca, why do I, you know, why am I
thus? We've got these two nations.
But when the Lord speaks of being double-minded in James chapter
one, he's talking about resting the hope of your salvation in
Christ plus something else that you see in your life as the,
you know, as the evidence and hope of your salvation. That's why I said, if any man
lack wisdom, if Christ is our wisdom, God made him to be so.
Let him ask it of God. For God gives it to all men liberally,
and he upbraideth it not. But let him ask in faith, in
faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like
the waves of the sea tossed to and fro. He's double-minded and
unstable in all of his ways. So when God speaks of being double-minded,
he's not talking about just the struggle between the flesh and
the spirit that every believer experiences. He's talking about
coming to God for the blessing of salvation and looking to Christ
plus your works. Let that man not think that he
shall receive anything from the Lord. One Lord. One faith. And I'll repeat what I said Sunday
about this one faith. You know, we don't glory in our
faith. We glory in Christ. And we're
ashamed of how really small our faith is, aren't we? We say with
that Father, Lord, I do believe, but help thou mine unbelief.
Lord, the more I grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ,
the more of the unbelief that I see is the cause of all my
problems and all my sin. Lord, give me more faith. Increase our faith. Isn't that
what the disciples said? Lord, increase our faith. That's
what we're in need of. The ability to trust God. We weep over our unbelief. It
is the sin that doth so easily beset us. We have faith enough to know
that we need more faith. Do you have that much faith?
You have faith enough to know that Christ is everything in
salvation and you need more faith. We know that the Lord Jesus Christ
himself is worthy of our worship and our lives, our all in all,
and yet we're unable to give it to him because of our unbelief. And so we're always coming. As you receive Christ Jesus,
the Lord, so walk ye in him. We're always coming. Lord, help
them in unbelief. This one faith is believing on
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's believing on him. As many
as receive him, to them gave he power to become the sons of
God, even to them that believe on his name. His name is Jesus. He's Lord, and he's Christ, and
God has made him so. He's the successful, sovereign
Savior of sinners. He reigns over the living and
the dead. He's Lord. He's the anointed
one. I love what that woman at the
well said when the Lord said, you know, when he told her to
go get her husband and, you know, that conversation in John chapter
4. And she wanted to debate whether
they were to worship here in Samaria or worship in Jerusalem. And what did the Lord say to
her? He said, you know in part. Turn with me to that passage. He said in verse 10, he said,
oh, if thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that said
unto thee, give me to drink, you would ask of him and he would
give you living water. And she went on to say, we know
that when Messiah comes, he will lead us into all truth. I mean,
here was a woman that was only half Jewish, but she knew That
when the fulfillment of the promise that God made to Adam all the
way back there in the garden and that he repeated over and
over and over again throughout the entire Old Testament, when
that Christ came, when that Messiah came, that he was going to straighten
everything out. He was going to be the successful
savior of Israel and all Israel would be saved, Romans chapter
11. And so the Lord Jesus Christ is that Christ. He's the Christ. John chapter one, after the Lord
said, as many as received him to them, gave he the power to
become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.
And they, people read that and they say, well, I've got to believe
in order to be saved, which were born not of blood, nor of the
will of flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. So this new
birth has to happen in order for us to believe. You see, it's
faith that's the evidence of new birth. If God didn't give
me the new birth, if he didn't cause me to be born again, I
would not believe. I wouldn't believe. I wouldn't
be believing on Christ. After our Lord healed that blind
man in John chapter nine, he asked him, he said, dost thou
believe on the son of God? And the blind man said, Who is
he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And our Lord said, Thou
hast both seen him, and it's he that talketh to thee. And
the blind man said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. He worshipped
him. Here's the evidence of faith.
Worship. It's bowing in submission and
in complete dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ. We are the
true circumcision which worship God in the spirit, rejoice in
Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. We're resting all the hope of
our salvation on Christ. Christ. And go back with the
guitar text quickly and in conclusion, there is one God and Father of
us all. This is life eternal, that they
might know Thee, the one true God. There's one God, the Shema. Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy
God is one Lord and one God. When Paul was in Athens, we're
gonna be preaching from Acts 17 now in the next few weeks.
We finished Acts 16. And you remember in Acts 17,
Paul goes to Athens and he walks around the city for a few days
and he observes their statues and their religious... I forgot
what the scripture refers to them as, but... And he sees that
there's one statue that's to the unknown God. They, you know,
it was their catch all in case, in case we missed him, you know,
there was a statue to Zeus and Jupiter and all the gods of the
Greek mythology and all the Roman gods. And, and, and in case we
miss one, there's the one, the unknown God, that's the God Paul
said, I'm going to preach to you the one you don't know. He
is the one true God. And he's not in the need of a
man to do something with his hands. He's the creator and sustainer
of all of life. Devotions is what he calls them.
I see you have many devotions in your city. I suppose that every religious
person in the world believes that they are worshiping the
one true God. wouldn't be doing it if they
didn't believe that their God was the one true God. And they
all have a religious text that they go to. Mormons have the
Book of Mormons, and the Muslims have the Koran, and Catholics
have their traditions and decrees and apocrypher, whatever, everybody's
got a religious text that they go to to prove that the God that
they're worshiping is the one true God. And I suppose that
every minute of every day, there are people all over this world
dying, holding on tenaciously to what they believe to be the
one true God. Many over the centuries have
paid the ultimate sacrifice in dying for their God. Well, how do we know? Well, we
have God's word. We have a text. We have the spirit of God. that
takes the Word of God and gives faith to God's people to believe. Jude concluded his little epistle
by saying, to the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty
and dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen. Now unto the King Eternal, Paul
said in 1 Timothy chapter 1, now unto the King Eternal, immortal,
invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and
ever. There's how we know the difference.
In every religion of the world, the recipients of that religion
or the participants of that religion have something that they need
to do in order to earn favor with their God. We have a God
who gets all the glory and did all the work to bring us into
fellowship with him. Holy wars have been fought by men defending their God and
their faith. We don't fight wars. We wouldn't fight for a person's
right to believe anything they want to believe. We just declare our God. to be the only wise God, the
only true God, the God who gets all the glory, the one God, one
God and Father of us all. And then we trust the Spirit
of God. You know, it's like I brought out Sunday from the Psalms, Psalm
120, I think, verse 7. It says, I am for peace, but
when I speak, they are for war. We're to be at peace with all
men whenever possible. And we're not interested in trying
to strong arm somebody into believing in our God. We just declare. our God as the one true God. And then we trust the Spirit
of God to make those who belong to the Lord believe. And he will,
just as he's made you believe. And one body, one spirit, one hope, one calling,
one Lord, one faith, one God. Hear, O Israel. And I would say
what our Lord said, let him who has ears to hear, hear what the
Spirit saith unto the churches. Amen. Our merciful heavenly Father,
we pray that you would increase our faith, forgive us of our
sin for Christ's sake. Thank you that we have an advocate
with thee, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. Thank you for
our justification and our righteousness in him. For it's in his name
we pray, amen. 474, let's stand together.