Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number six from your hardback hymnal,
number six. Let's all stand together. Come
thou almighty King. Come and reign over us each and
all day. ? Now incarnate Word ? ? Turn on
thy mighty sword ? ? Our prayer attend ? ? Come and thy people
bless ? ? And give thy word success ? ? Spirit of holiness on us
descend ? ? Some holy comforter ? ? Thy sacred witness bear ?
? In this glad hour ? ? Thou who almighty art ? ? Thou who
live in every heart ? ? And there from us depart ? ? Spirit of
power ? Eternal praises be, henceforth
more. His sovereign majesty may we
in glory see, and to eternity love and adore. Please be seated. Good morning. That is such a
great him to open the service with. That's our that's our prayer
this morning. The Lord wouldn't come down and
meet with us. Let's open our Bibles together
to Daniel Chapter 2. I just want to read a few verses
of Scripture here. In hopes that this will be an
encouragement to all of us. Daniel Chapter 2. and we'll begin
reading in verse 21. And he, our God, changeth the
times and the seasons. He removeth kings and setteth
up kings. He giveth wisdom unto the wise
and knowledge to them that know understanding. He revealeth the
deep and secret things. He knoweth what is in the darkness
and the light dwelleth with him. Our God reigns. He's absolutely
in sovereign control of all things. Turn over just a few more verses,
a few more pages to Daniel chapter four. Daniel chapter four. This was after Nebuchadnezzar
in his pride took credit for the glory of Babylon and the
Lord humbled him. And verse 34 says, And at the
end of days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up my eyes unto heaven,
and my understanding returned unto me. And I blessed the Most
High, and I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose
dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation
to generation. interest, our hope, our desire,
our hearts are in the kingdom of God, not man's kingdom. Man's kingdom is God's in control
of that too. But in verse 35, it says, and
all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. And he doeth according to his
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? That's a good word from God,
isn't it? Let's pray together. Our merciful heavenly father, we come into thy holy presence,
looking in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, thy dear son, and
our Savior for all our righteousness, all our acceptance, for the forgiveness
of all our sin. And we take great hope and comfort
in knowing that your kingdom is from everlasting to everlasting,
that you hath done whatsoever you will with the armies of heaven
and all the inhabitants of the earth. Lord, we Pray that you
would forgive our hearts and forgive our doubts and our sin
for wanting our will to be done. Lord, you've told us that we
pray that your will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven. Or give us the faith, increase
our faith and our love and give us grace to rest all our hope in Christ and in your omnipotent
sovereign will. But we ask it in Christ's name.
Amen. We're going to continue this
morning, our study in the book of Acts. If you'll turn with
me there, Stephen, your member is preaching the gospel to these
self-righteous Pharisees. And he reminds them of how much
like their fathers they are. And he goes all the way back
into the history of Israel to Moses, bringing the children
of Israel out of Egypt and how they gloried in the works of
their own hands and they made idols of gold and they and they
turned their hearts back to Egypt and they died in the wilderness.
And when at the end of this message, Stephen says, you're just like
them, they got angry. Well, they got so angry that
they murdered him. But the message that I want to
try to bring this morning is a message of encouragement, a
message of admonition, a message of hope, relating to the subject
of apostasy, because that's what Stephen's accusing them of, forsaking
the gospel. And scriptures are filled with
warnings to us and admonitions from God to persevere in the
faith, to persevere in the faith. Now we know that the means by
which the Lord causes us to persevere is his word and his warnings
and admonitions. And so we're not presumptuous
about that. We don't say, well, you know,
the Lord has to keep me. Well, of course he has to keep
us. And if he doesn't keep us, we won't be kept. We will fall
away. But the means by which he keeps
us is to warn us of our own frailty and our own need and dependence
upon him and so that's what we want to look at this morning. When Paul wrote in first Corinthians
chapter 15 he said I declare unto you the gospel which I preached
unto you and which you also received and wherein you stand and also
by which you are saved if You keep in memory what I preached
unto you, unless, unless you believed in vain. Unless you
believed in vain. You have your Bibles open to
Acts chapter seven. Let's read these verses together.
We're beginning in verse 38. This is he, that was in the church in the
wilderness with the angel which spake to him in Mount Sinai and
with our fathers who received the lively oracles to give unto
us. So Stephen's reminding these
men of what Moses' ministry was. It was to receive the law from
God and to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt. Verse
39, to whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from
them and in their hearts turned back into Egypt. Saying unto
Aaron, make us gods to go before us. For as for this Moses, which
brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we want not what has
become of him, And they made a calf in those days and offered
sacrifice unto idols. And notice the last phrase of
verse 41, they rejoiced in the works of their own hands. You remember when they came to
Aaron in Exodus chapter 34 and said, make us a God. Aaron said, take your earrings
off your ears. That's where he got the gold
from to make that golden calf. And the scripture says the men
and the women and the children all took golden earrings off
their ears and gave them to Aaron. And Aaron fashioned a God from
Egypt and they worshiped that God. You see the symbolism of
that, don't you? The ear is a picture of hearing,
and we know that the hearing ear is of the Lord. And if the Lord doesn't give
us ears to hear, we won't hear. If he doesn't cause us to hear
his voice, we have no ability in and of ourselves to hear the
truth of the gospel. The Lord says in Isaiah chapter
six, they will have ears, but they will not hear, eyes they
will have, but they will not see. The seeing eye and the hearing
ear is a gift of grace from God. And in symbolic gesture of their
lack of interest in the word of God, they took that golden
earring off their ear and they fashioned for themselves a false
God. And they worshiped They worshiped
and bowed and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Now,
when Moses came off the mountain, you know what he did? He took
that golden calf and the scripture says, I don't know how this happened,
but he smashed it to dust. To dust is what the scripture
says. And made them drink. That dust of gold, I guess he
mixed it with water or something and all the children of Israel
drank that golden calf, took it into their body. Well, you
know what happened to that? You know what happened to that? What
is the symbolism there? What does the Lord say to us?
All our works, all our works are done before God. That's what
they are. Men love to rejoice in the works
of their own hands. And God shows us what the works
of our hands produce. They produce nothing but unrighteousness
and nothing but dumb before God. And that's what Stephen's warning
this congregation of. Don't be like your fathers. Don't be like your fathers. Believe
God. Don't take that golden earring
from off your ear. Ask the Lord to give you ears
Heed his word and his warning, lest you become like them and
die in the wilderness. Die in the wilderness. You remember
who finally, out of that whole generation, out of that entire
generation, everyone that was over 20 years old, they died
in the wilderness, which is symbolic of dying without any hope of
salvation. You see, Joshua had to bring
the children of Israel across the Jordan River into the promised
land, which is a picture of salvation. It's a picture of heaven. Joshua
is a type of Christ. And who did Joshua have with
him? One man. One man. What was his name? Caleb. What does Caleb mean? A faithful
dog. And Caleb's a picture of the
church, and Joshua is a picture of Christ, and Christ bringing
his church across the Jordan into the promised land. Now,
what was different about Joshua and Caleb? Well, you remember
when Moses brought together the 12 spies and sent them into the
land to spy out the land. The 12 spies came back and 10
of them said, there's giants in the land and we are grasshoppers
in our own sight. And they refused to believe God.
God told them to go in and take the land and they refused to
believe. Joshua and Caleb, they didn't take their earrings off.
They believed God, they bowed to him. And that's the warning
here, and that's the encouragement, and that's the blessing. The
Lord's saying to us, believe me, believe me. Now, we know
that in order to believe, we've got to be blessed with the grace
to believe. It's a faith, it's a gift of
God, we know that. But again, the means by which
the Lord blesses us with that gift is the warnings and admonitions
and promises of his scripture, of his word. Turn with me to
Hebrews chapter three. Hebrews chapter three. We know that we have to be kept.
We know it's a work of grace. And as we grow in grace and in
the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, we see more and more
of our need for Christ. We see more and more of our own
sin. We cry more and more, Lord, if
You take Your hand off of me, I'll forsake You. I know I will. Look at Hebrews 3. Verse eight,
hearken not your hearts as in the provocation in the day of
temptation in the wilderness. Now the writer of Hebrews, God's
speaking to us here in Hebrews chapter three, saying the same
thing Stephen said. He's reminding us of the unbelief
of those Israelites who would not heed the word of God. And
he's saying to us, the church, Stephen calls that group, the
church in the Old Testament. And they were, they were the
New Testament called out ones. And so we have the church and
he's speaking to the church. He's saying, don't be like those
Old Testament. Well, a lot of tears in that
church, wasn't there? Well, you know, there's tears
in every church. The Lord warns us not to try
to take out the tares lest we damage the wheat. We might identify
a weak brother or sister as a tare and go seek to discipline them
and only injure the body of Christ. The Lord said, I'll separate
the wheat from the tares in the day of judgment, I'll do that. And, you know, The child of God
says with the disciples, Lord, is it I? Is it me? Am I a tear? We don't become
so presumptuous about our salvation that we disregard the warnings
and admonitions of scripture, do we? We cry all the more, Lord,
keep me. If anybody can fall away, Lord,
I can fall away. Verse nine. When your fathers
tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years, wherefore
I was greed with that generation, and said, They do always err
in their heart, and they have not known my ways. They rejoiced
in the works of their hands rather than rejoicing in that lamb that
was slain before the foundation of the world. That's what the
Passover lamb was all about. The lamb that was slain in Egypt,
they weren't rejoicing in the finished work of Christ. They
had to have something they could see, something they could touch,
something they could feel in order to have a hope of salvation. And that's just an unbelieving
works gospel. So the Lord's telling us, he
said, don't be like that. Don't be like that. Verse 11, so I swear in my wrath
that they shall not enter my rest. They will not enter into
my rest. Here's what God's saying. I mean, somebody says, you put
me under the law. No, I'm not, I'm reading the
word of God. You know, this is God's warning for us, isn't it?
And the child of God knows he needs this encouragement. Take heed, brethren. Take heed,
brethren. I'm not talking to the unbeliever
here. I'm talking to the child of God.
God says, take heed, brethren. lest there be in any of you an
evil heart of unbelief and departing from the living God. That's what
apostasy is. It's forsaking the assembling
of yourselves together. It's departing from the living
God. When people do fall away, they
always blame someone else, don't they? Never take responsibility
for it. Oh, there's too many hypocrites
in the church. Well, you know what? The grocery store is full
of hypocrites too. That doesn't stop you from going to buy food. And how self-righteous is it
to say that there's too many hypocrites in the church? What
is your, what are you saying? What are you saying when you
say that? I'm too righteous to have anything to do with those
people. Romans chapter two verse one
says that you who accuse another are guilty of the very same thing. If there's any statement that
reveals hypocrisy more than anything else is to say, well, I'm not,
I'm not going to be a part of that anymore because there's
too many hypocrites in the church. The child of God said, Lord,
I need this because I'm the biggest hypocrite. You feel like a hypocrite
most of the time. Sure you do. If you're a believer,
you do. If you're not a believer, you
take pride in the works of your hands and you feel like, you
know, well, I'm doing pretty good. But if you're a child of
God and the Lord has revealed that old man to you, you say
with Job, behold, I am vile. I am vile. Woe is me. I'm a man of unclean lips. I'm
undone. And here the Lord is encouraging
us to keep our eyes on Christ and not to rejoice in the works
of our own hands and not to be looking to some golden calf that
we fashioned, but to realize that all our works, Paul said
that, which I thought was good. I thought it was righteous. I
thought it was holy. It was dumb. That's all it was. And I do count all things but
loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my
Lord. What's the Lord saying? Keep your eyes on Christ. Look
to Christ. Look at verse 13. And here's
what I'm trying to do right now. But exhort one another. That
word exhort means to encourage exhort one another daily. Why
do this call today? Lest any of you be hardened through
the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of
Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto
the end. What is our confidence? Who is
our confidence? I know whom I have believed and
I'm persuaded and he is able. to keep that which I've trusted
to him against that day. Christ is our confidence. Men
become confident in themselves, don't they? And they become confident
in what they have and what they can do. And Lord, if you don't
keep me looking to Christ, I see the pride and hypocrisy and self-righteousness
in my own heart. Look at verse 16. For some, when
they had heard, did provoke, howbeit not all that came out
of Egypt by Moses. But with whom was he grieved
forty years? Was it not with them that had
sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom
swear he that they should not enter into his rest? But them
that believed not. They didn't believe the gospel. We don't enter into his rest
if we're not found in Christ. This is no exaggeration. All
is lost. All is lost. The scripture makes it, Christ
is all and he's in all. This is everything, everything. So we see, verse 19, that they
could not enter in because of unbelief. They didn't believe
God. So, well, you know, I'm just going, I think I got a better
way. I got a better way. I'll just,
I'll just go my own way. Let us therefore, let us therefore
fear. We fear ourselves. We fear our
sin. We have a holy reverence for
God. We come before him. We're not
presumptuous about our salvation. We have nothing to demand of
him. We can't require anything of
him. We come to him as a mercy beggar.
That's what it is to fear God. Let us therefore fear, lest any
promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should
seem to come short This is exactly what Stephen
is preaching to these Pharisees in Acts chapter seven. And they
hated him for it. For unto us was the gospel preached. unto us. That's what Paul said.
I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which
you also received. It's the preaching of the gospel
that God uses to save His people. Unto us was the gospel preached. And let me say this, gospel,
the word gospel means good news. Good news. The good news is that
salvation is all of the Lord. From election, from the covenant
of grace established by God Almighty in eternity past through the
finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ in redemption, through
the work of regeneration when the Spirit of God makes us willing
in the day of His power, causes us to come unto Him, to keeping
us in the faith and presenting us faultless before the throne
of God. It's all of God, isn't it? It's all of God. And that's
what these admonitions remind us of. Lord, if any part of my
salvation is up to me, I'm going to mess it up. I'm going to mess
it up. And yet they rejoiced in the
works of their hands. They did not believe God. For unto us, verse two, Hebrews
chapter four, was the gospel preached as well as unto them,
but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed
with faith in them that heard it. For we, which have believed,
do enter into rest. As he said, as I swore in my
wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although The works were
finished from the foundation of the world. The works were
finished from the foundation of the world. When the Lord Jesus
Christ cried from Calvary's cross, it is finished. He was declaring in time what
had already been accomplished in eternity. The Lord Jesus was declaring
in time what have already been accomplished in eternity. The lamb slain before the foundation
of the world. The work was finished when God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit coveted together
in the covenant of grace and promised to save a people. That's when the work was finished.
This is an eternal righteousness, eternal justification. So do we. Do we just say, well,
if that's the case, then, you know, nothing for me to be concerned
about. That's not what this is teaching
us, is it? You know, people become fatalistic and become antinomian
and become presumptuous about the gospel. You know, somebody
asked me recently from India, By the way, we'll get an email
out this week. I'm gonna be preaching to the group in India this Friday
morning. Had some wonderful conversations
with Gilbert, the pastor over there. And somebody emailed me
from India and said, well, you know, why do we mourn if we're
saved? Why do we grieve? You know, we
ought to just, And because we have two natures, isn't it? We,
we, we have this, we have this battle going on between the spirit
and the flesh. So we cannot be what we would
be. And we mourn Matthew chapter five because the Lord makes us
sorrow and he gives us any, any, well, he comforts us in our morning,
doesn't he? Look at Tom. Look at verse six. Seeing therefore, it remaineth
that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first
preached entered not in because of one belief. Abraham believed
God. He didn't believe in God, he
believed about God, he believed God. Genesis chapter 15. What did
God say to Abraham? Abraham, Abraham's 80 years old. Well, he's no 86 years old, 80
something. He's in his 80s. Because Ishmael
was born after that and 14 years later, Isaac was born. And you
figured out Abraham was a hundred years old when Isaac was born.
So the Lord tells Abraham, Abraham said, I don't have a descendant
except for this man from Damascus, Eleazar. What am I going to do?
You promised me. And the Lord said, look up into
the sky. Oh, did you ever look into the sky from a place where
there is no natural, no man-made light? All of the stars are just,
can't count them. Can't count them. He said, your descendants are
going to be like stars in the sky. You're not going to be able
to count them. And the scripture says, and Abraham believed God
and it was counted for him for righteousness. It is this manner
of faith. Lord, I believe God's calling
on us to believe. Verse seven, again, he limited
a certain day, saying in David, today, after so long a time,
as it is said, today, if you will hear his voice hearken,
not your hearts. Oh Lord, give me faith to believe
everything you've said. Now, verse eight. You see the name
Jesus there, that's a reference to Joshua. Joshua, it's the same
name. Jehovah saves is what the name
means. And Joshua in the Old Testament
represented the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it says, if Joshua had
given them rest, then would he not afterwards have spoken of
another day? Joshua, you see that rest that
they had in coming into the promised land, that wasn't, that was just
typical. That was a type of the rest that Joshua would speak
of that we would have in Christ. There remaineth therefore a rest
to the people of God. For he that has entered into
his rest, he also has ceased from his own works as God did
from his. And we made full circle. These children of Israel died
in the wilderness because they were unable to rest in the promises
of God. Believing that salvation was
of the Lord, they fashioned and they rejoiced in the works of
their own hands and they fashioned the God out of the golden earrings
of their ear, refusing to listen to the word of God and they died. And the Lord's using all of this
to say to us, don't be like that. We're entering into that rest. Oh, what a rest it is. What a
rest it is. Here's the labor. Look at verse
11. Let us labor, therefore, to enter
into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of
unbelief. It's a struggle to rest in Christ. Well, you know what? It's not
a struggle. It's a, it's a miracle. It's a, it's a work of grace
to be able to do that because our flesh wars against our spirit
and our spirit against the flesh. And the flesh wants to be, wants
to be happy doesn't it? Flesh just wants to be, be happy. I have one more people, one more
person say to me, I just want to be happy. What in the world
does happiness have to do with anything? You can quote me on
that. Because when people say, I just
want to be happy, what they mean is, I want to just indulge in
things that are contrary to the will of God in order that I might
find contentment in the flesh. There's no happiness outside
of Christ. Well, they're happy. Are they
following after Christ? Are they resting in Him? You
see, rest is a spiritual work, isn't it? It's easy to confuse
true happiness, which can only be found in Christ, with material,
physical happiness, which can be enjoyed in the flesh. To substitute one for the other. Go back with me to verse 41 of
Acts chapter 7, please. They made a calf in those days and offered sacrifice unto the
idol. And they rejoiced in the works
of their own hands. When a person who does not have
the Holy Spirit hears us talk about our sinfulness before God
and how everything we touch is corrupted with our sin, they're either offended by that
because we're admitting what they live in denial of, that
they're sinners. we're exposing what they're looking
to for the hope of their salvation, what they're not doing or what
they are doing to earn favor with God. Or if they don't have the Holy
Spirit and they speak of, they hear us speaking of our sinfulness
before God, they become emboldened to indulge more in their sin. Well, that's the way we're supposed
to be then. Let's just eat, drink, and be
married for tomorrow we shall die. If you hear what God says about
the works of our hands and you come to either one of those conclusions,
it's just evident that you don't have the Holy Spirit. Those who have the Holy Spirit,
the Holy Spirit's work is to convict them of their sin. They know that they have nothing
but sin before God, but if they could, they would never sin again. The Holy Spirit doesn't allow
us to excuse our sin, does he? If we're ever tempted to blame
someone for our sin, that's a short-lived temptation if you've got the
Holy Spirit. Because he's not gonna let you stay there. Who
is he? You're just not gonna be able
to stay there very long, are you? The Holy Spirit's gonna
take that sin and lay it right at your doorstep. And you're
gonna know it's all you, nobody else. Nobody else. That's the
work of the Spirit of God. And you have people hear the
gospel and they hear what we say and they say, well, you know,
those people are messed up. Yeah, we are. And so are they,
but they just don't know it. nor take not Thy Spirit from
me." Isn't that what David said? Lord, I need Your Holy Spirit. I need Your Holy Spirit that
I might look to Christ, that I might experience the conviction of my sin. We have a wretched corpse on
our back all the time, and we long for that day. We long for
that day when this corruptible shall be made incorruptible and
we'll see him like he is. It does not yet appear what we
shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, when he shall
appear, we shall be made like him, shall see him as he is. What a glorious day. That's the
believer's hope. Paul said, there is laid up for
me a crown of righteousness and not for me only, But for all
those who love his appearing, the Holy Spirit gives us a love
for the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, even as he gives
us a hatred for our own flesh and our own sin. Long as we're in this world,
there's going to be warfare between the spirit and the flesh. so
that we cannot be what we would be. But oh, what a day. What a day. Hebrews chapter 10
and I'll close. Turn to me to Hebrews chapter
10. Talking about this thing of apostasy. And what I'm trying
to say to you is that Apostasy is forsaking the gospel. It's forsaking the gospel. Our sin that we live with, our
sin is ever before us, and our sin that we live with in this
flesh that we live in is what drives us to Christ. but it's
our self-righteousness that drives us away from him. It's the making
of a calf. It's not listening to the word
of God. It's not trusting Christ. It's
rejoicing in the works of our own hands. So when the Lord says
in Hebrews chapter 10, at verse 26, For if we sin willfully, after
that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth
no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for
of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died
without mercy under two or three witnesses. of how much sore punishment
suppose ye shall be he thought worthy who hath trodden underfoot
the Son of God and has counted or credited or determined the
blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified. You see that
word unholy, it means common, common. and have done despite to the
Spirit of grace. Excusing sin, trampling the blood of Christ
underfoot, denying His finished work, taking glory in and rejoicing
in the works of your own hands, forsaking the assembling of ourselves. Look at verse 24 in the same
passage. And let us consider one another
to provoke on good love and good works, not forsaking the assembling
of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting
one another and so much more as you see the day approaching.
That's my prayer this morning is that this would be an exhortation,
it'd be an encouragement. As we see the day approaching,
We live in this world that is constantly seeking to draw us
away from Christ and cause us to rejoice in something other
than Him. And the Lord's saying, just like those children of Israel
out there in the Old Testament church, they refused to believe
God and they died in the wilderness. Don't be like that. Don't be
like that. Counting the blood of the covenant
a common thing is to say, well, Christ died for everybody and
God loves everybody and God wants everybody to be saved. It's walking
away from the gospel and embracing a false gospel. That's what,
and the enticements of the world is the means to that end. Exhort ye one another, encourage
one another as you see the day approaching. Believe God. Oh, may God give us all the grace
to do that. Amen. All right, let's take.