Back to hymnal number 70, holy,
holy, holy. Let's all stand together, hymn
number 70. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty. Early in the morning our song
shall rise to Thee. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and
mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Holy, holy, holy, all the saints
adore thee, casting down their golden crowns around the glassy
sea. Jeremim and Seraphim falling
down before thee, which wert and art and evermore shall be. Holy, holy, holy, though the
darkness hide thee, though the eye of sinful man thy glory may
not see. Only Thou art holy, there is
none beside Thee, perfect in power, in love and purity. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty
All thy works shall praise thy name In earth and sky and sea
Holy, holy, holy merciful and mighty, God in three persons,
blessed Trinity. Please be seated. Good morning. I love that hymn. And I love
thinking about the passage of scripture that that hymn came
from. when in the year that King Uzziah
died, Isaiah said, I saw the Lord. That's our hope this morning,
isn't it? That the Lord will give us eyes
to see and ears to hear, and that though the state of everything
else is bad, and it was in Israel in the year that King Uzziah
died, he died shamefully. Yet Isaiah said, I saw the Lord
high and lifted up, and the seraphim did hover over his throne. They had six wings. With two,
they flew. With two, they covered their
feet. And with two, they covered their eyes. And they cried, holy,
holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth is filled
with thy glory. We worship a God that's holy.
That just simply means that he's not like us in any way. That's what holy means. He's
other than we are in every way. Man's tendency is to make a God
fashioned in his own imagination like himself. But our God is
holy. Might he be pleased to speak
to our hearts and reveal a glimpse of his glory that we might bow
in worship to his holiness this morning. That's our prayer and
that's our hope. Will you open your Bibles with
me to Mark chapter 11. Mark chapter 11. Glad Deanna's feeling better.
Good to have them back with us. Robert will be preaching next
Sunday. I'm going to be in Cottage Grove where Chris Cunningham
pastors and preaching at their conference next Sunday. Robert
and Michael will be bringing the messages here so pray for
those brothers as they prepare. Roberts kind of like me, when
I'm sick it's worse on me than it is on Tricia, and when she's
sick it's worse on me than it is on Tricia. So, I can identify
with you brother. It's been a hard week, hasn't
it? Alright, let's ask the Lord's blessings on our time
together. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful
for the revelation that You've made of Thyself and the person
of Thy dear Son. And oh, how we hope that You
would send Your Spirit in power and that You would cause Him
to be lifted up, that our hearts and eyes would be drawn to Him
and that we would find ourselves setting our affections on things
above where Christ is seated at Thy right hand. Lord, we confess
to you that we get so bound up with the things of this earth.
Lord, in this hour, oh, we ask for you to deliver us. Cause
us, Lord, to see things as they truly are. For you said that
if we know the truth, the truth has set us free. We know that
thy dear son is the way, the truth, and the life. Lord, how
we need to know him. How prone we are to look away
from him, Lord, to the shame of our own sin. So Lord, we've
come to this place in hopes of being able to worship you. We
pray for the windows of heaven to be opened and for a glimmer
of light to shine into our hearts and the face of thy dear son. For it's in his name we ask it.
Amen. all of us have, at some time
or another, asked a stupid question. And as soon as we ask it, we
usually know how bad it is. But there is a question that's
more ignorant and more arrogant than any question that any man
has ever asked. And that's for a creature. One who depends upon his every
breath from God. One whom God holds in his hand. One that the Lord created, one
that the Lord sustains, and one that the Lord said, fear him
who is able not only to kill the body, but to cast body and
soul into hell. For a creature to stand in the
presence of a holy god and to interrogate him and to say to
him, by what authority do you do these things? And who gave you that authority?
Now that's exactly what happens in our text. These self-righteous
religious pharisees are standing in the presence of God Almighty
and they had the nerve the ignorance and the arrogance to say to the
Lord Jesus Christ, what gives you the authority? When he himself
is all authority, all authority has been given unto me in heaven
and in earth. Oh, he possesses all authority.
And yet, nothing's really changed. Men today, they hear the truth
of the gospel proclaimed from God's word and they say, by what
authority do you speak? And we say, by the authority
of God's word. That's our authority. And they
say, yeah, but, what about? And they don't defend their position
from scripture. They defend their position from
a feeling or from an experience or from some creed or some doctrine
established by some dead theologian or some denominational position. They question the authority of
God. My hope this morning is that
the Lord will enable us to bow in submission to His authority. We ought to be like that centurion. And that's our hope. That's my
prayer this morning, is that God will put into our hearts
the spirit of that centurion. Now, a centurion was a man of
great authority. And when he walked down the streets,
everybody bowed to him and feared him. And he came to the Lord
with a servant that was dying and asked the Lord to heal his
servant. And the Lord said, I'll come.
You remember what that centurion said? He said, I'm not worthy
that thou should come under my roof. He said, I'm a man of authority. I tell a man to go and he goes.
I tell him to come and he comes. And I know that you have all
authority. Only speak the word and my servant
shall be healed. Now how do I know that I bow
to God's authority? Because I believe his word. I'm not here to interrogate you.
I'm not here to question you. I'm not here to put you in judgment
or to question your authority. Whatever you say and whatever
you do is right. Now that's worship. That's worship. And God has given us his word.
Look at verse 28 in Mark chapter 11. By what authority doest thou
these things and who gave you this authority to do these things?
Now that is the most ignorant and arrogant question that anyone
could ever ask. To put God in judgment and to
call into question his authority. Now this passage begins in verse
15 and what we see beginning in verse 15 is that the authority
of the Lord Jesus Christ begins in his church. This is where
it begins. Now twice in our Lord's three
years ministry, John records him cleansing the temple. You
remember when he made the cord of whips and the whip of cords
and he went in and turned over the money changers and he said,
at the, this was at the outset of his public ministry, that my house is to be a house
of prayer and you've made it into a den of thieves. So the
cleansing of his temple was the thing that he did to establish
his authority at the very beginning of his ministry and Matthew,
Mark, and Luke record that same event only they recorded at the
end of his ministry and so the conclusion that we came to that
we come to clearly is that he did it twice. He did it at the
beginning of his ministry and he did it at the very end of
his ministry. And what he's saying to us is
that my authority is in my church. That's where my authority starts.
That's where it's established. Judgment begins in the house
of God. And look what he says in verse 15, and they came to Jerusalem
and Jesus went into the temple and began to cast them out that
sold and bought in the temple and overthrew the tables of the
money changers and the seats of them that sold doves. Now, the law required that a
certain amount of money was to be given as an offering. when the Jews came to worship
in the temple. Only the law required that that
money be Jewish money. And the money that people had
was Roman money. And so there were money changers
that would get a profit for exchanging your Roman money for the Jewish
coin that was to be given. And they were making a profit
out of that. And then there were others who were Buying and selling
animals, you'd bring a sacrifice and they'd inspect that sacrifice
and they'd say, well, this sacrifice is not acceptable. You can't
offer it. And then they would sell you
another sacrifice and turn around and sell your sacrifice to somebody
else. It was just that bad. And the Lord is righteously indignant
against them for what they've done to the house of prayer.
And so he says, and would not suffer that any man could carry
any vessel through the temple. And he taught saying unto them,
is it not written, my house should be called of all nations, the
house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. And nothing's changed. Most places
that would consider themselves to be houses of worship, being
led by thieves. Merchandising men's souls, selling
salvation for profit. If you do this, then God will
do that. Some of it is very blatant. People think the indulgences
of the Catholic Church that were so abusive back during the 15th
century were ended after uh... the reformation but they weren't
they weren't my deceased mother a year ago one year ago was still
giving the catholic church money to have my father's name put
in a bulletin so that a mass could be said in his name in
order to get him out of purgatory now that's a den of thieves and
don't think that it's just catholicism that does that We've been to churches that have
people's names on the stained glass windows and have people's
names on the pews and we were part of one religious organization
that you could make a special offering in memory of a deceased
relative and get your name put in the bulletin for having made
that offering. Turning the house of prayer into
a den of thieves, there's a lot of profit to be made in religion
and men use religion And they use, you know, people think,
well, if I just, if I just give more, then God will have mercy
upon me. You give a million dollars, it's
not going to, it's not going to benefit you in terms of getting
to heaven. It's not going to get you one
step closer. You won't hear that in religion.
I say, don't, don't tell people that, that'll take away their
motivation. We gotta, we gotta get people, you see, Religion
today is nothing more than a den of thieves. Merchandising men's
souls and selling salvation for a profit and God is just as indignant
against it today as he was then. Nothing's changed. He hates it. What is prayer? What is prayer? True prayer is an expression
of our complete dependence upon God. Now we, James says, we pray
amiss, asking for things we ought not to be asking for that we
might consume it upon our own lust and we've all done that.
But when God enables us to really pray, we're praying about something
that we have no control over. You say, well, prayer is our
last resort. True prayer is always the last resort. If you can do
anything about it, you're going to try to do something about
it. You only pray for that which you have no control over. And you know what ultimately
you have no control over? The salvation of your soul. You have
no control over that. It is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." Don't
tell people they have no control over their salvation. That'll
take away their motivation for giving. That'll take away their
motivation for coming to church. That'll take away their motivation
for getting involved in ministry because we're enticing people
to do things so that they can get the reward. You see, nothing's
changed. And the Lord Jesus Christ says,
this is my house. I have complete authority over
it. And I hold in my hand everything that you need. And the only way,
the only evidence that God has blessed us with that which we
need is that He's made us dependent upon Him for it. He's made us
completely dependent upon Him. We're not looking to anything
that we've done for the reward of our salvation. We've come
to him completely dependent upon what he's done in order to save
us. That's what the Lord is saying. They were indignant. Now, the
first time, they kind of let it go when he did it three years
prior. But this time, they're ready
to crucify him. What are we going to do with this man? Look at,
let's read on. Verse 17, and he taught Satan
to them, is it not written, my house should be called of all
nations the house of prayer, but you have made it a den of
thieves. And the scribes and chief priests heard it and sought
how they might destroy him, for they feared him because all the
people were astonished at his doctrine. They were astonished
at his doctrine. There's another place where that
phrase is used. After the Sermon on the Mount, the scripture says,
and the people were astonished at his doctrine, for he spake
as one having authority, not as the scribes, not as the religious
leaders, who left everything open for man's interpretation.
He spoke clearly as one who has authority, speaking the word
of God. and he didn't leave us any options. He didn't leave us any wiggle
room. He said this is the way it is. He spoke as one having
authority and they were offended by it. Their authority was in
jeopardy, wasn't it? And so it is with the gospel.
Nothing has changed. When you declare the gospel,
those who are merchandising men's souls and those who are or are
having their hope for their salvation in something that they've done,
they're threatened by the gospel just like they were then. And
they will say the same thing that these men, we've got to
get rid of him, crucify him. Men hate God just as much today
as they ever did. Not the God of their imagination,
not the false God of their own making, They love Him. But the God who is, the God who
has all authority, they'll not bow to Him. What do they say? We'll not have that man reign
over us. We're going to hold authority for us. So here's the
point. When it comes to the authority
of the Lord Jesus Christ, it begins in the house of prayer. That's where we are right now.
We're here bowing to his sovereign authority, saying, Lord, we are
completely dependent upon you for everything, for everything. Secondly, the authority of the
Lord Jesus Christ is seen in his judgment over fruitless false
religion. Read on, verse 19. And when evening
was come, he went out of the city and in the morning as they
passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. Now
this is the fig tree that he had cursed previously when he
was going into Jerusalem. And they saw this fig tree. Now
the fig tree represents Israel, Old Testament Israel. The problem
with this fig tree, it was fruitless. It was during the time when a
fig tree should have had fruit on it, it didn't have any fruit.
And the Lord Jesus Christ cursed the fig tree, went into the city.
When they came back out, they saw the fig tree was dried up
and dead. Leaves had all fallen off of
it, it all shriveled up. The Lord Jesus Christ has the
authority to judge false religion. Israel had turned the grace of
God into a works religion. And that's exactly what men do
today. They turn it into something that you have to do in order
to earn favor with God. And the Lord Jesus Christ curses
that. And they say to us when we speak
a word of judgment against that, they say, well, don't judge.
Didn't the Bible say, judge not that you be not judged? Yes,
it does. And by that, it means that we
don't look down our self-righteous nose at someone else and make
judgments about their sins as if we're better than they are.
We believe ourselves to be the chief of all sinners. But what
it doesn't mean, because the scripture also says that we are
to make righteous judgments. In other words, we're to make
judgments about what's true and what's not true. And when people
try to intimidate us and shut us up by saying, well, don't
judge other people's religion, We say, I'm not, you know, I'm
not, what does they say when we, well, you're judging whether
or not I'm saved, whether or not I'm a child, whether or not
I'm going to heaven or going to hell. You're making that judgment.
No, we're not. No, we're not. Our hope is that
every person breathing will hear the voice of God and come to
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, even if it be like the thief
in the cross on their deathbed. We don't make judgments about
who's going to heaven or who's going to hell. We make judgments
about what is the gospel. That's our judgment. What is
the gospel? And if a person's perverting
the gospel, then we say that's a false gospel. That's a false
gospel. A gospel that is dependent upon
something that man does is a false gospel. The good news is that
it's been done, everything necessary for the salvation of a sinner
has been accomplished in the life, death, and resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has ascended into glory and
he's seated at the right hand of God, interceding on behalf
of those for whom he died. That's good news. The good news
is that your salvation is not dependent upon anything you've
done or haven't done. I can rest in that. I can rest
in a salvation that is completely accomplished in the hands of
one who has total authority, complete authority. He can't
fail. What he does is perfect. If God's
looking to me, For anything in my salvation, I'm gonna mess
it up. That's a place to rest, isn't
it? Again, the works religionists will say, well, you can't tell
folks that, it'll give them a license to sin. It'll just lead to a
licentious life. No. Grace will lead you to Christ. It'll cause you to look to Him. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation unto everyone
that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Now that
word power is the same word for authority. Who gave you the authority? The gospel is the authority.
The message of the Lord Jesus Christ in terms of who he is
the sinless son of God, bearing in his body all the sins of all
of his people and suffering the full wrath of God's judgment
in order to satisfy God's holy justice once and for all, putting
those sins away. That's the gospel. The gospel
is a person. The gospel is what he's done
and who he is. And the evidence of his success
is his resurrection. The Father raised Him from the
dead. I will not allow my Holy One to see corruption. God rewarded
the Lord Jesus Christ for His successful work and gave us evidence
that God saw the travail of His soul and was satisfied with what
the Lord Jesus Christ did by His resurrection. We look to
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ who's called the
firstborn among many brethren. And we're going to follow Him
in that resurrection. Here's my hope. Christ was raised from
the dead. God's pleased with him. His authority is seen first in
the church. His authority is seen in the
judgment that he declares over false religion, the cursing of
the fig tree. Now let's read on. Where else
has his authority seen? Now verse 22, and Jesus answered
and saith unto them, have faith in God. For verily I say unto
you that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed
and be thou cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart,
but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come
to pass. He shall have whatsoever he saith. Now mountains in the scriptures
are a picture of barriers. I was thinking about why was
California the last state to be populated and established? Because of the Rocky Mountains. It was difficult to cross that
barrier. You couldn't fly over them like
we do now. And mountains are seen as barriers.
And the Lord says, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, those
things that separate you from your God will be cast into the
depths of the sea Listen to what Isaiah said in Isaiah 59 verse
1. Behold, the Lord's hand is not
shortened that he cannot save, nor is his ear deaf that he cannot
hear, but your iniquities have separated you between you and
your God, and your sins have hid his face from you. What is the mountain that separates
us from God. What is the mountain that has
to be cast into the depths of the sea, separated from us as
far as the east is from the west and remembered no more? It's
our sin. Faith is looking to the Lord
Jesus Christ and his sacrificial death on Calvary's cross to satisfy
God's requirement for justice to have our sin put away. And
the Lord said, Believe in God, have faith, and those mountains
that separate you will be cast into the sea. You remember when
the Lord encountered that man who was sick with a palsy, and
he saw that his friends brought him, and he said, he said, your
faith has made you whole. I forgive you of your sins. And,
and the Pharisees said, he's blaspheming. He's blaspheming. God alone can forgive sins. Well,
they were right that God alone can forgive sins. And so the
Lord looked at them and He said, He said, what's easier to say?
Your sins are forgiven or take up your bed and walk. But that
you might know that the Son of Man hath authority or power to
forgive sins, I say unto you, take up your bed and walk. And
the man was sick of the palsy, took up his bed and began to
walk. Yes. His authority is seen in
the forgiveness of sin. And He's the only one that has
the authority to do that. No one else can forgive you of
your sin. We sin against one another. We
try to seek forgiveness of that sin in order to establish our
relationship with each other. And we ought to. And we often, if we offend someone,
we take gifts to people to try to say to them express our sorrow
to them and say to them how sorry we are what are you going to do? what
are you going to take to God in order to entice him to forgive
you? there's nothing you can do here's
what the religious world says the religious world says no I
smack you in the face and you're on the ground and why you're
on the ground I look down at you and I say I'm gonna let you
forgive me it don't work that way does it
but that's what the religious world says I'm gonna sin against
God and I know God wants to forgive me and so I'm gonna let him forgive
me it doesn't work like that he has all authority to forgive
sins Those mountains that separate
us from our God can only be removed when the Lord Jesus Christ bears
the guilt of our sin, the shame of our sin, and puts them away
by the sacrifice of himself. And what the Lord Jesus Christ
is saying, have faith in God, he's saying believe on me. Look to me. Rest all the hope
of your forgiveness in what I've done for you. Don't look to some
gift you're bringing to God for the hope of your forgiveness. You say, well, what about forgiveness?
Well, the Lord goes on, look what he says. Verse 24, therefore
I say unto you, at what things soever you desire, when you pray,
believe that you receive them and you shall have them. He's talking about those spiritual
gifts, those heavenly gifts. All the spiritual things are
in Christ, in the heavenlies. And we're to pray. When God gives you faith, you
pray believing. You pray believing. And when
you stand, that's what James said, when you come before God,
believe. Believe what you hear. otherwise
you're like the wave of the sea being cast to and fro let not
that man believe that let not that man think that he should
receive anything of the Lord for a double-minded man is unstable
in all of his ways. Now I know what some of you are
thinking I'm double-minded I'm double-minded you know I do one
thing I do something else that's not what double-minded means double-minded has to do with
Believing that all the hope of your salvation is in Christ,
but you've got to do something to make what he did work for
you. That's what double-minded means. And if God's giving you
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're not double-minded. You
say with the Apostle Paul, I know whom I believe and I'm persuaded
that he's able to keep that which I've committed unto him. I put
all my eggs in one basket. Christ alone is the only hope
of my salvation. That's what the Lord is talking
about here. Believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only
hope that you have before God. Have your sins forgiven and don't
hold out for something else that you've done as the hope or evidence
of your salvation. It's casting all your care on
Him. It's resting all the hope of
your salvation on the Lord Jesus Christ. And if God's given you
faith, that's where you are right now. Look at verse 26. But if you
do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven
forgive your trespasses. Now, someone said to me, You know,
I'm just having a hard time forgiving. The Lord told a story in Matthew
chapter 18 about a king who had a servant. And if you calculate
the talents that that servant owed the king, I think it was
$125 million in today's economy, because a talent was so many
ounces of gold or silver. and the king demanded payment.
There was no way the servant could pay the king and so the
servant begged for forgiveness and the king said, okay, wipe
it clean. Forgive you every bit that you
owe me. And then that servant turned around to one of his servants
who owed him a few dollars. And that servant, the second
servant said to the first servant exactly what the first servant
said to the king. But the second, the first servant would not have
pity on the second servant. And so the other servants went
to the king and said, you know, he's refusing. And the king threw
him into prison where he was tormented by the prisoners, by
the prison keepers. You know, and that's what unforgiveness
does. Here's the truth of that parable.
You and I are the first servant. God's forgiven us a debt beyond
our ability to forgive. Do other people offend us from
time to time? Yeah. Probably not much as we
offend others, but we get offended. You see, the ability to forgive
is based on your forgiveness. If you're looking in your heart
for some spiritual virtue, some character of strength, some ability
to be able to drum up forgiveness for somebody, you're not gonna
find it. You're not going to find it.
If you're looking at what they did to you or what they said
to you or whatever it was, you're going to continue to be offended.
So just forget about that. And look at what the Lord's done
to forgive you. You know what? That forgiveness
is the natural result of being forgiven. And that's what the
Lord's saying here. If you can't forgive, it just
means you haven't been forgiven. And the Lord has authority in
that, doesn't he? Now the final point that I want
to make, and I've gone a little long, is when they ask the Lord,
who gave you this authority? Read the rest of this chapter
in Mark 11, the Lord said, I tell you what, I'm going to ask you
a question. He said, the baptism of John,
was it of God or was it of men? And they got together and I can
just see them over there conferring, you know, what are we going to
say? If we say it's of God, then he'll ask us why we didn't believe
him. And if we say it's of men, the people will turn against
us because they love John. And so they came back to the
Lord and they said, we don't know. We don't know. And the
Lord said, neither will I tell you where I get my authority. God is not obligated to answer
man's questions. He's not obligated to answer
your questions or my questions. Most folks that ask God questions
don't want to know the truth. It's just like these Pharisees.
They're interrogating God. They're putting God on the witness
stand and saying, God, you prove yourself to me. That's what Job
did. Job said, you let me come to
court and I'll prove to you in your heavenly court that I'm
not guilty of this. I'm innocent. Oh, who is this that darkens
counsel without knowledge? Job, you brace yourself like
a man. I'm going to ask you some questions and for four chapters
God interrogated Job and the first thing out of Job's mouth
was, Behold, I am vile. I had spoken without knowledge.
Lord, who am I to hold you in judgment? But that's what men
do. The Lord said, I'm not going
to ask you a question. When the Lord stood before Pilate, you
remember Pilate said, are you the king of the Jews? The Lord
refused to answer him, was silent. You know, that's the greatest
judgment that God could give to you or me is to be silent to
us. And you start interrogating God and he will be silent to
you. What did, what pilot finally
out of frustration policy don't you know that I have the authority
I have the power to offer you up to be crucified or to let
you free aren't you gonna bow to my authority and the Lord
calmly said you have no authority at all except for that which
is given to you from heaven I've got all authority I'm in
control here and I'm in control of your life And whatever I do
is right. I possess all authority and faith
is bowing to the sovereign authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, let's take a break. th th