Good morning again. In Psalm 136, there are 26 verses
in that psalm, and they all end with this statement, His mercy
endureth forever. Forever. Sometimes we equate God's mercy
with our circumstances. In other words, we have a problem,
whether we're sick or something, and we ask God for his mercy
and he heals, and we immediately thank him for that mercy. But
had he not healed, would he have been just as merciful? His mercy endures forever. And
we are always mercy beggars. But the mercy of God is not seen
so much in our circumstances, but rather in our ability to
trust Him regardless of our circumstances. Now that's the mercy of God.
That's the mercy of faith is of God's mercy, isn't it? May
God be merciful to us this morning. Let's stand together. Tom's going
to come lead us in the hymn on the back of your boat. How sweet and blessed is the
time with Christ within this place, when everlasting love
reveals the treasures of His grace. While all our hearts and
all our songs join to enjoy the feast, each of us ask with thankful
hearts, Lord, why am I a guest? Why was I made to hear thy voice
and come before thy throne, while others make a wretched choice
and rather starve than come? Twas the same love that spread
the feast that sweetly called us in, else we would still refuse
to taste and perish in our sins. We now desire to bless thy name
and in our hearts record and with our thankful tongues proclaim
the goodness of the Lord. Please be seated. If you would please turn with
me in the word of God to Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10. God has been burning this into
my heart now for many, many months. And I thought I understood this
verse, these three verses pretty well. And then he put his finger
on my heart and I seen them anew again. They was all different.
and God's good providence. I find it interesting he put
it on my heart to read these considering the past week a man
passed away that this perfectly describes him. These immediately God put on
my heart. Some of you may not remember
the very first time I heard brother Todd Nyberg preach. He preached
to a group of us. We were in religion. And I never
will forget his message. Some of you were there. He preached
on the leper. And he said the leper could not
be declared clean until every inch of their skin was leprous. If there was any cleanliness
on it, wouldn't declare them clean. There was a few of us
in that room that understood what he was saying. Not many,
but a few. It's a picture of our sin. Till
God shows us that we are nothing but sin, that's a sinner, we'll
never be saved. If we think we have one spot
of righteousness, we'll never be saved. And I always find it
interesting. I remember this like it was yesterday. Some of you were there. The people,
what they call in the Bible, murmured. You know what murmur
is? And they all said, well, that
sermon was okay, I guess, but I don't know why he preached
it to us. We're all believers. You see, They're going to talk
about these people right here. They did not see themselves as
nothing but sin. Sin is who I am, not what I do. And let us read this verse because
I always thought these three verses perfectly described my
family. And then the Lord says, Michael,
they described you. This is you. Paul says, brethren, My heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be
saved. He's not pleading to his fleshly
brethren. He's pleading with God because
he knows if they're to be saved, God's going to have to do it.
For I bear them record. They have a zeal of God. They're
very, very religious. Oh, this is, this was, was this
ever you? It was me one time. They have
a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. They don't know
Christ. They know a Christ. The man that
I described that just died, his Christ loved everybody, died
for everybody and wanted to save everybody. That's not the Christ. I love it when the Lord approaches
him and says, who does that say that I am? Who do you say that
I am? Thou art the Christ. The Christ that died for those
whom God gave him. The Christ who went to the cross
for those who God gave him and the Christ who successfully accomplished
the salvation of those people. That's the Christ. They don't
know that Christ. And the man that died didn't
know that Christ either. That is the Christ, that's the
only Christ that can save. And here's what they did. For
they've been ignorant of God's righteousness and going about
to establish their own righteousness. That's what they're doing, working
their way to heaven. I so appreciate Brother Greg,
as I hope everybody has these last few months talking about
our natural desires to try to atone for our own sins. If God
ever makes you a sinner, you'll see right there, this is what
you'll do if you're a sinner. Not submitted, but have not their
own righteousness and they have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord, I said, I always
thought this was my family, that I don't know about you, but there's
not a day goes by that I don't have to plead with God to save
not only my family, but to save this sinner. If I'm going to
be saved, Lord, you're going to have to do it. And Lord, make yourself known
to me. And cause me, Lord, to stop trying
to work my way to heaven and submit to the righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. I have to pray that prayer every
day today. Because I'm prone to wonder.
As Brother Todd used to say, I'll close this, we're all recovering
Pharisees, aren't we? Every one of us. Let us go to
the Lord in prayer and pray he will give us the ability to pray. Lord, we've come here this morning. Needing you to speak a word to
us of peace. We pray for Brother Greg and
your other gospel preachers. Lord, that you would send your
spirit to them. Give them the ability that you
would speak through them, Lord, and that you would cause us to
run to Christ and give us your spirit to submit to the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask, Lord, for forgiveness
of our sins. Lord, forgive us for the sin
of unbelief, for the sin of willfully sinning against you. And Lord,
forgive us for the sin of self-righteousness. We plead with you, Lord, you
alone can save us. We pray, know that you're able,
and we pray that you might be willing. We ask that you will
be glorified in all that we say and do. We ask that Christ would
take this prayer and make it acceptable to God the Father. Let's all stand together once
again. We'll sing hymn number eight from your Spiral Gospel
Hymn Book, number eight. O 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 we ? ? 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. Caleb Hickman
is going to bring special music. Jesus, keep me near the cross. There a precious fountain, free
to all the healing stream, flows from Calvary's mountain. In the Christ, ? Of the cross
be my glory ever ? ? Till my raptured soul shall find ? ?
Rest beyond the river ? ? Near the cross a trembling soul ?
Love and mercy found me. There the bright and morning
star sheds its beams around me. In the Christ of the cross be
my glory ever. ? Still my raptured soul shall
find ? ? Rest beyond the river ? ? Near the cross, O Lamb of
God ? ? Bring its sins before me ? ? Help me walk from day
to day ? ? With His shadows over me ? ? In the Christ of the cross
? ? Be my glory ever ? ? Till my raptured soul shall find ?
Just beyond the river Near the cross I'll watch and wait Hoping,
trusting ever Till I reach the golden strand Just beyond the
river In the cries of the cross, be my glory ever. Till my raptured soul shall find
rest beyond the river. Tom, every time we sing that
hymn in the future, we need to sing it like that. Our hope is not in that wooden
cross. It's in the Christ. Number 351
if you want. Open your handbooks and change
that 351. 351 thank you Caleb. That was
a blessing. They that worship Him must worship
Him in spirit and in truth. It's one of the passages we're
gonna look at this morning. I was just thinking about that
as you were singing, Caleb. All the religious folks that
love to wear a cross around their neck and put them on the steeple
of their churches. No, we worship Christ. He's in the
heavens, seated at the right hand of God, having accomplished
the salvation of his people. And the only way to worship him
is not with a trinket. It's not with an image. It's
from the heart. Philippians chapter three says,
we are the true circumcision, which worship God in the spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. We open your Bibles with me to
Hebrews chapter 11, please. I quoted this verse the first
hour, but I want us to look at it together. If you'll allow me, I'd like
to coin a word if it hasn't already been coined this morning, probably
has. But I've titled this message
the isness of God. The isness of God. Scripture speaks of God as one
who is compared to the one who is not. Man in his darkened imagination
has formed the image of a God who doesn't exist. He's a figment
of his own imagination. Psalm chapter 50, God says, you
thought, you thought that I was altogether such a one as thyself. You formed in your mind a God
that was like you. In fact, you made me to be a
God that you could control, but I'm not like that. I'm not like
that. Here's who I am. Continuing on
in Philippians chapter 3, Paul said, oh, that I might know him. I count all things but loss for
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. I'm not yet apprehended, that which
has apprehended me. But this one thing I do, forgetting
those things which are behind, I press towards the prize. Somebody
was talking to somebody. This week they said, they said,
well, Christ is the prize. That's exactly what the scripture
says. He's the prize. He's the prize. The prize of
the high calling in Christ Jesus. May God be pleased in this hour
to reveal to our hearts who he is, who he is, We'll begin in
verse 1 of Hebrews chapter 11. Now, faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
That's all we've got. The gift of faith. Faith is what
God enables His people to do in trusting Christ. And it's
all that we look outside of Christ for evidence of our salvation.
We're going to deceive ourselves. For by this faith, the elders
obtained a good report. Through faith, we understand
that the world were framed by the word of God so that the things
which are seen were not made by the things which do appear.
Well, that just shoots a hole all through evolution, doesn't
it? By faith, Abel offered unto God
a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. What was the sacrifice
that Abel offered? It was a blood sacrifice. Where
did he get that from? He got it from his father, Adam.
Adam made it very clear to his boys that God requires blood. When your mother and I sinned
in the garden, a lamb had to be slain, blood had to be shed
in order for us to be clothed properly to stand in the presence
of God. And God hasn't changed. Everything's
the same as it was in the garden. The Lamb of God, one without
spot, without blemish, was slain on Calvary's cross. And God said,
when I see His blood, then I'll be satisfied. The only question
you and I have to ask ourselves is, are we satisfied with what
God's satisfied with? Or are we wanting to do something
else? Are we wanting to add to or take
away from what Christ has done? His blood is the only covering
for our sin. And so Abel offered a blood sacrifice. Cain brought the labors of his
hands, didn't he? What a picture of the world today. You either come to God based
on the sacrifice that Christ has made of himself to the Father
or you come with something in your hand. What happened to Cain? God had
no respect for Cain's sacrifice by which Abel obtained a witness
that he was righteous. Abel was righteous. Why? Because
of the blood sacrifice. Was Abel any better a man than
Cain? No. No. But the blood sacrifice
made him righteous. Nothing's changed. Christ, men,
Michael, Men are ignorant of the righteousness of God. They'll
go about trying to establish their own righteousness. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Our righteousness is in the Lord
Jesus Christ and in him alone and God testifying of his gift
and by it, he being dead yet speaketh. Cain still testifies
and so does Abel. Cain testifies of the works of
man's hands. Abel testifies to what it is
God requires for us to be saved. By faith, Enoch was translated.
I've heard people say, well, you know, Enoch was so holy and
walked so close to God that one day God just took him up into
heaven. No, Enoch had to be translated.
And so do you and so do I. We have to be translated. We
have to be changed. Be given a new nature. And he
was not seen or should not see death. And if God translates
us, we won't see death. We won't see death. Well, but
the body will die. That's not death. He's talking
about separation from God. He that believes on the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Lord said, shall never die. Never die. And so just like with
Enoch, God translates us in Christ. He delivers us from death. The
Lord Jesus Christ conquered death. He conquered the grave. Death,
where's your victory? Grave, where's your sin? The
sting of death is sin. Thanks be to God. through Christ
Jesus. Sin's been conquered, been put
away. And he was not found because God had translated him. That's
why he was not found. Not because he was holy or because
he was a... he was... he stood head and shoulders
above everybody else. He was not found because God
translated him. Same reason you won't be found
or I won't be found in this world. God translates us. And before his translation, he
had this testimony that he pleased God. Well, how did he please
God? By faith. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. For they that cometh to him must
believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of them that
diligently seek him. Now, what does that mean? I told
you, I've titled this message, The Is-ness of God. What does
it mean to believe that God is? Most folks I talk to, I meet,
you know, occasionally you'll run into somebody who says they're
agnostic, they got their chest out and they want you to prove
something to them, or you'll meet a person who's just a liar
who says they're atheist, they know there's a God. But most
folks will say, yeah, I believe in God. And James said, The devils
believe also and tremble. That's not what the isness of
God is, just believing that God is. Believing that He exists. What
does it mean to say, and He's the rewarder of them that diligently
seek Him? Does that mean that He'll reward
me for my diligence? That my diligence will be rewarded
with eternal life? The only hope of eternal life.
Here's what this verse means. This is our text for this morning.
For he that cometh to God. Must believe. That he is. And that he's the rewarder of
them that diligently seek him. The only hope that I have of
eternal life is to seek God for who he is. to seek God for who he is. As I said, man has imagined a
God who doesn't exist. I quoted part of that Psalm 50
verse 21, thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as
thyself. But the rest of that verse says,
but I will reprove thee. I will correct thee. I'm going
to give you repentance. That's what repentance means.
It means a change to me. mind, we by nature imagine a
God that's altogether such as ourselves. God has to change our thinking.
He has to change our mind. He has to give us faith to believe
who He is as He is revealed in Scripture. Not who we think He
is. I will reprove thee and set them
in order before their own eyes. So here's what the Lord says,
I'm gonna give you repentance, I'm gonna change your mind, I'm
gonna reveal to you that I'm not anything like you thought
I was. Matter of fact, I'm the opposite of what you thought
I was. Everything man thinks naturally about God is just backwards,
it's upside down. You remember when Peter and John
were preaching after the day of Pentecost and they drug him
in before the Sanhedrin and they said, you've got to stop preaching
this Jesus, for you've turned our city upside down. No, the
city of Jerusalem was already upside down. They were just turning
it right side up. But everything man thinks about
God is just the opposite of who he actually is. And so God says,
you have to believe who I am. in order to have any hope of
an eternal reward. In fact, all of men's problems
go back to the garden, don't they? What was the temptation
that Satan gave to Eve in the garden? God doesn't want you
to eat of the fruit of that tree because He knows in the day in
which you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you'll become
like God. And that's at the heart of every sin now. Man wants to
become his own God. He wants to control the destiny
of his life and his eternal destiny. He wants to be God. And so 2
Thessalonians 2 says that man has set himself up on the throne
of God. And God has sent him a strong
delusion so that he should believe the lie. What is the lie? The lie is that
I'm God. The lie is that God is subservient
to me. The lie is that I get to decide
my destiny. God's here to serve me. As I
said in the first hour, the gospel of God's free grace in the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only message of salvation
that lets God be God. And God's people rejoice in God
being God. Oh, they're not like those people
in Nazareth who gnashed at their teeth when the Lord said He was
sovereign in salvation. No, they delight in a God who
is God. A God who's God is the only God
that's going to be worshiped. Now, what is the isness of God?
How has God revealed Himself in His Word? Well, there are
four passages of Scripture the where God says, this is who I
is. All right? The first one is in
Isaiah chapter 6. Remember when Isaiah, in the
year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah said, I saw the Lord and he was
high and lifted up. And his train filled the temple
and the smoke covered the room and the doorpost shook. and the seraphim. In Isaiah,
John makes it clear in John chapter 12 that Isaiah was looking at
none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he saw these angelic hosts
hovering over the throne of God and they were crying. They had
six wings and with two they covered their eyes because they could
not look upon him With two, they covered their feet because they
were creatures and they had feet of clay. And with two, they did
fly. They were in constant service.
And what were they crying? Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God of hosts for all of earth is filled with his glory. Holy, holy, holy is. The isness
of God begins with his holiness. And holiness, well, I heard a
good definition of holiness many years ago that I think is appropriate.
It's real simple. It means other. Other. He's holy, undefiled, separate
from sinners. He's not like us in any way. And for us to imagine a God who's
like us is for us to degrade His holy glory. He is holy. The second thing that the scripture
says about the isness of God is that God is spirit and they
that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth. The
third thing that the scripture says about the isness of God
is that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. And the
fourth thing that the scripture says about the isness of God
is that God is love. God is love. So God is holy,
God is spirit, God is light, and God is love. And if God's
pleased to reveal to our hearts who he is, then we can have confidence that
the God we worship is the God who is. The Lord Jesus Christ is called
the Holy One of Israel. He's the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. He's holy. He's holy. The Father is revealed as being
holy in Psalm 89 verse 30. Turn with me there, Psalm 89. The heart of man is deceitful. wicked above all things who can
know it. God leaves us to ourselves, we'll
go right back to our idol factory and we'll start manufacturing
an image of God that's not consistent with who he is. Now if we're
to know him, he's going to have to reveal himself and if he reveals
himself it'll be by his word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
comes by the Word of God. The only revelation that we have
of God is not my opinion. It's not something I imagine. It's not even anything in creation.
It's the revealed truth of God's Word. And so in Psalm 89, look
with me at verse 34, my covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that has
gone out of my lips. Our God is a covenant-keeping
God. What is the covenant he's talking about? That word covenant
means promise. A man-made religion is all based
on man's promises to God. I promise to serve you. I promise
to worship you. I promise to accept you. I promise
to do this and to do that. And God rewards man for his promises. And that's every religion. The
gospel of God's free grace is based on a covenant promise that
God the Father made with God the Son and God the Holy Spirit
before man was ever made. Before the angels were created.
Before the universe was ever made. God is a covenant keeping
God. God the Father promised to give
to His Son a particular people. God the Son promised to redeem
them. And God the Holy Spirit promised
to regenerate them. That's the covenant. It's God's
promise to God. Is it possible that God would
lie to Himself? Is it possible that God would
lie to anybody? No. No. Look at the next verse. Verse
35. once I have sworn by my holiness
that I will not lie unto David. Now, David's not about David. David's about the Lord Jesus
Christ. David's the the type of Christ
all through these Psalms and every, we've been studying the
Psalms on Wednesday night and it's becoming more and more clear
to us, isn't it? That David is a picture and all
these Psalms are messianic and they're all about Christ. So
the Lord's saying, I'm a covenant keeping God. I've made a covenant
promise to David and I'm gonna keep my promise. Those last words
of David can even be seen as the words of Christ more clearly
than the words of David. When David said, although my
house be not so with God, the Lord Jesus Christ talking to
the Father, praying to the Father, saying, Father, my family is
not like it ought to be, and we're not, are we? We're not. Yet he has made with me an everlasting
covenant. Ordered in all things ensure
this is all my salvation, all my desire, though we make it
not to grow. The Church of the Lord Jesus
Christ, if you can get a hold of this, you'll understand something
about God and the isness of God. The Church of the Lord Jesus
Christ is exactly the same size today as it was before Adam was
created and as it will be when the world comes to an end. It's
exactly the same size. It's called God's elect people. Chosen in the covenant of grace,
redeemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is called holy. And he's the one who caused that
holy thing to be found in the womb of Mary. The isness of God
means that he is holy. Psalm 89 verse 9, Psalm 96 verse
9 says that we are to worship him in the beauty of his holiness. And Moses in his psalm said he
is glorious in his holiness. The believer's one longing desire
is to dwell in the house of the Lord and to behold the beauty
of His holiness. The God who is, is holy. And the only way that you and
I will worship is if we believe that He's holy. He's holy. I'm not going to deal with God
like I deal with a man. I'm going to have to come and
bow in his presence. Now secondly, the isness of God
reveals that God is spirit. You remember in John chapter
4 when the Lord was with that woman at the well and he begins
to probe into her circumstances And she says, I perceive that
thou art a prophet. And so she tries to divert the
attention away from herself by asking a theological question.
Well, you know, you Jews say that we're to worship down in
Jerusalem, but we Samaritans believe that here in Sychar on
Mount Gerizim is where we're supposed to worship. And what
do you have to say about that? And what did the Lord say? The Lord said, it doesn't matter
where you worship. matters how you worship. For
they that worship God. For God, he says this, God is
spirit. And I know in your King James
Bible it says God is a spirit. The indefinite article is not
in the text. So just leave that out. So God
is spirit is what that verse says. And they that worship him
must worship him in spirit and in truth. There's no ability to worship
God apart from the Spirit of God. The natural man cannot receive
the things of the Spirit. They are spiritually discerned. That is why God forbids us making
any image of Him. What did the children of Israel
do at Mount Sinai? They said, ask for this. They're
talking to Aaron. Ask for this, Moses. We don't know what's happened
to him. He's gone. We can't see him. He's been gone
too long. Make for us a God that we can worship. And they took
their gold and put it in the fire. And Aaron fashioned a calf
out of it. And Moses comes off the mountain
and says, what is this that you're doing? Well, you know, the people,
they wanted a God they could see. And this God you're dealing with
up on the mountain, He can't be seen. No, He can't be. Anybody tells you they've seen
God or they've talked to God audibly? They're lying. The Lord said, they that worship
Him must worship Him in spirit, in spirit. That means the Spirit of God
speaks to our hearts by the Word of God and reveals the glory
of Christ to us. It's a worship from the heart. Philippians Chapter 3, we are
the true circumcision. Been circumcised, the circumcision
that the New Testament speaks of is not circumcision of the
flesh but circumcision of the heart. And so when Paul says
we are the true circumcision, he's talking about our hearts
being circumcised, which worship God in the spirit. And the evidence
of that is that we're rejoicing Christ Jesus and we have no confidence
in the flesh, no confidence whatsoever in fleshly means, in fleshly
methods. The worship of God is a heart
matter. We don't have crosses and altars
and robes. We don't hang a picture of a feminine looking wild Bill Hickok
on the wall and call it Jesus. We don't do that, do we? It's
blasphemous what men do in religion. It's blasphemous. God is spirit. He's holy, he's spirit. We don't even say to our unbelieving
friends, come and worship with us. They can't worship. Come
and hear the gospel. Come and meet a man who told
me everything I ever did. But only believers can worship
because only believers have the spirit of God enabling them to
worship. Without faith it is impossible
to please God, for they that come unto him must believe that
he is. He is holy. He is spirit. And thirdly, he is light. Turn
with me to 1 John chapter 1. Yeah, I heard a dear brother
introduce a message recently by saying the subject I'm dealing
with this morning is impossible to do justice to. And I've concluded at the outset that
I am doomed for failure. And I thought a lot about that.
that statement could be put into the introduction of every gospel
message. We're doomed for failure. There's
no way we can express the truth about who God is with words that he's worthy of.
That's why we have to trust the Spirit of God. This is all part
of worshiping him in the Spirit and according to the truth of
His Word, we trust the Spirit of God to make application of
things to our hearts that can't be put into words. You have your Bibles open to
1 John chapter 1 verse 5 This then is the message which
we have heard of him and declare unto you, God is light and in
him is no darkness at all. Now, light in the scripture is
a word that describes truth and darkness is a word that describes
a lie. Satan lives in utter darkness.
He is the father of lies and a liar. The earth, the scripture
says, at the beginning was without form and void and darkness covered
the surface of the deep. And God said, let there be light. And that's a picture of the spiritual
condition of the earth today. Darkness covers the earth. And unless God says, let there
be light and shines in our hearts, the light of the gospel in the
face of the Lord Jesus Christ, we'll be in darkness. We'll believe
a lie. We'll believe a lie and we'll
die in darkness. This is the condemnation that
light has come into the world. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
light. Light is coming to the world, but men love darkness
rather than light. Why? Because their deeds are
evil. The light exposes the evil of man. It exposes all of his
presumed righteousness for what it is, iniquity. Everyone that doeth evil hateth
the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should
be reproved. God is light. There is no light
outside of Him. Everything else is darkness.
You remember when Moses was leading the children of Israel out of
Egypt and they came up to the Red Sea and the Egyptians were
hot on their heels. And the scripture says that God
sent a cloud and separated the Egyptians from the Israelites.
And the cloud to the Egyptians was darkness and the cloud to
the Israelites was light, the same cloud. And the scripture
says that this message of light, the truth of who God is as light,
has become a savor of death to the unbeliever and a savor of
life to the child of God. The same sun that melts wax hardens
clay. And so when the gospel is preached,
some men's hearts will be hardened and others' men's hearts will
be melted. It'll either be light or darkness
to him. In him was life and the life
was the light of men. Here's what the Lord says about
his church, you are chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar
people. that you should show forth the
praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous
light." God is light. He's truth. And in Him there
is no lie. I had someone say to me this
week, I said, well, we're talking about the same man, Michael. I'll say his name, Billy Graham. False prophet. No question about
it. I'm sorry if that offends you. Well, I'm not sorry. I hope it
does. They said, well, can't God use
somebody like that? Nope. Nope. No lie is of the truth. God's not going to use a man
who's lying on God to save his people. The message of the gospel
must be preached as light, not darkness. And there's no light in the law.
There's no light in the law. When the children of Israel were
at Mount Sinai, the scripture says that the mountain was covered
with thick darkness, with thick darkness. I've heard people say,
well, you've got to preach the law in order to get people under
conviction. That's not what the God, that's
not what the Bible says. You preach the light and the light will
expose the evil of man's sin. You preach Christ. You lift him
up as a successful Savior, a sovereign Savior, a sin bearer who satisfied
the demands of God's holy justice and who stands in our stead before
a holy God As our advocate pleading our cause before God, men in
coming to Christ will see that they cannot be saved by the law. The mountain of the law is covered
with thick darkness. And the Lord said of the false
prophets that they speak not according to the law and the
testimony. And by that he means the word
of God, which is a revelation in the volume of the book. It
is spoken of me. They speak not of Christ, it
is because they have, and here's what God says, no light in them,
none, none. 1 Samuel 2, verse 9, the wicked
shall be silent in darkness for by strength, shall no man prevail."
No man is going to prevail before God by his own strength, by his
own efforts, by his own works, or by his own decisions. And
when Jude spoke of the false prophets, he said that they were
wandering stars. Now, in the heavens at night,
we have stars and we have other things that look like stars,
but they're not stars. They're planets. The stars are
always in the exact same position relative to one another and relative
to the north star. Every night they're in the same
exact position. But the planets which to the
naked eye look like stars are never in the same position. And
so the stars you can navigate by. The scriptures refer to gospel
preachers who preach the truth about Christ as stars in the
hands of God. You can navigate your life by
what God's preachers tell you about Christ. But the false prophets,
God calls them wandering stars. He identifies them with those
planets up there. You can't navigate your life
by them. They're always changing. They're always moving. They're
never in the right position with the North Star. And they're never
in the right position with one another. False prophets are wandering
stars in whom is reserved blackness and darkness forever, is what
Jude says. So who is God? He's holy. He's spirit. He's light. And then the scripture
says in 1 John chapter 4, Beloved, let us love one another, for
love is of God. And everyone that loveth knoweth
God is born of God, for God is love. God is love. Now, as I said in the first hour,
don't try to take the things that God says about Himself and
liken them to your love. Our love is very fickle. God's
love is holy. He said, Jacob I have loved and
Esau I have hated. God has a hatred, a holy hatred
and a holy love. I remember when we first went
to war in Iraq and President George Bush, I think it was George
W. Bush, who was speaking to the
nation in an attempt to inspire the country. And he quoted from
Romans Chapter 8. And he said, nothing, nothing
can separate us from the love of God. And he put a period right
there. Now, I'm not speaking disparagingly,
I hope, about our president. I'm just saying that that's... you know what the rest of that
verse says. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which
is in Christ Jesus. There's no love outside of Christ.
When the Bible says God is love, He loves righteousness. He hates
iniquity. He loves His Son and those that
are in His Son. And He loves them perfectly.
He loves them with a holy love. This idea that God loves everybody,
it's not true. It's just not true. If God loves
everybody, then what does the love of God have to do with anyone's
salvation? Think about it. If Christ died
for everybody, then what's the death of Christ on Calvary's
cross have to do with anyone's salvation? If God wills all men to be saved,
then what does the will of God have to do with anyone's salvation?
You see, you can't, it doesn't even make sense, does it? You say, well, doesn't the Bible
say that the rain falls on the wicked and the righteous and
that, yeah, it does. Do you know why the rain falls
on the wicked? There's only one reason. It's because the righteous
are here. That's the only reason. And I
give you a good example of that. As soon as the righteous are
taken away, you know what's going to fall from heaven? Not rain.
Not rain. The fire of God's wrath is going
to fall from heaven as soon as the righteous are taken away.
The only reason that the rain falls on the unrighteous right
now, the wicked, is because the righteous are here. God loves
His people. He loves Christ. God is love. Now that's a hard thing to get a
hold of, isn't it? I can understand how God would
love you. The hardest person I understand
God loving is me. I know me better than you do. How God could love me is beyond
my comprehension. Now, how do I know? I dealt with this
a little bit in the first hour. I just want to conclude this
message with this. People talk about knowing things about God
and not knowing God. I believe that God's holy. I
believe he's spirit. I believe he's light. And I believe
he is love. I believe this is the isness
of God. And apart from faith, it is impossible to approach
God. We must believe that He is. As I said in the first hour,
the disconnect is not between your head and your heart. People will say God's holy, God's
love, God is light, and God is spirit, and then they attempt
to approach Him based on something other than the shed blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. I know that I believe that God
is holy, that God is holy in that I fear approaching a holy
God based on anything other than the shed blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I believe that God is light because
I see that the Lord Jesus Christ, I believe that he is the light
of the world and that outside of him is nothing but darkness. I believe that God is spirit
because I know that the only way I can worship him is by the
power of the Holy Spirit and from the heart. And I'm not looking
to what I'm doing as the reward of my salvation. And I believe that he's love. I believe that he's love because
The thing that I have the hardest time with is understanding how
he could love me. I stand amazed in the presence
of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder how he could love me, a sinner,
condemned, unclean, How marvelous! How wonderful! And my song shall
ever be how marvelous and how wonderful is my Savior's love
for me. The Is-ness of God. For they that cometh to Him must
believe that He is. the rewarder of them that diligently
seek Him for who He is. Tom, what's the number of that
hymn? Number 452. Let's stand together, please.
Number 452. I stand amazed in the presence
of Jesus the Nazarene, and wonder how he could love me, a sinner
condemned unclean. How marvelous, how wonderful
And my song shall ever be How marvelous, how wonderful Is my
Savior's love for me For me it was in the garden He prayed not
my will but thine He had no tears for his own Griefs but sweat
drops of blood for mine How marvelous, how wonderful, And my song shall
ever be! How marvelous, how wonderful,
Is my Savior's love for me! In pity angels beheld him and
came from the world of light. To comfort him in the sorrows
he bore for my soul that night. How wonderful, how wonderful,
and my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful
is my Savior's love for me. He took my sins and my sorrows,
He made them His very own. He bore the burden to Calvary
And suffered and died alone How marvelous, how wonderful And
my song shall ever be How marvelous, how wonderful Is my Savior's
love for me When with the ransomed in glory His face I at last shall
see, T'will be my joy through the ages To sing of His love
for me. How marvelous, how wonderful,
and my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful,
is my Savior's love for me. I don't know. I don't know. No, I wouldn't. I don't know.