There we go. We have it now.
Good morning. We're going to open this morning's
service with hymn number eight from your gospel hymn spiral
hymn book. Hymn number eight. Oh, Lord, our hearts and souls
aspire. That's our prayer for this morning,
this first hour. Let's all stand together. Number eight. you 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 ? O 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. Good morning. As we were singing
that hymn, I was thinking about Isaiah chapter 64, O that thou
wouldst rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains
would melt out of the way. The Lord's pleased to visit us
this morning and give us faith to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and all those barriers that stand between us and God
will be cast into the sea. And as he did for John in the
book of Revelation, he opened up the windows of heaven. And
what God opens, no man can shut. That's our hope. That's been
our prayer in coming here this morning, that the Lord would
open up heaven and enable us to see Christ seated as a conquered
savior at the right hand of the majesty on high, that he would
open our hearts and give us faith that he would open his word and
reveal to us the glory of Christ. That's our hope because what
he opens, no man can shut. Let's pray together, ask the
Lord's blessings and then we'll go to his word. Our merciful
heavenly father, all that we do here is worse
than vanity. If you are not pleased to visit
us, We are completely dependent upon you, Lord, to make yourself
known to us, to speak to our hearts, to reveal to us the truth
of thy dear son, to show us the glory of Christ. We might set
our affections on things above where Christ is seated at thy
right hand. Lord, let not us leave this place
without having you spoken to our hearts. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. We open your Bibles with me to
Mark chapter 4. We'll continue our study in this
gospel. We left off last Sunday in verse
20 and I want to begin this morning with verse 21. Thankfully, some of our young
people won't know what I'm talking about, but those of us that came
out of religion can remember teaching our children when they
were little this little light of mine. Remember that little
ditty? I'm going to let it shine. Hide it under a bushel? No, I'm
going to let it shine. This is the passage of scripture
that that little religious ditty was taken from, but as is often
the case, always the case with the interpretation of man-made
religion, it has nothing to do with what this passage really
teaches. It's not us going around showing our good works to men
so that they can be attracted to Christ. This is a picture,
a promise of the light of the gospel shining in our hearts
in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the more light he
gives, the more faith he gives to believe in that light. And
so this is a promise to the child of God, not in terms of our relationship
with unbelievers, not even in terms of our relationship with
God, but in terms of the relationship that we have with the light that
God has given us. We'll see that in just a moment.
Let's look at verse 21. And he said unto them, is a candle
brought to be put under a bushel and under a bed and not to be
set on a candlestick? That's a common analogy, isn't
it? You wouldn't take a candle and
put it under a bushel basket, you wouldn't put it under a bed.
No, you just put it on a candlestick and set it out where it'll shed
light in the whole room. For there is nothing hid which
shall not be manifested, neither was there anything kept secret
that should not come abroad. If any man have ears to hear,
let him hear. Let him hear. Well, Lord, give
me ears to hear so that I can understand what you're saying
here. If Verse 22 means that there's nothing
in my sin that's not going to be exposed. I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble. That's not at
all what the Lord is talking about here. The child of God
has the hope of knowing that his sin has been covered. It's
been put away. It's been buried in the depths
of the sea, it's been separated from him as far as the east is
from the west, and God remembers it no more. Sin cannot manifest
itself through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. God sees the
blood of his son and reckons us to be perfectly righteous
in Christ. So the Lord's not talking about,
uh... there's nothing here which cannot be made manifest uh... we we don't want arson be made
manifest uh... it was made manifest in the sacrifice
that the lord jesus christ made on calvary's cross to successfully
so what's he talking about here uh... well the candle is the
light of the gospel. And we see this analogy going
all the way back to Genesis chapter 1, don't we? In the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without
form and void. And the scripture says that darkness
was upon the face of the deep and the spirit of God moved upon
the waters of the deep. And God said, let there be light. And there was light. So in the
very beginning of creation, we have confusion, We have darkness. This is a spiritual picture of
the condition that we're in individually when we're born into this world.
It's a spiritual picture of the world at large in terms of its
spiritual condition. It is without form and void. And darkness is upon the face
of the deep. God doesn't speak and say, let
there be light. There won't be any light. We
can't generate light ourselves. The Lord has to generate light.
And so what we see in physical creation is a picture of a recreation
or the new birth that God gives when the light of the gospel
shines in our hearts in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
why John began his gospel in John chapter one when he said,
in the beginning, now he's going back to creation, was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him,
and was not anything made that was made without Him. And then
it says, in Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And normally we think of life
Physically speaking, depends upon light, doesn't it? But here
the scripture says that in him was life. In the Lord Jesus Christ
is life. Outside of him is death. And
the life was the light of men. And the light shined and the
world comprehended it not. They couldn't understand it.
And so the light of the gospel, this passage is telling us that
the candle that shines is the light of the gospel. And when
it shines in the heart, God gives more light. John chapter 3, when
the Lord was speaking to Nicodemus, he said, and this is the condemnation. This is the condemnation against
the world. Light has come into the world.
And men loved darkness rather than light. Why? Because the light made manifest
men's sin, men's self-righteousness, men's disobedience. And men didn't
want their sin exposed. And so they loved darkness rather
than light. He that doeth the truth He that believeth on the Lord
Jesus Christ cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest
that they were wrought in God. So the believer rejoices in being
able to come into the light knowing that his faith was given to him
by God. So here's the Lord says, let
him who has ears to hear, hear what the Spirit saith. to the
churches. In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, for
God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness again.
You see, there's many occasions where the Lord goes all the way
back to creation to use the created order as a picture of the new
birth. And he says, as God commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, so he hath shined in our hearts
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the light of the gospel shines
in our hearts in order to reveal to us the glory of God. And the glory of God is seen
in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now in John
chapter one, you remember John the Baptist, he says, I'm not
the light. I'm not the light. I'm but a voice of one crying
in the wilderness. Behold the Lamb of God. He's
the light. He's the one that taketh away
the sins of the world. In another place, the scripture
refers to the new birth as translating us from the kingdom of darkness
to the kingdom of his light. So the light reveals the truth. reveals the truth of who we are,
reveals the truth of who God is, reveals the truth of how
it is that God's pleased to save sinners. And without the light,
there can be no truth. There can be no hope of salvation.
And God's got to turn the lights on. And that's what he does in
the new birth. And so the Lord's saying, I'm
not going to take my light and hide it under a bushel. This
is not about you hiding your light under the bushel. God says,
I'm not going to take the light of the gospel and hide it under
the bushel. I'm going to put it on a candlestick. And there's
a picture of the preaching of the gospel. And that's what we're
trying to do right now, isn't it? The Lord said, even as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, I must be lifted
up. And I, if I be lifted up, will
draw all men unto myself." So this light of the gospel is the
lifting up of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not promoting a
works gospel or a freewill gospel. It's not giving men something
to feel good about themselves. It's lifting up the Lord Jesus
Christ. And that's what God's saying.
I'm not going to hide the gospel under a bushel. I'm not going
to put it under a bed. I'm going to put it on a candlestick.
that it light the whole room and there's nothing that's hid
which shall not be exposed. The Lord's calling on us to give
our attention to the gospel. I love this passage in Ephesians
chapter one where Paul is praying for the church at Ephesus and
he says that the Lord may give you the spirit of knowledge.
That's what the light of the gospel does. Gives us the spirit
of knowledge and of the revelation of the knowledge of Him. There's
nothing like a steady diet of the gospel, is there? Little
by little, the Lord begins to wipe the glass clean and show
us more and more of His glory. And that's what He's saying.
There's nothing hid. that's not going to be revealed. I've not
done this thing in a corner. I'm not attempting to hide myself
from you. The light of the gospel is going
to reveal who I am in the fullness of my glory. Otherwise, the gospel is a mystery.
The gospel is hid. The gospel cannot be understood
by human wisdom or human reason. God has to turn the light on.
And so this is not, I'm going to let my light shine so that
other men might see it. No, this is God saying, I'm going
to cause my light to shine through the preaching of the gospel and
nothing's going to be hid. I'm going to reveal the fullness
of my glory in the gospel. Paul said that the Lord give
you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge
of him. that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened. That's what we need. We're born
into this world spiritually blind. And if the Lord doesn't do a
miracle of grace, if he doesn't do for us what he did for Bartimaeus,
remember what? Remember blind Bartimaeus, oh,
son of David, have mercy upon me. And the Lord said, Bartimaeus,
what would you have me to do for you? Oh, Lord, that I might
see. That's the prayer of faith. Lord,
open, enlighten the eyes of my understanding. Enable me to set
my affections on things above where Christ is seated at the
right hand of God. I get so consumed with the things
of this world. I get so consumed with my circumstances
and my problems. I need to see Christ. I need
for you to open the windows of heaven. Rend the heavens and
come down and cause these mountains to melt away. Lord, show me thy
glory. Isn't that what Moses said? Moses is on Mount Sinai. He can
see it was the Lord. He thought, I'm in trouble if
I've got to deal with the law of God. I can't keep God's law. And Moses said, Lord, show me
thy glory. Show me thy glory. And what did
God do? He had to put Moses in the cleft of a rock. And he said,
I'm going to cause my goodness to pass before thee. The goodness
of God is the Lord Jesus Christ. Why callest thou me good? For there's none good but God.
In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. The goodness of
God is bound up 100% in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he's saying that the eyes
of your understanding might be enlightened that you may know
what is the hope of his calling. Not what is the hope of your
decision, not of what is the hope of your works, what is the
hope of his calling. The only hope of salvation is
that God would call. God has to speak. God has to
open our eyes of understanding. God has to unstop our ears. And
now what's he saying in this passage of scripture? When the
light of the gospel is put on a candlestick, when Christ is
preached, He is the light, then everything that needs to be understood
will be understood in light of Him, in light of Him. Everything you need to know about
yourself, everything you need to know about circumstances, everything
you need to know about God, everything you need to know about how it
is that God saves sinners will be seen in the light of the gospel. Paul saying that you may know
what the hope of his calling and the riches of the glory of
his inheritance and the exceeding greatness of his power to us
were to believe according to the working of his mighty power
which he wrought in Christ. So there's our hope. There's
our hope. Lord, show me thy mighty power
which thou hast wrought, worked out. in Christ. That's a good word. I like that
word wrought, don't you? I like wrought iron. And just to think about how the
Lord takes this cold hard steel and heats it up and fashions
it into something beautiful. It's wrought out. That's what
God does in the hearts of his people. Lord, I need you to wrought
me. I need you to form me. I need
you to reveal yourself to me and in me." And that's his promise
here. For there shall be nothing hid,
nothing hid which shall not be made manifest, neither anything
kept secret. Everything we need to know. is revealed in the light of Christ. If any man have ears to hear,
let him hear. Now the subject doesn't change.
Follow with me to the next verse. And he said unto them, take heed
what you hear. Take heed. Give caution. Give attention to what voice
you listen to. because not all that claim to
be speaking for God are preaching the gospel. Matter of fact, the
scripture says and this is a symbolic number in terms of prophets versus
false prophets because I'm convinced that the number is actually much
more higher but the scripture says, God says that faithful
prophets are one in a thousand. One in a thousand. Turn with
me to 1 John chapter 4. 1 John chapter 4. What you hear now about Christ
is going to shed light on everything. It's going to shed light on who
you are as a mercy-begging sinner dependent upon God's grace. It's
going to shed light on who God is what Christ has accomplished
and what God requires. What God requires, what does
God require for us to be saved? He requires perfect righteousness.
He requires justice that meets His bar of justice. He requires
the death penalty in order for sin to be put away. He requires
a perfect righteousness before Him One that you and I have never
been able to even, well, we've not been able to begin, have
we? Much less finish. And the scripture says that men
by nature go about trying to establish their own righteousness. Why do they do that? Because
they're ignorant of the righteousness of God. Christ is the end of
the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. So the
Lord Jesus Christ is what God requires. and he'll settle for
nothing less. He's not satisfied. You know,
I hear people say all the time, well, I'm just going to do my
best. Two things I want to say about
that. Number one, you've never done your best. And number two,
had you ever done your best, God would not be satisfied with
it. God is satisfied with perfection. He's satisfied with Christ. And
our question, are we satisfied with the same thing God's satisfied
with? Because that's faith. Faith is being satisfied with
the Lord Jesus Christ. And God gives you the mind of
Christ. You have the same hope and the
same faith that God himself has. 1 John chapter 4, you have your
Bibles open there. Take heed what you hear. That's
what we just read, isn't it? Take heed what you hear. Why?
Beloved, believe not every spirit. Now, when John talks about spirits
here, he's not talking about a spirit being that you can't
see and touch and feel. He's talking about preachers.
He's talking about the opinions of religion according to men. He's talking about those who
pretend to be speaking for God. He said, you try those spirits,
whether they be of God. Because many false prophets are
gone out into the world. Many false prophets. They're called ministers of righteousness
and angels of light. They're wolves in sheep's clothing. They put on themselves the garb
of religiosity and morality and virtue and yet underneath they're
full of lies. They're full of lies. And that's
what the Lord said, take heed now what you hear. Take heed
who you listen to. Not everybody is speaking for
God. They may say they are. They may pretend to be. But many,
many false prophets have gone out into the world. So how do
I know? Well, the Lord is going to tell
us. Look at the next verse. Hereby know ye the Spirit of
God. Every spirit that confesseth
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God." Now, well,
doesn't everybody who claims to be religious, claims to be
Christian say that that Jesus Christ is the son
of God and that he was born of a virgin and became man and lived
a sinless life and died a vicarious death and ascended back into
glory. Isn't that what all Christianity believes? That's not what this
verse is saying. It may be what they say. To understand this verse, you
need to understand the word confess. You remember in 1 John chapter
1 verse 9 where it says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful
and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us of all of
our unrighteousness. Now, the self-righteous Pharisee
will read that verse and he said, well, I need to make a list of
all my sins so that I can be sure to confess everything to
God. There's not enough time in your life to do that. Plus,
you don't know all of your sin. We're just not even aware of
our sin, are we? We're so accustomed to it? No,
the word confess is a conjunction of two words. One word is the
word same. You can look this up. It's very
simple. I'm going to tell you the Greek because we use these
words in the English language. The first one is the word homo,
H-O-M-O, and it means the same. And the second word is the word
logos. which is the word for word, the word of God. Homology
is the word here. It means to speak the same thing
that God says. That's literally what it means.
So we have to be in agreement with God in order to in order
to know that they've been sent of God. If they speak not according
to the law and the testimony, it is because there is no light
in them. Not that they've got a little
bit of light, not that, well, maybe you can glean some truths
out of what a false prophet says. No, if he's not agreeing with
everything that God says, he's a false prophet. Paul, the true
prophets of God are going to tell you the truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth and they're not going to rely
upon any source other than the Word of God. And everything they
say is going to be consistent with what God says because they're
going to confess. They're going to say the same
thing that God says. Now, what does God say? Well, let's just take a few of
these names and titles, Jesus, Jesus. Everybody talks about
Jesus today, don't they? What does that name mean? It
is the word Joshua. Translated, it means Jehovah
saves. And when the angel told Joseph,
you shall name his, you shall call his name Jesus for he shall
save his people from all their sins. You see, we've got to confess
the same thing that God confesses. What do the false prophets say
about Jesus? Well, they say that he loves everybody, died for
everybody, came to make you an offer of salvation but he didn't
actually save anybody on the cross 2,000 years ago. He made
an offer of salvation but you've got to make it effectual and
that is completely contrary to what God says about Jesus. No. He came as a successful savior
in order to put away all the sins of all of his people once
and for all. And so if a man doesn't confess,
if he doesn't speak the same thing about Jesus that God says
about him, he's a false prophet. Jesus Christ. Everybody calls
him Jesus Christ. They say, well, he's the Christ.
Well, what does that word mean? It means he's the anointed one. That's what the word Christ means.
It means that he's the Messiah. He came in the full power of
the Spirit of God to accomplish the purpose for which God sent
him. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. Was he successful in saving sinners? If you listen to the false prophets,
no, he wasn't successful. He actually didn't save anybody. You got to save yourself by doing
something to make what he did work for you. That's contrary
to what God says. The Lord says, take heed what
you hear. Take heed. Be careful who you listen to.
There's many false prophets going on in the world. And if a man
confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh and is of God. You see what this declaration
declares is that our Christ is absolutely sovereign. He's sovereign
in creation. He's sovereign in providence,
he's sovereign in your circumstances, he's sovereign most importantly
in salvation. He will have mercy upon whom
he will have mercy and whom he will, he will harden. He is the
potter and we are the clay and he has the sovereign right and
the omnipotence, the power to make from the same lump of clay
some vessels of honor and some of dishonor. Now that's not the
Jesus that you're going to hear out there in the world. That's
not the one you're going to hear about in religion. The one you're
going to hear about in religion is some milquetoast softy that
wants to do something for you but he can't unless you let him. If they If they don't confess,
if they don't say the same thing that God says about him, they're
false prophet. Take heed. Take heed who you
listen to. Take heed what you hear because
that's a lie. That's a lie. And there's lots
of liars out there in the world. We're going to deal with that
in the second hour. But look at here. Are you still in 1 John chapter
4? Look at verse 3. and every spirit that confesses
not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God, and
this is the spirit of Antichrist." Now, the religious world, particularly
those who are bound up in prophecy and conspiracy theories, they
want to identify the Antichrist, you know, maybe the Antichrist.
I hope we're in the last days. I really do. Nothing thrilled my heart more
for the Lord to come, bring all this to an end. And God's children
live with that expectation, waiting every day for the Eastern sky
to split, the trump of God to sound, and the angel of the Lord
to call out his people. Christ who has sinned. Wherefore, you have heard that
it should come and even now already is in the world. Now, when did
John write this? 2,000 years ago. And he said
the spirit of Antichrist is already in the world. You see, we've
been living in the latter days for the last 2,000 years. When
the scripture speaks of the latter days, it's talking about that
whole period of time between the first and second coming of
Christ. And 2,000 years ago, the spirit
of Antichrist was already in the world. In other words, lies
were already being told about the Lord Jesus Christ 2,000 years
ago. His sovereignty, His omnipotence,
His being the Christ and being the successful Savior was already
being denied 2,000 years ago. Nothing has changed. It's the
same today as it was then. Verse 4, You are of God, little
children, and have overcome them. In other words, you have the
ability to discern between truth and error. I cannot tell you
how many times people come here and they'll say, well, you know,
that's what I believe. I talk to somebody, well, that's
what I believe. And then they'll turn right around and go back
to a false prophet. They cannot discern the difference. All they
hear is words. They hear the name Jesus, they
hear Christ, they hear salvation, they hear grace, they hear God,
and they attach their own definition to those things. Preaching, in
essence, is defining the words of scripture. That's what we're
doing. We're comparing the spiritual
to the spiritual in order to say, this is what God says. This
is what he's saying. But men don't listen to the definitions.
They just listen to the words. And they think because they're
hearing the same words that they heard in their church, that they're
hearing the same message. But you little children, you
have the unction of the Holy Ghost. You have the ability to
discern. You know when somebody's lying
about God, don't you? And you can't listen to it. And
so that's what the Lord's saying. I'm gonna take the light of the
gospel. I'm gonna put it on a candlestick. It's gonna light the whole room.
Nothing's gonna be hidden. I'm gonna show you everything
you need to know. So take heed, take heed what you hear because
there's a lot of false prophets that are saying that's the light
of the gospel, but it's not. You are of God little children
and have overcome them because greater, why have you overcome
them? Because you're smarter. because you had more spirituality
about you, you had more whatever. No, because he that is in you
is greater than he that is in the world. And if it were possible,
the scripture says, even the elect would be deceived. Why is it not possible? Because
the elect have the spirit of God in them and he's not gonna
let them be deceived. So whatever discernment you have,
was given to you by God. Whatever light you have was given
to you by God. And the Lord saying, here's the
light of the gospel. Take heed, take heed what you
hear. May God give us the grace to
be discerning and to take heed of what we hear. All right, let's
take a break. Alright.