You don't have to look this up,
I'll just read a verse or two. Psalm 46, God is our refuge and
strength, a very present help in trouble. So my question this
morning for all of us is, are we in trouble? Are we in trouble? If we are, we have a God who's
present and he's able to deliver us from our troubles. Let's stand
together. Brother Tom's going to come and
lead us in the hymn on the back of your bulletin. The name of the Lord is our great
and high tower. We run to him, trusting his infinite
power. Hallelujah! Christ is reigning. Praise Jehovah, our God. Sovereign Savior, we will praise
you. We trust you, our God. Our Savior, who died to atone
for our sins, is exalted on high, and He sovereignly reigns. Hallelujah! Christ is reigning. Praise Jehovah, our God. Sovereign Savior, we will praise
You. We trust You, our God. Though tempted and tried, we
are not in despair. Our Savior is ruling, so why
should we fear? Hallelujah, Christ is reigning. Praise Jehovah, our God. Sovereign Savior, we will praise
you. We trust you, our God. Yes, Satan may roar, but he cannot
devour. For Jesus has broken the serpent's
dread power. Hallelujah, Christ is reigning. Praise Jehovah, our God. Sovereign Savior, we will praise
you. We trust you, our God. God's sovereign decree and his
covenant shall stand, and all who trust Jesus are safe in his
hand. Hallelujah! Christ is reigning. Praise Jehovah, our God. Sovereign Savior, we will praise
you. We trust you, our God. Please be seated. For our scripture reading this
morning, would you open your Bibles with me to Psalm 45? Psalm
45, please. Verse one, my heart. This matter of worship is a It's
a heart matter. My heart is indicting a good
matter. I speak of the things which I
have made touching the king. My tongue is the pen of a ready
writer. Thou art fairer than the children
of men. Grace is poured into thy lips. Therefore God hath blessed thee
forever. He's speaking of Christ, you
know that. gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O Most Mighty, with
thy glory and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride prosperously,
because of truth and meekness and righteousness, and thy right
hand shall teach thee terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp
in the heart of the king's enemies, whereby the people fall unto
thee. The scripture speaks of having
a shield of faith to quench the fiery darts of the devil, but
here the Lord is talking about his truth being like an arrow
that pierces the hearts of his enemies. We who are by nature
at enmity with God are slain by the power of his word and
caused to fall at his feet. That's the picture here, and
that's what we're praying the Lord will do. Thy throne, O God, is
for ever and ever. The scepter of thy kingdom is
a right scepter. Thou lovest righteousness and
hatest wickedness. Therefore, God, thy God, hath
anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. We
have a measure of the Spirit of God, an anointing the scripture
speaks of, when the Lord is pleased to save us. But the Lord Jesus
Christ came as the anointed one. He came with an anointing above
his fellows. He came with the full power of
the Spirit of God in order to accomplish the mission for which
God sent him, which was the salvation of his people. All thy garments
smell of myrrh and aloes and casea out of the ivory palaces
whereby they have made thee glad. King's daughters were among thy
honorable women. Upon thy right hand did stand
the queen in the gold of Ophir. Hearken, O daughter. and consider,
incline thine ear, and forget also thine own people and thy
father's house. Oh, would God give us the grace
to do that right now, to incline our ear to the voice of God and
forget everything else, forget everything else. So shall the
king greatly desire thy beauty, for he is thy Lord, Worship Thou
Him. Let's pray together. Our merciful
Heavenly Father, we're thankful that You've put it into our hearts
to come and be at this place, to bow before Thee and to worship
Thee. Lord, we confess to You that
our attempts to worship You are in need of redemption. Lord, we cannot offer You anything
that would earn us Thy favor or obligate You in any way. And
so, Father, we pray right now that You would send Your Holy
Spirit, the same the same spirit that anointed Christ, the same
spirit that opened the eyes of understanding and made us willing
in the day of thy power. We pray that you would send him
in power now and enable us to worship you in spirit and in
truth, for we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. We'll sing hymn number 212, 212. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. O precious is the flow that makes
me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. For my pardon this I see, Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. For my cleansing this my plea,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. Nothing can for sin atone, nothing
but the blood of Jesus, not of good that I have done. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my hope and peace,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my righteousness,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. Please be seated. Thank you, man. Would you open your Bibles with
me to Mark? I'm sorry Luke chapter 5. I was
looking at the same passage and Mark but we'll look at the at
the Luke version of this story. I have a very very simple and
probably a very short message for you this morning. I cannot
tell you how many times I've heard people say well Shouldn't
we do our best? Shouldn't we do our best? Yeah,
we should. But your best needs forgiving. If the Lord gives you understanding
on that statement, your best needs forgiving. What you're
doing and what I'm doing, I'm standing to preach the gospel
to you right now and I need to be forgiven for it. What you're doing right now,
coming to this place and making an attempt to worship God needs
to be forgiven. Man by nature is smitten in his
conscience by the bad things that he does. Everybody experiences
that. There's no evidence that the
Spirit of God has caused you to feel guilty because you did
something wrong. We all come into this world with
the law of God written on our hearts and the knowledge that
there is a God with whom we must do. And we all have a conscience. And our conscience is quick to
let us know when we do something wrong. And so, folks, get religion in
order to try to atone for those things that they feel bad about. Only by the Spirit of God will
you come to believe that your righteousnesses are as filthy
rags before God. Only by the Spirit of God will
you and I come to believe that it's not the things that smite
our conscience with shame that cause us to need Christ. That does, but not by itself.
You've heard it said, and this is the point of the message,
it's not men's sins that keep them from Christ, it's their
righteousness. Your best needs forgiving. Do you believe that? Most folks don't. I can't tell
you how many people I've talked to that said, well, you know,
I'm just doing my best. Doing my best. I asked a man the other
day, what are you going to say to God? You're about to die.
Are you going to stand before God? He said, Lord, I've done
my best. Your best is not good enough.
Truth is, you haven't done your best. You know, we reward our children
when we think that they've done their best. And we come along
behind them and fix whatever they weren't able to do because
they're children. And the scripture says in Psalm
chapter 50, you thought that I was altogether as thyself.
You thought that I was a God like you. You thought that if
you just did your best, that I would come along behind you
and fix up where you left off. That's the way you treat your
children. It doesn't work like that. It
does not work like that. The scripture says that God's
eyes are too pure to look upon iniquity. We just read in Psalm
49 that he loves righteousness and he hates iniquity. and everything
about us falls short of the glory of God. The Lord has given us, in Luke
chapter 5, a picture of what most men by nature do. Here it is, look at verse 36.
and he spake also a parable unto them." Lord, why do you speak
to them in parables, the disciples ask? Why do you speak to them
in parables? Why don't you just tell them
clearly what you mean? And what did the Lord say? He
said, because it's not for them to know the mysteries of the
kingdom of God. That's why I'm speaking to them
in parables. It's for you to know. It's not for them to know.
Lord, I want to be a part of you, not a part of them. I want
to know what you mean by this parable. Lord, I want you to
drive home to my heart the reality of what it is you're saying,
and leave no doubt in my mind about it. He spake also a parable unto
them, no man putting a piece of a new garment upon an old. No man putteth a piece of new
garment upon an old. Nobody takes a threadbare, old,
worn-out piece of garment, a coat, whatever, and sews onto it a
patch of new fabric. When that new fabric shrinks,
the hole that they were trying to patch is only going to be
worse. What's the Lord describing? What
most men do with God. Lord, I've got a little spot
of leprosy over here. I need some help. I've got a problem
over here. I need patching up. I've got
some sins in my life that I can't seem to get control of and I
need... I've got a guilty conscience
that I need you to salve and to help me. Lord, I need some help. And that's
what men do. They patch up their old garment
with what they perceive to be the help of God. If otherwise, then both the new
maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new
garment agreeth not with the old." Now here's the truth. The old and the new have nothing
in common. They have nothing in common.
Nothing. The old is what we are by nature.
We come into this world as sons and daughters of Adam. We come
into this world spiritually dead. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
come into this world in order to patch up our lives. He came into this world to give
us life. Apart from Him, we have no life. Don't use God to patch
up your life. No man putteth new wine into
old bottles. Now, wineskin would have been
typically the stomach of a sheep that was cleaned out and fixed
and somewhat pliable, and then you would put that new wine into
the wineskin and cork it up, and as that wine would ferment,
the skin would expand, and in time, the wine would be ready
to drink. Once that wineskin expanded out
and became hardened, then it was only good as a water bottle.
If you put new wine into that old wineskin, what's going to
happen when the new wine ferments? It's going to burst the wineskin.
You're going to lose the wine and the wineskin. It's such a
clear, simple illustration. I didn't come in order to put
the new wine of the gospel into your old wineskin. You've got
to have a new heart. I've got to take out the old
and put in one that's new. I've got to create in you a completely
new creature. This gospel is not for the sake
of fixing anything. It's not for the sake of making
you a better person. It's for the sake of making you
alive. Our best needs forgiving. But the new wine must be put
into new bottles. And if that happens, then both
will be preserved. Both will be preserved. God gives
you a new heart. I've got to take out the heart
of stone. Nicodemus, you've got to be born again. That which
is of the flesh is flesh. You can't put the new wine of
the gospel into a fleshly bottle. You've got to have a spiritual
bottle to hold that new wine. And if God gives you a spiritual
bottle, then the wine and the bottle will be preserved for
all eternity. But if you try to put the new
wine into an old bottle, you're going to lose everything. You're
going to lose everything. No man, also having drunk old
wine, straightway desireth new, for he saith the old is better. By nature, We're not going to
forsake what we thought to be true about God in order to receive
the message of the gospel. The message of the gospel is
absolutely contrary to everything that we ever believed. Everything. The Lord didn't come to adjust
our faith, or to add to our faith, or to patch up our sin, or to
put the gospel of His grace into an old wineskin. The man by nature,
when he drinks the new wine, he says, oh no, I'm going to
stick with the old. The old is better to him. Walking by sight and not by faith,
that's better. Why? Because I can see what I'm
doing. Living under the rigors of the law, that's better. Why? Because I can compete with other
men and I can prove myself to be a child of God. Men by nature
are going to stick with what they've always known. What they've
always known. You will not come unto me that
you might have life. Why? Because coming unto me means
that you have to die to everything that you ever thought to be true. Everything. Renounce it all. Why? Because you were wrong about
it all. Turn with me, please, to Exodus
chapter 28. I made the statement a moment ago
and said that what we are doing right now, what I am doing right
now in trying to preach to you the gospel, needs forgiving. It needs forgiving. If you've
come here with a guilty conscience about some bad thing that you've
done, that's great. The Lord will deliver you from
that. But you need to understand that your problem is a whole
lot worse than that. What you're doing right now needs to be forgiven. Exodus chapter 28. Verse 36,
and thou shalt make a plate of pure gold and grave upon it like
the engravings of a signet holiness to the Lord. holiness to the
Lord. So here the Lord is instructing
Moses on how the the mitre is to be built. This is the hat
that Aaron was to was to wear. Aaron being a picture of Christ
as our high priest and he goes before us in order that we might
have access to God. And so Aaron's got to make a
sacrifice and on this on this headpiece it's to say holiness
to the Lord. Now there's the difference between
him and us. He loved the Lord God his father
with all of his heart and all of his mind and all of his soul
all of the time. That's what makes him unique
from us. You and I have never been able
to love the Lord our God with all of our heart and all of our
mind and all of our soul for a moment. And he did it all the
time. I'm holy. I'm other than you
are. I'm not like you at all. And
I can't have anything to do with anything that falls short of
my glory in holiness. Where does that leave us? It leaves us in need of a priest.
It leaves us saying, Lord, I can't patch this mess up. I can't put
the new wine of the gospel into this old fleshly wineskin. I'm
going to lose everything. I've got to have a new heart.
I've got to have a new nature. I've got to be made a new creature
in Christ Jesus. Lord, I've got to be made all
things new. So here's Aaron now. He's got
his gold plaque on the front of his mitre that says holiness
to the Lord. reminding us that God is holy
and we're not. And when we see his holiness,
what do we, where was Isaiah in Isaiah chapter six when he
said, woe is me for I am undone and I live among a people of
unclean lips. Where was he? He was in the temple. He was worshiping God. He was
doing what you and I are doing right now. And when he saw the
Lord high and lifted up, and he heard the voice of the seraphim
crying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. Heaven and
earth is filled with his glory. He's holy. Isaiah falls on his
face and says, I am undone. My best efforts to worship God
need to be forgiven. If you think the only thing you
need forgiveness for is that stuff you feel guilty about,
you haven't heard the gospel. You've not been made a sinner.
You've not been made a sinner. You've got to be forgiven for
your best efforts. I've got to be forgiven for the
best thing I've ever done. Do you believe that? It's the
gospel. That's what the natural man doesn't
think. He's going to patch up his old
garment. He's going to put new wine into an old wineskin. He's
going to try to fix his problems. He's going to use God to do it. Verse 27, And thou shalt put
it on a blue lace. The blue is a picture of royalty. Picture of, remember the veil
that separated the holies of holies from the rest of the temple?
It was royal blue on the top and red on the bottom. Picture in the blood of Christ
and the glory of Christ. is a picture of his humanity
and his deity. Thou shalt put it on a blue lace,
and it shall be upon the miter, upon the forefront of the miter
it shall be, and it shall be upon Aaron's forehead, that Aaron
may bear the iniquity of the holy things. Do you get that? Has the Lord shown you what that
means? The people, when they came together
for worship, needed Aaron to go before the Lord and bear the
guilt and the shame of the holy things. They needed a priest to intercede
for their prayers. They needed a priest to intercede
for their worship. And so do you and so do I. which the children of Israel
shall hallow in all their holy gifts." You make an offering, a financial
gift to the church and to God, and you need to be forgiven of
it. You believe that? You make some great sacrifice,
sincerely, from your heart. to serve someone and do something
good for someone, you need to be forgiven of it. You need Aaron to go before God
with holiness to the Lord to intercede and forgive you of
your holy things. Now if that's true, what does
that say about the things that we are so shamed of? This is the gospel. This is what
the Lord was talking about. The question that came up to
the Lord before he said, a man doesn't put a new patch on an
old garment, and he doesn't put new wine into an old wineskin,
was the question that the disciples asked, when the Pharisees asked,
they said, why is it that the disciples of John the Baptist
fast and pray, and disciples of the Pharisees fast and pray,
and your disciples don't fast and pray? They were looking to
the outward behavior of those who fasted and prayed as the
evidence of their salvation. And that's when the Lord gave
this. He said, all they're doing is trying to patch up their lives. That's all they're doing. They're
just trying to fix the problems that they perceive to exist.
The Lord Jesus Christ did not come into this world to patch
up your life. He didn't come into this world
to make you religious or to give you an awareness of God. He came
in order that we might have life and have it more abundantly.
Without Him, we have no life. We're dead. Dead? Your best efforts The very best
thing you've ever done needs to be forgiven. Do you believe that? Boy, that'll take away pride,
won't it? That'll cause us to say, to Him
be all the glory? Well, what do I have the glory
in? I can't glory in anything. Everything
I've ever done is sinful. That's why we say that sin is
not what we do, sin is what we are. We commit acts of sin because
we're sinners. We don't become sinners because
we commit acts of sin. We come into this world sinful. We need a priest to go before
us. to bear the iniquity of the holy
things which the children of Israel shall hallow in their
holy gifts, and it shall be always upon his forehead that they may
be accepted before the Lord." Did you see that? We have a priest. He's entered
into heaven. He died for our sins on Calvary's
cross, bore the full brunt of the wrath of God to satisfy God's
justice once and for all. We're not talking about just
the bad things that you've done. We're not talking about the things
that smite our conscience with shame and guilt. We're talking
about everything, the best thing you've ever done. He died on
Calvary's cross. to make us accepted before God. And he ever lives with the miter
of Aaron still upon his head, holiness to the Lord, he ever
lives to make intercession for us. Lord, Father, he's one of mine, accepted in the Beloved. that they may be accepted of
the Lord. Turn with me to Isaiah chapter
64, please. Isaiah 64. I was talking to a man the other day
about this subject, and he said, well, I don't believe that. I
don't believe that. He said, I've done a lot of good
things in my life. Now this man is standing on the precipice
of a grave. He called me because he said,
I'm dying. I'm dying and I need to talk
to somebody. And I tried to share with him the truth of the gospel. And when I got to this point
about his best needing to be forgiven. He said, well, I don't
believe that. I don't believe that. I've done a lot of good things
in my life. And if he continues to believe
that, he's going to draw his last breath and try to present
his best before God for the hope of his salvation. And the Lord's
going to say to him, depart from me, you worker of iniquity. I never knew you. Isaiah chapter 64, verse 5. Thou meetest him that rejoiceth
and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways. Behold, thou art wrath, for we
have sinned, and in those is continuance, and we shall be
saved. So now, the Lord's talking about
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ and we come before
Him and we say, Lord, we have sinned continuously. All we've ever been able to do
is sin. Our best deeds have been in need of forgiveness. Our righteousness
is as filthy rags. And yet they shall be saved.
How? Look, verse six, but we are all
as an unclean thing. He's talking about leprosy now.
From the top of your head to the bottom of your feet, there's
not a clean patch of flesh anywhere on your body. And the priest
looks at you and says, clean, clean. Nothing but putrefying
sores. That's all I am, Lord. Well,
I've got to do my best. Your best needs forgiving, for
your best is sinful. We are all as an unclean thing,
and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we do all
fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. The natural man doesn't believe
that. I'll close with one Psalm 50. Psalm 50. Quoted this a moment ago, but
let's read it together. Psalm 50. Verse 21. These things hast thou done,
and I kept silent. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether
such a one as thyself, but I will reprove thee and set them in
order before thine eyes." My hope right now is the Lord
will reprove each and every one of us and cause us to know that he's
not like us. We reward our children when they
do their best. We come behind them when they
do their best and fix up what they didn't get done right. You
thought that I was all together as myself. I'm not like you. I require absolute, total, complete
perfection all the time. And I'll settle for nothing less.
I'll settle for nothing less. Your best needs forgiving. My best needs forgiving. What
I'm doing right now, I need forgiveness for it. That's why I need a Savior. I
need one whose best was good enough all the time. One with whom God is pleased.
One who is perfectly righteous. One who can stand in my stead
before God and represent me before a holy God. One who can speak peace to my
heart, letting me know that I have an advocate. I have a sin bearer,
a substitute, a surety, one who's done everything necessary by
himself for my salvation. God's pleased when we look to,
hope in, and rely upon the Lord Jesus Christ alone for all our
righteousness. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we ask that You would bless Your Word to the hearts of Your people.
Cause us, Lord, to find all our hope in Christ. Truly, our best
is in need of forgiveness. We thank You. Blessed is the
man with whom the Lord imputeth not. Oh Lord, impute the righteousness
of Christ our account. Cause us worthy for his sake.
Father, as we take this table, we pray that you would give to
us faith to see that this bread represents the sinless, perfect
life of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this blood pictures for us
and reminds us of his shed blood. a covering for all our sin. For
we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. I'm going to ask the men
if they'll come. Remain seated. We'll sing hymn
number 191. Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face
to face. Here would I touch and handle
things unseen. Here, grasped with murmur and
eternal And all my weariness upon Thee
lean Here would I feed upon the bread of God Here drink with
thee the royal wine of heaven. Here would I lay aside each earthly
load. Here taste afresh the calm of
sin forgiven. I have no help but thine, nor
do I need another arm save thine to lean upon. It is enough, my Lord, enough
indeed. My strength is in Thy might,
Thy might alone. Mine is the sin, but Thine the
righteousness. Mine is the guilt, but Thine
the cleansing blood. Here is my robe, my refuge, and
my peace. Thy blood, thy righteousness,
O Lord my God. The glory of the gospel is seen
in its simplicity. Christ without sin. And that's
what God demands. He has the holy right to require
anyone in His presence to be sinless. When we take this bread,
we do it in remembrance of Him. And as this bread goes into our
bodies, we just are reminded of how the Lord Jesus Christ
is the only one that can make us sinless before God. The Lord called this wine the
blood of the new covenant. Natural man says, no, the old's
better. I'll just stick with the old. I'll stick with what
I had. I'll stick with my patchwork
garment. The Lord said, without the shedding of this blood, there's
no remission of sins. But when I see the blood, I'll
pass by you. All your sins are covered. We
do this in remembrance of him. And all God's people said, Amen. Um, wait till we get offline. I'm going to speak again to the
gentleman I was just referring