We're going to open up this hour's
service with a hymn in the back of the bulletin. If you all could
please stand. Sovereign grace, o'er sin abounding. Ransomed souls, the tidings swell. Tis a deep that knows no sounding,
who its length or breadth can tell. On its glory, on its glory,
let my soul forever dwell. On its glories, on its glories,
let my soul forever dwell. Who from Christ my soul can sever,
bound by everlasting veins, once in Christ, in Him forever. the eternal covenant stands. None can pluck us, none can pluck
us from the blessed Savior's hands. None can pluck us, none
can pluck us From the blessed Savior's hand. On such love my soul still ponder,
Love so great, so rich, so free. Say, while deep in holy wonder,
Why, O Lord, such love to me? Alleluia! Alleluia! Grace shall reign eternally. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Grace shall reign eternally. Be seated, please. For our scripture reading this
morning, if you could turn to the book of Luke, chapter 23. We're going to start in verse
34, a familiar passage to us all. The crucifixion of our Lord,
verse 34. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive
them, forgive them, for they know not what they do, and they
parted disarrayment and cast lots. And the people stood beholding,
and the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved
others, let him save himself. If he be Christ, the chosen of
God, And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him and offering
him vinegar and saying, if thou be the king of the Jews, save
thyself. And a superscription also was
written over him in letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew. This is the king of the Jews. Before we read verse 39 and Mark,
Mark says both malefactors, both thieves, both of them were hurling
curses at the Lord. Both of them were deriding Him.
Verse 39, And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on Him,
saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. Beloved, this is a picture of
us when we come into this world. Enemies of God, condemned criminals
to die. Nothing but bitter curses out
of our mouth, nothing but just blasphemy. And the one thing
that is so telling here, unless the Lord by His grace and mercy
gives us the ability, they didn't realize that my need and your
need as sinners this morning, is we need a substitute. And
they could not see that. And so, here's one confession
of a malfactor that says, if thou be to Christ saved by His
love, isn't that not like us when we come into this world?
We demand, we command, and we obligate God to do something
for us. But look at verse 40, this is glorious. Now this is
a sinner's confession, a guilty sinner. But the other answering
rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art
in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we
receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man hath done
nothing amiss. As Brother Gred said earlier,
he who knew no sin became sin for us. And he said unto Jesus,
and this is my prayer this morning, and I hope this is your prayer
this morning, Lord, remember me. Remember me, the sinner. Remember me, Lord, in the eternal
covenant of grace. Remember me, transgressor of
your law, a worker of iniquity. Forgive me, Lord. Forgive me
of my sins. Remember me right now and in
that day when thou comest into thy kingdom. And this is every
desire of every believer right now, that the Lord would say
this back to his heart, that when he died, I died with him.
When he rose, I rose with him. And Jesus said unto him, Verily
I say unto thee, Today shall thou be with me in paradise.
And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over
all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was dark, and
the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And when Jesus
had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands
I commend my spirit. And having said thus, he gave
up the ghost. And we know a few days later,
because the father being satisfied, would not see his holy one to
see corruption. He rose for he was satisfied
with what his son had accomplished. Would you pray with me? Our heavenly father, we do come
to you in the name that is above every name, the one that you
have highly exalted, that every knee in heaven and on earth and
under earth shall bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to
your glory. Lord, we're thankful that you
are our substitute, and Lord, that you are satisfied with our
substitute who is seated on your right hand. Lord, it is he that
we come to exalt and all our hope of righteousness and forgiveness
of sin is in him. Lord, forgive us of our sins
this morning and enable us once again to worship you. Enable
us to believe that when you died, you died for me, for us. We thank you for your word. We
thank you for the promises of your word. Pray now that you
would take the word you've given our pastor and ask that once
again, clearly and plainly, with power, Lord, that you would speak
to our hearts through the preaching of your gospel. For we ask it
in Christ's name. Amen. Y'all can remain seated for this
next song. We're going to sing the hymn
and the hardback hymnal number 118. Number 118. When I survey the wondrous cross,
On which the Prince of Glory died, My richest gain I count And pour content on all my pride. Forbid it, Lord, that I should
boast, save in the death of Christ my God. All the vain things that charm
me most, I sacrifice them to His blood. Sing from His dead, His hands,
His feet. Sorrow and love flow may go down. Did there such love and sorrow
meet, O'er thorned scampos so rich a crimson? Where the whole realm of nature
might, That were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, Thank you, Bert and Cheryl. If you'd like to turn with me
and your Bibles to Revelation, We were in Genesis, the first
hour. I'm so thankful that in the volume
of the book, it is written of me. Our Lord met with those disciples
on the road to Emmaus. Scripture says in beginning with
Moses and the Psalms and the prophets, he expounded unto them
those things concerning himself. All of this book, is about the
person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And now he is speaking
to the church at Ephesus in Revelation chapter 2. My hope this morning is that
the Lord will cause us to remember the first works that he did when
we first came to know him. And if you are here this morning
and you remain a stranger to God's grace, my hope for you
is that the Lord will be pleased to make himself known to you,
that he'll open your eyes, that he'll cause you to find all your
hope in his finished work and that he will wrap his loving
arms around each one of us, each one of us. The fulfillment of
the law and the prophets, all this book is fulfilled in one
word, one word, love, love. Notice in verse four, I want
you to take your pen and just scratch out that little italicized
word, if you don't mind writing in your Bible. The italicized
words are added by the translators to try to add a little flow to
the reading, I guess. More times than not, they take
away from the meaning of the scripture, and particularly here
in this verse, it takes away from the meaning of what our
Lord is saying to you and to me. He's not saying, nevertheless,
I have somewhat. You know, just a little something,
just got a little problem. Oh no, that's not it at all,
this is a big problem. This is a big problem. If we
look at these seven churches as a progression of apostasy,
and I think they can be seen that way. The church you remember
at Laodicea, turn with me there, turn over just a page to chapter
three. Look what the Lord says to the
seventh of the seven churches. So then, verse 16, because thou
art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out
of my mouth because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with
goods and have need of nothing. Knowest not that thou art wretched
and miserable and poor and blind and naked. If we are to see these
seven churches as a downward spiral of apostasy, then the
first step in that direction is losing sight of your first
love. That's what he's saying. Go back
with me to our text. Nevertheless, I have against thee. because
thou hast left thy first love. Oh, what a slippery slope. What a slippery slope to spiritual
deadness this problem is. Truth is that the love of God
is the first cause of our salvation on God's side and in our experience. I have loved you with an everlasting
love. God sovereignly, according to
his own will and purpose, determined to set his love on a particular
people. He loved them in the lamb that
was slain before the foundations of the world. He's always loved
them. He's never seen them outside
of Christ. His love isn't like ours. It doesn't come and go. It doesn't
fade. It is perfect love. The scripture John puts it like
this, God is love. And the truth is that we do love
him only because he first loved us. Now every child of God understands
that their love is feeble at best. It is feeble at best. No child of God is satisfied
with the zeal and sincerity and depth of their love for Christ. If our love is to grow, if we
are to remember from which we have fallen. You see that? Look
at the next verse, verse 5 in our text. Remember therefore
from whence thou art fallen and repent and do the first works. Do the first works. We truly lament over how cold
our hearts can become. We lament over the indifference
that we have in matters that ought to captivate our souls
and animate us to no end. And yet we become indifferent
to these things. We find ourselves like David
praying, Lord, forgive me of my presumptuous sins. We're so
quick to presume upon our God, are we not? We just expect him
to be there and to continue to provide us with his grace. Our inconsistency, our worldliness,
in gratitude, our murmuring. Oh, we could talk about that
from now on, couldn't we? How unbelieving and how little
love there is in our hearts. Problem with that is that if
we focus our attention on our love for God, It will lead us
either into a tailspin of discouragement or it will lead us to self-righteousness. If we are to grow in grace and
in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, it's important
that we remember his love for us. We remember what he's done
for us. And our love for him will grow
in proportion to how much we are brought by him to rejoice
and appreciate his love for us. So what I want us to do in the
next few minutes is go back, well, let's read these verses
together, first of all. We'll begin at verse one. Unto
the angel of the church at Ephesus write, these things saith he
that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh
in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. Now, the golden
candlesticks, this is symbolic language. The golden candlesticks
are the seven churches, representing all the churches of all ages,
and the seven pastors, the number seven being the number of perfection,
the fulfillment of God's elect, all of God's people. Here's the
seven stars that are shining from heaven in the seven churches,
preaching the gospel, and that's who the Lord's addressing. So
in short, he's addressing us right now. If I'm preaching the
gospel and the light of the gospel is shining in your heart in the
face of the Lord Jesus Christ, then we're a candlestick. And
our fear is that the Lord would leave us to ourselves, that we
would find our ease in Zion, that we would slide
down this slippery slope of apostasy. Every church that's ever been
has done it. And as hard as it is for me to
say this, and to think about this, if the Lord tarries, it
will happen here. Oh Lord, don't let it happen
in my life. Don't let it happen in my children's
life, my grandchildren's life. Lord, preserve us. Keep us from
falling. Keep the gospel light faithfully
shining here for the sake of our immortal souls, Lord. Don't
let us fall away. Verse 2, I know thy works, and
the Lord does. He knows everything. Oh, child
of God. Yeah, wait. Come. Come just like you are. He already
knows everything. He knows everything you've ever
thought. David makes it clear in Psalm
139. He knows our words before we
speak them. He knows our thoughts before
we think them. Wait, wait, wait. Come. He's a God who's pleased to reach
out his hand to weary doves who are on their last leg and bring
them into the ark, is he not? I know thy works, and thy labor,
and thy patience, and how that cannot bear them which are evil,
and has tried them which say they are apostles, and are not,
and has found them liars. I know that you have been, the
Lord's commending the church at Ephesus, and I hope that this
commendation would be spoken by him to us. You've been faithful
to preserve the integrity of the gospel, the simplicity of
Christ. You've been discerning and unapologetic
in making the distinction in judging righteously between the
truth and error so that you know the difference between that which
is holy and that which is profane. Those who say that they're children
of God and they're not. those who say they're speaking
for God and they're not. It's a good thing. And the Lord's
commending them on that behalf. Verse 3, and has borne and has
patience and for my name's sake has labored and has not fainted. Oh, Lord, keep us faithful to
the gospel. In spite of whatever men might
say, in spite of whatever might happen, Lord, keep us faithful
to do the good work of lifting up the Lord Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, I have against
thee, because thou hast left thy first love. You're doing it in a cold, calculated,
doctrinal fashion. He's not saying the first is
in error. He's saying the motivation behind
it, isn't he? He's talking about the condition
of our hearts. Remember, therefore, from whence
thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works, or else I
will come unto thee quickly and remove thy candlestick out of
his place, except thou repent. Oh, when the Lord says repent, it's
the same as when he says believe. Faith and repentance are two
sides to the same coin, and you can't do either one of them. You can't do either one of them.
These are works of grace in the heart. And what the Lord commands,
the Lord must provide. And so when he says, when he
exposes our problem, we cry, yes, Lord, yes, that is my problem. Change my heart. Cause me, Lord,
to come unto thee. Give me that repentant spirit
about my need for Christ. This thou hast, that thou hatest
the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. To him that overcometh
will I give to eat of the tree of life. Who is that tree of
life? That's Christ. He's in the midst
of the garden of paradise. The tree of life. The one that
Adam was forbidden to eat from after the fall. And here we are
called back to paradise, back into the presence of God to receive
something that so much better than Adam ever could have ever
realized in the garden. That's the language. He's taking
us all the way back to the first paradise, isn't he? Saying there's
another paradise. It's a better paradise. There's
a tree of life. You want to eat of that tree?
Be a part of that life? And hear the words and remember,
remember what I did for you. Now, if we're to remember, we
need to go back in our Bibles to Acts chapter 19. Because in
Acts chapter 19, and Acts chapter 20, the Holy Spirit has recorded
for us exactly what happened in Ephesus when the gospel first
came there. And the things that the Lord
is calling them to remember are the acts of grace that the Lord
has done for each of his children, and he's calling you and me to
remember. He that has ears to hear, let
him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. And then this
book of Revelation concludes with, and the Spirit and the
bride saith what? Come. Come. Thirsty? God giving you a thirst? The
salt of the gospel caused you to be thirsty and hungry for
righteousness? Come, come drink from the water
of life freely, freely. Can't without money, without
price. So in Acts chapter 19, I have some points that I'd like
to go over with you this morning. And I hope that the Lord will
cause each of us to remember and to reflect in our own hearts
that our love not grow cold and that he not remove our candlestick. Verse 1 of chapter 19, And it
came to pass that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having
passed through the upper coast, came to Ephesus. And finding
certain disciples, he said unto them, Have you received the Holy
Ghost since you believed? And they said unto him, We have
not so much as even heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, Unto what
then were you baptized? And they said, Unto John's baptism. And then said Paul, John verily
baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people
that they should believe on him which should come after him,
that is, on Christ Jesus. Now somehow these disciples in
Ephesus had missed the full message of what John was preaching. He
said, we've not heard, but John preached repentance towards God,
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And when they heard this, they
were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. They believed on the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the first work of grace
that God does in the heart. That's the first thing he does
to cause his love to be experienced in the child of God. He gives
them faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is the only evidence
that we have. If we look anywhere else for
the evidence of our salvation, for proof of our salvation, for
hope of our salvation, we run the risk of deceiving ourselves.
We fall into the temptation of self-righteousness. It's faith. Faith is the gift of God, for
by grace are you saved through faith. Not of yourselves. It's a gift of God. Not of our
works, lest any man should boast. If we're going to be able to
believe, He's going to have to do a work of regeneration. He's going to have to bring a
heart of flesh and take out a heart of stone, isn't He? He's going
to have to cause us. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ
is a work of grace. God's got to do it. You can't
believe you won't believe unless he causes you to believe. And
if he does, you can't not believe. Isn't that the case? We're so prone to look away from
Christ and we can't do it. We can't do it. Remember from
which you have fallen. Remember that when I came to
you, that all you knew was about John's preaching and you were
baptized by John, but you didn't get the full story. John preached
Christ. He preached the gospel. He preached
the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ. What else did John... John preached the message of
repentance, did he not? He spoke to an untold generation
and told them to repent and do works that were meat for repentance.
And that's obviously all they heard. Baptized by John and never
have heard the full story of what John... They didn't know
that maybe they weren't there the day that John baptized the
Lord Jesus Christ and when he said, Behold the Lamb of God
which taketh away the sins of the world. Look to him. He must
increase. I must decrease. They were just
following after, looking to what they had quit doing in their
life as hope of their salvation, rather
than looking in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. What's the
first work of grace, the first work of love that God does in
his children's hearts? He causes them to believe on
Christ. to believe on Christ. He causes
them to say with that Ethiopian eunuch, I believe with all of
my heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I believe he's
the only hope of my righteousness before God. I believe that he
came in the full power of the Spirit of God to accomplish the
salvation of his people, and the only hope that I have of
standing accepted in the presence of God is to be found, not having
my own righteousness which is of the law, but that righteousness
which is by the faith of Jesus Christ. Oh, has God shown you
His love and caused you, caused you beyond any ability that you
have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? To believe Him? If He
has, then you've experienced the second blessing. And I hate
to say it like that because in fact it's not really a second
blessing, it's part of the first. Look at, I retract that statement
because I actually have on my notes, this is not a second blessing. As some would have you to believe,
that you come to faith in Christ and then somewhere down the road
you receive a second blessing called the baptism of the Holy
Spirit. Look at verse 6, and when Paul
had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came upon them,
and they spake with tongues, and prophesied, and all the men
were about twelve. Now when the Lord told the believers
in Ephesus, remember from which you have fallen, and do the first
works." Go back to what God did for you at the very beginning.
What did He do? He caused you to have faith.
How did He cause you to have faith? He sent His Holy Spirit.
When the Spirit of God comes, the scripture says, He will convict
the world of sin because they believed not on Me. Now what the Spirit of God does
when He comes to... This is the first work. This
is the first work. The first work is not being convicted
because of all the bad behavior in your life. You don't need
the Holy Spirit to be convicted for bad behavior. You don't. An unbeliever has a conscience,
and when they do stuff wrong, they feel bad. That's just the nature of man
that God's given us. He's written his commandments
on every man's heart. Every man comes into this world
with the knowledge of God and with the commandments of God
written. He knows right from wrong. That's not what the Holy
Spirit can be. He convicts you and people say,
well, I'm, you know, they turn over a new leaf and they get
religion. They quit doing some stuff and they start doing some
stuff and they think, well, that's, that's the first work. And they
pride themselves. They look back at that experience
and say, well, you know, I hate testimonies where people say,
well, I used to do this and I used to do that and I used to do the,
and I don't do those things anymore. Well, good for you, you shouldn't
have done them when you were doing them. But don't look to
the fact that you're not doing them now as the hope of your
salvation. When the Spirit of God comes,
he will convict the world of sin because they believed not
on me. Do you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ? And has he convicted you that
there was a time when you didn't believe? I talk to people all
the time, so I've always believed in Jesus. You don't now and you
never have if you think that. We don't come into this world
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, repent, do the first
works. These are what they are. Faith
in Christ. The baptism of the Holy Spirit,
which is not a second blessing, it's part of coming to Christ. The Lord said, when I send my
Spirit, He will convict the world of sin, of righteousness, because
I go to my Father. Again, we're not talking about
some sort of moral living. We want to be moral. We want to be obedient. We want
to be, but that's not what he's talking about, of righteousness
because I go to my father. We have an advocate with the
father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one, one who ever lives to make
intercession for us and presents himself before God as our righteousness. And only the spirit of God can
enable you to believe that. Believe that. Believe on Him
as your righteousness before God. Of sin, because they believe
not on me. Of righteousness, because I go
to my Father. And of judgment, because the Prince of this world
is judged. The Lord Jesus Christ got victory over sin, over death,
over Satan, over hell, when he said, Father, into thy hands
I commend my spirit, their bird on Calvary's cross. The work
was finished, and he's the conqueror. He's the conqueror. The Holy
Spirit convinced you of that? Are you still trying to figure
out how to make what Jesus did work for you? Say not in your
heart, what can I do to bring him down from above? Say not
in your heart, what can I do to bring him up from beneath?
Don't think like that. He's near to you as your lips. When the Spirit of God, it's
expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come. But when he comes, when he comes,
He'll lead you into all truth. He'll speak of me. He won't draw
attention to himself. He'll draw you to Christ. That's
what he does. And that's what our Lord's saying
to these believers in Ephesus. Remember the first works, not
your work. Remember what I did for you.
Remember that I gave you faith. Remember that I blessed you with
the Spirit of God. Acts chapter 19. And he went into the synagogue and
spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading
the things concerning the kingdom of God. Don't give up on preaching
the gospel. In season, out of season, when
it's convenient, when it's not, when men don't want to hear it,
when they do want to hear it. These are the first works. to preach the gospel unapologetically. Oh, might God keep us there.
Otherwise, that's not an idle threat. I'll remove your candlestick. Verse 9, and when divers were
hardened and believed not, but spake evil of that way before
the multitude, he departed from them and separated the disciples,
disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus. So men didn't
want to hear, just separated himself from them. preached first
in the synagogue, and when the Jews didn't want to hear the
gospel, he separated himself to the Gentiles and met in the
school of Tyrannus. And this continued by the space
of two years so that all they dwelt in Asia heard the word
of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks, Oh Lord, just keep
us faithful to preaching the gospel. Then certain of the vagabond
Jews, exorcists, took upon them a call to call over them, which
had evil spirits, the name of the Lord Jesus saying, we adjure
you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And when the seven sons of one
Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so, the evil
spirits answered and said, Jesus I know and Paul I know, but who
are you? Oh, we're not just using the proper
language. This is a message that comes
from God by God's people. It's not a counterfeit. And the man in whom the evil
spirit was leaped on them and overcame them and prevailed against
them so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
Oh, the Lord's going to make a distinction here for this church
in Ephesus between those who are sin of God and those who
are not. And that's what he's doing right
here. And this was known to the Jews and the Greeks, also dwelling
in Ephesus. And here's what I want you to
see. Fear fell on them all, and the name of Jesus, of the Lord
Jesus, was magnified. Remember, remember the fear of
God that he put in your heart. Now, don't misunderstand this
fear. It's not a slavish fear. It's not a cringing fear. It's
not a fear that would... That's what Adam experienced
in the garden. When he sinned against God and his conscience
convicted him, and what did he do? He hid from God. That's all
slavish fear will do. Let me give you the best definition
of the fear of God that I know of in the Scriptures. It's found
in Hebrews chapter 5. The Lord gives us grace to hear
this. It will clarify for us what this
matter of the fear of God really is. We talk about a God-fearing
person. Here it is. Hebrews chapter 5,
and look at verse 7. Who in the days of his flesh,
now he's speaking of Christ, clearly. when he had offered
up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears
unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard
in that he feared. The Lord Jesus Christ feared
God in that he offered up prayers and supplications, believing
that God was able to save him. Now that's all we need to know
about the fear of God. Lord, you're able, and I'm not. Did the Lord Jesus Christ have
some sort of standoffish, cringing fear of His Father that caused
Him to be a slave to God in a... No! No. He came to the Father in a spirit
of fear, believing that if He was to be saved, God was going
to have to do it. And that He would. He's able. That's the fear of God. Lord,
if I'm gonna be saved, you're gonna have to save me. And so
we come before the throne of grace with boldness to find help
and grace in our time of need, calling out to him, knowing that
he's the only one able to save us. Lord, I can't save myself. Nobody else can save me. You're
the only one that can do it. And so it's a spirit of worship,
it's a spirit of reverence, it's a spirit of dependence. That's
the fear of God. And fear of God fell upon all
of Ephesus when the Lord manifested
his glory in the preaching of the gospel. Go back with me to
our text. The name of Christ was magnified. And we're just going, we're just
doing what the Lord said to do. He said to the church at Ephesus,
remember from which thou art fallen and do the first works
lest I come and remove your candlestick. I don't want that to happen here.
I don't want to, I don't want to be commended by God for being
faithful to the gospel and lose my heart and lose my sight of
his love for me. Oh, Lord. Look at the last part of verse
17. The name of the Lord Jesus Christ was magnified. That's the first work. You see,
all this just ties together, doesn't it? It just wraps itself
around the Gospel. He is the Christ. He is the Anointed
One. He's the One sent of the Father
in the full power of the Spirit of God. That's what Christ means. Messiah. Sent by God. Could He possibly fail? I told
you all a story about a Jewish lady, Trisha and I were talking
to some months ago, and she made the statement, she said, nobody
can keep the law of God. She was talking about her hypocritical
Jewish friends who were pretending to be kosher when they really
weren't. And I could say, amen, I got a bunch of people who call
themselves Christians the same way. And she said, nobody can
keep the law of God. And I said, except one. And she
looked at me and she said, you're right. And the difference between
you and me is that you think he's already come and I'm still
waiting on him. Now that was a Jewish lady here
in our city. No Jew ever conceived of a Christ,
a Messiah, even though they don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth
was he. They have no conception of a Christ who would come and
do anything less than succeeding in saving all of Israel. That's what Christ means. There's
no, this idea that Jesus is the Christ, but he's somehow made
an attempt to save everybody, that's a Gentile heresy. That comes right out of Greek
mythology, where the gods are fighting against man and nobody
really wins in the end. That's not a biblical concept.
It's not a Jewish concept. It's not what any Jew believes
today. When the Christ comes, even that
woman at the well, who was only half Jew, what'd she say to the
Lord Jesus Christ? We know that when the Christ
comes, when Messiah comes, he'll straighten all this out. We know
that. The Lord Jesus Christ is magnified
when he is seen as he is the successful Christ, the successful
Savior. He gets all the glory, doesn't
he? You shall call his name Jesus. Why? Because he shall save his
people. He's going to do it. This is
the first work. This is the work of God's grace,
this is his love toward us to cause us to believe that Jesus
is the Christ. He gets all the glory, all the
glory. The name of Christ was magnified. Look at verse 19. And many of
them also, which used curious arts, brought their books together
and burned them before all men, and they counted the price of
them and found it 50,000 pieces of silver. So mightily grew the
word of God and prevailed. What was the first work that
the Lord's telling them to remember? They forsook all their false
gods. I wasn't so spiritual when the
Lord first made himself known to me to burn my books. I sold them. I needed the money. I was out of a job. They were religious books. They were books on theology.
They're books about God, but they were wrong. And when the
Lord, the first work is that He causes you to, He rewrites
your Bible. He says everything's different,
nothing's the same. And you just can't, you can't
go back, can you? You don't want to go back. Our
flesh is drawn back to the pleasures of sin every day. But when the
Lord teaches you the gospel, there is no part of you that
has any interest in going back to where you were religiously.
No part of you. You forsake that, glad to be
done with it, and would never go back to it. Can't go back
to it, don't have any interest in going back to it. No desire
for it. And you understand that what
you did in religion was your biggest sin before God. Let me
show you that. Turn with me to 2 Kings chapter
5. 2 Kings chapter 5. Naaman, the scripture says, was a mighty man of valor, the
captain of the king's army of Syria. He was a military man. He was a man of great power,
great influence, great wealth, I'm sure. And he was a pagan.
They didn't have the law of God. Can you imagine the things that
a man of his stature and his influence and his wealth would
have indulged himself in in this world without thinking about
it? God struck him with leprosy.
He heard about a prophet that could make him clean. He came
down to Israel and he met this little prophet, Elisha. And Elisha told him to go clean
himself in the river Jordan. And he got upset because Elisha
didn't even come out. Elisha sent his servant out,
told him to go wash himself seven times in the Jordan. He said,
we got better rivers than the Jordan back in Syria. And I thought
the man of God would come out and perform some sort of ceremony.
I thought he'd wave his hands and do a dance and light some
candles and pray some prayers. And all he does is send me out
to wash myself in the Jordan. He ends up washing himself in
the Jordan and God heals him, doesn't he? He doesn't just heal
him of his leprosy, he saves him. And Haman comes to understand
that the God of Elisha is the one true God. And out of all the things that
he could have identified in his past, as being shameful and asking
Elisha the prophet if perhaps God would be pleased to save
him from those things and forgive him of those things, he brings
up none of them. He brings up one thing. And all I can do is ask you to
read it in the original language and you'll see that what I'm
telling you is true. You've got Bible study aids that will help
you to see that all of the verbs in this verse are in the imperfect
tense, which is an action in the past. It's not written that
way in the English, unfortunately. But look with me at verse 18.
In this thing, And here's Naaman's prayer, here's his request to
the prophet Elisha, 2 Kings 5, verse 18. In this thing, the
Lord pardoned thy servant, that when my master, see that verb
goeth, it's past tense. So he's not talking about present
tense, he's not talking about something that, he's saying,
when my master went into the house of Reman to worship there,
and he leaned on my hand, and I bowed myself in the house of
Reman, when I bowed myself in the house of Reman, do you suppose
that the Lord would be pleased to pardon me of that? That's what that verse means.
He's not asking the prophet Elisha, you know, I've got to go back
to Syria and I'm going to have a responsibility as part of my
duties to go into the house of Rehman and to worship a false
god and would God be permitted to deliver me from that sin?
He's not asking for forgiveness of a future sin. He's saying
of all the things that I did, I went into the house of a false
god and worshipped a false god. And if God will forgive me of
that, he'll forgive me of everything. That's the sin that we need to
be forgiven of. The sin of idolatry. And when
the Lord is pleased to show you himself, you'll understand that. That's the first work. It's faith. It's the baptism of the Holy
Spirit. It's the fear of God. is forsaking all false gods. You know, people change their
doctrine from freewill Arminianism to Calvinism. Calvinism is just,
you know, it's logical. If God's God, he's sovereign,
and you know, his salvation belongs to him. It just makes sense. If the Lord shows you Christ, You won't just change your doctrine,
change your God. And when you do that, you forsake
all those false gods and call them what they are. They heeded the apostles' warnings
in verses 28 through 32. And I want to close with this
one point. You remember we read in Revelation
chapter two, where the Lord commends them because they hated the doctrine
of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. And in the next church,
he brings up these Nicolaitans again. Go with me back to our
text in Revelation chapter 2. Verse 6. But this thou hast,
that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also
hate. And look at verse 15 of that
same chapter. This is to the church at Pergamos.
So thou hast also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans,
which I also hate. The first principle for understanding
the Word of God is that the Bible interprets itself. We don't go
outside of the Scriptures to try to find an interpretation
for the Scriptures. The Scriptures interpret the
Scriptures. That's just the way God does
it. There's no mention anywhere in
the Bible about the Nicolaitans. You will read men who speculate
what the doctrine of the Nicolaitans is. But that's all it is. It's
man's speculation. If we stick to the first principle
of biblical interpretation, we can only interpret that which
God hates. He said it twice. I hate it.
I want to know what it is God hates. It's the doctrine of the
Nicolaitans. The only way we can interpret
it is to understand what does the word Nicolaitan mean. And
it means ruler or conqueror over the people. There can be no doubt
that the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which God says he hates, is what's
practiced in every form of religion today. It's called clergy laity. It's man setting himself up over
the common man as the conqueror of the people. And men in the
pews are happy to have it that way. It relieves them of the
responsibility of their own soul. And men in the pulpit are happy
to have it that way because it gives them power over the people.
And God says, I hate it. It's practiced in every religion.
You know, you got elders and doctors and reverends and imams
and rabbis that are ruling over the people. And you've got the,
if you go back to Acts chapter 20, it's clear that these men
wept when the apostle Paul met with them and told them that
they would see his face no more. Oh, they loved him for the fact
that God had used him to bring them the gospel. But they did
not overestimate him. They did not put him in a position
between themselves and God. Don't do it. I'm not responsible
for your soul. I'm not. I'm responsible to tell
you the truth. Esteem them highly for their
work's sake. Without the preaching of the
gospel, nobody will believe. Thank you, Lord, that you've
called and enabled men to be faithful to the gospel, but that's
all he is. He's a sinner, saved the same
way I'm saved, and believes himself to be in need of more grace than
me, and will never put himself over me to control me or rule
me or dominate me in any way. He's under me, supporting me,
encouraging me. The gospel needs to be preached
from sinners to sinners. Don't you know the Lord Jesus
Christ himself could have come on the day of Pentecost when
he sent his Holy Spirit to empower those disciples? He could have
preached that first message himself. What an amazing thing that would
have been for the Lord Jesus Christ. He appeared to the apostles
many times, 500 at one time. He could have taken the podium
himself and preached the gospel as a risen Christ on that first
day that the church was born. He didn't do it. No, of all people,
who did he send? of all men, who did he use? The one that denied him with
cursings, the one who was most shameful at the time of his crucifixion. The people of Jerusalem needed
to hear the gospel preached from a sinner to sinners. And Peter
was the man that God used. And his preachers aren't any
better today than they were then. Remember, remember, oh God, give
me the grace to repent, to return to my first love. Show me how
much you loved me. That'll be the cause of my love
for you. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we're thankful for your grace, thankful for your gospel. We
pray, Lord, that you would minister faith in Christ to our hearts
and keep us, Lord, from falling from our first love. For it's
in Christ's name we ask it. Amen. Number 78 in the Saltback Tenement.
Let's stand. We'll sing it to Just As I Am. My soul consider this great thought,
the wondrous works which God has wrought, His work from all
eternity my God has done them all. me. God's special love for all
his own directs the power of his throne. He lacked and precious
to my God all things ? Predestined for my good ? Redeemed by blood,
preserved by power ? Unto that great appointed hour ? When God
in mercy to me. He gave me life and set me free. My God has never, never His grace
and power have prevailed. My sword, my soul, my life He
holds by sovereign grace within. His foe. And so, my God, I'll praise Your
name, exalt Your grace, and spread Your fame. Eternal Sovereign, Love and grace compel my heart
to sing your praise. Okay.