Okay, Gary. Let's take our Bibles
and turn with me to the book of Matthew chapter 7. Matthew
chapter 7. This evening I'd like to look
at verses 24 to 27, but before we do, Let's ask our Lord's blessing. Our Father, as we call upon you,
we are so thankful that we can lift our hearts before you in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank you for the time
that we have to meet together. We thank you for the fellowship
that we enjoy in Christ alone. We pray that tonight that you
would direct our hearts, help us to worship, order our steps,
and Lord, forgive us where we failed you for Christ's sake.
Amen. The Lord has been preaching his
sermon on the mount, and he's taught the people. in these last
three chapters, 5, 6, and 7 of Matthew. And now, coming to the
latter part of this message, he says in verses 24 through
27, Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth
them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon
a rock. And the rain descended, and the
floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and
it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. And everyone that
heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened
unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the
floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and
it fell. And great was the fall of it."
Now, the sayings, he said, therefore whosoever heareth these sayings
of mine, surely refer to the whole message that he's preached. But especially in this latter
part right here, because of the of verse 24, where he starts
that 24th verse and says, therefore, I want us to just take what he
has just said prior to that. He warned the people, he warned
his hearers concerning the necessity of entering in, that is, unto
eternal life in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is in verses 13-14.
He warned them about entering in to the straight gate. It's narrow, constricted. He warned them about entering
in to that constricted gate as opposed to entering in to what
he referred to as the wide gate. Now, there's a wide gate according
to the word of our Lord. that is set forth by men of this
world, and what it is, this wide gate of entering into glory is
what they're preaching about, but it encompasses every false
religion and therefore every carnal imagination of man. This wide gate, false religion,
it allows men according to their teaching, to seek God in whatever
suits their fancy. It tells them that whatever seems
to be right in their own eyes, it's a variety of all different
kind of ways in this broad way, broad gate, wide gate, that permits
men to pick and choose what satisfies them. They do that which is right
in their own eyes. It declares that men have the
final word in their own salvation. Proclaims that men's works must
be added to the work of Almighty God and therefore it appeals
totally to the flesh. It just feeds flesh. It assures
men that God is going to be satisfied with their sincere efforts. But the Lord warned men. He said,
you enter in at the straight gate. This narrow gate, 13-14. Enter ye in at the straight gate,
for wide is the gate, broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction. And many there be which go in
thereat. Now think about what He just
said. Many are going in that way. Everybody that leaves this world
not believing the gospel of God's sovereign grace. Everybody that
believes not the Lord Jesus Christ alone is going to perish. because straight is the gate
and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that
find it." Now, the Lord said to Thomas, when the Lord said
that he's going away, and Thomas said, Lord, we don't know the
way, and the Lord said, I am the way, the truth, and the life,
no man cometh unto the Father but by me. Life in Christ alone
as our righteousness, Christ our Redeemer, Christ our Mediator,
Christ our Great High Priest before God Almighty. God the
Father is pleased only with the Son and those that be found in
the Son. He is the door. That's what He said, I am the
door of the sheep. Now, we're found to be in Him. And here it is, it's straight.
This is narrow. How are men and women found to
be in the Lord Jesus Christ? One way, God the Father elected
them. That's how narrow that is. Now
all men can make whatever statements they want to make concerning
how men get to be in Christ, whatever work can be performed. Here's how men and women are
in Christ. Here's the straight and narrow
gate right there. God chose to put them there.
I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. I'll have compassion upon
whom I have compassion. And he's revealed one way. How is the Lord Jesus Christ
revealed to men and women? Now here it is. This is narrow.
This is narrow through the preaching of the gospel. No other way. There's no other way. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel. It's the power of God and salvation. That's narrow. That's narrow. That's constricted. We believe in Him one way. We believe in Him one way. By
God-given faith, because all men have not faith. That's it. That's it. No other way that
men believe and were kept one way by the power of God. That's it. That's the only way.
There's no other way. Enter in at the straight gate. that narrow way that leadeth
unto life, and few there be that find it. And those that find
it do so one way. God was pleased to reveal it
to them through the preaching of these scriptures. That's it.
That's it. God revealed it to them. The
Lord Jesus Christ said, Father, I thank you that you've hidden
these things from the wise and the prudent. Didn't he say that?
and you've revealed them unto babes. It's narrow. It's narrow. We don't add to
it. We don't take away from it. We
preach that. Then the Lord warned about us
bewaring of false prophets, 15 and 16. Beware of false prophets.
They come to you in sheep's clothing. Inwardly, they're ravening wolves.
You should know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes
of thorns or figs of thistles? Those who come in sheep's clothing,
pretending to be harmless, pretending to have one desire. We're following
the Lord Jesus. We're guiding men to Him. But actually, the Lord said,
they're ravening wolves. And the Lord said that you're
going to know them. You'll know them. How do you
know a false prophet? Now listen to this verse. Isaiah
8.20, to the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to
this word, it's because there is no light in them. There's none. Well, are you saying
that everybody, anybody that doesn't preach the sovereign
grace of of God Almighty in the Lord Jesus Christ. Anybody that's
not preaching this gospel is a false prophet. That's exactly
what I'm saying. That's exactly what I'm saying.
Well, where do you base it? I just read it. To the law and
to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it's
because there's no light in them. There's no light in them. All
God called preachers preach this gospel. It's the same gospel
wherever you go. And those that follow them, prove
their deceptiveness, unless God calls them out of darkness. Listen
to this, Luke 6.39, He spake a parable unto them, Can the
blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into the ditch? It's narrow, it's narrow, and
beware, beware, don't watch them, don't tolerate them, don't listen
to them. Those taught of God through the
preaching of the truth of the gospel, they evidence the power
and blessing of God and the truthfulness of the message that they believe. Now, those, I said those that
are taught of God, They evidence the power of the blessing of
the gospel, 1 Thessalonians 1, verses 4 to 6. Those that are
blessed of God to hear Here's the evidence of God's
blessing upon it. Paul said in 1 Thessalonians
1, 4 to 6, knowing brethren, beloved, your election of God. I love that passage. When you
hear that, you say, okay, all right, knowing your election
of God. I wanna hear that again. Let
me hear what he said. For our gospel came not unto
you in word only, but also in power. and in the Holy Ghost,
and in much assurance, as you know what manner of men we were
among you for your sake." And what did it do for those that
the gospel came to them in power? How did you know it? And you
became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the
Word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost." So you'll
know them by their fruit. You'll know them by what they
preach. And you'll know them by the evidence, Paul says, of
those that God calls out of darkness. They believe the truth. And you
can take the Scriptures, as they did at Berea, and search the
Scriptures. and find out and know for assuredness
these things are so. Just listen to what somebody's
saying. Take notes. Listen to what they're
saying. Go back to the scriptures and look at the scriptures and
see if what they're saying is according to this book. And if
it's according to this book, it's so. If it's not according
to this book, it's not so. to the law and to the prophets,
to the scriptures, Paul said, I'm not ashamed of it. So men
that proclaim the truth according to these scriptures, they give
all the honor and glory and praise to the Lord Jesus Christ, and
they set forth a message that gives man some glory to do something
in order to be saved in their false prophet. Then the Lord,
having warned men about hearing, entering in at that straight
gate and hearing these false prophets. He warned them about
depending upon themselves and their own works before God. Verses
22, 23. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we
not prophesied thy name and thy name have cast out devils? Thy
name done many wonderful works. Then I will profess unto them,
I never knew you. Depart from me that work iniquity. Now the amazing thing about this
truth is the scriptures are so plain. They're just plain. They're set forth by the Spirit
of God where men can understand. Now listen to this scripture
right here. By the deeds of the law. Now what does that mean?
That means by you doing something. By the deeds of the law shall
no flesh be justified in his sight. Now how hard was that
to understand? Not by works of righteousness
that we've done, but according to his mercy he saved us. Now that's pretty narrow, pretty
easily understood, but still, according to the Word of the
Lord, many will stand before Him in the day of judgment and
argue their case before the Lord, attempting to secure their acceptance
with God, all based upon their own righteousness, their own
works. Listen to this, Ephesians 2,
8 and 9. For by grace are you saved. Now what does grace mean? It's
God's favor without man's merit. It's grace. It has nothing to
do with our works. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and listen to this, and that not of yourselves. And that
not of yourselves. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. Now that's plain. That's very plain. Men
ought to read that and should say, you know what? There's nothing
that we can do. that will establish our righteousness
before God. It's not of any works that we
can do, but men and women read these scriptures and they're
blind to it. They don't. They truly, in their
heart, believe. I'm telling you from experience.
They believe that they can. And the Spirit of God moved upon
the Apostle Paul to pen this conclusion. He says in Romans
3.28, therefore we conclude. This is the end of the road. We conclude it right here. We
conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of
the law. The Lord warned them. If righteousness comes by the
deeds of the law, If salvation is attained by what a man does
in order to be saved, then salvation is not by grace. If you can earn
your salvation by doing something, then it's not by grace. And the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ was shed for nothing. I'm going to prove this in Galatians
2.21. If salvation comes by your works,
my works, then Christ's death accomplished nothing. Listen
to what Paul said, Galatians 2.21. I do not frustrate the
grace of God. I don't frustrate the grace of
God. For if righteousness come by the law, then Christ died
in vain. What did he say? Here's what
he said. If Christ didn't finish the work, if he
didn't finish the work, which he said he did, if his blood
wasn't sufficient and salvation is not by God's grace, then the
only other way can be that it would be by man's efforts. If
Christ didn't finish it, and he did, if his blood didn't completely
put away the guilt of his people, Establish their righteousness
by imputing His righteousness to them. Then the only other
way is man's works. It's either by the grace of God
or it's man's works. And the scriptures clearly teach,
not by the works of righteousness. Not, no. So if men are preaching
that they can do it, then what they're doing is they're frustrating
the grace of God. And what they're saying is, Christ
died in vain. I can do it. I don't need him. I can do it. And then the Lord
gave us a sobering truth to illustrate what he's just been teaching.
He said, now, there's our scripture. Therefore, whosoever heareth
these sayings of mine and doeth them, what does that mean? Believes
them. That's the work of God, that you believe. Whosoever hears
it and does it, believes me. I will liken him unto a wise
man which built his house upon a rock." Now, our Lord is setting
forth in these four verses we're looking at that there's a foundation
upon which men by faith shall find their only hope of stability,
their only safety to salvation. It's a sure foundation. It's
according to the everlasting covenant of God's grace to show
mercy and compassion. And that foundation has been
laid by God Himself. It's Christ Jesus the Lord. Isaiah
28, 16, Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Jehovah God, Behold,
I lay in Zion for a foundation of stone, a tried stone, a precious
cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth shall not make
haste. What does that mean? He shall
not be ashamed. All built upon the foundation laid by God. Now
this is the Lord's message. This is the truth of stability. This is the truth of salvation
and failure to build upon the foundation of Christ by faith,
by the grace of God, is to build upon a foundation that's going
to fail. Now what he said was there was
two men and they each built a house. One man built a house and he
built this house upon the rock and the other one built a house
upon the sand and I'm sure that When they built their houses,
according to the lesson taught here by our Lord, probably those
houses looked really good. They looked good and stable as
long as there was nothing to try or to prove or to test their
foundations. They appeared to be sound, according
to the Word of the Lord. But when the rain and the floods
and the wind of God's judgment God's justice came and beat upon
the houses. The stability of each house was
immediately known. Now, the house that was built
upon the rock, it stayed. It stayed. When I first got here, I was
sitting over in the fellowship hall one day and I was talking
to Glenn. And I asked Glenn, I said, when y'all laid out this
fellowship hall out here, I said, who laid out the foundation?
What did y'all lay down for a foundation? He said, we didn't lay a foundation.
I said, what do you mean you didn't lay a foundation? He said,
we just went right on top of the rock that was there. And
we just leveled up what we did, and we just built it right on
top of the rock. Well, it's been here all that
time. Evidently, it had a good foundation. It was founded upon
that which was substantial. It was steady. That house built
upon a rock, it didn't fall. And all according to these scriptures
were laid by the grace of God upon Christ, who trusts their
eternal soul to the foundation Himself. And they do not trust
their soul to the sand of a man's ability, a man's worthiness. the sand of His own free will. Can you imagine how unstable
my will is? I can't even keep my mind straight,
much less establish righteousness with God and fulfill God's law. This is what it's going to take.
Somebody thinks I'm going to exercise my free will. You're
going to have to be able to do exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ
did. And if you can't do that, and
you can't, I'm telling you, that foundation is sand. And it's
not going to hold. He obeyed God in every word,
thought, deed. It was said of the Father concerning
Him. This is my beloved Son in whom
I'm well pleased. You hear Him. Somebody going
to stand before God and say, I exercised my free will? I walked
down an aisle? I got baptized? Did you honor
the law? Did you ever deviate in one point
from the law? Did you establish the righteousness
of God? That's the only way it's going
to be. For you to stand before God. That's sand. That's a foundation built on
sand. But the Lord said that one was
built upon a rock. Winds came, rain and floods. And that house didn't move. God's
going to try it. God's going to try the foundation. Those that are founded on Christ,
they'll stand in Him. And those that's not, they're
going to perish. According to the Word of the
Lord, these trials, they're going to come. They're going to come.
He said in John 1633, these things have I spoken unto you that in
me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation.
Be of good cheer. I've overcome the world. Trials
in this life are certain. I was thinking in closing about
Job. What an illustration of God's
grace founded upon the rock himself. Job, the scripture said, was
a perfect man. God was speaking to Satan. He said, have you considered
my servant Job? He's a perfect, upright man. Obviously, we know
in Christ, in himself, he was like any other man. Scripture
says he feared God, he reverenced God, and he eschewed, he hated
evil. But he was tempted by God's permission
of the devil. and tried greatly. And one day,
the scripture says, he lost his oxen, his asses, his servants. There was one each time he'd
tell the story. He said, I alone am left to tell
this. But he lost his sheep, servants,
his camels, his sons, his daughters. One day, he lost it all. One day, he lost it all. The
scripture says he arose, rent his mantle, shaved his head,
and fell down. And you worship God. And he says,
naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return
thither. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath
taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
And listen to this. In all this, Job sinned not,
nor charged God foolishly. Why? because he was founded upon
the rock. And God gave him faith, and he
believed God. He rested in God. And the rain,
floods, and wind of God's trials proved his faithfulness, God's
faithfulness, and Job's faith, and therefore his safety. Our
foundation is everything. The foundation is everything. If the foundation is solid, everything's
well. Years ago, I was living in Tennessee. I had a little construction company
and I installed aluminum patio covers and stuff like that. Had a man call me and I went
out And he wanted a price on a canopy and he had a slab there. He wanted me to measure it up
and give him a price. And so I measured it. And after
taking the measurements, he told me what he would like. He'd like
to have it all open, you know, have all the columns out on the
outside edge, nothing on the inside. And so I had a book. I had a book, and it had all
the calculations. It was a code that I had to go
by. And depending on the projection
out from the house, and the width, whatever kind of columns you
might want, I had a code that I had to go by, the Southern
Building Code. And I had to stick with these
figures. And if I stayed with these figures,
then the company that I was buying from would back me. If there
was a failure, the company would back me. And so I figured it
up. Now, when I was figuring it up,
there was the span from the house out to the beam that was out
there where the post was holding it up. It was about 18 inches
past. one of the breaking points, where
you'd have to go up to a higher thickness. And so I went up to
the higher thickness because the code book said to. Well,
I gave the man a price and he said, oh, I just don't think
I can do that. He said, that's more than I can
pay or want to pay. And I said, well, I completely
understand. He said, can't you cut it back just a little bit?
And can you go to a lighter gauge pan With that span right there,
he said, you know, it's really not going to matter. And I said,
well, it probably wouldn't matter on a day like today. It's a beautiful
day. No wind. But I said, the first
time that I said we have a good snow or ice, or the first time
that there's a big wind that comes up, And I said, especially
if one of your children or your wife or you happens to be under
this canopy and it fails, I said, that day it's going to matter.
That's when it's going to matter. And I told him, I said, no, I
can't negotiate with you on this. I said, it's not much. It's just
18 inches difference. But I said, I'm going to stick
to this. And if I can help you, just let me know. And he said,
well, OK. go ahead and do it. He said,
it's more than I wanted to pay. I said, I understand. I said,
I'll do it if you want to. So we did. We put it up and fixed
him up and everything. Less than a month later, a tornado
came within a mile of his house and took his barn and took his
fence, but the canopy was there. And he called me. And he said,
I want to thank you, he said, for sticking to your guns. He
said, my canopy didn't fall down. I said, well, I'm glad for that.
I'm telling you, the foundation of Almighty God is the only foundation
that's going to stand. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. It is by faith, by God's grace
and faith in Him, God Almighty has established, I'm pleased
with Him. built upon the rock of Christ
in the day that we stand before God and we're all gonna stand
there, we have God's word. God Almighty accepts us in the
beloved. And Carl, that's all we got.
That's all we got. I pray that God bless this to
our heart for Christ's sake. Amen.