Verse 21, 22, Wherefore, lay
apart all filthiness, superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with
meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your soul. but be ye doers of the word,
and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." First off, let me say that it's
a good thing. As a matter of fact, it is a
blessed thing to be under the sound of the word of God. Even if the very lowest motive
should entice or induce people to come to hear the gospel is a good thing for a man to
be under the sound of the word of God. I read one time where during the difficulties in Europe
and England when the Protestants for having so much problems and
difficulties in meeting to preach the word, that the opposition,
the Roman Catholics, would send spies out to the services to
hear these Protestant preachers preach the gospel. And they would
take notes of what they heard from the preacher with and certainly
with the view in mind to accuse them of false doctrine. But there
have been cases when the Lord met some of them in
the way through the hearing of the Word and through notes that
they took and saved their souls. And then I read one time about
an old Protestant preacher by the name of Hugh Latimer, and
he was exhorting people to come to church. Not only those of his congregation, but that
seemed to be a thing with him wherever he went, he exhorted
people to go to church, go to church. go to church and hear
the word of God. And while he was exhorting people
to come to church, he told of a woman who found it almost an impossibility
for her to close her eyes and go to sleep, notwithstanding
all the drugs that she took to enable her to relax and go to
sleep. And so they were trying to find
out if there was anything available
that would help that poor woman sleep. And so they visited with
her, and they said, well, we'd like to be of some help to you.
We know that you need to close your eyes, and we know that you
need to rest a little bit. Well, she said, if you could
just get me to the parish church. She said, I believe I can sleep
there. She said she often enjoyed a quiet slumber under the sermon. Well, this old brother went on
to say that if folks come to church to sleep, it's better
than not coming at all. And he said you better watch
out because you might be caught napping. That is, you might be
half asleep and half awake. and the Word of God may grab
you, may stab you in the heart. So, it's good for people to go
to church where the Word of God is being preached. Good. A sick
man will do well to live where there's a whole lot of doctors,
because it's always the possibility that he might be healed. A fellow that's in the heat of
the battle, there's the possibility he might get wounded. And if
a fellow comes to church where the Word of God's being preached,
that is, the arrows of the gospel is being fired or shot off like
a cannon, there's a possibility he might be hit with one of the
arrows. So, I used to upset me. when people came to church for
the wrong motive, and when people came and went to sleep, that
upset me. But I've come to this conclusion
that it's good for people to come to church, because the purpose
of coming to church is, number one, is to glorify God, And I
think, secondly, the reason why we come to church is that we
hope that we might meet God or God might meet us there through
the Word and speak to our hearts and help us in our difficulties
and encourage us and give us a good hope. So I encourage everybody
to come to church and certainly welcome people to come regardless
of what their motive is. come to church and listen to
the Word of God, because I'm sure of this one thing, that
faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Man
will never be the recipient of faith apart from the Word of
God. He's got to come under the sound
of the Word of God. So we ought to give a royal welcome
to anyone that's interested. Come for whatever reason we want
you to come. Who knows? God might meet them
in the way. Well, anyhow, he says here that
we're to lay apart, this has to do with all of us, lay apart
or side, all filthiness and naughtiness and superfluity, Lay that aside,
lay all filthiness aside, that we are admonished, every one
of us is admonished to lay whatever sin or loathsome disease of sin
that we are involved in, to lay it aside, to repent of it, to
lay it aside, to put it down, to forsake it, to turn our backs
on it and walk away from it, whatever it might be. If it is
displeasing to God and it is a dishonor to God, a dishonor
to the people of God and a dishonor to the church of God, whatever
it is. Lay it aside. Lay it aside. Be done with it. Run away from
it. Forsake it. Abandon it. Have nothing to do with it. Lay aside. Lay apart all of this
and do something. Receive. Listen. And receive with meekness. Lay this aside. filthiness of
the flesh, and receive with meekness the engrafted word." The first
thing that we're told in this scripture to do is to receive,
not to give. You see, to receive is the door
through which the grace of God comes. To receive. We're not
told to give, but we're told to receive. And there's a whole
lot of difference in giving in order to get and just receiving
something that's given. We're told here in the Bible
that we're not saved by working. We're not saved by performing
certain deeds of the law. But we're saved by what? By receiving. Listen to it now. lay apart all filthiness and
superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted
Word which is able to save your souls." Receive it! Receive it! You see, We're not
saved by giving, but we're saved by receiving. Not what we give
God. It's not by some decision that
we make. It's not by some proposition
that we agree to that has nothing to do with it. It's by what God
gives us. That's how a man is saved, by
receiving what God has done in behalf of poor, guilty, helpless,
hopeless sinners. Receive it! Our Lord said He
came unto His own, but His own, the Jewish people, received Him
not, but to as many as received Him, gave He them the authority
or power to be called the sons of God. You see, we are saved
by receiving what God gives us and what we receive from Him.
In the hearing of the Word, there should be a receiving of it,
not just in the ear, not just in the conscience, but in the
understanding and in the heart. The reception of the Word of
God. You must receive the Word, or
the Word cannot bless a man. The Word of God is likened unto
a great feast, a great supper, with all the delicacies from
all the countries of the world spread out before us on this
spotless linen tablecloth. But what becomes of this feast? If a man only looks at it, it
will be of no help to him whatsoever. If he just admires the fine food
and the wines and the vast dishes, the spices and all that's involved
with this great feast, if he just stands around and looks
at it and maybe sniffs the aroma of this great feast, it will
do him no earthly good just to look at it. He's got to partake
of it. He's got to receive it. You see,
we must receive the Word of God or it cannot bless our hearts. We've got to receive it. Lay
aside all this filthiness of our flesh, whatever it might
be, and receive the Word of God. Not necessarily the words of
man. He's got a lot to say. But it
won't help a man to receive the Word of God. What the Word of
God says about God, to really preach and teach the truth of
the gospel A man has got to tell the truth about God, and tell
the truth about man, and tell the truth about the Lord Jesus
Christ, tell the truth about eternal glory, tell the truth
about these things, and when we hear the truth, then we are
to receive the truth, because this truth is able to save our
souls. How are we to receive it? We're
to receive it. That's established right here.
We're to receive it. How are we to receive it? Well,
it says here that we're to receive it in meekness or receive it
with meekness. What does that mean? Well, that
means this. It means that we are not to desire
a seat in the church the visible church that is a judgment seat
to set in on judgment of the Word of God. Don't come to church. I already said that regardless
of the motive for coming, it is good that a man come. It's
even good that a man comes to be critical, that it's better
than not coming at all, it's not good, it's better than nothing,
if he comes to be critical of the Word of God, although it's
a terrible sin. It's a terrible, terrible sin
to criticize the Word of God, to desire to come to have, to
sit in the judgment seat and criticize the Word of God. Well,
not to criticize the preacher all you want to, but don't criticize
the Word of God. Don't set in judgment of the
Word of God. Receive it with meekness. And
I said, judge me if you want to, but don't judge the Word
of God. Just let the Word of God judge
you. Stand at the bar of God and let the Word of God try a
man and sift a man and search a man and then receive it, receive
the Word in meekness. Someone said that the door of
heaven is open to every man and every woman and every boy and
every girl who will sit at Jesus' feet and learn of Him. But a man who will take a seat
higher than the Lord Jesus Christ and look down in judgment upon
Him, he'll never Receive the Word to the saving of his soul. Receive it with meekness. Meekness. Don't come with a know-it-all
attitude. I know this and I know that.
I know more than he does. I've been studying it for a long
time, and I've read it through two or three times, so nobody
can tell me. Don't come with that kind of an attitude. Come
and hear the Word of God over and above everything else. Hear
the Word of God and then receive the Word of God with meekness.
Receive the what? The engrafted Word. Receive the Word. There's power
in the Word. Power. It was the power of the
Word of God that created the heaven and the earth. Did you
know that? In the beginning, in the beginning
was the Word, and the Word spake a word, and out of nothing came
all of this. It's through the Word of God
that the heavens were framed, and the earth came into being.
It's by the Word of God that the world and all that we see
and know is sustained by the Word of God. Powerful, the Word
of God. It's quick and it's sure and
it cuts like a two-edged sword. The Word of God separating the
bone from the marrow even. It cuts. It's powerful, the Word
of God. Nothing can thwart the Word of
God. Nothing in time or in eternity
can quell or still the Word of God. It's powerful. The Word
of God. Receive it! The Word. Receive
not just a portion of it, but receive all of it. Every word
of the Word of God. Don't come to the Bible and say,
well, I like this portion, but I don't like that portion. I
accept this part, but I won't accept that. I know the majority of Christendom
right now. Right now, at any given time,
you talk to them about the doctrine of God's election, they'll say,
I don't like that part of it. And most of them will say, I
won't receive that either. I won't receive that. And that's
a bad sign, isn't it? But that's true. That's true.
In the majority of churches right now, right here tonight, if you
talk to them about the divine doctrine of God's sovereignty
in election that God chose, a number of this human race unto himself
before time ever was. They say, I don't like that doctrine.
I don't like that doctrine. I won't accept that doctrine.
They don't like the doctrine. What I'm saying is, even if we
don't understand it, even if we don't understand it, receive
it in meekness. Receive the Word because it has
power, the power of the Word. Receive it as being able, the
Scripture says, being able to do what? To save you! To save
you! Not to give you a good hope that
you hope that you might be saved, but it's able to save you from
the beginning to the end, right now, through time, and throughout
eternity, the Word of God. Receive it! With meekness, it's
able to save a man. Receive the engrafted Word. Now what does that mean? What
does that mean there when it says, Received with meekness
the ingratitude? We know what the Word is. The
Word is every, every part that formed a Word that came from
the mind of God that was penned in this book. That's the Word.
The Word became flesh. The Word is the Lord Jesus Christ. We know what the Word is. Now
he says, receive with meekness, humility, humbleness. Receive
it like a child. Don't come with a judgmental
attitude towards the Word of God, but receive it with meekness
to what? The engrafted Word. Let me tell you what this engrafted
Word means, or the word engraft, where this is taken from. In another translation it talks
about the inborn, word. Rather than using the engrafted
word, it says the inborn word, but let's stick to this translation,
the engrafted word. You see, when a graft is made,
a graft on a tree, I don't understand all There is, I couldn't graft
a tree, a fruit tree, this, a Jonathan apple into a golden delicious,
I wouldn't know how, but there's lots of people that do know how,
and I'll tell you what takes place when they graft one tree
into another. When a graft is made, the first
thing to do is to make a cut or a gash in the tree. Nobody,
and I mean nobody, ever received the Word of God into his heart
without being cut or wounded by the truth. If the Word of
God has never wounded you or cut you in your heart, you've
never received the engrafted Word. Well, listen, it takes
two wounds to make a graft in order that the graft might be
successful. Number one, you wound the tree,
you gash the tree, you cut the tree, and then you wound or you
cut or you gash the better tree which is to be grafted in. What am I saying? This is what
I'm saying. Is not it a blessed grafted when
a wounded Savior comes into living contact with a wounded sinner? I'm saying that if we ever are
saved, it will be because God has stabbed us, has made our
hearts bleed, He's wounded us and He's nigh on to killing us. He's brought us down from our
high and lofty opinion and attitude of ourselves and brought us down
to where we are. And when He cuts us in the heart,
wounds us and makes us bleed. Then there's this happy union
of a wounded heart and a wounded Savior coming into living contact. And what happens? They become
a living union, a vital union, and a man is saved. Oh, has God
ever wounded you tonight? Has He ever cut your heart? Has
He ever stabbed you? How'd you ever find out who you
are? When He wounds you, you find out who you are. What a
sight it is when you find out. Not a pretty sight. I'll tell
you this, the Word of God never flatters human flesh. Nowhere
in the Bible do I know of that the Word of God flatters a man
in what he is in himself. Never flatters. It tells him
the truth in regard to himself. It tells him about his wayward
heart. It tells him about his depraved
heart. It tells him about his It tells
him about his rebellious will. It tells him about his corrupt
nature. It tells him about his hostility
against God. It tells him that he has a darkened
understanding. It tells him that he's blind
and he can't see afar off. It tells him that he's far away
from God. It tells him that he's in such
a state that he won't come back and he can't come back to where
God is unless God fetches him. I'll tell you, brethren, He's
got to make your heart bleed. He's got to cut you. He's got
to make you see yourself. As long as a man has high opinions,
a high estimate of who he is, mark it down, mark it down. God the Holy Spirit has never
cut him yet. He's never gashed him. The engrafted
Word has not taken up its place in his heart. A wounded Savior
has never come into contact with a wounded sinner. And there's
no living union there. Oh, when you come to see yourself. He talks about down here, about
when a man sees himself. Verse 24, "...for he beholdeth
himself." If a man ever gets a sight of who he is, that is,
who he is and what he is in the sight of what God demands of
him. And who the Lord Jesus Christ
is, if he ever sees that, he'll be like a dog who sees his image
in a mirror and starts barking at it because it scares him to
death, Pat. Be like a palled parrot that
sees himself in a mirror and thinks the parrot that he sees
is a rival he tries to fight. Many a day I've sat right here.
I've sat right there and hear something pecking. Boy, what is that? And I kept
hearing that. It may go on for hours and for
days, but one day I got to looking around, and I found out over
in that window, way over in the corner, there's a cardinal over
there. A cardinal bird that seen himself. Seen himself and scared
himself to death. And he pecked at the window.
Pecked and pecked for days he pecked at that window. And I'll
tell you, brethren, if we ever see ourselves in light of the
mirror of truth, as the Spirit of God reveals Himself to us
in what we are, our hearts will be stabbed and we'll be wounded
and we'll be like that dog, we'll start barking at ourselves. We'll
say, well, I don't know who that fellow is. I thought I was a
pretty good fellow. I had a pretty good opinion of
myself. But woe is me! Who will deliver me from this
body of death? You remember that woman of Samaria
that our Lord Jesus Christ crossed paths with? She went away from
there, and she went to where she came from, and she gathered
a bunch of people around, and she said, I've got something
to tell you. And they said, what is it? She said, Come with me
and see a man that told me all things ever I did. Boy, we ever
meet God in the way, and He tells us all things that we ever did.
He won't have to tell us. It'll be brought to our kitchen.
We'll see what sinners we are. Oh, I'm telling you, I'm telling
you here tonight, brethren, that we're to receive the engrafted
Word that's able to do what? To save our souls. Receive it with meekness. Don't
receive it with a judgmental attitude, or you'll go away as
empty as you came. And then he goes on and he says
in this next verse, well, which is able to save your souls. And
then he says, but be ye doers of the word, be ye doers of the
word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own self. What does he mean
by being doers of the word? Well, listen, it's useless to
hear unless we become doers of what we hear. We lament like
the apostle Paul who said, they have not obeyed the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said, Oh, my soul, he said,
I preached and I preached and I preached, but he said, there's
still some that have not obeyed the gospel of Christ. They're
hearers, hearers only, but not doers of the Word. You hear about
repentance? You hear about laying aside,
laying apart all filthiness and naughtiness and superfluity? Lay it aside! Do it! Just do
it! Repent of it and lay it aside!
Turn from it! Put it away from you! Repent
and turn away from it. Just don't hear about it, but
do it! You see, the doctor who knows
how to heal the sick, that man is not a healer if he doesn't
have a patient. Any man who says that he knows
how to teach children but never teaches children, is not an instructor
of children. The Bible says to be not only
a hearer of the Word, but a doer of the Word. Ah, listen to me. Let me tell you why we are to
be not Read the Gospel of Christ. They're hearers, hearers only,
but not doers of the Word. You hear about repentance? You
hear about laying aside, laying apart all filthiness and naughtiness
and superfluity? Lay it aside! Do it! Just do
it! Repent of it and lay it aside!
Turn from it! Put it away from you! Repent
and Turn away from it. Just don't hear about it, but
do it. You see, the doctor who knows
how to heal the sick, that man is not a healer if he doesn't
have a patient. Any man who says that he knows
how to teach children but never teaches children is not an instructor
of children. The Bible says to be not only
a hearer of the Word, but a doer of the Word. Ah, listen to me. Let me tell you why we are to
be not only hearers of the Word, but doers of the Word. Well,
the world is always looking at the church. Always looking at
Christian people, whether in a body like this or whether individually. They're always looking, always
looking. They want to know about you.
You see, they don't want to know so much about your doctrine.
They don't care about whether you teach the sovereignty of
God or the doctrine of election or the imputation of the righteousness
of of Jesus Christ to that poor believing sinner. No, they don't
care much about that. They don't even understand that. They don't care about what you
believe, but they care about what you do. That's what they
understand, Bob. They understand that. They can
understand you giving $100. They'll understand that. They'll understand you devoting
yourself to the cause and claims of the Lord. They understand
that. They may not believe and become Christians because of
it, but they understand it. They understand what you're doing.
They understand when you get up every Sunday morning and every
Sunday night and come. They understand that. They can see that. They're
not interested in your doctrine. They're interested in what you're
doing. They're interested in, does that doctrine produce anything
in you? That's what they're interested
in. The world's always looking at the church. Not so much to
hear her doctrine, but to see what she's doing. What is she
doing? If the people that attend the
vast congregations are all mean and false and hypocritical, then
the world condemns the tree which yields the fruit. Most people
do not read the Bible, but they read you and me. They read you and me. I don't
read the Bible. They read you, though. You get off with a group and
you tell an off-color joke to them. You cuss a little bit in
some group. They know. You slip off to the
beer joint and drink a beer. They know. They know. And they tell it. They tell it. They tell it to everybody. You
know so-and-so? You know that preacher down there?
I remember one time years ago, I had a brown Ford station wagon. Brown Ford. Kind of a light brown. Wasn't too many like it. But there was another one like
it that was a bread truck. And it used to deliver pepperoni
rolls and stuff like that to the various places around here.
Used to be a roadhouse right up the road here, beyond Cunningham,
there on the right. Used to be a roadhouse there.
And that fella used to stop there every day with pepperoni rolls
and stuff like that. Well, I didn't think anything
about it, although I'd seen that car there going by a few times.
I'd seen it there, and I thought, well, that's just like mine.
But I never thought a thing about it. But I was talking to an old
lady one day, and she said, well, she said, You was leading the
singing in the church services the other morning, wasn't you?
And I said, yeah. Well, she said, do you think
that you're fit to lead the church singing when you frequent roadhouses? I said, probably not, but I don't
know what you're talking about. Well, she said, I know. I said,
you go every day up here at this roadhouse and since your car
has been seen up there and people are talking about it and they've
told me about it. I said, well, it wasn't me. I
said, you'll just have to trust me. You'll just have to believe
me. I said, it wasn't me. It's somebody else. It's another
car just like mine. What I'm telling you is this
evening, brethren, men do not read the Bible, but they read
you. They read you. You're an open book. You've got
to be careful. You've got to walk circumspectly. Rather, you get mad around something.
Someone will tell you. They'll hear about it. You get
mad with your neighbors and say this and that. They hear about
it. They say, well, we're not interested in their doctrine. Why, listen, if people that attend
the churches are mean and false and hypocritical, ah, bad shape. You see, the people who go, they
say, who go to the church and who hear what the preacher says,
they're no better than other people. That's what they say.
Why should I come? You got a church full of people,
including yourself, and you're no better, and they're no better
than I am. Why should I come? Good reasoning,
isn't it? Huh? Good reasoning. We're going
to be just a hearer of the Word, a hearer of the Word, and not
a doer only. That's what it'll amount to.
We've got to be doers of the Word. If we're hearers of the
Word, then we're going to, hearers of the Word only, what's going
to happen to us? We deceive ourselves. And it's
bad to deceive anybody. It's a terrible thing for me
to deceive you. That's a crime. If there's a
crime that ought to carry with it capital punishment, it is
a preacher deceiving his flock and telling them untruths in
regard to how God saves sinners. Tell them, well, just do the
best you can, be sincere, be cheerful, be kind, be loving,
and hope for the best. Read your Bible. That's fine.
Come to church. Just be nice and so forth and
maybe you'll make it, and tell them a lie. Alright, crime ought
to carry capital punishment, ought to hang them. That's bad
to deceive, for me to deceive you, it's bad for you to deceive
me, but boy it's far worse before you deceive yourself. But be doers of the word, and
not hearers only. Deceiving your own self. Thinking you're right when you're
100% wrong. Deceive yourself. Deceive yourself. And I'll tell you the man's deceit.
A man who's a hearer of the Word over a number of weeks, months,
or even years, he hears the Word, he hears the Word, he hears the
Word, but he never obeys the Word. Mark it down, that man's
lost. And you know what they'll put
on his tombstone, or what they could put on his tombstone? He
knew his duty, but he wouldn't do it. He knew his duty. He heard! He heard! But he wouldn't do
it. Well, he goes on and he says,
he beholdeth himself. He beholds himself. And what
does he do? He goes his way. He does not
obey the Word of God. He goes his way. He's just a
hearer of the Word. A lot of them like that. They hear the Word. They behold
themselves. but they go their way, and they
straightway forgeteth what manner of man he was." Well, I don't
know how this applies to you and I, but I know this, it is
hard for me to understand how a man can forget what he was
once he sees himself as he is, but it's possible that a man
might forget just how mean and cantankerous and ungodly and
unholy and corrupt and dead that he was. And he beholds himself,
and he goes his way, and he forgets what manner of man he was. But
whosoever looketh, whosoever comes under the word of God,
the perfect law of liberty, and receives it and obeys it, listen,
and continue up therein. Brother, it's not just a starting,
it's a plowing on, it's a finishing. It's not the man that starts
that receives the crown, it's the man that starts and finishes
that receives the victor's prize. Eternal life is promised to those
that hold on and hold out faithful unto the end. That's what it's
promised to. I know people go ten, twelve
years. Here's the Word. Here's the Word. Look like this. Solid, grounded in the truth. Appreciate what you have to say. Seem to be enthused about it. But the first thing you know,
the first thing you know, They forgeteth what manner of man
he was, but whoso looketh in the perfect law of liberty, and
continueth therein, he being not a forgetful here, but a doer
of the work, this man shall be blessed in his efforts, in his
deeds." Oh, deceiving yourselves. Paul said they have heard it,
and in a measure they have appreciated it. but they haven't obeyed it.
Oh, may God help us lay aside these things, receive with meekness
the engrafted Word, the wounded Savior to our wounded hearts,
which is able to save our souls from beginning to end, now through
time and eternity to come. Don't be just a hearer of the
Word, but be a doer of the Word. It's to the hearer and the doer
that the promise is given. May the Lord bless us.