I was going to read a verse scripture that is...
should... to cry out to our God. In 7 verse 21, the Lord Jesus
Christ makes a promise when he takes all of us to the courts
of heaven and into his presence. And he says, everyone that saith
unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the king heaven. but he
that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will
say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name
done many evil works? And then will I profess unto
them, I never knew you. Depart me, be that work iniquity. I can't think of more solemn
words and a more horrible, horrible thing. to have full someone,
and this is not just people in churches, this is talking about
preachers in churches. And at the very point of late,
because we are, in one way or another, continually asked the
question by the religious world around us, are we genuine? God says that it's good for us
to have souls, and I'm so glad that he's given his words. I
remember a year where I was asked, there was a message to a pastor's
conference in the mountains where we were, and there was maybe
150 pastors gathered from the mountains and around, and the
Australian guy who was to preach broke his arm in Chennai, and
they, and they asked me to fill in
for this fellow, and I said I've only got my lunchtime hour, so
I can't sort of come and join in all morning, I'll just pop
round for lunch and bring a message, and I went round and these guys
had been meeting, and they were Pentecostal people, and they'd
been meeting, and they were so out of it, as it were, that when
I started preaching and I had planned to just preach out of
Revelation chapter 1 and just describe the Lord Jesus Christ
to them as John met him and described the response of someone to Christ
and they were beyond the point of listening to anything I said
and there were all these sort of amens and hallelujahs and
it just got them to such a state. I said let's just stop right
now. And all of you, open your Bible
to you chapter seven. And we very, very slowly and
very pointedly read that passage of scripture to these pastors.
I'm not sure that it had any impact on them, but it certainly
had an impact on me. I said, now we can, having heard
that from God Almighty, now we can start talking. a little bit
more, but I want you to know the seriousness of what we're
involved in. If home is not a matter of life and death, then we don't
have the Gospel. If it's not a matter of life
and eternal death, then we don't have the Gospel. God is not playing
games, and we best not play games with Him. And there is. People create for the
Isaiah chapter 28, they create refuges of lies. And there's
an overwhelming flood which will come and sweep away the refuge
of lies. And I pray that it's now. Because for many, many people,
according to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, The refuge
of lies be swept away until that day. Which is extraordinary,
isn't it? They think they're on their way
to heaven and hear the Lord say to them, depart. What's shocking? I never knew you. The world knew you, the church,
your congregations knew you, people applauded you in so many
ways. And yet the Lord will say on
that day, obviously for myself and for all of us is that we
take the Lord's warnings seriously. You beware of false teachers.
You beware of people standing behind pulpits in this world
because that's where Satan's activity is most evident to the
children of God. His ministers are standing before
people as ministers. Proclaiming that man can, by
his activities, by man's free will decision, can make himself
right with God and put obligation to do something for him. Which
is exactly what those fellows were doing. Goes back to what
we looked at before, when the Holy Spirit comes, he will reprove
the world of sin. I found my poem. And I wanted
you to be reminded, and I want to remind myself that they're
the words comforter. and there is great comfort. This is his poem. When Adam by
transgression fell and conscious fled his maker's face. Linked
in clandestine with hell he ruined all his future race. The seeds
of evil once brought in increased and filled the world with sin.
This lurking beast ferments the mass. All nature's sick, creation's
spoiled. Each sin-infected sire, alas,
begets a sin-infected child. Thus propagation spreads the
curse and man born bad grows worse and worse. But lo the second
Adam, serpent's subtle head, he cowlicious claim and disappoints
his devilish views. ransomed, ransoms poor sinners
with his blood, and brings the sinner back to God. To understand these terms are
right, this grand distinction should be known. Though all are
sinners in God's sight, there are but few so in. To such as these our Lord was
sent. They're only sinners who repent. What comfort can a saviour bring
to those who never felt their way? A sinner is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost has made him so. From him we must receive before
for sin we rightly grieve. Let the self-righteous beware,
lest he this great salvation scorn. Let every careless soul
take care, for they that laugh shall one day mourn. High-flying
lights learn hence to stoop. Dry knowledge uffs men up. This faking let us own. Well worthy it is to be believed. that Christ into the world came
down, that sinners might by him be saved. Sinners are high in
his esteem, and sinners highly value him. I can give you copies. I sent some copies back from
Montana some years ago. Some of you should have them.
It's just wonderful. I wanted to just about... the
deceptions that are in this world. I was woken the other night at
2.30 by a sermon from Henry May, and I'm happy to send it on to
you, but he titled his sermon, The Greatest Tragedy, Deception,
and I was so struck by that and the things that have gone on
in conversations that I've had and things that I've witnessed.
that I didn't get back to sleep again and my passages I was looking
at begins with and the burden of the word of the Lord came
and so I wanted to unburden myself to some extent and just talk
about these things and I'm using something of Henry's outline
in all of this. But this, the greatest of all
isn't it, the most solemn words to professing believers and professing
past. And as we are here now, there
is almost no doubt that someone is hearing those fateful words
right now. And you can read the result of
that in Luke chapter 16. And there's a great gulf fixed,
thankfully. Great fixed. And there is, there
is no place the angels fell from. Aaron's sons fell into hell from
the very throne room of God and the very temple. The prophets
David, King David and the prophets like Elisha had men who were
close companions of them. You can read of Ahithopel and
Gehazi and others. An apostle fell this night that
we're looking at in John chapter 16. Close companions of the apostle
Paul like Demas fell. People in the early church knew
much of this deception, Ananias and Sapphira and the others,
that we could have the warnings and the comfort of scriptures
related to us by the very experience of the people that have gone
before us and what happened in their day throughout time until
the Lord returns and closes all of this up. The ministry, as
I said, is not a safe place from deception. The heart of man is
deceitful above all things and is desperately who can know it. People claim to know their own
hearts, but if they know their own hearts, they know how deceitful
it is. If they know their own hearts and have been made a sinner
by God, they won't be trusting themselves for anything. "'Let
no man deceive himself,' says Paul in 1 Corinthians 3.18. "'Among
you seemeth wise in this world. "'Let him become a fool, but
he may be wise.' "'So the wisdom of our hearts is not a place
of refuge. "'The wisdom of this world and
natural understanding can help. "'We are, shut up to God, doing
a work of this in our lives. "'If a man think himself to be
something, "'when he is nothing himself, He's talking about religious
people in the churches of Turkey in his day. Be doers of the word,
says James, only deceiving your own selves. There are some deceptions
that are common to this that we live in and all these ages. And in his message, Henry listed
four scopes. The first one, and these relate
to our message in John chapter 16 and following. But the first
ascension is earthly, mistaken for repentance. There's a godly sorrow for sin,
and there's a worldly sorrow for sin. Judas was sorry. When
he saw that he was condemned, he went back into those Pharisees
and he threw those 30 pieces of silver on the ground. And
they just said, we don't care. We don't care about you. And
he went out and hung himself. David made the cry of the child
of God, didn't he, in Psalm 51. He says, Against thee and against
thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in my sight. I have done it. He saw, repented,
In some sense, didn't he? But he found, according to God,
it was for repentance. He'd sold his birthright, he'd
sold glory of the covenant, and covenant relations with God Almighty
were a bowl of beans. He didn't esteem Christ of any
value whatsoever. So, just because, full of remorse,
for sins that they've been caught in doesn't mean that that is
true repentance. King Saul knew that David was
righteous and King Saul knew that he was evil and needed to
be so. And yet King Saul is one of those
who heard those fateful words and he committed suicide. Godly
sorrow is concerned about my sin and my relationship with
man. Godly sorrow worketh repentance. There is a sorrow that the world
has and it's all about your place in this world. Godly sorrow is
concerned about who the Lord Jesus Christ is and his glory.
Have I repented? Has the Holy Spirit done the
work? Or I'm just sad about the way things have turned out. Earthly
sorrow can be mistaken for repentance as we around places of religion
and places where the gospel is named. The second thing that
he speaks of is reformation taken for regeneration. I meet someone
around town here who immediately, each time I see him, wants to
tell me the remarkable reformation he's made in his life. And he's
got the credit. And so did the Pharisee at the
temple. He gave God the credit, didn't
he? I thank God, he said, at the temple. I thank God that
I'm not like this other man. I thank God that I'm not like
this public and this sinner here. And then he lists it all. And this man wants to tell me
each time I meet him, I was like this once, and now I'm not like
this. Reformation is not regeneration. Nicodemus was an extraordinary
and upright man. The Lord Jesus said, if you're
not born again you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. Not only
can't you enter, but you cannot see. Have I reformed my ways
or has God given me a new heart? We love looking at Ezekiel chapter
36 and it speaks of the spirit coming and he's sprinkling clean
water and he's speaking of a new heart that he'll give you. And
then he says in verse 31, you shall remember. This is the work
of the comforter. Then you shall remember your
own evil ways and your doings which were not good and shall
loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and
for your abominations. Has God the Spirit come? If that's
the promise from God about it. It's easy for people mixed up
in Christian things to have the outside of them clean and the
inside of them washed clean according to the Lord Jesus Christ. Full
of dead man's bones. Has God taken up residence in
me? Is Christ in me the hope of blood?
Has the work of God been in my heart or have I just changed
my company? The outside of the cup. People
honour the Lord with their lips, but their hearts are far from
Him. Their bodies are there, but their hearts are far from
Him. Do I have a new way of life or a new heart? Am I walking
a new path or am I a new creature? Am I walking a new path or am
I a new man? There are millions, according
to God, walking a new path with the same old corrupt heart, the
same attitude, the same corrupt soul. It's very easy according to the
Lord Jesus Christ, and we are all bear witness to it. If you
love them that love you, what thank have you? For sinners also
love those that love them. If you do good to them which
do good to you, what thank have you? For sinners also do the
same. If you lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what
thank have you? For sinners also lend to sinners
and receive as much again. We can love ourselves and call
it Christian love according to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's one
of the glories of the Spirit in the hearts that we do love
one another. You love Him. You love Him according
to His promise. You love His people. Beloved,
let us love one another, 1 John 4, 7, for love is of God and
every And I love the ETH on it, they
just keep on loving. They keep on loving, they keep
on forgiving, they keep on bearing. Bear with one another, bear with
the infirmities of one another. That means you have to put up
with a neck. You have to put up with me being a sinner. And you don't have to spend very
much time with me to know that I am, or anything about how right
I am. But I do love my brothers and
sisters in Christ, and my cry is that I might love them more,
and might love them more genuinely. And love them like Henry May
or Curtis when he was going up to New Jersey. You love them
to Christ. You keep loving them. They're just sinners. Just love
them to Christ. Everyone that loveth is born
of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not
God. You can read 1 John and you will
see how he describes that glorious work. It's very easy and we are
prone to do it in so many ways to form ourselves into a little
religious club. where we find like-minded people
who believe doctrines and have the same belief and the same
sort of history and things. And that's not Christian love
and it's not the church that God Almighty puts together. There are plenty of little religious
clubs and you'll find thousands of them and you can join them.
And you'll end up finding, no doubt you'll end up finding the
group of people who believe the same things that you believe
and you'll be part of their little thing. We can love the fellowship
of like-minded people Love. Do we love and continue to love
when we are hurt by the actions of others? Do we love and continue
to love when we do the hurt? So the issue is, again, the issue
is between us and God. We come, God's children, to worship. I love what Psalm 95 verse 6
says. O come let us worship and bow
down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. Let's exalt the
Lord, Psalm 90, and worship at his holy hill, for the Lord our
God is holy. How much is really worth coming
here for God Almighty to bow at his throne, to bow before
his son? Like Esther, who went into the
king and put out his scepter and said,
you can come into my presence. Do we pair our hearts and ask
the Lord to send His Spirit and cause us to worship Him in spirit
and truth? He's promised to seek them, promised
that His people will be asking people. Do we long to meet with
a holy God and to commune with Him, to speak to Him, to hear
from Him, to learn of Him, says the Lord Jesus Christ. He's very
good at creating denominations and creating rituals and entertainment. I pray the Lord just to worship
him in the simplicity and the glory of the gospel. Throughout
the Old Testament, the Lord called upon Israel to come before him,
not with all of their paraphernalia of religion. He called on them
to come before him with hearts sincere in love. He says, He says to the people, I despise
what you're doing. It was a righteous thing for
him to destroy Jerusalem twice because their religion was nothing
but blasphemy. So much religion is about excitement
and emotion. Worthy of praise. And so let's look at those deceptions. Earthly sorrow mistaken for repentance. Reformation mistaken for regeneration. Self-love mistaken for Christian
love. And what appears as faith, true
saving faith. Paul never stopped crying. and
such glorious assurance of the Lord's work in his life. And
yet at the end of his life, when he's in jail in Rome, he says,
I want to be found in Him. He'd already been told even about
being found in Him. He'd written about Christ in
New Hope of Glory. He'd written a letter to the
Romans. He'd written to those other letters. And what was his
cry? Be found in Him, that I may know
Him. I would found in him not having
mine own righteousness which is of the Lord. Not any righteousness
that's got anything to do with anything that I have done, but
that which is through the faith, the faithfulness of Christ, the
righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him
and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering
made conformable unto his death. Listen to what he cries. If by
any means, whatever means you bring into my life, by any means
I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. We find the word Finnish in ISM-isms
offensive, aren't they? All of them, in some way or another,
are offensive. It's Christ into heaven, not
a denomination, not some particular doctrine. Our devotion is to
him. We love him. And do we love him
with his people? Isaac Watts wrote, Sweet is the
work, my God, my King, to praise thy name, give thanks, and sing,
to show thy love by morning light, and talk of all thy faith. My heart shall trod and bless
his word, thy works of grace, how bright they shine, how deep
thy counsels, how divine. Oh, how I long for that blessed
place. where he unveils his glorious
face, where all his beauties will behold and sing his praise
on harps of gold. And I'll share a glorious part
when grace has well refined my heart. Fresh supplies of joy
are shed like new oil to cheer my head. I just want to be someone who
goes through all of religion and have the Lord utter, I'm
very anxious of the place I have before you. And I just keep asking
the Lord to have mercy upon us all and just to reveal himself. Those who find, will find them. With all of their religious works
in vain, they'll find what they think is their peace taken away
in a heartbeat. And they'll hear, there's our
saviour. I've been deceived. Have I ever
been made conscious of my sin before God? Do I come before
God, like in Luke 16, beating on my heart, because that's where
the problem is? It's not my hands, it's my heart. It's what I am. God, be merciful. God, be propitious. Don't cry. God, be propitious.
God, you look at the sacrifice, the bloody sacrifice of your
son represented in that temple. You look at him and then be merciful
to me. There's nothing in me that would
cause you to be merciful. All of your mercy is wrapped
up in him. Am I the chief of sinners? Has
the law come, like it did Paul in Romans chapter 7, that he'd
end up crying out, I'm a wretched man, and sin is there with everything
I do. I'm caused, like Isaiah, to say,
woe is me. It's very easy to run around
this world and say, woe is them. There are a whole bunch of woeing
that can go on. But is it woe is me? I've seen
woe is me. is the Lord Jesus Christ. Has
God the Holy Spirit made the Lord Jesus Christ my hope of
salvation? Nothing in my hand I bring simply
to the king. Not my good works, not morality,
not my law keeping, not the multitudes that join with me in religion. Is the Lord Jesus Christ my only
hope of salvation? Is he my in the eternal covenant? Did he stand before God Almighty
in my place, bearing my sins, being my arsonist before God? Do I love the fact that he's
the electing God? That on the cross of Calvary,
that he is my substitute? He stood in my guilt, he took
my shame, my blame, he took my sin and he paid for it all before
the righteous holiness of God Almighty. God says it's enough. God says it's finished. Is he now gloriously representing
me in heaven? pleading my name before the Father,
my mediator. Is he my advocate? Is he my only
hope? Is he my refuge? And I've got
no other refuge. Do I really hate sin? Do I love God? Do I hate sin? is a light thing to you. Be fearful, I pray. Give unbelief and the sin that
you are is a light thing and the sin that came before God
Almighty. Do I long be like Christ? Oh, don't you love what the psalmist
says? When I awake, I'll be satisfied. When I awake in his likeness.
Do I find the word God a joy, a gladness, or is it a burden? Said, I was glad when they said,
let's go unto the house of the Lord. Worship, real worship of
him who is worthy of it. Do I pray? I've been much moved
by the Lord's promise to ask. Praying is asking that. Real
prayer is just to cry to God. Lord save me. Lord help me. Lord be merciful to me. Is the
glory of God the most vital in all? Is his glory the goal of
all things good? but His glory. Glorify Him, says
God. Have you been asking? Ask, ask, and you shall receive. Blessed are the asking ones. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we do thank and praise You that we are called upon to contemplate
yet again how extraordinary it is that you would send your Son
to bleed and to die for sinners like us. And we pray, Heavenly
Father, that your Spirit would cause us to see His blood as
precious, to see His broken body, and see our sins dealt with,
Heavenly Father. I pray that you would do as you
have promised Mother, that you would teach us from ourselves,
from the wiles of the evil one, that we might just have our eyes
fixed upon the author and finisher of faith, and cause us to rejoice
in who he is, and to cause us to find all of our peace in the
fact that he said it's finished, and he's coming back again. Oh,
cause us to long for his return, Heavenly Father. in mercy and
grace to revive our languishing hearts here, but one day to be
with him forever and ever and ever. What a glorious son you
sent into this world. Make him precious to us, our
Father, in his precious name and for his glory.