Well it's lovely to see you all
here. Only a few days and Alan arrives in the country, so I
trust... The Lord has laid on our hearts
to uphold him in prayer and be expectant about the Lord speaking
to the hearts of his people. Our topic for the sermon today
is about purifying the hearts. Purify their hearts by faith.
I thought I'd read the psalm of a man whose heart was purified
by faith. It's the Psalm of David, it's
that well-known Psalm 51. It's a plea for forgiveness.
It's to the chief musician, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet
had come unto him. And Nathan the prophet said to
him, you are the man, David. You are the sinner. After he
had gone into Bathsheba. This is his prayer. This is his
song. This is the cry of a man after
God's own heart. Have mercy upon me, O God, according
to thy lovingkindness, according to the multitude of thy tender
mercies. Blot out my transgressions, wash
me thoroughly from my iniquities, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest
be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me. Behold, thou desirest truth in
the inward part, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know
wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall
be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter
than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness,
that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy
face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in
me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence,
and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the
joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then I will teach transgressors
thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Deliver
me from blood guiltness, O God, thou God of my salvation, and
my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open
thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For thou
desirest not sacrifice, else I would give it. Thou delightest
not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy good pleasure
unto Zion. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with
the sacrifices of righteousness. With burnt offering and whole
burnt offering, then they shall offer bullocks on thine altar. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we pray that the prayer of your servant David would be a prayer
that would be on our lips, that you would create in us a clean
heart, that you would purge us, Heavenly Father, from the sin
that you cause us to be aware of. And Heavenly Father, we thank
you and praise you that the Lord Jesus Christ bore the sins of
all of his people in his own body on Calvary's tree, and he
bore them away such that you remember them no more. Heavenly
Father, what a glorious gospel we have delivered unto us for
sinners such as us, our Father. We pray, Heavenly Father, that
you would speak to our hearts this morning, that you would
cause us to see the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified, to
see Him now sitting and reigning over all the things of this universe,
and that we might find ourselves, Heavenly Father, seated together
with Him, perfectly fit to be in Heaven's glory because of
the perfect work of your dear and precious Son. Father, glorify
him in our midst this morning. We pray for Jesus' sake and in
his name. Amen. We're going to sing. I'm
not sure. Number 50 we're going to sing.
Is that right? Number 50. Before the throne of God above,
I have a strong and burdened feet. I'll break my feet to take His
love. My name is written on his hands,
my name is written on his heart. I know that while in death he
stands, Then Saint James made to his
head, And tells me of the guilt within. After I looked and see
him there, They lay at the end of my sin. He was the sinless Saviour God,
My sinful soul shall be free For God my God is satisfied To
look on Him and pardon me The great unchanged old I am,
The King of glory and of praise, is So the books, we've ordered some
of Alan's commentaries on Revelation, so they're in the box there.
And so you're welcome to them, and we've got some extras for
other people who might come along. Cole's going to get some stickers
made so that we have them. Very good. Oh, lovely. Oh, well done. And then you can
have them signed. You can have a signed edition.
Anyway, look, I'm looking forward to Alan, and I trust you are
as well. It'll be exciting to have him here, and he's never
been south of the equator, so he's very anxious about all the
travel, and it's a pest of a flight from England to here. So do pray that they rest well,
and I'm looking forward to us all gathering together next Thursday
evening at our normal place. We can have a welcome dinner
and hear from him. That'll be lovely. A couple of other things
you might know of Darwin Pruitt. I don't know if any of you ever
have listened to Darwin Pruitt, but his wife Cathy died the other
day. She had a brain tumour and it seems as if things went very
badly very quickly because Clay Curtis was expecting to go there
and preach for some little time to fill in for Darwin. So anyway,
if you can remember him, he would appreciate that. and my daughter
Kate had a baby boy. Little James. James. Anyway, all's well. All's
well. We're going to sing again and
then Simon's going to come and speak to us. Number one? Thank you. Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,
the King of creation! O my soul, praise ye for his
life, health, and salvation. O hither, hither, now to his
temple go ye, praising him that Praise to God the Lord in so
wondrously radiant Shelters beyond His wings yet so gently sustaining And shall not see the hour that
his heart ever did, rather him walking away. Praise to the Lord who does prosper
thy work and defend thee. Showing his goodness and mercy,
he's daily attending. Honor our new, what the Almighty
can do. in which He shall meet me friendly. Praise to the Lord, all that
is in me adore Him. All that had life and breath,
come now in praises before Him. Good morning. I'm telling you,
Bob, it's tough. As we work through Acts, as Angus
has so rightly said, it is a picture in a sense. It sets a pattern
for Christian life. And in some senses it did begin
in the New Testament, but in many ways it began in Genesis
3, and we need to bring most things back to Genesis 3. The
Church has been subject to the same attack. from the very beginning. So we are going to read Romans
3, but I just wanted to mention there's a number of issues that
are arising in the church now in Acts 15 that we're seeing
are internal issues. And it is something that we've
experienced ourselves in many ways, so it's very personal to
us. It's also very influential upon
us. No matter who we are, we need
to be careful. If we think we stand, we only
stand by grace, and that grace encompasses not just our initial
salvation and our eternal resting place. It governs our sanctification
and that seems to be where so often the difficulties lie and
where the deceptions are introduced and the subtleties of Satan are
really seen for what they are. And there's even a number of
creeds that are very important in history to the churches and
their basis, amazingly, they take right back to Genesis 3. and they say that the Lord God
gave the Mosaic Law in the Garden of Eden. I don't know if you've
heard that, but the principle's just the same. He gave them a
law, and they had an obligation, they had a covenant which they
had to fulfil, and they failed. And so therefore, he then regave
them the law at Mount Sinai, and has been therefore re-giving
the law even through the latter parts of the New Testament epistles,
and continues to give that law and continues to put those obligations
on Christians. How do we work it out with grace?
Well, that's what's interesting about the deception of these
new enemies that have been introduced. They come up from within, and
rather than say, I have law by which you need to live by to
get to heaven, and the Christian's saying we have grace and we've
been resting in grace and can rest in grace, and you have these
two externals. Now we have a blend and in a
sense a mongrel that's come forth from within the church, and it
is deceptive and it is difficult for us to discern. The Lord says
that there will be tears in the church and we will not. be able
to tell them apart. So we can't tell them by looking
at the externals, can we? Anyway, the issue with Genesis
3 and the reason I took it back there is because there was a
law. The Mosaic law was in Genesis 3 and it stood in the midst of
the garden and God gave one rule and it wasn't the law of Moses.
It was beware the law of Moses, stay away from the law of Moses,
don't touch the law of Moses. And we don't need to keep calling
it the law of Moses. It is Satan's deception and it
is Satan's influence that not only externally influences us
but has been now genetically woven into our very existence. So you might get a picture of
a church that has believers and unbelievers yoked together in
a sense. But each one of us is the same
picture, aren't we? If God doesn't work in us, then
we have a new creation within us. The old one doesn't change,
and it does remain, and it's by the wisdom of God that it's
been left there. Not to help us elevate ourselves
and glorify ourselves, but to reduce us, to crush us and cripple
us in that influence of Satan that we so easily run into. and
to cripple us and drive us back to him and his grace in his dear
son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So this law did stand in the
garden, but we were warned not to touch it. There was one law
given to men, and it wasn't the law of Moses. It was believe. Just rest in my grace. Just rest
in my grace. Don't touch the law. Don't take
your own destiny, eternal destiny, spiritual destiny into your own
hands. You can't do it, you don't have
the ability to do it, and you're very vulnerable out there. And
a few weeks ago, or probably a few months ago, I read a bit
of a list out of Genesis Everything in this world has been set against
men being able to fulfil the law and earn a righteousness
before God. every heavenly host, which we
already agree we can't contend with, our own flesh, the difficulties
of the flesh of our brothers and sisters, the difficulties
of this society, the difficulties of the false religion and how
much it pollutes society and then society's attitude and the
difficulties we have in evangelism. All these things flow and they
flow and they flow and they bombard Christians. What chance do we
have? And yet, amazingly, Satan was
able to come in and deceive and cause Eve to reach out and take
of that tree. But you know, Eve was deceived
and I think she's a great picture of the church, of believers,
and the deception that Satan brings in and the difficulties
he causes in their lives and his intentions to actually cut
them off from God and cause a division. And Adam tends to be a great
picture of our flesh. Adam's rebuke from the Lord in
the beginning was that he didn't listen to God. He was deceived. Adam didn't listen to God. And
the Jews have been standing for so long as representatives of
God, but they're not listening to God, and they haven't listened
to God. And we can't listen to God until
he does a work spiritually within us. And one of the best places,
when Angus asked me to read something about the comparison of law and
grace, I thought in the flavour of where we are, I thought this
is a great description of Paul. In regard to a comparison that's
made, and it does in a sense help us to understand that choice
of Genesis 3. we made in our father Adam that
contaminated us and continues to influence us away from the
simplicity of grace and the simplicity of faith. So, I'll actually start
reading from verse five, sorry, sorry, verse nine I think it
is. Yeah, verse nine, sorry, what
then? And in a sense we've started with Romans and Paul's declared
the sovereignty of God and the inability of men and the disdain
that men have for the Gospel and the wickedness that lies
in all men's flesh and the rebellion and the ways he's dealing with
it. a difference here between Jew and Gentile, and that's really
where we're at, isn't it? Because in Acts, this is what's
going to be the question, and it's in a sense the question
at the Council. I think it's also the question
that's on the hearts of genuine believers. The Galatians were
influenced, and they were preyed upon, and it was with stealth,
and it was with evil intention, and it was with lies and manipulation,
but what was played on was a very genuine, wholesome desire to
serve our God, which is what he creates within us. And so there's a question that
arises, are they better than me? Are they better at service
of God? Do they have an inside track
with God? And you should see the gymnastics
that men try to use to make that work out in eternity. But the
reality is that this will always be set against each other. Romans 11.6, grace and works
are mutually exclusive and they will always be. The Jews are
no different, and we'll see that in this. And I just want to pretty
well read this passage. I'll say a few little things,
but if you can consider just the fact that this is the same
issue that's been going on since Genesis 3. And it is far more
simple than everyone makes it with their gymnastics. It's completely
trusting God, or trusting God and if there's one element of
that that is trusting in you. in a sense you've blasphemed
God and you undo salvation in a sense. So let's start verse
9. What then? Are we any better
than they are? In no wise, no wise, absolutely
no different in the flesh. in no wise, for we have before
proved, both Jew and Gentile, that they are all under sin. As it is written, and this is
God saying this, as it is written, there is none righteous. No,
not one. There is none that understands.
See, there's no one spiritually alive that can even understand
this, unless God does a work in their hearts. There is none
that seek after God. All these people that attribute
their activities and their evangelism and their passion and their desires,
none of them are really seeking after God. They're seeking after
their own glory. There is none that seek after
God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become
unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one." Now we're talking about the Jews
here and these are the witnesses of God, their throat, but generally
it is a reference to all humanity because we're spiritually dead
and we can't glorify God. Their throat is an open sepulchre. With their tongues they have
used deceit. The poison of wasps is under
their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their
feet are swift to shed blood, and the way of peace, that's
the gospel, the way of peace they have not known. And that's
a person, isn't it? The Lord says, I've not known
you. These people, this is a great
description of the evangelism of the world today that so often
has such an impact on society and the people and is such a
difficulty for us when we come and witness to people. So the
way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes. Now we know, that what thing
soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law,
and this is the purpose of it, not to make him righteous, that
every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty
before God. If you turn to the law, that's
its purpose, and it's going to reveal you guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, there shall no flesh ever, not one part of any flesh can
be justified or glorified in the activity of salvation. There
shall be no flesh justified in his sight, for by the law is
the knowledge of sin. But, but now the righteousness
of God without the law is manifest, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. So even the law is a declaration
of the only way to find grace, salvation, the necessary righteousness
to get to heaven, favour with God, it's not found in the law. Even the righteousness of God,
which is what's necessary, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto
all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference. There's
no difference in men's flesh. There's no difference in the
way men can be saved. There's no difference between
believers. They're all saved in the same way and they all
have the same level of righteousness which gives them full access
into heaven and into their Father's presence. And it's not the righteousness
of men. It's the righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Even the righteousness of God,
which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that
believe, for there is no difference, for all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. We have no chance in our flesh. All fall short of the glory of
God, being justified freely, no work, no activities, no obligation,
justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness, not
the righteousness of men, His righteousness for the remission
of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God. To declare,
I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? Because that's where it goes,
isn't it? Any activities of men, we've got to glorify ourselves
and if it's not here, we'll be doing it before the throne of
God and being condemned for it. Where is boasting then? It's
excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Remember Genesis 3? Believe. Stick in grace, look to God,
and look away from yourself. Therefore, we conclude, this
is the Apostle speaking, it's the Holy Spirit speaking, we
conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of
the law. Is he the God of the Jews only?
Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles
also. Remember that initial question,
are they any different? Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision
by faith and uncircumcision through faith. Do we then make void the
law? What do we do with the law? Do
we make it void through faith? What do we do with it? God forbid,
yea, we establish the law. Do you see, when we take hold
of the Lord Jesus Christ in faith, we declare that God's law is
right, that God's righteousness is necessary to enter his kingdom,
that that is the only acceptable pleasing of God. But we also
declare it only is found in one place. Our salvation, our existence
here is rebel worms in a sense, and with all the difficulties
and all the bombardments that have been happening in the lives
of God's people since Genesis 3, all of that, when we turn
to Christ in faith, we establish Him and we glorify Him. And we
put away our sinful flesh once and for all, and by God's grace
He continues to keep us in that state and grow us in that state.
Keeping us humble and keeping us looking at his son. And when
we see in 2 Corinthians 3.18 that we grow from glory to glory,
it can't ever be in our flesh. It can't be what we see, what
we do, how we talk. It can't be, because we can't
see who tears and wheat are. It can't be anything that we
can judge externally. But we do grow by faith, don't
we? We are right in Christ. Sanctification is a statement
about an absolute. There's no growing in sanctification.
So you can get down to just having one sin, as one fellow told us
once. He's not sanctified. It doesn't
matter. He's no more sanctified than the guy that's got a million,
trillion, billion sins, which we all have. Salvation is by grace alone.
It's by a substitution. of a man who represented God's
people. It's a price paid in a sense
for sin and rebellion that takes all that difficulty in our salvation
away. But it also provides a righteousness,
the necessary righteousness that we've been looking for and Satan's
had us looking for since Genesis 3. But it's a righteousness God's
people have always had in him. And it's a righteousness that
might be contended externally by the world, but it's a righteousness
that has been locked up in heaven securely for all eternity just
as much. It was established in our saviour,
it's maintained in our saviour, and it will be eternally glorified
in our saviour. This is the issue of church usually,
is this issue of law and grace and law and grace and law and
grace. And if we think for a moment that we can make ourselves right
to be with God, then we have to ignore this book from cover
to cover. Salvation's by grace alone. When peace like a river attendeth
my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll, The heaven I love
thou hast wholly displayed, It is well, it is well, with
my soul. It is well, it is well, with
my soul. Though Satan should laugh as
though drive should come, let this rest assurance control. Thine eyes hath regarded my noblest
disdain, And hath shed His own blood for my soul. In His will, in my soul, In His
will, in my soul, I've seen all the gifts of His
glorious Lord I've seen the big puff of the Lord He's melted
the cross that I've never known Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
O my soul He is well It is well, it is well with our
souls. And Lord, hasten thee, with thy
faith shall we serve. And the drops shall return, and
the Lord shall return. He is well with my soul. He is well with my soul. He is well with my soul. Heavenly Father, thank you that
as much as this world will buffet us and the things that appear
to be so unstable and insecure and unsecure, thank you, Heavenly
Father, that we can have You have set us in your Son before
eternity, before the creation of all these things that come
about us. Thank you, Heavenly Father, that you are our sovereign
God. You've seen Him from the beginning,
and that all your plans come to fruition at the hand of your
new Son, Heavenly Father. And thank you that although we're
weak and barely man, so are billions of souls. And you have a love,
Heavenly Father, that rests in your Son. A love for your people
that goes beyond this world, the difficulties and the influences.
A perfect love, Heavenly Father. A perfect love based on one thing,
and that is the strength and performance of your Son. I do thank you for church, Heavenly
Father. I thank you for the gospel and revealing it to us, and continuing
to push us to stand firm, and continuing to warn us and reveal
the things that you might sustain in Boston
amongst us. Help us to be grateful, dear
Father, that you're just laying in Boston for the grace that
we've been given today. Help us to be reminded of the
faithfulness of our Saviour, who is unflinching, and there's
nothing in this world that can take that away from us. Help us to still look to you
with a refreshed smile, dear Father, reminded that there's
something beyond this world. in some sort of new way. Revealing
in some sort of new way that we desperately need it. That glorify it for us today.
Please strengthen Angus and give him words of respect on your
behalf. Please prepare or make hearts receptive. And cause us
to see this as the most serious issue in all of us. Thank you
for giving grace upon us. Please bless Alan and his visit
and his travels and bless those that hear him Please be working
amongst the people of this town and my father, that someone,
you might bring someone, that you've hidden away for eternity.
Someone that you might bring forth in my father, and reveal
yourself in a tomb and a maze. Bring someone. We pray your grace
upon us. We pray for the sake of us and
by the power of God on us. I'm pleased Simon went to Romans
chapter 3, that's one passage of scripture. I don't have to
go, the great question of all human beings that have any concern
about their soul is the question that Job asked, isn't it? How should a man be just with
God? How should a man be righteous
with God? How should a man be able to stand
in the presence of God and have the smile of God upon them? The
Lord Jesus Christ was asked questions, one of the great questions that
he was asked by the Pharisees of his day, they
said to him, what shall we do, John 6, 28, what shall we do
that we might work the works of God? Sounds like a lovely
question, doesn't it? The answer is the most wonderful
question, it's the most wonderful answer in all of the scripture,
and it's an answer direct from the lips of our great God, he
says, This is the work of God. This is the work of God. It's
not your work. You think you're going to do
some works, forget about it. This is the work of God, that
ye believe on him whom he has sent. This is the work of God,
that ye believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Acts thus far has been
a great declaration of the works of our God, a great declaration
of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the triumphant
work of the Lord Jesus Christ as he sends his people and he
personally goes throughout this world gathering his people to
himself. and gather them, he will. They
were his in eternity, the Father gave them to him. They were his
in creation when he created them. They are his in a marriage covenant. They are engaged to be his wife.
They are his by creation. They are his by covenant promises.
They are his by redemption. And they are his as the Holy
Spirit comes and reveals the Lord Jesus Christ to them. In
Acts chapter 15, as Simon said, that we have this first rising
up of enmity in the Church, from within the Church. These people
now are the first that we see in all of the New Testament Scriptures
who claim to be believers. And they were zealous, they were
missionary-minded, they were knowledgeable of the Scriptures,
they were acknowledging the Lord Jesus Christ. In their morality
and in so much of their declarations, they looked and spoke like Peter,
Paul, James, and John, and the rest of the apostles. Until,
until it gets to that issue that Simon spoke about, that issue
of how can a man be just with God? What can we do to do the
works of God? These men thought that you had to be circumcised,
Acts 15 verse 1. You had to be circumcised after
the manner of Moses. And don't forget, any activity
at all puts you under a bondage to do all activity. You can't
do one bit of the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law is a package.
If you go back to the Mosaic law for one little thing, you
go back to the Mosaic law for absolutely everything. And you're
obligated to all of it, all of the time. And as I hope the Lord
will show us, the Mosaic Law was designed such that men could
never keep it. Never ever keep it. For one of
the glories of the gospel that we declare, I'd just like to
go through some of this passage in these first 14 verses with
us and just look at the works of God. The works of God. In verse 4, Paul goes down on
his journey and it's a triumphant journey. We must remember again
and again that this was the first and only council of the church.
It's the only time when all the apostles met together and it
was not to have a debate. It was not because they had any
question about the gospel they preached at all. This was a meeting
to declare publicly to these men and publicly to the church
throughout time that anyone that comes to you putting you under
any obligation of any work whatsoever to earn, to keep, to enhance
your standing before God, is according to God the Holy Spirit,
a liar. They were publicly declared to
be liars. That was what the Jerusalem Council
was about. It was about, as Paul says in
Galatians chapter two, that the truth of the gospel might remain
with you. The Jerusalem Council was a declaration
to the church throughout all time that anyone who does this
is lying to you about your eternal soul and lying to you about God. It is that serious. And those
that maintain that lie, and go to meet God with that lie, and
joined in hands with those who teach that lie, will go to hell. it is that serious. God will
not have his son treated with contempt. But one of the glorious
things about Acts chapter 15 is this is a wonderful, wonderful
declaration of the gospel. One of the things that opposition
is hurtful and it stirs us up and we always sort of struggle
with how and and how best we might respond, and we struggle
with how people respond to our responses to their opposition
to the Gospel. But one of the wonderful things
about the opposition to the Gospel, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians
15, there must be heresies amongst you. A heresy is just you choosing. A heresy is just not believing,
it's you choosing. That's what the word heresy means,
a choice. There must be heresies among
you, that those that are gods are made manifest. And in this,
as we go through these remarkable verses, I just want us to see,
as Paul says in verse 4, They came to Jerusalem and they
were received at the church and they declared all the things
that God had done with them, that God had done with them.
They declared in verse 3 the conversion of the Gentiles and
they caused great joy among the brethren, among the brethren.
Now, if we go down to Peter's response to these people. So
what happened in this council is that they all gathered there,
the apostles and Paul and Barnabas and Titus, and they were all
gathered there. And these other people, these other men, were
given an opportunity to speak. And when there had been much
disputing, Peter rose up, verse 7, and said unto them, men and
brethren, men and brethren, you know how that a good while ago
God made choice among us. God does the choosing, God does
the choosing, and a choosing God chooses wisely and well and
always in accord with the rest of his character. God made choice
among us that the Gentiles, by my mouth, should hear the word
of the gospel. The Gentiles should hear the
word of the gospel. The hearing ear and the seeing
eye, both of these are from the Lord. God made a choice. He made
a choice of who to send. He made a choice of where Peter
was going to be sent. He made it so abundantly clear
in Acts chapter 10 and chapter 11, Peter repeats it, that it
was so abundantly clear to Peter that this was the work of God. They should hear the gospel and
believe. They just hear the gospel. They
hear the Lord Jesus Christ declared in the gospel and they believe. And then in verse eight, I just
want us to think about all this in terms of the works that God
has done. And God which knoweth the hearts. See, God sees beyond all the
surface exterior of your life. As we get older, we can get to
look a little bit squeaky clean in the eyes of lots of people.
Forget about it, brothers and sisters. Forget about it. God's looking at your heart right
now. God sees all things all the time. In fact, he sees your thoughts
and he sees what lies behind your thoughts. As I keep saying,
don't play games with God. Don't pretend on the outside
that you're righteous by something that you do when God's actually
looking way, way, way deeper than all of that. God knoweth
the heart and he bears them witness. God had sent the gospel to these
Gentiles, and he knew their hearts, and he bears them witness. That's
the glorious witness, isn't it? That God actually bears witness
in the hearts of his people that they are his children. That's
something that God's children know that they are God's children
because God the Holy Spirit bears witness. Giving them the Holy
Spirit even as he did unto us. So he puts no difference between
them. He put no difference between the Jews and the Gentiles. He
comes to the Jews on the day of Pentecost and he preaches
the gospel and they believed. Some believed, out of a great
crowd, 3,000 that day believed. And he gave them the Holy Spirit,
even as he did unto us, and he put no difference between us
and them, purifying their hearts by faith. This is the works of
God. He knows their hearts. He bears
them witness in their hearts, and He gives them the Holy Spirit,
even as He did unto them, and He puts no difference, and He
purifies their hearts by faith. And here's the Apostles' Declaration,
isn't it? This is the Apostles' Creed.
We believe We believe, verse 11, that through the grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they. And then the multitude kept silence.
There was no need for the multitude to speak. The gospel has been
declared. And then gave audience to Barnabas
and Paul declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought. and among the Gentiles by them."
And then James gets up to speak, the third speaker, fourth speaker. And after they had held their
peace, James uttered, saying, men and brethren, hearken unto
me. Simeon hath declared how God
at first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people
for his name." People say that we're too particular
about the gospel and we've been too dogmatic. The reality is
that without the true gospel being preached, God doesn't visit. That's the joy of the promises
of God in church, isn't it? That where the gospel is preached,
the Lord Jesus Christ is there. You see, this is not just an
activity of men and the flesh of men. This is a spiritual activity
by a spiritual God coming in power. If you read, go back to
Acts chapter 3 verse 20. Go back to 19, this is a sermon
that Peter, that second sermon in Acts, he says, repent therefore
and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when times
are refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. I want times of refreshing from
the presence of the Lord, don't you? I want to be refreshed by
the presence of God. When he comes and visits his
people, it's always going to be refreshing. And he shall send
Jesus Christ, which was before preached unto you. At the heart
of the gospel is a declaration of the Lord Jesus Christ in his
true character as revealed in the scriptures. A sovereign God,
a particular redeeming God, a particularly sanctifying God, a God who came
because he had a people in this world, which we've just read.
He came to call out that people for himself. When he's declared, he comes. The only hope for your eternal
soul is that God would come and God would speak peace to your
heart. that God would do, as that remarkable
verse says, that I'd like us to spend a little bit more time
looking at this morning, that God would purify your heart by
faith. Now I spend a little bit of time,
probably too much at times, looking at the confessions and the things
that other churches say. And I can't recall thus far seeing
one in our land that doesn't declare that God has done all
that he can and he's laid it all out on a platter, as it were,
and there it is and it's yours and by your activity of faith
you appropriate it to yourself. So faith is an activity of man
and an activity of man by which then all the blessings of the
eternal covenant and all the blessings of the promises of
the scripture become yours. So God's done all he can, he
loves everyone, Jesus has died for everyone, the Holy Spirit
wants to save everyone and it's all laid out there for you and
then you by your faith appropriate it. I have yet to find a statement
from a confession of faith in this land that doesn't state
that in salvation in those terms. So that makes faith a doing word. Now just let me ask you a question. Is faith in this verse a doing
word or a being word? God purifies our hearts by faith. Is it a doing word? Is it a verb? I wouldn't be asking the question
unless you knew that the answer was that it's not a doing word
at all. See the faith that's here and
the faith that's used not all throughout the scripture but
is used so prominently throughout the scripture when it comes to
salvation is a noun. See faith is a noun. The faith
that purifies your heart is a noun. It's a description of a being,
it's a description of the one, the one only one who can purify
your heart. It's not a description of what
you do, it's a description of what he does. Faith, faith. As Hebrews 11 says, faith is
the substance of things hoped for. It's the substance of things
hoped for, and it's the evidence of things not seen. It's not
a doing activity, brothers and sisters. Faith is God's gift
to his people, and there's no question that the scriptures
speak much of faith. And the faith that God gives,
as all of God's gifts are, is something that becomes yours.
If God's given you something, then you have it. God is not
short on power to give you something, and there's no opposition ever
going to stop him giving to his people what he has promised. Faith is the substance of things
not seen. You know that famous verse in
Ephesians chapter 2, and it says, for by grace are you saved through
faith. And that not of yourselves. I
just love that. It's not of yourselves. It's
the gift of God. The grace is a gift of God. The faith is a gift of God. It's a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. We are his workmanship. That
word workmanship means masterpiece. God made no mistakes when he
created his children. He made no mistakes when he created
the circumstances of their lives. He made no mistake when he comes
at the time of love and brings the gospel to them. He made no
mistake, we are his workmanship, created What did you have to do with
your creation? And yet when it comes to the
most important matters of spiritual life, we actually think that
we are our creators and that we are our sanctifiers, and somehow
it's all about us and our decision and our activities. I love the
grace of God. I love God's eternal covenant
promises. I love the fact that the Lord
Jesus Christ cannot lose one of his. And I'm so thankful to
God that the salvation of my soul and the salvation of your
souls is not about my activities. It's about His. It's the work
that God has done. It's the work of God visiting
His people. We are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. See, when God ordains something,
brothers and sisters, it's going to happen. There is no way in
the world God ordains something and it doesn't come to pass.
Otherwise he ceases to be God and someone's bigger than him.
God ordains good works for his people that they will walk in
them. Here in Acts chapter 15 we have for the first time in
the New Testament church amongst believers the difference between
the religion of men and the religion of God. And it's interesting
when Peter rose up to speak in verse 7, he said unto them, men
and brethren. So he was looking at an audience,
and I haven't thought long and deeply about this, but brethren,
brethren are people who are born of the same mother. They come
from the same womb. They have the same origin. So when you're speaking about
brethren in the church, you're talking about people who have
been born from above, been born of God. They are. They have Jerusalem above. The Jerusalem above is the mother
of us all. Here is the great contrast between
the religion of man and the religion that saves your soul. See, religion teaches people
to know about biblical facts. Life is to know God. is to know God. This is eternal
life, that you know Him. And you can't know Him unless
you've met Him. You can't remember Him in communion
unless you've met Him. Religion is about knowing biblical
facts. These men knew a lot about religion. They knew a lot about
the scriptures. But life is knowing God. Religion
is knowing about what I believe. These men believed a lot, and
they believed a lot about the Lord Jesus. But life, as Paul
says, is I know whom I have believed. It's a whom, not a what. Religion baptises people into
a church, but true life is being baptised into Christ. Religion causes people to be
reformed, to change from some bad habits they had and to put
on some good ones. And I'm thankful for it, but
it's not saving at all. Life is to be regenerated. That's what the Lord Jesus said
to Nicodemus. You must be born from above. You must be born
again. And if you're going to be born
again, you're going to be born again through the preaching of
the gospel. You're going to be born again
when the Lord Jesus Christ himself, by the blessed Holy Spirit, comes
and visits people. Religion talks about new converts.
But life is a new creature in Christ. See, faith, faith, saving faith,
is simply taking God at his word. It's simply believing what he
says about himself. That's why the Jerusalem Council
was no longer a debate. These men had been given an opportunity
to have their say, and then the apostles get up and say, this
is the truth. This is the truth. You either bow to the apostolic
declarations of who the Lord Jesus Christ is or you meet that
Lord Jesus Christ as he is and you will know that your declarations
about him have been a figment of your imagination. I don't
wish for that, for anyone that I love and anyone that I have
opportunity to speak to. See, faith is trusting the divine
promises of mercy and grace. He says that he purifies your
hearts by faith, purifies your hearts, cleanses them. Faith
is believing in the power and the efficacy of the work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. When he said it is finished,
he meant it was finished. everything necessary for all
of his bride, for all of his church, to enter into heaven's
glory is finished. It's finished. And it's his work,
and he trod the winepress alone, and no man was there to help
him, and anyone who knows himself to be a sinner is just so thankful
that he's done it all, that he's done it all. is trusting His
promise that His blood cleanses us from all unrighteousness,
that right now the children of God stand before Him with no
condemnation, right now no condemnation. My heart condemns me and the
world can condemn me in all sorts of ways, but not in the eyes
of God. So God has purified the hearts
of His people. We are now accepted in the Beloved,
accepted in the Beloved. Faith is believing that we are
made righteous in the Lord. Not because of anything that
we have done, but purely because of the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith
looks to Him. Faith receives from Him. It receives who He is and what
He's done. So the holiness, the holiness
is a faith-based holiness. The righteousness is a faith-based
righteousness. It's not by what we do. Man are
very good at getting people to get them busy in religion, to
get them being active and active and active. I want for people
to rest and see God active. I find my most joyous times are
when I see the hand of God on the life of someone, giving them
faith and exercising that faith in the most appalling trials
that come along, the trials that are too burdensome for people
to share, the trials that wet our pillows with tears at night
the trials that come on God's people, and yet in the midst
of all of that, in the midst of the storms and the horrors
that life brings along, people are caused to look to Him because
there's nowhere else to go. You're shut up by the circumstances
of life to be utterly and totally dependent upon the Lord Jesus
Christ and what He's done. He says he's working it for good. Almost no one, when their good
has been worked, in the midst of it, has ever said, this is
good for me. And yet, and yet, God works it spiritually such
The trials of this life become the means by which the Lord Jesus
Christ is able to reveal his faithfulness to his promises
and his faithfulness to his people in ways that all the good times
in this world that we wish for could never, ever, ever bring. that Peter spoke to was going
to be riven and torn asunder by these false teachers for the
next 2,000 years. They have come and they have
assaulted the children of God again and again and again. They have so taken over this
religious world that they are the face of public Christianity. and the Lord Jesus Christ seems
to be hidden from most people. But that's in his purpose as
well. The trials that we go through purifies their hearts by faith. You know that I quote Hebrews
10, 14 often, isn't it? Four by one offering. Four by
one offering. So who did he make the offer
to? The religious world says that he made the offer to all
the world. He didn't make the offer to all
the world by one offering. He made an offering to His Father.
He made an offering to His Father on behalf of all of His people
by one offering. And God accepted that offering.
That was what the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from
the dead is. That's what His exaltation into heaven is, that
God has accepted His offering, brothers and sisters. He's accepted
His offering for your sin. He's accepted the offering of
the Lord Jesus Christ. He hath How long has he perfected
them for? I love how the scriptures give
superlative on top of superlative, so that we'll get the message.
He's perfected forever, Hebrews 10, 14, perfected forever. Them that might be sanctified, Just read
it with me. He has perfected forever them
that are sanctified. As Simon said, there are no degrees
of sanctification. There is no such thing as progressive
sanctification according to the scriptures. Sanctification is
to be holy. You cannot be a little bit holy,
just like you cannot be a little bit pregnant. Either you are
or you aren't. God says, you perfected forever
them that are sanctified. Let's go back for a few minutes
and have a look at our verse that lays before us. Purified
their hearts. See, what is the heart? The heart
is the very essence of our being. The Lord says, give me your heart.
Give me your heart." He says to his preachers, you speak to
the hearts of my people. I have absolutely no ability
whatsoever to speak to your heart, but I know he can because he
wouldn't ask us to do it unless it was possible. He speaks to
the hearts of his people. He speaks to their hearts. It
says that he knows their hearts. You know well that verse in Jeremiah
17 verse nine, the heart of man. Simon read Paul's description
of it in Romans chapter three in verse nine and following.
But it says in Jeremiah 17, nine, the heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. And there's a challenging word
to all the psychologists and the psychiatrists of this world,
and who can know it? Who can know it? Who can understand
the activities of the hearts of man? We have just witnessed
the horror of what happened in Christchurch a couple of days
ago. How can you understand that? Who can know that? The heart
is deceitfully wicked above all things. deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked. The heart of all of Adam's flesh
has an incurable disease, which is what that phrase means. It's
incurable. It's incurable. See, our problem in fleshly religion,
our problem in our Adam flesh, is that we think that all of
religion and we think our activities with God are about what you can
see and feel and touch and taste and handle, which is what these
religious people wanted them to do, isn't it? They wanted
them to live morally sanctified lives before the world. And they wanted to do it for
good purposes, didn't they? They wanted these people to live
morally righteous lives so that they wouldn't be an affront to
the gospel. But in what they thought, they were doing externally,
they were actually blaspheming God in the most appalling ways. God says your heart is deceitfully
wicked and beyond cure, and man says to God, no, it's not as
bad as you say it is. I can do something to fix it.
I'll show you how I can do something to fix it. See, real sinners, real sinners
made to be sinners, will find the words of promise in the gospel,
the most remarkable words. And God says he's put away your
sin. Sinners find it the most remarkable
thing. And this is what happens in conversion
in Ezekiel 36. He says in Ezekiel 36, Verse 25, it says, Then I will
sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all
your filthiness and from all your idols. I will cleanse you. Listen to the works of God, the
works that God has done here. All the I wills. I will sprinkle
clean water on you, and you shall. The wills and shalls of God are
the delight of God's children. From all your filthiness and
from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I
give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will
take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give
you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within
you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep
my judgments and do them. And you shall dwell in the land
that I gave your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I
will be your God." It's one of the most glorious promises in
the scriptures, isn't it? I will be to them a God, and
they shall be a people. They'll be my people, mine. He owns them. I will also save you from all
your uncleannesses. I love how that's put in the
plural, isn't it? All your uncleannesses. And I will call for the corn
and will increase it and lay no famine upon you. And I will
multiply the fruit of the tree and increase of the field that
you shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen.
See, God does this work in the heart of someone and gives them
a new heart. See, only a new heart from God
will ever see that the old heart is desperately wicked and beyond
cure. I don't know how many funerals
you've been to and how many times you've heard people say, that
person had a good heart. He had a really good heart. He
lived immorally, but he had a really good heart. I went to a funeral
a while ago, and this guy was a fisherman. He was going on
a holiday with his mates, and he got to Cairns, and he was
so abusive to the people in McDonald's in Cairns that he was locked
up in jail for the night, and he was trying to work out how
he could get out of it without his wife knowing. But he had a good
heart. He had a good heart, and he's
gone to heaven, and he's looking down from us in heaven, and he's
got the beers cold up there. A good heart. Only those, only
those who have been given a new heart from God will ever see
that their old heart is like it is. Let's read on with me
in Ezekiel 36. He says, then, in verse 31. You
see, after all this has happened, then, shall ye remember your
own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall
loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and
your abominations. Only those who have been given
a new heart by God will see that the heart of Adam's flesh is
nothing but sin and wickedness. It is exactly as Simon read it
out to us in Romans chapter 3. It is true. It is God's declaration
of our heart. Not for your sakes, verse 32,
do I Do I this, saith the Lord God,
be it known unto you and be ashamed and confounded for your own ways,
O house of Israel. See a new heart. A new heart,
a new creation in you, Christ in you, is the only way in which
you will see that Adam is as Adam is described in the scriptures.
Until God gives a new heart, you will see your old heart as
curable and you will see it as a little bit better than someone
else's heart. and you will have no interest
in it being purified. You'll have no interest, as Peter
says in 1 Peter 22, seeing that you have purified your souls
in obeying the truth through the Spirit. To unfeigned love
the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart.
So the heart of man is deceitfully wicked and beyond cure. The Lord
Jesus Christ talks to these Pharisees that donned Christian garb after
the church had been successful. And he says in Mark chapter 7,
he says, the things that come from within. He says, nothing
from without that entering into him can defile him, but the things
which come out of him, those are they which defile the man. Then he says, if any man have
ears to hear, let him hear. Let him hear. If you have ears
to hear, let him hear. And then he goes on, he says,
and he speaks what comes out of a man. He says, out of a man
that defiles him, from within, from within, out of the heart
of man proceeds. And the very first in this list
of 13 things that the Lord Jesus says comes out of the heart of
man, evil thoughts. How do you write? How do you rate evil thoughts? You want a description of evil?
Simon read it to us, didn't he? It's coming short of the glory
of God. Have you had a thought that came
short of the glory of God recently? I don't want for a show of hands,
here I am. Evil thoughts is the first in
that list. See, only a new heart. Only a
new creation would see that that's what I am, and I need something
much bigger and something much more significant than washing
the outside of my life and polishing up my life so that men will think
that I am righteous. I need a new heart. I need a
new creation. I need the Lord Jesus Christ
to do something. If you're going to be purified,
From all of that, he goes on, doesn't he, evil thoughts, adulteries,
fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit,
lasciviousness, and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from
within and defile a man. Only God's children say Amen
to that. Only God's born again children
say Amen to that. And therefore only God's children
will say how delightful it is when the God says in Ezekiel
37, 23, I will cleanse them and they shall be my people and I
will be their God. In Ezekiel 16, verse 96, then
I washed thee with water, yea, I thoroughly washed away thy
blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil. Jeremiah 33 says,
I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they
have sinned against me, and I will pardon their iniquities. The
Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's tree was wounded for our transgressions,
and he's bruised for our iniquity. We need, like Isaiah in chapter
6, when he met the Lord Jesus Christ in that temple. And Isaiah
realised that he was nothing but an unclean man, and his uncleanness
was much, much deeper and much more perverse than he had imagined. And the gospel came to him, and
he laid it upon my mouth and said, Lo, he has touched my lips,
thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is purged. Not only is that purifying of
hearts a reality in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's
tree, but it's a reality in the lives of God's people. Peter,
speaking again in 1 Peter 1, says, that this blood that was shed
on Calvary's tree is going to be applied to the hearts. They
are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification
of the Spirit unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood
of Jesus Christ. In the Gospel, God the Holy Spirit
comes and he takes the things of the Lord Jesus Christ and
he sprinkles it. He applies that blood to your
hearts. He applies that blood to your
conscience, as Hebrews 9.14 says, speaking of that blood of the
bulls and goats. Neither by the blood of bulls
and goats, but by his own blood. He entered in once into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the
blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled,
the unclean sanctifying to the purifying of the flesh, how much
more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit
offered himself without spot to God, Purge your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God. He purified their hearts. He
purified their hearts by faith. He didn't purify their hearts
by circumcision. He didn't purify their hearts
by law-keeping. He purified their hearts by faith. As you go back to your New Testament,
I trust you might find again and again the pictures of the
Lord Jesus Christ when he met with people who had nothing in
themselves and no hope in themselves. And he sent them away rejoicing. He sent them away rejoicing. To that lady who was bleeding
for all those 12 years, he says, daughter, be of good comfort.
Thy faith has made thee whole. And he said to Jairus, he said,
do not be afraid, only believe. Only believe. Only believe. When that lady who'd been bleeding
for 12 years went home to her family that night, went back
to her community where she could finally join in the worship of
God with them again. What do you think she said? Do
you think she said, I did a great work today? I believed, and the
Lord Jesus Christ, on account of my belief, cured me. What did she say? What a saviour. What a God. What a redeemer. What a cleanser, what a purifier. Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace, he says to his own. Purify their hearts by faith. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we thank you for the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, which
reaches much deeper than the flesh of man and reaches to the
very essence of our being and reaches to the hearts of our
people. And we praise you, Heavenly Father. for his perfect and complete
and finished work. And we praise you, Heavenly Father,
for the blessed Holy Spirit coming and taking the things of the
Lord Jesus Christ and revealing them to us and sprinkling our
hearts that we might have consciences that are clean, that we might
know, Heavenly Father, that we are accepted in the Beloved.
We praise you, Heavenly Father, that the Holy Spirit comes and
bears witness to His people that they are the children of God. What a remarkable privilege,
Heavenly Father, to walk in this world, having the Lord Jesus
Christ as our Saviour, our God, our Brother, our Redeemer, to
have Him who is the Friend of sinners, the Friend of our eternal
souls. Our Father, we pray that you
might work just simple faith in us and cause us to look away
from our works and look away from the works of other people
and to have our eyes fixed on your dear and precious Son, who
is both the author and the finisher of faith. Father, cause us to
remember him with delight and thankfulness as we take these
emblems which remind us of what it cost, your dear and precious
son, to have us wholly and unblameable and unreprovable in your sight. In love, our father. In love. Amen.