I like for us to think that what
we believe and what we hold dear is nothing new. It's others that
have moved throughout history. God's Church remains steadfast
on that one foundation. And one of the reasons we put
these articles in the bulletin is that people might see that
we haven't discovered anything new. God has revealed that eternal
truth to His people here. There's an article by Frank Hall
that couldn't get into the bulletin. I'll just read it to you. It's
titled, No Other Jesus. We preach no other God than a
just God and a Saviour. We preach no other Jesus than
a successful Jesus who actually, effectually and completely saved
His people from their sins by His obedience unto death. The
Jesus of the book is not this Jesus who is proclaimed and pretentiously
adored in most churches. The Jesus in most churches is
that other Jesus who Paul warns us about in 2 Corinthians. The
true Jesus was born in Bethlehem, was born to save His people from
their sins. The death He died at Calvary
was an accomplishment, not an attempt, and not a failure. When
He cried from the cross, It is finished, He fulfilled Daniel's
prophecy, and the transgression of His people was finished forever. The Father exalted Him to His
right hand because He finished the work of redemption, not because
He gave it His best. The Lord Jesus did not attempt
to redeem all man and only succeed in redeeming some. The scriptures
say Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made
a curse for us. That means it's done. Redemption
is accomplished. The curse has been removed by
the blood of his cross. This triumphant Jesus is the
Jesus of the book. This Jesus is the successful
saviour of totally depraved sinners. We know no other. We want no other. We preach no
other. Nothing has changed, has it? There's another article. I want to read by Todd Norbert. I'm trying to find it. I can't
find it. And it's titled, The Jesus Men
Do Not Hate. When Christ walked upon this
earth, men hated him. Does not the cross speak loudly
of how men hated the Christ? But there is a Jesus men do not
hate. It is the Jesus that men believe
they can control, the one whose will can be thwarted by our will,
the one whom men can accept or reject, the one who cannot save
unless we of our own free will allow him to save us. Nobody
hates a Jesus they can control. The problem is that that Jesus
is an idol invented by men to take the place of the Lord Jesus
Christ that they hate. He is the One who has sovereign
control over all, the One over whom men have no control, the
Lord Jesus Christ, in whose hand all men are, the One who can
accept us or reject us. This Jesus men hate because they
see no safety in salvation being in His hands, but in reality
The only place of safety is in the hands of a sovereign Christ. That was the refuge that David
knew, wasn't it? Let's now turn in our Bibles
to Acts Chapter 2. We'll continue our journey through
this remarkable Pentecost event. In verse 40 it reads, after Peter
had proclaimed these things and he'd called to these people who
had cried out, what shall we do? He said in verse 38, repent
and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ
for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of
the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you,
and to your children, and to all that are far off, even as
many as the Lord our God shall call. These are the verses we're
looking at today, verse 40 and 41. And with many other words
did he testify and exhort. saying, save yourselves from
this untoward generation, save yourselves from this crooked,
this bent, this twisted, this winding generation. Then they
that gladly received his word were baptised, and the same day
were added unto them about three thousand souls. I love how the Holy Spirit describes
the people of God in reference to their souls. When we speak
and proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ we are speaking to eternity bound
souls. We are not animals. We are God's creatures. We are made in His image and
we do possess eternal souls. May these words of Peter and
may that call be something that we receive. May these words be
gladly received by us. And may we be bearing witness
to the fact that the Lord adds, adds people to the church, as
many as should be saved. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we do thank you for the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ in us
as scriptures and in his life, and in His death, His burial,
His resurrection and His exaltation. And we pray, Heavenly Father,
that You might send Your Spirit amongst us today and that You
would be the teacher of Your people, that You would lead us
and You would guide us into all the truth, the truth that is
in Your dear and precious Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Father
there is no other hope, there is no other refuge, there is
no other God, there is no other place for us to find any rest
and we pray Heavenly Father for those who have hopefully for
some brief time found some rest in something else, we pray that
you would disturb that Heavenly Father, that you would sweep
away those refuges of lies and that your people will be found
rejoicing and gladly receiving a word from on high about the
Lord Jesus Christ and the salvation that He has won. We praise you,
Heavenly Father, that You now sit in heaven and You reign and
rule over all things. For the good of His Church, that
mercy surrounds His people, and He does all things for the glory
of Your Holy Name. And we praise You, Heavenly Father,
that You have brought us to trust in Him as He is declared in the
Scriptures, and we pray that that might continue to be our
portion, that You would guide us and direct us, and that You
would pour out showers of blessings, and we might come and find ourselves
drinking at that fountain of everlasting water that flows
from Emmanuel's side. We praise you, Heavenly Father,
for sins forgiven completely and forever, and holiness imparted
to your blood-born children. May you cause your Son to be
lifted up in our midst this morning again, our Father, and that we
might find our rest and our peace and all of our hope and all that
we desire for this world and for all eternity. perfectly in
Him and nothing else. We commit ourselves into your
hands. We are helpless, Heavenly Father, unless you guide and
direct and teach and lead. And we thank you for that, our
Father. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So we have witnessed the blessed
effect of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit poured out on
Peter and the 120, and it was wonderful, it's been wonderful
to contemplate how they spoke with clarity, a clarity that
the youngest here could understand. There were no flights of fancy,
no fancy theological terms, it was just simple, plain truth. And they simply declared the
testimony of scripture and they simply declared the witness of
history which testifies to the scripture. And they spoke as
led by the Holy Spirit of the mighty works of God. And now we see the blessed effect
of the Holy Spirit being poured out on believers. The rod of
God's strength, says Psalm 102, is sent out from Zion, and the
next verse says, that thy people shall be willing in the day of
thy power. When it's the day of God's power,
His people are made willing. They come willing to the Lord
Jesus Christ. They willingly accept the testimony
of God about themselves and their wicked behaviour. They willingly
accept the testimony of who the Lord Jesus Christ is and they
don't argue. They are delighted to find that
this is so. Pentecost, of course, was a harvest
festival and here we see the beginning of that great harvest. Our great Redeemer, Revelation
6 verse 2 describes Him as a conqueror, going out to conquer. And I saw,
and behold the white horse, and him that sat on him had a bow,
and a crown was given to him, and he went forth conquering,
and to conquer. And he's still going forth, conquering
and to conquer. He is a sovereign God who rules
all things. His name is Jesus, but that's
the Greek word, isn't it? His name is Joshua. And I love
what Joshua declared at the end of his life. He said, ask for
me and my house. He said, choose this day who
you'll follow. And then he said, ask for me
and my house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua said that about
his own house. He was saying it as a representative
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the one. He was the one
that took his people across Jordan and into the Promised Land. Moses
and the law can't take people into the Promised Land, but Joshua,
our great Joshua did. And he said, me and my house,
his house is his chosen house, his people, me and my house,
we will serve the Lord. There will be a people on this
earth who will serve the Lord in spirit and in truth. And these people, seemed to listen. They seemed to listen. And it's
remarkable what they did, isn't it? They actually turned to Peter
and the rest of the apostles in verse 38. They didn't turn
to the priests and the scribes and the Pharisees and the Herodians.
They didn't turn to all of that religion. They inquired of the
apostles. They inquired of the apostles
who'd brought this testimony about who they are, about what
they'd done, and about how all of it, as wicked as it was in
the hands of men, was glorious in the hands of God. Men and
brethren, they called them, they wanted to be looked upon with
humanity. And brethren, they wanted to
be looked upon with brotherly love. They had to turn, and they
were turned by God, back to the apostles. The ones that had brought
the testimony, they'd been turned back to them. These people had
realised that they were in extraordinarily great danger. They had crucified
God's Messiah. They had murdered the Son of
God, they had overturned every moral attribute that they claimed
to have and every sense of justice, even the scriptural justice that
they seemed to think that they lived by, and they had murdered
with wicked hands the Lord Jesus Christ. They were brought to
a place of desperate, desperate need. And that's exactly where
the Lord Jesus Christ, that's exactly where the Holy Spirit
takes His people. That's where He finds them. He'll
always come to His people when He finds them in a place like
that. I love Ezekiel 34 and we've read
it on many occasions and I trust that you might go home at your
leisure and read it again and read the extraordinary number
of promises that there are in it. He speaks of the fact that
the shepherds that they had had not been faithful shepherds at
all, but he was a faithful shepherd. He was going to gather them.
He will search for his sheep, and he will seek them out. And he'll deliver them out of
all the places where they've been scattered, and he'll bring
them out from the people, and he'll gather them from the countries,
and he'll bring them to his own land, and he'll feed them on
the mountains of Israel by the rivers. And He'll feed them in
a good pasture, the good pasture of His Word upon the high mountains
of Israel shall be their fold. He'll actually gather them, won't
He? He will gather them together and in a fat pasture they shall
feed upon the mountains of Israel. I will feed my flock, I will
cause them to lie down, says the Lord God. And then He describes
the ones that He gathers. I will seek that which was lost."
Anyone who's ever been saved will know what it is to have
been lost. I will bring again that which
was driven away. I will bind up that which was
broken. They're broken of all of their
self-righteousness, aren't they? All of what they thought they
had earned in their religion. They were broken by it, weren't
they? I will strengthen that which
was sick, but I will destroy the fat and the strong. Those who are fat in their own
righteousness and strong in their own doings, I will feed them
with judgment. Lost, driven away, I do love
the picture in Genesis. It's a remarkable picture in
Genesis 4, isn't it? Adam and all of us with Adam
had said to God effectively, get out of my life. I will take
Satan's advice. I will doubt the word of God. I will take Satan's advice and
I will take Satan's reward. And God doesn't leave Adam and
Eve in that state, nor does He leave any of His blood-born children
in that state. Why not? Because they were redeemed
before the foundation of the world. Before they fell, there
was a Redeemer. Before they were lost, the Lord
had planned a deliverance for them. They were secure in the
Lord Jesus Christ. But in bringing them to Himself,
what does He do? In Genesis 4 He brings them and
it's the first sacrifice in the Scriptures, the first death that's
mentioned in the Scriptures in Genesis 4. He brings them to
Himself. And the Lord God made coats of
skin. A sacrifice died that they might
be covered, but to be covered they had to have their fig leaves
removed. The fig leaves of their own works,
the fig leaves of their own doings, they had to be removed and there
they were, naked before God. And then he closed them. He closed
them with the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is, in Peter's words, an
urgency, isn't there, about the fact that salvation is now. This is the day of salvation. This is the time My friends,
when God is speaking to his people yet again, And there is, in Peter's
exhortation, there's a continual effort to make people understand. He says he continued with many
other words that he testified and exhorted, saying, save yourselves
from this untoward generation. Save yourselves from the wrath
to come. There is, there is in the declaration
of the Gospel, a declaration that there is salvation and salvation
with the Lord. And it's a call, as the Gospel
call goes out to all, it's a call to every one of you, every one
of you, Peter says, every one of you. No one is excluded from
this call. And Peter has given us those
commands which accompany the Gospel. The command to repent,
turn, be turned around by God, turn from absolutely everything,
be turned to Him, to believe, simply to trust, to rest, to
rely upon the Lord Jesus Christ and be baptised. publicly declare your union and
your communion with Him and His people. Our King, our Great Sovereign,
when He commands, with His command comes the power to obey. Thy people shall be willing on
the day of His power." The King of Kings, it says in our bulletin
from Henry Mahan does not invite his subjects to obey and believe
him, he commands them. And there is a baptism, there
is a baptism, it's a baptism which joins the person in public
confession to Christ and his people. It is the response of
the new man created in the image of its creator. The old man is
worthy of death, worthy of burial. The new man delights in the fact
that his old man of the flesh is buried with Christ in baptism,
buried in such a way that he's no longer seen. That's exactly
how God says, reckon yourselves dead, reckon yourselves one with
Christ. And the new man delights. Christ in you, the hope of glory. He delights to believe what the
scriptures speak of him. He delights in God's salvation. Have you been surrounded, as
David said, with songs and deliverance? Has your heart been lifted up
to heaven, rejoicing in God, overflowing in ways that sometimes
songs and not words can express? It is the portion of God's people,
they gladly received His Word that day. They were joyful that
day. They were extraordinarily joyful.
We mustn't think that this is a sad day. This is a day of rejoicing
and a day of proclamation, a day of salvation. And they delight
in it. And they delight in His fellowship.
And they delight in the fellowship of His brethren. And they love
the things that God loves and they hate the things that He
hates. And they delight in the fact that He has not left them.
comfortless and he comes to his own again and again. It is he who comes. The spirit
comes as a comforter, but it's the Lord Jesus comes. You look
over, just over the page in your scriptures in Acts chapter 3
verse 20. I'll go back to verse 9. Verse
19. Repent ye therefore. because
the Christ God has shown by the mouth of all his prophets that
Christ should suffer and he has so fulfilled it. Repent you therefore
and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times
of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. And
who shall he send? And he shall send Jesus Christ. which before was preached unto
you." It's remarkable, isn't it? They'll know Him. This is
eternal life, that you know the Father and you know Jesus Christ
whom He has sent. You know Him because He's been
sent. You know Him because He's been
sent in the preaching of the Gospel. You know Him because
He's given you life and faith. You know Him. You know Him because
that heart of stone has been removed and there's a heart of
flesh now that loves and responds and cares and knows that the
glory of God, the declaration, the proclamation of who He is
and what He's done and the peace of your soul are united together
and you come to realise that the Holy Spirit has worked all
these works in you. So Peter says, and with many
other words, Acts 2.40, with many other words. So the Gospel
comes in words, not signs and wonders. All the signs and wonders
performed in the Scriptures are but the verification of the fact
that these men were sent of God. That's what Nicodemus said. He
said that no one, no one who is not sent of God could do the
signs that you have done. With many other words, it's not
saying that there were different words, it's just saying that
Peter continued, there were further words, there were more words.
We have, by the Blessed Holy Spirit's guidance, we have a
summary of it, but the essence of it is all there. Everything
that we need for life and godliness, for faith and eternal life, and
simple trust in the Lord Jesus Christ is there in their serving. The Gospel comes in words because
it reaches the heart. These people were pricked to
the heart by simple words about the Lord Jesus Christ. The Spirit,
the Word in the hands of God the Holy Spirit reflects the
character of the Lord Jesus in so many ways. But in Hebrews
4 it reflects His activity, isn't it? For the Word of God, the
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. The Word of God is
quick. The Word of God is alive. He
is alive right now and speaking to His people. The Word of God
is powerful. He reigns and rules over all
things. The Word of God is sharper than
any two-edged sword. The Word of God pierces even
to dividing us under soul and spirit and of the joints and
marrow. And the Word of God is a discerner
of the thoughts and intents of the heart." That's why I keep pleading with
people, don't play games with God. Don't play games with God
and His Gospel. He sees the thoughts of your
heart. He sees what lies behind them. He sees the intent of your
heart, which is why these people, cut to the heart by the Holy
Spirit, owned the fact openly before all of Jerusalem, before
the apostles, before all of their brothers and sisters, before
all of that religious world, that their hands had committed
these wicked works. These people don't say, well
let's have a debate about this, let's have a dialogue session.
They own the fact. They were cut to the heart. They needed something much deeper
than a moral transformation. They needed something much, much
deeper than a reformation of their lives. They needed God
to deal with them. There's a sign on the church
up the road that talks about people being remastered. See, it doesn't go deep enough,
brothers and sisters. I've given up all sorts of illicit
and legal things in my life, and it changes nothing. Whether
you smoke or you don't, it doesn't change anything. We need something
that starts in our hearts, and if it starts in our hearts by
God the Holy Spirit and Christ lives in you, then it will come
out. Religion is continually always
wanting to talk about external things, getting people to look
like they're believers, getting people to act morally. And there's
nothing wrong with moral behaviour, I'm not for one millisecond.
applauding anything that's immoral in any way, shape or form. God's
people should be most passionate about the way they live their
lives with honesty, integrity and care and love. But you can
have all of the morality that these people showed and not have
the Lord Jesus Christ. You can be pure in the eyes of
this world and what is highly esteemed in the eyes of men,
God says is abomination to him. If it doesn't honour the Lord
Jesus Christ, if it doesn't speak the truth and speak glorious
things of Him, it's abomination to God. It's just fancy idolatry. It is just fancy idolatry. I
get a little bit tired of the fact that we spend so much time
these days talking about Muslims and what good people they are
and how there are all the different varieties of Islam and how we
should be tolerant of them. and personally we should be. But when it comes to what they
say about the Lord Jesus Christ, it is abominable to God and He
despises it. They deny that the Lord Jesus
Christ died on the cross. That is the beginning and the
end of any debate about what Islam is and where it is going. I don't care how moral they are. In fact, when our children had
to travel on Indian trains, and for some reason we were separated
from them, we always used to say to them, go and find a Muslim
family. There were always lots of them
together on the train. We always felt that our children
were most safe and secure with Muslim families. I had to put
Kate on a train way down to the south of India. I think she had
a 10 or 12-hour journey to get to me, and the longer the journey
went on, the more and more concerned about her was. But the advice
we gave her before she got on that train was to get, if you
can find a Muslim family. They were, in India, they were
moral, delightful people. But what their religion says
about the Lord Jesus Christ is damning to their souls and damning
to the souls of anyone who believes it. If anyone has an ounce of
care and an ounce of love for Muslims that they meet, we must
declare to them simply and plainly the truth of it, as we must declare
to the rest of this religious world in this world. We simply
seek and plead opportunity that we might be able to proclaim
the Gospel. It is the power of God unto salvation. Muslims are lost and when they
finish their life on this world, if they are holding on to Mohammed,
they will see that Mohammed has been a tool in the hands of Satan
to guide them. And there will not be 72 virgins
at the end of their martyrdom. There will be eternal hell forever. I don't know why. I don't know
why we keep debating it. Brothers and sisters, I hope
you pray for them. I hope you seek opportunity if
you can meet with them to talk to them. Our job is to testify. If the Lord gives us opportunity,
testify. So Peter, with many other words,
he testified. It's a great description of preaching,
isn't it? It's just testifying. This is what God says. This is
who God is. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ
has done. That word testify means to make
a solemn attestation. It's to call to witness. And
all they had was the Old Testament. The Old Testament is perfectly
adequate for preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Every
last little bit of it is perfectly adequate for preaching Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. It's all that it speaks about.
To bear witness and exhort In fact, it means that Peter didn't
stop and the 120 and the church didn't stop them. They kept on
exhorting. You see, it means, it's an extraordinary
word, this exhorting. It means to keep bringing something
forward, but it means to be moved with pity and often it means
to comfort. So those who are wounded, those
who are wounded by the testimony of God find comfort in the same
testimony of God, don't they? Comfort, this is my comfort in
my affliction, the same word, for thy word has quickened me. The prophet's task, the preacher's
task is to testify, to declare what man is, to declare who God
is, to declare God's salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
then to comfort God's people. The only people that need comfort
are those who are wounded. For the word exhort means to
encourage, it means to strengthen. in the temple, one of the most
delightful characters in the New Testament era, isn't he?
And he was just and devout and he was waiting for the consolation
of Israel. It's the same word, he was waiting
for the comfort of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him. He kept on imploring, exhorting,
the issue is serious, eternity lies before people. Peter was
speaking to people who are in the most extraordinary situation,
and as we've seen these last few weeks, every single human
being we ever speak to is in exactly the same situation. We have sinned and fallen short
of the glory of God. We have dealt with the Lord Jesus
in ways which are contemptible. And yet, and yet in the Gospel
there is, there is the glorious good news that God has put away
all of the sins of all of his people and done it with justice
by laying them on his son. and He can't lay them on His
Son and lay them on us. That's why David says, blessed
is the man. Blessed is the man whose sins
are forgiven. Blessed is the man. They're covered
by God. They're covered by the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, save yourselves, be
saved. There is for these people who
are so lost, there is a way of escape. There is a way to have
a clean conscience before God. I love how Peter went on to describe
it regarding the Gentiles in Acts 15. He said, they purified
their hearts by faith. not by anything they had done,
purified their hearts by faith. Malachi finished the Old Testament,
didn't he, speaking that the Son of Righteousness is coming.
He's coming as a bridegroom out of his chamber. He's coming into
this welcome day. And what does he say in Song
of Solomon to his beloved? Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away. come away with me." The Gospel
is salvation, isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ, that was
his name, isn't it? He shall save his people from
their sins. And we have a promise in the
Gospel, isn't it? He that with his heart believes
and with his mouth makes confession of him. Which to confess is a
simple Greek word that means to say the same. You say the
same as God about God. You say the same as God about
the Lord Jesus Christ. You say the same as God about
the Blessed Holy Spirit. You say the same as God about
what God did to His Son on the cross. You say the same as God
about what you are before Him. And you say the same as God about
God, what God makes His people to be in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what to confess is. It's
not standing up before people and trying to remember the sins
that you committed over the last 20 or 30 years or 2 or 3 years
or 5 minutes. It's just confessing Him. He that with his heart believes
and with his mouth makes confession of Him shall be saved. And this
is the gospel commission, isn't it? This is what Peter's testifying.
Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature
and he that believes and is baptised shall be saved. And it comes with power, isn't
it? He says, all power is given to me on heaven and earth. There's
no lacking of power. We must get over this notion
that the Church of Jesus Christ is languishing in this world.
Our God sits on the throne of this universe. He rules all things. He rules all people. He rules
all events. The Church of Jesus Christ, the
real Church of Jesus Christ is always doing just fine. Just fine. You go and you teach
all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son
and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you. And this is the promise, isn't
it? This is the promise that we bear witness to in our fellowship
and we bear witness to on that day of Pentecost. And I trust
that you bear witness to in your hearts. And he says, Lo, I am
with you always. even unto the end of the world. Salvation, save yourselves. Save yourselves from this unbelief. It's the great sin, isn't it,
is unbelief. The sin that most plagues the
believer in this world is the sin of unbelief. How much anguish,
how much despair, how much worry, how many sleepless hours do we
have when we don't believe? Unbelief. Lord I believe, please
help my unbelief. We talk about God being sovereign
and in a heartbeat we talk as if there are circumstances about
which he hasn't got absolute sovereign control and we do it
again and again and again, we do it repeatedly. That's why
Peter says to him, to him coming, and he says to come, He says,
to whom coming? You are coming all the time.
We never get over the fact that this is the state that we're
in. We're always needing to be saved from ourselves, to be saved
from our flesh, to be saved, to look to Him again, to take
our eyes off the things of this world, to look to Him, just to
believe what He says about Himself. that He is a just God and a Saviour,
that He is gracious. Save yourselves for this generation,
for that generation, In Peter's day they are called a crooked
generation. It's exactly the right word to
describe generations throughout time ever since we left the garden. Isn't that the history of man?
Wandering here and wandering there, wandering up hill and
down dale, always got a new plan. Always, no matter what circumstances
come before us, there's always this sense that somehow we're
going to fix it. That Stephen Hawking guy, who's
apparently really brilliant for discovering all sorts of things
that God had made a long, long time ago, said that we need to
find a second planet or we can't save ourselves. God says, this
planet will continue. Seed, time and harvest will continue
till the end. We don't need a second planet.
This one is perfectly adequate. Perfectly adequate. What a crooked
world that there is. What a crooked world in terms
of the most fundamentally important things that we ever deal with.
What a crooked world. What crooked minds we have about
salvation. Nalanda, the wise man, said that
there is a way that seemeth right to a man, but the end thereof
are the ways of death. Men are always doing what seems
right in their own eyes, and every single one of them is wrong. Every single one of them. Every
direction from the Lord is crooked, whether it's Jewish or pagan,
righteous or devout, all the isms of the world are included
in this. You've got to remember that these
are the people that in terms of man-made religion, and it's
interesting when you read John's Gospel, he continually says it
was the Jews' feast of this and the Jews' Passover. Those people
had the very oracles of God. They knew God's history. They
knew God's requirements for morality. They knew God's requirements
for caring for others. They knew all of God's requirements.
They had the best situation to be morally, religiously righteous
that any group on earth had ever had. And I wasn't there and there's
no testimony in the scriptures to it, but you can bet your bottom
dollar that after they had crucified the Lord Jesus Christ and they
had preached their sermon, that Jewish religion was as moral
and upright and devout as you could ever wish them to be. They
would have done absolutely everything to prove to everyone that they
are on the right track. That they are the ones who are
on the inside track with God. And they would have quoted scripture
and read scripture. They would have continually reminded
themselves and others about how to live before God and live before
the law. They would have been zealous.
They were wicked. They were crooked is what it
is. God says it's crooked. And those that gladly received
the Word acknowledged it in a heartbeat. They didn't need to go to Bible
college. They didn't need to have preacher's conferences.
They didn't need anything else other than the simple testimony
of God's word about them. Crooked. I love what the psalmist
says. Gather not my soul with sinners,
nor my life with bloody men. Paul goes on to describe the
Jews and he was one of them and I have no reason to doubt that
he wasn't there that day. Every devout Jew that had opportunity
to be there was there and he was impeccably devout. 2 Thessalonians
2 verse 15 says, who both killed the Lord Jesus Christ and their
own prophets and have persecuted us, and they please not God and
are contrary to all men. If that's the best that religion
can do, what about the rest of it? What about the rest of it? Salvation, is the beginning of
a new creation, isn't it? It is something that's created
that wasn't ever there before. When the Jewish nation Israel
was created, what did God start with? He started with an Iraqi
idolater called Abraham. That's what he started with.
He started with nothing in Abraham at all. He created something
out of nothing. and he created nation Israel
and he created spiritual Israel in exactly the same way. He gathers
his people out. Save yourselves from this crooked
generation, this crooked, this crooked religious world. You
see, salvation is a spiritual separation. Salvation is a deliverance,
isn't it? We've just not long ago looked
at the book of Ruth and it's just remarkable, isn't it? Ruth
was told by Naomi, you go back there to Moab, your sister's
gone back there, your family's gone back there, all your prospects
are back there, you go back to Moab. And Ruth made that amazing
declaration, isn't it? I'm going where you're going.
Your God will be my God. God gathers His people by separating
them out from this world as He separated Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees as he separated
his people out of Egypt. He continually separates his
people. He separated these people such
as should be saved. He separated them out of the
religion of the day. And I don't doubt for one second,
if you took the Jews of that day and you scattered them across
the churches of this land and throughout this world, they would
have positions of prominence and authority in no time at all. They had all sorts of amazing
doctrine. They were five-point covenants,
these people. If you talked to them about the
sovereignty of God, they would have given you a scripture or
verse and we would have been embarrassed about how much they
knew about it. You talk to them about particular redemption,
they would have been so adamant that there is no way in the world
that Messiah is sent to anyone but the Jews to save the Jewish
people from their sins. Again and again and again they
were remarkably orthodox and God saved His people out of them. And He must do it. If He is going
to save His people, He always saves them out of some religion
that they are involved in. He has, as the strong man, he
comes and he plunders Satan's house. He plunders his house. He ties up the strong man and
he plunders his house of his goods. He is, it is. In repentance and belief and
in baptism there is always a separation. A separation out of, a separation
unto. It's a divine separation, separated
from before the foundation of the world, separated in time. It's a separation that necessitates
a fellowship. You leave to cleave. I love how Paul spoke of the
Thessalonians. He says that you turned to God. So it's the separation, it's
the turning to God from idols. It's not turning away from the
idols, you turn to God. Salvation is always turning to
Him. It's a separation. It is an association. It is a clinging to. And in our bulletin, I'll quote
these words from Maurice Montgomery. Concerning the truth, that is,
the salvation of guilty, hell-deserving sinners by Jesus Christ, there
is not the slightest doubt in my mind and heart but that what
I believe, confess and preach, what we believe is the truth
of scripture. We have gotten hold of that truth
and thus far by the grace of God have not been able to compromise
or turn from it." And then he says these words, that is because
the truth has gotten hold of our souls. It's gotten hold of
our souls. It's gone into the very hearts
of people. They have received the love of
the truth. It's not just a mere assent to
a doctrine. It's not just a mere assent,
it's the love of the truth. It's a gladly receiving the word
of truth. That is because the truth has
gotten the whole of our souls. Maurice goes on to say, Christ
crucified is no mere doctrine to us. He is our life. It's not just a matter of truth,
it's a matter of life and truth. Keep us, Lord. Keep us pleading
to Thyself and still believing. It's our great God gathering
His people to Himself, gathering them out. And therefore we must
expect, brothers and sisters, as the early church encountered,
that the people we're gathered out from are not going to esteem
us very highly, nor are they going to understand why. Why we cling to the things that
we cling to so dearly. Which is why again and again
in the scriptures we are told to come out So often you hear
people, I've had so many discussions with people that say, well I'm
staying in there because if I wasn't in there, there wouldn't be another
one in there proclaiming the doctrines of grace, there wouldn't
be another Calvinist in the church handing out this literature.
And I keep saying to them again and again and again, you will
never find a single word in holy scripture that allows you to
say that with any just effect. God's word to his people over
and over again throughout the scriptures is come out, come
out from among them, save yourselves, come out from among them. There
is one place of salvation. When Noah's flood came, if you
weren't in the ark you were lost. If you weren't in the ark, you
were lost. You come out from among them. Come out of her,
my people, that you not be partakers of her sin, that you not receive
of her plagues, says Revelation 18. Come out from among them
and be ye separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean
thing. It is unclean in God's eyes. And be not partakers with them.
and neither be partakers of other men's sin. Keep yourselves pure."
If you want to read how strongly John the Apostle, who they call
the Apostle of Love, spoke of in 2 John, he says, you're not
to have teachers of false gospel into your house as welcomed guests. For he that biddeth him not to
wish them all the best, for he that biddeth him God's feed is
the partaker of his evil deeds. Come out from among them." These
people were brought down, but they were not left comfortless. They had a word from God. save
yourselves. They had a command from God,
repent and believe and be baptised and they had power from God to
do that and they were joined. They received the word, they
embraced it. This is power that's way beyond
the power of human beings, brothers and sisters. This is God's power. And they that gladly received
his word were baptized, and the same day were added unto them
three thousand souls." Added by God. Added by the proclamation
of the Gospel by the Church of God. Added to the Church of God. added by God and he's still doing
exactly the same today. Nothing has changed, brothers
and sisters. The churches of God scattered
throughout this world, whether they are little or large, are all the perfect size with
all the perfect gifts and all the perfect circumstances to
our God. There you say it, look to Him.
Look to Him. Just keep looking. Look. God's children, look where God
the Father looks. This is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased. Hear Him. The Father looks to
Him, doesn't He? Where do you look for the Father's
love? You look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Where do you look, where
does the Father look for the vindication and exaltation of
all of His character? He looks to His Son for His justice,
His truth, for His faithfulness. Look to Him. Look away and look
to Him. Let's pray.