Don't know if I've ever realized
fully what a precious passage of scripture that is in 2nd Peter
Chapter 3 that and The Apostle makes a clear
delineation there between the world and the Lord's people the
world scoffs The world says everything is going on just like it did
from the beginning. There's no the Lord. There's
no second coming of the Lord and they scoff and But then the
apostle says this, don't you believers, you who know the Lord,
don't be ignorant of this. The Lord is long-suffering. His
day will come, but he's long-suffering to usward. You see the difference? He's talking about the world
and it's scoffing, but to us, the Lord's long-suffering. Your
children may be, one of your children may be the last one.
on this earth that the Lord saves. Do you want the Lord to come
back today? Well, I don't know. If I have little children that
don't know him, maybe not. You see what that's saying? He's
long suffering to us. We're not willing that any should
perish. And so think about that. Yes,
we say, surely Lord come quickly, but save our loved ones. We're
kind of selfish like that, aren't we? But that's a good selfish.
Save those that we love before judgment, before the judgment. But the Lord is gracious to do
that and he's not slack concerning his promise. He's just long suffering
to his sheep. They're precious. verse of scripture that is. 1
Thessalonians 5 this morning, let's consider a few verses in
1 Thessalonians 5. Verse 21 we'll begin with, and
22 together. Approve all things. Hold fast that which is good
Abstain from all appearance of evil We talked about verse 21 a little
bit already before Prove all things examine and scrutinize
everything That's not something that that necessarily requires
you to sit down and every time something happens or every time
somebody says something, to sit down and write it out and sit
there with a red pen or something. That just means in your mind
and heart, with that new heart that the Lord gave us, examine
things. Be careful, scrutinize things.
Don't just go along with whatever the last part, don't be carried
about with every wind of doctrine. examine it, consider it, look
at it, and hold fast that which is good. There is clearly implied
there a determination of that which is good. And we know, we
saw how that hold fast means to stay the course. The tendency
is, the natural development of things is that we stray, that
the ship will go off course because of its environment and because
of the very nature of a ship. It will go off course. But lay
hold of that which is good. Fix your heart. Like Paul said,
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of
God. I'm running after that which is good to lay hold of it. Where
is that? It's in Christ. The prize of
the high calling of God is Christ. So consider this now, if we're
gonna hold fast that which is good, to that end we examine everything,
but by what standard do we examine everything? If the point is to
determine what's good and hang on to that, Let me tell you something,
young people, there's not that much good in this world. There's
not a whole lot you can hang on to in this world. It'd be
a pretty short list, wouldn't it? It's Christ and the things
of Christ. Everything else is transitory.
Everything else is anti-Christ. Everything else is a distraction.
The rich young ruler could not commit to the Lord Jesus Christ
because he had a lot of stuff in this world. Sounds like an idiot, doesn't
he? Until you consider what's important to me. What do I wake
up every day in pursuit of? What is my life about? Then you might just see an idiot
in the mirror, like me. plead for mercy But if we're to hold fast that
which is good then by what standard are we to examine everything
when you examine something There are specific considerations in
mind If you're on a job if you're in manufacturing say for example,
there are quality checks Someone will examine your work They will
look to see if it's up to the standard. What standard? Well,
what they're looking for, it may be if you're a welder, they're
looking for the tightness of that weld or the precision, the
uniformity of that weld and things like that. If you're a painter,
don't miss a spot because it's going to be looked at. It's going
to be examined. It's going to be scrutinized.
And there's a standard of quality in their mind that the work must
measure up to. If you're going to obey our text,
to hold fast that which is good, you have to know what good is. So you examine everything by
the standard of God's word, the gospel. The gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ. There's none good but one, and
that's God. And he was talking about himself
when he said that, wasn't he? the Lord Jesus Christ. We know
what good means because God has revealed it to us. We wouldn't
know otherwise. You can't judge that based on
your own fleshly determination. You're gonna have to find out
from God what's good and what's not good. The things that seem,
our thoughts are not his thoughts. Our ways are not his ways. We're
gonna have to learn from God what's good and what's not. The
Lord Jesus Christ is the good shepherd. There is no other good
in this world or in heaven. He is the one that's good, the
good Samaritan, the good shepherd, the good master. Christ has taught us what love
is. His love is good. what passes
for love in this world may very well be sin. You see how tied
we are, how dependent we are? To hear from God on that. A lot of times when somebody
says, I love you, they're not talking about something
good. But the Lord taught us what love
is, and yet we spend so much time hating. I noticed that this
week. A lot of people spend their time
just hating. Okay, there are things that should
be hated in this world, don't you think? There are some things
that should be hated, but I don't have to hate on them all the
time. You know what I mean? They don't even have to enter
my mind. Nothing wrong with hating as long as the right things are
hated, but I don't need to spend my time hating them. I hate them
when I watch the news. When I'm out in my garden, I
don't. I still hate them, but I don't
know. I'm not even thinking about it.
You see what I'm saying? So that's bad. I forget they exist when I'm,
with my family and not watching the news or hearing somebody
that that's all they do is hate something. A lot of people just
live their lives hating stuff. What kind of life is that? Hold
fast that which is good. You see what we're talking about? Be aware of the evil, but don't
dwell on that. Hold fast that which is good. The Lord Jesus Christ, his doctrine,
the things that he's taught us. Love is good, his love, godly
love, faith. The fruit of the spirit is good
fruit. We need more of that and less flesh. Less selfishness
and hate. and pursuing that which is meaningless. Solomon lived it up, didn't he? He had money and lands, wealth
untold. He had riches he didn't even
know he had. And everybody serving him, a thousand wives, I think, I
still haven't figured out how that's a blessing, but hey, he
had everything. He had everything. And what did
he say? It's all vanity. It's all vanity
and vexation of spirit. You know what he said? The culmination
of everything is what he learned, what the bottom line is about
this life. Hear God and do what he says. What does God say? This is my
beloved son, hear him. What's our advice to everybody
about everything, every time? Hear him. That's our advice because it's
God's advice, not because we made that up. Hear him, hear
him. Not your friends, not this world,
Hear him. Mostly this exhortation to cleave
to that which is good refers back to the preaching in verse
20. You see that despise not the preaching. Despise not the
message of God. examine the preaching, scrutinize
the preaching. You see how verse 21 ties into
that? Stay the course on that which
is good. And again, that word good is
beautiful. Beautiful are the feet of them
that bring the gospel, because that gospel is beautiful. And
so the means that God uses to get that gospel to you is beautiful. because the gospel is beautiful.
The ground on which Moses stood was holy ground because God is
holy. Because it was different dirt
than everywhere else. And the feet are beautiful because
the gospel is beautiful. Cleave to that, don't despise
the preaching of the gospel. That which is beautiful, that's
Christ and his salvation. That's salvation accomplished
for a sinner, finished by Christ, without consideration of our
works, except to put them away. When a wretch like me can stand
in Christ without blemish before God, that's beautiful. We ought
to be interested in that. We ought to lay hold of that.
How does that work? The precious blood of Christ
shed on Calvary sanctified every sinner for whom he shed it. That's
beautiful. The Lord Jesus Christ, the great
shepherd, who redeemed every soul given to him by the Father,
and none is lost. He's beautiful. There are other Christs. There
are false Christs. There are many false Christs, Paul said,
or John, I believe. Many of them. There's a bunch
of them. But those that speak for God
tell of the Christ of the scripture, the sovereign one, the successful
one, the champion of sinners. And he's altogether lovely. He's
the fairest of 10,000. He's the rose of Sharon. Part of that the other side of
that The beautiful gospel Is to abstain from all appearance
of evil see the last part of that verse saying Anything that
is prophesied? That is not clear and plain in
the Word of God is to be avoided and Abstained from means to hold
oneself off from and avoid it Paul wrote in Galatians 1 8 if
we are an angel from heaven Preach any other gospel than that which
we have preached Let him be accursed And what an honest What an honest
thing to say. I mean, I don't know. Tomorrow,
I may not be preaching the gospel. If I'm not, let me be accursed.
But he's saying, I have preached it to you. I don't know about
me tomorrow, unless the Lord preserves me and keeps me and
holds me up, I'll go off the deep end. But the gospel that
I have preached to you, believe that. Believe Him, that Christ. And if I stop preaching Him,
stop hearing me. Love that That which we have
preached unto you The word appearance abstain from the appearance of
evil It's an interesting and important word in this text. There is that which does not
appear evil. It just is evil. I Think about that for a second.
It's just flat-out evil. That's not what he's talking
about He's talking about that which It has the smell of evil. It just doesn't sound right.
That which is just flat out evil is not what he's talking about.
To say that God loves everybody, that's not a hint of evil. That's just evil. That's just
evil. It's not according to scripture.
It may sound sentimental and fair and all that to your flesh,
but it's evil to say that. This is not what God said. It's simply anti-Christ. It's
anti-Scripture. It's man worship. Oh, God loves
all of man. Man don't love all of man, much
less God. Are you kidding me? That's man
worship. That's saying we're so wonderful,
you know. No, no, no. God loves his son. And if He
puts you in His Son, then He loves you in His Son. He don't love you, you, old you. He's gonna destroy old you. He
loves you in His Son. He loves the new you, which is
always been. In His heart and purpose and
decree, it's always, He's always loved you because
He's always seen you in Christ. But you see what I'm saying,
that's just flat-out evil to say that the Lord Jesus Christ
died to save everybody When everybody knows he didn't save everybody
That's not the appearance of evil. That's just flat-out openly
blasphemous evil That's not hiding it evil that's
not subtle evil that's blatant evil We're instructed here to avoid
that which even appears to be evil There are subtleties That we
may not be able to put our finger on have you ever heard something
like that? And you're like that don't add up According to the
scripture as the Lord's revealed himself to me that don't add
up. I can't quite put my finger on it. I Don't want anything
to do with it That's what he's talking about here. There's subtleties
we may not be able to put our finger on, but here's the thing.
The simplicity of the whole matter is this, that in Christ, in other
words, the scriptures, they don't allow for those subtleties. Here's what I'm saying, that
our text is saying, you may not be able to put your finger on
what is wrong with something, but God can, so trust him about
it. Look to the scriptures. If it's
not clearly, and God's not ambiguous. People are like, I just feel
like God's trying to tell me, forget it. No. No, that doesn't
happen. God's not ever gonna try to tell
you something. Not gonna happen. You mark it
down. You read this book and look at
the situations where God spoke to somebody. And show me one
place where they're like, I wonder if God's trying to tell me something.
It's just not there. But the gospel now, when we're
judging what's good now, so that we can lay hold of that,
That's an urgent thing. To lay hold of it. To run after
it. Scripture talks about running
after love. Running after the Lord Jesus
Christ. Pressing toward the mark. Endeavor,
strive. Take heaven by force, it says
in one place. I can't let you go unless you
bless me. That's what this is talking about.
Cling fast to that which is good because it'll slip away. Now,
that's the nature of things. And you'll end up with both hands
full of vanity and foolishness and godlessness. And it may very
well include success and all the, you know, things that this
world calls good. Empty Riches do make themselves
wings and fly away The gospel is the standard if
it's not according to the clear pure gospel of the sovereign
God the successful Christ the sanctifying spirit the standard
of the scriptures and The word teaches us what the standard
is. Isaiah 820, to the law and to the testimony. That's the
scriptures. If they speak not, if any man
speak not according to this word, it's because there's no light
in them. It's because they don't know God. They don't know good. They don't know truth. They don't
know Christ. Paul's talking about doctrine
now. He's talking about preaching. When he says in 2 Corinthians
11 3, I fear this by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through
his subtlety, so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity
that is in Christ. And it is such a subtle thing.
If you preach the sovereignty of God without preaching the
sovereign Christ, you've been beguiled. The subtlety has poisoned
you. If you believe the doctrines
of grace without believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, the King
of grace, then the subtlety of the serpent has snared you like
he did the Pharisees who the Lord said, you search the scriptures
for in them you think you have life, but they are they which
testify of me and you won't come to me that you might have life.
Even the scriptures can be an idol if you don't know and love
and bow and believe on the son of God, a person. And then of course also all the
lovey-dovey sentimental lies of free will religion or corruption
and perversion of the simple gospel of Christ. Avoid. Stand off from. And you know there's practical application
to that. I've said to young people before,
if your friends invite you to their so-called churches, I wouldn't
dare go. Why would you do that? We need
to realize what that is. There may be some people there
that are just deceived and we should pray. I have very dear
friends, a few, a couple, men are deceived, and I pray for
them. I want the best for them. I want
the Lord to reveal himself to them, but I don't want to partake
in that. I'm not going there. I don't want any part of it,
and I don't want you. We're not even to bid them Godspeed
at our front door, much less go to their synagogue of Satan. That's not unclear in the scriptures.
It's just unpopular. We need to be teaching y'all
as parents. We need to be teaching you that
most of what's unpopular is the right thing. Send them to a Christian school,
really? Do you really think Christ has
anything to do with that place? I'm against it. In case anybody
was wondering, I'm against it. Your business is your business.
But we're not to have anything, you're to stand off from it.
Avoid it I've said this before I just
as soon send my children to a to a leper colony as I would a Christian
school Or a so-called church where the
false gospel of man's free will is preached Now The word evil there, it bears
looking at. I know that seems simple, it
means bad. And that's true, that's part
of the definition, bad. Wicked, it means wicked in an
ethical sense. But the first definition of the
word evil there is full of labors and hardships, pressed and harassed
by labors. That's what the law does. There's
two religions, there's law and there's grace. There's works
and there's mercy. And this is talking about the
law full of labors and hardships. That's the law, the inflexible
law of God has sinners making bricks without straw. God requires bricks and you don't
have anything to make them out of. That's the law. It requires
that which you can't produce. The law, and there's no mercy in the law.
When you don't measure up, when you don't produce, more is laid
on you. There's no relief from it. Not
only does the law say thou shalt and we don't, and thou shalt
not and we do, But the law as a schoolmaster says, come to
Christ and you can't. Make bricks, keep up, measure
up, but you got nothing to work with. Please God, love God with
all your heart. I don't have a heart like that.
How to perform that which is good, Paul said. I find not. He said that as a believer. That which is evil is that which
requires man to do something in order to be saved. It harasses
you with labors. A lot of preachers, so-called
preachers doing that. Harassing you with heavy labors. I don't care if it's making a
decision, walking an aisle, church attendance, reading your Bible
in a year, it doesn't matter what it is. They'll call it whatever
they want to. You can walk an aisle as many
times as you want to, but Christ said, you can't come to me. You can't come to me, and if
you do, it won't be like that. You can decide all you want to
decide, but God says with men it's impossible. You may exercise your so-called
free will, but God said salvation is not of him that willeth. And to say otherwise is evil,
Paul says. Abstain from it, stay away from
it, stand off from it, avoid it. You don't have to run around
calling everybody a heretic. You don't have to go to school
and start telling all your friends you're going to hell because
you don't. Just be who you are. Be who you are. Make it clear
what's important to you and what's not. And you don't even have
to consciously do that. Just be that. but don't you ever compromise
that. The Lord said, if you deny me
before me and I'll deny you before my father. You know why he said
that? Because his people don't do that.
One of his sheep is not going to do it. He's not going to deny
his sheep before his father. So that tells me something about
what he does for the sheep. He'll give us the grace. to be the thing this world hates,
to take up our cross and follow Him. Abstain from anything that even
smells like that. What's good is salvation is of
the Lord. That's good. The false gospel
of man-centered freewill religion is full of labors and hardships. Christ is coming to me. All you
that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Lay hold of that which is good. The opposite of that. Which is
full of labors and hardships and harasses you with labors.
The opposite of that is grace. Grace. When you despair of trying
to make bricks without any straw, and you cry out to God, that's
when grace has come your way. When you see that all of even
that which you call righteousness is filthy rags in the sight of
God, what you need now is grace. When you know But if God put
you in hell, he'd be doing the right thing. You need grace now. When doing it your way brings
you nothing but misery and fear and guilt, when you finally make
yourself sick, you keep this in your heart.
You may not feel that way about yourself now, Hide this in your
heart for the time when you do, because it may come if the Lord
has mercy on you. You're going to say like Job,
I abhor myself. I really do. I make myself sick. It doesn't mean you have low
self-esteem. It's a different thing. Not the
same thing. But when you do make yourself
sick, only grace can help you then. And God's grace is in his
son. You know, Paul didn't cry out
in Romans chapter seven. He didn't cry toward the end
of that chapter, who's gonna save me from hell? He cried out, who's gonna save
me from the body of this death? Who's gonna save me from me? That's grace. For you to come
to that place is grace. Most people will never come to
that place. Who's gonna save me from me? That's when grace
is a charming sound. When you come there, when evil
is you, when your labor and hardships, all of your labors and efforts
in pleasing God has been your hope, All your life. Naaman's servants told him that
if the prophet had told you to do something difficult, you would
have done it. That's what most people are doing
in religion. They're doing what can't be done. Because they hate grace even
more than God's law. But if he had done, if Naaman
had done something difficult, he would have died a leper. What
he had to do was abandon his own thoughts. Remember how he
said, I thought, I thought it was gonna be like this. When
you get rid of that and just obey God, just do what God said.
Believe God, believe him. Quit trying to do that which
is impossible. Let me give you a newsflash which
may not be a newsflash to everybody here. I reckon it's not. You
can't please God. You can't do it. But Christ did. You cannot obtain righteousness Paul said in Romans chapter 11
that the Jews sought after righteousness and they couldn't obtain it.
God's chosen people with every outward advantage. They couldn't
obtain righteousness, why not? Because they sought it by the
keeping of the law and not by grace. You can't get there. You can't
obtain righteousness. Christ did because he is righteousness. You can't live in a way that
pleases God. We should try, we should want
to, we will want to, we do want to. It's not going to. I'd much rather honor Him than
not honor Him, wouldn't you? But it's full of sin. It's full
of sin. We need Christ as much right
now as we did the day we met Him. We can't live in a way that pleases God, but
Christ did. You can't pay for your sins.
I know a lot of people trying to do that. I've heard people
say it. Well, my good outweighs my bad. If my good just outweighs
my bad. You can't pay for your sin. That's
not gonna cut it. One sin. What we call white lies,
if all you ever did was tell one white lie. I think all lies
might be black, you reckon? But tell one white lie. That's hell, that's hell forever.
You've sinned against the infinitely holy God. You cannot pay for your sins,
but Christ did that for his sheep. and for religion to preach to
you to live right and do this and don't do that and rededicate
your life and make a decision and exercise your free will is
to harass you with labors, burden that you can't bear. Also, they
put a burden on us that neither our fathers nor us were able
to bear. Nobody can. That's why the Lord Jesus says
come unto me, you that labor. When you. Doing you. Following you. Worshipping you. Brings you to that place where
you're beaten down and you can't even hardly lift your head up.
Crisis come to me. I'll give you rest. I'll give
you rest. And these labors that we're engaged in can never get you
closer to God, but only move you farther away. Hold fast to Christ and abstain
from anything that smells like you. May God make it so of every one
of us. Let's pray.