Now in these three verses we
have two kinds of people. That's the title of this message,
Two Kinds of People, because I want us to think of this generally
in those terms of who is described here. You have a description
of the people who will never see God, who are lost and always will be,
who in the final Day of Judgment Will be cast into hell To suffer
for their sins forever, and then you have a description of those
who will be with God forever and forever blessed Verse 8 describes
those who are forever lost Banished from the presence of God and
punished tortured eternally for their sin they despised Christ
in spite of every and Every word, every call from God
to come to his son, every gospel, even the very creation renders
them according to God without excuse for bowing to him. And
so over and over all their lives, they rejected, despised God Almighty,
and they're gonna suffer forever for it. And they're described
this way, first of all, as the fearful. Now, of course, every
son of Adam, by nature, the first thing we notice about Adam and
Eve in the garden is that they were afraid of God. After they
sinned, they were afraid of God. They hid, they covered themselves
and tried to hide from God, who they'd had perfect communion
with before. But there's a specific aspect, I believe that's the
basis for all types of fear. is our fear of God in an unhealthy
way, in a sinful way. But there's a specific aspect
of this fearfulness that we're all subject to by nature that's
intended here, I believe. The word here is cowardice or
timidity. Now these are those who did not,
could not overcome. In verse seven, the ones who know
the Lord are described as having overcome. These did not and were
not able to overcome because they just simply didn't have
the guts. That's what we see a lot in the word of God. They
had no depth in them according to the parable of the sower in
Mark 4.16. Listen to this, these are they
likewise which are sown on stony ground. When they have heard
the word, immediately receive it with gladness and have no
root in themselves and so endure but for a time. Afterward, when
affliction and persecution ariseth, for the word's sake, immediately
they are offended. It's affliction and persecution that reveals their godlessness,
particularly. And this is a cowardice that
the rich young ruler is an example of. He's one of these fearful
ones in this sense of fearful. He was all excited about the
Lord when he thought the Lord was his ticket to eternal life.
Remember how he approached the Lord, what must I do that I might
inherit Just in the very premise here, he's faulty because you
don't do anything to inherit. You inherit because somebody
loves you and wants you to have it. What must I do to inherit
eternal life? So he was all excited, he approached
the Savior with this excitement described in the parable of the
sower. He sprung up quickly. Lord, and the disciples even
said, if this guy can't be saved, who can be saved? He came seeking
the Lord and asked about heaven. But all it took was the prospect
of him losing all of his earthly goods. Affliction. The loss of what he loved. And he shied away. That's the
fearfulness our text is talking about, not scared necessarily,
but cowardly, timid, not, you know, the scriptures say that
those, that the kingdom of heaven is taken by force. Lord, I will not let you go. This man let him go real quick
like a hot potato when he found out it was gonna cost him something
to follow the Savior. That's the fearfulness that we're
talking about. And it's hell for all the fearful.
For Simon Peter, it would have been hell, wouldn't it? Because
of cowardice and timidity and being ashamed of the Lord, he
would not confess him. He denied his Lord three times
and he wept like a baby about it. But Simon's one of these fearful
ones too. All of us are by nature. It's hell for Simon unless God
saves him. And he did by his grace. Then
the next word describing the lost is unbelieving. Unfaithful and faithless is what
this means. And think about how those two
go together. Think of doubting Thomas. He said, I will not believe. The other disciples had seen
the Lord. He appeared to them. Thomas was who knows where at
the time, but the Lord appeared to the others and they told Thomas.
And he said, unless I see for myself, unless I have physical
evidence, I will not believe. Faith isn't based on physical
evidence. I've heard people actually commend Thomas for that in religion. They'll say, oh, he wanted to
see for himself, that's good. No, that's not good. What he should have done is remembered
when the Lord said, on the third day I'll rise again. That might
have been better than needing physical. How do you commend
doubting Thomas? Unbelievable, unbelievable. But
that's all of us by nature. I will not believe. But not only was he faithless,
but he was unfaithful. Where was he when the Lord appeared?
The other disciples apparently had gathered to worship and the
Lord appeared to them. That's how he does things. Where
was Thomas? Well, his unfaithfulness is seen
in his faithlessness. I will not believe. He's betrayed
the master just as sure as Simon did. We're all weak failures,
timid, fearful, cowardly, and unbelieving, unfaithful, and
faithless. I will not believe. And that's
hell. That's who goes to hell. And it's all of us, but the Lord
saved him anyway. How do you save the unbelieving?
Well, if you're God, here's how you do it. Be not faithless,
but believing. You save the unbelieving by driving
out their unbelief by the power of the gospel, the power of the
word of Christ. The one that said, let there
be light said, be not faithless, but believing, and he was. He
bowed and said, my Lord and my God. Then they're described as abominable.
There's several reasons why I'm going through these. Often we
won't go through these type of things one by one, but I want
us to see the two kinds of people in this text, the difference
and what made the difference, who made the difference and why. And so I want us to see what
we are by nature. It's not just saying, look how
ungodly the ungodly are. It's saying, look what God saved
me from. When he saved me, look what he
did. Look what he did. Abominable
means foul, abhorred, disgusting. And this is a good time to remember
that these descriptions of the lost, they're not descriptions
of different kinds of lost people. They're all descriptions of the
same kind of people, the same group of people. All of us by nature, we're abominable
and foul, and so we are abhorred. We're despised. And rightly so. In thinking of this, the word
despised, abhorred, abominable, listen carefully to Jeremiah
1420. Why don't you turn over there,
please? I want you to see a couple of real key words in this passage. Jeremiah 14 20 Abominable Jeremiah 14 20 We acknowledge O Lord our wickedness
and the iniquity of our fathers for we have sinned against thee
and Don't hate us. Think about modern religion and
how they just assume that God loves everybody. These people
assumed that God was gonna hate them. Be like these people. These are the smart ones. These
are the ones that God has shed some light for. Don't abhor us,
God. We deserve it. We're abhorrable. We're unlovable. Don't hate us, but notice why,
on what basis. Not because we're, you know,
don't deserve to be hated. Do it for your namesake. Don't
disgrace the throne of that glory. If God promises a people that
he's gonna love and that he loves them and is gonna save them,
if he goes back on his word, he's disgracing the very throne
of his glory. Don't do that, Lord. You see
how they're pleading with the Lord here? Based on his mercy,
his word, his gospel. And look, remember, the end of
verse 21, remember, break not that covenant with us. The only
difference between the massive group of people that God hates
And maybe us is the covenant of grace that God made with us
in Christ Jesus. You see that? What a beautiful
passage. Jeremiah 14, 20 and 21. How beautiful that is. Don't
hate us, Lord. But you're going to now, unless
you keep that covenant that you made with us. Covenant of grace
in Christ. And then murderers Cain murdered
Abel because he hated God and Therefore he hated Abel. It was
it was Abel's favor with God that angered Cain That God wouldn't
accept Cain's offering and he did accept Abel's offering Now
Cain wasn't able to murder God himself so he settled for murdering
the one that God loved and God showed plainly that he loved
Abel Accepted he had regard under
his under Abel and his sacrifice And God has declared plainly
also in this book that he will get revenge on those Return eternal
revenge on those who have murdered his people This is how God avenges his sheep
eternal hell and All murderers and again all unbelievers are
murderers Unbelievers murderers foul the fearful All the same people and then
whoremongers Now as horrible as it is for someone to be that
in human relationships That's just a picture of what we are
to God You remember Hosea and Gomer,
that's what the Lord said, I'm gonna teach you, Hosea, something
of my love for my sheep, for my people. And you remember that
story of the love that Hosea had for Gomer. And so this is, that in earthly
matters is just a picture of what we are to God. And understand this about that,
I cannot sin against you and you cannot sin against me. We
can wrong one another terribly, but all sin is against God. Unfaithfulness to God in this
sense is loving anyone or anything more than him or in any way that
rivals your love for him. It's simple, isn't it? It's a
simple picture. of a simple truth. Sorcerers. Now these are not people that
wear, you know, the tall curved hats and perform black magic
of some kind. It's what this represents in
scripture that we're to think of here. It's idolatry and rebellion. Rebellion, it says, is as the
sin of witchcraft. Remember Pharaoh's magicians?
Remember what they did? They imitated the miracles of
God that Moses performed. Moses threw down his staff. It
turned into a serpent. The magicians did the same thing,
but it wasn't real. It was trickery. It was magic. However they came up with that, It was something that looked
like God's power and authority, but it was trickery and deception.
That's what false preachers do every day. Sorcery. Every time they open their filthy
mouth, they deceive and trick people. It's hell. Idolaters, now this
is akin to sorcery. These two, sorcerers and idolaters,
they have the relationship of deceivers and deceived. There
are those that conjure a false god and there are those that
fall for it. And that's who these are. To worship anything or anybody
other than God is idolatry. You can call it whatever you
want to. It's idolatry. To bow down. before a statue. Can you imagine that? To look
to a statue. Everybody that's ever done that
said they're worshiping God, not the statue. They always say that. You're
worshiping a statue, God said. And he's just like you are. He
has eyes and he can't see either, like you. And hence the term anything when
I say anything other than the Lord Always remember the the
word Antichrist in Scripture The very nature of that word
Tells us it's not a matter of what it is It's a matter of who
it's not It's important to remember that it doesn't matter what it
is and You call it what you want it. It's who, it's not. Antichrist, that's how God named
it. Who it's not. Man may name it all kinds of
different things. God named it not Christ. Now liars is the last one I believe,
liars. And again, now it's what this,
it's beyond what we kind of often think maybe about what it is
to lie. You know, when your little child tells mama that I did not
eat that cookie when he's got crumbs on his face, that's a
bad thing, that's wrong. But it's ultimately lying to
God and about God that that's an expression of, it's our deception Deceive God's authority is to
deceive God to attempt to you can't do that It's ultimately
lying to God and about God that is hell-deserving All lies are
against God all of them white ones gray ones All lies are against
God and that's what hell is for I wish I had you stay we were
in Jeremiah weren't we In fact, we were in Jeremiah 14, that's
where we're going again. But verse 14, let's look at it
together. This is the ultimate example
of these ones that God is putting in hell here.
This is one aspect of their character, they're liars. Jeremiah 14, 14,
then the Lord said unto me, the prophets prophesy lies in my
name. I sent them not, neither have
I commanded them, neither spake unto them. They prophesy unto
you a false vision and divination, there's your sorcery, and a thing
of naught and the deceit of their heart. Therefore thus saith the
Lord concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, and
I sent them not, yet they say sword and famine shall not be
in this land. In other words, they're just
telling people what they wanna hear. They still are. Everything's fine. We're all
sinners, but look, you've tithed, you come to church regularly,
everything will be fine. No, it's not. No, that's not
how everything is fine. That's not how that happens. Sword and famine shall not be
in this land, by sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed.
And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets
of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword, and they shall
have none to bury them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their
daughters, for I will pour their wickedness upon them. It almost sounds harsher for
the ones that fall for the lie than it does the ones lying.
You're in on it. To even sit in their presence
and listen to them is condoning their lies. No, it will be worse. God said flat out, it'll be worse
for the ones that preach a false Christ. But I like, I want us to see
how harsh the language is toward those that believe them too,
that give them money, that support them. Now, there's really only one
word in our text to describe those who belong to God, those
who are blessed of God, those who will forever be with God.
In verse six, it describes them with one word, they're thirsty. This is the contrast I wanted
us to see here. Matthew 5, 6, blessed are they
which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall
be filled. God said, if you hunger and thirst
after my son, you won't ever be hungry. Notice that all of the other
things that describe the lost are choices. Lying, whoremongering, idolatry,
murder, those are choices. The one description of the saved
is a need. Notice also that it does not
say that the blessed ones are not liars. It doesn't say they're
not or murderers, but they're thirsty. They need the water of life. The very nature of thirst is
that you don't have what you need. What is it we're thirsty
for? Righteousness, why? Because we
don't have any. We're murderers, we're liars.
We're everything abominable and disgusting to God. He hates us
by nature. By nature, we're the children
of wrath, even as others. God don't have wrath on people
he loves. That's us by nature now, as we're born into this
world in sin. It doesn't say we're not those
things, but we don't want to be. We thirst for the righteousness
that we don't have by God's grace. Oh, rich young ruler, how, what
worth, what good are your trinkets when you're dying of thirst? What would a thirsty man give?
if he's really thirsty. What was the rich young ruler's
problem? He wasn't thirsty. He wasn't thirsty. What good
are all your goods? If any second you're gonna faint
and never wake up because you need something so bad that you've
got to have it, that one need is Christ. So what good is anything else
if that's where we are? And so the Lord says, listen,
what a beautiful, again, what a beautiful passage of scripture,
verse of scripture. The spirit and the bride say,
come. The spirit of God and the bride
of Christ, those who have come. And let him that heareth. If
you've heard the call, then give the call, you know, make the
call to others. Say to them, come. And let him that's thirsty, come.
And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. That's the blessing of God. That's
the thirst that separates his people from everybody else. In
one sense, the blessed ones, they are all of the things, we
are all of the things that the cursed ones are. Just thirsty. That's the only difference. But
in another sense, we have to understand and realize that the
thirst is a need that God gives us. and that he always satisfies,
he promised you hunger and thirst after what you don't have, I'll
give it to you. And that need is Christ. And
in him, we're not any of those things that everybody else is. So there's another word here
I wanna look at, and you could say this is a second description
of the blessed, but I tend to look at this as all of these
things describe us by nature. Here's a difference, and there's
different places in the scripture where that one difference is
described different ways. Here, it's you're thirsty. You're
thirsty, you have a need that you cannot satisfy yourself. So you cry to God. So I tend to see all of these
things, this one thing describes this other group of people, and
this other word is just the declaration of a winner between the two groups
of people. Verse seven, he that overcometh. You know what that word means?
You win. You win. It means to conquer,
to carry off the victory. UN So clear revelation 1210 Turn
with these three verses of scripture turn to them with me and we'll
close revelation 1210 Think about what this is now
what it is to when God says you win and Heard a loud voice saying in
heaven now is come salvation Strength and the kingdom of our
God and the power of his Christ For the accuser of our brethren
is cast down which accused them before our God day and night
we've got Satan accusing us before God day and night But we have
an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous But here's how, here's regarding
the accuser, it says, they overcame him by the blood of the lamb. I heard somebody preach in a
supposedly grace church, a church that professed to believe the
doctrines of grace. And the message was about how
to deal with Satan. It was all about, Make sure you
read your Bible. Make sure you pray. Make sure
you do this, you do that, you do the other thing. That's how
you deal with Satan. No. We overcome him by what Christ
did. The blood of the lamb, Christ
crucified, his person, his work. That's how we overcome Satan.
By the blood of the lamb and by the word of their, by the
gospel. Listen, we overcome Satan in
the eternal, the cause of us overcoming him is his precious
blood. He'll bruise your heel and you'll
crush his head. That's what happened to Calvary.
There's Satan overcome right there. But on a regular basis,
throughout our lives, we overcome him. Now the gospel, he'll tear
you up How does he not do that? You
see the grip he has on some people that you love, probably. I do. How does that not happen? By
the cross of Christ, but also regularly, continually throughout
our lives by the gospel. By the word and they love not
their lives unto death Now first Corinthians 1556 well we could
read that whole chapter really but listen to look at this Just
a couple of verses here first Corinthians 1556 The sting of
death is seen I The strength of sin is the law But thanks be to God which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ The sting of death is sin You
know we think of death as just something bad that happens to
all of us at the end of life and No, the problem with that,
think about what death was to Christ. It was the fact that
he bore all of our sin. The sting of that was our sins
laid upon him. If we were not crazy sinners,
we would think of death that way too, as getting what we deserve. And it's because of our sinfulness. It's just the result, it's the
natural result of being a sinner. The sting of death is sin. And
the strength of sin is the law. Without the law, there's no sin.
That's what the law is. It's disobeying, or that sin
is disobeying God's law. It's disobeying God. But thanks
be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ. He said, oh, death, where's your
sting? There's no sting because there's no sin. Christ took it. Christ bore it and suffered our
death. So we have no sin, we have no
death, and we're not under the law. We're under his grace. You see how extensive the victory
is in Christ? Romans 8 35, and we'll close
with this. Romans 8 35. We overcome, we win, the victory
is ours. Romans 8, 35. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress
or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? It does separate
some. Tribulation, distress, nakedness,
the rich young ruler, I got to get rid of everything I have
in order to have everything, but he didn't see it that way,
did he? He didn't see it that way. Tribulation, when persecution
arises, they wither away. Hmm. That's not separating from
the love of Christ. That's just separating the sinful,
those described in our text in all those different ways from
him. And Christ does not love, neither they love him. As it is written, for thy sake
we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for
the slaughter. But no, that's not gonna separate
us from the love of Christ. No, in all these things, we are
more than conquerors through him that loved us. That's the
exact same word in our text, except a little bit different.
I'll tell you that in a minute. more than conquerors through
him that loved us. For I'm persuaded that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. The word overcometh
in our text is nekeo. N-I-K-A-O, Nicaeo. The word translated
more than conquerors in the text we just read in Romans 8 is hyper-Nicaeo. More, we more than overcome in
Christ. In this sense, it's saying we
gain way more than we lost. we overcome in Christ, because
of Christ, more than conquerors through
him that loved us. That's the difference between
the two groups right there. Him that loved us. We see that everywhere we turn
in the word of God. By God's grace, we rejoice. Let's
pray.