You know, even as believers,
there's just so much God's people simply do not know. There's so
much we don't know. But thanks be unto God, all believers,
we know enough. We do know enough. Everything
we know that is necessary to know and believe is revealed
to God's people in God's word by spirit. And let me summarize
what we must know and believe. It's just three simple things.
We must know that Jesus Christ is perfect, holy, and the righteous
son of God. We just simply have to know that.
Secondly, all men and women, We have to realize we're born
as sinners. We need to know that. And thirdly,
that the Lord Jesus Christ took unto himself the sin of his people
and gave them his righteousness. Now, if we know that and believe
that, it's enough. It's enough. And if we know and believe those
three things, it's because God's spirit has shown us and caused
us to believe the truth about Christ and about ourselves as
it's revealed in God's word. It's not that we're smarter,
it's not that we're lucky, it's not anything but the grace of
God. And therefore he's worthy to
be worshiped. Knowing and believing these simple yet amazing truths,
isn't it wonderful to know those things, believe those things,
The question I have for us tonight is if this is enough to know
and believe, and it is, why do God's people want, indeed need,
to keep coming to worship God, keep coming to hear more? I mean,
y'all heard this last week, right? Y'all heard this on Wednesday
night, right? You heard this the week before.
Nancy, you heard this 40 years ago, right? still coming to hear
it over and over and over again. Why is that? The answer to that
question is that God the Holy Spirit creates a need in the
heart of his people to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. The desire to worship is caused
by that need to worship. And God's people don't have to
be bribed or begged or cajoled or threatened or pleaded with
to come worship God. Why is it sometimes we have to
go to our children, you're going, you're going. Why is that? Well, they may not be believers
yet and God may not yet have created a living spirit yet,
and we're prayerful that in time he will, and therefore we bring
him. But God's people, they don't
have to be threatened. You know, Moses did not have to say, You
know, when they got out in the wilderness and it rained manna,
Moses did not have to say, well, everybody who collects manna
today gets a bigger tent. I'll give you a dollar if you'll
get out there and get that manna. He didn't have to say, if we
pick it up and deliver it to you, will you eat it? He didn't have to say, without
you, there'd be no one to pick up the manna. He didn't say, if you don't pick
up that manna, you're going to go to hell, you're going to starve
to death. Moses didn't have to do that.
He certainly didn't have to go, please, please, please pick up
some manna. He didn't have to do that. Jesus Christ is the bread of
life. And his people can't live without
it. We simply cannot live without him. Believers desire and need
and want all the bread of life they can get. Now let me tell you three simple
things. The first of which turned to Deuteronomy 32, the book of
Deuteronomy chapter 32. The first point I want to make
is that the Lord Jesus Christ is perfect. He's perfect. Psalm 18 actually says, as for
God, his way is perfect. The way of the Lord is perfect.
And God's word declares that Jesus Christ is holy and righteous. He is the rock upon which one
can stand. Psalm 145 says, the Lord is righteous
in all his ways and holy in all his works. Jesus Christ came
to this earth. He lived over 30 years as an
infant, as a child, as a teenager, and as a man, not one time did
he ever sin. Now this is impossible for us
to understand because we drink water, iniquity like water. It's
just a sin with us as we open up one of those things and just,
we just take it down. But the Lord Jesus Christ, not
one time did he ever sin. Christ is the rock of perfection. He's perfect righteousness. The
second thing that I want us to see is that all men and women,
even children, are by nature vile sinners. How do we get that
way? Well, look at Deuteronomy 32,
look at verse one. Give ear, O ye heavens, and I
will speak, and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine
shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew, as
the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon
the grass. Because I will publish the name of the Lord, ascribe
ye greatness unto our God. He is the rock, and his work
is perfect. You see that? He does not make
mistakes. Not like us, it's perfect. For
all his ways are judgment, and a God of truth and without iniquity,
just and right is He. That's the first thing we need
to understand is Christ is perfect. He's absolutely perfect. I'll
turn a few pages over to Deuteronomy 27, back a little bit. The second
thing we need to understand is that all men and women and even
children are by nature not perfect. Christ is perfect and we are
not. We're far from it. In fact, all
men and women and even children are by nature, vile sinners. How'd we get that way? Well,
when Adam disobeyed God in the garden, he became cursed, infected
with a disease called sin. And this disease is genetically
passed from parents to children. Every generation gets it. No
one's immune. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. And the evidence of that is that
Cain and Abel, the first two children, do you know what happened?
One of them got mad at the other one and took an axe and killed
his brother. Good grief. I mean, there's being
mad at your sister or your brother. But what was wrong with him? He was like his father Adam.
He was a sinner. He had vile thoughts in himself. And he did this thing. He rose
up against his brother. And that's just a picture of
how we're all, the word is cursed. And let me give you some insight
into that. It only takes one sin for us
to become cursed. And I found a list of things
in the Bible here that will get you cursed. It's a pretty comprehensive list.
Do you know there was a group called the Levites? And do you
know what their job was? It was to make laws and write
them down. And you know, the only reason
we need people to write, make laws is because we, we do things
we ought not do. If everybody would go 55, we
wouldn't need a law. Look here in Deuteronomy 27 verse
14. And the Levite shall speak and
say unto all the men of Israel with a loud voice, Cursed be
the man that maketh any graven image, and this is a big list
of things that will get you cursed. Okay, that's a bad thing, will
get you cursed. Anybody who makes a graven or
molten image, an abomination of the Lord, the work of the
hands of the craftsman, and putteth it in a place, and all the people
shall answer and say amen. What this meant was that, do
you know one time in Mexico, I went in this little shop and
had these little carved things on a shelf, carved out of stone. And I asked Walter Gruber, I
said, what are those? He said, oh, they're gods. I
said, really? He said, yeah, they carve them
out of stone. And he said, and they sell them here. And people
take them home, they put them in their home, and they worship
them. So that was going on back here. And so the Levites made
a law. If you make an image, you're
cursed. That's pretty plain, isn't it? Everybody got that?
OK. Now, look at verse 15. Cursed be the man that maketh
any graven image and molten image. And then now, look at verse 17.
Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark. Now, let
me explain what that means. Back then, they didn't have fences
like we have. What they'd do is they'd take
a pile of stones and go, that's the corner of my property. And
they walk down here and put another pile of stones. And then they
go over here and put another pile. And they make four piles
of stones and everything in that, that's mine. Well, let's say
my neighbor's D here. You know what D does? He gets
up in the middle of the night and D goes out there and he takes
this pile of stones and D lives here and I live here and he moves
them over about a foot. I'm not paying any attention
and You know, a few nights later, Dee goes out there and goes to
that corner and he moves that pile of rocks a foot. And this
goes on until all of a sudden I realize I only got about half
the property I thought I had. And they said, that's a bad thing.
Dee is stealing from Bob. So they made a law and said,
you break that law, you're cursed. That's probably a good thing,
isn't it? Even though we think, who would steal like that? Somebody
who wanted more land. Look at verse 18. Cursed be he
that maketh the blind to wander out of the way. Oh, now wait
a minute. Nobody would do that. There's
a poor blind guy, and he's coming down the road, and somebody comes
up and says, oh, you're going the wrong way. You need to go
this way. And the guy walks off in a ditch. Who would do such
a thing? Well, somebody was doing it because
they made a law and said, if you do that, that's cursed. Then
look at verse 19. Cursed be he that perverted the
judgment of a stranger, fatherless, and widow, and all the people
say amen. You know, somebody sends Nancy
something in the mail. She's a widow. And in this thing
it says, you just send us all your money and you'll never be
sick again. And Nancy goes, well, I don't
want to be sick again. I should send them some money. And you
say, who would do such a thing? Nancy's so nice and kind and
sweet. Who would do such? Well, somebody
was doing it. Because they made a law about
it. And I'm not actually going to
read the next four verses. You adults can when you have
a chance. But look at verse 24. Here's another law they had.
Cursed be he that smiteth his neighbor secretly. Say, what's
that about? You know, I'm going to act like
I really like my neighbor on this side. And then I'm going
to go over here and tell this neighbor, you better be watching
your cows because this guy over here steals them. And then I go over to this neighbor
and say, you better watch your pigs. This guy over here steals
pigs. And what am I? A cow and a pig thief. And so
they're secretly, they don't know what's going on. I'm stealing
all their stuff in there. Hey, must have been going on,
they made a law. Do we understand how... Look at verse 26, you say nobody
would do that stuff. Verse 26, Cursed is he that confirmeth
not all the words of the law to do them. In case we forgot
anything, just throw everything else in there. Just in case, all these list
of things I've given, if it doesn't apply to you, I haven't gotten
to you yet, you might notice that I skipped over one verse.
Verse 16, turn back to that one with me and look at this one.
Cursed is he that setteth light by his father or his mother. Now you kids, y'all look up here
a minute. Here's what that means. Let's
say that you guys are watching TV and Dee comes in and says
to you, Jackson, son, I need you to help me out here raking
these leaves. And you go, okay, okay. And your
dad turns around to leave and you do this. You go, that's called setting light.
You're making fun of him behind his back. You'd never do that
to his face, would you? You'd never go, I ain't helping
you with the leaves. No, no, no, that wouldn't end well, would
it? So what you do is you go, you give him the eye roll. You know, your mom comes in,
you girls, you're doing something really important. And your mom
says, come on girls, I need you to help me clean the house. And
you go, yes ma'am, yes ma'am. And she goes out the door. And
as soon as you're sure she's far enough away, one of you goes,
I can't believe we have to clean the house. That's what this law
was made for. Now, is there anybody in here
who at some point or other didn't give their folks an eye roll? So you know what that tells us?
We're all cursed. We've all broken the law of God. And we've got a problem. We're
cursed. Folks, we're in a mess. That's
what we're in, all of us, because all have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. And if you look this word up,
cursed, I'd never heard the word in the dictionary that it went
with. It's called execrated. That sounds
bad, doesn't it? Anybody ever said, you're execrated?
Ooh, that sounds bad, and it is bad. It means declared to
be evil, detestable. I mean, this is a horror movie
worse than anything any of us have ever seen. You think that
alien thing, slime between his teeth. I mean, we think bad,
bad. No, we're way worse. We're execrated,
we're cursed, and we're in a mess. When the gospel is preached and
folks see Christ is holy and righteous and perfect, we'll
also see that we're execrated, that we're cursed. And the cry
goes up as it did at the day of Pentecost. You know what happened
when those people said, when they were pricked in their heart,
you know what pricked them? The word of God came and revealed
to them, we're in trouble and we need help. What are we gonna
do? Turn over to Psalm 18. I'm gonna get to the good news
here real soon, okay? That's the bad news. But turn
to Psalm 18. The bad news is we're all execrated
and cursed by nature. But the good news is that Jesus
Christ takes away the sin, all the sin of all his people, and
gives him, gives them his perfection. Look at Psalm 18 verse 30. For who is God, save the Lord.
Who is a rock, save our God. It is God that girdeth me with
strength and maketh my way perfect. He maketh my feet like hinds
feet and set me upon my high places. Did I read that right
in verse 32? Christ makes my way perfect. You see, if God leaves us alone,
you know what we'll do? We'll just keep on being cursed.
We'll just keep on eye-rolling our parents and doing all the
things we ought not do. But if God has mercy on us, he'll
make us perfect. Now turn to 2 Samuel 22, and
let me see if I can illustrate this to us. 2 Samuel, verse 22. As a lad, we do realize that
Jesus Christ was born in a manger as a baby boy and that he grew
up and became a young child and then he became a teenager and
a full grown man. He actually lived a life just
like all of you kids do. But Jesus Christ Let's say one
day he's in his dad's carpenter shop, Joseph's carpenter shop.
And let's say one of his sisters came in and said to Joseph, daddy,
I don't feel very good. I don't know whether I ate something
or I just don't feel very good. And then she threw up all over
the carpenter shop. And Joseph picks her up and says,
honey, honey, and starts out with her and then says, Jesus,
clean up this mess. You got the picture? What would
most of us have done? We'd have grumbled, he always
makes me clean up the messes. Do you know what our Lord would
have said? Yes sir, I'll do it. He would have fought and I'll
be happy to. You know what that's called? Righteousness. Perfection. Goodness, love, everything that
we don't have that we need. Look at 2 Samuel 22, verse 30. Verse 30 says, for by the, I'm
sorry, I got the wrong chapter, let me turn back a page. 2 Samuel 22. Verse 31 says, as for God, his
way is perfect. The word of the Lord is tried,
it's proven. He's a buckler, he's a protector
to all them that trust in him. For who is God? Save the Lord. Who is a rock? Save our God. God is my strength and power
and he maketh my way perfect. He takes all of our rebellion
and our sin on himself and gives us his perfection. How does Christ
make my sinful way perfect? At Calvary, he took all my terrible
sins, even my eye rolls and smirks, and gives me his, yes sir, I
will do it. And I'll be happy to. Now look
at Exodus 8, and let me show you one more thing here. Exodus
chapter 8. D read this account in Exodus
of the fourth plague in Egypt. Y'all know the story. God told
Moses, go tell Pharaoh, let my people go. And Pharaoh wouldn't
do it. And a series of plagues came after that. And the fourth
one is the plague of flies. Now do yourself a favor and never
look up flies on the internet. you won't enjoy what you read.
I didn't know there's over 120,000 species, 120,000 species of flies. There's house flies, we know
about those guys, right? But there's horse flies, there's
things called blow flies, all they do is land on dead things.
There's gnats and fruit flies and drain flies. Did you know
mosquitoes are flies? There's sand flies. There's these
little things called midges, no-see-ums. They're barely visible. And the list goes on and on and
on and on. And there's only two things they
do. They carry death and disease, and they bother people. That's
the only two things flies do. And God commanded Pharaoh to
let his people go, and he said, if you refuse, if you rebel and
won't do it, I'm going to curse you with flies. Let me tell you,
the flies bothered them and brought disease and death. And when Adam
disobeyed God, sin became like flies. Sin for us are like flies. There's big ones, there's the
horse flies, there's the tiny ones. You know the sins that
we think we got away with that nobody saw? The no-see-ums, God
sees them. He sees them. We're so used to
them, we almost take them for granted. Oh, it's a fly. Yet they carry death. Flies came
to Egypt, and death followed. And when Pharaoh asked Moses
to intercede for the people of Egypt, he did, and God took away
the flies, as we read. That's a picture that the Lord
Jesus Christ intercedes for his people, and God takes away our
sins. All of them, the great ones,
the little ones, the most vile ones, and all of them really,
all those millions of my sins, and there were billions and billions
of flies in Egypt, and our sins just go on and on and on. There's
so many. But here's the joy, when Moses
interceded for Pharaoh and said, Lord, take away the flies. How many were left? How many
flies were left in Egypt? You think, I mean, out of all
those billions and billions, there had to be a few left, right?
Look here in verse 31. Have you got it? Exodus 8 verse
31. And the Lord did according to
the word of Moses and he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh
and from his servants and from his people and there remained
how many? Not one fly in the entire country
of Egypt. You say, wow. That's impressive. I'll tell
you something more impressive. When God has mercy on one of
his children, he takes away all our sins so that one day when
we go before him, there's not one left in our entire being. We're spotless. We're not bitten. We're not diseased. We're not
cursed. We're perfect. We're absolutely perfect. If
we're a child of God, there remains not one. Where did the sins,
all the sins of God's people go? Well, when a fly, a horse
fly, a house fly, a mosquito, or a no-see-um lands on us, what
do we do? I don't know what you do. I go, I want that thing dead. I want it gone. We try to swat
it, to shoo it, to kill it before it does us any real harm. Do
we think for a minute that hanging on the cross, our Lord Jesus
Christ realized he'd had nails driven through his hands and
feet. He'd been beaten all around the head. He was bloody and the
blood in this desert land. How many flies do you think came
at him? They were landing all over him.
They were biting him. They were, oh, stinging him. They were, what a terrible thing. And do you know what he didn't
do? He didn't swaddle one of them. He said, how do you know
that Bob? Because his hands were nailed on that tree. He took it all. He let them by the thousands
bite him and sting him and do what they would do. And he allowed
them to do all this so it wouldn't happen to us. He took away our
sin, that it would be gone like the flies of Egypt, and there
wouldn't remain one. Do you know what the Father said
to the Son? He said, Son, go down and clean up that mess for
my people. And you know what Jesus Christ
said? Father, I'll go down there and do it. I'll be happy to. And the last day, to some, the
Lord Jesus Christ commands, depart from me. You know why? You're
covered in flies. But to others, to God's people,
the Lord Jesus Christ says, enter into the place I have prepared
for you for all eternity. God's people, for the very first
time, will have a thought that's not tainted with sin. For the
very first time, his people will utter words that are not cursed
as sin. His people will respond when
he says, enter in to the place I have prepared for you. You
know what we'll say? Yay, Lord. I'll be happy too. I'll be happy
too. We'll rejoice to do thy will,
O God, and enter in. If we know and believe who Christ
is, who we are, and what he's done for us, we too, even now,
can say, thanks be unto God. for his unspeakable gift of his
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.