Recently, one of the relatively
young people at Kingsport had a significant accomplishment.
She graduated from college. And she actually met all the
requirements to become a school teacher. She did the required
coursework in her field of study. She completed a term of student
teaching. She received the required diploma
or degree a bachelor's degree in education, and she has now
met all the requirements for the state of Tennessee to be
a preacher, to be a teacher. Another of the young people there
wants to get her driver's license. First of all, she had to live
to get to be a certain age. You can't get one until you,
you can't even start to get one until you're 15, almost 16. And then there's required what's
called a learner's permit to go with your birth certificate.
Then there's a written test, an eye exam, a photo's taken,
and after a trial period, there's an actual driver's test. You
get behind the wheel of a car and have to drive. And if you
pass that, then you get to pay $28 and you get your driver's
license in Tennessee. When all the requirements are
met, you get a driver's license and it's issued to the person
so they can legally drive a car. If one does not meet the requirements,
one is not accepted into the community of teachers. If one
does not meet the requirements, one is not allowed to drive a
vehicle on the highways of Tennessee. The authorities that be set the
standard or the requirements. If they are not met, then the
person in question has no standing, no privilege, has no rights under
that jurisdiction. They do not qualify to enter
the classroom as a teacher. They cannot, with any vehicle,
convey themselves where they want to be. Period. Period. No ifs, ands, buts, no
exceptions. I want you to turn over to Deuteronomy
chapter 10 with me. And I want to show you something. If I were to ask you tonight,
what are the requirements to be a Christian? Do we think for a minute that
God has not told us plainly in his word what the requirements
are. He does tell us. He does. Do we think that question has
not been asked and answered? Well, here it is. In Deuteronomy
10, look at verse 12. And now Israel. Israel is the
name, the nation, the title always given to those people who are
God's people. So he says here, And now Israel,
what does the Lord thy God require thee? There's the question. Anybody ever stop for a minute
and go, huh, what's required to be a Christian? Well, here's the answer. He says,
here it is, there's five things clearly stated. Number one, fear
the Lord thy God. Number two, to love Him. Number
three, to serve the Lord thy God with all your heart and with
all your soul. Number four, to keep the commandments
of the Lord and His statutes, which I have commanded thee this
day for thy good. It's pretty simple, isn't it? There they are. You wanna be
a Christian? You do that. Have at it, you
do that. If you meet those requirements,
then you're entitled. You're entitled to go be with
God someday. Now it takes pages for these
colleges and universities to list the requirements to be a
teacher. It takes state governments, when I started reading what it
takes to get a license in Tennessee, it was page after page after
page on the internet. Less than 50 words, God tells
you what's required. Just that simple. There it is.
There it is. And let me try to quantify this
for us. Do you know what it takes to
get your driver's license? You gotta take the written test,
you gotta take the driving test. You know what you gotta get?
72%. If you do that well, then you can get your driver's license.
You know what it takes if you wanna be a teacher? You gotta
have a C or better in all your education classes. You gotta
make Cs. Okay? And maybe it ought to scare
us to death that many of the people riding on the road, one
quarter of the time, they don't know what they're supposed to
do, or much less how to do it. Okay? But that's the law. All right? 72% is okay. And let's
say you take the test and you fail. You don't pass your written
test. You know what? If you wait seven
days, you can get a do-over. You can try again. You pass your
driver's test, seven days later you get a do-over. Let me ask you this. Is there
fine print somewhere in this book that clarifies these requirements? Does it say somewhere, fear God
and reverence Him 72% of the time? You think it says somewhere,
worship Him twice a year, that's good enough. Love God, does it
say most of the time? Serve God when it's convenient.
Keep His commandments when there's no cost to you. Do the best you
can. You get as many do-overs as you
want. Does it say that here anywhere? Come down front, shake the preacher's
hand, it's gonna all be okay in the end. I can just, I remember
a friend of mine didn't pass his driver's test on the first
try. And I remember his dad saying to him, it's okay, it's okay,
honey, it's okay. You can do it again, you get
another chance. Do we get another chance? We live this life and
fail and get another chance? Does anyone really think that
10% of what I make is evidence that I love God with all my heart? What are you saying, Bob? Surely
you don't think these five things are to be taken literally, that
you're actually supposed to do these five things. That's what
God requires. I'm not saying that. God's saying it. Pretty plain, isn't it? God is
saying just exactly that. I'm pointing out what God is
saying. He requires five things of all his children. They're
absolute without exception. They're clear. They're plain
requirements in order to be a Christian. They must be done and done perfectly. If we have not done these five
things perfectly, and God does require perfection, acceptable
with God is not 72%, it's not 80%, it's not 99%, it's 100%.
We need to start to grasp the concept that God is holy. God
is perfect. He is absolutely perfect. And to fail in one point of the
law, what's the scripture say? Is to disobey them all. Our problem
is not that we got a 72%. You know what our score is? Zero. Zero. Zero. You say, boy, you're being
pretty hard on us. Well, if God never shows us who
and what we are, we'll cry out. We'll cry out. We'll come to,
woe is me, uh-oh. I got a problem. Isaiah spent
the whole first chapters of Isaiah going, woe is you. I know you. I know what you've done. Woe
is you. You're a bad person. Woe is you. And then one day God opened up
and showed him who he was. And Isaiah went, uh oh. Woe is
me. I'm undone. I thought I had a
pretty good score and I found out I don't. Turn over to Romans
7 with me. Romans 7. If God ever shows us ourselves,
we'll be like the publican who wouldn't even raise his eyes
to heaven. He smote upon his breast. Every Christian, every child
of God is brought to the place of realizing that we are unable
to meet the requirements. I read them, and as I read them,
if you were like me, when I was reading them here, preparing
for this, I was going, whew, man, I got a problem. That's a real list, and I don't
come anywhere close to it. I'm unable to meet those requirements.
But the good news of the gospel is, do you know there is somebody
who met those requirements? There is somebody who actually
did those five things and got a score of 100. Got a perfect
score. Look here at Romans 7, verse
24. Paul wrote, God had showed him
that he couldn't meet the requirements and he said, oh, wretched man
that I am. Who should deliver me from the
body of this death? And then here's the answer of
who has met the requirements. He said, I thank God through
Jesus Christ, our Lord. He's met the requirements. Did
you know that? He's experienced everything we ever did as human
beings when he came to this earth. And you know what? He got all
A's. He got a perfect score. Turn over to Revelation 1. That's the good news of the gospel.
We can't meet the requirements that Jesus Christ did meet them. There is someone who has met
them. Turn over to Revelation 1. John
the Apostle got taken to heaven. And here's what happened when
he arrived there. I want you to look at Revelation
1. And I want you to look at verse
17. John said, I got there, and when I saw him, I fell at his
feet as dead. When he got there, for the first
time in his life, he saw Christ. And you know what happened? He
went, uh-oh. Uh-oh. You know, you kids have
ever done something and you thought you got away with it, and then
all of a sudden, one of your parents goes, and you go, I'm busted. I'm busted. And you're going, oh, I'm going
to get it now. Oh, I'm going to get it now. John got the glory and realized
he was busted. And he knew the penalty. The
penalty for disobedience is death. God told Adam, Adam, in the day
you eat that fruit, you're busted. You're done. You're done. You'll die. You got to go out
of the garden. You can't come into my presence
anymore. You're done. The Lord brought John there,
and he was rightly afraid. John saw face to face the Lord's
perfection and knew what he deserved to get, which was eternal death.
In grace and mercy, look what the Lord did to John here. If
you got it in verse 17 again, he says, and when I saw him,
I felt his feet as dead. You know what the Lord did. Here's
John laying there thinking he's dead. The Lord took his right
hand And he laid it on him. You kids ever thought, man, I'm
going to get a weapon for this? Man, I'm going to get it for
this. And all of a sudden, your parent, who you think is going
to let you have it, just reaches out, pulls you to him, gives
you a hug, and pats you. It's all right. It's all right.
I know what you did, but it's all right. The Lord reached out
his hand to John and said, it's all right. It's all right. He
laid his hand upon me, and look what he said to him. He said,
fear not. Fear not, don't be afraid. I'm
the first and the last. I'm he that liveth and was dead,
and behold, I'm alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of
hell and death. You know, anybody who thinks
they're gonna get themselves from here to glory by themselves,
they don't have the keys to the car. They're not licensed to
drive. They're not licensed to go there.
Why? They haven't met the requirements. But you know who has? The Lord
Jesus Christ came to this earth, and He lived a perfect life.
And the Father said, here's the key, son. You drive anywhere
you want. You've earned it all. And it's
all His. And He can give it to whoever
He wants to. Now that's good news. For 33 years, the Lord
Jesus Christ feared or revered His Father perfectly. And Christ
says, Do you see here, he says, in verse 17, he said, fear not
because I'm the first and the last. What that means is God
was, the Lord was telling John, he said, I know you didn't keep
the law. I know you didn't meet the requirements,
but he said, I did. And I'm the first one that ever
did. And he said, I'm the last one that ever did. I'm your only
hope. That's what he's telling him. And Adam didn't meet the
requirements. Eve didn't. David didn't. Paul
didn't. You didn't. I didn't. But Christ
did. And you know what? He can give
that to anyone he places. And he gives it to all his children.
He's met the requirements for them. Well, look here what he says
then. He says, I'm the first and I'm
the last. I'm he that liveth and was dead. You say, well, he lived and he
was perfect. Why did he die? Because you and
I live and we didn't do it perfect. And he had to die to put away
what we did. And he lived so he could give
us what he did. Do we see that? We get his perfect
score and he gets our failing score. And that's why he had
to go to Calvary. At Calvary, he said, my father
allowed them to kill me because I had on me your total failure
to meet God's requirement. And he says, this right hand
I lay on you is one of great mercy and forgiveness. Now, I'm
not going to have you turn over there. You know, some folks say,
well, you know, Bob, that stuff you read, those five requirements,
that's Old Testament stuff. That's law stuff. You know, that
was way back then. No, no, it's still in force. And folks who have this list
of things they think they're supposed to do, requirements
they're supposed to meet, well, they gotta meet them. They gotta
meet them, that hasn't changed. And, you know, to fail to meet
God's requirements means that we're cast out, we can't come
into God's presence. Well, you know Ruth, y'all remember
Ruth in the Old Testament? Poor Ruth. Boy, she was down
there in that, she was a foreigner brought up into Israel. And she
had no standing there. She did not meet the requirements
to be an Israelite. Did you know that? She was not
accepted as a woman of Israel. And then Boaz came along, who's
a picture of Christ, and Boaz saw her. He set his eye on her,
all right, and he called her to him. He said, leave her handfuls
on purpose. And he called her to him, and
he said to her, he said, fear not. He said that exact word. He said, fear not. He said, I'm
gonna have mercy on you. I'm gonna satisfy the requirements
of the law. for you. And he did. And you
know what he did then? He married her. He married this
foreigner and made her his own. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
does to us. We don't meet the requirements on our own. No,
no. But Christ marries us. And as
his husband, we, do you know that you kids, your dad has a,
has a wife. He has a wife, right? And do
you know what? The day they married, she changed
her name to his and she had all the rights and privileges of
your dad. The day it's revealed to us that
we're married to the Lord Jesus Christ, we find out we got all
the rights and privileges. We get to drive anywhere we want.
I used to make all Fs, but my husband made all As. I'm his,
and it's all okay. Oh my. You know, it's, True enough
that God's people, Christians, are not required to fulfill the
law, and the reason is twofold. Number one, we can't. I read
that list and I thought, man, I can't preach that. That's tough.
There's no way we can do that. But the other side of that is
there is somebody who did fulfill it, and he fulfilled it for us. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether
it was in Moses' time or Abraham's time or David's time or Paul
or Peter or John's time or in Chris or Gabe's time, it's still
the truth. We can't fulfill it, but there's
somebody who has, and that's Christ, and that hasn't changed.
In the Old Testament, it's pictured. In the New Testament, it's revealed. Turn to Ecclesiastes 3. And there's a simple reason why
this is the way it is. If you find Ecclesiastes chapter
three. The reason it's the way it is, because this is how Christ gets
the most glory. You and I couldn't rewrite this.
in any way where Christ would get more glory than the way it
is right now. Look at Ecclesiastes 3 verse
11. He's made all things, He's made
everything beautiful in His time. That's the evidence that the
way it is is the most beautiful way. There's no way to make the
gospel any better, any prettier, any finer than it is, than the
way it is right now. That He meets the requirements
for us, and He puts away our failure to meet the requirements.
Then look at verse 14 with me. I know that whatsoever God doeth,
it is forever. Nothing can be put to it that
is added or anything taken from it. And God doeth it that men
should fear before him, that we should respect and reverence
him. God's people don't resent it being this way. We love it
being this way. We realize this is the only way
it could be and that I can meet the requirements. And it's how
Christ gets the most glory. And in verse 15, it says, that
which hath been is now, and that which is to be hath already been,
and God requireth that which is past. Do we see this? There's no other way it could
be. God's made the requirements,
they must be met, and the only way it can be done is if Christ
did it for us. And on the other hand, he put
away our failure to meet the requirements. I tell you, What
would happen to you kids? Now there's some of you back
there old enough to really understand this. What would happen if you
came home and showed your mom and dad, here's my report card,
and it had all Fs? Uh-oh. It's trouble, big trouble. You wanna bring home all Fs? I don't think so. No. What's gonna make that right? Well, you're in trouble, I can't
help you, but I tell you what, if you wind up coming before
God one day, and the books are open, and it says, hmm, F, F,
F, F, F, F, F, if that's the report, big trouble. But if our
Lord says, oh, wait a minute here, now wait a minute, you're
looking at the wrong page. Hang on, no, no, no, no, that
one's mine. That's got this report card,
and you look and go, A, A, A, A, A. Love God with all his heart.
Yep, yep, did that. Got that? You can read all five
and you got five A's. Five A's, that's called substitution.
The Lord Jesus Christ took your place and gave you his place.
And that's what this is saying right here. What God requires,
he supplies. Now, I want you to turn to Matthew
7 and I'll give you an illustration in clove. Turn over to Matthew
7. Matthew chapter seven. In 1967, I graduated from college. I had a degree in English and
I had a degree in biology. But I knew what was fixing to
happen to me. I was fixing to get drafted into the army and
sent to Vietnam. That's what was happening to
everybody. And a fella I worked for in New York called me. And he said, in the summers,
I went up to this boys' camp and worked every summer. And
he said, Mom, what are you gonna do? I said, well, I'm gonna graduate
and probably get drafted. He said, would you move to New
York? I said, sure. And he said, if you weren't gonna
get drafted. And I said, sure. And he said,
have you ever taught school? I said, no. And he said, how
do you feel about it? I said, I'd be happy to teach
school if I don't have to do that. And he said, well, I'll get back
to you. A few days later, the problem was, you see, I wasn't
qualified. I had not met the requirements for the state of
New York to be a teacher. I didn't have a degree in education.
I'd never had a course in education. I wasn't qualified. In a few
days, he called me back and said, well, he said, you got the job.
You're teaching biology at the military academy here. I said,
what? He said, yeah, by the way, you're
gonna get an application in a few days. Fill that out and send
it back, but you got the job. You already got it. And I'm like,
wow. How'd that work? How'd that work? I wasn't qualified, yet I got
accepted. What I learned is this. Sometimes
it's not what you've done, it's not what you know, Now listen
to me here. It's who you know. This man was on the board of
directors of this private military academy. He walked into the board
meeting and said, I got a guy who's going to teach biology
here. And Al went, OK. They didn't know me from beans.
I got the job. This man. all by himself, got
me the job. I was accepted as a teacher and
I moved to New York and taught school for a year and didn't
have to go in the army right then. They got me later, but
I didn't have to go right then, okay? And here's the lesson. It's not what you've done or
what you know. Good works or Bible knowledge
does not make someone a Christian. It does not meet the requirements.
What does? It's who you know that makes
you a Christian. And let me show you that in Matthew
7, verse 21. Have you got it? Matthew 7, verse 21. Not everyone
that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom
of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is
in heaven. Many will say to me in that day,
Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? And in thy name
we've cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful
works. They sound pretty qualified.
They certainly thought they were. And what did our Lord say to
them? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. You see, it's not what they did.
It's not what they knew. It's who they didn't know. And for us, it's not what we
do. It's not how we do it. It's none of that. It's who we
know. The only requirement is to feel
your knee to Him. The only requirement is to be
found in Christ. The only requirement is to come
before him, fall before him on our face, and say, Lord, I know
I've made all Fs. I know I'm not a very good, I'm
a terrible driver. I'm not qualified to do anything,
but would you have mercy on me? Fall on, just, John got there,
he had nothing to say. He arrived in the presence of
the Lord, he just fell down like a dead man. Maybe one day, by
God's grace, Some of you little ones will get to a place where
you say, this is the end of the road. I got nowhere to go. I can't do what it tells me to
do in the scriptures. I guess maybe I better fall on
my face in his presence and say, Lord, have mercy on me. And do
you know what? He will. He always does. To those who ask, they receive. It really is that simple. He
met all the requirements. Don't seek to meet the requirements
thinking that we can. Just flee to him, flee to him. You know that old, there's an
old hymn writer who said, let not your conscience make you
linger, nor of a fitness finally dream. All the fitness he requires
is to feel your need of him. If you ever come to yourself
one day, Wake up and go, I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble. I can't do this. I can't get
it done. That's the time to flee to him. And you'll find out he's been
calling you the whole time, waiting for you to get down there on
your face, begging him to have mercy on you. And he will, he
will. It is, and you kids, If you've
ever been in the place where you thought, they caught me,
they've caught me, I'm going to get it. And your parent puts
the hand out and draws you to them, pat you and says, it's
okay, it's okay. You know a little bit about what
I'm talking about. Your parents want to show mercy
to you. They want to. And the Lord waits, he'll show
mercy to you in due time, according to his grace. All right, let's
stand together and we'll be dismissed in prayer.