Let's turn to Judges chapter
2. I'm going to begin reading in verse
1. Judges 2, 1. And an angel of the Lord came
up from Gilgal to Bochum and said, I made you to go up out
of Egypt and have brought you unto the land which I swear unto
your fathers. And I said, I will never break
my covenant with you. And you shall make no league
with the inhabitants of this land. You shall throw down their
altars. But you have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? Wherefore I also said, I will
not drive them out from before you, but they shall be as thorns
in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you. And
it came to pass, when the angel of the Lord spake these words
unto all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their
voice and wept, and they called the name of that place Bokom,
and they sacrificed there unto the Lord." Now, the children
of Israel disobeyed the Lord. And the way they disobeyed the
Lord was they were to make no league, no compromise, no covenants
of any kind with the Canaanites, the enemies of God. They were
to break down their altars. Now that's a picture of what
we do today through the gospel. We don't make any compromise
with God's enemies. We break down all idol gods,
all their altars, by preaching the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ. But they disobeyed. They did
not They did not break down their altars and they compromised.
They took some for their wives and some for their husbands and
they accepted some of their religion and what have you and it just
polluted the truth to nothing, to absolutely nothing. And so,
the Lord came with this question, why have you done this? Why have
you done this? Now, we've seen over and over,
we've gone through this series looking at questions the Lord
asks to sinners. And we've seen this over and
over. It's been a while since we've looked at one of these
questions. But we have seen it over and over that when the Lord
asks a question, He's not asking for information. He's not asking
for His benefit. What the Lord is doing is He
is teaching the sinner our sin. And he's done that time and again
through his questions. Now is there anybody here who
knows they've disobeyed the Lord? Anybody know that, that you've
disobeyed the Lord? Then if you have, then hear this
question from the Lord to you. Why have you done this? Why have you done this? Whatever
our disobedience, there's no answer that we can give to justify
rebellion against God. There's no answer you can give
to answer that question to justify disobedience. Now, there's a
disagreement amongst the commentaries. Some think that children of Israel
were really brought to repentance here and some think they were
not. But whether this was true repentance or not, this is certain.
We see here What our Lord does, the message through which the
Lord actually does bring His children to repentance, and actually
does bring us to worship God, coming with Christ, the only
sacrifice God is pleased with. Now that's what we see here.
Whatever our disobedience is, this is a summary right here
of the things the Lord brings to mind to grant us repentance. Number one, the Lord reminded
them what He had done for them. That's the first thing He told
them. And then number two, the Lord reminded them what He had
promised them. And then the Lord reminded them
what He commanded them and how they disobeyed Him. And He brought
on this question to them, why have you done this? Now here's
the point. By setting before us His faithfulness
toward us through the preaching of the gospel, By setting before
us His faithfulness toward us and our sin against Him, the
Lord effectually works true repentance in His child. He teaches us His
faithfulness towards His child and our sin toward Him. And that's
how He brings you to repentance. Alright, first of all, the Lord
reminds His disobedient child what He's done for us. He says
in verse 1, an angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochum
and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt and I've brought
you unto the land which I swear unto your fathers. They're now
in the promised land. They're in Canaan. Now think
how foolish it would be for the children of Israel to want to
leave Canaan, go back across that wilderness, go back into
Egypt, and asked to be put back in slavery. They'd be foolish,
wouldn't they? That's exactly what they were
doing by not obeying the Lord. And that's what you and I do
when we disobey God. In the beginning, the Lord finds
His elect in the same place. He finds every one of us in the
same place when He comes to us. He finds us slaves to sin. He finds us in bondage like He
found the children of Israel in Egypt. And over and over again
when He comes to us to turn us in repentance, He finds us in
disobedience. I'm talking about believers.
Often we turn, yield up to our sinful flesh, to our sins, our
sinful flesh, and when we do, we're not serving the Master.
We're serving our old master. We're serving sin. We're serving
the flesh. And if we were left to ourselves
to try to bring ourselves out of that, we'd never do it. We would remain there. We're
brought into captivity and we'd remain in that captivity. Just
like we could bring ourselves out in the beginning, we can't
bring ourselves out after we believe. Listen to what
Paul said. This is a believer speaking and
in Romans 7 he said this, I delight in the law of God after the inward
man. There is a new man in me that truly delights in God's
word. I want to obey every word of
God. But I see another law in my members,
my old fleshly members, warring against the law of my mind and
bringing me into captivity. to the law of sin which is in
my members." Now that's bondage, to be brought into that captivity,
to be made a slave for a time, but Christ won't allow His child,
anybody that He's redeemed, He won't allow us to come again
into that bondage and be left in that bondage. He said, Paul said, O wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Not Paul. Not me and not you. I thank God
through Jesus Christ our Lord. He's the only Redeemer. He's
the only one that can free us. He's the only one. Now notice
He says here, the Angel of the Covenant. Then later He's called
the Angel of the Lord. That's who came to them. And
it speaks there of His voice speaking. Now this Angel of the
Covenant, this Angel of the Lord is Christ. That's who it is.
It's Christ. He doesn't say, now the Lord
said, I have delivered you out of Egypt. He didn't say, now
the Lord said, I swear unto you. Look what He said. I made you
to go up out of Egypt. I brought you. I swear unto you. This is the Lord Christ. This is Christ who has come to
them. And the picture here now, We're
going to see this in our third point. The picture here is of
him using, and I think this is why he calls it the angel, is
because, you know, in Revelation, the preachers that preached over
each congregation, over the seven churches, were called an angel.
And to the angel He said, and to this angel He said, to that
angel He said. That's what He called His preachers.
So you have Christ the head of the church, the head of each
body, each local assembly, and you have Him coming through the
preaching of the gospel. Now, it says here that He came
up to them where they were. You see, Christ gets all the
glory for bringing us to repentance. He's going to do this through
the Gospel, through the Spirit. He did it at the first and He
continues to do it and He gets the glory for doing it. He's
the only one who can give you a contrite heart. I mean a broken
heart. I mean a heart broken over your
sin that makes you truly constrained to trust Him. Look away from
yourself and trust Him. He's the only one that can give
that heart. So He gets the glory. And He does it by reminding us
that He's our Redeemer. He's our Redeemer. I made you
to go up out, He said. I redeemed you. Galatians 6.13. If you'll turn there with me,
it's familiar, but I want you to look at it. Redemption. Redemption. That means we had to be freed,
we had to be bought, we had to be delivered from the law, from
our flesh, and finally from this world. And the one who redeems
us from the law, from our flesh, and from this world is Christ
our Redeemer, through the Spirit, by the grace of God our Father.
That's who delivers us. Now look here, Galatians 6.13,
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law. Everybody
became a curse when Adam sinned in the garden. By his one transgression,
we were made a curse. We came under the curse. And
not only by Adam's one transgression, you and I made that curse and
that condemnation worse by our own sin. willfully sinning against
God. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. His great unchangeable love made
Him to come where we are and willingly as the Holy Lamb of
God, Christ our Passover, He gave Himself to be made a curse
for rebels. Worthless, God-hating rebels
like us. He was made a curse for us. And
because He did that, He's redeemed us. Notice it says there, Christ
hath redeemed us. It's done. It's finished. It's
complete. He has fully satisfied divine
justice and redeemed us from the curse of the law. And not
only that, our text tells us this too. Go back to Judges 2.
Not only that, I've told you this a lot, there
was blood and water that came out of His side. Christ redeems
us by His blood from the curse of the law, and by that water,
the washing of regeneration, He redeems us from the curse
of our flesh, making a new man within us. When He does that,
He delivers us. He carries us all our days and
at the end He is going to redeem us out of this world into that
heavenly promised land. Look here, He said, and I have
brought you unto the land which I swear unto your fathers. And
we are looking for the day when that is going to be complete.
He is that rock that went through the wilderness from which the
water came out. And He's that rock that's taken
us through this wilderness. And one day He's going to redeem
us out of this wilderness into heavenly glory. But the truth
of the matter is, we have been redeemed. Did you see what brother
Eric just read? What he read there is, we give
thanks to the Father which hath made us meet. Fit. to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light. The only way you could be meet
and be fit to be a partaker of that inheritance in glory with
God's people, with God, is to be as holy and righteous as God
is. That's what that meatness is.
complete in Christ as Eric said. He delivered us, look verse 13,
He hath made us meet, He hath delivered us from the power of
darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear
Son in whom we have redemption through His blood even through
forgiveness of sin. In the midst of our disobedience,
Christ came to where we were. the very first hour, and He does
this over and over when He finds us in our disobedience. Through
this Word, it comes to you in the Spirit, and Christ comes
to right where you are, and He reminds you, I've redeemed you. I've brought you out. I've delivered
you. Why have you done this? Why have you done this? He tells
us what Paul said in Colossians 3. Christ speaks this word into
our hearts. He says, set your affection on
things above, not on things on this earth. For you are dead
and your life is hid with Christ in God. And when Christ who is
our life shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory.
And Christ says, so mortify therefore the deeds of your flesh which
are upon this earth. Why have you done this? Why have
you done this? And He turns you from your sinful
flesh to Him. And here is the only answer that
will be the right answer. After Paul said, where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. Just like sin reigned through
Adam unto death, grace will reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. And when he finished that, here
is the answer we give right here. What shall we say then? Why have
you done this? What shall we say? What shall
we say? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? God forbid. God forbid. How shall we that are dead to
sin live any longer therein? Now, He does this work through
the Gospel. He teaches you, I'm your Redeemer.
I'm your Redeemer. I brought you out from being
the slaves of sin. Now, don't go back on to that
old master. I'm your master. This is the Word He preaches
to you in your heart. Then secondly, in the midst of
our disobedience, The Lord reminds His child of what He's promised
us. He says, verse 1, I swear unto your fathers, and I said
I'll never break my covenant with you. He finds us at first
trusting in a covenant of works. Everybody He saves, I don't care
if you're in a religion or out of religion, I don't care if
you're in a church house or out, every man on this earth is trusting
in a covenant of works. Every lost sinner is trusting
a covenant of works. He is trusting that there is
something he is doing or has done or will do that is going
to somehow get him acceptance with God. Everybody believes
that. Everybody trusts that in some
shape, form or fashion. That is where he is going to
find everybody he saves. And still as believers, there
is time that we find ourselves in self-righteousness. We find
ourselves looking to our works. Oh, we wouldn't ever say we look
to our works, but we do look to our works. And we look down
on others. When we condemn or judge somebody
else for something they've done, we're essentially saying, well,
by my works, I'm better than that. And that's trusting your work.
That's self-righteousness. That's the same as just saying,
I'm going to come to God in my works. And if He left us there,
if He let us, allowed us to turn from Him and go back to that,
you know what we'd have to do? We'd have to keep the entire
law of God perfectly in thought, word and deed before God will
ever have anything to do with us. With no sin, imperfection. No flesh will ever be justified
by the law. He showed us that in Adam. He
puts this man perfect, in a perfect environment, in a perfect garden
with one command and leaves him to his will. And Adam sinned. And now, then he turned around
and he showed us with the children of Israel. Here they were sinners
in a cursed world and he gave them a bunch of laws And what
did they do? Nobody ever kept His covenant
by their own flesh. They never did. Those that were
saved under that old covenant were saved by grace through faith
in Christ the same as you and I are saved today. Every one
of them. So, we are all self-righteous sinners by nature. That's what
we are by nature. So in the midst of our disobedience,
Christ comes, He finds us where we are, and He comes in this
Gospel, and He comes through the Spirit, and He says to you,
I swear to your fathers, He teaches you, salvation is by covenant
grace. I swear to your father, this
is how Adam was saved, this is how Abel was saved, this is how
Abraham was saved, this is how Isaac was saved, this is how
Jacob was saved, this is how David was saved, Every sinner
that's ever been saved before you, all the way back to the
first one, was saved the same way. God made a covenant to them. An everlasting covenant of grace. That's how they were saved. And
so He teaches you, salvation is not by a covenant of works. It's not by your works doing
anything on a covenant. Salvation is by the covenant
of God's grace. And He comes and reminds you
personally, and I said, I'll never break my covenant with
you. I'll never break my covenant with you. God will never break
His covenant with those He chose in Christ by free grace. He'll
never do it. He didn't choose us because of
anything in us, and He's not going to break that covenant
because of anything in us. Here's the promise. What's the
promise? Tell me what the covenant is. I can sum it up for you just
as easy as John did. 1 John 2.25, this is the promise. This is the promise. This is
the covenant that He hath promised us, even eternal life. There's the promise. Well, there's
a lot that's got to be done, a lot of conditions that have
to be met before we can have eternal life. That's true. But
none of them is dependent on you and none of them is dependent
on me. The triune God in Christ entered covenant to fulfill every
condition that must be fulfilled in order to save His people.
That's how God gets all the glory. He does it all. He does it all. And so He makes this promise
to you and to me, and He tells us all the conditions have been
fulfilled by the triune God in Christ. Every one of them have
been fulfilled. Paul said this, The Son of God,
Jesus Christ, who is preached among you by us, is not yea and
nay, but in Him is yes. Yes. For all the promises of
God in Him are yes and in Him amen unto the glory of God by
us. That means when He makes this
covenant to you personally. He doesn't make this covenant
to everybody. But when He makes this covenant to His people personally,
He says, I swear. And He can swear by no greater.
He swears by Himself. because He can swear by no greater.
I swear I will fulfill every obligation necessary and I'll
bring you to Him myself. I promise you eternal life. And
that covenant is yes. There are no maybes. There are
no yes or no. It's yes. It's fulfilled by Him. So, when He finds you in self-righteousness,
finds us looking to our works, finds us Trust Him in lies. He
comes to you in grace and He says to you, I saved all your
fathers by grace, by covenant grace. I saved them all by promise. That's what you hear when you
hear the gospel preached. You hear this over and over and
over through the gospel. Maybe not in those exact words,
Maybe it's looking at the diamond a little differently, a little
different face of the diamond, but it's still the same diamond.
And you're hearing covenant grace. You're hearing the everlasting
covenant of grace. And so He teaches you through
this Word, I saved all your fathers. That's who all His believers
are that came before you. They're your fathers. You who
believe. And He said, I saved all of them
by promise. And I've sworn to you, I'll save
you by my covenant promise." And when He speaks that word
in your heart, He tells you, I'll be merciful to your unrighteousness. I won't remember your sins and
iniquities anymore. Now why have you done this? And
He makes you see. He makes you see He does save
by covenant grace. He does save by promise. Because
here I am doubting His promise. Here I am looking away from His
promise, trusting in lies. And yet, He says, I don't remember
your sins. Why have you done this? He comes
and turns you. And I tell you, there's nothing
that melts the heart of a sinner like unchangeable, everlasting
love. Nothing. I'm constrained by that woman's
love for me. If we have any kind of ripple
whatsoever, the thing that turns me is I think about how she loves
me. That turns me. And I'll tell
you this, when Christ makes you to know His love for you, that's
what will constrain you. That's what will turn you. And
there's nothing else that will melt your heart and turn you
in repentance as Christ said, I'm saving you by my covenant
promise. Now why are you doing this? Don't look away from me
and He'll turn you. He'll turn you. Now let's go
to this last point. The Lord turns us through this
gospel. Through this gospel. He shows
us our disobedience through this gospel and it brings this question
home to our hearts. Now let's look at verse 2. He
says, And I said, You shall make no league with the inhabitants
of this land. You shall throw down their altars,
but you have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? Now,
all our disobedience, all our disobedience is us making a league,
making a covenant with God's enemies. That's what all sin
is. It's making a league with God's
enemies. Be it the enemy of our flesh,
our lustful flesh. When we sin, when we disobey
God, we're making a covenant with our flesh. A league with
our flesh. Compromising with our flesh.
Be it enemies in false religion. We compromise the gospel. We're
making a league with His enemies. Be it unbelieving friends or
associates or girlfriends or boyfriends or husbands or wives
or sons or daughters that would turn us from Christ. That's making
a league with God's enemies. And Christ commands us in grace,
be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. That's what
He teaches His children. Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers. That's what He told them. Isn't
that what He told them? Don't make a league with the
inhabitants of this land. Be not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with
darkness? What concord hath Christ with
Belial? What part hath he that believeth
with an infidel? What agreement hath the temple
of God with idols?" You're the temple of the living God, he
said. So, this is what he teaches his child. But not only are we
not to be yoked with God's enemies, we're to throw down their altars.
We're to throw down their altars. Now, every so often, every so
many years, there'll be a news report that'll come out, and
there's been a church burned down, or there's been a mosque
defaced, or a temple defaced, something like that. That's not
what God calls His people to do. We're not called to physically
tear down anybody's false gods. That's not what we're called
to do. We got something stronger than carnal weapons. It's called
the gospel of God's free grace. And we're to preach the gospel.
And through the gospel, Christ comes. This is what I've been
showing you. Through the gospel, Christ comes and He works repentance
in His people. He comes and says, why have you
done this? He comes through this message and turns His people.
So that's how we break down the altars. The way that we make
no league is to preach the gospel. Don't make
a compromise on the gospel. Our message is all flesh is grass. When you preach all flesh is
grass, that means there's nothing you can do to save yourself.
The only thing the sinner contributes to salvation is sin. That's it. That's it. Beginning to end,
you and I do not contribute anything to our salvation. All flesh is
grass. You preach that message and you'll
break down man's idol because man's idol is himself. We preach
Christ crucified. We preach salvation is by the
redemption He accomplished. That was our first point. We
preach salvation is by His covenant grace, His covenant promise.
ordered all things in sheer by our triune God. He's done everything
and left no condition in the hands of man. Christ is the only
way, the only truth, and the only life. There is salvation
in none other but the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one true and
living God over the whole world. How do you know that, preacher?
Because every other God puts something in the hands of a man.
The sinner has to do something to save himself. That's not even
salvation. If you have to do something to
save yourself, that takes it away from being salvation now,
when you can do something and contribute to it. Salvation is
being saved, beginning to end entirely. That's what salvation
is. And salvation is of the Lord. Now you preach that message and
it breaks down all man's altars. Breaks them all down. But the
children of Israel compromised with their enemies. They didn't
do this. They didn't do this. They wouldn't obey God. They
wouldn't drive out their enemies. Now it's a picture of men compromising
the gospel. Men who will not preach salvation
by grace apart from man's works. And so Christ made them to harvest
what they sowed. He made them to harvest exactly
what they sowed. Now look here in verse 3. Wherefore
I also said, I will not drive them out from before you." You
said, we won't drive them out? The Lord said, I won't drive
them out either. I won't drive them out either. The worst punishment for sin
is sin. Sin is its own worst punishment.
You won't drive them out? I won't either. I won't drive
them out either. Watch this. But they shall be
as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto
you. They sowed seeds of fleshly compromise. So you know what they reap? Thorns
in their flesh. Thorns in their flesh. The very
gods that they spared became the gods by which they were snared. Today in our nation, we're reaping
the harvest that is a result of false preachers who've sown
seeds of compromise for decades. Everybody's blaming the Republicans
or the Democrats or the, you know, this race is blaming that
race and, you know, different groups blaming this other group
and all this different stuff. That's not, the problem lies
squarely on the shoulders of false preachers. Listen to this. If you preach
man's worth and man's will and man's works rather than preaching
what Christ said here, I redeem my people. I deliver my people. If you preach man's works rather
than the redemption accomplished by Christ, if you preach old
covenant law, salvation by the works of the old covenant law,
that old covenant, whereby nobody ever was saved. You preach salvation
by the works of the law rather than by God's everlasting covenant
of promise fulfilled by God alone. Then what you're doing is preaching
a little, idle Jesus who can't do anything for anybody. And
at the same time, you're compromising with every false god there is. not breaking down any altars,
not breaking down any idols whatsoever, just building them up, building
them up. That's what Israel did literally. That's what they did. They would
not declare the truth. They would not obey the voice
of the Lord. They joined with these people
because, well, their daughters were pretty daughters. They wanted
to have them for their wives, for their sons. So they said,
well, we can make an exception. Just this time, just this one
time. Well, you know, I'm doing business with that fellow, and
if I tell him the truth, he's not going to give me his business
anymore. So I'll just tone this down a little bit so I can keep
getting his business. Just this once, so we're just
going to do it this once, make this one exception. And just
like that, the floodgates were opened, and you can go on reading
about it. When you read the next passage
here, that's not talking about these folks we're talking about.
That's the generation that was delivered into Canaan. Keep on reading.
When all those folks delivered into Canaan died out who served
the Lord, those that came behind them, their children and their
children worshipped idols from then on. That's who we're talking
about right here. That's who we're talking about right here. The harvest, when you preach
that message, the harvest, because you've preached self-will, the
harvest is going to be self-willed sinners. You don't sow beans
and get peas. If you sow the message of self-will,
you're going to produce self-willed sinners. If you sow the message
of self-righteousness, you're going to get self-righteous folks.
If you sow the message of self-sanctification, you're going to get a bunch of
holier-than-thou folks saying, don't come near me, I'm holier
than you are. If you preach proud boasting
and glorying in the flesh, you're going to get proud boasters.
That's what you're going to get. Trust in a covenant of lies and
preach a covenant of lies, you're going to get folks who trust
a covenant of lies. Compromise. Don't preach the true God, the
true and living God, but compromise with every false God. You're
going to get a generation of people that have compromised
with every false God, but will stop up their ears and call you
a bigot if you mention the true and living God at all. Is that
not what we've produced in this nation? That's how they were
produced. Our Lord said, don't be deceived.
God's not mocked. Whatever a man sows, that shall
he also reap. If he sows to this flesh, he
is going to, of the flesh, reap corruption. If he sows to the
Spirit, he shall, of the Spirit, reap life everlasting. But our
faithful Father chastens His child. He is going to turn us
from our flesh to Christ that we might be partakers of His
holiness. And you know how He is going to do it? Through this
Gospel. The same Gospel that He calls
you by in the beginning, the same Gospel that edifies you,
the same Gospel that comforts you, will be the gospel by which
He spanks you and whips you when you need to be spanked. When
you need to be corrected, it will be the same gospel by which
He does it. You see, that's the beauty of the gospel. It's a
two-edged sword. It cuts and it heals. It kills
and it heals. That's what the gospel does.
It's piercing the flesh and healing us inwardly all the time. That's
what it does. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness, all of it, every bit of it. So
we preach what? Christ our Redeemer. We declare
what Christ has accomplished for us. I stand here and I say
to you what Christ said to them. Christ has brought His people
out. Christ has delivered His people into the land of promise
and He is delivering us and shall deliver us and shall not lose
one. I preach to you what Christ preached to them right there,
what the voice of the angel preached to them right there was, I save
my people by covenant promise. Not one promise can be broken.
It all has to be fulfilled in perfection and it's all fulfilled
by God. No condition is left in your
hands or mine. and through that message. You
know what Christ does? He comes forth and every idol
in the hearts and minds of His elect people, His redeemed people,
He comes forth and He breaks down every altar and every idol,
and He grants them repentance, and He turns them to trust His
accomplished redemption, His everlasting covenant grace, and
He turns us from ourselves. That's what happens through this
Gospel. You see, we have... He said, you've disobeyed Me.
That's what he told them. You see, the way we obey the
Lord is we do what he... make no compromise with the enemy,
not in your flesh, not in the world, not in religion. Don't
make any compromise with them. Declare this gospel. See, that's
how he breaks the altar down in your flesh and in the false
religionists. He might not save them, but he's
going to damn them by it. But you see what I'm saying?
It's all through this gospel. If we compromise, you might think
that's love. That's not love. If we don't
preach the truth of His redemption and His grace, Christ won't come
through and give this repentance if it's not that message. You
see, men are preaching works, and do this work, and do this
work of morality, and do that, and they're trying to create
this body of people that's just so moral. Well, you might can
create that outwardly, but only Christ can create it where it's
done from the heart. And that's all that matters.
God doesn't look on the outward appearance, He looks on the heart.
And so, if you don't preach this message right here of redemption
accomplished and of covenant grace accomplished, Christ is
not going to work it in the heart. And what you're going to end
up with is this harvest of thorns and this snare of false gods. It's going to be a snare. But
if you preach it, by His grace you preach it. By His grace,
He turns you to preaching. If I start preaching something
false, if I've said anything in this pulpit that didn't give
Him honor, it wasn't very long when the Lord spoke to me in
my heart, usually through another preacher's preaching, and He
said to me basically this, why have you done this? And oh, it
breaks your heart. Oh Lord, I didn't mean to say
something that was wrong. See what I'm saying? He does
this through the Gospel.