Brethren, let's turn back now
to Ezekiel 14. Thank you Art for leading the
singing and Scott for the scripture reading. Let's begin reading,
let's just read the first three verses here. Ezekiel 14 verse
1, Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, that is unto
Ezekiel, and sat before me. And the word of the Lord came
unto me, saying, Son of man, these men have set up their idols
in their heart, and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before
their face. Should I be inquired of at all
by them? This is another question that
God asked to a man. Now, our purpose in looking at
this tonight will be to prepare us for a message Lord willing
we'll hear on Sunday from Isaiah 57. One of the striking things
that strikes me when I listen to men talk, religious men, and
sometimes believers as well, is I don't I don't think we realize
just how real Christ is living. And that He's the head over all
things to the church. That Christ really is working
in the midst of His church. That it's Christ teaching His
people. It's Christ making His word effectual in the heart.
It's Christ that's turning the hearts of men whether they believe
or they don't. It's Christ that's working the
work in the midst of His people in this earth. He's doing it
just as real as He did when He walked this earth. But He's doing
it from the right hand of God, through the Spirit, through the
Gospel. Now God promises, the reason I mention Isaiah 57, He
promises there that He's going to remove the stumbling blocks
out of the way of His people. the stumbling block out of the
way of his people. Now here in the message tonight,
we're going to see that our Lord Jesus, God our Savior, removes
the stumbling block out of the way by cutting off idolaters
from the midst of his people. First of all, we need to hear
God declare here that false gods come from the vain imagination
of the heart. False gods come from the vain
imagination of the heart. Look at verse 1. It says, Notice
the outward appearance here. These were elders of Israel.
They were leaders in some capacity. Either they were civil or religious
leaders. but they were the elders. And
they came and they sat down before Ezekiel to listen. This was like
you coming in here and sitting down to hear a word of the Lord
spoken through his minister. This was what they were doing.
They sat down to inquire of him concerning the Lord, to hear
what Ezekiel would prophesy concerning the Lord. Now they appeared as
they came in there, they appeared to be paying attention, they
appeared to be sincere, they appeared to be reverent, all
of these things as you just would have looked at them on the outward
appearance. But God's not fooled by the outward appearance. God
looks on the heart. And here's what God said about
the heart. Verse 2, The word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart.
They've set up their idols in their heart. Each one had a God
prefigured in his imagination. He had a God already prefigured
in his heart, in his imagination. Each one of these men that came
there, they had a God and their idea of God already imagined
in their mind how God should be. They had an idea in their
heart of how He should be worshipped. And all of this was their idolatry. Each one of them had a false
idea of God and a false idea of how that God is to be worshipped.
That's exactly how religious, carnal, unregenerate sinners
come to the house of God to worship God. They come with preconceived,
prefigured, pre-carved out idols in their minds of how they imagine
God is. And that's what an idolater is.
A man doesn't have to carve it out in a statue to have idols
set up in his heart. That's what God said. They have
these idols in their heart. And because this was their heart,
God declares what was before their face. And when he says
here, he says this is before their face, this was what, because
this was in their heart, this is what they were looking for
before their face, in their mind's eye, this is what they were seeing.
And this is what they set up in all their places of worship
when they would worship their God in the way they thought God
should be worshipped. He says here, they've put the
stumbling block of their iniquity before their face. That's what
was in their heart, was the stumbling block of their iniquity, was
their idols, and they put that, the stumbling block of their
iniquity before their face. One reason it's called a stumbling
block is because by all their vain traditions and vain ideas
and vain ways and vain speeches about their God, they trip up
sinners. They trip up other sinners. It's a stumbling block of iniquity.
Now, Isaiah 57, remember we saw it there Sunday. God called it
the greatness of thy way. That's what He spoke to the idolaters
in Israel. He called it the greatness of
thy way. We saw it's the way of zeal, their openness and their
reception of all manner of false gods in every place, everywhere
that men are worshipping God. We saw it was the way of exalting
themselves. You've gone up to the mountain,
God said, and there you've worshipped God. It's that way of ecumenical
prostitution where you hide the truth behind the doorpost so
that you can speak a lie and receive men who speak a lie so
that you can gain numbers. It's the way of man's way of
his means and his methods and ever increasing those perfumes
to attract men in. It's the way of the life of their
own hand rather than the life of God. It's the way of fearing
men rather than fearing God. The greatness of man's way. This
is the stumbling block of man's iniquity. These are the things
he puts out and builds and does and goes about zealous for and
all that in his religion. And it causes men to stumble.
Now be sure you understand that man's God, the God of the unregenerate
heart, That God of the unregenerate heart always looks to man. Always. Man's God depends on
man to make him alive. Man's God depends on man to give
him faith and repentance. He depends on man to make him
righteous and holy. He depends on man to keep him
and preserve him and strengthen him in every trial. That's man's
God. He depends on man. By nature,
man's God is man. That's his God. When he makes
an image, it's just to have an image other than himself that
he can bow down to and say that's his God. But his God is himself. All the covetous lusts of his
heart, that's what he worships. That's his idolatry. Now, in
Isaiah 57, what we're going to see, Lord willing, Sunday is
God said, I'm going to remove that stumbling block out of the
way of my people. Because, you see, we have that
by nature, we have this stumbling block in our heart and before
our eyes too. This is what we are by nature,
all God's people are. So this stumbling block has got
to be taken out of our heart and out of our path. It's got
to be removed, and God's the only one that can do it. Alright,
now that's the first thing, this thing of idolatry, it starts
in the heart. It starts in the heart. It's
what man sees, what he wants, it's before his face continually. Now secondly, God asks a question. Here you got these idolaters
set before Him. Unregenerate men, idolaters,
men who have forsaken the right way, the truth, and gone after
a lie. And here's what God says. Should I be inquired of at all
by them? Now what would you answer? What
would you answer? You have a physician and he tells
you what the cure is and you listen to him tell you the cure
and then you spit in his face and you give him a cussing and
you just run him down and everything else and storm away from him.
Then in a little while you come back and ask him now, what do
I need to do to be healed? What do you think that physician's
going to do? That's exactly what men do when they reject God's
preacher, they reject God's people, they reject God's gospel, and
they storm out, and then in a little while, they're going to one of
other God's preachers, asking him what the Lord would have
me to do. And all the while praying to
God, wondering, what should I do? No difference. God said, should
I be inquired of at all by them? Well, surprisingly, or not surprisingly,
because this is the God of all grace, but this is the God of
judgment, too. And He says here, yes, I will
be inquired of by them. Because some of these people,
He's going to speak to them in judgment, but some of these people
are His people. And He's going to speak to them
in grace. But He says, yes, I will be inquired of them. But the
answer that God's going to give them is far different than what
the idolater expects or desires. Look here, verse 4. Therefore
speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God
every man of the house of Israel, and setteth up his idols in his
heart, and putteth the stumbling block of his iniquity before
his face, and cometh to the prophet. I, the Lord, will answer him
that cometh. But now watch how he's going
to answer him. according to the multitude of his idols. Now,
God says this is so of every man. This is every man. Every man, you know, you had
some in Israel that were Israel, they were his elect, and you
had some in Israel that weren't. But God says this is going to
be the case with every man. It doesn't matter if he's a true
child of God or he's not a true child of God. It doesn't matter
if he's an elder, like these men were, or if he's just a private
person, not serving publicly. It doesn't matter if he's of
Israel or if he's a stranger that's joined himself to Israel.
A Gentile, no matter who this man is, Jew or Gentile, the point
is God's not a respecter of persons. If a rich man walks in the assembly,
God's not going to say, you sit here and now you poor fellow,
you sit back there. And he tells his people, don't
be that way, because God doesn't respect a man's person. God looks
on the heart, we just saw that. He doesn't respect a man's person.
He doesn't show favoritism to a man based on the man himself. How will God answer him? He says,
according to the multitude of his idols. God won't give the
idolater an answer that he wants, that he desires from God. He
won't speak smooth things to him. God won't speak peace to
him when there is no peace. Now remember, God's speaking
through Ezekiel. his prophet. And today God's
speaking through his preachers. That means God's not going to
let his preacher answer him that way either. He's not going to
let his preacher speak peace, peace where there is no peace
and speak smooths and things to it. He's going to make his
preacher preach the truth to his people. And God's going to
answer them according to the multitude of their idols. Why
is that? Why is God going to do that?
Why is he going to answer them according to the multitude of
their idols? I'll give you five things, if you want to jot these
down, they're all right here in this text. First of all, God's
going to answer men according to their idols, because He's
going to expose what's in their heart. Verse 5, that, when He
says that, He's answering why He's going to do it. That, I
may take the house of Israel in their own heart. He's going
to meet us right at our point of rebellion. Right at our own
heart. Because they are all estranged
from me through their idols. We saw how Israel had played
the harlet. And he says they're estranged
from me. They're separated from me. Now, when you hear the gospel
preached, let's just put this in everyday terms that you and
I can understand. When you hear the gospel preached,
like we're sitting here doing tonight, why is it that some
people hear a message that offends them? If it offends you, why
do you hear a message that offends you? Well, when sinners come
to the true house of God, to hear the gospel preached in truth
by God's true preacher. When they hear that message going
forth, God is speaking directly to the idols that each man has
in his heart. He's speaking right to that point
of error or rebellion in the heart. And that's what is offensive. That's what crawls all over me
and makes me get offended by the message. A man can pretend
outwardly to rejoice in the Word. He can pretend like he really
enjoys it and he loves what he's hearing. But sooner or later,
God's Word is going to expose what's in his heart. Because
that's what God's Word does. Look at Hebrews 4 and verse 12. You know, a man can... He can claim to rejoice in the
doctrine of depravity. But in his heart, he thinks it
about other people more than he thinks about himself. Or he
just thinks of it as adoption. God has a way of bringing that
word to you personally. Sometimes it's in a message.
Sometimes it may be through one of his preachers, his preacher
one-on-one. It may be that he speaks something true of you
that gets so close to home that it's very personal to you. But
what it is, is God speaking to expose what's really in the heart. And he revealed by that, that
a man thinks that depravity is just a doctrine because he gets
mad when he finds out that that's spoken about him. If we're just
worms in the dust, why would we get mad about anything spoken
about us personally? And it's one thing to say, yeah,
I believe I'm a worm in the dust, but it's another thing for somebody
to tell you to your face, and then you kind of get mad because
they said that. Why are you saying that about
me? How dare you say that about me? Well, was the half even told? If God had told it, what would
God have said? See what I'm saying? Look here.
The Word of God is quick, and it's powerful, and it's sharper
than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit, and of the joints and the marrow. It gets
right to the heart. It's a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart. Now, that's the first reason
he's dealing with the heart. Here's the second reason. God
answers idolaters through His Gospel to cause sinners to repent
from their idolatry. Verse 6, he says, Therefore say
unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God, Repent, and
turn yourselves from your idols, and turn away your faces from
all your abominations. In the general call of the gospel,
when you just hear this preached and everybody sitting here together
hearing it preached as it goes forth, God's commanding all men
everywhere to repent. God doesn't speak in just maybes
and ifs, and it might be a good idea. When God speaks, it's a
command. God says, repent from your idolatry
and your abomination. Repent. And when He speaks this
word effectively into the heart of His child, He comes with a
command in full force that makes His child repent. It makes us
repent. He says, turn you from your idols. And the word here is, turn others
from their idols. And he says here, and turn away
your faces from all your abominations. Every sinner is responsible to
repent. Every sinner is responsible to
believe on the Lord Jesus. If we repent, God receives all
the glory because He's the one that gave us the heart, granted
the repentance to do it. But now if we don't repent, the
only one to blame is us. God's not stopping anybody from
repenting and coming to Him. He doesn't arbitrarily stop a
man from coming to Him. God doesn't do that. So, the
problem is this. Left to that will that men so
much like to brag about, left to that will, men won't repent
and come to God. Men won't let go. Christ said,
you will not come to Me that you might have life. Paul said
there's none that understands, there's none that seeks after
God. That's not God's fault. No, no. God didn't sin in the
garden. Man sinned in the garden. And we were born of our father
Adam and we have his nature. By birth we have his nature.
So we come forth doing what our nature is to do. We sin. God
don't have to make you sin. We sin because we want to. And
we won't stop it and turn from our way and our idolatry and
our vain imagination to God. We just won't do that. So it's
not God's fault if you don't repent, but now it's God's grace
if He touches you and turns you and makes you repent. You see
that? So listen to this closely. God
gives all men in this world some amount of light. You have the
light of creation, you got the light of His Word, you got the
light of the Gospel, And God's just. He gives men some light. He gives men time to repent. And God's just. If men walk in
the light God gives them, God'll give them more light. It'll be
to the praise of His grace if they do. But He'll give them
more light. But if men refuse the light He's
given them and go to hell, it'll be because that's what they wanted
to do and God didn't stop them from doing what they wanted to
do. They earned it. Not because God randomly predestinated
them to hell. That wouldn't be just. That would
not be just. Try to understand this. Most
men think, well, if God predestinated some men to salvation, to be
saved, that automatically means, and He passed by some, that automatically
means He predestinated them to hell. Predestination is an act
of God's grace. It's a positive act of God's
grace. He predestinated some men to
be saved. His leaving other men to themselves
to do what they're willing to do and want to do is just what
they want. They say, meditate and leave
me alone. Well, that's what God does. It's
not His fault if that man does what he is willing to do. So,
God graciously chooses whom He will to save, but He doesn't
randomly predestinate men to hell. When Scripture speaks of
men of old who were before of old ordained to this condemnation,
what it's speaking about is men who had the light that God gave
in whatever capacity it was, but refused to walk in that light,
and so eventually God made it so they could not believe and
ordained them to condemnation. God does that. He does that. But He brings life and gives
man time and space to repent, so that if they don't repent,
the fault is man's and not God's. Because God's just. Every man
is responsible for himself. Look at Ezekiel 18, 20. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. Now watch what this means. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. The son shall not bear the iniquity
of the father, Why? Because that's not the soul that
did the sinning. The son did the sinning. So, I mean, the
father here, the son should not bear the iniquity of the father,
neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The
righteousness of the righteous should be upon him, and the wickedness
of the wicked should be upon him. You see that? We're not
going to be able to... We live in a day and time where
everybody wants to blame somebody else for their problem. God's
done, He's not going to deal with us that way. There's going
to be nobody else to blame but us. The soul that does the sinning,
that's the soul that's going to die. You see? And the soul
that's righteous, that's the soul that will be righteous.
You understand that? It's God that he's saying this. So the sinner who repents, he's
going to praise God because God did it. God gave him repentance.
And that sinner who doesn't, he's going to be condemned because
he wouldn't repent. He did it. He's getting what
he justly deserves. God's just. Now, when you hear
that, don't be like those to whom Ezekiel preached. Look back
there at Ezekiel 18. I'll show you what they said
about all that. Ezekiel 18, 29. Here was their answer to this
word. Ezekiel 18, 29. They said, The way of the Lord
is not equal. It's not equal. God said, Here
now, O house of Israel, is not my way equal? Are not your ways
unequal? Therefore I will judge you, O
house of Israel, everyone according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Repent and turn yourselves from
all your transgressions. You don't brag about your will?
Then just repent and turn from your transgressions. So iniquity
shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions
whereby you've transgressed and make you a new heart, a new spirit.
For why will you die, O house of Israel? I have no pleasure
in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God. Wherefore
turn yourselves and live yet. God's not stopping anybody from
doing that. So why don't men do it? They're
not willing to. Not willing to by nature. God
gives us a heart to do that. But this is the man, he says,
now I'm going to speak to their heart and I'm going to expose
their point of rebellion, their idolatry. And therefore you tell
them to repent from that, turn from it, leave it. And that's
the message we preach. We preach and tell them, you
leave these things, leave that, don't do this, do that, don't
do that. Not because you're going to come to God in that, but we're
telling you to leave all everything else and every other vain way
and come to the Lord Jesus Christ and rest in Him alone. Alright,
here's the third reason. God answers men according to
their hearts to make them know it's God Himself that's speaking
to them through His ministry. Look at verse 7, Ezekiel 14,
7. Every one of the house of Israel,
or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself
from me, see they did it themselves, and setteth up his idols in his
heart, he did it himself, and puts the stumbling block of his
iniquity before his face. And yet he still comes to a prophet
of God to inquire of him concerning me, God said. God says, every
man that does this, he's worshiping idols in his heart, but yet he's
still coming to the house of God to sit under God's prophet
to hear a word concerning me, God said. God said, I, the Lord,
will answer him by myself. I'll answer him. Sadly, when
they sat there and they inquired of the prophet, They listened
to what the prophet had to say, and when they heard the answer
was contrary to what they wanted the answer to be, and went against
them, you know what they said? You know what they answered back?
That's just Ezekiel talking, that's not God talking. That's
just Jeremiah talking, that's not God talking. And is it any
different today? That's exactly what men do today.
Somebody will say, I wish God would speak and tell me what
it is I should do, and then I would do it. And they go, and they
sit down, and they hear the gospel preached. And what they're hearing
God say through the message is, this is what you ought to do. But it goes against what they
want to do, so they say, that's just the preacher talking. That's
just the preacher talking. Now, in the days of the prophets,
when men went and sat down to hear a prophet say the word of
God, what we have here given to us about God speaking to the
prophet and all that, it's much like a man sitting down preparing
a message today. And God breathes the message
to you and gives you the message. But when they stood up and preached,
those people that sat there hearing him preach, they just saw a man
standing there saying, this is what God says. It's no different
than today. Now they had signs to do and
gifts that God gave them to be able to do because at that time
they didn't have the full Word of God. But we don't have those
gifts today because we don't need it. Our witness is, turn
to this book and show you, here it is. We got the full Word of
God now so we turn there and show you in the Word this is
what God says. But it's God that's speaking. He said, I the Lord
will answer him by myself. I usually, when I'm studying,
I don't have any idea why the Lord puts a message on my heart
when he does. I don't know. Sometimes it comes
just like, I mean, it's like a sunbeam coming and then you
just can't write fast enough. I like it when it's like that.
Sometimes it's not like that at all. Sometimes it's just digging
and trying to get it. I don't know why, but in the
end, once you have the message, you just sit there and look at
it and think, this was not of me. I didn't put this together
because I couldn't have. I know where I started from when
I started on this message, so I know this didn't come of me.
This is God that gives it to you. But this I do know. I know this. From God's Word,
I know this. Through the message, whatever
the message is, God himself is answering those who have inquired
of God. Whether they've been praying
about something, or there's something that's been on their heart, and
they've been commuting with God about it, or wondering about
it, or whether they're just an idolater who's just worshiping
something, and God's going to tell them. God's going to answer
them. That's what he's doing through the message. And I don't
have any idea what he's doing or how he's doing it, but he
puts that certain message on the heart of his preacher and
causes the person he'll have to hear it to hear it. And they're
going to hear it. And they might not like the answer
that they hear, but it's God himself answering. And I'm telling
you, this is real, brethren. This is so. When you pray to
God, God's not going to speak audibly to you like He did in
days of old, because we got the Word of God now, and Christ is
sending His preachers to say, here it is, and He's given them
the Word. And the way you know it's true is, is what they're
saying according to this Word. Do they match? Are all the witnesses
bearing testimony between all these witnesses they're showing
you in the Word and what's coming out of their mouth, is it all
according to this Word. If they stand up just preaching
their own Word, don't listen to them, because it's not the
truth. But if they're going line by line, verse by verse, and
showing you this is what God says, and it's true, God sent
that Word, you listen to Him. Just the preacher's message,
say you listen to a message, he's talking about the absolute
sovereignty of God, and you're hearing him talk about God God
moving and doing and controlling everything in this world. And
that offends you? God is speaking to you and telling
you your problem is you think you've got some power in you.
And the power is God's. A man sits and hears a message
on God's electing grace and he's offended by that message. He
don't like it. He hates it. God's speaking to
him and telling him it's not of him that willeth nor of him
that runneth, but of God that shows mercy. God's drawn a man
and He's brought him in and he's sitting there listening to this
message and he begins to hear a message about God's particular
redemption in Christ and His love toward His people that is
in Christ and he gets offended because he thinks that's just
too narrow. I thought God loved everybody. God Himself is speaking,
saying, no, my love is in my Son. It's in Christ Jesus. And
just the contrary. If a man is just worshipping
his idol as a system of doctrine, and his heart is hard and cold,
and he hears the message and it comes across to him and offends
him because it sounds like God's love is too generous, and his
love is too open, and his love is too broad, and he's offended
by that, God's telling that man, you've got a hard heart. You
don't have the love of God in your heart for needy sinners
to be called out of darkness and sin and death. How could
anybody hate that message? You see what I'm saying? He said
here, I'm going to answer according to what's in his heart. And I'm
going to do it to tell him to repent from his evil. And I'm
going to do it so he knows it's God himself that's doing the
talking. That's how God speaks through
His Word. And yet, men get offended and they say, well, that's not
God speaking. That's just the preacher. And
you know that's how men look for a church. Men go around,
a wheel worker, he goes around and listens to preachers until
he finds that preacher who flatters him by telling him exactly what
he wants to hear. That he's saved by his glory,
by his own working, by his own will and what have you. And sadly,
when men get offended about something, and they have a problem, whether
it's with the preacher, or another brother, or some big decision
they gotta make, and whatever, and they talk to a preacher,
and the preacher tells them, this is what the Word of God
says, and they're offended by it, they don't like it, a lot
of times they'll go around, they find a preacher that'll tell
them what they do like. You see what I'm saying? But God says
this, when the Word of the preacher is consistent with His Word,
right here, And God's put you in that place, and He's planted
you there, and He's given you, established His gospel in that
place, and the preacher's telling you what God says. The best thing
you and I can do is camp out right there and hear that Word
as God Himself speaking. Best thing. All right, fourthly,
God sends His gospel to expose the reprobate, the rebel, and
the false prophet and to cut them off from his people. That's
what he's going to do through the gospel. Look here now, verse
8. And I'll set my face against
that man, and I'll make him a sign and a proverb, and I'll cut him
off from the midst of my people. Now when God sets his face against
a man, that's a bad thing. It's just and it's right, but
it's bad for that man. Because that means God's not
giving him any more space to repent. And when God does it,
God says, I'm going to make him a sign. A sign. That means God's going to show
the man to be what he is. He's going to show the man to
be a rebel, a reprobate against God. He's going to show him to
be. And he says, and I'm going to make that man a proverb. The
word means a reproach. He's going to do it in such a
way that folks are going to say, I can't believe that. Have you
heard about that? And they're going to know about
it. God's people are going to see it, and they're going to
hear it, and they're going to know it. And how is He going to do this? He
said, I'll cut him off from the midst of my people. I will cut
him off from the midst of my people. Now, God gave me faith
in Christ almost 30 years ago. And I've seen a few people come
and go in 30 years. And I'm going to tell you what
is almost always the case. Almost always. Number one, they
find something wrong with the message being preached. Number
two, they almost always begin to nitpick and accuse God's people
of something. Number three, they almost always
claim to depart defending God's glory. And number four, eventually,
almost every one of them join themselves with false preachers
and false brethren. And the reason for the latter,
that they join with false preachers and false brethren, is because
Whenever God has a preacher that won't preach the gospel, God
does the same thing to him and God will put them together. The
false brethren and the false preacher, God will put them together.
Look here, verse 9. If the prophet be deceived when
he has spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet.
It means because he too rejected God. And it says here, and I'll
stretch out my hand upon him and will destroy him from the
midst of my people Israel. I'll cut him off from them and
they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity. The punishment
of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that
seeketh unto him. That doesn't mean it's going
to be equal because the preacher has a lot more responsibility
and a lot more blame. It means though he's a preacher,
I'm going to punish him just like I do the one that follows
him. You see, He puts them together. Now look here, 2 Thessalonians
2.10. Let me show you this real quick. We got one more thing
to look at here. 2 Thessalonians 2.10. God tells us why He does it.
Look at the middle part of that verse. Because they received
not the love of the truth. that they might be saved. And
for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they
should believe a lie that they all might be damned who believe
not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. He sends
them strong delusion by sending them a strong delusional preacher
and they all believe the lie together. That's, and He shows
you that, that's a sign. How many times have you done
this? How many times have you looked at a church where the
preacher preaches, stands on the... We get so many members
here on Sunday, I'm going to stand on the roof and preach
from the rooftop. They do some gimmick like that.
The people go there and they preach nothing and you stand
there and you say this. How on earth could they possibly
stand to hear that message? You know what that is, believer?
That's a sign to you. That's a proverb to you. That
man has been made a reproach to you, to show you. God said,
I did it. I did it. God said, I did it. Now lastly, why does God do all
this? Why does God do all this? He
does it to save His people. He does it to save His chosen
elect people. Ezekiel 14, 8 says, I'll set
my face against that man and make him a sign and a proverb
and I'll cut him off from the midst of my people and ye shall
know that I am the Lord. That man's not going to know
it. The minute it goes out like that, They go out thinking, boy,
I showed them. I told them. Remember what God
said in Isaiah 57? Who do you sport yourself against?
Sticking your tongue out and not laying it to your heart that
God has saved His people from the evil? And you're the evil,
God said, and you don't even lay that to heart. That man that
goes out or kicks God's child out of his congregation, he don't
lay it to heart. But God said, but you're going
to know I'm the Lord. I'm going to make you to know
I'm the Lord. I've done this." And look at verse 11, "...that
the house of Israel may go no more astray from me, neither
be polluted any more with all their transgressions, but that
they may be my people, and I may be their God, saith the Lord
God." You know, true believers that God is quickened together
with Christ, that He's given true repentance and faith in
Christ, they can go astray momentarily, and they can be polluted by their
transgressions. The Galatians were being led
astray by men, men who they thought were true brethren, but were
false brethren. Those men came in there and they
began to rejoice in the message they heard, the same message
that Paul preached. And those Galatian believers
thought, well, these are brethren. They were baptized. They started
following along with them and having dinner together and doing
everything with them. And the Galatian believers thought,
these are true brethren. And then in a little while, those
Galatians false brethren in there, they found a little fault with
the preacher. Something bothered them. And
they just whispered it to one of the Galatian believers. Just
one of them. He talked to his wife about it.
They talked to others about it. And then those Galatian believers
would have never even noticed They would have never noticed,
they would have never found fault with their preacher, with their
brethren and all, except that person brought it up, and pointed
it out, and they started listening to it. And then next thing you
know, they're not listening for the message anymore, all they're
listening for is things to nitpick. And it goes on and on like that,
until the next thing you know, they've just caused all kind
of division. Folks who said, Paul said, you
would have plucked out your eyes for me. now looked at Paul and
said, I'm not even sure he's a true preacher of the gospel. Well, how is that man that's
caught up in that, how is he going to be saved out of that?
He can't save himself out of it. You and I can't save ourselves
out of it. There's one way God's going to
bring him out of it. God's going to separate the false
man and the false brethren, and He's going to move them out.
He's going to do it in such a way that He's going to make that
believer see, make him understand. Because Christ bore his iniquity. He bore the iniquity of His people.
Christ redeemed His people. Christ justified His people.
And that God's given them faith in Christ to rest in Him. And
they've gone astray, but they can't be lost. They can't be
left out. God's going to bring them back.
He's going to bring them back. And sometimes the means that
God uses to restore his own people, to bring them back to himself,
is the punishment that God inflicts upon the hypocrite. Usually, it ends up with that
hypocrite finding fault with the one he led astray. Before
long. Because nitpickers always find,
if they run out of somebody to nitpick, they'll turn on you.
And that's eventually what'll end up happening. Here God made
the false prophets and those that followed them as examples.
And He used them to warn His true people, to teach His people
to watch and guard against falling into the same sin. Brethren,
the only reason God's people are saved, the only reason while
others separate themselves forever is this. The grace of God our
Father, the righteousness and blood of Christ Jesus our Redeemer,
and the power of the God the Holy Spirit. That's the only
reason that we don't fall away forever. Paul said, there must
be also heresies among you. God said, I did this. There must
be heresies among you. Why? That they which are approved
may be made manifest among you. that those that God has drawn
and planted and settled that can't be moved because of God's
grace, that they may be made known. Because as Robert Auger
said, the rest are just feathers in the midst of the winds of
temptation. Blown wherever. And that's what
we are if God takes His hand off of us, brethren. Listen to
this. He calleth his own sheep by name,
and he leads them out. And when he puts forth his own
sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for
they know his voice. And a stranger will they not
follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of
strangers. He said, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them,
and they follow Me. And I give unto them eternal
life. They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of My hand. My Father which gave them Me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
My Father's hand. And God also does all that for His preacher.
Turn over to Ezekiel 14 and look at verse 22. He says, Behold,
therein shall be left a remnant that shall be brought forth,
both sons and daughters. Behold, they shall come forth
unto you. He's speaking to Ezekiel. And
ye shall see their way and their doings, and ye shall be comforted
concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, even
concerning all that I have brought upon it. and they shall comfort
you when you see their ways and their doings, and you shall know
that I have not done without cause all that I have done in
it, saith the Lord God." God's saying, you're going to see,
I did that. I planted them. And when you
see that, God says it's going to comfort your heart. That's
what He does. Doesn't it comfort your heart?
I know we don't like to see folks leave the gospel. It just breaks
your heart to see that. But when you hear that your brother
or sister answered a man according to the Word of God, answered
him faithfully and stood for the gospel, doesn't that comfort
your heart? When you hear that they couldn't
be divided and split up and all that, doesn't that just comfort
your heart? When I first moved here, there was a man that was
in so much error, just falsehood. And I said, as long as he sits
here and don't say a word, let him sit here. The best thing
for him is to hear the gospel. But the minute he tries to cause
trouble, he's got to go. And sure enough, for long, he
stood all he could stand. He showed what was in his heart.
He sent all the men an email trying to stir up trouble. And
I never said a word. He didn't send me the email.
And I started getting the emails that the men wrote to him. And
I was so comforted by it. Because everyone else answered
according to the Word of God and told him, if you want to
stay and keep your mouth shut and hear the Word, you can. But
if not, adios amigos. And he left. He left. And that
comforted me. It comforted me because I saw
what God did. I saw what God did. Whatever
comes about, it's always, even if God says it's evil because
He poured out judgment on those, it's always going to be good
for His people. And it's going to show you the glory of God
and comfort His people. Always. Always. Amen. Alright, brethren. Let's stand
together. Brother Art, when you finish
that last song, will you close in prayer too? All right.