Let's be going to Luke chapter
12. Luke 12. Once the Lord rebuked the Pharisees,
the scribes, and the lawyers, which we saw at the end of chapter
11. When he was finished there, they
were set against him. They were turned against him.
They were very angry. And they were looking for a just
cause to catch him, to ensnare him, to speak against him, and
to publicly oppose him. And you think of that, which
Proverbs says was, what the scriptures say to us about hearing the rebuke
of the faithful. It says in Proverbs 13, 1, that
a wise son heareth his father's instruction. It's wise to listen
to your father. He has wisdom. He has experience. He's speaking to you from that
experience, and he's warning you. Don't do that. This is what's
going to happen if you do it. Do this instead. but a scorner
heareth not rebuke." He gets angry, he's proud, he's arrogant,
he doesn't want to hear from the wisdom of his father. And
that's true of all of us by nature. We're proud. We don't like light
shining on our weaknesses. We don't like that light coming
upon what's in our heart and exposing the evil that's in us
by nature. But God's light reproves the
enmity that's in the heart of man. that doesn't trust God,
that fears God, that runs from God and wants nothing to do with
God, just as we saw all the way back in the garden when Adam
and Eve ran from the voice of God. But the child of God ought
to hear his God. The Lord does rebuke us. We all are corrected. If we're
sons and not bastards, we are all corrected by our Heavenly
Father. It's just so. We're not perfect. And in this flesh, we go astray. All we like sheep have gone astray,
and we do need to be corrected, and the Lord corrects us. And so, we may not like it at
first, but it's for our life. It's for our salvation. It's
for our good. And Proverbs also says in Proverbs
9, 8, reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee. That's one
who outwardly despises you, who publicly opposes you, who mocks
you. That's a scorner. Rebuke a wise
man, and he will love thee. That one who hears Christ loves
him. And you think of Peter. rebuked
of the Lord numerous times. Peter was given to us as a help
for us who are just hard-headed, thick-headed, stiff-necked, slow
to learn. He was given to help us who are
just like him. and don't hear, but Peter said,
Lord, to whom shall we go? Where are we going to go? If
we don't hear you, where are we going to go? Because you alone
have the words of eternal life, and we're sure, we're certain,
that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And so the backdrop here is this
rebuke of the Pharisees, the scribes, and the lawyers. And as we enter into chapter
12, that's the backdrop there where he pronounced those woes
against the Pharisees. And now he turns his attention
to his disciples. He turns to his disciples to
teach them, to bring home to their hearts what they had just
heard and witnessed in his rebuke of the Pharisees. Are you a disciple? Do you delight in the words of
Christ? Do you follow Him? Listen up,
because He's speaking to you now. He's speaking to you. So,
beginning in verse 1, Luke 12, 1. In the meantime, right? This had just all gone on. In
the meantime, when there were gathered together an innumerable
multitude of people, insomuch that they trod one upon another,
he began to say unto his disciples, first of all, beware ye of the
leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. And so of all the
people that are there now, There's so many, they're running into
each other, they're stepping on feet, people are falling back
and tripping and getting moved about and knocked about because
of the press that wanted to be near Christ, that wanted to hear
him and see him and touch him and receive something from him. Well, now he's gonna bring home
to the heart of his disciples, you that hear Christ, you that
follow him, you that want to know him. that desire him." That's
who he's speaking to, and he's going to bring home what he was
saying to the Pharisees, but they would not hear him, and
they hated him for it, because he exposed their hearts. Take
note of this, brethren, that if we were to glean out of the
Gospels the public discourses of Christ our Savior, for what
he said publicly to the people, much I would dare say the majority
of what he said was against the Pharisees, exposing the Pharisees
and their form of religion and what they were trusting in. He
spent a lot of time exposing them. You think of him going
into the temple. and how many discourses and arguments
they had with him and followed him about. When he drove the
money changers out from the temple, or when he had healed the man
outside at the four porches of Solomon's temple, and he went
into the temple and they followed after him, asking him all these
questions and challenging him. It was public discourses against
the Pharisees in particular. He used them as an object lesson
for his disciples. He did. He just spoke the truth,
and they would get riled up, and then he would turn to the
disciples and teach them. And using the Pharisees as the
object lesson, he would teach his disciples. If we listen to
religion in our day, if I reflect back on growing up in all the
churches I've been through and where I've gone, you would think
that the Lord spent most of his time rebuking the drunkard and
the gutter, the whore and the harlot and the publicans. You would think that he just
tore them apart all day every day, that he went about doing
that. But had he done that, the Pharisees would have embraced
him. They would have loved him. They
would have said, brother, yeah, now you see what we have to put
up with day after day. But Christ didn't do that. Christ taught the sinners. And he received sinners, and
ate with them, and spoke to them. and spoke gently to them, and
healed their infirmities, and was very merciful to them. And because he rebuked the Pharisees,
what did they do? They took sides with the accuser
of the brethren, didn't they? They actually stood and took
their place with the accuser. Of all people, persons to side
with, they sided with the accuser. So we read of the Pharisees where
they said things like, this man, if he were a prophet, this man,
if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of
woman this is that toucheth him, for she's a sinner. That's what
the Pharisees said. They looked at Christ, and he
let that woman, that harlot in town, weep on his feet and wipe
his feet with her hair, sobbing, and crying at his feet, and he
let her touch him. And that Pharisee said, this
is disgusting. This man can't be of God. He's letting her touch
his feet. And so instead of going after
her and rebuking her and saying, get away from me, you filthy
rag, get away. No, he didn't do that. He went
after the Pharisees instead. He turned his anger against the
Pharisees, and he was justified in doing so. Because there's
no group of people who opposed Christ more than the Pharisees. And openly mocked Him, openly
challenged Him, openly spoke against Him, and despised Him,
and tried their best to turn the people against Him. None
more than the Pharisees themselves. And Paul said this in Romans
10 verse 2, I bear them record. They have a zeal after God. They are very zealous for their
religion, but it's not according to knowledge. The light they
had was darkness. It's not according to knowledge,
for they being ignorant of God's righteousness, how holy, how
perfect God is, being ignorant of that righteousness and thinking
they're going about to establish their own righteousness, they've
not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God, which
is Jesus Christ. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." And that's why
they hated Christ, because they were proud law keepers, proud
law-abiding worshipers in form only, outward form only. And because Christ's light shone
upon that and exposed the hypocrisy of our hearts, they didn't like
it. They didn't like it. And so,
they gloried in the law, and they're glorying in the law.
When we glory in the law, we're downplaying the importance of
Christ. Inevitably, Christ becomes less
and less and less important, and he goes to the background,
because it all comes down to what you're doing. And you're
tweaking. And you're perfecting. And you
doing this under the law and that under the law. Stop doing
that. Start doing this. Do it this way. And Christ gets
more and more faint in the background. And we forget about Christ. That's
great. You came in through the gate. Now forget about him. We're
going to Mount Sinai. We're going on a field trip to
Mount Sinai. And that's the end of Christ. Before you know it,
he's forgotten. And it's just whipping, beating,
thunderings, lightnings, fire, and fear. That's what it becomes
there. And so the Pharisee, he's fine
with Christ being a part of salvation, but he's not the whole of salvation.
And yet the testimony of scripture is that Christ is all. He's all
and in all. He's all of our salvation. It's
Christ. And so We see it even when in
Acts 15, after the church is beginning to grow and the Gentiles
are coming in, we read of in Acts 15 verse 1, it says, and
certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren. They
came into the Gentile churches and they started teaching and
said, except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye
cannot be saved. And men, they may not say circumcision,
although, believe it or not, that is still very prominent
in the churches today. They do hold to circumcision.
And some may not say that, but they place other things. Except
you do this, this way, you cannot be saved. Except you do this,
this way, you cannot be saved. And man has his traditions and
his customs that he's putting forth and saying, you would never
do that. A Christian would never do that.
And if you were a Christian, you'd never do that. Sadly, to
our shame, yes, there are. I mean, look at David. And we
can say his name because we don't want to share our own sins and
say them publicly. But David shows us that, yeah,
a believer can fall grievously, grievously. And we need the grace
of God. So, these were Judaizers, and
they didn't deny Christ outright, but they turned everyone away
from Christ, little by little, as fast as they could, to the
law. And thankfully, the apostles
sided with Paul and Barnabas when Peter stood up and said,
brethren, you know that God used me to preach to the Gentiles.
And those guys hadn't done nothing. They weren't circumcised. They
hadn't been baptized. They didn't even say hallelujah.
But the spirit fell upon them, and they began to speak in tongues
and glorify God. God gave them the Holy Spirit,
demonstrating that he opened their ear. They heard it. They
believed Christ. And they received him. And they
were given the Holy Spirit that kept their hearts, locked them
in Christ, cleansed them in the blood of Christ. So either the
whole race of Adam is dead in trespasses and sins, either the
whole race is dead in trespasses and sins, or they're not. And
if they're not, then there is no need for Christ to come. Why
send the Son when all you had to do was give a law that could
have made men righteous? So either the whole race is dead
in trespasses and sins, or it's not. And if we are dead in trespasses
and sins, and there's no law that can make us righteous, then
we need this Savior. We must hear Him. Beg God to
hear Him. Beg God to turn your heart to
Christ. I can demand you to turn your
heart to Christ, and it doesn't do anything, right? Because I
have no power, and you don't have any power. I don't have
any power over my own heart. By nature, I'm a sinner, given
to sin. just under the law of sin and
death. I need the grace of God to give
me life and light in Christ and to turn my heart. Thank God for
that. He stirs up the heart and gives
that interest in the heart to desire him, beg him. He said,
ask and you'll receive. Knock and the door will be open.
Seek and you'll find. He gives that. That's how he
stirs up his people. So if all are sinners, dead in
trespasses and sins, and all died in Adam, then these Pharisees,
we see, are the most wicked of all. Most wicked of all because
they despised Christ, they thought they were doing righteousness,
and they were actually doing evil. Wicked works. Their works
under the law were wicked works. And not only were they not going
into the kingdom, but they were preventing others who would,
who would have gone in. They were preventing them. So
the Pharisees were the most deadly foe of our Lord. And I can say
that. They were the ones who crucified
him. They turned him over to Pilate,
the Gentiles, to have him crucified. And it even says, the scriptures
say, that Pilate knew that it was for jealousy that they turned
him over to them, that they wanted him dead. And he tried, but not
hard enough. He could have released him, but
even he crucified him. So he's guilty as well. But the point is, in saying all
that, is that Christ didn't bring out this enmity of the Pharisees
to deliver himself. Sometimes when we're afraid,
when we think someone's out to get us, we start getting tricky
and conniving and trying to catch them and outdo them. We try to
play that game of chess and deliver ourselves. That's not why Christ
exposed them. This is important. That's not
why Christ, he wasn't looking to deliver himself from the Pharisees
at all. Instead, he used that time to
teach his disciples. He wasn't bringing this out to
deliver himself. He used that time to teach his
people, his people who needed his salvation. And this is the
battle in the church in every age, the leaven of the Pharisees,
which is hypocrisy. Because just as it was then,
so it is today. We've all seen it. We've all
been it. Most of us have been the Pharisee. We've all done these things.
We've all practiced this form and thought we were something,
until by the grace of God, he humbled us and continues to humble
us and keep showing us our need of him. Because naturally, we
just puff up and get proud. and think we're something when
we're nothing. But these are the wolves that
come in sheep's clothing. And when they get a foothold
in the congregation, they scatter the sheep. They bring death,
and kill, and hatred, and division, and schisms. They scatter the
sheep. And it begins very small, right? I've not made bread, but as I
understand it, there's just a little leaven, just a tiny little bit
of leaven in that bread. And you do whatever you do, and
you put it aside as it's proving, and it starts to rise. And it
rises, and it gets bigger and bigger. That's the leaven of
the Pharisees. in the body, right? It just,
it starts slowly and it gets a foothold and then we get better
and better and bigger in ourselves and before you know it, the light
of Christ is blanked out. You don't see him no more because
now it's all about our form and our religion and what we're doing
outwardly to please God. And all it is is a show of outward
form seeking man's approval. Well, maybe if we do it this
way, we'll get more people in here, right? And so it's adjusting
and doing things in a way to appeal to the masses and to please
men, that they would want to be with us. And we also see that
the Pharisees, they're watchers. They're watchers. They did that
all the time. They were watching Christ to see what he would do.
They watched him to see if he would heal a man on the Sabbath
that they might accuse him. They're watchers. And that's
what that Phariseeism in our own hearts is. You have a suspicion
about somebody, and now you're watching them. And you're waiting
for them to fall so you can say, aha, you're a sinner. I knew it. I knew it. And that's
just all that leaven of the Pharisees. First of all, be wary of the
leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. And the second
thing I want us to notice here is that he's making this hypocrisy,
first of all, known, first of all, to his disciples. That's
who he's teaching here. He wasn't teaching the Pharisees.
The Pharisees were the object lesson. But he's doing it to
teach us. He wasn't doing it to save himself. He was doing it to teach his
brethren for their good, for what we need. But abiding in
Christ, rooted in him, that's where we're going to bear fruits
of righteousness. That's where we're going to be
humble, where we'll be kind and gentle to our brethren, understanding,
helpful, loving, thoughtful to them is abiding in Christ and
seeing how Christ, how he ministered his grace and his love to many
that were sick, many that were broken hearted, many that were
wounded. Those were all pictures of what
he does for us. When you see him raise a widow's
son from the dead and return that boy back to that widow,
that only son, that's a picture of what he does for us in our
broken hearts. When we're shipwrecked and crashed
and ruined and distraught, he heals us and ministers to us
and is merciful to us. And he says, if ye abide in me,
and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it
shall be done unto you. Because our hearts, our minds,
are set on the will of God. Lord, turn me. Turn me from the
love of this world. Turn me to think on what you
think of. Lord, give me a heart for what
pleases you and delights you. And so he turns us to him, and
so we ask according to that will, and he hears us and gives it
to us. Herein is my father glorified
that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples. Bearing fruit
that isn't unto death doesn't come by the whipping of the law,
it comes by the hearing of Christ, by the hearing of faith. That's
how He nourishes us and feeds us, how He keeps this head that
puffs up naturally deflated in ourselves, but swollen, a heart
full of love in Christ, in Christ, by Him. Abiding in Christ is
how we shall love our brethren. John said, we know that we have
passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. He that
loveth not his brother abideth in death. That one who lives
by the law, if the law is your focus, if you make the law your
focus, hatred for your brother is going to follow because you're
living by the flesh. And all that the flesh does is
produce the works of the flesh. The flesh doesn't produce righteous
fruit. The flesh, as we see Paul describing
it, is adultery and fornication. It's hatred and variance. It's
emulations and strife and divisions. It's whisperings and backbitings
and tearing people down. That's the flesh. That's the
works of the flesh. And so the law engages the flesh,
and it stirs up the enmity of the flesh, and it brings about
those works of the flesh. Preach Christ. Preach Christ. Hereby perceive we the love of
God. He doesn't say by the law. He says, here's how we perceive
the love of God, because he laid down his life for us, and we
ought to lay down our lives for our brethren. You see how he
shows us that if you're going to love your brethren and serve
them in love bearing fruits of righteousness, not being harsh
and overbearing and demanding of them, The way we're gonna
do that is beholding the love of God in Christ who laid down
his life for us, for a sinner like me. A poor, weak, nobody,
nothing, for someone like me, and he does it for my brethren.
that you're precious to him, that he should lay down his life
for you. And I know who you are because
you follow Christ. You love Christ. You hear Christ.
You're drawn to Christ. That's his work in you. And he
forms that love, that fellowship in the heart. And so we perceive
the love of God, and we bear that same fruit. We emulate that
same love and kindness and gentleness that we see him doing for us. bearing long with us, bearing
patient with us, and correcting us, gently teaching us, keeping
us ever in Him. We're warmed by that light and
that passion of Christ. Whereas when we look to the law
and we stoke up that fear and that wrath, that actually creates
a hard heart and a cold heart. And it turns us away from those
fruits of the spirit. And that's where that foothold
of the Pharisee comes in and it just stirs up that wrath and
enmity, divides and tears down. So everything Christ did was
born out of love for his people. Love to the Father and love to
his people. You think about it. Christ's
interactions with the Pharisees were making it so that every
time he opened his mouth, and spoke the truth, they hated him
even more for it. They hated him more. They got
more and more angry. It was more than one time that
they wanted to stone him and throw him off the brow of the
hill. More than one time. At the very end, if you're there
in Luke 12, look at the end of chapter 11, verse 53. And as he said these things unto
them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently,
and to provoke him to speak of many things, laying in wait for
him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth that they might
accuse him. But it was in this ground, this
object, less him, that the Lord began to reveal to his disciples
that we must be made new creatures. Otherwise, that's us. What those
Pharisees are, that's us in form and religion. That's what we
look like there. And he's revealing you must have
a new heart. You must be made new creatures.
You must be born again. God's not going to receive us
in the deadness of the letter of the law in this flesh. You
must be born again. And that's a new creature that
Christ makes. He's the creator. He's our God. He makes us new creatures in
him. And at the same time, he manifests
that heart of hatred in the Pharisees that was going to put him to
death that he might redeem and deliver his people. So he's talking,
again, not to deliver himself, but he's stirring up that enmity
in their heart for whose good? The good of his people. To bless
them, to redeem them, to accomplish their redemption. And so he's
speaking the truth, angering these Pharisees, and then he
uses that to teach his disciples. You see that? How beautiful that
is? He's stirring them up, which
was in their heart. They hated him. Left in their
natural state. and to put him to death. And
so the Pharisees were going to put him to death, but that's
the very way that he was accomplishing the salvation of his people.
So it wasn't to save himself. It was to bring about this glorious
salvation for his people. And so that's why when you see
it, he's revealing what we need to know about ourselves and what
he's saving us from and the life and light and salvation that
he's given to us, He's raising up in us by His grace and power. And so He's showing us, you and
me that believe Him, we've been forgiven much. That's how we
love much. Because we see, Lord, You've
forgiven me for everything. My ignorance, my foolishness,
my folly, my thinking myself something when I'm nothing. And
we love Him like that woman who bowed at his feet, weeping on
his feet, to wash his feet, and wiped them with the hair of her
head, as opposed to Simon, the Pharisee, who despised him and
said, that's disgusting. How can you do that? How can
you let that woman touch you? But we either come as a filthy
sinner, begging for mercy, or we don't come at all. We're not
coming to the Christ. We're coming in in our own arrogance.
Now, the third thing here is in verse two, and this will go
faster now. there's nothing he says there's
nothing covered that shall not be revealed neither hid that
shall not be known and so it's through the death of Christ that
the understanding of this scripture is going to be made and under
be made manifest and understood by us he's talking about the
gospel he's talking about the gospel God bringing to light
the mystery of God hid throughout ages, but now revealed in Christ. He's saying it's coming. It's
going to be made known how that we need the grace of God to save
us because the law isn't cutting it. Well, we're not cutting it.
There's nothing wrong with the law. We're the problem. We're
the sinners. We're unable to keep it. We need
a Savior. And that's what the gospel reveals,
is that the Father loved the people, for God so loved the
world, his people scattered throughout the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life." It's his grace revealed in the heart. And so he's talking about the
gospel. It's a precious revelation which
is given to us of what Christ has obtained for us. He's showing
us we're the sinners. that we need this salvation,
and we come to Him as the Savior who delivered me from my sins,
my sins. We're coming to Him. That's how
the sinner comes. Therefore, verse 3, whatsoever
ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light, and that
which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed
upon the housetops. All that he taught his disciples,
in private, was going to be made known and declared to us, to
us, to this day. And so he's showing us in Romans
11, verse 5, Even so, then, at this present
time also, there is a remnant according to the election of
grace. And if by grace, then it is no
more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be
of works, then it is no more of grace, otherwise work is no
more work. What then? Israel hath not obtained
that which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it,
and the rest were blinded. And so he's teaching us, bringing
us to see that Christ is all. He's the Savior. He's the salvation
of God. It's that simple. The simplicity
of Christ. Look to Him. Believe Him. And
by His grace and power, He raises us from the dead, turns our hearts
to the true living God, removes that veil of flesh, through the
circumcision of the spirit of the heart, whereby we see him,
and hear him, and follow him, and rejoice in him. John said,
Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because
greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
They are of the world. Therefore speak they of the world,
and the world heareth them. We are of God. He that knoweth
God heareth us. He that is not of God heareth
not us. Hereby know we the spirit of
truth and the spirit of error. The spirit of error turns you
to the flesh in your works. The spirit of truth turns you
to Christ, turns you to Christ, to hear Him, to believe Him,
to trust Him. And those who love Christ, who
declare His gospel, who turn others to Christ and speak of
Him, you're His friends. You are the friends of Christ,
the friends of God. And that's what he says, verse
4, Luke 12, 4, and I say unto you, my friends, my friends,
you that love Christ and believe Him and declare His word of faith
revealed to you by the Spirit of God, to trust Him and believe
Him, you are the friends of God. You are the friends of Christ.
Even though we're troubled by our sin, even though we're troubled
and perplexed at times and brought low in ourselves, But he turns
us to Christ. He turns us to Christ, and we
worship him. He said, come unto me, ye that
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. My yoke is easy, my burden is
light. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me from meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest
for your souls. Either that's true or it isn't.
And when religion's turning you to Sinai, that's no rest. That is labor. That is working. That is fear. That is being driven
harshly the way Esau was going to drive Jacob's sheep and children
harshly. And Jacob said, no, no, no. No,
we'll go slow. We'll go slow. Because I don't
want to kill the kids and the flock and bring them to nothing. We're going to go slow. trusting
the Lord, trusting Him. And the point is, you have nothing
to fear in Christ. Trust Him. He is able to save
to the uttermost. Believe Him, follow Him, look
to Him, hear Him, stay upon Him, trust Him. In Christ, there's
nothing to fear. Outside of Christ, There's only
fear. There's only death. But in Him,
there's nothing to fear. He says, be not afraid of them
that kill the body, and after that, have no more that they
can do. But I'll warn you, I'll forewarn
you whom you shall fear. Fear Him, which after He hath
killed, hath power to cast into hell. Yea, I say unto you, fear
Him. and the reason he tells us that
is that we hear him and he says this is my beloved son in whom
i am well pleased hear him in other words in him i'm well pleased
all who come to the father in christ believing him faith in
him He's well pleased with those in Christ, in Christ. The fear
of man is bondage. And the only one that we need
fear is God. And he says, get to Christ. That
is the strong tower I have provided for my people. Fly to him. Lie to him, sinner, because he
is salvation. From the destroyer that comes,
he is salvation. He delivers his people fully. You'll not be ashamed. You'll
not be destroyed in Christ. And when we say, believe on Christ,
and thou shalt be saved, we're talking about Christ as the Savior. We come as sinners. holy God
to Christ, seeking Him for mercy, trusting that He is the salvation
of God, believing Him that God has sent Him and put Him to death
as the surety of His people, that by His death He settled
the debt of His people. He's reconciled us unto God in
Himself, and all who believe Him have their sins put away. And we know this because God
raised Him from the dead. And you that believe Him and
believe that He died, was buried and raised again, have the testimony
that God has shed the blood of His Son for you because you hear
and believe Him. That's not of the flesh. That
is the testimony of God in you that you are His and one for
whom He died. And when He shakes you, And when
He shows you your sin, and when He causes you to see your own
sin and the wrath of God against you, that's when you'll hear
this word and fly to Christ. Flee to Him now before the day
ends, because today is the day of salvation. And men take refuge
in what? They take refuge in yesterday.
Well, I did this then, so I'm good now. Or they take refuge
in tomorrow. I'll worry about that tomorrow.
But today, nah. Those are false refuges. Today is the day of
salvation. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Confess your unbelief and beg Him to give you belief and faith
in Christ because today is the day of salvation. And our Lord
says to you that hear Him, to you who are His friends and believe
Him, are not five sparrows sold, this is verse six and seven,
are not five sparrows sold for two farthings? And not one of
them is forgotten before God? but even the very hairs of your
head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore." Now he
says, don't fear you that believe Christ. Fear not, therefore,
ye are of more value than many sparrows. You have nothing to
fear of God in Christ. Outside of Christ, you shall
meet a fearsome God, a God of wrath that will destroy you.
In Christ, There is peace. There is love. There is light. There is receiving. There is
fellowship. There is teaching. There is nourishing. In Christ is salvation. Come
to the Father in Christ. And there's no fear. Now believe
not the leaven of the Pharisees, trusting your works to save you.
That's hypocrisy. Believe Christ. Come to the Father
in Christ. Amen.