Deuteronomy chapter 32. Deuteronomy
chapter 32. And you know, as always, my plan, my plan is to would be to go
from verse one down to verse fourteen, which is all one section,
one speaking, one instance, but I think I've spent most of my
time, going to spend most of my time this morning on verse
two. Verse one says, Give ear, O ye
heavens, and I will speak, and hear, O earth, the words of my
mouth. Listen. My doctrine shall drop
as the rain. My speech shall distill as the
dew, as a small rain upon the tender herb, and as a showers
upon the grass." The title of the message this morning is,
The Doctrine of God. The Doctrine of God. Now here Moses, he declares,
give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak, and hear the words of
my mouth. Now Moses was the prophet of
God. He was the mouthpiece. And if
you want to know what the word prophet means, it just means
mouthpiece. My mouth. That's what the prophet
does. The prophet only is to speak
the Word of God. That's all the prophet had to
give. Moses was a prophet of God. He was given the Word of
God to speak. And I'll tell you this, even
so are preachers of the Gospel as the prophets of God in this
manner. We are to only speak the Word
of God. We're only to speak the Word
of God. Listen, you don't want me to give you my opinion of
things. You don't want me to give you my ideas or my thoughts
or my imagination of how things go. Because then you have nothing
to stand on because my thoughts and my opinions and my imagination
are just as good as yours. The man of God that stands to
preach to you must declare the Word of God or else he is useless. He is of no value to the souls
of men preaching the doctrines and commandments of men. We are
here to preach the Word of God. Paul says this, we are ambassadors. Now what does an ambassador do?
He only speaks the word for the nation. Isn't that right? We
send our ambassadors to other countries, and they're not allowed
to speak their own will. They speak for our country. They speak for our nation. And
that's exactly what we do as preachers. We speak on the behalf
of God to you. I preach to you not my imagination,
not my opinion, but the word of God. And the word that Moses gives
here is the same word that we preach. Look at that in verse
2. My doctrine. My doctrine. The doctrine that Moses spoke
of was not his own doctrine. It was the doctrine that God
had given to him. The word doctrine today comes
with a disdain. You hear men say doctrine, and
people automatically, oh, that's just so cold and indifferent.
Doctrine. I don't want to hear doctrine.
Don't teach me doctrine. Religious people say, well, let's
not preach doctrine. Let's just worship. Let's not
preach doctrine. Let's just evangelize. Let's just all get along. Isn't
that the modern theme today? You have your opinion, you have
your opinion, and we can all just put aside our opinion and
get along. That's what they think of doctrine,
that doctrine is some opinion. Look, I just told you, I don't
want to give you my opinion. But I tell you this, the doctrine
that I desire to impart to you is not mine. It is God's. It
is God's. This type of philosophy, that
doing away with doctrine, shows nothing but the ignorance of
man. If any man says, let's do away with doctrine, do you not
understand doctrine simply means teaching? Well, let's just do
away with all teaching. What do you say? Let's just all
get along. Nobody teach anybody anything.
You just have your own opinion about things and let's just all
live in ignorance and just get along. That's what the religious
world wants. How do you think they get so many people into
one place and agree? Man, you can't get five people
in a store agreeing on the same coked product to buy, much less
how God is to be worshipped. And yet, how do they do it? Because
they all just let everybody have their own opinion, and they don't
really count. Everybody's opinion counts. They
go around teaching. They say, OK, well, this is what
the Bible says, but what do you think? I don't care what you
think. If it's opposed to this book,
I really don't care. And you know what? If I say anything
opposed to this book, you shouldn't care. Doctrine means teaching. And
how can you teach? How can you preach? How can you
worship? How can you witness without doctrine?
Now listen, true enough, a man may know doctrine and not know
Christ. Isn't that right? You may know in your head doctrine.
You may have all the books on systematic theology memorized. You may know the great details
and great depths of doctrine and not know Christ. But listen to this, no man knows
Christ without doctrine. You will never know Christ without
doctrine. How can one witness of a God
that he does not know? How can one worship a God that
he doesn't know what God requires? How can he know he's accepted
of that God, except he know what God wants? What God demands? Who God is? How can you know
those things? Somebody said this. It's like
a basketball team. He says, boys, I want you to
go out there and play basketball, but don't worry about the lines,
and don't worry about the basket, and don't worry about the ball.
But I want you to go play basketball. How in the world can you play
basketball without the lines, and without the ball? You need that? I tell you this, you cannot worship
God, you cannot know God except you know what? His doctrine. His teaching lets you be taught.
Paul says this, how can a man believe on Christ whom he has
not heard? And how shall he hear without
what? A preacher. And how shall they preach except
they be sinned? You remember that woman at the
well, Jesus, He said to those Samaritans, He said, you worship
you know not what. I could say that about most religion
today. You worship, but you don't know what you worship. What's
your doctrine? Well, I don't know. I just go.
I just go to church. And I just throw it up in the
air. Maybe it'll land. Maybe God will
accept me. Maybe He won't. He won't. How
do I know? Because I know His doctrine.
You don't know that. You don't know God. So before
you can worship, you must be taught of God. Isn't that what
Jesus said? No man cometh to me except the Father which hath
sent me. Draw him as it is written. They
shall all be taught of who? God, if you learn your doctrine from
me, you're not going to get it. You actually have to be taught
of God. But this is how God's going to teach you, the same
way He taught by Moses. He sends a man to declare. And that's what preaching is.
Preaching is declaring. That's all we do. We're not entertainers.
We're declarers. We just declare the truth. Jesus
said, we're sowers. We sow the seed at adventure.
We throw the seed. I don't know where it lands.
I'm not throwing the seed at you. I'm not trying to plant it in your
heart. I'm just declaring it. It's the work of God to teach
you. It's the work of the Spirit to apply it to your heart. It's
not my work. It's impossible work. I can't take this work
and put it in your heart. I can't make you believe the
doctrine of God. I can't make you know the doctrine
of God. That's God's work. God's work. We'll see that in
a minute. What is God's doctrine? Is that not a relevant question? We worship God. Isn't it right
then to just ask, what is your doctrine, God? What is your teaching?
What is it you convey? If no man can be saved without
the doctrine of God, what is the doctrine of God? The study of doctrine, we know
this, is necessary because it is the foundation of all faith
and practice. The doctrine is foundation of
all faith and practice. But our doctrine is not just
any teaching. If our doctrine is based on the
opinions and philosophies and traditions of man, then our foundation
is as unstable as water. Southern Baptist conferences
have they had since the founding of the Southern Baptist Church.
Why do they need those? Because their doctrine changes.
They change. You can't read a book from a
Baptist in the 1800s and look at a book written by a Baptist
today and you can't see, you can't tell me there's a difference
in doctrine. Why? Because they found it on something
that's movable, that's changeable. What is movable? The opinions
and traditions and philosophies of men are always fluctuating,
always changing. It's like fashion. And always changing. But the source of true doctrine,
doctrine by which sinners are saved, doctrine by which the
saved are comforted and find refuge in the midst of their
troubles, is in this alone. You got it right here in your
hands. The source of all true doctrine is the Word of God. That's it. The Word of God is the only source
of truth in the universe. The Word of God. The world is
in constant flux, constantly changing, but one thing is constant,
unchanging, and unchangeable. I don't care how many times men
have tried to change this book. Theirs falls away and this book
always remains the same. Always. Constant. Doesn't change. Go to 1 Peter. 1 Peter. I want you to see this, because
if we're going to understand doctrine, and this is the source
of all true doctrine, then I need to know something. I need to
know if this book changes. Because if it does, I don't need
it. It's just as good as any man's opinion. Go to 1 Peter,
and look at chapter 1, verse 23. The Apostle says, being born
again. Well, how's a man born again? You must be born again. How's
a man born again? Not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible by the Word of God which liveth and abideth
forever. Look what he says about man,
all flesh is grass. And the glory of man is the flower
of grass. What does the grass do? The grass
wither, the flower fadeth away. You listen. But the word of the
Lord endureth forever. You're going to die just like
your parents died, just like your grandparents died, just
like everybody before you died. You're going to die. Your glory,
your memory is going to be erased. Nobody's going to even know we
were here. But I tell you what, this is going to continue. The
Word of God endureth forever. It doesn't change. It doesn't
move. And listen, and this is the Word
by which the Gospel is preached unto you. Behold the necessity
of the Word of God in the new birth in spiritual life. And this doctrine of God is what?
The Gospel. The Gospel of Jesus Christ. The truths of the Word of God
are not denominational dogmas. They're not church creeds or
confessions. Not doctrinal debates or theological
theses. But friends, the doctrines of
God are the Word of God. The Word of God. Now, you pay
attention. Many today are relying on the
Word of God Partially. Some put their emphasis and say,
well, that's God's Word alright, but we need the traditions of
the church. We need the traditions of the
church. So these men are putting part of their soul, the resting
part of their soul, on the Word of God, and the other part on
traditions. passed down from churches and
histories of men. But it won't be long until these
two oppose one another. It won't be long until tradition
and the Word of God oppose one another. And what do men do when
that happens? They set aside the Word of God
and trust the traditions. Always. Always. When the Word of God and their
traditions clash, they always choose their traditions. Isn't
that what the Pharisees did? You remember they said, you've
got to wash your hands. If you don't wash your hands, that was not
in the Word of God. That was not a law of God. And
yet they said, oh, we need to have washing of hands because
it's pretty. It has a showy thing to it. That's what religion wants. They
want a big show. That's all they want. And so
they get these traditions. You've got to wash your hands.
And you know what Jesus said about that? He said, you make
null and void the Word of God by your traditions. Some people, they rely on the
Word of God plus church confessions. Now listen, I've read some church
confessions that are very decent, very good. But you let a church confession
contradict the Word of God and you know what happens? Men set
aside the Word of God and they cling to that church creed or
that church confession. That's why I don't promote them.
Because they're not the source of truth. They're not the source
of life. The Word of God is. I don't learn
my doctrine from creeds. I learn my doctrine from the
Word of God. Another thing men use is experiences. They say, well, God's Word has
its place. But you know, my experience,
in my experience... Look, if your experience doesn't
square with that book, your experience is foolishness. I don't care
what it is. I don't care what kind of miracle
you experienced. I don't care what kind of language
you got to speak, if you've been gibberish or whatever. I don't
care. If it doesn't square with the
book, your religion is vain. Your doctrine is false. The doctrine of God comes from
the Word of God. And so what must man do? Man
must put aside his tradition, put aside his experiences, put
aside everything that does not square with this book. Because
this is where God's doctrine is found, in His Word. The source of all faith and practice
must be the Word of God. Therefore, we, like Moses, call
upon you to hear the message of the doctrines of God. Paul
says, "...All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is
profitable for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all
good works." You remember he charged Timothy, he said, I charge
you. What are you supposed to do,
Timothy, you young pastor? What are you supposed to do?
Preach the Word! What do preachers do? We preach
the Word! When do we preach it? In season
and out of season. When it's popular and when it's
not popular. That's the way it goes. Sometimes
the Word of God has dry seasons and nobody seems to want to hear
it. Sometimes there are floods of people, like in Spurgeon's
day, they came in by the droves and wanted to hear it. You know
what? That didn't change Spurgeon's message, did it? No, because
he preached the Word. That's what I do, is preach the
doctrine of God. But what is the doctrine of God? In this one book, made up of
66 books, written by many different authors over thousands of years,
over different continents, I want you to understand it has one
message. One message. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That is the whole message of
the book. Jesus Christ and Him risen from
the dead. You remember that passage I just
read to you earlier, Luke chapter 24, when he talked to his disciples,
he said, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded
unto them in all the Scriptures concerning what? Himself. This whole book is about Christ. In the book of Acts, you have
30 years of preaching by the apostles themselves. And I believe in all 37 instances
of them preaching the gospel, you know what their subject was?
In every message, in every message, you know what their subject was?
I'll give you one guess. What is it? Jesus Christ and
Him crucified, Jesus Christ and Him risen again. That was the
message they always preached. They didn't preach anything else.
They preached Christ. I remember a man in this church
for a long time and left. And he told me why he left. He
says, man, all you do is preach the same thing. Yep. Why? Because that's the doctrine of
God. From cover to cover, I can pick out every instance, every
story, every history in this book and show you Christ. Because
that's what it's for. Christ. It's to point men to
Christ. The mystery of the Word of God
is Christ. It centers around Him and Him
alone, of His accomplished redemption, of His perfect righteousness,
and the proof of His acceptance, which is the resurrection from
the dead. That's the doctrine of God. Doctrine
of God. Depravity of man. Man is depraved. The sovereign election of grace
is the doctrine of God, that God chose a people in Christ
before the foundation of the world. Jesus Christ came and
died for those that God has chosen. And the Holy Spirit comes in
great power by the gospel being preached, and He gives life to
those elect. And He preserves them, He keeps
them by His power until He brings them all to glory. This is the
doctrine of God. Now let me ask you, how does
this doctrine fall on your heart? Does it fall hard on you? Does
it cause you to stand up and be angry? Or does it humble you? Only two
effects. It's either going to cause you
to believe, or it's going to cause you to be hardened. That's
the effect of this doctrine. It has two effects. But look
what God says about His doctrine. Look back at your text. He said,
My doctrine, the only doctrine that's important is the doctrine
of God. Listen, shall drop as the rain. My speech shall distill as the
dew. as the small rain upon the tender
herb, as the showers upon the grass. Now let me ask you, does
that sound hard? Does it sound cold? Sound indifferent? Not to the tender herb. Not to the one who needs it. The doctrine of God is not dry,
it is not dead. The doctrine of God drops as
the rain and distills like the dew. What does this teach us?
It teaches us at first that as the rain, where does the rain
come from? It comes from heaven. And so where does this doctrine
come from? It comes from heaven. It comes from God down out of
heaven. It comes from above. You remember when God made Adam.
God made Adam perfect. He made him without sin, set
him in the perfect environment, and there man was. Until when? Until Adam sinned. Adam rebelled. Adam hardened his heart toward
God and took that which did not belong to him, tried to rob God
of His glory, and ate of the fruit, and immediately judgment
fell. He died. He died. The second
he ate, he died. Why? How do we know? He saw he
was naked. Before he had no consciousness
of sin or nakedness, but after he saw he was naked, and what
did he begin to do? He covered himself with fig leaves. He ran from God. He hid himself
in the forest of the trees, trying to hide himself. This is man by nature. We by
nature are spiritually dead. And what does man do? He tries
to cover himself with the doctrines of his opinions. The doctrines
of his works. He takes those fig leaves of
his works, he sews them together and makes an apron to cover himself. And it lasts only until when?
Until God speaks. Until the doctrine of God comes
to his ears. And what does he do? He runs
to the trees of confusion and religion. He tries to hide himself. Now let me ask you this. Was
God obligated than to save Him, to come to Him. He wasn't obligated
when He left the angels in their first condition. And I tell you,
neither was God obligated to go to Adam. But you listen, He
did. He did. As the rain comes down from heaven,
even so God condescended from heaven and came to Adam. He pursued. Adam fled God, but
it was God that pursued Adam. And how did He pursue him? Was
it with thunder, lightning, and vengeance? No. You remember what
He said, Adam, where art thou? Not asking for information. God
knew exactly where He was. But you see the tenderness of
it. You see the compassion of it. You see that God came asking
a question He already knew the answer to. What hast thou done? He came as the rain descending
out of heaven. with cords of love. He came with
the desire to draw Adam to himself. You see, the soul of man is as
barren as a wilderness and devoid of life. Our sin has separated
us from God, yet God came to man, not in condemnation and
judgment that had already fallen. So God descends not as the storm,
but as the rain, as the dew, as the mist. Now what comes as
lightning is the law. Isn't that right? The law comes
as thunder and lightning, not as the rain. Why? Because the
law has a purpose to shut you up. That's all the law can do
is shut your mouth. Paul said that in Romans chapter
3. He said that the world may become guilty before God. That's
what the purpose of the law is, to make you guilty. Show you
you're guilty. You're already guilty, but it's
make you know you're guilty. The purpose of the law cannot
save you. It cannot help you. And there was Adam in the presence
of God, who he had offended. whose fig leaves of religion
had failed him and his nakedness was exposed. And what does God
do? He comes in mercy as the rain
on the tender herb. And what is this doctrine that
he speaks to Adam? He says this, Adam, the seed
of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent and he shall
bruise his heel. The first message of the gospel
ever preached was by God. It was a message of Christ, the
seed of the woman. The eternal Son of God should
come down from heaven. And as a man, He would come and
save men. Now let me ask you, how tender
is this? that God would give His only
Son to save the most unworthy objects of love. That Christ should come and offer
Himself for those who are unworthy, unwilling, and unrepentant sinners. You see, God didn't wait for
Adam to repent, did He? He didn't wait. He came to Adam. And listen, if God is ever going
to save you, He must come to you. You'll never go to Him.
You'll never go to Him. Now, you'll go to the God of
your opinion, but you won't ever go to the God of the Scriptures.
Not by nature. Unless He come to you. And what
did He come down to do? He came to represent sinners. He came to be a representative
man by which He should destroy the head of the serpent, by the
crushing, the bruising of His heel, His crucifixion, His death. That's how He should save you,
is by His death, by His willing offering. But how can one Remove guilt. How could God remove guilt? I tell you how. He made Him to
be sin. For us. Sinners. And God poured out on
him the justice and vengeance our sin deserved. Remember that
hymn, stricken, smitten, and afflicted, see him dying on the
tree? Tis the Christ by man rejected,
yes my soul, tis he, tis he. Tis the long expected prophet,
David's son and David's Lord. By his son God now has spoken. "'Tis the true and faithful word.
Tell me, you who hear him groaning, was there ever grief like his?
Friends through fear, his cause disowning, foes insulting his
distress, many hands were raised to wound him, none would interpose
to save him. But the deepest stroke that pierced
him was the stroke that justice gave." The stroke that his father
gave to him. The stroke of God upon his soul. He crushed him because of our sins. Is there ever more tender doctrine
than this? Behold, what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the
sons of God." Is that not great? That we, rebels, haters of God,
unwilling, unrepentant sinners, should be called the sons of
God? What a great grace! What great mercy! For when we
were without strength, the Scripture says, Christ died. He didn't
wait for you to have strength. You were without strength. And
He died. For who? The ungodly. Scarcely
for a righteous man would one die, yet peradventure for a good
man some would dare to die. But God commended His love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died. And what is the doctrine of Christ
and His death? Did He actually redeem us from
our sins? Was He successful? That's a good
question, isn't it? If you're a sinner in need of
salvation, in need of redemption, is that not the greatest question?
Did He do it? Was it real? Did He accomplish
it? Or was it fake? Did I need to
add anything to it? Look at the next verse. Look
at verse 4 in your text. Look in your text. Here's the
doctrine of God. Here it is. He is the rock. His work is perfect. Now, you want to know the doctrine
of salvation? Here it is. Christ, the rock. His work was perfect. Perfect. How can God whose ways are judgment
and truth, in whom there is no iniquity, pardon sinners, because
the work of Christ was perfect." Sinner, you are barren in yourself.
This is the doctrine of God. You're barren in yourself. You'll
never please God. Try as you may. Do all the work
you will. You'll never please God. I'm
telling you there's one person who pleased God. That is the
Son. He said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Are you broken by the law? Are
you shut up to self-righteousness and self-salvation? Then see the doctrine to you
is no dry and lifeless doctrine, but one that comes as the tender
rain upon the tender heart. Behold, the work of Christ is
perfect, a work that is finished and needs no help from us, a
work that is done. Is there not anything better
to a weary, wandering sinner than to hear this? It's done. No work for you. No work for
you. All done. Isn't that the message
of the king concerning the wedding feast? All is ready. All is ready. All is ready! Come! All is ready! Is that not the
tender rain upon the tender plant? Refreshing to the soul? Men try to bind you with laws
and rules and regulations. The gospel has no such law. It
is a law of faith and love. It is not a law of works. It's
a law that says it's finished. Come, believe, trust, rest on
the rock that doesn't move. The doctrine of God is Christ,
and His work is perfect. I like this. I'm going to read
it to you. A friend of mine, Jack Shanks, who's now been with
the Lord for many years, wrote this. He said this, You say you're
unworthy of the least of God's mercies? Aren't you glad Christ is worthy? and that the redemption He has
accomplished was for the unworthy? You say you have no goodness
or merits or claim. Aren't you thankful God accepts
sinners based on the goodness and merits of His Son? You say
that the law affords you no hope. You're right. But the gospel
declares that mercy and grace of God are freely given to sinners
because of the doing and dying of His dear Son. This is the only salvation worth
having and the only one worthy to be proclaimed. Jesus Christ
came into the world to save sinners. Is that not the most tender doctrine
that you've ever heard? Listen, it is if you are the
tender plant. Isn't that what it says in our
text? It says, my doctrine shall drop
as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew, the rain
upon what? The tender herb. The wounded
conscience. the hell-deserving sinner, the unworthy, those who have
no merit or goodness. This is the rain that falls on
them as a tender plant. The doctrine of God is tender. There's nothing more tender Then
the gospel of Christ to those who need it. Now I'll ask you, do you need
it? Then to you the doctrine of grace
is tender. The second doctrine, and I don't
have much time for this, and I'm going to show you a couple
more that's in this text, and we'll close with this. Look at
verse 5. He said, "...they have corrupted
themselves. Their spot is not as the spot of the children.
They are a perverse and crooked generation." The doctrine of
God is this. Man is depraved. Man is dead. Man cannot by himself save himself. Why? They're crooked. Man is just crooked. Our Lord
says there's none righteous, no, not one. You have a preacher,
I do. No, you don't do pretty good.
You're none righteous. None that doeth good. No, not one. But
what about this one thing? Look, you're arguing with God.
Don't argue with me. God said you're not righteous. God said
you're not good. Go argue with Him. His doctrine, isn't it? It's not mine. Man is crooked
and perverse. And this is because we all died
in Adam because of him. We all sinned in him and we all
died in him. But this is the good news that
distills like the rain. You see God, when God condemned
us in a representative. It also set a precedent in doctrine
that he must save us by a representative. If any man is going to be saved,
it's not by works, it's by a representative. Therefore Paul says, therefore
by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation.
Even so by the righteousness of one, listen, the free gift
came upon all to justification of life. You see, by a representative
we can be saved. The doctrine of God is man is
corrupt, but the doctrine of God is that by the righteousness
of Christ we may be redeemed, reconciled. This is the doctrine
that distills as the dew. And I'll tell you this, sometimes
we as believers, even though we've been given a new nature,
we still contend with the old. God didn't eradicate this old
man. Many times, like Israel, we corrupt ourselves. We sin and we fall, just like
Israel, as a type. And what then is the remedy?
Look at verse 7. Remember the days of old. Consider
the years of many generations. Ask thy father, and he shall
show thee thy elders, and they will tell thee. You know what
God's men are called in Isaiah? Isaiah 62, I believe it is. He says, we are called the remembrancers.
All we do by preaching the doctrine is called to remembrance God's
salvation. This morning, I'm not telling
you anything new that you haven't heard. I'm just calling it to
memory. Remember. Remember. And when
you remember in your sin, what does it do? It comes down as
the rain and it distills upon your heart. And you're refreshed. You're renewed by it. And what
are we to remember? Look at verse 8. When the Most
High divided the nations, their inheritance, when He separated
the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of His people, listen,
according to the number of the children of Israel, For the Lord's
portion is His people. Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. What are we to remember? You,
believer, remember your election of God. Remember that all things
work together for the good of them who love God, to them who
are called according to His purpose. Remember that your salvation
was no accident. This rain that descended, the
gospel rain that descended from heaven and landed on your heart,
was not by chance. was on purpose. See, our salvation is not by
accident. It's by design. God purposed it. God willed it. And you listen,
everything else is moving for the purpose of God saving His
people. The world thinks they're important. You see, what we know that they
don't know is God is using them for the glory of His people and
the good of His people. That's all they're being used
for. You remember, He raised up Pharaoh for what? To show
His power to Israel. He raised up Babylon. For what? To show His power to Israel. He raised up Cyrus to show His
power to Israel. He raised up Rome to show His
power to Israel by the death of Christ. You see, God purposed
these things, and all that is happening is for you. It's for
you. You see, God separated the nations
according to what? The number of the people of Israel.
That's what God separated for. For you. That's what you need
to remember. Now let me ask you, is that hard?
Is the doctrine of election hard for you? I'm going to use this
as an illustration. A friend of Burns' family, who
was raised under the gospel and heard the gospel from his youth,
heard of God's sovereign election, of God's perfect redemption in
Christ, And yet when he grew up, he went away, didn't believe
the gospel, and he wrote a letter. And he reminisced of how hard
and how cold and how indifferent the doctrine of God was. Election
was so cold and indifferent. You know why it was cold and
indifferent to him? Because he was not the tender herb. He was
a rock. I remember when it was raining
and I just watched the street sign. You see the rain hit the
sign and what does it do? It just rolls off. What does
it do for the sign? Nothing. It's dead. What does
it do for the rock? Nothing. It's dead. What does
it do for the living? It causes us to grow. It strengthens us. It gives us boldness
and courage. Same gospel. Same doctrine. To them, it's cold and indifferent.
To us, it is tender and kind and merciful and gracious. Long-suffering, isn't it? See, it's not the judgment of
God that leads men to repentance. It's the goodness of God that
leadeth men to repentance. If it's doctrine is never going
to be... If it's not good to you, you'll never repent. You'll
never know it. But to us, the doctrine descends like the rain. And you know, I like this. It's
like the dew. When you see the dew in the morning,
do you know where it comes from? It just appears. And that's how the doctrine did
for us, didn't it? It just appeared. God, in grace,
distilled it on your hearts without you even knowing it and gave
you life. That's what this doctrine does. Now, I'll ask you again,
is this dead doctrine? No. It distills like the dew in the
small rain upon the tender earth. And I do pray that God would
send it on every one of your hearts. For life, for strength, for courage. that we may worship
God. Witness of God, how? My doctrine. My doctrine. May God bless this
to your soul. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer.