Matthew chapter 7. Tonight our
text will be found in verse 6. Matthew chapter 7 and verse 6. The title of the message tonight
is, Withholding the Gospel. Withholding the Gospel. Matthew chapter 7 and verse 6. The Lord Jesus Christ says, "...Give
not that which is holy unto dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before
swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again
and rend you." Now last week, we looked at this passage from
verse 1 to verse 6, and we saw, first of all, this matter of
judgment. We saw that God, being a just
God, can, will, and must punish all sin. God is just and He must
punish all sin. And He will punish every sin
in a just way. decree. In other words, when
a man sins, if he is to pay for his own sins, if he is to go
before God in his own righteousness, God will judge him based on what
he has done in this body, and God will give him a just judgment. I was talking to Andrew. Andrew
asked me about judgment, about God sending a man to hell. And
he said, that doesn't sound right. I said, that's because you don't
understand what justice is. You don't understand what a just
judge is, a right judge. God is right to send every man
to hell based on his sins because God is eternal. And when we sin,
we sin against an eternal God. And because of this, as we studied
on Sunday, we are to give more earnest heed to this Word, to
the Word of God, because God will judge sin. And how shall
any man escape the judgment of God? Is that possible? Is it
possible for any man to escape the judgment of God? No, absolutely not. There is no way that a man is
going to escape the judgment of God. Friends, even us who
are redeemed by the blood of Christ, we didn't escape judgment,
did we? We didn't escape it. Christ paid
for it. Judgment was rendered for our
sins. Our sins did not escape the judgment
and the just eye of God. They were punished in Christ,
but they were punished. They were punished. No man will
escape judgment. Not one sin has ever escaped
God's attention. God does mark iniquity. God does
count all sin. And all men will give an account
of their sins. and not the sins of others. You
know, a lot of people are worried about the sins of others, aren't
they? They're so busy about the sins
of others and looking and saying, oh, look at that guy. Look what
he's did. Look what he did. Don't worry about what he did.
God's not going to judge you based on what he did. God will
judge you based on what you did. That's judgment. That's just. And every one friend
that's in hell right now is not paying for sins of others, they're
paying for their own sins. God is meeting out eternal justice
on them. And because God will judge all
men according to their works, this should move all sinners
to find a hiding place. Is that not right? If God is
just and He must punish sin, then that should move men to
find a hiding place. A place where God will not impute
sin. And where's that? Where's the
only place God will not impute our sins to us? Jesus Christ. He is the only place that God
will not impute your sins to you. Those who are in Christ.
It was this man alone that God sent to represent His people
and procure for them a righteousness that they could not provide for
themselves. This man's blood, Jesus' blood, is the only thing
that God will accept in full payment for sin. Full payment
for sin. When I say that, I cannot help
but wonder, why will men not come? Why will men rather be
judged in their sins and be found guilty before God rather than
coming to Christ having life. Why would they? Why would they
try to stand in their own righteousness when they themselves can attest
that they're not perfect? They themselves attest that they're
not righteous, but Christ has a perfect righteousness. Why
would you not be found in Him? God has promised that whosoever
believes in Christ as their propitiation and substitute, He will not impute
their sins to them, but He has already imputed their sins to
Christ. You don't remember that day when
you found that out? Wasn't that a good day? That was a great
day when I found that out that my sins weren't going to be imputed
to me in judgment because they were already imputed to Christ
and He had already suffered and died for them. And we that have found this out,
we sing that song, Glory I'm Saved. Glory I'm Saved. My sins are all pardoned and
my guilt is all gone. It's all gone. So the judgment
of God to a believer is not something we fear, is it? It's not something
we fear in a dread. We don't fear God in a dreadful
sense because our sins are gone. Now, we do fear God. We do reverence
God. And we know this, that God does
judge us, His people, in this world by chastisement, doesn't
He? God does judge us by chastisement. And so we fear the Lord and we
walk before the Lord in fear. If you don't, you should. You
should walk before the Lord in fear, in reverence. Remember that when Jesus here
is telling us not to judge, Last week we talked about this, that
we should not judge rashly or based on our feelings. God is
having a judgment, that's right, but when the Lord is talking
about here is our judgment and He says we're not to judge rashly,
not by our feelings or our thoughts, but by the Word of God only.
We must judge ourselves first by God's Word and then we may
freely, lovingly, kindly, Judge others. Now we've come to the conclusion
of this thought. Now this verse 6, our text tonight,
is the climax of this thought. It's the conclusion of the thought
of judgment. And this is a very solemn one,
friends, and I think it's one of vital importance that the
church has missed in our day. And if we don't heed it, we'll
fall into the same trap as the other churches before us. Now,
this is the conclusion of the matter. Here the Lord tells us,
don't judge rashly, judge yourself by the Word of God, then you're
able to judge others. And the truth still remains,
we must judge. You must judge wisely. You must. And here's what the
Lord tells us about this judgment. He says, "...Give not that which
is holy unto dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine." Now,
I want to divide this up. I want us to see what is holy
and pearls. I want us to see what are the swine and dogs.
And then I want us to see what will happen if we don't heed
this admonition of the Lord. So first of all, pearls, holy
pearls. Now, this judgment is one concerning
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Friends, this gospel
is truly a holy gospel. A holy gospel. Now, the word
holy means separate, doesn't it? When we say God is holy,
we know it includes all of His attributes. God is holy in His
righteousness. God is holy in His judgment.
God is holy in His love. That covers all of God's attributes. He is separate in everything.
There is none like Him. For instance, there is none like
this gospel. And this gospel is holy because
it is God's gospel. That's what makes it holy. That's
what makes it holy. Friends, if I made up this gospel,
it is no more holy than a trash novel you can buy in the store.
If I made this gospel up, it's worthless. But God made this
gospel, and because God decreed this gospel, it is therefore
a byproduct of His nature, which is holy. It's a holy gospel. And it should be esteemed as
such. How many times had the nation
of Israel rejected and refused this gospel? God says this about His Gospel.
He says to the nation of Israel who despised it, He says, you
despise the Word of the Holy One of Israel. This Gospel is holy because God's
the author. It's a reflection of God. So
when you hear the Gospel, what you are hearing is a reflection
of God's character, God's nature, God's goodness, God's kindness,
God's glory. You hear all of those things
in the message of Jesus Christ. We see all of those things in
Him. And friends, God has said His word above His name. Psalm
138, verse 2 says, Thou hast magnified Thy word above Thy
name. I know every one of you has heard
that phrase, a man's word is his bond. Well, isn't that true? I mean,
can't you judge the character of a man by his word? Yes, absolutely. And friend, God tells you to
judge God's character, how? By his word. Look at his word
and see what God says about himself. God says, I magnify this above
my name. If this is not true, I'm not
God. That's what he said. God's magnified this Word and
all that oppose God's Word are liars. Isn't that true? Let God
be true and every man a liar. God's Word is holy. It's separate
from every other Word. Number two, this Word, this Gospel
is a pearl. It's holy not only that it's
separate because God's the author, It's separate because it's only
one of its kind. It stands alone and by itself. And I'll tell you,
friends, there are two kinds of religion in this world, true
and false. Works and grace. Now, I don't
care what you put on the door. You can put anything you want
to on the sign outside. But what it comes down to is
this. How is a man saved before God? How is a man redeemed before
God? How can a man stand before God? If the answer is anything but
grace, it is a false message. And I don't care if they put
grace in it along with something else, it still is false if it
is not grace alone. If salvation is not of the Lord
by Himself alone without us, then it's not true. And we see
this represented in Cain and Abel. We see that all religions
are boiled down to these two at the very beginning. Works
and grace. Cain in chapter 4 and verse 3
of Genesis, in the process of time it came to pass that Cain
brought the fruits of the ground, an offering unto the Lord. Now
when you see Cain's offering, what do you see? I see the best
that Cain had to offer. I do not doubt the sincerity
of this man Cain. I do not doubt his sincerity
to bring the best of his fruits, to sacrifice the rumbling in
his own stomach so that he might offer to God the best that he
had. I don't doubt that he sacrificed.
I don't doubt that he sweat. I don't doubt that he bled and
he labored with his bare hands and did all of that hard work. I don't doubt that a bit. But friends, when he brought
that fruit before God, God says, I will have no respect to that
offering. I don't care how hard he worked.
God didn't care how hard he worked. That was not enough to satisfy
God. And this is a picture of all
works religion. Any man that tries to worship
God based on anything he's done, or by the deeds of his religious
worship, or by the will of his flesh, all that offer to God
of the fruits of their labor as a means of contributing or
adding to the sacrifice of Christ, all that would strive to worship
God by the obedience of the law, plus the blood of Christ, All
that would take their good deeds and try to make them outweigh
their bad deeds. All of these will come to the
same end of Cain. God had no respect for the offering. Cain and he will have no respect
to their offering either. But true religion is this. It's
the religion of Abel. This is the religion of Abel.
This is the true religion. And Abel also brought an offering
of the firstling of his flock, of the fat thereof, and the Lord
had respect unto Abel in his offering. Abel brought to God not the labor
of this cursed earth, nor the labor of his cursed nature. What
did he bring? A lamb. He brought blood. He brought blood. Why? Because
he saw that God had brought the first sacrifice, didn't He? God
brought the first sacrifice. God made a pattern. God gave
the Word to His parents. And this was the Word. Blood. Blood was to cover sin. Genesis 3, 21, unto Adam and
to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skin and clothe
them. How did He make those coats of
skin? He killed an animal. He shed innocent blood to make
an atonement. And Abel says, I don't want to
offer what I got. I want to do what God did. I
want to follow what God said. God said blood. The blood of
another. must be offered. The only true
and holy gospel that is to be offered is the blood of Jesus
Christ alone for the atonement of sin. That's the only offering
God will accept. And the minute we add anything
to it, we've defiled it and made it vile in the sight of God. You add anything to the blood
of Christ and God will not have respect to your offering. God
will not have respect to your soul. He will judge you based
on your works. And He will cast you into hell
forever. That is a fact. That is the truth. Salvation
will be by the faith in the blood of Christ alone as the only offering
or God will not accept it. If the Lord is to have respect
to the sacrifice, it must not be by the works of our hands,
the will of our flesh, or the religion of our hearts. It must
be by the blood of Christ alone. And that's what makes this gospel
stand out all by itself. It's separate. I mean, can't
you see this? Can't you see this in the Muslim
religion? I mean, this is how they really believe. That their
good works are going to outweigh their bad works. That somehow
their God is going to put their works on a scale, and whichever
one weighs out, that's what's going to happen to them. Well,
isn't that the same as the Baptist church down the road? who believes
that you've got to add the weight of your will to the sacrifice
of Christ, and then your God will let you in. It's the same
thing. There's no difference between
a Muslim and a Baptist if they both believe that their works
are going to save them. There's no difference. You see,
this gospel is holy. It stands alone. It stands all
by itself. Scripture says, "...woe unto
them that have gone the way of Cain." Isn't that right? Woe
unto them who will have their own way about this matter of
salvation. Friends, either salvation is
of grace or it's by works, but it will not be of both. They cannot be mixed, and if
they are, it's not grace. Next, we see in this passage
that it's not only called holy, but Jesus calls this a pearl.
Why does He use this word pearl? Well, because pearls have great
value. Pearls have great value. This gospel message is of great
value to sinners. It's of great value to the souls
of men. It's of great value to the hearts
of God's people. It's of great value to me. I
need this gospel now more than I ever have before. I need to
hear it again and again and again. This gospel is so precious to
me. It's of great value. And we should
hold this gospel in great value. Sometimes I think we don't recognize
the great gift that God has given us in this gospel. I think we
take it for granted. I think we misuse this gospel,
abuse this gospel. I pray God doesn't take it out. Church of Ephesus was a great
church, but it's no longer here, is it? God snuffed that church
out. Friends, we're not to take this
gospel for granted here. It's a precious gospel. It's
a precious gospel because it's the gospel of the person of Christ.
He's precious. Next, let's look at this. Who
are the dogs and swine? We see that this gospel is holy.
We see that this gospel is good. Now then, this gospel is supposed
to be withheld from dogs and swine. Now, who are these dogs
and swine here? We that are saved. Don't we long
to hear the Gospel and long for others to hear the Gospel as
well? Y'all prayed this afternoon, you asked me to pray for your
children. You long for them to hear this Gospel. I know you
do. I long for many of my family
who are lost to hear this Gospel that I'm preaching to you. I
long for that. Yet here in our text, our Lord
commands us to make a judgment. He commands you and I to make
a distinct determination as to who is going to receive this
gospel from our lips and whom this gospel is to be withheld.
Our Lord commands us to withhold this gospel, this holy, this
pearl from dogs and swine. We say, Pastor, well, does not
God tell us and command us to go into all the world and preach
the gospel? Did not the Lord Jesus Christ send his disciples
and his apostles out to preach? Does not the Scriptures tell
us that pastors are to be ready in season and out of season to
preach? Doesn't Peter tell us to be ready to give every man
an answer of the hope that is in us? Absolutely yes to all
of that. Absolutely. Absolutely. We are to preach indiscriminately
to everyone. We are to preach to everyone
as we are able to witness. We are to witness at every opportunity. It is not for us to judge who
will receive this message and who won't. That's not what He's
telling us. He's not telling us to look at
a man and say, that's a dog, I'm not even going to speak to
him right now. I don't even know who he is, but I'm not going to speak
to him. I'm not going to tell him. The man's a dog. No, that's not
what he's saying. That's not what he's saying.
Is that not a rash judgment? Didn't we just say we're not
supposed to make rash judgments? Absolutely. But this is a thoughtful,
careful judgment. And I warn you, be careful about
this judgment. But when you determine this,
stick by it. Stick by it. These dogs and swine in our text
are not just any lost man. This is not teaching us to withhold
the gospel from the lost, otherwise no one would be saved. How shall they call on Him in
whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a
preacher? That's necessary for the lost to hear the gospel.
Isn't that how you heard it? That's how I heard it. Somebody
told me. Somebody preached to me. So then
these dogs are not just any unbeliever, but these dogs are those that
have heard and have a clear understanding of what you have witnessed to
them, and refused to believe it. That's what a dog is. This is what a swine is. When
a man, you preach to a man, you witness to a person, and they
fully understand what you're saying. and they oppose and blaspheme
the gospel, it is from them you are not to debate, you are not
to argue, you are to turn away. This Scripture does away with
every bit of what religion calls debating the gospel. You do not
debate the gospel. This is not a debatable subject.
This is a declaration to be made. It is not a debate. I'm not here
to argue with men. I'm just here to declare what
God says. That's all I'm here for. And
if you declare what God says and a man refuse, a man blaspheme,
a man hate the gospel you preach, turn away from him and leave
him alone. Don't go back. The Apostle Paul did this at
Antioch. You remember when he came to
those Jews at Antioch. And he said, Paul and Barnabas
waxed bold and said, It is necessary that the Word of God should be
first spoken to you, but seeing you have put it from you, you
judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life. Lo, we turn
to the Gentiles. In Acts chapter 18, remember
this last Sunday, we talked about this, where the Apostle Paul
shook the dust off his robe at these, and he said, I'm clean
of you. I'm going to the Gentiles. Isn't that what he said? Why? Because they began to blaspheme
and oppose themselves. Jesus, when He sent forth His
disciples, He said, what did He say about them? He said, if
they will not hear your word, what do you do? You take off
your shoes and you dust them off at them and you turn and
you leave them alone. Why? They're swine. They're dogs. Leave them alone. Have a wild
dog. If you're a wild dog, come up
to your children. What do you say? Leave them alone.
Leave that wild dog alone. Why? He's going to bite you.
He's going to bite you. Leave him alone. Even so, believers
in Jesus Christ, we are to go into the world and preach the
gospel. Yes, we are to compel sinners to come in. Yes, we're
to be ready to give every man an answer and tell them of salvation.
Salvation is through Christ alone. But when they reject it, when
they hate it and they hear you, they'll turn on you and they
won't have anything to do with it. Leave them alone and let
them go. Friends, some, I know this, will
hear the gospel. That's the encouraging thing
about this, isn't it? Some will hear. And then some will hear you,
but they won't really understand what you're saying. You ever
been talking to somebody and you're on two different levels?
You're talking about the Gospel and they said, oh yeah, oh that
sounds wonderful. Let me tell you how I made my
decision for Jesus. Well, where'd you go? Where'd you come from? I wasn't even there. I wasn't
talking about that. But you have people on different
levels. Yes, go back to the ignorant. Go back to those who don't hear
or don't fully understand what you're saying. That's not what
Christ is telling us. Leave them alone. Those that are ignorant
of the Gospel, if they'll hear you, go to them. Oh, but when somebody finally
gets what you're saying. It's altogether a different relationship,
isn't it? There was a man, I heard a pastor, he was preaching to a man, and
this man stayed in his congregation for a few years. He thought he was hearing something.
And then one day, he actually heard what he was saying after
two years. Two years of sitting there. He finally heard what
the gospel is. And he got up and he was so mad
and he stormed out the door. He finally heard. When they finally
hear what you're saying, that salvation is not by their works,
not by their will, that they're hopeless and destitute until
God does something for them, when they hear that, do you realize what they have
to give up to believe it? They have to give up their religion. They have to acknowledge their
loss. And all those years in that church
service was vain and empty. They would have to give all that
up to come to Christ. And friends, if it's not the
Spirit of God Convicts them of that they will turn and rend
you they will hate you and they will oppose you and when they
do leave them alone I know I'm running long, but
I think this is vitally important. Moose, when he was here, you
all have that paper back there about the man down the street,
the Campbellite, who came and tried to proselyte in here and
Moose confronted him with the gospel and that man took off.
He couldn't even, wouldn't even stick around. He went and told
his pastor and that false preacher, he came down and he started trying
to talk to Moose and he couldn't refute him. And so what'd he
do? He blasphemed the gospel throughout this neighborhood
by passing out that tract, by passing out that lie. And Moose
had to refute it. If you want it, it's back there.
Read it again. But this man, that man, he's a dog. He's a dog. I wouldn't go down
there to try to proselyte him, try to get him to believe the
gospel. I wouldn't tell him the gospel. He heard the gospel. And what did he do? He blasphemed
the gospel. Leave him alone. Leave him alone. He's judged himself unworthy
of eternal life. And friends, make no mistake,
when they do that, they are considering the blood of Jesus Christ as
an unholy thing. You try to mix works and grace,
what you're saying is Jesus' blood is not enough. I got to
add something to his blood and I'm good enough to mix my stuff
with his blood. All you're doing like a swine
would run over a pearl. Now a swine, he'll get a whole
husk and he'll chew on that. But he'll take a pearl and he'll
stomp it into the ground. You see, the husk is more valuable
than the pearl. To them, their works are more
valuable than the gospel. Don't give it to them. Don't
give it to them. Now, friends, I want to make
this very clear that I believe this is the problem with our
church today. This is the problem with so-called
religion today. Do you realize that most of these
churches in this area, these Baptist churches here, at one
time, most of them preached the gospel? What happened? What happened to them? Well,
they found people that they couldn't convince of the gospel, and what
did they do? Instead of leaving them alone,
they've compromised the gospel so they'll hear it. And that's
what you'll do. That's what I'll do if we don't
leave them alone. We think we know more or better
than the Holy Spirit of God as to who should believe and who
shouldn't. That's not for us to determine. We just simply
declare the gospel and if they blaspheme the gospel, leave them
alone and don't compromise. Don't compromise to get them
in the bench. That's what the church has done,
and look at the church, so-called church today. It is worthless. Why? They've let dogs and swine
into the building, and yes, even in the pool pit. And don't think it can't happen
here. It can. It can. If we're not obedient to what
Christ tells us. Share the gospel with all who
will hear it. But friends, if they won't hear
it, this gospel is too precious to be just thrown out in the
street. This gospel is too precious. Don't cast your pearls before
a swine. And I'll tell you, when they
turn and rend you, how hard is it to get your character back? When a man tells a lie on you,
I guarantee it's easier, it's harder for you to get back your
name and reputation, isn't it? They'll do it. They'll try to
do everything they can to destroy you if they hear this gospel. But when they refuse it, friend,
leave them alone. Let them go on in their sins.
Let them go on in their false religion. There's some people who are unfit
to hear the gospel. That's not my words. That's Christ's
words for you and me. It would do us good to be wise
to determine who are the dogs and who are the swine and who
are those in need of the gospel. Preach to everyone. until they
become unfit and turn and go to someone else. Friends, I pray that I hadn't
muddied the water on this, but I pray that God would give us
grace to understand what the Lord's teaching here. Don't judge
rashly, but make that judgment so that you don't cheapen the
gospel of Jesus Christ. Pray, Lord, bless this to us.