If you will turn with me in your
Bible to Proverbs 23. Proverbs chapter 23. Our text will be verse 23. Buy the truth and sell it not. Also wisdom and instruction and
understanding. Buy the truth and sell it not. That's the title of our message.
Don't buy what religion is selling. We don't need to buy religion. Turn with me to Romans chapter
1. Romans 1 verse 22. Here we see religion. Romans
1 22 says, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools
and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image
made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed
beasts and creeping things Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness
through the lust of their own hearts to dishonor their own
bodies between themselves. Now look here in verse 25, who
changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served
the creature more than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. Religion is dangerous. You can
sum up religion with the verses we just read. And by nature,
this is all of us. We profess ourselves to be wise.
God says we're fools. We take the glory of God, we
corrupt it. We think God is altogether like
unto ourselves. God said there's none like me.
To whom will you liken me? He alone is God. And we change
the truth of God into a lie. We make the scriptures say what
we want them to say, not just declaring them as they are. and serve ourselves, the creature,
rather than the creator. Remember now that creator. We
need to worship him. I'm interested in worshiping him, not ourselves.
We don't need to buy religion. We need to buy the truth. And
as our text says, with buying the truth comes instruction. I'm sorry, wisdom. You buy the
truth, you get wisdom. It's not enough just to have
knowledge. We can get a lot of knowledge from this book, and
we'd be wise to get it. I pray God will give us knowledge,
but without the truth, without wisdom, it's just knowledge.
It's just useless knowledge. With buying the truth comes instruction,
correction. I need to be taught. I need to
be taught by God. I need to be instructed. You
know, every way of a man is right in our own eyes. Don't you need
God to teach you? Don't you need God to correct
you? With buying the truth comes understanding. We need to be
able to understand. We need to be able to discern
the difference between truth and error, between that which
is of God and that which is of man. We need to buy the truth.
What is the truth? Well, first, the truth is of
God. The truth comes from God. Deuteronomy 32.4 says, God is
a God of truth. And without iniquity, just and
right is he. God is truth and God alone is
truth. We know the verse, let God be
true and every man a liar. Only God is true. God's word
is truth. John 17, 17 says, sanctify them
through thy truth, thy word is truth. And this is the word of
God. Whatever the Bible says is truth,
and God cannot lie, and this is his word. Buy it. When you read this word, believe
it. God is truth, God's word is truth, and God's works are
truth. Psalm 33, 4 says, for the word
of the Lord is right in all his works. are done in truth. Everything God has ever done
is right and true because he's God. All thy commandments are
truth. Thy counsels of old are faithfulness
and truth. By that, amen. Amen. God is truth. And I love what
our Lord Jesus Christ himself said. He said, I am the truth. All the truth there is can be
seen in Him. He is the truth. He is our wisdom. He is our instruction, our correction. He is our understanding. If we don't have Him, we have
no wisdom, we have no instruction, we have no understanding. Turn
with me to Matthew chapter 13. Matthew chapter 13, verse 44. Again, the kingdom of heaven
is like unto treasure hid in a The witch, when a man hath
found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all
that he hath, and buyeth that field. The field here is the
word of God, the holy scriptures. The treasure is the Lord Jesus
Christ, the truth. Buy the truth and sell it not. If God ever shows us Christ in
this book, We're gonna buy the whole book. We're gonna hide
it in our heart, cling to it, hold fast to it, never let it
go. Why? Because we found the treasure. We found the truth. The only
thing of any value, the only thing of any importance. The whole Bible points to him. I just mentioned we can gain
a lot of knowledge from this book, but if we don't gain the
knowledge of him, It's useless knowledge, totally useless. Christ is the truth. He said,
you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.
The truth shall deliver you. Do you need to be delivered?
Do you need to be made free? Free from what? Free from sin,
free from the bondage of sin, free from the curse and penalty
of sin, the judgment of sin. You who from sin are longing
to be free, look to the Lamb of God. Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and buy the truth. Well, how do we buy the truth?
It sounds kind of weird, doesn't it? Especially, I just said Christ
is the truth. How do we buy the truth? Well, right here in Matthew
13, look at verse 45. Again, the kingdom of heaven
is like unto a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, who when he had
found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had
and bought it. Christ is that pearl. He's the
pearl of great price. He's the unsearchable riches
of God. Again, when we ever find Him, we'll sell all that we have
that we may have Him. You buy the truth by selling
all that you have. Let me ask you, what do you have
that you're not willing to lose that you might have Him? Is there
anything? This life is so short, it's but
a vapor. Everything here is temporal.
It shall soon pass away. What do you have you're not willing
to let go of that you might have Christ? Is there anything? He's
the treasure of heaven. Christ is all. He's the truth.
He's the one thing needful. Is there anything that compares
to Him? Anything. Anything that compares in value,
in necessity? Oh no. If we're unwilling to
part with something in order to have Him, it's only because
we don't believe in the value of Him. See, if we weren't willing
to sell all this other stuff in order to have the pearl of
great price, it's because the pearl isn't of great price. It isn't
of great value to us. But hear the word of the Lord.
He's of great value. That's all I can say. Unmeasurable,
unsearchable. Christ is of great, great value.
But by nature, we just don't know it. We don't see it. This
world is so full of religion, different religions, different
denominations, and having no idea the value, the worth of
Jesus Christ. And what that means is this world's
religion is Christ-less religion. We read about it in Ephesians
2, verse 12, without Christ, no hope without God in the world.
That's the religion of this world, Christ-less. And I'm here to
say any Christless religion is absolutely worthless. It's not
gonna do us any good. We must have Him. We must have
the truth. Christ is the truth. What think
ye of Christ? That's a good question, ain't
it? What think ye of Christ? Is He precious to us? Is He precious to you? Is Christ
all to you? by the truth. I love what Paul
said after the Lord saved him. Here's what the Lord did. He
stripped Paul. He took everything away from him, his self-righteousness,
all his useless knowledge, because he didn't know Christ. God took
it all away. Here's what Paul said. He said,
Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency
of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered
the loss of all things. He said, I lost everything. and do count them but done."
I lost everything, but it's nothing. I lost nothing. That I may win
Christ and be found in him. That was his desire. That he
may have Christ, the truth. To buy the truth. To buy the
truth is to believe the truth. Truth is truth whether we believe
it or not. God says, buy the truth and sell it not. Receive
the word of the Lord as the truth. We have the holy Inerrant, there's
no errors, infallible word of God in our hands. We'd be wise
to read it, we'd be wise to come hear it preached to us, and we'd
be wise to believe it. Take God's word at face value,
believe it. Don't argue with it, don't try
to explain it away, just believe it. May God help us to believe
it. See, this is not a man-made book.
Yes, men wrote this book, but God's the author of this book.
Let me show you this, 2 Peter chapter one, turn with me. 2 Peter 1.16. Peter said, For we have not followed
cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power
and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses
of his majesty. For he received from God the
Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him
from the excellent glory, this is my beloved son, in whom I
am well pleased. And this voice which came from
heaven we heard when we were with him in the holy mount. They
said we were there with him. He took us up on that mountain.
God the Father spoke to him from his excellent glory, and he said,
This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him. That's what he's telling us.
We're not following cunningly devised fables. We're not feeding
you lies, man-made lies. We're telling you the truth.
God's well pleased with Christ. Hear him. And I love what he
said after this. Look here in verse 19. He said,
we have also a more sure word of prophecy. Now understand what
he's saying here. We stood with the Lord on the
mountain. The world couldn't see it. We
couldn't see it until he causes us to see. We just fell asleep. But we saw his glory. We beheld
his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.
And he said, but we have a more sure word of prophecy. What could
be more sure than that? Can you imagine standing on a
mountaintop face to face with your Lord, hearing the Father
speak from heaven? And he said, we have a more sure
word of prophecy. It's this book, verse 19. That
means it doesn't mean something just because you think it means
it. It means exactly what it says. Verse 21, for the prophecy came
not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. We have the truth in our
hands. Buy it. Believe it. See, we will not be saved apart
from belief of the truth. This is critical. That's why
it's absolutely crucial that we know, that we hear, that we
believe the truth. Turn to 1 Thessalonians 2. 1
Thessalonians 2, right after Colossians. See, we're saved by grace through
faith. And faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God. We must hear the word of God.
Here in 1 Thessalonians 2, look at verse 13. For this cause also thank we
God without ceasing, because when you received the word of
God, which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of
men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which effectually
worketh also in you that believe. You heard us preach the gospel
to you. You heard it from our mouth, from our lips, but you
didn't receive it as our word. You received it as the word of
God, as it is in truth. And that word effectually worketh
in you. That means that word, you heard it and you believed.
God caused you to believe. By grace are you saved through
faith. That's not of ourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works lest we should boast. We didn't muster up this faith
to believe God. We don't find the treasure in
the field until the treasure in the field finds us. He reveals
Himself to you. Just open your eyes one day and
there He is, right in front of you. He must give us faith. You see, the truth is free. Well, I thought it cost everything. I thought I had to sell everything
that I had. Yep, you do. You do, but it's the free gift
of faith. It's the free gift of God. Faith
that buys the truth and sells it not. God's gift. It's either
Christ is all or he's nothing. You cannot serve God and man.
You cannot love God and the world, the things of this world. We
either cling to Christ or we cling to something else. We don't
add to what he's done. We can't take away from what
he's done. It's all or nothing. Our hope is either in Christ
completely or in something else completely. It's all or nothing.
And God-given faith believes Christ is all. from start to
finish, salvation is his work from first to last. And God's
people believe that. I don't have to convince you
of that. If you're his, he'll convince you of that. Of his
own will begat he us, how with the word of truth. We're gonna
hear his word and we're gonna believe it or we won't be saved.
Turn over just a couple pages to 2 Thessalonians chapter two. Verse 13, but we are bound to give thanks
all way to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth. Verse 14, whereunto he
called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Faith isn't up to us. I just
say that we don't produce faith. Faith is the gift of God. I can
stand here and urge you to buy the truth and sell it not all
day, but you won't, I won't, until God gives us faith too. That's the glory of God, salvation's
of the Lord, it's His work. We don't have anywhere to boast.
People love boasting about their faith. I have no faith. except
that which God gives me. And pray, Lord, give us faith.
Increase our faith. Call us by your gospel. Now,
with that being said, somebody will hear that and say, well,
if I can't do it, then how can God hold me accountable? God
is sovereign, yes, but don't think for one second that excuses
our responsibility. We're commanded to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. If we love not the Lord Jesus
Christ, we won't be saved. Buy the truth, sell it not. Here's
the fact of the matter. If we die believing a lie, it'll
be our own fault. It'll be our own fault. We will
be content believing a lie about God. Look here in 2 Thessalonians
2, look at verse 11. It says, We choose not to believe
the truth. We choose to believe a lie. that they all might be damned
who believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. You have pleasure in something,
that means you're content with it. You're well pleased with
it. This whole world is pleased to believe a lie. And I was right
there with the world until God stepped in and revealed his truth,
Christ in me. Look at verse nine right here,
it says, It's a sad thing, but it's, That's just so. God allows men
to do that, but when that happens, men are doing it willingly. They're
taking the scriptures and saying, well, here's what I mean. One
thing that crossed my mind in preparing this message was I
pray that God would give me wisdom to rightly divide the word of
truth. You know, you stand here to preach the gospel, it's a
serious matter. It's a very serious matter. I don't want to handle
the word of God lightly. And only if he gives me the wisdom
and the truth to discern this word will I divide it rightly.
But it's crucial, absolutely crucial. Those who believe not
the truth, they have pleasure in unrighteousness. And again,
that's you and me by nature. And that's the whole religion
of this world. But if we're gonna be saved, we must receive the
love of the truth. We must hear the truth proclaimed.
And our reaction must be, I love that. By God's grace, that's
the only way we can say that, I love that. This truth is no
different. Truth, like any truth, is sometimes
hard to swallow, right? You get a call, ugh. Our brethren
who aren't allowed to meet right now, that's a hard truth to swallow,
isn't it? But if we don't love God's truth, if we don't believe
in God's truth, if we don't buy the truth, we will not be saved. It's absolutely critical. Now
turn with me to John chapter 18. John chapter 18. John 18, verse 36. All right, so let's start in verse 33. Then
Pilate entered into the judgment hall again and called Jesus and
said unto him, art thou the king of the Jews? Jesus answered him,
sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of
me? Pilate answered, am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief
priests have delivered thee unto me. What hast thou done? Verse
36, Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom
were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should
not be delivered to the Jews. But now is my kingdom not from
hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then?
Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was
I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should
bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth
heareth my voice. Our Lord came into the world
to bear witness to the truth, and we don't see the truth anywhere
as clearly as we see it at the cross of Calvary. That's where
he bore witness to the truth. There we find the truth about
ourselves, the truth about God, and the truth about salvation,
how the two can be reconciled. What happened at the cross? If there's one thing in life
we need to learn, what happened at the fall and what happened
at the cross? First thing we see is the truth
of ourselves. We see our sin. We see our depravity. We see
our corrupt nature, all right? When God removed the restraint
for just a moment, and that's all it took, when He removed
the restraint for just one moment, we see what we did. Not only
do we see what we're capable of, we see the deceitful and
desperately wicked heart of man. What did we do? Betrayed Him. Judas, he walked with the Lord.
He preached with the Lord. We see ourselves in Judas, what
he did, that's our flesh. We betrayed him, we led him away,
we crucified the Lord of glory. Betrayed innocent blood. You know, everybody wants to
talk about, oh, I love Jesus. Maybe the Jesus of your imagination,
but not Jesus Christ, not the truth of God, not the son of
God, not God incarnate. We do not love him by nature,
we all hate him. We nailed Him to a cross. If you think, you know, this
whole world thinks they're an exception, well, if I were there,
I wouldn't have crucified Him. I'd have helped Him escape. I'd
have, no. First of all, He didn't want
to escape. He was there for a reason. And second of all, we would have
done the same exact thing. Even the disciples, they all
fled, forsook Him, all of them. I would not have been an exception,
and neither would you. At the cross we see our utter
hatred of God and His Christ. You know, sometimes we just look
around and we see, we just read the news and we see the hatred
of God. but we need to see it in ourself and what we did at
the cross. That's our hatred of God. That's where we see it
the worst. We hate God and everything pertaining
to God, everything. We don't love Him a little, we
hate Him completely. By nature, that's how evil we
are. We need to understand that. We need to buy that truth. We
need to own it. That's me, I'm guilty. Second, we see the truth concerning
God. We see the truth concerning who
He is, His character. We see His sovereignty, don't
we? We just read it in verse 37. He said, to this end was
I born, for this cause came I into the world. He was there on purpose. Christ was not on the cross by
accident. He hung on that cross on purpose.
In John 10, He said, no man taketh my life from me. Pilate just
said that your own people delivered you to be crucified. No man took
his life from him. He laid it down of himself. He
said so. He said, I have power to lay
it down. I have power to take it again. He's sovereign. We see the truth concerning God's
sovereignty. We see the truth concerning God's purpose. He
came to bear witness to the truth. He came to lay down His life
for His sheep. He came to lay down His life
for His friends. He came to save His people from their sins. And
praise God, that's exactly what He did. He did it. It's finished. We're complete. He said, I've finished the work
thou gavest me to do. We're completing Him. We see
the truth concerning God's love. We know God doesn't love everybody.
We know the Father loves only the Son. The Father loved the
Son and have given all things into his hand. He's given him
power over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as
many as thou hast given him. God loves those in him. God loves
those in Christ, chosen in him. We just read it. 2 Thessalonians
2.13, I thank God for he chose you to salvation. Chosen to salvation. while we, out of our utter, unjust,
sinful hatred of Him, nailed Him to a cross. At that very
exact moment, He was displaying His eternal, immutable, indescribable,
unmeasurable love for us. I just, I can't, I can't even
fathom the thought When people do not, when people treat me
unwell, I promise you I'm not full of a heart of love for them,
especially a sacrificial love for them. I want to slap them
and beat them and... Not our Lord. While we, literally while
we cried away with this man, crucify him, crucify him, he
cried, Father, forgive them. Who? The ones that are crucifying
me. What love? And people want to
talk about their love or their love for God. There's no such
thing. There's the love of God and the love that God puts in
us for Him. It's the only love there is.
We see the truth concerning God's holiness and God's justice. How in the world could a sinless
man be put to death? The wages of sin is death. How
could Christ possibly die? It wouldn't be right. God will by no means clear the
guilty. And He will by all means clear the innocent. How did Christ
die? As our substitute. He took our
sins and our guilt and our sorrows. He made them His very own. Let
me read you a verse, 1 Peter 3, 18. It says, For Christ also
hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust. But God's
not unjust, He made Him to be guilty. He made Him to be sin
for us. For Christ also has suffered once for sins, the just for the
unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in
the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. God is holy. He punished His
own son. You think He won't punish you? This world needs to wake up.
We need to understand God is a God of judgment. God is holy.
He will punish all sin. But praise God, he punished his
son in our place. And if he punished him for me,
he won't punish me for me. Christ is my substitute. Praise
God. Here at the cross, we see the truth concerning the wisdom
of God. How can man be just with God? That's the question, isn't
it? Job asked that question. How can man possibly be just
with a holy God? There's only one way, and that's
in Christ. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. Only in Christ, only by the sin-atoning,
substitutionary, satisfactory death of our Lord Jesus Christ. But this man, But this man, when
he'd offered one sacrifice for sins forever by himself, he offered
it by himself, that's when we're saved. He offered himself, he
perfected us forever by himself. We see the truth concerning God's
mercy and grace, don't we? Mercy and truth met together,
where? On the cross, in Christ. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other, only in Christ. That's the only way we're going
to be saved is in Christ. Buy the truth. Believe it. It's
the only truth there is. That's the truth worth buying,
isn't it? You know, everybody's freaking out, buying and selling
stuff like crazy right now. Buy the truth. You know, my 401k
might plummet. There ain't nothing in there
anyway. But you know what? That's all right. As long as
I have Him, I have the Pearl of Great Price. What else matters?
We have Him. We have whom to know. We know
Him who's life eternal. We have salvation. We have Christ. We have the truth. Buy it and
sell it not. Don't sell out. It's too important. This is too precious. Here in
verse 38 here in John 18, I want to show you what Pilate said. Pilate answered our Lord, Pilate
saith unto him, what is truth? What is truth? Our Lord said,
I came to bear witness unto the truth. Pilate, I can just see
him looking at him saying, what is truth? Is it really worth
this? As far as we know, Pilate believed he was an innocent man.
And he said, is it really worth this? Is it really worth you
dying on a cross? Is the truth really worth that?
To our Lord it was. To our Lord it was. How important
is the truth? The truth is everything. It's
everything. This is eternal life. This is
salvation. Whatever it may cost us, brethren,
buy the truth. Believe the truth. Sell it not. Believe on Him. Cling to Him. Come to Christ. Believe on Him.
If God be for us, you know, it doesn't matter if the world's
for us. We're better off if the world's not for us. The friend
of the world is the enemy of God. But if God be for us, who
can be against us? I mean that. Whatever happens,
the Lord's in control. He's for us. It doesn't matter
what's against us. God has given us His truth. He's
given us the love of the truth. It is well with my soul. In a
world full of lies, we have the truth. The thing I've been waiting
to say the whole message. We have the truth, but more importantly
than that, the truth has us. He died for us. He bought us. He purchased us. He sold everything
he had for us. Buy the truth. Sell it not. May God enable us to. Amen.