All right, let's turn tonight
to the book of Deuteronomy, where our brother read scripture tonight,
Deuteronomy chapter 10. Recently, one of our young people
accomplished something that's both important and impressive.
She completed all the requirements to become a school teacher. She
did the required coursework in her field of study in college.
She completed a term of student teaching. She received the required
diploma and degree, a bachelor's degree in education. And she
has now met all the requirements to legally teach school in the
state of Tennessee. Another of our young people,
Your sister, Cole, boy, she wants her driver's license in the worst
way. And I looked on the state of
Tennessee's website, even though I realize she's going to be getting
a Virginia license. First of all, you know what she's
got to do? First of all, she had to get to be a certain age.
She's got to present a birth certificate saying she's this
old. Then there's a required learner's permit. There's a written
test. an eye exam, a photo has to be
taken, and after a trial period, there's an actual driver's test
written and then driving, and then she gets to pay $28. When all the requirements are
met, then a driver's license is issued so that the person
can legally drive a car. Now, if one does not meet the
requirements, one is not accepted in the community of teachers.
If one does not meet the requirements, one's not allowed to drive a
vehicle on the highway or any place else. The authorities that be set the
standard of the requirements. If they're not met, then the
person in question has no standing, has no privilege, and no rights. They do not qualify to enter
a classroom. They cannot, by any vehicle,
Get themselves from where they are to where they want to be. You know, it's interesting. I
thought about this. Y'all may not know this about
Brother Roy. He's what I would call a highly
educated man. I bet y'all didn't know this.
He has an associate's degree in architectural engineering. That impresses me. He has a bachelor's
degree in marketing and management. He has a master's degree in public
administration, and he is just a thesis short. He's done everything
else for his PhD. If he just wrote that thesis,
we'd be calling you Dr. Roy. And yet, you know what? He's
not qualified to teach anybody in the public schools in the
state of Tennessee. He hasn't met the requirements.
I've said all that to say this. Turn over to Deuteronomy 10 if
you've got it. What are the requirements to
be a Christian? You ever think about that? What
are the requirements? We went over the requirements
to be a driver. We went over the requirements to be a teacher.
What is the requirement to be a believer? What does God, in his words,
say, if you don't meet this requirement, you cannot enter into my kingdom? What are the requirements by
God to get the privileges and standing of a child of God? Do we think this question has
not been asked and answered in the word of God? It has. Right here in the book of Deuteronomy,
chapter 10, look at the first line of verse 12. And now Israel. Israel are God's children. That's
who they are. And it says, Now Israel, what
doth the Lord thy God require of thee? Here it is. Here it is. It takes pages for
the colleges and universities to list the requirements to be
a teacher. You couldn't believe how long the list was on the
internet of what it takes to get your driver's license in
Tennessee. You know how many words it takes God to tell you
what the requirements of being a Christian are? Less than 50
words. Less than 50 words. Here it is.
Anybody want to be a child of God? Anybody want to be a Christian?
Here's what it takes. Here's the requirement. Read
it with me. Verse 12, Now Israel, what doth the Lord require of
thee? And here it is. Number one, five things here.
Number one, but to fear the Lord thy God. Number two, to walk
in all his ways. Number three, to love him. Number
four, to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all
thy soul. And number five, to keep the
commandments of the Lord and his statutes, which I command
thee this day for thy good. You say, well, there's 10 commandments.
Does that mean there's 14 things? I don't care how you want to
interpret it. These are the requirements. If we don't meet Him, we're not
a child of His. It's just that simple. Now, God's
requirements are clear. They're plain. They're simple.
They're few. There's only a few. And they're
easily understood. There's only five. But let me
try to quantify this for you a little bit. To get your degree in education,
I asked Lauren, I said, what kind of grades did you have to
make? She said, well, you've got to have a C or better in all
of your education classes. Okay, so it doesn't require all
A's or all A's and B's. You can get some C's or all C's,
and it's okay. You know, if we take the driver's
test, you know what the requirement is? To pass, you've got to get
a 72. That's on the written test and
a 72 on the driving test. Now it does say that, you know,
if you cause an accident or break a law, you're disqualified that
time, but you get a redo. You got to wait seven days, but
you get as many redos as you need. All right. And it ought
to scare us to death to think about the fact that, you know,
how many people are out there driving and one quarter of the
time or more, they don't have a clue what the law is. or what
they ought to do and at least one quarter of the time a lot
of them don't can't or won't do what they're supposed to do
when they're driving. That's a bit of a frightening
thought isn't it? Is there fine print somewhere
in this book that clarifies the requirements of God? Does it
say somewhere in here fear God And reverence God 75% of the
time. Or if you fail to do it this
time, oh, you get a redo. You've got to wait seven days,
but you get a redo. Does it say worship Him twice
a year? That's good enough. Does it say love God most of
the time? Serve God when it's convenient.
Keep His commandments when there's no cost to you. Do the best you
can. You get unlimited do-overs. Come
down front, shake the preacher's hand. It's going to be okay in
the end. Let him into your heart. Let
him have his way when it doesn't conflict with your way. Is that
what this book says? Does anyone really think that
10% of what I make is evidence that I love God with all my heart,
soul, and mind? What are you saying, Bob? Surely
you don't think these five things are to be taken literally. No,
I'm not saying that. The Word says it. Literally. It gives five requirements. Nowhere in here do I read any
exceptions, any do-overs, anything of that kind. I'm pointing out
what God is saying. He requires five things of all
His children. They're absolute. They're without
exception. They're clear. They're plain
requirements in order to be a Christian. They must be done, and they must
be done perfectly. If we've not done these five
things perfectly, God does require perfection. Acceptable with God
is not 72%. It's not 80%. It's not 99%. It's 100%. 100% completion of the work. Otherwise, we are not, or can
we ever be, his children. We need to start getting a grasp
on the concept, this simple concept. God is holy. God is perfect. He will not now, has he never,
nor will he ever, ever allow anything into his presence that's
not absolutely perfect. He demands he only accepts perfection
to fail in one point of the law. Do you mean just one time somebody
says something to me and I answer in a bad way or that's it. I'm done. I'm done. I'm in a mess. Are you. Anybody
else here in the mess I'm in. Mm-mm. When we start to get a
true picture of ourselves, you know what my score is? It's not
72. It's not much less than 99. Do
we realize we, by nature, are going to come before God with
a zero? I don't have a C. I got all the
F's. Oh, my. You say, man, you're
being pretty hard on yourself. and us too, if God ever shows
us who and what we are, we will cry out, and it won't be, well,
it's only a little while I, it won't be, we did the best we
could, it won't be we did wonderful, many wonderful works in thy name.
No, that's not going to work. No, it won't. Turn over to Romans
7 with me. If God ever shows us that He
is holy and that we are not, what we will do is we'll cry
out like the publican did, who would not so much as raise his
eyes to heaven and say, ìI had 72%!î The terrible thing is the Pharisee
was standing up front going, ìI got 100%!î Who's he kidding? Oh, bless his heart, he doesn't
know himself. And he doesn't know God. And that publican didn't
stand up there. He didn't even raise his hands
at me. He smote upon his breast and said, Oh, wretched man that
I am. Oh, I'm a mess. Isaiah said,
Woe is me. Isaiah spent the whole first
The chapters of Isaiah going, woe is you, I know you, woe is
you, I know the stuff you've done, woe is you. And then God
showed him who he was, he was holy. And Isaiah said, oh, woe
is me. I'm undone. My score's undone. It's not 100, it's zero. I don't
have an A, I got an F. Woe is me. I'm a man of unclean
lips, and I'm living amongst a people of unclean lips. We're
all in a mess. We're undone. Every Christian,
every child of God is brought to this place of realizing we
are unable to meet the requirements in and of ourselves. We can't
do it. But then, the instant that he
shows us, I can't do this. I can't meet these requirements.
If he ever shows us that, you know what he'll show us? But
there is one who did. There is a man, a real man of
flesh and blood, who did meet all the requirements. He scored
100. He's got an A+. There is someone who did. Look
here in Romans 7. Verse 24, will be brought to
the place where we will say, O wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. I can't meet the requirements,
but he did. So then, with the mind I myself
serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. It
doesn't matter how hard I try, I just can't do it. I just keep
coming up short. It's not a good thing. Turn to
Revelation chapter 1. John the Apostle was taken to
glory so that he could see what it
was like there and then come back and write this book of Revelation
telling us the best he knew how in words what he saw. Look here in Revelation 1 verse
17. He got there and what's the first
thing he saw and wrote about, he said, and when I saw him,
I saw him, he said, I fell at his feet as a dead man. I don't know what John thought
about himself, but when he saw Christ, he realized I'm dead
in trespasses and sins. And then I want you to see and
you know it says well read the second line here and he laid
his right hand upon me saying unto me fear not I am the first
and the last. Folks and he says I am he that
liveth and was dead and behold I'm alive forevermore amen and
have the keys to hell and death folks no one is driving themselves
to heaven. We don't have the keys to the
vehicle. It says right here, I've got, Christ said, I have
the keys. What door I open is the one you
go through. No, we don't have the ability
to drive ourselves to heaven. If he doesn't open, we don't
get in. The Lord brought John there.
He was rightly afraid. Do you see up there in verse
17? He laid his right hand upon me,
saying unto me, Fear not. Why did he say that to him? Because
he was afraid. He had come into the presence
of the true and living God, and he fell down on the ground like
a dead man and said, I'm afraid. I see really what I am. We think
we see what we are now, don't we? Well, if he gave us a glimpse,
we'd fall as dead men. It would kill us. We'd fall over
dead. He said, fear not. Fear not, John. You know, John saw his face in
the Lord's perfection and knew he deserved to get eternal death. But in grace and mercy, look
what the Lord Jesus Christ did. Did you ever have one of your
children come to you just seeing something that scared him to
death? And all it takes is you just reach out and you bring
him to you and you pat him and you hug up on him and you pick
him up and you hold him. And John fell as a dead man at
what he saw and who he saw and realized what he was. And the
Lord Jesus Christ reaches out his right hand of power. in mercy
and grace and touched him. Touched him. It's all right,
John. It's all right. Do we see that? Christ says,
fear not. I thought the first requirement
was fear God. And he says, fear not? Yeah. In Christ, we do not have to
be afraid anymore. He says, you don't have to be
afraid. I've done for what you need. John says, I haven't done that. I haven't done what I'm supposed
to do. I haven't met the requirements. And the Lord says, I met them
for you. I met them for you. And the way he says that, do
you see here, he says in verse 17, Fear not, I'm the first and
the last. What that means is, I'm the first one that ever met
these requirements. I came down here and I met him.
I did him perfectly. And by the way, I'm the last
one that ever did it. Nobody's done it since. But he
said, John, I did it. I'm the first and the last. And
then he says, I am he that liveth and was dead. What's that mean?
He said, I lived to give you the requirements you needed to
meet, and I died for what you did thinking you were going to
meet him. Everything you ever did that didn't meet the requirements,
I put it away. Christ says, fear not, I've done
it for you, John. For 33 years, Christ feared or
reverenced God perfectly. Christ says, I'm the first and
the last. And the Lord told John, and he tells us, I'm the first
one who ever met all the requirements. Adam didn't meet them. Eve didn't
meet them. David didn't meet them. Paul didn't meet them.
No one ever did. before me or after me. I'm the
first to do it and the last one to accomplish it. Then look at
verse 18, I am he that liveth and was dead, behold I am alive
forevermore. I'm he that liveth, I'm resurrected
from the grave and was dead. The question is if you live perfectly
and met all the requirements, Lord why did you die? And the
answer is, I took your failure and gave you my success. I took
your zero and gave you my 100%. I took your F and gave you my
A. At Calvary, my father allowed them to kill me because I had
on me your total failure to meet God's requirements. God raises
us from sin and death only because Christ paid for all our failure
and fulfilled our requirements and gave us his perfect fulfillment.
Now, he says, this right hand I lay on you is one of great
grace and mercy. Turn with me to the book of Ruth
real quick. The book of Ruth. Now we know
from the book of Ruth that Boaz is a type of Christ. It's page 375 in my Bible, so
if that helps you any. Some say what was read about
these requirements, those five things, that's Old Testament.
We're not under that law anymore. Well, true enough that God's
people aren't under the law for the simple reason that we can't
fulfill it. and that Christ fulfilled it
for us. Whether it was in Moses' time,
or Abraham's time, or David's time, or Paul, Peter, or John's
time, or whether it was in Gabe's time, or our time, that hasn't
changed. In the Old Testament, it's pictured.
In the New Testament, it's openly stated. Look here in Ruth 3,
verse 11. And now my daughter, this is
Boaz speaking to Ruth, I will do to thee all that thou requirest. For all the city of my people
doth know that thou art virtuous woman, and now it is true that
I am thy near kinsman, howbeit there is a kinsman nearer than
I. The law has a claim on us. That's
our nearest kinsman. We're supposed to fulfill the
requirements. But Boaz is saying, I'll do it
for you. Terry, this night he says in
verse 13, and it should be in the morning, that if he will
perform unto thee the part of a kinsman, if you can fulfill
the law, that's fine. Let him do the kinsman part.
But if he will not do the part of a kinsman to thee, I'll do
the part of a kinsman for you. As the Lord liveth, lie down
until the morning. Folks, we can't get there trying
to meet the requirements. Christ must do it for us. It's that simple. Boaz married
Ruth, and the Lord Jesus Christ, after he fulfilled the law, he
reveals, I married you before the foundation of the world.
You think I'm going to let my bride not meet the requirements? No,
no. Now turn to Ecclesiastes 3. The reason this is all the way it
is, It's all for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, because
this is how he gets the greatest glory. You see in verse 11 of
Ecclesiastes 3, it says, He, the Lord Jesus Christ, hath made
everything beautiful in his time. And then, in verse 14, he says,
I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing
can be put to it, nor anything taken from it. And God doetheth
that men should fear before him. That which hath been is now,
and that which is to be hath already been. And God requireth
that which is past. You see, nothing needs to be
put to or taken from what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. It's
perfect. When we see that, we fear or
reverence him. We're grateful. And in verse
15, the first line says, what he's done is already in force.
We've already met the requirements. When he did it, we did it. God
is not looking down going, You dropped from 100 to 88. You
went from 88 to 65. No. He looks at his children. Listen, the whole world is born
zero. We come into this world speaking
lies. We're already condemned. We've
broken all five I mean, these poor babies, how long does it
take for us to see, bless their heart, they're wicked to the
core, just like we are. We're born that way. But it says
here, he said, I've already taken care of it for my people. It's
done. It's done. We've met all the
requirements. There's nothing else left to
do. And it says here, God required,
do you see in verse 15 here it says, God requires that what's
passed. Now that means one of two things.
It either means there's going to come a day when we come into
his presence and he says, I require what's passed. I require what
I wrote and I require the view. How have you done? going to be bad. But his children
come into his presence and he says, I require what's passed.
Ah, yeah, the Lord Jesus Christ, he did that for you. He fulfilled
those requirements perfectly for you. Come on in. Come on
in. He put his right hand and said,
don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. It's all right. It's been done
for you. And if you look at the center
reference there, it says he requires that which was driven away, that
which was passed, that which was driven away. That means Christ
at Calvary was killed, murdered, and done away with. His doing
away with our sin is required, or we still have our sin and
must pay for it. What is required of God's children?
Christ. Christ. His perfect life. and his perfect death. You know,
there's a song that was written in 1700 something by a man named
Joseph Hardy. He says, Let not conscience make
you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream. Don't let us get it in
our head that we've met the requirements. It's just not so. But it goes
on to say, Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness
fondly dream, All the fitness he requires is to feel your need
of him. To realize I can't do this. But
he can. Now one more scripture. Turn
over to Matthew 7. And let me try to bring my opening
illustration back around. 1966. I graduated from college. Had a
degree in biology but It wasn't good for much, and the Vietnam
War was in full force, and I expected to get drafted and did, and I
thought, I'm going in the service, and there's nothing to be done
about it. Well, my employer every summer had been a man in New
York, and he called me and said, have you ever thought about teaching?
And I said, well, no, but I'm not qualified to teach. I don't
have a degree in education. And he said, well, let me, would
you be willing to move to New York? And I said, sure. Beach,
Vietnam. And anyway, he said, I'll get
back to you. He called me in a few days and
said, you're going to get an application to teach biology
at the military academy. I said, really? He said, yeah. And he said, you've already got
the job. You just need to fill out the application and send
it in. I said, all right. And that's what happened. I got
a call before the application could even get there by mail
talking to me about where I live and what I do, all this. Now
I wasn't qualified. Yet I got accepted as a teacher.
I learned something really important in this whole thing. You know
what it was? It didn't matter what I'd done. Four years of
college and the wrong thing. It didn't matter what I knew.
You know the only thing that mattered? It didn't matter what
I knew, it mattered who I knew. It mattered who I knew. This
man was on the board of directors of a private military academy.
His say was good enough. I was accepted as a teacher.
That should never have happened, I realize, in this life. But
the lesson is this. It's not what we've done. It's
not what we know. It's who we know. Good works or Bible knowledge
does not make someone a Christian. What does? It's who you know. Do you see here in Matthew 7
verse 21, ìNot everyone that saith unto
me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.î Why?
Theyíre not his children. ìBut he that doeth the will of
my Father which is in heaven.î Whatís his will? The five requirements. They must be met. Verse 22, ìMany
will say to me in that day, ìLord, Lord, have we not prophesied
in thy name, and in thy name?î ìBeing a preacher is not enough.
Weíve cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful
works.î ìAnd then will I profess unto them,î listen to this, ìI,î
these have got to be the four hardest words in any language,
ìI never knew That means they didn't know him. Depart from me, you workers of
iniquity. You know, it's one thing to do
things or to get religious knowledge or information out of pride or
in order to be saved. It's quite another thing to reverence
or fear the Lord Jesus Christ because He's revealed to us and
in us. When He reveals Himself to us,
we bow. We fear. It's not a slavish fear,
like, oh, don't do this. No, no. It's a reverence. It's,
oh, I've read about you. Now I see you. Now I see you. And we do have a fear and trembling,
but His right hand comes to us in the Word and says, it's all
right. It's all right. I've done it for you. You don't
need to do anything. When He reveals Himself to us,
we bow, we fear, we reverence Him, and it's revealed to us
we have always been His children from the foundation of the world.
We are not qualified to be Christians, but He met all the requirements
for us. Don't seek to meet the requirements
thinking that we can't. flee to him, flee to the Lord
Jesus Christ who has already met them. And he'll put his right
hand on you and say, fear not, enter into the kingdom I prepared
for you from all eternity. Well, I pray the Lord will help
us to see him tonight. All right, let's stand together.