It's my privilege to be here.
I'm so thankful. I've been looking forward to
being here and visiting you all and it's just been a real joy
to be able to spend some time at Gabe and Hannah's house and
ceremony last night and fellowship with believers. I have to tell
you, I knew preaching this morning I wasn't going to be able to
stay up and party with y'all last night. We were trying to figure out
a way to get back to Gabe's house, and finally Gabe just gave me
the key to his car and said, well, y'all just go ahead. And
we'll get a ride later. So I took Gabe's key, and we're
headed down towards the car and get out in the parking lot. And
I looked at Tricia, and she looked at me. And it dawned on both
of us at the same time, we don't have a clue how to get back to
Gabe's house. And I thought, you know, that's
the way a lot of folks are when it comes to the gospel, isn't
it? They're just headstrong. They've got the key in their
pocket. They think they know where they're
going, and they don't have a clue. Don't have a clue. I want us to look at Psalm 115
this morning for our Bible study. Psalm 115. Let's ask the Lord's blessings
on his word together. Our heavenly father, we do thank
thee for the blessing of being able to gather together in this
place. We thank thee for the, for the
promise that you've given to your children, that where two
or three of them are gathered together in thy name, there you
are in the midst of them. And you've said that if Christ
be lifted up, that you would draw us to him. We ask that you would bless your
word, enable us to speak, enable us to hear, Lord, that the Lord
Jesus Christ would be lifted up and that our hearts would
be drawn to him in faith and in love. We ask it in his name. Amen. I've titled this message
idolaters and recovering idolaters. Truth is, every one of us come
into this world with the idle factory of our darkened imagination
already in operation. And it doesn't take long before
it becomes in full production. And there's something in us,
even after the Lord is pleased to make himself known to us,
that causes us to revert back to our idolatrous ways, in that
we lose sight of the fact that it's not unto us, not unto us. You see that in Psalm 115? Not
unto us, O Lord, not unto us. How oftentimes we think it's
about us. I told the folks in Lexington
a few weeks ago that I could have written that song. It's
all about me, me, me. And when you're talking about,
you know, talking to Jared and Lauren last night about, you
know, it's not about you anymore. Well, I'm thinking, well, you
know. It's often all about me. And there's just something in
me that focuses my attention on myself. And this passage of
scripture is so glorious in that it reminds us of who it's really
all about. And I'm thankful, as I'm sure
you are, for the freedoms that we enjoy in this country and
for the way that the Lord ordained all the events of our history
to bring us to where we are. But you do understand that this
country was not founded as a Christian nation, right? Our founding fathers
were not believers. When Paul went to Athens, He
spoke to the philosophers in the city of Athens and the scripture
tells us that they were Epicureans and Stoics. Now the Epicurean
philosophy is that happiness comes through pleasure and pleasure
comes through the possession of things. When Thomas Jefferson
wrote We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men
are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain
unalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin
Franklin were professing Epicureans. That's what they were. And, you
know, we just grow up with this philosophy of life, you know,
that we're just going to be pursuing happiness. And the truth is that
the American dream is truly just that. It's a dream. There's no
substance to it. It's just a cloud, there's no
real reality to it and as long as we pursue happiness through
gratifying self and thinking that somehow our participation
is the means to life, we're never going to find the truth. And
when the Lord said, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but
unto thy name, give glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's
sake. I need to be reminded of that.
Because it's so often about me, and I so often lose sight of
where true life and true hope and true happiness comes. As
long as we get the idea that what we do or don't do somehow
becomes a factor in our salvation, then we'll never be comforted
in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not unto us. It's not about us. It's not anything
that we did. It's not anything that we add. We didn't do anything to get
into Christ, and we can't do anything to get out of Christ.
Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name. Unto thy
name be glory. He gets all the glory. Somebody says, well, I know it's
not unto me, and so I've devoted my life in selfless sacrifice
to others. And it just makes me feel good
to be in service to other people. And that's not where it's at
either. That's not where it's at either.
It's not unto us. Not unto me, it's not unto us.
Yeah, well ought we to help others when given an opportunity? Certainly,
certainly. But that's not where salvation
comes. And that's not where true happiness
comes. And that's not where life comes. It's not unto us. It's not unto
us. It's unto thy name. Unto thy
name. The name of the Lord Jesus Christ. You shall call his name Jesus
for he will save his, he's gonna save his people. He's the Christ. I'm thankful for what you said,
Gabe, about people referring to our Lord just simply by the
name Jesus. And it's, it's a, it's a, He
is the Christ. He's the anointed one. He's the
Messiah. He's the one sent by the Father
in the full power of the Spirit of God in order to accomplish
the salvation of his people. And he is Lord. He reigns sovereign
over the armies of heaven and all the inhabitants of the earth.
He hath done whatsoever he wills. No man can stay his hand or say
unto him, what doest thou? He reigns, He's Lord, He's the
Christ, and He's our Savior. And He's the one that it's about. And truth is that life and happiness
and all the blessings of God come as a result of knowing Him. Knowing Him. As long as you're
in pursuit of happiness, you're never gonna find it. But if you
pursue Him, If the Lord gives you grace to seek after him with
all of your heart and causes you to understand what he meant
when he said, not unto us, O Lord, it's not about me, it's not about
us, but unto thy name give all glory. All the glory. Sometimes people say, well, what's
the difference in the gospel? You just ask yourself, who gets
all the glory? Listen to the message and ask
yourself, who gets all the glory? The gospel of God's free grace
and the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ gives to
him all the glory. It's the reason why religious
men hate the gospel. Because it strips them of their
glory, it strips them of their righteousness, it strips them
of their hope. It gives all glory and all hope and all salvation
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Until we're able to understand
this, nothing's going to make sense. For centuries, For centuries,
men fought that the earth revolved, that the sun revolved around
the earth. And until that myth was dispelled, no scientific
discoveries could be made. Nothing could be understood about
creation, nothing could be understood about gravity until that myth
was dispelled. You know, that's where men are
today. They think that God revolves around them. And until that myth
is dispelled, nothing can be understood. Nothing can be discovered. Well, there is something in every
one of us that is prone to make God-to-be altogether as we are
ourselves, isn't there? And that's the reason why we
need to keep hearing the gospel, to remind us that it's not about
us, it's about Him. Look at verse 2. Well, He says,
mercy and for thy truth's sake. It's all about the mercy of God.
It's all about what he's done in saving sinners. That's what I'm in need of. I'm
mercy beggars. Have mercy upon me, oh God. I am the sinner. It's all about God's mercy toward
us. And it's all about the truth of the gospel. The Lord Jesus
Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man can
come to the Father, say, by me. And he said, if you know the
truth, that's knowing Christ. The truth, that's the Lord Jesus
Christ, will set you free. It's more than having some truths,
plural, singular, and having the truth. The truth, plural. small t and having the truth
singular capital T. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
truth and it's for his sake. It's for his sake. What he does,
he says, I didn't do this for your sake. I didn't do this because
I saw something in you. I did this for my name's sake
that I might get all the glory and all the honor. Wherefore
should the heathen say, Where is their God? Our God's in the heavens. That's
where he is. And he hath done whatsoever he
wills. Our God reigns sovereign. Turn with me to Psalm. You're
in the book of Psalms. Turn back to Psalm 2. Mercy and truth, mercy and truth
met together at Calvary's cross. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. And what do the heathen do? They
rage and they imagine a vain thing. They imagine an empty
thing. Man at his very best state Man
at his best state, the best thing that you and I have ever produced
is altogether vanity. But that's what the natural man
does. He imagines a vain thing. Look at verse 2. The kings of
the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together
against the Lord and against the anointed one, against the
Christ. They strip him of his glory,
they rob him of his grace, and they make salvation to be some
participation on their own part. Let us break their bands asunder,
they say, and cast their cords from us. Oh, where is their God? He sits in the heavens and he
laughs at them. He's not threatened by the unbelief
of man. He's not threatened by their
accusations. He sits in the heavens. He holds
them in derision. One day, one day, every knee
will bow. Some will bow willingly and some
will bow by the rod of his wrath, smiting them on the back of the
knee, but every knee will bow and every tongue will confess
that Jesus is the Christ to the glory of God the Father. He's
not threatened. Here's who he is. He's God and
we're not unto us oh Lord, it's not about us. Lord forgive me
for just having you revolve around me. Then shall he speak unto them
in his wrath and vex them in his sword displeasure. I have
set my king upon my holy hill. Oh, kiss the son lest he be angry
with thee. Isn't that how that Psalm concludes?
Kiss the son, bow to him. It's about him. It's about him. Go back with me to Psalm 115. Their idols are silver and gold,
the work of men's hands. The Lord Jesus Christ is referred
to in the scriptures as the right hand of God, and it's his hand. How are we going to lift up holy
hands to God? How are we gonna have a pure
heart before God? Only to be found in Him. Not having our own righteousness
which is of the law, but that righteousness which is by the
faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their idols, the idols of man,
the things that men look to for the hope of their salvation,
they're the works of their own hands. Our salvation is the work
of Christ. It's him satisfying the demands
of the law. It's him putting away our sin
and satisfying divine justice wholly and completely all by
himself. It's his work. They have mouths. You see that
in verse 5. They have mouths, but they speak
not. Oh, they're full of pious platitudes,
but they can't declare the promises of God. They preach, but in doing
so, they only put men under the law. They're quick to give counsel. Isn't that what religion's all
about today? Just counseling men on how to live a better life. Why? Because it's all about you.
It's all about you. But they can't give any comfort.
The only comfort is to be found in the work of Christ. Comfort
ye, the Lord said to Isaiah, comfort ye my people, speak ye
comfortably to them. Tell them their warfare's accomplished.
Tell them their sin's been put away. Tell them that they've
received a double blessing of God. And the prophet said, Lord,
where do I start that message at? What do I tell them? How
do I preach that message? You know what the Lord said?
Look at Isaiah chapter 40, tell them their grass. Tell them their
grass, that'll be their comfort. That way they won't be looking
to themselves. It's not about us, it's not about
us. But unto thy name be glory, for
thy truth, for thy mercy's sake. It's about Christ, your grass. You grasp it. What a comfort
it is to be made a sinner. To know that in me, that is in
my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. I can say, O wretched man, that
I am who shall deliver me from this body of death. Thanks be
to God. Through Christ Jesus, I am free. It's about Him. It's about Him. They have mouths. but they speak
not. They have lots of rules and regulations,
but they can't tell you how to be right before God. They quote
scripture, but they twist it to their own destruction. They may be able to articulate
the name of God, but they strip him of his glory when you listen
to how they define his character and his work. Their singing may
be pleasant to the ear, but it offers no comfort to the soul. They have mouths, but they speak
not. Like the prophets of Baal on
Mount Carmel, they cry out to their God, but no fire from heaven
ever falls. Peter said in 1 Peter 2, they
are wells without water, Clouds that are carried with
a tempest, to whom the midst of darkness is reserved forever. They speak great swelling words. They have mouths, but they speak
not the truth. Look back in our text. Here's
the idols of man. And here's that idol that keeps
raising its ugly head in my heart. This is for idolaters and for
recovering idolaters. Their idols are silver and gold,
the works of men's hands. They have mouths but they speak
not. Eyes have they but they see not. Isaiah prophesied Matter of fact,
in Isaiah chapter six, there's a passage of scripture that is
most quoted from the Old Testament to the New. The most often Old
Testament passage quoted in the New Testament is in Isaiah chapter
six, where it says, they will have eyes, but they see not. They will have ears, but they
hear not. And what that simply means is
they hear some things, they process some information, but the ear
of their heart has never been opened. The eye of faith has
never seen the light of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
never happened. They have eyes, but they see
not. They search the scriptures because
they think in them they have eternal life, but they cannot
see that these are they which testify of the Lord Jesus Christ. They take the word of God and
they make a rule book for Christian living out of it. They have eyes. but they see not. They see the
precepts of scriptures, they understand some doctrinal truths,
and like the Israelites of the Old Testament, they see the acts
of God, but they don't know his ways. I was preaching last Wednesday
night, and there was a couple in the church that after the
service, he came up to me and he said, he said, my wife and
I are faculty members at Bob Jones University. And I said,
Bob Jones University? I said, I think I've heard of
that. Where is that? You know, within just a few minutes
it was obvious that, I mean, here were two seminary professor
PhDs. And they could, he told me, he
said, you just set up a straw man is what you did. And I thought,
you know, we've got eight and 10 year old children in our church
that know more about the gospel than you do. He had eyes, but he couldn't
see. He had ears, but he couldn't
hear. They see the acts of God, but
they don't know his ways. He said, uh, I said, well, what
do you think, Mike? What do you think the gospel
is? And he said, well, the gospel. And he quoted from first Corinthians
chapter 15. He said, that's the gospel. But
he left out, turn to me to that passage of scripture. You have
to see this. Yeah. I said, well, I said, Mike, what's
what do you think the gospel is? And he said. Verse three. He quoted this,
he said, I delivered unto you first that Christ died for our
sins and that he was buried and that he rose again the third
day. I promise you that last Wednesday night, a PhD from Bob
Jones University, that's how he quoted those two verses. He was interpreting the gospel
as a historical event. He left out the word how and
he left out the phrase according to the scriptures. And I said,
Mike, the gospel is not in what happened, the gospel is in why
it happened. And what was accomplished, not
the event. I said, everybody believes in
the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They don't know
the gospel. Isn't that amazing? They rest the scriptures to their
own destruction. They have eyes, but they see
not. They have ears, but they hear
not. Turn back with me to our text.
Noses have they. Noses have they. Oh, they go
around sniffing the air, don't they? The sweet aroma of the gospel,
on the other hand, like for Mike Wednesday night, was a stench
to his olfactory nerves. He had a nose. But he couldn't
smell. The spices of grace in the Lord's
garden are no attraction to them. Like the heightened smell of
a vulture, they are attracted to rotting flesh and the stench
of their own dung is not offensive to them. But to the child of
God, what do we say? That which I thought was gain
to me, I know now was loss. And I count all things but dung
for the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. They sniff the air for spiritual
truth and mistake the foul odor of an evil spirit for the wind
of God's grace. They breathe in the toxic fumes
of false religion to the destruction of their own souls. They have
noses, but they can't smell. You go to Exodus chapter 30,
we won't take the time to do it right now, but you'll find
that when the Lord gave the Israelites instructions on the putting together
of the perfume, he was very particular about it. And he told them, he
said, this perfume is only to be used in worship. If you use
it for yourself, the judgment of God will come against you.
It's not unto us, O Lord, it's not unto us. It is unto thy name
and for thy glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. They have hands, but they handle
not. They look at the work of their
own hands as the proof of their salvation. They don't know. that putting their hands to the
ark will bring them swift destruction, even as it did to Uzzah. They
polish the stones of their own idol, of their own altars and
make their sacrifices, not knowing that they've only exposed their
uncleanness before God. They have hands, but they can't
handle the truth of the gospel. They don't know that lifting
up holy hands to God means that you trust the Lord Jesus Christ
alone for all your righteousness. They don't know that. They think
they have clean hands because they've been through the waters
of baptism or because they've joined the church or because
there's certain things they don't do and there's other things that
they do. And all in so doing, they put
their hands to the mountain of God's law, and the wrath and
judgment of God will come against them. They have hands, but they
handle not. They can't handle the word of God. They can't handle
Christ. Look at, they have feet, but they walk not. They walk
not after God. They walk after the commandments
of men. They've set up for themselves
rules and regulations, and they pride themselves in thinking
that somehow they've merited favor with God and set themselves
up above other men. But they can't walk after Christ.
They don't know the liberty of walking after Christ. They don't
know what the Apostle Paul meant when he said, not to be entangled
again with the yoke of bondage. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made you free. They don't know about the freedom
of the gospel. They walk after the taste not,
touch not, handle not commandments of men. They've gone in the way
of Cain, trodden underfoot the word of Christ. They run to and
fro looking for answers in all the wrong places rather than
doing what Mary did, the one thing that was needful to sit
at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse seven. Neither speak they through their
throats. Now in Romans chapter three,
the Bible says that their throat is an open sepulcher. Oftentimes
God will use physical anatomy of the body to illustrate certain
spiritual things. For instance, the hand, the feet,
and the eyes that we just looked at. Well, when you look down
a person's throat, physically, in terms of the human anatomy,
what are you looking at? What are you looking at? You're
looking down into their heart, aren't you? And here he says,
they speak not through their throat. In other words, what
they declare to be true about God doesn't come from the heart.
It doesn't come from the heart. It comes from the mind. It comes from something they've
learned from other men. They've not been taught of God.
When the Lord told Isaiah, speak ye comfortably to my people,
he was saying to speak from your heart. Speak to their heart. But they speak not through their
hearts. Why? Because their hearts are
hearts of stone. The Lord has yet to take out
the heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh. He's yet to
give them saving faith. When he does, he changes the
heart, doesn't he? He gives us a new heart. That's
what we're in need of. Lord, not unto us, not unto us,
but into thy name be all the glory for thy mercy and for thy
truth's sake. It's not about you. It's not
about me. And the idols that we fashion,
in our imagination and the idols that are worshipped by men, they
can't save. There's no life to them. They're
figments of men's imagination. That's all they are. That's all
they are. There's no truth to them. Look at verse 8. They that make
them are like unto them. We fashion an idol, we become
like that idol. And we lose sight of Christ.
And we start thinking that it's about us and about our happiness
and about our possessions and about our comforts. And what
happens? We become like our God, don't
we? We lose sight of the life that there is in the Lord Jesus
Christ. They that make them are like
unto them, so is everyone that trusteth in them." Oh, Israel,
Israel, the Prince of God. Yes, there is old Jacob still
with us and we're called the sons of Jacob and we're called
Israel. Why? Because we've got two natures.
Israel. I want to speak to Israel. I
want to speak to the new man, the one created in righteousness,
the one that loves Christ, the one that has life. Let me speak
to Israel. Israel, trust thou in the Lord. He is your help. He is your shield. O house of
Aaron. What was Aaron? Aaron was the
priest, wasn't he? God has made us to be a kingdom of priests. The priest has access into the
very presence of God. We're not seeking to know the
Lord through some false God, through some idol. Oh Aaron,
trust in the Lord. He is your help and he is your
shield. It really is not an oversimplification
to say that the conclusion of every message is look to Christ. Look to Christ. Paul said we preach Christ crucified
and we profess to know nothing among you save him and him crucified. That's what they did. Look to
Christ. Don't look to yourself. No, it's
not about us. It's not about us. Oh, that the
Lord would shut down the idle factory of our imagination and
cause us, cause us to find all our hope and all our salvation
in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Pastor?