Turn with me in your Bibles to
2 Thessalonians if you'd like to. While you're turning there, I
would like to say I don't know if I said it properly last night
or not, but I'm very delighted to be here with you all and so
thankful to Joe and Bonnie for their hospitality and the fellowship
that we've had. I love the Lord giving Unity
the scripture talks in Colossians 2 about having their hearts knit
together in love. That's what the Lord does for
his people unite some and one love and tonight I want to look
at that love and it's I've titled this the love of the truth, but
I'm thankful he does unite our hearts in his love There are two kinds of people
in this world those that love the truth and those that do not
love the truth there's always a Always has been and always
will be only two kinds of people. Now there are those who have
not yet come to the knowledge of the truth, and I understand
that, but there's only two kinds. Those that are the elect according
to God's purpose, and those who he passed by. Those whom he loves,
and those who he does not. Those that are the lost, and
those that are the called according to his purpose. Those who are
not his elect, those whom he does not love, those who are
going to remain lost, are because of his choice. Those who were
ordained to eternal life before time ever began will be called
in time according to that purpose. Someone said to me recently,
Salvation is a choice. And I said, that is absolutely
right. It's just not your choice, and it's not my choice. The Lord's
people rest in that. See, there's only one difference,
as we heard last night, and it's not my good works. It's not the
ordinances that I've kept. It's not the things that I've
done according to the law. It's not what I'd done or have
not done, abstained from. It's what He has done. It's what
the Lord Jesus Christ did on the cross of Calvary for His
people. That's the difference. That's
the only difference. This was all by His grace that He chose
to redeem a people. This was all for His glory and
all according to His purpose. He is the first cause of all
things, the scripture tells us. And I love the thought of what
does all encompass? All encompasses all, everything. There's nothing outside of all.
He is the first cause of all things, the scripture tells us.
If he does not do everything in salvation, we are certainly
damned. We're certainly doomed. This
is the truth of who he is, and this is the truth of what he's
done in salvation, is he did not pass by everyone, but he
said unto some, I choose you, not of your merit, but for my
glory, not for your goodness, but because of my goodness and
mercy. This is the truth of his goodness and mercy. He successfully
redeemed every person he died for. And my hope this hour is
that we'll be able to see his truth and fall in love with it
again. And we know that the new man
never really falls out of love with the truth, but we have to
be reminded, don't we? The picture is the manna that fell from heaven.
It fell every single day. It didn't fall on a Monday and
they gathered it together. It fell every single day. As
a matter of fact, if they kept it for a day longer, other than
whenever they were observing the Sabbath, the Lord in mercy
let them collect for two days the day prior, so they didn't
have to do any work on the Sabbath. If they were to gather and keep
it for the next day, other than that, it would be rotten, wouldn't
it? It would be full of worms. It
would be old and unedible. What is that a picture of? That's
a picture of, I need bread today. I need to see his face right
now. I need to know it's finished
right now. I've got to be reminded. I've
been out in a wilderness again, and that's what I like in this.
Scripture talks about the children of Israel being in the wilderness,
and that's a picture of us in this life. We're in a wilderness,
aren't we? We're in a desert, a dry place that's dead, devoid
of life. There's only one source of life,
and it's the fountain of living water. And by His grace, He raises
up these little oasis, like this church right here. And that's
where we come to to get another drink of that fountain of living
water. That's where we come to to get another taste of the bread,
the manna from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we're
here. Lord, wash me again. I've been
crawling around in this desolate wilderness, and I found myself
dirty all over again. Wash me, and I shall be whiter
than snow. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall
be clean. That's what David said. But I hope we're able, once again,
see and fall in love with the truth. Let's read our text here
in 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 7 through 14. It says, For the mystery
of iniquity doth already work, only he who now letteth will
let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall the wicked,
that wicked, be revealed. whom the Lord shall consume with
the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of
his coming. Even him whose coming is after
the working of Satan with all powers and signs and lying wonders
and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that
perish." And here's why. Because they receive not the
love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this cause,
God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie,
that they all might be damned to believe not the truth, but
at pleasure in unrighteousness. but we are bound to give thanks
always 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, whereunto he called you
by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ. The question I would like for
us to answer tonight is, do I, and it's a personal question,
If my wife loves the truth, that doesn't do me any good in spiritual
things. Do I love the truth? Ask yourself that. Do I love
God's truth? If we do, it's because he's made
it known unto us, and he's given us a love for his truth. The
scripture says we love him, not because we chose to, but because
he first loved us. We love his truth because it's
the only thing that sets a sinner free. He said, ye shall know
the truth. You're going to know the truth.
And the truth shall make you free. And if the Spirit make
you free, you're free indeed. We're made free by God's truth.
God's truth is what sets a sinner free from the bond of sin and
death. You know what the truth is? The
Lord Jesus Christ. He is the truth. He said, I am
the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. He is the truth
to his people. He's what sets us free. Understand,
The idea of being dead in trespasses and in sin, I used this analogy
last night, I'll use it again, but a lot of people think that
they're kinda dead. And what I mean by that is our
heart's not as bad as it could be. We need a quadruple bypass,
so we have some clogged arteries, but we need the Lord to be the
great physician and just unblock the arteries. Know that we're
dead, we have no pulse. That's what dead means. It's
a it's a rotting corpse. It's not that it's it's way past
resuscitation by any human efforts. This is something that God has
to do is breathe the breath of life. And otherwise, we're just
going to remain dead that the dead man can't do anything we
have. I found it kind of. Well, it's the Lord's providence
and we rejoice in it. But when we first started meeting
in Pennsylvania, they were I wasn't with them at the time, but they
had a cemetery right in the backyard and When I first went up to preach
for him, I noticed there's a cemetery over here. Well, that's a constant
reminder of us being dead unless the Lord does something. And
now we have a building the Lord's given us a year ago that we've
been able to meet in, and guess what's behind us? A cemetery.
And so we didn't get away from the cemetery the whole time.
We're constantly reminded that our life is a vapor, physically
speaking. But spiritually speaking, we're
born dead. We're devoid of life completely.
The Lord has to do something. He has to do something, and it's
not based upon what we do spiritually, because the flesh is enmity against
God. They that are in the flesh cannot
please God. It doesn't matter what we do,
it cannot bring forth life. We don't need a quadruple bypass,
we need a new heart. The heart, the Lord says, the
heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. That's how bad our heart is.
How deceived is our heart? We would deceive ourselves all
the way into the pit of hell if we can, unless the Lord does
something. And what does he do? He sends
his truth. They that receive the truth are no longer deceived.
If we want assurance without presumption, look to the Lord
Jesus Christ alone. There's assurance there, what
He done. Don't look to self, because if we look to self in
something we do, we presume that we can do one thing that He is
pleased with, but it's not true, is it? There is not one thing. Paul didn't say, in me that is
in my flesh, you know, there's one thing that's good. He said
there's no good thing He has to bring us. He has to make us
alive or we never will believe. If left in this state of believing
that the flesh is good enough, we've not received the love of
the truth. Look in verse 11 again. And for this cause, God shall
send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie. Why?
Because they received not the truth in the verse before, the
end of the verse, because they received not the love of the
truth that they might be saved. What is the lie? And I might
have mentioned this last night. What is the lie he's talking
about here? Well, there's one lie. It is the beginning of all
lies, and everything stems from it, and it is that you can be
God. I can be God. I can choose. to, I can choose God, I can choose
to live a life He's pleased with while I'm still dead in trespasses
and in sin, I can choose morality and will be viewed as good enough
for Him. It's the same lie as saying you
can be your own God, make your own decisions, and that was the
lie given to Eve in the very beginning of the garden. When
Satan came to her in the form of a serpent, he said unto her,
the Lord, can you not eat of every tree? And she said, of
every tree we eat, we can't eat of this tree nor touch it, for
in the day we eat, we shall surely die. And he said, you shall not
surely. Changed it one word. He interjected
one word to change the truth into a lie. How close can we
be to the truth? Well, there's one word right
there. You shall not surely die. But God knows in the day that
you eat of it, God knows in the day that you eat it, but you
shall be like gods. Now that translated the word God and the
word gods there is the exact same word. He's not saying gods.
He's saying the day that you eat it, God knows when you eat
this, that you'll be like God. Well, when she saw that it was
good for food and she saw that it was pleasing to the eye and
to make one wise, well, there it is. There's power, popularity,
and pleasure. That's what we That's what we
are constantly contending with in this flesh. That's the downfall
of man right there. She took of the fruit and she
did eat it. I can be like God. And this is the message that's
given forth in our society, in false churches, that Christ didn't
finish the work, that there's something remaining, one little
thing that we must do in order to please God, it's not true.
Aren't you glad there's not a choice left for you to make? I'll make
the wrong choice. Why? Because my wheel is bound
to my human nature and my human nature would always choose self
and self righteousness and self glory. We're bound by a nature
that's sinful and that's what we would choose. No, there's
not a choice to be made. There's not even a prayer left
to be prayed. The Lord prayed for His people.
Everything required, God provided. This is the truth of what He
done. The truth is the only way to approach
God is to be as holy as He is. As holy as He is. As righteous
as He is. As perfect as He is. As good
as He is. The rich young ruler came to
the Lord and said, what must I do to inherit eternal life? He said, why callest thou me
good? Why are you calling me good? There's none good, but
God. That's the truth, isn't it? He's
the only one that's good. He's the only one that's good.
This is what the knowledge of good and evil revealed when Eve
received it, that she had to have a covering. I need a covering
now because he's good and I'm not. I have the knowledge of
sin. I have the knowledge of good and evil, of right and wrong. She saw that. What does the law
reveal? The law reveals that He's holy and I'm not. That there's
none good, no not one. We can't keep his law. But as
soon as she found out, and after Adam had taken of course of the
fruit of the will, what did they do? They realized that they were
sinful. They had disobeyed God. They
had knowledge of good and evil. We have to have a covering. we
have to have a covering. And what was that covering? They
sowed fig leaves together. There's our righteousness. By
nature, that's what we would choose. We would sow fig leaves
together and we would think we're okay. But what about when the
Lord came and in the cool of the evening, it says, what happened
when he called out? They hid themselves. Why? There's
no righteousness, brethren, in fig leaves. There's only one
righteousness. There's not multiple righteousnesses.
It's only the righteousness of Christ or there is no righteous.
There's no such thing as self-righteousness. There's no hope in the fig leaves.
There's only hope in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's
only hope in the covering of the spotless Lamb of God to be
robed in His righteousness. That's our hope. That's our hope. They miss the most important
detail of having to have their sin remitted. And how is that
remitted without the shedding of blood? There is no remission.
What blood are we going to offer then? How are we going to fix
it? Well, it has to be by his blood. How are we going to apply
his blood? We don't. It's the Lord that does it. See,
there's the truth. There's the truth. He must do
it all. He must do it all without being
robed in the righteousness of Christ. We have no covering.
If God sees us. If God sees you. Outside of Christ,
if he sees me outside of Christ, we have no hope. We have no hope. He didn't say, well, I'll tell
you what he did say. This is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased. That's what he said. This is
my son. I'm not pleased with anything else. This is him here
ye him. Lord Jesus Christ pleased his
father. Now most would rather hear a
lie, and we live in a world of feel-good, and I suppose it's
always been that way, of what feels good. Tell me what makes
me feel good, don't tell me the truth. Only the Lord's people
want the truth, it doesn't matter what it makes them feel. We don't
base our salvation off of feelings, we base our salvation completely
off of what Christ has done. Feelings come and feelings go.
We rest in Christ alone. That's what faith does. But most
would rather have the lie. They would rather believe the
lie than believe the truth. There's an example of this in
1 Kings chapter 22, if you'd like to turn there with me. 1 Kings chapter 22. Now Ahab was
the king of Israel at this time, and he desired to go up to Ramoth
Gilead to fight the army that was coming up against them. And
he calls for the king of Judah, and he gathers together 400 men
that are prophets, that are considered prophets. Ahab goes and asks
these 400 men, these prophets, should I go and war against this
army that's come? They told Ahab what he wanted
to hear. Yes, go. The Lord will deliver you. But
they didn't get that from God. God didn't tell them that, and
we know that to be true because when they had told him what he
wanted to hear and it wasn't enough, he thought, well, what
if they're not telling me the truth? And he looks over to the
king of Judah and he says, his name's Jehoshaphat, the king
of Judah, he says, is there anyone else, just to make sure, Is there
anyone else that is a prophet here that I can ask of him? Now
look in 1 Kings chapter 22 verse 7. Jehoshaphat said, is there
not here a prophet of the Lord besides that we might inquire
of him? And the king of Israel said unto
Jehoshaphat, there is yet one man Micaiah, the son of Imlah,
by whom we may inquire of the Lord, but I hate him. I hate
him. There's one that you can inquire
of, but I hate him. And here's what he says. Here's the reason
why. For he doth not prophesy good
concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat said, let not
the king say so. And the king of Israel called
an officer and said, hasten hither Micaiah, the son of Imlah. You know, his response, he said,
is there anyone else that can tell me the truth? Yes, there's
one. But I hate him. I hate him, because
every time he tells me something, it's not good news. The gospel
is bad news according to the flesh. It doesn't resonate, and
the flesh gets no glory. See, the flesh is, by nature,
we want all the glory. But the gospel says he gets all
the glory. Our flesh hates that. Now with this king looking and
saying, is there yet one? He was interested in knowing
the truth, but once the other man was asked, he told him, I
hate him. He never gives me good news.
And certainly we know, and for the sake of time, I'll sum it
up for you, but he says, he never gives me good news concerning
myself. And this is what the truth reveals. It's not good concerning you
and I, it's all good concerning him. The good news of the gospel
is that he makes us the righteousness of God in Christ. It's not what
we do, it's what he's done. And only the new man can rest
in that. Men want to think they're good enough, I've made a choice,
I've let God do something, or to make themselves feel good
about themselves. We live in a society that is
force-feeding people that you're perfect the way you are, you're
good enough just the way you are. Maybe humanitarianly speaking
that's true, but men take that and we have the idea that now
we're some kind of a superman or we can make a spiritual decision
after hearing that, it's not true, it's just not true. Men,
our nature, our flesh wants to receive glory, wants to receive
attention. And I can give you a few examples.
Social media, social media, and I didn't talk to Joe on who has
social media and who doesn't, so don't blame him. I have no
idea and I don't care if you do or don't. But I'll tell you
what they represent. Facebook says, look at me, look at me.
And then Instagram is, look at me now. And Snapchat is, look
at me fast. And TikTok's now, look at me
dance. And it's all about look at me, isn't it? I mean, really,
that's how, That's what social media platforms is. It draws
attention to the flesh. That's what man by nature wants
to do. This man hated the truth. He said he didn't want to know
the truth. He said I'd hate that man because every time he tells
me something it's not good. He should tell me something good
about myself. If he would just prophesy good
to me, If he would just tell me something I want to hear,
then I would let him tell me what he wants to hear. So what
this king does is he grabs the servant and says, go fetch him,
just as we read. And he goes down and gets the prophet, and
he comes to him. And as he's coming, the servant
says, hey, all the other 400 have given the king good news.
It would be in your best interest to give the king good news. And
what does the man say? Well, he was a prophet of God.
He wasn't out for fleshly gain. He said, whatever the Lord tells
me to say, that's what I'm going to say. And he pronounces death
on the king. Ultimately, he says, you're going
to go up and die in a roundabout way. And the king says, I told
you so. I told you he would prophesy against me. I told you he was
against me and all that he could say is bad against me. Well,
the king trusted the 400. The king trusted the lie because
it made him feel good. The Lord's people ain't looking
to what makes us feel good according to the flesh. As we heard last
night, we're not looking to get our bellies full, are we? We're
looking for the King of Glory to give us manna from heaven,
the fountain of living water, something that far surpasses
anything according to the flesh. We need spiritual life. Do you know why this king hated
God's prophet? John 5.42 tells us, but I know you that you have
not the love of God in you. Mankind does not have the truth
in them. Mankind does not have the love
of the truth in them by nature. Everything is contrary to God.
But the good news of the gospel is you. I hope I'm a you, don't
you? I hope I'm a you, you, you shall
know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Now back
to our text in 2 Thessalonians 2. Look at verse 10 again. With
all deceivableness and unrighteousness in them that perish, because
they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be
saved. For this cause God shall send strong delusion, that they
should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believe
not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. He says all
deceivableness of unrighteousness. Do you know what that is? all
deceivableness of unrighteousness. That's very simple. Believing
that we have a self-righteousness. That is all deceivableness of
unrighteousness. We don't have a righteousness. The scripture
tells us that men shall heap to themselves teachers, having
itching ears. Do you know what itching ears
means? It means they're going to be ear ticklers, ear ticklers. And the scripture tells us when
Paul was addressing, I believe it's the church of Corinthians,
and he said, except I have charity, I have nothing. I have nothing.
But I've become as a sounding brass, and a tinkling cymbal.
If I don't tell you the truth in love, I'm nothing but a sounding
brass and a tinkling cymbal. So all these men that are itching
ears, that's Dr. Sounding Brass and Dr. Tinkling
Cymbal or Reverend Tinkling Cymbal. And the reason is because if
a man loves you, he's going to tell you the truth. If a man
loves, if a preacher loves you, he'll tell you the truth. And
the truth is Christ is all. We have no righteousness. Don't
be deceived. Don't be deceived. Our only hope is the truth. Our only hope is that God chooses
to do something that God chose to do something before time ever
began in the covenant of grace. He chose something in time and
sending his son and the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemning
sin in the flesh. And he chose us to do chooses
to do something in time by sending his spirit and power and saying
live, live. If He doesn't do it all, we'll
die in our sin. I said this last night and I
can't take credit for it. I don't know where I heard it.
Joe said he's heard it before, so I never heard it, but we don't
know that we're alive and we don't know that we were dead
until we've been made alive. We don't know that we've received
hearing ears until we don't know that we are deaf until we receive
hearing ears. We won't realize that we're blind
until we receive our sight. That's because the truth has
to give life. The Lord is the truth. And when his truth comes
and he says, live, we see, I was dead. I was dead, but now I'm
alive. Someone said to me recently that
we're really not as bad as you're saying that we are. We're really
not as bad, and that's an opinion. That's an opinion, but that's
not the truth. And we, by nature, form opinions
based upon what may make us feel good or what we want to hear. But only the Lord's people want
the truth because we've been made to know that is the only
thing that is going to set us free from the bonds of sin and
death. The truth is we would justify our intentions and to
condemn others by our actions, but it's because we're born totally
depraved, totally depraved from anything spiritual. I can give
you an example. Several of you have children,
or you've been around children. Have you ever had to teach your
children to lie? I have three daughters, and they're
from my loins, and I did not have to teach my children to
lie. I had to be taught as a child to not lie. It was wrong. And
I had to teach my children, don't do that. Tell the truth. Tell
the truth. It's contrary to our nature to
tell the truth. If we get in trouble, it's contrary
to our nature. Lying may get us out of that
trouble. The Lord knows all things. And there is no lying ourself
our way out of this. No, we've got to have the truth.
We've got to have the truth. The wages of sin is death. And
that's all that we are is sin. And therefore, because of that
being our merit, We're going to die unless the Lord does something. It's got to be a work of grace
in the heart. Did you know to acknowledge that
we're completely sinful, that we're completely depraved, that's
a work of grace in and of itself, to believe that. There was a woman that came to
the Lord, and she was a Seraphim, which means she was a Gentile.
She was not part of the lineage of the Jews. You want to talk
about a racist country, a racist group. It was the Jews in Israel
at this time. I don't know how it is now so
much, but the Jews, they believed they were the only ones that
were going to receive the Messiah, that it was going to be an earthly
kingdom like David. He was going to come and rule and reign over
and conquer all their enemies, and they were very racist. So
even when this woman approaches the Lord having a need of her
daughter being healed The Lord doesn't immediately acknowledge
her and the disciples are kind of shooing her away, but she
continues to pursue. And he looks at her and he says,
it is not meat to give the children's bread unto dogs, unto dogs. Now you can take that word dog
however you want to, but that would have meant that she's not
a Jew and it was a racist term and it was a condescending term
to the highest level. And in rather her becoming angry
and upset like you and I probably would when somebody calls us
a bad name, she looks at him and says, truth, Lord. Truth, Lord. But the children,
or but the dogs desire the crumbs. The dogs desire the crumbs, the
children's crumbs that fall from the master's table. I am a dog,
but I have a need. Call me what you want to, but
I realize you're the only one that can supply the need that
I have. You're the only one, because
I see myself as a dead dog sinner. You're going to have to give
life, and you're going to have to turn this dead dog into a live sheep,
or I'm going to die. I'm going to go to hell without
hope, without you. You're going to have to do it
all. I need the crumbs of that truth. I need the crumbs of thy
truth. Can you say that Lord? I need
your crumbs. I need that manna. Well, she's not the only one
that acknowledged being a dog. You remember Mephibosheth, he's
a He's someone we talk about often, I would imagine, just
because of the account that's given. It's a beautiful picture
of the covenant that was given before time. And Mephibosheth
would have been Saul's lineage. It would have been Jonathan's
son. Saul had a son named Jonathan. And Jonathan and David loved
one another. And they made a covenant while Saul was still living,
pursuing after David, that no matter what had happened, that
they would look after one another's kin, that they would take care
of one another. And it was a blood covenant. It was a covenant that
would not be broken by the Lord's grace, of course. Well, Jonathan
had died, and Saul had died, and David was king. And David
was seated on the throne in his palace, and he was, he called
into live with a servant of Jonathan, of the house of Saul, and he
says, is there any yet left of the house of Saul that I may
show him kindness? Not for Saul's sake, but for
Jonathan's sake. And he said, yes, there's one.
But his name's Mephibosheth. He's lame on his feet. See, when
Mephibosheth was a child, the nurse leaving because of a battle
pursuing in the city dropped Mephibosheth and he became lame
on his feet. So we see a picture of Mephibosheth didn't do anything
to himself to become completely lame or to become the enemy of
the king. understand at this time if you
were not part of the king's family, if you were part of the original
king prior to you, and you were his successor, and you were not
family, anybody that was in his family could try to usurp authority
over you to have the throne. And so Mephibosheth would have
been frightened. Mephibosheth would have been
hiding. And it says he's down in Lodabar. And it's us, brethren. We are laying on our feet enemies
against the king by what we are. We were born that way. And David
says, go fetch him. Now, Lodivar means the house
of no bread. And I love that. That's us. We are living amongst
the house of no bread. I mentioned the oasis that's
here. You can't get bread, not spiritual bread, wherever you
go. Thankfully, we have technology. We can pull up messages and different
things. But you understand what I'm saying. It comes through
and by the preaching of the gospel. David sends the servant down
and fetches him. And can you imagine the fear
that would have gripped Mephibosheth's heart? He's the enemy of the
king. He knows it. He can't run. He's a lame on
his feet. He can't do anything for himself whatsoever. But here
comes the chariots. I don't know if there had been
trumpets blasting. I don't know what the situation would have
been exactly or the scene, but he knew those chariots. He would
have known who this was. And they grabbed him and they
brought him all the way back to the palace. Now Mephibosheth
could not have gotten to the palace on his own. He's laying
him upon his feet. And even if he would have gotten there on
his own, his fear was upon his sight, they would have killed
him on sight. Upon entering the courtroom,
he falls down upon his face. Mephibosheth says these words
after David says, fear not, for I will surely show thee kindness
for Jonathan thy father's sake. Mephibosheth says, What is thy
servant that thou should look upon such a dead dog as I am? David already told him. There's
nothing in you. It's not about you. It's about
a covenant that was before your time. It was a covenant before
you existed. It was a covenant of blood between
me and your father. And that's the reason I'm gonna
show you kindness. Who do you think David saw when he looked
across the throne room to Mephibosheth? I have children and most of them
have some likeness of me and thankfully they're girls, they
look more like their mother. But David would have looked right
into the face of Mephibosheth and who would he have saw? Jonathan. Jonathan he would have saw the
likeness of Jonathan aren't you glad brethren when we were dead
and trespasses and in sin in the land of no bread lame on
our feet couldn't come to the king and even if we could have
he would have killed us on sight because of our sin he sent his
Holy Spirit to fetch us out of that place and brought us into
the throne room of God declaring unto us fear not for one reason
I don't see you I see Jonathan. I see the Lord Jesus Christ and
what He done in the covenant of grace. See, there's the good
news of the gospel. It's not what we have done. It's
according to His mercy, hath He loved us. It's according to
His mercy, hath He saved us. We had no hope of getting to
God on any of our merits. We were enmity against Him. And
yet God, who is rich in mercy, where in His great love hath
He loved us, sent His Son to be the propitiation for His people. Everything was provided for Mephibosheth. I love this thought that David
said, you're going to eat at my table continually all the
days of your life. And the servants are going to
go work in the field for you. So every day they would wheel
in or carry in Mephibosheth. I don't know if they had wheelchairs
back then, but they would brought him in. And I like to think that
they brought him in before anyone else. And they set him at the
table wherever his spot was. He had a designated spot. They
would have had designated spots. And when he was seated at that
spot, there would have been a train that came off of that table,
and I bet you it was crimson red. And it covered up the lameness
of Mephibosheth. When everybody else entered the
room, they didn't say, hey, there's that lame man. We can tell that he was
covered by the blood. You see that? And he got to eat
the bread of the king all the days of his life, not because
he was working in the field, but because the Lord The picture
of the Lord being our servant, humbling Himself to the death
of the cross, providing everything that we need to be made the righteousness
of God in Him. This is why the Lord's people
love His truth. I know I'm not good enough, but I know he is.
I know he is. I'm not being presumptuous. I
know he's good enough. I know that the father was pleased
with him. I know that I'm not good enough.
I know the father is not pleased with me. I've got to be found
in him. Aren't you glad all those that
he loved are in the Lord Jesus Christ? And he sees them now
as the righteousness of God in him. The last analogy I'll give you
quickly is the prodigal son. The prodigal son had decided
something. It's a picture of every time
we make a decision, it's probably the wrong one. You know that
to be true, especially some of you older ones. And I'm not very
old, but it seems like in my life, everything I choose to
do that I'm going to fix this problem, it goes from bad to
worse. And then I throw up my hand and
say, Lord, you're going to have to save me. I can't save myself
again. The prodigal son decided he was
going to do something. He wanted his inheritance. He had earned
it. He's ready to sow his wild oats. He's ready to leave his
father and go do what he wanted to do, and he does just that.
The father grants him his wish, and he leaves with all of his
inheritance from his father. And he says he spent his life in
frivolous living. He spent his life partying. He
spent his life getting some friends that he thought were friends.
So long as he had his standing with those friends, they were
his friends. But the moment he loses all of his money, they
are nowhere to be found. And he begins to work with the
swine. Now, I would remind you that the swine was an unclean
animal to the Jew. Hogs were unclean. The Jews were
not permitted to eat the hogs, but yet here he is, and he said
he would have fain filled his belly with the husks. He would
have fain filled his belly with the same thing the hogs were
eating, but he came to himself. Now understand, him coming to
himself means that he remembered the truth. The Lord reminded
him of the truth. What was that truth? That his
father had servants in his house that were eating better than
he was, that were doing better than he was. His father took
care of his servants better than what he was having right there.
He didn't want the husk anymore. He couldn't eat the husk. This
is a picture of every single false religion. Men by nature
would feed themselves with the husks that the hogs eat. Those
hogs represent false religion completely. And those husks represent
a false gospel. There's no sustenance in the
husks, are there? There's no life in the husks.
But he remembered his father had bread. He remembered his
father had sustenance. And he came to himself. He remembered
the truth. See, this man would have been a deacon at the church
on the corner. He would have, that's where he
went to from the truth. He would have went from the truth of the
Lord. That's the picture here to becoming in religion. And
then he remembered the truth. The Lord reminded him of the
truth. And he went to his father's house. On the way back, the father
saw him afar off and he ran to him. And he kissed him. And he
put his robe on his back and his ring on his finger. And the
son said, Lord, I'm not worthy to be your servant. I'm no longer
worthy to be your son. Make me just one of your servants.
And the father now, this is my son who was gone and now he's
returned. When the Father sees us, He sees His darling Son. Not what we did in false religion. Not what we're doing right now.
Not what we're going to do. He sees the Lord Jesus Christ
and He reminds us that it is His truth that sets us free. Not what we have done. We've
been clothed in His righteousness. His robe. We've been given the
ring of the Lord Himself upon our finger. We are seated in
the heavenlies with the Lord right now. We believe that and
don't understand it, but it's true. We're with Him. Now this. Young man knew the
truth and he went back home. Hearing the truth and knowing
the truth is entirely two totally different things. I can know
and you can know many things logically. It ain't, and I say
ain't, you can hear my Tennessee accent, it ain't what you know,
it's who you know. It's who you know. Some people
say that sometimes, but that's so true when it comes to the
gospel, it's not what we know. Yes, we are fully persuaded and
that is purpose, that is good, but it's who we know. We know
the truth and that truth is a person. In myself, in my flesh, there
is no good thing. But in Him, there is eternal
life. Lord, give me Christ, lest I
die. Give me Christ, lest I die. It's
His work. It's His merit for His people's
righteousness. It's His blood that brought our
pardon. I didn't enter to the holy place.
He entered once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for His people. What happened after that? Well,
he says he is now seated. He ascended on high. He laid
captivity captive. Whenever the Father resurrected him, he sat
down on the right hand of God, expecting until his enemies be
made his footstool. He's resting. The Father rested
on the Sabbath. The Son's rested. Why? Because
of the glorious declaration that's on the cross. I said it last
night. I may say it tomorrow. It is finished. That's the most
precious word to the Lord's people. There's the truth of the gospel.
Rest. Why? It is finished. Now our life is hid with Christ
in God. I started with this question.
I want to end with it. Do you love this truth? Do you love
his truth? If you do, he's the doer of that. He's the doer of that. If you
can say a man. That's all your hope is the Lord
Jesus Christ. There's one reason for it and
only one you've been given. with the love of the truth. Amen. Father, bless Your Word
according as You promised that it would not return void and
cause us ever so much more to fall in love with Your truth.
In Christ's name, Amen.