From Dr. Matthew 18. Titled this
message, Without Exception. Now you'd think that'd get our
attention, wouldn't you? When the Lord of Glory says, this
is without exception. And that ought to get our attention.
There are four things to which there is no exception. And I'm
sure we could mention some other things, but there are particularly
four things. In John 3, chapter 3, John 3,
verse 3, Jesus answered and said unto him, Nicodemus, Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, except except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God." There's a new birth that has
to happen. Nicodemus is trying to understand
what the Lord was saying and he couldn't. And the Lord is
saying, for you to see the kingdom of God and for you to understand
the kingdom of God, you must be born again. The way you are,
you can't get it. You're not gonna get it. You
can't understand it. You must be born again into the kingdom
of God. There's no, and I was thinking
about this yesterday when I was looking at this, there's no immigrants
in the kingdom of God. Everybody there is born into
it. We don't migrate into it. We
are born into it. That's what our Lord says. You
must be born again to understand it. And then in John 6, 53, then
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except
you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you
have no life in you. And we know He's talking about
faith, except by faith we receive Christ, His substitutionary character. He offered up Himself. He bore
our sins in His body on the tree. And by faith, we eat His flesh
and drink His blood. By faith. Now those who were
not born again, they said, this is a hard saying. Who can understand
it? And many went back and walked
no more with Him. But those who understood that it was a spiritual
message and what He spoke to them was spiritual, and He was
speaking of eating His flesh and drinking His blood by faith,
by faith. And He says, except you do that,
except you do that, you have no life in you. In Matthew 5.20, He says, "...for
I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no
case enter into the kingdom of heaven." There's got to be a greater righteousness,
he said, than the Pharisees, and they were the example. They
were the example on earth that people look to as people being
righteous. And he said, if your righteousness
does not exceed theirs, you won't enter the kingdom of heaven.
Which means they're not, same thing for them. If their righteousness
doesn't exceed what they call righteousness, they're not gonna
be in the kingdom of heaven. That's without exception. That's
without exception. And then we come to this fourth
one, which is the one we are going to deal with. And he said
there in verse 3, "...verily I say unto you, except you be
converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter
the kingdom of heaven. This is without exception." Now, here's the whole premises
of this. in verse one and over in Luke,
over in Luke, they were walking and talking. I believe it's Luke
nine. They were discussing on who's
going to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. What a discussion. What a useless discussion. And
this discussion showed how much pride was in them. They thought they would be. Each
one of them, no doubt, each one of them thought, well, I'm more
experienced at this. I'm older. I've been around a
little longer. They had all kinds of excuses
as to why they ought to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. It's amazing. And you know what?
These were God's children. These are God's children. These
are not lost men. These are God's children discussing
this. Who's going to occupy the highest
seat? You see, that's over in Luke
20, the Lord spoke of the Pharisees. He said, they desire the highest
seats in the synagogue. They're the ones who wants to
sit up where everybody can see them. They want to be recognized,
but that's not the way it is. He's going to teach them this.
That's not the way it is in the kingdom of heaven. In the kingdom
of heaven, to go up is actually to go down. If you're going to
go up in the kingdom of heaven, you've got to go down. Everything
spiritual is opposite of this natural life. Pretty much opposite. Well, first of all, there's no
corporate ladder climbing in the kingdom of heaven. There's
no corporate ladder climbing. And the disciples were sadly
mistaken as to the kingdom of heaven and its true greatness,
and its spirituality. They were thinking of it like
the kingdom of men, like they've seen among the Romans and among
themselves. That's how they thought of it.
You step on somebody if you want to go up. That's about the way
it is in the kingdom of men. To rise in power, normally you're
stepping on somebody to get there. Usually, not always, but usually. In the kingdom of heaven, the
lowest is the greatest. Now, seeing that the Lord Jesus
Christ humbled Himself and made Himself of no reputation, guess
who's the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? The Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if He's the greatest in
the kingdom of heaven, that ought to settle the matter. He's the
greatest. That matter is settled. He's
the greatest. There's no greater than Jesus Christ in the kingdom
of heaven. God said to Abraham, Abraham,
I am your exceeding great reward. I am. People talk about getting rewards
in heaven. Is there any greater than God?
There's none greater than God to be with Him, to be His Son. To be His Son, there's nothing
greater than that. Now, if you were going to set
forth an example of greatness, how would you do it? Would you honestly take a child,
a little child, and I'm assuming this child is probably five,
six years old, because it's old enough to come to Him. Our Lord
takes a child. to demonstrate and show forth
greatness. A child. He calls a little child
to himself and he uses this child to teach a lesson to his disciples
about greatness. Now, this is very important because
to miss it, now listen, to miss it is to miss the kingdom of
heaven. You believe all you want to believe.
Believe whatever you want to believe. I mean, you can believe
all the doctrines of grace. But he says, except this happens,
except you be converted, except your righteousness, except this,
you're not going to enter the kingdom of heaven. Because it's
evident a work of grace has never been done. It's never been done. Now, why does he call this child?
Why does he do that? A child represents, this child
represents God's children. He's going to use this child
to represent God's children. First of all, this child came
when he was called. He didn't stop or he didn't... He came. The Lord called this child and
this little child ran over to him. The simplicity of that. How many people sit under the
gospel year after year after year after year and the gospel
call goes out and they're just sitting there? It's like, you
go back home like you came. But when God gives a call to
His child, the child comes. And the child comes lowly, and
the child comes expecting, expecting him to say something. This child, when he came, he
came in simplicity. He didn't come with his posse. He came in simplicity when he
was called. Call a child, a five or six-year-old
child. You know, when they get older,
they get stubborn, don't they? It's like, what do you want?
Come here, what do you want? I mean, you get this wall, you
get this separation. But a child, now we're talking
about a child, a five-year-old child, you say, come here. And
what do they do? They come to you. They come to
you. And they come to you, I mean,
with wide open. In other words, they're expecting
you to say something. They're expecting you to say
something or give them something. And they're not suspicious of
you. They're really not suspicious of you. It's funny, I saw a thing on
the, the news was showing this. You know how you teach your children
not to talk to strangers? And these kids were about five or
six years old. This guy drives up in a van.
Well, they've got the camera on. This is set up, okay? This
is set up. And the parents, they got them watching it to see what'll
happen. You know every one of those kids went to him? That
guy got out of the van, opened his thing up, and he said, hey,
would y'all come over here and help me? They, every one, and their
parents, every one of their parents says, mine won't go. I've taught
them about that, mine won't go. And that man got out of that
van, opened the door, and every one of those kids went to him.
It's the simplicity of their minds. They don't have that experience
of danger. They don't have that experience
of deception that the human race has. They don't have that yet. And that's why he takes a child,
and he calls this child, and that child comes over to him,
and that child comes over to him, it comes over to him lowly,
it comes over to him expectantly, it comes over to him with simplicity, and he just stands there. ready
for the Lord to speak. He waits for the Lord to speak. Listen, this child is teachable.
Are you teachable? Am I teachable? Really, am I
teachable? A child doesn't come with any
preconceived ideas. It doesn't come with any prejudice.
Not a child. That grows up into you. But they
don't come with that. They come with simplicity. And
they come expecting, and they come very teachable. That's why false religion wants
to get the children. That's why they want to get all
the children in while they're just down here, because you can get
them. I taught a Bible class. It was a summer Bible class we
had, Bible school, what they call it, at 13th Street. Years ago, years ago, Henry asked
me to teach the children. And there was, I mean, there
would be 200 people there or so in that. And he had me to
teach the children, and I started preparing for it. He wanted me
to teach on thoughts about working. to the children. And as I prepared
it, and I stood before them, it dawned on me, and I said this,
this is what I said to them. I said, talking to you this morning
scares me more than anything. Because you're going to believe
every word I say. Everything I say, you're going
to believe it. It's so important that our children,
when they're very young, who we let teach them, they'll believe
everything they're told. And this child came to him. He
was very teachable. He's going to believe everything
the Lord says. And he came, listen, he came
with no ambitions. No ambitions. Now does that mean
we are to be dead beets and with no drive? No. No. First of all, the believer's
ambition is to be found in Him, not having his own righteousness. And my ambition is this, Lord,
Thy will be done. Now if it's His will for me to
be an engineer or a machinist or a teacher or whatever, that
will be done. But our ambition is to be found
in Him and to do His will. That's our ambition. This child came to him. He didn't
say, I don't have time. I got some things to do. Remember
the one that said, I bought a piece of ground. He was invited to
the marriage. He said, I bought a piece of ground. I got to go see it.
You bought a piece of ground without looking at it. It's really. No, he had no interest in being
at that wedding feast. He had no interest. The other
one said, I bought some oxen. I got to go try them. You bought
some oxens and you haven't tried them. You didn't go try them
first. Or you bought a car and you haven't
driven it. Excuses. But this child, a child
doesn't have that. A child doesn't have that. A child, listen here, a child
believes that his father knows best Every child believes, I don't
care how bad their father is, but when that child is a child,
he believes his father knows best. He believes his father's
the smartest, he believes his father's the strongest, and he
never doubts his father's ability to take care of him. When I was
a child growing up, I never thought about not eating. I never thought
about not having a place to sleep. It never crossed my mind. My
Father took care of it." That's childlike faith that we
are to have in Christ. Now He says here in verse 3,
"...verily I say to you, except you be converted..." Now listen,
there's two words here, converted and become. When God saves us, there's a
regeneration born of God. That's regeneration. Conversion
is all your life. You're being converted throughout
your whole life. And you notice that word become. Become. It's a process. It's
a process. Paul said, I have learned in
whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. He learned it. It's not automatic. He learned
it. And you and I are constantly, constantly becoming as little
children, not in our thinking, but in our attitude and in our
faith in Christ. We believe just what he says.
We don't believe and say, well, no way, man, how can that be?
How can a whale swallow a man and then spit him up three days
later? How can God flood the earth? I'll tell you what, simple faith
just believes it. It believes it. And that's what a child does.
A child like faith, when you pick this
book up and you read it, You say, that's it. That's what He
said. Come unto Me, all you heavy laden, I'll give you rest. Lord,
you said come. You said. You said, he that comes
to Me, I will know why he's cast out. Here I am. You literally
take God at His Word without a question mark. Except you be converted and become
as little children. There must be a change from our
natural birth to a spiritual birth. And listen, that change
is continual. There is a continual growing
in Christ. There is a continual growing
in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. But there's got to be a change
from a natural birth to a spiritual birth. and the life will match the birth.
The life will match the birth. If I were born a dog, I would
act like a dog. Christ said, that which is born
of the Spirit is Spirit. It is Spirit. I will act like
that which I am born of. That's because my first birth,
my natural birth, I was born from the seed of Adam, a sinful,
corrupt seed. And I've acted like that. And
you've acted, we act like what we are born of. But he says here, except you
be converted and become. In spirit and in attitude, we
are always becoming like Christ. We are always becoming meek and
lowly. Now, to some, that sounds like
weakness. If meekness were a weakness,
Jesus Christ would be the weakest person ever walked on this earth,
because he is the perfect embodiment of meekness. There's got to be a change from
the old ways of thinking and doing to a new way of thinking
and doing. We must believe God and His ways to tell His disciples
with simplicity of faith, not looking for advancement. In the kingdom of God, if it's
the Lord's will for me to sit here in a pew and support the
gospel, that's fine. If it's His will for me to stand
here in the pulpit and preach, that's fine, isn't it? Because
it's the Lord's will. And he will bless the gifts that
he's given and where he's put you and where he's put me. There's nothing more ugly, if
I can use to say it that way, than somebody trying to do something
they're not gifted at. They just mess it up. Can you
see me trying to be a basketball player? Really? That would just be a mess. I'm
not gifted at that. I could barely touch the net
at the bottom of the at the rim. My brother, James, you've seen,
he's same height, me and him, same height. He can dunk a basketball. He can put his hand that far
over a rim, and we're the same height. We used to play together,
we used to play all the time, and I was the last one picked.
But I got picked because there was nobody else left. Anyway, it was funny because We would play, you know, guys
that are six foot, six foot two. And here they are shooting a
basketball. And I'm serious. Here he is going up and dunking.
I mean, blocking her shot, slamming it. And they're like, where'd
he come from? That's a gift. That's a gift. Do what the Lord's gifted you
for. Henry said this to me one time.
He said, concerning a certain person, this person was very
successful, but he was into something he didn't need to be in. Henry
said, a man sometimes thinks just because he's blessed in
one area, he can be that way in every other area. He just
needs to stay in the area where God's blessed in him. I thought,
what wisdom? What wisdom? Now, let's get back to this.
Got a little sidetrack there. And I thought of this. Think about this. The more simple
the faith, the greater the faith. How many times did our Lord say
to those disciples, oh, you faithless, oh, why do you believe not? Why
are you so fearful? But then a sinner will come along
like that Syrophoenician woman, and he said, woman, great is
thy faith. He took some of the most simple
people who came with a great need and believed he was able
to do it, he was able to cure or take care of the problem,
and the Lord every time looked at him said, great is your faith. Great faith is not doing great
things, it's believing God who can do great things. He's the
one who does the great things. You know why our books are so
thick? I used to look at my library, commentaries, you know, one set
of commentaries this long. And I was looking at my library
as I was working at this and I thought, The reason our books
are so thick is because our heads are so thick. It takes a lot
for us to get it. And then we still don't get it. The more simple it is, the greater. Wisdom is always simple. I wrote
a, this has been a few years ago when I had the machine shop,
I was doing a weld job, a big, was welding out this big, Frame and the company wanted
me to write a welding procedure So I did I wrote you know a two-page
Procedure he sent it back to me. He said that's It's not quite
enough. He said you know you need to
be need a little more. I said okay. I sent him back
three pages and And he finally called me, because I knew the
guy, me and him knew each other well. He called me and said, John, just
make it wordy. He said, make it wordy, make it as thick as
you can. And I did. I did. And they accepted it. I didn't say one thing different.
I didn't say one thing different. I just made it wordy. Made it
look smart. I made it look like I had no
idea. And I didn't say anything different than I did in three
pages. Keep it simple. It's like Paul
preached that message, K-I-S-S, he said, keep it simple, stupid.
That's what Henry told us in the preacher school. He said,
just keep it simple, stupid, when you're preaching. And I knew he was talking to
me. He says in verse four, whosoever
therefore shall humble himself, as this little child," this little
child, he said, humbled himself. This little child just walked
over there, listening and ready. And he said, whoever humbles
himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the
kingdom of heaven. It says in 1 Peter 5, 6, "'Humble
yourselves therefore unto the mighty hand of God, that He may
exalt you in due time.'" Humble yourself unto the mighty hand
of God. The rule of conduct in the Kingdom
of God first is humility. You know, Paul said to the Corinthians,
What do you have that you didn't receive? And if you received
it, then why are you bragging about it as though you didn't
receive it? Like you came up with it. Now listen to verse 5, and I'm
going to close. 5 and 6 here, and I'm going to close though.
This is serious business. This is serious business. Whosoever
shall receive one such little child of My name receives Me."
To receive one of God's children, no matter how insignificant he
or she may seem, Christ said, that's to receive Me. That's
how important this is. Now listen. Whosoever shall offend one of
these little ones, which believe in me, one of my little ones,"
he's not talking about just all children here, now he's talking
about his little children, you, you who believe, you're his children,
you're his little children. And he says, if somebody offends
them, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged
about his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. If someone
touches your child, They're in trouble, aren't they? They're in trouble. If someone
touched Gloria, I wouldn't want to deal with those two beside
of her. I wouldn't want to deal with that. That's the way it is. Those two
girls right there. I wouldn't want to deal with
Johnny Parker or Rhonda or Tommy. I wouldn't. I can say that about
each one of you. And he's saying here, you fend
one of my little ones, you'd be better off somebody tie a
millstone around your neck and drown you, because you're about
to get in trouble real fast. What he's saying here is how
we treat one another is how we treat Christ. And how we treat
one another, boy, we better give attention to it. He said Saul
saw when he's on the roads of Damascus He was going to persecute
the church, but the Lord said Saul saw why persecutes thou
me I Thought he's going to persecute the church Christ said that's
my body. That's my body Our Lord takes
it personal God Almighty Takes it personal how his children
are treated Offending one of God's children
is serious business. Here's the message. The greatest
in the kingdom of heaven is Jesus Christ. And to go up is to go down. And that's the way up, is to
go down. It's true humility. You and I
are one in Christ. We are one in Christ. Henry said
one time in a message, he said, if God sent two angels to this
earth, one of them was to rule a kingdom, one of them was to
sweep the streets, they wouldn't be envious of each other. They
wouldn't be jealous. They'd be glad to do it. We are one in Jesus Christ. Wherever
he puts us in the body, so be it. And let's receive one another
with open arms, open arms. Accept you be converted, and
that's a lifelong process, and become, become. as little children, as this little
child, you will not, he says, you will not enter the kingdom
of heaven. It won't happen. Okay.