In Matthew 23 verse 34 to the
end of the chapter is where we're going to read. It says in verse
34, after Jesus had just spoken to the Pharisees, first exposing
their hypocrisy and false religion, and then condemning them with
eight woes. We went over that last week.
but here in verse 34 it says the Lord Jesus after that he
speaks really the last things publicly to the multitude and
the disciples that were in the hearing when he said in verse
34 wherefore behold I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and
scribes. And some of them you shall kill
and crucify, and some of them shall you scourge in your synagogues,
that means to beat them, whip them, and persecute them from
city to city. that upon you may come all the
righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous
Abel unto the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you slew
between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, all these
things shall come upon this generation." And then listen to these words
of the Lord Jesus. It's really a cry He has been speaking to
the people and condemning them, and then he turns, in the way
that he speaks, in a lament, he says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent
to thee, How often would I have gathered thy children together,
even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would
not. Behold, your house is left unto
you desolate. For I say unto you, you shall
not see me henceforth till you shall say, blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord. The one who came in the name
of the Lord is the Lord Jesus Christ. and these men according
to the Lord Jesus that were spoken of in Matthew chapter 23 and
who would persecute those that he would send from city to city
and kill kill them and who had rejected him. And even though
he says in verse 37 that he would have gathered their children
together, they didn't want that. They fought against that. And
so he says their house is left to them desolate. This is almost
the same thing that Jesus said when he rode into Jerusalem.
Remember when he rode into Jerusalem? I'll see if I can find that for
you. And as he rode into Jerusalem and the people were praising
him, he was on the donkey and he says in Luke chapter 19, I'm
just going to read this. As a as a parallel passage. He
says in Luke 19 verse 38 They were saying with a loud voice
Blessed be the king that comes in the name of the Lord peace
in heaven and glory in the highest and some of the Pharisees from
among the multitude said to him master Rebuke thy disciples and
he answered and said to them I tell you that if these should
hold their peace the stones would immediately cry out and when
he was come near he beheld the city and the city Jerusalem and
he wept over it saying if thou hadst known even thou at least
in this thy day the things which belong to thy peace but now they
are hid from thine eyes For the day shall come upon thee that
thine enemy shall cast a trench about thee, encompass thee round,
and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with
the ground, and thy children within thee. And they shall not
leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest
not the time of thy visitation. It's the same lament here as
he has in verse 37, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest
the prophets and stonest them that are sent to thee, how often
would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathers
her chicken under her wings, and you would not. What a condemning
announcement that the Lord Jesus, pronouncement the Lord Jesus
made here. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, we see this carried
out. Remember Jesus said there that
they would persecute and that he would send to them from city
to city. And in 1 Thessalonians chapter
2, Paul says, for you, brethren, became followers of the churches
of God which in Judea are in Christ. For you also have suffered
like things of your own countrymen. their own countrymen even as
they have of the Jews." So these believers were suffering persecution
by their own countrymen even as those in Judea and Jerusalem
suffered at the hand of the Jews. In verse 15 of 1 Thessalonians
2 he says, "...who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own
prophets and have persecuted us, and they please not God,
and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the
Gentiles, that they might be saved, to fill up their sins
always, that for the wrath has come upon them to the uttermost."
This is what happened in Jesus' day. Jesus was the Christ, and
the Christ of God is the one who is God's anointed prophet,
priest, and king. He's the Word of God. He is the
one through whom God has spoken in these last days. He's the
last prophet God sent to speak to His people. to tell them of
things to come. And here in this final time of
history, the Lord Jesus speaks to these people and he says,
because you would not have me gather your children, because
you refused didn't know the time of your visitation. And because
they continued in this way, in their lifetime, God was going
to destroy that city. And he did. He destroyed it.
He laid a trench about it, and laid it even to the ground, and
their children within it were killed. And I don't know how
many people died when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans,
but I've been told it was somewhere around a million people. It's
a huge number of people. Awful, awful thing happened then.
But what happened then was not just written for them then. It
was written for us too, at all times. Because when Jesus mentions
here what happened in the past, he brings up Abel. Remember Abel? Abel was the second son of Adam
and Eve. Cain rose up and killed his brother. And Jesus is using, he's tying
all this together, not only Abel, from Abel, the righteous blood
of Abel, to his own blood, the prophets that came before him,
but he also looks forward to the time when he's going to send
prophets and scribes and wise men and they're going to persecute
and kill them. So he's really looking at all
of history, but all that time of history is concentrated right
now at this critical event in history, which is about to take
place, which is they were going to kill the Lord Jesus, and then
they were going to, as a nation, they were going to continue to
reject him, even though the gospel was preached, and as a nation,
they would be destroyed. And so that's what happened in
that time. And so that's what we see here,
this warning of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what we also see
here is that the Lord Jesus says in verse 37, I want to focus
on this, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets
and stonest them which are sent to thee, how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens
under her wings, and you would not. And so I've entitled this
message, I Would and You Would Not. I would and you would not. Now you know from scripture that
God saves those whom he will. God saves as he will. He saves
whom he will. And only those God wills to save
are those who are saved. Ephesians 1.4 says that he chose
us in Christ before the foundation of the world. And in Romans 9.16
he says, it's not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth
or strives, it's of God who shows mercy. So we know that our salvation
is entirely up to the predetermined will and election of God. And
we also know that only those that God has chosen are those
who are going to be saved. And those God chose before the
foundation of the world, He gave to His Son. And His Son was the
one before the foundation of the world was ordained. His blood
was shed in God's ordained purpose before the foundation of the
world for His people. And so He only died for them.
And Jesus said this in John chapter 10, for example. He says, I lay
down my life for the sheep. And then he says, and other sheep
I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring. All those for whom all those
God gave to him are his sheep. Just as David took care of his
father Jesse's sheep, the Lord Jesus Christ took care of all
those God gave to him. His sheep, they are his people.
And his father gave him a commandment to lay down his life for the
sheep. And he said, that's what I'm
going to do. And then I'm going to gather them. I must. I must. And then he also says to those
who were listening to him, he says, and you are not my sheep. You are not my sheep. So there
were people who were the sheep of Christ and those who were
not his sheep. Just like in John 6.37, he says,
it's the Father's will that all who come to me, I will raise
up at the last day. And it's the Father's will that
all He gave to me I would raise up at the last day, in verse
39 of John 6. So we know there are some God
gave to Christ, and those were the ones for whom Christ died
and gave His life, and actually purchased with His blood, actually
bought them with His blood, and having bought them They were
His, they were given to Him, and He rescued them, He saved
them. So we know that God saves by His electing purpose, by the
redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and all those that Jesus
died for are the ones the Spirit of God is given to. For example,
in Galatians chapter 4, I'll just read this to you. Galatians
chapter 4, in verse 4, the Lord says this, You get there, he
says, in Galatians 4.4, but when the
fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his son, made
of a woman, made under the law. He's both God and man. He sent
forth his son, and then his son was made of a woman, made under
the law. He was made under the law in order to redeem them that
were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, To
be adopted means, you know what the word adopt means? It just
means to choose. To choose. God chose his people
in Christ to be his sons. And Christ redeemed them. That's
how they were made his sons by redemption. They were servants
under sin and to the law, under the curse of the law, but Christ
redeemed them from that curse in order that they might receive
the adoption of sons. Now, because God had chosen them
before, verse 6, he says, And because you are sons, God hath
sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father. That's when we know our redemption. That's when we know we've been
born of God. When God gives us a sight of,
a persuasion of, and causes us to look to Christ only. That's
the work of the Spirit of God. And so, we know that we are saved
only by the electing will of God the Father, by the redeeming
work of Christ the Son, and by the life-giving work of the Spirit
of God, who not only gives us life when He comes to dwell in
us, but gives us faith in Christ. Faith is the work of the Spirit
of Christ in us. It's His fruit, causing us to
look to Christ. But here we read in Matthew 23,
verse 37, that the Lord Jesus Christ cries
over Jerusalem and says to them, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou
that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent to
thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together,
even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and you would
not. So we might be thinking, as we understand God's saving
grace, that it's sovereign. When God willed to save us, we
had no being. We weren't born then. But God
purposed to save us. And it's because of His purpose,
His unalterable purpose, God can't change. He's eternal. He
chose us from eternity. And all those He chose from eternity,
He will present to Himself as His sons. Now, because of those
things, because we know that God's will cannot be thwarted,
God cannot be frustrated in His love. His love will have those
whom He loves, for whom He gave His Son to die. Because we know
those things, we wonder when the Lord says here, I would have
gathered thy children, but you would not. So, doesn't the question
need to be answered? Isn't that a contradiction to
what we understand the Bible to teach about God's saving grace,
His sovereign saving grace? If the Lord Jesus would have
gathered thy children together, but these Pharisees would not,
and therefore they weren't gathered, isn't that a frustration of the
will of God on His part? The answer is no. It's no frustration
at all. The point of this passage, the
teaching of this passage, is that God is willing to save. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I
would, but you would not. And so what this is, is the first
point that I want to make in this sermon, is that The unwillingness
of man. The unwillingness of natural
man. That's the first thing. And then
the second thing we're going to see is the willingness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And those are the two main points
I want to make in this sermon. The unwillingness of the natural
man and the willingness of the Lord Jesus Christ. You would
not. I would have, but you would not. And this is the one thing I think
that we always wonder about, isn't it? Don't you have a doubt
in your mind? I want to be saved. I believe
the Lord Jesus Christ can save me, but I don't know if he's
willing to save me. Isn't that something that we
think about? Has that question ever come to your mind? Or we
just presume that, well, because I want to be saved, God must
be willing. The Lord says here something
different about us. He says, I would, you would not. Now, Romans chapter 3, verse
11 says this, there is none that seeketh after God. There is none
that seeketh after God. Romans 3, 11. What does it mean
to seek after God? It means to desire, to come to
Him, to come to Him seeking how we might be made right with Him,
that we might worship Him. And God says there's none. There's
none that understandeth, there's none that seeketh after God.
And this is the universal condition of our hearts. The Lord Jesus
says this. It says it in scripture. And
yet we find this statement. I would, you would not. The problem is not with the willingness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The problem is with our unwillingness. Look at John chapter 5. John
chapter 5 and verse 39, I know we quote this a lot, but sometimes
it's good to turn here and see it. Look at this, John 5 verse
39, Jesus says to the Pharisees, these men, the scribes, whoever
he was talking to here, proud man, this is natural man, he's
speaking to all men, look at this, search the scriptures,
or you search the scriptures, for in them you think you have
eternal life. And they are they which testify
of me. And you will not come to me that
you might have life. You will not come to me that
you might have life. What do we see in this one scripture,
this one little verse of scripture here? He says here that in verse
39, men, natural men, unsaved men, men who don't have life,
are Bible readers. They're searchers of the scripture.
You search the scriptures. And these are men who don't have
life. They said, you think you have
in the scriptures eternal life, but you won't come to me that
you might have life. So they search the scriptures
and men don't have life. They're not really seeking for
Christ, even though they're reading and studying and memorizing and
quoting and teaching the Bible. That's what the natural man is.
He says, and the other thing we see in this is that the scriptures
speak of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are they which testify of
me. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
subject of scripture. And here's the other thing, and
you will not. No man of his own will, naturally,
will come to the Lord Jesus Christ. We're without life. Life is in
Him. The scriptures speak of Him.
We need life. And yet we will not come. I would,
but you would not. That is our condition. He says
in his own word, that is our condition. But here's the grace
of God here. Look at it. He says, you will
not come to me that you might have life. If you had come, you
would have life. If you had come to me, you would
have life. But the natural man does not
have life and therefore he doesn't come. He can't perform any, any
of the functions of spiritual life. We go through the motions.
How many false religions are there in the world? The world
is full of false religions. And have you ever noticed, have
you ever observed that everything that those who profess to know
God do is very similar to what the Bible says God's true people
actually do. They pray. People in false religions
pray. Remember the Pharisee in Luke
chapter 18 verse 9? He prayed thus with himself.
18 verse 9 in 12 through 12? He prayed thus with himself.
He trusted in himself that he was righteous. Lord, I thank
thee that I'm not like other men are. Even as this publican,
I'm not all these things. I tithe, I fast twice a week. I'm not all these things. And
he began to name those things about himself that made a difference
between him and others. False religion prays. False religion
evangelizes. How many times do you see false
religion out knocking on doors? False religion does all kinds
of evangelization. They try to proselytize. The
Pharisees did that. But there's many things that
people do outwardly, but one thing that no one does inwardly,
naturally, is come to Christ. I would, but you would not. You would not. The fact of the
matter is, is no one really comes to the Lord Jesus Christ. But
here, he says, Look at John 6, chapter 6. I want to show you
this verse in verse 37. Jesus said, all, even though
naturally we won't come, all that the Father giveth me shall
come to me. and him that cometh to me, I
will in no wise cast out." You see that? There's two things
there. Number one, even though men,
all men, no man seeks God, all men naturally don't, God, the
Lord Jesus says, all that the Father gives him shall come to
him. And then he says this wonderful
thing, and him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. If you come to Christ, He will
not cast you out. That's His word. That's His own
word. Could there be any other greater
encouragement in the scripture than that? Come to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Come to Him. He won't cast you
out. You will be received. Are there
any conditions here? Don't wait. This is the thing
about coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't wait for something
to happen. Don't wait until you get better. Don't wait till you know more. Come now and come for life. Come for all that God requires
of you. Come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Come to Him. Isn't that the gospel in a nutshell? Come to me. The Lord Jesus said,
look at Matthew chapter 11. I know these are verses that
you probably have memorized, and that's why they're so easy
for us to lean upon. When we tremble in our soul,
we come to these, don't we? Don't you go to them? Look at
Matthew chapter 11, verse 28. Come unto me, Jesus said, all
you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
Are you heavy laden? Remember the Pharisees? They
bind heavy burdens and they lay them on men. That's what religion
does. That's what we do naturally to
ourselves. We think we can do what God expects
us and so we go about in this prison of our own bondage, in
this fruitless pursuit of a righteousness God will accept. Doing something,
finally, give me one thing to do. And we try to do it. And when we do it, we think,
oh, well, I've arrived now. I've done enough. Or maybe I
did that one thing back then when I was seven years old or
nine or something. The Lord Jesus Christ just says
one thing, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden,
I will give you rest. Him that cometh to me, I will
in no wise cast out. Jesus said we won't come because
our natural self is opposed to our own salvation. We will not
come to him that we might have life. Remember the parable of
the king? who made a feast for his son, a marriage feast. He
sent his servants out. What happened when he sent those
servants out? Nobody came. All with one consent began to
make excuses. That's what we are by nature.
What I want to do in my own self, truly, what I want to do, and
I want you to do, is I want you, I want to come to the Lord Jesus
Christ, don't you? Sometimes we think those words
are reserved for a one-time event. Unfortunately, false religion
has taken these words from scripture and made it a conversion experience
that happens one time to which men are supposed to look and
say, yes, see, I did what I was supposed to do. I did it, why
don't you come? And so men create these invitation
systems, come to the front, come to the altar, raise your hand,
make a decision, all sorts of actions they want you to do.
One time, get it done and put it behind you. That's essentially
what they want. They're saying, they may not
want that, but they want you to be their disciples, but they
would like for you to make that decision so they can claim they've
got a convert now. Some of my dear friends, when they were thinking about
the death of a loved one, I remember talking to them. And they were
saying, I remember there was a time when this person confessed
Christ, and so really that's our hope, that a long time ago
they made that decision, they did what they were supposed to
do, they said a prayer, they did these things. There was never
that The problem with that is that if you or I look to that
one time in our life when something happened, if we look for that
one time in our life when something happened, we're not coming to
Christ. Coming to Christ is submitting
to Him as the one who is all of our righteousness. Coming
to Christ is believing Him. It's looking to Him as everything.
Come to the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's on purpose that God
uses it this way. Look back again at John chapter
6. Because when we think of what
does it mean to come to Him, it carries with it The spiritual
activity that goes on in our heart that God wants us to understand.
Look at John 6.35. He says, And Jesus said to them,
I am the bread of life. The bread of life. If you eat
that bread, guess what? You have life. He that cometh
to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall
never thirst. Do you see how the Lord uses
those two, come and believe, interchangeably? Coming is the
exact same thing as believing. When you think of believing,
Imagine coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. Imagine as one of those
who were plagued by a disease such as leprosy, filthy and rejected
by God and men, and yet you come to the Lord Jesus Christ like
the leper did. Remember the leper in Matthew
chapter 8 and Luke chapter 5? The leper comes to the Lord Jesus.
He had probably never even touched anyone at that point in time,
up to that point in time, because he was a leper. He had to say,
unclean! He took his place among the lepers, and he went out,
he was outside, and here the Lord Jesus comes, and he comes
and he says, Lord, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. He knew he could, he believed
he could, but he didn't know if the Lord was willing. Remember,
and here he is, you can see the pus running out of his sores
and the filth that he felt, even the shame that he felt coming
to the Lord Jesus Christ, as he was, filthy and diseased and
foul and rejected by God's own law. And he says, Lord, if you
will, you can make me clean. And the Lord Jesus, he says,
I will. And he touched him. And he made
him clean. He came to Christ. That's what
believing is. It's coming in your heart. It's
not an outward action. It's not getting up out of your
seat. It's not raising your hand. It's not waving or doing anything. In your heart, it's coming to
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's believing on Him. And then
the other example God gives in Scripture of believing on Him
is looking to Him. Looking to Him. And I know that
we've gone over this before, but it bears repeating. Do you
know that coming to the Lord Jesus Christ is not a one-time
act? He doesn't say, whoever has come
to me. He says, coming. In 1 Peter 2,
verse 4, He says, to whom? Coming! As unto a living stone. disallowed indeed of men, but
precious to God. We come to the Lord Jesus Christ,
the one who is precious to God, who God has appointed and anointed
and made the high priest and the prophet and the king to his
people. He says, come to him, come to
him. But in John chapter 3, Nicodemus
came to the Lord Jesus Christ at night, remember? He didn't
ask him anything. Jesus told him some things, and
then he began to ask. He came and he says, we know
you're a teacher. He called him rabbi, tried to butter him up.
We know you're a teacher sent from God. No man can do these
miracles that you do, except God be with him. And the Lord
Jesus, as if he just changed the subject. He just changed
lanes without turning on his signal, as my niece said. He says in verse 3, Jesus said
to him, Verily, verily, I say to you, except a man be born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Here, Nicodemus was.
He's a master. He knows everything. He could
quote scripture. He knows everything about the Bible. And Jesus tells
him, when he tried to butter him up, it's like it just went
right past him. He goes right to his heart and
he says, unless you're born of God, you cannot even see the
kingdom of God. What did he do? He identified
Nicodemus as totally blind, spiritually blind, outside of the kingdom
of God. He says, Nicodemus said, How
can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter a second time into
his mother's womb? Jesus said, Verily, verily, I
say to you, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, He
cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. The sprinkling of the
water of the Gospel on the conscience by the Spirit, giving life to
us. The Spirit of God Himself coming
and dwelling in us, pointing us to Christ, which He's going
to explain in a minute. In verse 6 of John 3, He says,
Jesus said, that which is born of the flesh, whatever you receive
from your parents, is flesh. It's natural. It's not spiritual.
But that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not. In other words, to Nicodemus,
think about it. He's saying to him, you're a
natural man. Only what you were at birth physically. You have no part in spiritual
things. You haven't been born of God.
What a slam to this man. What a lowering, a humbling of
him. And he says, marvel not that
I said to thee, you must be born again. The wind blows wherever
it pleases, wherever it listeth, it says in the King James version,
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but you cannot tell whence it
cometh and whither it goeth. So is everyone that is born of
the spirit. In other words, it's the work
of God. He does it. It's his work and
it's his will. And then he says in verse nine,
Nicodemus answered and said, how can these things be? Frustrated
and humbled by what the Lord Jesus said, and yet not having
an answer, a suitable answer, Jesus answered and said, Are
you a master of Israel? And you don't know these things?
He brings him down even lower. You're ignorant. You claim to
be a teacher and master in Israel. You can't see the kingdom of
God. All you are is flesh. And the Spirit works where He
will. He saves whom He will. And now you're asking me how
these things can be? You're completely You don't understand,
just like Romans 3 says, there's none that understandeth, not
even the proud Pharisee who claims, who has memorized probably all
of scripture. In verse 11 he says, Jesus answered
him, he said, Verily, verily, truly, truly, you can rest assured
of this, I say unto you, we speak that we do know, and testify
that we have seen, and you receive not our witness. That's true
of every man, naturally. We hear God's word and we don't
receive it. Jesus said, if I've told you
earthly things and you believe not, how shall you believe if
I tell you heavenly things? And so, all Nicodemus could understand
was earthly things. He didn't understand heavenly
things. And then he says, here's the
answer. There has to be a mediator, a
redeemer. No man has ascended up to heaven
but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is
in heaven." Here he says the Son of God had to come from heaven
to earth. The one who is on earth is the
Son of Man, but yet the Son of Man himself is still in heaven.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up What? Nicodemus, who knew all of the
scripture, he knew what this account was in Numbers chapter
21. He knew that the people there
had complained against God and against Moses and said, our soul
loatheth this light bread. We despise this bread. We wish
we'd gone back to Egypt and even died in bondage in Egypt rather
than being out here in the desert. There's nothing to eat, nothing
to drink, and we hate this bread. And then God sent fiery serpents,
and the serpents bit the people, and many of them died. And all
of them who had been bitten were dying. And they cried to Moses,
what do we do? Do something. And God tells Moses,
take some brass and take a hammer and put it in the fire and beat
it out into a serpent and put it on a pole. And everyone who
looks, here's a man dying. because of a serpent bite. Look,
he says, don't put a tourniquet on it. Don't build a wall around
yourself from the serpents. Don't look for a remedy somewhere
else. Don't look for something to do.
Come as you are. Look to Christ. How do I come? Look at Him. Stop looking at
yourself and look at him and see in him there hanging on the
pole. God had put the curse on him
on the pole. Jesus said here to Nicodemus,
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
a son of man be lifted up, cursed by God. He who knew no sin made
sin and God's curse poured out on him that whosoever And he
interchanges the word, look, with believe. He says that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. I would. but you would not, and here he
says, come to me, come to me, eat the bread of life, look upon
the Lord Jesus Christ, see in him what God has done, and find
the remedy for all of the things that come upon you. All the judgment
of God, that was what was about to come upon these people, the
judgment of God. That's what came upon the serpent-bitten
people, it was the judgment of God. And the Lord Jesus, and
here the leper was, he was in his sins. He was in the filth
and foulness of his disease. And it was deeper than his skin,
and it went to his heart. And he says, Lord, if you will,
you can make me clean. He looked on the Lord Jesus Christ. He put his trust in him. If we
trust in an event, if we trust in our act of faith, if we look
to that time in our life where we've performed something, we're
not looking to Christ. In fact, if we lay our hope on
something that we have done in our lives as a reason why God
can accept us, or as a reason why we consider ourselves holy,
what is it saying? We have not yet submitted ourselves
to the righteousness of God. We have not yet bowed to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Romans chapter 10. Romans
chapter 10, he says, again, you know these things,
but I need to be reminded of them. He says, Israel, in verse
31 of Romans 9, Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness,
have not attained to the law of righteousness. Deuteronomy
6.25 says, if we do the law, it will be for our righteousness.
So righteousness comes by keeping the law. So Israel said, well
then we gotta do it. They followed after the law of
righteousness, but they haven't attained to the law of righteousness.
Wherefore? Why didn't they? Because they
sought it not by faith. What does that mean? It means
that there's only one way to be righteous before God and His
law. It's to seek righteousness looking to Christ. Looking to
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what faith is. But as
it were, by the works of the law, they thought that their
own personal obedience would get them to be righteous before
God. For they stumbled at that stumbling
stone, as it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone
and rock of offense, and whosoever believeth on him shall not be
ashamed. And then in verse 1 of chapter
10, Paul says, Brethren, my heart's desire, listen to how Paul A
man expresses his lament over his own countrymen just like
Jesus did over the Jews. Brethren, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear
them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to
knowledge. How much zeal is there for God
in religion today? People jump around. They do all
sorts of things. They give money. They go on missionary,
they spend their lives in the mission field. People, I wrote
on a plane one time with two Mormons. They were going to the
mission field to spend their lives doing what? Trusting in
their own works. Teaching people to trust their
own works. Making men two-fold more the
child of hell than themselves. He says here, they have a zeal
of God. These Israelites had a valid
A valid word from God. They had the law. God had given
them His requirements. They simply wanted to try to
keep those things in order to be right with God. They tried
to do what God had said to do. Who could find fault with that?
God did. For they, being ignorant of God's
righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God."
To submit means we bow ourselves down. and we abandon all that
may be called ours and lay hold on all that belongs to the Lord
Jesus Christ. He is the righteousness of God,
as it says in the next verse, for Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth, to everyone who
looks, to everyone who comes, to the leper, to the serpent
bitten. Look at Hebrews chapter 7 and
verse 25. to the men who were standing
there hearing Jesus, and he said, I would, but you would not. Hebrews chapter 7, verse 25,
he says, Wherefore, the one who is made an eternal high priest,
who is himself the eternal son of God, made by an oath by God
himself, the king of righteousness, the king of peace, wherefore,
He is able also to save them. to the uttermost that come unto
God by Him. Come unto God by Him. Come unto
God by Him. What will be the result? He is
able to save them to the uttermost that come to God by Him, who
look to Him, who believe on Him, who take of Him. As a hungry
man takes that bread and eats it. As a thirsty man takes the
water and drinks it. We come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm a needy, helpless, condemned sinner and I need to be saved. And I come to Him to be saved
like the leper, like the serpent bitten. I come to Him to be saved
to the uttermost. From what? From sin. To have
life. All the consequences of sin.
I come to the Lord Jesus Christ. I trust Him only. I look to Him
only. Look at Acts chapter 16. Here's
a man, he feared for his life. I mean he really feared for his
life. Acts chapter 16. Paul and Silas were in prison.
It was midnight. The jailer had been put in charge
of them. Paul and Silas were singing. They had undoubtedly
been speaking about the things of Christ. The jailer was there. It got late. He went to sleep.
And suddenly, in verse 26, there was a great earthquake. So that
the foundation of the prison was shaken. And immediately the
doors were opened. And everyone's bands in the prison
were loosed. And the keeper of the prison
woke up because of the earthquake, out of his sleep, and seeing
the prison doors open, he knew his life was over. It would be
better to take it himself than to wait for what would happen. The shame, who knows what would
happen to his family, the pain of suffering, standing before
those who had made him a prison keeper. And so he drew his sword
to fall on his own sword and take his own life. His life,
he saw his life flash before his eyes. So he takes out his
sword and he would have killed himself supposing that the prisoners
had been fled. But now Paul cried out with a
loud voice saying, do thyself no harm for we're all here. What a miracle. Then he called
for a light, the prison keeper, And the prison keeper sprang
in and came trembling, and he fell down before Paul and Silas
and brought them out, brought Paul and Silas out, because he
had put their feet in stocks. And he said, Sirs, what must
I do to be saved? Now, if there was ever an opportunity
to lay out requirements to a desperate man, he would have done anything,
wouldn't he? Well, all you have to do is...
But what did he do? Paul points him to Christ. He
says, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. He didn't come up with a list.
He just said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Come to me. Look to him. Whoever comes will
not be cast out. He is willing. He is willing. He is able. And then the last
chapter of the Bible. Revelation chapter 22. Look at
this. Wonderful words of the Lord Jesus
Christ right in the middle. Right in the middle of this trembling
of hearing the Lord Jesus pronounce final judgment on this city Jerusalem. Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how
often would I and you would not. I would have gathered your children
as a hen gathers its chickens under its wings, but you would
not. Look at Revelation 22 verse 17. And the Spirit, the Spirit
of God, the Spirit of Christ, and the bride, that's the church,
what do they say? Come, come, and let him that
heareth say, come, and let him that is athirst, come, and whosoever
will, let him take of the water of life freely. Come. Come now. Don't wait. Don't wait for something to happen.
Don't wait to do something. Don't prepare yourself. There's
nothing you can do. Don't bring something. Don't
think of what you're going to do. Look to Him. Look to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Come to Him. Believe on Him.
Submit yourself to His righteousness. Bow down to Him as the Lord and
say, Lord, save me for Your name's sake. Come to God by him. Him that cometh to me, Jesus
said, I will in no wise cast out. And him that comes to God
by him, he will save them to the uttermost. The Spirit of
God says, come. The church has one message, come
to Christ. And him that hears, whoever hears
and believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, what does he say? Come.
Go to Him. Come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's the one and the only one who could save. Do you see the
unwillingness of man? Do you see the willingness of
the Lord Jesus Christ? There's every encouragement in
the Bible for wicked men like you and me. Sinners. Those who
need a Savior who saves. Those who need God to make His
will and His choice work for them. who need God to actually
remove their sins and give them dominion over sin and bring them
to glory, make them his sons who need everything, come to
the Lord Jesus Christ. There's so many things here in
this that we could point to, but I think that it is enough
for us just to see these things. The Lord Jesus Christ saves sinners. He says, I came to save the lost. the lost. Salvation is a rescue,
isn't it? It's not us helping. It's God
doing. It's Christ saving. And he did it by himself, didn't
he? Is there anything that could
be more encouraging to a sinner? There's only one kind of a...
There's one thing that marks out a hypocrite more than anything.
It's someone who can find peace In thinking, they can fulfill
what God requires, no matter how small it is. Someone who
can actually find comfort and peace if you give them something
to do. But you know what a sinner does?
A sinner says, I can find peace and only one thing is if all
of my salvation is in what God thinks of his son for me. And come to him, look to him,
take his word in your heart, in your conscience, and pray
and say, Lord, receive us graciously. Let me read one more scripture
to you from Hosea chapter 14. I love this. This text, God has
given us, the Spirit of God Himself has given us words to bring. What to say? Oh Israel, Hosea
14, return unto the Lord. thy God. If you haven't turned,
turn. If you've come and you've gone
away, return. Return unto the Lord your God,
for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Take with you words,
and let me give you the words, and turn to the Lord, say unto
him, take away all iniquity and receive us graciously So will
we render the calves of our lips, not the idols of our hands. We'll
just render the sacrifices of our lips. I'll take the cup of
salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord. Asher shall
not save us. We will not ride upon horses.
Neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, you
are our gods. We won't trust our works anymore.
For in thee, the fatherless, find mercy. And the Lord says,
I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely, for
mine anger is turned away from him. What a wonder that is, isn't
it? Look at verse eight. Ephraim
shall say, what have I to do any more with idols? Idols is
just a synonym for something we do. I have heard him, I have
observed him, I am like a green fir tree. The Lord says, from
me is thy fruit found. Everything is found in Christ,
isn't it? Let's pray.