Would you please join me once
again in the book of Ezra? It's so good to be here today.
Good to see everyone. Thankful for those who have traveled
distances to be here. Remember one another in prayer.
We all have unspoken requests. This is going to be the last
message I'm going to be bringing at this time from the book of
Ezra. We started our study in the book of Ezra in July of 2019. And I have thoroughly enjoyed
what I thought at the first would be a dry passage. But the Lord
has left his gospel in every book of the Bible. And Ezra is
just one of those wonderful books. There is a long list of folks
listed in this chapter. And we'll not read all of those.
You can do that on your own. But we'd like to say a few things
about those folks that are in that long list. I'd like to begin
reading with verse 8 of the 10th chapter of the book of Ezra. A problem had been brought to
Ezra's attention. A lot of the folks that were
in the lineage of Israel had adopted the religions of the
people of the land, married folks, and they had to
say consciously or unconsciously that this religion that I am
adopting right now is just as good as that one I had over there. You cannot adopt another religion
without saying, this is just as good as God's. We have to
admit that. There was a bunch of folks that
had done that. Now, the word went out. The word
goes out. Whether it's from here, gospel
churches around the world, whether it's through the use that we
have found such a blessing of, and that is sermon audio and
Zoom, The word goes out and we don't hear a lot about the results
of it. Not many people are writing saying,
thank you, but we don't care. That's not the reason we do it.
The reason we do it is God has called us to that ministry. And
it's his business to deal with the word as it goes out. Well,
the word had gone out through Ezra and through others. And
the word had gone out to those folks that had been found in
the minds of Ezra and of the elders and of the word of God,
guilty of adopting other religions. The word had got out to them.
And in fact, the scriptures tell us here in Ezra chapter 10 and
verse 8, He says, and now for a little space, grace hath been
shown, chapter 10, verse 8, and whatsoever would not come within
three days, according to the counsel of the princes and the
elders, all his substance should be forfeited and himself separated
from the congregation of those that have carried away. have
been carried away. So this is the word that's gone
out. You have these three days to
come to Jerusalem. Well, the gospel has been going
out since the very beginning, but I tell you this, the end
of opportunity is ending. When Christ shall save his last
sheep, the end of all opportunity will be over. So let's just say
that that's three days. And those who do not hear the
gospel, and those who do not respond to the call of God, number
one, were never written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and number
two, will forfeit all. Nothing will be allowed to be
theirs for eternity. Well, the call goes out. And
the prayer went out that this would be an effectual call to
all those over there that had adopted false religion and had
intermarried with people that were in the land. There in Ezra
chapter 10 and verse 9, the scriptures say this. Then all the men of
Judah and Benjamin gathered themselves together into Jerusalem within
three days. What a response has come as the
gospel had gone out, the word had gone out. Come, come, come,
come to Jerusalem. Come, there's hope. That's what
was said about Ezra's message. There's yet hope. There's hope
in Israel. There's no hope in that. But
there's hope in Christ. There's hope in the gospel. There's
hope in the ministry of Christ, the work of Christ, the death
of the Savior. There's hope there. Find hope
in Christ. And they came, and they came,
and they came in the three days that were they given opportunity
to come. They come in mass as God called His People out of
every kindred tribe tongue and whatever He brings his people
out and they come to where the sanctuary is and that is the
person of Christ Jesus He truly is the sanctuary of the church. He's the hiding place of the
church so they come in You know I'm convinced Just as there always
is the naysayers, who were there in Jerusalem all along, and had
never got involved with all of that religious stuff, they had
been there, they had watched the altar being established,
they had watched the walls of the temple being brought up,
they had watched all of this work and things that had gone
on there in Jerusalem, since these people had been freed from
Babylonian captivity, and when all of these other folks came
into town by the command of the Word of God, there was a whole
host of them said, I thank God I'm not like them. Those are sinner folks. Those
are the people that adopted false religions and I never fell into
that pit. The whole host of names that
are listed in the rest of this chapter share with us, much like
we find in the Lamb's Book of Life, written with the names
of God's eternal chosen people before the foundation of the
world. This is the hall of faith that we read about here in the
last pages of this chapter. This is the hall of faith. Those
whose God's word touched and the Holy Spirit drew and brought
them to safety in Jerusalem and they bowed their knee to Almighty
God and put away bowing their knee to Baal. I appreciate what
I read about a wonderful gospel preacher in the Old Testament
that got a little bit discouraged and God brought to him some wonderful
news. There are yet 7,000 that have
not bowed the knee to Baal. How many came in from the outer
realms here of Jerusalem, outside of Jerusalem, and these parts
of what used to be old Israel and old Judah? How many came?
We don't know exactly how many came, but the right number came
because they're the ones that heard the truth of the gospel
and were ushered in. And yet there are always those
who would say, I'm glad I'm not like those folks. No doubt there
are a number of times that we find in scripture that people
lined up to come into Jerusalem. We just heard about one of those
places there in 2nd Chronicles when the word, we haven't had
the Passover for many years and we are encouraged from the king
to come. And posh, same word might be
translated there, the evangelists went out, we got good news. Come
down to Jerusalem, we're going to have the Passover. We haven't
had it for a long time. And you know what most of those
folks did to those evangelists? They made fun of them. We'll
stay here. We like it better here. But nevertheless,
some out of those tribes came down to Jerusalem and they observed
the Passover. Those are the list of people
found in the latter part of this chapter, chapter 10 of the book
of Ezra. Their names are listed there.
They're the nevertheless ones that came. And my friend, we
find a great host of people gathered in another passage of Scripture,
and there is a list of those. We don't have the names of them
here. God knows them, but there is the host of them that were
the nevertheless. The Holy Spirit came to them
in power and demonstration, and they were moved by Almighty God
to come to Christ. Would you join me over in the
book of Matthew Chapter 25 as we look at this list of folks,
just like there in the book of Ezra, a host of folks. Yes, they
were sinners. Guess what? They were the first
to admit it. Yes, they had gone after false gods. They were the
first to admit that when the word came to them. You know,
by nature, every one of us have adopted the religion of this
world by our very birth. We have all adopted the religion
of this world, and that religion of this world is that we have
adopted a religion that by works we can approach God, and it takes
God Almighty to shake us to our timbers and show us that it is
only by His righteousness and by His works we're saved. For
by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And
so it's the grace of God that does this. He grabbed Saul of
Tarsus and shook him to his innermost being, and revealed unto him
Christ. That's what the Apostle Paul
said about that, when it pleased God to reveal His Son in me.
How thankful these folks were that came from the hinterlands
into Jerusalem that day by divine invitation from Almighty God
at the appointed time. And even though people, even
their family members said, we're not like you, we stayed true. You remember the Pharisee that
said, I thank God I'm not like other men, and especially publican
Matthew chapter 25 Someday this is going to happen in fact Someday
the Lord is coming back in his glory in Matthew chapter 25. Let's begin reading with verse
31 Matthew chapter 25 in verse 31 and it says before him shall
be gathered all nations now if you look that word up I've had
preachers say, that's Spain, and England, and the former USSR,
and France, and the United States. I said, at what time? in the
history of these countries, is God going to sift them out? Because
many places have known the gospel in the past, and right now, it
is so slight there that you could hardly find a people that believe
the gospel. So this word is not nation, this
is peoples, this is individuals, this is people that have been
created in God's image in Adam and they're all trespassers against
a thrice holy God because of the fall and by their own sin.
Now here, they're all gathered. It tells us here, before him
shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one
from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. Now
when is that? Look at verse 31. When the Son
of Man shall come in His glory. There's a time coming when Christ
is going to return to this earth, as He promised. It won't be a
secret coming, it will be an overt coming with the clash of
thunder, if you please. With the voice of the archangel
and the truth of God, it's going to happen. Daniel wrote about
it and he said, those just and unjust shall be raised and we
find the Lord Jesus mentions this. You know, this modern idea
of theology about eschatology, it is just modern. You don't
find it in scripture. You find Jesus Christ is going
to come at that day, and all will be raised, and here is what's
going to happen as a result of it. It says there that this one,
the Son of God, Son of Man, shall come in His glory, and all holy
angels with Him, when they shall sit upon the throne of His glory. You may have an issue with me, but you will
not leave the gospel over it. Nobody has a personality conflict
with someone else and leaves the gospel over it. You can't
leave the gospel over it. Well, he's come in his glory,
and that word glory means that. It's something that we can't
even establish in our mind. We cannot comprehend what the
beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ coming in his glory, and it goes
on to tell us there, and he shall sit upon the throne of his glory. He is almighty. Now, he does
something here at his prerogative. It tells us here that he shall
separate all of these that are gathered. And you know, there's
going to be millions. Right now, I understand there's
about 300 million people in the United States. And in China,
what is there, 2 billion? 3 billion? There's millions and billions
of people on the face of the earth right now. Just what was
it a hundred years ago or a thousand years ago? You add all of those
folks up and we have them assembled at one day before the Lord in
his glory. It says here he shall separate
everybody as a shepherd doth divide his sheep from the goats. It's his prerogative. He's the
shepherd. He's the good shepherd. He's
the great shepherd and he is the chief shepherd and he does
all things after the counsel of his own will. Now he separates
them according to what his plan was before the foundation of
the world because it goes on and tells us right here, and
he shall set the sheep on his right hand but the goats on the
left. Then shall the king say unto
them on the right hand, Come ye blessed of my father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
Now he could have just as easily said that in the days of Ezra,
but he chose not to because he's going to wait until the end.
but those who came in from the hinterlands as the gospel was
preached and the Holy Spirit brought it to their mind and
to their heart and in power and overwhelming power of Almighty
God and they came to Jerusalem and came to worship the Lord
there, they are identifying themselves, if they're truly there for the
right purpose, they're there identifying themselves that someday
When God calls this whole thing to be stopped and it's over by
the grace of God He'll separate me on the right side What a blessing it is to be there
because this is the purpose of God as he says come Ye blessed of my father Inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world
Now when all of those folks came to Jerusalem in the book of Ezra
Not one of them came and said to Ezra or to any of the other
leaders of Jerusalem at that time and says I come by my own
merit in my own power And I'm just glad to be here because
I am very good and Those folks came knowing what had happened.
We have people on the right-hand side that are identified as sinners. They're identified by God as
sinners, and they're identified by themselves as sinners, and
as the Apostle Paul brings out, the chiefest of sinners. I don't
deserve to be here. And in fact, they go on to tell
us here, Jesus said, for I was a hungry and you gave me meat,
and I was thirsty and you gave me drink, and I was a stranger
and you took me in, and naked and you clothed me, I was sick
and you visited me, I was in prison and you came unto me.
Then shall the righteous, now note that word, underline that
word, then shall the righteous, those who have Christ's righteousness,
They shall say this, Lord, when saw we thee a hungred, and fed
thee, or thirsty, and gave thee drink. Now, you know, most people
that deal with this are dealing with this and looking at them
as all countries. And then they're saying, you
know, give a glass of water to someone that's thirsty. Go into
the prisons and visit them. You know what this is really
talking about? Far greater than that. What do you share with
people about Christ? Is He the Living Water? You know
this whole group of people on the right hand side, when they
went to say something about the God of Heaven, the God of the
Bible, they only could present what the Bible says about Christ. What did Jesus tell those disciples
of John when he sent two disciples, several disciples, to come and
find out, are you the Christ or should we look for another?
He says, you go back and tell them what is happening here and
every one of those things that Jesus Christ described is what
Jesus Christ spiritually does for us in raising us from the
spiritual dead. We're in prison. He lets us go.
We're dead. We're raised. We're deaf. We
can hear. We can't speak, but now we can
speak glory to God. And all of the things that God
uses with regard to the spiritual application of our senses. And
that's what these people do. They know the gospel, and they
go out and preach it, and you know what? When Christ brings
up the results of this, they said, we didn't have anything
to do with that. We didn't have anything to do with that. We
didn't get involved with that. We didn't expect, because when
we plant the seed, when we preach the gospel, it's out of our hands
from that point on. We have no ability whatsoever
of producing seed. We have no ability of producing
growth. We have no ability at all of
producing the new birth. We have no ability at all of
ever convicting anybody of their sin. We have no ability at all,
whatever. The scriptures are quite plain
on this, that God is the first cause of all things. First creation,
second creation. Deliverance is pictured, found
in the book of Judges. Deliverance found by spiritual
application when the Holy Spirit comes and delivers us from ourselves,
from our sin, and from our relationship to Adam. This is a glorious thing. The Lord Jesus Christ says here,
yes, you ought to work You are my workmanship created in Christ
Jesus unto good works. But when you were asked about
the gospel, you never went astray from it. You always directed
people as John did. Behold the Lamb of God which
taketh away the sin of the world. 112 years ago today, my father
was born. 1909, Boscoville, Wisconsin. He taught from a pulpit. in the church where I grew up
for 40 years, the Bible class. This is the only thing I can
remember what my dad said, and that was when his brother passed
away, his youngest brother passed away. He told me and the rest
of our family, I know where Uncle Clinton is. Being an inquisitive,
I said, how do you know that? How do you know he's in heaven?
You know what the answer was? He was a good man. Forty years of teaching went
out the door. Forty years of standing before
people was wasted because he did not know what the gospel
was. He didn't know Christ. At the
most opportune time to share the gospel, he couldn't bring
himself to it because he didn't know it. at the most opportune
time, what do we say about Jesus Christ? What do we say? I went to my pastor one time
and told him, I don't believe I'm saved. You know what he did?
He got me down on my knees again and said, ask Jesus into your
heart. He didn't know the first thing
about the gospel because that's not how we're saved. We're saved
by the grace of God and we're saved because God's activity
upon us. Oh, to hear the word of God,
that's a miracle. To have God's word preached is
a miracle, but for Him to give us the new birth, that's glorious. And then in that day, to be able
to stand on the right hand because He chose it that way, and to
hear Him say and to answer, when did we do that? We didn't know
we even did that. You know what the truth about
the gospel is? That is beggars telling other
beggars where we found bread. We found bread in Christ. Thirsty ones telling other thirsty
ones where they found water. That's in Christ the water of
life. fearful ones, telling fearful
ones where there is a sanctuary. And Jesus said, I'm the door
to the sheepfold. What do we say? I went to my
mother one time. I was really troubled during
my early years and teenage years about where I stood with the
gospel, where did I stand with Christ. And I remember one time
going fishing and saying, Lord, if I'm saved, let me catch a
fish. How, how, oh my goodness. I look back, what in the world? And you know, there was just
absolutely no peace or safety in that false religion that I
grew up in. But I'm so thankful, in God's
good time, he sent someone who knew something about the gospel.
He knew someone who knew something about Christ. And he preached
it and left it alone. That's what we're to do. What was it that God intended
for a person who had leprosy to do? What did he tell us to
do with them? Get alone. Boy, that's my attitude
towards you come to me and say you're lost. Get alone with Christ. I can't take you any further.
There is no midwives in the scriptures. Well, it goes on here and tells
us in this wonderful passage of scripture that the Lord talks
to them and he calls them in verse 37, then shall the righteous
answer him saying, Lord, when did we do that? You're the one
that brought all of the growth. You're the one that brought all
the sprouting. You're the one that brought all the production.
You're the one that did all the things. You're the one that gave
the water of life. You're the one that brought the
bread of life. You're the one that is the door.
You're the one that is the way, the truth, and the life. When
did we do that? He said, when you did it unto
the least of my brethren. You remember over there, Brother
Mike brought out about the brethren. His brothers were standing at
the door knocking, trying to get in to see him and he said,
this is my mother and my brethren, the church. You took this gospel and you
declared it and God identified his church by those who said
yes. Now, there's another group here. They
all thought they were all right during this life. They were the
ones that said, I thank the Lord that I'm not like these folks
coming out from the hinterlands because I never adopted the false
religion that they adopted. I always stayed true to the word.
I love the law and I love what's found in the Old Testament. I've got to the point where I
have to admit, and there's an article, just a short article
in your bulletin about the third covenant. People have developed
the third covenant. You know what the third covenant
is. We're going to mix law and grace Doesn't work There's no
hope in that There's no hope in the law There's no hope in
the law and grace There's only hope and grace For by grace are
you saved? There's a whole host of folks
here as we drop down through here and It tells us verse 41
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand. What word? First word out of
the king's mouth at this great day. The first word out of the king's
mouth is depart. Depart from me ye cursed into
everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For
I was a hungered and you gave me no meat. You didn't know the
first thing about the gospel. And you know what they say? Then shall they also answer him,
saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungered, and naked, and so forth,
and didn't do that? You didn't know anything? You
couldn't give anything. You couldn't share anything.
You didn't know the gospel? You can't share the gospel. I
remember my daughter one time called me from, she was from
college, she's going to college up here in La Grande, and she
said, I've just met somebody, and they're this particular kind
of religion, and I need some advice on how to deal with them.
I says, you can't share what you don't know. So just share
what you know. Because if I give you some advice,
it's just my advice and it's not yours. You can't share what
you don't know. We cannot share the gospel if
we don't know it. We're going to fall into the
trap that's right here among those people and say, you know,
I'm going to have you talk to the preacher about this. Why not just say, trust Christ
and don't move a muscle? Come hear the gospel with me.
Come go with us, we'll do thee good. Come to the meeting and
hear the gospel. I can't get you from A to B.
God is the only one that can do that. So these folks here
on the left-hand side, they are really insulted. Now, how much of this is going
to go on because Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess
the Lord Jesus to the glory of God the Father. For us, he says,
then shall he answer, saying, verily I say unto you, inasmuch
as you did not to the one of the least of these, you did it
not to me. You didn't share anything of
value because you didn't have anything of value to begin with.
All you had was your works, your self-righteousness, your self-religion. When people came to you just
like my dad did, it has to be of good works because that's
the only way my brother could get into heaven. You read the
obituary column in our little paper right here and everybody
that dies is in the bosom of Jesus immediately. And you and
I know some of those folks. That's not how it happens. The Apostle Paul wrote to the
Thessalonians and said, I came to you and preached the gospel
and the Holy Spirit came in power and in demonstration. And by
the grace of God, you were turned and you turn from dumb idols
to serve the living God. and you had great high thoughts
of God as a result of hearing the gospel. The gospel does something
for us that nothing else can do for us. The Lord Jesus Christ
does something for us that nothing else can do for us. There is
no substitute whatsoever. for what God does for his people. We may look for all kinds of
substitutes and we do. We travel from this religion
to that religion. I went down to Texas to Bible
school in 1971. with all aspirations of coming
out and being a great preacher and I went down believing one
thing, got there for about a month and a half and was told that
there's something else and so I just traded in, I've used this
illustration, traded in my Chevy for a Ford and got more religious. That's all we know. I spent those
15 years pastoring churches and all I gave was works. those on the left. And finally he said, and these shall go away. And he's
not, you know, a lot of people speak about this, trying to scare
people into hell. I mean, scare people into heaven,
excuse me. Try to scare people. Let's get
a movement out of you. Let's do something. Let's make
you so afraid of this punishment and this judgment that you just
automatically... The Lord Jesus is not sharing
this to scare anybody. He's just pointing out the mere
fact of things. There's no scare tactics that
ever drove anybody to the kingdom of heaven. If that had happened,
when God showed Korah and his family by opening up the earth
and swallowing them, there would have been a great revival go
on and everybody would have been obedient to the gospel. But it
wasn't two days and they're angry with God one more time. The only
change that happens is you must be born again. So there in Ezra,
a whole host of folks come in. It doesn't tell us what was said
by the people that were there in Jerusalem. I'm making an assumption
because I can go to the New Testament and find out what other people
said about people who truly had trusted Christ. We're not sinners
like you are. But those guys that came in,
all the peace that they had, The peace that they had been
called out of darkness to his marvelous light. The peace that
things were now straightened up. The peace that now that religion
that they had adopted, it wasn't valid and there was no hope in
it. Here is hope at Jerusalem. Here is hope in Christ. Here,
and it will settle us for eternity. Those folks that came in, they
came in by divine appointment. You got an appointment to make.
They came in at the call. The call went out. They came
in by the Holy Spirit influencing, coming upon them and had power
over them and brought them in. And they were willing to admit
to everyone around them, I am a sinner saved by grace. The worst sinner saved by grace. And that's a commonality among
every member of the true Church of Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter
which station we are in life, economic situation, we can come
to this and agree on this. All of us are sinners saved by
grace. And so we close the book of Ezra. On a high note, The Holy Spirit's
work in people. What a high note. When we hear
about one here or one there, or as Brother Lance has shared
with us down there in New Guinea, there's been churches, people
have been saved all over, different color of skin, can't speak our
language, we can't speak their language, but they know the language
of the Spirit, and that is, praise be unto God, for he hath done
marvelous works unto me. Brother Mike, if you'll come.