Or when you leave the singing
and go right into preaching, you don't get much of a break. Let's turn to Psalm 87. I'll give a sip of water. I want to go ahead and read this
psalm again. I read it to you last. Lord's
Day evening. And I'm going to read it to you
again. It's just a very brief psalm, seven verses. And then we'll try to present
to you a message on the city of God. And this is our second
message. And I think I'll have three,
maybe even four messages. This evening, I'm just gonna
use this pretty much as a beginning place, and then we'll look at
some other scriptures. But let me read this to you.
Psalm 87. It is a psalm or a song for the
sons of Korah. His foundation is in the holy
mountains. The Lord loveth the gates of
Zion more than the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are
spoken of thee, O city of God." And then he puts in the word,
Selah. It's interesting that every translation
of the Bible does include this word, Selah, except for one. That's the Catholic Bible, the
Vulgate. And the man commissioned by one
of the popes to translate the scriptures into the Latin. Vulgate
means the common language of Latin. He decided the word should
not be in here. In fact, he consulted other translations
and then he decided to translate the Old Testament himself. and
he left it out. I like what one of the Hebrew
scholars said on this. It is the equivalent of verily
of the New Testament, or of truth, or even amen. And so I like when
I read this, glorious things of thee are spoken, O city of
God. I read that as amen. Now that's
the truth. If you're one of the ones who
are a member of the city of God, Zion, it's a wonderful thing. Verily, amen. Verse four, I will
make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know me. Behold,
Philistia and Tyre with Ethiopia. This man was born there. that
is born in Zion, born in the church, due to the gospel being
preached there. And of Zion it shall be said,
this and that man was born in her, you were, you were born
again. When you came to meet with the
church of the Lord, you heard the gospel and the highest himself
shall establish Zion shall establish the church. The Lord shall count,
when he writeth up the people, that this man was born there,
born again there, regenerated there, Selah. Amen. Amen. It certainly fits there. As well the singers as the players
on instruments shall be there. All my springs, are in thee. Let's pray again. Thank you,
Lord, for your mercy to us. Oh, how merciful you are to me
and to these and to all of your people. And we delight to sing
your praises. It's a joyful time for us to
Remember that our sins have been taken away, all of them. And then to reflect upon the
fact that our Lord Jesus, He is Lord. He earned the right
to be Lord by virtue of His substitutionary sacrifice upon the cross of Calvary. It's good for us to be here tonight. We thank you for the privilege
to worship to advance the cause of Christ
through the preaching of the gospel. Thank you for these that
have been gathered. Lord, may you be extolled as
we lift up the name of your son and as we speak of the greatness
of your mercy and your grace in calling out a people to the
praise of the glory of your grace. Blessed in the word as it goes
forth, we ask these things for Christ's sake. Amen. It cannot be denied that the
word church in the Bible is used in two ways. As I prepared this
message on the city of God, I'm talking about God's church. That's
what I'm talking about. The word church means a called
out assembly, a called out group, called to worship God, called
to be thankful to Him, called to offer Him petitions in prayer,
We're a called-out assembly here. 13th Street Baptist Church is
a called-out assembly. We exist for God's glory. That's why we exist. And when
I say 13th Street Baptist Church, we're not talking about a building.
And I know we loosely say, I'm going to church. And that's all
right, I don't wanna nitpick over things. But we know that
really the people, that's what constitute the church. We're
alive, we're living. We're living citizens of God. And we're the citizens of God
in this location, in this local assembly. God many years ago
established this local church. This is, in this vicinity, the
city of God. This is the church. This consists
of a called-out assembly. God called you. He who chose
you unto salvation, He who redeemed you by the bloody sacrifice of
His Son, He used His Spirit in order to draw you, call you,
out of Babylon, out of false religion, out of the world unto
himself. And he drew you to meet with
other people of like faith in order to worship God. When we talk about the city of
God, therefore, we're talking about the church. And it's used
in at least two different ways. Number one is a local assembly,
a local church. visible, a visible gathering
of people. Now certainly in every visible
gathering of people, there are wheat and tares. There are sheep
and goats. That's just reality. That's the way it is. And it's
not for me to know who are the saved ones, who are the sheep
and who are the goats. That's God's business. I've had
preachers say to me, you know, I can tell in my congregation,
I believe I can tell pretty close who are the Lord's people and
who are impostors. And I usually say something like
this, so you're a heart reader. I don't think anybody can know
anybody else's heart. In fact, our own hearts are pretty
deceitful. That's what Jeremiah said. Deceitful
above all things. The heart is who can know it.
I don't know your standing before God. I know most people here
tonight profess faith in the Lord Jesus, and I trust that
you are His. And I trust that you have been
called out of darkness into His marvelous light. But I do know
this, you are here gathered in this visible assembly among the
people of God. Whether you are one of the people
of God, I don't know. We are the church of God. This
church doesn't belong to a Baptist denomination. It doesn't belong
to me. It doesn't belong to you. We
sometimes, preachers sometimes say, I told my church, I told
my people, no, you're not mine. You're not mine, you're the Lord's.
You're the Lord's. You might say, well, I hope you'll
come to our church. It's not our church. It's the
Lord's church. You see, the big problem with
most religion today is that the churches belong to people. They belong to preachers. But
God's true church, that's His. Our Lord Jesus purchased the
church with His own blood. Acts chapter 20 says that. We're God's people and we're
God's property. God chose us. The Son of God
redeemed us. God called us unto Himself an
irresistible power. I certainly believe in the authority
of the local church. We are not governed by any entity
outside of this church right here. We do as we feel led of
the Lord, but we answer to no human body. We answer to no higher
group. There is no convention to which
we give a report. There is no body of man who reigns
over us to whom we give accountability or to whom we owe accountability.
We answer to nobody but God. That's all. And though we're thankful for
other local assemblies, And we certainly fellowship with those
who believe the gospel of God's grace. They don't tell us how
to run our business, and we don't tell them how to run their business.
Whenever I have guest preachers in here to preach for me, they
do as we would have them to do. They speak when I ask them to
speak. And the same thing goes when
I go to their churches and preach. They're the pastor then. That's
the local church. We recognize the authority of
the local church. The local church governs itself
under the authority of the Word of God. We seek to always do
those things that are honoring to God and that are according
to the Word of God. That's how we govern this assembly. And as I say, we answer to no
power outside these four walls, except we answer to God. So the
word church means a local assembly. I'm a big believer in the local
church. And we have governing rights. We do things as we feel led of
the Lord to do them. answers to nobody but God. But secondly, the church of God
not only is local, and I know some people have a little difficulty
with this, but it's also universal. I don't think there can be any
denying of that. especially as you look into the
New Testament. And by universal, I simply mean
the universal church of God, that is, all of the saints of
God on earth and in heaven, they constitute one church, one great
body of Christ. The elect of God, the people
of the Lord from every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue. Those in heaven and those on
earth were one church purchased by Christ. He loved the church,
Ephesians 5. He gave himself for the church. That's not a local assembly.
Now, like I say, we certainly believe in the necessity of and
the value of the local church. As you read through the writings
of the apostle Paul, you'll find he wrote seven letters to local
churches. He wrote to the local church,
Church of Rome, Church of Corinth, Church of Galatia, Church of
Ephesus, Church of Philippi, Church of Colossae, and the Church
of Thessalonica. Seven churches he wrote letters
to, and he called them by that to the church at Rome. That's
where the saints of God met. In Revelation, John received
orders from the Lord Jesus to record his words, the seven letters
to the churches of Asia Minor. Those were local assemblies.
So there's no denying that there's a local aspect to the church,
but there's also no denying that there's a universal sense to
the church of God, those that he has purchased, those he selected
unto salvation. All of those who were chosen
by the Father in grace of every age, They constitute the church
of God. There's the church of God includes
the saints of the Old Testament and the saints of the New Testament.
When we get to the book of Revelation, we find that this bride of Christ
is one bride, and it consists of people of all ages, people
of every nationality. And they're one group, one group
of citizens, of the church of our God. And this universal aspect
of the church of God, we find the church is described by several
different names in scripture. Each one is significant. Let
me just give you a few tonight. Go with me to the book of John
chapter 10. Number one, this universal church
is the sheepfold. into which the good shepherd
gathers his sheep." Now, within the true church,
within the true local church, that which is absolutely necessary,
number one, is the presence of God, and number two, the truth
of God. That's always a fact. That's two facts that are, there
are no exceptions to those rules. Within the church of the Lord,
there has to be the very truth of God. There's got to be. God's word, God's gospel. And there has to be that working
of the spirit of grace. the working of the Spirit of
God. John chapter 10, our Lord Jesus here is speaking as the
shepherd of the sheep. He says this, look in verse,
John chapter 10, look at verse four and five. Let me back up and read a little
bit further back. Look at verse one. Verily, verily,
I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold,
that's the word I'm looking for, the sheepfold, but he climbed
up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber. What's
the difference between a thief and a robber? A thief is one
who sneaks in. under cloak of darkness generally. Whereas a robber is one who threatens
people and may even cause bodily harm. But there are some, the
sheep, what was the sheepfold? It was when the shepherd had
sheep out in the pasture. He would build or make a fold or a kind of a homemade
fence that he would use over and over again as he took his
sheep out into the pasture. And this is a protective thing. The sheepfold was for the benefit
of the sheep to protect them from wolves, to protect them
from thieves and robbers. That's called the sheepfold.
Now, there are some who tried to sneak into the sheepfold.
The sheepfold, think of it this way. The sheepfold is a picture
of a type of this universal church of our Lord. And it's true that
there are some people who try to slip in unawares. They don't
believe the gospel. They don't believe what we preach.
They come in and we don't know their motivation. They may come
in as thief and robbers. They may come in as wolves, according
to Acts chapter 20, wolves coming in to devour the flock. We don't
know their motivation, but they slip in. They come into the sheepfold. The Lord said, some other way,
not the right way, because the right way of entrance, notice
this. Look at verse seven, Christ said,
Jesus said to them again, verily, verily, I say unto you, I am
the door of the sheep. There is a door into the sheepfold. There is a door into the church.
There is a door into the kingdom of God. And the door is somebody,
Christ the Lord. He's the entranceway. You don't
come into the true body of Christ Jesus any other way except through
the Savior. He said, I am the door, not a
door, not one of many doors. There are people who preach that
there are several ways to heaven and you just choose whichever
one you want to go. No, there are not many doors
to heaven. There are not many doors to God.
There are not many doors to salvation. There is one door and our Lord
Jesus said, I am the door. How can you miss that? And He said, all that ever came
before Me, who were not sent of God, understand that. They
were just thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn't hear them. And he said again, if you didn't
get it the first time, you'll get it the second time around.
He said, I am the door. By me if any man enter in, by
me, how you enter in? By Christ the Lord. Not by baptism,
not by joining the church, not by observing the ordinances of
the church, baptism and the Lord's Supper. We enter in by Him. And if we
enter in by Him, He shall be saved, preserved forever, delivered
forever, and shall go in and out and find pasture. And then
it goes down to say this in verse 11. He said, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. So he's introduced to us this
idea of a sheep fold. A sheep fold. Now watch what
he says. And here, this establishes the
fact that this sheep fold or this kingdom of God, Universal
Church is indeed, it includes everybody in heaven and on earth,
because watch what he says in verse 16. And other sheep I have
which are not of this fold, not of this sheep fold. See, this
is a sheep fold right here, right? That's what this is, this is
a sheep fold. And we have one shepherd. There's one shepherd
over all the sheep folds in this world, over all the local churches. And in every local church, there's
an under shepherd. That's the pastor. The Savior says, other sheep
I have, which are not of this local fold. Sometimes, Little groups of people. They think they're the only ones
that God saved. They just think there's nobody
else out here preaching this same gospel. And then they find
out, hey, there's several other people preaching this gospel.
There's several other groups around. Other sheep I have which are
not of this local fold. Watch this, them also I must
bring and they shall hear my voice. Here's what I'm getting
at. And there shall be one fold. There's the one church right
there. There shall be one fold, one Zion, one city of God, and
always one shepherd. One shepherd. He's the Great
Shepherd in the covenant of grace. He's the Shepherd who laid down
His life for the sheep in redemption. He's the Chief Shepherd who's
coming again. He's the Seeking Shepherd who's
sought us out. He's the Nourishing Shepherd
who takes the lambs up in His arms and carries them all the
way to glory. He's our Shepherd and there's
one foe. One fold. He gathers the sheep. Secondly, let me show you another
illustration of this. Go to John chapter three. These
are very familiar passages to you. Okay, John chapter three. Our Lord is speaking here to
Nicodemus. And he's speaking to him about
the subject of the new birth, regeneration. There has to be
the new birth. There has to be the working of
the Spirit of God in us because we're born dead in trespasses
and sins. We do not neglect this very,
very serious doctrine, the necessity of being born again. You see,
God has so ordained it. that in this salvation, God the
Father chose a people unto salvation. No question about that. We have
no issue with that. He did that before the foundation
of the world. For his own glory, according
to his own will and purpose, he ordained, he set aside a people
more numerous than the stars of the sky. And to those people,
he gave grace and promised to give them glory. He chose them
in Christ Jesus. And the Savior volunteered by,
and of course the Father appointed Him to be the surety of all these
people. And in time, our Lord Jesus joined
His deity to humanity. He came to this earth for these
people, to save them. to render satisfaction to God's
justice. How can God be just and justify
the ungodly through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ? That's
our message. That's the good news. Christ
died for sinners. He who died was raised again
because God was very satisfied with all that he did. He put
our sins away and he brought in righteousness for us. You
can ask no more. Justice can ask no more than
that. Now those things were done for us. Election and redemption
were done for us. But then we're born into this
world at enmity with God. Something's got to be done in
here. Something's got to be done within
us. And that's the work of the Spirit
of God. And this is what our Lord is
talking to Nicodemus about. And it's what this man was absolutely
ignorant of. He was a very religious man.
He would have had his PhD in theology and in religion. Very
educated man. He's a master in Israel. In other
words, he's the one who taught, he taught the rabbis. He taught
the priests. He, if you looked him up, who's
who in religion, you'd see the picture of Nicodemus. He's in
the upper crust of the religious society. Everybody knows him. Everybody respects him. Everybody
assumes he knows everything there is to know about God. And our
Lord Jesus said, you don't know anything. Nicodemus started off by saying
in verse two, Rabbi, we know. Rabbi, we know that thou art
the teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles
that thou doest except God be with him. Jesus answered and
said unto him, Verily, verily, of a truth of a truth, I say
to you, except a man be born again, He can't see, he can't
perceive, he can't understand, he can't really look into the
kingdom of God. I tell you, your problem, Nicodemus,
is you're dead. You need to be born again. And
he didn't tell him how to be born again. He didn't give him
a list of things. He didn't say, now here's A,
B, C, D, E, F, and G. Now you do all of these things.
One, two, three, four, five, six. You'd follow all of these
things and you'll be born again. He didn't tell him how to be
born again. He just said, you gotta be born
again. Well, why didn't he tell him
how to be born again? Because the new birth is not
something Nicodemus could do for himself. He had to be born
of God. And Nicodemus, bless his heart,
he's so ignorant, he says in verse four, how can a man be
born when he's old? Can he enter the second time
into his mother's womb and be born? What a fool. But every natural man, everybody
who has not been born of God is a spiritual fool. It's just
a fact. You call me ignorant preacher?
You hadn't been birthed into the kingdom of God. Yes, you're
ignorant concerning spiritual things. And we all were, all
of us who now know how God saves sinners, we've been made to understand
through God giving us life. And then notice what Jesus says
in verse five. Jesus answered, verily, verily,
I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,
he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Kingdom of God. That's another
name for the church. The kingdom of God. By water may be meant, first
of all, the grace of God or the gospel of God's grace. Because
as cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country. Tell you what, God always uses
the truth. He uses the truth in regeneration,
in the new birth, and he uses the power of the spirit. You've
got to have those two things. That's what I said a while ago,
leave either one of them out, there will be no new birth. There
will be no regeneration. There has to be the truth, the
truth of the gospel as it is in Christ Jesus. Salvation, all
of grace. Salvation through the doing and
the dying of the God-man. Salvation through His bloody
sacrifice. And salvation which is God's
work, salvation by grace. Except a man be born of water
by the grace of God, by the word of God. What does God use in
the church? I read back here, turn back to
our text in Psalm 87. Psalm 87, look what the scripture
says. Look at verse 6, and we're talking
about Zion, the city of God. 87 verse 6, the Lord shall count
when He righteth up the people that this man was born there. He was born there. What is that?
Not physical birth, but born again under the sound of the
gospel, which is heard in God's local churches. You say, well,
there's this church and that church and this church down here,
and we've got all kinds of churches around here. Well, every once
in a while, you'll come across one of the Lord's churches. And
that's how you know. How do you know you're in one
of the Lord's churches? The truth. The truth. What does God use in the salvation
of sinners? The truth of the gospel. the
power of the Spirit. There are several of you here,
undoubtedly, who can say, and I can say this, I was in a local
church. I was in a local assembly, and
I heard the gospel. Maybe I had heard it before.
I don't remember. But I did hear it one day in
power. And you know what happened? I
was born there. I was born there. Same thing
with several of you. Actually, all of you. You heard
the gospel from somebody's lips because it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching and saved them to believe. You heard
and you believed. You were born. You were born.
into the kingdom of God by the power of the Spirit through the
proclamation of the truth. You gotta have truth and you
gotta have the power of the Holy Spirit. And I'll say it again,
leave either one of those out, you got nothing. Because actually, if you don't
have the truth, you don't have the Spirit of God anyhow. because
the Spirit of God will not use any other message except the
truth. I do not believe, this is my
personal belief now. I do not believe, and I say it's
my personal belief and I can back it up from scripture. I
do not believe that God will ever use error or false religion
To bring anybody to Christ Jesus through the preaching of that
false religion just can't be. Because he uses the truth as
it is in Jesus. And it's the Spirit of God who
draws us to the Savior. And then let me give you this,
Ephesians three. Go to Ephesians chapter three.
Here's the third thing. This church, it's the sheepfold. This church, it's the kingdom
of God. Here's the third thing. It's
the family of God into which we've been born. See, Zion, the city of God is
a family. Ephesians 3, 15. Verse 14 says, For this cause
I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. One family. One family. Not several families. Now this is a family of God here,
because this is a local assembly here. all of the family of God's gonna
be gathered together one day, one family, that's all, just
one family. Everyone in the city of God is
a family of God. We were chosen to be the recipients
of God's salvation, to be a member of His family, predestinated
under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto Himself.
We're all children of God, ordained to grace and glory. And no son or daughter of God
will receive more or less grace and glory than all the rest of
them. We'll all receive the same saving
grace and the same eternal glory. And in that sense, God has no
favorites. And our position in heaven is
based upon the faithfulness of God and the grace of God and
the purpose of God, not on anything we do. So we'll all have equal glory
in heaven. And I'll tell you something else
quickly and I'll try to wrap this up. This city of God, it's
the New Jerusalem come down out of heaven. Turn with me to the book of Revelation
chapter 21. Revelation 21. And look at verse 1. And I saw a
new heaven and a new earth. Revelation 21. Verse one, and I saw a new heaven
and a new earth. Now John is seeing into eternity. He says, for the first heaven
and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea.
And I, John, saw the holy city. That's the city we're talking
about in Psalm 87, the city of God. the new Jerusalem. That's another
name for her. And he sees this holy city coming
down from God out of heaven prepared as a bride for her husband. He doesn't see, he doesn't see walls and city
streets and things like that come down. He sees people coming
down. That's what he sees, people coming
down. Verse three, and I heard a great
voice out of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with
men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people.
God himself shall be with them and be their God. This universal
aspect of the church What does it mean? It means that God is
with these people and these people are with the Lord forever and
ever. They're the new Jerusalem. And
then I'll give you one more reference. I just want you to see this,
then I'll quit. Turn to, well, I had a reference here
a while ago. Let me see if I can find it. Isaiah chapter 60, here
it is. Isaiah chapter 60. I'll give
you this and then we'll sing and go home. Isaiah chapter 60
in verse 14. We're talking about the city
of God. And it says in verse 14 of Isaiah
60. Are you there? Okay. Here we
go, the sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending
unto thee. When do you think that is? That's when we're glorified and
God puts us on great display as trophies of his grace. And He, as it were, parades us
in front of the whole world of angels and demons and devils
and people who are unbelievers. And they shall all come bending
unto thee. And all they that despise thee,
church, they despise you for the gospel you preached. They shall bow down themselves
at the soles of thy feet, and they shall call thee the city
of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel." That's who
we are. And someday all the world's gonna
recognize that. Folks in this area, I've heard
people say when I'll tell them where I go to church and where
I attend and where I pastor at 13th Street Baptist Church, they
say, oh, we're the old Baptist Church. It's going to come a
day when that won't be said anymore. And people are going to bow down
to the God who saved us and bow down before us and say, oh, that
I were numbered with that group right there, the despised ones,
the afflicted ones. Children of God, don't ever be
discouraged. Don't be discouraged by mega
churches and error that make their boasts in their numbers
and in all the great things that they do. Don't be discouraged. Oh, they've got all that, but
I'll tell you what we've got, the truth. And we have the presence of God. Be encouraged. I am. I'm encouraged. Because this
is God's work. And He'll make sure His Word
doesn't fall to the ground. it will accomplish His purpose
in the thing whereunto He sends it. Well, let's go to page seven
in that black folder. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. If you need the words to it,
you can get them there. First, page seven, Jesus, Jesus,
Jesus. There's just something about
that name. We'll sing this and close.