Revelation chapter 19. Here's my subject today, False
Church, True Church. That's the title of the message,
False Church, True Church. You know, the Word of God speaks to us honestly and frankly,
and sets before us Christ Jesus as the only Savior of sinners,
the true Redeemer, that one who is the only mediator between
us and a holy God. And there isn't a vagueness about
this. It's very straightforward. There's
no misunderstanding the words of the Word of God. When we read
verses like in 1 Timothy, it says, for there is one God. How many gods are there? One.
And one mediator. How many mediators? One, not
two, not three. Jesus and Mary, or Jesus and
one of the dead saints of God. No, there's one God and one mediator,
one go-between. That is, between God, God who
is holy, God who is just, God who is righteous, God who always
does right, between God and men, ungodly men, law-breaking men,
and that one mediator is, the scripture says, the man, Christ
Jesus. So it's very It deals with this
subject of salvation and coming to God and drawing near to Him. It deals with it very, very openly
and frankly. And then it also is honest and
straightforward in dealing with that one who is evil, Satan. And there are several things
we know about Satan. I suppose this would be the biggest
thing. He's a master counterfeiter.
That is, you know, here's the Lord, and He sets before us His
truth. You can be absolutely certain
that Satan is going to set then before us something that's false.
That's how He operates. He is a master counterfeiter.
In the Word of God, we read it, the true Jesus. Who is Jesus? Well, He's the
Savior of sinners. He's the Son of God. He's the
one who came into this world to save His people from their
own sins. This is the one who is the Son
of God, and He's the Son of Man. This is the only one who can
redeem us, who can reconcile us to God. This is the true Jesus. Well, you can be certain of this,
where there is the true Jesus, Satan is going to set forth a
false Jesus. Or as we read in 2 Corinthians
11, the apostle Paul spoke of those who came preaching another
Jesus, another Jesus. In other words, a Jesus different
from that one that the apostle preached to people. And this
another Jesus, he bears the same name, but he doesn't have the
same attributes. And he doesn't do the same things. This is a false Jesus. There's
a true Jesus and a false Jesus. And listen folks, and let's just
be absolutely honest. There are many people who believe
today in a false Jesus. A false Jesus. And you know yourselves,
people in your family, people that you associate with, people
that you talk with, and they'll talk about Jesus. And you even
say, you know, they use the same kind of terminology we use. Preacher,
they talk about grace, they talk about heaven, they talk about
hell, they talk about the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
they talk about Jesus. And they say things like, we
love Jesus. And you know what? We say we
love Jesus. Well, the question is, will the
real Jesus please stand up? Who is the real Jesus? There's
the Jesus of the Scripture, the true Jesus, who came into this
world to save His people from their sins. What are His attributes? He's almighty. He does His will. He executes His purpose. He is
the faithful. The faithful servant of Jehovah,
and that's the passage you read to us from Isaiah chapter 42. God says, behold my servant.
Who's he speaking about? He's speaking about the Lord
Jesus. The Lord Jesus. God's perfect servant. God's
righteous servant. He's spoken of as being in Isaiah
chapter 53. This is the true Jesus. The real Jesus has all of the
attributes of God because he is God. He is God. He's God manifest in the flesh. And therefore He knows all things.
He's omniscient. He's omnipotent. That is, He
has all power. There's nothing that escapes
His attention. He is the creator of all things. He is the manager of all things. He's the governor of all things.
In fact, in the book of Colossians chapter 1, after speaking about
the fact that He is the maker of all things, it says then,
by Him all things consist. He's the one who keeps everything
together. Who is it that keeps things from
flying apart? It's the Lord Jesus. The Lord
Jesus. And He's the only one who can
save us. Because He is almighty. Because
He is divine. Because He is the mediator. And He does everything that He
wants to do. He executes His will to perfection. Whereas a false Jesus, His will
is dependent upon the will of the creature. And you can immediately
rule out a Jesus, you can identify, I should say, a false Jesus by
this. Can He do? what He wants to do,
and if He doesn't have the ability to do what He wants to do, then
you're talking about a false Jesus. You see, a false Jesus
makes salvation possible. A false Jesus loves everybody,
hates nobody. A false Jesus seeks to do good
for all people. A false Jesus is dependent upon
you to let Him save you. That's a false Jesus. And you
see, Satan, he is a master counterfeiter. And there is the true Jesus. There is the real Savior of sinners. And when you have the real Savior
of sinners, you can be certain of this, Satan is going to set
forth a counterfeit. There's a counterfeit Jesus.
You better make sure, now listen to me, you better make sure the
Jesus you believe, the Jesus you rest in your soul in, the
Jesus upon whom you have full dependence for your soul's salvation,
you better make sure He's the true Jesus. Because this One who is the true
Jesus is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who He is. He's the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's not a want-to-be Lord. He
doesn't desire to be your Lord. He is already your Lord. God
has made Him Lord by virtue of the fact that He successfully
finished the work of redemption that God gave Him to do. He is
the Lord. There's a true Jesus and a false
Jesus. And then there's a true gospel
and a false gospel. In that same passage in 2 Corinthians
chapter 11, Paul talked about another gospel. He talked about
another Jesus and then he talked about another gospel. So you
have the true gospel and it is always identified this way, the
gospel. The gospel, not a gospel. but
the gospel. In other words, it's one of a
kind. It's the only one there is. And sometimes you hear people
say, well, that's the Baptist gospel and, you know, we have
the Catholic gospel and the Presbyterian gospel and so forth and so on.
There's just one gospel, one true gospel. That's the gospel
of God. It's the gospel of Christ Jesus.
It's the gospel of the glorious God. Paul said, I came preaching
the gospel. What is gospel? Good news, glad
tidings. It's not glad tidings of that
which is a possibility. It's not glad tidings and good
news of that which you can do to make yourself presentable
to God. The good news, the gospel is the declaration of an historical
event by which God has been honored and satisfied and all the sins
of God's people have been put away by the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ. God is satisfied. Justice has
been honored. Because that's what was necessary
for our salvation. God's justice had to be honored
and satisfied. Christ did that. And this gospel,
the true gospel, is indeed good news to us. Because it doesn't
say, sinner, this is what you've got to do. It doesn't lay before
us certain rules and restrictions that we've got to abide by. Oh
no, the gospel says, this has happened. It's all about somebody and what
somebody did. It's all about the true Jesus
and the work that he has accomplished. on the cross of Calvary. He died. Why did He die? That God might
be just. That God might be just and justify
the ungodly. That is, declare us righteous.
And He can only do that through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the true gospel. But
there is another gospel. Satan is the master counterfeiter
and he has a false gospel. He has another gospel. It's the gospel of what you've
got to do. It's the gospel of some decision
you have to make, or an aisle that you must walk, or a baptism
with which you must be baptized, or a work that you must do. A
false gospel, and really is no gospel at all. because there's
no good news in that. But Satan has a false gospel
and then there's the true spirit and a false spirit, another spirit. Paul also talks about that in
2 Corinthians 11. There's the true spirit of God
who works effectually in our hearts. What does effectually
mean? He gets the job done. I'm sure you've heard people
say something like this. I believe God's trying to tell
me something. I believe God's trying to show
me something. God doesn't try. God doesn't
try. That implies He may fail. He may be successful or He may
fail. God doesn't try to do anything. God does His will. Now listen. This is what Nebuchadnezzar said
in Daniel chapter 4. He doeth His will among the armies
of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. He does His will. He executes His will. He's not
trying to do anything. And if the God you worship The
God you adore, the God you bow down to, the God you pray to,
if He's trying to execute His will, you've got a false God,
you've got a false spirit. A false spirit. The Lord does His will in all
matters. And then, There's a true foundation
for salvation. Christ is the rock. Christ is
the foundation. Neither is there salvation in
any other except in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
the rock upon which we build. He's the only foundation for
our salvation. But there's also a false foundation. That's the foundation that we
might as well just call sand. That's what the Lord Jesus calls
it in the book of Matthew. You see, if you build, here,
it's like we're all builders. And we want acceptance with God,
and so we're building a house. Our Lord uses that illustration.
If you build Your house for eternity. You're going out into eternity.
You all acknowledge that, don't you? You acknowledge that you're
going out into eternity. Do you want to be safe for eternity? Nancy and I wrote by a religious
establishment yesterday. It said heaven or hell, your
choice. I don't know if anybody chooses hell. Who in their right
mind says, well I choose hell. No, I choose heaven. Anybody
who's got half a brain says, I choose heaven. Well, how do you figure on getting
there? Since this God is holy and righteous,
and you've got to be without blemish, and you've got to be
righteous, you've got to be perfect to stand before Him, accepted,
even now. We're not even necessarily talking
about the Day of Judgment. Even now, the only way to be
accepted with God is to be accepted in the Beloved and have His righteousness
freely imputed to you. You've got to be as holy as He
is. You've got to be in Christ Jesus. That's the foundation I'm building
on, Christ Jesus. This is a true foundation. He's
the rock. But if you build on your works,
your will, your duties, your religion, your anything, you're
building on sand. And I tell you, if you figure
on getting to heaven, being accepted by God on the basis of that which
you do, My friend, you're going to be everlastingly disappointed. You're going to come to an awful
end. I'm telling you the truth. Other
foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is
Christ Jesus. He's the true foundation. He's
the only rock upon which to build. You build on anything else...
Well, preacher, I've been baptized. That's sinking sand. That's not
going to stand before God. You won't have any standing before
God pleading your baptism. Lord, I've tried to live my life
by the Ten Commandments. Whoopee! That's good. That won't
put you in good standing with God either. How good must a man be to stand
before God accepted? He's got to be as good as God.
How can that be? That's what you ought to be asking.
How can that be? How can I be as good as God?
How can I be as righteous as the judge who puts me on trial? Another way to put this is, how
can I ever hide from God in the day of judgment? Well, hide in
God. How about that? Hide in Christ
Jesus. Moses said, Lord, show me your
glory. He said, I'll cause my goodness
to pass before you. I'll be gracious to whom I'll
be gracious. And I'm going to pass before
you, but you can't see my face or lip. I'm going to put you
in the cleft of the rock. I'll hide you in the rock. You
see, only hidden in the rock, the rock Christ Jesus. That's
the only place to be accepted with God. You see that, don't
you? Oh, there's a true foundation
and a false foundation. And then there are true preachers.
God has true preachers. Men who are honest with men who
tell us the truth. Men who just open the scriptures
and preach to us the word of God. But there are also false
preachers. No wonder John says in 1 John
4, try the spirits, whether they be of God. Our Lord talked about
wolves dressed in sheep clothing. The preacher that you listen
to, Any preacher, me, Bill, whoever. Are you sure he's a sheep? Could
he be a wolf? You say, how can I know? How
can I know? I mean, it says many spirits,
many false spirits are in the world. Satan has unleashed into
this world many false preachers. How can I tell who's telling
the truth and who's not telling the truth? Here's a good question
to ask. Who gets the glory from the man's
preaching? And if at any point in his message
you get the glory, you're listening to a false preacher. I'm just
being honest with you now. You've got to put preachers to
the test. Be like the Bereans. They searched the Scriptures
daily to see if these things are so. Oh, but they were listening
to the Apostle Paul. I know they were listening to
the Apostle Paul, but they're going to make sure the Apostle
Paul is telling them the truth. They're going to take the Word
of God. Well, preacher, I've got a lot of confidence in you,
you're our pastor. Well, I appreciate your comments,
but listen, it's better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence
in men. So take whatever I say and put
it to the Scriptures. And whoever you listen to, somebody
was telling me the other day, they listened to a preacher on
the radio, and they asked me about him. I said, well, let's
take what he says and put it against the Scripture. And we
did that, and that preacher didn't fare too well. Listen, I got
too much at stake in this. I don't want to listen to somebody
lie to me about things of God, even though he may be lying in
sincerity. He may be very jealous, very
zealous in the work of God. Yesterday, up here at the corner
of Blackburn and 13th Street, There's a preacher out there.
I see him. He's there about every Saturday thumping on his Bible.
You can't even hear what he's saying. And there were kids that
had signs up. I don't deny their zeal. I don't
deny that. It's the message that's wrong.
Make sure you're listening to the truth. Is God being glorified? Is God being exalted? Does the
preaching from the pulpit lead you to honor God, and fear God,
and respect God, and reverence God, and be in awe of God? Our God's not a granddaddy in
the sky who wants to do good for everybody. He's the Lord
God of glory who executes His will everywhere at all times. And even today, all things that
are happening are happening according to His eternal counsel and purpose. Is your God in charge? Is your
God in control? Well, no, He's not in control
of everything, preacher. I don't think that He's in control
over the devil. You got a false God? Because if your God doesn't have
absolute authority over all things, then somebody's got authority
over Him at some point. And if your God has somebody
in authority over Him at any point, you've got a false God.
I'm telling you, we've got a lot invested in this. We've got a
lot at stake in this. There's the glory of God, but
as far as we're concerned, there's our eternal welfare. My soul,
me. Me, I don't want to perish. I
don't want to die and be separated from God forever and hold on
to my prideful ideas. Well, I'm a right preacher and
you can't tell me I'm wrong. I don't want to be like that.
Show me in the Word of God if I'm wrong and I'll admit I'm
wrong and I'll say, Oh, God teach me the right way. But I don't
want to go to hell carrying a Bible. Well, I know the Word of God
and you can't tell me anything different. That's the way a lot
of people are. They can quote John 3.16 and all of a sudden
they're an expert on the Scriptures. They're a theologian. Well, I
know John 3.16 preacher. I know what my Bible says. I don't want to be like that. I
want to be teachable. And I want the Spirit of God,
I want the true Spirit. When I open up the Word of God,
I want Him to show me, show me what this book is all about,
who it's all about. Show me the Lord Jesus Christ.
Lord, show me Thyself. I'm just a student. Listen, they're
none of us experts on the Bible. We're not experts on God. We're
just learners, we're just pupils. And our attitude should always
be, Lord, teach me, teach me. Give me a teachable spirit. Lord, give me a new heart, a
heart of faith to believe you. A lot of false preachers out there.
And then there are true disciples. who followers of Christ? Well,
Satan is, I guarantee he has false disciples, false followers. You know, there was a guy who
was with the apostle Paul, Demas, he was with him a long time.
And he finally said toward the end of his ministry, Demas has
forsaken me. He loved this present world.
Judas, Judas, The gifts that the Lord Jesus gave to His apostles,
apparently He had as well. He was a preacher. Cast out demons. All the things, all the unusual,
extraordinary gifts that God gave to all of those men, He
had them, but He was a devil. He was a devil. Full of covetousness,
which is idolatry. He was an idolater. And then there's the true church.
Ah, let's get to this. There's the true church. The Lord Jesus said, I will build
my church. My church. Sometimes I will mistakenly
say, if I'm preaching somewhere else, as I tell my church, I
try not to say that because this isn't my church. Because if this
is my church, if Eager Avenue is your church, we're all in
trouble, right? It's not my church. It's the
Lord's church. It's the Lord's church. Christ
said, I will build my church. I will build. He's got his church,
his people. He got his people by gift from
the Father, the church. This is a gift. He said, all
that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh
to me, I will let know why it's cast out. This is his church
by gift. And this is his church because
he redeemed him. He redeemed him. That's why Paul
told the elders at The church of Ephesus in Acts chapter 20
said, feed the church of God, which he had purchased with his
own blood. Christ Jesus, he bought the church. They're his by gift and they're
his because he purchased them. He bought them. He laid down
his life for the sheep. He said, I'm the good shepherd.
The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. Not for the
goats, but for the sheep. A little later in that passage
in John chapter 10, the Jews, the Jewish leaders, they hounded
our Lord. They hated Him. They said, show
us a sign, show us a sign. They talked about the signs and
then He said, you believe not, you believe not. And the reason
you don't believe is because you're not of my sheep. You're
not of my sheep. As I said unto you, my sheep
hear my voice, and I know them, I love them, and they follow
me. True church. True church. He's building his church. He's
gathering them together. And you know what he uses to
gather the church, to build the church, to bring them together?
What I'm doing right now. Preaching the good news of the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The good news of salvation by
grace. Isn't that good news? Salvation
by grace? Salvation by God? Salvation by
Christ? Here's our message. Salvation
is of the Lord. It's of the Lord. From beginning
to end. He's building His church. He's
drawing people unto Himself. And He teaches us this grace
of God, this grace of God that effectually calls us. It teaches
us. It teaches us every day how to
live, how to walk in this world. And this grace is sufficient
for every need that we have. Grace saves us. Grace keeps us. Grace preserves us. Grace instructs
us. And grace will see us safely
home someday. All of grace. That's reason and
heaven will sing grace, grace unto it. Salvation by grace. That's the true church. And you
know, concerning the true church, here's what we read here in Revelation
chapter 19 of the true church. Verse eight, or even verse seven. Let us be glad and rejoice."
There, Revelation 19, 7. Let us be glad and rejoice, and
give honor to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and her
wife hath made herself ready, and to her was granted, given. She didn't work for this. She didn't deserve this. To her
was granted, given. graciously given that she should
be arrayed, adorned, robed, clothed in fine linen. And he says, clean and white,
for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. It's the righteousness
that has been given to us freely. reckoned to us, charged to us,
nothing that we did. This is what's so amazing about
it. He did all of the labor Christ
Jesus did. He did all of the work, the work
of redemption, the work of reconciling us to God, the work of enduring
the wrath of God due to our own iniquities which were made to
meet on Him. All charged to Him and He therefore
endured all the judgment of God, the condemnation of God for our
sins, and he put them all away. And he brought in for us, he
established for us a perfect, spotless righteousness. And he gives it to us freely. Freely. It was really, he brought
it in 2000 years ago. By faith, by faith, the Spirit
of God works within us, and He gives us the gift of faith, and
we believe it was established 2,000 years ago. We believe who
did it, and why He did it, and that it's been done. We trust
the Son of God. This is the fine linen of His
righteousness, and it's the righteousness of the saints. That's our garment. This is the true church. This is the reason we stand accepted
before God today. And always, really, because we've
been accepted in the Beloved. But as there is a true church,
so there is a false church. A false church. You know, we've
talked about this. Chapter 17 deals with the description
of the false church, which is labeled as Babylon. And all of
chapter 17 describes Babylon. And you know, as to her dress,
she's dressed very godly. She's dressed up like a harlot
to impress men. And she thinks she's impressing
God. People within Babylon think they're
impressing God. But listen, your self-righteous
rags, all of your works, all of your labors, all of these
religious things that you've been doing thinking God's taking
note of these things, it's just more gaudiness. It's more rags. That's all it is to God. Stinking,
filthy rags. Now over against that is the
white robe of righteousness of the saints of God. So simple,
so pure, and all of God. All of God. You say preacher, chapter 17
is all about Babylon, description of Babylon. Yes, the false church.
And chapter 18, is about the destruction of the false church. Yes, that's true. And you say,
well, you've kind of been harping on this quite a bit lately. And I haven't been saying too
much about the true church. Well, the reason is because 17
and 18 is about the false church. When you get to chapter 19, at
verse number 9, the description of the true church is kind of
interrupted till later. So I'll have more to say about
the true church because the Word of God has more to say about
the true church. And if you're taking notes, you
might make a note of this, that there is like an interruption. In verse 9 I'll read, He saith
to me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage
supper of the Lamb. And He said unto me, These are
the true sayings of God. And then there is like an interruption. And John is then, he falls before
this servant of the Lord who rebukes him. And then beginning
at verse 11, John sees a different sight. He sees the second advent
of our Lord Jesus Christ. he sees him coming as the victor,
and then he sees Armageddon, he sees the end judgment, and
that goes all the way through chapter number 20. And then,
as far as this theme of the true church, he picks that up in chapter
21. So he's not finished talking
about the true church. He's going to talk about the
beauties of the true church. In fact, I'll just give you a
little, whet your appetite a little bit. Look at chapter 21, verse
1. It's like the Spirit of God has
said, John, write these other things, write about the final
Armageddon, the final judgment, and then come back to talking
about the true church. which is what he does in chapter
21, and I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven
and the first earth were passed away, there was no more sea,
and I, John, saw the holy city. What is the holy city? Well,
it's the New Jerusalem. This is the church. This is the
true church. And he says, I saw her coming
down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride, adorned
for her husband. And if you go over a little bit
further, he says this, look at verse 9. There came unto me one
of the seven angels, which had the seven vows, full of the seven
last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will
show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. There's the church. And
He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain.
He showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending
out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. And her light
was likened to a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear
as crystal. And on and on He goes, describing
the true church. So don't think that just these
three verses in chapter 19, that that's all he's got to say about
the true church. No, he's got lots more to say.
But that comes later. Now, as to this false church,
I just draw your attention to this. Here's a big difference
between the false church and the true church. Of the false church, it is written,
look in chapter 18, verse 7, and I'll just give you this,
and then I'll quit. Chapter 18, verse 7. 18, 7. He's
talking about, in chapter 17, he's described the false church. Chapter 18, he's talking about
the demise of the false church, the destruction of the false
church. This is one of the areas where she went wrong. How much
she hath glorified herself. She hath glorified herself. Four words. I'll tell you what, you want
to get on, and I don't mean to be irreverent
in saying it this way, but if you want to get on God's wrong
side, you glorify yourself. You want to be in trouble with
God, you glorify yourself. You seek His glory. I had Ron
read that passage out of Isaiah 42 for a reason. The Lord said,
I am the Lord. I am the Lord. I'm Jehovah's
Savior. I'm the ever-existent One. I'm
the unchanging God. That is My name. All these idols,
all these pretend gods, that's not their name. That name belongs
to One. It's like in the book of Mark,
the scribe who asked the Savior, he said, what's the first commandment?
And the Savior said, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God.
One God. And this one God will have all
of the glory. I am the Lord, that is my name.
I'm Jehovah. There are a lot of pretenders
who want that name, but they can't have that name. And there
are lots who would be competitors with God. Who would challenge
God. who would contend with God for
His glory. I am the Lord, that is my name.
My glory will I not give to another. And I'll tell you, if you dare
to compete with God for His glory, either the glory of creation
or the glory of providence, and most especially the glory of
salvation, He'll put you away. You're signing your own death
warrant. You try to steal God's glory?
See, this is what is wrong. I just want to be perfectly honest
with you now. This is what's wrong with religion today, with
the religion that we naturally are attracted to. We want some
of the glory. We want some of the credit. We
want somebody to pat us on the back and say, you finally decided
for Jesus. It's about time. It's about time
you let Him save you. You're getting the glory that
way. The Lord says, I am the Lord. I'm the Lord. That's my
name. I'm not going to give my glory
to another. He won't give it to you. He won't give it to your
mother. He won't give it to your father.
He won't give it to your husband. He won't give it to your wife.
He won't give it to your children. And He's sure enough not going
to give it to that false church that you seem to be attached
to. He said, I'm not going to do
that. I'm not going to do that. You want to know the difference
between the true church and the false church? God's people, the true church,
we seek to give Him the glory. Isn't that what we want? That's
what we want. To God be the glory. We sing
that song. To God be the glory. Great things
He has done. We don't want any glory. We don't
want any pats on the back. We're not due any. In fact, if
we did everything we're ever supposed to do, you know what
the Scripture says? You're just an unprofitable servant.
That's what you ought to have done. You want some pat on the
back? You want praise? You want rewards
for doing what you're just supposed to do? All glory goes to God. And don't go to us. I'll tell
you, beware that you don't try to rob God of His glory. You'll
sure enough get yourself in trouble. It's one thing to be in trouble
with me. That don't mean much. It's bad to be in trouble with
the law of the land. That's pretty significant. But
you don't want to be in trouble with God. Do you? No, you don't. So you bow to
His will and you say, Lord, teach me Your Gospel. Save me by Your
grace. Help me to rejoice in Christ
Jesus only. and to adore Him from the bottom
of my heart. Lord, save me. That's what Simon
Peter said, Lord, save me or I perish. You save me or I perish.