Thank you, Jim. Now, this morning I want you
to return to the book of 1 John chapter 4, where I preached last
week, last Sunday morning, from the first few verses of that
chapter concerning the subject of confessing Christ Jesus. Confessing Jesus Christ. Every
believer is a confessor. Not that people come to you to
confess their sins. That's not what I mean by confessor.
I mean one who confesses continually the glory of the person and the
finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ as their whole entire
salvation. The salvation by God's grace.
I want to return to those verses in 1 John chapter 4, and I want
to preach from them in this message. to emphasize the issue of testing
the spirits. I'm going to talk a lot about
false preachers, false prophets. And that doesn't sound like a
very comforting message for God's people, but I assure you that
it is. It really is. And I want to show
you why. Before I get to 1 John 4, I want to read some passages
out of Acts chapter 20 for you. If you want to turn there, that's
fine. But I'm going to read from Acts chapter 20 and verse 28. And I want to show you why I
believe this is not only a necessary message, but it's even vital.
I mean, this is so important for the people of God to be instructed
in this area. The Bible has a lot to say about
the difference that exists between true preachers of God, true gospel
preachers, and false preachers. And as I said last week, if you
look at any generation in our day and in the past, it's recorded
in the Scripture, you'll notice that false preachers have always
outnumbered God's preachers. God's preachers have always been
in the minority. But I want you to look at Acts
chapter 20. I'm going to read from verse 28. This is the Apostle
Paul. What he's doing here, he's on
a journey here. He's returning to Jerusalem. And he has with
him some money and goods to take back to the church in Jerusalem,
the people of God in Jerusalem who are being persecuted. And
he stopped in a place here north of Ephesus. Now, you know about
Ephesus. There was a church in Ephesus.
Paul wrote a letter there, the Ephesian letter. And he stops
at a place about 30 miles north of Ephesus and he calls for the
elders of the church at Ephesus to come up there because he's
got some words that he wants to say. These are the last words
of the Apostle Paul to the church at Ephesus. And he thought a
lot of this church. Read the book of Ephesians sometimes,
you'll see that. He spent three years there. That's
probably longer than Paul spent anywhere else ministering. He
spent time in other churches. He spent three years there. But
look at verse 28 of Acts chapter 20. Now he's telling these elders,
pastor and elders, and he says, take heed therefore unto yourselves
and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made
you overseers. That's what a pastor and elder
is. They're under shepherds. who are ministers and spiritual
guides for the church. And here's what he says, now
you take heed to feed the church of God. Now he's talking about
feeding spiritually there, with the word of God, preaching the
word. Back up in verse 27, he told
them, he says, for I've not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel
of God. In other words, whatever God
has revealed to me, I've told you, I didn't keep it back. He's
not like one of these fellows who say, well, I know something
that you don't know. Ha, ha. You know, that's not what a preacher
does. You know, these people go around
and say, well, God revealed things to me that He just hadn't revealed
to you. Now, listen to me. You've got to be careful with
that. I know salvation is by revelation. If anybody knows
Christ, He must be revealed. But God reveals Christ to all
His people, not just to a special few. You see, not just to a clique
or an elite group. They know something you don't
know. I'm going to tell you something. That's deadly kind of thinking
there. Paul said, whatever God reveals to me, I've shown to
you. I'm going to preach it to you. It's for the whole flock,
you see. It's not just for me. So he says, you feed the church
of God. And then he says, which he hath purchased with his own
blood. Now, the reason he added that, number one, is that All
Scripture speaks of Christ and His glory. But I believe Paul
said this to the Ephesian elders to remind them of something that
every pastor, every elder needs to know. This is not your church. This is God's church. This is
Christ's church. He purchased it with His own
blood. You didn't purchase it. You don't own it. You're not
the boss. You're not the CEO. You belong
to Christ. And he purchased it with his
own blood. This is a church washed in his
blood, clothed in his righteousness, not yours. You're just the servant.
You're the under-shepherd. You're the minister of the church,
the steward. And so he says in verse 29, now
listen, he says, For I know this, that after my departing shall
grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Now, the grievous wolves here,
he's not talking about literal wolves, obviously, he's talking
about false preachers. Christ called them wolves in
sheep's clothing in Matthew chapter 7, and we'll be turning in just
a moment. But he says, now notice what
he says here, he says, they're going to enter in among you. Now, that's something to think
about. They're going to be among the
brethren. And he says in verse 30, also
of your own selves shall men rise, that is out of the church,
shall men rise speaking perverse things, what they say now, what
they say, speaking. In other words, this is how you're
going to know them, by their speech, by their message, speaking
perverse things to draw away disciples after them. In other
words, they're trying to get a following. That's their issue. They're not praising God now.
If they were praising God, they wouldn't be speaking perverse
things. They wouldn't be trying to divide sheep. But they want
to follow Him after themselves. So he says in verse 31, Therefore
watch, the watchman, watch and remember Watch out for these
and remember that by the space of three years I ceased not to
warn every one night and day with tears." This was something
that Paul was concerned with. Now, that passage of Scripture,
look over at 1 John chapter 4 now. Testing the Spirit, that's the
title of this message. And you see things like that
in Scripture, and you might wonder, say, well, my soul, I mean, look
at that. I mean, did God put that in there
just to make me worry? Am I under a false preacher?
Could I be deceived? Am I supposed to go through my
life thinking I'm a believer only to find out in the end that
I may not be, that I follow the false preacher? Or am I to go
throughout my Christian life just worried about this, anxious
over it? And the answer is absolutely
not. Now, let me give you a very,
very simple example of what I'm talking about here. Now, we have
many students here this morning. Some of you are getting ready
to get going spring break. Some of you just come off spring
break, but some of you, you got to go to school tomorrow. You
may have a test coming up tomorrow and you may be worried sick over
it. You just may be just saying,
Oh, I'm going to make an F. Now let me tell you how not to
be worried. Now listen to me, young people.
This is something that you need to hear. Let me tell you how
not to be worried and scared about that test. Study. Am I right? Study. Prepare. That's right. Prepare. You say, well, I'm already
too far gone. Well, that's your fault. But
you study and you prepare. The only time I was ever worried
about a test was when I didn't study, when I didn't prepare.
If I studied and I was prepared, I didn't worry. Well, I may have
said, well, I don't know where I'm going to make an A or a B,
but I knew I was going to pass the test. And I've used that
as a simple example for what I'm talking about. The reason
that God put these things in the Word for His people is that
we might prepare ourselves, that we might study. Paul told Timothy,
study, to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needed
not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth. Feed upon
the Word of God. Learn what the Word of God teaches.
You know, in the past, what I've done, it talks about false preachers.
And you know, every preacher at some time, and I'm talking
about God's true preachers, we've all been called false preachers.
I've been called a false preacher. I've been called a false preacher
in a lot. In fact, I've determined this,
if you're not preaching the truth, if you haven't been called a
false preacher, you're not saying anything. Really? And I've been called a false
preacher for a lot of different reasons. I've had people say
of me, say, well, it's not what he says, it's what he doesn't
say. Well, man, you could fill volumes with what I don't say.
That's nothing. I don't see anywhere in God's
Word where it says, look at what a man doesn't say. Now, let me
say this, if a man doesn't preach Christ and Him crucified, he's
not God's preacher. I've heard people say, well,
just listen. Well, what am I listening for? Oh, you just listen. You'll
hear it or you won't hear it, you know. Well, I want to tell
you something. That's wicked. I'm telling you the truth. That
is wicked. All that is, you're just planting a seed of doubt.
That's satanic. Now, here's what you do. Now,
how am I going to know? Go to God's Word right here. You can go from Genesis to Revelation
and read everything that God's Word says about false preachers
and about true preachers. And here it is. And it's not
difficult. Now, it takes some time. I can't
go through them all today. We'd be here too long. But here's
the issue. Now, look back here at 1 John
4. See what I'm talking about. He starts off in verse 1. He
says, Beloved. Now, he's talking to believers
here, those to whom God has revealed Christ. Those who have confidence
in Christ and not in their flesh, those who believe the gospel
of God's grace, that's the evidence of the Beloved. Do you know Christ? Are you resting in His finished
work as your whole salvation? Or are you looking elsewhere? And he says, Beloved, believe
not every spirit, but try, that word try means test, put them
to the test, test the spirits whether they are of God. Is this
a spirit of God? Is this the spirit of God, or
is this another spirit? And the reason is, is the same
reason that Paul told the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20. The
reason you need to do this is because many false prophets are
gone out into the world. Now, anyone who knows anything
about Christianity at all knows this, that Christianity puts
a great stress and necessity upon believing. Believing. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved. Believe. And it's not believing
myths or legends, but it's believing truth. Believe truth. Don't believe
a lie. Faith is not a way of convincing
yourself that something is true when you know it's not, as someone
has defined it. But faith is believing something
because it's true. It's true. And in order to be
a Christian, you must be a believer. You can't be a Christian and
an unbeliever because from life comes faith. Where the Holy Spirit
gives life, he gives faith in Christ. Isn't that right? Faith in the true and living
God. He gives strength and peace and joy in believing. But that
being true, it's equally true that every Christian is also
called in one way to be an unbeliever. How's that? Right here. Don't
believe everything you hear. Don't believe every spirit. There's
a time when unbelief is the right thing, and it's the only right
thing. The very same scriptures which encourage us to believe
likewise urge us not to believe. In fact, they only urge us, they
command us not to believe. And there's no contradiction
here. Any more than to say in order to live, it's necessary
both to inhale and exhale. You can't just live by inhaling,
can you? Try it sometime. And you can't
live just by exhaling. You've got to inhale, and then
you've got to exhale. You've got to take some of it
in, and you've got to let some of it out. That's the way it
is. You cannot do both at the same time. You can't inhale while
you're exhaling, and you can't exhale while you're inhaling.
It won't work. But both of them are absolutely
necessary to maintain life. Now, it's the same with this
matter of belief and unbelief. You cannot believe truth without
rejecting error. Truth and error don't mix. You
cannot love righteousness unless you are ready to hate sin. They
don't mix. You cannot receive and follow
Christ without rejecting self. You cannot rest in the grace
of God and then in your own works too. It won't work. Christ said
this, he said, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself
and take up his cross and follow me. You can't follow Christ and
his cross without taking up your cross and denying self. You cannot
submit to Christ's righteousness as the only ground of salvation
while at the same time trying to continue to work out your
own way to righteousness. They won't miss. No servant can
serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love
the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon. You cannot love Christ and the
brethren without hating the world. John wrote that back in chapter
2. Those who try are called in the scripture double-minded people. And a double-minded person is
always unstable in all of his ways, James chapter 1 verse 8. You cannot follow good unless
you're ready to flee from evil. So it's not surprising, therefore,
that the Scripture tells us we're not to believe as well as to
believe. This is what John declares in
these first verses of chapter 4. You cannot believe God the
Holy Spirit without rejecting all other spirits, because all
other spirits are false spirits. Now, how can I know that what
I'm hearing and believing is of God the Holy Spirit? and not
a lying spirit, a false spirit. Well, we have to judge, have
to make a judgment, and we have to make a judgment based on a
right standard. And let me tell you something
now. It's not our standard, it's God's standard. You see, that's
the problem. People want to judge, but they
want to judge based on their own standard. Well, here's a
commandment. Listen to it again, verse 1.
Here's the commandment. Beloved, believe not every spirit.
But test, try the spirits, whether they are of God. Because many
false prophets are going out into the world. This is a commandment
for the people of God not to believe a lie. And then comes
the commandment to try or test the spirits, whether they are
of God. And then comes the reason. There's a lot of false prophets.
False preachers, as I said, have always been numerous in the world. And people in religion, now think
about this, and even believers now, are sometimes confused about
the issue of judgment, judging. I want to show you what I mean.
Turn to Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7. I've said
this before, and you've heard it before. Matthew 7 and verse
1. This is probably one of the most
misquoted confused and misunderstood verses in the whole of the Bible.
Matthew 7.1. Look at it. Judge not that you
be not judged. You've heard that. You've probably
said it yourself. I have. And most people, they'll
use this in a general way to say, well, we are not supposed
to judge at all. All judgment is sinful. All judgment
is forbidden. Now, my question to you is, is
that what this is saying? The answer is no. Now, I want
you to jump down to verse 15 of Matthew 7. Now, remember,
he says, Judge not that you be not judged. But then in verse
15, what does he say? He says, Beware of false prophets. Now, my question is this. How
are you going to beware or be wary or careful of false prophets
unless you judge them to be false. You see what I'm saying? In other
words, if you're going to be aware of them and not listen
to them and not believe them and not follow them, you're going
to have to make a judgment. You're going to have to judge
that this fellow is false. He's not telling me the truth.
I cannot follow him. I cannot believe what he's saying.
Isn't that right? So how do you judge that with
judge not? Well, look at Matthew 7, verse
1 again. What's he saying there? He says,
judge not that you be not judged. Now go on to verse 2. Keep it
in its context. For with what judgment you judge,
you shall be judged. And with what measure you meet,
it shall be measured to you again. What's he talking about? He's
saying whatever standard of judgment you use, That's the standard
of judgment that's going to be used on you. And it's kind of
like this, you know. Somebody talking about saved
and lost. Who's saved? Who's lost? Somebody says, well,
I can't tell who's saved and who's lost. Now listen to me
very carefully here. The moment anybody looks at anybody else
and says, I know that person is not saved because they are
a sinner. What have they just done? They've
just condemned themselves. Because I want to tell you something.
I may not know you personally, but I know this about you. You're
a sinner. So if you judge another person
to be lost because they're a sinner, you've just condemned yourself.
What measure you measure with, mete out, the same is going to
be measured unto you. We're all sinners, the Scripture
says. God's Word says every one of us in this building are sinners.
Everyone outside this building are sinners. For all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. That's why we need salvation
by grace. That's why we need mercy. That's
why I don't want what I've earned and what I deserve. I want Christ
and Him crucified. I want God to judge me in Christ,
to be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness which
is of the law, but that which is through the faithfulness of
Christ. I want to be found washed in His blood and clothed in His
righteousness. That's my only hope. And I want
to tell you something, that's your only hope too. There's no
other salvation. But look at verse 3. He says,
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye,
but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? In
other words, a mote is like a little splinter. In other words, he's
picturing like somebody going around here just trying to pick
a splinter out of somebody else's eye when they've got a big old
beam in their own eye, like a cross tie. In other words, if you look
at me and call me a sinner, well, what you see of my sin, what
you can actually see of my sin, is just a little splinter of
what it really is. You don't know the half of it.
Does that shock you? But you see, it's the same with
you. The only thing I can see of your sin is just a little
splinter, because I can't look into your heart. Now, God can. And you can know something of
it. There's a beam there. There's a beam in every one of
us. We're all sinners, you see. And that's what he's saying here.
Verse 4, Oh, how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out
the mote out of thine eye, and behold, a beam is in thine own
eye. Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own
eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote.
out of thy brother's eyes." What he's talking about is like these
religious people, these pious, head-in-the-cloud kind of people
who are going out there trying to fix up everybody, trying to
work out everybody's sin, trying to take care of everybody's sin,
and they can't even take care of their own. That's the problem. Hypocrites. But you see, the
one who turns to Christ for hope, for salvation, for life, for
righteousness. You see, he can see clearly.
He knows the being that's within him. I know what I am. God knows
what I am. And I'm telling you that there's
no hope for this man up here behind this pulpit to be saved
but the sovereign mercy and grace of God in Christ. And that's
at my best. And therefore, I can point you
to the same way. You say, I know how to take care
of sin. Look to Christ. Plead His blood
and His righteousness. And that's how you need to take
care of it. Now, if I'm going around here trying to fix you
up, well, now you've got to do this and you've got to do that
and you've got to bow to me and all that, well, that's a hypocrite. That's a false preacher. Let
me tell you something about God's true preachers. They'll point
you one place, one person, Christ and Him crucified. And they won't
point you anywhere else for salvation, for sin, for righteousness. Look back here at, well, let's
go on. Let me tell you, let's go to
2 Corinthians 11. This is the passage that Brother
Jim read. Now, here's the thing that you've
got to understand what the Bible teaches about false preachers. And it's kind of like this, now. Think about politicians. Politicians
are great at double-speak and cloudy language, you know, not
saying what they really should say. And that's the way it is
with false preachers. Many of them are real subtle,
real subtle in what they preach. In other words, it's not just
an open denial. If a man come up here in this
pulpit and stand up and say, well, now, don't look to Christ,
don't look to the true and living God and His sovereign mercy and
grace, but look to your own works, I would say that nobody in this
building this morning would be fooled by that. I hope nobody would anyway. If
a person stood up and said, well, I don't believe there is a God,
I'm an atheist, you wouldn't be fooled by that. You wouldn't
listen to them for a second. But see, false preachers are
a little different now in the Scriptures. The thing about it
is, now I didn't read this over Matthew 7, but if you look down
there, he speaks of woods and sheep's clothing. Remember, Paul
said that in Acts chapter 20. They disguise themselves. They
disguise themselves and they can say the right things at the
right time. I want you to listen. Think about
three words here I'll give you. The first one is error. The Holy
Spirit is the spirit of truth. All other spirits are the spirit
of error. And then think about this word, bondage. There's a
spirit of bondage. The Holy Spirit is the spirit
of liberty in Christ. All other spirits are bondage.
And then think about this, confusion. Now the Holy Spirit is not a
spirit of confusion. He's a spirit of truth and clarity
and simplicity. All other spirits are confusion.
Error, bondage, and confusion. Now think of those three things.
Sometimes they're the same thing. But look here what he says in
verse 3 of 2 Corinthians 11. Now Paul says, I fear lest by
any means as the serpent, now he's talking about Satan there,
he beguiled, bewildered, fooled, deceived, Eve, through his what? His subtlety. He didn't come
to Eve and say, now I'm opposed to everything that God said.
He come to Eve and he said, half God said. Half God said. And then he went against God.
And then he says, so your minds should be corrupted from the
simplicity that is in Christ. That word simplicity is a beautiful
word. It means singleness. It means
focused. It means clearly set on Christ. We read about it in the book
of Isaiah, chapter 26. It's the mind that is stayed,
S-T-A-Y-E-D, stayed upon God. Now, he said, I don't want your
minds to be corrupted from that which would fixate you on Christ
and Him crucified. His glory, the glory of His person.
A priest on the last week. Who He is? He's God and man in
one person. He's the God-man. That's why
it took the God-man to be our Savior and our Redeemer. What
He accomplished on Calvary. He made an end of sin. He finished
the transgression. He brought in everlasting righteousness.
He saved His people from their sins. They were justified in
Him by God. He redeemed them. They're His
and He'll have them. And he sends his Spirit to give life to the
dead and bring them to him. All that the Father hath given
me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no
wise cast out. And then, why did he do it? He
did it in order that God might be just and justifier. God must
be both a righteous judge as well as a loving Father. He can
only be just and justifier based on the blood and righteousness
of Christ. to the praise of the glory of his grace." Where is
he now? He's seated. He's the resurrected
Lord of Glory. Anybody who doesn't preach the
resurrection of Christ doesn't preach the gospel. It's a lying
spirit. His death, burial, and resurrection
is the accomplishment of salvation. He's seated right now at the
right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession for
us, and he's coming again. He's coming again. And that's
an interesting He's coming again. He said, you don't know when.
You know what that tells me? If the Lord is coming again and
He said, you don't know when, anybody who stands up and tries
to preach when is what? False preacher. I don't know
when He's coming, but I know He is. Maybe any day now, any
second. I don't know. That's not what
we're to be involved in. We're to preach Him who is coming.
for the salvation of his people. He's coming again to gather his
church and judge this world. Now, that simplicity, any message
that takes you off of that simplicity that's in Christ, that single
message of salvation, totally wrapped up in his glorious person
and his finished work, is not of God. It's not of God. And Paul writes down here, look
at verse 4, he says, for if he that cometh preacheth another
Jesus, one who is not God and man, one who is not the Savior
of his people, the Redeemer, the Lord our righteousness, whom
we've not preached, or if you receive another spirit, not the
Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit's going to lead sinners to Christ
and Him crucified nowhere else. I'll tell you, if the Spirit's
leading you anywhere else, it's not the Holy Spirit. Isn't that
right? Some people talk about conviction of sin. I believe
they're under conviction. Well, I'll tell you, if it's
Holy Spirit conviction, I know where they're going to end up.
They're going to end up in the bosom of our Savior, trusting
Him, resting in Him, pleading Him, and nothing else. If they
end up somewhere else, resting in their baptism, in their profession,
in their tithing, in their church membership, in their good works,
do they end up anywhere else? It's not the Holy Spirit. That's
a false preacher, friend. Don't listen to him. Which you've
not received. And he says another gospel, which
you've not accepted, you might well bear with, and that should
be me. The King James translator's got
that one wrong. At him, there's an italic, so
it's an objective pronoun. And usually objective pronouns,
you can go her, him, or them, but it's me. Paul said, bear
with me. But jump across the page there,
look at verse 13, 2 Corinthians 11. Now he says, for such are false
apostles, deceitful workers, they're deceptive. Now listen
to this carefully. Transforming themselves into the apostles
of Christ. Now the tense of the verb transforming
there, suggest a temporary transformation. And what he's saying is this,
is that these false preachers, they at times can transform into
saying the right things, but they cannot stay there. And you know why they can't stay?
Their message cannot consistently be the simplicity, the single
message of Christ in Him crucified. And the reason they can't stay
there is because that's not where their heart is. It won't be long
they'll have to jump back and preach their works. Or they'll
have to get your eyes off Christ and looking within, or looking
to the preacher, or looking to the denomination, looking elsewhere.
But they cannot stay focused on Him, whom to know is life
eternal. And he goes on, he says, therefore
it's no great thing, verse 15, if his ministers also be transformed
as the ministers of righteousness. We preach justification before
God based solely upon the imputed righteousness of Christ. That's
what we preach. That's the heart of the gospel.
His righteousness being the entire merit of his obedience unto death.
God saves, keeps, blesses, accepts sinners based upon totally the
righteousness of Christ freely imputed, and we receive it by
faith. Now, even a false prophet can transform for a time and
say that, but he can't stay there. He's going to have to talk about
man's righteousness somewhere, somehow, some form, because that's
where his heart is. You listen now. And he says,
whose end shall be according to their works. But now look
down at verse 20. Now, here's what the problem
is. He says, for you suffer. That word suffer means allow.
You allow if a man bring you into bondage. Remember I said
error, bondage, confusion. Bondage. There's a problem. Bondage. Now, what is that bondage? I want you to turn to Galatians
chapter 5. Now, basically, I'll say it this way.
Bondage is any hope of salvation in any way, to any degree, at
any stage, in any form, that's not based solely and secured
solely by the blood and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
bondage. In other words, here comes a
preacher and he says, well, now I believe in Christ and I believe
he's my hope, but you've got to be baptized in order to be
saved. That's bondage. Or if somebody comes along and
says, well, now you've got, Christ is my hope, he's my all, but
you've got to do your part in order to attain it or maintain
it. That's bondage. Now, Paul used the example of
the Judaizers. These were Jews who had crept
into the church here in Galatia, and they were saying that Christ
is their salvation, is their hope, but you've got to be circumcised
to be saved. You've got to keep the law. You've
got to keep a day in order to be holy or more saved. Now listen to what he says in
Galatians 5 and verse 1. Listen to this. He says, verse
1, Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has
made us free. Christ has made me free from
bondage. I'm free from the law. The law cannot condemn me. Why?
Because Christ took my condemnation on the cross. He took what I
deserved on the cross. He died so that I wouldn't have
to eternally. My sins were laid to his charge,
and he drank damnation dry for me. But not only that, he also
kept the law from me. Everything that God's law required
of me is fulfilled completely in Christ. Let me just quote
it to you. Romans 10, verse 4. For Christ is the end of the
law, the accomplishment, the fulfillment of the law for righteousness
to everyone that what? Believeth. You see that? Christ has made us free, and
be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Now listen to
verse 2. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you that if you be circumcised,
now what he's saying here is if you think circumcision is
what saves you, and you could put any religious rite in there,
if you think baptism saves you, if you think church membership
saves you, if you think walking down an aisle saves you, if you
think tithing saves you, if you think any form of man's work
saves you, Christ shall profit you nothing." It doesn't matter
what you say. You may holler Christ from the rafters, but
if you be circumcised, if you think anything but Christ and
Him alone saves you, He'll profit you nothing. It's a denial. In verse 3, he says, "...for
I testify again to every man that is circumcised." That is
for that reason. In order to be saved, in order
to be holy, thinking that it recommends you unto God. that
he's a debtor to do the whole law. In other words, if you think
anything but Christ alone makes you fit and qualified for heaven,
if you think it's anything you do or are enabled to do, you
are a debtor to do it all. You've just put a burden on yourself
that you can't handle. You're responsible to do the
whole law. You say, well, what's wrong with that? We're sinners. We've broken them all. And then
he says in verse 4, Christ is become of no effect unto you
whosoever of you are justified, declared righteous by the law.
You're falling from grace. You're denying grace. That's
what he's saying. You see, that's the standard
of judgment. Christ and him crucified. Let
me conclude with Matthew 7. Go back there with me just for
a moment. Now, my friend, there's only
two ways. Now, let me tell you something
about the simplicity of the message of grace. Now, man, he likes
to muddle it up. He likes to confuse it. He likes
to give you a thousand ways that you can choose from. But basically,
there's only two roads. One is the way of salvation. The other is called a broad road
that leads to destruction. Now, I admit, on that broad road
that leads to destruction, there's a million different kinds. But it's only one road. John has already settled it in
his first epistle there. I mean, you're either going the
way of Cain, or you're going the way of Abel. Isn't that right?
It's either Cain or Abel. It's the way of work, salvation,
or it's the way of grace. Works is what you do or what
you're enabled to do. Grace is what Christ has done,
what He's already accomplished, His blood and righteousness alone.
That's the only two ways. Now, look here at verse 13 of
Matthew 7. Enter ye in at the straight gate.
Now, the straight gate is the one way of salvation. For wide
is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction,
and many there be which go in thereat. Because straight is
the gate. You know it's called straight.
Notice it's S-T-R-A-I-T. It's like a narrow inlet that
they took ships through. And there was just enough room
there for the ship to go in. And the picture here is this.
When you go this straight gate in this narrow way, you can't
bring anything with you. You can't bring your own works.
You can't bring your own baggage. You can't bring your own food,
your own luggage, your own righteousness. You have to come alone, naked. There's no room for anything
else. And he says, straight is the gate, and narrow is the way,
which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. So
there's the broad road, the road of condemnation, and the straight
gate. Now, the next thing he says,
look at verse 15, beware of false prophets. which come to you in
sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You
shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns,
or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth
forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt
tree bring forth good fruit." Now what is a false apostle here? It's one who is pointing and
leading the way of the broad road that leads to destruction.
The way of works. And that cannot produce any good
fruit, because nobody is going to be saved on that road. It
leads to destruction. It's the way of damnation. It's
the way of men's self-righteous works and efforts. Now, what
is a true apostle? A true preacher. A prophet of
God. One who points to the straight
gate. The narrow way. Christ. And there will be some
fruit there, because the gospel is the power of God in the self.
That's the way God saves sinners. That's the way he produces his
fruit, the salvation of his people, which proceed forth from Christ
and him crucified. Let's sing hymn number 388 as
our closing hymn, Have Thine Own Way, 388.