Morning. I'm thankful your pastor
asked me. This is a good place to be. I'm
thankful to be here. Y'all greet me beyond what I
deserve, certainly. Rebecca's sorry she couldn't
be here. We have a new grandbaby that was due three days ago.
And whenever that happens, she's got to take care of the little
bitty ones. So she says hello anyway. All right. Let me begin this morning with
this introduction. Even as believers, and believers
of a long time, there is so much that God's people simply do not
know. There's so much we don't know. But thanks be unto God, All believers know enough. The Lord sees to that. All believers
know enough. Everything we know that is necessary
to know and believe is revealed to God's people in God's Word
by His Spirit. He sees to it. And let me summarize
in simple terms the three things every believer must know and
believe. Number one, Jesus Christ is the
perfect, holy, righteous Son of God. We just got to know and
believe that. Number two, all men and women
were born, all born, by our sinners. We just got to know and believe
that. And thirdly, the Lord Jesus Christ took unto Himself all
the sin of all His people and He gave them His perfection.
Now that's as simple as I know how to say it. If we know and
believe these three things, it's because God's Spirit has shown
us and caused us to believe the truth about Christ, about us,
as it's revealed in God's Word. Knowing and believing these simple
yet amazing truths is a wonderful thing. Let me ask you a question. If this is enough to know and
believe, and it is, why do God's people want to, indeed need to,
just keep coming back to worship Him over and over and over again? Why do they keep coming to hear
more about Him? Well, I think I can answer that.
God the Holy Spirit creates a need in the new heart. Folks who don't want to come
and hear about Christ, don't want to worship Him, it's a heart
issue. It's a heart problem. But everyone
to whom the Spirit of God gives a new heart, they want to be
here. They want to hear. and worship
Christ. The desire to worship is caused
by that need to worship that the Spirit puts in the heart.
In God's people, they don't have to be bribed, begged, cajoled,
threatened, and pleaded with to come worship. In the wilderness, Moses did
never have to say this. You know what he didn't have
to say? Not one time did he have to say, okay, good morning, everyone
who collects manna today gets a bigger tent. God will bless you. He might
give you a dollar if you just go out and get you some manna
this morning. He didn't have to do that. Moses never once
had to say, everyone who collects manna today, you know, if you
really don't want to, he said, we'll pick it up for you and
bring it to you. We eat it then. He didn't have to say that. Moses
never had to say, without you, there'd be no hands to pick up
the manna. Moses never had to say, if you
don't pick up manna, you're going to die and go to hell. You're
going to starve to death. He didn't say that, did he? You
have to threaten him. Moses certainly never had to
say, please, please, please, please, go out and get you some
manna this morning. You didn't have to do any of
that. Jesus Christ is the bread of life. He's the perfect food. And believers not only desire,
they need and want to have all the bread they can gather. And
believers want all the Christ they can get. That's why they
keep coming back to worship God. Now let me go through these three
simple things one more time. Turn to Deuteronomy 32. The book
of Deuteronomy chapter 32. And while you're finding that,
I'm going to read you a few verses out of Psalm 18. And listen as
you turn. Psalm 18.30 says, As for God,
His way is perfect. It says, the way of the Lord
is tried, it's refined. Now I'm not reading from Deuteronomy
32 yet, I'm quoting Psalm 18. Psalm 18 also says, for who is
God, save the Lord, or who is a rock like our God? We can stand
on the rock Christ Jesus. And look what it says in Deuteronomy
32 verse 1. Give ear, O heavens, and I will
speak. And hear, O worth, the words
of my mouth." This is our Lord speaking and He says, shall drop as the rain. My speech,
my preaching, shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon
the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass." It doesn't matter
whether we're... The Scriptures talks about babes
in Christ, and young men and women in Christ, and the mature
in Christ. It doesn't matter whether we're tall grass, or
sort of shorter grass. It's just little bitty green
sprouts coming out of the ground. You know what we all gotta have?
the dew of the morning, the rain of the day. And that's what the
Word of God is to His people. We've got to come in here and
get a drink. We've got to have the refreshing
Word of our Lord. Verse 3 says, Because I'll publish
the name of the Lord, ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He's
the rock. Here's where we can stand. His
work is perfect. Do we see that? Everything He's
done in the salvation of His people, it's perfect. There's
no accidents here. There's nothing gone wrong. Not
at all. This is happening in the perfect
way God determined for it to happen. It says, for all His
ways are judgment. They're righteous and right.
He's a God of truth and without iniquity. Just and right is He. God's perfect. And so is the
Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son. And God's Word declares that
Jesus Christ is holy and righteous. He is perfect. He's the rock
upon which one can stand. Psalm 145, let me read you this. The Lord is righteous in all
His ways and holy in all His works. You know, the Lord Jesus
Christ was born as a baby in this world, just like every one
of us. And as an infant, as a child,
as a teenager, as a man, not one time did he ever sin. I realize that's hard for us
to get our arms around. But this is impossible for us
who drink iniquity and sin like water. It's impossible for us
to understand and enter into, much less believe unless God
reveals the truth to us about ourselves and about the Lord
Jesus Christ. And the truth is Christ is the
perfect righteousness of God. That's the first thing. The second
thing is that all men and women, even children, are by nature
vile sinners. How did we get that way? Turn
back a few pages to Deuteronomy 27. How did we get in the shape
we're in? Well, you know, God put Adam
and Eve in the garden. And what happened? Adam disobeyed
God and he became cursed. He became infected with the disease
of sin. And you know what the disease
of sin will do? It'll bother you until it kills you. It'll cause you problems and
trouble until one day it finally kills you. That's what sin will
do. It's a disease which is genetically
passed from parents to children. Every generation gets it. No
one's immune. Scripture says all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. And the evidence of that
didn't take long to bear fruit in Adam's day. He and Eve had
two boys, didn't he? First two sons they had were
what? Cain and Abel? Now, what happened? What happened? God said, we're going to sacrifice,
told Adam, and Adam taught his boys, so we're going to sacrifice,
bring a lamb. Well, one of them brought a lamb. Abel brought
a lamb. What can do? Cain said, I think
I'll bring my fruit. I think I'll bring my fruit.
And when God refused the fruit and accepted the lamb, he got
mad at his brother. And they were out in the field
a little while longer, and you know what happened? Cain rose up and
took an axe or something and just wham, he killed his brother. What made him do that? You got it. Sin. He was infected. He had this
disease in him that caused him to not think right, to not do
what he should do. And it rose up and he killed
his brother. Scripture says he rose up against
his brother Abel and slew him. And God told him immediately,
and now art thou cursed from the earth. I mean, this was one
of the first two boys that ever lived. And God said, you're cursed. And God declares, anyone who
breaks God's law, even just one law, is cursed. Just one sin makes a person cursed
of God. And I found a list of things
that will get a person cursed. Turn, if you will, well you've
got Deuteronomy 27 here, you got it? You know, the Levites
were the people in charge of the law. We all know the Ten
Commandments, roughly, don't we? We know certain things we're
not supposed to do. You know what the Levites did?
They brought that up a lot. But every time something happened,
somebody got caught doing something, they'd add to the list and refine
the list so that there was no misunderstanding. People would
go, hmm, okay, it doesn't mean just don't steal, it means don't
steal this way. I mean, the Levites kept it.
And what that pictures is this. God's got a book in heaven. You
know what He's writing down in that book? Every sin of every
person who ever lived. Whether it's something we did,
something we thought, it's all written down there. That's what
this picture is. But look at what the Levites wrote. here
in Deuteronomy 27 verse 14. It says, And the Levites shall
speak and say unto all the men of Israel with a loud voice. Y'all ever been about to do something
that you probably nobody else is going to know about? And you're
thinking, I can do this and get away with it. You ever think
that? Huh? You know what? God's law says
with a loud voice. I'm watching. I see it. When our conscience gets after
us like that, we ought to maybe listen to it, hey? But they'd
say it with a loud voice to all the people. Look at verse 15.
Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image and
abomination unto the Lord, the works of the hands of the craftsman,
and putteth it in a secret place. We all know the Ten Commandments
says, have no other gods before you, right? Well, this is a refinement
of that. This says, not only don't make
a golden calf, don't make a little bitty, bitty one and put him
in your pocket where nobody else knows you got him. What this
is saying is God knows you've got him and you're cursed because
of it. Look at verse 17. Cursed be he
that removeth his neighbor's landmark. Now this one's kind
of interesting. We got, I don't know how many
fences I've passed coming out of Crossville to here. They didn't have fences like
barbed wire and all the chain link and all that stuff. What
they did back then was if you had a piece of land, there was
a pile of stones in this corner and that corner and that corner
and that corner. This is my land and that's this
neighbor's and that neighbor's. What this is saying is if a fella
gets up in the middle of the night, 2 a.m., and he tiptoes
out there and he picks up his pile of stones and moves them
over a foot here, And then the next night he gets up and creeps
out there and he moves him another foot over. Well, pretty soon
he's got half his neighbor's land. And the neighbor's going,
what happened? I thought I had more land here than I did. And
why would somebody do that? This fella can grow more crops
and make more money. What's the root of all evil?
That love of money. And this is a refinement. Do
we see that? The Levites said, we better write
this one down so everybody knows, don't move that pile of stones.
Okay, look at verse 19. Cursed be he that perverted the
judgment of the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. Well,
what this means is that some fellow dies and he leaves a widow.
And the lawyer comes and says, you're so lucky. You're going
to get $25,000. Well, the truth is, her husband
left her $100,000. And this slick lawyer figured out a way to beat
her out of $75,000 of it. You say, who would do that? That's despicable. Well, the
Levites apparently saw it happen and said, we better write that
one down so that doesn't warn everybody about that one. I skipped the one, verse 18,
go back there. Cursed be he that maketh the
blind to wander out of the way. You say nobody does that. Standing in the road and a blind
man's walking down the road. And some fella goes, hey, hey,
you better be careful. You need to come this way some.
And the blind man starts this way and walks off a cliff or
falls in a ditch. You say who would do that? Somebody
did. Because the Levites wrote it
down. He said, don't do that. If you
do that, you're cursed of God. Go back over to verse 20. And you know, I've struggled
with this. I'm not going to read verses
20, 21, 22. I'm not going to read them out loud. You can read
the first line of them if you want to. They're so despicable
and wicked and evil. And we think in our heart, who
would do stuff like that? Well, the proof that it was going
on was the Levites wrote about it. And listen, let's not look
back there and think, well, those pagan, wicked people. The Apostle Paul wrote the same
thing to the Corinthians about some of this. And folks, except
for the grace of God, there's nothing you and I won't do. Not
a thing. Look at verse 24. Cursed be he that smites his
neighbor secretly. That means you ever had a neighbor,
and when you're meeting him face to face, you say, you're a fine
fellow. I think a lot of you appreciate this kind of thing.
As soon as he's out of sight, the neighbor on the other side
of you goes, you know about that guy? You know what he does? You know who he is? Anybody ever
done that? It says if you do that, you're
cursed with God. Verse 25, "...cursed be he that taketh reward to slay
an innocent person." Who's a paid assassin here? You say, well,
I'm glad I'm not guilty of that. Anybody ever thought it in your
heart? I read about it almost every day in the news. Verse
26, Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law
to do them. You find fault with anything
God's Word says, guilty. Cursed of God. Now this is pretty
tough, isn't it? But I suspect most of us are
sitting here thinking, like me, when I read this, I thought,
well, I haven't actually done that stuff. Okay, turn back. Did you notice
I skipped verse 16? I'm fixing to throw a big lasso
right here with my rope. Verse 16 says, "...cursed be
he that setteth light by his father or his mother." And I
had to look it up and figure out what that means. You know
what setteth light means? It means, you kids listen to
this too, It means by looks or gestures to mock our parents
in a private manner unseen by others. Ooh, let me illustrate
this for you. Mom comes in and says, time for
bed. She turns around, gets her pajamas
on. She starts out the door. Any
of you kids ever done this? Giving her that eye roll. Now,
you didn't do it when she was looking at you, because you knew
that would get the bottom of your pajamas warmed up. Dad comes in and says, son, I
need your help raking some leaves out in the yard. And you got
your phone or your game in your hand, and he goes out the door
and you go, I wish he'd leave me alone. Oh, you say that to
yourself, because if he heard it going out the door, there'd
be big trouble. Any of us ever done that? If
anybody here says you never did it, you feel free to raise your
hand. I was guilty. My boys were guilty. My boys,
to this day, they're almost 40. They show me great respect beyond
what I deserve. But every once in a while, I'll
turn around and start out after saying something, and I, in the
back of my head, I see them. And I deserve some eye rolls.
I'm getting to where I'm so old I think and say things I wish
I hadn't said. But is there anybody innocent
here? We don't have to teach our children
to give us a smirk or an eye roll, do we? What's wrong with
them? They got the disease. They're
cursed of God. Oh, it's awful. It's an awful
thing. You know what this word cursed
means? It's over and over and over down through here. I had
to look it up, and I was almost sorry I did. There's a word it
means called, you ever hear it, they used to teach us, forget
the term, for words that sound like what they mean? Here's one
for you. Cursed means execrated. I've never heard of that word. Execrated. It sounds bad, doesn't
it? Because it is bad. being cursed
of God is bad. It means to be declared to be
evil and detestable. It means condemned. I said all
that to say this. Folks, we're in a mess. By nature,
we're in a mess. All of us. Because all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. We're execrated and cursed. And when the gospel is preached,
folks, see the truth about Christ. He's perfect and holy and righteous. And when the gospel is preached,
we all see the truth about ourselves. We're execrated and cursed. And
just like when the gospel was preached by Peter at Pentecost,
when it's preached, you know what folks say? They're pricked
in their heart. You say, we got dead hearts. Oh, they got new hearts when
they heard the gospel. And they're pricked in that heart, and you
know what they say? Men and brethren, what are we
going to do? What are we going to do? I'm
execrated. I'm cursed, condemned by God. What will I do? And to
this day, when the Gospel is preached, it still happens just
that same way. Indeed, what is man to do? Turn
over to Psalm 18, and let me give you some good news. Psalm
18. The first point is that Jesus
Christ is the perfect righteous Son of God. Second point is that
we're all cursed, evil by nature, all men and women. But the good
news is that Jesus Christ takes away the sin, all the sin of
all His people, and gives them His perfection. Look at Psalm
18, verse 30. As for God, His way is perfect.
There it is again. The Word of the Lord is tried.
It's been tested. It's refined in the fire. He
is a buckler. He's the protector, the shield
to all those that trust in Him. For who is God? Save the Lord.
And who is a rock? Save our Lord. Save our God. It is God that girdeth me with
strength. And look at this phrase. It's
God that maketh my way perfect. Now there's some good news. God
makes the way of his people. Perfect. Turn back to 2 Samuel. 2 Samuel. Chapter 22. And I want to try to illustrate
this. What I just read to you. As a
lad, We know the Lord Jesus Christ came to this world as a male
child, as a boy, an infant, and he grew up, and as he got older,
he worked in Joseph, his earthly dad's workshop, a carpenter shop. He worked there. Well, let's
suppose one day that Joseph is working in there, and so is Jesus
Christ. And one of our Lord's earthly
sisters walks in the room. And she says, Daddy, Daddy, I
don't, to Joseph, she says, Daddy, I don't feel good. I don't feel
right. And she promptly throws up all
over the workshop. And let's say Joseph picks her
up in his arms the way a dad would do and says, honey, I'll
take care of it. And they start out the door and
Joseph turns to this young lad, Jesus Christ, and says, Son,
I'll take care of her. Clean up this mess. Now I know what my children would
have done. Look up here. Or a lot worse than that. Might
have said anything behind my back. Do you know what the Lord
Jesus Christ would have said? Father, I'll be happy to. Yes, sir, I'll clean it up. And
in his heart, he really meant, I'll be happy to. Look at 2 Samuel 22 verse 31. As for God, His way is perfect. The word of the Lord is tried,
it's true. He's a buckler, a protector to
all them that trust in Him. For who is God, save the Lord,
and who is a rock, save our God. God is my strength and power,
and He maketh my way perfect. You and I, all of us would have
given our dad an eye roll, a smirk or worse. Jesus Christ said,
I'll do it and I'll be glad. In every situation, no matter
how vile or terrible it was. How does Christ make my sinful
way perfect? How does he do that? At Calvary,
he took all my terrible sins, even my eye-rolled sins and my
smirks, and gives me his, yes, sir, I will do it. I'll be happy
to. Christ became execrated and cursed
of God so his people could remain or become perfect. Now turn to
Exodus chapter 8, the scripture that was read to us. This is the account of the fourth
plague in Egypt. It was the plague of flies. I
suggest you do yourself a favor unless you have a good reason
and don't look up flies on the internet. You may wish you hadn't. There's a hundred and twenty
thousand species of flies. There's house flies. We pretty
much know about those guys, right? They're everywhere. There's horse
flies, big flies. There's blow flies. All they
do is land on dead carcasses and defecation. That's all they
do. There's little gnats, there's fruit flies, there's drain flies.
I didn't know mosquitoes are a fly. I didn't know that. There's
sand flies, there's this thing midges commonly called no-see-ums. Anybody ever seen a no-see-um?
It's a little bitty, bitty fly that gets on you. And they swarm
in desert countries and at the beach. You probably got some
of them here. But two things they all have in common. They
bear disease and they bother people. Sounds a whole lot like
sin, doesn't it? God commanded Pharaoh to let
his people go and when he refused, when he rebelled, God cursed
him and all the Egyptians, how? With flies. With flies. He bothered them and brought
disease and death. And when Adam disobeyed God,
sin became like flies. They bother people. They bring
disease and death. There's big ones, horsefly sins.
There's tiny ones, the so-called no-sins, and one we think nobody
knows about that one. Nobody ever saw that. We're so
used to them, we almost take them for granted. And yet, mosquitoes
carry things like malaria. I didn't know houseflies carry
up to a hundred diseases. I didn't know that. Flies are
like sins. Where they come, death is certain
to follow. Flies came to Egypt and death
followed. And when Pharaoh asked Moses,
he said, I've had enough. I've had enough. He said, intercede
for the people of Egypt with your God. And Moses said, I'll
do it. I'll do it. And he did. And God
took away the flies. That's a picture of how God intercedes
for His people. Those who ask Him, Lord, help
me. I've got this terrible disease. I'm eating up with flies with
sin. Christ intercedes for His people
and God takes away their sin. All of them. The great ones,
the horsefly sins, The ones we think no one knows about, the
no-see-um sins, the most vile ones, the blow-by sins. All of
them, really all those millions of sins. And there were billions
and billions of flies in Egypt. How many were left after Moses
interceded? Look here, what was read to us.
Chapter 8, verse 32. I'm sorry, verse 31. And the
Lord did according to the word of Moses, and He removed the
swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants and from his
people. And look at this. How many were there? There remained
not one. How do you get rid of a billion
flies? It'd be a miracle. Let me tell
you, how do we get rid of our sin? It's a miracle. God sent
His Son to take care of all our sins, all our flies. If we're a child of God, how
many did we commit? How many of our sins remain in
God's sight? Not one. Now that's good news. Where did the sins go? All the
sins of God's people, where did they go? You know when a fly,
a house fly, a horse fly, a mosquito, no see them, when it lands on
us, what's the first thing we do? We want that thing gone or
dead, don't we? We shoo it away with our hand
or what have you. We try to swat it before it does
any real permanent harm. Do we think for a minute, hanging
on that cross, The Lord Jesus Christ, his body was a bloody
mess. The soldiers had whipped the
skin off his back. He bled. He had nails through
his hands and his feet, a spear in his hand. There was blood
everywhere. It drew the flies in that desert land like crazy. He was attacked. You know one
thing we know he didn't do? He didn't shoo a one of them
away. You say, well he couldn't. His hands were nailed up there.
He had them nailed up there on purpose. So nobody would ever
say he tried even to shoo them away. He let them land on him,
bite him, lay their eggs in him. He let them have all of him there
was. And that's a picture of our billions and billions of
sin coming on him. He took them all. He took them
all. Why? So it wouldn't happen to
us. So our sin would be gone, like
the flies of Egypt, and there remains not one. The Father said to the Son, and Mr. Page here, we're so used
to our sin, we almost take them for granted. Yet mosquitoes carry
malaria, how flies carry all these other diseases. And flies
are like sins. Where they come, death is certain
to follow. And the father said to the son,
here's what he said, before time ever began, he said, I've got
a people. And he said, they're going to
make a mess of it. And he said, son, go down there and clean
up this mess for my people. And God the Son, Jesus Christ,
He responded, Yea, Lord, I rejoice to do Thy will, O God. I'll be
happy to. And He did. That's what He came
here to do. And in the last day, to some,
the Lord Jesus Christ commands this. Depart from Me. You're cursed. You're covered
with flies. Covered with sin. Depart from
Me. But to God's people, and this
may not be far away for some of us, to God's people, Lord
Jesus Christ says this, enter into the place I prepared for
you from all eternity. You know what God's people respond? They say, for the very first
time, we say something that's not tainted with sin. For the
very first time, something comes out of our mouth that our heart
hasn't already tainted it. He says, enter in to the place
I've prepared for you from all eternity. And his people respond,
yea, Lord, at your command. I rejoice to do thy will, O God. I'll be happy to. enter we go to a place where
there's no flies, no sin, just the Lord Jesus Christ, His righteousness,
His perfection, and His people. If we know and believe who Christ
is and who we are and what He's done for us, we too can even
now say thanks be unto God for this unspeakable gift. Now that's
the good news. And when folks hear good news,
this is when Peter preached. They go, oh, what shall we do? And then he reveals what we should
do. Come worship Him. Come worship Him. And keep coming
until He comes back for us. All right. May the Lord bless
His Word. Let's stand together and turn
in our hymnals to Psalm 125. my strength and meaning. Lord, now indeed I find Thy power
and Thine alone Can change the leper's spot And melt the heart
of stone Why? in the blood of Calvary's Lamb. Jesus paid it all, all through
Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow. Don't forget the card in the
vestibule and we'll meet back here about six o'clock this evening