If you wish to follow along,
turn to Leviticus chapter one. This, Lord willing, will be my
last message from Leviticus chapters one through seven on the first
five offerings that are mentioned in those chapters. We will, Lord
willing, move on next time to chapters eight and nine. So if
you're so moved, next week start reading through eight and nine
pretty heavy, Leviticus eight and nine. But for this morning,
As I told you earlier, I've had many of these thoughts in my
mind for a while and then began in the past couple weeks when
I've been off and trying to put things in an order that I felt
that I could deliver to you this message in a way that hopefully
it'll have some meaning to you. As I began to do that, I got
a letter from someone and I'm going to mention who it is. I
don't mean to embarrass that person by any means. And Penny
read the letter. I was gonna bring it and let
Joe read it, but I forgot it. But Joe actually said he has
received a letter, so it may be pretty much the same thing,
I don't know. It just broke my heart. I mean, it broke my heart. And if you want to know a little
bit about some of the things, I'll talk to you later, but I'm
not going to put it on this cassette, on this tape. But as I read that
letter and I said, it just broke my heart. I thought, God, give
me the grace and enable me by your spirit to preach what I've
got to preach this morning, but to do it out of a sense of joy
and gladness, not in a way of preaching down to anyone, but
not only, and the reason I say that is because not only to preach
it with joy and gladness, but to preach it with a sense of
warning. With a sense of warning. Because I do know this. I don't
know a lot about why God has enabled us, this small group
that we have, to have the ministry that we have. And we don't see
a lot of what we would think of as positive results, but I
do. I have been made aware of some
positive results. There are some people that are
glad we're on the television every Sunday morning. And even
though they don't get the whole message on Sunday morning, it
kind of gets them stirred up to maybe try to figure it, find
out, you know, maybe get on the computer or something and get
the rest of it. So I do know that is taking place.
But you and I understand that in the age in which we live,
that we can gather here, a small group of people that gather in
this little building here. There may be someone in Indonesia
that hears the gospel through what we're doing here on these
Sunday mornings. You understand that? They get
on that computer and they can hear just about everything that
Joe and I has ever said when we stand behind this desk to
actually preach the gospel. And that is an amazing thing.
So we don't know what God's doing, but we know God's doing his will.
Now with that being said, let me say this in the beginning.
All five of the offerings mentioned in Leviticus chapters one through
seven, all of these offerings declare this, identification
with the offering. All five of them do, the burnt
offering, the peace offering, the sins of ignorance offering,
and I mention them together because they're similar in this identification. You have the meat offering, or
what we might call the grain offering. It mentions identification
with the offering. And then of course you have the
trespass offering. And it has its own truth of identification
with the offering. So as I said, and I know that
many of you probably realize as I began to go through Leviticus
one through seven that I didn't just take each offering and go
through one. There's plenty of men out there preaching good
sound gospel truth from these chapters and doing it in order. So I wanted to take a little
different approach. as I went into this. So again,
all five of the Leviticus one through seven offerings declare
this, identification with the offering. But it's not just a
phrase. Now the phrase is not there,
but the truth is taught there. But it's not just a phrase. It
is identification with the offering in a public, sincere, and willing
identification. It's never It's never a secret
identification. It's never an identification
that allows me to identify with the sacrifice and then still
put my hand, I'm gonna jump in, put my hand as it were on the
head of the burnt offering or on the head of the peace offering
or put my hand on the head of the sins of ignorance offering
and still at the same time take my other hand and identify with
the world. That's not what's taught here
at all. You identify with the offering. One hand, and this
is not stated here, but it's like this. I'm paraphrasing. One hand goes in your pocket,
and it stays by your side, and the other hand identifies with
the offering. You understand what I'm saying?
God's word does not allow us It never gives us permission
to identify with the offering, Jesus Christ the Lord, and to
lay our hands upon him, seeking him, and then still lay our hands
upon the world, and try to bring both together in ourselves. It
does not allow us that. Now there, no, hold on, let's
just read. Leviticus chapter one, verse
four and five. This is the burnt offering. And
he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering, and
it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. Isn't
that a glorious statement if you realize you need an atonement?
It's an oversimplification, I understand it, but just lay your hands on
the head. Isn't it Mason, just lay your
hands on the head, and it shall be an atonement for him. But
it's a little bit more, and he shall kill the bullock this person
that's just laid their hand. You see that? And he, this person
that just laid their hand upon the head, the identifier with
the offering gonna do what? Gonna kill the offering. That's
the burn offering. Now here's the peace offering,
chapter three and verse two. And he shall lay his hand upon
the head of his offering and kill it. Do you see it? And kill
it. All right, that's the peace offering.
Here's the sins of ignorance offering, chapter four, verse
four. And he shall bring the bullock
unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the
Lord, and he shall lay his hand upon the bullock's head, and
kill the bullock before the Lord. You see that? So we see these
three, because these are actual living creatures. You bring this
living creature, whether it be a burn offering, a peace offering,
or a sin of ignorance offering, and you bring this thing to the
tabernacle, and you lay your hand in identification upon the
head of that living beast, and then you slaughter it. That's
what it means. You don't put it to sleep, you
don't starve it to death, you slaughter it. And in most cases,
I am told the practice was they slit its throat. If it was a
bird, you know what it says? It actually says this, you wring
its head off, and you take that little creature, and you squeeze
it, Mason, and squeeze the blood out beside the altar. Now that's
an identification, is it not? That's an identification, but
also look at the meal offering, or the meat offering, it's called,
or a grain or meal offering. Chapter two, look at what it
says there. Chapter two, and he shall bring
it to Aaron's sons, the priest, and he shall take there out his
handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with
all the frankincense thereof, and the priest shall burn the
memorial of it upon the altar to be an offering made by fire
of a sweet savor unto the Lord. So it's like a cake of bread. and there's different parts,
and if you didn't have bread, you could use other things, but
we're not going into all that. But look, and the remnant, that
is the remainder of the meat offering, shall be Aaron and
his sons, son in what way? If you look and read it, they're
supposed to what? Eat. Now that's identification with
something, when you eat it, ain't it? You know, we've got the phrase,
you are what you eat. And to some extent, that may
be true. What you put in your body will affect your body. It's
not gonna affect your soul. but it will affect your body.
You put bad things in your body, you can't expect good things
to come from your body. You put good things in your body,
you have some reason to expect that good things will come forth
from that, right? The whole point is this though,
identification with the sacrifice. Aaron, his son's got their portion.
and they ate it right there. It is, it says, it is a thing
most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by fire. Now the
last one, let's just look at the trespass offering, chapter
five. Chapter five, verse five. This one is a little different,
but there is an identification. Because when it starts off the
trespass offering, it don't start off with the offering, it starts
off with the trespasses. That's what it starts off with.
It starts off with perjury, it starts off with touching the
unclean, and it starts off with boasting, men boasting in themselves. That's a paraphrase, but that's
what it talks about. And then these words are read in verse
five. And it shall be, when he shall be guilty of one of these
things, bless God we are. We are. When he shall be guilty
of one of these things, that he shall confess that he has
sinned in that thing. Do you see it? Now remember,
this is a public thing. This ain't something you get
to do in your tent. by yourself, away from everybody
else, so you can try to avoid all the shame that you could
possibly avoid. I understand that desire. That ain't the way
God works. You had to do this thing out
in front of the tabernacle. And you know how it is. Some
of you that were raised up in religion, and you're all, everybody's
taught. You have these altar calls, and
everybody's taught it. If you got a need, come forward.
Even if you wanted to come forward because You just needed some
help with your bills. When you went forward, everybody's
looking back, I wonder what they did this week. I mean the mere
fact that you had to do it publicly put you in question, did it not? If you was coming forward to
pray for a young child, your child that was sick, they wondered
what kind of sin you'd committed, why are they going forward today?
What I'm trying to point out though, this is a public thing.
God's people don't privately confess that they're sinners
and then outwardly act like everything's hunky-dory and everything's all
right. God makes us to publicly confess
our sin in front of everybody in one way or another. Then it goes on, and he shall
bring his trespass offering unto the Lord for his sin which he
has sinned, a female for the flock, a lamb, or a kid of the
goats, or a sin offering, for a sin offering, and the priest
shall make an atonement for him concerning his sin. And if you're
not able to bring one of these, there's always access if you're
a confessor of your sin. You see what he goes on to say.
Now, having read those, listen to me now. God help us. Lip service to free grace. is
not the same as possessing free grace in the heart. How do I say that a different
way? Believing in Calvinism. Let me tell you, if God saves
you and he leaves you on this earth very long, eventually you're
gonna be a Calvinist. And I'm not ashamed of being
a Calvinist, so don't get me wrong. But you can believe in
what's called the five points of Calvinism and not have an
ounce of grace in your heart. Men are academic creatures, most
of us are. And some of us are like the Athenians,
we love to hear and tell of some new thing. And some people just
love this Calvinism because it's so different from everything
else. And they'll eat it up. because it's just so intriguing
and so many details. You know why there's so many
details? Because true Calvinism delves into the personal work
of Jesus Christ. But man can be religiously intrigued
by those things and adhere to those things and not have an
ounce of grace in his heart. Scott Richardson wrote this,
and I thank God for Larry Criss, who has it in his bulletin this
week, down at Sylacauga, Alabama. This is from Scott Richardson.
I don't know how long ago it was or whatever, and of course,
everyone here knows Scott's done, went on to be with the Lord.
And I used to love to hear Scott preach. And every time I think
of Scott, I think of, at least up to this point, I still think
of what Scott says, and I made it a point to try to mention
it. He was preaching about the unclean ass, and he says, that's
what you are, an unclean ass. And you can take that however
you want. I love to hear Scott preach. But here's what Scott
said. A sense of God in the heart will
burst out in life. In life. Where there is no reverence
of God in the life, it's easily concluded that there is less
in the heart. And I thought that was pretty
good. You see, folks, there are people who profess to believe,
and they may actually believe in free, sovereign grace. And
ain't God a lick of grace in their heart. And I know of some
people that I'm afraid this is a fact about. I'm talking about
literal people that I actually have some concern about. I know
of a couple that were encouraged to go to a local assembly that
preaches free sovereign grace, and they up and down, I believe
in free sovereign grace, they didn't last but a few months,
and get mad and leave. Because something didn't go their
way. Let me tell you something, the problem ain't with the pastor
of that free grace sovereign church. The problem's with those
people. Because they don't want anybody
really to reign over them, even Jesus Christ. They wanna profess
free sovereign grace, but then go live however they want to
live, and to say, since it ain't my works, get off my back. That ain't the way it works. It ain't the way it works. Preacher,
what in the world are you talking about? I'm saying, ain't you
glad you ain't a Balaam? Ain't you glad you ain't a Balaam?
I'm trying to make this positive. Ain't you glad you ain't a Balaam?
Now think about who Balaam really was. He preached two messages
that are actually recorded in the scripture. One of them is
one of the most solid free reigning grace messages you'll ever hear
preached by anyone. I mean they are pointed, that
one is pointed. And yet all along, and I have
no reason to suspect that Balaam didn't believe this about God
and Israel. He said, Israel's God's people,
and they're safe. Now that is an oversimplification
of all that he said, but he said they are safe. And yet the whole
time, he was trying to find a way to hurt them, God's people, Israel,
so he could get a pocket full of money. I boiled it down to
what it was really about. Balaam wanted to hold on to free
grace with his lips. but lived to self in his life,
and he couldn't help himself. He just, when God said, you don't
go, he just moped and moped around, and finally God said, you go
ahead. He was ready to roll then, wasn't he? God said, well, go
on down then, till he got around that cliff, and that angel stood
out in front of that ass he was riding on. He couldn't see the
angel, but the ass could, and the ass crushed his foot against
the cliff, and he started beating, cursing the ass. Well, it was
God that did this to him. Well, God told him to go. No,
God first told him, don't go. But he persisted, and he persisted,
and he persisted, and God let him go. And he reaped the consequences
of it. And the New Testament's clear.
Balaam was an apostate. He's a whale in whom there's
no water. He's a blowhard storm. That's what he called it, isn't
it? That's what the New Testament calls it. Aren't you glad you're
not a Judas? Now did Judas preach the gospel?
Yes or no? He preached the gospel. He was
sent out specifically with at least one other, and they went
out back and they were casting out devils. Preaching the kingdom
of God. But all along, Judas was still
doing what Judas wanted to do in this world. And that was take
a little extra out of the bag. Yeah, well, and this is, look
at what he's done. Joe, how could we run out of
money? Look, he could create, he could have a coin come out
of Fisher's mouth. See how he could abuse grace? Well, just a couple coins won't
matter. I'll put them over here in this pocket. What's left in
the bag, it'll be all right. And it was Joe for about three
and a half years. And you know, we know where his
end was. He went to his own place. And that place wasn't a pleasant
place. He even had enough faith. Oh yeah. Now listen to me. He
had enough faith to say, I have betrayed innocent blood. And yet he died and went to hell. You see, their way of life fell
far short of even their profession. Why? Because they didn't possess
the grace down in here. Down in here. You see in the
burnt offering, in the peace offering, in the sins of ignorance
offering, we see this identification. I am guilty in the death of Christ. There's two things we see in
this identification, and it's manifested in all three, burn
offering, peace offering, sin of ignorance offering. You lay
your hand on the head of the sacrifice, yes, but you also
got to be what? Complicit in the death of that
creature. You see it? You see, until God
Almighty brings you down to realize that by nature you hate God,
God ain't never given you a lick of grace yet. I pretty much always
believe this. then what you believe ain't it. I don't care how doctrinally
accurate it might be. You understand? Christ told Nicodemus
in John 3, 19 and 20, light, here's the condemnation, light
come into the world and men love darkness rather than light. And
they won't come to the light, they hate the light because they
don't want their deeds to be exposed. Oh, I believe in grace,
so just leave me alone. It don't work that way. I have
the right given by God as a pastor of a local assembly to stand
up here from the word of God and tell you how you and I ought
to conduct ourselves. That's right. That's right, if
I'm telling you what this word says, under the auspices of and
correct doctrine with the new covenant, I have the right to
tell you and I how we are to conduct ourselves both in private
and in public. Yes or no? If you don't believe
that, you don't know God. I don't care how much doctrine
you profess. I don't care how much election you claim you hold
to. I don't care how much you stand for predestination. Rebellion
against God's commandments is rebellion against Christ. The
rebellion against Christ. I'm glad God is breaking. Now
he broke it originally, but he's still breaking that rebellion
in me. I'm guilty in the death of Jesus
Christ. Oh, but I can also participate
in the benefits of Christ. Paul said it this way, Galatians
2, 20. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I, what? I live. Now he didn't just say I'm alive.
Everybody that's ever been born, unless they were stillborn, is
alive. He said I live. And the life
that I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son
of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. He said, I live,
but it ain't even I that does the real living. It's what? Christ
in me. So if Jesus Christ is really
in you, you'll live the life of that. You'll live the life
of that, or Jesus Christ ain't in you. That's the truth of the
Apostle Paul. So much so that Paul himself
told the Corinthians this. The love of Christ constrains
us. It means it does this. See, Christ's love, the love
of God in Christ Jesus is not an emotion of God. It is the
power of God in justice satisfied through the person and work of
Jesus Christ. Grace is not just an emotion
of God to be favorable towards sinful men and women. Grace is
the power of God. Through the justice, satisfying
sacrifice of Christ, it's the power of God to raise up a beggar
from the dung heap, take him off the dung heap, and sit him
where? With princes and kings. And if you're still on the dung
heap, you got no reason to believe God Almighty's given you grace
yet. But aren't you glad God takes men and women from the
dung heap? Because Mason, that's where he
found me. On the dung pile. On the dung
pile. I participate in his benefit
in my living. I'm allowed by grace through
faith to lay my hands upon Jesus Christ and say, I identify. with him. You know what? The meat offering then shows
us that it's even more than just that tactile touch. It's what? To eat. As a matter of fact,
remember the priest ate certain portions of some of these sacrifices.
Some of the meat was actually cooked and it was for them. Turn
with me to Romans 12. Turn with me to Romans 12. I believe it was Peter, don't
hold me to that, but one of the New Testament writers put it
this way. If so be that ye have tasted,
if so be that ye have tasted that
the Lord is what? Gracious, gracious. See you're really, you don't
just touch it, you take it in, you take it in. You eat, you
taste. Right, Joe, I could almost put
meat offering right across that. So be a taster that the Lord
is gracious. Now look what Paul said, Romans
12. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. What mercies? The ones described
in chapters, especially chapters eight, nine, 10, and 11. I beseech you therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, that you do what? We are to do some things. Yes or no? Well, that's works,
preacher, and I don't want nothing to do with it. These are the
commands of Christ. And if you don't want anything
to do with the commands of Christ, then you need to find you another
place to be because you are a Judas or a Balaam. Remember, Judas
kept it hid quite well, but he was a thief from the beginning.
He kept it hid, he knew what he was doing, but he kept it
hid so well nobody else but Christ knew who he really was. Now,
if that don't scare, you a little bit. If that don't make the hair
stand up on the back of your neck, then I'm afraid your conscience
is seared with a hot iron. People walk, and I'm not talking
about just one person, there have been more than one, walk
into this assembly, and because we do not have clothes, communion,
That is, we do not pigeonhole you first until, now are you
really up to taking the table of the Lord? There've been people
walking here and they'll take of that bread and that wine and
just do so glibly with, even make fun of it later. I know
that because that's part of that letter I told you I got of. Laugh
and make fun of it. And they don't realize that he
that partakes of that unworthily eats and drinks damnation to
himself. Why I just didn't really understand?
It don't matter. But you better thank God that
there's a sin of ignorance offering. You better thank God. You see,
most of us really know better, but we are defiant. We're gonna
do what we gonna do. I don't care if it brings God
off his throne. We're just like Satan. You know
what our problem is? I will. When Adam failed, his
original sin was, I will eat that fruit. I'm gonna do what
I want to do. Don't you think he loved his
wife? Yes. She had eaten first. Did she
not? But that didn't excuse him for
going against the commandment of God, Basin Lily, and partaking
of that fruit, even if he was wanting to stay with her where
she was. You understand? God Almighty's commands mean
more than anything else in this world, even our closest relationships
and emotions and feelings in this world. You're gonna identify
with the sacrifice and you're gonna partake of it. You're gonna
eat of it. Or you got no part with it at
all. At all. You see, lip faith, lip faith only. Now there is,
how the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So if God's
given you a new heart, what's that new heart gonna do? It's
gonna start speaking concerning the glories of the personal work
of Jesus Christ, is it not? You see, lip service only is
dead condemning faith. James says it, James 2.20, faith
without works. And the whole content is obedience. Not just, well I sing in the
choir. That's not what he's talking about. We're talking about real
bonafide God almighty commandments and we obey his commandments.
Faith without works is what? Dead. Now he calls it faith. But it's a dead faith. It's not
a justifying faith. It's not a living faith. It's
not the faith of God's elect. It's a faith that's worked up
in the religiosity of man's fallen carnality. And it will not stand
the test. Why? I beseech you therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of God, that you do something. What's
that? Present your bodies. Your bodies. My body's different
now. When I seen that x-ray again,
I thought, my lands, I'll never be the same again. I'll never
be the same again. You know, it's to present your
bodies. Paul even calls it a what? What
do you call this body? You know, this wretched thing. But you present your bodies a
living sacrifice. Why? Because Christ did. He presented
His body a living sacrifice. And then everybody says they
want to be like Jesus, but they don't want to present their bodies
a living sacrifice. We are liars when we conduct
ourselves that way. Are we not? We are liars when
we conduct ourselves that way. You see, there is a righteousness
before God in a body being wholly given over to God. And that's
in His body. That's, Jack Mathers, where my
true righteousness lies, in that he presented his body a living
sacrifice, but we ought to emulate him. We ought to emulate him. How do I do that? Present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, and that's
just reasonable. That's not even going above and
beyond, is it? It's your reasonable service.
if you're really constrained by the love of Christ. If the
mercies of God really mean something to you, is it not? And be not conformed to this
world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind
that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God. For I say through the grace given
unto me. He said grace been given to you
too, and you got your what? Just like the meat offering,
your portion. Is that not what that says? According,
last part of verse three, according as God hath dealt to every man,
the, meat offering, the measure of faith. You see, faith in God's
people is living. It's real. It changes the way
we live. If what you've experienced didn't
change the way you live, then you experience the wrong. I'm
not saying you didn't experience something, I'm just saying you
experienced the wrong thing. Why? Because the meat offering
says so. It says so. You see, to be united to Christ
is also to be united to his people, is to be united in believing
conduct. This I say therefore in the Lord,
that you what? Walk not as other Gentiles walk
in the vanity of your mind. Hmm why cuz God Almighty's put
something new within you You see the things that we hold
on to the deepest in this world The things have up the things
that we love the most in this world is where God's going to
face us head-on When it comes to the gospel Whatever it is
Whatever it is. Now, some things are different
for different men and women, but whatever it is you love the
most in this world, God Almighty's gonna destroy that thing right
before your eyes. And your problem ain't that thing.
The problem is you. The prodigal son's problem wasn't
the whores that he spent his money on. It wasn't the money. It was that daddy gave him the
money. Did he not? His problem was that's what he
wanted. His problem wasn't the swine. His problem wasn't the swill.
His problem was his self. And then our Lord says, and it's
an illustration, and he came to what? Himself. He began to
realize I am my problem. Your problem ain't the things
you love. If you loved them correctly,
they wouldn't be a problem. The problem is you love them
more than you love God. And I remember what Henry Mahan said.
He said, he talked about somebody you care about that's unbelieving,
or even if they're believing. He said, you care about somebody
and you're holding on to them? He said, you better hold on to
them lightly. because God intends to take them away. He'll break
your fingers to do it. Now I know that's not the way
most people think of God, but that's who God is. Abraham wanted Ishmael to be
the seed of promise. And what did God say? No. No. And if we can't, in faith, willingly,
publicly and sincerely, bow to God's nose, just like we bow
to his yeses, then the problem is with us. You see, the problem is we don't
want to be consecrated. I didn't say sanctified. You
can't sanctify yourself. The problem is, and God willing,
we'll see it, we don't want to be consecrated to God. It's a
different word. I know you read Vines, He vines,
takes consecration, sanctification, makes it almost synonymous. It
ain't so. God's people what? Present their
bodies a living sacrifice. Why? Because they want to be
like their Lord. And you can go on, there's a
whole lot more than that. He said you love your enemies.
You love your enemies. Our Lord said he could have called
10,000 angels. Couldn't he? He could have stopped
that deal right there and wiped us all out. We were murdering
the son of God. But he hung there in love. And
he put up with that. And he went through the father
turning his back on him. Why? Because he loved his enemies.
Because you and I are born by nature the enemies of God. Gotta
move on. We'll read this to you. Joe sent
me this this morning, as he usually does. Here's three verses of
a song by, what is his name, Pierce Pace, P-A-I-C-E. But for
free and sovereign grace, I still had lived estranged from God,
till hell had proved the destined place of my deserved but dread
abode. But oh, amazed, I see the hand
that stopped me in my wild career. A miracle of grace I stand, the
Lord has taught my heart to fear. to fear his name, to trust his
grace, to learn his will, be my employee, till I shall see
him face to face, himself my heaven, himself my joy. That's a true statement of gospel
faith right there. Quickly, the trespass offering.
The trespass offering says with this, we're gonna have to confess
our perjury, we're gonna have to confess our touching the unclean,
and we're gonna have to confess our bragging on ourselves. And
that applies to the gospel doctrine itself and to our walk in this
world. It all applies. Now I was gonna say a lot more,
but I've gotta close this down. My titanium hip's doing a whole
lot better than I thought it was. It's the other one that's
actually starting to get a little tired. I'm serious. We're going to confess these
three major things, perjury, touching the unclean, and boasting
in ourselves. And that's all right there in
the trespass offering. And folks, that's not, oh, well,
I sure hate free will. That's all well and good. But
do you hate your will? Do you hate yourself? Do you
hate yourself enough to say, Lord, not my will, but thine
be done? Do you hate it enough to say,
Lord, I believe. Help thou, because I don't know
how to do it. Help thou, mine unbelief. God, conquer and conquer
and conquer and don't quit conquering my soul. Or are we comfortable
enough with, I believe in free sovereign grace. Now I'll just
do what I want to do. God may give you that. He may
give you that. and you may perish forever. And
I just feel you'll open up your eyes in hell and say, pardon
me, what the hell just happened? Hmm? What just happened? Lord, I did this. Lord, I did that. The problem
wasn't a false gospel, Mason. The problem was they built their
hope upon the wrong thing. up on sand and not the rock itself,
or better, the rock himself. Paul puts it this way. Can the
clean and the unclean really come together? Mm-mm. Mm-mm, they can't. Can a house
of idols come together with the temple of the Lord? Can it? Can
it really do that? No. The good, the right, will
always suffer when you try to bring those two together. You
cannot sanctify the unclean by trying to bring a little bit
of cleanness in with it. It just don't work that way. And Paul
puts it, wherefore, that's why God said, he's quoting, wherefore
come out from among, what's that next four-letter word? My brothers
and sisters, you that may hear this later on somewhere, what's
the next four-letter word? Wherefore come out from among
them. Them, now you gotta live in this
world. You need to provide things honest in the sight of all men.
You got an employer and he or she's an unbeliever, you give
them a fair day's work for your pay that they gave you. But you
don't unequally join yourself together with any of them. Because they are unclean. I used
to be unclean, but God called me out. Therefore, I wish to
come out. Mason, when I was in religion,
and I used to hear preachers quote that. Now granted, they
had a lot of error when they were talking about it. But I
used to hear people quote that, come ye out from among them.
I thought, boy, God's just so mean. You know, the old proverbial,
I'd love to have my cake and eat it too. Unless your cake,
icing and all, is Jesus Christ, you got the wrong cake. because
you can't have a little bit of Jesus in the cake and a little
bit of world in the cake. Christ is preeminent in your
life. Well, he ain't preeminent at
all. Now, he is preeminent, but he's either preeminent in your
life or he ain't preeminent at all. Now, he's never gonna be
preeminent to your flesh, but he will be preeminent to that
new man that's in you if God has actually created you in Christ
Jesus and made you a new creature. And folks, that's just the way
it is. And Joe, I don't say that to anybody trying to be mean
to them. I say that because I care about men and women's souls. When God works grace in a man
or woman's heart, it's a real work. It's a real, bonafide,
God-wrought work. Father, as we sing this last
song, may we do so together in fellowship of thy gospel and
thy son, and may we rejoice in him. Amen. All right, let's stand
and sing that last one. Joe, what was that one?