As Brother Mike spoke or read
out of Job about the one whom God has created, who is called
Leviathan. I want to take a moment and I
want to think about the most impressive display of force and
majesty and might and strength that you've ever contemplated.
And for most of us, we probably think of something that we've
seen majestically as the world For example, like the Grand Canyon
or the stars or picture of a planet. Maybe something off of television,
Godzilla. Superman. Spider-Man and his
marvelous friends. Or maybe it's a little bit of
the macabre or the dark heroes who are just troubled and They
don't want to be bothered. And so they suppress their power,
but then they haven't had enough. And the evil of the world is
just too much for them. And they blow everybody away. And it's just, yeah, you got
them. And there's something in each of us that that has, if
we say what power looks like, we've got a vision. We've got
a picture. The rednecks of the room, the
high powered rifles. Maybe the mighty force of the
boxer. The Jewish special forces, Israeli
special forces, the Krav Maga, maybe it's the sumo wrestler
or the deep historical pride of antiquity in the samurai.
What is it? Maybe it is the Lord God of heaven
that pops into your mind, but is it what you've seen through
him? Or is it what you've seen through
the world about Him? Are we on fire for the Lord God
Almighty? Are we indwelt by His powerful
grace? Because He's put it there through
His Word. Do we see the glory of His face
in the person of Jesus Christ? Or are we excited that God's
not dead because we saw it in the theater? I don't know if it's new or not.
I just saw it passing, so I thought I'd comment upon it. A 1500 year old Bible has been
discovered that was suppressed by the Vatican, and in it it
gives a different gospel narrative, a different Old Testament narrative.
And this is an eyewitness account, supposedly. And it's just really
funny. Aha, we knew they were lying. People believe things because
it's presented to them as truth and then that's the end of it.
Have you believed that God is who he is because it's been presented
to you as truth and that's the end of it? Have you had the burn in your
soul, as the Mormons would say, which is the apologetic for their
testimony? I know this is right because
it burns within me. No, buddy, that's diarrhea. The whole behemoth, God says,
which I made is I made you, Job. He eats grass like an ox, but
his strength in his loins and his power in his muscles of his
belly. He makes his tail stiff like a cedar. The sinews of his
thighs are knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze.
His limbs like bars of iron. Dressed for action like a man,
and I'll question you, God says. And make it known, and you make
it known to me. You answer my questions, Job. Will you even put me in wrong?
Will you condemn me that you may be right? Have you an arm
like God, and can you thunder with a voice like His? Adorn
yourself, Job, with majesty and dignity. Clothe yourself with
glory and splendor. Pull out the overflowings of
your anger and look on everyone who is proud and abase him. Look
on everyone who is proud and bring him low and tread down
the wicked where they stand. Hide them all in the dust together. Bind their faces in the world
below. Then will I acknowledge to you that your own right hand
can save you. We don't read enough of that. And we come to a place like this,
and I have to confess to you, church, that in all of everything
that I give in a place of humility, I come up prideful. Every ounce
of humility, of brokenness, of pleading with God to give me
humility, I still stand prideful, thinking that when I preach something
of the nature of which I'm going to preach today and in the next
few weeks, that there will be people who will hear it and straighten
themselves out. How pompous of me. And I want
not those thoughts in my head, but they are at war with my members. So where is my hope? Christ alone. And I start today's series entitled
The Devil in the Pulpit. Just in the acknowledgement of
this actual theme, I have to say, I thought I was being very
creative. Just when the first time I ever
preached out of First John and I saw three things and alliterated
them so creatively, I'm like, God is surely with me. See how
we learn Christ and love Christ and live in Christ. And in years,
as years go by, I'm looking online and I'm looking at First John
and I see everybody stole it from me. Some 500 years ago,
they stole it from me. Same is true with this series. What does it look like? I found
I found evidence in the 16th century, people preaching the
same contextualized message. There's nothing new, as Solomon
would say, under the sun. But let me tell you what does
not change and is always new is the promises of God, his glory,
his power and his might, his affection toward us, his children
never changes. So I invite you to come to stick
your finger in first Corinthians chapter four and your other finger
in Genesis chapter three. I'm going to flip back into between
these, one of the troubles about something like this is it's not
a direct exposition of a complete text, so there's a lot of careful
eggshell walking, dependent prayer upon the Holy Spirit to not allow
me to butcher and commentate. rather than expose what the Bible
teaches. So Corinthians chapter four start
here and will come back here periodically throughout the next
month or so. Paul begins when he says, therefore.
When you see, therefore, you have to say, what is it therefore?
Because of chapters one through three. Of what Paul has taught
these Corinthians And that we are victorious in the gospel
of Christ. And because of that, we are in
a new covenant. And as the saints of old look
clouded through a veil and desire to see God's glory, we see it
perfectly, as John would say in first John one, we see the
fullness of the glory of God in Christ. And Paul is going
to say the same thing here. Therefore, having this ministry
by the mercy of God, the grace of God, we've been given this
ministry. We didn't choose it. We didn't
come to the understanding that we should do it. We didn't make
it happen for us. We didn't want it. Saul of Tarsus
did not want to be a minister of the gospel. He was on his
way to imprison and behead the disciples of Jesus. And on that
road to Damascus, the sovereign God of all the universe, Jesus
the Christ, the holy anointed one of God, met him and says
to Saul, why do you persecute me? And so when he says, I have this
ministry by the grace of God, he knows that it is by God's
grace and mercy and affection toward him through Christ Jesus
that he stands to write these words, which gives the grace
of God to the Gentiles, which is the reason you and I are sitting
here born again today and not condemned as sons of iniquity. He said, because of the grace
of God giving us the ministry of the gospel, we do not lose
heart. Listen to this church. There
is a prop. There's a proper palate to hearing
God's word. And let me tell you that what
I'm going to talk about today will teach you why the palate
is not in most people. Because they've never been fed
it. They don't know how to handle
it. Brother Dave Hansen's wife is
from the Philippines and she'll eat anything. Anything. Shrimp with the head on them.
With the shell on them. Chickens out of an egg that are
barely hatched. That's nasty. For me. But I'll eat a chicken
nugget from McDonald's. What's the difference? I mean,
you know. But you have to have a palate
for things. She's got a palate. Some friends of mine who are from regions where they have
very, very spicy food like Thai food. And you go in there and
they've got big X's and stolen crossbones over the menu, like
don't you're too Caucasian to buy this. Don't do that. Don't do it. So now I want to
try it and they go, all right, and they get the little defibrillator
out, sit it by the table because they know you don't have a palate
for it. First time I actually ate authentic Chinese, I got
the General Tso's chicken. I love General Tso's chicken
at the mall. It's good. You get the free samples and
if you keep going, you can get a whole plate of free food and you have
the General Tso's spicy when you get it. And I ordered General
Tso's and the man says, Sir, are you sure about that? I said,
Oh, I eat it all the time. OK. He brought it out and I just
said, I'm not hungry. And then I spent 30 minutes in
the bathroom washing my face, drinking water from a sink. praying
that God would spare my life for just a few more days and
I could see my family at least once more before I died as I
ate those peppers mixed in with that rice. Like an idiot. Didn't have a palate for it.
Friends, the world doesn't have a palate for God's Word because
they've never been fed it. We've renounced disgraceful,
underhanded ways. Of course you do. Paul, that's
what Christians do. They don't they don't deal with
underhanded ways. They don't deceive people. What does he
mean? We refuse to practice cunning
or to tamper with God's word. So Paul is submitting to this
people that there is a There is a disgraceful and underhanded
way to practice cunning, which is tampering with God's word.
But they will not do it. Who are they? The apostles. They
will not do it. But on the contrary, they will.
By open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to
everyone's conscience in the sight of God. That's saying we'll
preach to God. We'll preach the gospel as it
is supposed to be preached. And anyone who accuses us of
anything else, they will stand before God as we stand before
God. And we will set before you that your conscience is not OK
with it if you are in Christ. We're going to stand before God
and before you. And if you have a conscience
to agree with what we say, you're a brother. Paul says in this
very letter, if you don't agree with what he says, you're not
recognized as a brother in Christ. It's a problem. And every conversation we have
around the pastor's table. Brother Jesse can attest to this.
Brother Bill can attest to this. Years of ministry. No matter
where you go, there's always three or four things that will
come to the plate. But one of them is the problems
going on in the church. Conflict, conflict, conflict,
conflict. And what do we do? We mediate
it. We administrate it. And we wonder, how can we fix
this, because we don't, by bold statement of the truth, commend
ourselves to everyone's conscience before the sight of God, the
statement of the truth of God. You know what? Convicts the child
of God when he's feeling like he's been insulted or hurt or
belittled or stressed out, or he feels like someone has taken
advantage of him and he's a victim. When someone else in the faith
goes to him and says, oh, what mercy the Lord has given you
as you've sinned before him, that he would give you redemption
through Jesus Christ, his son. How are you not able to forgive
your brother when God has forgiven you? And the question then comes,
what happens because people don't hear our gospel? We got it. We
got to change it so they can hear it, so they'll see it. We
got to make it palatable so they can eat it. You see where I'm
going with this? But it's not where I'm going,
it's where Paul's already gone. And even if our gospel is veiled,
I mean, it can't be seen. It is veiled only to those who
are perishing. Jesus in John 3, 16, 17, 18.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son
that whosoever believes, the whosoever is what? Those who
whosoever believe would not perish but have eternal life. For God
did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that
through him the world might be saved. Whoever does not believe is what?
Whoever believes in the Son of God has eternal life. Whosoever
does not believe is condemned already. They are perishing.
I saw the old song, I don't like the meter, but I love the message.
Rescue the perishing. Never heard it, look it up. The gospel rescues the perishing,
not the righteous, the gospel saves sinners, not the saints,
the gospel sustains the glory of God in a lost people who are
now alive. And if a gospel is veiled, it
is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case, verse
four, the God of this world, who is the adversary of God,
who is the devil, who is Satan, who is the liar, the deceiver,
he has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. In order to keep them from seeing
the light of the gospel of the glory of God, of Christ, who
is the image of God. And he goes on to say something,
he says, for we what we proclaim is not of ourselves, but as Jesus
Christ, our Lord, with ourselves as your slaves for the sake of
Christ. For God, who said this is my
favorite passage in all the text. For God, who said that light
shone out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give us the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ. But we have this treasure in
jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God
and not to us. That's the end of the thought.
And then they mess it up in there. So let me tell you what I don't
want to do in the next month or so. I do not want to preach
in such a way that I make a mistake. So I want to avoid some things,
many things, but five of them came to mind. I want to avoid
polemics. I want to avoid argument for
argument to say this is a false teacher. That's a false teacher.
There's enough of that out there. If you want to know who the false
teachers are, read your Bible, then listen. If you want to see, you know,
and I'm not going to say this holistically, but generally speaking,
you want to find a false teacher, turn on the television. You want
to find a false teacher, go to Books a Million and look at the
religion section. You want to find a false teacher, go on YouTube
and just look up the word grace. So I want to avoid polemics.
I don't want a sermon to become an attack, even though the attack
may be warranted. It doesn't feed the sheep. To
say, look at the devil, look at the devil, look at the devil,
look at the devil. That's the ploy of the devil anyway. Look
at the problems, look at the problems, look at the problems.
You ever been around people who every time they open their mouth
it's a complaint? You ever been one of them? Yes, I have. Secondly, I want to avoid teaching
about the enemy in lieu of the glory of God, because teaching
about the enemy and his tactics is really stale and boring. It's
awful. It's sterile. It's clinical. I want to teach about the glory
of God. It's amazing and awestruck, stricken. I want to avoid spending
much time on errors, but rather counter with the truth, as the
apostles would teach about an error in a sentence or two, then
they would counter with the truth of the gospel. And I want to
make sure I stay true to the tone and to the amount of time
given to these things. I want to avoid too much commentary.
I have a lot of philosophical ideals about how this stuff should
play out. I think a lot too much. You don't need to know what I
think about things. You need to know what God's word says
about things. And in doing so, I want to avoid
being the devil in the pulpit himself. Because if I'm not careful,
I will play into the hands of the enemy. And spend more time
dealing with all of the things that we need to look out for
rather than the things that we should see. And so what should
we see? There's two things I want you
to see. through it all, no matter what topic it is, no matter what
text it might be throughout these next weeks. I want you to see
two things. I want you to see how false teaching
sneaks into the church. We've already seen the destruction
of what it does, but I want you to see how it sneaks into the
church and into the church, I mean, and into you and I, you and me. The church is in a place, it's
not an organization, it's not an institution, it's not a group
of people gathering together to do something. It's the people
themselves. So the false teaching sneaks
into us and then we bring it to our brothers and sisters and
they bring it to us. And secondly, I want to I want
you to understand the channels that are used in bringing false
teaching. And I would say there are two
channels, the without channels and within channels. And I want you to understand,
then, in culmination of all these things, that the devil is the
greatest orator that ever lived. What do I mean by that? He's
got more experience preaching than any pastor ever will. And
the devil only communicates through preaching. You understand that? He preaches. Just like you preach and I preach. Preaching is not just for the
pastor. Preaching is what you think about in your mind. Preaching
is what you hear when you read a book. Preaching is what you
listen to when someone shares something with you. Preaching
is what you share with your own mouth and what you understand
in your own heart. We preach, and the devil is preaching
longer and louder than all of us. First, let's look at the
origins of this thing. In Genesis chapter three, we
see God creating everything that there is. In chapter two, he
creates Well, chapter one, he creates everything, man and woman.
In chapter two, he looks at the intricacies of man and woman
in order to show the gospel. And in chapter three, we see
this and it says these words. Now, the serpent was more crafty
than any other beast in the field that the Lord God had made. And
he said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat
of any tree in the garden? Do you see that? What is he doing? He's preaching to Eve by questioning
God. He's questioning God, but he's
preaching. That's what preaching does. Paul
and the disciples and the apostles, they ask questions all the time.
Is that the way you learn Christ? He's not pausing to get an answer.
It's rhetorical. It's to build an argument to
allow his audience to participate in the conversation without interrupting
what he's trying to say so that he can plant these thoughts there
that your mind might be open then to see the answer or the
outcome of the debate. And so Satan's doing the same
thing. He's preaching to Eve. Did God really say You shall
not eat of any tree in the garden. Do you see that? What did God
say? Do not. God said you can eat of any tree
but that one. All the joy you could ever want.
All the intimacy you will ever need. I will walk with you. You are to do all that I've commanded
you to. The world is yours. My glory
is yours. Righteousness is yours. Eternality
is yours. Immortality is yours. And you
are mine and it's all yours, but the one tree stay away from
it. Why? Because you are in the fullness
of joy and you don't need that. And Satan says, did God say you
could not eat of any tree? The woman said to the servant,
we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but he said
you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst
of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die. And
he said to Eve, you will not surely die. So then he contradicted
God. He contradicted the word of God.
The Bible says you shall die. God's word says you shall surely
die. Satan said you're not going to
die. You know what? He was half right. Because in
Eve's mind, she's thinking, my body, I'm going to die the minute
I touch it. I'm going to die. I don't want
to die. It's like you're not going to die. For God knows. See, Satan couldn't come out
of the service and say, I know something you don't. We don't fall for
that. We don't fall for the dragons
coming in and the pentagrams and the sacrificing of little
bunnies. We don't fall for that. Nobody falls for that. We fall
for someone when they come up and say, the Lord God says. God knows that when you eat of
it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing
good and evil, and he told the truth there. So when the woman saw, what did
she see? She saw that the tree was good
for food and she saw that it was good to look at, it was beautiful.
And that the tree was desired to make one wise. First John
two fifty to seventeen should pop into your mind here. She took of its fruit and ate
it and gave some to her husband who was standing there with her
and he ate and the eyes of both were open and they knew they
were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves
loincloths. And we know the fall. We know what it looks like. We
know what's happening here. The origin of sin in the world
is because the enemy of God, the devil, came in and preached
to the people of God and thwarted the word of God. Nothing's changed. And Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter
4 is saying that any kind of change to God's word, any kind
of cunning, any kind of practice, even with the best of intentions, is not of God, but is of the
devil who is blinding the eyes of unbelievers. Friends, you
know how the devil blinds the eyes of unbelievers through false
teaching. Paul says in Romans one that
no man was is without excuse for God has made himself known
to creation, that his divine attributes are clearly seen. But then the preaching of the
devil comes in and teaches them that their needs and their glory
and their awesomeness and their majesty is great. And that God
is holding them hostage to be the killjoy of all the cosmos. And God says, because they suppress
the truth by unrighteousness. See what I mean? They suppress
the truth. Why? Because they're being taught
untruth. The devil is the one who brought
sin into the world. Eve listened to the preaching
of Satan and all of humanity is now fallen because of this. And one of the sermons that we
talk about is going to be about the fallen nature of humanity.
Because there's one of the biggest lies in Christendom today is
that you're OK. God loves you. He understands
and you're not that bad. sinner. When that's a half truth. Because
to the church, the saints, the apostles write, you're OK and
you're not bad and you're a saint, you're redeemed, you're the righteousness
of God. You have a joint heirs with the
glory of heaven. You will sit at the right hand
of the Father with your head, with your bridegroom. See, that's
right. But the devil plays it and preaches
it to the world and says, it's OK. Universalism, it's okay. The devil is a liar. He's the
father of lies. He's been lying from the beginning.
And Jesus says in John 8, verse 44, He's talking to the Pharisees
when He says these words, You are of your father, the devil,
and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from
the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is
no truth in him. When he lies, listen to this,
Jesus speaking, he speaks out of his own character, for he
is a liar and the father of lies. So Jesus teaches us that the
devil has been lying from the beginning to the people of God,
and he still is, because he is a liar. And the devil preaches
through Scripture. The devil preaches through pastors. The devil preaches through people. And he can preach through the
most beloved of saints. Preachers have truths like he
told Eve, did God say? Which imposes the idea that God
is lying, the devil practices cunning with good intentions. These people are hungry. Jesus,
you're hungry. You deserve bread, the temptation
of Jesus in the wilderness. We see in Luke chapter four where
the devil comes to Jesus after 40 days of fasting and he preaches
the word of God to the son of God. And he said, oh, son of
man, righteous, holy one of God. He knows who Jesus is. He's not
ignorant. He's not blinded to know who he is. He says, you're
hungry. And you have the power to command
these stones to turn to bread so that you might feed your flesh. It is in need of food because
you are dying. Jesus preaches back to him and
says, Man does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. The devil
takes him. to a high place in the temple
and says, look, if you throw yourself down, the Scripture
says, if you command angels concerning you, that your foot will not
strike a stone. You have the power, Jesus, the
authority to command angels. Do it. You are glorious. You
are mighty. You are majestic. The Scripture
says you are the king. Then be the king, almighty. Be the king. Scripture says you should not
put the Lord God to the test. And Jesus takes him out on the
mountain and lets him look over all the world. And he says, see
all of this, it is mine to give to you. And you, if you just
bow down and worship me, I will give you all of this. Jesus tells him to get away from
it. Because the Scripture says to
love the Lord your God alone. To worship God alone. So if the
devil preached to Jesus, do you think the devil preaches to us?
Yes. In the same way. And that's what
I want us to see. Because whether you know it or
not, beloved, the people of Christ are so embodied, or embroiled
rather, with busyness, dealing with garbage that they can't
deal with glory. The devil preaches with good
intentions, the devil preaches to desires, the devil preaches
with pretext and philosophy of scripture and all of us at some
time by Now, I've got a lot to say and I don't have a lot of
time to say it, but this is an introduction. Let us just get
to it. When the devil preaches, it is
not for the sake of receiving glory. He knows better to say,
bow down before me, though he'll try. He is more successful in
diverting our view to the glory of God. He's more successful
in helping and keeping people from seeing the glory of God,
as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, for he's blinded the eyes
of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the glory of God. How does he blind them? That's the good question, isn't
it? He blinds them in many ways. Here we go. He calls what God
has called good into question. The devil, through cunning and
through good intentions, not his own good intentions, but
it makes it seem like it's good intentions, calls into question.
You're missing something. You're missing a blessing when
Paul says all spiritual blessings are ours in Christ. God's holding
back from you when he says we've received everything that God
has for us in Christ. You don't know all the mystery
when Paul says, I've made it known to you the mystery of the
gospel. He calls what God has called
good into question, don't eat of that tree and it's good for
you and Satan goes, are you sure it's good for you? It's what
you want. Why would God keep you from what you want? God wouldn't
ask you to do what would make you happy. He calls evil what God calls
good. Satan calls good what God has called evil. Satan calls
out the Word of God and appeals to the flesh. Look what the Word
says. Look what the apostles did. Look
what the Spirit can do for you. Look what happened to Job. He
got everything back. You're going to get everything.
Don't listen to this. Don't listen to that. That's
not really the grace. That's not the God you know,
is it? He calls out appeals for the
flesh. And then we blame God for holding
back. When James says, let no one say when he's tempted, I'm
tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself
tempts no one. But each person is tempted when
he's lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when
it is conceived, gives birth to sin and sin, when it is fully
grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved
brothers. Every good gift and every perfect
gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with
whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. You see that? It's that among
several few more texts that opened my mind to see, wow, the immutability
of God is the core nature of His character. And his holiness
is a display of intrinsic worthiness. So therefore, his immutability
is the promise through which we stand upon his character and
his promises. And so that when the Scripture
says something about God here, it is perfectly describing the
same God there forever. And that might be too much. What does it mean? Well, Revelation,
John says, I'm the same today, yesterday and forever. So God
will not fail, for He will not change. He will always be the
true. Amen. Of His own will, verse 18 of
James 1 says this, He brought us forth by the word of truth
that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures. The
gospel in James. Satan preaches And he deceives
and blinds the world when he belittles the importance of sound
doctrine. Pastor after pastor, it's not
important to learn the depths of the glories of the mercies
of God. Then why did Paul say do it? Why is it that the apostles say
that the grace of God is given only through the preaching of
the apostles? Why is it that only someone can come to faith
through hearing the words of God, or words of Christ, and
then through hearing the words of Christ, by the rebirth of
the Holy Spirit that blows where it wishes, can someone come to
faith? Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace. Satan belittles it. Don't worry
about those things. Let's just love one another.
Let's just live with one another. Let's just do what's nice. Satan
blinds people by preaching that the focus is on us and what we
should do to come to Christ. What have you done? What are
you doing for Jesus? You want to know, Church, if
you were honest with yourself, one of the greatest places of
despair in your heart, in the history of your relationship
in Christ, is when you feel you're not doing enough, and you feel
guilty, and you feel broken, and you feel hopeless, and you're
in despair, and you're thinking, God, I've got to do more, I've
got to do more, I've got to bring more, I've got to bring more,
and your joy is gone. Not a bad desire, but if it leads
you to joylessness, it's wickedness. Because faith is not doing more,
faith is trusting in what Christ has already done. The devil doesn't
want us looking at that. The devil wants us looking at
us, not Christ. When he preaches, he reduces
the gospel to instructions. Don't do this. Do that. Do this. Don't do that. This is what we
need to do. Well, the Bible says I got to
cover my head up, so I better cover my head. Well, the Bible says
I better not paint my toenails, so I better not paint my toenails.
Well, the Bible says this. Well, the Bible says that. The
Bible says this. You see, you've got a lot of weird looking people. One hand painted this color and
the hair covered. No tattoo on this side, but there's
grace. So there's a tattoo on this side. And, you know, everything's
moving in and out. And it's just we live broken
because we believe the lie. The devil preaches through pastors
who feel the need to meet felt needs and instruct on matters
of life rather than preaching Christ and Him crucified. The
gospel is not an addendum to the Word of God. It is the Word
of God. He removes the God of glory and grace and reduces him
and reduces worship rather to man that felt good. Boy, I sure
felt God today. You've not felt God if you haven't
learned him. And if you've learned him for
the purpose of academia, you haven't learned him at all. Ask any soldier who spent time
overseas who has a picture of his family. And every time they have opportunity,
they look at that picture. And they don't look at that picture
and go, look at my son. His hair is not combed. I love that blouse on my wife.
I never noticed my daughter's eyes were a little off. No, he looks at that picture
and he sees the fullness of his affection there. And he looks
at him and he goes, oh, God, I want to go home to see them. Lord, just grant me the grace
to come back to them. I want this, I want to hold these
people in my arms again. And at night when he's made it
to another day, he sticks it in his bunk and goes to sleep
thinking about how wonderful it will be to see them face to
face. And the whole of his affection is walled up with chills as he
contemplates what he knows about them already and how he's going
to be with them soon. There's nothing academic about
that, but he learns. And that's what it means to learn
Christ through preaching, through study, through reading, through
prayer, through worship. It's like that. It's not what
it means to. It's like that. So how about feeling good? It's about glory. Hallelujah. What a mighty God. He is. Satan preaches to manifest the
law over grace, Satan Keeps a boring pulpit. Entertainment. In comparison
to true worship in spirit and in truth is not even boring,
it's benign. It's not that you've even spilled
your food. It's that there's a microscopic
crumb on your collar that can't be seen. You're not concerned
with it. That's what that's what boring pulpits are like. And
I'm not talking about flair and fashion, I'm not talking about
credibility or even good oratory, I'm not talking about moving
people into the feeling. That's boring. It's boring. It's
weird. It makes no sense as to why that
appeals to so many people. The only thing I can say is that
maybe the God of this world is blinding their eyes to see that
the beauty of awesomeness is Christ, is the Scriptures come
to life through preaching the gospel, and that there is a God
in heaven before you were born who had affection for you, knowing
you were going to be born in the sin because of your father
Adam, and you were going to rebel against him, and if he did not
intervene, You would perish before His mighty, holy, judging hand. And so God came to earth to die
Himself to redeem you. It's not taking the Leviathan
and turning him into a plastic toy that big and smashing him
and melting him and putting him in the garbage. It's what Paul teaches to the
Philippians that Christ did. He became nothing. He became
a slave. Easter Sunday, when I was listing
out all those sins that were placed on Jesus, the Son of Man,
one hit me last week and the week before, and I'm like, wow,
I should have said that. And I say it today. When God the
Father hung His Son on a tree and He turned His back on Him,
the Holy, Righteous One of God, He became guilty of the murder.
He became the murderer and the child molester of all who believe. The Father goes, You're guilty!
But he was innocent. The enemy doesn't want that preached.
He doesn't want substitutionary atonement. He just wants a really
cool man, just really loving, really holy, preaching, teaching
niceties, coming down horribly. I mean, when I see a squirrel
die, I get teary-eyed. And then I eat him. I mean, Everybody cries when somebody
dies for them. It wasn't somebody. It was God who took our guilt. And now we
stand innocent before Christ, before the Father because of
Christ. Satan continues to point out
the don't do's. He points people to a culture. I'm going to preach on that,
a whole message. When we try to impart Jewish
culture into a Gentile Christianity, it's wicked. It's wicked. No part of it. And that's dogmatic,
but church, it is taking people to hell. Especially Jews. The scripture says that the devil
says, peace, peace, where there is no peace. He points the Sanhedrin
and the Pharisees, the Jews in Jesus' day, to the feasts and
the festivals and the places of worship, and they search the
Scriptures day and night to find salvation. But Jesus says in
John 5 that it is the Scriptures who speak of Me. You can't see
Me. He blinds hearts. He blinds eyes. So when they do search for Scriptures
of salvation, they cannot see Christ, but they see themselves.
And they're coming and they're doing and they're holding fast.
And they're believing. He blinds them by keeping them
busy, working toward God's favor. All the Father's mad with you
now because you did this. For those of you who are going
to study on 1 John this past Wednesday, we talked a little
bit about some of this grace that so easily can be misconstrued
on both sides. How frustrating it can be to
be very hyper in some sense. Don't worry about what Roman
says. You can sin. Versus others who say, well,
if you sin, you're lost, so you could be perfect. Hope is in
Christ and nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.
And so our works and our sanctification is what God affects in us. We
strive, we abide by the power of grace, we cannot take any
credit for any of it. But we don't teach people to
work hard to keep the favor of God in their lives. Why? Why would we be out of favor
if we're justified before him? But can we? Can we quench the
spirit? Can we grieve the Holy Spirit?
Yes. If God resides in me and I engage in rebelliousness, I've
brought God into that sin that he's already paid for through
Christ. It's grievous. But it doesn't
break us into despair. It breaks us into glorious praise. The devil preaches always from
Scripture about wealth and health and prosperity and law. He teaches
about God. He teaches about Christ. He blinded the eyes of the people
of God that day who, according to the law, had justified reason
to crucify Jesus. He's a blasphemer. He's an insurgent.
Crucify. They couldn't see because they
listened to the preaching of the enemy. He teaches entitlement
when Scripture says to be humble. He teaches growth when the Scripture
says it's new birth. He teaches change when the Scripture
teaches it's a new creation. He teaches hurt when the Scripture
teaches that there's healing. He points people away from the
desires of the flesh and reconciling the fact that we have them. He
points people away of conviction of sin. The pride of life, the
pride of possessions. He makes people see those as
wicked and awful things, but not what we would hold as idols. He preached to the mundane expressions
and exposition of Job's friends. He preached to the serpent, to
Adam and Eve about something tasty. He preached to Peter,
who said just moments before, The Spirit of God preached through
Peter and says, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And
then moments later, the devil preached through Peter and says,
you don't have to die. He preaches what seems right
to men. Lofty, wise speech that's vain and empty, vaguely veils
the power of God. He tries to point the blame to
the nature of things, to the problem of things, to the condition
of the environment, to the country, to the leaders. Giving glory
to everything, but pointed to the powerful glory of God to
the gospel. Paul warns Timothy that people will gather up teachers
to scratch their itching ears and it will not hold the sound
doctrine. But they will gather teachers
to feed the passions of the flesh, which follow up the pattern of
this world. The scripture teaches us, John says that Jesus came
to destroy the works of the devil. Friends, this is something that I believe is so much more
than just for us. It's for us to take to others. To be informed and equipped to
understand that it is the gospel alone that suppresses the work
of the enemy. It is the faith in Christ alone
who overcomes the enemy. It is as Paul teaches in Ephesians
6, the knowledge, the helmet of salvation, the Word of God,
the righteousness of Christ, the truth who is Christ. It is
Christ who is the victor, and our faith in Him alone makes
us victorious. People come against us, and they
have and they continue to do so right now. They come. And
they don't want to hear the gospel that we preach because it points
to the glory of God in such a way that it takes away everything
but Christ. Friends, the old hymn that, and
the world, what is it? What's the line? And the things
of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory
and grace. You know that? You want to fight sin? Exalt
the glory of God. You want to overcome the flesh? It's done. Continue to exalt
the glory of Christ. The staleness of what the devil
says, the boringness of it, When God spoke to Job, the staleness
of the enemy was blinded by the light of glory. And when God spoke to us, the
staleness of this rat race of life where we're working to make
ourselves right before him was blown away by the light of God's
glory. The question is this. What sermon rings in your ears We proclaim something not of
ourselves. You know what that means to the
preacher? I don't have to worry about how
I'm going to communicate it. But just let God's word communicate
itself. But the minute I try to think about how I'm going
to make it right or make it palatable or make it work, make it interesting. That's when I've become cunning
and twisted and my flesh will get in the way. We do not proclaim this of ourselves,
but Christ. Jesus, as Lord, with ourselves
as your slaves for the sake of Christ. What is a true servant?
The one who proclaims Christ. For God. You see verse 6 of 2
Corinthians chapter 4? For God who said, let light shine
out of darkness. And we know what that looks like,
don't we? We know what it looks like in creation. We know what
it looks like in incarnation. What's that mean? When God created
the world. And we know what it looks like when God sent his
son into the world. John 1. The light has come and
the darkness will not overcome it. Why do so many people sit
in darkness, church? Because the light's never been
shown in their face and the light's never been shown in their ears.
And therefore, the light's never been shown in their hearts because
they've never heard it. They hear a method. They hear
a message that has nothing to do with the gospel, nothing to
do with the text, nothing to do with Scripture. You know how easy it is to come
up with a topic, find some Bible verses that meet it, come up
with a four-point outline and go on YouTube and find illustrations
that work? It is so easy. I could write
a thousand sermons this week. It's easy because it's in the
flesh. It's easy. Some of our own brothers in Atlanta
pastoring Baptist churches have been quoted saying that exposition
is lazy. Really. Same guy who said just
last week that the New Testament didn't come into being until
the fourth century. No polemics. Look it up. For God who said, for God who
said, let light shine out of darkness. What does that mean?
This is the judgment, Jesus says, that the light has come into
the world, but people of the darkness, rather than the light,
because their works were evil. This is for you, brother. And
what? They do not come to the light
lest their works be exposed because their works are evil. But all
who come to the light do so. So it may be clearly seen that
their works have been carried out in God. You know what that
means? That they did not climb out of darkness and start moving
toward God. But while they were in darkness,
God took a light in their hearts and shined it out where the darkness
was pushed back and they were allowed and they walked before
men and the glory of God shines through them because he's done
it all. It's to him and him alone, which
is to the glory. That's it. That's it. He snatched us out of the vain
of darkness into the light of the glory of His Son, into the
kingdom of righteousness, into the kingdom of Jesus. He pulled
us out of death when we stumbled and could not see where we were
going. And He saved us with an everlasting salvation because
of an everlasting love that He loved us before the world began.
And in His mercy, He calls us to be born again to a living
hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. How do
I have that real in my life? You've got to believe that God
is not a liar, but a truth teller, and that Jesus is the truth of
the mouth of God, and He is the Word of God, and that if you,
by faith, believe, you are in Christ. If you want to charge that, not
being evangelistic, then go ahead. Whether it's here or in the street
or in my house or wherever, that's the evangel. What must I do to
be saved? That was the answer. Agree with
God that you're a sinner and trust that Christ is your Savior.
That's it. How do you do that? You don't. Many who say to me, Lord, Lord,
will not enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do
the will of my Father who is in heaven. Oh, now you're preaching
works. No, I am preaching works, but
it's not our works. It's God's works. For by grace,
you've been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing,
but it's a gift of God so that no one may boast. For we are
God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works
so that we would walk in them. That God created beforehand for
us to walk in. God has said that light shine
out of darkness. has shown in our hearts. You
notice what comes first here to give the light. A light comes
on, a heart is dead, it doesn't beat, it's decayed and stoned. And then the Spirit of God, through
the natural means of the hearing of God's word, shines a light
there and that light burns and life comes after the light enters. The light is shown in our hearts
and it is the light of the knowledge. The knowledge doesn't bring light.
The light brings knowledge. What is the knowledge? The knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Friends, that's
not boring. It's bold. It's not boring. It's beautiful. And here's the
difference in how I learned as a younger man and how the spirit
taught me. As another younger man. As a
not so younger man, but still. Is that I used to think that
I had to get people to see. And now I realize that it is
simplistically. God's working. I used to think
that I had to find in me the creative venue or vehicle to
which I would get the right response with the people in front of me,
that I had to relate to them in some way. When the scripture
says that God's word boldly preached will not return void, but will
do that for which it was sent. So if I preach boldly to your
ears and it has no effect on you, that's the purpose for which
God sent it. And if my six-month-old can't
understand the language in my mouth, good. For just as John the Baptist
was filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb of his mother, so could the Word of God save
even a child without comprehension. The light of knowledge. Is it the gospel or is it the
devil? We do not fall afflicted, beloved,
because we hear false teaching, even when we believe it for a
moment. We don't fall afflicted because God's spirit within us
teaches us to discern, as in John. First, John, we see that
we have been given discern wisdom. And if you feel like you don't
have it, James says to pray for it and it will be given to you.
But then when it is, stand in it, don't toss yourself, don't
be tossed to and fro like a wind, a leaf and a child with every
wind of doctrine. Some of this doctrine sounds
good, Church. And some of this doctrine, as it's even come to
me in the last few months, new stuff that I've never heard,
I'm like, oh, I hope that's right. Oh, that's good, that's Man,
that's good. That's even better. That's what
there's the piece of the pie that I've been waiting on. You
ever found anything like that? Oh, yeah. I got paid. And you go, I'm diving in, we're
doing Michael W. Smith now or Stephen Curtis Chapman.
What's that song? We're diving in. We're going deep and we jump
in there and we swim with a man. We just drown him to death. Oh,
my gosh. And we come back out. That's
discernment. So even when we jump in this
jump, God's spirit tells us this is not good. False teaching comes with fullness
of good, just a little bit of error. Skin of truth. A little bit of
error attached to a full gospel is no gospel. A little bit of
leaven in the big loaf, the big batch, spoils it all. We're not of the world and our
hearts and minds are within church. We don't fear the enemy. We don't
fear false teaching. We find it. When it comes. And we praise God. For what we
proclaim is not of ourselves, but it's Jesus Christ, our Lord,
and we have these treasures in jars of clay. So this is the
beautiful thing that I'll close with. And this text will carry
us through this series. I'm praying about Mother's Day,
I don't know what to do, because I'm not really wanting to change
what I've got going. But we have this treasure, what
is the treasure? The truth and the truth of the gospel, the
light of the gospel in Christ, through the word of God. We have
it in jars of clay. What does that mean? That we
walk around and as Paul would say in verse 8, in 2 Corinthians
chapter 4, we're crushed down, but not destroyed, we're afflicted,
but not driven to despair. All these things are happening.
But we have it in jars of clay in order to show that the surpassing
power belongs to God and not to us. Why? Friends, even good
expositors are worshiped. People worship preaching. Rather
than the Christ of the preaching. Be careful. Sometimes I think the Lord permits
Didn't cause it, but he permits men of God to fail so that he
can get the idolatry under check sometimes. That's an outcome
of it. I'm not going to say that's God's
intentions. We don't want to say what God's intentions are,
except he tells us. So all of us are jars of clay.
And if the devil had his due, he'd crush us under his feet.
But he can't. For our faith in the work of
Christ has Already destroyed. As we move. Church, the word
of God will do something inside of us that will cause us to move
differently in the life in which we live. But no matter how hard
it gets, we will not be. Losing heart. Because by the mercy and grace
of God, we've been given this ministry of reconciliation. which
says, you once were dead, but now you're alive. You once were
lost, but now you're found. You were blind, but now you can
see. Our chains are gone, church,
and there's no going back. Let's pray. Father, Jesus says in John 5, And you will not come to me that
you may have life. Lord, many don't come to him
so that they can have life. Your grace is spread throughout
the lands. Your gospel is there. Your character,
your nature, your divine power is given. It's shown. Lord, man don't want you. They don't want you to be their
savior. They won't. We want our own salvation in
our own way. And so, Lord, your intervention
in our lives and in our hearts is not just mandatory, it's paramount
for your namesake, for your righteousness to be upheld. Why? For you have
forgiven us. You've let it go. in essence, for our record of
debt. And you've put it on the Holy One and He's paid it. So
you're righteous because Christ has paid it all. And you're righteous because
you've paid the debts of all who believe those people now
are yours. You've bought them. Specifically
them. And I pray for me, Lord, As I
work through this series, that I would not point my preaching. I pray, Lord, that your will
would be done on Earth as it is in heaven, that you would
be glorified fully and forever by your people. And Lord, I pray for those who
may find it difficult to just be frustrated by your words.
Sometimes give them ears to see and hear. And rejoice. Because you have come to set
us free from blindness. In Jesus name, Amen and Amen.