Well, if you would, turn with
me and your Bibles to 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2. This is a passage
that I've looked at for a long time, and we're really going
to only examine one verse, but I'd like us to look at some of
the verses around it. My subject is in verse 10, where
it says, With all deceivableness, a bunch of righteousness in them
that perish, because they receive not the love of the truth, that
they might be saved. That's what I want us to look
at this morning, but look over in verse 15 to start with. He
says, Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions
which you've been taught, whether by word or by our epistle. Now
our Lord Jesus himself and God, even our Father, which has loved
us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace,
comfort your hearts, establish you in every good word and work. So if we look at this here, he's
saying stand fast to comfort you and to hold the traditions.
Why is he saying these things? Well, he's just given them some,
what I would say is frightening news. If you look up in the beginning
of the chapter, he says, We beseech you, brethren, by the coming
of our Lord Jesus and by our gathering together unto him,
that you should not soon be shaken in mind or be troubled, neither
by spirit or by word or by letter from us, that the day of Christ
is at hand. So he tells him first here that
in verse three, let no man deceive you by any means, for that day
shall not come except there come first a falling away, that the
man of sin be revealed and the son of perdition. So he tells
them some frightening news here. He says, you know, there's going
to be a falling away first. And so he doesn't tell them who,
he doesn't tell them what, he doesn't tell them anything other
than hold fast to what you've been taught, stand in what you
know, but first there's going to come a falling away, a falling
after a different salvation altogether. This is still a falling away.
That the man of sin be revealed, which is Antichrist. Now, we
don't really know much about Antichrist other than it doesn't
say, tell us specifically whether it's a man, whether it's many
men, whether it's a nation. I believe it's probably a spirit
of error. And that's here with us in this
day that we're in. And it tells us about this in
verse four. who opposeth and exalteth himself
above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that
he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that
he is God." So you see here it says it opposes, it exalts himself,
it says it's worshipped, and it seeks to appear just like
God. So this is frightening news to these people. And you could
certainly look at this and say this could be today's religion
that opposes, you know, the gospel opposes all other religions.
All other religions are some form of works. No matter what
they are, when you look at the end result of you have to do
this in order to get here. The gospel is the only saving
power that there is. It's the only way by which a
man can be saved and it's completely apart from his personal experience
and what he does. All other religions speak only
of, you do this and you will get this. And here, this verse,
it also teaches us that man is sought to be like God. Remember
in the garden? This is not too far from saying
that, you know, most people would say, you know, I don't want to
be like God. Well, look at your nature. You came from Adam and
Eve and they sought to be like God. They went to the tree, to
the knowledge of good and evil, and wanted to be like God. That was the deception that Satan
presented to them. You can be like God if you do
this. So this is in our nature, our fallen nature. Man is his
own savior here. In false religion, man chooses
to let God save him. Won't you accept the offer that
he's made? There's no offer here. This is
not you wait for the Lord to come knocking at the door. He
breaks the door down to whom he's pleased to save. This is
not answering anything. This is the Lord doing for us.
But today's religion, this idea of antichrist, is man becomes
his own savior because apart from the actions of man, the
works of man, he won't be saved. So who's saving who? It's man's
his own savior. So read on in verse five. He
says, Remember you not that when I was yet with you, I told you
these things and now you know what withholdeth that he might
be revealed in his time. for the mystery of iniquity doth
already work, only he who now letteth will let, until he be
taken out of the way, and then shall that wicked be revealed,"
and that's Satan or the adversary, "...whom the Lord shall consume
with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness
of his coming, even him whose coming is after the working of
Satan with all powers and signs and lying wonders." Any works
in salvation rob God of his glory and it exalts the creature and
it brings God down. Adding to or removing from anything
that God's done is exalting the creature. It's saying this is
not enough. We've got to take this away and we've got to add
to it to make it better. And this is all, as Paul says
here, fueled and perpetrated by Satan. The word Satan is our
adversary. I think that's a very appropriate
term because His only goal is to want to try to keep people
from Christ. And so he's our adversary. He's
against us. He's at work, and often we never
even perceive him at work. It's not some wicked, evil-looking
creature that is standing in the corner trying to push you
towards something that you know you shouldn't do. It comes as,
how do you think Eve ate of the tree? It wasn't the talking snake.
That's what it's described as. that we have no evidence of that
ever. She probably saw him as an angel
that he was before and was used to seeing angels and said, eat
of the fruit. And so it wasn't that she was
tricked and pushed into something she didn't want to do. She felt
comfortable for this. The tree looked good. It looked
good for food. It was pleasing to the eye. These
were things that she wanted. And so he tricked her and subtly
had her fall by giving it to Adam. So in verse 10, it says,
But now, after all these things you've heard, that there's going
to be a falling away, there's going to be a deception, there's
going to be this Antichrist, with all deceivableness of unrighteousness
in them that perish, because why? They receive not the love
of the truth that they might be saved. So this is my subject. It's also my fear, because this
is the line. This is the line of demarcation
right here. Because I want to be saved and I don't want to
be deceived. I don't want to deceive myself into saying that
I've received the truth, but I have no love of it. So there's
three things that I want to look at this morning. First is, what
is the truth? I need to know that to start
with. Secondly, what is it to receive the truth? So we see
that in the text that it talks about receiving the truth. But
lastly, what is it to receive the love of the truth? Because
it says there, this is the issue, the love of the truth. The last
one is given as a reason why people are deceived and not saved.
In them that perish, the language it uses. I don't want this for
me and I don't want this for you. So first, let's look at
what is the truth. We must establish this first.
So turn over to John chapter one. And in reading through this,
The whole time I want you to keep in mind what is the truth. So in the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was
in the beginning with God. All things were made by him and
without him was not anything made that was made. In him was
life and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth
in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. So we hear
of the Word. We hear that the Word was with
God. We also hear that the Word was
God. All things were made by Him,
in Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the
darkness did not understand the light. So go down to verse 10. It says, He was in the world.
This is the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Word. And the world
was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his
own, and his own received him not. So in the world that he
created and made, all things in there, he came to this world. The world didn't know him, had
no idea who he was, didn't accept who he was, and he had not been
revealed to them. So in verse 12 it says, But as
many as received him, to them, gave he the power to become the
sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. And the
word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. John bare witness of him, and
cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, he that cometh
after me is preferred before me, for he was before me. And
of his fullness have we all received, and grace for grace. For the
law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."
So the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. The law says, this do and live. If we could accomplish this do
and live, there would have been no need for Christ Jesus to come
in the flesh. But the problem was, we couldn't
do this do and live. There was no man that could ever
do it. And so he had to come to the flesh to fulfill that
law, which enters grace. Grace is getting what we don't
deserve. It's getting something I didn't
do anything for, but yet I get all these things and inner truth. He said in John 14, I am the
way and I am the truth and I am the life. And so what we see
here is he comes in grace and he comes in truth, but not just
comes in truth. He says I'm it. Make no mistake,
I'm it. I'm the Word, I created everything,
and I'm also the truth. So if I'm to know the truth,
then I must know something of Jesus Christ. Not facts, not
genealogies, not doctrine, not proofs of the law. These are
all stumbling blocks. These are the stumbling blocks
that religion in this world puts forth as it's either something
that your emotions are evoked into, or it involves the intellect,
something that you know that somebody else does not. Trying
to figure out the mystery of Scripture. Finding out the things
that are written in here. You see, He is the Word. And
if I know Him, I'll know the Word. I don't have to know every
mystery of Scripture revealed. If I know Jesus Christ, He's
the key to every verse in this book. Every verse in some way
speaks of Him. I'll know the Word because He
is the key. His name, Jesus, Savior, for He shall save His
people from their sins. Therefore, my sins condemn me
if He doesn't save me. So the only way to be saved is
if I'm one of His people that He save me from my sins. If I
could save myself, there'd be no need for a Savior. The problem
is no man has ever saved himself. Since the fall of Adam, every
single offspring is born reprobate corrupt, evil, and spiritually
dead. Turn over a few pages to John
chapter 3. There is a man of the Pharisees
named Nicodemus, ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus
by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher
come from God, for no man can do these miracles except thou
doest, except God be with them. Jesus answered and said unto
him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again,
born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God." So he must
be born above or you won't even see it. How then can a man be
born again when he's old? Can he enter a second time into
his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, fairly barely,
I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of
flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
See, water, born of the water, is that which cleanses me of
my sin. Being born of the water, it washes it all away. And being
born of the Spirit, this is the new man, Christ in you. This
is the new heart, the new nature that he imparts to us. This is
his righteous nature. So you must be cleansed of your
filth and be given a nature that enables you to believe at all.
Because, he says in verse 6, this is as clear as can be, flesh
is flesh. Flesh will only be flesh. There
is no way that that which is born in the flesh can ever rise
to the point to where it can believe in the Spirit. It can't.
Flesh will only be flesh. If you're born with a sinful
nature in the flesh, you will only ever have a sinful nature
and nothing but it. But that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit. If you've been given this new
spirit, this new heart that enables you to believe, you can only
believe. That's all you can do. So this
gives us confidence that if we have this new spirit in us, then
we can believe. Over in verse 16, he says, For
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish. This is what we want
to know about, because we're hearing about these that perish,
but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into
the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him
might be saved. He that believeth on him is not
condemned. That he that believeth not is
condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name
of the only begotten of God. So belief is a requirement. But
you can only believe if you've been born again. You have about
as much influence over your second birth as you did on your first,
which is none at all. So there's nothing I can get
God to do for me to cause him to want to give me this second
birth. This is something that has to originate in him. Our
condemnation in verse 19. And this is the condemnation.
That light, this is Jesus Christ, is coming to the world And men
loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
Men loved darkness because their deeds were evil. Now, you have
the truth here of why he came. Because men loved darkness. And
they could not love the light. They couldn't even see the light.
And in verse 20 he says, For everyone that doeth evil hateth
the light. Not just doesn't agree with,
but hates the light. Neither cometh to the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved. So we won't come to the light
because it exposes us. We don't want to be exposed for
what we are as being evil. And so we won't even come to
the light. We hated the light. And so this, not just hating
the light, if he is the light, the light of the world, we hate
God. So I think a lot of people that have not ever heard the
gospel before, when they hear that, think, I don't hate God.
I don't feel that way, but everything that this book points towards
says that men hate God. So His name, Jesus, He shall
save His people from their sins. First, sin. Sin is what God hates. This is breaking His commandments.
So anything that is not perfectly obedient to what is commanded,
God hates and the punishment is death. Sin is all we can do. So therefore it's in opposition
to God. So all I can ever be is in opposition to God. Hatred
for God. But we hear, it says, he shall
save his people from their sin. So his people, the people that
can only sin, the people who can only love darkness, who hate
the light, how could they be his people? Doesn't sound like
much of a people worth saving to me. Well, the only way we
can look at them is in light of Ephesians 1.4, he says, according
as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. So
you see, he had to love us before we had the opportunity to screw
it all up. Because if he had to look to
me, to what I did today, or at any point in my life, to say
that's the reason for me to bear him again, for him to be one
of my people, he could never find that reason. Before any
sin was committed, he chose them, holy and without blame. In John
15, he says, you've not chosen me, but I've chosen you. How
then, knowing of my personal sin and corruption, could God
call me holy, without blame, and love me? Well, only if there's
no sin. God can't love sin, so he had
to know me before. Christ stood for me as my representative. Christ stood for me as my substitute.
He paid the price for all that I owed, all the sin that I committed
and was guilty for, He paid the price and it cost Him His life.
If it were possible for men to save themselves, they would,
because by nature we hate God and we don't want Him to do anything
for us. All you have to say is God is sovereign and God is right
in all that He says and all that He does to someone. outside that
doesn't know him and you will see how men hate God because
they don't want to hear that. Let them have some tragedy in
their life and talk about the sovereignty of God in it. God
couldn't have done that. God couldn't have done this,
you know. You can quickly see, the hatred comes out quickly
when you preach or witness to them a God that is on the throne,
that is over them, that does as he pleases. That's when we
find out quickly when men hate God. Love ends when their control
ends. So our ability to, the idea that
we can control God, that we can say, well, I'll let him save
me or I'll let him forgive me, nobody hates that God. But when
you say that it's in his hands to choose you or not, that's
when we find out when men hate God. The evidence of his chosen,
his elect, is that you must be born again. If you are one of
the chosen and elect, you will be born again. This is the truth. Flesh is flesh, and worship is
only done in spirit and in truth. So without the giving of the
Holy Spirit, you can never worship. So I have to be given this Holy
Spirit which quickens me, which awakens me, gives me this new
birth, the new man, Christ in me. In John 18, if you'll turn
over there, John 18, he speaks of the truth here even more in
front of Pilate. Let's start in verse 36. Jesus
answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were
of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should
not be delivered to the Jews. But now is my kingdom not from
hence. Pilate therefore said unto him,
Art thou a king then? And Jesus answered, Thou sayest
that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for
this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto
the truth. Everyone that is of the truth,
heareth my voice. So you see, if I'm someone who's
been born with this new man in me, Christ in me, I'll hear the
truth because I'll hear his voice. But if I'm not, he's saying that
you won't hear my voice. The truth is that we're so sinful
and so reprobate that God had to slaughter his only son. Let's
exclude everybody else just to keep you. If you don't count
anybody else, if everybody else was perfect, It would take the
death of the Son of God to save me or to save you, for what I
personally have done. And the cross reveals who we
are and who God is. We hated His Son so much that
we nailed Him to a tree to die and to bleed out. We mocked His
person, we mocked His Father, we mocked His witness. Now I
know this, I would not give my child to someone you know, to
be slaughtered and to die for someone who loved me, that I
knew loved me, let alone someone who hated me and disrespected
me and did nothing but hate my face. But the Father did. We know nothing of love. What
gift the Father gave, and the Son as well, He said, greater
love hath no man than this, that a man give his life for his friends.
I can't even imagine even considering myself to be a friend of the
Lord with what I do and feel every day and go through. But
yet, that's what he says. So the truth is the truth. There is no subjectivity in that
you can say one, the number one, is always one. It's never not
going to be one. It's not zero. It's not two.
It's only one. So it stands as its own proof. If you turn over to John 8, what
I'm getting at here is the truth stands on its own. It doesn't
require other truth to bolster it and say, this is the truth.
So John 8, verse 12, he says, Then they
said unto him, Where is he? And he said, I know not. They
brought. Oh, sorry, I'm in the wrong place.
It didn't sound right. Then spake Jesus again unto them,
saying, I am the light of the world. And he that followeth
me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
And the Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou barest record
of thyself, thy record is not true. And Jesus answered and
said unto them, Though I bare record of myself, yet my record
is true. For I know whence I came, I know
where I came from, and I know where I'm going, but you can't
tell where I came from and where I go. You judge after the flesh,
I judge no more. And yet, if I judge, my judgment
is true, for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent
me. It is also written in your law, the testimony of two men
is true. I am one that bear witness of
myself, and the Father that sent me bear witness of me." So what
he's saying here is the truth that he's bearing witness to
is the only truth. They said, where is thy father
in verse 19? You need to know me nor my father.
If you had known me, you should have known my father also. So
what he's saying is you don't know me and you don't know my
father. I speak the words of truth to you. And he's saying
he's using example even in your wall of men. The word of two
men is truth. I speak my own word and the father
speaks of me and it is truth. The truth stands alone on itself
because of this word. It doesn't require something
else to validify it that it is, in fact, the word. So he is the
truth and his word is the truth. Independent of how I feel about
it, this is the truth. So we've established here what
the truth is. The truth is Jesus Christ. All
that he said and all that he did. And all the fathers stood
behind him in what he did and said in his work. So the second
thing we want to look at is this received not. So it says over
in our text, 2 Thessalonians 2 10, because they received not
the love of the truth. So what is it to receive? The
word receive means to commend, to present as worthy, of regard,
to have confidence in, to trust in. These people that said that
perished received not. It says that they would not. They would not commend. They
would not praise. They would not trust in the truth. Why? Romans 8, 8, it says, that
are in the flesh cannot please God. It's against their nature.
So it's against your nature to believe. It's against your nature
to be able to produce anything that God will accept. The Lord
said, you will not come unto me that you might have life.
Our nature cannot and will not believe, no matter how much I
try to make myself or try to put myself in a position where
maybe this will evoke some emotion to make me believe. I can't.
apart from him doing something for me. I'm going to turn over
to John chapter 10. In verse 24 he says, Then came the
Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou
make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us
plainly. And Jesus answered them, I told
you, and you believed not. The works that I do in my Father's
name, they bear witness of me. But you believe not, because
you are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice,
and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand." So what he's saying here is, I love the language
that he uses in verse 26, you believe not because you're not
of my sheep. He's saying you won't even hear what I have to
say because you're not one of mine. And so how then can we
believe if we're not chosen? You can't. You have to be given
this new nature and new heart to believe. And if the Lord is
pleased by his grace to reveal, to give it to you, Then this
is the glorious thing. You cannot not believe. You can
tell me something else is the truth and I won't believe it's
the truth because I know what the truth is. You know the truth
when you hear it. Isn't that what he just said
in John 10? Only my sheep are going to hear my voice and believe.
When you hear the truth, you know it's the truth because this
is God's word and his sheep will respond to what the truth is.
So you know the truth when you hear it, and when you perceive
it in truth as the Word of God. So there's two types of people
who will not receive the love of the truth. First, we can say
that it's a, the person that it's a willful open rejection.
So no matter what, they will not hear, they will not accept
the truth. They have a lot of preconceived
notions, probably a lot of preconceived religion backing it up, and they
won't hear and they won't know it. They say, this is what I'm
going to believe, even faced with the truth. All men have
sinned. All men are guilty before God.
You're incapable of doing any good works. I won't hear it.
My works are what I stand on. My works are what I've been doing
all my life to try to get myself to heaven. And so they hate this
truth because this removes everything that they stood for. It's a willful,
open rejection of the truth. They're saying, I'm choosing
another way. And then the other person that's a willful, open
rejection that I thought of was the intellectual. Where, have
you ever tried to explain what you believe to someone who considers
themselves learned or is intelligent? They look at you like you're
crazy. And they say, you don't really believe that. You don't
really believe all that stuff in the book is true. They pick
it apart. They ridicule you. They look
down on you. They laugh. They look at you
in disbelief. You don't really believe all
those things. Turn over a few pages to 1 Corinthians. Chapter
1, the learned of the world is knowledge which we as men
have gotten ourselves. So in chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians
verse 17 it says, For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to
preach the gospel, not with the wisdom of words, not preaching
to the intellect, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none
effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish
foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of
God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring
to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the
wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world?
Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. There's no way you can
know God through the wisdom of this world. But it pleased God
by the foolishness of preaching, to save them of belief. The Jews
require a sign, and the Greeks seek wisdom. But we preached
Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, but unto the
Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are called,
both the Jews and the Greeks, the power of God and the wisdom
of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and
the weakness of God is stronger than men. So the preaching of
the cross is to then to perish foolishness. Remember this, there's
no sense in getting mad at people. I think all of us at some point
have gotten mad at somebody, whether it's a family member
or a friend, or someone you try to explain what you believe,
but they won't accept what you believe. And the problem is that
we know that you can't believe, you can have no faith apart from
God doing some work in you. But yet we get angry with people
when they don't believe, when we want them to believe, when
we explain what the gospel is. David said, I was envious of
the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They're not in
trouble, they're not plagued, and they had more than their
heart could wish. Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then
understood I their end. So at the end of this, there's
no sense in looking in envy or looking in anger at somebody
else, because at the end of everything, this is all going to be burned
up. It's all going to be cast away. And then what is left?
What's left of these things is, are you found in Christ or are
you not? And that's what's really important.
And so the willful, open rejection of the gospel It offends us because
we're offended because we love our Lord, but yet we can't make
people believe because we're offended or make them understand
any differently because we're offended. So that was the first
person, the willful, open rejection. The second, and I believe the
most dangerous and concerning to me, is someone who believes
I believe the gospel. For those who have eyes and see
not, and those who have ears and hear not. See, this person
can hear the gospel and may be sitting here and logically see,
yes, the Bible says that. Yes, the Bible teaches that.
It is, in fact, true. They can even understand what
the doctrine is and recite back to you these things. You can't
read the Bible and deny that it teaches election, that God
has chosen people before the world outside, all are reprobate,
hard-hearted servants of sin. The gospel clearly says these
things. Reading, critical thinking and
objectivity can lead you all to this answer. And this is what
we would call receiving the truth. You can receive this truth that
is written here and understand it logically by looking at it.
James 2.19 says, Thou believest that there is one God. Thou doest
well. The devils also believe and tremble.
So what he's saying is, just because you understand the mechanics
of it, doesn't mean that you have any faith that's greater
than the demons who also understand who Christ is, and in fact probably
have a greater understanding than you do at all. You can tell
by the way they spoke to him, where they said, you know, what
do I have to do with thee? I know who thou art, Jesus, son
of Nazareth, Jesus of Nazareth, son of the Holy One. This person
would not argue with what is preached and may sit here week
after week. They hear the gospel and they
don't argue Well, how is this person's faith, how is her belief,
how is her understanding any different than what a demon's
would be? May God deliver me from this blindness. What danger
there is here and what complacency. We sit and we hear. Scripture
says, nevertheless, many of the chief rulers believed on him,
believed on the Lord, but because of the Pharisees, they did not
confess him, lest they be put out of the synagogue. For they
loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. So they
did have a love. They did have a love here, but
their love was misplaced. Their love was the praise of
men. They said they believed on him, but yet they had a greater
love for men. So this wasn't a belief unto
salvation, but they believed, he said, you believe that Jesus
is the Christ and the Son of God. Yes, I believe that. You
believe he died on a cross. you can believe and understand
these facts that have no belief in him as the man. So, what I need to know, this is
what I'm trying to get to, what is it not only to receive the
truth, but to receive the love of the truth? Because this is
the difference, this is the line, because this is spiritual to
me. I feel like I have an understanding of these things, but do I have
a love for the truth? And there's a big difference,
because love is the issue. Facts can be known apart from
love. The pharisees, the scribes, modern
theologians, they may know all the facts, and probably a lot
more than me. But where is the love in all this knowledge? How
can I know if I have a love of the truth? Well, first, have
you seen the face of the Lord Jesus Christ? And in seeing Him,
who He is as God and as man, and what He's accomplished, And
do you see, then, how obnoxious you are before God, standing
in your own flesh, that everything that I do and spew that comes
out of my mouth is obnoxious to God? Therefore, and seeing
that I am a sinner, and not a part-time sinner, where some of the times
I do some things that are good, and some of the times, you know,
I'm a sinner over here, but I do good stuff, too. That's a part-time
sinner. Or even a pastime sinner, where you look back and, you
know, the life that I used to live, you know, all the things
that I did. Well, what about now? That's a pastime sinner,
not part time or pastime, but a sinner here and accounted for
in the present. But that's all you do or a sinner
is sin before God. You're unclean, you're undeserving,
far from God, no reason for God to do anything for you. Do you
find a need, not just an understanding of election as the only way that
I can be saved. It takes on a very different
meaning, is knowing the facts of what election is and knowing
you in fact, I must be elected or I will not be saved. Do you
find a need of a great mercy for the Lord to cover my guilt?
Lord, I'm guilty. I have to look to you to cover
and have mercy upon me or I'm going to be destroyed. Do you
find a need to be cleansed of your sins? I read of His love
that purges me of my sins, that washes it away. I need that.
This is not just something I have an understanding of, but I myself
need it. Do you have a need for a new
nature, a new heart? Because yours is corrupted. It's
corrupt. I can't believe. But oh, how
I rejoice when the Lord enables me to believe. And I know that
He only does that because He's given me that ability, that new
nature. You have a need of Jesus Christ to stand for you, where
he paid for my sins and can stand before the Father where I know
I can't approach unto the Father, but I know when I pray, if it
goes through him, that I'll be heard for his sake. There's a
difference between understanding that I can't come and that all
who come through Jesus Christ will be heard and knowing that
my prayers are actually heard when I pray. I have a need for
this. I need God to hear my prayers. Do you have a need for his righteousness
as your own to present you holy, unblemished, and under-approvable
in God's sight? It's one thing to understand
that someone is going to be perishing outside of thee. It's another
to, I need that. This person who needs these things
will not only receive the truth as true, they understand it as
true, but they're going to love that because that's the only
way and the only grounds that they have any confidence before
God. It's the best news that you've ever heard. I wish we
would call it this more. The gospel means the good news.
So when the gospel comes to you, this is good news. This is this
means that I don't have to be punished for my sins, that I
can stand before God and not feel ashamed of myself because
Christ, my Lord, he put that away. So God found a way to be
just where it's not just seems so often the people of this world,
they overlook God's justice. God will punish all sin. And
you can't just say, well, I'm going to do good here and hope
it all works out in the end, because I think that's the summary
of a lot of people's faith. They just hope it all works out
in the end. I don't understand how everything works, but I just
hope it works out. I have confidence in knowing that He was just and
justified me. Those sins actually were paid
for to where they can't be paid for again. Christ died. I know
that if he died, it's because somebody's sin was on him. I
pray that it's one of mine. I pray that those are my sins
that he died for. That gives me confidence in knowing
God is not only just, but can justify me and call me holy,
righteous, and complete in his son because of what he did. This
is receiving a love of the truth. The Lord Jesus is not just the
Savior. He's my Savior. He's my Savior. I have a relationship with him.
I know him. And when I get to heaven, I'm
going to look and I'm going to see his face and know he's the
only reason that I'm here. We won't have any memory of what
our sins were in heaven. That's all been forgotten. God
said that he doesn't remember anymore. And you certainly won't.
But what we will see are the wounds in his hands. the hole
in his side, on his feet, and know that the only reason that
I'm here is because he died for my sins. That's all I know. And
for that, I'll be able to worship him eternally for that. He's
my life. I was dead before and I didn't
even know it. And now he's awoken me and I can look back and see
I was dead. I didn't hear anything. But now
I do hear. This is receiving the love for
the truth because you love this. This is the only thing that you've
got. There is no, a little bit of this, a little bit of that,
you know, I'll believe these things. This is the only way.
What is the greatest commandment? Well, the Lord said it. Because
several people ask Him this. It says, it is to love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, thy soul, thy strength, and thy mind.
Then what then is the greatest offensive to God? If this is
the greatest commandment, This is also the greatest offense,
it's to not love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul,
strength, and mind. What a weight and a burden of
accountability is upon us who know the commandment and who
know the truth. We know the truth and what accountability on us
there is to love it because you know it. God the Father will
not suffer his son whom he gains to be slaughtered, to be viewed
as anything less than all. He's not something and, he's
all. That's why receiving the truth,
knowing the facts, results in no savings as to them that perish
because they receive not the love of the truth. But those
who love his son, who worship the Lamb and who bow to need
of Christ, that's whom he saves. If you've been saved by him,
you will love him. And if you don't love him and
don't understand what I'm talking about, about this idea of the
love of the truth, It might be that you really don't know him.
It might be that you just know the facts. Well, the facts won't
save you when you're standing before God. Is that what you're
going to plead when you stand before God? I understand the
doctrine of justification, election, redemption, impartation. No,
none of those things. You look to Christ. He's going
to answer for me. I'm not going to answer anything.
Jesus Christ will stand before me. The facts won't do anything
for me. Ask the Lord to bring me down, crush our pride, and
to make me know that I'm a sinner, and that I'm dead, and that there's
no life in me, and I have no ability. And to see his Son as
life, my ability to live, the new man in me, as forgiveness. He paid for my sins and died,
and is our only hope. Give us a love for the truth.
Lord, give me this. Turn with me if you would. I
want to look at one example here in Luke chapter 7. to show you
what the love of the truth is. In verse 36 it says, And one
of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And
he went into the Pharisee's house and sat down to meet. And behold,
a woman in the city, which was a sinner, When she knew that
Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box
of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and
began to wash his feet with her tears, and did wipe them with
the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with
the ointment. Now when the Pharisee, which
had bidden him, saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This
man, and note this, if he were a prophet, would have known who
and what manner of woman this was that touched him. So you
can see right here, he believed that Jesus was a prophet. He
believed that Jesus was somebody special. He saw that he was bearing
witness to what Christ was saying about himself, and he invited
him there, and obviously he thought, this man's a prophet. If he were a prophet, would have
known who and what manner of woman it is that toucheth him,
for she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said unto
him, Simon, I have some what to say unto thee. And he said,
Master, say on. There was a certain creditor
which had two debtors, the one owed 500 pence and the other
50, and when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them
both. Tell me, therefore, which of
them will love him most? And Simon answered and said,
I suppose that he to whom he forgave the most. And he said
unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. And he turned to the woman and
said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house,
and thou gavest me no water for my feet. But she hath washed
my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.
That gavest me no kiss. But this woman, since the time
I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. And my head with
oil, thou didst not anoint. But this woman hath anointed
my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, First
sins, which are many, are forgiven. For she loved much. But to whom
little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he saith unto
her, Thy sins are forgiven. And they that said it meet with
him began to say it themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins
also? And he said unto the woman, Thy
faith has saved thee, go in peace." So both knew the facts. Both knew that he was that great
prophet. To one, he was a guest. To another,
he was her lord. Whom she loved, whom she looked
up to, whom she relied upon for forgiveness, whom she wept at
his feet, whom she anointed at his feet. She believed that he
was the Lord and she loved him. But to the Pharisee he was a
guest. One loved and the other didn't. It was something else.
Because only one left that house being told that her sins were
forgiven. He said, thy sins are forgiven
me. Can you imagine yourselves as that sinner hearing Thy sins
are forgiven thee." From the Lord's mouth, what greater confidence
apart from this day you will be with me in paradise could
you have and have confidence that He was the Savior? Thy sins
be forgiven thee. May God give us the grace not
only to receive the truth, but to receive the love of the truth
to the saving of our souls. Scripture says, if any man loved
not, loved not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema slaughtered
as a beast upon the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's
more than just understanding the receiving of the truth, it's
actually having a love for it. And to love it, you know a person. You know the Lord Jesus Christ,
that He came and He died for you. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we pray
unto You in the high and holy name of Christ Jesus, Your Son,
Father, we thank you for your Word. We thank you for revealing
your Word to sinners like us. We thank you for electing a people
before this world ever was, because Lord, we know that you could
never choose us apart from that. Lord, we thank you that you've
been so gracious to reveal unto us your Son, and not just the
facts about your Son. We thank you that you've given
us a love for your Son. Lord, increase our love. Increase
our faith, increase our love to Thee and give us the ability
to look to Thee and to believe. Lord, we can't do anything, any
of these things apart from Your grace. We ask that You keep us
and that You bless us in the days ahead. In Christ's name
we pray. Amen.