Well that hymn, quaint terminology,
as is common in some of Gadsby's hymns, but it's talking about
the difference between the truth of God in Christ, true profession
of Christ, and that which uses terminology which sounds right
but which is in fact false. That's the theme. Since the fall
in the Garden of Eden, the truth of God, the truth of the gospel
of grace in Christ has always been set against the lies of
Satan. Was that not the first sin, that
Eve listened to Satan who said, has God said? Do you really believe
that? Doubting the truth of God. And
throughout, Israel is warned against falsehood all around,
the falsehood that was in all the idolatry of the nations all
around them, not to mingle with them, not to have anything to
do with them. It sounds so narrow, it sounds so contrary to the
politically correct doctrine of the days in which we live.
Nevertheless, it was the wisdom of God to keep those people that
were a picture of His true people, which were symbolical of His
true people, which were the ones who had the oracles of God, by
whom God brought the truth of the gospel of grace in Christ
to man through the scriptures that He gave them, the oracles
of God that He gave them. All the way down, he was warning
them to keep that doctrine pure, and not mingle with those around,
who would always tend towards falsehood. And then we get to
the New Testament, and the apostles warned the churches constantly
Constantly, against false teachers, against wolves in sheep's clothing. They look like sheep, but inside,
they're ravening wolves, they said. Even our Lord Jesus Christ,
in Matthew 24, verse 24, He said, beware, watch out, false Christs
shall arise, and false prophets shall arise. It's a constant
theme. And people would say, oh, stop
going on about it. You're always going on about
telling us to avoid this, that and the other. I'll tell you
why. Because the Scripture does. The Bible does. The Word of God
constantly tells us. Beware of falsehood. Beware of
false religion. Because it's everywhere. It's
all around us, wherever we live. In our society, today, here,
in this country and throughout the world. False religion. What
do I mean by false religion? Are you not being arrogant, saying
you've got the true religion and everyone else's is false?
I'll tell you what I mean. I'm talking about religion, false
religion, is religion which claims to show you the way to heaven,
but in fact delivers you to hell. Shock? Gasp? Think about it. I meant exactly what I said.
False religion is religion which claims to show you the true way
to heaven, but in fact delivers you to hell. Some listening to
this now, or maybe to the recording later, might be wondering about
this. Are you in a situation where you are actually supporting
a religion where when you look at it, you'll find it's false?
And all it will do if you stay there is it will deliver you
to hell. Throughout the Bible, false religion is symbolized
by Babylon. Babylon, that city of Nebuchadnezzar,
the Chaldeans. That people that were used as
instruments of judgment against Israel for its idolatry. That
people, Babylon, is symbolical throughout the Bible of false
religion. You have to go right back to
Genesis chapter 11. Don't turn there now, but remember,
I know I've said this many times, following the flood, When men
began to multiply again and populations began to grow, and we get to
Genesis 11, and we find that man named Nimrod, whose name
really means rebellious panther, the one who rebelled against
the truth and principles of the gospel of grace in Christ. that
God had shown, that God showed in the seed of the woman coming,
in what He said to Noah. Noah found grace in the sight
of the Lord. The ark that Noah was told to
build was such a picture of the Christ of God. But in Genesis
11, Nimrod, that rebellious panther, he set up Babel, which is Babylon. Babel, where they sought, all
of one language, they sought to build a tower to heaven. What
was it? Physically? I have no idea, I
don't think we know. But I know what it was exactly,
symbolically. It was saying that it's perfectly
possible for us, our society, for man, for our worldwide kingdom
of one language as we are, to have some sort of eternal bliss
without the satisfaction of offended divine justice. The justice of
God is offended by the sin of man. And yet, the principle of
Babel, of Nimrod, of those people, was that we can have something
good. And we don't need this thing
that satisfies divine justice. We don't need this seed of the
woman. We don't need this Christ who God promised to come and
to bruise Satan's head. We don't need it. We can get
on quite well without it. They've been used, these Babylonians,
when we get forward to when it was the empire of the Babylonians,
you know, there was the Egyptian empire, the Assyrian empire,
and then we come to the Babylonian empire, the one that in Daniel's
interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, in Daniel chapter two,
Nebuchadnezzar had a dream and he saw a great statue and he
was troubled and none of the magicians and the astrologers
could tell him what it meant. But Daniel was found. And Daniel
said, I know nothing more than anybody else, but God will show
me. And God, he said, give me some
time and I'll pray God and God will answer Nebuchadnezzar's
question as to what his dream meant. Ah, there it was, a great
big statue with a gold head. He said, you Nebuchadnezzar are
the gold head. And then further down the silver, that's the Medo-Persians. And then further down the brass,
that was the Greeks. And then iron legs, and that's
the Roman Empire. And then feet of clay. In that,
Babylon is that golden head, that golden head. And it was
used, Babylon was used, a great world empire, to punish Israel's
idolatry, as God had often warned them. If you follow the idols
of the peoples round about, you will go into captivity. I will
take my blessing away from you. Yet they themselves, the Chaldeans,
whilst they were God's instrument of judgment, they themselves
were evil and under the judgment of God and destined for destruction. When you read the little prophecy
of Habakkuk, only three chapters there, Habakkuk says, what's
going on? You're judging a bad people by
a people that's far worse, the Chaldeans. And God shows him.
what the truth of the situation is. It's all in his plan. It's
all in his purpose. They're the instruments he used
to carry out what he had said he would do. But they themselves,
because their heart is lifted up within them, they themselves
are destined for destruction. And when we get to this 47th
chapter of Isaiah, We see the judgment on Chaldea, on the Babylonians. We see the judgment spelled out
very, very clearly by the prophet. Before it happened, before Israel
even went into their 70 years of captivity, here is the judgment
on Babylon and Chaldea. Here it is. set quite clearly. You see, Babylon had been a magnificent
place, a magnificent city, absolutely glorious. Do you remember, if
you know your history, you know that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,
Nebuchadnezzar's Hanging Gardens, were one of what was called the
Seven Wonders of the World. Magnificence, the magnificence
of Babylon, of Chaldea, was brought to absolute ruin. How? How? By the Medo-Persians. Who? By Cyrus. Where do we read about
him? We read about him over there
in verse 1 of chapter 45. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before
him. This was a pagan emperor of the
Medo-Persian Empire. And here he is named a good 200
years or more before he came. He's named by the prophet Isaiah
because God, how does God know? He doesn't look into a crystal
ball. He foreordains. God had ordained that Cyrus would
rise to accomplish his purpose, his purpose of bringing the Babylonians,
Chaldea, to destruction. And it happened. And it happened
exactly as it said. If you read on in chapter 45,
it says, I will loose the loins of kings to open before him the
two leaved gates, and the gates shall not be shut. when Belshazzar
was having his feast, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, he was having
his feast. And they were having basically a great big drinking
party using the vessels from the temple that they'd taken
in Jerusalem. And right in the middle of it all, God brought
his judgment upon them by Cyrus. And they came, they got in via
the river, through the gates that were over the river. That's
how they got in. And it's there. 200 or more years before it actually
happened. Brought to destruction. And God
said, that's it, it's going to be destroyed. And do you know
something? 2,500 years or more, I'm no accurate historian, so
ask somebody like Michael when he comes home for the exact dates
if you want them, but 2,500 years plus after that, you can go there,
and it's still, it's still a heap of dust in the desert, just an
archaeological site, it's a heap of... Damascus is there, in many
ways as it was thousands of years ago. But Babylon, because God
said so, it's just a heap of dust in the desert. Now then,
this message is not a history lesson for its own sake. No,
we don't do that. I don't just want you to go out
of here knowing something different about the Chaldeans and the Babylonians.
What we want to get is what is the message of Scripture. Romans
15.4, for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written
for our learning. that we, through patience and
comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. It's to bring us knowledge
of the truth. It's to show us how God deals
in this world. Babylon symbolizes false religion. All of it. All of it. False religion
today, all around us, is Babylon, as far as Scripture is concerned.
And what does God say? He says He will destroy it, just
as He did the city. Look at what He says here in
verses 1 to 3. He says it will be brought low.
Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon.
Sit on the ground. You are so proud of your situation. You haven't got a throne anymore,
you daughter of the Chaldeans. You'll no more be called tender
and delicate. No, all that's being taken away
from you. Take the millstones and grind meal, uncover thy locks,
make bare thy leg and cover the thigh. He's talking about shame,
being brought low. You're going to be brought low.
Verse five, sit thou silent and get thee into darkness, oh daughter
of the Chaldeans. For thou shalt no more be called
the lady of kingdoms. That's very interesting, that,
the Lady of Kingdoms. When we get to Revelation 17,
in the vision that's given to John, John looks and he sees
a lady, a woman, a woman, gorgeously arrayed, clothed in all kinds
of gorgeous jewels, sitting upon the kingdoms of the world. And
her name is mystery. Her name is Babylon. Babylon. Same thing. You see? Babylon. You shall no longer be called
the Lady of the Kingdoms because Babylon is going to be brought
down. What do we read again and again
in the scripture? Babylon, Babylon is fallen. It
is fallen. False religion, false, that which
is not the truth of God is fallen. Verses 6 to 9. Look, they're
going to be justly punished because they were very cruel to Israel. Although they were instruments
for the justice of God, for the sin of the people of God, nevertheless,
they were very cruel. They went further than they needed
to in punishing. They were cruel. They showed no mercy upon the
ancient. You have laid a very heavy yoke. There's going to be just punishment
for that cruelty. In verse 10, they're self-confident. You've trusted in your wickedness.
You've said, none seeth me, I'm all right. Thy wisdom and thy
knowledge, it hath perverted thee. And thou hast said in thine
heart, I am, and none else beside, I'm the only one, we're here
for good. Self-confident. And in verses 11 to 15, their
worthless religion, evil shall come upon thee. Thou shalt not
know from whence it riseth. Mischief shall fall upon thee.
You shall not be able to put it off. And so he goes on talking
about, you try and trust in what you've done, and you'll find
it completely worthless. Verse 13, You are wearied in
the multitude of Thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the
stargazers, the monthly prognosticators stand up and say, You've trusted
in all of these? Well, let's see them stand up
and save you from the judgment that will surely come upon you.
Behold, verse 14, they shall be as stubble. They're not allowed
to do it these days, but when I was a boy helping out on the
local farms, I used to love it, harvest time, getting in the
bales of straw and well, hay before that, but then the bales
of straw when the grain had been reaped and there's the field
and the thing that you did with it then was you set fire to it
when it was dry. And do you know something, stubble,
It's one of the easiest things to get a fire going. No difficulty
there, no rubbing of sticks, just a match and away it goes.
And he says, you will burn as readily as the stubble does.
They shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame.
The judgment of God is coming upon them. And that's the same
for all who reject the truth of God. So what do I mean by
the truth of God? Did you notice that verse four?
as for our Redeemer, right slap bang in the middle of all this
judgment against Babylon and Chaldea, as for our Redeemer,
the Lord of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel, that's
the title of this message, our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts.
In case you think that you can escape by your own efforts or
the efforts of others, And that's false. Here is one verse of truth. Our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts,
is His name, the Holy One of Israel. The Lord of hosts, the
Holy One of Israel, is the Redeemer of His people. That's who He
is. If you would escape the judgment
of Babylon, If you would escape the judgment of all modern religion
which is false, you must know that the Lord of hosts is your
Redeemer. Redeemer? What does that mean?
Redeemer. What does Redeemer mean? Don't just use words. What does it mean? What is it
to redeem? It means to pay the price of,
to buy back. You redeem something that you've
given to the shop that takes in goods and lends you some money,
and then you can go and buy it back. You redeem it. You pay
the price to redeem it. You pay a price to make it yours
again. your Redeemer, what price needed
to be paid? The price of the sin debt of
His people. The sin debt of His people is
the curse of the law. Cursed, says the book of God,
cursed is everyone, you and me without exception, cursed is
everyone who does not continue in all things written in the
book of the law to do them continually, without any wavering, without
any faltering, You're cursed if you don't continue to do it.
But Christ, it says, our Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed us,
his people, from the curse of the law. How? By him being made
that curse for us. He's redeemed us. He, it says,
took upon Him the sins of His people. He bore the sins of His
people in His own body on the tree. And there, bearing those
sins, He was found guilty of those sins, and the Father justly
punished Him for those sins. He poured out the wrath that
was due to those sins, and He poured it out to the fullest,
so that He cried out on the cross, My God, My God, why have you
forsaken Me? Can you imagine the anguish of
soul that was in that, as Christ, the spotless, sinless Son of
God, was loaded with the sins of His people, and His Father
turned His face away, and He was cursed by the justice of
God for the sins that He bore, but He paid its price, and He
paid it to the full, and He cried, it is finished, it is finished.
The judgment is satisfied. The law is satisfied. There is
nothing more that needs to be done. It is finished. And so
we read in Ephesians 1 verse 7, in whom, in Christ, we have
redemption, the purchase of the sin debt, the payment of the
ransom for sin, in whom we have redemption. How? Through His
blood. It's the blood that pays the
price. Why is it the blood? Because
the soul that sins, it shall die. die, lose its life. How does it lose its life? We
read again, again in Scripture. We read, the life is in the blood. This is the precious blood of
the Lamb of God. This is the precious blood of
the infinite Son of God. This is the precious blood of
He who dwelt in perfect glory with His Father from the beginning
of time, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. But laid
all that aside, that he might come and be the substitute for
his people. That as a man in a body of a
man, with the blood of a man in his veins, being the son of
Mary, yet the son of God, having no sin of his own, yet with that
blood, that precious blood, that precious lifeblood, He paid the
perfect sacrifice for the sins of His people. Redemption through
His blood. And what does it accomplish?
The forgiveness of sins. How much of it? In what proportion? According? to the riches of His
grace, in proportion to the riches of the grace of God." What a
contrast between truth and false religion. It's laid out clearly. This is what this chapter is
talking about. There's the judgment coming on Babylon, but as for
our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is His name. And thinking of
where to look, because what I love to do is I love to illustrate
the Old Testament with New Testament clarity. And I can think of nowhere
clearer than Philippians chapter 3 in the New Testament. So turn
there to Philippians chapter 3 now. Philippians chapter 3. I know you know it well. but
it's always worth underlining. Philippians chapter 3, where
we see the contrast between truth, the Lord of hosts is our Redeemer,
and false religion, which is the religion of Babylon. However
it sounds, whatever it looks like, You know, there are those
of you that are really good at looking out for something that's
a con. You know, there's con artists all over the place. They
knock at your door, they'll send you an email. They're all the
time trying to trick you out of your money. And there are
some of you who are really, really good at not being duped and beguiled
by a trickster. Well, try and apply some of that
to the truth of God. Look at it. Look at it. God's
given us discernment. He's given us his word. He's
given us his spirit. Let's examine the things. Do
you know why the Bereans were called noble? The noble Bereans.
Why? Paul preached and they went,
oh, Paul preached. We better believe that. No, they didn't.
They searched the scriptures to see whether they were so.
They looked in the script. What saith the word? What does
God say? To the law and to the testimony,
if they speak not according to this word, there is no light,
there is no truth in them. I'm always telling you, don't
believe what I say just because it's me that says it. Absolutely
not. Compare it with the scripture. Does it sound like the truth?
Do you hear the voice of the Good Shepherd? When you listen
to a preacher, listen, do you hear the voice of the Good Shepherd
in that message? If you do, then follow him and
hear what he says. as if it was the Good Shepherd
himself that was saying it. Now, think about Paul's relationship
to Philippi. When he wrote this letter, he
was in prison. He was under house arrest in
Rome. He had traveled all around. Do you remember he was in what
we now call Turkey, and he was seeking to go somewhere else
in Turkey, but it says, the Holy Spirit forbade us. The Holy Spirit
closed the door. We wanted to continue in Turkey,
but we couldn't. And the door opened to Greece,
so he went over into Macedonia, and he went to Philippi. And
there on that morning when they gathered together to pray, certain
devout people, people, truly devout people, seeking, people
who had not been deceived by Satan, People who had not been,
they were gathering together, seeking the truth, seeking to
know God, being serious about God, with a fear of God in their
hearts. And they gathered by the riverside, and there was
that one Lydia, who was a seller of purple. And she there was
there, and they were praying, and Paul stood and preached there.
And as he preached, what do we read? God opened her heart. God opened her heart, as he said
to the Thessalonians, what manner of entry we had unto you. Why
did the word come in with such power? Because God, the Holy
Spirit, opened her heart and the hearts of others, her household,
and they believed. And then violence came upon them,
and Paul and Silas were put into prison, and there was a great
earthquake that night, and the Philippian jailer was terrified
for his life, and he saw eternity stretch before him, and he yelled
out in the darkness, what must I do to be saved? And they said
to him, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.
You and anybody else in your household who believes. And that
church was established in Philippi. So it was a church that was dear
to Paul. But now he's in prison in Rome.
He's awaiting trial before Nero. Nero was not a nice man. Those
of you that know any Roman history will know that he was a violent
man and he was a very cruel man. And it was certain that Paul
was going to die a violent death. He's now in prison. But what
he writes here concerns the truth of God compared with the falsehood
of Babylon, the falsehood of the religion of Babylon, the
falsehood that is the error of Babylon. You know, Babylon, as
I've already said, in Revelation 17, John looks and sees a woman
gorgeously clothed. That is Babylon, that is false
religion. It looks initially, a woman in
Revelation is a symbol of the church. In Revelation 12, no
question, the woman there is the church of God, and the woman
is given a place in the wilderness where God feeds her there. But
in Revelation 17, John looks and sees another woman, and he
thinks initially, superficially, here's the church again, but
she's gorgeously arrayed. And she's sitting on this beast
which is the kingdoms of this world, the kingdoms trying to
re-establish that which Nimrod had tried to establish in Genesis
11, which is a kingdom of people without any satisfaction of the
justice of God. We can get to heaven, we can
have a heaven of our own without any satisfaction of the justice
of God. And she's Babylon, and Babylon
is fallen. It looks like God's church. John's
shocked. It says great wonder, it means
actually he's shocked, he's horrified. Because what he looks at and
thinks the church, he discovers it isn't. It's falsehood. It's Babylon. It looks like the
church, but it's deceiving. So here in Philippians 3 and
the first 10 verses, he contrasts the truth of God, the true gospel
of grace, with that which is false. Finally, my brethren,
he says, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you,
to me indeed, is not grievous, but for you it is safe. He says,
beware of dogs. What's he talking about? We went
for a walk in a park yesterday with little Rosie, the new dog,
and there were an awful lot of other dogs around, sort of rather
out of control and charging up and down. Paul is not talking
about bewaring of dogs like that. He's talking about false religionists. You know, to the Jews, the Gentiles
were dogs, Gentile dogs. When Jesus was talking to the
Syrophoenician woman, he said, it's not fitting to give the
children's bread to the dogs, meaning you, you're a Gentile
dog. cruel words, sounds like, but it's all of grace. She says,
yes Lord, true, I am but a Gentile dog. But she said, even the dogs
eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table. Gentile dogs. He says, beware of false religionists. Beware, he calls them evil workers.
Oh, they do such good works. He says, beware of evil workers.
I don't care how good, how, Saintly, somebody looks. If they are teaching
people a false way to heaven, they're evil workers. Beware
of the concision, that which tries to make itself the people
of God. Concision, the circumcision.
For we are the circumcision, by which he means we are the
true Jews. We are the Jews which are not
ones outwardly by physical descent. We are the Jews who are Jews
by virtue of the heart being circumcised. True circumcision
of God, true putting off of the works of sin of the flesh, is
not external, but internal, in the heart. It's a work of the
Spirit of God. He says we are the true circumcision,
the true Church of God, the true people of God. What do we do?
Unlike the false, unlike the dogs, unlike the evil workers,
we worship God in the Spirit. The worship of God is a spiritual
thing, not in outward form. Don't be duped by outward form.
We worship God in the Spirit. We rejoice in Christ Jesus, for
that is all our hope. We have no other hope. Our hope
is in Christ Jesus for what he has done for his people. We have
no confidence in the flesh. We don't have any trust in The
things that we do in religion, we don't have any trust in the
heritage that we come from. Oh, it's good to look back at
your heritage, but don't trust in it. It's what about you now?
Are you rejoicing in Christ Jesus? Are you depending on something
that you are? Because if you are, that's not the truth of
God. He says, let me give you an example from his own self. He says, I, Paul, might also
have confidence in the flesh. If others are claiming to have
confidence for their religion in the flesh, I might have more
confidence. If any other man thinks that
he has something that he might trust in, in the flesh, I've
got more. Those in religion who say, ah,
well, we've got this heritage and that, and we do this and
we don't do that, and we've got this building and that place
and so on. He says, I've got more. Listen,
listen to what Paul says was his testimony. He was a true
Jew. of Jewish parents, circumcised
the eighth day, they did the right thing exactly according
to the law for Jewish boy babies, circumcised the eighth day of
the stock of Israel. He's a true descendant of Abraham.
Not only that, he's of the tribe of Benjamin. That was the smallest
of the tribes. That was the one that, oh, if
you were a real Israelite, you were of the tribe of Benjamin.
Oh yes, stock of Israel, tribe of Benjamin. And Hebrew, if the
Hebrews were to say what are true Hebrews, they'd say, well,
as far as the Benjamites, they're the true Hebrews. A Hebrew of
the Hebrews, that's touching the law, a Pharisee. He was a
Pharisee, one who'd set aside his life to be totally dedicated
to the service of God in the Jewish religion. He was a pupil
of Gamaliel, the great teacher. He sat at his feet, he'd learned,
he'd studied, he'd graduated. Concerning zeal, when he became
a fully qualified Pharisee, if you like, concerning zeal, He
was without equal. He was head and shoulders above
the rest, persecuting the church. He tried to destroy the church.
He went to Damascus with letters from the high priest for the
purpose of dragging any who believed into the courts and having them
put to death and taken back bound to Jerusalem, persecuting the
church. touching the righteousness which
is in the law, blameless. Of course, he doesn't mean he
was without sin. What he means is that when his
fellow Pharisees judged him according to their standards of life that
they sought to live by, they could find nothing for which
to blame Paul. He was without blame. When it
comes to having a heritage of the things that you do in religion,
Paul was without equal. But what things were gained to
me, what things I counted of value in terms of my relationship
with the living God, all of those things he's just described, he
said, I count them worthless. I count them loss for Christ. I count them loss for Christ,
yea, doubtless. And I count all things but loss
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. Do you have the excellency
of the knowledge of Christ, whom to know is life eternal? To know
Christ is life eternal. It's an excellent thing. When
it comes down to, you know, we're all mortal, we're all going to
die. We listened to a funeral on Monday of Henry Mahan. We
went to a funeral of a relative on Wednesday. And what a contrast. It's going to come to us all,
sooner or later. Youngest to the oldest of us.
It's coming to us all, sooner or later. But oh, when you get
there. To have the excellency of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. To know that in Him, you
have a good hope. Good hope, why? Because it's
a hope of eternal life. It's a hope of life in him. It's
not something fleeting that you might aspire to or might not.
You know it, you know you've got this good hope, this knowledge
of Jesus Christ, my Lord. You know him, Christ, the promised
seed of the woman who would come, promised in the Garden of Eden
as soon as the fall. The seed of the woman was promised
to come and bruise Satan's head. that there might be redemption,
that there might be forgiveness of sins, that the people who
are going to populate the kingdom of God might be people without
sin because of what Christ would make them, the righteousness
of God in him, that God would come in the flesh, Christ Jesus,
my Lord, Jesus the man. Jesus of Nazareth, that this
very one, Paul's preaching again and again in the Acts of the
Apostles, was to show people that this Jesus of Nazareth,
He is the Christ, He is the Messiah of God, He is God, promised to
come in the flesh to save His people from their sins. Jesus
the man, Joshua, is the name in the Old Testament in Hebrew.
Joshua, as Joshua took the people into the promised land and so,
Our Joshua, our Lord Jesus Christ, will take his people into eternal
glory. And he says that that is an excellent
knowledge to have. When you read in Matthew, where
is it, 12, 13, the parables, Jesus there talks about the kingdom
of God, kingdom of heaven, being like the man, the jeweler, the
one who trades in jewels and he's got boxes full of pearls.
But the day comes when he finds the pearl of greatest price,
the pearl The one pearl. You know, you can imagine, can't
you? A jeweller scratching around and, well, they're alright, they're
worth a few pounds each, you can make some earrings with them
and some necklaces. But then one day, he discovers
that absolute gem. And it's in a class of its own.
and all the others, you know, the box of the rest of them,
he could throw it away because by comparison it's worthless
compared with the pearl of greatest price. This is the excellent
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ because if you know Him, you
know that your sins are forgiven. My sin, oh the bliss of this
glorious thought, says that hymn. My sin, not in part but the whole,
is nailed to His cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord, O my soul. I've suffered the loss of all
things, says Paul, for this excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ. I've
lost all my pharisaical religion because they want nothing to
do with it. When you come out of false religion and join yourself
to that which is true, you discover that those that you've left behind
want nothing to do with you. You suffer the loss of all things
for the sake of Jesus Christ. And in losing it, you count it
but done. Worthless. I'm a gardener, you
know, and I quite like dung for the garden. It does a good job.
But we know what Paul is meaning. He means it's worthless. It's
utterly worthless. that I may win Christ, because
you can't have both. You cannot serve God and mammon.
You cannot have this association with false religion and yet win
Christ. There's got to be a complete
separation. I want to be, verse 9, found
in Him. Come that day of judgment, where
do you want to be? I want to be found in Him. I
want it to be found that from eternity I was put in Him by
the grace of God, the sovereign grace of God, the particular
redeeming grace of God before the beginning of time. I want
when the books are opened to be found in Him with my name
written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Not with my own righteousness
based on the things that I have done by the law of God. No, not
at all. That's not where value and blessing
and hope is, no, not that, but that which is through the faith
of Christ. not that which is through my
faith in Christ, that which is through the faith of Christ,
the faithful work of Christ as his people's substitute, as his
people's redeemer, as the one who came and fulfilled the will
of the Father. This is the will of the Father,
that of all he has given me from before the beginning of time,
I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.
This is the faith of Christ, who for the joy that was set
before him endured the cross, despising the shame. He went
to that cross for this purpose. He set his face as flint to go
to Jerusalem, determined. Why? Because for that purpose
he would save his people from their sins, because by doing
what he did, in bearing their sins and dying in their place,
he would satisfy justice, that his kingdom might be populated
in eternal glory by that multitude which no man can number, that
the Father gave to him from before the beginning of time. This is
the righteousness which is of God by faith. I appreciate it,
I apprehend it, I am aware of it, I am conscious of it by faith
that God gives. But it is the faithful work of
Christ that has accomplished it. and bring me to know Him
and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His...
You see, because He's risen from the dead, I shall rise from the
dead, knowing that I'm in Him, the fellowship of His sufferings
while we're still in this life, being made conformable unto His
death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection
of the dead. I will attain to that in Him
and in Him alone. His name is Jesus. Call His name
Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. he will
be just and justifier, that I might be found in him. Now, I'll be
very brief. What is God's call to his people? We've seen the contrast between
the truth and the false. The false is in all that that
is symbolized by Babylon, and it's all being brought down to
nothing. You who know Christ, and I'm talking to people that
might be out there listening to the sermon recording or listening
to this out on the internet somewhere, you who know Christ but are intermingled
with Babylon, by which I mean all of the religion, which is
not as Paul has described it in these verses of Philippians.
And I know because in the past, we've been there too. We thought
we better stay. It's not right. There's all sorts
of things wrong. There's not the true gospel here, but you
know, let's stick around because by being here, we can influence
it towards the true gospel. It's a fallacy. It really is.
It doesn't work like that. It doesn't work. You know, all
attempts to do that are bound to fail. But God tells us in
His Word, what does God call for His gospel-believing people
to do? Answer, Revelation 18 and verse
4. I heard another voice from heaven
saying about Babylon, Come out of her my people that you be
not partakers of her sins and that you receive not of her plagues. The plagues as described metaphorically
that we've just read in Isaiah 47. In Isaiah 48 and verse 20
we read the same sort of thing. Isaiah 48 and verse 20, Go ye
forth of Babylon, get out of it, flee from the Chaldeans,
with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it, even
to the end of the earth, say ye, the Lord hath redeemed his
servant Jacob. Is that not exactly the same
message? Come out of it. Separate from
it. 2 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse
17. Wherefore, come out from among
them. From what? From that which is
false. From that which claims to be.
the truth of God, but it isn't. It's idolatry. I've told you,
you know, you don't need totem poles to worship an idol. If
you worship a Christ who is not the Christ of this book, you
worship an idol. If you talk about a God and a
Christ who is not what he says he is in this book, which is
a sovereign God, which is a God of sovereign grace and particular
redemption, which is a God who is sovereign over everything,
does all his will. If that's your God, it is an
idol and not the true God of Scripture, and come out from
amongst it. Be not part of them. Be separate,
says the Lord. Touch not the unclean thing,
and I will receive you. That's what God says. You may
say, okay, but where do we go? There isn't anywhere. Doesn't
the Bible say, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves
together? I need to keep going to church. that the assembling
that Hebrews is speaking of is that of true believers, not false
religionists. Don't seek to prop up falsehood.
I know I've said this before, but think of this. Look for a
preacher, because it is by preaching. Even in these days when preaching
is so unpopular, it is by preaching. It's by the foolishness of preaching
that it pleased God to save those who believe. Look for a preacher,
and if you find one, If at all possible, relocate there, if
you possibly can, if you can. I know it's very, very difficult
in so many cases, and so I wouldn't be prescriptive and judgmental
in any way, but if you at all can, we have a young friend in
Australia who's a great example to us, and I won't mention his
name in case he listens to this, but he relocated, didn't he?
He's a three and a half, his home is a three and a half to
four hour drive away from Nowra, where Angus is preaching. And
he heard the gospel, only 22 years old, and he believed it.
And by dedication to that, he relocated there and got himself
a job. Maybe not as good a job as the
one he had, but he's relocated there, found himself an apartment.
He's living there. He has an aspiration to be a
preacher. He wants to do what the Word of God says. And if
all that fails, and you just can't, because I know some are
too... old now or incapable of moving or changing, then what
has God given us in these days? He's given us the internet. Revelation
12 verse 6, the woman was taken from the clutches of Satan, the
church, into the wilderness, a wilderness separation from
this world and the influence of Satan. And there, God says,
he gives her a place where he will feed her there. Is that
not what's happening in these very days, this last 20 years
or so? That's all it's been, if that.
nourishment in wilderness separation. What's the conclusion? All that
seems like true religion, but proves to be Babylon falsehood,
and it's false because there's no effectual redemption in it,
there's no salvation from sins, all of that will be destroyed
and will be judged. If you have heard the truth and
call of God, come out of it, that you be not partaker of the
plagues coming upon it. Amen.