Acts 13, we're going to be closing
out verses 42 through 48. 42 through 48, where the Apostle
Paul has just finally drawn, dropped the gauntlet, established
a basic argument that he knows will pretty much end any real
opportunity for him to preach extent. to extent to his Jewish
brethren over in verse 40 where you and I saw that he was addressing
the pointer passage in the book Habakkuk. He says, Beware therefore
lest that come upon you which is spoken of in the prophets. Behold you despisers and wonder
and perish for I work a work in your days, a work which you
shall in no wise believe though a man declare it unto you. And we looked at this last week
and we understood that the Apostle Paul had perceived that in his
audience as he was sharing the gospel, that there was a constituency,
there was a group of people, basically the Jews, who had opposed
everything that Paul had stated when he gave the whole history
of Israel and the centrality of the coming of Jesus Christ
and his death and burial and resurrection. He could pick up,
he could sense in the audience. We don't know how many there
were. I told you, as a rule in Jewish synagogues, it could be
as small as 20 or 30 people and as large as a couple of hundred
people. Because he was in Pisidia, this was the region of Asia Minor,
would have been north of Jerusalem, north of Palestine. There would
have been a good number of Gentiles in the midst of this fellowship,
as you and I have already affirmed, he acknowledged the Jews and
then he also acknowledged those that feared God. And what was
going on in the midst of Paul's exhortation and preaching of
Jesus Christ was a division. There was a division that was
taking place while he preached Christ. And the reality is whenever
the gospel is faithfully preached, among a mass of people, there's
a division that takes place. Not everyone hears the gospel. Not everyone receives the gospel.
Not everyone embraces the gospel. And the mystery of it all is
you really don't know who's hearing and who's not. You can't tell
always up front because it's not always visible. A person
may seem to have no interest in the gospel from a empirical
standpoint, from the standpoint of our observing them, looking
upon their continence or trying to anticipate the movement of
their body, the gesture of their body. But they could be deeply,
deeply, deeply committed to the things that you're saying and
working them out in their own soul without any real external
evidence. They could be fixed on certain
aspects of your discourse or your conversation or your dialogue
about Christ that has them now from that point on in search
of a satisfying relationship with him. And you and I may never
know it. Sometimes we get people who will
respond to the gospel and they will give what we would consider
sort of the normal, as it were, affirmation of the truth. And
yet, when you press the issue far enough, you come to discover
that they didn't even really understand what you said. So
what is an affirmation if you don't understand what he says
or she says, or they say? In this case, though, the Jews
were the kind of people who, when they didn't agree with you,
they let you know it. And this is really true when
you are in an eclectic group of people where the mixed multitude
has a majority of one group and then a minority of the other.
Generally, the majority will be louder than the minority.
And in this case, that would have been such. The Jews would
have felt as if they had a right or a responsibility to let Paul
know by their gestures, by their facial expression, by their positioning
themselves. And as we're going to see when
we go back to church in verse 46, they're going to just make
an out and out ruckus over what he preaches. All this to say
is that when the gospel is being preached, our master spoke about
the parable of the sower and the seed and how that the seed
was sown in four different types of soil. which represented the
different stations or conditions of the heart of man. Now, you
and I don't know each other's hearts. We don't know people's
hearts. But we do know this, that at any given time where
there's a gathering of 60, 70, 80, or 100 people, those four
soils are operating. The wayside, the shallow ground,
the thorny ground, and the good soil. Somebody's heart is so
far from God that it's a way side hearing heart Well, it's
really not paying attention to what the person is saying They
just happen to be there because maybe somebody brought them their
real interest is somewhere else The word didn't even begin to
take root Then there's the other soil representing the heart which
would be the stony heart and that heart would be a heart that
basically is has a shallow interest in the gospel. It's not really
eternally interested. It's kind of got a temporary
sort of interest and they ain't got nothing else to do. So I'll
sit and listen to this preacher and I'll give my opinion. And
when Jesus talks about the shallow ground, he's saying that there's
a little soil on the top of a bedrock of stone so that the seed goes
in and it does a little work, but it never ever actually takes
root. And so people will learn some
things about the Bible, but there's never really a commitment because
the heart is still stony. That's the shallow ground hearer. The thorny ground hearer is the
person who believes that they can actually occupy in their
heart and in their mind, biblical truth, right along with four
or five or six or 20 other issues in their life. equally. Like they will be preoccupied
with their income, they'll be preoccupied with their health,
they'll be preoccupied with relationships, they'll be preoccupied with business,
they'll be preoccupied with a bunch of other issues. And those will
be very important issues to them of which they will allow room
for the gospel to be part of that. Christ called that the
thorny ground here. What he said was the thorny ground
here hears the word and rejoices for a while. But because it actually
does not take root and bring forth any real serious fruit
is because all those other categories with which they are involved,
making money, relationships, health, and many other things
that preoccupy our lives by which we build our identity, choke
the word so that it does not bear fruit. To me, that's one
of the most common hearts in Western Christianity, because
we have the ability to, as it were, sort of juggle several
things at once. We are jugglers of issues, jugglers
of things. Very seldom do you meet a person
or a group of people who are really committed to one thing
or a few things. Most people got a whole lot going
on. And that's the point. And so when, when the word of
God is preached, you and I don't know what it's going to do. Only
God knows. The apostle Paul picked up on
his Jewish brethren's antipathy. We're going to see that in verse
46, their rejection of his message, their hostility towards it. And as we learned last week,
it was largely because He's a Jew himself. And he remembered being
in the synagogue or in the marketplace when Stephan preached and when
Peter preached and when John preached and Paul knew the tug
on his heart and the sweat glands starting to moisten up and the
anxiety that started rising up when he heard the gospel and
the gospel began to challenge his worldview and his theology. You guys know the feeling? When
you hear something that begins to challenge your own assumptions
and you don't know what to do, you don't know how to escape,
you don't know whether or not to give yourself in to this new
advice, to just out and out reject it. So you hold on for dear life,
hoping not to disintegrate or just disappear under the fear
that your view is wrong. Because we hold to our views,
don't we? And so the gospel has a tendency to do that. It's called
a hammer. It breaks into pieces the stony heart that opposes
its precepts. The gospel is called a fire that
burns up the chaff. It's called a light that penetrates
into the darkness and exposes error. Is called a scalpel able
to discern between soul and spirit bone and marrow and is a discerner
of the thoughts and intents of the heart So that whenever the
gospel is actually being preached or taught People are exposed
to the powers of god to actually invade your life At levels that
you have no ability to stop It's just true So sometimes biblical
truth is so convicting That it brings about a negative reaction
and that's what had occurred here for which Paul under the
inspiration of the Spirit said in verse 42 41 rather behold you despisers and
Wonder and perish that was really a word of judgment. He quotes
Habakkuk which says I am doing something in your presence, which
you will not believe, even though a man tell you. Now, if you jump
from Habakkuk's days, as I told you last week, which is contemporary
with Jeremiah and those others who were right on the brink of
the Babylonian captivity, to the day of Paul, what Paul was
saying to his Jewish brethren was, God is saving a people for
himself through the grace of God in Christ whether you like
it or not. God is saving a people for himself
through the grace of God in Christ, whether you like it or not. And
so what they are going to be exposed to over the next several
days immediately in our context is the truth of what Paul is
saying in verse 41. Think about what he just stated
here. For I work a work in your days. This is prophetic. Work
which you shall in no wise what so what he's what God is doing
is taking an Old Testament prophetic promise that already came to
pass 400 years before Paul and making a second application of
its prophetic truth by the way, the Bible can do that and The
Word of God can take a contextual prophecy that would be applied
at a certain time in history past, fulfill that prophecy,
and then take the same prophecy and apply it again in the future,
sometimes two and three times, because the prophecy is still
applicable because the context is repeated. hardened hearts
that were privileged to hear the word of God, but really didn't
pay God any attention so that they are set up for the same
kind of judgment. In this context, it was the Jews
again in Paul's day who are now going to be set up for a kind
of judgment, not in the sense of the Babylonians coming down
to destroy them, but the Roman empire coming down to destroy
them in AD 70. because of their perpetual rejection
of the gospel and ultimately God coming down to destroy them
because of their ultimate and perpetual rejection of the gospel. But here's how it's going to
fall out because the prophecy says I will work a work in your
days. How soon Paul today? How soon
tomorrow? How soon? Over the next seven
days, we're gonna see this work unfold of the prophecy coming
to pass. Note then in verse 42, and when
the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought
that these words might be preached unto them the next Sabbath day. And this is where you and I began
to mark the distinction between those who hear the gospel and
those who don't. Will you mark the division? The
division is the division between the Jews and the whom? Gentiles. We see that the Jews are rejecting
the gospel and the Gentiles are what? Receiving the gospel. They are wanting the gospel. They are desiring the gospel.
They are requesting the gospel. In the Greek language, what we
have here in verse 42 when it says, and the Gentiles be sought
that these words might be preached to them. The next Sabbath is
in what we call the imperfect, uh, indicative verb form, which
meant that they were consistently asking, would you please preach
this to us again, preach it to us again, over and over and over. They were beseeching them. Something
radical had happened that day. One group of people's hearts
were hearted and another group of people's hearts were so on
fire for what they heard, they continued to beg the apostles,
that's literally the word, to beg them to share these words
with them again. Now I suggest to you, when that
kind of response is taking place, where they are seeking, seeking,
seeking, God is at work. When they are seeking, when man
seeks God, God is at work. Is that a good proposition? God
is at work when man seeks God. Why? Because we can't seek God
on our own. Why? Because we won't seek God
on our own. This is one of the things I'm
developing on Sunday, and we're going to really treat this subject
this Sunday. The volitional capacity of mankind,
which we call his will, is dispositionally or predispositionally bent against
God. The natural man does not have
an interest in the things of God. His heart is bent away from
God. We love darkness rather than
light. This is the answer as to why
the people you love and care about don't want to hear what
you have to say. So the Bible talks about the carnal mind being
ignited to God, right? Romans eight, right? Verse five
through seven. So there's a hostility in the natural man towards God. That's the term antipathy, the
hostility. So when you see a person legitimately
seeking God, something has already changed in their life. God has
already rearranged their desires and started them on a pursuit
of God. In other words, as we'll learn
Sunday, God has to change your heart. in order for you to run
after him. And for these Gentiles to now
be interested in the message, because this is what they ask,
we are beseeching you that these words might be preached to us
again next week. They wanted to hear the same
sermon. So let's work this through just a little bit. By the way,
I think last week when we were talking about traditions and
and faulty methods and approaches to coming to God. One of the
things I think I exposed was that when God's working in your
life, you don't have to ask people to make a decision for Jesus.
When God's working in a person's life, you don't have to cajole
them to come up front. Remember, we talked about that.
That's why you don't see that in the Bible. You don't see a
kind of system and approach where the preacher and the people are,
as it were, setting the context to get people to come up front
and pray the sinner's prayer and repeat after me and all of
that old massaging that you see taking place in religion. And
we were talking about how Billy Graham has bemoaned and begrudged
the fact that he knows that He played a major role for decades
in setting that paradigm up. And then churches started following
that in his older age as his conscious started bothering him. And I think I was speaking in
the past tense that he was dead. He's not dead. He's 96 years
old. He'll be 97 in a couple of weeks.
Um, but he is really struggling in his soul because he understands
that that's not the way people get saved. The way people get
saved is when God invades their heart. with the word of God and
begins a work of transformation internally between them and God. And it manifests itself outwardly
at some point by an act of faith. And biblically that act of faith
is coming to the waters of baptism. So when we talk about a confession
of faith upon believing the gospel, it's not praying the sinner's
prayer or walking an aisle. It's coming to the water. You
guys follow that? Upon believing the gospel, the
only outward act you and I are to perform is the act of entering
into the waters of baptism, which serve as a symbolic testimony
of how the sinner is saved by union with Christ in his death,
burial and resurrection. That's the only biblical confession
there is. And what that means is, is that
Between the preaching of the gospel and the entering into
the waters of baptism the the sanctum of the heart where God
is working on a person is Between them and God it ought never be
between God and the preacher or the counselors and the sinner
God does not need your help converting the sinner. I He does not need
you to coax them and get them to say words and phrases because
people will say what you tell them to say and it have nothing
to do with salvation. So it's a very serious issue
in that regard and this is the reason for which For years, I've
told our church and our men and our leaders in ministry, don't
you ever lead someone in prayer and say words for them by which
you think they are saved as a consequence. Don't ever do it. Don't ever
say, repeat after me. As I told you last week, your
parent can repeat after you. Are you hearing me? Right. And
if you read your Bible carefully, you will discover that God knows
how to give the heart words to pray to God. And if you read your Bible carefully,
you'll understand that the publican simply smote on his breasts and
said, Lord, have mercy on me, the center. And the master said
he went home justified. He didn't pray a sinner's prayer.
He said, have mercy. That's simple, isn't it? Because
as I've just declared before, God knows the language of the
heart. He pays no attention to our words where our words don't
correspond with our heart. So it's very important that you
and I don't manipulate people and cajole people. Let God work
on them. And when they know that they
are truly saved, they'll be able to repeat to you and me what
the gospel is. and then we can bring them to
the waters of baptism to make a public profession of faith.
That's far more biblical, is it not? We learned this in Acts
chapter eight with the Ethiopian eunuch, right? Philip expounded
the gospel in Isaiah 53 concerning Christ and the Ethiopian said,
what doth hinder me to be baptized? There was no demonstration of
Philip cajoling or coaching that man and how to say I want to
receive the Lord Jesus Lord Jesus forgive me of my sins a da da
da da da da da You don't see any of that all you recognize
was that that man heard the gospel and he believed that gospel and
obviously Philip had told him that the subsequent act of obedience
upon the believing the gospel is to be baptized. And he was
just compelled. He was just as compelled as these
people in Acts 13 to be baptized, wasn't he? The Ethiopian eunuch
asked to be baptized, didn't he? Watch this. You don't try
to cajole people into making decisions for Jesus or getting
them baptized. See the problem that's going
on in our church today? We think we gotta work for God.
In the area of the salvation of sinners, you and I better
get out of the way because we have a lot to answer for on the
last day. If we deceive men and women into thinking that they're
saved because they followed our rules. Are you hearing what I'm
saying? All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, Jesus said, John 6, 37. And he that cometh
unto me, I will in no wise cast out. You know what that means?
They will come by the initiative of God working in their heart.
And you don't have to beg them or ask them or court them. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? So this is what we see taking place here. It's an amazing
thing to me because Paul is having his eyes open right now to a
work that God is doing. And we're going to talk about
that as we get down to the last few verses in our text. that
he was not clear on, nor did he understand in terms of the
Old Testament. But as he began to write the epistles, he got
it. What Paul became keenly aware of is that God had declared and
decreed before the foundation of the world, placed it in the
prophecy of scripture, that men and women from every nation,
kindred, tribe and tongue would come to Christ. Paul didn't know
how to handle the rejection of Christ by his brethren and the
reception of Christ by this mass of Gentiles who are now beating
on his door wanting to hear more. But his theology right now is
being worked through. He's being removed from his assumption
that his Jewish brethren would get it and that the Gentiles
may get it if they want to. But i'm looking forward to my
jewish brother and getting it Why because we all have innate
prejudices, don't we? And so what god is about to do
with paul is remove that sense of self-righteousness Or as it
were a priority of god's will or as it were them him perceiving
that the jews have more privilege than the gentiles And this is
gonna break that set of assumptions up and move him in a different
direction by the conflict that we are in now. So like, when
God is teaching you something that you didn't know, sometimes
he has to take you through a crisis, doesn't he? Can I get a witness,
you 100 folks? Right, so now watch this. And
that's because what crisis does is it dislodges you. It dislodges you from your strength
of argument to hold to your position. And the best thing you can do
in the crisis is now watch how the crisis unfolds. And throughout the process of
the unfolding of that crisis, you come to discover that now
you are more objective. Like you and I, when we are so
subjectively involved and committed to an idea, a proposition, a
truth claim, we can't see the forest for the trees. We're so
committed to that idea. But once God shakes you up and
loosens you from that proposition or that view or that doctrine,
you stand back and now you can see that doctrine a little more
clearly, right? You begin going, you know what? Maybe, maybe this
is not the actual truth of the gospel. Now you're ready to reason
through that former view and learn something about that view
that you didn't see before. And that is that that view was
either flawed in part or flawed as a whole system. And you got
to let it go. If you cannot substantiate lawfully
any doctrine, according to the word of God, you have no right
to call it biblical doctrine. It doesn't matter what you believe
how passionate you are about it if you can't substantiate
That doctrine or that practice or that idea on the word of god
in a legitimate way of defending it scripturally You gotta back
away from it because you and I have no right to say thus saith
the lord When the lord has not said thus So what paul is doing
right now is struggling between the blessing and the cursing
the blessing and the cursing of preaching the gospel. And
those are the two sides of the preaching of the gospel. Interesting.
It says that the Jews thought that these words might be preached
to them the next Sabbath. And that's an interesting phraseology,
but actually it's the term in between the Sabbath. He actually,
they actually meant Paul, we're done with worship for the day,
seven day Sabbath worship because they were proselytes. But we
actually want you to share this word with us today, tomorrow,
the next day, the next day, the next day after that, until the
next Sabbath comes around. In other words, a door was wide
open for Paul to preach and teach the gospel to the Gentiles every
day between this Sabbath and the next Sabbath. By the way,
look at verse 43. I think we can substantiate it
that way. Now, when the congregation, was broken up and many of the
Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas. See
verse 43? Now when the congregation was
broken up, that is, dissembled, everybody went their way, many
of the Jews and religious proselytes did what? Followed Paul and Barnabas. There it is. There it is. See?
Now there were many folks who left, but there was that group
of people for whom the gospel now started making some kind
of sense And they followed Paul and Barnabas. In other words,
these are the evidences that we say give us great hope in
the life of the man or the woman or the people that are starting
to actually hear from God. This is a pattern in the scriptures
too. I'm always worried about people who have a very casual
view about the word of God. I think when you have a casual
view about the word of God, there's a problem in your heart. and
particularly at those initiatory experiences where you first hear
the gospel and that gospel awakens you to ideas that you had never
heard before. And you know, this is the time
to learn. If you have a casual sort of
take it or leave it mentality about whether or not you're gonna
grow in grace or in the knowledge of the Lord, you're probably
not saved. When the spirit of God starts working on your soul,
Nothing is more important than closing with God When the Spirit of God starts
working on your soul Where he initially opens your mind to
the truth and your soul starts to see the truth Nothing is more
important to your soul than closing with God. There's a level of
anxiety there There's a level of urgency there. There's a level
of seriousness about making sure that that light that has penetrated
your heart is not only accessible to you, but you have been able
to embrace it securely enough to know that you know him now. This is what happens to men and
women who are serious about God. They rearrange all of their life
issues and make God a priority. That's the work of the Spirit
of God, where he starts showing you that these matters that you
have held so high in light of eternity are nothing, especially
when you aren't sure that your soul is ready to depart from
this life today. And by the way, you and I shouldn't
even be in the room talking about the Bible if we don't believe
in eternity. If you and I are secular, existential, narcissistic,
driven by the here and now, and have not settled the fact that
there's an afterlife to deal with, we have no business here,
we're wasting our time. The issues of the gospel have
to do with preparing men for eternity. And when once the heart
is enlarged, I'm gonna talk about that on Sunday, because God has
enlarged your heart. When the heart is enlarged so
that now it is able to embrace the idea that there is an eternity
to face. Now you are ready for the data
and the information that addresses that. You're ready for it. The
heart is ready for the information, the doctrine, the teaching that
will prepare me to cross over from this life into the next.
Now you are an eternity bound soul in your own conscience.
Does that make some sense? Right, because the Bible actually
addresses the issue of eternal life That's what the gospel is
all about. Life eternal. So now when the
congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes
followed Paul and Barnabas. You'll see a theme in the scriptures
all through the acts. They'll be preaching and many
people will say, we'll hear you again later on, but there will
always be a handful that will cleave to them. You guys remember
Luke 24. If you guys are sensitive and
been under sound teaching where we teach that paradigm Biblical
preaching Christ in a preaching Christ was the model himself
the two boys on the road to Emmaus from Jerusalem after the crucifixion
of Christ We're talking about the death of Christ and they
didn't get his death barrel and resurrection, right? And Jesus
came alongside of them and began to open the scriptures and he
taught from the scriptures all of the scriptures the things
concerning himself remember that as he expounded in all things
and the things concerning himself. He made as if he was going to
go another way while they were headed to their home. And they
said to him, we want you to stay with us. We want you to abide
with us. Don't leave. What you are saying
is exceedingly important to my soul. And Jesus went into the
house with them. They had Meal together and he
continued to expound the Word of God in the midst of the meal
and then he disappeared from There missed and they said did
not our hearts burn within us as he opened the scriptures The
word burned there is not like heartburn. Okay, so we can fix
that and it's not the burning in the bosom that you're That
you're Mormons talk about either the word there means to be illuminated
Did not our hearts get illuminated? Did not God cut the lights on
and we began to understand things about the scriptures that we
never ever understood before And when you and I are in that
kind of dimension in that realm where the scriptures are opening
up to us We are in a divine place You don't ever want to leave
that place You don't ever want to have the
strength of soul to say, God, I need to take a break from you
for a moment. That kind of Coramdale, that
kind of presence of God, that kind of Shekinah glory, that
kind of crystal centric revelation, where the heart and mind are
fixed on eternal verities, where the word of God is opening up
and you're seeing the truth of God, where you can just about
touch God The soul that's born again, never ever wants to leave
that kind of situation. At that point also, time is of
no significance. And in fact, when the anointing,
when the unction, when the presence of the Spirit of God is working,
when the mind is illuminated, when the heart is enlarged, when
the understanding is being brought to those levels of clarity where
you are just elated by the presence and power and clarity of God's
Word, time is an enemy. Is that true? You go, I wish
this would never stop. Why because you are actually
in the presence of God and the Spirit of God is ministering
revelations of the glory of Christ to the soul The soul was made
for that We call it communion with God communion with God The
medium for communion with God is the Word of God And when that
that when that experience is taking place, there is nothing
in the world that compares with it nothing nothing So he told
them he's speaking to them President indicative speaking to them persuaded
them to continue in the what? This is interesting. So I'll
just touch on this before we go to our final point I mean
before we move head on and move on what the Gentiles were seeking
from Saul are they sought was for him to share those same words
that he had shared before the message he had heard or they
had heard on that Sunday and amounted to this What Paul had
shared with them was that justification Would be by the consequence of
Christ's life and death his burial and resurrection so that believing
in Christ alone Justifies sinners from everything from which the
law of Moses could never justify you. So now watch this here You
are a legalist Here you are a work-mongering religionist. Here you are under
the yoke of the law. Here you are under the burden
of the curse of the law. Cursed is every man that does
not continue in all things for whatever the law says. And you're
being taught week in and week out, unless you keep the law
of Moses, unless you're circumcised, unless you do Sabbath days, unless
you give your money, unless you do this, that, and the other
thing. That weight of burden Jesus talked about in Matthew
23, And on top of that, you're a stepchild because you're Gentile. And the Jews were stepping on
top of the Gentiles so that the Gentiles never had any sense
of security in God. They felt like a stepchild in
an environment where everybody else thought they were privileged.
And the whole thing was a legalistic burden of works that never gave
assurance or comfort of salvation. You got the context? And then
this Jew comes in and stands up and start preaching Christ
and say, man, y'all can let all this go. Just rest in the grace
of God. That's in Christ. And you're
good to go. This is where election versus
non-election comes into the picture. This is where we discover who
is elect and who is not. This is where we determine who
Christ's sheep are versus the goat. So I'm getting ready to
work with that just a little bit with you tonight, just a
little, as we'll see how this closes out. Here's the proposition. You and I can never know whether
or not an individual is one of God's until we preach the true
gospel. You can preach all kinds of religion
and you still will never know who God's true sheep are. So
long as you're preaching the religion of man, prosperity,
self-righteousness, mysticism, gifts of the spirit, all of that
stuff can be imbibed and embraced by all sorts of people. And none
of them necessarily have to be God's people at all. Because
you haven't preached the one thing that separates the sheep
from the goats. And that's the gospel of the
person and work of Jesus Christ. By the way, the term division,
which you saw in our account, the division between the Jews
and the Gentiles, right? With a few Jews actually believing. It's stated three times in the
gospel of John, about Jesus. And there was a division because
of his sayings. And there was a division because
of his words. And there was a division because
of him. Everywhere Christ went, when
he preached himself, there was a division. What was happening? A separation between the sheep
and the goats. an affirmation of the elect versus
the non-elect. How do I know that I'm God's
elect? Because when the gospel is preached,
I hear it and I own it as my master speaking directly to me
by name. Are you hearing me? Now this
is very important. This is why this business of
preaching is so serious. where men don't preach the gospel,
they have betrayed their office and they are trapping eternity
bound souls and leaving them suspended in no man's land. I'd rather you know that you're
not right by preaching the gospel to you and you get mad at what
I have to say than to leave you deceived in thinking you're all
right with God because of religious observances you have become good
at. Does that make some sense? So
our master did it. So the apostles did it. And this
is why Jesus told his disciples, listen, when you go and start
preaching me, you're going to be hated of all men for my namesake. Understand this gospel is going
to separate. It's going to separate. And so
this is where, as we will see here in a moment, the doctrine
of election emerges to the surface as well. And we'll treat that
before we close. Look at it now in verse 44. Having
told those who were with him over the course of that week
to continue in the grace of God He then says Luke then says and
the next Sabbath day now we've come to that seventh day again,
right? And the next Sabbath day came almost the what whole city
together watched us to hear the Word of God Can I just remark
on this? What happened from last Saturday? to this Saturday Started a firestorm
in the whole of Pisidia Over the next six days the preaching
and teaching that Barnabas did Started everyone being interested
in this new doctrine So that the whole city came out folks
who never went to church before it came out What was happening the Spirit
of God was moving Creating a revival in that area Stirring the hearts
and drawing the whole city. This is an amazing vision But
this corresponds to what Christ was teaching the disciples and
that is greater works shall you do than that which I have done
because I'm going to my father and When they started preaching
and seeing these masses Coming like this They were amazed But
all this was was the holy spirit drawing men and women to the
message of the gospel if I be lifted up I'll draw all men to
me In the preaching of christ the spirit of god draws men and
women now He doesn't save everyone but he draws them in mass because
some people are just interested kind of like being nosy, right?
the parable of the four soils and some of that will be here
too, but we have to remark that what's taking place in acts 13
44 is huge on the same level as what happened in Acts chapter
2 on the day of Pentecost. Remember that? When the Spirit
of God gave those who were in the upper room the gift of languages,
and the languages that they were speaking of were the 17 languages
of those nations, of those proselytes who were in Jerusalem at that
time, and people began to gather, and once again, the Jews came
curiously, but they were not interested in the gospel, were
they? So Paul Peter had to warn them as well. The prophet Joel
has warned you there's a day coming when the sun would go
dark and the moon would be turned to blood and the Notable day
of the Lord would come because Peter was able to pick up that
the Jews were once again antagonistic about something that was happening
on the outside of the scope of their ability and sphere to control
God was moving in God's movie here to verse 45 Watch this. But when the Jews saw the multitude,
they were filled with, let me go back and make one more remark
on verse 44. One more, just for the record,
for the thousands of people that will be listening to this in
a couple of months. Mark what it says. Verse 44. And the next Sabbath
day came almost the whole city together to hear a man, to hear
a woman, to have their ears tickled, to be mystified by some rabbit
out of the hat trick that preachers and hucksters do. Do you see
what it says? To hear the word of God. So now mark this now, mark this.
This too is where we are very concerned with our present religious
age because our churches are filled with so much entertainment
that we are sure that the people are not coming to hear the word
of God. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? The worship in that day was very simple. They didn't
have a Hammond organ. They didn't have drums. They
didn't have bass guitars. They didn't have all the instruments
and accoutrements we have. They didn't have a bunch of singers
and going. The synagogue was very simple. In fact, most of
what was done in the synagogue was a cappella singing. of the
Psalter, that is the Psalms, that we're learning on Wednesday.
And then preaching and prayer. It was really simple. And we
really need to get back to that simplicity. Because the enemy
has come inside the church and turned it into a very entertainment-oriented
environment where the vast majority of what's going on in church
is a show, a well-crafted, well-organized, well-structured, entertainment
piece where you get a little bit of Bible and a whole lot
of entertainment. Am I telling the truth? Yes.
That's right. And so most people, you know, when you are being
invited to church, they're glad to invite you because they know
they got a spanking choir. They got a spanking choir. They
got a spanking music minister. You got to hear our music. Well,
the text says they came to hear one thing, the word of God. Now think about, think about
for a moment as we make our way through what condition the heart
must be in to wake up Sunday morning for one thing, to hear
the word preached. Think about how wonderful that
idea is that you're not encumbered by, I wonder who goes show up
today. Wonder who they've got now singing
today. I wonder what popular star they
gonna have in church today For the heart to wake up Sunday morning
With this one thing on mine. I want to hear the word. I Want
to worship God I want God to speak to me That's a big difference
that's a big difference And so a lot of people go to church
and are disappointed. They're very disappointed, not disappointed
because there was no word. It's true. There was no word,
but they were disappointed because a lot of the effort that goes
into entertainment religion is filled with all kinds of flaws
too. It lets you down too. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
And this is where people start leaving church. Why? Because you just can't keep that
song and dance going up at a high level all the time. After a while,
because of the law of atrophy, the law of diminishing returns.
Anybody know what that law is? We get tired of it anyway. Don't
we get tired of it? I don't care if it's Aretha Franklin. I don't
care whoever it is. I'm going to get tired of her
too. Because nothing can sustain your soul on a carnal level,
no matter how entertaining it is. But that which is sacred, only
the sacred can sustain the sacred. You can't be jazzed up, or sung
up, or cried up, or emotionally hyped up enough to equate a spiritual
quickening that only the spirit of God can do through the preaching.
I don't mean we can't be edified in the church music and all that.
That can happen. but nothing equates to the expository
preaching of the Word of God where the Spirit of God is in
it. Nothing. So let's go on. Let's go to work
now. Verse 45. I'm going to run through these fairly quickly.
But when the Jews saw the multitude, they were filled with joy. Do
you see that? They were filled with envy. This is an amazing
concept here because Luke is telling us what's taking place
here. They were filled with envy. And they spake against those
things which were spoken by Paul, doing two things, contradicting
and blaspheming. So now what I want you guys to
gather in your mind, how this all worked out. As church service
began, what these Jews did was look around and saw all these
pagans in church. And some of the pagans had actually
sat in their seat. How dare they? Do you know how religious folk
are? I'm going to have to start giving my ushers pistols. The
folk in here don't want to move. This seat is for my purse. Isn't that crazy? You call yourself
Christian and you set your purse down on a seat to block somebody
coming and you expect God to speak to you. Isn't that crazy? But that's what religious folk
do. And so imagine if another 300 people were to try to press
their way in here. Those kind of folk would not
be happy. And so it was with these Jews,
they looked around and saw all these Gentiles and they became
envious. It's a horrible, horrible indictment,
but this here also goes back to the seed principle. Every
seed, every herb brings forth fruit after its own what? Right.
So those of us who understand biblical theology, we understand
running through the scripture are two streams. The seed of
the godly and the seed of the what? Ungodly. The seed of the
righteous and the seed of the what? That's right. The seed
of the wicked. It runs all the way from Genesis
to Revelation. And the fruit of it manifests itself the same
way every time. Cain killed Abel because of envy. Joseph was thrown into the pit
by his brothers because of envy. David was hated by his brothers
because of envy. Ishmael hated Isaac because of
envy. You see this elect non-elect
struggle running all the way through the scriptures in Matthew
chapter 27 says, and they crucify them because of envy. That's what your Bible says.
They put Jesus to death because they envied the success. They envied the fact that people
actually started listening to him and not them. Envy is a horrible,
horrible thing. And in fact, in our context,
the word envy here is a term which means to wax zealous. In fact, that's the literal term,
zalut, from which we get the term zealous. And it means to
become so angered that you're driven. Now, we got a hundred
people in here. None of y'all know anything about
that. So let me explain it because I know y'all don't know nothing
about being driven by anger. To be driven by anger is to be
compelled to act with the purpose of harming someone. Okay? To be driven by anger is to be
compelled to hurt someone. And so in this sense, the word
envy here is a little bit different than your typical envy, which
means to kind of be jealous or covetous for what someone else
has versus what you don't have. But there are a few Bible verses
I want to call our attention to before we come back here and
show you what they did. I want you to go with me in your
Bible to James chapter three, verses 14 through 16, James three,
14 through 16, to pick up on what the new Testament calls
with regards to envy, the works of the flesh. The reason I call your attention
to it is because the problem with envy is that it is a great
substitute for joy. Like when you don't have joy,
envy will float your boat. And you don't have joy because
you're not right with God. And since you're not right with
God, you're not right with yourself. So now you need to fill that
vacuum up with something And so envy gives you the energy
to be mad at the world It's a powerful energy There are people who have
accomplished so many things so many feats by the power of envy
and jealousy It'll give you the energy to focus with the purpose
of accomplishing goals So you can be glorified Even though
in the midst of your achieving those goals, you're destroying
everything around you Husband wife children loved ones because
your envy is driving you because when you're driven by envy It
is rooted in the foundation of what? narcissism It's all about
you The only thing that's gonna put that fire out is people praising
you Can I get a witness I just need
to have most of y'all not even give me a witness. I'm going
to say it again, just in case. Right. Here's the reason why
I'm treating this a little bit, because this is important because
sometimes you and I have to work through maladies, character flaws,
uh, dynamics that grip our soul and affect our character. That's
rooted in events and circumstances, circumstances, Genetic predispositions
or what have you a lot of circumstantial things can Contribute to why
you and I are envious and to overcome that envy you've got
to understand the source and the objective if you understand
that what satisfies your envy is when people praise you and Now you know how to cut envy
off. Now I'm helping you because when
people don't praise you, they only put more wood on that fire
because you are yearning to be praised. I will be acknowledged. Somebody is going to bless me.
It's all about me. Am I making some sense? Am I
making some sense? Right. So this is very important
to know that if I don't understand that what my targeted goal is
in psychology, they actually affirm this. The world of psychology
has a clinical approach that basically will affirm a person
in their narcissistic drives to let them know you are everything
and that you deserve to be loved. You deserve to be acknowledged.
You deserve to be on a pedestal. You deserve this or that and
the other thing. Now, I don't want to get into details around
acknowledging people and the dangers of invisibility and all
that. We know we exist and we know
we ought to care for one another. Is that true? But when a man
or woman is driven by the morbid predisposition of narcissism,
at the level of selfishness that flames envy, where you're willing
to hurt people or see people lose their job or see people
demoted or see people trouble, now we know that that individual
has a major problem in their life. And where we don't tell
them, all you're wanting to do when this is taking place is
have somebody acknowledge you. If we don't tell them that, then
they'll experience failure after failure after failure after failure,
and it'll just grow. This could happen with your kids.
Are you hearing me? This can happen with spouses.
This could happen in a lot of places. This is what's happening
with the Jews. The Jews just could not handle the idea, the
idea that this was about Christ and not them. And church today,
because it's driven by humanism, cannot handle the kind of teaching
that I'm setting forth before you that it's about Jesus and
not about us. Do you guys understand that?
Right. That's the real battle that we're fighting. That's the
real battle. I told you guys last Sunday, there are three
fundamental presuppositions that the world holds and under humanism,
that they're good, that everybody's basically good. Remember that
we'll deal with that on Sunday and that we all are free. basically
everybody's a free moral agent and that we all have the capability
of doing good or evil that everybody has what we call arbitrary volition
all three of those are false biblically we're not we're not
we're not good we're not free and we don't have any power to
do good that's the biblical doctrine now now you see how do you see
how radical that view is over against the world can you see
how Person who is wrapped up in themselves Would want to get
rid of a person who holds to that kind of biblical worldview.
Can you see that? Can you see why Jesus said now when you preach
this they're gonna hate you Can you see that why because what
the Bible will tell us is we've got real problems We've inverted
this thing and made it about us when it's about God your freedom
will come and my freedom will come when we understand that
this is about God and not about us That's actually what's happening
in our text with the Gentiles. The Gentiles have had laid on
them a litany of works religion that had them so steeped in fear
and anxiety and self-centeredness. Never ever able to attain that
sense of accomplishment because when you're under works religion,
you never do. Is that true? When you're under works religion,
you never do enough good for your heart to say, you know what?
I'm all right. The devil has to come along and
deceive you into thinking that you're doing pretty good. But
if God ever cuts the lights on by sending one of your gospel
brothers or sisters around and you go to talking about how much
you've been doing for the Lord and they say, well, what about
the stuff you haven't been doing for the Lord and start busting
your bubble? Now, all of a sudden the envy
rises up because we're stealing. We're stealing from you. False
glory that you don't have a right to own because you're not being
honest If you're not honest We disobey God a lot If we're honest See and only an honest man can
endure the tenor of Genesis to Revelation You guys follow what
I just said Only an honest person can endure the tenor of Genesis
to Revelation First verse there's not a just man upon the earth
that doeth good and sin is not Did you guys hear that that's
a Bible verse I ain't gonna tell you idiots I'm just gonna let
you roll with the proposition Long ago people didn't have Bibles
So they had to hear the preacher like you're hearing faith comes
by what and hearing by what? But remember what I told you
you don't have to like it But you do have to believe it So
if the proposition says there's not a just man on the earth that
doeth good and sin is not, if I'm a person that believes God,
I have to take that proposition seriously. God just stated, there's
not one just man upon the earth that doeth good and sin is not.
Well, I can count a hundred people that I think are good people.
Well, either God's wrong or I have redefined goodness
in a way Developed a sliding scale and a measure that doesn't
correspond to god's word. Are you guys following me? And
the latter is true. That's what we do. We build our
own standards You know, I buried people And I visit people in
prison And i'm just going to share this one more and deal
with our text. I think i'm gonna open the floor for a few questions
here And i'm amazed At how we can say things contrary to the
Bible and call ourselves Christians. Pastor, he really, really is
a good dude, man. He's really a good dude. I mean,
you know, notwithstanding the fact that he killed 500 people
and buried them and has lied on the stands and we caught him
on camera. He really, really is a good dude. How many of you
guys have ever seen 48 hours? Ooh, you need to watch it. You
need to watch it. Because 48 hours will affirm
the biblical text. that all men are liars. Will it not? People will be caught
in the act and put on an academy award-winning demon's tears,
crocodile tears. Sir, I swear it wasn't me. Is
this true? I'm sitting there amazed at how
they put on the performance and they hold to it, even when they
still end up in jail. You know, the judicial system
believes the Bible. The judicial system knows that
all men are liars. They continue on with their process
of adjudication, even though that person swears, it wasn't
me, it wasn't me, it wasn't, yes, it was, we got you. Here's
my point. The endemic problem with the
human race is that we do not believe God's word. All have sinned and continue
to come short of the glory essential to dwell with God. That's a biblical
doctrine. I ain't going to tell you that
verse either. But see, the Bible is filled with these precepts
that diagnosis the human race accurately. And when you and
I start saying what God says, then healing begins. Like AA,
I'm going to use this on part of my argument for the myth of
free will Sunday. AA was started long ago by Christian
men, Alcoholics Anonymous. And what they did was develop
a sort of constitution and creeds. And one of the things AA knew
was that in order for a person to even begin healing, They got
to do two things. Tell it true. That's the first
thing. Tell it true. Here's the second
one. This is why I don't understand
Christians and this very humanistic approach to dealing with people.
You got to recognize that you don't have power in yourself
to change your situation. Is that what they say? That's
right. So stay with me for a moment. When you tell people you can
do it, you can do it. You can, you can. You're lying. You cannot do it. You cannot
do it. You can't you can't Not without
god Are you guys hearing me? Oh,
you can do it. No, you can't And god never meant for you to
do it by yourself As i'm going to demonstrate on sunday The
man or the woman that knows they need god every hour Will be the
person that experiences freedom Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? We have infiltrated the church with this humanistic doctrine
that does not correspond with the reality of things nor with
biblical truth. When the gospel is preached,
like I'm sharing it with you right now, God's sheep begin
to hear truth at levels they never heard it before. And as
painful as it is, they are thankful. Cause now we're penetrating past
the superficiality of religious promises. We love to give people
promises. You know, in the religious world,
you, you just bless people with, you know, promises and blessings.
The Lord bless you. The Lord calls you to rise up.
The Lord calls you to prosper. The Lord calls you to run the
world. The Lord puts you on how the Lord make you this, the Lord
make you that the Lord's going to make you low before he takes
you high. And the Lord's not going to let
you do anything. That's going to steal his glory. And the church
is full of still in the glory of God. It's so man-centered,
we don't even see that syrupy, sugary theology that's corrupting
the whole body politic. We're addicted to it. That's
my point, too. You guys believe in addiction?
I do. Well, now, if you believe in
addiction, then you must understand that man is a slave. Right? This notion that you're free
is nothing but an illusory theory that has no basis in reality.
If you're free, you can't be addicted to anything. Can I get a witness? See, I'm
just teaching tonight. Can I do that? Because these
are things that you have to get when you're dealing with folks
who are saying they are this when they're not. If you are
addicted, You are not free. You're in a fight. And addiction
is proving to you that you don't have the strength in yourself
to overcome. Until you come to that, God won't
help you. Contrary to what a lot of folks say in church, God helps
those that help themselves. Show me the Bible verse. How many of you guys learned
something new tonight? That's most of y'all But if you have bitter envying
and strifing your hearts glory not watch this and do what lie
not against the what that's right Right there with what James is
saying to the church focus to do is not practice hypocrisy
Because you're lying against the truth when you go to church
say amen I love the Lord love you brother sister and your hearts
filled with envy you're lying against the truth Because what
Christian folks are supposed to be are examples of people
who tell the truth. Are you hearing me? But if, if,
if in reality, while you're talking about love, love, love, I heard
a lady the other day, I wish I could have, could have jumped
into the TV because she was religious Christian. I wish I could have
jumped into the TV and made her take these words back, but I
couldn't. She says, I love everybody. You knucklehead. No, you don't. See how we deceive
ourselves? Do you guys see how we deceive
ourselves? You don't love everybody. You would have to be perfect
to love everyone. Secondly, you would be better
than God. because god does not love everyone. Did I say something else you
never heard before? God does not love everyone. So, if you love everybody, you're
better than god. because god hates all workers
of iniquity. He hates and abhors the and all of the fallen angels
that are going to hell. Everyone who ends up in hell are the objects
of God's hatred, as we're going to learn on Sunday. God has to hate not only evil,
but evil doers. Now, did that make some sense
to you guys? Did that make some sense? Right. See, so I know
you have heard God loves the sinner, but hates the sin. Right. Have you heard that? Still
waiting for the Bible verse. Still waiting for it. Still waiting
for it. I've been waiting for it for like, I've been waiting
for it since I was 18 years old. I like the idea, but God's not
sending sin to hell. That'll land in a second. He's sending sinners to hell. Is he not? So here you are in
hell. under the wrath of God as an
expression of his righteous, holy justice and hatred against
sin. And you're able to say, God loves
me. Right. That's a problem, isn't it? It's
not a problem. Right. So this idea of the universal
love of God needs to be checked. God's love is placed in one place. You know what that is? Jesus.
A man rejects Jesus, the only thing he's left with is the wrath
of God. Do you guys get that? So we don't
bastardize and we don't broad brush the love of God and make
everybody the object of God's love because the Bible never
says that. God loves the world. That's the sphere of the world,
the universe, in that he gave his only begotten son. That's
the object of his love that whosoever believes on him. should not perish,
right? Y'all believe that, right? So
the man or the woman that does not believe the gospel does not
experience the love of God. Is that true? You guys got that?
Good. You're smart people. Now you
don't have to go around saying things that don't correspond
with biblical truth. You don't have to make yourself more righteous
than God because God doesn't, he doesn't have a problem with
saying he hates all workers of iniquity. He's angry with the
wicked every day. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. The wages of sin is death. Hell will be filled with people
who have rejected the gospel. And God will satisfy his justice
in punishing them. That's the nature of God, as
we're going to learn on Sunday. I remember sharing this years
ago. And you guys have heard it before. I remember a lady
who was duped by the notion of just loving everybody, loving
everybody, loving everybody, until her son, two sons, and
husband were killed by a gangbanger in San Francisco. Then all of
a sudden, she wanted the death penalty right away. I agree with
her. Wouldn't you? This fool got out
of the car and just shot up people that he didn't know under mistaken
identity. The boy, 12 years old, one of
the other boys, 11 years old, daggone. In just a second, all
of them are gone. And her heart rose up with a
desire for vengeance. She wanted the death penalty.
That's exactly right. That's called justice. And justice
is an expression of love. Am I making some sense? Are you
guys hearing me? If you have a child and someone
cuts your child up in 500,000 pieces, would you want justice? Because God created you in his
image. Oh, you may forgive him. Because you want them to go to
heaven, but you want justice. What kind of world would it be
where we didn't have justice? Where people could always get
away with every crime committed. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? It's very important that Christians actually start thinking
through propositions and make sure that your propositions aren't
embraced simply because they make you feel good. Because feel
good theology is not what's going to save us. It's true. That's going to save us. But if you have bitter envy and
a stripe in your heart, glory, not against the truth, a glory,
not against the truth. Verse 15, this wisdom descended
not from above, but is earthly central in what? And here's the
next verse. And we'll close here for where
envy and strife is, there is what? And every evil word. Let me wrap up verses 17 and
18. But the wisdom that is from above, that is from heaven, is
first what? Right. See, and this would be a great
word study for you. Biblical wisdom is pure. In other
words, biblical wisdom does not capacitate or hold within its
sphere things that are unclean or defiled or corrupt. Biblical
wisdom does not accommodate sinfulness. Are you guys following that?
Like, like biblical wisdom doesn't say it's all right for them to
do this, that or the other thing. And you know, it's contrary to
God's word. That's not biblical wisdom. Biblical wisdom is always
pure because it proceeds from God's character. Is God pure?
Yes. Excellent. But the wisdom that
is from above is first pure than what? Gentle and easy to be what? Full of what? And what? Without
what? Hypocrisy. That's a dualism there. Like wisdom doesn't prefer this
person over that person because this person will reward them
with something where that person can't. This is what goes on in
our judicial system. It's horrible. The wealthy can
get off with murder. And just because we're poor,
we got to take plea bargains. Am I telling the truth? That's
how lopsided our judicial system is. We can't say it's operating on
wisdom, can we? All right. It's wisdom. It's earthly. So
many judges get caught with bribes. It's not even funny. And because
they know they can get away with it, they continue to do it. And
in other countries, third world countries, it's off the chart,
isn't it? You are doomed if you're poor. Questions? Anybody got questions? Did we
stir up any questions tonight? My brother, can you just speak
up? Right. Let's let's think about
that for a second. Anybody got a question over here?
I'm going to take four questions. I'll get yours. Think about with
me. I like what brother Arthur did. And I don't actually answer
that when I'm preaching or teaching, because these are what we call
inferences that are derived from the question implications that
come out of propositions, like the implication of the altar
call. Like altar calls, I told you, aren't biblical. OK, I already
told you that. So you won't go anywhere in the
New Testament and find altar calls. In the Old Testament,
there was one altar call, and that was for the priest to repent
because they was ripping off the folks. Now, I believe in
that altar call. I believe all preachers need
to go to the altar and repent from ripping people off with
tithes and offerings. So I believe in that one. But what about those sincere
souls that went up and made a decision for jesus If they did not hear
the true gospel They're deceived And if the true gospel does not
interrupt their life before they die Jesus will say I never knew
you Because there's a lot of people who think they're all
right because they made a decision And didn't go on to follow or
know or serve the lord and make their calling and election sure
are you guys following what i'm saying? That next one, well,
I saw another question. Way in the back, my sister, way
back there. Uh-huh. Right. I'm trying to, I'm trying to,
I'm trying to, I want to reframe it. He's going to give you a
mic. You got to hustle, though, Mike, because people are going to fall asleep.
I want you to reframe it so we can actually talk about that.
I actually did. I actually did respond to that at the tail end
of my comment in that I said this, you can forgive them and
still want them to actually experience justice. So, but reframe it for
our audience. You got to put it to your mouth. How, give me, give me one example. salvation. Um that wouldn't be
paying it forward. That wouldn't be justice. Well,
I mean, who's who? So, so what definition are you
using to the biblical definition? So, so I'll work with you on
that because it's a great question and it's got to be worked through
because if you're a Christian, you want to be able to represent
god. This is where you have to learn about the cross. You have
to learn about the He met the demands of both justice
and mercy. So stay with me now. This is
very important. So this is why I stated you should
always want justice because that's the character of God. Exodus
34. See, Moses didn't understand this either. So it's understandable. Moses watched God kill hundreds
of thousands of Egyptians while Israel was delivered through
the Red Sea. Then two months later god kills 24 000 jews And
moses says hold on. I gotta find out who he is And
he went to god and says I need and i'm gonna talk about this
on sunday. I need to know who you are Because I didn't have
a category for you where you could just kill 25 000 of the people you just delivered
out of egypt out of egypt And what God says is, I'll show you
my glory. I'll show you my name and you'll
know my ways. And in Exodus chapter 34, God
proclaimed to Moses, I am a God of mercy. I am long suffering. I am a God of compassion, but
I will in no wise clear the guilty. I will punish every sin. Stay with me. And only Christianity
has this answer. And where we delete biblical
justice from the equation of any act of mercy, we are not
representing the gospel. If in fact, God can show mercy
without first establishing justice, the death of Christ was a travesty
of injustice. Every Christian must understand
that the whole law system is Represented in God punishing
sin in his son because his holy nature could never ever overlook
sin in the name of mercy He can never do it so understand
the redemptive intentionality of justice What the redemptive
intentionality of justice is designed to do is to take the
man or the woman who committed the cry And drive them to the
only place they can find the forgiveness of sins and that's
at the cross and upon them experiencing the transaction of grace By which
their sins are forgiven If they're truly born again, they will say
like the apostle Paul, I'm ready to die for my sin to justify
God since God died for my sin to justify me. And this is where the church
is getting in trouble because it doesn't have a solid Christo
centric justice and we're being compassionate and doing all kinds
of What we call social justice activities at the expense of
God's holy character Which is revealed in Christ and this is
why the Romans 9 study is I told you you gotta get Romans 9, right? You gotta get Romans 9, right? Because the children of Israel
want to blame God for being unrighteous because he sends many of them
to hell for their disobedience when what God tells you and me
is that only reason you and I will go to heaven is because of mercy. And it will be a mercy that has
already taken care of the justice side so that God doesn't infringe
upon his character of holiness and justice while at the same
time showing mercy. And now do you see why you don't
have any option other than to preach the gospel? Do you guys
see that? Do you do you see what i'm saying?
I'm saying that you have not shared good news with the person
who has committed a sin that can send them to hell Until you
shut them up to the only escape which is jesus christ And when
they actually see that god has has merited a substitute who
actually can take their sin So that in their substitute they
have already died and gone to hell Come out on the other side
in christ And now are the righteousness of God in Christ and are now
vessels of mercy This is why we have a massive prison ministry
I'm working on a missionary Conference here at grace over the next couple
months But I was just talking with one of my guys did that
help you a little bit sister I was just talking to one of
my guys Who does our ministry up at Folsom and all of our prisons
are starving? for truth because no place is
safe where we're simply playing religious games. See, when you're
in prison and you're doing life, you, you, you, you ready for
the truth because, because you're, you're doing life without parole.
And so I would assert to you, God is saving all sorts of prisoners. Yes, he is. Do you know why? Because if it wasn't for the
kindness and compassion and inscrutable judgment of God, you and I should
be in prison too. Stay with me now. I didn't want
to turn this into worship because my sister's question was insightful
and this is the area where I'm challenging social justice gospels.
Because people come to me all the time, want me to be part
of this, that, and the other thing. And the reason why I don't become
part of these kinds of churches is because they fail to understand
the centrality of the cross. They give up the cross in order
to make people, as it were, the object of their efforts. And
what God is saying is, no, the problem of sin and misery and
pain and suffering is designed to draw them to the cross and
close with Christ and understand the mystery of righteousness
and mercy, peace, and justice all together at the cross. Psalm
85 verse 10. And so unless we understand that
as Christians, we're going to give up the gospel. Are you guys
hearing me? Trying to be nice to people.
You want to be nice, but you want to be right first. And that
is point them to the only real solution. Because what if a man
gains the whole world and still loses soul? I was, I got a barrier,
a brother that died on me just a few days ago in our church. He's about, he was about 80 years
old and I've been knowing him since my kids were way high and
I was just saying to someone yesterday, um, this brother has been listening
to me preach for 20 something years. He'd been under my preaching
for 20 something years. I just buried one of my other
brothers I went to elementary school with last month, Daniel. And me and Daniel, we laugh about
it now because, you know, we're getting old quick, aren't we?
But I buried him. And we had a lot of history together.
Daniel been under my ministry for I don't know how long. What
do you guys think I think when a person dies under my preaching? Let me help you. I want you to
I want you to hear this. Okay, that man has the right
to stand before God and say Pastor Jesse did or did not tell me
the truth Do you hear that he's right before
God now and if I'm lying I have to deal with the greatest parts
of hell. Are you guys hearing me? This
is not, this is not play business. And I thought about my brother
who I was with him last Sunday. He was here last Sunday, the
one that just died. He said, pastor, I'm going to Texas and
kicking with my family and I'll be back. And we've been laughing
because he had, uh, he had 97% uh, heart blockage. So he could
barely walk from his car to church, but he loved the gospel so much.
He hobbled on in, fall asleep, wake up, fall asleep. We don't
mind, do we? Wouldn't you rather die in the
house of the Lord under the preaching of the gospel? This brother takes
a plane to Texas last week and he takes a walk and he does his
walk every morning. I've known him, I've known his
wife, I've known his kids. He had a wonderful wife that
had Alzheimer's for like 10-12 years. I watched him roll her
up in the church week in and week out, week in and week out.
She didn't even know where she was. He loved her till her last
death. He was an absolute model of love
and sacrifice. He brought her to church because
he knew that God could speak to her soul, even though she
couldn't speak back to us. Do you believe that? The soul
is not lost. It's the body that shuts down.
It's not able to communicate. What faith is that to bring your
loved one who who has such alzheimer's that they don't even know you
don't know themselves But that does not mean they don't know
god So I think about his witness
to me all these years it keeps me putting up with barbara gistan And and here's what I can say
to both of my brothers today. I don't know about tomorrow.
I don't know about next week. I don't know about the Sunday, 20 Sundays
from now. I only know up to this Sunday.
I am clean from the blood of the hands of those two men that
just died on me. Do you hear me? My hands are
clean. They heard me preach the hard
truth of the gospel that I preach every week. They heard me warn
about hell. They heard me point men and women
to Christ shut them up to Christ demand that you see the whole
counsel of God at Calvary God's righteousness his justice his
mercy his grace. They heard me preach the free
grace of God that Paul is preaching They heard that all these years
Every soul that dies on me is a judgment against me Now you
guys hearing what I'm saying I'm teaching our guys homiletics
on Saturday night. So we're going through 2nd Timothy
chapter 4 Timothy I charge you before God and the holy angels
who will be the judge of the living and the dead preach the
word preach the word So see I don't have the liberty to get emotional. I Even though people don't like
my preaching my family don't like my preaching my relatives
don't like my priest because I'm not like everybody else I
don't I don't cut the edges and soften it up. I see the problem
in our generation. I see it I see the problem in
our generation. We have abandoned the gospel We can't abandon the gospel the
gospel is the solution Remember the two things on the
cross You remember the two things on the cross? Jesus took his
place between them, did he? And he didn't want to say, father,
let them down off the cross. Why? Because he honored God's
justice, but he made himself available to two of them, both
of them, didn't he? He put himself between them. He prophesied of
it. He says, when I die, I'm going
to hang between two sinners, hell bound sinners. who deserved
to die for murder. And I'm going to be right there
for him at the moment they asked. And one did, didn't he? We call
him God's elect. And the other one said, no, no,
I'm going to take my chances. And Jesus didn't say, no, repeat
after me. Because he honored God's justice. He honored God's
justice. It's so very important that we
understand that the key to the gospel is the cross. If you abandon
the cross, your theology is going to always be messed up. I'm going
to close right here. Let's close. One lady, one lady. You got the,
is there a mic? No, don't run. Just talk. Who was it? So I did learn something new
tonight because I've always heard love the sinner and hate the
sin, but even though the Lord has been making me feel like
where I live, I was raised around the neighborhood. The neighborhood
is full of homosexuals and they've always been nice to me and I
grew up in that neighborhood and now I'm feeling like even
though I I'll keep trying to say to myself, love the sinner,
hate the sin. What God's putting in my heart
is not saying that. And you're the first person I
heard that that's not biblical. And how do we respond in this
situation? So yeah, and I could sit here
all night long and talk to you as long as you want to be honest,
right? My sister wants to be honest,
doesn't she? Right. So now some of us, can
love people no matter what they do. Okay, I mean, I guess some
of us, some of us act like it. I sure enough hear people talking
like that. Oh, I just love them anyway. And I really do wonder
what's going on on the inside in terms of do you have a sense
of holiness and righteousness that abhors sin in them as you
ought to abhor it in yourself? So now stay with me for a moment
because this is the danger of reprobation in religion. If I
actually am secretly liking that sin too, that's why I can easily
love him. Are you hearing me? If I'm secretly
and casually committed to, if I have a very low standard of
holiness and righteousness where I can wallow in sin, And I'm
cool with it too. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? Kind begets kind. But if God has given me a new
nature and that new nature hates it, ye who love the Lord hate
what? Evil. Abhor sin. I abhorred it myself and I abhorred
it in them. Now, I can love them by being
responsible and respectful and kind to them as we ought to.
I don't want to take the next 20 minutes and redefine love
because most people deal with love purely on an emotional basis.
But what I shared with you last week is that love is always a
verb. It's not merely an emotional
predisposition. So I can, I can vociferously
dislike your behavior and still act loving towards you. I can still behave loving towards
you. Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? Absolutely. That's
the gospel. Jesus came and he dwelt with
sinners. But you would have never caught
Jesus affirming or condoning the sin. And so what the church
does is it gradually compromises biblical truth by redefining
terms because it doesn't want to take the hit for righteousness.
It doesn't want to take the hit for holiness. You guys follow
that? So then here's what we do. We
corrupt these categories that are there to honor God and to
keep us from losing our mind. And we do what I call egalitarian
nomenclature. We make all things equal without
distinction. But here's another one. Sin is
sin. All sin is equal. How many of
you guys have heard that? That's unbiblical. How many of
you guys just learned that it's unbiblical? Raise your hand.
Good. I'm glad, because you've been
taught wrong. You've just been taught wrong. So there's a difference
between judgment and justice. Judgment is Romans 6.23. The
wages of sin is what? Justice is an eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. Knew his master's will will be
beaten with more stripes than he that did not know his master's
will There will be a more severe punishment in hell for those
who know more than those who didn't For to whom much is given
much is around. So now I'm teaching you that
it's not egalitarian. I It would be better that you
had placed a millstone around your neck and cast yourself into
the depths of sea Then offend one of these little ones of mine
says jesus The man that betrayed me it would have been better
for him to never have been born It will be more tolerable for
sodom and gomorrah than it will be for tyree and sidon because
they heard the gospel This is what we call justice. Are y'all
hearing me now? So when you guys hear all of
these quaint phrases that's out in the religious world, what
you're supposed to do, according to second Corinthians chapter
five, chapter 10, verse four and five is to bring in the captivity,
every proposition, every imagination, every doctrine, every statement,
every set of assumptions and challenge its validity based
on the word of God. You're not supposed to just swallow
it because it sounds good. The simple believe every word,
but the prudent look well to his going. Are you guys hearing
me? Proverbs 14, 15. I can just give
you 50, 60 verses and run them off my head. I've been teaching
this church this for the last 20 years. So the vast majority
of the people that actually pay attention to me, most don't,
even in my own church, they understand discernment. And discernment
only comes when you open your Bible and take the precepts seriously. If you and I are not committed
to our Bibles, we are totally susceptible to the ideas of the
world. Everybody got an opinion. But
what's an opinion? If it's not based on biblical
truth, right? I love these moments as difficult as they are. I love
these moments. And I'll pray for you. And I
mean, and I hope your hearts don't get hardened at me. I hope
I hope, you know, because the devil can come in and snatch
that word up and make you You know, call me a bigot and self-righteous
and who does he think he is? Cause I get it all the time.
Just, just what it is when you have to actually stand on true.
And I'm not, I don't, I can't, I can't identify with the large
majority of pastors who I know intentionally hop scotch over
scripture. I know they intensely do that.
And the Bible is already warned about those kinds of past. I
don't want my lot with them. So I'm going to teach you the
word of God. If I'm wrong, challenge me. If I'm right, you better obey
it. Because guess what? You know, I share with you that
when people die on me, they get to go right into the presence
of the master and say, Lord Jesus, you gave that man to be my shepherd.
And that man lied to me. That man lied to me. And the
Lord Jesus will say to him, don't worry. He will pay for that. That's Hebrew chapter 13. Obey
them that have the rule over you for they watch for your souls
as those that have to give an account in the judgment. I got
to give an account. I stand before the Lord on the last day and
actually give account for my preaching and teaching to your
soul and everyone that's listening to me right now. Do you believe
that? That's what the Bible says. So, so, so one of the reasons
I'm so passionate about my preaching is because maybe you don't know
it, but we're all headed to the judgment. We're all headed to the judgment.
That's not being preached today. Hell's not preached. Judgment
day is not preached. Preachers are not afraid that
they will experience the hottest parts of hell for lying to the
masses. But see, I was taught by the
old school preachers. I was taught by men that feared God. Do you hear me? They feared God. These were sober men. You can
read about them. They are the men who write your
commentaries, your scholarly commentaries, which you don't
hear the character and reflection of their theology and preaching
today because men don't want to preach like that today. These
are the men who stuck their noses in the Bible 24 hours a day to
leave us the literature that allows us to have sound Orthodox
teaching. And because kind begets kind,
I'm the product of that kind of teaching. And so I'm passing
that on to my young men, because I'm in a generation of preachers
that just, they do not take these matters that serious. They don't
want to offend anybody. Don't want to offend anybody. You better get out of the pulpit.
I was thinking about what someone
said about Christendom today. I'll close here. Christendom
was one of those stern preachers post-patristic period, maybe
close to around 1,000, before 1,000 AD. But some of his parishioners
were saying, Man, how come you keep on preaching against swearing
and cussing? Every time we turn around, you're
warning us about going to hell for swearing and cussing. He
says, I will stop preaching on swearing and cussing when you
stop swearing and cussing. That I read about the Lord Jesus
Christ, and it really shocked me for a moment. And it's the
17 chapters of St. John when He was getting ready
to go home and talking to his father. And listen to what he
said, y'all. And when I read that, it took
me a while. He said, this is the ninth verse. I pray not for them. Listen,
this is Jesus saying this. I pray not for the world. But for them which you have given
me. that their minds and all minds
are thine. So when I said, Jesus said, because
I always heard he loved everybody. And he prayed for everybody.
And everybody's welcome. But he said, here, I pray not
for the world. But for those you have given
me honor. Those that you have given me.
And when I read that, it took me a while to get a hold of that. You see where Mother Banks is?
I hope we have Mother Banks for another 100 years. And I'll tell you why. I'll just
tell you why. I've been privileged to have
some serious old brothers and sisters around here. Because
they were taught right long ago. And it's hard to teach wrong
when you've been taught right the first time. And what she
just quoted was my point. I do not pray for the world. I'm not praying for every single
individual in the world. And listen, ladies and gentlemen,
secretly, secretly, the whole theological world knows these
debates. Secretly, they know this. Like the stuff I preach,
secretly, they know this. But they have no intentions of
letting you know that Christ only died for his elect. He did
not die for every single individual human being in the world. Because
if he did, they'd go to heaven. because his death will have justified
them from all sins. Are you guys hearing me? So that
the only thing you and I are called to do is ask the question,
do I believe the gospel? Because if you believe the gospel,
then you are his sheep for whom he prays. Don't you want Jesus
praying for you? Now you can get self-righteous.
and say, lord, what about them? You better let the lord take
care of them. and make your calling in election sure. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time.
Thank you for my brothers and sisters. Thank you for the truth
of the gospel. Thank you for showing Paul that
you had an elect people among the Gentiles who are definitely
coming to you and you have an elect but you have a right to save
and you have a right to damn. You have a right to show mercy
and you have a right to leave men in their sin. You did not
have to save us. We are only the objects of your
mercy. If we ever get what we deserve, we, we will end up in
hell and we don't want what we deserve. We want your grace. for us and our children and our
children's children to the third and fourth generation of those
who will love you, obey you and tell the truth. Grant us the
ability to know and understand and love and teach the gospel
and be ready to take the hits by those who despise your name.
And yes, grant us the grace to love those who are unlovely because
you loved us in our unloveliness. we know that we can't love them
right until they come to know you as we have come to know you. Give everyone here traveling
mercies. Prepare us for worship on Sunday. We pray in Jesus name.
Amen. God bless you guys.