when the Lord Jesus said to the
Samaritan woman in John chapter 4, go call thy husband and come
unto me, come hither. The woman answered and said,
I have no husband. And then the Savior said to her,
you have well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five
husbands. And he whom thou hast is not
thy husband. The woman obviously had lived
with six different men. But the Savior says thou hast
had five husbands, not six. And the six men you're living
with is not your husband. So what you said, you said rightly.
Why? Did he say she had had five husbands? There's a reason. There's a reason. The title of my message this
morning is Five Husbands or One. All of you sitting before me
have five husbands for your souls or one. You can have five or
one. If you choose the one, you must
give up the five. If you choose the five, you can
never be married to the one. Does that seem a little bewildering?
I promise you before I'm done, it will be perfectly clear. John
chapter four, verse 16. John chapter four, verse 16. My subject this morning is five
husbands or one. I believe God's given me something
for you. I prepared this message while I was in Ireland in anticipation
of preaching to you this morning after you'd read the fourth chapter
of John in your daily readings. Five husbands or one. Jesus saith unto her, go call
thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said,
I have no husband. Jesus saith unto her, thou hast
well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands. And he whom thou now hast is
not thy husband. In that thou saidst truly. Our
Lord Jesus must needs go through Samaria, we're told, because
of this woman here whom he had come to save. for whom the time
of love had come. And he engages this woman with
conversation. But notice as you read this chapter,
all the way through the chapter, while she's talking about nothing
but carnal things, he is using those very carnal things, speaking
about nothing but spiritual things. She talks about a whale. He talks
about a whale. But she's talking about a whale
in the earth. He's talking about the whale standing in front of
her. He's talking about himself. She talks about water and he
talks about water, but not Not the water she's talking about
he's talking about living water in the soul the gift of life
by God the Holy Spirit that he alone can give and now he speaks
to her about a husband and she's talking about Physical husbands
he's talking about one true husband now read on The woman saith,
verse 19, the woman saith unto him, she finally caught on, sir,
I perceive that thou art a prophet. I perceive you're not like any
man I've talked to before. I perceive you're a prophet.
You know, things that can't be known by mere reason. Our fathers
worshiped in this mountain. And you say that in Jerusalem
is the place where men ought to worship. Now she starts talking
to him about religion. The Lord Jesus is stripping away
the veneer of her religion. He is laying the axe to the root
of the tree. He is shooting an arrow straight
in her heart. He's tearing up the foundation
of her religious house and she begins immediately to defend
it. She's uncomfortable when he starts
to speak to her and points to her about something spiritual
And she said now we we've been taught being Samaritans like
we are that we worship in this mountain But you Jews you Jews
who have nothing to do with us you say salvation is comes by
worshiping at Jerusalem and then Jesus saith unto her verse 21
Woman, believe me the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this
mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father." The worship
spoken of throughout the Scriptures, the worship you've heard about
among the Jews, the worship that distinguishes the Jews from the
Samaritans, is worship that points away from carnal things to spiritual. All the ceremony and types and
commandments of the law involving worship at Jerusalem and in the
temple teach something else altogether. Woman, you need to understand
that the hour has come in which true worshipers don't worship
God in a physical place, but they worship God in the spirit
and in truth. But you don't. Ye worship, verse
22, ye worship ye know not what. We know what we worship for salvation
is of the Jews. Salvation comes out of the Jewish
nation. Salvation comes through the seed
of Abraham. Salvation comes through the Messiah,
verse 23. But the hour cometh and now is
when true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to
worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. There's
no way to worship God except spiritually and according to
truth revealed in this book. The woman saith unto him, I know
that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ, the anointed.
When he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto
her, I that speak unto thee am I that speak unto thee am the
Messiah is the I am who spoke to Moses in the bush and the
Lord Jesus says I that speak unto thee am I am Jehovah God
in the flesh the Messiah who is to come Now, read the Spirit's
commentary on this in Philippians chapter 3. Philippians chapter
3. You want a commentary on the
scriptures, there are none to compare with the scriptures.
I write some commentaries, but you always check my commentaries
by this book and every other. You want to understand what the
book teaches, search the book. What does he mean when he says
true worshippers must worship God in spirit and in truth? Philippians 3. Finally, my brethren,
rejoice in the Lord. The word is trust the Lord. Trust the Lord. To write the
same things to you, to me, indeed, is not grievous. It's not a burden
for me to repeat myself. But for you, it is safe. Beware
of dogs. Beware of dogs. The word refers
to male prostitutes. And God Almighty refers to false
prophets as dogs. All false prophets are dogs. They are male prostitutes. Men who prostitute the souls
of men, the glory of God, and the truth of God for their own
gain. Beware of dogs. Well, who are
these dogs? Beware of evil workers. They're
wicked, wicked, wicked men. And they do their wicked works
in the church house. You don't find them most of the
time. These days there are exceptions, but you don't find them most
of the time down at the brothel. You don't find them at the beer
joint. You don't find them in the porno shop. Where do you
find them? You find them standing in pulpits
like I am right now. And this is where they do their
evil work. Beware of the concision. Preachers who teach you to mutilate
your body, who teach circumcision, who teach you to torture yourself
in the name of spirituality and holiness. Preachers who would
tell you that in order to be holy you must deprive yourself
of anything pleasurable in God's creation This is what religion
does is what does all tap you go across the street down the
street up the street behind us go go to churches anywhere and
They'll tell you you can't drink coffee or you can't eat smoke
tobacco. And if you don't like smoke,
you can't chew or dip. You can't drink wine. You can't
watch gun smoke. You got to wear certain clothes. You got to talk a certain way
because religion, after all, is something we show people.
Look at me. Don't you think I'm a good fella?
Oh, look at me. Did you ever see anybody like
me? Did you ever see anybody so good and holy and separate
and mean as me? That's what religion does, folks,
a concision. Why should we beware of these
evil workers, these dogs, these teachers of works religion? For
we are the circumcision. We are God's covenant people.
We are those to whom God has given his promises. We are those
who are God's chosen people. The circumcision, not circumcised
in the flesh made with hands. Oh no, that's not the circumcision
we're talking about. We've been circumcised in the heart by God
the Holy Spirit and work made by the Spirit of God in the new
birth. We're the circumcision born of
God. We're the only ones who are born
of God. Bill, that's just what I say.
We alone are the circumcision. We alone are born of God. We alone are God's people who
worship God in the spirit. You got that? Only those who
worship God in the spirit. We don't have crosses and we
don't have pictures of Mary and we don't have pictures of Jesus
and we don't have statues and we don't have the stuff that
religion has. Don't have any stuff religion
has. How come? We don't want it. That stuff's
idolatry. It's idolatry. I found this astonishing several
years ago. First time I went down to preach
for Brother Perkins, driving up the mountain in the front
of Baptist churches. There's a little Baptist church
building sitting on the side of the mountain down there. It's
smaller than this building. Got a church porch about the
size of ours. You know what they got sitting
on the front of the porch? They got two huge guardian angels
sitting on the front porch of the church building. That's a
Baptist church, not a Catholic church. That's a Baptist church.
Why? Because they need the physical
thing. to worship God. They worship
God by what they see and touch and feel. Now, we don't worship crucifixes
and images of Jesus and that stuff. It just helps us. It makes us feel close to God. That's what we're talking about,
idolatry. Idolatry. Not God's people. We alone God's
people who worship God in the spirit in our spirits by his
Holy Spirit now watch this and Rejoice in Christ Jesus trust
in Christ Jesus We rely upon the God man Jesus Christ for
all things before God wisdom righteousness sanctification
and redemption and have no confidence in the flesh, no confidence,
no trust, no PJ. We have no hope before God because
of who our parents were, what our relationship with other men
is not because of any experience we've had in the flesh, not because
of our emotion and certainly not because of our works. No
confidence in the flesh. Our only confidence is Jesus
Christ the Lord. All right, now let's go back
to John chapter 4. Did you ever wonder who the Samaritans
were, where they came from, and why the Jews had no dealings
with the Samaritans? This Samaritan woman understood
very clearly the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans.
And yet here is this Jewish man waiting on her at Jacob's well
and he speaks to her and asks her to give him something to
drink. Any other Jew, any other Jew
would have walked past the well if he was spitting cotton. No
Jew would ask a Samaritan to take her polluted water pot and
draw him some water out of her polluted well and put her polluted
water in his polluted mouth. He wouldn't do it. This woman
understood that. Well, who were these Samaritans?
Where'd they come from? Why was there such a rift between
the Jews and the Samaritans? Turn back to 2 Kings. Hold your
hands here in John 4 and turn back to 2 Kings 17. When Shalmaneser,
the king of Assyria, conquered the ten tribes of Israel and
carried them into bondage, he dispersed the Jews throughout
his realm. And he sent his own subjects
from Assyria to occupy and cultivate the land of Israel. Now, these
Assyrians whom Shalmaneser sent into Israel were pagans. They were all barbaric pagans. I mean, They were, when I say
barbaric, I mean spiritually barbaric. These were the smartest
people in the world. These were folks educated at
Harvard and Oxford and Cambridge and Yale. These were smart folks.
These were Babylonians. There was no society on earth
to compare with these Babylonians for their brilliance, but they
were pagans, idolatrous pagans. They worshiped gods that they
could carry with them. wherever they went. You may have
one. Anybody got a rabbit's foot with
him? It's always good to have God you can carry with you if
you can't have a God who carries you. They worshiped gods. They could stick in their pockets
or put on their carts and take them from place to place. When
they came into the land of Israel, they brought their gods with
them. In time, God sent lions into the land of Israel to destroy
these idolaters. And they were terrified, terrified
of the lions. So they sent a message to Shalmaneser,
the Assyrian king, and said, find us a priest and send him
down here to teach us. Now listen, to teach us the manner
of the God of the land. Send us a priest to teach us
the manner of the God of the land. And once they learned the
manner of the God of the land, they adopted Jehovah as their
God. They said, now we worship the
true God, the God of the land. We worship Jehovah. And by doing
so, they hoped to turn away his wrath. But they only adopted
the manner of the God of the land. They only took his name. Nothing else. Nothing else. They
weren't converted to it. They didn't believe him. They
saw nothing special about him. They didn't trust him, but they
took his manner into their worship and called their worship the
worship of Jehovah. In time, these pagan Assyrians
intermarried with the Jews, and they became known as Samaritans.
a mongrel race, with a mongrel religion, with whom the Jews
had no dealings. You may recall that in Nehemiah's
day, back in the book of Ezra, the Samaritans attempted to unite
with the Jews in rebuilding the temple. But Zerubbabel, Joshua,
and the leaders, those faithful men who were building the temple
in Israel, said ye have nothing to do with us. What? You mean they wouldn't accept
their help? They wouldn't accept their help? Ye have nothing to
do with us. When we were building this building,
a friend was with me one day in the lumber store downtown,
and I don't mind bargaining with fellas, I do. But I was trying
to make quite arrangements I could to get materials for the building.
And this friend spoke to the builder. He said, he said, you
ought to consider this a church. I said, don't even consider it. And I said, my friend, we'll
go outside. Don't ever do that with me. These folks have nothing
to do with us. And we have nothing to do with
them in the cause of our Redeemer. No association. Don't want anything
from them. These Samaritans came down and
said to Nehemiah and Zerubbabel and Joshua said, let us help
you build God's house. And they said, you have nothing
to do with us. You have nothing to do with us.
Israel's faithful rulers at the time refused to allow the Samaritans
to join them in their work. Not because they were a mixed
race. That wasn't the problem. But
because they were a people with a mixed religion. The religion
was a mongrel religion. Like multitudes today, they were
very religious, full of religious activity, but they knew not what
they worshiped. That's precisely what our Lord
says to this woman when she starts to talk religion. He said, honey,
you don't know what you're talking about. He said, you worship,
you know not what the Samaritans represent, then, sham religion,
fake religion, false faith, false religion, religious hypocrisy. Look here in 2 Kings. This passage
in John 4 is clearly intended to give us a reference to 2 Kings
17. The Samaritan woman was now thoroughly
confused. She perceived that the Lord Jesus
was a prophet, but she didn't understand what he was saying
to her. She knew that the Jews religion
excluded the possibility of her being one of the heirs of heaven
and eternal life. But here's a Jew who is a prophet
talking to her about just those things, eternal life and eternal
salvation. Since our Lord never went to
Bible college, never went to seminary, since he was not a
trained politician or preacher, our master never learned the
art of talking out of both sides of his mouth or of compromise.
These days when preachers are confronted with differing opinions, contradictory religions, things
that obviously can't possibly fit together, they try to figure
a way to appeal to some vague spirit of ecumenism and some
vague religious compromise so that everything is muddled and
nobody really knows anything. I'll give you an example. This
is perhaps one of the things that got me fired up with this.
Back in August, Southern Baptist Convention had a meeting in Louisville,
which is not unusual for Southern Baptists. You may be aware that
there has been in the last 30 years a resurgence of what's
called Calvinism in the Southern Baptist Convention. They call
themselves founders. And these preachers, I know a
lot of them. I know a bunch of them, literally
all over the country. I know a bunch of them. They
write books about predestination and election and limited atonement.
And they have their conferences and fuss about it. Why, they
fuss almost as much as I do about Arminianism. They denounce it
and they, look, we're going to return to the faith of our fathers. And then they get in the pulpit
and preach about, you know, holding your wife's hand every morning
at breakfast and visiting your neighbors and reading your Bible
and what you ought to do and what you ought not do. And it's
always works. That's what's always preached.
So they got together to see if they couldn't find some way to
find a a happy way to get along, the Calvinist and the Armenians,
the will worshipers and folks who said they weren't. And they
decided that they had one thing in common and they would accept
a room for everybody within the umbrella of the great Southern
Baptist Convention as long as they were Orthodox and believed
once saved always saved. Whoopee, isn't that wonderful?
Isn't that wonderful? There's just one group there's
no room for. Now, I read the report. I know well the man who
wrote the report. He said there's just one group
there's no room for. That's what they call hyper-Calvinist.
You're looking at him. Just one group, those fellows
who say there's only one way. There's only one way to worship
God. Only one way to come to God. You worship God in His Son,
by faith in His Son, by the gift of His grace, by His Spirit.
For those fellows, there's no room. Well, I've known that for
a long time, so I don't feel too bad about that. But our Lord
Jesus speaks to this woman with no compromise, with no hesitancy. He shoots straight for her heart,
and He's right at the core of her religion, and He says, Honey,
I know you're religious, but you don't know God. I know you're religious, but
you don't know God. Now hear me, hear me. All who seek to worship God in
the ways of this religious world of Arminian freewill works religion
may be very religious, but they don't know God from a billy goat. Some of you have been there,
and you know exactly what I'm saying. Our Lord spoke plainly. Now, let's see who these Samaritans
are. John, or 2 Kings chapter 17. True worship is worship based
upon and arising from the knowledge of God in Christ Jesus. But as
in our day, so it was in our Lord's day, and so it is in all
days. There are many false religions
in this world. Now that's my first point, I
just got two. There are many false religions in this world.
And every religion is false. Every religion is false. Be it
Baptist or Buddhist. Be it Methodist or Mohammedan.
Be it Papist or Protestant. Every religion is false. Which is centered on you. Which
has for its center the will and the worth and the works of man.
And that takes in all false religions. Now they're good by many names.
They're good by many names. But really they're all one. The
religion of the age. In every age, the religion of
the world, in every age of the world is free will works religion. Now, I know that we've got lots
of different costumes. Some of these dogs wear collars
and some wear open collars. Some of them are very refined
and well-educated and very logical and reasonable. And some of them
are, you know, they sound like they crawled out from under a
rock somewhere. Some of them are happy, clappy,
shouting folks, and some of them are very somber and quiet folks.
Some of them have lots of statues and images and stained glass.
Some of them have none. But the religion is all the same.
They have different ceremonies and different games. Some like
contemptible contemporary worship, and some like more traditional
worship. And most will offer either. Whichever
you want will be all right. We'll just do whatever you'd
like. but there are many false religions in this world as there
were among the Samaritans remember I told you that Shalmaneser sent
in five different people out of Babylon from five different
areas in Babylon and each group of people had their own God they
all had their own God here's some of them had a Had a little
God. Some of them had a big God. Some
of them had a different kind of God. But they all had their
own gods. But there were just five groups. Thou hast had, what
did our Lord say? Five husbands. Five. She'd been,
she'd been living with six men. He said you had five husbands.
He's identifying the Samaritan. And he's identifying the problem
with Samaritans. The Jews who were left in Samaria
intermarried with these Samaritans, and they are these people from
Babylon, they became Samaritans and incorporated the worship
of their gods into the worship of Jehovah. And they called it
worshipping the Lord. They called it worshipping Jesus.
Why everybody worships Jesus, didn't you know that? We all
worship the same God. Listen to His name, Jehovah,
the Lord, the Lord Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit. We all worship
the same God. Let's see. Let's see. Verse 29, 2 Kings 17. Howbeit
every nation made gods of their own. They got them a little pocket
knife out and a piece of soft wood and carved them out of God.
and put them in houses of the high places which the Samaritans
had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt. Each
group had their own god, their own high place, their own altar.
Now listen, verse 30. And the men of Babylon made Succoth-Benoth. Succoth-Benoth. Man, that's a
fancy name for God, isn't it? That's fancy. Let me tell you
what Succoth-Benoth was. This was a god worshiped by the
Babylonians under the image of chickens. Now, I'm not making this stuff
up. I'm reading to you what I wrote down. They had images of chickens. These are smart. These are Harvard
graduates. These folks went to Cambridge and Oxford and Yale. They're brilliant folks. These
are Babylonians. These are Babylonians. How often
have you thought to yourself, how could smart men, how could
smart men believe the nonsense they believe? The fellow that
I voted for for president, I've already cast my ballot. We won't
be here Tuesday. The fellow I voted for for president is a smart
fellow. He's smart. He's smart. I'd like to have half the brains
he's got. He's smart, but he's a Mormon. He's a Mormon. He actually believes that load
of manure that Joseph Smith put out. He actually believes it. He's a Mormon. He's a Mormon. What's wrong with folks? When
they go to church tomorrow, they check their brains at the door.
That's what's wrong. These Babylonians worshipped God under the image
of a chicken. And the men of Kuth made Nergal. Who is this Nergal? Nergal was
the image of a dog. At least he was a hunting dog.
So now we got these smart Babylonians. Some worship a chicken and some
worship a dog. And Ashemah, Ashemah, the folks
of Hamath, the men of Hamath made Ashemah. Ashemah was a god
of Hamath worshipped under the image of an ape. Can you believe this? Here are
these smart Babylonians. They got them a chicken, and
a dog, and a gorilla. And the Avites made Nibhaz and
Tartak. Nibhaz was another representation
of a demon in the image of a dog. And Tartak was a jackass. So now we got chicken gods and
dog gods and ape gods and jackass gods. Read on. And then we read
of the children of the Seraphites, the Seraphites, I'll get it right
in a minute, Sepharites, they burnt their children in fire
to a dramelech and enamelech, the gods of Sepharavim. Enamelech was the sun god under
the image of a man. And enamelech was the moon god
in the representative of a woman. So we got a chicken god, and
a dog god, and an ape god, and a jackass god, and a man god. They all call it Jehovah. They all call it worshiping the
Lord God. They all call it the same as
the religion of the Jews, only we're a little bit more lenient.
We're just not quite as strict as they are, not quite as demanding
as they are. Read on, verse 32. So they feared
the Lord and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests.
They've got the sorriest bums going to be preachers for them.
Man alive. You'd think, well, I'll leave
that to go. You know what I'm thinking. They've
got the sorriest critters going to be preachers. And of the high
places which sacrifice for them in the houses of the high places.
Verse 33, they feared the Lord. They feared the Lord. Know what
it means, Rex? They worshipped Him. They worshipped
Jehovah and served their own gods after the manner of the nations
whom they carried away from thence. They feared the Lord and served
their own gods. These five gods, like the five
husbands the Samaritan woman had had, were false gods of whoredoms. And none of those men were this
woman's husband. None of them were. You see, a
husband provides for a wife. A husband protects a wife. A husband cares for a wife. A husband gives security to his
wife. That's what a husband does. Now
I know we live in this day of emasculated things called men
and men are supposed to have their, find their womanly side. You women find a man who's got
a womanly side, run from him. Run from him. What a woman wants
and needs is a man. to provide for her and care for
her and watch out for her and give her home and security and
peace. What a woman must have, must
have. For that, she'll leave her father
and mother and be joined to her husband and rightfully so. These
men were no husband. You see, a man who just has the
name, all he does is take. He just takes. He take all these
men did was took from this woman. Our Lord said they're not husbands
to you You've had five of them and the one you're living with
right now. He's not a husband to you You've got his name. That's all There's nothing else. He gives you nothing. All he
does is takes from you, but he who had espoused her as his wife
and his bride from eternity has now come, the Lord Jesus, to
take the names of Batham out of her mouth, as in Hosea 2,
he promised he would, and calls this woman who had had five husbands,
who had spent her life worshiping at the stumps of idols, he now
tells her and teaches her to call him alone, my husband. Oh, may he do that for you. The
Samaritans, because they would not be accepted of the Jews. The Jews would not allow them
to help them build their temple. They, in retaliation, built a
house for their God at Gerizim. And that's where the Samaritans
worshipped, in Mount Gerizim. And they called it worshipping
Jehovah. And so from that day on, there was a division between
the Jews and the Samaritans. With the Samaritans, this was
a matter of offended pride. Offended pride. This may come
as a surprise to you, but most religious folks don't have anything
to do with your pasture and don't want you around. We're not invited
to the religious things that go on. we're welcome to stay
away. Now, with the folks around, the
religious world around, it's a matter of offended pride because
nothing enrages a man like someone honestly telling him, if you
worship a stump, you're going to hell. Your God is no God, your religion
is no religion, and you're lost. And they'll defend their religion
and protect it, and they will not have anything to do with
you. You're a bunch of wild folks. You're a cult. You're heretics. You're dividers. You're this,
that, and the other. With the Jews in the day in which
our Lord walked on this earth, it was a matter of integrity,
spiritual integrity. They had no dealings with the
Samaritans because to do so of necessity meant giving up the
worship of God. It meant giving up the worship
of God. The Samaritans, like the people
of this world, had many gods and many religious ceremonies
with many different names. And yet, like the many religions
of the world today, the Samaritans embraced one another as brethren. and all worshippers of Jehovah,
but none of them worshipped in Jerusalem at the temple of God.
Because, you see, these Samaritans were essentially the same and
the Jews were essentially different. Turn to Proverbs chapter 14. This very same statement is repeated
in Proverbs 16. Proverbs chapter 14. Verse 12. There is a way which seemeth
right unto a man. There is a way which seemeth
right unto a man. One way. One way. Everybody agrees
with it. Everybody agrees with it. Just
take a poll. Take a phone. Pick up your telephone
tomorrow and call preachers. Any denomination you choose.
Anywhere in the world you choose. Pick up the phone and call them.
I challenge you to do it. And ask them, do you believe
man's will got something to do with his salvation? Ask them.
Just ask them. Oh yes, we believe in man's free
will. Ask them. Do you believe that your works
have something to do with man's acceptance with God? Oh, no,
we don't believe salvation by works, but, oh, yes, yes, we
wouldn't discount works altogether. Just ask them. Find out if I'm
lying to you. Ask them. Just ask them. There
is a way which seemeth right unto a man. Bill O'Reilly on
Fox News, I listen to him a good bit, is a papist, and he talks
almost as much about free will as he does about papacy. That's
his doctrine. Glenn Beck, A little bit more
conservative than Bill Riley is a Mormon. And when they get
together, they both talk about free will. Because they believe
exactly the same thing. They believe exactly the same
thing. O'Reilly wears a crucifix, I suppose, and rubs beads and
shakes them when he goes to church. And Beck, I reckon if he's reached
a state of Mormon church, wears that magical Mormon underwear.
I don't know. But they have their notions about various things.
But they absolutely die in defense of free will and good works. There is a way which seemeth
right unto a man, but the E-N-D thereof, the terminating point
of this way, are the ways, do you see that? That's plural. The ways of death. You can go
to hell the Baptist way, or the Mormon way, or the Methodist
way, or the Mohammedan way, or the Hindu way, or the Jewish
way, any way you want to, worshipping yourself. Or you can go to glory
one way. One way. You see, that's my second
point. All true religion is one. Just one. Isn't it amazing how
simple truth is? Fellas who lie have got to invent
a lot, and they've got to keep records so they can remember
what lie they told yesterday. But truth is simple. There is
one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Even as you're called in, one
hope of your calling. True religion is one. We worship
one God as he's revealed himself in this book, in the person and
work of his Son, Jesus Christ the Lord, who is made of God
and to us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
So that we who worship God, we who walk in the way, being people
of the way, worship God by faith in Christ, that's all. That's
all. What about your will? My will
is corrupt, just as corrupt as my heart. Yours too. What about
your works? My works are filthy rags. That's all. Fit for nothing but
hell. Yours too. Yours too. The best you've ever done. Nah,
forget what you've done. What's the best thought you ever
had? Best thought you ever had. Best thing Jerry said it was
the best thing you ever imagined the very the highest Noblest. Oh if I could just just one time
just the your best prayer What is it? It's filthy rags and if
you know God, you know that and if you don't know God you clean
to your filthy rags and think they smell like perfume and Carry
them to hell with you But what do we do if we would worship
God in spirit and in truth? Christ must come to you as he
came to the Samaritan woman. The Lord Jesus must make himself
known to you as he made himself known to this Samaritan woman.
And when he does, when God, the Holy Spirit, sprinkles the conscience
with the blood of Christ and speaks peace and pardon you,
he purges your conscience. from dead works, Hebrews 9, 14. What's that talking about? Larry,
he purges your conscience from sin, yes, from the guilt of sin,
but he's talking about dead works. Purges your conscience from dead
works. Some of you sitting here in front of me this morning,
I can tell by the look on your face, some of you sitting here
this morning still think you're good. You're still holding on
to your religious works. I've been going to church all
my life. Boy, don't you tell me I'm lost. I've been paying my
tithes and I've been doing good like that rich young ruler. Don't
you tell me I'm lost. I'm not. I wouldn't tell you that for
anything. I can't convince you. I hope God will tell you. And
if God does, he'll purge your conscience of those dead religious
works that will never give you peace. Snuggle up to him tonight
and think about hell. Go ahead. Take him to bed with
you tonight. When you turn the lights out,
you kiss your wife goodnight, snuggle up to your good works
and cry out, God, now take me to judgment. I dare you. Your conscience screams your
works are filth. God won't accept them. God won't
accept them. When Christ comes by his spirit,
he sprinkles the conscience with his blood. And conscience says
what God says concerning his obedience. That's enough. That's
enough. And your conscience is purged.
And you learn to count all your former religion and all your
personal righteousness. Dung. Dung. That's what it is. Just dung. Now, just in case
you're not familiar with old English, That's a good old English
term for manure. You are familiar with that, aren't
you? Manure, that's what your religion is, and you count as
such. Your good works, just manure. Your righteousness, just manure.
Read Philippians chapter three. Paul said, my righteousness,
which I had according to the law, I count but done that I
may have the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus the Lord.
If you would have this one true religion, this one true savior,
you must come out of Babylon and identify yourself with him
and with his calls and with his gospel. And God says, I'll be
a father to you and a husband to you. God says I'll receive
you and I'll forgive you. This is the perfecting of holiness
in the fear of God. We come to God believing on Christ
and now the work of Christ is complete in us when he gives
us faith in him. You see, in the Old Testament
we have some pictures of this. Some pictures. I'll wrap this
up. There was a Moabitess who heard about Jehovah. And she
became a Jew. She said, thy people shall be
my people, thy God my God, where thou diest I will die. I'll not
go back. There was a Syrian by the name
of Naaman who when he was healed of his leprosy went back to Syria. But before he went back to Syria
he gathered up all the earth out of Israel that he could pack
on two mules and carried it back to Syria with him. And every
time he knelt to worship God, he knelt on earth, an altar of
earth that God had made of Jewish soil and kneeled toward the mercy
seat. Christ Jesus the Lord represented
in that mercy seat in Jerusalem. When Haman was hanged on the
gallows he had made for Mordecai, many in the days of Esther were
converted to God, our Savior, and they became Jews, identifying
themselves with God and with his people. This is what I call
for you and call for me. Give yourself wholly to Christ
the Lord. Give yourself wholly to the Son
of God. Come now to the Savior. Trust the Lord Jesus. He alone
for all righteousness, he alone for all redemption, he alone
for all pardon, he alone for all acceptance with God, be married
to him who proves himself a husband
to all he weds by his grace. What a good husband. He provides
everything and takes nothing. He provides everything and takes
nothing. Oh may he wed you to himself.
Amen.